The Temple of Inari 50: Foxside

[Deathkeeper]

Gardens

Nick nods and exchanges phone numbers. Huzzah!
As she turns to go though, she might hear Nick mutter "Come here you oversized kitten." before he wraps an arm around her neck in as close to a big hug you can really get when one person is mostly horizontal and the other mostly vertical.
"You take care of yourself, alright? Even I know how big the stuff you're working with is. Don't do anything risky. I'll probably call within the week unless someone gets a mission tossed at me."

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline frowns

You're not sick... but something's... off. What's wrong Chesepeak?

[Ionbound]

[Helen's Room]

Noriko blinks

Oh. Really? Thanks...

Then she shakes her head

And no, of course not. Tamamo doesn't have all that many human worshippers, but there are some. Inari has worshippers of every species you can imagine and then a bunch.

Helen nods, smiles, and says, "Alright. But...Um...If...If I want to be a Vulpan...I could do that?"

[Fenric]

[Helen's Room]

Noriko shrugs, and suddenly there is a shadow vixen standing across from Helen with an utterly blank expression... in fact, she's not breathing or anything.

That's easy: you'd look like this if I did it. They don't allow me to do any of the other sorts, though, so you'd have to get Myobi or one of the fox Messengers if you'd rather be red, red with a stripe on your back, dark grey with white tips and no shadow powers, white with silly little ears, beige with huge ears, or kinda generally weird looking. I heard there's a new kind coming, too, but I haven't seen those yet.

She's not opinionated about the other fox races, is she?
Then she chuckles

Well... to be fair - you would be this one: I'd pluck you out of your human body and pop you over here. We could put your old body in a gem or something just in case you ever wanted it back.

[Ionbound]

[Helen's Room]

Helen looks at the body, and says, "Hmm...Well, it looks nice. Um...Could I try it?"

[Lost_Deep]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline frowns

You're not sick... but something's... off. What's wrong Chesepeak?

"...nothing." She's a bad liar. After a moment, she realizes this and corrects herself, "I don't know."

[Fenric]

[Helen's Room]

Helen will most likely feel a rather dizzying disorientation, and then have the very odd sensation of looking at herself. The world has a rather reddish cast, and is a trifle blurry now.

But oh my... the world of sound that suddenly opened up: the rustle of cloth, the whistle of her and Noriko's breath, the sounds of people milling around are suddenly bright and clear. Someone is walking up to the door behind her...

And then her nose kicks in!

Her old body is a bit hungry, and lunch didn't quite agree with her. She could use a touch more vitamin b6, and maybe a bit of sleep. She can tell not only that she'd been with Frederick, but has a pretty decent idea of the schedule they'd kept for the last few days. She's been sitting on her bed for a while, but she had been brushing her hair a few hours previously.

Noriko is calm and confident and slightly amused, but she was pretty embarrassed earlier. She'd been enjoying mince-mouse pastries before coming to visit, and used clove perfume today and cinnamon perfume yesterday.

And now her heartbeat likely speeds up a little as her nose informs her that Frederick is behind her, a little aroused, a little confused, and rather curious. He was just eating chicken salad after having a lazy bath in the bigger bath house, and whatever he's wearing now has been in a drawer for a while. His voice sounds very much different but somehow much more correct.

Hello, Holy Noriko. Hey, Helen... who's your friend?

---

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline looks concerned

Is there anything you can think of that you are sensitive to?

She tries a vaguer divination-school assessment, trying to find the source of Chesepeak's trouble.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

"Helping people and hurting people."

The wide divination shows... that the divine energy in Chesepeak is a large part of her. It's hard to tell the details without a more in-depth scan, but she is an innately magical being if not some kind of entity that that is based on divine power.

[Rebonack]

[Garden]

Aaww... Hugs! Geneva puts one of her wings around Nick. Wings are good for that!

"Hehe, thanks. I'll try not to get into too much trouble. If this works out then a lot of people's lives are going to be getting much better!"

And that's something she can really look forward to!

"Take care of yourself, Nick!" Geneva calls as she steps back and begins lifting off into the air, her wings beating in way-too-slow strokes. "I'll talk to you later!"

Then she zooms off.

Not super duper fast sort of zooming.

That might startle someone in the temple after all.

