A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 72: Execution

"Always in a hurry." Calendar observed.

"I'm glad at least I have some downtime." Tsabdrin said. He flopped down onto a chair near the rest to the group with an explosive sigh. Then he began the task of combing out and re-braiding his extremely mussed hair. "Ashyr, those rusalka were awful. The only good I could do was keep two of them distracted. You didn't need to send me." He complained.

The oldest drow ignored the youngest's noise of disapproval. "Then mission accomplished. You kept Caleldir from having to deal with all six of them. And you don't look injured at all."

The male drow's only response to that was some grumpy grumblings.

"In the future, I think that we should send Althaia with me rather than him. They take her at least slightly more seriously," Caleldir suggested.

"Nah, it worked out fine," Ashyr responded.

Tsabdrin scoffed at that. "We were both raped," he reminded her flatly.

"Yes, I'm sure you'll have nightmares every night and panic in desperate situations because of it," Ashyr shot back.

"What? Why would we - oh. You're still on about that." The male drow slouched down further in his chair, and generally looked unhappy.

"You got your companions back. There had to be some other consequence," the ranger informed him. Her crimson eyes gave a pointed look to each of the males in the room; she was pretty sure that Caleldir had not done all he could to keep the allosaurs dead. Then she held Selene a little bit closer, and pressed an affectionate kiss against the other woman's shoulder.

"Probably not for the best to keep bringing up the mistakes of the past," Caleldir said. "I mean, not that I think that Tsabdrin will, but too good of a memory and people will wonder why they even bothered to switch sides."

It was Selene's turn to laugh. "I think it would be a better punishment if they both not-so-secretly liked it."

"I am not sure that Tsabdrin secretly liked it, especially since for him it was all build up with no payoff," Caleldir retorted.

"He's fine," Selene insisted. "Had he been with our old Matron, she would probably have him whipped and perhaps even permanently scarred for betraying us as he did." And by her tone, Selene seemed to think that that still should have been an option. Tsabdrin had gotten off far too easily for his crimes. But she didn't try to convince Ashyr otherwise. It was over and done; she had assisted a rape as punishment for (unknowingly) assisting a rape. It had it own sort of balance - one that Selene could be satisfied with, in time. "I accept that the consequence was adequate," she intoned in undercommon.

"Thank you, Selene," Ashyr responded in kind. And she still fully intended to make it up to the two males, but Selene didn't have to know that part.

"It is even," Tsabdrin agreed, and his unhappiness gave way to resignation. Selene was right, of course. Under any other Matron, he would have been in so much more pain. They would have immediately killed his companions again, and likely insisted on some other punishment on top of it all. All things considered, he was lucky. Perhaps now his sister wouldn't be so cold with him. Ha.

"Well, I for one prefer the new matron to the old one," Caleldir said, giving Ashyr a flirtatious look. "Not that I knew the old one. She probably would not have liked me all that much." Sometimes Caleldir was fond of understatements. "It is good that we have all decided to move past this all, now." He finished. Really, as with a great many other things, he mostly wanted to forget wrongs repented of. He glanced over at Tsabdrin, who still did not seem all that happy, but neither did he seem indignant. A certain amount of reluctant acceptance, in fact. Hopefully this really would mark the end of it, or the beginning of the end of it at least.

Ashyr winked back at Caleldir. "No, my mother was a controlling, ruthless cunt." She explained casually, to which Selene responded with a slight gasp. "She's dead and destroyed Selene. You don't have to pretend she was a perfect leader." The oldest told the youngest with a crooked smirk. Ashyr knew that Selene would be a little scandalized by this. Her favorite cousin always had an over-fondness for how things were 'supposed' to be done.

Then Caleldir had a thought, "But wait, why was it a punishment for me?" Suddenly, he realised why Ashyr had glared at him like that. "Oh, oh yes. I did have something to do with reviving the allosaurs. Mostly by not hindering R.I.S.A. or Althaia even though I knew what they were probably up to. Other than suspecting and not stopping, though, I am innocent." He sighed. "But seriously, I would prefer not to continue getting myself into these sorts of situations. Weird fetish aside (thank you for that, Selene) I spend a lot of my time feeling guilty about this sort of thing. I understand that apparently Goelon gave breeding rights to the rusalka, but in the future..." He trailed off. What could he really say on that topic? What was there really to say? It was not exactly Ashyr or Selene's fault that he had gotten caught up with a bunch of rusalka, and other than them and the non-Althaia nymphs, his other partners had been people he was close to and traveled with.

