I think I might've just peed a little!

...there's part one of that particular silverscreen. I may need to invoke Reralae's assistance in the next bit.

Right now, though... break time.

Adedre lounged in the musty, wing-backed chair that occupied one corner of her bedchamber, sighing softly as her masked attendant daubed an astringent poultice along the ring of sutures that secured the Ungoulid leg to the still healing stump of her once human thigh. Her breath shuddered a bit as the girl swabbed at the strings that secured her grafted leg to the faint curve of her inner thigh and, in reaction, the masked girl couldn’t help but flinch.

“Am I hurting you, mistress,” the maid asked, peering up at the witch from behind the thick eye-slits of the bone and leather face covering.

“Yes,” Adedre moaned softly, even as her legs quivered on either side of the child’s kneeling form, “Don’t stop.”

It had been the better part of half a day, now, that she had drunk a full cup of the kazari’s blood and, she imagined, had it not been so, she might have been given over to her impulse to wrap her legs about the girl’s head and pull her into her crotch, neglecting the tending of her surgery. As it stood, though, without the vim and vigor that the cat-man’s blood had filled her with these last few weeks, the pain had, once again, become preferable to the pleasure…

An adjustment to this one’s mask, though, might be in order, she thought as the girl dutifully returned to swabbing the stitches, a widening of the mouth slot to allow the tongue to pass, perhaps. She is quite attentive and eager and, judging by the state in which she left the guard who sullied her, a suitable pupil. Mayhap she will pay the tuition her sister could not.

…A sharp rapping at her door interrupted the witch’s reverie, then, along with the eager, nubile fingers that slid higher up her thigh than where the stitches began. Following a slow blink and another shuddering breath, Adedre cast her sickly yellow gaze toward the portal. “What is it?”

“A report, m’lady,” a muffled voice answered, “from the Countess and Cockatrice.”

“Enter,” the witch gasped as a bone on her attendants mask caught on a stitch.

The door creaked open on its rusting hinges, and the guard that stepped in wisely kept his eyes focused on the floor beneath his feet as he entered the room and took a knee. “It has not gone well, Lady Undolithe,” the guard reported, still refusing to look up at the necromancer who employed him, “The kazari was found, along with the thief we believe to have freed him, but all of those who were sent to fetch them have met their end.”

Adedre sighed; “And the whisperer who sent the news?”

“She is here, m’lady. Slipped out the back as the kazari killed Cade and Gypsy.”

“Send her in.”

“Yes, mistress,” the guard backed out of the room on his knees, only getting back to his feet after he had crossed the threshold.

“You may enter,” Adedre heard the guard say as she swept her skirts over her attendant’s head and shoulders with one hand and, reaching beneath the spill of fabric, lifted the girl’s mask with the other, “No! Not on your feet.”

“Tell me,” the witch whispered as the flaxen-haired serving wench crawled through the doorway, desperately trying not to look at the extra set of feet that issued from beneath Adedre’s gown.

“I… uh… I…” the serving girl forced her eyes to the floor as she had seen the guard do, then, and swallowed before continuing, “I weren’t sure, m’lady, tha’ I’d truly found yer lot afore the biggun spoke, but, when he placed ‘is order, I knew ‘is voice weren’t human, an’ th’ comp’ny he were in, m’lady -  an elf-bitch an’ a thief – I figgered ‘e musta been th’ one ye were seekin’… I… I…”

“Tecla!” Another gasp hissed past the witch’s lips and a hand moved to still the lump that moved beneath her skirts. “Stop… for now.”

Adedre convulsed a bit and her yellow eyes fluttered ruefully open to regard the girl from the inn who knelt on her floor. “Come closer, child,” she moaned, throatily, her hand still resting atop the now still rise beneath her skirts, “I can’t quite hear.”

The serving girl crawled closer, swallowed again, and chanced a glance up into Adedre’s eyes. “They got another with ‘em now, m’lady,” she said, trying to make her voice louder but not too loud as her eyes fell to the soles of the extra feet poking out from beneath the hem of the witch’s skirts, “A gen’rous shit o’ a Pick. Cleric o’ Falloes if I ain’t missin’ anythin’. Rented ‘im a room an’ took th’ lot up, where I figger he was healin’ ‘em.

