Fourth of Pruin, in the year 219 after Deadhaus The Crucible… that is where it all began. That is when the war with Deadhaus was turned in favor of the living. I must exercise utmost caution in choosing what I will record of this… technology, though that word does not capture the full nature of the device. I have been careful to conceal the location where I retrieved the Crucible in my writings, though it was the only one present within the stone.
And now I must be ever more careful in describing my experimentations, for they must never again be reproduced, not even by one as dedicated to the empire as myself. It is simply too dangerous. Only the desperation of inevitable extinction has driven me to wield its power, though I suspect my use of it is only a fraction of its full capability. It was a simple matter to return the Crucible to my laboratory, much simpler than smuggling in the
ghoul, that is for certain. I covered its glass surfaces with my cloak, to hide the light within, and rode for the nearest town. A sufficiently large sack of grain was all I needed to obscure my cargo for its transition to the capital. This time I barred the doors to my laboratory, even after commanding the servants that I should not be disturbed. The deep green light flooded the room as I pulled the Crucible free of the grain.
I would have no need of candles this time. Now that I was finally safe, I peered into the glass as closely as I dared. How can I describe the substance lay within? I could say that it gave light like a flame, but there was no heat. I could say that it flowed like liquid, but it was not disturbed when shaken. And yet there was constant movement within the
substance, even when the Crucible lay still. Its luminous contents gave rise to waves and eddies that swirled in perpetuity, distorting the glow as they collided and dissolved. “See what I’ve brought you this time,” I said toward the cage in the corner. The decayed form of the ghoul stirred within, cast in greenish light, and soon its claws gripped the bars. “We do not see,” it answered after some time. “No, of course not, but I’m sure you can smell it.”
“Bring it to us.” I did as the creature asked, hoping for some insight, however cryptic, into the nature of the device. Its nasal slits flared as it sniffed deeply. “Closer.” I stepped closer, and the ghoul sniffed more frantically. “Closer.” “That’s as close as it comes to those claws, I’m afraid.” “We would not scratch your prize, Alaric von Beller. We are not… spiteful.”
“If it’s not out of spite that you ask, then… you can’t smell this, can you?” The ghoul rattled in its throat, and though its face did not convey emotion, I am sure that contempt bubbled within it. “The dust of days sits in your sweat… the musk of horse beneath.” It sniffed between observations. “Soot from fire… sand untouched by sun.” “Very good, but nothing I didn’t know already. It seems I’ve found something you can’t detect.”
Another rattle rose from its throat, followed by more sniffing. “What did you bring?” it asked at last. “I’m not sure. I stepped through a stone that ran like water. I saw a structure beyond the craft of man and found within this… thing which you cannot smell, and I cannot decipher.” “A stone that runs like water… a Way Stone, yes.” “You know of this?” “Perhaps… but hunger dulls our memory.”
“Very well. I’m feeling particularly generous today. You will tell me what you know of these stones, and I will bring you meat.” “You will not. You will call it riddles and withhold the meat.” “You have my word, ghoul, as Grand Inquisitor. I shall feed you if you answer me truthfully.” It regarded me in silence for a time, then began to speak. “The stones that flow as water are opened by the sky. They pave the path to lands afar.”
“To where? I have been through two of the stones now. They led underground.” “Not under, no. Beyond. Beyond the land and sea. Beyond the sky and dark.” “What does that mean? What is beyond the sky?” “Many things. You have been, walked the silent places, yes. They were as we are once.” “Must you always speak in riddles!?” “We told you these would be your words!” “Well then speak plainly! You can’t expect me to believe that decay has taken your mind,
not after what I’ve seen. I know you’re not a fool.” “Our mind was once as yours, now altered… greater made, and lesser, yes.” “A thing cannot be both greater and lesser! There was no sky beyond the stones. There were chambers underground--or perhaps they were above ground--but utterly closed from the sky.” “That is why you stand here, speaking still.” “Just take your meat, you gibbering imbecile!” I tossed a hunk of raw meat through the bars, relieved that the ghoul should no longer speak
for a time, and returned to my inspection of the device. I performed a series of tests on the outer materials of the Crucible, finding little to no reaction with most substances. I decided the next step was to attempt to remove the glass so that I could inspect the substance within directly. Thankfully, this proved an impossible task, or I would not be here to write this record, and Thacea would not be here to read it. None of my tools were effective for prying the glass free.
