“Hello there, how may I…oh Windshaw, give me a moment” Dyara begins her usual speech before noticing that she is talking to Windshaw and disappears out back.

She returns a minute later with Mistress in tow.

“Ah, Windshaw, what do you want” She doesn’t even bother using her accent and crosses her arms angrily, since his coming is usually bad news of some sort.

“Nothing, just coming to visit an old friend” His robe shrugs.

Her eyes narrow, unconvinced.

“Alright, I’m here to see how you’re doing with your pet” He finally confesses his intentions.

Digging her nails into her arms, deep enough to draw blood, she tries to control her overwhelming anger and sadness.

“He…He’s gone”

“Oh? Did you take it too far or something?” He asks naïvely.

“No, my servant Kariath let him go when they went into hiding”

“That was only two weeks ago, you should’ve come to me straight away for help”

“I don’t want to be in debt to a shark like you” She spits out bitterly, knowing just how terrifying it is to be in debt to that man.

“You better think again, because I’ve been hearing rumors…about your pet” He begins to turn away to leave.

“STOP” She almost reflexively jumps at him upon hearing the possibility of news “Tell me”

“I thought you didn’t want to be in my deb-”

“Give me an offer and I’ll take it” She interjects, almost panting with anxiousness.

“The key” Although Windshaw has no face, she would swear he is grinning evilly on the inside.

“Y-”

Sobering up from the anxiousness immediately, she mentally berates herself for almost going along with such a ridiculous deal.

If Windshaw got hold of the key again, hell will break loose once more. But then again, what does she care for her House.

After a quick decision, she drops her illusion, not that Windshaw was affected by it anway, and grabs a knife.

Slicing open one of her tentacles, it reveals a bloody chrome key hidden inside.

“A most perfect hiding spot, never would have guessed” Windshaw lays down a compliment as he is handed the bloody key.

“Tell me this rumour and it’d better be worth loosing you on Hellderworld” She spits out complacently.

“I heard that the child vampiress found her friend and I thought it was just a rumour since I thought you had your pet…”

Emotions swelled in her heart; anger, distraught, fury. She had taken lengths to hide her pet from this child, but still she somehow found him. And worst is, she can’t deal with someone from the House of Dacul, not as she is.

“You’re thinking about how to deal with her, right?” Windshaw speaks in a slow manner, dinstinctly hinting that he knows a way.

“How do I deal with her, go on tell me” She gets the hint, mostly because she is used to this subtle hinting from him.

“I heard that someone from Dacul killed an Illithid princeling and the House of Lith is preparing for war. You know what to do” He chuckles lightly and begins to float away.

“I HATE YOU WINDSHAW, HATE YOU” She screams at him furiously, because he just dropped her into a literal hell of a situation, which she can back out of, but then all she does is lose her entire life’s work. Plus he has the key to her vaults and all blame will fall onto her if it is raided.

“Leave your anger for the vampires, Lith” He laughs merrily as he disappears, knowing full well how fucked she is.

“DYARA” She swivels round, screaming at her secretary “GATHER THE COURT”

Dyara scuttles away, leaving Lith to start smashing the place in a vengeful fury.

While that is happening, Dyara comes out of a room, bringing an Illithid and then keeps scuttling through, going from room to room and bringing out the rest of the inhabitants.

Soon everyone is present and Lith stops destroying things.

Turning to the small crowd of twelve illithid and Dyara, she composes herself.

“Dyara, how long has it been since we built this House?” She asks oddly calmly.

“Eight hundred and thirty five years Mistress” She replies within seconds.

“Eight hundred and thirty five…I guess that was long enough of a break” She speaks wistfully, longing for more time and clenches a fist in wistful sadness.

“To be fair Lith, I was getting pretty bored. Having a war sounds quite exciting” One of the twelve illitid speaks up; a well built figure with fresh scars from whipping and chains.

“Mmm, war would be fun, just imagine all the blood” The illithid with a blue robe, to his left chimes in.

“Oh and the dead bodies” a female with a missing eye strokes her tentacles wistfully.

“And don’t forget the living ones” a similar looking female, but with two working eyes, starts stroking her tentacles lustily.