They were up there fer a spell,” the wench continued, “afore thief come back down jus’as yer crew showed. Li’l bitch speared one o’ their feet t’ th’ floor an’ raised a shout, callin’ them others down. Th’ three onna stairs got plowed over by th’ biggun as he come down t’ poke holes in yer man’s lungs an’ chucked ‘im a’ th’ bow-maiden like ‘e were a rag doll.

Seen tha’ an’ figgered I oughta come an’ tell ye wha’ I seen as I don’ reckon them as went up the steps come back down. Th’ common room cleared out right quick when th’ tussle started an’… an’…”

“You got scared.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes’m.”

“Are you scared, now?”

“Y-yes’m.”

“Look at me, girl!”

The serving wench swallowed a lump in her throat that threatened to slit it but, with tears welling in her eyes, did as she was bidden.

“What is your name?”

“K-K-Kendra, m’lady.”

“Kendra,” Adedre repeated softly, pushing at the lump hovering beneath the spill of her skirts, then, to usher her attendant free of the fabric, “What do you fear more, in this moment? What you saw at your inn, or what you imagine is going to happen to you, now?”

“I… uh… I fear you, m’lady,” Kendra gulped as another girl slithered from beneath the necromacer’s gown, tugging an unsettling mask over her face before turning on her knees to face her as well, “Mos’ definitely you more’n them.”

A soft, dry laugh shushed past Adedre’s lips, then. “Good,” the witch tittered, absently stroking the masked girl’s hair as she eyed the wench from the Countess and Cockatrice, “very good. But, child, you have nothing to fear, yet. Not from me. It wasn’t you who failed me, after all. You performed your task as well as you could.”

“Th-th-thank’ee, m’lady,” Kendra gulped, unsure as to whether she should be looking at the witch or the kneeling mask.

“Oh no,” Adedre continued chuckling, “don’t thank me, just yet. I’ll give you plenty of opportunities for that later.

Tecla?”

“Yes, mistress,” the mask responded.

“Take charge of Kendra, will you, and ready her for what is to come?”

“Yes, mistress.” The masked girl answered, slowly staring to crawl toward Kendra as the witch, just as slowly, rose from her chair.

“Good girl,” Adedre cooed, stroking her boney fingers across the hair that spilled from behind Tecla’s mask as she glided past, “Once she is sufficiently readied, attend me in the library.”

“As you say, mistress,” Tecla replied, still crawling toward Kendra as salty tears streamed down the serving girl’s face, “I’ll have her ready, very soon.”

“I’m sure,” the witch purred as she passed through the doorway, delighting in the soft whimpers that echoed behind her, “Be sure to get the rest of the answers I want as you do, hmm?”

“Of course, mistress,” the answer came over the sounds of fabric being torn and the muffled squeal of pained pleasure.

A bit later; in Adedre’s library

She stood at the lectern, yellow eyes scouring the pages of the fifth tome she had lain open on the streaked and stained surface. She hadn’t found what she sought in the other four and they lay, hastily discarded, at her feet rather than having been returned to their places on the shelves lining the walls. “No,” Adedre muttered, rifling the vellum pages with irritated flicks of her fingers, “no, no, no. I’ll not find it, here, either.” Perturbed, she sighed and snapped the volume shut, swiping it off of the reading stand with one hand as the other lifted to pinch at the narrow bridge of her nose. “I know I’ve seen it,” she groused softly, her eyes closing against the flickering candlelight by which she had been reading, “but in which book?”

The door to the study creaked open, then, and was pushed shut, again, with respectful silence before the soft padding of feet across the floor reached her ears. Both of the witch’s hands came to rest on the lectern as she opened her eyes and watched Tecla approach. There was a a faint smear of blood on the chin of the girl’s mask and streaks of it, too, on two fingers of her left hand.As Adedre’s eyes met the girl’s, Tecla bowed her head and, halting her progress across the floor, knelt down to gather up the tomes discarded at her mistress’ feet.

“What of Kendra,” the witch asked after Tecla had the books stacked.

“She is prepared, mistress,” the girl replied, rising to her feet, the tomes nestled in the crooks of her elbows, “I left her with Rolf under orders that he wasn’t to touch her… or himself.” She turned away from Adedre’s gaze and whispered across the floor to return the volumes to their shelves.

