Summary:Spring and Lucent investigate further the source of the leak at the Sublime Refuge.
XP:S1, V1
Tags:< Breaking the Mask | Sol Invictus Logs | Looking for Something >
Spring glances around with interest as he eats the landscape,
Adrienne the ghost slouches by a door almost exactly the way Varanim the Last did, only with less booze breath.
Spring ::How are you feeling?::
Adrienne ::Incorporeal. How's your lunch?::
Spring ::Much the same, really.::
The Sublime Refuge of Unquiet Thought stands in the background, the cold mountain winds whipping about its tall exterior as the two await the inevitable reaction to Varanim's supposed "demise."
Varanim ::This reminds me that when I actually kick off, there'll be a copy of me in the Jewel. Remind me sometime to tell you my hilarious plan for that one.::
Spring ::Hm. Does Lytek know?::
Varanim ::About what, your hobby of eating lichen with the rocks still attached?::
Spring ::Your intention to come back from the dead in your own inimitable style. It seems like the kind of thing he would want to be aware of.::
Varanim ::Why would I give him more ulcers by telling him my plans? Next you'll be saying I should clear my vile necromancy with Lucent.::
Spring ::A fair point.::
At that moment, Spring begins to pay attention in earnest, having been psychoessentially warned to do so.
Spring ::Ten seconds.::
Spring ::How do I get you back alive?::
Varanim ::I can do that part myself, just don't break my body in the meantime.:: She endeavors to look spooky.
Spring ::It would be easier to ensure its safety if you would let me eat it.::
Varanim ::Were you mistaking me for the Varanim who hasn't seen what else you keep in there?::
Exactly ten seconds pass before Spring's irrepressible senses detect the source of his paradoxically-impeded surprise: a tiny malproportioned and glowing naked child with innocent white wings darts out at immense speed from the uppermost window of the Refuge and soars off into the distance.
Spring ::Hm.::
Spring ::Follow that pixie?::
Spring does something that the Maiden of Secrets would probably call an exploit.
Spring **elide
Spring turns Varanim's cold body over and lifts her hand carefully in hers. He turns the forefinger to point in the direction of the spirit's travel, then traces his thumb down her surprisingly complex death line.
It appears to suggest that Spring's best nearby bet for locating the end destination of the departed messenger is, in fact, in the tiny rooftop chamber from whence it departed.
Spring ::I suppose our best course is to get into the room it left from.::
Spring ::Do you want to stay dead for this?::
Varanim ::Oh, definitely. This is my first vacation in decades.::
Spring heads back into the manse, trying not to knock Varanim's head on any stairs on the way in.
Upon entering, Elish Eran temporarily halts his frantic circular movements to stand awkwardly in Spring's way. "You were commanded to leave this place after your horrible behavior!" he says, in a voice that nonetheless sounds piteously humorous.
Spring "Hold this."
Varanim ::I think he's upset because he's not sure where to file me.::
Spring hands Elish Varanim's leg.
Spring "Perhaps if you pray hard enough she will come back to life."
Spring looks for the stairs.
Elish grasps the leg and then stands in place, mutely uncertain of how to proceed, and able to sputter only an uncertain "But..." even as Spring bounds up the stairs towards the attic.
The stairs are rather tall and it's a rather long climb up to the highest chamber in the Refuge, but finally, after great exertion, Spring arrives.
The room itself is rather small -- a round cupolaed chamber, perhaps 10 feet across, intended for reading and contemplation; soft pillows and relaxing objects like potted plants line the floor, while large slatted-doored cupboards cover every wall and sunlight streams in from crystalline skylights.
Varanim With the advantage that she no longer gets out of breath, and without a single comforting rattle of chains for the butler, Varanim follows Spring up.
Spring looks around, following his Charm-guided intuition.
Spring's intuition leads him to one cabinet in particular, around the opposite side of the room from the staircase.
Spring opens it.
Inside the cabinet, along with a variety of towels, aromatic oils, small incense burners, and other supplemental objects, is a man, heavily balding, in rather plain clothes, a grey cord clutched in one white-knuckled hand and a look of abject terror on his face.
Spring "Hello. Can I speak with you?"
The man attempts, in vain, to scramble backwards on his feet and hands through the solid wood backing of the cabinet.
Varanim Fascinated, Varanim slouches insubstantially against another cabinet to look on.
