RP:Maladroit's New Shape

Background

Maladroit, Jolie's cursed once-goblin familiar, is in need of a new body.

The Creation of The Gaunt

Scent of Death

Suddenly and almost violently a horrific smell invades your nostrils from the north. Unlike the unpleasant rotting decay smell of the dying foliage this smell is much more foul. It is the smell of death, putrid rotting flesh and iron rich recently spilled blood. Yet there is no sign of where this pungent stench is coming from this area is just as bizarrely barren except for the trees and fog as everywhere else. Ahead to the north appears to be a very steep hill covered in the thick swirling mass of fog, perhaps that is where this smell comes from, there is no direct path leading that way however.

1 white ritual-candle is here.

2 black ritual-candle are here.

1 goblin brain is here.

1 goblin blood is here.

1 dragon whelp is here.

1 lycan claw is here.

1 human leg is here.

1 harpy feet is here.

1 offering bowl is here.

1 brass censer is here.

1 ornate athame is here.

1 faceless hell-gaunt is here.

*a guttural shriek - a blood-shiver of black and hoary phrases - a sensation of reality wrenching on its axis - a shrill laugh - deadly, utter silence*

The forest was still for a time, as an animal stills itself in the certain knowledge of impending death, as a predator stills in the scant seconds before it leaps to rend the life out of its prey. No owl nor cuckoo, no deer nor squirrel dared a step or call. In the distance ogres shivered in their brutal huts and made crude signs against evil over the squalid cots of their offspring. For a five-mile radius around one small patch of blasted earth, upon which no thing would grow and across which no bird would fly for years to come, all was silent, still. And at the epicentre of this ripple of madness, this psychotic bomb of arcane horror, was a small woman dressed in not much, holding a book, who would begin laughing and laughing like she'd just told the funniest joke in the world. And in a prison of glyphs, in the middle of a ritual circle littered with gore and leftover lumps of flesh, and marked with sigils upon which it would be inadvisable to stare for too long, a hunched and terrible -thing- stirred its wings and lurched into the first day of its grim existence.

Senka smells blood. Even over the horrid stench of rotting wood and Death that has a habit of lingering around her, lately, the wolf can smell blood. And like any predator she's drawn to it, ignoring the buzz of ghosts in her ear she travels deeper into that patch of wood and fog that has once been her home, her territory. But those days are gone right along with her sanity and not for the first time the wolf wonders whether it has been the wicked things in her mind that have tricked her into thinking she has smelled blood. Lottie giggles. And then fog parts before its former master and Senka is free to look at a sight of a sister…not quite looking how she usually does. The Elder doesn't even pause, merely lowering her head with a resigned air as she knows the pull of her curiosity cannot be ignored like those phantom children now tugging on her body and mind to leave. They don't like Jolie much. Senka, however, just has to know what her nose has picked up on because before Jolie's feet something is stirring and both nose as eyes are not quite sure what it is. Something new. Something wicked. The wolf doesn't mind wicked things. So she draws closer, letting the scent of Death wash over her until she's standing silently in front of Jolie as if she were a phantom herself. Her fur never was as suited for any place quite like how it's suited for this forest.

Kirien 'd never quite been completely in touch with reality but even he felt the shift in the wake of those unearthly screams. It's enough to send a chilling shiver running the length of his spine and he knew it'd be wise to get as far away as possible from the source of those voices and the madness - quickly. But he's a walking contradiction and despite that innate fear of Death and Ends and all such things he often spouted out during random conversations with tavern strangers, he was here. Camaero, the once-stalker-turned-friend of a stallion, trotted uncertainly at his side as the fox quietly made his way through swirling fog which drew phantom-like faces in the air; the gray was an intelligence creature, knew better than his rider than to step into this place at such a time, but he possessed no desire to lose another master to the vicious beasts which occupied this world. If Kirien needed to run, Camaero would carry him on swift hooves - hooves that currently were the only real sound to give away both their presences', for the Lark moved silently, his song dead on his lips. White-tipped vulpine ears stood erect and sought to pick out even the tiniest of noises, while a more invisible form of sight led Kirien through thick mists in the direction of where this cold earth felt strangest. Something was here, he could feel it - and, running on instinct and smart {crazy?} assumptions, Kirien headed for the centre of the madness. He'd find it there.

