"Good question," says Kas. "You wanna be a little more specific?"

Amariah laughs. "Is it dangerous for me - or for other Bells who might help - even with all the powers we have stacked up? What is the place like, what condition are dead Alethians in?"

"Mm, okay. I'll get someone to pop in for a visit."

Shell Bell appears, wished against the appearance of a daemon, a minute later.

Kas is just reading off, "The afterlife is a - daemon wasteland. Daemons can't go there. Dead people - aww, it's cute how you phrased that - dead people have no daemons." He asks a followup question. "But if you take the dead person out of the afterlife, you can put their daemon back. Hi, Shell Bell!"

"How hard will it be to put a daemon back?" asks Amariah.

"Hi," says Shell Bell. "I wonder what I'd even have, if I had a daemon. I wonder if wishing could show me, like it can with coin colors..." She tries it, and an illusory bird appears on her lap. "Huh," she says, and dismisses the illusion. "I don't even know what that is."

"It's cute, though," says Kas. And to Amariah, "Not that hard." He doesn't consult the alethiometer anew about that. "It didn't directly say, but just by the way it was talking about it, I'm guessing you could wish it and it'd only be a star or so."

"Now Shell Bell's here can you ask if it's dangerous for her to go there? And we can extrapolate to the other Bells from that."

"...Well, that will seriously hamper my ability to get volunteers," mutters Amariah. "Can you get any more details about how it can non-physically hurt people...?"

"I might take a daemon, if you need the help," muses Shell Bell. "I can always put him away, can't I?"

"You can," agrees Amariah. "I'm not sure why you'd want to do it all the time, but that's just me being used to them; you could."

"Anything else you wanna know?" says Kas.

"Are the dead people conscious? Are they suffering, without their daemons?" asks Amariah softly.

"It it recoverable?" tries Amariah.

"I'd feel better about walking into danger if I knew more about it," Shell Bell murmurs. "I wonder if Cam can talk to these things."

"Good question. Jane, can you invite Cam over specifically, please?"

"You sure do. Tell me about this world's afterlife."

"The afterlife is where all the dead are," says the alethiometer. Kas snorts.

Cam sighs. "Is there anything else there?" he asks.

"What are the things that cause suffering?" asks Cam.

"What inhabits the afterlife and causes suffering is not dead," says the alethiometer.

"How does it cause suffering?" Cam tries.

"Not much," Cam tells Kas. And to the alethiometer: "What knowledge does it have?"

"Do we have truths that will satisfy it?" Cam asks.

"I didn't hear it talk about wizards - did it?" And to the alethiometer: "Me, or the others like me too?"

"Maybe. I mean, something is hungering for truth, maybe only wizards can talk to it, maybe we should bring Tilly and Jellybean, but on the other hand maybe it's calling me a wizard to tell me apart from Amariah and Shell Bell and the key thing is my truthy aura and we should bring Elspeth," says Cam. "For that matter, I'm getting sufficient heebie-jeebies around this that maybe we should borrow Mary from Stella, or Alice from Golden."

"...Can I talk to it for a sec?" says Kas.

Cam hands Kas his, and takes the other, which he asks: "Are wizards particularly helpful for the thing in the afterlife that hungers for truth?"

Elspeth shows up a moment later.

[Sure,] says Jellybean, and he makes the wish. Immediately upon arrival, he kisses Cam.

"How would the princess in this room," says Cam, lacking a full wizard name for her and unsure how the alethiometer will comprehend names, "interact with the thing in the afterlife that hungers for truth?"

"She speaks the truth," says the alethiometer. Kas cracks up.

"Was something funny about how it said that?" Cam asks Kas.

"It was just the same two meanings backwards and forwards," he says. "Truth/speak/speak/truth. But the first part meant Elspeth, and the second part meant her power."

"The alethiometer refers to me as 'truth speak'?" says Elspeth, amused.

"It doesn't really do grammar," says Kas. "If I was trying to translate it properly instead of explain the joke, I'd say it called you Truth-Speaker, or 'the one who tells the truth', or something."

"I wonder if I can communicate with the alethiometers. Are they intelligent?" asks Elspeth.

"Um... good question," says Kas.

Elspeth peers at the one in Cam's hand and sends, wordless: Can you hear me? Tell Cam.

