Night Has A Thousand Eyes [N for necromancy] (Eckhart_Von_Musel)

[quaggan]

 "Here lies a boy
Victim of pox
  They cleaned his corpse, put it in a box.
I'll let him stay in his grave
He's no zombie material.
Here lies Old Bess
Died of her age
At the play's end, she exited the stage.
Alas, she won't behave.
She's no zombie material."

Rhuneth was lucky to have found this cemetery. Gayatri warned her to stay away from the more popular, still visited grave sites - that could have ended up with her getting caught. The halfling believed she could handle herself - she still had one capable ghoul at her side, after all. She wasn't some amateur that only started replenishing her group after she's run out of undead! And this overgrown, abandoned graveyard was perfect for her purposes. No one would miss a few dead bodies from here, would they?

"There is the tomb of the family Wright
By this pile of rubble and stone.
Should I raise Uncle William?
He was a knight...
Cut in half?
Maybe not.
Not the one..."

She prepared the ritual tools already and was ready to raise the moment she got her perfect zombie-to-be. The ghoul bedecked in ruffles and ribbons, Annie, was following her dutifully, ready to carry the chosen body to the summoning circle. Her arms were not strong enough to dig her future friend out of the grave, but that was Rhuneth's responsibility. While the main purpose of her grave robbing excursions was making friends, sometimes she found a thing so nice and handy that she just had to take it along. Two of those surprise treasures was a dress she wore, pastel green with ribbons tied in the shapes of flowers; and the ring on her thumb. It was clearly designed for a hand with bigger fingers, but she was more interested in the enchantment than its appearance. When the probably fake gemstone was depressed, the spell created a large phantasmal paw that followed the movements of the wearer's hand, but with greater strength. It was a perfect tool to dig up a grave!

Perhaps I'll bring her back from the dead,
Maybe this one
Or one over here.
She was executed,
For political crime.
But zombie have no need for a head
I'll just put a cute hat on her short neck.
Wrap some ribbons around
Wash away dirt and grime..."

She stopped singing. Something was moving near the entrance, and it wasn't Annie. Had she miscalculated? Was this cemetery still visited by people? That put her in a pickle.

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

Wallace cursed softly under his breath as he untangled a thorny vine from his robe. The path leading to Southpine's now-defunct graveyard was so overgrown with cats briar that it may as well been invisible- and that was during the daytime. With only the full moon to light his way, the young necromancer could only stumble blindly through the brambles and hope that he didn't poke his eyes on the surrounding thorns.

It was, sadly, the price he had to pay for solitude. It was through sheer dumb luck that he'd even heard of this cemetary- all the others nearby were well traveled and in some cases guarded. Places like this were few and far between, and were often considered safe havens for the few necromancers who knew of their existance. It was especially important for Wallace- he didn't get to practice raising human corpses very often, and he relished every opportunity he got.

Unfortunately, it seemed that tonight he wouldn't be alone.

Finally stumbling into the graveyard, Wallace was met by a thoroughly unexpected sound- singing. The man froze, brambles still hanging off his clothes. He instinctively clutched his stave to his chest, a faint light eminating from it's centerpiece. "H-hello?" he called out timidly, gingerly stepping forwards. "Is-is somebody there?"

"Please don't be a ghost, please don't be a ghost..."

[quaggan]

 Rhuneth usually relied on her keen halfling senses to get around during the night. Light was always nice, but it might draw attention - and while she usually managed to get herself out of trouble, Gayatri advised her not to draw howling lynch mobs' attention. Every now and then, she would stumble upon something she failed to notice, but fortunately Annie was there to catch her. She was such a sweetheart.

The person who just entered the graveyard was too big to be a halfling, and probably needed a source of light, as evidenced by the glow surrounding his staff. The staff was a relief to see, and not only because it gave her a good look on its owner. It clearly marked the big human as a fellow mage - perhaps even a fellow necromancer who came here for the same purpose!

Rhuneth liked to think the best of people she's just met. Even if this human would end up hostile, it was no excuse to be unnecesarily rude! "Hello!" she called, giving Annie a signal to move her quietly as soon as she finished speaking. No use giving away her position. "Are you also here for the corpses? I'm sure there's enough for both of us! Unless you want everyone here for your army... Are you amassing an army?"

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

"Another necromancer?" Wallace blinked, then sighed in relief. He relaxed his shoulders, lowering his stave as he made his way deeper into the cemetary. After nearly a year of running from people who wanted to see him dead, the opportunity to meet somebody who wouldn't chase him away was... refreshing.

