Hullo everyone, my apologies again for the lack of updates. I've been slogging through writer's block and just got the news that I'll be moving apartments this week. I will try my hardest to get an update out this week, but worst case scenario I won't be able to manage until the move is finished next week.
[X] Plan: Make an Example of Her
-[X] Nigredo (1 -> 3)
-[X] Unerring Hunters (3)
-[X] Thunderous Command (5)
-[X][VICTOR] The Da Marini Problem
-[X][CLERVAL] It Can Think
The thing that was once Joost Naaktgeboren opened its eyes. Not those eyes. Its eyes, the ones set in the round knob protruding from the main bulk of its mass, were already open. They were cloudy and unfocussed and wholly unnecessary anyway. It could see better now. It could see the road, some distance away, and the light that was too weak and flickering to instil that pull. More than anything it could see *her*. Wherever it looked it could see her, the scar that her presence burned into the world, the way the world seemed to have to *shift* to make room for her until everything was out of place. She was like a nail driven straight into a mirror, all those hideous breaks and edges spidering out from the point where she forced herself into the world.
The thing that inhabited the earthly remains of Joost Naaktgeboren lifted Joost's arms, shakily, clumsily, like a puppet, in the direction of Veronica Da Marini off somewhere beyond the horizon, and grabbed at the air like it expected her to be there. She wasn't, but it could feel her. It was like a clump of wet fibres scraping against its skin. It tried again, but nothing, just that awful sensation, like reaching into a carcass and pulling out piano wire.
Its face contorted and lips pulled back over blackened gums. It would have to get closer. She would have to be there for it to make her gone. With a noise air being forced through clogged bellows, it stepped forward. Its stride was more steady than what it took before its eyes opened. It knew where it was going now.
The creaking door could be heard even over the frenzying storm outside. Major Netopýr turned from the turret window at the sound, seeing Clerval enter the room with a teaset on a tray and Doctor Van Kerkhof still deep in his notes and insensate to the world around him. The man's lack of glasses remained irritatingly prominent to them. Victor Van Kerkhof was a man who had developed frown-lines at twenty-five and greying hair at twenty-two, who was even now scribbling his spider-writing hunched over scant inches from the page in the flickering gaslight of a dark, empty laboratory, and yet it was Groom-Major Zita Netopýr, who got the closest thing to regular sunlight one could imagine in Ossuaria, that had to squint through their glasses to parse what was written here.
Clerval placed the tray on Van Kerkhof's desk, which seemed enough to rouse him from his fugue. He started and looked around like a dog after a thunderstrike for a moment before he came to look at Clerval and settled. He picked up a tea cup with a shaking hand and raised in salute.
"Oh, thank you, dear heart. I was - I had this idea, you see, about another improvement we could make to the Cadavers. It's the brain that's been troubling me, you see, it can't order itself like when it was living, but…"
He went on as Clerval took a seat across the worn wooden desk, took a tea cup for himself, and slowly placed a hand on Van Kerkhof's wrist.
"Victor," he said, "Please do keep it mind, but I am afraid there is business to tend to."
For the first time in half an hour, Van Kerkhof looked up to acknowledge the existence of Major Netopýr, who stood straight backed at attention like an ornamental armour piece.
"Of course, I was just explaining to the Major here, I had a sort of diagram, when I thought about the brain. Clerval, we can bypass it entirely! The thoughts don't have to come from there!"
Victor had put down the tea and was retreating again into his notes. He passed a scribble-covered sheet of paper over to Clerval, who eagerly took it and placed it face-down in front of himself. The back was also covered in arcane formulas and equations.
"Time management, Victor. I can tell from a glance that this will be esoteric enough that it will take quite a bit of time to wrap my head around, but we only have Major Netopýr for so long. You'll not get a better chance for discussion."
Victor looked back to Major Netopýr, who quirked their head just so slightly enough to be noticeable. Within the Service of His Majesty, a gesture like that is a lit beacon.
"Well," said Victor. He rubbed the bags under his sunken eyes, "You reached out to me regarding Doctor Da Marini and her activities. Before the matter of the reasoning ability of Cadavers caught my attention, we were discussing certain improvements I had devised to the thanatogogue device."
He finished with a gesture to another seat across the desk and blinked, pressing his whole face together for a long, slow moment. The way he spoke lacked any of the passion with which he spoke of corpse brains, that manic energy abandoning him the moment his attention was forced back to Netopýr, who he looked at like they had woken him up at three in the morning to beg for beer money.
Netopýr gave a pleasant and polite smile, but remained standing, one hand held behind their back. "Indeed, sir. His Majesty's Army is terribly impressed. I shall be putting forth my recommendation for the purchase of a great number of such devices immediately upon my return from this meeting," they gave a little bow, "I believe, in addition, there was some suggestion made that sir has the intention of providing the services of people already trained in the operation of the provided devices?"
