Shizuko and the Queen of Bones - RPLOG
Participants
Date
3/11/477
Log
The gates of Descrato manor are dark and foreboding and a chill autumn wind blows down from the nearby Northwarden pass. This is where Shizuko's sources had pointed her, beyond the darkened streets of Mossy Stone to this forsaken place.
Shizuko quietly approaches the Manor, moving swiftly under the cover of darkness. The leopardess, wary of the danger inherant to this area, is armed with all of her tools of death - including her sheathed miao dao, held ready in her hand as she approaches the gates. She sweeps the area again, looking for anyone that might be on watch, and then tries the gate.
All is quiet around the gate, though there is a forboding sensation of being watched. Shizuko finds the gate to be unlocked, and it swings open easily at her touch. With the gates, the manor grounds have grown shaggy and wild. The path to the main house seems clear enough, but it seems that there has been more traffic to and from the old family sepulcher off to one side of the expansive grounds.
A sepulcher. Of course, how... fitting. After taking a moment to steel her nerves, Shizuko steals across the manor grounds towards the outbuilding and crypts. As she moves she notices her hand shaking, and then she resolutely places it on the hilt of her sword; the simple action fires her spirit, and her motions become smooth and sure.
The old Descrato Sepulcher lies open, its dark portal an open invitation to enter the family burial site. For a moment, it seems almost as though there is a flicker of some kind of anti-light, sight where there ought to be only blackness, but then it is gone. That sense of being watched grows more oppressive at the black entrance into the underground crypt.
Shizuko pauses at the doorway, her ears perked as she listens, tail slowly swaying back and forth behind her. She straightens her shoulders, lifts her chin slightly, and drops the furtive pretense at stealth; when she begins making her way down the stairs into the crypt, it is with a posture fitting of an announced guest.
Nothing impedes the snow leopard's progress down into the dark. As she slips further down the stairs the air becomes colder and harder to breathe, as if the air were somehow thinner down here. At the bottom of the stone steps, there is a choice to be made, several tunnels branch off in different directions. From directly ahead comes another pulse of that Not-Light, though it seems that eyes watch from the darkened corridors to the right and the left as well.
Shizuko draws her small torch from her bag and carefully lights it, holding it in one hand as she looks about. She spends a moment contemplating her options, and then strides forward towards the Not Light, feeling as though she had her best chances there.
After only a few steps, the cut stone of the crypt gives way to rougher, newer excavation. The air is cold and bitter down here and from up ahead it seems that muffled chanting can be heard. She must be close to her goal!
Shizuko takes a slow breath, blinking as she watches her breath steam. She bows her head for a moment, then looks back up and continues on, certain of her course.
A few more steps is all it takes for Shizuko to find herself standing in a large, circular chamber. But where there was the hint of chanting, there is nothing now but the echo of her own breathing. For a moment, the chamber seems empty, but suddenly, there is a blast of cold wind and the snow leopard's torch flickers out, leaving her in utter darkness.
"Who comes?" a flat, male voice rumbles from the void.
Shizuko looks aorund the room, surprised to find it empty; the voice takes her by surprise, but without the light of her torch to giver her away she does not feel -too- abashed at the little jump. She takes a slow, calming breath, then speaks. "Shizuko Toshiko."
A wan, sickly light begins to rise from the far side of the room and an imposing, dark figure paces across the floor toward Shizuko. "I am Lord Taltos, Shizuko Toshiko," the big, black bear rumbles, "What do you seek here in my Mistress's stronghold?"
Shizuko slowly bows her head towards the bear, although not far enough for her gaze to be interrupted. "Lord Taltos. I have come seeking the boon of the White Lady. I would court her favor."
The black bear's muzzle splits in a dazzling white grin, though there is nothing especially friendly there. "It is not the appointed time," he says in flat tones, "But perhaps the Queen of Bones may be entreated." The imposing Taltos draws close to Shizuko. "Have you brought a gift for the Lady?" he asks.
