ph_logs | Come rather, thou good weather

By the time the waters recede and Duchess Claunthe has kicked out all of her paying guests, Tarantulas is in very rough shape indeed. His purple fur turned first the color of steel, and then a sickly white; then it began to fall out in patches, revealed mottled skin crossed with scratches that can't seem to heal. His limbs weakened, hands and spider legs curling into painful knots, while his joints withered and creaked with pain. Worst of all, his mind grew scattered, thoughts trailing off into nothing and memory failing. It's a terrible relief to reunite with Ryja and entrust Dawn to her; once she has all the facts, they are both in agreement as to what he must do.

Once it's done, he walks away from the house. He trusts Ryja to keep Dawn safe, so...sticking around, able to see but not touch or talk to either of them, will just upset him to no purpose. It's better to keep his mind occupied. And happily there's a linger project that he'd like to see through, if he can only find an able assistant.

He pauses outside Max and Valdis's door, wondering how best to announce himself, before deciding that calling outside one of the windows is probably the best he compromise he can make between courtesy and actually being noticed. "Valdis!" he shouts. "Are you home? It's Tarantulas, I have a request for you."

Valdis looks up from her book, surprised that Tarantulas would be looking for her at all. She'd assumed he would avoid her, but she sets her book down and goes to the door, opening to find...nothing. Except she can sense him outside. She steps onto the porch to look around.

"Where are you?"

"Oh, so you can hear me but not see me? That's slightly annoying." It does occur to him to wonder if Valdis would be able to sense him touching her, but -- hyeh hyeh -- he's not that foolish! No, he'll be staying well clear of Valdis, even if she does agree to work with him.

"I'm right here. I had to, hyeh, take temporary leave of my mortal coil. That symptoms of that little curse River gave me were becoming quite unmanageable, so I decided to give myself a hard reset, so to speak."

You touch, you die and you probably don't want to have your soul consumed while you are already dead.

"I can hear and sense you, but if you give me a moment."

Valdis takes a breath and shifts her gaze onto the soul plane. The world fades in favor of the colorful lights of souls. Yet even with her sight, Tarantulas's soul appears ill. Somehow, she's not surprised by this. Being as old as he is, he's probably seen, and done, much to damage his soul. But if she knows anything about souls, it's that they can come back from even the worst events.

"I see you now," she says. "Why did you seek me out if River's the one who cursed you?"

"Ah!" The look Tarantulas gives Valdis is gleeful, although some might also call it unsettling. "Much better. No, this doesn't have anything to do with River," he belatedly explains, "I was just telling you how I came to be in a disembodied state. But instead of focusing on the inconvenience if it all, I'm trying to do something constructive with my time. How do you feel about going on a little scientific expedition?"

He begins to speak more quickly as he grows more excited, explaining, "There's an odd cave on this island that it seems can only be navigated under certain circumstances. When I tried to map it out with an associate, we found that the tunnels doubled back and crossed each other in a way that didn't match our recollections. But when Angel, one of the people who works in the Temple, entered the cave with one of the little spirit beasts from the woods, he was able to find a strange book which may be tied to the curse. It's being studied by those who have knowledge of such things -- but what if the cave contains yet more secrets? Do you see what I'm getting at? Like this, I'm technically a spirit beast myself. I might be able to navigate the cave -- but if I do find anything, I'll need assistance to carry it out."

"I've heard about the cave, and the necessities for navigating it."

She's been drawn to that stupid well since she arrived, fighting the urge to tear off the boards. Angel told her about the cave and had warned her to be careful, so she hadn't sought it out, worried she might not be able to resist the draw.

Tarantulas won't be able to help her if she gets caught up in the draw of the cave system, and she's not sure she can even trust him to not leave her behind, but the opportunity is too good to pass up. As he said, he can't carry anything out either, so she's inclined to believe he won't abandon her.

"I suppose we'd better get going then. We're on a time limit."

Ah, but if he abandoned her today, he would certainly have to face the consequences for it tomorrow! Tarantulas normally has a very good sense for cause and effect, it's only when something triggers one of his personal obsessions that he forgets how the social contract works.

But this is a perfectly normal scientific mania! Tarantulas cackles with glee and transforms into his spider body -- yes, it too is part of his soul. "Wonderful!" he says, his spectral body trembling slightly with excitement. "Let's be off, then! Follow me~"

It is as Linette's hint predicted. One walks the path of the living; the other, the path of the dead. For Valdis, the living traveler, the magic of this place is dizzying. Something extremely powerful put this enchantment here, and even her keen senses are disoriented. Hazy memories of the walk, an inability to keep track of time, periods of blackout, and a failure to recognize landmarks. Going this way would be impossible alone.

But for Tarantulas, who walks the path of the dead, it is simple. The path is clear, and it calls with a longing so loud that it is unfathomable to not know the way. And so Valdis can be led through the haze, until it begins to fade.

By the time the pair reach the chamber where the Necronomicon was once held, the spell has almost entirely worn off, and clarity returns to the living member of the pair. But this room is empty now, and holds no interest. No, what calls is a chamber beyond this. Deeper and deeper still, through walls that no longer look like carved stone but laid brickwork, then back into a rough-hewn hole in the stone in an upward slant.

And then, a door. No, not a door. More like a hatch. It leads into a tight cell.