"Yeah, it hears you," Cam reports to Elspeth. "Maybe you'll have better luck than me."

"What do we know so far?"

"The Alethian afterlife isn't physically dangerous, but there's some sort of other hazard there that has knowledge and hungers for truth," says Cam. "Although come to think of it I'm not sure appeasing this hunger is the best bet, maybe it'd just eat us."

Elspeth nods and sends again. Still wordless; Cam may have to take the reply in words but that doesn't mean it can't be helpfully unconstraining to send the question freeform. Tell Cam, please - what will happen exactly if he and I and Jellybean and Amariah and Shell Bell go to the afterlife here?

"Yeah, in case you got different details than me."

"Okay. It said that if Cam and Elspeth and Jellybean and Amariah and Shell Bell all go to the afterlife, Cam and Elspeth and Jellybean are the ones who might make the truth-wanting things happy. It doesn't mean that the rest of you can't make them happy, just that Cam and Elspeth and Jellybean have the best shot at it. And it called Cam 'Truth Wizard' and Jellybean 'Self-Defining' and Elspeth 'Truth-Speaker' and Amariah 'Witch' and Shell Bell 'Daemon Inside'."

"I guess as far as it's concerned Shell Bell doesn't have any other defining characteristics, huh. Elspeth, ask what happens when the truth-wanting things are happy."

Elspeth asks.

"Okay. So wizards and Elspeth and possibly me-especially can calm down the truth-hungry... things... and then they will stop bothering people."

"But anyone who goes will acquire a daemon. A square will show what you'd get," Shell Bell adds, "mine would be some kind of duck thing."

Elspeth would apparently get a brightly colored parakeet.

Cam's daemon would be a kickass hawk.

"And if I understand it right, the reason you have to get them to do this is because your souls can't enter the afterlife - which means separation. I've done it, all witches do, but it's not fun."

"It is not fun," Petaal confirms, curling around Kas's neck as a small black snake.

"But it doesn't cause long-term trauma if it's done purposefully, and - can one of you ask the alethiometer if the associated pain can be wished gone?"

If I wish on a coin, can I separate from my daemon painlessly? Elspeth asks the alethiometer.

"I wonder if Sarion could ignore it," says Cam. "How bad is it, Amariah?"

"Bad. But I did it on the first try, on foot," Amariah says, "when the only consequence for failing was not being considered an adult witch till I managed. It's not as bad as having someone touch your daemon... I'm trying to think of comparisons you're familiar with but I've got nothing."

"I judgesighted Kas along with all the other Jokers. I could pass a taste of it on, if we assume it's similar for everyone," says Elspeth.

"I don't see any good ways to tell," says Kas.

"I can show Amariah and she can compare," suggests Elspeth, "if nobody involved minds."

"Fine by us," says Petaal.

"Go for it."

"...Similar intensity. Different flavor," murmurs Amariah.

"What do you mean?"

"We both felt about the same amount of bad - well, I assume you were in worse shape at the time, but Elspeth filtered out the parts that weren't about separation in particular - but not the same kind of bad."

"Huh."

"It's probably a fine gauge for total unpleasantness, though, if you want to share it around, Elspeth."

"Hit me."

"I'm probably not as important to the expedition but I'll have a look too."

"Me too," says Jellybean.

"How long does it last?"

"Yeah, that's what I wanna know too."

"It varies how far away you have to get. Usually about a hundred yards."

"Do people ever do this with somebody else holding their daemon for them? Someone who'd be generally allowed. I wonder if it would help."

"People usually never do this at all, except witches, who are in our early teens at the time," says Amariah. "I've never heard of it. It might help. It might even help a lot. I don't know."

"I'll go, then, if Sherlock will stand somewhere not in the afterlife and hold my duck thing for me," says Shell Bell. "If you want an extra Bell along."

"...Hey alethiometer, how would my hawk daemon interact with my notebook?" Cam asks.

The alethiometer says, "There is no precedent."

"I thought this thing was supposed to generate objective truth," complains Cam. "What does it need precedent for?"

"I can give you no answer where no answer exists," says the alethiometer.

"But if Grace were an ordinary notebook," argues Cam, "it wouldn't interact with a daemon at all, and you'd know that. She's not ordinary notebook. Can I conclude that she would interact with a daemon?"

