Flashback [Guest ST] Echo of Memory

[Aoren]

“She left the beginning of this Season. To where? I cannot say.” He shrugged his shoulders. The young man furrowed his brow as he considered what Rayage was saying. Way the woman responsible? Was she a wielder of foul abominable sorcery? It was a terrifying thought to consider. Was there such a magic capable of manufacturing such a devastating and unholy affliction? The answers would only come with further investigation.

“As I said, the woman had many secrets. Some she shared with me. I am certain there were many others that she didn’t. What you say warrants further thought however. I will have to approach my evaluations in a different light given this new train of thought. To think that magic could create such an abominable thing…” He shivered. The young man looked dubious as Rayage suggested coming back the next day. He seemed anxious. No doubt it was because he was eager to continue his work. The sooner a solution to this abhorrent problem was found, the better. Hesitantly though he bowed his head.

“Very well. I will return first thing in the morning. Maybe then I will have some answers. I can only hope that through our actions now we find a solution in time. As it stands the disease seems to be contained. I do not know how long that will last.” He gave Rayage a nod then with a polite wave the young man exited the shop.

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17th of Summer, 504 AV
19th Bell

The morning had come. The young physician had been nowhere to be found. News of perhaps one or two gruesome deaths within the Tent City had been circulating around Sunberth. No one really seemed all that phased about it. It was to be expected in a city that was so visited by death and disorder. Many likely attributed the deaths not to any disease but to gang violence where rivals struggled to dominate potential territory.

All in all, there were any number of reasons why the young man was late. Was he dead? It was a strong possibility. Such a light hearted soul was very out of place in the gruff backdrop of Sunberth. He could very well have gone out of his way to be a helpful hand and gotten that hand sliced off. Had he fallen victim to the very thing he’d endeavored to cure? Such a fate would have been cruel indeed. Regardless, the day seemed to pass by at a snail’s pace. Time trickled by, all the while numerous questions would undoubtedly pass through Rayage’s head.

Was the young man dead? Had he gotten caught up in his work? Was he run out of town? Who was the woman? Was she involved in the surfacing of this disease? Again, who was she? No matter what direction his thoughts turned, Rayage’s brain would lead him back to the woman. Bits and pieces of the vision from the day prior would clearly play out in his mind though nothing further had begun to surface. It was when Rayage was beginning to close up the shop to depart for his own living quarters that the door to The Majestic opened and in walked the young man from the day prior. His clothes were dustier. His face was slightly ashen. He looked impossibly tired. There was a haze over his eyes and a slight limp to his step. When he closed the door behind him he slumped against it with a heavy sigh before pushing off of it leveling Rayage with a stare. He gave the Nuit a tired smile.

“I am deeply sorry for my tardiness. I’m sure you had begun to wonder if I was coming. My work became far more demanding literally overnight.” He shook his head stepping up to the counter. He ran a gloved hand through his hair letting out another tired sigh.

“Do you have the poison? I fear it is more necessary than ever. If it is ready we can depart for the tent that I have set up within the Tent City. I can show you the patients that I have been working with. Those still living and some of the dead.” There was a hollow note to his voice that seemed a little removed from the here and now.

[Rayage]

Rayage paced around the shop. Morning had come, he had even spent all day acquiring the poison which was needed. The tasks were not too difficult, but it wasn’t too easy either. Making sure Doler was comfortable enough to part with such a thing was something of a trifle, especially when around every corner in sunberth there could be death, perhaps his. He had went through so much trouble acquiring the poison and yet, yet the man from yesterday, he was nowhere to be found. The nuit was half tempted to go to the tent city himself to access the situation personally, but what if the man showed up in his absence? He couldn’t have that. He didn’t risk that, he couldn’t. He needed answers and the man seemed to have a few at least.

The woman haunted his thoughts and actions. He still shivered at her image. Though no matter how much he thought of her, he couldn’t quite place her. It was at the very back of his mind, he could feel a connection, but couldn’t place that either. It brought up more questions than answers and he was left perplexed by the situation. A mysterious woman, an equally mysterious man who needed his help.. He didn’t know either of their names, yet it ate away at him. This mystery seemed to call to him in a haunting tune which possessed the nuit to go to great lengths he wouldn’t normally go to. The poison had been acquired, but what if he lost the man? What if he was dead? He would have to start his search all over again; that was something which didn’t appeal to him.

