RP:The First Lesson: Arise

The House of Frozen Souls

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Synopsis Joan and Vareth meet in the common room of the Black Spire. Joan shows Vareth to the Frostmaw chapter of the Necromancer's guild, where they visit a corpse storage chamber. There, Joan demonstrates her reanimation ritual. After, Vareth demonstrates his own. Joan then gives Vareth several pointers before they depart.

Joan had spent the evening moving about the Black Spire, doing what task needed her attention. The vampiric healer had taken a moment to rest near the large fountain, a loud exhale of breath was heard from her, such a busy time helping with the newest batch of novices. Taking a seat, the undead woman closed her eyes for what felt like a mere moment to rest, as she had been running about here and there from Vailkrin and Cenril now that the war was over, she may have even dozed off...

Vareth had been coming a going for a little while, mostly back and forth from the library in the Black Spire. He does a double take at the dozing shape of Joan, quickly pulling up the hood of his robe to hide what was, to him, an embarrassing reaction to being surprised. Walking to about 10 feet away from Joan, he took a deep breath and said softly, "Thanadule Blackheart? Are you alright?"

Joan gave a shake of her head as she heard the drow walk up towards her direction and speak, the vampiric healer's lashes fluttered upwards and open as she gave the new novice a sheepish grin, "It's just Joan, we don't use titles around here kid." She said in a kind but tired tone, she glanced at the hooded drow over as she nodded noticing he was getting used to the Black Spire. "Have you visited the Black Library also?" She asked him.

Vareth nods in response, showing Joan the cover of a book, he happens to be holding. It reads "Proin Nisl" by Eclestorias. A small grin on his purple lips shows his fondness for the subject matter as he says, "Yes, I have actually spent most...maybe all? Of my time there since we last spoke. The books there have been a great help with my Common. And there are gems like this one, here." He takes a slender blue-black finger and caresses the cover of the book in an oddly sensual way before continuing, "I have been very interested in increasing my knowledge of ritual arrays. Among many other things, of course."

Joan pushes herself upright from her seated position, giving a firm nod. "That is all good, I hope you have been studying the book Khitti gifted you. It goes over all the very basics we expect you to learn and master before you can rank up. Now...if you will follow me I will take you out to Frostmaw via our neat handy portal and start you off on your first lesson." Joan heads towards the lower staircase byside the statues, down she will go and into the portal room waiting for the young drow novice to follow.

Vareth nods, gathering his book into his arms. While he follows Joan at a respectful pace he responds, "Yes of course. I have not seen many members wandering the halls, so I took it upon myself to begin my learning by doing some heavy reading. " He follows the vampiress down into the basement of the Black Spire, where he suddenly slaps a hand over the bound grimoire on his belt. A keen hearing would allow a muttered "Tlu suust voiry" coming from Vareth's frowning face. He looks back at Joan and says, obviously trying to pretend nothing happened, "This Frostmaw. I have heard mentions of it in other things I have read...what is the place? Why do we have such a presence there?"

Joan offered a rolling shrug of her vested shoulders as she approached the gate that would portal them out to the frozen wastelands of Frostmaw and the guild's second official location. "Dunno, something along the lines of Khitti wanting peace and quiet from the bickering of those in Vailkrin is what I gather. It's all new to me also." She gave a raised brow look towards the hooded drow as his personal spell book spoke aloud. "Huh, neat but bothersome, anyways this gate here you just push and walk through. I will go first and demonstrate." That said Joan does what she said, pushing open and gate and walking right through disappearing from view as the gate portals her away.

Vareth || After Joan disappears, Vareth shoots the grimoire on his belt a glare. With more muttered imprecations in his native Drow, he goes about pushing the proper sequence on the gate and following the vampiress through the portal. He looks around, lowering his hood and allowing his long white hair to flow down his shoulders and back. He turns in a slow circle, tucking his hair behind his pointed ears. He finishes looking around and turns to Joan, saying in a somewhat hushed tone, "This place is...large. Ves izznarg."

