Empirical Gnollage: Installment 86 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment086.png]

Despite being carved from stone, the granite furniture was polished into reasonably comfortable shapes to sit on. Al set his torch in a sconce conveniently located between the two doors, then selected a chair and sat down with his notes to meditate. Gruntle yawned and curled up in a corner to nap while Al worked to smooth back the distortions along the mental paths traveled by the unnatural magical concepts involved in spellcasting. He was only slightly distracted by Wikwocket getting bored and removing her pack, boots, and much of her clothing to leap down into the bath below the gallery.

The splash of her dropping into the pool of water was followed by a complaint of "Yikes! Hot!", a splash as she got out, and the sound of her feet across the floor to jump into a cooler bath.

Bote settled into another of the chairs and closed their eyes. Their prayers were too quiet for Al to make out even if he had been trying to listen in, but the subtle speech still gave Al the impression that Bote was gossiping.

The only other distraction was the sputtering out of Al's torch again. He paused to dig through his pack for another one. This time he got one out before the first completely went out and he was able to get the new one lit without resorting to magic tricks. He replaced the burned-out torch in the sconce and went back to finish his meditations.

Wikwocket eventually returned, leaving the baths to walk the halls and stairways back through the privies where they'd arrived. She squelched her still-damp self into another of the chairs, sighing contentedly.

"Well, I'm relaxed and clean and ready to go wrestle with whatever fiery abomination is in the next room, how about you?"

"I think I'm about ready to plan for what we're about to do, before we rush in and wrestle anything," Al corrected, closing his book of wizardry notes and putting it away in his pack.

"With the guidance of our mighty sword hero, we can't lose!" Wikwocket asserted with only a little teasing sarcasm. "What do you want us to do?"

Al rolled his eyes and shook his head at the ceiling, but pressed on with the planning anyway.

"Let's think about what we know so far," Al said, "Whatever it is, I don't see how it wouldn't have noticed us being here considering how noisy the fight with the spiders outside the door was. Cyrus said it should be something undead, physical, and not humanish. I'm wondering if maybe it's something that's dormant or trapped. If that's the case, if we could keep it that way it'd be very convenient for delivering it subdued and intact like they wanted."

"It could also be that it is simply very patient, or is under orders from its master or creator not to move until something happens, such as someone entering the room," Bote suggested. "We have heard no movement from inside, but the dead have few needs, and have no reason to be impatient."

"In the stories, righteous people can subdue the undead with the power of their faith alone," Wikwocket suggested to Bote, thinking through some of the adventurous tales she'd heard of, "Couldn't you do some sort of cower before the will of the gods! thing to make them surrender?"

"That is not precisely how it works," Bote explained, "but it is true that the state of undeath is usually anathema to the natural order of things according to the ineffable plans. A sufficient show of strength may force the undead to fully confront awareness of the terrible crime against nature that their existence typically represents. This is an unpleasant experience for them, and they may react in a manner that seems pained or fearful. The effect is not permanent and would not provide any control of their actions. Still, my faith will provide us with some protection if the need arises."

"Wait," Al interrupted. "Usually anathema? When would it not be?"

"I do not know yet," Bote admitted, "but consider that it is also not natural to resume actually living after being killed, yet sometimes the gods allow this. I feel it might be blasphemous if I were to declare that the gods would never have a use for undeath."

"Yeah, well, let's just hope that's not an issue here, I'd rather not be attracting more attention from gods than we need to," Al said. He saw Bote looking amused. "What?"

"Your statement seems absurd to me in several different ways, which I think would be difficult for me to explain. It is a philosophical matter, nothing that is of concern to our immediate problems."

"So," Wikwocket said, "what you're saying is that you not only talk funny sometimes, you actually think funny, too!"

"No, that is not what I am saying. However, it is not an unreasonable inference."

"It is, however, off-topic," Al interrupted, "Not that I'm in a hurry to go running into danger or anything, but if we can safely get done clearing the place out well enough, we can actually get back before dark and go sleep in real beds instead of camping in here with a ghost."

