nibbling | open post pt. 2.

[ A miserable den of cruelty. Following Astarion's lead, Iorveth also straightens and adjusts the eyepatch over his face, conscious of his own presence in this tomb bearing all of Astarion's worst memories. He wonders, briefly, if Astarion isn't regretting having brought him here. It seems a soul-baring thing to have to do, to show others the place of one's prolonged torment.

Some part of Iorveth still thinks it's better that they burn the place down and leave it at that; let the daylight sun take care of the rest. ]

We'll get on with it, [ he promises. He doesn't spare Godey a second glance, still swallowing back the bitter bile that the creature'd left in his mouth, trying to dissect his own emotions about how it'd felt to hear someone calling Astarion a dog. ] But, Astarion－

[ Because he isn't expected to be silent: ] －This place doesn't suit you. [ He'll say it another hundred times if he has to. This place fucking sucks, and the thought of Astarion confining himself to its rules and bindings for the rest of eternity is horrific, even if Astarion becomes the one dictating them.

Iorveth turns to leave the dungeon, and tries to wind back the way they came; he thinks he saw a door that fits the description for what looks like an entrance to a forbidden part of the castle, a floor-to-ceiling monstrosity that's as unsubtle as it is tasteless. ]

[ Astarion doesn't reply, only lets the comment rattle around in his head. Perhaps it doesn't suit him, but this way of life, however miserable, also feels familiar. Cutthroat, everyone out for themselves, the strong preying on the weak. Maybe being miserable here is better than being scared out there.

He wills those thoughts into the background of his mind as he steps toward the large, ornate door. Decorated with gold plates depicting an entanglement of rats bound together by the tail and the same sort of foreign script inscribing the signet ring, it crackles with a magical energy as he approaches. Astarion squares his shoulders and presses the emblem on the ring into the matching indentation on the door.

Nothing happens. ]

Perhaps it's been sealed with some sort of arcane lock. Cazador does love his spells.

[ Which either means that it won't open for them at all, even with the ring—a prospect he doesn't want to consider—or that it's been bound to some sort of passphrase. ]

Open, [ he tries, pressing the ring to the hollow once more. Nothing. ] ...Unlock, [ is another failed attempt. He stomps his foot. ] I said open, damn you.

[ Thwarted by the most obvious obstacle of all: a door. Iorveth, a warrior and not a scholar, draws up to the plated surface of the obstruction and runs one palm over the winding, circular text embossed on it.

Not a language he recognizes. Not dissimilar to the shape of the scars on Astarion's back. ]

An obvious taunt, if the phrase necessary to opening the door is written on the door itself.

[ Giving the gilded nonsense a flick with one nail, he steps back. Hums, thoughtful. ]

A shame that I didn't find it prudent to read more books.

[ Dryly. They'll have to find someone else capable of deciphering this and do a little torture-persuasion, or try to use their tadpoles in creative ways, he figures. ]

Are there more members of Cazador's inner circle that we can capture?

[ Frowning at yet another roadblock, Astarion pockets the ring and crosses his arms, contemplative. Inner circle is an interesting concept when it comes to Cazador. He's a paranoid megalomaniac who trusts no one but himself — and perhaps the reanimated corpse created to do his bidding. He does have staff, though, and it's possible one might be high-ranking enough to gain entrance to private wings of the manor. ]

The chamberlain, perhaps. Dufay. I wouldn't mind breaking out the pliers for him.

[ There's some bad blood there, obviously. Astarion traces the elaborate script with a finger, brow furrowed. ]

Or... you know, I'm sure I've seen this text elsewhere in the house.

[ He stares at the decorative plating on the door, eyes narrowing before he finally comes up with: ]

A book in the guest bedroom. I saw it when I was [ —A split-second pause. Iorveth can infer the sorts of things he got up to in the guest room, surely— ] in there. Cazador forbid me from reading it.

[ A glance Iorveth's way. ]

What do you think?

[ He thinks a lot of things, but chiefly on his mind is: ]

We'll find the book. I can't stand the thought of struggling through another worthless conversation with the denizens here.

