Exodus 7: Het doel heiligt...
Exodus is coming to a close. With this episode being the next-to-last, a lot of things would have to be done so we can stop Fiorne.
Warning: it’s long and detailed so I don’t forget anything that has to go in my IC diary book.
Friday: in the morning I went to work to finish some experiments. In the afternoon I had to go to school to hold a presentation about my internship. It was good to see my classmates again, but the room was stuffy and the presentations interesting in subject, but rather dull in the telling (no one has results yet).
Half asleep I went home and cuddled with the ratties, gave them food for the weekend and clean water. Hoisting my almost too big rucksack on my bag, I went to Utrecht CS, to meet up with Jojo.
In the train we ran into Sanne. Three is more fun then two and we had a fun and uneventful trip to the station (we did end up making a slight detour, but that was OK, it was warm in the train).
At the station, Barry picked us up. He was a perfect gentleman, and even although the road was covered in snow, we arrived safely at the location.
OC: When we arrived the small sleeping quarters were still empty except for one bed taken, we had a good pick of the beds. Stuff dumped, we headed off in search of foodies and people.
The kitchen gave us both. Sna and Blerik were making pancakes (mmmmmmmmmm, pancakes) and almost everyone was packed in the small kitchen, eating, waiting for food and enjoying the company.
Pancakes were much nom, and it was great to see everyone again, even though it hadn’t been that long since I saw some of them. Its always good to be back among friends.
After dinner, we quickly went into costume. With all the snow and temperatures below freezing, I dressed warmly. With a shirt, two long sleeves, a sweater, a scarf and my Aya coat, I pretty much resembled a Michelin man, but at least I was comfortable. Add to that a cloak and fake fur, and I was nice and warm.
IC: The trip from Valioni to the Academic plants took 22 days. When we left Valioni, the weather was cold, but dry. Now, in the last couple of weeks, we had snow. Normally, we would stop when it got dark to avoid accidents on the slippery roads. But with the lights of the plants so close, we decided to push onwards, warm beds and food being too enticing for most to consider safety.
We arrived at the plants without incident. An elf in working clothes welcomed us and gave us a tour of the facilities. It soon became apparent that he had mistaken us for a group of investors, but this suited us fine. Under the guise of investors we could get easier access to parts of the plants and see things normal people weren’t allowed too. Money opens doors.
Breaking off from the rather boring tour of the various public access labs, Rana and I decided to check out the part of the plants we had avoided so far. It was clear why: the students were housed here. There were two student unions present. One was the environmentally active kind, the other… well, they were frat rats. Loud, beer drinking, arrogant and obnoxious. Whoop the freaking do. If they would have had any half decent booze, it might have been sufferable. But sadly it was just beer and w(h)ine.
The students didn’t provide much noteworthy stuff, but one member of the staff, Soofie, proved to be rather interesting. She had dreamt about Fiorne. Also, she appeared to be a slave. I promised her that if she would like to, she could join our little caravan, see other places and learn things like reading and writing. I also paid her for making my bath. I hope she spends the money on something nice for herself.
With the tour over, other members of the group started to trickle inside the student housing. With them distracting the masses, Rana and I snuck out again, to explore the labs in our own time. It wasn’t too long before we found a door with a big lock. Everything behind locked doors is interesting.
We weren’t the plants only arrivals at that time. Most noteworthy was a man calling himself Vitorio who seemed to think he was a bandit and had a dress sense that was interesting, to say the least. He had botched a robbery attempt at one of the professors by letting himself be disarmed. The guy seemed harmless enough to others, his only knowledge about fighting obtained from a written course on highway robbery. We managed to convince the professor that he could stay.
Then there remained the mystery of the heavily locked door. We first wanted some more information. Hanging round the student housing provided us with some interesting stories. Apparently, there had been a horrible fire in lab 7A some 20 years ago. Three students had been killed, and the investigation as to how and why was canceled. Strange research was still going on in the new lab, 7B. It was off limits to almost everyone, except for a small group under professor Balak. Everyone involved in the experiments were, or had been, elves. What was even stranger was that now large quantities of seawater were being delivered to 7B. This had to cost an obscene amount of money, with the sea being hundreds of miles away.
