And she would need it. Before they left her alone, one of them said, "You were being controlled with pain, so you didn't hear your sentence. For killing our sister, you will be blinded - your eyes will be plucked out and eaten. For stealing the Feather of the Source, your liver will be consumed and regrown. Every time it grows back, we will eat it again."

Having finished speaking, the crow pecks out her left eye in two pecks. Then it sends Chaos to the tips of its talons which makes them atomically sharp. It claws an incision in Glitch's side and cuts out her liver, slicing it into 3 smaller parts. It removes a little Chaos from the incision which heals the cut but leaves her liver still damaged. 3 crows slowly eat their portion for her to see with her one remaining eye. When finished, the first crow eats her right eye.

The crows all caw with laughter for a few moments before disappearing.



She is freed.

The machines are missing power sources, but that's about it. Except the teleporter - that's missing the buffer matrix and targeting circuitry, so it would be dangerous to use.


A few Ratfolk and Crow skeletons, but nothing living.

She had at least a day before they would be back... Her eyes would grow back rather quickly but what they did to her liver would take time to heal and they likely knew that..... and if they didn't they would be even longer.

She started by gnawing away at the dirt under the computer so the hole couldn't be seen, first to see if there was a level underneath... and then if not to dig out a space under it and the nanite repair console. She would wire them together and use her electricy to power them. If there any nanites left or she can get any of her's up and running she will try and use the computer as a control system to build a power system in the floor bellow or the dug out space she made.

Given this will take some time as ether way.... once her liver is nearly healed she will crawl back into the stone and slowly shift back into the way she was.

Likely needing to make a metal/willpower roll.... as this will be AGONIZING.

She can't perfectly slide back into place so not only will her bones and body be stretching painfully into a new form but her skin will be scraping and dragging across the stone as it slides into place.

Thankfully this will just look like she has been struggling to get out.

Or so she thought

She just manages to get the nannite repair console up (no nannites present) and the computer console running. Her own nannites seem advanced enough to respond to the commands given by the console, but before she can command them to do anything (the computer took a long time booting up), and long before her liver is healed, she feels Rat warning her to get back into the stone immediately, and store anything she wants to keep in her toolbelt before its too late.

Well she didn't do much yet so there isn't much to hide but some wires.... so hides them and quickly gets back in place early.

The moment Glitch returns to form, a flash of light brightens the room and a crow arrives. It hops over to Glitch and draws the Chaos out of her side, restoring her liver to full health. Then it notices her eyes. "CAAH! It grew its eyes back! Oh, no it doesn't!"

The crow adds Chaos to its beak sharpening it, then removes Chaos hardening the beak, then adds Chaos to the water on its beak, turning the water to a harsh acid, then adds more Chaos to the acid to make it magically damaging. Then the crow slowly and carefully, in no less than 20 nibbles, eats her eyes out.

Once finished her eyes, it did the same to her side to gain access to her liver which it proceeds to eat. Once finished her liver, it leaves without healing up the hole.

On a flash of light the crow disappears.

Suddenly Glitch feels a Scriff vector far far above her head. Almost immediately it feels no more than 100 ft above her head.

Once she gets back out, the first thing she noticed is that the wires and devices she was working on are experiencing the effects of rapid entropy. In fact, there are nannites in the room, and they are fighting that entropy with all their effort.

This will likely go on for a few days, with the crows coming at random intervals, and Rat warning Glitch before each visit.

Lays there bleeding till the bleeding stops when it don't heal her wound before going to work. She works quickly to build some sort of power supply before she uses up the power she had stored inside her. She could ignore the pain but didn't dare as she was worried they would do worse if they didn't see her suffer. Her ability to sense weaver/order was weaker here but she didn't need eyes to use it and used it and her hands to work the machines... perhaps her spiritual senses would get stronger here in this place they where so weak.

She thanks rat for the warnings as she gets them.

The targeted entropy was... interesting and she figured the work of the feathers, working to brake down anything they didn't like or understand. Hopefully inside her pouch and the nanites in her body they would be protected.

She would see what she could do with the teleporter. Perhaps if she could use make a simple targeting device and use her nanites and scriff to work with it. She couldn't do a scan of anything but if she targeted a pocket of open air that had room for her near the concentration of scriff that her scriff was attracted to...... maybe?

Least she would get out of here.... worst case she would catch crows off guard, though she didn't think they would treat any other invaders to there realm with as much care as her.

She could try and include a return function just in case.

