Liliana Vess Defiant Necromancer

Liliana had thought the storm would be the worst thing they would run into in their flight from her invaded home, but she had been wrong. The storm had eventually subsided, but the countryside of Stensia had become a twisted zoo. Liliana noted that every passerby had something reshaped about them. The bodies of roving vampires had the wrong silhouettes, always with too few of something, or too many. Anatomically improbable travelers raved prophecies of stone and sea at them as they staggered in diagonals.

Their trek had been long, lasting deep into the night - the werewolves had torn through her horses and zombies both, leaving them to walk. But now, finally, Liliana, Gared, and (haltingly) Dierk, had arrived at the monumental door.

Lurenbraum Fortress soared above them, a stark cliff with a citadel that protruded directly from the rock face. Higher up, the utilitarian architecture softened and elongated into tiers of ornate leaded windows, each one with its own floating chandelier of twinkling candles. In many of the windows, vampires peered down at them, wearing gleaming ancestral armor.

Liliana gestured for Gared to knock.

Gared gawked at the door's height. "You really know the lady of the house?" he asked.

Dierk, for his part, made a gurgling noise. The man's neck was broken, so his head rested at a weird angle and his throat looked lumpy. But at least his legs had gotten him here, and at least his arms had been capable of carrying the spent witchbane orb. Gared's long coat was strapped tight around Dierk's midsection, doing its best to hold the remainder of the dead man's insides in. Liliana raised her hand slightly, and Dierk squared his shoulders, but his head still dangled to one side. The desiccated tongue wouldn't stay completely inside his mouth, contributing to the gurgle. Liliana shrugged.

"I make it my business to know those who wield power," Liliana said. "As does she."

( Gared banged on the door and stood back. )

[Taken and only minimally adapted from "Innistrad's Last Hope" by Doug Beyer. Follows this. NFB, NFI, OOC is wonderful!]

"Kill! Kill Her!" "Kill the witch!" A group of villagers stood outside of the church that abutted the local graveyard. They were waving farm implements, various weapons, and lit torches. "Filthy death mage!" "You'll get yours soon, witch!"

( So. You might be wondering how I got here. )

[Heavily adapted from The Raven's Eye Pt 3, written by Jenna Helland and illustrated by Paul Lee. Preplayed with the unspeakably amazing chef_chocobro. Follows this]

Liliana had curtailed her office hours only to the few hours between her class and the end of Ignis', after which she was rushing home with unseemly haste. It had been several weeks since she'd figured out the mystery behind the skull artifact she had received at the Consortium and now she was ready to play with the delightful creature that was keyed to the skull's power.

Hmm. But first, it needed playmates.

She sent a text to Gladio because if there was anyone who would have as much fun fighting a giant, skeletal monster as she had animating it, it was him. Honestly, she debated sending out texts to even more people, just to see who might be interested in a friendly battle against one of her undead creations. After all, even if they destroyed the darling, she could just stand it back up again with a bit more mana.

Regeneration was a hell of a thing.

And once Gladio had been called, she set the skull down and summoned two zombies that barely made it through the Blind Eternities before she was permanently sacrificing them to power the skull. They fell into dust, the skull cracked like an egg, and the purple necrotic mist it released fashioned itself into a multi-headed, skeletal dinosaur that towered above the roof of the mansion. It didn't quite break the treeline, but it was close. It glowed from within by a searing purple light and together, all three heads roared their primal fury. Because magic just sometimes let things be dramatic that way, that was why.

Behold, the Dread Osseosaur.

"Oh sit," Liliana said, waving at it. "And hush. You'll spoil the surprise with all that racket." The creature sat, heads drooping like a scolded puppy. "There, there, you'll be fine," she cooed. "Once people start arriving, you can play, but until then, we're behaving."

Hmm. Maybe she could inveigle Ignis into making some snacks to nibble on while she waited.

