Re: Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 1: The Great Catacombs]
11-03-2011, 03:39 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Jacquerel.
The quaint little town reminded Vhaegar a fair bit of home, if he ignored the strange machinery, not the manor he'd lived in for the umpteen years since he'd managed to sidestep around death but the one he'd lived in as a kid and grown up in, and later the one he'd studied The Craft in. The houses had been similarly built and arranged, though there was a lot more glass and metal around than he would have thought possible outside the house of a very rich man and he couldn't see any people, but it was also apparently quite a late hour and there was snow on the ground so nobody in their right mind would want to be outside.
The familiarity was quite comforting and he was very glad for that, he needed it right now.
Since shuffling off the mortal coil and onto some other slightly different metaphorical spring, Vhaegar had become somewhat familiar with how the inner workings of the body looked (the rituals involved had been fairly unpleasant, and once he got tired of refreshing the enchantments that kept his flesh around he got to experience the decay first hand) and he'd even been killed a few times by wandering adventurers.
The deaths had never been real though, they were just a performance. He had been incapable of dying so there was no actual risk involved, and he always made sure he left no lasting harm on his attackers (even if he did occasionally wake up from temporary oblivion to find out that someone had put his house to the torch before leaving). The point is, he'd never been close to a death that had meant anything, at least not the death of a person, and for this one he felt at least a little responsible.
He had thought the boy was harmless.
A bit weird obviously, not all there in the head, but not dangerous either.
Yes, he'd swung his sword at Vhaegar when they first met and that hadn't been fun but he was sort of used to that reaction. He was essentially a pretty harmless old man who wanted to sit at home and read books but people still went out of their way to try and stick swords into him, it didn't surprise him in the least that a young man's first reaction after seeing him emerge from a darkened corridor filled with the walking dead was to draw a weapon. In fact he had been surprised that Talmadge had revised his opinion quite so quickly.
That just made the fact that he'd been wrong sting more.
Why had he tried to kill the kid? That boy looked practically dead already, he didn't need any help, and Vhaegar was pretty good at spotting these things. He couldn't possibly have caused any harm to anyone...
And on top of that, his pigeon was missing again. He wasn't sure it had even made the transition with him from the treasure room. It certainly wasn't good pigeon weather in any case, if it was around he hoped it had found somewhere warm to roost because he didn't really want to find out if a dead pigeon worked as a phylactery as well as a live one did.
Of course as this was the narratively appropriate moment, there was a muted cooing noise from between his ribs and a feathered head poked itself out from within his ribcage, nudged a strip of fabric out of the way and stared up at him with an unreadable avian expression drawn across its beak. He managed to grab hold of it before it had got more than ten yards away, clutching it delicately but firmly in one skeletal fist.
"And it's about time too, blasted thing.
I am really going to need a more permanent solution than this..."
He was so caught up with musing how he could keep the thing around without having to hold onto a struggling bird the whole time that he didn't notice the intricately decorated golden ring it had clutched tightly in its little talons.
The ring told the bird it should hold still and wait. It's time would come soon.
The quaint little town reminded Vhaegar a fair bit of home, if he ignored the strange machinery, not the manor he'd lived in for the umpteen years since he'd managed to sidestep around death but the one he'd lived in as a kid and grown up in, and later the one he'd studied The Craft in. The houses had been similarly built and arranged, though there was a lot more glass and metal around than he would have thought possible outside the house of a very rich man and he couldn't see any people, but it was also apparently quite a late hour and there was snow on the ground so nobody in their right mind would want to be outside.
The familiarity was quite comforting and he was very glad for that, he needed it right now.
Since shuffling off the mortal coil and onto some other slightly different metaphorical spring, Vhaegar had become somewhat familiar with how the inner workings of the body looked (the rituals involved had been fairly unpleasant, and once he got tired of refreshing the enchantments that kept his flesh around he got to experience the decay first hand) and he'd even been killed a few times by wandering adventurers.
The deaths had never been real though, they were just a performance. He had been incapable of dying so there was no actual risk involved, and he always made sure he left no lasting harm on his attackers (even if he did occasionally wake up from temporary oblivion to find out that someone had put his house to the torch before leaving). The point is, he'd never been close to a death that had meant anything, at least not the death of a person, and for this one he felt at least a little responsible.
He had thought the boy was harmless.
A bit weird obviously, not all there in the head, but not dangerous either.
Yes, he'd swung his sword at Vhaegar when they first met and that hadn't been fun but he was sort of used to that reaction. He was essentially a pretty harmless old man who wanted to sit at home and read books but people still went out of their way to try and stick swords into him, it didn't surprise him in the least that a young man's first reaction after seeing him emerge from a darkened corridor filled with the walking dead was to draw a weapon. In fact he had been surprised that Talmadge had revised his opinion quite so quickly.
That just made the fact that he'd been wrong sting more.
Why had he tried to kill the kid? That boy looked practically dead already, he didn't need any help, and Vhaegar was pretty good at spotting these things. He couldn't possibly have caused any harm to anyone...
And on top of that, his pigeon was missing again. He wasn't sure it had even made the transition with him from the treasure room. It certainly wasn't good pigeon weather in any case, if it was around he hoped it had found somewhere warm to roost because he didn't really want to find out if a dead pigeon worked as a phylactery as well as a live one did.
Of course as this was the narratively appropriate moment, there was a muted cooing noise from between his ribs and a feathered head poked itself out from within his ribcage, nudged a strip of fabric out of the way and stared up at him with an unreadable avian expression drawn across its beak. He managed to grab hold of it before it had got more than ten yards away, clutching it delicately but firmly in one skeletal fist.
"And it's about time too, blasted thing.
I am really going to need a more permanent solution than this..."
He was so caught up with musing how he could keep the thing around without having to hold onto a struggling bird the whole time that he didn't notice the intricately decorated golden ring it had clutched tightly in its little talons.
The ring told the bird it should hold still and wait. It's time would come soon.