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Priscilla Plague-Ravaged Township - <Great Painting of Ariamis> (Year AF-1346)
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    The smell of rot is strong here. A pungent cocktail of decaying plants, decaying flesh, blood, bile, acrid medical tinctures, and the ashen stench of burning corpses. Once a tiny village, this place has steadily grown into a respectably sized town over many, many years, and then been all but wiped out in only a handful. Lengthy, winding streets of cobblestones lie silent but for the squawk of crows, surrounded by rows of lanterns that are dark and bare, for nobody comes here anymore, and the oil would be better used elsewhere. Boards have been put up on doors and windows, but healthy distrust has done nothing to stop the pathogen from afflicting the physical health of those within. There are bodies to be found at regular intervals, rotting away inside the houses they had bolted shut, some simply out of consideration that they then couldn't leave and infect anyone else, but others simply strewn in the street where they fell. Puddles of melted snow run into trickling creeks, tainted with bodily acids and fluids either expelled in life or having oozed out in death, and the air is thick with pyre smoke. Only handfuls of men in the beaked masks of plague doctors step here, carrying wheelbarrows stacked high with the dead and censors wafting consecrated incense fumes; the only way to tell apart workers from clerics under the identical black robes. The light of a great fire can be seen on the horizon, many streets away, but it would be hard to call the sight before one's eyes the ravages of a simple plague; the crows do not stray near the corpses, never mind feast upon them, and among those who have died from wasting sickness, dehydration, or exsanguination, there are others with . . . stranger, deformities . . .

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Contents
Boarded Homes
Street Corpses
Plague Cleaners
Malformed Remains
Cleansing Pyre
Frozen Trio
-Satellite Signal-

    As if the process were growing more refined, or perhaps the fabric of space and time within were beginning to untangle and more closely resemble that without, entries are dropped in without incident, clustered only a few dozen meters from one another. As before, they are dropped into the snow, though it seems somewhat thinner now, despite the dark and frigid night, only broken up by the glow of a raging fire, somewhere in the distance. Smoggy clouds paint a low ceiling over the mountains, filtering out the light of the moon and stars, and leaving the air thickly overcast, contrasted only by the ruddy orange glow painting it from underneath. Being just barely outside of the township isn't quite enough to keep people fully away from the miserable grotesquery before their eyes, though. A trio of huddled, frigid corpses has been frozen upright and almost buried beneath a shared blanket; no doubt some of the earliest infected, kicked out of the town, and having frozen to death outside when the disease didn't ever get better. The snow around them, at least, is only mildly stained with mottled red and black, but the same can't be said much of anywhere else.

    Perhaps Priscilla knew what time awaited them already. She was nowhere present outside, and thus no time was allowed to gather around, listen to exposition, and psyche themselves up. Everyone is dumped right into the unfolding mess without context, though it hardly seems any is needed.

    A radio signal remains fairly strong, though not high in the sky where those who launched it might like. It seems to have crashed down somewhere in the nearby peaks, though the transmitter is clearly undamaged.
Starbound Flotilla "Biohazard. Suit now."
"Floran hatesss biohazard sssuit."
"You're well invited not to wear one."
"Don't risk yer health, matey. Medicine's expensive."
"How's the signal? We catching anything?"
"Thoughtful. It seems to have crashed on a mountain peak. I'll try to draw out any data it acquired before the crash, so as to understand the current situation."

    Moonfin looks... Strange, somber, almost sad about what's gone on here. Pathogens may be a natural part of the ecosystem, but they are one that is most prone to sudden, unbalanced disruptions. And he can't shake the feeling that this one is one that has thrown the artistic beauty of this world far, far out of balance. What happened to this wonderful, cozy village he'd seen before...? With a tap to their Matter Manipulators, all six captains suit up in full hazard gear, donning airtight, gasmasked, protective armor setups meant to prevent any accidental infections.

    Seft lets the others approach first. For now, she consults with the satellite signal, trying to puzzle out its storage. The Flotilla will probably investigate the frozen trio after, but for now, they're intent on seeing if there's any data about what happened in the intervening years. Has there been a surge in strange ecological contexts? Did something invade, marked by probable bursts of energy from the temporospatial differential? Maybe they can even pull satellite footage of something that happened? They just need to find any hotspots to investigate.
Eryl Fairfax     Priscilla's obvious absence has Eryl concerned. Is she already within the painting, or is she only sending them in on their own today? Is she starting to recollect these age-old events? Is there something within the Painting she would rather not face? Or does she merely trust them enough to know they will handle things without ghostly supervision?

    He ponders all this as he slides into the canvas, landing in the thing snow without any drama. The sight of the frozen, ghastly corpses takes him by surprise for a moment as he looks around. The state of the snow around them, coupled with the bright glow of the bonfire, and with the scent of incense in the cold air... Original Face leaps to a fast conclusion.

    "I believe the Painted World has been struck with illness," he announces. "If you have the capacity to become sick, take great care. Cover up as best you can, and filter your breathing if at all possible." He makes a beeline straight for the village, and finds the corpses lying in the streets, oozing and deformed.

    Due to his augmented body, mere viruses or whatever this may be would have trouble infecting him. Coupled with his mechanical limbs, he begins examining these bodies without a care in the world, trying to figure out symptoms of this illness. He notices that some of them seem to have mutated. Those ones are of greater interest. He checks them all, noting what these deformities are, and if there are any commonalities.
Kushiko What's that old saying, one more, unto the breach?

Except this time it's a bit more... easier? Relatively speaking. In lieu of certain things maybe working, maybe not, the frame of Kushiko's choosing presently is the cutely dangerous, antimatter generating Nova Prime. She kind of stands out, not least to her purple-black armor colorings, but the glowering ribbon of energy and funnels of light that radiate from her back and the back of her head.

Nonetheless, they were at the settlement previous, but... how many years had passed, for certainty? Close to two hundred, though the exact numerics is not yet known. All that's pretty plain to see is that they were in a place that time, that happenstance had not been kind to. The only saving grace in Kushiko's case was that she had no sense of smell to truly propagate through the frame's senses. She registered certainly that there was toxicity, plagueborne and vile, but beyond that it would not bother her the same way others might be.

<"Detecting a signal,"> she murmurs aloud, gesturing with a hand to bring up a projected indicator of it's general direction, before unslinging her shotgun. The faceless Warframe looks to the others that've arrived alongside her, thankfully not so scattered. Given her natural proclivities for infiltration and the like, she's going to head towards some of the boarded homes before looking into the satellite signal any.
Reiji Arisu There's a reason Pestilence is one of the traditional horsemen of the apocalypse. Few things can decimate civilization like disease. Only dying of hunger is worse than dying of sickness.

