"Why, I wonder, is there an image of Pharasma here, of all places?"
- You recognize the icon as Pharasma.
Ianez produces a finely-made set of tools and sets to work on the door, failing to unlock it before remembering that he's a clever explorer and can take 10 even when distracted.
Ianez unlocks the door. As he does, the image of Pharasma begins to move. She lifts back her hooded robe and drops it. She relaxes her fingers and releases the hourglass. It tumbles from her hand. Beneath the hood isn't Pharasma at all, but instead an attractive, pale-skinned, and ebony-haired woman. Unlike most other beauties, at her waist, her flesh starts to rot and wither away, leaving her as little more than a blood-soaked skeleton from the hips down.
She looks directly at you with red eyes and smiles. Urgathoa. Then, this image morphs into a skull. There is a haunting tympanic beat.
The door creaks slightly ajar.
Blackacre grips his sword, eyes locked on the image of Urgathoa.
Sandru gone? and Phoebe as well? Inconceivable...Unconscionable. Your list of deeds continues to grow, Hareton Grey. We must put an end to this man, and now.
Quinn looks at Gaston and does the same but with bow and arrows.
"La Siréene, if you are able, when we fight Hareton and whatever minions he has please summon up a creature or two--Quinn, Gaston, and I are more dangerous at range."
Jornel looks at La Siréene, hands on his material component pouch.
Elspeth, clothed in her construct body, pushes past the door. Unable to talk she has no way to express her emotions except actions.
"Of course, Ianez," La Siréenee smiles. "I have, however, but one summoning remaining, so I will not use it preemptively. Feel free to summon at your own leisure, Jornel."
The remaining members of your party enter the laboratory.
It's a dim, turret-like, chamber. There are small, thin windows along the outer wall of the lab. You can walk along the wall, looking out of them down at the world far below. You see your city. All the buildings have lost their quaint architecture; everything is walled over with large riveted sheets of metal, twisted in a landscape of sharp angles, steam-venting towers, and industrial spires, under a glowering sky, lit from below by sickly greenish-yellow floods. It's apocalyptic, but feels removed, as if you view it from an elevator made out of glass.
You turn back and look at the room you're in. The light is just dim enough for you to see the ceiling above you in gray and black tones that are muddied. Impossible to make out any distinct shapes. Along the walls, there is laboratory equipment that zaps with high-voltage, low-current, alternating currents of electricity. There is liquid bubbling and the hissing of gas. Something heating on a burner. You see beakers and flasks filled with glowing green and purple fluids.
On one side of the room is a large containment tank filled with a warm bath of glowing green liquid, and tubes with contacts at the end that float aimlessly and loose. A few feet away from the tank is a narrow metal table, with leather straps to hold down arms and legs, and metal clamps for wrists, ankles, and waist. Next to the table are surgical tools, needle and thread. There is a bright lamp on the ceiling that shines down directly onto the table.
There is a small, forlorn figure lying on the table. A girl dressed in a white robe. Her eyes are closed. Her head is shaved bald, as if prepped for surgery. There is a large machine pulled up to the side of the table with a wicked-looking lobotomy needle poised down right at the sleeping girl's forehead.
You have found Agnes.
"Do not rush the operating table, don't interfere with the lobotomy needle or move to save her in any way or I will activate the machine."
These words from a figure in a dark, hooded robe. His face is in shadow, impossible to make out from underneath the hood. He levitates in the air at the far end of the room.
La Siréene looks at the unconscious form of Agnes, spread on the table. She turns to look at the levitating shape at the far end of the room.
"Hello. Is that you, Hareton?"
The hooded figure speaks in a low smooth voice. "Hello again, La Siréene. I'm glad to see you. Yes, it is I, but I am renamed by Urgathoa.
"I am the Unruhe."
"Dr. Grey. You were once a good man. Harming this child will lead you into a path of darkness and dispair. There is still time for forgiveness and to come back to us. Please do not do this." The monk tries to appeal to Hareton's human side, if there is any left.
