Chapter 1.3: Results

Professor Carter's lab is a moderately sized room in the northern wing of the psychology building, across the way from the admin building containing Ms. Reinhart's office. It is one of a few such labs. Repairs and remodels are evident in patches of the building, though in places the old bones of still make their presence known, refusing to relinquish the old structure to the fate of Theseus's ship.

Professor Carter's lab is locked. The papered-over window in the door obscures much, but at least shows that the lights are off and nobody is home.

"Well, it sure looks empty." Alric tries the door, then hammers his fist against it. He raises his voice a bit. "Anyone there?"

He doesn't really expect it - these kinds of areas in universities have rarely people running around. They are occupied at specific, booked times, and lay barren otherwise. At least, that was his experience during his time in college.

Can he spot anything through the window?

Roll notice

Can he spot anything through the window?: [3, 3] Result: Failure ❌

Through a small hole in the paper, you can see… a patch of linoleum floor.

And in the gap between the door and door jam, you can see… more linoleum floor.

On the reflection on the linoleum floor, you can see… dim slats of sunlight from a window covered in blinds. The blinds are swaying slightly, so the window is probably open. You are on the second floor though, so trying to access that window would probably be a bad idea.

"Digital lock, mhmhm.. Let's try something stupid." He grabs his notepad, draws a big X on a new page and then rips it out. "Considering that this is somewhat modern, there might be a movement sensor on the other side. Lemme just -" He wiggles his piece of paper through various gaps in the door.

roll electronics & hacking with a -2

Paper wiggling: [2, 6 💥 2 = 8]-2 Result: Success! 🎯

It works! For the light sensor. The light flicks on.

While wiggling your paper in the door, you notice that the latch is partially stuck and there’s enough of a gap that you could probably wedge a card or something in to force the latch all the way open. Additionally, if there’s an alarm on the door, it is not hooked up properly, so you’re decently confident that you wont set off any sirens. Roll thievery

"Lucy, watch this." Alric watched a lot of Lockpicking Lawyer. He's got this.

Can he unlatch the door?: [1, 4]-2 Result: Failure ❌

The latch become unstuck… securing the door and making future attempts harder.

"Nevermind. Stop watching."

He turns to Lucian. "Do you want to give it a shot? It looks like the door is just latched, not actually locked."

“Umm, I can try?” Lucian does not have experience with breaking into places despite what people may think due to his previous occupation. After seeing Alric trip the lock though he is really hoping he can do this.

Roll thievery

Unlatch the door: [1, 2]-2 Result: Failure ❌

Lucian’s feeble attempts at picking with a claw are fruitless. The door remains stuck. “Yeah I’m not sure what I expected.”

"Okay, plan C. Let's check the other doors in adjascent rooms, if any are open, to see how the hinges look like." He's mostly talking to himself, as he's making his way over to other rooms.

The other nearby rooms are also locked.

After rattling one of the other labs doors, you hear a faint “Hello?”

Lucian is with Alric when he hears the voice. “Hello! Everything okay? We were checking if anyone was around. Your door is locked.”

“Yeah, they keep the doors locked.”

“Alright, well, we were asked by Ms. Reinhart to look at Professor Carter’s lab but weren’t given a key. If you verified that, maybe called her for example, would you be able to get us in?

“No, I’m locked in too.”

“Excuse me, your locked in?!”

Great, double the doors we have to deal with.

“Uh, yeah? My door is locked.”

Rattling of another door can be heard inside the lab with the voice.

Despite the urge to do so, Lucian is not going to immediately try to break the door down, there is mind magic afoot after all. “Surely that is not normal, do you know why it’s locked?”

It’s odd that they aren’t pleading to be let out.

“It’s always locked.”

Lucian gives a befuddled look to Alric

"We might be dealing with a high level idiot here." He raises his voice to get through the door. "Can you unlock the door?"

Rattles. “No.”

“Do you want to be let out?” Lucian is confused how it came to feel necessary to ask this question.

“Yes.”

"Can you come to this door please?"

“No.“

What

"Come to this door. That's an order." This is a fae isn't it.

