Xeros and Wallace can’t make it.
”This is a full blown celebration! I knew I smelt something good when I was coming down the stairs.” Catherine says as she sees the food being prepared. ”It’s even worse if you’ve been in here the whole time, kitten.” Nalada adds, which causes the human to chuckle. ”Kitten? I go by Cat if anything, haven’t been called kitten or kitty in ages.”
Hearing the undercurrent in Seranna's tone, Yelenn shares a look with the summoner, giving her the slightest of nods. "I figured today was definitely a day worth celebrating." she says, flashing Nalada a smile. "In just a few more minutes it will all definitely ready. If a couple of you would like to set the table," she says looking to Catherine to show them where utensils might be, "I'll be right back in a moment. Oh, where's Zogrith, don't worry I'll let him know dinner is ready on my way back down."
Waiting a few moment until everyone is distracted with their tasks, the magus heads up the stairs Seranna had hinted at.
"I won't disagree, kitten," Nalada responds, turning to the sound of Yelenn's voice and smiling back. "Dibs on the big plate!" Catherine jokes as she moves over to where the Magi instructs, and begins to pull out the plates.
The plates almost look like they're moving out of tune with Catherine's hands.
When she heads back up the stairs Yelenn sees the stairway off to the left still blocked off by various bits of furniture, while noble Zogith stands in the middle of a hallway off to the right,. staring intently into an open room.
Heading up the stairs, Yelenn steps over the barricade, and comes up behind Zogrith, her eyes glowing blue as she stares into the room.
"Anything of note so far?
While Seranna was busy helping set up in the kitchen. Zogith remained at his station. He cut his gaze briefly too Yelenn before motioning to the doorway with a tentacle, "Nothing since Seranna left. Seranna claims that the elder woman, Catherine walks without steps, but I know we heard strange sounds, akin to a breeze blowing through the room earlier. More concerning, the entire room reeked of necromancy..."
As the Magi's eyes glow blue the room in turn took on the sickly tint of green, verifying the Celestial Aqaun's claim.
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From your interactions with Catherine she did not present any ghoulish traits or other telltale signs of the various types of unliving corpses, so her remaining as an unsent spirit who up to this point has seemed perfectly affable wouldn't be that far an assumption. The progression of death to undeath warps almost all individuals into malevolent mindsets, if they retain any intellect at all, though unless they are possessed of a desire for revenge Ghosts are noted to cling to whatever routines they kept in life, presuming their place of death will allow them to continue them.
Ghosts are incorporeal and so would not create sounds as they moved as Seranna claims, even as they mimicked the movements and motions they were so accustomed to while alive. They tend to arise and dwell in the place of their death and have some amount of control over their immediate environment, moreso when they are manifesting, which could be sudden movements of objects and chilled winds and temperatures. That raises the dark question of where her body might be. Ghosts cannont be slain or destroyed like other types of undead, corporeal or otherwise, and instead must be laid to rest by appeasing them, which could require anything from sating their vengeance to helping them accomplish a certain unfinished task or goal.
[smaller]"Definitely some sort of spontaneous necromantic effect at work here, though unlike any ghost or any other undead I've ever encountered." [smaller] Yelenn mutters, half to herself and half to Zogrith
"Do you suspect such an effect came from the old woman?" Zogith posed. If it wasn't sourced from the room itself the outsider could not see many other possibilities.
"Possibly, I'll have to look at her with my Sight and see what's coming off of her if anything. We're about to eat a meal so that should be pretty telling anyway." she says says thoughtfully. Pausing she glances at the eidolon "Do you eat?"
With a sigh, Yasmin says, "At this point I'll just be glad to sit down for a home-cooked meal. So many questions and no good answers, and every time we look into something we just find even stranger things. I feel like my head is spinning."
”On a search are we, kitten?” Nalada asks while Catherine starts to move chairs over to the table.
"We might as well head down." Yelenn says, leading the way downstairs. As she does, she maintains the cantrip, allowing her to view the threads of magic.
”I got as many normal chairs as I could find, though you’ll forgive me for not breaking my back dragging those huge ones in from the main room.” Catherine comments as the others return, having procured smaller chairs from somewhere in the manor.