“Good girl,” the witch nodded. “She gave you the information I wanted, then?”

“She did,” Tecla returned, slipping the third tome back onto its shelf, “and quite eagerly. She gave very precise descriptions of all of those in the beast’s company, including at least the first names of each. They’re calling the kazari Samuel, by the way…”

Adedre scoffed and shook her head, her eyes following Tecla’s progress from bookcase to bookcase.

“…Kendra also mentioned something of a beggar woman who accompanied the cleric when he first arrived. She had no name for the crone, though, simply that she was old with tangled gray hair, gnarled fingers, and tattered rags for clothing. The priest called her Mother.”

“Have we found this Mother?”

“Not as yet, mistress,” Tecla replied as the last of the discarded books was returned to its spot, “but we have people looking. Once she is found, she’ll be brought to you.”

“You’ve done well, child,” Adedre smiled approvingly as the girl turned with the intent of returning to her mistress’ side, “I’ll see to it that you are appropriately rewarded.”

“Thank you, Mi…”

“Stop!” Adedre’s command froze the girl in her tracks. “On the bookcase behind you, there, second shelf from the bottom…Bring that to me.”

Tecla’s gaze tracked to where Adedre’s finger was pointing and fell upon a curious looking codex with spidery script that she could not read adorning its spine. “The one covered with skin, mistress?”

“Yes, yes! That one!”

As instructed, the girl retrieved the book in question and carried it to the lectern, placing it before the witch’s ready hands, and watching with interest as Adedre tore eagerly through the cured skin pages. She watched, too, as Adedre seemed to find the particular page she had sought, and traced her finger over the odd writing there, her lips moving to form unspoken but indecipherable words.

Soon enough, the witch stopped reading and turned an almost gleeful eye on her attendant. “This is it,” she cackled, “I knew it was here!” She leaned over, then, and ran her tongue over the blood that streaked the chin of Tecla’s mask. “Your reward will be doubled, now, child,” she purred, closing the tome and lifting it into her arms. “I need you to fetch me a straw doll,” she ordered, “Soak a ribbon in the tavern wench’s moon-blood that I’ve tasted on your chin and, then, meet me in my tower.”

“Right away, mistress,” Tecla nodded, already turning to carry out Adedre’s commands, “I’ll not be long.”

I love your brain!!!

...the cat is already kicking himself for not having spilled the guts of a particular monkey-boy when he had the opportunity.

...is cetainly the cooler head  amongst our group, for sure. A born leader.

Working on finishing up Adedre's latest bit, this morning, and will give some consideration to considering other considerations once I'm done with that.

Wow! The coffee is stuh-RONG this morning!!!

...he's out of the cage, now, figuratively and literally. He's remembering what it means to be a kazari.

P.S. I had thought that he would toss the archer in Kith's direction in order to let her finish the slitch off but, in the moment, imagined that his flinging of the woman would likely have snapped her neck soooooooo.... *kitty shrug*

Did the Eol method of randomization and, as it turns out, three of the goons carried blades Ch'dau would be okay with (none of them his falcata, of course, but still). Soooo, woohoo, for nabbing a decent pair of short swords, their baldrics, and a whetstone. Plus, I'm totally horking the big guy's bracers! 

Kitty cat is kitting up, slowly but surely!

Also, once Ch'dau nabs those weapons and such, he'll make the gesture of offering Kith her dagger back. Up to her if she takes it or not.

Also, also - Just had an amusing bit flash through my mind where Ara and Mosic are concerned in the aftermath of the fight?

Mosic: "Is it always like this?"

Aranwen: *shrugs* "This was easy as compared to last night."

*archer's body thuds to the floor*

Mosic: *flinches in reaction to "Samuel's" challenge* "Sweet Father Falloes!"

... did you have an idea of what weapons these goons might be carrying? Could be that Ch'dau just found some blades.

P.S. I didn't want Ch'dau to have all the fun, of course, and figured that, since he owed Kith the life-debt, he would have made for her first, leaving the three on the stairs to whatever fate Ara and Mosic might visit upon them. I also figured that Mosic would handle one of those, demonstrating his proficiency with that mace of his, even if I didn't write it into the post. Feel free to embellish and/or add as you see fit.

P.P.S. Definitely gonna plunder the bodies of the fallen before we beat feet from the Countess and Cockatrice, free blades and gear is better than paying, amirite, kibibi?  

