Velho
Approved Character
- Messages
- 200
- Race
- Æld'Norai
- Profession
- Ferrier
- Location
- AElheim
- Arcana
- Character Sheet
༺༉❁ September 10th year 124 of the third age ❁༉༻
<notes>
<notes>
Draugr weren't exactly a common sight in Ælheim; sometimes, they and other undead were found and plucked from the warring factions in the Ur'Duun for Sundering, but otherwise? Some Fælnir went their whole lives never even hearing the term. So when Velho was called to dispose of one, he was, to say the least, puzzled; they could usually be given their final death through the same methods one might dispose of a living creature. But his confusion quickly crossed into curiosity, and thus he was more than willing to investigate when contacted.
Velho had been led to the body site by another, and they'd employed this same method of travel together– Apparation; Velho a cloud of Ash, his guide a mist of Saol. As neither of them wanted to waste their respective Spell Reserves, they allowed their shift to take a Journeyman's thirty seconds. Because Velho did not quite know exactly where they were going, he allowed his guide to effectively 'carry' him. Their destination was relatively middle of nowhere; having followed the river from Thokkmyrr up north, their movement ceased as they neared the western slopes of the Hexewald mountain cluster. Their guide materialized first in a glowing, rapid congelation of chartreuse Saol, whilst the Ferrier regained his corporeality in a flurry of silken, silvery Ash rapidly taking the shape of his form before hardening and finally granting him the return of his colour. Notably, though, he didn't reform his legs; evidently he preferred floating to walking.
The three Æld'Norai had no trouble seeing even in the dead of night, as the vibrant flora which bloomed all 'round them teemed with Saol and illuminated the marshes, both because of their Lifesight and the plant's natural bioluminescence. Abruptly, the bark of a nearby tree flickered to life, growing rapidly before taking the shape of a man who then stepped onto the mossy soil below.
"I was half expecting the damn creature to die before you returned, Lamont," a Draoidh painted like the night sky and dotted with freckles like stars spoke, his voice carrying the casual attitude of a man at ease. "...it's right over here," he clarified, pointing towards a mangled elfin corpse unceremoniously left splayed out before a nearby log. The body appeared to be stuck to the mossy bark via the impalement of numerous wooden spikes, likely from the Draoidh's initial attempt to kill it.
"...and I was half hoping the same; though in that case, we'd've wasted the good Ferrier's time, ay?" Lamont, a man of monochromatic, emerald to blue-toned greens, responded with a chuckle.
"...poison didn't get him…?" Velho chimed in as he drifted nearer to the body, his voice as tired as he looked. He noted the presence of a particularly pernicious poisonous plant growing from the starry toned Draoidh's hair.
"We thought so, at first– Akkæri's poison worked to drop the thing to the ground fast as you'd expect, but even turning him to mincemeat in the aftermath can't seem to kick the soul out of that corpse," his question answered by Lamont.
This time, Akkæri chimed in, "...aye, I'm the Mystic of the two of us– body's definitely in tatters, but the soul won't leave."
Sometimes, particularly stubborn souls could cling to their bodies even after their flesh had been destroyed so thoroughly that no 'life' (or unlife, as it were) was left to animate them. If not dealt with swiftly, it was these stubborn, oft vengeful, souls that were wont to become Revenants– and thus major problems– the quickest. This was somewhat more common with Draugr, since they owed their existence to having their souls bound back to their already dead flesh at least once already.
Still, the circumstance was nonetheless puzzling. Draugr were an incredible rarity in Ælheim, unwelcome as undead were. Further, this one was– at least, he appeared to be?– Jin'Norai. The presence of a Jin'Norai Draugr in the Hespærian swamps just flat out bizarre; Velho found himself immediately less concerned with actually doing his job and more curious about why this man was even here.
"Let us know if you need anything, then, Ferrier," Akkæri spoke again after several moments of silence.
Velho's only response was a soft 'hm,' barely more than an acknowledgment– he was engrossed in poking about the cadaver's mangled viscera in an attempt to gather what information he could. All of the injuries appeared to be caused by either the natural rotting of a Draugr's unfortunate circumstance, general abrasions and wear from presumably wandering alone in the marshes, and then the poison, impalement and evisceration inflicted by his Æld'Norai kinsmen.
