RP:We Must Be Mad
Part of the Home Sweet Home Arc
Summary: Insanity comes in many forms, and today it comes in the form of Rikailin and Skylei agreeing to ally and search the Dark Caves for Liana, despite the fact that Skylei believes she's probably already dead. Rikailin claims to have intelligence that suggests otherwise and the pair busy themselves preparing herbs that will aid them on this venture. Neither seem thrilled by the partnership.
Under the Canopy
It is late morning, and southern Sage forest is nearly as beautiful as ever it was. To a casual eye, leaves are a riot of autumn colour. To the unscrupulous, each breath of wind is full of the crisp, cleansing caress of coming cold, laced through with the near-ferocious fecundity of future fertility. To Rikailin, though, there is a wrongness to everything. Perhaps it is just the absence of friends, the memories of those lost and gone, each spilling their taint from her own twisted inner landscape into the pristine outer one through which she walks. For the blind battle-druid, each step through this verdant greenery is another cut into memory, another path forged into a wood perhaps better left virgin and inviolate. The years have done much to erase the things she once held dear, but the remembrance of muscles and the near perfect recall of which her mind is capable fashion her trek into a nearly thoughtless task. Her mind is free to meander where it will, independent of her feet, and so unfettered, it plies far darker paths than her corporeal shell. It is deep in the dark with Liana, alone and afraid and very likely at the end of her emotional endurance. It is terrified with her, trapped with her. It is as shackled, in its way, as her friend in the Dead Caves. From time to time, a thorn or roughened spear of foliage scratches skin, draws a thin rill of dark blood, but Rikailin cares nothing for these tiny hurts. A far greater one demands aid, and it is this aid she has been attempting to render in her solitary walk. Already, the vampiric elf carries a small satchel slung over her shoulder, which bulges with flattish, rounded objects--mushrooms of a particular type, the function of which she believes she can put to use. Ere long, Rikailin will descend again, in body as well as mind, to make one more play at bravado, one more attempt at a task likely beyond her means. For now, there is the quiet of contemplation, the serenity of a forest still rising to its full afternoon wakefulness...and there is time. A quickly dwindling puddle of it, disappearing drop by precious drop.
Even now that the war is long over, the half-elf walks with regimented trepidation through Sage, pausing every so often to examine the bounty of delights brought by the change in season. She wonders if she will ever truly feel that the forest is free from the violation that lay over it for so long; she suspects she will not and yet, just as she always has been, Skylei continues to be drawn back to the canopy. Fallen leaves rustle underfoot as she turns to head deeper into the forest and then, silence. Skylei stops stock-still at the sight of another. The blessings of Skylei’s near-eidetic memory means she never forgets a name, nor a face without some form of unpleasant intervention. She knows exactly who this woman is. Unusually cautious in her tone, Skylei speaks with the respect that Liana had enforced on the begrudging half-elf during the months that she had lived within the Archdruid’s home, “…Lady Rikailin?” She’d wait for any response, a flicker of recognition – anything – and, whether or not she got it, would continue, “Do you remember me? I’m Nasurate’s daughter – Lady Liana’s step-daughter.” It’s an unofficial position at best, mind, though one that Skylei isn’t afraid to utilise under the right circumstances. “It has been many years, though.”
Rikailin comes up short, memory and misery both shorn from her in a single short second. Then she whirls, hands coming up in clutching claw-shapes against the gloom of the clearing she has fetched up in. Then the words, rather than just the sound they made against the quiet, get through to her mind, and she lowers her hands; she does not look sheepish, nor indeed does her tension seem to ease in the slightest. Wariness rises in her blue eyes like mist from ice. "Skylei." Her voice is a keen rasp stropped against steel. She clears her throat, and the ratchetting sound turns into a spate of coughs which she does not stifle with the heel of a hand as most in polite society are wont to do. When it has abated, the battle-druid takes a step back, settles into a stiff stance of readiness, then speaks again. "I know you. I remember you. You're Liana's stepdaughter? Well, your mother is half a trice from death." Her tactlessness is neither forced nor accidental. "I go to rescue her, and will likely die in the doing, but no one deserves to live out their last wretched days with those damnable drow."