We now knew where the Sarrochan priestess was being held, but I held off violent rescue attempts. We had other objectives at the plants besides rescuing her, and knocking students senseless and kidnapping a part of their research might not go down well. And we really couldn’t afford to be kicked out until we had that ‘emozak’ drug we needed.
We did manage to get into 7B after picking the lock and making up an excuse (the demented Rector Magnificus provided our cover story, he would never know). We couldn’t find a way of disabling the students, short of hitting them over the head with something blunt, so we just took a very good look around and we stole something that looked like potions (but later turned out to be toxic waste).
By now most of the group had split up. Some had gone to bed, some were drinking with the students and some were taking a bath. As we couldn’t do much more without discussing the consequences with the group, it was bath, then bed time.
Saturday OC: I slept reasonably well. The bed was good, but I still cant get used to the bed moving when someone moves. I never slept in a bunk bed as a kid, so it all feels very strange to me.
Breakfast was good and it was nice and cozy in the kitchen. More snow had fallen during the night. Not much, but enough to make a nice clean top layer. It was very beautiful.
Saturday IC: It appeared that everyone had a good nights rest. First thing was to hold a meeting. We knew where the Sarrochan priestess was being held, and there was contact with someone who would be able to provide us with Emozak (for the right price of course).
Marcus his veins had started to turn blue and swollen on his hands, apparently from handling the samples we stole. And it appeared it weren’t only his hands that were in a bad shape.
After the meeting, I attended mass held by Ide. It was small and the elves talking loudly in the background didn’t help.
All morning seawater had been arriving, but we hadn’t devised a plan to free her without getting kicked out of the plant. In the end we didn’t have to make a plan. An emergency broke out in 7B. Something was very wrong with the priestess and the students came looking for help in a panic.
So screw being careful and bring in the cavalry. Prof. Balak tried to stop our rescue attempts. Sadly for him, the Baron and I didn’t agree with him.
With Balak asleep thanks to the Baron and the students out of the way thanks to me, we tried to open the door. The key found on Balak didn’t work. After a bit of trying we discovered that the door opened when you stood in a circle of glowing stones. Vijzel made the brave decision to stand in the circle, causing him to be incredibly cold, while we got the priestess out.
The priestess and Vijzel were in a bad shape. We moved them to bathroom where they could be tended to without drawing too much attention.
To disguise the priestess, we used some paint made by Marcus to give her Tesh spots and dull her silvery skin. Since this would make her ‘just a Tesh’ no one paid much attention to her.
Vijzel was still pretty much ill and even threw up.
With one of the objectives complete, I turned to other things that needed doing, lending a hand here and there while keeping an eye on Vijzel.
The people collecting the items for the heart had a much better idea of what they were doing, so I left it to them. There were a myriad other things that needed to be done.
Vijzel was cured of his chills and nausea by a concoction Marcus had made of a strange herb. It cured him off the illness, but after taking it, he started to act strange. His mental state became unstable. One moment he was Vijzel, the other a Gnork, a 5 year old, a teenager, an old man and an intellectual (including ridiculous accent).
Of course life in the plant didn’t stand still while we were busy. The candidates for the position of Rector Magnificus introduced themselves, and one of the profs assaulted Vitorio with a cactus (named cacci).
There was also a party being prepared. Since the fire 20 years ago, ghosts had been seen (although the elves deny ghosts exist). As this was the exact day the fire had happened, the ‘spookfeest’ was held. It started with a ‘speurtocht’. Puzzles that were hidden troughout the plant led to new puzzles, and would eventually lead to a prize. As the prize was one of the items needed for the heart, almost everyone joined in (but no one wanted to join the frat rats).
The puzzle hunt was nice and competitive. There was some cheating done by all parties. In the end our party solved the final puzzle first and opened the safe in the Rector’s room. Inside was not the prize but a box full of letters. Letters covering the happenings 20 years ago. Seems like someone had been a bit dishonest…
Using the letters and the help of a student most of what happened that night was pieced together. Not a bunch to sit around, we planned a raid on lab 7A.
7A was quickly entered. On the ground were more glowing stones. The student told us it was residue from Astony splicing and could get you ill. Not knowing what was in there, and light (normal or magical) not working inside, we wanted to regroup and make a plan, but the Baron went on ahead.
