Welcome to Cove

Marcus sat in a common room of a common bunk house, a low but long wood and stone building designed as housing for the poor and destitute. He'd been in need of a place to stay after giving up his worldly possesions and decided to devote his life full time to traveling and healing. Thus he found himself in Vesper, leaderless, without law or government and only a handful of salty pirates and crooks with a miserly spattering of former militia to keep any form of order and mostly bent on self preservation, disease and poverty now ran rampant through the streets. He sat contemplating the ailments of a number of folks spell book laid open over his right knee. He cast  the "Bless" spell numerous times per hour, it relieved his own pains and he thought in combination with "Heal" spells had stymied his ailments. The hacking wet and bloody cough that racked his body a few hours into his contemplation told him otherwise, it also spoke to how little time he had left. His heart sank as he stared at the bloodied sleeve of his robe. He would not survive long enough to even tell these poor souls what might be killing them. He did not have a couple years, not likely a month before his lungs would be torn to shreds or would fill with enough blood and fluids to choke the lungs of a titan. . . . He needed help soon, it was time for desperate measures.

The decision was not made lightly, a more powerful mage was needed to fix his ails and he was told if anyone could help it was Piper Vale. Sending his request by way of her extended family they arranged to meet and perform the ritual, perfectly safe, harmless of course, fool proof.

He was surprised when Jasmine Vale and not Piper arrived, but one was as good as the other by this point, he could hear the gurgling in his own lungs even pass the haze of various narcotics and poisons he had imbibed to dull his pain, even slow his breathing and his heart to give himself more time. Foxglove, Mandragora, nightshade, and powdered green thorn do not a safe solution make. . . .  Jasmine informed him that the ritual was simple, all he had to do was sit still whilst she chanted. He assumed it was just some advanced magery, the words that left her mouth as she chanted where a horror to himself. Too late. Once begun he knew he could not stop her without possibly killing them both. He knew necromancy when he heard it though. . .  the same language his father had written in many "trap-tomes". The tomes being books he father had seeded the world with attuned to his son's soul and designed to take it from him should he be fool hardy enough or too weak to ward himself. The books always vanished after the attempt, and always the last open page would have the words written that he was coming for him. . .soon. The words where the same then as they where now from Jasmine's mouth.

She held out her hands to him, working magics beyond his own comprehension, vile necromancies foolishly applied for "good." He knew in his heart that though he would benefit from this. . .. he feared the price, both morally and physically. Never had he contemplated what punishment waited for him in the Abyss, he did now and knew it would be one most foul. She chanted louder and faster and soon a red light flooded forth enveloping him in its light. At first it was a cold light with the chill of the grave about his ankles, the river of death called to his very soul. He denied and then pain, like no pain before yet it was all pains before it. Every wound he'd taken in nearly 30 years ran across his body and closed, all running in reverse and all within a matter of a minute. The scars unhealed, mended, bled, then vanished as if the stroke had never landed. His wrinkles slowly stretched until his skin was the smoothness of his 20's, his eyes undimmed and brightened with that same look of youth though they had the hints of wisdom that come only with much living and much pain. Even the branding upon his hand that marked him as a wytch faded away.  His hair from the roots out slowly turned to its former jet black like blood flowing from a wound. He gasped as the spell ran its course and ended, the seering pain finally gone, leaving only the memory.

He now stood, looking and feeling no older than 25, yet with the knowledge and wisdom of a man in his 60's. If the effect was permanent, barring injury, disease and untimley death, he would likley live to have  the body of a 60 year old again, or longer. He might verywell outlive everyone he ever knew, watching all of them pass beyond the veil. He would endure an entire second lifetime of hardships and pains, but he might also have a new life, doing what he loved most: Healing and carring for others, whilst maitnaining a certain crotchetyness of an old man.

He might also be put to an untimley demise by the very people whom had been his friends and patients. If they suspected necromancy would he be accepted? He himself had not performed the ritual, he did not know necromancy. . .  he needed allies. . . he needed them now. He thought only briefly about his next decision, he needed the arcane company, he probably needed to re-enlist and fast!