D'verin-t'soss

[*CheeseWedge]

The petite redhead eased into the seat at her cluttered desk. Her boots had been kicked off to the side somewhere, bags left on the edge of her bed. She took some care in clearing space on the disorganized surface in front of her, storing alchemical ingredients back into the containers they belonged in and stacking various books up on the floor at her feet. When she could see bare wood again for the first time in weeks, a cloth-wrapped parcel was laid delicately upon it.

For moments, Ixia just stared at the wrappings, chewing her lips as her mind raced with curiosity and intrigue. Approximately two days before, Miss Abaral Seethe had mentioned this object to her, and it had been the immediate focus of the young wizardessÂ’ thoughts. She had been asked if she was familiar with weapons that had minds of their own. Of course not. But that could always be remedied.

Lifting a hand, her fingers hesitantly plucked the cloth surrounding the object away, revealing a reflective length of deep twilight blue. A thin, decorative blade with tiny, intricate scrawl adorning it. It was a beautiful blade, for sure, not that Ixia had that much experience with weaponry.

“D’verin-t’soss…” The girl muttered under her breath in wonder, recalling the name Seethe had told her belonged to the unruly blade. Her fingertips hovered over the surface of the blade, but dared not touch. Not yet. Eventually, of course, she planned to undertake that battle of wills with the supposed imprisoned soul, but Ixia was no fool and would collect as much information as she could before making such an attempt.

Her attention fell to the designs scrawled across the blade. Her nose wrinkled slightly as she squinted at it and followed the curves and lines, finally recognizing them for what they were - script. Though too tiny for her eyes to make any sense of.

She gave a “hrmph” of mild frustration - though only ever so mild, as it really was no true hindrance - and leaned from her seat to reach the magnifying glass on the bookshelf nearby. Her small fingers gripped the handle, then drew the instrument back to her workspace to drift above the foreign blade and bring the text into closer view.

And so, let the research begin.

[*Ceremorph]

There was something about the runes. Not quite familiar, but evoking a nagging feeling of deja vu within her. As the magnifier swept over the letters, amplifying the faint magical shimmer inherent in the weapon even at rest, that feeling only seemed to intensify, until a deep memory finally snapped into focus. Tales of a world largely unremarkable, except for being one of the few where Drow were the dominant culture. And tales of an odd magical rite, where members of that race submitted to having their sould bound into objects to regain lost faith.

Could this be one of those? D'verin-t'soss did have a strangely elven sound to it. Perhaps that was the intelligence Seethe had spoken of?

[*CheeseWedge]

IxiaÂ’s lips parted slightly with the glimmer of recognition, her tongue poking out to run over them as she dug through her brain for bits and pieces of memory. A flash of moving hand, and she whipped a piece of paper onto the desk beside the blade and a pen found its way between her fingers. Oirna Kultr, she scribbled down. That was the name of the world this blade more than likely originated from. After jotting down what little information she knew of the place, she set the pen down and let her eyes trail over the blade thoughtfully.

The text, though somewhat familiar in appearance, did not make complete sense to her. As it was a heavy enchantment upon the blade that made it as it was, a skilled wizard should be able to read it with enough focus, should she not?

What a sight the young redhead would have made, then, holding her piece of crystal quartz to the blade with her eyes glowing a brilliant, shimmering blue as she searched the blade for its magical properties, just barely brushing its enchantment with her own power. The text still made no sense to her, but the flash of magical enchantment surrounding it was nearly blinding. As she sorted out different, vague aspects of the enchantment, her eyes squinted and brow furrowed in concentration, she took more notes. And then finally set to the rather lengthy process of transcribing the tiny script on the blade more legibly onto parchment.

Someone out there had to be able to read it.

A while later, her pen on the desk again, Ixia sat with her fingertips tapping at her lips. She regarded the blade carefully, glancing between it and her notes. She wanted to touch it, test it. There was still plenty of information she could gather on it, and on its origins, but what harm could a little test be? She was never known for her patience.

“All right, D’verin-t’soss…” She murmured, her voice barely a quite hum. “Just one little go, hmm? Let’s see what trouble you have been causing…”

Stealing herself, despite the reassurance of all her usual arcane wards, her fingers reached to touch the very base of the blade, and then trail down along the intricate lines of text. Her stormy eyes narrowed upon her the movements of her own fingers, as she sought to bring her mind into focus and prepare for what might, or might not, comeÂ…

[*Ceremorph]

A flicker of light at the corner of her eye. A faint tingle, the tiny hairs on her forearm standing on end. A deep and unmistakable sense of wickedness emanating from the blade, seeming to seep into her arm so long as her fingers maintain contact with the slick blue metal; her magical sight even shows her a slowly creeping tide of dark energy moving over her skin.

