RP:Master, Apprentice and the question of Maladroit

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Valentin's Butcher Shop and Charcuterie, Cenril

Valentin had wasted little time after the incident at the Sage Forest Bell. His studies of Eclestorias' tome 'Proin Nisl' had now been focused on the devisement of a specific array for the banishment of that tentaclefaced meddler Maladroit. But the Butcher of Cenril was no fool. He would need the assistance of his own 'teacher' in the dark arts, and not that dryboned wretch Lorkain. It would take the twisted genius of the Haruspex Leifong to make this work, and so Valentin took out the bone ring the monstrous necromancer had left him should circumstances dictate contact was necessary. And of course, the blimmin' banker wasn't going t'make it easy on anyone to contact him, oh no. The Haruspex was infamous for having no patience for the weakstomached, thusly the ring could only be activated by being sorcerously inserted into the still-beating heart of a child. Valentin didn't need precognition to know that the child chosen for this 'honour' would not survive the ritual, and likely he wouldn't particularly enjoy the show. If only because of the potential waste of meat. But Cenril is full of unhomed urchins, despite the efforts of Lared in cleaning up the youth of the city, and the butcher had found it no hard task to snatch one from the doorway of a burnt-out brickworks a couple of nights prior. And now Valentin, Scleratus of the Necromancer's Guild, prepared to do what true necromancers did best: serve the cause of death, decay, and entropy.

Valentin presently stood in an obsidian oubliette, adjacent to his cold room. Highlighted by the red glow of the necromantic sigil arrays spread in a mesmerising and seemingly chaotic pattern, the grubby boy chosen as sacrifice could be seen suspended from the ceiling by chains of shadow. In one corner of the room, hidden in the floor by design, a darksteel coffin interlaced with Valentin's custom array of sigils was home to another member of the vast unwashed horde of Cenril's homeless, and his pitiful lifeforce was slowly being called upon to empower the utility arrays surrounding the main ritual circle, permitting Valentin to focus his own power on the task at hand. Dissonant syllables thrash out of the Necromancer's lips as he dictates the rite of communication, and with the sharpened fingernails and strength of the vampires, plunged his hand into the chest of the child, inserting the bone ring directly into the heart. Sigils flared, the secondary array preventing shock from permitting the child to die before its purpose was served. Necromancy, Valentin had found, had a knack for preserving flesh and elongating the moment of death's arrival, which had served him well in keeping his stocks of meat fresh for greatly extended periods of time. The ritual completed Valentin speaks, impassively ignoring the child's eyes bulged in shock with the sight of his own blood on the butcher's hand "Leifong, y'twisted banker. I've got a proposition for you. Important enough fer me t'go through with this mummer's game o'petty murder. Eclestorias' book ain't been enough help for this one". Having said his piece, Valentin awaited the outcome of his ritual and potential return of the Necromancer Guild's Magister Letum.

Leifong :: The child convulses violently, a thick gurgle of blood coming up along with a string of hacks and wheezes, his eyes growing more dim with each passing moment as Valentin's words hang on the air. The urchin jerks hard again, jangling his chains, and with the last rattles of life in his voice he wheezes out his last puff of air. A chill silence falls over the room, and a wisp of shadow drips out of the child's mouth, forming a puddle on the floor, seeping away into any available crack. Even with the anticipation of Leifong's coming, Valentin probably wouldn't expect the violent crash that comes from above, like a bomb had just gone off in the butcher shop. Dust falls from the ceiling as another bang erupts, closer this time, and suddenly the ceiling of Valentin's lair is being torn away by powerful scaled hands baring razor talons. The butcher never would have seen meat like this before... it was a unique creature, born only to serve the haruspex. Standing a full ten feet tall the horrible thing is a near perfect collaboration of pieces from an array of creatures. The hide of a dragon, the body of an ogre, the back paws of a dire bear, and the talons of a great eagle found over the Xalious mountains. With another great blow it widens the hole it had begun and then shoves a disfigured mutilated face through to peer down at the butcher. A great cowish eye stares hatefully in, and as it stares a deep voice emanates through the creature, as though it were it's own. "Speak quickly, butcher. What do you need?"

