The Summoned\\Kaeru

Having to lay low was always a pain for Tem. Having to compact all her particles into one student body was never easy, she just always felt like expanding out and lying somewhere. At least the student she was impersonating was big, not as big as she was, but it was as close as she was going to get. It had been some time since she had first met Lockwood, so it was good that she could get some time off of work in order to relax. Tea wasn’t something she particularly cared for since her body didn’t need such nourishment, but the reanimated man insisted and she didn’t care enough to argue the point.

Tem approached the café in her ‘default’ body, adding a bit of aged wrinkles since she was advised before to use them to assert her age more, though it only added another ten or so years to her complexion. She dressed in simple textures so that she would have to use too much strain on her abilities. A simple long sleeved yellow shirt, though she played with the tint of it for a bit before she arrived on a choice. As for her pants, she didn’t really care so she added the textures of jeans, but left it as the same colour of her skin. Her outfit didn’t seem the most appropriate for the cold temperatures, though the fake clothes she wore were never going to make her any warmer anyway. Some fully coated people shot her an odd glare.

As she entered the building, she could feel her sand particles loosen their tension. The colder seasons were always bothersome for Tem, she sometimes wished she could return to the desert where she could be warm all the time and not have her sandy bits freeze together. She searched the café for the zombie teacher, though didn’t notice him anywhere. If that were so, she was probably in store for quite the entrance.

To some people, cloudy days are gloomy and dark. To Lockwood, cloudy days might as well be special holidays. Due to his uncomforted feeling under the sun, a cloudy day just makes him want to skip about and gleefully sing about all that is right with the world. However, Lockwood is more refined than the common man and wouldn’t-

Ah hell with this, that is what he’s doing right now. In his regular garments, he skipped about the village as he sang numerous Victorian tunes in a surprisingly handsome voice. People have surprisingly gotten used to him after a few months. It’s just the undead figures that bother them, especially the recently deceased, which nearly caused an angry mob to come after him. Lockwood still enjoyed the chase though even if it nearly had a pitchfork embedded into his abdominals. It’s a good thing none of his reanimations are active today since nothing was really going on for the last few days.

Lockwood stopped his jumping and skipping right in front of the coffee shop. Drummond liked coffee, just not as much with a sweet cup of tea; a good substitute though. He adjusts his figure in the reflection of the nearby glass window with his hat and sleeves. Then in a spectacular burst of energy and charisma, he opened the door swiftly and announced loud, “Lockwood Drummond has now entered!” Which didn’t faze the usual customer that came here; instead, they just give some sort of noise to let him know he’s here. Still, Lockwood was still satisfied with the result and eyed Tem in a seat. He wittily walked over to her table and took a sit.

“Sorry for coming quite late, I was enjoying such a… ah, an obsequious day.”

Tem hardly took notice of how long it she had been within the building before Lockwood had arrived. She mostly occupied her time distributing and replacing her frigid sand particles with warmer ones to stop them from freezing up. She was not constructed for any weather outside of the deserts she used to inhabit, but she could still survive. She had to be a bit more wary of how long she stayed outside because it would be quite some time before she thawed and she’d had that happen a couple of years prior. Still, she preferred ice over fire because at least she can recover from being frozen.

The gemstones that acted as her eyes shot over to the door as the lich made his entrance. It looked as though his undead minions weren’t with him which was unfortunate, Tem was sort of looking forward to the chaos that having them around would have caused. She smiled at his theatrics nonetheless.

As the reanimated man seated at her table, she leant in closer rather than splaying her back on the back of her seat. “Bleh, I usually prefer summer days. I don’t have to lug around so many of these in the summer” she stated as she shook her arm above the table until a handful of heat pads landed on the table along with some bits of sand that returned to her arm after they scattered around the table. “It really sucks to not have a natural heat source sometimes” she groaned as she rolled her eyes.

“So how’s it been, you know returning to the land of the living and whatnot. Having troubles with adapting to the new age yet?” Tem herself had experienced many changes in the world throughout her life time, normally she tended to only adapt to what was necessary and ignore anything that seemed like a fad that would die out in the next few decades. She was still waiting on the internet for that.