Mahri 's senses were rather blunted. She only caught the vaguest wiff of decay and rot. Hell, she could barely catch the rustle of dry (despite the fog) grass when a rodent scurried away from her treading feet. Brow furrowed she's considering that she just might have a cold. The first one in..years. They must not have been dulled enough but she felt the ripple of something ~other~. Something not natural to this world as it burst free. It was the laughter, so familiar and so alien, that brought the woman's head up in alarm. This was her home now and if someone was being driven insane and mauled in it she would be to blame. Rho had made sure to make that perfectly clear. She thought she was running, that easy hunter's lope coming to her aid with the speed she required. She thought she would see the bend of roots before they tripped her up. Mahri was wrong and cursing in confusion when she came to the arcane place which Jolie ruled over in her near sky-clad state. At least, that's what she thought she saw. This cold must be affecting her vision as the haze of ground clouds rolled and wrapped around the woman and gore and unnameable things were scattered about the ground. The sigils seemed to flare for a second before the greenish-bluish light faded and Mahri wondered if she'd seen it at all. Silver eyes dart around, she squints and notes shadowed figures also circling around the apparently insane Jolie. It felt like speaking now would be blasphemous. So she stays quiet and ignores the niggle in her mind that she's never had a cold. Not since her turning.

Jolie was at first unaware that she had company, her rapturous glee easing to a grin as the necromancer leant down, her bestial face pressing lips to the cover of the Book of Books, the Name of which could not be uttered lest it wake the direness within to premature fullness. "Thanks, old bean," she said, mimicking the phrasing of Cornelius Penzance, and lifted her phosphorescing, green gaze upon the atrocity she'd wrought here this foggy, wretched eve. "Happy, now?" she asked it, though the creature only crouched, mindless, void of any awareness to call its own. In the circle, however, another ripple - a sense of urgency, as of some desperate, agonised and phantasmagoric creature. "Well, just hold on, pet..." And she'd flip the book open again, its elvish skin glistening black with sweat, and read aloud:

Jolie said, "Ia! Maladroit! Ut ftaghu wk'hmr Maladroit! Ia! Ia! "

The warped, winged figure twitched, buckled like a smashed wasp, wrenched itself, contorting in the once-goblin’s desperate bid to gain control of its new and magically-wrought-together flesh. If there were witnesses to this blasphemous transfer, it would not be a sight they would forget in any hurry. As the last of the ancient cantos sounded in hollow mockery of holy creation over the dim and foggy space, the final syllables cinched the cursed familiar's spirit to its new host. Faceless and clawed, leathern wings spreading like a lunatic's nightmare butterfly new-hatched from a fevered brain, Maladroit lifted its blunted head to the world it despised and... was silent.

Mahri is avoiding looking directly in that circle. Or rather, her eyes refused to see what was there.

Kirien 's instincts are proven correct when out of the mists rose a spectre. Winged and disfigured it was like nothing he'd ever set eyes upon before and every inch of the ground around it could be felt screaming silently to him, as if protesting the abhorrent abomination of life which crouched upon it. He shivered again, felt the sensation pass through to Camaero - while the sight of the seated woman, her apparent new creation and the remaining gore of now-unrecognisable creatures surrounding the two unnerved him, he chose to reassure his stallion instead and patted him on the neck with one hand while the other kept a firm grip of the reins. "Spirits," was all the fox managed to utter, tone hoarse and with an incredulous inflection to it as wide amber eye took in the scene unfolding before him. He felt the earth shutter as if frightened beneath booted feet but couldn't find any way to assure it in the same way he had Camaero. Hiding behind two thick trees which clustered close together both fox and horse peered round twisted trunks at the grotesque display of a birth of sorts, and Kirien wondered if he perhaps would have listened to his remaining sanity earlier - he really shouldn't be here.

Mahri sniffed. She smelled dampness, some decay. She smelled the earth, musty and long left fallow. What she didn't smell was Jolie, the thing in the circle or Kirien. Alarm was slowly trickling in. All this began after the last hellish syllable left Jolie's lips. Somewhere, something screamed. A forest creature? Something else? She could tell. And still, she thought, if I move. If I make so much as a muscle twitch, whatever that woman has called is going to have me for dinner. Those things scattered about had to have been a snack. From the edge of her vision she could just barely make out a featureless shape with the hint of wings. Mahri opens her mouth to say..what? Nothing comes out. She can only stand, frozen, at the edge of this horrid scene and pray this cold (it's not a cold) doesn't hinder any attempts at rescuing the Captain's mate from herself.

