'I would speak to you in private, if I might, all of you who have seen this... Schultenbrack. I must... I have questions. Important... Questions.'
He indicates a tower overlooking the docks, obviously asking your group to follow.
Jack pauses, thinking, then nods.
"Yes."
turning to his companions
"Does anyone need lifting?"
"Sure, we can talk. Maybe you can even explain what you really are to us, cause whatever it is, you ain't human."
::yes very good idea, Ill play nice one::
The lady Silvermoon puts her gun in its holster, and walks up to Master Trakin Shawe paying no heed to his hounds. Taking his arm lightly she smiles it him and says.
"Why it would be a pleasure Lord Shawe, and we can have such a fine view of your city from up there."
Her smile sweet her words light.
to the others
"Come along everyone, its getting cold out here and it would be nice to be indoors wile we talk, you to Hern spit spot"
::Roger bring everyone don't let the agent or Mage slip away, I want them with us::
"Please lead the way Trakin you don't mind me calling you that do you? Why not call me Sallrana, its nice to meet a man with fine manners after such a long time. O and I do so hope you have a nice wine in that tower of your, a glass after such a manic day would be splendid don't you think? and what fine hounds, do you hunt..."
She makes small talk with him as they walk.
Rick follows along, his mood definitely better than before the execution.
Sheathing his massive blade, Roger will scoop up the mage and the hawcroft rep, one under each arm, and fall in with the group.
Miria follows along quickly, keeping an eye on Shawe and his dogs and another on the direction they are headed. She places her crossbow back in the holster she keeps at her hip as she goes, her instincts, and Roger, telling her that something weird is going on here with Shawe. And after what has happened to the Hawcroft representatives, it is her duty as a Hawcroft employee to find out what.
Tarkin raises an eyebrow at Roger's comment.
'Shrewd, sir... but as I said, a more private space would be appreciated.'
One arm pinioned by Sallrana and both his hounds and the rest of you following along in tow, the newcomer leads you towards his home. , he engages you in small talk in only the most distracted way - you can see that his mind is on other matters. You do manage to find out that he was visiting a neighbouring city to meet with one of his oldest friends, a cleric dedicated to the aspect of suffering. A rather depressive woman, from what you can glean, but someone that he respects.
, although Olywn the mage is still in too much of a state to protest being picked up and carried Yvenor steps back as you reach down to grasp him, steady on his feet and a look of determination on his face, rejecting both Roger's movement and Jack's offer of help. He retrieves his shirt and jacket from a salt-encrusted dock support and follows the rest of the group as you walk, his injuries obviously taking their toll but his attitude implying that he is trying not to let that show.
Just ahead of Rick and Yvenor walk Tretotten and Tarun, alongside the hulking form of . Tretotten is resolutely silent, barely restrained anger visible in the set of his brow, but Tarun reaches over and places a hand on your arm, . When he speaks it is quietly, obviously meant for your ears only.
Men det er noe vi må diskutere , noe av at det haster . Selv om det virker som måneder siden vi ble stjålet fra vårt hjem , har det ikke vært noe mer enn dager ... og jeg frykter for min pårørende som ble igjen, brødrene uten navn som var mine kostnader . Hvis jeg hadde falt i kamp , ville jeg stole på en av dem til å ta over , for å gi retning ... men jeg gjorde det ikke. Jeg var tapt , stjålet av dyret . De vil være i uorden - de kan selv forsøke å jakte skapningen ned , selv om det bare å hente mine restene . Den Schultenbrack ...
Jeg ber deg , ber deg, bror . Ikke drep dyret .
Det kan være denne bror ... Ha, er han navnløs ikke lenger , antar jeg . Det kan være at Tretotten og jeg kan vende hjem , for å finne våre brødre , hvis vi kan gjøre det tilbake gjennom helvete - byen at det holder. Inntil da , vær så snill ... ikke eksil oss fra vår familie .'
'Well met, blood-kin, and thank you. Despite the protests of the... the Hawcroft-man, the city folk here would have broken our necks were it not for your arrival. We owe you our lives, again. We are... most deeply in your debt.
But there is something we must discuss, something of urgency. Although it seems like months since we were stolen away from our home, it has been no more than days... and I fear for my kin that were left behind, the brothers without name who were my charges. If I had fallen in battle, I would trust one of them to take over, to provide direction... but I did not. I was lost, stolen by the beast. They will be in disarray - they may even attempt to hunt the creature down, even if only to retrieve my remains. The Schultenbrack...
