Mind's Edge
Eleventh Day of the Third Month
Flesh Forge, Gogossos
Wisdom Qyburn's transformation, terrible and wondrous as it was, proved a stark reminder for all the flesh forge in Gogossos could not yet do, the powers and permutations of life that did not have to be limited by the ordering of the Spheres. Saenena realized she could not even think of him as 'the old man' anymore, for he was not a man, nor did it sit right in her mind to call him Westerosi, for he did not think in their tongue nor bound himself to their custom. He had reached the pinnacle of his craft, then shattered the vault to the endless blackness above.
That is what they were trying to keep out of the forge, that only a thousand times grander and more ancient than the foundations of the earth. Another scholar might have balked at the implication, might have begun to doubt herself. But Saenena was of the blood of men who had unmade dragons and broken the power of the of Goddess. She was of the get of Syrax who had seen the end and stepped beyond it. Memories rushed in, brought to the surface by the whispering voices of the Green gods, by the deep dark of the forge.
A too-heavy book she had smuggled from her mother's library as a girl, barely understanding the concepts within but wanting, needing to know more. Her first direction, blood thick and sticky on her hands, her arms, muscles twitching under the knife. The first hatching she had managed to bring to term deep in the old wine cellar. Reading secrets from anciant bones that no book or scroll spoke of.
Her children were safe, her dragon sleeping... and there was no place other than this she would rather spend her days. This would be a thrilling challenge.
"Diagnostics for yesterday's modifications?" she called in the general direction of the wall of corded flesh and faintly glowing fungus while her left hand leafed through an arcane text of Shaitan origin for a quick reminder of how carving the Cerulean Signs in mere flesh was supposed to go.
"Interstitial interruption on the eighth level, acid flow briefly provoked, though contained..."
Of course it wasn't all pitting her mind against the threat of the Far Realm and Those who dwelt there. Like most projects of this magnitude, the refurbishment of the forge required the assistance of lesser mages, hands and eyes for where you could not use a forge servitor. Unfortunately, some of those eyes ended up seeing a bit too much and had to be spelled sane and given memory moss.
They would probably keep the fear of dark spaces or possibly nameless books chained to their shelves. The lizard brain was odd like that.
Secure the Flesh Forge, and the Fleshsmiths Heavy Defenses Progress 29/45
Minor Failure: Some Tyroshi Mages suffer temporary mental damage from interacting with Far Realm knowledge, progress from their dice lost
***
Fifteenth Day of the Third Month
Imperial Legion Camp, Gogossos
Above the very heads of the flesh smiths attempting to alter the forge, the better to counter the madness of the Far Realm, a project of a different sort was being enacted to guard against far more mundane forms of mental harm. While Svitran, priest of the Wold Serpent, did not find his task as exhilarating as his colleagues, he took it on just as dutifully. It had taken weeks of exhausting study, often personally listening in to the thoughts of volunteers under enchantment, but he was starring to come up with a theory as to the pattern observed in the first battery of tests.
Most thinking beings experienced life as a story they told themselves, their choices and those of others placed in a mental framework which they considered internally consistent. It often was not. Rationalization, willful embracing of logical fallacy, and even ignorance were sadly common, defense mechanisms of one's worldview, even as other aspects of the mind criticized and questioned. When one was placed under an enchantment, an external force ensured that the imposed thought was not challenged, but the manner in which this manifested was often painful.
Svitran
winced at the memory of experiencing some of the worst of that second hand with the aid of a visiting mind-weaver, a
githzherai he had managed to interest in the project in exchange for an account of his people's mental powers and their uses.
To prevent such inwardly painful experiences, a person under unwilling enchantment would produce rationalizations to include the compulsion, like a cyst forming around a foreign object, so even once the magic was removed the compulsion had become internalized. Still there was something about the way these thoughts became a part of the subject's inner world that primed them to sudden and often violent collapse. More study would be needed.
The Mind's Games Progress 13/21
Discovery Made: The Githzherai might be able to provide valuable insight into the project.
Do you attempt to involve the githzherai?
[] Yes,
-[] Work though the Monastery of the Unbroken Circle (Cost 4d6 Research Dice assigned to a project of the Grandmaster's choice next month)
-[] Approach individual visitors as Svitran did this month (Cost 5000 IM)
[] No, you do not need outside aid in this
OOC: Crit Fail on the research, but not a cascading one so you just lost a total of four progress from those dice. Not yet edited.
