Scene #2677: Poisoning the Well

Owner	Pose
Maricel Thorne	It's amazing what one can get used to, especially in a place like this. Maricel scarcely minds the subtle stinging in her lungs anymore- it's all she's ever known, and it makes her feel alive. The angry grayish-green clouds overhead don't disturb her, even with the sickly cast they lend to the light of Mortasheen's grapefruit-red sun. She makes note of the roiling cloudbank only to observe, with calm detachment, that it's likely to rain mercury in a few hours. Even a warped city like this, however, has its own standards of relative 'normalcy'. The bizarre advertisements, the piles of nondescript meat, and the strange warpgate phenomena are truly anomalous, and they have caught the attention of a few keen observers. Maricel herself, her three monsters, and a representative from the carnifexes' guild are all gathered in a small cobblestone plaza near the warpgate, awaiting Kyra's arrival anxiously. The representative himself looks rather like a plague doctor at first glance, but he wears no mask or cloak. A chitinous beak extends a foot or two from his face, and shining golden eyes peer out from holes in the natural disguise; despite his oily and ragged black feathers, he almost looks dignified (a sharp contrast to Maricel's playful and casual demeanor). "Thorne," he says suddenly, "are you sure she can be trusted?" "She's good people." "Irrelevant. Can she be trusted?" "You don't trust anyone anymore," the doctor retorts dryly, and they fall back into an uneasy silence, waiting for their first guest.
Kyra Hyral	Kyra's not entirely sure what to expect out of Mortasheen other than pathogens. Lots and lots and lots of pathogens. That in mind, she has brought a few more medicines than before, prioritizing healing potions over her explosives. She's also brought some personal protective equipment, though not a full 'space suit' sort of deal. Moreso, she has a gas masked with her, goggles, and extra sets of disposable gloves. A beat up messenger bag is slung over her shoulder though it looks mostly empty. Once arriving, Kyra's exceptionally glad she hadn't eaten before setting out. Sure, she's seen meat plants before but even this amount of flesh seems a little over the top for her! Nevertheless, she's also got her camera strapped to her forehead (awkwardly since it has to manuver around the flesh horn growing out of it) and is recording this bizzare journey. She's immediately drawn to the representative, "Hi! I'm Ky-" she stops suddenly, staring openly at him as she realizes he's not actually wearing a mask and the beak seems to be a part of his face. "-ra." she finishes after the shock has passed. She turns to look at Maricel herself, now a lot more careful than before, easily spotting that she's not /quite/ human despite looking close enough. "I came here to look around because Maricel told me about this place-you're Maricel, right? Hi!"
Maricel Thorne	For his part, the representative stares at Kyra with equal surprise and curiosity before ruffling his feathers and glancing off to the side, murmuring: "They sent... that?" Maricel gives him a sharp glare before stepping forward and extending a hand to the healer as her expression swiftly changes to one of amiable warmth. Still, she can't fully hide her surprise at Kyra's appearance either. "That I am! Pleased to meet you in person, Miss Hyral. Don't mind Lammergeier; he's had a very bad day." Her monsters glance momentarily at one another, as if silently conferring among themselves, and Maricel suddenly decides to elaborate. "Humanoid genezoa are... uncommon here. Especially ones that haven't been zombified or symbiotically colonized." She parts her lips, and for a brief instant, Kyra might be able to see her jet-black tongue dart out as if to taste the air. Then the doctor raises one eyebrow. "You're... huh. You really are human, aren't you? That's... hm."
Kyra Hyral	"...what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Kyra huffs, swinging to stare at the representative. "And they nothing, I sent /myself/ thank you very much." At this point she's a little relutant to accept Maricel's hand but she eventually does, shaking firmly. "Members of the Syndicate are generally self-motivated even if they do sometimes work together." After a moment she adds, "Just Kyra is fine. Oh, I see. Symbiotically colonized? Huh. Yeah, I'm a hundred percent human, no modifications, no implants, no robot parts. Well...uh...except for that." She points at the horn, "Infection." she explains, watching Maricel's mouth. "So what's going on here? Any more leads on the weird adverts? It's not another subliminal campaign is it?"
Maricel Thorne	Mercifully, none of Maricel's fingers come off in Kyra's grasp. "Something like that, yes," she replies. "Late last night the trash-monsters started eating the meat, and, well..." The doctor glances back over her shoulder, as if expecting Lammergeier to pick up where she left off. He gets the hint. "A few hours later, they started disappearing into another warpgate nearby. They'd freeze up one by one, like they were paralyzed, and then make a beeline for the portal. Nothing comes back out." "So Lammergeier took a scouting team through to the other side," Maricel continues, "and, well... I'm still working on resurrecting the others. They didn't make it far." "We do know that it's based in a parareality zone," the vulture-like creature adds, then decides he'd better explain further: "That means that it's a part of our universe, but normally doesn't overlap our perceptual zones. In other words, this isn't some local rogue butcher." The weird floating biomechanical cube finally chimes in, speaking in a tinny chorus of voices and gesturing with its branching cable-like tentacle. "We believe that this parareality zone is having a detrimental effect on local bioforms. Your medical and arcane expertise could be useful. We will accompany you, but we wish not to involve other Mortasheen natives. This situation ought to be defused before too many become aware of the conceptual breach, lest it propagate across perception boundaries." ... Are those even real terms? Nobody answers Kyra's earlier questions: they seem to believe it should be perfectly obvious why they find her strange. No doubt her indignation is rhetorical.
