Private Tales Elbion by Sundown

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Lilette Blackbriar

Lilette Blackbriar

ɴᴜɴ ʙʏ ᴅᴀʏ, ᴠᴀᴍᴘɪʀᴇ ʙʏ ɴɪɢʜᴛ
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It pleaseth me thouest agree to my request that we meet.
I shall arrive by carriage in three weeks time,
come sundown, should my estimate prove true.
The items we didst discuss art with me, ready for thine appraisal.

With blessings of Astra,
—Lilette
​




Eyes—silver pale—peered through the carriage window, painted in silvers of red and orange that crept between the curtains.

Sundown, just as she'd suspected! A breathless sigh relieved the tension in her shoulders even as the carriage jerked on an uneven wheel. In stark contrast to the cheap ride, They passed into the shadow of a grand building that looked more castle than school. Her brows furrowed, and she clambered slowly to the front of the carriage, thankful that the other passengers had long since departed.

She knocked on the grated front window, to which the old driver turned confusedly.

"Excuseth my intrusion Ser, Where art we headed?"

"The college...?" he pointed toward the castle-ish building ahead, "Like ye asked."

"Oh! oh, I see."

Only a few minutes passed before the carriage stopped, Lilette spilling half haphazardly from the door with her luggage in tow. It was a large backpack, though she seemed to struggle with the size more than weight of it, rattling like kitchen clutter. But still she managed, hoisting the thing over her shoulders as she waved off the driver, and turned in search of the man that drew her here.
 
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Lilette Blackbriar
From the cobbled courtyard's dimmer recesses, something drifted forth, not walked, not crawled, but rather propelled itself through some unnatural buoyancy that defied the pedestrian laws of locomotion.

The thing resembled nothing so much as a philosopher's delirium given corporeal form. Its bulbous cranium bore the wrinkled aspect of some prodigious cerebrum preserved in mottled purples and browns, as though Intelligence itself had sprouted a body and found the arrangement disagreeable. Where one might expect sensory organs, there existed instead a curved protrusion of horn or beak, chitinous, yellowed, and wickedly hooked.

Most unsettling were the appendages: elongated tendrils of sinewy flesh, each bristling with barbs like some angler's most pessimistic conception of what might lurk in oceanic abysses. These limbs undulated through the air mere fingerwidths above the stonework, neither touching ground nor requiring it, moving with the languid confidence of a creature to whom gravity represented merely a suggestion rather than an imperative.

The entity approached with deliberate intent, positioning itself before the newcomer. Though bereft of any visible ocular apparatus, it nonetheless conveyed the unmistakable impression of scrutiny, as though examining Lilette through senses more exotic than mere vision. The beak-structure gaped wide, revealing an interior of distressing pinkness.

What emerged was speech, after a fashion, though rendered in tones that suggested a particularly garrulous corvid had been tutored in the phonemes of human discourse without quite grasping their proper execution. The result possessed a metallic, avian quality, each syllable emerging with the piercing clarity of bronze scraped across slate.

"Guest guest guest!" it proclaimed, its enthusiasm evident despite the unnerving timbre.

"I'll take you to the master, yes yes." Two tendrils detached themselves from their aerial perambulations, extending toward her cumbersome baggage with appendages that terminated in points perhaps too sharp for comfort.

"If heavy, I carry."

The creature maintained its position, awaiting her response with what might charitably be interpreted as patience, though how one discerned patience in a being whose every visible aspect suggested it had been assembled from nightmares remained an open question.
 
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Lilette froze like frightened animal. for all immortality had lavished upon her the girl still knew primal instinct, and to say this...thing...triggered nothing so primal as fear would be a lie.

This lasted right up until the moment it uttered—or squawked—the word "Guest."

"Uhm. salutations...?" she said confusedly.

The girl stayed quiet while her greeter hovered nearer, rubbing her hands nervously and never taking her eyes of the homunculus, not once.