I am asking you, begging you, brother. Do not kill the beast.
It may be this brother... Ha, he is nameless no longer, I suppose. It may be that Tretotten and I can return home, to find our brothers, if we can make it back through the hell-city that it holds. Until that time, please... do not exile us from our family.'
As for , her attention is most probably on the hounds throughout the journey - and one of them falls back a little, allowing her to reach out and touch it. Despite its noble appearance it has the coarse bristles of a working dog, a hunter and finder of ways. Hern, still smarting from Sallrana's slap and not swayed in the least by her efforts at diplomacy, notices your interest but says nothing.
, although your weapons are holstered your eyes are still sharp. You can see that the town guards are close by - not obviously keeping pace with you or marking your route, but 'coincidentally' lounging or patrolling areas that give them a good view of your party as you pass.
Her fingers scratch behind the dog's ears and her eyes crinkle with a smile. Maybe she should get a dog...
::Thank you John, I did not spot them::
Walks alone, noting that the man has things on his mind.
Jack looks troubled, and not well skilled at covering it. He walks in silence for a little, then rumbles back in what passes for quietly for him.
"Jeg forstår, bror, at du ønsker å gå tilbake til pårørende. Jeg har ikke noe ønske om å felle deg her i denne byen som er så fremmed for deg, omgitt av menn. Jeg sympatiserer ... men jeg tror ikke vi kan la denne tingen i live. Hvor mange andre ville bli spist av den? Hvor mange orker? Jeg tror vårt eneste håp er at når vi er der inne kan vi finne en gateway.
Jeg tror dette et hjelpeløst håp, skjønt. Jeg tror at Maw har stengt.
Kanskje veiviseren kanskje vet hvordan de skal returnere deg ... men han kan godt trenge et anker."
I think this a forlorn hope, though. I think that Maw has closed.
Perhaps the wizard might know how to return you... but he might well need an Anchor."
, Tarun walks silently next to you for a few more paces before bowing his head and dropping out of step. He doesn't speak to you for the rest of the short journey, nor Tretotten. He seems deep in thought.
Shawe leads you to the base of the tower and produces a key from inside one of the folds of his clothing, opening up the simple wooden door that leads inside. As soon as you're all inside, Hern included, he locks the door behind you and gestures for you to head up the stairs as he takes off his traveling cloak. The two hounds bound up the stairs ahead of you, happy to be home.
You head up the stairs to find yourself in a simple, yet comfortable, room, the walls painted with a stylised mural of the sun setting over desert sands. There is a central fire pit, with logs already stacked up on the stone and ready to be lit, and the two hounds are already lying next to it, expectantly. A number of armchairs and a few long benches are arrayed around the room, all of them well-worn - Shawe would appear to be a man who entertains often.
When he reappears Shawe looks a little cleaner, and water drips from his beard and down the open front of his shirt. He kneels next to the fire and quickly lights it with flint and tinder, and then sits cross-legged on the floor next to it, facing your group, with a hound on either side of him.
'So,' he says earnestly, his gaze sweeping all of you, 'Tell me everything. Everything that has happened since you met this... Schultenbrack.'
|
Well pilgrim, it's a long tale, but if you want to hear it...It started just outside of the city of Barrjka. We were all recruited to... and john continues with the story
"Don't forget the part where John here almost got arrested by other cops. That's never gonna get old."
@john
::if you must John ::
She let's the others talk, adding nothing herself.
Shawe listens to your entire tale with barely any interruptions - he asks for clarification of a few points, but nothing more. By the time you have finished the sun is winding up toward its mid-point and the fire is burning low.
'I was wrong,' Shawe begins...
'I was wrong. Whatever is happening out there is not because of the schultenbrack - it is because of me. the schultenbrack is merely an object of retribution, something to restore balance, and you are merely caught in the middle.
There was a city along the coast, maybe eight miles from here - Yatavas, it was called, and it was a busy place. It was my home.
It happened slowly at first - people disappearing, shapes moving in the night, sounds that we couldn't recognise... forty people were dead, or worse, before any of the city scholars had figured out what was behind the disturbance. The schultenbrack, the orcs called it - it had moved into the city, from the forests that they lived in. They were used to dealing with it, regarded it as barely more than a nuisance. But we weren't.
