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npc inbox: taravast

NPC INBOX: TARAVAST

Reach out to your (not-so-)favourite NPC here, putting their name in the comment header. Try to keep it to just quick text/audio/written exchanges or inquiries that can accept summarised answers, please!

PREVIOUS NPC INBOX FOR ARC I: SA-HARETH & STAIRS OF SIGHS

	MACALUSO Earnest and moderate nephew of Bonaccorso, seeking to succeed his grandfather. A pursuer of astronomy, accountancy, diplomacy and elemental magic, with a long history of supporting the witches of Bessis. Champions firmer ties with foreign citadels to improve Taravast's access to armies and resources. Looking to choose a bride.
	VANNOZZA Beautiful and fierce niece of Bonaccorso, contending to become the next Ilia Doxe. Mind of a scientist and a lady of the hunt. A practitioner and frequent visitor of the necromantic and healing sectors. Has entertained and turned away more lovers than the heroine of a particularly sappy romance novel. Often indisposed.
	RIGARDA Lively, charismatic and gossip-prone lady of the highest echelons, received at every gathering. Can slaughter half a dozen reputations with the right twitch of her brows before breakfast. An associate of the Merchant's and old friend of the current Ilia Doxe of Taravast, Bonaccorso. Indifferent in the game of succession. Loathes crumpets and witches.
	THE LAVISH LOCALS From the witches of Bessis or Attaryl to academicians, politicians, nobles, servant folk, artists or protestors — if you’ve got a question, someone can surely supply an answer.
	THE MERCHANT The patron ~~saint~~ of etiquette and the eastbound getaway expedition. Seems to largely trade information alongside wares. Appreciates spices, strategy and collaboration. Has an eerie and overly cautious manner. Committed. Defends the benefit of the many, to the detriment of the few.
	KARSA Sorceress, young (?). Employed by the Merchant and deferential to him. Talented but fiery and frequently impatient, intolerant of fools. She will get today's job done yesterday. Struggles to sympathise with men, objections and those who cannot absorb information quickly. Enchanted the group's translation devices. Only available until 28/12.
	ASGEIRR The ghost of a scholar monk. Haunts the tattered execution cloak that the party stole from the La Rea bank in Sa-Hareth. Once a champion of equality and freedom, he faced ire for converting his followers against the regionally profitable trade of slavery. Soft-spoken but wise and just, slow to regain his strength. Will speak to those who visit his cloak in brief interludes. Favours necromancers.

SA-HARETH

"HALTHAM" | ANURR
The undead warlord Anurr, previously posing as gentle-mannered giant Haltham. An embodiment of Sa-Hareth's cold storms and wind, who regained his territory from contender Unhalad with the inadvertent help of the party in Arc I. Frostily rational and amenable to some negotiation.

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My beautiful boy,

How do I know you offer service, and not daggers?

No. Give no answer. I cannot know. I cannot trust. I take instead my gamble.

My quarters, an hour past sundown.

Come alone.

Vannozza

Wrath arrives alone promptly at an hour past sundown. He had hoped the mention of the gamble might intrigue her enough to accept the proposal especially if she is prideful at all. Of course, he meant everything he said. He rarely lies. For all that he is viewed as 'wicked'. It is her choice, and he offers it to her as he would anyone else without judgement if she should accept or deny the offer.

Little is more valuable to him than choice.

He is a careful strategist himself, and he does not want to walk into a trap though she has little to gain by trapping him and potentially much more to gain by hearing him out. Call it a remnant of navigating the Houses of his brothers' that he takes a few minutes to memorize all potential exits and to note how many guards there are. Just in case.

Wrath steps up to the door when he is allowed past the guards and then knocks at her door, waiting patiently.

The hour cuts long into the night, but the lady's rooms show the tarnish of recent visitation. Whatever Vannozza's nightly occupations, they appear to steer towards the crowded and the discreet. Wrath is received with the dignity and flourish of any guest, attendants hastening to offer him a seat, a pleasantry of sweets, wine.