Kyra Hyral	Funny thing about this place-Kyra doesn't really feel the need to hide the horn. It seems to fit in with all the other weird stuff around here! Weird to Kyra at least. "Hmm, sounds like some kind of parasite. I do know many cases of parasites that can alter the behavior of other organisms as part of their own natural life cycle. Such as a virus we've discovered that infects rats and effectively 'turns off' their natural instinct to run away from the smell of cat pee. The virus can only reproduce inside of a cat so it does this to lure rats into being devoured. Though this is recent...hmm. Would it be fair to say that the emergence of new microorganisms happens on a daily basis in this world? Forgive me if these are very basic questions but I can see already that this place is quite unique." She then frowns, "So what exactly happened to the others on the other side that would need...ressurection." she tests the word out like it's foreign. Death is a one-way trip where she's from, after all. Another pause, "...conceptual breah-oh, so you're afraid of news of this particular parareality spreading throughout the populace which could cause widespread mass hysteria? It is understandable. Not ever world reacts well to unification or breaches in reality, right?" She slips on her gas mask, which covers the lower half of her face, then on her goggles, which covers the upper. Her voice sounds a little bit more muffled now, "So, let's go!"
Maricel Thorne	"There are roughly fourteen billion sapients in Mortasheen City," Synthie calculates. "Of these, approximately one-third have the means and expertise necessary to produce a novel pathogenic microorganism without assistance. Assuming that everyone with the requisite means and expertise does so once per year- a highly conservative estimate- then a little more than half a million new pathogens are synthesized hourly. These statistics have held steady for roughly the last nine hundred years, excepting occasional population crashes due to plague." Wow. Either the robot can't do statistics, or this place has been home to hundreds of trillions of distinct microorganism species. Lammergeier silently dismisses himself and fades into the shadows, looking distinctly uncomfortable with the topic of what happened to his comrades. "We're not sure. Bad things. The trash-monsters got at least one," Maricel says cheerily, "but some of the others just... didn't make it out. As for mass panic- no, that isn't what we're worried about." She turns towards a dark alley and motions for Kyra to follow; her monsters accompany them closely on either side, with Calla drifting watchfully above them like some kind of floating garden. They come to a stop by what looks to be a garbage-heap with a strange, opaque portal nearby. The whole pile looks like an abbatoir mixed with the contents of a slaughterhouse, with occasional squirming creatures crawling through and on it. Every so often, one of them locks up, then slowly slithers towards the portal and vanishes inside. Thorne continues: "Parareality boundaries isolate perceptual and matter zones from one another. In other words, abstract concepts in one zone correspond to physical objects in another zone, and vice-versa. There are theoretically infinite zones, so if you can percieve an object or pattern, there is at least one zone where it is a thinking entity. These perception-objects can cross-pollinate between parareality boundaries and aggregate in their own matter-positive zones. n other words, the more people who know about this slaughterhouse world, the larger and stronger it becomes. The zone itself is a kind of parasite."
Kyra Hyral	Kyra falls quiet and turns to stare at Synthie. "That means...wow, that's...that's...yeah." Kyra's mind looks boggled by the sheer number of distinct microorganisms that this place churns out. "The world is like a huge petri dish..." she murmurs, "With that much variation, I'm sure you have viruses and bacteria that can do just about anything." The representative checks out. Kyra seems pretty okay with this. "Well, knowing what it was would at least help with preparation!" Kyra acknowledges as she follows after Maricel. "You're not worried about mass panic? Then what exactly are you worried about with this breaching conceptual boundaries thing?" Kyra makes a soft noise that sounds like she might be suppressing a gag reflex. She forces herself to focus on the strange explanation. "So what you're saying is, such as through this concept, there's a zone where the weather would be a living, thinking entity? And it can expand its zone with hybrid sentitnent and non-sentinent versions of itself. Or like...just thinking about it means concepts and reality mate and produce offspring? So you're more worried about /outside/ people coming in to this place and learning about it?" Her eyes widen, "Oh man, I've got some bad news, then, about all this Unification business because that guarentees a /lot/ of people are going to learn about this world. A /lot/."