It's tendrils were met with a half-step back and a nervous glances, though with but a moment's hesitance, she concluded it may be rude to refuse. And so she reluctantly slipped her shoulders free of the bag, offering it up to the avian... thing.

"Prithee handle with care, It bareth contents of great import."

She looked at the beast almost pleadingly, though her eyes thinned almost assertively.
 
Lilette Blackbriar
The homunculus accepted its burden with mechanical efficiency, dual appendages enfolding the rucksack as though weight were merely theoretical. Thus laden, it commenced a circuitous journey through the collegiate precincts, across the courtyard where evening shadows pooled, through the main portal with its archaic pretensions, down corridors whose architects had apparently favored arches over straight lines.

Several staircases later they arrived at a section bearing the unmistakable aura of isolation, as though certain pursuits benefited from geographical quarantine. Here the creature halted before brass portals engraved with an eight-rayed star suggesting either astronomical enthusiasm or occult pretension. A single tendril applied pressure. The doors yielded.

Beyond lay chambers proclaiming their owner's hermetic dedication with cathedral-like lack of subtlety. Somber granite walls, flooring polished to liquid-dark perfection, and crowning all, a prismatic dome scattering sundown's radiance in chromatic display across the interior.

Towering shelves dominated the periphery, their burden of volumes suggesting either comprehensive erudition or bibliographic hoarding. Between these literary monoliths sprawled a Kalitian carpet, and centrally positioned stood a circular table resembling less a workspace than a mad scientist's estate sale. Scrolls lay scattered alongside ritual implements, gem-encrusted skulls, and preserved specimens floating in glass cylinders with the placidity of things pickled beyond complaint.

Amidst this erudite chaos, suspended a dozen feet aloft, reclined the master himself. His throne, for no lesser term sufficed, combined purple upholstery with elaborate bone-work, the entire construction adorned with cranial motifs suggesting firm opinions about mortality frequently expressed.

The sorcerer's panoply matched his furniture in theatrical excess. Burnished segments of metalwork in deep blues and tarnished golds fitted together with jeweler's precision, the breastplate bearing a grinning, toothy visage of an open maw.

Pauldrons rose in elaborate sweeps of etched metal, while segmented guards encased his limbs in articulated splendor. Most arresting was the helm, curved from materials unknown, adorned with paired horns spiraling upward in magnificent symmetry, their ridged surfaces catching prismatic light.

An open tome rested in his grasp, its dimensions and apparent mass suggesting it must've weighted as much as a young child.
1000022488.jpg
 
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So many portals and stairs, Lilette had to wonder if it were an intentionally labyrinthine defense or confusing happenstance.

Though she didn't tire so easily as humans, she greeted her destination with a triumphant sigh. Oh and what a sight it was! Her pale features reflected beautifully off polished floors while books and oddities arrested her gaze with no end.

She took slow, mystified steps, till awareness of the suspended figure elicited a gasp of wonder.

"O-oh!"

The comparatively smaller girl was quick to curtsy for her host

The former noble had been raised polite and proper of course, but the man's hulking stature and warrior-helm—stylized in the image of occult imagery of a goat, she suspected—doubled her desire to be on respectful terms with the sorcerer.

"Sir enchanter," she greeted.

"I am Sister Lilette of Ragash, once of the Falwood. A pleasure to make thine acquaintance at last."
 
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Lilette Blackbriar
The suspended figure stirred, a motion suggesting he'd registered her arrival despite the tome commanding his immediate attention. The volume shut with a percussive finality that echoed off granite walls like a judicial gavel. His aerial throne commenced its descent with the stately deliberation of celestial bodies obeying unfamiliar physics, settling upon the carpet with surprising delicacy given its macabre ornamentation.

