Scene #1042: The Mad Mother?

Owner	Pose
Ainsley	There's a mental health facility situated within Njorun. This facility is dedicated to the healing of many mentally ill patients, but the section that we'll be covering today is the one for violently insane patients, the kind sent there when they go completely off the deep end. Notable patients include victims of cultists, or the cultists themselves, as well as unfortunate mad scientists... Kana has a visitor. She accepts them without any issue. She's kept in a cell that has a 'mana mister' keeping her healthy, and has earned the right for books and other things to occupy her time with. She's been described as a very cooperative and stable patient, but she is completely unwilling to discuss her issues with therapists and tends to get violent when confronted on them in any extended capacity. The lizard woman doesn't seem insane. She just quietly flips pages and writes down notes -- she's violent, but only when confronted, so they're comfortable giving her things like pens. As long as nobody agitates her too much. Visitors are given a warning along these lines: Avoid talking about her emotions. Attempting to empathize with her will agitate her.
Staren	"I brought bacon." The door opens to show Staren, holding a plastic bag with something wrapped in greasy paper towels. "...I'm Staren. You're Kana, yes? Ainsley's mother? Well, except that's a title, not a name." He blinks. "...Wait, is Kana a title too? Shoot, I really don't know that much about your world, do I..." Way to blow the dramatic intro, Staren.
Ainsley	Kana stopped what she was doing, looking up at Staren as he entered the room. Her eyes moved in an almost robotic fashion to focus on the bag o' bacon, then looked up to Staren. "That food is heavy on unnecessary fats," she tells him, "I will eat it, but I do not understand the significance of bringing something that is not very nutritious." She closes her book and sets it down. Her hands clasp and rest on the floor. She really does look like an aged version of Ainsley. Red eyes, feathers that droop. Closer examination shows she has a slightly different muzzle shape. "I do not have a name. Kana will suffice for addressing me, but I believe another scholar has been assigned that title by now."
Staren	Staren blinks. "It tastes good. It is meant to be a treat, a gift for someone whose access to luxuries is... restricted. But if it not the sort of gift you like, you do not have to consume it." Beat. "An old friend of mine used to end up here periodically. He liked it, so..." he shrugs. "It seemed like the thing to do when visiting someone here." He steps into the room, door closing behind him. "I want to understand what happened to that city, and your involvement in it. It might shed light on things happening to Aztlan now. ...Also, I'm a friend of Ainsley's and I'm naturally a little curious about her family."
Ainsley	Kana's brow furrows, an actual emotion. Unfortunately, it looks like consternation. The words Aztlan, Ainsley, and family invoke something of a negative reaction in the woman. She begins to develop a frown, and, as if her emotion came bubbling up to the surface... She began to glare at Staren. Her head tilts forward slightly, the menace rolling off of her suddenly quite powerful. She lurches forward over the table and--!! Snatched the bag of bacon out of his hand. She began stuffing her face with it, without a single ounce of gratitude directed toward Staren. "If you are going to ask me if I am involved in some sort of problem," she tells Staren, "Do not waste your breath. I have been in custody for the better part of a few months. If anyone is responsible for any problems in Aztlan, it is the priesthood." She shoves more bacon in her face. She's gonna eat all of it pretty fast. Despite her almost Vulcan-like disapproval of the unhealthy food, she has no problem eating it at all. Maybe she's a stress eater. Maybe she's just being unduly aggressive.
Staren	Staren blinks, jumping slightly, but he doesn't say anything about the bacon. He doesn't care much whether he gets any, or thanks. Although, thanks would have been an indicator of establishing rapport. And hey, here comes another possible avenue of doing just that. "/Priests/. I understand one from another world came to talk to you. My own view of the worship of gods is... rather dimmer. But I'm unfamiliar with the priests of your world, or much of any part of Quetzal society for that matter. So... what have they done? It sounds like this isn't the /first/ problem they've caused." He tries to put a little extra disdain into his voice instead of the politeness he usually has to show.
Ainsley	Kana sets the rest of the bacon down, licking some grease off of her fingers. Whatever there was to lick off, at least. She likes bacon, apparently. "They are a corrupt council of fools. The lot of them think they want to protect the Quetzal, but their rituals endanger the entire city. Their purification ritual does not do what they claim it does. They make a bunch of show of being powerful and altruistic, but most of them are guarding the secrets of life magic and sitting on their hands while their real problems get worse." She waggles a finger, "Have you ever heard of radiation spills? Have you ever seen what happens when a large amount of corrupted mana gets released at once? You have already seen what happens when it accumulates in someone." She points at herself. Maybe she means the whole 'going insane and murdering people' thing. "They glorify sacrifice, they glorify death and they glorify isolationism. They play at being Aztec priests without understanding the dichotomy and all of its requirements for true balance. They try to cheat." "... what happened to Aztlan?" she wonders, her rant stopping, as she realizes there might be a good reason for this line of questioning.
