Empirical Gnollage: Installment 83 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment083.png]
"The last thing she said is that he would not be harmed," Bote translated as they rushed to check on the fallen gnoll. The convulsions were all slow, wide movements. Gruntle's head, arms, and legs stretched out, pulled back, and swung uncoordinated, but not violently. His eyes had rolled back in his head.
"Gruntle! Gruntle! Are you okay? Say something!" Al called out.
The limbs relaxed. Gruntle's eyes blinked, and looked around.
"Ego sum Cleodora," he growled. "Debeo emundare. Ego sum Cleodora."
He clumsily rolled over and got his hands underneath himself and pushed himself upright. He stood unsteadily, and took a step forward, immediately falling back to all-fours.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Quomodo haec bestia ambulat? Ego sum Cleodora. Debeo emundare." Gruntle grumbled.
"It seems Cleodora has undisembodied herself into our gnollish colleague's body, and is now confused how Gruntle walks," Bote explained with a hint of amusement. "I do not think she means to do him harm, though I hope she does not injure him with a clumsy fall while her spirit is in control."
"Is it just me, or does he... she... keep telling us her name over and over?" Al wondered.
"Yes, she has been. I don't know why."
"Uh... Ego sum Cleodora, ego sum Cleodora, ego sum Cleodora?" Al tried, emphasizing the question.
Gruntle shook his head, and stood again, swaying a little off-balance. He turned to look at Al.
"Repeto ut non obliviscar," he said.
"She repeats, so that she does not forget, she says."
Gruntle stumbled towards the pool and stopped at the edge. He crouched down again, and sat to put his legs in the water. Then he lowered himself in, the water coming up to just above his lower ribs. He breathed heavily for a few moments.
"Diu fuit quod exspiravi," he growled, then ducked beneath the water. He came up a moment later, straining to heft a large piece of stone out of the pool. He repeated this a few times, then began to come up with bones.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Debeo emundare. Me oportet omnia emundare," he said as he came up with a broken skull and a few neck bones to set next to the pool, before ducking under again.
"What is he... she... what are they doing?" Al asked, puzzled.
"I am not certain. She said that she was bound to her mortal remains, but she keeps insisting that she must clean this place. She is emphasizing now that she means the entire place. I would speculate that she intends to clean her remains from the pool, but what she intends to do with them afterwards, I cannot say."
"She will give him back to us, right?" Al asked, one eye twitching involuntarily. He realized he was still gripping Purgatio tightly, and he forced himself to put it back in its sheathe and let go.
"She'd better!" Wikwocket agreed vehemently.
"I would guess she has been forced to borrow the strength of his body to accomplish some task that her insubstantial spiritual manifestation is unable to do," Bote suggested, "I believe she will relinquish her hold on him when she is done."
While they discussed this, Gruntle's body ducked repeatedly under the water, coming back up each time with hands full of bones. It didn't take too long before a more or less complete set of bones from what was obviously Cleodora's skeletal remains was piled on the side of the pool. Gruntle stood panting in the water. The gnoll's eyes squeezed shut, and he gave a small snarl, pounding a fist on the floor next to the bones.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Ego sum Cleodora. Est nimium cupidine violentiam, est fames magna. An semper hos affectus habet? Ego sum Cleodora. Debeo emundare," the gnoll growled between breaths.
"It seems she can feel Gruntle's urges for violence and gluttony," Bote interpreted, "She wonders if this is how he feels all the time, which of course we know he does."
"If she doesn't like it she can let go of..." Al growled, then squeezed his own eyes shut and took a deep breath. "He's fine in there, right? Just temporarily not in charge of his own body. Why am I so angry?"
"I think it is natural to feel concern for the well-being of one's allies," Bote said.
"Yeah, that's what heroes do!" Wikwocket enthused. Al groaned and rolled his eyes, though glad to be distracted for a moment from the unexpected hint of rage.
Gruntle's own breathing slowed, and his fists hesitantly unclenched. His eyes opened again.
