Author's Note: I haven't turned into Bethesda since I last updated, in case you were wondering. They still don't own Avielle, though. Thanks to all my reviewers! Seeing my review count go up is exciting. :D
Dreamer – I can't wait until they meet again too, because it'll be interesting... Also, while I love that line, it's not mine – I stole it from The Mortal Instruments, which has some of the wittiest dialogue I've ever seen.
Arty – None of the tests are hard for us, as a player (maybe patience) – but we know what to expect, can't feel pain or weakness, and have a reload button if we screw up, don't we? (Not even considering godmoding...) And the whole conflict of rationality versus instinct is why vampires and werewolves as characters have always enthralled me. With Avielle, this is eventually going to be Vicente/OC, and at this point I figured she'd randomly crop up in his mind. Finally, I raeg ur lack of Vicente. :'( It was like whhhyyyyyyy
Reva – Heh, I've done that before. And Avielle needs some personal growth – I don't generally like overpowered OCs, but I don't like useless characters either. Writing those two ends of the spectrum is easy, and the real mettle of an author is how well he or she can create a balanced character. I want to eventually develop her into a character that would be able to lend actual support to Vicente; right now, placing them together is like juxtaposing a lion and a mouse.
DualKatanas – Ironically, I have more fun writing Vicente's parts than Avielle's. It's probably because I have more license with his contract; with the Dreamworld, I can't end it when I want to, because I'm writing an already established thing. I'm redoing the quest with an Avielle character as I write, so I know what the 'real' quest is like. I deviate somewhat. Bahaha, Avielle and Gorgoth... imagine that, lol. She'd get so pissed off at him, and he'd either be completely uninterested in her tantrum or getting mad enough to do something to scare her witless. See the aforementioned juxtaposition of mouse and lion, heh.
Once again, Avielle found herself unconscious and naked in Henantier's nightmarish bedroom. Which was not a position she liked to find herself in.
She really did not appreciate it when Henantier grabbed her by the shoulders and hoisted her up from the ground, gabbling frantically about needing to escape, and now. Her reply was courteous and polite, consisting of a swift scissor-kick into the offending mer's area of general male weakness. Basic, but effective. He staggered back, his babbling giving way to a stream of curses.
"Stop being so... so touchy, you Ninesdamned freak!"
Henantier was still hunched over in the exquisite agony that only males can experience, and his apology was barely audible.
Avielle rolled her eyes, lifting a hand to rub her shoulders where he'd gripped them. Men, ugh. By Oblivion, some clothes would really come in handy right about now.
Too quickly, he had recovered, and was back to his frantic pleas. "We've got to get out of this place!"
"Brilliant idea!" Avielle exclaimed, voice laden with enough sarcasm to freeze magma. "Let's put that head of yours to work. How would you suggest going about that?"
Henantier frowned. He didn't want to think, he wanted to get out. Now that he could finally see straight, this place was doubly hostile, and every moment spent in it felt like something was crawling over his skin. "Find some more doors?" he suggested blankly, wishing that she would stop talking and get on with it. "I don't see any, but I think I heard something when you came back."
"Uh-huh," the Breton continued. "What a breakthrough! All right, get to work. Shoo. It's my turn to relax in this vacation home."
"The doors won't open for me," the mer noted. "I think it's got to be you that does it."
This made Avielle want to scream. She resisted the desire for about five seconds, which was probably a personal record.
"Let me get this straight," she seethed. "You had to go and make some morbidly-difficult-to-escape nightmare training ground. While in there, you lost your mind and scattered it throughout loads of deathtraps. But now you just get to sit around doing nothing while I, who didn't even want to come here, have to make my way through your own creations that are constantly trying to kill me, just to get the hell out of here?"
"When you put it like that..." Henantier considered. "Yes, that's pretty much right."
