The Doom That Came To Lookshy

[The Demented One]

Zhou allows herself a smile. "Excellent. I will speak to my superiors on your behalf, and see what arrangements can be made for a summit. An infallible messenger will be sent to notify you of your invitation, of course." She considers Carnifex's offer with perhaps more muted enthusiasm, but nevertheless responds, carefully concealing whatever visceral disgust might roil within her gut. "Oh. That could be very valuable to Lookshy's armory, I suppose. The Seventh Legion has constantly endeavored to expand away from any reliance on magical technology, and Thorns' own unique industry would certainly be of interest in that regard. If we can secure peace and trade treaties at the same time, I'm sure it would be a masterstroke for both our cities."

While Carnifex discusses the finer points of necromantic technology, his mate stalks her Dragon-Blooded prey through the halls of the Aviary. His name, she's inferred, is Maheka Yoti, an elite sorcerer-technician of the Home Guard, and the apparent overseer of a wide range of Lookshy's aerial arsenal. She follows him to his offices in the Aviary, and cannot help but be sickened by their palatial luxury. A half-dozen rooms, flowing wall-scripts, plush couches, full-length mirrors, amphorae of rice-wine, and all other sundry pleasures festoon it, despicable decadence for a Dragon-Blood of Lookshy. After a few loathsomely dull hours of watching him fill out forms, Mulberry is finally pleased to see him take a late-noon nap, crawling under a finely-woven blanket of Haltan alpaca, and falling asleep on one of his couches. The sole obstacle between her and him is his armiger, the sorcerous construct of silver and jade that stands watch over him, her face a perfectly smooth mask of shimmering metal.

[AmberVael]

Zhou might notice that Sable has a somewhat similar reaction to the mention of Carnifex's work, but she lets it pass without commenting.
"What would you suggest we do while we wait? Surely the summit is not the only place I can negotiate at? Or perhaps I could speak with you in more detail about any questions you might have? I've no doubt it would be useful to have someone more informed capable of representing us to their fellow citizens, if only informally."

[GryffonDurime]

Mulberry retreats to the office's adjoining foyer, invoking her Deadly Beastman Transformation. The fire opals on her girdle gleam softly as she forces change upon change itself, and as her skin slickens to gray, her legs meld and lengthen into a great serpent's tail instead of wings. She shrugs, testing her new form covertly as she lets the tail braid neatly around a full-length mirror, caressing it softly as her hands curve with the dark hues of necromancy. She turns at last and lunges all at once through the doorway, her eyes bright and burning with Lunar fury.

Her first target is clear: she hefts the mirror-portal with her tail and curves around the automaton, attempting to trip her sideways into the open gateway. As she does this, she aims for the man and fires a bolt of silvered essence webbing at him. Mulberry's anima blares madly, a thousand silver moths weaving strange webs in the air that fade into mist.

Spoiler

Show

Alright, in order:
8m for DBT + Gift
18m, 1w for the portal
8m for my Excellency

First attack, called vs the Automata:
[rollv]5d10[rollv] + 2 Excellency Successes + 1 Willpower Success

Attack vs Captain Fancypants
(10d10)[1][2][4][8][3][8][7][1][10][5](49) + 2 Excellency Successes

Willpower: 6/8
Limit: 0/10
Curse of the Hungry Wolverine

Essence ●●●●
Personal: 0/18 (0 Committed)
Peripheral: 22/43 (7 Committed)

Portal is open for 2 more actions, attacks on Mulberry suffer a -1 penalty from her anima.

[Naquadah]

Kohl checks his new pockets and belt for any information, checks the name on the papers and begins to mentally create an identity for himself, secreting his retracted weapon up the sleeve of the uniform. He pauses to remember the layout of the city. After he believes he has his bearings, he heads for the District of the Legion, hateful plans swimming through his head.

((Can you tell me about what time of day it is? I was still under the impression it was night, but wanted to verify))

[The Demented One]

"No, ambassadors. At the moment, the duty of Liaison to Thorns is my bailiwick alone, and the present state of presumed hostilities between our two cities forbids any relations beyond this. Until I arrange for a formal summit, any further diplomacy on your part with anyone other than me would be considered a crime against Lookshy. If you wish to speak at greater length with me, I am willing to listen–or if time's urgency presses you on, for this evening hour grows late, I could give you a courier address to receive your messages." Ambassador Zhou plays with a small magitech charm that dangles from her wrist, a miniature hourglass filled with blue sand. Only Carnifex recognizes its displays from his days in Lookshy, reading it at the seventeenth hour.

