01-07-2021, 04:51 AM
Greenest
Anxiousness was not a sensation unknown to the tiefling.
But it was an uncommon one.
The coy, bemused smile that had danced across Nayiss’s lips during her talk with Frulum Mondath--her former superior and carrier, as it would happen--had vanished the moment her tailored mask was no longer needed. Now, the lower half of her face was hidden behind a flagon, her forked tongue bathed in the subtle bitterness of the ale she was draining perhaps a bit too quickly.
Fuck this.
For as many blanks Mondath had filled in, just as many were left wanting. Ultimately, the Dragonsoul’s concern of reaching Elturel unharmed had been unfounded--regardless of personal feelings, Nayiss wasn’t fool enough to assume she could twist all the relevant info from the woman’s mouth herself--but Mondath keeping her intel close was a calculated decision.
Had Mondath not been the rank she was--had there not been so many unclear connections and shreds of uncertainty--the woman wouldn’t have left the hatchery in anything less than a body bag.
The tip of Nayiss’s tail twitched like that of a perturbed cat.
For as much as she had desired to pry more details from the cultist’s throat, it was more efficient to wait until more reliable methods of gauging the truth were present.
She never knew I was trying to stab it at the heart. She just got paranoid about her own skin and it upended everything I was doing.
The tiefling scoffed.
Gave me the ‘tools to break my own chains’ while she hides in her newest gilded cage.
Her lips parted into a grin as she caught the eye of a passing guard, the flash of her fangs quickly chasing away any aura of annoyed pensiveness. She exchanged a wave and a wink above the brim of her mug, earning a flabbergasted blush as the half-orc at the young man’s side elbowed him jesting encouragement, but the guard opted to hurry deeper into the partying crowd with his companion laughing behind him.
Nayiss’s slitted eyes followed them for a moment, an amused smirk tugging on her lips as she drained the rest of her ale and mozied over to a keg for another.
She called it the Rule of Three but I’d be stupid not to assume there’s some connection to our charming cambion friend.
A laugh danced on her voice as she clanked her stein against that of a passing woman, taking a moment to join in the friendly jeering at the expense of a (very) drunk man retelling his part in the defense of Greenest against the onslaught of cultists mere days ago.
“Righ’ Yoder! An’ then the dragon gone dove down and you were shittin’ yerself!” a plainly-dressed, middle-aged man chimed in.
“At leas’ my shit stained less than yer piss, ey Len? Wasn’ ye wife smackin’ one of them lizard buggers with ye hidin’ behind her?” the storyteller called back, earning another round of raucous laughter from his gathered audience.
“Covering her back, weren’t you?” Nayiss chimed in with a purr.
“R-right you are! There, ya see Yoder? Even the Spellforged knew wha’ I was doin’!”
The conversation quickly fell to more laughing and ribbing at the duo’s expense, and Nayiss slipped away as effortlessly as she had come.
Most of these people weren’t made to fight.
It was rare to see anything but merriment as the tiefling expertly wove her way through the crowd. Odd, it seemed, had gathered quite the crowd with her antics, and Nayiss had glimpsed Koh chatting away happily with Leosin as Iza wove around the gathered populace with an expertise equal to her own.
Hostu, too, had found a place, and she swore she saw Lucas--the most visually plain of their little band--rushing back and forth between his gathered companions.
But if their group--if the Spellforged--hadn’t been there, it was hard to say how differently things could have gone.
The war has barely started. If what Mondath said was true.
Despite herself, it was hard to disbelieve what fragments of information she had been offered. An alliance between the various fiends, for as preposterous an idea it could be, was a terrifying concept.
While she was fairly certain Mondath hadn’t noticed her recognition of the name, the weight of that recognition loomed.
Mondath feared being found, that much was evident. Feared it enough to throw a piece of that game into the arms of her cult’s enemy, yet somehow not enough to to simply crush that piece underfoot.
Nayiss frowned into her ale.
And now Rule-of-Three found me through Odd. And he has something Odd wants.
