View Full Version : Oh Delilah, Oh Scorn, Oh Vengeance (Solo)
Once confident, domineering and revolutionary; the female lead in the Tantalum troupe had been the epicentre of attention and fame. When Wainwright Jones gave Celia Burton the first leading female role in I Want To Be Your Canary, the very prominence of womanhood on the island nation had trebled, nay, quadrupled overnight. Femininity, beauty, scorn and mystery became paramount to the calculated, brave and selfish counterpart that had once been the young thief Marcus. Whilst Ruby coddled herself in knowing she too was empowered by this woman’s eventual sacrifice to the fiend’s malefic, she had thrived on it, succumbed to its glory, and lived each moment of her life in its throng.
Suddenly found without it, Ruby felt afraid and alone as she walked through the streets of Scara Brae, a former shadow of her confident self. There was little to be said except lies and hate, so she remained silent and furtive between the rattattatat of her hard leather boots. As the clock stroked twelve, she turned a corner and made quick steps down Maryanne Avenue without a thought, determined to reach her destination nowhere before the umbra stalkers of her paranoia ripped and tore at her through the darkness.
“Everything I have worked for is undone, torn apart by the simplest of gestures,” she thought to herself, with diction fit for the stage but possessing none of the stoic conviction her words usually carried.
Not an hour before, her estranged husband and long time sufferer of ills had expressed the desire to be shod of their union, he expressed the desire to obtain a divorce. Her anger and tears mimicked the shards of glass that had fallen from the flute in her hand, sundered by the pure expression of her shock; the note had taken several windows in the ball room along with it.
In one simple second, the world of the Crimson Mistress and the matriarch of the Tantalum troupe fell apart. Whilst they had come so far and done so much to rectify the wrongs of their progenitor, the very thing that had pushed her to succeed, pushed her to survive, suddenly rejected what she had become. Was she so wrong to be a little selfish for once, was she wrong to take stock of her life and request a few fleeting moments of glory for glory’s sake?
“You have hurt me, Lucian Lahore, and I will see to it that you suffer for this deed!” Her words fell like firecrackers to the ground, sparking and rolling along the cobble stones cold and silvery with the light of the moon. Azure, crimson, ochre and gold filled the atmosphere and alleyways with the bridling passion of a woman scorned, and she carried on her journey through the cityscape sombre and embittered.
“Tonight, I will show you what it feels like to be a girl.”
For once Ruby missed the cold and re-assuring presence of Wainwright’s Heart around her bosom. She fingered her naked chest with sharp nails, their motions prangs of invigoration to her addled brain. The tears would not stop, and her nausea would not cease until she could enact her vow upon Lucian, until she could take back everything he had stolen from her. In her sub-conscious world, adrift in the silver sea of the Aria she secretly knew that there was no hope. Not even Lucian or Tantalus himself could bring the dead to life. Her first love, and now her second would remain forever dead to the world and to her affections; lost in a sea of time immemorial. How she hated herself, for being flesh and bones and cheap perfume.
The conviction slowly returned with each step, and she passed through the salty air of the docklands and over the bridge that connected Numarr with Market Square without registering where it is she was, or where it is she was going. The Tantalum had given her instructions about how to find her target, but in the sheer vastness of the world, what hope had she? She could barely find her lip stick to replace the smudges on her cheek and she had little hope of rummaging through her purse to re-apply her bedraggled mascara in the twilight of the early morning.
In truth, she had no idea where she was headed. As she fled the mansion of her suitor and mother to be Lady Gregory, she barked a question at Duffy, and had asked to know where Lucian’s abode was. Seeing the object of his affection sundered, he had replied with a simple set of instructions. “Follow your heart, he shall summon you!” As her heart beat in its cage, and the liquor and wine swirled in the pit of her chest, the stars in the atmosphere faded and the rooftops encroached on her. She tried to rectify reason and logic with passion and spirit, only to find that such an equation ended with a simple bodily rejection of her elixir.
