Outside 41: Inside Outside, outside Inside

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe nods and says, "I see...Is that so? I understand why most undead would be warped, no offense meant...But I thought that the whole point of Lichdom was to not be warped...Just undead. But the point about the adventurer stands, and I defer to your knowledge about the state of undeath. Seeing as you're an undead bird."

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

"A very handsome undead bird, thank you very much," Corvus replies, fluffing his feathers and giving himself a good shake. "All forms of rebirth into undeath will alter who you are. All of them. Talk as we walk, please," Corvus continues as he begins flying from perch to perch up to the third floor. "I'm sure you've noticed that Elestra's emotions are about as alive as I am. I'll freely admit that I've inherited an enduring desire to spread ill omen and woe. Taking the life of someone to further my master's plans doesn't bother me in the least anymore. I'm sure the thought would have sickened me when I was still alive."

Corvus lands in front of Pheobe's door and Archer opens it.

"And liches? The price for becoming a lich is your passion and your ability to feel empathy. Have you ever wondered why there are stories of liches spreading horrible death and disease over huge areas? That's because they lose the concept that people are people. People become objects, things, tools, obstacles. Once people aren't people anymore what's an atrocity here and there in the name of one's projects?"

The bird hops into Pheobe's room as Archer begins unpacking the new necromancy student's things.

"Elestra is trying to find a way around that. I shouldn't have the least bit of empathy for the living, but I retain some. That's thanks to her. Elestra doesn't want you to pursue knowledge of lichdom because she doesn't want another sociopathic undead wizard besmirching the name of her craft and making her work more difficult. But between you and me? If existence as an undead is what you really want? When Lady Evercraft makes her next breakthrough you'll be the first to know. She'll need a test subject, after all."

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe nods and says, "I see. I would like to become undead, yes. But not until I'm sure that I would remain myself. Thank you for explaining though, Corvus," as she helps Archer unpack the furniture, and get everything set up.

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

Information is useful!

Especially when there's so much disinformation around.

The bird makes a clicking sound with his beak. "It isn't possible to go through a transition like becoming undead and not be changed somehow. Nothing ever comes without a cost. And the cost for eternal existence is pretty steep. If you want to keep being who your are, full of life, passion, and the ability to change and grow? You'll have to keep being alive for that. That's what being alive is."

Corvus makes a bit of a croaking sound.

"Regardless, you've got two hours of free time. Once that's up meet me on the roof of the tower for your first lesson."

And with that he flies out of the room.

Away!

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe nods and says, "I see...I'm sure that Lady Elestra will be able to figure something out. See you in a while." She spends the next two hours getting her room set up and relaxing a little, before eventually heading up to the roof.

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

Oh boy learning time!

Once Pheobe has all her stuff unpacked, Archer will head off to resume doing guard things. They probably aren't that exciting.

Unlike getting magic lessons from an undead crow, right?

Up to the turret Pheobe goes! The top level of the tower is pretty wide, as it happens. With a number of permanent magical apparatus set up for spells and rituals that require open air. There's just so much room for activities! Activities such as whatever that emaciated, cowering person sitting in a cage in the middle of a magic circle might be for.

As soon as the prisoner sees Pheobe he whimpers pitifully. "Please..." he rasps in a voice hoarse due to lack of water. "Please help me..."

Well...

That looks pretty awful. The cage is one of those black iron ones with the needlessly intimidating looking pointy bits on it. The mechanism that locks it is purely mechanical, no keys involved. But it's impossible to reach from the inside of the cage. Reaching it from the outside would be simple, though.

Hmm...

There aren't any guards around.

And Corvus hasn't arrived yet, it would seem.

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe listens to the man's pleas and says, "Well...Whether or not I'll help you really depends. Have you been good, mister? Who are you. And why do you think you're here."

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

"My name is Jacob Smith," the man wheezes. "I-"

And then lots of coughing. Talking is obviously difficult for the guy due to dehydration. He turns pleading eyes toward a bucket of water nearby, the ladle sitting in it just out of his reach.

