Empirical Gnollage: Installment 91 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment091.png]
"That was...weird," Al said, still staring at the restored stone wall.
"Not weird," Wikwocket corrected him, "mysterious! Did you see those people? They looked like they've rehearsed what they do, they must be collecting strange things from all over! But why?"
"Exactly, why," Al pointed out, having noticed Wikwocket's enthusiasm, "I'm kind of worrying that maybe we gave something dangerous to someone whose motives we don't know anything about."
"We can always get revenge on them later if they're up to no good, that would make a good story too!"
"We do not know their true motivations," Bote considered, "but I do not feel as though any of those that we have met so far are knowingly engaged in malevolent or destructive pursuits. If something nefarious is happening here, those involved may not know. Of course, this could simply be a benign project that requires secrecy for safety."
"Well, we just gave them a giant undying bug that makes zombies," Al said, "Hopefully mysterious madam not-a-witch was serious about wantng it for research and nothing harmful."
Wikwocket traced the edges of the meticulously-smoothed stones of the wall, looking for a way to open it again. Not finding anything, she tapped on the wall with the pommel of her dagger.
"Hello?" she yelled at the wall. "Hey! Open back up!"
"They won't be able to hear you," Al assured her.
"They might hear me tapping, it didn't look like the wall was very thick, the other room was right on the other side!"
"No it wasn't, it just looked that way. The room they dragged the spider into might be all the way on the other side of the world for all we know. There was some magic at work there, poking a hole through reality to connect their room to the wall of this one."
"How can you say something like that and still be reluctant to use magic? If I could poke a hole through reality and just stroll over to the other side of the world I'd do it all the time!"
"See, that's the problem, you'd end up going completely crazy...crazier... from what it would do to your mind. That kind of magic is completely unnatural for mortal minds. Working bigger magic distorts you, it makes you like a small god!"
"If you're trying to convince me that this is a bad thing, you're failing. Who wouldn't want to be like a god?"
Al sputtered in amazement, wondering how she was missing the point. Bote was nodding along in agreement with him, at least. Al realized that without a proper education in magical theory, perhaps being "like a god" would seem desirable. He tried to think of a way to explain.
"Think of it this way. Let's see... do you like Gruntle?" he finally said.
"What kind of question is that? Of course I do! How many people get to be clanmates with a gnoll and go have exciting adventures with him? He's great at smashing bad things!" Wikwocket mimed clubbing something to death with a remarkably accurate if somewhat high-pitched imitation of Gruntle's bark-laughter. "He's fun to do heroic violence with!"
Al spared a glance for Gruntle, who had finished eating the stick of dried meat. He was crouched down and appeared to be listening to the conversation. He seemed to be pleased at what he was hearing.
"How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and Gruntle was just a worthless lump of mud to you?"
"What? I'd be angry, and I'd be pestering you to come up with whatever magic you need to work to change him back!"
"I don't mean he'd literally be a lump of mud, just that from that moment on, that's all he seemed to be to you. Like, you look at him and you still know he's a gnoll, but he seems worthless and unimportant, and nothing you should even bother to acknowledge any more."
"Well," Wikwocket said with a mischievous grin, "in the hypothetical situation you're describing I expect it wouldn't bother me at all!"
"Exactly!" Al said, pouncing on the rhetorical point, "but how would you feel right now if you knew that was going to be how you felt in the morning?"
The grin faded from Wikwocket's face as she considered the question, trying but failing to come up with an answer she liked.
"I wouldn't like that at all," she finally admitted.
"The existence of a god is mostly outside of the mortal world we live in. Right?" Al said, directing the question to Bote.
"That is a sufficiently correct statement," Bote answered. Al continued.
"Right. So, basically, working magic is a little like sticking your head up into a world that gods are native to that's too much for mortals like us to understand. The more time you spend looking at that, the more it messes with your mind. I keep trying to tell people, there's a good reason that mad wizards get mentioned in stories so often."
"So," Wikwocket said, the grin returning, "what you're saying is that gods are nuts!"
"By our standards as mortals, gods are completely, incomprehensibly insane, yes," Al agreed, and looked up at the ceiling. "No offence meant," he said to it with a bit of a smirk as he returned his attention to the conversation. The smirk vanished and was replaced by concern.
"And now I'm talking to the ceiling. See? I'm barely touching the simplest layers of magical concepts and I'm already going insane."
Wikwocket and Bote both laughed at him. Bote reached up to give Al a friendly pat on the back.
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"Do not be concerned," the dwarf assured him, "you are not yet as insane as you worry you may be at this time."
"Thanks, I feel so much better now."
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With the philosophy settled for the moment, the adventurers carefully checked over the rest of the room for other potential hidden dangers. The wardrobe contained a selection of togas and sandals. Under the bed, they found nothing but dust. The buckets were dry and contained only some residue of whatever had been in them so long ago when they were last used. Wikwocket even gave the walls a close look to see if there were any hidden openings, but with no success. In the end, they gathered around the corpses that had attacked them so recently.
"They didn't take the actually-dead bodies," Al said with a little annoyance. "I guess it's up to us to figure out what to do with them. No, we're not going to eat them."
Gruntle grunted acceptance. "Smells bad. Probably tastes bad."