Joan idly scratches at her right temple as she cast a glance about to take in the portal room, "It also leads out to the realm of chaos, but we can only enter there with someone higher ranked as it is the Shadow area and very dangerous." She points out the other portal but this one seems closed, and Joan does not make an effort to approach, instead, she leads the way into the mansion as this is where she wanted to show off to Vareth. "Now here we have everything the Black Spire has out in Vailkrin, but more peace and quiet." She led the way through the first floor, pointing out this or that to the drow novice to take note of, he seemed like a quick steady so Joan was sure he could keep up and file away everything she told him.

Vareth follows Joan about the House of Frozen souls, nodding respectfully as she points things out but keeping quiet. The small cues are there to show the Drow's excitement. A seemingly unconscious finger stroke of the spine of a book, the licking of lips as a magical laboratory was passed.

Joan stops near the massive entrance to the mansion, hands resting on purple leather-clad slender hips as the vampiric healer gives the drow novice a pointed glance. "Now whenever you practice make sure you do it in one of our very many well-warded training rooms. We don't want to be out chasing any horrible accidents that might attack the populace." She tilts her neck slightly as she gives Vareth a full-fanged flashing smile, "Since you seem to do well with basic summoning and raising with those ravens why don't we try something along those lines again, but maybe perhaps with an animal or an actual corpse slash zombie, hm?"

Vareth gives a shrug of his slender shoulders, his tone reflecting his indifference as he replies, "My own skills lay in this area, but I suppose you must accidentally kill before you can murder. Is there perhaps a place where we might obtain a subject?" His tone warms up at the end, and he rubs his hands together in anticipation. "A fully intact corpse would be easiest, but if you wish to see my skill, I can make do with much less."

Joan turns and leads the way back towards the well-warded class and work rooms, she pauses now and then to poke her head into each room before she finds one set up for their current needs. She makes a 'come follow me' hand gesture and she now disappears into the room she found. In the large workroom, there were several bodies placed about on steel tables. She picks one at random and moves upwards to it. "Here we go. Bring out your book and open it up to the correct section. I'll show you how I do a very basic summoning and then you go about it in any way you can, yeah?!" She said before she went pulling open drawers attached to the table. Out she pulled a small salt jar, a jar of mixed herbal paste, and a very sharp pure iron knife. She takes up the jar of herbal paste and sets about dipping the pad of her thumb into the lovely, scented paste, she moves about her chosen corpse and lightly traces runes on the forehead, mouth, ears, throat, and lastly the heart area. Next. she moves on to take up the salt after she wipes her hands clean with a handy fresh clean towel. With the salt she makes a circle about the table, explaining, "I use this to keep the risen zombie in place, as they can't cross a salt barrier." Standing back and at the foot of the long steel table, Joan would lightly slice at the pad of her thumb and then call out aloud, "With blood, I call to thee, with blood I offer, come and answer my call. With salt I bind you in place, with salt I hold thee till my bidding is done." She then flickers her free-flowing wound towards the corpse. With a loud chilly pop and bang the corpse jerks upwards into a seated position as it now becomes an animated zombie.

Vareth || Fetching a small journal from his shoulder satchel, Vareth begins to quickly take notes as Joan goes through the motions of the small ritual. He continues to write long after the zombie has risen, circling around it while furiously scribing. Eventually, he closes the journal with a snap and replaces it within his satchel. Heading over to an empty table, Vareth begins to spread out the tools he will work with. First, he draws his own ritual knife, pure cold-wrought iron with an edge stained dark with blood. Then he goes back into his satchel, pulling forth a large vial of some white powdery substance. He continues to dig in his bag, muttering to himself "Herbal scent could be used to strengthen. Another sense engaged, result in stronger animation?" He doesn't seem to find what he is looking for and with a shrub he takes his tools over to the corpse on another table, setting them down. He then unlatches the Grimoire on his belt, which promptly responds by giving a loud and almost obscene moan. With a sigh, he places the tome upon the table next to the corpse. The book flips itself open and lands on a certain page decisively. He uncorked the vial of white powder and begins to sprinkle it in a circle around the table where the corpse lay. He explained while doing so, "Salt is a scarce resource where I come from. It was considered wasteful to use it in this manner, and so a substitution was made. Bone dust. Many Drow has argued that the inherent ties to Necromancy make the bone dust a greater if more dangerous, conduit. I have never used anything but bone dust, mind you, so I could not comment either way."

