Necromancers. Though she’d heard it before, the word sent a chill down her cold spine. There was as much dread as hope in the sensation, one that she had forgotten to miss in the blank eternity of death. The smile that had grown from the sight of Bryn’s terrible new appearance gained an adrenergic curve.

In the meantime, the sailor gulped and gave a wide-eyed nod. After a quick glance between the two, he seemed to decide that Chae was the one he wanted to look in the eye. “I en’t done nothin’,” he prefaced with the last of his dignity. Chae could almost hear the lifeblood in him surge with fear. “There’s lots dealin’ in the dead around. Guild’s up north near the cemetery, an’ there’s a merchant on the square buyin’-sellin’ all ‘at dark and rotten ish.”

He flinched when a tendril of darkness turned tangible and touched the edge of his hand. “Stopped fetchin’ for ‘em months ago,” he added edgily, straightening his coat. “Now, if you don’ mind.” He had to walk around Chae’s unbudging body to return to his skiff. She looked up at the wight as their informant departed, though the back of her awareness clung to the back of his strange aura. The man was only the second person she had seen, after all.

She didn’t care about the implications of confronting a necromancer or the technicalities of her nakedness. After the initial confusion, Chae felt reignited by her unlife, her new if not transient purpose. She wanted to know about this world, but first she wanted to know about these dark dealers.

“You are beautiful,” she mentioned, pausing to examine his new form. Though he had described his night face as pleasant, Chae found it boring in comparison to the terrible, haunting aspect that shrouded him now. “Where shall we go, the shop or the guild?”

Whether it was Bryn's horrific appearance, or simply the fact that he was now faced by two beings that wished for that information the sailor broke and told all he knew. He kept his eyes averted as much as possible from Bryn as he did so, obviously finding the wight's presence to be something he'd rather forget, or at least not pay too much attention to. A sensible option giving that everything about the sailor was screaming out that he was prey and Bryn was barely able to stop himself from reaching out and draining strength from him. While wights didn't wither away like a vampire without blood did, draining strength or life from the living in turn strengthened him, and someone acting as if they were prey made a tempting victim. But instead he listened closely to the man, taking in the locations of those dabbling in the dark arts, or at least the corpse trade in the merchant's case, although the two were often linked.

Bryn's sunken eyes followed the sailor's progress for a moment as he excused himself hurriedly to his boat. No doubt it would be a while before that sailor came back here any time besides the brief window when the sun was allowed to fall full upon the face of the island. The guild were more likely to be the ones who had raised Chae, they had the numbers and unless the trader was a closet master of the dark arts, the expertise. But the merchant might have useful information. The guild was also almost certainly the most dangerous of the two options for them to face, two undead beings facing a group trained in enslaving under was a far from ideal situation in Bryn's mind.

Chae's words stopped him short, of all the people who had seen his daylight face who was the only one to have said anything close to that. Turning to her fully he responded, "As are you." Indeed as the only other sentient undead being who retained a mostly vital aspect Chae was the most intriguing woman Bryn had met since he'd awakened. In answer to the second part of what she said he replied, "The shop first, it's nearer and likely the least dangerous of the two. Plus if the trader sells to the guild we can get information on their activities."

Chae only nodded in response, eyes drawn toward the city itself. She had never seen this place and she did not know its streets, but she allowed herself to keep moving forward. There was no room for uncertainty, and no point to hesitation. The shop was on the market square, and market square would be where the thoroughfare grew broad. The halfling's little legs carried her swiftly enough through this haphazard strategy, her precious stone still clutched in one hand. In another world, it would have become warm with her exertion; now, it only chafed against her fraying skin.

Sure enough, there were living people wandering the dimly lit lanes. Half of them even had souls. She could sense them, could smell the marshmallow sugar of their life forces as they passed behind their hooded cloaks and averting eyes. Chae presumed they were all just careful in a place as this. She did not consider that her shadow was a disturbing monster or that the congealed blood in her veins tasted different than the fresh blood on her hands. She had a mission and, as far as she could see, she was left to it.

The shop was open but empty, save of course for the corpse dealer himself. There was a foul aura to the place, and in more than just the smell: even the lich could not help but feel unsettled by the unsavory ritual components that lined the shelves or the echoes of fell magic that were soaked into the floor boards. A little bell chimed as she stepped through the threshold, instinctively hiding her phylactery in the darkness that was still draped around her. She approached the old man who watched her enter, but she did not get close enough to be obscured by the desk between them.

Her mouth opened, her eyes holding the same determination as ever, but when she tried to speak her tongue was barren of words. Chae found herself wondering whether the subtle sensation of necromancy around her was new or old, her own or foreign. The shopkeep grinned with a peculiar patience, and eventually Chae found her words. “Do you practice these dark magics, or only deal in their components?” She asked without caution. “How would one begin to raise the dead from another plane?”