They gave a little wave in Van Kerkhof's general direction. Van Kerkhof looked at it for a moment.
"I'm happy to have the opportunity", he said, offering a smile, "What manner of revelations will come from seeing two thanatogogues working at cross-purposes? How shall the dead respond to two duelling phantoms having their way with what passes for their minds? And what of the phantoms themselves? When a flow of their essence meets its counterpart, will they dissipate? The - oh, thank you, love."
Clerval had squeezed the man's shoulder and given him a soft smile and Netopýr offered silent thanks. The man could leap wildly like unmoored cable from endless, staring rants to silent, obsessive scribbling to sudden unconsciousness with only the doe eyes of the lesser academic able to anchor him in place for any amount of time. Among other conveniences, it allowed them the rare opportunity to speak after Victor had decided upon a topic.
"You intend to provide training personally, sir?"
"I intend to be present at the arrest, Major." The dishevelled academic leaned in, "I'm afraid I've found myself quite captivated by the subject, and I have been made aware that I can become obsessive when that happens."
Joost Naaktgeboren's corpse pulled itself along the line of pure hate that connected it to its quarry. It had no sense of time as it walked, only vaguely aware of the changing of the environment. It had passed through a river at some point, shambling along the gravel bed and battered by the flow of the unhealthily hypertrophied artery. It had lost a shoe in the process and a clump of hair, but these it had no awareness of at all.
It was vaguely aware that there were others around it now. More of its kind, the angry dead coming closer as they converged on the single point of their hatred. Others were present, too. Living things in dark clothes with polished brass buttons that the man it once was would have recognised as those in service to His Majesty. They were irrelevant. Just beyond here was that horrible, wretched woman and that horrible, abrasive wrongness that had grabbed hold of whatever force animated it. Soon it would kill her, and soon its world would once again be dark and silent.
Revenants and the Militaire Huis Van Koninkrijk Ossuaria roll to defeat and capture Veronica Da Marini with +Scheming +Ominous +Vicious -Perfidious -Enduring for a total of +1.
Result = 10
The mortal remains of Joost Naaktgeboren stumble into a clearing. There is a water mill, its lower level flooded and a crude platform held aloft by corpses providing access to a window on the first unflooded floor. Within is the abomination.
It lurches forward, desperate. Some of the others have already arrived and flounder in the floodwater. The living follow. One, dressed in oilskins and carrying a great glass bottle attached to a hose, gestures with the hose and Joost's corpse finds surer footing carrying it towards the platform. Another gesture and the corpses holding the platform stumble and seem to lose equilibrium for a moment, then regain it. They struggle under the sudden weight of the platform, then find themselves sturdy again.
The living in the polished buttons stand with rifles pointed at the building and begin to open fire as the corpses heft the platform inside the window and begin to wade through the water towards the corpse of Joost and its family of hate. The Revenant steps into the floodwater. It finds its arms outstretched and clutching at the face of its opposite number and pushes forward as more trickle into the clearing. It has lost track of the living, but its footing is still sure and its sputtering catherine wheel of a mind is gently pushed into the shape of a thought.
The window.
It is to lift its fellows up to the window, they will kill Veronica Da Marini, and that will heal the pulsating wound in its mind. The defending corpse bites off a finger, but the remains of Joost pay no mind. It pushes the defender over and tramples on its snarling face at the bottom of the temporary pond. It wades deeper into the corpse-fowled water until the murk passes over its head, guided now only by the afterimage of its hated target like a red, glowing insult of a north star.
The shape of the abomination wavers and the corpse of Joost loses its footing, floating mindlessly for a moment, neutrally buoyant from its waterlogged organs, but another nudge in its mind pushes back to its duty. Another of its kind joins it as it collides with the building's wall, then another as they push and clump together. The shapes coalescing in its mind urge patience between bouts of writhing nothing that sees it momentarily unfocused and aimless. There are enough, between the hateful dead and the wandering. They will reach the window, and they will kill Da Marini, and the wound will close.
Veronica Da Marini has made this a siege, but it is one she cannot outlast. You will be given the opportunity to deal with her next turn, but for now she will continue to twist your Magnitude to her own ends.
Subject One perches atop a wooden stool, mesmerised by the light of a tea candle. They have indeed functioned well as positive reinforcement.
This particular tea candle is made of a pale green wax and was gifted to Subject One by Clerval as a reward for opening a box. Subject One was a creature of fantastic dexterity and seemed to enjoy tasks where it could solve physical puzzles. Mental puzzles, like organising cards, seemed only to irritate it and so Clerval had phased them out for now.
