RP:Thanadule and Novus Morior: Sigils, language, and a lesson in patience

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

The Hanging Corpse Tavern, Vailkrin

Kyperion walked into the Hanging Corpse Tavern, glanced around, and found a booth near the bar. He concentrated on loosing himself to the shadow, and found himself melting into the shade. Mentally settling himself down, he waited for his new master to appear.

Valentin tromps into the Hanging Corpse, his leather apron and duster spattered with blood and what appeared to be traces of feathers stuck to the larger patches. With a somewhat less dour expression than the one he had been wearing earlier, the butcher heads straight to the bar. "Steadman. Bloody top shelf sink. Set me up a trio. Cheers, guv." The Cenrilli slang still remained largely gibberish to those not from Cenril's southside, but Steadman knew Valentin's preferences enough, and could at least translate that sequence. Three glasses of elven-blood wine are poured and set before the butcher, no comment made on the state of his appearance. Steadman was reliable like that. Valentin downed one immediately without ceremony, and said "So. Novus Morior. Where'd you bleedin' sod off to?"

Kyperion faded into view. "Here. Practicing. I should warn you, the Nathali beat some parts of Shadow training into me; if I make a mistake, I may need a slight knock upside the head to remember that what I did is a mistake." Grimacing, Kyperion leaned forward. "God, I hate those bastards. Anyway, my tolerance for immersion in shadow is quite high, given that I've been doing it to some degree since I could walk."

Valentin drains the second glass. The butcher's taciturn voice has no inflection beyond 'casual an' informative' as he speaks "In th'middle of a lesson, y'sod off t'the tavern t'play peekaboo with th'bar, eh?" The butcher paused to let that sink in. "I'm a straightforward kind o'bloke, but even I recognise the occasional need t'be careful with th'way I go about speakin' th'truth. Now, It's not th'first time in m'life I've had t'look after 'prentices, guv, an' the first week's always a bit jittery for th'lads, but I'm hopin' y'start to pull y'act together real soon" Valentin hasn't shifted a muscle beond those required for speech. "Between' sourcin' a goat from a crook half a continent away, an' skivin' off mid-lecture... well guv. You tell me: if I was describin' the actions of someone workin' for -you-, what would you be thinkin'?" A voice behind Kyperion's ear, slightly overlapping at the end of 'thinkin' would whisper "Well, guv?" as Valentin reaches for his third glass.

Kyperion slammed a knife into the back of the booth before he could stop himself. Glaring at the location, Kyp ground out "I'd probably be shopping for a new one. Got it. Be more consistant." Yanking the knife out, he cleared the stubborn splinters off of the soot forged blade. "Shadow projection?" he guessed.

Valentin noted that his new 'prentice was very jittery too. Basic phobomancy had him stabbing tables. "Pay more attention, I was more thinkin'. Start with a show o'competence, an' then work on consistence. Because we want consistent competence, right?" Valentin downed the third glass. "Luckily, I ain't Leifong. He'd have turned you into an experimental subject for that kind o'thing. He don't tolerate failure at all. But enough o'that." Valentin knew belabouring such a point would make it counterproductive. "Now, that little thing what had you viciously assaultin' the furnishin's, well, that was nothin' t'do wi'the Umbral Tides, guv." Valentin scrached his jawline "That was phobomancy, a minor cantrip - although to be fair, phobomancy ain't no bleedin' picnic t'learn. You have t'learn t'resist it before you can properly learn t'use it. I been workin' on th'subject for a while now, an' I can only manage minor cantrips without a ritual circle. The major stuff I still have t'channel through a mystical array of sigils, powered wi'me own variation of Vandon LeRouge's Crimson Chains." Valentin finally turned to face Kyperion, his expression unreadable "So. Did you actually catch what I said earlier about the Black Tides, an' the three forms they most frequently take? If so, give me a rundown o'how you understood 'em"

Kyperion counted out on his fingers. "Umbral tides, essence of shadow, Pyrumbral tides, shadow fire, and Cyrumbral tides, or shadow ice. All corpse raisers are necromancers, not vice versa, and the manipulation of shadow falls within the realm of Necromancy. We use Decay, Death, Entropy, the edges of Chaos, to cause a catylist to the nature of order. This fundament unbalance is rectified when we get our way or are killed."

