Planeside 3

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
They do not go back to Braon's room.
Instead they wind up in a kitchen. Simmer drags Braon over to a sink filled with dirty dishes. "Clean them. You can have some cake when you're done." Despite being a hell kitchen (the oven in particular looks like a hungry, fiery maw), the dishes are a relatively normal amount. And there is indeed a cake baking, a very sumptuous chocolate cake (devil's food, of course). It smells very good. But will Braon stand for this punishment?

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

The term of the day is "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Braon looks from Simmer, to the dishes, to the cake, and back again. "...Tell me you aren't serious." She scowls. "Or is this how you treat all your 'guests'? Telling them they've misunderstood the situation one moment and showing that they haven't the next?" She crosses her arms. "What were you planning on doing if I refused? Applying that frying pan in a totally host-y way?"

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
"No, this is something I decided to do, to teach a petulant child a lesson. And if you don't want to clean..." Simmer makes a very ominous face, "You won't get any cake." The cake does smell good.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Braon stares at her with an unamused expression on her face.

"...Is... is that it?" She steps away from the sink and shakes her head. "Really, lady? Really? The whole 'no food for you' thing didn't work on me when I was a child, what made you think it was going to work now?" She sighs. "Besides, I think you've forgotten one very important thing..."

Yoink!

"I'm a lot faster than you."

And thus begins what is either an epic chase or a hilariously anticlimactic demonstration of Braon being wrong.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
The hellfire of the oven is very hot. Braon sticks her hands in to steal the cake, so she's very likely to get some serious burns. If she can stand that long enough to grab it and run, the unfinished cake will be making a mess all over her hands and the floor. But surprisingly, she won't be pursued if she gets out of the room. If she gets that far, she can enjoy her prize, which will mostly be smeared all over her.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Of course, when the "chase" is over, Braon just dumps the cake. Putting aside that it was only slightly more baked than her idea to steal it and therefore not fit for consumption, the theft was never really about the cake in the first place. She couldn't care less if she actually got to enjoy it. She just wanted to send a clear message to Simmer:

You can't tell me what to do.

Of course, that still left her with two sets of burns to contend with; one from the hellfire oven itself, and one from the spatterings of hot cake that sloshed out onto her hands, less severe but still painful. Braon didn't have any way of treating either of them; her rain cloud provided very limited relief, she'd have to find something cold to get the pain to stop.

Which, fittingly, she had a snowball's chance in hell of doing.

So, resigning herself to her hands just being burnt, Braon makes her way back to her room; partly for lack of anywhere else to go, but mostly because that letter had her curiosity. What did Sekhmet actually say to her?

As soon as she gets there, barring trouble, she intends to search her room and find out. With any luck, there'll be someone there to meet her.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
Braon returns to her room.
The letter isn't hard to find afterwards. It, and a key, are sitting in the desk drawer. Not as obvious as they should have been.

Braon,
Sorry for leaving you on such short notice. There was something I needed to respond to immediately as Queen. I was gone about 30 seconds, but for you, I think a few hours passed, and I found you passed out. I brought you back to the palace, but I need to go back to the Nexus for a while. I'll be back tonight to check on you. I've told my servants they should respect you as my guest. Feel free to go anywhere in the palace except the floor below here, and use anything in the room I've provided you as you wish.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Well, here's a letter. And here's a key, presumably one to the door. That... really altered the implications of what she was doing here. No jailer would lock her in with the key.

Maybe she'd judged Sekhmet wrong after all.

Braon folds the letter up and neatly tucks it into her pocket. Right now, it didn't tell her much. Pretty much only that Sekhmet cared enough to leave what she thought was a reasonable explanation, but which neglected a few key details.

Still. The thought was nice.

Braon sighs and resumes her wanderings. Whatever. That chef lady told her pretty much everything she needed to know. Free run of the place, back tonight, blah blah.

Well. As long as she's meant to roam, she might as well see if Sekhmet has anything a little more likened to her tastes around here. Like a garden or a conservatory. Or maybe she'd stumble across the staff quarters. There were a lot of succubi here, too... maybe a harem?

Braon rolls her eyes at that one. No, no, probably not. Sekhmet was way too prudish for that one.

Her hand idly touching the wall, and the subsequent burst of pain through it, reminds her of another option to consider: the infirmary. She'll keep an eye out for that, too. These burns were going to be painful enough to handle even if she did get care for them.

[Fenric]

[Dho Chladach]

Inari chuckles as she takes the offered seat

That portal took a bit more power than I am used to sending through an avatar, and she is a bit sleepy now. I would prefer not to regenerate her unless there is a pressing need, though - this one seems already well attuned to this world. She will recover shortly.