Something that had caught Velho's attention from the moment he'd set his Divining gaze upon the corpse was that the lingering soul was not only intact as the others had said, but also in accompaniment to the expected Miasmata for one of his ilk, he was utterly brimming with Aether. It made the Maltrician wonder– he had to have one witchmark, at least, and for that reason he began to search the deceased's body for any of Galdr's identifying symbols.
Upon the torn flesh of the Jin'Norai's throat, he spotted Zephyr's mark– unsurprising, given the reverence for it many of the body's kin possessed. Except that was not the only witchmark the undead bore; as he overturned the man's hands, he noticed Aqua on the left palm and a torn mark of Terra on the right. As he continued his inspection, he also found Abation inscribed on the deceased's upper left shoulder, whilst there were traces of the same iridescent black ink on the shredded remains of the right. Piecing the flesh fragments back together, it revealed a Fulguri's mark. This Draugr had all five elemental Galdr– utterly remarkable!
Turning his head to look at the others, he exhaled a breath of Ash and then spoke: "...for this one, I'll need to perform my rites back at home." The Ferrier's words were given bluntly, his voice matter-of-fact.
The other two Draoidh knew better than to question him, and it was they who took care of the corpse's transport whilst Velho simply traveled back to Själasalr alongside them the same way he had arrived.
The two Thorn Legionnaires further assisted the Ferrier in bringing the unconscious Draugr into Själasalr's only operating theatre before they would then take their leave. Both would peer around with curious glances as they moved through the gloomy sequoia, but neither man made any comments of their own regarding the Maltrician's equipment or curious choices when it came to his decor. Whilst Æsir and Vænir were honored similarly, decorum dictated that being nosy during professional circumstances was considered to be fairly rude.
With the body positioned on the forming bench and Velho finally alone, the very first thing he'd do was collect a small amount of the Draugr's foul, gelatinous ichor and then consume it. He knew well to expect the substance to be utterly repulsive, but that knowledge always seemed to fail to adequately prepare him for the revolting reality. His body's immediate response was to gag, and it took every ounce of self control to not retch the substance back up as soon as it was swallowed. It was even worse than standard fare for ichor– the Draugr in question had been sitting in the marsh for some few hours before he'd picked it up, and thus at this point was far from 'fresh' on top of being by default disgusting. He had also been poorly cared for even prior to that. It tasted like pure putrefaction; fermented, decayed meat with unimaginable potency.
But at least subjecting himself to the foulness of ichor had a purpose: through Augury, Velho was able to discern key information about the soul the corpse belonged to and further see the man's life play out before him in a series of snapshotted memories. Augury confirmed the Jin'Norai's race and that he had all five elemental Galdr, but it also painted the tale of this man's bizarre history in vibrant– if macabre– colors. The Devorari felt immense excitement regarding the man whose name he'd now learned was Sahri, though the feeling was colored a bit by melancholy. Sahri's struggles had been felt first hand through Augury, granting Velho an acute awareness of the suffering the man had experienced thus far.
After Æhti had been taken from Velho, he'd had no idea how– or with whom– he'd start his Paragon experiments again. But now, that was a problem that'd been solved for him by the carelessness of a few Rakshasa who'd grown bored of their toy, or perhaps found the maintenance Draugr required to be a nuisance. Either way, he supposed it didn't really matter; Sahri was his now.
By the same token, he did feel some degree of sympathy for the wayward, lab-created sorcerer. The Jin'Norai were cast out to forge their own fates; though they lacked Ældrassil's protection, that didn't mean that they deserved to be treated with the level of abject cruelty this one had been. Granted, the fact that experiments like this existed at all did prove the Æld'Norai's innate superiority in his mind– one would be hard pressed to get away with attempting to subjugate his kinsmen for a similar purpose.
