#ilandreline glimmerbow

[edmund-valks]

Interlude - The Maw

A blacksmith would have taken different steps.  Forge the blade, give it a handle, wrap the handle.  Something like that, at least.  Thankfully she was able to skip most of that by designing a mold and taking extraordinary care in its production.  A perk of being smart, as she figured it.

The metal was nearly ready.  It wasn’t the colour of anything she’d seen back on Azeroth, instead shedding four different glows at once.  They overlapped and intertwined because nothing here was ever simple.  Ilandreline wasn’t one for metaphors, but even she could recognize this one: four ores, wildly distinct, that could only be properly alloyed through the use of a fifth.  Naturally the alloy was stronger than any of them independently.  Also it was a bastard to work with.

She fed the ingots into the crucible, watching as the forge’s heat quickly liquefied the elethium.  A pull of the lever and it drained into the waiting mixture, which one more movement injected into the waiting mold.  That had been the real work, creating the exact negative space needed inside a block of solid stone.  Not just any stone, of course, but the kind that wouldn’t melt in a furnace designed to bind souls to metal.  Getting pieces of the Black Empire was hard enough even before one crossed into the realms of the dead.

Once the mixture had filled the block, Ila grasped it with the tongs she’d liberated from the soulforger whose workspace she now used.  Steadiness was required to keep the metal from sloshing out or the whole thing from upending.  Her movements were slow and deliberate, never jerking.  A device was only as good as its craftsmanship; she intended this one to be her masterpiece.

Typically one would quench using a specific liquid.  Fresh water, salt water, olive oil, certain beverages made by the dwarves… what one used depended on the desired outcome and the materials involved.  For this it was something a bit more unusual.  The Maw had recently become the destination for a great deal of anima drawn from the spirits being repented in Revendreth.  This made for a sharp, hungry quench, which was precisely what she needed.  She lowered the discomfiting block of slick stone into the roiling crimson, listening to the violent hissing as the alloy took shape.

Once the soul-steam had cleared and the little barrel was minutes removed from its moment of boiling, she fished the mold out with her borrowed tongs.  "This better have worked," she muttered, mostly to externalize the worry.  Better out than in, that sort of thing.  "Only one way to find out."

Placing the black brick on the anvil nearby, she inspected every side for cracks or gaps.  The only one she could find was the little hole where she'd added the molten metal, so… maybe it had happened?  Picking up the hammer she'd made for just this purpose, Ilandreline closed her eyes and sought the resonance.  It was so much easier now than that first time.  That was how she'd survived the darkest path into the Shadowlands, and ever since she'd found herself increasingly aware.  Now it was almost as easy as making saltpeter; not necessarily fast, but a simple task for the experienced.  She felt for her core, dove into it, releasing her perceptions through the nightpurple veins bordering reality.

The Black Empire remnant was anything but dark now.  Even the Maw's dolorous half-light caused a reaction, oil-slick scintilla flaring across the infinitesimal pockmark surface.  In a way, it sang.  Not like a voice, but a tuning fork, a frequency of sensation manifesting multitudinous waves into singular tone.  Where her family's faith resided she felt the echo of kinship.  Reaching through herself, she grasped the thread of the stone's structure and pulled.

In a sweater, such an act would have been the destruction of order that caused its unraveling.  The bedrock of those who dwelt between the stars was made differently, however.  What she had done manifested as an ordering matrix, leaching the inherent structural chaos out, snapping the minerals into some kind of grid.  Gripping tightly through the depths of her soul, Ilandreline raised the hammer high and swung.

The hardened shadowghast strikeface tolled as it impacted the ruthlessly ordered block.  The sound was brutal in its discordance, an archetypal resonance of shattered chains.  What was held tightest become most undone; the black stone crumbled to dust, its forced structure inverted until it could no longer hold together.

Ilandreline felt her entire self ringing as she set the hammer aside.  The reverberations rattled through her bones, trying to unmake her as thoroughly as she had the old gods' relic.  But she was a Glimmerbow, born of those dark blessings, the ancient primordial unmakers' essence suffusing the deepest fibers of her being.  The resonance traveled through her, unable to find an outlet to erode, equally unable to escape until she opened her mouth.

She didn't scream; this wasn't pain.  Instead she had become an accidental echo chamber, an acoustic amplifier not unlike the elegant curves of a bell.  From inside her structure rang the peal of uncreation.  Open-mouthed she exhaled it into the stygian plains, unable to cease until the note was spent.  Unable to hear, she could still feel the rigid structure of forge beside her eroding beneath the reciprocal action to what she had done.

As suddenly as it began, the moment ended, buckling her knees.  Reflex alone allowed the elf to catch herself, weak-legged and bent over the anvil, eyelids only now able to pry themselves apart.  Unsteady, Ila exerted her focus once more, willing herself to stay standing.  As she did so, refusing to acknowledge the possibility she might collapse, she examined her work.

Atop a fine pile of utterdark sand lay a blade.  It was a single piece, cast-forged, with a tapering, triangular blade emerging from one edge of a metal-wrought vertebra.  Opposite the blade extended the cylindrical smoothness of bone, flaring into a double-knobbed pommel.  It was far more beautiful than she'd expected, or perhaps that was the wrong word.  Elegant?  Fitting.  This was a blade made with purpose, for someone very specific, and such certainty was apparent in its aesthetics.

"Almost done."  Her voice was hoarse though she didn't realize it.  She hardly knew she'd spoken, what with the ongoing ringing in her ears, and the way structures sounds such as speech fell apart in the fading wake of the hammer blow.

Ilandreline forced her legs to stillness, stood straight atop them once more.  Grasping the weapon's handle -- she would wrap it with aged linen later, to give it the feel of something found in an ancient mausoleum -- she turned its stiletto point toward herself.  Her other hand moved to expose an expanse of pale flesh, against which she set the blade.

"Freely given," she murmured, the spoken fraction of a larger recitation mostly contained within her mind.  "A gift for another, made with intent.  A part of me to carry with you."  It was almost embarrassing to say it.  Hearing herself speak so openly brought heat to her cheeks, but it wasn't so bad to shake her from her plan.  Not after coming so far.  

Shutting her eyes, Ilandreline exhaled slowly.  Her free hand rested along the cold curves of the pommel.  Freely given.  Lungs fully empty, she braced herself and pushed.

The blade slid in more easily than she'd expected, quickly piercing through skin and fat and muscle.  Farther and farther she guided it until the change in resistance signified she'd reached her goal.  Just the barest movement more, pricking the exterior of her still-beating heart.  Now the hard part.

Pulling the blade back out was the most excruciating experience of her life.  It was a tool of purpose, to pierce through barriers and bring an end.  To remove it without having killed was to deny it that fulfillment, and so the blade fought her every fraction of the distance.  Blood -- her blood -- flowed over its pyramidal smoothness, slicking everything, trying to undo her efforts and allow the blade to feast on her life.  Gritting her teeth, she looped a finger through the hole in the center of the guard, using the extra leverage to force the dagger out of her flesh entirely.

Slamming the bloodied weapon back on the anvil, Ila scrambled to the forge.  There she snatched up the last of the prepared tools, a length of featureless iron, brilliantly glowing from the infernal heat.  "Fuck, this was a stupid idea."  Laughing at herself, she pressed the white-hot implement against the triangular piercing in her breast, allowing her rasping scream to drown out the sound of flesh cauterizing.

She didn't know how much time elapsed between keeping herself from bleeding to death and when she was able to stand again.  It didn't matter, not really.  The important thing was Loira's gift was finished.  Complete, even.  Totally worth it… but if she loses it I'm gonna kill her.

Chuckling at that, Ilandreline scraped herself together.  Time to get out of here before the Covenants' assault wavered and the Jailer's forces had time to look for things like wayward elves with bad ideas.  She took another quick look at her handiwork as she vacated the premises.  There was no trace of her blood any longer, though she didn't remember wiping it clean, and every now and then the faint ghost light would reflect off a fleck of gleaming darkness.  Sand in the blade?  No, not sand; the dust of the Black Empire.  Absorbed somehow following the sanguine consecration.  Curious, but probably not a big deal.  She hadn't felt anything strange, and her instincts were usually good about that sort of thing.

"Thanks for the help!" she told the forge's previous user, stepping over its hollow corpse.  The spiked helmet that had been something like a head was mangled beyond recognition, as if repeatedly bashed by some kind of heavy blunt object.  Ilandreline hefted her oversized wrench, rested it on her shoulder, and set off.  Hopefully the blood loss wouldn't slow her down too much.  It would be a shame to die before she could actually give Miss Winford her present.

(( Tagging for mentions of @ms-winford ))

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - The Call

"-and that's how you can extract wickedness and disorder from a wayward soul, drawing into a crystalline matrix to use as a power source," the gnome explained, briefly glancing up from the workbench to smile at her.  The expression normally would have made Ilandreline uncomfortable but for whatever reason, she was into it.  In fact, she found herself leaning over the unfinished power pack to clip her grounding cable next to Dresindra's.  Her hand brushed against the gnome's, causing the latter to look up again.

"I can think of something else I'd like to perform detailed analysis on," Ila began in what was her most seductive voice.  "Why don't we slip into something a little more antistatic and-"

Lina!  Come home!

Her vision shattered as the voice tore through her consciousness on a tide of dark power, breaking the dream into countless mirror shards.  Her grandmother’s voice lingered, like the breath of some hulking monster.  Closing her eyes again didn’t help, so Ila sighed and dragged herself out of bed.  “You win, Granny Laine,” she said around a jaw-splitting yawn.  “See you soon.”

The message wouldn’t carry, it wasn’t that kind of spell, but the Eldest had ways of knowing what her kin were up to.  She’d know well enough that her favourite grandchild was on the way.  Still… Ilandreline didn’t want anyone to worry.  The Fence had always made her feel welcome, and sometimes even understood.  A note was definitely in order.  Three, thinking about it.

The first was easy enough, folded and unsealed, though she addressed it specifically to Remington:

Boss Thornbolt,

Family matter came up unexpectedly.  Don’t know when I’ll be back or if I’ll be able to chat the normal ways.  Some of that stuff acts up when I’m back home, you know?  I think it’s something to do with the convergence of transplanar matrices and some other stuff I just realized you probably don’t care about.  Anyway, I’ll be back in touch soon as I can.  Take care of yourself!

-Ilandreline

The second was similar, though she had to scrounge around her workbench for the crystal that would accompany it:

Miss Winford,

I’ve got to see my grandmother, apparently.  I’m guessing everything’s okay, but whatever it was sounded urgent.  I’ll be back soon, I think, and able to help out with any special projects you might want.

There’s more in my workshop, but the door’s trapped to hell and back, so I recommend entering the magic way.  The crystal in this letter’s envelope should be able to let you in if you use it like a focus.  It’s like a key, except it actually will make your portal really unstable in addition to drawing it to a specific endpoint.  You’re good with portals, though, so I’m sure you can figure out a way to make it work.

Your friend,

Ila

The last note she saved until she’d constructed the aforementioned destination funnel.  It was a simple enough circle -- the runes weren’t difficult, merely delicate -- with most of the heavy lifting being done by the crystal shard at its center.  That was where the little piece she’d left for Loira had cleaved from, so it would call to the keystone, at least based on all the theory she knew.  Once satisfied, she began writing again, this time in a simple cipher.

Loira,

My grandmother’s message was a little alarming, but I’m sure she’s okay.  What I don’t know is how long I’ll have to stay at home to handle whatever came up.  She wants me to follow in her footsteps someday.  I’m worried that day might be coming sooner than I want to consider.  If it’s happening now, I don’t know when I’ll see you next.  Sorry about that.  I’ve enjoyed helping with your special projects.  You always have the most fascinating problems to solve.

Anyway, feel free to use my space (the one you’re in now) for whatever while I’m gone.  I wasn’t kidding about the door being trapped, so I recommend entering only via translocational magic.  I also left out a couple of the other things just in case someone else took that letter.

One: Do not start the forge/furnace without emptying it!  I put a lot of explosives in there along with a couple bricks that will release highly acidic gases if heated.  Please don’t melt yourself!

Two: There’s a small stash of preserved meat in the top drawer of my workbench.  Help yourself if you’re feeling peckish.  I’m pretty sure it works with your metabolism.

Three: If you move my bed, you’ll be able to find a trapdoor of sorts beneath it.  I recommend magic to open it (because it’s heavy and a pain in the ass, not because it’s dangerous).  I’ve got an assortment of reagents there you might have use for -- bones, preserved organs, teeth, etc.  Take whatever you like and don’t worry about replacing it.  I don’t use them as much as I thought I would.

Hopefully I’ll see you again soon.  Please take good care of yourself!  The Respite’s been feeling a lot like home to me, but I don’t know how much that would remain the case if you weren’t around.

Warmest regards,

Ila

The envelope was addressed in simple print to “Miss Loira Winford, Apothecary”.  Beneath that she wrote “From Ilandreline Glimmerbow”, with the initials of their first names aligned in a column.  She put a single box around the two letters, giving her friend the key to the substitution cipher she’d used.

Satisfied that all was in order, Ila tossed two more changes of clothes into her pack and headed out.  Home -- and Granny Laine -- were waiting.

(( tagging for mentions of @ms-winford and @thornbolts ))

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - Just One Cookie

(( Part I: The Call ))

(( Part II: A Compound Beginning ))

If you listened closely enough, you could hear the emptiness breathing.

It was fascinating to consider, or would have been if it weren't also slightly terrifying.  There was no reason for this space to sound like the lungs of some unutterable beast, yet it did.  Everything she knew about the Shadowed Path said it was empty, that nothing dwelt here and nothing could.  Perhaps nothing did.  What if the very substance of the Path was alive in some fashion?  The implications were-

Not important right now.  That was her mother's voice, reminding her that there would only be time for later speculation if she lived to do it.  Smart folk did not dally on these roads, even those who knew how to walk them.  They were treacherous, and Ilandreline did not mean their terrain.  She'd lost a distant cousin to them more than a century earlier, and supposedly even the one who'd known enough to open the First Tree to the darkness at its roots hadn't known enough to come back.