Maricel Thorne	Lillifer notices Kyra's distress and ruffles her organic 'hem' in response, sending the healer a request for permission to open a telepathic link via a subtle mental 'ping'. "If it helps," Maricel says with a concerned expression, "my monsters can temporarily suppress your ability to feel nausea or disgust. Probably won't be any side-effects. We're pretty good at that sort of temporary reconceptualization..." "It is like a giant petri dish! We have a distinct zombie plague for nearly every different macroscopic organism, just to give you an example," she continues with a hint of pride. "The biodiversity here is simply magical. No one species makes up more than two percent of Mortasheen City's sapient population. There are lots of species that only have one extant specimen, as well- like the Four Destructors..." That last phrase is spoken in a reverent, almost fearful tone; it's the first time that Thorne has shown anything resembling a solemn attitude. She quickly recovers, however, and steps towards the portal, making her final preparations. "A lot of people are going to find out about Mortasheen and its accompanying zones, yes, but the resulting mass realization shouldn't have too many adverse effects. Mortasheen itself should handle the accompanying changes quite well- it's already near full cognitive saturation- and the accompanying concept zone realizations won't cause any problems so long as we don't have a parareality breach with them. Like we're having with this one."
Kyra Hyral	Lillifer receives a confused, but curious mental 'ping' in response. "Ahh, well, that's alright, I need to learn how to stomach this sort of thing anyway if I plan on being a doctor. That means I will need to be accustomed to getting up close and personal with flesh and guts." A little alarm follows: "A distinct zombie plague for /each/ organism? How do you keep yourselves innoculated from your undead kill switch...? Fascinating. Is there something at cause for all of this extreme biodiversity? Something in the environment, perhaps? Being able to support all of those different species is quite a feat." The phrase 'Four Destructors' is noted for later. Kyra takes a breath and steps into the portal. "So what makes a parareality breach so dangerous as opposed to concept zone realizations?"
Maricel Thorne	"We don't," Maricel replies cheerily. "Nearly every organic creature in this world will attempt to rise from the dead at some point, if allowed to fester for long enough. But the original zombie retrovirus was engineered back when humans still comprised a sizable chunk of this world's population, and only that strain is 'stable': everything else falls to pieces between a few minutes to a couple days after resurrection, but human-based zombies can survive indefinitely, and some retain their sapience in undeath. It's estimated that human zombies outnumber living humans three hundred to one, and there are no known humans at this point who don't possess the zombie retroviral sequence in their genomes." "The vast majority of engineered genezoa never become self-sustaining populations," she explains, "but organic nanomachines that aid in genetic modification are literally ubiquitous. You're breathing them right now. That's why so many distinct species exist: they're simply being created far more quickly than they can go extinct." A strange, crawling sensation would creep up the back of Kyra's throat as Lillifer makes mental contact with her, followed by a peculiar feeling- like she's just about to have an attack of hiccups. If the healer allows it, she'd feel a little switch flip in her mind: something tickles her brainstem, followed by a subtle shift in perception: her gruesome surroundings wouldn't seem any more pleasant, but they're no longer nauseating. At least she won't get sick like this... The small party steps through the portal within seconds of one another, and the change of scenery is jarring: Mortasheen City's grimy red-and-green pallette is replaced with bright fluorescent lighting, while the smell of blood gives way to the harsh scents of bleach and formaldehyde. The claustrophobic room that they're in resembles nothing quite so closely as a meat freezer, but it's balmy rather than cold. Unidentifiable, skinned creatures hang from hooks on the ceiling, their asymmetrical shapes and strange poses unsettling in ways that are hard to describe. Jars of pickled organs and body parts line the walls, and a trail of blood and slime shows where the trash-beasts were headed: straight ahead, towards an open door leading out into a darkened hallway. Even Maricel and Synthie seem a bit disturbed by the change in scenery, but the doctor swiftly returns to her chipper tone as she explains: "A concept zone realization expands a zone that doesn't normally intersect with the space that we percieve, whereas a parareality breach causes two unrelated zones to intersect via portals, rifts, or outright confluence. So long as Mortasheen doesn't intersect with any other zones, we're unaffected by those changes, no matter how large or material the other zones become. But as soon as the parareality boundaries break down, you get direct interaction between zones. THAT is when it gets messy, and that's what we're dealing with now."