"I do not need to eat while I am here." Zogith explained as the duo moved back toward the kitchen, "However, I still enjoy eating when food is plentiful." Since there was no knowing how long the food would last or how long they would be staying here, this would imply he wouldn't be eating tonight.
Seranna did her best to help prepare the table for dinner, though it quickly became apparent to anyone who paid the least bit of attention that she was not used to this sort of behavior, especially Nalada who most likely was a lot like her in the sense that both women were used to servants doing this sort of thing for them. All the while she tried her best to not look like she was giving the old woman a suspicious eye. When Yelenn returned with Zogith she cut her gaze between the magus and Catherine as a strange silence ever so briefly befell the room.
Nalada slowly worked beside the younger noble, occasionally opening an eye as she felt something odd with the silverware she was handling. "Why is there so many different types of cutlery? They're not sized differently for children or smallfolk." she grumbles as she goes about switching out some she had put down so all the ones on the table matched.
If Princess Stabbity's gaze upon Catherine made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end it didn't seem to bother her nor did she show any sign of noticing.
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Mylyna enjoyed her brief nap while supper was prepared and her body warmed deliciously. While she might have woken herself up even more, and thanked Xeros more thoroughly, but there were limits to what she would do as a child was around and awake after all. Besides, Mylyna smelled food and she was feeling very hungry suddenly. She shifted beneath Xeros and gave him a gentle kiss as she said, "Thanks Xeros but I think it's time to eat now."
Xeros gave a waking grumble and his tongue slipped out his mouth to lazily lap at the Lamae before he pulled back as his mouth stretched open in a yawn. "Eat? Food? Food is here?" he asks before apparently answering his own question by fervently sniffing the air.
"Food?" he repeats as he gets up and heads over to where the smell was coming from. "Food? Food? FISH!" he continues as he enters the kitchen and spots the developing meal, hopping in excitement as he shouts, which earns him a chastisement from Catherine. "Good Heavens, we're all hungry but you'll have to wait until it's done."
"Fish!" he echoes as he moves over to the stove to watch it cook. "Fish is yummy." Sniffing around he lets out a hungry growl before it is abruptly cut off as he stops, perfectly still to seemingly guard the cooking fish.
”Soup or dessert spoons, meal or salad forks and…sweet Karezza, so many different knives.” Seranna said as she gave a bewildered look at the seemingly random assortment of silverware before eventually giving up and just settling for the fact that everyone had at least one fork, spoon, and knife of one variety or another. She chuckled to herself as if briefly lost in thought before casting a glance back at Nadala.
“You may think it barbarous of me, but I never did pay much attention during my etiquette lessons. My tutor stressed its necessity, but if it was even fractionally as important as he claimed, I figured his mastery would have made him more than a common servant…and it didn’t so…” She shrugged her shoulders, ”To be young and foolish again.”
Nalada silently mimes along the names of various different bits of cutlery as Princess Stabbity. "Sumptuousness never ceases nor grows complacent, a specific utensil for each individual dish?"she stops and lets out a sigh. "Please tell me they don't throw them out after every meal too."
Glancing at Nalada Seranna notices the drow facing her and listening, though her eyes were still closed.
"Etiquette lessons? Were you perhaps set to lead a guild or house, or even your territory itself?" she starts before adding "If he was a master of it and it was his occupation there's really not much more to ask for then is there?"
”To be young and foolish again.”
"You still have time, kitten, we all do. To be without worries is an entirely different aspiration..."
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“How dangerously perceptive of you.” Seranna smirked as she looked to Nalada, ”I was meant to eventually sit at the head of my noble house. I fear my presence here has more to do with politics than any wrong doing. I suppose I should be grateful that this was chosen over death, but then again, I attribute that to the fact my brother lacks the spine to see me slain be it in person or by assassin. But I risk showing too much of my hand now.” Seranna said once again reminding herself she spoke to an ancient warden.
”Thank you, once again you prove to be a source of wisdom. If you do not mind me asking, how is it you are able to move with such grace and certainty in these unfamiliar surroundings, all without the need of your eyes?” She inquired softly.
