RP:Stranger, Strangeness and Stranger Things Still

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Sage Forest

Krice was wandering through southern Sage Forest dressed in his usual black clothes - the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his collar open - with his katana strapped to his back. He came from the north, from the Spring of Vitality specifically, and his gaze was down on the ground a few steps ahead of him, thoughtful, pensive; a million miles away.

Tenebrae moved quietly, and unlike Krice was entirely present in the moment, in the effervescent breeze batting its butterflies and sycamore seeds, and drifts of the fluffy fruit of milkweed which stuck in the Necromancer's dark hair like snow that won't melt. She loved the peace of the deep forest, the dark and the cool of it, and the effect it seemed to have on the one she'd come to see, who was so rarely at any kind of peace. Soft, dark leathers did not creak nor reflect errant sunbeams breaking through the canopy. Tenebrae was a shadow, and this was no magic but a state as natural to her as green is to the leaves.

Krice typically came out of his thoughts the moment something - anything - caught his attention. Even subconscious messages alerted him to the presence of others when he wasn't alone, but this time... He seemed to walk westward, continuing along the unofficial path of the forest without any awareness of Tenebrae at all. As he neared the Pass that would lead him north or south, the warrior lifted his chin and looked ahead, his steps slowing. Twilight rays reflected off the silver of his hair as he turned his head, glancing over his shoulder toward... something. Briefly, those gold-freckled eyes searched the shadows, though for what, he was unsure.

Tenabrae said, "Hello, stranger," a dulcet pair of words, erupting quietly from a space much closer to Krice than his eyes had been probing. Tene was in the opposite direction to that colourful gaze, wearing those un-creaky leathers and a faint curl at the corners of her lips. "Or.. are you. A stranger."

Krice turned his head, glancing in front of him instead; his attention drawn to Tenebrae by the direction from whence her voice had come. Without obvious distrust or bemusement, he murmured, " That's interesting." A beat later, rather than directly answering her greeting, the silver-haired man continued, " Not many people can trick my senses." And then he concluded, " I must be getting slack."

Tenebrae grinned, and where straight, white teeth were usually charming in a face like hers, these were sharp-pointed. But still, very white. "One cannot be taut all the time. It's exhausting," she said, dropping to her heels amid the moss at the root of the oak overhead and from there sprawling back against the trunk. She was apparently quite unconcerned as to whether this... stranger.... might be a killer, or some kind of criminal. And truly, she was not concerned. The forest's shadows seemed to congregate about her, as fluffy forest creatures might gather around an entirely different type of woman in such an idyllic setting. "I wasn't trying to trick you, though."

Krice tilted his head down just an inch, and shadows played over his face in such a way that his expression was even less discernible; his eyes darkening under the shelf of his brow, his mouth setting in a firmer line. As shadows swelled around Tenebrae, the man's eyes flicked into the space surrounding her, obviously noting this. Her words drew his gaze back to her face, however, and he pocketed his hands as he regarded her from where he was; far away from any of the trees that flanked the path. " I figured I'd shaken you loose. I gotta say, I liked your bat creature better."

Tenebrae made a sad little moue at mention of Maladroit. "Gaunt. 'S what he was. Best body he ever had.." she sighed, visibly shrugging off the thought as she patted the moss beside her. "Come, sit a while. It's a lovely evening. Lots of.." one hand flipped idly at the surroundings, ".. serenity. And perhaps you can tell me why you liked my familiar more. I'm .. truly fascinated."

Krice 's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and he scanned Tenebrae's features in response to his mention of Maladroit. Interesting. Was that genuine sadness that he saw? He couldn't be sure. " I'll stand," he said in response to her invitation. Continuing talk of the Gaunt, the warrior said, " It was cute," and he shrugged his left shoulder, glancing elsewhere. " That's it, really."

"He wasn't always like that," Tene’s tone was quiet, the ripple of mocking seduction vanishing from it, as though she wasn't concerned whether Krice stayed to listen or not. "I was just tired of him wearing out, or .. being eaten." Her gaze was on the path, its glints dimming. "Wish I knew where he went."

Krice did stay to hear Tenebrae, his interest in her perhaps hooked deep as a result of their conversation turning to Maladroit. Perhaps. His gaze returned to the mysterious woman's face as she spoke, lingering on her gaze in turn. By the end of her reply, he found himself more intrigued than before; enough to continue the conversation by asking, " You don't know where it went?"

Valentin tromps through the greenery, about as subtle as a brick thrown through a glass window. There were times for stealth, and subtlety, but the butcher evidently didn't think this one of them. He'd finally caught a whiff of his Mistress' shadow and shadowplay in the Umbra, and felt it would be a good idea to find out when she needed her deliveries made. There was only so much gold-bought goodwill at the foundry when he was taking up half of their yard with the Guild's undelivered orders. The two in the clearing would hear the butcher long before he eventually reaches their line of sight and becomes recognisable.

The Necromancer shook her head, bits of milkweed fluff drifting off it to be swallowed by the leaves. "No idea." Dark brows knit slightly. "Most unusual. It's part of our.. bargain, as it were, that he always find me when something like that happens. And it's horrible for him, out there, no body." Her gaze canted up, pale green, and her tone was matter-of-fact: "Because of the curse."

Tene winced at the herd of buffalo - or was that Valentin? - barging through the woods. So much for serenity.

Krice 's features didn't shift too drastically as Tenebrae spoke her reply, but something far off in the distance drew his attention. He glanced in the direction of Valentin's arrival, and saw the hulking butcher off on the horizon right where trees were sparse enough that they didn't obscure the warrior's sharp vision. Before Valentin got to them, Krice turned his attention back to Tenebrae and asked, with notable haste, " What curse?"

