Fable - Ask Following the trail of bones

They walked a while, the only sound between them the grinding of bones sinking into the earth like giant spades.

Finally, when Radu was out of sight, beyond hills of carcasses and workers, did she speak. She didn't know how far his inhuman ears might reach, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

"You have been swift to commit yourself to service." Too quick, her frown said. "But you should know what manner of creature you are binding yourself to, before you do so. What do they call you?"

Lazarus Jeager
Radu Basarab

Lazarus followed in silence until he was spoken too, more so out of an understanding that this woman was gaining distance for a reason, it was clear she wanted to talk about the entity she was in league with. Turning to her as she spoke, Lazarus would give her his full attention, meeting her gaze with that ever present smile.

"What do they call me? I suppose Occultist and Necromancer would fit the bill enough. If you are asking my name I gave that to you earlier, I have been known to be called a Curseborn by family and those who are like me..." Pulling the sleeves of his robes back he would offer her a look at the markings and symbols that stretched across his body, an ancient curse of some kind thrumming with magical energy that felt far older than himself. Letting the sleeves fall back down, Lazarus would take off the skull adorning his face and look at her plainly now, running his thin fingers through ebony locks to keep them from his face.

"you are correct, I do not know the full extent of the being I have offered my services too, and yet you have pledged yourself to him in apprenticeship even knowing what he is, or at least having some idea of what he is. Your concern does not go unnoticed or unappreciated by the way, I do wish to stay alive for a while longer so if I've made a grave error I'd like to know." His tone was appreciative and welcoming, amber eyes honest as he spoke with her, no ill intentions or misdirection.

Radu Basarab Archanae

Archanae eyed Lazarus for a long moment. Sifting his eloquent words for the truth between them.

"Curseborn, you say? I think I have heard the term." She adjusted her shawls before her, as if gathering her meagre cloth in protection against the hostile environment. "I have indeed pledged myself. For that which I seek he possesses. He is a fascimile of immortality. Amortal flesh sculpted for abnormal digestion and such a font of flowing necromancy as to make him akin to a maelstrom. A devourer of souls and flesh, first to eat his own spirit and mortality, then the world. However, as a servant of Halch, he gains these powers from another. Something even more terrible than him." Her cinnamon eyes seemed to flash blue with eerie clarity for a split second. "Ultimately, you risk being sucked in by this dark vortex. As do I."

Her whole face turned piercing; honed in to a point on his now-revealed face. Those honest and warm features. Too amiable to be true. Sifting, sifting.

"So what warrants such a risk for you? What is it you seek?"

Lazarus Jeager

'Hm, immortality and power, why must people strive for such an existence...' Lazarus thought to himself while Archanae explained the situation in more detail, for the most part it wasn't far off from what he had assumed going into this, though it was good to know exactly what higher being had created such an individual, and now he had a name, Halch. Her motives were clear and laid out plainly, something that surprised Lazarus to hear her say, though it would appear she wanted more than just the vague answers he had given thus far.

"I wish I could tell you that my reasons were the same as yours, unfortunately as someone who has walked the world in a body that should have expired long ago, I cannot in good faith lie to you like that. I am cursed with longevity, at the cost of my vitality as a whole, if you couldn't tell from my appearance." It was true, if she looked at his arms and his face, his neck, all the things that the robe couldn't hide, it would be apparent that he held little muscle. It was as if his body had been kept with just enough to keep him from being crippled in a way, but it was obvious that if he so much as tried to pick up a sword he would be left looking something of a fool for trying.

"I have searched for some time for a solution to my problem, and every upturned stone leaves me with more frustrations. If he has some answer to my plight then I shall stay to find it, what he is capable of in just what I have seen alone gives me cause to stay." A pause, and for a moment the smile would falter. "I am also looking to be on the winning side of what would be the reckoning of this land at his hands. I have lived long enough to know that one must choose the winning side to ally themselves with in any war, and there will be war, given the ambitions he has..." The look in his eyes as he spoke gave the impression that he was older than his appearance led to believe, though that same smile would return after a moment more.

"I understand the dangers of being so close to a natural disaster such as that man, I also understand that if I place myself elsewhere I may be called to take arms up against him. when the ruling class tell you to fight or die, you take up arms, but when you see that death awaits you on such a battlefield, you look for other options. I wish for enough power to be able to exist comfortably, no more, no less."

