Private Tales Death's Inn at The Murky Goblet

[Larewen Dragana]

Larewen sat quietly in one of the less private alcoves of the establishment, toying with a glass of wine and her grimoire opened before her. The blackened pages and eldritch, glowing ink cast a soft glow on the walls around her. The necromancer, like most of the small village's residents, showed no qualms about putting her darker interests on display. It was as close as she could get to Vokroth and still hope to encounter those that might find reason to aid her in her goals of raising the Sunken City from beneath Bayou Garramarisma.

The stench of rot already permeated the wetlands in which the elf and mire's denizens resided, but it was particularly strong around the elf. Especially so for a vampire, considering it was the distinct, sickly-sweet aroma of decay. It originated from beneath the cloth of a glove that covered her left hand from fingertip to elbow. Her flesh was visibly malformed under the fabric. Whatever magic cursed the limb shared a second host upon the necromancer's body: the diadem upon her crown crackled with malevolent energies... and yet still there was something even more wrong with the woman.

More than a simple vampire, more than an aerei elf, the haunting creature that poured over a cursed tome was so twisted by dark, necromantic magicks that one could clearly identify her as an abomination to life by the oppressive aura that encircled her person. And yet still, the verdant and ebon clad woman painted a lovely picture in that corner. A lovely picture that hid a mind warped by a thirst for something far more corrupt, far darker, than simple blood of the living.

Flipping a page with a click of her tongue to manipulate the air around it, she brought her glass to her lips and drank deeply of a dark wine that stank with the coppery smell of blood. If one had a fine nose for identifying such vintages, they'd be able to tell that the elf drank of her own kin from that cup. A small, silver case lay open beside her book and clove cigarettes wrapped in black papers lay upon them. She reached for one, bringing it to pale lips and lighting it with a pass of her hand.

An eldritch stare lifted from her page toward the bar and then swept toward the door as she sought anyone that might look useful enough to entreat.

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

The Murky Goblet, Hruugen had let out a private laugh at the name and it was much as he had expected.
Half full of people but every inch of the place thick with must and funk of all kinds. Muddy water, the crisp tang of vegetation determined to seek entrance and the tang of sweat.

In a word, life.

But his keen senses found another note to this aroma. Something was rotten and not just the wood of the floorboards. It was the smell of rotten flesh which he knew well enough. It was not covered in perfume or cleansing scents save for those already present.

He took a drink from the bar and paid promptly then turned to look upon the other patrons. He was hardly picky and ended up with a bitter dark port that felt heavier than it looked.
Plenty of the other people there might be considered smelly or even diseased but he saw no sign of the rotting sickness or the like.

It was then that he spotted a singular figure in the corner, the grey of his eyes landed on her as gently as a moth might and stayed just as innocently.
She was of Elf kind, pale and from her manner distinctly noble in manner and dress but that is where the sense of her ended.
Nobility seldom travelled alone and when they did they seldom looked noble while doing it. Yet she was in all appearance as calm in her surroundings as a spider in its own web.

The port tasted of dark bitterness, thick with iron and slightly warming in the belly and the young Monk decided he liked it.

He would not call himself any kind of detective, not really and he would be the first to admit that he was often wrong in his own mind of others but this woman radiated a feeling of death which he was also familiar with, as animals were. He noticed that even though flies and other things of the swamplands pestered many of the patrons, himself included, they left her well alone.

Nature rejected the unnatural.

She looked up, eyes hungry for something, perhaps she was looking for a friend or an enemy. It occurred to him that he may be the only one there who noticed her or had any inkling of what danger she may pose so he decided to pre-empt anyone else approaching her by doing it himself.

As her gaze swept the crowd he caught it and raised his glass in slow greeting, his thin lips smiling. He looked like a thin thing under his dark robes that hung in the foreign style of the Northlands.
The beads and charms that hung on rope and chord from his waste were of many religions, many ways of worship and all of them tied to death rites.

His appearance usually insighted interest in others, he was hoping this time he peaked this woman's.