Valentin slows his approach when he realises that Her Grand High Malevolence was accompanied by the bloke Grey. Knowin' his mistress as he did, he'd let her have the opportunity to either invite him in, shoo him away, or leave the decision in his hands entirely. It was a respect thing, really. Respect for her ability to turn him inside out and play his bones like a glockenspiel if he truly annoyed her. When in direct vision, he'd touch his hand to the brim of his bowler hat in greeting.

Tenebrae's slight and silent glance Valentin-ward would likely be enough to signal that she wouldn't mind a moment of further serenity, in which to reply to Krice, "The drow's curse. He was once a goblin, you know. A clever one..." the butcher may as well have been another squirrel-laden tree, as she launched into the story, her gaze fixed keenly upon the swordsman. "A bit too clever for his own breeches. Managed to upset a horde of drow mages.. " she made an exaggerated glum-face, nodding, as if to say, 'and we all know how that would've ended'. "He was doomed to an eternity of phantasmal torment. But then he bumbled into a ritual I was doing, and because I hadn't properly.." she halted there, cleared her throat, glancing at Valentin briefly, ".. expected a disembodied -goblin- to disrupt it, he ended up trapped in the cadaver I was raising. And from there, entered service as my familiar." Another white smile amid the shadows, and she returned to her attention to Valentin, "Ah, Thanadule.." once more, she flapped her hand about, between Krice and the Butcher now. "Meet .. my friend..." she'd forgotten. And said to Krice, "... and this is Valentin. We were just discussing Maladroit's vanishing."

Krice 's eyes diverted to Valentin again, though only in acknowledgement of the man's greeting to Tenebrae. If he met eye-to-eye with the butcher, then he'd tilt his head in something akin to a nod; vague, but easy to interpret as a greeting nonetheless. Shifting his attention again, the silver-haired man focused on Tenebrae as she responded to his quesiton - and seemingly without secrecy or pretense. Whether or not he believed every word she spoke as it was, well, that remained to be seen. The warrior's right eye narrowed slightly in the shadows provided by the shelf of his brow. Given Tenebrae's diversion from talk of Maladroit to introductions involving the butcher, Krice did not continue on with any further questions he may have had about the Gaunt. Instead, he slid a sideways glance over at Valentin, awaiting his reaction to that introduction. If there was any tension or apprehension about this three-way meeting in the swordsman, he didn't show it. " Grey," he reminded Valentin; told Tenebrae.

Valentin waits dutifully until given the go-ahead and then approaches. "Evenin', Domina. Me an' th'bloke are acquainted, as y'can see. If y'been talkin' 'bout Maladroit, I'm sure you'd ha'know that already." Valentin wasn't necessarily vindictive - he just knew how to make honesty a bastard of a thing "I can't imagine Grey hidin' the fact that he's the bloke what brought y'familiar to me so's we could try an' send 'im off to you. Did a sterlin' job, had Maladroit in chains an' all. More than yer average man, our bloke Grey here. You're always sayin' y'need more brawn around, innit." All of this was delivered in Valentin's casual, no-nonsense style of speech, a downwards-inflection at the end of every statement, blue-collar demeanour oozing out of every sentence.

Tenebrae echoed, "Grey..." Which, she thought, both was and was not an appropriate moniker for the man. Tene eyed him a little, her inner jury being out on that. And names were so very important.. a name like 'Grey' could slip out of the mind so easily. Like a shadow leaving at dawn, amid all the others. Then came Valentin's informative assault of factual tid-bits, and that gaze flicked back and forth between the two standing men, "Chains..?" The way she spoke it, it was a very small, confused word indeed.

Krice didn't seem taken aback or surprised at all about Valentin divulging otherwise between-them-only information to Tenebrae, and turned his attention onto the woman with a simple blink of the eyes. He held his silence until Tenebrae requested more information, as per her query about the bondings he used to ensnare her Gaunt Familiar. " I considered a rope first, but it was too old and would've frayed right off. The chain was the next thing available to me." He offered this additional information in a matter-of-fact tone, neither insulting Tenebrae - or purposely seeking to insight her wrath - nor reprimanding Valentin for his own addition to the conversation. Crimson eyes, made plum-purple by the darkness that swelled around the forest, shifted briefly to the butcher before shifting back to the small woman in expectation of her reaction.

Krice also seemed not to find any importance in Valentin's mention of Tenebrae needing 'more brawn'.

Valentin shrugs at Tenebrae's enquiry, making a note of the slight hint of weakness. As a student of phobomancy, he'd learned to start paying close attention to such cues from those around him, and was suprised to see it from her of all monsters "He seemed t'enjoy 'em, Domina. S'not like he couldn't ha'broken out of 'em at any time. Might ha'thought it was traditional. No idea what was goin' through 'is tentacled noggin' though - It ain't like he was bein' all that talkative, not havin' a mouth an' all." The butcher scratched a shaggy muttonchop "I mean, he was acceptin' lingerie from fermin lasses, why not chains from some prettyboy bloke? He was a weird one, was your pet." Which did not surprise Valentin at all. It was a well-known fact that pets took after their owners.

Tenebrae looked increasingly confused, the more Valentin elaborated on what had transpired, until that confusion melted into plain concern and she drew herself fluidly to stand. "Weird," she said, her tone still diminutive, "But not.. that weird. Usually." Suddenly sharp and filled with glints again, her attention snapped toward Krice. "Tell me, Stranger," .. since she'd decided he didn't seem like much a 'Grey' to her, after all, "Did he show you anything? Like.. a vision. In your mind."