Joan said, "Nah, I just the scent of mint, sage, and rosemary is all." She watches but lightly taps at the drow's cloaked shoulder, "I'm not too sure but I do believe the whole point of Khitti giving you the basic guild book is for you to also use and study from it. Might want to keep that in mind and open it and do cross-references, okay?"

Vareth tilts his head as if considering the question, then nods. As he gets out the guild book from his satchel, he says, "My grimoire can be jealous. One time it grew teeth and bit me when I tried to take notes from it and put them elsewhere." He shrugs a bit, opening the guild book to the chapter on animation. If Joan chose to look, she could see that the chapter was already heavily annotated, with tight handwriting filling up nearly all the margins. Vareth takes a deep breath and then begins to chant, raising his slender arms over his head so that the sleeves of his robe fall back. "Dark is our destiny's pathway, let us be welcome to the ancient will. This world has no right to know it, let us seek our knowledge from the world beyond. Those whose feet are still and those who laugh no more fuel the powers I touch." Slowly, a dim greenish-purple energy, like a wound gone bad, begins to gather around Vareth's hands.

Joan stood by her animated zombie, both she and the zombie stared at the novice drow as he went about the business of summoning and raising his very own corpse, Joan would cast a glance back over to her risen fellow and check him over to make sure he was in perfect condition. Since she was also a healer, she needed all the practice she could get on wound repair. Since this was just a very basic summoning the zombie didn't do much as it wasn't given any commands while Vareth did his thing. It just watched in an unblinking manner, quiet and serene.

Vareth picks up the iron ritual knife, and without preamble draws one long cut down his forearm. With a practiced motion of his arm, he allows the blood to run down and mostly land in the corpse's mouth. Vareth chants, allowing the blood the splatter and pool around him, "With blood I call you from darkness. With blood, I bid you rise. Let life arise out of death." The purple-green energy seemed to flow down Vareth's hand and follow the blood from the wound, down onto and then into the corpse. With a sudden moan that was a near shout from both the former corpse and his grimoire, the now zombie sat bolt upright. Vareth began to pace around the zombie, inside of the bone dust circle, continuing to chant as he flicked his blood onto every part of his creation. "With blood, I bid you move. With blood, I bind you to my will. Now..." Vareth steps back, one hand gripping his wound so that no more blood flows. He deftly steps over the bone dust circle, and simply says to the zombie, "Rise." It stands immediately, obeying.

Joan huffs out a breath as she crosses her gloved forearms under her vested small bosom, waiting till Vareth finishes does she speaks up, "Good job on certain parts, on others...eh. First off you don't need to cut so wide and long into your forearm dude, that is just a waste of blood. Secondly, I'm pretty sure we don't stand inside the protective circle, what if the zombie reacted badly and lunged at you?! You are inside its grasp and attack zone, stay outside the circle from now on. Next, come over here and let me see to that, I'll heal you up. Too much blood and they might think we are practicing blood magic. And we can't be doing that, it's just not allowed at either of our current rank levels."

Vareth looks at Joan and arches a white eyebrow at her. "I...admit I may be compensating for my lack of control with an excess of power, conducted through the blood. That does tend to require more of it, though..." He looks at his animated zombie and commands, "Lay down. Be still." The Drow then obediently comes to stand by Joan, offering out his forearm for the healer to examine.