“Hmm…” Lockwood played with his hair as he thought up a response. “I have to say the last century must have been one exciting era. Missed a few wars, space travel, teabags,” and if right on cue, plate of cups and teabags were placed on the table. Lockwood has been here a few times already, “flight, robots, this thing,” he let a slinky drop from the top and bounces back to his hand. Lockwood apparently enjoyed the sight, “screened boxes, fancier clothes, and automobiles, just exciting!” Lockwood began prepping the tea slowly.

“I have to say, this village has grown since I died, I have to say I’m just quite proud, that and how I just love teabags are such spectacular things.” After having the tea done and ready to be served, he let them sit for a while; he enjoyed tea when it's at the right temperature.

[ooc: sorry for a short post]

Tem played up a slightly amused smirk at the resurrected man’s eccentric excitement toward just about anything and everything he could get his hands on. She felt some jealousy that she could never express so much about such little things, but to show she was impressed by anything man-made would be hypocritical of her. She shook her head at the server to let them know she didn’t want anything, it wasn’t like she needed to drink or even eat for that matter.

“Yeah, humans are good at inventing new ways of distracting themselves. I remember when there were only 3 types of cars being sold like it was yesterday, now there’s a new model out every week” she reminisced, though only vaguely. Some memories were more difficult to remember than others, being nearly four thousand years old though, if that was her age she didn’t even know anymore, that was to be expected.

Tem’s face quirked oddly as she was trying to signal curiosity with her countenance. “When did you die exactly? I’m trying to figure out whether or not I was around during your ‘first life’. I think I might’ve came here around the same time as the First World War, maybe… I can’t remember dates worth shit. I think cars were popular around that time…” she rambled trying to trigger her horrible memory.

“November 8th, 1888, during the witching hour,” Lockwood instantly said. “I planned my death for a while back then; I have it etched into my mind right now.” He tapped his head with a finger and took out an insect from his hair to throw it out to the left, rubbing his bony hands on the table cloth afterwards. “Automobiles just came out sometime after my death. Of course there were some people who knew about them, I just never bothered; small place and all that.” He giggled and took a cup of tea from the table. “It was still the nineteenth century, and I certainly don’t remember you, or do I? No I don’t. Hmm…” He took a sip from the cup.

“Sorry, my memory is still just a bit tipsy from the brain rotting and all. But anyway, unlife has been merciful to me so far, the winter season helps by a lot.”

[occ: ugh, sorry again]

Tem nodded at the lych’s response. “Yeah, I’m certain it was around the twentieth century that I came here. I don’t think we’ve met before your rebirth then” she replied simply as she eased her body a little more. “I never had a use for cars either, I could travel around in the wind faster most days besides those hunks of metal wrapped in plastic are more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Oh, trust me I know the feeling. Living thousands of years like I have, I might as well have been dead for the first thousand because I can’t remember anything from that long ago” she vented more so in a careless tone. It wasn’t like she really had much to remember from her life three thousand years ago, it’d mostly be just her stumbling around her old crypt doing nothing outside of wandering and sleeping. Not nearly as much to do as her current job.

A man from another table over was quick to pick up on who the two were. He wore an unimpressed grimace as he swayed himself away from his table and approached the two of them, his strides giving off the impression that what he had to say was of great importance. He stopped at the head of their table and eyed both of them, his view locking on Tem after a short while. “Hey! What are you doing sitting here and talking?! Those kids out there are still in captivity aren’t they?!”

Tem shot the man a deadly glare that only few were allowed to walk away from afterwards. “Listen” she spoke restraining her anger for the moment. She held up her hand and pointed at the man’s face. Soon afterward her hand shot off her arm and she surrounded the sand that was built up in her hand around the man’s mouth. It startled the man immensely and knocked him off balance slightly. “That isn’t my job! My job is to keep your asses in line! Plain and simple, GET IT?” she lividly snapped at the man. The man nodded and ran off. “Have a nice day!” she shouted with anger still tanged on her tongue(or lack thereof) remembering that the chief warned her about her violent tendencies.

Tem shook her head as she grew back another hand from her wrist. “The nerve of these humans, getting sick of it” she complained.