Reiji's footfalls break easily through the uncharacteristically thin dusting of snow. The air is thick with the sickly sweet scent of infected flesh. Even though he wasn't wearing it when he entered, the exorcist was quick to fit a plaguemask of his own to his face. Unlike the others, he is all too vulnerable to the pathogens infesting this place, but that begs the question...

How does disease spread to a place like this?

"Eryl," Reiji calls to his commanding officer. "I'm going to be heading into town. Maybe we can find out what the hell is causing all of this... Decay."
Tomoe Once more Tomoe has come here, she can only guess how things have changed and she knew not even this place would be safe from the curse if her memory served her right. Still she would see what happened Kushiko reports the signal has been picked up. It's time to travel to this place once more. She does not know what might happen. What was troubling was Priscilla was not here she came in for a landing and took the warning that Eryl has given here.

"Given what it is, I fear it may be the plague that ravaged the world outside into undeath."

She is indeed worried and she will do what she can she doesn't have NBC protection but she pulls something out of her mouth with some cloth pulled from her inventory to do the best she can she also makes notes to check in with a doctor off world the moment she gets out of here she'll also pause to look around she should see what happened with her Apple Tree Experiment if they have the time.
Captain Flint Dropped unceremoniously in the snow once again, John Silver finds himself mere inches away from falling face-first into the two huddled corpses. Suspending him in the air is the tight grip of Captain Flint upon the collar of his coat. The sailor-turned-pirate grimaces as he's yanked back upright. A few feet away, Doctor Howell rushes over to provide Silver with his crutch. It's accepted with a silent nod of thanks. Rounding out the ensemble are a small group of walrus crewmen not far behind.

     Howell notes the conditions with a frown. "Disease, Flint? Is there nothing you'll not expose us to, for want of money?" The crewmen behind him mutter their assent.

     Silver shoots Flint a /look./ Apparently, nobody told the crew this was a pro-bono mission.

     Rather than give a straight answer, Flint deflects the question. "I'm doing this for you," comes his vehement response. "For all of you. I delivered the Urca to you--if you can't trust me now, trust in that." Besides... if any of them take ill, it's not as if they won't have the money for Multiversal treatment. Assuming the plague is within the bounds of such things, of course....

     "That's not what Dufresne says," comes Howell's response.

     Flint turns the full weight of his gaze upon the doctor, stepping forward with one hand upon the butt of his pistol. Howell shrinks slightly, only for the staredown to be disrupted by, of all people, Silver.

     "Enough!"

     Silence falls upon the group of pirates, each one looking to his fellows to speak up. Again, Silver is first. "We don't have time for petty disagreements. Howell, get some masks made and pass them out. We're going into town."

     With a simmering discontent amongst them (reduced from boiling), the Walrus party heads into the village after being given masks by Howell--crudely fashioned things made from spare gauze and twine, scarcely better than the plague doctors' masks. Nobody looks thrilled to be doing this--but Flint, at least, takes initiative.

     Spotting a worker in the distance, he increases his pace to catch up with them. "Excuse me," he says, voice muffled by the makeshift mask. "Are there any souls still alive here? Where did this start?"
Carna     Carna and Enark, still sans Crow, are deposited within the Painting. While Enark is very discomfitted by the changes he sees, Carna finds this all relatively familiar. While she is cautious to the point of paranoia as ever, she seems much more self-aware and clear-thinking than in the past year or however long it has been since her death at the hands of a walking mirror with teeth. She carefully examines the surroundings, starting first with the frozen trio. She does not know if she can become ill. She has never experienced it personally, and has no real concept of it or its risks. So she limits her investigation of those immobilized in ice by poking and prodding with a random knife.

    Enark, meanwhile, remarks upon Eryl's conclusion, "But is this decay the result of illness, poison, or parasitism?" He bends down alongside Carna, withdrawing from within his robes his collection of vials and bottles and such, like the ones he brought to the den of that poisonous dragon when he came to Lordran before, attempting to use his knowledge of poisons and his magic to find a cure or protection of some kind. Maybe he can ascertain something similarly useful here.

    "It could be rotting as a result of conceptual wounds... An invasive organism of some kind... Like a Mimic." he mutters to himself.

    Carna turns her gaze on the Blue Scholar. She does not know as much as Enark, or most others here. She doesn't understand the complexities involved, and aside from what she recently learned regarding a second Painted World and the visitation there, she is relatively clueless about the significance of these paintings compared to any other given world. When one's concept of reality is so disjointed, discerning one layer from another is rarely worth the effort. But even she has noticed something about Enark's behavior of late.

    "This is the original." she says to him suddenly.

    Startled, Enark looks up from trying to take samples from the frozen bodies and the black and red around them as respectfully as he can. He sputters, "I-I'm sorry?"

    "You are trying to see something that is not there. That is my job. Pay attention to what is in front of you, Scholar. You are the sane one, remember?" Then she stands and marches off after the others towards the plague-ridden town, and all the signs that would indicate imminent ambush by shambling corpses back 'home'.

    Enark, unable to formulate a response before the Lantern is gone, just resumes his task, troubled and frowning.

    Carna meanwhile, stealths her way through the town, eyeing boarded doors and windows, and anything that looks like it could burst open spontaneously to spew forth hostiles. Any person she sees is observed silently, from the darkness, and not engaged. Instead, as a worker is called out to by Flint, she draws bow and arrow and takes aim from behind a building.
Priscilla     The apple tree Tomoe had planted two weeks ago is now a towering thing the likes of which are usually seen in ancient orchards. Clearly, it is not the season to be bearing fruit, though most of its leaves are still present, for one reason or another, but it's very easy to find again solely because of it not being a pine tree. Taking a core sample (even a pretty crude and impromptu one) finds a couple of /hundred/ rings. It seems like the time gaps are widening too. That said, it's probably not enough that the Darksign should have appeared yet, in this timeline.

    The chances of infection, though not to be taken casually, seem like they'd be pretty low, upon examination. All of the dead here seem to have been dead a fairly long time, and there seem to be no living people who aren't dressed in crisis attire to spread it normally. The freezing temperatures make it unlikely that whatever virus or bacteria or /something/ could be drifting around in the air or powdered on surfaces /and/ still viably alive, and the corpses have nothing really left on them to putrefy. As long as people (who don't have metal arms or hazard suits) don't go directly handling the bio-slurry that seems to have built up in the gutter channels and sluiced through the deep gaps in the cobblestones, they /probably/ should be fine. Probably.