Joan waves her gloved hand towards her zombie to catch its attention, once it notices its mistresses wave the animated zombie looks to the vampiric healer. "Settle back down into a resting position, I will release you very shorty and you can be set to rest." Her zombie gives a nod of its head as it listens and obeys the orders given. As it settled back down onto its back Joan would cup one hand under the drow's open wounded forearm. Her other handheld over it as she poured a small amount of her chilly healing energy into the wound, the dark parted flesh knitting together and closed as the purple aura magic went to work healing and reconnecting the cut veins and such.

Vareth sat still under the magical ministrations, not seeming to find anything out of the ordinary with it. He doesn't even watch Joan as she works on his arm but instead keeps his gaze on his own newly risen zombie. It lays patiently on the same slab it was raised upon, only now a bit more blood spattered.

Joan wrinkled up her cute pert nose as the dark flesh under her gloved hand finally sealed close, there was a faint line to show where the long wide cut had happened but as Joan focused more that faint line faded away as she magically spent up Vareth's healing process. "Not really, you just need to spread the blood better. Next time perhaps use a bowl to spill your blood into and then use that bowl to dip into and spread the fresh offering, yeah?! Anyways...I need to clean and wipe this whole area with disinfectant and then use an antiseptic." Joan goes to work and moves about the magically warded work room to fetch what she needs to clean up the bloody mess, the vampiric healer does not seem bothered by the scent of the freshly spilled blood as she was an elder of her race and had control over her own blood lust. I mean the scent was wonderful, but she didn't start drooling or anything. Joan wet a small towel and went about wiping up the quickly drying blood, wiping the drow's forearm clean, she then dug into her ever-full herb pouch and medical kit she was gifted by the healer's guild once she made journey maid rank. Out she pulled two small different vials, each she uncorked and would lightly tip each vial over the healed wound site one after the other, making sure that the last one was laid in a thin gel line. "Let this dry for a few and then you can wipe it off after, it's to make sure no nasty deadly germs try to infect you. Working with the dead here, we run into all the nasty body fluids and those can cause some very nasty and unpleasantness." Joan said that now finished taking every towel she used and tossing them into a large laundry bin, they would all be taken and washed in very hot watch, bleach, and anything else needed.

Vareth watches Joan do the cleaning with a look of both skepticism and wonder. He can't seem to help himself but say, "Why not have the corpse do the cleaning? Surely you do not need to...." Vareth trails off as he seems to realize something. He continues after a moment and says, "My apologies. Obviously, if you did not wish to be doing it you would not, Thanadule." He stays quiet after that, allowing her to spread the potions on his wound.

Joan shot Vareth a look that seemed to say, 'are you serious', "Well because one all corpses carry nasty germs, viruses as well as any sort of terrible diseases. Any good healer worth their rank knows this. When you go to treat open wounds, you want to make the area as sterile as possible to cut down on bacteria. It's just something we healers get fussy about. But for good reason." Once finished Joan would return to the foot of her chosen steel table and her resting zombie upon it. "Okay I will put you to rest now, thank you very much for answering my summoning." Joan tells her peacefully resting zombie; it gives her a curt nod in acknowledgment before she speaks the words to put the zombie to rest. It slowly closes its eyes as a long exhale of breath follows the body now once more a plain old corpse to be used for the next necromancer that comes along.

Vareth stands up, watching Joan lay her zombie to rest with a keen eye. He walks over to his own creation, and murmurs "Blood to calls you to rest." The zombie, not having moved in a while, still doesn't move. Those who can sense it can tell that the spark of Necromancy animating it is gone. Vareth collects his books, storing them away properly before turning to Joan. He says, "I have learned several things today. My thanks for the lesson."

Joan said, "Yep, no problem. You can come here to study, stay, and practice if you prefer out here in Frostmaw. To head back just go to the portal house exit the opposite of how we came. Now if you will excuse me, I am off to the kitchen to make me a rather large mug of spiked hot cocoa. See you later Vareth!"