A black magic woman and an artificer walk into a bar.

[thegriffinofdeath]

WHO: Anastasya Griffin and Elsa Brandt
WHERE: The Tesladyne Offices
WHEN: Backdated to Early morning on the 8th
WHAT: Discussions of creating magical items.
WARNINGS: Necromancy maybe?

Anastasya's office, aside from the door where 'Scientist' had been covered up with a carefully lettered sign than said 'Sorceress', didn't look all that different from a normal lab. There were tables of beakers and test tubes, various computers scattered about, and bits of half-finished experiments here and there.

Of course, the two cloaked, skeletal figures standing in the corners waiting for instructions were a bit out of place, but you couldn't be too boring, right?

Anastasya wasn't getting her hopes up too much about this meeting, but the way the woman had described her abilities, well...she had to at least look into it. Side-stepping some of the restrictions on her necromancy was a blessing worth taking a risk over.

So she'd put some of her more volatile experiments away, and was absently tidying up the room as she waited for Elsa to arrive.

Comments

[enustari]

The directions given at the front desk were fairly clear and it doesn't take her long to locate Anastasya's office. The 'Sorceress' sign gets a smirk and a quiet laugh from her as she reads it. Cute. And definitely the right place.

She doesn't knock, just turns the handle and pushes the door open. After all, she's on time and expected. "Ms. Griffin?"

[thegriffinofdeath]

Somehow it didn't surprise Anastasya that the other woman didn't knock. From their conversations before she just didn't really seem the type. Still, the necromancer was a bit startled, turning from the desk she was straightening with a faint, defensive posture...until she recognized her. Right.

"Good morning."

The office itself was more like a lab, with a sort of organized chaos to the things scattered about. Nothing would seem explicitely out of place...except for the two robed, absolutely still figures standing near the back wall, their features hidden beneath the fabric.

sorry for the delay, I was out of town!

[enustari]

"...Morning."

It doesn't match her idea of a necromancer's place of work, that's for sure, though her expectations had already been thrown a bit by the rest of the building. She pulls the door shut behind her as she steps in and casts an eye over the room, eyes catching of course on those robed figures. Person-sized and more or less person-shaped, though she can't determine much with the way the fabric drapes over them.

"Are those for our tests, or do you always keep them in here?"

No worries!

[thegriffinofdeath]

Well, it was necromancers study and a research lab. Concessions had to be made.

"No, they're always here. Lab assistants." As much as preambulatory skeletons with no will of their own could assist, at least.

"I will leave them where they are if it disturbs you?"

[enustari]

Elsa shrugs. "Not at all." Her kind have made use of stranger creatures, after all. Demons and constructs. And she wouldn't be doing this at all if the dead bothered her.

"Are they much good at assisting?" She sounds equal parts amused and curious.

[thegriffinofdeath]

"In a sense," Anastasya glanced over at them and one of the figures seemed to shiver before straightening up. It marched over to stand next to her, and beneath the robe Elsa would see that it was mostly just bones.

"I've been reading about necromancy from other worlds...what I could find, at least. Skeletons created with my magic are far less...autonomous...than others. They're more like extensions of my will than actual risen creatures."

[enustari]

"I see." Though she's speaking to Anastasya, she's definitely looking at the skeleton the whole time, studying it.

"So there's no other intelligence inhabiting them or guiding them? Can they function without you around?" Unnecessary information in the context of what she came here to do, but damn it, now she's interested. Something like this in her own world would generally be animated by a demon or some other alien will summoned and bound to it.

[thegriffinofdeath]

"They can follow basic instructions if I'm not there but someone else gives them," she shrugged. "But if you mean intelligent thought no. For that I would need a ghoul or a revenent."

And she was trying to avoid making those here.

"Once the brain is gone...well. They're mostly just puppets."

[enustari]

She files that information away with a tip of her head. "Makes sense." After eyeing the skeleton a few moments longer, she turns her full attention back to Anastasya and, with a soft clap, clasps her hands in front of her, suddenly all business.

"So- If I recall correctly, you need a better way to access certain spells. Is there something simple you can cast so I can get a feel for it?" The last practitioner from another world she worked with had a pretty strange way of doing things, so she has no idea what to expect.

Ack I thought I tagged this!

[thegriffinofdeath]

"Mm," she nodded. "Something like that." How to explain this. "Half of my magic is locked behind a...transformation...that I prefer to avoid whenever possible." All of her shadow and death magic, though it felt strange to say that.

"Something where, I could perform the transformation, cast the spells upon a container or receptacle, and access them without going through the transformation again itself would be ideal."

it's cool!

[enustari]

"You make that sound like such an easy request!" She laughs. "I can't build you a one-size-fits-all receptacle for magic. A Fabrication consists of a single spell repeated and bound into every single component of a machine. It has one function and it performs it to perfection—which isn't to say that function can't be complex, but you'll still need more than one. Assuming that this works at all!" It's a concept she hasn't been able to test until now. There's a good chance the universe will simply scoff at the attempt.

"Now, when you say transformation, what do you mean exactly?"

[thegriffinofdeath]

"I'm sure it isn't easy, but I can still hope." She said with a small smile and a shrug.

She hesitated at that question though.

"I assume discretion would be a part of any arrangement we come to?"

[enustari]

"Of course! Gossip is bad for business." She leans in a bit, unconsciously, eager to have her curiosity satisfied. "This discussion and any resulting arrangement will be kept between the two of us."

[thegriffinofdeath]

She considered the woman carefully for another moment or two, trying to weigh the truth to her words before finally nodding.

"Fine then." She took a step away. "Before I was brought here, back on Ashan, I was a vampire. Here, I am not. I am...alive." She hesitated. "Unless I try to access the darker aspects of my magic. Then I...change. Into what I was."