WHO: Kostos/Alistair/Jehan/Silas & Various Others WHAT: Miscellany WHEN: Kingsway WHERE: Probably Kirkwall NOTES: See comment subject lines! And if you would like to do something feel free to just drop it in here.
Kostos isn't really sure how he got to this point.
Not the point of being surrounded by donated animal bodies and carefully stitching up a dead dog while the possessed corpse of his great great et cetera aunt stalks angrily in a dungeon cell behind him. That part makes sense. But the point where the Grey Warden mage who blew up Kirkwall's chantry and the oddest rifter he's yet encountered, which is saying something, are both watching him do it—that point he isn't sure about. He isn't sure he likes it, either.
He hasn't said anything to either of them in a while. When Audra enters he looks up from the last stitches on the dog to gesture one-handed to the two observers, a jerky motion accompanied by a sort of aggressively confused expression, altogether an attempt to silently convey there are people here and it is not my fault. Even though it sort of is.
Anders, for his part, is fairly cheerful despite being surrounded by dead things and a mobile dead thing. This isn't the sort of magic he's had opportunity to observe before. And somehow he's cheerful enough to not keep a running commentary going on Kostos' stitching - he had promised to talk less. It's hard to talk less.
When Audra enters, Anders waves. It's a nice break from twiddling his thumbs.
Meat is meat the worlds over, and butchery is butchery; while it is not a task proper to the Priest's caste it is nevertheless familiar and the Priest has little squeamishness about watching. Though were it only butchery it would not be worth watching with such hawk-eyed intensity as the Priest now gives Kostos; the specific preservation of intact corpses--for trophies or necromancy or honorable burial--is not known among the djur.
It is a rich world that can spend useful flesh so.
The Priest does not look up as Audra enters; Kostos' work is far more interesting. Only when he is through with the last of the stitches does the Priest lift eyes to regard the arriving necromancer with a faint frown. This ritual had all the air of something sacred (albeit makeshift, field-hasty): Why, then, do none of these women (men, a silent amendment; strange as it is to see men going about work,) bear any but passing association to each other?
Audra is genuinely surprised by the other presences when she arrives to assist Kostos. She does smile and return Anders's wave before shrugging her shoulders at Kostos, moving over to him while tying her hair back.
"We have an audience?" this isn't something she expected, but it doesn't bother her. She had students of her own when she was in the Circle, she's used to people watching her perform magic.
Is it too late for that, if they're already in the door? It doesn't seem like it should be too late. Some people present—not naming any names—have debts to pay soon, or else functional kneecaps to lose. One or the other.
But he doesn't actually demand it of them, or acknowledge them further at all, before he's gesturing to the table and speaking to Audra. "We can put Berenike's spirit—" The spirit in Berenike, more specifically, but that takes longer to say, and he isn't here to teach anybody. "—in the dog for now. It should last a while, and it will not be able to move too quickly if it escapes. And we can summon new wisps for the others and put them in cages at different distances. We have not tested whether or not it is catching."
Here he is, not talking. Working hard at not talking. All the same, he's pushing off the wall and looking at the different corpses Kostos has, desire to ask something written all over his face. Which he gives in to a moment later.
"Does the type of corpse ever matter? Is a smaller animal more prone to, to catching? than a larger one?"
That much is within the Priest's expertise. The little beast had been easy enough to catch the first time; there is no spirit that could inhabit it that would change that. That thought in mind the Priest steps away from the wall to prowl closer to the table--perhaps crowding Kostos; what is personal space--and examine the dog in more detail now that the stitches are done.
For what it's worth, Kostos doesn't begin to tense up any sooner than anyone else would—anyone else with standard Thedosian standards for personal space, or perhaps even slightly lower standards—but that is still, definitely, too close, though he's loathe to cede ground to anyone at any time, and when his shoulders can't bunch any tighter without it becoming an issue, he steps smoothly away.
"We do not know," he says, distracted by looking over his handiwork with the body. "Catching—whatever is wrong with the spirit from the Necropolis, I mean. We have not measured whether it will spread to other spirits on its own, with proximity or contact."
He's a little sorry that he has so many questions, but at least he's not apparently chasing Kostos around the table. The answers have brought another question to mind, though.
"Are there other things that you've seen spirits catch? That's contagious to them?" A second later there's a wave of his hand. "Disregarding the blood sharks, of course."
Though that does make him wonder if he would have had issues if he'd still been possessed. But as he's fairly certain no one in the Inquisition is currently possessed it can be a question tabled.
There is no pursuit; when Kostos retreats, the Priest does not follow. The object of interest is the dog and the Priest only looks up from it once there are no more details worth studying.
"Your spirits may fall ill." It is not quite a question. "Explain these 'blood sharks'."
It should not be a surprise to hear this world has spirit-sickness and pneumavores as well--but a strange disappointment twinges in the Priest's breast even so. Surely a promised world should not share the horrors of a dying one. Had they not earned better?
Kostos absorbs the questions with the same silence and sinking feeling that he would absorb bad news. This is worse than teaching apprentices. At least most of them were afraid of him.
