Pick up the Bones
Log Info
- Title: Pick up the Bones
- Emitter: Delilah
- Characters: Delilah, Donna, Ashes, Elyanna
- Place: Underground: Magus Ectra Na'Garra's Manse
- Time: Monday, June 14, 2021, 8:21 PM
- Summary: The Valethor gang and Poppy stare at the bones of her friends whilre Lerethi loots the living room. Poppy goes to Ectra's bedroom. Donna sees the difficulty Ashes is having with the dead, despite her calling and Elyanna's offer to help. The Ashen Arvec knows them through their bones, it's a lot of memories. Donna tells both the Hobgoblins how much she appreciates all they'd done for her and Delilah; they are her best friends. She hugs them, and Ashes finds she's saying the same words, even to Elyanna with whom much has changed. Elyanna is embraced awkwardly as well. Then they go to check on the half-elf, half-expecting to find her rolling around in a pile of treasure making loot angels. She is not. She has created a huge pile, which the others leave her to do, effectively letting sort the goodies for them. They join Poppy in the bedroom and see the Ectra's skeleton on the bed, a stain on the sheets where her flesh rotted away. Ashes, joins them, taking a break. Elyanna finds the marks of the knife on Ectra's neck, and the knife itself. Donna discovers a book that attacks with Ectra's spirit, attempting to use her as a vessel. Ashes discovers that a spirit remains in Ectra's bones. the ghost of Poppy's real mother. Imprisoned.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Donna 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A black-haired human girl in black robes. Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. Ashes 5'11" 177 Lb Hobgoblin Female A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face Elyanna 5'11" 153 Lb Half-Orc Female A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lerethil Half-elf Female A trader with questionable connections. Poppy Human Female A ghost, daughter of the body that became Ectra. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
The party currently huddles around... Well, around the ghostly Poppy and a large assortment of bones, all collected in a slave pen where they'd been allowed to die. For her part, Poppy has suddenly become all too eager to get out of this room and be literally anywhere else.
"Ectra's chambers are this way," she declares, and points back down the passageway, towards the main room. "And, uhm, they're a lot... nicer, than in here. Ectra was amonster towards her slaves. She was very kind to herself." And with that, she disappears -- not in a literaly sense, but rather, she walks down the passage, the same way a living person would.
"I'd be alright with getting out of here too," Delilah announces, and doesn't waste any time following Poppy, holding one hand over her mouth until she's out of the worst of the stink.
In the main room, Lerethil has not been idle. She's humming a tune that strongly indicates she should not consider any sort of musical profession, while she's busy making a pile of things on a table that had previously been empty; it seems the room is being meticulously ransacked for anything that might, at some point, be valuable. Or at least, that a skilled merchant might be able to convince someone is valuable. Apparetly the two may be one and the same.
Elyanna isn't surprised, "It is a conceit of those who seize power over others." she notes in reply to Poppy's declaration about the mollusk's quality of life.
She looks toward Delilah as she starts to follow the spirit deeper into Ectra's Den, then asks of Ashes, "Do you need help, Mourner?" expecting Donna to be well within her sister's shadow.
The Mourner is working ... efficiently. Swiftly would be disrespectful, she doesn't want to rush this. She is determined to get everyone, every piece that she can of the unfortunates and handle them with a certain dignity.
She is assembling each person in a small pile, take time to impart blessings and saying quiet prayers as she does. This is in preparation for putting them in sacks, pillow cases, repurposed skirts. whatever might be availabe.
Ashlee faces Elyanna. Her skull tattoo hides a lot, but there's still a sense of sadness to her. "Something, to put them in."
A long breath escapes her, "I know them when I touch them. It's easier to keep them whole, but it's a piece of their life with each touch."
A lot of pieces that wouldn't be pleasant to know either. She repeats, "Something to put them in."
"Curtains," Donna murmurs to herself, watching the bodies being assembled with care. "We'll pull down some curtains or sommat... I'll carry'm out, Ash. It ain't much, but I can take'm away from this hell."
The brawler pauses, taking more than a couple false starts at something to say... but how do you even *try* to comfort someone whose job it is to process a horror you don't even have the imagination to contemplate? "...Ash?" she manages, finally. "...Just want you t'know. We owe you our lives, D an' I. If there's anything you need... like, *ever.* You just gotta ask. You too, Elyanna. What y'all been through for us... That ain't something you think about in terms of payin' back. It's just a fact."
And having tried her best to get her message across, the dark twin turns to follow her sister, and the ghost that leads her.
