Amdirlain’s PoV - Culerzic

The wide outer layer of grain fields took her hours of line-of-sight teleporting to cross. Fertilised by the damned’s corruption, the rancid grains sprang up continuously from the soil. Outwardly, continuous payments from the overseers were the only things that kept the malevolent field hands trudging between the damned and the fields. Yet Amdirlain caught from their minds that the coin wasn’t their primary motivation—their toil helped stave off eternal boredom.

Ignoring the looks she got from the overseers and workers, Amdirlain kept moving. Eventually, the road ran through an orchard where meat-coloured fruit rotted on the branches. Despite their appearance, the fly-blown fruit seemed disinclined to fall; instead, they slowly expanded like putrefying flesh stretched by a corpse's internal gases.

As she grew closer to the town, the stench from the fruit thickened into a haze.

Various lesser demons moved among the groves, carefully picking fruit that seemed ready to explode. Their demonic appetites, primed by the foul odour, gave Amdirlain an idea. Her pace slowed as she started the silent three-part harmony, wrapping yin with a desire for the energy of the demonic shard into the tree's growth. The first tree into which she embedded it immediately budded more fruit, and soon their budded flesh sang a hungry yet subtle consuming melody.

The town on the orchard’s far side wasn’t walled. Instead, she found a few thousand shanties sprawled along a gentle, ashen slope towards a wide river. Along the slope, what started as isolated buildings became the town’s erratic core on the river bank. Various demonic breeds lounged about, covering the ground between the buildings, apparently too bored to even bother constructing a dwelling for themselves.

She paused on the slope’s lip and set off dozens of detection songs she’d designed for the crystals. Amdirlain altered their placements and repeated the checks twice before she strode forward; her path towards the river took her between the largest groups of assorted demons. The songs' overlapping areas provided her with a surety that no mortals were present within the town.

As Amdirlain’s aura swept across them, a few perked up to see the source. They flinched at her glare and, without saying anything, returned to daydreaming of torments they could inflict on vulnerable prey.

Idle hands for the fields?

Amdirlain pushed more of Charisma’s energy through Dominion, gifting those around with her anger and pain. Amdirlain slowly extended Dominion and built up the pressure until a wave of unsettled anger nipped and snapped at those lying nearby. A sudden burst of violence between two bored Dretch had dozens of others join their brawl.

The fight she’d triggered exploded and sucked in hundreds of combatants within a breath. By the time she reached the first clump of buildings, dozens were dead and more were being dismembered. The formerly bored demons found release in an orgy of violence as they lashed out with teeth and claws.

Before she reached the township’s boundary, the fighting had spread beyond her Dominion’s range. When Amdirlain found the first brothel, True Song lashed out. Collars of servitude enslaving the staff fractured and fell away. Though many former captives left, dozens erupted from huts, the succubi joining the fray. Their sharp claws and health-draining powers reaped a harvest from among the distracted demons.

Those succubi that came close to Amdirlain took in her aura and set upon safer targets. Before she reached the township’s centre, the pressure of infecting the horde with her rage triggered an increase in Dominion.

[Dominion [S] (6->7)]

A long loop took her along the riverbank and out to the furthest upstream building. Most of the demons behind her threw themselves at each other in a frenzy of mutual destruction. Treading her way back through the orchard, she infected its trees with more songs of interlocking yin, hungering for the demonic shards.

Tendrils of flames continued to leap from buildings and screams followed her as the fruit pickers began to fight. Ignoring the destruction they inflicted on isolated trees, she returned through the fields of the damned, composing changes to her original song on the move.

An emptied funerary platform received a new screaming arrival, and Amdirlain’s song enfolded them. Beaks piercing flesh to rip out the manifestations of organs and muscle drawn from memory invoked no reaction from the suddenly silent figure. The lack of torment caused the memories of flesh to fade before the birds could swallow. As one, the four birds tilted their heads in confusion and pecked again. Their pace increased with the frenzy of their frustration, yet it delivered no result. Beneath the platform, the ground splattered with the last remnants of their lost prey, started to dry.

With the melody's success demonstrated, she entwined it with a detection theme and embedded the result into a crystal spike. As she walked along, more of the damned fell silent without her own direct intervention. However, the lines of damned stretched on further than she could see across the vast kilometres of the open plain before her. The thought of trudging those distances, even at the Skëll’s ground-eating pace, elicited a grunt of dissatisfaction, and she teleported away.