“Plus they’re vampires, they are all dead gorgeous” Two illitid speak in sync, and also wear the same green robes.

“And we all know how Lith loves her vampires” A posh sound Illithid voices his thoughts, sending a chuckle down the group.

Lith snaps her fingers sending them all into attentive silence.

“So…do you want to fuck Dacul together, or pass him round one by one?”

She laughs darkly, accompanied by everyone as they all roar in equally malignant laughter.

…

Eikthäïr taps his finger on the throne impatiently while he listens to the arguing of his court.

“I’m telling you, this is a ruse set up by Skelor to have us fight Dacul!” One illithid shouts angrily at another while pointing at the slowly rotting head of Iöïluthäör, which resides on a table in the center of the hall.

“Ruse? Ruse? How can you be so blind to the obvious?! A vampiress walked in here and threw this at our Master!” The other illithid points towards Eikthäïr.

Many similar arguments were taking place across all the room, clearly dividing the court into two.

“SHUT UP” Eikthäïr jumps off of his throne thoroughly roaring into the air.

They all quiet down upon hearing him and then shuffle to either side of the room; divided based on what they support.

An older illithid walks up next to Eikthäïr and coughs to clear his throat.

“We have sent a message to Dacul, asking why they did such a thing. We should get a reply in a week at most” His cracking voice fills the room.

“But Rÿik, won’t he just deny he did it and then just what would we do with that information?!” An illithid from the ‘it’s not a ruse’ side speaks up.

“He should have no reason to deny it if he meant it, and if he does then we should check Skelor’s loyalty” Rÿik answers back deftly.

“They watched our prince be killed and they did nothing, NOTHING” A younger illithid from the opposite side walks out from the crowd, angrily pointing towards Rÿik.

“Yes, it is a shame that our prince died almost two weeks ago on the midst of his wedding. However they are sending both the body and forty percent of their current blood to us and sent it immediately after the incident.

If that does not prove their sincerity then nothing will” He retorts towards the speaker.

“How is the blood not already here? Did they not send it two weeks ago? To my knowledge it only takes three days ride from there to here” Another illthid from the ‘ruse’ group steps out, questioning.

“He first delivered a message, which as you say, took three days, stating that the carts of blood will arrive within two weeks due to the heavy load”

“So if the carts do not come by today, then Skelor is not to be trusted?” Another ‘ruse’ member joins in.

“Yes, but if the carts arrive late, that just means he encountered other problems and therefore can still be trusted. Now are there any more useless questions to be asked or can we wait to see where the loyalties of our neighbours lie?” He scans the room, seeing no takers.

Turning to Eikthäïr he whispers “Master it is over” to him.

Almost jumping from being distracted from his daydream, he turns to his court “Court dismissed” before sitting back down on the throne.

They all start to file out, but the heavy iron doors of the hall smash open letting thirteen Illithid and a Drider storm in, to everyone’s surprise.

“Who the hell are you!?” Many of the court shout in shock as they storm through the center, ignoring them all and towards Eikthäïr.

“Stop where you are strangers, or I’ll call the guards” Rÿik shouts towards the strangers.

The one in the center, wearing a black corset and tight black leather trousers, sends a gesture to the others, making them stop abruptly. She continues to storm forward.

“GUAR-”

His head explodes mid-sentence, causing screams of shock to be heard from the court.

Eikthäïr watches dumbfounded from the throne as the stranger storms towards him, stopping just inches away.

“Get off of my throne and grovel for your life, child” She speaks with overpowering confidence, even though a large stream of hundreds of guards is coming from the doors, making the room about half filled as they surround the strangers.

Eikthäïr just looks up blankly, still shocked from Rÿik’s death.

“Ugh, who put this useless shit in charge?” She quickly grips his head before he can react and clenches, squishing part of it, letting eye juice and brain matter shlop onto her arm.

Chucking the body toward the court, they all back away in fear and hide behind the circle of guards that surround the newcomers.

Wiping her arm on the side of the throne, she sits down, crossing her legs and roaming her eyes over the court.

One of them looks towards the guards, who are still moving to surround the strangers, while pointing towards her .

“What are you doing? She just killed our Master!”

