Once back at the farm Silfiel stopped to catch her breath and think about what to do next. I should wait until morning and then tell Sophie what I have discovered. Then I need to ask her about the local laws and authorities. After that we will decide what is best to do. Since she's likely still asleep I will wait until morning and watch over her crops, in case anything else happens. The elf returned to her hiding place and resumed her vigil when a thought occurred to her. Hmm, I wonder if asking Luenna for help will work? It's worth a try, I guess – in the worst case I'll just waste a few moments of my time. She decided and made a quick silent prayer. Luenna, goddess, hear me. Please lend me your knowledge and wisdom... As she prayed she tried hard not to think of the naked Luenna from her earlier fantasy.
Saphielle shrugged when hearing the answer to the question, something she had to find out for herself then. With a disinterested wave, she sent the pair of mummies away, silently instructing them to gather the stone tablet she had fashioned on their way to the city limits. The edges of her lips had turned down slightly when she heard the lich describe the corpses as friends, but it had been replaced with a beaming smile as soon as she turned to face the queen on her throne. Her eyes roaming appreciatively over the seated woman as she walked back with a touch of swing in the desert elf’s lithe hips. “In some ways. First, I’ll have to unweave the bindings keeping your soul to your body, like stripping you of clothes and seeing you naked. Only more intimate. Need touch you while I weave the spell, of course, though my hands don’t have to be still.” Leaving it up to the queen to tease apart the meaning in her words. Saphielle leaned down, eyes upturned as she retrieved her panties. The other garments began to telekinetically hover around her, picking them from their orbit as needed. “Second, I’ll be reaching inside to take your soul and hold your soul in my hands. Then, delicately, gently, lift you out.” Matching her description with a light flick of her hair to make sure none of the blond strands no longer lay underneath her shirt. “Mmm, third, placing you in your new vessel. It’ll be… different. Your physical senses will be magical in nature, no longer reliant on nerves to transmit electrical signals to your brain, none of which you'll have anyway, and forces you to interpret them in new ways.” Her voice dropped its flirtatious undertones, becoming grave. “Adjusting will be painful and frightening, Ayla. Touching something soft could feel instead like putting your hand in a fire during the first few days.” A malevolent light danced in Saphielle’s icy eyes as she recalled the misadventures of her dolls when they were newly made, a smile creeping up her face.”Making a few alterations to your soul can ensure this process is smoother, less chaotic, less dramatic, but expect a few surprises despite the safeguards. While putting you in a deep slumber until you've had time to fully adjust will take a little longer as there’s no input to refine the senses. Either way, I'll make sure you're safe, and your mind remains intact.” Breaking a slave, while fun for as long as it lasted, only suited those few she needed for brute or repetitive tasks. Ayla was meant for larger things. "As we spend more time together, my hopes are that we can learn from each other. Never had a necromancer amongst one of my playthings, and I greatly appreciate your willing submission. So much of who you are would've had to be destroyed if I was forced to subjugate you. I promise your jade vessel will be worthy to hold your beautiful soul, as is my pledge to not alter it unless you ask." Meaning everything on some level as well. "Think I'll visit this stray spirit I felt earlier before I leave." Curtsying before the queen, gripping a pair of invisible ends of a dress as she lowered her knees. Unless there was nothing to keep her, Saphielle would leave.
