Atharen, A Fantasy Roleplay Forum

Posted: **Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:23 am**

68th of Frost, 4621

Tracks. Laid out in a trail through the tall grass. The impression of some weight moving through the field as it was parted like the cleave of meat that he sought. The sun was at its highest point in the sky; there was no shortage of light to help him find his way.

The subject of his hunt? Antelope, he believed. He'd found some feces while on the prowl for meat, and believed he'd found the trail of some animal leading away from the site. All he had to do was catch up as quietly as possible, then deliver the killing blow.

Step by step, he quietly made his way through the same tracks the beast had made and inspected the flattened grass on his way through. He found subtle bends toward the bottoms of each blade, where extra pressure had been applied in groups. This, he imagined, was created by the weight of the antelope, and the rigid edge of their feet. Occasionally he sniffed at the air in hopes of catching a hint of the beast he sought, and when he found it, he quietly closed the gap.

Not quite an antelope, he realized. In its stead, he found a herd of impalas... Not unlike the one he'd encountered while traveling some couple of months ago. Quietly, Arkash crawled as close as he could to the edge of the brush without being seen. His darker scales did wonders to give him away against the pale yellow of the dried grass. When one of them lifted their head and turned to stare in his direction with those black eyes, he knew it was over.

As quick as a flash, he bolted from the grass and launched himself toward the herd without a second of pause. Quickly, he drew his black sword and brought himself to collide with the nearest impala just as chaos and confusion broke out through the herd.

A spatter of red on the dried earth was quickly followed by a second spray, and the flow of shadows away from the scene danced across the pale grass.

He only brought one of the impalas back with him, though. The other was a quick meal in the wild. The one that he dragged by the feet would serve as material to repair Vesper's wounds. Quietly, he drew it into the mouth of the cave and clambered down the slope with its full weight in tow. There came a point where Arkash was afraid its hide would become caught on a stalagmite if he was to drag it any further, so, with great difficulty, he lifted the beast onto his shoulders and carried it along to rest beside his Necromancy kit.

There laid Vesper upright against a stalagmite, draped in his poncho.

Again, Arkash checked the feline's breathing for any abnormalities, then sighed in relief when he found none. He imagined the cat would be waking up soon, so he made haste with his work. Quickly, he severed, and ground up a piece of the antelope with the Mortar and Pestle to create more Sinew foam, then scraped the milky white paste into the Sinew Gun, which he'd emptied closing a few other wounds that had gone unnoticed during the initiation. Vesper's thigh, cheek, and back all still needed to be repaired.

Quietly, he crouched before the sleeping feline and lifted his poncho a bit to expose the leg wound. Using sway, he unblocked the coagulated slash. As he began to bleed again, Arkash began to fill the empty space with Sinew Foam, slowly but surely.

Image source.

Posted: **Thu Jan 27, 2022 2:46 am**

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Necromancy
Unraveling the Burdens of Flesh.

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That unconscious little feline had seen better days. His gleaming fur was matted in places, stained dark red or smelling of such wherever Arkash hadn’t flecked the dried blood from his hide. There were many micro cuts all over his body that were too bothersome to repair, and who knows how many internally.

He’d been dreaming, his evolving nightmares pervading those who visited his slumbering mind. There was an elf who’d chased him through his dreams only to himself be swallowed by the very shadow beasts that plagued Vesper’s Memory Palace. It seemed strange how just existing could harm so many who wandered into his mind through Reverie.

“Oo-ooa-oah,” Vesper groaned softly. His tightly-clenched eyelids trembled before they flicked part-ways open.

Staring out over the gun manipulating his flesh, the cat’s lips tightened back for a grim smile. That little paw came up to rest upon his chest as he breathed inward, clutching at the ether-branded marking Arkash had instilled him with.

