Loren had made it very clear that Remi had tried to tear out his own throat before the summoner had forced enough Healing on him to keep him alive against his will. That had been the last thing anyone had seen before the alchemist's disappearance, along with his daughter's broken body and his husband. "We'll have to find him, first," Jigano said quietly. "Which will mean opening more portals..." Something the Voice and her Ascended were very keen on doing, conveniently enough.
"If the Atheneum burnt down we would, indeed, be in trouble." Considering how often things burned down during LongNight, that was an excellent point. "There's Sam's bookshop, but that's quite small in comparison." Oliver's sullen surrender had the bard biting back a sigh of exasperation, and he focused on his magic to distract himself from shaking the boy. "It's a good project for you to undertake, Oliver, I'm just not sure who has the technical ability or knowledge to help you assemble such a thing." Other than the Voice, perhaps, that mysterious mistress of all things mechanical.
He used the time while Oliver retrieved a last box to breathe deeply and calm his exasperation, and when the blond returned he took the crate and settled it into place with a grateful nod. Taking up the handle at the front of the cart he grunted and began to pull, the iron-shod wooden wheels rattling over the rubble. "I don't want her to, either. It's been a matter of concern since we discovered her other discarded experiments," he admitted. "But the Ascended won't hear a bad word about her. They refuse to consider that she might be using them... and she does treat them far more kindly than the old gods treat most of their followers." He sighed. "She buys their loyalty and love with trinkets and powers and sweet words, it sounds like. And perhaps they're not completely replaceable... not for the moment, at least. They're few enough in number that she can't afford to spend their lives wastefully. But... eventually... they may find themselves going the way of those that came before, as she perfects her craft on newer 'children.'" He glanced over his shoulder, arching a brow at the young man.
"No words I've spoken to my friends among them has been able to convince them of that, though. And surely you've seen the manifestos and propaganda that have gone up in the Temple and Noticeboard. Do you have any ideas for how to break such thorough mindwashing, when facts alone won't work and they go to her of their own free will?"
"If the Atheneum burnt down we would, indeed, be in trouble." Considering how often things burned down during LongNight, that was an excellent point. "There's Sam's bookshop, but that's quite small in comparison." Oliver's sullen surrender had the bard biting back a sigh of exasperation, and he focused on his magic to distract himself from shaking the boy. "It's a good project for you to undertake, Oliver, I'm just not sure who has the technical ability or knowledge to help you assemble such a thing." Other than the Voice, perhaps, that mysterious mistress of all things mechanical.
He used the time while Oliver retrieved a last box to breathe deeply and calm his exasperation, and when the blond returned he took the crate and settled it into place with a grateful nod. Taking up the handle at the front of the cart he grunted and began to pull, the iron-shod wooden wheels rattling over the rubble. "I don't want her to, either. It's been a matter of concern since we discovered her other discarded experiments," he admitted. "But the Ascended won't hear a bad word about her. They refuse to consider that she might be using them... and she does treat them far more kindly than the old gods treat most of their followers." He sighed. "She buys their loyalty and love with trinkets and powers and sweet words, it sounds like. And perhaps they're not completely replaceable... not for the moment, at least. They're few enough in number that she can't afford to spend their lives wastefully. But... eventually... they may find themselves going the way of those that came before, as she perfects her craft on newer 'children.'" He glanced over his shoulder, arching a brow at the young man.
"No words I've spoken to my friends among them has been able to convince them of that, though. And surely you've seen the manifestos and propaganda that have gone up in the Temple and Noticeboard. Do you have any ideas for how to break such thorough mindwashing, when facts alone won't work and they go to her of their own free will?"
