I was starting to get pessimistic about finding answers, after the first two people Jones had directed me to. They asked a lot of technical questions, and I don't doubt that they knew what they were doing, but they'd never seen or heard about a ceremony like the one I'd described. There were two more on his list - a psychic and a mage who was currently studying unusual religions in a town up north. The psychic was in Rhy'Din, so I visited her first.

Sersara's waiting room was a bit jarring. It wasn't the dark wood or velvet curtains hanging all over the place - I can accept that atmosphere matters in her business. No, it was the motivational posters. Not something I was expecting, and it didn't jive with the rest of the decor. Her place smelled like pine - a cleaner, not the wood furnishings - and not much else. She was coming out of a hallway when I stepped in, setting the little string of tiny bells hanging from the door to jingling.

"When you return to the empire, you should seek her at the river to the east." She was talking to me, but I didn't have a clue what about. "That is, if you want to rewrite--" She blinked, squinting at me, then shook her head with a rueful smile. "Oh, sorry. Too early for that. You have other concerns at the moment, don't you?"

None of that first part made the least bit of sense to me yet, but I figured maybe that was part of her shtick. Pretend to be plugged into some vague future to hook whoever was coming in, then get down to actual business. "Yeah. Don't have any plans to visit an empire any time soon. Right now, I'm lookin' for information about a ritual someone I know used. To try an' barter with somethin' or other for my soul, or somethin' like that." Wasn't exactly the case, but it was close enough.

"Fewer things are interested in souls than you might think, Mr. McTirin." She must have seen my surprise when she said my name, because she smiled and pointed to the door, where her sign could be seen through the frosted glass. "Psychic."

She gestured toward the hall, and followed me down it. The circular room at the end smelled like incense, though a different variety than Jones used. The walls were completely covered by dark curtains, and the only other things were a small table with three stools sitting around it, all shaped like squat cylinders and draped with more dark fabric. On the table, resting on an ornate brass base, was an honest-to-God crystal ball. "Have a seat, and tell me your story." When she came in, she tugged the curtain closed behind her, making the walls uniformly hidden.

I did as she asked, telling her the same version of the story I told Jones, while she stared into the ball. I half expected it to light up, and smoke to start drifting out of the base. It didn't, though, just remained colorless and slightly cloudy. So she wasn't using cheap tricks, at least. I got back to watching her while I wrapped up. "...so, what I'm lookin' to find out, is just what he was tryin' to sell me to, and where he went."

She nodded, pulling her gaze away from the crystal. "You're not telling me everything. I don't blame you, but I hope you understand that I'm not going to pretend I don't know something just because you've omitted it. Okay?" I blinked at her and nodded. "Good. It sounds like something very dangerous. And it would likely be much more dangerous if it gathered your swiftness to itself. You should be careful."

I leaned forward, placing my elbows on the table. "Try to be. I figure the more I know about whatever's goin' on, the better prepared I can be, yeah?" I glanced around at the curtains. I thought I'd spotted movement in the fabric, but I wasn't sure. "And maybe I can prevent it from happening again."

"Perhaps you can. Let us see if I can tell you anything about this K'lorkanto or what he was trying to contact." She reached across the table and grabbed my hand, the one I was wearing my ring on, and peered down at the crystal. I was watching her face at this point, so I don't know if there was anything for me to see when her eyes got wide, impressing me with the amount of white she could show me. She pulled her hand away from mine and scrabbled back from the table, striking the crystal in the process.

I've heard a lot of screams. It kind of comes with my night job, so I've gotten used to telling them apart. There are some screams that are happy, some sad, or surprised - good or bad surprise. Then there's mortal fear, and terror of something worse that the possibility of losing life and limb. Sersara's scream had a lot wrapped up in it, mostly shock and terror. Some fear and even some sadness, too, along with something else, deeper than any of those. It was disturbing, and it sent a shiver down my spine even as I reflexively moved to catch the crystal.

I chanced a look down at it, wondering if I would see whatever she had, but it was just a sphere of quartz. I set it back on its pedestal as I moved around the table, to check on the psychic. She had pressed herself against the wall, pinning the curtain, and her eyes were now squeezed shut as she shook her head over and over again. When I took hold of her shoulder and shook her, she opened teary eyes and looked up at me. She repeated the same four words over and over again.

-

It took a while, but I finally got Sersara to calm down. She was still shaky, but some of the terror had gone. She wouldn't tell me what she'd seen, or how to find it - she insisted that no good could possibly come from looking for it, whatever it was. When I tried to pay her for her services, she refused, and I heard a heavy lock slide into place after she led me out. What she'd said while she was cowering against the wall was ringing in my head.

"It should not be."

It was enough to make me feel like a pinball. Was I wasting my time? I was starting to think I might be. Doctor Phinneas Roth was a professor at a small university in the middle of nowhere, and that's where Ophiuchus sent me. When I got there, class was still in session, so I hung around by the open door until he was finished.

"Can anyone give me some examples of rewards that a religion might directly provide to its worshipers?" I glanced in to see him leaning against the front of his desk. He didn't strike me as being particularly strange, at least not at first glance. He was somewhat short and wiry, but he was wearing an ordinary suit, leather patches sewn onto the elbows of his sleeves. He was looking out at the class through a pair of glasses with circular lenses.

"The power to heal or dispel the undead?"

Doctor Roth nodded. "There are some who believe that those abilities are actually inherent in the clerics themselves, and that their belief is merely giving them the confidence to use them. Still, assuming the normal way of looking at them is correct, that is a good example. Anyone else?"

A young lady in the front row raised her hand. "Inner peace and fulfillment?"

