Min Al-Biruni's page

It's important to stay calm. (Honestly, that's how the lotus dust first got to Min. It was so /soothing/.)

It's important to stay calm, and move smoothly and without hurry, even when others are panicking, shouting, running to and fro. Even when the sharp electric scent of Weaving is heavy in the air, the ghost field flickering into terrifying reality. Even when there's blood. Blood everywhere. Astonishing quantities of blood.

Min shakes off a memory and pulls out a small metal hammer and some nails. *Silver* nails, of course. He had them made for just this. I assume this is plausible? Also, Min will eat one point of Load for this stuff. Calmly, smoothly, he goes to the nearby door and -- while Casia and Hutton struggle hand to hand -- he hammers in a nail, and then another. It won't stop a determined assailant, of course, but it will delay them.

And also... it's getting a bit confusing in here, with all this gesturing and calling on the Weave. So Min carefully pulls out a wheel of wire -- very fine, very sharp wire. Tap, tap, a wire at ankle height. Tap, tap, another at neck height. Not the most elegant of booby-traps, but if men are rushed and hurried -- crashing through a door, say, or stumbling through a roiling mass of ectoplasmic spirits -- it could do. It should do. And, after all, "Form follows function," Min murmurs to himself; it was something his old teacher used to say. It will do --

-- hm: now what?

Recall that Min's specialty is stuff that affects perception and the mind. So... if you want to take that Foresight die, then he ghosted up something to make Casia a better killer. At least while holding this blade; at least this once. If not, no worries -- we can save it for later.

A brief interlude.

Magic weapons are, in Min's opinion, stupid. Yes, it is possible to place Weavings around a blade so that it strikes harder, cuts deeper, makes wounds that are worse -- agonizingly painful, slow to heal. It's not even particularly difficult.

But it is time consuming, and expensive, and at the end of the day you have... well, you have a great big target painted on whoever is wielding that blade. Who doesn't want a magic sword? And owning a magic sword won't protect you from poisoning, back-stabbing, a gunman taking aim from an alley, or simply cutting your throat in your sleep. Magic weapons tend to go through owners quickly. The smart money says, owning the BlackNight EdgeBlade of Midnight Doom may be briefly interesting, but it doesn't enhance your life expectancy at all: quite the opposite.

But putting a one-time Weave on a weapon is something else again. That has no down side! (Well, no more than the normal downside of inserting Weaving into something complicated and unpredictable and messy like trying to kill someone with an edged weapon.) Better still, you can craft the Weave to fit the particular wielder. Really, you're spinning a Weave around /both/ of them...

So: Casia will very probably need to use her blade at some point. What's Casia missing, thinks Min to himself. What might make her strike slower, weaker? And what might make it more likely to strike true?

"We're here."

"Here" doesn't look like much. The house had a cistern in the basement; the cistern had an overflow drain connected to the sewers. The cistern is long abandoned, but it can still be accessed via the old drain. It's a tight squirm, but at least it gets you out of the sewers.

So now you're in the old cistern, which is... well, it's about ten feet long, and six feet wide, and six feet deep. Or, well, it /was/ six feet deep. Now there's about a foot of accumulated silt, muck, and ancient garbage on the bottom. And on top, it's been boarded over. The boards look rotten and fragile, so it shouldn't be too hard to get out of here -- but in the meantime, there's less than five feet of clearance, so everyone has to stoop over.

Above and beyond should be Hutton's basement.

Tangle. The threads of the Weave stretch, then snap back into knots and snarls. Min has seen it before. Jonah is a powerful caster, but... push too hard, and you'll get a rebound. And it's easy to panic at a tangle. It makes you want to panic, especially if you're sensitive.

But Min Al-Biruni is having none of that. Min doesn't panic -- or at least, he doesn't allow himself to panic in a way that others can see -- and he certainly doesn't get lost. This way. He rakes his will across the snarled Weave like a comb through snarled hair, pointing everything to line up in one direction. His colleagues may run, but they will run the way they need to run.

Unfortunately, just like running a comb through snarled hair, it hurts. A lot: Min is more or less raking out his own nervous system here. Agony lances through the Weave-points of his body: a punch in the solar plexus, a cramp in the neck, a sudden jack-hammer migraine in both temples. Min staggers, and struggles not to vomit.

But at least everyone is going where they need to go.

Flashback.

Min has a memory palace, of course. That's basic.

