Post by Zola Rhomdaen on Oct 25, 2023 16:37:37 GMT
The pixie attendants of the palace bath house look nervous when Zola arrives at the front desk, caked in blood, heavily armed and armoured. They point the way to the apodyterium and seem very content to leave her to her privacy.
There are no other guests at the bath house tonight, much to her relief. She wouldn’t be able to bear with the chatter and hubbub. The noise in her head hasn’t stopped even after the telepathic bond faded; her inner song has mutated into a horrible, endless buzzing of disjointed thoughts.
Blessed is dead. Zola had never met the young tiefling woman before today, but she seemed so eager to join, so eager to make friends…
Lord Jaezred will want to know what happened. He may even be looking for her right now. She can’t avoid that for long.
My own father just tried to kill me. And it was not even surprising.
I am the eldest daughter of a matron mother.
I still have no idea how to save my mums.
In the empty apodyterium, Zola places her belongings on a shelf. The Twins, her backpack, her lute, the dagger of blindsight, her silver mask.
A small leather pouch carrying 7 light coins. Aeschira’s currency, coins that glow from within. She has no idea how much it’s worth.
A drowcraft longsword without its scabbard. It was her father Kelolg’s sword, stolen right from his belt by Digs’s nimble hands.
A business card, the initials T.Z. finely printed on the front, the words tear here written on the back. She feels her cheeks flush when she looks at it and she’s not sure why.
Finally, she removes her armour and disrobes, grabbing a fluffy white towel and a basket of toiletries as she walks barefoot into the bathing room.
The air in the chamber is cool despite the steam arising from the turquoise pool. Water pours out from the mouths of stone medusa heads carved out of the back wall. Gentle harpsong plays from somewhere unseen. Scent candles burn in carved niches dotted around the room, their fragrant smoke wafting through the fog.
Zola sets her towel and toiletries down on the edge of the pool before slipping in. The hot water welcomes her into its fluid embrace, assuaging the aches in her muscles, washing away the crimson and the numbness from her skin. She grabs a bar of soap and rubs the remaining spots of dried blood off her arms. Tendrils of pale red seep out into the water, drifting lazily away.
The refreshing feeling of cleanliness draws out a large sigh of relief from her lips. But it’s not quite enough. Taking a deep breath and pinching her nose, she plunges deeper into the pool, sinking down to sit on the marble floor, legs hugged to her chest.
Finally. The sound of water filling her ears drowns out the quiet pandemonium inside her head. She can think with clarity at last.
Zola shuts her eyes and she can see the dining hall of the villa so clearly: polished black floors and walls, tables full of sumptuous foodstuff, a banquet table to left side, servants and guards watching with cautious red eyes, a detailed mural of houses and stalactites and stalagmites on the back wall, and three towering statues in the middle of the room.
Looking at the statue directly facing them from the door was…unnerving. The drow woman wrought in marble looked almost exactly like Zola, sans the crystal eldercross and double-pointed ears, and thinner in frame. She was wearing an elegant, revealing dress and holding a chalice.
The second statue was of another drow woman, appearing older but similar in features. She stood on a pedestal that put her higher than the others, holding a purple disc. The last one was a drow man reading a book.
The older woman had to be none other than Zola’s birth mother — Matron Phaedra of House Rhomdaen. That means the younger woman must be the matron’s daughter and current heir, Zola’s sister. Her twin sister, from the looks of it. Fate has a terrible sense of humour.
The male drow was, of course, Kelolg. The man who’d invited her there. At first glance, one likely wouldn’t guess that the two of them were father and daughter. Kelolg had straight hair and red eyes and was a bookish man. But the longer they spoke face-to-face, the more echoes of herself she saw in him. In his features, his mannerisms, even the inflections of his speech…
Within the confines of a zone of truth, he confirmed what her hag mothers had told her before they turned to ash, and he revealed more of the deal he and his wife struck with Zarzuul. They used to be farmers, dissatisfied with their station in life, and ultimately willing to trade their firstborn child for power. The child they had intended to “give” to Lolth anyway, whatever that meant.
And then he asked about her, what she had been doing with her life, et cetera. Like he was actually interested.
“Part of me is glad to see you’ve lived, Zola, and I cannot comment on how good or bad or eventful or peaceful your life has been, but there’s always been part of me that has wondered at the path not taken, the daughter we never had, the place she’d have taken in the world, in our family, the things you’d have done and said. But the greater part of me…had hoped never to know.”