Avielle reached for the straps on her back to take out her staff, only to remember that she didn't have straps on. Or a staff. So she settled with planting a fist in his face. He topped backwards and hit the ruined bed, groaning. She snarled quietly to herself, pacing around the room. Why couldn't Kud-Ei have come here herself? Doors, doors... she couldn't find any more on the second floor, but she remembered the set of stairs nestled in the corner. They creaked threateningly under her weight, looking nearly rotted through, and she scampered down them as quickly as her fatigue-laden legs would carry her. They didn't break, although none of the boards looked like they were going to last much longer.
The foyer-cross-hallway was dark and uninviting, completely unlit save for some of the ambient red glow that came from the floor above. And what she could see was not to her liking. The bowls that had held strawberries in reality were filled with piles of grinning skulls, and the door to the house itself was rickety, nearly like a wooden gate – and bearing a word that she really, really didn't like.
Yes, Henantier's current crazed ramblings were definitely a sign of a deficiency in patience, but... Patience? Somehow, it was even more forbidding to her than a test titled 'Slow and Painful Death'. Forget necrophiliacs and Polus. She'd trade any of those past assignments for this. Gladly. Why had she even needed to talk to Henantier, anyway? Nothing was worth all of this crap.
But what else could she do, besides sit and rot in a false reality? She twisted the knob, yanked the door open, and stormed into the blackness.
0o0o0
It took close to another two hours for dinner to finally be served.
The vampire was waiting in the wine cellar, cleaning the dirt and lint off his cloak; he brushed at it absentmindedly, having worn his usual dapper garments underneath. How amusing that while the man of the house was about to die upstairs, the assassin was still present, calmly dusting his clothes. He chuckled softly to himself.
Watching with life detection, Vicente couldn't see the banquet itself, only the ten or so people seated around a rectangular table. The poor guests would have a shock tonight, indeed... but until the host partook in his deadly dining, they would certainly enjoy the food. Its smells wafted to him even from where he stood, and they were indeed glorious, enough even to send his mind a wistful pang. Vampires couldn't handle 'real' food; Vicente enjoyed a glass of wine from time to time, and most beverages were all right, but trying to actually eat anything would make him quite ill. And even knowing some of it was poisoned, what the guests were enjoying upstairs smelled extremely enticing. The boar was trimmed with just the right amount of spice, the gravies were rich, and he could also derive the scents of freshly baked bread, sugared fruit, and a sauteed vegetable medley from the general dinner aroma.
There seemed to be a fair amount of milling around, illuminated hands reaching out and in as diners regularly did. After some time in this fashion, Vicente began to worry that the poison hadn't took, or hadn't been served at all. He drew the half-full bottle from his cloak and shook it once, watching it swish merrily in the deep shadows. He'd definitely used enough to poison the whole tureen...
Which was probably why one of the globes of light above was fading rapidly, falling forward as it jerked and flailed and fizzled out.
Ah. There it was. Vicente straightened up, dusting his hands off automatically on his trousers as if wiping them free of blood. It was a masterful brew indeed, and one he used sparingly. It was one of his own recipes, and like now, it had never let him down. The glow was certainly the doomed man, because he was located at the head of the table – and most importantly, it looked like an accident, and the contract had been fulfilled to the utmost.
Trying to flesh out the kill from what he could magically see, he imagined Vicarus Astellus falling face-first into his plate, and inwardly smiled. It was quite possible, and he had slumped like that when he was fading out. Yes, he'd tell this to Antoinetta when she asked him for the story. The girl would find it very funny; she loved poisons and the myriad ways that they could debilitate you. Perhaps that was the reason behind her nearly sociopathic garlic fetish...
He could hear the screaming and general confusion upstairs, killing his momentary good mood. Screaming grated on his ears like nothing else.
One of the perks of winter, however, was that the accursed sun rose late and set early. Meaning he could get away from this damned cacaphony fairly soon. The clock had rung six not too long ago, so he should be safe... He laid a palm on the trapdoor, feeling for any residual warmth in the wood. Winter's omnipresent chill did render this particular tactic fairly useless, though, and he resorted to milling around for nearly another half hour. It was better to err on the side of caution; lifting the planks and finding the sunset glaring back at him could turn his skin to char in a couple of seconds.
