1 Soul Bound
1.1 Finding her Feet
1.1.7 An Extreme Response
1.1.7.16 Bardo thodol
Alderney was standing by a fresh grave outside the city in the Necropolis, next to Vessel-Kafana and Ruffiana.
Alderney: “I’m here. Thanks Ruffiana. How are we going to do this?”
Ruffiana: “Your party has been a big help in disrupting Bel’s schemes. How could I not?”
Vessel-Kafana: “The plan is for me to put the three of us in harmony, play a learning buff, and then use the mind-reading gem to enter Ruffiana’s mind and passively observe as she summons a spirit and talks with it. Concentrate hard on only picking up her current thoughts, don’t dive into her past, that would be a discourteous breach of the hospitality she is offering us. Depending on how that goes, we’ll play it by ear.”
Alderney: “The objective is for Spirit-Kafana to be able to draw upon your mana and use it to cast a spell that lets her initiate contact with Kullervo or, hopefully, Kullervo’s Vessel.”
Spirit-Kafana: “Alderney, please mention that it would also be useful if I could learn possession or other skills that strong spirits use to fight back against Necromancers. Ask if she has any past memories of difficult fights that I could experience, and her thoughts upon them.”
Alderney passed the message on.
Vessel-Kafana added: “Would it be possible for us to heal her spirit body? I saw how cruelly it was damaged last time?”
Alderney: “If we’re making a wish list, are there any necromantic skills that would help directly manipulate The Bone Sword and its collar? You’re welcome to look at any memories from my past and search my crafting experiences. I’m an open book. Err, I assume Cov will prevent you learning anything that you ought not to learn about the Spirit world, Ruffiana. That’s beyond my pay-grade. If they wanted me to stop that, they’d have made me mind-reading proof.”
Ruffiana: “You young folks are so hasty. Even Bulgaria is impatient about waiting a mere five hours to observe something. Necromancy normally takes years to learn, and you hope to pick up skills beyond journeyman level in less than an hour. Well, let us get started, and we shall see what we shall see. Kafana, cast your buffs.”
A few minutes later she felt herself slipping into Ruffiana’s mind. It felt dry like an old teak chest full of treasured clothes long put away. Ruffiana’s vision changed, in a way that she remembered from sharing senses with Bulgaria as she spoke to a spirit. Ruffiana drew in her mind a 7x7 grid and placed into it sigils ranging from the holy runes, through icons for candles and other objects, to elaborate designs that reminded her of Haitian veve. The way she placed them a non-consecutive order, darting around the grid, looked like a cross between playing a board game and solving a magic square, but whether the end result was a win or a balanced equation she couldn’t tell. Only one space was left, at the very center
A wave of a mental hand conducting, and bells chimed, pieces on the board started to change places, to the accompaniment of a complicated multi-part drum beat. Something was being exchanged or gathered, but it was more complex than just mana. It seemed to be mixed with something else. Promises? Reputation? Resonance with something beyond? She couldn’t tell and Ruffiana, so used to the process, no longer had to think about it.
A spirit formed before them and Ruffiana set part of herself in resonance with some essence of the spirit, then concentrated on using that link to bring the spirit into focus. The spirit didn’t resist by altering the movement of the essence. Spirits you repeatedly talked to and gained reputation with would even actively try to enhance the resonance from their end, making the attunement process much easier and quicker. Ruffiana spoke to it, thanked it, and then dismissed it by breaking the link, taking the part of her she’d attuned back into herself and stilling it.
They left Ruffiana’s mind, and were back standing around the side of the grave.
Ruffiana looked a little tired, but not greatly. She straightened up.
Ruffiana: “Good, you were courteous visitors. Let us see if you learned anything. Ask your questions.”
Alderney laughed: “I learned that I’m never going to become a necromancer. What was that 7x7 grid thing? It looked very complex.”
Ruffiana: “The grid is a symbolic representation of reality, and how aspects of it, you might name them powers, relate to each other. It is 7x7 merely by convention because that is how I was taught. Doing it all in the mind is quicker, but necromancers start the learning process by using physical representations for as many parts of it as possible.”
Vessel-Kafana: “I could feel something when you were forming a resonance with the spirit. What was it inside you that you were using? It felt aligned with Rac.”
Ruffiana: “Awareness of your own mortality. Immortals do not have it. It is one of the few drawbacks of reaching level 110. Part of the reason why I am a strong necromancer is because I am so old I have few years left to live and I’m intensely aware of how much I yet want to get done. Some theorise that’s why we get some ghosts that are more than just dead spirits - they are the spirits that die intensely wanting to still do something, and they get a brief peak of power during their death, enough to turn themselves undead.”
Alderney looked interested: “Why did you leave a space in the centre of the grid, rather than something representing yourself?”
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Ruffiana: “That way lies the maledic path of those who would usurp the Powers rather than work with them. That’s how strong necromancers can turn themselves into liches.”
Vessel-Kafana: “Can you tell me a little more about the spirit’s body?”
Ruffiana: “It doesn’t have a body. The illusion of one is just the mind’s self-image, what it thinks it ought to look like when disembodied. Kafana’s looks damaged because she is under the illusion that she took damage. She feels pain because she thinks the actions taken ought to have caused her pain. It all comes down to will power, who can dominate, persuade the other of their view of reality. She fears the collar so the collar becomes fearsome. It burdens her, so it feels heavy upon her. If she had believed she was helpless and unable to escape his torture, then it would have been so.”
