deathsmajesty: Art: Killing Wave by Steve Argyle (Magic - Killing Wave)
The purple shadowed tower through rainy glass. Streaks fire heavy with top dark falling. Emrakul cackles thought with cold loop metal...

A voice cut through the chaotic ramble, a familiar voice he was hearing for the first time. This is not going well. I will not succumb to this. I am better than this. Jace breathed evenly and slowly. Thought cohered. He tried to recall the gibberish dominating his mind just seconds ago, but it had already vanished, evanescent dew melting with the dawn. He was at the top of a long, grand spiraling staircase, white marble steps lined with ornate blue trim. The staircase was brightly lit though there was no obvious light source, and it extended down far beyond his sight.

Above was a tall and airy stone tower. Closer to ground, it looked like his sanctum back on Ravnica. Large stone table with piles of books, maps, and several...contraptions that whirred and buzzed. Bookcases stuffed with books everywhere the eye could see, and he gazed at them longingly. It didn't just look like his Ravnica apartments...it was them, except back on Ravnica there was no palatial staircase spiraling down in the middle.

And back on Ravnica there was certainly no monstrous force destroying his sanctum from above.

Hundreds of feet in the air above, Jace saw large stone blocks of the tower crumbling away, or grabbed and flung. The entire roof of the tower was already gone, revealing a darkened sky flooded with an ominous purple overcast. As Jace watched the destruction, he realized the purple overcast was not a cloud. It was a thing. A creature. The creature resolved into a gigantic purple cloud extending hundreds of wiggling tendrils. The tendrils lashed and writhed toward the tower, accompanied by flashes of lightning and deafening booms outside. The creature had a name...

Emrakul. The name sounded strange even as he said it, a word he should not know, a word he could not know. Or perhaps that was the word underneath the word... Jace paused, chagrined at how effortless losing his train of thought was. Focus. Emrakul. A...thing. An Eldrazi. The Eldrazi. Jace's mind struggled to encompass the nature of the entity. His head hurt, a dull, pounding ache that grew with each contemplation of the Eldrazi titan outside. So don't think about it. Where am I? What is this place?

More memories returned. He hadn't been in a tower. He had been in Thraben, besieged by countless hordes of Emrakul's minions. They all were. Ignis. Gideon. Tamiyo. Nissa. Chandra. Liliana. She had made a surprise appearance, leading a host of zombies to save them from the Eldrazi spawn and creatures driven mad by Emrakul. Liliana came back. She...

A low, pain-filled groan interrupted his thoughts; a noise he'd become almost distressingly familiar with over these past few days. "Ignis??"

And so it goes. And so it ends. )

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're done! *flops* At least with all the scripted and preplayed stuff. Speaking of, this was adapted, turned upside down and inside out, and taped back together from "The Promised End," by Ken Troop, and preplayed by the truly magnificent (and so wonderfully patient), [personal profile] chef_chocobro Warning for body horror, warning for length, NFI, NFB, OOC is a lovely gift. Follows this.]
deathsmajesty: Art: Liliana the Last Hope by Anna Steinbaur (Striding - Look Upon My Works)
After leaving the cathedral, Jace had Planeswalked away, babbling about the Gatewatch, the group he'd formed with three other Planeswalkers while defeating two Eldrazi Titans on a plane named Zendikar. He promised to return by morning and with the six of them together, they stood a chance of defeating Emrakul. It would have been better with seven, but Sorin had vanished. The vampire had made clear he had other priorities and they would receive no help from that quarter. Sigarda also departed; she had promised her assistance to Thalia, protecting the innocent from the madness overtaking all of Innistrad.