The coughing, the clear hallucinating as to Liana’s whereabouts, the multitude of bloodied marks upon Rikailin’s flesh from the brambles – one thing is clear to Skylei: this woman is sick and quite possibly insane. And insane you must be to wish to descend below the earth in search of drow, especially in search of woman well-believed to be dead. Skylei’s expression hides her concern, however. She nods in acknowledgement of the words but does not commit any of them as fact. Instead knowing that when dealing with the obviously mentally unstable tact if of the uppermost importance, the half-elf speaks slowly and carefully in response, “Lady Rikailin, if I may… you know as well as I do the belief that Liana is no longer with us. She wouldn’t have… well, the woman I know would not have been gone this long And, after all, as I’m sure you must know, there were multiple elven excursions into the Underdark during the war and none brought up any evidence of her existence in Trist’oth.” Skylei considers moving closer to Rikailin, perhaps to offer a comforting touching of a hand on a shoulder but decides against it. After all, she cannot predict how the woman will react to her words and fears anger. “I’m sorry. I wish that it wasn’t the case, I truly do. We must try to live with the hand that fate has dealt”
As Skylei speaks, Rikailin turns more fully to face her, using her keen ears to pinpoint the woman's voice. The battle-druid's countenance remains impassive right up until the end of Skylei's last sentence, whereupon it lights with the very thing Skylei suspects: insipient madness, the easiest telltale of which can be seen in her glittering eyes. "The hand that has been dealt? You coward! It is no wonder Sage was in the hands of Drow so long, with the weak-minded in sway! When we do not like the hand of fate, we change it." She takes three sharp strutting steps in Skylei's direction then, hands remaking those crude claw-shapes on either side of her head. Green fronds twitch, trailers lash like recently roused serpents, but none approach the half-elf...not yet, anyway. "I have been to the underdark, Skylei Lucindio. Less than two days ago I was there. Have you ever seen a mind-flayer, an illithid?" Another two steps, and now the agitated lianas begin to twist and knot. One particularly long branch rises like the head of a cobra, bobs twice, then lunges groundward so hard that it snaps completely free of the bush to which it had formerly been attached. "If elves went into the underdark, they likely stuck to the city. This place, where Liana was found, is deeper yet, in lightless caverns full of the twisted and the forgotten and the damned. And that is what she is. Forgotten. Forgotten!" This last word comes out in a breaking, cracked scream, punctuated by staccato popping noises as four, five, six branches tumble from overhead and fall around the half-elf like the spokes of a broken wheel, all pointing inward toward her. "She is dying! Do you doubt me? Do you? Where is my snake, Skylei? Where is she?"
The mood changes. Where once her voice had been airy, now Skylei speaks with fire and thunder; venom and rage - Lucindio anger at its finest, “Do not assume to know me now just because you once did. You cannot imagine the things that I’ve seen. I have faced off with Matrons; I have survived the wrath of the daughter of D’Artes; I have watched a thousand drow perish under my action and yet you still dare to call me a coward!? You dare to suggest that I have not forced fate to obey my hand.” Skylei spits on the ground, near unaware of everything that occurs around her. Her world is all red rage and she will let it burn until she has her say, “When the pure of blood did nothing, -I- fought. Without my actions, -none- of this would have happened.” Rikailin is not a deserving target of much of this rage and yet she receives it in full. It is long pent up, long bottled deep within and finally the half-elf has been able to supress no longer, “You say that Liana is alive? You claim to have proof? Then why have we heard nothing on the sort before. It has been years!” Slowly anger subsides and rationale begins to kick in. She sees the fallen branches, how close Rikailin has strayed. Her mind is already cast back to the time she served the elven council, running through patrol routes, scouting missions, intelligence returned by spies. She scours memories searching for some indication of these caves that Rikailin speaks of, but draws a blank. Is it possible the woman is not wrong? Insane, for sure, but correct about Liana’s existence? Silence. And then she speaks; softly, slowly, “There is nothing I wouldn’t give to have her returned to us, Rikailin. Nothing.”
