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 Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:28 am
Who: Lorenzo, Nell
Where: The gym Nell works at on Isle de Gambino
When: Midmorning, shortly after opening.
Weather: Cold and rainy, with no sign of letting up.
__________________ Lorenzo Fisch rushed into the warm, and more importantly, dry gym without a second thought, wringing out the ends of his mystical and slightly-too-long cape. Taking a moment to collect himself, he began to notice his surroundings and gulped apprehensively, but gamely went to the counter.
He was in Isle de Gambino to help organize a Conference on Ethical Practices in the field of Licensed Necromancing, and they needed some wellness events to gently encourage the members of their profession to practice the baffling art of physical fitness, or at least to practice the baffling art of Sometimes Going Outside. He hardly enjoyed going outside himself, but organizing small things like this was less stressful than running the whole event, and Lorenzo liked to help wherever he could. His family had been prominent players in the undead community since before he could walk, and he certainly didn't want to be accused of not doing his bit.
He had arranged to meet with a personal trainer today to discuss the sorts of activities that might be most manageable during the session. It was bound to be a difficult discussion. He rang the bell at the counter and said, "Hello, I'm Lorenzo Fisch? I'm with the Licensed Necromancer's Committee, I made an appointment with," here he pulled out a small notebook covered in cheerfully colorful ancient runes, "Nell Wilson?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 3:08 pm
The gym seemed to be relatively empty when he walked in, only a couple of people actually working out and a few staff members milling about. There was evidence that someone had been at the front desk recently, as a few folders and papers were strewn in front of the only chair there, but but no one seemed to notice that he had come in until he rang the bell.
"Oh, gosh, I'll be right out!" a voice called from a room behind the desk. There were a couple of potentially worrying thumps before Nell stuck her head out of the doorway, smiling broadly at him and gesturing for him to come back. "Sorry, lost track of time! Lorenzo, right? I'm Nell!" She held her hand out as he came back, gesturing for him to take a seat.
"There's a hook on the back of the door if you wanted to hang up your, ah, cape." His attire, somewhat different from the usual clothes people wore to the gym, was a bit unusual, but she had prepared herself for someone a bit unusual when she read 'necromancer' on her schedule. Looks like life was going to keep on getting more and more interesting.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 11:02 pm
Lorenzo smiled and shook her hand, saying, "That's right, Lorenzo Fisch!" He withdrew his hand back into his cape and absently wiped it on his pants. Human contact was slightly uncomfortable for him.
Hanging up his cape obediently, he revealed a Truly Horrible dress vest matched with a suitably Appalling tie. He returned to Nell and said, "Thanks so much for making time for me today. I'm here with the Licensed Necromancer committee," here he proffered a card, "to see about organizing some, ah, beginner exercise sessions for the attendees of a convention we're holding in town this week."
He paused.
"Are there any exercises that you can do with your cape on?" Some of his peers were far more devoted to cape-wearing than he was.
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Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2015 6:05 pm
"Well, it's good to finally meet you, Lorenzo!" She had turned her back to him for a moment to find a few things on the desk, and so missed seeing him wipe his hand off after the handshake. But she was all smiles when she pulled out a second chair for herself, a clipboard and pen in hand to take down any notes as necessary.
The card received a more shocked look than his attire, Nell belonging to the questionable fashion sense club herself, but it was dutifully clipped to the side of the clipboard before she scribbled a note or two on the paper underneath. "A necromancer convention, huh? Well that'd be a first! I'm sure we can figure out some things that'd work for everyone!" She did, however, have to stifle a smile at the mental image of a room full of cape-wearing people attempting to exercise.
"Before I get too ahead of myself, was there anything you had in mind already? Or know of anything that definitely won't work?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 12:45 am
Lorenzo did not share Nell's optimism about being able to plan things that worked for everyone, having been in crowded rooms full of necromancers before, but he was perfectly willing to pretend he did, cranking up his professional smile as he opened up his notes.
