While the idea of a human festival held little to no appeal to her, Yazaere knew that she was stuck in this world now.  And she should probably make the best of it.  The food at least was quite interesting, the spices were wholly different than what she had known in the Umbral Depths.  But what was this?  A touch of… now that was interesting.  Just a hint of a drug of some kind.  It wasn't really enough to affect her, but it would certainly do something to one of the fragile humans around her.  She pushed the bowl away, and started listening to the people around her.

rumors of bodies, that was nothing new to her.  Though usually bodies were more carefully hidden in her experience.  Yazaere didn't much care for the lives of the humans… but it might be entertaining to see just who was killing them.  She wandered close to the curry vendors, hearing more whispers.  Strange people in black moving around, and people leaving on their own, not to be seen again.  She found a guard, and posed quick questions to him.  She had a feeling that their time was precious, and they would be focused on the uncomfortable undercurrent to the festival.  He only grunted, and pointed her towards one of the less busy vendors. 

The drow watched for a moment, as a person alone purchased and started consuming one of the bowls of the spicy sauced rice.  He wandered by the group of bards, and that was when things began to get interesting.  Someone in a black robe watched the lone person.  Then they rushed to aid the man when he started to trip over his own feet.  Yazaere guessed it to be a result of the curry.  They started towards an alleyway, and the drow followed.  She might as well do something interesting with her day.

Festivals, as a rule, were irresistible to the newest member of the pantheon. Back when I first met her, she always said that parties were her calling card, especially when it came to the "after party activities in private rooms." Murder mysteries, on the other hand, were most certainly not her forte. Therefore, when the Abedian Color Festival began and the rumors of corpses floated about, Skadi made a beeline for the holy island with no interest in pursuing the mysterious undercurrents. For all her moronic tendencies, she did at least possess the self awareness to realize she couldn't discover the truth through careful deduction. That was a road rife with disappointment just waiting to happen because she didn't possess the mental faculties to win through.
 
Yet, as most things of this nature go, she still found herself smack dab in the middle. When first arriving in Abed, Skadi began bugging local guards for directions. The city was like a bad rash in the nether regions to her, considering it was a religious settlement, so she was relatively unaccustomed to its geography. Apparently, the guards grew annoyed at her incessant pestering, however, because they quickly issued false directions to one of the corpse-laden alleyways just to get rid of her.
 
"These people are most certainly not lively," the woman said when walking into the body dump the guards had so generously directed her toward. She realized she had been duped quite hastily, and turned around to vacate the premises before any guards showed up. Already being framed for murder once in Revaliir was enough for the poor deity, so she just found her way to a local curry shop away from the alley before it could happen again.
 
Ironically, that same curry shop was one that had been spiked. Skadi had intended to avoid the murder mystery altogether, but was stumbling on clue after clue like a lucky, if oblivious, detective. When she ordered and consumed her curry, she, like others before her, immediately became dizzy. The effects reminded her of being drunk, which hadn't happened for eons beyond counting. She stumbled about the streets, getting away from the noise of the crowd and buying time till the effects wore off. A group of black, cloaked men tried to abscond with her during that time. They said nothing as they tried to grab at her bodice, not realizing that inebriation did not make Skadi any less dangerous.
 
"No touchy," she shouted before dodge rolling away from their initial bum rush! She nimbly pivoted after said dive - though somewhat erratically with the curry still in her system - and then proceeded to grab a nearby barrel of color with inhuman speed. The cult members were unable to react before that same cylinder was sent sailing through their ranks, knocking down all three members in an explosion of color. One tried to get up after the fact, his cloak now dyed a bright pink, but Skadi just head butted the poor fool on the bridge of his nose right before he got his bearings. He passed out in an instant, though not before the ruckus summoned more guards.
 
Whatever those officers had been trying to say, the deity did not hear. After the cloud dispersed, she saw a drow vixen off near a collection of bards: a woman that would be her focus for the rest of the day.
 

"Hello, Nurse," was all Skadi could say upon glimpsing the eye candy that was Yazaere, and she immediately proceeded after the female from a distance. The dragon blooded followed her prey after another cloaked man; not fully making the connection that he was a part of the same group which had just attacked her. She was too focused on the woman's ass for that level of critical thinking, though she was ready to and well within range of beating any assaulter to a bloody pulp if necessary. Unfortunately, that also meant that her distance from Yazaere was rather conspicuous and creepy even for a human's standards.

