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Infernal Jurisprudence: Chapter 9

Summary: Raphael watches his prized investments wrestle with their parasites.

[AO3]

Chapter 9: The Severed Head

“Do I just press the dagger into the neck and the head comes off?” Tavara inquired, holding a dagger tentatively between two hands. Her hands hovered over the bloated and rancid corpse of the Drow called “Nere” as she hesitated in her attempt to acquire his head. The Little Mouse looked expectantly at the Gith who frowned and the burning Tiefling who cackled.

“Did you expect the operation to be more complicated?” the Gith scowled.

“Yes?” Tavara inquired. “I haven’t beheaded a Drow before, so I’m not quite sure what I’m doing.” The Little Mouse’s last words came out as a hiss. The Gith emotionlessly motioned towards the neck from which the Drow head was to be cleaved.

“By the Gods…” the Warlock covered his mouth as he watched Raphael’s Little Mouse struggle to decapitate the corpse in front of her. The blade was caught unceremoniously between two cervical vertebrae, leading to Raphael’s Mouse sawing at the bones and sinews trying to extract the head.

“I don’t think there’s a future for you as a headsman, Darling,” the vampire spawn taunted as Tavara sliced through the spinal column. Tavara shot the spawn a look of pure venom as various decaying Drow juices soaked through her gauntlets.

Raphael smiled to himself, amused, as he watched his consort deal with the aftermath of her violent acts. He could show her, of course, how one would properly decapitate a Drow post mortem, but that would eliminate all the fun of watching Tavara learn to avoid the drippings from a necrotic, mutilated corpse.

***

Raphael’s prized adventurers returned to the fungal copse that housed a friendly colony of Myconids. The Myconids were harmless and irrelevant, though Raphael had appreciated that the colony was willing to replace the questionable meats from Tavara’s camp supplies with fresh mycelia. The Little Mouse sought out a mindflayer scholar who was studying mechanical properties of zurkhwood gills.

“I greet you, Child of the Dragon,” the slimy Illithid offered calmly. His telekinetic speech reverberated through the image of the Scrying mirror, which gave the eldritch voice a warble as though its voice was submerged in water. Raphael wished he could drown the Illithid, all the Illithid, in fact, that were standing in the way of the Crown of Karsus. “How has your journey through the Underdark fared?” the tentacled monster warbled. The beast was hideous. Raphael wondered why the Gith was merely standing there scowling instead of chopping the Illithid up into pieces of squid like her training had ordained.

“Could you tell me any more about the parasite?” Tavara asked it. The mindflayer raised its ugly hand with long, spindly fingers and dared to touch her head over her temple. Raphael abhorred the intimate touch that was taking place between his consort and that monster. It smelled like the putrefied and fermented sea creatures that the poor in Neverwinter consumed during the winter months, and there were no doubts in Raphael’s mind that the pads of its fingers were slick with unmentionable goo.

The Illithid’s body swayed and shivered quickly in a joyous jolt. “Open your mind to me, friend, and let me see what lurks within.” Raphael knew everything there was to know about Illithid infections and ceremorphosis, but his chest tightened with the very idea that a mindflayer had true and full access to his Little Mouse. He would have to demand more intimate knowledge from the vampire spawn than the trivialities that the spawn had provided him so far.

Tavara’s entire form relaxed while the mindflayer cupped her face. Her eyes were gently closed and her breathing steady in an unmistakable gesture of trust in the alien creature. She shouldn’t trust the Illithid. All of them were dangerous predators looking to consume the minds of their prey. The one in the Astral Prism was the worst of all, pretending to be an omniscient and protective ally. A “guardian.” Idiotic.

“This is most unusual. The incubation should be complete, as should your transformation,” the mindflayer relayed as the Little Mouse opened her eyes. Her transformation would never complete. Raphael would ensure that. “The larvae appears to be infused with strange magic. It is in some sort of stasis.” One power stolen from the son of Gith, perhaps?

