The Witch and the Lich; In the Lab

Credits; Rea, Krell,

Krell watched their hosts carefully.  Rea seemed at ease, but she did seem to know these people.  The man was young; not uncommon for an immortal.  He had shoulder length brown hair with a white skunk stripe going from the top of his head back.  Krell stopped and thought about it, but remembered tales of how particularly powerful magic could alter a mage's appearance permanently as a side effect.  With all the strange equipment about, it was more surprising that he had no scars than that he had strangely coloured hair.  He was too short to be Nielda, by at least a foot, so it seemed more likely that he was human.  Not to say there weren't other races that could have appeared human, just that few of them ever became properly immortal. 
His wife was unquestionably Nielda, but no less strange.  It wasn't so much her almost metalic looking golden hair, tied back in a frizzy ponytail, as it was the enthusiasm she had for everything around her.  And despite the obvious burn marks and machine oil stains on both of their hands and faces, the white lab coats they wore were spotless.  Decorated, he could make out a combination of small blue bols of lightning around the trim of each coat and hers also had a pink unicorn on the sleeve, but somehow perfectly clean and undamaged. 
The former Admiral glanced about the lab, ignoring the decidedly cosmetics oriented conversation Rea and Cystronella had struck up.  Girders and columns as far as the eye socket could see.  He could see half-finished ships being built in some of the larger openings, while the smaller ones contained everything from cylinders of unknown elements to a table occupied by a single pocket watch.  He'd seen laboratories, but never anything with quite this many projects in progress.  And he could see a few things that looked rather familiar; a Pythen Basilisk-type fighter with the hull half ripped off and the propulsion systems exposed, a shield buster warhead designed to be fired out of a Nieldic shipboard rail cannon, and in one of the smaller alcoves he saw a bloodstone staff hovering.  It appeared that technology wasn't all they worked with. 

Finally the man walked over and held out a hand.  He withdrew it quickly and wiped it off with a conjured rag before reextending it. 
"Igor.  It's nice to meet you."
Krell clasped the man's rough hand in his own fleshless one and shook it firmly.  "Krell, thank you for having us."
"It's no bother really.  Cyssie does like to get company every now and then; she grew up in a large family and I always wonder if she doesn't miss having people around more often.  We used to go around to her folks for dinner once a month, but after the war the family really fell apart.  Arcania still pops in every now and then with ZeeGee, but Koren never leaves the library and everyone else died."
He stopped.  Krell realized who he was dealing with.  Cystronella Von Gravaga was the daughter of history's nicest, most organized, and most powerful necromancer; Thalia, the creator of the Gravagans.  And that made her the little sister to one of the most heinous and destructive villain of all time; Arcania, perpetrator of the Frostbourne war and the master of the Lych.  She was the one who had given Xanadu, the Lych who had crafted the plague that had leveled the Daniellandish Empire, the resources and power to create that dread weapon.  The thought that his hosts were so closely tied to some of the most powerful figures of the last six millenia was startling.  More worrisome still was the realization that Arcania was still alive.  He knew that the Countess Yellsdana of Stormguard had slain the demon responsible for the war, and he'd always asumed that she'd killed Arcania in the process.  Apparently, the immortals didn't believe in either a death penalty or imprisonment.  And now he was in a place she was quite likely to visit regularly. 
And the self declared most powerful being in the matierial plane was discussing cosmetics with the villain's little sister.