RP:New Spooks and Old Grudges

Summary: Joan encounters a strange undead girl while visiting Kelay Tavern, and by using the powers of necromancy she aids the creature. By happenstance Quintessa turns up, still recovering from some epic battle elsewhere. The Necromancers exchange heated words while Quintessa investigates the girl, who's name is Kimiko. By the end of the encounter it is unclear if the outcome was good or bad those involved.

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Kelay Tavern

Built and rebuilt, torn apart and set like stubborn bone, this tavern is the pinnacle of Hollow's entirety, wrought around the premise of peace, equality, and consummate amity. And of course, the old place had seen all of the three, but so much more. Dire markings of claw and steel cut deep into wall panels and floorboards. Set against the land's usual motif of destruction are signs of comfort. Twisting shadows and smoothing out a careful blanket of light with soft, quaint fires, a candelabra dangles down by thick cords, gripping the circular holder. Each twists up, converging upon the center, where they snake about one another and form a thick, secure anchor to Kelay Tavern's high, accommodating ceiling. The candelabra rattle now and again from the inn patrons overhead, pouring down globs of wax to the center of the room, which is wide and unobstructed. Cheaply carpentered tables and chairs grow outward around the bare dancing area, keeping to the rounded theme, and also keeping to a dwarven barkeep's avariciously born taste for 'economical' furniture. Hardly any expense has been wasted on the actual upkeep of the public center, as can be garnered from the smell of deep pine, rich tobacco, and even richer spirits. Stairs twist away dimly near the high bar. And atop that side rests the inn logs, quill, and ink. This establishment's fine keeper, Mesthak, can be seen smiling out from his post at the bar, straight across to the room's always crackling stone-wrought hearth. Behind him, atop lofty shelves, sits an array of dark, amber, and clear liquids. Food smells waft from somewhere near at hand. A carefully printed and hung sign details the purchasable items here in the place of merriment, loss, laughter, and life. Also, tucked into a corner near one of two windows closest to the tavern doorway is a thickly papered bulletin board. A sign has been added next to the board that reads, 'The management requires patrons be fully inebriated at all times and that no curing spells be performed in this tavern-Thank you'.

Kimiko sits entirely without motion in a rickety wooden chair. The planes of her pale, heart-shaped face twitch not at all; even her storm-grey eyes are still, fixed on the door with unsettling intensity. Her tiny hands are folded on the rough tabletop before her, and her snow-white hair spills across her cheeks and neck in silken disarray. Her lips are parted to show pearly little teeth, but no faintest puff of breath issues from between them. Kimiko waits, as she has before, as she no doubt will again.

Joan enters into the tavern, the youthful looking yet ivory pale woman ran his slender fingers through her short styled deep amethyst hair as she looks around once she moves away from the entrance and moved further into the place. A amused look on her face as her light violet eyes glance over the staff and small gathered customers. She heard the wail as she had begun to enter, causing the nercomancer to raise one brow, now crossing her long gloved arms against her vested chest she’d peer at the general direction the wail had came from, looking over the white maned other female. “Problem?” She’d ask.

Kimiko :: "Problem?" Kimiko's voice is high, soft, gentle and a little timid, lightly accented, and hesitant enough to suggest an unfamiliarity with the language. "No. No problem." Now she does move, letting her eyes rove throughout the tavern. "I sit here tonight, listening, watching, remembering." Her little hands unfold, and as if moving underwater, drift toward her face, where she tucks errant strands of snowy hair behind her ears. "Is it cold in the outer? I cannot be warm." Her body shivers then, once, then falls eerily still. Kimiko's gaze is fixed on the newcomer's face, perhaps as if she would read intent thereby, but no expression crosses her pale countenance. It is a blank, porcelain mask beneath which nearly anything might lurk.

Joan tilts her neck slightly as the vampiric nercomancer takes a few footed steps towards the strange girl, magically her aura calls out to those that are dead, it feel like a cool trickle of invisible breeze swirling out from her and pulse out like lapping small waves towards those that were dead. “Cold?! Slightly this evening, enough that a light jacket would be enough covering. Other then that, no.”

Kimiko shakes her head left, right, then back to center. "Not cold," she says, and a well-trained ear would note that her accent appears to be slightly lessening, her speech slightly less awkward. "Then it is me." She stands suddenly, rising from her chair with a fluid economy of movement which might be either unearthly or unremarkable, depending on the observer. She takes three measured steps toward the door, small shod feet tapping the floorboards in a measured cadence, then stops, takes a deep breath and lets it out. A brief halo of frost circles her lips, and Kimiko's pink tongue flicks out to lick away the rime of ice before it can melt. "Just me," she repeats, and takes a step toward Joan. "Or just you. Or just the weather. Or just. Or just..." She stutters, faltering into silence, looking down at her feet. When at last she raises her head, there is an almost human expression on her face, something approaching confusion and fear. "Who are you?" she asks, voice querulous and small. "Who am I?"

