“I will admit I had an inkling that your request would be something to that effect,” Rekvahn whispered, waving a pale hand in Snooze’s direction. She noticed that his cloak seemed to ripple and shift in the luster of its darkness as it moved, as if magically enhanced. She felt that seeing it in action, the garment would act as a sort of nighttime camouflage, and allow the Necromancer to hide himself more easily.

“Well, in that case, do you have some canned response prepared?” Snooze asked. She heard a soft shuffle behind her.

“I think that it would behoove you to explain in a bit more detail as to the nature of your request,” Rekvahn said. “It does, if you’ll excuse me, seem to be quite loaded.”

Snooze frowned, biting her lip.

What’s his game? Is he just trying to distract me long enough for someone to get the drop on me? That would be a pretty silly thing to do. But, it IS exactly what I would do if the situation was reversed.

“I thought my statement was pretty straightforward,” she explained. “I mean, can you bring someone back or not? I just need to know if you can, and if you will, and then we can go over the finer points, right?”

Rekvahn was silent for a moment, unmoving in the darkness.

“There are many variables involved in this process, and if I do not consider each one very carefully, the Equeana will be off. That would create unnecessary issues that would not help either of us.”

Snooze was intrigued. She had absolutely no frame of reference for the term the specter had used.

“What, uh… does that mean?”

Now she was sure she could see a grin under the hood. Rekvahn slid forward a few more feet and dropped his voice lower, so that it sounded like two sharp pieces of rock grinding together. It was delightfully conspiratorial.

“Equeana is an idiom I have fabricated all on my own,” so said the Necromancer. “It is what I call the process by which I study the detail and nuance of my Art, laboring unendingly to reproduce the constants in my research, and the proper methods and application of my craft.”

That just sounds like science, Snooze thought. But it made sense to her that the world might not have stumbled upon a concept such as that just yet.

“That sounds like a lonely pursuit,” Snooze said.

“It… well,” Rakvahn faltered, quite knocked off guard by the god’s sentiment. “I suppose a concentrated focus or fixation on a passion can be… a bit insular, yes. Though it is by choice that I continue, unhindered by distractions.”

Rakvahn suddenly flapped his hand through the air in dismissal.

“...in any case, it is not as though many would be interested in communion with a beast of such secular applications.”

“What sort of applications would those be?” Snooze asked. Without realizing it, a curious sensation had begun to wash over her. It was quite beyond her natural control, but was still within her purvey all the same. Attempting to get to the heart of why someone was so guarded often had unforeseen side effects.

“I use it to combine components together to make new ones,” Rekvahn said.

Oh, that’s not science, Snooze thought. That’s alchemy. Whew! That was a close one! If he was going to be the first scientist, I would have eaten my damn sandals.

It is important to note that while Snooze may not have considered these two studies particularly similar, they were, in fact, very much so. Why, what was alchemy other than the practical application of study and research about the nature of the world? The same could be said for science, without the additional helping of woo-woo. After all, reincarnation, godspells, and planar travel were all laughably illogical premises themselves… until they happened.

“...and what is it you use that for?” Snooze continued. She hated the idea of playing the “every-other-sentence” game.

Just tell me what I want to know all at once, dagnabbit!

“For that which I have become known for,” he said. “...rousing the previously deceased.”

“Technically, they are previously un-deceased as well,” Snooze quipped.

“Well, yes, I suppose that is true,” Rekvahn said, his voice taking on a peculiar quality.

“Is that all?”

“...I also use it to impress people at parties.” Rekvahn stated.

“People invite you to parties?”

“Well, no,” he admitted, his tone changing noticeably to one of… insecurity? “But I’m hoping they will. Once, you know, this whole, ‘attempting to destroy me’ thing, runs its course.”

Snooze bit her tongue. There was a crack in his foundation, and she wasn’t sure why, but the necromancer seemed to be a little unsure of himself--a marked change from when he was first introduced. She knew she was skating on thin ice in an unknown territory, however… If she knew anything about how people reacted to those that claimed to bring back the dead--it was admittedly very little. Though, she reasoned, movies and books had led her to believe it would be quite the poor reception.

