Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » A Necromancer's Apprentice (1x1)

All was as usual in the castle. Because of this, and the fact he was extremely bored, Nanashi decided to take a stroll through the town and see what new things they had to offer in the way of medicine.

(Can I join you? What's the storyline?)

Benji was feeling weak and his belly was bruised and aching. It was raining hard, the oversized droplets splashing against the ground, lifting dust and dirt into the air. Benji coughed a little as he slowly made his way to sit against the wall of a building, hoping the vendor had had enough. He had stolen a loaf of bread and the man, furious, had kicked him repeatedly in anger, until it felt difficult to move at all.

He was hungry, dirty, alone. He stared ahead at the people crowding the street during the busy market morning. He watched them, wishing one of them was his family. Wishing his mother could come back from the dead, pick him up, and gently lay him in a warm, comfy bed. As these fantasies filled his thoughts, a small figure in a green cloak was walking near him and Benji held out a skinny hand pleadingly. "Please sir, could you spare some change?" he croaked, coughing painfully.

There was a bit of blood on one side of his face where the vendor's boot had kicked him. It was already turning an ugly bluish color.

Nanashi paused and looked down at the child at his feet. He pulled his cloak away from him. It was black so it could hide the mud and blood, but he still did not want it soiled.

Still, he could use spare parts. If the child died, of course. Should he survive...

Despite grimacing, he grabbed the boy under his arms and dragged him into an alley. Summoning Richard, his giant centipede, he brought them back home.

"Whoaa, let go, Sir, I don't need any change after all - " Benji said in a panic as the cloaked figure picked him up, bringing him into an alleyway. The kid's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the giant centipede. His expression was a mixture of terror and amazement at the sight of the monstrous creature.

Too exhausted to fight back, Benji decided to just wait and see what happened.. Surely, wherever the stranger was taking him, it couldn't be as bad as life on the streets. He felt as though he were dying anyway.

"Umm..where are you taking me? And.. is this your pet or something?..." Benji mumbled, exhaustion clear in his voice.

"Be quiet." Nanashi pointed a long, metallic claw towards the edge of town.

Richard crawled away, his nimble feet carrying the two of them back to the castle in only a few minutes. When they arrived, the butler opened the door and helped Nanashi carry Benji to the work room. He laid the boy on the table, and Nanashi pulled down his hood to reveal his own child-like features. Though he looked older than Benji, it wasn't by much whereas in truth, he was some sixty years. To Aasimars, though, that was only breaching adulthood.

His skin was yellow with some scaly looking skin around the cheeks. It gave off a white glow as if trying to comfort the dark, eerie surroundings. His hair was green and long in the front, trying to mask the holy glow, and his eyes were a bright pink. Poking out from beneath his dark robes were two white wings. Was he an angel of mercy or death? He would tell you, sometimes there is mercy in death. Sometimes, death is unmerciful. For this child, he didn't know. It was what he wanted to find out.

Carefully, he examined the child's wounds. They weren't mortal, though it would take some time to heal fully. He bandaged them in any case.

"You'll be fine." He finally told him, having said nothing until now.

Benji was so exhausted that he fell asleep on their way to the stranger's home. Even when the butler carried him inside and then laid him on the table of the stranger's workroom, the child still did not wake. He groaned in pain now and again as the stranger bandaged him up, his eyes shut and his mind in dreamland.

Once the man was done, however, and spoke to the child, Benji slowly open his eyes. It was the first time he had looked at the strangers face: the scaly, yellow skin and the unnatural glow of his complexion was a sight the kid had never seen before. In fright, he backed away, falling awkwardly off the table with a thud. "What.. what are you? Who are you?" he asked, sitting up with difficulty from off the floor.

Nanashi might have laughed if those actions didn't have the possibility of undoing all the work he'd just done, "Hold still, won't you? I don't want to have to patch you up again.

"I'm Nanashi, and I saved you from dying in the streets. You're welcome." He started to clean up, "Though honestly, I was more hoping your wounds would have been fatal. I'm nearly out of parts."

After discarding of the soiled rags and handing the utensils to the butler to clean, he summoned some water to wash his hands. Looking over at the child, he asked, "Are you going to introduce yourself or gawk at me all day?"

"Uh..um.. Thank you. Thank you so much," Benji said belatedly, feeling foolish. He got up from the floor and looked down at his wounds which Nanashi had patched up. He sighed in relief, happy to be off the streets, out of the rain, and away from the passersby that seemed to relish in kicking homeless kids.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Benji," he said with a friendly grin - though there was still uncertainty and a tinge of fear behind his smile. Benji decided to consciously wipe from his mind the strange comment about Nanashi needing "parts", as his imagination would only go wild, coming up with terrifying explanations as to what that could mean.

"Is there.. any way I could repay you?" Benji asked, gazing nervously at the stranger once more, wondering if he'd regret his question. What he really wanted to ask, but didn't dare, was: Are you human? He was too afraid the stranger would answer something along the lines of, No, I'm some monster that eats little children.

"You don't have anything to offer me." Nanashi replied, "So why don't you run along and uh do whatever it is children do nowadays."

He put his blade gloves back on, "Just don't make me patch you back up."

Benji looked up at the yellow-skinned stranger, wondering if Nanashi wanted him to get out of his castle and return to the streets. "I could..be your assistant or something! I'm a quick learner!" Benji said hurriedly, flashing a confident grin. He might have been a little afraid of Nanashi, but that was nothing compared to his fear of returning to the streets.