Valentin grimaced at the first bang. The subsequent ones just reinforced his assumption: of course the soddin' banker was going to tear up his shop. Still, that was why Valentin had decided to hold this away from his cold room - the clash between Leifong and the wards erected in the heart of the Butcher's Necromantic stronghold could have ripped a massive hole in Cenril. The roof to one little basement cube though, well, that was manageable. He'd fix it later. Luckily he knew the kind of bastard he was apprenticed to, and had prepared for the possibility. The butcher watched on impassively as the child shuddered and died in a way no child ever should, and only showed another grimace as his ceiling was opened up by force. And yet, somehow, the monstrosity before him paled in comparison to Leifong's true form, witnessed the night in Vailkrin's cemetary when Valentin had started his 'apprenticeship' "Lookin' prettier than ever, guv. It's about her Grand Bitchiness, Tenebrae. That bloody squidface critter of hers is tryin' to bring 'er back, an' I've a notion to send the pigeon-grubbing bastard to her instead. But I ain't got the breadth o'knowledge you have wi'the interdimensional sorceries, innit. So I'm wonderin' if you'd like to be a part of me givin' her a little metaphorical slap in th'face." A rather convoluted way of asking for help, but Valentin's mind had been growing more convoluted of late due to time spent with certain tomes in his possession.

Leifong 's attention can almost be felt shifting in the way that his creature responds, head snapping to face the butcher full on, and Valentin might rightly guess that Leifong was watching him through it's eyes. "You have seen the creature?" the voice asks, echoing through the room.

Valentin nods tersely "Aye, guv. The blighter was giving off little illusive displays o'the wench on holidays in some kind o'hellish shadow realm. Nasty place, full o'mountains an' fleshy monsters. At first I figured she was hangin' out at your joint, 'til I realised the skies were too different t'ours. The bloody nutter has been well into muckin' wi'flesh golems, from what th'winged faceless mongrel had t'show. Weird thing is, the illusions didn't feel much like illusions." The butcher scratched a muttonchop idly "So, what're your thoughts, Haruspex?"

Leifong steps out of the shadows directly behind the butcher, continuing on the conversation as though nothing had changed. "I knew that she must be clinging on to existence somewhere. Her soul has not yet passed into Vakmatharas' domain. That crafty wench... folded off into a bit the universe I can't find." The Haruspex seems taller than he had before, his spine twisted and elongating him up to near 7 feet for the moment as he glides a closed circle about his 'apprentice'. "and you would send the creature back to her?"

Valentin gritted his teeth as the familiar presence of his 'master' in the arts of Necromancy coalesced from the shadows. Not many things in the world worried the dour butcher, but the Haruspex Leifong was one of them. The fact that th'banker was as sneaky and duplicitous as the shadow of a shadow was barely the start of it. Presumably Leifong had once been human, but the evidence to support that theory was hard to find these days. The Haruspex was more like an embodied nightmare walking the land, and Valentin was not sure if he'd survive a proper to-do with the bastard. Still, he didn't flinch at Leifong's sudden appearance, which is more than most would be able to say. Without turning to follow Leifong's movements, Valentin explained his thoughts "Aye, guv. The winged pain-in-th'ass is obviously still linked to her in some fashion, an' I'm thinkin' with th'right arrays we can send th'bastard back to his mistress, an' she can parade around in her fancy vacation spot as long as she blimmin' likes." And thus, Valentin thought, spare him the arduous task of carrying out her frequent and inevitably insane whims.

Leifong was already twisting all the information around to his best advantage. He'd been looking for a firm connection to his own mentor for quite some time now, though he wouldn't reveal that much just yet. "Do us both a favor and relax, butcher. We wouldn't be talking if I meant you harm... I think I might actually help you in your endeavor." Leifong reaches out a hand and rests it on Valentin's shoulder, the withered skeletal digits digging into the butcher's flesh, a subtle way of mocking the level of commitment his pupil had shown.

Valentin ungritted his teeth. Orders were orders, but it didn't mean he'd lower his alertness. "O'course, Haruspex. Jus' a little tense on account o'needin' to plan repairs." A baldfaced lie, but Valentin didn't particularly care. "The main problem I'm havin' is how t'get the tentaclefaced vermin where we'd need him t'activate a ritual. I've come up wi'the possible means t'conceal a ritual array - an' failin that, with enough prior preparation I have the means to scorch one into the ground, adhoc-like, in a very short period o'time". In fact, that latter talent was something the Butcher had practiced a lot, serving him well when facing off against the red dragon Zyren, and when the Assassin's guild sent the damn toffy-fanged git Kasyr to 'test' him. But that had been with a ritual array of his own design - memorising the kind of array suited to this endeavour would take time and a little tinkering about in the comfort of his own experimental rooms. "I'm appreciative of you bein' willin' to assist, Haruspex. How d'you think we should approach this? I had found reference to Zorestra's Elemental Banishing in Eclestorias' writings, but she was a right nutter. Admittedly, the basic binding array seemed workable, but I've not enough knowledge o'the winged bastard to make the proper binding sigils, so even that seemed out. Valzhari's Circle of Expulsion seemed promising, 'cept a bit o'deeper research showed the bastard died when he tried it an' failed. It only stayed in th'books because his disciple was a blimmin' loony." Valentin scratched his jawline "Now, your extradimensional summoning for powering major rituals showed some patterns which seem quite workable in principle for achieving the opposite of a summoning - but while I have a bunch of pieces, I haven't yet been able to quite piece th'puzzle of a full ritual array together yet." It was quite verbose for the butcher, uncharacteristically so, and Leifong's keen perceptions may notice the signs of a long period without sleep hinted at by the slight sheen of the vampiric butcher's eyes, and nuances of speech.

