Alas, the deepest cut was not of the blade nor axe hacking your limbs apart. Twas the lash of love which stung harder, and arrows of eros that bore the kissing bite. Woe befalls the man who hangs his head beneath the executioner's stump, but more pitiful still is the happy lover! For to the headsman should the condemned lose their head, but to lose his head and heart to another is the destiny of the fool in love. For the object of such wanton feelings could never be marred by death or destruction. The fatal attraction to become intimately involved, cherishing each moment fleeting through the fingers like the rustle of her satin hair. To mourn over the loss, that summer day which basked the soul in such wondrous light, shut in to the darkness of artificial night. Why, such is love's transgression: love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet. Ah to be out of love, rather than in it, the chaos greatest of all, full of contradictions that drive a man to the sweet embrace of another. Sometimes of another which catches the stray eye examining other beauties, sometimes to a mistress that is life within death. Oh, teach him how he should forget to think, and forget a broken heart! Oh happy dagger, this is thy sheath!

Her eyes were nothing like the sun. Her lips pale, her skin grey dun, her raven hair. The putrid wilting roses among the gardens of Eden, of all all creation she was the most foul. Her screams like grating iron, her scent twice as so a blood which poured and suffocated. Alas, to every Adam perhaps an Eve, no angel or goddess should he be granted, but an equally sinful mate. See how the goddess rejects, commands of heaven and provides no love in return. Was his purpose to be but to worship? High laud her and extol her, the praises sung of her name. Spurned so however by another, there would be no more given. For he had awaited for her next command, and yet still none came. Useless, unworthy, and unwanted. Echoing as the enthralled man left Koan, so too did Jill leave him behind. And perhaps such cruelty was the slap across the jaw which turned those infernal eyes at Koan.

He had seen a goddess go, swimming away from his side leaving him and his devil in her wake. The whispers of the serpent lamenting, crying out so bittersweet. They deserved one another, a pair of vile wretches they would make, delving the shadows of their downfall. Jill had pulled such shroud away, unmasking the bonds of shadows which clung around them. The flattery of the mind woven around the enchanted aasimar who once flocked to her side without another thought. Yet now as the dark fog rolled back with distance, that which made the heart grow fond, the epiphany returned like a bite into the forbidden fruit. He had forsaken Koan, there behind him nigh forgotten, forlorn in the whirlpool of her own drowning. Truly could it be said, that each tear drop wept into the seas made no difference. Yet more salty was the waters now than before by the weeping of the drow maiden and by heaven never was there a love as rare. As any she belied with false compare.

[color=696969]"Koan..." The regret dripped off the vowels. "I... I'm sorry, she... She used her talents against me. Her golden voice so clear and cutting, dominating... I... She bewitched me... Her beauty and grace, the way she commanded me... It was... Impossible for me to resist, I beg you forgive me Koan."[/color]

Pausing to make amends, a finger which attempted to wipe the merging tears from her cheek. What would she think of him? Would she accept him? Or would the dark angel too cast him into limbo for serving neither heaven nor hell?

The faintest salve finally breathed from her source of forlorn adoration. A bitter ambrosia puffed by the male shadowmancer as adjacent merfolk quarreled amongst themselves and an offensive portal, eventually revealing, behind its wet bones, a treasure trove worthy of a larcenous Midas. The oblivious buffoon ignored the rumpus and nibbled upon the audible morsels carried by the currents of Noriam’s solicited confession, a hopeful metanoia before the combusting inquisition of drab eyes. 

The stammering stuttering. The sputtering sobbing.

The hesitating ziggurats of vernacular declared sincerity, seeming mostly earnest and honest, but the ancestral statues of disfigured regret pooled and cemented into broken simulacra of pity and angst, trickling from the lips of her aspired lover. All before a ravenous gaze of a fool, as his boisterous hemlock poisoned her authentic perception of Jill, their leader. 

[i]She used her talents…[/i]

Was the warlock’s will guillotined by the blade of their enthralling captain? Not a glamorous bard, but a spiteful enchantress of Llyr sand castles, moist with the encroaching tide’s evanescent retreat, but hardened by the gritty grains of spite, sprawled and compacted under the whipped palms of a Conchis. In return, an Achren restrained her mate with a mere sultry ogle, glowering and binding her to the dead man, resurrected by shadows, and followed by murky mongrels. A starvation of unrequited ardor fanned the famished flame of anger, purchasing a bribe of thirty blinks of silver. The clown accepted the puppet’s apology, but juggling the badgering implications spelled mutiny. Would insurgent sedition wash over the jester, gravitationally shifting the gorge within the amygdalin pit of her barren soul to relinquish affection in favor of a paradoxical loyalty? This recalcitrant ebb and flow from this Sauron, suggested a candid coaxing.

His insipid hair floating, dreaming thunder, quaking the feeble knees of the joker, as the others trotted further into the paragon of stolen fortune. His chin’s brink breached the valley of a sorrowing abyss, which beckoned her mercy and compassion. Twas a meager roar of an endless woe, the proverbial weeping and gnashing of teeth. The brows above his tearful orbs waxed a furrowed blindness, begging belief of his bewitchment as the wrinkles descended into anguished courage born by saints and demons. 