Feeling responsible for the lives of everyone in the group, even the Baron’s, I went after him, in the end assisting with taking out some strange stones that gave you a headache if you stayed too close for too long.
In the end everyone got out intact, but I wasn’t too happy with the Baron. I didn’t care that he wasn’t afraid to die. He could comic suicide if he wanted to, but in his own time, in a place where it didn’t endanger others.
We still needed more info, so we lured a student under false pretenses to the teachers’ room. With some prodding he told us the stones were Astonys, used in the splicing process, but they were apparently old and not of much value. They looked weird because it seemed something had gone wrong during the process. What exactly went wrong he couldn’t tell. The other things we brought was just waste.
As this was the exact day things went wrong 20 years ago, and with sightings of ghosts reported, we hoped we could get more info when we went back into 7A at the exact time of the accident. But first I had a big fight with Liam about who to take and how to set up the operation.
With the plans made and me firmly in charge, we went inside 7A.
Inside we found three ghosts. They seemed to be warming themselves at a strand of hair. The hair was also an item needed for the heart.
The three ghosts were the students that had died in the fire. They responded to their names. At the question how we could help them they responded that the research had to be finished. And if we would continue further inside the lab, we would be shown what had happened 20 years ago.
Going further into the lab, a vision of sorts appeared. Part of the group went on to another room adjacent to ours. Once they were inside, a wall appeared, cutting them off. My part of the group witnessed the students performing the experiment. From the other room we could hear Balak calling back the results of the test. He kept repeating everything was safe, but we could hear the part of the group locked in with him calling that it was not.
The experiment continued. The more pearls the students added, the more apprehensive they became. Balak still told them everything was OK, but then the experiment failed. There was some kind of explosion and then a fire. As a group, we were caught up in the emotional backlash of the ghosts. We felt the heat of the fire and the smoke chocking us. We all lost conscious. When we came too, the vision was gone, but the documents of the research remained. The ghosts were still there, but not of much use anymore. They had done their job. Now it was time for us to do ours.
We retreated to the teachers room. Everyone wrote down what they saw individually.
During all this, we were disturbed by some students who wanted to hang out in the teachers room. We didn’t want everyone to know about what happened, until we were ready to bring it out into the open. They didn’t leave when we asked. They didn’t leave when I asked. Nicely (I even said please!). They didn’t leave when I gave them the last chance to do things peacefully. So I hit them and threw them out.
While people discussed what had happened, I accompanied the student that had helped us when he went to send a letter to one of the professors.
When everyone had written down what they had seen and heard, we went to get Balak. We confronted him with what we had seen in 7A. First he was in denial. We couldn’t know what happened. Later he confessed he felt sorry, that he said sorry to the kids that had died every night. That the experiment had gone too far. That he saw that he had gone too far.
Personally I didn’t believe him. In his conduct with the Sarrochan priestess he had proven that the well being of human beings was not important, as long as his experiments were run.
We talked about what we had seen, and that the ghosts wanted the experiment to be finished. The experiment could be redone, but it would take preparations
People volunteered to run the experiment. I reminded them that they should only participate if they were prepared to take the risks. We had seen what happened when things went wrong.
Tasks for the experiment, and the finding of more Emozak and objects to complete the heart divided, most people went to bed. It had been an eventfull night.
Marcus, Cassandra and I stayed up, discussing the experiment and what we would do in certain scenarios.
When they both went to bed, I raided the beer supply of the students. I could use a drink. Since there was no strong stuff, large quantities of the weak stuff would have to suffice.
Sunday OC: woken by Sna who told us breakfast was ready and IC time fast approaching. I had stayed up the night before until somewhere around 5 or 6, talking and felt a bit tired still.
Breakfast was nice, but short, as I had to prepare being IC.
I dragged a crate of beer to the teachers room, where there were already some empty bottles. The empty bottles were placed on the table and the floor, and the crate was moved into a handy position. Draping myself on the couch and closing my eyes to pretend to be asleep, it was time to go IC.
