Brian Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subplotkudzu) wrote2008-06-03 05:29 am
subplotkudzu) wrote2008-06-03 05:29 am
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...and the Monster of Amristar XI
Chap. 11: Corruption’s Touch
The next day in Herbology Pollux & Lachlan are greeted by cheers from the Gryffindor – not just for rescuing Tommy but for embracing a “deeds not words” ethos. Once Professor Sprout calms things down she directs the students to pull and replant their Argusatos, which have been growing since Fall term. Argusatos are tubers covered in blinking, human-like eyes that are critical ingredients in spells to restore vision. A healthy Argusato will have dozens of such eyes, and ones with lilac or emerald eyes are much prized for their potency. One other side effect – if you can bring yourself to eat a whole one raw you gain the ability to see through stone for the next hour or so. Most can’t do it, for taste, texture and visual unpleasantness. The students are warned to not disturb the higher shelf of pots as they get their supplies, as those contain the second year’s mandrake roots. Everyone is extra careful.
In Daisy’s Muggle Studies class the Plains are doing more tag team teaching as Professor Plain’s pregnancy presses on. The distaff part of the class is no longer quite so googly-eyed about Dr. Plain now that he’s so clearly doting on his visibly pregnant wife. Dr. Plain focuses on parallels between Muggle & Wizard history, specifically on the Grindelwald War’s overlap with WWII. He theorizes that the cultures are intertwined and forces in the Wizarding world will take advantage of Muggle disruptions, and vice versa. Daisy trusts him less and less, sure that he is Reg in disguise, and is a bit worried that he asks to interview her over Easter break.
In the Slytherin/Ravenclaw Herbology class there is some commentary from Peri about how some favored students get away with things that should get them expelled. Argosato excavation reveals that Castor & Roberta’s tuber has a few watery eyes hidden behind monocles; Juliet & Grendel’s was alive but not an eyeful; Zane dropped his & Jasmyn’s the moment it blinked in his hand, rolling under a corner table. The impatient Ravenclaw hunkered down to grab the thing, only to find her hand the victim of a sharp, dirty bite from some sort of gnome!
Professor Sprout stunned it, then fretted about a Kobold infestation. Jasmyn was sent to the infirmary – Kobold bites can be nasty, but her gardening gloves spared her the worst of it. While there Jasmyn took careful note of where the Reality Cloak was kept and was it locked up. It wasn’t, but now wasn’t the time.
A note arrived in the Ravenclaw tower the next day informing Jasmyn that tonight was the night she was to serve detention with Professor Kettleburn. According to the note, it was to be dirty work, so she should dress appropriately. The group fretted about leaving her alone with the most likely Reg suspect (despite Daisy’s strong conviction that it wasn’t him) and in the end Juliet and Lachlan volunteer to serve detention with her, or at least to assist in whatever it is Kettleburn needs done. The professor’s face is a mask, but he informs them this was not to be a fun night … he’d make sure of it.
He is true to his word – the students are given gloves, taught the spells Lumos and Nokenumnoggenum (which stuns any goblin, house elf, kobold, knocker or similar creature, but it not to be used on humans and never aimed at a Centaur), and set to the nasty, dirty, smelly work of rounding up Kobolds across the garden and the greenhouses. The teacher spends the first hour or so observing, showing how to track the beasts and explaining the history of the Kobolds in England – how they first appeared in Newcastle after the Grindelwald War, how they are more destructive than Great Britain’s native Knockers but that they were brought here by Wizards and therefore deserve to be treated with respect even when removed. He then drones on and on about the responsibilities Wizards have to the world’s magical animals. It gets old. By the end even the good-natured Lachlan is a bit tired of it.
Fortunately for Jasmyn she doesn’t listen to much of it, beset as she is by Kobold attacks. The little pests like nothing more than chomping her hands and throwing stinky mud at her face. She & Juliet develop a strategy of letting the Kobolds attack Jasmyn to draw them into the open for her roommate to stun them. Lachlan, as usual, gets to muscle them into the canvas sacks.