Jolie raised her gaze, a flickering stare the hue of frozen tundra-sedge, from the new-birthed monstrosity to her sister-of-sorts, the white wolf who stood, claws gripping the blood-drenched earth and ears twitching to and fro madly. "Senka..." she said, an iota of dismay resounding as the necromancer's arcanum-raddled mind unfogged from its spellcraft malaise. But the wolfess was listening to the high squeaks and giggles of her own phantoms, which were highly perturbed by the presence of --that book-- and thus, with a crazed mien to her blood-hued eyes the Elder wolf would drift away like so much fog herself, into the benighted gloom of the fog forest. Jolie sighed, hardly able feel her own hands let alone any desire for her sister to stay. Glancing to her patched-together fiend, she finished the evening's business. "Behave yourself. I'm trusting you. And if you cannot..." She lowered her voice to a growl, "I'll un-knit this frame and stick you in a hamster. See how you like -them- apples."

Maladroit only shivered its batlike wings, and lashed its nightmare tail, a whiplike affair terminating in venomous, bony spikes. Then lifted its faceless, chinless head in Kirien's direction. It was no predator, not in any fang-and-claw sense at least, though its method of feasting would make anyone wish to be rended apart rather than suffer its sucking maw.

Jolie herself perked her ears, lynx-tipped, black-haired; her eyes grew wide. "Hello?" There were scents, muddled by the grue pasted across the ground in gouts and gobs. One she knew. "Mahri?" The other she could not make out clearly, "Hello?"

Kirien could feel Mahri. Though the fog hindered vision he'd picked up on a familiar beat through the terrified earth, one that'd been present at yesterday's festivities and had been unconsciously memorised and named in the short while she'd attended the reception. Mahri's beat. Mahri's heart. That carefree sort of celebration seemed so far away right now. But she was nearby, only a couple of feet away; if he glanced off to one side he'd likely catch a glimpse of her amongst the warped faces in the mist, the silent screamers and features of the forsaken departed telling him without words to leave, to run. He'd always had a penchant for running - but at entirely the wrong times. A slight tilt of the head was made and the fox was just about to search for Mahri with his eye when he noticed that the faceless visage of the hellborn creature had turned in his direction and was 'looking' right at him. All movement froze then and he assumed the tense, stoic posture of a well-carved statue, single remaining eye wide and bright with a fear that only the most talented of sculptors would be able to replicate in stone. In his fright and desire to appear non-threatening, a simple and inanimate part of the forest, magic went to work and earth crept up over the soles of his boots, quickly scaled his legs; causing him to seem some half-alive, half-earthen being. Surely it'd mistake him for an odd-looking tree, surely. There was no response to Jolie's call but his nose itched at his own usage of magic. He did not want to sneeze right now.

Mahri heard her name. It broke whatever paralysis had a hold on her and she stepped forward. Swallowing a lump she refused to acknowledge as fear, the lycan replies, "Jolie," and winces at the tremble in her voice. Even closer she can't smell the female. It was like..like..she was human again. That thought alone should have sent her into a whirlpool of panic. There were other things to be afraid of. Things her eyes slide right past. "Jolie," she begins again, "What are you doing out here?" She wanted to ask, 'what have you done?'. The book. Was it perspiring? Did she really see a crystalline drop of sweat fall from the leathery looking cover? It must have been from the new lycan's hand. It had to be. Any other explanation would have Mahri doing a very unalpha kind of thing. Running screaming through the forest. Pupils were wide, irises thin silver rings around them. Eventually she would calm. Eventually she might allow herself to see what it was that the necromancer, the sin eater, had called from whatever pit of unhallowed earth called forth. The eventuality was not going to happen now. She doesn't even know Kirien is there but the earth around her pounded at her druidic senses. Demanding an accounting of the destruction to part of its body. An answer she couldn't give and so blocked it out. If she hadn't she might have noticed the ground answering another's call.

