RP:Death Goes On Eight Legs

From HollowWiki

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.


Background

Having created the faceless abomination that houses Maladroit, her once-goblin familiar, Jolie finds yet more practical applications for the terrible necromantic spells gleaned from the Forbidden Book of the Dead.




The Hanging Corpse Tavern



Jolie barged through the tavern door, covered in blood and green ichor matting her hair down to her skull like a wet, black helmet. Behind her, coarse voices shouted questions and she turned to them: "Just haul it all down to the cellar, lads!" Once more the entry was filled, this time with a stream of Vaikrin's roughest ruffians, each hauling a heavy sack that leaked various fluids and they were dragged toward the cellar’s hatch. "Phew," sighed Jolie, plucking strands of goopy hair from her features. "That was.. unpleasant."


Zira is sitting at a table by herself. The vampiress is engrossed in a book that she had taken from the Black Library at the suggestion of Lady Thorne. Zira is off in her own little world and she doesn't register the other woman's entrance at first, when she finally does Zira inclines her head respectfully to her.


Jolie spared the girl a nod, before getting back to directing what seemed an endless stream of sack-carrying louts to the downward stair. "Careful!" she snapped to more than one, "I need them done no further damage!" Frowning, she once more looked to Zira. "Well?" her tone was curt. "Are you just going to sit there like a stunned gargoyle, or are you going to come and learn something?" With that, she was ticking her way to the cellar in the wake of the last of the cargo-hauling criminals.




Cellar of the Hanging Corpse



Jolie said to the gathering of ruffians. "Right. Just stack 'em in that corner by the vats. Yes, yes, there. Now, how about a drink for your trouble, boys?" she beamed when the chorus of 'ayes' went up.


Zira enters the cellar following Jolie, "What do you want me to do?" she asks as soon as her feet reach the bottom step and looks around in brief interest.


Jolie pointed to a nearby barrel and a stack of tin mugs on a table beside it. "You can pass out the drinks, lass. But none for you. You can have one later, when the work's done." Zira would find herself suddenly central to the attention of a crowd of ichor-spattered thugs.


Zira does as commanded, moving quickly to pass out the drinks, stepping gracefully from thug to thug, making certain not to spill a drop. When she finishes she turns back to Jolie, "Anything else milady?"


Jolie unhooked a jagged-toothed saw off its neatly-outlined space above a bench and tossed it to Zira. "Just hold onto that for a moment, could you?" She smiled beatifically at the sweaty, grue-soaked men as she passed them by, climbing the stairs. The sound of a heavy bolt sliding into place would be heard from below.


Zira catches the saw deftly and holds it tentatively, "Okay?" she says questioningly. Her eyes scan the room full of men with caution.


Jolie waited at the top of the stairs for the first strangled cry to echo through the dim confines of the stone cellar. Zira would witness first one man clutching his throat, his eyes bulging, neck rigid, face turning blue. One cry was all each man would manage before their bodies fell into writhing heaps upon the blackstone floor, heels kicking helplessly. Amid the fatal gurgles, the necromancer's heels once more sent sharp metallic 'ticks' to join the cacophony while she descended.


Zira watches the first man collapse with a look of shock, which quickly changes to one of interest. "what poison was that?" Zira asks as soon as Jolie reappears, manuevering through the scattered corpses to approach the more powerful necromancer.


Jolie said to Zira, "That will have to wait for Poisons and Potions class. Right now, you're getting an advanced lesson in reanimation.” There was a pause, in which she stared at the girl. “Well?" She flapped at a hand at the dead and dying men. "Get sawing. I need them neatly in half at hipline, if you can manage it."


Zira nods and moves to the first corpse. With some skill the vampiress begins to saw through the man's body, the smell of polluted blood overpowering all other smells, "Yes milady," she concedes working carefully, eventually finishing this body. She immediately rises and moves to the next, repeating the process until she is either interrupted or runs out of bodies.


Jolie meanwhile got busy unbagging the contents of those heavy sacks. Fifteen sacks, one per man. From each would tumble the enormous corpse of a Dark Forest spider, mottled of hide and long-legged, vicious and envenomed pincers fortunately slack. Each would roll free to leak horrid green liquid on the floor.


