A Gentleman and a Scholar IC

[MightBeABook]

In the midst of yet another long night working in the laboratory, one of your servants silently hands you a letter. The envelope is fine parchment, and the seal seems formed of magically preserved blood. Inside are words clearly written by an experienced calligrapher, gracefully formed and carefully rendered:

Lord Kane,

As a great researcher and scientist in your own right, the Circle of Bone is delighted to invite you and up to one guest to a demonstration of a most wondrous breakthrough in the realm of certain esoteric magics. While your own interests do not run the same path as ours, Skull City is confident that you will see the value of our discovery. Unfortunately, we cannot share the details via letter, but we would be delighted to host you until the date of the demonstration, on the twelfth of this month. Quarters have been prepared for you in my home, and I look forward to seeing you and certain other luminaries react to what we have learned. Rest assured that there is no risk to you in this, for you shall be under the full protection of Skull City so long as you, too, keep the peace. Respectfully,


Archivist Atzsele, Lady Sele

[TheEmperor]

In the pale purple light that radiated off the walls of an underground complex, not far from the city of Nyrvash, stood Lord Valerius Kane next to a desk, leaning onto the desk with his right hand. In his left hand, he held a letter that he had just received from the man in front of him. In proper military fashion, the man had held his pose and salute, but even through his discipline leaked curiosity about the items on the desk behind Kane. Valerius clearly noticed the man's interest, but did not pay heed to it, for such inquisitiveness was quite common with any new soldiers that got posted to his facility in a detachment. Waving the flipped open letter towards the door, Kane gruffly said "At ease, private. You may leave the room, but do go and inform Lieutenant Commander Creed that he is required here."

He did not pay attention to if the soldier left the room or not, for it would have been a gross transgression of protocol had he not, and instead focused on reading the letter he had received. At first, he did not figure the letter to be of much interest, just another invite to some noble's ball, but when his eyes rolled over the words, his interest was piqued.

He closed the letter with a quick twirl of his fingers, and laid it on the table behind him, before attempting to return to his former work of imbuing the processor transformer behind him. His hands slid over it's sleek gold exterior, recoiling slightly at the touch due to the transformer's light-based anti-vampiric powers, but continued to do so anyways. His attempts at returning to it's fine tuning were in vain, as he could not draw his mind away from the letter and the event he had been invited to.

Giving up on even trying to change course, he left the transformer right on the table as he moved towards his office table, and sat upon the chair behind it, grabbing a sleek looking pen and dipping it in dark ink in order to write up an application for his leave of absence. Of course, his stature and refusal to use whatever vacation time he'd received ever meant that he would anyways be granted express permission to do so (not to mention the interest that Nyrvash would have in this "breakthrough"!), but he was doing so anyways to pass the time until his comrade came.

When his old friend entered the room, he immediately snapped to attention, with a salute. Valerius, raising an eyebrow at his friend's predictable entrance, waved his hand as he continued to write the application with the words "Honestly, I don't see why you do this in private now. We're friends, and I've told you that you don't have to do that. And don't you dare call me sir."

Setting to ease, his second in command, Joseph Creed replied "It's a reflex, si- Kane,, and you know it. Centuries of training and mental inscribing don't exactly wear off that easily when you're not trying, you know? In any case, what's this about? Another demand from a noble about our activities? Some threat? Or are we getting deployed again? Hopefully, you haven't pissed anyone off like last time. Quarter of a century guarding that hell hole border wasn't my idea of a great career choice."

Valerius chuckled in response to that, remembering the consistent annoyance that his companion had shown for the twenty five years they'd been posted to the Nyrvashian-Tolian border to "support" the regiments there. It was **** out there that all that was bull****, and they'd been sent there as punishment for Valerius's actions in taking down a group of illegally created vampires that the lord responsible for his posting had been affiliated with. Also partly for destroying a small block in the city in the process of that. "No, nothing of that sort, Creed. We've been "cordially" invited to Skull City for some kind of conference about a classified breakthrough in necromancy. Chump change to what we're doing here, maybe, but it's a conference I'm certainly interested in. Of course, you're coming with me, and that's an order. Don't start complaining. You'd think that those centuries in the military would have ingrained that discipline into your normal life as well, but no. Only the formalities went in. Pack up, and get our chief archivist to send a message to... Lady Sele, 'Archivist' Atzsele of Skull City, and to inform her of our intention to arrive there as soon as possible through our own transportation. The Airskipper needs field testing anyways."

Nodding his head in worry, all Joseph could say was "...Right. I'm worried that thing's gonna explode before we get there..." before leaving, grumbling even more about his dislike of the conferences that Kane would regularly go to.

With the application filled out, Kane immediately got up, taking the paper with him to the front lobby of his facility, handing it to a soldier with the express order to delivering it to command, and demanding his gramarists to get the air ship work done and finished quickly.