Another new Unspeakable? Just what he needed!

Colin's day had been normal, so far. Aside from the shipment of arms not arriving on time, of course - that was a letdown. Why wouldn't this place have some sort of ordering service for body parts? He wanted all the current ones to match. That shouldn't be that hard, should it? But he kept getting huge bulky arms with hair on them. And tattoos that said "Mum". It was enough to make a man cry.

At least this was a  different errand - after years of it being just him and a few others, the Death rooms were getting a new member. This was enough to make Colin happily head out of his laboratory and out to track down this new person - new ideas, new goals and someone who didn't throw up at the sight of a spleen! Colin rather liked spleens, though he couldn't find anyone who agreed.

His robes, then, had not been tidied much - he wore his heavy leather apron, strains and all, as he headed out to the reception area. This got him a few looks, but any employee of the DoM quickly learned not to ask too many questions. Especially of people in blood stained butcher's aprons.

He'd gotten a notice tacked to the depressing little cork board outside his laboratory, and he opened it as he paused by the door to the reception room, eyeing the name. Thankfully the man wasn't hard to pick out - he hoped.

Colin strode forward. "Shang?" He asked, extending a hand. "Downer. I understand you're joining our Necromancers?"

Ventus had been rather pleased when he learned he was to be hired by the Department of Mysteries as a new Unspeakable. It wasn't very surprising, given his credentials and he had proved that he would make an excellent addition to the studies that went on in the Death chamber. So on the morning of his first working day he of course was on time. Early, actually, but that scarcely mattered to him.

It wasn't long before another Unspeakable came to greet him. Downer, he said. Ventus smirked slightly, thinking of a joke he could have made but decided against. He wasn't sure how the man would take it after all. Politely he took Downer's hand and shook. "Pleasure to meet you," Ventus said in a formal tone. "And yes, I am." He gave the man a friendly smile. If only he knew what Ventus had done so far. He wondered if the necromancers here could do the same.

"So tell me, Mr. Downer," Ventus continued, retracting his hand. "What exactly do we do down here? I understand we study death; how people become ghosts, how inferi and the like are created. But how do we go about our experiments? And who supplies samples and other important materials?" Specifically, who supplied the thestral blood needed for a resurrection ritual.

"Welcome to the Department, then," Colin said, with a smile. "It's about as sunny as you'd expect around here, so I hope you didn't sign up in the hopes of meeting new people." The Necromancers were not, as a group, very sociable. The very idea of a department Christmas party was laughable. Besides, the presents would all be terrifying for anyone else. Why thank you, Frisham! I was completely out of human hearts!

Colin cleared his throat. "That's a complex question, Mister Shang," he said, waving for the man to follow him as he headed back into the dark and forbidding hallway that led to the laboratories. "Officially, we study death - and magic related to it. There are...certain items even we are forbidden from studying - Horcruxes, for example." The unspoken unfortunately was there, disguised in his tone.

"In reality you can study whatever your heart desires when it comes to death...provided you can show some tangible results at the end of the year. They tend to get picky on those." Colin waved a hand, dismissively.

"If you need something, they'll get it. And if the Department won't, then  people tend not to ask questions regarding sources." He said it so cheerfully the implications behind that almost faded away. "Oh, and try not unleash anything that you need assistance cleaning up. We had some Inferi get loose years ago and we're still getting memos on safety."

He glanced at Shang. "What are you planning on studying? Helps to start off with a bang, I've found. Figuratively."

Patiently Ventus followed along as Downer described the duties that would be expected of him. Naturally there were things he would not be allowed to study, that came as no surprise. Horcruxes, after all, were something that even Ventus himself looked down upon... and he was a murderer. Strange how that worked. Still the line had to exist somewhere.

And showing tangible results was the east of his worry. He imagined that by the time evaluations came up he would be able to show something impressive enough. Not that it fully mattered to him. Working within the DoM was simply another means to the end. And at least this means would provide him with some of the materials.

