4 for Azrael, 2 for Oliver, 1 for Skrilla. The chosen one indeed becomes chosen...
Your name is
Azrael and you're 15 years old. You've always had a thing for reading and numbers, and your family members often called you 'the
smart kid' around. You learned a bit under the local, shrewd shopkeeper and the wise but stern priest and the strange yet fair alchemist. All options were open for you.
And then, on the evening of your 15th birthday,
Yorick the
Necromancer has knocked on the door of your house. Startled as they were, your parents however had little to say when Yorick spoke of 'a prophecy' that was described to him by the spirits of ancient dead, the strange flowing rhymes and poetic lines pointing directly to your town, to your house, to your name - to you. "He is
the chosen one of that prophecy." Yorick said, and declared that he will be your tutor from now on, and you're to move to his place - across seven hills and seven forests - immediately. Your parents, fearful and superstitious folk, hepled you pack and offered blessings and prayers for the road ahead.
Few days later, mid-way to Yorick's tower, you heard rumors that a terrible dragon razed your hometown to cinder and ash. Yorick didn't give you much time to grieve, and next day, you were again pacing after the necromancer. There's no coming back, now.
You have no family and no home - but Yorick's tower.
Just one month of the tutelage later, you've learned that Yorick is an
uncaring man. The bearded, wrinkled necromancer cares not for your smell, or that you go hungry. At home you didn't have oftentimes to prepare dinner with your family - at Yorick's tower, you wash your own clothes and prepare your own meals. Sometimes you wash Yorick's laundry and prepare simple meals for him.
He does not comment on your menial skills. He simply don't care, it seems.
750 CE, 1st Mid-Spring
So begins the second month of your living with Yorick. It's a somewhat decrepit, five-story tower. The top is Yorick's laboratory, it's lock-less door sealed from you except when Yorick lets you in. Second from top is Yorick's study and library, third from top is storage (and your pillow and blankets, strewn across an unused table - your bed nowadays), fourth from top is room for brews and cauldron and alchemical equipment, and the ground floor is where hearth and furniture are, where you prepare meals and hang the laundry. There's a basement - full of corpses, skeletons, partial meats and skulls and bone dust.
In the past month you've gotten used to the smell of cadavers, embalming oils, acids and vinegars, the putrid smokes and vapours that are mixed in Yorick's cauldron. So far, he taught you how to handle bones and sinews, how to wrap them in cloth, and how to manage the primal fear when a corpse of a dead man suddenly sits up and groans in your direction.
You've gotten used to undeath.
Perhaps you will learn how to control it.
Today Yorick has holed up himself in the top floor with a bowl of oatmeal you've prepared. Unusual, for he always had something for you to do, even if that meant you standing around at attention, doing nothing. Thick smell of sulphur and rot tell you that he is manipualting and animating some corpse.
He is busy.
You, in the meanwhile, could...
A) Peek into the library and read some books.
B) Explore outside of the tower.
C) Delve into alchemy lab and read the labels on the bottles.
D) Visit the morbid basement and examine the corpses.
E) Check the storage and see what can be found there.