A sob stabs through Zola’s throat. Hundreds of tiny bubbles streamed from her mouth and nostrils as she screamed into the muffled silence of the waters. Immediately, she feels spent and exhausted all over again. She surfaces briefly to gulp in a mouthful of air before submerging once more. The extra oxygen in her head allows her to refocus her thoughts.
Kelolg didn’t know more about the hags’ deal with Zarzuul or anything about Zarzuul himself. He’d never even had contact with Zarzuul; apparently, that was all handled through Tebrin or the matron mother. Her father turned out to be a dead end. And then he tried to kill her.
“Why?”
“We’ve given up too much to let you take it away from us.”
“What did you lose in the deal now that it’s broken?”
“Our security.”
Zola frowns deeply. She has to try to make sense of this… Kelolg kept glancing at Tebrin Zoland during the fight, as if expecting the handsome devil to join in, but he just stood around eating grapes. And then, soon after Zola knocked Kelolg out, his unconscious body crumbled into ash just like the hags did. Tebrin said Zarzuul must’ve claimed him as collateral of some kind.
Is House Rhomdaen’s survival still tied to Zarzuul somehow, despite the voided contract? Was Kelolg expecting Tebrin to help kill Zola so she couldn’t come after his master?
Tebrin didn’t, though…
After it was over, after Zola tried to revive Blessed only to receive a vision of the tiefling partying on Mount Celestia, Tebrin asked what her next move was. He was…surprisingly understanding when she said she wasn’t in the headspace to think, and he graciously fulfilled her request to teleport them back to Daring Heights. He didn’t have to do that. And lest she forget — he was the one who told her to bring friends to this meeting.
Zola chews on her bottom lip. The two of them have not known each other for very long but they bicker like old rivals every time they talk. He loves annoying her. And worst of all, she knows he probably has his own agenda in all of this — he’s a devil who plays politics for a living, after all.
However, her only lead is Matron Phaedra and she is likely in Aeschira. Zola needs help. She needs to play her cards right and it seems the hand that she was dealt is better than she’d originally thought.
She stands up and gasps for air, water cascading off her muscled body, blood and tears washed away from her face. Her inner song has calmed into a steady, calculating rhythm.
She may not have a clear path to saving her mothers yet, but she knows who she is now.
She is the heir apparent of the House of Rhomdaen.
(Continued in Low Lays the Devil.)
There are no other guests at the bath house tonight, much to her relief. She wouldn’t be able to bear with the chatter and hubbub. The noise in her head hasn’t stopped even after the telepathic bond faded; her inner song has mutated into a horrible, endless buzzing of disjointed thoughts.
Blessed is dead. Zola had never met the young tiefling woman before today, but she seemed so eager to join, so eager to make friends…
Lord Jaezred will want to know what happened. He may even be looking for her right now. She can’t avoid that for long.
My own father just tried to kill me. And it was not even surprising.
I am the eldest daughter of a matron mother.
I still have no idea how to save my mums.
In the empty apodyterium, Zola places her belongings on a shelf. The Twins, her backpack, her lute, the dagger of blindsight, her silver mask.
A small leather pouch carrying 7 light coins. Aeschira’s currency, coins that glow from within. She has no idea how much it’s worth.
A drowcraft longsword without its scabbard. It was her father Kelolg’s sword, stolen right from his belt by Digs’s nimble hands.
A business card, the initials T.Z. finely printed on the front, the words tear here written on the back. She feels her cheeks flush when she looks at it and she’s not sure why.
Finally, she removes her armour and disrobes, grabbing a fluffy white towel and a basket of toiletries as she walks barefoot into the bathing room.
The air in the chamber is cool despite the steam arising from the turquoise pool. Water pours out from the mouths of stone medusa heads carved out of the back wall. Gentle harpsong plays from somewhere unseen. Scent candles burn in carved niches dotted around the room, their fragrant smoke wafting through the fog.
Zola sets her towel and toiletries down on the edge of the pool before slipping in. The hot water welcomes her into its fluid embrace, assuaging the aches in her muscles, washing away the crimson and the numbness from her skin. She grabs a bar of soap and rubs the remaining spots of dried blood off her arms. Tendrils of pale red seep out into the water, drifting lazily away.
The refreshing feeling of cleanliness draws out a large sigh of relief from her lips. But it’s not quite enough. Taking a deep breath and pinching her nose, she plunges deeper into the pool, sinking down to sit on the marble floor, legs hugged to her chest.
