Falling off the bone (Imogen)

[Lyra]

The ork was not far off with her speculations, yet she was not quite right. The smoke which swirled around the soul was like a cage, a part of Lyrielle's essence which she controlled as easily as her own hand. Because of its spiritual nature the smoke could interact directly with the soul, and other ethereal creatures, but the secret was in fact in the outsider's skin. Thin white lines had carved themselves across the woman's palms up to her elbow, pictographs reminiscent of both necromancy and artificing, which together let her reach in and pluck a soul from a creature even without the use of special tools. Lyrielle was herself a magical instrument, her entire body perfected for use in all of the world magics.

Lyrielle watched Imogen curiously as she approached, wondering what it was the ork would do. She thought the woman might have a method similar to her ability to talk to bones, but as she observed her she concluded this was not the case. This fact made the other woman seem all the odder, for what a peculiar ability to talk to bones without the skill to speak with a soul directly. Lyrielle pondered what to do, and for moment considered pulling them all into her soul space to converse... but there was a simpler method.

Locking her gaze on the soul in her palm she spun her power into it, the smoke flowing faster as she reached deep into the soul. There was a slight flicker as Lyrielle manifested the personality the soul last possessed, allowing its voice to be heard by Imogen as she questioned it. Lyrielle was a bit surprised at herself as she had not considered her abilities being used in such a manner, but one should take those sorts of happy accidents in stride.

She let the two converse, as limited as it was, in peace. The appearance of the weapon made her frown slightly, but it was not as if she had not seen it before. Up until this moment Lyrielle had discounted Imogen as a non threat, possibly even defenseless, but it seemed even kittens had claws.

Lyrielle raised an eyebrow as Imogen stood. She had heard of the Grymalka. They were not one of the covens who had assisted her, but neither had they opposed her efforts as she suspected the sunsingers might have. Looking down at the soul once more Lyrielle considered a moment before lifting the orb up and quickly swallowing it whole. She felt the soul's fear as it was consumed, but as it fell into her soul space it fell into a restful state like the rest she had collected thus far.

"Dangerous indeed." Lyrielle said, covering her mouth with a finger as her eyes fell on Imogen once more, "Why must they stop it?"

Genuine curiosity was in her voice as she asked, "What issue is there if the undead walk the mist?"

[Imogen]

Imogen observed Lyra pop the soul into her mouth with surprisingly little visible reaction. She wasn't a great fan of the necromantic practice, but the binding of souls as penalty or power had been rampant within the Covens. Discouraged by the Sunsingers, to be sure, though for particular reasons.

Still, again, there were no signs at all of a crystal, no words of binding, no rites. Both in the Necropolis and in the northern villages of Ecith, Imogen had observed true masters of the art at work, but never with such effortless work. She wondered, briefly, whether the woman was in fact some manner of liche. Sadly, her knowledge of animavores was no less apocryphal than the tales told by the poor wretches whose skeletons she'd been interrogating.

Well, never mind that. Having finally realized the threat Lyra posed, Imogen would be more guarded, but she had displayed no great antagonism so far.

"The Grymalka," Imogen answered in a quiet tone, almost pensive, "hold two charges in these lands. To guide the dead, and to guide the living. In ordinary times, this plague of shambling corpses should have been ended by the Eldest Coven's will. But they have not spoken since the explosion tore off Zaichaer's head. So I wonder- is it because they have decided that the dead should walk the streets, or is it because the mists have smothered the heart and they can act no longer?"

The Ork crooked her fingers, and her sword rose to stand on its tip, then floated into the air, to the witch's side. The light trapped within boiled over as it moved, and by the time it reached the young Reaver, the seven-foot length was enveloped in the spellbreaker fire. Imogen felt immediately better as the single-minded sorcery of the Sunsingers purified even the air of the stench of rotting flesh and minute specks of entropic magic.

"Rather a dilemma, you must understand. What is the purpose of our guarding-" here, Imogen evidently meant her Coven, "-a land if the heart is gone from it? Even the most earnest oaths wither when the purpose of their speaking fades."

The witch did not elaborate, but the thoughts weighed heavy on her mind. The one great benefit of Gregoire's separation from the other Covens, his second-only seat on the council, was to remove the sword of the Covens from the conscience thereof. If the other Covens had been splintered by the mists, if the Sunsingers were forced to try to lead the witches in their absence, the organization was doomed to become no less self-serving than any other. Strength aiding only the strong, for ever and ever.