Joan offers a light shrug as she uncrossed her gloves arms, her fingers bare as the gloves, tho elbow length were also fingerless allowing her fingers to be seen, each nail upon both hands were polished, clear gloss coated them, giving them a nice look to what seemed like well manicured. “Could be.” Joan agrees, her hands going to rest on her hips as she gives the smaller woman a more serious once over. “Me, I’m Joan Blackheart, a nercomancer and healer. Also a vampire, as for you, I can offer you help to seek out who and what you are if you agree to let me touch you and send a small seeming bit of my Necromancy into you, that is if you are one of the dead...which I suspect you maybe.”

Kimiko me takes one step closer to Joan, hesitates, then takes another step. "Joan Blackheart. A necromancer." Another step. "Touch me, tell me who and what I am." Another step. "You think that I am dead, yes?" Another step. Now she is within touching distance. "I remember a young woman," Kimiko muses, and now her voice sounds almost wistful. "Hair like yours. Eyes different. Pretty. Ablaze. A louder voice. She touched me. I think because she wanted...she wanted..." Kimiko falters for a second, face clouding over as her mind fumbles for the thought. Losing it, she continues. "And where is she now? Where are we now?" Kimiko extends a slender little hand, meaning to lay it on Joan's arm. "We touch."

Joan offers the normal small smile she uses when dealing with those she normally needs to put at ease when they come to see her at the scared shrine, when she is under Crazy Maude’s watch as a novice healer with the Healer’s Guild. Her guild pendent hung from a slender pure sliver chain around her pale colored neck, showing she was with them. As the smaller white haired young woman drew closer, the Necromancer lightly offered out her gloves hand, allowing the contact as the other moved to touch her, “Alright sweetheart, this will be easy, tho when I let my searching energies out and into you...you may get a cold breezy feeling as it seeks out information, there also maybe some memories that I stir up inside you as the mojo does it’s stuff.” Joan’s tone was quite, clear, and offered in a level easy tone, the one she used to put patience at ease and allow them to trust her in doing what is needed medically of magically. That deep amethyst colored head bows slightly as Joan looks the other woman in the eyes, slowly pushing a small amount of her necromancy magic towards the hand held over hers.

Kimiko feels that first caress of necromantic energy, and in an instant, the little woman's aspect changes completely. Her lips peel back in a spitless snarl, and she snatches in one short breath before hissing it out and clenching her hands into tiny fists. Something deep within her stirs, questing, searching, and battens on the energy which has been provided, intending to wrench it deep within herself, intending to usurp it entirely. Kimiko's grey eyes widen at the contact, seeing only a panoply of images provided by her fragmented mind. An empty rocking chair on the porch of a farmhouse, rocking slightly as if it was recently departed, crimson spattering the headrest. A view from above of tiny footprints on sand, leading from nowhere to nowhere, slowly filling up with water as the ocean's relentless tide rolls in to obliterate them. A beggar's cup, dented on one side and starkly empty, held in a trembling child's hand. “Gone. Gone. Gone." Kimiko is not aware that she is speaking, completely oblivious of the large tears which have begun to course down her pallid cheeks. Her delicate body is thrumming as if in the grip of some unseen electrical current. And still, she pulls, wrenches, yanks on that torrent of energy, meaning to have it all.

Joan :: Feeling the smaller woman react as she does Joan kept the flow of her nercomancy energies and magic is a slow steady stream, she was practiced after all and would only allow that small cool wind like nercomancy to fill the youth till she felt the other could hold no more, her healing powers would be channeled towards the cold icy female on the same stream, the warmth mixing with her cool death powers. “Hm...you feel as if a large part of your soul is missing, you can’t pass over...you could be classes as a corpse princess.” A frown is offered as Joan uses her other hand to offer a consoling pat to the top of the younger woman’s white head.

Quintessa's visage is weathered and torn. Although her dress is clean and her heeded boots bare no damage, there is the distinct energy around the woman that suggests she was in a recent fight. Her dark cloak hides her identity as she sulks through the tavern, mismatched eyes of blue and hazel spying the few patrons the establishment had attracted. Quintessa would recognize Joan if she spotted her, but for now she prefers not to draw her attention. The last time the two women had exchanged words Quintessa thought they might come to blows. Dropping a few golden coins upon the bar, the changeling takes a seat. "Whiskey," she says, lowering her hood to reveal a fresh pair of bandages covering the left side of her face, one above her eye on the forehead and the other covering her cheek and ear, barley giving her space to see out of. As Quintessa waits for her drink she glances over at Joan and her new acquaintance, wondering idly what they were up to.