    Eryl doing so doesn't get much of a pretty sight for his troubles. In his travels, he's likely seen plenty of unpleasant remains, so it isn't /too/ shocking, but some of the things he digs up are surprisingly nasty. Like some of the worst strains of influenza and bubonic plague, most of the corpses appear to have expelled a lethal degree of bodily fluids, in the usual three ways, as well as from blisters and boils that apparently filled with blood and other substances, and having even /sweat/ some of their blood out. Those look like they were the lucky ones, who were killed early. Later stages of the disease, afflicting the hardier or better cared for folks, appear to have turned those blisters into huge, tumour-like growths, vaguely reminiscent of the infamous 'elephant man', if he caught the black death. There are deformities to bones as well as organs too, soft and pliable, like crispy bread saturated to the limit with butter.

    Of note: many of the corpses bear extremely obvious corvian mutations, as well as other, less recognizable preexisting deformities. Refugees from outer settlements of freaks and cursed misfits, no doubt. The crow folk seem to have had it the worst; their guts practically spill out and drag behind.

    The sight isn't any prettier inside. Kushiko can peer into as many homes as she likes, but nobody is there to be bothered by the intrusion. Some homes are simply abandoned, with all the clothes, cookery, and firewood gone. Others seem to have involved the occupants locking themselves inside to wait things out, and then having starved, judging by the number of dead flies. Most involve bodies having half-melted into irrevocably stained bedsheets, having died while laying sick. A couple, more unnerving examples, involve partially broken blinds and badly smashed interiors, where it seems they went mad; too many examples to simply be cabin fever, as if something had affected their brains. One is even the sight of a bloody murder of several family members, and it doesn't look like a mercy killing.
Priscilla     Enark isn't about to have much luck comparing his samples gained from Sinh with the local problem. The toxins afflicting the second generation dragon were of absurdly supernatural potency, being a mutation of a virulence created by the First of the Dead himself. This seems considerably more mundane, though when he pulls what frozen blood and meat he can from the withered and desiccated frost mummies, he finds that there is most definitely a magical element to it, however diluted it is. It's obviously not some kind of curse or disease magic. Possibly some kind of . . . supernatural micro-organism or parasite? Maybe?

    Carna can be forgiven for drawing an arrow on the cleanup procession. All of them are fairly heavily armed, though few clatter with the sound of any sort of armour. Most of them bear very large and beefy arbalests with steel prods, and finely fashioned swords and long partizans, clearly of Andre's make, judging by the level of quality compared to the arms those from outside had long ago abandoned, and their relative newness. Something had urged the smith to create a great many weapons in these last few years.

    It's no surprise, then, when they train several of those crossbows on Flint and his crew, though most of them lower the weapons quickly enough. "You look like you have your wits about you." says the one pushing the wheelbarrow, voice heavily muffled by her(?) mask. "If you've come seeking asylum, you've done it at almost the worst possible time. A year ago and you'd be dead for sure. You look like the type to easily catch sick. Don't expect to find anyone else down here; everyone healthy is up in the castle, and they're not letting outsiders in until all these are good and burned. A quarantine, obviously." She points to the far peak, in the center of the world, now blazing with five times as many lights as before. "It's crowded enough already."

    The satellite is a bit of a story. Running diagnostics even just remotely, it seems that the vast majority of its systems are actually fine. Rather, it seems like some kind of tiny, persistent rounding discrepancy in its navigational software has steadily built up over two centuries and two decades, as its actual position in the quasi-simulated low orbit slowly ceased to match up with its speculated position, until it course corrected into the ground. The data storage seems fine, but its main beam transmitter is either pointed at the side of a mountain or buried in snow, because the bandwidth is incredibly poor, meaning they'll probably have to retrieve it by hand.
Staren     "Oh, hey there--" Staren starts to greet the frozen trio, then stops mid-sentence when he realizes they're dead. Well, that's a great start to tonight's investigation.

    Staren arrives in the same winter clothing as last time. It turns out that an environmentally-sealed suit would have been preferable, at least if he goes into town. The clothes already have antimicrobial treatments on them, and he has his medichines... Eh, better safe than sorry. Following the captains' example, he strips off his armor, sticks it in the matter manipulator, and puts on a skintight vacsuit. So much for blending in, but at this point, who cares? He's not heading into town right away anyway.

    Instead, he heads off after his own signal, the com-unit he left to the crows however long ago. If it's still running, it should be able to tell him /exactly/ how long ago. And since it's still running, perhaps the crows cared enough to leave a message...
Reiji Arisu The exorcist makes his way around Flint and his crew, rounding up toward the woman in the plaguemask. His own weapons are tied to his back and shoulders-- no reason to tempt fate. Or trigger fingers. "Pardon," he says, inclining his head slightly, "We've heard that quite a bit, I'm afraid. I am a traveller who passed by this way several years ago-- a healer of my own, in a way. To see this place in such... dire straits is difficult for me to grasp."

"What happened here," he asks, turning his eyes towards the rotting, fetid streets winding through the city, "To turn such a metropolis into a place of death? Why so many armed guards, if there is nothing left alive?"

"It feels almost as if this place has been at war," He frowns beneath his mask, though the glimmer of it is obvious in his eyes. "Besides the disease, that is. I've noticed that the crows aren't feeding on the carrion."

"Apologies for all the questions," he says after a short pause, "I am... disturbed by what I am seeing here."
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl makes A Face as the foul ichor from the bodies gets all over his hands. He wants to wipe them off immediately, but doing it on his clothes is a.) Disgusting and b.) Might expose his still-fleshy parts to infection. He does what he can by scrubbing them in clean snow instead as he turns over his findings in his head.

    Symptoms resemble a cross between influenza and Ebola, a horrible combination. The infectiousness of the former with the lethality of the latter would absolutely annihilate a small, tight-knit community like this. The bulbous tumors that sprung on those that held out are alien though, as if inducing birth defects years after the fact. Part of him wants to dissect one, to figure out if it is new flesh, or just powerful swelling, but out in the open is the worst place to do it.

    He continues through the town, heading for the bonfire. The masked figures are no-doubt maintaining it as a place to destroy the bodies. Such a congregation would give him the best chance to... network, so to speak.

