RP:Ernest Makes A Spelling Error

Summary

While doing some shopping, Ernest runs into Joan, who has a question for him.

The RP

Ernest was engaged in behavior best described as "lurking about the city" today, but to his credit he hadn't found much else to do other than practice his magic. He hadn't been able to get a hold of Terra recently, but the next phase of his investigation really needed her input. As such, here he was in the shop, idly browsing various magical and nonmagical items, peering at them closely and trying to identify what sort of magic made them tick. Maybe there'd be one he could duplicate, or at least imitate a little. His hat and longcoat shed a faint dark fog, as per usual--partially because he just liked the look of it, partially because he figured it'd make him easier for Terra to locate. All he needed now was a way to make his eyes glow. Working on it.

Joan had spent most of the morning and a good part of her afternoon traveling about the town, asking here and there if anyone had seen a tall mummy looking fellow with a funny hat upon his head, after being told to check the grogshop, and then the main plaza the vampire finally was directed towards the city boutique, with an amused look on her face and a grin she heads to the store, entering the shop Joan takes a moment to look at some of the wears for sale while keeping an eye out for the mummy. A eyebrow raises as she examined a few of the items before she spotted that cowboy hat, “Ernest! Hold up.” She calls to the broad back of her fellow guild mate.

Ernest glanced up from the bauble he was examining, prepared to dispense one of the Withering Glares he'd been practicing recently in case somebody he didn't particularly care for happened across him. As it happened, however, this was Joan coming up behind him, so instead of a Withering Glare he just opted for a polite tip of his hat. "Afternoon," he drawled, setting the bauble back where he'd found it and taking a step back from the counter for a more open conversation. He gestured around the shop. "Bit rich in here fer my blood," as if he had to defend his presence in here, despite wearing a jacket made from Kreekitaka™ leather, "but I'd a hunch there might be some decent enchantments in here I might be able ta replicate eventually." He gestured to one of the bracelets. "That one, fer example. Ain't sure quite what it is about it, but it claims t'be able ta make runes hold a charge longer. Mighty useful fer someone like myself. What brings you here?" he added, shifting the subject off of himself.

Joan takes a relaxed stance once she caught the mummy’s attention, she voided gaze following down to the babble he was just looking at to pull up and follow towards the bracelets. Her lips purse in thought as she nods in agreement. “Snazzy stuff there, I had a thought about looking into enchanted jewelry and items myself, thou I just don’t have the time recently. I just had my meeting with Khitti. She had me show off what I can do so far and explain about how my cross training has benefited my necromancer studies. She pointed out a couple of basic areas she wants me to cover before I go up for testing for Thanadule rank. Which got me thinking, you have yet to put yourself up for Sceleratus rank, why is that? You are more then skilled enough, heck I bet you could test for Thanadule rank and get it easy.” She gives the mummy a ‘well?!’ sorta look now.

Ernest just sort of stared at her blankly for a moment. "Put myself up for Scare At Us?" he asked, finally, in the tone of voice of a person who's pretty sure he generally knows what he's talking about but has just heard a bunch of words that don't make sense and is trying very hard to fit them into place. "This some kinda... guild-sanctioned prank war?" If he was signing up for some kind of scare-based event, he was pretty sure he could come up with just the effect. A grin spread across his face. "And 'then I duel'? So the two winners of the prank war get in a prank... duel? Or a real duel? I could get behind that. Ain't had any good action recently, 'sall been slogging through the mud." O clueless mummy who didn't read a word of your own guild charter, how foolish you don't know you look.

Joan would facepalm, but she didn’t, not in front of her friend, which she would like to move up in rank, hinge she just slowly nods as she speaks, “Oh, yeah, totally. You appear before Khitti or ‘Tessa, let them know you’d like to enter into this and present before them. You can even duel.” Joan said as she crossed her pointer finger across her index finger, hiding her hand behind the small of her back as she smiled up at Ernest, going along with his thoughts on their guild’s ranking was not much of a fib or white lie...not her fault if he didn’t read up on the charter. “Mhmm, you need to get in touch with the ladies pretty soon.” She urged.