Rising from his seat, the sorcerer achieved verticality that reduced their relative proportions to something approaching adult and adolescent. Beneath the metallic carapace, one could begin to discern the barest glimpses of the peculiar texture of synthetic musculature, some alchemical substitute for mortal flesh that clung to his frame with the sheen of rubberized leather. This artificial anatomy rippled and contracted as he approached, pneumatic systems translating intention into locomotion whilst simultaneously propelling a dozen stone's worth of ornamental armor.

"Ah! Ragash. I would recognize that particular dialectical inflection anywhere, Sister Lilette, faint though time may have rendered it."

His gaze manifested as twin azure luminosities behind the helm's ocular apertures, their intensity suggesting either thaumaturgic augmentation or uncommonly vigorous health. The horns crowning his headpiece, whether goat-inspired or merely coincidentally caprine, lent him the aspect of some primitive nature deity who'd traded trees for practical metallurgy.

"A most fortuitous coincidence, for I claim that esteemed city as my birthplace. Now then, your correspondence, whilst delightfully formal, proved somewhat... shall we say, economical with specifics regarding the PURPOSE of this visit. Tell me, do you seek to procure some manner of mystical service? Some thaumaturgical undertaking, perhaps? I confess myself VERY curious."
 
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Oh? had she picked up the accent these past few years in Ragash? Better theirs than Anirian.

Lilette gazed up at him curiously, this titan of a man who looked so strange even for a mage, nothing at all like the elven mages she once knew so well, perhaps more befitting of a Fae warrior, were it not for this decidedly metallic construct. The rippling muscle in particular caught her morbidly curious eye, if only for academic appraisal.

Vaezhasar's voice boomed once more through the opulent chamber to reveal the source of his excitement, but also his curiosity.

"Ah, indeed!" she chimed.

"Forgiveth me mine vague inkings, I wishest not bandits nor ne'er do wells to lay in ambush shouldst they happen upon mine letters en-route."

Lilette gestured then for the servant-thing to surrender her luggage, at which point she'd uncover the bag to reveal the black-blue sheen of plate armor neatly stowed within. First and foremost, she held aloft in both hands a peculiar helm, shaped to accommodate an elven skull.

"Tis an enchanted suit, by way of elvish magic long ago. I would'st see'th it refit to mine form, magic intact."

She stared into it's faceless visage a moment, her pale features staring back, albeit warped.

It felt strange to reveal it after so long, hesitantly—tenderly—setting it atop a nearby table. She chewed her lip nervously, turning back to face the enchanter.

"I've silver, should'st thou taketh material payment?"





 
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Lilette Blackbriar

Vaezhasar's attention pivoted to the armor with the sort of laser focus usually reserved for dragons spotting unattended sheep.

What happened next defied the usual relationship between mass and velocity. For a figure whose dimensions suggested he'd been constructed from smaller, denser warriors, he moved with startling alacrity, the helmet vanished from the table and materialized in his grasp before one could properly register the transition. His armored digits engulfed the elven helm, making it appear rather like a thimble caught in the paw of an enthusiastic bear.

He rotated the piece with the absorbed fascination of a philosopher examining a particularly stubborn paradox, or perhaps a child who'd discovered an iridescent beetle and was determined to appreciate it from every conceivable angle. The prismatic light played across the metal as he turned it this way and that, his luminous gaze tracking along seams and contours with professional intensity.

"Hmm! The metalwork, adequate, I suppose, serviceable even! But these enchantments? How shall I phrase this delicately... they are somewhat crude. Primitive, one might say. Oh, I detect the foundational principles well enough, but the execution leaves room for improvement. Beyond mere refitting, I perceive NUMEROUS opportunities for enhancement."


The assessment emerged with enthusiastic certainty, as though he'd just diagnosed a fascinating but eminently treatable malady. He deposited the helm back onto the table with surprising gentleness, then cocked his head in a gesture that set his elaborate horns tracing theatrical arcs through the rainbow-tinted air.