"I heard that She values purity," Shizuko replies, quietly; she slips her fingers into her belt pouch and withdraws a small bundle wrapped in a silk cloth; she makes another slight bow of her head, and then hands the trio of pearls over to Lord Taltos. Although none of them are notably large, the leopardess had taken care to pick polished stones without visible marks on them, and wrapped them carefully.
Taltos takes the little bundle and looks over the offering. "Yes," he grunts, "These are a fine gift!" The bear then turns his back on Shizuko and raises the pearls in his hands over his head. Now that she is no longer under his scrutiny, Shizuko can see that the bear wears a tattered white robe like a burial shroud. It is obvious that it is only meant to appear ragged and is not actually decayed. "Dark Mistress!" the bear calls out, "Lady of Night and Queen of Bones! Great Pyrrha hear thy lowly servant and and answer my call!"
A harsh, cold wind blows through the room and the sickly glow increases to almost blinding intensity. "I am thine!" Taltos roars, apparently in some kind of rapturous exctasy, "And as it pleases you, you come when thy servants call!" The pearls in Taltos's hands suddenly yellow and crack, dissolving into dust and blowing away in the furious wind and there is a wet ripping sound as the air before Taltos is torn assunder and an almost mirror image of Shizuko steps from the portal. Almost mirror image, because Shizuko yet bears flesh and blood, while this apparition is only a luminous skeleton!
Shizuko gasps, her eyes widening as Pyrrha appears in the room - and especially when she realizes who's form the Mistress of Bones is wearing. She stares, for just a moment, and then sinks down onto one knee with her gaze lowered, waiting to be adressed before she speaks.
"Welcome Child," the Spirit's voice is soft and chilly, though it rings through Shizuko's skull like thunder, "I am pleased that you have come to me." The skeletal feline caressess Taltos's arm as she passes him and the bear shudders, though it seems to be in excitement rather than fear. The bone cat sways toward Shizuko and reaches out a skeletal hand to rest upon the snow leopard's head. "What would you have of me?" she purrs.
Shizuko holds very, very still as the Mistress of Bones approaches, keeping her gaze lowered to the floor. She sees the skeletal feet in front of her, and feels the touch on her head, and her ears flick. She wills herself to remain otherwise still, and after a moment she answers. "I seek your favor, Queen Pyrrha," she replies quietly. "Your blessing, and your strength."
"Ah!" The skeleton sighs, "I see all too well, poor child. You already begin to feel the corruption of mortality!" The spirit's boney hand reaches down and lifts Shizuko's chin, bringing her to look up into the hollow gaze of what must seem to be her own skull! "I can relieve you of that burden, dear one," she says, reaching down to take up Shizuko's hand. "Touch me," she says, "Look on me! Here is the beauty and perfection of eternity! Is this your desire, Shizuko Toshiko?"
Shizuko takes Pyrrha's hand, and although her grip is weak at first, it strengthens as she overcomes the last of her doubts, refinds her conviction, goes over all of the things that are wrong with the world in the back of her mind. Her gaze moves up, and up, and she stares into the gaze of the Mistress. "My children do not love me," she says, quietly, in a tone stripped of emotion and inflection. "They tell me I am old. That I must retire and... and... 'enjoy' my twilight years. They took my position, Mistress. My -honor-. And sent me away to... to rot in lonely manor in a forgotten corner. It disgusts me. It infuriates me. And. I. Will. Have. None. Of. It." She pauses, lip twitching as she fights her emotions back down again. "Please. Free me from such a horrible fate. I am not done with this world yet."
The skeletal Pyrrha lifts Shizuko to her feet and wraps the feline in her boney arms, cooing and stroking her hair. "Yes," she purrs, her voice clear and sharp in the snow leopard's mind, "Children can be so ungrateful!" After a moment, there comes the sound of another wet tearing in the air and a portal forms. From this portal steps a matronly looking fox woman. "Shizuko!" she cries, "Don't do this!" The vixen holds out her arms to the snow leopard in a pose of invitation and supplication. "Let me ease your pain!" she says, looking from Pyrrha to Shizuko.