The first time she succeeds and build the power supply, her internal supply has dwindled to the last drop and she won't have enough to try again. Then she's warned to get to the stone before she can turn it on and use it to recharge. When the crow arrives, from her heightened senses, she can tell it is looking through the feather as it says, "What is this extra Chaos running through Ordered pathways?! Mine!" And without moving from where it is, it drains the power from the power supply and causes it to go inert and short out in the process. "Yummy Chaos!"

But the next time she looks at the equipment, the local nannites have repaired it - noting the presence of an ally against the unbalanced entropy, the nannites have chosen to aid Glitch's efforts.


*Bad roll*

In fact they were improved by being blind. Unfortunately her body wasn't prepared for the effects, and though she might have recovered from the loss of her eyes before, having recieved permanent Sense Wyld/Weaver/Wyrm sight, her body gave up trying to regrow her eyes. Unfortunately her Sight was still very weak and very nearsighted. She could only Sense out to about 3 feet around her.


*Roll*
She's able to make a teleporter which can target Scriff Vectors.

Just as she finishes creating the teleporter, Sgt Slotter steps out of the shadows within her Sight, his Scriff Vector suddenly right next to her. "Long time no see, old friend. I never thought I'd find you." He taps the side of his helmet, "Old faithful has been trying to guide me here for ages, if I'd've known you were here, I'd've come a hundred Verses ago. You look terrible, Glitch. May I try to heal you?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:30, Sun 24 Apr 2022.

She rubs at her ears and looks up kinda having a hard time recognizing him but recognizes the smell (maybe) and sound of his voice. "There are crows that guard this place, exspect me to be wounded. Rule this place with power, pain, and fear. Foul evil things."

Having another here though.... she tries to use the power supply to see if the replicator can make her a weapon of some kind and something to eat and drink. "If you wish to fight now, then yes... heal." She would like her eyes back, seeing only through the spirit was interesting but one needed to see the flesh to get the full picture.... and if they where going to fight she needed to get her strength back with a good meal.

Slotter pulls out a foil-wrapped flatbread sandwich, "I hope you don't mind, it's corned crow-liver paté on rye with Fireberry sauce. It was the last meal I bought before Versing here."

Slotter guides Order from his Order Knife into Glitch's side and heals her liver and side. The process is searingly painful and she winces. Slotter says, "Huh, that's odd. Order healing has always been painless for anyone else I've healed."

He tries to heal her eyes, but fails, then reaches into his bags and offers, "Here, you can have these. Their my 3rd last set of eyes. My current eyes are upgrades, but these use magic, tech and organic interface to function in almost any Verse, plus they come with full spectrum view, zooming and magnification. As a final bonus, they look like normal human eyes. Do you want them? I can install then for you if you do."

"To be honest with you, I didn't come here for vengeance or to fight anyone. I came here because I've finally given up fighting my way out of this sim. I'm going to go through the Cleansing ritual you told me about - how long has it been for you? The little guide told me it was The last thing I'd have to do to get home, but I can't harm anyone or else I'll miss my window of opportunity to Verse home and out of this damn sim.

"But I saw the crows you're talking about. They were up on top of the very mountain I intend to climb, absorbing Chaos energy from that unconscious creature emitting light for this ancient abandoned Ringworld."

After a few minutes of talking, Glitch feels Rat's warning to get out of there fast.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:03, Sun 24 Apr 2022.

"Ironic...."

When he talks of the cleansing ritual she says she is not sure it will work here, as the ritual takes you into the spirit realm and that would be very hard here, but the border mountains here would be a good match if he could pierce over into the spirit world, and the rite may be able to remove the scriff in his body if he can survive it.

She tells him it's only been a few weeks for her, that she has been stuck here.

She tries to use Rat mothers touch to heal her liver and eyes, before accepting the spare eyes.

When Rat warns her she tells him "We must leave, now."

*Roll & advance*

Her effort to heal herself results in the scars in her eye-sockets deepening, however, she gets the feeling that this may work in another Verse.

Slotter already healed her liver, and he gives her the eyes.

When she puts the eyes in her sockets and Slotter configured them for her, she sees that the room is in an even worse state of entropy than when she first arrived. The entropy feels like it's related to the excess Chaos energy the crows are throwing around.



Slotter nods and pulls a grey sheet from his backpack and throws it over the two of them, explaining in whispers, "These crows can see with Chaos vision when they look through the feathers, which is similar to Order vision when I look through my Order knife. Just hiding in a hole won't keep us safe, since they'll be able to see the Order and Chaos in us and in the trail we leave behind. If we teleport with my Order Knife, like I did from the opposite side of this Ring world, they'll see the line of Order pointing right to where we teleport to, (also since spiritual powers are all but useless here we can't use the Ways), so we'll have to go by foot wherever we go. I picked up this blanket when I needed to hide from Magehammer, because it cloaks us from magical perception as well as physical perception - only spiritual perception could still see us under this cloak."