Min is also a practitioner of the Art of Memory, which is quite a bit trickier. This turns the memory palace inside out, and uses it as a technique of divination. It is a deep Art, and Min is not an advanced practitioner, but he has more than once found useful omens and portents by observing subtle changes within the halls of his own memory.

But stealing Augus' plans didn't require that advanced Art. (Stealing is the correct word here. Min has no objections to stealing from criminals, and Augus was and is a great criminal.) All that was needed was a few minutes alone with the documents: Min could simply add the map of the tunnels beneath his already-existing Manse.

So it's just as easy to simply recite them back. "A hundred and eighty paces, and then a left at the intersection. Twenty paces on, there's a descent; one may have to wade a bit. Then left again, then right. The stone will change there, to an older design, and the ceiling will drop, but it will be dryer. Through the arch, then a bit of crawling, and one emerges, directly under our destination."

Yes, that part is easy. The trickier part is where this emerges within Min's own Manse of Memory, and whether that raises any omens or portents he should pause to consider...

Never run from the dead. It attracts their attention. The long-ago words of his teacher echo in Min's mind as he moves along the filthy corridor. Walk slowly, and pretend to be thinking of something else. Sing a song, say a poem, do your tricks, but walk slowly and they may not follow.

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green," Min murmurs softly, brushing the damp stone with one hand, "That host with their banners at sunset were seen.." He tucks the mirror away, neatly, carefully. "Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, that host on the morrow lay withered and strown..." Step by step, slowly, calmly. Away.

I find information, Min had said. I find people. And... I make plans. One cannot always make a plan for every eventuality. But one can make a contingency plan that covers many different eventualities. And "angry ghost" is an eventuality that Min has encountered more than once.

The thing about ghosts is, most of them are... damaged. Flawed, imperfect, pieces missing. They tend to be obsessive, and are usually motivated by some simple, powerful emotion: rage, grief, revenge. This can make them terribly powerful, but it also means that many ghosts are surprisingly easy to fool. (Many ghosts, not all. Some retain most or all of their intelligence. There's no easy way to tell which sort is which.)

Min pulls out something round and flat with a handle: a mirror. It is made of polished bronze and it is very old. He holds it in his left hand and gestures with his right. Now he is holding a small white flame in front of the mirror. Reflected light, soft but surprisingly bright, bathes the chamber.

"Friend Jonah," he says calmly, "here is maqbal al farseeieh, the handle of a lever. It will multiply your strength. I am nuq tat airtikaz, the fulcrum. Will you put your hand to it?"

The Iruvians don't have gods, exactly. The Prevalence includes a hierarchy of supernatural entities, ranging from minor spirits that might watch over a single site, to the Cardinal Principles -- Chance, Fate, Freedom and Necessity. But there are things even more powerful than those. "Against Stupidity," say the proverbs of Iru, "even the Cardinal Principles contend in vain."

Min is not particularly afraid of death. But he does not want to die badly -- that's important. And, in particular, he does not want to die because of someone else's utter stupidity.

There's a minor Weave that will open the pupils of the eyes wider, so as to see clearly in the dimmest possible light. It won't work here, because there's absolute pitch blackness.

There's another Weave, slightly more challenging, that opens the other senses. Unfortunately it opens /all/ the other senses. It might be nice to have enhanced hearing right now, to catch every echo, breath, and footfall. But the enhanced sense of smell would probably collapse Min to the ground, retching helplessly.

Still... Min's intuition is good. And it's prickling right now: danger.

Oh, sewers.

It's not that Min is squeamish. Emphatically not. Even though his caste is not formally martial, it /is/ a caste that sits inside the tent. Which means, among other things, being ready for every sort of unpleasantness, should it be necessary. Or to put it in terms an outlander might understand: Iruvian nobility, for all their pride, have no issues with getting their hands dirty.

So, not squeamish. But a certain fastidiousness is also part of the package. One may be ready for unpleasantness; nevertheless, unpleasant things are unpleasant. One may accept that the Negative Spirit has marred the world; one is not required to like it.

Nevertheless: needs must, when the Negative Spirit drives. And, really, is a stroll through a sewer the worst thing that could happen? Min hunches for a moment, very slightly, caught in an ugly memory: no. It is very far from the worst thing.

So... sewers it is.