With her return, Sarah opened a jewelled eye and snorted in amusement. “You smell of smoke and violence, among other fun things, but there’s no blood on you.”

“I let the demons rip each other apart.”

“They just decided it was time for a brawl?” laughed Sarah.

“Perhaps I wandered through projecting with Dominion to incite a touch of violence.”

“Oh, the shame,” gasped Sarah, and she gave a deeper snort. “Did you stick around to babysit them? You’ve been gone a while.”

“The location’s images didn’t indicate distance, so I walked more than expected. It gave me time to think about the local damned and compose a song. I also poisoned the local orchard,” explained Amdirlain, and she resumed her Anar form.

“What sort of poison did you use?”

Amdirlain gave her a lop-sided smile. “I interlaced yin with a hunger for demon shards into the trees.”

“Sounds cute. What do you think it will do, spawn a bunch of female demons?”

Giving an exaggerated face-palm, Amdirlain shook her head dramatically. “Oh, hilarious. If I got it right, those eating the fruit should find the energy eating away at their accumulated shards, weakening them.”

Sarah coughed in surprise, lifting her head to consider Amdirlain properly. “How much effect do you think it will have on a Demon?”

“While it won’t drop them down a Tier, it will stop them gaining levels inside one, potentially even dropping them back levels,” replied Amdirlain. “That’s if anyone comes back to harvest them.”

“Cool, maybe we’ll need to feed a Demon with a few to check the effects,” suggested Sarah. “While you had fun, I organised contact with that cloister member. Since I wasn’t sure how long before the High Crafter would be available, I talked to Roher. That turned out to be a lot easier than I had expected. They opened a Gate focused on his name inside the settlements' protective aura. While it scared the nightmares out of the Fallen, he’s passed Roher and Isa’s muster.”

“Nightmares? Really?” groaned Amdirlain.

Sarah poked out her tongue and blew a raspberry that was more of a sibilant hiss. “Living daylights didn’t have the right feel to it. You’ll understand whenever you get around to meeting him. Don’t worry—he’s told it might be some time before you’re in touch.”

“What’s this Fallen’s name?”

“Dagrastûr,” Sarah replied, the word flowing easily despite her draconic form.

Amdirlain caught the name’s elven inflections and translated it. “Master of slaughter? Who is this fellow?”

“He was equivalent to a Solar in the Summer Court before his fall. The Queen renamed him when his deeds revealed how twisted he’d become and struck his old name from their records,” explained Sarah. “He’s been with the Cloister for some time now.”

“Some time?”

“Only about eight hundred thousand years. Don’t mention your old name to him—he might recognise it,” cautioned Sarah.

“Were you there when Roher spoke to him?”

“I know you’re being careful to avoid letting things slip. However, since the Lómë aren’t aware of what you’re hiding, they’re coming up with other reasons for your avoiding them. I’d suggest at least giving out more chores—the kids are heartbroken,” sighed Sarah dramatically.

“Not exactly the easiest since we’re stuck on different planes and they’re restricted to their settlements,” countered Amdirlain, and repeated her question. “So, were you there when Roher spoke to him?”

“Yes, but Analysis gave me a headache trying to get his levels. Use Analysis on his name and see what you get,” suggested Sarah knowingly.

[Name: Dagrastûr

Species: Arch Profaner (Fallen Transformation)

Details: A Celestial that came to the realm in the service of the Summer Queen Titania and continued to serve her until his fall. His corruption began from slaughtering tribes of elves and other species aligned with the Winter Court. Cast out from the Summer Court, he spent aeons running amok before finding a reason to seek Redemption’s Path. Presently acts as one of the contact points for those negotiating with the Cloister.]

“Profaner?”

“At least he’s only an Arch Profaner. He seems a physical combat type, so maybe that’s the only option he got offered,” remarked Sarah.

“So even if I avoid giving him my current or old name, he’ll still likely recognise the True Song Crystal if he’s that old,” stated Amdirlain.

Sarah flexed her wings. “Yes, but he already recognised the Lómë, so that cat is out of the bag. Plus, even if he hadn’t, dealing with Fallen or Celestial forces, you’ll likely come across someone old enough to recognise it. Right now we don’t have to go near him. We've got plenty of ways we can hurt Moloch without involving ourselves with the Fallen yet.”

“I appreciate your help.”