But if Velho intended to use and keep Sahri, he would have to repair him, which then led to the question– where to start? The man had been eviscerated on top of the fact that his decaying flesh had not been very well maintained to begin with. He supposed that given the degree of injury, the Rite of Enervation might not function as intended prior to mending the wounds. And whilst he preferred to conserve his Absentia where possible, this degree of damage would take an exponentially longer time to repair using Malediction's methods alone. He didn't have that kind of time to waste; he did, after all, have a job and other duties to attend to, which he could reasonably get away with skirting by on just Malediction– or minimal Arcana– for the next week or so.
To begin, he infused Sahri's flesh with Absentia– enough to keep him malleable to Velho's Devorare for the next day. Fixing the torso and any cranial damage were to be the priority, as this would restore the corpse's unlife such that the lingering soul no longer risked becoming a Ghost. It was a shame his kinsmen had impaled him so very many times, but no sense fretting over that now.
The next step was to collect his Latherer and replace the brionic cartridge from Vitalis to Mortis. Velho only had a few of the latter, given how rare corporeal undead were in Ælheim. Still, he was glad that his nature had compelled him to keep a few around. Before he was to heal Sahri, he would paint the Glyphics required for the Rite of Repose over what intact flesh the Draugr had. Once his vital organs were restored, the Maltrician intended to enact it; the last thing he wanted was his patient to regain consciousness in the middle of the repair process.
With that complete, he carefully began to will the torn flesh back together around the shoulders and neck– a root-spike had burst through the meat of his left trapezius whilst another had shattered his clavicle on the right side. Weaving the muscle and skin of his neck back together and making sure it had been sculpted per his standards was the easier of the two, as picking, placing and then reforming the broken bone took significantly more effort.
Still, both of those repairs were much simpler than fixing all the damage that had been done to Sahri's core and vital organs. Heart, left lung, and liver all required repair from puncture wounds, with some of the connecting veins and arteries needing to be reconnected. His ribcage needed to be repaired, adjusted, and then set in place. Knitting and resculpting the organs and muscles of the abdomen was another ordeal unto itself, all of that had been made mincemeat– a notably disgusting endeavor, too, given the level of decay Sahri was suffering from.
With the torso repaired, trace back up to fix the cranial damage; namely, he'd tend to the man's jaw and lower face. One of the roots had pierced just below the chin and thrust toward the back of the skull, but had not been given enough force to go more than a centimeter beyond the top of the palate. Velho was relieved at this, as even though he were capable of regenerating damaged brain tissue, the actual net result could vary– some people had to relearn things or lost memories depending on exactly what part of the brain was affected. Nevertheless, he did spend quite a bit of time on the skull; beyond simple repairs, the Devorari sought to sculpt the Draugr's face to restore what beauty his features held prior to being unceremoniously destroyed.
And now with torso and head healed, the Draugr's ability to sustain his own consciousness had been restored. When the creature started to stir, Velho immediately spoke the incantation required to enact the Rite of Repose: "Rest deeply in dreams of emerald," and luckily, this had been well timed and Sahri was unable to regain full consciousness before the Maltrician managed to place him into a deep, peaceful slumber.
However, the Maltrician would not stop there. "...and by my Sovereignty, find your wayward soul bound to me." He would repeat this line several times, his focus anchored on creating a Miasmatic bind between himself and the Draugr.
Patient stable and asleep, he'd then move onto the arms, though the right one took about twice as long– whilst the left only suffered tissue lacerations, the right's shoulder joint had been obliterated by one of the root-spikes. Certainly tedious to repair, it was nevertheless not outside of the Maltrician's purview. Upon conclusion, the worst of the damage was repaired at that point– almost all of the major injuries were concentrated upon the vital organs of the torso or the throat. Still, some lacerations to the lower body needed to be healed, and because Velho had elected to enhance the strength and tone of the body as a whole, he had to meticulously address each muscle as he progressed downward.
It had been a little over eight hours by now, though Velho hadn't really noticed the passage of time; whatever tedium any particular endeavor might have had never outweighed the enchanting satisfaction of watching blood (ichor in this case), flesh and bone knit together in a fashion befitting the image he held within his mind's eye. With all the wounds healed, the Ferrier took a step back to evaluate his work. He viewed the Draugr's body as a sculptor would a statue in the final phases of creation, now going back and making minor, perfecting alterations to the body's appearance or musculature.