Min frowns. The Weave... something seems /off/. Not quite right. He tries to reach out, but the knife is too far away now, in space and in time. Min is a skillful Weaver, but not a powerful one, and this sort of work calls for brute strength. Although... it's not the knife, exactly? Not that end of the thread. The other. Something about the woman?

Min would try to concentrate, to re-focus his attention on the near end of the Weave -- a very specific sort of mental effort, a bit like crossing one's eyes while deliberately not thinking about any sort of dog -- but just then Casia walks back into the room, grinning. "And that's a job well done!"

Is it? Min starts to think, but already the thought is fading. Working with the Weave is very like dreaming -- a sort of lucid dreaming, random and controlled at the same time. And like dreaming, if once you wake and lose the thread, all is forgotten. The momentary distraction is enough. The dream-strand of Weave-stuff slips through Min's mental grasp, drifts away, and is lost.

It was probably nothing, he thinks vaguely, and moves on.

"This should do, I think." In fact Min has gone a bit beyond instructions, because... elegance. The first person to hold the knife will very probably believe they saw the thin man. The second person to hold the knife will be inclined to believe the first person. The third person will have a slightly increased tendency to believe the first two. It's a recursion in the Weaving, which should diminish to nothing once the knife has passed through a few hands.

Min hands the knife back carefully, still wrapped in the cloth. "Be careful not to touch it yourself! If you do, you will snag the Weaving yourself. And since you are yourself its first cause, the result could be... unpredictable."

Just adding one possible failure mode here!

A bit later...

Min tries not to sag. He's weary now, and it's not just ordinary fatigue. Weaving, especially so quickly, drains the soul. He won't be quite himself for a little while. Until the next session with the Lotus, comes the thought, unbidden, quickly suppressed.

Min takes 1 Stress for the assist here. Casia can choose either +1 die or enhanced effect.

"Now you said that you could enchant this knife with a weaving, yeah?" the girl asks, holding out the stolen blade, covered in a threadbare scarf. Her hands are steady and Min detects no impairment on her in spite of frequent appearances of the clay bottle she carries. "So what we need is for whoever touches this to see a tall, thin man - just like we had it stole from - running away. Please tell me you can do that?"

On short notice, this will actually be difficult. It would have been much easier to do over the space of an evening, back in his lodgings, sitting comfortably cross-legged on his last threadbare carpet. But it's still within Min's skills to do it here and now, and quickly. It'll just be... a bit unpleasant.

Min holds the dagger in a cloth, not touching it, and begins to speak softly to it. The language is Hadrathi, which was old when the Sons of Iru were still wandering the high steppe. What people spoke that tongue, and whatever became of them, are things beyond Min's knowledge. These days the old language is mostly used for cursing -- it is rich in scathing expletives. Outside of Iruvia, very few remember that it has other uses.

"There is a Weave I know, that might be useful here."

Iruvians have been Weaving for many centuries, since long before the breaking of the world. And like everything else in Iruvia, Weaving is heavily influenced by two things: aesthetics and caste.

In terms of caste, Min's family are aristocrat-bureaucrats. At their highest levels, they produce not generals and warriors, but high judges, students of fate, and royal viziers. So when they produce Weavers, there aren't usually a lot of fireballs or demon-summonings. Their Weavings are almost all nonviolent, mostly designed to affect perception or the mind. "Enchantments and illusions!" one northerner once said to him. Min's lip curls slightly, remembering: how vulgar.

Because the other influence on Min's Weaving is aesthetics. Subtlety and indirection; elegance and precision. To create the illusion of, say, a demon would be almost embarrassingly straightforward and... obvious. A truly graceful Weaver would touch the mind of the target, here and there, until they convinced themselves that a demon was present, the eye and brain building an abomination of terror out of random sounds and shadows. The end result might be the same, but one would be brick-work while the other is Art.

I like it.

Min waits patiently, watching the young woman work her skills.

Comrades are to be judged along several axes. Caste is of course one. Competence is another. The marks of alcohol consumption are so obvious that almost any careful observer could see them. To Min's eyes, they are screaming headlines. Incipient alcoholism, or full-blown but high-functioning? Look below the headlines, read the finer print.

The family was known -- these people do not divide merchants and aristocrats clearly, so either high merchant or low aristocrat, with Min cautiously assigning them to the latter based on the brother's obvious competence with edged weapons and violence. But they had a fall; this also is known. Min is very familiar with having a fall.