He looked down at the floor with a reflective expression. "I am probably being rather ridiculous and nonsensical by drow standards," he admitted.h

"A little bit, yeah," Ashyr chuckled. That settled, Ashyr's mind moved to the present. "What do you want to do while we wait? Caleldir, Selene, do you two have prep work you need to be doing?" Her language remained in undercommon; it was good practice for Caleldir, and easier on Tsabdrin. "I should probably work on training Bard while we wait. I could use a training companion, Tsabdrin."

Caleldir spoke Undercommon almost as a native now, his accent being perfect. It was mostly his word choice and the ideas expressed in his words that marked him as definitely not a drow. Well, that and being tall and pale. "We do have some prep work to do. Also, speaking of Bard, he is getting a little older I see. Once he is no longer a puppy, we should see about dire-ifying him. As in, turning him into a dire wolf. That should provide a huge boost to his combat prowess, and prevent him from an untimely death. Of course, as Tsabdrin may have noticed, druids can help with the death thing."

"I might look at the library here - if there is one, and we don't have anything better to do." Selene responded. "Food first, though. Haven't eaten since breakfast."

Ashyr laughed. "That was, what? An hour ago? Two, maybe?"

"I can call for the maids to bring some up while we work." He said. "As for library... eh, I have not seen one."

After that brief exchange, Ashyr extricated herself from the couch and gave Caleldir and Selene each a kiss. "Yeah, we'll work on powering up Bard again in about a month, I think. For now, I leave you two alone to do your boring stuff. Tsabdrin and I will get food somewhere else."

"It isn't boring, Ashyr, if only you'd give it a chance!" Selene protested. "Brother! You like learning and research, don't you?"

"I like running around in the wilderness better." Tsabdrin replied, a grin very like Ashyr's signature expression on his face.

"Bah." Selene exclaimed as she gave them a dismissive, shooing gesture.

Caleldir gave Ashyr and Tsabdrin a fond farewell, although a bit more fond of one to Ashyr, given that it involved a kiss. He did not feel the need to kiss Tsabdrin, which probably suited both of them just fine. Probably.

"One day, I will have Althaia build us a Wilderness Library, and then then can all hang out in the same place." Caleldir joked. "Although, I would like to point out that a great deal of learning and research can be done quite well in the wilderness. In fact, a few years of hunting huge beasts in the wilderness can make you better at remembering history than the same amount of time spent in a library." That was even more of a joke. Obviously the world did not work like that.

Then Ashyr and Tsabdrin left with their animals at their heels.

The mage pulled her legs out of Caleldir's lap and faced forward, her feet on the ground. "I could swear those two are twins sometimes. But only relative they share is the Grandmatron." She grumbled to no one in particular. "At least you're somewhat sane, darling." She said to the man with a very much insane super powerful alternate ghost personality. "What do we need to get done?"

"I agree, I am somewhat sane." He said in Goelon's voice. He switched to his regular one. "It might be useful to find a library, since it will be faster for me to give you certain books than recreate them from memory. By several orders of magnitude. Anyway, we need to work on Arcane-Divine magic compatibility and transference theory so that we can harmonize the complexity of the..."

--

When the sun was getting low in the horizon, the two rangers made their way back to the castle. They left their animals at the stables with strict instructions not to eat anybody. Not that there was anyone around to eat. The drow found themselves forced to use a servant's door into the castle. Althaia's messages must have worked, because the square was filled to brimming with people. So much so that some spilled around the castle yard and out the main gate. They made their way to Faust's quarters, where Selene and Caleldir were working with books they borrowed from the library they found.

"Time to get moving. I'm gonna pull our tiefling out as soon as I find a private corner. Anyone seen Althaia? She wanted to do the honors, didn't she?" Ashyr said. She looked antsy about the whole thing, while Tsabdrin stood behind her a bit more stoically.

Caleldir looked up from the ream of papers he was still writing. "Althaia has been back for a few hours," he told Ashyr and Tsabdrin. "Helping us with this ritual. She went off to get some rather expensive reagents, she should be back in a few minutes."