@GenericEditor168 Patricia returns a bit later, none the wiser about Tlazohuitl's actions and she goes over to the work desk, moving stuff to make room for the paper and she lays down a blank piece of paper and then takes out a pencil, "Alright. I'll see if I can try and trace the map onto this one, if not I'll have to try and copy it by eye which... I warn you might not come out very well," she says as she moves to grab the map and bring it over to the desk as well. @Auraicide The man seems incapable of attempting to defend himself in his current state and the splinters of burning wood stab into his body, he however doesn't seem to react much even as his body is impaled and set aflame. His movements have become rigid, more stiff as he tries to open the pill bottle and Sasha cocks her head, "Wow he's sturdy. He's like a pincushion and he's still going. The fact he can even still move at all with my poison flowing through him is also impressive... Still we should probably stop him, as curious as I am about what he's trying to do," she says and walks over to him, moving to try and grab the pill bottle from his hand just as he manages to open it. @Tjf Amaani doesn't respond to your apology, simply turning her attention back to her earlier work. Sandor heads upstairs and does indeed easily locate the Mayor's office with a plaque on the door reading "Mayor Lau" As Sandor knocks on the door there's no answer for a few seconds before a singsong voice speaks, "Come on in!" Inside is a simple office, the back wall has a bunch of filing cabinets behind a desk and chair in which sits, the Mayor of Maysadan, A woman with ass length dyed blond hair, brown eyes and wearing a simple pink pant suit over small A cup breasts. She steeples her fingers under her chin as she looks Sandor over, "Why hello, what can I help you with, young man?" she asks. @moonblack Silfiel returned to her vigil. As she spoke her prayer a voice answers, "I do not answer every prayer directly, but it's not often I get a prayer from someone from beyond this world, what brings you to this world, child and what assistance do you require?" the voice is gentle and filled with concern and curiousity. There is no visual change around Silfiel and it seems that this voice is reaching her from somewhere else far away. If the voice was aware of Silfiel's impure thoughts it mercifully did not show it. @Mazoku Ayla squirms a little in her throne as she watches Saphielle's eyes roam over her body and her eyes are glued to Saphielle's swaying hips as she approaches. She listens, obviously a little nervous as she listens to what the process entails and she blushes slightly as the meaning of her words about not needing her hands to be still reaches her. She watches Saphielle dress with a slight blush and obvious interest, but looks down as she hears about how uncomfortable the process might end up being for a while, "I tore out my own heart while it still beat and felt my body stop, I... I imagine I can manage this pain until I have adjusted. She looks up again meeting Saphielle's eyes. "I look forward to being able to assist you in any way I can, Mistress," she responds quickly and then nods, "You of course, have my permission to leave," she says formally and then stands up and as Saphielle leaves Ayla begins to redress herself. Saphielle leaves the throne room and returns to the entrance way, the sad spirit seems to be coming from the chamber to her right, while the exit of the palace is directly before her.
Saphielle cast a long look toward the entrance, seeing the sunlight streaming through and gave a wistful sigh. Though a little less now than when she had arrived. It'd be a relief to be away and she longed to be home after the diversion this city had presented. Both good and bad. The pair of souls would be especially useful, along with the secrets they kept about Ayla's life. She could always ask the lich herself, but an outside impression on the events to learn which questions were best to ask was an invaluable tool. They were not equal partners and Saphielle would do what she could to keep the upper hand, including using family against her, until it was too late to escape. An apprentice. A woman to share what genuine and mutual feelings of love she could summon, perhaps. But the sorcerous queen was a lowly toy in the end to be used to serve Saphielle's interests and desires. The razing of this city and whatever ambitions it carried for the lich and the being bound below was part of her plans for Ayla, to unshackle her from her previous life. Whatever the spirit was could hopefully help in that endeavor, otherwise, well, regular her clientele could always find a use for another doll gigolo or whore and Saphielle spending money. It'd be nice to take a trip to Southeast Asia and visit her descendants while bonding with Ayla. Pick up a new slab of jade. See what happens when a Desert Elf is given over to Derisa in the deepest caverns. Oh, maybe Dawn would turn into a desert scorpion instead of the usual spider creatures, wouldn't that be fun! With her spirits buoyant, set off the right side-passage, a spring in her step. But her mind watchful for new intrusions.