[ A pause, as he considers whether to make this addendum; he decides to, after a brief deliberation. ]

I don't enjoy you talking to them, either.

[ Or, rather, Astarion being talked at. It leaves him angry, unsettled- as unsettled as the implication of the guest bedroom. ] But you know best about this place.

Honestly, I'd prefer you to meet as few of the ghosts from my past as possible.

[ A meaningless servant was one thing. He spent enough of his time hassling the only people lower on the totem pole than he was. But Godey, gods — it's humiliating to think that Iorveth now knows some of the darkest parts of his life so intimately. (He'd commented once about Astarion's desperation. Well, he's getting a look up close at it now.) And Dufay is no fan of Astarion—although no one in this mansion is, really—so having Iorveth meet him would no doubt mean he'd hear endless criticisms of Astarion's pathetic, self-serving behavior. He'll pass. ]

We'll look for the book.

[ A short trip back downstairs and they're standing in front of the guest room door. An awful smell wafts out from underneath it, like rotting meat and putrid fruit. Astarion's nose wrinkles, lip curling in disgust, but he turns the knob and opens the door anyway.

Immediately, necrotic energy pulses out from inside the room. It's a heavy, oppressive magic, as if feeding on the vitality of all who are unlucky enough to cross its path. ]

Gods, [ Astarion exclaims, stumbling back and away from the door. Inside the room lies a child, a girl, motionless and pale. It's her the magic stems from, spreading out from her body like tendrils. ]

—Well, that wasn't there before. [ Obviously. ] I've seen this girl before. She would hide away in the nicer quarters, away from the rest of us riff-raff. [ Raising an eyebrow: ] Fat lot of good it did her.

[ Gods. The miasma of death is stifling, even worse than the scent of putrefaction in the kennels, and emanating from a singular source that must have died in a horrible, unthinkable way. It's staggering to think of how little anyone's life means in this manse, how little dignity anyone enjoys here.

Iorveth misses breathing. The paltry excuse for nature that the city proper offered with its gated parks feels like a faraway luxury; he flinches back, visibly offended by the sight of the decay, before he steels himself against it. Cruelty is nothing new to him. ]

Ignobility in death. This place gets worse by the second.

[ A deep breath, followed by a steady macte virtute. His natural dexterity, bolstered by a spell: Iorveth takes a few steps back for his semi-running start, and leaps over the corpse and the magic emanating over it in a graceful arc.

Not without some consequence, though. He lands outside of the immediate circle of the foul aura, but the sheer oppressiveness of it causes him to double over for a moment and retch. He spits thin stomach acid onto the carpet, but quickly recovers. ]

...Where should I look?

[ The only investigable items are on the side of the room that he'd jumped to: three large wardrobe dressers and a desk. Wiping his mouth, Iorveth turns to Astarion and tips his head. ]

—Iorveth, [ he whines as Iorveth vomits, disgusted and concerned in equal measure. Irritated by his own distress: ] As dashing as that was, at least try to be careful.

[ If that little girl's corpse manages to harm Iorveth, he'll find a way to bring her back and kill her all over again. He peers around the doorframe, keeping his distance from the necrotic aura. He's already dead enough; he doesn't need to die a second time. ]

The wardrobe, I think. [ There are three of them, though, and it's hard to remember the contents of each one. He bites his lip in thought. ] The one under that ugly painting— no, wait. The one near the bed.

[ Should Iorveth look in the indicated wardrobe, he'll at first find little besides elegant clothing like the kind they bought from Figaro. A little digging, though, and he'll find a weathered old book, its pages yellowed by time and its spine bearing the same sort of foreign script as the door. Inside the book is more of that strange language, Kozakuran, accompanied now by its Common translation. Someone has taken ink to paper and underlined the words which appear on the elaborate door in the main hall. ]

[ Jackpot. Iorveth takes his findings and leaps back over the circle of necrotic energy, managing not to get hit by a wave of nausea this time around: instead, it's a rather ungraceful collision of one shoulder against the doorframe, having overshot where to land without slamming into Astarion in the process.