Jolie's gaze followed the sightless, noseless cant of head her familiar's new vessel gave to Kirien. But in the gloom, with her sensed all a-scramble, all she saw was ... some trees. Maybe the dim outline of some uncannily courageous hoofed mammal. Her attention was quickly drawn to the second of her erstwhile siblings to arrive, no surprise for either to be hunting these grounds, and she'd whisper, "Mahri, isn't he .. wonderful?"

The winged blasphemy leant forward on its great fore-knuckles, apelike, and lifted its head as to catch a scent where there was no snout to catch it, and no wind to carry it, still intently focussed on the fox-eared tree-like Kirien. The book in Jolie's hand fluttered a page over, then another, another, madly ruffling itself.

The necromancer frowned, looked down, went pale.... "Uh, Mahri?" she said, voice querulous. "I think perhaps we ought to..." Then it happened. For the necromancer, while a master of her profession, was not yet master of the Book of Books. And thus, when she'd been distracted enough by her success, and the arrival of Senka and the sense-impaired druid, she'd forgotten the vital act of closing down the spell, and with it, the Book.

Freed of constraint, the semi-autonomous tome honed in on Jolie's aura, drawing from it, vampire-like, available mana and digesting it in some unspeakable and foul way. The result, coming moments later, was another insane ripple that had all the effect of a small tornado ripping through the minds, if not the trees, of that secluded spot. And, as suddenly quiescent as it had been suddenly animate, the Book shut itself with a voluble 'snap!'.

Jolie's eyes rolled in her head, before she'd slump to the ground. Her familiar would raise its saggy, black throat to give a horrible, silent cry and flap its weak, new wings in fear. As to what happened to the others present? Only time would tell.

Kirien retained a strong grip on Camaero's reins though by now it was more a death-grasp, cold fingers so tight they were unable to uncurl at all from the leather straps. The stallion was smart enough not to make much noise but it was clear he wanted to bolt, innate fight-or-flight instincts taking over; he shuffled in place a bit, may have emitted a soft huff of fear. Kirien ignored him and remained completely still as the two women attempted some sort of conversation with each other, the seated Jolie apparently none-too-bothered by the current eerie location or the fact that she'd conjured some form of otherworldly beast and was likely about to set it loose on the innocent. What was that thing, even? He'd have met the creature's gaze through the fog but it had no eyes to meet so he simply stared at the blank slate where a face might've been. Attentions would turn sharply toward the apparently living book set in Jolie's lap as her halting voice broke through wandering thoughts - and then there was a ripple and a shudder and something vicious struck the fox's mind and caused him to cry out in pain from the sheer sensation of such an invasion. Any mental walls he may have constructed were swiftly blown open and the Book's antics washed over his mind, shattering thought and causing him to feel terribly, suddenly, faint. Muscles loosened and he fell toward the ground as grip on the reins was relinquished; Camaero'd had enough and with a shrill whinny was streaking away through the dead forest, trails of mist swirling in his wake. There was the occasional scream in the distance and a crash or two as the horse, fear-stricken and utterly confused by the tempest in his mind, ran into trees and attempted to disentangle himself from their gnarled branches. Knees met cold dirt and palms hit it next, and Kirien only just managed to hold himself up - there was pain and fear and malice and the former two could be felt from more than just him. The entire wood around him wanted to run; head spun and he opened his mouth to speak -- what he'd say was questionable. anything really -- when a shocking agony stabbed itself into the forefront of his mind. Stemming from his back it washed over his entire body and Kirien screamed despite his best efforts not to, voice torn and hoarse with a tangible terror. Something was wrong, he could feel something ripping out from him, as if his spine were being torn from its proper place and asunder…

Mahri was closer to Jolie than Kirien. Imagine that! And the moment Jolie had begun to speak, the impaired lycan had just reached her hand to grab the woman's arm, sure that the thing she called 'wonderful' was in fact intent on eating her elder sister, and thus make it easier for a quick jerk to pull Jolie out of harms way. Little did she know, or suspect, that the book was in fact almost a sentient being in its own right. It reminded her peripherally, of the book she'd helped Redhale find. In the library beneath the catacombs of tombs in Vailkrin. She got the same skin-crawly feeling from it. The same lurch in her stomach she refused to name. "Yes we.." she had begun to agree when the book ruffled, rustled and snapped closed. Being in contact with the necromancer means the book has a little more mana to draw from and when it snapped closed and Jolie fell into a faint, Mahri fell right along with her. In fact, instinctively the alpha twists her body so that Jolie will land on her rather than the ground. The psychic blast rips through her mind much like Kirien's except..nothing sprouts from her body and where her hand lands outside the deadened ground, grass that had turned brown and brittle simply withers away to ash beneath Mahri's touch.