Kyra Hyral	Kyra looks slightly worried at that, "I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever meet any humans here. Fortunately, my particular brand of magic tends to be /very/ effective against undead monsters so I ought to be very capable of defending myself against your world's various zombie inhabitants. Can the strain jump from species to species? Or will one strain from another species fail to infect a different one?" A nod follows, "I had a feeling that there wasn't a biome that could support such a diverse amount of species. Eventually you would get organisms competing for similar resources. But it sounds like that natural proccess still occurs, just much slower than the creation of new ones." Kyra seems a little startled by the feeling. "Ah...what...what did you just do?" Approaching Kyra's brain will reveal an anomaly: it actually seems to be /missing/, replaced with a void. The void is not empty, however: a thick metallic horn is poking out of the void, which seems to be the source of the flesh horn on Kyra's forehead. "Hm, a laboratory..? Though I suppose this scene isn't that unusual for-" she trails off, watching their reactions. "..hmm, so wouldn't the warp portal to your world created by Unification represent a parareality breach?" she ventures, trying to understand this new interdimensional physics concept. She looks all around, recording the sights and scenery. Kyra seems like she wants to loot but for now, she restrains herself. "It looks like your native creatures were drawn this way." she points at the trail, following it into the darkened hallway. As she does, she pulls out her phone and flicks something. The red light surrounding the apature of the camera on her forehead turns from red to white, the light increasing into a decently-powered flashlight.
Maricel Thorne	Maricel frowns just a little. "That's going to be a problem: zombies aren't undead. Not in the sense you're thinking of, anyhow. The retroviral sequences cause a prion-like synthesis mid-decomposition, forcibly restarting the organism as a rapidly-regenerating creature with symbiotic bacteria and gangrenous flesh. But in a purely biological sense, they are still alive: they can suffocate, starve, or bleed. Your magic would likely treat them as 'living' creatures, though I can't say for sure." Lillifer telepathically relays the odd state of Kyra's brain back to the trainer, who frowns a little but seems to take it in stride. "That's just a little psionic trick; don't worry! Essentially, it temporarily severed the subjective experience of nausea from your conscious mind, suppressing it. Nausea is one of the most primitive sensations the human mind can experience, so it's very easy to filter compared to other responses! I figured you wouldn't want to throw up during your visit here, so..." She trails off, then looks thoughtful. "Of course, if you'd prefer, Lillifer can reinstate the sensation or even exacerbate it. But I find that most humanoids prefer to keep their lunches down." As they head towards the hallway, Synthie toggles on a couple of flashlight-like beams as well, sweeping them over the darkened corners of the room. Noting Kyra's inquisitve glance, Maricel smiles a bit: "You're surprised that something like this would make me feel uncomfortable? I guess you can't feel it, hm..." She makes a sweeping gesture, encompassing the whole room and its butchered occupants. "This place is a bit unsettling, to my psionic sensibilities... all the creatures here are still conscious. Silent, but shrieking." As disturbing as that is, the monster-girl seems to be back to her old self by the time that she tilts her head forward and clasps a hand over her left eye. There's a quiet squelching sound, and then she holds out her hand, releasing her detached eyeball as if it were a dove being set free. After a moment, it drifts down the hallway, scouting ahead. It takes a few seconds for her to confirm that the path forward is safe, but Maricel eventually nods and gestures for Kyra and her monster to follow. Lillifer hops along on her one leg comically, Synthie drifts through the air with delicate grace, and poor, cramped Calla slithers along, brushing against the ceiling as she moves.
Kyra Hyral	"W..wait, not true undead?" Kyra's confidence immediately plumets. "You are right, that would treat them as a living creature and heal them as normal. White magic has very limited offensive options and even those are optimized towards demons or creatures of a more 'dark'-type alignment. It sounds like this virus will alter the genome of the organism into a completely different one with those attributes instead of truly kill it. More...parasites I suppose? Very troubling. Is there an antiviral for these? In particular, the strain that infects humans? I don't want to become irreversably altered." At the very least, the psychic altering does not seem to be effecting the spatial tear in Kyra's head and as far as Lillifer can see, her body functions normally as if the brain is still there. A conscious mind can still be detected as well. "No no, please, leave it as you are doing right now. Vomiting while I have the gas mask on would be messy and unpleasant for me and I'd rather not have to clean the inside later." She nods, not looking back at Maricel. "Though I don't know you very well yet, based on what I heard from you over the Syndicate band, I took you as a molecular biologist with a lot of experience with life sciences! So, I figured severed bodyparts and dissected corpses would not be so much of a surprise to y-" Maricel mentions that the creatures here are still conscious. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder, "You mean those skinned things hanging on hooks are still /alive/? How is that even possible in that state?!" Kyra continues filming the area. "The multiverse continues to just surprise me more and more. I wonder who is responsible here."