"There is no precedent," says the alethiometer.

"If Amariah wished for Path to be able to turn into a notebook could she do it?" Cam tries.

"I'd consider it proof of concept," Cam remarks mildly. "Right now Grace can be as far away from me as we want - if I set her down somewhere, move a hundred yards and change away, and then she turns into a hawk-daemon, do I get to have the separation over with instantly?"

"I wonder if I can make a conditional reversal of my anti-daemon wish. Alethiometer, can I do that?"

"The wish magic works in that way," says the alethiometer.

"Awesome. So I'll go if Grace gets to be my daemon, and otherwise I think I'm gonna have to pass."

"...I'll hang back in reserve," says Elspeth. "I'll go in if I'm needed."

Kas shrugs. "Anything else we want to know?"

"Will all our magic work in the afterlife?"

"Which magic will stop working?" Cam asks.

"Magic that depends on how things are outside of the afterlife will not work in the afterlife," says the alethiometer.

"...What did you get from that?" Cam asks Kas. "I'm not sure I know what it meant."

"It means no," says Kas.

"The way it put it was weird. 'Receive' wishes."

"I wouldn't translate it that way, exactly," says Kas. "It was more like - the part of using a coin where you wish on the coin, that's kind of like you're telling it what you want, right? In the afterlife, the coins won't be able to hear you do that."

"...Huh."

"When are we going? And do you want me along?" Shell Bell asks.

"As soon as we know who's going, I think. Elspeth in reserve, I can go, Cam will if Grace works out, you will - who else, though, not everyone's going to want a daemon. Jane, please ask all the Bells to see what sort of daemon they'd get and consider coming along? With all the relevant information."

Jane passes this along.

Golden would not prefer to accompany the expedition, although if no one else is willing she will do as Shell Bell plans and leave Edward with her daemon for the trip. She reports, in case anyone is curious, that she would have a small golden dragon.

Pattern would have a firefly and doesn't want to instantiate him, thank you.

[Hey Alice,] says Stella, [Amariah's gearing up to go after her afterlife. The alethiometer says anyone who goes there will get a daemon wish or no wish, and will have to separate from it too. I don't think I want to go, but apparently a square will show me what I'd get if I did, want to see me wish it?]

"You could always just go to Alethia and get a daemon anyway," Alice suggests. "I might want to go along. How nasty is nasty?"

"I don't think I want a daemon just to have a daemon, but I can always go later. Elspeth can show you what it was like for Kas to separate; Amariah compared with hers and said it was the right amount of nasty but a different kind of nasty," says Stella. "The alethiometer says it will be just as nasty but with a mitigating good part if someone who you'd let hold your daemon does that while you're separating. I'll go with you if you want. With this little cutie safely warded off, though." She dismisses the dragon illusion.

"If you'll snuggle my daemon I'll definitely go," he says.

"All right then. Jane, please notify the Alethia contingent," laughs Stella.

"I'll go if there's a reason to," says Sue. "I've already got Ivy. I guess it'd be handy if I could link everybody, huh?"

"Probably, yeah, you probably wouldn't even have to go into the afterlife and separate from her to link people."

"'Course you will," says Aegis, scritching Ivy on the head. "Thanks, Jane."

Glass is in the middle of reading the girls a bedtime story (they can all read, at this point, but still like being read to) when she gets the notification. She now has enough processing power to continue reading without skipping a beat, and to also inform her wives of what's going on. [Some of the Bells are hanging back as a reserve force of sorts, if they don't particularly want daemons but wouldn't much mind them and have someone to look after them during the separation required to get into the Alethian afterlife,] she says. [If one or both of you would be willing to do that I think I'll be in that contingent.]

[Of course!] says Tony.

[Of course,] says Sherlock.

"That is adorable," says Sherlock.

"Isn't it just?" Glass reports her daemon result to the rest of the peal and then dismisses the illusion.

Aurora bounces everything Jane tells her to Brilliance and Lexi both. [I'm not going,] she adds to all three, [but I'm gonna see what I'd get if I did.]

[I wanna see what I'd get, too,] says Lexi.

[I bet I know what I'd get,] laughs Brilliance, [and I'm not going anyway.]

[Yeah, you'd probably get the standard unsettled thingamabob. If devices can even have daemons,] says Aurora. [Do you want to come see what me and Lexi will get though?]