"Hello, Quinn," Hareton says. "Good to see you've not lost your innocent outlook. I've walked a path of darkness and despair ever since my dear Olivia's passing. Of course, I know you don't mean that, but instead refer to the ramification of my actions...to all the innocent lives I have taken, regarding them as mere collateral damage...to how I've unleashed my armies of undead upon the world." He lowers his head, as if turning away, deep in thought. "In the beginning, I saw nothing beyond my work to revive Olivia. Eventually, when I did look around and notice the consequences, it horrified me." A pause. "But then...if you can believe...I started to like it." A twisted chuckle.
He goes on. "This one..." he says, motioning towards Agnes, "has the power to manipulate and bend time. Yet, when prevailed upon to rewind events and bring back Olivia...curiously...maddeningly...she won't do it! She refuses! I think to myself She can do it. She is being difficult. Obstructionist. Cruel. When I ask why, she rattles off some offal about 'Some things are within her power, but some things aren't meant to be', and 'Time is mysterious, and works through her, not the other way around'. Ha, ha, ha! Do you know what I hear? 'Blah, blah, blah...sidetrack, sidetrack...prevarication, prevarication...'
he screams. His tone is getting pitched, stressed, on the verge of insanity. "It occurred to me that...she is a time oracle...her oracular abilities must come from somewhere inside her brain, somewhere in the head. So, I said to her, If you won't give me what I asked for, I will rip it out of your pretty little skull!"
He pauses, choked up with frenzy at his deranged theory.
"I knew the other oracle, the twin sister, wouldn't listen to reason. She would never give up trying to rescue Agnes, and thus was a thorn in my side. So, I had to kill the whelp. It was unfortunate that Sandru was so protective of her."
"In her brain? Her brain? You are a fool or a charlatan Mister Hareton. I don't doubt her control - shaky as it might be - is located inside her prefrontal cortex, but it is obvious to any real scientist that it must be located within her peripheral nervous system - i.e. her spine! Do you think her physical state a coincidence?"
The Manservant lets loose with vituperative insults
"Good lord man - I'm a robot butler and I can see you're on the wrong track. I'm sure the professors agree with me!"
The Manservant looks at Caromarc and Ianez for support.
"Ah - perhaps you state things a little too strongly..." the Earl says placatingly "It could be inside her brain."
"It occurs to me that there is a way she might consider saving Olivia..." the Earl starts, then stops.
- Oracular mysteries are just that...mysterious. The source of Agnes's power could reside within her brain. Your guess is as good as Hareton's.
Hareton looks askance at the Manservant. His egotistical confidence is clearly shaken. "I don't think..." He starts again. "What you say cannot be..."
"Silence, construct!" He leaves it at that.
Near your party, there's an explosion of fire! Two figures appear hovering in the room...beings made of flame. One is an adult female in shape, sheathed in orange flames. The other is male, sheathed in flames also, but these are silvery-blue. His flames subside to a flickering aura, and he descends to the floor. Revealed is a familiar shape.
Sandru.
Each of you sees the same vision in your mind's eye.
Phoebe levitates in the air, one leg slightly bent at the knee. She gazes at Sandru with molten eyes, devoid of pupils. On this plane, she appears more adult than child, more fire than flesh, more goddess than mortal.
On this plane, Sandru also flies and has a body of flames. Unlike Phoebe, his flames are silvery-blue.
Surrounding them both are sheets of fire. Huge dragons, giants, worms, rocs, shapeless morphing elementals...all made of flame.
P: "Each oracle's mystery is different, even those who have the same path. When you and I fell from the Tower, I thought we were done for. But the feeling that consumed me in life...my anger...was really the raging element of fire. Now here I am, a fire elemental. I don't know how the mystery works, but here, like this, my path is fulfilled."
"We forged a connection when you were guarding and protecting me. Now, I return the kindness to you. We will return to save Agnes and help defeat Hareton. I can return to the Material Plane only once, for a short time. Then, I will come back here to the Plane of Fire."
S: "How? What about the others? Hareton, the... Mission?"
Sandru looks down to see his new form.
P: "You will return with me. But then, you'll have a choice to make. You can come back with me and live as a powerful fire being on the Plane of Fire. Or you can stay behind in the world with your friends. Either way, you'll keep a piece of your new elemental nature with you."