More slow zooming. Or at least slow by her standards. She has places to be, but fast isn't how she wants to be moving until she's at higher altitude.

Awaaaaay!

[Ionbound]

[Helen's Room]

Well...That was a rush of sensation. Helen very dizzily sits hard on her bed in her new form, accidentally sitting on her new tail as she does so, then wincing at the pain and floofing it out. When she hears Frederick, she blinks a few times and says, "Um...Well...I was thinking about being a Vulpan...And I decided to try it out. It's a bit...Intense."

[Zefir]

Frederick bobbles his head

Couple minutes. I'll get it started.

With more than enough information around to identify the fellow, Frederick casts his spell: concentrating on the sword and the events around it to get an image.

There's not a lot to see, in all honesty: for several minutes he frowns in concentration. Then he holds up the paper and mumbles another spell which produces the image of a male human, probably early twenties, stocky build, with deep black eyes and fiery red hair. He has a scar on his right cheek that starts near his eye and goes sharply down and sideways to the corner of his jaw.

Frederick hands over the paper

Now, that's from three years ago - so I can't say how accurate it is today. But that's the best I can do.

[Empty Lot - Artifact Dispopsal]

Mia watches the scene. In her world, they don't know about this. There are cameras and other, mosty mecahnical, things to watch over a place.

"That's intressting. You printed the image in your head on a paper? That' amazing and I assumw quiet usefull."

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline frowns and tries a different divination: this one aimed at determining the nature of the divine energy powering Chesepeak. Preferably determining the god, otherwise the basic portfolio and characteristics.

Are you somebody's Messenger, Chesepeak?

---

[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.

---

[Empty Lot - Artifact Disposal]

Frederick nods

It's really great, but I have to know ahead of time that I'm going to do it - I can't just randomly grab any old image out of my head. The spell prepares things first, then I get the image formed in my mind however that might be, then it transfers that image to the paper. It's great for divination, or recording what I can see. It's a little weird if you try to do it from memory... and it gets really freaky if you do it before going to sleep so it records your dreams!

[TechnoScrabble]

Entry

Someone approaches the temple, staggering slightly as they walk, a trail of black liquid dripping behind them. Their head hangs low in shame, or maybe fear, and they're mostly naked except for a tattered jacket wrapped around their waist for decency, a dagger and a sword sheath tucked through it.

As they step closer, it becomes apparent that it's Garrett, and that something is very, very wrong. His skin has an ashy pallor to it, his hair has grown long and ragged, and he's larger and more muscled than before, flickers of fire dancing around the new growth. Black blood dribbles from two shattered nubs where horns once sprouted from his forehead, and still runs heavily from two ragged, feather coated growths on his back. He ripped off as much as he could, but he can only bend so far.

He stops a few meters from the temple, staring with some apprehension at the holy symbols near the entrance.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

"No," Chesepeak says, shaking her head a little.

The portfolio is healing and... something else. Repair and something else. Protection and something else. Joy and something else. And on and on.

As you might have guessed, there's something horribly wrong here. There's no saying whose magic it is, but there are distinct feelings of brokenness about this. Like Chesepeak only has half the story.

"I don't actually remember much," Chesepeak admits.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline looks even more concerned

It's not good. It's like something is missing...

It's also a bit of a difficulty now, because without knowing who to follow up with it's rather difficult to proceed.

Let's try something... You're not injured, but...

She casts Heal and watches the results.

---

[Entrance]
A gardener out in the arboretum sees Garrett

Oh, my! Sir, please do proceed inside! The priests will help you.

[TechnoScrabble]

Entrance

Garrett nods, his mouth hanging open a little. He'd speak, but his throat feels dry and hoarse, and making any sort of sound just doesn't seem worth the efoort right now.

He walks in, keeping what distance he can from holy objects. Being too close to them just feels...wrong.

[Recaiden]

[Entrance]

Tavlii, finally wearing the light and dark blue garb of a junior priest, comes up and begins the standard greeting, before breaking off. "Oh! What's happened to hurt you like this?"
She hurries up to perform a basic healing spell to try to stop the bleeding. And of course she's wearing a holy symbol around her neck.

[TechnoScrabble]

Entrance

Garrett shys away from the holy symbol, but allows Tavlii to use her magic to make the bleeding stop. It's a a bit harder to do than it would be on a normal person, but no great effort is required.