Krice considered something. 'Domina'? Was that this woman's name? Was it a nickname that best described her persona - in a way that -didn't- get the describee killed in some gory fashion? The warrior seemed unperturbed by Valentin's adjective for him--some 'prettyboy bloke'. Perhaps he took it as a compliment? Maybe he thought nothing of it at all? Whatever the case, Krice's attention on the butcher was brief, again due to Tenebrae's input. Her interest in this conversation held his focus, and he reciprocated that interest with subtle flares of intrigue all his own. The silver-haired man locked his gaze on the pair of feminine eyes across from him. " Not that I can immediately recall." He inwardly blamed his busy schedule for his poor memory.

Valentin was glad that, once again, discussions of violently exploded gaunts had failed to result in tetchy bouts of dismemberment on the behalf of his Guildmistress. Therefore, in the butcher's opinion, it was time to discuss things actually worth talking about, and the two could go on being mysterious at each other once he was well out of it. "If I can go off on a bit of a tangent for a moment: We ready for the deliveries, Domina? Can I get th'men movin' the stuff so's I can get started on settlin' it all in? I can handle th'heavy liftin' an' all, jus' give me the word t'have the stuff taken t'where we need it." Nice and vague for the present company, but Tenebrae would understand him.

Tene's lips were thin for a moment following Krice's lack of exposition on the issue of gaunt-given visions. "I think you'd remember, if he had..." she murmured, shaking her head, ".. but while he merely shared visions with others, he came to you as a -willing- prisoner." That frown she had on a second ago deepened. "I think he meant for me to discover all this. Perhaps.. trying to tell me something..?" She gave Krice a helpless look, the kind that made it clear she did not expect him to own the answer to her question. And for once, she was glad of Valentin's ruthless reportage, in which things made a great deal more sense. "Yes," she told the butcher, "Immediately. The cellar at my estate is clear now. I've a few things down there already," and the dark, secret look she gave him might be a hint that whatever that was, it were best left alone for the moment. "Perhaps I can meet you there, in a short while? I am eager to get started on the..." Krice was offered a tiny smile. ".. things. That we're doing."

Krice regarded Tenebrae with similar expressions; not of wonderment and awe brought on by not knowing the whole truth about her Familiar's behaviour prior to its demise, but of distant intrigue and thoughtfulness, showing a subtle want in him to be able to gift her the answers she sought. And then Valentin broke the faux-spell and the warrior's lashes fell slowly, a simple blink concluding those thoughts and redirecting his mind elsewhere. He knew purposeful vagueness when he heard it. For that reason, Krice saw no positives in sticking around. After all, he hadn't planned on stopping in the middle of the forest to talk with a creepy woman who warped the very shadows that swamped her. She could head off with Valentin now if she so desired, for the warrior at least was not delaying her. He nodded to both with one dip of the head and then turned west to continue as he had done a few moments before.

Valentin touches his hand to the brim of his bowler "As y'wish, Mam'selle. In related news, th'new batch o'Novus Morior are showin' potential, but more on that later. I'll head off now an' get things movin'." The necromantic butcher would then mutter a sequence of harsh and dissonant sibilants and fricatives, the unnatural phonetics of the necromancers' cant binding himself with the umbral tides. Valentin would then sink into his own shadow, whose silhouette would crack open chiaroscuro eyes before whisking off north into the dark path offered by the forest's canopy.

Tenebrae's voice would sound softly in Krice's ear, "Goodbye, Stranger," though she was still standing at that same mossy under-oak spot, waggling her fingers in farewell to what had been a fairly large butcher a moment ago but now was a miasma of darkness in a butcher's general shape.

Krice reacted to Tenebrae's closely-whispered farewell with a turn of the head, shooting an indifferent look her way. The woman indeed possessed some odd abilities, more so than her persona alone would have one believe. In a moment, Krice had something new to react to: Valentin's method of departure. The warrior's pace slowed a mere five steps after he had started his casual departure, and he glanced along his right shoulder at the butcher as those incantations brought about strange, transporting darkness that whooshed him away elsewhere. With the butcher gone, the warrior had only the intriguing shadow-bending woman to focus on. His eyes drifted back to her face, passed across each individual feature and contour in the span of a single blink, and then shifted onto her eyes in conclusion. After a moment, Krice offered his faux-stalker a simple, " 'Til next time," his voice carrying a distant undercurrent of fondness. Or did it?

Later, at the Thorne Estate in Vailkrin

"Hello? Hello. I say - hello?" It was dark - even for Vailkrin; the moons were behind a skyful of dingy, morbid clouds. It was dark, and it was raining. And there, hanging from the upper balcony of the Thorne Manse, bound in an intricate webwork of ropes, dangled a white-haired, red-eyed, damp, dismal vampire. "Hello?" Nyles had been forgotten in all the excitement, during which Tenebrae had vanished into her dungeon, which she called a basement - though he had a pretty good idea his word for it was more accurate. Not that he knew for sure.. And what a horrible woman! He's done nothing - nothing! Except refrain from hearing properly her explicit order for nobody at all to go anywhere that damned stone-lined hole in the ground. That was hours ago. Hours. And hours and.. hours. And now it was raining. Brilliant. "I say... is someone there? Hello?" From the dungeon came a faint clanking. A burbling shriek. Nyles couldn't presently give a flying dingo's rump what the mad cow was doing down there. He just wanted a nice cup of blood cocoa and a sit-down in his cosy chair. "Hello?!"