But they were fast.  She'd used them to get to Kalimdor in a few days, or to get from Tirisfal to her family's lands in an hour.  Time and distance worked differently here, or perhaps they worked exactly the same and locationality was the odd one.  There were multiple frames of reference to choose from, but they all boiled down to the same result: travel here was vastly more efficient than on Azeroth.  Which is why you need to get moving instead of standing around!

Her feet started moving again, picking their way over what she assumed counted as "the ground".  It was definitely dirt-like, and there were… grassish things… to either side, but it didn't smell quite right.  Not for nature, at least.  Most plants didn't smell so strongly of iron.  No, not iron.  She sniffed again, trying to place it.  Ah, right.  Blood.  Fresh blood, at that, before it dulled to a brown stain on the stones.  She wondered what this place would look like in sunlight.  Would its appearance match the sharp scents?  Could it even exist under such harsh light?

Despite carrying no torch, Ila was grateful for the sun's absence.  Her sensitive eyes could remain free of the goggles for a little longer, taking in all the subtle variations of shadow that were lost in the harshness of day.  She hadn't noticed how much she'd missed living with naked eyes until she'd started visiting with Granny Laine.  The Respite was a lot of things, but even Silverpine gloom didn't compare to the tranquil shade of their forest.  When she’d left the Ghostlands a few years ago, she’d felt like she had no home; now it seemed she’d found two.  Ilandreline smiled at that, letting her mind wander as much as her body.

Time definitely didn’t function normally in the space.  The pocket watch she’d made in her early days with the Fence told her it had been an hour, but her legs said it was much longer than that despite only feeling like fifteen minutes had passed.  She pushed on, digging into her snack bag to put some energy back into her muscles.  An hour later by internal reckoning -- and half that by the watch -- she stumbled out of sheer exhaustion and decided maybe it wasn’t time to get back up just yet.  Had it been two hours or twelve?  How far had she gone?  Why were her first days’ meals gone already and how was she still hungry?

Her eyelids were heavy, far heavier than they should’ve been.  “Fuck it, nap time.”  The words came out slurred.  It was a struggle just to move her pack beneath her head, to use it as a pillow.  Before she drifted off, Ila stuffed one of her grandmother’s cookies into her mouth, figuring there was no better time for some homemade coziness than immediately before passing out to sleep entirely unprotected in the nightmarish wilderness-phase running tangent to her plane of origin.  Aurelaine often joked she’d baked quite a few dishes with a lot of love in her younger days, where love was a euphemism for any number of exciting poisons.  As she swallowed the last of the cookie and drifted into the deeper darkness of sleep, Ilandreline was quite positive she could taste some of that same love now.

***

Waking up felt surprisingly pleasant and not at all terrifying.  Granny Laine was there, looking amused, and a vine had grown over her, but otherwise everything seemed… fine.  Good, even.  Ila stood and stretched, yawning, considering the last time sleep had left her so refreshed.  Never?  That sounded right.

"Couldn't help sneaking a treat before bed, eh?"  Her grandmother's voice was mock-chiding, the only good kind of chiding to receive from her.  "I should've known."

The vine tried to slither back around her leg, so she kicked it.  "You didn't give me cookies to not eat them.  It was lonely and I thought a taste of home would be nice.  Didn't expect it to, I dunno, summon you or whatever."

"Is that what you think they did?"

The young elf shrugged, gathering her gear and preparing to get back on the road.  "You're here, aren't you?  Shall we?"

Her grandmother made an indeterminate noise in her throat but began walking beside her nonetheless.  It was nice, really.  They'd gone for a few strolls back home, but there were always people around to cause trouble.  Not here.  It was just the two of them and an entire ecology built on what sure seemed to be carnivorous plants.

They walked in silence for some time, only pausing for Ilandreline to sip the water she'd brought, trying to get the leftover tastes from the night out of her mouth.  Everything, even the air, had an unusual taste; not of decay as she'd expected.  Instead it was something remembered from childhood, one of those memories that hid if you looked straight at it.  She'd have to sneak up on it by pretending to be interested in something else.

"So is this one of those things where we walk and you point out little things I need to know to survive or grow or whatever?"

She saw the cryptic smile from the corner of her eye.  "Something like that, perhaps.  Do you still need me holding your hand?"

"What?  No!  I just… not all of this comes easy, you know that.  I'm fine with making things up as I go, but that's really dangerous with… this stuff."  Ila gestured broadly, encompassing their entire surroundings.  "I like to have the numbers on my side.  There aren't any numbers here, no science.  It's all, I don't know, epistemological gradients or something."

Aurelaine laughed, a gravelly sound bordering on coughing.  A chortle!  That's what one sounds like.  "You're not wrong, child.  I'm only along to observe.  Maybe I can point something out that helps; maybe I even will.  This is your journey, though, not mine.  I've had my share already, paid the prices."

That made sense.  They continued, once more quiet, moving too fast and too slow at once, causing everything around them to be in perfect detail as it warped under the effects of tunnel vision.  The metallic taste remained in the back of her throat, tickling the corners of recollection.  She refused to focus on it, knowing that to do so would ensure she never remembered the answer.

Everything changed from one blink to the next.  The landscape was even darker now, near blinding to her gifted sight.  Her nostrils flared, the distinct aroma of blood foremost in the air, enough to make one hungry.  Or perhaps that was unrelated; journeys required food.  As she went for her trail mix, something caught her wrist, stopped it entirely.  Frowning, she glanced down to find a rubbery tendril wrapped around her arm.  "Fuck off," she said, getting no reaction.  The next best idea would be to cut it, but the only knife she had at the moment was not one she was willing to risk on a simple tentacle.  She looked over to her grandmother instead.  "Any chance you can do something about this?"

Grey eyebrows arched as eyes flicked from Ilandreline’s face to the appendage and back.  “Of course I can.”  She paused then deliberately added, “I won’t.”

Should’ve expected as much.  “This one of those ‘your journey, your problem’ moments?”  When Aurelaine nodded, she sighed.  Time to figure it out then.  There was a way; she was supposed to find it.  Trial by fire and all that.

“If I go solving your problems,” the predictable lecture began, “you’ll keep expecting me to give you the answers.  We both know that’s not how you learn.  You want to see the whole process, derived from first principles.  That way you can extend the logic as far as it goes, come up with your own hypotheses.  It also ensures you aren’t limited by the pace of your teacher, doesn’t it?”

The fraction of her consciousness paying attention laughed.  “Sure does.  Saves them the trouble of trying to answer all my ‘why’ questions, too, so it’s really a service when you think about it.  Don’t have to ask why if I’ve already done the math.”

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware that you’re infuriating, Lina, you don’t have to remind me.”  Dry humour ran in the family even if it skipped a generation.  “Getting back to the matter at hand, I’d simply remind that little pest about the order of things.  It’s a remnant, a cast-off, a weak afterthought of a failed god’s stray thoughts.  A pale imitation of the majesty to be found in the Great Dark, yearning to be more than it ever could.  I’d simply banish it and move on.”

That was one possibility then, banishment.  And how did banishing work?  Ila tried to dredge up the memories of mostly futile arcane schooling, seeking the bits that had remained.  Summoning circles… banishing circles?  An inversion of process, though the commanding nature remained constant.  How did that work for her, though?  She knew how to draw the runes, but had never been able to power them independently.  Blood would work, of course, had she prepared the circle already.  There had to be another way.

She rolled back through the words, sifting through them more by “feel” than analysis.  Hunches were the backbone of discovery; you felt something would be the answer, so you thought through the possibility.  What else had been hinted at?  Remnant.  Afterthought.  Failed.  Imitation.  Yearning.  Afterthought-Imitation-Yearning.  Was there something there?  She ran her tongue along the backs of her teeth, tasting iron and arsenic and something more as her mind kicked into gear.

The order of things.  These paths were bored through the near-realms of Azeroth by the so-called Old Gods, the entrapped dwellers-between-stars her grandmother held in such low esteem.  A trapped god was no god at all, for a proper god could not be limited.  That meant any of their leftovers were inherently inferior to the powers receiving her family’s offerings.  Not that creatures spawned from the lesser entities recognized Glimmerbow authority, but they should have.  There was that connection, like distant cousins where one is heir to a throne and the other is a cast-off from some hedge knight.

Oh, is that it?  Connectivity?  Like to like?  The tendril tightened, squeezing her bones.  It was starting to hurt.  If she waited too much longer, she might have to finish her trip with a shattered wrist.  Time to see if I learned anything.

Ilandreline focused the entirety of her consciousness on the wriggling mass, willing her vision to bore through the layers to see down to where it was no longer a physical appendage.  Deep down, it was a thoughtform, a psychic remnant, a projection, and she needed to see that.  How long it took to finally happen, she didn’t know.  She was drenched in sweat, and shaking from the effort, but she could see it clearly.

Banishment would require antithesis, but… that’s not what this is.  We’re the same, aren’t we, cousins from the same blood?  I can’t banish myself.  So what if…  She turned most of her attention inward, leaving only enough out to keep firm mental grasp on the essence of her assailant.  There was this dead-end creature left behind by one of the Four… and then there was her.  They were different, except where they weren’t.  Similarity was what she needed now.

She burrowed into herself, pushing through the layers of supposed sophistication.  On the lowest level she was not an elf, or even something shaped.  She was an extension of the universe’s primal forces, a conduit of the Eternal Dark.  At that point, she was what the tentacle thought itself to be.  Letting herself dwell entirely in that space, she lost her self and called out to this distant cousin.  See me, her mind cried, know me for what I am!

Their sameness was her focus, to establish communion.  Something resonated -- somehow -- drawing the psychic echo toward her.  She could feel its alienness, the oil-slick of fractal madness in its relict consciousness, just as surely as she knew her own essence was vastly more potent.  What others would call the taint of her heritage was a strength here; she formed a pseudopod of self, vibrating midnight purple, and whipped outward.  The sensation of startlement rippled across her mind, followed immediately by the primal panic of something being drawn to its inexorable demise.

The tendril was swallowed within her, its corrupt form dissolving within her purity of faith.  A priest of the Glimmerbows was an architect of dissolution, a bringer of endings to foster the chaos of the new.  What she hadn’t expected was the way it became a part of her.

Ila had never been at war in her own mind before.  This severed piece of a dead un-god struggled with all its might to avoid being broken down, flailing every which way.  For a moment she worried she might lose and end up a prisoner in her own flesh.  Then reason reasserted itself, and the flexibility of mind her grandmother had praised made clear its value.  She bent without breaking, absorbed the harshest assaults, returned to form without permanent deformation.  And then she swallowed it whole, allowing the thing to be torn apart and joined with her essence.

Shaking so hard she couldn’t have written a single legible letter, the elf opened her eyes.  Her grandmother faded from sight, though her approving gaze lingered.  The overlapping flavours of multiple poisons lingered, dancing over her taste buds and scratching at her throat.  She had no idea where she was, though she knew she had been walking all this time.  The ligature marks of the tentacle remained on her forearm, though, proof that something had happened, that she had conquered the smallest challenge.

Several deep breaths later, the shivering stopped.  Her whole body still tingled, the aftereffects of an adrenaline overdose, but that was manageable.  She took a swig of water to put moisture back into her body, then pulled the “map” from her inside jacket pocket.  It was more algorithmical than cartographical, but she read it as easily as Thalassian.  There was… a place to be, and she was much closer now than when she had started.

Through an act of will, Ilandreline set her legs in motion again.  There would be others, she knew.  This realm was made from the dreams of god-corpses, an afterimage of what they’d tried to make real.  But she had proof they paled before the strength Aurelaine had cultivated in her.  Let the dead gods try their worst.

Stretching out through the mental channels her hallucinations had opened, she tasted the planar gradient and turned toward her destination.  Plum was home and nightmare was the enemy, but blood and bone and leaf and light showed the way.  Not entirely certain the poisons had actually left her system, Ila climbed toward her destination unaware of the horrific grin on her face.

[edmund-valks]

A Special Delivery

A small package is placed at the Respite’s door, neatly wrapped in plain brown paper.  There is a label on the outside addressing it specifically to Miss Loira Winford, ℅ the Fence Macabre.  Beneath the outer wrapper is a wooden box and an envelope.  The former has clearly been touched by the arcane -- a sigil of nightblue and starlight pulses gently upon its surface, indicating either ward or lock.  The envelope is much less impressive, being mundane paper with Loira’s name on it in an unfamiliar hand.  There is no detectable magic about it; the seal is plain wax, pressed with a featureless disk.

Within the envelope are several items: a letter folded into thirds; a small square of paper with a runed diagram; and what appears to be a business card for ‘Soq’amun’s Parcel Service’, presumably the delivering party.  On the back of that last is a note in the same hand as the address but much smaller to fit its message: Sender said to use the same key as her last note, but backwards.

Once deciphered, the letter reads:

Miss Winford,

I’m afraid I’m somewhat indisposed at the moment -- nothing to bother yourself over, seriously, please don’t do anything ridiculous like try to find me -- but didn’t want you to worry.  Getting this message out was a huge pain for reasons you’ll understand if you use the unlocking seal that Sentua was supposed to include.  She’s the one who rewrote this for me, by the way.  Delivered it, too, she’s pretty good with travel magic.  (If you want to know more, ask her about her work on near-material demiplanar coordinate mapping and non-regular intraplanar geodesics.)

Anyway, all that out of the way, I was just wondering if you had access to any reagent-quality examples of shal’dorei tattooing.  Something occurred to me recently that needs testing I hope to take up with you next chance I get.  More details then/later; don’t want to cramp someone’s hand by forcing her to copy a bunch of experimental nonsense she’s not interested in.

The box is locked because the contents may be unpleasant for you to touch directly.  Didn’t want to take any chances, you know?  I hope Sentua did what I suggested and showed off her spell aesthetics with the ward; she doesn’t do that enough.  Anyway, yeah, you can always relock the box yourself after you’ve opened it.  There’s nothing that’s going to burst out of there or something, but I think you’ll get it if you look.  You don’t have to, obviously, but maybe you can find some use for it?  It’s probably hard to get some of those components.

