RP:Amateur

Summary: While returning a book he'd checked out, Ernest has a run-in with one of the Necromancer Guild's newest members, Xzean. It seems, however, that their philosophies don't exactly see eye to eye. While they part on civil terms, one might question what sort of tension this could cause in the future.

Black Library, Vailkrin

Xzean climbs down the ladder, looking forward to his solitude with another book of the Black Library. Which accursed tome shall he pursue tonight...

Ernest snapped shut the book he was reading, and quite loudly, upon hearing feet hit the floor of the library. He turns, the faint blue glow of his longcoat and hat giving him a vaguely ethereal look in the dim light of the library, and cracks a grin--the look didn't suit his dessicated face, and it likely came off as more of a sneer. "Awful lightin' down here, ain't it?" he asked, gesturing at the candles. "Fer a room in which yer expected ta read, you'd expect there'd be brighter torches, yeah?"

Xzean narrows his eyes slightly, almost imperceptibly. He responds in a deadpan voice, a voice coming from out of a grave, "The room off north is much better lit. The less fire down here, the better. Although I feel as if the books down here are protected very well."

Ernest shrugged at this. "Magic library oughta have magic lights. Ain't no excuse fer darkness in here save aesthetics." He tucked his book under his arm and extended his hand to shake, tipping his wide-brimmed hat with the other. "Name's Ernest, friend. Lookin' fer anything in particular?"

Xzean stares at Ernest's out struck. He stares at it until Ernest was just about ready to pull it back and then he gives the man the handshake he is looking for.

Xzean responds, "Nothing, sir, in particular. But I am called Xzean, at least for short."

Ernest raised an eyebrow at that name. It struck a chord with him, somewhere, and after the handshake he gestured to one particular shelf. "Well, I jes' put back a tome about more advanced control over undead--y'know, puppeteerin' individual actions rather'n just givin' 'em general commands. Pretty useful stuff, I think, I'll have to try it out soon. If that's the sort of thing that interests you. Xzean, huh?" He stroked his chin. "Name sounds familiar. We met before? I cain't seem t'remember yer face."

Xzean shakes his head slightly, responding, "I have just joined the Necromancer guild officially. But I have been one for a long, long time. Perhaps you saw my note upon the Kelay tavern?"

Ernest lit up with recognition! "Ah! Yes! That's it. Gotta say," here, he leaned against one of the bookshelves and shook his head a little, unable to hide his grin, "fer someone who claims to've been a necromancer for so long, y'got all th'marks of an amateur with that note. Not yer best look."

Xzean raises one delicate eyebrow at Ernest, responding with a cold as death voice, "I do not believe I cared to ask for your opinion. Ernest."

Ernest shrugged at that, and carried on as though he hadn't just been implicitly threatened. "No, but you sound like th' sort of fellow who wants ta be taken seriously. I used to be like you, actually. The sorta person who does all this work for exposure. Y'know what I got out of it? Lotta nothin'! Knockin' over public waterin' holes fer no reason don't exactly do the pocketbook any favors, get me? Rob a stage! Break open a bank! But take it from me, a tavern full o' drunken do-gooders ain't good fer the portfolio. Looks unprofessional."

Xzean says, "I am simply showing the other members of this guild the extent of my power."

Ernest made as much of a "pft" noise as his dried-out leathery lips would allow. "Power ain't everythin', kid. If y'got a big army o' stiffs an' no idea where best ta aim it, yer usin' it wrong. Say, here's a plan." Suddenly, Ernest seemed much more... earnest about his idea. "Y'already made yer big announcement that yer hittin' th' tavern. Now, assumin' folks take you seriously an' commit all their forces ta defendin' it--the rest of th' town'll be relatively unguarded. That's when y'hit th' bank, see? Misdirection play."

Xzean chuckles, breaking out into a bark of outright laughter. Money? This whelpling wants money? He speaks, "Some things are worth more than money." he says, trying to keep the scorn from his voice.