He supposed that he had simply been edgy earlier on, and nothing more. Thirst did have a tendency to stir up mild paranoia, although he'd definitely felt worse with less mental strain... but the contract was over, nothing had gone amiss, and it was time to return home to the arms of his Family. He would have to give Lucien the benefit of the doubt.
He donned his hood and climbed out of the trapdoor, into the light of the freshly risen moon.
And into the sightline of a fair portion of Anvil's city watch, standing in an entrapping semicircle around the basement's opportune exit.
0o0o0
Avielle wasn't sure what to expect with the Test of Patience. After all, patience was not something she ever bothered with, but she figured it just meant waiting around. But Courage and Perception had both tried to kill her, so she had to be prepared for something crazy like that.
What she saw was fairly close to her nebulous sketch of it. She was standing on a grey stone floor, with – surprise – no railing between the plateau and the black abyss that flanked it. Before her was a complicated-looking trap, with floor tiles and two walls spangled with countless suspicious-looking slits. She'd seen smaller versions without the tiles during her brief and unwilling sojourns through old forts, and she knew that those slits would spit out arrows if she tried to cross through them.
But the whole thing was much less extensive than the previous tests, because right beyond that single mechanism was a swirling sphere of scarlet light, sparkling and pulsating in a mesmerizing and somewhat soothing fashion. Her hands clenched with some rush of emotion. It was the Element of Patience, she was quite certain.
Reality, here I come.
She almost walked through the trap just to get to it, but something held her back. Something that she really ought to listen to more often, both in dreams and reality.
Hold up. There's got to be a catch.
The last time she had started out being able to see the element, after all, she'd nearly walked off a ledge and into a never-ending chasm. Not something she ever wanted to think about again.
There was a lectern a few steps away from her, and she crossed over to it. The word 'study' was etched onto it, and she rolled her eyes. She didn't want to study, she wanted to get the damn thing over with. Nevertheless, she slid it open, finding and unfurling a long and thin roll of parchment.
Completely flat, it was nearly as long as she was tall, but only the very top was anything written. There were four rows of four symbols; it was Daedric lettering, she knew, but even translated, it was completely useless. Row by row, it read, "AUCH, AFUL, AAIC, and PAWE" respectively.
"What the hell is this?" she muttered aloud.
People had always told Avielle she needed to be more patient. She'd always told them that they were just too fetching slow. But what constituted being patient, anyways? Just... sitting and meditating, or something? Avielle's philosophy was that people who sat around and waited for things to come to them were saps. But Henantier was not striking her as a glowing example of a model persona, so she figured his Dreamworld had plenty of space for stupid tasks. She probably just had to wait and the trap would go away. Or something. That was torturous enough.
She stood and waited. For about a minute. By that time, the test hadn't dissolved yet and the little ball of glowing light hadn't floated over to her, and Avielle was not going to sit around any longer.
"Screw patience," she muttered, crumpling the large piece of paper in one fist and marching forward into the rows of slitted walls.
Nothing unduly bad happened to her... for about two steps. Then the 'arrows' came, nothing like the spitfire of the rusty contraptions she'd seen in ruined forts. They were streaks of red light that flickered like fire, something she only could observe for a fraction of a second before they struck. She threw her arms up to protect her face not a second too late – the light crashed into her exposed skin, burning severely where they hit. The force of the assault knocked her backwards as if by a giant dismissive hand, sending her flying to where she had stood a minute ago. She hit the stone flat on her back, completely winded.
For about a minute, she lay there, gasping for breath and wondering how a dream could produce such real pain. Henantier had definitely been working outside the lines... It was a shame that such intellect was completely absent when she actually needed it, because he'd created an enormously complex mess and left it entirely to her to clean it up.