Your friend,

Ilandreline

The container is plain but well-made, mundane wood stained dark and polished.  A dispelling would take care of the locking ward with relative ease, though not nearly as much as using the provided diagram.  Within is another letter, so bright it seems to be nearly glowing, messily folded atop the box’s purple velveteen lining.  The paper positively reeks of Light, with an aggressive undercurrent of Order.  Opening it -- best done with tongs or tweezers, if one is sensitive to these things -- shows the same letter as provided, but this time in Ila’s unusual style.  The ink appears to be pure gold, though that’s quite impossible.  Whatever it happens to be, it is certainly not native to anywhere near to Silverpine, and probably not to Azeroth at all.

(( tagging @ms-winford, clearly the recipient of this questionable package ))

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - A Compound Beginning

(( Previously: The Call ))

"There's a hole in the world, dear girl, and not the good kind.  It leads to a place the living shouldn't be, and lets them get there in a way that shouldn't happen.  I hate to send you off, but you're the only one I trust to be adaptable.  Everyone else is too sure they understand everything to realize they're fools.

"The whole situation is a puzzle -- a deadly one.  Examine the pieces, Lina, find the edges.  See how they fit together, how this world connects.  Learn the rules that govern there, figure out how to break them.  Stay alive, too, and come back safely."

She'd never seen the older woman so uncertain.  It warmed and scared her at once.  "Is it really where the dead go?"  The specifics of her family's cosmology were still hazy, and Ilandreline didn't know which had been verified versus assumed.

"Only some of them, child.  Enough, I think, to make it difficult."

"Will I see family there?"  The possibility was very mixed given the number of relatives she'd had to avoid in the interests of personal safety.  Having to kill the already dead seemed… difficult, even -- or especially -- in the place where souls went.

"Not if they were sent off properly.  The Great Dark calls us home, not some bizarre 'afterlife'."

"But isn't there a cycle of things?"

"Of course there is, but it's not that literal.  We don't die, hang out a bit, and then come back.  We become a part of the Endless Night, our souls rejoined to the very fabric of all creation.  Perhaps pieces of us will once again be spun into a new person, but it will not be us."

Ilandreline considered for a moment, nodding only once she'd worked through the implications.  Their gods were creatures of ending and dissolution; it made sense that souls gifted to them would not be returned in a recognizable form.  She wondered what that might be like, to be unravelled to one's components.  It was recycling on a cosmic level.  Fascinating to think about, even if she had doubts about wanting it for herself.  "I hadn't thought about that.  Kinda neat.  There aren't any papers on that already are there?"

Aurelaine chortled.  "Not the kind you want.  You'll have to gather the data yourself, I think.  Good thing you'll be closer than any of us have ever been, eh?  Should be enough to keep you from getting bored doing the rest of what I've asked."

"Good point."  Someone else might've argued their commitment to family always came first, but she had no delusions on that front.  Sure, she didn't want to disappoint her grandmother, and wouldn't have wanted to even if that wasn't an often fatal experience, but she needed mental stimulation to do her best work.  Sounded like she'd have plenty.  "I guess the only thing left to ask is how I'm getting there.  I don't think anyone in Icecrown wants me there, and Orgrimmar's portal network isn't exactly open for tourists right now, so…"  Ila trailed off, waiting patiently for the answer she was sure was coming.

"Ah, that.  Yes.  Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to do part of that work yourself."  That was her self-amused smile showing now, not the happy one.  "I've acquired a diagram of the circle used to tap into the breach atop Icecrown, but we'll need to know how to adapt our own paths to reach there."

That perked her up immediately.  "Really?!  That's wonderful!  Where is it, I want to get started right away and-"

"Lina.  I know you're excited but I need you to stop for a moment.  Look at me."  Granny Laine's gaze was at its most piercing.  "This is extremely dangerous, all of it.  Start to finish, none of this can be taken lightly.  We can't afford to lose you.  I can't afford to lose you, either.  If something happens to you out there… you're on your own.  You'll be beyond my reach.  Understood?"

Solemnity draped itself over her enthusiasm, a damping force as efficient as a rubber grip on a wrench.  She'd be more on her own than ever, possibly with no way back until she could make one.  Ilandreline chewed her lip, running through the possibilities.  Finally she nodded.  "I understand.  And I won't let you down."

"I know, dear girl, but I need more than that.  I need you to promise you'll come back."

She grinned then, hiding the trepidation she felt behind the warm love she had for her grandmother.  "I will, Granny.  You have my word."

***

There were paths only a select few could walk, and of those even fewer did so safely.  One such path was that of the Eldest's Apprentice.  Another was found in certain shadows that were far deeper than they let on.

The latter was where Ilandreline's feet found themselves.  She stared up at the peculiar tree, an imbricated mass formed by many trunks twisted into one.  Oh.  That's a metaphor, isn't it?  The thought hadn't occurred to her before.  Not much had, in fairness; she'd grown up with the old tree as a fixture of life.  They'd all learned not to play near it if you ever wanted to come home again, but she hadn't connected that with why its fruit was reserved for very specific uses.  At its base, veiled behind its gnarled roots, was the beginning of the darkest road.

She'd traveled it before, of course.  There was no faster way to travel great distances unless you could make your own portals. Which she could have done if only she'd had the slightest sensitivity to the arcane.  Not that she was bitter or anything but…  Stop that, she chided herself.  Sure, a portal was beyond her to create, but she knew more about planar geometries than anyone else in her family, probably more than most mages in the world.  And after days of nonstop work, that knowledge had prepared her, brought her here.

Ilandreline couldn't stop herself from grinning at that.  She'd started with only three knowns and had made a map.  Where others would use portals already made, she had built her family's passage to the Shadowlands, a place none of them should ever end up.  She'd drawn up the requirements for an activating charm and with the Eldest's backing had received a ring that would do the job.  As far as she knew, no one had ever tried to map the void gradients of three coterminous planes, much less with the intent of using one to pass between the other two.  Maybe she'd publish it someday, after scrubbing the specifics out entirely.  The general solution wouldn't open her family to uncomfortable questions if she did it right.

"Here we go, I guess."  It was more to herself than the small audience gathered to see her off.  Still, she found herself looking back to take in what might be the last time she saw her home or family.  Granny Laine was there, of course, radiating confidence and authority.  Ilandreline's mother, Mellura'thel, stood to her left, coldly distant, possibly worried.  And there was Von on the other side, the only one smiling, though she seemed uncertain if that was the right expression for the moment.

"Don't worry," she told them, struggling to project her normal confidence that everything would turn out fine, "I'll get this sorted soon enough.  Just don't tear the gate down on me, okay?  I don't want to have to revise the whole trail while I'm walking it."

Only Aurelaine responded, striding forward with an energy at odds with her venerable appearance.  "Don't worry, child.  So long as Darkness remains, so will we."  She stopped very close to Ila, straightening up with visible effort to look her in the eye.

"I can see you're beginning to understand now," she spoke softly, barely loud enough for her granddaughter to hear.  "You thought you'd started on your way already, but now you see this is it.  You already know I trust you'll do what needs doing, just as you know I've demanded your safe return.  But now I need to say just one more thing."

Aurelaine, Speaker of the Great Dark, architect of their family's faith and power, drew a small pouch from within her robes, pressing it into Ilandreline's hand.  "I made these for you.  Think of me when you eat them, and remember your dear old granny loves and misses you.  You've always been my favourite, little Lina.  Be safe."

The sudden sting of tears took her by surprise.  She hurriedly stuff the bag of cookies into a pocket, blinking the wetness away before someone else might see.  "I will.  And I promise to make you proud.  I'll-"

"That's enough, dear.  You don't need to say anymore, and it'll just make it harder if you do."  Her wrinkles and creases deepened until she was smiling.  "Now stop dilly-dallying and get on your way.  The rest of us have work to get back to."

Off-balance, Ilandreline failed to say anything at all.  She did manage to return the wink, though.  With a nod, the youngest of the assembled Glimmerbows turned away, putting one foot in front of the other until the darkness beneath the greatest voidplum tree swallowed her entirely.

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - Soul Food

(( The Call - A Compound Beginning - Just One Cookie ))

She had nothing left to eat, a realization prompted by the sensation of fingernails scratching in an empty pouch.  A giggle escaped her.  There was something comical about running out of food in this vast wilderness.  "I could eat the plants."  That was her voice, wasn't it?  "They won't feed me, though.  They're made of nightmares and failure.  That won't do."

After realizing again her food pouch was empty, Ilandreline looked around.  Something about this place… She shook her head.  "Too hungry to think straight."  Her fingers wrapped around nothing in the little bag where she'd kept the last of her cookies.  "Wish those plant-things could help."

She reached for her water, settling for a drink now that there were only crumbs left to eat.  Squeezing the last drops into her mouth, she wondered what it would be like to die of dehydration at the end of her journey simply because she'd become so disoriented from a lack of food that she hadn't bothered to leave the Paths.  "Hah!  That would be some serious chump shit, wouldn't it, Granny?  Granny?"  She looked around, frowning at the emptiness where Aurelaine had been.  "Where'd you go?  Oh, there you are."

The old elf said nothing, merely sighed.  That was probably fair.  Ila wasn't exactly doing the family proud at the moment.  "Look, I know it's sad -- pathetic, even! -- but you have to admit it's funny.  Me dying, I mean.  Like this.  Right at the door out.  Hilarious!"

Maybe it wasn't that funny, now she thought about it.  More disappointing than funny.  That hurt, in a strange way.  She was used to disappointing her mother, but disappointing Granny Laine was something else entirely.  Maybe she should find a way not to do that?

"Would it be better if I, you know, left?  That way you wouldn't see it, right?"  She was beginning to suspect that wasn't really her grandmother at all.  Maybe it was a ghost.  Maybe it was a hallucination.  But would either of those be able to mimic the displeasure on her face so well?  She didn't know, ghosts were a Von thing, not an Ila thing.  "Whatever, it should work, I guess.  Or something.  Better to die where the dead go than here, where I'm like ninety percent sure they're just eaten.  Better than dying at a door I forgot to open then."

Again, the nagging feeling that there was an answer she was missing.  And again if fell away quickly, drowned out by the rumble of a stomach and the ridiculous situation she'd found herself in.  "Fuck it, let's just do the blood thing, plenty of that around here."  Someone laughed aloud -- it didn't sound like her, it was a bit high-pitched, kinda manic -- while Ila looked around for a plant to chop open.  There weren't many, for some reason.  This area seemed strangely barren, like if someone had cleared it intentionally.  That was odd.  Or was it?  She couldn't remember anymore.

Oh well.  No plants didn't mean no blood.  She had plenty.  Not just in her body, either!  Chuckling to herself, Ilandreline grabbed a large bottle from her pack, removing the stopper.  The iron-tang of its contents filled the air, tickling her nostrils with warm memories of a full belly.  Delicious.  Maybe if she drank the whole thing then-

No!  You're supposed to be doing something with this!  Nodding at the voice in her head, she stumbled around, emptying it as carefully as the wobbling terrain would allow.  Who authorized such an unstable plane?  She wanted to have words with them.  Or she would later, once her thoughts cleared up a bit; this haze was frustratingly hard to shake.  

She blinked bleary-eyed at her handiwork.  A circle… and now what?  Oh, right, some symbols of… uhhhh… similarity, right?  Making here like there and there like here and something big in the middle to represent an open conjunction of adjacent planes.  The blood was a perfect reagent because it was also a pun -- the places were joined because they started to bleed into one another.  A cackle from somewhere, probably her grandmother, who had decided to be invisible again.  That was her right, of course, but it got frustrating to be laughed at by someone you couldn't see.  Seemed rude somehow.

"Whatever, let's light this candle and uh… wait, there aren't any candles.  I… what was I supposed to use to…?  Oh, right!  Obviously."  She positioned herself over the central rune, giggling like a girl at the absurdity of everything.  Knife in hand, she opened her jacket and lifted her shirt out of the way.  While activating a circle normally didn't take too much, this wasn't a usual sort of rite.  Muttering something untranslatable in her family's Shath'yar dialect, Ilandreline slid the blade into her side.

The pain brought unexpected clarity.  Hissing through clenched teeth, she had a moment of recognition, one she did her best to cling to.  The life she gave to this work had to be placed here and here, with the proper invocations.  The words spilled out with only minimal slurring, the extensive practice Aurelaine had insisted on paying off in her moment of need.

This was indeed the exit, her planned destination and point of egress to the Shadowlands.  Despite being mostly delirious, she felt the work forming around her.  Through her?  Yes, that.  Black fire froze her arteries, leaving the pins-and-needles of lost sensation in its wake.  The symbols written in blood -- hers and others -- blazed holes in the non-space she’d traverse, like projector film melting in the lamp’s heat.  There was screaming somewhere, her throat sympathetically echoing the rawness of the cry.  Colours inverted around her, scintillating motes dancing in her vision, the darkness agonizing in its brilliance until-

There was light all around her.  Even with her eyes squeezed tight, she could feel its insidious heat trying to burn its way in.  But there was a certain firmness of ground around her, perhaps to all of reality, and that was what mattered.  Sightless, her fingers grasped at her belt to where she’d left her goggles hanging, exhausting what little energy she still possessed to replace them on her head.  Only then did she dare look to see what had happened, where she was.

Despite the smoky blackness of the cut-crystal lenses, there was more brightness than she would ever be comfortable with.  It didn’t hurt, not yet, but it ached.  She found herself staring at an endless blue sky overhead, with vague awareness of white stone around her, glinting gold.  Blood -- her blood -- pooled around her, providing a coolness the horrible sunlight never could.  Did she need to stop that?  Had she cut too deep?  It didn’t matter, she didn’t have the strength to cauterize herself at this point.