"Nah, armies hurt people." he called back, looking around for the source of the voice. "Hurting people is wrong. I'm just here for the practice, all the other burial grounds are too crowded." The man squinted- there was nobody to be seen, friendly or not. "...Hello? Where are you?

[quaggan]

 Rhuneth cocked her head. If the big one avoided everything that hurt people, he would best become a hermit. "If you don't like people getting hurt, I recommend being careful. My poor ghoul tripped on one already looted grave site and fell."

Such a pacifist probably wouldn't be a threat. The necromancer decided to come out of her hiding place, motioning Annie to follow. Since she already mentioned the ghoul, not showing her might be suspicious. They walked up to the big one - probably a human, judging by the shape of his ears and the colour of his skin. "Pick me up" she requested. Her minion obediently held out her arms, leaning down. Rhuneth took the makeshift seat as Annie lifted her up so that she'd be closer to the human's eye level. No need to get a neck spasm from looking up at him.

"My name is Rhuneth!" she announced, swinging her legs. "What's yours?"

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

Wallace scrunched his face in confusion. Could there be people out there who were as much opposed to accidential injury as he was to deliberate harm? He'd always considered stuff like tripping and accidentially burning yourself on the stove to be just another part of life, not something that had to be eliminated. "Strange..."

"Uh, I..." he began, than stopped when two figures stepped out of the shadows- one carrying the other. The necromancer blinked. "Is... is this a child?" he thought, suddenly rather concerned. "She must be a noble's daughter or something, normal people don't wear stuff like that..."

"I'm, uh, Wallace." he said, awkwardly extending his hand to shake. "Wallace Hope." His head tilted to the side. "You're, uh, out awfully late, aren't you?"

[quaggan]

 Was it awfully late? She didn't know - she used to have a nice pocket watch, taken from one of the corpses that became her friends. It was broken and didn't work anyway, but looked nice.

"Annie, do you know the time?" she asked. The ghoul didn't respond - of course, she never showed any ability to read the stars or keep track of hours. And her vocal chords have probably already decayed. Those sensitive body parts were always the first to go.

"Must have lost the track of time" she admitted. "Why, how late is it?"

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

Wallace stared blankly at the girl in front of him, shifting on his feet uncomfortably. Why did this have to be so awkward? "Um..." he mumbled, half-heartedly pointing at the position of the moon in the sky. "Uh, kinda late..."

[quaggan]

 Rhuneth looked up at the moon. She couldn't estimate the time from that, and neither could Annie, so there was nothing else to do but to trust the human. "I guess it was pretty irresponsible of me to choose this time for activity, especially with only one ghoul to protect me, but I was hoping to raise a little more. Then I could put my new friends on guard while I slept. I was thinking of camping in the mausoleum over there" she indicated a small building, so overgrown that it resembled a hill from far away. "It doesn't look like anyone's visiting it frequently. Unless there's a vampire inside. Maybe I should have prepared for this better, harvested some blood to trade."

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

Wallace scratched the back of his head. "Yeah... irresponsible..."

"This is so weird...."

"Well I mean, I came here to raise- make new friends too." the young man said, trying his hardest to sound upbeat. "I suppose, if you're with an..." He gave the girl one last look before giving up. "Um... how old are you?"

"Oh no, what if she's just oneof those undead who turned at a young age? Kia, this is gonna be so awkward..."

[quaggan]

 This was a question Rhuneth heard asked quite a lot of times, although she always wondered the point of it. "Let me count..." she began. It was very weird that people asked this directly to the one in question, since most species did not have memory good enough to remember the early years. "That will be... four, they said four... plus twelve... plus eight... plus one... Twenty five, I think. With an error margin of two years" she added. It was a thing she heard some scholars say whenever they were not certain. "Do you humans have some kind of an internal clock that tells one how old they are? That sounds quite useful."

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

"You humans..."

Wallace paused, then widened his eyes in understanding. "Oh. Ohhhhhhhh..." he said, nodding slowly. "Um, no. No we don't."

"Kia, I'm so stupid..."

"Uh, I'm twenty-two..." the man said, shifting on his feet uncomfortably. "It's um, nice to meet another necromancer my age..."

[quaggan]

 "It's nice to meet you too!" she repeated. She had to learn appropriate courtesies of the other countries - Thanatos tried very hard to stand out from the rest. Probably because of the history, and not being as ancient as the big three, let alone Essyrn. "Is it rare to find necromancers our age? Maybe it is - my master is getting old by human standards, has crossed the big fifty..." She imagined the biggest problem would be not finding a fellow young adept of the arts, but finding one that would admit to it. It was weird how almost every major place had some sort of stupid bias against them - even Serendipity, Le'raana's capital of magic, was being annoyingly old-fashioned about it. Was there any place where she could raise a corpse or two without having to deal with a hassle of howling mobs? Perhaps Adela - she's heard that magic was considered girly there, so she shouldn't have trouble with that. Although the mental image of some necromancer boys putting on dresses and wigs so that they could conduct their business was quite funny.