She then looks at Seth as he explains

A vampiric curse? Interesting. It does seem somewhat of a last-ditch effort to keep the world from fading completely, and from what you say is not something that can continue for the long term.

---

[Palace of Orochi]

Orochi leads Sekhmet out of a door in the back, two of his guards following along behind. It is not far down the hall before he turns to the right and enters a nicely furnished small library/large office. He motions Sekhmet toward a comfortable looking chair and takes a seat himself.

"I gather your ascendance to the crown was as unexpected as it was recent. Could you share any details?"

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
After some wandering, Braon finds herself in an area seems quite abandoned. The air is silent; beautiful silk curtains hang in the stale air, separating different parts of the chamber, but they don't look like they've closed in a long time. A few private rooms are off to the sides of the area; the doors are sturdy and appear to be soundproofed.
Braon didn't expect to find a harem in Sekhmet's palace; but this looks like it is one, but one that hasn't been touched since Sekhmet took the throne.

Palace of Orochi
Sekhmet sits in the chair. She begins to explain. "My mother was killed unexpectedly. Immediately, I inherited her throne and, uh, her power in a, uh, very irrevocable transformation." She seems uncomfortable. "We, uh, didn't get along. I didn't want this." She frowns. "So, uh, now I have to deal with all that."

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Just as Braon predicted. More or less.

Which is a shame. This is a beautiful room, no matter what its original purpose was. Braon would've hoped to see it converted to some other purpose... a painter's studio, maybe. Or a sitting room of some kind. Having it be just empty was just a little heartbreaking.

And this totally had nothing to do with the fact that Braon was hoping to see more scantily-clad succubi. No, not at all.

Braon sighs and wanders the maze of silk curtains, idly wondering what this place might have looked like when a fun queen was on the throne.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
The place is very empty. The public sections of the area are cleaned out. If Braon looks through the rooms though, detritus of the missing inhabitants can be found. Clothes fit for a succubus (most of them not fit for anyone with much of a sense of decency). Cosmetics and potions in exceedingly fancy bottles (not that a shapeshifter would normally need such a thing). More unusual things too. Bits of magical paraphernalia, small weapons, other such things.
One room, however, is locked. Just the one, which is unusual.
Braon wasn't told she couldn't go in there, yet the sturdy door seems to say "You should not be here..."

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Braon smirks a little at the locked door. Really? She'd already made her way around one of these before. She kneels next to it and starts to repeat her earlier method for opening her room, only to realize it wasn't going to work. She couldn't just pump it up with a desire for freedom- she was already given full leave of the castle, more or less. She wasn't entirely sure what other form of enchantment would do the job, either; they could be a little unpredictable.

Well. Old-fashioned method, then.

Braon sifts through the lost-and-found of a room around her and picks up a thin-bladed dagger and a hairpin, then makes her way back to the locked door and attempts to pick it manually.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
The door resists being opened for a while, the lock is complex and very secure. But eventually, it pops open.
The room beyond is pristine, as if its owner never left.
Because she hasn't.
A perfect obsidian statue of a succubus half-stands, half-cowers in a corner of the room, terror painted across her face.
Otherwise, there are many unusual objects around. A mirror, not silver, the edges etched with infernal runes and glass vials full of strange black fluid sit along the vanity. A faint white light shines out from beneath the bed.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Oh.

OH.

Ooooh crap, Braon thinks to herself. She really shouldn't have ignored that sinking feeling in her stomach. The statue told her all she needed to know; nobody ever just carved terrified statues of people. There was a petrifyer in here. One that Sekhmet may very well have been trying hard to keep in.

And Braon just let her(him?) out.

Maybe.

Braon feels around the other side of the door for evidence that it locked from the inside. If she was just an unwitting intruder, she could just lock it back up and continue on her merry little way, somewhat wiser. If not... she clutches the dagger more tightly.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
The door could be locked from the inside. So if anything was trapped within, it must not have opposable thumbs.
Nothing in the room moves.
Maybe whatever did this is gone?
Or maybe it's smart enough to wait until it has the drop on Braon.

[Recaiden]

[Dho Chladach]

Inari chuckles as she takes the offered seat

That portal took a bit more power than I am used to sending through an avatar, and she is a bit sleepy now. I would prefer not to regenerate her unless there is a pressing need, though - this one seems already well attuned to this world. She will recover shortly.

She then looks at Seth as he explains

A vampiric curse? Interesting. It does seem somewhat of a last-ditch effort to keep the world from fading completely, and from what you say is not something that can continue for the long term.

Seeing Inari stumble, Seth immediately moves to help. He wouldn't dare touch her personally- such an act would likely be mildly blasphemous- but he'll move her stool closer so that when she stumbles, it's into her seat and not the ground. Once he's satsified she's stable, he'll answer Atorre's question.

