Lysanne Shard

Lysanne Shard

Atropa Belladonna
Character Profile
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A crumbling watchtower turned waystation near the edge of the holdings of House Tourmalet. Stone walls blackened by old smoke. The air was thin, the kind of cold that bites through whatever one would wear. Snow lingers in patches. A fire sputters in a low stone hearth. Wind hissed through broken arrow slits. The fire inside was meager, and Lysanne had not removed her furlined cloak.

A single table stands in the center, and at it sits Lysanne Kain, the bastard daughter of Count Dylar Tourmalet. She was beautiful in the way a blade may be beautiful. Slender, cold, and designed to wound. Long dark hair spilled over one shoulder. Eyes of amethyst violet regarded the mercenary. Two guards flank her, both armored in mail and plates and visibly armed. A pale, androgynous cupbearer stands at her left, holding a silver pitcher and watching the door with hollow eyes. When the mercenary captain entered, Lysanne did not rise. She remained seated, one gloved hand resting lightly against the rim of her goblet.

"You’re late." Her tone was not scolding, she merely pointed out the obvious. She gestured, once, toward the empty chair across from her. "Sit." On the table were maps over the mines, a ledger and iron markers set with deliberate order. The guards behind her didn’t move. Neither did the cupbearer. She gestured to the map laid across the table between them, tunnel routes, collapsed sections, dwarven markings scratched and deep tunnels inked in black and red, a cluster of iron markers near a shaft labeled Bloodvein.

@Kla Verun
 
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The mercenary stood out among the cold, snow-flecked land she'd summoned him to. With a body wrapped entirely in scarlet, Kal Verun was a bloodstain in the snow-- a cardinal in the dead of winter. Were he not wearing markings of the Devahni painted on his brow, the onyx horns protruding from his forehead would make him appear more demon than man. Quietly, the young Deva lowered himself into the seat, already scanning his surroundings.

Two guards: well armed, but manageable if he exerted himself.
One cupbearer: Seemingly harmless, but likely trained in some capacity to accompany Lady Kain to a meet of this nature.

And then there was Lysanne Kain herself.

Were the violet-eyed woman anyone but a prospective client, Kla would have made some retort as to the dramatic setting she'd chosen for this meet. Noble types, regardless of bloodline or status, had such a penchant for the grandiose that Kla could never bring himself to sympathize with. Verun supposed, though, that she would have stood out far more in some alleyway or dingy tavern.

Beyond her appearance though, he could garner little from her. Those of particular... import... were often difficult to read. Lysanne seemed the result of the Gods pouring ice into the veins of a beautiful woman. She was, perhaps, the most lovely devil Kla had ever met.

But with only a few words, he knew she was just that. A devil. Not that he had any qualms taking money from the unholy.

"You exceed your reputation." He offers, as his crimson eyes scan over the maps she'd laid out before him, taking in the layouts ahead of time, so he could better follow her when she spoke. "I'd heard you were prudent, but this... It's as if you've done it before." His voice dared come within a hairs breadth of teasing.

@Lysanne Kain
 
The sight of him was like a bloodletting come to life. Wrapped in scarlet from throat to heel and crowned with black horns, Kal Verun looked less like a man and more like a bad omen. Only the faintest raise of one brow betrayed her interest. Prudent? he had said. Lysanne? He must have mistaken her for her half-sister, who was all sighs and meek smiles. Her sweet, stupid little sister, who wept for birds in winter and prayed for things that would never come.

"I’ve heard your reputation as well, Verun the Red. Half of it sounds like lies." There was power in her posture. Straight-backed, hands still, chin slightly lifted. "But I assume you are capable.."

She did not turn her head when she shifted her gaze. Only her violet eyes moved, glancing at the pale cupbearer at her side. The figure moved silently, pouring the burgundy red wine into her goblet, then into a second for the mercenary, with the grace of a priest performing a rite.

"There is unrest in my family's mines. The dwarfs employed there have begun to imagine themselves irreplaceable. They now hoard their secrets and work slow."

She took the goblet in hand once more, letting it rest near her mouth without drinking.
A pause.