"Now! Regarding compensation, certainly, I accept monetary remuneration. However, and this is MOST important, I harbor a distinct preference for commerce of the mystical variety. Enchanted curiosities, arcane instruments, thaumaturgical oddities. These are the currencies I find most... stimulating. Oh, and favors, naturally, favors can prove exceedingly valuable. So. If you possess some manner of magical implement you might offer, I would find such payment more appealing than mere coin."
 
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Lilette looked around in a panic. Where hast thou gone?! she thought, why hath it vanished?

It was not until till the enchanter-titan spoke that she understood what had happened. And the way he spoke of the helm, it set her nerves alight.

"Crude...?" she breathed.

"It served mine Knightly Brother well enough, when last he battled the humans of Anir."

The "nun" took exasperated steps towards the man, shock spread about the face of a woman who couldn't believe what she was hearing about the family heirloom, hurt more than angered.

"T'were passed down for generations, bound to mine bloodline by ancient sorcery. It doth answer the familial call in our time o' need, surely it needeth not do more?"

She scooped up the helm as though it were her child, cradling it gently away from the towering enchanter who may offend, if only it had ears of it's own.

Nevertheless she sighed to herself, for there was no one else to help her in these lands.

"Yet..." she said shyly.

"I mayhaps know where to findeth a recompense thou mayest approve of, for thine... services."

There was hesitation in her soft voice, and sparsity in eye contact, or whatever counted when faced with enchanted steel and horns.

When at last they did meet his again, they were resigned to something grim.

"Hast thou interest in mystical creatures? What if I told thee I art possessed of specimen most rare?"

"I couldst lend it to thee?"

"...on some conditions, of course..."



 
Lilette Blackbriar

Laughter erupted from behind the ornate faceplate, a sound that the helmet's acoustics transformed into something altogether more resonant and peculiar, as though someone had taken ordinary mirth and run it through a cathedral's organ pipes whilst simultaneously dropping it down a well. The result possessed an almost mechanical quality, warped and deepened into frequencies that suggested the speaker either gargled gravel for recreation or had lungs constructed from brass tubing.

He gestured in a manner that could only be described as 'oh please,' his gauntleted hands spreading in placating dismissal, the kind of motion politicians deployed when accused of unpopular truths.

"Do not appear so wounded, now. You must understand, I am an artificer, the caliber of which has not graced this world since the Age of Wonders packed its luggage and left. Naturally, NATURALLY, my critical standards shall prove considerably more exacting than those of... lesser practitioners. Call it the burden of excellence."

It was the sort of statement that managed to be both reassurance and boast simultaneously, a not inconsiderable feat of conversational acrobatics. The subtext being, naturally, that when one reached such rarefied heights of expertise, ordinary standards of tact became optional accessories rather than mandatory equipment.

He angled his horned helm downward, fixing her with that azure luminescence, and one could almost sense the eagerness radiating from behind the metal.

"Now, do go on about the creature. I'm all ears."

This last proclamation required a certain suspension of literal interpretation, given that his actual ears remained entirely concealed beneath several pounds of enchanted metalwork. Still, the sentiment translated clearly enough: his attention had been thoroughly captured, which for a man surrounded by preserved oddities and bejeweled skulls suggested the promise held considerable appeal indeed.
 
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"I... I see'th." relented Lilette.

Personal feelings aside, it was hard to argue with that logic. Did she believe him the greatest enchanter to ever live? she had doubts but his reputation for excellence was perfectly suited to her needs nevertheless.

"Forgiveth me this breach of composure, Sir Enchanter, this maille art tied to his memory."

"It shan't happen again, regardless mine feelings on the matter."

The little nun bowed her head, and carefully set aside her brother's helm.


"As for thine... creature," she pivoted.

Her throat bobbed in nervous swallowing, gazing up at the man in search of what little body language one could glean from exoskeletal steel. Appraising, with the same clinical observation as he had her armor.

"I could'st procure thee a Vampyric subject of study. I doth fear however the details of such an accord art considered most taboo in the lands I hath walked, even for the purposes o' science and understanding."