“Well, this is an unexpected surprise... oh!” Silfiel's face turned red in embarrassment when she realized that she had blurted out her thoughts. “My apologies, it's just very rare to get such a direct reply from a goddess...” She took a deep breath and cleared her throat before speaking again in a quiet tone. “Anyway, I am from another world and I ended up in this one by accident. In time I will find a way to go back home, but that's for the future. Until then I will use the chance to explore this world and its people. For now I'd like to help Sophie, since she was kind enough to help a complete stranger like me. I found out what has been going on with her crops, but I am not familiar with the local laws and customs. Maybe I'm overthinking things, but I worry that in my rush to help her I might end up causing her trouble instead, even if it is by accident. But at the same time I don't want to keep her waiting, especially after I promised to help her with this issue... and I'm embarrassing myself by rambling, aren't I. My apologies.” She bowed her head and took a deep breath to calm down before speaking again. “I'm sorry to waste your time with such a thing, but, since you are obviously a lot more familiar with this world, is there are any advice you could give me?” She asked, her voice hopeful, before quickly adding “In any case, thank you for listening to me, Luenna. Is there anything I can do for you to repay your kindness?” (This post was surprisingly hard to write. Hope it turned out well.)
"I assume he intends to take his own life to prevent needing to share information...not that it matters." This was one of the circumstances where she could just resuscitate someone magically. There was a mostly intact body and if he only recently just died, her method of basically magical cpr would be usable. As hilarious as it would be to watch him kill himself only for him to realize she could just bring him back, she didn't make an effort to stop Sasha from intervening. She did learn that what she had some kind of poison ability...that was useful to know. Zaria was pretty much mostly fire, so getting poisoned wasn't too much of a concern for her anymore than the guy's knife would be. But from her glimpses, she did make up her mind that things weren't quite what they're used to be. Between the towers and whatever kind of method Sasha used to inflict poisoning, there was a lot of new kinds of abilities and weapons to make note of. Any bigger plans wouldn't do until she was caught up on how exactly how dangerous every new fangled thing could be. While contemplating it, she watched Sasha make her intervention, Zaria still preparing her whip for if it was needed.
Sandor enters, smiling as he greets the mayor. "My name is Brother Sandor, from a temple of Luenna quite far from here. I'm here to offer you my assistance in dealing with the recent disasters that have plagued the area. My skills are mostly suited to combat, but I am willing to help in whatever way is needed. Luenna has blessed me with a resistance to fire and heat, if that can help at all." His eyes flash back up to her eyes, as he realises that he was checking her out for a moment, and he scratches his head, embarrassed.
"That's alright, I mostly just need the regions marked "'WILL KILL YOU'." Tlazohuilt says, leaning over the desk to watch her work while staying out of her light as much as he can.
@Mazoku As Saphielle was thinking about what she would do in the future she could feel the spirit still. The room it was in appeared to be an ornate bedroom. It looked like it might be Ayla's. There was a king sized, plush, purple bed, with transparent curtains around it. There was a pool of water serving as a bath in the room. On the wall just above the bed there was what at first appeared to be a strange design, before further inspection would reveal it was actually the result of that segment of wall becoming disturbed. The feeling of the spirit is coming from within the wall. @moonblack Luenna responds, "Well, I don't usually respond so directly, though as I said it's not often I get contacted by an Outsider either," she says and then continues to listen, "Well the law of the land is now somewhat dependent on where you are. The authorities in your current location are my church and The Archaic to the north. You are just on the border of both their areas of control, which means that in a sense you are also at the limit of their control. You are in the equivalent of a lawless area at least in as far as it's unlikely either side will be aware of your actions in this location unless those actions are made known to them specifically. However, if you want me to be more specific. The law here is pretty straightforward, theft, murder, rape... All of those things are against the law. However, it is dependent on who you perform those actions on. This world you've found yourself in, runs essentially on wartime law. Enemies do not have rights. The Archaic will not care if you murder, rape or steal from a member of an enemy faction and I and my church will not care if you murder, rape or steal from a follower of The Darkness. It is also of course fine to kill in order