"My cousin went to speak with them. They returned his tongue in a leather pouch. That was six days ago."
Her voice did not dress itself in grief or anger. If there was any mourning to be done, it had been sorted privately and resulted in a list of names. Her fingers tapped the edge of the map, near the shaft Bloodvein, where iron markers clustered.

"You will take your men down there and put this nonsense to an end." She leaned back slightly. "You’ll be paid in gold if it’s clean. Paid again if it’s quiet." She took a slow sip of wine.
 
"I’ve heard your reputation as well, Verun the Red. Half of it sounds like lies."

Kla shrugged, his eyes travelling down to the wine as it fell into the cup. Foul tasting stuff, in his opinion. Still, he picked up the goblet with a gloved hand and swirled the contents about as he spoke. "I wouldn't be sitting in front of you if I wasn't. Nor would you have chosen me if you didn't have some measure of certainty."

Verun took a small sip of the burgundy through his chalk-pale lips, tumbling it about in his mouth for a second before swallowing. She hadn't called him to have conversation, and his attention turned to the maps in front of him once more as he listened closely to her request.

"There is unrest in my family's mines. The dwarfs employed there have begun to imagine themselves irreplaceable. They now hoard their secrets and work slow."

Dwarves. They could be hardy bastards, nasty when you pissed them off. Even nastier if they thought you weaker than them.

"My cousin went to speak with them. They returned his tongue in a leather pouch."

Case in point.

Kla let out a sigh as he lowered his glass back to the table, no sympathy offered for the loss of her cousin. It was doubtful Lysanne sought any pity, especially from a mercenary. No, he would console her with the blood of those responsible. That was the best way, was it not?

"What a mess. No doubt they're dug in, what with all the material at their disposal down there." Verun brought a finger to the lines of the shafts that ran along the edge of the map. "Dwarven mine, so it's narrow enough in some places that any substantial group of men would have to travel almost single-file. Easy pickings for prepared, and angry, miners."

Kain didn't need mercenaries, she needed a suicide squad.

"I'll do it." Kla a leg over his knee, turning his ember-red gaze back to his new client. "A small team. Three at the most. Any more is a waste of flesh." He didn't expect a high survival-rate anyway. "I must ask, though. What is your definition of 'quiet'?"

@Lysanne Kain
 
Lysanne did not return his gaze immediately. She watched the fire, the sputter of it in the broken hearth. 'I wouldn't be sitting in front of you if I wasn't.' “You’re right.” she said finally.

The scent of the wine clung to the cold air like blood on silk, blackcurrant and spice. A vintage from the southern coast, and the bottle old enough to have been poured for kings. Aged in caskwood older than her grandfather. It was not meant for mercenaries. But still, she’d had it served today. When he drank, she watched. Watched the wet stain from the red wine on his pale lips. The wine costs more per bottle than any mercenary. Kla would probably never be served it again anywhere.

“A small team is acceptable.” she said. “Too many men, and the tunnels might collapse before any steel is drawn.” The Runefolk know the stone better than engineers from the surface. She met his gaze, eyes sharp as splinters of amethyst.

“When I say quiet, Captain, I mean this: no witnesses, no songs, no bodies dragged up the mountain to be paraded...” she echoed, a voice like silk. "Whatever happens in Bloodvein stays buried down there. I want no rumors bleeding up through the stone." To think that she had to say that literally to someone like him. "I do not want my Lord brother summoned to answer for the screams under his soil. Bloodvein will be silent, sealed it if you must.”

She leaned back slightly, a gesture of dismissal, or authority, or both. She brought the wine to her lips. But before she drank, she asked over the rim of the goblet. "What do you require? Equipment, provisions... whatever it is, it will be seen to."
 
The entire time they'd sat at this table, with every drop of wine that passed his lips, Kla could feel the weight of her gaze. When she spoke, he could hear the razor-sharp edge behind her smooth, velvet voice. Somebody hadn't told her exactly who it was she sought to employ. He was no 'Captain'. Certainly, he had no team.

It made those stained lips of his curl into the phantom beginnings of a smile.

"A little funny, Isn't it?" This was around the time his father would have reprimanded him, putting an end to any errant thoughts spoken aloud. Alas, Kerros wasn't around to correct the wayward mind of his spawn today. "How circumstances can force you to tolerate those you'd see as little more than dirt beneath your foot?" Kla brought up a thumb to his lips, wiping the wine from them and leaving a small burgundy mark on his glove.

