2017-10-21: Witching Hour
- Log: Witching Hour
- Cast: Lily Keil, Loren Voss
- Where: Bledavik - Royal Palace
- Date: October 21st 2017
- Summary: It becomes quite clear that Cecilia's alleged maid is up to something. Pitched combat ensues.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
It is past midnight, a chill night in the desert palace of Bledavik, with its tapestries and bricks and rooms and ofifices. Darkness is broken up largely by the internal lighting, enough to safely judge the place. Some areas have more security than others, of course.
...Less security is present in Iris Becker's sleeping area, a small room currently without its occupant. Her medicines remain neatly placed away, her things packed neatly as befits a young maid. ...But the bed is empty.
Instead a blonde figure has padded quietly about the palace, carefully and stealthily making her way to new places here and there, avoiding guards with a practiced skill. She is silent, and right now...
Right now she is in a small office, behind a desk. The chairs for visitors are upholstered and expensive, the desk itself wood; there is a bookshelf, and a very large window overlooking a garden, one that the eyepatched woman is glancing down now in a brief break before she finishes packing gunpowder into a small sleeve and affixing it within another drawer, where it will be neither seen nor smelled.
The Kislevi operative is silent as she judges again the appropriate sightline, sliding the drawer quietly into place. THe lights are off... but easy to turn on. It's not impossible to follow her trail, for someone good enough.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Elsewhere in the Palace, a uniformed figure has stepped into the small bedroom technically occupied by a certain princess' maid.
A few minutes pass before he exits again, closing the door quietly behind him.
Catching up a few moments after that with one of the Aveh guards on patrol, a few moments of conversation passes before he moves on.
She's not in her room.
The suspicious behavior had kept piling up. Not even just from the princess -- who had planned something, command was sure -- but the maid as well.
Gebler had done a little digging, as it were. There wasn't anyone named 'Iris Bekker' associated with Princess Cecilia, which would have possibly been damning enough... if there hadn't been enough damning evidence that something was coming.
There was the fact that the maid was healing... unduly for someone who keep on refusing medical intervention.
Then there was the contents of the package he had received from their contact the night before.
And on top of that... 'Iris Bekker' has been sneaking out. He doubts that tonight marks the first night, at least.
There is absolutely no reason for a 'maid' to be out of her bed this late, especially not a maid allegedly recovering from grievous wounds.
Clever for a Lamb, the uniformed officer thinks, glancing into one of the darkened side rooms as he continues his search, but not nearly clever enough.
He should call in.
--No. No, he can't admit that she slipped out under his watch, and he's already alerted the patrol. They'll pass the message along. She can't have gotten far. He'll locate her, and...
His gaze falls on the door to one of the side offices. There's no light coming in from under the door, but something isn't right. He lifts a hand to his glasses and pauses for a moment.
...
The door to the office opens sharply a moment later.
A flick of the switch has the lights on.
In silence, Loren Voss gazes across the room. "It's late, isn't it, Miss Bekker?"
He palms a vial from his medical kit at his waist.
"Alchemical hair dye," he announces, holding it up as if to the light for the first time. "I don't suppose this is familiar to you?"
And he tosses it across the room to her with perhaps surprising ease and accuracy for someone with such a bookish appearance. He gazes at her flatly. "If I were you, I'd make it easy on yourself and give up now. The guard has already been alerted."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Oh, it's not the first night. The maid has gotten some familiarity with the palace's layout by now, little side rooms and paths to the garden, as much as possible while avoiding the guards. She's been very, very busy in her time here, and not just in cleaning.
Gebler even helped her to Vanderkaum's room, after all.
Now, the blonde woman sets a golden eye straight on the door as soon as it opens, pausing exactly where she is. Her braced wrist is down, her other closing the drawer she'd been working with. The lights are on, and her eye narrows as she has to adapt to the changing condition abrubtly, stars in her vision. Not ideal.