Everything hurt. Everything stung, and every little twitch felt like a painful ache. “Arkash... thank you,” he said. With a soft chuckle, he gave a rasping cough from the clotted bile of Mageblight plugging up his guts. “Chf! Now we know the Initiation can cause — internal — injury.” He tilted his head. “How did the operation go, on my lung?” He felt over himself, looking for the scar.

Once Arkash had finished repairing his leg, Vesper lifted his knees and hugged them with a soft shudder. “I’m eager to begin weaving with blood — I know I shouldn’t — but I need a distraction from this pain, so satisfy my curiosity with these tools. This is Necromancy?” he asked, peering over his legs and letting them fall. His tail furled and unfurled by his side, and he looked over the gun with intense curiosity. “It manipulates the ether of flesh, like an Artificing tool does with other material, yes?”

Posted: **Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:28 am**

"Easy," he said as Vesper began to stir, and lifted a claw to hold down on the little cat's shoulder. He finished filling in the wound with the likes of his pale skin, a bald spot in the shiny dark fur that covered the feline, then carefully set the gun down to take Vesper's chin with his other hand. There, he inspected the wound to the cat's cheek, then nodded. "Take it easy," he said again, then stood to move toward the doctor's bag. He drew a small sickle from its contents and returned to the feline's side at his knee.

A slight grin pulled at his lips. "Well, you tell me? I haven't repaired organs before, just transplanted them. Take a deep breath? Does it catch anywhere?" His pale eyes seemed to monitor Vesper through the motions before he returned to his work with the thigh wound. Easily, he shaved off the excess with the carving sickle and beheld a fresh layer of skin beneath that, perfectly evened to the shape of his leg. Arkash lowered his head to inspect the contours of flesh, shaved a couple more places, then lifted his head again when he was satisfied.

Upon his chest, Vesper would find no scar; the external repair was seamless. "It's alright," he spoke in regards to the thanks. "All in all, the operation took around six hours... It was intense," he said with a nod.

A laugh left his lips.

"Let's give it a few days before you start," he agreed. "I promise to show you everything in time, though," he swore again, a brief glance up at the feline.

Arkash then collected the Grafting needle and lined himself up before he said "hold still," and began to weave through the skin with the needle. The cells hadn't fully set, and the sensation wasn't nearly as severe as it otherwise would have been, but there was still a notable sting. When he was done, Arkash pulled on the needle, and all the visible Sinew Threads that were woven there seemed to vanish. In their place, hair follicles formed. It would take some time for them to grow his fur back, but Arkash believed he'd made it the right level of frequency and thickness.

"Sorta..." He began to explain with a wave of his hand. "Necromancy only partly manipulates flesh... I think most things I've learned revolve around creating flesh, moving flesh. Just manipulating it is a little difficult to do... very time-consuming, and painful." he explained with a roll of his claws.

A glance at the Sinew Gun saw the vial empty, and Arkash curled his nose a little. "I can give you some busy work if that will help, just try not to move too much?" he offered with an open claw. "I won't lie, I do feel a bit bad that the mark cut you inside... After I told you it doesn't do that. So if you want some Necromancy lessons too, I'd say that's the least I can do."

Image source.

Posted: **Sun Mar 06, 2022 1:47 pm**

The feline seemed to falter, fur standing on end as that claw settled upon a tender cut. Those yellow eyes like citrines tilted up at Arkash in the dim light of the cave. It was odd to Vesper, but he trusted Arkash' assessment of the operation, so he didn't bother touching it. Instead, he seemed more apt to explore his physician's body, those dainty black paw-like hands lifting to feel and touch at the rough, densely packed hide of scale beneath.

"Enigma beget enigma," hummed Vesper.

Letting his paw slide free, Vesper fought the fear of inhaling through such a hard wound. It stifled him. That barrier, he hid away, to a corner of his Mind Palace, but the logic prevailed. This would be dangerous. Vesper viewed the lung as a bladder or a bellows; any weakness remaining within the fragile structure, and it might break once more.