Kohl, having thoroughly familiarized himself with his new facade, makes his way into the the District of the Legion, the ancient business district of Lookshy now converted into the administrative infrastructure of the Seventh Legion. Many buildings that were once storefronts and markets have been converted into bureaucratic offices, a metamorphosis sometimes left incomplete–more than one directorate office is housed in the upper apartments of a former store. The guards stationed here are in much heavier force than those of the Liaison Sub-Bureau, each official entranceway manned by a platoon of power armored elites. And yet for all the security, Kohl walks through the streets unquestioned by the light of evening. For now.

Elsewhere in the famed Aviary of Lookshy, Mulberry caresses the weave of Creation with the touch of death, cracking the silvered mirror that stands between life and death. As she feels the winds of the Underworld suck at her face, a ragged gasp out from the mirror's face, she makes good her ambush. With a lash of her tail, she sends the construct armiger toppling, catching it within her black portal. A mere flick of her wrist is enough to snare the sleeping Dragon-Blood in a loop of silvery essence, the argent filament easily bearing his weight as the No Moon drags him down into the Underworld. The laggard does not even stir from his stuporous opium dream. Mulberry drops the mirror face-down on the ground, trapping the pair within, and idly waits for the portal to seal itself shut, counting the seconds. At the last moment, she flips the mirror up with one swish of her tail, and dives in, letting Creation close off behind her.

[AmberVael]

"An interesting law. I will have to consider its purpose and nature."
Sable says as she hears Zhou's warning.
"As you say, it is growing later, and I have no wish to tire you with formality, and not everyone is quite as comfortable with these arrangements as I am."
Her eyes flicker over Grimm and Carnifex before returning to Zhou.
"For my part, however, I am eager to continue, though perhaps official negotiations can be suspended until the summit."

[GryffonDurime]

Mulberry settles neatly across from the slowly awakening engineer, carefully arranging the remnants of the automaton to make her point abundantly clear: do not muck about with me.

"I'm glad you could rejoin the world of the waking, even if it is here in the world of the dead," Mulberry says. "Incidentally, that's where you are. Just to be sure we're clear: I am Anathema, this is the Underworld, and your only hope to survive is to sit down and mind your manners. Move towards me with even the smallest hint of malice and--" she wobbles the machine by the wrist, letting the moonsilver clink against her chassis. "Now. Let's talk. I'm something of a collector, and today? Lucky boy--I want your story. If I really like it, I might even let you go. For now, though? Let's start with name, rank, and serial number and move into the details of who you are, where you came from, and what you're working on in the docks."

[The Demented One]

After what seems like weeks of diplomatic niceties and bureaucratic wrangling, Sable, Carnifex, and Grimm finally conclude their business at the embassy. They set back out through the streets of Lookshy, escorted back to the city gates by Gunchei Da Shan, and followed by their own lifeless retinue. A cloaked figure slips into their ranks as they leave the Second Ring, his face hidden beneath a heavy hood. Kohl. Tucked into his pockets are countless useful papers–a roster of the Home Guard, a tactical plan of deployment for Lookshy's Field Forces, and other secret documents. You find yourselves rejoined by Mulberry only after you leave the city proper. She flutters down in moth-shape, only resuming human form once you've left eyesight of the city's walls. Her lips are faintly stained with red. Mission completed.

The passage back to the Mourning Fields is easily accomplished, and you slip into the shadowland's boundaries just as the night has truly begun. Once more you suspire the comforting breath of the Underworld, once more you know its strange and baleful constellations. The Sign of the Charlatan is ascendant in the House of Silence, signifying the theft of secrets, or else exploitation by a superior. And beneath the light of that wicked, seven-starred constellation, you see your fortress-home ringed with a brood of dark monstrosities, hulking war-machines of dead flesh. Each stands at a yeddim's height, a hundred hands clutching a hundred black daiklaves. An honor guard fit only for a Deathlord.

