audio; un: Sabriel.Abhorsen

[bindsthedead]

Well, Purgatory was nice, at least- it reminded me of the Ninth Precinct, with how vast it was... and going through nothingness to get to it. I feel bad for the Long Cloak though- just trying to do their job, and everyone was terrified of them. But I suppose that's natural- everyone fears death and the unknown, even thought there are much worse things that could happen to you. Although I'm worried there might be more like the Highest One out there.

So it's been... almost a year since we began this journey, and I know not everyone was here for every mission- we will probably have even more new arrivals as time goes on, and there's not really a formal orientation when people arrive.

So I've been trying to put together all that we've learned about the orbs- things like why we can't just steal them, what we've learned about how they work, patterns I've noticed on missions, and a general guide about what to expect and what we do on missions. I've attached it for people to look over.

Also- I need to explain something, regarding one of the notes on the Badrock mission.

[And Sabriel's voice goes quiet, and guilty, like she's confessing to a murder.]

I've made no secret of being a necromancer. But... one thing I haven't mentioned is that under the right circumstances, it is possible to restore the recently dead to true life. That happened during the mission in Badrock, but I promise, it won't happen again. I am only sharing this to caution anyone with similar powers that the orb will extract a price from both you and the one you're bringing back.

[Attached are some notes on the orbs and past missions]

Comments

voice; un: finn; private;

[hatejakku]

[ He already didn't like that Sabriel was admitting to this publicly but- ]

What price?

voice; ; private;

[bindsthedead]

My Death Sense goes... off, sometimes. Like I should be feeling death, but there's nothing... or there's no death, but I feel it anyway.

[hatejakku]

... Is that what's been going on Blue's powers, then? [ Finn thought it was his deteriorating health that was causing this. ]

Do you have any idea what might happen to someone without any powers? If they were brought back?

[bindsthedead]

Yes, and- I don't know. Probably, the orb would find something else to take, some other price to extract.

[hatejakku]

[ His eyes fall closed, lips thinning. ]

I don't suppose you got to choose... [ Doesn't sound much like a question. More like defeat. ]

not actually here

[coordination]

[ Somewhere, when this post goes up, Yzak is just, ]

voice; un: megatron; private

[flickerandfade]

Are you well?

private

[bindsthedead]

Better than I was at the end of the mission, but... I'm tired. And while Viveca was somewhat reassuring about the Highest One probably not knowing about the Orbs in general.... What I heard from Yzak was concerning.

Re: private

[flickerandfade]

The more we learn, the more concerning it all seems. I don't know if I can choose to abandon the effort now, though. Not after so much has happened.

The destruction of planets is something I am familiar with. Several were destroyed by my soldiers or by my orders. Whether or not it is specifically related to the orbs is hard to say.

[ A pause, a long, tired sigh. ]

Are we really doing the right thing? How do we know we can trust Degar? It's strange that he won't have a thing to do with the rest of us, though perhaps he has reasons. The deeper I get into this, the more questions I have.

private

[bindsthedead]

I think that leaving dangerous magical artifacts loose would be the worse choice. And even if it's unconnected to the orbs- are there more like him out there, and are we likely to stumble across them?

[A worrying thought.]

If he's actively sustaining the barrier around the orbs, I could certainly see why he isn't much for socializing.

Re: private

[flickerandfade]

A fair assumption. Perhaps I'm simply less trusting but my inclination is to believe we aren't being told everything.

I don't like it.

text; un: zewu.jun

[calmness]

What was the cost?

In my world, the price of such a thing is a human soul. The orb demanding less is a lucky thing, though I pray no one will have a need to make such a bargain again regardless.

[Private; Audio]

[singlelogbridge]

[What the actual fuck.

When he finds his voice, it comes out harried and just this side of angry. The anger isn't enough to cover the panic pounding away at his chest and slipping around the edges of his words.]

What are you talking about?

[There had been a notebook. Many notebooks. Scrolls, scraps of paper. The backs of failed talismans. He hadn't thought about it after he'd written it. Hadn't so much as spent another minute on it. It was one of several dozen theories, written in a frenzy of delusional sleep deprivation. Never meant for anyone else's eyes.

His heart is a drum against his ribs.