Wild laughter bubbled up from somewhere.  No, not somewhere, from inside her.  After a moment of wrestling with it, she stopped, though the inclination remained waiting behind the barrier of self-control.  “What a fucking joke,” she said, voice weak even inside her own head.  “Travel a billion non-miles or whatever only to die alone in a sun-scorched hellscape of a temple plane.”

“No, you will not die here.”  The words came from somewhere she could have seen if she’d been capable of moving any longer.  “You have not journeyed in vain, stranger.  There will be questions for you, when you are well enough to answer, but not until then.  Rest easy, child, knowing that the Kyrian will not let further harm befall you.”

The who?  She got as far as saying “What in the Endless Dark is a Kyr-” before her consciousness gave out entirely.

[edmund-valks]

A Practical Examination

"Just… right here then?"  She waited for the elderly woman's nod before driving the thin metal spike in.  The body they were working with seized up for the smallest moment before relaxing again.  Its eyes remained open, occasionally twitching to focus on details no one else could see, but there were none of the normal signs of pain.

Aurelaine patted her arm.  "Very good, dear.  I prefer to work this way when possible.  They've volunteered themselves to become a part of the Great Work; that devotion is far more powerful than the suffering we could wring from them."  She pointed to the fresh wound, moved her finger in a slow arc to the opposite side of the prone elf's head.  "You can technically go through either side for the same effect, but I've found that establishing a specific pattern strengthens the rite.  Remember, we control nothing but the shape of the channel.  Build it properly and the flow of power will do what you've planned."

Ilandreline nodded, making several notes in her book.  "Right.  Failure to provide a sufficiently robust channel will result in something like trying to force an entire ocean through a coolant line -- the weakest parts will give, with predictably messy results."

Her grandmother chuckled, expressing agreement with another pat.  "I told you you're better suited to this than you'd thought.  You know how to build, how to establish equilibria.  The only real difference is we're not using machines here."  The praise was enough to make the engineer flush pink to the tips of her ears.  "Now!  Draw it out for me.  We've got our willing supplicant here beyond the ability to feel pain.  What's our next step?"

"Let's see…"  Ilandreline consulted her notes, chewing the end of her pencil.  "The circle is drawn, of course, we've already prepared the offering, which means now we have to… oh!  The calling and opening!"

A nod.  "Do it.  What are you looking at me for?  This one is yours, Lina.  Show me what you've learned."

The younger elf reviewed the setup so far, making sure she had the right details.  Willing offering was this set of rites, the protective circle they'd created would be effective against those emissaries, she had these materials on-hand… All that taken into account, there were still several possibilities even before she considered rebalancing the energies.  Worry about that later, she reminded herself.  Start simple, get practiced.  Build the foundation before the house.

She retrieved an obsidian blade from the nearby tool bench then positioned herself at the offering's right elbow.  Strange, thinking of him like that; she'd played games with him long ago, back before he'd found the rich vein of faithfulness within himself.  He'd simply quit other pursuits one day a few decades back, taking up a sort of hermit's lifestyle, spending most of his days mentally exploring the places you could get with the right kind of specially treated fruits and mushrooms.  She hadn't understood back then, wasn't honestly sure she did now, but that didn't matter.  The important thing was she was going to help him get where he wanted to be, and he was going to do the same for her.

She started etching the ritual on the wrist closest to her.  It was a point of vitality, she'd learned, like the heart but different.  A small complex of delicate runework, one that would provide fuel and focus.  That was why they used obsidian, despite it being relatively difficult to acquire; nothing else made such perfect, easy lines on flesh.  The work took minutes, eventually climbing half up the forearm.  Ilandreline double-checked her work before moving on.  A mistake could be salvaged if you knew about it.  Satisfied, she moved to the next limb.

By the time she'd finished, her eyes ached from focusing and she'd dulled a handful of blades.  It was done, though, and pretty decently if she was any judge.  Things had only gotten awkward when she'd been working the offering's face and he'd started talking to her.  Turns out he was more aware than she'd realized.  He also remembered her and wanted to discuss her faith.  Not the most comfortable conversation when one was carving sigils into a forehead, especially when she was still trying to understand what she believed these days.  Her answers had been enough, apparently, as he'd eventually subsided again with a sort of pleased sigh.

"I… think we're ready, Eldest."  Ila looked at the blood on her hands, frowning.  It had gotten under her nails and was starting to dry.  She'd have to trim them to get it all out.

"You think or we are?  Which is it, girl?"  Aurelaine's tone was harsh.  Of course it was; she despised the uncertain and those who lacked confidence.

"We are."  Her voice didn't waver this time.  She'd gone over all her work twice as she'd done it, a third time after finishing the whole.  Everything was in order.  "With your permission, Eldest, I will begin tonight's Calling."

"You have it."  Just enough of a pause for Ila to start moving before she added, "Remember, you will pay for your mistakes.  I'm here to watch over our family, not to save you."

Real confidence builder.  Then again, that was probably the point.  Granny Laine knew what she was doing.  "Thank you, Eldest."

Ilandreline took her place at the center of the small circle, careful to avoid disrupting any of the delicate symbols she'd laid in silver.  She lit the candles and waited.  Minutes later, as the moon slipped below the horizon, she began to extinguish the flames.  Four drops of blood per candle, as always, accompanied by the invocation.  "Four for four," she recited, "given by one.  Less than five, but greater by far.  After life, beyond death, the Long Night comes.  We kill to serve.  We bleed to live.  Through our sacrifice, the light shall die at last."

The darkness that settled over them was more than night.  Anyone else would have found it oppressive, smothering perhaps, but a Glimmerbow's eyes saw the truth.  This was the deep expanse of infinity, a churning space where Titanic order had been unable to find a foothold.  Here was the counterforce that allowed life to exist beyond programmed parameters, that which created consciousness and free will.  She shivered, not from fear but awe.

You call out.  We hear.  Speak.

The speech was in their minds, she knew.  You didn't hear it, couldn't hear it.  Instead it resonated through your being, rippling through muscle and bone, darkening your body with reflected splendour.  Ilandreline had to take several breaths before she could focus properly.  "Tonight we offer one of ours to the Great and Endless Dark.  A cousin in blood and service."  She crossed from the calling circle into the one for offering, drawing her knife.

This voice means nothing.  Is nothing.  Shall receive nothing.  Shall become nothing.

Four times they said the word, each time impacting her more viciously.  The last was meant to force her to her knees, but Ila refused.  Her grandmother was watching, after all, and her punishment would be worse than whatever cruelties the Dark could inflict at this distance.  "I am Ilandreline, daughter of Mellura'thel, daughter of Aurelaine.  I speak in the Eldest's stead this night.  We are bound to the Endless Night and so is it bound to us."

Prove.

She bent down, placed her lips against the offering's forehead, living breath freshening the bloody etchings thereon.  "Our gift to you, this living blood, and a reminder of our bonds," she continued, sliding the ancient blade into flesh at the little notch in the collarbone.  "Our sacrifice is your gain, your whispers our knowledge."

Put to its true purpose, the knife felt alive in her grip.  With steady hand, Ila drew down, away from the neck, expecting resistance.  Instead the bones parted smoothly, clavicle and sternum offering no more resistance than skin had to obsidian.  "All in service to the last fading of the light."  She withdrew the blade, placing it reverently aside.

The runes in her cousin's flesh began to glow.  First with the brilliance of blood, then darkening through the midnight violet of the family's eyes into a blackness that melded with what surrounded the rite.  He was still alive, of course; that was what it meant to be an offering.  Dead meat meant little.  She wondered what it felt like, to have your chest opened like that, to be offered to the Whispering Dark at your own insistence.  Judging by the rapturous expression on his face, it was significantly less painful than she'd expected.  He's getting what he's always wanted.  The thought made her smile.  It felt so good to bring someone that kind of happiness.

This voice is known.  We welcome it.  Give and become known.

The Whispers seemed in no hurry.  The offering was beginning to blur at his extremities, the writings she'd placed there in the Dark's own language flickering in and out of sight as they anchored the ritual transferrence.  She waited until most of him was no longer distinguishable from their surroundings before picking up her grandmother's old blade again.

Once more she positioned herself by the body's head, but this time the tip of the knife rested against the runic focal point.  "A single light," she intoned, "flickering weakly.  This life -- the last remnant of a dying sun.  This body -- full of terrible promise and beguiling lies.  A so-called gift, this tyranny of ill-advised order."

She inhaled deeply, exhaled.  "Never meant to withstand the endless dark, we give it freely."  The blade drove through skull, brain, skull again, until she could feel its point pressing into the altar's pitted stone.

We accept.  You are known.

Shuddering with exultation, Ilandreline withdrew the knife, resheathing it without wiping away any of the blood.  She would not deprive it of such precious seasoning.  As the comforting weight of the Endless Night began to lift, she turned to see her grandmother's proud smile.  That would have been enough all on its own.  Returning a grin of her own, she took two steps before falling into an entirely other darkness.

[edmund-valks]

Mermaid Type - Ilandreline

Storm Mermaid

You are very pretty but get angry easily. You love to conquer ships and sometimes pair up with the crystal mermaids to collect jewels. You are not evil, but storm mermaids have been known to turn evil in the past. You're friends with the sharks and hate how calm the moon mermaids are.

Test here

Picrew here

[edmund-valks]

When the Blooming Ends

The air was warm and humid, though the sun had set hours ago.  She appreciated the darkness, incomplete as it was with the lemon-wedge moon dangling overhead, but the breeze wasn't enough to keep her from sweating.  That was part of why she'd chosen an outfit without sleeves and enough open space to get air where it could do good.  The brilliant turquoise vest had been an impulse acquisition a while back; she liked the thought of having gold cobras on her torso.  She'd also meant to look into finding a way to have it enchanted so the snakes could leap out to bite anyone who got too up in her space, but that idea was mostly forgotten by now.

And now… Ilandreline stared out over the Jade Forest with the rhythmic pulse of music behind her, thinking too hard.  The last three days had been something of a whirlwind, plus she hadn't bothered to sleep in a responsible fashion.  Her body was sore from dancing too much, her head ached from being awake for more than sixty of the last seventy-two hours, and her spirit… wasn't ready to stop yet.  It seemed to be feeding off the high of the trade she'd made, or perhaps the recognition of a kindred soul.  That shal'dorei had expressed a number of thoughts she'd long worried we're unique to her family.  Is this what it's like to feel understood?  No wonder people are always on about it.

Two nights in a row now she’d found herself outside of her comfort zone and both had gone… surprisingly well?  There were two common factors between them, and although two points were a line rather than a trend, she trusted her ability to interpret incomplete data sets enough to develop a hypothesis.  All things being equal -- an assumption good science often started with -- the possibilities were: she liked dancing far more than she’d ever expected; or that she was so fascinated by the frightfully tall Nightborne that she was more interested in exploring their common ground than bothering with boring necessities like sleep.  Previous dancing experiences suggested the first option was a matter of correlation without causation.

Frowning into the darkness, she cross-examined her poorly-supported conclusion.  Not out of doubt -- Ila was confident it was the right one, even knowing there could be other possibilities she hadn’t accounted for -- but a lack of understanding.  She had a slew of relatives who recognized the same things she did, who knew what it meant to crave the embrace of total darkness.  Plenty of them were equally aware of the usefulness of what the living left behind.  Waste not, want not, after all; though large for a family, their community was still a small one and had to take care with its resources.

But that wasn’t what she talked about, was it?  A long moment of silent consideration followed, then: no, it certainly wasn’t.  The shal’dorei had spoken of the memories that clung to fragments of the dead, the precious and fleeting nature of what slivers of soul remained within them despite countless years.  There was a certain thrill to the concept, beyond the simple practicalities of usefulness in repairing a reanimated servant.  She’d watched Von interrogate a spirit before, working to pull lost knowledge from it.  In typical family fashion, it had been efficient rather than gentle.  That was probably why a number of the more cautious of her relatives had laid out very specific rites to be performed when they died.  Most of them didn’t want to get ripped out from the Great Dark to be tortured for information that might be used against their descendants.

Maybe this was what Granny Laine had been trying to lead her toward all this time.  There was a difference between what the family did and what she did.  Ila’s grandmother had seemingly implied that her real power had nothing to do with centuries as an arcanist.  She worked as the conduit between the family and the Endless Night, ensuring the bargain made so long ago was maintained.  Perhaps her methods were more similar to those of the shal’dorei than Von?  Wouldn’t that be a fascinating coincidence?

Ilandreline smiled for the first time since her trade partner had departed.  Miss Winford would get copies of the recipes she’d acquired, of course, as well as all the help a non-alchemist with no arcane acuity whatsoever like Ila could provide.  But regardless of what they discovered (or didn’t) together, she’d still have to take them back home.  Mother would have opinions, naturally, but also insight.  Perhaps she even had a starlight rose analogue she’d carefully bred over the centuries that could be used to derive new creations.  New knowledge would please her, too, remind her that Ila was more than a wayward child of extremely limited use.

Aurelaine, though, was who she really wanted to talk to now.  The family matriarch loved leaving breadcrumbs of philosophy on the path so she could watch her granddaughter pick them up.  Wouldn’t it be nice to surprise her with something like this?  Almost as nice as what she’ll reveal in return.  That was the proper treasure.  The things she didn’t share with anyone else, the secrets she’d promised to Ilandreline alone.  Oh, that next trip home would be an exciting one, to be sure!

She stopped then, corners of her mouth drooping.  But then what?  She’d know more, yes, but would she be any closer to knowing what to do with herself?  What could one do with secret knowledge, knowing that very few people could ever comprehend the deeper truths?  Or, more importantly, since speaking most of it aloud was a great way to get inaccurately labeled as some kind of cultist?  Luck and extreme caution were the only reasons she hadn’t ended up in very hot water when she’d first left home, and people had only become more suspicious with the recent events involving the last of the Four.  Good old N’zoth, always ruining things for the true believers.  It was hard to respect the so-called old gods after everything they’d done.  She had to believe the whisperers between the stars were more competent, if only because she couldn’t imagine Granny Laine making a deal with something as clumsy or lacking in subtlety as C’thun or Yogg-Saron.