"Lieutenant," she greets sweetly, in her 'normal' tone of voice, before she lifts a hand to catch the vial, much more coordinated than an ordinary maid might be expected to be. She squints at it, taking the extra time to try to let her vision adjust.
"...And if I said it was? It's a lovely color, isn't it?" There's nothing in her voice, at first. But she catches that flat gaze. The dye she sets down on the desk with a little click. Her mind races.
"...I don't believe in doing things the easy way," she counters casually, an easy, dangerous confidence entering her voice as she titls her head to look over Loren... Or rather, over his shoulder, making calculations quickly. "You shouldn't have warned me."
Abrubtly she throws out her hand, which glows in strange circuit-shaped patterns along the backs of her uncovered fingers, sudden as a spike of Ether fills the room and from above him horrible protuberances of shadow crash from the walls. The chairs between the floor and Loren Voss clatter as parts of them abrubtly turn to ash... as might he, if he doesn't act.
The spell itself is silent. But the blonde woman quirks a brow. "I'd wondered when I would have to get my hands dirty."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed. <SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HxSBuJ03rg
She caught it, an action that prompts a slightly arched eyebrow from the medical officer. But he'd expect little else from someone who was able to evade their notice for a few weeks, despite being right under their noses. Now it's just a question of who she really is -- and who she really works for.
Shevat, perhaps? Though this would be a bold action. He's not even sure what they would gain from it.
"Vanity? Is that your excuse? And I suppose the reason you're out of your room this late is another part of your personal regimen." Loren sighs. "Come off it, Miss Bekker, or whoever you are. Whatever you've plotted is at its end."
From the look of it, save for the standard-issue sidearm still holstered at his waist, he would be considered unarmed. Unarmored, for that matter.
Except 'Iris' would know that Gebler officers are typically capable of certain feats even without a weapon at all.
'You shouldn't have warned me.'
She throws out her hand.
The hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end. The room is alive with the all-too-familiar buzz-burn of anti-light ether beginning its eruption into the suddenly cramped quarters of the office.
He knows who 'Iris Bekker' is.
His left hand touches to the edge of his glasses.
Gesturing sharply upwards with his other hand, from waist level on to about chest height, white light burns bright in the center of the shadowy maelstrom, as hard-edged and angular as a quartz crystal. Around him, furnishings are silently reduced to so much ash, to nothing at all...
The darkness swallows up much in the room. But it seems to glide right along the edges of the regular angles of the etheric barrier.
He takes a slow steady breath as he takes a step forward, his protective invocation fading from active manifestation in a dull flicker of inward light.
"Keil. Of course it would be you," the medic remarks sourly. "Hmph. Blonde doesn't suit you." Once again, he makes a sharp upward gesture, advancing on her all the while.
Jagged rock pillars erupt from the floor in a shower of ragged pieces of rug and the remainder of the furnishings that Lily's dark ether didn't just consume whole, crossing one another in a dense maze in an attempt to lock her in place.
"Fine. Then we'll do this your way, Keil."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
One question down. But who is she working for?
Unlike Loren, 'Iris' has no weapon at all on her person, and a number of injuries still in evidence. Not only that, but he might recognize the glassy look of painkillers, despite her lucidity in addressing him. The room is alive... But parts of it cease to be rather abrubtly. Parts, but not all; this is the first the rogue Ether-user has seen of this particular sort of barrier, and her eye narrows as at first she feels it more than sees it.
"Correct, 'Blackwell.'" His sour remark actually gets a faint laugh from the back of her throat. "Doesn't it?"
The pillars rocket around her, some in her blind spot, and she closes her hand into a fist to erect a black barrier around herself--but it was an attack to trap her more than only to harm, and in that it succeeds.
"...Hmph," she remarks back, glancing to see the window out of reach, Loren approaching further and further. She makes a snap judgement and lifts her hurt arm to use as a shield as she traces a pattern in the air before herself.