[Okay, so SOME THINGS! Liliana is basically creating a kind of Fight Club, where interested people are welcome to come into her backyard and fight whatever fun new creation she has brought forth. It's important necromancer enrichment, okay? These creatures are confined to the property, they will not go anywhere else in town, and they are fully under her control, which means that people might get banged up a bit because it is a fight, no one is in any danger of grievous injuries or death, so please don't mod that happening. All fighting posts will be marked NFB so nobody feels obligated to investigate what is happening - basically, all participation is opt-in and without an official report on radio, nobody feels pressured or obligated to interact with these post "because it's what their characters would do." Feel free to live in blissful ignorance if you don't want to be involved, and feel free to notice/hear about/be wandering by if you'd like to interact!]

The world erupted into black smoke, tendrils wrapping around her until all that remained was an inky curtain of shimmering darkness. With a single hand, she brushed the curtain aside and took a step into the Blind Eternities. The tides of creation washed over her, tugging at her gown, trying to drag her under. With the experience of centuries under her belt she did not fall, but leaned without apprehension into the winds that blew from nothingness, spreading tiny particles of probability in their wake. She trod upon the surface of memory, climbed the slopes of tomorrows that had already passed. Toxic colors circled hungrily about her, winging their way through clouds of song, but they did not disturb her trek. Before her arrival and after her passing, they knew nothing but hue and hunger, wind and want, but for the endless moments she trod above them, they knew fear.

( And so begins a totally normal day wherein everything is fine and no I told you so's will be warranted )

"I think the time has come for me to take my leave," Liliana said, tossing the flowers away. "Enjoy the company of your celebrants, hero. I have other matters to attend to." A flicker of magic - really almost all she had left, she was perilously close to the end of her stamina - and several zombies appeared from the Blind Eternities behind her. They started gathering the large chunk of stones with the runes still engraved on them and then began stumbling after her. "My agendas lie elsewhere."

Like in a creepy, slowly being refurbished mansion in the woods where someone was likely impatiently waiting for her. A lesser woman would already be shying away from the...commentary...he would almost certainly have for her when she returned. She was not doing that, of course. Her internal wincing was for something else.

"You're taking fragments of the spires. Hoping to uncover more secrets?" Sorin asked. "More mysteries?"

"And why not?" she tossed over her shoulder. "Do I not deserve a few souvenirs?" She continued on her way out of town, leaving Sorin without another word, her phone in her hand as she dialed up a portal back to the island. She did glance back once and then quickly away. She didn't like the look in his eye. He looked...hungry.

Once the necromancer was out of sight, Sorin grabbed one of the dwarves by the collar and lifted him up. A moment later, his teeth sinking deep into the exposed throat, ignoring the thrashing, and drinking until the dwarf was empty. He tossed the body down to the ground and snorted. "Liliana Vess. Sorin Markov. 'Heroes'." He scrubbed the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Pitiful."

And then he was gone.

[Description of the trek through the Blind Eternities adapted from Agents of Artifice by Ari Marmell and the rest from "Grave Secrets" in Planeswalkers: Notorious #1, written by Cullen Bunn and art by French Carlomagno. Very long, as they tend be! NFI and NFB for off-island shenanigans, but OOC welcome!]

The courtyard Liliana and her undead escort walked out into was beautiful. It resembled an ornate garden with stands of fruit trees and gold-and-white flowers clearly cultivated with painstaking care. Directly in front of them was the Tree of Redemption, an ancient, sprawling tree with crimson leaves. It was beautiful and welcoming - at least until one looked closely enough to see the nooses that dangled from the branches.

"This is where you'll end up with Avacyn's grace," the corpse of Kelse said from where she was flanking Liliana's left.

"Well, she should really get right on that," Liliana said, striding forward under the tree. As she passed under the boughs, the nooses burned with black fire and fell to ashes to the ground. A stupid waste of power. Rope was cheap and it wasn't like she cared about anyone who'd ever been executed on this tree. But it was the principle of the thing and right now Liliana's principles extended a hearty fuck you, to the Church and anything resembling 'Avacyn's grace.'

As they passed beneath the tree into the heart of the garden, the fruit trees gave way leaving an open view of the rest of the courtyard. The Kirch Falls thundered beneath them down into the Lake of Herons, but even the massive falls couldn't take attention away from the focal point of the back of the courtyard: ( The Helvault )

For a moment, all sound ceased.