"I do not fear death," Aranwen murmured into his fur, "I dance with death every time I draw my blade in battle."

Life begins with violence and wailing, Ch’dau thought, recalling the words of his clan’s khr’dun, why would we expect anything less as it proceeds? He didn’t speak the words aloud, of course, instead, he simply nodded in silent acknowledgement of the bladesinger’s statement.

"But to walk the road without them feels... lonely."

Another nod from the kazari, then. “A warrior is never truly dead while their name is still spoken, Aranwen,” he said, “as long as that name is still in your heart and on your tongue, they walk beside you still.”

 "Second time in only one morning,” the Syl woman said, smiling sheepishly up at him, now, “you've held me in the present twice now."

“The present is where we fight, Khu’r Aranwen,” Ch’dau chuffed, once more pressing his forehead to hers as he released her, “and where we need you. It is all I can do.”

The bladesinger turned her smile to Kith, then, and said; “It's alright. I'm not so fragile that a piece of cloth will see me undone. Else I wouldn't have offered it; you can use it, if you wish. But, thank you, Kithran."

“You’re very kind, Aranwen,” the thief answered, a tight smile playing on her lips, “Thank you, but I cannot.” She stepped toward the door and her small smile turned back into her grin, “Perhaps I can go find one though!” She opened the door and slid out, wriggling her fingers at the cleric, “Forgive me, Father.”

“I’m not a…” Mosic started to reply, but the closing of the door stalled his words, “…father.” The little cleric sighed, smiled, and gave a faint shake of his head… Like a fart in the wind, that one, he chuckled to himself.

 His attentions returned to the two warriors who sat upon his rented bed and the kazari’s words of remembering a fallen warrior’s name echoed in his head. “What was the name, Lady Aranwen,” he asked, “of the one for whom you wear that cloak?”

"Her name is Saeriel," she answered, "She died thirty years ago in this cursed land, while we were in pursuit of slavers," She averted her gaze, "Perhaps it might seem a long time to mourn, but if things were different she'd still be here. It's... a lot harder to accept when a Sylvari dies when you know they still had many, many years they could have seen, and their absence is felt so much keener.

But, that's enough of the past for one morning," Aranwen observed as she started to re-don her leather, "I dare not indulge it again right now, unless I risk falling in once more."

The kazari offered a faint nod at that and left the topic alone lest anything else he said might provoke the Syl’s lapse back into her memories. As Aranwen began to piece her armor back together, Ch’dau rose from the pallet and took up the cloak Kith had given him. He had scarcely gotten the thing back over his shoulders when, beyond the door of the room, something of a clatter reached his ears. His eyes narrowed, snapping to the room’s exit, even as his ears perked up in the realization that the noise were the sounds of combat. “Trouble,” he rumbled, pulling the cowl over his head as he strode for the door.

“SAMUEL, ARA--”

It was Kith’s voice, he knew, even as clipped as the shout had been, and, as Mosic and Aranwen scrambled to their feet behind him, Ch’dau tore open the door and strode into the hallway beyond, already making for the stairs. Upon reaching the landing, the first thing he saw were the three monkeys ascending them, obviously intent on making the top of the steps before Kith’s warning shout had given away the situation. Beyond those three, in the inn’s common room, the half-syl thief had taken shelter behind an overturned table. A larger human stalked closer to Kith’s hasty cordon and, from somewhere just out of his sight, arrows whispered through the air to harass the wood of the upended slab.

“Hmmmmm,” the kazari rumbled, the sound coming out as something more akin to a low growl, and the three advancing up the stair hesitated for an instant.

Given that Aranwen had appeared at his side and Mosic at his back in that instant, though, that brief indecision was more than enough for the cat-man to take advantage. He charged down the steps, barreling through the trio even as he tugged the dagger from the waistband of the ridiculous pants he wore, trusting that Aranwen and Mosic would make short work of whatever had become of the bodies that fell in his passing. Midway down the staircase, he leapt at the larger, more threatening figure that closed in on Kithran’s barricade and, as he landed, sank the dagger twice, quickly and deeply, into the man’s back before lifting the stalking monkey from his feet and hurling him in the direction from which the arrows had flown.