Valentin hauled into the outer grounds of the Thorne estate perched on his pony-drawn meatcart, a one-man supply convoy surrounded by shadowgolem servitors carrying an assortment of large steel vats and barrels. He'd already taken a precautionary sip of that abominable beverage of Tenebrae's devising on the off-chance he over-exerted himself with the sorcerous energies he had consigned to this task. Within his meatcart, a trio of homeless men had already all-but expired under the constant drain of Valentin's latest innovative tinkering with Vandon LeRouge's crimson chains. Not being the pretentious type, Valentin hadn't bothered naming the ritual, but the pulsing trio of glowing red sorcerous cords, appearing from the meatcart, which funneled the dying men's life energies to the sigils scarred into the Thanadule's arms would no doubt inspire someone to give it some ridiculously descriptive name. Even so, Valentin's rain-sloughed sweat had a reddish glint to it as he perspired the only liquid vampires tended to store in their bodies. As he and the equipment clomp into the increasingly muddy yard, he hears the voice of his mistress and bellows in return "Hello y'self. Where d'you want all these blimmin' knicknacks, anyway?". Huff and Gruff, the evilminded ponies he'd had the misfortune of acquiring for his meatcart, nip at each other's shoulders in companionable malevolence.

"Knick-knacks?" Nyles had tiny dribbles of dirty gutter-water dripping off the end of his white goatee. His best suit was ruined. And now yet another lunatic had arrived to make his time consigned to the company of Lady Mentalcase that little bit more miserable. If that was possible. Which it wasn't. But all the same, perhaps the fellow might be kind enough to let him down.. "Hello?" The voice was high-pitched, and it was no wonder Valentin mistook it for Tenebrae's through the drum of the rain and the thunder. High-pitched and more than slightly hysterical. "I say, old chap.. would you be so kind as to perhaps.. get me down now?"

Valentin looks up, and sees a vampire. Not just any vampire, though. One o'them limp-wristed namby-pamby pantywaist milquetoast 'aristocratic' types. Although, the sod did seem to be less than 'dapper', bein' caught up like a fly in one o'the Domina's spiderwebs. Valentin, having taxed himself greatly to ensure the proper delivery of the equipment, was not feeling particularly charitable. "Tell y'what, guv. I'll avoid addin' you to th'seventeen o'your kind I already got stored away for th'mistress' dark rituals if you do two blimmin' things: Item the bloody first - quit whining, it's embarrassin'. Item the bloody second: tell me where her Exalted Bitchiness is. An' make it snappy, I got a deadline t'work with, an' aint in th'mood for chatter." Valentin jerked his thumb at the huge cleaver resting in its harness on his back, to emphasise the 'dead' in 'deadline'. Perhaps the sorcerous red glow surrounding the dour butcher would add to what was generally agreed to be an 'aura of casual intimidation' by some of the regulars at the Hanging Corpse during Valentin's 'cranky hour'.

"She's in the du.. the uh. The basement." Nyles sputtered a half a mouthful of gutter-runoff, "I think she’s forgotten about me."

Valentin grumbled "I should be so bleedin' lucky. Wish she'd blimmin' well forget about me. I'd get ten times th'work done if I weren't harin' off all over th'world fetchin' her bits an' bloody pieces. You jus' hang in there, guv. If you're really lucky, she'll forget about you long enough for the rope t'rot an' fray in th'poor weather." Which was, one could suppose, Valentim's idea of a 'pep talk'. There is a trio of moans from the meatcart as Valentin draws out the rest of the life energy from the poor bastards doomed to fuel his magics. Thus fortified for a final stint, Valentin marches downstairs, servitors in tow - or at least, in tow for as long as they'd be able to proceed with the large vats and barrels. In what was standard blimmin' operatin' procedure, Tenebrae hadn't let him know where in the property she wanted the damn things, and hadn't met him t'make unlife any bloody easier. As Valentin descends to the dungeon, he wonders if he'll need to knock out any walls to facilitate delivery. Valentin calls out as he approaches the dungeon "Domina. Barrels an' Vats are 'ere. Where d'ye want 'em?"

Tenebrae was standing in the right-hand corner of the massive blackstone basement, where one quarter of the area was fitted with benches upon which sat a variety of prizes she'd purchased in part from the loathsome hobbit alchemist Jobbie - alembics, vials and beakers bubbling over magical candles with intensified blue flames. Yards of spiral glass tubing and flexible hoses connected the vessels, all of it looking an impossible but functional tangle. In the opposing corner to this array, several narrow cages were fitted beside two low steel tables. When Valentin entered, Tene was apparently engrossed in the study of something dark slithering around within a very large bell jar engraved with myriad dully-glowing engravings, some of the sigils recognisable, many not. Dragging her attention from this oddity, Tenebrae turned to Valentin, his words finally registering, "Oh. Oh! Wonderful." She draped a cloth over the bell jar and strode toward the large, cleared space. "I need the vats here… and here… one over there. And the barrels over there, near that pile of tubing." She beamed, clearly excited that the necessaries for her necromantic alchemy were almost all in place.

