Snakes

Although the prisons of Thradnyss are tucked safely underground, Prince Narkykos has authorized a more imaginative location for interrogations of prisoners: an enclosure made of vines woven between three baobab trees, high above the ground. Soundproofing spells keep the enclosure safe from eavesdroppers, but many gaps between the vines allow a dizzying view to the streets below. Three humanoids sit at the center of the enclosure, which dips a bit under their weight. They are tied together with thorny vines and shift uncomfortably, trying to avoid being pierced and cut by their bindings. A forest gnome sits nearby, watching them intently with grass-green eyes; she holds a wooden staff that emits a faint green glow.

A platform on one of the baobab trees provides seating for four Eladrin, each with their eyes on the prisoners. Of the four, only Guildmaster Aithlin Ralotris is choosing to stand. Their attention shifts to a hulking black dragonborn on a narrow wooden bridge between two of the support trees, twitching with suppressed energy, axe in hand.

“Rhogar. Am I to understand that you would like to take the lead with the interrogation of the prisoners?” the guildmaster prompts.

“Gladly, so long as we can keep ’em from speaking snake,” the dragonborn growls.

“If they do, I will translate,” a captivating female wood elf volunteers as she seems to materialize from a different baobab’s platform.

“I don’t know that I trust your translations, Naivara, after–”

“I can also translate,” Aithlin’s assistant, a frosty Eladrin called Vulwin, calls from his seat on the platform. “Though I refuse to get anywhere near those…abominations.” He glares with prejudice towards the prisoners. One of them hisses at him in reply.

“We are not abominations,” she sneers.

“Iuz willing, we are on the path to being perfected,” another of the prisoners spits between too-sharp teeth, allowing onlookers a glance at his blue, forked tongue.

“You will not need to get near them,” Naivara assures Vulwin. “I will do what must be done to get the information we seek from our…guests.”

“Lorilla? Darrak? Vladislak?” Rhogar asks the others who assisted in the capture of these prisoners that morning. Lorilla, the forest gnome with the glowing staff, glances at him.

“I have already told you what my contribution would be,” she says. She lifts a finger towards the prisoners, and the vines around them tighten. One of them hisses as a thorn pierces his skin.

“I know it must be done, but my oaths forbid that I participate,” Darrak, a heavily armored and bearded dwarf, grumbles from the third baobab’s platform. Beside him, Vladislak, a handsome half-elf, offers a smile that’s meant to be charming but reveals nerves.

“I’m here if you need me, but you and Naivara seem like the best interrogators in our team,” he offers.

Rhogar grinds his teeth. “Is no one else concerned that she–”

“Now is not the time,” Guildmaster Aithlin interrupts. His fiery eyes defy argument.

“Indeed. Prince Narkykos is expecting me to bring him a report by midafternoon,” the autumn Eladrin beside the guildmaster adds. She’s as beautiful as Naivara and as charming as Vladislak, in her own way, which is how Zilyanna became an advisor to the supreme ruler of Thradnyss in the first place.

“And he shall have it” the fourth Eladrin, whose skin gleams burnished copper around his armor, declares. “I’m sure we are all most interested in what these snakes have to say. I know my men and I want to know how we can keep plague-spreading vermin like this out of the city.”

“We will get answers, Captain Durlan,” Naivara tells him with soothing confidence. She has no qualms about saying or doing whatever it takes to elicit the information they need about the plague called Mindfog from the snakefolk they’ve captured. The lithe wood elf crosses the network of vines with enviable grace to join the prisoners at the center of the enclosure. In contrast, Rhogar approaches the prisoners with slow, awkward steps. The vines beneath his feet shudder with every move he makes until a flow of green energy from Lorilla’s staff thickens and steadies them. 

“Now, let’s start with your names, please,” Naivara says once Rhogar has joined them. Her tone is pleasant; she could almost be introducing herself to someone in a tavern, rather than conducting an interrogation. “Conversations are so much nicer when we all know each other’s names.”

“Introduce yoursssself, then,” the snake-eyed prisoner who had been posing as the leader of the merchant caravan challenges.

“You’ve heard our names, if you’ve cared to listen,” Rhogar snaps. “She asked for yours. Better answer, or I’ll beat the answer out of you.”

Naivara holds up a hand to Rhogar, indicating that he should ease up, but he huffs and glares at her in reply. He still doesn’t trust her and intends to interrogate the snakefolk in his own way–as brutally as possible.

“We are ssservantsssss of Iuz, and that issss all you need to know,” the blue-tongued one retorts.

“Have it your way,” Naivara shrugs before giving Rhogar a gesture that he interprets as “go ahead and rough them up a little bit.” He grabs a large knife from his belt and cuts each prisoner across the forehead in the blink of an eye. Muddy-looking blood oozes from each cut, and all three prisoners wince and hiss.

“What the fuck is that?!” the arrogant female prisoner demands. Her speech is less sibilant than the other two, and the only visible signs of her Yuan-Ti heritage are the brown scales on her hands and forearms. “It feels like–”

“BUGSSSSSSS!” the snake-eyed one shrieks as he wriggles and twists in his restraints. “Get them off! Get them off!”

“Shut up,” Rhogar growls, slapping the prisoner across the face.

“A poison, of my creation,” Lorilla answers the female prisoner. “I can make it stop if you answer Naivara’s question.”

The prisoner narrows her eyes and looks at the forest gnome, then the wood elf with obvious disdain, despite her own discomforted squirming. After a few moments, she seems to decide it is in her own best interest to cooperate. “Fine. I am Toaskethi. These are Zhazsus and Nuskil.” She points with her chin first to the one who mentioned Iuz, then to the one screaming about bugs.