Maricel Thorne	Maricel glances over her shoulder with her one remaining eye, looking... shocked? Intrigued and surprised, at the very least. "Wait. You- you don't WANT to have a chance at becoming a near-immortal superorganism with your consciousness intact after death? That's..." She frowns. "Can't tell if you're a purist or you just have a death-wish. That, um... yeah, I guess standard anti-retroviral treatments would work? To be honest, I've never tried to 'cure' a living human of the zombie retrovirus, or even heard of anyone other than ansi(#ff0000,Wreathe) trying." Wreathe? The name fairly drips with contempt and hatred when she says it. "They're not alive," she explains, gesturing towards the butchered corpses. "They're concept nodes bound to nonliving matter. In other words, due to the nature of the concept zone we're in, their minds are still trapped in their bodies after death. They can't move, but nothing short of a specialized unexistalizer could free them now. If there's anything here your 'white magic' would work on, it would be those poor wretches." Something cuts Maricel off before she can continue. It's a hellish, reverberating noise like a buzzsaw trying to cut sheet metal, mixed with the unnaturally-loud wailing of an infant. The cacophony lasts for about five seconds at full intensity, then stops just as suddenly as it began. Though its intensity makes it slightly difficult to pinpoint, it seems to have come from somewhere down the hallway. "... the hell was that?" The hallway yields no clues yet, but as they proceed deeper, it opens up onto a catwalk overlooking a factory floor...
Kyra Hyral	Kyra slowly frowns, "Doesn't everything die eventually? And what if in taking in this virus, the alterations prevent me from being able to use my magic? I'd rather not modify myself to those extremes." She's picturing herself with dead, lifeless eyes and green skin. "Or hunger for the flesh of my friends, you know? Who is Wreathe?" She seems a lot more guarded now. Between that and the representative's reaction earlier, it does not feel good to be a human in these parts. "I don't understand how a conscious can persist after death. Unless you mean it's like a soul maybe? I will have to banish those corpses later, then, to at least end that state of being for them. It would be too cruel to leave them like that." Kyra LEAPS a good foot in the air as the noises start, clearly extremely startled then later quite distressed by the noises. Babies crying were always unnerving noises, especially when alongside the sounds of violence. "I...I don't know." she says slowly, moving towards the opening to the catwalk and peering down below, searching for anything that might be the source of the noise.
Maricel Thorne	"Oh, totally- everybody dies sometime. I've got plenty of practice at it myself," Maricel continues cheerily after a moment, only seeming moderately surprised by the awful shrieking din. "The zombie virus only kicks in after you'd normally die, anyway, so it's not like you'd be missing out on anything. It's like a chance at a nice little bonus, if that makes any sense! And I assure you, any cravings for living flesh will not be specific to your friends." It's a little hard to tell if she's joking. When Kyra asks about Wreathe, the monstrous lady loses her characteristic sunniness for a moment, adopting a much more serious tone. "Wreathe's a small nation, to the north. They seem to believe that humanity is precious and needs to be safeguarded from 'corrupting' influences. A harmless end, but their means are..." She chews her lip, trying to choose her words carefully so as not to offend her human guest. "They don't consider anything nonhuman to be a person, regardless of sapience. They're fighting a war of extermination against literally everyone else, and they're organized enough to be a plausible threat." Finally, the little group reaches the end of the hallway. From her vantage point on the catwalk, Kyra would be able to see what looks like an industrial slaughterhouse, with unrecognizably alien bodies being rendered into paste and fed into some sort of huge glass cylinder half-full of pink slime. There's not a worker in sight, but little pale goblin-like things with red eyes- scarcely a foot tall, but with bulbous heads- scatter like roaches when someone's switched on the lights. "Concept cores can be bound to any material; they just naturally gravitate towards living neural structures through parazonal space," Maricel replies, seemingly unruffled even now. "In fact... there are hundreds of them concentrated in that slime over there."
Kyra Hyral	"Uhhh...not be specific to my friends? How would I make friends after I'm dead though if I want to eat everyone?" Kyra frowns, "These logistics issues are a little unappealing. But! I hope to not be dead for at /least/ two more decades. That would be nice. Ideally. Being an Elite is pretty dangerous." She falls silent as she senses the palpible change in mood as she brings up Wreathe, the nation of human racists. "That's...that's unfortunate. I can get trying to preserve your species but to that extent is a little /extreme/, especially since I'll bet the species in your world that survive the longest are those that can adapt and cohabitate with the others. That kind of aggression could easily lead to self-extinction." Kyra peers over the side of the catwalk and, upon seeing the matter slurry, suddenly wishes she hadn't. It's fortunate her nausea is being suppressed psychically right now because otherwise she would be vomiting over the edge of the catwalk. Even then, she manages to look ill. "What would be the purpose of concentrating so many concept cores in one material anyway? As disgusting as that looks, I get the sense it would be a very valuable product." Seeing no one else around, she looks for stairs down to the floor of the slaughterhouse. "If concept cores naturally gravitate towards living neural structures...maybe that slime could be employed as a sort of conceptual barrier-dissolving acid to breach realities or make them leaky."