She wrung her pale hands nervously.

"Can'st thou assure me hither place be'st safe haven to talk of such things? Privately."





 
Lilette Blackbriar

Behind the faceplate, Vaezhasar's eyes performed a rotation that would have been far more effective as communication had anyone actually witnessed it. The gesture vanished into the general opacity of enchanted metal, which was rather the problem with dramatic eye-rolling whilst wearing a helmet, all that effort and no audience to appreciate it.

Did she imagine him some sort of hedge wizard clutching pearls at the mention of anything remotely controversial? A magical prude who fainted at unconventional research topics?

"Vampirism represents a phenomenon with which I possess considerable familiarity. I can assure you it ranks among the less exotic subjects to which I've directed scholarly attention."

He snorted, a sound that emerged from his helmet with a peculiar tinny quality, as though the metalwork had opinions about respiratory dismissiveness.

His mind had already lurched into motion, cataloguing possibilities with the enthusiasm of a scholar presented with a particularly interesting puzzle. The mechanics of the afflicted's physiology, the metabolic paradoxes, the nature of infected tissue operating beyond conventional biological parameters. Naturally, terminating the specimen would prove counterproductive, one couldn't very well observe functional processes in something that had ceased functioning. Vivisection rather than dissection, then. Keep all the interesting bits operational whilst examining them.

"Given the extent of experimental procedures, alchemical augmentations, and physiological reconstructions to which I have subjected myself, my claim to humanity rests solely upon superficial morphology rather than any substantive biological criteria. It'd be hypocritical of me to spurn your offer or worse yet, report you."
 
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His initial reaction was of little comfort. While certainly good that she would not be spurned, the mundanes which he assigned to Vampires begged a question;

Was this payment enough?

It had to be. It just had to. She had nothing else to give.

Only when he spoke again did her anxious eyes rise from the floor, brows raised by the faintest hope. She stood in the presence of something equally inhuman, but one who knew more of her query than perhaps even she did. The price of commerce then, may bring her closer the answer than she dared dreamed.

"Ah-?" she said, "we-we mayest talk freely then?"

The little nun glanced from side to side, taking soft steps towards the behemoth of a man. Pale lips twitched hesitantly, then cracked wide until the candlelight would glint in her teeth.

Unsmiling however, bestial canines slid from bulging gums like knives drawn from a suede sheath.

She groaned uncomfortably, though from pain or anxiety was unknown.

The Vampire stopped there, reaching out her gloved hand to shake, which would surely be enveloped by the enchanter's enormous grasp, should he accept.

"If it pleaseth thee, Sir Enchanter, ''tis I would'st be thine... subject." she swallowed nervously.

"In exchange for good service, Hath we an accord?"




 
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Lilette Blackbriar

Vaezhasar's armored arm rose with the sort of deliberate slowness that suggested either great ceremony or the kind of careful movement employed by someone who has previously discovered that sudden gestures tend to make people scream and run away. His fingers, encased in metal that was disconcertingly warm, rather like shaking hands with a kettle that had been thinking about boiling but hadn't quite committed to it, wrapped around Lilette's considerably smaller hand.


The large, gold-colored ornament adorning Vaezhasar's breastplate, which had until this moment been content to merely exist in the shape of a toothy maw, decided to join the introductions. The metal stretched in a way that metal absolutely shouldn't, and the maw smiled. It was the sort of smile that suggested it had opinions about dietary requirements that differed significantly from those found in polite society.

"I do hope you possess the intellectual capacity to comprehend the fundamental nature of this arrangement, considering the rather straightforward transactional parameters we are establishing here." Vaezhasar said, in tones that managed to make organ harvesting sound like a minor clerical matter. "You see, I require certain biological components, mere fragments really, nothing architecturally significant to your overall structural integrity, which I shall extract and subsequently preserve as reagent materials for my considerably advanced thaumaturgical practices. Now, while I can assure you with reasonable certainty that this harvesting procedure will not result in your termination, I am, after all, a scholar of considerable skill, not some ham-fisted butcher, I feel professionally obligated to inform you that the sensation may prove somewhat... let us say 'pedagogically uncomfortable.'"

