Legend of Ransera

Veriel decided to skip dinner today.

The slop she was fine with. The hunger she suffered in a besieged Ailos had taught her to swallow any food served in front of her. It was the spit that one of the guards had so gracefully aimed at her food that made her decide to throw the whole thing into the bin. She couldn’t have another serving, so here she was sitting in her lumpy bed with her legs crossed.

Rather than chat with the other prisoners, she figured it was a good chance to continue working on the bundle of destruction she had kept buried in her soul. As she closed her eyes, Veriel unfurled the tapestry of magic and hatred that had been growing inside her with every passing day. She fed it what little aether she had trapped inside her body. The dampener only prevented her magic from leaving her body, after all.

Today, she wanted to start weaving small bits of Nyx into her creation. Veriel hadn’t used the void magic too much, but she had seen what it damage it could do. The dark corrosion that could creep in slowly, consuming one from the inside. So, she envisioned it.

She could picture him perfectly in her mind. Irdan. It was alarming how easy it was. The scar on his face she had created. That self-satisfied smirk as he looked at her. His poisonous that still echoed inside her skull. She imagined the invisible webs of her magic carrying the void with it, lacing into the muscle fibers of his wings. Veriel wanted it to be slow. The corruption would be barely perceptible at first, the corrosion seeping in slowly.

Ideally, a curse of this magnitude would be stored in a high-grade totem to take the brunt of the curserot away from her own body. Since it was not an option, Veriel had to work slowly and it was getting frustrating. The longer she worked on the affliction, the trickier she had to weave. The elven woman was never a patient woman from the beginning, so it was a struggle to keep herself from going too fast. With the dampener clamping down on her aether, the process was even trickier.

It was definitely challenging. Even on a normal day, Veriel preferred afflictions that took a short time to create. Her afflictions were her weapons to wield in battle, to take down an opponent as quickly as possible. Complicated curses usually kept their victim alive, but locked them in unending torture. Hers were usually designed to kill. There was hardly any need for her to inflict prolonged suffering on her enemy. She never felt such any need to cause continuous agony to anyone.

Until now.

A bead of sweat slipped down her face, but Veriel didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes. All her focus was siphoned to the amalgamation of afflictions, making every thread would last as long as she deemed it to. Should anyone approach her, the siltori wouldn’t even notice until they were already far too close.

But no one came, no one noticed what it was that Laveriel was working on, and no one interrupted her work. She would have plenty of time to see this day's work to completion. And as she finished, as her focus returned back to the normal world that was her prison cell, she'd begin to hear something she had not heard during the entire time of her incarceration. It started small, allowing Laveriel to hear the breathing out of the neighboring cell. This was not a sudden inhale of surprise or fear, but rather was a growing chain of feminine breathiness.

It wasn't long until small moans and guttural groans joined in, and the breathing grew louder and more rapid. And as it grew, more sounds joined in, the sound of smacking flesh and moist sloshing appeared and grew. It was clear what was happening, Laveriel was a grown woman, she had had a mate at one time, she was more than familiar with what it was she was hearing. The confusing part is that Laveriel would know that this particular neighboring cell only house a single woman prisoner. No one of particular importance or influence to the Dawnmartyr, just another prisoner.

And a few moments after this realization, there were loud, conjoined moans, male and female as the coupling came to a climactic ending for the both of them. There was some rustling of clothing and movement in the cell and then it went quiet. And then a shadow grew long across Laveriel's cell as an elven man walked into view from the neighbor's direction, tying up his trousers, a smug and satisfied on his face.

And with a wink, Laveriel's cell unlocked and opened, and the man let himself in, closing it and relocking it as he did. "Just the woman I came to see." He reached into a small leather satchel hanging from his hip and pulled out a paper wrapped object, around a foot long. He tossed it over to Laveriel. "I'm not sure if you like mayonnaise, but it's the only good cart nearby." Inside the dense bundle was a warmed sandwich, footlong, deli meats, vegetables, condiments, the works.

The man moved over toward the toilet, setting down the lid and sitting himself upon it. His clothes were plain, a white, billowy shirt, opened, exposing his hairy pectorals. He wasn't a particularly large nor muscular elf, somewhere between lithe and big. One could even say of average build, albeit athletic. His trousers were cloth and brown, baggy and loose, his boots of dark brown and worn leather, complete with scuffs and dirt. His face was unadorned with facial hair and was otherwise seemingly average. He could pass for a full elf, a half elf, and his skin tone was somewhere in the blend that would make it hard to determine his true ancestry. His hair was dark and messy.