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

If that was what Hruugen was after, piquing her interest, then he certainly succeeded when he raised the glass upward. She could almost smell his port from where she sat, if she tried hard enough. There were lots of smells to sift through in The Murky Goblet, but it wasn't that that drew her attention. It wasn't exactly his garb either, but rather the funereal accessories with which he adorned his body. Her eyes narrowed slightly, enchanted orbs seeking any threads of magic that might be visible upon them.

"Brave for a mortal," she remarked casually when he reached her table. She shifted in her chair, back straight against it. One leg shifted beneath her dark dress, crossing over the other at the knee. She inhaled the smoke of her cigarette deeply. Once, twice, and a third unnecessarily long, rattling draw of her lungs left the stick of clove and tobacco exhausted. She tapped it out into a broken ashtray and left the butt there. Its cherry smoldered in its dying breaths.

A soft sigh, another draw of unneeded breath, and the woman leaned forward, gloved hand flicking toward a chair across from her. She seemed eager to feed into his curiosity and yet the entire time her corrupt stare searched his being for any weakness--any opening she could exploit in his person would do.

Her nostrils flared, taking in the scent of his young blood and a thirst bubbled in the pit of her belly. Unquenchable, annoying, and precisely why the vampire sought a more easily sustained form of undeath: lichdom. Larewen's good arm reached across the table then, shutting the eldritch tome so that its mysteries would remain just that in the prescence of Hruugen: mysterious.

"Though I think foolish is more the word," she murmured. This time, the words were quieter and to herself.

There was something distinctly wrong about the silvery sweet tone of her voice. Poison laced it just beneath the saccharine notes, toxic and not unlike a poisonous arachnid matriarch, ready to strike at any moment. And she certainly was--if this human, or any of those within The Murky Goblet for that matter--sought to pick a fight with her, the necromancer would not hold back in her own defense. She was here for allies though. A single vampire could not raise a fallen city from beneath the deathly waters of the bayou.

 

[Hruugen]

"Thank you!"
Hruugen smiled a bit wider as he sat, friendly and open.

Larewen's sight would find him almost blinding. The artifact about his neck, a simple stone to all others was one of the Guardian Stones, The Light Stone and while seemingly inert to those with magic sight it would be as radiant as its name suggests, eclipsing the more modest affinity of his weapons and charms.
Though she could tell he was protected in ways against simple undead, warded against minor evils and curses.

As for physical openings there were plenty or so it seemed. He sat calmly as though there was no danger at all and while he moved with purpose he was not reserved as some holy men are even as he craned his neck obviously to try and look at the book as she snapped it shut he took no offense. Her privacy was her own and he let his curiosity get the better of him.

"I suppose it would seem brave if you were my first immortal."

He did not catch her hushed addition to her statement and Hruugen was too busy thinking of his last drink with an immortal being. A dragon of all things, though guised as a human woman her power was scarce diminished and he knew then as he knew now that fear would profit him nothing.

As she took him in he took her in also, the details of her clothing and the rich smell of the cigarette, even how she sat told him something.
It told him that he was in the spiders web now and he wasn't getting out until she let him for which the best defence might be politeness.

"I don't get to sit and talk with many women who will outlive both myself and almost everyone else in the world but this makes two and I suppose that makes me more lucky than anything."

Another smile and he took a drink.

"My name is Hruugen, forgive me for I am new to these lands and do not know you. Might I have your name?"

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

Larewen raised her glass to her mouth again as he spoke, though the mouthful of wine she'd imbibed caught in her throat when the monk dubbed himself lucky. She swallowed heard and then passed a rush of air from her mouth to clear her airway for further vocalization.

"I'm not entirely sure I'd call that good fortune," she mused aloud once she found her voice again. The elf rotated her glass in her hand, swirling the dark red fluid around in its bowl. Her gaze lowered to its tannins, watching as the blood that thickened the wine slowed its progress back to the bottom of the glass. Finally, she drained the last of it and returned it to the table. One hand raised to flag down a passing barmaid as she regarded the human.