"I can't claim to know much about the curse itself. Only what it's done to us." Seth begins. "We must drink the life force of other beings periodically, or else suffer a loss of strength and sanity. When we have no more left to give, we devolve into moroi, those shades you've been seeing everywhere. Sunlight hurries along the process for us and spells oblivion for them." He holds up his hand. "It's something of a balancing act, as well. If we drink too much, we risk creating demons, in much the same way as the fiendlings' heart-eating ritual does. And we become a little more like whatever we drink from, over time... there have been stories of werecreatures wandering our wilds, the product of years away from what remains of civilization. And it seems to affect more than just humans... beasts have been seen feasting on men too weakened to fight back, and growing more intelligent and ferocious as a result; we call those vorvolaks. Fortunately, the same curse prevents us from dying by any way but fading into moroi, so we've persisted despite the land's hostility."

"And as for King Arnbaith... he was one of the first of our kind, and one of the few who remembers our ancestors being forged from the scales of Skummring." He waves his hand dismissively. "Which is a whole other story. Arnbaith the Unbroken was our first Lord, and has ruled this land since its creation, at least the parts we have settled. He is a wise king and a formidable warrior; this curse can't have gotten the better of him."

Atorre's assistants will soon discover that a compass does, thankfully, still work here... Seth's trouble with direction may have more to do with the lack of any guiding celestial body than anything.

"Oh no, don't bother yourself to regenerate; just get some rest." They assure Inari.

"What a fascinatingvariation on the curse, though!" They'll need to get some of those vorvolaks to investigate, at some point. Transformation and immortality to everything except starvation and sunlight? Very intriguing.
"Do you know much about where it comes from? Does it spread? Because you all seem quite human, and not just on account of Inari's blessing." So, does that mean there's some more human people around as food?

Around the portal, where that one of the minions had been measuring, a shape appears, light and greenery bubbling up out of nothing, forming planes and arches, until about ten seconds later, there's a shiny new building, solid and round, enclosing the portal. They stop with those metal plates they had been using, and set about hanging up the doors and putting some of the supplies inside.

"One of us will set out to see King Arnbaith as soon as we're done talking here." Although they suspect that the curse could absolutely have gotten the better of him.

[Ironsmith]

[Dho Chladach]

Inari chuckles as she takes the offered seat

That portal took a bit more power than I am used to sending through an avatar, and she is a bit sleepy now. I would prefer not to regenerate her unless there is a pressing need, though - this one seems already well attuned to this world. She will recover shortly.

She then looks at Seth as he explains

A vampiric curse? Interesting. It does seem somewhat of a last-ditch effort to keep the world from fading completely, and from what you say is not something that can continue for the long term.

[Dho Chladach]

"Oh no, don't bother yourself to regenerate; just get some rest." They assure Inari.

"What a fascinatingvariation on the curse, though!" They'll need to get some of those vorvolaks to investigate, at some point. Transformation and immortality to everything except starvation and sunlight? Very intriguing.
"Do you know much about where it comes from? Does it spread? Because you all seem quite human, and not just on account of Inari's blessing." So, does that mean there's some more human people around as food?

Around the portal, where that one of the minions had been measuring, a shape appears, light and greenery bubbling up out of nothing, forming planes and arches, until about ten seconds later, there's a shiny new building, solid and round, enclosing the portal. They stop with those metal plates they had been using, and set about hanging up the doors and putting some of the supplies inside.

"One of us will set out to see King Arnbaith as soon as we're done talking here." Although they suspect that the curse could absolutely have gotten the better of him.

[Dho Chladach]

"That was our scholars' theory as well." Seth nods to Inari. "To what purpose, I can't say I know. Nobody believed help would come, from amywhere."

He then turns his attention back to Atorre. "We don't know if it can spread. We simply woke up one morning... evening?... and the curse was in effect, on everyone, all at once. It took time to discover what had happened. And as for our humanity..." He turns back to Inari. "You may recall, when you first arrived, I accused you and Lord Braeg of trespassing on sacred ground. Sorry about that, by the way." He stoops and scoops some of the dirt at his feet, sifting it through his fingers. "That was not a lie. Dho Chladach seems to be... resilient, for lack of a better description. Those too strongly affected by the curse can't come here, and those who are here become less affected by the curse. Perhaps this is some remnant of Adea's power, or the labors of one of her Thamar children... regardless, it has been a relative haven for us, as the creatures which intrude on us have been only middlingly threatening... as opposed to the truly horrifying abominations further inland." He stops when he says this, seeming to realize what this meant about Atorre's proposal to go find Arnbaith. "...If you intend to speak with the king, I will go with you."