“I can’t? The door’s locked?”

"Is there a door between you and the door we are at?"

Lucian leans in to whisper to Alric “I say we leave this be for now and head back to ask for a key to the lab from Reinhart” Lucian has learned he does NOT like mind magic stuff if it does whatever is going on in that room.

"Reasonable. You can go ahead and get the key if you want to. That'll put an upper bound on how long this takes. I'll see what I can do here."

“Yes.”

Alric knocks on the door, with his ear near it. How thick does it sound?

“Mmmh I’d rather stick together. How about 2 minutes more on this then we go.”

Solid, probably solid composite particle wood, about an inch thick. It looks to be a standard school door. The glass panel in it is also papered over.

Papered from the outside or the inside?

Inside, like all the lab doors in the hallway.

Why do people put in doors with windows if they are then going to obstruct the windows? Probably because the door purchasers are different people than the lab door users.

"Alright, 2 minutes. Fine." He's going to take off the electronic lock on the door. There's a servo and a power source in there, and he can connect them directly, operating the latch. Theoretically.

Okay, if the reason they didn't come to the door isn't for weird mind magic reasons and just being bad at explaining themselves, maybe he was reading into things to much and they are actually just an idiot ~~but what are they doing in a college lab then??~~

Roll electronics & hacking. Leatherman is your tools to allow you to do this, but doesn’t give a bonus. No modifiers. If you make this roll, you’ll need a raise to make the damage to the lock non-obvious.

Can he open the door by operating the latch servo directly?: [6 💥 1 = 7, 1] Result: Success! 🎯

Lucian realizes they are getting sidetracked, but this probably isn't a bad thing necessarily? The point of exploring Carter's lab was to look for clues and they are making progress on that, probably, just in a different place than where they thought. Oh good Alric did a tech thing again.

The door unlocks. Alric drops the digital lock, leaving it dangling from the door, its wires and circuit boards exposed.

With a push, the door swings open.

Inside this lab (not Professor Carter's lab, a neighboring one), there is a room built inside a room. Inside the inner room, or maybe it is more accurately described as a cell, there is a teen boy wearing an old fashioned white button up shirt and dark pants. He's lit brightly and the room Alric and Lucian find themselves in is lit dimly, a one-way mirror blocks his ability to see you. In fact, there seems to be an awful lot of mirrors in his cell. And security cameras too. The boy is cocking his head, listening to your approach, but is otherwise just standing in his minimally-furnished cell.

Fae. SCP. Weeping angel. FAE SCP WEEPING ANGEL. There's a lot of alarm bells going off in Alric's head. That doesn't stop him from entering, and looking around the room. He definitely won't touch anything cell-related though.

Also, obviously, camera, click, flash, photo.

!!! Lucian is glad to see that Alric does not continue to free the person. Also, wtf. This feels pretty important? Lucian is going to check for any identifying labels on the outside and inside of the room. Who is the professor in charge of this lab?

Roll notice

Looking for clues to lab owner: [3, 6 💥 1 = 7]+2 Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

Lucian finds a filing cabinet. The files in the cabinet indicate that this longitudinal study was started by Professor Whateley some 50 years ago, later taken over by Professor Varghese, who runs it now.

Observations of the subject indicate that it hasn’t changed much over the years. It doesn’t eat or sleep, or show signs of growth, and has limited memory.

Alric whips out his phone. Magic lab. With magic research. While Lucian looks around the cabinet, Alric starts taking a video and investigating the rest of the room. He's looking for any scrap of magical knowledge outside of the cabinet, anything he could video record and later take a closer look at.

Lucian shares what he finds. “Apparently they don’t think this is a person, so withholding judgement for now until we know more. Do you think it might be the source of the contagion? We should track down the whereabouts of Varghese. Alongside actually investigating Carter’s lab.”

"Give me a few minutes, then we can get into the other lab. Is there anything related to magic written in the documents you found?" He talks while he's searching through the lab.

“The subject is magic if that’s what you mean. He’s been around for over 50 years with no signs of change. No mention of why the mirrors annoyingly.”

