Of bones and clay [ariel]

[Conrad]

conrad chuckled when ariel began complaining about being shoved in the dirt and how it wasn't nice. "well neither is calling somebody stinky because they where working on something that made them stink." He lessened the pressure a bit to make the little pycon a bit more comfortable." He still looked at her with that wide smile on his face. "I am not picking on you, just dishing out appropriate retribution ariel." His smile didn't fade when Ariel gave him a short and to the point answer. "Great," Conrads smile became a bit more menacing and he was probably giving of a very bad feeling right now. "Well as you saw I was making an item with malediction magic." He gestured back to the bloodstained stretch of grass where he was working a few moments ago. "But the problem is I don't really have somebody to test my creations on. So what do you say, I let you go and you test my stuff for me?" He looked down at ariel with that creepy grin, daring her to say no.

[Ariel]

Ariel crossed her arms over her chest as the red pigmentation in her cheeks grew more and more prominent, and her un-blinking gaze became more and more intimidating. Not because Ariel was a particularly intimidating being, but because she wouldn't blink, and if looks could kill, Conrad would be an extraordinarily dead man. She wasn't in the mood to play the part of the man's guinea pig, but then again, she didn't seem to have much choice in the matter either, considering the fact that he could easily press his finger back into his chest and squish her, or be ever so original, and squash her like a bug beneath his boot.

"What do you mean by 'test your creations?'" Ariel inquired. "Because I haven't seen you create anything, just gut a rat or two, and then pick on someone far smaller than yourself." Ariel paused for a moment, "unless it was something you had already made, but hadn't gotten around to selling, or using within your travels? What is the thing supposed to do anyway?" Ariel paused again for a moment, so that everything she asked after her last question had a greater level of emphasis given to it. "Ward off evil? Attract animals, which would try to eat the person using the item? Kill off anyone who tried to kiss me? Make the wearer taller? Allow me to summon people from the dead? Make me the most powerful pycon in all of Mizahar? What? Or can you not decide such things? How would we even know it had worked... or not?" Ariel finished, a slightly confused, but still highly agitated expression upon her face.

[Conrad]

Conrad only chuckled when ariel glared at him. "Well with test my creations I meant just what I said." Conrad said in a tone that was most likely used to talk to an exceptionally slow toddler. "I am an maledictor, in a nutshell I use the bones of dead animals and persons to create magical items." Conrad waved towards the pile of refuse from his first gutted rat. "That is why I was gutting that rat, to get at the bones and organs that I would have needed." He let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I still need some work on the gutting animals part though, I broke a lot of bones making them useless, and I am not going to start on how bad I mangled the organs. Even the rats won't be eating from that mess anymore." Conrad thought a few moments over the things she was talking about how they could work before he fessed up. "I don't know what it will do exactly I can more or less guide what comes out but not more then that, that is why I need a test object to make sure I don't get any bad effects when I use it myself." Conrad just gave her a reasuring smile. "Don't worry to much about that though, I highly doubt that they would kill you....I think. So what do ya say? you want to help me?"

[Ariel]

"Yeah, I can tell," Ariel muttered, "no offense to your malediction craft, but it does carry a stench. That and your hand is a little heavy to be handling something so delicate. It's no surprise that you destroyed so many of them, especially when you seem so new to the craft," Ariel said, before producing a noise that sounded much like someone clearing their throat. It was as though she were hinting at Conrad to let up on her. "But, what can you do? It happens," Ariel added.

"But even if the rats won't finish those off," Ariel said as she gestured toward the gutted rat pile with her eyes, "perhaps the vultures will. You guys do get the occasional vulture out here from time to time, don't you?" Ariel inquired.

Ariel was quiet for a few moments as she listened to him speak, "and your own vote of confidence there, that was definitely reassuring. Just makes people feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and more than happy to jump in and come to the rescue... by um, becoming your personal guinea pigs and all." Ariel gulped as she felt the pressure on her chest increase. If she could sweat, she sure would be now. "But... it does sound like a fun thing to do," Ariel added with a nervous smile. "Why don't we get to it? Bring on the maledicted wares."

[Conrad]

Conrad shrugged at the stench comment. "None taken, at least you don't call me a grave robber or something even more insulting. it has a lot of bigotry against it, I mean if one farmer screwed a goat you wouldn't automatically assume all farmers did it right? So saying all maledictors get busy with the dead is just plain rude don't ya think?" Conrad said as a throwaway comment, before focusing back on the conversation at hand. "That bunch of filth? I would have buried it and let it rot on its own, it fertilizes the ground. I don't think vultures come this close to the city and I am not going to drop it far enough outside of the city for them to get it. There are things out there that would eat me before I could even let out a yelp of fear. But lets not talk about that." He picked her up and put Ariel back on her feet. "Don't worry to much about what could happen, I am giving you a few hours to say your goodbyes to your friends, make sure your will is in order and things like that. Besides I haven't finished the piece that I want you to test." Conrad smiled at the little pycon. "So you go do those things and find me again in a few hours. I will be done then." conrad turned his back to ariel and took up his tools and the little bone again. "remember that you promised to come back though." He said over his shoulder,"Or I might give you to a few drykas kids as a toy."