He scans the young woman's clothes, tentatively assigning dates: the clothing is good to excellent but several years old, the patches cheaper and more recent. There are laugh lines on her face, but they are overlain by newer lines of worry, fear, and despair. Her hair is hacked, bluntly cut, obviously done by herself -- as is often the case with such, it is slightly off-center. Nobody ever taught her how, because the family had people for that. Now she does it quickly and sloppily, because she does not care. Min nods, internally. It all fits.

Caste is fixed, or nearly so. It is almost impossible to change one's place in the Prevalence. The Great Black Tent can make reassignments, or, very occasionally -- Min flinches internally a little -- the Round. But these are rare as death by lightning. So, her caste is fixed, and for that it does not matter how far she may have fallen economically, socially, or in any other way. "Bind the hawk, blind the hawk, still it will not eat carrion." So along that axis, Min does not care one bit about Casia's poverty, alcoholism, social standing, or mental health.

But competence is something else again. So Min watches, patiently but very alertly, as Casia works her skills.

"Then... what was the point?"

"If you are building a fire, what is the the point of carefully arranging kindling? You must gather the materials together first, before you can strike the spark." Zuben is entirely folded up and put away now. (Has he over-used Zuben? It's hard to tell. This was a particularly protracted and high profile display, though. Perhaps he should be more cautious with this identity.) "This is but the first step. Now the Nails are in the right state of mind -- agitated, paranoid. The next actions are up to your colleagues. Our colleagues."

Later:

Letting go of Zuben is as simple as taking off a wig, wiping off a bit of makeup, letting a couple of minor Weaves dissipate. But it feels like... both a relaxation and a resumption of tension. Like opening one hand and clenching the other, Min thinks.

"So... what now?" Finraeth asks, watching the transformation with one eyebrow raised.

"Exactly now? Nothing." Min reaches down to pull off the shoes, tucks them into a nondescript carrying sack. "They took the bait, yes. They believe, or half believe, or anyway believe enough. It makes sense to them that other groups would be jealous -- of their competence, of their ability to go where others do not. They are very proud, and the prideful always imagine that others are jealous. They imagine that they have 'mastered' the Darklands, and in fact their skills are a source of real pride, and of wealth. They have ambitions, because the prideful always have ambitions, and so they imagine that others seek the same goals..."

"Meanwhile the Grinders are arrogant and unlikable, yet strong enough to be plausible rivals. A sudden attack would fit their known patterns of behavior. There is also the element of class; to be assaulted by such rabble would be an outrage, beneath contempt. Yet contempt contains the seeds of fear. Easy to believe that the rabble are ready to rise!" Min stretches, cracks his neck. (Zuben is taller, but also has a tendency to hunch and bob his head a little.) "And they accepted the "evidence" whole -- that was fortunate, honestly it wasn't my best work -- short time!" Min feels his own personality coming back, like pulling on a glove -- fussy, careful, fastidious, aloof. Zuben is much more gregarious but also rather sloppy.

"They wouldn't dare." Tuhan is getting a bit agitated -- annoyed, even. Not at Min (or not yet), but at the very idea that the Grinders -- the filthy, grotesque, proletarian Grinders -- could be a threat to him and his fellow high-bred Severosi friends.

(The Severosi aren't aristocrats, exactly; they're horse nomads. But they're very aristocratic in their ways: honor codes, noblesse oblige, swift resort to violence. And a very long time ago, before they came down through the passes in the southern mountains to build cities palaces and ships, the ancestral Iruvians moved in tents across a vast savannah. So despite great cultural differences, the... shape of the man's mind, is not unfamiliar.)

"I thought so too! Of course!" Zuben nods energetically. "So I took notes."

"Notes?"

Zuben has a story to tell. It's a convincing story... he hopes.

Zuben has some experience with the Darklands. (This is true. Min has some experience with the Darklands.) Zuben went on two expeditions, one voluntary, one less so. That's plenty. He never, every wants to go back. Still, he does a little business in Darklands... business. Artifacts; information; passing along contacts. This is known.

The Silver Nails consider themselves the premier experts on Darklands exploration, of course. In fact, they're rather possessive about the whole Darklands thing. The occasional prospector or small group of explorers is fine, whatever, beneath their notice. But they're likely to get annoyed if anyone else spends too much time out there -- especially if that "anyone else" is large, well organized, and looking for anything of value. So Zuben steps carefully here; he's small time, he respects their expertise and doesn't get too ambitious. It would be too much to say the Silver Nails like Zuben, but they know who he is and have no issues with him or his business. He's a minor part of the landscape, has been for a while. So, have a drink? Why not, if he's buying.

