H130, Day 226, 9 AP [Wraith, Hilathic]

[Uathach Blackmantle]

Wraith pauses in the alleyway around the corner from Orsmonder's Meats. Nearby, the miserable bleating of the animals, caged in the slaughterhouse, mingles with the soft pattering of the rain, a warbling wind and muted voices. The huddled shape of a drunk slouches, no doubt unconscious, amidst a stack of discarded meat crates and debris, not twenty feet away.

Nightfall closes in, shrouding everything in blackness and pale mist.

Peering into the shadows of her cramped confines, just to be sure no one is watching her, Wraith pulls open the patched cellar door, and descends into the deep blackness. Allowing her hands, and a luminescent copper coin to guide her, she follows the steps down into the bowels of Sigil; where Hilathic called kip.

After her first visit here, this place didn't seem so frightening. In fact the shadows seemed oddly comforting. Although she didn't exactly approve. No one should have to live in such squallid conditions. Hilathic deserved better than this. Again she would have to try convincing him to give this cold damp place up, and come live with her and Aerin in the Open Shell. It wasn't much. It wasn't even a true home. But until she could take back what had been stolen from her, it would have to do; and Bertram and his family had been so kind to her.

Heaving a wistful sigh, she reminds herself she was here for a reason; and this time she came bearing good news.

"Hilathic?" Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Wraith calls out to him in a soft voice. "Are you home?" Her heart began to race again; the familiar palpitation of excitement and trepidation. It still surprised her that he could make her feel this way; like she was a different person. He gave her and Aerin hope.

And in many respects, since he stumbled across her by chance or Fate, she was a different person. He pulled back the veil, and showed what truly lay hidden beneath...

Clearing her throat, Wraith calls out to Hilathic again. "I apologise for disturbing you at this hour, cutter, but I come bearing good news." She hesitates, wetting her lips with her tongue, and murmurs; "I think you will be pleased with me, because I've found someone who's agreed to find Marrak; his name is John, a Fated, and he's very good at his job."

[hilathic]

The flare of light from a lantern being lit can be seen from below the stairs. "I picked this up in the bazaar today," Hilathic says as his head peeks around the corner. "My eyes still prefer the dark, but I could get used to this in time." Hilathic says as he spins the lantern in one hand before.

"A Fated, huh? Are you sure he can be trusted, and that a better deal wont dissuade him from his task? Only thing you can trust a fated to do, is what's best for him." Hilathic says this all in an even tone, knowing that Wraith would only go to someone she true trusted. "I was thinking we may need a table to keep Marrak strapped to... What do you think?" Hilathic's mood was still as jovial as it was during the morning and there seemed to be a glow about him as he bounced around the room with his lantern, cleaning debris from the floor and piling it neatly in a corner as if he was embarrassed of the mess he lived in.

"Sorry. I've been meaning to clean, but I've been thinking a lot... Sometimes I kind of get trapped in my soul searching. I'm sure you know what I mean." Looking up to Wraith on the stairs as he cleans the entry way, Hilathic continues to ramble until Wraith stops him.

[Uathach Blackmantle]

Wraith steps back from the light with a start, nearly tripping on the hem of her skirt, and catches herself on the wall before she twists her ankle. "Oh, Hilathic, you startled me." She raises her hand to her chest. Her heart was still racing. "I didn't expect you to be waiting for me." She says, turning away from the light to hide her face.

Changes were taking place within her; she'd been in a constant state of flux since Aerin came back into her life. Nay, long before then; both physical and emotional changes that alarmed her.

"John might be a bitter and ruthless man." Wraith explains at length. "but he's efficient, competent and strong. I respect that. I've bough his trust with an offer he can't refuse."

Watching Hilathic bounce about the cramped space, in higher spirits than when she last saw him, Wraith can't help but smile. "You know, this isn't really necessary, Hilathic." She sighs. Clearly his despondent situation hadn't dampened his mood. He was actually smiling, rambling on as he cleared away the debris. Something about him was changing, too.

Wraith sighs again.

Change: It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Very few things remained static for long. Even the Modrons were subject to a startling transformation of function and form. So why did her own change startle her so much?