She didn't pay any attention to the commotion behind her, Yazaere was more interested in the goings on before her.  Passing by the alleyway, the pair had disappeared.  The drow only shrugged, she had been in the city long enough to know that it was something of a common occurrence.  Instead, she kept her ears open, hearing more murmurs.  More people missing, something strange in the curry.  Perhaps it would be worth it to ask a vendor just what precisely was going into that curry.  But she also heard someone mention an insignia that had been found.  That seemed a worthwhile detour. 

The palace wasn't hard to find, and the insignia had been put on display by the time Yazaere pushed her way through the crowds.  It was above the hands of everyone and encase behind glass.  But she could only stare for a few moments.  While she was familiar with many Drow insignia, this was unfamiliar to her.  there was nothing she could really discern from it.  Turning away, Yazaere decided to ask about the drug in the curry.  She headed straight for the vendors again, seeking the one she had purchased a bowl from before.

But the man was not there, and Yazaere's gray eyes narrowed.  That was suspicious.  She found another vendor she remembered seeing, and made her way close.  He was closing up when she approached, and he opened his mouth to tell her off it seemed.  The drow glared him into silence and asked a simple question.  "The curry, what is in it?  And I do not mean the spices!" she snarled.  He paled, it seemed even her people had a reputation over here.  That was useful. 

He pointed her to the last man he had sold his curry to, a man that was already beginning to stumble about.  She hurried again, and once more a man in black was there to help.  This time, she followed.  And this time when the man in black and his companion disappeared, Yazaere could see there was a way going below the street.  She followed this time, wanting to know just what was going on.

Skadi, despite being relatively horrible at her stalker profession while under the influence of the curry, at least had the sense to remain silent while tailing Yazaere. It was a miracle that the drow did not see the woman following her, and Ms. Night had no desire to change that by a careless word. She used corners during her pursuit – poorly, I might add – and avoided her prey's attention on the way to the palace through no small amount of dumb luck. The whole event turned into something straight out of a jester's tale, complete with oblivious damsel and fool in tow.
 
The disjointed pair visited the cultist insignia at the palace, with one member scoping out the other's bust rather than engaging in intellectual pursuits; and then quickly moved back onto the curry stands. Skadi was still conspicuous by that point, even if she waited till after Yazaere was out of earshot before enacting any of her spontaneous, comedic skits. Case in point, she waited till the drow was quite a ways away before grabbing the same curry stand worker she interrogated and redoing the whole encounter "properly."
 
"Where are the other drugs," she asked the man with a cracking, pubescent voice?! It sounded more like a boy's voice, the modulation involved aided by expert, voice acting skills. This actually made the vendor give Skadi an incredulous look. His first impression was that she was clearly high, if not mad, and he quickly pointed her in Yazaere's direction just to get away. Of course, he did still manage to ask a single question before his collar was released.
 
"Is that really your voice," he inquired? Skadi regarded him with a blank expression afterward, but only briefly. It wasn't long before she knocked the vendor out with a headbutt like the cultist member earlier, followed by an answer he could no longer hear. 

"Nope!" And so the chase continued: with the joker following her damsel down into Abed's, darkened catacombs.

Though she was quite used to the darkness, there was something different about the underground tunnels of Abed.  There was only so far that Yazaere could see, and that was deeply unsettling to the drow.  She was accustomed to being able to see as far as she wished in the dark, but such a little thing did not stop her.  She descended, watching her feet and keeping her ears open.  The passages started to twist around, and Yazaere was almost certain there was someone behind her.  But she was not the hunter that her sister was, and the drow had to settle for pressing forward. 

It was the smell of blood that made her pause.  Around the next corner, she found her answer.  An ancient looking altar carved of stone was spattered with blood, fresh from the smell and look.  And it was then that she realized she was standing in a crypt.  Not that it bothered the drow, she was a former cleric, so bodies were nothing new to her.  Humans tended to be very squeamish though, especially if they had any idea their city was built on a foundation of the dead.

Eying the altar for a moment, it bore the mark of a thunderbolt.  She knew nothing of the gods of this land though, and Yazaere moved on.  there was a bloody trail moving deeper into the catacombs.  "Why not," she thought to herself with a shrug and moved further into the darkness.  But it grew even darker, and Yazaere knew there was something else at play here.  There was a whisper of cloth moving behind her, and the hand on someone else darted out to grab her arm.  Yazere growled, she did not like being touched.