And as you enter, moving past the silent and unmoving necromachs, you see your lord, your liege, your master. The Mask of Winters sits upon a throne of anthracite and ebon, borne up by a dozen hungry ghosts, and looks down on you with ink-black eyes. His infamous mask and namesake shows its splendid face, a countenance of beauty. The Deathlord is pleased; or at least, not angered. He bids you kneel before him, and speaks with a voice hollow and rasping, unspoken by any tongue or throat.

"My Deathknights, kneel before your lord. I would know how goes the conquest of Lookshy, how go your schemes and machinations. I have need of an especial service, suitable only to servants of whom my trust can be its utmost."

[AmberVael]

Sable immediately kneels, going down on one knee and bowing her head in respect. It was not feigned, and anyone who knew her would understand that she did indeed feel loyalty to the Mask of Winters. Perhaps she was not a complete pawn to him, but his liberation of her life in Thorns had earned her quite literally undying devotion.

"We have begun initial steps to measure and work against the city's defenses, my lord. I have opened up parley with them in the hope of confusing and turning them against each other, or bringing some of them to us. It is my hope that Lookshy will willingly leap into Oblivion.

"However, as it is doubtful that such means alone will suffice, I have begun to raise an army with which to conquer the city. It is a meager beginning, but you can see my handiwork around us."

Her skeletons work methodically across the Mourning Fields, uncovering corpses that she can add to their numbers when she has the time and power to devote to her necromancy. The way they conduct themselves and arrange the corpses is almost reverent and pious, lining them up in rows, in shallow ditches that the create to hold the flesh that will slough away when Sable wrenches their bones out of them. It gives the impression of hundreds of shallow graves, with each corpse neatly waiting for its resurrection.

"If there is anything more that I can do in your service, I will gladly obey."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The Hollow Carnifex kneels slowly, habitually taking it easy on his bones. Age was no longer a malady of his body, but it surely has taken it's tole on his psyche. Two black hands rested on the ground as a third begins picking at his fake face, one mutated onto his skull. His finger found a pit and kept digging, half-clotted blood oozes out and he just digs deeper and deeper, peeling bits of flesh off in bloody strips. As Sable speaks he does this, and by the time she has finished, the Carnifex rips the remaining skin from his face with a sound similar to wet paper being torn. Beneath it was his normal, skeletal visage.

"My apologies, my dearest Mask. Feigning flesh like that is far from a comfort, undoing it was... necessary." He clears his throat, a gobbet of clotted gore having managed to get caught in his throat somehow. "I have also begun work for a trade agreement. I have promised samples of necrotechnology, which I will engineer to carry a plague second only to the great contagion." He spoke calmly, the blood still stuck to his face like a sickening paste. He seems to speak with slightly less than the level of respect a Deathknight should provide their Master.

[WhiteKnight777]

Grim

The Grim Fool gives his deathlord a bow - but as with everything the capering jester does, it is swathed in a dual meaning. His lips crawl like worms in an obsequious smile Maggots crawl through the dragon's guts... but the dragon is strong. mayhaps we can find a corpse-white blade to plunge at the beast's heart - but we must strike at heart at head and hands all at once.

[The Demented One]

The Mask of Winters does not smile. His facade allows for no expression of happiness, nor does his flesh still have the tendons to twist lips into a grin. But his satisfaction is apparent in his gesture as he bids you rise, commanding you to your feet. He too rises, towering above you all on the obsidian dais of his throne.

"All according to my plans. Excellent. I was wise to trust you, my minions. Now, I speak of a burden heavy to shoulder, a task that will threaten you in flesh and in soul. To the East of the Grey River's meanderings lie an ancient city, ruined of old and now desolate to all life. Denandsor it is called, a city left abandoned since the First Age faded into darkness. None walk their unafraid, none walk their undeterred. None know what secret horror haunts dead Denandsor, what black curse falls on those who enter it."