Zira looks up briefly to see what was in the bags. With a smile she turns back to her work, taking extreme care to meet Jolie's specifications.


Jolie said, "And where's that bloody priest when I actually need him?" Her brow was creased deeply both in irritation at his absence and the effort of lumping with the aid of a sling one of the spider carcasses up on the bench. Groping for a knife, she proceeded to pare away the thing's head, careful to retain its venomous mouthparts. Her chill gaze would rest briefly on Zira and her task, a nod telling the vampire that her work was acceptable. "Drag one over here, after you've halved the next few, would you?"


Zira nods, "Of course milady." After the next three Zira grabs the ankle of one half and wrist of another and lifts them up, the dead weight for the vampiress. Carrying the halved body over to the woman, "Do you want it on the bench?" she asks, Zira then waits to place both as directed.


Jolie nodded, and would bend to assist the lift, ignoring the spill of intestines and organs that slithered loose in the process. Kicking a liver aside she grinned. "Saves me the trouble I suppose. But we really ought to gut them all once they're halved. There's a vat over there for the entrails." A black leather bag, such as one a doctor might carry, ironically enough, was lifted from a shelf below the bench. "Sewing them together is the tricky part." Zira might not realise that the necromancer was half muttering to herself. "Got to hold them firm while the flesh melds together, or things can go terribly awry."


Zira listens to the woman's words as she bends and begins gathering the spilled organs and immediately resumes the task of sawing the bodies in half, thist time gutting them as she does so. After she finishes she plans to go back to the bodies she hadn't yet gutted to correct that.


Jolie, by then, had neatly stitched the carcasses together, so that the torso of the man and the body of the spider were perfectly conjoined. She stood back then to inspect her work so far. "Not bad," she mused. It was a matter of moments before the human mouth of the victim was sliced free of flesh, and the spider's maw fitted into place. Next, she plucked the eyes from the arachnid head, and used a hand drill to make suitable holes in the human forehead wherein to set each dark orb like a nasty jewel. "So," she smiled, finally. "What do you think?"


Zira turns to look over the woman's creation. "It's amazing." she answers honestly, "I've got most of the bodies done so is there anything else you desire of me?" The vampiress's eyes are locked on the aberration on the bench.


Jolie grinned. "Necromancy is hard work. Are you in a hurry to be elsewhere?"


Zira shakes her head, "Of course not."


Jolie said, "Good." And with that, she crossed the room, stepping over legs and torsos, kicking a few free to make a clear path to the bench. At the end of her short journey sat a large rectangular object covered in black fabric. Tugging the cloth away, Jolie revealed a tank with thick glass sides, filled with liquid of a toxic yellow hue. Beside this was a trolley, and to this she nodded now, "We'll have to wheel it over, that thing will be heavy as well as awkward."


Zira moves to follow the woman, "Alright," she says moving to help in the lifting of the tank, pulling her duster off in the process and setting it a gore free area, "Whenever you are ready milady."


Jolie smirked. "No, dear. The body. We need to wheel it over here." The empty trolley was light enough on its own, so this was wheeled solo over to the bench. "Ready? You take the human end, much easier to handle than all these... legs."


Zira said, "My apologies milady." with that she moves to the human end of the body, "Whenever you're ready."


Jolie would smile, then, perhaps the first truly happy expression Zira had seen on her, and it lit up the necromancer's grim mien with the kind of charm that could melt - and had in the past melted - the hearts of gods and men alike. "Brilliant. On the count of three... one... two.... hoist!"


Zira can't help to smile as the other woman does, on the word hoist she liftsher part of the body and waits for Jolie to take the lead.


Jolie wiped her hands down her trousers to remove the gelatinous goo and blood leaking from the abomination's carcass. Then the women would manouver the trolley through the mass of sundered corpses, to the tank. which sat at about the same height as the trolley. "Bathtime," she said, "Help me roll it in."


Jolie paused to poke the thing on the tip of its human nose, careful to avoid those spider fangs, and stared into the eyes planted within its forehead. "You're Number One, dear. Cross fingers, you'll turn out well."


Zira nods and moves to help the woman roll the body, all of her movements following the lead of the woman she hoped to be her mentor.


