《 video | un: iwannahexyouup 》

[incantates]

[ Please enjoy the communication-enabling device magically hovering in the air and capturing Magnus as he wriggles something that looks awfully dragon-eye shaped at the screen. It's 30cm of pure what the fuck. ]

Oh, don't mind me showing up uninvited in the middle of dinner. I just felt I should make a follow-up report to all interested parties on our recent expedition to the Sibilant Sands –courtesy of one depressed dragon lord named Cain, a plucky group of fellow curious minds, and a beautiful Shadowhunter who had to pick through bones with me for hours. I had my skepticism about dropping in on a pair of advertised coordinates with little planning, but, you know, I'm an adventurer at heart.

[ Lucky for him and everyone else who joined, it worked out about as well as mysterious expeditions into creepy wastelands could work out. ]

So... curious thing about this eye! Apparently, the magic imbued within makes it easier for the owner to parse through whatever illusory enchantments have been running amuck in Serthica. How did I learn this? Well, I advise you look away now if you're faint of stomach.

[ Magnus keeps his grip on the eye with one hand and uses the other to magically produce a small visual replica of what he'd witnessed in the form of a floating, nearly transparent screen, reflecting exactly what Magnus saw when he positioned the eye on the dragons that were loaned to them by Cain, who were brimming with good health, versus Lethe, who was... well, definitely not alive. ]

...Not pretty, I know, but it could have some practical applications on how we move forward unraveling the great mysteries of this world.

[ At least, he hopes. ]

Comments

un: absterge

[downswing]

You are certain, no illusion?

[incantates]

As far as my own magic can confirm,
I'm afraid not.
It's funny– I would have thought a lingering corpse would have a distinct stench by now
or at least be dry to the touch.

un: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

To those watching, the dragon who shows as being unhealthy and not alive is Lethe. Lethe is bonded to me, as of the weeks following Academy trials upon our arrival.

Cain expressed disbelief that any of us could be bonded to dragons, that it takes more time. I ask that all of you who are prepare yourselves for a similar realisation.

Magnus, will you join me in a thankless task? Beyond the observation of the peoples of Serthica, which will be due.

@mansbane | audio

[bravelyrunsaway]

What in the stormstruck skies did I just see?

un: Black Prince; text

[blackscales]

[ ... Truly, 0/10 for this merry little broadcast.

Wrathion suspected on some level, but he didn't enjoy the demonstration. Also, the giant dragon eye removed from the dead dragon is doing nothing to help. ]

Then we now have two issues. One, how things that are dead are being kept animated. Two, what is maintaining this powerful illusion.
Perhaps the dark water -- it seemed to animate but it may just all be a complex, active illusion.

un: Black Prince; text

[blackscales]

[ He knows exactly what you're up to.]

You expect the answer to be any different?

[ Wrathion does not.

... Tell him if it is, though. ]

action!

[flatly]

[Alec, who cannot help but make an ew face at the eye every time he turns around and it's there (he's a very tough and stoic etc etc, but some things are just too big and wet and unblinkingly gross, okay), waits until the video presentation has concluded and Magnus has mostly switched to texting people to chime in. (If he sighed at the 'beautiful Shadowhunter' bit, that's neither here nor there.] Can all the dragons see through the illusions, do you think? Or was there something special about the one that used to have that eye? [Spitballing!]

un: wooden dice.

[strewth]

[Hffft- the sound of a man smoking. His accent is English, Scouse specifically.] Looks like manky bollocks.

[The dead thing, not the... you know, whatever.]

Could we manage to get a name for the magical relic of uncertain providence that's a little less bloody ominous? Thinkin' about image, like.

[incantates]

You know, I thought so too. I'm glad someone said the quiet part out loud.

[ It defnitely doesn't make him any eager to be holding the dragon eye at the moment. Maybe he ought to summon a pair of gloves for himself. ]

We could always call it something euphemistic like "Cain's lovely ball of fun", but I don't think that really mitigates how un-fun it is to look at living corpses.

[incantates]

Oh, you know me. I'm never short of thankless tasks to carry out.
Do I ask what else you have in mind, aside from people and dragon-watching
to suss out the dead ones?

[incantates]

In short, something that hasn't been alive in quite sometime. Kind of gruesome, but after a while, you start to get used to it.

I'm almost afraid to carry this back to the orphanage.

[strewth]

Cain, hehh, always gotta get Biblical, ennit.

Believe me, you get used to it. Or don't, but you will.

[incantates]

[ Magnus would give himself at least a 2/10 for presentation and effort. ]

Well, we know the illusion is powerful enough to fool all five senses.
I pointed it out to Lan Wangji, but it's strange that none of us felt or smelled
that something was off.
I can't tell if it's an actual illusion or we're the ones being mentally manipulated into
believing they're alive.

[incantates]

[ Maybe he really ought to stop holding the giant, slimy eyeball, but he's sort of committed himself to this bit. He does, however, temporarily stuff it in whatever magical, mystical hammerspace exists out of sight just to spare Alec. ]

It's possible. Dragon eyes tend to carry with them a lot of magical properties, which is why they're such a popular potion ingredient, but I can't speak dragon well enough to ask them.

[ But that does remind him– ]

There is a young lady who claims to be the Mother of Dragons –Daenerys. I don't know if she can actually talk to them, but she'd be our best bet at communication, short of finding a dragon fluent in human.

[incantates]

Unfortunately so. Have you met the actual Cain? Not our dragon lord but the biblical one. I hear he is a dour vampire these days, still making poor life choices.

[matermali]

[ She may not have a weak stomach, but she still doesn't like what she sees. ]

Whosoever claims the dragon's eye may witness where rot persists. Only for the dragons, or the people, as well? What else have you seen?

[downswing]

The dead avoid rot.

[bravelyrunsaway]

Almost, but you will, because we need knowing before we're marching back on train to the citadel. Are the people down here at least living, or were they corrupted at the same time as the citadel?

[weifinder]

I wish to know.

[weifinder]

Step by step, perhaps, but why rush? Master Scorpion directs us, and I believe we may need to understand the flow of dark waters as much as the flow of the dead.

And what might be salvaged, from either, or both.

[blackscales]

You flew the dragons out through the sands, and yet still it held.

Either it is a powerful illusion, centred from one place and radiating out a great distance, or it is applied to the creatures individually, or as you say -- to us as a manipulation.

Yet the mannequin which was in the ship out in the sands had reverted. Its collapsed body no longer appeared human.

[blackscales]

Knowing will not undo it.

[incantates]

Even more eerie is that the dead don't even seem to be
aware that they're dead in most cases.

How did the mannequin revert back? Did you happen to see what broke the enchantment?

[blackscales]

I did not see it first hand, but the impression I had was that they arrived and the ship had been long crashed.

[incantates]

That we do, though I was hoping some other brave soul
would have tried tracking down the source of the dark water by now.
Or at least conducting a few science experiments with it to test the extent of
its unique properties.