Empirical Gnollage: Installment 97 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment097.png]
Cyrus sipped his wine, then set his glass down as Al's hesitancy was overcome.
“I'm sure you know that there are many things in this world that don't properly belong here. Many of those things are dangerous to the natural inhabitants of our world. Like, demons, and those corrupted by their influence,” Cyrus said, gesturing to Gruntle, “the… playful fair folk who don't always have the comfort of mortals as a priority, the undead, workings of magic that are potent enough to threaten the stability of mortal reality, and things like that.”
“Like giant undead spiders that raise the bodies of anyone bitten to death as undead corpses?” Al asked pointedly.
“Very much like that sort of thing, yes,” Cyrus admitted with a grin. “Something like that wandering around loose and unsupervised could cause a lot of deaths, not to mention the expenses a growing zombie threat could impose through social disruption, I mean, nobody wants to go buy things at the shops if there are violent dead people in the way. Tell me, what do you think should be done about things like that?”
“Well, that's kind of what keeps adventurers in business, isn't it? Protecting people from things like unnatural threats is our job,” Al answered.
“Exactly!” Wikwocket agreed, “What good is it to have a band of intrepid adventurers lead by a magical sword hero if they don't keep demons from eating people?”
“I'm not a magical sword hero!” Al objected.
“Don't try to deny it,” Wikwocket insisted, “You do magic all the time, and you have a sword that's also magic. That undeniably makes you a magical sword hero, in at least two different ways!”
“Hero or not,” Cyrus said, trying to get the conversation back to the point, “elaborate a bit on your jobs. What should adventurers do about a supernatural threat?”
“Depending on what we're talking about, either destroy it or at least separate it from whatever makes it dangerous, right?”
Cyrus seemed to be waiting for a longer answer, so Al continued.
“Like, if it's some sort of magical artifact that threatens people, it might be safer to just take it and put it somewhere that people who would use it to do harm can't get to it, rather than trying to destroy it.”
Cyrus smiled and sat back, satisfied.
“You see? I told you he would approve,” He said to Wikwocket. “That is our cause, put simply.”
Cyrus sipped at his wine again, considering his next words. Finally satisfied with what he'd come up with, he continued.
“Supernatural dangers are like pestilence-carrying flies. They buzz into the reality that is our home uninvited through open doors and windows, or cracks in the walls, they lay their eggs on our bread, and multiply. Even without malicious intent, their presence spreads disease and threatens our health. We want to stop them, capture them, isolate them from anything that makes them dangerous, and either preserve them in a safe place where they can be properly studied and put to good uses, or destroy them if necessary. The spider-and-web motif that we identify one another with is a metaphor for this. Every supernatural fly caught by the web of our cause is one less maggot infestation in the larder of society!”
Cyrus saw the skeptical look Al had, and laughed.
“Apparently I'm a better merchant than a poet, but I had to try. All I'm saying is, there are unnatural and dangerous things that find their way to our world, are brought to our world, are created in our world. Someone should take those things from where they endanger people and put them where they won't, or sometimes perhaps put them where they might even be beneficial. The danger we tasked you with capturing for us is a good example. Even now it's being probed and tested to try to determine how it was created, and who or what might have done it. Whatever nefarious plans its creator had for it are now interrupted and we will hopefully learn something about what it was for, and how to deal with whatever other threats its creator and their other potential creations might represent. And, should we have a more benign use for it, we have it at our disposal.”
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Al narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Cyrus.
“Who is we,” he asked, “and what kind of benign use could a giant undead zombie-making spider have?”
“We would be participants in the cause generally. Those who I have met tend to be purpose-driven, and potentially being able to borrow something or some…well, the possibility of making personal use of what we collect for one's own benevolent purposes is a strong incentive for some. I see in your face that you are about to ask how we know if a participant can be trusted with the kinds of powers we collect.”
Al nodded.