She couldn’t keep the hiss from her throat, her serpentine eyes instinctively shifting to the other tiefling. A baser part of herself coiled in her gut like a snake in preparation to strike, the thought of simply removing such a threat hovering tantalizing in the forefront of her mind.
For a moment she felt the phantom sensation of a fifth hand reaching for one of the blades at her hip, but she merely smirked as she swallowed another gulp of her alcohol.
Well I know what I’m not doing, she hummed mentally, humoring a degree of dark amusement at her initial thoughts. Come now, that would just be playing into their desires, and I’m not their tool nor their puppet.
Her eyes once more found Lucas in the crowd, and the tiefling cocked her head, her tail once more swaying behind her.
But… I’m still a demon’s daughter. And that has its uses.
She felt the stumps of her absent fingers burn as she subconsciously flexed her hand, the memory of the missing joints still burned into her subconscious. It was a scar she would bear proudly. After all, it would take more than missing fingers and her nearly garnered net of… reminders to deface perfection.
A smirk crossed her lips.
Waste not, want not. I didn’t survive by being picky.
She drained the rest of her current stein, taking a moment to enjoy the sweet bitterness and warmth that numbed her restless anxiousness.
And neither did she.
----
Several Days Later
To say it was a surreal experience would be an understatement.
Frulum Mondath was not her mother. The cult leader had made it clear that whatever twisted ritual had resulted in Nayiss’s conception had made her irrevocably the spawn of Reluhantis, and yet the longer she watched and listened, the more uncanny similarities caught her attention.
Many of Nayiss’s own physical features--had anyone had the opportunity to compare them before his lifeless body was buried beneath the earth--were definitively a blend between her late father’s and something far more unnatural. Her ears were pointed, and her face had the angles of elven heritage that expertly disguised a jaw capable of far more demonic contortions. Her nose was flatter than most, hearkening to the more serpentine traits of her physique, and her eyes held a dangerous sharpness that perfectly matched the reptilian pupils and dark sclera that resided in her sockets.
If anyone compared the tiefling and her human carrier, there were really no physical similarities to speak of. Mondath’s hair was dark and sleek--streaked with grey in her age as it was--while Nayiss’s was wavy, wild, and a mixture of warm, amber tones that could have just as easily been from either her sun elf father or her demonic mother. Her eyes were a deceptive green that appeared more yellow against their deeper backdrop, but Mondath’s were dark and brown. And of course Nayiss’s skin was green and littered with a sleek coating of scales--a distinct difference from Mondath’s pale flesh.
Perhaps if someone were to look harder, they would notice a similar jaw shape, or the way their ears met their skull.
But in their actions and demeanor…
Mondath’s hands were shackled, despite her complaints on the matter (of which there had already been many), but in the moments of silence when they camped, Nayiss had noted her slumped at rest in a position that--had her hands been free--likely would have been a direct mirror to her own. Every time, the tiefling had subtly shifted her own position, the nagging similarity picking at the back of her brain like an incessant earwig.
The cultist’s pestering of the silent (and much larger) Langdedrosa--and his expertise at ignoring it--reminded Nayiss far more than she cared to admit of her own incessantness when she was attempting to garner Jarkul’s attention, and her periodically melodramatic response to his continued rejection was a cousin to the tiefling’s own when an associate failed to bite on her prodding.
But had Mondath’s connection not been confirmed, Nayiss had to wonder if she would have ever noticed. Or been so irrationally annoyed by it.
Even the woman’s confidence at the safety of her predicament, having dangled information that her “jailor” not only wanted, but needed was an attitude she herself had expressed, and her humor was far more notably akin than she had ever remembered.
And that fact it was weaseling its way into her thoughts caused an endless contradiction of amusement and frustration.
But, in wearing similar masks, Nayiss had noted their weaknesses. There had been discomfort when the cultist finally seemed to piece together the likely nature of the dark-hued patterns that had started to grace the tiefling’s veridian scales, and the scarred arms that were now so regularly wrapped in bandages. After all, Mondath had seen the crimson lightning that leapt from the demonic blood Nayiss spilled from her wrist.
