I am Tohmas, a Talkative Nano who Tells Tales, and this is a Postcard from the Ninth World.
The characters leave the Metcami estate and return to Charan’s Hoof. There, they take some time to examine the Scythe. Uraz, who is trained in Numenera, determines that the blue-glowing glass in the handle is a “Soul Gem”. Such gems contain (depending on who you talk to) the soul, spirit, essence or memories of a person. They try to contact the person within the gem but do not seem to be able to do so.
Elas decides he does not want to get involved in something involving the city nobility and leaves, but there are many other adventurers in Charan’s Hoof and they soon encounter two others who can help them. The jack “Billy” has heard that they may be facing some opposition and offers his services. The glaive Rosalina has seen visions of the other characters in random flashes from the Datasphere and has come searching for them. Yeti, Tanasia, and Uras accept their aid.
After welcoming Billy and Rosalina to the party and filling them in on what is going on the group decides to go check out Drell and Shen’s last known location. To that end, they head towards the east end of town.
This part of Rarmon is still mostly in ruins; the reconstruction of the city has not reached this area yet. There is trash in the streets and squatters are living in many of the buildings. Suspicious eyes watch them as they make their way down a street partially blocked with debris from fallen buildings.
Tanasia suddenly senses trouble. They look around to see a group of four youths have stepped out in front of them while another four step out from side streets behind them. The leading gang members taunt the characters, calling them “townies” and asking why they were there.
The group attempts to intimidate the gang into letting them through but their efforts only result in laughter. The gang draws daggers and combat is joined.
The fight is brutal but extended when Yeti finds himself surprisingly trapped under a fallen gang member while Tanasia has two of her Cyphers suddenly merge into one and explode, injuring her severely. But outside of these incidents the battle quickly goes in the character’s favor. Four of the gang members are killed and the other four flee into the ruins. Tanasia and Billy attempt to loose arrows at them as they flee. One gang member is hit but he still manages to get away.
The group continues towards their destination, the inhabitants of the ruined neighborhood avoiding them. They find it to be an odd, three-sided building seemingly made of dark-blue glass. The building is surprisingly undamaged, standing out among the ruins around it, and stands about a dozen meters in height.
The characters search the area but can’t find any way into the building. They then start discussing their options. Looking around, Yeti notices that the shadow of the building does not match the building itself; it is just the outline of the building. Then Billy notices that his pet Shorty is missing.
Billy calls Shorty and the skecsis comes running out of the building, passing directly through the glass. They think at first this is some sort of illusion but attempts to simply walk through the result in bruises as they walk into a solid wall. “Billy” then gestures to the building and tells Shorty to “fetch”.
Shorty happily runs through the glass again and comes out carrying a stalk of some kind of plant. Unfortunately, when he drops the plant at Billy’s feet a bulb at the end explodes in a shower of spores. Fortunately, they do not seem to affect anyone.
Finally, Uraz decides that the problem is that they are seeing the building. He closes his eyes and walks forward, through the wall. He opens them to find himself inside the building.
The rest of the group soon follows and they are all inside. Looking around they see that the ground floor is covered with trash and debris. With his Numenera knowledge, Uraz can determine that the wall of the building is made of a Schrodinger wall. As long as it is being observed, it exists. When it is not being observed, it does not. The “building” itself is just an open framework.
There is a spiral staircase leading upwards. After some deliberation, the group heads up the stairs.
There they find a room that is mostly empty but containing several canvas bags and sacks. The floor is made up of a heavy canvas tarpaulin (like a sail) which is attached to the framework of the building. One of them looks under the tarp and sees a solid glass floor, at which point everyone feels the floor become more solid. They comment on the difficulty of living in a building where the floor disappears the moment you don’t look at it.
They search through the bags. Most of them are full of clothing; once fashionable and expensive but now worn and patched. There are also a few trinkets of no discernible value.
One bag contains what they recognize as drugs. There are 6 crystals containing liquid. Tanasia recognizes these as Sensation crystals. When crushed against the skin the liquid enhances all senses, making everything more vibrant and intense. It could enhance perception, but it could also enhance damage as the pain is more intense also.
There are also three woven packets holding a coarse, yellow powder. This she also recognizes as Dust. When inhaled, this gives you visions; sometimes of the past or future, sometimes of other places, sometimes of what they think are other dimensions. The effect can be unsettling.
The characters collect the drugs. There seems to be nothing else of interest on this level so they continue to the third.
This level also has the canvas floor, as well as two “hammock-like” beds. On one of the beds lies the body of an old man.
The characters check and find that the body has been dead for a day or two. His shirt and coat are opened and he is lying back on the hammock as if relaxed. There is no evidence that he was resisting or fighting whoever killed him.
There is an odd diamond-shaped wound on his chest. They compare it to the blade on the scythe (currently being carried by Tanasia) and determine that he was killed with the same weapon.
After some debate they decide to use the Dust they found to try to figure out what happened. Tanasia agrees and uses the drug, but can somewhat direct the vision she receives.
In her vision, she sees three people in the room the old man lying in the hammock, an older woman, and Betis. The man and the woman talk a bit (the vision is visual only, no sound) then embrace and kiss. The man then lies down on the hammock and opens his coat and shirt.
The woman gets the Scythe out of one of the bags and goes to the man. They talk a bit more then he closes his eyes and she shoves it into his chest. Tanasia sees the glass on the hilt light up.
The woman kisses the now-dead man then turns to Betis. She says something to him and hands him the Scythe. Betis bows obsequiously several times then leaves the room.
The woman collects some items, mostly clothing, from the bags then, after kissing the corpse one last time, leaves. The vision ends.
Tanasia relays what she saw to the other characters and they discuss what they have learned. They decide to try using the Scythe on the corpse.
They re-insert it into the wound. The glow in the hilt fades and the corpse twitches violently several times, then lies still.
More discussion occurs and Rosalina and Yeti figure out what is going on. The Scythe is a soul transfer device. It absorbs the soul from whoever is killed with it. It then transfers the soul to the next person who is killed with it. The man and woman, who they are presuming are Drell and Shen, had killed Drell with the Scythe. They then planned to kill Kyler with it. Drell’s spirit would then return to life in Kyler’s body.
Betis was supposed to then lead Drell-as-Kyler to Shen’s new location, which was otherwise unknown. He would then (presumably) kill her with the Scythe. He would then go through with the wedding to Eveyl then kill her that night with the Scythe. Shen would return to life in Eveyl’s body and Drell and Shen would have been reborn in what will ultimately be the most powerful family in Rarmon.
The characters realize that they have accidentally “killed” Drell. He was “alive” in the Scythe but they tried to put him back into a body that had been dead too long for it to resuscitate. This is how Shen knew that Kyler had not been killed with the Scythe; Drell hadn’t come back for her.
The characters return to Metcami’s estate and are granted an audience. From their descriptions, he confirms Drell and Shen as the people they have seen. He also accepts what they have discovered, but says he still needs to know where Shen is now. He also points out that Eveyl is still in danger (the characters have yet to reveal they have the Scythe) and that the city guard may soon be after them since Toba knows at least something about what is going on. The characters retreat to Charan’s Hoof to determine their next move.