Instead of amused, Snooze found herself feeling a little sad for the lonely bloke in the jet black cloak, and that just didn’t sit right with her.

“Aww, Rekky,” Snooze said. “You seem like an A-OK sorta dude! I’d invite you to a party if I had reason to throw one.”

Rekvahn seemed unsure as to whether or not she was joking.

“...truly?” he asked hesitantly, every pretense of the confident otherworldly deathmage all but washed away and replaced by a seemingly genuine display of vulnerability.

“Absolutely!” Snooze said. She wasn’t one to turn down a celebration--ever. In her old life she had very little reservations about who she tied one on with, in fact, the more the merrier! Hell, she thought, she’d have invited the dog in the hat if it meant that more people would be there to party down.

Rekvahn seemed to be considering something, though it was admittedly hard to discern as his head was turned down at an angle to completely obscure his features. After a moment, he looked up, and a large, toothy grin was plastered on the quadrant of his face that Snooze could see.

“Would you--er, and your friend--be interested in seeing my workshop?” Rekvahn asked.

Back in the old world, if a man had asked her to “go see his workshop,” Snooze would have run screaming for the hills, likely releasing a defensive volume of bear mace in her wake. However, this time, there was something in the way the man asked that seemed… genuine?

His entire demeanor had changed in a matter of moments, and Snooze couldn’t help but feel a sense of ease spread through her tense muscles.

“Sure, Rekky, if you don’t mind,” Snooze responded, smiling wide. “It is getting chilly out here, and I left my parka back at a gas station, er, a while ago.”

Rekvahn beamed back.

“Splendid!” he announced, clapping his hands together gleefully. “Don’t worry about the cold, I’ve got three fireplaces in my tower. Oh, and of course you’ll want some food! I just finished cooking up a delightf--”

“YUAGH!” Came a scream.

Hal suddenly leapt from the ground, her blade in her hand. Before Snooze or Rekvahn could react, her sword flashed in a horizontal arc and sliced clean-through the fabric of the hood, completely decapitating the man where he stood.

“HAL! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!” Snooze screamed as the head of the man formerly known as Rekvahn tumbled from his shoulders and into the dirt. She finally got a look at his face.

It was wrinkled and pale, like a dried-up pear, with gaunt cheeks and sunken sockets with large eyes and dilated pupils. Fastened to the disembodied head’s face was a charming and happy smile.

“Are you alright, Se Nu Sa?!” Hal demanded, looking over at her handiwork and then leaning forward and dry heaving. “I’ve never killed anyone before!”

Snooze was frozen in shock. She couldn’t stop staring at the friendly face in the dirt, its oblivious smile beaming up at her.

As Hal doubled over, retching in the dirt, Snooze finally came to her senses, and wheeled on her companion.

“Hal!” she snapped, uncomprehending. “Why did you do that?!”

Hal looked up at her, tears in her eyes and saliva streaming from her chin from her immense extrication of bile. She seemed as confused as Snooze, but then she caught sight of Rekky’s head on the ground and bent forward again, vomiting.

“He was friendly!” Snooze clarified, and sighed deeply, slumping to the ground. “Not only that, but he was the only one who could help me.”

It took Hal another minute to get her bearing, and then she was finally able to calm her guts and stand to her full height. She glanced over at Snooze sheepishly and shrugged her shoulders.

“I am most sorry, Se Nu Sa,” she said, her voice quivering. “I awoke and saw a dark specter looming over me, speaking of dragging us to his lair--”

“He was inviting us to his lair, Hal” Snooze interrupted. “He wanted to be friends.”

“Oh.”

The warrior girl looked genuinely remorseful. Snooze did not feel like beating a dead horse, so she just shook her head sadly at the separated form in the dirt, her heart heavy.

Of course she chose the absolute worst time to be a hero, Snooze lamented. Her stomach grumbled in that moment, and it made her even more sad. He was just about to announce what tasty food he’d made too! Oh-for-two.

Hal didn’t speak for a moment, she just sheathed her sword and then quietly walked to where Snooze was sitting and plopped down next to her.

“I think I’m truly going to be stuck here,” Snooze said slowly.