Ernest stroked his chin. "What's the deadline on enterin' th' competition? I'm out here for a bit still, you remember th' business with Terra? Turns out it's a li'l more involved than we 'spected. I got an arm I gotta show 'er." He hadn't brought it with him--not here--but there was an entire literal arm he needed to present to her just to be certain. "But if I keep havin' ta wait on 'er, I might have a chance t'sneak back an' put my name in th' hat, so ta speak." Already he was getting ideas--enchanted mirrors that showed you things that weren't there? Floating hands that tapped your shoulder then disappeared? A macabre series of clues pointing towards each others' guilt in some kind of dastardly crime?! The possibilities were endless. "You said Khitti wants you t'brush up on some stuff. There some kinda entry barrier?" He gestured towards the entrance of the store, if he was gonna practice some magic it'd probably be better to do it outdoors. The runic armband would be there when he got back. Or maybe it wouldn't. Who knows what sorts of five-finger discounts a Helpin' Hand might try to get when haggling? Certainly not Ernest, the paragon of upright moral fortitude. "I still ain't what I'd call th' -most- accomplished caster."

Joan mulls it over for a good solid minute before she answers, “Before Yule, you know. That super cheerful holiday people just love to celebrate.” A full fanged smile is flashed before she followed his gesture with her voided gaze, “Not really, just Black Tides practice and some arcane sigil/curses/incantation practice.” She nod towards the exit where the silver bell hung, “But should we try any of those just mentioned we should be somewhere magically warded, just in case.”

Ernest shrugged and nodded, he could do magically-warded. Stepping out of the boutique with a purpose in his stride, a clink in his spur and that constant wisp of smoke following him out the door, trailing into little curlicue eddies in his wake. Barely glancing over his shoulder to check if Joan was following, he headed down the street and into an alley, back behind the store, making sure there was enough space for the two of them, and then snapped his fingers and made a deep, guttural sound in his throat. The stones of the alley beneath them shivered, and rune signs etched themselves into the rocks in a large circle around them before flaring to life with a pale blue glow. "There. No magic gets in or out of this circle. So. What kinda practice we doin' here? You said curses an' black tide stuff, yeah? Anything in particular she suggest?" Maybe the event had a -theme- for its pranks, it'd be good to brush up.

Joan took an easy strolling pace a few steps behind the undead cowboy as they exited the shop, that silver bell lightly rings as they leave. Gathering her thoughts as she followed behind Ernest the vampire took a few moments to go over what Khitti had discussed with her. “Hm...work on my version of the Black Tides, Khitti said we, as in those that have shown to be able to use what we can are just ‘channeling’ from the ‘Shadow Plane’, we don’t have a solid connection like she does. Must be why each of us have a different version or type. She didn’t say anything about the aura colors...so I guess I’m fine there. More along the lines of what our personal magic aura colors, some nonsense.” She shrugs as she stops short near him as he made that sound, it made her ears feel funny. Not use to something sounding so. She’d watch with pure interest admiring the light blue color as she moved to stuff her hands in her pants pockets, rocking back on the low heels of her shoes till it was up solid around them. “Damn, nice work.”