Alas, Sahri's skin was still sallow and pale; Vicissitude could heal his wounds and empower his body, but it alone couldn't abate every sign of his undeath. The illusion of life was something that required an extra step, though relative to what he'd just finished doing, this final step was really rather simple. The Glyphics from the previous Rite of Repose had faded when it had been enacted, leaving a clean canvas for Velho to replace them with those corresponding to the Rite of Enervation.
"By Ældrassil's grace, let this wretch be reinvigorated with life's vibrance," the words spoken in the cadence of a chant, his voice bearing a low, commanding tone.
In the ensuing moments, the Glyphics drawn over the Draugr's healed form would begin to glow and color would slowly start to creep back into his flesh. By the end of the next thirty odd seconds, Sahri would come to resemble a living man in deep slumber. Velho felt some small semblance of pride as his gaze drifted over the other, something akin to the way a sculptor might feel towards a statue they'd recently completed. The man's reconstruction was a masterful feat of both Arcana and skill– repairing somebody that had been reduced into a flayed sack of meat like that was no easy feat.
All that remained next was to wake him up…and yet, the Ferrier hesitated. He was never one that was very good at talking to people, and his long life had taught him that individuals who'd walked such extraordinarily traumatizing paths like Sahri were often quite thorny– or at the very least, getting through to them was something that he personally found difficult to do. Of course, he had options; he could use Arcana to manipulate the man's mood through hormones or the like; he could exploit the man's confusion and vulnerability quite easily to torture information out of him; he could even try to go the route of excessive kindness. The issue being that he was in large part indecisive– the question he couldn't answer was thus: which method would render him the results he ultimately sought? Such quandaries brought an unnecessary amount of anxiety to the old ælf. And so for what felt like far too long, Velho stood in the silence of contemplation.
…but wait, all of that thinking was ultimately irrelevant. The Maltrician had never bound a Draugr to himself before, and he'd briefly forgotten about the fact that Sahri would be compelled by the very Miasmata that animated him to answer any and all queries or commands he were to give. Velho would curse himself slightly, though the brief waste of time was something of an inconvenience born of an idiosyncrasy within himself that he'd failed to purge even after a millennia alive. There was no sense in fretting over it.
❀ •════════════════════• ❀
Velho had been led to the body site by another, and they'd employed this same method of travel together– Apparation; Velho a cloud of Ash, his guide a mist of Saol. As neither of them wanted to waste their respective Spell Reserves, they allowed their shift to take a Journeyman's thirty seconds. Because Velho did not quite know exactly where they were going, he allowed his guide to effectively 'carry' him. Their destination was relatively middle of nowhere; having followed the river from Thokkmyrr up north, their movement ceased as they neared the western slopes of the Hexewald mountain cluster. Their guide materialized first in a glowing, rapid congelation of chartreuse Saol, whilst the Ferrier regained his corporeality in a flurry of silken, silvery Ash rapidly taking the shape of his form before hardening and finally granting him the return of his colour. Notably, though, he didn't reform his legs; evidently he preferred floating to walking.
The three Æld'Norai had no trouble seeing even in the dead of night, as the vibrant flora which bloomed all 'round them teemed with Saol and illuminated the marshes, both because of their Lifesight and the plant's natural bioluminescence. Abruptly, the bark of a nearby tree flickered to life, growing rapidly before taking the shape of a man who then stepped onto the mossy soil below.
"I was half expecting the damn creature to die before you returned, Lamont," a Draoidh painted like the night sky and dotted with freckles like stars spoke, his voice carrying the casual attitude of a man at ease. "...it's right over here," he clarified, pointing towards a mangled elfin corpse unceremoniously left splayed out before a nearby log. The body appeared to be stuck to the mossy bark via the impalement of numerous wooden spikes, likely from the Draoidh's initial attempt to kill it.
"...and I was half hoping the same; though in that case, we'd've wasted the good Ferrier's time, ay?" Lamont, a man of monochromatic, emerald to blue-toned greens, responded with a chuckle.
