Soul Reason

[Faith Augustin]

60th Vhalar 718

Things were set up, there was no doubting it. They had the satellite clinic, the people here were starting to accept them, but Faith was noticing something and she really, really didn't like it. People here were dying. No matter how hard she worked, no matter how good the medicine, they were getting ill and they were dying. "It doesn't make sense!" Faith said to Alissa and the Biqaj who was her friend and bodyguard nodded. "I know that Faith, but you have to sleep. Oh, I don't know why I bother." Alissa knew Faith too well to think anything else. Faith would do what she always did, she could not stand by and let people die. "I don't understand why you can't just.. take a break."

Faith was silent for a moment and then she spoke. "Because of every pair of eyes that turned away. Everyone who knew, who saw, who witnessed and turned away. Because I will not be them. I will not attend to my own comfort when people are in agony, I will not attend to my own greed when others are starving. I will not." Alissa sighed and nodded. "And because you're a stubborn pain in the ass who won't do as she's told." Faith grinned then and nodded. "That, too."

She was surrounded by bits of information, there were maps on the wall in the office she had in the small satellite clinic of the Order of the Adunih here in the Dust Quarter. Pacing up and down the room, she shook her head as she thought it through. "It's not contagious, there's no pattern. It doesn't make sense."

There was something deeply frustrating about this to the young healer, and yet, Faith knew she had to solve it. It wasn't behaving like any kind of disease she'd ever come across, and add to that, there were just....


.... "Oh no," she said, and she frowned. Then, she grabbed a pencil and started marking on the map on the wall. "Why didn't I see it?" Alissa watched her with a raised eyebrow, knowing full well that Faith would not hear any questions at this point.

"It's them. They're not crossing over. The ones who... this isn't natural." Faith's frown was dark and a rare expression on her face. "I've been looking in all the wrong places."

► Show Spoiler

Faith / Order of the Adunih / Isonomia work and work - can't find a cure. People are dying.
But Faith then realises that actually, there's something in this disease which is stopping the people who die from passing over, every single one of them is becoming a ghost / entity.
Eventually, she finds that it's not a disease, but a sort of chemical / alchemical warfare thing - by a necromancer and alchemist together- who are working to experiment with making the body (animated) as an anchor

[Faith Augustin]

... two breaks later.

Alissa frowned slightly and held up her hands. In the two breaks since they had stood in this office in the Dust Quarter, the satellite clinic of the Order of the Adunih in Rharne, Faith had been like some kind of woman in a frenzy. Books, scrolls of maps and lists, all sorts of records had come out and she had pinned lists and notes to the corkboard on the wall with an almost rabid determination. "I don't understand, what are you saying?" Alissa asked. Faith sighed and purposely slowed down, starting again at the beginning. "This illness, it isn't one illness, Alissa. It's two things." Faith's voice was earnest and she looked at Alissa with a grim expression. []i"The patients we have managed to cure have a different disease. A lung disease, and I think we've managed to cure most of them except the most vulnerable. But then, there's these."[/i] Faith pointed to the list she had ~ some of them alive, many of them dead. "They have not responded to the cure at all. Not at all. It's a different disease." Alissa frowned, but nodded. It was true that they had been working on the assumption that roughly one in three people responded to the treatment at all, and of those seventy five percent were cured.

"But if it's two diseases.. no, wait," Alissa said and she frowned. "How do you know it's two diseases? The symptoms are the same, aren't they?" It might well seem that way, Faith said, but it was the reaction to the treatment which had been her clue.

"The thing is," Faith said, "those who have no responded to the treatment at all have done just that. No response. No change. Not good, not bad, not indifferent. To anything. That's not right. No one doesn't react at all." As she glanced over Alissa's shoulder, at the ghost who had been here since she started talking. "The treatment should reduce their temperature. It is just basic medicine that it should do that. Why isn't it, Alissa?" The biqaj looked at Faith and shrugged. She didn't think that Faith was actually expecting an answer - and she was right. Faith, it seemed, was on a roll of answering herself.

"It isn't because whatever it is that they have is stopping it from working. It's impacting the body in such a way that their biology is overcoming the treatment. One disease, the one we're managing to treat, it's taking away, attacking. But the other? It's changing them. It's like it's driving their souls out of...." She stopped, unceremoniously, and she looked at Alissa with suddenly wide eyes. "It's not biological. It's not natural. It's.. damnit all, I need books on Alchemy. Magic. Divine Marks. Anything that gives the appearance of illness. Lisirra... get someone to get them for me, would you?"

