The Temple of Inari 50: Foxside

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline now has a mild headache, and feels a little tired

I don't understand. You seem good, your internal energies are solidly so. You're just... oh dear

She turns to the acolyte

I'm sorry to make you run around, but can you go see if Mr. Magician is around somewhere? I have a disturbing thought about what might be missing... bring a table, too: he doesn't like to work on the floor.

It is only a short while before the acolyte returns with Mr. Xu Fu and a small table.

What can I do for you, Lady Caroline?

Caroline looks at Chesepeak

It's not me... it's her - something is missing, and I think it's ... not good. I can't really work with that...

Magician nods and brings out his rods, performing divination passes to test Chesepeak's balance: good and evil, positive and negative, dark and light... is it out of sorts?

---

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Lady Caroline comes in, still a red-haired human

Something is amiss, Tavlii?

[Shadowcaller]

Arboretum

Arty looks up in surprise, but shrugs. It makes his job easier.
"Sure, let me speak to Chadwick again."

Hello, sir? She says she's ready. A bit sooner than expected but regardless, tell me what to do and it will be done he says through his mind, perhaps a bit stiffly. It's still a weird topic to him.

[Arboretum]

Cienwen nods

Sure...

Arboretum

"Yes... now comes the ritual. It's a complicated procedure though. It might be best to ask another group to do it as it requires at least three people, not including Cienwen herself, to perform. It would feel a bit awkward to ask the priests of this temple but then again I can't imagine anyone it wouldn't be awkward to ask. There is always the option to pay another group to perform it, I know a few." Chadwick replies.

[TechnoScrabble]

Entrance

"I've never dealt with demons before, " Garrett says, sounding almost offended, "She ripped some orb out of my chest, this burning ball. It looked like...like a sun. It almost hurt more to look at than it did to have it torn out...Souls are what anchor us here, aren't they? They seal in our being?"

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Tavlii turns with some confusion to the transformed high priestess. Is this some joke by the gardeners? Not the time. No, she's wearing the right robe, and has the same pattern to her voice, even if the sound is different. And as a human, she's more-
Tavlii is clearly confused and then embarassed for a moment, before her necklace brightens up a bit and she straightens up and nods.

"This man has been attacked by a demon, and lost or damaged his very soul, in addition to sustaining these injuries."

The junior preistess gestures at Garret's damaged no-longer wings.

"I was hoping Inari would see fit to heal him through you; I cannot manage the spells."
Then responds with a shrug.
"What a soul is, there's much disagreement about it. What has them, what is them, their characteristics. You don't appear to need it, although if it's been replaced by all that unstable magic aroud you, it that's no good alternative."

[Lost_Deep]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline now has a mild headache, and feels a little tired

I don't understand. You seem good, your internal energies are solidly so. You're just... oh dear

She turns to the acolyte

I'm sorry to make you run around, but can you go see if Mr. Magician is around somewhere? I have a disturbing thought about what might be missing... bring a table, too: he doesn't like to work on the floor.

It is only a short while before the acolyte returns with Mr. Xu Fu and a small table.

What can I do for you, Lady Caroline?

Caroline looks at Chesepeak

It's not me... it's her - something is missing, and I think it's ... not good. I can't really work with that...

Magician nods and brings out his rods, performing divination passes to test Chesepeak's balance: good and evil, positive and negative, dark and light... is it out of sorts?

Is it out of sorts? OH MY WORD YES IT IS. Her balance is completely out of whack. Now, it's not obvious in which way, her nature is mucking that up a bit, but she is clearly completely and utterly off-kilter. Almost completely one way... which ever way it is. You would think that she'd have too much good in her, but there's something funky about her that makes it impossible to tell.

[TechnoScrabble]

Sanctuary Entrance

"The demon didn't rip the wings off," Garrett murmurs with no small amount of shame.

The commentary on souls confuses him somewhat. Hr never did get to to finish his magical education, and what he did learn was mostly conjuration.

"The magic...the magic is why I was at the Wellspring. I was trying to get rid of it."

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Caroline shakes her head and says simply

Noriko did it. I'll explain later.

Then she frowns

She took out your soul? That's not even... um...

Nope, this is not the place for spells

Holy Inari, Mother of Foxes, please hear your servant and come to our aid...

that's as far as she gets, because Myobu is abruptly here - and he looks furious.

Oh, Garrett... can you describe exactly what this demon did?

---

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Magician frowns and disassembles his divination pattern

This person is so badly out of balance that I cannot even get a proper reading.

Caroline explains as best she can, and Magician's frown does not lessen

Highly irregular. Let us look into her past, then

He begins his patterns again, looking for the very beginning of Chesepeak's life.

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

While the fact about the wings was obvious from the injuries, that other bit about the wellspring would have been good to know, oh, IMMEDIATELY.

But Garret is traumatized and confused. He can't be expected to actually listen to Tavlii and respond with answers.

For now, Tavlii stands back (skippably) and lets the messenger talk.

[TechnoScrabble]

Sanctuary Entrance

Myobu's sudden appearance startles Garrett, and the furious look on his face isn't helping. Right or wrong, the arcanist's assumption is immediate-Myobu must be angry at him, right? Nobody else here has done anything wrong.

