Voodoo Science

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

There was a shuddering gasp from the doll-like Beholder as she looked up. Her serene smile came nowhere to matching the blood-chilling intelligence that now shown within her one eye. Digging her claws into the tree, she stood up slowly, looking around at her surroundings before turning that gaze onto the faenix. It could be likened to being inspected by a butcher for slaughter.

She pointed to herself, finger grazing one of the pins in her heart. "Voo-..." she coughed, voice raspy from years of disuse, "-doo." She growled in irritation before trying again. "Vou-... doun... I am... Voudoun." She pointed at the faenix. "You make... the Pact also? You are?"  

[Noir Songbird]

"Voudun, hmm?" Wandel tried her name, and a grin crossed his face as he stood up. "I am Vandelnden Toten. Vandel, please, mein lieber." He said. A soft chuckle passed his lips at the mention of a "deal." "No, I have made no deal. Accidents in ze lab, zey happen, you see." He shrugged. "So I must put myself back togezer. Sometimes it works better zan ozers." Skin grafts, reattaching body parts...he had done it all.

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

"La-ab?" Voudoun blinked as she sounded out the word, then gave that eerie smile. "Lab, yes. Laboratory." She pointed to Wandel. "Scientist, yes?"

A groan caught the beholder's attention, and she looked down at the faefox lying on the forest floor. With jerky, doll-like movements, she walked over and knelt by the fox, leaning in to sniff the air just above the victim's face. A deep, raspy chuckle escaped her lips.

"Strong one, not quite broken." She looked at Wandel as she stood up, seeming unperturbed over the height difference between her and the faenix. "Do you want to keep?"  

[Noir Songbird]

Wandel nodded. "Scientist indeed, mein lieber." He sighed. "Mad scientist, as most vould tell you. But perhaps I am sane and zey are mad, no?" He shrugged. Philosophical questions. Out of his purview.

That groan from his intended test subject drew his attention back to her. His eyebrows flicked up at Voudun's assessment. He walked back over to where he'd left his sack. He was no psychologist (yet! He was working on that!) so he would trust the judgment of someone who likely better knew the mind.

"I am never one to waste a potential test subject." He said. A small twinge in what was left of his morals reminded him that she had mentioned a mate. Ah well, he would let her go eventually, and she would have someone who could comfort her. He scooped her back into the sack, glad that with her unconscious, she would be much less...struggle-y and troublesome.

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

Voudoun watched as Wandel stuffed the unconscious faefox back into the sack. "Madness? Feh. Madness. Sanity. Both overrated. Just be." The beholder gave a philosophical shrug as she nodded to the Eye. It gave a small dip of respect before floating back out to the field. A terrified moo showed it was rousing the cow from the ground and skillfully guiding it back to them.

Voudoun smiled as she watched the Eye work. "Intelligence, memories, sentience. Good to feed upon, good to have back." She turned to Wandel. "Cow is merely snack food to me, but perhaps, good for experiment, yes?"

She paused for a moment, then shook her head. "Speech still bad. Will need to feed again before next sunrise. You have more back at lab, yes?" She asked as they walked through the forest, letting Wandel lead the way while the Eye brought up the rear with it's four-legged prize.  

[Noir Songbird]

Wandel nodded. "An excellent philosophy." He agreed, adjusting the sack over his shoulder. His eyes flicked back to the Beholder's Eye as it guided the cow back to them. His eyebrows flew up. "Ze eye, it is sentient?" He asked, purely out of curiosity.

"Mm, yes, ze cow can at the least provide anatomy lessons." He bobbed his head. As if he had students, but he was all for cutting just about anything up to see what went on inside. He nodded to acknowledge that yes, he had more sentient test subjects back at his lab as he led her in the direction of it. "I am sure I have plenty to satisfy you, mein leiber." He had a rotating cycle of subjects. He would let older ones go and capture new to serve as fodder for his experiments. Faes of every race and alignment-well, many races and alignments. He had yet to get his paws on some of the more Elite races. But he was working on it!

