username: lady of the willow tree | audio

[aprescoup]

( She has long suffered, her great sigh speaks, every fool that's walked this world. ) ...you took more dead. Why are you like this? You want friends? I buy you friends. Three for five coin pieces, at the market. You are ugly, maybe I pay seven. And you are fools! No one likes you. I pay nine.

Pah! What is your luck? What is my luck? These other clapping seals in their little frills, with their little cakes and their little cups, they are playing their little games. And they come to me with messages. I I have the look of a saint now, who delivers word. How fortunate Karsa is. How grateful.

Look here. Pay attention. ( She spits out the words: ) First come the beggars, the Bessis. What is their puny fire worth now? I breathe hotter each morning. They ask for their captives, to hide their shame. Imagine! You kill, and you kill, and you kill, and then you keep your dead 'allies' like vermin, and it is not good, when you are found out. Who could have thought?

( And softer: ) The others. The Attaryl, for whom speaks the red woman, Vannozza. They want their dead. For burial. Ha! As if she will not use them to say, looooooooooooook! Look what my cousin's good friends! Look. But the witches... these are their dead.

So, talk, choose, and — ( The transmission seems to flicker, her voice first feeble, then doubled, then she shrieks: ) No. No. You do not dare, you do not presume, you do not, you fur-clad pink pig, you do not dare —

( But Karsa falls silent. To a quiet backdrop, broken only by a rhythmic drip, speaks undead Lord Anurr of Sa-Hareth — who has not been seen since arriving in Sa-Hareth. He seems to borrow the voices of multiple men, women and children, never settling on the one: )

H elLo   Li TtlE   FrIenD S. HoW   Ha VE   YoU   Be EN?   GoOD?   Yo U   ArE   Go OD   peOPlE.

Go oD   ThIn Gs   SHOUl D   HaPpE N   T o   GoOd   Peop Le.   And   GoO D   EnDing S   to   Th Ose   Who   HAV e   SuF f e Red   LoN G.

N o?   Y E s.

And   Th E y   havE SuFFer Ed,   ThEse   AtTa ryL.   An D   N oW   ThEY WoU l D   Be   Use D   aGA in?

No.   So   Man Y   BuRNs. So   ManY   WA I Ls.   I heAR   ThE M   FroM   HerE.

GiVE   Them   To   ME.   Th E Y   Will   Be   O U R   BrothER s   In   SA-HARE Th.   Fr E e.

( As quickly as Anurr interrupted, his voice disappears. A long heartbeat's silence. By the time Karsa recovers command of her own transmission sorcery, she is quieter for it, rattled. )

You... that. That disgusting creature. That... well. Well, you heard him, didn't you? You heard him. Tell me what you wish done. You cannot have it all ways. Only one answer.

( ooc: the floor is yours, threadjack away, debate the fate of the six undead claimed in the Bessis tower disaster, plus the three previously weaponised by Wei Wuxian. Characters with 'ownership' of the dead get final say — please state it! All the undead will go to the petitioner with the highest number of votes. Haltham Anurr will not be answering any comments. )

Comments

[inferus]

You mean more like what Macaluso was offering for those who had been poisoned?

I had heard about exorcism in the Necromancy District. I wondered if that was the means you mentioned earlier to send other spirits beyond the grasp of a necromancer. Even if it will not help these dead.

( There is another reason he is asking, but he does not quite trust the stones in terms of privacy even to mention the possibility in the vaguest of terms. He will have to seek him out at another time. )

[weifinder]

The same, without the strings that tie back to his hands for puppeting. Also without the fear of blood being traded off to other ends.

It would be, but we... purge, lay to rest, send on, exorcism as its wording is newer to me here even if I've dealt with cases of possession back home. Most were solved by addressing the source, rather than the one possessed. Regardless, by principle, yes. I exorcise.

[inferus]

A useful skill, especially given the danger this group often faces including accidental poisonings. His "offer" colored my view of him for the worse.

You have an afterlife in your world to send them on to, or is it simply allowing them to rest? I've no sense of any afterlife in this world, but there is a great deal about this world I am unfamiliar with. ( his powers do not work in the same way )

[weifinder]

I wonder at times if his nature is not one that... is easier for his allies to predict.

Ah, not strictly so, more a concept of reincarnation spirits enter into, or are sundered away from. Here things operate differently, but to which extents, I don't know; information conflicts, as I imagine isn't a surprise, and most go to philosophy, not much conceptual fact.