Zewu-jun can not know that. He can't. It's. Fuck.]

perma-private & audio

[calmness]

[ ah.

in his own panic over what had been done, what the price could have been (and he is grateful that it was not, so grateful he cannot express it), he'd forgotten that nothing on the network is private unless designated as such.

xichen takes a deep breath, speaks more carefully this time. his voice is steady, not sharp but not drench in the normal exhaustion with which he speaks. he sounds more like zewu-jun, like who he was before his own world had come crashing down and he'd learned what jin guangyao had done with all the notebooks gathered from the burial mounds. ] We both know I am not wrong, Master Wei.

[singlelogbridge]

[No. One of them knows this is the truth. No one else could possibly—he freezes. Gwen isn't in the room and he's grateful. Wei Wuxian collapses onto the edge of his bed and stares at the wall, his eyes unfocused.

He died. The Dafan Wen all died. The cave left unguarded. Of course they would have raided it. Of course the Jin—and he knows with every fiber of his being that it was the Jin. Jiang Cheng would have burned it and Lan Zhan would have...he'd never have let it fall into someone else's hands. He doesn't even think Zewu-jun would have. And Nie Mingjue wouldn't have cared. But the Jin? Jin Guangshan? His stomach sinks into the ground.

When he speaks again the anger has gone, replaced by something close to pained horror.]

I should have burned it. That was never...I didn't—[He cuts himself off. Starts again.] I was tired all of the time. I was...Wen Qing said my sleep deprivation was so bad, I...I just wrote. I wrote it down because it was in my head and I...

Zewu-jun. [He sounds small suddenly and very afraid. A human soul, burned up and extinguished, never to return the incarnation cycle. And a second soul at risk of the same if they didn't do what needed to be done.]

Did...did someone...[He can't finish the sentence.]

[calmness]

[ 'you should have', xichen thinks and then squashes that bitterness. who could have predicted they way it would all go, that the jin clan would use the very texts they claimed to wish the world of.

xichen should have predicted it. he had know it but had thought that-- that the man he put his trust in, had called a friend, would not lie to his face.

the fault is in xichen's trusting nature, his foolishness. he listens to the rambling, can hear the fear in the other man's voice. wei wuxian is so young, he remembers. not a child by the measure of their world but young still, as he had been when the cultivation turned their swords toward him. ] Some tried but only one succeeded.

[ a boy desperate for revenge, to be heard and seen for what he could be instead of what he was. xichen's voice is gentler now, careful. ] The Burial Mounds were searched after your death and what was found divided amongst the gentry clans to be sealed away, pieces kept apart. [ xichen remembers looking over the notebooks, over pages of scrawled text written in frenzied madness. ]

text;

[bindsthedead]

So the price of retrieving one soul is that another must be surrendered? Necromancy must only be done by the truly desperate, where you're from.

[Not... publicly discussing the price she payed, nope.]

[calmness]

a soul must be given and destroyed.

desperation is not usually what drives people to turn to it. [ something darker, more selfish in that in the cases that come to mind. ]

[bindsthedead]

Let me guess- they always use someone else's.

[calmness]

that is what most willing to attempt such a thing would try. [ but that is not what worked, the sacrifice has to be more personal than that. ]

text; un: Wei Wuxian; private

[singlelogbridge]

[Several days after she made this announcement, Sabriel gets a private message. He'd been in no state to talk to her after he'd seen Zewu-jun's comments, but he was interested enough he comes back to this.

If he's honest, it really isn't shocking that someone else can raise the dead. Given the variety of powers and abilities he's met with here, it was only to be expected. But the fact that she's restored someone who's still around and he hasn't seen anyone here like Wen Ning suggests that she was far more successful. It suggests something closer to the array he developed that has apparently now fallen into Jin hands.

He sighs.

At least the price she paid was clearly less than the one his array demanded.]

When you brought someone back, what did it cost you?

text;

[bindsthedead]

The orb extracted a price from both myself and the one I restored- In my case, one of my powers has become unreliable at times.

text;

[singlelogbridge]

oh. I'm sorry, I'm sure that was difficult.

The person you brought back was fully restored to life?

text;

[bindsthedead]

So far, I'm managing it. But it was unexpected. Normally, the only cost to such things is the risk that things might go wrong, and the consequences if they did.

Yes- in both body and spirit.

text;

[singlelogbridge]

where you come from you mean?

[He goes silent for a long while as he reads and rereads her message. The way she describes things should be impossible but...different world, different rules he supposes.]

What of the cycle of life and death in your world? If the only risk is something going wrong, what's to stop people from always interfering with death and restoring loved ones time and time again?