It gains power as it eats, grows larger and stronger. It can split itself, become a double- or triple-thing, anything to help funnel prey directly into its stomach. And that stomach... a demi-plane, with an ecosystem and set of natural laws all to itself.
I was one of the... people... that chose to hunt it down. many fled the city, others tried to deny the existence of such a horror in such close proximity to their homes, and yet others merely cowered in fear and hoped that somebody else would save them, would drive it back into the forests or tear it apart.
We tried the first way, and we failed. It had adapted to our streets and roofways, had turned from a rare but deadly annoyance to an experienced hunter. Where once it had waited for prey, it stalked. And with every person that it took, it grew stronger. We tried... everything. Everything we could think of, before resorting to our final solution.'
All hints of his jovial nature gone, Shawe suddenly appears to be much older than he is, although little but his attitude has changed. The dying firelight coupled with the blue glow from the sea-facing windows have turned his face pallid, and his back is hunched as he sits.
Jack has stayed silent, but his gaze is now rooted on Shawe as he listens, barely breathing.
'You're new here, so I don't expect any of you to have seen it - the ruins that stand silently in place of my birth-city. But I have seen it often, that shell of a place, and it is a reminder of what we did.
The schultenbrack has a weakness - it is far from invincible. But to get at that weakness you must be inside it, actually in the stomach of the beast, and you must have time to work your way into its heart. We managed to, at the cost of Yatavas.
We sacrificed the entire city. we armed the populace with what we could find and we sent them out, diminishing their fear with arcane might as they rushed into the jaws of the schultenbrack, each thinking that they might have been the ones to survive, that they might have been the ones who would emerge unscathed with the great bell-shaped heart of the creature in their hands.
They were all wrong. We knew that from the start.
Thousands of people rushing into the beast as a distraction for us to do what we had to - to find the heart and to tear a piece away. Not enough to kill it because in the time it would have taken us to do that, even with the distraction of an untold number of interior refractions for it to hunt, it would have found and destroyed us. So we took a piece, a single piece of the thing, and we escaped as our brothers and sisters died around us in droves. And once we had that piece...
There are few in these lands who understand the arcane. Magic does not flow freely here. But if you push hard enough, and you have the right tools, the right ingredients, you can do things undreamt of by the common man.
We displaced the beast. We attuned ourselves to its heart and we sent it away, and the majority of the city and the remainder of its inhabitants. We sent it out of phase with our own reality and then we cut our ties, slashed the skeins that were powering the transportation, leaving it - and the few citizens that survived the initial assault - to fend for themselves in the vast nothing that lies between planes.
And that... that is where you found the beast.
And you brought it back here.'
Miria takes all of this information in with narrowed eyes, mentally trying to digest what Shawe has said.
'This is my punishment... the Schultenbrack, bleeding through into my adopted home as surely as it infiltrated my birth-city. And now I am faced with the same problem as I faced twenty years ago - the heart must be destroyed, but it is guarded by a force that could turn back an army.
And I don't know what to do.'
Shawe's head sinks into his hands for a few moments, and his hounds whine as if they understand his dilemma. Abruptly he stands, asking for a minute to compose himself, and trudges heavily up the stairs to the next floor of his tower, leaving you to talk amongst yourselves before you have the chance to ask any questions.
Sallrana looks down at the man siting on the floor.
"You sent the entire population of a city in as a simple distraction, one has to admire the ruthlessness of that, if your ever looking for a job."
She hads him a small card with some contact information on.
"So this time around let's not act out of despiration shall we, Shawe, we have a night trained tech-Mage with us who has underlings of the same on a ship in the bay,"
She points at there Mage.
"how about you and his team work on how to do real damage in side this thing, so we can go in and rip it's still beating heart out."
She smiles.
"I know the boys here would enjoy that very much, what do you say boys?"
Olwyn speaks for the first time since his rescue.
'The mages on the Beguiling Wolf are students - they're trained for research, not battle. And as for trying tge same trick again, pushing it further out... Well, my boys won't be able to do it. Or rather, they will... But not quickly. Planning that kind of ritual takes weeks, not hours.'
Tarun stands as John speaks, adding his own thoughts.
'Punishment. You should not be so fast to judge. By dooming his city he may have saved others... Even if he merely unwittingly foisted the problem onto my kin. These between-places he speaks of... They are not simply empty.'