Leifong lets out a deep wet squelching noise, and his creature mimics him, causing the whole room to shake with a noise that's difficult to really identify for the laughter it is. "You should watch what you say about nutters and loons, butcher. In this art, not one of us is truly sane." Leifong moves to stare Valentin in the eyes, his gaze feeling heavy emanating from under that cloak made of shadow. "You're wasting your time in the preparation. You won't make any progress until you've captured the damn thing and had a chance to study it's makeup. Joliette always had a knack for binding her constructs in the most frustratingly confusing sort of way. Where most create in a logical way, hers always seemed as though they'd been simply pooled together from the depths of hell itself, works of genius really." Leifong taps Valentin on the forehead with a long fingernail "Most unlike you, dear apprentice. All this time without me and where is all your progress, hmm?"

Valentin felt his old blue collar pride bristle at the words and the poke in the forehead. Sure, he was a butcher, and damn good at it, a master of that trade - but here was a reminder that, will he or nil he, Valentin had taken on a new and far more complex trade. And just as he'd been forced to prove his worth as an apprentice butcher many years ago, he knew Leifong had a damned point. He'd been wanting to keep it all secret, but th'banker was too damn sharp for that, just like every apprentice's master was the world over. "A'right Guv. You have a blimmin' point." Stating the obvious to stall for time and gather his thoughts? He hadn't done that in decades. Valentin took that moment though to properly take control of his thoughts. The damn Chest of Torment, found in a Barrow beneath Venturil, had been getting to him of late, what with all those weeks spent subjecting himself to those concentrated assaults of phobomancy - but it had been worth the hell he'd been putting himself through. "Leavin' aside the beastie for now, where's me progress? S'pose I'd better come up with th'goods" Valentin concentrated, returning Leifong's heavy gaze with an impassive one of his own. Around them the shadows began to whisper as the Scleratus' psionic talent, unlocked by Leifong when his ritual had dragged them all through a condensation of time and space to reach the Dark Fortress, manifested. Sussurations whisper from every corner, whispering the opening Cantata of the Cryumbral tides, and the shadows in the room shifted with Valentin's will. A wash of cold blasts swiftly across the surface of the existing ritual circle, and the floor is scrubbed clean even as the whispers shift into the Cantata of the Pyrumbra tides. New patterns form, a shadowy replica of a ritual circle with sigils clearly linked to the practice of phobomancy. With a slight narrowing of eyes, Valentin forces the cantata to a crescendo, and dark flames scorch the sigils onto the surface of the stone. Leifong would perhaps see some evidence of Valentin having perused Alcorin's 'Ruminations on the disruptions of mental fortitude in lesser beings' and Mad Malazin's more simply titled 'Torments: a Glossarie'. But the Sigil Array is Valentin's own creation, formulated from the direct experience of receiving the effects of a master phobomancer's curse via the ancient box in the Scleratus' possession. The underlying binding array is deceptively simple, and yet mirrored the no-longer extant works of Ek'Lazar the Mindthief - a psionic torturer who'd reasoned that most sentient minds have a basic pattern of thought which, when prodded with the right cues, would respond in a generally uniform fashion. Valentin had come to a similar conclusion through a murderer's cynicism and trial-and-error experiments conducted to support his sociopathic assumptions. With the basic binding array in place, Valentin had woven an interlace of umbral sigils to give an illusory element to the shadows within the range of the rituals. Finally, he had retro-engineered a complex tapestry of sigils which represented, to the best of Valentin's ability, the phobomantic effects inflicted upon him by the Chest of Torment. The only downside, Valentin had found, was that he'd had to power it using the same source of energy which powered the Hidden Whispers - something he was slowly coming to recognise in his workmanlike way was some kind of psionic talent as opposed to sorcerous output. The efficacy of the ritual would be enough to force an ordinary human to not just face his own hidden, innermost fears, but to have those fears psychosomatically assault him. The ritual circle was quite an intricate one, at least for a Scleratus. Valentin didn't quite expect it to have the same effect on Leifong, though.

Leifong stands still as a stone while Valentin begins his work, the Haruspex watching every detail with close interest. After all, if the butcher was going to go around calling himself Leifong's pupil, he had to earn it. As the shadows sway to a new master, the corpse's cloak fluctuates, as though it were blowing away into the ether, but every so often the shadows rally back to obscure his monstrous form once more. Leifong could feel how much Valentin's control over the darkness had grown. His sigils were far more... evolved than before, and the sheer amount of raw power he held was impressive. The Haruspex could feel fear washing over him, it was an impressive attempt, quite a good show of skill, but Leifong had stopped being afraid of almost anything since his face had been torn away from him in the fortress. Running into your gods tends to have that effect on people.