Valentin tromps down, the exertion of the numerous shadowbindings still causing blood to seep from his pores. The dour butcher however ignores this, just as he was ignoring the aftertaste of the pre-emptively taken cure for magical migraines. With a nod to the Thanatos Domina, Valentin has the smaller vats and barrels come down first, carried via his shadowgolem servitors. Following Tenebrae's instructions, he directs each item to her desired location, and once in place dissolves each individual shadowbinding until all he had left was the two largest vats, which had not been able to fit all the way down. Valentin mutters "One moment, mistress." and tromps back up the stairs. Tenebrae would have time, then, to start setting up some of the copper tubing if she so wished - all of the smaller workings were placed inside the barrels. Meanwhile, Valentin was inspecting the last two vats. With a grimace, he has them placed down, releases the last few shadowy servitors, and draws a dark red crayon from his apron pocket. He mutters to himself, plays out the sigils in his head, then decides a trial attempt was in order. He grabs a set-square left behind by a builder, then inscribes with the crayon a complex array of sigils around the item. A moment later, Valentin would tromp back downstairs "Sorry for th'delay wi'the last two. They're too damn big t'fit. Jus' need t'test a principle afore I go droppin' 'em through a fold in the umbral tides." Valentin mutters a sequence of necromantic syllables, and shadows swarm in front of him, taking up position in a shadowy array identical to the one he had set up above. Taking out his crayon, Valentin continues "Ol' Vorclestnic was handy wi'his shadow portals, but they was designed for individual transportation, not t'set up a one-way or two-way door. But, I was readin' th'other night how Kandahar was killed when a rival dropped a fleshgolem through his ceilin' usin' a similar notion, an' I got t'thinking." While he speaks, the butcher carefully follows the outline of his shadow array with his crayon, ensuring the two circles are identical in everyway, pausing once to extend his sight via umbral occuli into the room to doublecheck his work. "Now, the idea is, if the builder's knicknack comes through intact, we're in business." Valentin paused there, circle ready. He wasn't one of those 'rush into things' necromancers whose last words are inevitably "What did you just sa...". Valentin was the cautious type, and he'd give his Mistress a chance for input in case he'd bollocksed up any of the little details.

"I wouldn't do that just yet," Tene said, before he could finish that sentence. "Booby traps. I've fixed it so you can come and go, and that your personal magic won't trigger anything.. unfortunate. But bringing foreign objects in," she shrugged. "My defenses are touchy, some almost have minds of their own… Let me just…" And she moved to the wall, flattened her palms against it, one ear pressed to the stone, and from there it appeared that she entered into something of a short, archaically-phrased debate with the several guardian entities shoring up her various inbuilt death-traps. Finally, she peeled herself away from the argument, and winked. "There we are, I think that'll do it. You won't be flayed. That's the main thing."

Valentin nods. And this was exactly why he'd survived several decades under the twisted 'tuition' of his own mad sire. "Much obliged, Mam'selle. Bein' flayed ain't somethin' I'd like t'experience a second time." And with that enigmatic comment, he'd activate the circle with a complex incantation, syllables designed for inhuman things thrashing past his larynx and tongue to taint the air with the presence of this variant to the Cantata of Umbral Weaving. The bloodcrayon sigils flare briefly, the red glow pulsing with the ebb and flow of the Black Tides, and a moment later a builder's set square appears beneath retreating shadows, like a shell discovered when a wave washes away the sand concealing it. "A'right. So the principle is sound." Valentin was relieved, but it would be a while before he'd be able to make this work with more complex living things. That would be the subject of experimentation away from prying eyes. Cenril would have part of its homelessness problem reduced very soon. Valentin looks to Tenebrae, scratching a shaggy muttonchop "Where did you want th'bigguns, Domina?"

Tenebrae was smiling. Broadly, like a small girl just told that yes, she may indeed have a pony. "I say, Thanadule, that was quite .. deft. An application I hadn't come at, myself. Innovative." The smile snapped off, she cleared her throat. No good giving Valentin a big head.. "Over there. Side by side, exactly four feet apart."

Valentin nods. It was another survival trait of Valentin's not to allow his ego to go beyond pride in his profession. His ego was a cold and reliable thing, extending as far as acknowledgement of his own abilities, and no further. He'd been known as the 'Fun Butcher of Trade Hall' in his living days for his dour and taciturn response to even the friendliest of peers. "I'll get on it." And Valentin busily gets to replicating the small circle on a larger scale in the two spots indicated. It would be the work of half an hour, as the vats are significantly larger and required more finesse with the ritual subarrays. In the meanwhile, Valentin would indulge in light conversation, pausing only when he needed to doublecheck his work. "Eclestorias had th'right of it, mam'selle, an' I'm glad the Haruspex put me onto 'im. He had a head for proper thinkin', did Eclestorias." Valentin seemed to have quite a few of those strange crayons in his apron pocket. They each had a strong reek of iron. "The thing I've noticed 'bout a lot o'them bankers what write books is that they've found, through trial an' minimal error, a single way t'make somethin' work th'way -they- want it t'work, then rest on their blimmin Xalious after. An' then passed it on as their 'school' o'necromancy while tootlin' their own horn. But Eclestorias, well, it's obvious the bloke taught kids at some point, because he don't waste time wi'the self-aggrandising bollocks. He was a man straight t'the point. He was about learnin' his necromancers their sigils like lads learn their letters at a school. An' it worked, 'coz the bastard somehow knew the language enough t'pull it apart an' put it back t'gether. An' you get hints o'that in his tome 'Proin Nisl'." The two circles look to be near completion on this level, but Valentin would then have to head upstairs to create the replica circles around the vats. "We could blimmin' use more folk like Ol' Eclestorias" Valentin opined "An' less like blimmin' Lorkain."

Tenebrae had observed his every motion with a sharp and critical scrutiny, nodding her approval of Valentin's spotless attention to detail. When he spoke of the old Lich tutor, Tenebrae's laugh would be heard from below, her voice resonating in the as-yet mostly empty space, echoing up the stairwell. "Lorkain ... has his moments, Thanadule." The smile she wore was small and half-fond, the sentiment carrying to her to her words, "Every necromancer has his..or her.. unique way of adapting to the magics we must endure. It's what makes the whole field so interesting." Sparing a moment to take a hurried peek under the cloth covering the bell-jar, the necromancer then ticked up the stairs to continue observing this most interesting arrangement, filing details into her memory as the Butcher carried on.