"Better to die fighting than as food." Jack nods slowly as he speaks. His 'quiet' tone and hesitancy suggests he is not sure he believes this maxim applies to the situation.
There is a horror in his eyes; eyes that have not shown horror at amputation, wounds, nightmare creatures or the Schultenbrak itself. Not since the time a world away that he thought his own kin might have been turned against their gods by Hawcroft.
|
|
John looked at olwyn, and jack, and the artic gleam shone cold, causing olwyn to flinch. Jack was made of sterner stuff, but he feels the gaze.
those who sacrifice themselves for their fellows are blessed, but these did not sacrifice themselves. They. Were. Sacrificed. They were fooled into a doomed attack, a cover for this brave soul the sarcasm is clear and his confederates to enact their plan.
John voice drops as he speaks what of their souls. Were they devoured, betrayed by those they trusted. Or do they linger, trapped.
John visibly calms himself. But this will not be determined now. We have a job. To save this city. This other will be decided later.
John focuses on olwyn. I am a judge. It is a responsibility I bear. I am an imperial inquisitor. Remember that.
"Save this city? what a ridiculous idea. These people, who use lynch mobs and dirty cops don't deserve saving. They can live or die, for all I care. There is, however, someone I said I'd save. So tell us where this heart thing is Shawe, and we'll go kill it."
Rick is not much worried about justice as the others. Swing his legs back and forth, since they do not touch the ground, he seems to be thinking on the schultenbrack instead of the maquiavellian act Shawe did. "Well, I know you think you're gods and all, but do you really think you can walk inside the monster and cut its hearth to pieces?? 20 years ago they tried that with a whole army, and the thing had not swallowed and entire city by then. It is much bigger and stronger now..."
"From what I heard, you barely made out of there alive, and you lost a companion in the process. So, why don't you think about that again?"
Miria nods her head in agreement with Rick and then looks to Jack to see if he would translate for her.
"We do need to take this into account. Mr. Vanchester is still in the belly of the beast, and it's in all of our vested interests that he is still alive. If we can find him, perhaps he can lead us in the right direction to permanently destroying this creature." As she signs her hands shake with frustration, for she doesn't know much about this creature, and if she uses her skills to learn more, she may not get back to tell them.
Jack translates for Miria.
"Poison. Things that eat anything are hard to poison, because they are grown resistant. They are easy to poison if you find a thing that still affects them."
"These laws you talk of. How does the Schultenbrak... Aarh!" Jack gives up, freely interspersing his conversation with gearish in the hopes Shawe can follow it.
"Define: Schultenbrak = S. Define: Conventional Digestion = Extraction of Energy and Matter. Define: Poison=Co-option of Digestion process to introduce toxins into vulnerable organs. Hypothesis: S Digestion can be co-opted. Research Question: Mechanisms behind S Digestion. Cite: Shawe. Quote: 'demi-plane, with an ecosystem and set of natural laws all to itself'. Research Question: Current state of extracted S heart fragment."
Maybe we can poison it (with definition of poison elaborated)
How does it eat?
What happened to the bit of the heart you extracted?
Rick claps, enjoying Jack's hypotheses very much, but he adds his own question to the row that he did not fully understood. "And how did you get out of there, when you were after the heart?"
Sallrana, nots at rich,
"Good point arch and a question to add to the list, a long list of things we don't know and we don't have time to research. What we need is a kind of know all why may know things that can help us. Say like Old Hands, pulling in all thouse memory's and bits of life to make things. Feeding in a similure way, civilized way but still eating lives. I wonder what it's thinking now the Schultz has shown it, what preparations it making. "
"I don't care about what it's thinking; It's a monster that wants to eat cities. Monsters that eat cities don't deserve to live."
Upon his return a minute later Shawe takes your card, Sallrana, and calmly crumples it in his fist and drops it into the fire as he listens to your questions - his jocular, arrogant demeanour has not returned, and instead he seems resolute and cold. He even nods in agreement as John talks of punishment.
At your discussion of poison he rubs his chin thoughtfully.
'It could work, but... No. There are creatures that live inside the stomach, that weed out potential harm. But if...'
A light seems to go on behind Shawe's eyes and he began to pace the room, gesturing expansively.
'There is a creature, one of the... Antibodies, that you released into the world through the gate. And one of your own still inside, and a shard of schultenbrack heart in my study - old, but still beating, still living...'