A slight whine of complaint came from the gnoll, still lounging on the floor but awake and listening to the conversation.

"Exactly," Al agreed. "So, what else can we do to get more information about what we're facing? I can probably see if there's any active magical influences at work before we open any doors. How about you, Bote, do you have some way to ineffably sense nasty evil things waiting for us or something?"

"In fact, the same Authority," Bote answered, "that permitted me to examine the souls of Gruntle and yourself for demonic influence may also reveal to me the presence of other unnatural things nearby."

"Well, at least that gets us some investigation before we try to open the doors. Wikwocket, would you and Gruntle mind checking again to see if you can see or hear anything going on in there?"

"Sure, but give me a minute. Hey, you've got that magic trick for cleaning things, do you have one that dries things?"

"You have no idea how many times I've wished that I did, but no."

Wikwocket sighed dramatically, as she began putting the rest of clothes back on over the still-damp undershorts and shirt. "You should fix that!"

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"Well, it's not something I can fix right now," Al grumbled.

Gruntle yawned and stretched, then stood and loped quietly to the door. He leaned forward to press his forehead against it to put both ears near, jerked away, then leaned in again.

"Hot," he growled. He listened while Wikwocket finished pulling on her stockings and boots and got down on the floor to try to look under the door again.

"Water. Hissing," Gruntle finally decided. "Don't hear anything else."

"I think there might be some puffs of smoke or steam coming from whatever that is in the middle of the room. I don't see anything else that looks like movement though," Wikwocket added from the floor.

"Shall I ask for divine insight into what may be beyond the door now?" Bote asked, standing from their chair.

"Wait, is that something you can do whenever you want, or is this another one of those ineffably limited things?" Al asked in return.

"The degree of involvement with the mortal world does limit my Authority to call upon this degree of insight, yes," Bote answered.

"In that case let's discuss something else first. How can we subdue an undead thing without destroying it?"

"Hit it 'til it stops moving," Gruntle suggested.

"I think perhaps that would be considered destroying," Bote countered, "it is my impression that in order to do as Cyrus requested, we will need to restrain whatever it is while leaving it intact enough that it could still move. He did request that the thing still be animate so that its workings might be studied."

"If we have enough rope, maybe we could tie it up," Wikwocket considered, "I don't know how we get it to hold still long enough to do that though."

Al was struck by a thought.

"Do you remember those demon-possessed suits of armor in Wulfcynn Keep? We managed to disable one by breaking its arms and legs loose, but it was still alive, or alive-like, anyway. If it's something with limbs maybe we can break them or cut them loose so it can't move around."

"What if it's another snake?" Wikwocket asked.

"Maybe we can break its ribs? I think the one in the tomb was moving around on the tips of its ribs."

"So, get rid of whatever it uses to move around, then maybe try to tie it up? I'll bet if it still tries to resist, Gruntle could wrestle whatever's left of it into submission!" Wikwocket suggested. Gruntle gave a grunt of agreement.

"I guess we have a plan of attack then. Hmm," Al said, looking at his torch in the holder on the wall. "I think it'd be better if I had a hand free instead of having to carry the torch to see. Give me a few minutes, I've got a solution for that. I should probably practice this more anyway before I try conjuring a semi-permanent demon."

"Ooo, sounds ominous! What are you going to do, sword-wizard?" Wikwocket asked.

"I'm going to conjure a spirit to carry the torch for a little while. It won't stay manifested for very long, but it should last longer than the torch will as long as nothing disrupts it," Al answered, flipping through his wizardry notes to the right pages.

"I've never seen a demon-slave before! What does it look like? Does it have horns, and fangs, and claws? Is it burning with hellfire and reeking of sulfur?" Wikwocket enthused.

"It doesn't look like anything, it's just a simple spirit! And it's not a demon-slave!"

"What do you mean, it doesn't look like anything?"

"Just watch and see! Now, let me concentrate, this will take a little while."

