Open Chronicles Anyone have any ideas on how to separate two souls?

[TTamark]

Steve sat on a bench overlooking a courtyard of the College, he thought about what he had put on the message board.

Help! I require assistance, I am faced with the issue of having to find a way to separate
a soul from a golems power stone. What complicates this matter is that there are not
just one but two souls tied together within it. I therefore need, not to just get the
souls out, but to do so without damaging either, and then also separate them. The
incident happened when the individuals failed a spell and used up too much of their
energy in the process, causing them to be absorbed into the power stone, their souls
becoming intertwined in the process. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am Steve,
Son of Will. To find me my magic scent has been infused into this paper, and in the case
you can not follow it I am also staying in dorm room 324.

Steve watched all the students passing below him. He wondered if anyone knew about what was going on on the other side of the world, he sure didn't when he was here. Steve then began considering heading back to his dorm, he couldn't spend the whole day relaxing, and reminiscing.

 

[Gaheris]

The main business that brought him to Elbion's college was still ongoing, but Gaheris had been instructed to seek opportunity wherever it was. In this case it brought him to a public message board. Something about a couple of souls sucked into a golem's power stone.

That sure sounded like an opportunity to him.

After reading it over a few times, Gaheris ripped the post from the board, folded it neatly in half, and stowed it within his cloak. "How many people saw this?"

The Red Guild armsman, Franger, who had accompanied him took a break from picking his nose to answer. "Dunno. Don't think it was up much long."

How helpful.

"Have the goblin meet me at the dormitory. This shouldn't take long."

"Who, Rob Yew ?"

Gaheris gave the armsman a pointed glare. "Do we have another goblin here with us?"

Franger had to give it a moment's thought before deciding, no, they did not have another goblin here in the north. Not since the last one got pinched in Cintria.

"Poor old Ed Stortion," He mused, flicking a piece of semi-dried snot carelessly, and it stuck to a different flier on the message board, "Never saw them coming."

"Spare me, please," Gaheris muttered, and set off on his way.

 

[Urberus]

It had been a long time since anyone asked Rob to meet them at the dormitory for a bit of clandestine action.

Never, in fact.

Yew hummed a little to himself, flaps on his leather skull cap bouncing up and down on his shoulders as he jaunted into the dormitory in his full kit. Little crossbow, dagger, fun falchion, and a bag full of tricks.

How exactly the goblin had managed to sneak his accoutrements through the College was an excellent question, which he chose to answer with:

“Tradecraft.”

 

[Gaheris]

The duo arrived at the dormitory with little issue, save for the usual ugly stares principled academics saved for goblins. Not that they could do much about it. It was all fixed up - and for quite a pretty penny, too. Gaheris and his confederates were "visiting scholars" of the institution. Verifiable by paperwork. They had a right to be here.

So long as they didn't get in enough trouble for any of that to be scrutinized, anyway.

There was no immediate answer when Gaheris knocked on the door labeled 324, so he set in for an uneasy wait. Just him and his... Little green friend. Gaheris brushed a blonde strand from his face and frowned at Rob.

"Is the falchion truly necessary?"

 

[Urberus]

Thin, long-nailed fingers stroked the vulture skull pommel of the falchion.

Bulbous yellow eyes stared up at Gaheris.

“Nah, but I do like the way them mages look ats it.” He grinned, revealing a row of crooked teeth and advanced gum disease.

 

[TTamark]

Steve came around the bend to notice he had some company waiting for him,

Oh, Hello there! I'm Steve, I assume you are waiting for me? Here just give me a second, and I will invite you in... Excuse me."

Steve said as he gently passed between them, hands seemingly searching for the key. As he unlocked the door on the wrong side, he smiled at the pair with an all too welcoming smile. As the door swung open Steve stepped out of the way, and swung his arm inward in invitation,

"Please come on in, and I will put some stew on, people tell me it is to DIE for, HAHA!"

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris frowned uncomfortably at Rob Yew, in equal parts from his answer and from his dental hygiene. He was about to ask whether or not Rob had eaten - or even seen, for that matter - some kind of citrus. But then Steve came marching up the steps.

He attempted to communicate something to Rob with a warning look, but what exactly he meant was unclear. Possibly "be quiet" or "let me handle this" or "don't smile ever again, at anyone, for any reason."

"You're too kind," said Gaheris, smiling like the sort of person who had never once smiled organicly and enjoyed it. He shuffled awkwardly inside.

