After we get back to the room, I give Aunt Julia a bit more context about the first loop layer, explaining the final strategy–nipping off ginger at the proverbial bud–that finally allowed me to leave.

Meanwhile, Germaine focused on transferring the vessel’s inscriptions to paper. I didn’t have any faith in my own ability to do an accurate copy of the inscriptions, but Germaine took to the task with confident diligence.

Glancing over at what she’s transcribed so far, I’m impressed: she’s managed to unravel several patches of criss-crossing scrawl into distinct phrases. She’s essentially recreating the text from which the necromancer might have learned the ritual, though the ordering of the phrases is likely jumbled.

After discussing the first loop layer, Aunt Julia and I sit around a glossY, our eyes glued to a dictionary translating what we suspect to be the archaic Swellish dialect used by the necromancer. I don’t have perfect recall, but I can remember a few of the words I was missing, and can accurately transcribe the bits that I understood. We go sentence by sentence, clause by clause, trying to determine what might have been the necromancer’s complete ritual.

Aunt Julia and I sounding out words and painstakingly comparing definitions isn’t exactly fun, but we suffer and laugh together over our failures. Germaine is in the background, but she frequently calls us over to ask for second opinions on the shape or curve of certain transcriptions.

It’s relieving not to rely only on myself. It’s true that back in the Godora command layer I collaborated with Euryphel, but unlike his assistance, that given by Germaine and Aunt Julia is unconditional: I don’t need to read too much into it, or second guess their intentions. I’m comfortable trusting that the two of them are fully invested in helping me escape for my own sake, versus fulfilling some political agenda.

After an hour of effort, Aunt Julia and I manage to decipher what we believe to be the original ritual used on the vessel:

Yz’vor, maru gorem,

Golem, last sight of the magi,

Shanadel’ora’we.

Now bound to the hunt.

Gor ren nais, gor ren sum.

Man is born in a moment, gone in a moment.

Skoda’nel no’we.

Borrowed, but not missed.

Devesta ti erterra ashar’le.

Deliver our ashes to the earth.

Vara skai’sum’we!

Go forth and raise hell!

The first part of the ritual seems to us more specific to the task at hand–controlling a vessel, or golem–while the latter stanzas seem more generic.

Germaine presses a pencil to her lips. “The third stanza references mortality, while the fourth...’borrowed, but not missed,’ makes me think of someone stealing a soul away before it returns to wherever souls normally go after death.”

“That would make sense here, considering how the woman’s soul appeared to be appropriated by the necromancer to empower the vessel,” I affirm.

Aunt Julia sighs. “And the last two lines..deliver our ashes to the earth, go forth and raise hell...”

“Within the vessel was a highly-compressed reservoir of Death energy. I know we haven’t deciphered the phrases that Germaine has written down yet, but after dabbling around a bit earlier, I’m certain that most of the inscriptions serve a more destructive purpose than mere obfuscation. Likely, the vessel was prepared so that it could destroy the yacht club.”

“Like...an explosion?” Germaine asks.

I nod. “Like I mentioned with the blood array at the winery, using raw Death energy, rather than soul gems, is less stable and prone to exploding when disturbed. However, in this case, the hard exterior of the vessel and the wide, interconnected inscriptions suggest that the vessel was prepared against exploding when handled the wrong way.” Or attacked, for that matter.

“Why not just use a soul gem, then?” Aunt Julia murmurs.

“That’s the question of the moment, isn’t it? I don’t think we can determine much more definitively without trying to make sense of Germaine’s transcription.”

While Germaine continues to transcribe, Aunt Julia and I begin to translate what’s currently there. Unfortunately, we’re not met with much success. Looking up different types of alphabets and runes, we don’t find any matches for the language that decorates the vessel.

“Aren’t you both exhausted?” Germaine suddenly asks, yawning.

Aunt Julia and I share a sheepish look.

“We’ve actually...well, we’ve been giving ourselves jolts of energy. For Aunt Julia, it’s easy: she can give herself a boost of vitality,” I explain.

“‘Easy’ is simplifying things a bit, nephew.”

I cough lightly. “And for myself, the process is a bit more convoluted, but I can accomplish the same result.”

Germaine gives each of us the stink eye. “Didn’t it occur to you to do the same kind of vitality shot to me?”