Ernest groaned and placed one dried-out hand to his face, shaking his head at this. "Sure. Like, maybe, fer instance, the panic people feel when they realize all their money is gone? The sudden downturn in the economy from everyone's purchasin' power evaporatin' under their noses? Y'ain't thinkin' long term! I was right, you ARE an amateur."

Xzean stops responding, his countenance taking on the stillness of the dead. Who knows what thoughts might be whirling around the 300 or more years old vampire. The only clue towards the hue of his thoughts is the glow behind his eyes begins to flare. What is hidden, however, is the elongating of the fangs.

Ernest was not, as his accent and general lackadaisical attitude towards his supposed field of study might suggest, slow on the uptake, and he'd been around the block a few times. The sudden glowing of eyes was never a good sign. He held up a hand placatingly. "Whoa. Easy there, friend. You want to attack Kelay Tavern, be my guest. In fact, here." Ernest pulled from inside his jacket a Tome. That was really the only word one could use to describe this book--it was thick, had a dark leather cover, a few runes etched into its surface. That wasn't the tomiest part of the tome--the tomiest part was the fact that it -oozed- malevolent energy. Even in the general dark atmosphere of the black library, Ernest's book could be felt. "This book is a compilation of all the deadliest spells I know. I even have one for making a man's body eat itself by turning his flesh into worms. Want to take a look?" He held it out like a peace offering.

Xzean smiles slightly, and it is impossible to miss the elongation of his fangs now. However, he does respond by taking the book warily from Ernest. He was draw by the book like a moth to a flame. He mutters, almost inaudible, after beginning to peruse the Tome of spells, "That sounds much like my one of my own rituals, the Flesh-Sloughing Wave." He doesn't bother to look up as he responds.

Ernest wasn't lying about the book. It did indeed contain all the deadliest spells he knew. However, as one would begin to peruse the contents of the book, the opening pages were no more than the simplest of novice spell sigils, drawn over and over and over and over in slightly different combinations. Each one was essentially the same spell, cast a slightly different way. This one was a little gust of wind, that one a simple spark to light things on fire, and here was one that conjured a bit of ice--pages and pages of novice-level practice spells. "Yeah, see, mine is more of a curse." It might be, at that particular instant, that Xzean might notice something. The malevolent energy coming from Ernest's book was increasing rapidly--and the longer he held it, the more he'd feel his own magic reserves depleting. "I cursed the book, too. It eats mana. Makes it a real nightmare to carry around." His grin was back, on full display, and he peeled back his longcoat to reveal a hand-crossbow at his hip. "It's great fer forcin' folks like you back down ta my level, though."

Xzean tilts his head at Ernest as if he knew something Ernest didn't understand. You see, being a Vampire and a Necromancer makes it easy to devour negative energy spells. But what Ernest didn't know, is that Xzean's particular bloodline could actually consume negative energy so well that they need not even feed on vitae. He stands there, bathed in the glow, slowly devouring it, second by second. This was strong though, and required most of his concentration. He sees the Crossbow and Xzean's confused look become more so. Did Ernest not think that again, a ritualist, a vampire, a necromancer might just work ritual glyphs to become even more strongly armored at that place then anyplace in Xzean's body.

Ernest paused a moment. The changes he was expecting in the feel of the book weren't so... minor. It was still collecting mana, he could tell by looking at it, but the rate was slowing. And the target didn't seem as immediately drained as usual. Huh. Well. That was... going to be an issue. "Are you... de-cursing my book?" he asked, warily, snapping the crossbow into his hand and whirling it around one finger, as his other hand drew a crossbow bolt--one that glinted a sickly blue color--and then slapped it into the chamber with a flamboyant "click". "That's... not a good idea. That book has a lot of stored energy in it--if the curse is removed, the energy will be released." He raised an eyebrow and kept spinning the weapon on his finger. "You know, like. Boom. Prob'ly crush a lot of the books in here."