Maricel Thorne	There aren't any stairs, but there is a rusty stepladder that reaches twelve feet down to the bloodstained concrete floor. It'll hold Kyra's weight, but it doesn't seem up to OSHA standards... not that anything in this world would. Maricel herself hops over the decrepit guard-rail and uses Lillifer as a parachute, looking like a grotesque psionic Mary Poppins as she daintily descends to the floor. "I don't know about that- lots of zombies are real social butterflies, what with not sleeping and all," she answers earnestly. "I find them kinda cute, honestly. Can see why so many of 'em go into modeling." She looks up at the slime with a funny expression on her face, somewhere between worry and curious fascination. "It's a powerful resource, true, but I don't think that's what it's being used for. I think we found where all that meat's coming from." Just then, a burbling growl comes from inside the glass tank, and the slime starts to writhe as it seemingly tries to organize itself into a coherent organism. Dozens of eyes materialize from the pulp; scrabbling claws dig at the walls as half-formed skinless bodies rise from the muck in a vain attempt to escape. One of them, shaped almost like a malformed dog, stares blankly at Kyra as it presses itself against the glass. Then the blades turn on. It starts with a gurgling, churning sound coming from the bottom of the cylinder, morphing into a metallic shriek as the rotary blades get up to speed. The viscous, protean mass turns into a whirlpool; individual 'bodies' are torn apart by the current or else liquefied as they're sucked down into the shredding discs. A dozen bodies howl and scream, each cry a unique mixture of fear, despair, and pain as they're returned forcibly to the homogeneous goop they formed from. Most of the resulting slurry is sucked out through a transparent tube, carried off to parts unseen, but a third of it remains. The conveyor belts around the room, formerly halted, lurch into motion again, and the huge blender starts to re-fill with pulp...
Kyra Hyral	Kyra climbs down the ladder...after putting on a pair of latex gloves. She keeps them in one of the pouches attached to her belt. "...cute? Er...it seems we have different standards over what is 'cute'." Her thoughts immediately drift to Dominic, of course. Then to a few of the other guys in the Light Warriors. She dismounts from the ladder. "Anyway, I'll cross the undeath bridge when I come to it. If I do, living in Galianda would become impossible for me." She walks over to the cylinder of meat, looking at it. "Oh. So it's being used to create cheap meat product. That's a bit more mundane than I was expectingaaaah!!" she startles, jerking backwards as the slurry develops eyes and tries to organize itself into an organism or several dozen organisms. They /look/ at her and she lifts a hand. "Tell me, is it consdered standard practice to eat sentinents or process sentinents into food on your world?" Without having to worry about feeling completely grossed out by what she's seeing, she approaches the cylinder again and places a hand against it. Kyra murmurs a few words, her magic activating, the hand pressed against the glass glowing white. "Go, you're already dead. Banish!" She directs the spell into the slurry, trying to spare what consciousnesses remain. "Forgive me for not knowing too much about the culture of your world, but is an operation like this normal? I'm trying not to judge by what would be unethical by my world's standards."
Maricel Thorne	"It is not standard practice, no," Maricel replies calmly. "In general, domesticated foodbeasts can't feel pain and are only dimly self-aware. But this isn't a slaughterhouse." She gestures at the machines around them with her faux-umbrella, and chews the inside of her lip for a moment before continuing. "This is Slaughterhouse. That is, the concept of industrially rendering meat into food, distilled into an entire conceptual zone that runs parallel to the matter-zone that we call Mortasheen. There is an entire reality that is nothing but this, forever. We just need to shut down the part that's intersecting with our reality... this part right here." The writhing liquid flesh inside the blender-vat bubbles and roils at the Banish spell, but otherwise seems unresponsive to the healer's incantation. Whatever is in there, it doesn't seem to be undead or 'unholy', if such things even exist in Mortasheen. Synthie and Calla both seem to have taken an interest in different parts of the room; the Infiltrator is staring at what seems to be a fuse-box intently, while the psychic botanical... is poking at a particularly shiny piece of machinery. It doesn't seem terribly bright without Maricel's guidance.
Kyra Hyral	"Oh, I see, so it's a conceptual zone comprised of the worst of the meat-processing food industry." Kyra looks disturbed but, nonetheless, after observing the effects of her spell decides to switch tactics. She casts Libra, her basic diagnosis spell, to figure out what sort of creature she is dealing with since, by the reaction to Banish, she can tell that it's certainly not undead as she had first assumed. Even worse to think that the creature being rendered into pink slime was still /alive/. "I see, Maricel. Hmmm..." She takes in the results of the spell, observing the effects as the blades start up for another cycle as the mass within tries to regenerate. "We haven't see anyone working here. Does the zone itself make itself function? -ah, stand back. I have an idea." After the blades finish churning, Kyra places both of her hands against the glass. The white glow returns, far more intensely this time, magic particles flowing out of Kyra at a vastly increased rate. Despite this expenditure, she doesn't seem tired by the action. "CURA!" she cries as the energy flow reaches its apex, healing magic pouring into the flesh inside the glass.