But Zuben has a story to tell...

Spider items

Fine bottle of whiskey: A rare distillation from your personal collection, potent both in its alcohol and its ability to impress.

Zuben is sitting in the Mustang Inn, having a pleasant conversation with the lead scout of the Silver Nails.

Tuhan is Severosi -- all the Nails are -- and he's a bold fellow. Well, most Severosi are; they have to be, to live in the Deathlands. The spirits are scattered more thinly in Severos, there's less Sour Ground, the madness is generally weaker. There are enclaves of clear ground, and the Severosi have fast horses to move between them. Still, the weak and the timid left or died long ago.

Tuhan wears his hear in a lacquered crest, his arms are covered with apotropaic tattoos, and on one finger he wears a silver nail, hammered into a ring. Despite a ragged scar down one side of his face, he's a handsome fellow, and charming. And he's nobody's fool!

But few men -- bold or timid, fool or cunning -- can resist the charm of fifteen-year-old Skov Island single malt.

Spider Items

Fine cover identity: Paperwork, planted stories and rumors, and false relationships sufficient to pass as a different person. [0 load]

Zuben Al-Genubi is loud and brash. His hair is long and braided; his shoes have high heels; his hat is cylindrical and adorned with three medallions. He is dressed all in green, except for his waistcoat (white) and his sash (red, and quite narrow -- really more like a belt). His sash has no fobs. He speaks with a heavy accent, gestures widely, and smiles often.

To a Doskvol native, he's a loud cheerful foreigner: friendly, perhaps not too bright. A fellow Iruvian will instantly identify him socially as a merchant of the second (lower) merchant caste, and ethnically as a mountain Zarg -- and not just any Zarg, but a Lesser Zarg of the Scrodlings. Zargs generally are country bumpkins, a bit backwards, a bit greedy. The Scrodlings are known to be somewhat unstable and prone to fits of religious mania. An Iruvian of a higher caste -- which is to say, most Iruvians -- will view the merchant with amusement and disdain, tempered with caution should he begin to act erratically. (The Red Prophet was a Scrodling, after all.)

Of course, Zuben Al-Genubi is really a wig, high heels, some makeup, and an hour of careful Weaving. Or (looked at another way) Zuben Al-Genubi is a set of papers, a registration with the Iruvian Consulate, a passport, and a carefully forged set of ancestry documents. (Min is quietly pleased with these last. All Iruvians but the lowest castes have ancestry documents. Zuben's are a perfect forgery of a set of bad forgeries. That is, they look exactly like something a foolish low-caste merchant would buy in a lame attempt to prove that his grandmother once sat on the Round.) Looked at still another way, Zuben is rumors, stories, connections; this person did business with him; this other person remembers seeing him regularly at the Change; he frequents this Iruvian tea-house; he is friendly with a particular gondolier. Some of this is Weave, but most is simply dropping hints and speaking with confidence. Because looked at yet another way, Zuben Al-Genubi is just Min Al-Biruni with his shoulders thrown back and his eyes gleaming with cheerful certainty.

Being Zuben is like clenching a muscle. It requires constant alertness and awareness. If another Iruvian were to see through him, the humiliation would be great. (Of course, this itself is a reason the identity works! Who of higher caste would pretend to be a half-sash merchant? Who but a Zarg would be a Zarg?)

And yet, being Zuben is also like relaxing a muscle. Zuben's ancestors were nobodies; he has no noble Name to live up to. Zuben has never been involved in court intrigue, or known the sting of defeat in that game. Zuben is not an exile. Who would exile a Scrodling merchant? Kill him, certainly. But exile? Whyever bother?

And Zuben is not poor. No, he never has much Coin on him, but everyone knows that he's a reasonably successful trader. Not rich, exactly, but a man with all sorts of contacts and fingers in many pies. Everyone knows that he's been involved in some sort of deal, or is about to be involved, or might be. So Zuben is welcome in many places and tolerated in more.

And Zuben has little dignity and no worries beyond his next round of buying and selling. And Zuben has no enemies among the Round, and Zuben has never been married.

Zuben Al-Genubi, brisk and cheerful, walks the streets of Crow's Foot.

