Using the hidden office to perform the spirit-calling is an awkward choice, but as it's shielded again Scrying and Spirit Magic it is actually the most secure. Thistlebark in the walls prevents spirits from entering and leaving, but not from being conjured. It's not the most comfortable place, though, with few places to sit.

"I used to have some incense from the Temple of Sunala," Thath notes. "I suppose I've used it all, or lost it over the years. Do you need to prepare a ritual?"

"No, I don't," Alptraum says as he paces for a bit, feeling the void of the room and finding it a bit ... uncomfortable. Still, it's what's available. Giving up finding a nice seat, he sits down on the floor instead, crosses his legs, and folds his wings about himself. "Sit across from me," he requests, steadying himself by breathing long and slow.

As a slight concession to age, Thath takes his time lowering himself to the floor. "Should I breath deeply as well?" he asks. "I admit to feeling nervous. This was never pleasant when using the srinala."

"Well, it generally isn't pleasant for me, either. I need you to relax and focus on your wife. Everything you can remember about her that made her. The distinctness from all others. I need that to find her threads," Alptraum requests. "And, this will be weirder than anything you've done before I suspect. We're going spirit walking, you and I, into the twilight between existence."

Thath closes his eyes and bows his head, with one hand over his heart. His lips actually tremble slightly. After a few moments, he offers his left hand out to Alptraum. At least his breathing seems calmer now, with less trembling.

Alptraum reaches out with his right and takes Thath's hand. This time, the world should be built from Thath's memories, not his own. So, Alptraum focuses on Thath's feelings, his breathing, and then slowly links himself to Thath physically through the shadow. As that slowly sets, they begin to breathe in exact time to each other; and even their heartbeats slowly synchronize. "Go back to a happy memory of her," Alptraum says, "It's always best to start with good memories when stepping into the veil." Then while trying to be the one in control, he tries to synchronize the space around them, a projection of sorts, just out of step with their own; a new domain. Only this one is built through what Thath feels and remembers; Alptraum acts as the conduit and source.

Things build slowly. There's an impression of fresh air and sunlight, a balcony. The city beyond is hazy, either because it isn't important to Thath at the moment or because of an actual have. Everything is indistinct in the environment, with the only clear thing being the figure standing in the sunlight. White fur seems to glow, glossy hair spills forward over a shoulder as she turns. The eyes are the clearest, then the smile, and finally the face. Melisandre looks like she's about to laugh about something, but there's no sound, and things seem to freeze at that point as Thath's emotions begin to overcome him. But to Alptraum it feels as if there's an actual barrier at work, something resisting the memory.

"You're fighting it. Don't fight. Let it flow. Let her flow," Alptraum says. "Quit punishing yourself and let yourself remember her."

"What curse? Explain?" Alptraum inquires as he focuses back on Thath; trying to find anything that might represent the curse, not unlike that odd horrib spirit did for the prisoner.

Thath calms himself again, but certainly doesn't have any magical influence on him that Alptraum can sense, other than the echo of Melusine in his vampiric nature. "It isn't a curse on me, it is a curse on her. On all of those women who failed him. It makes it hard to remember them. It is an active thing upon her spirit. Not to punish the living, but to punish them, making sure they fade from memory. That is who he was, with all of the Yodh at his command. My memories of her in death are stronger than those of her in life now."

"Well, now that I cannot allow to continue. He's gone, and this is my domain. He doesn't get to pick those that go to oblivion," Alptraum says, sounding perhaps a bit darker. Certainly a bit angrier. His focus now shifts to Melisandre instead; trying to find a pattern, or something 'eating' at her, as a possible representation of such a curse here.

"Here," Thath says, offering his hand again. "This is not a good memory, as it is after her death. It is from the first time the srinala was used, when I was the anchor."

Alptraum takes that hand. "One thing I have learned in all of this and the beings I've dealt with ... to control one who was immortal, you need to know their true name. And I know the Sabbaoth's, who he was before he took that title. Lets see if I can use it to unravel whatever echoes of him remain upon others," he notes, darkly.

This time the memory is clearer, and so is the connection, since there is a figure that Alptraum recognizes, although much younger. "I cannot do this," Yodhsunala Mariamara says, with a frightened undertone. "Thath.. it would kill me or worse." "Then use me," Thath growls, unseen as the memory is from his point of view. But the anger is there, fueling him. Anger, desperation and hatred. "Your life will not improve by defying me," he threatens.

"I remember her. She raised me for a time," Alptraum notes, quietly. "She's my first memory, in fact."