But it was only an old man, and he offered her a lantern.  "Even your kind need a bit of help seeing down here.  And yours, mostly certainly," he said, addressing a woman behind the drow.  He offered the woman a lantern too.  Yazaere only turned and glared.  Was she the source of the eyes that had been on her all this time, and the noises in the corridors?

Vision, like most of the senses, is something that many people take for granted until it is denied to them. Yazaere, the drow who occupied Skadi's focus during her escapades in Abed, was among this group, as evidenced by her slight hesitation in the darkness. The dark elves were a race that rarely had to fear anything related to the depths, so they were extremely susceptible to the psychological effects of magical darkness. Skadi, on the other hand, was not.
 
For most of her brief time in Revaliir, the Lady Luck had thrived on leaps of faith.  Though she had difficulty seeing with her eyes in the catacombs beneath the city, she didn't really have to slow down to keep up with her quarry. She subconsciously switched to sound and smell to make her way, mentally mapping out the area via her other senses. T'was, therefore, that the darkness, however magical it was, didn't really affect her in anything but aesthetics.
 
Of course, because of her refocused attention in that circumstance, Skadi's eyesight grew worse the longer she remained in the dark.  When Yazaere arrived at the sacrificial altar to Aegir, for example, Mrs. Night wasn't able to see mundane details like the symbolism upon the stone. Her mental map just told her there was fresh blood atop the stone edifice: a trail that led deeper into the tunnels. She and her unwilling partner would eventually follow this trail, but the darkness grew impenetrable along its path. The magic could not affect sound, thereby meaning that Skadi could still navigate, but she still quickly found herself unable to see Yazaere at all.
 
Thankfully, a certain man began handing out lanterns before vision became impossible. The goddess had heard the old man off to the side of the path before he appeared, but hadn't expected aid to come of his presence. She was actually preparing to gut him like a fish should he prove troublesome, but that was before he proved his altruistic intentions. Even then, of course, the Lady wasn't fond of the fact that he had called attention to her when Yazaere was still in earshot. She walked up to him, clearly irate but still moving with the elegance of a noblewoman.
 
"You threw off my groove…" she said with a tone half-caught between irritation and gratefulness. The old man was baffled by this response, and about to open his mouth before Skadi poked him in the eyes and took the lantern offered her.
 
"Ow," he cried! It was a light touch, though: a reduced sentence for his aid in restoring the black pearl that the mistress was seeking. She didn't admit it, but Skadi was grateful that he gave out those Lucina lanterns like candy and also provided a chance for an introduction.



"Enchante, mademoiselle." Skadi moved toward Yazaere after lightly patting the old man on the head like a lost puppy. She summoned a bouquet of crystal roses into her hand, a special type of subterranean, luminescent crystal that grew into the shape of a rose and was native to the Drow homeland. They were considered a beautiful rarity in that place, and Skadi proffered them to the vixen in front of her while on bended knee.  "I would recite Romeo and Juliet, but the color of that lovely skin of yours makes you more like the new moon than the sun."

For a few long moments, Yazaere could do little more than stare at the woman.  She cared little for the old man, beyond gratitude for the lantern that helped her sight.  But it wasn't until the woman summoned a bouquet of delicate flowers that were quite familiar to her did Yazaere finally understand the intention.  The words did not make sense, but the actions spoke loud enough.  "Do not even think to touch me, ugul'rosin srow," she snarled.  The idea of being with a woman, strange enough to her.  But even worse, with a being who was not a drow?  That was nearly unthinkable to her.  Her sister got a pass, but that was the only exception in Yazaere's mind.

She quickly turned away, and inhaled.  Through the dank air of the tunnels, there was still fresh blood threading its way through the miasma.  Without regard to the strange woman behind her, Yazere headed towards the fresher blood.  While she could not see as well as she liked, her hearing down here was not affected.  The cultist that tried to attack her was clumsy to the drow, and rather slow moving.  The fallen cleric grabbed the cultist's arm, twisted it around his back and slammed his face into the wall.

When the dazed look cleared from his eyes, the cultist found himself with a dagger at his throat.  "Now just what is going on?  Tell me now, or your blood joins what is on the floor," she growled.  But the man only laughed, giving her nothing of use.  His other arm jerked down towards the mace at his belt with obviously violent intent.  The drow shook her head, and slit his throat without thinking.  But as she did, his head jerked and she spun around, again glaring at the strange woman.  "Will you not leave me be?  Your help is not needed," she snapped.  Something about this surface dweller was bringing out her temper.