Archanae

Comfortable existence. Those two words lingered in her stance, like a pair of irritating sea urchin spines, stuck in either foot, forcing her to move them restlessly; stalking like a cougar around him, away from him and then right back. On the way, she stroked Maldragos' clay, who had caught up to them. Still, his presence couldn't calm her overwrought nerves.

*Comfort*. How she despised that word. Ambition and tenacity withered before its lacklustre allure. Its mere utterance sharpened her fingers with the need for ferocity.

Many, if not most, chose comfort over aspiration. Such as the members of her tribe choosing the path of least resistance; the path of self-satisfied tradition and blissful ignorance. And where would they be, at the end of such a path?

Among dust and bones. Discarded on a great heap of graves, such as this one. Same outcome. Comfort was how divinity manipulated mankind to settle for their short-lived fate.

As he poured out his intentions and his cursed state, increasingly, she hoped he was lying. Hoped he was attempting at some manner of manipulation. For if this was the truth . . .

It would be too pathetic for her to stomach.

"Exist comfortably," she couldn't help but sneer in derisive repetition. "I expected better from a fellow adept of the Art. But if what you seek is to end your tortured state, why not simply seek oblivion?" She pointed disdainfully in the direction of where they had come from -- in the direction of Radu. "I am certain the Herald could oblige in that regard. After all, if you desire a common life, it ends on the same monotonous note. What difference does a few decades make from none?"

Lazarus

It was clear that his explanation was not to her liking, if her actions were any indication of her mood, amber eyes following her as she stalked too and fro like that of an animal around something it might consider prey. Lazarus had to stop himself from making a comment regarding the apparant animosity in her tone, the look in her eyes along with the clambering hulk of clay kept his tongue stilled in this moment. Allowing her to speak her piece in frustration, Lazarus would listen but turn his attention to the creation that had followed its maker, eyeing it pensively.

"Tell me, have you suffered through a sickness that should by every right take you from this mortal coil, not by your own choosing, but by something that refuses to let you succumb? Starvation, dehydration, snapping of limbs healed by your own magics, but that of something older, something ancient. I have suffered enough for a handful of lifetimes, it is not sin for me to wish to be able to go one winter without the dread of knowing if I so much as step foot outside I'll likely be bedridden for weeks. The power you seek comes at a cost I do not believe you fully understand, tell me, do you even know if that being is the same man as when it was once human?" Lazarus would wave his hand in the same direction she had just a moment before, though while her words seemed to ooze with malice, his would instead land somewhere between annoyance and concern.

"You do not know what that man is, what he has become, if he is even the same as before the event that changed him into such a maelstrom of power. You said it yourself, he serves an even greater and more ominous entity, is that what I should be striving for? I may not wish to chase immortality such as you do, but that does not mean I will be content rotting away in a cottage at the edge of the world doing nothing, oblivion can have me when I am good and ready for it." He couldn't speak the truth out loud to this woman, knowing that even giving the hint of his true nature to her could very well be the end of him from what she has displayed to him thus far. There were things about this world that he could and world effect if given the chance, but given the state of things he had to grant himself certain assurances, ones he wouldn't get if left to oppose a being such as him.

"I intend to do plenty more than just 'exist', but survival is required to do that, and vitality to travel more than half of the years time would afford me the ability to do that. If you wish to judge me for that then so be it, but do not lump me in with the royalty that sits getting fat in their castles doing nothing more than squawking at their knights and beating their peasants." By the end of his little rant Lazarus would be left panting and almost out of breathe, a few beads of sweat forming around his brow as he would stumble before righting himself. In this moment it would be clear just how weak his constitution was, and the gleam in his gaze as he stared at her, brows furrowed in discontent, would do much to convey the determination he had for wanting such a vitality that he clearly did not have.

Archanae

Radu's intrusion clamped Archanae's mouth shut. She had lost her temper at Lazarus' exposition. It must have been the fault of her nerves; overwrought with tension like old ship ropes, too strained from her spending time with the Herald of Halch's corrupting influence.

No matter. Work would bring back equilibrium to her humours. It would dampen the spitting choleric spirits of her past, riled up by her fellow necromancer's sentiments.

Briskly, she nodded and walked away, little courtesy afforded to either, and set to work. From Radu's aerial view, it would be apparent that Maldragos would already dig trenches, laying the foundations for stone structures to be inscribed with runes. Runes that she would have to power later with crystals of significant brilliance -- such was the way of her art. And that brilliance would come from trapped psyches, either deceased or living. She was certain to find a ripe field here of such.