"You.. you might be strong enough," Mariamara admits, "Your blood is needed." There is a small ritual, a dagger across Thath's right palm that creates a wound disturbingly similar to the one that had appeared on Alptraum's own palm when he first became host to the dead Shadow. In the memory, Thath forms a fist to squeeze the blood into a ceremonial bowl. There's incense lit, and dizziness. This is immediately followed be burning, as if he was walking through a wall of flames. "You must push through," Mariamara is heard to say.

Alptraum grits his teeth since he can feel this. He pushes forward as he can; this is Thath's memory, so he has to let him drive it, and not try to control it.

Sea of Souls
A grey, cold sea stretches in all directions, seeming to merge with an unseen horizon, the vault of the sky above as distant and uncaring. Within the sea, things move, and on closer inspection, the grey "water" proves to be something entirely different other. Within it surge the faces of the dead, rising and falling like waves, as each individual struggles to break free from the sucking morass of the sea. Features blur and run together, individuality difficult if not imposible to maintain. Occassionally, one figure does seem to emerge above the rest, triumphantly regaining the form once known in life...but inevitably, the tide pulls at it, calling it back down to join the rest.

The prominence they stand on seems familiar to Alptraum. It's very similar to one from a nightmare of meeting an angry Sunala and Barsunala. But it's clearly not meant to be a natural outcropping of stone, since the outlines of some surface features suggest a Babelite tower that's been tipped almost completely onto its side, but so ancient that the surface has been weathered into an approximation of natural stone.

Thath is bent over next to Alptraum, and he's actually burning - or at least, that what it looks like is happening to his spirit. Alptruam is next to him.. so this is now, rather than a memory.

"I know this place," Alptraum notes, quietly, then starts when he sees the flames. He panics and quickly tries to call out the shadow here to smother them!

This cool cloak does extinguish most of them, but not all - because some of them seem to be coming out Thath himself, from deep inside his spirit, as if trying to burn away the other flames. They're black and shadowy as well.

"What did you do to yourself?" Alptraum has to ask, perhaps sounding a bit horrified Thath would have any aspect this similar to his own.

"There's a reason bardiphath are shunned in Babel," Thath says. "It isn't present in all of us, but in some it is stronger. The reason we're so much more.. robust. Because we can draw nourishment from more than just the protein in blood."

"I know. We are more attuned to the spirit as well, and draw from it as much as nutrients in blood. It's why I can do what I can do, and why we are also capable to bind to other spirits," Alptraum says. "It is a curse that Rosalind had to carry too, when she took over for her Father; because only she could."

"Whatever the source or consequences of it, it let me reach her, where Mariamara's spirit would have been burned away," Thath says, then points down the slope of the outcrop-tower. There's a cave near the waterline that might have once been a balcony.

"Come on, she is your wife; she will know you. She won't know me," Alptraum notes and helps Thath to stand straighter, as well as walk with him for support. "If I had to guess, it probably comes from the earlier Necromancer wars in Sylvania," Alptraum says as he walks slowly. "When Amenlichli, as Amena, was having her proxy-war with her sister Nala. It damaged the lands and changed the people that lived there."

"There are things in Sylvania older than Amena," Thath says as the enter the 'cave'. At least inside it seems more like a natural formation, but they are descending below the waterline of the Sea of Souls now. "I think that land is battlefields all the way down, until you can't dig any further."

"Very likely," Alptraum agrees, "I've only seen some of its history through the eyes of the dead. I saw the birth of one of its forbidden zones when ... it's not important; sorry. Are you in pain? I shouldn't have brought you along."

"I'm always in pain, but I barely feel it now," Thath claims. His aura is a bit frightening, so it's no wonder Mariamara caved under his anger. It doesn't seem possible to be able to think through that, but Thath seems to only become clearer minded from it. "Mind the leaks. The souls at the lower depths are biters."

"I don't think they'd dare biting me. One useful thing about being me, I suppose. The supernatural do give me a bit of a wide berth," Alptraum jokes. "I ... should probably warn I deal with difficult situations by trying to find some humor in it. If I don't, I just get angry, and in that .... you and I would be mirrors."

"It takes years of practice to hone your anger into something useful," Thath claims, as the tunnel begins to open up.

Forest of Failure
Within a vast, dark cavern there is a forest of white-barked, glowing dead trees. They all seem hunched over, with four branches reaches up and sometimes out from the twisted trunks. Almost all of them are paired with a small stump as well, although these do not glow and often appear burnt. The long twigs at the end of the thing branches sway in an unfelt wind.