Abrubtly, blue erupts from her hands as a razorblade set of ice erupts from the ground beneath Loren, seeking to hack at his lower legs in a very dirty move.
"The dye comes out," she says helpfully. "Do you think you can hold me off until your backup arrives? You've seen the sorts of things I can do."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Good question. He'd been under the impression -- if eventually -- that she wasn't on anyone's payroll (even if her powers and the issue of 'who trained her' raised some serious questions about Kislev's activities and potential connections) but right now in the thick of it--
--Who can say?
She's still taking the painkillers. Despite her attention to her wounds, she must not be recovered. And it also means -- theoretically -- that her reaction time should be dulled. In theory this should be easy, he shouldn't even need the backup.
But the memory of that pillar in the Stone Forest, with sections of the rock annihilated as if it had never been, comes all-too-readily to mind.
Slowly, he eases the sidearm from its holster, putting into play the apparent second part of his tactic. Pin her down and...
She laughs. He shakes his head, as if faintly irritated. "It's over, Keil," he states, aiming the Solarian ARM at her head.
--What is that light in her hands--
Only to take a sudden step backwards.
It's not fast enough. He wasn't expecting that sort of trick from her -- perhaps because of youth, relative inexperience, or whatever you want to call it. The blade of ice cuts neatly across his shins in a spray of red as it rises ceilingward; he hisses sharply.
The only good news for him is that he evaded at least enough to avoid a more serious injury; as it is, his pantlegs are stained red from nearly the knees downward.
"...A cheap trick," he mutters, green crystalline motes flickering around him briefly before they erupt in a spidering network of angular linework.
He narrows his eyes, exhaling a breath as the etheric force filters into his body. "Hmph. I suppose you would be desperate enough to try that, wouldn't you. It doesn't matter. You won't be leaving this room on your own, Keil," he says, once again leveling his ARM at her.
"...Or maybe I should put it to you in words you can actually understand: you can come along quietly, or you can die."
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily might have those answers... But she's not inclined to offer them right now. Quite the opposite; she's focused on an entirely different set of questions.
While Loren might not have fought her before, it's not hard for a trained medic to recognize that his theory is probably right; she is a half-step slower than she ought to be, just a little big sluggish in ways she's covering over as best she can. She's down an eye and she's down a hand. On top of that, her movements are stiff.
The ARM is aimed at her head, and Lily narrows her eye. Her golden hair is kept back by the kerchief about her head, out of her way, as she tries to simply hack off his feet where he stands.
"How much time have you spent on the front lines, 'Lieutenant?'" Lily asks as he mutters about it being a cheap trick, though she inds herself muttering in turn as she registers what tht glow means. "...Damn."
She's not used to facing that trick from others; just herself. It's going to complicate things.
"...I've taken down Gebler agents before. What makes you special?" She looks him over, stares down the barrel of the ARM. "Well, I guess..."
She ducks forward suddenly, to the side, compensating for where the ARM is likely to fire as she swings her hurt wrist straight for the vulnerable joint of hand and forearm. "...You'll have to try and kill me." She feints this time, and aims her good hand straight for his throat in a brutal punch.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Even the finest Solaris can offer can't maintain a manifestation of ether forever -- eventually the pinning network of rocky pillars has faded, which provokes a certain problem regarding Loren's reticence to use stopping force.
It's not technically the case that it doesn't matter if she comes out here dead or alive. She's slightly more valuable alive, particularly if the princess is in on this.
And he's hoping she has the sense to stand down, or he's going to have to explain this to the Commander himself, which is a situation he's not looking forward to.
It's entirely possible that -- as much as he knows she can produce considerable force and has significant control over her abilities-- he's not entirely cognitively appreciative of how much trouble he may be in for.
There are downsides to being young, relatively inexperienced, and raised as if you were the epitome of human potential.
Yes, even if you sometimes doubt how well you meet those standards.
"I'm a medical officer," he replies, as if slightly affronted. "I don't deal in your sort of trickery."
What makes him so special?