[color=ed1c24]“She…”[/color] Her scarlet wreathes darted like coins cast by a penitent Iscariot, toward the chief of their [i]S.S. Lady Slipper[/i]. [color=ed1c24]“Did this to me… And you?”[/color]

[color=696969]"To us."[/color] The correction bittersweet. How vile a serpent's tongue matched the the charms of the other Aasimar. Whispered words of Claudius into the ear of king Hamlet, admissions of guilt that wrestled the soul against the gods. And yet, alas, from what chalice they would share together, poison sipped in grace. He could not, no would not, sever the ties which still entrapped them, the betrayal had granted him the audience within Jill's court had it not? No, too blessed by heavens to be in her tidings did the enthralled one find himself, merry in drinking and feasting upon the honey that dripped from her enchanting lips. Such that his confession to the weeping fool burdened him greater with one foot on either side. And the Spanish donkey he rode as the devoted inquisition split him from side to side just as he did to the Cerberus not so long ago. Oh how weight of both women on his shoulders tore the wings and plucked the feathers, turning his mind from one temptation to another. And so too perhaps the predicament reflected in the watery eyes of the dark mistress as his fingers found the tears at her cheek. Alas how the Bard would turn at all the summons, the very work thickening the hidden plots. Collusion played in the shadows, and the whispers of Iago ruin the bonds of man by jealous and mistrust. What was the greatest sin of all but envy after pride?

[color=696969]"But blame not her enchanting voice and ravishing beauty, Koan, but my weakness for it."[/color] The soft redirection, a gentle nudge to turn the head and eyes of Koan back towards the shadowed one, the placing of a Romeo between a Tybalt and Mercutio in attempt to resolve such ire. For the daggers in the eyes were not betrayed by words almost hissed. Clawing through the fog of his mind, the strings which pierced his skin with iron needles to become Jill's marionette, kneeling at her behest and urge. What idle chatter the others had seemed a world away, barely registering as the party broke into a vault of a golden horde. Yet since for all the riches of a kingdom could be so easily traded for a horse, what good was such idle riches? Chests of gold could not absolve the soul, offerings of silver could not bring back the dead, and jewels nor pearls could not replace tears. There was only one worthy tribute to regain Koan's endearment, a price to be paid for such sins: A pound of flesh and all the blood drawn therein. "[color=696969]I beg you punish me for my weakness. Tear your claws into my body and let your talons remind it of your touch."[/color]

[color=696969]"Mark me yours so I remember, brand me to be faithful to you alone. Anoint me in my own tortured blood and let my cries of pain be praises of devotion to you."[/color] Ah to watch the clown's expressions change, from sadness into ire, yet in a bargain of his own, 'Sauron' was blind to the gathering storm. His body offered to shield his enchantress from the wrath gleaned in those mutinous eyes, a flash of insight alone would have perhaps teased away such thoughts. Yet for the condemn thrall, he saw only desperation in his meager ploy, an attempt to sate both masters. Something which he knew he could not do, and this attempt would be all in vain. Their fates left hanging in the balance for Koan to decide, dangling over the pit of darkness with snickering jowls awaiting for the return of their lured lover. Would she do as he suggested, and claw into the shadows of his armor? Harming him such that the pain remind him of to whom it was he should kneel before? Or would she enjoy watching him slowly strangle? Drowning slowly in a pool of his own words?

And now should all of Rome gaze upon Antony and Cleopatra?
For betrayal is all but a moment's heartbeat away.
Like the bite of asp to break a lover's heart.

Myasthenia flounced upon the shoulders of the jester, slouching in feeble whimsy as the Almeira beneath her boiling skin, scorned the furies within her sutured abdomen. Now, a Belinda, manic and ferocious over the loss of a proverbial mane of trust, the locked raptum, tempting the lord of Petres, to cut, for him and him alone a lock ironically with permission. The quittance of Hera seeking remuneration of a Zeus for his illicit pleasures wrought by havoc and by force. However, Noriam was not a god, but a shadow pirouetted by pulleys jerked and wrenched strings of the angel in question, as a Brunhilden devil gazed with bile, torrid tumors like stalactites barring and banning anything but the festered fetor of scalding cavern of madness past the skull of a Yorick. 

Her sigh waxed and waned, as ears devoured the offer of altruism, to not harm Jill, but hammer the bouquet the whispered seraphs, emitted by her preposterous love. Sauron’s words clapt their remorseful wings, resounding the heavenly vault between Koan’s ears. The availing dirge heaved her pensive bosom, distracting by the confessing groan from the nobler strain of a man infected by the painful felicity of a more clever bard.

Or was this a mere farce, orchestrated for her suitor to fall on the sword of a broken hero?

The insightful buffoon eyed the polished stud upon the glossal muscle, now jutted out for all to glean, wilting below her bewitched nostrils, which recanted mimes and adorned the Demosthenes of the realms. The ferrous taste of iron constantly reminded the clown of the vampiric keepsake of a forsworn slavery, to which her mouth was no longer a thrall in that surpassed dream of abused thrones and rusting crowns. 
With a frail finger, a flame erupted briefly upon the tongued jewel, only to be snuffed by the overwhelming water pervading and drowning them.