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Nalada smirked at the compliment, before her closed eyes obviously rolled as Seranna explained her circumstances that led her and Zogith to Bastarache. "Ugh, politics, politics WITH family, nothing but aggrandizing backstabbing and acrid pissing matches with poor citizens as pawns and collateral. So glad I dodged all of that." she finishes with a relieved sigh.
"Oh, practice,' she responds before smiling, "No, really, years and years of practice. My eyes are quite sensitive to light and magic, so I tend to focus on where I hear footsteps and people conversing, which is rather easy when surrounded by such a sweetly diverse group of voices. Also the exaggerated sway I put into my hips when I walk disguises me sweeping my feet out just to be cautious, while also making people appreciate my backside."
Yasmin delicately takes a seat and delicately places a napkin in her lap, tugs on the straps of her halter, and then folds her fingers against each other.
"I'll leave the politics to others, if it's all the same," she says. "Really our questions are more about, what is going on here on this island? Why is it full of creatures that pretend to be humans, under some kind of illusion? How come this house, seemingly normal, is connected to the strange prison below? And who lives here? We can't rely on this house having stores of food forever. We need to find some way to support ourselves, eventually."
”And I the same.” Nalada agrees with the Sha’ir, remaining standing for the moment. ”While I can’t really comment on the other interesting occurrences I do have some assumptions about this house, but I do not like assumptions, so curiosity first. How much of it has been explored? Have you found anything related to the prison or the prisoner here?”
"We've been through the kitchen and several rooms, though not the entire place," says Yasmin. "The cellar had a passage that connected to the prison. Nothing we've found seems to indicate that it's anything other than a well-furnished home whose owner is missing."
"Hmm," Nalada starts, "Curiosity teased. The passages was crude, could who have made it done something to the owner? Did the owner call for it? How long was this structure here before they began digging? Putting all this effort into building this retreat and then so brutishly smashing your way down... did the owner even know about the prison? Too many assumptions." she ponders.
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"Oh, practice,' she responds before smiling, "No, really, years and years of practice. My eyes are quite sensitive to light and magic, so I tend to focus on where I hear footsteps and people conversing, which is rather easy when surrounded by such a sweetly diverse group of voices. Also the exaggerated sway I put into my hips when I walk disguises me sweeping my feet out just to be cautious, while also making people appreciate my backside."
"So a bonus for everyone." Yelenn says with a soft laugh.
Giving a last glance at Catherine before dispelling her magesight and moving to put food on the table.
"All very good questions. But depending on how long the core of the prison was here, this house could honestly be a case of someone building on ruins, though with what we've seen so far, anything is possible." She takes a seat and pulls out a chair beside hers, making a point to audibly drag it out.
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"I like to think so," Nalada responds while wearing a satisfied smirk.
"If that's the case then then that probably means some poor bastard or their descendants had worse luck than even I. A pity." she muses, though when she hears Yelenn pull out the second chair she promptly relocates to the Magi's side. "Thank you, kitten. The more I hear about this land and those who have been sent to it the more concerned and intrigued I grow."
"Concerned in what way?" asks Yasmin. "Is there something more dangerous we should be wary of?"
”I was hoping you could tell me, kitten. Before I slept this land was not an island. I’m becoming more aware, and it’s vexing, that there’s more and more I do not know. How did it come to be? Why is it the destination of exiles?”
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Hearing the frustration in Nalada's voice, Yelenn reaches up to massage the back of her neck as she thinks about what little information she'd gathered about this place.
"Mmmm, thank you kitten," Nalada purrs as she lets her head dip under the Witchblade's ministrations.
As for why it became a jail for the accursed, most (surviving and non-expunged) records point to a cabal of wizards in now lost southern Orphaia attempting to scry after a missing fleet of merchant ships, noble endeavor. The Church of Kelevra decreed a Fell March on the country right after.
"They wantonly cast their gaze without care what sights they saw and who's eyes they met. They found the isle, stricken from maps till then. They looked and looked, and something noticed, and looked back, and coveted what it saw," is commentary that stands out, taken from the corpse of a Kelevran commander many years after his death by a priest of Naught. The corpse strangled the priest before he could ask anymore questions of the body or spirit of the commander.
