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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 2275574" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 398Embril Aloustinai turned over a piece of rock with her foot, a frown as deep as a canyon etched on her otherwise fair and even alluring features. “You are not listening, Embril!” came a shrill, almost panicked voice.  “A planetar… do you know what that means!  And on top of that, the destruction of the Egg… disaster!  Our enemies close upon us!”Embril looked up, fixing the speaker with a desultory look that momentarily quieted her.  Thifirane Rhiavati had fallen far, to be certain.  The once unflappable noblewoman—and powerful mage—was clad in a hastily-donned dressing robe that failed to conceal the gaunt flesh that clung tightly to her bones beneath.  Her hair, which she’d always taken a considerable vain pride in, hung in a confused tangle around her face.  Blood trailed from a gash in her forehead just below the hairline, a cut from a fragment of the Egg when it had exploded outward, most likely—but the woman seemed to not even feel it.  She already had an old bandage secured across the center of her forehead.  Embril was glad for that, at least; the eye-graft that had been a gift from Lord Vhalantru had been… troublesome, but the organ with its nasty potency had begun to rot in its new home shortly after the beholder’s death, leaving an ugly gray scar upon the wizard’s face as a reminder of the fate of those too proud to admit the possibility of failure. “Panic will not solve our problems, my dear,” Embril said, calmly.  “And we will yet obtain our objective… I have seen it.”The conviction in the woman’s voice did not arrest the doubts of the wizard.  “The Egg…”Embril waved her hand dismissively.  “The Egg of Merrshaulk was a potent boon,” she said.  “But it is one we inherited, not one that we crafted for ourselves.  And if it could not even contain the celestial, then its viability was limited in any case.  To be honest, we were not going to remain much longer in this place.”“Embril,” came the voice of another speaker, across the room.  “Viirdran requires more healing.”Embril turned from the still-fuming wizard and walked across the room.  It wasn’t easy—fragments of stone ranging from sharp slivers a few inches long to blocks the size of a child’s head littered the floor.  She also had to step over the mangled corpse of a farastu demodand, split open almost from head to crotch to reveal a disgusting, sticky mess inside.  Small puddles of acid that had until recently been inside the Egg of Merrshaulk filled subtle indentations in the floor, complemented by gobs of demodand slime that formed glistening slicks here and there.  These obstacles required further adjustments.  Embril appeared to pay no heed to such inconveniences, reaching the one who had requested her aid. Kyan Winterstrike rose as she approached, nodding to the man resting against the wall beside her.  The elf and her companion were an odd pair, for she was clearly a moon elf, while Viirdran was a drow, his fine robes marred by the vicious rents that had opened gaping holes in fabric and flesh alike.  He’d already been stabilized by Embril, but still breathed laboriously, pain evident on his face. Embril bent and channeled healing power into the injured man. “They will be back,” Thifirane continued, still on the far side of the Egg—now just an uneven base upon its pedestal.  “That planetar will be eager to treat with us again, I suspect.”“I am quite certain you are correct,” Embril said, rising again, drawing out a small white cloth to clean one of her fingers of a smear of blood gathered from her brief contact with the drow blademaster.“What are we to do, Embril?” Kyan asked. “Gather Sorizan, and Xokek as well.  And bring me Nahazir’s corpse to me as well… that useless fool may yet offer some benefit to our cause.”“Xokek will not come willingly,” Viirdran said, the drow’s voice deep and thick, as though echoing from within a vast empty cavern inside his body. “He will come,” Embril said.  “Where are you going?” Thifirane asked, as Embril walked toward one of the chamber’s less obvious exits.  She had to know the answer already, and Embril smiled before turning at what it revealed of the woman’s fears. “I must consult with my companion,” she said.  “And I have too long neglected our other guest.”“You are taking a very big risk with that, Embril,” Thifirane said. Embril Aloustinai laughed at the comment.  She did not share the reason for her mirth, but as she turned and walked away, she felt a grim thrill of sensation that was both pleasure and gut-clenching terror, in the same instant.  Thifirane had once been among the highest in their cabal, but the destruction of her little make-believe world in Cauldron had clearly had a deleterious effect upon her.  For having forfeited their very mortal souls to their cause, what did it matter what they risked now?</blockquote>

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