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[ The video feed initially just shows the entrance to the cemetery at dusk. There's some fluid movement as the camera moves past Grave Concoctions, the local alchemist, and then forward a few steps towards a small strip of somewhat rundown buildings. The camera stops in front of one of the buildings on the far left side and then just zooms up and down on it. There are lights on inside the building and it clearly looks like someone's been inside and cleaned it up. Overall it's small and the outside is in need of a bit of help.

Ivy turns the camera to face her. She's got a thick white scarf wrapped around her neck and a large silver cross can be seen dangling down. ]

I've fixed the inside into what I want for the most part. [ She's to the point, it's common for her when she's got a specific goal in mind. ]

But I need some help for a few other things. I need the outside fixed up, there's some loose brick, and it needs some paint. Inside I need six barstools in black. I don't care about the material, but they have to be black. There were booths in there already, but I want them painted red. [ She's very specific. ] The kitchen is basically just the woodfire oven but that's enough, I don't need much more fixed with that. I've gotten the décor down.

[ Wait she's forgetting something. ] It's going to be a pizzeria. [ Probably should explain that right? ] I also need help with a name. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

[ A pause ] I can pay anyone that's willing to help clean up the outside and do the few other things I mentioned. I might also need some help running the place. I don't need a resume, just proof you're competent.

[ And she just ends things there. Ivy has A+ asking people for help skills. ]

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[ Waver would also be jealous of her cheat codes if he knew about them. Cleaning up a mess was bad enough without dealing with the cleanup after the fact. Especially his hair, that tended towards unruly without proper attention. ]

Yeah? Great, then it’s yours to take. [ The mage is actually rather relieved despite his own tone to have heard someone actually needed this stuff. It seemed a waste to toss it and finding someone who actually needed it all seemed like a bit of a challenge before now. ] I honestly hadn’t expected to hear anyone needed them myself. Just happened to take this space and been trying to figure out what to do with it.

[ She could, huh? Well, that suited Waver just fine. He wasn’t up for lugging furniture across the city. ]

You can find me in the harbor district, then. Little further than the businesses, closer to the docks. There’s a… sign I think, still half hanging from when it was a tavern.

Thanks. I guess we both managed to find a positive coincidence. [ Those seemed rare. Most coincidence's seemed to lean more towards the negative side. Or maybe she just saw everything negatively. ]

If you're not rebuilding it as a tavern, what are you using the place for? [ She could ask him a question too, that seemed polite and like normal conversations people have. ]

Do you mind if I come in the evening? My kind keep afternoon and night hours and I've never adjusted. [ Or bothered to try. ]

A rare thing. [ So it was damn weird, unless something about the arrangement turned out poorly. Which would be his luck… But it was only bar stools and such. Surely that kind of thing couldn’t turn bad… Right…? Maybe…

The question gets a small shrug as he glanced around the space. It wasn’t looking too bad at this point. Clean enough, he just needed to get his hands on some materials and supplies. ] I needed to set up a mage workshop, and this place was abandoned. [ Also known as ‘Waver’s hermit hut’ where he’d hide away. ] So just a place for me to work on my own research and projects. [ He offered, not sure if that was a decent explanation or not… Look at them, having a normal conversation like normal people. ]

Evening would be fine. I’ll be here fairly late sorting things. [ Okay, but the ‘my kind’ gets a small pause as it connects. He does actually know someone who can't be out in direct sunlight, after all... So he had to ask, just to confirm that he wasn't wrong. ] Your kind?

Ah, I can see why a tavern would work. I have a friend whose a witch and I renovated my kitchen for her to use. [ It'd been a complicated gesture on her part, one that Rachel had been excited about and confused by at the same time. Ivy hadn't fully understood her own motives when it came to that, other than she wanted to ensure Rachel would want to stay there. ]

Would a few hours from now work? [ She wants to make double certain before heading down. ] Vampire. Living vampire specifically. That won't be a problem will it?

Yes, that sounds like it would be an excellent space as well. A good kitchen can be quite useful.

[ How good of her to provide her friend with that kind of space. It was important for magic folk to have places to work, after all. ]

A few hours would be fine. As I said, I don’t intend to go anywhere for most of the evening, anyway. [ Ah, that confirmed it. Vampire. The way she described it suggested there was more than one kind or stage where she was from as well. So perhaps not entirely unlike his world… The question gets a shake of his head, even if he’d probably feel a little wary on instinct. That was less to do with her being a vampire, though, and more because most vampires had way more power than he did. You didn’t piss people with more power off lightly. ] No, not a problem. I was simply a little curious given the way you put it. I’ve been around vampires in my world before… You speak less cryptically than the one I know, though.

It cost a small fortune but she seems to like it.

[ And that was all that really mattered. She'd make the money back. ]

I'll see you then. [ She laughs, a genuine laugh that gives just a brief glimpse of her fangs. That was a good one and accurate. For now at least. ] I'm not undead yet. [ It still doesn't occur to her that living and dead vampires being a thing isn't normal in most people's world. ]

[ The laugh gets a slightly startled glance, usually laughter around him is mocking or hiding something… So the genuine laugh at his vague (although slightly true) quip was a surprise. ] Hm? Ah… I see, so there are stages in your world as there are in mine.