For a long moment, she considered whether to provide the male with simply her name or her title and as she did so, she let Hruugen's query hang unanswered in the air. "Larewen," came the answer at length as she finally opted for simplicity. "Though my name is not one a babe should know. My time passed long before your ancestors walked this world."

As those words left her lips, her nose wrinkled, and a strange look crossed her face. It was cringy, the way her words sounded. Even to her own pointed ears. She sounded as old as she was, as if she'd forgotten what life felt like--and she had!

"More bloodwine?" a curvaceous creature that passed as human asked, suddenly popping up amidst the small mingling crowd. Larewen lowered her hand and responded with a lift of her chin, nothing more. With a half-shrug, the unnamed woman disappeared once more to fetch her patron's drink.

Larewen leaned forward then, ungloved hand extending in the direction of the other's throat. "That is a lovely piece. Where did you get it from?"

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

"Babe? I suppose I am to you. Not that I'd know much about ancestors. My apple landed very far from my family tree."

He gave another laugh to himself, his manners oddly were of an older man than his years which continued as the offer of a drink was refused. His face was one of simple bemusement until the very shapely server had left. His eye followed for a moment if only to make sure they were out of earshot before he spoke again.

"A little on the nose for a vampire, bloodwine I mean."
Not that Larewen was trying to be subtle. As soon as she leaned forward and killed her cigarette after a few impossible pulls he knew what she was. The signs were there, pale skin, the aversion of flies and the skilled but identifiable deliberate breathing.

"Oh this? It's more of a hand me down really."
He fingered the Light Stone as he looked down at it, having forgotten it was there again. Light, he had come to find, was more a concept than a hard rule.

"The previous owner died and I took up ownership. It's called the Light Stone. There's a very long and storied history but the short version is it chose me and even after a year I still have no idea why."
It felt strange to tell even that much to a vampire but he wasn't going to bother lying to her. Honesty was his armour.
The power within the stone was quiet to him. He could call upon it and sometimes he got the notion that it was trying to communicate in some way but he has yet to fully understand it.

"You have some interesting pieces yourself."
His slender hand gestured towards Larewen.
"I am sure many historians would be eager to get a closer look at them. Are they from your time? The gemcraft is excellent."
It was, he was no artisan but a cultivated appreciation for many crafts dwelled within Hruugen. A gift of his travels.

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

Larewen's eyes rolled at the remark about her choice of drink being on the nose, her upper lip curling slightly in disdain. "If you'd prefer, I could drink from your tap," she retorted coolly as she sat back once more. Her gaze remained on the stone. "It is generally frowned upon to feed openly in places of business such as this."

She allowed the words to hang in the air for a moment before she finally turned her gaze upward and back toward the male's own gaze. "A dangerous piece, if used with the wrong intent," she remarked idly. The barmaid came, dropped off a decanter of wine, and disappeared with a handful of coins proffered by the necromancer in exchange for the vintage.

Pouring herself another glass, she slid the cup toward Hruugen out of sheer curiosity. Would he be willing to drink from it? Her gaze moved from him to the glass and then back, as she gestured with her gloved hand. "It's not so bad. Have a sip, you might just find the blood of the aerei as invigorating as I do. Your kind have been known to develop a taste for the living without dying." She spoke of cultists and cannibalistic cabals, no doubt.

"I am indeed in possession of numerous artifacts, though mine don't quite shine with that same light. It makes me curious. What would it take to lift it off your neck?" There was a dangerous undernote to her words, as if the necromancer might simply reach across the table and force it from his throat herself. Certainly, that is an option in her dark, twisted mind.

 

[Hruugen]

Such a brazen question struck him like a blow and astonishment flashed upon his face beforeHruugen replied, looking about a bit.
"I won't lie though. The idea does have a certain appeal."
Tugging at his collar he followed the line of it down to where the stone hung and his eyes met Larewen's again calmly.
"There are those who have described the experience as rapturous which has me curious. Has that been accurate to your experiences?"

