080: Just because you've forgotten doesn't mean you're forgiven

[Sierra]

<@El-Cideon> Outside, the gales of Pandemonium howl ceaselessly; inside, the roar is muted to a dull hum. There is no sign of the zombie that supposedly went off to find his mistress. The spherical entryroom has four doors apart from the ground floor entrance you came from, each marked in block capitals: DORMITORY and LIBRARY to the right and left, LABORATORY directly up and circled by a mural of happy, friendly corpses, and PENITENTURY at the bottom of the room. This last door is heavily secured by an imposing metal vault door. "Should we wait here or look around?" Rosemund wonders.
<Steph> "We didn't break in to stop breaking in," replies Stephanie, walking over to the vault door and knocking on it.
<Franceska> "I would look in the library or laboratory before breaking into her prison," Franceska notes.
<@El-Cideon> If there's anything on the other side, the metal is so thick as to thoroughly mute the echo.
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia strides down next to Stephanie. "He must be down there," she says with an agitated air, kneeling down to inspect the make of the door.
<Julia> "Yes, the laboratory looks interesting, and we might find Miss Adelie there. We should at least ask for permission," Julia says, drifting in that direction.
<@El-Cideon> Julia sees the lab door is closed, but it's just an ordinary door and does not appear secured in any way.
<Steph> "Everyone has said something agreeable," muses Stephanie, walking after Julia.
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia looks impatient and put out but, with encouragement from Tiel, trails along behind the rest of the group.
<Julia> Julia gives the lab door a little knock and then opens it.
<@El-Cideon> The door opens easily. On the other side is a cylindrical room dominated mostly round its circumference with vats of chemicals. There is a strong odor of embalming fluid, but the collection is so large that it must encompass more than mere preservatives. Inset in the wall not far from the door is a set of steel bars closing off a cage, presently empty. Directly across from you (forward from your perspective, up from the perspective of someone outside the building) is another closed door. A lanky, wiry construct of black metal stands to one side of this door; apart from tacitly acknowledging your appearance with a turn of its head, it takes no action.
<Steph> "Oh, look at that! It's a golem? Hello, robot!" calls Stephanie, pinching her nose.
<@El-Cideon> It duly responds with a tinny echo of a voice. "Greetings visitor," it rattles off simply.
<Julia> "Doesn't seem like CLANKTRON at least," Julia whispers before raising her voice. "Is Miss Adelie present? We'd like to talk to her."
<@El-Cideon> "The young miss is at work in her laboratory," the construct says. It lacks any of the friendliness or personality of Ron, but it is at least not an obvious torture bot. "I am instructed to allow visitors who can satisfactorily answer the following requirements. Are you: A) insane; or B) righteous clerics on crusade."
<Julia> "No to both!" Julia confidently announces.
<Steph> Stephanie clucks her tongue. "I'm still sane, and I'm no cleric!"
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund looks around and eventually decides, "I am not *presently* on crusade."
<Franceska> "Probably not," Franceska voices with a shrug.
<@El-Cideon> "I retain my senses," Vigilia says in a dull voice with a bit of a simmer behind it.
<@El-Cideon> "That is sufficient," the construct concludes. "Please proceed with all due politeness."
<Julia> "Thank you," Julia inclines her head before proceeding through the door next to the construct.
<Steph> "I wonder what happens if the wrong answers are given?" muses Stephanie, walking after Julia.
<Julia> "I imagine a refusal to answer is more common," Julia says, "Hopefully he can understand sarcasm?"
<@El-Cideon> Beyond is a spherical room that must comprise the summit of the tower. A wide array of glass containers and instruments are scattered around workbenches in haphazard profusion. A quartet of tough-looking zombies with scimitars flanks the entrance, perhaps just in case anyone lied to the doorguard, and beyond the entryway to the laboratory much of the space is taken up by a series of vats and glass tubes large enough to contain a human being--which in fact a number of them do. Motionless figures standing gapemouthed float silently in noxious-looking chemical cocktails. A spectral figure drifts here and there amongst the array: she is small enough to look a child, perhaps ten years of age at most by human reckoning, and washed of color. She appears dressed in a nightgown embroidered with floral patterns, and a long mane of hair drifts in the air behind her. A bestial, monstrous dog with a mane of sharp spines paces obediently along the floor beneath her, as does another golem. The zombie you'd sent looking for his mistress earlier stands just inside the room, smiling dumbly at nothing. After a moment, the young spirit notices your appearance. "Oh, hello there!" she says brightly, drifting closer. Once nearby, one can discern that her mostly intact apparition appears to have had its throat slashed, though this does not in any way impair her from speaking to you. "No one told me we had guests!" Adelie chides her servants.
<Franceska> "They do seem to be quite broken," Franceska notes. "Miss Adelie, I presume?"
<Julia> "Hello, Miss Adelie," Julia sketches a little curtsey for the spirit of an unfortunate child. "We were hoping we could impose on your hospitality for a time."
<Steph> Stephanie finds herself more interested in the array of vats than the apparent ghost for the moment, particularly regarding the bodies therein.
<@El-Cideon> "My reputation proceeds me!" she says, amending, "Oh, but that's not always a good thing..." She brightens up thereafter. "We are very hospitable here to those who haven't any ill intent, though. Er, I'm afraid I don't have any tea or biscuits or anything prepared, though. You understand, I'm sure? So, could you introduce yourselves?"