But nowhere was it worse than right here in Thraben. The misshapen werewolves and other creatures that had been rampaging through the countryside had been caused by the barest touch of Emrakul's influence on the plane, what little had been able to permeate past the barrier that had been Avacyn. Now that the great Titan was here, her full corrupting effect had been unleashed onto the populace and the High City had transformed into a nightmare. Tamiyo and Ignis had caught a few hours sleep in the cellar of the cathedral, exhausted by the battle against the maddened angel and her twisted abomination of a sister. But as they made their way to the outskirts of the city to the planned meeting point, they learned the extent of the horrific changes the Titan of Corruption had wrought as she'd made her way from Nephalia to Gavony, slow but relentless.

Initial Plans )

***

"Look at it, Gared. Pretty, in a way. Your world is ending." Liliana watched as Thraben burned and tentacles reached down from the storms to rake the earth below. The sky swarmed with angels, and the ground beneath the titan just swarmed. From this distance, she could make out only the movement, an unending, writhing mass of creatures, pressing as close to the source of the world's end as they could.

"Yes, mistress. S'what it does around here, mostly." The geistmage's apprentice, with his bulging eye, looked forlornly down at the chaos.

"Ah, there they are. See the fire and the flashes of light? Jace must have gone to fetch his little friends. Looks like they're headed straight toward the center of it all." Because of course they were. And she had no doubt Ignis was right there with them.

Gared tilted his head, an interesting effect atop his already asymmetrical body. "Yes, mistress. I couldn't help but notice, you've raised this lovely little army to help, but we're staying up here, and the others are down there."

There was nothing little about her army. Undead spread out behind her nearly to the horizon. "Hmm. I suppose that's true. Well then, shall we go make an entrance?"

***

Rarely Survive Contact With The Enemy )

[Mulched, composted, and grown from "Battle of Thraben" by Nik Davidson. Finally, Liliana gets to march an army of zombies on Thraben. Enrichment for necromancers. Played with the peerless [profile] chef_chocobo. NFI, NFB, follows this.]
deathsmajesty: Art: Necromancy by Isuardi Theri (Magic - Leashes)
"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 [personal profile] chef_chocobro. Follows this]
deathsmajesty: Artwork: The Chain Veil by Volkan Baga (zzzChain Veil 02)
Liliana stumbled as they stepped through the portal and onto Shandalar. Lush trees encircled them, soft loam cradled their feet, the pungent smell of rotting humus sank deep into their noses. The air was sweltering and sticky, though Liliana took no more notice of that than she did in Baltimore. Perhaps there was sound—the call of birds startled by her arrival, the tromp of a baloth in the distance - but as soon as she stepped through, all of her senses were bound up by the cacophony of the Veil.

"...nurtured the root...strong enough...the vessel..."

Different voices rose and fell over each other in a constant susurrus that gnawed at the edges of her mind. Usually, it was worst right after she used magic; the rest of the time she could ignore them or drown them out with her own thoughts. But with her first step onto Shandalar, the rules had apparently changed. If she'd known it was going to be like this, she might not have been so impatient during the two month delay on their portal.

"Pipe down, boys," she said aloud, leaning against a tree to steady herself and barely aware she was speaking aloud.

"...hallowed earth...the void's first breath..."

"I said shut up!"

Silence. The voices stopped. If birds had been calling, they quieted at the sound of her outburst.

"Don't talk to me about the void," she snapped. "Now where in this cursed world am I?"

Root. Vessel. Veil. )

[Adapted, torn apart, and stitched together from The Veil of Deceit, written by James Wyatt and preplayed with the amazingly talented [personal profile] chef_chocobro. Followed by this.]
deathsmajesty: Katie McGrath (Looking - Default)
Liliana Vess waded into the teeming streets of Ravnica's elegant Second District. She strode through the crowd, which parted like water around her. She adjusted the top of one long glove, and the croak of a nearby raven just barely touched her awareness over the din of the crowds—the crowd of people in the city and the crowd of spirits pressing at her thoughts.

Did Jace hear them? she wondered. It was hard to imagine that he hadn't, even with whatever Nicol Bolas had done to protect her mind from his telepathy. The Onakke spirits were a constant hubbub in her mind, and Jace's telepathic abilities had surely picked up on the noise. But he'd given no indication that he had discerned their presence, or indeed that he had any idea what the Chain Veil was doing to her.