Again his slender fingers found the stone.
"It is certainly powerful. Though I have little use for such power. Aside from when I need to find my way in the dark."

His thin smile stayed even as he looked down at the wine. He was no stranger to ritualistic cannibalism but for the pleasure of the taste alone he had not taken of such things.
So he slid his own port to the side and took the glass with solemn reverence.
"Fahanu t'ch noot."
The soft prayer spoken was to acknowledge the giving of something precious, few things moreso than blood in almost any culture.

Hruugen drank with closed eyes and let the blood wine into his mouth through his fine lips.
It tasted of metal, that iron tang mixed with something sweet. An invigorating flavour as described but strangely hollow.
Once done and after he wiped both the rim of the glass and his mouth he returned the glass to the table, closer to Larewen.

"Certainly better than Allirian wine but I don't think I have the... pallet to fully appreciate it."
Laughing silently at his own little joke he sat back again after returning the glass.
"It's not blessed, if that's what you are thinking. Only a few words of passing respect, nothing that might effect one of your disposition."

At Larewen's third proposal he stopped to think.
"I suppose I may give it to someone if it wishes so. It has something of a will of its own I'm afraid."
Quietly he followed up with his own question having guessed at what Larewen might be thinking.
"What good would it be to you, this stone that produces light? I should think a being given to darkness would have little interest in such things."

The question was without judgement. Hruugen was not going to begrudge any creature its own nature, not even one that was in many cultures considered a violation of the body and soul. In his travels he had discovered how few willingly chose such an existence so he accepted the possibility that one such creature was before him now, no more responsible for their fate than a fly in a spiders web.

 

[Larewen Dragana]

Something akin to a soft grin tilted the corner of the elf's mouth. Directly from the tap tasted far better to her, but soon... soon she was hoping that she wouldn't need the sanguine vitae of living creatures ever again. His query only deepened her expression. "One could say yes... and no. Not all of the living are worth tasting; some taste quite foul, and perhaps that is to their advantage."

She cast her head curiously to the side as he remarked upon the stone's usefulness (or lack thereof, for his single statement left her more curious and a little less interested in the stone). When she proffered a drink of the bloodwine, the last thing the necromancer expected was for Hruugen to accept. She watched as he took a deep drink of the copper-stained vintage, her hand eagerly awaiting the return of the glass once he'd finished imbibing his fill.

"Perhaps not," she agreed in regards to his palette. A dry chuckle followed. His query that followed led to a raise of one of her shoulders. "Surely it does more than simply omit light. Such contraptions are often made to harm creatures like me. Best to study it, dissect its purpose, and learn about it so that I cannot come to harm at its hands. Especially if more exist. You know?"

The elf sat back in her chair, bringing her cup to her mouth and sipping slowly from its contents, her verdant gaze still fixed on the stone. "How did you happen across it?"

 

[Hruugen]

"There are more. Each one powerful in its own right and some held by beings of equal power."
He did not wish to state a dragon possessed one directly.
"I have been trying to understand it myself but with limited success. It does more than cast light of course. It can, when it seems necessary, illuminate the mind. Bring clarity to thought. I find that particularly useful."
Especially during meditation.
Taking another drink he did his best to remember the events that lead to his possession of the Light Stone.

"The previous holder died."
Hruugen chose to not go into details.
"The stone... called to me and I made pilgrimage to Valentennia and met with the other guardians. They told me of the stone and it's purpose and offered me a place among them. I accepted, obviously. The rest is... unfolding to me."
His slim smile didn't waver as he passed through memory but his eyes softened as visions of his past slid seamlessly behind his eyes in the way memories do.

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

The necromancer listened carefully, the only sound from her that of her glass clinking against the table as she placed it down. She reached for the silver case that held her clove cigarettes and snapped it open while he divulged the circumstances by which he came into possession of the stone. From it, she took one cigarette and then nudged it Hruugen's way. In case he, too, wished to indulge in the spicy smoke it would offer.