Ernest frowned. That was it, just a personal application of shadows? He made a gesture, holding up a fist and then uncurling his fingers, almost as though he were blowing a kiss. Emerging from the smoke of his sleeve--and mimicking the same gesture--came a hand, dark and wispy, mostly transparent. "Mostly what I use them shadows fer is these things," he said, pointing to it. "Helpin' Hand mark two. Lets me automate my magic a bit." He reached out and grabbed it, squeezing it down inside his hand, then releasing his grip to show a much-reduced and compacted shadow hand. "Watch." He concentrated, and a small cube of ice formed in his hand, no larger than an egg. The tiny hand's finger flared with a bit of dark energy and it started to carve tiny, almost imperceptibly small runes on the cube. While it did so, Ernest explained: "Much finer control over th' rune-carvin' this way. Trouble is, they're a lot easier t' mar when they're so tiny an' there ain't much energy I can store in 'em without somethin' goin' wrong, so I rarely get any more'n one use out of 'em, practically speaking. Good fer ammunition, but not a whole lot else. Workin' on a fix, but I ain't there yet." He grinned and turned the ice cube over in his fingers to examine it, then nodded and squinted at it, firing up the freshly-carved runes. The ice cube blazed to light, catching fire immediately. Ernest tossed it over his shoulder and a small BANG could be heard behind him as the ice cube's interior filled with steam and violently ruptured, sending tiny shards of ice in all directions. "Nice thing about shadow minions is I could set 'em ta carve a spell an' set it off while I'm doin' somethin' else, at th' cost of it bein' a weaker spell than usual." He gestured behind her, and should she turn to look, the hand had written "See?" in silent, shadowy flames along the ground, while Ernest was concentrating on the little ice cube. "How 'bout you? Any use outta yer shadows besides simultaneous castin'?"

Joan rubbed at the side of her nose the whole time she watched Ernest, impressed all to hell. Damn he was doing something with his shadow casting there, fancy smancy and sh*t! Well all the vampire necromancer had to show for her Black Tides was some shadow claws that extended out from her nails, frosty cold to the touch, as well as razor sharp if she didn’t have mind to blunt the shadow flames when she extended them out for her study buddy to examine. “I have yet to try them out on anything...I kinda accidentally summoned them when I got into a argument with Quintessa awhile back.” She explained as the purple shadow flames danced about the ends of her nails, a rolling shrug is given then as the shadow flames stay steady under her watchful gaze. “I don’t rightly know what to do with them as I’m not much into fighting, and that is all they seem good for.”

Ernest tilted his head a little at this. She didn't have any idea what something like that would be good for? "I mean," he said with a shrug, "means y'don't need ta carry a knife around anymore." He started listing off possible non-combat applications on his fingers with a grin. "Letter-openin'. Whittlin'. Food slicin'. Shavin'. Hair stylin'. An' that's just th' daily applications. Anyone'll tell ya that tryin' ta go out in th' wilderness, a knife's yer best friend. An' what you've got is no need t'remember yer knife anymore." He beckoned his shadow hand over and then made a claw gesture at it. The hand's fingertips hardened into ice, but when he directed it to scratch at the stone below the frosty tips just shattered. "It's a good idea, 'specially fer me. I'll have ta work on it sometime."

Joan shot the mummy a ‘just really’ type of mock glare as he began to tick off the list. “I already know those!” She’d huff out a irate breath as she now rolled and squared her shoulders, holding her left hand out in front of her as she directed her palm outwards, nails and shadow claws pointed towards the opposite wall, narrowing her eyes slightly Joan mentally reaches out with the purple shadow claws, sending a command to the pulsing shadow claw...’shoot out towards the wall...shoot out towards the wall.’ She repeated this command silently twice as she sent energy down through her arm, into her hand, through her finger, feeling her knuckle bone warm with the energy as ‘thunk-wham!’ the shadow around the end of her index finger winked out for a moment before flashing back into being as a now purple icy claw appeared indented into the wall. The shadow claw wavered for a moment or two before disappearing from view, but it left clear evidence in the wood it stuck! Joan whooped out in surprise as she looked towards her friend, “Pinch me! I actually stuck something!” She exclaimed.