[Ariel]

Ariel simply nodded. Conrad was just rambling now, and she wasn't in the mood to upset him. She just wanted to get whatever he wanted done over with, so that she could carry on with her life. "Um... yeah fertilizer, hehe, forgot all about that." Ariel commented nervously. Note to self: one of the many benefits to being made out of clay is that very few things actually want to eat you. "Be back in a few hours," Ariel said as she stood up and shuddered. She hated children, they always though she was a bug or something, and had a nasty tendency to stick her in glass jars and tap on the glass way too often. That, or yell right next to it. Or shake the glass thinking she'd actually like it. Or forget the air holes... not like she needed the air, she simply liked being able to look directly up and above her head, and actually see something other than a single-tone lid. Thus, the threat was enough to convince her that she should return, even though she didn't want to.

-------- Several Hours Later --------

Having no true friends or family in Endrykas to say good-bye too, Ariel merely wandered in circles for hours and hours, until the sun had fallen and was replaced by a full moon. The dark sky was illuminated by merely the pale grey glow the celestial body gave off, and the occasional silver star sparkling in the sky. "Surely it has been long enough," Ariel shuddered as she returned to Conrad's tent. When she got there, she called out to him. "Psssst. Conrad." She paused, waiting for an answer from him. "Conrad! Your pycon is back, now get out here so we can get this over with! I've got adventuring to attend to!"

[Conrad]

Conrad gave the leaving pycon a last look before he continued to carve the circle on the tibia of the rat. A feeling of relief washing over him at the fact that the little pycon agreed, now he didn't have to risk his own skin to test out his creations. After a few hours, he finally managed to crave 3 neat circles on the tibia, two on the sides of the bone and one in the middle of it, with the word Rat carved in the center circle, the word grant's in the one on the left and finally in the final one there was carved the single word agility. Conrad blow away some of the leftover dust before he fished out a small piece of string out of his medical kit and tied it trough the tibia, making it look like a small makeshift necklace. He didn't finish a moment to soon, because as soon as he finished tying the knot in the string he heard ariel shout out to him. "Just come inside the tent!" He yelled back. "And don't worry this won't hurt, well I think so." The last part of the sentence was muttered to himself.

OOC: small question, do you think we should ask a mod what the item will do? Maledictioned items are notoriously unpredictable.

[Ariel]

"Coming!" Ariel called, as she walked through the tent's door flap. It had been swaying slightly in the wind. When she walked inside, she noticed Conrad was still working on those rats. "Are you ready?" Ariel asked as she placed her hands on her hips, "because your personal clay guinea pig doesn't exactly have all night for this." The pycon stared up at the man with her angry, unblinking eyes. If only looks could kill, Conrad would be a very dead man.

"So, why don't you hand your smelly little creation over, and we get this the heck over with?" Ariel asked. Silently, she was praying to Harameus that whatever the idiot had made didn't kill her. She doubted it would though, surely maledicted things couldn't be too too harmful, could they? Ariel waited on Conrad to make a move. "Do you know what this thing is supposed to do? Will it make a pycon, you know, feel any different, or is that something we're both about to find out?" she asked, with a slight edge of fear in her voice. Something told her that she shouldn't quite dismiss Conrad's magic as a harmless thing just yet.

[Conrad]

Conrad gave her a wide smile, that wasn't reassuring in any way at all. "Don't worry, This shouldn't take long.. But we better do it outside, if it decides to make you explode I don't really want to clean up all your clay from my stuff." he said in the same cheery tone and if you kept in mind he was talking about letting a living thing explode that made it rather disturbing. He took his little creation and ushered ariel back outside. Getting out of his tent after her. When she asked what the heck it was supposed to do his smile grew a bit and he shrugged. "Its supposed to grant the wearer the agility of a rat, but malediction isn't exactly the most reliable of all the magic disciplines." He held out the necklace, "But I doubt it will blow you up though, I can't harness enough of the art to do that, so don't worry to much."

[Ariel]

"Well, that is certainly... reassuring," Ariel commented sarcastically as she pulled the necklace away from Conrad. To her, the object was rather heavy, and as soon as Conrad had let go, the object fell to the ground with a muffled thud. "You know, you should consider making your experiments slightly more pycon friendly in the future," Ariel huffed, as she made a large heaving sound, as she pushed her arms upwards, trying to lift the maledicted necklace off the ground. The pycon grunted as she tried to lift the necklace again. Her arms were aching and she was getting no where.

"Well forget that," Ariel muttered as she finally pulled the necklace's chord around her neck, and simply stood with her feet planted firmly in the ground. The wind whistled around her, and the sky seemed to grow just a little darker. The necklace was keeping the pycon planted in place, not allowing her to travel much of anywhere with it while it remained around her neck. It was simply too heavy for her to move on her own. "So Conrad, is this thing supposed to make the test subject feel any different?" Ariel finally asked. "Because everything feels the same."

Deciding that perhaps it was a little too soon for her to feel the effects of the necklace, assuming there were any, Ariel stood in silence. After a few minutes, she said, "nope, still nothing. Are you sure you did this right Conrad? Because the test subject doesn't feel very rat-like at all. Or mouse-like, whatever it is she is supposed to feel like." There was a slight pause, "what's the difference between the darn things anyway? At the end of the day, they both basically look the same..." Ariel's voice was carried away by the wind. She was staring up at the human, wondering if he expected more of her, or if he'd let her find a place to sleep for the night now.