The first signs of the Aria leaking through her vocal chords vanished, along with all hope of Ruby remaining dignified in her assault. With a delicate finger, she curled her hair behind her ears and set the feathers that grew naturally in her hair back in their accustomed place. With a slow sigh, a queasy nod, and a stomping of her heels, she walked on into the night, oblivious to the artwork she had left behind.
Beneath Fourteen Rosemary Amble, six heads rose from their slumber to stare at the stars that would have been visible, if they were not entombed beneath the earth and the sigils of stone. In turn, each smiled and revealed a simple row of white teeth amidst the darkness of the sewers, and then each, in order, muttered a simple word of a simple, time honoured sentence. For decades, Lucian had set a plan in motion to tear every part of the Tantalum Troupe from its comforts, and scatter the ashes to the winds.
“The.”
“Final.”
“Act.”
“Is.”
“Upon.”
“Us.”
He had turned Duffy’s gang against him, and repaid his blood debt as the dagger had been driven through the young thief’s hand twice in quick succession. He had erased Blank’s memory, so that he could never rise to take claim of the Rheinholdt legacy, eternally stricken a pauper amongst brigands and murderers. He had stolen each and every true love of the Tantalum, and burnt their hearts in a vigil to his oblivious, nihilistic nature.
Now the last piece of his puzzle walked directly into his grip, enticed by his torment and ensnared in his scheming. He had encountered Duffy Bracken so many times before, he had lost count the ways in which the thief had eluded him, and surprised himself when he had agreed to their truce, so that the time tears in the fabric of the Aria could be repaired – a mutual alliance to defeat a mutual foe, he had called it.
The damp and mildew of the walls and ceiling drowned each of Lucian’s forms in sickness and pestilence, and gave the small chamber and its ember laden fireplace a glaze of foreboding, a forewarning of the calamity within. Along the small corridor and around the bend, the grates that lead out onto the street opened slowly, as if pushed by unseen hands. A group of drunkards walked hurriedly by, presuming the movement to be a danger, and the windows and curtains miraculously closed by the strength of smothering hands and nervous twitch.
"Come," Lucian's mouths said, "It is time for hostilities to start, for knives to be unsheathed, for death to reign." In his delusion, he did not analyse the aura of the Aria closer as it approached, and most certainly, he did not detect the lavender perfurme and the double clip of expensive shoes. How wrong he could be.
Ruby turned a corner and walked down Sonstheim Amble, an upmarket retail district which had formed around Boochie’s Armoury and Paraphernalia store some thirty years ago. In the interim period, other more up market establishments had appeared in the boarded up windows and the dirty cobbles and sewer laden gutters had been replaced with flower boxes, expensive airs and graces and false niceties to trap unwary passersby in debt and regret. Ruby had not once set foot in these shops, even as a noblewoman with gold to throw to the wind; she walked by now with a thunderous stare set dead onto the dark tunnel of mist at the far end, each step timed well to the beat of her heavy heart.
Never had she felt so angry in all her life. During the dance at Lady Gregory’s, Duffy had revealed some small modicum of truth about Lucian, that he had killed Ruby’s first love and that it was the dark bard that had been working against them in such a secretive way. Whilst Ruby had long suspected Lucian’s involvement and meddling in their affairs, hearing it for the first time had unleashed scorn in her like never before. As she walked, her mind cleared, until she reached the end of the amble and stood panting against a hay cart; bent like an old woman climbing a rickety stair case. “On my life…” she gasped, “I will wreak such havoc in your soul!”
She patted the oak timbers of the cart as if it were a horse and encouraged herself to walk on into the next street. The upmarket houses and bow tied boxes in the windows were replaced with moderately well built and decorated houses stood ten a breast and in false wealth. Here the middle-classes lived, in a sprawling network of old servant quarters which had been consolidated into the possession of a single greedy man who had ‘turned it around.’ She looked at each door as she passed, hoping perhaps just a little that one would be an easy entrance to the coming confrontation. With no luck, she walked out into the Castled Garden Square and froze almost instantly.