[ But, given she used the term living, it was decidedly different enough. ‘Living’ was not one of the stages vampires went through in his world. It was… a curious thing, though. ]

Well, the door will be open when you arrive. [ Mostly because he needs to replace the doorknob, otherwise he’d be stuck outside again himself. ]

What are the stages in your world? [ Well, now she's completely serious and very interested. ]

[ Perhaps he should have thought that she might be that interested, but he hadn’t expected it honestly. That said, hearing about the differences or similarities between worlds was a point of interest for him as well… So he hummed lightly, setting the phone on the counter and propping it up on something so he could work on cleaning the shelves behind it while he answered. ]

More than a few, to be honest… And how one becomes one is either a direct result of some form of magecraft or the acts of another vampire.

[ Those born of magecraft were often the results of experiments going awry… But mages were always looking for a way to live longer, and so it happened. ]

The main stages that tend to be spoken of most would be Ghouls; Not capable of coherent thought, and tend to only focus on feeding… Then there are a few stages where they gradually gain a sense of self and grow less violent. That eventually leads to Dead Apostles; or what most would imagine as a fully realized vampire. They’re very long-lived, tend to develop unique abilities at levels that most mages could only imagine.

Vampires are created by magecraft in your world? [ That's...terrible. Gross. How is that a thing? Though....she's kinda amused by by the most spoken of being ghouls. More than kind of. She's very amused. ]

Sounds like ghouls in my world. [ No, it doesn't, she's just being rude. Extremely rude. She's perfectly fine with letting him think it is though, because she's that petty and will take any chance to insult ghouls back in her world. ]

What kind of unique abilities?

Some of them are, yes. While others are created by other vampires. [ Mages did a lot of stupid things in the name of reaching the Root. It was why he was sensible in not pursuing it. Even if he wasn’t the kind of mage with the potential, and hadn’t gotten himself invested in another likely futile goal. ]

Is that the case…? I suppose there are some similarities between worlds then. [ Which was interesting to consider, though he wasn’t aware she was being rude about that. How was he to know?

The question gets a brief nod, taking a moment to wring out a cloth before he continued cleaning up a shelf. ]

Ah, for example, the Dead Apostle I know, Zepia Eltnam Atlasia, is able to use an ability known as Memory Partitioning to an incredibly advanced degree compared to others. He’s become capable of calculating what seems like countless possibilities for reality. He refers to them as scripts as though from a play, and while he’s uncertain which scripts will be followed instead of cut, he can be quite accurate and prepared for potential outcomes.

When I met him, he already knew I’d be arriving, but only in one or two scripts did I arrive with my sister Reines, so he wasn’t sure if she would appear or not.

[ It did make it difficult for some people to follow the man, though…]

I'd be interested to know how they created them. [ Both. Though she assumes the vampires that were created by other vampires were just the normal way: a bite. ]

It's always seemed like there were certain similarities between a lot of worlds. [ Well she can at least be a little more honest: ] Ghouls in my own world are the lowest kind, but they're also still human.

So he's able to see all possible futures? [ That was the basic idea she got from what he'd said. ]

That I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Depending on how the attempt went, they’d either end up with a sealing designation from the association or they keep their secrets to themselves. [ And Waver had never come across a situation where he could observe and work out the process of one either. Which was probably for the best. He pissed people off when he did that. ]

Very nearly, and because of how accurately he can be, a lot of people mistakenly think he has the gift of true foresight.

I guess that's not too surprising. [ Nobody should want a bunch of people running around creating vampires. ]

How is that not true foresight?

[ No, especially in the event of an accidentally created ghoul on its own… those tended to get out of hand and spread fast. ]

For it to be considered true foresight, he would have to see the absolute true future of a scenario. Instead of seeing multiple variations of my arrival and making guesses on which would be the accurate future, he would see and know exactly how it would have gone.

Are there people that can do that?

Very few modern mage posses such an ability. I know... [ A pause, and a slight correction. ] Well, knew someone who had mystic eyes that allowed her accurate glimpses of the future.

Knew? What happened?

I was in the middle of trying to figure that out, actually. So at the moment, I can’t really say with any certainty other than the fact that she is no longer among the living.

Was she a close friend?

Ah, no. I had only really only just met her barely a day beforehand.

There's that at least. Probably not the most positive way to look at it, but better than if you'd known each other for a long time.

That is a way to look at it, and there’s not much to be done now beyond trying to figure out what happened.

[ He’s not great with the idea of decent mages being murdered, though, and she had a student with her that now had no one… So it was a mixed feeling on his part. But rather than drag the conversation down, he dismisses the topic and shifts back to the point of his contact. ]

That aside… Is there anyone beyond the bar stools you might need? There’s a lot of other junk still in here from when it was a business if you happen to want to look at any of it when you get here.

Which you can't do here. [ Better to just not dwell on the things we can't control from here. Says the person that dwells on the things she can't really control all the time. ]

A register, but I doubt you have that. Other than that no. I need some plates and things like that but I'm sure I'll have to get that specially made or looked into.

[ He nodded, despite knowing he’d still be thinking about it while here, anyway. But the list of things she needed was unfortunately not among the odd collection he had at the moment, aside from the bar stools. ]

No, I can’t say there was a register left among all the junk still here. Can’t say I’m surprised, though. More useful and easy to use elsewhere means it was taken when the place was abandoned, I expect.

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