But patience and doing nothing did not seem to be synonymous. Picking herself up from the ground, Avielle winced as she regained her balance. She wasn't bleeding, but her arms were a lattice of angry red weals, and her sides throbbed. There was a sudden, jarring grinding sound – she glanced past the trap before her, only to see that the little scarlet ball of Henantier's patience was bobbing away from her, illuminating another, larger trap that formed itself from the darkness.
The piece of paper grew warm in her hands; had she unfolded it, she would have seen a new network of symbols writing themselves below the first.
But Avielle was not paying attention to the crumpled sheet in her hand. She was regarding the growing puzzle with horror, realizing that this was going to be a long day.
0o0o0
For the first time in many, many years, Vicente was too shocked to move. For a moment.
By Sithis, how could they have known I was here?
He jerked upright, quickly counting their numbers and settling into a defensive stance. At least thirty guards were surrounding him, swords at their sides. Thirty on one! He was phenomenal, but those weren't healthy odds. And he only had a dagger; as faithfully as it had served him, he may as well have been trying to take down a Dremora with a butter knife.
"A little bird tipped us off that you'd be here, assassin," one guard with a heraldic helmet – probably the captain – said flatly. "Lord Astellus's death just minutes ago is proof of that. I don't know why you bothered to hide so long after your vile deed, but it's over, murderer."
The truth struck Vicente like a bolt of lightning, like the sun's cauterizing light.
He'd been betrayed.
Nobody had seen him, nobody had known. Nobody save for the Cheydinhal Sanctuary... and Lucien. But his Family were loyal, were they not? They'd hunted together, trained together, shared stories and laughed and drank together. He'd taught them all, and plenty of times had seen Dark Siblings saving one another on a contract when things ran afoul for one. The Night Mother was their mother, Sithis their father, and Cheydinhal Sanctuary their home, forging a network of bonds so deep that he'd believed to be nearly unbreakable.
Save for the one that was almost never there...
If he'd had a beating heart, it would have raced – one of the benefits of undeath was that it was easy to feign calm even to oneself. As it was, Vicente had made it out of situations far worse than this. He remembered the words of one of clan Quarra's ancients, spoken to a very young and much more naïve Vicente at the time. Do not allow yourself to fear. Fear is a mortal emotion, fed by their innate knowledge of their own demise. We have no such certainties that we will die; we are their fear. Instead of worry, allow yourself to relax, to analyze your surroundings. You will find, over time, that there is much we can use to our advantage that the living cannot.
And analyze Vicente did. He couldn't muster up his Embrace of Shadows so soon after donning it the first time in the kitchens, and no regular Chameleon or Invisibility spell in his arsenal was nearly as powerful. Thirty guards was hardly all of Anvil's force, but it was still an impressive force to send against one assassin. If he went back into the mansion, he could be trapping himself; more guards could be waiting inside, if they'd been tipped off. Fighting his way out seemed like the most straightforward option. From one thing the head guard had said, it didn't seem like they were aware of his actual nature, besides being Dark Brotherhood. His hood was up, so any move he made with vampirism's unearthly strength would come as a shock, and to his advantage. He'd only have one shot with the element of surprise, but there was much he could do. The city's walls were a few meters before him, but the guards stood between him. He could probably jump over the guards, but to reach the wall from here...?
"Will you come quietly?" another guard asked, nervousness coloring his voice. Silence was one of the best tools of fear, indeed...
"Come quietly?" Vicente laughed softly. "Ah, I fear we may have a slight disagreement here. I'm sorry to disappoint, but I wasn't planning on waving the white flag tonight."
Almost as one, but at the same time disunified, the force of soliders shifted. Clearly, not all of them were seasoned fighters if one not-yet-identified-as-a-vampire was unnerving them so much. Were events not weighing so heavily in his mind, Vicente might have felt sorry for them.