Does Alric find any documents that could further his knowledge of magic?: [5, 4]+2 Result: Success! 🎯

Alric finds notes on how direct observations appear to be necessary for the subject to maintain it's boy shape, and thankfully it can be made to observe itself. The notes say this supports the duality model of consciousness and emphasize the importance of observation in metaphysical phenomenon.

Alric points out the foot notes in the binder Lucian is currently reading, and copies it into his notebook. Duality model of consciousness. Observation in metaphysical phenomenon. A few more keywords, a few more angles from which to attack magic. "See, here? It's apparently only a boy as long as it's observed, and they use mirrors to make it self-observe."

"I think this is otherwise a dead end. Let's get into Carter's lab." He looks at the boy in the cage, then at the door. "They have a fucking SCP behind a door any idiot with a screwdriver could open. Can you believe it?"

Alric and Lucian, both of you roll Notice (Chapter 1.2: Dreams of Adventure )

Does Alric notice anything?: [8, 3] Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

Notice: [3, 2]+2 Result: Success! 🎯

There is a brief feeling of anticipatory fright. Alric and Lucian's hairs on their neck prickle. But it is gone just as quickly as it appeared.

Huh. Must've been the wind.

"SCP? Uh and yeah, but we do still need a way to get in. I think I feel more comfortable breaking a door down if this is the kind of thing going on behind it though. Give it a try?"

"I'll explain SCPs to you at some point, you'll love it. Or hate it, considering the context."

"Yeah, there's nothing of interest here. Lemme just put the lock back, and then let's get into Carter's." Alric makes his way to the door and starts screwing the lock back into place.

Lucian and Alric are in the hallway, Alric fixing the lock on the now-closed door. A distracted student trudges by, bumping into Alric as he's bent over the lock. (Chapter 1.2: Dreams of Adventure )

Does Alric notice anything suspicious with the person bumping into him?: [2, 4] Result: Success! 🎯

"Dude, I'm working here. Seriously." He picks up the screw he dropped, and gets back to screwing it into the case.

A few seconds later. "Alright, done here. Let's check the other one." He makes his way over to the door to Carter's lab, and will try to get through the door the same way.

Hope texts Lucian: "Carter is an NPC, can't think about anything outside routine. Creepy. Any luck at the lab?"

Lucian texts back: Got stuck at the door. You got his keys? Nearby room has a disturbing ‘scp’ as Alric calls it that if is not the cause at least an adjacent concern. Alric trying to get in again now.

Can Alric open this door as well, using the same method?: [3, 2] Result: Failure ❌

Can Alric open this door as well, using the same method? [Using Benny]: [1, 1] Result: Critical Failure! 💀

The sound of high heels and conversation echo down the hallway. Two professors round the corner: a tanned grey haired woman and an imposingly broad-shouldered Asian man.

"Excuse me, Sir! What are you doing?" the man demands of Alric.

"Working." Alric turns back to the lock.

"That is not your job." the indignant professor marches up to Alric, looking him up and down. "Who are you?"

Lucian attempts at persuasion: [3, 5] Result: Success! 🎯

"Ahem" Lucian coughts to get their attention. Then puts on his most dashing smile. "Sorry about my partner. We are with the Dawn Commission, here to investigate the phenomena currently plaguing your school. Our team has talked and gotten permission from Professor Carter to enter his lab however as you can see there has been some trouble getting in. It does look suspicious I admit and I don't want us to be the cause of any trouble. So! If you would prefer for us to stop and you call Professor Carter to get confirmation we can accomodate."

The large professor frowns at Lucian. "I'll take you up on that." He fishes out a cellphone and calls his collogue. "Carter. I have two fellows here trying to get into your lab. Did you authorize this?"

Carter spirit roll: [6 💥 5 = 11, 0] Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

The voice over the phone has the tone of the recently rudely awakened. "Zhang. What? I... ah... yes? Two... yes, they were just here."

"Well that settles that. Good afternoon." Zhang hangs up, nods to Lucian and Alric, and marches down the hall.

The other professor doesn't follow, instead she enters the lab with the mirrored cell.

