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"Massster..." this came from a disembodied head floating in front of Raistlin's desk. The archmagus didn't look up immediately, busy scratching writing onto a piece of flattened parchment, the quill in his thin golden fingers practically vibrating with the speed of his notes.

Genessia was a land of fascinating marvels. He'd be sure not to forget a single one.

"Masssster pleasssse," the head tried a second time.

Finally, Raistlin glanced up, impatient at the interruption. "What?"

"Therrrre is an intruderrr in the Grrove."

That. That was interesting, and Raistlin's hand finally stilled. "In the Grove, you say?"

"Yesssss. The defenderrrssss have not been able to kill it..."

Extremely interesting. Something from Genessia, no doubt, nothing else would make sense. The blackrobe dabbed the last of the ink off the feather quill onto a pad and set the instrument aside, and then took the time to carefully close up the inkwell. This could take a while.

And so it was that whatever this stranger was doing, he suddenly wasn't the only living creature in the dark, ancient grove. Raistlin lurked in the deepest shadows, silently watching.

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"What?" BECAUSE THE CONVERSATION DIDN'T CHANGE AS FAR AS WADE IS CONCERNED.

"... You know, I don't think my mouth is going to be able to fit any more feet in it, can we move on to explosions?"

"I... yes, explosions."

MOVING ON.

"You brought other types of bullets?"

"Sure did." Out came the baggie, tracer rounds, hollow tipped and at least three explosive rounds carefully pulled from the bag.

"Tracer rounds act like flares. All burn but no bust. They're used for correcting aim without having to get up, walk over, and see where your bullet hit. You can also use them to show all your buddies where to focus their fire.

Hollow tips have better accuracy, you don't have to worry about them getting blow off course as much, and explosive rounds are... Well."

THEY GO BOOM.

Raistlin closed a massive book that had been taking up a good chunk of center-of-desk real estate. After bookmarking his spot, of course.

And then gestured Wade over. Let's see them.

"They make a larger hole in your target, I presume." Because BOOM.

"They sure fuckin' do." He deposits the ammo on the desk, separating each sample from the other.

"The explosive round goes off when it hits the target, and there's three different kinds of tracers, all of which go off right after being fired. You got bright, subdued and dim. Thing about using tracers is that they kind of work both ways. You can show where the target is to everyone else, aaaaand everyone else knows where you're shooting from."

"I can't imagine that is a problem for you most of the time," Raistlin notes, picking up one of the tracers and looking it over. "As much as you favor being loud."

Not exactly a sneaky guy, are you?

"I mean there's times I want to be sneaky! There's times where it's probably best for me to not start a giant explosive firefight. I can eat three dozen cartridges of 9 millimeter rounds and come back for seconds, doesn't mean I want to.

I like a balanced diet."

He indicated the tip of the tracer.

"Set it on fire though and it'll burn for ages."

"So, you still feel the damage you take," Raistlin noted, still holding the tracer but with his attention on Wade, for the moment.

"Interesting."

"Well... yeah, all my nerves still work." So all the physical sensations involved with getting his life sucked out of him?

Ten times?

Felt it each and every time! Along with every single lesion and sore, every infection, every tumor.

Raistlin set the bullet down and folded his hands together on his desk, watching Wade.

"And so, braving the Shoikan Grove over and over, was...? Some form of self-flagellation?"

Well. No not really. Not entirely. Partially!

"IIiiittttsssss complicated? Okay so don't take this the wrong way, it's absolutely fine, and I'm totally cool with it, and you don't seem like the super concerned worrying type sort of guy so I feel like I can trust you with this information, I don't wanna be alive anymore. It kind of sucks, especially here.

Little less at home, but still kind of shitty. Was kind of hoping all the terrifying evil doom feelings radiating out of your magic forest was indicative of permadeath."

"You have immortality, and you don't even want it."

Gods above, fate was taunting him.

"Well it kind of came with the whole permanent flesh eating, flesh regrowing, flesh re-eating cancer of the everything, so yeah.

I'd like to return it and go back to being mister normal healthy squishy mortal meatbag, getting kind of tired of washing the skin out of my suit."

Raistlin isn't familiar with cancer, but flesh eating, flesh regrowing, flesh re-eating, sounds exactly like what he saw when he pulled Wade's mask off.

"And if you cannot go back to normal, you would rather just not be."

Whelp. That was fucked.

"Yeah! Yeah that's it. That's the idea." Yes it was fucked, but hey, it was also reality. He'd learned pretty fast that this did actually seem to be a fact of life.

"But that didn't work, so it looks like it's back to taking dangerous certain death jobs."

Raistlin was a fan of staring the truth right in its ugly, nasty face. Denial was for the weak, and he was not weak.

"I killed all of the Gods of this world. Do you truly think I could not conceive of a way to kill you?"

Is he offering? Maybe.

"Perhaps in doing so I could learn how to replicate your... curse."

... Huh. Well.

This went places, didn't it? He didn't come here expecting to actually have someone offer to kill him for realsies. Normally that shit just happened by surprise.

"What, we approach this with the scientific method?" He'd rather not spend... you know... days in a lab for this.

"Not gonna lie, that's really tempting, I just have a few provisos.

One proviso.

Uh, I get to go home if I don't die. I'll come back, but I get to go home, every day." Trust him, he needs to make sure this is a THING we all agree on.

He wouldn't be Raistlin Majere if he didn't underline that fear just a bit. Because he's an asshole.

"Afraid I may decide to keep you?"

"Past history has taught me that yeah.

Yes.

Uh huh. Yep. And don't get me wrong, you're great and really cool and that fire ball and lightning bolt shit was fuckin' amazing, but my apartment is actually really comfortable and I got like... a cat. So I gotta go back every day."

"A reasonable concern." Hear that, Wade? You're reasonable. How often do you get called that?

"I will grant you free passage through the Grove, if you swear not to abuse it to drop in unannounced."

Giant kender, he knows your type.

Edited 2019-07-21 22:17 (UTC)

"I mean that's fair, I guess I'd owe you that." The dude was gonna help him die, may as well do his very, very best to not be a giant bag of dicks.

"Groovy, it's a deal. You'll kill me, I won't crash your one man magic party every day."

"For the charm, you will need to remove your mask." And as he said it, Raistlin was pulling himself back up to his feet. May as well get on with this, right?

There's a sigh, but he goes to do just that, tugging the mask up and off his head. Well, wasn't like he hadn't seen it all before, no reason to make a huge deal out of it.

"Yep, got it, alright."

And Raistlin took up his staff and came around the desk, reaching up once he was in range to press his thumb into Wade's forehead. "Hold still."

He spoke, and the spidery words of magic seemed to skitter about as they were given voice. The unnatural heat from Raistlin actually seemed to grow worse, at least against Wade's skin.

It only took a moment or two, and then Raistlin let go. The heat lingered.

And he did! Resisting the urge to make some stupid fucking comment, he sat nice and still, though his nose wrinkled at the heat he felt.

The moment Raistlin was finished, he moved to rub the spot a little.

"Fuckin' felt like you were going to burn right through my skull." TOASTY.