A Night to Try and Remember (11/8) - Jaezred
Aug 12, 2021 17:17:15 GMT
Merla, the Daughter of Summer, Anthony, and 2 more like this
Post by Jaezred Vandree on Aug 12, 2021 17:17:15 GMT
Content Warning: creepy spider
Lord Jaezred Vandree was nestled comfortably in a sofa in front of a fire pit — safe, warm, and sober within a large, vaulted bedchamber of polished black stone. He was still in the same clothes he wore to the party: a black velvet tailcoat, white breeches, a moss-green waistcoat, and a copper-coloured silk cravat (the latter two colours he chose as a nod to Queen Nicnevin). Though disheveled, the bits of grass, mud, grime, and liquid spillages that previously covered his outfit had been disappeared with prestidigitation, but no amount of magic could do anything about the haggard, surly look on his face.
The drow nobleman was cradling his head in one hand and holding a cup of cold water in the other when the doors opened and Imryll Elamaris glided into the room that belonged to her. Her face immediately lit up with a wicked grin when she spotted Jaezred. “Well, if I knew you were going to cause so much fuss, I would have been inviting you to parties far before now,” she chirped.
“My lady. As usual, the sight of you heralds the coming of headaches. Or in my current case, even worse ones,” he grumbled in response, accompanied with a glare and flushed cheeks. His voice still sounded hoarse from hours of dehydration.
“Oh come now, can't I be happy to see you return to your rustic roots? Though I imagine the sheep were far more civilised than you.” She was enjoying this far too much for his liking.
“I’ll have you know that your serfs are every bit as irritating as you.” He paused to take a gulp of water. “But do you want to hear what happened, or would you rather bask in my humiliation forever?”
“Both.” Grinning widely, she took a seat next to Jaezred.
“Of course. Foolish question,” he sighed. “Right. The first thing I remember was waking up in a clearing, with the mother of all hangovers. It had to be outside the Witching Court because the bloody sun was out. The other Dawnlanders were with me. None of us had our money nor most of our equipment on us. I myself had nothing but the clothes on my back…”
He looked down on his blistered feet, submerged in a basin of warm water, and winced a little.
“Anyway, there was a sheep watching us nearby. Miss Thorpe went up to speak to it. Apparently, we had polymorphed an entire village in the Witching Court into sheep with some faux spell gems that, we learned later, we bought from a dragon. We’d agreed to undo the blunder…but we wandered off into this clearing and passed out.”
Imryll was visibly stifling a laugh. “What did you think they did?” she asked.
“Who, the other Dawnlanders? At the time, I hadn’t a single fucking clue because I couldn’t remember a single fucking thing,” he replied, massaging his temples. “So we had no choice but to retrace our steps. Before we lost consciousness, we’d made an agreement with a hag named Bagra to help us dispel the polymorph.” He stopped to chuckle, eyes gleaming with glee. “I’m forgetting some key details. Miss Thorpe and Miss Zabinski each awoke with a copper-and-crystal ring on their fingers, whilst Ivan Erikson the Northman had apparently said some very romantic things to the hag.”
Now she was cackling. “Okay, forget the spell gems, what happened with Bagra?”
“We agreed to retrieve her staff from her giant blink dog familiar so she could enchant a wand with a high-powered dispel magic for us. It was blinking bloody everywhere — right fucking headache, but we got it done. Then the party tried to send Erikson in, blindfolded and everything, to keep her company. Unfortunately, he chickened out. Bagra was…very sad.”
“Typical...all talk but no follow up,” Imryll tutted, and Jaezred nodded sagely. “So, purchasing fake spell gems, turning a town into sheep, toying with the emotions of a Bagra, and playing fetch with her familiar...I presume you managed to outsmart the dog?”
“Not exactly. I used levitate to pry the staff out of its mouth, and Miss Thorpe put a finger up its nose to appease it. Yes, it eats fingers.” The eladrin stifled another laugh. “After we received the wand, I casted dispel magic on the sheep that was with us so it could properly show us where this village is. He turned out to be a very handsome elf farmer, and Erikson and Thorpe began to shamelessly fight over him.” He sighed again as he recalled the events and she rolled her eyes at the mention of more Ivan antics. “That was also when we learned that the copper rings on the ladies’ hands belonged to him. One of us had promised to have Nicnevin bless them, hence he gave them to us. But, I think we should conveniently forget that detail during our tea-time chats with others in the court, hmm?”