The high walls of the landscaped ‘retreat’ for the social elite had one tall wall on the far side. On top of this mini-plateau there were various houses and workshops, which required more sun or leverage to operate cranes for whatever reasons; they could pick up wares from the city and deposit them intravenously onto the docklands beyond. For a moment, Ruby felt as if a hammer had struck her heart. She rocked back and forth and her vision blurred for a few seconds before clarity returned and focussed onto the distant hole at the foot of the wall. She was looking at the entrance to Lucian’s abode, but she could not find the words to describe the simple truth facing her.
With a delicate advance, she walked slowly through the lavender beds and the delicately arranged tulips set in boxes, baskets and in trestle rows around orange and oak trees, counting each step like a death knell. As she approached, she stooped to conquer and slipped inside, unaware of the calamity that faced her in the bowels of her home; as every bit unprepared for Lucian, as Lucian was for Ruby.
The dank and fetid scent of death struck her nostrils and she wrinkled her nose in disdain. She advanced only through the will to see her revenge through, although she did not yet fully understand what it was she could do to hurt him, when Duffy had tried so many times and failed. Her expensive designer boots clipped through the shallow stream of water which fed into the sewer from the gardens outside and at the back of the tunnel, things stirred in the abyss. As she advanced the light began to fade, until it was no more than a pin prick behind her. She held out a hand with fingers outstretched and shuddered as they touched the cold and slimy wall. A few more steps and it gave way to the right, and she swooped around into total darkness, suddenly afraid and held in place only by the nerves of the butterflies in her stomach.
Without any anchor to the world, Ruby was unsure how long she walked through the tunnel. She turned left once, and then right, and finally as she turned left again she could see something at the far end of the final stretch. It was a deep ochre and yellow light, flickering as if motion passed before it. Hopeful that it was a torch of some kind, she quickened her pace. Halfway along the tunnel the scent of death and the dripping of water leaking through the rickety brickwork above stopped; replaced instead by a deep and almost audible drone. Free of the tyranny of alcohol at last, Miss Delacroix stepped onto the verge of Lucian’s pit and looked into the embers of the eternal fire with dread.
The shadows swirled and a choral song of voices ripped through her soul.
“She is not the one; she is the woman of discontent! Bygone flees, so cower and die!”
“I WILL NOT LEAVE!” Ruby roared in response, her right heel stomping and her arms flying out. She saw through the half-light the six creatures that had once been Wainwright, and her vengeance found its voice in the carnal anger of a woman scorned. She spoke without thinking, and mostly without reason, but the loss and pain Lucian had caused drove each hammer blow line into the dark council before her might.
“My name, and you shall remember it well, is Ruby La Roux!”
The return and response was six simple utterances of “Celia.” Ruby’s heart skipped a beat, and as she looked on in shock, in disgust at how simple their refusal had been, the flames of the fire shot into life and illuminated the small chamber fully. The fire pit at its centre was the only feature, with the room shaped like a large cube. Sat and crouched in a semi-circle around the central pit the six wraiths like shadows of Lucian Lahore starred up at the Valkyrie sent to die in their hands. They all smiled with malefic pouring from their eyes and mouths without cause for concern. What, after all, could this puppet queen do to their reign?
“What will you do, woman?” The taller of the creatures asked, a long flowing cape spiralled up around its form as it scowled and stepped back, like a cornered cat. The black shadows formed a pair of bedraggled wings, as if it were trying to take flight from the sickening life before them all.
“You will hear a song for each transgression against me and my kin. You will be reminded of every sin committed, and each line will be an eternity of remorse for the sundered legacy you left behind!”
She opened her mouth and in response, the shadows all smiled. The room span and all faded to nothing.
When the light returned Ruby found herself stood on a vast platform of polished steel amidst a grey sea. She made no mistake in doubting where she was. It had been in this twilight realm of creativity that they fought once before, but then, Duffy had been by her side, and it was her against a single shard of Wainwright Jones. The six wraiths had surrounded her as they jumped through the plains, and they now were truthful to their names.
