[K95.11] 35-36 Ortackus, under Bo's Point

We were getting ready to leave the dead-end tunnel we were in, when Thymelixsen said that there were three Burdez standing at the entrance. We couldn't go by them without there being a fight, and we wanted to avoid that at all costs, in general, but also because Jack was going to try to get the protection of House Wagokalane tonight, and actual fights with the conclave would make that much more difficult. We debated what we should do, and Mirashan said that this wasn't quite a dead-end: there's a narrow tunnel going down into the unused Orem tunnels beneath the city, and we could get through to market from there. It would be a tight fit for Cor, though. While we were debating, the slasher came forward, done with the counting Cor had given him to keep him from following us. We couldn't let him go out past the Burdez: that could lead to the tree-ritual people allying with the Burdez. Not a good idea. So he'd have to come with us, and he couldn't do that as injured as he was. Cor gave him a setman tuber, and it was a juicy one.

We went to the back of the tunnel, and had the slasher go first, me following, then Cor, Thymelixsen (to turn Cor into something smaller, if he got completely stuck), and Mirashan at the end. The slasher didn't like this very much, but he didn't have much choice. We got through the narrow, twisting tunnel into a spherical room with murky water at the bottom. Of course I slid into it. Ugh. But we made it.

Mirashan led the way through some more tunnels. We went too far at one point, and had to double back. Not that I would've known, of course, in the darkness of it all. Mirashan led us to another egg-shaped room, this one with a flat floor, and, most importantly, a lit crystal. It pulsed, but stayed lit, which was wonderful after the murky tight spaces we'd been in. Mirashan escorted the slasher to an exit by market, and he was gone.

While she was away, Thymelixsen started cleaning the muck off his stuff, and I went to look at the green of the walls. There were little filaments of plant that blew in the slightest air movement. Interesting. I couldn't touch the rock through the green, though, and found a clear spot. I touched the rock, and sensed the Healer in it, but also another presence, a bad one: the rock felt diseased. I sensed disease on the rock, and there was a spirit of death in it. Not large compared to the size of the body of the Healer, but big enough to kill a person. It must be connected to the tree rituals that were done, but whether the rituals feed the spirit or the spirit is master-minding the rituals somehow, I'm not sure. Nor how it ended up in the body of the Healer, given that the energy came from the trees.

I told the others (Mirashan had just returned). I don't know how to get a death spirit out of rock (perhaps one of my books has information about this), so I hope that interrupting the stymied death energies from the last ritual will hurt it, too.

We set up watches. Thymelixsen needed to restore his magical energies, so was out of the rotation. Cor decided to stay up during my watch so I could teach him more about healing.

I hope Jack's emissary to House Wagokalane is going well. He's the best of us for it, but it could be a very delicate negotiation...