"Still, I think I must accept that their inaction indicates that whatever I feared has already come to pass," There was no point in worrying over what the world already was, after all. "otherwise, I can hardly imagine they would have simply permit you to walk around claiming souls unchallenged."

[Lyra]

Her eyes followed the weapon as it floated to Imogen's side, disinterest showing though inside Lyra disliked the thing. The fire which wrapped the instrument burned unpleasantly against her skin, and her eyes hurt to look at it. Distaste was too lacking a word to describe what the outsider felt toward the combination of fire and weapon, but she did not pull away from the casual display of power.

Thoughts turned back to a time earlier in the season, when she spoke with the Iron Queen about the state of the region and the cities within it. She had said something interesting then... The Ghost Wall was crumbling. Could it be this was related to the resurgence of the undead across Zaichaer? It seemed to much a coincidence to be completely unrelated, but Lyra did not mention it to this one. What would a single person, obsessed with bones she may be, do with the information that others of greater knowledge and experience had not already tried?

"These Grymalka seem quite high and mighty to claim sovereignty over the living as well as the dead." Her words dripped with disdain, and her smile turned to a sneer, "I suspect I am not the sort they would concern themselves with."

The mood was soured somewhat with the direct confrontation, though slight, but Lyra still gave some thought to the Ork's words. The nature of oaths, and their purpose once the reason for the existence was gone. Was an oath meant to be upheld when the purpose, its very heart, was gone? What did it mean to go back on one's word when there was no longer a point in keeping it? Should a promise between parties long dead matter to the living? Lyra suspected these were questions that many mortals wondered, but this was not a problem for the longer lived spirits and divine. This was why oaths held so much power in the upper rings of divinity, for the oath could never be disregarded as the parties would likely never cease to be.

"This is indeed an age of children." Lyrielle said at last, "It seems you all have forgotten what lies at the heart of oaths."

When she looked back to Imogen her expression was somewhat changed, a bit harder with an air of disappointment behind her next words, "A land is not just dirt, and an oath is not finished until its intent is upheld. Do you defend these crumbling buildings and broken streets?" She asked, motioning at the city around them, "Or are the people who reside here simply the residence of this land you protect?"

Shaking her head Lyrielle floated up and crossed her legs, "Why even are you here if your purpose is shaken by the loss of a single city?"

[Imogen]

Well, that was a truly bizarre response. What had set the necromancer off like that? It seemed like she thought a lecture about the value of people was in order, though Imogen could not fathom why. The entire point was to avoid assigning values to people, really. That's where it started.

"To be entirely frank, these ruminations sound as though you are speaking to your own frustrations rather than mine, stranger." Imogen responded, "But I'll swallow the blame for that, for subjecting you to such scattered thoughts. Pray you, be burdened by those no further. The Sunsingers, are not the protectors of the land, or of the people of the land, or any other such thing."

Captain Oriana might have argued the point, but Imogen wasn't speaking of ideals. The purpose and past functioning of the Coven were not some sort of secret police to keep the peace in Zaichaer, and the dangers of functioning in such a way were exactly the reason the Marshal had never quite accepted his daughter's arguments to the contrary.

Lyra's aspersions about the "age" seemed to bother the witch not at all, but she smiled slightly at the strange figure's slight to the Grymalka, a reaction quite at odds with the apparent reverence with which she spoke of the Eldest Coven.

"Well, whether the Grymalka were fit to decide what could live within Zaichaer isn't my issue to settle. I suppose you'll have to debate the liches on that, if they yet live. Or, ah, un-live. Convalesce?" The Ork waved a hand as if to indicate that linguistics, too, were beyond her purview in this conversation. "But my only qualification to pass such judgments is this large sword, so I'll recuse myself from the bench and stick to my orders."

"Now, those orders are to investigate the cause of the undead in the streets, and that doesn't seem to be on you. There's standing orders to obliterate any mist-twisted who are beyond the sun's power to help, but given that you talk of the present with the same disappointment as my grandmarm I don't imagine you were born of the mists in the past few months." With this last joke, Imogen's toothy smile was entirely restored, as though the whole discussion had been a scene in a comedy. "Thus ends my professional inquiry into your situation. Now, if you happen to have any suggestions for how I might conclude this assignment, I'd be grateful to hear them."