Hope walks swiftly around the corner. "I have the keycard! Which room is the SCP in? Do you think it's related?"

"God bless, the fucking screw got stripped. I need the keycard here, the SCP is over there where she just went in." He points to the door the professor entered.

“Afternoon” Lucian nods back respectfully to the professor before he walks away. “SCP is the room right there” Lucian points, “a professor just walked in there though and we already checked it. Think it’s probably not the cause.” Lucian waits for Alric to open the door.

Inara's face creased into a frown. "What's an SCP? If there's a monster in there, we can't just leave it."

“Alric’s term for it, it’s been around for 50 years so I think we can leave it for now unless we think there is reason to believe it might…. escape…. because of the phenomena…..” Lucian is going to full run and peek through the door of the SCP room to check that the Professor who entered is not doing something obviously stupid like letting it out.

The door is shut and with the lock put back on. Opening the door would require unlocking it or removing the lock again.

"We should destroy it," Inara said. "For all we know, it's responsible for the phenomenon. It would certainly explain why Carter was hit so hard." She flicks a commanding look at Hope. "Open the door. I'll take care of this."

"The SCP is in a different lab, not Carter's. Let's look in here first." Hope unlocks and opens the door to Carter's lab.

“Fuck, this better not bite us in the ass. Alright let’s look in the office.”

Sunlight streams in from a cracked open window, illuminating a mess of a lab. Papers and items are strewn about. A partially drawn curtain separates the lab in half, with desks and bookshelves in the half by the door and what looks like it was supposed to be a clean room in the other half. In the detritus-strewn clean room, there is a three-meter square smooth flat platform containing the remains of a summoning circle.

Hope steps in first, carefully checking her corners. Seeing no threats, she checks to see if there are any tracks coming from the summoning circle. "Vesper, can you tell what this circle was summoning?"

No tracks. No real sign of any beasty, just the aftermath of people flailing around.

Alric steps in second, carelessly walking in, with his camera lifted to his face. Click, flash, photo. And now, to the fun part.

This is a magic lab. He's owed some magic scriptures goddamnit, and he's determined to find them. He inspects the papers lying around. He starts going through the drawers, pulling them out completely to make sure there's nothing that's fallen behind the drawer. There's always something fallen behind drawers. He looks behind the desks, he looks below them. He looks behind the bookshelves, he looks below them. He's inspecting the floor, he's inspecting the ceiling - noone ever looks up - and, he's inspecting the books, and their insides, for anything of interest or perhaps hidden.

He's a kid let loose in a candy shop. What does he find?

Vesper examines the circle.: [2, 5]-2 Result: Failure ❌

The summoning circle dominates the raised dais. Chalk outlines form a massive three-meter ring, pale in the dusty sunbeams trickling through the window. Whoever made it knew what they were doing — it's hard to draw a perfect circle, but the ritual is as precise as a computer rendering. Five candles, half-collapsed into puddles of wax, mark key points along the circumference. Strange symbols and distorted runes trace a narrow band around the main circle.

Do you recognize it? Inara's voice whispers.

You're kidding, right? I thought they taught you everything at that fancy Arcanum of yours. I let my sarcasm seep across our mental link.

Frustration and annoyance flood back. Spare me the attitude. I already get enough lip from Alric.

I return my gaze to the circle, a prickle of unease working its way across my skin. Whatever this is, it's beyond me. No, I reluctantly admit. I've never seen anything like it.

"No," Inara says to Hope. "This isn't classical wizardry."

Alric finds so many things. Most are the mundane bric-a-brac of academia, but there are a few things that look promising.

One is a smooth metal disk with a central divot protruding from the underside. It's inscribed with holographic etchings of a geometric fractal. On the back is a sticker labeling it "Solidifying Geometry, MU Eso Math Dept."

There's a number of other vaguely magical looking things. Posters of optical illusions, a set of tuning forks, a number of essential oils, a plastic model of a skull and brain, a collection of edited Garfield comics including one where Garfield knocks the fabric of reality off the table--that one appears to be in ironically poor taste.