Ashlee stares at Donna. The mantel of her profession is protectively wrapped around her, insulating her. She's naturally distant, and the needs of the dead take her even further. Her expressions are hard to read with her tattoo, though time and association has given some insights. She looks like she needs a hug. She wants a hug.
Hugs aren't things hobgoblins ask for. It's an admission of weakness. They might give them, if prompted, but other Arvek Nar enjoy their space. Best not to, "I'll try to think of something."
Elyanna is familiar enough by now with Ashes's embellishments that they only provide so much obfuscation, and the tone in the Mourner's voice, even subdued, is not inaudible to the red woman. Her hand, bare of steel and glove, gently touches the grey Priestess's shoulder, "It'll be alright, Ashlee." she intones softly. <goblin-talk>
She turns then to Donna at her confidance and nods, affording her a weak smile and a light clap to the brawler's shoulder, "You owe me nothing, Donna, nor does Delilah." ere she is searching for tablecloths and the like to help contain their grim cargo.
Donna comes up short after Elyanna speaks to Ashlee, turning back to face the Hobkin. After a moment's hesitation, she seems to change her mind on her task, and strides back to the pair. "Hey," she says, dropping down to one knee. "It's going to be alright." And with that, she wraps her arms around the both of them, and gives the Hobkin a squeeze. "And I told you; it isn't owing anyone, it's a fact. You need help, we'll be there to help."
Ashlee stiffens. She's not sure how she should react to this comforting grapple. It does feel nice. Donna is trusted. Tentatively she puts her arms around the Brawler. She's hugged a few people before. It's planned. It's not a surprise.
Ashes does not know how to receive surprise hugs. Even if she likes them.
Yes. She likes them. She nods slowly, "Thanks."
A moment's thought, "Curtains, sheets, pillow cases. Anything, if you can get them from the rooms we know are safe." Elyanna freezes at the sudden embrace, her mind had been on trying to lighten her frie- Ashes's burdens, but hadn't expected, despite the sister's frequent demonstrations to the contrary, to be comforted herself at the same time. It isn't...
It's not...
Her arms... tenatively, at first.... then more boldly... slip about the women's shoulders as her eyes close.
"Anytime," Donna whispers, squeezing again. "I mean it. Y'all're literally the best friends we got, an' no mistake. Don't ever forget that, yeah?"
Loosing a sigh, she gives a third squeeze, then backs up. "Curtains, sheets, pillowcases. Okay. We'll be back soon."
With that, the brawler turns back to the business of business.
Ashlee does not squeel in delight, though there is a childlike elation from the embrace which is rare for her. Especially considering her childhood. Her arms squeeze firmly, with her wirey monster muscles which are not nearly as strong as her hobkin or human friends'. "You're... mine... too."
It's unexpected. Her eyes widen, her ears twitch. Did she just say that? She did. Are they?
They... Elyanna is so close against her side. She doesn't feel discomfort, only the warm body of the other... are.
"I need to finish with the departed so we can depart." There is refuge in her work.
In the main room, Delilah is standing with her arms folded, watching as Lerethil is busy making a pile of... stuff. Still. And it's turning into quite the impressive pile as well, including four horrific paintings off the wall (and a fifth who's worst crime seems to be nudity, but at least that one's tasteful, which makes a switch from the rest of this place).
At Donna's return, Delilah quirks an eyebrow upwards with a sideways glance. "She figures she's claiming all'a that," she mutters, pointing towards Lerethil's stash. "You want to tell her how this adventuring thing works, or shall I? Y'know, the bit about everyone getting a share, not just the bossy-pants who commands from the rear?"
Lerethil seems to be oblivious. Utterly so. She's got a crystal pitcher, that probably used to have wine in judging by the residue in the bottom. (Hopefully it was wine. Do Illithids drink wine? Maybe with a straw? Who knows.) "This is beautiful," she mutters, and puts it on the table. "Be careful not to break it."
Elyanna squeezes perhaps a little more than she needs to for the custom, but...
But.
... What?
"I... " Elyoquence at it's finest, "You..."
"Friends."
There is a certain... gravity in the word, despite it's uncertainty.
The moment, though, must pass, as work is once again brought to the fore, and the Keeper disentangles herself from the others, clears her throat, then starts to take up the task of finding receptacles.
A couple of dusty sheets in her arms, she sneezes as she crosses by the lootiful merchant with a, "Fall behind and you are on your own."
The abridged version is ideal when one's nose is starting to run.