The surprised squeak and pain grunt and clatter that followed let him know that the tactic had been, at least, marginally accurate so he didn’t bother to look back to gauge the results. Instead, he peered over the flipped table at Kithran, offering a hand to help her to her feet should she need it. “Are you alright, Little Kitten,” he asked even as the thief grinned/smirked up at him.

((OOC: Assuming a relatively positive, if somewhat snarky, reply.))

“Good,” he snorted, turning now in the direction he had flung the large human, “I will return for you in a moment.”

He prowled toward the table from which the archer had been toppled, sparing only a brief glance in the direction of the stairs where bladesinger and priest were dealing with the three he had bowled over in his charge. With a growl, he flung the table aside to find the archer trying to wriggle her way from beneath the heavier body that had landed atop her. The woman’s scream was muffled by the massive paw that closed over her face as the kazari forcibly extricated her from under the heavier corpse by her head. Ch’dau lifted the woman from the ground, stared into the one wide eye that peered at him from between his own fingers and, with a quick jerk, broke the woman’s neck before tossing her back in the direction of the table where Kith had taken cover.

“Are there any others,” he demanded of the crowd that fought their way toward the inn’s door, “Samuel is here!”

Thanks for clarifying.

Post forthcoming... bout to make a mess and cost Mosic a security deposit on his room, poor little guy!

I was working on Adedre's post but I think I'll set it aside until I've gotten a reply for this one worked out... with what I've got going on at the Undolithe estate, this might make for a better "lead in" to that, anyway.

Also... woohoo for half-nekkid bladesinger dance!

Finally, just so I'm clear with what oyu've set up, here, kibibi... Kith has "disabled" at least two, right? That leave us with, what, three more including the woman with the short bow? 

Bonus Cat-dad joke: "I told Kithran I was tired of running around in circles... so she daggered my other foot to the floor, too." Ba-dum-tsss!!!

I've totally started seeing these pages!

Always excited for the next installment!

Good enough for Tolkien, good enough for us! 

Mad kitty

Angry kitty

Raging ball of fur

Chompy kitty

Stabby kitty

Grr Grr GRRRR!!!

P.S. Good job on instant recognition of kazari speak, Little Kitten!

YESSS!!!

And crank the battle jams!

And here I sit on a conference call with all this adrenaline burning in my brain... gonna be a FUN meeting!

Ch'dau is FULLY pissed! His intent is to kill everything (his friends being obvious exceptions) in this room and anything else beyond it. Assuming he makes it out, of course. *paws crossed*

“K’pan de’cha!” The kazari expletive was literally spit at Garn as the coward hid behind the gate, taunting them.

Ch’dau should have been surprised by the big monkey’s duplicitous turn but, somehow, he wasn’t. He had been suspicious of Davena and Garn since their convenient disappearance from Crandel in advance of the zombie assault that had occurred there. To have those suspicions validated in this moment, in this place, and to have the true depths of their deceit revealed, kindled a bonfire of fury in the Silver Cat that even he wasn’t aware was possible. We will meet again, t’mbili, he snarled inwardly as both he and Garn turned, in opposite directions, from the gate, and you will not be smiling!

"Ch'dau, Gib, on either side; cover Cedric and Midge," Aranwen commanded, her tone as cold and even as her steel.

The kazari’s acknowledgment came in the form of a short, barking roar as he stepped to the bladesinger’s right side. Blood for Rrowl… A second short roar sounded, even over the clanging together of his blades… and DAMN the Hunt! I will not go until I have killed every cursed thing in this place!

Ch’dau was veritably slavering, now, as a third roar escaped him, longer and louder than the previous two. His rage had etched a horrifying semblance of a smile, each and every fang displayed, on his felinoid features as the ghouls pressed in.

Should have killed Garn in the dark and made it look like a giggler got him! 

Yeah, I didn't believe there was any sincerity to that apology, at all... and, of course, I didn't expect anything good to come of entering the room.

*sighs* Not much to do, now, but start taking off arms and heads, I suppose.

...frak and felgercarb!!!

Kazari flambe, anyone?

Ehehehehe!

Lovely post!

Got an Adedre post started but, work being work, I may not have it finished any time soon. Maybe I'll get lucky and be able to finish it up when the gov't folks are droning on during my afternoon meeting.

...to see if you were awake, boss.