Where's my Vessel!
Log Info
- Title: Where's my Vessel!
- Emitter: Cryosanthia
- Characters: Delilah, Donna, Ashes Elyanna
- Place: Underground: Magus Ectra Na'Garra's Manse
- Time: Monday, June 21, 2021, 9:46 PM
- Summary: The Valethor gang continue to search Magus Ectra's bedroom. Ashes discovers a book on anatomy that seems unusually evil, and it is collected along with the one that laid Donna low for later destruction. In case destroying it inside the Manse will trigger its destruction. They find a trove of Illithid literature porn, which describes intimate escapades over chilled brains. Ash worries some of this has made its way to Alexandria and is inspiring serial killers to pick up some Chianti. She attempts to discern a way to free Poppy's mother from the prison which is the Illithid's remains. By touching the skull. This does not go well for the Mourner. Donna carries her to a couch, where she can watch Lerethil sort loot. The others are going to seek out that vesel. Lurid or not, here they come.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Donna 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A black-haired human girl in black robes. Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. Ashes 5'11" 177 Lb Hobgoblin Female A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face Elyanna 5'11" 153 Lb Half-Orc Female A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lerethil Half-elf Female A trader with questionable connections. Poppy Human Female A ghost, daughter of the body that became Ectra. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
The party are in Ectra's bedchambers, where Donna has acquired a book that... might require some extra effort to go about actually reading, seeing as how it seems to be cursed; and Delilah's relief that it hasn't possessed her sister (or worse) remains palpable. Glancing at Ashes, she shrugs her shoulders, "You touching it to learn more might be a good idea, but... we should try it later, when we're out of here, just in case? I mean, probably once we're back and Mahuikaa's place, so she can help if anything goes wrong. Don't want anything bad happening to you."
Poppy likewise chimes in, "I was never allowed to watch any of the rituals, either Ectra's or Veren's. I think I might've been allowed to watch if I was the one being sacrificed, though. I suppose that might've made a difference. But then Ectra wouldn't have brought me back as a ghost to be her..." She pauses, and throws up her arms, "You know, killing me and making me continue being her slave instead of going to the Grey Halls is really just awful, you know that?! What kind of awful bitch does that?!"
"The kind of awful bitch what traps 'er books to keep on walkin' around?" Donna guesses, taking more than a couple steps away from the book, to allow Ashes and Elyanna to deal with it. As she has said countless times, best to trust the experts. "Also what Elyanna said. I'd pity 'er if she wasn't ten gallons of horrible in a five-gallon bucket."
Rubbing her face with both hands for a moment, the brawler lets out a rough sigh, verbally shoving the ordeal to the back of her mind, boxing it until it can be coped with proper. "So what we got, then."
"The sort that even now chases her tail like a dog, trying to read books the Fieu of Tears -allowed- her to keep, cowering in her antechamber. A fool, whose disproportionate accomplishments are more due to esoteric gifts than any towering insight." Elyanna disdainfully.
She considers Ashes, looking to her friend in readiness to assist bundling up the foul book in her cloak once they are certain of any proprieties the Mourner needs to enact, first.
"A snail lifted too high." Ashlee adds her evaluation, her words flat. She nods at Delilah's suggestion, a similar thought crossing her mind. Evidence or some necromantic tool, it doesn't need to be examined immediately. They won't need it here. If they run completely into dead ends, perhaps risking a touch would be necessary.
If. There's a lot to do already. Finish picking up the bones, and freeing a spirit from the remains that currently imprison it. She watches as Elyanna bundles it up and holds her satchel out for her to put it in.
Chippen immediately runs out of the satchel's secondary pocket. Alarmed, he disappears under her clothes. Oh good. The Ashen Arvec stares at the skeleton on the bed, raises her hand to point. With her tattoos she resembles a shapely Grim Reaper in that pose. "Poppy's mother is trapped."
"Yeah, well, if she ever came back, I'd... I'd..." All the anger drains away from Poppy, and the ghost takes a step back from the bed. "I'd... run away and hope she can't destroy my soul," the ghost admits, very quietly. "Because she might. I... I don't know. She *said* she could, but I don't know if that means anything."
Delilah stands, and offers her sister a hand to help her get back up on her feet, too. "Is there anything else we need in here?" The sorceress looks around, and shrugs, "I mean I guess we could take the whole library, but I'm not sure we need it. Personally, I'd just kinda like to be done with this place, but we still have to see Ectra's laboratory."
"I can't help you in there," Poppy points out.
"I know," Delilah answers. "It's fine. We'll be okay."