“Can you extract the tadpole?” the wizard rudely interrupted the conversation between the Little Mouse and the eldritch monstrosity, showing his incredible lack of manners despite his privileged upbringing. Tavara’s face sank, as though she already knew the answer that was coming.

“No. It appears to be shielded from physical and manual influence. And even without the shield, removal would result in severe cranial trauma,” the mindflayer affirmed.

“I think I have performed enough cranial extractions,” his Little Mouse laughed nervously. “I have my doubts that any of my friends would trust me with their heads.” The burning Tiefling chuckled and the Hobgoblin cocked his head with a horrified look. Once again, Raphael was not treated to what a mindflayer sounded like when it laughed, though the creature’s body language indicated it found Tavara’s statement to be highly amusing.

Tavara gave the mindflayer a warm smile. “Thank you for the information.” She touched the mindflayer’s hand in a gesture of friendship. Someone would have to teach her about the dangers of the Illithid, since the Gith was slacking on that point.

“I am sorry I cannot assist in its removal, but I have an idea,” the Illithid offered.

“Oh?” the Hobgoblin questioned, setting down the mortar and pestle that he was using to combine mushroom spores. He eagerly grabbed a parchment and quill. “I will start taking notes.”

“There may be a way to bypass that stasis. There are many alchemical substances that can alter the mind.” Haarlep had enjoyed many of those in the boudoir with various guests over the centuries.

“Bypass? What types of alchemy are we talking about?” his Little Mouse inquired. She was right to be suspicious where mushrooms of the Underdark were concerned.

“A tincture produced from a collection of rare mushrooms. They have subtle psionic influence. I would require a fresh Tongue of Madness and some Timmask spores.” Raphael thought back to his studies of alchemy and neither of those ingredients were listed directly in the deadly poisons he had learned about. “Timmasks have a tendency to cause confusion, and the tongue is… self-explanatory.”

“Where do you think we can find these rare mushrooms?” the Little Mouse prepared herself to take notes.

“Hmm, I imagine Lenore would have them, she’s a cleric of Mystra,” the Hobgoblin offered. “She is quite fond of her garden, after all. I believe her tower was to the southwest, the last time I saw her, though it does have a tendency to move.” The Little Mouse and the foolish wizard shared a knowing look regarding the empty arcane tower the wizard had raided.

“Good to know, thank you. I will return with the fungi you need,” the Little Mouse tried to cover her nerves with a bright smile.

****

Tavara returned with her companions in tow, unwrapping a threadbare linen cloth for the Hobgoblin. Glittery, greenish Timmask spores sprinkled the earth in the Illithid’s workshop.

“I found the mushrooms you are looking for,” the Little Mouse offered up the parcel. The Hobgoblin took the fungal parcel and dutifully passed it to his Eldritch colleague, who examined the specimens with its long, slimy fingers.

The mindflayer said nothing before turning to an intricately carved alchemy desk and begging to slice at gills and lightly char spores over a candle. Tavara and the Hobgoblin watched with great interest as their Eldritch teacher simmered a strange, smelly concoction down to a thick viscous liquid. A few pinches of diced hyphae were added, which formed a green mass at the bottom of a flask. The mindflayer decanted the mother liquor into a separate vial and turned the concoction over a times in its hands to check the quality.

“Would it not be better to distill off the essence instead of recrystallization of the impurities?” the wizard pointed at the vial the mind flayer was inspecting. The Illithid raised one facial tentacle curiously as the bearded fool snatched the bottle from its hands. “Your method leaves behind a minute quantity of the Timmask bodies in the mixture.”

“That step is unnecessary,” the Illithid answered curtly.

“Your protocol isn’t the most rigorous, do you have challenges reproducing the process in each batch?” the wizard asked again, handing Tavara the vial as though its possession would cause her to immediately agree with him. It did not surprise Raphael that the Waterdhavian magus would claim to be the leading authority on all things magical immediately after asking the Illithid and its companion for help.