Valentin nods "Tha's the gist of it. At least y'hung around for most of it, which half counts." Valentin nodded to Steadman meaningfully, and raised two fingers "Now, them cultists what grate you so much. A'fore you got tired o'the bankers, did they teach you anythin' beyond the sword an' walkin' through the shadows. Any old cultist language or cant, tha' kind o'thing?"

Kyperion nodded. "Yes. Mantras. Their meaning has been lost, but they put you in the mindset to begin Umbral manipulation, whatever they mean. We repeated them constantly-- literally. I'm still repeating them in the back of my head, and I'm at the same point that every other Nathali is at. It came in handy for synconizing missions. As for the other two, to my best knowlege, no Nathali knows of them, but they did find interesting Umbral uses. Immobilizing a target by sewing his shadow in place, causing a victim's shadow to be like a voodoo doll; any harm inflicted on it appears on them." Kyp added "Oh, and in non-fighting, non-shadow skills, I can hunt, read and write old Nathali, cryptography, and a superficial understanding of surgery."

Valentin waits for Steadman to pour his next two drinks before speaking. "A'right. The subtle stuff definitely suits an assassin, an' it means I can prob'ly gloss over those areas. A'right. On to the important question: This old Nathali, it similar to your tattoos? The language pictographic, representin' either sounds or things an' ideas? A lot o'stupid ambiguities based on a slur of a fricative, an' the cadence in which it's spoken? Like havin' a nest o'snakes stuck in your throat?" Valentin was, to this day, annoyed that he still knew this blimmin' scholar terminology. His feckin' sire had been thorough, though, as the necromantic chants required both precision and focus, and it had taken the butcher a decade to get it right. Still, a lot o'them death cultists came about when necromancers got religious, an' started up little knitting clubs wi'their friends.

Kyperion frowned. "When it's not spoken correctly, it can sound that way. There's alway a guteral component, but if you don't slur, it's pretty distinctive. Of course, since the language they speak there is derived from Old Nathali, it's sort of like comparing Common and pre-common tongues. I can hear the distinction, but others might not be able to." Kyperion broke off into a set of stacatto sounds, with a tonal breathing quality. "Old Nathali for 'Grettings, Cull-man.' And as for the writing, every pictographic image also contains a phonetic component, called Late Nathani. It's meant to be very intuitive. It isn't."

Valentin nods "Well, most folks an' myths say th'language o'the necromancers as is largely used today was passed down direct from Vakmatharas back in old times. But, because o'what it represented, it didn't quite fit nicely in the human mind, nor easy t'speak, what with the tendency for unholy combinations o'consonants an' fricatives all in a bleedin' row. Couldn't tell you where th'truth of it's origins lay m'self, but I mention it on account o'the followin' reason: there are some distinctive similarities twixt your Old Nathali, an' the dark incantations o'the necromancers. Now, Nathali seem's to be a different dialect, an' seems a bit easier t'speak than what you'll need t'learn. But at least you will 'ave a frame of reference. Now, about the writing - write down what y'just said in Old Nathali for me"

Kyperion motioned to Steadmen for writing materials. Holding the quil at an odd angle (he was more used to a brush) Kyperion quickly sketched out a line of streamlined pictograms, then went back and filled the centers in with a simple alphabet. "For shorthand, the alphabet may be used on its own, but it can't hold magical weight that way, not that this sentance has any magical weight. This stuff is easy, by the way. The tattoos I cut off my body were inately enscrolled to prevent memorization or copying unless you are looking at an exact replica. Which no one had, until I carved mine off." Finishing up the writing, Kyp added the Nathali phonetic alphabet on the side of the parchment. "There," he said, and handed it over.