I could not so much as mark it with blade, or hammer, or heat. Even the most powerful acid at my disposal was inert against the Crucible. Whoever crafted this device knew its dangers well. What followed I shall not describe exactly. Suffice it to say, I found a way to access the substance within, a mechanism built into the Crucible itself. I will not record the steps I
took to discover this, but once I had, the shape of the device changed. Three protrusions began to emerge from the rim of the cylinder, each slanting inward so that they met in the center above the glass. When the protrusions locked into place, the grooves upon them lit with green, and I heard a faint humming, as was present in the luminous chamber where I found the Crucible.
By reversing the steps I had taken, I was able to retract the protrusions, returning the Crucible to its original configuration and silencing the low hum. That was encouraging. Once more, I brought the Crucible into its humming configuration, but this time I progressed the steps further than before. Had I been looking into the glass from above, instead of standing to one side, I’m not sure what would be left to discover of my body.
With one final step, I heard the humming rise in pitch, and the table beneath the Crucible began to shake. Then all at once, a pillar of green erupted forth from the tips of the protrusions. The explosion was not like worldly fire. It shrieked as if with many shrill voices, far above the pitch of mortal men, and I realize now, as I record these events,
that I have heard the sound before. It was like the wraith that attacked me in the capital, when I doused its cloak in alchemical fires, only this time the voices were many. In a mad panic, I reversed the steps that had vented the wraithfire, but the damage was done. The roof of my laboratory was blasted open to the sky, and in moments the guards were at the door, shouting and pounding. As the door began to give way to the assault, I scrambled to stuff the
Crucible back into the sack of grain. I only just managed to submerge it when the door broke in. “Grand Inquisitor! The door was barred--are you harmed!?” A legionnaire came rushing in, followed by several others, weapons drawn. I stepped slowly away from the sack of grain. “I am quite alright, thank you,” I said, hoping that my face did not betray my racing heart.
“What happened? We heard a blast, and a green light shot into the sky!” “There was a… miscalculation in my work, but all is well now, I assure you.” “But… the ceiling has been destroyed.” “A minor inconvenience.” The men gawked at me in disbelief, but I maintained the facade. “Well… surely there must be something we can do.” “Yes, if it begins to rain, you can stand over me and hold an umbrella. But until then, I must insist you remove yourselves from my laboratory.”
They exchanged glances and reluctantly sheathed their blades. “The emperor will expect a full report--” “I have been writing reports since before you could hold a sword, young man. I know what needs to be done.” “Of course… we shall inform him in the meantime.” “My god!” another legionnaire broke into the conversation. “What is that thing!?” I turned to find him gazing into the cage in the corner, soon joined by the others. My heart sank into my gut, and I sidled closer to my satchel.
“A corpse by the looks of it,” a legionnaire answered. I peered around the men and saw the ghoul splayed out on the floor of its cage in a most convincing fashion. “A corpse of what?” “This one died to a particularly virulent strain of consumption. I have been studying the effects of the disease on decomposition,” I informed them. “Is this a vat of blood?” a legionnaire asked. The crimson contents of the vat began to tremble as he drew near them. “Please do not disturb my materials!”
“Where did you get so much? And why is there a circle of… salt?” “Gentleman, as much as I would love to discuss the sciences, I am already behind schedule due to the damage.” “Come on, men, we’ve wasted enough of the Inquisitor’s time.” “Let the emperor know that reconstruction must wait until I have properly secured and cleaned the laboratory, and until then it is in the interest of everyone’s safety that I not be disturbed.” The legionnaire nodded and led the others out.
“Except for the door!” I shouted after them. “The door must be repaired immediately!” A carpenter arrived not long after, and a new door was in place before long. I remained frozen where I stood until the new door was closed, then slumped down onto the sack of grain, holding my head in my hands. Everything had almost been undone. By sheer blind fortune had I avoided incineration. What was it Vendook had said? Some truths were better left buried. I was almost inclined to believe him then.
“We know what your prize is,” the ghoul’s voice jolted me from my stupor. “Oh?” I said, exhausted. “And are you going to tell me, or are you going to speak in circles.” “It is a prison.” “Wonderful. I’ll go and find some thieves to put in it… might have to chop them up first, though. It’s rather small.” “There are thieves enough within.” I stood from the sack and retrieved the Crucible. “Ah, how could I have been so blind!” I said, setting it back on the table.
“There they are--right there--swirling green thieves. And there goes a swirling green clergyman. Oh no… they’re headed right toward each other. Watch out, clergyman! Watch out for the thieves!!! Ah, but I was too late to warn them. Now they have collided into a tiny green vortex, as thieves are known to do!” “Most do not see what they do not wish to see.”