Al didn't think they smelled as bad as he'd expect. They certainly didn't smell good, but the dry and shriveled state of the bodies seemed to have minimized the rot. Maybe the magic that maintained their animating spirit also preserved the flesh? Al wondered to himself. He mentally filed the question away with other academic questions that he wasn't prepared to research at the moment.
"We might take them outside and burn them, Bote suggested, "It is too late for an appropriate burial to do any good for the souls that once inhabited them, but we might also do that for the peace of mind for the living if you would rather."
"Maybe if we leave them here, Cleodora's ghost will...Oh! I almost forgot!" Al said. He rummaged in his pockets for another bone. He only had one small bone left, so after he set it on the cot, he set his pack down to pocket a few more from the ones he'd gathered up for the purpose. Seeing the torch that was floating in the grasp of his invisible spirit-servant beginning to sputter, he also pulled one of his few remaining torches from the pack. He lit it from the dying torch's flame in time to avoid being stuck in the dark.
"I think we've gone through the whole place now. Would you agree? My torch-carrying spirit there will be fading away any moment, so I'm not going to conjure another one to carry this torch unless we're going to do something dangerous again." Al said as he put his pack back on.
"The construction habits of the elves is decadent and odd, so I cannot definitively say that we haven't missed anything," Bote answered, "but I have not noticed anywhere that might suggest another hidden space behind the walls."
"We found the baths and the water source and the bar and the bathrooms and the old storage room and the changing rooms and...hmmm, nope, I can't think of anything else we should expect to find," Wikwocket considered. "Besides, we've defeated the evil lurking here and resolved the problem of the ghost haunting the place. I'd say the story is nicely wrapped up!"
"Yeah, but this isn't a story. If it was a story, we'd have a pile of treasure at least," Al complained. "Also, I probably wouldn't have to sit down and deal with mundane labor like finishing my sketch of this place while I worry that I'm going to run out of torches and have to grope my way out of here in the dark if I take too long."
Bote fetched a broom and dustpan from the collection of dusty cleaning tools against the wall before they left the room. "Cleodora will likely appreciate having access to her equipment instead of trying to do all of the cleaning with her insubstantial hands," they explained.
They left the room and Al shut the door behind them. He looked for a long moment over the complex pattern of sigils on the door. In the last moments of the fading spell that let him see the magic, he could tell that whatever the formation had been doing was now broken, and it was only a pattern of symbols. He considered asking the others to wait while he tried to sketch out the whole shape, but he guessed it would probably take several hours to do properly. Maybe we can come back with the work crew to make sure they stay safe, and I can copy it then, he thought to himself.
Al set one of Cleodora's vertebrae on the bench in a corner of the caldarium as they passed, heading back through the privies where Al's invisible spirit-servant dropped the burned-out torch to the floor as it faded out of existence. Al went and picked it up, not wanting to intentionally add to the clutter of the place.
The group took a break to let Al sit at one of the tables in the bar to finish sketching out the map of what they'd found, which gave Wikwocket a chance to go back and make sure the privies were still functioning as intended. Having more-or-less *returned* the taste of the ancient elven booze to the *Lavatio*, she came back to the bar to collect the jug the goblins had brought with them. Al had just finished sketching the outlines of the remaining rooms and was beginning to add annotations when Wikwocket got bored and decided to open the jug to see what was in it. She pushed the jug out as far as she could reach and cautiously wiggled the wooden stopper loose - then immediately shoved it back in and doubled over with dry-heaves.
"Are you harmed?" Bote asked urgently, running over to assist. Wikwocket waved them off as the horrible smell spread to the rest of the room. The stench reeked of decaying fish, sewage, and rotten eggs, and even the momentary exposure of the jug's contents made the room seem unbearable to stay in.
"In the interest of accuracy," Bote said, backing slowly away but watching to make sure Wikwocket would recover, "I would not say that this smell is unholy, but it should be."
Wikwocket valiantly fought to retain possession of her lunch.
"I'll be...HRRRRRR...I'll be okay...HURK...in a minute..."
Al hastily cleaned his writing supplies and stuffed everything back in his pack, then rushed to the steps looking rather pale.
"Thank you for volunteering to carry that please don't open it again and warn us if you're dying I'll meet you downstairs," Al blurted out quickly as he fled, waiting until he has halfway down the steps before he risked taking another breath.
"Smells very bad," Gruntle agreed. He hesitated at the top of the steps, looking from Bote and Wikwocket and then down the steps. With seeming reluctance, he headed down the steps as well.
Bote remained behind until the smell had dissipated enough for Wikwocket to feel a bit better. Determining that no lasting harm had been done, the two of them made their way down the steps to join a worried-looking Al and a bored-looking Gruntle. Al relaxed to see Wikwocket was unhurt, and they made their way back towards the entrance of the Lavatio.
"I don't think we've been down here too long, if we get going we can probably make it back to Hell's Bathtub before nightfall," Al urged.
On the way out, Bote stopped to offer the broom and dustpan to the crawling ghost of Cleodora, still patiently trying to brush the dust and dirt away with her spectral hands.
"Hoc est iuniperorum!" the ghost exclaimed with obvious joy. Transparent hands took the broom and dustpan from Bote and hugged them tightly against the ghostly body. "Ego sum Cleodora. Ego sum cum iuniperorum. Mundi meliore mei!"
The sounds of intense sweeping began behind them as the four adventurers went back out into the early evening light outside.