It was then that something mischievous finally began to cook within the woman's skull. Perhaps she could have a fresh meal. Either way, as he provided more information about the stone, her interest began to pique again. Clarity... was definitely a way to enlightenment.

"Perhaps it needs a little more study. My own collection lies not far from here," the elf said softly. "A little I'll show you mine, if you show me yours sort of thing." A sly grin danced across her lips, and she brought the smoke to her mouth, a flicker of flame magic lighting the cherry.

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

"Thank you."
Gently and with a polite incline of the head Hruugen took the cigarette and again for how it was given he gave quiet thanks to the numerous spirits.

It was a deep and filling smoke that burned the throat of him as he held it. The sensation and flavour were grand but the habit never formed within him. For that he was too disciplined.

"Hmm, it's complimentary."
He admitted as his hand returned the cigarette and his words were deepened with smoke as they left his lips.

"I think I can see my way to that. I've always liked art and if these..."
His slim hand once again gestured to the jewellery she wore.
"... are any suggestion then I would call myself a fool to miss such an opportunity."

The port, dark and deep, reached his mouth again and he supped.
"But I think fair warning is in order. The stone chooses and protects it's bearer. I am going into your den so I trust you will be a good host."
Smiling politely Hruugen readied himself. Though he was never one to start a fight himself, he had no illusions to the web he was willingly entering.
Salvation required sacrifice.

 

[Larewen Dragana]

A soft chuckle erupted from Larewen's throat as she dragged upon her own cigarette. "I assure you, you'll leave in one piece," she returned, silvery voice taking on a playful inflection. Her tongue pressed upward against the point of a fang, verdant gaze studying the male. One piece, minus a little blood perhaps, the elf caught herself thinking--though whether that thought would translate into a threat was yet to be seen. She reached into a pocket of air that shimmered before her fingertips for some coin and left it upon the table. No wait staff ever complained about this elf's lack of generosity, though some might her tongue.

Rising to her feet, she gestured toward the exit and tilted the crown of her head that way. "If you'd be so kind to forge a path out of here," she suggested softly, allowing him the opportunity to at least lead that far. Once outside, a single finger would point southward. "I've a nightmare stabled nearby. Should his looks offend you, we could always walk."

Another peal of laughter loosed itself from her throat and she turned toward the mentioned stables to fetch her undead steed. Armored in the colors of her fallen House, the creature was almost haunting in its appearance. Dark, eldritch tendrils lined its muscles, though in places bone showed through. And yet the reanimated fiend showed no signs of discomfort; perhaps because it was nothing more than a loyal servant at this stage in its existence. With a shrill whistle, the necromancer beckoned the being nearer to the two of them.

It was almost as an afterthought that Larewen thought to procure the monk his own mount. At the edge of the stable was a freshly dead horse (it had sustained injury in the bayou and could not be saved before it expired). Without so much as asking permission, the necromancer saw it fit to rob the stable of its unwanted burden. Her lips parted, a spell concocted with death's touch left them and soon the fallen equine began to rise of its own accord, necromanced limbs finding purchase.

"For you," the elf said, as if hopping onto a freshly risen corpse was simply normal. Perhaps because to Larewen, it was normal.

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

"How reassuring!"
Standing and leaving he did indeed take the lead somewhat until they left and then he felt himself the subject of some trick for she showed him another dead thing yet not like her, an echo of a memory of a soul, all but burned down to nothing in the body of a horse that looked as though it was made in mockery of itself.

"It doesn't offend me but the Lord of Beasts,the horned God Carnnoc. He would weep to see such a creature risen again."

Then, before he could stop her or even suggest another option Larewen committed a great blasphemy before his very eyes and raised the recently dead horse to unlife. It's eyes cried out, it's body resisting the motion forced upon it as it awakened from the peace of death to the living world as a being no longer fit for it.
The sight of such a creature left to die ignobly and then so soon risen with such disrespect broke his heart. Placing a gentle hand upon the creatures snout he marked the lack of breath and warmth, how like a thing of stone or metal it was now, wholly unnatural and as such stricken of all that is wondrous of life itself. Larewen was herself a person at least but whatever soul and personality this horse held but hours ago was crushed under the magical force that now held it there.
Gently he wrapped his other hand about the great things jaw and reached into his robes for a charm on a slip of paper and gently placed it onto the brow of the mare between its dead eyes.