It was some time later, some long and indeterminable time later, that Maladroit's rubbery, clawed and webby fingers would pluck at the necromancer's hair and clothing and, when that didn't work to rouse her, plant a clammy slap across her cheek.

Jolie woke. Retched, reeled - fortunately avoided the urge to be sick, seeing as she was indeed lying on top of Mahri. "What in the..." One hand reached to draw the fallen book close, clutch it to her chest, the other groping amid a tangle of lycan limbs for the protective, spell-imbued cloth that presently kept the accursed tome in check in lieu of proper mastery. The Book of Books thus wrapped, she'd nudge her sister, her thick tongue and rasping voice dragging the druid's name from her lungs. "Mahri.."

Maladroit, meanwhile, had been freed from his arcane containment in that circle of magical sigils when the necromancer passed out. And this was a fact the hellish creature realised only now, as it knuckle-walked over, wings drooping along its bony flanks, tail whisking, toward the unconscious Kirien. Reaching him, the once-goblin repeated its gesture, a foul forefinger prodding the foxling's prone frame one, twice.

"Maladroit!" Jolie struggled upward, mind spinning. "Be ...." But she didn't need to make the order. The frightful thing was only curious, though it how it 'saw' with no eyes in its featureless head, was anybody's guess.

Kirien wasn't as fortunate as Jolie. The pain in his back throbbed and coiled and after only a couple of seconds his body was unable to take it and attempted to expel the agony in the only real way it knew - by vomiting. His choked gasps and the distinct sounds of retching would permeate the otherwise silent forest before the fox eventually, and abruptly, collapsed, slumping to one side on the ground. Even as thoughts slipped into obscurity and he into unconsciousness there was movement from his back; and slowly two small appendages utterly alien to his form {even moreso than vulpine ears and tail} began to break free, tearing through skin and then even the fabric of his jacket to bathe in the cool mists twisting intermittently around his shoulders. Coated in blood and gore and ripped strands of coat and flesh the tiny wings unfurled briefly before succumbing to the same comatose state as the body they'd grown from. Kirien would only begin to wake when there was a prod to his shoulder, which ached in response; he groaned and tried to lift his arms and brush the clawed hand away, muttering, "Terr, let me sleep…". It was Jolie's cry of her familiar's name that startled him out of his sluggish half-sleep and, blinking, the fox raised his head from the ground. Why was he in a forest? One that appeared the exact copy of the one he'd witnessed in his dreams, when he'd felt an untold amount of pain and-- he paused, realised he could still feel pain and it was the very real kind, not the sort of false sensation experienced in dreams, realistic as they sometimes could be. "…s***." It was a soft curse, one in response to the unsettling knowledge that what he'd 'dreamed' had actually happened - the profanity was followed by a yelp of fright as the fox belatedly noticed the presence of the…thing next to him, and he attempted to leap up and away from it. He only succeeded in falling and landing on his back, and emitted another stream of loud curses at the agony following.

Mahri is a bit quicker than Kirien at waking up. Not by much though. There is a weight atop her. It shifts and her eyes snap open to clash with peridot that is quickly torn away from her gaze. At least Jolie is getting off. No. She wasn't and Mahri is thus pinned underneath. Drawing in a breath, she twists her head, bending her neck at an odd and potentially dangerous angle. The shambling knuckled gait of the thing called Maladroit was watched. Now that it was out of the circle, it didn't seem that her mind perceived the creature as all that..unlookable. "Jolie," she returns, reaching a hand to gently push at a bare shoulder. A hand that had once held power to heal at will. Now, if Jolie didn't move the consequences would be felt and seen by the light touch. Flesh may instantly blacken with gangrenous infection. Which shouldn't be a problem for the lycan. What with her self-healing ability. Over time. And that's only if Jolie didn't get up before Mahri goes to give that gentle shove. Should the opposite be true, then Mahri'll simply get to her feet and put herself between the necromancer and her creature.