He flashed her a grin that practically proclaimed conspiracy to commit mischief. She cocked an eyebrow and said, “Really now? What are we trying to achieve in hiding that little detail, exactly?”
“Oh, it’s simply that Miss Thorpe reacted with terrible embarrassment at the suggestion that she had drunkenly married someone and would deny it. At. Every. Turn.”
“Oh, I'm sure she would.” Her tone suggested that she relished this little detail. “But I'm sure I can be persuaded to keep that quiet for a little while...So, did you find the village with the handsome farmer?”
“Yes. We dispelled the mass polymorph and everyone returned to normal. But the wand also temporarily suppressed the magic on Miss Thorpe’s glamoured armour — oh, you should’ve seen what she looked like underneath.” Jaezred mouthed the words “leather scraps!” to Imryll in a mock-scandalised fashion.
She gasped dramatically and let out an exaggerated, “Noooo…” before grinning again and leaning in. “And then?”
“Well, the next step was to find our belongings. The ungrateful peasants wouldn’t answer to me but, for some reason, were willing to tell the blathering dwarven bard where the blue dragon was,” he continued, becoming a little grumpy at the memory of the snub. “We found the dragon in a cave and discovered that we, with most charitable hearts, had donated our valuables to him so he could start his hoard without harming anyone. In return, he gave us these fake spell gems imbued with mass polymorph. Since then, the dragon — Calsendan is his name — has gotten many more customers and thus allowed us to take our belongings back, plus some gold from his newly-acquired hoard on top. You should probably look into that, by the way — he was selling powerful faux spell gems for cheap to a lot of people.”
“Hmm...yes, that does track with some of what we have heard here. Still, it's interesting he returned your belongings. Most blue dragons I've met would not have, although they wouldn't resort to such a pacifistic approach to begin with.”
Imryll gave him a long, appraising look.
“You know, I have to admit I am somewhat surprised by you. Managing to tidy up your own mess, confirming our new friend’s existence, and learning some delicious little details in the process...Of course I'm not surprised no one was willing to help you, oafish as you may be, but...you might actually be good at this.”
Jaezred knitted his brows. “Good at what?”
She smiled. “Maybe a little way to go still...in the meantime, was there anything else you and your merry band got up to? No small wars started I need to worry about?”
There was a discerning look from him, but nothing further was said on that. “Well...Thorpe promised both Calsendan and the handsome farmer audiences with the Moonweaver, but that's her job, is it not? Other than that, no.” A tired hand went up to gently stroke her face. “I would be content to spend the rest of the night in your arms…”
“Oh, I'm sure you would, but”—Imryll began to rise from the sofa—“I do, sadly, have other matters to see to first. Do get comfortable, though, I won't be long and we can see about making up for lost time when I'm back.” She gave him a wink and a roguish grin.
“I’ll be waiting.” He got up to give her a kiss before she left, and settled back in as the sound of shutting doors echoed throughout the chambers.
Later, Jaezred stripped down to an unbuttoned shirt and breeches and put on a pair of fuzzy slippers. He was almost falling asleep on a chair to the soft crackling of the fire; there was no chimney in the dim room, the smoke that wafted up from the pit simply faded away before it could collect. A book of Elvish poetry laid discarded next to him — attempts at reading it were abandoned when the words became muddled and meaningless in his hungover vision.
He did not sense the presence in the room immediately, rather gradually, as slowly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and goosebumps formed on his skin. He turned his head to see a black spider, the size of a mastiff, with six glowing eyes, standing some feet behind him. It had no mandibles or fangs, but a toothy, humanoid grin cracked across its face.
It scuttled backwards slowly into the shadows and faded, though the grin lingered longer than its form.
Jaezred nearly tipped over the chair when he fell out of it. He scrambled to his feet and for the door, eyes never leaving the spot where the spider stood until he burst out of the doors.
He did not know where he was going as he walked briskly through the winding caverns of the Mountain Palace, gripping his left arm. He was staring ahead, but not really seeing anything. At some point, he collided into a person whose face he didn’t register, and when they cried out, their voice sounded muffled and faraway, drowned out by the pounding in his ears.
