The Contract [Private, Jaquise]

[Tarot]

60th day of winter, 509 AV
Continued from the Docks

The Communicator did not immediately provide a reply, or indeed any kind of feedback to Jaquise's explanation. It simply stood there, a bust mounted on a wheeled platform, looking at the man out of fake eyes as it processed the words, one by one. Reasoning about cargo and golden Mizas was easy enough, but such conversations were more exacting on the golem's mental faculties.

In the end, though, patience was rewarded with a very clear answer.

"Request denied," the golem said, "Master Qiao has given explicit orders to refuse this kind of requests."

And this seemed to be the end of it. Short, terse and cruel, as only an artificial intelligence could make it. But it wasn't the actual end of it.

"But I'm not Qiao," said another voice, whose owner stepped from beyond the nearest grey warehouse. Before the turmoil of the last season, none of the masters would even have considered showing up at the docks in person, but many things had since changed. Jaquise was faced with the sight of a robed Nuit, a wizard from Sahova. A Nuit was a walking corpse, and this pale thing did them full justice. While seemingly young, he wasn't pretty to look at, with a strip of flesh dangling from the side of his face. A part of his upper lip seemed to be in the process of decomposing, and he had no eyelids anymore. The rest of his body was thankfully concealed underneath red wizard's robes and a matching hood.

"You said you were seeking a familiar, mainlander," the Nuit said, his voice neutral and cold with the frost of ages, "perhaps we can strike a deal. As you can see, my body is in need of replacing post haste. If you're interested, take one of those bodies on your shoulders and follow me. I need help with setting up my next body." The man threw a pouch of gold Mizas on the piers for the crew of the ship to have. "Communicator, wipe this conversation off your memory," the wizard ordered to the golem and turned sharply, starting to walk away from the docks.

[Jaquise Emittere]

While he was forced to wait, Jaq could not help but take the chance to inspect the golem before. Since all he knew about more advanced golems was mostly theory, it was quite an opportunity to learn a few things. Unfortunately the golem wasn't exactly doing much so Jaq was unable to observe how well it moved or how quickly it reacted. And he knew little else about observing it magically. He could try and gaze the contraptions Aura but that might be considered rude on a island full of magi more powerful and more secretive then him. So Jaq simply waited, stubbornly returning the golems blank stare. it was a given who blinked first considering Jaq only had one fake eye while this being had two, but to Jaq's credit it was the surprise from it talking after taking such a long silence that caused him to blink.

Request denied," the golem said, "Master Qiao has given explicit orders to refuse this kind of requests."

A cold calculated response that annoyed Jaq to no end. He had just found something he hated more then sea travel. Pointless sea travel. He had spent several days cleaning up a ship so he could come here and be turned away. Before Jaq could stomp away in self loathing another voice spoke up.

"But I'm not Qiao,"

The source of the voice, a pale being stepping out from behind the nearest of the warehouses, sent involuntary shivers down Jaq's spine. Pale wasn't the best way to describe the seemingly young mane before him. Jaq was pale. This man was 'Pale'. The difference was startling and for the first time Jaq found himself the better tanned of those he was in company with. It was a feeling he would have reveled in had the appearance ended at pale. It didn't though. Jaq thanked whatever gods watched over this island now that the man was wearing a robe and a hood and thus kept him from seeing more of the nuit's features. His face had a piece of flesh literally hanging from the side of his face, and part of his upper lip seemed to have started rotting. It took only a moment and a glance into his eyes to tell Jaq that this man was going to beat him at a staring contest to, he had no eyelids.

"You said you were seeking a familiar, mainlander," the Nuit said, his voice neutral and cold with the frost of ages, "perhaps we can strike a deal. As you can see, my body is in need of replacing post haste. If you're interested, take one of those bodies on your shoulders and follow me. I need help with setting up my next body."

Before the trip from Zeltiva to the island, the thought of carrying a dead body would have made Jaq cringe, though he still would have done it and had in fact done so when bounty's didn't voluntarily give in. Now though, he was so used to the idea of them being cargo it barely even registered in his mind that he had a reason to be disgusted. As the man through a pouch of what sounded like Mizas on to the pier Jaq noticed that the crew had already brought down one of the wagons holding the bodies. Jaq walked over and heaved the one closest to the edge up onto his shoulder. The person who used to inhabit it must have gotten all the girls with his blond hair and toned body. Now someone else was going to be getting those girls. Or at least they would if they left the island.