A stagger and a re-balancing later, he smiles. ]

One step closer to your goal.

[ Brandishing the book in his hand, before handing it to Astarion with the proper pages marked. Sometimes it pays not to be careful, though he decides not to say so lest it give Astarion more things to worry about.

A pat to Astarion's tension-taut shoulder, and they go upstairs again. It's finally time to open that stupid door and pass through into what Iorveth hopes is a room with a giant coffin, if they're lucky; it's satisfying to see the angry-red glow of the door give way and concede authority to Astarion, if nothing else. ]

[ A quick translation of the symbols on the door and another press of the signet ring, and the door unlocks, sliding open. Astarion's heart is in his throat now, stomach churning at the thought of Cazador standing on the other side of the door. That's not what he finds, though, and he's unsure if that's a relief or a disappointment.

Instead of a vampire lord snoozing in his coffin, the door opens up to a grand ballroom. Red and gold decorates every inch of the room, the lit sconces that flicker on the decorative pillars illuminating shiny pools of dark red blood on the wood flooring. There are bodies strewn everywhere, some in one piece and some virtually indistinguishable from half-eaten meat.

In the center of it all stands a large, hairy, canine creature dressed in savage tatters. Upon their entrance, his beady eyes lock onto them, narrowing in anger. "You aren't supposed to be here," he growls. "No one is supposed to be here!" ]

Gods. I'm gone for a few months and the whole place goes to the dogs.

[ Ha. ]

[ And Iorveth thought that the dead girl emanating pure necrotic energy was weird. He stands by the entrance to the hall, his foot nudging against a pool of blood and what might have been a limb attached to a human at some point, and stares, blankly, at the wolf-man with his bared yellow teeth.

He sighs. ]

This place is a madhouse.

[ Just stating the obvious, in case he's gone completely insane. Accompanying the very unnecessary observation is a reachback and a quick flourish to pull his bow out of its cradle, a fluid motion followed by a similarly-practiced retrieval of an arrow from his quiver. ]

I can just shoot the thing, can't I?

[ The lycanthrope, nose wrinkled, is muttering something about Astarion smelling like its master, which Iorveth finds frankly appalling; he remembers burying his face against Astarion's neck, breathing in the faint scent of bergamot and blood: something unique to Astarion, and no one else.

Ugh. Without waiting for the beast to make more threats, Iorveth makes the executive decision to release his arrow, which, surprisingly, gets swatted down by an oversized paw before it can land between wet, beady eyes; he makes a low sound, annoyed, and loosens another shot, this time to the creature's foot. Killing mobility, but making it angrier in the process. ]

[ This place is a madhouse. The worst part is that Astarion is hardly surprised by any of it. Cazador hadn't employed—or, more accurately, enthralled—werewolves before, but it's almost strange that he hadn't. Anyone with any lick of power appeals to Cazador; monstrous beasts are all the better to enslave.

The werewolf reels back at being hit, Iorveth's arrow embedding itself in a massive, hirsute paw. It doesn't seem to hurt, which is concerning, but it does at least hamstring his movement. "You die," the ugly thing snarls at Iorveth, expelling spittle from its snoutlike mouth. Then, to Astarion, "Then I give a present to the master."

It's a relief in some ways. At least he'll only be trying to kill one of them, since he can't very well bring a dead, chewed-on Astarion back to Cazador. It irritates him regardless, though, the idea of getting brought back to Cazador in some overgrown dog's mouth. And worse, the idea of that overgrown dog killing Iorveth for the sake of his master. Astarion unsheathes his dagger, scowling.

The lycanthrope staggers forward, foot dragging behind him, smearing the bloodstains left on the floor. He's a huge target, so Astarion aims for his abdomen, sticking the dagger right in his gut. On any nonmagical creature, it would be a devastating injury. The werewolf simply growls, annoyed by the attack more than truly harmed, and makes a sweeping gesture with its large paw, swatting Astarion away and onto the ground like an irritating gnat.