All took his mace-wand out and began slowly tracing out a circular pattern on the floor as he muttered a crooning chant. Wikwocket watched carefully for the fires of the hells to erupt from the ground and listened for diabolical laughter, but was disappointed when Al stopped after a while despite nothing dramatic or even obvious happening.

"There," he said quietly to himself, "Now that I think about it, it's probably best if you get a fresh torch from my pack."

"Who, me?" Wikwocket asked.

"Hmmm? No, no, not you."

Al's pack opened itself, then bulged slightly as if someone was reaching in for something. An unused torch floated up out of the pack. Wikwocket clapped with delight.

"Invisible demon-slave!" she cheered.

"I told you, it's not a demon-slave! It's not a demon at all, it's just a very simple spirit, with just enough of a manifestation in our world to be able to do some simple chores. I'll have it carry the torches for me."

"If it's not a demon, why does it smell like brimstone? Isn't that a demon thing?"

Al sniffed the air. There was a very faint sulfurous odor.

"That's never happened before. Anyway, brimstone's a natural mineral, it's not inherently demonic."

The torch floated slowly across the room towards the one burning on the wall. Wikwocket shook her head as she watched.

"Not a very fast demon, is it," she observed, watching the slow progress of the floating torch disapprovingly.

"No, it's not fast, and it's not a demon. It barely exists, and it doesn't even have a mind of its own, it just does small, simple chores when I want it to. It'll probably last about as long as that new torch does, and then it'll harmlessly cease to exist. When I do finally summon a demon, it should e a bit like that, not really independent of my own mind and obedient, and not powerful enough to be dangerous at all."

The new torch was lifted up by the invisible spirit to be lit by the one on the wall.

Gruntle cautiously approached and sniffed at the empty air where the torch floated. The torch waved towards Gruntle's face to ward him off, then floated slowly back to where Al stood flipping through the pages of his notes.

"Please avoid doing anything that might harm the spirit, it's actually pretty fragile," Al explained. "All right, if you'll give me just a little more time to prepare, I can be ready to see if there's any magical influence going on in there, and Bote can see if there's anything unnatural that we should know about."

"I will get ready while you perform the working of your magic," Bote agreed. By the time Al finished the repetitive chant and gesturing until he could see the subtle influences of magic on the world, Bote, Wikwocket, and Gruntle had all selected what equipment they wanted for the anticipated conflict and gathered around the door to the mysterious hot room. Al looked around the gallery, but saw no unexpected magical influences.

"Are we ready to begin now?" Bote asked. Al nodded, and Bote closed their eyes to recite a brief prayer for knowledge. Then, they opened their eyes.

"There is...something...inside, ahead and to the left of this door. I do not have a clear feel for what it is, but it is certainly unnatural," they announced.

"I think it's just a wall on that side, from what I could see when I looked under the door," Wikwocket said, "Maybe we should check from the other door in the privies?"

"It might be a good idea, we might want to go in through that door instead so we're further from whatever Bote is feeling. That might give us some time if we need to react quickly. Let me take a look at the door, though."

Al strode over, followed slowly by the floating torch which caught back up to him as he tried to look through the door.

"I won't be able to tell anything in detail until we open a door so I can see in there, but I can definitely feel some magical influences. There's one in the direction that Bote is describing, and another somewhere inside and to the right," Al decided. "At least, I think that's what I'm feeling. Either way, yeah, I think we should go in through the privies instead."

Before leaving, Al pulled one of Cleodora's bones out of his pocket and set it on a chair. On the way back into the privies, he set another one next to one of the washbasins. Just in case, Al also took the coil of rope from his pack and looped it across his shoulder in case they needed it quickly.

"The only magic I have that we might use against whatever's in there is destructive, so I can't really use it unless we have to risk destroying it," he explained as he drew Purgatio. "Remember, try to go for the limbs, or whatever it has that's like limbs."

Bote nodded, and Gruntle and Wikwocket grunted. Everyone readied their weapons and Gruntle slid his shield down his arm and grasped it. Wikwocket reached for the latch on the door and looked to the rest of the group.

Seeing no hesitation, she lifted the latch and shoved the door open.