“The Society of Brilliance has long been cataloguing the variations in fungal essence from the plants of the Underdark. After some initial testing, we have found workarounds that use simpler methods,” the Hobgoblin was far more charitable than Raphael expected.

“Gale, they lack a pump,” the Little Mouse said with her voice near a whisper as she motioned to a table of alchemical glassware. The burning Tiefling and the vampling shared a quiet chuckle at the word ‘pump.’

“Oh, I see, though it is one of the most basic pieces of alchemical equipment and most elementary laboratories have one,” the bearded fool commented as though his point would cause the missing equipment to magically appear.

The Hobgoblin and the mindflayer took great lengths to ignore any further of the wizard’s commentary as they pointed out the properties of the psionic infusion. “You must drink the entire draught,” the Illithid instructed as the Little Mouse turned the vial over in her hands. Raphael found it absurd that Tavara was even entertaining the idea of drinking the potion they had offered her.

The Little Mouse’s face contorted as soon as the liquid touched her lips, and she clasped a hand over her mouth to keep from retching. She coughed several times and lightly tapped her sternum with her fists, as if beating her chest would clean the flavor of crushed Tongue of Madness out of her mouth.

“Not a drop left, very good, ” the Illithid warbled praise, though the look of disgust was firmly planted on Tavara’s face. Her skin had a slick sheen of sweat beading on her forehead to rival her Eldritch counterpart. “As the potion begins to take effect, you may find yourself acting irrationally. Try to stay focused.”

The Little Mouse’s pupils were blown wide and her breathing was shallow and unsteady. She seemed to barely be holding herself upright. Her eyes glazed over and became glassy. Her body was lax, and her mouth curved downwards in a hint of a worrying grimace. The Little Mouse was disconnected from the world around her, swimming within her own mind. Raphael and Tavara’s companions waited eagerly for her to awaken from the alchemical trance. The Illithid seemed to be speaking with her telepathically, but Raphael couldn’t be certain through the glass of the Scrying Mirror.

The Illithid made a sharp, choking squeal and Tavara dropped to her knees, sputtering on the ground. The Sharran handed her a flask of water and checked her temperature. “Tav, are you alright?”

“Omeluum?” The Hobgoblin was frantically stroking the Illithid’s back as it recoiled from whatever it had seen in the Little Mouse’s mind.

“That larvae is like nothing I have ever observed before. Its power is… unsettling.”

The Little Mouse continued to cough and spit in the dirt and tried to dizzily stand to her feet. Her voice was raspy and pained, “I felt its power growing inside of me.”

“Such an outcome was not within my calculations. There is much more to this being than mere stasis,” the Illithid lamented with an apologetic glace as the Little Mouse coughed.

“Do you think cranial trauma is still on the table?” the vampling whispered aloud, thinking no one but the Warlock could hear him.

“I may have another solution, albeit a temporary one,” the Illithid suggested. Its Hobgoblin colleague cocked his head, waiting for an alternative treatment. Clearly, nothing they could provide would make any difference. “I possess a ring of Mind-Shielding. It prevents elder brains from noticing my presence. I would offer it as a gift, but in truth, the ring is priceless. Is there anything you can offer me in turn?”

Raphael scoffed at the blatant attempt at chicanery. The simple silver band was just a trinket and would not have possessed enough Weave for a simple light show. The wizard palmed the ring and examined it for a while. That moron can’t even sense the minor enchantment inside. His undergarments were far more suited to protection from the Elderbrain than that ring.

“A donation to your cause, perhaps, would that work?” Tavara offered coolly. “We could help fund some of your research.”

After gold was exchanged, the vampling took the ring to examine it, turning the semi-precious stone over in his undead palm. “A pretty thing, let us hope it provides some protection from the tadpole, maybe it can sever our connection to whatever is controlling the Absolute.”

The Little Mouse continued to wipe sweat from her brow, still reeling from the effects of the potion. “It won’t,” she confirmed darkly. “I think the Gith artefact Shadowheart carries is the only thing that can.” She was indeed correct.

