Griffie's party and allies were pretty sure they'd done a good job of hijacking the Alghollthu gate system, and also that it only led to other locations on the network.
But apparently, both of these assumptions were false.
Griffie has no idea where ey is, or where the rest of the party is, and isn't even underwater anymore.
An august and severe and beautiful chamber of frescoed marble, wide windows overlooking a great white plaza full of pilgrims and a vast complex of palaces and basilicae, the Holy Citadel.
There's a cheerful fire and a couch set before a throne, which Beryllia sits in. White-robed pages and attendants file in on no visible signal, bringing food and decidedly not looking twice at the animate mass of water all over the carpets.
This girl is willing to let em examine her soul, if such a thing is possible.
This temple was almost certainly not built within the past few years, unlike the most major temple to a certain goddess Griffie adventures with the high priestess of. It's impressive.
People trying to not look twice at Griffie is still noticeable.
To Beryllia: "Your deliverance, do you think people would be reassured if I reverted to my smaller base form with a more humanoid body plan?"
To the girl: "Thank you. I don't expect the process to feel like much, since it's just a divination. If this feels more uncomfortable than any other divination, just back away. If I back away, please don't follow me."
Griffie transforms into a plant creature. Ey's about the height you'd expect for a halfling, if this world has those. Eir skin is a light, desaturated blue, fading to pink and then red at the tips. Eir hands have four fingers each and no fingernails. Where others might have hair, ey has a rosette of succulent leaves.
On eir head, ey has a bronze headband with green etchings, sprouting a few berries, with a moderate transmutation aura, and green glasses with opaque-looking green lenses and a faint divination aura. Around eir shoulders, ey wears a dark cloak with a faint abjuration aura. Eir armor looks leafy at a first glance, but is in fact leather lamellar whose scales happen to be green and somewhat leaf-shaped, and has a moderate transmutation aura. Under it, ey has a vivid chartreuse vest with a moderate transmutation aura. Under that, ey has auraless shirt and pants. On eir hands, ey has golden handflowers with a faint evocation aura, a ring with a faint conjuration aura, and a ring with a faint abjuration aura. Around eir waist, ey has a leather belt with an attached pouch, both of which have moderate transmutation auras. Ey also has an auraless sheathed weapon. On eir feet, ey has steel-toed leather boots with a faint divination aura.
(Unlike in the image, Griffie doesn't actually have a spring-loaded wand bracer equipped, because ey's been adventuring primarily not in eir base form as of late.)
Griffie gets within 60' of the volunteer. What does her soul look like? In particular, does it look genuinely immortal, with nothing eating away at it?
creak-CLUNK-creak...
The delay might possibly be just barely noticeable.
There is nothing eating away at it. It is genuinely immortal, at once ancient beyond age and brand new. She is human and in generally good spiritual health. She is not a cleric or anything like that.
There's a vague sense that the functions might somehow be familiar. Transmutative or divinatory or abjuring effects.
That's impressive. Griffie is not going to make a comment about her being lucky, that would be rude and probably locally inaccurate.
Does it look like a normal soul aside from the immortality? (A normal soul, by Griffie's standards, is made from positive energy, attaches at the brainstem, and has various subcomponents.)
No. It is not made of positive energy and does not have subcomponents as far as this magic can possibly detect, nor does it attach to the brainstem; it is present, in its entirety, throughout the corporeal body. It isn't really like a thing at all, it has no substance or quantity.
That's very strange. In Griffie's experience, cognition requires complex structures, and obviously your soul does a lot of the work because, well, it's your soul.
"Would you mind if I also looked at your anatomy? This would be another divination without side effects, somewhat like Diagnose Disease."
Here in the Holy Citadel, her anatomy looks normal. She's a female human, nearly twenty, in perfect health - actually quite surprisingly perfect health. She doesn't even have the lice or intestinal parasites or severe tooth wear you'd expect to see in nearly everyone.
...It's subtle, but her brain is shaped a little differently from what Griffie might be used to. It obviously does not possess the faculties of reason and will, there are limits here, but it seems to be doing more than ey might expect.
"Thank you. So far as I can tell, you appear to be in perfect health and in possession of an immortal soul, though not of a type I've ever previously observed."
Thaaaat really sounds like a conversation for Her Deliverance and probably a secret one, how about she tries to think about other things and bows and thanks em and leaves discreetly.
"Did that help? What... differences did you notice?"
It remains bizarre to be talking about souls like there could be types of them, but also this is clearly important.
"It was extremely informative. I would have expected a soul, even an immortal one, to be a Positive Energy structure with various recognizable parts, connected to the brainstem. Instead, hers seemed to be present throughout the body, unstructured, and with no obvious substance. Also, her brain was more developed in some areas associated with cognition, which makes me wonder if her soul is contributing less to the process."
"...I am not sure what you mean by Positive Energy. A soul is not a body - and it feels wrong in some way to suggest that a soul contributes. Your soul is... like the shape of you, the thing that makes you you, body and mind and whatever, but its faculties are expressed through the body - ah. If what you know of souls is a... structure of some kind of... I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'energy', it sounds like a fluid or some such thing - are you able to think in your sleep? Can you be - left unconscious by a blow to the head, can wine make you sleep or lose focus or anything?"
"Positive Energy is a substance strongly associated with life and healing, somewhat like how fire is a substance strongly associated with heat and burning things. When I cast a typical healing spell, it takes Positive Energy from the Positive Energy Plane and applies it to a person, healing them."
"I dream in my sleep sometimes. I can be left unconscious by a blow to the head. I haven't tested how alcohol interacts with my body since I expect it to not be helpful, but that would be normal for humans. A normal living creature's soul is not good at cognition without the brain."
"But some creatures don't have brains, at least in my world. Have you ever encountered an intelligent item, like a sword or shield or such? Or a real elemental, one of the ones developed enough to learn to talk?"
"Yes. There are many people in this world with a drastically different physical shape, lacking arms or legs or - brains, yes. A person is... a composite of soul and body, if you like, both at once - in humans the brain is important for some faculties, but it needn't be. There are analogies to being able to play the same song on a number of different instruments."
"Anyway, my point is this. Local humans evidently have souls which are completely different from mine. They're not the same substance, they don't have the same components, they don't perform the same functions. So I am rather concerned that a healing spell designed to help people like that with soul problems could harm me."
"Healing is not like... repairing a device or even like setting a broken bone, it is a different skill altogether. It's a personal thing. It is - making-right, restoring wholeness."
"Spells don't work that way. Even Miracle doesn't work that way, it's just that the relevant god handles the details."
"It is not a Spell. And it does indeed work that way. I am... confused by your confidence, on this. Why should it not work that way?"
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