"Vos oro ne irascatur. Ego sum Cleodora. Fieri debet antequam hanc belluam ad te redeam. Debeo emundare," Gruntle's voice growled softly.
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"She pleads with us not to be angry, and says there is something she must do before she can return him to us," Bote translated, "so, it seems he should be unharmed in the end. Assuming of course that whatever she means to do isn't dangerous. I do not think that is the case."
"What does she intend to do?" Al asked.
"We will simply have to watch and see."
Gruntle dragged himself out of the pool and crouched next to the bones. He picked up the skull and clumsily stood, then staggered to the wall at the back of the room, and set the skull down on the floor. He walked unsteadily back and crouched again, to gather up a selection of more bones.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Nescio si hoc bene, sed tentandum est. Debeo emundare. Ego sum Cleodora," he growled, and stood again, stumbling and dripping water from soggy fur across the room towards the door. He stopped at the threshold as Al, Wikwocket, and Bote caught up.
Gruntle took one heavy step into the hallway. He looked slowly left, then right. With a shaky hand, Gruntle put a piece of toe-bone in the sconce of the torch next to the door.
"Is locus relinquere non potui," Gruntle's voice whined softly. "Debeo emundare. Totum in exitium est. Ego sum Cleodora."
"She says she could not leave before. She seems unhappy with the state of the facility."
Gruntle turned to face the carving of the fountain on the wall at the end of the hallway, and pointed.
"Aqua," he said.
"Did he... she... just say water? Gruntle? Is that you?" Al asked.
Instead of answering, Gruntle held his hand up and watched carefully as he flexed his fingers. Then, apparently satisfied that they worked properly, he reached out and traced several of the worn symbols on the carving of the fountain. There was a jolt of vibration through the floor, and the section of wall the carving was on swung inward with a grinding noise. The sound of flowing water came from a hidden room beyond.
Gruntle stepped into the dark room, and Al stepped up to lean in with his torch to look. Gruntle was setting a rib-bone on the floor next to the wall inside to the left. The room extended to the right where there was a large pool of water, with symbols carved into the floor around it, and a persistent waterspout rising from the center. Water ran through a channel in the floor from the pool and into an opening in the shared wall with the bathing room. As Al watched, four smaller spouts of water detached themselves from the center of the pool and spun to the nearest edge as if standing guard.
Al stared. In spite of his usual reservations about casual use of magic, he made a hasty gesture and incantation to sensitize his eyes to magical influence without the long ritual. The impossible concepts rushed through his mind, and the auras of magical effects manifesting in the world revealed themselves to him.
"Water," Al agreed. "It's like a tunnel out of reality and into the fundamental concept of water!"
Gruntle saw Al staring.
"Mundus tantum aqua. Aqua pura," his grumbling voice said as he pointed to the pool and waterspouts.
"She says it is a world entirely of the purest water," Bote helpfully interpreted.
"So that's what elemental existences look like. I've never actually seen one before. Those four waterspouts seem to be tied to the whole thing."
"Noli turbare aquam. Portam apertam tenent," Gruntle seemed to be explaining. "Ego sum Cleodora."
"She says not to disturb the waters. She says that they keep the portal open."
Al had to admit he was impressed. "They poked a hole out of reality and across the Dreamlands to a whole separate reality just to have clean water to bathe in?"
"Hey, Al, now that you've got the magic fire thing figured out, maybe this can be your next project!" Wikwocket suggested.
"I am not an elf, there is no way I can spend the decades it must have taken to make this," he objected. He continued to examine the strange portal with the continually flowing water until Gruntle pushed his way past him and back into the hall. Al pulled his gaze away and stepped back, so that Gruntle could trace his stubby-clawed finger over the symbols on the carving again, and the wall swung shut.
Gruntle walked his way back along the hall slowly looking over the crumbling murals with evident sadness.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Debeo emundare. Lavatio restituetur?" Gruntle's voice questioned softly. Bote nodded as the gnoll's eyes turned towards them. Gruntle gently touched the wall with his fingers. "Lavatio retituetur. Debeo emundare. Ego sum Cleodora."