Do I have any idea what this thing is doing to me? )

Liliana felt a trickle run down her shoulder. Looking down at her skin, she saw blood welling up in all the places where the purplish lines of her demonic contract were fading from view. Just tiny pinpricks of crimson—but then, she had barely tapped the full power of the Chain Veil.

She sat down on the edge of the fountain to catch her breath and gather her thoughts. It was true - she was trapped. If she continued using the Chain Veil like this, it might drain the life out of her by the time she killed her two remaining demons. If she tried to face her demons without the power of the Chain Veil, they would tear her apart.

"I don't need help," she said aloud. "Let Jace go solve Gideon's puzzle. I'll solve my own."

She stood up, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Her stomach lurched a bit as she pulled open a door between worlds. It was ridiculous, using so much power to 'walk to one plane and then immediately back to her townhouse, but she'd had more than enough of Ravnica's night air and no rentable conveyance would stop for her, bloody and covered in feathers.

Just as she stepped through, she heard the mocking cry of a raven at her back.

[Adapted, broken, and then put back together with tape and silly putty from "An Unkindness of Ravens" by James Wyatt. NFB for off-island shenanigans, NFI, OOC is love. Still just setting up for future shenanigans. Comes after this]
deathsmajesty: Katie McGrath (Random - Tub 01)
Liliana was getting quite tired of things whispering in her head, thank you. As if the Chain Veil weren't more than enough, now there was something else murmuring at her. She could hear whatever it was, like an insistent scratching from worlds away. Some kind of hidden force, drawing her in, dangling secrets before her like bait. A dark power calling out. She'd had many experiences with those - and, you know, most of them had been bad.

But still. She couldn't just ignore it. A dark power? Secrets? It was possible that this was somehow linked to the Chain Veil. The voice she was hearing felt like it was ancient, and she knew the Chain Veil had been created thousands of years ago.

Liliana...

"Shut up," Liliana muttered, which made the Onakke spirits whisper, *Vessel of destruction...* in her head. "Oh come off it, you don't have a monopoly over being told to shut up," she snapped at them. "That being said, do shut up."

She was also getting tired of telling things to shut up while she was supposed to be relaxing in her bathtub.

Something needed to be done about this. And while she wasn't yet ready to handle the Chain Veil, tracking down this hidden power was certainly within her capabilities.

Liliana...
deathsmajesty: Katie McGrath as Morgana from BBC's Merlin (Random - Uneasy Sleep)
Liliana walked down the stone halls of the mausoleum )

"No!" Liliana bolted upright in bed as the remains of her nightmare shattered around her. Just a nightmare. One crafted from her memories, yes, but still just a nightmare. Nothing she couldn't ignore.

*Ours...* the spirits in the Chain Veil whispered one last time.
deathsmajesty: Katie McGrath as Lena Luthor (Talking - Not Best Pleased (Angry))
Liliana glared at the smoldering wreckage in front of her like it was a personal insult, reminding herself that even though the contractors were starting this week, she couldn't just slag the offending ruins - and the rest of the kitchen along with it - the way she wanted to. The contractors had enough on their hands with the rest of the house and she was pretty sure she couldn't hide a corrupted and rotted kitchen from Ignis for long.

Even though it was tempting. Really, really, really tempting.

...harvest of rotting fruit...the vessel of evil...

"Yes, yes, I've heard it all before and I remain unimpressed," she snapped at the Onakke voices, giving the Chain Veil at her hip a brusque shake for good measure. "Now shut up and let me think."

Perhaps aware of her mood, the Onakke spirits wisely stopped their murmuring.

The wreckage was still hot, though the cake pan had dulled from a cherry red to a more blackened color, though the smoke remained thick in the air. Taking a pair of the...oven glove thingies...she picked up the whole mess from the oven rack and threw it into the sink to finish cooling, summoning her steward with a single cranky thought.

