Come play with me forever and ever (Jilitse)

[Vick]

Winter 313 AV

A sigh left the young Nuits lips as a body of a boy kept standing by a small table. Along the table was a set of different used tools from a carving tools and painting brushes. However on the table that was not a normal sight were different sets of bones from races that ranged from human to zith.

Vick was a mage in Sahova, he dealt mainly with Malediction which was a world magic that dealt with the bones of the dead and even living sometimes. He earned Mage status just two years ago when he got a hold of his own private lab which was a big step in things due to he was only on the island a year beforehand. A lot of nuits took much longer to prove they could be a Mage and even have a private lab or office. However Vick did have a downside in which he was only eight years old when he became an Nuit and if he did keep track he would have been 11 now but he would always be eight years old forever now.

His tiny little fingers kept moving along the skull of a female Zith however his mind was more blank then anything as he kept going over what his mentor told him. He was to work with another Mage on this day learning a new magic and also be a teacher himself to teach his own work to see if he would hold the right skill to have his own students one day. A lot of stress on one so young or at least he thought as he had no information on the other nuit even if it was a nuit or not. Other then they would come to his lab when they were ready but the thing with nuits were is that they had no reason to keep track of time like the rest of the world. What was one day or even one year testing something in the name of research?

What was his research? He could go with he was using his magic to give the people who died a second chance or even go with making use of the dead. However was that his real research or just a mean to an end? The research most nuits did on the island was in the name for weapons or magical discoveries in which could either be used by them in terms of getting them higher in the food chain in the island or as in something to be used as a stepping stone or at least this was how it was in his young eyes. Yet what was in goal for the research he did at the end of the day? Even after working with the field of Malediction for years he still could not hold a solid reason for it.

If he wanted to make weapons that could kill gods then he would work with Magecrafting. If he wanted to go to look at far away worlds then he would go with summoning but he did not do any of that. He worked alone like everyone else yet on bones of the dead using the djed they had in life and molding it into his own image and ideas. He learned how to do it when he was alive but then he became an nuit and came to the island. However he still went with learning it even after hardships all to be called a wizard but was that his real goal? Just to be called a wizard as he could have just learned a personnel magic down the road could he not?

He just shook his head as his fingers traced along the zith skull letting his fingers work along it as if they could cut into the hardness of the bone to form a circle. He had his tools yet he did not start work on the steps for malediction as he had yet to form an solid idea about the end goal he wanted from the skull. He never did start work until he had a plan of action for what was the point of unfinished project laying about?

Maybe some idea would come to him later as he closed his eyes for once. He was not tired for Nuits never did sleep. He had even came to the custom of not blinking or breathing for they were just humanoid actions inside his head. He had stopped acting like a human just roughly a year ago but at times he let his body react what it felt like. Then again he also did spend a good chuck of time playing by himself on the island near the shore and docks. His mentor at last came to stop prodding him to stop but to balance it out he made Vick study more and more from books to understand more about the world around him. Only then he could go play but he wanted to go play once more but his work now laid in wait with the other Nuit coming so play time for him was put off for now.

He let his eyes open once more as he looked down along his hands. He knew what his body looked like even without a mirror for Nuits could transfer from body to body like a hermit crab moves from shell to shell. He saw the body with his last one before doing the needed ritual. He stood about the same height of his last body which was about four feet even. His skin was a golden brown tone which was darker then what he was use to but it seemed the race was normal for that along with his black hair. His eyes were of a deep ruby red that stood out the most along his body but that was from the Vantha race traits which the body was or at least use to be before he took it.

However he did not look like a normal Vantha when it came to close up. Dark circles laid under his ruby eyes that looked like a form of lack of sleep however the circles were just far darker then what they should have been even without sleep. His lips were a tainted light blue as if in the cold winter wind of the high mountains during winter time. His tongue was a shade darker then his lips and his body held a cold touch as if it was just living stone. To anyone other then a Nuit or someone not use to the Nuit race it would have been called many things however to Nuits it was just a normal event for even while they could get bodies with ease on the island they could not stop them from looking like dead corpses for that long.

His eyes just looked back at his plain wooden door of his lab and without a sound he just moved to the desk that laid in the center. He let his body lay in chair as he took out a book he made when he came to the island, it dealt with the basic understanding of the types of magic in the world. He could had just got the main book from the library however he had made a copy on one of the first days so he could play outside but he found he enjoyed reading it now and then like now as he would wait for the other nuit to come play.

[Jilitse]

How many years has it been since? Jilitse had already lost count. She was sure that it had been centuries, but in her mind she could still recall when the war brimmed and boiled, and it was just as relentless in Sahova as it was in anywhere else. The Nuit was stuck in the past, a frozen clock. For now, her purpose was to continually develop golems and try to unearth secrets that the Valterrian took away from them. Jilitse, of course, was far too much of a simple apprentice to even make a discovery worthy of praise. She just thought that it was because the damage was irreparable, many great wizards have fallen, taking their trade secrets with them to the grave. Even three hundred years was far too short for the Citadel to recover from its casualties, bodies and magic alike.

The war may have ended long ago, but its imprint was still left in Sahova. Perhaps the biggest of their problems were the golems that continually malfunctioned through the years, some of them had suffered from the wild djed that roamed Mizahar, and they disobeyed their directives or stopped working altogether. This constant need to repair things gave Jilitse enough things to do for the rest of her undeath... yet here she was striding along, feet heavy with disinterest.

As far as duties were concerned, Jilitse was unaffected for the most part. She was just a lowly apprentice after all, no desire of moving up the political ladder. Jil was fine as long as she was under the tutelage of the Archwizard, never mind that she hadn't seen him for a long while - he was working on some new project perhaps. The man was workaholic like that. She answered to the call of Seleumence Varubicht, once her professor in the Royal Academy of Alahea. She was requested to visit a newcomer in the island, a child by the name of Vick. Vick was a new addition the the island, she was told, and needed some help.

Of course, the word help was synonymous to many other things, such as being a slave.

Jilitse was wearing a man's body. It was towering, a few marks away from being seven feet tall. The body was discolored, but it was blue all over, having the appearance of being bruised from head to toe. It was an Akalak's body, one that the she-corpse did not really favor. The arm's reach extended longer than usual, the height changed her usual spatial perception. Furthermore, she did not have clothes that would fit the body. At the very least she had a black cloak, but even that failed to completely wrap her body. Her torso was exposed between a curtain of awkward cloth, and the slightly tattered edges - worn from kissing the floor - were now fluttering just below her Akalak body's knees.

"Master Vick?" She said as she knocked outside the door of his laboratory. "This is Master Jilitse. I was ordered to visit you today and assist you onwards by Master Varubicht." A man known otherwise as Boss Rubik, secretly hiding as the Priest of Uldr.

She entered the laboratory when she was welcomed, and took in everything she saw. Quaint, simple. If not for the privacy, there was nothing else that differentiated it from the common laboratory.

She stared at the undead boy, quickly noticing how she would have to look down on him because of the difference in their height.

"New body. We have to make do with what we have." She smiled the smile of the Akalak, "I see even young boys are not exempt from being stored away in the chambers below. You can't be picky these days."

That was as far as an introduction the child Nuit was going to get, and Jilitse stared at him, waiting for his command.

[Vick]

Vick just looked at the new person letting his eyes take in the new face. This had to be one of the few people coming inside his little lab which was rather sad on some level if Vick thought to long on the subject yet that was still rather normal. Even if he was just a wizard he was still low on the food chain in the island but he was told Jilitse was lower then he was. Vick knew all to well where that was placed at but this was not for a debate of who was higher in the island for they both were little kids in the sea of magical research.

“Greetings, I am Vick as you already know. I was hoping you could help me understand a magic field I have little idea about other then what I read in books but that field would be Animation and I was told you knew a good deal about it.”

He got right to the point in his request as he waved to a chair in front of the desk for him to take a seat at. While the lab was small it did suit Vick rather well but it was just table scraps to what he truly aimed for in his unlife. Even in his young age he knew what he wanted and that was the world in his little hands. Along with making humans suffer but that was just something.

“I do know this agreement will last awhile so I do hope non of your projects will suffer. After we deal with Animation I would like to teach you some Malediction in hopes maybe a set of fresh eyes can help me with a few projects. Have you ever taught your skills to someone?”

Vick never did blink as he talked to her. If she was a human or any race that could breath that might have made some difference in things yet to another Nuit he knew it meant nothing. Why would they act like they were alive with each other when they knew the truth? That was a good thing about the Nuit race. They were far from any living race in the world and that could be so useful in things such as research. What could take a human years could take them months for they did not have to eat or sleep or even worry about things like that unless they did get damage and had to replace the bodies but at Sahova that had no worry for they always had a stock of fresh bodies to pick from. Outside of Sahova Vick did not know for he did not travel outside the island. Yet maybe his new guest knew?

The page of his book was open to Animation but all it did was talk of it. While he may knew about the idea of it he lacked real hands on teachings for it but maybe that would change. How long would theses lessons go on? He had no idea but he would make sure to make them last for they had all the time in the world really.

His mind and will slowly moving the djed from deep within his soul forcing it out his along his senses along his eyes as he focused along the magic called Auristics. It was a personnel magic that dealt with seeing auras which could tell a person something about another person or item for everything in the world had Djed. That Djed was then viewed and broken down into something the person could understand as Vicks goal was to understand Jilitse at least along the surface of emotions but it did take a great deal of concentration and even he knew it would only be basic facts. If they were also skilled at the magic then they would know he was using it but even an village idiot could tell Vick was doing something for he would be tired afterwards for a bit.

[Jilitse]

The boy Nuit asked, with the curiosity of a child, if she had teaching experience. Jilitse regarded that question with a smile, the inquiry was something she found funny, so the she sent one hand patting the other Nuit's head. "Well, young master, if being apprentice to the man who made the golem Drainira qualifies as being an expert on animation, then I'm sure you will find my credentials desirable. And to answer your question, no. I don't have teaching experience. I don't have students of my own." "Nonetheless," she continued, "I have made countless demonstrations over the course of my life. It is not exactly what you would say 'teaching' but I guess that should suffice. Doesn't it technically work that way? I tell you what to do and then you do it. Like," she reached for the word, "mimickry." The huge Akalak body would have made it easier to intimidate Vick, but Jilitse was wary of the boy. She doesn't usually get sent to babysit Nuits, and he might be some sort of spy. Jil would like to have this Nuit off her back as soon as possible. She wondered silently about the new colleague, and waited for any questions he might have. Maybe he could be some sort of back-up? There seem to be a shortage in Animators, owing to the Valterrian. Jilitse herself had to double hat, be the gadgeteer and the animator for golems, whereas in the old days manufacturing golems was efficiently done in war factories. Maybe Vick wasn't a spy after all. "Since you didn't want any of my projects to suffer, I am not going to bother asking you what kind of demonstration you'd like to see, let's head over to the common laboratories and I'll continue working on golem repairs." She nodded. It was not a request, more of a demand. Jilitse turned around and waited for Vick to follow, walking with steps too dainty for a hulking body. As she led him through blue-lit corridors, Jil kept silent and evaded small talk. She did throw a glance every now and then, to see if he was following, as there was a good distance from his own private lab down to the Commons. Vick would eventually realize, by deduction or by asking Jil, that she didn't have her own laboratory, and that was against her merit. If Vick knew anything about his few years of stay, Sahova had a pecking order. He was right above Jilitse as a mage and he deserved the right to demand her acquiescence. Jil's desk was littered with gadgeteering tools and broken golem parts, with various boxes filled with metal parts and wooden items. Upon the table lay a cylinder as tall as Vick that looked incomplete with obvious signs of wear. "Your usual messenger golem." Jilitse introduced the automaton. "It's broken. Dead. Like literally, it's just an empty shell. Kind of like us, souls used and reused and rebuilt." She smiled at Vick, and started preparing her work table. "There's isn't a lot to my Animation but creating simple golems. And repairing some. There are those who create better golems and advance their craft. Those are left to the better ones. I do repair, or follow existing designs.” She looked at Vick and asked, “So what are you good at,” inquiring about his magical discipline, “and why the interest in Animation? I rarely see people deviating from one craft.” “I’m some sort of purist,” she offered, “I only practice Animation, and some paramagic to support my world magic. Other Nuits call me half-baked or one-sided. I’m a firm believer in sticking to what you do best. Also, it’s tough to master one magical discipline, let alone learn a few.” She had always set that limitation to herself, and saw no point in deviating from the opinion. “Alahea used to have a lot of golems. It’s high technology that not even Suvan had, and definitely nowhere near the kind of scrap in front of you right now. The Valterrian kind of doused civilization altogether, but I’m sure you’ve heard that repeated hundreds, thousands of times before. But there are still living testaments to the old glory. Take Drainira, for example. I’m sure you;ve met the supervisor? She is the greatest work of Zarik Mashaen." The million miza golem was incorporated into the whole Citadel; she was supervisor of Sahova. Jilitse would even go as far as saying that Drainira was Sahova. She nodded, and switched topics, “Let’s get started. Would you mind helping me with this first? Retrieve two wheels for me, in that box over there." Jilitse involved Vick, to make him feel part of the repair. In case there was a lack of animators, maybe he’d be willing to assist? She pointed to a crate filled with replacement parts positioned under the table. Jil examined the dead golem and decided, "The head needs replacing too, so you may want to reach out for the next box, should be larger, and have jar-shaped parts. It’s not exactly a head, but everybody finds it easier to talk to something when you can focus on ‘what appears to be a head’. Especially the pulsers. They seem to be unfamiliar with the fact that just because something is alive, it doesn’t mean it has to have arms and limbs. In that sense, imbuing life to things is so much more than raising corpses." She looked at Vick, and tried to meet his eye. As if an afterthought, “How old are you in Nuit years?”