"You know," he began conversationally, "I have to wonder why you didn't bother to warn dear Astellus of his demise if you knew it was coming. The security in the house was nothing special, and I mean that in its entirety. There was no possible way that he was trying to protect himself in the least. In my business, you rather get to know differing levels of the target's belief that somebody is out to get him, and how it shows... and by those standards, I have to say, Vicarus Astellus did not appear to be aware that his number was up at all."
Some of the guards shot each other uneasy glances at this. A couple bore rather ugly expressions, while others just looked uncertain.
Vicente's lips curled up in a humorless and unseen smile. "Unless... after receiving your little tip, you were more interested in catching an assassin than actually saving a doddery old man, and you waived actual justice simply for fear of driving me off initially? I am glad to see that your system is untainted by the all-too-common blemish of corruption, Captain."
"Still your tongue, murderer!" the guard captain snarled, brandishing his sword. Very amusing... he had struck a nerve. But playing mind games here would accomplish nothing.
"Very well then, gentlemen." The vampire nonchalantly slid his hand into his belt, curling thin fingers around the fitted hilt. "Before we begin, I'd like to pass out a warning, if you will; anyone here with wives and children, or those who simply don't want to die yet, should probably leave. It would certainly be more... prudent, and you will thank yourself for it later."
There was much swiveling of heads, but not one soldier moved.
"No?" Vicente sighed. "I'd really rather not see anyone hurt, and Anvil does need a city watch, you know... Ah, well. A noble choice, at least. May Sithis receive you all with honor."
"Do you really think you can take down all of us, criminal scum?" the captain posed. "We've got you surrounded."
The beast stirred within him, and he embraced it.
"Actually," the vampire said serenely, as he lifted his hood and revealed a predator's grin and gleaming eyes that couldn't have been more at odds with his voice, "I do."
And he struck.
The first guard didn't know what had hit him; he'd had one second to comprehend the assassin's face and think ohgodsavampire before a blade had scythed through the middle of his ribcage, severing his lungs, heart, and aorta in one fell swoop. Vicente was in the air before his victim had hit the ground, clearing the circle of startled guards with one powerful leap. He twisted around before landing, so that he met the ground facing his enemies, half-crouched and battle ready. A growl stirred in his throat; from the way he was poised on the ground, with one hand splayed against the stone and one hand gripping his only weapon, he could have been an animal. Except for the smile. No mere animal could show such a sadistic excitement. His red irises were almost glowing, lit up by feral instinct; his fully-extended fangs slid down past his lip.
Bring it, he seemed to say.
Swords rasped in their sheathes, and the vampire leapt again, the gilded black blade in his fist flashing with such speed that the air around it seemed to distort. He ducked and weaved and spun, each snick of the ebony slicing flesh tallying another life sent screaming into the Void. From a distance, one could watch Vicente's movements and think him a dancer, albeit one who partnered with death. He spun and whirled like quicksilver, mist, ectoplasm; all of the guard's strikes met nothing but empty air, or a parrying dagger thrust with enough force to send an attacker reeling back. Anvil's Watch was in a panicking chaos, trying to reorganize and deal with the crazed vampire that was actually driving them back towards the house.
But while the vampire Vicente revelled, the rational side of his mind was much less euphoric. As powerful as he was, he was fighting against nearly all of a city's armed force. The Night Mother's luck could only protect him so far... and while his bloodlust honed his fighting instincts, he was warring with the desire to lap the blood from the flagstones – an action both immeasurably undignified and involving a probably fatal drop of his guard. His movements were still faster than mortal eyes could follow, but his mind seemed to be swimming in a reddish haze. What did the Imperials with the swords mean when the streets ran red with such exquisite ambrosia?... As he struggled to break free of the fog, a sword found its mark, the silver slicing through the thin cloth and biting deep into his upper sword arm.
His vision literally pulsed, and he stumbled back, snarling at the flare of pain. The fact that his blood should be running now, thin and black as it trickled down his arm, was unutterably wrong. He was the predator, they were the hunters, and it was their blood which provided the life essence he needed to heal himself.