to protect yourself or others," Luenna explains and then Silfiel feels something akin to a warm hand gently caressing her cheek, "You're most welcome. You may not be one of my children, but feel free to call on me at any time," she says. @Auraicide Sasha takes the pills away anyway and the man collapses after a bit no longer moving, "he should be paralyzed for a while" she says and looks at the pills, "Never seen any like this," she says and then looks towards Zaria, "So what shall we do with him?" she asks as she goes to kneel by him and then she seems concerned and coughs, "Um... He appears to be dead actually," @Tjf She smiles, "Oh you're from a church? That's always good. Your church in town has always been so helpful," she says and then looks sad, "Ah yes... The terrible destruction. Some sort of Scars superweapon passed through and we were just lucky it didn't pass through our town, all the others in it's path were almost completely destroyed. So, many dead. The problem is we just don't have the resources to send to so many needy towns and even if we did, well the problem then becomes how do we allocate those resources. It's a bureaucratic nightmare," she says and then smiles again, "I can think of a way you could help though..." she suggests, "I've tried to get the church in town to do it, but they refused, perhaps you'd be more willing to help. If you could get Luenna's followers to support us we could definitely get the resources needed," she suggests. @GenericEditor168 Patricia laughs, "Fair! Alright give me a few minutes," she says working on the map, as you watch you can see her getting very focused as she works on it and eventually she stops and turns to you holding up the map. It's nowhere near as good as the proper map, but it has all the proper labels in roughly the right places, "Best I could do," she says and gets up handing it to you, "So, I guess you'll be going tomorrow, huh?" she asks. "If you are going tomorrow I might be able to get you a bit more help if you want," she offers.
Silfiel listened carefully to the goddess' voice, memorizing what she was being told. When she felt something akin to a warm hand gently caressing her cheek she blushed a little, having not expected it. “Thank you, Luenna, I appreciate your time and your advice.” The elf said sincerely when the goddess stopped talking. “You have given me enough to think about. Thank you again. I would give you a hug to show my appreciation, but that's not possible, so...” she imagined that Luenna was standing before her, just a couple of meters away – her unruly imagination “helpfully” supplying an image of the goddess from her earlier fantasy, her gorgeous body still naked – and blew her a kiss. “...I hope this will do.” Silfiel smiled shyly as she banished the image of the naked goddess from her mind. “Is there anything I can do for you, to show you my appreciation for talking to me? If yes – please go ahead and tell me. If not – I will leave you be and not take any more of your time.”
"Let's not play games, geist." Speaking to the wall as she lowered herself gently onto the bed, spreading her hands out, running them across the soft fabric. It was a luxurious feeling, silently commending the lich for her exquisite taste and skill in interior decoration. A disadvantage of possessing a physical host was that they needed sleep, but it could equally be refreshing once in a while. Even as a spirit she could feel something akin to fatigue and weariness, usually when she was famished, and a disembodied ghost could be such a succulent meal. Luckily for it, Saphielle wasn't hungry. "Just here to talk. If you offer me something useful, something I want, then I'll leave afterward." Her lips curved. "If the queen hadn't said she didn't know about you, I'd have guessed you had been trapped inside that wall as another of her ritualistic sacrifices." Burying a person alive, between burning and drowning didn't seem that out place. "Regardless, my interest is piqued." She paused and waited for the spirit to emerge. If it didn't, then she'd dispossess Dawn and follow it through the wall in her form as banshee.
"Diplomacy isn't my strong point, but I'm more than happy to try, if it means helping the people. Who exactly do you want me to speak to?"
Zaira did the first thing that came to mind and that was to lightly but with some force hit his body with the burning whip to determine if he was alive or dead. If he was playing dead, this was going to get a reaction. Though with her other arm she began working her magic to prepare a jolt of life if he was actually dead. Bringing the dead back to life was messy business....and the rules weren't as straightforward as someone might think. There were a lot of things out there that weren't really going to like it, when someone who should be dead was brought back. And unlike these mortals, those things could actually stand to be something of a problem. That would have to be worried about later, though as long as she didn't go bragging about it, it shouldn't be too much of an issue is what she figured. Letting the whip crack against his body, she readied her spell to revitalize him if she'd need to.