Ernest clapped lightly at this new discovery. "Very nice!" If you were the sort of person who didn't carry a crossbow all the time, anyhow. He didn't feel the need to add that second part out loud, but her new ability wasn't one he felt like he needed to try replicating with a Helpin' Hand. "Was there anythin' I needed ta prove besides that I can use shadows fer stuff? You said arcane sigils; I got plenty o' those." The shadow hand flew up to land in Ernest's palm, where he crushed it again and opened his hand, revealing a small orb of flame. "Even managed t'figure out fire, finally. Weren't easy." Another crushing motion snuffed out the orb, and this time when he opened it he'd produced a flask from his sleeve--somehow, the mummy's sleight-of-hand was one of those secrets he never felt necessary to elaborate on. A flick of his thumb popped the cap, and the water inside leaped out and into his other waiting hand to swirl gently in a ball. "Water weren't too hard t'figure out either, not when I'm in a swamp this whole time fer a job." He concentrated on the orb, and it began to bubble and boil until it had turned completely to steam--which Ernest caught, forming the cloud into a whimsical cotton-candy shape, which was then twisted further, like a balloon animal, until it was in the shape of a little rabbit. "It's a good parlor trick," he said with a shrug, as the cloud-bunny condensed itself into a snowball, which Ernest caught with his fingertips, "but I ain't sure it's scary enough fer this prank war."

Joan thought for a moment after she recalled in the purple shadow claws, “Calling upon spirits, seeing them...making them do as you command...maybe something with reanimated body parts and making them do funny gross stuff to your opponents?” Joan suggested as she gave her left wrist a slight shake to work out the kink from using the Black Tides for more then just show. “There is also showing use of potions and poisons...I wouldn’t know how you might go about that...” She finished as she eye’d Ernest now, a quick smile flashed at the mummy to show confidence. “I’m sure you will win! I have no doubt.” With that she gives him a thumbs up sign for equally good measure. “Just go speak with Khitti, alright? Now...can you let down this barrier and can we go get something to eat? All that use of the Black Tides sapped my energy.”

Ernest shrugged and stepped out of the barrier with a vague gesture. "Ain't like it'd stop anything physical anyhow. It literally just keeps magic inside." He flicked a crossbow into his hand, spun it twice, then tossed it into the air. A second crossbow suddenly appeared in his other hand, which he fired upwards without looking. A secondary "twang" sounded from just above them, and the crossbow Ernest had flung skyward fired back down as the first bolt intercepted its trigger, the new crossbow bolt scraping along one of the stones to cross out one of the runes on the floor. Circle broken, the barrier fell immediately. Ernest reached out his free hand, caught his second crossbow, cocked them both against each other, and then set them spinning before suddenly snapping one out to the side to catch the bolt he'd fired upward in the chamber. He reversed their spins, uncocked them with a soft "click" and holstered them again, all without breaking his stride. "What kinda food you got in mind? I ain't found any that'll stay in."

Joan patted at her now loudly rumbling stomach as she looked towards the mummy, “Yes, well it’s pretty obvious why food won’t stay down and inside you my friend.” Joan jokes lightly as she steps out of the now downed circle, leading the way towards the Grogshop. “My potion may have benefits for you since you are one of the living dead. Like I said before, it helps regrow cells, skin, muscle, veins on the undead. It is after all modeled after starfish and lizards. Must modified for those of our kind. Khitti got to see it’s usage upfront, but that is just a working prototype.” Turning the vampire necromancer works her way to the entrance of the bar as she looks back towards her friend, “As for food, I’m in the mood for a steak, lightly seared. You?” She inquired as she shoulder open the heavy door with ease ready to enter once he answered.

Ernest struggled to keep the disappointment off his face that his casual trickshotting wasn't given any attention. Clearly, this meant that he needed to up his game. "Tell you what," he said, pausing at the entrance to the bar, leaning on the doorframe. "I ain't had any cravin's since I climbed outta th' sand. You go ahead an' eat, I'm gonna start on back. Helps not havin' ta sleep, either." Just then, crawling along the ground, looking very pleased with itself, a Helpin' Hand mk. I--the skeletal kind--clambered up Ernest's leg and into his duster. The mummy held out an arm as the little minion popped out of his sleeve, then unfolded to reveal the runic armband tucked inside its palm. "Well, I never. Ain't anybody told you stealin' is wrong? I'll have ta confiscate this." He plucked the armband from his minion and stashed it in his pocket. "Guess on the way back I'll be teachin' my Hands some manners." Yes, because the undead minions with no free will are definitely the ones at fault here. He tipped his hat to Joan as he stalked off into the sunset. "See ya 'round, Joan."