"When that cools enough to not start any fires, throw the whole thing away," she ordered. The pan had warped enough that even if her steward could scrub all the soot and char off, it would be useless. "Clean up this mess--" she gestured to the rest of the kitchen, where it looked like a small bakery had exploded "--make sure whatever ingredients I used up are replaced, and do not allow Ignis in this kitchen until it stops smelling like a backed up chimney in here."

"Of course, Mistress."

Liliana grabbed a now-thoroughly stained piece of paper and stalked out of her good-for-nothing kitchen. It looked like it was time to put these so-called 'benefits of friendship' to work. Pulling her phone out, she scrolled down to a number and pressed the call button.

"Hello Nell, dear," she said into the receiver. "Might I come by your apartment and borrow your kitchen and your baking expertise?"

[For one, please, and NFB if the squirrels know what's good for them.]
deathsmajesty: Katie McGrath (Random - Tub Wine)
Griselbrand was dead.

She wasn't certain how many times she'd reminded herself of that fact, but the giddiness hadn't gone away yet. Griselbrand was dead and she was halfway to her freedom. Honestly, it hadn't even quite been four months since she'd killed Kothophed - at this rate, she'd be killing Belzenlok by Christmas and wasn't that a delightful thought. She'd have to think of a something extravagant enough to be appropriate for such a feat.

She should be thinking of something extravagant enough to celebrate this feat )

But before all that, she still had one last intrigue to pull off. In a very short amount of time.

She could do it, though.

Liliana Vess could do anything.
deathsmajesty: Art: Liliana Vess by solidgrafi (Magic - Clouds)
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 [personal profile] 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]
deathsmajesty: Art: Liliana and the Eternal Army by Karla Ortiz (Magic - Power Accumulation)
(Personal journal of Thalia, Thraben Guard; 48th of Hunters Moon, Ava. 716)

Thraben is a carcass and the buzzards have descended upon us. To the heavens, the undead army must look like a swarm of ants, devouring all that is good and leaving a black stain in its wake. The ground shakes beneath my feet. I hear the outer wall crumbling under the assault. Without Avacyn, stones that have stood a thousand years will crumble into dust.

I have a plan, but Lothar is nowhere to be found. I must make him hear me before the outer wall is breached. But it's as if devils have plugged his ears and reason can no longer sway him.


Thalia, newly appointed Guardian of the City after her predecessor had been found dead, looked over the outer walls of the city and tried to remain impassive, the way Lothar would have if he'd been here. 'Never let the people under your command see how nervous you are. It will destroy their morale.' But does it matter what Lothar would have done? she thought bitterly. How much worse can their morale get, finding the body of the last Guardian of the City on the rocks surrounding the outside wall? Her friend and mentor was gone and here she was, staring over the walls at an army made up of the living dead, wailing and snarling and slamming their hands against the gates.

A roar from behind their ranks sent grown men flinching behind their shields. Grimgrin was there, as well as hundreds of skaabs, pieces together bit by bit from who knows how many people. Was there anyone left alive on the Moorlands at all? Or had they all been sacrificed to these insane twins and brought back as ghouls?

Now what? )
***

Ignis' mind was a whirlwind, in a way that almost made him grateful that he didn't have the added distraction of witnessing the mounting trouble with his own eyes, though that was exactly the crux of one of his concerns in that moment. This was an unfamiliar city, filled with people he couldn't trust, and he was at a significant disadvantage. A part of him felt the pull toward just finding Liliana, hoping she finally got what she needed to out of Volpaig, and leaving, but it barely managed to tug at him before it was immediately dismissed. He couldn't just do that. He couldn't just abandon something where he could do some good, especially on a plane where there was still no doubt more work to be done. But he also couldn't do it alone, and his eyes here might still be quite entrenched in matters far more important to her, and he knew Liliana well enough by now to suspect that her singular focus would be unshakeable.