Just as he finished explaining, 6 of the crows teleport into the room in a flash of light, "Cargh, where did it go? I missed my liver breakfast!"

"No doubt the Weilder of Order freed it."

Looking through its feather, "Then where did they go? Where is their trail? They did not simply vanish. The ancient ones left, they should not return with Order to bring their rules with them. We are the heirs of the Source."

"Siblings, we are not flying rats, we have wisdom to do better than complain. Come, the Murder is meeting in a few minutes, we must tell them of its escape. Together we'll decide what must be done."

"All of you should meditate more when you feed. At the top of the world, we create the night by satisfying our hunger in our sleep, and wherever we go we permit the day by our fasting. Ours is the charge to rule with wisdom. The thief of fire and life will suffer for its crimes, Source will see to it. So shall it be!"

"So shall it be!" the rest agree in unison.

Then they leave in a flash of light.

Slotter leaves the blanket over Glitch and himself, "Will you lead me in the cleansing ritual up to the top of the mountains, where the crows sleep? Either way, let's get out of this collapsing basement."
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:45, Sun 24 Apr 2022.

She nods some "You have an extra knife?"

She nodded some. "We are not sure it will be safe while the crows are looking for us, but maybe while they sleep...."

Well she learned something, these creatures where causing the deadly cold by feeding on the sorce of heat and chaos here. Entropy was trying fix things and restore balance...

She reminds him the ritual means leaving your stuff behind for the ritual to work, so if they don't defeat the crows it will have to be when they are all asleep. Though he could likely wrap up all his stuff in the cloak and they wouldn't find it if they woke.

"Well, no but I can let you have this one." He hands the Order knife over to Glitch, but it burns her hand to be near worse than you'd expect cursed Silver to burn. "Huh... Never seen that happen before. I guess I'll have to keep it."



"Yeah, my little guide told me I'd have to give up all my stuff." He takes the backpack off his shoulders and hands it to Glitch. It's got the same basic universality that most Versers use, so she'll be able to retrieve her stuff even in places her toolbelt wouldn't work. "I don't have nearly as much as I had when we first met, but what I have is yours. I'm certain we're supposed to take this blanket. It doesn't protect from the elements. It actually causes wind to blow right through you."



By using the cloak, they'll be able to scale the mountain without great fear of being found. Even if they lose the blanket, though, the storms that happen every night, (gale force winds rushing down the mountainside, carrying supercooled air from the highest parts of the atmosphere) are so full of Order mixed with Chaos that the crows wouldn't be able to see them through the feathers.

He follows her lead in the ritual in all other ways, and he won't give up for any reason.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:44, Mon 25 Apr 2022.

She wonders if it has to do with the fact she ate that feather as it didn't bother her before that and they are clearly fairly opposing forces. When they get to the winds that conseal them more she tries to use the somic/spiritual power of purge toxin to get the feather out of her body. This removes invasive matter the quickest way possable... which should be going to the bathroom at this point... or sweating it out if it's permeating her body. If she can get it out she will try and reshape it into a bracelet or something she can wear instead to see if that helps. She will use the power of the feather to help remove it if she has or if it will help.

If it won't work she will just make a note to try later.

She has never had an inversion to order like that before after all she manipulates weaver spirits all the time.

She will just wrap the knife up if she can't get a way to touch it otherwise.

"If the spirits of this place do not send you strait home, return and we will return your stuff." She will act as his guide help reinforcing the ritual, help guiding him through it but reminds him that she can not help him in any other way or heal him.... and she can not go with him when he passes through into the spirit realm but she will wait for his return till the spirits tell her of his fate or he returns.

((Do write out as much of the ritual as you can, I'll fill in the gaps afterward.))

Taking the Order knife, Slotter removes the Order Nail and hands the knife without the nail to Glitch. No problem. Then he tosses the nail at her, and she snatches it out of the air like she's a magnet for it. As soon as it touches her aura, electricity from her leaps out to the nail which flashes white and reforms. Instead of being a Black Order Iron cylindrical nail, it has become a White Chaos Iron triangular nail. It feels far less powerful than the feather was, though.

She talks to herself a moment before responding. "This is not wyld/weaver... choas/order of other kind... they do not work together in any way do they?" Her ears twitch a little "This is bad for the balance...."  She puts the white nail into the knife.