Scorching Depths
The door could be locked from the inside. So if anything was trapped within, it must not have opposable thumbs.
Nothing in the room moves.
Maybe whatever did this is gone?
Or maybe it's smart enough to wait until it has the drop on Braon.

[Scorching Depths]

Braon wasn't willing to take the chance. She slowly, silently closes the door, weaving in this newfound sense of dread into the lock in an attempt to get it to clench shut and never open again; whatever was locked in here could stay locked away, thank you!

Of course, there's no particular guarantee that'll work. If it manages to open the lock after she leaves, she won't be there to stop it.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
"Hey there.," someone hisses from behind Braon. There's a succubus there, in golden clothes with a black and red cape. "Haven't seen you around here before. A mortal, here. But you have a touch of this realm in you too."

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Braon jumps nearly out of her skin, two distinctly unpleasant possibilities coming to her mind at once. Either this lady was the one locked in there, or she was a member of staff, catching her snooping where she's not meant to be. Either way, she's in trouble!

Braon lets out a little eep! and drops her dagger, which narrowly misses landing blade-first on her foot. "U-umm... h-hi. Yeah, I'm..." is all she manages to say before her nerves give out on her. She can't address both possibilities at once; she has to figure out what's going on exactly if she wants to respond coherently.

"Sorry, is this your room?" She asks, keeping her head pointed away from the succubus in case she had a medusa-like gaze or something.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
"No, it's not. I'm just passing through. Find anything good in there?" The succubus tries to open the door and finds it locked again, then leans back unconcerned. "There aren't many mortals in here. They don't last long. The queen brought you?" She seems curious but unconcerned.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

"I don't intend to stay." Braon replies evenly, keeping her gaze averted... just in case. "The queen brought me here against my will." Technically true, but decontextualized in a way that probably made Sekhmet sound pretty bad. "As soon as I have the opportunity, I intend to go back."

Braon pauses, then produces the letter from her pocket. "This is the only explanation she bothered to give me." She says with a little huff. "Have a look for yourself."

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
"Oh, fascinating," the succubus reads the letter, "Braon. Pain. You would have fit in much better in the old court." She flicks the paper carelessly over her shoulder to litter the ground. "Given how weak the new queen is, she'll keep her word, worry not about that. But don't you wonder why she forbade you from going to the lower floor? Or maybe you're trying to find out who is petrifying succubi in their rooms? It's not me, if that's what you're afraid of."

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

"That... would be nice to know, yes." Braon says, carefully measuring out her reply. The succubus hadn't reacted quite the way she hoped she would... but she still gave the fiendling useful information. "What's on the lower floor that she wants to keep me out of? Do you know?"

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
"Oh, laboratories, vaults, armories. Things like that. Terribly boring, but understandably off-limits." The succubus yawns. "Have you ever considered being a succubus? You look like you might be good at it. And you'd be a lot less conspicuous around here." That's an offer Braon should probably refuse. This particular succubus doesn't seem particularly beholden to Sekhmet, which means she might be even more dangerous than the others. But it would give her extra power and magic.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Braon gives the succubus a look. Really? The last couple of times she made a deal like that, it didn't go well for her at all. The Pit took away some part of her she still hadn't gotten back, and the power she supposedly got in exchange wasn't the asset it was cracked up to be. Then she took Sekhmet's deal, which she even got to set the terms for, and which has thus far ended up with her trapped in a hell with no way out except Sekhmet, whom Braon had little reason to believe was going to be cooperative. And now this lady wanted her to make yet another deal because... what, she "looked like she'd make a good succubus"? What was that even supposed to mean?

"Yeah, I know better than that." Braon replies dismissively, making her way over to the discarded letter and stuffing it in her pocket. "I'm not going to entertain that. In fact, [screw] you for bringing it up." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. "Out."

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
"Suit yourself." The succubus walks slowly away, the heels of her shoes clicking on the stone floor, unhurt by Braon's opposition. If she's not stopped, Braon will momentarily be alone again.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

Braon waits until the succubus is too far away to hear her footsteps, then gives chase. Quietly. One way or another, that lady is trouble, and while Braon hasn't decided whether she's going to spectate or stop her, she needs to be nearby to do either.

[bc56]

Scorching Depths
The succubus retreats through the abandoned harem until she comes to another door. She surreptitiously opens it to the room beyond and slips inside. If Braon peeks within, she'll find that this room, much like the last she examined closely, is in very good shape. The furnishings are different, there's no glow under the bed, and the succubus is nowhere to be seen.
That's weird.

[Ironsmith]

[Scorching Depths]

To Braon, that looks suspiciously like an illusion. There's no way the succubus found a hiding spot that quickly; either the room she's seeing isn't what's actually behind that door, or the succubus had somehow turned herself invisible, or perhaps teleported.

Braon will step into the room and begin searching for an explanation.