Maricel Thorne	"Something like that," Maricel answers brightly as she stares into empty space. Either she's doing a psionics thing, or she's just being crazy. Regardless, there is no obvious result, save perhaps that the pale red-eyed gremlins start to crawl out of their hidey-holes and timidly approach her. She kneels, furling her living umbrella, and starts murmuring to them in some strange dialect that almost, but not quite, resembles comprehensible English. They seem to respond positively to her, answering with more of the same gibberish, and she nods sagely as if they've imparted some great wisdom. "The magboils say this is the only section of the concept zone that links with our own," she says in a soft voice, apparently not wanting to scare off the skittish creatures. "So if we can shut down this blender-thing here, we should be good for now. Just need to make sure that-" She's cut off by Kyra's incantation, and the subsequent dramatic response. The liquiflesh inside the processor starts to regenerate much faster than before; the half-formed bodies are no less misshapen than last time, but they seem stronger now, and appear well in advance of the next blender pulse. One of the bodies, larger than the others, throws itself against the glass repeatedly, and a spiderweb of cracks appears in the thick wall. "Oh, fuck me," Maricel says under her breath. Then, louder: "Get to higher ground! Now!" The magboils, at least, take her advice, and scatter hastily. One of them remains, apparently dumbstruck by the ooze's violent response, and points at it while gesturing excitedly and shrieking its gibberish. "A VIVID NEW RED IS EXPRESSED!!! GREAT NEW TRICK IS MAKE RED FRIEND SPOUT!! A FAMILY MUST FEAR TO GO!!!"
Kyra Hyral	Kyra looks away from the tube for a moment as she sees Maricel communicating with the little white creatures (magboils) that she had seen scurrying away moments before. "Are those native to this concept zone?" Kyra asks curiously before she finally drops the spell on the tube. The result was something along the lines of what she expected. Extra regeneration would enable it to outrun the blades inside the blender. If the mass reformed to its full size, it could possibly break free. "Ah, it's working." Kyra smiles, pleased as it starts throwing itself against the glass. Her glee ends as Maricel calls for her to get to higher ground. She doesn't need that much encouragement to move. She scrambles to the rusty old ladder to the catwalk and climbs up it, not looking back at the creature struggling to free itself from the tube. Once she's gotten up onto the catwalk she reaches under her hoodie and pulls out a flask filled with red liquid. The flask is thrown at the base of the cylinder, where it explodes, so it can further weaken the blender and the glass.
Maricel Thorne	"Magboils aren't native to anywhere, so far as we can tell," Maricel replies as she leaps towards the catwalk, then telekinetically pushes off the floor to give herself a boost mid-jump and land on her feet. Calla and Synthie, both natural levitators, aren't far behind. "They describe their home as 'red', or sometimes 'fun place', which isn't very helpful. They don't naturally populate any known zone, but somehow manage to cluster around anomalous intersections and distortions anyway." For someone who was panicking just a moment ago, she seems almost jarringly calm now. The monster within the tube has already made considerable progress by the time Kyra's flask hits it, and it lurches onto the floor in a spray of broken glass and blood, where it spreads out like a viscous liquid. Maricel turns to face it and unfolds Lillifer just in time to telekinetically deflect the shrapnel headed their way, and motions for Kyra to go back the way they came. "I think we should go. That... thing... is going to bring this whole section down pretty soon." True to her prediction, it's already shaping itself into a huge semi-coherent chimera, messily feasting on the bodies that come down the conveyor and tearing up the machinery as it moves...
Kyra Hyral	"So they just kind of...appear anywhere?" Kyra waits, but only for a few moments, for Calla and Synthie to catch up with her and Maricel. While she waits, she pulls out her phone and actually takes a quick little video of the monster reforming itself into a chimera. When it starts eating bodies she cuts the video and slips the mPhone away. "So they move from zone to zone freely?" She's quick to move. Very quick. "I like this idea of leaving. I especially like the idea of leaving this particular concept zone. Thank you, Synthie, for suppressing my nausea, it has been very helpful for this investigation. Very, very helpful." She hears the factory being torn apart behind her. Despite the sounds, she doesn't turn to look. "It's understandably quite angry and I don't think it will thank us."
Maricel Thorne	Calla and Synthie seem quite capable of taking care of themselves- in fact, they seem to be deliberately playing the vanguard. The little laser turret on one of the cube-shaped robot's facets swivels to face back down the hallway, ready to fire should anything pursue them, while Calla trails a sensor-baffling cloud of pollen behind its drifting form. "Quite welcome," Synthie replies, glancing at Kyra with one of its eyes in what it imagines to be a friendly look. As they round the corner back into the portal room, a truly hellish din echoes from behind them, and the scant illumination in the factory floor goes dark- sounds like the slurry-monster found the fuse box. Mercifully, Synthie and Lillifer's lights remain active. It's only twenty feet between them and the portal now... But things are never that easy. A gurgling, sloshing sound comes from somewhere above them, and then a glob of oozing flesh pours out of the ventilation ducts before shaping itself into a canine form. Synthie whirls around to train its incendiary laser on the creature, and the air around Maricel warps as she focuses her psionic energy. The meat-creature sits back on its haunches, stares at Kyra blankly, and wags.