Then cracks appeared in the Helvault, rays of light piercing through the night from within. Then a blast obliterated the ghouls, knocked the cathars to the ground, and flung Liliana and Thalia backwards off their feet. A helix of golden light streaked skyward from the remains of the Helvault, illuminating the sky with its brilliant glow. The sundered monolith, fell to pieces and ribbons of dark Æther flew away in all directions; a host of demonic entities now freed of their prison. A tall gray-skinned, white-haired kor woman staggered out of the remains of the rock and vanished in a resounding boom. Liliana raised her eyebrows - a Planeswalker had been imprisoned in the Helvault? And then a guttural cry sent shivers through their very souls as a ten foot tall demon with huge bat-like wings that seemed to blot out the sky and arms that ended in wicked scythes pulled himself free.

Liliana struggled to her feet, mouth forming his name, but Griselbrand didn't wait, vaulting himself into the air and flying away. She stared after him, mouth agape as her prey once more escaped her grasp, and only realized there was still one last being in the Helvault when the assembled cathars gasped and pushed themselves to the knees in reverence as a luminous being soared from the wreckage.

Avacyn, the Angel of Hope: pure, whole, and eternal.

"Rise, my cathars," she said in a voice like a golden balm, spreading warmth and healing to all who heard it. They did, all except Thalia, who stayed on her knees, head bowed. From the golden spiral that pierced the sky, hundreds of angels came pouring out, voices raised in song and praise, their despair thrown off at Avacyn's return. "Go, my sisters," Avacyn commanded. "I feel a wrongness in my city, our people need you." Swords held high, the angels turned and arced away towards the remaining undead army in the Outer Ring.

Well, Liliana thought. This might just get awkward.

***
"Oh, good," said Prompto, with a deeply exhausted sigh and a sway on his feet that wasn't even entirely dramatics, "the actual cavalry is finally here."

And indeed they were, and they were remarkably quick about it, too, in a way that made Gladio feel a flash of anger, though he kept swinging his sword to clear up what the angels hadn't gotten to yet. "About damn time," he murmured, shaking his head and taking a moment, to watch the swiftness of just how quickly this particular tide had turned. He was feeling pretty exhausted, too, but mostly just irritated, and he went to fill Ignis in on all that had been happening in the meantime, since he could only imagine what filling in those blanks must have been like for someone only hearing and feeling all of this and not actually getting to see it.

"So what now?" asked Prompto, still somewhat vibrating from the sudden shift in the rush of adrenaline and the relatively sudden cessation of it, or perhaps that was just a shudder from the sudden chill of aftermath. "Do we help? Find the survivors, make sure everyone's okay?"

"I feel like we've done enough cleanup for these guys," Gladio grunted, his sword swinging back to rest on his shoulders for a moment before looking over toward Ignis. "Specs?"

( See? Angels are useless )

[Yet another installment, though the next one is the last! Still, y'all know the drill: NFI, NFB, OOC is great, heap praises on the head of chef_chocobro! Bits taken nearly verbatim from Angel's Rise and Demon's Release by Doug Beyer, but others parts twisted, spindled, expanded and smashed back together. Follows this post and this post and is continued here]

(Excerpt from a letter to the Bishops of Thraben; 48th of Hunter's Moon, Ava. 716)

...The news of Mikaeus's death must be kept secret at all cost. He will be sealed in the Tomb of the Lunarchs with no ceremony. Church business must carry on. To this matter, I am summoning all of the Bishops of Thraben to the Cathedral to discuss how best to carry on without the Lunarch, as well as naming a potential successor. I remind you all, this is not the time to be politicking, we have work to do

As to the murderer, we have set our best inquisitors on solving this heinous crime. Most of the corpse was recovered, but the heart is unaccounted for.

Bishop Alwin

After their phone conversation this morning, Ignis had left Luke's and taken the first portal to Innistrad he could catch, meeting up with her at her manor and portaling to Thraben together, planning what to do now that they had the target in their sights. The early afternoon sun was surprisingly bright for all that it was still bitterly cold, and they'd readied themselves for a long, miserable day of searching for this 'Volpaig,' crossing the length and breadth of the city. And promptly discovered that no such intense search would be required. It did not take long for someone to recognize the name Volpaig; he was, after all, one of the bishops of the Church. Not a particularly high or powerful one, but one with name recognition and a quickly-growing influence.