"Overall, I don't know much about exercise myself, but I was thinking that small activities you can do indoors might be good. Stretches and such for people who live fairly sedentary lifestyles would also be helpful, along with wrist exercises, since we do a lot of writing in our field, generally speaking. Running outdoors or anything definitely won't work." He handed her a sheet of paper. "Here are the specs for the convention and the estimated number of necromancers who generally show up per year. Not all of them will show up for the optional activities, but it's good to be prepared." It was entirely possible that none of them would show up for exercise.
"Oh!" Lorenzo recalled. "One more thing would be that it would be good to avoid terms such as 'healthy living' and anything else that could offend the undead."
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:13 am
Nell certainly had enough optimism to make up for Lorenzo's doubt, and if that failed she definitely had enough stubbornness to do it through sheer force of will in the off chance that her optimism failed her. She nodded along as he spoke, scribbling down some notes to herself on the clipboard. There was a quiet, thoughtful humming from her as she glanced over the paper, and she quickly circled the major points on it before sticking it behind her notes.
[color-violetred]"Alright! That certainly sounds doable," she said brightly after finishing another note that she emphatically underlined a few times. "Usually when I do something like this I also like to to talk a bit about healthy eating and diet, would that be something that would be appropriate for this?" Her undead etiquette was severely lacking, which she would definitely have to look into (somehow) before this.
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:20 am
Lorenzo took a moment to consider.
"It depends. Apart from having undead necromancers, we tend to have many different races, and dwarves and elves and vampires and such all have different dietary preferences and needs based on their biology and culture. The typical types of people we see at these necromancer conventions should also be listed on the sheet, since I did think it might help with nutrition."
He opened up his notes and tapped his pen against the edge of the notebook thoughtfully. "If you have tips for humans, I can research and fill in the gaps with the other races we're likely to see. It's my job to arrange these activities for the convention, so I have time set aside for this kind of thing. Does your gym get mostly human traffic, or no?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 10:17 am
"Mostly humans, yeah, but we've been getting a more diverse bunch of people in the last couple of months," she flipped back to the sheet he had handed her, glancing over the selection of people that would be there. "I can look into some of this myself, but it'd mostly be the basics, so if you know of any specifics that I should know, that'd be great." The longer she was in Gaia the more she realized how much of a disadvantage it was to have lived in a tiny backwater town for most of your life. Most of the names on the list she hadn't had thought existed, let alone practiced necromancy! Well, hopefully she wouldn't embarrass herself too much.
"Aside from that, though, is there something you can think of that would be a good incentive for them to actually participate? Most people that don't exercise much tend to like to have something that's bit more immediate than being told 'you'll feel better eventually, I promise'."
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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:18 am
Lorenzo nodded. "I can email you some more specific information by tomorrow," he promised, jotting it down in his notes.
"Mmmm. It's probably better to, ah," Bribe. Blackmail. "Incentivize the exercise activities. It's true that most of them are likely to be unaccustomed to doing these things, ah," Willingly. "Regularly."He tapped his pen against his notepad for a moment as he thought, and said, "We could give them coupons for your gym or for some of our sponsors' businesses. We're also running a stamp card contest." He handed Nell a brightly colored card with eight squares ruled out on it. "We'll give you a different stamp for each session to stamp the cards. The necromancers who get all the stamps will receive small prizes at the end of the conference." He handed her a stamper with a rotted cartoon hand making a thumbs up.
"Oh, on the subject of exercises-- here's another thing. Exercises to build up arm strength would be good. Our profession sometimes tends to require some digging."
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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 3:45 pm
[colorvioletred]"I'm sure I can scrounge up a few things to give to the brave souls willing to participate," she said, the corners of her eyes crinkling slightly as she tried not to smile too much. She was quite capable of filling in the blanks that Lorenzo left when he was trying to find a polite way to phrase it, and she knew she was likely to not be a very popular person at the convention. But that made this a challenge to her, and there was nothing like a good challenge to push her into going above and beyond.
She couldn't, however, keep the smile off of her face when she saw the stamp. It was just too cute. "Alllllright! So, easy things that people without much exercise experience could do, while in a cape, with a focus on the arms and upper body?" she glanced up at Lorenzo to see if that was right, but tacked on an addition before he could say anything. "With bribes to get them to do it and no death puns." When it was put like that it didn't sound quite so hard, at least.