"...poison didn't get him…?" Velho chimed in as he drifted nearer to the body, his voice as tired as he looked. He noted the presence of a particularly pernicious poisonous plant growing from the starry toned Draoidh's hair.
"We thought so, at first– Akkæri's poison worked to drop the thing to the ground fast as you'd expect, but even turning him to mincemeat in the aftermath can't seem to kick the soul out of that corpse," his question answered by Lamont.
This time, Akkæri chimed in, "...aye, I'm the Mystic of the two of us– body's definitely in tatters, but the soul won't leave."
Sometimes, particularly stubborn souls could cling to their bodies even after their flesh had been destroyed so thoroughly that no 'life' (or unlife, as it were) was left to animate them. If not dealt with swiftly, it was these stubborn, oft vengeful, souls that were wont to become Revenants– and thus major problems– the quickest. This was somewhat more common with Draugr, since they owed their existence to having their souls bound back to their already dead flesh at least once already.
Still, the circumstance was nonetheless puzzling. Draugr were an incredible rarity in Ælheim, unwelcome as undead were. Further, this one was– at least, he appeared to be?– Jin'Norai. The presence of a Jin'Norai Draugr in the Hespærian swamps just flat out bizarre; Velho found himself immediately less concerned with actually doing his job and more curious about why this man was even here.
"Let us know if you need anything, then, Ferrier," Akkæri spoke again after several moments of silence.
Velho's only response was a soft 'hm,' barely more than an acknowledgment– he was engrossed in poking about the cadaver's mangled viscera in an attempt to gather what information he could. All of the injuries appeared to be caused by either the natural rotting of a Draugr's unfortunate circumstance, general abrasions and wear from presumably wandering alone in the marshes, and then the poison, impalement and evisceration inflicted by his Æld'Norai kinsmen.
Something that had caught Velho's attention from the moment he'd set his Divining gaze upon the corpse was that the lingering soul was not only intact as the others had said, but also in accompaniment to the expected Miasmata for one of his ilk, he was utterly brimming with Aether. It made the Maltrician wonder– he had to have one witchmark, at least, and for that reason he began to search the deceased's body for any of Galdr's identifying symbols.
Upon the torn flesh of the Jin'Norai's throat, he spotted Zephyr's mark– unsurprising, given the reverence for it many of the body's kin possessed. Except that was not the only witchmark the undead bore; as he overturned the man's hands, he noticed Aqua on the left palm and a torn mark of Terra on the right. As he continued his inspection, he also found Abation inscribed on the deceased's upper left shoulder, whilst there were traces of the same iridescent black ink on the shredded remains of the right. Piecing the flesh fragments back together, it revealed a Fulguri's mark. This Draugr had all five elemental Galdr– utterly remarkable!
Turning his head to look at the others, he exhaled a breath of Ash and then spoke: "...for this one, I'll need to perform my rites back at home." The Ferrier's words were given bluntly, his voice matter-of-fact.
The other two Draoidh knew better than to question him, and it was they who took care of the corpse's transport whilst Velho simply traveled back to Själasalr alongside them the same way he had arrived.
❀ •════════════════════• ❀
The two Thorn Legionnaires further assisted the Ferrier in bringing the unconscious Draugr into Själasalr's only operating theatre before they would then take their leave. Both would peer around with curious glances as they moved through the gloomy sequoia, but neither man made any comments of their own regarding the Maltrician's equipment or curious choices when it came to his decor. Whilst Æsir and Vænir were honored similarly, decorum dictated that being nosy during professional circumstances was considered to be fairly rude.
With the body positioned on the forming bench and Velho finally alone, the very first thing he'd do was collect a small amount of the Draugr's foul, gelatinous ichor and then consume it. He knew well to expect the substance to be utterly repulsive, but that knowledge always seemed to fail to adequately prepare him for the revolting reality. His body's immediate response was to gag, and it took every ounce of self control to not retch the substance back up as soon as it was swallowed. It was even worse than standard fare for ichor– the Draugr in question had been sitting in the marsh for some few hours before he'd picked it up, and thus at this point was far from 'fresh' on top of being by default disgusting. He had also been poorly cared for even prior to that. It tasted like pure putrefaction; fermented, decayed meat with unimaginable potency.