Envy stood tall and ample, almost human in comparison to his brothers. Long ago, Wainwright had succumbed to this sin and found his fellow troupe member’s talents distasteful. He abhorred the notion of being upstaged, and he had lacerated, cut and tore his way through their ego and vocal cord alike to ensure that he was eternally the leading man.
Greed was a golem, winged and horned and inhuman in every way. It scuttled slowly back and forth across the steel, fangs displayed and hands raking at air as if to curse the patriarch before them. Long ago, Wainwright had been unsatisfied with his lot and his quest to obtain more and more fame, power and prominence in Scara Brae had corrupted his heart with a blackened dichotomy of selfishness and hatred.
Sloth had no shape. It was a simple swirl of shadow, eternally unable to decide or spend the effort on taking a true form. It moved and pulsated like a bed sheet, each movement rippling the fabric of being and reality all around it. Long ago Wainwright had become lazy and over confident that their troupe was the best, and for three long summers he had written nothing new. In that time, another troupe rose to prominence, and Tantalus first cursed his avatar with the spite of ages.
Gluttony stood like a man, but with no face and stomach full to the brim. Wainwright had consumed all the arts and words of Scara Brae and still he hungered for more. Whilst a lesser man would have been content with the history of his home, Jones took to the stars and scrabbled for the libraries of heaven, but was weighed down by his ignorance; or so the fable goes.
Lust was a cloaked figure, floating in the air and glowing with deep red lines of power and crackling energy. He was the first to show a weapon, and the arcane bow showed Ruby that she was out of her depth. Wainwright had lusted for Celia Burton long ago, but had failed to gain her heart. Still he lusted, and still he readied the corrupted irony of Cupid’s bow to ensnare her in an eternity should she ever return from death.
Wrath needed no explanation. The bear like creature was a hulking and bridled shadow golem, with great claws and powerful muscles giving it ferocity and anger. Long ago, Wainwright Jones had lost his mind and took his regrets out on the troupe. He had killed, and killed, and killed again until his rage was sated and finally, the Thayne Tantalus could draw near the fire and snuff it out. That day, he suffered his god’s wrath, and was sundered into seven shards of decadence. Each would be a reminded of the failings and vices of mankind, and each would suffer the eternal sorrow it had inflicted on the world until a day came when forgiveness could be found from the most unlikely of kings.
Ruby dared not move. Whilst she recognised each of the shadows, there were seven sins…seven vices…seven opponents…the strongest and most evil of Lucian Lahore’s bodies must be nearby – it was the most human of them all and it had been the one who stole the Orb of Attainment so long ago. She caught the monster’s eyes, and realised they were all smiling over her shoulder. Silence reigned, and she swallowed the fear from her throat before daring to turn.
Pride bore down on Ruby with a vicious stare as their eyes met. Lucian’s truest form stood mere feet behind her, having appeared from the shadows in silence as she was occupied with his shards. His skin was pallid and deathly, and his hair lanky and wet with grease, but he retained an air of superiority and grace about himself all the same. His tight black clothing and long lapels had not changed in the slightest since their last encounter; he remained a timeless ode to the vanity of man. The silence between them was deafening, until Gluttony belched and the gaggle of monsters behind the spell singer shuffled and moved once more.
“You are a fool, Ruby. To come here alone without cause or care beyond selfish revenge, do you think yourself any better than I?”
She stared, saying more with her reluctance to respond than words ever could.
“No, I did not think so,” he began to walk slowly around her in a wide circle, head cocked to one side to keep their gaze locked. As he passed each of his shards, he waved his hand and sent them away in a flourish of mist and a small vernal implosion. “Tell me, what brings you to the radix of this dark king?” He came full circle and stood before her, now alone in the Aria’s otherworldly hovel. Ruby had everything she had dreamed of, but she doubted she had the courage to take a hold of fate and deliver her blow.
“You killed him,” she said coldly, lips taught and dried from the sudden vacuum of the teleportation spell.
“Ha! I have killed many people in my long years, tell me his name.”