This man was laughing too hard and talking about stew. Already off-putting. Great. "No stew for us, I'm afraid. We're here about the matter pertaining to the golem. I am Gaheris, an expert on this subject. This is my assistant, Robert."

He indicated the goblin.

 

[Urberus]

Robert gave a little bow, the tassels of his skullcap almost brushing the floor. When he straightened, one of his oversized ears twitched ever so slightly.

"Pleasure," he grunted.

 

[TTamark]

The interior of the room was lined with potatoes of all kinds of shapes, sizes, and colours. The sound of chickens clucking could be heard, but the cages that held the birds was covered by a cloth, the desk was a simple wooden one, roughly made with splinters still sticking out on the sides, but near the simple wooden chair before it the wood had been smoothed with ware. The floor had some soil on it, as well as some hay. The window was covered by the leaves growing from many planter boxes filled with only potato plants, each fighting to get some sunlight, this caused nearly all the light in the room to only come from a candle on the desk, and the fireplace both which were quickly lit by Steve.

Steve's smile faded as he closed the door behind them,

"Shame...

So, Gaheris... Robert... You have an idea on the matter?"

 

[Gaheris]

"Several, as it happens," Gaheris replied, eyeing the apartment with rising suspicion.

There was no way this could be considered acceptable by the college. Did they tolerate it for some reason, or were they simply unaware? The sound of agitated clucking forced Gaheris' attention away from Steve for a moment. How utterly bizarre.

At least Rob probably felt at home.

He forced himself to focus, returning to the topic at hand.

"But I'd need to inspect the golem to say anything definitively. Where is it, exactly?"

 

[Urberus]

Rob shooed off an overly inquisitive chicken with his boot, then glanced between the potato plants and the chickens.

“Heh. Stew.”

 

[TTamark]

"Oh, Several...? I would love to hear them. I need to have my supper yet so you can tell me about your ideas while I eat. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't pay mind to their treatment?

I hope you do not mind if the stew is reheated. I know some nobles disapprove of eating anything not fresh, but they are fools, stew always tastes best the second time around.

Don't worry we will head to the golem after I have had my meal. I would like emphasize the importance of the outcome to me, the methods matter less so."

Steve slowly filled five bowls with stew. He placed two of them on the floor, and offered one each to both Rob, and Gaheris one last time in case they changed their mind, or the man did not speak for the goblin, before placing the left over(s) on his desk and digging into one. The living chicken also began eating from one of the bowls on the ground.

Steve hoped his plan would work, the Eternum might depend on it.

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris passed on the stew again, and gave a thoughtful sigh. "It depends largely on the state of enmeshment. Two souls in one vessel will inevitably merge, I'm sure you know."

He had no idea how well-versed this Steve character was on such matters. Instinct told him not very much if he was tacking messages to public boards, begging for help. The fact that he had chickens and filth in his dorm was also not a point in his favor.

"If they haven't been together for too long, the use of a basic Ingenium will be enough to tease out one and leave the other, if not," Gaheris took a few meandering steps, pausing to stare dramatically into the fire. "It may call for a distillation. Which can have... Mixed results."

Gaheris now looked back to Steve, wearing a rather grim expression.

"So you'll understand if we need to see the golem sooner rather than later. Especially if you'd prefer these souls retain as much of their individual identities as possible."

It was easy to maintain the grim expression now that the gentle aroma of chicken shit was making itself known to Gaheris. His nostrils twitched.

 

[Urberus]

Yew shook his head at the stew. He leaned against the wall, pulled out his dagger and a block of wood from a pouch, and began whittling. The wood shavings fell to the floor, along with the clucking chickens, their shit, and stray dirt from the potted potatoes.

"Sooner is betta. Else distillation. Mm." Rob nodded knowingly.

 

[TTamark]

(OOC: I am going to giving you a lot of knowledge about the creature/golem, I will leave it up to your desecration to decide how much your character can tell.)

Steve sighed heavily, they were so impatient. He quickly tipped the bowl back, consuming the rest of the stew in an instant. He passed one of the bowls under the cloth into the cage, not revealing what was below. The rest he poured onto the potato plants which almost seemed to visibly swell, and grow. Steve motioned the duo out, standing by the door ready to lock up.

"Alright I will take you to it, follow me. The golem is currently at the stable guarding, so to speak, another creature. You see the reason I was not in a large hurry is because the fusion happened nearly two months ago. Now the golem is interesting because the body has become a fusion of all the bodies involved as well as intertwining their souls. You will understand better I am sure when you see it."