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

Voudoun chuckled in genuine amusement. "Sentient? No, not sentient. Intelligent, dangerously so." As if to prove her point, the Eye whipped by her head and curved around so it was staring at Wandel when it stopped moving. It rolled from side to side before rising up and moving back to the cow, herding it through a bramble bush with ease.

"Ha ha, it is interested in you, much like you are in Eye. It thinks you are Pact-victim also." A scowl flickered across her face as a memory ghosted through her mind, but it was gone before she could grab it. She shook her head, her matted hair moving like a thick curtain. "But you are not Pact-victim. Scientist too smart for such promises."

She tilted her head in curiosity as she watched the faenix move through the woods. The beholder knew the faenix hadn't helped her through something as inane as 'kindness'. "What is your interest in Voudoun? In me?" Why dance around the subject, she thought, better to find out now so she'd know if she would have to blast his mind later.  

[Noir Songbird]

Wandel nodded. "It is a very interesting thing, your Eye," he admitted. He flicked up an eyebrow at it as it stared at him, utterly unintimidated by the floating eye. He had seen much stranger. He himself was quite a bit odder, a patchwork assembled not by magic but by SCIENCE. (-thundercrash-)

He chuckled at her explanation of the Eye's interest. "No, I have made no pact." He almost preened at the idea of him being too intelligent for such things. It was true, of course. He was no fool to fall for a demon or dark god's promises. He paused as she asked why he was interested in her. Well, blunt honestly was always best.

"You are a curious zing, Voudun mein liebe. I have an interest in curious things." He said. "As to why I helped you regain your speech? Vell, I could have brought you back to ze lab as you were, or tried to, and attempted to discover my answers simply by poking and prodding and cutting, but it seemed so much more expedient to simply have the opportunity to ask you."

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

Voudoun chuckled in amusement, a spine-chilling sound from the doll-like beholder. "Try, yes. Achieve?" Her smile told what she thought of his chances. "You are oddity also. Fascinating. Much more patch-work than me, yet still flesh." A scowl flickered across her face. "Still flesh, I admit, jealous that you are."

She noticed Wandel's bag begin to thrash and raised her hand, pointing a finger at it. There was a short, horrified shriek, and it quickly went silent. "How much further? This part of forest new to me. You have lab here for solitude, yes?"  

[Noir Songbird]

Wandel snorted. "Yes, vell, is not all fun and games. Bits fall off, sometimes, and reattachment is...uncomfortable." He looked a bit anxious at the thought. One would think that piecing himself together would mean he no longer had much of a working nervous system. That was incorrect; his nerves worked perfectly, unfortunately. He blamed the life-magic that utterly permeated all of Faetasia.

"Zank you, vould have bene difficult to keep her under control vizout your aid." Wandel said. "No, not far at all. In fact..." He broke throguh the trees into a clearing. It was wide, with a lake in the middle, and on the near shore stood a large, imposing building. Wandel's laboratory. "Home at last," the scientist couldn't keep the smile off his face.

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

Voudoun nodded as she scanned the area. "This your lab, yes? Very impressive. And excellent view, Eye will like this area, I think." The Eye dipped down slightly, apparently agreeing with the patchwork beholder.

As they walked along the trail heading to the lab, Voudoun noticed movement out in the lake. Was that movement? Seemed too large for a fish. She tilted her head to the side. What would it be like to terrorize one of the aquatic faes, the thought slithered through her mind, certainly it would be different from her usual victims.

She turned her attention back to the even-more patchwork faenix walking ahead of her. "You are first scientist I have met in... long time, yes. I think..." She stopped suddenly as ancient memories flooded her mind, her hands twitching by her sides. The Eye noticed immediately, and whipped around the cow and in front of Wendal, brushing against the faenix's shoulder just hard enough to spin him around.