    "Hello," he says to the first plague doctor who will give him the time of day. "I'm curious, who as put you up to this? Is it a community effort, or is someone in that castle on the hill giving out orders?" First order of business; is Priscilla still a factor here?
Captain Flint So, no one's allowed in the castle until the bodies have all been burned. Or otherwise disposed of. The captain turns to face his men. "We're not getting inside the castle until this is dealt with."

     "And how do you suppose we do that?" It's Howell, of course who's the voice of dissent here. His arms are folded across his chest, and though his mouth is hidden by the mask he's made, his eyes show all the scepticism necessary.

     But, Flint has a plan, as always. "Take Silver and some of the men as escort. If there's any safe way you can assist the..." The captain's brow furrows, as he searches for a sanitary word. "Disposal efforts, do so. The rest of us are going to go looking for whatever would require crossbows to put down."

     With that, Howell, Silver, and two crewmen head towards the giant bonfire in the distance. Meanwhile, Flint takes three crewmen and begins scouring the city for anything up and walking which shouldn't be--including those who're sick but still alive. Should anything meet that criteria, it will also be met with a hail of musket fire.
Starbound Flotilla "Disappointed. I cannot get a signal strong enough here for us to get all the data before we lose our temporal proxy."
"Then we get to a better signal. Mountain gear."
"Ugh, mountains. Let's hope Ariamis decided to go all out on the handholds."
"He is a great artist, and a great artist demands detail from their work."
"Floran demandsss 'place for put grapple hook', let'sss go."
"Aye. The hylotl-lookin' space ninja's got some help for us too."

    Kushiko is going to be a good one to team up with. Seft and Moonfin lead the way, but she'll be a huge help in crossing major gaps. The Flotilla themselves are no slouches when it comes to mobility though. While they may lack ninja grace, they posses an incredibly diverse array of gear and tools used for navigation and mobility, all of which they use extensively, ranging from icepicks, to grappling hooks, to jump jets, to simply drilling through terrain. They intend to move straight for those nearby peaks, hiking and climbing with their backup with a practiced and powerful swiftness that comes from years of exploration work.
Carna     Enark swallows a bit at what he determines with a mix of science and magic. He puts samples in vials, uses some sensor equipment to perform a quick analysis, and divination via water magic. He was starting to worry that maybe Carna was right, and he was seeing connections where there aren't any. The touch of the World Mimic, harvesting samples of the original to replicate itself within that other Painting... If this is the original, then all of his conjecture abotu the involvement of Lumiere and Tharmas is just him projecting.

    But then he sees that this may very well be exactly what he feared (and wished?) it to be, even despite his attempts to take a step back and view this objectively. But no. The Lantern spoke sense for once. He steels himself, taking a deep breath and then coughing on the smell of rot in the air. Right. Just stop breathing. It's not like he needs his lungs for anything but speech.

    It is a big Multiverse. Correlation does not imply causation. That's a fallacy. His job here is to determin the facts, not turn them to an expected result. He reports his findings thus far and reports them, then gets back to work, standing and moving towards the town to see if he can find any more samples to compare against.

    Carna does not strike first, though she draws back a bit further when she sees the crossbowmen take aim. When they lower their weapons, she very reluctantly lowers hers. Listening in on the conversation, she comes to a conclusion of her own. A practical one, that a Lantern brain would naturally come to. 'There is an obstacle to safety. So kill or bypass the obstacle.' That none of these people are Lanterns is beside the point. It makes perfect sense to eliminate the infected if they are what prevents them from going to the castle.

    The big-hat-wearing dead woman puts away her weapon before emerging from the shadows, so as not to provoke any hostility, though her fingers twitch at her sides if there is any hint of danger.

    "The conditions for reaching the castle are the lifting of the quarantine. What efforts, aside confinement, are being pursued to that end? We have among our group a scholar well-versed in healing magics." Her red eyes drift towards the fire, wondering if there is a way to spread it to this whole town.

    Radio discussion resolves, at least, that just killing everyone here is not presently an option that the group as a whole will agree upon.
Kushiko Well, this wasn't in any degree pleasent to discover. She expected some things: the evacuations, the deaths by starvation. The young child's face screwed up in displeasure as she began to see more troubling notions: madness, the remains of something worse that happened before that viral aspect of the plague took them on.

Nonetheless, she reported back on this information, and caught wind of the Flotilla member's request.

Well, seeing as she got everything she could here--documenting it for review--she headed her way towards the marker that the Flotilla had put up--a dizzying degree of speed owed to her naturally, augmented by a few quick wormholes; dimension gateways that hovered in the air with a thread of energy connecting them.

She's going to traverse the mountain by foot and by the occasional 'cheat' by making Worm Holes (those weird antimatter-derived tunnels, totally safe guys) to sometimes get to past more difficult climbing challenges for herself or for the Flotilla's own needs.

She also might be showing off a little, from time to time. She really shouldn't be able to cling to surfaces that she's clinging to in order to launch to others.
Tomoe Tomoe is going to keep away from the town for the moment, she has the tree to check upon after all. She will turn and head out to find the now massive apple tree, she lets out a low whistle her plan worked. The tree is there and now she'll pull a blade to try and take a core sample, she will move to /not/ kill the tree. That's not her intent and she'll look over the rings, she's not someone who has special skills but she learned enough in school to so a very basic core sample using her blade.

She pauses to look upon it and sees how long roughly it's been it's been centuries and the growing seasons are getting longer, so this plague has nothing to do with the Darksign from the looks of things here.

"Humm that's interesting."

She pats the tree on the trunk.

"Owe you own."

She notes before she moves to make her way back to the town, she will be careful with any of the bio-slurry she encounters. It would be very much unwise to go touching stuff, that a plague god would love to take a bath in.
Priscilla     The drone's remains are /considerably/ more difficult to find than the satellite. Through the dense forest and a significant distance towards the edge of the Painted World, closer to the probably exterminated Corvian Settlement, it takes some getting to. It seems the giant, weirdly intelligent crow isn't home this time either, but it's certainly been keeping up its job, apparently having viewed and understood the message from Staren, and taken to using the omnitool when random metal components ran out. Reviewing footage, its visits have been far less frequent, and mostly involve writing messages (very messily) in glowing soapstone that have faded out over time. Not being able to /read/ soapstone, this can only be useful to Staren later, except within the last couple of years, the crow has deposited something else:

    A severed finger. Withered and mummified by the cold, it'd look like something a crow would normally snip off a corpse, save that it is absurdly long, and has no less than six joints that curl in strange and unnerving ways. The crow had brought it from something, and deposited it in front of the camera to signify its importance.