"Naw let her pile everything up," Donna says with a chuckle. "Deal with she gets first pick for her share, an' the bigger mountain she makes, the more we all get."
Patting her sister's shoulder, she gestures toward the indicated bedroom. "C'mon... Evidence first, loot later."
Ashlee continues cleaning the bones, picking up the bones. Sorting the bones. Washing the gooey remains into buckets or whatever containers are available. She's going to need some fire. That could take some doing. She saves that for later.
Continues sorting.
Pieces of people.
The artifacts of lives.
Each bone a story. Each time. She won't know them as well as Poppy, but she'll know them. "I'm sorry. She's sorry. I'm sorry. She's sorry."
"Feiu of the Tears. Find them and keep them."
Delilah shrugs slightly. "Yeah, whatever," she mutters, watching Lerethil do her thing for a moment longer, before she turns to follow Poppy. The door to the Magus' personal chambers is already open, thanks to Poppy; and instead of a long walk down a passageway, it simply opens into the chambers. Convenient, certainly.
The main room is considerably more... comfortable, as Poppy had alluded to. The bed is luxurious, and large enough for not just an Illithid, but for several people. Currently, the black sheets are occupied by only a single skeleton; mostly human looking, but for the odd looking skull, that lacks a lower jaw and just has a large hole where one would expect teeth to be. It should be noted that the silk sheets are, in fact, ruined but having a body decompose on them; the room smells of incense and perfume, however, the former of which has just been lit by Poppy.
The majority of the walls are covered either by curtains, or shelves that house all manner of books and curios. Off to the side is an entryway to a smaller chamber, that seems to be entirely occupied with clothes and issues of personal grooming.
Standing beside the bed, Poppy points down at the body as the others enter. "Veren murdered her here," she explains. "Please... be gentle with the bones. They were my Mother's before they were Ectra's."
On the issue of bones, the ones that Ashes currently deals with are not without stories of their own, certainly. Many of them have been broken and healed (badly, in some cases). Most of the skulls are missing teeth, and there are... other marks. Hideous marks, that tell tales of torture and pain. But it seems that the prayers of the Mourner might just be heard; and there is a feeling of peace about the foul abattoir that wasn't there before.
Elyanna eventually finds her course brings her toward the Mistress bedroom of the house, and steps inside the threshold to the tomb beyond. The Keeper busies herself with surveying the decor to coax her expression back to something resembling normal with only a firm snork of trying to clear her nose without having to use an outside object. She considers the spectre, then the remains of the hijacked matriarch and she nods, "Best we leave them to the Mourner. She is best handling such affairs with due care and respect."
She does, however, step up alongside Delilah, considering the skeleton for a time, eyeing the neck bones for signs of chipping. "Yeah," Donna agrees, arriving on the other side of Delilah, staring down at what's left of the corpse. "An' if there's a story in those bones, we ain't gonna see it. Don't worry, Poppy... We understand." Squeezing her sister's shoulder, the brawler moves off to examine the bookcases. 'Confessions of an Evil-Ass Illithid -- Volume XXVIII' probably won't show up among the titles, but, arcane researchers are nothing if not meticulous note-takers.
Ashlee appears at the door, her eyes a little wider than usual, her posture very straight. She was like a ghost, and there's an actual ghost to compare her with. "I needed a break."
The fire is a change from the frying pan.
Without moving her head much, she takes in the room. Her eyes flit around, the curtains, the curios, the books, the bed. The body of Ectra Na'Garra.
The Ashen Arvec moves closer and stares down at her. In her mind's eye, Ectra as the shade is superimposed over the bones. Here in spirit for the mourner as well as physically.
She glances at Elyanna, then Donna, "Any evidence jump out?"
GAME: Donna rolls perception: (11)+12: 23 GAME: Ashes rolls perception: (12)+3: 15
While Poppy is busy looking down at the skeleton of Ectra, Delilah is having a poke around in what amounts to a bathroom. She opens the lid on a pot, and immediately regrets it, judging by the retching that comes from teh golden sorceress. "...Nothing to report in here," she admits, and staggers back out.
Elyanna will note that, indeed, there is a notch in one of Ectra's neck vertebrae; it appears that if Veren did indeed cut Ectra's throat, then she really meant it. Really, really meant it.
However, that's not the only thing to be had in here. A little bit of further inspection on Elyanna's part will turn up not just the damaged vertebra, but the blade that did it; under the bed is a knife of design sufficiently crude as to be utterly incongruous with the rest of the manse. Twelve inches of rough iron, notched and pitted and possessed of a wooden handle wrapped with old leather -- and stained blue, more or less all over.