"This wine, the polite discourse... We're not friends, you and I. Here I am though, prepared to take dozens of lives for you. A human. You'd have been better off splashing your expensive wine on a sword."

The Devahni pushed his seat back and stood, grasping at the edge of the map and tightly rolling it for storage in his coat. A plan had already formed in his head, one that would satisfy all of Kain's requirements while allowing some continued use of Bloodvein.

"I apologize for that brief aside. I find humor in odd places, I've been told..." Verun closes his eyes and offers a brief, apologetic bow of his head. "I will require two glass jars of salt, and access to the finest Apothecary you know of." His eyes flitter over to the veil of snow that had begun to fall outside, a curtain that cut his vision, obscuring the horizon. Kla's lips twitched, and he felt his fist tighten in response to the increasing chill in the air.

"I will embark tomorrow. Do you know where I can rest for the evening?"

@Lysanne Kain
 
"You'd have been better off splashing your expensive wine on a sword." Lysanne didn’t flinch at his words, though there was a brief flicker in her eyes as she regarded him, her lips slightly curving into a smile. “I do hope the wine isn’t too rich for your taste." she added with a teasing smirk. “If it doesn’t meet your taste, I must apologize. It’s not often I invite men of your ... talent to my table. You’ll have to forgive my lack of expertise in your preferences. I could have something more fitting brought to you. You’re a man of dubious taste, no?”

She tilted her head slightly. “And as for the polite discourse, well, you’re right, we’re not friends. But then, I hardly think the occasional conversation or drink should be an insult to anyone’s standing." Men and their fucking egos. She sighed. “If I truly thought you were ‘dirt beneath my foot,’” she said with a voice cold as silk. “I wouldn’t have bothered to invite you into my presence."

"I suppose you’ll need some rest. There are quarters above.” She gestured toward the spiral staircase leading upward. "As for your... requests, I’ll see to them."

“There’s more to this place than broken stone walls,” she said. “This tower, ruin though it is, was not chosen for its rustic charm.” She nodded toward the hearth, where the fire had begun to gutter low again. “Beneath the foundation, there’s an old passage. Forgotten, mostly. It connects to the deeper tunnels, it will lead to the lower veins. It is not on any map. My grandfather used it once, during a revolt." Her gaze returned to him. “You’ll find the entrance sealed under the cellar stones. From there, you can descend unseen.”
 
Kla felt the corners of his mouth twitch at his client's response. It was a rather levelheaded retort to what had been a thinly veiled attempt to gauge her temperament. He'd not given her enough credit, it seemed. With a small shrug of his shoulders, the Deva turned his head toward the dwindling fire, reaching up to tuck his silver locks neatly behind his horns. "You misunderstand, but that is my fault."

It was not Lysanne he accused of looking down upon him, but the other way around. "I was raised from a very young age to despise humanity. Taught that your kind was the sole reason mine are slowly dying out, why our cities now merely what yours are built upon." It was a generational contempt, the only true heirloom he'd received from his father.

Gesturing vaguely toward the bottle of wine still sat upon the table, he spoke bluntly. "Though I am often forced into taking you on as clients, these pleasantries are a first. Courtesy, from the daughter of my enemies."

There was a pregnant pause strung up in the chilly air, now barely mitigated by the waning flames before Kla would opt to leave it at that, turning on the heel of his boot to venture up toward the quarters above them. A covert entrance into the mines would only simplify things further, and hopefully, would minimize his time under this contract.

"Excellent. That makes thing easier." He grumbled more to himself than back to Lysanne, stopping at the base of the stairs to bid her good evening with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "Rest easy, Lysanne. So long as you don't mind some dwarven casualties on your conscience, the matter of Bloodvein should be off of your shoulders shortly."

@Lysanne Shard
 
“How tragic..” she murmured, lifting her goblet “...to inherit only hatred when there are so many better heirlooms." She smirked and drank. Unhurried, lips brushing the rim like a lover’s ear and then lowered the glass to the table with a faint click. Lysanne did not rise. She watched his retreat with stillness. A pair of amethyst eyes followed his movements. One hand curled loosely around the stem of her wineglass, the other rested on the armrest. One leg crossed the other beneath the table.