Valentin was not surprised to see no visible effect on his monstrous mentor. He'd have been shocked if the entity could even experience that particular emotion. Still, there was a distinct lack of immediate sneering mockery which, as anybody who'd made it from Apprentice to Master in any field could tell you, was a sign you'd done something right. The big question was figuring out which part you'd got right in amongst all the subsequent flaws which would invariable come forth as a litany. He'd done it to many a butcher's apprentice himself in the past. Valentin maintained control of the ritual circle a bit longer, until he could feel the tell-tale compressing feeling around his temples which indicated he was coming close to overextending his abilities. With a grunt, the Scleratus released the shadows, halted the whispers, and the room was quiet once more. "Been gettin' interested in Phobomancy, guv. Almost got shanked one by a phobomantic trap under a Barrow in Venturil. Got t'thinkin' it was an interestin' way t'do business." Valentin didn't mention the incredible success of his Gravewyrm breeding program. He was to the point of needing to expand their living space, or provide additional wyrmpits. Oh yes, they had an entirely different kind of potential in Valentin's eyes. "I ain't exactly been sittin' with thumb up m'Xalious these past few months, Haruspex. I been busy. This thing with th'blimmin' batwinged bother of Her Fancy Crankiness'es is a new development o'the past few days."

Leifong allows the shadows of his cloak to glide and play among the others for a second, It's thickness faltering ever so slightly to show the ridged outline of his withered torso which was currently twisted in the most horrendous fashion to grant him the extra height. "You show progress, student. But you still lack imagination. Fear isn't something you wield as a weapon, fear is something you become. It can clothe you, feed you, give you strength." As Leifong speaks he takes to circling once more, footsteps leaving not even the slightest hint of sound behind, as though it were all swallowed back up the moment it was brought into existence. All around the pair, tendrils of pure darkness snake up from the floor and coalesce into shades of beings, people Valentin had killed, people he had once loved, and they all spoke with the Haruspex's voice. "You must coax it to life in your prey, feed it, let it grow." One of the shadows suddenly breaks rank and surges for Valentin's back with a still materializing blade in hand, jabbing the illusory weapon into the butcher's kidneys. "You give the fear life, but your enemies give it power. Never forget that when you walk that path, you are not the master, you are merely the storyteller."

Valentin had been well prepared for this, for the visions Leifong's sorceries presented him now were but a portion of what he had allowed the Chest of Torment to subject him to night after night for several weeks. It was true that, in many ways, Valentin lacked imagination - but sometimes the direct approach worked well, and Valentin's resilience to fear magics had grown exponentially. The dour butcher didn't blink or twitch a muscle as the parade of shadows appeared before him and in his mind, not even when the shadow rammed the illusory weapon into his viscera. His acknowledgement of the lesson was uttered in his typical impassive, uninflected and gruff fashion "Understood, guv. I see I will need to rethink my approach." What Leifong was saying made sense. It was the same approach, come to think of it, that he'd used when tortuing the elfmaid with a handful of gravewyrms. "Give 'em the spark o'fear, but let 'em fan the flames themselves, is that it? Be a bit more..." And here the butcher did grimace slightly "...subtle." Subtlety wasn't Valentin's forte, but he was patient, and persistent, and confident in his ability to figure it out eventually. After all, he had the perfect artefact from which to study the art.

Leifong jabs his own finger into Valentin's chest, somewhere between impressed at his pupil's resistance and annoyed at the lack of fear he'd received for the effort. "You're about as subtle as a cleaver, but we all have our roles to play, don't we?" The Haruspex strolls off just a bit and beckons to his beast with a slackened wrist. The creature responds instantly, reaching it's clawed hand through the hole in Valentin's ceiling so that Leifong can hop nimbly upon it in a way that betrays the perceived feebleness of his body. "Our first task is to track the beast down. Were you able to obtain any organic material from it's body?"

Valentin cannot argue the point. The butcher really was about as subtle as a cleaver, and Valentin's own cleaver put the average battleaxe to shame. In response to Leifong's query the butcher shakes his head, and walks up swiftly-forming blackice steps to the hole in the ceiling, accompanied by a whispering litany of the cryumbral cantatus. He follows after Leifong, cancelling his incantation as he exits the hole in the ceiling. "All I can tell you, guv, is that th'damn thing likes pigeons. And probably squid, if his face is any blasted indication." And lingerie, apparently, but Valentin wasn't going to let that thought go any further.