Jolie did, in fact, roll off the druid before those necromantically-tainted hands could brush living flesh and render it corrupt. Mainly, as she was horribly concerned for Kirien right now. The Book of Books was proving a handful, to say the least, and her rather rash decision to use it in his incarnational process , she realised, may just have proved more foolhardy than useful. "...careful with him," came the rest of that warning, even as Kirien shrank from the reanimated thing's groping paws. Still quite unnecessary - Maladroit sought only to pluck the similarly-winged foxling from the ground, somewhat like a child may pick up an unwilling cat by its armpits. This done, the familiar would amble back toward its Mistress, with the ungainly gait of a primate walking upright.

Meanwhile, and satisfied no further carnage was forthcoming, Jolie glanced to Mahri. "Thanks," she offered, for the sake of the druid acting as a cushion for her fall, "Are you alright?" She would note, with no realisation yet, the withered grasses left upon the ground within that circle, assuming it an effect of the spell's blast. By then, Kirien had been deposited on the same ground. Jolie would stare at him instead. "And you," as she peered at him, "You're Lucien's friend, yes?" The familiar rubbed its webby hands across its blank face in a horribly mammalian manner. Jolie frowned. She didn't remember the fuzzy-eared elf having wings...

Kirien would've tried to check his back in attempt to work out just what was causing him such pain but he was more concerned with escaping from the approaching Maladroit right at this moment. He ended up pressed against the trunk of a nearby tree, however, and when he went to dodge off to the creature's right as it lumbered toward him he ended up falling instead, coat in shreds and small, pitch-black wings shuddering with the same fright visible in his wide, wide eye. "Aah! L-let--make it let go, I don't want eaten!" he yelped upon being scooped from the ground and carried by the unsightly being - hands pushed at it and he was about to test the effects of terramancy on it when he was abruptly, and somewhat gently, set back down. A pause came where he stood shakily, just staring at the familiar and inhaling deep, heavy breaths - a sure sign of terror half-heartedly suppressed and making itself visible. Head snapped round at Jolie's words and the fox's intense gaze fell to her instead. It took him a couple of moments but finally he managed an intelligible response to the question. "…Yeah." Were they friends? He wasn't entirely sure but decided not to question that just now. Wings twitched behind him, flaring out a bit although even then they were still utterly tiny, and he winced. "The hell happened? What was that…shockwave just now? Why'm I hurt?" A thumb jabbed sharply in Maladroit's direction. "And /what/ is that thing?" He'd a habit of asking a lot of questions.

Jolie said to Kirien, "I was just..." That dread tome was hastily shoved under some ritual artefacts, "... conducting a few tests." Jolie's smile was slightly brittle. "Didn't expect any company. Sorry about that." She'd be staring at his wings meanwhile, blinking gently, her mind gradually sharpening again. Whatever effect, if any, that blast of magical effluent had on the necromancer herself would apparently remain to be seen. "Did you... forgive me if I'm in error, but did you always have those?" He'd probably notice the way her gaze shifted between his one good eye and some space over his back. "I really don't think you did?"

Jolie would add, "And that's Maladroit. He used to be a goblin." She offered the thing a small, almost affectionate smile. Though there'd be something a little malevolent in the expression, as well. Maladroit, itself, simply hunkered down, dog-like, and was still.

"Tests my ass. The hell, it looked like you were trying to summon some sorta demon," retorted Kirien sharply, displeased. Sluggish as he was still he wasn't about to let up on his suspicions or opinions - if anything he voiced them more pointedly than usual. Maladroit was eyed again; really, what was he supposed to be? Had she intentionally left him without a face? Gaze returned to the sin eater, followed her wavering gaze as best he could though it was hard to see anything directly behind him. He turned in search of whatever she'd been looking at and found nothing out of the ordinary. "What're you talkin' 'bout? I don't see anythin'… Must've cut myself on something when I fell..?" And yet he'd felt this pain before collapsing, he knew that. "…Used to be. Before you made him…something. What is it?"