Ashyr walked over to the table Caleldir had been working at, where Selene still sat in silent concentration. As always, the mage seemed to have enjoyed her time spent researching, especially since she had access to an unfamiliar library with books she had yet to encounter. Tsabdrin still followed behind, but unlike Ashyr, he looked at the pages strewn across the table with some interest and at least a little bit of understanding. Not that he would be able to help all that much: practicing both divine and arcane magic consequently made him weaker in both.

Selene made a quick gesture, and the air... changed. It was not unlike the subtle pressure difference between the underdark and the surface. The drow seemed to think nothing of it; it was a modified cone of silence that made it impossible to eavesdrop on what they were saying (unless the person spying could read lips). They could hear each other within the invisible cone just fine, however. It was a common enough spell where the drow came from, where people often met at parties and stood in corners to scheme.

"It says a lot about your background that you felt the need to prepare this spell today." Caleldir observed to Selene. "Not that it is inconvenient." Really, an aura of anti-eavesdropping was a very practical thing. It did bring to mind the images of a lot of less than friendly plotting, however. Caleldir did not need much imagination to envision several drow women discussing assassinations inside one of these cones.

Which, in a way, was what they were doing right now. Plotting to kill someone.

"I prepare it every day when we're in civilization." Selene explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I suppose I cannot argue with that." Caleldir dryly replied. Everyday? So, as an Arcanist, she could pretty much always have convenient cones of anti-eavesdropping around. Made sense.

Caleldir sighed, folding everything up. "I suppose that it is time to get this all over with. So... who is going to play at executioner? My vote is for Ungrai, possibly after magically disguising her. That, or I need to do it. While not necessary, binding his ghost here will make our jobs a lot easier, and not everyone turns into a ghost. Especially outsiders like Faust. Likely, the moment he is dead, his father will steal his soul, unless we get to it first. So, someone with powers over death will have to kill him. I vote Ungrai, since I doubt she will mind. I would feel rather sick doing that."

"I don't trust Ungrai with this, Cal." Ashyr responded. "She's a necromancer." She said, as if that explained everything.

"Necromancy is a perfectly viable school of magic." Caleldir sniffed. "I mean, some of the undead are quite unsavory, but that is because too many necromancers lack the proper aesthetic sense. You see, the proper... never mind." Although a Lawful Good society (in theory...), Deusterra was still the domain of a lot of slightly crazy mage-scientists. Like Caleldir himself.

"Ashyr may be right. The orc doesn't seem likely to go out of her way to betray us... but being so close to a powerful soul, and trusting her not to try to use it for her own gain?" Selene shrugged. She had no idea how Ungrai could use an outsider ghost. Necromancy wasn't one of her strong areas - which probably had something to do with how strangely against it Ashyr was at times.

"I have studied a good bit of necromancy, and there are several things that she could do with his soul to double-cross us. I do not consider most of them likely, seeing as a large number of them would be rather self-defeating, but you are right in that there are things that she can do to take advantage of the situation." Caleldir sighed.

"Maybe you can find a way to..." Tsabdrin began in common, then couldn't figure out how to express his thoughts. He switched to undercommon after that. "... jointly execute him? She can have the killing blow, and you can stand close by to bind his ghost before Ungrai has a chance to be tempted."

"We probably should have discussed this before a huge crowd gathered at the front door." Ashyr said, her mouth twisting in thought. "But if we can think of something real quick that won't make them suspect something weird is happening..." Her gaze fell on Caleldir with a questioning look. "If not, then you're going to have to execute him. Though I don't know why it would make you feel sick. It needs to be done, for his sake as well as everyone else's."

"I will go ahead and do the deed," Caleldir unhappily decided "I simply lack the stomach to... well, I will just grin and bear it. Anonymously."

Caleldir activated his ring, turning himself into the blandest non-entity to walk the streets. Hair, eye, and skin color were strictly normal for these parts, his build was neither fat, thin, nor muscular, his features forgettable, and his height normal. His race appeared human, but a really dull human. "I just went to its generic setting," he mused in a voice just dull enough that most people would stop paying attention. "A good disguise for a thief, I would think."