[Fenric]

[Abandoned City]

Not good. Was this then a deliberate act, poisoning the surrounding groundwater with this magical goo? By the whole society or just a part? Or maybe this was meant to be not a well but a safe disposal place for the fluid. One that broke open after they had gone.
Certainly explains why this place had the one functional door on it.

They need to know what's in those books. And what this stuff is. It's moving too much; hope it's not somehow alive. This could get really bad.

Okay, now he knows. Now he can explore that main building that seems to have been the source.

At one of Atorre's more isolated laboratories - sure anything goes in Skyside and the lawless ocean, but they need to live in those places still if something goes wrong - basic tests are being run on the sample of good recovered. How acidic is it, how viscous. What is its density and specific heat. What does it do to various substances on contact. If they can isolate small enough quantities, what does it look like under a microscope. Pure data-gathering experiments.

Just in case, only Kep-model minions are working on this project.

Certainly they dumped the stuff down the well on purpose... why is a bit difficult to discern at this distance in time.

The stuff is a non-Newtonian fluid. It is no single thing but an icky mixture of an odd, highly psionically active crystal powder suspended in a heavily enchanted oil with a complex mixture of emulsifiers, abrasives, and even a touch of universal solvent. The age effect seems to be a summation of the various enchantments all acting together.

Back in the main building, the previous investigators had gone down a hallway of empty offices to a records room. And here they have left their findings on the desk.

There is a journal, open a bit over two-thirds of the way with a bright purple-pink Ioun stone holding the place. A mythril box lies open, filled with sheets of crystal inscribed with complex runes. And a map showing the trail that Aja saw from the gyrocopter and at the end, the crossed-pickaxe symbol commonly used for a mine.

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe moves the bucket into easy reach of the man as she says, "Well, no matter what I'm going to do with you, you need to be in good shape. Now then, Jacob, why are you here?"

[Recaiden]

Certainly they dumped the stuff down the well on purpose... why is a bit difficult to discern at this distance in time.

The stuff is a non-Newtonian fluid. It is no single thing but an icky mixture of an odd, highly psionically active crystal powder suspended in a heavily enchanted oil with a complex mixture of emulsifiers, abrasives, and even a touch of universal solvent. The age effect seems to be a summation of the various enchantments all acting together.

Back in the main building, the previous investigators had gone down a hallway of empty offices to a records room. And here they have left their findings on the desk.

There is a journal, open a bit over two-thirds of the way with a bright purple-pink Ioun stone holding the place. A mythril box lies open, filled with sheets of crystal inscribed with complex runes. And a map showing the trail that Aja saw from the gyrocopter and at the end, the crossed-pickaxe symbol commonly used for a mine.

[Abandoned City]

They could use this stuff.
Now to begin the much more tedious process of decoding the enchantments.

Notes on the things. A journal. And a map to where the crystal is probably mined. What they were doing, there will probably be clues there.

But first, that journal.
Atorre goes to take the Ioun stone and set it orbiting this body's head, and looking at the writing.

[Fenric]

[Abandoned City - Factory Office]

The stone grants an immediate increase to the body's intelligence, and gives an expanded perspective on time. The current page in the book was started precisely 4,324 years, 8 months, 9 hours, and 27 minutes ago. Atorre can now read the script like it was written only yesterday: it chronicles the growing complaints from the mining guild about the crystal dust's effects on the miners.

With the stones being their main stock in trade, the city rulers were completely unwilling to give up on the mine - particularly since the current treatments had proven effective in curing affected factory workers: the lazy mining guild just needed to put a little more effort into decontamination and use the antidote regularly. The fact that it was expensive was simply something they would have to deal with.

The crystal sheets detail the process of making the Ioun stone from the raw crystals: cutting, polishing, treating, imbuing... the pink residue was the result of collecting the runoff of all of the steps. That waste was poured into the cave of forgetting, which had been reinforced and sealed forever. There was hope that the crystals would eventually precipitate out and allow for a second mine in the future.

Another set of sheets is a report: the farms are experiencing higher than normal mortality, and crop yields are plummeting. The forest is failing with an unknown blight on the trees, causing them to rot away while still standing. The lake is drying up, and the fish have died. Why have the elven gods abandoned them?