Gruntle led them back to the landing at the bottom of the various steps leading backup, pausing to drop a fingerbone into an empty torch-sconce there before continuing straight ahead up the steps they'd not yet explored. A patella was set on the edge of one of the fountains at the top of the steps, which still had flowing water but was overgrown with scum. Gruntle led them further up the hallway, yanking open another warped wooden door, which finally took them back to the room they'd originally entered from. Gruntle reverently set a femur at the feet of the statue of Munditio, bowing his head in quiet prayer.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Debeo emundare," he finally said. He turned around to look at the archway, and the sunlight shining on the steps outside. He began to walk.
"Wait, wait, you can't just leave now, we're not done yet!" Al complained as he and the others followed.
Gruntle stepped through the archway, and up a few steps until sunlight fell on his head. He stopped, looking up and squinting at the light. He stood there, still, for a long moment.
"Hello?" Al finally called out. "Gruntle? Are you there?"
"Solem iterum me visurum non putavi," he nearly whispered. "Debeo emundare. Ego sum Cleodora." He began to step backwards down the steps again, holding one hand out as if to keep some part of himself in the sun for as long as possible.
"She seems overwhelmed to see the sun again for the first time since she was trapped down here," Bote interpreted.
A few more steps backwards, and Gruntle returned to the entry room again through the archway. He turned to face Al, Bote, and Wikwocket. Al found it disconcerting to see tears dripping from the gnoll's eyes.
"Satis est," he said. "Nunc tempus est me experior. Bestiam tuam do tibi. Gratias tibi ago et tuam bestiam. Ego sum Cleodora."
Gruntle's eyes closed, then flew open again as he waved his arms frantically and backed away, bark-laughing madly and dropping the rest of the bones he'd been carrying. Wikwocket rushed to try to calm him. Cleodora's ghost appeared, transparent but visible. She looked around the room, and smiled.
"Exspecta paulisper quaeso," she said, and turned to float away back down the hall they'd come in from.
"She wants us to wait for a moment," Bote explained.
They didn't wait long before Cleodora floated back into the room. She looked happy. She clasped her ghostly hands in front of herself and bowed to the adventurers.
"Ego sum Cleodora. Alligatus sum ossibus meis. Debeo emundare. Postremo a te gratiam peto. Pone ossa mea in omni camera."
"She asks one last favor of us. She repeats that she is bound to her bones, and asks that we place her bones in every room of the Lavatio." Bote chuckled. "In death, she is still obsessed with her duty as caretaker of this place, and wants to be able to clean everywhere. I assume you do not object to this?"
"I... suppose not," Al conceded as he moved to join Wikwocket in making sure his gnoll was unharmed. Gruntle was still breathing heavily.
"Not me. Trapped. Not me," the gnoll panted. Al tried to think of something that might help him feel better.
"It's okay, it's over now," he said, which didn't seem to help. "We still have some things to brutally kill in here but we can wait until you're feeling better."
That definitely seemed to help, and Gruntle's breathing slowed back down to normal.
"Moneo te," the ghost of Cleodora spoke up. "Aliquid contra naturam manet. Pollutor mortuorum hic erat et sensi. Ego sum Cleodora. Obsecro vos ut caveatis. Debeo emundare."
"She wants to warn us that the...one who was dead who was a defiler, I think," Bote guessed, "has left something unnatural here. She asks that we be careful."
"I'll bet that's the secret undead thing that we're supposed to find and try to subdue without destroying. At least that confirms it's really here. Is that all she knows about it?" Al asked.
"If she knows more, she has not said," Bote answered.
Al looked to see Cleodora's ghost, once more in a kneeling posture on the floor, brushing dead leaves and twigs patiently along with her hands and appearing quite contented. "Ego sum Cleodora. Debeo emundare," she hummed peacefully to herself as she swept.
"Wonderful, that's ever so helpful."