He then changed his clothing to the face-concealing garb of an executioner, and used his Titan weapons to form a headsman's axe. "Well, I am ready," he said grouchily. "Did you know that decapitations are messy? They are. Of course, we are all in the trades of killing, probably you have already noticed that." With that, he stoically made his way to the door.

"Thank you, Cal." Ashyr said. She didn't know why he disliked it so much, but she gave him what she hoped was a comforting rub on the arm anyway. The ranger wished she could do it herself - partially considering what he had a part in doing to Celeste - but also because it would have spared Caleldir from having to do it. But she knew the importance of doing things how they decided, so she refrained from offering.

Ashyr's thanks made Caleldir smile slightly. "I would ask you to do it, but with a soul like Faust's, it really is important that someone with the ability to bind souls be the one to kill him. We have no idea how fast his father can act, so..." He sighed. "I suppose that I am probably even a better option than Ungrai anyway. She is a necromancer who studies this. I am a Ghost King." Then, he had an idea. "Wait. I do not need to kill him at all! Goelon can do it. I need to talk to Althaia."

Right. Goelon was an option. Neither of the female drow had even considered that, since they still couldn't manage to be so blasé about killing Caleldir as he, himself was. Only in the most desperate situations did they consider bringing the Ghost King out. Even with Selene, who sort of liked Goelon. But they didn't object to Caleldir's idea. It made sense; let the part of him who liked doing it - who had a bunch of practice with it - bind the ghost of Faust to this realm. Then Caleldir didn't have to feel bad about executing him. Or whatever it was that made Caleldir so opposed to it.

Ashyr found herself that corner she said she'd use to retrieve Faust. In short order, the tall tiefling was walking with the party, his hands tied behind his back (for appearance's sake more than anything else). Ashyr and Tsabdrin flanked him, as if acting as his guard. The effect probably would have been better if they weren't so much shorter than him.

Althaia walked around the corner. "It seems that Caleldir is our executioner." She observed. "I think I like his regular body more."

Both female drow had looks of distaste on their faces. They heartily agreed with Althaia's assessment; they liked his regular body better. Obviously. That was the point, really. Now one would suspect the almost too-pretty Caleldir was this unimpressive man. Tsabdrin didn't seem to care beyond being impressed at whatever made it so Caleldir could change his form like that.

Then Caleldir informed Althaia of his revised plan.

For his part, Faust looked curious about this new person, 'Goelon.' He didn't seem to want to object to this other person executing him.

"Makes sense," the Paladin mused. "Can you trust him?"

"To kill people and bind spirits?" Caleldir asked. "Well... Yes. That is the sort of thing he would be doing all the time if he did not know that I detested it. Goelon has my interests at heart, even if his ideas of my interests sometimes divulge from mine. Like with the rusalka." He twitched. "Okay, that is not accurate. He will act on my stifled interests. Think of him as my Id, in a way. In this, I can absolutely trust him."

"Good." Althaia nodded her head. She stabbed Caleldir through the heart with her blade.

A deeply concerned expression crossed Faust's face, and he would have moved forward to do... well, something, he wasn't sure what... but Ashyr snatched his arm. He wasn't so much concerned for Caleldir, but for the sanity of the paladin who was supposed to be ruling his city. She had apparently just happily murdered her friend without warning or provocation.

Caleldir staggered back, looking down. Goelon looked up, and grinned. "Nice." He said gleefully. "I can finally do my favorite thing." He looked down at himself, appearance unchanged. "It seems that the Alter-Self spell on the ring overwrites my ghostly appearance," he observed. The axe floated off to the side as he rubbed his hands. "I will take Faust's soul with this axe. Which, being a manifestation of my host personality's soul, means that not even a god could snatch the tiefling's soul from me." He glanced over at Faust. "So be not afraid! You will not even feel this, since you will be dead the moment the axe punctures the skin. It is a force axe anyway."

So that was Goelon. What the fuck. "Great" the tiefling responded in his deep, flat voice.

"At least you don't have to worry about your execution being botched. Caleldir is not a very strong person, and sometimes necks are hard to chop off," Ashyr told Faust. She was teasing him, of course. Probably. At the very least she seemed incredibly amused by it, whether she thought it was a thing that could happen or not.