There isn't room to answer. She comes in fast, her wounded wrist colliding hard into his forearm; his hand opens in reflex, the ARM goes flying to spin upwards towards the ceiling and distantly clatter onto the floor.
Her hand flies for his throat--
His apparent off-hand rises to grab her good hand by the wrist.
She may find that he's much stronger than might be expected, to look at him.
"Kill you? Is that your 'survivor's guilt' talking again? Or are you really prepared to die here, Keil?"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
While it gives Loren a problem, Lily is appreciative of her suddenly improved mobility prospects. Her vision at least is starting to better adapt to the light, the colors of Loren and his uniform coalescing for her into his familiar form.
...And 'trouble' is definitely what she's aiming to cause. Lily may have less training in Ether, but she's been hardened by the front lines in ways she has long concluded Loren hasn't. He calls himself a medical officer and immediately she replies with a "Tch," continuing with her own approach and her own words in obvious derision.
The sidearm is gone; she doesn't have time to try to grab it. His hand however gets a good grip on her; going through her sleeve, it's easy to feel muscle and bone there. As a side-effect, it means he has a good look at her fist, bizarre pulsing 'circuitry' and all on her fingers and the back of her hand.
The look in her eye is nothing short of murderous at his retort though. "Shut up," she answers, and it becomes almost a growl; that blue pulsing turns black abrubtly, as her wounded hand shifts and she swings her forearm at his chest. Power crackles along her form, a cloudy aura that is colder than ice and at least as sharp.
As her wounded hand impacts him--jarring her wrist badly and making her teeth grit in pain--it feels very much like being healed... But altogether reversed, wounds threatening to open where none were before, life force directly assaulted in pure hatred.
"I'm a medical officer too, jackass. And I don't think you can finish me!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Oh, Emperor. She really is intending to do this 'to the death' isn't she.
This is, to put it mildly, a huge problem.
He may need to reconsider his approach if he doesn't want to have a very unpleasant conversation with the Commander in his near future.
Or die, for that matter, he considers a moment later.
The shift in her ether's nature hasn't been missed, particularly this close.
To say nothing of the strange glow skittering along her fingers and down the back of her hand. What is that, Loren thinks, and not for the first time during this encounter. She had worn gloves before, which made noticing it previously well... not even a thing.
Her arm swings forward.
Two options present themselves in rapid succession. Push her aside, but in doing so release his grip and certainly force a violent end to this.
Or stand his ground and...
His grip on her wrist tightens.
Her hand impacts his chest.
He convulses almost instantly, back arched as he stares for a moment blankly towards the ceiling. Nothing but a rattling croak escapes his lips.
His chest has been torn open, his nervous system reports. He's been flensed and left out in the sun to die. All the little joins in the body which he's so used to piecing together in other people have been pulled apart.
That's how it feels.
His knees buckle but he doesn't fall. His grip on her wrist hasn't slackened in the least.
His free hand slips slowly -- as if he were uncertain about how to manipulate his fingers properly right now -- into the kit at his side. Slowly pulls free a syringe, rotates it in his hand to uncap it.
Then simply rotates his wrist and drives the needle for her pinned shoulder.
"I don't think... I need to," he rasps.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Lily's plan at this point definitely hinges on killing Loren as quickly as she can, but the Black Wolves were not known for their gentleness. ...Kislevi officers in general are not particularly known for their soft tactics. She is by no means an exception.
That feeling in her magic gives her feedback, fuels her casting as much as it makes it hard to stop channeling something that at first was meant as a momentary burst. Her control is imperfect under these conditions, and power floods through. She feels Loren's convulsions and grits her teeth as each one of them slams against her badly-injured wrist.
"I kept some things back," she spits, unsteady, and moves to attempt to kill him outright--but his free hand, operating in her wide blind spot, slips into his kit and then drives hard into her left shoulder.
"Aah--" It slips past her like a cough, the noise, and her vision swims. She doesn't know what's in it, but what he says gives her a suggestion. With the amount of drugs already in her system...