While the precise tome that Donna is looking for might not be in evidence, there is no shortage of books to look at. There is, however, one that stands out, partly because while all the other books are meticulously arranged, this one is pushed in just half an inch, as if it were put back by someone extremely tired. Written on the spine is a single word; "Observations". It's a rather thick looking specimen, as well.
Under the gaze of the Mourner, the bones would seem to reveal a different secret. They aren't... entirely uninhabited. Not completely. And not by Ectra, either, since she is in the Grey Halls; something else lingers here. Someone else, perhaps. It is hard to say.
"Wait," Donna mutters, reaching up to the standout tome... and then hesitating, doubt creeping in that perhaps Poppy didn't get all of the traps after all. But there's really nothing for it, and the brawler contents herself with shifting just enough that her friends will be in the blast shadow of whatever explosion might occur, and holds her breath as she eases the book out of its place.
GAME: Donna rolls will: (16)+4: 20
Elyanna sounds a low whistle as things proced, and she gets a good gander at the bones, "Veren must have used both hands to score the bone so well." she observes.
Then, she catches the subtle shift in hues of the blade and she points it out to her fellows, "We have her."
The blade, likely last owned by Veren, and untouched by anyone in the intervening twenty years might serve as a proper focus, "We should be able to scry with that, no?" Assuming the capacity is within their accessible resources, anyway.
Ashlee waits, as ordered. She wasn't doing much except staring. She can keep doing that, and aims it at Donna.
Until Elyanna finds the blade, "I can't. Not yet. Merek would be able to. Remember the boy?"
Her attention returns to the bones on the bed. "I think she's still here." Ashlee steps to the side of the bed. Looks down at the stain on the sheets. The bones on the stain. The corrupted and changed skull. Not there.
There's only one place Poppy's mother would be strongest. The Mourner places her hands on the skeleton's hips, where Poppy was carried. "Feiu of the Tears, there is one here who has suffered. Stolen by another. Left imprisonned, who needs your help for her most injured soul."
"Veren said she needed that." Poppy points at the crude knife. "She bought it from some ruffian, and when Ectra sneered at it, she told her it was for a ritual she was experimenting with. She always was good at lieing." The ghost pauses, and shrugs. "I suppose she wasn't entirely lieing. She did try to use Ectra's blood for... something. I don't really understand it. She painted it all over herself and tried to cast some sort of spell, but I don't think it worked. I was too busy being upset at the time, to really pay attention."
Poppy might've been about to say more, but Ashes is speaking to the bones. Or at least speaking about the bones. Poppy leans in close, and clasps her hands. "Mother... is... she's still in there?" The prayer doesn't seem to illicit any change, however. The bones are still inhabited, but... perhaps inhabitation is the wrong word.
Prison might be more accurate.
When Donna touches the book, nothing happens at first; but then, abruptly, Donna's world shifts sideways as the brawler collapses on her back, with a tingling sensation in her arms and legs. Above her, it is -- to her eyes, at least -- as if the world tears itself apart and the blazing visage of Ectra herself leans through, reaching one clawed hand out towards the dark twin. "Vessel," she snarls, "Give me my vessel! GIVE IT TO ME!" Just as the claws are about to touch Donna's face (who has suddenly found herself unable to blink), the vision recedes; Ectra vanishes, and Donna wakes up to find her sister propping her up, having moved to her sister's side rapidly enough that she might've just materialized there. Almost.
"Donna? Donna. DONNA. Are you alright? Donna, talk to me please, Donna. Donna? *DONNA*."
"YOU RUBBER-FACED TWO-COPPER WHORE I WILL FUCK UP YOUR *WHOLE DEAD WORLD.*"
...Well okay Donna is awake. Or just aware enough to be furious. Depending on the situation, either works really.
But after that initial outburst the dark twin subsides, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. "Well... it *was* a trap," she says faintly. "Anyone got that spell what fucks up spells? Cos I got a book that badly needs it.
Elyanna nods with a slow sigh as the Mourner acknowledges, but slightly kiboshes the plan. She's not wrong, so that's good, but they don't have the means, so that's bad. She edges back from the skeleton as Ashes begins to invoke, not wishing to somehow corrupt the ritual by being too near, when suddenly, Donna collapses.
It takes her a second to skirt Poppy and Delilah to take a knee on the brawler's other side, there is the opening of her mouth to frame an inquiry to Donna's status, but her vulgar eruption to wakefulness stills the impulse.