While Kettleburn is keeping them within a small area, Jasmyn finds a small trail leading out of the area and, as per usual, is desperate to find out what’s down there. The girls quickly adopt a plan of splitting up so Juliet and Lachlan can distract Kettleburn as Jasmyn explores. At the end of the trail she finds a ha-ha, or sunken fence, designed to keep the garden and greenhouses separate from the Forbidden Forest, and inside that is another altar to Shiva! And this one has Kobold corpses stacked across it! And they’ve been drained of blood! She quickly runs back to the others and arranges to distract Kettleburn so the others can take a look at the thing. Juliet takes some notes on it for later research.
Eventually Kettleburn declares the detention done and sends the students back; he’s going to do a quick walk of the grounds for Kobolds. Lachlan volunteers to help carry the Kobold-full sacks while Jasmyn tries to sneak along behind. She doesn’t do a very good job, but Lachlan is able to distract Kettleburn to keep Jasmyn from getting in even more trouble by being caught. Kettleburn and Lachlan drop the sacks off with Hagrid and the Hufflepuff first year is sent back to his room with thanks for his assistance.
The next morning the students gladly tackle the now open library, doing research on any number of topics. Juliet identifies the altar as Shiva as Mruthyunjaya, the “victor over death”, who overcame Yama to prevent the death of one of his sages. “Victor over death?” she whispers? That doesn’t sound good.
Daisy spends some time palling up with Dr. Plain, getting the Muggle’s signature as adjunct faculty to gain access to the restricted stacks. It’s almost too easy – either he is a clueless Muggle or he’s Reg and letting her hang herself. Well, give her enough rope and she’ll tie him up with it! Once in the restricted stacks she tracks down the Tempust spell. It is an incredibly complex ritual taking weeks to cast, but need only be done a bit a day with proper rune work. That rune work requires many ingredients – all of them at the school, none of them are Kobold blood. It also distorts Uranial energy (associated with rebellion, breaking down of old structures, political movements), which Daisy can track. But if it doesn’t need Kobold blood, this probably isn’t what’s being used. With a shudder, she realizes that means it’s the other, worse spell.
Pollux is looking into just that, researching Hindu reincarnation via Taxomancy principles. It is possible to swap bodies with someone, but as a perversion of the entering Phowa (the reincarnation stream) to become a yangsi (reanimated soul). In the normal course of events the yangsi enters the Pohwa and accepts what they get. Corrupted it is possible to use this spell to suppress a soul that has a tenuous grip on its body. Such a spell would require something that debases what it touches, overwriting something good with something foul. In some cases this is a swap, in some it is a suppression or eviction of the victim's soul. It relies on Mercurial energies.
Castor comes across similar information via a different route – his studies of the Grindelwald War, Reg and Olaf continue, revealing a pernicious urban myth of Dunbledore being Grindelwald in disguise. As we all know that men of action, such as Grindelwald, are better duelists then airy-headed academics, like Dumbledore, it is impossible to believe that the latter could best the former in a duel. Once you eliminate the impossible, what’s left, even something as improbable as Gridelwald’s faithful lieutenants casting a spell that swapped the souls of the dark wizard and the academic in the midst of their public duel and then instants later cast sufficient memory charms to make the stunned Dumbledore’s soul think that he really was Grindelwald, must be the truth. Or maybe he swapped bodies and altered the memories of someone else prior to the duel. Or something. Anything that keeps Grindelwald from being quietly imprisoned in Europe, bested by that fop! (This is the wizarding world equivalent of Hitler’s brain being alive in a jar somewhere) Castor closes the book with a snort.
Still, he’s finished his research on Slaughter and on Dramaturgy, and starts making subtle changes to the ephemera of the set, as to strengthen Earnest’s existing tie to the Raj (Jack’s father served in the Indian Army) and bind it more specifically to Reg. If his suspicions are right, the Plain child will need all the help it can get.
Jasmyn hits the creatures section, trying to find out about Kobolds and why the little monsters hate her so much (answer: bad die roll.) There she learns that Kobolds debase what they touch; their blood is used to convert gold or iron to dross, or for dark arts that corrupt or to overwrite the pure with the foul.
The group explains all this to Lachlan, who was busy with Quidditch practice. The boy has no priorities. It becomes clear that Reg and Olaf’s goal is to place Olaf’s soul inside the vulnerable newborn child via Hindu magic perverted with Kobold Blood. Daisy is sure Reg is Dr. Plain, born in 1945. Juliet thinks Reg is Kettleburn, who had his body stolen in their last encounter. Castor thinks Reg is Briar, born at about the right time, with access to a Reality cloak. Whoever Reg is, the students know that they have to prove it before anyone will believe them. That’s their Easter Break goal.