    Reiji strikes up a conversation alongside Eryl. Some of the escort seem restless about being made to talk longer, but others look glad for the break. It must be a motley mix of people under those robes and masks. "It's the sensible thing to do." the one answers. "We volunteered, if that's what you're asking. All of us have lost someone to the affliction, and everyone is eager to return things to normal. There should be others in all the other townships. We've already gathered up all the survivors, but there are only a few clerics with the wherewithal to purge the sickness, and only caught early."

    A different voice scoffs at Reiji's question. "Because the birds are smart, and they know what isn't safe. They already knew better than to nibble on the dead, so they're more than clever enough not to go near whatever just looks like it." He in particular looks even more annoyed when Carna comes out. "When it's safe to. When the rot's burned out, and when we hunt down the last of-"

    Nobody needs to speak to answer the rest. Flint's group practically walks into it first, stirring up a commotion of fleeing crows and an unearthly howl to scare them off. One of the doors smashes itself down, and something lunges out at one of the crew. Though it's obvious that it'd be human, it appears like most of its body mass has withered off the bone, and migrated up towards its head and upper torso, congealing in an utterly massive, swollen bloat, engulfing half its body in a single tumorous boil of discoloured and pulsing flesh. It grabs hold of the first thing it can, vomiting a cloud of semi-liquid, semi-vapourous fluid that is so discoloured it is outright purple, instantly overwhelming in both its smell and the acrid burn to the skin, much like actual literal mustard gas.

    It isn't the only one. The sound appears to have woken up several more victims of similar fates, slumped in alleys or inside buildings, semi-conscious and awaiting death by hunger. They stagger out to the gathering by the wheelbarrow, blindly searching for the nearest vector of spreading their illness. The polearms come up first, shoved into their bloated hulks and holding them at a distance (if with great effort) with the tines of the bladed head. Gouts of the same, foul, necrotizing liquid spill from their wounds and rise into clouds of fog, vapourizing in contact with the air. The crossbowmen have bolts wrapped in some kind of paper, and when they fire, several bolts plunge into each abomination at the front line, igniting into flames like a struck match, and consuming them in roiling fire. Still, there are more, and they need time to reload the heavy weapons.
Priscilla     The trek to the downed satellite is, by contrast, highly uneventful. As before, the wildlife, some of which should be pointedly savage, accosts no one. When they find the downed observation equipment, it seems to have been cushioned by a great degree of snow, and not badly broken, though there are obvious signs that something has been picking away and prying pieces off of it, though not for nearly long enough to have compromised its core integrity like the old scanner (which is now several centuries old, somehow).

    Retrieving the data core and various recordings shows many things, especially when split amongst the Flotilla (and possibly Kushiko) to allow for a more comprehensible level of fast forward. The number of entries into the Painted World seems to gradually grow year by year, as more and more sorts are dumped into its edges and emerge from its forest all around. Everyone from dishonoured knights, to desperate bandits, to the wrongfully convicted, the cursed and malformed, and even entire small religious processions, or tribes of warriors evicted from their homelands. Most of them wind up creating their own settlements if they appear in any number, though it seems the solo visitors have come here with a purpose, rather than been driven or locked away here, and bury their belongings as a matter of ritual before entering town. The population grows at a pretty steady rate, though a slow one, barely quadrupling in two centuries, likely for lack of drive to have children, and the inconvenience of drawing up food.

    Looking down at the castle, people seem to be fairly well off, and Andre is a frequently seen figure at first, though after being given the Dark Ember, he is gradually seen less and less, holed up in a forge, where arms start to proliferate amongst the people; possibly at first out of boredom and to shake the rust off, but becoming oddly obsessive after a time. Catching any glimpse of Priscilla is /extremely/ difficult, and always incredibly fleeting, though oftentimes her footprints appear in the snow, if one knows where to look, mingling amidst her people unseen, perhaps surveying them, perhaps just enjoying being around them and people watching.

    Nine times in total, four in the last thirty years, does she mysteriously leave, and the satellite picks up the ever-so-brief and faint energy signature of a departing soul, indicating that somewhere out in the snow, something or someone has been killed shortly thereafter.

    The plague appears to have lasted three years in total, starting at the Corvian Settlement, which is now /substantially/ large, but seemingly not quite originating within it. It remained there for a while, until almost everyone was dead, and apparently infected the party that went to check, and spread insanely from there. The spectacle is not pretty; the exact kind of mass disaster scenario modern governments prepare for, with a great deal of bloody fighting against bloated monstrosities in various places. There's not quite any clear vector, but there is a spatiotemporal disruption matching the usual kind when someone enters (nobody has ever left) somewhere in the woods near the settlement, days before the first outbreak, but nothing was ever seen leaving it.
Captain Flint Mr. Packard, having the honor of being closest to the door, is the one grabbed by the emerging plague victim.

     He was a burly young man with somewhat ruddy skin and a curly mess of blonde hair framing a piercing pair of green eyes. He looked as though he could've been an actor in a film about pirates, with his lantern jaw, narrow nose and thin-lipped smile. Hidden though his face might've been, it was clear he wasn't hurting for looks. Until, that is, his face exploded into weeping, festering boils and pulsating, ichorous scabs.

     Packard hits the ground just as Flint gives an order. "Open fire!" The captain's bellow falls on deaf ears, however--the crew was none too pleased to be here in the first place, and none of them want to suffer the same fate as Packard.

     Looking over his shoulder at the fleeing forms of his crew, Flint scowls and draws a flintlock. With a subdued click and an echoing crack, Packard is killed. Then...

     There's no way he can handle all of these by himself, but he doesn't have to. Spotting a cart loaded with rotting, forgotten barrels in the distance, Flint hatches a plan. Reaching for the musket slung over his shoulder, he levels the weapon. With another crack, the block of wood holding the cart in place splinters away, sending the conveyance hurtling down the road towards a few of the infected. He doesn't bother to wait if it's effective--the captain simply turns his back on the plague victims and runs towards the crossbowmen. Hopefully, they can set up a crossfire.
Reiji Arisu     Volunteers? That still doesn't explain why they're armed to the teeth, though. Those kinds of weapons are not the sorts of things you would expect to see in the middle of a plague-purging. "I see," is all Reiji says on the subject of the crows. If it's that bad, then it would make sense why they're not feasting on the abundant dead.