So he nodded.

And then his chest began to rise, eyes shuddering as a wince of pain ratcheted up his aching chest. The sinews holding together his flesh held firm, and nary a wheeze could be heard as he held his breath before passing out a long, wistful exhale. "No," he told Arkash.

The cat gripped his fists together as a fiery pain lanced up his wounded legs. His eyes shut tight. "H-h-hhk!" The intensity of those tools carved away swathes of his attentiveness as he visibly stiffened, the wound across his naked, inner thigh still laden with nerve endings that sang a very loud song. Yet, it wasn't as painful as it could be. It was the exposed nerve endings clashing amongst themselves that gave the feline such pain, not the tool by which his flesh was being tugged.

A laugh left his lips, imitating the mirth of Arkash.

"Six hours?" Vesper smirked. "A real Necrodoctor would have billed a fortune for this. And your art; it's not that bad."

"Mmh, that may be for the best. I can feel the malaise of Mageblight from the initiation still coursing through me." He needed to eat, and he needed to jam his own fingers down his throat. Soon. "Did you save any of the mortal meat?" Vesper asked plainly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. There was really something wrong with this feline.

The second dance of a needle upon his flesh was nowhere near as bad as that sickle. The nerves had already been deadened in places, and the hot sting that rose towards his mind was inversely cathartic; Vesper liked small amounts of pain. He often tore out his own fur, or pinched himself until he bled. Feeling was better sometimes than feeling very little at all, and it helped to chrysalize his tattered mind towards new expression.

Vesper watched with morbid curiosity, taking note of the process. He enjoyed how the needle seemed to manipulate his body around the tool, weaving that compatible creation of sinew thread. "Mmh. Perhaps the ideal Necromancer is someone who has deadened his or her nerve endings to pursue greatness. If you think for a moment... once you know your body, you need only keep the nerves that tell you something is wrong. The crippling portion is unnecessary once you have the means to repair further damage that might be caused upon your person. The body becomes a machine at that point; you can fix it with spare parts. So why does the machine need to feel so profoundly in ways that do not assist its function?"

Lips curling back into a toothy smile, Vesper breathed in. "Anything that can happen, will happen. A wise Rathor once told me this. It is no fault of your own." Touching his lip, he teethed upon a claw before resting his hand upon a part of his leg that wasn't tender to the touch. His tail curled and twitched by his side; how could he refuse such a grand opportunity?

He put his hand upon the back of Arkash's, and then clasped it with his other, the gentle touch of his pads carrying an intimate warmth behind them as those eyes looked deeply into the lizard man's. "Arkash, it would be my honor to become your pupil," he said.

Posted: **Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:34 am**

For someone who'd just had open lung surgery, Vesper was rather lively. Arkash merely grinned as those paws felt his sleek hide, though his gaze didn't once meet the other Rath's. A breath of relief escaped his lungs when Vesper breathed with ease; the operation was successful. All the time he'd put into realigning the Sinew and measuring the depth was worth it, it seemed. "Good," he returned. "I was worried I'd fuck it up somehow."

A slight squint came from his eyes as he carved away at the flesh, but he didn't say anything of the pain Vesper suffered. His eyes focused a little harder and his deft claws moved with a little more caution. To some degree, he even slowed down, but he didn't stop. Arkash had a task, and in time he saw it through.

"Easy..." he said as he began to weave in the hair follicles, but again, didn't pause in the application of that pinching sting. When the thigh wound was done, he set the tool back in its bag and smiled briefly. "I suppose you're lucky then that A, I'm not a real Necrodoctor, and B, I eat for free." That same grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, sincere despite the gruesome reality behind his words cordial joke.

A deep breath flared his nostrils while he eyed the feline, then made a move after some second of hesitance. His leg lifted over and came to straddle the smaller rath's legs where he sat, placing Arkash directly before the Vesper. He nodded there, knowing the potency of mageblight with distinct familiarity. Vesper, possessing two marks, should have known that it was a bad idea to practice magic just after being initiated, but then... "Too ambitious for your own good," he reasoned with a smile, and took the cat's chin with his claws.