"S-she overpower'd me!" he splutters, accent slipping through, "Nothing I did ev'n fazed her! Thr blade didn't cut, the fire dinnae burn!"

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Myobu realizes he's freaking people out.

Garrett: I consider you a friend. We forged a sword together. Whoever did this is going to sorely regret their choice. Do you know her name?

Caroline coughs softly. Myobu closes his eyes and takes a deep breath

Right... right... first things first. She took out your soul, did she say anything else about what was done?

[TechnoScrabble]

Sanctuary Entrance

"I don'- I -" Garrett takes a deep breath and calms himself, focusing on reeling in his empathic field and the magic he emanates.

"I dinnae ken. She knew I was a 'godling', though, and she said she was a mage, and meant t' kill gods. Said she'd replaced my soul with somethin' called a 'Crux'."

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Myobu sighs

That's awfully vague... Atorre, could we ask you to keep an eye out for any rumors or information about someone converting people into demons?

And now...

Myobu looks out the door, briefly lost in thought.

Now we have to ask for help, because this is not something we can deal with.

[TechnoScrabble]

Sanctuary Entrance

"I'm sorry," Garrett says, "I just got out of there as soon as I could..."

[Ionbound]

[Helen's Room]

Frederick looks at Noriko, smelling confused and just a bit frightened. Noriko nods

Yep. It's all good.

Frederick comes over next to Vixen-Helen and puts his arm around her

Yeah... I imagine it's a lot to get used to...

Noriko smiles

But this way your shadow magic is natural to you, and won't even cause reaction sickness unless you do an awful lot. And you won't have to use the weird life extension magic to keep up with Freddie.

Helen nods and says, "Yeah...I didn't consider the aging thing. And how does the natural Shadow magic work?"

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

If Tavlii were here as a mortal being with feelings, she would feel rather put upon by this whole situation. Luckily that's not the case, and she nods, smiling.
"We'll look as best we can."

She doesn't respond to Caroline, after all, it will be explained later.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Caroline is looking concerned, but also rather lost on the whole thing. Anyway, anything Myobu is going to take care of is nothing she can help with anyway.

So anyway... sorry to startle you like that, Tavlii. Helen wanted to talk to Noriko, and we had a really unusual visitor in, and I knew she'd jump to conclusions without asking anyone first, so I called her. I let Noriko embarrass herself, and then told her that the reason I called was to talk to Helen. She acknowledged my point, but turned me into a human for the rest of the day.

Myobu nods to Tavlii

You have my gratitude.

Then he turns and bows his head

Lord Malukhar: Forger of Souls, Creator of Erda, Master of the Seive of Life... we beg you hear our plea and come our aid.

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

"Glad to help, Myobu."

Tavlii shakes her head.

"Just confused. Anyway, we've heard nothing so far. Hasn't been operating in Skyside so far as we can tell, and if she's stealing peoples' souls, our contacts in other planes of existence probably won't have a lead on them."

Then she stops, about to say something, looking surprised and slightly horrified.

"Actually, we have two leads, people who could maybe do this. Neither were demonic last we saw them, but aparently the change doesn't take much."
And both, of course, would be Atorre's fault.

[Fenric]

[Helen's Apartment]

Noriko grins

The shadow energy is part of you now. The reason you get sick from channeling magic is because the energy is foreign to your life energy, so you end up hurt a little bit each time you use it. But if the energy is already part of you, then that doesn't happen. So you can create darkness, or look into the shadow realm, or make a little sharp-shadow blade and it doesn't hurt you - you'll run out of energy eventually and have to rest, but you won't get sick like when you Raised Kenji. It comes in handy later on when you can do bigger effects - like going incorporeal.

The priest stuff is still going to get you, though... can't help that.

---

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Myobu finishes his prayer and smiles at Tavlii

Thank you so very much for all of your help.

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

"We know two people with access to soul-magic that could, in an unlikely but theoretical scenario, do this. A relative of sorts, named Meddwl a Rannir, who shouldn't have had a chance to do this. And a mage named 'Certain', who we made an offer to help once."

Tavlii smiles back at Myobu, and then takes a cautious step away as the dwarf-avatar appears.

"Why turned you into a human, though, Lady Caroline? Do you think that poorly of us?"

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary Entrance - People Chatting]

Moybu nods

Sounds like an alias.

Caroline chuckles, not registering exactly what Tavlii said to Myobu right away

No, not that. Part of the thing was that she assumed one of the visitors needed to be restored to human form, and was about to when we protested. I guess she decided that she was going to make somebody into one.

She looks like she is about to continue, but she instead she blinks and goes pale.

Wait Certain? Certain was here! She is the one who I cured of being a werefox.

[Recaiden]

[Various Sanctuary Entrance Conversations]

Tavlii chuckles. "I see. Well, you make a very nice human."

And then drops back to business, nodding.
"Medwll was another being like me. Atorre. So she has or could have our soul-manipulating abilities, however those work."
Tavlii taps her amplifier necklace, out of a bit of habit. They're not 100% clear on how they work, as an entity.