Alderney: “Does that mean the 24 hours to live thing is just a mind game? Only real because Kafana believes it to be real?”
Ruffiana: “No, that alas is true. It is a property of a physical item, a curse. The duration is variable, depending on how much the spirit has resisted. 100% resistance the entire duration would grant the full 24 hours.”
Vessel-Kafana, having been offered hope, now looked on the brink of tears.
Spirit-Kafana: “Alderney, go give Vessel a hug, then ask Ruffiana from me about how a spirit can resist the resonance or resist being brought into focus. Ask if we can share her memory of her hardest battle.”
Alderney went over and whispered in Vessel-Kafana’s ear before giving her a hug, then passed on Spirit-Kafana’s request.
Ruffiana: “I’m not sure. Praying to Rac might work. Visualising reality fading out rather than becoming clearer might work. Turning it into a contest of wills might work. It isn’t a side of things I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve never asked a powerful spirit about it, nor do I have time to do so now. You might also try asking someone like Flavio who has suffered having his mind possessed.”
Ruffiana: “I can let you back into my mind to experience my memories of the struggle for dominance I had with a vengeful ghost when I was much younger. It did not go well for me, and it is not something I wish to relive. If I do this for you, you will owe me a significant favour, do you agree?”
Alderney laughed. “You’re a true politician. I remember what Kafana said about your ethics only applying to dealings with the dead. How about I offer you a memory in return, the full details of how Kafana crafted the cure for Basso. I will promise, with Vessel-Kafana wearing her diadem, that it will more than offset any unpleasantness from reliving your own memory.”
Ruffiana mock sighed: “Well, a gal’s gotta try. Ok, agreed!”
The exchange happened, with Vessel-Kafana casting a protection against fear upon Ruffiana. Ruffiana’s memory was indeed unpleasant. She’d gone in proud and cocky, hoping to banish the ghost of a lover who’d been poisoned and was tormenting a village. The ghost had been stronger willed than her, and she’d ended up in the mental form of a pig, being chased and tormented by the ghost who grew sharp fingernails as long as swords and used them to rake the pig’s sides. She’d only escaped with the aid of her own mentor, a muscular visitor from the Iberian Palatinate, wearing a top hat and a waistcoat decorated with bones. Kafana learned a lot.
Then they dived into Alderney’s perspective of the forging of the Heart of Light. She’d been through it before, if from a different perspective, but Vessel-Kafana had only dreamed it and now she appeared to be learning a lot. As for Ruffiana, the experience was overwhelming. It took a while before she could talk.
Ruffiana: “Is that what it means to be Questing Spirits? You are not deities, not yet, but for a while you were more than mortal. You are Powers, I so name you. And I swear from henceforth that I will treat you with the same respect I grant all Powers. I am abashed, and crave your pardon.”
[Title “Power” acquired.]
*ding* [Your party’s reputation with Ruffiana has increased by 250.]
*ding* [Your party’s reputation with Necromancers has increased by 250.]
*ding* [Your party’s reputation with other Powers has increased by 50.]
Spirit-Kafana felt the rush of reward at second-hand through Alderney. Mmmm. If she survived all this, the very first thing she needed to do was to ask System to space out the rewards. Why waste them by going beyond her safety cap? In fact…
Spirit-Kafana: {Alderney, can you pass a request onto the in-game System for me? I ask, in the eventuality I get respawned, that System give me the information about raises as it needs to, but space out the linked feeling rewards over several hours.}
Alderney: {Sure, I don’t know if it will act upon an indirect request or even accept that request if you made it in person, but I’ll pass it on.}
The three of them spent a while longer chatting, sitting down on the grass in the sun by the grave. It was peaceful. Spirit-Kafana asked about what Ruffiana thought happened to the consciousness of spirits who she moved on rather than respawning, and whether there was an appropriate prayer to Rac or something sung at funerals, asking that Rac take good care of the departed.
Ruffiana: “Mourning more often takes place at a wake rather than at the burial. The corpse is just flesh to be disposed of respectfully, nothing of the person remains linked to it. The music at wakes varies from region to region, but drums, repetitive chants and dances with clapping are common, as are zithers and wind instruments such as flutes and shofars. There are no formal prayers for the dead. Once the spirit goes on, it dissolves back into the minds of the deities, purpose finished, not to be judged, no rewards or punishments, a worn out tool laid to rest and the parts re-used. The songs are for the living, to celebrate the departed, keep their memory bright and console the grieving. They remind us too that we are part of something larger, and we all have a purpose; one we can’t fail at, that we achieve just by having been, which only Rac truly knows.”
“Some think that, before their spirits are laid to rest, Rac reveals all secrets to them. Others believe that some tools are so useful, their design is recorded and they may forged anew to be sent down by the deities in future times when that design fits their purposes well. Legendary archetypes who appear again and again through history.”
Vessel-Kafana: “So if Spirit-Kafana doesn’t respawn, I could pray that she gets to visit Rac, walk his Realm and learn his secrets?”
Ruffiana: “Trying never hurts. And who knows how things will work with Questing Spirits? Perhaps the deities themselves have yet to decide. I’ll loan you a book that might help you craft a prayer to catch Rac’s attention. Remember, secrets are just one aspect of Rac. He is also the deity of stories.”
Time crept on, the sun sinking towards the horizon. Ruffiana promised to join Vessel-Kafana at the Sanctum, after she’d caught a few hours of sleep herself. They thanked her and took their leave, as darkness fell.