“And I’m guessing you smelled the tiny thieves in the tiny prison? Do you even hear the words that come out of your wretched mouth?” The ghoul did not answer other than to rattle in its throat. “This device, this crucible, is a weapon. The writings on the stone called it a weapon, something that could ‘strike down death.’ And the hole in my ceiling corroborates this theory quite plainly!” I returned to my analysis of the Crucible. Three configurations--silent, humming, and screaming…
at least so far. Silence was inert, no reaction, closed. Screaming was the wrath of almighty god, wide open. But then what was humming? An intermediary state… perhaps primed. This was the configuration I decided to experiment with further. I manipulated the mechanism with the Crucible until the three protrusions interlocked as the sides of a tetrahedron. Triangles. The openings of the Way Stones are triangular. There were pyramidal structures above and below the
Crucible. The ones who built these things were undoubtedly skilled in mathematics. The precision needed to craft such enormous structures, and not a visible fault upon them… the Way Stones tied to astrological events. Mathematics. Reason. Alchemy. Our greatest hope in the war. I began a series of experiments upon the Crucible in its humming configuration. No heat was given from the green light along the grooves of the protrusions, nor any reaction to
materials brought into contact with them. But the point at which they interlocked was another matter. What I describe will sound like nonsense, but I write it exactly as it happened. Using a rather lengthy set of tongs, I placed an object, a pair of iron scissors, just above the tips of the protrusions, and a sickly green light emanated from the Crucible. It was almost gaseous in form and rose to coat the scissors in its glow. When the light faded,
the scissors began to twitch. Startled, I dropped them to the floor, where they flailed about erratically, like a fish out of water, then fell still. I retrieved the scissors, but could detect no change in them whatsoever. The iron behaved exactly as it should. They could still cut paper. I returned them to the tip of the Crucible, and the process was repeated. This time
I did not drop them, and I could feel them pulsing with movement of their own. The force of it was weak, but unmistakable, as if someone were gently tugging at them for a moment, and then nothing. No matter how many times I repeated the process, the result was the same. I tried different materials, different objects. Each of them was coated in the green glow, then jostled about for a moment and fell still. I could find no pattern relating to size or material.
Sometimes larger objects would twitch for longer than smaller ones, yet sometimes the reverse was true. It was as if the Crucible was imbuing these objects with… well, not life, not quite. And yet it faded so quickly, but why? I looked to the ghoul, who sat in its cage, staring eyeless toward the hole in the ceiling. I did not care to hear any more of its smug assertions, but a thought occurred to me. I took a piece of meat from the sack, placed it in the tongs,
and held it above the crucible. Once it had absorbed the light, the flesh began to pulsate, contracting and relaxing as a living muscle would. I used the tongs to toss it into the cage, not daring to touch it with my hands. Reflexively, the ghoul snatched it up and devoured it in an instant. I watched intently for a while, observing no changes. “Well?” I said at last. “Well?” the ghoul answered. “Did you… enjoy that meat?” It rattled in its throat. “Always.”
“Did it taste… different to you? Smell different?” “You cannot harm us this way, Alaric von Beller.” “I could open my little ‘prison’ into your cage. I doubt even Dead Man’s Iron could withstand it.” “Do it then.” “Perhaps later.” The green light, like almost every other substance known to man, neither dissuaded nor affected the ghoul when mixed with its food. But the effect produced in the flesh itself was
of great fascination. Using the tongs, I doused another piece of meat in the Crucible’s light, then set it on the table. It pulsated rhythmically, maintaining its unnatural movement far longer than any other material I had tested. I noticed too that the green light took longer to enter the meat, or rather, the meat absorbed a far greater quantity than other materials had. Retesting with other objects corroborated this relation between the amount of light absorbed and
the duration which the object was given movement. Strangely, when placing a live mouse above the crucible, no light was emanated. Nor did light emerge for any living creature, neither insect, nor bird, nor cat. Only unliving materials or dead flesh evoked a response from the Crucible. The next step was an intact carcass, a fish. Of those I had plenty. The dead fish took in more light than even the piece of meat, and sure enough, it began to flounder in my hands.
When I placed it on the table, it flopped about, though more languidly than a living fish might. Upon removing its head, I found that the fish was unphased. It simply kept twitching, even as I dissected it. Its organs were all intact, but its heart did not beat. Only when severed into multiple pieces did the unnatural movements cease. The next fish imbued with light I placed into a bowl of water. It swam, or at least it moved in
some approximation of swimming, stiff and halting. I watched it for perhaps an hour as its movements weakened, until it turned on its side. The same fish could be brought again and again to the crucible, each time regaining unnatural movement for an hour or so before falling still. But these were not fish as I knew them; they were merely the flesh of fish imbued with movement.