“No worries. I’ll help as much as possible, even if that doesn’t include your stealth missions,” Sarah replied. “Isa helped me confirm that your magic eraser removes the tags from Mortal souls. I used the version you set in the repaired crystal rather than those you created from scratch when we tested it. She’s off scrubbing the rest of Duskstone clean with it at present.”

“Thanks. I don’t know if Isa or Erwarth will notice, but it's different if Roher hears one I did solo. I’m certain he’ll pick up on it,” Amdirlain said, and she paced about in silence with Sarah watching on.

When Amdirlain broke the silence with a muttered curse, Sarah finally spoke up. “Penny, for your thoughts?”

“No, then I’d have to give you change,” grumbled Amdirlain. “I caught myself in some circular logic and realised the obvious way to break it. I could have Roher compose the Fallen detection for the crystals. We’ll need to test them to ensure the Mortal and Fallen detections will work together.”

“I told blood boy you were looking to get their help to release trapped mortals, and he seemed eager to help,” Sarah advised.

“How eager?” asked Amdirlain warily.

“It didn’t seem like he was looking for a cheat to get out, but more they need what you’re offering to get out at all.”

“What do you mean?”

Sarah tapped the ground with an extended claw as she considered her words. “It seems like they’ve got a version of the 12-step program at work, and their making amends doesn’t count the slaying of demons. They need to undertake work that helps mortals. Providing guidance and protection of primitive worlds seems to be their mainstay since it's almost impossible for older ones to reach civilised worlds.”

“What about mortals on the planes?”

“Most planar mortals seem to consider getting mixed up with Fallen bad news,” observed Sarah.

“I hadn’t considered that; Orhêthurin didn’t make the path easy,” groaned Amdirlain.

“The worlds on the Material Plane didn’t used to be sealed, as there wasn’t the same need. The original abyssal primordials didn’t care about mortals. After they experimented with corrupted souls and created demons, worlds became sealed against Immortal beings from all the outer planes,” recounted Sarah. “It was then the Big A and his Hierarchy of Sin got an invitation to come to play in this realm.”

“Okay, that’s unsettling. I wonder if Orhêthurin made the path easier to find after that occurred. It seemed like she was going to leave it up to the trio to tell others,” commented Amdirlain. “What level of detail did you go into?”

“Pretty light, kept it to an initial exploration of if they were interested and learning about them. Didn’t tell him about our lost sheep—I wasn’t sure if it would even be helpful to bring him up,” noted Sarah.

“Not much point. Torm isn’t using that name any longer, and who knows what he looks like,” agreed Amdirlain. “Anything else you covered?”

“I asked him about the marker you found,” Sarah replied, and she deliberately stopped until Amdirlain motioned her to spit it out.

“He says they’re quite common. They turn up in places they’re not seen previously, but once they’re reported in a spot, others checking have found them. Their purpose seems to be to lead prospects along a path depending on whatever resistances they’re lacking for Ijmti,” said Sarah, absently scratching at her forelimb. “I didn’t even know Orhêthurin had created them, let alone seeded them through the Abyss.”

“Must have been something she did in her downtime. You know, when she didn’t have one of your incarnations to entertain?” teased Amdirlain.

“I know, dragons are worse than house cats with needing attention,” said Sarah, and she gave a dramatic sniff that turned into a little sob. “You’ve neglected me so much. Woe is me.”

Amdirlain closed her eyes and gave a mock sigh. “Yeah, fine. Next time I pop down the shops, I’ll pick up a dragon tree,”

“Make sure you get one with enough height so I can properly stretch when scratching,” laughed Sarah. “Not even a proper bed in this place.”

“What about if we talk to Roher, get him to compose the song for the Fallen detection? Then get him to open a Gate for us to speak to Dagrastûr to test it.”

“We just talked to him,” said Sarah, and her initially puzzled expression quickly evaporated. “You’ll use the settlement’s song as a firewall instead of meeting him on this plane.”

“Oh, look at you using techie concepts,” gasped Amdirlain.

“Please, I wasn’t a complete Luddite,” huffed Sarah, and she gave Amdirlain an expressive tail flick. “The PC software was always telling me about blocked intrusion attempts.”

The similarity to her mum’s cat giving her a feline middle finger had Amdirlain smiling. “That’s because you needed to spank some of your customers harder.”