Jolie frowned, only now noticing that her subject was, in fact, a female. Must have been the hunting garb that hid that evidence. She smirked, and said to Zira, “I just had the most devious idea."


Zira cocks an eyebrow, "And what would that be milady?" she asks curiously.


Jolie could barely contain herself, but only grinned more widely. "You'll see." The foul chimera fell with a loud plop into the tank, sinking to the bottom immediately, weighted by that spider's bulbous rear end. "Now, for the ritual." The master necromancer stepped back toward the bench, gesturing for Zira to follow. "Might want to wear these." She fished a pair of earplugs out of her pocket. "Don't want you melded to something else now, do we?"


Zira takes the earplugs, "That would very much restrict my studies." she responds, "Is there anything you wish for me to do during the ritual? Or just stand and watch?" Zira waits for Jolie's answer before putting in the earplugs and watches attentively.


Jolie shook her head. "This spell is far beyond your current level of craft. But you may watch, as reward for your assistance."


Zira bows her head and steps back.


Jolie slipped a small, hidebound tome from her vest and opened it. perusing the crabbed gibberish written in some kind of rust-hued ink, she quieted herself in order to summon and gather the arcane force that freely flowed through her meridians these days, The room would dim, as though all light was swallowed but the merest trace, as candles guttered low and shrank their flames to nothing. Zira's breath would plume white in the frosty air. The words that came crawling over Jolie's tongue then were so foul and corrupt by nature that anything outside the pre-drawn and invisible circle of protection in which the pair stood would shrivel in its tracks, and the walls would echo and rattle loose crumbles of mortar. The dire litany went on and on, swelling the gloom and oppression until it must seem near unbearable. The tank's liquid was changing from yellow to a putrid sort of green that thickened until the body within was no longer visible. Finally, Jolie reached for her staff, this powerful channel for her own unnatural power thrust toward the glass container with the final word of the cantrip. A blast of darkness and terrible roaring, and the liquid in the tank bubbled madly, as if it boiled. The death-mage lowered her staff, tapped it upon the stone three times and said, "It's done."


Jolie blinked, and poked Zira, mouthing, "It's done." She turned her gaze back to the tank and its murky contents, hardly daring to draw a breath.


Zira stands stock still as the light darkens, the change in temperature doesn't affect the vampiress. Her eyes are locked on the strange liquid, regarding the changing colors with a look of complete attention. At Jolie's poke she looks into the master necromancer's eyes, her expression asking what was going to happen next.


Jolie merely pointed to the tank. "We wait." And then to Zira's ears, miming a suggestion that she take the plugs out now.


Zira takes out the plugs and waits expectantly.


Eventually the bubbling filth would simmer down, the atmosphere soon enough. The contents of the tank remained clouded from view, and the assortment of body parts within, melted and fused together. The anticipation in the air was thick, all eyes impatiently waiting to see just what the necromancer had made this time. There was a splash- quiet at first. Then another, this time splashed by a goo-soaked arm. An arm, as pale as deaths caress, that gripped desperately at the tank's edge. Like a horror film, piece by piece and limb by limb, the creature would crawl out, and eventually flop to the cold cobble stone floor with a violent thunk. Amidst the slime and gore, the two would have fun trying to depict which was top from bottom. Spiny mandibles, and putrid eyes rolled around, trying to make sense of what the hell was happening.


Jolie jiggled on her heels, her hands clapping together, and turned a smile of pure joy toward her student. "It worked!" The vampire was gathered up for a squishy sort of hug and abruptly released so that Jolie could approach her creation. Kneeling, she used her fingers to scrape some of the ghastly slime aside. "She's beautiful, isn't she?"


Zira is shocked by the hug and can't help but to laugh in excitement at seeing the creature, following the other woman Zira approaches the creation, "Beautiful she is milady." she agrees, "Congratulations." The vampire's voice contains a faint hint of awe for both the woman and creature before them.


Jolie said to Zira, "This," a pale hand swept to gesture to the object of her pride. "Is what you aspire to, in the Guild. This, and much more besides."