And if the crueler, cold satisfaction the rogue had garnered from witnessing that realization was correct, she could have sworn she sensed fear.
----
Elturel
There was always a certain buzz about cities. The busy, ever-present movement, coupled with the sights and sounds of the hearts of civilization were things that never failed to perk Nayiss’s interest and get her blood rushing with excitement.
New associates. New hunts. New experiences. All as fleeting and ephemeral as many things in her life, but all the same, no less intriguing and interesting.
And Elturel was entirely new, from the curiosity that was the secondary sun in the sky, to the unique atmosphere of the city.
But most importantly, it currently held the one thing that had become one of her few, reliable constants.
And where are you coming from? Nayiss hummed to herself as her sharp eyes scanned the crowded roads. Where there had been a certain degree of subtle restlessness during their days of travel, it had been replaced with a different sort the moment the city had come into view. Her tail had become more subtly active, and there were shreds of an excited eagerness that was as uncharacteristic as it was normal.
Subtle shifts. But present.
As soon as the crowd began to part abnormally, her eyes were on the disturbance with the acuteness of a hunting hawk, a smile tugging at her lips as she noted the familiar flash of golden scales and the large, intimidating silhouette of a spiked pauldron.
In full regalia, Jarkul? Really?
Nayiss laughed to herself, cocking her head fondly and proactively resisting the urge to interrupt the inevitable formalities (at least not too much) with her normal commentary. After all, there were some new faces in the group since they had parted ways in Neverwinter.
And Jarkul deserved to make a good impression, just as much as he deserved to hear any number of the praises Iza implied the tiefling had claimed of him in the few months apart.
She had no doubt that the dragonborn would be itching for her report as soon as she was able to give it. Sooner rather than later, likely, if Jarkul had anything to say about it, and a pause in his day was still a pause, even if it was for posturing.
There would be time for business later, and more.
I'll make sure of it.
Anxiousness was not a sensation unknown to the tiefling.
But it was an uncommon one.
The coy, bemused smile that had danced across Nayiss’s lips during her talk with Frulum Mondath--her former superior and carrier, as it would happen--had vanished the moment her tailored mask was no longer needed. Now, the lower half of her face was hidden behind a flagon, her forked tongue bathed in the subtle bitterness of the ale she was draining perhaps a bit too quickly.
Fuck this.
For as many blanks Mondath had filled in, just as many were left wanting. Ultimately, the Dragonsoul’s concern of reaching Elturel unharmed had been unfounded--regardless of personal feelings, Nayiss wasn’t fool enough to assume she could twist all the relevant info from the woman’s mouth herself--but Mondath keeping her intel close was a calculated decision.
Had Mondath not been the rank she was--had there not been so many unclear connections and shreds of uncertainty--the woman wouldn’t have left the hatchery in anything less than a body bag.
The tip of Nayiss’s tail twitched like that of a perturbed cat.
For as much as she had desired to pry more details from the cultist’s throat, it was more efficient to wait until more reliable methods of gauging the truth were present.
She never knew I was trying to stab it at the heart. She just got paranoid about her own skin and it upended everything I was doing.
The tiefling scoffed.
Gave me the ‘tools to break my own chains’ while she hides in her newest gilded cage.
Her lips parted into a grin as she caught the eye of a passing guard, the flash of her fangs quickly chasing away any aura of annoyed pensiveness. She exchanged a wave and a wink above the brim of her mug, earning a flabbergasted blush as the half-orc at the young man’s side elbowed him jesting encouragement, but the guard opted to hurry deeper into the partying crowd with his companion laughing behind him.
Nayiss’s slitted eyes followed them for a moment, an amused smirk tugging on her lips as she drained the rest of her ale and mozied over to a keg for another.
She called it the Rule of Three but I’d be stupid not to assume there’s some connection to our charming cambion friend.
