ANOMALY DETECTED

[indigo_league]

Who: ANYONE AND EVERYONE
Where: ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE
When: NOV 25TH to 27TH
Summary: GET IN HERE AND MINGLE
Rating: BUT PLEASE MARK YOUR THREAD CONTENT ACCORDINGLY
Log:






Need a reminder of our Fourth Wall Rules or what is going on this weekend? Want to check what locations have been made available? Find all your answers here!

Comments

Vierna Do'Urden | OTA

[noamuth]

I - Ruins of Alph

[Vierna's more or less become accustomed to the surface, in the human form that this world usually forces on her. When she wakes up in her proper drow form, with proper drow senses? Taking another look at somewhere properly dark had seemed like a good idea. She breathes easier with a real ceiling overhead, anyway.

Unfortunately, enjoying the return of her darkvision means that, if someone else down here is not similarly equipped for life in the dark, Vierna may take them by surprise. For instance, rounding a corner and immediately wincing back, shielding her eyes from whatever light the other party might happen to be carrying with a muttered oath.]

II - House Do'Urden Compound

[She walks more confidently here. She grew up here, the corridors and chambers of the House are familiar to her in a way that goes far beyond what would be necessary for a place to manifest this weekend. It's downright eerie without anyone around, though - House Do'Urden had never been crowded, considerably less than a dozen nobles in comparison to the scores that some of the larger Noble Houses of Menzoberranzan could boast, but there had always been someone around.

Now there's just here and... that's another set of footsteps she hears, she's certain of it. Palming a pokeball with a scowl, starts quietly heading toward the sound of the... well, she can't help but think of them as an intruder. Maybe her House stands quiet and deserted, but it's still her House, after all.]

III - Still House Do'Urden Compound

[...specifically, the chapel.

Vierna sits in one of the narrow pews, frowning down at her hands in her lap. She's deep in concentration, if not meditation; she isn't exactly pleased with the results of this contemplation. She's in her own skin, her innate spellcasting is back... and still something is missing.

The distraction of another person entering is almost welcome. She speaks up to warn them, her voice almost flat, not bothering to turn to look at them.]

Be careful. I don't know how functional the jade driders are.

IV - Wildcard?

[[She probably doesn't spend the whole weekend sulking in her childhood home. If you want to do something else with Vierna, throw me a starter, or get in touch at bramblepatch or on the discord?]]

III

[desirestruth]

I thank you for your concern, but they won't be of any threat to me.

[Naeva isn't...truly worried about that, but she'd been drawn in by the sort of solemness this place has--and found Vierna simply as she wandered through. She'd been meaning to leave her be until she spoke, actually, sensing that she might have been intruding.]

[noamuth]

Suit yourself. Anyway, if they're not objecting to your presence yet, they probably won't unless you start blaspheming against Lolth or something foolish like that.

[She sighs - whatever she was seeking in here, it has eluded her - and stands, straightening her clothing as she does so.]

Welcome to House Do'Urden, I suppose.

[desirestruth]

House...Do'urden? [She thinks she's heard that before but it's late and I'll check her threads with jarlaxle later, but given Vierna's appearance and the sound of that language, she's fairly certain she can place her in the same world as Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel. Interesting.]

I don't mean to insult them, nor your Lady Lloth [Out loud.] but these seem to me defenses primarily concerned with the living. That's all.

[noamuth]

My family's estate. The eighth noble house of Menzoberranzan, for a time.

And they are defenses concerned with threats to the house. Any rival house that would pose a credible threat would have priestesses capable of raising undead, and likely wizards able to create war constructs.

[desirestruth]

...A more common ability in your world, than mine.

[She is contemplating this, and the jade driders.]

They're quite prominently placed.

[noamuth]

[A shrug.] My mother was proud of them.

[desirestruth]

Are you?

[Because that does change how polite Naeva has to be, right now.]

[noamuth]

Personally? I always thought they were a little ostentatious, when I thought about them at all.

I spent a lot of time in here when I was younger. After a while one gets used to them.

Re: Vierna Do'Urden | OTA

[zaktheknife]

[There is a voice behind her that she will recognize, rough with an abrupt way of speaking.]

