Taran’s voice cracked. “She’s a What in the Naraka-Hells is a conduit?”

  Liora thought to herself for a moment before responding, “A conduit is a person that serves as a karmic bridge between realms, in this case between our human realm and Naraka, the hell realm. She unwittingly channels Void energy from the Naraka hells into this world, feeding the Rot which in turn feeds Life energy from our realm back into Naraka.”

  “So what, it’s some kind of sick perpetual motion machine?”

  “Well, except for the fact that the connection uses your sister as a focal point. More specifically, her Life energy is what is keeping the connection alive. When that…runs out, then she’ll—”

  “I get it,” Taran interrupted, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence, he knew well what would happen, “can you get rid of the Rot, or sever the connection, or do anything at all for her?”

  “Yes, the Lotus Society could help, but it comes at great material cost and takes more time than your sister likely has left,” Liora paused, thinking through the best way to approach this problem. They couldn’t go back to the Society, it was far too long of a journey. Yet, if they did nothing, not only would his sister die, but likely the entire village as well, and would create a focal point for further corruption to spread.

  “It’s not going to be easy… we can gather materials for a nullification potion, but we’ll need help.” Liora turned to Taran,“you mentioned you had to go see the alchemist before we leave, we’ll have to hope he is advanced in his craft.”

  The chaos in the village was starting to diminish as the people slowly came to terms with the destruction left behind in the storms passing. Taran kept his hood raised and hastily walked towards the Alchemist’s workshop with Liora following closely behind, eager to avoid any searching, blaming eyes and get on their way.

  They arrived at the alchemists hut in short order, Taran lightly rapped on the black gnarled wooden door. After a moment, the door opened to reveal a bespectacled older man, hunched back testifying to his long hours spent at the alchemist bench. His bushy white eyebrows rose as he met Taran’s eyes, a kindly yet sad smile spread across his elderly face.

  “Ah, Taran Sandhin… I thought I might be getting a visit from you, come in come in.” Taran and Liora walked in to the small, poorly lit house that smelled strongly of dried herbs and poultices.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I continue my work as we talk, as you might imagine there is quite the demand for an alchemist right now,” the elderly man walked back to his alchemy bench after grabbing a few handfuls of various plants, many that Taran had never seen before.

  “Of course not Alchemist Vessanta, please pardon the interruption, we wish to get on our way quickly as well,” Taran replied, gesturing behind him, “and this is Liora, she is a member of the Lotus Society.”

  At that, the alchemist paused once again and looked up, “Lotus Society you say… it’s been a very long time since we last had a member of your group all the way out here, what brings—” the alchemist stopped mid sentence and looked again at Taran. Taran thought his bushy white eyebrows might just fly off his face at how high he raised them in surprise.

  “Well now… awakened as a Seeker have you, Taran?”

  Vessanta took Taran’s hand in his as he looked him over once more, “Aye lad, it will be a long and painful path for you.”

  Liora stepped up next to them interrupting the moment, “Thank you Alchemist Vessanta, I will be looking after him during the…adjustment period.”

  Vessanta briefly frowned, and nodded curtly as he turned back to his work at the bench, “very well then, back to the matter at hand, I assume your visit is regarding your sister?”

  Liora shuffled around in her travel bag and pulled out a small book, flipping through the pages she found what she was looking for and handed it to the alchemist, “We need this potion for Anya, if we find the materials can you make it?”

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  Vessanta poured over the book for a time, “Aye, I can make it, but these materials are not exactly common out here, and then there is the matter of the Rot and Anya’s…current condition worsening.”

  Taran put his head in his hands, emotional and physical exhaustion finally threatening to overwhelm him. “Yes, as you have no doubt seen, our house seems to be a focal point for the Rot that is spreading in the village, Liora thinks she has become a ‘conduit’. I am hoping you would be able to keep an eye on her and do anything you can to stem the spread while we are gone. I know it’s a big ask, and I cannot pay you at the moment, but…”

  Vessanta, back turned to them, waved at Taran to be quiet. He frowned to himself, stirring the bubbling red mixture that sat over the fire, “Aye, a conduit is a danger indeed… I will do what I can lad. Payment is not necessary. I’ll tell you what, outside of what we’ll need for the nullification potion, bring me any interesting materials from your trip and we’ll call it even.”