***

Raphael’s favored assets elected, finally, to seek the creche that their Gith companion had been raving about. They emerged from the darkness of the Underdark into the bright and dazzling sunsets overlooking an old and crumbling monastery of the Morninglord.

The group of adventurers was resting comfortably in the warm, sunny air. The Gith seemed more settled to be finally seeking the aid of her people, and the vampling sunned himself on the smooth rocks like a lizard. The Sharran brooded, poking at the hearth with a stick. Laughter rang through the camp as the burning Tiefling was attempting and failing to learn a court dance from the Warlock. The foolish wizard was pouring over his tomes to better understand the enchantments from the overpriced Illithid psionic ring, and none of them seemed to notice that the Little Mouse had slipped away alone to watch the sun set in the valley below them.

The view over the surrounding lands was exquisite in the dusk. The sun was rapidly setting as Tavara sat on a boulding by a cliff face overlooking the monastery. With a flurry of embers and the smell of sulfur and cherries, Raphael appeared on the cliff side with her to relish in the view.

“Such a beautiful sight, is it not?” Raphael offered as he observed the horizon, stepping grandly towards the edge to see the sun fading. Tavara sat still and unmoving.

“It is beautiful,” she offered shortly without any further commentary, and she shifted away from him, seeming distant and uneasy. Perhaps she was still feeling the effects of the Illithid fungal draught that she had consumed earlier.

“I can see that you are eager to enter a Githyanki creche, but are you eager to leave in the same state that you entered in?” Raphael offered cryptically, dramatically basking in the dimming sunlight. Tavara watched him, her mouth hanging open as she parsed his warning. Raphael grinned smugly at her.

“What are you implying, Raphael?” Tavara inquired.

Raphael sat down on the boulder next to her. He snapped, and a bottle of wine and two goblets appeared. He poured two goblets of wine and handed one to her. Tavara took it reluctantly. She toyed with it for a second, as if she were debating whether to drink it or throw it over the cliff. She took a second to collect her thoughts and turned towards him. He took a smug drink of wine from his goblet, and she huffed a laugh.

“You come by an awful lot for a devil who will never receive the mortal souls he covets,” the Little Mouse teased. She took a quick sip of his wine before clasping the goblet tightly in both of her hands.

“I never thought so, my dear. I did think you needed a respite from your journey, so here I am to indulge you with a goblet of wine at sunset.” Raphael drank from his own goblet. “It is not every mortal that can survive encounters with the various beasts of the Underdark.”

Tavara shrugged her shoulders before smirking at him. “I was killed by hook horrors. Twice, in fact.” Raphael winced. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, given that he didn’t have claim to his Little Mouse’s soul just yet. He, unfortunately, would have to continue to rely on his investment’s supply of Revivify scrolls for now.

“Why do you keep coming around if not for our souls? I never thought you to be the kind of being to do nice things for no reason.” The Little Mouse caught his gaze directly with her playful accusation.

“Alas, dear Mouse, I am not. Though I am a devil who knows what he wants,” Raphael taunted. You. The Crown of Karsus. “An evening of relaxation will help you to better survive the creche in the morning. I have a vested interest in your success against the trials and tribulations to come.” Raphael's taunt became dark and foreboding.

Tavara contemplated their conversation over a sip of wine before immediately sensing his ominous change of tone. “What is wrong with the creche, Raphael?” she demanded urgently.

“I’m sure your Gith friend has told you all about the zaith’isk,” Raphael gave a quiet chuckle. The Gith warrior was obviously bound by covenant to say no more details about the procedure because she herself knew nothing more about it.

“To purge our infection,” Tavara responded shakily, suddenly seeming to doubt everything that she had been told by the Githyanki warrior in her camp. She is certain to start asking more questions now instead of trusting the propaganda that her Gith colleague had been feeding into her ear.