A laugh danced on her voice as she clanked her stein against that of a passing woman, taking a moment to join in the friendly jeering at the expense of a (very) drunk man retelling his part in the defense of Greenest against the onslaught of cultists mere days ago.
“Righ’ Yoder! An’ then the dragon gone dove down and you were shittin’ yerself!” a plainly-dressed, middle-aged man chimed in.
“At leas’ my shit stained less than yer piss, ey Len? Wasn’ ye wife smackin’ one of them lizard buggers with ye hidin’ behind her?” the storyteller called back, earning another round of raucous laughter from his gathered audience.
“Covering her back, weren’t you?” Nayiss chimed in with a purr.
“R-right you are! There, ya see Yoder? Even the Spellforged knew wha’ I was doin’!”
The conversation quickly fell to more laughing and ribbing at the duo’s expense, and Nayiss slipped away as effortlessly as she had come.
Most of these people weren’t made to fight.
It was rare to see anything but merriment as the tiefling expertly wove her way through the crowd. Odd, it seemed, had gathered quite the crowd with her antics, and Nayiss had glimpsed Koh chatting away happily with Leosin as Iza wove around the gathered populace with an expertise equal to her own.
Hostu, too, had found a place, and she swore she saw Lucas--the most visually plain of their little band--rushing back and forth between his gathered companions.
But if their group--if the Spellforged--hadn’t been there, it was hard to say how differently things could have gone.
The war has barely started. If what Mondath said was true.
Despite herself, it was hard to disbelieve what fragments of information she had been offered. An alliance between the various fiends, for as preposterous an idea it could be, was a terrifying concept.
While she was fairly certain Mondath hadn’t noticed her recognition of the name, the weight of that recognition loomed.
Mondath feared being found, that much was evident. Feared it enough to throw a piece of that game into the arms of her cult’s enemy, yet somehow not enough to to simply crush that piece underfoot.
Nayiss frowned into her ale.
And now Rule-of-Three found me through Odd. And he has something Odd wants.
She couldn’t keep the hiss from her throat, her serpentine eyes instinctively shifting to the other tiefling. A baser part of herself coiled in her gut like a snake in preparation to strike, the thought of simply removing such a threat hovering tantalizing in the forefront of her mind.
For a moment she felt the phantom sensation of a fifth hand reaching for one of the blades at her hip, but she merely smirked as she swallowed another gulp of her alcohol.
Well I know what I’m not doing, she hummed mentally, humoring a degree of dark amusement at her initial thoughts. Come now, that would just be playing into their desires, and I’m not their tool nor their puppet.
Her eyes once more found Lucas in the crowd, and the tiefling cocked her head, her tail once more swaying behind her.
But… I’m still a demon’s daughter. And that has its uses.
She felt the stumps of her absent fingers burn as she subconsciously flexed her hand, the memory of the missing joints still burned into her subconscious. It was a scar she would bear proudly. After all, it would take more than missing fingers and her nearly garnered net of… reminders to deface perfection.
A smirk crossed her lips.
Waste not, want not. I didn’t survive by being picky.
She drained the rest of her current stein, taking a moment to enjoy the sweet bitterness and warmth that numbed her restless anxiousness.
And neither did she.
----
Several Days Later
To say it was a surreal experience would be an understatement.
Frulum Mondath was not her mother. The cult leader had made it clear that whatever twisted ritual had resulted in Nayiss’s conception had made her irrevocably the spawn of Reluhantis, and yet the longer she watched and listened, the more uncanny similarities caught her attention.
Many of Nayiss’s own physical features--had anyone had the opportunity to compare them before his lifeless body was buried beneath the earth--were definitively a blend between her late father’s and something far more unnatural. Her ears were pointed, and her face had the angles of elven heritage that expertly disguised a jaw capable of far more demonic contortions. Her nose was flatter than most, hearkening to the more serpentine traits of her physique, and her eyes held a dangerous sharpness that perfectly matched the reptilian pupils and dark sclera that resided in her sockets.
