#lady vellexia

[sklepick]

A long time ago, when I was still responsible for Vellexia in Pathfinder ask, I participated in an event called Harrow cards(smth like tarot cards, but Harrow).

Here is my card :)

Sorry for the bad quality, it’s not my fault I swear…

[dujour13]

13. Lockpicks

So I had to do this one but it ended up not really being about Woljif. Thanks again to @starlightcleric for the Owlcatober 2022 challenge!

***

“The little bard is also a comedian.” Shamira did not look entertained. “You want me to believe you killed Vellexia?”

Siavash drew out the amulet he’d taken from the ancient succubus’ corpse. “It was a team effort.”

Flames roared up behind her. “And what did you find out for me? Speak, but not in front of these fools. Use your mind instead of your lying, flapping lips.”

The heat was unbearable, rising from the floor and warping the air, flames leaping up the walls and boiling on the ceiling. Worst of all were the two searing eyes he could not drag his gaze from. They filled his vision and burned into his skull.

Yet he held his ground. “For the Lady in Shadows’ right hand, it’s surprising how much you don’t know.”

Her minions turned their eyes toward him eagerly. Was Shamira about to get taken down a peg?

“You will tell me everything,” said the red-haired angel—or what was once an angel, now twisting in flaming rage above him.

Trapped in her gaze, he felt hot fingers in his mind—no, claws—digging and scraping, peeling back the skin of his thoughts to expose the raw nerves underneath.

Sweat ran down his face. It was hotter than that Worldwound day when they’d found the haunted city. They destroyed the vescavor queen with fire. Then they went down to the Sellen to cool off and he’d stripped to his linens and very nearly stepped out of those too, when he noticed Woljif turn his face away—

“Hold still!” screeched her voice in his head.

“Great gods, will you sit still for five minutes, Si!”

“I thought of a new song, Da. Can I just play it one time so I don’t forget?”

“No. Arpeggios first, compositions second. You—”

“Can I go outside?”

Then he was outside in the eccentric old Desnan beekeeper’s garden down by the Andoshen, and she was showing him and the other children how to make butterflies out of clothespins and scraps of silk.

She used to read dreams. He loved her to read his dreams so much that when he couldn’t remember any he’d make some up. She probably knew, but she read them anyway and gave him honeycombs and called him Lark because he loved to climb and sing.

All the while, Shamira worked away, and his mind slipped out of her searing fingers down the winding paths of childhood. A child’s dreams—welcome respite from the ardent nightmares of this place. He gritted his teeth against Shamira’s discordant mental screams of frustration.

So hot—so cold—

Tumbling down the mountainside in deep snow with his friends that one year at camp they got caught in a storm and thought they were going to die trapped overnight in a shepherd’s cabin. Was he going to die trapped in the Abyss? Or would they awaken to sunlight, perfectly alive, and run out flushed and laughing as if all the night’s terrors were already forgotten?

She was poking deeper now. Hooked metallic scraping like Woljif’s lockpicking tools, prodding and swiveling, pushing over the tumblers of his memory. He felt one start to give.

Nahyndrian crystals—

No. When they got out of the Abyss.

When they got back to Drezen, which of course they would—he was more and more sure of it—the first thing he’d do after a bath and a party at the Half-Measure would be to head to the Insula with Woljif and lie on the roof and look at the stars together, and then…

“What did you discover? Tell me, you insolent maggot!” Shamira’s scream pierced through his thoughts. She was so close now. Woljif said the trick was to hold one tool at just the right angle to keep the first tumblers from falling back into place while you turned over the last one. Ha, that was the trick—she couldn’t keep up the pressure on his wandering thoughts while she tried to unlock his memory. Her grip began to falter.

…and then they would bundle together in Woljif’s kip (and he was not sharing that part with Shamira) and he would become an outlaw, the ex-Commander and his Merry Band, rogues and vigilantes of the Worldwound: no more council meetings, no more paperwork, just them against the demons, freeing prisoners, healing the wounded, returning life and joy to the remnants of Sark—

Boiling, seething hatred exploded in his mind. He tore his eyes away and squeezed them shut. His eyelids felt blessedly cool. Shamira’s spell was broken. She withdrew her psychic torture implements and screamed aloud in rage.

“Get out. Get out!”

[camelliagwerm]

Dreams for Cam and Valerius, Understanding for Leonelle and Jaethal?

Dreams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

Valerius definitely had a more...traditional future in mind with Camellia; as per his conversation with Vellexia, he treats love carefully and seriously as he would handle a weapon and once he is in love with someone, it is usually serious enough that he would start picturing a future with them - and he would want to do it both correctly and according to his station as both a scion of Caliphas and a high-ranking Urgathoan. As per familial tradition, he would want to marry her once in the eyes of the Pallid Princess (the spiritual wedding, the true wedding), and once in a temple of Abadar for the purpose of social norms and legality. Other than that, the rest of it does not matter - whatever makes them happy.

Camellia on the other hand, was a little nervous picturing a future. She always fears the potential of what feels like the inevitable coming to fruition, and thus does not want to make any long term plans. Take it one step at a time.

Understanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

There's a great line that Bartholomew Delgado says once I had Relations hits rank 3, I believe, and he requested that Leonelle finds a Minister to oversee matters of espionage: "a spymaster can sometimes learn too much about his lady." That is true for Jaethal, who initially took the role for a short time. She knows Leonelle's most intimate secrets - of how she came to leave Cheliax, and likely the only one who really knew the nature of her relationship with Nyrissa (aside from Kanerah, who had had been having an uneasy feeling that her lover was constantly distracted by another as their nights together became further and further apart.) To understand her lover and patron's needs better means she provide them better and in turn enjoy the benefits of being the Queen's long-term companion. She doesn't quite have the empathy, but is quick to offer solutions for related problems.

As for Leonelle, she knows Jaethal best, and Jaethal has always been honest with her. In a court where lies and flattery are as valuable as coin, she appreciates the honesty of her lover. Perhaps the only thing she struggles to - or doesn't wish to - understand is that Jaethal will have to one day leave her side to set about finding a suitable father to sire a daughter or two as a future vessel.

[sklepick]

Today is my birthday!

in honor of this, I drew Lady Wellexia in character... in character. I don't know who it is exactly, an angel or azata.

I also already have at least 2 comic answers to ask for her, but they are all in Russian. If there is someone here who knows English well and can help me with the translation, please write me back... I have cookies, thanks and art for you!

[sklepick]

I was invited to ask..

I will play Lady Vellexia, succubus aristocrat

by the way, in the game itself, I turned her mirror, by accident …