They did not flee from me, even if I reached for them in their water. They made no attempts to consume bits of bread thrown to them, nor did they seem to notice if they were hacked in two; both pieces simply twitched on their own purposeless journeys for a time. And both pieces could be brought to the Crucible in turn, to restore their mindless energy. I slumped back in my chair, gazing with the ghoul at the hole in the ceiling. So many questions.
Why would a weapon produce this effect in unliving matter? Why did it not affect living flesh? For what purpose was this device constructed? “Death undone in the Crucible as words undying in the stone,” I muttered to myself. “Death undone…” But the energies of the Crucible did not reverse the effects of death. They merely animated the flesh for a short time. This was not death undone as words in stone. Words in stone
are permanent. So what was this? I got to my feet and took another fish to the Crucible. This time, I fastened the fish to a rod, leaving it suspended just above the protrusions, and sat back to watch. The light cast upon the fish, and soon it struggled weakly against its bindings. Yet as the minutes passed, I saw the light emerge again before the fish stopped moving.
Again this happened, and again, even as an hour passed, then two, then three. So long as the fish was kept above the crucible, the light prevented it from falling still. Suddenly I felt faint. I realized that I had passed most of the day without eating. I left my laboratory for a time, ate, bathed, slept, and when I returned, the fish still undulated above the Crucible. Perhaps death truly was undone in the Crucible,
so long as those it brought back did not stray from it. And then a thought occurred to me… could a man be brought back? I don’t see why not. For what is a man if not flesh, the same as fish? And even after all the light I had taken from it, the swirling glow of the Crucible was undiminished. It was a ceaseless engine of undeath, now in my possession. I needed only acquire a cadaver to begin the next test, a simple matter for a Grand Inquisitor.
The palace dungeons are the most reliable source of cadavers. There are always one or two available, and the guards never ask any questions. No one cares what happens to the remains of prisoners; they’re simply glad to be rid of them. I requested the freshest cadaver they had, and they left me waiting somewhat longer than it should take to haul a body up to my cart. When they did return, it was with the corpse of a man who clearly died only moments ago.
I thanked them and quickly returned to my laboratory. Moving the body inside by myself was an infuriatingly difficult affair, but I could not risk some bumbling servant seeing things unintended for his eyes. I managed to get the cadaver onto one of my tables before slumping over it in exhaustion. “Whatever you were in life, you will serve your nation in death,” I told the body. Getting the cadaver above the Crucible was simply not an option. Instead, I bound its arms and legs
to the table in chains and brought the Crucible to it. I turned the device upside down, placing the protrusions just above the cadaver's chest. The green light poured out, seeping into the dead man’s flesh for far longer than any previous vessel. Once the light had stopped, I placed the Crucible back under the suspended fish, which still swam languidly in place. I then retrieved my crossbow, loaded a bolt tipped with silver, and waited. Minutes passed in silence, then hours,
but the body remained motionless. I looked to the ghoul, who lay unmoving in its cage. “Two liars,” I said. “But you won’t fool me.” Neither dead thing answered me. I kept a vigil in the laboratory for the remainder of the day, but all was motionless, save for the suspended fish. I double checked the chains that bound the cadaver and locked the laboratory door before I left. I took my crossbow with me to bed, catching a strange glance from one of the servants as I passed.
The next day, as I approached the laboratory door, I could have sworn I heard the ghoul speaking on the other side. I paused for a moment, pressing my ear to the door. Its voice was low and hushed, impossible to discern through the wood. With my crossbow at the ready, I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The torches had been extinguished, leaving the laboratory in darkness except for the shaft of light that shone through the hole in the ceiling. I could not see the ghoul’s
cage and could only barely make out the table where I had left the cadaver. It was empty. “Very clever,” I addressed the ghoul in the dark. It was undoubtedly watching me with its eyeless pits. I crept carefully forward, listening for the slightest rustle. I had to get to the light. “If you tell me where it is, I’ll let you have it when I’m done with it.” “It is here,” the ghoul answered.
I stopped. No sound. This was foolish, I realized. It was what the ghoul intended, for me to move further into the room in darkness. But there was no reason I could not simply leave and return with a torch. I moved backward slowly, keeping my crossbow trained ahead. My back pressed against the door far too quickly. It was not the door. Cold dead hands clasped around my neck, and in a panic to remove them,
I dropped my weapon. I was lifted from the ground and my vision began to turn white. In a mad panic, I fumbled for the satchel at my waist. My hands closed around the blessed metal. I struck the chimes, and the hands loosened, dropping me to the floor, coughing. And then I heard it, a sound I did not recognize at first, mixing with that of my coughs. It was laughter. It was my laughter. Alaric von Beller, Grand Inquisitor of the Thacean Empire