The guard lucky enough to have landed a hit on the vampiric assassin did not have much time to celebrate. He'd barely began a second strike when icy fingers yanked him forward with terrifying strength, while another hand, this one holding a dagger in two digits, forced his head back. The last sensation he ever felt were two stings of pain, and a distorted spiral into the abyss.
The other guards backed away, horror disfiguring their faces as they witnessed the truly bestial side of vampirism draining their cohort dry. It was a clear shot, a golden opportunity to strike, and yet the utter terror of the act paralysed them. It was as the ancient had told Vicente in times long past – He was their fear, the very essence of it. A few of them even turned and fled, heeding the vampire's advice from what seemed like ages ago.
A much less frenetic Vicente straightened up from his hunched position, letting the dead man slip almost lazily from his fingers to join his brethren on the ground. The guards retreated a step further, almost against the back of the house. The vampire eyed them distastefully. The fresh blood in his veins was a gratifying feeling, but he did not like the notion of doing anything out of his control, which the feeding had been. Furthermore, the blood was already healing his wounds, the slash on his arm barely a red weal now, but with his thirst gratified, his strength responded in inverse. Already, he could feel the thrill of power in his limbs diluting.
"Dear me," he mused, sounding as calm as if they were discussing politics rather than fighting for their lives or lack thereof. "I didn't really want to resort to that sort of thing. You could still let me go now, you know, before any more of you lose your lives over such a hapless cause."
"Your life is an insult to the Nines, monster!" one of the guards yelled, his eyes shining wetly. Oh, dear... friends of the recently deceased could be such a bother. "You must die for –"
"Khajiit objects to this!"
What?...
Vicente's head swiveled to face the new voice, as did each one of the surviving guards. There was something about the speaker that commanded attention, even if they usually made less sense than a drunken troll. Because the vampire was nearly positive that it belonged to...
M'aiq the Liar was standing imperiously a bit to his left, his fur bristling and one clawed hand waving a pair of calipers around like a club. When he'd arrived, Vicente had no idea, but the startling thing was that the Khajiit eccentric was not threatening him, but the guards.
"Back off, civilian!" one of the soldiers barked.
"M'aiq does not take orders from you," he responded indignantly. "Does not like what Khajiit sees, either! Did guards actually witness Breton commit crime? No! So Breton is supposed to get away with it, while you all talk, talk, talk like stupid guards, go away, do not suspect anything. Guards did not witness crime, so are not allowed to apprehend the Breton! You are breaking the game! Guards, guards. Are even worse than children. Bah, children! Do not get M'aiq wrong, he thinks the children are our future. But he does not want them spoiling all our fun."
At this point, nearly all of the guards were either exchanging glances between each other, or staring at the Khajiit. Forget the vampire; a nutcase had joined the party.
"Wait, what?" said one.
The vampire had absolutely no idea why the demented Khajiit from before was helping him out, or what in Sithis's name he was preaching about, for that matter, but he was grateful for the diversion nonetheless. And not about to turn down the only stroke of deus ex machina that he'd probably see.
He leapt for the city wall, nails scrabbling at the stone as he hauled himself up at a pace no human could ever dream of matching. Transfixed by the Khajiit, the guards were a second too slow to react and block his escape. One tried to throw their blade at him, but the heavy longsword didn't even reach the base of the wall. And none of the fools had been armed with bows... Some of Anvil's watch were shouting orders to each other to ready the horses, while others sounded like they were trying to apprehend M'aiq, from the yowling. The vampire didn't spare them a backwards glance. He reached the height of the city wall and let himself fall to the snow simply for speed, absorbing the shock of landing with a grimace. He could endure much worse for his cause. His Family had to be warned.
Vicente vanished into the night.