Valentin grunts as he links the auxilliary arcanae with the prime activators. As the butcher carefully begins placing the phonetic meshing-sigils which would link the circle to the Cantatus of Umbral Weaving, he replies "The crusty ol' bonebag does cull some o'the twits from the herd, I got t'admit. Saves me from havin' t'put up with their nonsense. An' there ain't a better corpse around f'teachin' the language. But I stand by what I say. I'm havin' t'unteach promisin' Novus Morior th'nonsense he's given 'em in the sigil classes jus' so they don't drain 'emselves out tryin' things too advanced for their level." Valentin casts a critical eye over both circles, paces around them. "Now, I ain't expectin' th'moulderin' sod t'change. Might as well ask th'moon t'become th'sun. I'm jus' sayin' we need more folks teachin' the Novus what can think straight without resortin' t'mad cacklin' an' high drama." Admittedly, the lich Lorkain was guilty of neither cackling nor high drama, but Valentin suspected he used to be, before he was a lich. He was certainly mad. "Otherwise, th'bankers are goin' t'take after their teachers, innit." This was, ironically, an argument used by certain Tradehall delegates when protesting the notion of giving Valentin more apprentices back in his heydays. Admittedly, Valentin too was not known for high drama or mad cackling. But the principle applied. "I think these two are about ready. I'll give 'em a once over, an' then head upstairs t'do the other two. I'll come back down when I'm ready t'bring 'em through"

Tenebrae said, "He is from a different time, Valentin. He's old.. old enough to remember the gods when they walked Lithrydel in their various forms. Harsher times, calling for harsher methods. A sloppy student was a massacre waiting to happen…" but she halted there. Those were Lorkain's stories, and his to tell or not, as he saw fit. "Not saying I don't agree with you. Times have changed, and we need to adapt. We must always be open to change, or perish with the ages that bore us." Again, she stopped, half-laughing at herself for the pensiveness of her mood. "Innovation is the key, and you've enough of that to stuff a mammoth with, I think." With a wave, she vanished back into basement, to await the next phase. "

Valentin nods. All in all, the most effective way to annoy Lorkain was to keep Novus Morior alive long enough for the Thanatos Domina to find some suicide mission for them. "Makes sense. I'll be back down soon." The next half hour would leave Tenebrae alone to her own devices while Valentin creates the corresponding circles. Eventually, Valentin would reappear with the query "Ready for me t'get this lot underway?"

Tenebrae snatched the cover back down over the bell jar, her face turning from white to an even pastier tone when her wrist knocked the jar's dome in her haste, though the glass prison did not move. "Uh.. " she clearly needed a beat or two to gather herself. "Ready!" she called, with a tinny kind of cheer. Under that cover, the Burrower-fragment continued its blind grope in futile search for an exit.

Valentin sends a suspicious look in the Guildmistress' direction. That tone of false cheer was as good as a bell tolling doom, from the butcher's experience. "As y'say, mam'selle." Valentin checked the ritual arrays once last time before standing before one and commencing the Cantatus of Umbral Weaving. The sigil arrays pulse and glow with the first harsh consonants and fricatives thrust into the air of the basement by Valentin's chanting. The area within the ritual arrays would seem to darken, swell with shadows as Valentin reaches the canta's crescendo. And then the shadows wash away as Valentin utters the final unnatural sibilants, revealing a very large metal vat, created to the Guildmistress' specifications by one of Vailkrin's more expensive and reliable metalworks. Valentin would take a moment to gather himself before commencing the same ritual for the second circle. More chanting, and the large basement complex is finally home to the barrels and vats the Thanatos Domina had ordered upon her unexpected return to Lithrydel and Vailkrin. "A'right. Tha's that done." Valentin takes out a grubby little notebook, flicks it open, then retrieves a stubby pencil and ticks off something on one of the greasy pages. Rubbing his stubbled jawline, the butcher asks "Apart from the constant task o'lookin' after th'Novus Morior, what's next on the agenda?"

Tenebrae said, "Flaying vampires." She offered that fact out like a reward for a job well done. "That's what these tables are for. I do hope the drainage is adequate. Couldn't exactly call the plumber in." She trod over to the vats, giving each a knock that set up a metallic resonance within the massive bowl. "I can see a hundred applications for this," she murmured, and continued to the tables, equipped with fold-out tool trays and stout metal cuffs, plus a drainage channel that ran o a pipe, which ran to a shiny steel box, upon which was fixed..."Do you like the foot-pump? Carries fluids easily to the vats, once the pipes are in. Thought it'd save hauling buckets back and forth." A concept she'd shamelessly stolen from Jobbie, who'd created one to assist him in the task of drinking liquidised pies to save him the effort of chewing. "Anyway, You put the vampire here. Flay it... well, when I say -flay- I mean.. more de-bone it..." she carried on, swiftly, "The fluids drain off, then into the vats." With another smile, she wafted a hand toward the cages. "Thought we'd need storage. Though.. a cold room would be handy. I'm considering putting one in.. but for now, this is what we have." "

Valentin scratches a shaggy muttonchop. "Good thinkin'. Nice workmanship too. An' worse case scenario, we can jus' kidnap some bastard plumber from Cenril, an' have 'im make any fixes afore usin' 'im for parts." There'd be a subtle change in poise at her mention of the vat's purpose, which might hint at the butcher's pleasure at the notion of flaying fanged vermin. "A cold room ain't too hard t'put t'gether. It jus' takes a lot o'time an' effort to engrave the sigils in th'ceilin." The butcher stopped "Occurs t'me, mam'selle, that you ain't ever visited m'personal workspace below m'shop. Y'might find doin' so t'be of some assistance in preparin' for your own coldroom. Let me know if you're ever of a mind to, an' I'll let you in." If there was one thing Valentin had spent a lot of time on, it was sorcerously imbuing enclosed spaces for the lengthy preservation of meats.