It is not Skylei's understandable rage which at long, long last moves the battle-druid to quell her own rising ire. It is the spate of words which follows it, a pebble cast into a thunderstorm to be hammered by the heedless lightnings therein. A compensatory step back and a quick glance groundward, though, are the only concessions the blind elf makes. "Truth. Every moment we stand here spitting fire is a moment Liana languishes in the dark. If you want her alive, then you must be brave. We both must be brave. My snake, with which I had a psychic link at the time, died for the knowledge I have. Liana is in a cell, likely starving to death by degrees. There are mind-flayers in the caves around her, not guarding her but still numerous enough to cause problems. I am crafty, and it took all of my guile to go free." The tall elf unlimbers the satchel from her shoulders, opens it, and begins spilling the mushrooms inside onto the ground. "I don't know what one calls these, but I refer to them as dreamsmoke mushrooms. Notice that colour? It signals poison, and these are. Burned to ash, their smoke dulls the mind and slows the senses. Mindflayers are not dangerous in a physical sense, but their psionic might is unmatched." From the bottom of her bag, Rikailin produces two shrivelled-looking bulbs, each split down the center to reveal wedge-shaped cloves similar to those of common garlic. "This is kniferoot, so called because it heightens perception. My plan, such as can pass for a plan, is to ingest the kniferoot, burn these fungi here, trap the smoke in a funnel of air magic around my person - your person, too, if you come - and thus go into the Dead Caves that way. Mindflayers may notice us, but may become addled by the toxic smoke long enough for us to do as we must." Rikailin pauses, remembering the peculiar cell. "When we get where we are going, do not be alarmed if you see an empty cell. There is enchantment at work, enchantment I know little of. I am hoping that you know a little more than I, or are more resourceful than I dare dream, because I will not be able to bring her out alone." Rikailin now does offer a token gesture of respect, a bow of her black-haired head. "Skylei Lucindio, this plan is dangerous, and you could die, or be captured and enslaved. You must know this. And I would hear amendments to my ideas, would you have them."
Skylei listens quietly as Rikailin details her plan for infiltration. It’s not exactly to Skylei’s tastes –few things are – but it works well enough that the half-blood can make her peace with it. The only red flag in the plan is the mention of the empty cell. It sets her senses blaring, her fears that she is being played alight. Skylei is a paranoid woman. “If this proves to be a ruse - or you are lying to me - know that I will bring down a hell that will make you pray the drow get you before I do.” Whilst certainly not the wisest threat, it’s not one made in vain. Skylei had sworn point-blank she would never return below the surface. No way, no how. She has lived the tortures that come from being captured in the Underdark; they haunt her nightmares, dictate her actions, they live in her very being, never to be escaped. And yet – and yet – should Rikailin be telling the truth…
Rikailin cannot help the chuckle that passes her lips. "You will try to bring hell down on me. But I am quick, and I am older than I look. If I wanted you dead..." She leaves the sentence unfinished, looks pointedly at Skylei - as best she can without being able to see the woman, anyway - then dusts her hands together, quite as if nothing untoward has just occurred. "Come then. The kniferoot first. Four cloves. It has an unpleasant taste, and you may feel a touch uncomfortable after ingesting it." Rikailin begins stripping the cloves from their nest within the split bulbs, squatting down and laying out the satchel like a makeshift little tablecloth folded in half. She places the cloves on the square of burlap she has formed, puts the mushrooms aside in a lumpish little pile, then suits word to action and downs four of the waxy little wedges herself. The taste is acrid and earthy at once, and suddenly the battle-druid feels as if she is being galvanized by a light electric current. "Have you any facility with magic? We need first to burn the mushrooms, then create a wind funnel that will feed on itself, trap the smoke and not simply expire. Come, come."
Ah, that familiar feeling! It’s an instantaneous feeling of being undervalued, underappreciated and treated like a child. She must be back amongst elven company! Still, Skylei is versed enough in working with elves to know that this is a time to simply grit her teeth and do as she is told. “I’m a Lucindio.” It’s a pointed sentence. Rikailin is surely well versed in elven history and thus knows that Skylei is implying that she is the child of the end of the long line of pyromancers and therefore that magic, however diluted and untapped, runs deep in her blood. That said, Sky has the decency to expand on that sentence, “Only pyromancy. Minor.” The last word is not spoken with pride. It’s yet another sore spot. As she does, she would take a number of the stripped cloves from the pile that Rikailin has accrued. Ugh. Sky would wait for a few moments until she can be sure that Rikailin has ingested without any ill-effects before she too ingests the cloves. “How long does the effect last…?”
