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[ATHATH]

Who's terms did the inquisitor agree to?

Instead of souls as an extra cost for a good rate, what if we ask for earthly goods, like metals, we can trade to a smith demon.

+1 to this for the frost mage. Perhaps books and/or magical training could also serve as payments?

A) Ask Chieftan Hill to preserve any books that he and his tribe happen to find and show them to us. We'll buy a read/copy through of the ones that we think will be useful.

C) For what role does she need a Chimera for? If she just needs appropriate corpses to animate, we could probably ship some over using Pim (with hidden (to our client) monitoring, of course).

If she presses further, explain that Necromancy is not our specialty. If she really wants a Chimera, tell her that she could wait a week or two for us to learn how to make them and then get Chimeras at a discount for a while, if she'd like.

Theoretically, we could probably make a pseudo-chimeric construct by animating individual limbs (with one soul each). Can Zombie souls coordinate with each other well enough for that kind of thing? What if they were guided and/or directed by a more intelligent soul(s)? We should test that idea later.

[Tomcost]

Who's terms did the inquisitor agree to?

These terms:

Negotiation phase:

You follow Yaugus' movements as you pretend to shake the human's hand. Immediately afterwards, you get down to business. You propose various things to him: a 3:1 CtB ratio, that you can prepare and sell him the souls of dead Skorn so that he can use their knowledge, and that you would rather not kill your clients yourself, as that is bad reputation for your business.

He thinks for a moment, and then agrees to all your terms. But he tells you that he'd rather use your poisonous gas to kill important Skorn members so that he can reanimate the intact bodies as ghouls. He claims that he can perfectly curse the rest of the Skorn he doesn’t want so that their souls go to you, and that it could be a good payment for the souls of those he does want to reanimate.

Theoretically, we could probably make a pseudo-chimeric construct by animating individual limbs (with one soul each). Can Zombie souls coordinate with each other well enough for that kind of thing? What if they were guided and/or directed by a more intelligent soul(s)? We should test that idea later.

Of course not, that's why a whole different type of undeath exists to begin with. In fact, the closes thing you are describing is a bunch of scrap zombies being coordinated by a Mummy, a type of undead that focuses on resisting and transmitting curses without necessarily being a Dark Mage, and coordinating lesser undead.

But let's clarify some things first.

The need for a Chimeric Abomination (where "Chimeric" is the adjective, and "Abomination" is the main noun), comes from the difficulties a normal soul has for controlling a body it was not created for. Generally speaking, only souls of sentient beings are strong enough to either be moved around with Enchanting, or support a hex to send them to a demon. And it happens to be that most sentient beings are humanoids. The particular configuration of the body of a humanoid being is, let's say, a pair of legs and a pair of arms, a head, and a torso. Souls prepared for other types of undeath generally can adapt to a body from a different species. For example, an orc may be stronger and bulkier than a human, but a human wight can adapt to the body of an orc after a brief time. The same holds true even for humanoid bodies even more different, like a kobold one. The Soul Cleaner usually spares some of its time (like you do), to graft a basic means of adaptation to other humanoid shapes with little effort. The same doesn't hold true for complex beings created at an Animation Table. These things usually have either extra or different kinds of limbs, and, as such, the usual fix for other types of undead doesn't work. This is where the Chimeric Abominations come into play. These souls are modified from the start with a complex control matrix that allows it to adapt to whatever bizarre shape the Necromancer has made for them, while still conserving its sentience. This comes with a slight cost: as there is no necromantic feedback loop created like in a Wight, the Abomination requires sustenance, which comes either from drinking living blood or eating fresh flesh, depending on who taught you how to prepare them.