Tenebrae coughed softly, "Yes… never been anywhere near your shop, great pity.. remiss of me, really, I shall pop down that way as soon it suits you." Changing the subject swiftly, the Necromancer indicated the barrels. "I've a couple of Jobbie's men coming for those tomorrow. The nasty little cheapskate, wanted to charge us for containers.. Anyway. And there's some liquid goods coming in from another source the day after. Then, Valentin, we'll have everything we need to remake my armour. And to demonstrate the arts I am soon to share with the Guild." Giving the nearest barrel a satisfied slap, she then ticked across the stone toward the bench area, "And.. to find out what makes this tick." She pinched a corner of the cloth covering the bell jar between finger and thumb and whisked it off with a flourish. In the glass confines writhed a creature of horrific aspect - hardly unusual for anything Tene might associate with, but this was truly horrible, a proto-flesh scrap, mindless, sprouting pincers and suckers, blind eyes and puckered mouths, each extrusion rising out of its dark mass briefly before being absorbed back into the main bulk of it. Tene tapped the glass, causing the thing to buckle on itself in the fruitless effort to consume her finger, "I think I'll call it Harry. Harry, this is Valentin." She was clearly amusing herself, at this point. "Valentin, this is a tiny bit of the Burrower, the thing that ate Venturil."

Valentin nods, rubbing the crayon off his hands onto his apron, a little suspicious of the slight hint of fluster in her response "As soon as y'like, Domina" Valentin clomps over to the bell jar and scratches the stubble of his jawline "Interestin'. Wonder if 'Harry' there could be bred wi'gravewyrms? Now that'd be a thing an' a half."

Tenebrae offered Valentin a look that might have soured milk, were any at hand, supressing the deep shudder that tickled its way up her spine at the thought, "Quite. But might we focus on a more immediate problem..." Thet sere gaze shifted back to the bell jar. "Little did I know, Valentin, that the techniques I scrounged together to create Maladroit - you must understand, I was working with margin-notes and bits of parchment saved from fires, there - unaware, that what I had stumbled on was the merest tip of a very large iceberg. One that does not exist in this realm alone," she raised her forefinger, "And in fact may be a solid link between Lythridel and the place I came from. Which means.. " the finger pointed to the runed dome containing the Burrower-piece. ".. I can apply that knowledge to the rest of this. If I'm right abut who made it in the first place..."

Valentin tilts his head and locks his impassive gaze on the aberrent piece of out-of-control morphology squirming around in the jar. "You an' your pets, Mam'selle. But what y'sayin' is that this kind o'thing is precedented?" Valentin thinks a moment "You'd think there'd be more record o'such a thing. Necromancers tend t'be self-aggrandising sods at the best o'times, wantin' t'make sure someone knows o'their genius, even if it's only their 'prentices. Necromancers leave research notes, jus' because o'how complicated the entire damn trade is. You'd ha' thought there'd be some mention of it in th'carnology treatises, right?" For now, Valentin doesn't concern himself with the link between worlds notion. That would only become important to him if it meant he could kick Tenebrae and Lorkain through a portal back to that place.

Tenebrae said, "Precedent.. yes." She parked her rump on a wooden stool - clearly, settling in for a long explanation. "But as far as record of it goes.. have you ever heard of a necromancer named Aranoch?""

Valentin searches through his memory of the tomes he'd read and the innumerable references to Necromancers past and present. The name did not ring a bell. "No, Domina."

Tenebrae tilted her face up to meet the stoic Butcher's gaze. "He's the one whose works helped me create the gaunt, metamorphic flesh, the ability to cobble bodies together and make something.. new.. from them. Wonderful, terrible knowledge. Don't you think it odd, then, that even I did not know of his existence, even as I learned his secrets?" The thing in the jar convulsed, slapping half a dozen suckered limbs against the glass. "There's no record of him, here. But on Shadowside..." her look grew grim, "His name was Aranoch, the Damned. Legend has it he appeared to that world one day amid great destruction, and brought with him a plague that changed .. everything. Vampirism. The Rift-walker, they called him, for his ability to travel between dimensions. And I believe Lithrydel was the place he travelled to. The place from which he came, and shared between worlds things that ..." she once more looked at the polymorphich scrap in the jar. "... perhaps were best left alone. I believe he was banished from this dimension, and all his works expunged from every record. On Shadowside..." Tene shook her head, ".. he created chaos manifest, a blight of terror and destruction that lasted millennia."

Valentin grumbles "Sounds like jus' the kind o'man t'have round fer tea an' bikkies. So we ain't got records o'the name, but y'found marginalia what let you build th'pigeongrubber - Vakmatharas rest his 'sploded soul." The tacked on piety would probably ring false, but Valentin forges on "So, we got a lot o'books, an' you've mostly been out o'town. Have y'actually poured through every book we got with y'new knowledge t'give context t'what you're readin'?"