Why do you linger in the chapel, Vierna? There is an entire strange world that one might wander in, despite the cruel sunlight.

[But if she turns, she will see that her father is not quite exactly as she remembers. Someone has cropped his hair short, so that it is to his shoulders instead of all the way down his back as Matron Malice had preferred, and the weapons he wears at his side are unfamiliar. A Honedge hovers behind him.]

[noamuth]

[She does turn - more quickly than she's able to stand, in fact, so that she ends up half out of her seat, one hand gripping the back of the pew, as she stares at him in obvious surprise. Reflexively, her other hand pops open the pokeball of her crobat - Ethetyrr's a bit big to comfortably move around the House with her, but in the moment she finds comfort in having her partner pokemon at her side.

She's never wondered where she stands with the big bat, after all.]

You have no idea how much wandering I have done.

[zaktheknife]

No, [Zaknafein says], I suppose not.

Will you come away with me from this place, daughter? I mislike the reminders of a house I found akin to hell. Outside it there are better places. I found a cavern and also a strange boat that seems to belong to Jarlaxle.

[noamuth]

[Vierna collects herself, scowling at him; Ethetyrr, uncertain of what's upset her trainer, keeps a wary eye on Zaknafein, and with a crobat's face, that might as well be a scowl too.] If you wished to call me daughter, you ought to have started doing it sooner, Zaknafein.

[zaktheknife]

[He flinches.]

Your mother hardly gave me much access to you, Vierna. And I did not wish for her to turn you into even more of a weapon against me.

I named you daughter when there was nothing worse she could do to me than was already happening. I would have called you so sooner, if things were different.

[noamuth]

How convenient for you. [Her voice drips with sarcasm.] Did it bring you a few minutes of comfort? To wait to claim me until my knowing would never be anything but a burden?

[zaktheknife]

I was glad I got to claim you at all, [he snarls.]

You have no idea what it was like to be your mother's toy, Vierna, none whatsoever.

[noamuth]

I know what it was like to be her child! [Her voice is raised, now, too sharp in the usually solemn space of the chapel.] Her daughter, Briza's ward - do you think you were the only one in this house who she tormented at her whim?

At least I know what she meant by it when she called me daughter, though! I have spent more time with your corpse than I have speaking to you, Zaknafein!

III

[crystalmaster]

Radley was very puzzled to find this place when he opened what should have been his shed door, but at least here's someone he knows and trusts.

"Uh ... okay. What's a jade drider, exactly?"

Cosmo presses herself against his leg in a protection attempt.

[noamuth]

"The statues flanking the door," Vierna explains, rising and going to one of the figures in question. She's just as glad of a distraction, anyway. The statues are carved from solid jade, depicting creatures with elegant dark-elf torsos rising from giant spider bodies. She lays a hand carefully on one carved spider-leg as she continues, "they're enchanted to protect the chapel, although I can't say I've ever seen them actually serve that purpose."

[crystalmaster]

Radley turns and looks at them. "Ah." The jade certainly intrigues him, and the carving is masterful, although the idea of elf-spiders seems grotesque to him.

"... So what do they do instead?"

[noamuth]

Vierna chuckles, although there's not much humor in it. "Mostly? Demonstrate that my mother had a great deal of money and not much restraint."

She can see that he's disquieted by the statues. It's probably best that he doesn't know about real driders.

[crystalmaster]

Radley smirks. "That sounds like a lot of people I know back home."

Evie comes over to study the statues, one ear up and one ear down.

[noamuth]

"I don't expect she was much different in that way from any other Matron Mother in the city, no," Vierna concedes. "Not that I've ever had the chance to see the inside of most of the other Houses. Just the First House, and of course their chapel puts ours to shame..."

[crystalmaster]

"So do the different Houses not get along?" Radley asks.

Evie is trying to look scholarly and thoughtful studying the statues, an amusing look for a little Eevee.

[noamuth]

"Not as a rule," she says with a shrug. "There are somewhere around sixty noble houses in the city at any time, and the eight highest ranked hold seats on the ruling council. Competition for those seats is cutthroat. Often literally."