Soon after the name Bastarache began appearing on corners of maps and globes, and soon after that people began to see it as a cause for their woes, as well as a solution.
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Mylyna slithered into the kitchen after Xeros, her motions making everything sway as enticingly as always, and coiled herself up at on end of the tail with what would amount to her human butt, if she had one, resting in the middle of them. She brought some of the coats the boy had brought when she came to the kitchen and began to drape them around herself to help keep warm.
When she smelled the fish cooking, among other things, Mylyna's eyes lit up in delight, though they narrowed slightly as she remembered what she ate earlier and looked for the boy. "Wallace?" she asked sweetly, "Why did I have to eat that giant rat earlier if there was ll of this food here?"
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”You... didn’t have to?” Wallace starts. ”I didn’t know where the meats were, I was waiting for Grams to wake up to explore more.”
”Having fun exploring the creepy house?” Catherine sincerely asks the boy, who nods, which makes her smile. ”Sorry about that, getting here took a lot out of me.”
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Mylyna's eyes narrowed at the kid a moment and she gestured for him to come closer to her. She leaned forward and out as she looked into his eyes and said, "Come here please Wallace, I won't hurt you." She swayed slightly at her waist like a serpent hypnotizing prey and when young Wallace came close enough she lunged forward and grabbed him in a hug with her arms. She squeezed him tightly, the boys face next to hers and pulled back to her seat in her coils as she said, "It's alright Wallace, I forgive you."
She moved again and set him back on the floor, "I was too hungry then to wait anyway so I guess it was fine." She smiled and settled again as she looked a the food, "This time I get real food though!" She resettled the coats around her and hunkered back in her coils to await the meal.
"Uh, why would you?" Wallace asks even as he does as the Lamae requests, though he reflexively tried to jump back when she lunged at him.
"You're fast," he lets out after he catches his breath and hugs the woman back. "and... okay?" he adds after recieving the Lamae's forgivness and settling back into his seat.
"... rats aren't real food?" he thought aloud.
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Smiling at the exchange, Yelenn continues rubbing Nalada's neck as she relates her knowledge of Bastarache's history, or at least what she'd managed to put together.
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"If you keep that up I'm likely to doze off here and you'll have to carry me to bed after." Nalada quietly says to Yelenn.
Seranna joined the others at the table as the group spoke about the nature of the dangers of the island and its history. She frowned as this was hardly appropriate dinner conversation. Personally, she was still hoping to get some sort of resolution about the situation with Granny, but Yelenn made no mention of it, nor did she reveal what her detect magic upon the woman revealed.
“Do you think the thing that looked back could be in reference to Nadala’s old prisoner? Is that possible? That when they scryed upon the island they might have actually picked up on some shred of the prison, or Goddess forbid, the pocket dimension within? Is that what started all this?” Seranna got a cold chill just thinking about it, ”Or worse, is there some other evil still here of such magnitude, something yet undiscovered, undisturbed. Ugh, dreadful.”
With that she focused on her meal, quirking a brow at the serpent woman’s behavior, but otherwise keeping to herself…until her eyes eventually fell back to Catherine. For whatever reason she just couldn’t let go of what happened upstairs and she cut her eyes back to Yelenn and back to the old woman.
”So I’m curious Catherine, what’s your story? If you would indulge me, how does such a sweet and respect um…elder end up on a ship heading to this terrible place?”
”Those... are some harrowing thoughts,” Nalada comments in response to Princess Stabbity, her voice losing taking back on its much sterner tone.
”Hrm, me?” Catherine says as she realizes the conversation comes to her. ”Oh right. I told the bastards to send me here.”
“This is why she has such a hard time sleeping. She works herself up with these things.” Zogith chided at Seranna, ”Something so drastically out of our control should not loom ever presently in the forefront of your mind my love.”
Seranna smiled at the Aquan’s words, finding comfort in them, even if she was slightly agitated at the dismissive nature of the comment. Rather than focus on that however she turned her attention back toward Catherine, whose response was perhaps the most shocking of all, “I’m sorry, but…why? Why would you want this?”