But at least subjecting himself to the foulness of ichor had a purpose: through Augury, Velho was able to discern key information about the soul the corpse belonged to and further see the man's life play out before him in a series of snapshotted memories. Augury confirmed the Jin'Norai's race and that he had all five elemental Galdr, but it also painted the tale of this man's bizarre history in vibrant– if macabre– colors. The Devorari felt immense excitement regarding the man whose name he'd now learned was Sahri, though the feeling was colored a bit by melancholy. Sahri's struggles had been felt first hand through Augury, granting Velho an acute awareness of the suffering the man had experienced thus far.
After Æhti had been taken from Velho, he'd had no idea how– or with whom– he'd start his Paragon experiments again. But now, that was a problem that'd been solved for him by the carelessness of a few Rakshasa who'd grown bored of their toy, or perhaps found the maintenance Draugr required to be a nuisance. Either way, he supposed it didn't really matter; Sahri was his now.
By the same token, he did feel some degree of sympathy for the wayward, lab-created sorcerer. The Jin'Norai were cast out to forge their own fates; though they lacked Ældrassil's protection, that didn't mean that they deserved to be treated with the level of abject cruelty this one had been. Granted, the fact that experiments like this existed at all did prove the Æld'Norai's innate superiority in his mind– one would be hard pressed to get away with attempting to subjugate his kinsmen for a similar purpose.
But if Velho intended to use and keep Sahri, he would have to repair him, which then led to the question– where to start? The man had been eviscerated on top of the fact that his decaying flesh had not been very well maintained to begin with. He supposed that given the degree of injury, the Rite of Enervation might not function as intended prior to mending the wounds. And whilst he preferred to conserve his Absentia where possible, this degree of damage would take an exponentially longer time to repair using Malediction's methods alone. He didn't have that kind of time to waste; he did, after all, have a job and other duties to attend to, which he could reasonably get away with skirting by on just Malediction– or minimal Arcana– for the next week or so.
To begin, he infused Sahri's flesh with Absentia– enough to keep him malleable to Velho's Devorare for the next day. Fixing the torso and any cranial damage were to be the priority, as this would restore the corpse's unlife such that the lingering soul no longer risked becoming a Ghost. It was a shame his kinsmen had impaled him so very many times, but no sense fretting over that now.
The next step was to collect his Latherer and replace the brionic cartridge from Vitalis to Mortis. Velho only had a few of the latter, given how rare corporeal undead were in Ælheim. Still, he was glad that his nature had compelled him to keep a few around. Before he was to heal Sahri, he would paint the Glyphics required for the Rite of Repose over what intact flesh the Draugr had. Once his vital organs were restored, the Maltrician intended to enact it; the last thing he wanted was his patient to regain consciousness in the middle of the repair process.
With that complete, he carefully began to will the torn flesh back together around the shoulders and neck– a root-spike had burst through the meat of his left trapezius whilst another had shattered his clavicle on the right side. Weaving the muscle and skin of his neck back together and making sure it had been sculpted per his standards was the easier of the two, as picking, placing and then reforming the broken bone took significantly more effort.
Still, both of those repairs were much simpler than fixing all the damage that had been done to Sahri's core and vital organs. Heart, left lung, and liver all required repair from puncture wounds, with some of the connecting veins and arteries needing to be reconnected. His ribcage needed to be repaired, adjusted, and then set in place. Knitting and resculpting the organs and muscles of the abdomen was another ordeal unto itself, all of that had been made mincemeat– a notably disgusting endeavor, too, given the level of decay Sahri was suffering from.
With the torso repaired, trace back up to fix the cranial damage; namely, he'd tend to the man's jaw and lower face. One of the roots had pierced just below the chin and thrust toward the back of the skull, but had not been given enough force to go more than a centimeter beyond the top of the palate. Velho was relieved at this, as even though he were capable of regenerating damaged brain tissue, the actual net result could vary– some people had to relearn things or lost memories depending on exactly what part of the brain was affected. Nevertheless, he did spend quite a bit of time on the skull; beyond simple repairs, the Devorari sought to sculpt the Draugr's face to restore what beauty his features held prior to being unceremoniously destroyed.