Alissa looked at Faith and nodded. She didn't ask what, she didn't ask why, she simply did. Faith, meanwhile turned and left, making her way to the morgue. She had a theory and she needed to test it. And for that, she needed a subject. Someone the disease had taken recently, preferably one from each list she had clutched in her hand; the disease which she could cure and the one which, until this moment, she had not even recognised as what it was.

Manufactured.

[Faith Augustin]

60th Vhalar 718

Unfortunately, there were a lot of people dying and so, Faith was able to examine two bodies with ease. It was far from unusual for her to be down here, she made sure that she was involved in all aspects of life, death and the in-between, after all. Even were she not a priestess of Famula, she would be respectful of the dead but, she was a devout worshipper of Famula and Vri, so to her tending for the dead was a religious act. So, she had worked for a few breaks, carefully anointing the bodies and then examining them carefully.

And, as she always did, Faith worked with meticulous precision. Which meant that she took her time and that, in the end, was enough for her to realise what would be the most important thing. She had teetered on the edge of it for some time and now, she realised that there was a pattern which she had not seen before. Lifting her head from the magnifier as she examined the blood, Faith's frown was one of perplexed incomprehension. "How... how?" She couldn't fathom it, was having trouble believing it, but she lowered her gaze back down and there, in the blood, it was obvious. Something was very different about the two blood samples and Faith breathed in.

Then, she finished what she was doing, completing the prayers for Vri and Famula, and she closed her eyes, briefly concentrating. "It isnt that they've ignored you," she said, opening her eyes which now glowed a deep crimson. "They can't see you. It's the only logical explanation. I'll help you. I'll help you all." With a prayer of thanks to Famula for the lantern which she lifted in her hand, Faith turned to the first ghost. "One at a time, I'll help you all."

She would, she could and she did, but by the end of it, Faith was exhausted and tears ran unashamedly down her cheeks. She had let them through, each one of them. Using the Lantern granted to her by Famula, the young woman had needed to connect with each of them. Because this disease, whatever it was, it was not allowing them to pass.

Faith had helped literally hundreds of souls to cross over in her time. That wasn't what caused the tears to run down the young woman's face when, some five breaks later, she helped the last one. No, it was the fact that she knew that each soul was, in effect, a witness. What to, she did not yet know, but they had information and so she had to ask them. The problem, of course, was that they were newly dead, confused and afraid. More often than she would have liked to, that meant that Faith needed to connect with the ghost on a very personal level, to share their experience of their death so she could understand where they were. Faith's level of discipline was enormous, but those breaks were enough to push her into tears. Faith, as a rule, didn't do emotions very much ~ at least outwardly ~ but in this circumstance she was overwhelmed.

But she had so much more information than before. And in that information, patterns were forming, Faith knew. Patterns which would lead her to the culprit. In the moment, it was all too much and she was overwhelmed. Equally, though, she had helped over a dozen souls to cross, even though they were, as far as she could tell, invisible to the Immortals. Who had done this and how she did not yet know, but she had blood samples and experiences, recent history stored for each of them. There would be a commonality, of that she was sure.

And in that commonality, who was doing this, killing people with a manufactured disease which made them invisible to the Immortals who would take them on to the Afterlife? That person or persons would become known and then, Faith promised Famula, Vri, Moseke and Ymiden, then she would go and have a very serious conversation with the culprit.

Very serious indeed.

[Cervantez]

Soul Reason

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Points awarded: 10

Injuries: Major emotional trauma from sharing the death experiences of a number of people. Faith is going to suffer from this for a number of seasons, it's going to haunt her dreams etc.

Knowledge:
Detection: Spotting the difference between what is, and what seems to be.
Detection: Seeking patterns
Investigation: No matter how crazy, if it's the only thing left - it must be right
Investigation: Looking alike doesn't mean being the same.
Research: Sometimes, finding a solution is a long, hard slog.
Research: Looking in the right place, helps.

Notes: This was a really good read, and I like Allissa and how she knew Faith so well. It's nice to see the woman of such fame work and really immerse herself in her devotion to her patron Immortals and her work. I'm a little worried she'll run herself ragged if she keeps going like the Idolas Energizer Bunny.

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