  “For the potion itself, we’ll need a Godsplinter, any rank will do, ichor from a Prime Preta, and Maladhara Mushrooms from the deepstorm zone.”

  Taran’s Karmic Ledger pinged, golden Sanskrit briefly flooding his peripheral vision.

  [Karmic Edict Issued]

  1. Harvest Prime Preta Ichor

  2. Collect Maladhara Mushrooms

  3. Collect Clay-Rank Godsplinter

  Failure Penalty: Conduit Activation

  The alchemist pulled the bubbling pot from the fire and carefully poured the red liquid into a large glass vial.

  “And you’ll want to take this with you.”

  “What is it?” Taran said as he took the vial from the elderly alchemist and carefully inspected the viscous red mixture that seemed to swirl and move of it’s own accord.

  “This will heal wounds… only works for Seekers and tastes horrid I hear, but it’ll save your life in a pinch.”

  Taran paused to regard the man. Vessanta had always taken care of them. After the Fracture took their parents and turned him and Anya into outcasts and shut-ins, Vessanta made sure they had food and water, and kept the worst of the villagers at bay. Vessanta was never afraid of them, never blamed them for the faults of their parents. Taran was overcome with a sudden shame, here he was essentially punishing the man for his kindness, asking him to take care of his sick sister, exposing him to the most dangerous Rot outbreak the village had seen in generations, and he asked nothing in return.

  Taran cleared his throat to rid himself of the lump that had been forming, “Vessanta… thank you, for everything. I’m sorry to have put you in this position but I’ll make it up to you, I swear it.”

  Vessanta grinned, eyes sparkling, “Aye lad, I’m sure you will. Go along now, you have quite the adventure ahead of you.”

  Vessanta ushered them out of the door with a quick pat on the back, and just like that, Taran realized he could no longer delay his journey. Deep in thought, a mixture of excitement and dread came over him, overwhelming to the point he was able to ignore the stares of the villagers as he and Liora walked silently past the threshold of the village gates. He stopped and debated looking back, debated saying something to the villagers who had tormented him for so long. Would it make him feel better? Possibly. Would it help his sister? Definitely not.

  Sighing and shaking his head, Taran led them away, once more into the Ash Plains.

  After they were well out of sight of the village gates, Liora motioned for him to stop.

  Liora spread her palm out facing upwards, a rapidly solidifying image of a large leatherbound book took shape floating above her hand.

  Taran’s wide eyes and gaping mouth must have given him away, as Liora grinned up at him, “What? Do you think you’re the only one with interesting skills? I’m what The Ledger calls a Karmic Archivist, among other things I can track sources of corruption and the general location of Godsplinters.”

  The book opened and its pages fluttered until it stopped on what was clearly a map, a slowly pulsing red dot glowing some ways away.

  “This here is a Clay-rank Godsplinter fragment buried in the Ash plains. It’s part of what brought me out here in the first place, outside of your Awakening of course...Taran?”

  Taran snapped out of his distracted thinking that had tried desperately, and utterly failed, to grasp and explain what he was seeing before him.

  “Sorry, it’s going to take me a while to get used to this new world.”

  Liora barked a quick laugh, “Yeah, it’ll get easier, but as Vessanta just told you, ‘Lad, you’ve got a long way ahead of you.’”

  “That was a terrible impression.”

  “Hey, well, impressions are not actually what I’m paid for so I’ll take it,” Liora said smiling, her somewhat plain features lighting up with the brief humorous interlude.

  “So, what now? We just follow your map and get the Godsplinter and bring it back? Seems easy enough.”

  “If it were only that easy… generally speaking Godsplinters attract all sorts of nasty extra-planar creatures. You have your typical Naraka-Spawn, Pretas, and the like, but the more intelligent ones like Nagas tend to be drawn towards the energy as well. Luckily, a Clay-rank Godsplinter like this one is unlikely to attract anything too dangerous.”

  Taran stretched up towards the sky, shaking out as much tension and stress as he could, “I see… very well, let’s go get ourselves a Godsplinter.”