No matter.  She brushed the whole subject away, refusing to let it consume more of her energy.  There was a plan now, that was what mattered.  Step one: learn the intricacies of these new recipes and test what they produced.  Step two: go back to her family again, to share this knowledge and trade it for more of Granny Laine’s secrets.  Step three: write back to the shal’dorei and arrange another meeting.  It would be nice to put a smile on the Nightborne’s face.

Mind made up, Ilandreline hopped the stone wall she’d been leaning on and headed back for the Fence’s wagons.  That was enough thinking for one night.  Besides, it wouldn’t do to miss the portal home in the morning!

[edmund-valks]

It's Picrew season again! (It's always picrew season, let's be honest.)

Have an Ilandreline, compliments of this wonderful image maker!

[edmund-valks]

A Family Reunion - Part II

(( Continued from Part I ))

Like most fortresses, the community was much less secure once you were past its outer borders.  Ilandreline did little sprinting or sneaking after the encounter with Teth, instead strolling openly along the back roads and meandering paths.  Half-overgrown trails wended through the trees, their gently twisting branches drooping under the weight of their black-cherry leaves.  There were some early buds mixed in as well, presaging the brilliant blues and purples of spring.

What surprised her most was how good she felt.  Sure, her leg was still oozing blood through the aggravated scabbing and she had more bruises than she remembered getting and it was entirely possible someone else was going to try the same thing Teth had, but the air was so…  She inhaled deeply, unable to find a way to put it to words.  Wet, not damp, like the morning mist; light and crisp, cool, without being bone-chilling; heavy with so many scents she remembered more than knew.  The smells of wet leaves, freshly-churned black earth, distant hearthfires burning, all combined to something experienced rather than sensed.  This all really is a part of me, isn't it?

When Ila realized she had reached Mother's gate, she was momentarily disoriented.  Had she really just… daydreamed through half the village?  Just strolling idly, lost in thought while possibly being hunted by cranky relatives?  Gotta be more careful.  Good advice, especially here.  Stress manifested between her shoulder blades as soon as she passed into the compound, eyes trying to look everywhere at once.  She wasn't exactly on bad terms with her siblings or father, but one could never be too careful, especially this close to home.  Luckily none of them were in evidence, which meant no more excuses to avoid meeting with Mellura'thel.  Swearing beneath her breath, Ilandreline tossed open the door to the greenhouse without knocking.  "Mother, I- shit!"

She threw herself back out, then dove to one side.  Time away and nostalgia hadn't dulled her reflexes: the sight of Mellura'thel Glimmerbow spinning in fury at the interruption of her concentration was still a huge sign of possibly lethal consequences.  Scrambling back to her feet, Ila ran fullbore toward the house proper.  She almost made it.

While she generally preferred subtle methods, such as slow-acting poisons, Mellura'thel was still a highly skilled arcanist.  In situations where a poison wouldn't be reasonable, she could still ensure her ire was clear.  Currently this meant Ilandreline found herself lifted off her feet by heat-leeching tendrils of magic.  Wrapped around each limb, they pulled and pulled and pulled, until it felt like her joints were about to pop.  And were they still pulling?  She bit down hard on her lip, hoping not to scream when something finally tore.

The awful stretching stopped.  "Ilandreline?"  She was facing the wrong way, but she didn't have to see the look on her mother's face to know what it was when she heard her name in that tone.  "There are much more pleasant ways to die than bothering me while I'm working. Surely you recognize that.  I don't recall raising any simpletons."

"Sorry, Mother.  I wasn't thinking."  She was barely thinking now, either, unless it was about how breathing wrong might dislocate four joints at once.  "Do you think you could… let me down?  Walking is going to be real hard if my leg gets popped out of its socket."

The shadowy pseudopods lowered her to the ground instead of simply dropping her.  A surprise, to be sure, but welcome.  Ila turned, facing her mother with a sheepish smile.  "Thanks.  I hope I didn't ruin any of your work."

"I lost nothing but time."  That wasn't a killing offense.  Not by itself.  "Why are you back so soon, daughter?  I thought we agreed you were unlikely to return."

That was an interesting way to describe telling her daughter she didn't contribute positively to the community and therefore wasn't much use, but okay.  "I wanted-"  She stopped herself with a frown.  "No, I need to talk to Grandmother.  I thought about what you said and while I still think you're wrong, it brought up some other stuff."

The only hints at her total surprise were the raised eyebrows and two quick blinks.  "I see.  And you came here because…?"

"I thought it would be best to let you know I was here rather than waiting for you to find out later.  Or see me and suspect I was some kind of illusory spy."

"Reasonable," Mellura'thel admitted.  "Perhaps even wise.  You did not travel through the Nightwood this time, did you?"

Ila shook her head.

"Why not?"

Kind of a silly question, given how things had gone last time, to her mind.  "I wasn't sure my, uh, access was still valid.  I'm actually pretty sure the paths no longer recognize me as part of the family.  Rather than take that chance, I came the hard way, from the east."

A long silence.  "I think you made the right decision, if you insist on being here at all.  Did no one stop you at the barrier?"

"Tried.  Ignored me when I reminded him it was up to Grandmother to decide my fate, not some prick with a bow and a grudge."

Her mother's mouth bowed downward, an expression of distaste.  "The guardian claimed exemption from her rules?"

Sure did, didn't you, Teth?  "Said her opinions didn't matter since he worked for Grandfather."

"And what did you say in response?"

Ila shrugged.  "Not much.  Kicked him into a spike pit and broke his bow."

Was that a flash of amusement in Mother's eyes?  Maybe even pride?  "What else?"  Did you kill him, she was asking.

"Nothing."  She didn't need to know Ila had taken the ritual blade binding him to the family.  That was for Grandmother alone.  "He was unconscious and had a wooden spike through his arm, figured that was sufficient for the time being."

"Mm.  I've warned you about leaving enemies alive, daughter."

"And under normal circumstances you know I wouldn't have, but he was mostly within his rights.  Besides, given the… uncertainty… around whether I'm still part of the family, I figured it was best to leave the decision to Grandmother."

Though she grimaced, Mellura'thel agreed.  The family matriarch was an absolute terror to cross.  Very few survived the experience.  "I see.  That is a… not unreasonable opinion to hold.  The consequences would certainly be dire if you had done otherwise and been wrong."  She paused, then took Ila's hand in hers.  "I am glad you are making good decisions, daughter."

It was Ilandreline's turn to be bamboozled, staring at her mother as if she was now three-headed and shooting rainbows from her ears.  That was the closest she'd ever heard Mellura'thel get to saying something like "I love you."  The sensation was unnerving.  “I… thanks.  Um.  I should… go talk to Grandmother now, right?”  The thought of having to deal with parental affection was stressing her out.  It would be much better to be doing something else.

“Yes, I believe so.”  Perfect.  She’d just be on her way then, no more awkward feelings-  “I will take you there myself.”

“Buh?”  It wasn’t the most eloquent statement, but it did accurately express her mental state.  “Why?”

“I am your mother.  She is my mother.  This way there can be no question that you are under her protection -- and mine.  Come now.”  Mellura’thel began walking.  She was halfway across the courtyard before Ila was convinced this wasn’t some elaborate joke tapping into a sense of humour her mother had never before displayed.

Hurrying to catch up, which meant a peculiar gait incorporating the mild limp from her wounded leg, Ilandreline tried to think her way through this unexpected course of events.  It wasn’t easy; her mother was talking to her.  “Remind me who Teth is.”

“Why?”

“Because he has volunteered his life and I would like to remember who we are planning to give to the Great Dark.”

Oh, right.  That.  “Um.  Do you… do you remember when Von was going to be married?”  Von was her oldest sister.  “Her spouse-to-be was Teth’s sister.”

Peripheral vision showed Mother’s lips thinning as they pressed together.  Engagements were not uncommon, but their being ended was.  More often than not they were arranged by families in order to make or keep certain alliances.  Even though Ila hated politics, ignoring them was a recipe for disaster.

“I remember her.  Stella, yes?”

She shrugged.  “That’s what Von called her.  I’m sure she had a longer name, just like Teth does, but I don’t remember either of ‘em.”

“Immaterial.”  Mellura’thel’s hand waved it away.  “What matters is that Vondariel was right to end things.  I presume this ‘Teth’ felt some residual and misplaced anger at the familial shame resultant from her decision to terminate that relationship.”

Ila laughed nervously, deeply grateful her mother was bad at recognizing certain emotions.  Someone more perceptive -- namely the person they were on their way to see -- would have pulled from her the real reason behind Teth’s hatred.  It was only indirectly connected to Von and Stella.  Thankfully only she and Von knew the truth, and neither of them were going to share.  “Yeah, that’s… that’s probably it.”

There was no further conversation, praise the Dark.  They reached Grandmother’s without incident, at which point Mellura’thel held the gate open for her daughter.  She even smiled, at least to the extent she ever did.  Ila was sure she had to say something then, though she didn’t know what was happening.  “Thanks,” she said, trying to return the smile with one of her own.  “I, um, appreciate… this.”

“You are welcome, Ilandreline.  Return home when you are finished here.  You must tell me what Mother decides.”  She closed the gate between them before Ila could respond and immediately started back the way they’d come.

It wasn’t even a request.  She commanded it!  Shaking her head, thoroughly puzzled, Ila turned to her Grandmother’s door.  It looked harmless, but she knew very well what lurked behind that facade.  “This,” she reminded herself, “is exactly why I’m here.  Also possibly the worst idea I’ve ever had.”

Tasting fear when she swallowed, Ilandreline knocked on the door and waited.

***

Unlike a number of other relatives, Grandmother only made you wait if she wanted you to think about what you’d done.  That Ilandreline waited for less than a minute -- the approximate time one would expect it to take for an elderly woman with aching joints to put her knitting down, extricate herself from a cushioned chair, and cross the room, muttering mild oaths about both visitors and her knees all the while -- was a good sign as things went.  Unless Granny Laine was just that excited about the chance to ruin her life.  The old woman did take a certain joy in making sure she never had to teach anyone the same lesson twice.

The door, simple wood by appearance and so utterly benign to the peculiar sight of her family that Ila was absolutely certain the wards were incredibly brutal in addition to subtle, opened slowly to reveal the eldest of her relatives.  “My, my, my.  Ilandreline!  What a surprise!” she said, sounding entirely unsurprised.  “Come in, my dear.”

Ila did so, trying to keep herself together despite the storm of emotions.  Seeing her mother again, even lying to her, was a simple thing.  Being in proximity to Grandmother?  She managed to keep herself from trembling as she stepped into the small entryway.  There was a fire in the hearth down the hall, in the sitting room, its light near to blinding to her unshielded eyes.  The other opening from where she stood led to the kitchen.  She heard nothing from that direction but was willing to bet there was a pot of tea already prepared.

When the door shut again, the soft click of its latch sent a faint shiver down her spine.  You’re in it now.  Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she turned around.

The first thing most people noticed upon meeting Eldest Aurelaine, Voice of the Great Dark, was that she was old.  Not ageless, as many of her people were, not even weathered, but like a human in the late throes of senescence.  The beauty of youth, assuming she'd had it, was long gone.  In its wake was a slightly hunched, wizened figure, with fiercely glowing eyes of midnight.  What there was not was any sense of frailty; despite the wrinkles and sometimes sagging, sometimes too taut flesh, Aurelaine remained a figure of raw power.

Ila had no idea how old her grandmother really was, nor even if she was a blood relative.  It wasn't important, so she'd never wasted any time trying to find out.  Family was what they all were, in that they were united in faith and purpose.  At the same time, family was no protection or deterrent.  Love happened however it worked out for the involved parties, but partnering was often directed for certain purposes by the elders.  Same with the occasional murder/sacrifice.  (Killing in self-defense was acceptable, but always investigated; lying about it had… unpleasant results.)

"How've you been, child?  Has the larger world treated you right?"  The way Aurelaine asked suggested there would be consequences for Azeroth if it hadn't.  Perhaps that was a little girl's belief in the most trusted person in her life.  Then again, if anyone could threaten the whole planet…

Ilandreline drew back enough to look the matriarch in the eyes, not bothering to hold back her grin.  "Nothing I couldn't handle.  It's… a bit lonely, though.  I've made a few friends, I think, and they're better behaved than most people around here, but, you know… It's not the same."

An understanding nod.  "Leaving home is like that.  If you stay here long enough, though, you'll remember why you left.  That's why the saying goes how it does, why you can never go home again."  To another viewer, the way her lips pulled back may have looked malicious; Ila saw in it amusement instead.  "You're never the same person who left.  That's a good thing."

Before she could stop herself, Ila blurted, “But I’m here anyway, so is it really?”  Her mouth failed to close afterward, her brain having caught up too late to prevent anything.  She did bring a hand up, though, politely hiding her appalled gawping behind it.

“Oh, it’s good to have you back, little Lina,” the old woman said, a low chuckle working its way up from deep in her chest.  “You always bring excitement with you.  Come.  Sit.  There’s tea and cookies next to your chair.”

“I… what?  You… knew?”  Of course she knew, Grandmother always knew, but…

She prodded Ila in the soft flesh below her ribs, an almost gentle poke with her rather pointed finger.  “Of course I did, girl, don’t be silly.  I’ve known since the last Prelude Night that you’d be coming home soon.  How soon I wasn’t sure, not until that business down south.”  Still laughing to herself, Aurelaine ambled by, taking her own advice by heading for the sitting room.

Ilandreline found herself struck dumb for a moment, blinking at nothing as she grappled with the difference between expectation and reality.  If she’d been expected, then shouldn’t everyone have been reminded to let her in?  Or was that part of some test, too?  Was she being evaluated somehow?  That felt more like something Mother would have come up with, but surely she’d gotten it from somewhere.  Chewing her lip, she eyed Aurelaine for a moment before following.