<@El-Cideon> Stephanie sees the nearest is an adult human woman. There is no obvious sign of injury or violent death, but she doesn't look alive, either. The body looks as carefully intact as the zombies you've met so far.
<Julia> "That's quite alright, we ate recently. My name is Julia Astin," Julia introduces herself. "I admit I'm curious about your work here, but we're actually here about an elf we believe is in your keeping. A Phibous Liramar?"
<Franceska> "Franceska Durant," she follows suit, waiting on the answer to Julia's question curiously.
<@El-Cideon> "Rosemund Whitefall," Rosemund says, looking uncomfortably around at the ghost girl's handiwork. Tiel doesn't introduce itself at all, just buzzing agitatedly in place and keeping silent through force of will.
<@El-Cideon> "Oh, him," Adelie says darkly, alighting on the ground to converse more easily. Her monstrous canine shadow curls up in a friendly lump by her side, quite dwarfing Adelie herself. "I had to put him in the basement," Adelie adds. "He was *very* rude."
<Steph> "Stephanie Sundown. How did he come to be here?" asks Stephanie, rounding from the vats to face Adelie.
<Julia> "Yes, we've heard nothing good about him ourselves," Julia agrees with a shake of her head.
* Franceska nods at Julia's words. "I can imagine. He does sound like a very loathsome person."
<@El-Cideon> "Oh, he said a gale blew him all over and right to my doorstep. After that he just poked around out of curiosity." Adelie nods vigorously to Franceska and Julia. "Yes, that's true. He tried to tell me what I was doing here was wrong. He tried to stop me!"
<Steph> "Why did he think it was wrong?" wonders Stephanie. "You're... well, I'm no wizard, but you're trying to create something, here, no?"
<Julia> "If I may?" Julia speaks up. "What are you doing? We spoke to your friend out front," she gestures to the grinning zombie. "And he was more animated than any zombie I've ever seen before, and I've made a few myself." Best not mention the other zombie of course.
<@El-Cideon> "I'm only trying to help people!" Adelie insists. "Although I have to admit it isn't in a way that most people would understand. I think it's awfully hard for living people to understand another state of being."
<@El-Cideon> "And if he's not so animated as to tell me when I have guests," Adelie adds with a chiding air for her zombie, "then he's not animated enough yet."
<Julia> "Still, he waved when he saw us, and we had a short conversation," Julia says approvingly. "I take it you're trying to restore him and the other zombies to the same mental faculties they held in life, while being able to resist the maddening winds outside?"
<Steph> "And what you mean by that is, you're trying to foster intelligence in supposedly mindless instances of undead?"
<@El-Cideon> "Ah, that's almost it exactly!" Adelie says to Julia with a smile. "I am not trying to restore them to anything, though--I want them to make it through the transition without losing any sense of who they are at all. After all, what is the sense in living forever if you can't remember anything? That's the tough part, and I've been working at it a long time and I just can't find the right formula..." After a glum moment, she brightens up again. "But I have all the time in the world, and there are an awful lot of subjects available around town."
<Franceska> "So you grab people from town, zombify them and then try to ensoul them again?" Franceska confirms, blinking.
<@El-Cideon> "Well, it's more complicated than that!" she says defensively.
<Julia> "If you have any notes, I'd love to read over them," Julia says, eyes alight at the possibilities here. "Perhaps another viewpoint might help make the formula more effective?"
<Steph> "But that's the basic gist of it?"
<Franceska> "So it sounds," Franceska muses. "Now then, we did come here because we wanted to punish that uppity elf ourselves. I don't suppose we could take him off your hands for that, Miss Adelie?"
<@El-Cideon> She nods to Stephanie. "Yes. I realize this is difficult for a living person to understand, so I should be very clear, I only want to give people a better life. Zombies don't feel any of those hungers or desires that make people such violent creatures sometimes. Wouldn't it be better if we weren't subject to all that troublesome biology? No one would ever starve to death, no one would ever freeze living out on the street." Adelie winds herself all up in missionary zeal. "And more than that, when you take these things away, you get rid of the reasons people fight in the first place. No one will ever have to go to war again for food or water! No one will have to watch their children waste away for lack of bread! No one will have to--to--to--" Adelie's voice catches mechanically for a moment. She blinks herself out of a distant expression and then continues. "But all that is a long way off, I can't bring this gift to every living person if I can't make it work that first time first. I'll just keep working at it until I get it right. I know that a lot more people will probably have to, um, give themselves up for the experiments before that happens...but they are just crazy people, it's fair in the long run if they help everyone else this way, is it not? I would be glad for help, of course!" To Franceska, she adds, "Oh, it was years ago I put him down there. I almost forgot, honestly! I suppose he might be dead by now."
<Steph> Stephanie sighs.
<Franceska> "No, he seems to be a tenacious bastard."
<Julia> "Only one way to find out," Julia says. "I suppose we should check on that first, and then perhaps you'd allow me to observe your work in more detail?"
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund raises her hand. "Excuse me, miss, all these people--" she gestures around at the vats, "--they were alive before you started experimenting on them?"
<Franceska> "Yes, but they were crazy people so no one will miss them," Franceska repeats Adelie's words.
<@El-Cideon> "Well, of course they were," Adelie says. "I couldn't use old dead bodies or people who got killed in battle. What if they woke up in a body that was all wrecked and decayed? That would be terrifying, wouldn't it? I want people to be able to see themselves as healthy as they were in life! Just better." She nods eagerly to Franceska's statement. "See, your friend understands!"