The books are primarily about cognitive science and the brain or on language and the mind. The book that most recognizably doesn't fit the trend is A Taxometric Study of Weirds, which, flipping through it, looks to be something like a demonology book, only one that talks about things call "weirds" instead of demons.

"Interesting. Can you confirm it is a summoning, at least? Is it possible to summon incorporeal entities?"

"Summoning incorporeal entities is certainly possible," Inara agrees. "But I only took a few basic classes at Arcanum. Not enough to identify this — whatever this is. Making pacts with demons is for the desperate or foolish."

Or the pragmatic, I counter. Not all spirits are cruel overlords.

Your naivety astounds me. When you dance with demons, they always lead - straight into ruin.

"This might be the point where I should mention that I found a book that suspiciously looks like it's about summoning things", Alric mentions while he's working on video recording pages out of the book with his phone.

It sure looks like a summoning. There are rituals that blur the lines between summoning and evocation. One wizardry school of thought holds that the only fundamental difference between summoning an ifrit and summoning a fire ball is that an ifrit has a mind to hold opinions on being summoned.

"Oh?" Inara's eyes dart to the thick tome in Alric's hands. Faded gold lettering on the cover reads A Taxonometric Study of Weirds. "Summoning and evocation are two sides of the same coin — the only difference is how smart the spell is. But considering the state Carter's in, I doubt this circle was used for something minor. What does the book say?"

"One sec - " It takes a moment, but this isn't the first time Alric quickly recorded a book. He's soon done with it, and tosses the tome to Vesper. "Have you guys seen this thing?" He holds up the metal disk. "It's fucking weird, guys. Can't make sense of it."

"Wait." Weird shit is going on. There's gotta be a secret door somewhere leading to a super secret lab. Alric starts knocking on the walls. Then he quickly drops to the floor, closely inspecting it. Anything?

Inara catches the book and opens it. The table of contents is a barrage of obscure terminology - glyphed runework, ectoplasmic binding rituals, psychopompic conjuring arrays. I recognized a few phrases, but most were beyond me.

With a huff, Inara snaps the book shut. "This is written for occultists, not wizards. I'll need time to parse the more complex sections." Turning to Alric, she continues, "For now, let's examine the other artifacts you uncovered. Perhaps they can provide some clues before we dive into this esoteric text."

Alric holds up the disc, and Vesper grabs it. "Knock yourself out." His attention turns back to the floor.

There is no secret passage that Alric can find without actually destroying walls. And at that point, it wouldn't be secret, it would just be an obvious hole in the wall.

"Ugh, this is boooooring." Alric gets up again, dusting off his knees. "No secret doors. Only one interesting book in the whole lab. And one metal disk. Let me take another look at the book, if you don't mind - also, have we tried placing the disk in the middle of the spooky circle? Bet that does something."

"Let's not!"

BROKEN LINK Inara studies the disk. It's an odd construct, made of more precision engineering than anything in traditional wizarding artificing. It is possibly enchanted -- it seems to block the probing investigatory spell Inara casts on it, her tendril of will sliding off it while simultaneously drawing the eye with it's shifting iridescence.

The sticker on the back likely tells of it's providence. "Solidifying Geometry, MU Eso Math Dept." Is it from Miskatonic University's math department?

Hope looks for non-magical papers. Names, project budgets, calendars?

Alric skims through the book, utilizing his vast experience of cramming for tests to glimpse the core truths of the tome: [8, 6 💥 5 = 11]+4 Result: Success with 2 raises! 🎯🎯🎯

This is definitely Professor Carter's lab. There's evidence of two grad student research assistants, Matt Donahue and Emma Miller.

The research here was done in partnership with the Esoteric Mathematics Department, and seems to be related to the nature of qualia and the mind. Why a math department is interested in research on psychology and qualia is anyone's guess.

The budget and calendar are findable. It's probably reasonable? Hope doesn't have much context for what a lab like this would normally cost, and the accepted grant proposal is too full of jargon and buzzwords to be informative to Hope. No obvious red flags.