@moonblack Silfiel hears a sound like a giggle as she blows a kiss to the goddess and then Luenna speaks, "Well if you ever find your way to heaven I would be very glad to speak in person. Perhaps we could do something about that fantasy of yours," she says and then you feel alone as you can tell that the connection was cut and she is no longer listening. The sun is starting to rise. @Mazoku The spirit didn't seem to respond to any of Saphielle's words and she's forced to leave Dawn to go into the wall. Inside the wall she finds a female corpse, embedded into the wall. It's spirit is locked into it's body and seemingly not conscious of it's own existence. Dormant within the wall only it's thoughts, it's sadness radiating out. It does look like it was buried alive in the wall at some point. It seems to suddenly move, twitching and turning it's head to look at Saphielle, "Who... Who are you? Wait where am I? How am I here?" she says seemingly starting to panic as Saphielle's presence seems to bring it awareness. @Tjf She nods, "Well, I imagine you'd do better than I would," if possible I was hoping you would have a way to get in contact with The Vatican. The center of Luenna's worship on earth. It's located in Europe. They have quite a bit of money and resources and if someone could convince them to supply us, we would definitely have enough resources to help the destroyed towns," she explains. @Auraicide He doesn't react to the whip and does indeed seem to be dead. Sasha looks annoyed and then watches Zaria confused as Zaria approaches preparing some sort of spell. @GenericEditor168 She stretches out for a second as she responds, "Well... Like I said there aren't many Hunter's left and what ones are left are mostly inexperienced, but I can definitely get you at least one or two. They're not experienced, but having back up will be helpful right? I'm sure they'd be willing to help if they know they won't be going alone," she explains and then smiles, "So, got any plans before the night, I should go back on patrol, but you can do anything you want while you're here," she says and then looks away, "I know I also heard what the villagers were saying, but they won't do anything since they saw you with me and know you have my implicit approval to be here," she explains.
All questions Saphielle had hoped she would answer. She clicked her tongue. "Silence!" The floating banshee dashed toward the corpse, her shrill voice tearing at the spirit's essence, and wrapped a mechanical hand around the corpse's neck - the ethereal claws sinking into her skin. The inhuman expression her face was twisted into eased, becoming almost gentle, but her eyes continued to burn with a blue flame that bore into the corpse's. "Your anguish is palpable. Hmm, and such a delicious flavor of emotion. But I am far more interested in the hatred raging within you toward those that slew you and entombed you within the bedroom wall. As for my name, call me Saphielle. No more whining now; speak, tell me of your last memories." Saphielle couldn't care less if she answered with something coherent, except to immediately sate her own curiosity. The answers she sought would come, eventually. For now, she was satisfied with simply filling time as she started the complex process of unwinding the bindings keeping the spirit and physical shell together as one.
The non response was enough to confirm her suspicions that the pills he took were to avoid capture. Unfortunately, he didn't really have much of a say in it. Had he attempted to blow himself up in a suicide attack or find a way to jump off the tower then she wouldn't be able to just send him back into the realm of the living, but she wasn't about to explain this and give him the implications. If he was willing to lay down his life for whatever his forces believed in, then it would already be a hard sell to get information and if he was under the impression that she could just bring him back over and over that would make him less willing to attempt something more permanent. Slightly exaggerating the scope of her powers, but the scope was already wide to begin with, and altering a few details wouldn't hurt anything. The spell hit like a sharp pain through his body, jerking it violently as she invoked a long forgotten trick to restarting someone's heart.
"That's good to know... I think I can handle a lynch mob, but I would prefer not to have to try. I hope the patrol goes well."
Silfiel's face flushed red as Luenna mentioned her fantasy, confirming that the goddess was aware of it. Well, she did not seem to mind, so at least she's not a prude who finds it insulting when people think of her in that way... Looking at the horizon she saw that the sun was about to rise. I'll keep watch until the sun rises fully, then I'll go and tell Sophie what I have discovered. We'll decide what to do together. She covered her mouth with a hand as she yawned. And then I need some sleep... She thought as she realized how tired she was.
"I'm not sure that the vatican would listen to the account of a humble monk like myself, but I will do whatever I can, and head to Europe."