“Everyone gets carefully examined before we even consider allowing them to participate. Further examination and testing of a potential participant takes place if they seem promising, giving them the bare minimum information about the cause until enough of us agree that they can be relied on. Each of us tries to keep an eye on the few participants that we each know personally, and requests for service tend to spread widely among us, so if someone among us was asking for something unreasonable many of us would know about it before any harm could be done.”
“Okay,” Al questioned, “so who did the examining and testing of Wikwocket?”
“I have no idea!” Cyrus answered cheerfully. “Sometimes the spider-marks find new owners. From what I've heard and seen, the tendency of the new owners to be suitable participants is too much to be coincidence. That suggests that someone is watching over things when that happens.”
Al frowned in thought. “Hmmm. And what about the rest of us?”
“I'm told we have verification of Bote Wissengräber's service to Indicina, and if the god of secrets and conspiracies has taken an interest in our cause we don't have much choice but to welcome their mortal representative and hope for the god's divine favor. At the least, we can have faith that our secrets are safe with Indicina's clerics. And as for yourself, you seem like exactly the sort of person who should be a participant in our cause. You seem to have a deep and scholarly interest in the sorts of things we collect, but also a sense of caution and responsibility. You want to keep the world safe, don't you?”
“Sure, but safe from what?” Al responded. “Bote says they believe you're sincere and I trust their judgement, but how do we know you're not being manipulated? From what you're telling us, the cause has a very dangerous collection of things that I'm sure malicious people would want to have access to. How do any of us know that this whole thing isn't some scheme to manipulate people into gathering power for someone that really shouldn't be anywhere near it?”
“Al…” Wikwocket growled.
“No, no, he has a point,” Cyrus said, coming to Al's defense. “I obviously don't have any reason to believe there's a malicious conspiracy at the heart of the cause, but no participant knows the whole cause. It's true that we could be, let's say, unwitting members of the cult of a demon who are being tricked into gathering the power to subjugate and rule the mortal world, ushering in a terrible age of death and torment until everyone's souls are devoured.”
“Oh!” Wikwocket said, perking up, “or the machinations of a clever and devious lord of the Unseelie Court, gleefully entertained by the thoughts of the self-destruction they're tricking the ugly, filthy mortals into inflicting on themselves with their efforts!”
“Or perhaps an ambitious diversion arranged by dragons, walking among humanish peoples in magical disguise, manipulating the cause in ways that will drastically alter the political and economic structures of society for their amusement,” Bote contributed with a smirk.
“Bote, I'm being serious here…” Al objected.
“It's true,” Cyrus agreed, “none of us, myself included, can be sure that we are not the result of a plot by an ancient and powerful necromancer, seeking the power to finally overthrow death itself and usurp the gatekeeper and command every soul that has ever existed…or something like that. For the sake of discussion, let's assume the cause is the result of an evil scheme like the ones we've just come up with. If so…what should be done about it?”
“Oh! That's good! I like you!” Wikwocket said approvingly. “Obviously, someone would need to put a stop to it! Probably multiple someones! Like a group of brave, heroic adventurers, led by a magical sword hero!”
Al pressed his hands to his face and groaned at the feeling that he'd lost the debate.
So, we try to walk away, knowing that we might be leaving some horrible conspiracy free to end the world, or agree to participate and risk contributing to the problem, or possibly be in a position to discover the threat and at least try to do something about it. Or, maybe they really are benevolent, and we'd be helping and doing important things. They probably have a lot of access to research that why am I talking myself into this instead of out of it?, Al thought to himself.
“You okay, Al?” Wikwocket asked.
“Yeah, probably,” Al answered. He let go of his face and took a deep breath. Then, a possible rhetorical escape-route presented itself in his thoughts.
“Wait,” Al said, “you explained why you want to let Wikwocket, Bote, and myself into this. What about Gruntle? Who's examining and testing him?”
Cyrus laughed.
“Nobody is!” he answered, “Gruntle is not a participant, Gruntle is a subject to be collected!”