He tapped his foot thrice against the floor. Reality, which had been minding its own business, suddenly found itself with a large, circular maw where perfectly good stone flooring used to be. The floor rippled like water that had just been told some particularly disturbing news. The maw that emerged was pink-red, skinless, and furnished with teeth that looked disturbingly human, the sort of teeth that might have once belonged to someone who'd made similarly poor decisions about magical contracts.

The staff that emerged from the floor-maw stood as tall as Vaezhasar himself, a grotesque marriage of organic and inorganic elements. Twin horns of ridged bone curved upward from its head like the antlers of some primordial beast, framing a central eye of brilliant azure that pulsed with an inner luminescence. The eye itself was set within a metalwork frame of tarnished gold and dark steel, forming a crossguard from which dangled a weathered skull on one side and what appeared to be a leather pouch on the other. The shaft was segmented with bands of metal and bone, culminating in a wicked point at its base that suggested the staff served equally well as weapon and arcane focus.
 
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Lilette swallowed once, then twice, as pale lips twisted bitterly. If the man's words hadn't made a pit in her unliving stomach, then the excess of arcane energies on display certainly had.

"Surely... surely thou canst do ought for the pain?"

Her eyes seemed to become bloodshot the longer his spells took.

"If thou'rt to... take of me, I shalt not surrender pieces ere mine approval." she nearly gagged.

Just saying these things, how desperate had she truly become? But alas, squeezing her eyes shut at the revelation, she had nothing else to trade.

<"...mam maddau i mi..." > she muttered in elvish.

Only once the spell had ended did she look up again at the armored figure, blinking as she wiped some intrusion from her eye. She stared at her finger a moment, stained in cold, dark, crimson. Confusedly she wiped her cheek, stained by a single streak of blood fallen from the corner of her eye.

The girl blinked, but said nothing of it.

"And... how much? How much diseased flesh wouldst thou extract, in recompense for one suit of maille?"




 
Lilette Blackbriar

Vaezhasar shook his helmet-encased head with the sort of metallic rattle that suggested either profound disappointment or a loose rivet. Possibly both. It had dawned on him, in much the same way dawn itself dawns, which is to say gradually and then all at once, that the girl would experience some physical discomfort once he began to... extract bits of her. But then again, vampires usually possessed quite the high pain tolerance, what with the whole business of existing in the territory between life and death.

He hadn't wholly discarded the notion that the woman before him might simply be a wuss, though this raised the interesting philosophical question of what, precisely, a wussy vampire would need such elaborate plate armor for. Protection from harsh language, perhaps?


"Flesh?" The word emerged from his helmet with the tinny echo of someone speaking from inside a particularly judgmental bucket. "I intend to extract your blood... and tears. If I anesthetized you in advance, the chances of you shedding a tear or two would drastically decline. Simple mathematics, really."

He turned with incredible speed, the sort of speed that really shouldn't be possible for someone encased in a living suit of armor that weighed more than a grown donkey.

His gauntleted hand seized a large metal syringe from his work table, along with a small-ish glass vial that had seen better days, most of which had probably been during the previous century. The syringe possessed a wickedly thick needle, the kind one would expect to be employed on cows, other large ungulates, or possibly small siege engines.


"You see," he continued, brandishing the implement with the casual air of someone showing off a particularly interesting teaspoon, "most vampires have fairly dulled emotional responses. Comes with the territory, I'm afraid. So their tears, whether genuine or extracted through, shall we say, therapeutic discomfort, happen to possess a certain metaphysical weight to them. Terribly useful in the right circumstances."


He pointed the syringe at her with the practiced gesture of someone who had pointed many syringes at many people, most of whom had probably asked fewer questions.

