She holds up a hand. "What do you understand to happen to people after they die, and how common is it to go to Axis in the end? And who made Axis?"

Becoming more like the plane and then doing its work - is there any way that could possibly be something benign? No, probably not. Maybe the Church could seize it and fix it- let's be realistic, they have a Crusade on their hands, don't they. ...Maybe worse than that. Well. For all the danger and horror, it would be an enormous mercy.

"When people die, their souls break into pieces. Often a rather large piece moves towards an Outer Plane. The natural movement of the soul is based on various influences it was exposed to in life – deeds are one, of course, but simply being in the wrong place can also be an influence. Sometimes outsiders will grab at souls, but this can't happen for all of them."

"When the chunk of the soul arrives in an outer plane, it usually needs some material added to be functional, and that material comes from the plane, which has the obvious effects of making the creature reflect the plane's nature more. Soul senescence unfortunately continues even after death, so the creature eventually needs further patches. The more benevolent planes allow for self-direction here, of course, and would prevent soul senescence if they could, but there isn't any known ethical methodology for doing it at scale."

"I would estimate maybe 10% of people end up in Axis. Not more than 50%, not less than 1%. Axis predates the last major godwar, so little is known about its origins."

Fuck. 

Hopefully, hopefully, this is just pagan superstition, but she doubts it, somehow. This isn't... normally how people sound when they labour under a superstition, it's more like how wizards sound, a different sort of insane. 

So, someone has invented a second form of death, and built a little Hell. 

'Axis' is clearly mutilating people and then slowly torturing them into personal insults to God. 'Allowing self-direction' is not reassuring when they're claiming souls can die in the first place. ...She might in fact be in need of a certain scroll, a rat, a condemned prisoner, and a Gate, but first she needs to complete the Rite and make sure 'Axis' isn't on the same plane as anything important and make sure she hasn't somehow misunderstood. 

Not too long, though. It's happening right now. 

"What happens to the other 90%? And... what do you know of what it is like, to be... patched?"

"I've performed a somewhat analogous procedure and received it myself, for my species' reincarnation process, but we aren't conscious during it, so it's not 'like' anything. Still, I would expect it's not that hard to prevent pain when doing it for outsiders? If it were unavoidably painful, someone would have told me. It's the sort of thing you'd tell someone if you were trying to use selective truths to turn them against the upper planes, and therefore also the sort of thing you preemptively tell someone if you think your enemies are going to use selective truths with them later."

Power Word: Heal Be sensible. "I see. Thank you for clarifying that, I appreciate your honesty. What were the differences, for you, before and after the soul mutilation? Do you expect it's very different in Axis?"

"I lose almost all of my memories, skill, and power each time. We've improved it a bit. You have my permission to take a look at my soul if you have the ability. My species' process is unusually optimised for maintaining core personal traits in a way that I think would not be doable for arbitrary dead people with the outer planes' currently available capabilities. I expect almost every outer plane to at least want the option to preserve more of the dead than they do, even if they wouldn't all use it."

"Anyway, I expect that Axiomites keep more memories and skills, but are more likely to lose personality traits and attachments. I don't actually know. I know that the Upper Planes usually makes preserving positive interpersonal relationships a priority. I've worked a lot with a lantern archon who has a close relationship with her sister that carried over from when they were alive."

Who talks like this. About their soul. Even wizards normally aren't exactly that - flavour.

...Someone who isn't really the person they were any more, someone who has been shattered and mangled and interweaved with the stuff of Hell like a druid mixing slag into gold, that's who. 

"But even in the Upper Planes, they are not meaningfully the same person they were before. ...Who established this system?" It might not actually be the Upper Planes' fault, that might not actually be the target. "I will state plainly that the entire system sounds like a grievous insult to God and a horror on such a scale as to worry even me. ...Would you like me to restore your soul, when the Rite is finished."

She hopes ey'll say yes, because she's really not sure if one can meaningfully make that choice. 

"I would blame Charon for soul senescence prompting all this, personally. Anyway, that sounds like very generous of you and I probably would like it, but I'd ideally want to know how your spell works, see a healthy local person's soul, and get you a diagram of mine or something, so we can estimate compatibility first. I'm not going to die of this tomorrow or anything."