“No, I handled them exactly as they needed to be handled. Stop trying to change the subject. When did you want to talk to Roher about the Fallen detection and chat with Dagrastûr?” Sarah enquired.

“Let’s see if he has time,” Amdirlain said, and she sent off a Message.

“Oh, I think he’ll make time,” whispered Sarah.

The reply wasn’t long in coming. A Gate that hummed between the planes opened with its focus on Amdirlain.

The Gate’s nature gave her plenty of warning, and Amdirlain gave a relaxed wave trying to ease the tension she saw in his usually relaxed demeanour. “Hi Roher, it’s been a while.”

Roher gave her a formal bow, and his bright gaze glistened through tears. He reached out as if to clasp her hands but clenched his teeth in frustration and forced himself to step back from the Gate. “Amdirlain, we’ve not enough melodies to convey our sorrow. While we never met him, his loss reminds us of our lost kin. Those who have learnt of your pain weep that you now endured such loss, especially atop your existing trials.”

Amdirlain nodded and blinked a rush of tears away. “As Sarah reminded me, he still exists, so I’m trying to focus on his recovery as we’ve recovered others.”

“We’ll pray to the Light that this comes to pass,” affirmed Roher, and he coughed roughly to clear his emotion-thickened voice. “Do you believe the Fallen that Sarah and I met with can help you recover him?”

“Not in the immediate future, but perhaps once we get him interested in Redemption’s Path,” replied Amdirlain. “I wanted to ask you if you have any compositions that could detect a Fallen’s presence.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Amdirlain explained their goal and the tools they’d made to track down captive mortals. Through her explanation, Amdirlain carefully referred only to the scraps repaired with Erwarth.

“Turning scraps into tools to rescue others,” murmured Roher.

“And the use of psi-crystals to organise the provided information,” demurred Amdirlain. “It was Sarah’s idea to add detection for Fallen on them as well to see if we can locate Torm. I’m unsure about composing something that would cover all Fallen transformations.”

Roher gave her a cautious smile. “I’ll put together a melody for you. Might I see what you’ve composed so far?”

Securing the pages into a scroll case, Amdirlain tossed them through the Gate.

The initial resigned hunch of Roher’s posture reminded Amdirlain of a teacher being handed a problem student’s assignment for review. As he worked through the pages, he straightened and started to shoot speculative glances her way.

“Isa mentioned your composition evolved, but I must admit I hadn’t given that enough credence,” said Roher, and he shifted back through the music. “These are all songs we could set into crystals for you. You’ve broken the elements into more individual songs than I would have, but I can see it would reduce the crystal’s stress.”

“My Soul memories helped my composition to evolve into True Song Architecture,” admitted Amdirlain, and she smiled when Roher hummed appreciatively. “There are a few parts with problems, and I’ve created alternative songs to restrict the range. Our tests found the greater ranges experience failures,”

His focus didn’t shift from the pages as he turned back to the start. “You’ve some inefficiency here and there, but I can help refine them. Fine-tuning your detection to a greater area is possible, but the trade-off is that the greater the range, the faster the crystal decays and requires repairs.”

“The plan was to plant them as close to natural gates as possible,” advised Amdirlain.

“In that case, the range shouldn’t be an issue if they can place it close enough—still, smoothing its melody will minimise strain. We should add a melody and control to sink the crystal into rock or soil,” suggested Roher.

“I had planned to put the first static ones in place myself with Inventory,” explained Amdirlain.

“Isa has shown me some of your tricks with that ability, but yes, no point in getting too far along before you prove something works,” said Roher, and he drummed his fingers lightly on the pages. “Would it be acceptable for me to show this to other composers?”

“Whoever you think might be interested,” affirmed Amdirlain.

Tucking the pages away, he slipped the case into his sash. “We’ve been doing some experimenting of our own. How is your Multi-voice going?”

Amdirlain gave him a tight grin. “For simple, individual songs, up to 90 at once. Duet still lets me down. If I need to intermingle the songs, I end up with a dissonance between them that lessens their impact, and I have to cut back to a lesser number.”

“You’ve done well to advance it so quickly. The issue you face is understandable. Your skill in Duet would need to be considerably higher if you are singing all the intermingled songs,” explained Roher, tapping the scroll case at his waist. “We can help you stretch it and move towards this goal.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Roher hummed the intro of True Song Crystal’s melody and smiled slyly at Amdirlain. He pointed to a spot on her side of the Gate as he started it again, and Amdirlain joined in. With Roher leading, his intent controlled the manifestation.

