Come rather, thou good weather

[tisnotthehouse]

Who: Tarantulas (tisnotthehouse)

What: Top-level for the month of May
When: After the island returns at the end of Land Ho!
Where: All around Marrow Island
Warning(s): Suicide (as a pragmatic response to a painful curse); more TBD

Comments

[tisnotthehouse]

"Ah, what a pity," Tarantulas murmurs, watching as Valdis studies the corpse. He's more interested in the stones embedded in the wall -- for them to glow like that, they must contain some kind of chemical or magical reaction -- but he lingers for a moment, to see if Valdis's own powers can stir some reaction from the old bones.

Link is a tonally inappropriate joke

[pumpkinhollowites]

The death of Linette Brenning was a slow one, full of pain, starvation, fear, and solitude. This woman was kept in a hole and tortured for months before she died, often forced to go days without food, and she died filthy, hungry, afraid, and alone, fantasizing about her wife somehow finding her. A dream that never came to fruition.

Linette's spirit stands over the broken skeleton, in a version of the dress that isn't so rotten and ragged. She looks exhausted.

"I see you've finally found me," she murmurs. "I don't get visitors these days. I'd offer you tea, but we are, in fact, in a hole."

I laughed though

[redlightgreenlight]

It hurt, feeling everything Linette felt in her last moments, her weeks of pain and suffering. Valdis' rage wraps around it. Fury so deep that her irises are a shining blood red when she finally removes her hand.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you."

She doesn't rise, but shifts her red gaze to the strange stones on the walls.

"I'll get you out of here, Linette, and I'll make sure you can finally rest with the peace you deserve, but I need to know anything you can tell me about what happened and who did this."

[pumpkinhollowites]

Linette nods solemnly, taking a moment to acknowledge both Valdis and Tarantulas. She takes in their appearances, as if deciding if she can trust them.

"I don't know much about the people themselves. They were careful to hide their faces, even in here with me. They wore red robes and black masks. But I know about some of the events."

"I know that when I was first taken down here, there were eleven of them, and that their numbers slowly started to dwindle. A lot of this was due to one of them being 'punished' by their leader, who they called Master. But another common cause was blood sacrifice--- they were killing each other for Eldritch magic. I know that their master never came into my prison with them. They didn't want this person to be seen with them, apparently. I also know that they're the ones who killed Merrick Gladwyn, Reverend Clayton's predecessor. They talked about it pretty candidly in front of me, which was a surprise."

"I also know that they were using me--- my suffering, my fear--- as some sort of power generator. They called me 'conduit.' And it was my death that triggered the barrier, in tandem with... some other event, being orchestrated by someone else."

"And the last thing that I know is that they were trying to dethrone the goddesses to lift up their own god. A god of chaos that they called Nyarlathotep."

Linette shrugs listlessly, looking defeated. "That's all I can tell you. I hope it helps."

[tisnotthehouse]

Nyarlathotep? That is not a name Tarantulas has seen in any of his reading -- not in the public library, and not in Neil's personal collection.

"Hold on a moment," he says, holding up a leg to forestall Valdis from doing...whatever she was about to do. Banish the ghost to the hereafter, or whatever. "Do you know why you were chosen for this role?" he asks Linette, not ungently but with quiet urgency. "Why you and not someone else? And why did they kill Merrick Gladwyn?"

[pumpkinhollowites]

"I'm not sure why they chose me. Maybe because I was a mage? Or maybe I was just easy to make miserable." She shrugs. "They killed Merrick because they saw him as a threat. Why they felt that way, or why they didn't feel that way about Degas, are both a mystery to me."

[redlightgreenlight]

She listens in silence, absorbing the exchange, noting the need to speak with Degas and look into these cultists. There's a sharpness in her chest when Linette mentions being used to power the barrier with her suffering, it's a concept she's intimately familiar with.

As much as she dislikes the goddess on principle, they have done nothing but try to help the people of the island. Yet, the quartet must act through those here, and so it seems does this new god.

She's going to have to ask Mortanne, or perhaps one of the others for help.

However, there was a possibility, based on what Linette has told them, that the cultists wiped themselves out in service to Nyarlathotep. Hopefully they were that lucky, but she doubts it.

"Thank you, Linette. I doubt my powers can do anything to help free you from this plane, but I shall try it if you wish."

[tisnotthehouse]

This time Tarantulas voices no objection. It really does seem that they've gotten all the information they can out of Linette -- and what was done to her was horrible enough that even Tarantulas finds it distasteful. He turns away to give her and Valdis some privacy, and studies the gems embedded in the walls instead. Surely he can get something useful out of them? And if not him, then perhaps Dr. West...