"Don't touch the trees, or look too closely at them," Thath advises, and heads into the forest. The trees further in look slightly less withered.

"Remind me to tell you about the Disenchanted Forest sometime. It makes this place look cheerful," Alptraum comments as he goes with Thath.

While there's no wind to be felt, Alptraum does hear it, although it's more of a subtle sound of sobbing coming from all directions.

"Wives, concubines.. and their daughters," Thath says with a nod. "They failed the Sabaoth, so here they stay, forgotten and decaying."

"I have to undo this. This cannot remain," Alptraum says. Now he's extending his focus, trying to find any clue that might hint how to unravel this place; to break this curse.

The curse isn't just old, it's active - as in it is still being maintained by someone. The forest may hold over a hundred trees, but Thath stops next one that stands a little apart, past the point where the other trees end. This tree hasn't fully twisted yet, but it also has a stump before it, closer than those of the other trees, and still connected via a long root to the parent.

Alptraum starts trying to trace who is maintaining it. He cannot let this place remain. He just ... can't. It's wrong; this place is wrong. He's probably more focused on this now and hasn't even notice Thath stopped.

"I can imagine what you're doing, but now isn't the time," Thath says. "You'd do better to deal with it back in the real world. But you probably realize that the Yodh maintain this place."

Alptraum shakes his head. "They shouldn't be. There is no reason for this to be maintained now," he says, frowning. "Not by them. I was changing them; this ..." His hands clench tight until his left palm starts to bleed a little from his own claws.

Thath mimics the gesture with his right, but doing so to deliberately draw blood. He smears his wet palm across the bark of the tree, and it begins to soften. Upraised branches becomes arms and wings, albeit wings stripped of their vanes and broken to be able to stretch like that. Their positions don't change, as the limbs are bound to a Babelite crucifix, with four arms instead of two. Melisandre's head hangs low, her hair gone to white as it falls nearly to the ground, past bound ankles.

"I shouldn't have come here." Alptraum thinks, but he doesn't say. He can barely look at her, knowing that someone is being tortured like this makes him feel sick.

"I'm so sorry," Melisandre whispers, though she hasn't looked up. "I left you incomplete. I brought on the fall of Babel. I have encouraged your father's vengeance."

"You have nothing to apologize for. The world and beyond have not been ... fair, to you," Alptraum says, though his voice is rather quiet and a bit halting. "How do you even know who I am?"

"I've watched you, seen you suffer," Melisandre whispers. "It is part of the curse, to watch your loved ones forget you. But you never knew me, so you could not forget. I exist in Thath as his hatred."

"I'm sorry our people did this to you. And that I have not ended it; I did not even know of it," Alptraum admits and looks down himself. "This is my fault too."

"No, you are just a victim," Melisandre says, and lifts her head. Her blue eyes are clouded now. "I wanted you. But it I didn't know the danger of a srinala giving birth. I wanted Babel burned. I wanted the Yodh to be slaughtered. But above all, I wanted the Sabaoth's line to end, just as my line was ended. He denied us our family, so he should have to lose his as well. You're doing it. Differently, but the outcome is the same. All that he did will be undone, the Yodh will be.. different. Humbled, those that have survived. The Sabaoth's Babel will be wiped away and buried."

Alptraum approaches and haltingly reaches out to touch her. "Right now all I want is to save you from this place," he admits. "I struggle daily with wanting save my people one moment, to burning them all away the next. It's easy enough to blame some great evil, like Amenlichli for all of this ... but the real truth of it is, if we weren't fallible in the first place, she wouldn't have been able to turn Dronnell into the Sabbaoth. This place, this curse, the evil our people are capable of; are we really worth saving at all?"

Melisandre actually turns her check towards Alptraum's hand. "I've heard an odd saying. Foreign. Foreign to Babel, certainly. Living well is the best revenge. I've come to see that. Destroying your enemy, and all who supported them.. that is the Babel way. But defeating them and hearing the rest turn on them, denigrate their achievements, laugh at them. That is more satisfying. Let Babel move on, but never forget their guilt. They will decide their own fate soon."

"The hardest thing for me ... with all my power ... I can't undo things like this. I can't give you your life back. I can terrorize, I can punish, and I can play parlor tricks, but the moments when I really want to do something ... I may as well be dust for all my usefulness," Alptraum admits. "Then I get angry, at my own weakness and inability to right a past wrong in the way I want to."