“Yes, to purge your infection,” Raphael responded. “Tavara, if I may give you some advice, do not go first.” Raphael stood up and turned to leave, and his Little Mouse stared at him with her jaw gaping.

“Raphael, what’s going to happen?” she furiously demanded more information.

“Do not go first,” was all that he replied. He grinned, trusting his Little Mouse understood his instruction. She was always a clever Little Mouse.

****

Tavara’s Gith companion secured their group safe passage into the creche to see the ghustil , the Githyanki physician, tasked with purification of those infected by Illithid tadpoles. Raphael observed as Tavara and her companions entered the creche infirmary to seek the ill-advised cure. The Gith approached the creche’s doctor, steadfast and determined to receive the zaith’isk. The zaith’isk, such a waste of time and promising young minds. The Gith doctor was muttering to herself as she dissected a mindflayer parasite. A parasite, in fact, that she had extracted from another infected Gith not thirty minutes prior. It was still warm.

“Vertical incision from pineal eye to end of notochord,” the Gith physician dictated to no one in particular. She suddenly stopped her dissection and turned toward Tavara. The Little Mouse watched the ghustil pick at the parasite in front of her with a pair of brass forceps and said nothing, her jaw gaping. “Do you have a question, or are you going to sit there gawking?”

Tavara’s companion Gith interrupted the introduction. “I am a Child of Gith, not discarded rat flesh. Am I not due your respect?” The infected Gith hissed her words insistently at her elder.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Let the istik with you speak, and I will decide what you are owed.” The physician wiped her hands clean on a piece of linen. Istik. Stranger. Outsider. Raphael knew what the term meant to the Githyanki, and Tavara would never receive respect from them, despite the fact that she was the only one in Faerun who could free the Gith from the tyranny of the Lich Queen. Freedom from tyranny that could only occur with the aid of of him, the Great Raphael.

“I would prefer Lae’zel to speak on my behalf,” Tavara asserted diplomatically.

“Lae’zel, is it? Fine - and be quick. My work is of vital import.” Lobotomy. Unlikely to be successful. Full frontal lobe resection. Certain to be fatal.

“We carry ghaik tadpoles, and have done so for countless days - yet we show no symptoms. We must enter the zaith’isk,” Tavara’s Gith companion stated plainly.

“You are infected yet show no signs of cerebral impairment? Fascinating.” The physician’s hungry remark disgusted Raphael. She would have gladly decapitated each of Raphael’s investments in turn if given the chance. The only one of them that could be expended was the wizard.

“Either your tadpole is special, or you are,” the Gith physician mused darkly. Their tadpoles were ordinary, though their task ahead was quite extraordinary. “We must find out which.” Her hands deftly stroked a series of drills strong enough to penetrate the skull, though the ghustil stayed her motions for the time being, eager to see how the conversation would play out.

If Raphael’s prized investments weren’t cautious, they would all end up dead or worse , mutilated by the device wreaking havoc on their brain matter. No amount of Revivify scrolls nor Jergal’s presence in their camp would be able to heal the damage the Gith device could cause. Permanent blindness was a possibility, as was non-Sharran amnesia, madness, or loss of limb control. Death was fixable if one owned the soul in peril, but severe mutilation was not so easily undone. Broken mortal minds were time-consuming to repair, and there were few guarantees that they would end in their original state.

The ghustil picked up a well-worn trephine and ran it through her fingers before speaking with an eerie calm, “Go to the zaith’isk. I will ensure you are cured.”

The Little Mouse’s Gith companion looked delighted, her eyes sparking at the invitation to sit in the mechanical monstrosity before them. A cold metal seat lay below a series of biomechanical chambers covered with the taut flesh of a butchered eldritch creature.

Tavara’s mouth gaped in shock at the sight. Raphael trusted she remembered and ruminated on his words of warning.

“There is nothing stronger than a zaith’isk for curing your infections,” the ghustil walked behind the cold metal seat and ran her hands gently and enticingly over the backrest.