The ritual was a simple one they climbed the mountain into the snow and chilling winds. When they where high up above the snow level Slotter would strip himself of all his equipment and all that protected him from the winds. Then they would meditate and cry out to the spirits calling that they have fallen and seek the harsh judgment of the mountain and are prepared to face what ever that judgment may be no matter how harsh it may be. If the mountain accepts them a blizzard will descend on them, one so thick it blocks out all vision of there soundings as a passage into the spirit of the mountain opens up. Slotter then must push forward into the harsh winds... continuing into the winds till they clear up or he parishes. If he cleansed the mountain will judge him pure and the winds will give way and he will find himself at the peak of the spirit mountain, likely to gain a boon from the spirit there for facing such a trial. If his taint is to great it will likely kill him but he will still be cleansed as the wind strips the flesh from his body and leaves him a frozen husk on the mountain side. But he will pass on to the next world pure.....  maybe quite literally because of the scriff but she doubts the mountain will allow that once he commits to this. It is a deadly ritual for heavily tainted fera to try, let alone a human. However the spirits will look well on such bravery and reward it.

The snow on the mountains began only a few hundred feet up. The mountains were about 50 miles high, so it would be about 10 days to reach the summit. They stopped after the third day, being almost a third of the way to the top. Glitch was finding that she was able to withstand the cold better than normal.

Slotter cried out as instructed, being sincerely penitent, and the blizzard to end all blizzards began to buffet and blow against him. Neither of them can tell if a passage to the Spirit realm has opened it not, but they both continue.

Blunt blades of hail barrage Slotter, tearing at his frost-bitten skin down to the bone, but Slotter keeps moving forward. The hail flies faster flagellating Slotter's unprotected body. Within a few hours, most of his flesh has been torn away while his Somatic healing ability desperately fights to keep him alive. He keeps going even when all his musculature has been stripped away, his movement powered by cybernetic implants.

Then they see, stretched out before Slotter, a vision of a million Slotters trekking up the mountain for a million years, and a booming deep female voice pronounces, "Even if you climbed for Eons, you would owe more for what you have done. For Eons you have been an intervention of mass murder."

Something breaks in Slotter's mind - something stubborn and tainted. He sees what he has done. He understands the pain he has caused. In desperation, he falls to his bone knees sobbing through eyes without eyelids, "I know... There's nothing I can do to fix it. If I agree to never go home, can my wrongs be undone? I'll do anything!"

The winds die down, and a giant skeleton the size of the mountain reaches down and takes Slotter's invisibility blanket and extracts metals from the mountain in one motion. It squeezes its first, and places a dark cloak on Slotter's shoulders, and hands him a scythe. The skeleton picked up Slotter and throws him. His Scriff vector vanishes.

Then it looks to Glitch, "You have been cleansed, what is your intention?"

She is a little supersized by all this not expecting this outcome, though she's never done this before. Though she was fairly sure she wouldn't revise any benefit just being a guide and not taking part...after all she was protected from the winds. She looks up at the figure trying to tell what kinda spirit it is while asking it. "Will he find his way home?" knowing some spirits will hold one to such pledges while others will take such pledges alone as enough. As for her....  "I will return to stop the crows from hurting people, try and restore balance to that place."
This message was last updated by the player at 03:21, Tue 26 Apr 2022.

Not entirely - she still experienced a hefty amount of cleansing wind. But, being a guide has benefits of its own.


It's the spirit of the planet. Apparently, with the single mountain range running the entire length of the ringworld (which is constructed as a Mobius strip, and which she can see the shape of from this place in the Spirit Realm), the Spirit of the mountain is also the Spirit of the Ringworld. It is exceptionally Order oriented, and feels almost dead, even though it is more powerful than Gaia would be. It can't be said to be evil, but it probably wouldn't have a problem causing mass extinction either. One could call it good, but not by ego-biased standards.



She answers, "He is already home, though he can never go back. Once he understood what he had done, his mental dam against the guilt for his actions broke, and he was able to know his guilt and express it. Acknowledging the truth by his own volition was all he needed to do. Nothing short of this ritual could have succeeded. But his life is not finished and his karma debt must be paid. So he has been assigned as an angel of death. His first collection will be his wife, then his children."



"Balance will be restored when the crows no longer bring night. Being of Ordered Chaos, bring Chaos or bring Order. The choice is yours. The balance will be restored either way."

The giant skeleton planet-god vanishes behind the constellations, and Glitch find herself at the top of the mountain with Slotter's backpack.

She is only a few yards from a crow's nest and can see inside. The nest is an observatory covered by a clear glass dome. Inside the dome there are fruit trees, vegetables, a fresh water stream, and a large nest of branches and twigs sitting on top of a collection of computer consoles. The Chaos Feather drawing in Chaos from the Source and is sitting in a super bright white fruit tree which is emitting its own light. The tree has many small white fruit, and one very bright larger fruit. There's no door in the glass.

