Deadly Attraction(Wrenmae)

[Ignotus Everto]

61st of Summer, 512AV Three bells after midnight. The undertaker didn't get many visitors. Invariably, the rather grisly work taking place inside the morgue and the strong smell of formaldehyde served as a powerful deterrent to most. Unless, of course, one happened to be in need of both corpses and formaldehyde. If one happened to say, need a conveniently preserved body and wasn't in the mood to drown someone, the undertaker wasn't just a pleasant man to visit, but an outright boon... So it was with Ignotus. It wasn't easy, sitting in the streets of the salty city night after night, waiting for him to forget to lock his door, but it was worth it. Tonight was the night. Evening after evening, he'd be met with a locked latch and nothing but a mocking rattle to reward his patience, but tonight was different. The heavy wooden door swung open with a groan, and the slender Nuit glided in, a faint plume of dust trailing behind the hem of his cloak. The candles had been snuffed out, and he could only see where he was going because of the moonlight streaming in from thin windows near the roof. The result was a series of bleached blue beams cutting through an almost palpable pitch darkness. Perfect for trespassing, and browsing bodies. Ignotus perused the rows of bodies tucked into alcoves in the walls much as a mortal man would examine apricots at a market. Occasionally, he ran a skeletal finger across the sole of a cadaver's foot, or leaned in to read the tag on its toe. It wouldn't do to select a burn victim, after all. Then he saw it. lying on a metal table illuminated by round window made of glass plates glued together in an outline of the sun. The circle that made Syna's center was thrown around the body's face in an almost halo-like pattern. It was a Drykas male, strong and hardy, with a handsome, if slightly gaunt face. Evidently, he must have drowned, as his skin showed no signs of damage. The animated corpse grinned with satisfaction. It was perfect. Ignotus strode towards it, running his hand over the table's edge. Suddenly he straightened up and frowned. Something didn't feel right. He couldn't explain it to himself, but he felt... Watched. He slowly scanned his surroundings, the light from the window casting dark shadows across his face.

[Wrenmae]

It’s strange, sometimes, how the night transforms a place. The security of bright colors and overhangs becomes the haunting traps for the unwary and the desperate. Shroud ghosted down East street, Waveguard uniform tugged in the brisk breeze. The hypnotist much preferred to patrol alone, despite the worry that his size might invite more than deter crime. What they didn’t know was that Shroud was the more capable of any law enforcement. They could only catch and imprison. Shroud could rehabilitate with enough magic and force of will. Here, now, in the night and unobserved, he was a shark wearing the skin of a guppy. As he walked, his mind drifted. There was school to consider, studying auristics and Alchemy. There was his teacher, the insufferable Rayage and his smug undying confidence. There was Tock, the at once alluring and despicable being he couldn’t help but be drawn to. There was Splinter, the Waveguard Skipper with his harsh lessons and regulations. Trente and his Martial association, the deal with Hadrian. All tails of different beasts that hung in the air like open invitations. They wanted to be tied together, they wanted to fit in some convoluted scheme. The question came down to the how, a difficult connection to make. He’d identified the main servant of the man he was targeting. His magic staff and the morpher’s armor were but an arm’s length away. He had two men he could call on, Rayes and Gale, but could he trust them to fight? Gale had the build of a soft-palmed artist, and only Rayes showed the penchant for action. There was a piece missing, however, some vital portion of the puzzle. Shroud didn’t believe in fate. The excuse of fate was a lazy man’s way of justifying coincidence. Shroud preferred to make coincidence a reality through careful planning and practice. As the moonlight collected in quiet pools, slanted spears of light that pierced the night itself, Shroud noticed movement. It was brief, only a shadow darting across a stone hewn window. Still. He followed it with his eyes, noting the building was the morgue, the hallowed temporary resting place of all new corpses. So one of the corpses is moving, Zan said with the vocal equivalent of a shrug, You fleshlings are a lively bunch. Maybe he needs a stretch? Or maybe it’s a grave robber, Shroud counter suggested, A man that might not want to be caught. Or a woman. Or a woman. With a knife. I have a sword. With…magic? I also have magic. We’re going into the corpse house, aren’t we? Yes we are, Zan. Petching fantastic. Quiet as he dared, Shroud snuck toward the building, keep his lead low and both hands on his weapons, splaying them out so they didn’t knock against his legs. Crouching near the door, he listened for the shuffling inside, the movement of the unquiet dead…or perhaps an imposter among their unbreathing rank. Slipping up to glance over the sill, he watched the pale phantom, swaddled in shadows, sway over the bodies, measuring them, watching them. This was no grave robber. Shroud pushed Auristics into his senses, opening a channel of Djed into his nose and eyes. Almost immediately he regretted it swinging away from the window with a silent gag. The stench of the dead hung thick in his throat, it poisoned him with its intensity. What did we learn? Shut the petch up, that’s what we learned. I’m not convinced you’re learning real lessons. Striding around to the door, the Waveguard raised his leg and kicked the unlocked portal open, the door smashing against the inside of the morgue with a sonorous bang. Silohuetted in the moonlight, the man in blue and the man in black stared at each other. There was a moment, just a moment between them when souls collided, malignant intentions writing at each other, snapping like hungry dogs. “Paying your respects to the dead, are we?” Shroud asked, Leth’s light glinting off his smile, “You’re out a bit late for mourning.”