There, he turned the smaller rath's head to the side to expose that cheek wound and moved his hips to drag his bludgeon tail across the floor and pushed the Doctor's bag closer to himself. When he released Vesper's chin, he retrieved the needle again, then paused when his hand was taken.

The shine of his misty eyes seemed to brighten at the prospect, and the smile he carried returned. "Very well, my... Malpracticed student. I'll show you all about Sinew Foam after I get this cheek cut cleared up." Again, he seized the feline's chin, turned his head, and lowered his muzzle to make himself eye-level with the coagulated wound. He paused for half a second again, then parted his lip to drag his darkened, forked tongue across the forming scab with a sensation that was bound to sting.

"Hold still," he warned after withdrawing the slender muscle. The burning gash in Vesper's Cheek would begin to weep again, disturbed by the pressure of the reptile's tongue. Arkash swallowed, then put the Grafting Needle to the rim of the wound, and began to form Sinew Threads from one end of the gash to the other, weaving the corners of Vesper's opened skin together. At some points, he licked again to clear up the clotting and open the way for fresh skin to reclaim the space, and each time, he swallowed the flavor on his palette.

When he was done, Soft skin filled the space, complete with hair follicles. "I did get you some Elk, but those mages from last night? No, they're gone," he clarified with a slight frown.

Done with he cheek cut, Arkash lowered a little to become just-above eye level with the feline. "...How does that feel?" he asked with something of a knowing grin.

"And... About Remnomancy, Remnant... I'm due to be initiated in Nightfall soon. If the offer's still going, can we aim for a little after that?"

Image source.

Posted: **Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:53 pm**

To Vesper, pain was a distracting illusion. He likened it to how his Remnomancy created illusions that could trick a soul to harm itself with feedback. Everything ached, but it hardly crippled, and he knew enough to know that these injuries of the flesh would heal in time even if he aggravated them.

Those yellow eyes followed Arkash’s work, his mind working to ingrain little truths about Sinew Foam and the way it functioned. The Engrams that remained were clean-cut memories in full detail, burned and seared for clarity. It hurt, but the focus he employed to do this was a welcome distraction.

What complexity… weaving and stitching with flesh as the fabric, and the extrusion those tools posses; “remarkable,” said Vesper, before wincing at the words. “Err. In either case, I am very grateful for the tune-up, simple flesh engineer.”

Tightening his jaw, Vesper wondered aloud with his analytical mind. “So would any of those tools work with Blood Magic, I wonder? Is coagualated blood similar enough to flesh to be worked with the tool? Hm, hm.” He puffed his chest out suddenly, chuffing out a wheezed chuckle. “Ah, old habits. Science entails putting two and two together, and that was the mindset I took after following my… education.”

With the heavy weight of Arkash upon him, Vesper quieted down for a moment with an innocent smirk before he found himself face to face with the lizard. “Mhn~” he mumbled into the touch, eyes half-lidding as his head was turned aside, the sting of the tool apparent upon his hackles. This kind of touch was lovely. To be handled so!

“There is a certain pleasure in pain,” Vesper remarked as his head was turned the other way, not expecting that predatory strike of flesh against his open wound. “Rhhrk!” Were he not a Corvo, he might have complained about how unsanitary this was.

Fur standing on end, Vesper remained still as the Grafting Needle washed over him one final time, leaving his cheek more or less clear. True to his curse, the fur was ever lustrous, if damp from the man’s repeated swabs of that silken muscle that only seemed to draw him towards complacency with every drag.

“Ah…” Vesper said simply to the matter of food, mind lost in the moment. “It feels excellent, Arkash. Thank you.” He nodded. “After, then.” Leaning forward, Vesper took the Grafting Gun in his paws, feeling the weight of it against his pads and marveling over every surface. “It is not dissimilar to that of Artifice. The engravings are much the same,” he said. “One day I will know the art that manufactures these tools all the same.”

