NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7846686" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 242, Part FiveIratha KetThe world of Iratha Ket had been eaten away by the depredations of Obliatas, leaving only a crescent city and its river. For fear of infection, they warded themselves and descended on stone discs, leaving the Coaltongue behind. Flying low over the rooftops, they used ‘macrocasters’ tp declare themselves friends and tell the citizens of the city that they had heard of their plight from Catahoulie the wizard, and were here to offer their aid.As they landed, excitable sketetal crowds gathered and began to celebrate in song. With seemingly perfect coordination, disparate groups of townsfolk threw miles of red carpet down to create a guide-path, then cajoled the unit through the city as they sang of the history of the plague, showed off the headstone-filled graveyard, introduced the two current waking lovers Pookie and Bunk, and pause before the palace to look up at the black curtains drawn across the window of the king’s chambers, before finally surging up the stairs to where Queen Atchafalaya awaited them.“Remember to keep your distance,” Leon advised. (This was not a disease he wanted to catch.) “No ceremonial kisses.”“Why not?” asked Quratulain. “We’re all dead anyway.”As the song ended the queen — her bony wrists jangling with red cat bracelets, her white skull dotted with black paint to give her a dubious smirk, her dress slinky and provocative, even though she had no flesh anymore — invited them to dine with her and the still-living couple. She wasn’t hungry, of course, but there was plenty of food — beans, corn tortillas, peppers, and cheese mostly — for guests. Plus enough tequila to last until the world was ground to dust.They were polite in their refusal.  (Except Rumdoom, who growled that this was a truly terrible ending.  “A few quick whacks with the Stone of Not…” he suggested, but this was ignored.)Queen Atchafalaya asked them why they had come.  Although he did not want to make their help seem contingent on anything, Korrigan explained that they were travelling the Gyre seeking worlds to bond with their own. At once, the Queen was concerned that if they used her world’s energy, then the plague might spread to their world.The queen lamented that her husband is sick, not in his flesh because he had none, but in his soul. It seemed the lot of her people that they would fail to heal those they loved. Moreover, without King Calcasieu’s aid, the angry star Obliatas was slowly destroying their people, since not everyone could get indoors fast enough. The fishermen, especially, were having trouble since there was no cover on the water. To this, Bunk mentioned that he wasn’t really a big fan of fish anyway. This drew everyone’s attention to the fact that he hadn’t actually eaten anything on his plate. Neither had Pookie.Uriel got a sense of the selflessness and determination of the people of Iratha Ket. “They’re not terrifying monsters,” said Uriel. They even had a bit of fun with their bodies — popping off limbs for gags and such. (The court jester, Kisatchie, had popularized his catch-phrase, “Wait, that’s not my femur!”) Yes, they were dead, but they maintained a belief that the needs of the living were the priority. If they had to end their existence permanently to save the remaining sleepers, they did do it gladly. So it was no surprise to him when he investigated the traits of the Iratha Ket and discovered that greater altruism would be a consequence of bonding with the plane.  That and spontaneous musical numbers (which drew a groan from Uru and Leon in particular).So the unit began their investigation into the disease.  Uru started poking around with the food to see if it was poisoned. The skeletal healers assured him that they had already considered that.  What they established early on was that the disease was caused by a parasite – but a parasite that remained undetected when they conducted… they hesitated over the word.  “Autopsy?” said Uru.  “I do them all the time.  Sometimes I even have a reason!”  Uru then went on to suggest that if they couldn’t find a physical parasite, perhaps they were dealing with a mental one.  “Something like the gidim?” he suggested to the others.  Leon quieted him and asked the healers to describe what methods they had tried.The healers went on to explain that they had tried herbal medicines, prayers, trials of faith, bleeding, burning, various poisons, moving the victim to nearby planes (which always led to the destruction of many bodyguards because the neighbourhood was very unfriendly), and even resurrection magic. The last option didn’t work at initially, but once they tried waiting a few months it was a temporary success. The subject thrived at first but got sick again within a month, even without other living people around to reinfect him. In any case, the city did not have enough spell components to resurrect all the people in stasis.What about the origin of the plague? The royal physician Opelousas (who kept a bottle of tequila inside his ribcage, which he insisted got him drunk despite his lack of metabolism) said the king took all the record books to his private quarters, and had been dwelling in the past ever since.Uriel asked if it would be possible to look at those texts.   