Jolie shook her head. "I am almost sure you didn't have those wings." Her brow still puckered into a frown, she glanced to Mahri, "And you? Are you alright?" The druid nodded, but was was looking dazed and not at all herself. Magical fallout could be devastating in effect, the necromancer knew, and with this thought in mind glanced hurriedly back to Kirien. "Oh dear." In an effort to keep everybody calm, she'd speak quickly, in an overly-cheery tone, as she started randomly picking up ritual objects, packing some away, others just put down in a slightly different place. "Now, there's an interesting story. Maladroit here was once a goblin, as I said. He was quite elderly, and proficient in Dark Magics. Also quite bad-tempered." She offered the thing another smile. "He annoyed some Drow mages, oh, many centuries ago now, who disembodied him. Not alive, not dead. Just trapped, in some outer dimension.." She had an armful of what looked like a pair of female legs, terminating in eagle's claws. "Until I stumbled over him, while doing the Lesser Incantation of Summoning, and he ended up possessing the crow carcass I was practising on. We've been together ever since. More or less." But she wasn't going into the unfortunate occurrences of the familiar's body becoming a chewtoy for Leoxander more than once. "The bodies wear out, you see. He needs new ones, from time to time. I made this, based on an old ritual I discovered some time ago. It's almost indestructible." Jolie's expression suggested that she thought Kirien might find this tidbit quite as pleasing as she did.

Jolie said aside, to Mahri, "You look very peaky, pet. Perhaps we ought to go to the villa, for a drink and a lie-down, soon?"

Kirien 'd been glancing around for Camaero but found no answer in the shifting mists, nor a trace of his presence amongst them. Considering he couldn't feel him at all the fox presumed he'd run off at some point - hopefully he'd the sense the return to Rynvale rather than end up lost in this forsaken old wood, wandering until eventually he became naught but another face in the fog - a phantom. He shuddered at the thought. "It sounds like something Redhale'd like," he murmured absently while returning his stare to the book. There was a disquieting sensation about that tome, he found as he watched it as if expecting it to jump up at any second; while it didn't possess a heartbeat like people, being an inanimate object, there was this odd…pulse which occasionally emanated from it, and it wasn't a pleasant one. Chilling, really. Maybe it ate people like Redhale's other books. "Permanent? I can't…have wings forever! They look silly, I'm sure." The wings in question fluttered behind him and again he winced in pain.

Jolie tilted her head, shaking it gently as she peered at the bat-like protuberances. "They're not bad, you know. Could've been worse." But she wouldn't elaborate on how, exactly. "Redhale.. you know him, then? He's an old friend of mine." This probably would not surprise Kirien at all. Jolie looked aside from where she was packing that book away, as safely as one might pack such a horrible artefact away in a canvas bag. "We see each other often. How do you know him?" Meanwhile, Maladroit was miming some sort of insensate snuffling in Kirien's direction, its long and rubbery fingers flexing gently, its own great leathern wings pumping and pulsing as an insect's might on first hatching from a cocoon.

Jolie's sister spoke a soft affirmation that perhaps a drink might go down well about now, thanks a lot, Jolie and what the bloody hell? The necromancer offered Mahri a reassuring smile. "Almost done here. And cheer up. At least you don't have wings?"

Kirien rather wished for a mirror right at this moment. All he really knew of his wings was that they were small and presumably black, unless his eye had caught sight of something else fluttering about behind him - which gave cause for worry. He glanced over one shoulder, just to check, but there was only Maladroit there. "I don't think I want to know how much worse it might've been. That book? It's not nice. I ain't dumb. There're things in there worse than death, judging by the feel of it." The feel? That might be a little perplexing for Jolie if she didn't understand what exactly the fox meant with those words. Head canted to one side in an almost curious manner. "He tried to eat me once," he said, as some for of explanation as to how he knew Redhale, "and now we're sort of…I don't know. Friends? Maybe that's too much, he'd probably try to eat me again if he wanted to. I've got a job from him at the moment though." Maladroit's antics are eyed with a suspicious gaze as if he expected the beast to suddenly leap at him. In the end however he only wiggled his wings at the being a little, and earned himself a bit of pain in the process.

Jolie narrowed her green-glinting gaze on the foxling, and spoke through her not-insignificantly-pointed teeth. "Listen. The book is nothing. Just an old bunch of rubbish, not worth worrying about. Understand?" Catching herself, she once more donned an affable expression. "Really, it's got a certain.. feel about it, but that's all. And a job, you say?" In her pack, she found a flask. In the flask was whisky. She handed this to the unusually-quiet, possibly sullen Mahri. "What sort of job? I dare say it's to do with carcasses?" Said off-handedly. There was only one major task the masked man was bent on, currently. That she knew of, in any case.