Alex flinched, spike-like legs flailing in attempt to land a footing on the slippery floor. Frightened, no doubt, the arachnid creation would merely shrink down under her creators hands. While Jolie peeled away the slime, she'd quietly click away with sharp fangs, 8 eyes of mixed size and proportion darting around.


Zira nods "Yes milady," is all she can muster in a breathless voice, eyes still locked on the creature an expression of wonder on her features.


Jolie said to Alex, "There, there, my sweet." Jolie used her sleeve to clean the thing's face free of goo. "All is well." After murmuring various soothing noises to the 'newborn' arachnotaur, she said to Zira, "These creatures don't require food as such but must from time to time refuel. Could you drag over one of those lower halves there? I'll show you. She'll need fuel to get on her legs properly."


Zira moves instantly to do as Lady Thorne requested, grabbing one at random from the floor and dragging over to the pair, "Here you are milady." She says setting it on the ground.


Jolie nudged one of the legs toward the 'infant', "Eat, pretty. Grow strong. For we have much to do."


Alex would in time, quit slinking back, but instead forward. Almost as if taking to an instant motherly attraction, she'd not deny the woman's hand, but instead embrace it. 8 vermillion-orange eyes all would eventually center on the necromancer. Amid this wild confusion, the creature could at least understand one thing; this is what made her. Grabbing hesitantly at the limb, she'd turn away, and violently sink those fangs into the dead flesh.


Jolie turned to Zira, "You may go now. And for your help today you have achieved your first proper rank in the Guild. Congratulations, Scleratus."


Zira smiles and bows, "Thank you Thanatos Dominus, I appreciate it greatly." With that Zira bites back the urge to bring up the topic of apprenticeship and flashes one more smile to the creature and walked towards the stairs.


Alex picked up 1 human leg. Alex ate a human leg.

Alex had dropped the skin-tight limb to the ground, any bit of meat that had once been there, was now a liquefied treat inside her stomach. She didn't need Jolie to ask twice to know that it was indeed time to stretch out. Long, sharp mandibles reached out, and speared into the stone, rooting the beast while she mustered her strength. Slowly, she'd propel herself up, dragging the abnormally large thorax off the floor, and up into the air. In seconds, she was tower above the woman, looking down at her while she took slow, steady steps towards her.


Anybody in their right mind might have turned tail and fled at that moment. Jolie, however, stood her ground and beamed at the abomination as a proud mother might do to her toddler on taking its first steps. "Glorious, that's what you are,' she encouraged, taking a few slow steps backward. Slow, because the arachnid parts of the creature would draw it to rapid movement in an aggressive way and there needed to be a little more bonding with this arachnotaur, the first - and soon to become the most powerful - of her kind.


Alex eventually bent back down, lowering to a proper height in which it could walk comfortably. It however, didn't seem too interested in going anywhere, but rather, looking at itself. She held her arms out in front of her, twisting and turning the pale skin with awe in those eyes. Next, her legs, the abdomen.. even the thorax. Any memories of a past life for -whatever- creature it was made from, seemed non-existent. It had a consciousness though, and it was curious. Jolie almost went ignored for a little bit at this point, the arachnotaur taking to passing about the room. Checking out the tank.. the walls.. even the oddly placed cage that were here. Almost like a child.


Jolie watched the reanimated nightmare course around the room, studying its limbs - or rather her limbs, Jolie found it harder to ascribe the sexless 'it' to a female - for correct co-ordination and other possible problems. Zira could not have known how terribly difficult and fraught with danger this process was, or the vampire may never have agreed to act as assistant. Neither had she told the girl about the several failures prior.. "It will all seem a bit strange at first. But you'll settle in soon enough. You can make webs, of course. And your feet will adhere to walls - don't try that yet, or you'll fall, you're not strong enough. You may stay here, until you are. And then I have a lovely spot in the forest for you. Lots of things to hunt."


Jolie had no idea whether the arachnotaur could comprehend all that yet. She made her way toward the stairs - slowly. "I'll let you rest and explore now. Try your webs, I'll be back in a little while, and then we'll make your brothers."


Alex hadn't really understood much of -anything- she said, to be honest. However, she did understand, and acknowledge the sincerity in her tone of voice. Shortly, she'd sneak off to a corner, and fall asleep once the necromancer left.