As another subject, undead generally don't bypass certain rules. Sensory input is still necessary for them to get information from the exterior, unless the Necromancer is directly moving the body as a puppet, which is not practical at all, as the whole idea of necromancer is that that the practitioner is able to do other things while the reanimated body works for him. This means that no fully skeletal remains are reanimated as part of the most basic types of undeath, although you know that there are some immaterial types, and even some elemental-attuned ones. Scrap souls are made to be divided in five to ten chunks with autonomy but little more than an animalistic intelligence. As the whole idea of necromancy is to not have to babysit the undead (because if you have to order a body around all the time, you may do the task yourself), another kind of undead was created: Mummies. Mummies are undead types that focus on a pair of tasks: they are resistant to curses, and may curse those they touch with the curses they hold, and they also come with a minor ability to order lesser undead around, just like a necromancer. Thus, they make for good generals of hordes created from scrap.

Regarding your question about an experiment to create various body parts reanimated from scrap souls and attach them together, then it wouldn't work. An arm attached to a body, but controlled by different souls of animalistic instinct not only would have problems to coordinate, but also wouldn't have the means to do so. A severed arm doesn't have any means of sensory input besides its skin, and the complex means of communication requires to transmit information through touch, which would require a language of some sorts, which gets into sentience territory (and thus not scrap souls). Giving all these complications, the Dark Mage masterminds of the past came up with the Chimeric Abomination, both to make it easier for the Soul Cleaner and the Necromancer. It requires cleaning just a single soul, and there is no need for any complex mechanisms of communication between body parts to be created by the Necromancer.

[VoidSlayer]

Do not tell her we do not know how to make it.  Explain that our other soul cleaners are busy with contracted work and we are prefer to work on our own projects, making chimera souls is boring and tedious.  If she really needs one it will take a couple of weeks before we would be willing to make one or our servants are done with their current work.

This gives us time to either learn or just trade one off from someone else.

[crazyabe]

Do not tell her we do not know how to make it.  Explain that our other soul cleaners are busy with contracted work and we are prefer to work on our own projects, making chimera souls is boring and tedious.  If she really needs one it will take a couple of weeks before we would be willing to make one or our servants are done with their current work.

This gives us time to either learn or just trade one off from someone else.

There was a Reason why I was Saying we should Just Refer her to our Compaction While saying we Don't have any in stock. We could even Act like we don't Normally Have very many in Stock to begin with!

[Ardent Debater]

Do not tell her we do not know how to make it.  Explain that our other soul cleaners are busy with contracted work and we are prefer to work on our own projects, making chimera souls is boring and tedious.  If she really needs one it will take a couple of weeks before we would be willing to make one or our servants are done with their current work.

This gives us time to either learn or just trade one off from someone else.

+1

[ATHATH]

Do not tell her we do not know how to make it.  Explain that our other soul cleaners are busy with contracted work and we are prefer to work on our own projects, making chimera souls is boring and tedious.  If she really needs one it will take a couple of weeks before we would be willing to make one or our servants are done with their current work.

This gives us time to either learn or just trade one off from someone else.

+1

-1. We're trying to build a reputation of trustworthiness, and the ruse that we have so far is already pushing it quite a bit.

We can't keep this ruse up forever; what's going to happen when our client finds out the (whole) truth? I'm trying to let her learn it in a gradual manner, so that she won't get (as) mad and will likely remain a customer (and not spread word of our misdeed, causing our other clients to mistrust us) when she pieces together the (whole) truth.

[VoidSlayer]

Okay, how about just explain that we do not have it in stock and we do not have any plans about making one in the near future, but that might change and we will keep her request in mind.  Ask her what she wants it for, what kind of soul she might want for it and so on.

No lies here and no false promises and we do not look weak.  Better to appear mysterious then unskilled.

[ATHATH]

Okay, how about just explain that we do not have it in stock and we do not have any plans about making one in the near future, but that might change and we will keep her request in mind.  Ask her what she wants it for, what kind of soul she might want for it and so on.

No lies here and no false promises and we do not look weak.  Better to appear mysterious then unskilled.

What happens if she still wants one, though? How are we going to justify delaying the creation of the Chimeric soul for [insert however long it will the for us to learn how to make a Chimeric soul here] to her?