Steve led the pair into a private stables, and into a back section for exclusive rooms that were used for nobles horses. Sitting on a stool before one such room was a figure wearing a hooded robe, below a chicken and orc hybrid. The "golem" originally was the body of a chicken that died, but was reanimated by Steve using it's original soul. The being then lived, and learned for around fifteen years before being fused with a young female orc, who turned out to be pregnant, in a ritual. The ritual combined the bodies, and bound the souls together in such a way that all had the potential to control the body, but while dominance may shift, there were barriers in place so that none could be suppressed by another to the extent of being totally removed from consciences. The three souls are those of the chicken, a young orc mother, and her child, all contained within a magic crystal core that was a heavily enchanted potato. The body is that of a female orc with small differences such as: feathers, spurs, and claws, as well as preparations of body parts that would be wrong for an adult. The body was also a mix of living components and magic powering and maintaining it.

 

[Gaheris]

Two months. This man was clearly low on wits if he was only just now attempting to rectify such a miserable error. That their bodies had apparently fused was also someone... Disconcerting. If the bodies were gone, then there were no vessels for the souls. And even if there were bodies, by now they would have rotted beyond repair.

Somehow Gaheris doubted Steve was actually a friend of the unfortunates. Not a very good one, anyway.

But Gaheris said nothing of the matter. That wouldn't be his problem. He followed silently to the stables, eyeing the dark stalls warily. Steve mentioned another creature being present, but the only thing Gaheris saw was a robed, hooded figure sitting stiffly on a stool.

The golem, he presumed.

Gaheris withdrew a short physician's rod and approached the figure, nudging the hood off of its face. He gasped, or gagged, audibly when he saw its face. A disgusting abomination! This was no golem, not in any real sense of that word. He recognized the skin and partial facial features of an Orc, but it had merged with some sort of avian. A... Chicken?

He coughed into his hand, nearly gagging again, and took a few steps back. But the ruse maintained.

"Fascinating," said Gaheris, through gritted teeth. "And where is the power source?"

Upon indicating the general area, Gaheris would inspect it and, finding a crystallized vegetable, would sour considerably more than he already had. This was not a golem. This was an abomination, a worthless artifact of a terrible, incompetent branch of necromancy.

"I daresay we can do something," Gaheris continued, collapsing his physician's rod. "We will return tomorrow with the ingenium."

He did not wait to be shown out, gesturing to the goblin. "Come along, Robert."

 

[Urberus]

Gaheris unveiled the abomination. Rob’s knife slipped on the carving and he almost cut his own finger off. He stopped whittling and looked between Steve and the Fowl-Orc.

“Yikes.”

Then he left with Gaheris, shaking his head and scratching at gray stubble on his cheeks.

 

[TTamark]

"I'll look forward to it."

Steve watched the pair depart before letting out a sigh. Rats began coming in out of hay from around the stables. Those two had told him nothing, just talking about using an "ingenium" and that it might work, whatever that was. This whole thing was risky, he had to deal with people who would know enough to be dangerous. That was before dealing with the potential issue of not being able to replicate the process on Magnan, and Eilasandree. Steve gave the creature two potatoes to eat. Steve would have to move buttercup late at night to another private stable and stall. If they came back in the morning with trouble he could likely talk his way through the chicken-orc, but he could not risk her being found out; there would be not talking through something like that.

 

[Gaheris]

-----
​

Gaheris had, of course, lied about virtually everything. Especially regarding when he would be returning. Rather than the next day, he returned only a few hours later, with the sun just now beginning to sink beyond the horizon.

He was, of course, accompanied by Rob Yew. As well as three members of the Elbion City Watch and a battlemage from the college. No significant effort was made to conceal their approach, as they did not, overmuch, care if Steve was there or not.

After all, a similar set of lawmen was heading for Steve's dormitory. Minus Gaheris and Rob, of course.

Lieutenant Gullhorn, the battlemage in question, clanked up alongside Gaheris. The visor of his helmet often closed at the slightest movement, forcing him to continuously open it back up. "This the place?"

"It is."

"Right then." Gullhorn clamped his visor shut for good now and gestured to his men. "Break it open."

The city watchmen took to it, hacking the door down with heavy axes.

They did not, to Gaheris' dismay, even check to see if it was unlocked.

 

[Urberus]

Axes split woof with thundering cracks and a chorus of flying splinters. Rob decided now would be a good time to have some steel in hand, so he pulled out his falchion. It sang as it leapt from the sheath, overjoyed to be free.

He thumbed the razor edge with a suppressed smile, then looked up at Gaheris with murderous bug-yellow eyes.

