RP:A Bone of Contention

From HollowWiki

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.


Background

Jolie is given a mysterious sack of bones by Redhale, who instructs her to make necromantic wonders with them.


In The Dark Fortress

Jolie had made her way back to through the mazey path leading to the main hall of the Dark Fortess, carrying a sack over one shoulder that was dropped as she reached one of the cyclopean stone couches. On this she sat, her legs dangling over its edge, knocking her heels idly against the carven furnishing's side and whistling a tuneless little tune.


Redhale was drawn out of one of the many twisting corridors by Jolie's whistling, his pale mask peeking around a corner before slinking forwards, followed by that swaying tower of blackness to which his face was attached. The approach was silent, but he was making no attempt to keep hidden.


Jolie waggled her fingers at Redhale. "I was hoping to see you, Dark Man."


Redhale nodded his head slowly, "I know, we have business, you and I. It should be seen to before the time passes."


Jolie nodded. "The bone?" She slid off her seat, landing on the stone floor with a double-barreled 'tick' of heels. She bent to scoop the sack up. "I've something to show you.."


Redhale shrugged slowly, "If that is the business. It must be done, sooner or later, and later will be difficult." His mask began to drift around his form, staring into the distance at awkward angles, "If you have a plan, you should put it into action."


Jolie blinked, wondering if they were talking about the same thing. "Redhale. You know things. I want to know them. Spill the beans, while I get this ready..." She drew out of the sack that long leg-bone she'd promised to keep for him. It had been cut at both ends, producing a hollow tube that was carven with a thousand, tiny, screaming faces that each looked remarkably and horribly real in every minute detail.


Redhale didn't even cast his attention to the bone, he could already tell what it would look like, "If you were to wait while I told you all of the things I know then you would be left sickly and wrinkled." He turned away from whatever space he had been looking at to draw nearer to Jolie, "What do you really want to know? That is, what do you think you want to know?"


Jolie sighed.. so many things. She let her mind pick over them all before choosing one, knowing time was always short with Redhale. Or at least, one never knew when it would be. "I need to know where Vuryal's lair is. His real one, not the vanishing thing. I made a deal, a pile of gold. A little cold revenge. It'd really make my day if you could help me on that, or close enough..." She turned the bone staff about in her hands. "Do you know what this, Redhale?"


Redhale groaned a little, "The time lord, always killing, never leaving bodies... We will have to pick over the battlefields like carrion birds ourselves... But the inner working of his plot aren't privy to me. I would ask his allies, not his enemies, for information like that. Surely they all ultimately come from the same place." He seemed rather uninterested in the topic, as if he didn't expect Vuryal's plans to interfere with his unlife despite the fact his own home had come close to being destroyed by the time lord, "As for that," He gestured to the bone, "Do -you- really know what it is?" It might have sounded cryptic, but he was genuinely curious.


Jolie did not look pleased, at either of his comments. "He tried to blow up my city, Redhale. I'll have his guts on a pike." That said, with undisguised chagrin, she glanced to the staff. "I call it Light-bane. Does that give you a clue?" There was a creaking sound, a soft crackle, and some of those tiny faces seemed to be screaming a little louder, albeit as silently as ever. "From the moment I picked it up, that is all that I could think of - Light-bane. I don't remember carving it.. the ritual to charge it for magic use went a little awry, I think..." There was a strongly confused expression on her face, for a moment. "All I know is, when I finished it had all those little faces. And that it was called Light-bane."


Redhale shrugged, "I was under the impression the guts he's currently using are not his own, but I suppose you'll do as you wish." Now he did bother to take a closer look at the carved bone, but searched it for the enchantments on it rather than scanning the faces it wore, "I suppose that makes it the enemy of my enemy. We already have the same enemies anyway, but I'm not sure I'd call it a friend."


Jolie stepped toward Redhale, hesitating before holding it out to him. "It's a light trap. But like nothing I've ever seen before. Redhale, whose bone was it made from?" She was growing pale, perspiring, as though offering the staff over was a vast challenge she was failing dismally. "It doesn't just trap light. It... changes it."


Redhale took the instrument in his gnarled hand, an instant chill running through it which was jerked away before it reached Jolie. He hefted it and spun it about a few times, the hollow tube whistling mournfully as it swung through the air, "The bones are my own. I got tired of them. Too brittle, and how they ached..." He looked up from the carved bone to Jolie, "So does it work?"