"None, save for I, the Mask of Winters! Within that unhappy city's ruins broods an ancient and formidable hekatonkires, the corpse of a soul never born into this world. I would have my loyal servants venture to Denandsor, to break and bind this hekatonkires to my service. If triumph there is to you in this endeavor, it will be a world-ending weapon in your arsenal, a certain trump against the blasphemous Usurpers of Lookshy. If it is instead failure, then I shall have myself a new coterie of servants in your stead. So say I. So speaks the Mask of Winters."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The Carnifex's black eyes lock with those of the Mask of Winters, thoughts surging through his head at tremendous speeds, conclusions clicking into place in an instant. "Surely a Hekatonkires is a beast beyond our measure. We would need time to train ourselves, make ourselves more powerful to face such a superb weapon." The hungry look in his eyes that seems to manifest is likely only obvious to Mulberry and the Mask himself. "...And perhaps a blessing by our dread master, in the form of some of the wonders that he displays outside our humble home. Or even perhaps other things of such exquisite craftsmanship."

[GryffonDurime]

Mulberry does not kneel, never kneels--when the others do, she flickers into the shadows and emerges, her Couture transformed into a dress of thick silk that seems to drip like black ink. It undulates and ripples as she moves forward.

"My mate is right, lord," Mulberry says as she approaches, keeping herself at the back of their number in a calculated show of deference to the Abyssals. "A Hekatonkhire is beyond our abilities. Let us have no illusions about it. Those among our number skilled in fighting are more apt for fighting great numbers than a single foe of strength."

[The Demented One]

The Mask of Winters does not touch Mulberry–to know the touch of a Deathlord is to know Oblivion itself; or so he claims. Instead, he simply acknowledges her protest with a gracious hand, answering her as he would a small child.

"Be without fear, my thrall, for it is with fear that the mortal mind is fettered. My largesse will reward you, my most faithful servants, with what armies or treasures you request. Have you need of my armies of darkness, or my puissant weaponry, I shall oblige you. And do not expect that I would lay obligation upon you without means to fulfill it. I have acquired for you a guide, one well familiar with fallen Denandsor, one who knows enough of its buried forgotten treasures to guide you to those arms most favorable for victory. All will be well."

[GryffonDurime]

Mulberry shrugs.

"Darkness fighting darkness. Death against the imperishable soul. If you intend to task us with it despite my protests, then clearly it is--somehow--within our capabilities. Arm me as you see fit," she adds with a swift gesture, a bit of flippance with her hand.

[The Demented One]

The Mask of Winters seems unhappy with Bloodied Mulberry's demeanor, and his empty sockets press down on her eyes with the full weight of centuries. A inky umbral blot wells up in one of his hands, an undulating mass of Abyssal essence. He flings it at Mulberry, and it clings to her arms, wrapping around them flowing up to cover her forearms. As she struggles and tries to pull away, the shadows peel off, revealing a pair of moonsilver vambraces that gird her arms. Each one bristles with fine spikes of screaming soulsteel, and set in their wrists is a small gem of crystalline Wyld.

"Bloodied Mulberry, remember always that you are my servant. You have proven loyal and worthy, and so it is that I, the Mask of Winters, reward you with these puissant arms. And yet do not think that it is a servant's place to balk their master's orders, or to bear them with any less than the fullness of their strength. Serve me well, and you will be heaped with treasures. Serve me poorly, and your souls will be forged into them. I speak no more on this matter."

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

"If our master would be so kind, I would ask for as many Gears he is willing to provide me. My current assistants are surely a boon to me, but an army they are not. And forgive my boldness in asking, but I would make the same request for any war machines and raw material you are so willing to provide." He waves his hand somewhat. "I care not for their state of repair. Such a task is child's play to me." He wipes a bit more gore off his face and coughs again, "And perhaps a certain set of tools! One I have seen adorning the belt of a colleague of mine." He asks for much, it's clear his modesty and fear of the Deathlord before him either do not exist, or do not surpass his craft-lust.

[The Demented One]

The Mask has never been all too comfortable with Carnifex's grotesque sciences. Even a necromancer-king such as he, even one who has consorted with the Neverborn and drank deep of their titanic essence is unnerved by the vicious enthusiasm of his servants. He had not expected the Deathknights would be so depraved. But Carnifex is a loyal servant, and loyal servants are rewarded.