Valentin examines the writing. The form of the pictograms was definitely familiar, just as the brief glimpse of the tattoos had been the other day. Under Leifong's tuition, and with access to part of the Magister Letum's extensive library, the butcher had made a thorough study of necromantic sigils in all their forms, though he was no expert outside of his own preferred fields of necromancy. But this would be enough to work with, he figured. "Alright, lets try this. Now, I can tell these..." Valentin briefly runs his finger over the sigils representing 'greetings' "Are the greeting, and the rest refer to the thing bein' greeted. Your Cull-man." Valentin then utters a sequence of sibilants, the cantatus of shadowbinding glooping from his lips in a cascade of dissonant vocalisations, and a pattern of shadows appears on the table. Valentin directs the shadows to take and hold the form of a sequence of sigils, directed by his will. The sigils lacked any hint of seperate alphabet notations as appeared in Old Nathali. If anything, they were more ornate, more elaborate, and in some way seemed to spit upon geometry and symmetry, their form likely to create unease in a regular person. Kyperion's history would likely render him largely unaffected in that regard, but there would be a strong sense of familiarity in the form of the sigils, matching in broad terms the general shape of the pictographs Kyperion had written down. Valentin points to them "The same message, but in the secret sigils of the necromancers." Valentin then speaks a further phrase in a language which seemed to add a hint of grease to the air, the cadence of the sussurations and dissonant consonants hidden therein almost identical to the staccato sounds Kyperion had previously spoken. Valentin finishes, but maintains control of the shadowbindings, letting the sigils remain splashed across the bar in front of Kyperion. The former cultist would have found Valentin's speech similar to the Nathali's in many ways, but different in many more. With silence now returning, the air clears of any sense of taint or grime which had suffused it in the course of the incantation. "Look at them sigils. What do you see."

Kyperion hmmed. "Stylized, but I see that you added something. Hmmm...." tracing out the symbols with a finger, Kyperion's lips moved. "Best I can tell, a good translation is 'Welcome, killer/reaper. Uhm. You also have an incantation built into it; there is no 'neutral,' like in Old Nathali. Everything is straight up aspected due Darkness. Nathali draw a distintion between Shadow and Darkness, oddly." Kyperion's finger stabbed out. "There. That's a formal structure, without independent meaning, unless you continued to greet. It's a written greeting of the various members of a coven."

Valentin rubs his jawline. For all th'bloke had handled his first task like a country cousin new t'the city, this at least proved he weren't no idiot. Prob'ly best t'think o'this one as 'naive scholar' with a sword, an' 'e couldn't go far wrong when assigning 'im tasks. Well, mission success, an' all. "Close, guv. It's not so much 'adding or taking' from one language or another - they're two seperate, but related, languages. If anything, Nathali's more coherent structure makes th'blimmin' language more likely a dialect evolved from th'original for practical day t'day use." Valentin relaxed his control on the bindings, and the shadows faded away. "I'd guess th'bloke who set up your old joint all those years ago was a bit of a nutter, one o'them fanatic 'true believers' in Vakmawhatsit. He'd 'ave t'be, to take a language passed down for the sole purpose of communin' with death an' dark things, then tinker with it 'til it could be spoken like a language." Valentin takes a moment to appreciate the sanity of a person who'd cut off his own skin to escape such lunatics. "Well guv, you've balanced out your ledger, jus' now. Y'can think an' reason, which means y'can learn. A'right. Once we offload the goods to our Mistress, we can get started on some practical lessons." Valentin drains one of the two glasses of red bevvy Steadman had placed down a couple of minutes prior "Good job o'makin' it away from that lot. I don't have much time for religious loonies, m'self, an' you seem t'have cut off y'skin t'spit in their faces. I can appreciate that." Valentin downed the last glass. "Now, time is short this evenin', but I'm thinkin' twixt Lorkain an' me, you'll get th'basics o'the proper lingo within a month or two. It'll take a lot longer t'master it, mind, as you'll have t'unlearn some o'the old habits. an' finally, you'll want t'be patient an' dilligent, as with this stuff if you get somethin' even a -little- wrong with a ritual array or incantation then bad things will happen in a -big- way." Valentin had personal experience with that truth, as well. "For now, I'd like you t'pick one area o'the Black Tides to focus on outside o'Lorkain's lessons, an' I'll get you started on some o'the basic rituals in that specialisation. You got an idea already, or should I give y'time t'decide?"

Kyperion didn't hesitate. "Umbral tides," he said. "I have an understanding already, albeit a skewed one." Getting caught up in the excitment of a new thing was a good way to loose the skills you had, if you overlooked the advantages they gave you.