That still leaves some unanswered questions, however.

Though it seems that they will hardly remain that way forever.

Reiji hears them before he sees them, and smells them before he hears them. The lower body is unmistakably that of your stereotypical hollow, but the head...

The head...!

"Blightpus!?" Reiji exclaims, suddenly glad for his protective mask as the deformed creature releases its fetid payload. Fortunately, he's far enough away to only be at risk of smelling it indirectly, but that doesn't mean his safety will last. Suddenly it becomes abundantly obvious why the townsfolk were taking such precautions, as more of the shambling plague-vectors make their way towards the wheelbarrow as if awakened by the prospect of being able to spread their vile disease. What kind of sickness makes you WANT to infect something else?

The kind that needs to be burnt from the world.

"Deploying Wards!" Reiji roars, as the ground underneath him-- and by extension, the wheelbarrow and its protectors-- is suddenly host to a vast array of azure markings. Any of the shambling horrors that step foot into the array would find themselves slowed to a crawl. Sitting ducks for what comes next. Reiji's guns slide into his hands. He has only enough time to warn the people around him. "DUCK!"

The Exorcist begins a deadly dance. Gunpowder ignites again and again. Gunsmoke erupts from the barrels of his shotgun and handcannon, filling the air with the scent of sulfur and phosphorus.

The Anti-Spirit rounds may not do much to these things, and the elements of Wood and Metal might not be able to quell this disease, but 'shooting them to death' may still be an effective way of dealing with these things from a safe distance... Especially given the amount of stopping power and impact that Reiji's guns possess.
Kushiko Given the techy equipment she has access to for the sole purpose of retrieving, extracting, and making data available (hi Space Mom!) she can definitely lend the Flotilla a hand for the purposes of getting this satellite's data together.

And really, at this point it's a matter of making sense--contextually--of what the data means. Priscilla's sightings, the growth of the Corvian settlement, the disparate groups seeming to be the hallmark of what's being drawn into the settlement. <"Hnn, well this paints the rest of the picture we were seeing,"> Kushiko muses softly. She's plying the depths of her memory, namely for what went down in times before; didn't they make the Painted World to put her there where she couldn't use that awesome power against the Gods and more?

Still, something doesn't feel right; while others may have fallen under attack, nothing here properly makes /sense/. Nova looks to the other members of the Flotilla and asks, <"Is there anything else we can do from here, or shall we try and move on?">
Tomoe Tomoe having left her experiment behind, Tomoe is now making use of her wings which flare up and she takes flight hoping to catch up with Reiji given what he's just said over the comms. She's flying as fast as she can it shouldn't be too long to get to town and catch up with Reiji, hopefully some air support would do Reiji and the rest there some good. She can see Reiji fighting from above as she moves to swoop down, but not to dive bomb. No her plan is to get in range to fire off a bolt of flame at the thing Reiji is currently engaged with. Gold runes dance about her body she utters as normal badly accented Norse.

The fire bolt is let fly, she's not the most powerful caster but it is something, right?

She'll keep alert for more and will start raining fire bolts from on high as needed
Staren     Well if it's that far, Staren's gonna fly. Not like there are many around to see him...

    He reviews the footage. So it wrote those weird disappearing-reappearing messages around here... He's gonna need to find a way to read those. He takes pictures for later translation. For now, he bags the finger and leaves some fresh com-units and spare batteries for parts. And a message saying that unfortunately, he couldn't understand the language the crow was using, so he can't reply to it right now. He'll get the messages translated and reply next time, and see if he can bring a way to translate.

    And now, apparently there's trouble at the town. Staren takes off. If he gets within a mile in time, he gives a warning on the radio, clumsily props up the missile launcher, and fires. He can guide them down remotely from above by camera, so he won't accidentally fry a living person or something. Given the state of things, though, he's pretty sure no living people will be HIDING near the undead monstrousities. This will hopefully reduce them (and any buildings within like a dozen-ish feet, oh well, everything needs to be sterilized anyway right?) to ash.
Eryl Fairfax     Eryl listens close to the plague doctors. Volunteers then, excellent. Though, he did not catch that the doctors were being escorted by armed guards. For what reason? Surely it couldn't be the Undead Curse?

    It's not. Eryl is almost thankful, but considering what it is instead, he can only feel pity. People fully victimized by the disease, turned into true carriers for it, those who live only to spread it.

    His eyes go to his hands, and while everyone else deals with the carriers, he quickly plunges them into the bonfire for several seconds. The flames won't hurt him, and he just wants to make sure he kills any that's on him before carrying on. Cloth and false skin burns away before he removes them and plunges them into the snow to cool.

    Finally, he hides the results away under his cloak. Best the locals don't see.
Starbound Flotilla "Floran find tribesss."
"Oooof, I'm seeing plenty of criminals on this."
"Noting an energy spike before the biohazard."
"Plenty of worshippers of somethin' or another."
"Hopeful. All around the settlement... But the castle still seems..."
"They develop a warrior culture. But why? Do they intend to hold back the tide that is being brought down upon them? To keep the castle safe from the rise of all... /this/?"

    "Mmmh. I am sorry, Kushiko. I can think of little else anyone can do, besides find what is most worth watching. This world will be lost, such is inevitability, but we have need of insight into it. I suspect that something will enter the world, and we must bear witness to its entry. Something significant, perhaps something critical to its fall. Something I expect quite personal for Priscilla. Seft, the sensor core."

    "Worried. I'm not sure this will survive another round in here, Moonfin. It's already been through so much..." Seft buzzes, worriedly, trying to weld the core out of the crashed satellite with her Matter Manipulator. "But if I permanently place it here, it may be able to scan the surroundings for..."

    "The painting destabilizes temporal proxy effects the moment we threaten to alter the timeline. Perhaps this can be used in reverse; a temporal attraction, generated at a specific time through the introduction of a possible disruption that we may interrupt." Moonfin says, assisting in the setup, and beginning to work with the rest of the Flotilla to craft... What looks like some sort of heavily weatherproofed artillery gun, built to aim only to one spot and to last hundreds of potential years, wired to that sensor core.

    Seft, meanwhile, programs the sensors for one outcome. She averages the other spikes, based on the assumption that one's souls affect the intensity of the spikes, as souls often would. And she sets it to find highly, /highly/ unusual spikes. Spikes that have a huge density of energy, spikes that have very strange properties, and other suchlike. And when such a strange event is detected, the artillery gun will be set on a timer to fire... A single heavy shot somewhere into Priscilla's castle.