"Loyal Carnifex, you ask beyond your means. I cannot entrust my own war machines to your hands, cannot take them from Thorns. A Great War is coming, and my arsenal must defend all the Underworld. Nor can I appropriate your colleague's tools from him–and better it would be that you keep no thoughts of rivalry with the Seven-Degreed Physician. But you ask for an army, and an army there is to you. Behold!"

The Deathlord throws wide his cloak, revealing only more darkness, a black maelstrom of essence. And out from the cosmic blackness steps a zombie, forged in heavy steel armor and armed in hand with spear and sword. It steps down from the Mask's dais, and kneels before Carnifex. And then another, and another, and another. Soon there are too many zombies to fit within the fortress, and they march outside in an orderly parade. All told, there are some one hundred zombies, bringing Carnifex's personal command to a complete wing.

[AmberVael]

Sable stands gracefully at her lord's order, and holds her hands before her.
"If I may, it has become apparent to me that while my skill in weaponry is adequate, the limitations of my strength prevent me from wielding a sword; but in taking up alternate weaponry, I have also found that its power is inadequate against our enemies.

"To think to go up against a hekatonkires with a weapon that cannot pierce the flesh of something far less would be foolish, and I do not wish to be proven a fool. Though I am not a warrior as others are, it would still be prudent to be better armed against any enemy that may present themselves to me."

[WhiteKnight777]

Grim

Grim fidgets uncomfortably. Peeling back the soulsteel patch, he looks up at his lord with his unnerving gaze, saying nothing for a long while. At last, he speaks.

"The servant kneels before the master. A single dark flame that burns in the void. Nothing surrounds, nothing creeps, nothing touches, nothing seeps. All are one and one are all in the void. Nothing comes, whether by the hand of the servant or another. The servant begs nothing, save to continue serving. The servant would merely see an end. An end in silence. An end to whispers."

Suddenly, the normally manic Grim droops, his face slack, his posture that of a flower, dead and wilting under the heat of an oppressive sun.

[The Demented One]

"Most prudent an assessment, my minion. Let it not be said that I, the Mask of Winters, would not arm my servants as is called for. Let your own weapon know baptism in the fonts of Oblivion!"

He points menacingly at Sable's own pyre-flame wand, loosing a bolt of crypt-born magic upon it. Beneath the Mask of Winters' necromantic puissance, a black sheen envelops it, the unhallowed dark gleaming of Oblivion's Panoply. It is a weapon reforged in Sable's hands, mighty beyond compare. More troubling, though, is Grim. The Mask looks him over, uncertain what is to be done with the Moonshadow.

"My child, some rewards are beyond even your utmost loyalty. Only Oblivion can bring what you speak of. Know that when your final burden is lifted, when Creation crumbles and falls into the void, you shall finally know your desired surcease."

[WhiteKnight777]

Grim

Grim looks up and gives a sudden manic grin, both eyes gleaming with unwholesome light, though from two very different sources. "Of course, my Lord, of course... An Oblivion. An end to this and that and the other, to in and out and beyond, above and below and side to side... but an end to all, even then? No... There's so much more, beyond the beyond the beyond. Down the rabbit's burrow and beneath the twisting path. The music never ends, my lord... it plays on and on and on, twisting in and out where only the mad can hear. But if only the mad hear the truth, does madness become sanity and the sane become the mad? But only a madman would ask such a question. So the servant supposes not."

His grin widen and he does a full backflip, landing once more in a kneeling crouch with a sickening crack as his spine appears to be doing something unwholesome. "Since the dancer dances on, the servant begs the master shape the tool to his purposes. My will is thine, for thy will is the triumph of oblivion, I know, my Master." the mad fool says as he continues to look with unmitigated faith at Mask of Winters.

[Naquadah]

Kohl knelt at the master's feet, closer in some ways than the rest. He inhaled the bouquet of soulsteel and blood, corpus and iron, and beneath it all the undertones of final and inescapable nothingness.