[Ignotus Everto]

Ignotus' unbeating heart leapt into his throat, and he slowly raised his hands to either side of his head to denote he meant no harm. "Paying respects to myself, you mean?" he said amicably. At the moment, it was better to be a Nuit than a grave robber. "Perhaps I am, and perhaps I have an arrangement with the undertaker..." a cloak of credibility shrouded him as he spoke, and he turned to face the grinning Wave Guard with a grandfatherly smile. "Really, think of it as a poor old fellow taking leftovers from an inn that has plenty. You wouldn't deny a starving man, now would you? Certainly not. Now, what can I do for you, my dear officer?"

He slowly took a step towards Shroud, and, if he should show no discomfort, another. "Would you like to wait and get confirmation? Or simply supervise? Or perhaps something of a more personal nature?.." The wizard shrugged, letting the hypnotic pull behind his voice lightly tug at the lust for profit that lies within the hearts of all men. Meanwhile his gentle gaze gave off a sense of... Familiarity. Like meeting an old friend you'd just about forgotten. "I just want us to get off on the right foot. We're both reasonable men, aren't we? Of course we are... So go on. Please, talk to me."

"We have the whole morgue to ourselves."

[Wrenmae]

He had almost forgotten the pull of Hypnotic Djed, the push of another aura on his own. To the nuit's credit, the shock at coming up against his mastered discipline almost allowed the feelings to slip in, unnoticed. But Shroud was far stronger than the nuit, his aura of influence could envelope the entirety of the morgue if he wished it. The feel of alien emotions betraying his distrust was a haunting reminder of what it felt like for others.

Caught in a frail body, the dead man moved with charm and guile rather than affronted indignation and ferocity. It served him better to be the manipulative creature, a skulking shadow with bony hands...borrowed from the graves set by others.

But Shroud smiled, the frown trickling away from his face as a genial nod loosened his imposing poise. "Perhaps I was...overbold," he admitted with a sigh, rubbing the back of his head, "If you've an arrangement with the gravedigger, than that would be well within his rights." A lie, of course. But as Shroud acted on the emotions being poisoned into his head, he countersuggested some of his own. Confidence welled within the nuit, surprisingly volatile in nature it threatened to overturn him. Such an easily manipulated man! Why not press this advantage? His body is not unpretty, what a prize it would make to wear the skin of a figure of authority and a pretty one at that! He practically glows with health!

Thoughts that popped in the nuit's head in his own voice, imagined in his own crafty cunning.

More. The thought persisted in the nuit's head, this man is weak minded. Press the advantage. What else can I gain from this annoying intrusion?