And while Maldragos digged, Archanae would make a dredge of her own. Beckoning one of the smaller, working skeletons with her own manipulative magic, soon enough, she would have an undead creature within proximity of about her own size. A creature she would be able to study for its tether to the Mortis Engine.

Raw fuel notwithstanding, she would need a sanctuary here. At least something temporary. Promptly, Archanae set to work after acquiring her skeletal subject, writhing and twisting earth around her through arcane means to build herself a hovel, of sorts. A simple hut of desecrated earth wherein she could shape a hearth, and eventually sent out her servant to gather her firewood. She would need to write down wards as well to attempt to preserve herself from the life-twisting miasma rising from the earth itself.

All while she worked, she chewed on what she had seen and heard so far. In spite of being surrounded by peers in her craft, she found them as small-minded as most souls she had met so far. Self-interested. Obsessed with their own thrift and survival, and little else.

But they both contained pieces of the key she needed. Both had discovered ways of living beyond their allotted time -- intentionally or otherwise. Yes, she would need to wrench these secrets from them. In good time. She would have to control her temper and not show her true intentions. Pretend at alliance, while forging her own designs. For now she knew, neither of them could share her vision for mankind.

A vision where humanity no longer bowed before death.

Lazarus Jeager
Radu Basarab

The mere fact that Lazarus wasn't some form of paste on the wastelands they stood upon was a grace in and of itself, looking up to the sound knowing full well what his eyes would find. In a desolate land filled with the undead and exactly three people, or at least two and a Herald of Halch, there was no question who it was. Given how Archanae made quick work of removing herself from the situation, and the stare from on high, Lazarus would give a bow and excuse himself to the work demanded of him.

A low whistle held out for a handful of seconds as he returned the mask to his face, and a waving of arms would be his form of communing with the undead that hobbled and meandered about looking for commands. "Come come, there is much to be done! Start with the perimeter and we will work our way in, bring any and all cadavers you find to the center, if it is too large to carry come find me!" Not unlike a home builder to his workers, the necromancer would begin delegating work to be done, in mere minutes he would have an efficiency to the process that would put the living to shame. Between all the undead there seemed to be six to seven groups depending on the given task, two of them coming together to form one larger group when needed for excavating larger remains. One group was left with the sole task of finding, or crafting from what was around, more tools when one would inevitably break. Lazarus himself could be found on the outmost perimeter specified by Radu, an old bone retrieved from within the confines of his robe in hand.

Pulling the sleeves of his robe back and pinning them at the shoulder, Lazarus would pierce himself on both forearms with the stake like bone, muttering to himself in a long dead language while a pair of the undead took various bones, branches, sticks, broken weapons, anything they could use really, and drove them into the ground at the perimeter like a marker. While not a task given to him be Radu, a task he would undertake while commanding the undead nonetheless. As they planted the objects Lazarus would allow his blood to drip onto them, his chanting steady as he focused his mind and body to become more of a conduit for the specific type of magic he would be performing. A pinch of the energy that seeped from the land here was taken, but the majority of the magic that one might find while he worked would come from something else, something closer to the energy that pulsed from the markings across his body. Once dripping with blood, the items in question would being to petrify and crack, eventually shattering into nothing more than piles of dust and stone, in their a symbol carved into ground that would glow faintly before disappearing all together.

the fact that he was left to work instead of being eviscerated immediately meant that either Radu hadn't heard the full breadth of their conversation, or he simply cared not for what was spoken. It likely didn't matter what their opinions of him were, but it helped to know he would survive speaking about the man, provided he wasn't overtly disrespectful or condescending, even gods smite those who deface them brazenly. As such Lazarus would provide a service without request, the task he was working to complete was one of caution. the symbols vanishing behind him, once completed by the circumference of the workspace, would connect to form an alarm system of sorts, one that would allow for the immediate recognition of anyone not permitted across its threshold to those currently within it. this would work for the living and dead alive, as with each muttered phrase the necromancer was adding another entity to the list of permissions. At some point he would have to stop for a break, his wounds having ceased their bleeding as the curse worked to fix his body, Lazarus himself stopping to replenish himself as well. A meal of cured meats, an assortment of nuts, and what looked like dried blood sausage would be consumed to restore the iron and help him produce more blood to continue the ritual. From his spot he could make out that Archanae had made some sort of dwelling for herself, the golem working independently.

Archanae Radu Basarab