Private Tales The First Thread

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
"I feel so lucky," Kami's words were accompanied by an eyeroll.

How lucky that she was spared being murdered for whatever greater purpose this goddess that she knew nothing about had planned. Should she bow down and grovel at Nyros' (and in turn Lleth's) feet?

"My heart is black so I doubt it would be very flavorful," Kami watched the drow sit and she found herself drawn to do the same thing. Relaxing felt weird and off but it had been a long day...night...day...she had no idea how long ago Nyros had kidnapped her.

"Do you know what we will find? Or are we just taking a guess here?"
 
"They never taste good." Nyros remarked, seeming almost bitter over the fact. As though someone should have had control over it.

His eyes fell shut as he sat there.

The Heart of Lleth was an extraordinary gift from his goddess. It allowed him to touch magics only the old priests had known, gave him the gift of sight, and made it so he neither needed food nor sleep. Yet the gifts were not eternal.

Much like every magic there was a cost. A great one. "I do not know."

He answered simply.

"But I have faith." Nyros continued. "The Goddess will bring me what I need."

As she always had.
 
Kami didn’t doubt the goddess of his but she did doubt him. She found that there was nothing she wished to talk to him about as she finished cooking her deer and ate it.

That was the only rest she got because once she was done eating, they were moving again. Kami found it best to stay quiet on this leg of the journey because what she wanted to say would have gotten her stabbed.

Restraint was hard and there were a few times she almost pushed Nyros just so he could knock her out again. It wasn’t worth the broken face though.
 
They walked mostly in silence.

Nyros did not seem to be particularly interested in conversation, and it seemed that neither was Kami. The silence was instead filled with the sounds of the land around them. Skittering rodents, chirping birds, the occasional patter of a deer.

The Drow never seemed to care for them, in fact he hardly seemed to care for anything at all. He did not move like a predator, though nor like prey. He was an animal all his own, unworried, uncaring, as though death might never reach him at all.

On the last day of their journey Kami would begin to feel something.

It hung in the air.

A slight tingle at the back of the neck, an acrid scent when the wind caught wrong. A sense of magic that was enough to set ones teeth on edge. A terrible darkness that settled in the stomach and caused a feeling on unease.

The more they walked, the greater it became, until they heard the first scream.
 
Kami had been wishing she was a shapeshifter and imagining all the different animals she could become when the feeling hit her.

She lurched forward slightly as this sensation of dread and nausea roiled up inside her. There was something seriously off and she was not liking it a single bit.

She actually felt bile rise in her throat as they continued to walk and she was sure that she was going to vomit. Her entire body fought with itself as they moved. The only thing that her body seemed to agree on was that she needed to run and get the fuck out of this place.

Unfortunately, her body wouldn’t let her do that either.

The scream pierced the silence and Kami stiffened immediately. She went to draw her dagger out of habit but realized that she did not have a weapon.

Kami looked at Nyros with an irritated look, “what was that?”
 
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Nyros stopped.

His features flickered through a range of emotion for a few moments, lips thinning as he seemed to consider the sound on his ears. "Well."

The Drow mused.

"Certainly nothing good." His head lulled towards her. "For you."

A small smile touched his face, and as it did another scream echoed out in the distance.

His hand raised slowly, a finger laying across his painted lips. He signaled her silence, and then slowly began to step forward through the wood. He moved with elegant steps, the cries and screams growing louder until finally through the forest a camp came into view.

Within it moved dozens upon dozens of Elves. Their faces were tattooed, their eyes seemed tinged with brilliant colors. In the midst of their encampment stood a cage of humans. Some looked haggard, others gripped the cage walls with panic, and still others curled up in fear.
 
"Certainly nothing good. For you."

Chills ran down Kami's spine at his words. She was actually afraid for the first time in all of this.

She did not fear Nyros and his knife, she feared the unknown.

Another scream pierced the silence and her eyes flew over to studying Nyros' face. One finger laid against his lips in the universal sign of be quiet. She followed his careful steps even as the cries and screams made the bile rise in her throat. She wanted nothing more than to throw up before running away.

Kami held strong though.

The sight that was laid before her did not help with the need to be sick. Sure, it was humans in the cages, but it was still frightening and unusual.

She looked over at Nyros and mouthed what the fuck is this?
 
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For once in their little journey the Drow actually didn't have an answer.

Those down below were closer cousins to Kami than they were his. Though tattoos covered nearly every inch of their skin it was clear that they were Elves of the Overworld and not fellow Drow. The humans they kept in cages were clearly slaves of some sort, though their purpose was not entirely clear.

Shoulders raised in a shrug. "I don't know."

The words were mouthed, more than whispered.