Confidence, opportunity, greed.

Every pulse of Shroud's heart beat the emotions into the nuit. Not softly, almost viciously, but he played off the triumph the nuit was already feeling from his victory. With such weak efforts, it was unlikely he had ever completed such powerful manipulations before.

He gave him a rush of power.

It would be enough to egg him on.

"I...I was working on patrol..." he trailed off, taking a seat near one of the tables, "I saw the movement and came to see. You don't seem a threatening type though...you're only looking for the bodies of the dead who have no mourners, yes?"

[Ignotus Everto]

It was almost too easy for Wrenmae to play on the Nuit's already bloated sense of self-worth. He didn't dream it would be this easy! He was even apologizing to him! A faint bow, and a courteous smile. "It's fine, my friend. You were only doing your job, after all."

What an easily manipulated man! Why not press his advantage? His body is not unpretty, what a prize it would make to wear the skin of a figure of authority and a pretty one at that! He practically glows with health.

This was where the manipulation began to fall apart. Ignotus didn't target figures of authority. Ignotus never targeted figures of authority. The reason was simple; their deaths were always news, and if they were seen walking around, there would be questions. Uncomfortable questions. Questions that had answers some would take offense to. Why bother himself so much with those things? The wizard wasn't ignorant. He had done this to others before. Yet he still felt the same. Overjoyed, ferally so. Soon, another, much stronger emotion mixed with the elicited arrogance: fear. Pure, primal terror.

Ignotus didn't know the extent of Wrenmae's powers, but one thing was certain; he was out of his league. Completely, hopelessly out of his league. The meek demeanor was a front; he was a Reimancer too, Ignotus bet. How powerful of one was he? Or did he know other magics? Old magics? Lost magics? Did he really think the undertaker had made an arrangement with him, or was he stringing him along?

It was fortunate the dead didn't sweat or pale, or Ignotus' fright would be painfully, obviously clear. As it was, the Nuit simply nodded a "yes" to the Wave Guard's question. "Our kind don't have many needs. This is one of them. Like I said before, think of it as food to a living man."

He wasn't done for yet. He still had one tool no one, no matter how skilled (or so he thought), could detect. Save for Aurists. Gods he hoped he wasn't an Aurist. With some skill and more luck, he could still deter this man. He'd have to find a way to have him dealt with... Perhaps send Levi his way to crack his skull open, or convince the Zith to hunt him. Maybe even convince Tock it was a good idea to kill him.

"We don't have a problem, do we sir?" There was no Djed fueled emotion behind his words now. It was too risky. Still, he could risk a light compulsion. It was simply a reinforcement to what he had said. Its subliminal nature made its effects miniscule, but also almost unnoticeable. Being interwoven so tightly with something simply said didn't hurt, either. "If not, could I kindly ask you to leave? You've important places to be, and I'd rather have the morgue to myself for this. Anselm the fortune teller, another fine Nuit," the implication being they were also law-abiding, "Will attest to the nervousness we feel when swapping."

A soft nudge. A taste of the master's own medicine. The sweet whisper at the back of his mind, "More..."

Meanwhile the Nuit kept an outright obsessive watch on his emotions. If he was going to brave this storm, he would have to make sure not a single crack, thought, feeling, paradigm was overlooked. With fortune, the Hypnotist would continue, goaded by his own, self made, self fueled confidence (or irritation), and the gentle goading of the Nuit's own Djed, until he overgave. Or, better yet, left. Either way, he'd win. Unless, of course, Wrenmae cracked him first. Now that was a terrifying thought.

[Wrenmae]

Emotions were difficult to read, always. Not that people didn't bare their souls when prompted, but so few things could be gleaned when life had already guttered out of skin and bone. The nuit was hard to read, but his hypnotism stopped, or rather, slowed to a minor trickle. Perhaps he'd overstepped his bounds as a hypnotist. No. He had overstepped them. His manipulation was willful, hardly poised and secret.

