RP:The Second Parchment Summons Rheven

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

The Thorne Estate, Vailkrin

Night had fallen in Lithrydel, though of course such partitions of time mean nothing in Vailkrin, where the sky is always dark but for distant stars and silver moonlight. The Thorne Estate was lit from within, however, and bright torches flanked the gates in expectation of the Arch-mage's arrival. The gates themselves had been instructed to allow him safe passage, and but for the hulking frame of some kind of odd, diseased-looking horse parked on the estate's lawn, no other creature ventured from its den this night. Inside the manse, Tenebrae may be glimpsed through the windows, humming to herself, bustling to and from with decanters of wine and platters of finger-foods.

Rheven appears first as a mere shadow moving amongst the clouds, his winged form only gradually coming into view in the darkened sky above Vailkrin. The arch mage's wings slow their flapping as he comes to an easy landing just before the gates, folding those bat-like appendages back into place with a sort of sickening 'squelch'. Past the gateway he goes, his boots echoing lightly through the manor once the threshold is passed. He does not yet see Tenebrae, but he calls out to her anyway. "You wanted to meet with me, yes?" His steps come to a sudden stop as if on cue, bringing nothing but silence to supplant the soft clatter.

Tenebrae had not expected Rheven to bother with anything so mundane as knocking, and appeared briefly around the formal parlour's corner, tucking a stray strand of midnight hair into place and smoothing the fabric of her scarlet dress. "That's what the letter said." Then vanished into the parlour again, leaving the Arch-mage in the hall to follow her, if he wished. "I wasn't fibbing about the wine, you know, it's very good indeed. Did you bring the cheese?" Far from the vision of death incarnate seated upon its dark horse that had greeted Eboric in Venturil, Tene was the very picture of Vailkrin gentility now. Except for that odd diadem she bore on her head, its gem dark as the night presently. She offered Rheven a sweeping gesture toward one of the antique chairs flanking an occasional table set with glasses, decanters, trays of olives and stuffed fawn's hearts. "Do have a seat."

Rheven 's steps resume down the hallway, following behind while his gaze studies the manor's interior. The revenant only speaks when he emerges in the room Tenebrae ducked into, pallid lips pulled into something of a smirk. "I did not. I believed it to be just another product of your…peculiar sense of humor. "He paces to one of those indicated chairs and seats himself promptly, setting a hand on either arm of the furniture. "A charming manor you have here. I don't believe I've ever stepped inside before…it is quite striking. It echoes the owner, certainly, whether by design or not."

Tenebrae offered Rheven an irked pursing of her lips at the fact there was no cheese forthcoming. "Cenril wine without a nice cheese is like .. " she blinked, attempting to find an apt simile. ".. a horse with no legs. We'll just have to make do, then." By now, the pout was gone, replaced with a visage of pleasantry. "And thank you. I recently had it remodelled. What, with it being half destroyed by ... " Kasyr and his tentacled thing, she was going to say, but did not, unwilling to spoil her good mood. "..unfortunate circumstance. I think it scrubbed up pretty well, myself." The necromancer took up one of the decanters, pouring wine to two crystal goblets. "Help yourself to nibblies. I suppose you're wondering why I summoned you?"

Rheven takes the offered glass in hand, tipping his silvery-haired head in gratitude. "I am. I presume it has something to do about Venturil…that was the subject last time we spoke, was it not?" A pause is taken, as is a sip of the wine; the glass is turned to his lips, staining them a faint rose until it is tongued clean behind the veil of the goblet. "You'll have to forgive me about the…cheese, of course. I didn't truly think either of us would really be fond of it. But yes, proceed…" A little gesture of his hand accompanies, "…Tell me why you have summoned me here tonight."

Tenebrae watched Rheven imbibe his first sip, perhaps a tad too sharply for casual perusal, and then drank from her own glass. "I forgive you," she said, "for the cheese. Though the wine might not." Then she set her glass down, and pushed a tray of delicately poached hearts, garnished with fresh herbs, toward the revenant. "And no, nothing to do with Venturil, this time. At least, not directly. Rather, it's about your wife." All the while, she watched the Arch-mage carefully. The rim of his glass was tainted with an odourless, colourless substance gleaned from the toxic lilies growing beyond the window's glass, among other things. Subtle as cat's feet, the poison would be working its way into his mind, any moment. Not that he'd notice. Not right away. "I'm a little worried about her. There's been .. talk."