"Now, if you'd be so kind, roll up one of your sleeves and present the inside of your arm to me."
 
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"Oh." she sighed in relief "Tis decidedly less grim an image than what I hadst conjured."

The revelation that she was not trading her own organs seemed to loosen those tense shoulders and unknit her brow, even if she continued to rub at her sleeve.

"I've not much blood to give, and shalt require... a meal, after, to replenish mineself."

Her gaze was quickly drawn to quicker movements, and though her eyes widened ever so slightly at the enormity of the needle, her surprise was quickly burnt away by the spark of recognition. Lilette was quick to find herself a seat and roll her wide sleeves. Her arms were thin and skin soft, alluding to a body better suited to court than donning the very armor for which she made this exchange. She traced a slender finger over the skin, searching for a vein until she'd found the largest, located just beneath her inner elbow.

"Hither," she said softly, "they oft drew from hither."

She laid her arm out of the rest, leaning on the other while facing away from the bloody work to be done. Less out of fear and more of habit.

"Thou'st intrigued me, Ser enchanter."

"Based upon mine—confessedly limited—research, I hadst believed vampyre's blood too infectious for alchemical use, lest mine patients themselves become such..."

The girl hesitated.

"...creatures, as I." she said, glancing over her shoulder curiously.

"Hast thou a means to purify it, perhaps?"





 
Lilette Blackbriar

Vaezhasar wrapped his armor-clad fingers around Lilette's slender forearm with the sort of deliberate care usually reserved for handling either priceless artifacts or particularly temperamental explosives. The metal, if one could call it metal, which one couldn't, really, was lukewarm to the touch. This was because, despite resembling metal in the way that a particularly convincing stage prop resembles the real thing, Vaezhasar's armor was actually alive. It was crafted from pure energy given physical manifestation, which is rather like saying a rainbow had decided to take up weightlifting and gotten stuck halfway through the process.

As such, it possessed certain... malleable properties, in much the same way that reality itself possessed certain malleable properties when you knew which bits to poke.

"A vampire's blood," he observed, positioning the syringe with professional detachment, "is what simpletons call 'overly infectious.' Well, yes. In the same way a volcano is 'overly warm.' The thing is, and this is the bit that makes people's eyes glaze over at dinner parties, I can't cure vampirism yet, but I can make the blood stop doing the infecting bit. Magic can denature it, you see. Make it inert. Well, dead, if you will. The fascinating thing is, being dead doesn't stop it being metaphysically useful. Rather like how a hammer doesn't stop being a hammer just because you've used it to prop open a door."

He angled the syringe with the practiced precision of someone who had done this many times before and would probably do it many times again, assuming the universe didn't have other plans. The needle, which could charitably be described as 'girthy' in the same way a battering ram could be described as 'a door-opening implement', slid into her median cubital vein with surprising ease. The vein dilated ever so slightly, like a garden hose suddenly asked to accommodate a fire hydrant's ambitions, but thankfully didn't blow. Vaezhasar had wanted to avoid that, if for no other reason than the fact it would prolong the whole ordeal. Everyone with even the slightest inkling of medical knowledge knew you couldn't efficiently retrieve blood from a blown vein, though admittedly most people with medical knowledge weren't trying to extract tears from vampires either.

"Now then. Pandemonium." The word escaped his helmet with the weight of someone who'd spent far too much time thinking about it. "I've spent the better part of my existence studying the place and its inhabitants. 'Daemons,' the mortals call them, though that's rather like calling the ocean 'damp.' They're chaos with opinions, really. Pure, undiluted chaos that happens to think it's a person. Or a thing. Or several things at once, depending on the day. Thir home, and do pay attention, this is the important bit, exists in what we academically-minded types call 'a dimension perpendicular to consensus reality.' And the magic is exudes mutates everything. Twists it. Takes what you think of as 'normal' and gives it a good talking-to until it agrees to be something else entirely."