Lockwood only just smiled in slight amusement as he took another sip from his cup. “I do not blame the residents, I’ve been hearing about all sorts of misfortunes and mishaps that have been tormenting the island,” he said as he stretched his back. “Honestly, I’ve been hearing all sorts of tearful tales and surprising tragedies from the grape vine.” With a finger, he twirled his hair, having an exaggerated frown with his facial features mimicking sad emotions. “Back in my day, we were a closely knitted group, I say! When one person was in trouble, we got whatever we had and beat whoever did the deed. Well, that’s what they did to me in my early days, quite gruesome too, mhm.

Lockwood took another sip from his teacup before gently placing it back on the tray. He never found out much about the recent events when he came back from the dead. He heard about many different things that just didn’t seem to be interesting, or just plain dumb.

Tem settled back into to her seat after she finished dealing with their conversational intruder. She wasn’t on duty, why did the village folk bother telling her how to do her job especially if they were able to recognise her. “They should learn to suck it up, bad things happen. I’ve lived long enough to see it all, kidnappings and death is nothing new, whoever’s responsible just put a different spin on it. This’ll be something that everybody will forget in the next twenty or so years, I know I will” she groaned.

Tem chuckled at Lockwood’s last statement, it was an instant reminder of her early years of freedom. So much rampage, so many mobs of people who had idea how to combat a storm of sand. She couldn’t get away with something like that anymore, shame really. “Ah, that’s the advantage of having no bones” she lifted her arm from her side and watched it disintegrate “people can’t break’em. When they start grabbing the torches though, that’s when you know you’re screwed.” She nodded as her arm began to reform once again.

“What exactly did you do to provoke people like that? Use their loved one’s corpses as your play things?”

“Ah yes, of course, you have no bones, excellent for you. Despite my undead corpse, I still have to take care of myself.” Lockwood explained as he shook a few insects out of his head. No one seemed to notice as they scuttle way from the table and under any crack or cranny that can fit their size. “Hmm, should get my hair groomed later one, but yes, I guess I have might of…‘awoke’ a few questionable family members of others. It led to one of the greatest chases on this island to be recorded actually; you should’ve seen the flames, oh wait, fire is bad for your skin, never mind then. Still, quite a vigorous run back then. Oh ho ho ho.”

He paused for a moment for a quick thought. “I now just ship bodies here from the mainland whenever I can. Hard to collect a perfectly formed specimen in this era.”

Tem’s eyes snapped over to the bugs that attempted to scurry away after Lockwood had emptied his head of them. Tem stretched her arm over to the small bugs and slammed her pillar-like limb over the small creatures which absorbed them into her ‘flesh’. Her gaze returned to the zombie teacher after the fact. “Sorry, Mentuhatep likes his bugs fresh. It’s difficult to find any alive during this season” she spoke as though it was common knowledge. “Mentuhatep being my pet scorpion. I don’t think I’ve told you about him.”

“Ah, yes. It is nice to be able to live and not worry about starving, aging, or organ harvesters. The last one being a big one, I’ve known so many organ harvesters over the years I’m surprised it isn’t that big of a scare to humans” she rambled for a short while, unaware that she’s done so.

She gave the man a look of challenge, like he had shown off a battle scar and she was trying to top it. She leaned in a little closer with a smug smirk plastered on her face. “Largest chase on the island, I’ll give you that. Try getting chased out of an entire country, they had quite the hunters in Russia a couple hundred years ago. Not good enough to catch me, but they came pretty damn close a few times.” “Don’t you worry about your dead people problem, next time a crook gets killed during a case I’ll let you know when they’re done with it.”

Lockwood observed with a keen interest as Tem worked her arms toward the bugs. The act reminded him of an experiment he has yet to conduct due to a time gap and of just recently remembering said experiment. Drummond’s hidden eyes lit up as he remembered many experiments, both successful and unsuccessful, from the past. He made a mental note of visiting the closest fish market before the day’s end, so much to do. Must do this, adjust that, and chop this little piece-. Lockwood forced his mind to stay grounded to reality with some mental struggle; reminding himself that he’s supposed to be conversing with a friend. He re-entered the conversation with saying, “Pet? Oh I do adore pets. Sadly, my work keeps me terribly busy to properly take care of one,” he leaned in his chair dramatically, “besides my minions will just chew on them,” he muttered under his breath. Lockwood actually never thought about keeping a pet since he has a whole undead army under the island (well, army is an exaggeration, but Lockwood calls it an army for bragging rights) and took proper care of them just like how a pet owner would minus the rotting and putting back together part.