All the while, he replayed the vision over and over again in his head. Assessed it. Meditated on it. He couldn’t tell whether it was a favourable or unfavourable sign from the Dread Queen of Spiders, but somehow, he felt in the pit of his gut that it portented one thing: a challenge.
Jaezred was outside before he knew it. The cold air of perpetual-night bit down mercilessly on the bare parts of his skin. He must have spent the better part of an hour there, pacing relentlessly back-and-forth.
The eternal full moon that hung above the Witching Woods made the tall pines cast long, gloomy shadows on the lone man. Whilst enveloped in darkness, he almost did not notice the shadows on the ground shifting, morphing into a silhouette of a naked woman. Her ears were long and pointed and her body was lissome as elven ones— no, not just any elf. Drow.
This felt...familiar. He quickly realised that he had heard of something like this from the matron mothers before. If a raiding party on the surface world saw the moon, the figure of a nude female drow, or heard the melody of a lullaby, they were ordered to retreat.
But he was not running away now.
The silhouette melted back into the mass of shadows cast by the woods, and she — whoever she was — was gone. At that moment, he heard a sound that cut above his deafening heartbeat and shuddering breath. Imryll’s voice.
“Jaezred?”
He turned around to face Imryll, who was standing in front of the palace doors, with a well-practiced small smile. “Ah, there you are,” he said calmly.
“I must say, this is a bit eager of you. I did tell you I was coming back!” She walked towards him with her usual whimsical flair and something in her hands. Unsuspecting of anything.
“Oh no, I was just getting some air. What is that?”
“Oh, nothing much, just something for you to remember the night.” Grin on her face, she handed him the object: a small stuffed sheep with a scowl embroidered in its face, wearing a green waistcoat and a copper cravat.
Jaezred held and stared at it as his expression displayed a mix of bewilderment, embarrassment, and annoyance. “Wha— You—” he stuttered.
“You’re welcome.”
She kissed him on the cheek and took his hand to lead him back towards the Mountain Palace. Before reaching the doors, he pushed the doll back into her hands and, with a huff, scooped her up in his arms to carry her bridal-style, eliciting a yelp and giggles.
Quietly, he was grateful for the distraction.
Thank you once again to Anthony for RPing Imryll.
Lord Jaezred Vandree was nestled comfortably in a sofa in front of a fire pit — safe, warm, and sober within a large, vaulted bedchamber of polished black stone. He was still in the same clothes he wore to the party: a black velvet tailcoat, white breeches, a moss-green waistcoat, and a copper-coloured silk cravat (the latter two colours he chose as a nod to Queen Nicnevin). Though disheveled, the bits of grass, mud, grime, and liquid spillages that previously covered his outfit had been disappeared with prestidigitation, but no amount of magic could do anything about the haggard, surly look on his face.
The drow nobleman was cradling his head in one hand and holding a cup of cold water in the other when the doors opened and Imryll Elamaris glided into the room that belonged to her. Her face immediately lit up with a wicked grin when she spotted Jaezred. “Well, if I knew you were going to cause so much fuss, I would have been inviting you to parties far before now,” she chirped.
“My lady. As usual, the sight of you heralds the coming of headaches. Or in my current case, even worse ones,” he grumbled in response, accompanied with a glare and flushed cheeks. His voice still sounded hoarse from hours of dehydration.
“Oh come now, can't I be happy to see you return to your rustic roots? Though I imagine the sheep were far more civilised than you.” She was enjoying this far too much for his liking.
“I’ll have you know that your serfs are every bit as irritating as you.” He paused to take a gulp of water. “But do you want to hear what happened, or would you rather bask in my humiliation forever?”
“Both.” Grinning widely, she took a seat next to Jaezred.
“Of course. Foolish question,” he sighed. “Right. The first thing I remember was waking up in a clearing, with the mother of all hangovers. It had to be outside the Witching Court because the bloody sun was out. The other Dawnlanders were with me. None of us had our money nor most of our equipment on us. I myself had nothing but the clothes on my back…”
He looked down on his blistered feet, submerged in a basin of warm water, and winced a little.