Most people would have thought it demeaning to simply follow the orders of some nameless stranger when it was in fact you who was there to make demands in return for a payment. Most mercenaries wouldn't know what the word demeaning meant but would still feel the same way and probably refuse in some flashy and barbaric way like drawing ones sword. Jaq however was not most people, and thank the gods he was not most mercenaries. Along with the usual guarding of caravans or travelers, Jaq every once in a while becoming a secret resource for the more wealthy of the population. Since Jaq refused to do the wet work of most assassin's such encounters were limited to paranoid people who believed someone was trying to kill them. Jaq was often hired for days or weeks at a time to simply shadow these paranoid people and be ready to defend their lives should the need arise. Sometimes these people had been right, sometimes these people had been wrong. Sometimes the only thing these people had gotten wrong was the day.

With all of these people it had been necessary to act a certain way. It all really depended on the customer and how full of their own self importance they were. And it all boiled down to one thing. They wanted to be safeguarded by magic, and Jaq had the magic they wanted to safeguard them. Jaq held all the cards in those encounters, and all of those things he did were done to remind them of this fact. And to get a better price for his services of course. Now, Jaq found himself in their position, and there was one thing he could say with a certainty. Knowing made it easier, but not by much.

"Communicator, wipe this conversation off your memory,"

That interesting little tidbit was something Jaq stored away in his memory. This conversation was going to be kept from the other 'masters'? Perhaps this was someone who often did business behind the other's backs. Perhaps Jaq was about to become the tool for one of them to wield in the unsightly arena of internal politics. Perhaps such encounters with other people confused or harmed the Communicator, as the golem had been called. Whatever the case, Jaq would be forced to wait for his answers. The man who had come from behind the warehouse was already leaving. Jaq moved to follow him.

[Tarot]

The trek did not take long; the robed wizard merely led Jaquise to one of the more secluded warehouses in the docks. All these buildings were square, grey and identical to one another. They all had a single entrance large enough to accommodate a wagon. The doors also seemed to be golems in their own right, as the man pushed one open without apparent effort; the door registered the pressure and slowly swung open, revealing a mostly empty storage area inside. It was divided into stalls on either side of the building, each marked with a progressive number. Odd numbers on the left, even numbers on the right. Such methodical arrangements spoke of pre-Valterrian times.

The door closed behind them. Light still streamed from glass panels on the roof. The man pointed at the stall in the far left corner. "Drop it there." He produced a piece of charcoal from the folds of his robes.

"So, here's the deal. Let's just say I burned through this body a little faster than I was supposed to, and I don't feel like going to Master Qiao for a new one. You keep watch while I ease myself into that new body, and keep your mouth shut about it later. I help you get yourself a familiar. Poor thing, you have no idea what you're getting into with one of those little suckers."

"Heeeeeeeey!" a tiny voice squealed, muffled by layers of clothing. Something stirred under the wizard's red robes, and slowly crawled out of his sleeve. "That's just mean master Roghon!" the little thing protested in a flurry of words. "You are being your usual mean self and that's why you consume your bodies so fast you know it's all the bile it's true and you never listen to me and that's why things keep going wrong and if it wasn't for me you'd have died when they purged Sahova so you could at least show some gratitude!"

There was a noted lack of breathing and punctuation to the voice. The owner was a shiny blob-like thing that crawled down master Roghon's hand.

"This is precisely what I meant," the wizard grinned cynically, teeth showing through the missing flesh.

[Jaquise Emittere]

Jaq smiled back, a little disturbed by the display but able to hide it behind a passive face. Not exactly what Jaq had thought, but then again he had never really been that good with dealing with people, even of the undead variety. As Jaq set down the body in the indicated corner he though about what he had heard. He had learned several things from the blob thing that was no crawling down from this master Roghon's hand. The most interesting was this 'purge' the creature mentioned. Maybe the reason for the lock down on visitors.

The building he had been led to was a mostly empty storage room divided by stalls on the opposing sides. Those on the left were marked with odd numbers and on the right with even. An interesting set up that left Jaq questioning both its current and its original use. Because of its lack of objects very little could be ventured with that train of thought so he returned his mind to the matter at hand.

"Sounds like a deal. I'll not speak a word of this. Though I hope you don't mind me feigning ignorance of your situation if we happen to get caught."

Jaq walked over to the door that and nodded to the robed Nuit.

"Whenever your ready."

[Tarot]

"Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss," Roghon grinned in ways he really could not afford to in his current state. "Let us get this over with." Jaquise had the dubious privilege of witnessing a Nuit body jumping ritual from a very short distance... some would say too short a distance.

Roghon arranged the body on the floor so it faced up with its limbs fully splayed out. He made sure its mouth was wide open. Then, he took the piece of charcoal and began tracing symbols on the palms of the body's hands, then the feet. He ripped through its clothing to draw a circle around the navel, as well. Jaquise could see that Roghon repeated every symbol on his own current body, reaching into his robes to reach his belly - and giving him a glimpse of rotting flesh in the process. His body was literally falling apart.

