PM to join Amid the Bones of Stone (Hadrian)

[Wrenmae]

"Greater wizards than us both have fashioned more without the help of the divine," Wrenmae answered quietly, his eyes lingering on the Lomar mark as it flashed gold. He knew little of its purpose, simply a mark that blazed in the dappled sunlight like a predator's eye, but there was purpose to it...and Hadrian was certainly marked. "I seem to get along well enough without the divine to court."

He was lying, of course, but not in such a complete way. It was true that he was a marked of Vayt, twice now to follow his will and usher his whim. However, that mark had done little to help Wrenmae as he grew from the young age when he'd been marked. Reprieve from illness was such a tiny boon when the cost was the health of those you cared for most. In those frost-choked mountains, Wrenmae had been born again without a father and without a family.

Now he held council with dead men and made friends with dangerous wizards, most of which were more than they appeared. What could be said of him, then, that had not been said of others? He was a god-touched, a harbinger of will. Perhaps more a pawn than Hadrian ever would be...his very presence encouraged pestilence and plague.

He picked up one of the leg bones, placing it on his lap and beginning the process of scraping away the drying blood and skin from the bone. He'd prepare it before maladicting it, and preparation took time.

Would Hadrian be interested in staying for the whole of it?

Well. It was no matter, he had shown something interesting just then...it at least prompted his curiosity.

Nodding toward the mark on his hand as he cut more skin from the bones, Wrenmae regarded the mage gravely, "And that mark? What god and power does it represent? What gift were you granted for your work here on Mizahar?"

[Hadrian]

Hadrian nodded, though his mind followed many lines in which he might answer Wrenmae's words. Greater wizards than they had become gods, but Hadrian wondered whether there weren't holes in history. Most wizards were secretive, and the great ones even more so. Would they have flaunted any divine aid, or sought to subsume it to their own power, building their own mystique.

There was a long pause before he blinked, realizing that Wrenmae had spoken again. His mind wandered of late, and he hated it.

"My apologies. I have been ill, and sometimes I cannot keep my thoughts all in order. But it's passing, I think. I've beaten it, whatever it was." He smiled wanly, glad to be seated. The bouts of dizziness no longer seemed to come, but with his luck it might strike while he was out here with only Wrenmae to watch over him.

"But it's the mark of Eyris, goddess of Wisdom. It's only one mark, and I think She gave it more to keep an eye on me than to empower me, although I cannot claim the wisdom to know the mind of a god. It gives me certain insights into people and things, something like auristics, but of a different frequency. I haven't much relied upon it, though I did seek some information about our surroundings below the ruins.

"I can hurry that along," he said, nodding to the bones. With delicate use of Fire, he could char away the excess, even dry out and bleach the bones. "If you wish."

[Wrenmae]

Wrenmae held out a hand at the bones, urging the wizard onwards, "By your desire," he indicated, sitting back and rubbing his hands of blood and viscera. "I could use a little help before I begin the Legacy process."

Zan returned to him in the form of water, settling in his hand and finally sitting at his hip. With inquisitive eyes, Wrenmae watched the mage at his work, noting the use of reimancy. For a Professor, and for his age, the fellow had quite a few tricks up his sleeve.

Above them, day grew long, shadows following suite and drifting into places they had not been in before. The stones around them grew darker, reflecting a twisted past hidden to all but the flora and fauna around them. They were but visitors, intruders on sacred grounds.

"What would you say your greatest magical discipline is, Professor?" Wrenmae asked suddenly, looking away from the ruins, "Certainly you have some proficiency in many mystical arts...but what would you say is your specialty?" Holding up both hands, he smiled before Hadrian had a chance to speak.

"Don't worry, I'll follow up with my primary discipline as well. It's only fair we lay our strengths on the table, should we find ourselves in dangerous places like that labyrinth again."

[Hadrian]

"Pardon me, Zan," he said before manifesting the essence of Fire for his delicate work. He held his hand over the bones, a mist of red res appearing to hover over and around them. It came from his very pores and from his aura, only manifesting in visible amounts when it was farther away from his body, a seeming conjuration, though that was not, in fact, what it was.

The bits of flesh began to smoke, the blood steam away, and after a few moments, he sent a flow of yellow res toward the bones, which became a gust of wind that blew away the fine ash to reveal bleached bones. They could have sat in the sun for weeks for all anyone could tell.

"I suppose that depends on your definition of greatest," he said. It was not an evasion, but an attempt to communicate from common ground. He was a professor, after all. His discipline was cultural anthropology, but he knew that was not what Wrenmae meant. It did, however, color the way he spoke about magic, about those disciplines Wrenmae did mean.

[Wrenmae]

Shrugging, the mage sat back to watch Hadrian burn away the flesh and blood from the bone. He worked with a fine attention to detail, an overwhelming precision in his craft. Reimancy certainly was not minimal among his abilities, but was it the greatest?

"I suppose I mean the craft you are most adept in," Wrenmae said with a shrug, "One you might hold as a pinnacle of your arcane accomplishment so far." He grinned, "I take it you are no stranger to many forms of magic, but I'm most interested in the one you've commanded the most efficiency and control over."

Picking up one of the bones Hadrian had discarded, the mage whipped out one of his long daggers and began etching the beginnings of small circles down the length of it. The leg bone of a wolf...what sort of story could he tell with that? Certainly no story he could grasp at the moment. Even so, he laid the wolf bone aside and picked up the skull, inscribing a single circle on its crown before moving to another.

"My father taught me Maladiction," he said after a few moments without looking up, "He was a trader from Syliras who liked to augment his stock with interesting magical oddiments...always hid them before we hit Sunberth though...although they were still available for the 'special' customers."