“Kill that one please” she waves her hand lazily towards the illithid.

The guard complies, turning round and ramming his sword through the court member, shocking the rest of them.

“Now, any more dissenters?”

No one speaks a word, because they are all too shocked to.

“Good. Now tell me why the Fuck you’re still pissing about holding court after That” She points towards the decrepit head that is on the table.

“Because it might be a ruse set up by Skelor” An illithid steps out from the crowd.

“So you’re telling me that you’ve done shit all for two weeks because of a…chance, that it’s a ruse?”

The illithid awkwardly nods.

“And who else here agrees with this one?”

A good half of the court raise their hands.

“Kill them all” She says while rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

A number of the guards, slightly shocked by the decision, hesitate for a second before massacring the weaponless court.

The other half, watch in pure fear, at her command to kill half the court for doing nothing.

In barely a few minutes, one side of the hall is dyed black with blood.

“Now, all guards who hesitated a second at my command, please take a step forward”

A large portion of guards step forward, although a few hesitate in fear of punishment.

“Those who stepped forward, take twenty lashes. Those who hesitated, kill them”

The ones, who hesitated, immediately start fighting but are quickly overwhelmed by numbers and fall dead.

While the slaughter is happening, one of the guards leaves and returns with bundles of whips.

Once the hesitant guards are dead, the whips are passed around and a line of two hundred guards strip and prepare themselves.

Although most of them enjoy whips, those who become guards do not like being whipped as it is against their dominant nature. Thus it is a shameful punishment to them and effective as one.

The whippings go by quickly and once they have re-donned their armor, they look once more towards her, ready for orders without hesitation.

“W-w-who are you?” A fearful court member finally regains enough courage to ask.

“I am Lith, the owner of this House” She answers immediately causing the remaining court members to balk in surprise.

The guards however, just kneel as they had already been told by the Commander of the Gates who she is, hence why they obeyed her commands.

The twelve illithid and Drider had already moved to sit on the steps beside her throne so they just smirk at the stupefied faces of the remaining court.

“Now, tell me what else has happened in these two weeks” Her eyes, cold and malignant pierce the souls of all the court members, who cower at her.

The illithid who spoke up from before walks forward.

“W-we have c-c-contacted Dacul to see whether this was his intentions and Skelor is s-s-supposedly bringing us forty percent of his blood…It should be arriving today” He bows, shaking from head to toe, fearing he’ll be killed.

“Supposedly? Why is he bringing blood and so much too?” She leans forward, slightly interested, causing rest of the court to tremble in fear.

Somewhat surprised he wasn’t immediately killed, the illithid looks up once more.

“Our prince was killed by a vampire yes, but it was in the House of Skelor and the vampire escaped unharmed, even brought the head on that table, to us” His voice gains a little more confidence as he speaks, no longer trembling uncontrollably.

“Ah Skelor, as generous as always” She wistfully speaks to no one “Forget about the carts for the moment, we must focus on Dacul, who is our sworn enemy right now” She immediately dismisses the thought of Skelor wanting to fight her, especially with what she remembers of him..

The illithid bows two times before retreating back into the crowd.

The one-eyed female leans towards Lith.

“Keep that one, the rest are useless” She whispers into her ear.

Lith trusts, Iiila, her Talent scout and does not hesitate in giving the command.

“The one who just spoke, come here” She points to the foot of her throne.

The illithid from before slowly walks up, almost tripping in fear as he makes his way past the numerous guards.

“Kill the others” She waves noncommittally towards the rest of the court.

Without a single guard hesitating, they all cut down the court, leaving that single illithid alive and terrified.

She looks to both sides, towards her own court.

“Now, shall we begin preparations for war?”

All thirteen members of her court grin evilly, causing the poor remaining member of the old court to slowly let piss run down his robe.

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-Author's Corner: I have nothing better to do on a Sunday, so chapters yaaaaaay!!!

The fire is starting and the world will soon burn!!

I'm not sure how many chapters this'll take but it'll be hell of a ride :D

Hope you enjoyed it!!! please comment, review, even send me a private message (It's always nice :D)

No promises, but be looking out for number 3 :D

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD