The Times of Our Lives

The knock awoke Charlie from a trance like state, engrosed in his work. He was writing musings on particle physics with reference to necromancy with one hand, and making a pot of tea with the other. He closed the notebook before placing the diffuser in the pot and removing a pair of mugs from a cupboard. One was a souvenier mug from the 1904 world's fair, and the other labelled 'No. 1 Undead Overlord'. He placed them next to the teapot before tossing the notebook into a pile he lovingly thought of as 'applying science to magic', and answered the door.

Towering outside the door was the immense figure of Béatrice, the orcentia. Fascinating speices, he had never seen one in person before coming to the island. He had seen a certain... organ for which they had been hunted, in the treasuries of kings and emperors, but not a live one. He had fought alongside Béa during the monster invasion. Despite the possible losses, it had been a fantastic expierence. Sure, he had lost some undead, but they had been replaced by a wide array of strange creatures, as many as he could hide from roldan, shrewd as he was. Human corpses weren't rare. But hydras? Now that had been a boon.

Béatrice had expressed an interest in learning necromancy, which Charlie was all too eager to provide. He was an enthusiastic teacher, and just loved teaching, seeing the bright eyed youngsters learn something new. It just so happened that he tought was raising the dead.

"Come in béa, come in, and please, call me Charlie" Charlie said as he ushered her inside. He picked up the mugs and placed them on the coffee table, the overlord mug on the far side, before picking up the teapot and placing it into the centre "i've just set a pot of darjeeling brewing. Fantastic blend. Take a seat. I brought muffins." he said, waving a hand the sofa closest to the door on the left hand side of the room before taking a seat on the opposing sofa. He brought out a large pack of muffins from a side cupboard and placed them next to the teapot.

"So" he said, with a wry, impish smile "what do you want to know?"

@Keen

"There is no need for a gift" Charlie chuckled. He had read that fae and orcentia were similar. He wondered if the had some form of common ancestry. Couldn't somebody do something to be nice?

"And to know everything i know, you'd need a few centuries free" Charlie chuckled at this, and picked up the teapot, saying "i'll be mother". He poured a generous dose of beautiful herbal smelling tea into each cup, and placed one onto the floor infront of Béatrice, along with the muffins, and picked up his own.

"Well... Necromancy" Charlie thought for a moment, and took a sip of his tea "There are various different aspects within a grand whole. What I do is sometimes refered to as 'True' necromancy. I don't like calling it that, but it's an individual utilizing his soul in order to raise bodies. It's probably the most difficult variety. What i teach to students is ritual necromancy, using words and actions and sometimes a little bit of a blood sacrifice to bring the dead back. That's probably your most basic form. I'd probably teach you that, and, with your background at... i believe it was called Gentech?... a form of necromancy called chemical necromancy. That's your classical Frankenstein's monster necromancy. Using a combination of specialist magical chemicals and alchemic materials and a few big old jolts of electricity to bring a body back. I don't tend to teach this to students, because if you aren't careful, it can have serious consequences, but I trust you. I can show you."

Charlie stood up from the sofa, picked up the teapot and placed it on the side, before opening up a cupoard. He removed a pair of books from the cupboard and placed them infront of Béatrice. One was labeled 'Necromancy 101' and another, quite thicker volume was labelled bound in a strange pale leather and embossed in gold with 'Chemical Necromancy' and beneath, 'V.F.'. He reached into the cupboard again, and removed a pair of silver trays from the cupboard and placed them on the table. On each one, amongst a few strange items, was a dead bird. On the left tray was a pilette full of a dark red liquid, and a strange looking stone item. On the right was a long syringe half full of blue liquid, and a black box, with a red and a black lead, each tipped with a metal contact. He placed each one along side a book, before sitting cross legged across from Béatrice on the floor.

"Here are a pair of books I wrote on the subject. Necromancy 101 is for ritual necromancy, Chemical necromancy is... self explanitory. These..." he pointed to the two dead birds "...are example of both kinds. I'll demonstrate. This is ritual necromancy."

Charlie placed the strange stone item onto the bird and waved a hand over the bird, in a strange figure of eight pattern, repeating something in a strange language:

"Iee morganis ult dra mortis drac au pro bo farnis"

He picked up the pippette, briefly saying "fresh blood" to Béatrice, and dropped three drops onto the bird's face. At this, the bird suddenly hoped up and flew over to the desk, where it sat on the lamp. He slid the now empty metal tray to the side.

"I made it look easy. But in general, it is the easiest type. But you can't really make intelligent undead with this. For you, to make something slightly more intelligent, you would need something else."

He slid the remaining tray in front of him.

"Chemical necromacy. The veins of this bird are filled with this chemical, the instructions to which are on the third page of the book. This is your basic magical chemical, and there are others, but this is a decent general purpose one. Now for the old jolt of lightning."