When this part of the rite was completed, Roghon lay down upon the corpse, facing down and mirroring its arrangement. It was a disturbing sight to say the least. The wizard paid careful attention so that all the symbols on his body matched those on the next vessel. Meanwhile, the blob-creature had left the protection of his robes and was now crawling on the floor to enjoy the show from a distance.

Roghon began to murmur a few words in the ancient tongue to aid his concentration. He repeated them over and over again, like a mantra. His body seemed to tense with each utterance. Then, he opened his mouth wider than any creature should be able to. He vomited a wave of a thick white ichor into the open mouth of the body underneath him, convulsing from the strain. There was another wave, then another and another. The last one seemed to never end.

Then there was silence. For a long moment, both bodies looked as dead as ever. Jaquise noticed that the corpse he had brought over his shoulder began to move its fingers, then clench them into fists. Slowly, it gained some mobility and pushed the former shell of Roghon aside. Now reborn, Roghon rose from the floor, still staggering and somewhat uncertain, and began to strip the old body to repossess his red robes. The old shell really was worn out to the point of near-collapse.

"Good," Roghon said in a different, younger voice, though slurred, as if unaccustomed to the new body. "Pardon the swaying and stumbling, it takes a while to synchronize with a new body. Just one more moment as I dispose of the evidence, so to speak."

He outstretched his hand, and a black dot formed in front of him, which grew into a full-fledged dark, swirling portal. Whatever lay on the other side, it was terribly cold, as the temperature in the warehouse seemed to drop. Roghon lifted his old body and threw it into the portal, then handwaving it away.

"Much better now. So, you wanted a Familiar, didn't you? Let's talk about it. Do you know what they are and how you live with one?" The blob thing was crawling its way up his robes again. "Or maybe I should say, how you live despite one?" He grinned again.

[Jaquise Emittere]

Jaq couldn't help but agree with Roghon's words. He could have gone his whole life being ignorant of the particular's of the Nuit's body ritual and been happy for it. Unfortunately he was probably going to be stuck with the image of a rotting body vomiting white ichor into a corpse for a long time. Jaq had been smart enough to turn away after it had begun, but the sound was enough to fill in most of what he was missing. It reminded Jaq of a time he had to much of the drink and ended up pass out in a puddle of what had been his dinner, but worse. The first time it had ended Jaq had made the mistake of turning around. He got another eyeful and another memory to treasure for the rest of his life.

Jaq lost count of how many times he heard the man vomit but after a few moments of silence he finally ventured a look. Both bodies were immobile, both looking like the corpses they actually were, then the fingers on the body Jaq had brought in twitched and formed into fists. Roghon pushed his old body off and uncertainly stood up. He staggered for a moment or two but began to strip the old body of his red robes.

Jaq only nodded at the apology, taking note of the slurred voice but saying nothing of it. The man seemed to be getting used to his body. What followed next was not really surprising but still very humbling for Jaq. In getting rid of the 'evidence' that was his former body Roghon opened a void portal. He opened a good sized portal quickly, efficiently, and seemingly without effort. He was then able to throw his old body through it. Jaq could barley open one the size of his palm, and he had to put all of his focus into maintaining it. Jaq was no fool, he knew there were magi this good out in the world. There's a difference in knowing that fact, and seeing that fact. Oh sure working he had worked with his father, but part of him that had always looked up to the person that was Sergane had been looking at it from a son's point of view. It was the natural way of the world for the father to be more skilled.

When Roghon asked the questions Jaq turned his eye away from where the void portal had been to the figure before him. "I know a little bit. My father had bonded with a familiar when I was young and he was as much a companion to me as he was to my father, of course minus the whole bound till death part. I know they live off a wizards Djed and death for one is death for the other. I also remember my father mentioning something about sharing thoughts, but the concept confused me to much at the time. I had been hoping to learn more from whoever I ended up gaining assistance from here."

[Tarot]

"I guess what you know is better than nothing," Roghon's new persona grinned, "but even if you knew everything there's to know, it would still mean nothing without the actual experience of having one. Imagine meeting a complete stranger and getting attached to the hip for the rest of your lives. A lot of things can happen. You may get along from day one. You may learn to get along after a while. You may never get along. Then there's cases like mine, where only one party gets along with the other."

The blob thing peered out of the Nuit's hood. "Master Roghon I know deep down you don't think such things and you are a good man and you just wish I talked a little less and a little slower and not go on really useless tangents but we can't change our natures now can we?" This Familiar was quite the hyperactive sort. "Besides we talked a lot before you picked me don't you remember that day I sure do it was the true beginning of my life when you came to me and took me under your wing and taught me everything I know!"