Tavara’s Gith companion stepped onto the platform and neared the seat, her eyes filled with delight. “Vlaakith’s purity, distilled. My duty. My right.” the Gith insisted. Raphael was relieved, his adventurers would all watch the Gith die and realize all the promises of purification were a lie.

A human hand insistently grabbed onto her bicep to stop the Gith from receiving her “reward.” “No, I am going first,” Tavara insisted.

No…

“Do you dare to take the honor of purification from me?” Tavara’s surly Gith demanded, sharply wrenching her arm from the Little Mouse’s grasp.

“You would have never made it to this sanctuary without my skills,” Tavara insisted desperately, every other word coming out as a hiss. “The honor of purification first is mine.”

No.

No. No. NO!

He told her not to use the zaith’isk. Let one of the others use it!

The Gith thought long and hard before relenting. S eriously, this is the pride of her people and she is going to relinquish the chance to die first in the zaith’isk to his Little Mouse?

Raphael panicked as Tavara approached the seat of the zaith’isk. He was going to watch his consort’s brain matter leak out of her nostrils as the device liquefied everything that made Tavara extraordinary. The only thing that could possibly save her was some sort of divine intervention. Raphael could only hope that Jergal in their camp would get off his ass and prevent her from ending up in the Wall of the Faithless or in a permanent coma on the floor of the infirmary.

Where the fuck was Korrilla?

Hells, why couldn’t the Little Mouse have made the wizard go first?

The Little Mouse swallowed hard before taking her place within the zaith’isk. Cold metal restraints were fixed around her limbs to secure her in place. Her eyes darted nervously around the room at her companions carefully watching her. Even the vampire spawn, who tended to be quick with dry banter, remained still and silent as Tavara was offered to the machine like a sacrifice. Plumes of acrid smoke drifted towards the ceiling from a rancid, slimy pod mounted into the back of the control column. The machine whirred to life below her. A pump stuttered violently and sounded vaguely like air being stolen from the lungs of a breathing being, while several biomechanical interlocks clicked closed with a sickening squelch.

“You must focus on the parasite at all times, the zaith’isk will do the rest,” the Gith physician repeated as an afterthought. She adjusted several buttons on the console to adjust her machine. Tavara nodded quickly and uneasily as she stared above her at a light shining directly into her eyes.

The magic from the zaith’isk began to infiltrate Tavara’s mind and her eyes started to glow an unnatural blue-violet. She gave a quick pained intake of breath before her jaws clenched and she started to whimper.

Raphael could appear and destroy the device himself. He contained the simmering heat of all the Hellfire of the Hells in his fingertips and the call of the Infernal within his very being. He could snap Tavara back into the Hells with him. He could cut the power immediately and sever all the connections. He could burn down the entire damned creche to the ground. He could set an entire legion of Orthons to tear the Githyanki there from limb to limb and roll around in their piles of gore. He could beat Vlaakith’s minions to death with the Orphic Hammer. He could have Haarlep piss on Vlaakith’s avatar. He could destroy all those mortals with a single snap of his fingers.

But, he couldn’t.

Raphael wanted the Hells. He wanted the full Regalia of Karsus. There were limits to how much he could intervene before the doors to what he wanted would be closed forever. The threat of the tadpoles and ceremorphosis kept his pet adventurers compliant and motivated towards facing the Absolute, and there were no doubts in his mind that Tavara was the primary influence preventing them all from self-destructing. Her death or damage to her mind would inevitably end with her foolish companions losing themselves to their baser impulses and ending up rotting in an oubliette.

Raphael watched with bated breath as the Little Mouse inhaled sharply. She gritted her teeth and gripped hard to the armrests on the device so hard that her knuckles turned white. A pulse of white-violet power surged through her eyes in time with her heartbeat.

“That is it!” the ghustil praised. “Think of the parasite and be cleansed!” Raphael threw a candelabra at the wall of his study, all of the candlesticks breaking into scattered ivory pieces on the floor.