<Steph> "But their souls are gone. Their experience has already moved on. The only way they can see themselves again is if you call on their spirit as a petitioner and ask them to view it from the outside," replies Stephanie.
<Julia> "But aren't all the lunatics here petitioners?" Julia says. "There's nowhere else for them to go. It's not like if we die... unless it's like us dying again after reaching our afterlife."
<Franceska> It seems that being undead inevitably makes you impervious to sarcasm. Franceska rolls her eyes and waits for Rosemund to decide what she wants to do. Hopefully, they'll go for the elf, but if they need to kill a few things before that, that's fine too.
<Steph> Stephanie frowns. "Then isn't this just killing their souls, and creating intelligent automata out of the remains?" she asks, dubiously.
<@El-Cideon> Adelie shakes her head. "No, you see, that is the part I am having trouble with. Why can't the spirit stay attached to a perfect body? It is very frustrating. I have tried all manner of things. And it has to be efficient, too. Simple necromancy spells aren't good enough, you have to take the time to run every individual person through the process. I've thought, maybe if it's something that works through the air, maybe a virus, or maybe a chemical you can put in the water supply--I'm playing with chemicals a lot these days--see, if it's a slow process then the village priest or something might notice and try to stop you." She looks very serious for a moment. "Although there aren't many of them around here, it's part of why I came all this way."
<@El-Cideon> "Whether they are crazy or not," Rosemund points out, "it is not right to kidnap people and use them for experiments against their will. Who are you to decide that is how their lives should end?"
<Julia> "And using chemicals allows mass production, while spells and rituals are always limited by time and magical potency," Julia muses. It's certainly a novel approach! "But first we really should check up on that elf, I suppose."
<@El-Cideon> "But it's for everyone's benefit!" Adelie protests. "Yours too! If you're still alive by the time I figure it all out, at least. Isn't there more to living than just being alive? Everyone will be a lot happier this way, I'm sure!""
<Franceska> "Did you figure out whether people living in the afterlife are different from people living on the material plane?" Franceska asks, unable to stop herself and her horrified fascination. "What happens when the petitioners die? Do their souls go somewhere else? Get reborn here?"
<@El-Cideon> "Oh, petitioners are useless," Adelie says dismissively. "They're already dead, basically! If I want to help living people, then I need living people to experiment with. Fortunately, Windglum attracts lots of lost people."
<Franceska> "So your zombies are actually not petitioners, but people from the material who ended up here? And also happen to be crazy?"
<@El-Cideon> Adelie nods happily at Franceska's obvious comprehension.
* Franceska looks over at Rosemund.
<Steph> "Ah, that really does clear up a lot," reflects Stephanie. "So, you have some wonderful dream, and to get there you just need to enslave a bunch of people."
<Julia> Oh. Well there goes Julia's bit about how petitioners could be made undead while retaining the soul. Pity.
<Julia> "I would say 'enslave' is a harsh term," the necromancer butts in, knowing a build-up justification for a fight when she hears one.
<@El-Cideon> "No no NO!" Adelie cries to Stephanie. "It isn't slavery! I wouldn't tell anybody what to do! They'd be free to live the rest of eternity the way they wanted to!"
<Steph> "But they can't, unless your research succeeds, and you can't know if it will succeed without subordinating people's lives to your own purpose," replies Stephanie. "Besides, if you've been doing this for years, you must have had countless unsalvageable failures already, no?"
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund sidles over to her necromancer friend and says quietly, "Julia, please tell me you do not think this is moral behavior? Even if you approve of the goal, it cannot be right to use healthy people like this?"
<Julia> "They're not healthy!" Julia hisses. "You've seen those mobs charging about out there?"
<@El-Cideon> "I've been working a long time," Adelie admits. "But once I'm done, everyone will have so much longer to live! If you look at things in the long run, the cost is really quite small, isn't it? Isn't that fair?"
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund gives Julia an uncomfortable look. "Is that your opinion as a doctor?"
<Julia> "As a person," Julia replies. "Look, if it were me I wouldn't use these methods. But she's trying to help people, even if she's not there yet. What good will come of fighting her?"
<Steph> "It's not fair on the people you've killed! And there's nothing to suggest your research will turn out just like you hope. Besides, your work is superfluous, honestly; everyone can already get eternal happiness by leading a righteous life whilst mortal."
<@El-Cideon> "But that's so difficult when there's all this war and struggle and conflict in the world," Adelie points out. "I would make all of those things unnecessary!"
<Franceska> "I'm afraid that wouldn't work," Franceska notes. "Some people-- no, let's face it, most people are terrible. They will fight just because they like to, or to get more material things, or for other reasons. It's not about defeating scarcity, not really."
<@El-Cideon> "People will stop dying for experiments that do not seem to work," Rosemund responds quietly. "I am sorry about the woman outside. That was a mistake. But I think that she is making a much bigger mistake, repeatedly, on purpose, forever."
<Julia> "But defeating scarcity is still a laudable goal," Julia insists. "If we end this here it will all have been for nothing." And they'd be killing the idealistic spirit of an unfortunate little girl. That just feels awful in ways she can't even phrase.
<@El-Cideon> Adelie gives Franceska a sour look. "That's an easy thing for a living person to say. But I'm a lot freer than I think I must have been while I was alive!" She sketches a demonstrative whirl through the air.