Tenebrae said, "Not yet. But I had intended to, knowing as I do now that there was more to it, so much more, Valentin. Aranoch met his doom on Shadowside, corrupted beyond redemption by the very magics he stole from there, the magic he tried to bring here. Many centuries later, another death mage discovered a means to control that chaos, and from his knowledge came a revival of the civilisation Aranoch had all but destroyed. I am, as I am now, the product of that same knowledge, of which I know enough to prevent the plague exploding here.." her fingers traced the runed on the glass, which each pulsed faintly with the passing of her touch, "It seems to me the ancients of Lithrydel came up with thier own solutions to the problem. But unlike Arandon the Wise, they could not control the plague. Only contain it, make it dormant, and banish its source forever. Valentin, in this jar is a thing which represents hell itself made flesh. The hell that burrows and feeds in its sleep beneath Venturil, and which stirs now.." another shudder rattled through her, one she could not suppress. "And I know how to make it behave itself. Well.. " she bit her lower lip, gently. ".. sort of. It'll help me greatly if we can recover any scrap, any shred of the original technique.""

Valentin grunts "Well, ain't that a lovely thing. Hell on earth. Sounds like a blimmin' party an' a half." Valentin furrows his brow a moment before continuing "A'right. I've been wantin' an excuse t'organise the th'books in the Guild library. Ain't nobody seems t'have heard of puttin' knives wi'knives an' forks wi'forks, innit. An' there are some books we really need more of if'n we're t'get the Novus Morior up t'scratch without them clawin' each other's throats out for book access." Which had happened about a month ago. "I reckon we keep th'novitiate busy w'copyin' out the basic texts - help 'em with their sigil-formin', that will - an' those of us wi'half a brain can look through the more advanced books as we organise an' shelve 'em." Another thought occurs "Mind you, there's a lot o'books still out there in private collections an' hidden away. Might be an idea t'send some folks out t'find 'em." Valentin, still a tradesman at his core, considered books to be the equivalent of his cleavers for the Necromantic trade, and approached them in the same way - looking for ones of the best quality, and disdaining those which he had no use for. A disorganised library was like a disorganised knifeblock: unacceptable.

The Thanatos Domina nodded her assent to that plan. "Good thinking. Now, I want you look closely at the sigils on that jar, there. And at this..." there'd be a few moments' silence as she reached for a box bound in a leaden metal, and spoke the sounds that set the cogs of the seals upon it whirring. The box sprang open, and she took out a few scraps of paper, some burned around the edges, others clearly torn out of larger texts, "Here, look at these. This is what I originally recovered, though how close to Aranoch's original work they are, I don't know. But they're a place to start, a signpost as it were. Copy them, Valentin, but in a jumble lest one of the Morior decides to experiment. But these are what we seek." She rose from her seat, turned toward the vats. "And if... -if- I am not horribly mistaken, and the Burrower is indeed a remnant creation of Aranoch's. then we can turn it to our own purposes. We can create.." her leather-clad arms spread wide, ".. our own little empire, here. Or at the least, something useful." Tene grinned, the grimness falling off her, replaced by a feral sort of glee. "But first, I must demonstrate the knowledge of Arandon the Wise, the greatest of all alchemists, who made a world out of chaos. And get me a new set of armour, to boot. Which involves you deboning a vampire, Valentin, a nice big strong one with a sharp sort of mind. And that's important, because.." her arms were by her side now, and her hands clasped behind her back. Tene rocked gently on her heels, that glee still apparent in her pale gaze. ".. you must not kill it, Butcher. I need that vampire to remain entirely alive. Well, animate. You know what I mean."

Valentin glances at the papers "Interestin'. Tha's a pretty damn archaic sigil form. We're goin' to need t'look in older books t'see tha' kind o'thing. Th'hard part is goin' t'be the main bit though: findin' references t'this blokes efforts in texts written after his heyday. Y'talkin' old enough for th'bloke t'be a blimmin' myth, as opposed t'historical figure. Hell, y'got as much chance o'findin' him in a storybook as a text written in th'past couple o'centuries. But I'll copy these down, an' get some o'the brighter Novus lookin' for notations in a similar archaic construction." Valentin glances down at the papers again "I'll get to it once we're done here, I s'pose." Valentin doesn't do 'glee', but he seemed a bit more animate when the Mistress mentioned deboning a vampire "Debonin' a vampire, eh? An' keepin' the blighter alive? Now there's a challenge I'm up for, Domina. Oh yes, I got me some ideas on how t'go about that." Valentin would be returning to his favourite necromantic muse: Vandon LeRouge and his crimson chains. In truth, Valentin had such mastery over that spell and the variants he'd been working with so frequently, it was becoming a quiet joke amongst some of the Novus to refer to the butcher as Valentin LeRouge. He'd caught one of them at it, once, and sent the vampire flying down the hall with a punch to the throat. The moniker remained though, albeit well hidden.

Tenebrae jiggled slightly, her gaze alit with glints of probably ominous joy. "Excellent, Thanadule. I knew you'd not disappoint me. Now, perhaps best we get about our various tasks, there is much to do. And ..." a quick look was shifted to the Burrower-fragment, "perhaps not a lot of time. My next duty is to seek the King of Venturil. I am sure he'll not mind being rid of the thing that has bled his land dry."

Valentin touches his hand to the brim of his bowler hat "Right you are, Mam'selle. I'll catch you later then. Might be an idea t'come pop by my joint in Cenril later if'n you wanted an idea of how t'set up a longterm coldroom. If y'could pass word through t'Lorkain that I'll be desecratin' his unholy mess of a library wi'me dirty organisin' mitts, I'd greatly appreciate it." It wasn't necessary of course, but it would aggravate Lorkain. At least, Valentin hoped it would.