“That’s not a cure! Get out of there, it’s going to kill you!” the wizard pleaded, that idiot's warning came far too late to make any sort of meaningful difference in the outcome.

Tavara’s whimpers grew quieter and the device creaked with another pulse of power. Her eyes glowed brighter. Black tendrils of magic wove their way underneath the scales on her cheeks, patterning them with the contrast of a harlequin’s coat. Her scales froze and remelted quickly under the strain.

“That’s it, you’re almost there!” the ghustil lusted greedily as the lights on the device grew brighter and the Little Mouse’s body contorted to the limits within her restraints. She took a deep breath and her body settled deeply into the metal of the seat. She grew eerily quiet for a time.

There was a series of loud pops as every interlock from the zaith’isk immediately lost pressure. The device rumbled and shook before exploding. Tavara’s companions dove to the floor, avoiding shrapnel, bolts of flame, and spurts of thick ichor from the biomechanical pipes. Tavara landed on the floor in a heap with a sickening thud. Her mortal hands dug desperately into the cracks on the stone floor as she tried to press herself into a sitting position. The burning Tiefling and Warlock immediately moved towards her to clear her of the wreckage and extinguish the embers on glowing pieces of zaith’isk.

“Tav?” the Tiefling questioned. The Little Mouse’s eyes were alert and focused sharply. The black tendrils of power around her eyes had dissipated. Her skin was mottled with slush from melted sweat and whatever kohl she had been wearing to decorate her eyes was running messily down her cheeks. A thin line of chilled blood was trickling from one nostril. Her and breathing were steady.

Raphael let out the ragged breath he had been holding. This was definitely going to be the last time his consort disobeyed him in such a reckless manner.

“By Helm, I cannot believe you survived that,” the Warlock ran his careful hands up the arms of her sorceress’s robes, grinning before pulling the Little Mouse into a tight embrace.

“No!” the ghustil shrieked, frantically flipping switches on her control panel. “My life’s work is ruined!” A series of harsh Gith expletives rapidly followed before her attention snapped to Raphael’s ragged Little Mouse. “You,” the ghustil accused with a growl. “What did you do? Your parasite still lives.”

The Little Mouse glared from the stone floor in the Warlock’s embrace. “Of course the parasite still lives.” She furiously wiped the trickle of blood from her nose. “Thank the Gods themselves, it saved me.” Tavara spat onto the floor with another splatter of blood droplets. The Warlock helped her to her feet as her ragged form faced down the Githyanki physician in front of her.

The ghustil’s face immediately adopted a cold mask of calm. She smiled. “Then your parasite must be truly powerful. Let me gather some tools, we must extract it using more traditional means.” The Gith went to her workbench and coldly selected a vial of paralysis elixir and a cranial saw. Raphael roughly combed his claws through his hair in a desperate act of self-soothing.

The burning Tiefling’s face immediately sharpened in horror. “Oh fuck no!” she spat before cleaving the ghustil’s head cleanly off her shoulders with a single swipe of her axe. The head rolled onto the floor and under a piece of twisted metal with a dull thump.

The Little Mouses’s Gith companion was on her knees on the stone, her eyes wide open with shock, muttering something incomprehensible in Githyanki language. The wizard kicked at the wreckage and the Sharran went to administer some tests and healing to an ailing sorceress.

The vampling knelt on the stone floor and peered at the severed head. “See, darling,” he started with a sigh, looking directly at Raphael’s Little Mouse. “That’s the correct way to remove a head.”

Raphael sat back in the chair in his study and slowly set the Scrying Mirror facedown on his desk. He had enough surveillance of his investments for a tenday.

He snapped, and a full bottle of Hellfire whiskey appeared in front of him next to an empty tumbler. Raphael poured several fingers and took a deep drink. Someday soon he would need to have a long, detailed discussion with his Little Mouse over her lack of obedience.

#stupid sexy raphael #raphael x tav #bg3 the fine print #listen when you get instructions little mouse

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