The lady herself makes a delayed appearance, dressed scantily in a threadbare night robe, parted from her ornaments. She prowls the room, air at once predatory and distant.

"Does my cousin know you are here? I feel... honour-bound to nearly alert him."

Wrath does not take the offered sweets nor wine. After his experience at the masquerade, he is avoiding human food once more, but he does sit, taking stock of the room.

He watches her step inside, taking note of the predatory way she does so. It is something he recognizes, being a predator himself. His shoulders straighten, and his gaze remains on her face.

"He does not. I did not realize you were honour-bound to one another in such a way, my lady."

They do appear to have a rivalry of some kind, but they are family at the end of the day. His own brothers would not care in the slightest about diving house daggers into one another- not that it kills them, but loyalty and honour do not exist beyond following demon rules.

"Feel free to tell him if that is what you wish. We are both taking a gamble tonight." Truthfully after what happened with the poisoning, he could not stomach being considered her cousin's champion nor does he consider himself hers, but he was honest that there may be a transactional value to his helping her.

She laughs emptily, freely. "We are cousins, despite the... state of our current affairs. We were children together. Then orphans. And now, we are this. How times change us."

Not enough, it would seem, to warrant a hastened exile, to usher Wrath out. She hesitates, then calls for a cup of her own wine, teasing each mouthful. "Word has reached you well. I am calling on... individuals of especial talent. Are you experienced in necromancy?"

"My... family is different." He is unaccustomed to the bonds that mortal families bring to one another as much as he is capable of love and loyalty himself. He has seen the pain Emilia has gone through in losing her sister, and he knows those bonds grow incredibly deep. "But I assure you I bear no ill will toward either you or your cousin."

He is certain her cousin would take swift action against Wrath for his appearance here before her. "I am experienced in magic." Period. Demon magic specifically but that has no meaning here. "I have been teaching novices in necromancy, and they've been learning from me. I am quite experienced with summoning rituals, and I have heard that is what you seek- summoning or exorcism."

"I would say your good or ill will little concerns me, but I'm certain you're aware we would not have employed you, if we thought you futile." She hovers for the moment, drifts from place to place, as if she seeks to carve out her own space, to steal back her bearings.

"I seek... yes. I suppose." She laughs, trains her eyes on the man, the necromancer. "Sir, I beseech you. I am only a woman frail." And barely containing the start of her laughter. "May I bare myself to you, in all my truths and my unworthiness? Accounting for your discretion?"

Wrath's gaze tracks her, but he does so casually, pressing the goblet to his lips but not drinking from it. His expression remains unreadable, guarded even as she laughs. It is hardly the time to be reminded of of the courts in Hell again, but he is if only slightly.

He nods in answer. "I am certain you have ways to make me pay should I be anything less than discrete, my lady."

She knows he has made a name for himself in the Necromancy District- gained disciples, and she has ties there. Likely has ties throughout the city with her power and influence.

"Fewer than I might wish."

But she comes ever closer, staying her step within hairs' distance of Wrath, and casting a long glance over the man for the final measure. In the end, whatever she sees satisfies her — she turns her back to him, bides moments with the strings and pulls of her robe, and eases it until it tumbles off her shoulders, baring her back to the midriff.

Close to her tailbone, a darkening, spreading mark, like mould — no sharp shape to it, but the vague, distant likeness of a hand's print, perhaps a claw. Should Wrath's talents extend to sensing death, the mark will exude the coldness of that presence, the stench of possession. No demon or spirit chains her flesh.

"For years, this has troubled me. My grandfather's unguents force it to recede, but it keeps returning. The lady Wen Qing has applied herself to my condition. You've encountered the likes of it?"

Wrath's gaze narrows as he sees the mark upon her back. Beyond the sight of it, he does sense it- feel it. He is intimately familiar with death, and this is like death but not at the same time. Death does not need to possess when it can simply take so why?

It seems more curse than disease. Ointments can effect it but not permanently...

"The feeling of it- it's as if death itself has possessed you."

The dead walk among her family's forest as well, and it is a fact he keeps in mind.