"The way I remember this," Roghon replied with growing distaste, "is that you did all the talking. Getting a Familiar was a prize for honor students such as yours truly. Back then they didn't let us choose our own, though. They called it their custom and didn't think it even mattered. They believed we'd pull through regardless, and if we didn't, well that meant we sucked as wizards and were not supposed to go very far anyways."

"At any rate," Roghon cut his speech short, gesturing towards Jaquise, "I won't stop you if you insist on getting yourself one of these chaps. They are all too eager to leave their homeworld, so they are on their best behavior when you first meet them. Like getting married - gods forbid! That's exactly when he starts belching on the sofa and she gets fatter than swine. But unlike marriage, there's no way out of this."

"So, do you have any questions or do you just want to meet one of the suckers themselves?"

[Jaquise Emittere]

Jaq looked between the blob and the wizard, wondering which one he found more disturbing. For the most part Roghon seemed like the kind of person Jaq would be able to get along with. However Jaq was not fortunate enough to be able to banish the memory of the so recently witnessed Nuit ritual. The blob however was an image that reminded Jaq of the sea and subsequently his sea sickness. The endless talking did not help him either. When it came down to it Jaq supposed it didn't really matter. What mattered was what he came he for. Depending on the answers he got, he might have a great deal to think about. Wearing himself out wondering about other matters might cause a distraction and in the end lead to him making an irrevocable mistake, one that had the potential to actually ruin his life.

"Questions? I suppose I have a few. My first would be what will this cost me?" Jaq nodded his head in the direction of the blob, "If what little I've heard is correct that is not the only kind of familiar there is correct? My second question would be how many other kinds are there and what are they? I don't need much in the way of details and I can probably ask the ones I speak to about their specific capabilities. Your warnings have have not gone unheard either, so my last question would be if you have any recommendations as to what kind I should choose?"

[Tarot]

"Cost?" Roghon laughed, "You have already repaid your debt to me. This new body of mine is quite the looker, don't you think? Ah, right, I forgot, most males are uncomfortable commenting on another male's look. You tend to forget about this stuff after a few centuries." Sahovans were apparently gifted with rather extreme personalities. They had to be, or they would likely have taken their own lives out of boredom. "The cost is just the company you're ending up with, no more and no less. You weren't surprised by the portal before, so I take it you know a little about magic. You probably know the big truth about magic: it works great as long as it does, then you're screwed. This is no different."

Roghon collected his Familiar on the palm of his hand. and showed it to Jaquise. "They all come from a wretched planet called Fyrden. One half is a huge lake of molten rock, exposed to endless heat... the other half is forever dark and cold to make your blood freeze. Those who live on the hot half are called Lightfacers, the others, Darkfacers. In general, Lightfacers - like this Sarawanki here - are active, outgoing and tend to act on impulse and instinct. Darkfacers seem more distant, collected, introverted, and act more rationally around you and with the rest of the world. Neither type is better than the other; they are just different. My advice is to find one with the personality you'd look for in a mate, or a best friend. You will find it easier to build rapport that way."

"I don't know every type of Familiar in existence, for I have only had this one and no two of them are alike, but each has interesting qualities. Even my own..." Roghon turned sharply and threw his Familiar into the wall. The thing splintered into hundreds of shiny droplets that flew everywhere. "This one can split and is difficult to damage without magic. Others can camouflage, and some have exotic powers such as feeding off light or sounds around them. You will have to ask them to perform for you."

[Jaquise Emittere]

Indeed he knew from personal experience the draw backs of using magic. His hand unconsciously went to his fake eye which twinged in the memory of pain. "Indeed. I would compliment you on your apparent skill. It is no small task to open a void such as that." That his early assistance would be the only cost did much to lighten his mood, and thoughts of what to pursue were a welcome distraction from the all to recent Nuit ritual he had witnessed.

The way Roghon described the ones he called the Lightfacers actually reminded Jaq of what he thought himself. An impulsive outgoing person. Of course he had learned long ago that Jaq did not get along well with others like himself. It had been one of the reasons he had quit the small band of mercenaries that hired themselves out as guards and decided to start working solo. He was no fool and scars and softened his impulses but that did not mean he always thought before he acted. That turned Jaq's mind to the thought of bonding with a Darkfacer. From what he was told it sounded like they would make a good contrast to Jaq's nature. It would also be good to have some one advise him with more rational though and perhaps help keep him out of trouble. Of course this all depended on the individual being they spoke to. If Roghon spoke true, and he had said and done little to indicate otherwise, the beings varied as much as people did. Still, it seemed starting with the Darkfacers would be better. "I believe, with no offense to your companion, that I am impulsive enough on my own. Perhaps starting a Darkfacer would be better suited for me. Do you need any assistance in any preparations?"