It was the truth though. Nyros truly had no idea what was going on here, but he was more than interested in finding out. Slowly he motioned to Kami, first pointing at her wrists, and then pointing to the ground. Clearly telling her to stay put.

They both knew if she ran he would chase her down, but it was a question of whether or not she would comply.
 
Kami wanted to tell Nyros to fuck off but she knew that she would not get far from him before he caught her and tied her up again. At least she had some freedom this way.

Because she knew how it would if she ran, she simply nodded once. She would not go anywhere. She certainly was not going to run over and ask the creepy elves for some assistance. At least she knew what Nyros was and what he wanted...well...kind of...he didn't even know what he wanted. At least she knew that Nyros was not going to kill her unless his goddess told him to.

She turned back to study the strange scene from afar. She was no fan of humans but this was a tad excessive.
 
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Kami would suddenly notice that Nyros was no longer there.

The moment she had looked away back towards the camp the Drow had suddenly disappeared. A single step had taken him into the shadows, and when next the Mage looked she would find her companion in the midst of the camp.

In his black clothing and the darkness of the canopy above, it was easier to see the painted mask of his face rather than his figure. He moved like a cat, slinking through the camp. He slipped from tent to tent, drawing not towards the humans, but one of the men that guarded them.

Within an instant Nyros was upon him.

A hand over his mouth, a blade pressed against his throat, and then suddenly he wrenched backward.

Behind herself, Kami would hear a sudden lurch as the Drow and his new victim suddenly appeared from the shadows on the floor. The latter struggled, pushed, but Nyros held him down as the butt of his knife crashed into the side of the skull.
 
The man that Nyros had abducted stopped moving after he had been hit in the head. Kami just stared at Nyros and mouthed, "really?!"

This drow needed to stop hitting people so hard if he wanted help or answers. She felt her own head start to hurt as she thought back to the...two...three...times he had punched her.

She hated to admit that anything about the elf was cool but that little shadow trick was pretty badass. It also explained how he had gotten into her room at the inn in the first place. Sneaky little drow.
 
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Nyros relaxed slightly, pushing the other man to the side and letting him crumple into the ground as little more than a doll.

Slowly his head turned towards Kami. "You wanted to know who they were."

The Drow Commented dryly, his expression completely straight as though she should have expected nothing less from him. His gaze flickered towards the elf on the ground, lips thinning for a moment as he motioned towards her.

"Do the marks mean anything to you?" She was a mage after all, a scholar.

"That one." He said pointing to the strange symbol upon the Elf's neck. "Is of Yogrimmir, an old God."

Very old. Though the symbol was scattered among a thousand others.
 
Kami threw him a look. She had wanted to know who they were but that didn't mean to go take one and then knock him out.

The elf came forward and squatted down to look at stranger. She only recognized one and, even then, she had no idea what it represented. She pointed to one on his left forearm.

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"I have no idea what it is but I recognize it. I saw it while I was studying at Elbion," she took a few more seconds to look over the rest of the visible tattoos before standing.

"Do you think they are some kind of cult?"
 
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"What did you see it in?" Elbion, even he knew, was a college. A place of study and learning that most could only dream about.

The Drow of course had their own places like that, the Priesthoods and their temples. Nyros had spent many years as a faithful servant within one of them. A time that he would now sooner forget rather than indulge in memory.

"A cult, perhaps." He remarked. "But nothing so organized I think."

Nyros mused, but the question was, why had Lleth lead them here?

"We will need to awaken him to learn more." The Drow said simply.
 
"I wish I could remember," Kami lamented while still looking over the elf. She was also trying to go through her memories as they stood there. She really wished her magic was the inability to forget things. No...that sounded horrifying actually.

Kami could help with the waking up of the man. She squatted down once more and put her hand over his mouth so he couldn't make too much noise when he came to.

Her magic gathered within her and she placed her hand on the elves arm. She sent a spark (much smaller than she had delivered to Nyros in her hotel room) through herself into him. That should rouse him depending on how hard Nyros had hit him.
 
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Nyros looked at Kami curiously.

Briefly he wondered if this mystery had grabbed her. Was that why Lleth had sent them her? In order to garner the girls senses and drag her into the web?

He most certainly would not have put such a ploy past the Empress of Webs. The Great Spider Queen was ever weaving her tales, her stories. They ensnared and trapped, always looking to gather more and more wherever they could. It was her way.

A small smile touched Nyros' lips as Kami leaned down and touched the Elf.

The man shook. At first his entire body seemed to thrum, and then all of a sudden his eyes snapped open. A sense of danger clinging to him as he looked from Kami to Nyros with a sense of panic running through his entire form.

"Nyarl tell'gran altruen dagarra!"​

His voices rose, and almost as soon as he spoke the Drow stepped forward. "Shh!"

He hissed, hand pressed over the tribals mouth.