And now with torso and head healed, the Draugr's ability to sustain his own consciousness had been restored. When the creature started to stir, Velho immediately spoke the incantation required to enact the Rite of Repose: "Rest deeply in dreams of emerald," and luckily, this had been well timed and Sahri was unable to regain full consciousness before the Maltrician managed to place him into a deep, peaceful slumber.
However, the Maltrician would not stop there. "...and by my Sovereignty, find your wayward soul bound to me." He would repeat this line several times, his focus anchored on creating a Miasmatic bind between himself and the Draugr.
Patient stable and asleep, he'd then move onto the arms, though the right one took about twice as long– whilst the left only suffered tissue lacerations, the right's shoulder joint had been obliterated by one of the root-spikes. Certainly tedious to repair, it was nevertheless not outside of the Maltrician's purview. Upon conclusion, the worst of the damage was repaired at that point– almost all of the major injuries were concentrated upon the vital organs of the torso or the throat. Still, some lacerations to the lower body needed to be healed, and because Velho had elected to enhance the strength and tone of the body as a whole, he had to meticulously address each muscle as he progressed downward.
It had been a little over eight hours by now, though Velho hadn't really noticed the passage of time; whatever tedium any particular endeavor might have had never outweighed the enchanting satisfaction of watching blood (ichor in this case), flesh and bone knit together in a fashion befitting the image he held within his mind's eye. With all the wounds healed, the Ferrier took a step back to evaluate his work. He viewed the Draugr's body as a sculptor would a statue in the final phases of creation, now going back and making minor, perfecting alterations to the body's appearance or musculature.
Alas, Sahri's skin was still sallow and pale; Vicissitude could heal his wounds and empower his body, but it alone couldn't abate every sign of his undeath. The illusion of life was something that required an extra step, though relative to what he'd just finished doing, this final step was really rather simple. The Glyphics from the previous Rite of Repose had faded when it had been enacted, leaving a clean canvas for Velho to replace them with those corresponding to the Rite of Enervation.
"By Ældrassil's grace, let this wretch be reinvigorated with life's vibrance," the words spoken in the cadence of a chant, his voice bearing a low, commanding tone.
In the ensuing moments, the Glyphics drawn over the Draugr's healed form would begin to glow and color would slowly start to creep back into his flesh. By the end of the next thirty odd seconds, Sahri would come to resemble a living man in deep slumber. Velho felt some small semblance of pride as his gaze drifted over the other, something akin to the way a sculptor might feel towards a statue they'd recently completed. The man's reconstruction was a masterful feat of both Arcana and skill– repairing somebody that had been reduced into a flayed sack of meat like that was no easy feat.
All that remained next was to wake him up…and yet, the Ferrier hesitated. He was never one that was very good at talking to people, and his long life had taught him that individuals who'd walked such extraordinarily traumatizing paths like Sahri were often quite thorny– or at the very least, getting through to them was something that he personally found difficult to do. Of course, he had options; he could use Arcana to manipulate the man's mood through hormones or the like; he could exploit the man's confusion and vulnerability quite easily to torture information out of him; he could even try to go the route of excessive kindness. The issue being that he was in large part indecisive– the question he couldn't answer was thus: which method would render him the results he ultimately sought? Such quandaries brought an unnecessary amount of anxiety to the old ælf. And so for what felt like far too long, Velho stood in the silence of contemplation.
…but wait, all of that thinking was ultimately irrelevant. The Maltrician had never bound a Draugr to himself before, and he'd briefly forgotten about the fact that Sahri would be compelled by the very Miasmata that animated him to answer any and all queries or commands he were to give. Velho would curse himself slightly, though the brief waste of time was something of an inconvenience born of an idiosyncrasy within himself that he'd failed to purge even after a millennia alive. There was no sense in fretting over it.
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