( Upon hearing this, Liliana simply laughed, low and dark. )

***
Located on the eastern tip of the mesa, Thraben Cathedral towered over the rest of the city, tall and imposing, a constant reminder of the might and glory of Avacyn and her faithful. Though, on their way through the city, Liliana saw no vampires bound and starving to the Bloodless Wall, and few new fangs wedged into the Fang Wall, and felt that was a far better indication of how things were going in the archangel's absence than an oversized building's glimmering spires and brightly colored glass windows. Even more telling was the lack of angels in flight around jutting heights of Avacyn's Tower and the devastated protections on the Blessed Grafs; burial sites that took up entire city blocks around the Cathedral, dedicated to the wealthy, the noble, and the holy.

While Liliana had been narrating these changes to Ignis with an eagerness that some might quantify as 'unseemly,' her voice changed to confusion as they drew close enough for her to see that the Cathedral doors were shut tight. And then shifted from confusion to disdain as she discovered that not every angel had vanished from Thraben; there was at least one, resplendent in burnished armor and white surcoat, standing guard before the doors.

( Angels. Why'd it have to be angels? )

[Preplayed with the most amazing chef_chocobro, who I can't fangirl at hard enough. NFB, NFI, OOC tastes like candy. Follows this post and continues in 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.]

Liliana came up from her workroom in the basement, yawning and stretching. She wasn't sure how long she'd been down there, working on her enchantments, but the light coming in through the windows suggested it was still the black of true night outside, not yet the deep, dark blue that heralded the approach of dawn. But also the stiffness in her limbs and the creak in her back also suggested she'd been down there far longer than she'd intended. Even eternal youth couldn't stop one's muscles from cramping after - she finally came to a clock and noted the time - almost eight hours of being bent over spellbooks and magical accoutrements.

But! She'd gone down after eating dinner, which meant nobody was allowed to fuss at her for skipping meals. Even if her stomach did grumble at the memory of dinner. Which had been eaten--right. More than eight hours ago now, whoops. But still! She'd eaten dinner, she was in the clear, she was pretty sure.

She gave thought to eating now, but she was tired. Better to just take a quick shower, hot enough to relax her muscles and raise her body temperature, and then climb into bed. But twenty minutes and one steaming hot shower later, bed just didn't seem as appealing as it really should, even with its collection of large pillows and thick, fluffy blankets, and sheets that weren't quite as soft as clouds and baby cheeks, but weren't that far off, either. She looked at her vast bed in vague discontent and wondered why she wasn't just collapsing onto it.

Ah. Of course.

The picnic.

Tomorrow was the picnic, her first as a teacher. Obviously, she wished to show up, chat with her fellow teachers, meet new students, experience one of these vaunted Fandom picnics for herself. But if she fell asleep now, odds were very good that she'd just end up sleeping through the whole thing - or most of it, anyway. And who wanted to show up at the bitter end of party, along with all the weird people who hadn't realized it was time to go home yet?

There was really only one thing to do for it now.

***
The door to MHA #18 eased open, Liliana tucking her key back into her pocket, and was softly closed and locked a moment later. She toed her shoes off and made her way to Ignis' room, moving quietly yes, but not trying to sneak. When wandering through the apartment of battle-trained soldiers, the sound of deliberate stealth would likely wake them up much faster than the sounds of ordinary movement would, especially with a cat and a baby in the house.

Once in Ignis' room, she stripped off her outer layers and slid into bed with him, making approving noises at the pre-warmed sheets. Ignis, by this point accustomed to Liliana sliding into bed with him at random hours, barely stirred, other than to reach out and wrap an arm around her, murmuring something she didn't catch at the coolness of her skin. With a happy little smile, Liliana cuddled in closer and closed her eyes, his body heat relaxing her just as much as her earlier shower had.

This had been a most excellent idea. Ignis would never let her sleep through the picnic. Sure, she might wake up a little short on sleep, but he'd also make her good coffee and an amazing breakfast and that would keep her going until it was time to leave for the school.

10/10, no notes for Liliana Vess, brilliant tactician.

[Apartment and occupant modded with permission.]