"These bodies have owners," he said quietly, not looking at the nuit, instead staring out over the corpses, "They have mourners, they had family. Is it the way of a nuit to steal a body already confirmed for death? One would think the ramifications...grisly."

A probe of hypnotic Djed, a memory, a moment of hallucination, like a realization. Hadn't he seen another person behind Wrenmae when he entered? Of course...of course, the shadow behind him had slipped around the back, the telltale flash of blue in the moonlight dismissed in the terror of Wren's arrival. It meant there was another Waveguard circling around the back, preparing to ambush the nuit. The memory seemed real, convincing, it was a concocted forgery, a mere extension of a memory that had already occurred wrapped in a careful and slightly more cunning revelation.

A hand caressed the long dagger at his waist. He stood and ran a hand through his hair.

"Do we have a problem? A fair question." He turned around, looking past the nuit's shoulder and nodding, as if giving a signal.

"I think you might."

The moment the nuit turned, as perhaps his paranoia would force him to do, Shroud would draw his blade, cross the distance between them and shove it directly into the nuit's chest, bowling him over.

[Ignotus Everto]

"Not steal," Ignotus said sternly, "How would you suggest I go about this, then? I need a body to continue surviving. Would you take me to those mourners and have me plead my cause with them? Like I said before, you need only ask, and you shall receive..."

Suddenly, something else came to mind. He had an accomplice, didn't he? They went in packs... But then, why was he alone? The other was waiting in ambush. Of course. Then again, it could be a trick... But could he afford to overlook it? Of course he couldn't. Djed gathered at his forearms, slowly seeping past moldering fibers and out the pores of his skin. A metallic taste tinged Ignotus' tongue. If he had blood, his eyes would be slowly turning red. His left index finger twitched involuntarily. Snakes of Res ringed his forearms, ready to be released at a sign of aggression. A sign such as the gentle stroking of a dagger. "Do we have a problem? A fair question." a nod. A signal.

The wizard's head twitched to the side, to look behind his shoulder. At the same time, the sound of a blade being unsheathed. Realization of what was about to happen hit Ignotus as Wrenmae closed in on him. At the range he was at, it would be impossible for the Nuit, with such sluggish reflexes, to dodge it. So he did the one thing he could. Second ambusher or not, there was someone coming at him with a knife now.

Both his arms pointed straight forward at Shroud as he charged, and twin plumes of orange flame flared out at the Wave Guard's collar with a deafening roar. The blink of an eye later, his blade sank into the Nuit's chest, slicing past ribs and shredding into flesh with a sickening squelch.

Ignotus fell back with a screech. A normal man would have been dead. An undead, however, was just in horrible pain. Red fury filled the Reimancer's eyes, yellowing teeth bared. Rotting fingers groped for the guard's wrists and tried to drag him on top of the falling corpse. Should Shroud fail to keep upright, Ignotus would attempt to wrap his legs and arms around the guard and pin the weapon between their bodies, and Djed would begin to build along his torso. In twenty ticks, it would reach a high enough concentration to be exuded, and in another five, envelop both of them in fire. Of course, that would mean overgiving in spades, but that was the cost of survival, no? Besides, he was in a morgue. The Nuit's body was expendable. Shroud's was not.

[Wrenmae]

He hadn't fallen so easily to the trick, but Shroud was committed to the motion. His legs brought him close to the nuit, his long dagger punched through decaying skin, scything bone, and lacerating useless organs. Flames roared from the nuit's open hands out toward the mage, heating the air and crawling against his skin with crawling agony. The gout of flame was short, however, he was too close to be burned with a projectile...at least not badly.

Both men went to the morgue floor, the blade trapped between them. The nuit's legs wrapped around Shroud's waist, but the Waveguard drew his second long dagger, tearing away from the nuit's feeble grasp and bringing the blade down directly over his eye. Pluses of Djed roared along Shroud's aura, pouring paralyzing panic and fear into the nuit beneath him, the force of his Djed, his hypnotic aura, blazing at its full power.