[Vick]

Vick indeed did follow the nuit to whereever she was leading him. Well more like skipped and hum a tune under his breath as he followed them and even sometimes skipping around them yet mostly in the end behind them like a child.

It would have been fine, if that child was not dead and was inside an island filled with the dead but Vick always stood out either way so he just learned not to care what other nuits thought that much. He would prove his self with his skills and not how he would act yet most thought he was just breaking under the power of time and the fact he was turned so young.

Once they went inside the lab, Vick looked at the different tools and items. He knew about Animation but just from books and never hands on. That is why he wanted a teacher of sorts to help him ease into it and to learn what books could not teach but he turned and giggled at her question of his field of choice and why he wanted to set sail into other paths of magic.

“Legacy, I am rather good at it or at least I am told. I seek to Master it before long yet why I want to learn this? I am an artist one could say, I enjoy working with my hands and I know the island lacks people to handle this magic so I wish to learn to help the island. Plus I think if I combined Animation and Malediction I think I could make fun little toys to play with. Don’t you think?”

He said softly and slowly as he stood still looking at her. His dead eyes showing fire at last when he talked about his craft as he made it clear he was not joking about enjoying it and knowing about it.

“Within Nuit years...three...I think. I don’t know since I can’t remember. I was turned into one when I was eight...and was sent here to learn more.”

Vick said even more softly almost above a whisper. The passion inside his eyes fading as he thought about his age and showing just how young he was in so many ways. Yet that doubt within his dead eyes faded once more as Jil told him what to do and he skipped towards the table and did as he was told for now he was learning and going to help her but he knew that would come at a price down the road.

In order to make sure he was getting the right parts out of the boxes he found a simple stool and climbed upon it. This was something he was use to due to his choice of bodies since most of the island used adult sizes and things were built around that. Not children friendly to say the least but Vick always knew how to work around that as he picked out two metal wheels. They were like rings, smooth edge with metal bars in the middle. He moved off the stool and gave them to her before skipping back to it and climbing on it as he looked in the larger box.

Just as she said it was a jar shaped items, maybe 10 inches long give or take and looked like a solid jar without a lid. He knew Golems had parts like this so he did not question it as he placed it on the table, sitting himself down on the stool and jumping towards the ground like a little kid before handing her the jar.

“Yes, I made it a goal to read and research as much as I could when I came to the island. Plus Boss wanted me to keep up with studies so I would not fall behind on what I should know. Along with that I had to learn about Sahova and Drainira was and is a big help.”

He said as he smiled towards her waiting for the next set of orders and he would do his best to help her with her task as he paid close mind to what she was doing and how everything worked together.