The courtier told him that no one was allowed to enter the palace. Burly skeletal guards prevented them.  Uriel tried to persuade them of the urgency but they said it didn’t matter how they felt – the guards were under orders from the king himself, which no one – not even the Queen – could countermand.During this conversation, Uru had already left, stolen past the guards and found the king in his chambers. Calcesieu  heaved a forlorn sigh, just as Uru reached out to steal the historical records. Uru felt sorry for him and decided to speak with him instead. The king was barely perturbed by the sudden appearance of this strange individual, and went on to detail the contents of the historical texts: How shortly before the plague sprung up there were many reports of people having strange dreams, like they were being watched from the stars. Many more saw swooping colours in the sky one night. And what about all the singing? True, the king was a great musician, but people never spontaneously broke into musical numbers before the plague. Ever since it struck, though, people have felt somehow more connected to each other.“More single-minded?” Gupta said with heavy emphasis, when the information was relayed.This was all the evidence the unit needed to pursue Uru’s early intuition, beginning a careful probe of the minds of Pookie and Bunk. Korrigan sought to aim his thoughts to cause a thoughform to release its prey, but he could not see a target to aim at. Instead, he used telepathy to guide Pookie’s mind, and encourage her to rid herself of the parasite, if it was there.It worked!  The tiny incorporeal thing came free, though it would have gone unnoticed were it not for their combined efforts and abilities. They thought it solid and disabled it.  Xambria identified it as gidim weapon. But where were the Gidim, then?The question was lost as a sudden, uproarious celebration broke out. Pookie was able to eat!  While the unit worked on Bunk, another musical number swelled up all around them, fuelled by optimism at that new development. Despite the unit’s protestations that this was all rather premature, Queen Atchafalaya took up their revelation about ‘healthy thinking’ and swirled it into a sympathetic song about the depression that had gripped the king. When Bunk proved able to eat too (and gave up another thoughtform parasite) the queen quickly awakened dozens more of the loving couples, and had them accompany her (physically and lyrically) as she professed her love once more to Calcasieu.Thousands of citizens of Iratha Ket were jangling their bones in jubilance when ominous light aroses, and Obliatas begins to sear the undead.  The song paused (although a really devoted violinist kept playing a frantic trill). People looked to the skies, feeling crestfallen, denied their moment of celebration. Then the black curtain on the king’s chamber was pulled aside, and the king lept into the sunlight, spinning as he landed and raising a defiant voice. The people cheered, and the king swept past the newcomers, asking them to join him as he sang. “This news demands a celebration, and the best parties go deep into the night, so the sun should come back tomorrow!” As if scolded, Obliatas retreated, and a massive carnival atmosphere gripped the plane.While the carnival raged on around them, Uriel led the unit’s attempt to confirm the efficacy of their cure. They were able to establish that the gidim were truly gone, and may have been gone for a very long time – that the parasite they had inflicted on these people was all that was left. Perhaps it had been too deadly, leaving them with insufficient minds to feast on? Whatever the answer, the plane was now safe.Over the din, Korrigan idly asked the king, “What will you do about the threat of Obliatas?”The question had the effect of causing a sudden end to the music and the dancing, as the entire world responded with dismay in unison with Calcasieu. He hadn’t thought of that!Queen Atchafalaya urged them, “Please consider bonding with our world, now that it is clean. That would rescue us from this terrible fate.”Korrigan said he thought that ‘greater altruism’ might be a useful trait for their world.  Combined with Etheax and Caeloon, it might create a benign idyll. Uru shuddered and dubbed the proposal ‘Planet Soy’.  Neither he nor Leon was prepared to suffer the corollary – a tendency to launch into spontaneous musical numbers. Despite their misgivings (delivered telepathically, so as not to alarm their hosts), Uriel forged an icon.</blockquote>

Verification