The waves rocked gently to and fro and lapped against the sturdy supports of the great steel platform. The backdrop of the Aria filled the silence as she thought back through time to remember his face, his scent, his smile. It had been so long, and it had been with increasing frequency that she had drunk to forget that it was a laborious task. Slowly and surely a face appeared at the back of her mind and with fury she snapped back at him.
“His name was Johnas!”
Lucian snapped his head back and laughed. It was a simple noise without malice or humour that expressed his recollection. His face shifted as it levelled with Ruby once more and his deathly vigour faded away as he turned into a young man with blonde hair. “Do you remember this face, this unholy visage?”
“I remember everything about you, Wainwright J-“
“ENOUGH!” Lucian snapped his finger and fore thumb together, his disgust visible in his glaring eyes. Ruby’s lips snapped shut, held in place by the telekinetic providence of her captor. “Any modicum of that man is dead to me, for it has been an eternity since we shared a body, mind or song. If all you aim to do here witch is rile me to kill you, you need know only one thing.” With a gentle tug, he lifted her clean off her feet and levitated her statuesque body three foot from the floor. Her boots dangled limply and she trembled under the duress.
“I need no convincing or push to do so,” his leer burnt itself into Ruby’s mind like the flames of the Phoenix’s wings. At the back of her mind the Aria played a requiem of fear and doom, but whose, the Spellsinger could not decipher.
With a gentle push, Lucian tossed Ruby’s body backwards like a child discarding his toy. The binding power relinquished its grip and she flailed her arms and skidded to a halt with a thud. Lucian flickered from reality and re-appeared over her, smiling and shifting his memory form back into the liche he had become through spite and hatred. “Tell me, do you know who is responsible for every tragedy to occur in the Tantalum troupe? Who made each death poignant, and who sealed any hope of defeating me beneath a tomb of ash and sorrow?”
“You, each horrid moment was you!” Ruby tried to crawl away and pushed backwards with her hands and scuffled her feet like a twisted mockery of a crab. Lucian pinned her down with his mind once more, and smiled. With a flick of his wrist, he sent her flying thirty feet along the steel surface until she grew dangerously close to the edge. She looked up groggily and watched the shadowy figure advance slowly across the platform.
“I brought Duffy from the streets to the troupe to ensure his failure was absolute.”
Oh Delilah…Ruby heard a voice from nowhere, and looked around to check she was not being watched. Sing a song of sixpence, sing your heart’s desire and all shall come to life. The soothing tone of the strange comment reminded her of a home she struggled to recall. The scent of apple blossom and pine filled her nostrils, and then the voice fell silent.
“I tore Arden’s memory away to ensure he could never rise against me with that cursed blade!” Lucian pulled back his sleeve to reveal a long scar, healed decades ago but still painful to touch or even look at.
Oh Scorn…let not hatred consume you as it did my beloved. A deeper voice spoke this time, with a hint of sorrow and pity behind every word. Ruby pushed herself up into a crouching position and glared at Lucian. She was suffering the foresighted danger of sobriety and every bit of rage and shock the alcohol had repressed came flooding back, welling up inside into the vocal chords and lyrics of her defiance.
“I inflicted on you the same fate Celia suffered. I inflicted upon you the propensity of your wretched mother!” Everything Duffy had done in recent months came to a head. The woman with the violin, the memories of Albion, the rising threat from unseen enemies; they had all been part of Lucian’s plan and in turn, they had all been part of the greatest performance Duffy had been part of. Today, Lucian would not die, but neither would Ruby La Roux. Something else would succumb to the still death of the dark in their stead;
Ruby's self doubt and meekness.
She spread her boots apart and took on the mantle of her lineage. She did not question how, or why her mother walked amongst the living once again and she did not question why Lucian had chosen her to relive Celia’s mistakes, but she would not doubt her actions any longer. From the Aria, and amplified by their proximity to the source of all creativity came a beautiful melody. Almost instantly a shield formed around her, glimmering with fire and crimson lights. Lucian stopped dead in his tracks, the realisation of what was about to occur hitting him in the chest like a hammer striking a gong.