So, Liliana had had a delightful time trolling Ignis yesterday with her gremlin behavior, and while she stood by every delightful moment of it, she did think that perhaps some extra sweetness wouldn't go amiss today. If for no other reason than to keep him on his toes and guessing.

She'd hate to get predictable, after all.

With Ignis running out to the store briefly, Liliana had taken advantage of his absence to do a little 'walking of her own, appearing in manor on Innistrad to grab a bottle of wine from her cellar, a delicious red she remembered combining tartness with some savory notes. It had reminded her of a walk across a forest floor in late autumn, a bit austere with a little smoke, almost hints of something like tobacco and even a little mushroom. She figured even if he didn't like it, it would probably unlike anything he'd tasted recently and that was worthwhile by itself. It had been a very small batch from they heyday of vintner who had died almost fifty years ago, and if there were any bottles besides this one, they were probably tucked away in some vampire's cellar. If this didn't show Ignis she was willing to play nice, she didn't know what would.

Wine bottle in hand, she prepared to 'walk back to Earth when she heard something shatter upstairs.

Eyes narrowed, she slid the wine bottle into one of the deep pockets of her gown, and exited out of her wine cellar, striding past her dungeon and the conveniently close work rooms, and climbed up the steps to the main floor. What in Grixis were those blasted zombies doing? They were usually so careful--

It was only when she was opening the door into the kitchen did she remember that she had sent all of her zombie guards and servants away from the manor to look for Griselbrand. Which meant that no one should be in her home.

( And certainly not a shirtless vampire )

Liliana knew what that rude and petty bitch had done, but couldn't bear to look until the black vapour that heralded her Planeswalking had delivered her right into her bathing chamber. Before doing anything else, she turned on the taps, the water hot as possible, and only then stripped off her gown. As she feared, it was reeking and sodden, red liquid staining the fabric and her leg, too. "That was the last bottle, you miserable cow," she groaned, wadding it all up into a bundle of wet fabric and glass shards and kicking it into the corner of the room for her steward to deal with. The gouges on her arm got a cursory cleaning, the bandaging could come after her bath, and then, the water finally high enough, she climbed into her truly ridiculous tub and sank in it as far as she could go.

She definitely still needed to kill Griselbrand, no question there. But she was absolutely and without a doubt adding Henrika Domnathi to that list, too.

And she had yet more renovations to oversee.

A necromancer's work was never done.

[Technically establishy, unless that guy with the opinions wants to pop in and have OPINIONS. Everything before and inside the cut NFB for off-islandness, everything after the cut is OKFB. Descriptions of the angel summoned by Liliana blatantly stolen from Agents of Artifice by Ari Marmell, because there was no way I was gonna do a whole canon thing about Jace, but her cool-ass Crypt Angel deserved to see the light of day. Warning beneath the cut for violence, death of an innocent bystander, and violence against already undead animals.]

Liliana appeared in Kothophed's throne room in a cloud of black, inky vapor, already wearing the Chain Veil that Kothophed had sent her to retrieve all those many months ago. Well, she had, in a roundabout fashion, completed her task. She had fetched the Veil and now had brought it back to him. She just had no intention of giving it to him. The only thing she would be delivering to Kothophed today was his death.

Finally.

The first of four. But mostly certainly not the last. ( Before she was done, all of the demons that had thought to own her soul, to enslave Liliana Vess, would lie broken and bleeding at her feet. )

Kothophed was flakes of ash and drops of burning blood and Liliana swayed on her feet. She was exhausted and in pain, light-headed and more than a little dizzy. Red trailed down one of the chains of the veil and, confused, she pulled it off to see what it was.

Blood. Bright, rich, red, human blood. Her blood. Her skin was slick with it. "Oh," she said, looking at the ever-widening pool at her feet. Her eyelids were heavy and she was starting to shake and shiver, suddenly very cold. Both a necromancer and healer-trained, she knew that this much blood was a very bad sign, but she couldn't bring herself to care. There was only one thing worth thinking about as she used the last of her strength to step into the Blind Eternities and stagger back to Fandom.

"One down."

[Taken from "The Veil's Curse, Pt 3" by Doug Beyer, with a few lines from "Liliana's Origin: The Fourth Pact" by James Wyatt. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome! Warning for NPC death, blood, and violence]