<Steph> Stephanie floats a little off the ground. "Living people can do that," she notes. "There are a lot of things living people can do that would be difficult for the undead. Love, for one; without the sex or the having kids, half the point is gone," she muses. "What about sensation, though? I think zombies don't really eat or drink, at the least."
<Franceska> "I somehow doubt dead people will stop killing others, given that you are trying to make others like yourself, and you have found reasons to do that," Franceska points out.
<@El-Cideon> "They don't have to eat or drink, and that is a lot of the point!" Adelie asserts with much personal feeling. "And of course you can still have love without--without all of that stuff! Like I love Charger here." Adelie attempts to pet her monstrous pet's head, though naturally her hand passes right through it. It bears this silently with a put-upon expression. "Don't you love your friends?" Adelie manages instead. She drifts a few feet up and back into the air. "You guys, I'm not sure I like where this conversation's going. You're not--you're not going to interfere, are you? I don't have anything against any of you! I'd be happier if we didn't have any trouble."
<Julia> "I don't want to interfere. I want to help, maybe fix whatever's wrong with the formula," Julia says. "Wouldn't that be good?" she looks hopefully at her companions.
<Steph> "Won't you reconsider your methods? You talk about doing good, but you're murdering people in an effort to impose a condition upon the world at large, one that people aren't exactly lining up to receive," replies Stephanie. "I don't care if someone wants to live on as a zombie or a lich or whatever, it's their business. Out there in the planes, you could surely find volunteers instead of
<Steph> needing to prey on others." Stephanie glances at Julia with a unhappy grimace. "Even if the formula is completed, I cannot tolerate this being used on people en-masse, against their will."
<@El-Cideon> "I have tried to stay quiet and be fair," Tiel emits levelly, with carefully maintained calm. "But it is certainly not good at all if she means to make every person like this whether they want it or not!"
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia speaks up for the first time. "I am prepared to leave if we are given what we came here for," she says coldly.
<Julia> "What if they do want it though?" Julia says. "People who are dying and beyond the help of magic or medicine. What if it was just used on those who wanted or needed it?"
<@El-Cideon> Tiel hovers over to her dispassionate charge and gives her a disapproving pulse of light in response.
<Franceska> "It might not quite be slavery, but I'm not sure a proper word for this exists," Franceska muses. "Wouldn't you reconsider those aspects of your plan, Miss Adelie? No one quite wants to go and fight you, from what I can see, so that would serve as a suitable compromise."
<Steph> "That's their business. I don't care to interfere in an individual's quest for whatever form of immortality they choose. But it must be a choice."
<@El-Cideon> "I do not think that she has been asking anyone that question!" Rosemund counters Julia. "Have you?" she asks Adelie.
<@El-Cideon> "Have you ever tried holding a conversation with a lunatic?" the ghost girl answers. "That hardly works at all!" She puts her hands on her spectral hips. "So I suppose that you all have *better* ideas?"
<Franceska> "Julia suggested you ask the terminally, hopelessly ill. Some of them might say yes."
<@El-Cideon> "Hmmm." Adelie considers this for a moment. "Do you know any? Do you know where I could find some?"
<Julia> "A hospice?" Julia offers. "You could move to a more hospitable plane, and offer your services to the dying. So long as they understand it is not a perfect formula yet, you could continue working on it until it is, with volunteers who have nothing to lose."
<Steph> "Azure, on the plane of air, is fairly accommodating, and you are unlikely to be beset by radicals," reflects Stephanie. "Just about anyone or anything seems to be there for the finding."
<@El-Cideon> "Do you--er, maybe you could ask someone for me?" she suggests. "Only, most people get awfully frightened when I talk to them."
<Steph> Stephanie snaps her fingers. "Actually! There's always someone we could introduce you to. We're acquainted with a zombie of quite remarkable intelligence!"
<Julia> "Oh of course! How could I have forgotten?" Julia says, stopping just short of slapping her face with her palm.
<@El-Cideon> "Oh yeah?" Adelie drifts back down to the party with obvious interest.
<Julia> "He's a painter that a king somewhere had made undead so as not to lose his gift. And lost it most certainly is not!"
<@El-Cideon> "Oh wow, really?" Adelie says. Then her expression crumbles. "Then somebody else already figured it out! What have I even been doing all this time?"
<Franceska> "It happens, if you live as a recluse. The important thing is looking towards the future?"
<Steph> "Being a murderer."
<Franceska> "That goes without saying."
<Steph> "Isn't your day job to tell people things like that?"
<Franceska> "I already have. Remember? When I cleverly pointed out that she has been murdering people for a cause since her death?"
<@El-Cideon> "Oh, but--but I was only trying to help people!" she protests, on the edge of tears she no longer has the means to produce. "Isn't that better? Aren't I a good girl?"
<@El-Cideon> "Um," Rosemund starts, eventually managing. "I believe that we can agree you are not the worst one that we have met."
<Julia> "Yes, your motives were pure," Julia insists.
<Franceska> "I'm pretty certain little girls cannot be held legally accountable, alive or dead. So! Are you ready to start a new chapter of your unlife?"
<@El-Cideon> Adelie sighs. "Okay, I guess I should stop, at least for now. We can see if your friend has some idea what I was doing wrong."
<Franceska> "Excellent. Now, about our terrible elf?"
<@El-Cideon> "Well, like I said, I almost forgot I put him down there. He might have starved to death." Adelie puts her hand to her mouth in shock and fright. "Oh my! That isn't something I meant to happen at all!"