Kimiko continues trying to drink in Joan's offered power, striving to wrest control of it until she instinctively comes to comprehend that there is nothing left to draw and nothing to be gained by continuing to exert herself. She goes on shaking, chanting that one word "gone" even as Joan speaks, but as the other woman ceases talking, Kimiko reels away, tearing violently out of the other woman's grasp and pulling her own hand back. "Kimiko!" she gasps, and begins to cry in earnest. "That was me! That was me! I was Kimiko! Where did I go?" She hunches in on herself, weeping in a very human way, sounding as if her heart must surely break. She is not aware of the outside world for a few moments, so deeply lost in her own turmoil and the blackness there. Eventually, though, she comes to herself again, straightens her spine, lowers her hands and, with tears still falling, addresses Joan in a flat, half-dead voice. "A piece of me is me again. Thank you, Joan Blackheart, necromancer. I repay. There will come a night, some hence, when a bell should toll, and does not. Weep for what you will lose." And she smiles, a chilly, empty little smile, taking a single, measured step backward, well out of easy touching distance.

Joan cuts off the flow of healing energies once the other young woman pulls away, her right hand slaps at one upper thigh as she laughs aloud. Her other hand moves to rub at the back of her deep amethyst hair, “Haha, oh my dear lord,” Her chuckle dark yet warmth in tone and feeling, “Weep for what I will loose?! I’m already dead, there ain’t much more I can loose!” Her merith cleat as the smoking corners of her eyes spark out violet sparks. She shoot and amused glance towards the cloaked figure as she looked away from Kimiko to watch the other drift over to the bar and order whiskey.

Quintessa quirks a brow at the words exchanged before she reaches out for her shot of whiskey and takes it all back in one go. The alcohol does little to ease her mind and even less to help the pain, instead burning tiny cuts in her mouth that she didn't even know she had. "Ugh," the shot drink does not agree with her, "Another." she says with a grimace. If the whiskey wasn't solving her problems then she wasn't drinking enough, that's what Master Kasyr had taught her. Pivoting halfway in her chair she turns to face Joan and Kimiko proper, holding back a scoff. "Getting a little practice, are you?" Quintessa's voice was playful enough, she wasn't currently looking for a fight. "Careful when dealing with roving undead- sometimes their 'gifts' are little curses in pretty packaging."

Kimiko begins to turn away from Joan, having taken notice of a newcomer near the bar in the last few moments. She gives the vampire one doubtful glance, addressing her once more. "I know what you don't. And being dead is not the end. We know that, don't we?" She issues a chilling little peal of laughter before gliding in measured steps toward Quintessa, feet knocking out a steady rhythm on the tavern floor. "You think I am pretty?" Kimiko's voice has changed again, now resembling a girlish parody of coquetishness. She even manages to increase the effect by giggling softly, but the mirth never reaches her cold eyes. "I could give you a gift, too." She reaches out a hand, still well shy of the other woman. "My, but you look hurt." She stands still a moment, not breathing. "Do I smell blood?"

Joan said to Quintessa, "Ah...it’s -you-, yeah well she doesn’t know I’m beyond the novice stage. *Joan put a bit of bite in the word ‘you’, but other then that the rest of her conversation towards her fellow guild member was her normal light tone. A glance is given towards the smaller white haired woman now.* “Mm, okay doll, sorry a god already had control of what was left of my darken soul. Ain’t nothing I fear loosing, and I don’t weep. Weeping is for weak mortals.”

Quintessa is about to reach for her second drink when she pauses to watch the ghoulish girl drift in her direction. The changeling gives pause, wanting to answer Kimiko carefully. She should have just kept her big mouth shut. "I... do think you're pretty- you remind me of myself. Never truly here, never truly there. Now you drift like a specter, offering me a gift? It would be rude to turn you down." Quintessa takes the other shot without looking, this one sliding down much more easily. "And yes, you -do- smell blood. A woman of my occupation is always getting injured, but I wouldn't worry yourself. Those would bear the curse of Elazul heal much faster than mortals." Quintessa's eyes flicker up to Joan to respond to her. "I'm just glad to see you progressing. Your work, small as it may seem, makes our guild stronger. It hasn't gone unnoticed."