“If you think me a daughter of your enemies, you’re seeing me through your father’s eyes... not your own.” A pause. Measured. She took another sip, then let her gaze linger on him as he turned to leave. “One would hope you were more of your own man than that.” She smirked and slowly rose from her seat. The velvet of her gown whispered softly against the stone floor. “I’ve no interest in dragging old ghosts into new wars. No one’s forcing you to take this contract, Verun the Red.”

Her fingers trailed lazily along the rim of her wineglass before she abandoned it entirely, stepping around the table with unhurried grace. She came to a slow stop beside the heavy oak table, her hand resting lightly against its worn edge as she leaned in, letting her weight settle into one hip. “If all of this... the wine, the civility, the offer... is an insult to some dying grudge your bloodline keeps in a jar, then don’t drink. Don’t accept. Gods know I can find someone else.” She said, watching his back.

She reached forward and idly adjusted the map he’d left slightly askew on the table. Lysanne raised her brows as he waved her off, a half-smile dance on her lips like the aftertaste of expensive wine. “Mm. Dwarven casualties...” Her tone was light, almost playful. "I'll sleep soundly when knowing that you’ve... taken care of it."
 
Kla had already begun to ascend the staircase as the last of Lysanne's words left her, but what she said was far from lost on him. Indeed, though she would not see it, the Devahni's eyes would flitter back in her direction with an introspective cant of his head to the side. For the briefest of moments, however fleeting, the logic she presented did pierce that fog of bitterness that had been pumped into his head.

One stitch wouldn't close a wound. If anything, the woman had merely given him something to ruminate on during his sleep. With the sound of her voice carrying softly behind him, Verun ascended the stairs and retreated into his quarters. The cold embrace of stone was a fitting environment for a sleep haunted by spirits of a hatred not his.

Or perhaps that was just the Shroud, pulling at the strings of his mind again.

Regardless, As the Deva disrobed and sat down upon the mattress provided for him, he paid a thought to the strange woman below him. He'd misjudged her, to some extent. Perhaps in another life, at another time, he'd have been interested to prod further into her mind, if out of nothing but sheer curiosity.

The dust stung as he inhaled it, a fine blue powder clinging to the sides of his nostrils as his vision blurred and his heart thumped against his sternum.

No, he would complete this task, and never cross paths with these people again. That was the nomadic way of his tribe, even before he lived under the thumb of his Father. The gold that would line his pockets would come from the blood of the Dwarves, not words off of a tongue. Verun's back hit the bed, the strange drug he'd just ingested spreading through his body like the roots of a rapidly growing tree.

Sleep would come quickly, but it would be fleeting. There was much to do.


"Shortblades only." Kla instructed the men who would be descending with him. He stood in cellar, below where he'd met with Lysanne the evening prior, with the supplies he'd asked for stacked neatly against the wall, and a travelling Apothecary dutifully working on several mixtures he'd requested. "No armor heavier than leather. I need you to be quick and unencumbered or this plan will mean your deaths."

He'd yet to see Lysanne this morning. Verun supposed she might have opted not to see them off; He wouldn't necessarily have blamed her-- Her role in this business had ended, save for supplying the payment when all was said and done. Still, some part of him had hoped to...

"Your order, ser."

Kla looked to the Apothecary, now holding several pouches full of a dull grey powder on a tray. The Deva approached and plucked one up, raising it to eye level to inspect it. Fine work indeed; Lysanne didn't skimp on his request. "This will do." He hummed, nodding to the slight woman who'd prepared it. "You may leave, with my thanks."

Turning back to his men as they moved aside the last stone concealing the hidden entrance to the mines, he inspected his own equipment one final time: A dagger, two jars of salt, three pouches of power, and a lantern. A bit heavier than he usually travelled, but it would not matter. If all went to plan, he wouldn't personally be facing a single foe today.

"We're nearly ready now. Secure your equipment and prepare to fall in behind me on my order."

@Lysanne Shard
 
There was no lady here to see them off, no violet gaze watching brave men and women descend into the earth, no parting words from Lysanne.