"I'm particularly interested with souls," Ventus confessed to the man. "I find them simply fascinating. However, there is something I've always wanted to try. You see, in my travels and research I came across some incredibly old texts that referred to a resurrection ritual. It's been hard to piece together, but the texts seem to imply a way to animate skeletons and give them some degree of sentience. Not to mention it also seems to indicate that these creatures could be mass produced and hidden more effectively than inferi."

Ventus shrugged slightly, doing his best to play off the lie. This all worked perfectly, of course. He just wasn't allowed to say that. "If it's allowed I would love to start with that, though it appears to be a bit of a lengthy ritual to prepare. Although I must confess it wouldn't take nearly as long as normal, for I do have some of the items needed."

Colin stopped and turned on his heel, looking at Ventus. While one could have taken this act s aggressive in nature, the light in Colin’s eyes made it clear it was anything but.

“Really? And they were successful?” He asked, eagerly. He cupped his hands together, and then cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses.

“I’m sorry – that’s something I look into myself. I’ve managed soul transference but the reactions tend to be…negative.” People who woke up as a zombie or as a tea set tended not to want to tell him out they felt; they tended to scream in horror and call him names. It wasn’t s if it wasn’t reversible! People just over reacted to everything, in his mind.

“Are they referring to trapping souls, or simulating a soul-like effect? Trapping souls seems to be more trouble than it’s worth, in my experience…oh, here we are.”

He had to backtrack to the door, unlocking the heavy wooden door and tossing Ventus the key. The rooms beyond were dark and stone-walled, the only light from tiny window high in the walls.

“Don’t mind the stains – the last fellow who was here was experimenting with vampires and there was an…incident.”

Ventus shrugged again. "It's hard to tell," he said calmly. "The texts are all encoded in ancient dialects. It isn't very clear if sentience means they'll simply be able to follow orders or if they will indeed be able to reason properly." Again, a partial truth. The texts were indeed vague, but Ventus knew what they meant now that he had performed it.

"H-have you now?" He asked surprised. He hadn't known anyone to be... successful at it. "The, the entrapment of souls is one of the things I'm most interested in. I didn't know it was actually possible. Are the souls... selected? Are they the proper souls of the deceased person? Or are they random?" If you could actually summon a soul back to a body...

Deftly Ventus plucked the key out of the air. "Vampires? Seems like more trouble than it's worth to me." No surprise that there was an incident when those beasts got involved. "Thank you for the introduction, Mr. Downer." Ventus said politely. "You must show me how to trap a soul one day."

"Hrm." That was a mystery that intrigued Colin, that was for sure. Sometimes he wished the people in this department were more open to people looking over their shoulders, because if Ventus let him do that, he'd be hovering. It helped that his own current project was quite similar, though not quite the same. "Only one way to find out, yeah?"

He took a moment to inspect the state of the lab - brushing dust off the remaining cases of potion vials and beakers and frowning at the oak desk. The desk was in good shape and looked mostly untouched, and upon a further inspection, he found it still had oak stakes neatly stacked in one of the drawers. He pulled out out and inspected it.

"To...some extent?" He'd tried, really. It had been difficult, since all the sources he'd been able to turn up hadn't worked out or had turned out to be a detailed account of a failed study. So he'd tried inventing his own method and it...worked, and didn't. It was frustrating, if he had to tell the truth.

"A bit of all that," he said, leaning on the desk and tossing the stake up and down. "I get ghosts a lot - one of the side jobs I do is making sure ghosts go where they're requested or helping move them. While they're here I do...tests. One of them was soul transferring methods." He smiled slightly.

"And you'll have to show me if your idea works. My own research is similar, though not quite the same? I'm looking into making intelligent zombies," he explained. "Soulless ones, at the moment." He wasn't about to admit he'd watched Frankenstein months ago and gone "Wait a minute, that might work!" It wasn't the sort of thing you just said.