"Ooh, pretty," says Brilliance, hugging Aurora.

"Yeah, I don't want to have a daemon but it's nice to know what it would be if I did," grins Aurora. "Lexi, you should think really hard and talk to some people with daemons before you get one, but you can if you want."

"Yeah, I know, I won't just scamper off to Alethia," says Lexi.

Rose notifies her husband. And Yseult too, why not, this even though she does not plan to go on the trip. [But it would seem that if I did, my soul would take the form of an orchid bee,] she adds.

[Pretty!] says her husband.

[I wonder what my soul would be,] says her daughter.

[You can find out with a square, if you would like.]

[...My soul would be an enormous bird,] Yseult reports. [An enormous flightless bird with little fluffy wings. I do not want one.]

Rose laughs. [Then do not go to Alethia without a star protecting you from its existence.]

She giggles.

Juliet tells her Sherlock what's up. [I'm gonna stay home,] she adds. [But apparently I'd get a tiger, if I didn't.]

[Of course you would,] he says, amused.

[Well, everyone else who's reported in so far gets something that flies, or at least a flying squirrel that can fake it. I guess a tiger is pretty neat though.]

[It suits you.]

[Stripy, carnivorous, and endangered, that's me.]

[Of course. The stripes are particularly fetching.]

[I love you.]

[I love you too.]

[If the first wave needs the reserve wave to bail them out and the reserve wave starts desperately looking for further assistance I may require you to follow me to Alethia and hold my tiger.]

[Happily.]

[No, probably not, the idea behind the holding thing is that it will make the overall experience of having to separate less unpleasant, so he'd be yowling miserably at you, but thanks.]

[I stand by my adverb; I would be happier doing that than staying home and letting you suffer.]

[With any luck it'll just be Amariah, who's already separated, and Cam, who expects to be able to it instantaneously, and maybe Shell Bell who wants to go for some reason maybe because she couldn't bring herself to come along beyond door-holding last time we attacked an afterlife. Second wave probably won't be necessary, let alone third.]

[With any luck, yes.]

Sarion opens up the subset of her mind that is listening to Jane, when Jane speaks to her.

Her beloveds tell her that they would go, just to find out what happens.

Sarion tries a square, and gets an illusory raccoon. She is not sure if experimentation is the best way to address this matter.

How else will we find out? says Ansharil, quite reasonably.

Did a square not work for them? They should at least try a square first.

What do we do with the square, beloved?

She shows them the wish that got her the raccoon illusion. They could try it once each, and for them-as-a-complete-entity.

It does not go; it does not go; it does not go again.

They want to find out.

Will they also be attempting to help with the afterlife, or do they simply mean to appear in Alethia unprotected and see what happens?

They will help with the afterlife if the afterlife wants their help.

Do they want her along (with her raccoon wished nonexistent) for the same reason that Stella will be there for Alice?

That would please them very much.

Then she will do that.

Her beloveds love her.

She loves them back!

Love love love.

And traveling.

Angela relays everything Jane tells her to Micaiah. She is a tentative volunteer for a second, bailout wave. She would have a tern if she had anything.

Micaiah does not think he wants a daemon of his own, but he will hold his angel's if she needs him to.

All right then. Angela relays this information to Jane.

After Jane tells her that some Jokers are going on the expedition for reasons of their own, Pattern notifies Queenie and Ghosty.

[Could be fun,] says Ghosty. [Count me in.]

[Jane'll take you if you show up at the point.]

[Okay.]

[Do we have any idea how long this is gonna take?] says Queenie. ['Cause if I'm losing my snugglebuddy for a week, I want another one.]

[No clue. It's an unfamiliar afterlife, the alethiometer was cagey as hell. I have a decent coin stash, if you need to go visiting someplace.]

[Mmkay. Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.]

Ghosty manifests at the Janepoint.

Jane contentedly serves as interdimensional transit.

When Alice appears in Alethia, no daemon appears with him.

The same with Ghosty.

The same with Aianon and Ansharil.

"...That's weird. Sue got one this way," Amariah says.

Cam returns from depositing Grace in a safe place some hundred yards away from the clearing around Amariah's house. He assesses the situation and asks the alethiometer, "Why don't the three Jokers who just arrived have daemons?"