For whatever reason, Granny Laine had always liked her.  Nobody knew why, but the matriarch of their family was not someone you questioned if you enjoyed living.  She was crafty, ruthless, and -- it was rumoured -- undying.  As in she couldn't die, not that she was in possession of immortality.  Few people were fool enough to test it and, of those who did, only Grandfather was still alive.  Assuming that one considered his unnatural state of being counted as “alive”.  If Granny was going to act like everything was okay, like this was a visit from her grandchild no different from any other, then… perhaps Ila could let go of some of the fear.  Or perhaps the tea and cookies would take care of that for her.

Conceding to the wisdom of her elder, Ilandreline followed after.  The firelight was enough to force her to squint for most of the way, but once she settled in, the light level seemed reasonable.  Ah, the screen isn’t high enough for that…  She frowned, thinking about the standing grate straining brightness for the eyes of the seated.  No, it is high enough, but only barely for her.  Anyone taller would be affected.  A defense mechanism, even here.  No wonder she was still alive.

The chair -- “your chair”, she’d said, granting it an unexpected level of personal relevance -- was as comfortable but smaller than she remembered.  No, that wasn’t quite right.  Ila was simply larger than she’d been in any of those memories.  As promised, there was a delicate porcelain cup and saucer, the former full of still-steaming tea.  Beside it was a small plate, simple stoneware, with an array of cookies on it.  Sweets were something she rarely trusted, but here…  She took one, halving it with a single bite.

For a moment she was a girl again, sharing the tiny cake she'd made with her favourite relative.  She'd made it herself, from scratch, with all ingredients but the most difficult collected on her own.  It hadn't been great, but Granny Laine knew how hard she'd tried.  The effort deserved praise, and that she wished to share was noteworthy.  Ila had gotten some very useful feedback that day, along with advice she hadn't understood at the time.  She'd remembered it all the same and was glad she had.

The present returned with a dizzying crash.  Setting aside the cookie for the moment, Ilandreline picked up cup and saucer, hoping she wouldn’t shake too much.  It was very noticeable if you did, and an irritating sound.  So far, so good.  A sip, to test the flavours and show her trust.  Then and only then could she let herself meet her grandmother’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she half-mumbled, not sure where to start.  “For, um, all this.”

Aurelaine’s amusement was expressed via snort rather than laughter, dark eyes glittering ominously above her own cup.  “Don’t thank me yet, child.  This isn’t a social call, you’re here for a reason.  I’m only putting you at ease so you can feel the right kind of fear later.”  There was her grin, properly discomfiting.  “We can do the smalltalk first, if you like, but if you’d prefer to get it out of the way now-”

“Yes, please!”  The words tumbled out without her conscious participation.  There was also an irritating rattling sound now.  Frowning, Ila glanced furtively about, trying to place the noise.  Oh.  Her hands were shaking, the cup and saucer clattering against one another.  The fear hadn’t left after all.  Deliberately setting them aside, she curled her hands into fists, digging nails into palms to help her focus.  “I… I want a place here.  My place here, I mean, not one Mother or someone else would have planned for me.”

A subtle movement in lieu of a nod.  “And what does that have to do with me?”  She sipped her tea calmly, in what would have been a pleasant scene for a painting what with the way the firelight danced and lit her profile, providing a sort of halo around the loose bun of iron-grey hair pinned atop her head.  “You said you wanted your place.”

Ila frowned, trying to get the tracks of her mind united on the single puzzle before her, how to talk to Grandmother.  “I do.”  She licked her lips, swallowed, exhaled.  Certain little acts were soothing.  Also the fingernails pressed harder against the soft flesh of her hands.  Focus, focus.  “What I mean is that my place in the family has to tie in with what you think of as my place, or else I’m… not really part of the family, am I?”

“Is that really what you think?”

“No,” she answered immediately, then flinched as she heard her word.

Cackling, Aurelaine placed her drink on the side table, rubbing her hands together as she hunched forward.  “I appreciate the honesty.  It was a good try, your explanation, the kind of thing your mother would approve of.  But you’re here with me, not her, so let’s try it one more time.  Why do you think your place here has anything to do with me?”

“Because you’re the only one who didn’t try to change me.”  She felt the truth of the statement in her bones, though she hadn’t realized she knew it.  “Mother wanted me to be like her.  Father didn’t care what I did so long as I wasn’t in his way.  Sandy and Von and all the rest… well.  We learned to live with each other with minimal bloodshed, but I’m not sure that counts as having a place.”

Silence and raised eyebrows.  The standard indicator that the question had not yet been answered.

“If I’m going to have any place here, it’s through you.  Not just because you seem to think there’s something about me worth caring for, but also because you’re the only one with enough influence to make everyone else understand I do belong.  I’m not a sacrifice waiting to be made, or a failure who’s going to weed herself out!  This is my family, too, and I deserve to be a part of it!”

Grandmother’s smile wasn’t menacing to Ila.  It was the same one more than a few relatives had seen right before their deaths, but that didn’t bother her.  She associated it with the best parts of her childhood rather than the last moments of lives.  This time, though, she sensed some kind of darkness to it, what she would have called a spiritual chill if she’d been more inclined to faith.

“You’re right, dear girl.  On all counts.  And that’s the cleverness I’ve always liked about you.  You know the rules of the games, know you have to play them even if you don’t like them.  You’re a survivor who knows better than to fight a system that would destroy you.  But there’s more to it than that.”  She leaned back finally, relaxing into the padding of her chair, fingertips curling like talons over its cushioned arms.  “How long has it been since you’ve heard the voices, Lina?”

The question was so unexpected it left her at a loss for long seconds, scrambling to process and find the answer.  “I… I don’t know?  Other than the, um, couple times recently when I used the knife, it’s been…”  She looked up at the plain ceiling, not really seeing the thick beam supports as she made referential calculations.  “Since the nightmares stopped.  That first year after Consecration, I think.”

“Are you sure?  You stopped hearing them so long ago and haven’t heard them since?”  The question had the hallmarks of a trap, but she couldn’t understand how it could be.

“I… Yes?  I’m fairly sure.  The nightmares and the voices were all part of the same thing, so once I learned to tune them out, I-”  She stopped, teeth clicking as they came together.  Trap sprung.

Soft laughter from across the room.  “They’re still there, aren’t they?”

Ilandreline nodded, not trusting herself to speak, not knowing what she would say even if she did.

“And you’ve always avoided the little... perks... of your heritage ever since then, haven’t you?  Because you knew that if you opened up, even a tiny bit, you’d hear them again.  The dreams would come back.  Isn’t that right?”

More wordless agreement.

“You’ve proven you have the will, child.  Most of the others went mad, but you learned to shut them out.  There aren’t many like us, you know.”  Granny Laine stood then, with obvious effort, crossing the space between to put a gnarled hand beneath her granddaughter’s chin, tilting her head up to look her in the eye with uncomfortable intensity.  “That’s why I gave you my knife at your Consecration, Lina.  That’s why you’ve been allowed to be yourself for so long.  I wanted to see where you’d go with that freedom, what you’d do with it.  And it’s brought you back here, hasn’t it?  Here to us, to me, asking for help to find what’s been missing from your life for so long.  Your place, yes?”

There was a yawning precipice before her, Ilandreline knew.  Her grandmother was almost certainly about to push her over and into it.  The question was whether she would also catch her.

“If you want to know how I see you, you’ll have to spend some time here.  I don’t take apprentices often.  Or lightly.  Ours isn’t an easy faith to administer, after all.”

“H-how long?  To stay, I mean.  I have friends, you know, and they’re probably going to wonder where I am if I-”

Aurelaine squeezed her jaw -- gently, but enough to stop her talking.  “It won’t be all at once.  Stay the week, eh?  If you’re still sane at the end of it, we’ll talk about when your proper lessons will begin.”

A week.  She could do a week.  Probably.  Ila nodded, barely shifting the surprisingly strong grip of the Eldest.  “I… alright.  As long as you answer my questions.”

“Of course.”  Grandmother’s voice softened, lowered, until it would have easily been lost amongst the whispers Ilandreline had ceased noticing.  “But you’ll regret asking them when I do.”

[edmund-valks]

More like “Light’s NOPE”, Pt. 1

Remington hadn't been putting her on -- the tents really did pitch themselves with a generous watering. Not that she'd distrusted the Forsaken, but Ilandreline found the concept of tents in pots to be weird enough to doubt there wasn't an obscure joke she was missing. But they worked and, as she'd determined empirically, they were not immune to a good knifing in case of unplanned desiccation.

The only difficult part of the setup was getting one inside the other. Maybe she should've watered the second after positioning it inside the first? That could've left an awkward amount of moisture stuck between the two layers, though. Pitching both and then wedging one into the other was probably the best solution, even if it had been a little frustrating.

Regardless, it had all worked out. She was happily inside not one but two layers of light-blocking, waterproofed material, and having two sets of tent flaps meant twice as much warning before someone rudely barged in. Plenty of time to get things looking less suspicious if needed. Not that she was doing anything bad, but there were certain things she did that others found a bit off-putting. No reason to potentially upset their friendly hosts.

Ila had said she was going to bed when she'd exited the conversation in the chapel. That had been her intention, sort of, but now that she was in a small, dark space with her goggles off and a puzzle to work through, sleep wasn't on her priority list at all. The circles were beginning to take place, sketched in pencil within her notebook, concentric and perhaps a third filled in at this point. There was a lot going on, so she'd drawn the layout from an angled view, letting her scribble power balances in the margins. Theory was you could make as many nested circles as you wanted, provided you balanced the total magical flux appropriately, with a net in/out arcana disparity of as close to zero as possible. The fun part was trying to determine the actual likelihood of catastrophic failure understanding that even one-tenth of one percent of net flux could result in devastation when propagated through the system. If her calculations so far were correct, that would probably kill everyone in the immediate area and possibly collapse the nearest tower; probably best to avoid that.

How to, though? Blood would help for sure, though how much she could get hold of was worrying. It was a great buffer with so many applications, but it got a bad reputation because it was hard to gather in a way that didn't upset the donors. People noticed more if you swiped a little blood than they did when you pulled an apple from an orchard. She didn't exactly blame them, even if it was really inconvenient.

Ilandreline blinked twice, refocused herself. What other materials did she need? Powdered silver was good -- the Argents seemed to have plenty on hand, which made sense in a very literal way -- as was diamond dust, if she could convince someone to part with it. Iron filings were easy to come by, plus she could cannibalize the contents of her satchel to make enough if she had to. Other than the iron knife -- which she always carried, for exactly the reasons one would expect -- she couldn't think of anything else critical. There were some nice-to-haves which she'd include if they were around but the list was good enough for the moment.

A few more sigils suggested themselves, so Ilandreline penciled them in where she figured they'd do best. Checking the new flux rates, she sucked in her breath. Yikes. Time to find some counterforce, material mitigation would never be able to take on that much. What was good for that? She checked the index of her reference time, then flipped to a new section of tables.

Several hours, and a lot of erasing, later, she yawned, putting her pencil down. There was a ninety percent solution in her book now, with a low enough flux it wasn't impossible to account for using what she thought she'd have on hand. Crinkling her nose, Ila sighed at the current system's error margins. It was still super dangerous to be around, honestly, but there was no easy solution to that. Unless…

No, home wouldn't do. Even if she could get there and back in time, there was no guarantee she'd survive the visit. Too bad; there were a lot of great reagents to be borrowed from the family cabinets, especially stuff that was hard to get out where people had more traditional morality.

She was all set to turn away from the thought when it sparked something. Maybe she didn't need to go home to get one of those. Maybe all she needed to do was find the right kind of local cult. Surely the Plaguelands were still full of cultists. Everywhere was these days, why would this place be any different?

Gathering the relevant implements, Ila slipped out of her tents, just another shadow in the night. Her hide and seek skills had been tempered in the brutal crucible of her family, so surely evading a few crusaders wouldn't be too difficult. Provided she could avoid whistling, of course, and that the murderous piper wasn't stalking her specifically.

And to think she'd once doubted life away from home could be so exciting!

[edmund-valks]

A Family Reunion - Part I

Traveling the Ghostlands on foot was always an experience, and never the good kind.  Under the circumstances, a trip through the Nightwood was probably inadvisable, so she'd had to ask Miss Winford for the favour of a portal. Hopefully she'd be taking the Nightwood back, though.  Otherwise the trip home was probably wasted and returning to the Respite would take far longer than she'd planned for.

So far she'd had to kill several large spiders, one troll she regrettably had no way to collect pieces from, and a small batch of the angry dead.  Not the high-quality kind, thankfully, so it had barely dented her small stash of grenades.  The Scourge really only cared about numbers, not the craft, which was kind of upsetting on a personal level, even if she understood it from a waging-war-on-all-life perspective.

But that wasn't her problem.  Right now she had to decide the best way to approach her homeland, meaning the way that was least likely to get her killed.  The easiest paths were closed to her, and even the hard ways had little trinkets one could use to make them easier.  She had none.  She'd never needed them before, so she hadn't thought to palm a few during her previous visit.

Still.  Here she was.  The portal hadn't been a disaster, she was unharmed, and the western border of what Quel'thalas tried and failed to claim was before her.  That was the real danger, not stray nerubians or mummified trolls.  It was where her family lived and they were not fond of visitors.

Gear check, she thought.  Last chance to remember where everything is in an emergency.  One eye on the invisible line separating the Ghostlands from her childhood home, Ilandreline knelt down to make sure what she needed was where she'd find it.

Her family knife was on her belt, resting lightly alongside the leg of the coverall she'd worn.  That was the most important thing, but it was hardly her only weapon.  Two smaller knives of less sentimental value were stashed in the sleeves of her kodohide bike jacket, one in each.  There were four small grenades remaining: one frag, one smoke, two blinding.  She put the last two on her belt, opposite the ritual blade.  The others could stay in the satchel.

Everything else was boring: a change of clothes, food, water, a multitool, two half-pint jars of viscous purple liquid.  Oh, and that handy preparation Miss Winford had given her back in the Plaguelands.  She tucked the vial into one of her more accessible pockets.  Never knew when something like that would come in handy.