(Min is perfectly capable of speaking "normally", in Duskvol vernacular or several other dialects. Going forward, he will adapt to the common speech of the group. But first impressions matter.)

Min pauses for just the fraction of a second.

The young woman and her brother are not exactly nobility, but their family was important and connected, even if they later fell on hard times. (To an Iruvian noble, caste is nearly immutable. The tosses and turns of fortune may affect wealth and status, but not your place in the Prevalence.) There is a lightning calculation to be done here. Fortunately Iruvians generally are used to this -- they've all been doing it since childhood -- and the nobility better than most, and Min better still.

Min bows, and puts one hand forward a little, palm up and open, as if tentatively offering some small invisible gift. A fellow Iruvian would instantly see that this is the Third Generic Bow ("You are of lower caste than me, but not grossly so, and presumed still capable of honor") combined with the Gesture of the Three-Quarters Open Heart ("Neither of us is obliged to the other, and I am aware of no grounds for conflict. My opening attitude is friendly.") Of course, nobody in the room is Iruvian, so they probably just see a nice bow.

"Health and a light heart to you, Spit and Finraeth! May the memory of our meeting ever call forth the sweet scent of acanthus and iris." Health and a light heart implies that they belong to a martial caste. If they were peasants or merchants, the greeting would be "health and good fortune" or "health and long life". But it is presumed that martial castes make their own fortune, and aren't very interested in long life.

"Spit" because to comment on a given name is a gross deviation, and usually a sharp insult. Casia could have said "you can call me Princess Mamoru Moonshine Jagermeister," and Min would have repeated it without a flicker.

The iris is of course the flower of valor, courage and hope. The acanthus is a bit unusual here: it is the flower of artifice and cunning, the bloom of successful craftsmanship. So this translates to something like "I look forward to working with you / hope for a successful partnership".

So Min lifts the corners of his mouth in a gesture that is not remotely a smile. And he adds the name of Batesh to a particular internal list. And he takes his leave.

And back at his lodgings, he reviews his sadly depleted wardrobe. There is a shirt that will do, just barely. The waistcoat can be made acceptable with a bit of Weaving (Min learned that trick as a careless young man, and it has served him all too well since). And of course he has carefully preserved the ceremonial dagger that shows his caste, and the sash-fobs that proclaim his family, marital status, honors, and rank.

(The sandals are unfortunate. He never did learn how to Weave a glamour over sandals. He must hope that people do not pay attention to the sandals. He will put the sandals firmly out of his mind now.)

"'Lady' Phroaig," he says out loud. Honestly, these people. Coin flip that she'd bought the title; almost certainly it was not more than a generation or two of age. Well, needs must when the Negative Spirit drives. Off to a party.

Min's distaste for Batesh is slowly curdling into loathing. In the days of his great-grandfather -- may the scent of violets adorn his memory -- this crawling little functionary would not have dared raise his eyes above the ankles of an Al-Biruni. Even in Min's father's time, the creature would not have ventured anything but the most carefully phrased respect.

But that was then and this is now, and for a fact Min is low on Coin and prospects both. He has neither estate nor retinue; he is out of favor with the Great Black Tent and he has enemies within the Round; heaven is high, and the Emperor is far away. In short, he is a penniless exile.

It is true that he still has a great many useful contacts, plus some small talent with the Weave. But for an al-Biruni to survive by couch-surfing, cadging small loans, and doing odd magical errands... well, that might literally be a fate worse than death. Starve with dignity, and your ghost might still find its way to the tent of your ancestors. Debase your noble name, and you will surely wander whimpering and homeless through the Broken Dark forever.

Min Al-Biruni wakes from the beautiful, dreamless sleep of the Black Lotus to threadbare sheets and a bare, cold room.

He sits up slowly and carefully. The aftermath of a Lotus binge is not pain exactly, but rather depression combined with a bone-deep chill. It will pass, Min knows it will pass, but until it does the world will be a dank and joyless place.

There is a swift corrective, of course: more of the Black Lotus. Min has a single dose left. He will not take it today, nor tomorrow either. He has seen men and women enslaved to the Lotus, writhing in need and despair, their eyes empty of anything but the hunger for the drug. But Min is not an addict, he tells himself once again. Not him.

Moving very slowly, Min begins to prepare himself a cup of tea. As he does, he struggles to piece together his memories of the previous day. He spoke with someone, about something important.

Who was it, now?