<Steph> "I don't think he's dead. He's a wizard," reasons Stephanie.
<Julia> "Well, only one way to find out, yes?"
<Franceska> "Our divination suggests he's much harder to kill than that. What else did you put down there? And was anything already there before?"
<@El-Cideon> "I think that I'll let you talk to him first, then," Adelie says, reasoning, "because he might be really angry after years and years." To Fran, she answers with wide eyes. "Oh, there was a...something down there. I left really quickly. It took me forever to figure out how to get in and there was just this squishy sounding...thing...and, and breathing, it didn't try to bother me but it was very unpleasant so I left and then I put a door over the door so I wouldn't have to look at the door anymore."
<Julia> "Maybe Phibous lived by eating that?" Julia suggests brightly.
<Steph> "Maybe he'll die just before we enter."
<@El-Cideon> From nowhere Adelie produces a shimmering key that looks only partly resident in the physical world, and then drifts out of the lab toward the entryway. "There is only one way to answer that kind of question, isn't there?"
* Franceska taps Stephanie's shoulder to cast her other Barkskin over her, and that's the only preparation she intends to have here.
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia touches down by the heavy metal door as Adelie goes about unlocking it. The tattooed woman stands impatiently, one hand crackling with unearthly flame in preparation. "We are going down there to talk," Tiel reminds her calmly. "And if anything else happens, it should be justice and not vengeance. Please keep in mind the difference."
<Steph> Stephanie opens her mouth to start talking about being an air-tree girl, and closes it again when Tiel speaks. Instead, she taps herself with a wand.
<Steph> roll 1d20+16
<Rei-chan> 6,0Steph rolled :6,0 1d20+16 --> 6,0[ 1d20=8 ]4,0{24}
<Franceska> All the same, Franceska activates the ironically-named bead of karma to be ready when talking inevitably results in killing terrible things.
<@El-Cideon> The door soon swings open with an outrushing of stale air. Below is a dark shaft with a descending ramp ringing the wall. "There is someone very mean-looking at the bottom guarding the door, but he should not bother us," Adelie cautions the party as she starts down.
* Franceska follows in after her.
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund lights her mace to lead the way for those living souls who can't see in the dark. At the bottom of the shaft the passage balloons out into a spherical room, central to which is a ring of eyebending runes circling a panel of coldly shining obsidian. On the other side of this a figure stands--humanoid, tall as an ogre with ragged wings folded up behind it, the ancient-looking man is rife and grotesque with rot; it despoils even the ground at his feet. It stands up menacingly at your approach but pauses at Adelie's command. "Stay still, you old bag of bones! They're with me."
<Julia> She might like undead as much as the next person, but even Julia avoids the stuff around that thing's feet.
<@El-Cideon> "Some old god put him here to guard the door," Adelie says as she drifts over to the circle. "'To bar entry to all living men,' or something like that. Very lazy wording, especially for a god!"
<Julia> "Lucky for us," Julia barely avoids snickering.
<Steph> "Could've been intentional. Some of the gods, they're tricksy."
<@El-Cideon> Adelie pauses over the obsidian panel. "So this here turns into the portal when you grind up a diamond and say the right words. I, er, don't have on me right now," Adelie admits for obvious reasons.
<Steph> "We've got spares," replies Stephanie. "And like a ton of opals."
<Julia> "I have some that's been pre-ground..."
<@El-Cideon> Adelie nods. "That might work. You'll need something to get out too, after all. I assume you'll want to get out."
<Franceska> "I should hope so."
<Steph> "Maybe it's really nice in there and we won't want to leave. You never know."
<@El-Cideon> Adelie shakes her head.
<Steph> "Oh."
<@El-Cideon> "Maybe you could try scattering the ground up kind?" Rosemund suggests. "It would save the one I have."
<Julia> "Alright. Is any particular amount required?" Julia asks, producing a small bag from her haversack.
<@El-Cideon> "I never figured out how precise it was," Adelie says with a shrug. "I only ever came down here to get rid of bad people!"
<Julia> "Hmm..." Julia takes about a quarter, a bit over a thousand gold's worth. "You say the words and I'll scatter it," she says, giving a moment before doing just that.
<@El-Cideon> "Try *something*," Vigilia presses hurriedly. "Let's go." Adelie gives the woman an annoyed look. "That's not part of the words!" she hisses. "You'll mess it up." After a long moment where nothing terrible decides to happen, Adelie nods in relief and then recites the celestial chant familiar to you from the Worm's intel. The obsidian panel shimmers darkly and then--you're elsewhere. Your new surroundings are cramped--you appear to be packed in at the end of a narrow tunnel. The air here is warm, humid and stifling, and the ground looks soft and moist to the touch. It looks too yielding to be stone, apart from an identical obsidian ring at your feet. The narrow passageway proceeds forward into darkness. Somewhere out in the unseen reaches, currents of air move audibly, and with regularity.
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia fearlessly strides ahead, undaunted by darkness or odd noises.
<Julia> Julia follows after Vigilia, just a little bit daunted.
<Franceska> "What are the chances we are within something living?" Franceska asks despondently, staying near Rosemund.
<@El-Cideon> "Why would you ask that question?!" Rosemund asks, staying near Franceska.
<Franceska> "It occurred to me, and I wanted to share with everyone."
<Steph> Stephanie keeps pace with the determined woman, though she has to cheat a bit and floats alongside her. "Still better than Earth."