"We wanted Certain to be the seed of a third one of us, but she refused very early on. Still, she got a look at things. Really? Here and not a demon, I trust. You'd have mentioned."

It's a weird name, but not impossible for there to be plural in th Nexus.

"Could you find her again?"

[Fenric]

[Smalltalk by People who Aren't Deadtimed, Near the Entrance to the Sanctuary]

Caroline shakes her head

No, not a demon at all! I ended up casting our most powerful purification and curse-removal spell on her, because she had been cursed by someone rather powerful after posting something on the Wall. I had worked my way up the chain, and I was getting worried I'd have to use Miracle.

Caroline bobbles her head

Maybe... changing to a demon would probably complicate matters. We could certainly get an image of what she looked like back then.

[Ionbound]

[Helen's Apartment]

Noriko grins

The shadow energy is part of you now. The reason you get sick from channeling magic is because the energy is foreign to your life energy, so you end up hurt a little bit each time you use it. But if the energy is already part of you, then that doesn't happen. So you can create darkness, or look into the shadow realm, or make a little sharp-shadow blade and it doesn't hurt you - you'll run out of energy eventually and have to rest, but you won't get sick like when you Raised Kenji. It comes in handy later on when you can do bigger effects - like going incorporeal.

The priest stuff is still going to get you, though... can't help that.

Helen nods, and says, "Alright. That's pretty cool. And you said something about putting my old body in a gem?"

[Recaiden]

[Smalltalk by People who Aren't Deadtimed and Aren't Vulpans, Near the Entrance to the Sanctuary]

Tavlii smiles at the bobbling.

"That would be something at least. See if Garret recognizes her. We recognize him, it should be close to the same."

[Lost_Deep]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Magician frowns and disassembles his divination pattern

This person is so badly out of balance that I cannot even get a proper reading.

Caroline explains as best she can, and Magician's frown does not lessen

Highly irregular. Let us look into her past, then

He begins his patterns again, looking for the very beginning of Chesepeak's life.

That straight up fails. Something about it just didn't work. It might even be somewhat unpleasant for the caster. It's not that it's defended, it's that there's something about this situation that doesn't work right.

((Credit for a smart attempt, but that doesn't quite work because secret reasons.))

[TechnoScrabble]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

Caroline is looking concerned, but also rather lost on the whole thing. Anyway, anything Myobu is going to take care of is nothing she can help with anyway.

So anyway... sorry to startle you like that, Tavlii. Helen wanted to talk to Noriko, and we had a really unusual visitor in, and I knew she'd jump to conclusions without asking anyone first, so I called her. I let Noriko embarrass herself, and then told her that the reason I called was to talk to Helen. She acknowledged my point, but turned me into a human for the rest of the day.

Myobu nods to Tavlii

You have my gratitude.

Then he turns and bows his head

Lord Malukhar: Forger of Souls, Creator of Erda, Master of the Seive of Life... we beg you hear our plea and come our aid.

Garrett watches and listrns nervously, shifting from one foot to the othet. Hes never trusted gods, and now that the presence of even just a holy symbol makes him feel bauseous, he's not sure he can handle the presence of one.

[Fenric]

[Helen's Room]

Noriko nods

Yeah, same as the "Trap the Soul" spell, just without the soul.

---

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Magician frowns, and rubs the sides of his head

I cannot discern the beginning of her life. This is most unusual.

Caroline shakes her head

Thank you for trying, Magician... I think it is time to call for assistance.

Magician nods and departs as Caroline bows her head. Moments later, Myobi is standing in the sanctuary.

Let us see what is going on here, now...

And Myobi proceeds to analyze Chesepeak herself.

---

[Sanctuary Entrance]

(( Moved down from earlier, because it got lost ))

And then... a short, grumpy presence makes itself felt that makes Inari's avatar feel like a kindergartner in comparison.

Malukhar is a dwarf: short and stocky. He has long, deep black hair in the classic male pattern baldness "ring around the head", with a full and flowing black beard. He is dressed in a simple dull red tunic and tough leather blacksmith's apron, with a heavy belt from which hang two substantial smith's hammers and a number of pouches. Sturdy leather sandals round out his wardrobe.

Ach! Ye durn elfy fox things be callin' me back ta tha fersaken Nexus again after so long! And here I been thikin' I was done wi' it ferever.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

That is how Myobi learns what it is like to peer into a broken god.

Something has broken Chesepeak. Not as if she was attacked, not as if she went mad, but as if she collapsed in on herself. Something about her stopped working right. Something happened, and it ruined her due to her very nature.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Myobi starts trembling. This is not a pleasant sight for Caroline.

Grandma?

This is... very unusual. And not at all the way it should be.

Myobi attempts to test Chesepeak's energy to see if she is merely part of a god, or should in some way be a god.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

Indeed, she should be a god. Her current power is more along the lines of a powerful cleric with no casting limit, but without the capability to cast harmful spells. She couldn't even weaponize positive energy against an undead. This is a far cry from her full power. Myobi might be able to tell that Chesepeak was only a small god... but a god nonetheless.