[Lyra]

This one had spirit if nothing else, Lyra mused to herself. Perhaps a bit mouthy, but then many of this age were to some extent. Lyra considered the ork for a time, idly tapping her cheek in thought before she shrugged.

"The undead are drawn to places dense in miasma, or where tragedy has recently occurred. The answer you seek may simply be that such wide spread calamity has created the optimal spawning ground for their ilk." She motioned with a hand at the ruined city, "After all, undead were made natural to this world once the rift was opened ages ago."

Back when she was still just a scholar, the undead were unheard of in Ransera. It was not until the Rift Wars, and the subsequent wars that came after, that they began to appear across the living realms. Lyrielle had found them interesting, but not as much as the living so she had spent little time understanding them. What she did know was a combination of what she had seen, others had told her, and what information could be inferred from her own mastery of Necromancy. Liches were also a subject that Lyra cared little about, for it was not a path she had ever aspired to, not that she could have walked that path even if she wished.

"Do you suspect some other cause?" Lyra asked, looking back at Imogen, "Are there signs of another's hands in all of this?"

[Imogen]

"Well, there's historical precedent." Imogen ventured, "The Menders were prolific here, once, and little followings still pop up now and again. Something about the culture makes it... fit the mood? The vengeful ghosts of the kings of the line of Aileor, the huntsman and the seventh bolt, the curse of last baronet, style of thing. You know what I mean."

She didn't stop to check if the necromancer did, in fact, follow any of her references to popular Zaichaeri plays. Frankly, she didn't want to know. She wasn't sure she could remain professionally undismayed if it turned out that the wraithlike woman hovering in a cloud of inky shadows had never even seen any of the classic ghost operas. There were disappointments too great to be borne. "And not all the attacks been random." The loose-lipped ork looked like she might venture something further on the topic, but decided against it with a shrug.

In all honesty, the Menders had mostly been a matter for the Kindred. The Sunsingers' prime concerns had been with the state and the Order- but she'd bored the woman enough with that sort of talk already, and plainly the Kindred were not presently in a position to deal with the issue. She'd count it a lucky break if the whole of the Grove hadn't been twisted into ravening mutant vines or some other heinous horseshit.

"There's an element of wishful thinking," she allowed, "To restore the aetheric balances would be long and arduous, maybe spanning generations. Much easier if it happens to just be a few witches playing at Gotterdammerung. Take care of that in a day or two."

Well, unfortunately, laying it out like this had sort of made the next move obvious. If questioning the dead in the streets wasn't going to get her anywhere, the only dead who could provide real answers lay in the Necropolis itself. The witch would have vastly preferred to waste time checking the open hole to the Warrens first, but that simply wasn't liable to get her anywhere. She... simply wasn't a very good detective.

"...suppose I'll just have to go down and check after all. I imagine you don't require an escort to anywhere?"

[Lyra]

The Cult of Mending. Even Lyrielle, in her short time since her release, had heard of them. They were formed sometime after her imprisonment, yet their impact was great enough that it reached the current age. They, and the Dawnmartyr, were a curiosity. Somehow ageless in their influence which continued to shift the tides of history long after they should have been nothing but dust. That they were necromancers was news to her, but seemed fitting for their reputation. That this one considered their hand in the events in Zaichaer showed how much they still resided in the minds of citizens across Ransera.

There was a tone in Imogen's words that drew Lyrielle's attention, a note of uncertainty and hesitation from the orc who seemed content to charge through every other topic with single-minded focus.

"Then you do suspect that the undead presence is not simply due to the catastrophe that befell the city." Lyrielle said, floating closer as she leaned forward slightly, "Though you may wish it were otherwise."

A glance around the city was more than enough to reach such a conclusion, and Lyrielle, though having stated the opposite before, also suspected there was more amiss than simply corpses walking because of a build-up of miasma and ichor. Did this orc grow hesitant because she knew something more than she said, or was it that her opinion was not shared by others in her coven?

A thought crossed Lyrielle's mind, and she hummed consideringly until Imogen asked after her needs, missing completely the suggestion that the other woman might be exploring the crater at some point.