Astarion's dagger is still fixed in the wolf's flesh. The thing picks it out with a colossal claw, tossing it on the ground like nothing more than a thorn, before swiping at Iorveth with a paw. ]

[ Gods, he'd hoped that they'd be able to get to Cazador without having to fight half the mansion first. Still, there's a mirrored relief that Astarion isn't in any real danger of being killed halfway through their journey; as long as they play their cards right and Iorveth doesn't get himself killed, they might still win this thing.

Might. The lycanthrope knocks Astarion down onto the ground like a ragdoll, and before Iorveth can even react with proper anger, there's a paw in his immediate line of sight, the dull glint of coal-black claws threatening to rip his face clean off.

He only narrowly dodges the swipe. Feels something sharp nick at his jaw, drawing blood. The pain is delayed, a dull throb, still entirely ignorable－ he tries to check on where Astarion is in his haze of adrenaline, if he's alright, but his assailant is in the way.

Vexing. Iorveth ducks under the next swipe, but the momentum of the werewolf's swing knocks him heavily back against the wall (gods, his ribs), causing him to drop his bow in his momentary daze. Grunting, he scrabbles inside his pack for the borrowed mace as he listens to the click-drag of an injured foot drag against the floor, and manages to slam The Blood of Lathander into his opponent's clavicle before he gets decapitated by its next strike. The combination of the light and the pain causes the lycanthrope to roar and step backwards, covering its eyes with its heavy paws in protest and surprise. ]

[ Maybe it should be concerning that he clocks the smell of Iorveth's blood instantly. The scent is sweet and woody, mouthwatering even in these circumstances. He shakes his head, willing himself to focus as the creature slams Iorveth up against a wall. Fury rears its head with the loud thud of Iorveth's back against the wall; he'd said the other night that he takes good care of his things, and he doesn't take kindly to others playing rough with them.

The mace strikes the wolf's collarbone, and he stumbles backward. Astarion squints in the sudden light in this dark, dusty place, pushing himself up off of the floor. He holds out a hand, chanting ignis as flame manifests from nothing, shooting out toward the beast.

The mote of fire strikes true, scorching the werewolf and igniting his fur. With a howl, he lashes out blindly with yellowed fangs and bloody claws. ]

[ Apologies to Lathander for previously thinking that his spiky mace wasn't worth the trouble of getting it: against a werewolf with a tough hide, a bludgeoning weapon is much more effective than an arrow or a sharp blade. Iorveth maneuvers around the struggling creature's clumsy attempts to swat at him, dodging embers of fire that threaten to set his own clothes aflame and finding, after a moment of observation, an opening to wind back and-

-swing.

The mace slams against the lycathrope's skull with a wet, dull thud, denting its already-misshapen head. Iorveth grunts with the effort of tugging the weapon's spikes out of the creature's head, feeling his ribs strain in the process; the monster drops onto the floor once Iorveth frees himself, facedown in a puddle of its own blood and viscera.

Ioveth breathes around the ache in his chest, and rasps: ] Astarion. [ A cough, and a dry laugh. ]

Are you in one piece?

Yes.

[ The smell of blood in here is overpowering: not just Iorveth's, but the werewolf's now too, mixed with the stale scent of old, drying blood. Astarion swallows the thirst down, approaching Iorveth by stepping gingerly over the werewolf's battered skull. ]

You're gorgeous when you're murdering.

[ It's probably the wrong time, for a lot of reasons, to tell Iorveth that watching him bash a wolf-man's head in with a holy relic of Lathander got him a little hot under the collar, so he leaves it at that.

Instead, he lets his eyes wander over Iorveth: his nicked jaw, the labored rise and fall of his chest. The sight of it makes him scowl. ]

That wretched beast hurt you.

Edited (astarion: *forgets to answer iorveth's question*) 2024-08-18 04:47 (UTC)

[ Please, don't threaten a freak while he's running high on adrenaline with a good time. Iorveth, who finds thrills in situations where he might die, because those are the ones that he feels most useful in; the last free Aen Seidhe, but also not what anyone thinks of when they think of serene, nature-loving wood elves. Nothing like warm, open-hearted Halsin who would rather employ diplomacy before violence.