"Nows not the time to yell, understand?" Nyros kept his voice calm, pleasant, but a knife hiding behind it.
 
Kami had stood after her shock was delivered.

"Nyarl tell'gran altruen dagarra!"

She watched as Nyros took her spot. A small part of her wondered how far she could make it with Nyros otherwise occupied. The larger part of her stopped her from thinking those foolish thoughts. There was no escaping...not while she was alive at least.

She cocked her head to the side. The poor man was going to die either way but hopefully they could get some answers first.

The elf nodded his head slowly. Terror flowed over him as he stared at the white eyes of his capture. He knew if she yelled again, he would be dead within seconds.
 
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So the man spoke the common tongue, or at the very least understood it. He supposed that was a mark in the favor of this venture, but then there was never any doubt of that. Lleth would never lead him astray. Her will had seen them here, and that was enough for him to keep going.

”What are you doing here?” His voice was firm, fingers pulling away from the tribals lips.

“Acuatl terr’ledn.”

The answer came in that same strange tongue as before. Nyros closed his white eyes for a moment, frowning. Then glanced up towards Kami. ”Do you understand him?”

He doubted it.

”I believe my tongue will be no better.” No one in this world spoke Drow. At least none which he had met. Another mark against this cursed land.

There was another way to ‘speak’ with the tribal of course, but that would be a last resort. Hiding his screams would be difficult.
 
Kami shook her head. She did not know this language but he was an elf so perhaps he spoke the elvish tongue of the majority of the elves in Arethil.

"Do you speak this dialect?" She asked in said dialect. It was the best she could do since her languages were limited. She knew a few but there were so many in the world.

The man looked at Kami and then Nyros as if weighing his options. There weren't that many.

"If you don't, he will torture you to get answers in common," she said again in her native language.

The elves eyes widened and that was enough of an answer for her. If he understood it then he could speak it.

"What are you doing here?" Kami repeated Nyros' question in her language once more.
 
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Nyros seemed somewhat annoyed as Kami apparently found a tongue that the man understood.

Not out of any sort of jealousy of her own skins, but it meant that he could not ask his own questions the way that he wanted. Briefly he wondered if that was part of Lleth's plan as well, but he kept quiet throughout their conversation.

All he did was hold his knife, flickering his hands along the hilt of the blade.

"We call to the Palid Princess."​

The Elf answered Kami.

"The filth's lives are forefeit in her name, and through her we gain life."

As he spoke Nyros turned to his companion, his expression holding no small amount of question as he waited for her to translate.
 
Kami looked over at Nyros to see the question written on his face. She was so tempted to lie to him or to leave out some of the answer. So very tempted. Unfortunately, these elves seemed slightly more crazy than he did and at least she knew that he was not allowed to kill her.

Not yet at least.

"He said we call to the Palid Princess. The filth's lives are forfeit in her name, and through her we gain life."

She made sure to repeat his words verbatim and studied Nyros' face as she waited for the next questions.
 
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Nyros blinked. "I have no idea what that means."

The Palid Princess was clearly a god, but not one that he knew of. Lips thinned for a brief moment, and with his own thought came a strange sensation. A pulse within the middle of his chest, a thrum, and then suddenly he understood.

A smile split the Drow's skull-painted mask.

Without saying a single word, Nyros turned around on his heel and began to walk towards the clearing. This time he did not melt into the shadows, in fact he made absolutely no effort to conceal himself what so ever. Simply stalking towards the tribal encampment.
 
Kami assumed that the Palid Princess was some sort goddess and the filth were the humans. It would make sense because there was a lot of tension between the races still. She could not blame the elves either. She had dealt with her share of hatred by the humans over the years.

The smile on Nyros’ face creeped her out and she would’ve asked what he was thinking but he took off from their little hiding space.

He was heading straight towards the other elves and she decided now was the time to make a run for it. He was distracted.

Kami took off in the opposite direction.
 
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Nyros slowly continued to stalk forward, not even turning back as Kami suddenly turned on a single heel and began to dart in the opposite direction.

He let out a long sight.

Then suddenly his neck step took him into the shadows below. He moved so swiftly that he was gone almost the instant that he moved, his entire form blurring and shifting. The shadows within the forest moved, dragging, and then suddenly Nyros reappeared in front of her.

Fingers snapped.

The shadows lashing up from the ground and grabbing onto Kami's ankles to send her flying to the ground. "Lets not play this game."

He told her simply.
 
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Kami should have known that she wouldn't make it far. It had been worth the try though.

The shadows grabbed her and she tumbled forward onto her hands and knees. She glared up at Nyros from her position in the dirt.

"Lets not play this game."

Her blue eyes closed as she let out a sigh.

"Can you blame me for trying?" She asked innocently.
 
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