'This may be possible after all.'
'... And as for how we escaped... With a distraction that weighed heavily upon us - a method I would not recommend if we could find any other.'
'And Old Hands...' Herne broke in quietly,'is someone upon whom I would never rely upon, no matter how harmless your first visit was. My - our - city tolerates him for a fee that the night market happily pays, no matter how 'secret' many customers like to believe it is. Whilst Old Arms might be able to help you... I would advise against it.'
"Energy reduced inside creature. Hypothesis: Increased entropy in demi-plane. Research Question: Fire at very high temperatures still burns." Jack adds encouragingly.
Rick is not satisfied with the answer. "Yes I understand you had a large distraction to escape it, Shawe. But you were inside the creature's stomach, right? To get the heart. And after that, which was your escape method?"
'When I was there, the stomach was no city - it seems to have drawn part of itself from the ruins of Yatavas, an echo of the last time it feasted. And if it has reproduced the city with any kind of faith then... yes, it will burn. But you'd need fire hotter than any I've seen to act as you intend, to survive the draining influence of that dread place. If you could secure that... I am thinking, remembering. There was a plan that we had wished to try, but had lacked the materials for - and time was of the essence then, far more so than it is now. Give me a moment...' Shawe begins to rummage through a desk in the corner of the tower room, spilling scrolls and odd accoutrements onto the floor at his feet.
As he searches he answers you, Rickonni, although he is distracted.
'It is not something I care to remember too clearly but, if you are so determined... we sacrificed ourselves. Hundreds of ourselves, to let four escape.
He draws a slim leather-bound book from the recesses of the drawer and throws it to you, , as he continues speaking.
'When the schultenbrak ingests you, you pass through a planar boundary - a carefully evolved planar boundary designed to split and refract an individual, creating tens, or even hundreds, of copies of them for the schultenbrak to digest at leisure. Most who enter are unaware of this - they believe the others that they see there to be phantoms, or illusions, but they are all quite real. Many of them are not perfect, although they don't often live long enough to find that out - their bodies altered slightly, their minds jumbled. There will always be one that is the most true - the master copy, if you will - and if that one escapes the others disappear, robbed of their template. The schultenbrak will not kill master copies until it has eliminated all of the lesser fragments - it would be killing the golden goose, so to speak.
Well, as I said, most who are swallowed don't know this. They act without co-ordination, with fear - but we knew. Those of us who stole in after the citizens we damned, we knew. And although we emerged scattered, freezing, guilty... we all knew what we had to do.
A thousand, maybe even more of us, charged towards the heart. Hundreds picked off as we ran, snared by creepers or those blasted winged antibodies. We ran, not knowing which of us would be the ones that it would not kill. And after we had torn away our little piece of heart, we retreated, stepping over or hounded by our own forms twisted and broken. It was a nightmare.
... and by the time that we had reached a place we could push back out of the stomach, the schultenbrak had worked out what we were doing - in some base. animal way, at least. Suddenly the attacks were focused, out of a crowd of hundred only eight targeted, and with a renewed ferocity, a sense of purpose. We knew then who would live and who would die - the heart was passed to me, a master copy, as scores of myself died to shield me. it was the same with the others - and four of them fell, with each of their deaths all of their copies dissolving like sand.'
Shawe has stopped rummaging now, and stands stooped, staring in front of him at the dresser.
'That, Mr Rickonni, is how I escaped - by watching a thousand living, thinking, breathing beings die, and hundreds of them with my very own face.
As I said... I do not recommend it.
'When I was there, the stomach was no city - it seems to have drawn part of itself from the ruins of Yatavas, an echo of the last time it feasted. And if it has reproduced the city with any kind of faith then... yes, it will burn. But you'd need fire hotter than any I've seen to act as you intend, to survive the draining influence of that dread place. If you could secure that... I am thinking, remembering. There was a plan that we had wished to try, but had lacked the materials for - and time was of the essence then, far more so than it is now. Give me a moment...' Shawe begins to rummage through a desk in the corner of the tower room, spilling scrolls and odd accoutrements onto the floor at his feet.
As he searches he answers you, Rickonni, although he is distracted.
'It is not something I care to remember too clearly but, if you are so determined... we sacrificed ourselves. Hundreds of ourselves, to let four escape.