I am the living memory…
I am the haunting dichotomy…
I am the child with love in her eyes…
Forgive me for seeking this remedy…
Each line conjured a greater thickness to the shield, and each inflection in the pitch and rhythm poured power into the air which crackled with vibrancy. She took a deep nasal breath between the end of the first verse and the start of the chorus and smelt copper and blood and destiny flowing through the air. Lucian ran at her and brought both his fists to bear on the shimmering shell. The shadow which poured out from his pummelling hands flowed harmlessly from its surface, which made his anger grow quickly and his rage become insurmountable. Ruby would only have one chance to burn her imprint on the dark bard’s mind.
For I…am love…and lauuuughter!
For I…am livinggggg the dream!
For I…shall be not looked after!
I am endless, I am fearless, and I am queen!
Her voice grew in angelic similarities as the chorus grew into a rousing speech. The magic worked wonders and the lights died. The sphere remained a translucent barrier between the spell singer and her assailant. Everything shimmered through the looking glass and Ruby smiled. Sweat poured down her brow and her stylistic red dress was sodden, but she was free of his grasp once more. No noise permeated the barrier, and she revelled in the solitude and silence. Lucian’s voice cut not only through metal and wood, but through soul and spirit as well; it had a property that defied the ears and whispered into your brain wherever you went, long echoes haunting you for days beyond the actual utterance.
Oh vengeance! Take it in many ways but the one perceived to be right. The voice spoke once more and finally, Ruby understood. It was the voice of her mother, reaching out from the afterlife and through the veils of mortality to impart a piece of advice that Ruby had longed for all through her childhood. The words did not give her the strength to fight, nor did they teach her all the lessons in life a mother should to her daughter. It simply told Ruby that she was not alone, and that she had to take her toll on Lucian by not becoming him. She had to show mercy, to the creature who had stolen everything away from the last of Tantalus’s faithful.
The two spell singers stared at one another for almost an hour. The veil of light held Lucian at bay long enough for his rage to cease raging and for her heart to stop beating. She had decided in the silence what form her vengeance would take. Lucian had nothing to lose, his life was endless, his love was loveless and his body incorporeal. What could a ghost lose except the last feeble grips on the mortal world?
She raised her hand and drew a curved line around her neck, and Lucian smiled, presuming it to be a death threat of sorts without any grounding. He took several steps back and appeared to pray, placing his hands together and lowering his head in servitude to some dark and higher power. Ruby remembered the great mass of tendrils he had thrown at Duffy in the hallway of Lady Gregory’s, and realised she too would suffer the same fate. She had seconds, if not moments remaining. She clapped her hands and the shield fell away in a glimmering cloud of dust and glass shards, and she ran forwards with all the speed her gusseted form could manage.
As she drew near Lucian looked up at her in shock. Her finger tip touched his neck and she pulled at the invisible reins of power that hung there unseen. The roar that echoed out from his lungs was deafening, and a black of darkness erupted from his body. Ruby was propelled backwards into the air and she skidded inches away from the edge of the platform. She clenched every muscle in her body and waited for the tendrils to strike her. They burst up into the air from Lucian’s cloak and rained down on her one after another. Each strike pierced her soul and clouded her vision like ink on one’s glasses, but she remained resolute. When she was pierced a thousand times, the swarm lifted her into the air and dropped her over the edge.
She reached out and grabbed the edge of the platform, the jolt almost ripping her arm from its socket. She swung there for a few seconds, before looking down into her clenched hand and smiling at the treasure that was there. Free of its prison, the ghostly form of Wainwright’s Heart swung between her fingers, it’s presence cold but soothing to her ego and hopes. Ruby looked up just as Lucian peered over the edge and looked down. She said nothing, and held out her hand so that he could see what she had taken from him.
The deafening roar was all she remembered as she let go of the cold steel platform and descended into the ecstatic embrace of the mercury sea below. The smile on her face was one of forgiveness, one of acceptance, and one of letting go.