And really, Iorveth is glad for anything that comes out of Astarion's mouth that sounds more like how he is when he isn't in the context of this oppressive house. Iorveth narrows his single eye in vague fondness when Astarion says gorgeous, not at all concerned by the ache in his chest when he laughs. ]

He didn't do a good job.

[ A scratch, and a fracture. Iorveth can fix them with a quick Cure Wounds; instead of spellcasting, he runs a thumb over his wounded jaw and smears the blood on Astarion's lower lip, craning forward to press his mouth against that stain if Astarion doesn't flinch back first. ]

We'll go to the bathhouse if we leave here alive.

[ If we leave here alive. Gods, this really could be his final moments alive, and it's enough to make him want to lean in for a much more lengthy kiss than the one he got. It still feels like Cazador is here, though, watching, and he can't bring himself to do it. Instead, he licks the blood from his lips, savoring what might be his last meal. ]

With the reward of seeing you naked and wet on the line, I don't see how I could fail.

[ His tone is dry, though, a little more bittersweet than he intends.

Astarion turns, then, stepping over bloodied corpses as he wanders the ballroom. Those that haven't been torn to shreds are in their finery, and shattered wine glasses litter the floor. All of them led back to the palace by one of his siblings, he's sure. He scowls. Is this what became of every unfortunate soul he brought back here?

Darkly: ] Looks like he threw a party.

[ His eyes search the ballroom for their next step, landing on a door in the corner of the room. ]

Come on. This must be the way to his quarters.

[ A party that they very narrowly missed, by the look of things. It all seems so senseless, all this death: at least feral monsters have the decency to consume what they kill.

Iorveth casts his healing spell, then offers the corpses a quick word of solace in his language. Not a prayer, but a farewell－ it rings hollow in the bloodied violence of the banquet hall, so he quickly follows Astarion through the side door to leave his own lingering voice behind.

The new area they step into is more of the same. Red wallpaper, ornate chandeliers. There are two paths to take, and both of them are abandoned: a long hall with a desk at the end of it, flanked by officious-looking bookshelves, and a curious, poorly-lit side-room with nothing but an octagonal dais set into the floor.

Iorveth lingers in the latter section, smoothing his palm over the panel and its scuffed markings. To his surprise, it seems functional. ]

Astarion, [ he calls. ] It seems this manse has a basement.

[ Astarion stares down at the dais, dumbfounded. Two centuries, and he never knew about an entire other level of the palace. What else was Cazador keeping him in the dark about? (A lot of things, probably.) ]

No one ever told me about this.

[ Maybe no one else knew, either. Cazador kept secrets from all of them, even the ones who had no choice but to obey him. He couldn't trust them even when he pulled all of their strings. ]

Come, let's take a look. Perhaps he keeps his coffin underground.

[ The dais lowers with a loud creak, like something ancient protesting its use. As they descend, the smell of blood and viscera fades to something stale and old. It comes to a stop in the middle of a dimly lit hallway; the 'basement', as it were, consists of a smooth stone path stretching out in front of them, with shiny gold strips paved into the floor that leads to several gates. Urns flank each side of the hall, with sparse light fixtures hanging from the ceiling to illuminate their path. ]

This is no basement. It's a crypt.

[ The smell of death seems to take on physical shape once the dais stops and they're left in the aquamarine dark of the underground crypt. Not just the acrid tang of blood-copper, but something else－ Iorveth, nose to an non-existent wind, tries to decipher the base note of this particular mix of eau de mort.

It actually kind of smells like a bunch of unwashed people, though faint. Iorveth's nose might stay permanently wrinkled if he stays down here for too long. ]

The perfect place to hide a coffin. I assume we're on the right track.

