Rest for the Wicked
18th of February 2007 A.D.
The choice isn't even close, it's barely a a choice. For all the temptations you've been faced this isn't one of them, every ancient instinct screaming a warning of treachery. Drusus couldn't be honorable if he tried to, he no longer knows how. Usum flashes forward and right though his heart, tearing upwards into his chest and neck. Any man, any vaguely mammalian creature would be dead... somehow he's not, veins re-knitting in alien symmetries, muscle knitting and congealing as his head migrates along the other shoulder under the hood.
"Missed me," the laughs with lipless mouth and in an instant in your face.
"Same." You turn your other hand into the sign that for ten thousand Great Cycles the priests of Endings have given the bodies of those who depart the Cycle. An end to all things, even this seemingly endless hate. "I'd ask if it was worth it, but you have no answers."
So saying you slice again, this time aiming for center mass, fire so hot the air around you expands into an ear shattering roar... and the flesh of your foe is burned to less than ash.
Lo the ash speaks in a voice like the very breath of hell: "
Oblivisci!"
Forget, forget the secrets hard won, forget the dreams of ages past and all the power that they hold, forget the truth of knowing, that in revelation is power.
Death Curse Revealed: Inability to use the Occult Skill or take advantage of the Urge
"
Keep-Hold what you have found," you say in Seeker Tongue, that greeting which they had shared for moon turns uncounted across the impossible land that is your soul, then you breathe in the ash, the withered thing that once had been a mortal soul under the sun, that kept enough of the mind to tempt, enough of the magic to curse, but of that fundamental humanity that would have spared him your touch, that he had lost long ago.
Lost 1 Essence -> Now at 0/18 (Occult Excellency)
You Regain 2 Essence -> Now at 2/18 (Murder is Meat)
Space shivers, Sanctuary the only scaffolding holding this place together, though not for long you know. "Come on, we have to get out of here!"
Barely had you turned to the others that the Merlin, still at the edge of the gate, marks a spiral with his staff and the cycle that composed the Shaw's fungal horror imploded. As many awful qualities as that thing doubtless had, the ability to exist inside a single point is thankfully not one of them.
All of you, wizard and demigod, Sanctuary-born and earthling, machine and organic rush for the gate, thankfully far too solid to be caught up in the ruin of this realm, one of the most solid things
that are after all. You savor the feeling of knowing that, of a world still full of secrets for you to find.
On the other side, surrounded by the living, the dead, those scarred by the Labyrinth and by treachery the hard part starts: rebuilding, saving what can be saved and making sure nothing like this can happen again. There's awe in the eyes of the Wardens, enough to almost content with the guilt at their part in this whole sorry tale, but there is also fear, not the way a person might fear another, the way one fears the prospect of an avalanche. It saddens you to see it...
"And we are about to propose raising the dead," Sophia reminds you wryly, your own voice subtly different inside your head.
Are we though? You wonder. It's not like the wizards can see the shades of their fellows without opening the Sight, which none of them are inclined to do idly. You could just raise them and place the Council in front of a fait accompli. Not like there will be any lack of scary revelations coming their way even if you just stick to what you and do for the living.
[] [Dead] Offer to raise the dead wizards
[] [Dead] Raise them in secret if they so choose
[] [Dead] Bring them under the wheel
[] [Dead] Write in
[] [Warlocks] Explain all your plans for saving those who unwittingly break the Laws, the dead spirits, the book of names, all of it
[] [Warlocks] Describe False Spring Beckon
[] [Warlocks] Write in
OOC: That counter-spelling really put in a lot of work. You did not even need your perfect, which is good since it allowed you to use that excellency on Murder is Meat which got you the soul without his patrons getting to contest it. 