[Tomcost]

Negotiation phase:

A) You frown, trying to keep the offended look about the failure of Chieftain Hill and try to make him feel slightly guiltier, which you use then to ask for any kind of book he may come across. He agrees to do that before saying goodbye.

B) You propose the young and probably unskilled mage something: if he wants any kind of better ratio, he should give you an initial payment in some kind of material goods. You even propose books about elementalism. A thought forms in your mind: it may be profitable to copy and sell those books, and even Pim could do that task. You doubt that any kind of mundane manual on elementalism or druidism could be sold for more than two or three souls, but, again you are dealing with mundane goods, so that is the norm. The young ice elementalist declines, and claims that he'd rather cast more curses than to part with one of his few and precious books on magic. He even says that he is quite bad at hex weaving, and that those extra curses would mean that he would get more practice weaving them. But he tells you that, if at some point in the future he can part with his basic manual about the dark arts, he would gladly exchange it for some store credit. You personally doubt that a basic manual on Dark Magic would be useful for any dark mage contacting you, but maybe Chieftain Hill could use it to increase his own skills and eventually be able to weave curses at en efficient rate. The negotiations eventually arrive to a 4:1 curse to blessing ratio. The young mage then thanks you for the business, and informs you his name: he is called Robert Rothwell. With that, he cuts the communication.

C) You tell Kathy that you don't currently have Chimeric Abominations in stock right now, but that if she makes an order you may be able to get it or refer her to another demon who may be able to sell her the desired stuff. Trying not to give too much information, you start to delay the business part of the negotiation and ask about what she wants the Chimeric Abominations to do for her, and what would be the sets of skills she would desire. Her face goes from showing respect when you first appear, to impatience when you inquire about all the things that she already told your minion, and ultimately gets annoyed at the basic questions you ask her. What skills would she desire for a Chimeric Abomination? That it can manage multiple limbs! That's why she is freaking asking for a chimeric abomination in the first place. It is useless to have something such as sword fighting techniques made for humanoids when you are putting the soul in a body with double the necessary limbs or giving it so much weight that finesse becomes irrelevant. But she suddenly has a realization, and her annoyed face changes to a grin:

"You just don't know shit about Abominations, right?"

You attempt to answer that you do, but she cuts you off:

"And that little demon girl is even a better businessman than you, right?"

Penelope tries to save the situation by abruptly interfering in the conversation:

"I just deal with less important custo-" But she is interrupted too:

"Yep, I knew something was fishy when you allowed her to negotiate instead of you. I'm going to tell you something: the next time I want some wights, I will buy them at half the price, let's say three souls each. Either that or I find a better demon to do business with. I'll contact you later"

And with that, she cuts the communication.

Penelope glares at you, with clear disappointment in her eyes. You try to answer to her unspoken critic by saying that she was the one to put you in front of Kathy in the first place. She retorts that you could have just asked her for how many souls she desired, and make a trip to Miltri to buy them, without all the talking. But she was not in charge, so she couldn't decide to do that, that's why she called for you.

You dismiss the conversation and review your deals with your clients:

Spoiler: Clients (click to show/hide)

Damian Skorn:
Mistrusted.
1:3 BtC ratio.
No store credit.

Chieftain Hill:
Trusted.
1:6 BtC ratio.
No store credit.

Gretha the Iron Fist dwarf.
Neutral.
Undefined BtC ratio.
No store credit.

Kathy the lowborn human:
Mistrusted. She knows you are weak
Undefined BtC ratio.
No store credit.
Will not buy wight souls for more than 3 souls each.

Robert Rothwell the young Ice Elementalist.
Neutral.
1:4 BtC ratio.
No store credit.

[...]

With angry thoughts, you try to begin doing your work:

Work phase:

WARNING: one soul is out of a functioning soul vault. It is really likely going to be stolen by either demons or mortal summoners.

Available AP: 30.

Available actions:

Soul processing: select soul to clean, type of undeath and what to leave attached to it. Souls not relevant to anybody are typically just left with their abilities, and their memories and personality are discarded.