In case there's any hope for instilling similar fear in these two, he doesn't answer, only lifts his gaze from the dog to give them the same sort of look he'd fix on a misbehaving thirteen year old.
He returns Kostos' look. "Unanswered questions make more, you know. I'll answer one, you answer the other?"
Not like he can actually answer his own. Maybe helping the woman with her questions will get Kostos to help him with his, though.
"I'm Anders, by the way. I don't believe we've met, madam. And the bloodsharks... We'd a Rifter come in, already ill. There was something in his bloodstream that spread to other Rifters and the Templars. Since it was lyrium-based, I'd theorize that it could spread to any spirits. Or any harboring spirits."
A quelling look is a quelling look the worlds over. Kostos' expression invokes neither fear nor submission from the Priest but a polite inclination of the chin. This is his ritual and the Priest does not yet know the rules. Information might be sought later--
Though here is this "Anders" giving it anyway. Nuances of expression in Trade are opaque still to the Priest--who is yet certain madam is a category error as a form of address.
No matter. "You will relate the rest of this after." Matter-of-fact.
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necromancy: audra & an audience. (cw animal & human cadavers/zombies)
Not the point of being surrounded by donated animal bodies and carefully stitching up a dead dog while the possessed corpse of his great great et cetera aunt stalks angrily in a dungeon cell behind him. That part makes sense. But the point where the Grey Warden mage who blew up Kirkwall's chantry and the oddest rifter he's yet encountered, which is saying something, are both watching him do it—that point he isn't sure about. He isn't sure he likes it, either.
He hasn't said anything to either of them in a while. When Audra enters he looks up from the last stitches on the dog to gesture one-handed to the two observers, a jerky motion accompanied by a sort of aggressively confused expression, altogether an attempt to silently convey there are people here and it is not my fault. Even though it sort of is.
no subject
When Audra enters, Anders waves. It's a nice break from twiddling his thumbs.
no subject
It is a rich world that can spend useful flesh so.
The Priest does not look up as Audra enters; Kostos' work is far more interesting. Only when he is through with the last of the stitches does the Priest lift eyes to regard the arriving necromancer with a faint frown. This ritual had all the air of something sacred (albeit makeshift, field-hasty): Why, then, do none of these women (men, a silent amendment; strange as it is to see men going about work,) bear any but passing association to each other?
no subject
"We have an audience?" this isn't something she expected, but it doesn't bother her. She had students of her own when she was in the Circle, she's used to people watching her perform magic.
no subject
Is it too late for that, if they're already in the door? It doesn't seem like it should be too late. Some people present—not naming any names—have debts to pay soon, or else functional kneecaps to lose. One or the other.
But he doesn't actually demand it of them, or acknowledge them further at all, before he's gesturing to the table and speaking to Audra. "We can put Berenike's spirit—" The spirit in Berenike, more specifically, but that takes longer to say, and he isn't here to teach anybody. "—in the dog for now. It should last a while, and it will not be able to move too quickly if it escapes. And we can summon new wisps for the others and put them in cages at different distances. We have not tested whether or not it is catching."
no subject
"Does the type of corpse ever matter? Is a smaller animal more prone to, to catching? than a larger one?"
no subject
That much is within the Priest's expertise. The little beast had been easy enough to catch the first time; there is no spirit that could inhabit it that would change that. That thought in mind the Priest steps away from the wall to prowl closer to the table--perhaps crowding Kostos; what is personal space--and examine the dog in more detail now that the stitches are done.
no subject
"We do not know," he says, distracted by looking over his handiwork with the body. "Catching—whatever is wrong with the spirit from the Necropolis, I mean. We have not measured whether it will spread to other spirits on its own, with proximity or contact."
no subject
"Are there other things that you've seen spirits catch? That's contagious to them?" A second later there's a wave of his hand. "Disregarding the blood sharks, of course."
Though that does make him wonder if he would have had issues if he'd still been possessed. But as he's fairly certain no one in the Inquisition is currently possessed it can be a question tabled.
no subject
"Your spirits may fall ill." It is not quite a question. "Explain these 'blood sharks'."
It should not be a surprise to hear this world has spirit-sickness and pneumavores as well--but a strange disappointment twinges in the Priest's breast even so. Surely a promised world should not share the horrors of a dying one. Had they not earned better?
no subject
In case there's any hope for instilling similar fear in these two, he doesn't answer, only lifts his gaze from the dog to give them the same sort of look he'd fix on a misbehaving thirteen year old.
no subject
Not like he can actually answer his own. Maybe helping the woman with her questions will get Kostos to help him with his, though.
"I'm Anders, by the way. I don't believe we've met, madam. And the bloodsharks... We'd a Rifter come in, already ill. There was something in his bloodstream that spread to other Rifters and the Templars. Since it was lyrium-based, I'd theorize that it could spread to any spirits. Or any harboring spirits."
no subject
Though here is this "Anders" giving it anyway. Nuances of expression in Trade are opaque still to the Priest--who is yet certain madam is a category error as a form of address.
No matter. "You will relate the rest of this after." Matter-of-fact.