"Forgive me, but I cannot accept such a gift."

He spoke quiet words then to and the dead horse fell, kneeling first as if sedated and laying itself onto the ground, then the body crumbled, first to big pieces then smaller and then dust, a mark of dark earth the only remnant left of the undead horse.
Still on the ground where he had journeyed as the poor thing was destroyed he looked up at Larewen and for the first time since their meeting he wore a face of utter seriousness.

"I will travel with you, I will help you if I can in what you seek but I will not abide this disturbing of the dead further."
With an effort born more from emotion than exertion he rose and stood, hands together, immovable on this point, the man gone and replaced by the Monk.
"We must have this understanding if we are to continue."

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

To say that she was disappointed would be an understatement. With a frown just as serious as Hruugen's tone, she allowed the monk to speak and watched as the secondary mount was given back to the earth beneath their feet. A waste of her display of power, and a sentiment that required far more soul than Larewen had remaining. With a heavy sigh, she raised a hand. Before she moved forward with the spell that danced at the edge of her tongue though, she regarded Hruugen again.

"Remind me, what business brings you to the bayou if you've such a strong distaste for the magic of its inhabitants?" she asked, her own tone clipped. Or perhaps that was exactly what brought him here? The sudden afterthought was visible in her expression and something akin to a sigh rushed past pale lips.

With a wave of the raised hand, Larewen dismissed her steed. It dissipated in a curtain of dark shadows that melted into the ground upon which the creature previously stood.

"I have no need or use of someone who cannot abide my magics being used," the elf said, approaching the monk. Her verdant gaze remained fixed on him, tongue probing the point of a pearlescent fang. She did want that fresh blood but there were always more victims that would come along. Her artifacts were more of a ruse. While they truly exist, she was more interested in the warm bodies they brought her.

"My collection may be of no interest to you after all," she mused, another sigh bereaving itself of her lips. This time, it was disappointment. How long had it been since the necromancer actually sought any sort of company? "I can stay my hand, and we can walk if you'd prefer... or we can go our separate ways."

 

[Hruugen]

Gently Hruugen bent to dust off his knees with his hands and when he looked up again he saw the strange horse was gone and Larewen was on the ground making her concession.

"I appreciate that. Thank you and I usually walk everywhere. Tonight looks like it's clearing up."

He could have told her that the stone led him here, that he had excised more undead here than anywhere else he had been. That he conducted funerals in such frequency that he lost weeks of time and yet death never slowed in this place.

"You can tell me about being a vampire. I've read some things but I should hate to waste an opportunity. If you'll indulge my curiosity."
His small smile had begun to creep back onto his slim features and he took an almost apologetic stance in the understanding that he needed to give now since he had been given.

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

A slow smirk found its place on the elf's lips once more, but she said nothing immediately. Instead, she gestured to a road that led south out of the Crossroad Mire and toward her own home and the goals that lay beyond it. Goals she was suddenly quite certain this human wouldn't appreciate. A moment later, she began taking steps in that direction.

"It's quite a walk, and I'm afraid I'll have to limit you to only a portion of my collection of oddities; some of what I possess may yet be more offensive than what you just watched me to do with my magic," Larewen said plainly.

His stated curiosity in her unlife as a bloodsucking fiend amused her further, and a brief show of mirth escaped her mouth. She cut it quickly, lips pressing into a thin line for a moment. "I suppose I can answer your queries. Though there's nothing particularly spectacular about vampires. You'd find my curse far more entertaining."

This time, she grinned at Hruugen.

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

Hruugen smiled back.

"Oh please, don't keep anything from me. I'd like to see everything."
Something of his youthful enthusiasm returned.