<@El-Cideon> Tiel struggles to keep up with her charge, who stalks on with grim determination. Vigilia passes several branching passegeways that occasionally echo out odd liquid sloshing sounds; she ignores all of them, seeming driven or pulled by some force. She ends up in a cavern where the roof cannot immediately be seen; wet slithering sounds emanate from somewhere above. Her jaw set, Vigilia points immediately before you, toward something not immediately visible in the darkness. "There," she insists, moving onward.
<Franceska> "Can you sense him?" Franceska asks curiously. "Can you sense other elves, too?"
<@El-Cideon> "Maybe I should've built a nice little cell myself," Adelie says quietly. "A happy little house, with trees."
<Steph> "A log cabin?" mutters Stephanie, floating closer.
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia doesn't answer; she just marches straight off into the darkness. The air here is heavy and oppressive with heat and organic scents, and an unidentified dew that wets skin and hair in passing; from Vigilia, it simply steams off, immediately evaporated. She soon reaches a wall--one which Rosemund refuses to approach close enough to light properly. It appears layered with appendages of some sort; regular, endoskeletal anatomy is nowhere apparent. Some creator skipped the day in biology when skeletal structures were explained and just wound up with a wild jumble of tendrils. Somewhere in this unsightly mass one might just discern the outline of a humanoid body, or at least part of one. Vigilia points at it silently.
<Steph> "What?
<@El-Cideon> After close (and fearless) examination, she nods. "Ask him what you need. I'll wait until you're done," she says grimly.
<Julia> "Er... he's alive in there?" Julia asks uncertainly.
<Franceska> "This is so nasty."
<@El-Cideon> "If such is what your divinations described this condition," Vigilia concludes.
<Steph> "What? This is him?" asks Stephanie, shuddering. "If he's alive, I'll be shocked. If he's coherent, kill me now," she reflects. "Elf? Phibous? Are you in there?"
* Franceska perks up. They might just end up killing him after all!
<@El-Cideon> The head moves, tilts up weakly. Strange fleshy conduits connect it to the wall behind, but it seems he retains some mild capacity for motion. Insofar as one can tell, there is no lower body remaining to him, and where intestines might normally dangle from such a maimed body, unidentifiable alien protuberances instead proliferate. "Words!" the figure rasps at length, sounding as shocked as Stephanie.
<@El-Cideon> "Oh no oh no oh no," Adelie mutters worriedly. "I think it might be I should have looked around a little more before throwing people down here."
<Franceska> "I don't think I quite realized what a terrible fate it was to be one of Galina Merowyn's friends. What do you think, is this the worst case yet?"
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund nods!
<Franceska> "Couldn't have happened to a nicer person!"
<Steph> It reminds her even more of Limbo. "I have plenty more of those!" she says, sticking her fingers in her belt. "I want to ask you some things about Galina."
<Julia> "Definitely," Julia nods. Being brainsucked at least you're not really aware anymore. This is much worse.
<@El-Cideon> Phibous looks toward Franceska, then Stephanie. Sweat beads on his forehead with the effort of speaking. "Stay back!" he cautions. "It always...wants...new friends." Struggling with a voice unused for an age, he adds, "Galina...Merowyn? Strange question...for first guests."
<Franceska> "She wants new friends too! Mage friends she can drain and then direct the power, much like in that asylum back on Air. Remember that one?"
<@El-Cideon> "Slow--" he starts, then cutting off with a gurgle as some chemical process works its way through him. "Slow...down. Explain."
<Steph> "Galina Merowyn is attempting to kidnap magi, in the effort to reproduce the ritual designed by Victoria Crane for purposes not wholly known," replies Stephanie. "She appears to have renounced her faith and has committed theft against her church. She has abandoned all of her friends, and begged them not to follow her. You, and the rest- you've all been languishing in imprisonment, unknown to
<Steph> her. She has taken up new alliances; with Mechanus, and a man named 'Jacono.' We are trying to determine her goal."
<Julia> "And Wilfrid Wroclaw from the Sagacious Brotherhood," Julia adds.
<@El-Cideon> "Unlikely," he says at length. "Not...the woman I knew. Determined...to do right by as many...as she could. How...do you know this? Last I saw--last I saw of her--" A painful silence as he's briefly involved in some best-unknown biological process of the lifeform around him, then: "Castle. Lich's castle." He manages a nod in Julia's direction. "Wizard," he confirms. "Fixed castle's...planar functions."
<Julia> "He also had theories about where sorcerous magic comes from, and how it can be applied like Victoria Crane's asylum did."
<Franceska> "She wouldn't be the first," Franceska muses. "Jill Cook is working for Baator after being betrayed. So I suppose the question here is, what or who betrayed Galina Merowyn?"
<@El-Cideon> "Have you...spoken to her?" Phibous asks. "Where is she?"
<Steph> "We don't know. We're trying to find her," replies Stephanie. "We saw a recording she left behind for you, on Arcadia. But it implored you not to follow."
<Franceska> "She clearly wants to be stopped, or she wouldn't go to all this trouble."
<@El-Cideon> "Not following...anywhere now," Phibous points out, with the worst laugh you could ever hope not to hear. Rosemund manages to compose herself enough to add: "We tried asking a, ah, an oracle, but it could not find her. It sounded very frustrated," she adds, remembering similarly unspeakable circumstances.