Sunday IC: Pretending to be asleep, I heard quite a few pair of feet walking past me, holding for a second to take in the scene, and then tiptoe on. It was clear that no one dared to wake a sleeping Aya.
In the end the Baron was the one who dared to wake me. When I opened my eyes, I had quite the comment ready, but the Baron’s own comment drove that from my mind. ‘Today is the day we DON’T blow up the world’. He had a point.
I had IC breakfast. We prepared the last bits of the experiment and arranged for lab rats (the ones with four paws). Balak had prepared his part. I was amazed that he hadn’t done a runner in the night.
We discussed everything one final time. Then it was time do the experiment.
Hester and the Baron would put the black pearls into the reaction mix. Cassandra would stand by with the white pearls in case things went wrong. Marcus would keep an eye on the rats and communicate with me. I would keep an eye on Balak and the graymeter, the device that measured how much radiation was being produced.
In the end the experiment was a success. We achieved splicing. Nothing went wrong. The rat closest to the splicing developed a tumor.
We cleaned up the experiment and took the rats to the main laboratory room. We observed the rats a while longer. During this I also had to babysit 5 year old Vijzel who got himself into a lot of trouble.
The hunt for the missing items continued. Other from our group had arranged a romantic dinner for two of the professors who liked each other, but lacked the social skills to actually get round to telling the other their feelings. The dinner was a success.
No rest of the wicked of course. A couple of nature loving students had kidnapped a teacher and were demanding more attention for the forest that was dying. Having no patience for this kind of thing, the Baron and I snuck trough the back door, and easily overpowered the students.
When the time needed for observation was over, Marcus dissected the rats and completed the experiment report. It was turned in and graded. Now we could tell the ghosts the good news.
We re-entered 7B, where we were greeted by a lone ghost, the presence of the others lingering nearby. With the news that everything had gone fine, and that their experiment had received a 10, the ghost let out a sigh and told us the circle was broken. They no longer had a need for a worldly anchor, so we could have the strand of hair. They had their rest now.
The ghosts departed for whatever place ghosts go to. We had done a good deed, and received on of the items we needed.
The others had gathered the last items we needed, and together with the lock of hair, the heart was completed. Now we needed to decide what to do.
We gathered for a meeting, but the Baron and I were called to testify against one of the students who had participated in the kidnapping. We quickly told our story, but it was apparent that Fiorne was drawing near, as he didn’t receive any punishment. Instead, he received a week off, to deal with his ‘traumatic experiences’. Where’s the time you got a good whipping for your crimes…
Back at the meeting, it was decided that we could not run any longer. There were precious few places left to run to, and we now had what looked like the heart of Fiorne. If all emotions except love had been missing from her, it could explain her weird behavior, and with it being restored and returned to her, we might just get her back to normal again.
A lot of ifs, but there was precious little else we could do, short of killing her. And a world without love would be just as unbalanced as a world with only love.
We would return to Gethan, and see what we could do.
Ide called on Fiorne, to see if she could get us home faster. Fiorne manifested in the main lab room, where the two professors were staring dreamily into each others eyes.
She was so happy to hear we were coming back. That everything would turn out all right (Rana and I fake puked at the same time).
She couldn’t take us to Gethan instantly, but she could make our journey as pleasant as possible.
With a last promise that everything would be all right, she vanished, mentioning she really had to go, as she had a meeting with Aryon.
It was time to leave. Fiorne’s grip had reached the Academic plants and everyone was turning happy happy joy joy.
Being livid enough to physically melt snow, I stomped off. Fiorne better be sorry when she turns normal. Or I would make sure she would be for what she had done to my son.
Sunday OC: the end of another eventful and fun exodus. I was sad to let Aya go again, I really love playing her. But its not that handy to be a sword swinging, fist fighting, grumpy, arrogant drunk in real life.
We had the time out talk, packed, and got a lift to the station from Sna.
At A’dam CS, Jojo, Therry and I got some fast food. Halfway Jojo and I decided to catch a train, which we missed (the platforms are just to long at A’dam). Therry by then was no where to be found, so we finished our meal together and got the next train. We were joined by Marlies and Boyfriend + the guy who’s name I don’t know.
At Utrecht we got off, I took the bus, and crawled into bed. Sleeeeeeeepzzzzzz.