And his smile was teasing and coy.

"My name is Rory, and I've been sent to give you a gift, which I've been told to pass on that it is one you've earned and comes without strings. The gift is a simple phrase, 'The Commonwealth remembers what it owes you.'" He leaned back against the tank of the toilet, "With that out of the way, I'm now going to ask a personal favor of you, and in return, I will offer my services to you." His eyes sidled over to Laveriel's, and he began to speak, his voice a perfect mimic of Laveriel's, albeit with a sarcastic tone to it, "But Rory, what services do you offer?"

His smug smile only grew, "I'm a man who knows people, a man who knows how to get into places, and a man that can always provide." His eyes sidled up and down Laveriel's body and he looked as if he was happy with what he saw. "I could set you free from here, but I know that isn't what you want, or rather, what you can't take regardless of how much you might want it."

He placed his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers, "So ask your price, and I'll ask my ask."

His ears twitched a bit, "Forty five seconds until the patrolling guard is close enough to hear talking. But don't worry, he won't see me when he gets here."

As Laveriel washed her hands, the man snorted, "I wouldn't think an afflictionist such as yourself would be worried about germs on your hands. Quite the opposite, rather." He was shaking his head at his own joke, "Yes, I absolutely can provide anything you ask of me."

He moved over, sitting down on her bed, leaning back against the prison wall, his eyes closed as Laveriel gave the first of her desires to him. As she spoke, his lips were murmuring, counting. Soon, the sound of metallic boots on stone floor arrived, as the sentrybot lumbered up to her cell door. It turned toward the cell, checked the lock, found that it was, in fact, still locked. It's crimson glowing eyes scanned the interior of the cell, and seemingly satisfied, it moved onward.

After the sounds of it were gone, "Irdan will take a me a minute, but a man, such as he claims to be, leaves an impression on the world." He shook his head, "Nasty bloke that one. I wonder why the Emperor keeps him around. And why Irdan returns the favor as well." Rory pondered on this for a bit. Muttering to himself for a moment, "His housekeeper also keeps the house of Doran Vielle... drinking buddy to..." He nodded his head repeatedly.

"I will have that to you in a week."

As he waited for her second request, his smile grew wide. "Now we're thinking like a Hopewarden."

Rory whispered an unrecognizable word into the air, and every invisible, and visible, rune, ward, and glyph carved into Laveriel's cell began to glow. "The same magic that makes this the most sophisticated prison in the world can also be used against it. You're a warlock, think of this place as a person, and ask yourself how to treat it as one."

Another word was uttered in this unknown language, and one rune just above the toilet fizzled and darkened.

"Your strength is not one of brute force but rather twisting the strength of others against them. Everything here is connected, from the cells, to the guards, to your piercings, to every door, rune, shield. Everything. That is the strength of this place. Make it your own and you can walk everyone out."

He now laid down in her bed, his hands behind his head, his perfectly clean boots kicked up on the rail at the end of it. "Don't be naive, of course there's other Dawnmartyrs in other prisons here. Less than you might hope, most were simply executed." He praised his eyebrows, "That one's for free, too easy."

"As for who I am, you cannot afford that information. All you need to know is that I am friends with all and enemy to none."

He snorted, "As for what you have to offer, there is plenty. But I do not require plenty, but rather, I require one."

He lulled his head to the side, looking at her now, "There's a woman here, Ecithian, by the name of Elana. She's a Bard and has been imprisoned here since her capture during the war. She's been interrogated, tortured, and isolated. She is slated to be executed at the end of this season, her usefulness having come to an end." He sighed slightly, "Seek her out and bring her some hope, so that she might know some peace before she dies."

He turned back away from her looking at the ceiling, "It's a shame that your order was reduced to only the best warriors that survived and a god reborn far too late. I remember the days when much of the order was scholars and believers, than a small army of zealots."

He kicked himself upright, twisting himself so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "It wouldn't be a bad thing to find that side of things once more."

He stuck a hand out, "Do we have an agreement?"