”It was either me or my grandson. He’s just a little older than Wallie. I’m, well, old.” she starts, before lounging back in her chair. ”Without going over my very, very, very long and super exciting life story, could fill a book, three if you pad it with side characters that don’t serve any purpose, of living out in the middle of the woods away from all the jackasses I had a daughter, who had a fling with one of them treespeakers... Druids! Well she wound up pregnant with,” she suddenly stops, staring at nothing before refocusing. ”Sorry, I about said his name. After hearing y’all talk about this place getting greedy like it’s alive... I don’t want it to know their names. Sorry if that sounds crazy, but... I’m just not gonna risk it.”
She close her mouth and moves it side to side, wearing a bitter look on her face before she just shrugs. ”Anyway. So my grandson’s father was a Druid, and he picked up some things from the woods, don’t know if Druids work like that, parent to child, but it don’t matter, all I know is that boy starting talking earlier than a toddler should, and starting talking with everything. Animals. The plants. The winds. Which ain’t that super impressive, until all that started talking back to him. Wake up in the middle night to see him have a meeting with a she wolf and her pups, writing something on the ground, places in the woods where hunters left traps. Crows would bring him bottles filled with stuff, found out later they’re called potions. Expensive stuff. So all kinds of stuff like that.”
”Well one day he met a hunter and told him to leave before the wolves got em, they were giving him this one warning, all nice like. Well apparently the hunter didn’t listen cause I hears later the hunter got torn apart while his partner made it back to town with the rest of the jackasses and starting gabbin. Which is how I learned later, when the jackasses all showed up at my house in the middle of nowhere, that there had been a lot more maulings in town over the previous nights. Sounded like a werewolf honestly, wonder how many more it’s killed? Anyway! So I got all the a$$%@*@s out in front of my house wanting my grandson, well fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that. I told them he didn’t do anything and they needed to leave before there was a bunch more dead jackassss. Well the head of the group huffs and puffs and steps forward with his chest out and-“ she stops and throws her hands up, ”Thank Raen who smites jackasses or Kelevra who takes no s$~~ or whichever god timed it but a cougar had drug its meal up into a tree, a good sized deer. And then dropped it. Poor cat, just trying to eat. Well it hit that unlucky jackass who was trying to make a point. I don’t know how many of y’all have seen a deer, but deer beats human when it comes to head butting contests. Everyone gasped! Then another jackass stepped forward and got a hangry cougar falling on his face for his troubles.”
She smirks. ”So you got all these idiots thinking I’m throwing corpses and giant pussycats at them and they turn tail and run all the while I’m cackling like a witch about the whole thing. But they’re idiots so they came back the next night, a whole lot more of them too, all idiots. But I figured they would so I already had my daughter and grandson out of there and go all quietly while taunting and laughing at them, tellin then I was the one who warned my grandson and they shoulda just listened. Jackasses. So. I spend a few days in a cell while they figure out what to do with me and I’m playing it up, in a famous witch now ah, I’m evil ah, I’ll curse all ya ah, leave my family the f@$& alone why don’t ya? Now, while I’m sitting in chains making a damn fool out of myself making an even bigger fool out of all those jackasss the three most recent idiots that died... went missing.”
She stops and takes a breath, slowing her speech down to normal. ”They had buried them quickly, blessed and did all the right rites, so you don’t end up with nasty ass corpse walking around hungry or out for revenge. But come that morning and the graves had been dug up. I took credit for that too. Maybe they did get up as undead, or maybe some wolves stil had some bones to pick with them, not important. I tell them they keep me in here it’s only gonna get worse. They touch me or my family and it’s gonna get hella worse. And it did. They found the mayor ripped apart in his big fancy bed the next morning. Big fancy house too. With guards and locks. That’s what made me think it’s a werewolf. Normal wolves aren’t so good with keys and locks. So they all get to jiberrjabbin and going on and that’s where I start heading about curses and this ‘Bastarache’ from these chicken s!~% guards. So I go with it, but I make em think it’s their idea. Dumb bastards feel for it. They waste all their time sending me all the way out here and family is long gone. And those jackasses still have to deal with a werewolf.”
”And so that’s the story of Catherine the Dumbass Witch who got her dumbass sent to some crazy ass island surrounded by giant fish monsters and s%~$.” she finishes, still smirking.