Her professor tilted his head to one side. "Those are often considered benefits of religion, but I am not sure I would agree that they come directly from the religion itself, or its gods. Often the same people who feel that way about their religion would feel the same about another if they were indoctrinated into it first. Even a religion that is entirely made up - I daresay one could feel quite fulfilled worshiping a bowl of stew." He glanced down to his watch, then looked back to the class. "Not that I would recommend trying it, especially if the stew is sentient." A few of his students snickered at that, but there was one that looked familiar to me who visibly blanched. Maybe I'd seen him at the Dragon some time. "Try to come up with some more by next time, and ask yourselves this: is it still truly a religion if it provides tangible benefits, or is it more akin to following the wishes of a powerful man in the hopes that he will throw a few gifts your way?"

The students filed out, more than a few glancing up at me while I leaned against the wall by the door chewing on a cinnamon stick - smoking wasn't permitted on the campus, and I didn't feel the need to antagonize anyone by ignoring that rule. Roth was the last one out, and he raised his brows as he stopped to peer at me. "You know, you're rather tall."

I couldn't help smirking at that. "I've been told. You're Doctor Roth, yeah?"

"Indeed, but not even my students call me that. Doc will do just fine. You're the young fellow Andres sent, am I right?" I raised a brow at that - he didn't look much older than me - and nodded. I didn't get a chance to say anything else. "In that case, let us use my office to talk. There is an elven history class scheduled here shortly." He continued to talk as we walked down the hall. "Much better than when I shared a classroom with the magical creature biology course, I must say. Pixie dust got everywhere, and nary a month went by without a student accidentally rupturing some beast's acid gland or some such thing that would ruin half the furniture. When someone opened the jar holding that Ravenous Vorpal Termite, that was the worst." We'd gone up a flight of stairs, and down another, by this point, and I was wondering if he was lost. "Well, no... I suppose the worst was when Doctor Huckabee forgot to take that conculamabline's pheromone gland with him. I do teach about a few religions that utilize orgies as a form of worship, but that does not mean I welcome my students deciding to partake in such rituals. Not in my classroom, that is; they can do whatever they like on their own time, of course." He finally reached a door that had his name painted on the frosted glass, and quickly unlocked it.

Doc's office was, I saw, quite cluttered. There were books everywhere, and a number of strange statues and symbols set apparently at random - icons of religions I've never heard of, I guessed. There were three leather chairs arranged around a table, whose surface was completely covered by books and papers, that I supposed served as his desk. Off to one side was a locked cabinet, which seemed a bit out of place there, though I couldn't say why. Along with the smells of paper, book glue, and leather, there was something pungent that I couldn't put my finger on. "Ophiuchus said you might--"

He held up a hand, signalling me to wait. "Just a moment, please." He removed his glasses and set them on a shelf, then closed the door and gestured to one of the chairs. He moved to unlock the cabinet. "I'd like to get a bit more comfortable." When he opened the cabinet, the unusual smell got stronger, and it became nearly overpowering when he pulled out a vial and popped the cork. "Nasty stuff," he muttered, before he gulped it down. I had to rein myself in from jumping out of my chair as his skin began to bubble and shift. It was unsettling to watch, whatever form of shape shifting he was employing. By the time it was finished, he was at least a foot taller, with mottled scaly grey skin. His suit had become a pair of loose trousers, his legs much longer, and his head had become long, wide, and a bit flatter - like something between a raptor and a toad. "Much better." His voice, curiously enough, hadn't changed. "Now, what did you need help with?"

That was when he looked my way, and caught me staring. He smiled, faintly, and I could see a row of tiny, sharp teeth as he explained. "Ah, you weren't expecting this, were you? I'm sorry, perhaps I should have warned you, but I do forget that some aren't used to it. You see, when I was a young man, sixty-odd years ago, I needed to secure funding for higher education. Jobs that paid well were not in abundance, so I volunteered for magical studies. Testing new spells, potion mixtures, that sort of thing. Paid well, though there was of course some risk. This was the result of a failed wart removal spell - don't ask me how something designed to do that turned me into a slaad, because I haven't the faintest idea, but it did. A friend supplies me with polymorph potions tailored to my current biology, but it is uncomfortable wearing a shape that is not my own. Still no reversal process to be found, unfortunately. Now, your problem?"

I couldn't hold a monstrous form against the guy, so I launched into my story, so far. I skipped over the same details I had for the others, and wrapped up with Ophiuchus telling me to check with him at the university.

"Familiar." Doc frowned, and began to shuffle through a stack of books. A long, dark red tongue flicked out over his snout a few times before he found what he was looking for. "Here we go. I think I've heard of what your wizard was dealing with." He flipped through the pages, talons tearing the edges of the paper slightly. "Or something like it. Here." He set the open book on the table and turned it toward me.

There was a diagram of circles, similar to the ones I'd seen where K'lorkanto had held me, but not quite the same. "Looks like it's related to it. Not the same, though." I pointed to one of the circles, then to another two spots. "There were two smaller ones here. None here. And there was another one on this line. Two close to be a coincidence, though."

He nodded. "Old ones. Dangerous to play with, probably more dangerous to make deals with." He closed the book. "You were very lucky to escape at all, let alone with your health and sanity intact. If your friend was not so before he vanished, I'm afraid he will be quite insane should he ever manage to return here." He slid the book toward me. "This one regards Thub'Shugorsh. Nasty sort. Gives his worshipers inhuman strength, which they then tend to use to tear each other limb from limb. Along with anyone else they come across, that is. Not the one you are dealing with; I don't know who that is, because I do not think it is healthy to delve to deeply into this sort of being. But, there are probably common traits. It seems you have already drawn their attention for some reason, so I see no harm in letting you borrow this."

I thanked him, glad to finally have something, even if it wasn't good. I promised to get the book back to him when I was finished with it, and headed home.