The day dragged by as stray thoughts flew through the nuits mind. He was actually worried about the man, not for the mans sake, but for his own. He had to remind himself of that. Vayt’s Lullaby made him shiver as he recounted the account of the disease. If it was of magical origin, he wasn’t sure if they could even attempt to cure it. He wasn’t sure what the poison he clutched in his hand could do for them, probably an act of mercy, one to grant those afflicted some mortal comfort before they pass, but it was a key to Rayage. A key to answers and that is what he wanted most. Anything, anything to get the haunting images out of his head…

It was then the man appeared. Rayage stopped pacing and took a moment to appraise the man. He seemed haggard, worn, tired, not in a right state of mind. His voice was different from yesterday, deader. Rayage knew that exhaustion, the one passion for ones work, a sense of duty and urgency that made rest stay at bay. It was a trait of the man which Rayage could appreciate. It was nice to see such a driven man in this shyke hole of a city. Oddly enough the nuit couldn’t conceal a small smile that seemed out of place in the situation, and nodded, ”Of course,” he said, ”Let us be off.” The nuit was curious as to what had kept the man up all night, as he assumed was the case.

Poison in hand he brought it up to show the man as he walked towards the door. He would be careful to watch this man. Something wasn’t right, and he was sure that it was more than just the Lullaby.

[Aoren]

“Let us waste no time then.” The young man seemed to brighten up just a little at the sight of the poison. He did not reach for it as it was obvious Rayage intended to hang on to it. He followed the Nuit to the door exiting The Majestic with him. As both of them stepped out into the dusty dark of Sunberth the cool of the night settled in on their bones. The evening was certainly cooler than the waking hours of the day there was still warmth in the air that made the walk at least mildly comfortable.

“I don’t understand it.” The young man began speaking. He walked with a slight shuffle mostly likely from his state of weariness. His gaze was forward with one hand resting on his chin. It could be assumed that he was speaking on his encounter with the disease.

“Every remedy that I’ve tried amounts to nothing even when I’ve tried layering some methods on each other. This disease attacks the victim with relentlessness that’s baffling. It’s like it adapts faster than the treatment can take effect. Never have I seen such a thing. I’ve managed to find the common denominator too.” He glanced at the Nuit walking next to him. There was a morbid wonder in the young man’s face. While terrifying it may have been to think of a disease that adapted and changed faster than it could be cured there was a certain majesty to it. It this affliction were indeed the product of magical research one had to wonder at the kind of genius it took to fashion such a thing. He shook his head in mild awe.

“Oh yes, the common factor.” Rummaging through the satchel on his hip the young man was momentarily preoccupied as he searched for something. He was so preoccupied that he nearly bumped into another person on the street only managing to spot them at the last second. He shifted out of the way just in time with an apologetic smile. When he turned back to Rayage he was holding a clear glass jar with a sealed lid. Inside the jar was a delicate looking black flower with white edges on its petals.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it? I know a fair amount of herbalism but this…” He nodded to the flower in the jar.

“I’ve never seen this flower before. I was certain to wear a mask and gloves when handling it. I haven’t been able to figure out whether the disease is airborne yet but I don’t think so. Those victims who weren’t a raving mess said they stuck themselves on thorns found intermittently between the petals. It’s perhaps the reason why this Vayt’s Lullaby isn’t more widespread.” He extended the jar to Rayage allowing the Nuit to examine the flower more closely if he so desired. He would take it and return it to his satchel carefully when Rayage was finished.

“Every victim had that flower in their home. All of them. It’s mildly disturbing but the woman who gave the locket to me was a flower girl when she was not painting.” He shook his head. His brow drew together as he pondered that thought. Tapping his chest motioning to the locket that was likely there he spoke almost as an afterthought.

“I haven’t managed to open it yet. No amount of prying seems to work and I don’t have time to find a locksmith. Is there even one in Sunberth?” The young man managed a small chuckle. All around them the Tent City began to take shape. As late as it was that didn’t seem to deter the common rabble of Sunberth from being as lively in the evening as they were during the day. There were groups gathered around bonfires telling stories, playing games of chance, listening to fiddlers or just generally socializing. Ragged as the city of lawless anarchy was there were moments when the harshness became nothing but a backdrop.

They made their way through the makeshift pathways between the tents or ramshackle shanties with relative ease. When finally they arrived to a quieter area of the Tent City. People were sparse. The area seemed empty. The young man lead them to a large white tent that was beginning to yellow and become brown at the edges from all of the dirt. Stopping just short of the entrance he turned to regard Rayage.

“What you’re about to see is not pleasant. If you need a moment to brace yourself, I suggest you take it before coming inside.” With that he pulled back the flap and stepped into the tent. After a moment or two candles illuminated the interior casting shadows upon the walls of the tent. What waited for Rayage in the interior of the tent? There was only one way to find out.

The Flower :

[Rayage]

Rayage followed the man, walking into the darkness of the Sunberth night. For a while there was silence, a solemn pace to their walk, a looming darkness. Then he began to talk, and what the man said caught the nuits interest. As they walked the man explained that every cure he tried had failed, and then from his satchel he pulled a dark looking flower. A jar contained its beauty and as the container was offered to the nuit, the undead accepted it. Taking the jarred flower he brought it close to his face where he examined the flower. He saw the dark pedals, with a shimmer of white around the edges. It was a flower that Rayage had never seen before, or at least never remembered seeing. His brow grew lines as he inspected it, barely making out a glimmer of the spines hidden beneath the pedals.