Elyanna make sure the the book is properly enclosed behind the layers of her cloak with Ashes's assent. There's a glance to the sorceress, first, "Can you communicate with her from here?" she wonders.
Donna's remarks bring a nod, and a sigh through her nose, "Irony. That she is a chance to find Veren keeps the slug from being utterly without value..." A look to Poppy, then and then a more questioning one to Ashes, "Is there anything we can do, here?"
"I don't know." Ashlee says, looking at everything, feeling an impulse to touch it all. Sometimes she'll get a feeling. It might be luck. The most dangerous book has been found all ready.
The ashen Arvec drifts over by the bookshelf, and walks the length of it running her fingertips across the spines. She is close to the veil, has heard whispers through it, and prays her Goddess might be in a hinting mood tonight. "Feiu of the Tears, help me find what we must destroy."
She turns around at the end of the bookshelf, ready for another row, glances at the duality on the bed. Her lips tighten together. "Maybe she can possess me, to escape. I... don't know."
Ashlee is grasping at straws.
The rest of the books on the bookshelf seem, for the most part, to be largely unremarkable. Several of them appear to be what passes for romance novels in the Illithid world; a flip through would reveal them to be much like the sort of stuff Donna was bringing Delilah in jail, except the romantic dinner is a couple of gnomes who're both without brain by the end of the chapter.
There is, however, one book that stands out, and Ashes' finger gets cold as she touches that spine. It's a book of anatomy, at first glance, but a little closer examination would reveal that it's concerned with embalming, specifically as concerns preserving a body so it can be raised as undead in good condition.
"I'm... I'm going to go wait outside," Poppy mumbles, and heads off to just... drift through the wall. "I'll let you know if anything goes wrong out there!"
"The slug is without value," Delilah mutters. "Her *stuff* might help us find Veren. Who, by the way, we have to take alive, so there's that."
The red woman shrugs, "I will try to take her alive." she returns to Donna, but her eyes are very intently following Ashes' progress along the wall of books. Maidenhead, as oft before, provides comfort in her absent grasp.
"This needs destroying." Ashlee indicates the book of anatomy and gestures at Elyanna to wrap it up in something. In case destroying it here makes the manse collapse. She stares at the other books.
Her thoughts spiral down into horribleness, each worse than the last. Would an apprentice, bored, read Illithid Romances. Would an apprentice-turned Assassin take her favourite. Would assassin turned matriarch, in her spare time, re-write the famous works and publish them in the Crimson Pen?
Illithids wouldn't read that, they would dismiss what 'the cattle' was reading. They'd have their own publishers, famous authors. Is there a single name on the spines which occurs more often, suggesting a writer that had hit that niche. Are its works being plagarized? How would one tell? Someone would have to read the books, then search for a similar themed story in the lurid pages.
Who? Ashes doesn't want to. Ashes wouldn't ask anyone to. It's too dangerous. What if it's enjoyable, develops into a fetish that could never be indulged. Or... could be indulged. Are these books seeds of future serial killers. Have they already been planted?
"These are worthless and should be destroyed too. They're not worth carrying out. Let's leave them." The Mourner turns to search the dresser drawers instead.
Taking the offered hand, Donna levers herself to her feet, shaking her head. "Okay... So she's trapped. I'm just gonna skip bein' me for a second, and guess it ain't the kinda prison you can break by breakin' it..."
Nodding to Elyanna, the dark twin purses her lips in thought. "So, that's another puzzle t'solve before we leave, an' I don't wanna go nowhere 'til Ash is done. Be just like that squiddy bitch to have a trap what goes off when there's only one person inna roo--"
The brawler trails off, then looks slowly over her shoulder. "Oi Lerethil!" she shouts. "You all right in there?!"
Elyanna seems somewhat bemused at first, but, as the girls are already so familiar at this point, shuffles off to find something suitable to enshroud the second accursed book. She's stll a litle wobbly on her feet, and while trying to hide it, she is using an awful lot surroundings as extra support as she moves. Eventually returning with a dusty pillow case, the keeper makes some pains to get it inside whout actually touching the book.
"I'm fine! Lerethil responds from the main room. "Just... getting things organized, is all. Why, what's the matter? Your ghost friend said she disabled all the traps."
"Yeah, well," Delilah mutters after Lerethil's answer. "Elyanna, you need any help there? I've got..." she reaches behind her back, and there's no backpack there. "Oh right, I forgot. Norrington confiscated all my gear. Nevermind, I've got nothing." She pauses, and sighs softly. "Well, got my magic, anyway. If you want stuff destroyed, when we leave I could always just toss a fireball through the front door. That should do quite a bit of destroying."