He draws a slim leather-bound book from the recesses of the drawer and throws it to you, , as he continues speaking.
'When the schultenbrak ingests you, you pass through a planar boundary - a carefully evolved planar boundary designed to split and refract an individual, creating tens, or even hundreds, of copies of them for the schultenbrak to digest at leisure. Most who enter are unaware of this - they believe the others that they see there to be phantoms, or illusions, but they are all quite real. Many of them are not perfect, although they don't often live long enough to find that out - their bodies altered slightly, their minds jumbled. There will always be one that is the most true - the master copy, if you will - and if that one escapes the others disappear, robbed of their template. The schultenbrak will not kill master copies until it has eliminated all of the lesser fragments - it would be killing the golden goose, so to speak.
Well, as I said, most who are swallowed don't know this. They act without co-ordination, with fear - but we knew. Those of us who stole in after the citizens we damned, we knew. And although we emerged scattered, freezing, guilty... we all knew what we had to do.
A thousand, maybe even more of us, charged towards the heart. Hundreds picked off as we ran, snared by creepers or those blasted winged antibodies. We ran, not knowing which of us would be the ones that it would not kill. And after we had torn away our little piece of heart, we retreated, stepping over or hounded by our own forms twisted and broken. It was a nightmare.
... and by the time that we had reached a place we could push back out of the stomach, the schultenbrak had worked out what we were doing - in some base. animal way, at least. Suddenly the attacks were focused, out of a crowd of hundred only eight targeted, and with a renewed ferocity, a sense of purpose. We knew then who would live and who would die - the heart was passed to me, a master copy, as scores of myself died to shield me. it was the same with the others - and four of them fell, with each of their deaths all of their copies dissolving like sand.'
Shawe has stopped rummaging now, and stands stooped, staring in front of him at the dresser.
'That, Mr Rickonni, is how I escaped - by watching a thousand living, thinking, breathing beings die, and hundreds of them with my very own face.
As I said... I do not recommend it.'
Rick sounds sad with the story, but he keeps onto the subject. "My condolences, Shawe. I know how that feels like, losing the ones you love. But you confuse my purpose, sir, as I did not intended to have you recalling such horrible moments. I wanted to know through which way did you escape it. Here, follow my reasoning. Mostly, these folks were swallowed by the Schultenbrack as it was passing by. So there's the mouth. But the mouth could not be seen from the inside, preventing them from escaping through that option. The Schultenbrack fully devours whatever is inside, meaning that it does not need intestines and an anus, right?"
"What I'm gonna say might be a simple reasoning, maybe even a little childish, but still I believe it makes sense. The gate that's over the ocean is not its mouth, as we are well aware, but simply a hole drilled in the Schultenbrak's stomach. So, if you have an open hole in your stomach, you cannot feed, cause your food is going to leak out. Thus, what if we enlarge it until the creature cannot retain its form and its stomach merges with the present plane?"
And, simple as that, he waits until the others absorb his suggestion.
Sallrana looks at him eye going snake eyes.
"I am at adds with what you say You see this plane is not my plane. I know this, things here are not the same. Are you now saying I my mind is just muddled, that I am just a copy, because my recollections of my plane is not at all muddled it is just different. I propose this, that in fact the carefully evolved planar boundary designed to split and refract an individual, is in fact a mitiverce scoop, that pulls in parallels of a being, and when that being gets back to its true plane, only one can be on each the others, cease to be. I fell out of that thing but I fully remember entering it, in side yes there where others me's but only three.
one of which died. It could have been the Sallrana from this plane or another. I seek to get back to my own plane, to my living husband. I see to find the gate back to my own plane. You see old arms showed us one thing, that he jumps his victims from one plane to another, it seeks to make now planes all together. This thing is feed not just from eating a single being but eating a vast number of them from a raft of parallels universes, take the energy from ending of planes where such a being keeps living. Just thing of the Energy it can collect from such feeding. Just as old Arms feeds on making new ones."
She gives him a rye smile.
'Well, we were lucky enough to make it back to the mouth... But if you did that, you would simply be back between planes. As for widening the tear... It is possible, in theory, but I can't know for certain. I would need to run tests, and I would need... Assistance, from my old colleagues.'
He turns to Sallrana.
'And Lady, with a beast such as this very little is certain. Perhaps you are more than a copy. I would not speculate on such a matter.'