A number of other sheets like the report were damaged by the previous group, perhaps in their frustration or because they couldn't use the stone. The last report, from the dry bottom of the lake, ends with the dire news:

It has escaped.

[Recaiden]

[Abandoned City - Factory Office]

What a rush. What an interesting perspective.

As expected. Although of course the writers couldn't be bothered to put down what exactly had escaped or how.
It was a safe storage space, except, of course, for how it actually wasn't.

Maybe they had better not try to exploit this crystal, no matter how efficiently psychoactive and magical it is. And it seems like the contamination has permeated the whole desert. Which wasn't a desert at the time. This might be beyond them. For now. But it might not.
Atorre takes all the records and the box and the journal, stuffs them into his pack,and heads back, following the map towards the mine.

Along the way, they speak a prayer to Inari for guidance.
How can this be undone?

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

Jacob grabs the wooden spoon and begins slurping down water like some poor guy who has been getting insufficient nourishment for a while now.

Which, judging from how he looks, is exactly what's been happening.

"I was stolen from my home," he replies. "Kidnapped by undead monsters. I was kept in some dark basement until they brought me up here. When I was down in the darkness, it was as though sound couldn't reach through the cage. I don't know if my family is still down there."

Well!

Doesn't that sound horrible.

That might explain why Elestra didn't want anyone going down in the basement.

[Fenric]

[Abandoned City - Factory Office]

Inari is never one to leave her priesthood in doubt...

Go to the mines, to the safety office on the lower level there: we believe that the records of the nature of the antidote can be found in that place. Myobu thinks that preparation of a sufficient quantity and deploying it into the disposal well will stop the poisoning. Then the antidote must be given to the villagers.

Did you collect genetic samples from the Akarthi, yet? They are fascinating, and not my doing.

[Recaiden]

[Abandoned City - > Mines]

Is where we were going, Holy Inari. Thank you for narrowing it down. Hopefully the antidote will be stable enough to disperse through that well. The villagers may need continued treatment while it spreads, also.

Atorre walks along.

We have, only of the two in our employ. Those are still being analyzed; most of our sequencer time has been on new additions to ourselves and on vulpan-related projects. Speaking of which, we have something to show you, in our labs. Do you know where the Akarthi did come form, generally?

[Fenric]

[Abandoned City - Outer Wall]

I will come visit your lab once the current disruption in Skyside is settled: I have contractual obligations that require me to avoid direct interference.

The Akarthi's home world is an interesting place... their gods have that shape already. Anubis is his name, as I recall...

The outer wall of the city looms into view, and the gate immediately ahead has the same crossed-pickaxe logo that the map showed. The gate is open, so the previous group made it at least this far.

[Recaiden]

[Abandoned City - Outer Wall]

We've temporarily relocated, actually. Seaside, where we were before the move. But waiting until the disruption is over is no trouble. We're not getting much work done anyway. Anubis. We've heard of that one. In charge of the dead, yes. Interesting.

Atorre unslings his gun and keeps it at the ready as he passes through the gate. While the city itself is dead and empty, who knows what is out here?

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe nods and says, "I see...Now then. Who are you? Why do you think you're here?"

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

"I'm just a blacksmith," Jacob replies. That would explain his last name. In a lot of ye olde settings, one's last name was based on one's profession. Or at least the profession of one's father. Which a person would often apprentice in. "I don't know why they took us. I've heard stories that undead kill people and raise them as other dark abominations but... but you! You're still alive! You aren't one of them! You have to help me! You have to help me find my family!"

Poor guy.

He sounds pretty distressed.

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe frowns and says, "So close...But not enough for your salvation. You see, the undead are no worse than many humans. Certainly, I've yet to meet a zombie who was worse than many humans I've met." Which, to be fair, says more about the quality of the humans she's been around than anything else.

[Fenric]

[Abandoned City - Outer Wall]

We've temporarily relocated, actually. Seaside, where we were before the move. But waiting until the disruption is over is no trouble. We're not getting much work done anyway. Anubis. We've heard of that one. In charge of the dead, yes. Interesting.