    The plan is simple: Try to set up an interference event, one that the group can and will /halt/, so that the painting's temporal correction apparatus causes the group's next visit to occur during or very shortly after a highly unusual new arrival into the Painted World. The Flotilla feel they understand aspects of the mechanics that govern this world now. Their assumption is that the secrets they might find will be discovered upon any very special arrival.
Carna     Carna retreats into the shadows rather than engage the monsters appearing. Unless she personally is attacked, she is going to make the effort not to pursue her normal instinctive response to destroy any threat. That, more than anything else, should be demonstrative of what she has been regaining in sanity and control. However, while crouched in darkness, a further development of her mind beyond the kill/flee dynamic she ordinarily operates upon emerges, as she looks to the side of one of the buildings speculatively. On impulse, she draws a knife and carves a series of crude symbols on the wall, if she is able to do so without being evicted.

    A silhouette of Priscilla carrying her scythe. Based on the pattern so far, she expects they will be booted out soon. She wants to leave something behind before that. Something that will yield future results.

    Alongside of the caricature of Priscilla, she adds a carving of herself. If she has enough time left, she carves the words, 'Queen Priscilla. If you or those loyal to you see this, respond in kind. Though the wait may be long, I will return. Trust me to help you. I am she who stands beside you, and guards you from the shadows.' Hopefully, this will facillitate future information gathering and access to Priscilla.

    Enark, meanwhile, was in the middle of trying to extract samples from some of the 'fresher' dead, pouring goop and stuffing flesh toast into vials and bottes with a few different sets of disposable tweezers, when suddenly doors start exploding. "What the devil!?" he yells as he stands up in alarm. Then he shuts his mouth and bends back down to gather his things and try to put them away. He is not losing this evidence. He rushes to slap seals on each of the containers, freezing their contents in time. He can only hope that this is enough to keep them on his person for a more detailed analysis.

    And also that someone more capable of fightery is doing something about the monsters while he's bent down like this, instead of leaving the cloth-wearer to his fate.
Priscilla     To be frank, the diseased are outmatched by an incredible degree. Though one poor man had met his untimely and grisly demise by surprise, Flint is already fleeing away from the bobbling engorged much faster than they can pursue, with their impossibly unbalanced weight, and when a row of barrels (loaded with something heavy, it seems) run down the road, they flatten them immediately due to their high center of gravity. Many of them burst into fantastic sprays of purple gore that the pirate captain is just barely possible of avoiding.

    The rows that close in on Reiji and the cleaning procession stumble straight into his wards, not possessed of human intelligence, but more like that of cordyceps infested ants. As creatures of flesh, as grossly perverted as it has been, the anti-spirit properties of his bullets don't do anything special to them, but ripping through their fragile, bloated exteriors with shotgun blast and handgun salvos quickly turns them into exploding purple goop, which in of /itself/ is dangerous to him.

    Tomoe is just in time to fly in to the rescue, and drop fire from the sky on the thinning horde. It seems the choice of flaming crossbow bolts was deliberate. Where the firebolts hit, the infected burn to a crisp, without releasing their bubbling, miasmatic insides, and given the time to load their second volley, the arbalestiers dispatch the engorged chasing Flint with ease. Nobody remembers, or even notices, poor Enark for quite a while, until Staren's fly-by-wire missile goes off and utterly incinerates the group closing in on him, demolishing several homes (abandoned and useless anyways) in a fireball that briefly eclipses the bonfire altogether, rendering it invisible.

    Said bonfire is far from a pleasant sight. When Eryl finds it, he finds no less than two other pyres in the exact same square of town, burnt down to a black, charcoal crisp, before the next one was erected once no more bodies could actually be piled on the previous. The number of dead is completely staggering. At a guess, Original Face would turn out the number that 90% of the townsfolk are likely deceased now. Something is amiss though. In the core of the fire, he can see a great deal of semi-melted slag that looks to have come from a large number of . . . shackles, melted in the fire. Old, corroded iron ones. Original Face's analysis would easily return a 'no' for being Andre's work.

    Meanwhile, nothing particularly stops Carna from doing what she does. It's a simple task, and without interference, so it simply remains to be seen what will come of it. The same is true of the Flotilla. Existing square in the Painted World's defined and unambiguous bounds, there shouldn't be any trouble with the gun, so long as something even screwier than usual doesn't happen. Using the data gathered from the satellite, especially the most recent one that appeared somewhere near the shortly infected settlement, sadly obscured from the satellite by the trees (and probably died beneath them), there is a reasonably high chance of success. Probably.

    Soon enough, things fall quiet again, and the procession reloads, but but then lets down their weapons. All of them appear to have swatches of paper covered in some kind of black tar, which bursts into flames when rubbed on something. They do so liberally to their spearheads. "Good stuff." the woman says, strapping her arbalest and picking up the wheelbarrow again. "Would you care to run with us for a while? It might take a day or two, but if you help out, I'm sure we could convince the Mistress to let you across the bridge on merit."
Kushiko <"Hope all of this works. It's plausible, as we have experience with such things, though it's somewhat beyond our control when it does."> It does remind her that, she might want to bring the Flotilla to an expedition to Lua, given the tears in space-time thanks to the Void.

All that said, her attention is focused at actually just giving the Flotilla proper cover--just because nothing's happening here doesn't mean something can't happen anyways. Plus given her weird antimatter shenanigans she uses her techy side to help when asked.
Captain Flint Were he not being pursued by shambling abominations intent on adding him to their number, Flint would give serious thought to opening fire on his fleeing crewmen. They're only going to tell Howell about it, and that's just going to cause more problems when Howell inevitably tells Dufresne, and Dufresne brings it up with Gates, and Gates comes huffing and puffing into his cabin to make his shortsighted complaints once again. But all that is in the future, free of shambling abominations.

     His feet pound the cobblestone paths of the ravaged town, carrying him towards Reiji and the arbalists just as the exorcist begins to make quick work of the infected.