[ Are they??? He has no idea, honestly, but he's trying to manifest some good fortune after the werewolf run-in. Down they go, past more gold-plated gates and another door that opens with Cazador's signet ring, cutting through a thick miasma of arcane mist and fog－

－until Iorveth is suddenly aware of eyes on him. Red eyes, scores of them, peering at him from dark cells built into either side of the corridor they're traversing. The prisoners behind gilded bars say nothing, but Iorveth can see their despair written plainly on their gaunt, pale faces; he presses a palm to his face, warding off the oppressive smell. ]

Astarion. ...More spawn.

[ Wasn't it supposed to be only the seven of them? There are dozens of them here, corralled like livestock, unblinking. ]

[ Astarion stares through the bars at the wretched creatures within. Sallow faces, dark circles under their eyes, skin and bones. They look worse than he did after a year underground. There's so many of them, different races, ages, walks of life. All of them equalized by the heavy fatigue in their features. ]

More fodder for the ritual, I suppose.

[ Seven souls does seem a small price to pay for unlimited power, doesn't it? But to have all of these spawn hidden away for the gods know how long is grim, even for Cazador. Astarion can remember how awful it had felt to live on the rat carcasses Cazador saw fit to feed him, but these people must have had nothing at all down here. They must be ravenous.

"You," comes the voice of a little girl, weak. She curls her small fingers around the bars of her cell. "I know you."

Astarion's eyebrows raise, and he lets out a surprised, ] Oh, gods.

[ "You did this to me!" she wails, shaking her gilded cage. ]

—There's nothing here for us. We should go.

[ Oh.

The implication of "you did this" isn't lost on Iorveth: at least some of the spawn here, it dawns on him, are people (and children) who Astarion had brought to Cazador as prey. Tributes, slaves, fodder. Iorveth is reminded of elves being corralled for slaughter, shut in dungeons to wait for the gallows; it's an unfair comparison, he knows, but it makes something in his stomach turn regardless.

He's told that they should go, but he lingers. Curls his fingers around one of the bars, and retreats quickly once small, sharp teeth try to bite his digits off. An obvious mistake in hindsight－ he must be the first warm-blooded thing these spawn have seen in decades, if not centuries. He's food.

Tension pulls at his shoulders. Flexing his hand, Iorveth steps back. His empathy can only extend so far: his people, his traveling companions, and Astarion. Still, there's a war that goes on inside him, and he frowns through the process. He thinks of justice, dignity, freedom; more importantly, he thinks of being without. ]

A problem for after Cazador is dead.

[ He finally decides, as he steps back. The wailing child seems to respond to the statement about murdering Cazador with some measure of furious assent, "kill him and let us go"; Iorveth says nothing in return, and turns towards Astarion again, still frowning. ]

[ "Get his staff," she pleads with Iorveth. "Please, you can open the doors. I want to go home."

Looking at his victims, much less hearing their pleas, makes bile rise in Astarion's throat. He grabs Iorveth by the arm and yanks him away from the cells before using him as a pillar to lean on while the room spins. These cells are filled with his shame personified, every awful thing he ever did at Cazador's behest. If not for Cazador still lurking somewhere in this palace, he would run away and never return. ]

I didn't know this was what he was doing with them, [ he says, voice lowered. ] I thought he was only killing them.

[ Death would have been a mercy. Whatever they've been through here has turned them into little more than starving animals.

A sigh, then— ] They'll be dead before long anyway.

[ No moral grandstanding, on Iorveth's part. A man who has burned human camps and turned his back on pleas from brothers and wives can't turn around and then make sweeping statements about the weight of atrocities; he could wax poetic about how his crimes continue to be justified, but he supposes Astarion will say the same.

("I thought he was only killing them" is convincing enough, coming from an undead spawn who must've prayed for death many times over.)

Iorveth keeps Astarion steady with a palm to his shoulder, looking back and forth between the unnatural pallor of his companion's face and the twin dots of red light still looking at him from between the gloom of the prison. ]

If you were in their position, [ he ventures, with unrelenting focus, ] would you wish for freedom or death?

Edited (editing twice smh) 2024-08-19 02:38 (UTC)

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