"How many years?"

She stills, as if the world might cease moving with her trapped exhalation — statue-like under his gaze, his study. "I hardly remember."

But she yields it consideration before slowly, gently drawing up the dregs of her robe back on her shoulders and knotting the garment once more.

"I was a girl, once. And then, I was not." She turns. "And now I pay for it. It seems a common enough story." How witty she is, and how it sours her mouth. "It ruins me, you understand. To be... tarnished in way no healer or magician can explain, and seek to rule."

A girl once, and then not- A consequence of becoming a woman? The mortal world does like to punish women (their desires, their wants, their existence). "You can still rule regardless of the mark. You make your own choices as to what defines you. I have heard you're the one who is able to make tough but necessary decisions. An important skill in a ruler," Wrath says. His gaze lifts to meet her own as she has turned around to meet his own, but he hears what is not directly said within the rest.

She would give an incredible amount to be free of the mark (it's her vulnerability, her weakness). Beyond that, the curious mind within Wrath wants to know.

"I would ask you another question, but please take no offense, my lady. I have... heard your family's forest contains the dead. Can you tell me of them?"

Her affliction reeks of death, and her forest is full of it. It seems a strange coincidence, but he makes no assumptions without evidence. The two might not be related at all.

She heeds him enough to wait out his words, to listen with silent and strange and half-nodded intent.

When she sits at his side, her hands coil obediently in her lap, as if she were a nun or a sorcery disciple expecting the whip of discipline.

"That... is their confinement territory. Of course, you've heard, everyone's heard, Taravast is... forgiven of the presence of the waking dead." She laughs, embittered. "And it is true. For the greatest, brightest part. We are not overcome." Click of her tongue, then, "When they do turn up, they require a home. And isolation."

Wrath turns to her when she sits, nodding. They are not overcome by the dead, which appear to have little conscious thought (at least the ones in the forest). He pauses without saying very much more before he straightens his shoulders to meet her gaze. There are paths he wishes to look into, but first-

"My understanding of summoning spells is that certain objects are required for them. These objects relate to the one you are attempting to summon. Until we understand what has possessed you, it is difficult to perform an exorcism or summoning. It feels like death, and I am well acquainted with it."

There is a pause.

"I wish to speak to Wen Qing before I continue further, and I want to see the forest and the dead there myself if you'll allow."

At this, she sharpens, back a firm line, eyes slanted. And she offers, "Once, guided. I do not intend to give you full leave in my grandfather's private property and my ancestral home." And softer, "Nor do I intend to give you the opportunity to harm yourself, then claim it done against you and create a conspiracy of my injury of my cousin's champions."

Forgive her the inevitability of machinations. At least, her humour seems largely intact. "Speak with Wen Qing. But I implore both of you to exercise foremost discretion."

And she is not a woman accustomed to begging.

Wrath merely raises an eyebrow in return. His shoulders rolls back his shoulders, meeting her firm line with one of his own. "If I was planning to do what you insinuate, I would not have asked permission, my lady. I told you so you could grant or deny access and set the guidelines as you saw fit. I only wish to see if it relates to your affliction."

It may not, but he will not know until he tries.

"My intention is only to find and cure what ails you. Not to spread gossip. I understand it was not easy to reveal what you have, and I do not take your action lightly. Without some risk, there is little to gain."

"At ease. I trust you." Enough, at least, to wave the man gone and her attendants close without seeking him harm. And how beautiful this confidence is, isn't it? "After all, I have no alternative."

She waits, inevitably stilled. "Shall I bid you a good evening? Oh, I suppose. Be well."

Wrath nods in understanding. Sometimes that is all they are offered - delicate alliances out of necessity if nothing else. Trust is a rare commodity in her world and within his own. He does not expect it to be given freely. He does wait as well in the stillness before he pushes himself to his feet once more.

"Good evening. Be well, my lady." He finds politeness important - common courtesy. "I will send word with what I find."

With that, he turns from her to leave, making a note to contact Wen Qing as soon as he is able.

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npc inbox: taravast

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