And if he handled things out here, then that would grant her that lack of distraction.

There was, however, some hesitation. It would be late, back in Fandom, just as it was late here, but he reminded himself, of pacts made years ago, when they started drifting apart in Noctis' absence, that they would always come when the others called. He thought of battles and raids in the past, liberating conclaves beset by the threats of daemons, shepherding people to safety, even all the way back to the evacuation of Altissia, where the determined efforts of Gladio and Prompto had helped usher in a near miracle of limited casualties, though the city itself had not fared nearly as well.

When one had resources, it was wise for one to use them, and so drawing in a breath, Ignis pulled out his phone to make a call.

Gods, he was never going to hear the end of this one... )
***

Liliana stalked around Volpaig's living room like an angry tiger. She wanted to leave immediately, to strike out for the Cathedral and shake down Mikaeus for Griselbrand's location, but she was waiting for Ignis to return. Even as impatient as she was, she knew that leaving him behind with no word where she'd gone in the middle of some city-wide emergency was a cruelty. It wasn't as if she could leave a note, and with Volpaig a pile of ash and his soul locked away in some demonic prison, she could no more bind his soul to act as a messenger than she could force it to reveal its secrets.

"The least you could have done was remain a body," Liliana huffed to Volpaig's fled spirit. "Just so I have something to kick when I think of all the ways you have inconvenienced me."

A rattling at the door drew her attention - "Finally!" - and she flew to it, throwing open the latch and wrenching the door open without much care of who was on the other side; either it was Ignis or it was someone about to have a truly bad night. To her relief, however, it was her paramour, and she realized, belatedly, that some of of the discontent she'd been feeling had been worry, genuine concern for him, outside of how it would affect her. "'Nys," she said, tugging him inside the door and into her arms. "What's in the Abyss is going on out there?" Her embrace was tight, hands checking him over for injury.

Not goodbye, just see you later. )

[Again, NFI, NFB, and OOC very welcome! Stay tuned for some liveplay in the comments. Preplayed with the magnificent [personal profile] chef_chocobro pulling triple fucking duty like a champ. Follows this post and this post, with the next post here.]
deathsmajesty: Katie McGrath as Morgana from BBC's Merlin (Random - Uneasy Sleep)
If asked what flavors of nightmare Liliana would have after the events of Saturday, she would have--well, okay, she would have laughed and denied the likelihood of any nightmares at all. But, had she been asked and, for some reason, compelled to tell the truth, she likely would have said she anticipated dreams of the Void and what waited for her there, longing for the day when she would be delivered - reunited - and how it had come to be there. And, in decreasing order of likeliness from there, possibly dreams about her first meeting with Kathophed, when he'd skinned her alive and then carved their contract on the new skin below it, or perhaps their battle in his throne room, but gone horribly wrong, where she'd lost instead of won, and, just to round it out, perhaps either a dream about the meeting with the giant brute on Shandalar or perhaps the atrocities she'd committed in that five month fugue on Tavelia, since the spirits in the Chain Veil had been much louder and more active in the last few days.

Instead, though, when she found herself in a nightmare, it was of those first horrible days after the Mending...

I can feel this mortal body dying all around me! )

She lay there on the couch in Ignis' living room, once again covered by a blanket, face dry but eyes stinging, and just quietly laid there, trying to get her breathing back under control, doing her best to stay silent and still until she exerted control over herself again. Until she could convince herself that her legs were strong and straight and unbroken.

Until she no longer had the phantom feeling of dust on her skin.

*...root of evil...harbinger...carrying destruction...*

For once, Liliana couldn't bring herself to argue with the whispers from the Chain Veil.

[Contents under the cut NFB, warning for NPC death, both onscreen and implied. I don't care how good it was for the universe, the Mending was a horrorshow for anyone not involved. Open for calls or if you have reason to be around!]

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deathsmajesty: Art: Liliana, Death's Majesty by Chris Raiis (Default)
Liliana Vess

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