The eyes of one of its faces rapidly focus and unfocus for a moment before locking on to Clerval. Without a sound, it moves the flickering candle closer to its living master, the better to allow him a view of that wonderful, calming light.
Magnitude: 10/10 2 stolen by a Rogue Necromancer
Nigredo: The first part of growth is destruction. The old must be dismantled and broken down to free its constituent parts of impurities. This is necessary for ascension. The power of necromancy is too dependent on the form its targets once took. Let them putrify so that they may later be cleansed of the worldly, and so truer forms may be revealed. 3/15,Grants [Ancient Knowledge] to all Manifestations (if multiple Manifestations have 1 level of Ancient Knowledge, the player still only has 1 level total), unlocks a broader variety of Manifestations
Damnable Weather: There is little of this world about the weather that carries you, so why be limited to mundane meteorology? Lightning storms appear out of nowhere, setting fire to dry ground, move against the wind, and vanish as quickly as they appear. Lightning glows odd colours and sears the eye more than it should. Perhaps, if the conditions are right, you might be summoned without a cloud in the sky. 1/5, Increases Magnitude, causes Unnatural Weather
Electric Lights: They are already beings of lightning, of course, but they lack the power of the original form of the phenomenon. Now, that power returns to them in a manner very dangerous to anything flammable near them. Electricity arcs from their ethereal forms, leaving scars and animating whatever dead things they pass too close to. 0/5Phantoms gain [Fulminous], Increases Magnitude
Deeper Mysteries: Modern science suggests that thoughts are electric. Little buzzes and zaps of lightning within the thick grey cloud inside our heads. Phantoms can now inhabit this lightning too. Perceptions change, rather than simply lights. The living feel the agony and fear of the spirits as if it were their own, as well as their awe, their curiosity, and their drive to be whole. 0/8 Phantoms gain [Perfidious 2], reduce Fear by 1
Into the Light: The beauty of the light calls to them. The terrible majesty stirs something within their withered corpus and draws them in. They must touch it, they must enter it even as it destroys them. It is a force as inexorable as gravity, glorious and uncaring and impossibly beyond their ken or control. It inspires them. Perhaps it could teach them to make something with even a fraction of its brilliance. 0/8, Cadavers gain [Inspired 2]
Storm Cauldron: This phenomenon is almost natural. Tall mountains struggle against the clouds to a stalemate, trapping them in the air on one side and preventing their passage. Somehow, the clouds on the northern side of the border with the Malebolge and Tartaro seem to have called for reinforcements, choking this side of the mountains with impossibly thick and dark clouds, charging the air and leaving the foothills suffocated in the smell of ozone. Still, the mountains stand firm as they always do, and the countryside braces for ever more lightning storms. 0/7Increases Magnitude, more undead rise or find their way to the southern mountains
Sparks of Life: Not enough lightning strikes in a storm to raise a proper horde. It pays dividends to learn exactly how much lightning is required to animate a body. As it started, a single strike of lightning in the right place could raise a handful of surrounding corpses. Now, as death suffuses the country, it can take so little to bring the dead to life. Just a spark, a tiny shock, is enough now for the animation of a Zombie. 0/5, Zombies gain [Horde 2]
Mr. and Mrs. Doe: The lightning gets lucky, sometimes. Not all the dead are buried in clearly marked graves, sometimes they are lost in bogs or deep in the wilderness. Sometimes they are disposed of quietly in rivers and garden plots. Sometimes the lightning finds just the right spot to strike so that they can find their way back, climbing their way back to the surface so desperately alone. 0/5, Gain a new Manifestation: Ghouls [Mysterious] [Vicious]
Electric Minds: As of now, the undead are capable of receiving simple commands. Cadavers are more intelligent, but zombies and revenants operate only on the most basic instincts and have trouble recognising a great variety of stimuli. The mind-bending powers of captured phantoms can be used to rectify this, to an extent, imprinting more complex commands directly into the mind of the dead like programming a loom. 0/5 Necromancers have increased control over the Undead, Zombies and Revenants gain [Inspired] when under the command of a Necromancer
Seance Tubes: The phantoms are not random bolts of cursed lightning, they were once people. Their thoughts, such as they are, are scattered and incoherent. Memories and dreams are projected against the world without rhyme or reason, but they are true memories and dreams all the same. Perhaps, with the latest developments in the field, a skilled necromancer might be able to order these thoughts and bring some inkling of reason back to these unthinking echoes of human souls. 0/8 Seance Tubes are invented, some small communication is possible with Phantoms, Phantoms gain [Inspired], Finer control is possible over the dead