     Flint looses his powder horn, stuffs a wad down the length of his musket, and finally inserts the shot, all in the span of perhaps forty seconds. Looking up towards the advancing creatures, he shoulders the musket again and aims for one in the back of the crowd--best not to risk that caustic spray affecting him. Or Reiji. Of course he cares about the welfare of others! Which is why after taking the shot, he again retreats, making for the bonfire to regroup with Silver, Howell, and the rest of his raiding party.
Starbound Flotilla     "Ah, you think so?" Moonfin says, and takes an opportunity to look smug for a moment. Under the gasmask, anyway. You can sort of tell that he's being smug from his posture, voice, species, and the fact that he's Moonfin. "With this in place, I expect our next visit shall be timed well to the arrival of a party of interest; it should grant us a measure of insight into the events here, and we may yet understand what Ariamis wants us to see."

    "Uneasy. I'm going to admit that I'm not sure it's going to work. We are improvising at best, and performing hail-mary shots at worst." Seft says, awkwardly emitting a few soft buzz-beep sounds. "Hopeful. But this is the best chance I can think of to see what sends this all towards being... What it became for our First." She finishes her setup, locks in the apparatus, and then looks down into the valley. She thinks back on how cozy and kind and warm everything was before, before taking a seat and looking up to the sky, stargazing. "Accepting. I doubt we'll have much remaining time for any other tasks, but thank you for your help, Kushiko."

    The Flotilla are gonna take a break for now and wait on the others. Not much left for them here, now that they've set their scheme in motion.
Staren     I got your back, Enark! (b'')b

    Staren packs up the missile launcher and continues flying towards the group. There's probably not a lot more to do at this point, though...
Tomoe Tomoe is going to dfo what she can to deal with the hordes she doesn't like it but nothing can be done so far as she's aware and she does not want to see her allies and friends fall or get infected. She will keep up with the spells as fire support for the moment but it's clear she's movng to back off as it seems that she'll move ot form up ith the rest of the party once they are clear as much like Staren she's keeping to the air support for now. Least they get jumped on the way.
Eryl Fairfax     The number of bonfires turns Eryl's stomach.

    So many dead... Andre made it by virtue of being 'out there.' Maybe this is what drove him out. But how did it begin? Did someone fall sick, and was thrown into the painting so as to not spread it to Anor Londo? Did Anor Londo even exist at this time? If not that, then the gods. The idea that they would banish someone who is ill to a place ill-prepared to cope with them makes him scowl fiercely.

    At times like these, he is glad Priscilla took their place, as treasonous that is to the Commonwealth's ideology as that is.

    He is snapped out of his thoughts by the pile of slag at the core of the fire. Reaching in, he grabs a pair of the ruined shackles and examines them. Clearly not Andre's work, anything he made would resist such heat. Were some of the infected still alive and restrained as they were burned?

    The shackles are returned to the depths of the fire. Best not to dwell on that.

    He returns to the doctors as they extend an offer and says, "I would not mind, if you'll have me. Rest assured, I am about as competent as everyone here," he says, gesturing at the Elites. "Don't let my apparent cowardice fool you."
Reiji Arisu Everything falls quiet.

Smoke rises in thin blue contrails from Reiji's firearms as the last of that terrible, toxic discharge is burnt away by Tomoe's onslaught and Flint's intercession. He takes a moment to set his weapons back into place-- but only after making sure they're properly reloaded. He gives the others a nod, then turns back to the woman in the mask.

"I wouldn't mind," the Exorcist answers with a shrug. "I had a few more questions, too. I heard tell of a blacksmith in this place with legendary skill. Is he still at work? And... How /is/ the Lady doing? Is she well?"
Priscilla     Correctly assumed, it isn't belong before the tolerance of time gives out, and the dream fades. The group can proceed with the cleanup crew for a while, but the background starts to waver and grow hazy long before anything else happens. Even the sounds of conversation grow dull and muffled, sounding as though happening through incredibly bad tinnitus. "Old Andre? He's fantastic alright. Been working like a maniac these days. Weirdly obsessed with that . . . little black box nowadays too, but I can't complain. He's got experience, and more talent than any man should have a right to do with. I'd love to see him with a workshop more proper than the thing we pitched together here, but there's just no way without the raw materials, and iron and coal aren't easy to get here."

    "The Mistress? Physically, I suppose. We eventually made enough of a case to finally get her to agree to stay inside. No telling if she'd be able to catch the plague too, and we didn't want to find out. I fear her heart isn't as well as her skin, though. She's been in . . . a bad place, as of late. She's been moody for a while, but with so many dead . . . I hear her mention a name from time to time. Someone she must really hate. Never heard of it though. Started with a G. Gwy-"

    That's all there is. The world dissolves out from around them. Eryl has just enough time to ascertain that the shackles are, in fact, older than the bodies are by a considerable margin, and everyone is sent hurtling through black darker than black that rushes to meet them as the universe crumbles out from beneath their feet. The eerie, echoing, rasping, whispering, ringing, rising and falling song is loud this time, audible without straining, and just underneath it, can faintly be heard . . .

    The sound of rolling waves, in the deep, deep dark.

    The only thing of note after being dumped back in the throne room: aside from Enark's samples, Staren has somehow kept the horrible, inhuman finger. This is unusual, considering anything of seeming importance was confiscated before.
Carna     Enark is startled and thrown back just as he finished collectng his samples by the explosions, though half the throwing is by his own volition as he tries to get away from the sudden loud noise and the realization of how close he came to finding out if he can cure this poison through first-hand exposure. He looks around wildly in the aftermath and then runs away to try to get somewhere safer. Hopefully no one requires his services at the moment. Surely they would call out if they were injured, right?

    Carna finishes her carving, unsure if this is prominent enough a location to draw attention, but deciding if it's TOO prominent, she runs the risk of it being destroyed by accident in a battle such as this. Maybe next time she'll have the chance to leave more messages. But for now, she backs away, seeing others taking down the pus-monsters, and retreats back to where they originally arrived. She does not bother reporting what she did. So far, few of her ideas have met with approval, so why bother seeking it? She will do what she feels is best, but informed by a goal to help Priscilla, not just herself.

    And just in time, as it seems that they are being ejected. Strange sounds and distortions of the world are taken note of, but it is hard to say how much will be remembered or understood, even with Carna whipping out her journal and taking careful note of all that has transpired that she hasn't already forgotten.

    Enark checks his samples, and seems pleased. "The touch of Lord Tharmas works here after all. Once I return to my study, I will begin working on examining this at once. Hopefully, since I took a fixed amount from those who were already dead, I will not have changed anything and no one will notice the absence of such relatively meager quantities. And by the next time, Tharmas-willing, I shall have some answers."

    And maybe next time, Priscilla-willing and carvings-read, they will have even more.