Staren	For a moment, Staren wonders if Kana might sense some sort of divine taint on him, as he has successfully called on a god himself in the past... Maybe she'd understand if he explained though -- he did -- but it seems it will not be an issue. He nods a bit as she explains about the priests. "Radiation spills, yes, but I... have not had much experience with corrupted mana. My world may not have an analogue." Staren nods. "I imagine that the priests have a rather comfortable position in society. Maybe some of them even believe that the order they maintain outweighs the lies. But even that is meaningless when it all falls apart." Staren is silent for a moment. He takes a deep breath, and sighs. "Do the terms 'basilisk' and 'memetic virus' mean anything to you? ...No, wait. I'll tell you what happened to Aztlan, but first I need to know... does The Hunger mean anything to you?"
Ainsley	Kana frowns at Staren for a while. He doesn't answer her question, but at the same time he kind of does. "The Hunger. It is a pervasive corruption that is found in all magic on my world. Some kind of influence drives us to covet, to hunger, to take, to steal, to devour, it makes us feel empty with no way to fill the void. It is taught that mages of a certain level of power are all madmen who carry the hunger in them, constantly fighting its whispers. The stronger the mage, the stronger the urges to act upon these influences." "That is the corruption the priesthood is trying to filter out. They are succeeding, but with no way to destroy it, it sits in their city and is simply a risk to the entire population."
Staren	Staren listens, then hangs his head slightly. Silently thinking about the best way to (and whether he should) say 'well, you were right, and now all thosen innocents have paid the price for being wrong'.
Ainsley	Kana looks at Staren with a measured patience, the frown still there. She chews on the bacon, considering the smart catboy's emotional cues like someone who has been trained to read them. "What happened to Aztlan?" she asks him more directly, "Tell me or get out of my sight. I have no desire to endure this nonsense." She is still pretty surly! She puts up a staunch wall to her aggression made of bacon grease, picking up the bacon and feeding herself some more.
Staren	Staren's stirred from his thoughts. "Sorry." he looks up at her. "The Hunger has combined with corruption from another world, which we call The Filth. The Filth takes the form of both a physical infection and infectious ideas. It claims to be a messenger, offering immortality. But it does not. Left untreated, infected individuals become monsters." Beat. "Aztlan has fallen. Its residents have been transformed into skeletal, Filth-enhanced undead that rise at night and devour the living, leaving bones to become more monsters. We plan to mount an expedition to see if anyone yet lives in the temple, or underground. ...I'm sorry. Sometimes it really sucks to be right, huh..."
Ainsley	Kana does not seem to budge, but she does not seem vindicated by this, either. She doesn't seem as aggressive, at least. "They don't become Shades? Then it is not entirely caused by the priesthood. It would have to be an offworld problem manifesting there," she surmises, simply enough. "Life magic is not necromancy. There is no reason for the dead to rise as a result of that. And the Hunger does not raise the dead, it creates Shades. Shades are ... like malevolent spirits."
Staren	"The Hunger and the Filth are both involved, somehow. ...Do you want to see? Would seeing a recording help?" Staren's not especially /eager/ to show it, but it seems a valid avenue of investigation here. "What do Shades normally do?"
Ainsley	"No. I would prefer to continue my recovery without becoming overly invested in affairs I have already divorced myself from," Kana admits. A beat. "Shades attack, kill, or devour living creatures. Entire regions of the world are filled with them. They originally manifested right after the Impact, and are closely associated with the negative consequences of magic. The Metahuman War created many areas where Shades collect in large numbers, so the evidence is quite undeniable. Some Shades, particularly the complex ones manifest from metahuman ghosts, are harmless, but most are monstrous, thoughtless creatures."
Staren	Staren nods. "So Shades aren't normally physical? The Filth has given them bodies?"
Ainsley	"No. Shades are not normally physical. I have no idea what is happening there." Kana runs out of bacon. "I am not an expert on the forbidden, dangerous secrets of my world. You will not find anything useful from questioning me about them."
Staren	Staren shrugs. "You have... experience. You don't know of any weapons we might use against The Hunger?" Staren suddenly wonders if Ainsley already knew all this and he just didn't /ask/.
Ainsley	Kana lets out a tired sigh. "No. It has existed for hundreds of years. If we had an easy way to fight it, we would have found it by now. It is not a big monster you can just stick a sword into, and none of us can really measure it or understand it."
Staren	Staren nods. "I see. Well, we shall do our best to see if there is a way to fight it, out there in the Multiverse." Staren blinks. "But you mentioned purification rituals that the priests are doing wrong. How are they done correctly?" His eyes widen a bit. "Oh... you mean... that they're /entirely/ fake, don't you..." He sighs. "Very well. Thank you for your insight. In return... it is my natural inclination to solve problems and help people with their goals, if they do not run counter to my own. What do you want?"
Ainsley	"Peace and quiet," Kana tells Staren, clearly having lost her patience the moment he offered to help her. She crosses her arms and squints at him, no longer bothering to answer him.
Staren	Staren nods. "As you wish." He turns and leaves. He'll ask Ainsley later if this went well.