Valentin nods "Done deal. Now, you seem t'be roundabout where I started off m'self, from what I've seen so far. Travellin' an hidin' in shadow, an' whatnot. but when we've got some time free o'the Mistress' infernal meddlings, we may want t'take an hour or two t'see how far along in that area you already are. An' also, because our kind make enemies easylike, it will give me an idea as to y'potential in a heavyduty brawl." As Tenebrae had dumped him into a couple of spur-of-the-moment imbroglios, Valentin wanted t'make sure his 'prentice could survive her sociopathic whims. For all that Valentin could calmly butcher a child, the part of him which used to be Bill the master butcher took the art o'raisin' a 'prentice very seriously. "So guv. I want you t'prep yourself for a bit of a to-do with m'self soon. An' don't worry about holdin' back anythin'. I'll fire you if y'think to suck up t'me by not tryin' your utmost t'do me in. I've successfully faced down an' sent a red dragon packin' in the Cenril Arena - an' me bein' the flammable type an' all. So trust in me robustness when its time for your first exam, an' come at me with everythin' you have. I need t'know what you are capable of in extreme circumstances if I'm to make you capable of more than what you are now, y'get me?"

Kyperion nodded and lunged at once, his laminated silver knife a hair's breath from the butcher's throat. He didn't expect to hit, but an assassin's principle was to strike the instant your target was availible or off guard. In his language, waiting for Valentin to declare a time was exactly such an insult.

Valentin shifts only slightly, letting the knife pass through the cold undead flesh of his throat, missing his vocal chords and speaking apparatus. Using the timing and moment of that impact, Valentin places one of his large meaty hands in a vicelike grip on Kyperion's wrist in the second before the assassin could choose to withdraw or otherwise move the blade. Although a vampire, and possessing great strength, Valentin is careful not to apply too much pressure, as he required Kyperion fit and able for the tasks to come. "You also need t'learn to listen to what I'm sayin', and think things through before actin' too hastily, guv." Valentin paused a moment to let that sink in. "I said 'Soon', and 'when the time comes'. The choice o'words was deliberate, right? I ain't like them nutters in robes, sayin' one thing an' meanin' another. I will blimmin' well tell you a time an' a place, an' give you time t'properly prepare for the exam." If Kyperion makes a move to remove the dagger, Valentin would allow the movement. "Remember guv, you have joined th'Necromancer's guild, not the warrior's guild. I don' care how fast y'blade is. I will be lookin' to see how y'use the shadows. That's not sayin' don't use your knives in the exam - I resorted to m'cleaver when fightin' the dragon, an' also in m'bouts with Kasyr an' Leifong - but if all you do is show me fancy bladework, it will just tell me that y'missed the point entirely. You understandin' me, Novus?" Throughout this, Valentin's features hadn't shifted a bit, remaining taciturn and inscrutable.

Kyperion felt a chill crawl up his spine: half fear, half excitement. He *wanted* to learn from someone who wasn't insane, and here he was. Brutal, gory, and earthy, but not insane. "I understand," Kyp said, doing his best to keep his voice level. Pulling his knife out, he wiped it on one of the cheap cloth napkins he carried for the purpose, then balled the napkin and pocketed it. "Anything else, sir?"

Valentin nods "Silver's good for them bloody wolfmen, guv, but until y'get your head around th'pyrumbral tides, I suggest y'get somethin' enchanted w'flame, or capable o'beheadin' a vampire. Because while I've managed to get our 17 vampires through some savvy negotiations wi'Kasyr, I know Tenebrae. This will be jus' the start. She will have us harin' off over hill an' dale collectin' specimens for her creations. An' every damn specimen she wants is somethin' people normally send a small brigade o'hunters after. Instead, it's us who get set on th'task. So prepare y'self for possible encounters with exotic an' nasty critters of all shapes, toxicity, an' sizes. An' that can include feckin' dragons. Now, I have t'sod off, as I have some bloody paperwork to do, care of the unholy delegatin' shedevil, an' as that is boring as hell, you may want t'use the time t'go huntin' up extra provisions. She's been known t'drop tasks on a Novus' lap with absolutely no warnin' many a time in th'past." The butcher hauls himself to his feet, brushes off some of the bloody hippogryff feathers from the day's butchery for Lorkain, and tromps out of the tavern, touching his hand to the brim of his bowler in silent farewell.