Finally. The sound of water filling her ears drowns out the quiet pandemonium inside her head. She can think with clarity at last.
Zola shuts her eyes and she can see the dining hall of the villa so clearly: polished black floors and walls, tables full of sumptuous foodstuff, a banquet table to left side, servants and guards watching with cautious red eyes, a detailed mural of houses and stalactites and stalagmites on the back wall, and three towering statues in the middle of the room.
Looking at the statue directly facing them from the door was…unnerving. The drow woman wrought in marble looked almost exactly like Zola, sans the crystal eldercross and double-pointed ears, and thinner in frame. She was wearing an elegant, revealing dress and holding a chalice.
The second statue was of another drow woman, appearing older but similar in features. She stood on a pedestal that put her higher than the others, holding a purple disc. The last one was a drow man reading a book.
The older woman had to be none other than Zola’s birth mother — Matron Phaedra of House Rhomdaen. That means the younger woman must be the matron’s daughter and current heir, Zola’s sister. Her twin sister, from the looks of it. Fate has a terrible sense of humour.
The male drow was, of course, Kelolg. The man who’d invited her there. At first glance, one likely wouldn’t guess that the two of them were father and daughter. Kelolg had straight hair and red eyes and was a bookish man. But the longer they spoke face-to-face, the more echoes of herself she saw in him. In his features, his mannerisms, even the inflections of his speech…
Within the confines of a zone of truth, he confirmed what her hag mothers had told her before they turned to ash, and he revealed more of the deal he and his wife struck with Zarzuul. They used to be farmers, dissatisfied with their station in life, and ultimately willing to trade their firstborn child for power. The child they had intended to “give” to Lolth anyway, whatever that meant.
And then he asked about her, what she had been doing with her life, et cetera. Like he was actually interested.
“Part of me is glad to see you’ve lived, Zola, and I cannot comment on how good or bad or eventful or peaceful your life has been, but there’s always been part of me that has wondered at the path not taken, the daughter we never had, the place she’d have taken in the world, in our family, the things you’d have done and said. But the greater part of me…had hoped never to know.”
A sob stabs through Zola’s throat. Hundreds of tiny bubbles streamed from her mouth and nostrils as she screamed into the muffled silence of the waters. Immediately, she feels spent and exhausted all over again. She surfaces briefly to gulp in a mouthful of air before submerging once more. The extra oxygen in her head allows her to refocus her thoughts.
Kelolg didn’t know more about the hags’ deal with Zarzuul or anything about Zarzuul himself. He’d never even had contact with Zarzuul; apparently, that was all handled through Tebrin or the matron mother. Her father turned out to be a dead end. And then he tried to kill her.
“Why?”
“We’ve given up too much to let you take it away from us.”
“What did you lose in the deal now that it’s broken?”
“Our security.”
Zola frowns deeply. She has to try to make sense of this… Kelolg kept glancing at Tebrin Zoland during the fight, as if expecting the handsome devil to join in, but he just stood around eating grapes. And then, soon after Zola knocked Kelolg out, his unconscious body crumbled into ash just like the hags did. Tebrin said Zarzuul must’ve claimed him as collateral of some kind.
Is House Rhomdaen’s survival still tied to Zarzuul somehow, despite the voided contract? Was Kelolg expecting Tebrin to help kill Zola so she couldn’t come after his master?
Tebrin didn’t, though…
After it was over, after Zola tried to revive Blessed only to receive a vision of the tiefling partying on Mount Celestia, Tebrin asked what her next move was. He was…surprisingly understanding when she said she wasn’t in the headspace to think, and he graciously fulfilled her request to teleport them back to Daring Heights. He didn’t have to do that. And lest she forget — he was the one who told her to bring friends to this meeting.
Zola chews on her bottom lip. The two of them have not known each other for very long but they bicker like old rivals every time they talk. He loves annoying her. And worst of all, she knows he probably has his own agenda in all of this — he’s a devil who plays politics for a living, after all.
However, her only lead is Matron Phaedra and she is likely in Aeschira. Zola needs help. She needs to play her cards right and it seems the hand that she was dealt is better than she’d originally thought.
She stands up and gasps for air, water cascading off her muscled body, blood and tears washed away from her face. Her inner song has calmed into a steady, calculating rhythm.
She may not have a clear path to saving her mothers yet, but she knows who she is now.
She is the heir apparent of the House of Rhomdaen.
(Continued in Low Lays the Devil.)