Rikailin makes an impatient hurry-up gesture over the pile of mushrooms once Skylei has mentioned pyromancy, accompanying it with a nod. The battle-druid is thinking not at all of politeness and social niceties; this is all business, and business that must be done without further delay. "Hours," Rikailin says. "You are likely to be safe till past sunset, if you eat all I tell you to. The tingling will fade. In this heightened state, nothing will approach you without your noticing it. Nothing will easily surprise you. Not, at least, until the smoke takes hold. The two will cancel each other out, I'm afraid. Once you begin inhaling it, you will feel much like yourself, but know this. These roots you eat now will be the only thing keeping you from becoming an illithid's next plaything. Without them, we are both easy meat." Rikailin folds her long--fingered hands on the ground, interlocking her fingers. "A promise, Skylei Lucindio. Liana comes first, but I will do everything I can to keep you safe. I have been where we are going; you have not. I may be better able to deal with threats than you, though your own skills are unknown to me, so perhaps I speak without knowledge here. The main thing is that we must trust one another. If I snap a command, obey me. If you do the same, I swear to obey you. No second thoughts, no doubts. This is all going to come down to speed, wits, and above all, trust. Can you do that? If you can't, then walk away now. I won't hunt you, but I'll not cry off either."
Skylei doesn’t need any combination of herbs to negate the toxicity of the mushrooms. She has a pendant pressed against her chest that does exactly that. Sure, it may well mess with her psyche, and she had been explicitly warned against using it frequently or with whimsy, but that doesn’t matter to Skylei. It’s simply nice to know that she has her own backup that doesn’t rely on the words of a woman of questionable sanity. Still, trust each other they may have to, but Skylei isn’t forthcoming with this knowledge. “Fine.” She ingests the remainder of the cloves in her hand and then turns her attention to the mushrooms. They are constructed into a psedo-pyre and the bottom is lit with a tiny flame summoned from her forefinger. She repeats the same word to Rikailin’s assertion that she comes second (no surprise there) and that they must make the choice to trust each other - “Fine” and continues on with her burning of the mushrooms. She had chosen a slow burn rather than a reckless charring of the collected fungi, assuming that this would produce vapour in the most manageable and effective method.
Once Skylei goes to work on burning the mushrooms, Rikailin spreads her hands above the pyre, sucks in a sharp breath, then spreads her fingers in an evocative gesture. A miniature funnel begins to spin out from her fingertips, and instantly the battle-druid slams one of her fists shut while the other hand begins to draw circles in the air. Smoke rises into the funnel, pools there like airborne tar, then begins spinning in a slowly widening gyre. Rikailin stands now, and suddenly unclasps her left hand, pouring a considerable amount of mana into the cyclone she has created. It immediately spreads outward to consume them both, wreathing the pair in a thick pall of black smoke. In the dark, this heatless miasma will be all but impossible to see, and with the fiery remains of the mushrooms still smouldering away on the ground, there will be no firelight from the summonation to attract undue attention. A rank smell, something like a cross between burnt vegetable matter and moldy meat, now envelops both women, eddying around them in slow circles but never losing its consistency. Without the need to breathe, Rikailin only gets one or two mouthfuls of the stuff before deciding to simply not inhale anymore. "You will get used to the reek," Rikailin says to her. "Now, can you run? Time is of the essence, and we have a long way to go." Rikailin turns northward, ready to begin a headlong sprint. North across the road that leads to Cenril, into the forest of abyssal darkness, then east through the cave which leads down to Trist'Oth. From there, it is a fairly simple matter of circumnavigating the city on rarely-plied paths, finding the black gates, employing a little stealth and a bit of luck, and then penetrating into the heart of darkness, where the prisoner awaits.
Skylei waits patiently as the pyre burns down to ashes and Rikailin completes her magic. It is as her being is surrounded by the noxious creation that Skylei begins to regret her choice to take part in this insane scheme for she can no longer breathe comfortably. The smell of the acrid gas burns her throat and eyes, leaving them streaming unwanted tears. “I bloody hope so.” She would respond to the assertion that she would ‘get used to it’. As for the question pertaining to whether she could run - “I’m a half-breed. Not a cripple.” Skylei cannot help but falling into her usual snark-ish nature at such an insinuation. As for the route into the Underdark, Skylei knows it all too well. She chooses not to think about it too hard.