The last of the stones shift away with a dull grinding crunch, revealing the hidden shaft, a cramped passage carved long ago. Cold, damp air rolls out, laced with the metallic tang of deep earth and something else… fungal. Faintly sweet, and faintly wrong. Kla’s men secured their gear in silence, the only sound the creak of leather and the soft click of buckles and clasps. One of them mutters a quiet prayer to the Unyielding.

The only light came from the lantern, its dull orange glow sliced through the black. It barely pushed the darkness back more than a few steps. The secret shaft led downward, not by steps, but by a slanted crawlspace cut from the bedrock. Ten feet in, the passage narrows, shoulder-tight, single-file. The ceiling lowers. The only sound is the faint drip drip drip of water. Then silence.

After a dozen paces, a side shaft splits into a collapsed crawlspace half-swallowed by stone rumble.
Then… a sound.

Dum... dum... dum...

Not loud. Not close. But deep. Subterranean. Rhythmic. Dwarven drums. Not for song or celebration, but to communicate between galleries. The map Lysanne had left Kla showed that they had a one-hour walk ahead, if undisturbed. The passage would take the group to an old loading platform once used to raise ore to the upper shafts. They passed forgotten things along the way down into the mountain, old rails twisted and rusted, a broken pickaxe with a shaft snapped in two, and, once, a brittle and pale femur.

@Kla Verun
 
If the dark, dank, foreboding environment of the narrow passageways and crumbling tunnels had any effect on Kla, it didn't show through his expression. If the will of the earth was to swallow him whole and entomb him beneath the frosted ruins above, then so be it. Death, though, had eluded him even when he'd begged for it. These rocks would not change fate's plans for him.

On the contrary, they would be the very soldiers to heed his call and quell the uprising he'd been loosed against.

"We continue forward, until the path widens or branches." Kla mutters to men behind him, speaking no louder than he must. They made enough noise as it was, the glass jars in his pouch scraping against the stone embracing him on either side, the rhythmic clinking of the lantern as it swayed with his movement, and the anxious mutters of those following him into the hell waiting underneath the mountain.

"D'you guys hear that?"

"Sounds like drums, yeah."

"Figure they know we're here?"

Verun's eyes flicked over his shoulder, raising a hand to hush the men. "They will, in time. Fenris, retrieve a salt jar from my pouch." The youngest of their group, and ever so eager to prove his mettle, Fenris quickly opened the clasp on Kla's hip and pulled out the glass container.

"Open it, and leave a trail on the ground as we move."

On his brow, Kla felt a draft. Unlikely they neared any access to the surface, so he figured the platform must be nearing. So long as they weren't waylaid before reaching it, the plan he'd concocted was progressing smoothly. He only wished he'd more intelligence on the number of the Dwarves, or their concentration.

Ah well, he wasn't paid to ask questions.

@Lysanne Shard
 
The trail of salt hissed faintly as it scattered across damp stone, a pale line dusting the tunnel floor. The deeper they pressed into the bowels of Bloodvein, the tighter the air grew, thick and cold the damp tang of disturbed mountain. And beneath that… the drums. Not war drums, not quite.

The passage narrowed once more, forcing them to stoop. Black veins of iron glinted in the lanternlight. Fenris trailed the salt dutifully. At last, the slope evened, and the hidden passage opened into a hollow cut into the stone: the old loading platform, no longer in use, but still mostly intact. Its massive wooden beams arched overhead like ribs, blackened with age. Chains hung from the ceiling, thick as a man’s arm.

An ancient winch-wheel stood at the edge of a shaft that dropped into utter blackness. Ropes long since dry-rotted trailed uselessly into the void. The light of the lantern played off soot-streaked walls and the remnants of chalk markings. Routing instructions, cargo manifests, sigils once used by dwarven crews to track movements and shifts. Most had been crossed out as the shaft above them had failed them.

To the left of the platform was an equipment shed, mostly collapsed. To the right: a metal grate pried open, leading down a narrow maintenance tunnel. That tunnel was never meant for soldiers, only inspectors, engineers or the occasional bat-catcher. Beyond that tunnel: Bloodvein.

@Kla Verun
 
As they emerged out into the wider, far more welcoming chamber which housed the ruined loading platform, Kla heard his men as they released the breaths that had been sucked into their guts, felt the thud of bags and knees hitting the dirt as they mistook this landmark for some beacon of reprieve.