0o0o0
There were some things that Avielle was simply incapable of learning. Courage, she could muster up if need be. Perception was something intristic to a mage. Survival instinct was buried within every living being, regardless of how deeply it rested, and the will to live was intristic in nearly everyone.
But patience? Forget it.
Henantier was extremely lucky that time in his dreams was completely and utterly distorted, because while a very scratched-up, charred, and angry Avielle appeared on his floor what felt like nine hours later, the actual duration of time that the Breton had spent in the Test of Patience was, while immeasurable, probably a little over a week. In theory, the test was to be completed by crossing the tiles marked with a certain symbol, and triggering the trap would cause another, more complex one to appear between the tested and the element of patience. Avielle, however, was completely irreconcilable with said element, and spent a large amount of the time ranting, throwing things, and trying to plow through the first trap without success.
By the time she had finally deciphered the now completely-covered scroll of arcane symbols, there had been sixteen traps to traverse. She was just about ready to tear the Element of Patience to shreds, but being intangible, it simply enveloped her in a feeling that was completely incomprehensible to her, and deposited her back in the presence of a befuddled and nude mer.
"Arrrrrgghhhh," was her first word upon stirring. It was not a disoriented 'argh', it was an I-am-extremely-pissed 'argh'.
Henantier wisely took a step back as the Breton scrabbled on the ground, found a calcinator, and proceeded to throw it at him. Seeing as she was still on her stomach, her aim was terrible, but the message was clear enough.
"If that wasn't the last test I needed to go through," Avielle growled, getting to her feet, "I am going to..." Here, she fumbled around with an array of threats, but could not find any severe and grisly enough to get her point across. She gave up on that train of thought. "Do you remember how to get out of here now?" the Breton posed, somewhat menacingly.
"No..."
Which was not what she wanted to hear.
"I gave you your damn patience back, so go ahead and try to recall it, will you?"
"I... I can't," he said, slumping into a rickety-looking chair that creaked menacingly under his weight. "I can't do it. What's the point? We'll never get out of here. Oh, I just can't even remember. Why bother trying?"
Avielle resisted the urge to stamp her foot. Either Henantier was a complete sap, or there were still more facets of his mind that were floating around lost in his Dreamworld. She got up, leaving the Altmer to mope. Were there any more doors? Ugh, she wanted her magic back already. She felt vulnerable and weak without it, and the morbid scenery of the mer's mind was not helping her morale.
Damn Kud-Ei, damn Henantier, damn the Brotherhood, damn... damn the entire fetching world, for Mara's sake!
She would have beaten him up simply for all he'd put her through, but her limbs felt so pulverized by fiery arrow after arrow that she just didn't feel up to it. As awful as she felt, she wasn't even sure she could handle another beating. She headed back down the stairs, ignoring the groans and shifting of the boards underfoot. To her shock, there was a potion on top of one of the tables, with a note wrapped around it reading 'Heal Yourself'. Nothing else in this damned place had lied to her yet – all attempts on her life had been very straightforward – and she hurt, damn it. Without a moment's hesitation, she brought the bottle to her lips and drained it. The relief was immediate. All of the stinging and aching was wiped away in a cool, blissful sensation, like sheets of rain washing it away. The potion-induced happiness was short-lived, soon giving way to the knowledge that if she didn't go through yet another trial of insanity, she'd never see the light of day again. Instead of going to the front door this time, which was just a solid wall now and of no use to her anyways, she headed through the hallway that had led to his living room.
She'd seen more hospitable sitting areas in her time. Most of the furniture was smashed, and the few tables that were intact held grisly experiments – tongs and bones lay scattered across the bloodstained wood, with tar-colored soul gems and strips of something's flesh sitting beside them. She shuddered, scanning the room. In reality, it had been a cozy area, with a bowl of mixed berries and chairs to accompany guests; ample bookshelves had lined the fringes for its occupant's enjoyment.
And there had been a fireplace at the back wall, not an imposing stone slab with the word 'Resolve' inscribed upon it...