Wraith shakes her head, and fingers her labret stud.

Perhaps it was a side-effect of her mutable Tanar'ri blood. Perhaps it had been there all along, smothered by sorrow, waiting to burst forth into the light? Who knew for certain?

But when she looked at her face in the mirror that morning, she was alarmed by the haunting beauty staring back at her.

She saw an aspect of herself she'd tried for years to suppress.

Now it shone through her pale skin, and her sad eyes; undimmed by her thin stature and her scarring. In fact her frailty and her vulnerability made her seem all the more beautiful. Wan features and hollow cheeks came into sharper focus, her lips darkened and her eyes brightened.

By all accounts before she was a faded cameo, an autumnal rose deprived of it's colour; now at last she was in full bloom, without her veil to hide behind.

Lingering at the edge of the shadows, she hesitates before stepping into the circle of light. "Regarding Marrak, please, do... do whatever you think is right. I-" She whispers, clenching her fists in her skirts to keep them from trembling. "I'm... I'm not the one who can advise you on that..." Her face pales, losing it's colour, and for a moment she looks like she will swoon, or be sick.

[hilathic]

Hilathic could see she was losing focus on the hate, and what needed to be done once again. He hated doing what he felt had to be done to keep Wraith on task. When this was all finished if his plan worked, his life may be forfeit to show Wraith's resolve against her enemies. To show it was time for her to don the mantle of her sire.

Suddenly turning somber once again Hilathic began what he needed to do, "I know why Aerin does not speak. I know what he has seen that has frightened him so much." He did not want to speak of this, he did not want to remember what he had does for the cult of Graz'zt. There were other ways to worship Graz'zt, carnal ways of lust and pleasure. The sacrifices where meaningless for the most part. Graz'zt favored those with quick minds, a lust for flesh, and above all the ability create intrigue. If the cult had a true Lamia priestess they would know this, they would know how to appease Graz'zt. Instead this group of rube's had one of the most powerful of all of Graz'zt artifacts, and they where wasting it's power as they squabbled. They had no right to keep it from Wraith, it was hers and he would see to that.

Noticing the concern on Wraith's face, Hilathic realized his face had twisted into a look of pure rage. "I am sorry when I think of what has been done to Aerin... and you. It makes me very angry. Know that the horror your heart want to inflict upon Marrak is nothing compared to the horror he has shown your son. This is why I must help you stay focused on our task, Uathach. Marrak is a soulless creature, no different then one of the cadavers at the morgue. Does that make sense to you?"

[Uathach Blackmantle]

"Merciful Apollo." Wraith gasps. For a moment she was confused. But then the full weight of Hilathic's words hit with such force, she swooned: Catching herself on the wall as she stumbled away from him. She gasps again, clutching her chest, clenching the sacred caduceus that slips from her bodice, so tight her fingers shake. Tears spring to her eyes, and roll down her cheeks. "Aerin..." She cries in despair.

But this time, rather than collapsing into a blubbering heap, hate, anger, sorrow, shame, regret... all of it wells up inside her, and blackens her breaking heart.

That he didn't say all he could have was of no consequence. Leaving certain details out made it all the clearer in her mind; those people, among them his nursemaid, tortured before his eyes. No wonder the poor boy's mind was shattered! He'd witnessed so much horror in his life already, no doubt, that this was the final straw. This broke his last tentative hold on sanity, before pushing him back into the dark recesses of his own tormented mind.

All of this lends her a frightful surge of strength, fueled by her pain and her hate. Pushing away from the wall, she whirls on Hilathic. Her eyes blaze, burning with the terrible wrath of her Tanar'ri ancestors. "Tell me." She spits. Her eyes flare with a baleful silver light. The abbatoir stench of her rises about her in a nauseating cloud, suffusing her entire being it seems. But not her feral eyes, nor her lips that peel back over her sharp teeth.

"Tell me what they did to my son." She commands. Her voice takes on a deep sepulcral quality, drawn from the pit of her soul it seems. "Tell me every single vile detail, Hilathic, and don't hold back on any of the details. I want to know.

