Liliana Vess Defiant Necromancer

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]

(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.]

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 Vess woke up this fine Saturday morning secure in the knowledge that today, she was going to commit murder.

No, no, not the man breathing quietly next to her, of course not. Nor even the workers downstairs, though they were destroying any semblance of peace and quiet she might have enjoyed.

No. Today was the day she was going to destroy Kothophed and free herself from one of the demonic creditors that currently owned her soul.

She hadn't gone to sleep thinking about it or anything, but at some point in the night all the vague, amorphous feelings that had been stirred up by the discovery of a piece of pre-Mending magic still existing had crystalized into one calm certainty: today was the day that Kothophed would die.

Oh, not immediately, of course. She wasn't about to spring out of bed and planeswalk to his throne room and then murder him before brunch. The idea was tempting, but...no. She had a few things to take care of here, first. She was certain that with the power of the Chain Veil she was strong enough to end Kothophed but...

"If you ever get the idea of testing your strength against me, I will slit you open again. But this time, there will not be a young and beautiful Liliana underneath."

She shuddered. The lesson that he had imparted to her about the difference between their power levels had been...illuminating. To say the least. But that had also been before she'd gotten the measure of power from him, as well. And before the Chain Veil. No. She would not allow herself to consider any other outcome. She was Liliana Vess, one of the few remaining Planeswalkers from before the Mending - perhaps one of only three, even - who could remember what true power had felt like. What it had felt like to be a god. She would not lose to this mere demon. Not because she feared the searing agony of his claws again, but because her power, her pride demanded no less.

He had laughed at her, had chided her like a child, but deep down, Liliana knew that Kothophed was the one who should be afraid. She was more than she seemed, and the demon had underestimated her, like so many others before him. It was her destiny to overthrow the demons that claimed her. She knew it, as if the knowledge were a part of her flesh. As if Kothophed, unwitting, had woven that destiny into her being.

It was written on her skin.

"I am your death. Kill me, and you will never die."

She was taking that as a promise.

[Taken and adapted from "Liliana's Origin: The Fourth Pact," written by James Wyatt. Open for that guy what is here!]