A strange sound burbled from within Annie. Had it come from a living being, it would have been probably taken as a burp or a grumbling stomach, but ghouls had no digestive processes that could have caused it. "Oh no!" the halfling exclaimed, leaping down to take a closer look at her friend. "Must be some putrefactive gas! Here, let me fix you..."

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

"She didn' t notice! Thank the gods...

Wallace smiled in relief, scratching the back of his head. "Well I mean, it's sort of a- eugh." The man winced as an awful sound came from the ghoul, instinctively stepping back. "...An old person thing. Half the necromancers I've met were already dead themselves!"

Wallace paused, tilting his head. "Erm... would you like help dealing with that?" Cleaning out zombies was something his father had made him do as child, so it wasn't a process he was unfamiliar with.

[quaggan]

 "You'd help? Thank you!" she exclaimed, a big smile lighting up her face. "Annie's big so it takes longer to clean her up. I used to have Lyssie to assist, but she broke down three days ago. She didn't make the jump and broke too many bones when she fell. Poor Annie. I tried to put her together again, but couldn't find enough of her. Maybe if I had some glue..."

The halfling's torrent of words were stopped as she was forced to take in a breath. She tapped the ghoul on the hip, about to give her an command, but changed her mind quickly. "Oh right, Wallace is about your size" she commented. "You don't have to get down. Just pick me up- actually, don't. Something might rupture badly." The necromancer hiked her ruffly shirts up and began to climb a nearby overturned statue.

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

Wallace frowned. "Aw. I'm sorry to hear that." he said understandingly-loosing a favorite zombie could be like loosing a favorite pet sometimes. "I used to have a snake skeleton that I'd re-animate for stuff, but parts of the midsection kept falling out. Eventually he just got too short to do anything..."

The necromancer circled the ghoul apprehensively, inspecting it. "So do you use ghouls so you don't have to re-animate them every time?" he asked, scratching his nose. "You don't have trouble with, er, living folk? The perfume can prob'ly only mask the smell for so long..."

[quaggan]

 That poor snake skeleton! Rhuneth's face scrunched in sympathy. A snake skeleton would be even harder to repair than a humanoid undead - no common sources of corpses, catching one could be risky and very dependant on the climate. And even though tying some of its bones together with a ribbon or even just a piece of string could work as a temporary measure, it could easily break or snag on something. She learned it the hard way.

Rhuneth pulled out her sewing kit (a necessity for any active girl that insisted on wearing fancy dresses) and jumped down to get started on a nasty gash down Annie's leg. It wasn't even a battle wound, just a result of some carelessness. They took a swim in the river (zombies were very fun swimmers, all those putrefying gases kept them easily afloat) and the poor dear cut herself on a sharp rock.

"The smell? Well, most living folk wash themselves, so that helps with the smell, and if they don't, I can always breathe through my mouth!" she announced proudly. "Oh, you meant corpse smell! In this case, when it gets too suspicious, I just avoid settlements. Though there's no such problem in Hyoite - the cold usually freezes bodies, so people there aren't used to it and most wouldn't suspect undead to begin with. And their huts are built to keep the warmth in and the cold out, so they don't have a lot of fresh air inside, and there's plenty of stink - one more source of smell won't be noticed. I could sometimes bring friends along, wrapped securely in cloth, and no one questioned."

[Eckhart_Von_Musel]

Wallace nodded, watching the miniscule woman begin to patch up an ugly gash on Annie's thigh. The man pulled a worn-down candle out of his robe pocket and lit it, crouching down so as to provide a better light for Rhuneth. "Hyoite? Are you from there?" he asked, laying his stave on the ground. He scratched at his cheek with his free hand. "I've never even been to the southern provinces, I can't even imagine traveling from country to country..."

[quaggan]

 "I am!" she confirmed. The veracity of such statement didn't even seem questionable to her - he asked where she has lived before, and Hyoite was the true answer. "Well, if you ever want to travel, I can recommend not going there. Yes, snow is nice, but I'm sure here at Serendipity you get enough every winter. If you're feeling super impatient and can't wait, I suppose Hyoite would work, but it's pretty much a one trick zombie, there isn't much to see. It's a very boring place."

She finished stitching up the gash and fluffed Annie's skirt back in place. "Since you've spent most of your life here in the local provinces, does it mean you know a lot about this area? Unless you humans are one of those races that reach maturity super soon and you've only been here for a month or so..."