Xzean seems to stop a few moments after Ernest speaks his words, but it was too ...leisurely to not tell the difference. With the negative energy nearly gone, and the mana drain down to negligible levels, Xzean was determined to see what, if any, secrets this book held. A powerful curse means something is being detected...unless it was a weapon to use against curious Necromancers. That would make the Elven Vampire quite cross indeed.

Ernest continued to spin his crossbow on his finger, watching and waiting, extremely cautious. The book's energy was now being contained by the weakest of curses, and since it contained days' worth of his power as well as whatever certainly large amount it had siphoned out of Xzean just now... it was a magical bomb waiting to go off. It also contained very little else, and would take a while to push through all of the innumerable basic elemental spells. Oh, here in the back of the book was something interesting: a necromancy spell, finally! One that raised a... disembodied hand. Here was one for a horse, but it was obvious from looking at it that it was the crudest of spells and any such horse would collapse immediately upon being struck. Ah, here we are. Curses. Which were... all for cursing items, not directly casting on a person. And all of which required extremely precise targeting; if you wanted to inflict the Curse of the Wandering Child on someone, for example, you had to graze the top of their head with whatever your cursed item was, and once the item was unleashed, the curse either took effect or dissipated harmlessly. The book didn't contain its own curse--at least, not all of it. It held a fraction, but certainly not enough to reconstruct the whole thing. Most spells were quite weak, and the ones that weren't--such as the flesh-eating worms one--also weren't at all practical.

Xzean has been pondering the book for a few minutes now, and his cunning mind has begun to form some sort of idea...that the entirety of the real spells in this book must amount to the curse placed on it. How clever. How trite. He snaps the book shut, looking at Ernest, and asks, "Where would you like this filed? Under Curses, Object. Yes?" He seems genuinely interested, and not at all angry. For now.

Ernest raised an eyebrow and shook his head, extending his hand back out for it. "It's my personal notebook. I was lettin' ya read it, but I ain't makin' a donation. Can't say it's worth anythin' to anyone but me, anyhow."

Xzean responds with a shrug and hands it back. "A clever defense, then. Were you thinking to...test my abilities?" His up-swept eyebrow says it all in his expression, Xzean obviously barely thought of Ernest as a threat. But...he was in a guild now, this was a guild mate he would bet, considering they were in the Black Library in the first place. He was within his rights to test a new comer, while the new comer had no such rights.

Ernest accepted it back carefully, and very deliberately slipped it back inside his jacket. "S'pose you could say somethin' of th' sort, yeah." He was going to have to spend a bunch of the magic in there to make it less volatile in order to work on fixing the curse. Great. "Maybe also testin' my own, a li'l. See if the curse on that book really is all I thought it might be."

Xzean says, "Coming back to my original point, if you are not going to be helpful then stay out of my way. I do not wish to hurt members of the guild... I enjoyed your test, indeed. I had not yet fed today," he admits.

Ernest struggled to keep the contempt off of his face, but managed to keep a neutral expression and tipped his hat lightly. "Well, I tried, but, regardless. Keep what I said in mind, yeah? There's more ta plannin' an attack than raisin' a big army." He offered a lopsided grin as he looked up to the trapdoor. Actually, you know what, this was a perfect opportunity to spend some of that energy. He slipped the book back out of its pocket, carefully opened it, and tapped a spell sigil, speaking a command word in some bizarre, harsh-sounding dialect. The trapdoor blew open as a rush of air slammed into it, and the breeze caused eddies of wind to rustle around the room. "Got some kick to it, tonight!" He offered a wave to Xzean, then touched a slightly different sigil and spoke the same word. This time, Ernest himself was picked up by the wind and hurled upwards, out the ladder and into the night.

Xzean filed Ernest mentally. Necromancer. Sigil Magic. Curses. An excellent selection of abilities...he will be keeping an eye on Ernest.