If anyone compared the tiefling and her human carrier, there were really no physical similarities to speak of. Mondath’s hair was dark and sleek--streaked with grey in her age as it was--while Nayiss’s was wavy, wild, and a mixture of warm, amber tones that could have just as easily been from either her sun elf father or her demonic mother. Her eyes were a deceptive green that appeared more yellow against their deeper backdrop, but Mondath’s were dark and brown. And of course Nayiss’s skin was green and littered with a sleek coating of scales--a distinct difference from Mondath’s pale flesh.
Perhaps if someone were to look harder, they would notice a similar jaw shape, or the way their ears met their skull.
But in their actions and demeanor…
Mondath’s hands were shackled, despite her complaints on the matter (of which there had already been many), but in the moments of silence when they camped, Nayiss had noted her slumped at rest in a position that--had her hands been free--likely would have been a direct mirror to her own. Every time, the tiefling had subtly shifted her own position, the nagging similarity picking at the back of her brain like an incessant earwig.
The cultist’s pestering of the silent (and much larger) Langdedrosa--and his expertise at ignoring it--reminded Nayiss far more than she cared to admit of her own incessantness when she was attempting to garner Jarkul’s attention, and her periodically melodramatic response to his continued rejection was a cousin to the tiefling’s own when an associate failed to bite on her prodding.
But had Mondath’s connection not been confirmed, Nayiss had to wonder if she would have ever noticed. Or been so irrationally annoyed by it.
Even the woman’s confidence at the safety of her predicament, having dangled information that her “jailor” not only wanted, but needed was an attitude she herself had expressed, and her humor was far more notably akin than she had ever remembered.
And that fact it was weaseling its way into her thoughts caused an endless contradiction of amusement and frustration.
But, in wearing similar masks, Nayiss had noted their weaknesses. There had been discomfort when the cultist finally seemed to piece together the likely nature of the dark-hued patterns that had started to grace the tiefling’s veridian scales, and the scarred arms that were now so regularly wrapped in bandages. After all, Mondath had seen the crimson lightning that leapt from the demonic blood Nayiss spilled from her wrist.
And if the crueler, cold satisfaction the rogue had garnered from witnessing that realization was correct, she could have sworn she sensed fear.
----
Elturel
There was always a certain buzz about cities. The busy, ever-present movement, coupled with the sights and sounds of the hearts of civilization were things that never failed to perk Nayiss’s interest and get her blood rushing with excitement.
New associates. New hunts. New experiences. All as fleeting and ephemeral as many things in her life, but all the same, no less intriguing and interesting.
And Elturel was entirely new, from the curiosity that was the secondary sun in the sky, to the unique atmosphere of the city.
But most importantly, it currently held the one thing that had become one of her few, reliable constants.
And where are you coming from? Nayiss hummed to herself as her sharp eyes scanned the crowded roads. Where there had been a certain degree of subtle restlessness during their days of travel, it had been replaced with a different sort the moment the city had come into view. Her tail had become more subtly active, and there were shreds of an excited eagerness that was as uncharacteristic as it was normal.
Subtle shifts. But present.
As soon as the crowd began to part abnormally, her eyes were on the disturbance with the acuteness of a hunting hawk, a smile tugging at her lips as she noted the familiar flash of golden scales and the large, intimidating silhouette of a spiked pauldron.
In full regalia, Jarkul? Really?
Nayiss laughed to herself, cocking her head fondly and proactively resisting the urge to interrupt the inevitable formalities (at least not too much) with her normal commentary. After all, there were some new faces in the group since they had parted ways in Neverwinter.
And Jarkul deserved to make a good impression, just as much as he deserved to hear any number of the praises Iza implied the tiefling had claimed of him in the few months apart.
She had no doubt that the dragonborn would be itching for her report as soon as she was able to give it. Sooner rather than later, likely, if Jarkul had anything to say about it, and a pause in his day was still a pause, even if it was for posturing.
There would be time for business later, and more.
I'll make sure of it.