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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 10:39 pm
Lorenzo smiled. "More or less, yes. I'm afraid it's not the easiest task, but health and fitness is all too often neglected in our field." He shook a finger adding, "But just because we can get somebody to resurrect us, doesn't mean we should be negligent. A healthy lifestyle makes for a happy necromancer, after all." Or at least, in theory.
Lorenzo moved to get up from his chair. "Well, the committee will be in contact with your fee, and I'll give you the address to send the invoice to. Thank you for your time today." It was still raining out, and it would have been diligent to tour the facilities, but though he was organizing the event, he was no different than most necromancers when it came to physical fitness. Gyms made him distinctly uncomfortable. He put his cape back on and handed a business card to Nell in case she needed his contact information.
Before he put his notebook away, he flipped the page. "So with this meeting settled, I just have to contact the committee today and then drop by the Lab with some questions about the fel essence..." he murmured to himself.
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 4:36 am
"Don't worry, I'll do my best to make it as painless as possible for everyone," she said with a quiet laugh as she took the business card. The cart was dutifully looked over before being placed on the clipboard as well, a few last minute notes hastily scribbled down as well.
[/coclor=violetred]"Well, if that's it then I can show you to the door if you don't have any...." her voice trailed off as she caught the tail end of Lorenzo's mumbling, her head tilting to the side as if deciding whether to mention it or not. "Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but , um, are you talking about Lab 305?" If so, she was starting to think she would meet more people from it just by running into them randomly than purposefully seeking them out.
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 1:51 pm
"Well, you know what they say," Lorenzo said cheerfully, desperately searching for a fitness-related aphorism, "No pain... No gain?" They said that, right? Sure they did.
He looked up with surprise as she asked him about Lab 305. First his florist and now a physical fitness trainer! Now that he was involved in the program, it seemed like everyone he met knew what it was. "Yes, are you involved with it?" he asked, putting aside his notebook. "I was recently accepted into the program, but I've been doing more research before going forth with it." He didn't want to go too much into depth with the situation, since he had the suspicion that his were not the usual reasons to apply, and he didn't want to stall Nell at work. "My essence is the False Reflection," he added. "A jar of murky water which doesn't reflect things accurately on its surface." Putting it that way it sounded like a busted television or something, but apart from the uncanny aspect of it, the essence wasn't very dramatic looking in and of itself.
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 5:34 pm
"They do say that. yes," she said lightly, looking down at the desk and shuffling around a few papers so Lorenzo wouldn't see the amused smile spreading across her face. There was something endearing about his bumbling, and she couldn't quite keep it off of her face.
Her amusement shifted into excitement when he confirmed being a part of the Lab, at least at the moment. "I am! I actually dropped everything back off about a month or so, so I'm just...waiting," Not terribly patiently, but she was trying to not be too obnoxious about it. "Mine was a, uh, cursed hag stone, is what they called it. I ended up with an oak tree for a soul," she added, absently rubbing her arm where the traces of the burn marks from the lightning strike could still be seen.
"My essence did something kind of similar, actually. Making you see things that weren't quite right."
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 1:40 am
"How have you found the program so far?" Lorenzo inquired. "I'd like to hear as many perspectives as possible before I commit to it for good. It's not like I'm spoiled for choice, though, I suppose. I've researched many of these rebirthing programs on Gaia and most of them are defunct, while a few of them seem to rely entirely on random happenstance." He had been surprised when he and Guinevere had started researching. He had always known about these rebirthing adoption agencies, but had no reason to give them more than a cursory glance, being too young to want children quite yet even if he did someday, improbably, decide to settle down and marry. However, he hadn't paid attention in the last few years. Very few of them were still fruitful, and it made him apprehensive about throwing the rusalka's lot in with one.
"A hag stone," he said as Nell explained her essence. "I'm familiar with them. Good, simple protective magic." A Fel essence was something unusual though. "I can't imagine how a cursed hag stone would work, personally. What sorts of things did it make you see, if you don't mind my asking?"
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