“Anyway, there was a sheep watching us nearby. Miss Thorpe went up to speak to it. Apparently, we had polymorphed an entire village in the Witching Court into sheep with some faux spell gems that, we learned later, we bought from a dragon. We’d agreed to undo the blunder…but we wandered off into this clearing and passed out.”
Imryll was visibly stifling a laugh. “What did you think they did?” she asked.
“Who, the other Dawnlanders? At the time, I hadn’t a single fucking clue because I couldn’t remember a single fucking thing,” he replied, massaging his temples. “So we had no choice but to retrace our steps. Before we lost consciousness, we’d made an agreement with a hag named Bagra to help us dispel the polymorph.” He stopped to chuckle, eyes gleaming with glee. “I’m forgetting some key details. Miss Thorpe and Miss Zabinski each awoke with a copper-and-crystal ring on their fingers, whilst Ivan Erikson the Northman had apparently said some very romantic things to the hag.”
Now she was cackling. “Okay, forget the spell gems, what happened with Bagra?”
“We agreed to retrieve her staff from her giant blink dog familiar so she could enchant a wand with a high-powered dispel magic for us. It was blinking bloody everywhere — right fucking headache, but we got it done. Then the party tried to send Erikson in, blindfolded and everything, to keep her company. Unfortunately, he chickened out. Bagra was…very sad.”
“Typical...all talk but no follow up,” Imryll tutted, and Jaezred nodded sagely. “So, purchasing fake spell gems, turning a town into sheep, toying with the emotions of a Bagra, and playing fetch with her familiar...I presume you managed to outsmart the dog?”
“Not exactly. I used levitate to pry the staff out of its mouth, and Miss Thorpe put a finger up its nose to appease it. Yes, it eats fingers.” The eladrin stifled another laugh. “After we received the wand, I casted dispel magic on the sheep that was with us so it could properly show us where this village is. He turned out to be a very handsome elf farmer, and Erikson and Thorpe began to shamelessly fight over him.” He sighed again as he recalled the events and she rolled her eyes at the mention of more Ivan antics. “That was also when we learned that the copper rings on the ladies’ hands belonged to him. One of us had promised to have Nicnevin bless them, hence he gave them to us. But, I think we should conveniently forget that detail during our tea-time chats with others in the court, hmm?”
He flashed her a grin that practically proclaimed conspiracy to commit mischief. She cocked an eyebrow and said, “Really now? What are we trying to achieve in hiding that little detail, exactly?”
“Oh, it’s simply that Miss Thorpe reacted with terrible embarrassment at the suggestion that she had drunkenly married someone and would deny it. At. Every. Turn.”
“Oh, I'm sure she would.” Her tone suggested that she relished this little detail. “But I'm sure I can be persuaded to keep that quiet for a little while...So, did you find the village with the handsome farmer?”
“Yes. We dispelled the mass polymorph and everyone returned to normal. But the wand also temporarily suppressed the magic on Miss Thorpe’s glamoured armour — oh, you should’ve seen what she looked like underneath.” Jaezred mouthed the words “leather scraps!” to Imryll in a mock-scandalised fashion.
She gasped dramatically and let out an exaggerated, “Noooo…” before grinning again and leaning in. “And then?”
“Well, the next step was to find our belongings. The ungrateful peasants wouldn’t answer to me but, for some reason, were willing to tell the blathering dwarven bard where the blue dragon was,” he continued, becoming a little grumpy at the memory of the snub. “We found the dragon in a cave and discovered that we, with most charitable hearts, had donated our valuables to him so he could start his hoard without harming anyone. In return, he gave us these fake spell gems imbued with mass polymorph. Since then, the dragon — Calsendan is his name — has gotten many more customers and thus allowed us to take our belongings back, plus some gold from his newly-acquired hoard on top. You should probably look into that, by the way — he was selling powerful faux spell gems for cheap to a lot of people.”
“Hmm...yes, that does track with some of what we have heard here. Still, it's interesting he returned your belongings. Most blue dragons I've met would not have, although they wouldn't resort to such a pacifistic approach to begin with.”
Imryll gave him a long, appraising look.
“You know, I have to admit I am somewhat surprised by you. Managing to tidy up your own mess, confirming our new friend’s existence, and learning some delicious little details in the process...Of course I'm not surprised no one was willing to help you, oafish as you may be, but...you might actually be good at this.”