<@El-Cideon> "Don't know...what she's doing," Phibous concludes. His expression goes slack for a moment as the complicated biological apparatus attached to him emits a slew of writhing worms that burrow noisily into the ground at his feet. It's an agonizing moment before he manages to speak again. "Know what she wants. Told you already. Where she is--have idea. But...need something in return."
<Steph> "Do you want us to cut you free?"
<Julia> Hopefully he wants to be put out of his misery.
<Franceska> "My guess is that he wants to die in fire, to make sure we get all of it."
<@El-Cideon> Stephanie's guess prompts that horrible laugh again, and a sharp shake of his head that produces an irritable tremor as he sends cords and tubes rocking about. To Franceska, he confirms in an echoing whisper: "Burn it all."
<Steph> "Anyone against?"
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia curtly shakes her head.
<Julia> "I can't make magic fire, but I do have acid," Julia offers.
<@El-Cideon> Phibous seems to notice and acknowledge her for the first time. "Ah, the hellfire spawn...found better friends than I did, I see."
<Franceska> "Would you mind apologizing for killing her amnesiac mother before you go?"
<@El-Cideon> "It was a mistake," he acknowledges. "Couldn't figure why...amnesia warrants absolution. We forget, but our crime lives on. Where...is the balance in this equation?" He shakes his head. "So I thought. Should have listened...to friends. Too fired...with vengeance." He looks at Vigilia. "Is that why...you came here?"
<@El-Cideon> "It was," Vigilia admits. "It no longer seems necessary."
<Franceska> "It's good that you came to your senses. So where is your old friend doing her best to do right by as many as she can?"
<@El-Cideon> "Stupid," Phibous concludes of his past behavior, "but when you are young...you know everything. Killing wasn't best answer. Sometimes living...more apt penance, yes?" To Franceska, he explains. "Just an idea. Said...diviners can't find her. Last place...I saw her was lich's castle. Supposed to...transport lost children to one of the heavens. Maybe she still uses it. You can't find her...maybe you can find *it*. What we did."
<Franceska> "Say, why did you all go your separate ways in the first place?"
<Julia> "So, back to the negative energy plane then?"
* Franceska winces. "I'd rather visit hell first."
<Steph> "It might not be there," points out Stephanie. "The castle can plane shift, apparently?"
<@El-Cideon> "We all had...our own business to see to," he answers Franceska. A moment's silence is left out to acknowledge how well his own ended. "We trusted her...to make things right for the children...lich left behind." He shakes his head to Julia. "It moves. But someone knows--someone told--have couple ideas--" He breaks off into another organic seizure for a moment.
<Franceska> "So Jacono is probably one of those children, isn't he?"
<@El-Cideon> "Don't know," Phibous admits. "Never heard...name."
* Franceska nods curtly. "Anything you'd like to pass on to Galina? Or to your other friends?"
<@El-Cideon> "No need," he says. "Let them think what they wish. Has to be better...than truth."
<Franceska> "I suppose," she allows, drawing her rapier and lighting herself on fire. "I think it's time for us to fulfill our part of the bargain?"
<Steph> "Pity we don't have any oil. This place is all wet," reflects Stephanie.
<Franceska> "Magic," Franceska says, giving herself the strength to stab through any opposition. "On three?"
<@El-Cideon> "One last thing," Phibous adds. "Best idea I've got, is...find lich's friends. Someone sold him out. Not sure who. Other...infernal collaborator. Creel, or...Beneventia. Both dead. Saw to that. Call spirits, ask questions, spells work...some spells, if you have the talent."
<Franceska> "Then going to hell might well be a sensible idea," she muses.
<@El-Cideon> "Never...sensible idea," he insists.
<Steph> "Gotta go. Cook's still there, up to no good."
<@El-Cideon> "Huh, maybe for them." He manages an awful grin. "Maybe for them."
<@El-Cideon> "Time enough," he concludes with a sigh. "Have at it, then, and then...run, otherwise..." He adds finally, with apparent conviction that it should explain everything: "Antibodies."
<Franceska> "Sounds like an easy to follow plan. Vigilia, would you do the honors?"
<Julia> Julia grabs some diamond so she's ready to throw it, and then winds up an acid fog spell to go out when Vigilia sets something on fire.
<Steph> Stephanie hopes she can remember the way back.
* Franceska is ready to use her searing light!
<@El-Cideon> Vigilia walks up to the trapped man, blazing with eye-searing fire. "This isn't vengeance," she says. "This is mercy."
<@El-Cideon> roll 4#2d8+4+1d6
<Rei-chan> 6,0El-Cideon rolled :6,0 4#2d8+4+1d6 --> 6,0[ 2d8=11 1d6=6 ]4,0{21}, 6,0[ 2d8=6 1d6=6 ]4,0{16}, 6,0[ 2d8=10 1d6=5 ]4,0{19}, 6,0[ 2d8=10 1d6=5 ]4,0{19}
<Franceska> roll 1d20+15 CL
<Rei-chan> 6,0Franceska rolled :6,0 1d20+15 1,0CL --> 6,0[ 1d20=5 ]4,0{20}
<Franceska> roll 1d20+11 ranged touch
<Rei-chan> 6,0Franceska rolled :6,0 1d20+11 1,0ranged touch --> 6,0[ 1d20=15 ]4,0{26}
<Franceska> OOC: 40 fire
<Julia> Julia releases a noxious fog of acidic wisps off to the side and then promptly bolts back to the platform!