True to her word, Lorilla says some druidic words and waves her staff at the prisoners. Nuskil audibly sighs in relief.

“There now, that’s not so bad, is it?” Naivara asks the prisoners, twirling a dagger around her fingers. “I think we can get along just fine.” She sits down in front of Zhazsus so that they are eye level with one another.

“What are you–” Rhogar begins, but she silences him with a wave of her hand.

“You said something very interesting about being perfected through the will of Iuz,” Naivara continues. “I’m intrigued. Can you explain that a bit more?”

Zhazsus’s eyes light up. “Iuz can make us more like the mosssst blessssssed creaturessss.”

“More snakelike, you mean?” Rhogar demands. His fingers twitch around the handle of his blade, eager to inflict more pain on the snakefolk.

“Obviously,” Toaskethi mutters, prompting a snarl from the dragonborn.

“And how would that be accomplished?” Naivara asks Zhazsus.

“Don’t tell her anything!” Nuskil urges, having recovered enough from the poisoned cut on his head to pay attention to his comrades. Naivara tilts her chin towards Rhogar, and he grabs one of Nuskil’s hands, drives a claw into his thumbnail, and then yanks the thumbnail off. Nuskil screams and blood spatters the vines. A whisper and a wave from Zilyanna keep any blood from reaching the streets of Thradnyss below them. Vladislak’s stomach heaves and he turns away, swallowing the bile that threatened to come out of his mouth. Beside him, Darrak is similarly disgusted but hides it behind crossed arms and a dark scowl.

“Well?” Naivara prompts Zhazsus.

“Why do you want to know?” Zhazsus counters.

“Everyone strives for perfection.” Naivara ignores glares from Rhogar and Darrak; all of her focus is on the Yuan-Ti in front of her. “If you’ve discovered how to accomplish it—”

“Only Iuz can make ussss perfect.” He’s switched to Abyssal, but Naivara understands him perfectly. Vulwin translates his speech for everyone else present, but Zhazsus doesn’t seem to notice. “The Old One requires ssssacrificessss.”

Naivara arches an eyebrow and nods. “Does this illness you’ve brought with you give Iuz sacrifices?”

“Yesssss. That is itssss purposssse.”

“It’s speaking snake again,” Rhogar gripes, pulling out another knife. Naivara raises a hand to him and shakes her head vehemently.

“Some have told me that this illness spreads through water. Is this true?”

“That which has always brought life also gives death, or else brings new supplicants to Iuz,” Toaskethi answers, also in Abyssal. In an instant, Rhogar is beside her, tearing brown scales from her left arm. She screams in pain and a grim but satisfied grin spreads across the dragonborn’s face.

“Enough, Rhogar,” Darrak pleads from his platform. 

“Sounds like a confirmation to me,” Guildmaster Aithlin remarks as Vulwin translates. “You are taking notes, yes?”

“I am,” Zilyanna assures the guildmaster, “and they can be copied for your records before I take my leave.”

Meanwhile, Naivara is still focused on getting answers from the Yuan-Ti prisoners. “I’m still not sure how ‘sacrificing’ people with this plague will help you become more…perfect. Can you enlighten me, Zhazsus?”

“Only ssssservantsssss of Iuz may know,” he answers with a shake of his head. “And you are no servant of The Old One.”

“Rhogar?” Naivara’s prompt brings Rhogar to drip a clear liquid out of a vial onto Zhazsus’s head and bare feet. An angry red rash erupts across his skin, everywhere the liquid touches, and Zhazsus howls in pain.

“Bold of you to assume you know anything about what deity or deities I might serve,” Naivara tells Zhazsus, cool and indifferent as a glacier. “Now, let’s try this again. How does ‘sacrificing’ people with this plague help you become more perfect?”

“Ritualsssss…with the corpses…and…other thingssss,” Zhazsus admits through gritted teeth as he writhes, trying to scratch the rash.

“You’ve ssssaid too much already! Keep quiet, will you?!” Nuskil shrieks. He thrusts an elbow into Zhazsus’s ribs. Rhogar slams a fist into the side of Nuskil’s head, making him whimper and cower.

“It doesn’t matter what they know. They cannot stop the Rulers of the Nest,” Toaskethi asserts. She looks remarkably serene despite the wounds on her arm and the gash on her forehead.

“The Rulers of the Nest?” Naivara repeats, arching an eyebrow. “They seem like people I simply must meet someday. Where might I find them?”

“You won’t find them anywhere,” Toaskethi sneers. “No lesser being may pollute the air where they reside.”

Rhogar resumes tearing scales out of her arm, one by one, but this time she doesn’t make a sound.

“Zhazsus, do you know where the Rulers of the Nest reside?” Naivara asks, shifting her focus to the rash-ridden prisoner.

“Ssssome knowledge cannot be sssspoken,” Zhazsus replies evasively.

Rhogar slashes the bottom of Zhazsus’s foot with a knife. He yowls something in Abyssal about ice in his veins.

“Nuskil, your turn,” Naivara says. “The Rulers of the Nest. Where are they?”

Nuskil spits in her general direction. She rolls her eyes in response. Rhogar tears out another of his fingernails. Nuskil screeches and curses. Lorilla’s vines tighten around all three prisoners.

“Take as long as you need, all of you,” Naivara invites as she circles the Yuan-Ti like a cat stalking its prey. None of them will meet her eyes or say a word. Rhogar drives a three-inch thorn into the place where Nuskil’s thumbnail used to be. Nuskil shrieks but says nothing of value.

“This can be as easy or painful as you want it to be,” Naivara continues, twirling her dagger again. “We have all the time in the world.”