New Necromancer - Madeleine Grafdelver, the Resurrectionist: Even before the dead could rise, there was always a call for fresh corpses. Surgeons needed to train on bodies, and few were freely given. Now, with the advent of Cadavers, demand has skyrocketed as supply has plummeted. For Madeleine Grafdelver, the improved financial situation has even allowed her to afford a brief period at university. Already steeped in death, she has quickly found a course where she has the potential to excel. 0/8, Permanently lose 2 Magnitude, Gain a new Necromancer and associated Whispers actions
New Necromancer - Eschke De Groot, the Doctor: The art of necromancy is new and exciting, with academics of all stripes racing to discover what implications it may have for their fields. Within medicine in particular a great many are fascinated by the potential held by control over death in healing the sick. Eschke De Groot, as always, is at the forefront of her profession, charging into these new unknowns with the enthusiasm of a hurricane, brushing aside any concerns with theatrical flair and confidence well past the line where it transmutes into arrogance. 0/8, Permanently lose 2 Magnitude, Gain a new Necromancer and associated Whispers actions
The Mind Electric: The minds of the dead are not confined to lumps of meat. They are clouds of buzzing lightning, barely formed and weak but free from trappings of flesh. The meat, honestly, gets in the way. As the swirling energy that animates them continues to grow in intensity, it becomes possible through similar methods to the construction of thanatagogues or seance tubes to construct devices to help order the thoughts of the corporeal dead. Cadavers are perfectly suited to test this technology. 0/10 Cadavers gain [Inspired 2] and may develop capacity for rudimentary communication or even speech.
Whispers:
Victor Van Kerkhof:
Victor is busy laying siege to Veronica Da Marini this turn.
Clerval Igorovitch:
[ ] Ghost Psychology: There has been great research into the manipulation of what passes for minds among the reanimated dead, but shockingly little on how they work unmolested. With Victor busy, it is the opportune time for Clerval to focus on his own research. It will be difficult without Seance Tubes, but if all goes well this may lead to a much greater understanding of the motivations of Phantoms and, thus, make coexistence with them easier.
[ ] Lessons for the Dead: With it proven that Cadavers may be trained it only follows to do so. While primarily focussed on improving Subject One's capabilities, this will allow for Cadavers to accomplish more complicated work with less supervision. Effects will continue to improve as new trainers are trained and they, in turn, train further trainers.
[ ] Proliferation: Thanatagogues are fiddly and irritating devices to produce. Only a few rare people are trained in their use and even fewer are capable of their production. Training the less scholarly inclined in their use would greatly further the utility of the dead and put less pressure on the production of Cadavers for more menial tasks.
Your Author said:
Hello everyone and happy Halloween! I couldn't bear to have this quest not update on this, the spookiest of all nights, so tonight we return to Ossuaria! Alas, I have failed to deliver by my self-set deadline as it is already past midnight here in Australia. Luckily, there is still plenty of Halloween left in the rest of the world so my efforts were not totally in vain.
I apologise for the lateness of this, the "brief hiatus" I warned about turned out to be much longer than expected. In fairness to myself, it had been almost a decade since I last moved and I had forgotten what a hassle it was, and this move in particular carried some new problems. Still, I definitely had the capacity to restart this earlier and I still wish I had done so.
I am not entirely happy with how this turn has turned out, but it's better existing in worse shape than I'd hoped than not existing perfectly. Votes will open soon, but there will be a brief 40 minute moratorium. Shorter than usual due to the late hour of my posting.
The eyes of one of its faces rapidly focus and unfocus for a moment before locking on to Clerval. Without a sound, it moves the flickering candle closer to its living master, the better to allow him a view of that wonderful, calming light.
Finishing out Weather for extra magnitude, continued progress on Nigredo, and Proliferation to get us extra resources and good will by making more thanatagogues.
As a side note, I'm glad to see this quest come back, and to meet more characters!
Seance Tubes to better understanding, and a bit more to chip away at Nigredo I think. It looks like we've managed to lock Veronica down though between a decent roll and committing a Necromancer to oversee it. Ghost Psychology + Seance Tubes looks like it's got a lot of synergy going on though.
[X] Plan: Another Step Forward
-[X] Nigredo (2 Points)
-[X] Seance Tubes (8 Points)
-[X] Ghost Psychology: There has been great research into the manipulation of what passes for minds among the reanimated dead, but shockingly little on how they work unmolested. With Victor busy, it is the opportune time for Clerval to focus on his own research. It will be difficult without Seance Tubes, but if all goes well this may lead to a much greater understanding of the motivations of Phantoms and, thus, make coexistence with them easier.
Seance Tubes to better understanding, and a bit more to chip away at Nigredo I think. It looks like we've managed to lock Veronica down though between a decent roll and committing a Necromancer to oversee it. Ghost Psychology + Seance Tubes looks like it's got a lot of synergy going on though.