Spring "Please?"
After a moment to realize the futility of his current escape plan, the man attempts to make a break for it past Spring, towards the stairs.
Spring closes the cabinet before he starts moving, then opens it in order to minimize the man's impact with the inside of the door.
Spring "Sorry about that."
He falls down on the floor, and, realizing how few options he has remaining, elects to stay there.
Spring politely sits on him, then offers him an apple.
Spring "My name is Long-Awaited Spring. What is yours?"
"Jo...Jotel," he manages to stammer out.
Spring "And what are you doing here, Jotel?'
"W...wishing you would stop sitting on me?" he manages to squeak out.
Spring "Before that."
Spring ::Maybe you could haunt him.::
"S...sitting in a closet?"
Varanim considers for a moment, then experimentally rattles a cabinet door.
Jotel looks around. "What was that?"
Varanim thinks carefully back to her worst recent hangover, and utters a groan from the depths of that memory.
Spring "That is probably the ghost of my friend. If you ask the butler, he will tell you that I killed her earlier for no reason."
Spring "Perhaps it would be better for you to be honest with me."
alsoquin 's eyes grow wide, though Spring is only able to observe this indirectly, through hearing the faint sound of his lids sliding up the surface of his eyeballs. This seems to motivate him slightly more than any of the earlier events. "I... I was waiting to send a message," he says.
Spring "What message, why were you waiting, what were you waiting for, did you succeed in sending the message, to whom did you send the message, where did you wait while you were waiting, by what means did you send the message, and where can we find the person to whom you sent the message?"
Varanim ::(a pause that suggests Varanim opening her brain to add a question, then closing it)::
Jotel "Errrr..." he says.
Jotel He seems to think for a long, long time. "T...to say that... something had happened to the owner of the manse," he says, "u...using this cord" -- he holds up the cord demonstrably -- "t...to 'the L...Lady of Lost Greylake'..."
Varanim After a moment of thought, Varanim directs a query at the Jewel of the Immortal mind: is the Lady of Lost Greylake a name notably connected with either the manse or the local area?
Jotel No, is the answer that she receives; the Lady of Lost Greylake is a figure in a popular elegiac poem from several thousand years ago.
Varanim ::You've been tattled on to some tragic legendary bint that Lucent probably thinks is all deep and meaningful.::
Spring "That sufficiently answers five of my questions. Please proceed."
Jotel mentally reviews the other questions carefully and with thought. "...here, because I didn't have any reason to send a message yet until now, and n...no idea," he says.
Spring "Why did you take on the task of waiting until something happened to the owner of the manse in the first place?"
Spring ::Bint? Really?::
Jotel "....I had a dream," he says, flatly.
Spring "It must have been quite convincing."
Varanim ::I paraphrased a little.::
Spring "How long have you been waiting?"
Jotel "It... was," he says. "A... f...few weeks?"
Spring "Hm."
Spring ::That is interesting.::
Spring "Where do you live when you are not hiding inside the forbidden manse of a terrifying necromancer because of a dream you had?"
Varanim ::Terrifying, really?::
Jotel "D...down there," he says, gesturing out of the window. "In the t...town nearest, over the m...mountains."
Spring ::Have you seen your hair in the morning?::
Spring "Hm."
Spring ::Should I eat him?::
Varanim ::No. Is there anyone friendly who does dream conspiracies? I remember that being bad, last time.::
Spring ::I have some friends in the Agate. Shall we go talk to them?::
Varanim ::Sure, that makes much more sense than going to Lost Greylake.::
Spring ::Congratulations. You found the exact line between sarcasm and reasonable discourse.::
Spring ::I assumed Lost Greylake was lost.::
Spring "I will not eat you."
Varanim ::To be honest, sometimes even I'm not sure when I'm being sarcastic.::
Spring "Do not leave your hometown. I may need to speak with you again."
Spring mentally riffles through all the books he's ever seen or heard of.
Jotel Upon examination of a great deal of historical literary records, Spring is able to produce a brief summary of the work -- a story in which a woman, having once lost her love and her greatest worldly treasure alike to a violent attack, disappeared, seemingly to die -- only to return as a force of vengeance, distant to the world, for one brief moment many years later --
Jotel as well as a great deal of relatively useless literary criticism and extensive knowledge of the work's august position in the canon of great elegiac works.
Spring relays this to Varanim.
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