Liliana Vess Defiant Necromancer

(Letter from Geralf, Budding Assassin and Conqueror of Thraben; 48th of Hunter's Moon, Ava. 716)

My dear Gisa,

May I commend you on your excellent progress! I see smoke rising from the wall. Your triumphal entry into the city will be glorious indeed.

You will be pleased to know that I write you from the lunarch's chambers! It was all too simple really. Knock knock, it's death calling. He simply answered the door. I killed him with a golden letter opener and kept the heart for you!

While I could bask in my ascendancy for hours, I don't want to leave you on the doorstep by yourself. What kind of host would I be? I shall leave the splendor of my new cathedral and be at your side presently.

Your loving brother,
Geralf

***
"What is he doing?"

Night had fallen before they found Bishop Volpaig's residence, a modest two-story townhouse in a neighborhood better known for its middle class merchants than its ties to the ecclesiastical community. However, while the house was occupied by three servants, Volpaig himself still hadn't made an appearance and so they'd retreated for a few hours, waiting for either the servants to retire of the bishop to return, and avoiding the patrols enforcing curfew. Ignis deemed it too risky to infiltrate his house when they had no idea his defenses and he wasn't even there to interrogate, while Liliana chafed at the continued delay.

However, their caution was rewarded when, sometime after midnight, not only had Volpaig returned home, but he'd dismissed his single cathar guard and his staff. But he had not retired, oh no. Instead he'd doused every light in his house but a single lamp and was moving about from room to room in some kind of furtive frenzy.

Ignis frowned thoughtfully as he considered this question, in light of everything Liliana had whispered to him in description and everything he had heard and sensed with his own ears, as well. He wished a better answer had come to him more quickly, but as he started to put together the late return, the dismissal of the staff as well as his guard, and the movement around the residence, he had come to two possible conclusions.

Well, three. But he wasn't entirely convinced that Liliana had only asked her question rhetorically.

"Could he be searching for something?" he wondered. "That he would not care to have anyone else know is there? But he could perhaps be preparing to make an exit, with the cover of night to help him, after ensuring to leave very little trace behind."

"Or perhaps preparing for some kind of ritual," Liliana suggested. Her eyes narrowed and she added crossly, "He'd better not be leaving, I am not hunting him down all over again."

Look, she was a little cranky at the delay. Griselbrand needed to be dead already.

"Well, whatever he's doing, I'm pretty sure we don't want him to finish." And they might as well make their move while he was distracted. "Are you any good at picking locks, my darling?" Liliana wasn't, but she had her own ways to get inside the house if need be.

( Ignis should dual-class Fighter: Battlemaster and Rogue: Mastermind, change my mind. )

***
Liliana washed her face, making sure to remove all traces of her bloody nose, and considered her next move. All right, fine. She couldn't make good on her threat to Volpaig, but she still had one more chance. Mikaeus, lunarch of the Church of Avacyn.

Looked like she was heading back to the Cathedral after all.

[Clearly still preplayed with the fantastic chef_chocobro, who gets all the thanks in the world. NFB, NFI, OOC always adored. Warning for battle and NPC death. Follows this post and this one.]

The first juggler, wearing studded red leathers and ribbons that ended in sharp metal fishhooks, ( Cut for graphic and potentially disturbing imagery )

***
Liliana surfaced into the streets of the Upper City well after midnight, ( still idly wiping away the spatters of blood )

***
Liliana let herself into the mansion, the piece of shaped metal in her hands a twin to the the one she'd pressed into Ignis' hand the day before her party, full of meaning and significance. She tossed her mantle over a table in the foyer, and started making her way deeper into the house to head upstairs to the bedroom - though she stopped short when her steward stepped into the way. He said nothing, simply bowed - and gestured into the parlor. Frowning she walked into the room - and there saw Ignis, sprawled on the divan, his phone in his hand, sleeping the sleep of the positively exhausted.

Part of her didn't wish to wake him. Surely any conversation they could have could wait until the morning. But also she knew what she would want him to do, were their roles reversed. And how she would feel, to find him sleeping blithely up in the bed, while being left to sleep on the divan. So instead, she crossed to him, bending down to brush cold lips across his cheek, and murmur, "Wake up, 'Nys. It's time to come to bed."

[For he who is mentioned and permissibly modded! Pretty much everything in the first section c/p'd directly from Greg Weisman's War of the Spark: Ravnica and then lightly changed for content. (Look, it's a perfect depiction of Rakdos entertainment and it needed to see the light of day). Content warning beneath that first cut for gore and violence! Everything on Ravnica NFB, obviously.]