Cast Spectral Sight: [9, 4] Result: Success with 1 raise! 🎯🎯

Inara's fingers twitch in precise shapes as she invoked the spellforms for Spectral Sight. Thumbs press to index fingers, framing the world in a rectangle of focused will. The room shifts before my eyes, overlaid with the telltale glows and auras of active magic. Dust motes dance like stars in the streams of light piercing the gloom and the summoning circle blazes, magic etched deep into its curves and angles. Inara sweeps her gaze across the chamber, searching for other traces of enchantment.

Ok. So Weirds.

Weirds are, it seems, basically elementals. But elementals of unusual elements that don't exactly have a physical analogue. They are a specific breed of highly magical creatures that are basically made out of a sustained channel to the platonic ideal of whatever they are the elemental of. Unlike demons, they don't need a human host, a simple object can suffice, and they don't have a mind or memory as such, they are attracted to manifestations of their Concept like a bacteria up a sugar gradient.

Weirds can be self-sustaining, but the material world is not exactly hospitable to them. Their "natural" environment are worlds much less rigid and much more dreamy than this one.

Consumption weirds eat things and usually look like shifting blobs of teeth and mouths and stomachs. Curiosity weirds get into things and usually look primate-like with an indeterminate number of eyes and ears and fingers and tendrils. Heap weirds make things heaps. And, according to notes found elsewhere on the desk, a proposed Qualia weird might be a useful addition to the taxonomy that could also shed light on the nature of qualia itself.

The synesthetic lights granted by the spell are much brighter than usual, as if the sources of illumination are much closer to the surface. Sharper and more definite, there's deeper nuance in the gradients of hues.

Not much active magic in the lab. The "Solidifying Geometry" disk is a shady bubble in the riot of light. In the lab next door, there is a beacon blazing with colors unnamed. Don't look at it. Do not name the colors. Do not let the colors look at you.

There are some minor enchantments on the some of the components comprising the mess in the room. Nothing surprising, and all worn slightly duller by the exposure to cleansing dawn light. Speaking of, the curtained off clean room area of the lab is rather well purified. It would be up to Arcanum standards if not for the mess the most recent summon had made when it got loose.

Lucian is not inspecting, instead keeping vigilant for anything suspect approaching. Maybe if things drag on for 10 minutes with no developments he will start looking around but for now is content keeping guard as well as keeping an eye/ear out through the door to see if that Professor exits from the neighboring lab.

Inara lowers her hands, breaking the spell. "No major magic, so whatever got out is long gone. Any luck with the book, Alric?" The last sentence drips with condescension — it's clear Inara doesn't expect Alric to even understand the book's introduction, let alone its meat.

I bristle at her dismissiveness. Don't underestimate him. Alric's cleverer than you give him credit for.

Please. He can barely grasp the basics of magic theory. This esoteric text is utterly beyond his capabilities. Though I suppose he deserves some credit for recognizing the book's significance amidst the clutter of this disaster zone.

Alric skims through the book, and quickly realizes that this is nothing he can connect to anything else he's read about. It looks fucking cool, but honestly, he has no clue what he's looking at.

This isn't the first time though Alric finds himself in front of a riddle without any clues whatsoever. He went to college, after all. He can deal with this.

It's a common misconception that you have to read a book fully to understand what it's trying to teach. If you want to learn everything, yes, you'll read every word. But most books have two interesting properties:

• They are mostly fluff. Authors repeatedly go over the points they're trying to make, to make sure the reader actually gets them (and frankly, to get their books to a publishable length). Unless you're in front of a textbook, the core points usually can be summarized in a paragraph or two.
• The value of the points the book is trying to convey is pareto distributed. 80% of the value is in 20% of the points it's trying to make.

As Alric is skimming through the book the first time, he's on the lookout for everything that stands out massively - the chapter headers, and any diagrams, scribbles, and pages that are marked or particularly worn. This gives him a strong sense of most of the points the author was trying to make and what the reader considered important, and then he gets into the chapters that get more into what the hell Weirds are.

Similar to how chapters iterate over the same points repeatedly, so do sentences in a paragraph. If you want to quickly get a rough understanding of a chapter, it's enough to read the first sentence of a paragraph - all the other sentences are just expanding or reiterating.