Rheven arcs a brow at the mention of his wife, perhaps lofting even further when it's clear there is some concern. The offer of poached hearts is met with a politely dismissive gesture, as the subject at hand captures full attention. "Has there? Do tell me. I wish to know. I've not noticed anything truly wrong with her…" Trailing off, another drink of the wine is taken. The poison is not smelled, tasted or otherwise sensed, nor is he looking for one. Most toxins are robbed of lethality or effect by his vampiric system, after all.

Tenebrae shook her head gently, her gaze still keenly fixed upon him. "Well.. and of course, I mean you no offence here, Rheven… it isn't all that likely that you -would- notice." She hastened to add, her tone softening, modulated to a certain desired effect. "I mean.. it's not much like a vampire to be sensitive to the happiness of others, is it?" Tene let that hang in the air between them as she sipped again, then spoke over her goblet's rim, "It's been an awfully long time since you were mortal, hasn't it, your Majesty?" The necromancer sighed, a wistful sound designed to evoke that exact memory. "How vibrant it was, to be mortal! And what pleasures we took, and.. gave." A second pause, before: "I have heard on the grapevine that the Queen of Enchantment chafes for a husband who will sit by her side, Rheven. And that you have hardly done so at all, since your marriage. Could this possibly be true?"

Tenebrae fell to silence then, relieved that the Arch-mage's insides did not appear to be in an abrupt state of liquefaction, which would have been the consequence of the poison on his glass, had he been any kind of lesser creature. Still, the potion was not without risk. So far, so good, though.

Rheven grunts softly at the suggestion. The goblet is placed aside now, though not for any detection of toxin. "Perhaps I have not been as…present as I could have been. But then I am the King of Venturil and this realm's arch mage." A pause is brought, deciding to instead speak on the subject of his mortality. "It has indeed been a very long time, yes. Hundreds of years…I can barely recall the taste of most food, the warmth of life, and other such things. Thea and I spoke on the possibility of regaining my mortality, once…she desired a family, you see. I am not certain if this is the case any longer."

Tene nibbled a morsel of fawn's heart as she listened. Swallowing, she replied: "I cannot speak for your Queen, but from the whispers I have heard it is her vast desire to have her mate close. And I do know she has in the past craved a child of her own.. " Once upon a time, the subject would have caused the Necromancer pangs of her own painful memory. But not any more. She made a good show of empathy, however, as she spoke again in that sweet, hypnotic tone, "I've always imagined Thea with a veritable passel of children gambolling about her feet. Strong sons, lovely daughters, to carry on her name and blood, once she has passed from this plane. But that's nothing we can ever enjoy, is it, Rheven, not truly... cold wombs and cold, lifeless seed. We are creatures who bring death to the world as our legacy. And this our tragedy, isn't it? Legends fade... " another morbid sigh. "The problem, of course, with marriage to one not immortal is they tend to age and die. I have quite sworn off them, matter of fact. Such terrible sorrow, and of course, there's the wrinkles.. " Tene wrinkled her nose, and peered yet more keenly still into Rheven's piercing eyes. Which were.. possibly.. a tiny tad cloudier than they'd been when he entered the manse. "Have you never longed to taste again? To feel? To... love? For we can only pretend to such pleasures. Imagine... if we could only have once more, the gift of life.." She added, then, with a sly look, "And yet keep the illusion of youth that our undeath allows.."

Rheven 's eyes may indeed be cloudier as a result of that poison but his mind needs little toxic persuasion, as his forthcoming words prove might prove. "…I do, in fact. I have grown weary…perhaps bored, even…of harboring the curse. The power I once lusted for is now nothing more than a withering maiden itself…it is fleeting and cold. The thrill, as they say, is gone…you surely have noticed: I have changed throughout my time in this realm, even. Only years ago I starved for every addition to my personal power and station that I could possibly muster…but for reasons both known and unknown to me, the fire has burned out."

Tenebrae had quietly lifted herself from her own seat, and slid on over to perch on the arm of Rheven's chair. As he spoke, she'd made soft, sympathetic sounds under her breath, and when he lapsed to silence once more, she leaned down so that her forked tongue almost tickled the lobe of his ear while she replied: "Weary, yes... so weary we become, to whom time means so little. So tired.. our hearts withered as the land you rule, Rheven, toxic with poisons of the long gone past." The diadem on her brow glimmered, just a little, as if the eye of a beast had cracked open in the dark. "How we long, deep in our dead hearts, to feel warm again. To know more than cold, cruel pleasures. To know life... " she smiled, "But you only have to wish it, and it can be yours. All of it, all a mortal heart could desire. And power, too... for there some powers we undead cannot approach, as you know. " The necromancer's voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. "We are old friends, you and I. As is Thea, too, an old and valued friend. So you must see how I only wish the best for you, your happiness.. when I ask you this: what if, Rheven, I could take your death away. Make you mortal once more. Give your wife a warm husband, and a King to sit by her side, in a green and living land?"