Well, that's a relief, at least, not so far gone that ey can't feel what's missing. 

They will have to do something about Charon, clearly.

"It's - a miracle, not a Spell, it is in a sense misleading to imagine it working, it rather - recapitulates your creation. But... yes. You had better come with me." 

"I can go with you."

Griffie attempts to make a noise like sucking in air, but it's weird and wet-sounding.

"If it recapitulates my creation, that was a multi-step process. If everything got returned intact you might end up with a lot of plant spirits. Possibly even an entire elf, she removed pieces of herself to make us. Now, this might be a good deal even if that's how it goes. I expect a version of her with an immortal soul could do a lot more good than I can with the limited time I currently have. But ideally if we get her back we'd do so at a lower cost to me."

She is talking to a Necromantic horror stitched together out of multiple tormented souls and it isn't even Tuesday. 

"...It won't cut pieces away from you, that isn't how it works. What... happened, to that elf?"

"She got captured by Charon and her work repurposed to evil ends."

A likely story. 

"Do you know exactly what she did to... make you? There were others?"

"There are others. We have a little village."

"So, there's a standard process for creating leshies, which involves growing bodies like, uh. Like my base form, which you haven't actually seen, but I expect you'll see it later. Plant bodies, smaller than humans. They need nature spirits to function, and nature spirits are cooperative as long as you do the ritual correctly. Erloria, the elf druid in question, did a modified version of this process involving small pieces of her own soul. She didn't involve any other people, and nature spirits are often fine with integrating with existing structures in a way that more complex souls aren't – part of the reason people are so reluctant to switch from one staple crop to another is a bit of integration with crop spirits."

All right. Deep breath. 

Clearly it is impossible to destroy the immortal soul. It is not a substance. Death is the great enemy - it's difficult to imagine this second death, the death of the soul, insofar as the soul is the essence of a person, and perhaps she should not try to imagine it too hard. 

Possibly there is something like that. 

More likely - Charon has invented some sort of creative binding and twisting and torturing of the soul. 

Imagine, then, that plant souls and this "elf druid" have some sort of faculty, costly to exercise. That could well explain it. 

Really it makes little difference, anyway. Charon needs to die still, and healing cannot defile a person still, and those are the concerns of the moment. 

...Possibly "soul" just means something entirely different to Griffie. Like "druid". Damn it, she should have caught that sooner, a lot of her attention is elsewhere. 

"Do you know how this... ritual actually affected Erloria? What does all this feel like?"

"I don't know. I have extremely few memories of her. She seems to have done some good things, but also been more vengeful than I like to think I would have been. I don't think that's necessarily a side effect, though, plenty of people are vengeful sometimes. And, uh, you'll need to be more specific with your second question, unless you just want to hear that I feel fine right now."

"I would be amazed if you felt fine under these circumstances - ah, if you do, if you are now incapable of fear or pity," that would make some sense, wouldn't it, "that's what I meant - what the... soul manipulations... feel like."

"No, I mean, I'm not ongoingly in pain from the process, or such. Obviously I'm not pleased with the current situation and can feel fear and pity. The thing is, I have no memories of having a different sort of soul, so it's hard for me to answer your question. I've heard there are spells for sharing memories, though?"

"Mm. That may be possible to arrange." She is not sure there are any wizards she would trust with that, though. "Or perhaps it will be more apparent after I heal you."

"I still think I should at the very least look at a healthy local lifeform and draw you some diagrams of my configuration before we try that."

Draw diagrams of the soul. Right. This really is sounding more and more like dangerous Necromancy - possibly she is only convincing herself, here, that is a danger. It could be something more innocuous. And it's not impossible that the circumstances don't help. Speaking of which - 

"The Vigil is complete. You would be well advised not to think of this place again. Come with me."

Gate. 

Griffie looks concerned.

"I didn't realize we were leaving the plane! I want to return if needed to go home."

You could stay. 

"We aren't - I'm not sure why you would think that. This leads to a safer place on this plane."

Beryllia seems honest and also could probably force the matter. Gates don't last forever, either. Griffie follows.