And so quiet it might have been her imagination, but a weak voice heard at the furthest edge of hearing yet utterly clear, until she realizes that the single rasped word only exists in her mind-- and is not her own.

..."Blood"...

[*CheeseWedge]

A smirk threatened to twitch onto her lips, but she restrained the urge. This seemed all too easy. Definitly too easy, though she supposed that spilling blood should never be taken lightly.

"What power is that, D'verin-t'soss?" Her voice softer, but still just as firm. "I won't play with you if I don't know the rules."

Her fingertip played at the edge of the blade again, though not firmly enough to break skin. Almost as though to taunt the soul within.

[*Ceremorph]

With the suddenness of a torch doused in water, the voice goes silent in Ixia's head, and the evil sensation crawling over her hand evaporates like smoke, leaving only a faintly unpleasant tingling and a faint buzzing at the edge of her perception.

[*CheeseWedge]

A very obvious frown. The redhead nearly glared at the blade as it suddenly went silent. Obviously, she had said something wrong.

"You don't like rules, D'verin-t'soss?" She whispered. Of course. He had been drow, and they tended to lean towards chaotic behavior. "I don't, either. It's a lot easier to just do as I wish."

She paused a moment, her fingertips still lightly touching the surface of the blade. She would not spill large amounts of her own blood just to learn the secrets of this weapon, but taking it on a hunt would be no issue.

"Come play, and I'll take you out for blood."

[*Ceremorph]

The wind-whipped grasses of Brux stretched to the horizon, the tips of them hiding things from the sight of the petite wizardess as they swayed at eye level. Of course, this did not matter; she'd been here often enough to sense those things that might come through the stalks, while the shambling mounds and treants could be seen from a goodly ways off regardless. But it was something smaller she sought this time, and she knew that one would find her eventually.

A thin smile as her ears picked up a new sound beneath the breeze, bare footsteps against the soft, ground, and she turned just as the unseelie nymph came into sight, her arm already swinging to strike and her innate magicks beating against Ixia's magical shield. But the mage had expected just this, swaying to the side to avoid the strike, then back with her hand plunging forward, fist gripped tightly to the hilt of the dagger as it drove home into the unseelie fey's sternum... and it happenned.

An violent shudder coursed through the blade as it drained life from the nymph, and the dark energy returned with gusto, in a flash eveloping not only her arm but her entire form, setting her hair to stand on end. Yes, this sensation conveyed the cruelty and darkness she had sensed before... but this time, she could feel energy pouring into her body, a few assorted scrapes and bruises vanishing from her skin.

And then the world went black. But not the darkness of unconsciousness; rather she felt herself to be standing in an empty expanse of nothingness, which she could tell well enough was some sort of dream-state: she still stood within the Beastlands, but her consciousness was removed for a time. At least, until something began to coalesce from the emptiness before her: the figure of a handsome drow, nearly five and a half feet tall and more heavily muscled than normal for his race, without anything covering his sculpted form but gently waving hair, bone-white and nearly waist-length in the back. He smiled widely, almost welcomingly, as his eyes locked upon Ixia.

"Hello, my Bearer. I gladly accept your gift."

[*CheeseWedge]

A soft gasp escaped her lips, but she did not pull her fingers away. Even as that aura of dread and pure, vile evil crept upon her, her fingertips remained against the cool surface of the blade. Dark blue eyes watched in a mixture of horror and intrigue as tendrils of darkness began to creep up her arm, licking at her skin.

"... Whose blood?" She whispered into the air, though the question was directed at that faint voice within her head. All the while, she watched the encroaching dark energy, quietly willing it to fade away, to not touch her as she was touching it.

[*Ceremorph]

In Ixia's enhanced sight, the dark energy seemed an amorphous blob encasing her hand and wrist, gentle waves cascading across its surface. From time to time a tendril lazily crept up her arm, but these would always fall back after a few questing moments. The voice, however, was not forthcoming with anything but faint, disturbing murmurs, barely intelligible with the weakness of their sound.

"Spill the heart's wine... drink deeply, and savor the suffering... crimson on alabaster, such sweet screams..."