Rheven is quite skeptical of Tenebrae's claim, his eyes narrowing to slits accordingly. "What makes you believe it is so easily attained? Thea thought she devised her own viable method, but it brought heavy risk. I suppose you have something in mind, however…" The revenant's robed arms cross now, fixing his gaze on the other vampire all the while. "…And I also suppose this will not come without some sort of cost or consequence, am I correct? Tell me, then, what you desire in turn…as I am certain you already have something in mind that you desire."

Tenebrae slid off the chair's arm and knelt on the floor in front of the Arch-mage. "I have nothing to gain and possibly a little to lose, by asking you to take up with your wife in Enchantment." The Eye glimmered, a bright crescent of what wasn't really light shining from it, an iota wider now than the sliver had been before. "I lose you as an ally, close at hand.. my intention has been to move to Venturil, of course you know this. I want nothing in return, but that you go to my friend and be her husband, and give her babies to love." Tene's smile was an echo of kindness. "For this, you give up your throne, your revenancy. And once you are alive, I will tell you a vast secret that shall keep you from spoiling too soon, as it were. But you nor I can touch that yet, for we are dead.. For that, you have to wait. And to tell me this is of your own choosing, Rheven. I want it written, on a parchment, so I have proof of your abdication. Then..." she patted one of his hands, ".. I will pray that my God will turn you out of his domain."

Rheven tilts his head aside in question, eyes lowering to match Tenebrae's own. "And who will take the throne in Venturil? The warlord who has been setting camps throughout the area, I suppose?" His pallid fingers drum idly at the arm of the chair, features shifting to reflect pensive thought. "I have heard plenty rumors. He is rather presumptuous to assume he could wrest the Kingdom from my grasp…if I truly desired to hold onto it with all my existence and might, he would not have a hope of taking it from me. Fortunately for him…" A smirk slowly spreads his pale lips, "…Other desires take precedence now. Am I correct in my assumptions?"

Tenebrae stared up at Rheven, her face owning no expression at all. "Eboric." And then a wry smirk curled on her lips briefly. "He has the juice in him to deal with the aftermath of what must happen soon. There will be civil unrest, of course. I have seen him on a throne. Yes, probably Venturil's, but that is not a certainty, as much as it is a logical conclusion. I saw war, nigh endless war, the country wracked to its limits again. No time for healing there. No time for a man to sit with his wife. I'll be honest with you, however.." here, she rose to her feet and turned away, toward a fine cherry scroll-desk nearby. ".. none of this is my true motivation. Vakmatharas has spoken to me in visions, and told me what I must do. I am not one to argue or question such a command." Tene turned back to Rheven now, parchment and quill in hand. "So here we are."

Rheven nods after several moments of silent contemplation, taking the quill in hand. "Very well then. Allow me to see the parchment." Once offered, it is taken and his signature - as well as a swift statement - is inscribed neatly. What lies on the paper now is little more than a simple admission of his abdication of the throne along with his name in script below. The revenant stares at it for a long moment before offering quill and parchment back to Tenebrae in tandem. "Truly…after so many years…it is not a difficult decision any longer. I will continue to assist in purging the realm of that beast, however, as a reminder that I have not abandoned the city and those within."

Tenebrae had seen this, and how the act of aiding her would cause the men loyal to Rheven to take up arms against Eboric's rule. Her lips parted to speak of it, but closed abruptly. Instead, she said, folding the parchment carefully, "I envy you." And with that lie voiced, she offered out one pale hand to help him rise, in case the hypnotic drug she'd poisoned him with - merely a precaution, one can never be too careful, especially with those one might consider friends - had made him unsteady. "Come now. It will begin."

Rheven takes Tenebrae's offered hand, rising from his seat without difficulty. If the toxin has affected his balance, it isn't readily apparent. "Splendid. Lead the way." An appropriate gesture accompanies his words. There doesn't seem to be an ounce of regret or uncertainty in his words or features; instead, he merely appears coolly confident even with this monumental series of decisions.