"You are much like your father," Melisandre says. "Having to find ways to use your power to change the future when the past is fixed. Do you think the Babel of today has prospered from your father's rage at being helpless against what has gone before?"

"No. And there was a time I could have killed him, in true Babel tradition, for the war, and all the deaths, and all the torments I've had to bear witness to without being able to change. But I chose not to, in spite of my anger, in hope that maybe it would change something," Alptraum admits. "But it doesn't lessen the feeling of one's heart being torn by ... this place, and the so many others like it that litter history. This is a twisted version of the Well of Souls in Sylvania. But, twisted is also in the eye of the beholder. In that pit, those that ravaged the lands were locked in eternal torment too, to face their crimes. I'm sure some apply that logic to this place and thus is is 'fine'. It's all perspective. How do you balance that? How do you know what is truly right, versus what is right only from a certain perspective? Is there any real single truth from which all can be measured? And if not ... what do we do? How do we decide? Do we follow our hearts? Our anger? Logic? Each provide a different perspective of right. How do we avoid from ultimately becoming a monster?"

"These circumstances make us monsters when we stop questioning them," Melisandre claims. "Under the reign of the Sabaoth, nothing we did was considered monstrous. Because it wasn't considered. He shaped the city and what was normal. And was normal was what was best for the Sabaoth. He was our god, above even the Kindly Ones. I offended god by refusing him, but I served him by not putting him through disappointment. I did not know this would be my fate. I did not know of the long line of women before me. And I never considered it either. It was just the way things were. So, if you can question your actions and your motives, then you are unlikely to be a monster. At least, if you do do something monstrous, you'll know it, and not think it is not something to consider."

"As long as I don't lose hope," Alptraum points out, quietly. "I am a warden of a prison that contain some very dangerous and horrible creatures; more powerful than the Sabbaoth was. If I lost all hope, all faith in people, be it Eeee or other; what would stop me from simply letting them all free and to devour this world? I hold in my hands immense power, not political, but just raw destruction of everything if I wanted to use it. And there are times I do, and that scares me. Will there come apoint I've been beaten down so much into hopelessness that I finally give up and just let chaos reign? Can I even trust myself? I keep going over and over in my head how I'll ask my friend to end me before I become what I hate."

"If this world beats you down to that point," Melisandre says, with venom in her voice, "then it deserves to be destroyed. There may be nothing of me in you. But you are my son. The world rates somewhere below that."

"The thing with hope, is that the more you give the more you feel," Thath claims, which sounds strange coming from him.

Figuring it is pointless, but he has to try anyway ... Alptraum extends the shadow here over Melisandre to see if he can free her from her horrible bindings; if his 'role' in this world will let him take her with him. Failing that, perhaps he can at least ease some of her pain and restore her a bit more back to how she was.

Her eyes do clear, and her hair takes on more color. She isn't going to revert back into a tree, but her bindings are still tight. Alptraum can feel the energy that maintains them, though, and should be able to find its source now.

"Destroy the past for me," Melisandre asks. "Make it a thing of shame and disgust. And if all else fails, destroy the Yodh. That will free me, and all the others here in this secret hell."

Alptraum nods and looks down. "For what it's worth; you will be a grandmother indirectly. So, your line hasn't completely ended," he tells her. "I have children. Well, will, they are yet to be born."

"Name a daughter after me," Melisandre requests, and then smiles. It makes her look more radiant. "She will grow into a great beauty then, I'm certain."

"I think Rosalind would be fine with that," Alptraum claims and nods as he withdraws his hand and steps back. He then looks to Thath and asks, "Would you like some time with her alone to talk? I can ... go elsewhere here to give you some privacy."

"I'm not comfortable here," Thath admits. "She barely notices me. Only my blood.. or spiritual equivalent. She is right, however: she lives on in me as my hatred. And the longer I'm with her, the stronger it will grow."

"Because I no longer love her," Thath says softly. "It has been consumed to fuel the hatred. So that I cannot forget her, or forget those who wronged us. Who brought about this hell. But, it does make me feel closer to her. There is that."

"Now that is a lie. I do not believe you do not love her," Alptraum says with a bit of finality to it. "Suppressed to keep her alive, such as it is, because part of you can't bear to lose her fully." He shakes his head and turns back to Melisandre, then steps close. He actually goes up enough on his toes, and with shadow help, so that he can kiss her gently on her forehead. "This hell will end, and you will know peace," he murmurs, then draws back away. "Lets go," he tells Thath soon after. "This place makes my soul ache."