"I am well enough on my own... But perhaps I may be of assistance" she said matter of factly, waving a hand at the body of the zombie from earlier, "Would it aid you to be able to do as I did with that one? To converse with a soul still trapped in its mortal vessel?"

[Imogen]

The Ork seemed unbothered by Lyra's increased proximity; either a sign of supreme confidence in her own magic's protection or an embarrassing failure to process the necromancer's smoky magic as a threat.

(It was the second one)

Either way, her answer made her easy confidence plain enough. "It could have been otherwise, of course. The blast at the Presidium broke open the way to the Warrens and the dead therein." Imogen grimaced, "Given my luck, the Marshal will order me to reseal the tunnels next anyway. But... yes, I do suppose it was directed."

Ideally, some mist-tainted lich or monomaniacal necromancer was the cause of the whole problem. If it was just one powerful mage casting a working over the city she could feasibly hope to destroy the entire spell at the source. If it turned out to be a dedicated group raising corpses one at a time, then each of the shells would still have to be burned in turn, but at least they would be prevented from making any more. Well, noe confuo'uv eh'uvn vonaieh di'uvan, she supposed. No call to dwell on it now.

Speaking of false hopes, however, the necromancer's next question caught her quite off guard.

"To speak with the spirits? Well, yes, I suppose it would be quite helpful- but I don't think it especially likely. I'm afraid I haven't much of a knack for manipulating the flesh and spirits of others."

An understatement, if anything. Ansel had tried in vain to acquaint Imogen with any of the traditional philosophic arts, and she'd shown no aptitude. Even basic scrivening seemed to elude her, her circles and diagrams starting logically and then transitioning slowly into nonsense. Given the dangers of discovery associated with inept necromantic workings, he had wisely chosen not to make the attempt at all.

("Some people are born artists." he'd said, "And others more comfortably patrons.")

"Or have you some artefact for it?" Imogen remembered the prices Avamande had quoted her, back before the incident with the door. "I doubt I could afford such a thing."

[Lyra]

It seemed that thoughts of sealing the crater into the Warrens were not uncommon among the Covens. At first Lyra felt annoyance, but the emotion quickly faded to consideration as she thought that if such were to happen it would be in her favor. She gained nothing from having the entrance to her small demesne accessible by any who wished to venture there. In fact the opposite might be more likely, as the threat of unwanted visitors entering her center of power was distasteful. Lyra filed the information away for later consideration, and perhaps she would even offer her aid in the effort if it came to that.

Seeing the apparent interest in the Orc's eyes at her proposition, Lyra replied, "An artifact of sorts, or perhaps one might call it gift or boon." She waved her hands in the air, drawing symbols in the smoke she created, "Think of it like a wand or a stave, limited uses but it would allow you to do just as I did. To draw out the souls that linger in their corpses, or that wander hidden from mortal eyes, and give them form enough to answer your questions."

With a broad smile Lyra extended her hand, "The price would be a simple favor, a trifle really. Should I come to you one day and ask for shelter, for myself or another, I would ask that you and your clan provide it if even for a single night. In exchange, I will give you a brand which will allow your to speak with the souls of the dead as efficiently as any master necromancer can."

[Imogen]

The Ork eyed the wraithlike woman, her eyes suddenly quit of the dreamy, confused quality which had characterized her rambling. The discussion of terms and price was the soul of witchcraft, whatever coven one happened to claim. It was insufficient to object to terms after a concordat; one had to examine them carefully as they were offered, with a suspicious mind. Not for nothing did so many occult legends end with the witch hoist of their own petard, betrayed by the ironic wording of flippant deals.

Yet as Imogen examined this one, a bland and contented look settled over her face. She shrugged.

"The retainer's fair enough for that. I'll solemnize it however you like."

A Sunsinger's word was never broken, and only an idiot broke faith with a group of militarized fanatics who were all wielding magic-killing swords, so the actual nature of contracts tended to be of little interest to Imogen.

"But while my fellows will honor my commitments, I warn you that my word is only truly my bond. But... I'm pretty good at protecting things."

Smoke and dark aether rose against the soft red sky behind Imogen, as though the world itself wished to highlight in contrast the spectacular failure of 'protection' which was the entire city of Zaichaer. It didn't phase her in the least. The world was always trying to ruin her grand statements with metaphors, but it never had the balls to come out and say anything directly.