Trypp walked towards the back room where his uncle kept the machine that would safely extract his extremely magical blood, as did his mate Reno. She didn't trust the necromancer with her beloved Trypp, even if he was Trypp's biological uncle. As she went in the back her mind flashed pictures of shiny things around the uncles shop, and she remembered what happened to the thief when they came in. Not really wanting her kleptomaniac little sister turned into a rat she stuck her head back through the curtain.
"Star!" Stars head shot up, she had been half hanging on the glass counter with her head down to look it all the shiny things in the case.
"Huh?" the youngest sister of just 18 responded, having been startled from a transfixed gaze at all of the bobbles and nicknacks in the shop.
"Don't, and I mean do not touch anything, you understand?"
Star she knew was a bit of a kleptomaniac, even though she really couldn't help it, Reno wasn't about to take the chance with the ancient necromancer. "I wont, jeez." Star rolled her eyes.
Trypp's uncle looked back into the shop, his jaw half rotted away he spoke very strangely, like he was talking from inside a tin can. His voice was very serious when he rang out. "Especially that lamp!" He went then into the back to retrieve his payment for the spell cast for Trypp and his group of friends.
Star looked around the shop. "lamp?" she wondered.
Her huge blue eyes scanned everywhere for a shinny lamp. What was so damn fantastic about a lamp that made it so she couldn't touch it? She wondered. Star was only four feet tall, her mother was a wild elf, her father a catree, a wild elf would normally grow to just over five feet, but a catree? Now they never grew past four and a half feet, and that was really tall.
Star was a whopping four feet tall at eighteen, it sucked. Having to go to school all those years with humans, they would tease her incessantly about being five years old, which of course, if you looked at how her body developed, she wasn't.
She sighed, not seeing anything like a shiny lamp. Then she saw it, an old "Aladdin Style" lamp. An oil lamp from way, way back when, but it was nowhere near bright or shiny. As a matter of fact, it was downright crusty.
Star went to it, watching the rest of their group as she meandered towards what she was specifically told to leave alone. There were words on it, just around the foot of the base. She could make out a few letters but not enough to put together what it said.
Star sighed, she wasn't allowed to touch it, but maybe, just maybe she thought, then blew on it hard as she could in an attempt to blow away the sooty dirt that caked it. To her chagrin the dirt remained and didn't even show her any new letters.
Her being a catree she was cursed with the curious nature of the cat. Being a wild elf didn't help, other then they weren't furry, they were so close to catree's, other races often mistook them for one another.
Star laid her ears back to listen to the necromancer grouch in the back room. He was still draining Trypp for all he could get. "cant touch, cant touch" she thought over and over. Then her curious and deceptively devious mind came up with a solution. Star pulled a paint brush from her belly pouch and brushed at the dirt. She wasn't touching it! The paint brush was. But to no avail, the dirt stubbornly stuck in the lettering. Star sighed and glared at the offending dirt.
"Really?" she growled.
Then she grinned again. She licked the paintbrush and stabbed the tip of it into the lettering, making tiny swirling motions within the line of letters, then it began to come clean. A large grin swept across her lips as she could now read the lettering, not noticing the ichor black smoke wafting from the pour spout of the lamp.
"Beware all ye who rub this lamp for the curse of greed shall doom you forever." she read aloud to herself.
She hmmphed and stood up straight, then and only then did she notice the smoke. Star gasped and took two or three steps back just as the uncle came from the back room, he bellowed. "Oh gods damn it! I told you not to touch it!"
Star shot out a panicked "I'm sorry!"
As he walked over to the table the lamp stood on, smoke still wafting from the spout, as if it had a full bag of charcoal inside burning.
Star went defensive and sputtered. "But I didn't touch it I used a paint brush!"
He glowered at her, "Did you get your DNA on it?"
She was just sure she was going to be turned into a rat and curled her shoulders to her chin in defense. She tilted her head cocking a brow at him as one side of her lip curled. "Huh? My what?!" wondering why that would matter.
"Your DNA? Skin, spit, anything like that?"
Meekly she half whispered. "Well, I licked the brush..." She held the now dusty brush up for him to see.
The half dead man sighed loudly, "Fine, he is your problem now, not mine." then he marched away still speaking. "His name is Lumin, and he's being dramatic because there's females here, ridiculous sort he is."
Star watched the necromancer go back into the back and heard him tell Trypp, in an annoyed voice. "You know how to lock up, I'll be in my laboratory."
Trypp knew he was going to use the new blood to rejuvenate his body back to a living state, which was going to take him a while. "Alright..."
Star looked from the back room door to the lamp. "Lumin?" she couldn't understand how a person could be smoke.
Shortly a man appeared where the smoke had been compiling. He wasn't tall at all and looked rather like a boy, Star was just overjoyed he was like her, short. Four foot eight short.