<Julia> roll 2d6 per round acid, also acts like solid fog
<Rei-chan> 6,0Julia rolled :6,0 2d6 1,0per round acid, also acts like solid fog --> 6,0[ 2d6=8 ]4,0{8}
<@El-Cideon> Phibous's demise is a graciously swift flash of incineration. As the fire spreads to the wall around him, lighting the inchoate nature of his surroundings with horrific anatomical clarity, tendrils flail and burn and turn to ash, and the ground beneath you shudders as *something* too big to perceived visually writhes in pain. From side corridors shrieks and alien trills ring out, but Vigilia's already turned to bolt back the way you came.
<@El-Cideon> "Oh gosh I'm adding SO MANY extra security doors after we get out of here!" Adelie decides as she tears up the corridor.
<Steph> Stephanie swiftly rushes ahead, ready to distract any so-called antibodies that might impede them otherwise!
* Franceska retreats as swiftly as she must while still covering Rosemund.
<@El-Cideon> There's a chorus of angry chittering in the room behind you, but whatever it is sounds as confused in the cloud as it is angry. The heavy scent in the air takes on a bitter tang as you approach the landing point, some invisible, noxious gas flooding the corridor as you arrive to try and make your exit.
<@El-Cideon> OOC: roll fort, people who aren't ghost
<@El-Cideon> roll 1d20+15 Vigilia
<Rei-chan> 6,0El-Cideon rolled :6,0 1d20+15 1,0Vigilia --> 6,0[ 1d20=14 ]4,0{29}
<Julia> roll 1d20+5 +2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy, +2 vs mind affecting
<Rei-chan> 6,0Julia rolled :6,0 1d20+5 1,0+2 vs sleep, stunning, paralysis, poison, disease, +4 vs negative energy, +2 vs mind affecting --> 6,0[ 1d20=16 ]4,0{21}
<Steph> roll 1d20+17 also immune to poison
<Rei-chan> 6,0Steph rolled :6,0 1d20+17 1,0also immune to poison --> 6,0[ 1d20=8 ]4,0{25}
<Franceska> roll 1d20+13+4
<Rei-chan> 6,0Franceska rolled :6,0 1d20+13+4 --> 6,0[ 1d20=5 ]4,0{22}
<@El-Cideon> roll 1d20+14 Rosey
<Rei-chan> 6,0El-Cideon rolled :6,0 1d20+14 1,0Rosey --> 6,0[ 1d20=3 ]4,0{17}
<@El-Cideon> roll 1d20+6 I suppose archon needs to roll
<Rei-chan> 6,0El-Cideon rolled :6,0 1d20+6 1,0I suppose archon needs to roll --> 6,0[ 1d20=16 ]4,0{22}
<@El-Cideon> roll 1d6 CON to people who aren't Steph/Fran/Vigilia
<Rei-chan> 6,0El-Cideon rolled :6,0 1d6 1,0CON to people who aren't Steph/Fran/Vigilia --> 6,0[ 1d6=5 ]4,0{5}
<@El-Cideon> A pernicious toxin invades the lungs of those unlucky enough to not be constitutionally immune to such influences. "Now would be a good time to get us out of here, Julia!" Rosemund hacks in between bloody coughs.
* Franceska calls upon her oaken resilience to bolster herself!
<Julia> "Say the words, say the words!" Julia cries out, throwing a handful of diamond across the platform.
<@El-Cideon> Adelie hurriedly does so--and then, mercifully, you're back in the basement of her tower with only one passive undead monstrosity lurking around you instead of unnameable *things*.
<Steph> "I want to find the god who thought this was a good idea and stick a fork in his eye."
* Franceska immediately detects any traces of any poisons and looks Rosemund over.
<Julia> "Yes, you really should move away from here," Julia suggests to the spectre, taking a moment to cast harm on herself. Which helps!
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund still looks a little piqued by the poison gas--but nonetheless she takes a moment to patch up the badly flickering archon before worrying about herself.
<@El-Cideon> "I think the idea was that it wouldn't be able to get anywhere *outside*," Adelie says. "Although if you're a god, I don't know why you wouldn't just drop flaming meteors on it in the first place!"
<Franceska> "Gods," Franceska scoffs. "No sense of right or wrong."
<@El-Cideon> "Some of them are perfectly reasonable beings!" Tiel disagrees. "I simply can't vouch for ones that hang around in worlds like this..."
<Steph> "There are rules. They can't do things directly, or all the worlds would explode when they clash. I'm sure somehow, this was meant to be a clever workaround, except it's still really bloody obnoxious! What sick mind comes up with this?"
<@El-Cideon> Rosemund catches her breath, pauses to heal herself up, then stands straight up. "Let us just never talk about it again so maybe no one else will think of looking around down here!"
<Franceska> "Fair."
<@El-Cideon> "Maybe I should not lock the door," Adelie muses. "Locked doors make people suspicious. I should just fill it all in with concrete!"
<Julia> "That's a sound plan."
<Steph> "It's good that you're amending."
<Franceska> "Maybe you could also label the door 'failed experiments' and then few people will ever want to break into it."
<Julia> "Well after that, do you want to come home with us?" Julia asks. "I have ideas of my own on how to make intelligent undead, and I think it would be better for you to get out of this awful plane."
<@El-Cideon> "Oh, of course I want to meet your friend and see if he can tell me what I was doing wrong, at the least," Adelie agrees happily.
<@El-Cideon> ~