The next day in Herbology Pollux & Lachlan are greeted by cheers from the Gryffindor – not just for rescuing Tommy but for embracing a “deeds not words” ethos. Once Professor Sprout calms things down she directs the students to pull and replant their Argusatos, which have been growing since Fall term. Argusatos are tubers covered in blinking, human-like eyes that are critical ingredients in spells to restore vision. A healthy Argusato will have dozens of such eyes, and ones with lilac or emerald eyes are much prized for their potency. One other side effect – if you can bring yourself to eat a whole one raw you gain the ability to see through stone for the next hour or so. Most can’t do it, for taste, texture and visual unpleasantness. The students are warned to not disturb the higher shelf of pots as they get their supplies, as those contain the second year’s mandrake roots. Everyone is extra careful.
In Daisy’s Muggle Studies class the Plains are doing more tag team teaching as Professor Plain’s pregnancy presses on. The distaff part of the class is no longer quite so googly-eyed about Dr. Plain now that he’s so clearly doting on his visibly pregnant wife. Dr. Plain focuses on parallels between Muggle & Wizard history, specifically on the Grindelwald War’s overlap with WWII. He theorizes that the cultures are intertwined and forces in the Wizarding world will take advantage of Muggle disruptions, and vice versa. Daisy trusts him less and less, sure that he is Reg in disguise, and is a bit worried that he asks to interview her over Easter break.
In the Slytherin/Ravenclaw Herbology class there is some commentary from Peri about how some favored students get away with things that should get them expelled. Argosato excavation reveals that Castor & Roberta’s tuber has a few watery eyes hidden behind monocles; Juliet & Grendel’s was alive but not an eyeful; Zane dropped his & Jasmyn’s the moment it blinked in his hand, rolling under a corner table. The impatient Ravenclaw hunkered down to grab the thing, only to find her hand the victim of a sharp, dirty bite from some sort of gnome!
Professor Sprout stunned it, then fretted about a Kobold infestation. Jasmyn was sent to the infirmary – Kobold bites can be nasty, but her gardening gloves spared her the worst of it. While there Jasmyn took careful note of where the Reality Cloak was kept and was it locked up. It wasn’t, but now wasn’t the time.
A note arrived in the Ravenclaw tower the next day informing Jasmyn that tonight was the night she was to serve detention with Professor Kettleburn. According to the note, it was to be dirty work, so she should dress appropriately. The group fretted about leaving her alone with the most likely Reg suspect (despite Daisy’s strong conviction that it wasn’t him) and in the end Juliet and Lachlan volunteer to serve detention with her, or at least to assist in whatever it is Kettleburn needs done. The professor’s face is a mask, but he informs them this was not to be a fun night … he’d make sure of it.
He is true to his word – the students are given gloves, taught the spells Lumos and Nokenumnoggenum (which stuns any goblin, house elf, kobold, knocker or similar creature, but it not to be used on humans and never aimed at a Centaur), and set to the nasty, dirty, smelly work of rounding up Kobolds across the garden and the greenhouses. The teacher spends the first hour or so observing, showing how to track the beasts and explaining the history of the Kobolds in England – how they first appeared in Newcastle after the Grindelwald War, how they are more destructive than Great Britain’s native Knockers but that they were brought here by Wizards and therefore deserve to be treated with respect even when removed. He then drones on and on about the responsibilities Wizards have to the world’s magical animals. It gets old. By the end even the good-natured Lachlan is a bit tired of it.
Fortunately for Jasmyn she doesn’t listen to much of it, beset as she is by Kobold attacks. The little pests like nothing more than chomping her hands and throwing stinky mud at her face. She & Juliet develop a strategy of letting the Kobolds attack Jasmyn to draw them into the open for her roommate to stun them. Lachlan, as usual, gets to muscle them into the canvas sacks.
While Kettleburn is keeping them within a small area, Jasmyn finds a small trail leading out of the area and, as per usual, is desperate to find out what’s down there. The girls quickly adopt a plan of splitting up so Juliet and Lachlan can distract Kettleburn as Jasmyn explores. At the end of the trail she finds a ha-ha, or sunken fence, designed to keep the garden and greenhouses separate from the Forbidden Forest, and inside that is another altar to Shiva! And this one has Kobold corpses stacked across it! And they’ve been drained of blood! She quickly runs back to the others and arranges to distract Kettleburn so the others can take a look at the thing. Juliet takes some notes on it for later research.