"Do you want me to go back to town...? Or, do you mean just go and play inside here..?"
Benji suddenly had a thought. If Nanashi did want him to leave the castle, he would just run away from him and hide somewhere inside. The place seemed big enough that he could find a good hiding spot. The castle also seemed mysterious enough that Benji would have a blast exploring it.

The child's thoughts seemed to be out of order, asking to be an assistant before asking clarification.

"I want you to leave," Nanashi told him, "You don't want to be my assistant. I don't practice regular medicine."

He walked across the room and opened the door, gesturing for him to leave. However, he had a second thought and asked, "Why do you want to stay here so badly? Isn't this a scary castle full of monsters?"

Benji's heart sank when Nanashi asked him to leave. His face went dark with sadness and his shoulders slumped, making him look defeated. When the door opened, he didn't move, however, but stood like a statue where he was. "I.."

Nanashi then spoke and hope relit in his eyes as he answered. "I hate life on the streets. You saw how people treat me. They kick me, spit on me, insult me... There's nothing scary about this castle in comparison! I..like it here!" He grinned in hopes that his words were convincing enough. He didn't care anymore what sort of medicine Nanashi did. It just didn't matter. Benji wanted to stay.

A thought suddenly occurred to him and he decided that even if Nanashi was adamant about kicking him out, Benji would simply run from him and hide somewhere in the castle.

No, there was no way he was going back to town.

"You...like it here?" Nanashi shook his head, "And if you stay here and be my assistant as you say, what keeps you from leaving and spreading the word of what I do here outside?"

However, he could see the look of determination in the boy's eyes. He wasn't going to leave, even if he told him no.

He sighed, "There are...extra rooms in the castle. I will humor you for now. I might let you stay if you prove to be useful."

"I do like it here. I mean, how could I not? I'm in a castle!" Benji grinned, showing all his teeth, his arms open wide in gladness to be where he was. "I'm used to sleeping in dirty alleyways or make-shift shelters that stink of sweat and wet dog." Benji grimaced just at the thought of all the places - all equally disgusting - that he had found as shelter on rainy, cold nights. The castle was warm and dry. It was big, sturdy, and it looked massive enough to entertain him with exploration for weeks.

"I won't run and tell about what you do here, because I'm indebted to you. I'll always be grateful to you for saving me, so I could never do that," he said, genuinely feeling his words to be true.

Benji was having a hard time keeping still in his joy. Nanashi really sounded like he would keep him, at least for now. "You won't regret this, I SWEAR." He started jumping up and down in excitement, just about ready to do a series of cartwheels to celebrate. "Can I start helping right now? Or do I go find myself a room?" he asked eagerly.

"Pick a room first." Nanashi told him, "You're capable of finding them yourself aren't you?"

He smirked, "Just don't get yourself killed. It'd waste my efforts of healing you."

((sorry for the short reply))

Benji was ecstatic. If he wasn't so afraid of Nanashi, he might have jumped into the stranger's arms and given him a hug. Instead he simply jumped for joy and was already skipping out of room before Nanashi had finished his last sentence. "I'll be careful!" he yelled back as he ran up a winding, stone staircase. He decided to go as high as the castle could go and take the topmost free room, so that he could look out over the village and the forest they had passed through.

After a few minutes of excited climbing, Benji finally halted, panting, on the top corridor of the castle. He peeked into each room until he found one at the very end that seemed empty and unused. Cobwebs greeted him at the entrance and stuck in his messy, knotted hair. There was a thick layer of dust over everything, each step he took lifting away some of it from off the floor. The room was dark, despite the sun still being up, as the window at the far end was obscured with dirt. Despite the state of the room, Benji smiled happily. He wished with all his heart he'd be allowed to stay here. He'd keep Nanashi's secrets, he'd take them with him to the grave for this chance at a room of his own.

He went to the window, rubbed a clean spot in the middle of it, and looked down at the town. The nightmare from which he had escaped. Benji then moved to the bed and, despite the thick dust that nearly made him cough out a lung, rested himself on the filthy covers, his aching muscles relaxing. He instantly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

(ooc: No worries! And we could cut to another scene now if you like! )

The next day, Nanashi summoned his new assistant to the library. It was large of course, full of dusty medical texts and even dustier dark magic tomes.

Standing next to a table, he pulled out a chair and gestured to it. "Sit," he commanded. Then, he disappeared around the corner for a few minutes.

When he returned, he had a stack of thick books and dropped them onto the desk, "Read these. It'll give you a basic knowledge of what I do."

He paused, "You...CAN read...right?"

Benji was wide-eyed when he entered Nanashi's library, unable to believe the amount of books that filled the room. He grinned, thinking of his mother, whom he remembered was an avid reader. They had a library as well, though it was more than tiny compared to the room he was in.

Benji sat down obediently, still staring around in awe. He nearly fell off the chair in surprise when Nanashi dropped the books in front of him. "Read? Of course..." he replied, grinning at him abashedly. His mother had started teaching him from an early age and Benji, abnormally gifted, had picked it up fast. It had been almost five years since he had held a book in his hands, however, and he wasn't sure how quickly the skill would come back to him.

"Mastering..the.. art.. of.. Necro... man..cy..." he read the title of the top tome, but was unsure he understood what it even meant. He opened the book and died a little inside when he saw how many words littered the page.

Nanashi didn't say anything, just watched him as he read. After a little while, he finally said, "If it's too difficult...
"...try harder."

His capes billowed as he turned and went to go find books of his own. He was gone longer than when he'd searched for books for Benji, but when he finally returned, he had an equally impressive stack of texts. They hit the table with a solid thunk.

Without a word, he sat down and began to read as well.