"I have walked among the warriors of my old home. I have worn their faces and their clothes. I spoke with their vernacular and saluted with their ciphers. And for it all, my lord? I have lists," his eyes gleam. "Lists of the strength of their legions. Lists of their officers' names and capabilities. Lists of their future deployments; what officers, what units, and what destinations. Lists of supplies, both mundane and magical, and their state of repairs. And I have seen, master. How the great lords of the legions spend their days. Where they train and how and when. How they array themselves, and how they influence their city. The petty squabbles between the lords; for all their might, they are still but Dragon-Blooded, still things of politics and posturing. When their ships arrive and depart, and what they carry. When merchants and metics are permitted to enter the walls,a nd what they bring with them, and when the grain shipments arrive. What warehouses are occupied and which are visited by none, and which are typically empty at what times of the month. Where teh criminals are kept, and how to access their cells. And more, my lord, palces great and terrible, where magic is made and maintained. The numbers and hows and whys. And best of all...a copy of the book by which they all live and die. Knowledge sucked from the marrow of broken spines, my lord. And in its unique flavor, the richness that is the lifeblood of Lookshy." He looks up expectantly, a mad love gleaming in eyes shining cold from alabaster sockets.

He listens to his master's crooning voice, imagines those cold metal hands touching him...and snaps back to reality at the mention of the word "hekatonkhiere." He regards his Circle as they make their requests of the master and have them granted. His brow furrows slightly, and he considers how best to speak.

[The Demented One]

"I am well pleased, servants of Oblivion. With what knowledge you have stolen from Lookshy's cryptic vaults, with what treacherous pacts you have struck with their blind ambassadors, with what dread armies you have begun to amass, I little doubt your progress. And now you shall receive the weapons with which you shall defy Lookshy's armies, a baleful hound to match their accursed Skywolf. Now, behold your guide, bound and broken to my will! One who dwelt within Denandsor in time immemorial, and one who will walk its streets again! Witness as I, the Mask of Winters, summon her immortal soul! Behold, Oadenol!"

He pulls a slender medallion of obsidian from the folds of his robes, and shatters it in one hand. Out from the binding talisman flows wisps of ectoplasmic death-essence, slowly congealing into the silhouette of a woman. She is sad beyond words, beyond life, the path of tears engraved into the soft echo-flesh of her visage. Upon her brows flickers a cobalt shadow, a twisted shape that might once have been an astrological sigil. She holds in hand a loot strung with the shadows of shimmering metal, and a daiklave's hilt, bladeless and disarmed. "Greetings." she says, struggling against her will to choke out the words. The Mask of Winters has left her mind, her memories, her will intact. He has only bound her to obey his every wish–your every wish. He is indeed a master necromancer.

[WhiteKnight777]

Grim

Grim looks at the woman, enraptured by her despair. He draws close, like a moth called to a black flame, reaching out one pale hand to stroke her ephemeral cheek. "Ahh... the haunted smith haunts the halls of winter... Will you hold the hands of the unmakers as we stride into the dark, little shade?"

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

His stare is now fixed on the ghostly silhouette of a woman that stands before them. He stands up, all three of his wretched arms held out and wanting to grasp at her as if she were another experiment to be manhandled and prodded. His gaze is even more hungry and unnerving than usual. "You are certainly something special, aren't you? Yeees. A legend's shadow, manifest before us..." He laughs hardily, his cackles nothing more than chilling. Even when he is mirthful, his laughter is not. "My master! Were I knowledgeable of this woman's arrival I'd have held my tongue for any requests! Know well that I will be a master artisan in crafting a perfect Oblivion for Lookshy, my master."

[AmberVael]

Sable

Sable seems to have no more to say, taking her weapon back gratefully and giving some attention to this ghost. She finds no need to praise someone who already knows her opinion of him, and would rather seem silent and watchful than sycophantic and endlessly talkative. Words are only useful when they are needed, after all.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

The Carnifex continues to chuckle darkly at the new guest in their humble shadowland and returns his gaze to the Deathlord that sit as a scar on the face of the visual spectrum. "I thank you, surely. If you nothing else to give then I must be on with my work. If Lookshy is to fall, it will not be by means of praising-" The Carnifex catches himself in a position where being murdered and his soul being thrown into Oblivion once and for all, and so a correction is in order, "-For such things are best left once our dark majesty can claim our victory! Lookshy will surely be his greatest conquest, and us his dutiful... servants..." His words are not touched by respect, and only later are they laced with fear. The Carnifex is truly disturbing among the disturbed.