[Text] @zobrien

[flying_fish]

[Zed isn't in the best of moods since another person he cared for disappeared, so he's taken to drink. Not that the alcohol has ever helped him, but it has him thinking about home...and some not so pleasant business back there.]

There's an item back home that operates like the Chinese gu. Except instead of venomous creatures, you insert humans. It is said that once the ritual is complete, it will lead to the destruction of the world.

The humans inside are forced to kill each other and mix together until becoming one being. The skin disappears while the skeleton, muscles, and organs fuse together. They're neither dead nor alive because of the magic that binds them.

Let's say the item broke, and a part of the conglomerate was separated from the whole. The humans that make up this "specimen" are children. Do you destroy it to prevent the ritual from being completed?

Comments

UN: shiliu

[shiliu]

[ .............he's so distressed by this post, he nearly breaks his communicator. ]

Tell me more about this item. How is it constructed? Is there any way of freeing the people caught within it? Either separating them or helping the being created?

[flying_fish]

I don't know how it was constructed. Likely with black magic. It is at least 12000 years old.

There is no immediate method of separating the people, but it seems the Charops Jinko can be destroyed. A similar item to it was destroyed, so it can be assumed it can as well.

[shiliu]

This "Charops Jinko" is the item you're speaking of, then? If it's destroyed, what happens to the children?

[flying_fish]

I don't know. Perhaps they stay part of the incomplete specimen. Or maybe the jar's magic will wear off and they will die immediately. I do not know if there's a way to reverse the fusing process if they do stay alive.

[shiliu]

[ Don't call them a "specimen!"

All of this hits far too close to home, he realizes. He forces himself to calm down. The man's language likely indicates that the children he discovered seemed hardly human: partially fused, skin missing, undoubtedly suffering. ]

If it comes to it, the world must be protected. But that is absolutely the last resort.

I believe you owe it to them, to seek information relating to the magic that created this item, in order to unravel and reverse this "fusing process" as you call it. These are innocents.

Even if the process must proceed towards its completion, it may still be possible to achieve a different result from the one you fear. Anything with the power to destroy the world, may also have the power to save it.

[flying_fish]

At the time I remember, my group does not have the leisure of time to research. I do not think they would be human anymore after the ritual is complete either. And if it were completed, the creature would follow the whims of whoever wins the auction for the Charops Jinko. The people who are in attendance are not the most savory types either.

In any case, I understand the weight of responsibility towards protecting children even if I am not human myself.