((Sorry, seems like every time I turn around, someone wants me to join some other damn thing. >.< Like I don't have enough on my plate already.))  

[Noir Songbird]

Wandel grinned widely. "Yes, zis is my lab. My home as well, and if I may presume, yours for as long as you vish to stay." He chuckled and pushed the door open one-handed. There was another wiggle from the bag over his shoulder, and he let out an irritated sigh and shook it, which stopped the movement immediately.

The room itself was furnished as one might expect a laboratory to be-Wandel made no effort to hide what he was doing, at least with nonliving things. The room was large, plenty of room to move, and towards the back a staircase going up was visible, leading to the Faenix's living quarters. The room itself contained tables covered with strange vials, odd bubbling, popping, hissing, or smoking liquids...

"Will go deposit zis lovely specimen in ze basement, and zen be back. You may come if you wish to see other specimens?" He offered, walking towards what appeared to be a flat wall. He pressed his palm to a nearly-invisible hand-shaped depression, and there was a low rumble as the wall slid away, revealing a descending staircase that curved into darkness. "Can never be too careful. Live specimens and research on zem, I do underground for safety. Cannot have them escaping, you see." He chuckled as he walked down the stairs, descending into the darkness. With each step he took, artificial lighting on the walls of the staircase bloomed, lighting the way ahead.

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

Voudoun smiled. It was rather grotesque, given the doll-like quality of her face. "Generosity, much appreciated. It has been a long time since called a place home." The beholder looked around, admiring the vast space as she followed the scientist towards the back. She stopped at one table, a leather-like finger tracing down the tables of formulas in an open book before resuming her walk.

"Scientist, what fields of study?" Voudoun asked as she watched him open the hidden entrance to the basement. The moment it started to open, she could feel it like a tidal wave on awakened senses. Fear. Despair. Anger. Hatred. Her eye lit up with anticipation. "Yes, escape would hinder research, yes?" A small patch of red passed her lips slowly. The doll-creature's tongue?

Voudoun followed the faenix impatiently, each step making the sensations stronger as they descended down the staircase. Soon, tendrils of incandescent light began to form and whip around the beholder's body, quickly eclipsing the staircase light in brightness.  

[Noir Songbird]

Wandel let an actual smile cross his face at Voudun's apparent interest in his work as it was displayed. "Zhis house is much too large for me on my own, and company zhat is not subjects is welcome."

"Oh, all fields," Wandel shrugged. "Biology, chemistry...most recently psychology, and memory. I have been vorking on a vay to alter or remove memories zhrough chemical means. I vould eventually like to release my subjects, once zhey are no longer useful, but I cannot have zhem remembering where zhis place is or vhat happened here." Wandel chuckled. "Escape concerns me in zhat vere my subjects to escape and tell vhat I have done, I expect zhe locals vill soon be here with zhe torches and zhe pitchforks and zhat silliness. I vould have to pack up and move."

Thoguh he was mostly focused on getting to his lab, Wandel could not help but look back at the Beholder and see those tendrils of light. Normally, he was not one for aesthetics, but he had to admit that framed in such a way, surrounded by bright light, Voudun was...rather beautiful. He shook his head. There was no need to ponder such silliness.

Anguis Lingua

 

[Anguis Lingua]

Songstress Kitsune

Voudoun chuckled as they continued down the stairs. "Yes, I can see escapees being a problem." Whether either noticed her suddenly changing speech patterns was up for grabs. The beholder did smile as more lights blinked into existence around her, whipping around her before burning away to nothing, only to be replaced by one or two more. She knew what this was, though she couldn't remember the last time she'd had this much delicious fear to feed on. The beholder could smell it, taste it, feel it as it coalesced into the incandescent lights around her.

"We're getting close, yes?" She inhaled deeply. "We must, I can feel it!" She chuckled, and it seemed to defy the laws of sound as it boomed and echoed through the stairwell. "Don't worry, friend. Once I'm finished feeding, you will be able to release however many you want, without fear of ever being found."