Taking another sip of tea, Lockwood giggled when Tem mentioned about being chased out of a country. “I symphonize with you there. Back in my earlier than early days when I was a handsome rouge back then, I was a wanted man throughout the British Isles for some acts that I’m… not so proud of today, mind you. Well, some acts I guess, but being young does that to people. Mhm, made a name back then too until everyone seems to forgotten me.” Lockwood pretended to sigh sadly with one of his hidden eyes glancing at Tem. When he heard about acquiring the bodies of criminals, he widely grinned with delight. “That’s excellent, quite generous really, though this island doesn’t have that many residents.”

Tem squirmed a bit as the little critters began to borrow around her body. It was an odd sensation, one that she hadn’t felt ever since the last time she let a colony of ants live inside of her for an extended period of time. It was yet another moment she felt godlike, though it was short lived when she quickly became annoyed with them. “Yeah, scorpions are pretty independent so making time for him isn’t much of an issue. Though nothing cheers me up better than a couple of kisses he gives me with his tail, he’s always so happy to see me” she spoke reminiscently, her gemstone eyes wandering off.

“Oh, wait I can show you him. Just give me a second” she quickly picked up her speech again as she focused for a couple seconds. Not too long after, it looked as though a scorpion burst out of her chest, though bloodlessly since she didn’t have any bodily fluids. She analyzed the average sized arachnid, quirking her mouth in a variety of different manners. “I think that’s what the latest one looks like, I’ve gone through so many in the past thousands of years it’s hard to keep track” she continued. The colour of her creation kept phasing from a light brown to a soft yellowish sandy tint as she tried to decide on which matched the appearance of her pet.

“I can hardly remember anything from my early days. I remember the rampages I used to go on before I conformed to this society bullshit. I tell you, the world was an easier place to get away with murder back then. Mobs chase you out of town and you just move on to the next one” she slowly rambled as she continued to shift the colour of her scorpion model. “Ah, don’t mention it. If we keep putting the dead in the graveyard then it’ll only build up, gotta consider space and stuff when you live on an island, right?”

 Lockwood adjusted his top hat after he leaned in toward the table. “How unfortunate, for the unfortunate I mean. Still, I can’t complain about free specimens.” He finished another cup of tea soon after, now with the tea pot nearly half empty. Lockwood licked the insides of his mouth to extract the remaining bits of tea. “Enough about me though, I’m just a bore,” Lockwood grinned only slightly, “Now what has a noticeable topic, ah, I don’t want to be a prodder of things, but while I’ve been here, I heard that people are disappearing lately. I apologize for the sudden change of tone, but I have been a wee bit curious,” Lockwood’s face expression changed into a mix of annoyance and wonder when he spoke, “I find it irritating not knowing about past events, even if they don’t happen to involve me in any form.”

A few moments later, a bird slammed into a near window, bashing its body in a spread out position.

Tem could argue against the man being a bore since she could tolerate him much better than most on the island, but she let the man think what he thought. It wasn’t like the man was fishing for compliments and if he was then Tem wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He might be a compelling man to speak with, but it took a lot for a person alone to grab the golem’s interest.

She allowed her arachnid creation wander about the table as she pondered about Lockwood’s inquiry. “Hmm, trying to remember what is public knowledge and what is strictly off limits toward civilians. Ah, you’re a teacher so technically you should know about this, so… It’s mostly students being taken so I don’t think you have much to worry about. Some group started picking off students that wander too far outside of school grounds. We don’t know who… Oop, not supposed to say that one” she corrected herself as she eyed the rest of the people within the coffee shop. She just hoped no one heard her. “Anyway, that’s just it. People have been disappearing and we still don’t quite know the purpose behind it. We weren’t given any demands or bribes from the kidnappers and neither have the parents, so it’s an oddity of a case so far.”

“I’m sure if I say anything more I’ll get someone around here riled up again and as much fun as that may sound, my job requires me to get in as little fights as possible.”