"Oh Irene, what would I do without your support? Without your knowledge of the arcane arts?" There's a cheekiness to his voice, but friendly. "You may have missed it, but the book seems to be about Weirds, as is stated in its title. The author puts a lot of effort into explaining what Weirds are, and how to classify them. There are also some notes about summoning them, some stories about the author doing so. Not entirely sure how valid those are."

"Weirds are magical animals, summoned from somewhere else. They essentially seem to be to abstract concepts what fire elementals are to fire. Specific examples are consumption weirds, curiosity weirds, and... what the fuck, heap weirds are a thing? I saw a note somewhere over there" - Alric gestures into the direction of a desk - "about a qualia weird, but didn't see anything mentioned like that in this book."

"So the most neatly fitting hypothesis here, assuming that really all these things are connected with why we were called here, is that our dear professor summoned a qualia Weird, that thing got loose, and sucked up people's qualia? That doesn't rhyme, heap weirds make heaps, not collect them."

"Ooooooooohhhhhh"

Alric is lost in thought, eyes flitting around.

"A qualia-eating spirit certainly lines up with Carter being suddenly an NPC, though. Although, strictly speaking just eating qualia should leave a p-zombie, not a regular zombie, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say it eats - sapience? volition? Good point about the reversal. Maybe Carter summoned an anti-qualia Weird? Are anti-weirds mentioned in there?"

"Don't recall anything about anti-Weirds, but the opposite of a concept is a concept itself. Do you guys want to hear my best guess, or do you want to figure it out yourselves?"

"It's building a qualia, like how a heap weird presumably steals rocks to make heaps?"

"Yeah that's close to what I'm thinking, except that it's either collecting them or moving them around."

"But how does one build a qualia, and does it need to be in somebody?"

As a taxometric study, there’s charts correlating variations on the dialed in concept to behaviors manifested in the weird. There’s some sections trying to puzzle out the hidden order behind changes to the summoning ritual, but it’s all very opaque, and even identical summonings can produce weirds of the same broad kind, but with different behaviors.

Inara tilts her head, regarding Alric with renewed interest. "I'm impressed," she says after a thoughtful pause. "To grasp the essence of that occult tome in mere minutes is no small feat. Perhaps I was too hasty in judging you."

I can't help but feel a swell of pride for Alric. See? You really should give him more credit.

I’ll admit, he has an aptitude for unraveling mysteries. Inara's voice holds a tinge of grudging respect. Though he lacks proper training, his intellect is sharper than most wizards. If he had even a spark of the Gift, he could have been one of the greats.

"Thank you." Taken aback a little, Alric is actually surprised hearing that - he did not expect Vesper to be capable of saying anything nice. "I have to point out though that so far, the only thing we know for sure is that people are acting like NPCs, and that Carter is affected, and that this is Carter's lab, and in the chaos of this lab, there's a summoning circle and a book about summonings. If any of these things aren't connected, the theory breaks. And we also have yet to find the Weird, assuming there is one, as they do have physical bodies. So let's keep an open mind."

"But if all this shit runs on videogame logic, and man, concept representing magical creatures sure means that nothing here is related to standard causality, and only to meaning for some godforsaken reason, actually scratch that, there's no reason to be found here be it godforsaken or not -" Deep inhale, that was a lot of words "- then all this probably means that people's qualia is put into objects or something like that and we'll have to do a fucking fetch quest. Weeeeell, it beats fighting mud crabs and basements full of rats."

"Anyone here found any key items besides this tome and weird metal disk? I would've guessed that it's either of these, but I'd have predicted" as if that's worth anything nowadays "that they'd be magical in some way. I have a ton of other theories, but let's put the key items into the spooky circle anyways, just to check that off."

Putting the disk and the book in the circle causes…

nothing unusual to happen.

Nothing, as far as we can perceive. I bet something happens off-camera, and we'll find out later.

"Alright, that did nothing, let's find the qualia monster running around. Anyone have any ideas?"

