With a yawn, you climb to your feet and gather your belongings. With Quelana somehow still talking to her sister, you decide to get started on what needs to be done.
After all, your apprentice isn't going to save herself and it would be a shame for all your hard work to go yo waste due to her self-important mother.
Clothes dusted, bag packed, and back stiff from sleeping on the floor, you approach the chatting sisters. The eight legged one turns toward you as your footsteps reach her ears, though her eyes appear to be blind and her words are meaningless to you. Quelana, looks uncomfortable as she translates. "Ah.. Cynric... My sister wishes to offer her appreciation-"
"Did you inform her of what we did to Quelaag?" You inquire, brow raised.
It is rather disconcerting how she can switch between her wise immortal persona to scolded child and everything in between. Most likely this is due to her lack of normal development stages that most people go through, but watching a millennia old being scuff her shoe on the floor and avoid eye contact makes you uncomfortable on some level."Er... N-no. Not... exactly."
"It might be for the best if you let her know sooner rather than later. It would be inconvenient for her to be misinformed and come to the conclusion that this is some sort of betrayal." You point out, pushing the strangeness of Quelana's mind to the side for now.
"There is still a chance that we can revive her though. If you had claimed Quelaag's soul, I would surely sense a change in you... that I cannot bodes well for us, as Louise has most likely managed to take it with her." The immortal replies.
Grunting in annoyance at the increasingly convoluted situation, you head up the stairs. "Fine, bid your sister farewell then, we have a child to retrieve."
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Karin Desiree de La Vallière paced furiously in front of the otherworldly portal in her garden, silently cursing the half-breed villain that had sunk his claws into her daughter.
Crossing the threshold into that other place rather than simply sealing pathway with stone until they learned how to destroy it had been one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Not only had she missed months in what felt like hours, she'd discovered the true extent of Louise's involvement in the terrible happenings of late. How a child of hers could fall so far, she did not know, but there had been no choice other than to send word to the Pope. The shame this would bring on her family would last for generations.
Grinding her teeth, she turned to the captain in charge of the garrison at the ash beach on the other side. "Report! Why are your men so slow in the evacuation?" She rasps in frustration, her voice not yet recovered from whatever that mongrel had done to her throat.
"Ma'am, we are moving as best we can. The difference in time on each side is playing havoc on us all." The soldier responds worriedly.
Rubbing at the bandage across her neck, Karin looks at the man stationed atop the strange tower. After much interrogation, her second child had informed her that the sphere atop the structure was the key to it's operation, now they were simply waiting to retrieve their forces. "We must close this infernal gateway before His Eminence's knights arrive, I will be forced to consider them lost if this continues for too much longer. You have two da-"
Her words are cut off prematurely as glass shatters and shouting erupts across the property. Moments later, Karin's blood begins to boil as she spies her youngest atop one of those monstrous insects that Cattleya found. In her tattered school uniform and sword in hand, Louise rides into the clearing with Queen Henrietta bound and gagged.
Wind whipping around her body, Karin draws her sword-wand and with a simple chant, she forms a wall of wind around the clearing. Stalking toward her daughter, whose eyes widen in alarm as her retreat is blocked, the duchess ignores the pain in her throat as she shouts, "Louise! Why must you always make life harder for yourself?!" With a slash of her wand, the girl's mount is slammed into the base of the tower, sending both riders into the dirt. Watching as one of the soldiers dives beneath their Queen, she pins her daughter to the ground another wall of air. "Troublesome child, do you know what you've done?! Death, it seems, is the only salvation I can grant you... my poor Louise."
The girl's screams echo around the area as the sound of bones breaking from the pressure of Karin's spell reaches the mother's ears. Louise's sword glows brightly as it weakens the attack, perversely causing what would have been a swift death to become an agonizing ordeal. Her expression like stone, Karin presses on in her duty, refusing to let her inner turmoil show as she pulverizes her own daughters limbs. A shout of alarm comes too late as Karin feels an impact on the back of her head and the world goes black.
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"Oops." Cattleya says without inflection, dropping the stone she held beside her mother's unconscious body.
As the gathered men stare in shock, she scoops up her whimpering sister and her bed-sheet full of ingredients before carrying her to the portal. With one last look to Henrietta, she smiles. "Don't worry about Louise, I'll protect her."
With an incantation and a flick of the wrist, Cattleya steps backward into the portal as she levitates the sigil stone off of it's plinth. The portal begins collapsing as they are halfway through. With a sensation of slipping diagonally, she realizes that she may have made a mistake.
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Amid the mangled bodies of dozens of men, You growl in anger as you look upon the inactive Oblivion gate. "Someone is going to pay dearly for this." You swear, finishing off a nearby soldier who won't stop grabbing at your boot. Wiping your sword on his tunic, you glare impotently at the obsidian columns.
"What do we do now?" Quelana asks, slightly winded after having blown apart much of the fortification around the gate. Before you can respond, the magical doorway flickers and reforms in a flash of fiery light. The two of you exchange glances before shrugging and walking through.
On the other side, you emerge into a scene of complete chaos. Soldiers scrambling to surround a purple haired captive, destroyed shrubbery covers the ground, Karin is leaning unsteadily against a man who keeps waving his wand at her head as she argues with him, and a man falls off of the Sigil tower upon noticing your arrival. His scream catches everyone's attention as he falls to his death.
"What a strange place." Quelana says absently, staring at the twin moons hanging in the evening sky.
Status: Healthy
Magicka: (650/650)
Choose 1:
[] Diplomancy!
[] Write in.
[] You're frustrated and out of patience, kill them all.
[] Spell write in/general plan of attack.
[] Obviously Karin is a bit of a kleptomaniac when it comes to young women. Rescue the captive woman and retreat.
[] Cast invisibility on both of you and search the property. Cost 600 magicka.
[] Write in.
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A/N: Your plan to rescue Louise, Louise and company's plan to escape, Karin's plans to spare her daughter the church's wrath by imprisoning her and blaming you for manipulating her... good times.