“If you aren’t used to it, it can be a bit jarring,” Aunt Julia explained.

I nod, recalling the first few times I experimented with keeping myself alert. “Like severe caffeine jitters. The dosage is key as well, and giving you too much concentrated vitality might render you–”

Aunt Julia lets out a groan. “Julian, that’s enough. Germaine, if you wish, I can give you some vitality.”

“Yes, please. And Ian, not positive where you were going with that train of thought, but I don’t need to hear it.”

I chuckle. “Fine, fine.”

A few seconds later, Germaine literally jumps in place, springing like a frog from her seat on the floor.

“That! Is! Something!” she huffs, eyes wide. I can see the formerly-sluggish vitality in her vessels pulsing much faster, as though going into overdrive. In a few minutes, it should equilibrate, but until then, she’ll be feeling something of a small, jittery high.

“Now that everyone’s properly wide awake, back to work,” Aunt Julia says firmly.

—

An hour later, Germaine holds up a piece of paper with her transcription.

“We’re looking at it all wrong!” she says, voice tinged with awe.

Aunt Julia and I immediately look up, the glossY forgotten.

I gesture at the vessel. “Please explain.”

“It’s not a language, not one that would be written or spoken by us. What is this inscription, other than a channel? These...they’re like rivers, cutting through a landscape. Based on the density of the rivers, and the flux of water coursing through them, the landscape is turned to swamp, to desert, to volcanoes!”

My eyes slowly meet Aunt Julia’s, the two of us sharing a confounded expression.

“The vessel isn’t a landscape, Germaine. Moreover, the inscriptions clearly seem to follow certain patterns, with repeating words and phrases. They aren’t haphazard lines, are they?”

“Aren’t they?” Germaine replies, her eyes alight. “In the vision, you said that the man carved the woman without a reference, correct? You never mentioned him consulting anything. But when he was reciting the ritual at the end–which has far fewer lines than what I’ve transcribed, if you couldn’t already tell–he needed to consult a tome.”

She has a point.

“So you’re saying that the similarities in the script that we’re mistaking for words and phrases are coincidental?”

“Not coincidental at all. By carving in certain ways–with a certain depth, width, length–and placing more carvings in some areas than others, energy may be channeled differently over the vessel’s surface. Depending on the kind of groupings of carvings, you might get different effects, like I said in the beginning with the landscape example.”

I scootch across the floor, sitting beside the vessel. Germaine steps away, a victorious look in her eyes.

“Ian, what are you thinking?” our aunt asks.

I close my eyes and raise my hands above the vessel’s spine. “I’m going to try my hand at understanding the inscriptions again.”

I can see her cross her arms with my eyes closed, vitality coursing through her body like thick, white electricity.

“Very well. Remember though, that outside the loop, what we’ve been doing with the vessel would be enough to warrant our arrest. Inside the loop, it’s justifiable, given our circumstances. But pouring Death energy into the inscriptions and trying to make sense of them...it won’t look good to whoever eventually sees the footage of you in the loop.”

“I’m not planning to become a necromancer, Aunt Julia,” I say dismissively, opening my eyes. “I’m just trying to understand how the vessel works in case we come across another, or have to deal with a necromantic array using similar principles of construction.”

“Do you really think you’re going to be able to glean anything useful in a few hours? I think it’s a waste of time; we should instead start our investigation of the Flower District while most people are still asleep.”

I run my fingers over the vessel. “Just give me fifteen minutes. If I can even learn a bit about how to most efficiently neutralize these inscriptions, it might be helpful. I’m concerned that when we enter the Flower District, the necromancer will be ready for us; all it would take is one well-placed, obfuscated array hidden under the pavement. If I can’t see a trap with my eyes, or my decemantic vision, I’ll be at risk of blindly walking into danger. The same goes for you as well, Aunt Julia.”

“Well-said. I suppose it’s worth spending at least fifteen minutes on, but if you don’t make much progress, we should go.”

I nod, then close my eyes once more, running my fingers along a set of grooves. I trace them, all the while trying to envision them as metaphorical rivers. I sink into my thoughts, fingers trailing across the inscriptions while leaving threads of Death energy behind. If I can simulate the course of the energy on the vessel’s surface, then hopefully I can find a way to disable it.