"Some demon interrupted me," he says barely above a whisper, still staring down at the floor, "She...she took something out..."

[Recaiden]

[Entrance]

"Something that did this to you?" Tavlii walks around him, investigating his wounds and changes.

"What was it that she interrupted?" The magic to regrow his horns and ...wings? is beyond her, but that seems to not be the problem.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

The energy reacts positively. The heal spell doesn't actually heal anything, it's more that the energy seems to approve of the casting of the spell.

"What's missing?" Chesepeak asks, idly.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline shakes her head

I... I don't know. The spells just leave off, like there was something more to say, but the information is missing. There's a space where something could be, but just... isn't. Well... there's always this...

She focuses herself for a moment, then casts Restoration (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/restoration.htm)

[TechnoScrabble]

Entrance

"Yes," Garrett says, afraid to bring up the obvious answer as to what's missing, "I was trying to access a Wellspring and she broke the circle."

[Recaiden]

[Entrance]

"We'll help you out. Tell me everything you know and remember about what happened."

Elsewhere, she tries to look up wht a Wellspring might refer to here. Something magic, with a protective (?) circle around it. Or around the user/accessor.

"To be clear, this broken circle transformed you, and you injured yourself this way before coming here? What, do you think you've lost your soul?"
She clearly considers this unlikely.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

There is a bizarre feeling of if about to work, and then suddenly Chesepeak's fur turns blood red and the currently ivory parts of her fur turn black, only for a moment. Her inner magic is approving of this and at the same time there's an odd surge of darkness, death, and evil. Then Chesepeak is back to normal, or at least the faded normal she was at, apparently having not noticed the momentary event.

"Hey, I'm going to take a nap while you figure that out, okay? Okay." She curls up and puts her tail over her nose.

[TechnoScrabble]

Entrance

A Wellspring is a source of natural magic not yet tapped by humans, often used to summon or banish gods or powerful spirits.

"No, the demon, she broke the circle, and...she changed me, and she...she said she had taken it. My soul. She said it was gone."

Garrett's voice is halting, rough. Where he comes from, souls are rather important.

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

"Even if she could have and has, there is hope to return you to how you should be."

And a lot of danger. Horror stories of things done by soulless people from other cosmologies are popping up with alarming frequency as Atorre does research.

Here, Tavlii casts a few basic detection spells, to guage Garret's magical aura, life-force, balance of good and evil, and so on.

[Fenric]

[Sanctuary - New Moon]

Caroline now looks rather creeped out... that was not among the expected results of that particular spell

Is it a curse? But ... it didn't feel like one...

She motions to an acolyte

Can you bring me a flask of holy water, and a cup of normal water? I'm going to have to try something more drastic

The acolyte scurries off and Caroline stands in thought watching Chesepeak sleep while waiting for her return...

... The acolyte returns and hands Caroline the requested liquids. Caroline drinks the normal water and then starts to cast her most powerful curse-removing spell: the seventh level Cleanse spell, powered by Inari, accompanied by holy water, will break most anything... if there's anything to break.

[Lost_Deep]

Sanctuary - New Moon

The internal magic once again approves of the constructive spell, but nothing breaks. It seems there is no curse.

That's rather a pity. It does give valuable information, but it's a waste of such a powerful spell.

[TechnoScrabble]

Entrance

"So long as there is that, " Garrett days, looking up with a small smile. His eyes have dulled to a dark, muddy green, and flecks of red and orange dot his irises and sclera.

Without a soul, any measure of Garrett's life flickers, waxing and waning and making the reading unsure. Rather despite that, though, he radiates insane amounts of magic, enough that it might cause a bit of a headache. He's firmly in the territory of 'pretty chill bro' on the good-o-meter. He's wanted to be a heroic knight ever since he could read, and while his road isn't paved, the path has been cut with good intentions.

[Recaiden]

[Sanctuary Entrance]

"It would seem there is something wrong with you. You are empty; it's not clear what is keeping your identity intact. Most things we name demons are themselves spirits."
A distressing result. As far as they know, not a possible one either. But here it is.

Tavlii motions to the gardener. "Fetch Lady Caroline, please. This man requires more healing than I can provide."

To Garret, a smile. "Come in. Rest, and we will find a way to help you. Did you know this demon? Have any dealings with it before? What do your people hold the soul to be?"