"Fuck," she voices, fully accented. She wrenches herself to try to get the syringe loose, and there's blood in the process. Her spell cuts out, the channeling abrubtly interrupted though it remains a poison in the blood.
She readapts her plan altogether quickly, a knife of fear in her gut. This is, after all, close to what she was taught was worst, from a very young age.
He might spot it for an instant, flickering across her gaze, before her golden eye narrows at him once aain. "...See if it helps your corpse," she rasps out back and slams her head forward straight for his, blasting forward from her wounded hand with a rush of frigid ice crystals meant to make him bleed.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Technically, neither are Gebler officers. But then she is -- for now -- likely worth more to them alive rather than dead.
And there is still the necessity of appearances, as long as they're operating in Aveh, and as long as they're attempting to get Cecilia to cooperate.
The needle slides in easily; his thumb presses hard on the plunger.
The only thing he has to do now is outlast her long enough until it kicks in and she collapses, or long enough until the reinforcements arrive.
This may, as Loren will soon find, be more difficult than expected.
"Just give up already... and make this easy," he says, grip still maintained on her wrist. "It should kick in soon."
His nervous system is still screaming that it's on fire, connections are refusing to act properly. His reaction timing is slowed, worn down. Her single eye meets his with defiant intent, and for a moment, she will read little but muted confusion in his blue eyes.
Right until she slams her head into his face.
"You--"
He reels for a moment, resisting the near and present urge to grab for his face. Because her free hand is still--
--he grabs for her hand--
--not fast enough--
"--shit," Loren utters eloquently as she discharges a point-blank barrage of ice crystals practically entirely into his chest. The only good news for him about any part of this is that at least he doesn't die from it. At least not immediately.
It's almost turned into a parody of a dance at this point: him attempting pulling her along as he sways backwards from the latest insult she's chosen to inflict, blood streaming down the front of his uniform.
Planting his feet solidly as he shifts his weight to regain some semblance of balance.
Steps in towards her.
Grabs at her shirt with his free hand.
And rolls back, attempting to flip her onto the floor.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
There are a lot of mysteries yet to be solved as regards Kislev's wayward Ether user, after all. ...One of them is not how hard she's likely to fight, though; that's easy. So while all that needs to be done is outlasting...
Her wrist assuredly is going to bruise at this point; she doesn't care for the moment. "Didn't I tell you," she manages, speech already slightly more difficult than she'd like, "That I'm not the easy type?" She reads confusion, all right, as she stares. She can use confusion, but her own disorientation is growing little by little, and she can feel herself starting to slide, little by little.
Her hand nevertheless snakes past his and Loren has the chance to answer as he bleeds. This particular dance moves step step, and he gains his balance--and steps in. What happens next happens swiftly and fluidly, Lily's feet shifting off the ground as she's twisted and flipped over, the other hand still on her wrist wrenching her arm painfully as she slams back-first to the ground with more stars in her vision.
"Huf--" It knocks some of the wind out of her quickly, dazing her for an instant. Her fingers twitch. She makes a quick decision, with difficulty.
Her markings go violet in an instant. Her eyes start to cloud over, before they're fully black in an instant with the feeling of Ether thick in the air, sucking the life from the room.
A burst of photo-negative light crashes beside Loren, imploding and then bursting into violet and black and gray. Another farther up, on the other side. Another behind. Another closer to Lily than she would like, increasingly unfocused.
With a shattering of glass, the lamp explodes, plunging the office back into darkness. "Wolf--doesn't--"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's starting to work its way through her body. That look in her eyes tells him enough. Which makes this the most dangerous period of the whole business. As she says, she's not the easy type.
"That's because you're a... pointlessly reckless suicidal Lamb," he hisses back, "who doesn't... know when she's had enough."
And she's likely to attempt to take him with her.