“Now it’s necessary,”

 

[TTamark]

A rat suddenly entered the room with Steve and Zombiella(the chicken-orc), Steve only had seconds before some guards would arrive. He scrambled in a panic searching for a back door of some kind, but alas there was none, the noble fools were more concerned about keeping what was their's from being stolen, then keeping it alive in case of a fire.

Wham the first axe collided with the door. The two private guards, more like mercenaries hired by the nobles to guard the stables, jumped from his seat expecting thieves attempting to steal horses. One yelled from the inside of the door,

"Who are you? Do you realize the consequences your actions will bring you? These horses are not unguarded!"

Steve stepped out from the back of the stables and up behind the guard, took a deep breath, and amplified his voice,

"The door is unlocked, come in, and tell us what you want?"
"Why would you...?"
"They would get in eventually either way this way you aren't reprimanded the door being only kindling."

 

[Gaheris]

Lieutenant Gullhorn would have none of it. Private guards were just that - private guards - and they had no say in the legal or judicial proceedings of Elbion. That was the purview of the merchant council, which most blue bloods of the stable-owning variety were decidedly excluded from.

He lifted his visor, even though it had no bearing on the volume of his voice. "You're harboring a necromancer," he yelled. "Throw him out to us now and I won't see you thrown in stocks for protecting him, you pair of gutless ruffians."

Suddenly Steve yelled out from inside, and the guards with axes stopped hacking at the door, per Gullhorn's orders.

"That's the necromancer," Gaheris quietly confirmed to Gullhorn.

The Lieutenant frowned. "Come out then, necromancer, and I'll promise to take you in alive."

 

[Urberus]

Rob nodded, thoughtful.

Normally he wouldn’t rat out illegal operations, even illegal magic operations. After all, he got his start in the black markets as a highwayman. But fusing an orc with a chicken? That was just wrong.

There were some lines Rob just wouldn’t cross.

 

[TTamark]

"Necromancer?!?! Those are some pretty serious charges. Alright I am going to come out, just one second. ELLA YOU SHOULD PROBABLY BETTER COME OUT TO! I'm coming out now."

Steve stepped out with his hands up, Ella came out as well with the hood on covering her face. Steve offered no resistance to the guards, but shot Gaheris and Rob a WTF look.

"I assume that this is all just a simple misunderstanding. I am sure you will find that I am guilty of no crimes. Especially of necromancy. Once you peek under Ella's hood I am sure you will see both why an uneducated chap might mistake it for a monster, and for that reason why I kept her hidden till she could be healed of her condition."

 

[Gaheris]

Gaheris raised an eyebrow at Steve's bewildered look, but offered no other response. Except to fold his arms, of course, and watch expectantly as two of the guards moved to put Will's son in manacles. Gullhorn, meanwhile, guffawed at the robed figure which shuffled out.

"He's gone and named it. What a charmer," Gullhorn said, visor clattering down once again. He waltzed over to Ella and peeled pack her hood.

And then made an awful, dry retching noise. He instinctively looked away from Ella, grasping at the neck-guard of his plate armor, as if that would help him. Fifteen years on the watch, now, and he'd seen nothing like this. Gullhorn had picked the wrong week to quit sniffing pixie dust. It was those beady chicken eyes that hurt him the most.

Gullhorn gave a wet, heavy sniff and went back over to Ella, put a hand on her neck. It wasn't a threatening gesture, but he made to feel her pulse. You spend enough time rooting out black magic practitioners, you get a sense of how to sort the barely-living from the almost-certainly-dead.

But it was alive, by his account. It breathed right, had a pulse right. But there was still that foul magic he could smell (so to speak), being given off by that potato core. The horrible mutations weren't much of a good sign either.

Gullhorn spat into the dirt. "This thing's alive, but it ain't right. What's the deal?"

"He confided in me and my associate," Gaheris was quick to clarify, "That he had fused no less than two souls together. What he neglected to mention was that he also fused the bodies, resulting in this unnatural... Thing."

Gullhorn raised his visor, so he could rub the edge of his fine mustache. "Right, but it's not undead. So that makes him less of a necromancer. Still goes against the Abomination Convention of 354 and the Soul Binding Convention of 288, I reckon."

Gaheris hardly cared what manner of law Steve was arrested under. Only that it was done, and no more of these things came to blight the land. Gullhorn walked his way over to Steve.

"There anything else in those stables you want to tell me about?" Gullhorn inquired, shutting his visor again. "Confessors usually get off easier. Just saying."