((OOC: You're welcome to control the NPC if you like. I didn't want to get too far ahead.))

Bryn had an easy enough time of following Chae, his face made him someone to avoid in Kurayo, some might wonder if he was some kind of necromancer, kept alive by his power, but eternally aging, other no doubt thought he was some kind of vampire which didn't keep his human appearance. But no matter, as he swept through the city people parted before him, the blue-green glow of the crown adding to the intimidation his appearance caused. He could tell the living from the other undead, the living had a warmth to them which called to him, enticed him like a rich feast might have many years before. But he ignored that hunger, indeed he only slaked it sparingly on those few living thugs who haunted the streets, leaving them cold and hollow eyed.

The shop, when they finally reached it was everything a corpse dealer and general dark magic shop should be, grimy, ill lit and staffed by an old man who seemed far too friendly. While perhaps not as strongly as Chae, Bryn felt the power about the room, it felt to him like crawling insects across his skin. He drew the eye of the shopkeeper for a moment before he looked back to Chae.

The shopkeeper answered, "I dabble… Just a little I'm sure. Could never get a result like that over there." He nodded to Bryn, obviously thinking he was some kind of raised servitor. "Dead from another plane? Why bother, there's so many here. So many corpses that you'd never run out." 

Bryn moved closer, speaking finally, although even he felt slightly halted, "Where would you find those that would bother?" His voice taking on a dry, aspirated sound. 

The shopkeeper shook his head, "Another thinking one then… You'd want the guild over at the graveyard. They deal with all kinds of things. The most I've got are charms to hold undead at bay." Which explained both Chae and Bryn's hesitancy.  

“And to hold the living at bay?” Chae scorned, fingers twitching beneath the secrecy of her shadows. She glared at the shop and its keeper, resenting the smug power the held over her and her comrade. There was no imaging what else could be done with greater magicks, at least not to her infant experience. She met the gaze of the man behind the counter for a few moments, waiting for an answer that would only become a silent shrug. Ultimately she would be the one to break eye contact, turning her phylactery stone consciously in her hand.

Her attention was wandering toward the door when it was snagged by a series of books on the wall. The Journal of Deceased Studies sat in twenty volumes on a low shelf, just within the halfling’s reach. Curiosity overtook her expression and she moved toward them, seeming to glide through the darkness that pooled around her. She removed the sixteenth volume from the wall, skimmed over the cover, and tucked it under one arm. This would not tell her everything about the art of necromancy, but it would be a good place to start.

Glancing up at Bryn, Chae made for the door. But just before she reached the threshold, her feet stopped moving. They weren’t stuck to the floor, but somehow she could not will herself to take another step. Immediately she turned her face and her suspicions to the shopkeep, who spoke with the same infuriating smile, “You’ve got to pay for that.”

Chae allowed herself a low whine of exasperation, then dropped the book. After a short delay her will was her own. She stormed onto the street.

 “To the guild,” she seethed. “And a more worthy endeavor.”

The shopkeeper grinned, "Few enough living here, and most of thems that do don't like the wolfsbane." He nodded to the hanging heads of dried purple flowers. After Chae's exit Bryn loomed closer to the shopkeeper, while withered by the dawn he was still broad and the crowned head marked him out as someone used to being in control. When he spoke the rustling sound of his voice, matched with the blue-green glow coming from his crown in the presence of necromantic power made him a fearsome sight this close. "Remember mortal, the rulers of the city may not take kindly to those who exert influence over those undead who are conscious." He turned and made for the door before adding, "And remember, you need to sleep, we don't." While Bryn was loath to kill in cold blood, he was developing a hatred of necromancers, certainly the ones that would bind those undead who had the ability to think for themselves.

Stepping back onto the street he shrugged off the last of the shop's influence. Turning to Chae he placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. "Are you well?" He was referring of course to the shopkeeper's magic. Her being more attuned to necromancy than him could lead her to being more susceptible to the spells, he didn't know, but an instinct told him it was possible. He'd heard of necromancers binding wights to their service, but they were few and far between, more likely to have bargained with a powerful wight for their service and for that of those lesser wights who followed their leader in death.

Finally Bryn pulled the hood of his shroud over his head, while he knew Chae had no problems with his form he did not wish his nature to draw any more attention to them than would already be called. In a city like Kurayo black cloaked figures were hardly exceptional, and hopefully the group of necromancers they'd be calling on wouldn't divine Bryn's nature before they'd gained the answers they sought. "So onwards to guild I take it."