"I'm not familiar with nuit physiology," Shroud hissed at the decaying thing, bringing the blade closer, "But I'm guessing that shoving this blade through your skull and twisting is apt to do a lot more damage than a little love tap in your useless chest." His skin hurt, but the adrenaline of the situation kept the agony at bay. It hadn't been long, moments of exposure to the flame, a light burn maybe, perhaps blistered...nothing permanent or life threatening.

Still, if the nuit was a reimancer, he would have the power to raise flames again.

"I can see your magic," Shroud lied, "Release your res and surrender or we'll see who can inflict more damage the quickest..." The blade tickled his cornea, "I'm betting it'll be me."

[Ignotus Everto]

The Nuit giggled, his eyes two milky balls of terror. The sound belied fright, fury, and a slight tinge of madness. In a way, Shroud had saved him and Ignotus both; the magically induced fear kept the euphoria and following recklessness that so often accompanied overgiving at bay. The cold steel of the dagger stung Ignotus' eye. His chest felt as if it were on fire. "I can see your magic," Shroud lied, "Release your res and surrender or we'll see who can inflict more damage the quickest..." The blade tickled his cornea, "I'm betting it'll be me."

Bluff. Yes. That was a good plan. Keep talking. Talking was good. Maybe they could negotiate? Negotiating was also good. He plastered a crooked grin on his face. "And what if you're wrong? You can see my magic, so you know I can already kill both of us with a thought..." it wasn't entirely a lie, either. In the time bought by their very, very short exchange, Djed had pooled just beneath his skin. A small push would have it burst out as gaseous Res, and promptly bury them both in flame. It was still within the wizard though, for now. "What happens if, when you do plunge your blade in, burst my eye, and rip into my brain... I don't die?" he just had to keep him talking. Something would come. It had to. "Then we'll both be our own funeral pyres. Now, I don't want that. You don't want that. I know you for what you are, and you know me for what I am... Why must we fight? I asked you before, just..." he fell silent for a moment, fear clogging his throat for a breath, "Just talk to me, and I'm sure we can find something that will make both of us happy."

This guard had to be using at least as much Djed as he was. He couldn't last that much longer... Could he? And if he did start to wear out... He wouldn't just kill him and go to recuperate... Right? Petch, why did he have to get the other wizard? Why couldn't it have been some boor on patrol? "So let's... Let's have at it. What can I do for you?"

[Wrenmae]

"Clever," Shroud smiled, drawing his blade back a bit, "But you're an immortal who steals body to prolong your life. I'm willing to bet suicide is the last thing you're interested in accomplishing as the result of some nighttime patrol. Not only would your death be pointless, but your unlife equally so. Nuits are nuits because they cannot accomplish their goals in life, and must continue them in death." The darkness pooled around his face, his eyes, his teeth still white in the shadows, almost fanged, "I am just young enough to be reckless, just vibrant enough to assume I'll recover, and just impulsive enough to let the fact you tried to hypnotize me motivate my actions."

But the blade withdrew and Shroud pulled himself from the nuit's dead embrace, prying off weaker limbs and pulling his blade from the creature's chest, ichor welling up where it left and pooling viscous on the faded skin.

"You're in luck, however, that I am in need of men with secrets." He stood, wiping his blade on the shirt of a corpse with little more than a flick of his wrist. "I know your talents, your magic, and my reputation ensures that knowing mine is pointless to you. When I leave this place, I have your aura, your scent, your magic, and your face. Take a corpse and I will still find you, flee the city and I will know. The Waveguard, I'm sure, would be interested to know what sort of danger stalks their loved ones."

Shrugging, he extended a hand to Ignotus, "Fail to destroy me and I will undoubtedly destroy you...but perhaps our better communication is rooted in the spirit of collaboration." A smile crossed his face again, deep chuckles roiling from his stomach, "You are of use to me, and I can be of use to you...especially if you're in the market for a new body."

The outstretched hand curled back for a moment, and Shroud frowned.

"Of course, cross me and I'll make sure I don't intentionally miss, next I strike."