Basic working times:
Scrap: 3 AP
Wight: 4 AP
Ghoul: 5 AP

Spoiler: Soul structure (click to show/hide)

Other actions:

Diplomatic meeting: 5 AP. Take a trip to meet with some demon you know, stating your business with him or her. During the travel, you will have to fend off petty demons, but probably nothing serious. Maximum two due to the time that it takes to physically go.
Exploration: 5 AP. Walk around the multiverse, looking for something useful, contacts, possible minions, anything. Results are random. The tentacle beast is willing to go with you.

No AP cost actions:
Send Pim to explore around. He may come back, or not.

Decide what to do with your time. Talking to your minions and roleplaying is free

Spoiler: Yxcransprunrtolmsxrcilp "Yxcran" (click to show/hide)

Health: Healthy
Vigor Level: 2 [4/15] curses to advance to the next level.
Available action points: 30
Skills:
Elementalism level 2. [13/25] to next level.
Demonic assets:
-1 goblin slave soul floating around. Can be easily stolen.
-Minor soul vault: [30/30] souls:
Unprocessed:
3 goblin lasher souls.
1 human warrior soul.
12 goblin slave souls.
4 human conscript souls.
5 miscelaneous commoner souls.
1 orc potioncrafter soul.
1 human prostitute soul.
Processed:
2 scrap souls
1 Human smith Wight soul.
-Spinescorcher: your former master's flaming axe. You can't even wield it, being immaterial and all that.
Demonic minions:
-A tentacle demon. Maybe you should name him.
-Penelope the Sorrow's Daughter
-Pim the ugly imp.

[crazyabe]

My thoughts are that we should Eat the spare soul and take a trip down to whats-their-name, perhaps we will be able to convince em' to teach us how to make Chemaric abomanations or sell us some before whats her face comes back...

[ATHATH]

Guys, I have come up with an awesome idea for an undead creature that hopefully won't require any Chimeric souls.

Okay, take a normal horse corpse. Remove its tail and replace it with a blade-whip (that has eyes and ears at the place where it is attached to the horse-part). Put a horse wight soul in the horse-part and a snake wight soul in the blade-whip. The snake will attack any enemies of the rider of the horse that it can reach. Skeletonize the face of the horse, then add an enchantment to the eyes of the horse that both makes them look like they're on fire (but not to the horse, or else that will blind it) and allows the horse's rider to cause the horse's (fireproofed with a spell) eyes to shoot two fire beams (the superman kind, not the firebolt kind) at whatever the rider is looking at (onlookers probably won't be able to tell that the horse isn't looking at what it's shooting at). With Penelope's help (she has experience with emotion magic), allow the rider of the horse to be able to cause it to produce a horse-like scream from its mouth that causes fear in all who hear it (except for the horse, the snake, and the rider). Attach a skeletal wing (animated with a zombie snake soul and equipped with a blade that runs along its entire front side) to each flank of the horse. Each of them will have a small piece of flesh at the place where they are attached to the horse, where they can receive five pre-programmed commands via specific tap sequences that are given by the rider: down (causes the wings to touch the ground at the farthest point possible; used when the rider wishes to dismount or mount the horse easily), up (folds up the wings against the horse's sides), flat (makes the wings reach as far as they can horizontally and perpendicularly to the facing of the horse, slice forward when they hit something, then repeat the process until a different command is issued; used when charging), flap(makes them flap like bird wings; used for cosmetic effect, not to actually fly), and flail (causes them to flail about randomly; not actually triggered by the rider (see below)). Add an enchantment to the horse that allows it to fly. Give the horse some heavy, spiked armor (it's undead, it doesn't need to worry about the weight). If the horse's rider dies and it is fully functional, it (and the snake) will continue fighting, replacing all references to the "rider" in the above paragraph with references to us.

Now for the fun part. Add an enchantment to the horse that does the following: if the horse did not have a rider (other than us) within the last thirty seconds and the horse wight soul is somehow destroyed and/or removed from its body by something other than us, issue the flail command for the wings and use air magic to repeatedly fling the horse (with some spin, so that the legs flail as well) at the nearest group of living creature. If, at any point after the charge, the horse loses all of its limbs, it will use all of the remaining magical energies within it to explode the next time that it is touched by a living creature.