When they’d finished, a crystal spike about the length of a stiletto’s blade had stabilised. “I didn’t think that was possible without the singers in the same location.”

“Isa mentioned you hadn’t asked for our help because we can’t come to you, so we’ve been experimenting,” gushed Roher happily. “The Gate’s energy was initially distracting for those singing through the Gate, but one gets used to it with effort. We’ve been using gates between settlements to practise. It has been a good stretch of our abilities, and it's even more challenging if you sing through a series of gates.”

“What’s the most anyone’s managed?” asked Amdirlain, amused by Roher’s sudden enthusiasm.

“I’m up to twelve,” replied Roher smugly.

“What would you like for your help?” Amdirlain asked, wincing when Roher flinched as if she’d slapped him.

Roher’s gaze changed to a mock glare, and he waved a finger reprovingly. “What would you like for yours? We owe our continued existence to you, and you think we need repayment from you? It saddens us all that you’ve kept interactions with our settlements to a minimum, and often, it seems, at arm's length; I can only guess our abandonment of Orhêthurin makes you leery of dealing with us.”

“That’s not the case,” sighed Amdirlain.

He fixed her with a sad smile. “It would be completely understandable if it were.”

Amdirlain gave him an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry for giving that impression. I’ve remembered nothing that felt to be after Mori’s coronation, and I’ve not even remembered that. How about we focus on what we can do together? ”

“Whenever you wish to spare time from your other projects, I’ll have singers available for this work,” offered Roher. “Give me a few weeks, and I’ll see what refinement we can compose around your vision of this net. Do you wish to start on crystals before the addition of the Fallen detection and refinements are ready?”

His enthusiasm caught her by such surprise, Amdirlain had to gather herself. “The crystals are likely to be the biggest bottleneck. I was also looking at using them to set songs to mute the damned’s suffering.”

It was Roher’s turn to be caught by surprise, and he scratched his head in confusion. “Why?”

“Muting the souls' ability to suffer prevents demons from being formed by the Abyss,” explained Amdirlain.

“The Abyss is adaptive and attracted to corruption; the amoral attitude carried within it matches the Abyss’ original nature, even if the malicious doesn’t. If you stop it drawing the damned’s corruption away in one fashion, it will probably find another,” cautioned Roher before he stopped and snorted. “Here I am, holding onto what I’ve always known. If you’d taken that approach with us, we’d still be treading the path to joining the lost.”

His fingers tapped against the case, and Amdirlain could hear his racing thoughts but stayed clear of eavesdropping.

“Is this neutralisation all that you wish to achieve?” Roher finally asked.

“I was hoping to purge the souls to a blank slate instead. I was taking this approach as a stepping stone along that path.”

Roher nodded. “Ebusuku spoke to me, and perhaps I was too hasty in dismissing your desire to deal with Moloch. Is this goal part of your plans for him?”

“For what he did, Culerzic gets to be the first one I try this against, not the last. The Abyss was once a wild and dangerous place, but not corrupt as it is now. Scouring parts of it clean would be impossible if more corruption from millions of worlds continues to pour in,” declared Amdirlain.

“If you scour Culerzic clean, the energies in the Abyss will probably attract the corrupt souls to other abyssal planes. Yet, if you hadn’t brought our lost to be scoured by the purification field, they’d have remained lost,” said Roher. “It seems I need to listen better when younger people tell me things. What do you need?”

“Ideally, I’d like an inferno like the Titan’s forge to purify all the memories and corruption. However, Ebusuku suggested that while Planar Locked, I stick with effects others would see as demonic. Any suggestions along those lines?

“The primordial essence of creation within his forge isn’t something any singer is likely to manage,” replied Roher, and he gave her a wry smile. “Unless you can find the Titan’s Songbird, we’ll have to aim for lesser goals. I doubt damned souls going quiet is something others would see as demonic. Also, while merely a curiosity in smaller numbers, they'd look harder once it reaches large enough zones of silence. Dangerous, since some powerful magics can look into the past events of a region.”

“I’ve been going near places in different guises to delay enquiries,” said Amdirlain.

Roher tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Instead of leaving the damned in place, why don’t we steal them?”

The proposal sent Amdirlain’s mind whirling through possibilities, but she held her tongue from blurting out what she saw. “What did you have in mind?”