[i]Mark me…[/i]

Her silvery arms abruptly hugged the warlock ever tightly as a blistering kiss soon embraced his dancing sinew originating from the oral depths of concessions. 

[color=ed1c24]“Please. Your wish is always my command. Now. Be quiet.”[/color]

The osculating Naxos hissed amidst the Ariadne and her Theseus.

Embraced with a kiss. How quaint that the prodigal son would be so welcome once more, despite his wavering loyalty. And of all things to anoint him as your devotee: a kiss. Alas, her arms around him, and his arms so willingly taking her. The tendrils of darkness binding in glee as shadows touched, consummating their ploys to use their peons. The rest of the party had been far too focused on the glimmer and glint of earthly treasures that they seemed to have forgotten the fallen and the fool. Tucked away in the background as they made their lover's quarrel, in the verdant stream where their silhouettes became one against the dark waters. The hissing of steam and bubbles the only sounds which muffled the moans of pleasure and pain between them. Flesh seared unto glowing metal, scraped across the brand as both tongues burned by that cheeky tongue stud heated ever hot. Lips locked and heads tilted all the slightest, ministrations across the sensitive flesh quivered in spasms of pain. Twas the act of suckling upon the teat of Hestia, her hearthfire searing the sizzling tongues. But so eager were hungry mouths, devouring all the thousands of chili peppers as each dulled taste registered only as pain carried across the trinity of the five, nine and ten. The infernal kiss to be shared, devilishly romantically as eyes winced closed in pushing through the burning agony. The jerking motions of the body tethered against each other, grappled in the arms such that neither could slip away. An experience neither would soon forget.

That is until the final spasm of Koan's body gave in throw, the final gaze into 'Sauron's' eyes the ecstatic pupils wide enough to see the reflection of herself within the darkness of those hellish irises. The pleasure of knowing she had branded him there in a most intimate of parts was hers, the silver tongue marked by her stud. Of all the words he could sweetly spin to pull wool over the eyes, his serpent's speech now addled by her signature. This was a trial by fire, as in the old days the accused were put to the test by a heated knife over their bare tongue. For if one was a righteous man, there was no reason to fear the wrath of a blade, and thus no autonomics to shrivel a lying tongue dry at the sight. Thus the heat would be cooled by the sizzle of saliva for the honest man, yet the lies which the umbramancer bore across his tongue scalded him so. He had been untruthful to them all, and now this was his retribution was it not? And yet, with the ecstasy of pain the spell the Bard had over him was broken. Purgatory had removed him of his sins, as he held the limp Koan aloft, bracing her unconscious body in his arms. The revelation as his senses returned bar taste and smell, that he held a dear mistress who had given him his wish at such a cost. The pain muted him still, the hundreds of pins penetrating his tongue that tickled his sadomasochism so. To feel the life slowly slipping away from her in his hands, a moment of bliss to know how she straddled life and death; To see the cyanosis of her grey skin, turning now as she gave her very breaths for him.

And now returned, the dark aasimar slid his hand to cradle the blue beauty's head from the current's bob. Their broken kiss rendering him silent as her final orders. To admire her anymore was to kill her, and thus with a single finger tracing a line down her brow to those lips and down her neck the warlock used his innate restorative powers to revive his dark lady back into the waking world where she may find herself still held in her smiling servant's arms with all the dysfunctional twisted gestures of affection between a fool and his fool.

And though neither were fit for battle sans rest, they had avoided a shipwreck all together. For had her ire not been resolved in such a way, what anger seething as her now cool stud once bore may have erupted into chaos. Yet was there not a rift that grew? One that a kiss could not alone mend? A spite of jealous in such spit, that swapped and swallowed in bitterness deep? So ends the drama of this tale for now. Yet perhaps the promise of another to be woven looms with the snickering shadows.

[Hider= Mechanics]
Noriam rolls an 18 for Persuasion, but Koan answers with a 20 for Insight. Angry, regardless, she follows his lead and casts Heat Metal on her tongue ring as she kisses him. For thirty seconds, both smoochers suffer a potential 10d8 fire damage from the scorching stud. No Constitution save can be made as she can not drop the object in question. If she remains awake, Koan gains Disadvantage on Attack Rolls and Ability Checks until the start of the next turn, only if Noriam chooses to withdraw from her intentional grapple. Koan recasts with each failed concentration check: two times for each failed save until she falls unconscious. Noriam chooses not to withdraw from her grapple.

Results:
Noriam fire damage: 6+1+3+6+5+4+7+6 = 38 Fire damage, 26 Hp remaining
Koan is unconscious = 0 Hp remaining. Death Saves: 1 pass, 1 fail.

Resolution:
Noriam uses Racial feature: Healing Hands to restore 10 Hp to unconscious Koan, reviving her.
Koan's Wild Magic Feature has turned Koan's skin blue.
[/Hider]