Strange red gems are set into the walls like eyes, bearing down on this tiny space, allowing for just enough of a glow to see by in the dim space. Set into the walls are two sets of chains with manacle-clasps at the ends. The clasps are worn by a skeleton, like some sort of old movie, but there it is. A short person, wearing scraps of what apparently used to be a pale purple dress. Above, there is a hole, perfectly circular and ringed with what appears to be laid stone sealed with mortar, but filled with tightly packed dirt.

This is a well. There is a chained skeleton in the bottom of a well.

It's painful and strange and dizzying to follow the ghost of Tarantulas into the caves and the ensuing maze. Yet, after some time, the haze begins to lift until it is as if it never existed at all. She sets her gaze on the skeleton, feeling her stomach, or is it her soul, lurch at the sight. She feels, almost on instinct that this is the missing woman that Leon had mentioned.

She couldn't remember exactly what Angel had told her about the woman, but...she looks up and knows exactly where they are. Her heart beats faster and without a word to her guide, she crosses to the skeleton and lays her hand on the ribcage, reaching out with her magic to see what she can sense on the death of Linette, maybe she can even summon the woman herself.

"Ah, what a pity," Tarantulas murmurs, watching as Valdis studies the corpse. He's more interested in the stones embedded in the wall -- for them to glow like that, they must contain some kind of chemical or magical reaction -- but he lingers for a moment, to see if Valdis's own powers can stir some reaction from the old bones.

The death of Linette Brenning was a slow one, full of pain, starvation, fear, and solitude. This woman was kept in a hole and tortured for months before she died, often forced to go days without food, and she died filthy, hungry, afraid, and alone, fantasizing about her wife somehow finding her. A dream that never came to fruition.

Linette's spirit stands over the broken skeleton, in a version of the dress that isn't so rotten and ragged. She looks exhausted.

"I see you've finally found me," she murmurs. "I don't get visitors these days. I'd offer you tea, but we are, in fact, in a hole."

It hurt, feeling everything Linette felt in her last moments, her weeks of pain and suffering. Valdis' rage wraps around it. Fury so deep that her irises are a shining blood red when she finally removes her hand.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you."

She doesn't rise, but shifts her red gaze to the strange stones on the walls.

"I'll get you out of here, Linette, and I'll make sure you can finally rest with the peace you deserve, but I need to know anything you can tell me about what happened and who did this."

Linette nods solemnly, taking a moment to acknowledge both Valdis and Tarantulas. She takes in their appearances, as if deciding if she can trust them.

"I don't know much about the people themselves. They were careful to hide their faces, even in here with me. They wore red robes and black masks. But I know about some of the events."

"I know that when I was first taken down here, there were eleven of them, and that their numbers slowly started to dwindle. A lot of this was due to one of them being 'punished' by their leader, who they called Master. But another common cause was blood sacrifice--- they were killing each other for Eldritch magic. I know that their master never came into my prison with them. They didn't want this person to be seen with them, apparently. I also know that they're the ones who killed Merrick Gladwyn, Reverend Clayton's predecessor. They talked about it pretty candidly in front of me, which was a surprise."

"I also know that they were using me--- my suffering, my fear--- as some sort of power generator. They called me 'conduit.' And it was my death that triggered the barrier, in tandem with... some other event, being orchestrated by someone else."

"And the last thing that I know is that they were trying to dethrone the goddesses to lift up their own god. A god of chaos that they called Nyarlathotep."

Linette shrugs listlessly, looking defeated. "That's all I can tell you. I hope it helps."

Nyarlathotep? That is not a name Tarantulas has seen in any of his reading -- not in the public library, and not in Neil's personal collection.

"Hold on a moment," he says, holding up a leg to forestall Valdis from doing...whatever she was about to do. Banish the ghost to the hereafter, or whatever. "Do you know why you were chosen for this role?" he asks Linette, not ungently but with quiet urgency. "Why you and not someone else? And why did they kill Merrick Gladwyn?"

"I'm not sure why they chose me. Maybe because I was a mage? Or maybe I was just easy to make miserable." She shrugs. "They killed Merrick because they saw him as a threat. Why they felt that way, or why they didn't feel that way about Degas, are both a mystery to me."

She listens in silence, absorbing the exchange, noting the need to speak with Degas and look into these cultists. There's a sharpness in her chest when Linette mentions being used to power the barrier with her suffering, it's a concept she's intimately familiar with.

As much as she dislikes the goddess on principle, they have done nothing but try to help the people of the island. Yet, the quartet must act through those here, and so it seems does this new god.

She's going to have to ask Mortanne, or perhaps one of the others for help.

However, there was a possibility, based on what Linette has told them, that the cultists wiped themselves out in service to Nyarlathotep. Hopefully they were that lucky, but she doubts it.

"Thank you, Linette. I doubt my powers can do anything to help free you from this plane, but I shall try it if you wish."

This time Tarantulas voices no objection. It really does seem that they've gotten all the information they can out of Linette -- and what was done to her was horrible enough that even Tarantulas finds it distasteful. He turns away to give her and Valdis some privacy, and studies the gems embedded in the walls instead. Surely he can get something useful out of them? And if not him, then perhaps Dr. West...

Come rather, thou good weather

Find us in the fields together (open to Ryja and Valdis) (cw: aging-related curse)

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Link is a tonally inappropriate joke

I laughed though

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