Content with her accounting and organization, Ilandreline took a few minutes more to arrange her bags and pack properly.  A lot of people didn't realize how easily you could die if you weren't willing (and able) to abandon your possessions.  Especially here.  She idly wondered how many of the elves over in Tranquillien had found that out.  There were only a few she remembered being brought in to join the Endless Dark, but the forest was hostile enough even before her family got involved.

Enough stalling.  With one more tug on the backpack's straps to get them just right, Ila squared her shoulders.  You can do this.  You've done it before.  Except before she wasn't trying to sneak in to talk to her grandmother.  Before she'd been sure the forest knew she belonged.  Before she hadn't been truly alone.

"Fuck 'em," she said aloud.  "Let 'em try and stop me."  She broke into a sustainable jog, waiting until the uncanny darkness had swallowed her before removing her goggles.  Some things could only be seen by the eyes of a Glimmerbow, and those were always the most dangerous.

***

Things had changed in the last fifty years.

The possibility hadn't really occurred to her -- planning wasn't exactly her strong suit -- and now she was regretting it.  What should have been an easy trip among undead patrols and the occasional angry shade had turned into a constant game of evasion and guerilla strikes to keep from being clobbered by angry bones.  Ila deeply regretted leaving her largest wrench at the farm; it was perfect for bashing skeletons into pieces.  It was also too heavy for extended use and detrimental to any attempt at stealth.

For the moment she was catching her breath in the lower branches of a tree.  What kind, she didn't know.  It was too twisted by local conditions to recognize unless you were really into trees.  Meaning her mother would know.  Not that Ilandreline had any plan on asking her about it, but… She sighed.  Wasn't there supposed to be some deep, unbreakable bond between mother and daughter?  She was fairly certain there was, but Mellura'thel must've missed the memo.  Unless it's my fault, I guess.  That wasn't a great thought, so she pushed it away.

Focus.  There were several shades she could see, drifting aimlessly through the trees.  Though they looked harmless, she knew they would either try to possess her or leech all the warmth from her body.  They didn't recognize family members, couldn't distinguish those who belonged from those who didn't.  Such an oversight seemed careless until one remembered their relatives were possibly more dangerous than whatever was in the woods.

A more traditional member of the family wouldn't be threatened by most of these creatures anyway.  Everyone had a basic knowledge of necromancy, at least enough to chastise an angry shade.  Even Ila could have managed it if she'd had any spark of magic; she knew enough theory to where she probably could have taught someone else how.  That wasn't an option, though, so here she was, perched in a tree, trying to figure out how to avoid dying to a distant cousin's creations.

Grenades weren't much use against the ethereal, nor were knives.  She could have probably cobbled together an ectoplasmic disruptor in her lab, but that wasn't much help in the present.  That left only a few workable options.  She processed them as she would any other list of branch-paths.

One: don't get seen or caught.  Pros: effective, requires no equipment.  Cons: really damn hard to manage, no backup if it went wrong.

Two: leave and go back to the Respite.  Pros: low risk, nicer people, could prepare and come back later.  Cons: lots of wasted time, would have to get close to either Silvermoon or the Argent Crusade, wouldn't actually help literally anything.

Three: sprint.  Pros: will be over fast one way or the other, exercise is good.  Cons: terrible idea even by her often questionable standards, likely to get her killed, would do nothing to address the threat of the area's living defenders.

None were great; she wasn't sure any were good.  Choosing between three flavours of awful wasn't ideal, but it had to be done.  Option Two was out, meaning… Option One, with Option Three as the contingency?  She grimaced, washed down some of her trail rations with a mouthful of water, and started mapping her route through the patrolling horrors.

The only good news was there wouldn't be any mechanical traps.  She hadn't installed them, therefore they didn't exist.  Magical traps, however, were almost a guarantee, along with mundane things like hunting snares.  Those were fine.  They were intended to take people alive, unlike everything before them.  Even if she got caught at that point, she could probably argue her way out of consequences.  Probably.

Committed to her decision, a path chosen, Ilandreline waited for the nearest shade to be safely distant before dropping back to the ground.  She rolled to ease the shock to her legs.  Just like when we were kids.  Then she was on her feet, moving with as much speed as she could manage in some kind of silence.

Most people assumed shades could hear as well as the average person.  More learned individuals knew their residing in an ethereal state left them cut off from such physical phenomena.  Both were wrong.  They could hear, but it was like through a heavy fog or maybe a blanket.  That meant you could get away with a certain amount of noise, just not being in their field of view.  Precisely what amount was a bit nebulous, but that's what made it so exciting.  Like when you weren't sure what kind of game you were playing or if the other kids had brought daggers without telling you.

She'd been very good at these games as a child, before she'd understood the stakes.  Nowadays she was better prepared; hopefully that would minimize the impact of being a bit rusty.  Sneaking around Ashenvale or Andorhal wasn't quite the same life-or-death situation as the family's summer night festivities.  Those experiences were why she kept her hair too short to get in her eyes, why she always wore something more form-fitting under her robes.  Why she always carried a knife, too.

That served her well now.  She avoided the first of the shades without incident and began picking her way through the next one's path.  Line of sight was a double-edged sword: she didn't want to be seen, but it also meant she couldn't be certain the entity was going where she expected.  Her heartbeat was louder in her ears than her footsteps, strong and rapid with the influx of adrenaline.  The effect warped time as well -- every moment without knowing where the shade was stretched into eternity, every one where it was visible infinitely shorter than needed.

But suddenly she was through the second ring, moving into what she hoped was still the last of the minion-patrolled sections.  In fits and starts she moved from tree to tree, barely breathing.  Her footsteps weren't silent, but light enough to avoid complications.  Somehow, some way, she didn't snap a branch or fall on her face.  The shiver of passing through the barrier came over her and… that was that.  The undead and shadow creatures were on the other side, couldn't sense her any longer.  Relief flooded her, premature though she knew it was.  Whatever happened next wasn't going to involve having her soul sucked out through her eyeballs or whatever.  Not without an argument, at least.

Exhaling all the stress and fear she hadn't been entirely conscious of, Ilandreline took a step forward, almost smiling for the half second she had before she felt the trap under her foot.  Despite instantly pulling her foot back, she wasn't fast enough to avoid the curl of wire going taut around her ankle.  Only the durable fabric of her jumpsuit and the fact she stopped moving immediately kept the sharpened filament from actually cutting into her ankle.  Swearing, she knelt down to check for a way to extricate herself without sawing off the whole foot.

The mechanism was simple -- it had to be since it was being made by Jaelenash, and he was a competent smith, not a good one -- but she needed to make sure whoever designed it wasn't smarter than she was.  For instance, if it was one of her traps, there'd be an obvious way to disarm it that would actually be a trap of its own.  Ila sighed, regretting on her family's behalf what they'd missed out on when nobody had taken her chosen profession seriously.  She pulled the multitool from its sheath on her belt, unfolding it to get what she needed.  Taking out the wire wasn't easy without causing damage, so she'd have to work on the frame holding everything together.  If she put the blade there and then twisted like so-

Thrum.

Her whole body went flat reflexively.  The razor-snare sheared through the canvas with the new motion, digging painfully into the flesh inches above her ankle, but at least the arrow missed.  It passed through where she'd been, so well-aimed she watched it pass directly overhead.  Black fletching, tiger stripes in alternating red and silver.  She knew those arrows.  "Put it away, Teth!  I'm here to see Grandmother!"

She heard quiet swearing, giving her the chance to snip the metal loop that had given her a bloody leg.  He didn't need to know that, though.  Ila peeked her head up from the undergrowth, looking for her distant relation.  Where was he hiding?  It wasn't clear he intended to stop trying to put arrows in her, so figuring where he was seemed important.  She slipped a decent length of the trap-wire into a pocket while she searched.  No reason to let it go to waste.

"You really going to kill a family member, Teth?  Particularly one who declared her purpose and just wants to see Grandmother?"  The answer was probably yes, but asking was polite.  The engineer eased her sight above the plant cover with trepidation, trying to watch every direction at once.

Once again her hearing saved her life.  She heard the bow creak as he drew the arrow back, could almost visualize the whole scene.  There you are.  Her roll started right before he loosed, giving plenty of space to the shot.  It would have been safest to stop behind the nearest tree, but she kept rolling sideways until she was at the one after.  Should give her a good angle.

"You're not family," he said, sounding annoyed.  Petulant, maybe?  "For all I know you're wearing that form to sneak in and kill us."

That was bullshit and he knew it.  Not because it hadn't happened -- it had, but back when Mellura'thel was still on her first (or was it second?) husband.  They'd fixed that gap in their defenses afterward.  The shades and the barrier were the result.  Pointing her mouth away from where she intended to be, she responded.  "Of course I'm family, we used to play hide and seek here.  You, me, our brothers and sisters.  How is your sister, anyway?  She still got that fungal thing in her leg?"  That earned her another arrow, but it was way off the mark.  Grinning to herself, she scurried toward another hiding space.

Closer, not yet close enough.  She knew where Teth was, even if she couldn't remember his full name.  He didn't seem to realize she was more behind him than in front.  Good.  Gave her time to figure out what the correct social response was under the circumstances.  It was considered very rude to kill someone for doubting you were family, but did that apply here?  He knew she was.  Hell, he'd given her brother a scar, and their sisters had been engaged briefly.  So he definitely shouldn't be killing her, but did that mean she had to keep him alive?  Probably.  Again, rude to kill family, regardless of circumstance.  She sighed silently.

"Don't you dare talk about my sister," he growled, treading carefully through the knee-high brush.  As she watched, he abruptly shifted direction, apparently curving around something.  Interesting; another trap, if she had to guess.  "Your whole family lost that right years ago."

What?  Oh, right!  She'd forgotten how that engagement had ended.  It hadn't been pretty.  Unless she was misremembering, that had been when his little brother had died.  Not a big loss, to her mind, but he probably felt otherwise.  Although that did give her an idea…  "Fine, fine.  What about Glairien, then?  How's he doing?"

He spun suddenly, drilling an arrow dead center into the tree she'd skipped over.  A quick assessment of his face suggested a pictorial reference for the phrase "contorted in rage".  Great, you pissed him off.  Could be for the best, though.  An angry person made mistakes a cooler head wouldn't.  "You'll die for that, Ilandreline, as all of you should have back then!"

Diplomacy was definitely out.  Probably mentioning the dead brother wasn't the best idea, despite the effectiveness at getting a response.  That left one more thing to try before she could act freely.  "Oh, right, sorry.  I forgot."  She hadn't.  Glairien had been an absolute prick and if they hadn't killed him, someone else would have.  "You sure you want to piss off Grandmother, though?  You know how she gets when someone goes against her, and she's made it clear she's the only one who gets to decide if someone meets with her."

"I don't need her permission to defend my home.  She knows better than to get in Grandfather's way."

Ah.  So that was it.  The old game continued.  He -- so his whole family-group, most likely -- was on the other side.  No wonder his brother had been so awful.  She grabbed a length of fallen branch at the same time she pulled a blinding grenade from her belt.  Ila tossed both in quick succession, the first to make noise to get his attention (success!), the second to ruin his vision.  His scream after the detonation indicated it had worked.

She charged from her hiding spot, making more noise than intended.  He shot another arrow, blind as he was.  It wasn't even a bad shot, but it deflected off the reinforced shoulders of her jacket.  Committed as she was, Ilandreline didn't slow, gritting her teeth through the stinging pain in her leg from where the trap had cut her.

A better fighter might have performed some graceful or devastating maneuver to end the fight in a single blow.  What she did was execute a flying two-legged dropkick directly into his sternum.  His bow and breath departed in opposite directions from his body, which flew back.  Teth landed with a heavy thump and the sound of a thin covering giving way.  A split-second later there was another, wetter sound.  No screaming though, surprisingly.

Slinking over to the area where her cousin had disappeared into the pit trap he'd avoided earlier, Ilandreline took a peek at her handiwork.  About two meters below the surface she stood on, he lay in a semi-crumpled heap, unconscious.  There was a length of sharpened wood -- many, really, but only one he'd managed to land on -- through the middle of his forearm.  Clear through, having slid between the bones and broken them in the process, by the look of things.  No wonder he hadn't screamed; he'd probably gone into shock before the landing had concussed him.

For a moment, she considered hopping in to help him.  Whether she meant help him live or into the next life, she couldn't decide, so she decided to pass on it altogether.  She'd been taught to never be indecisive about treatment.  Reason enough not to do any treating in this case.  What she did do was take his knife.  And break his bow, of course, because fuck him.

Having received the warm welcome she'd expected, Ila hurried off into the deeper territory, where Grandmother held more sway and people might think she should be taken alive.

[edmund-valks]

More like “Light’s NOPE”, Pt 2

(( CN: ritual sacrifice ))

If one knew how to listen, there were whispers that could tell quite a bit.  Sometimes it was cryptic, sometimes boring, but every once in a great while it was exactly what you needed.  Ilandreline moved quickly over the plagued terrain, her vision completely unaffected by the night’s darkness, following the surprisingly loud whispers.  They’d been doing that recently, for some reason.  She’d have to look into why, just… not now.  Not here, for sure, and definitely not while surrounded by a bunch of paladins or whatever an Argent Crusader was.

She didn’t bother watching the sky.  The chances of the birdomancer chasing her specifically were quite low.  Odds of his even knowing where she was if he were?  Probably even lower.  There were certain perks to being part of her family, among them a certain tendency toward nondetectability.  Shrouding or whatever you wanted to call it, the Eternal Dark took care of its own.  Frequently that meant keeping them from being found.

The inchoate whispers drew her onward, their words incomprehensible.  She still knew what they meant, though.  They were a beacon, a sign that what she wanted, what she needed, lay in this direction.  Handy, that, and reason enough to make the occasional blood offering in order to stay on its good side.

Ilandreline drifted wide around a patch of roaming Scourge.  If she stayed far enough away they wouldn’t catch her scent -- something the shroud didn’t hide -- and the distance would make them less likely to see through whatever power it was that made her so… unobtrusive.  It added a quarter-hour to her trip, but it was like the saying went: better than dying!