He might be counterphobic or paranoid by turns, but he can guess what she's likely to do if she's about to slip under the full effects of the drug. He'll have to try to keep her busy.
Which might be harder than he'd hoped when she shreds half his chest with ice crystals.
But on the other hand, his unarmed self-defence instructor had been incredibly thorough. He'd never thought he'd be grateful for the bruises.
Though momentum -- and choice -- mean he doesn't release his grip and that he ends up on one knee angled overtop her, his one hand sliding from her shirt front to land, palm-down, on the damaged floor beside her.
His chest rises and falls; he exhales sharply through his mouth.
"You... just don't learn, do you," he huffs out, before he properly lays eyes on her face, the markings, her...
she doesn't know when she's had enough
Unlight explodes in the manner of too-close fireworks around him; he chances one sidelong look before flinching his gaze away as if blinded.
And in the next instant, it doesn't really matter, does it? The lamp explodes in a shower of glass and sparks.
He can distantly hear footsteps. This appears to have finally gotten someone's attention.
And in the darkness, considering his proximity to her and the fact that letting go of her wrist might be the worst decision he's made today, considering also the fact that she's unlikely to give up until she goes under...
His only free hand moves in a short simple motion. He unfocuses his mind. Invokes around himself and her a shield.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"You wouldn't... understand a point if it..." He's hissed at her and she's having trouble talking, but she grits it out, "If it ran you right through, you coward!"
She might just make the attempt. In the meantime, Lily is stuck with one arm holding one of hers, a knee overtop her, her opponent filling most of her vision space. Her vision slides, but she glares at him fiercely regardless, almost a glow in her golden eye.
Her elbows rattle against the floor. "Sure... don't," she manages, and she doesn't know when she's had enough, even as her own magic abrades her leg badly as she gets too close to herself, blasts at the shoulder the syringe went into that bleeds now.
Her vision is useless now; she doesn't care. The world is all in black, but she can feel closeness, and a plan knits together in her mind where she discarded it before. "F... Fire...," she murmurs, and a tinge of orange shows in her markings, shining through the blood at her arm. There's sparks at her hands.
...Under that shield, it doesn't become more than sparking. Her hands can feel the burn as her thoughts grow more and more sluggish. "I'll... I'll..."
Her eye starts to flutter. "...Leon..."
The flames shift along her body, unfocused and dangerous, flickering for a few more moments until they fade out, searing wherever they touch Loren.
Her head shifts, tilting sideways as the sorceress loses consciousness. Her good hand remains tightly closed. ...Her clothes are singed. The office is ruined. But she's breathing.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Coward?
The way his shoulders tense, the look in his eyes... She's touched a nerve with that remark. It'll be bruises for sure for that wrist as he exerts undue and altogether unnecessary pressure where he's still touching her.
He doesn't dare let go. Her injured hand is bad enough as it is; with her slipping fast into incoherence, he has decided in practicality that he doesn't actually want to see what she's capable of, or how far she's willing to go to not get caught.
It's technically true that dying first means you're not in the enemy's hands. There's a sort of simple practicality to that sentiment...
Explosions rattle off against his ether shielding under cloak of full darkness. Were there light, she might see -- as her vision fades -- the rippling effect they render upon the barrier he's invoked... or how blank Loren's gaze has gone as he pours the entirity of his will into keeping it up and secure against what might well be the equivalent of a dying rage.
Sparks flicker, too close at hand for comfort. Smoke swirls upwards underneath the barrier. His focus cannot be divided; he has no choice but to let himself be scorched where he touches her.
He can feel it as she goes slack, her wrist limp in his hand. He lets go, letting it fall at her side and slowly rises to his feet as the hurried footsteps -- to the sound of it -- arrives outside the door. It's wrenched open in short order.
He exhales a breath, shakes out his hand, and turns to face the assembled guard as light falls in across the ruined office and the limp body of Lily Keil in the wreckage.
"It took you long enough..."
This is going to be a fun one to explain to command even with her alive, he thinks sourly.