S: Sandru flexes muscles of flame... "I am not dead?" he asks.
"I must un...ravel Hareton. I have been changing since before I was born. There has to be a reason."
P: Phoebe nods. "Yes. Exactly."
S: "For the children of the world..."
"Phoebe...I remember now, in Caromarc's book. Phoebe means "light". Being here is amazing and very enticing. But I must get back. Help Jornel. Help the Copper. Help them all."
His "body" gone, Sandru also undergoes a change. Freed of physical hindrances, he is a being more of...Thought. Pure elemental flame transmitting faster than any synapses of the flesh. A quickening.
P: "Come with me," Phoebe intones. She holds out her hand.
Blue and red come together... Around their joined hands a nimbus of colors one would be hard pressed to find in the mortal world.
Sandru and Phoebe fly back to the material plane, speeding across plains of shifting magma, breaking through sheets of fire as they go.
________________________
Ianez's private thoughts - Once the immediate shock has worn off and the party ascends the narrow stair, Ianez turns over the events that just befell in his mind. Something is nagging at him. An oracle of flame...how is it that she could burn? Sandru, yes, but Phoebe...Phoebe? Wait a moment here! Could it be? Phoe-be? Phoe...nix? He shakes his head. More likely I am simply unable to accept their deaths. But you Powers of Fire, may it be so.
Hareton looks at the new arrivals, stunned with disbelief.
"But...but..." he stammers..."Sandru? You're alive? This is not of my doing!"
Hareton mutters to himself, all the while glancing fretfully at the Manservant. "The spine, not the brain? No...no... The construct is trained as a doctor? Knows something I do not? What if...? No..."
Jornel did have some warning. If he thinks Hareton is literally stunned, and that he can make the distance, he'll put himself between Agnes and the lobotomiser. If it's close enough he can do it in a shift+move action he'll then DD her back.
There's a sleeping horror out there somewhere in the universe waiting for you, for all of you. Will you be frozen with fear when confronted by it? Helpless? Unable to move?"
She reaches out, runs a hand down Elspeth and gently pets her. "Or perhaps you will find some other way?"
How far are we talking?
No, Hareton. Not your doing, the un-doing of all you have done.
Release the child!
"Never!" Hareton retorts savagely. "I see we are at cross-purposes. You never cared for Olivia like I do. You never wanted me to have happiness. I have lost patience with your interfering meddling!" He looks at Sandru and Phoebe. "I will kill you again!" La Siréene...Caromarc... "And again and again after that if I have to!"
His robe whips around him and he readies himself to destroy you once and for all!
________________________
Sandru? Phoebe? Fire? Not dead? This is pure madness! I must leave this country or lose my sanity.
Blackacre grinds his teeth and draws his sword. Done with chit-chat? Good. Prepare for your doom, fool doctor. It is time for your judgment.
Sandru, dear Sandru, is back. It feels... right.
Even while exulting at Phoebe and Sandru's return (and inwardly thinking, I was right!), Ianez remains focused on the problem at hand. In his mind he sees Therez, Iozef, and Amelie, and asks himself, Would I have done what Hareton did? No! Not for you, my dear family, and not for what it would have done to me.... His voice stripped raw of pretense, he tries one last argument to sway their foe.
"Hareton, ask yourself: do you think Olivia will love you for what you've done? Do you think she will look at the ruin you've made of the world...at the cored body of a little girl...and smile, and take your hand, and tell you it was worth it? Or will you see the fear and revulsion you surely feel mirrored in her gaze? Unruhe! Let go of this, and take your rest."
Hareton's eyes well with emotion, and his face crumples with grief. He falters. "I..."
In the haunted halls of his mind, Urgathoa caresses his cheek. The Goddess of Undeath presses her sullied bosoms against him, her croaking whisper in his ear. No, Hareton. Don't lose your resolve.
He hesitates.
For Olivia... she coaxes.
Hareton looks down at Agnes, unconscious on the table. His eyes sweep up and fall on your party.
A drop rolls down his cheek. The tears of the damned. "Please forgive me, my love," he says softly.
He raises an outstretched arm, preparing to fight.
Before we do this, he should know...