Jolie's frown was met with a mimicry of the expression from Kirien; harsh words did not deter him and were mostly shrugged off. Still, he was in pain and would rather not be attacked right around now so refrained from much further commenting and simply said, "If you say so…". What sort of book not worth worrying about perspired like that tome seemingly did? He snorted. "Uh. Gathering people. Not dead ones, actually - he said he wanted them alive and mostly unharmed though sick people were good? I dunno, I think he wants more staff for his library. I was supposed to bother Leo about delivery points or somethin' at some point."

Jolie would make a grabby motion toward the flask once Mahri had taken a long, long swig. If the lycaness gave it up, it'd be handed Kirien's way.

Kirien rather needed a drink actually. The flask was snatched up -- with a small 'thank you' -- when eventually it was offered and he tipped it back to take a drink. If anything it'd help calm him down and dull the pain some.

Jolie said, "Really? I am also employed on this.. job. Listen, I need to get this lot packed up before dawn, or... you know. And Mahri here needs a lie-down. And you..." Jolie smiled, fangily. "Might need some to adjust to.. . well, you know. But I have that information you need. Perhaps we might pool resources, get it done quickly? What say you to some afternoon tea at the villa, later?" As if they'd met in the street outside a bakery, and not amid gore and limbs and vile magic, in a horridy forest. "Yes?"

Maladroit suddenly sat back on its lanky haunches, and snapped its wings loudly, spreading them wide.

Jolie locked her gaze on the creature. "Settle down now. You need time, too. Remember what happened, when you overdid it in the basilisk carcass?"

Kirien 's wings flinched and spread again. Apparently he couldn't quite control their movements yet because they seemed unintentional - there was a hiss of pain and another drink of whiskey was taken before the flask would be handed back. "Oh? We're on the same job~. Awesome." He'd not known there were others working at gathering up people though this wouldn't make the task any less enjoyable and interesting as it already was. He'd a good few by now, actually, via tricks and various Kirien-esque antics. "Adjust to having wings. Yeah. This should be…fun. I don't mind tea though~." The situation they'd come across each other in didn't exactly matter to Kirien and he'd met people in worse places, to be honest, though said people were perhaps not attempting to…do whatever Jolie had been doing at the same time. He stared round at Maladroit when the familiar's wings spread and the fox winced; surprisingly, he held up his hands. "D-Don't do that. If you try to fly too soon, without building up the muscle, you might never be able to fly with them. Take it slow, right?" He glanced to Jolie, appeared to want to explain his words as he said, "I…know…winged things quite well. How they work and such. Make him train properly before he flies? Near-indestructible as he may be I'm sure he'd like to fly with those wings of his…"

Jolie seemed positively delighted that Kirien seemed to have calmed, very probably aided by that liquor she claimed back, the last dribble just enough to whet the taste of arcana from her dry mouth. Stashing the flask again, she said, "Tea it is. And thanks for that advice. Maladroit isn't terribly good at being patient. You'd think he would be, after six centuries in a void..."

The mottle-skinned monstrosity had its ungainly head tilted at an angle, fingers crimping invisible pastry, or so it looked, the motion seeming to soothe it as its wings folded back. Curling its barbed tail around itself, it stayed there, 'peering' eyelessly at Kirien.

Jolie smirked. "I think he likes you. Odd. I'm not sure he's ever liked anyone, much. Anyway... Are you right to go, Mahri? Mahri?" she prodded the lycaness, who glowered and mumbled, in much her usual cranky way when things went pear-shaped and not in her own favour. In a few moments, the whole bizarre entourage was set for the return journey to the Achilles-Thorne household. Where Jolie might have just a little splainin' to do.

Kirien would have some explaining to do also, though likely not to Leoxander or Lucien. Well, perhaps Lucien. He'd half a mind to hug the boy again though and see if a copy of these strange little wings popped up on his back. They were quite the pair. "Tch. If he's not patient he'll never fly in this body," the fox said with a derisive nod, hoping that'd be enough to keep the familiar from trying to take flight right now. Head tilted in mimicry of Maladroit's motion as he turned to stare at it, and then give a nervous smile. "I'm…glad? Rather he liked me than tried to eat me…or, well, kill me, at least." There was a pause where he tried to figure out whether he was supposed to accompany the two women back to the villa or not but either way he'd likely end up walking with them at least part-way back.