“What do you mean by that?” Hal asked, but when Snooze didn’t elaborate, she just fell into silence.

“Well, I suppose we should… I dunno, bury him?” Snooze said.

“Perhaps that would be best,” Hal said. “It would be a disservice to his honorable intent to leave him for the giktrel.”

What a way to go, Snooze thought, glancing at his frozen visage of bliss. At least he died happy.

“Alright then,” Snooze announced, standing up suddenly and clapping her hands together. “Let’s get this over with. We’ll each grab one end of the body, and drag it to a softer patch of dirt, we’ll use your sword to dig a shallow grave and then maybe we can, I dunno, use our feet to kick his head into-- OOF!”

Snooze hit the ground as something heavy landed on top of her.

“AH! DROP BEAR!” The god screamed, scrambling to desperately untangle herself from whatever creature had just leaped onto her from above. She shoved hard and felt it give, and rolled to the side and sprang up again. She looked behind her and saw that Hal had drawn her sword again and was moving toward a shape on the ground, going in for the kill…

“Hal, wait!” Snooze declared. Hal stopped, her eyes darting to the god to confirm what she’d said. Suddenly, the form on the ground groaned, and rolled over, revealing her face.

“Viz!” Snooze exclaimed.

Mediator Viz, the woman from the Guildhall, pushed herself to her knees and then slowly clambered up to a swaying standing position.

“Ow…” Viz said grasping her shoulder tightly as if injured. “I think I broke my arm.”

“What do you think you are doing, knave?” Hal demanded, leveling her sword at the other girl menacingly.

Viz looked up at Hal and scowled, and then looked at Snooze and scowled even further.

“My tome…” she began, her voice pained. “Give it to me.”

Snooze was baffled by this new development. Had Viz really come all this way to get back her dumb book?

Jeeze, is it made out of solid-gold chocolate or something?

“I’ll have you explain yourself, brigand,” Hal said, moving closer so that the tip of her sword was inches from Viz’s chest. “...and do not bother with falsehoods, I’ve a keen nose for treachery.”

The Mediator slapped the blade away by the flat of it and frowned at Snooze.

“Call off your pet,” she said. “I just came to get what is owed to me.”

She’s much different than in the Guildhall, Snooze noted. A lot surlier. But, I suppose since she’s no longer bound by customer-vendor confidentiality…

“What’s so special about the book that you’d come all this way for it?” Snooze asked. “Is it magic?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Viz said, grasping her arm tighter with a wince. “Because it is mine. How would you like it if I stole those ridiculous foot wraps of yours?”

Snooze was incensed.

“Hey, watch it lady,” Snooze warned. “These were a gift, I think. Here.”

The god reached into one of her pouches and produced the volume, holding it front of her.

“I can’t read it anyway.”

Viz eyed the book with suspicion for a moment before taking a quick step forward and snatching it out of Snooze’s mitts.

“That’s not entirely surprising,” she said roughly.

“Wonderful,” Hal said. “You have got your tome, now kindly remove yourself from our sight, or I will remove your body from your ghost. I have killed once already tonight, and I won’t shy from a second slaying. ”

Viz sneered.

“Yeah, I saw how expertly you handled an unarmed assailant who wasn’t even paying attention.”

Then the girl tucked the book under her arm and turned on Snooze.

“I’ll get out of here, but you’ve got some nerve swiping Guild property, and a holy tome at that! I should commandeer this little venture and bring you before the High Three so you can be drawn and quartered.”

“I would love very much for you to try,” Hal said, stepping forward. “I would slice each of your limbs off so quickly that--”

“Excuse me…” said a quiet, raspy voice.

All three of the women froze, and turned to the source of the sound. Snooze stared at the spot where Rekvahn’s head was, but instead of the usually immobile appearance of a severed head, the face of the dead man stared right up at Snooze, a sheepish smile in place of the large grin from before. The eyes moved suddenly, back and forth between Snooze, to Hal, to Mediator Viz in the center.

Then he opened his lips.

“I don’t mean to interrupt a spirited debate,” the head said. “But, if it’s not too much trouble… could someone kindly push me back together?”