Jolie nodded dumbly, her fingers twitching as though they ached to hold the accursed item once more. "Like a charm.." she whispered, wondering how he knew the method to make it 'talk'.. but it was his own bone, he’d said, so of course... "There's something else.. aside from what it does, Redhale. There's a strange quality about it. Sometimes I hear a woman, when it whistles. And it does not like to be let go. Once, when I was messing about with it, I could swear it asked me for its true name.." Shaking her head as though to clear it of a fugue, she went on. "The same basic cantas for activating a magical light trap, but I found..." here, she imparted a string of guttural phrases only another dark magician would know, let alone speak without severe ill-effect. The staff's whistling grew keener, and louder, until it was almost deafening, and the torches that lit that great, abysmal hall shrank as if being smothered, as the feeble light they shed broke off from them in long, ribbony streams. These fluttered to the staff's open-ended mouths, streaming in, as the many faces writhed or seemed to. Shaking, the necromancer then said, "That was the first canta. The second.. it's unpredictable. But the light comes back out... different. Changed. Corrupted.”


Redhale twisted his head about at Jolie's curious statement, handing the artifact back to her as he queried the story, "A woman's voice? The query seems reasonable but I do not know why it should be spoken by a woman..."


Jolie shrugged. "Like I said.." she grabbed for the thing, almost greedily, but it somehow evaded her grasp. She frowned and tried again, to no avail. "..I don't recall much of the ritual.. funny, that. Like I had some sort of.. blackout. It was only by sheer trial and error that I worked out what it was for."


Redhale let his focus examine Jolie closely, searching her for any sign of harm, "You blacked out? That isn't unheard of amongst practitioners of such magic, but often comes with dangerous side effects... You should have that strange man from earlier check you mind, make sure nothing has come apart in there..."


Jolie almost whispered, "Mister Goodbird? I was looking for him..." she glanced toward the Pool, knowing full well where he was. Distracted by the low whistle of the staff, she glanced back, her cheeks white. "Dangerous.. yes. I don't know.. quite what I've made, Redhale. I had planned to make a sister for it.. but I'm not sure ..." she bit her lip. "I have some of the.. your bones left. The ones with true power. But this one had the most of all."


Redhale swung the bone around so that it was held upright, and hummed a note in response to it's whistle, "Well, it is a lovely piece of work, though I can't help but wonder why it should be giving you trouble... We'll have to do some tests I suppose. As for the other bones, you make sure you create something for yourself, to keep you safe, to keep you tethered."


Jolie's gaze flickered, an inward sort of cast to their mien, as she wondered .. tethered to what? "It's not mine," she said dully. Her voice seemed distant. "It was never meant to be mine.." Blinking, she suddenly seemed more like herself, and offered the Dark Man a crooked smile. "I have a few ideas for them, Redhale. I think you'll approve."


Redhale pointed the osseous tube at Jolie, the black eyeholes of his mask peering down it's length at her, "You have many ideas on what to make, what to do, but do you know where to go? That will be interesting..." He paused a moment, drawing the bone closer to himself, "Why, I do believe you were right about the voice. What a curious addition... I assure you she wasn't there when I gave it to you." A moment was taken to ponder whether Jolie could be to blame for the infestation, "No mind, I'm sure she will be no trouble. I am thankful, too. This might well save me a whole lot of trouble."


Jolie had shuddered horribly as he peered down the hollow length of the carven artefact at her, as though a little piece of herself was being tugged toward that empty space. "Where to go...? Redhale. I have been lost for so very long. If you could tell me..." but she doubted even he had power over Fate. "I'm glad.." she swallowed. "That you like it."


Redhale turned about, waving the white wand as if it has some kind of flag on the end of it, "Oh, I could take you places, but I doubt you'd enjoy them. No, better to find your own way, my path is twisted enough as it is. I'm constantly surprised at how my feet manage to stick to the ground..."


Jolie managed a grim laugh. at that, waving back at him. "Until we meet again." Then her gaze turned, reluctantly, toward the Obsidian Pool.


Redhale called out after himself, "May it be soon enough that I remember you and long enough that I can see you." After that short bit of nonsense he continued to babble, though he seemed to be speaking primarily to the light trap as he wandered off into the maze.