Kimiko lifts her left leg, as if to step forward as she had done before, then places her foot on the floor again with infinite care. "No," she says, and smiles. It is a radiant, guileless expression, that smile, and it even reaches her eyes. "It would be rude to turn me down, but you should." She issues a tuneful little hum in the back of her throat. "Not all gifts are meant well. This one wasn't. He used to call me an imp. I can't remember his name. "Kimiko, my little imp," he'd say, "you're far too clever for your own good." Maybe he was right. But so am I. I'll accept the rudeness." She giggles, sounding a little like a rusted hinge teased by a faint breeze. "But thanks to you, child," she continues, "for compliments on my looks. Many have thought so. Some even survived." She licks her lips slowly, and then, as if catching herself, takes a shuffling step back. "I must be scaring you. I feel that I remember others being scared. But perhaps that is just what I want, not what was. Are you frightened, child?"

Joan sighs aloud, with a shake of her head the vampiric nercomancer turned away from the other two. “I’m way to old for this bullock, yeah sure Quintessa, whatever you say, so sorry I don’t feel like being flashy. So sorry that being a -Siren- once just makes me so less then you. Oh wait...you weren’t touched and changed by a god, I was, stuff it with the ‘I’m mightier BS.’ You ain’t and can never reach my level, I was a high priestess, you can’t even image the power granted to you by the God of Corruption.”

Quintessa tilts her head to the side, smiling widely to show off a mouth sharp teeth. "Frighten me?" The changeling's haggish cackle echoes through the tavern, bringing with it the eerie airs of her home, the Dark Forest. "Not at all, in fact you put me at ease. You remind me of home. Girls with pale skin and dark auras seem scary unless you are one of them, then they just feel like reflections of yourself." Quintessa motions for a third drink. "When I look at you I see a reflection of myself, and I'm not scared of me. Are you scared of me?" The changeling's shadow twists and contorts violently, growing much larger than her form should cast. "I know a thing or two about curses. My lineage is cursed. I come from a line of Night Hags, wicked Unseelie that haunt dreams and devour your life-force. But you don't have a life-force do you? It was snuffed out already. What do you have to fear from me?"

Quintessa silently amuses herself with Joan's words. Both a forgotten god and an eldritch being had already granted her unnatural powers, how else did she get so powerful in such a short amount of time? "God of Corruption, huh? And where are those powers now, Joan? Pick a contest, any one of them, and I will emerge victorious against you."

Joan then walks right out of the tavern, not bothering to stay to watch or listen anymore with these two, she had duties to attend to!

Kimiko stands perfectly still while Joan and Quintessa speak, does not flinch when the latter's shadow grows far larger than it has any right to. "Ah," she proclaims, clapping her small hands together. "Another puzzle. No, I don't know if I am afraid of anything. Not you though. I think you and me both are more than the other understands." She chuckles, a surprisingly low and throaty sound this time. Raising one arm, addressing both other women, Kimiko raises her voice slightly; it is still girlish and a little shrill, still lightly accented - although that appears to be unravelling with every fresh exchange - but it holds a ring of authority that she has heretofore not possessed. "Neither should fight," she intones. "The grievances are petty and the blood is dried. Pick up the pieces and go home. Don't roam. And don't throw knives. They miss." Another chuckle, and she lowers her arm, shrugging and managing to flush a faint, coral pink. "Little Kimiko speaking above herself again. But that isn't difficult." She pats herself on the head. "Look at how short I am!" And she off into gales of laughter.

Quintessa sighs heavily, "Little Kimiko is right. This squabble between us? It's not worth a single grain of sand from my hourglass. What's important to me is increasing the power of the Necromancer's Guild. Should a fellow member wish to engage in a competitive activity with me with the goal of pushing our limits, fine, but this?" Quintessa waves her hand in dismissal. "Like you say: Dried blood."

Kimiko :: "Little Kimiko is right." The young woman's mimicry of Quintessa's voice is note-perfect, interrupting her spate of merriment with shocking suddenness. She grins, then claps her hands again. "I did not remember that I could do that," she adds, using her own voice again. "Dried blood and broken glass. That's me. And knives, I think, but I haven't found any of those yet." Kimiko looks pointedly at the door. "The greater dark is out there, and I think I want to get lost in it awhile. I like the way fog smells when it's tired. I learned that this morning. Not on the beach, but inland, when it's had time to wear itself down. Maybe I'll find a patch and drink a little. Until next time, Quintessa." She turns aside and begins to make her measured way toward the door, moving with a peculiar rigidity quite unlike her former animation. As to how the little woman knows Quintessa's name when it does not appear to have been offered...it is anybody's guess.

Quintessa tilts her head a second time at Kimiko, still very confused about the situation despite simply rolling with it so well. The fact that she knew her name didn't surprise her. Quintessa is quite popular these days, and it was because she is totally going to win the Titan's of Winter Tournament! The changeling was about to offer the strange girl a knife but she thinks twice about that. "Yes, next time. When that day comes I will offer you a gift as you have offer one to me- but my gifts? They're almost always good. Goodbye, little Kimiko, if that is indeed who you are."