Being on top of the mountain, she can see the other side - the outer rim of the ringworld is a space station. But there are no lights and only a few old-looking small ships.

She asks if bringing it the Wyld would keep it from dying if she can before it vanishes. The death of a celestial is always a thing that should be prevented....  unless it is corrupted/fallen/lost. >.>

Checks to see if the computers are functional at all.... she's whats the deal with the tree and looks for any crows around.

She will try and use the reshaping gift to twist the feather in on itself like I talked about weaving in a way of ordered chaos into a braided bracelet of feather fibers.

((I don't understand what you mean. How might that be done,?))


((Is this communicated as well? If so...))
She comments, "Everything that has a beginning has an end. I have outlived the star I was built around - my first husband. I am ready to shed this mortal coil."


She can't tell from outside if they work, but they're not lit up, and they have lights that could light up.

There is a single sleeping crow in the nest on the consoles.
((I don't know what you mean, but Engineering works for this too. Once she gets to it))

Nothing much has happened since she's still outside of the dome of glass which is sitting on top of the mountain. Below the glass dome on the inside is an artificial floor. On the outside, everything is covered in a layer of snow.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:45, Wed 27 Apr 2022.

(well that depends on what kinda machines power this place and run it and if she can get them online when she gets out to the space station. Also how powerfull the fruit is.  One idea is, if the ring world has some way if interacting with the black hole, injecting the fruit into it and powering up the means of interacting with it.... altering it to turn the ring into a ritual circle and shift the black hole into a spirital rift drawing a wyld realm or powerful wyld spirit through. ....   end up creating something like the eye in 40k uncorupted and just spilling out life and nature in it's chaotic rawness. It if the spirit is that weak it would likely trasform/rebirth it or kill it and cause a new one to be born. Down side is the stuff living there would have a hard time living under the sorts of radiation coming out of it... so while a lot would addapt a lot would die out too.   On the good side a LLLLLLOOOOOOTTTTT  of life would spring up over the ring world and the univurse would have a beachhead for spirits and spiritual energy)

"We may be able to bring back life... if not your own, another to take your place....  Many may die, many more would be born and balance would come to your world at least...."  She wasn't sure it even wanted this as not all spirits wanted balance in things after all.

---

She would try and act quickly to use steal the feather, and use it and the chaos knife to kill the crow. Then she would pull the concealing cloak around herself and try and make her way down into the space station.

If it looks safe and her blood isn't screaming that it's a bad idea.... she will wrap something up around the largest fruit and steal it too before sneaking off.

No invisibility blanket left for Glitch to use, but she gets the idea to use the Chaos knife for Chaos Invisibility - although that wouldn't hide her from the crows.

((What black hole?))
Thinking about the Source, she looks at it and for the first time can see it more clearly now that there's hardly any atmosphere between it and her - it is a star sized Chaos Pheonix.


*Rolling for intelligence*
Fortunately she's smart enough to realize she has to get through the glass before she can do anything, so she uses the Chaos knife to add Chaos to the glass, causing it to crack, turn opaque and finally turn to fine sand.

Then the feather is too high to reach from the ground - how will she get to it?

EDIT: The Spirit is ambivalent about the idea either way

EDIT 2: This fight scene has a few potential surprises, or it could be over fast.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:17, Wed 27 Apr 2022.

Ok I think I missed something or missread, or forgot....

Just for some clarity what is the ringworld around?

Where is the sorce, and whats a chaos pheonix?  Just a big bird made of chaos energy?

What dose she see when she looks at the tree/fruit with her spirit sight... same with the phoenix.

Just need a better general idea whats going on....


Also are there space stations at the other towers the crows are sleeping at?

It's reasonable to suppose Glitch picked up on all of the following in the Spirit Realm.

Originally the Mobius ringworld slowly rotated around its star to provide the whole length (both sides) with an equal amount of daytime and nighttime. The single 50+ mile high mountain range ran the entire length (both sides, top and bottom) and the whole single edge (left and right) was one long space port where ships could dock etc.

Things happened, and now the ringworld no longer rotates, and is provided with heat on the one exposed section by the minor Chaos god, the star sized Chaos Phoenix. The Phoenix is the Source.

Glitch sees a tree full of Chaos and Wyld energy, full of potential. The Phoenix is the embodiment of a minor god of Wyld and Chaos.

Since she looked through the Chaos knife, she also sees a clutch of eggs under the sleeping crow.