Ashlee nods. Fireballs do come with good recomendations. There was that mage at the execution who used one to get attention. It was very attention getting. "That's a good plan for later."
The Mourner moves over by the bed. She stares at the skeleton. Her gaze lingers on its misshapen skull. "I don't think crushing it would work."
A moment passes. "It might."
Another moment, "That's also a good plan for later. Taking the skull off, might work. I'm... well..."
Ectra was in the Grey Halls. Her spirit couldn't possibly be here, still. The bones coudn't be her reliquary. The ritual Veren performed would be nice to know.
Unless... "Maybe Veren bound her spirit to her bones and that's why she's in the Grey Halls still. Or it's Poppy's Mother's soul."
She raises her hand, hovers it over the skull. Keeps it there, unsure, unwilling to lower it. "I don't know what will happen if I touch her. I think I need to." She touches the holy symbol on her breastplate, "Feiu of the Tears, protect me from evil."
She lets her hand drop.
Elyanna shakes her head a little bit, "The... venom venom is still troubling me, though not as badly." she replies, then takes a breath...
That locks in her throat as Ashes suddenly decides to get frisky with Ectra's (allegedly) vacant brain bucket and her focus becomes entirely about her friend as her hand reaches hastily out toward the Mourner.
"We'll get you fixed up," Donna says to Elyanna, offering an unobtrusive arm to lean on. "Soon's we get gone."
Her eyes dart to Ash as the Mourner asks her question... And Elyanna can tell, in the space between the time the words stop and the time the hand falls, that the brawler is tensing up in preparation to tackle the cleric, the moment something unhappy happens.
Few people are more prepared for danger, than those who have pulled the pin on the trap themselves, before.
GAME: Ashes rolls will: (8)+11+2(regimented minds)+2(prot from evil): 19 (or 21 or 23)
Delilah, likewise, tenses up like she's expecting... Well she's not precisely sure, but something bad. Anything from Ectra's bones getting up to dance around and say mean things, to the entire Manse teleporting into the Iron Hells. Who knows, really?
Nothing so dramatic happens; at least, not to those who are watching what Ashes is up to. Rather, all that befalls the priestess when she touches Ectra's skull is that her hand feels... cold. It's like touching ice; except that it doesn't melt, it just makes the fingers go numb until eventually they burn, and one has to pull their hand away or regret it for days.
But that isn't quite all that happens; a voice, Ectra's voice, echoes in Ashes' mind.
"Give me my vessel!"
And then, it is Ashes' turn to find herself lieing on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
It *sucks* when people make their own shortcuts to the destination you'd planned on.
With Ashes' collapse, Donna drops to her knees at the Mourner's side. "Hey... hey there, Ash. Lookit me. You there? You good?"
The thought crosses Ashlee's mind: That's a nice ceiling. The pebbled popcorn texture is just the right size to provide a visual static without overwhelming. The moulding along the edges is also appropriate, suggesting expense without gaudy oppulence. The floor is nice too.
Why is she on the floor? Oh right. The disoriented, warm-grey toned hobgoblin with the skull face tattoo stares up at Donna. She has full lips. They're moving. Ashlee blinks slowly, stares up. "We need to find her vessel and smash it."
"First." She's firm on that. She wonders whether that would collapse the Manse, "Second. Second is better. Bones first."
Elyanna is there on her other side thereafter, slightly overshooting her lunge as the Mourner collapses, but gazing down at the Mourner in unveiled concern, "Ashlee, you're gonna be alright...!" she says quietly. She can't detect magic, but reaches down to lightly touch the Mourner's forehead while Donna is checking up on her, and so she asks, "How did I start the conversation with the Madame of the Black Diamond?"
Delilah, predictably, is much too slow to get there before Donna and Elyanna make it to Ashes' sides, so she just kind of hovers over like a concerned parent. "Ashes, you alright in there?" she asks, wringing her hands, before looking up at the door to make sure there's nobody coming in that way. (There isn't, as it turns out.)
Ashes, for her part, is going to feel awful; a headache and general soreness of the muscles, which will pass soon enough, and the words 'Give me my vessel' echoig in her head but fading quickly.
"...Wait, holdup, you two talked to the Madame of the Black Diamond?" Delilah holds her hands up to either side of her, "I never even talked to /her/, that woman's a legend."
"Wait, who?" It's not often that Donna feels like she missed the boat on something she *didn't* deliberately choose to not be a part of, but...