Shizuko rises to her feet and, despite the awkardness, the cold, hard touch of bones, she wraps her arms around Pyrrha and hugs her back. "Someone who understands," she murmurs quietly. Her ears flick then as someone else arrives - and by the manner of the arrival, she can take a guess to their nature - and she turns her head to regard the fox. Her tail flicks, and then she scowls. "I do not need comfort," she says quietly. "Or solace. My strength has always secured what I needed for myself, yet now... every season my sword weighs a little heavier. Every season my grip is less sure. I do not need my pains 'eased', I need only the strength to bear them."
The matronly vixen looks pained at Shizuko's refusal and steps back, folding her hands around her apparently pregnant belly. "Very well," she says sadly, "It is your choice to make."
Pyrrha's skeletal features do not move, but there is a definite sense of triumph in her hollow eye sockets as she steps back from Shizuko and extends her arms as if to embrace the snow leopard once more. "I bid you refine!" she says, "And I offer you freedom from Life's tyranny!" She reaches out her skeletal hand to caress the side of Shizuko's face. "You will liberate others from their mortal shackles, and theach them the glory of eternity," she says, "Do you recieve my pact and my gift?"
Shizuko turns her attention back to Pyrrha, and bows her head, fully, before she looks back up at the White Lady. "I do, Queen Pyrrha," she says, quietly. She smiles, a slow, small smile. "Gladly, my Mistress."
Pyrrha's skeletal grin somehow takes on a look of triumph. "Then the pact is made!" she crows, "I am yours and you are mine! When you call I shall come, and when I call, so shall you come to me!" The Spirit turns to look at the vixen. "You witness, Shaila?"
The blue and purple vixen nods once. "I witness," she says, then turns her many tails to the trio in the darkness and vanishes through her own portal.
Pyrrha laughs, a clear, harsh sound, like iron filings on a silk sheet. "See how the pathetic Life court flees before true majesty and power!" she calls out before reaching down and seizing her own femur and yanking it from its place with a sickening crack. It seems to do her no harm, and another instantly materializes in its place. "Now, take my gift and seal our pact!" She holds the dry white femur out to Shizuko.
Shizuko blinks at the gift, but does not hesitate as she reaches out her fingers to wrap them around the bone (*her* bone? How close of a duplicate was it?), firmly accepting the Mistress' gift. "Thank you," she says.
As Shizuko's hand wraps around the smooth, cool bone, the coolness of it seeps into her own body. The aches and pains of encroaching age seem to fade away and the snow leopard feels strong as she ever has! Here is the gift and the power that she sought!
"Oh!" Shizuko gasps, startled. "I... oh, I had not realized how bad it was..." she admits, tone reverent. Her smile widens as she feels her strength return, even if a part of her knows it is borrowed, and then she laughs. "Oh, thank you, Mistress. How may I show my appreciation for your wonderful gift?"
The Spirit leans forward and plants a cold kiss on Shizuko's forehead. "Only spread them to others, child," Pyrrha purrs, her ego appropriately stroked, "Taltos will teach you. Now go." And with that, the skeletal Spirit steps backward as a tearing sound fills the air and suddenly, she is gone.
The Bear Taltos looks on with happy tears in his eyes. "She is so beautiful!" he says in an awed whisper before turning to face Shizuko. "Remember, initiate," he says firmly, "The Lady's work must be done in secret." He turns away to return to whatever meditation the snow leopard interrupted. "Return soon," he says, "And I will teach you her secrets."
Shizuko watches the spirit depart, then turns to Taltos. "Of course, Lord Taltos," she practically purrs. "I know well the importance of Face. Thank you for so kindly bearing my interruption, and I will return at your behest." The leopardess bows, then backs away towards the room's exit.
