Otis nodded as the Doctor passed, pocketing the extraplanar extract for himself. It was a rare thing to get a genuine article for
free after all.
It was interesting too though, that the message he had sent via Adapa to the undermage had failed. He himself had confirmed that it was possible to send messages in and out of a Leyline Overcharge, so what had happened
after her apparent victory? The Strigidae’s eyes narrowed briefly, considering his options for exploring that particular topic, before settling for the simplest one: the spring-like automaton he had placed within that space. A quick pulse of essence was released through his Adapa, searching for any response or resonance from his creation. And while he waited for the results of that?
Back to work.
Chunji was up, and if Otis was a good doctor, he’d bade his classmate to lie back down and rest. Extra hands were useful though, and so the Strigidae instead said,
“Davil has been inflicted with the essence of stagnation, but only conditionally. He loses blood and essence at a regular pace in consideration to his injuries, but cannot intake them at the same rate, so standard transfusions are having decreased effects upon him.”He glanced back at Ciara and Iraleth. One was rambling, caught in the throes of a nightmare. The other was barely awake, holding on with only the force of will at this point. There had been a creaking sound a moment ago, but no known origin. Shame he didn’t have eyes on the back of his head, but even
he had too many things on his list already.
“Work on keeping him stable. I’ll look into locating the root cause of this condition.”There were no other words needed at that point. The implanting of essence, by nature, was such that the more complex an object was, the more difficult the implantation process became. And what could be more complex than a living being? To have implanted the concept of stagnation, and a conditional variation of that, upon Davil must have taken either extraordinary amounts of time, effort and skill. Time, which could have been spent simply cutting off his head. Effort, which could have been spent simply blowing him to bits. Skill, which that Umbralist clearly did not have enough of, if they could not best or hold their own for all that long against the undermage.
Yes, rather than specifically an implantation of a curse, it was far more likely that the symptoms of ‘reduced recovery’ came from an exterior source. One could not easily implant the essence of ‘fire’ into a human being, but one could accomplish that with ease by tossing them into a bonfire. Essence was complex, but also just made of the world itself. They affected each other in equal measure. And thus…
“Rather than a curse, would it just be poison?”Poison, laced upon a weapon. Meant to weaken a foe and reduce the probability of their recovery in case of escape. The poison itself could have been concocted with essence manipulation and spellwork, then applied ‘externally’ into the body of another to reproduce those same effects through the world-essence relationship.
It was a better theory than digging through a haystack for a particular needle.
Now then, the Seeker would simply have to test that theory.