Eventually Kettleburn declares the detention done and sends the students back; he’s going to do a quick walk of the grounds for Kobolds. Lachlan volunteers to help carry the Kobold-full sacks while Jasmyn tries to sneak along behind. She doesn’t do a very good job, but Lachlan is able to distract Kettleburn to keep Jasmyn from getting in even more trouble by being caught. Kettleburn and Lachlan drop the sacks off with Hagrid and the Hufflepuff first year is sent back to his room with thanks for his assistance.
The next morning the students gladly tackle the now open library, doing research on any number of topics. Juliet identifies the altar as Shiva as Mruthyunjaya, the “victor over death”, who overcame Yama to prevent the death of one of his sages. “Victor over death?” she whispers? That doesn’t sound good.
Daisy spends some time palling up with Dr. Plain, getting the Muggle’s signature as adjunct faculty to gain access to the restricted stacks. It’s almost too easy – either he is a clueless Muggle or he’s Reg and letting her hang herself. Well, give her enough rope and she’ll tie him up with it! Once in the restricted stacks she tracks down the Tempust spell. It is an incredibly complex ritual taking weeks to cast, but need only be done a bit a day with proper rune work. That rune work requires many ingredients – all of them at the school, none of them are Kobold blood. It also distorts Uranial energy (associated with rebellion, breaking down of old structures, political movements), which Daisy can track. But if it doesn’t need Kobold blood, this probably isn’t what’s being used. With a shudder, she realizes that means it’s the other, worse spell.
Pollux is looking into just that, researching Hindu reincarnation via Taxomancy principles. It is possible to swap bodies with someone, but as a perversion of the entering Phowa (the reincarnation stream) to become a yangsi (reanimated soul). In the normal course of events the yangsi enters the Pohwa and accepts what they get. Corrupted it is possible to use this spell to suppress a soul that has a tenuous grip on its body. Such a spell would require something that debases what it touches, overwriting something good with something foul. In some cases this is a swap, in some it is a suppression or eviction of the victim's soul. It relies on Mercurial energies.
Castor comes across similar information via a different route – his studies of the Grindelwald War, Reg and Olaf continue, revealing a pernicious urban myth of Dunbledore being Grindelwald in disguise. As we all know that men of action, such as Grindelwald, are better duelists then airy-headed academics, like Dumbledore, it is impossible to believe that the latter could best the former in a duel. Once you eliminate the impossible, what’s left, even something as improbable as Gridelwald’s faithful lieutenants casting a spell that swapped the souls of the dark wizard and the academic in the midst of their public duel and then instants later cast sufficient memory charms to make the stunned Dumbledore’s soul think that he really was Grindelwald, must be the truth. Or maybe he swapped bodies and altered the memories of someone else prior to the duel. Or something. Anything that keeps Grindelwald from being quietly imprisoned in Europe, bested by that fop! (This is the wizarding world equivalent of Hitler’s brain being alive in a jar somewhere) Castor closes the book with a snort.
Still, he’s finished his research on Slaughter and on Dramaturgy, and starts making subtle changes to the ephemera of the set, as to strengthen Earnest’s existing tie to the Raj (Jack’s father served in the Indian Army) and bind it more specifically to Reg. If his suspicions are right, the Plain child will need all the help it can get.
Jasmyn hits the creatures section, trying to find out about Kobolds and why the little monsters hate her so much (answer: bad die roll.) There she learns that Kobolds debase what they touch; their blood is used to convert gold or iron to dross, or for dark arts that corrupt or to overwrite the pure with the foul.
The group explains all this to Lachlan, who was busy with Quidditch practice. The boy has no priorities. It becomes clear that Reg and Olaf’s goal is to place Olaf’s soul inside the vulnerable newborn child via Hindu magic perverted with Kobold Blood. Daisy is sure Reg is Dr. Plain, born in 1945. Juliet thinks Reg is Kettleburn, who had his body stolen in their last encounter. Castor thinks Reg is Briar, born at about the right time, with access to a Reality cloak. Whoever Reg is, the students know that they have to prove it before anyone will believe them. That’s their Easter Break goal.