He lifted and lowered the gun a moment, then angled it down upon a very tiny scrape upon his arm hidden by fur. “Ill-application will scar, yes?” he asked before haphazardly touching the gun to his fur just as Arkash had, dragging it slowly across in a mimicry of speed and poise only someone skilled with other such tools could display.

Greyish skin blemished with dried blood remained behind. “Oh, hm. So how is the material made? This …Sinew foam?”

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2022 8:05 am**

A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth while he listened to the feline’s observations with half an ear. Most of his focus remained on the task in his claws while Vesper spoke of Blood Magic and Necromancy working together. “…Mmm, maybe,” he replied, thoughtlessly. “The most I’ve done with Blood Magic in Necromancy is stop the bleeding… I’d otherwise have to get some activators ready and constantly refill the patient’s veins with the stuff, just for them to bleed it out again mid-surgery… Such a waste,” he shook his head toward the end, and twisted the needle to activate the etheric threads.

At the comment of pleasure in pain, Arkash laughed darkly under his breath, but said nothing else on the matter. A sort of reminiscent smile pulled at his features while he thought elsewhere, ’cleaned’ the wound, then stitched it up with the correct composition of dermis, adipose tissue, and hair follicles.

Soon after, he lifted himself from the smaller Rath, nodded his head, then languidly turned to the cadaver with a sort of slouch to his neck. With ease, he pulled his claws and leeched from the carcass’s open wounds, then used the blight to sway a portion of the beast’s blood into his claws, and hardened it on contact. From there, the remaining blight was used to shape the portion of hardened blood into another dagger, which he used to sever one of the animal’s remaining legs. Mercilessly, he dug blade into fles and cut through the shoulde joint with a few wild hacking slashes to sever the various stringy tendons and muscles, then popped the bone free before he lifted it over his shoulder. As Vesper poised his question, Arkash asked a brief “hm?” Then turned to face the feline with a distinct urgency to the widening of his eyes and the rise of his brows.

“Whoa-whoa! Careful with that!” he called, but it was too late. Vesper had used the Sinew Gun on himself. Arkash squinted, watched in silence for a moment, then returned to kneel before the smaller man. “Yes, that’s Sinew Foam,” Arkash answered as he lowered the leg onto the Rath’s lap, then claimed the limb Vesper had just applied the gun to and inspected his work. A raise of his brows yielded a nod. “That’s actually not bad, good work,” he congratulated, then looked up. “But you should be careful with it; Sinew foam is capable of clogging up your airways with the replication of your own flesh, merging your fingers into a single extremity and causing all sorts of weird growths.”

With that said, he turned the knife over in his hand to hold it by the flat of the blade, and offered the handle to Vesper. The moment the dagger left his hand, he suffused the edge to bear extreme sharpness. “Don’t eat it all now,” he said with a nod to the severed leg. “You’ll need some meat or bone to make Sinew Foam, Arkash said with a nod, then collected the mortar and pestle. “All you have to do is put some body parts, like bones, skin, muscle, fat, even blood, in here, then mash it up with the pestle,” he spoke with a gesture to the bowl, then the grinding implement. “It’s really easy, much easier than grinding up herbs and sorts like that,” he explained as he set the implements down beside the cat, then recollected his Needle. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

With that task delivered, Arkash resumed his search for wounds on the feline and brushed through his fur with gentle, dull claws in search of areas that made the Rath wince.

Image source.

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2022 11:25 am**

Eyes carefully studying Arkash' work, Vesper gave pause, wincing with a shudder as he pierced the vale of pain to view what was being done to his body. "Such a boon, that the magic in these tools alleviates the pain. You feel the initial jab, and then it numbs away into natural flesh. Replacing fur seems so laborious. One follicle at a time? I am fine if you leave it patchy, Arkash. If I wish to be pretty, I will don the Mask."