Kyra Hyral	If Kyra has a weapon ready, it doesn't look like she's showing any signs of it. She's actually wary about releasing her biological agents here. Despite having hard-coded terminator genes within to halt replication after a set number of cycles, she strongly suspects that Mortasheen's native material could mutate it easily. It would be a sad, sad day when her own biological agents are turned against her even in spite of the vaccines she's innoculated herself with. The lights die around them and Kyra reaches for her phone again, only to stop when she sees that Synthie and Lillifer provide enough light for the four of them to see adequately. "Oh good, it's working very fast. I don't think we're going to have to worry about this place bleeding into Mortasheen very shortly." Kyra says cheerfully. "Another Syndicate job well do-" she looks upwards, then leaps backwards as flesh leaks out of the ceiling and drops down amongst their little group. She stares at the approximation of a dog and slowly reaches out to it. "Nice doggie." she says slowly. Sure, it could bite, but Kyra can also heal herself. It was a chance worth taking, it seems. "Don't mind us, we're just on the way home."
Maricel Thorne	The dog's tail wags a little faster. Its ears perk up (though one of them falls off immediately afterwards) and its mouth hangs open a couple of inches, revealing sparse teeth repurposed from jagged splinters of bone. Two of its eyes are milky-white and glazed over, but the orange-sized eyeball in the middle of its face tracks Kyra's hand intently. A tongue lolls out of its mouth- it looks like it used to be something's aorta- and it makes a wheezing, panting sound. This one seems... oddly nonthreatening. If Kyra's particularly perceptive today, she might notice why: Maricel and Lillifer are giving it their undivided attention, psychically stripping the monster of violent intentions. "This one's only got one concept core," Maricel remarks as she walks right past it towards the portal, and turns to face Kyra before stepping through. "Much easier to manipulate. I still advise against touching it; it might literally give you cancer." Well, that's comforting. Synthie and Calla slip through the portal a moment after their trainer, leaving Kyra with a choice to make. If the meat-critter has any opinion on whether it wants to be taken along, it doesn't show in the thing's vacuous expression.
Kyra Hyral	"Can it give me cancer through gloves?" Kyra lifts her hand to place it, though still gloved from earlier, on the reassembled canine's head. "There there." she rubs it between the ears which is typically a spot enjoyed by dogs, a trait perhaps shared by this one. Her eyes flick away from the creature to watch the others, upon which she does notice how hard Maricel and Lillifer are concentrating on the creature. She can sense something going on but she cannot pinpoint the exact nature-psychic surgery-unless she were to use another diagnostic spell in that moment. "Hm. Then it's more stable than the others?" she asks, still trying to grasp the way metaphysics and consciousness works between these zones and concept zones. It's a lot to take in! She withdraws, following after Maricel. "C'mon?" she says to it, testing to see whether or not the creature will follow her.
Maricel Thorne	"Probably not," Maricel replies, "though I can't be certain." The canine-critter leans into the petting somewhat, seeming to enjoy it despite the fact that its squishy head deforms slightly under her hand. It's not clear if it understands Kyra's command at first- its expression doesn't change from that blank, stupid stare- but when she goes through the portal, it trots along behind her, paws squishing wetly as they slap against the floor. "Not more stable, exactly," the monster trainer replies as they emerge into the familiar, bleak streets of Mortasheen City, not far from where they entered. "Just easier to alter. With the main 'mass' of the creature, I'd have had to change hundreds of concept cores to have a noticeable effect on its behavior- I can't do that quickly enough, even with my monsters' help. But this one's about as complicated as a brick; those docility changes will stick pretty much forever." For the second time that day, Maricel holds out her hand, grinning as she looks into Kyra's eyes- it seems she recovered her 'spare' eyeball during their escape. There's a newfound warmth in her expression; approval, perhaps, or even respect. "Thanks for helping us out. You've done the city a favor."
Kyra Hyral	Seeing it not following at first, Kyra shrugs. It doesn't register as a huge loss for her and she hopes that the now free creature is happy. It comes to some surprise to see it popping through the portal after them. "Oh, I see then. The more concept cores around, the more difficult it becomes to change...you would need to handle each one individually to effect it, wouldn't you?" Kyra reasons. She pets/squishes the 'dog' again before looking up at Maricel and her offered hand, "Oh. You're welcome, this place is very interesting to me! It was a pleasure to explore and learn more about how it works-" Kyra shakes her hand and the hand comes off in her hand. She freezes at this before sheepishly passing the hand back. "I'm sorry, I don't know how that happened, I'm not even that strong." she says, flustered.