"You'll be alright Mr. Lorentino?" I was letting my staff take the holidays off (holidays, plural, starting around the end of the year there are six! Of them, from feasting, to celebrating the new year, to mourning the dead who didn't make the new year, I'd go over the holidays, but honestly who cares?) Before you think this is an overly nice gesture its because no one generally buys either guns or clothes despite gift giving being a big thing, so it was a cost saving measure made to look like a nice one.
"I'll be fine." I would be fine, during the holidays I just mainly kept the shop open for the person who ripped a pair of trousers right before some big meal and gouge the living gods out of them (see I don't entirely hate the holidays).
"Don't you have any family?" Tabitha and I always tend to have this conversation every year, its like a dance where both partners know all the moves.
"Nope they all died long ago, go Tabitha you'll miss your train." She gave me a small peck on the cheek as was our custom and picked up her belongings and made her way to the door.
"Just don't burn the shop down ok!" And with that she was off. The burn the shop down thing was a one time attempt to try and put fire in a bottle. I still maintain it would have worked! Just unfortunately as soon as I applied the fire to the flammable liquid, it exploded. And here I thought magic would help, alas.
The day preceeded like I thought it would, whole lot of nothing. No customers, no complaints, not even a window shopper. I spent the day reading a couple books I'd picked up from a passing merchant who claimed to be selling ancient power (I'm a sucker for a good story as I'm sure anyone reading this can tell) and drinking wine (beer is good for bullshitting, but wine will always be the superior reading drink). So needless to say I was kind of wobbly in the late afternoon as the normal dark and cold settled in all over the city. I was about to turn my placard from open to closed when a hooded man burst in.
"Sorry I'm closing up for the night, you'll have to come back tomorrow." He looked ragged, the traveling robes and hood he was wearing were frayed.
"Trezlan you have to help me." To my shock it was Morley, I mean I knew in a way he'd be back, but I hadn't anticpated he'd be back looking like he was fighting off the worlds worst flu. I kept my distance, when dealing with a wounded necromancer this is a wise thing, because as I've written before, you can be a solution of sorts for whatever ails them.
"What is wrong with you? You look paler and deader than usual." Its hard to look at someone who normally looks like a corpse and see something wrong, but Morley was so pale he was almost see through. Morley attempted to speak, but instead collapsed his frail frame not able to keep up with whatever had brought him to my shop. I won't lie I poked him with my sword to make sure it wasn't a trick (didn't have a stick available, and if it was a trick well I wanted a better weapon than a damn stick). But he was out cold, in more ways than one. His body felt like ice as I carried him to my room at the back of the shop and shackled him in bed (look I was giving up my bed, I sure as all get out was not going to let him have magical abilities while I looked after him, he was dangerous as all necromancers are). Taking a place at my desk near the bed I watched over him, something was direly wrong with Morley, and I was pretty sure it wasn't just lacking holiday cheer. And thats how it went that night, Morley sleeping/dying, and me watching over him fearful of falling asleep and waking in the afterlife.
Don't you just love when family visits for the holidays?
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