"Okay then," says Cam. "I wonder if they can comfortably enter the afterlife." He asks the alethiometer.

"...Is the one who stays going to be a daemon?"

"Cute," says Kas.

Aianon and Ansharil confer.

"...So I guess there's no point in me being here," Alice observes.

"Yeah, likewise," shrugs Stella. "Unless you want to hang around and help Isibel hug whichever one of those two is a daemon. I'm going home, though." She kisses Alice and cues Jane and vanishes.

"You guys could pull off the same trick I did with Grace," Cam points out to Aianon and Ansharil.

"You know what," says Alice, "I wanna go to Origin and cuddle Queenie. Jane?"

"We could," Ansharil agrees. "We do not know what we want to do."

Jane puts Alice in Origin.

Where he finds, and snuggles, Queenie.

Pearl hugs them.

Shell Bell melts as soon as Pearl comes into direct contact with the unnamed smew. "Oh I love you," she breathes.

"I love you too," she murmurs, stroking the smew's feathers.

Standing up is hard. Shell Bell lifts one inch into the air and hovers effortlessly, sighing.

Not really! They're waiting for Aianon and Ansharil to decide things. Shell Bell can totally bask until then.

Perfect.

"I'd be stunned if it wasn't," Amariah says. "My understanding is that the daemons have to stay here. The rest of us can go over the water with you? Is that where the dead people are? Who are you?"

"I can take you there, if your daemons stay behind," shrugs the boatman indifferently. "It's what I do."

"There's something dangerous there. Do you know what it is?" Cam asks.

The boatman shrugs. "I only go as far as shore."

"Are you the only one? Or are there other ways in? It should be more crowded, here, if you're the only way there."

"If I've missed anyone," says the boatman, "I don't know it. Time doesn't matter, not here."

"...Okay. I guess that's one of the things that doesn't work down here." She looks at Shell Bell, who's still floating. "But apparently we can fly. We might not need to take the boat."

[Brainphone... works,] Cam reports.

[I can hear you when you do that,] Jane reports, in text, all as a block. [But time-dilated like you're traveling much slower than I am. I can compensate with more sample data like I can when I'm talking to an accelerating spaceship, though, say something else.]

[Testing, one two three.]

[You're proceeding through time at a rate about six thousand times slower than I am,] Jane says, still in text. [It appears constant, at least over the sampled time.]

The boatman doesn't seem to have any comment on whether they should take the boat or not.

Amariah hands Path over to Petaal for safekeeping and starts flying, but stops when she's only about ten yards out from the edge of the dock. "How far is it?" she asks the boatman.

"A ways," says the boatman. "Time doesn't matter."

"Does it matter which direction we go? Would we get lost?"

"If anyone's tried it, I don't know about it," says the boatman. "I can row you there."

"And back?" puts in Shell Bell, who has been largely quiet with the distraction of her Sherlock holding her smew.

"If anyone's gone back I don't know about it."

"No, of course not," mutters Amariah. "Probably safest to let him take us. We can bounce out directly when we're done, wishes still work here, has everybody got boosted teleporting?"

"Done."

"Yes."

Aianon nods. (Ansharil is back at Amariah's house.)

Speaking of Sue, he taps all available minds, including Jane's.

Kas looks up from fiddling with his alethiometer and teleports out to Ansharil, then back.

Shell Bell pets her smew once, kisses Sherlock twice, and steps into the boat.

Cam has a whispered exchange with Grace, runs his hand over her feathers, and leaves her on the dock by herself and follows Shell Bell.

Amariah has already given her Path over to Petaal. She lands in the boat neatly, and hands Cam her alethiometer in case they split up.

Up by Amariah's house, Sarion settles in comfortably with Ansharil to wait for daemonic traits to appear.

Into the boat goes Kas, after giving his daemon a hug and a kiss.

Aianon follows.

The boat is getting a little crowded; Ghosty turns up her aura to let them know she's there, but she doesn't wrap herself in a body again.

The boatman begins to row away from the dock.

Amariah preemptively wraps her arms around Shell Bell's shoulders.

Pearl cuddles the smew.

Shell Bell peers into her girlfriend's thoughts; focusing on her instead of on the growing distance between self and soul is definitely an improvement at this time.