"If she's lucid enough t'pass on plans," she says, looking up at Elyanna, "then she gonna be all right. She's just goin' through what I did, which means I'm agreein'; findin' that vessel an' turnin' it into dust is Priority Number Two before we leave." "I don't remember your words. We kicked in the door." Ashlee says in monotone. "She threatened to throw us out the window."
The ceiling is really pretty. Can ceilings be evil? Can a house be evil? It can hold evil things, but can the evil seep into the walls? What do evil walls look like.
"I have a headache. I have to hear her say 'Give me my vessel', over and over." She closes her eyes. "So, it might not be here. Veren might have it. Veren might be it."
The Mourner is rambling. "Maybe, search a little more, while I enjoy the floor?"
Elyanna draws her lips back from her interlocked choppers in a relieved grin at Ashes's reponse and she nods, "That will do." She looks to Donna, first with a shrug, "It did not hurt to make sure." and then to Delilah, "It was an interesting conversation, it led us to more information into the plot."
She looks down to Ashes again, brow beneath her hand before she withdraws it and pushes herself to her feet, "Rest... well will search."
"Could you at least enjoy a different floor?" Donna asks, glancing between bookshelf and bed. "Not to be the hen here, but, I *ain't* too comfortable leavin' you alone in a room that's knocked *two* of us flat on our asses with trapped demands. Hell I'll *carry* you to the main room an' have Lerethil set out a cushion or somethin'?"
"I think there was a sofa in the other room," Delilah offers. "And it should be easy enough for Donna to carry you there. I mean she carries me easily enough when it needs to happen, like that time I..." she ahems, blushes softly, and takes a step back. "Actually, nevermind, let's not talk about that ever again. But yeah, I don't think we oughta leave you alone in here either."
Ashlee moves to push herself up, uncharacteristically snarling as she does so, a grimace that pulls back her lips and shows off her small fangs at their full size. Larger than one would expect. Only the tips poke past her lips normally, and she is expressionless enough they seem cute. "I can work on Poppy's friends."
She's also heavier than one might expect, but she doesn't want to point that out. Hobs can be a little dense, even the ones that don't exercise. "I can stand."
Hobs can also refuse help when they shouldn't. Never show weakness. She wants to lie down. A couch sounds nice. "have we searched everything in here?"
Did she miss that?
There's a look to the two humans as they make the recommendation about transposing the Mourner to more hospitable venues and Elyanna is forced to concede the point with a nod, "I will clean it, then resume the search."
She doesn't offer a hand up, taking the display of teeth as resolution and self-determination as they would be, before turning on her heel to step into the room beyond, already whistling her intricate little diddy.
"There isn't much more in here to search," Delilah muses, "Like... pretty sure we got everything, actually. We could pile the books up somewhere they'll definitely get burnt by a fireball, but that's about the only thing I'd suggest... and normally I'm against burning books but this feels like where we should make an exception."
In the main room, Lerehil seems to have finished piling things up, and is busy going through the assorted loot with, literally, a magnifying glass. Because of course she has one of those; why wouldn't she? Her satchel does seem to be uncommonly full of useful things.
"Hey, wait," Delilah says, on her way through the door and back to the main room. "How would we know Ectra's vessel with we see it?"
"Looks like we learned all we can here yeah," Donna says. At the insistence that Ashes can stand, Donna simply arches an eyebrow. "Maybe you can. But y'don't have to *right now.*" And carefully, she slides her arms under Ashes' neck and knees, and just... stands. Ashes can easily roll herself out if she likes! It'll *hurt,* but, it's a choice that can be made!
Turning, she nods to Delilah. "C'mon. Let's go find Poppy an' see to that lab," the brawler says, carrying the Mourner into the main room, and the couch therein.
Ash relents and allows herself to be lifted up. She's not interested in struggling that hard. Being carried is nice. She breathes carefully. "I think it will be obvious."
Yes. She's certain. "Something extravagant. Egotistical. She was planning to be in it. A humanoid form where all 'the right things' are little bigger than hers were in real life. Longer face tentacles." Probably nude too.
"So, an oversized reliquary that is a small statue of herself, or a perfectly preserved corpse to bind herself into."
The Keeper has the couch destained and dust free by the time the others have entered the room and, while she's still leaning a little bit, she's a lot more stable than she was earlier. There's a look to the merchan't pile of booty and she asks aloud, "What do you look for in your appraisals, by the way?"
Then, she looks to Ashes on her inquiry, considering the reasonings, then, "What about the one outside? That even comes with defenses."
The Reliquary is next. Whatever gaudy, over-sexualized, erotic form Ectra has chosen for that vessel.