Verun The Red was under no such illusion. This was merely the benchmark; where those unworthy would be chewed up and spit out by the unforgiving stone prison which would slowly close in on them once more.

"Don't get comfortable." He growled back to those brave, unfortunate few. Verun held the lantern high as he stepped slowly toward the metal grate, peering through the opening to the inhospitably tight tunnel it once concealed. "Things only get tougher now, and we've not even reached the dwarves yet."

Kla didn't need to look at the men to hear their spirits deflate, but to spoon-feed them what they wished to hear would only condemn them further. Even if they stood little chance of making it out of these accursed caves intact, they still had their uses. Turning his back to the grate, The Deva detached the lantern from his armor and held it out for Fenris to take.

"You stay here, place the powders around the mouth of the pit. When we return, light it."

Fenris gave a dire nod, knowing well the dangers of Kla's plan, slowly revealing itself. He beckoned the other two men to prepare themselves for the maintenance tunnel, unbuckling and removing the armor he wore from the waist up and instructing them to do the same.

"It's going to get hot, and in clothes like ours you'll overheat long before anything else can kill you. We go in with Josef ahead of me, and Rudol behind."

Finally, some words of protest. Kla was surprised it had taken this long.

"We're goin in' half naked? With no lantern? Aren't you supposed to be some big-shot bounty hunter, Verun? Sounds to me like you've lost your gourd!"

"The lantern won't fit in these narrow spaces with us, Rudol." The mercenary barked back, turning to watch Josef as he pushed himself against the cave wall and began to slide his way in. Kla pressed his bare chest against the stone, only barely wincing as the rough texture ground at his pale flesh before shimmying to follow. "Close your eyes, and heed my words... Or stay here and die when I return, I care little."

The Devahni didn't wait for an answer, but the presence of Rudol behind him as the blackness of the maintenance tunnels swallowed them all told him all he needed to know.

@Lysanne Shard
 
The tunnel’s maw closed behind them like the gullet of some ancient beast. Within, there was no room for pride or to stand upright. There was only room for breath, grit, and the scrape of bare skin against cold stone. Each step forward was a crawl, elbows and bellies grinding on rough stone slick with condensation.

The tunnel opened just slightly, enough for a man to crouch, to breathe. Through a grate of iron bars, bent open years ago, Bloodvein came into view. The chamber was no city under the mountain, but it had once been mighty in its own way. Bloodvein was a central artery in the spine of the mine. Rough stone arches curved overhead like the ribs of a long-dead beast, their old carvings now chipped and blackened by years of smoke and neglect. The space stretched maybe a hundred paces wide, and twice that long, supported by six thick columns, not decorative, but vital, bearing the weight of the mountain above.

Voices.
Close.

Dwarves. Armored in patchwork metal and leather. Many bore the old company markings scraped on their breastplates. Others wore red sashes or copper-beaded braids, tokens of the strikers’ new brotherhood. They argued loudly near the base of a central platform, five gathered around a table made from an big of slab of dark porphyry. The table looked like it was carved from a piece of the starry sky.

“An’ when the south shaft came down, they pointed fingers at us, didn’t they? Called it sabotage. We lost fourteen good men in that fall, an’ what do they send? Not priests. Not rope. Guards!” A young, fiery dwarf with a short red beard complained loudly.

“Ye’re no listenin’, Brunn. Aye, we hold the Bloodvein, for now... but we’re runnin’ low on oil. Lanterns’ll be dry by week’s end. And we still’ve no word from the east shaft.” Said an older man, voice hard as bedrock. His long, white beard almost dragged on the ground.

"‘Cause they’re dead, Torrik!" The voice belonged to an angry, female dwarf with oat-colored, thick hair. Her hair was divided into two braids, thick as a man's forearm.

“Told ye not tae send folk back up! Ye think the cunts above’ll come down here ta’ talk? That bastard bitch has coin an’ killers!”

“She’s no her da. And even if she were, they need this vein. Every inch o’ iron they can scrape, they’ll want it. They won’t collapse it.”

“Aye, yer right about that... she’s worse!” Brunn exclaimed.

“You still stuck on what she did to Harald?” Said a forth voice.

“That poor lad..." Torrik sighed, shaking his head.
 
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