The blood continued its journey into the syringe with the reluctant cooperation of someone paying taxes.

"The thing is," he continued, with the satisfaction of someone getting to the point after a pleasant detour through the scenery, "once you've learned to work with daemon bits, and I mean that quite literally, they leave bits lying around sometimes, you develop a certain... perspective. After spending years trying to make sense of creatures that change shape because it's Tuesday, or because they don't like the color purple, or because they've just remembered they forgot to have bones, well..." He paused, watching the blood rise in the syringe. "Working out how a vampire operates is rather like doing a children's puzzle after you've just finished reassembling the universe from scratch. With footnotes."
 
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The vampire would grunt in discomfort as the needle found purchase, opposing hand curling around the armwrest. Still, prior experience and Vaezhasar's gentleness lessened any unnecessary pain, even if for reasons she'd have found concerning.

Her pulse seemed deathly weak, filling the syringe more slowly than any living thing should have unless seconds away from passing, yet her heart did beat ever so faintly. The process would be slow, and her blood thick. cold, nearly dead.

"Thou'st worked with Daemonic flesh?" she winced.

"Art thou a warlock, or dark-bound besides? Father wouldst have taken a liking."

Whether compliment or observation was difficult to tell from her fatigued tone.

"I must confess, 'tis not been o'er long since I contracted this sanguine-malady. I doth fear I know very little of mine own self, nor those alike."

"Though medicine I studied in Ragash, 'tis only the mundane I perform."

That needle was spared a glance, one she regretted immediately if only for the sense of grim familiarity it brought her.

"Thou claimest to know Vampyres. what wouldst taketh mineself to know them as thee?"




 
Lilette Blackbriar
Vaezhasar, having collected what could generously be called 'enough' blood, though 'enough' was one of those words that meant different things to different people, rather like 'comfortable' or 'just a minute', withdrew the needle with a wet POP.

He did this quickly and without warning, which is generally considered poor bedside manner but excellent experimental methodology. The sudden withdrawal was calculated to provoke as much unannounced pain as possible, because nothing says 'professional medical procedure' quite like deliberate discomfort inflicted for metaphysical purposes.

With the blood-filled syringe still in hand, he made a small gesture, the sort of gesture that looked casual but probably took years to perfect, like a chef flipping an omelet or a grandmother expressing disappointment. Suddenly, a layer of moisture peeled from the corners of Lilette's eyes, compelled by an invisible but obviously magical force. It was the kind of magic that didn't bother with flash and spectacle, preferring instead to simply get on with things like a particularly efficient secretary.

The moisture condensed into a single tiny sphere, no larger than a grain of pea, which is to say very small indeed unless you happened to be an ant, in which case it would be quite substantial. The sphere floated up to Vaezhasar's face with the serene purpose of a soap bubble that had been to university, and he quickly trapped it in a tiny glass vial, sealing its top with a cylindrical piece of cork. It wasn't much as far as tears were concerned, but it would have to do. After all, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need, and sometimes you just get a pea-sized ball of vampire eye moisture and have to make the best of it.

"Warlock?" The word clanged around inside his helmet like a penny in a collection plate. "Good grief, no. I don't do the whole servitude-to-deities thing. Very limiting, you know. All that bowing and scraping and 'yes, your dark magnificence' nonsense. No, I'm what you might call an opportunist. I take knowledge where I find it. Power too, come to that. It's all knowledge in the end, really. Even the dangerous bits. Especially the dangerous bits, if we're being honest."

He paused, which is something you notice when someone's wearing armor. Pauses in armor have weight to them.

"Hang on, though. You say you underwent the bulk of your studies in Ragash?" There was a quality to his voice now, like someone who's just remembered they left the kettle on. "You've met the Empress, then? The Regent Empress, I should say. Titles matter to that sort. Funny thing about that." Another pause, deliberate this time. "We're related, she and I. Family, you might say. Small world, isn't it?"
 
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