Jaezred knitted his brows. “Good at what?”
She smiled. “Maybe a little way to go still...in the meantime, was there anything else you and your merry band got up to? No small wars started I need to worry about?”
There was a discerning look from him, but nothing further was said on that. “Well...Thorpe promised both Calsendan and the handsome farmer audiences with the Moonweaver, but that's her job, is it not? Other than that, no.” A tired hand went up to gently stroke her face. “I would be content to spend the rest of the night in your arms…”
“Oh, I'm sure you would, but”—Imryll began to rise from the sofa—“I do, sadly, have other matters to see to first. Do get comfortable, though, I won't be long and we can see about making up for lost time when I'm back.” She gave him a wink and a roguish grin.
“I’ll be waiting.” He got up to give her a kiss before she left, and settled back in as the sound of shutting doors echoed throughout the chambers.
Later, Jaezred stripped down to an unbuttoned shirt and breeches and put on a pair of fuzzy slippers. He was almost falling asleep on a chair to the soft crackling of the fire; there was no chimney in the dim room, the smoke that wafted up from the pit simply faded away before it could collect. A book of Elvish poetry laid discarded next to him — attempts at reading it were abandoned when the words became muddled and meaningless in his hungover vision.
He did not sense the presence in the room immediately, rather gradually, as slowly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and goosebumps formed on his skin. He turned his head to see a black spider, the size of a mastiff, with six glowing eyes, standing some feet behind him. It had no mandibles or fangs, but a toothy, humanoid grin cracked across its face.
It scuttled backwards slowly into the shadows and faded, though the grin lingered longer than its form.
Jaezred nearly tipped over the chair when he fell out of it. He scrambled to his feet and for the door, eyes never leaving the spot where the spider stood until he burst out of the doors.
He did not know where he was going as he walked briskly through the winding caverns of the Mountain Palace, gripping his left arm. He was staring ahead, but not really seeing anything. At some point, he collided into a person whose face he didn’t register, and when they cried out, their voice sounded muffled and faraway, drowned out by the pounding in his ears.
All the while, he replayed the vision over and over again in his head. Assessed it. Meditated on it. He couldn’t tell whether it was a favourable or unfavourable sign from the Dread Queen of Spiders, but somehow, he felt in the pit of his gut that it portented one thing: a challenge.
Jaezred was outside before he knew it. The cold air of perpetual-night bit down mercilessly on the bare parts of his skin. He must have spent the better part of an hour there, pacing relentlessly back-and-forth.
The eternal full moon that hung above the Witching Woods made the tall pines cast long, gloomy shadows on the lone man. Whilst enveloped in darkness, he almost did not notice the shadows on the ground shifting, morphing into a silhouette of a naked woman. Her ears were long and pointed and her body was lissome as elven ones— no, not just any elf. Drow.
This felt...familiar. He quickly realised that he had heard of something like this from the matron mothers before. If a raiding party on the surface world saw the moon, the figure of a nude female drow, or heard the melody of a lullaby, they were ordered to retreat.
But he was not running away now.
The silhouette melted back into the mass of shadows cast by the woods, and she — whoever she was — was gone. At that moment, he heard a sound that cut above his deafening heartbeat and shuddering breath. Imryll’s voice.
“Jaezred?”
He turned around to face Imryll, who was standing in front of the palace doors, with a well-practiced small smile. “Ah, there you are,” he said calmly.
“I must say, this is a bit eager of you. I did tell you I was coming back!” She walked towards him with her usual whimsical flair and something in her hands. Unsuspecting of anything.
“Oh no, I was just getting some air. What is that?”
“Oh, nothing much, just something for you to remember the night.” Grin on her face, she handed him the object: a small stuffed sheep with a scowl embroidered in its face, wearing a green waistcoat and a copper cravat.
Jaezred held and stared at it as his expression displayed a mix of bewilderment, embarrassment, and annoyance. “Wha— You—” he stuttered.
“You’re welcome.”
She kissed him on the cheek and took his hand to lead him back towards the Mountain Palace. Before reaching the doors, he pushed the doll back into her hands and, with a huff, scooped her up in his arms to carry her bridal-style, eliciting a yelp and giggles.
Quietly, he was grateful for the distraction.
Thank you once again to Anthony for RPing Imryll.