Lucian stared at the ripples in the ocean below and stared some more. For days he tried to contemplate what had transpired, and what he had done to cloud his judgement of the spell witch Delacrouix. It was time to forget his petty games, and to begin the war proper.
Tantalus would pay for not recognising the talent he possessed, and the troupe would suffer as he had done. He snarled, clicked his fingers, and returned to the shadows.
---
Epilogue
The docklands of Scara Brae were bustling in the early morning, but all the activity was focussed on the cluttered and fetid docks themselves. Jetties formed mini promenades and hundreds of workers and sailors rushed back and forth with crates and sacks slung under arm and over. So busy and pre-occupied with their selfish exploits were the people of the city, that they did not notice a red headed woman bob to the surface between the hulking Flying Concordia and the merchant navy ship The Gregarr. She coughed and spluttered and spat salt water from her lungs, but righted herself into a steady swim just quick enough to avoid drowning.
She stared at her surroundings and thanked the Thayne that she had escaped the Aria with her life and her trophy intact. Her heart raced and almost fought to break free of her chest, but she was still breathing and whole. She made for the shore and shook up onto a stairway, flopping onto the first level platform to catch her strength and to wring the hem of her dress; now as heavy as steel under the weight of water. Somehow, her anger and her hatred of Lucian had slipped away with the realisation that there were more important things in life than chasing fireflies in bright skies. What sort of life would she lead if she spent every waking hour chasing vendettas and plotting the demise of others?
With the spirit form of Wainwright’s Heart still in her hand and the feathers in her hair now doubled in number, the spell singer Ruby La Roux looked up at the sunny sky, and fell asleep. Soon, she would have to find Duffy and tell him of her exploits. There was still so much to be done before the Tantalum troupe could even begin to fathom the demise of Lucian.
As the old saying went and as her female friends often exclaimed from behind delicate fans waved with labour less fingers; ‘a woman’s work is never done.’
Spoils:
The First Note: Ruby has acquired some very limited understanding about how to manifest defensive abilities in her spell-singing. To develop the ability further, or to form a full song of this type, she must acquire the Second Note and the Crescendo, (effectively an additional two threads worth of spoils to that effect) before being able to use it without duress or extreme luck.
A Flock of Feathers: Ruby now has four phoenix feathers in her hair. Two new ones have appeared on the back of her head running down past her shoulders.
The Shadow of the Heart: Ruby has acquired the spirit form of the artefact Wainwright's Heart. Such an artefact can only be awakened first by removing the curse Lucian has placed upon it. Each of the artefacts mitigates some of the negatives of their associated sins, and in this case, the necklace that is currently with Duffy removes the desire to stare into mirrors or check one's appearance. It mitigates Pride therefore. It's abilities go far beyond that, but need time to awaken. At present therefore, it has the following: it will not grow in strength until Ruby and Ruby alone works out how to remove the curse from the physical artefact.
1. Vainglory: Once per thread, Ruby can touch a certain gem on the necklace and change her hair colour, eye colour or skin colour to something naturally occurring in accordance with her race (in this case, human).
2. Succubus Dream: (Permanent ability). When the necklace is worn, Ruby is resistant to abilities which force vanity or self-delusion about appearance onto her. She does not need to look into mirrors to check her appearance, nor does she find herself caring about her hair or looks in public as much as a typical woman.
In the grand tradition of the theatre,
The End!
Silence Sei
05-14-10, 06:55 PM
I know you said no commentary, but lemme just say I loved this thread. Onto the judgements!
• STORY ~
(18/30)
Continuity (4/10) ~
Setting (7/10) ~
Pacing (7/10)
• CHARACTER ~
(21/30)
Dialogue (5/10) ~
Action (8/10) ~
Persona (8/10) ~
• WRITING STYLE ~
(22/40)
Mechanics (6/10) ~
Technique (5/10) ~
Clarity (4/10) ~
Wild Card (7/10) ~
Final Score: (61/100)
Ruby La Roux receives 1275 Exp, 135 GP.
Furthermore, all requested spoils are approved
Taskmienster
05-14-10, 06:57 PM
Exp and GP added.
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