"A question that should be solved first - how does one kill or capture a qualia weird if one finds it??"

"Same way we kill anything else — overwhelming force." Inara's confident grin widens. "I find that arcane fire works on most foes."

"But bullets will not, I assume?"

Alric's eyes dart from Hope to Vesper to Hope again. "We could also talk to it, you know?"

And what do you mean "arcane fire"? You can fire bend, but you let me try my luck with a fucking STICK first? He doesn't say it out loud.

"We could try that. But you know, negotiate from a position of strength, etc. I'm not really expecting this creature to be capable of communication."

Inara lets out a bark of laughter. "Talk to it? Are you insane?"

"If we're right, it's literally the embodiment of qualia. Would be nice to not kill something like that - especially if all it takes is a bunch of snacks, some wine, and a good TV show to bribe this thing."

Inara scoffs, "Your naivety would be charming if the situation wasn't so dire. This is not some children's fable where monsters can be tamed with kindness and understanding. I've slain countless beasts, and they all shared one thing - an innate savagery beyond reason."

She paces the summoning circle, gesturing sharply. "Even if this creature can talk, it is no more human than a thunderstorm. It is a ravenous spirit that has already ravaged Carter's mind. What's next, munching on the postal workers? The barista at Starbucks? Where does it end?"

Inara stops and faces Alric directly. "I am sworn to stand between humanity and the slavering hordes of darkness. When I find a monster, I kill it. And I suggest you do the same. Otherwise, someday you'll find yourself standing around agonizing over whether shooting the slavering ghoul is right, and it'll already be clawing your face off."

"I'Ve sLaIn cOuNtLeSs bEaStS. How many of those have you tried talking to first, before attacking? How many of them actually displayed savagery before you started throwing arcane fire at them? Look, I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, we might have to kill it. I'm saying you didn't know anything about Weirds until moments ago, and from what I've read, not all of them are dangerous. Some just make heaps out of things, for christ's sake. This one, if the whole theory tracks, will just want to experience things. Let's find out first and then decide."

"Your perspective betrays your sheltered upbringing. When a 'misunderstood' monster murders your family before your very eyes, then we'll see how eager you are to extend an olive branch." Inara levels a finger at Alric. "Make no mistake, violence is the only language monsters understand. Hesitation just gets you killed."

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster."

He sighs.

"How about I try my way first, and if I die in the process, you can tell me that you told me so, and do your thing?"

"I don't need permission to do what must be done." Inara's eyes narrow. "Stay out of my way, or you might get caught in the flames."

"I have, in fact, had my family murdered before my eyes. And I do my best not to kill creatures that don't need killing, anyway."

Inara glances at Hope. "Wasn't talking to you. I've seen you in action, I know you've got what it takes to do what's right."

StAy oUt oF My wAy, Or yOu mIgHt gEt cAuGhT In tHe fLaMeS. I'd say I had worse co-workers, but I'd be lying. I don't think I have the charisma to deal with 5 foot of pure evil.

"Relax. Look. It's in your interest to let me try my thing - if it works, great, no harm done. And if it fails, you won't have to burn me yourself. Either way, you win."

Well, I'll hold it over you if I'm right, but besides that, I mean.

Inara laughs sharply. "Don't flatter yourself. If I wanted you dead, you'd be a pile of ash already. I'm simply stating facts - you're a civilian, so stay out of the line of fire unless you want to get burned. I won't waste time babysitting you in a fight."

Why they saddled me with this amateur is beyond me. Inara vents internally. I could have slain three beasts in the time I've wasted arguing. Never send a civilian to do a hunter's job.

I WoN'T WaStE TiMe bAbYsItTiNg yOu iN A FiGhT.

I SAVED YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS FROM A VAMPIRE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN.

"You are completely right about everything you said and I will follow your command. Please take the lead." Alric steps aside, giving her a slight bow.

Inara's smug grin widens. "Finally. Now that we know what we're dealing with, it's time to track it down. We'll start with Carter's students."

Alric throws a concerned look to both Hope and Lucian, packs the tome into his backpack, and follows Inara out of the room.