Time was, after all, their enemy.

Through all of this, Vesper felt antsy. He felt good. His blood was hot, and his body wanted to move, to set him on the course of understanding. Watching Arkash stoked his burning passion for all that was unusual, for power and knowledge, for ...security. Those parts of his mind that were fractured and disordered were kept at bay because he knew in a logical sense that they were dangerous, and he had let all but the most twisted isles of his mind frolic freely to better emphasize with this monstrous lizard.

When Arkash chided him for what he was finessing with his paws, Vesper chuckled. "I've been watching you... I know exactly how to use this now, and I've theorized as much. Tempting as it may be to give myself webbed hands to better swim, I know better than to do more than the very basic application until my understanding is more complete." He nodded in affirmation. Of course Arkash recognized his excellence. He'd toiled away in the Badlands as an engineer for years of his life, much of his time spent forging tools and implements to get by. If his work were that awful, how could he properly call himself an artisan?

Vesper traded the gun for the blade, peering over it. He touched the edge, and seemed flummoxed. "You made an edge... in a couple of seconds, that would have taken me hours to refine by forging my own. Blood magic," he chuffed, striking down into the carcass. He pulled himself a flank of clean red meat, and tilted his head back to feed it down his sharp-toothed maw, twisting and gnashing a sinewy piece and wolfing it down.

After an audible gulp, he snorted. "I don't think I could--you and I are satisfied on different levels, Arkash." Eyes following the reptile's suggestion, he held the flank over the bowl and skinned long sheets of meet into the darkened bowl before passing the flank to his mentor. "Very well," he said.

Vesper picked up the mortar, peering down into that small cauldron with a glimmer in his eye. "So I just..." He set the blunt tip to the flesh, and observed upon his first drag. "So it mulches the flesh, in this way. Bone, too? Hm." His touches were delicate, but he found he didn't have to really grind it with force. "So the bed of the mortar... and the pestle... oh." His eyes rose, curiosity boundless as he swooshed it back and forth. "A child could do this, but someone overzealous might create the wrong consistency." He emulated the foam Arkash had made, slowly working until it seemed roughly on par.

Sticking a finger down into it, he touched the foam. "I do wonder if this is sanitary," he said, rubbing it between his fingers. There were a million more such questions that night. He seemed so focused that he barely responded to all of those touches. He was in that way so feline.

But Vesper was glad to have met Arkash, to have learned and evolved from his company. To have someone he could be more of himself with.

Posted: **Sat Apr 16, 2022 12:29 pm**

Post-Op Plans

Points awarded:

+8 Exp to both

Lores:

Arkash

Necromancy: Sinew Thread: Creating Hair follicles
Necromancy: Recreating fur
Teaching: Dos and don'ts
Teaching: Explain the dangers
Teaching: Much easier for people with experience in similar works
Teaching: To use tools
Teaching: Theoretical practices
Teaching: From experience
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[PC] Vesper: Enjoys pain to some degree
[PC] Vesper: Doesn't mind raw meat
[PC] Vesper: Too eager to learn Blood Magic
[PC] Vesper: Has an interest in learning Necromancy, too

Vesper

Necromancy: The Mortar & Pestle
Necromancy: Sinew Foam
Necromancy: Sinew Foam - Making It
Necromancy: Sinew Foam - Proper Consistency
Necromancy: Grafting Needle
Necromancy: Grafting Gun
Necromancy: Grafting Gun - Treating a Cut
Necromancy: Hair Follicles Laborious

Loot:

+1 sharp blood dagger for Vesper

Injuries:

Repaired all Vesper's injuries

Notes:
Boy do I love me some Necromancy threads. Anyways, if there's any questions please contact me!

Atharen, A Fantasy Roleplay Forum

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Arkash

Vesper