”So, you think this flower has some sort of toxin which spreads Vayt’s Lullaby?” Rayage mused to mostly himself, ”Or you said those who were pricked by the thorns of this flower were not a raving mess like your other patients.” Rayage said, repeating the facts which were presented to him so he could remember and recollect them for later use. ”If that is right, then this plant must or could be both the poison and the cure at the same time.” The nuit suggested, ”All the victims had a flower like this in their house. It seems like a creepy calling card for someone with less than righteous motives.” The nuit frowned thinking of the girl he saw in his vision. She seemed so innocent and happy, but under that disguise could she really be a mad genius? Rayage himself was good at hiding the darker side of his personality, perhaps the girl was too.

He walked looking at the flower ”If there was a flower at every place, perhaps we could perform some tests on the flower. See if it is really as deadly as you make it out to be.” The nuits stare intensified as he drew upon his djed. If he could, he would get a hint of what this flower really was if he could just see and decipher the aura of the plant. His sight was rather basic, but perhaps he could at least determine the basic facts, such as is this a product of magic? Having worked with alchemy for so long he could most likely detect if it was a product of his magic, which is the only magic he knew of to artificially create life forms.

To do this, however, the nuit had to stop his walk, interrupting his little conversation with the man. He drew upon his inner power, taking djed from his system and willing the magic to work. Since he couldn’t touch it through the jar, he would have to rely on the proxy of his sight. The djed coursed to his eyes, more and more, as he focused his concentration on the plant. At first, despite his concentration and djed usage, the aura did not appear. Instead he felt the grace of the soft pedals on his skin as he stared at it. He knew what the pedals felt like, and soon enough could even feel the hard thorns between the pedals. Overall it felt rather delicate, unique, but delicate nonetheless. He could smell the flowers smell, but he focused even more, pushing past the physical things, consuming more and more of his djed as chimes ticked by. His brow hardened with the intensive effort of his concentration, zoning the rest of the world out as the aura began to slowly come into focus for him.

The aura, like the flower was dark, and it danced with a certain rhythm before the nuits eyes. It started out faint, but as more of his precious djed was consumed, the aura became brighter and he was able to see it better. The dark aura stood out in the shadows and light of the sunberth night, and now was one of the only things that the nuit could see. He found that he needed to focus entirely on the flower, creating a tunnel vision of sorts from the area around him. Now even the flower didn’t register in the nuits mind, as it was slowly being entranced by the plants aura. What would the nuit find? Would it reveal anything particular or troubling? That is what the nuit wanted to find out. OOCLeft the aura thing kind of ambiguous. Don’t know your thoughts or details or really anything about the flower, so I thought Id let you fill in the blanks

Once he thought he got all he could out of the flowers aura, he closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to get himself to come back to the here and now, to be present once more. His hand holding the jar fell to his side as he tried to reorient himself in the present world, dropping his mental grip on the djed within him and allowing the world of aura to fade back to ambiguity, beyond his five normal senses. ”Sorry about that.” the nuit apologized as he walked back up to the man and handed him back the flower, ”I do that sometimes.” he said continuing on with the man as he once again mentioned the locket. He didn’t know how much time had passed between him focusing on the flower and examining its aura, to when he snapped himself free and was satisfied. What he did know, however, was that he felt tired, drained, and his djed was in need of some rest.

”Im sure for the right price you could get some capable thief to open it for you, if you are that curious.” Rayage commented with a small laugh, ”However, did you think that perhaps it will open when the time is right? If this woman you met is as mysterious as you claim, perhaps she never meant for it to be open, or maybe you cant open it. Or” the nuit shrugged, ”the passage of time has sealed it shut.” He commented as they made their way through the tent city.

At last they had made it to their destination. The healers tent was nothing compared to the other ones surrounding it. It seemed newer in a way, and somewhat not as dirty as the rest. The white seemed to fade to brown and dirt at the edges, but that was unsurprising. Anything who would stay more than a chime in the tent city would be considered dirty in the nuits standards. Rayage smiled slightly at the mans concern and shook his head, ”No, Ive prepared myself ever since hearing about your plight. Lets continue on.” he said, moving so he could enter the candle lit tent.