Tell me so that every wound, every scar he has ever inflicted, every soul he has ever destroyed, I will carve it all into his flesh, so that he will never forget all of the terrible things he has done; to me, my son, and all of those other people he has tortured." Her voice rises to a terrible screech as she jabs her finger up the stairs, at the slum beyond the cellar door.

Never before had Uathach been so angry in her life, and it was a frightening thing. Now that felt all this, she soared in the cross-currents of her fury, weathered out the battering storm, and knew she had it within her to make him suffer. Her fists clenched at her sides.

"Tell me, and I swear Marrak will suffer. There will be no part of him that I will not defile."

[hilathic]

Hilathic sighs heavily and slides down the wall to sit on the ground. "This is not something I want to tell you. Yet, you always get that forgive and forget look in your eyes every time we begin to discuss Marrak.

"The first thing Aerin would have seen is the blood letting dance. A victim is placed in a cage and suspended over a dancer. The dance has very sharp blades they cut the victim with so that the dancer may bath in the falling blood. The screams of pain from the victim are accompanied by a musical piece meant to make the screams seem more horrifying.

"Next after the victim has bleed out, they are placed on a sacrificial table where their internal organs are removed and replaced with straw, so they may attend the feast.

"Marrak is the cook. He takes the organs and cooks them so they may be placed before the victim in an offering to the Thralls of Graz'zt. I am sure Aerin saw much of this ritual. The screams of the victims can be enough to send even the most vial fiendling to run back to the abyss..."

(ooc Stix: let me know if I missed anything or there is anything more Hilathic might now about Aerin's capture. Was he forced to watch his nursemaid be ritually sacrificed? Anything like that.)

[Uathach Blackmantle]

By now Wraith was trembling with rage. "Monsters." She spat through clenched teeth. "All of them." Her fury swept through her unchecked, causing her to tremble where she stood. The more she thought about it, the more the truth angered her; and she couldn't help but think about it.

Over and over the images played in her head, a hideous carnival of horrors burned into her memory, so she wouldn't forget this time. Closing her eyes offered no solace, either. It brought the truth into sharper focus, laid before her mind's eye like the corpses she examined.

What she discovered then was enough to make her feel sick, and she was no stranger to a gruesome demise. She'd seen some disgusting things in her time as an embalmer. But this was one of the worst. Even Ridnir Tetch and his experiments couldn't compare...

Breathing harshly through her nose and mouth, Wraith surrendered to her wrath. She opened her eyes again. The livid purple orbs blazed like violet fire. "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth; what they have done to others will return thrice-fold unto them." She promises; as much an affirmation to herself as it was to Hilathic.

Aye, the thought of what she intended to do to them still horrified her, but these abominations had brought it down upon themselves. They showed those people, and her son, no mercy, no compassion, no remorse. They were soulless, like the sadist surgeon, or any of the shambling cadavers at the Mortuary.

They were a blight upon all that was good and right in this life. They were a cancer, a festering pustule that defied eradication...

And she was the lancet.

Why should she be forgiving of them when they had been so cruel to her, without provocation?

Judge, jury and executioner, Wraith knew she must take this mantle upon herself, because the Harmonium wouldn't do anything about the Cult. T'was likely they didn't even know of their existence, and she'd reported the nursemaid's murder at the Courthouse!

Considering this, Wraith was certain, even if they were captured, they would suffer no less a terrible fate in the Mercykillers' hands. Their methods of punishment, if rumor was true, could be quite... cruel.

At last, certain within her own mind of what must be done, she returns to her senses, extending her hand to help Hilathic to his feet again "A table with wrist and ankle restraints is essential. Though John will no doubt exceed expectations in bringing Marrak in alive, I expect he will resist if we can't restrain him." She says with a surprising amount of poise, like she was discussing some medical truth with a colleague rather than planning a man's punishment.

"I won't kill him, though. No, he will walk away from this alive, but horribly mutilated for his crimes. Never again will he, and his ilk inflict such grievous harm upon another. We will see to this."


[ooc: if this is too long, I can break it up into two separate posts, if need be. ]

[Uathach Blackmantle]

[OOC @ Hilathic: Is there something else you wanted to add here, or shall we call this scene a wrap, and start something new? ]