Leaving is far easier than entering, since no traumatic memories are required. But when they open their eyes back in the small, isolated room Alptraum brings something back with him: the scent of the power that is maintaining that hidden pit.

"I have to shut that place down," Alptraum notes, grimly. "And I am sorry that I put you through that, again."

"I'm sorry.. what are you talking about?" Thath asks, sounding confused. "I couldn't focus, forgive me. It's been too long, all I have are impressions of her now."

"You do not remember?" Alptraum asks, eyes narrowed slightly. "We walked in twilight, down into the Sabbaoth's Hell. You introduced me to her."

Alptraum nods. "Yes, we were. You claimed you no longer loved her, so that you would not forget her," he notes, sadly.

"That does not sound right," Thath says. "I would remember. I remember the srinala, and talking to her.. but not what we talked about. The more I try to recall, the harder it becomes. I feel spent. Did I wake her? Did you talk?"

"You did, and we did," Alptraum says, "And I know where I have to go to undo the curse on her, and the others."

Thath rubs his right palm absently. "The Yodh," he says. "It always come back to them. It costs me a small bit of my spirit to rouse her, down there. It makes things murky immediately afterwards, but I will recover."

"You should have let me do that. I have more to spare," Alptraum points out, gently.

"You needed to keep your head, to not forget things while they were fresh," Thath says. "Besides, I don't know if it would work for you. I was the anchor."

"And I wanted you to have time with her," Alptraum admits and sighs. "I am a sentimental fool."

Alptraum nods. "I just ... I find it hard to believe they're still actively maintaining it. It has to be some sort of anchor or relic powering it without further support. I have to believe that, or all the work I've done to try and change the Yodh was a joke," Alptraum admits and looks down.

"The only ones left that might be maintaining things are the Yodhsunala and Yodhrephath," Thath suggests. "I somehow doubt that what's left of the others can do much. And the Yodhblakat were never big on rituals."

"It's likely the Yodhsunala, that's their domain," Alptraum notes. "My sisters, as it were."

"I will. I know its scent now, so I can follow it. I don't see the world quite the same as an ordinary Eeee. I see subtleties in magic and feel, sort of. It's hard to explain," Alptraum admits and shrugs a little. "Even among my own kind I don't really fit in."

"Eeee?" Alptraum points out, confused. "Life was simpler when I was an idiot sneak-thief."

"Good at it? Yes," Alptraum says, "Fulfilling? Not really. It was for survival."

"Most of the horrible things done in Babel were for survival, but it was because the Sabaoth set it up that way," Thath says, and the corner of his mouth twitches up into almost a smirk or a sneer. "I was very good at survival in that world. I learned what I needed to, knew how to play the Sabaoth's game. Your mother and I are creatures of that world. And when I'm done.. I'll be the last piece of it left. And then I really will be the one in a position to destroy the last bit of the Sabaoth's legacy. It's taken me a lifetime though. I'm going to make myself obsolete."

"No killing yourself," Alptraum says and rubs his face slowly. "I couldn't save Melisandre. Or the Srinala. Or any number of others. At least let me save you. Please."

"That is not what I mean," Alptraum says as he gets up too. "It's not just a physical ask, it's an emotional and spiritual ask too. I want to give you reasons to live, other than spite and revenge."

Thath has to pause. "I don't know what I'll do," he says. "My skills are not exactly useful outside of a specific environment. What do seniors do when they stop working, besides die?"

"Entertain grandkids? Write a book about their life? Take up a hobby like painting? Travel? Do weird things like plan to visit every brothel on every continent?" Alptraum ticks off. "Flower arranging? Interperative dance? Build a pillow fort?"

"Perhaps the Compass Rose is still available for some work in that regard," Thath ponders. "But first, I must rest, I fear. And finish my various plots and counterplots scheduled before lunch tomorrow."

"You're free to stay the night of course," Thath says. "Do you mean to be here when the Royal Mages launch their attack?"

"I still don't know when that is, and I need to see what is in that chest first," Alptraum notes. "I will be in the city, certainly. But the specific location I can't say quite yet."

"And you will be hunting among the temples for that root?" Thath asks.. or suggests.

"I absolutely will," Alptraum notes, "It's going to bother me greatly until I find it. That whole place made me hurt."

"It is very good at doing that," Thath says, and opens the hidden door into the library. "But not for much longer."

"Just so. I think I'm going to go take a nap; that took a lot out of me," Alptraum admits as he follows after. "I'll stay the night, and leave early to deal with things. Lots and lots of things. Mmmm, nap."