Tenebrae's Basement

It didn't take long for them to traverse the winding stone stair leading down to the cellars, where torches were already lit to ward off the natural gloom. She paused at the foot of the stair to let the revenant pass, whereon he would view a pair of immense metal tubs connected by a confusing array of copper and glass tubing, and filled with some unspeakable, murky liquid. Every inch of the stone from which the cellar was carved bore etched and painted sigils, as complex as the alchemical piping and redolent with the magics of necromancy. Tene gave Rheven a moment to take that in, and then turned to him. "My vats. In those, are worked miracles." Abominations would have been a better choice of term but Tene was feeling oddly pious today. "Your change will occur in that one." She pointed to the nearest, "You'll have to disrobe... don't be shy, nothing I haven't seen. Once you're in, I will give you a soporific to ease the agony that will wrack you, and to soothe your mind." The torches flickered under some intangible gust from nowhere, and the necromancer smiled, "I think it ought to go well. It's not as though you have not been a loyal servant to Death all these many years."

Rheven stares at the rather ominous looking vats, nodding quickly at Tenebrae's suggestion. "Of course…" The revenant shrugs out of his robes, those leathery wings sprouting from his back for perhaps a final time; the arch mage shifts his gaze between them, lasting vestiges of his ascension to power by Vakarash's hand and might. Soon they fold back into his flesh, leaving the bare vampire to scale the vat and settle into the rather grotesque liquid. "Wretched…" He mutters, "…But it cannot come any sooner. I yearn to be cleansed of this curse for all eternity."

Tenebrae said, "Patience, your Majesty. The time is almost nigh." She'd crossed the room to fetch a small, ornate vial filled with a deep purplish liquid scented heavily of ripe cherries. But she didn't hand it to him right away, leaning over toward him, peering sharply into his eyes. "Once you've drained the vial, there will only moments before you will know no more. Then you will wake, and your agony will be a dim, terrifying memory. But in those moments before you enter the sleep of the damned, I will ask you for one more thing. Thea forgive me, but I would ask you for.. a simple, chaste kiss." She bit down on her lip, half grinning. "The sineater's kiss." And she handed him the vile concoction that tasted of death and cherries.

Rheven takes the vial in hand, but he does not consume its contents nor even open it just yet. A nod is given in reply to Tenebrae's request, a quick smirk twisting his lips. "Thea would understand, I'm certain." He leans and presses his lips to Tenebrae's own in a chaste kiss, notably devoid of the passion it may have contained at some point long in the past. The revenant's entire form tenses slightly, anticipating the sineater to work her sinister magic at any moment.

The burdens of the revenant's soul were not few, and all of it flavoured with evil thick as treacle, lightless as charnel pit.. Tene drank them down, and the phantasmal matter of Rheven's sins curled like black smoke where they now and then spilled over her lips to waft and curl in the magically-laden air. One pale palm slapped to Rheven's cheek to steady him, or Tene herself, she didn't know which, for the world had gone to darkness and visions - of blood, of death after bloody death.. And as the scales of Rheven's soul tipped, he would feel as though a great stone was lifted from his chest, and light-headed, euphoric. How much easier the transition would be, now.. How much time passed could not be fathomed, but at some point the Necromancer reeled back, her eyes wide, their irises stained with stolen shadows, and gasped, “Drink!”

Rheven does indeed feel a drastic change as his sins are sucked out of his soul and being, his eyes widening while a sort of gasp is breathed into the kiss. His composure is quickly regained, but their lips part and he's left to reel in his light-headed state, steadying himself with some degree of difficulty. Only a nod is offered to Tenebrae, opening the vial and tipping it to his lips; the possibly strong taste is ignored, ingesting it just before his pallid form recedes back into the vat.

Glutted with the King’s many darknesses, Tenebrae had only the strength in her, presently, to rescue the glass container before it too slipped below the fulminating waters of the Empusai's vat. Never had one, she was sure, been used for such a cleanly purpose as this, and a part of her - not a small part, these days - was almost offended by the idea. Weak, struggling to contain centuries of evil that roiled in her interior, she simply slid to the floor and waited.. for the pain and visions to pass, the pressure to decrease, her sineater's inner alchemy to kick in and help her digest Rheven's cast-off malevolencies. Later, as the Arch-mage stewed in drugged nightmares from which he as yet had no hope of waking, she would slide the heavy steel lid over the vat, making of it a coffin, a tomb - a peculiar, perverse sort of womb for the King's impending rebirth.