Following the voices’ advice, she found herself descending into a seemingly abandoned crypt.  It wasn’t, she was sure.  They never were, ‘round these parts.  Plus she wouldn’t have been led here if it was, “solitude” wasn’t what she needed right now.  The light level actually increased as she went further down, confirming her assumption.  Someone was in here, probably calling on something they shouldn’t.  Ila took extra care to be lightfooted as she neared the bottom of the stairway.  It was never a good idea to announce your presence to the unexpecting, after all.

After a short distance, she turned again, descending more stairs.  What she assumed was torchlight continued to brighten, the susurrus in her mind growing into a dull roar.  So close, it seemed to be saying now, breathy and enticing.  So very, very close.  She reached the last step, took one more to the floor below, and-

Silence.

No, not silence, just the sensation of it.  Her guiding whispers had left her.  Someone was speaking softly, almost certainly the figure before her.  A torch crackled as it burned.  The elf crept closer, hand tight around the grip of her wrench.  Her hearing adjusted as her eyes hadn’t needed to.  The human before her, robed, arms outstretched in supplication, wasn’t talking but rather chanting.  She could hear the words now, knew they weren’t in Common.

“Give me a sign, O Great One,” he begged, his accent so distracting she almost couldn’t process what he said.  The language of the Endless Dark was supposed to be fluid, rasping, evanescent.  His human tongue managed none of those.  “In your name have I made the offerings, to your glory have I given.  Speak to me.  Name the service you require.”

Ilandreline didn’t even consider her next act as potential blasphemy.  There was no such concept applicable to her family’s faith anyway.  It was hard to even understand what the word was supposed to mean after you’d been served a relative’s heart as part of a religious festival.  She wrapped her other hand around the wrench for the extra force and swung it directly into the back of the man’s skull.

***

She’d worked quickly, as she’d known she would have to.  Rope to bind, strengthened by the sinews of previous sacrifices.  An assortment of vessels, all thick-walled and wrapped in cloth to ensure they would survive a trip in her satchel.  The candle.  He’d helpfully prepared the altar before her arrival, so she didn’t even have to set one up.

By the time the cultist had awakened, he was properly positioned, bent backward over the stone bier he’d decorated.  Ilandreline had set her goggles aside earlier.  This was holy work, after all.  Everything was prepared, ritually speaking, though the centerpiece was groaning as he returned to consciousness.  It wouldn’t be too much longer before he opened his eyes, not with all the blood slowly collecting in his head.

Her shadowed gaze met his.  “You’ve been chosen,” she said, the language flowing from her as they hadn’t from his clumsy tongue.  “You asked for a sign and you have received.  Congratulations.”

It was the proper formula.  She’d seen it enough, even performed it before, but perhaps this one had not.  His eyes opened wider, filling with… panic?  It should have been elation.  “Wh-what?  Who are you?  What are you doing?”

Ilandreline blinked once, then a second time.  Switching to the human language he’d used, she answered.  “I’m what you asked for.  The powers you called have answered.”  She gave him a smile, hoping that would calm his nerves a little.  This could be very unsettling, under the circumstances.  Especially since she’d clubbed him over the head instead of using something more traditional, like that numbing poison that left the victim aware but completely immobile.

“That can’t be true.  Why am I tied up like this?  My works were meant to bring me power, that I might rise above others and bask in the Great One’s glory!”

She nodded.  “I know.  It worked.  You’ve been empowered and called to service.  That’s how it works, you see.”  Kneeling down, she shifted the first container slightly, adjusted the positioning of the funnel.

“Don’t worry,” she added, “you’ll be received with honour when the Long Night comes.  Your acts of dedication will not be forgotten.”

Whatever he said next she ignored.  It lacked meaning, really, being made of basal urges and fear and unseemly begging.  The candle was lit.  She placed the tip of the iron knife against her thumb, pressed the later down until she felt the piercing of skin.  A single drop, ruby-red and darkly gleaming, fed the flame.  “Our gift to you, this living blood,” she whispered in a language older than even the Kaldorei.  “A reminder of our bonds.  Our sacrifice is your gain.”

The human had finally stopped his blathering.  His eyes were on her now, somehow even wider than before, mouth soundlessly gaping.  Ila nodded at him, smiling again.  He was beginning to understand.

She bent down, bringing her hand close to his face, hovering over it.  A gentle squeeze and another drip of blood fell.  It landed beside his nose, slid downward inexorably though he tried to shake his head and blink it away.  When it entered his left eye, he squeezed the lid shut, gasping.

“The second consecrates the offering.”  The recitation was easy, seeming to draw itself from her memory without effort on her part.

“The third sanctifies the blade.”  Another liquid gem, landing on the knife’s blade.  It sank into the iron instead of running down it, like a raindrop into desert sand.

The next went into the candle again, as it had during Prelude Night.  And as it had during Prelude Night, the falling blood stopped for a split-second above the flame, hovering… and then consumed.  A sign of acceptance, of favour.  “Four for four, given by one.”

Her thumb pressed into the candle’s burning wick, searing the wound closed.  “Less than five, greater by far.  Where there are four, there shall be no fifth.”  No more of her blood would be given this night.

Ilandreline moved in the lightlessness as easily as most people did under the noonday sun.  The human’s eyes never left her, she noticed, meaning he had truly been blessed.  The rite had begun.  Now all she had to do was finish it.

“After life,” she spoke softly, a mother soothing her child, “beyond death, the Long Night comes.”

Her hand rested against the warmth of his neck.  His pulse pounded beneath her palm.  A strong heart, yet full of fear.  Not for long, though.  Not for long.

“We kill to serve.”

A quick stroke of the blade.

“We bleed to serve.”

The first vessel began to fill, a stream of life flowing from his final act of service.

“Through your sacrifice, the light may die at last.”

She smiled at him again, nodded.  His eyelids fluttered, then closed as the Eternal Dark welcomed him home.

[edmund-valks]

More like “Light’s NOPE”, Pt 3

Thanks to gravity and not being a perfectionist, it didn’t take long to reach the point where Ilandreline had “collected” enough.  The jars were full, so she stoppered and latched them, carefully packing them away before taking care of the leftovers.  She kept the candle, of course, and several trinkets she’d found on the man.  His coin purse, too, since he certainly had no use for it at this point.

The toughest decision was whether to burn the body.  It seemed like such a waste, but she couldn’t exactly bring it back to the chapel without having to answer a lot more questions than she wanted.  Leaving it behind wasn’t a great option either; corpses in the plaguelands tended to end up walking, given enough time, and the world didn’t really need another soulless husk.  Decisions, decisions….

All told, she’d spent under two hours in the crypt.  The time had been used efficiently, her satchel was much heavier now with the necessary reagents, and it was extremely unlikely anyone would be able to raise the dead man.  There was small chance of even getting a skeleton from it; she’d taken a few minutes to shatter the ribcage into pieces, just in case.

With one last look at the scene, Ila nodded her approval.  Everything was as good as it could be, time and circumstance willing.  Humming a jaunty tune, she turned about, placing a foot on the stairway.  Another step and-

She blinked, wondering how she’d ended up outside so fast.  Looking over her shoulder, there was no sign of the crypt… or anything else she associated with the plaguelands.  Odd, for certain, but still not the weirdest thing that had happened to her.  She looked to the sky to get her bearings.

The moon above wasn’t the typical one.  It was too large, for one, and seemed a bit bulbous.  A dark band, fatter in the middle than near the ends, tapered to two points, slide like a shadow onto it.

An eye, she thought.  A big orange eye, that’s what it looked like.  No stars, though, which was a little peculiar on a night with no clouds in the sky.

Wait, no.  Try again.

Frowning, Ilandreline looked to the empty heavens, ignoring the eye-moon for a moment.  There had to be stars out there.  After a moment, she breathed more easily, seeing them come out at last.  A nice red one was first, then another red one.  Then an orange one.  And another red and another orange.  Soon she found herself looking up at an endless sea of stars, stars suddenly manifesting their own slitted pupils, much like the moon had.

She licked her lips, realizing abruptly what was happening.  It certainly explained the loudness of the whispers in recent days: the Sleeper in the Depths had awakened.  Now it saw her, thanks to what she had interrupted and what she had done.  The eye-moon blinked, the occulting lids seemingly edged with elongated teeth.

YOU ARE KNOWN TO US.  The sensation was of a whisper so loud it almost hurt, composed of more voices than any thousand throats could make.  YOU WERE KNOWN BEFORE, YOU ARE KNOWN NOW.  YOU HAVE TAKEN.

Of course she had.  What kind of a greeting was that?  She felt her brow furrowing in mild consternation.  “Of course I did,” she said, offering no honourific or introduction.  “I had a need and there was an offer to serve.”

She hoped nobody saw her there, looking a fool as she talked to a sky full of eyes.

HE WAS MINE.

“And now what’s left of him on this plane is mine.  I made sure you got the rest.”  Ila glanced toward the horizon.  Was it lightening yet?  Hopefully not, she still had to get back to the chapel and pretend she’d slept.  Preferably before Remington noticed she’d been gone, assuming that was possible.

YOUR BLOOD WILL ANSWER FOR ITS DEDICATION.  SOON.  THE CITY AWAKENS.

Well, yes, that seemed obvious given her current experience.  Did that mean the last of the Four was going to ascend somehow, reach directly into the world again?  Her mother would know; perhaps she should write and ask.  “I… see.  Speaking of which, so will all the people I’m trying to hide from if I don’t get back soon.  Can we finish this discussion another time?”

The toothed eye blinked once, gazing balefully upon her from on high.  THE LONG NIGHT COMES, FAITHFUL ONE.  PREPARE.

“I don’t really-”  She stopped, nearly stumbled as her foot landed on a stair she hadn’t been expecting.  Back in the crypt then.  That must have been one of those… in-the-head experiences she’d heard about.  The Long Night really was coming then, if an emissary of the Four could speak to her so directly.

“Well, shit.”  Ilandreline sighed, shaking her head.  “That’s… extremely inconvenient.”

Pulling a watch from her pocket, she checked the time.  Then she checked it again before realizing she’d forgotten to wind the damned thing, so it had stopped.  Before she put it away, though, she angled the glass-covered face over her shoulder, toward the former altar.  No angry spirits there, just a shadowy figure emptying the blood from a man in the full regalia of a cult-priest.  Oh well, at least it didn’t look like her.

Uncertain how much time she had left, Ilandreline hurried out of the empty tomb, balancing stealth and speed as best she could.

[edmund-valks]

A Post-Mortem, So To Speak

Sometimes simple objects had surprising history.  Her childhood had been a long lesson in not judging things by their appearances, so this was not news to her.  She just hadn't expected it to apply to the old knife she'd received from Granny Laine after her Consecration.

The iron blade was worn and rough, not to mention bad at keeping an edge.  That, a young Ilandreline had been informed, was to ensure the bearer kept it always in mind.  When you needed it, you needed it ready.  That meant near daily attention to ensure its sharpness.  There was nothing otherwise special about it that Granny had mentioned.  When the time had come to conduct her first Celebration, the rite had gone exactly as any other.  The other night, however…

As a rule, only the offerer's blood was consumed by the blade, and even then only during specific moments of ritual.  Hers had decided to go a bit farther this last time, absorbing the excess from the offering before she had a chance to wipe it clean.  Probabilistically speaking, she was sure that counted as an omen.  The problem was, Ila hadn't paid much attention to the Signs and Portents segment of her religious education.

Her mother would know.  That was sort of her thing, keeping the traditions alive and well.  She also had the thankless task of updating them to stay current in a world that had altered drastically in a single generation.  The Dark Portal had changed things, apparently.  Not as much as outsiders might expect, but enough to cause some discord with the older folk who hated having to adapt to anything new.

The problem with her mother -- okay, one of the problems with her mother -- was that she was back home and Ila was… not.  If she wanted a proper consultation on how current events intersected with the family faith, she’d have to take a trip of questionable duration and with a nonzero chance of death.  Was that really worth it?

Ilandreline chewed on a tough strip of dried meat, considering the knife as it lay on her workbench.  She could probably leave it be, ignore the questions completely.  Assuming she could resist the temptation of getting answers, which she generally could not, and that it wouldn't somehow come back to bite her later, which she was fairly certain was not going to be the case.

Memorizing the rites was easy, as was being part of the congregation when you knew how they worked.  But Ila knew they were reliable now, which made them a bit more science-y and a little less faith-y than she'd always assumed.  While she had never really questioned her family's beliefs, that wasn't the same as seeing them manifest results.  There'd been plenty of sacrifices, sure, and they'd always produced effects, but she'd assumed that had more to do with the Darkspeakers being talented summoners.  She knew she was not; that her ritual had produced a tangible change was… unexpected.

Unnerving, too, if she was being honest.  Better than most, Ilandreline was aware that magic was nothing more than a highly encoded practice of patterns designed to exploit gaps in the way mind and world interacted.  If you had the decryption algorithm, every spell was decipherable, whether you could cast it yourself or not.  She'd learned many of those algorithms in her youth, even helped develop a few for the relatives she liked or trusted.  But this was something different, and the way it relied on an outside power for fulfillment made her wary.

The elf sighed, knowing what she needed to do even if she was trying her best not to admit it.  Cramming the last bit of cheek-jerky into her mouth, she chewed interminably while trying to find the right way to phrase the letter’s opening.  Her mother’s… strong feelings… on Ila’s departure had been made abundantly clear, both at the time and in a series of letters that followed.  Maybe an apology was in order?  No, apologies were for people who felt regret for their actions.

Mother, she began, I’ll be returning soon for a short period of time.  I have questions I think only you can answer, about the Great Dark and other things.  I don’t know when.  Please don’t tell anyone, except perhaps Granny Laine.  I may have to seek audience with her; if she needs to be warned, I’d appreciate if you could take care of that for me.

Not too weak, she thought.  It was mostly business, straightforward.  Good enough.

Behind watchful eyes,

Ilandreline