[Aoren]

Upon focusing on the flower with his djed enhanced vision Rayage would most certainly find that the flower was not a natural one. Black mist clung to the aura of the flower oozing feelings of sweet decay and bitter hate. Magic. This flower was not of Caiyha’s making. This flower was the product of much creativity and sinister innovation. While Rayage certainly couldn’t discern he exact properties of the flower he would be able to tell that much. It took a certain level of genius to achieve the simplistic beauty of the flower’s weave. Whoever was the creator of this flower knew exactly what they were doing.
That alone was enough to give one pause for thought.

To his comments about the locket the young man could only shrug his shoulders. He proceeded to step into the tent after giving his warning leaving Rayage to brace himself. Before stepping inside Rayage would be able to smell the taint of death in the air. Rot and the iron tang of blood clung to this particular corner of the Tent City in earnest. When he stepped into the medical tent it became quite obvious where the smell was coming from.
There were no less than eight cots in the tent. Each victim laying, if that’s what it could be called, was either well and truly dead or so paralyzed they had no way of showing outward signs of life.

They were a grim line-up to behold. Men and a few women with bodies so horribly contorted by muscular tension their faces were plastered with looks of agonizing horror. Some of the victims had bones protruding from horrific breaks in their skin. The bones were horribly fractured with cords of muscle clinging to their jagged edges. Some had dried blood with bits of flesh and tissue still on them others were wiped clean with just the white bones exposed to the world, padded with what bandages the young physician had been able to muster.

There was an eerie silence in the tent. The young man was at the rear of the tent donning a long white robe, elbow length leather gloves and a cloth mask over his face. He looked up at Rayage gesturing to an additional pair of garments that the Nuit might gird himself with if he so chose. Behind the young man was a wooden table upon which sat an assortment of medical tools. From surgical devices, to bandages, to a small array of what looked to be philtering equipment and herbal tools, all of them looked to have been used at some point. This young man really had been exhausting all of the resources at his availability.

“I have hesitated about testing the flower directly. I know nothing about it. If it is magical then it is beyond my ability to understand it and thus tamper with it. I am a man of science not magic. The poison you brought with you is my last effort to use what remedies I am familiar with. If it doesn’t work I fear I have no choice but to enlist the aid of a wizard. It is either that or petition the Opal Order and that could take seasons.” He shook his head then stepped forward extending a hand to Rayage.

“The poison if you please?” He waited patiently with eyes staring expectantly at the Nuit clerk.

[Rayage]

The flower was marvelous in its dark purpose. The aura of the thing was enough to make even Rayage shudder, being at a loss of mental words to describe the complexity of the magic worked on this flower. It was perfection, and it was not ashamed of its dark nature. It oozed negativity and it made him think who would have such hate to create such a thing. It was not a marvel of creation, not what Ray hoped to achieve, but quite the opposite. This thing was made out of pure obsessive hate and destruction. Although dark Ray couldn’t help but admire the amount of work and ambition that went into the creation of this flower.

The nuit thought about the flower as they approached the tent. Upon the mans warning, the wizard took a moment to brace himself. He shook thoughts of the dark flower out of his head and tried to stay present. He watched the man as he entered the tent, death flowing out of it. He grimaced as he followed entering the portal.

The tent held 8 occupants. It was hard to tell if they were alive or dead. In all rights they looked like they should be dead, but labored breathing and coughs proved the nuits theory false. They were twisted and contorted, stained in an immovable position. It was a horrible sight to behold, one that Ray wasn’t prepared for. It brought back thoughts of the dark flower with its dark purpose. He was actually unnerved by the sights, and that usually took a lot. He thought he was prepared to take in what was present, but he wasn’t. A bit of anxiety crept into his mind as he forced himself to look away, trying to advance forward. Occasionally he would glance back, as if curious if the sight would change, that these people were just figments of his mind, or his imagination, but they were very real… and so was their suffering.

Rayage could see why this man was so driven to find a cure to this flower, or at the very least alleviate the suffering these people were in. Taking ahold of the white garb the wizard dressed himself. He slipped on the gloves and placed the mask upon his face. In doing this he tried his best to mimic the way he saw the healer do it. When he was satisfied with his attempt he approached the work table, giving an appraising glance at the used apparatus there. He knew nothing of potions and poisons, but the nuit was still trying to gather his words, to gather his thoughts in a coherent order.

He simply listened as the man talked. It was funny. Rayage was a man of magic, not of science. He knew not of the world of poisons and potions, but knew of a subtler art, that of djed manipulation. In the haze of his thoughts the woman appeared again, dancing, the same message coming to him, the message haunting his thoughts… ’Come with me…’

Rayage considered telling the man what he had found about the flower, or at least what he thought to have found about it. Though, again, he could just let the man do his work. The poison that was the deal. He would give this man the poison and then he would have his information, but could he really just turn his back on this magical mystery? The nuit struggled with the thought, the ideas…

He would keep his silence for now and hand the man the poison of which he had procured from the master. ”The poison.” he said, interested to see what the man intended to do with it.