Finally, dub the completed creature the Dreadsteed.

[ATHATH]

*facepalm*

See, this is where deceit gets us. Now both Penelope AND our client think that we're an idiot, and we've lost most of the value of a potentially very lucrative business operation. Great job, guys.

Anyway...

Let's meet with Dmitri and learn how to make Chimeric Abominations; they sound fun.
I think I'll need an inventory list to properly issue more actions.

[Tomcost]

Sooooooo, let's clarify some things:


About the Dreadsteed:

As far as you know, there are already demonic horses known as Nightmares, but you haven't got much information on them.
The design of the Dreadsteed in question would be able to be done with just a single Chimeric Abomination soul, but several details have to pointed out:
-You don't use animal souls. Those are generally too weak to be used in necromancy or even as an energy soruce. They can't even support hexes woven into them, unlike those of sentient beings.
-The good news is that you can split a scrap soul into chunks able to manipulate the bodies of animals. These are generally dumb, but even a full soul would have problems to coordinate a totally different body.
-There are inorganic undead, but sadly you don't know anything about them. So the razor tail would be out of the question until you find a way to make souls move totally inorganic things. Generally those who repare souls for inorganic undead can build the golems too.
-Enchanting is based around moving energy between inorganic objects. If you want the horse to shoot lightning through its eyes, the best idea you could come up with is a crafted artifact that shoots fire.
-Likewise, if you want the rider to have frightening screams, you don't use enchanting. You think that some blessings from a demon related to fear may do the trick. Likewise, all other parts should have another blessing to resist it, but this is thinking too far, as those other parts don't even make sense.
-As it has been mentioned before, skeletal bodies don't work on their own. They require the fleshy bits to move them.
-Blessing the horse to fly may be a tad too much. Or maybe too expensive. It will likely need the souls of several air elementalists into some kind of artifact.
-The final self-destruct command doens't require an enchantment, except for the magic part, maybe. It is an undead, the necromancer can just give it a command to suicide in a charge after he or she falls from the horse.

Finally, the idea is that our main demon would be the one to ride it? Or that we sell the thing? On the first scenario, it wouldn't make sense. Yxcran is immaterial, and can already fly and fit through many places on his own. And, as a greater demon, he is about 3 meters tall. On the second scenario, yeah, you could sell it, but only to a wealthy enough individual. But most of the time it is the mortals who build these things, and you just process the required souls.

Other things:

It is Miltrikninita, not Dimitri. You just call him "Miltri".


And, finally, the inventory has been updated on the turn (there were no changes), and it is this one:

Spoiler: Yxcransprunrtolmsxrcilp "Yxcran" (click to show/hide)

Health: Healthy
Vigor Level: 2 [4/15] curses to advance to the next level.
Available action points: 30
Skills:
Elementalism level 2. [13/25] to next level.
Demonic assets:
-1 goblin slave soul floating around. Can be easily stolen.
-Minor soul vault: [30/30] souls:
Unprocessed:
3 goblin lasher souls.
1 human warrior soul.
12 goblin slave souls.
4 human conscript souls.
5 miscelaneous commoner souls.
1 orc potioncrafter soul.
1 human prostitute soul.
Processed:
2 scrap souls
1 Human smith Wight soul.
-Spinescorcher: your former master's flaming axe. You can't even wield it, being immaterial and all that.
Demonic minions:
-A tentacle demon. Maybe you should name him.
-Penelope the Sorrow's Daughter
-Pim the ugly imp.

[Ardent Debater]

Drat, hmm, why don't we advertise that we are in the market for Books on Dark Magic, and that we'll trade Souls or Wights for them. Alternatively, we could hire ourselves out to a more Powerful Demon for a while in exchange for knowledge on Dark Magic.

[ATHATH]

Could we put gems in the Dreadsteed's eyes and enchant those?