He flicked a switch on the black box, which began buzzing, and picked it up the two leads, black in one hand, red in the other. He applied each one to opposite sides of the bird. There was an electric ZAP noise. The bird began spasiming, and after a minute or so, it began to flap it's wings, and flew over to join it's comrade

Charlie picked up his mug and took a sip. "So that's the basics. The books will fill out a lot. If you have any questions, ask away"

@Keen

Charlie chuckled at the mention of a gift "just get me a bottle of decent whiskey when it comes to christmas" He intended to give Béatrice a gift himself when the holiday season came, and then Béatrice would feel placated when it came to the strange trade system the fae had, and it seemed the orcentia had too. Everyone was happy.

"Remember" said Charlie, sliding the contents of one tray onto another and placing the empty tray beneath the full one. "These birds are only able to be animated by a battery box because they are reasonably small. For a large human body you need a couple of million volts. Thats why they used to use lightning." That was one of the things the old monster movies got right. The body was a system of electrical signals through nerves and neurons. You sort of had to put all that electricity put back in. Charlie secretly felt Frankenstein was done right because he used to drink on occasion with James Whale, it's director, but he wasn't a fan of Shelley. You didn't really need lightning anymore, a large enough capacitor bank would work.

"My middle name is discretion." Said Charlie "Well actually it's Virgil, but yes i will keep quiet. Many find the projects of individuals such as yourself and I to be quite vulgar. There are things in the sarcophagus which might turn even your head. He watched as Béatrice picked up the books, a childlike grin of happiness on her face. It was nice when he made people happy. That was something he didn't understand. Why did people always want to do exchanges and trades, something for something. He enjoyed teaching, spreading knowledge. The world had become a wonderful place, not through trades, but through free passage of knowledge.


"Thats one of the joys of becoming undead by your own power. No gods, no masters, no will but your own. I never had to make deals with those who offer them. The gathering of power takes time, but with an undead life, you can take that time. Infinite patience. You want something, you simply wait until it's owner is dead and take it. I will teach you necromancy, but not how to become a Lich. The method is not one I would like repeated. I'm not even sure how undead would work with an orcentia. I'm not sure it's been tried. I've been doing some fascinating research into fire elemental ressurection, a delightful ashling corpse i acquited."

@Keen

"There are many elements of nature most forget. Lightning. Metal. Marshmallows" he chuckled, sipping at the tea. He had once met a marshmallow elemental. They were certainly intresting, if a little sticky.

"Sure i can show you the body" said Charlie, standing up from the sofa and walking over to the set of drawers below the counter where his kettle was. He pulled on a pair of drawer knobs and the wooden door slide out with a small sound of wood and wood. Inside the drawer was a metal tray, and sat atop it was the ashling.

It was the size of a human, around five foot form. It appeared to be composed of the embers of a fire, moulded into a feminine form, but instead of the red heat of a fire, there was nothing. Along side the tray was various large glass tubes, one full of a deep jet black liquid. Charlie beckoned Béatrice over to the drawer. .

"Ashlings are one of the few elementals that leave a body after they expire, which makes them both fascinating and useful. When they die, the fire within that powers them burns out. What i'm trying to do is stick something else back in instead of the fire, such as Necromantic energy."

He didn't normally store his experiments in his office, but he had to keep a close eye on the ashling. Performing necromancy on an elemental was a groundbreaking new field. Ashlings really didn't turn up that often. Often the fire that powers them burns so hot in their final moments, that it obliterates the body of the ashling and turns it into dust. Something rather odd must have happened to this one in order for it's body to be preserved. Struck by lightning maybe. Or killed by some sort of magic. One of Charlie's contacts had dug it up in the Mojave desert, and Charlie had paid him handsomely. Charlie had always wanted to attempt to make a death elemental

@Keen

Charlie turned around at the outburst, looking at Béatrice's face. He chuckled. In his hand he had a bag of marshmallows, one of which he popped into his mouth with a smile, before offering the bag to Béatrice.

"Marshmallow? I don't know what you're talking about. They very definitely are essential" He said, sarcastically with a grin "She wasn't an actual marshmallow elemental, she was the child of a cloud elemental and a sugar elemental, who resembled a marshmallow, so she called herself a marshmallow elemental. Her brother looked like candyfloss, but we had to state he was a cloud-sugar elemental hybrid. He was much more serious. I knew them in the 60s."

Althea, or Fluffie as Charlie had know her, was an intresting character. Charlie had met her at woodstock, and, apart from the habit of her attracting ants, she was a lovely person. Charlie wondered if she was still alive. That was the strange thing. All these little things, little people you forget, each with a life of their own, their own worries and successes. Charlie sighed, before turning to look curiously at Béatrice as she inspected the ashling. As she did so, she whispered something. He wondered something. She had seemed very eager to check the body.

"So have you known many ashlings in life?" He questioned, before remembering Béatrice's experience with NextGen "Are elemental sub-species one of your research elements?"

@Keen