Atorre unslings his gun and keeps it at the ready as he passes through the gate. While the city itself is dead and empty, who knows what is out here?

Out of the city and into the mountains. The first thing that will strike Atorre is that it isn't quiet anymore! There are grunts and scraping, unworldly groans and strange whines: this place is not as dead as the way in was.

That's probably not comforting.

A decidedly feline snarl echoes among the rocks. Ambush predators are so annoying.

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

Poor Jacob looks at Pheobe with an expression of lacking comprehension for a few moments before slumping down in his cage and crying.

He was going to die because the only living person who could help him was mad.

And to be fair, given that zombies are mindless automatons, they technically aren't any more good or evil than a table or a rock.

Most tables really aren't very offense or evil.

They're just tables.

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe smiles and says, "Now now, it's not all bad. You might even retain a portion of your personality! Won't that be nice?" She then looks around and mutters, "Where is he? I thought he'd be here by now."

[Recaiden]

[Less than Abandoned Mountains]

Atorre sighs. They might need to get Hunter or TimeMuse or some other specialist involved just to get to the mine.

But at the same time, this place is supposed to be lethally toxic. Don't want to waste bodies. Let's see if it can be done with just one.

More of him starts paying attention to little sensory traces, and he cautiously paces forward, gun patrolling back and forth. Once in a while stopping to look behind him.

[Hyperbolic sine]

"And you're lucky you didn't actually kill my companions...but you've heard him. Try again." Wraal says, before addressing a "Tsk...weakling" towards the goblin who wetted her pants.

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

Oh hey!

Do you hear a flapping sound?

Corvus flies up to the top of the tower, a large leather bound tome clutched in his talons. He drops the book with a thump on a nearby table, then hops off. At the sight of the undead bird, the fellow in the cage gives a terrified keening whimper and presses himself as far against the back as he can manage, covering up his face with his hands.

You know... if one looks closely they might notice partly healed scratch marks on Jacob, as though he had been getting raked at by angry birds.

How awful!

"Hello there, Pheobe! I'm sorry I ran a little late. Elestra had more or less forgotten you had existed and needed my help with one of her projects. Thankfully I was able to get away with my tail-feathers intact. Ha ha!" Corvus says, giving the tail feathers in question a little shake. "For the first lesson we'll be reviewing the basics of undead, you'll find that book of libris mortis covers the subject beautifully."

The tome will contain, among other things, the stuffs that FD was linked earlier.

"I'm not sure how much formal education you have on the subject of necromancy, healing magic, and the like, so this old book will make a wonderful primer to help me build a road map for your future lessons."

Corvus isn't even paying attention to the human cowering away from him. "Th-that bird!" Jacob shrieks suddenly, causing the bird in question to peer over at him. "That bird is a demon!"

[Ionbound]

[Elestra's Tower]

Pheobe looks through the book, mostly just flipping through briefly as she asks Corvus, "Who is he? Just curious."

[Fenric]

[Upstream from the Leaky Dump]

A large, sandy colored, panther-like creature with two odd tentacles waving in the air jumps down onto the path. Atorre might notice that the dust stirred up from the thing's feet is actually some distance off to the side of where the feet appear to be. It crouches and prepares to spring.

[Rebonack]

[Elestra's Tower]

"Oh, him?" Corvus replies nonchalantly as he picks at a loose feather with his bill. "A criminal of some kind. I'm not sure what he was arrested for. We have a deal with several local barons. They sell us their criminals and prisoners for a healthy sum to be disposed of as we see fit. The barons are well aware of the work we do here and that while our methods may not be for the faint of heart, we have good intentions."

You know what they say about the road to hell.

Paved with good intentions and all that.

"Baron Heimlich is mad!" Jacob objects. "He's been arresting commoners for the smallest slight and replacing them with soulless metal men he has purchased from that blasphemous city Inside! He's been using the witch's undead minions as enforcers! My crime was nothing more than having a missing horse shoe from the Baron's most recent order! It wasn't intentional, I swear! It was nothing more than an oversight!"

The bird peers at him for a time.

"What's that to me? Your Baron is dealing with his subjects at his prerogative, as is his right."