After a few minutes, the vessel is covered in what looks like a web of nodes. If the nodes were red rather than grayish-black, the connections between them might almost look like tightly bunched muscle sinews. Instead, they look like translucent wires, their surfaces shimmering as though freshly oiled.

I lay my finger on one of the Death energy wires, then pull at it, as though plucking the string of a harp. The force passes through the node, dispersing amongst the other connections.

I think...that I’m starting to understand. To quickly neutralize the power of the vessel without first depleting its energy source, I could try interrupting the flow of energy along the carvings. Unlike depletion, interruption is instantaneous: I’ll be able to disable any traps so long as I can react fast enough.

Aunt Julia seems to have a similar insight. “Julian, do you see the way the energy resonates? Is there a way to cancel it out?”

I furrow my brow, then pluck at the energy wire again, then once more. On the third time, I manage to prevent the force from transferring into the node and its connectors, using a bumper of Death energy to reflect the force out and away from the vessel.

“Amazing...and can you do it again, with more of the nodes?”

This time, instead of manually plucking a single wire, I pull several of them at once; moving my own Death energy with my mind takes trivial effort. After successfully shielding the nodes, I escalate once more, pulling all the wires at once. Again, I manage to redirect and disperse the force outward.

“Now remove the nodes, but keep whatever you’re using to dissipate the force.”

I see where she’s leading me–while it’s good to be able to deflect energy coursing through my web of nodes, the nodes are just a stand-in. It’s time to transition to something more realistic.

“Alright. We should see if the original obfuscation spell is affected by my shielding.”

“There’s a small button on the back of the neck to turn it on,” Germaine interjects.

Sounds about right. I open my eyes and visually inspect the neck for the button. Sure enough, I see a tiny, circular depression, barely noticeable amongst all the carvings. I press my finger against it and the obfuscation springs back into place.

Despite the reflective energy bumpers, the obfuscation activates without issue. I feel like I’m close to a solution, but that there’s still something subtle that I’m missing.

Aunt Julia’s previous question comes to mind: why would a necromancer choose to use raw Death energy over a soul gem to power this vessel?

Gritting my teeth, I begin to condense a soul gem out of ambient energy within the vessel. It’s weak and non-uniform, but that doesn’t matter: the key point is that I can test it as a power source.

When I activate the obfuscation spell again, energy flows unevenly, as though pulled in conflicting directions. The spell still functions, though its shadows are less substantial.

“Julian, take this,” Aunt Julia says, tossing me a bracelet. As it falls into my lap, I notice a soul gem socketed in it. It’s not particularly powerful–it’s half the size of a pea–but it’s quite pure, likely sourced from one entity.

She resumes her previous stance, crossing her arms over her chest. “It bears the imprint of a lupine rift beast.”

I suspect it’s probably worth several thousand auris; anything associated with rift beasts is sold at a premium. I crush it without hesitation, plunging its dispersed mist into the vessel’s center before reforming it anew.

Now, energy flows along the carvings erratically; the obfuscation spell is almost non-functional, with only a few shadows remaining on the vessel’s surface. My suspicion is confirmed: powering the vessel with soul gems disrupts the effects of its inscriptions, their energies somehow incompatible.

I wave my hand, reforming both gems outside the vessel. This time, instead of trying to reflect and dissipate the obfuscation spell using my own energy, I use Aunt Julia’s soul gem as a power source.

I breathe a sigh of relief as the obfuscation breaks. The whorls of gray, cloth-like shadow freeze and then shatter roughly. I feel a tug of resistance on the soul gem, its surface buzzing as the reflective bumpers receive and disperse energy.

“I can’t believe that worked,” I murmur.

Aunt Julia shakes her head and steps forward, nudging the vessel’s arm with her foot. “Neither can I. To disrupt the necromantic inscriptions, it’s enough to spread out a thin web of energy powered by a soul gem.”

Germaine gives both of us a lost look. “If it’s so simple, what’s the big deal?”

I open my mouth to speak, but Aunt Julia beats me to it.

“Nature seems simple, but within it hides infinite complexity. Such is elegance.” She turns toward me, giving me a serious look. “It’s been nearly an hour; it’s time we try to track this necromancer down.”