Pearl is thinking about love.

Shell Bell leans into the thoughts, drowns in them, opens them up and sinks as deep as she can. The drawing-away is a nightmare; with attention on and from Sherlock it is a lucid nightmare, it doesn't win.

Sarion wishes to know if all is well. She runs her thumb along Ansharil's foreleg.

He rumbles happily and sends her what it feels like. Love, pure love, the best thing in the world.

Amariah lets her alt go. "Okay?" she murmurs.

"I love you too," she says, petting him. "You're beautiful. What's your name going to be?"

"I don't know. Do you want to name me?"

"I would, but I can't think what."

"We'll think of something," says the smew.

"No rush, I suppose."

(Ansharil does not presently desire to change his form.)

"Hello," Amariah says. "I am Isabella Amariah. I want to know all about this place."

"It's the land of the dead," says the shade of a man. He drifts near enough to touch Amariah's shoulder, but his hand goes right through her; on inspection, a number of the shades are also intersecting each other. "It's - only this."

"Only this, what do you mean?"

Aianon folds his wings and watches curiously.

Kas reaches curiously towards a shade.

The old-woman shade who is nearest doesn't move out of the way, but she's insubstantial - and frigid.

"Cold," he murmurs, drawing back his hand.

"Always," murmurs the old woman.

"I didn't notice," murmurs Amariah.

"There are some like you," says the man she's been talking to. "Who don't notice the cold. They notice everything else, though."

"Everything else?" prompts Shell Bell.

"Excuse me," says Cam, "harpies?"

"I'm pretty good at ignoring people screaming at me," Kas says cheerfully.

Aianon laughs.

Ghosty giggles out of thin air.

"What do the harpies want?" Amariah asks. When the shades have no answer ready to hand, she turns to Cam. "Cam, ask it if the harpies are - the thing."

"Are the harpies the thing that hungers for truth?" Cam murmurs to the alethiometer.

"They are known by that name," says the alethiometer.

"Yeah, that's the thing. So, based on what we learned before, I guess they'll quit screaming at people if we find them and - unravel this truth-hunger business," says Cam. "Where do we find harpies?"

None of the shades know where to find harpies on purpose.

"Let's split up, talk to more people, congregate wherever the first person to find harpies is," says Amariah. She lifts into the air - provoking breathless surprise from the shades - and says, "I'll go that way."

Cam picks another direction.

Shell Bell goes a third way.

Kas starts walking in yet another direction.

Aianon takes wing in a fifth.

Who knows what happens to Ghosty.

He shivers, thinks about going after the harpy, and then reports this event through the link instead.

Cam asks the alethiometer he has with him: "Can we not teleport to destinations in the afterlife, or from starting points in the afterlife, or both?"

The alethiometer tells him, "You can leave at will, but not so easily return."

Cam bounces this result to everyone else, along with a proposal that they all try to converge on Kas's position manually.

Kas points out that the harpy is long gone by now.

If none of them runs into her on the way, they can continue their search in a group so as to better corner the next one to appear. If they can't teleport to each other, splitting up isn't as valuable as expected.

True enough.

Aianon circles back toward where he last saw Kas.

Ghosty flickers parts of her attention between all of them; she is not any more restricted in her movements than usual.

...Sue is alarmed! Bells aren't chatty on link, but this is important, he'd expect her to be talking about it.

Sherlock probably notices the smew tensing and shaking in her arms before he says anything.

She gathers him up and kisses the top of his head.

"We're sorry," he whimpers. "We're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry -"

"It's all right," she says. "Whatever it is, it's all right. I love you."

Sue reports this situation to the link.

"No, no, it's not all right, we're sorry, we're sorry," he says desperately, like he expects the words to be a charm against some evil that just - isn't - working. "Sorry sorry sorry -"

Sherlock pushes her love for Shell Bell to Sue, trusting that he will know what to do with it.

He bounces Sherlock's message to the intended recipient.

So what the fuck do we do? says Kas, heading back the way he came.

Tell Shell Bell to bail out, tell her to teleport to Amariah's house, or the dock, anywhere that's not here, we can start over from scratch if we have to. Scream it at her, get her attention.

Leave the harpy, says Sherlock, through Sue. Teleport away. Teleport to me. I love you. I need you. Come here.