"I have no intention of destroying necromancy, I employ a bit of it myself. The art is not what offends, it is the abuse of it."
He strolled along for a bit with Larewen in silence enjoying the night air, it was damp and cooler than the muggy day. The moss and wood rot was scenting the air.
Footfalls became the steady beat to the croaks and clicks of the wild things.

Eventually he spoke again, giving voice to his exact concerns.
"You did not ask the horse if it wanted to return. That is why I released it and made it so it cannot be tethered again to flesh."

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

Larewen arched a brow. "It was a horse," she replied with general disinterest, as if the equine nature of the risen steed made it less of a creature. Her tongue darted over pale lips as they trekked onward and she drew her lower lip into her mouth and bit down on it curiously.

Those four words were all that left her mouth for the majority of their journey, for Hruugen's reverence toward the dead animal have her a little fat with which to feed her musings. The farther they went, the less of a clear path there was to follow. They'd moved southward enough that few sentient beings travelled to. Sure, there were monsters and undead a plenty of they were to go looking, but that could wait.

"We aren't much further from the estate," the elf said finally, glancing sideways at her travelling companion for the time being. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than eerie orbs of green light appeared off to the east of the path. Clearly there was something worth exploring, but all that was left of its path were the eerie lanterns, and they hummed with magic. Was it... Soulfire?

That thought could lean one down myriad more paths if they lingered on it, but clearly the owner of the hulking manse further along that Eldritch path had little care for what dark magics she chose to decorate with. These seemed to flicker in anguish though, and if one listened closely they might hear the distant anguish of whatever summoning brought the flames to bear.

In time, the two would stand before the house which had partially sunken (at least outwardly) into the march. And it was warded heavily. To keep things out certainly, but even more so to keep things in which was peculiar.

"Library, menagerie, or another drink first?" Larewen asked as she raised a hand toward an ornately carved black oak door. It blended beautifully with the blackstone home whose innards it guarded.

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

Already he was watching much of the estate and it's surroundings and it enchanted him. Particularly the green glow of the soul fire. He could hear their screams of anguish, wordless cries for mercy that had been ignored for who knows how long.

It aggrieved him to see it but he did not interfere, only making the ten signs of peace after death to Mu the many faced, whose task was to find the lost and the damned that they may be taken on in peace to the hereafter but such a thing he knew was more in the hands of mortals than divine agents.

It was, after all, his calling and yet he smiled wide as the vampire made her offer.

"Please and thank you, a drink would be most welcome, something warm perhaps if I may be so bold as to ask."

Hruugen accepted gratefully with a small bow in reverence to her hospitality.

"You have a most impressive home."

Larewen Dragana

 

[Larewen Dragana]

"It doesn't receive the attention it once did. I lost track of my House members long ago," she said, matter-of-factly. As they approached the door, she raised a hand and uttered something quietly under her breath to identify herself to the house, as if it were sentient. With all the magic woven into the building, it might as well be. One had to play nice with the house, so to speak. Whatever was within it, Larewen wanted to protect.

After a moment, the doors creaked open with a grown of protest, as if they'd not been opened in years. Perhaps even decades. The elf didn't often come home. Even now, she stayed at the Murky Goblet where she hoped to encounter allies for her journey southward to the ruined city. Keeping the door open, she crossed the threshold and beckoned for Hruugen to follow.

"Is warmed brandy alright, then?" she asked. Once they were both inside, the doors shut themselves slowly. From the bowels of the house came an unnatural growl from an unidentified creature. The disembodied sound of its cries was otherworldly as they echoed through the manse.

Hruugen

 

[Hruugen]

Such opulence was doused by the grimness of the Manse interior. Ducking under a rather large cobweb Hruugen noted the staleness of the air and the feeling that he was entering a living crypt came upon him.

"Brandy sounds perfe... owwwww!"
The rumbling unhappy growl caught him off guard and he twirled to seek it source finding only hallways, stone arches and an ornate staircase for culprits.

"We are... alone I take it?"
What colour was in his cheeks began to drain as he spared a glance at Larewen for what he hoped might return some reassurance.

Larewen Dragana