Instead, "We may have a great deal of work for the Seer, should we run into him, again."
Ashlee startles enough to yank her hand away from Ectra's remains. She stares at Donna, hand still in the air, watching as she collapses, then Delilah's reaction, then her recovery and question. "Dispel Magic, but that's dangerous to use here."
She considers, then shakes her head, "Nothing that really messes with them, like alters a target or conditions. That I can think of."
She glances at the skeleton on the bed again. Lowers her hand to her side, and simply stares. "We do."
At the string of expletives issuing forth from her sister, Delilah looks up at Elyanna, and Poppy who's come to show her concern as well, and smiles. "She's fine," the golden twin declares. "And, yeah, Ashes is right, we don't want to dispell magic here. Let's just wrap that up in a curtain or something, and take it with us maybe? I bet Mahuikaa would know what to do with it."
"What's a Mahuikaa?" inquires Poppy, brow furrowed in confusion. "Also, I'm sorry. I didn't know that book was enchanted."
"What happened to you, anyway, Donna? Did you see anything?" Delilah's relief is still palpable, as she helps her sister sit up properly. "Take it slow," she adds.
"Yeah," Donna snarls, "I saw that festering ass-boil of an Illithid-- wup." 'Take it slow' is clearly both good advice, and not advice she is ever used to heeding, because upon trying to gather her legs under her and stand, the brawler topples right over. "Okay, okay... Takin' it slow..."
Levering herself back to a sitting position, Donna wraps her arms around her knees. "--reachin' for me, yammerin' about 'Gimme my vessel!' So... she was either gonna be posessin' me or controllin' me, either way I never wanted to punch a ghost in the face *so hard in all my life.*"
Loosing a long, shuddering breath, Donna rubs her face. "Sweetheart, Mahuikaa's th' name of the sorceress what took me an' D in. You'll like her, she's the kind o' mom that don't take foolishness, but'll always care for ya."
"I could touch it and know more." Ashlee says, staring at the shelf and looking thoughtful. "I don't think that's a good idea. She might have meant her reliquary. Or, that book is."
She glances at the skeleton again, then Poppy. "Could you describe Veren's ritual a little more. Anything she said?"
How to release the spirit from the prison is also on her mind, but the solution isn't apparent.
Elyanna hmmm's softly and rises to her feet, looking to Ashes a moment in consideration, then she offers up her feathered cloak for the task of wrapping the book, or the skeleton, as the Mourner decides, "Will this do?"
She brushes her hair back over her shoulder and folds her arms loosely, her gaze going distant, sidelong, as the two discuss the sorceress who would never give up on them.
Unbidden, her mind troubles itself with a sorceress who, likewise, had never given up on her.
OOC
<OOC> Delilah is gonna have to call a pause for the night there. But. *IF* work doesn't screw me over and cancel my holiday, I'll be... not at work Monday next week, so we could potentially start a lot earlier.
<OOC> Elyanna says, "shiney"
<OOC> Elyanna hugs tight
<OOC> Donna says, "Woo!"
<OOC> Elyanna says, "ty for the scene ya'll!"
<OOC> Donna says, "Yus indeed! And you lot as well!"
<OOC> Ashes says, "oh cool"
<OOC> Donna says, "ASHES HAS UNLOCKED -- Power of Hugs? Power of Hugs."
<OOC> Ashes says, "heee!"
<OOC> Elyanna says, "Hugoblins!"
<OOC> Donna says, "Yis! :D"
<OOC> Ashes considers this
<OOC> Ashes considers her amazing sneak skill.
<OOC> Donna XD
<OOC> Ashes 's surprise hugs are going to be absolutely terrifying.
<OOC> Donna says, "https://catmacros.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/hugs_tiem_now_mf.jpg?w=640"
<OOC> Elyanna says, "Don't take Taara, Don't take Kor, Don't need Eluna to turn this course, it's strong and it's sudden, and it's warm most times, but it just might save your life.... that's the power of hugs! That's the power of Huuuuuuuugs"
<OOC> Donna says, "o/~ Hello Ashes my old friend... I've come to hug on you again..."
<OOC> Elyanna says, "rofle"
<OOC> Ashes says, "heee!"
<OOC> Delilah says, "That's awesome. :D"
<OOC> Elyanna says, "does that make us Donna's new Hobbies?"
<OOC> Donna snrrrrrk.
<OOC> Ashes says, "heh"
<OOC> Ashes says, "going to close log for now"
<OOC> Ashes says, "I've been editing all day it may be late going up tomorrow"
