00;00;00;00 - 00;00;21;06 Before we begin. This episode contains references to suicide, self-harm, replacement, dementia, death by falling end of life care, palliative care, mental decline, euthanasia, and abduction. Listener discretion is requested. 00;00;21;09 - 00;00;48;03 Where do you go? Dear investigator, when you are not here, when you, however, briefly, through some spell or prayer or device. Translocate shift, teleport -- vanishing from where you were only to reappear inches or miles, or an entire cosmos away in the blink of an eye for that moment that blink. Are you in both places or are you in neither? 00;00;48;05 - 00;01;20;16 Is it really you that arrives at the destination? The exact same you that left to onlookers you did disappear? So I ask you in that split half of a breath, where do you actually go? The earliest transpositioners were not entirely concerned with that question. When one needed to travel vast distances or flit between planes, or simply get out of a tight spot, a suite of talents came into being to provide that answer. 00;01;20;18 - 00;01;45;24 Some called it teleportation, others transposition, and some others brand the travel with all manner of whimsy and flavor. But the general gist is always the same. Point A point B no surprises, and more or less. These trips work as expected. Cast the spell. Step forward and you're somewhere entirely different. Sometimes it's a portal, sometimes a cloud of infernal smoke. 00;01;46;01 - 00;02;06;07 But generally speaking, if you know where you want to end up and can hold that picture in your mind's eye and you're good enough, the transit should just work. It has to. Otherwise, it's all way too much of a gamble and you're better off just walking. So the teleportation talent is discovered eons ago and shared amongst the wisest and most arcane. 00;02;06;10 - 00;02;33;07 And then time passes and a dangerous and rare magical ability becomes more and more ubiquitous and then dependable. And finally, a utility. It's taught in every wizard academy and bardic university. You can pay for scrolls of planar motion by the half dozen. When magic becomes invisible to our every day, it perhaps ceases to be magic and becomes more mechanism. 00;02;33;10 - 00;03;07;01 And that mechanism is only interrogated when something goes wrong, when the traveler doesn't arrive at their destination, or worse, arrives incorrectly. That's when it's seen as dangerous. Once more. But there are many people out there who do not want to see teleportation as dangerous. They have built lives or reputations or businesses on the effect just working. And if that's called into question, so many pieces of the puzzle that rely on fast, arcane transport fall out of joint. 00;03;07;03 - 00;03;44;10 So, dear investigator, there is a great interest in not exploring the, albeit small, number of stories wherein people have cast the spell. Step through the portal, and vanished forever. How many times have you, dear investigator, been whisked away through the ether? How many times have you skipped the journey to arrive at the destination? In the earliest days, the mages who pioneered these abilities found that they would always exhale when they arrived at their end point, even if they hadn't breathed in when they departed. 00;03;44;11 - 00;04;11;18 Even if they were underwater or in the planar space and could not have possibly drawn a breath, they would always exhale once they got where they were going. So I ask you, where did that breath come from? What was in their lungs? This time on Alchemy Investigations. We explore a series of seemingly unconnected anomalies in the world of magical transposition. 00;04;11;19 - 00;04;45;06 These errata, collected by our colleagues at R.U.E. the Registry of Unexplained Encounters under the collective file R.U.E. 3251, or the passenger accounts attempt to reconcile unexpected arcane transportation phenomena from travelers missing time, or worse, simply missing to a guild of teleporting couriers now taking out hazard insurance in secret to the ravings of one of the first mages to ever make that conjurative leap, whose ghost warned us of something out there between the start and end points of the shortest journey imaginable. 00;04;45;08 - 00;05;09;29 So I will ask you again, dear investigator, when you make that leap. Where do you actually go? In? In that half moment between two places? That liminal space which fills your lungs with a breath you never took. What if something is already there? And what if it's always been there? And what if it's just now starting to take notice of our mystical trespasses. 00;05;10;02 - 00;05;49;04 Laying in wait in the journey. You worked hard to avoid. Because after all, where are you when you are nowhere? And more importantly, who? Stay tuned. Investigators. Greetings, investigators with you again as Ichabod M. Groster, lead dispatch for Alchemy Investigations. The realm's foremost private investigator body. Tonight, we offer another in a series of paranormal public service inquiries. These are not our normal mysteries in the sense that they can be solved by traveling to a specific scene of a specific crime and questioning witnesses instead. 00;05;49;07 - 00;06;26;14 This episode, in those Like it service primers on some specific cryptid monster, ruin, anomaly, or phenomena. It is our sincere hope that keen and thorough investigators will take note of these audio dossiers to stay current on what's mysterious and unexplained. Remember, a good investigator is inquisitive and an inquisitive investigator stays alive. In tonight's file, we have once again partnered with the Registry of Unexplained Encounters to explore a rash of misadventures visited upon us by teleportation spells and abilities gone very much awry. 00;06;26;16 - 00;06;56;07 And to start us off, we will travel mundanely to the island of Hikkoma for a very well known case the temporary disappearance of High Arbiter Camille González and the fallout from her mysterious return during the 15 Days War. And while parts of the arbiter story have been preserved and repeated in arcane anthropology and political science lectures, the realm Over there are some salient details that are often overlooked as they take place months after the initial disappearance. 00;06;56;09 - 00;07;05;27 We believe that these footnotes paint a much more complex picture, casting a longer shadow than most realize. 00;07;06;00 - 00;07;38;10 The setup for this story is the one with which everyone is already familiar. Teetering on the edge of war, the kingdom of Vennik and its neighbor, the republic of Hyphonia were in a political stalemate over which group would rule the island of Hikkoma, though it does go by other names in other tongues. Both claimed ancestral rights and while trouble had been brewing for years, the violent death of senator Ractious Puck at the hands of a splinter group of druidic anarchists, brought the simmer to a boil. In a last ditch effort to find any amount of peace, Pax Ventis 00;07;38;10 - 00;08;00;21 clerics on both sides of the conflict brokered a deal where the heads of both Hyphonia and Vennik would meet with the legendary arbiter, Camille Gonsolaz to find a pathway to peace and hopefully prevent a very costly war. So, as two groups were about to start a war that would get a lot of people killed, Camille was brought in to settle things. 00;08;00;24 - 00;08;20;16 The meeting was set to take place at first light on the morning of the Hikkomean sea harvest. Camille Gonsalaz and three of her judicial aids would depart from the capitol, using an incantation to transport themselves and a number of scrolls from the halls of justice to the meeting site on Hikkoma island where representatives from both sides of the conflict awaited them. 00;08;20;19 - 00;08;44;05 In the Capitol chambers, Gonzales and her three assistants opened the glowing amber portal and stepped through. Four people left, and a moment later, only three assistants appeared on the island. They stepped out of the arcane gateway into the Hikomean humidity, only to realize that they were down in adjudicator. Initially, the assistants covered for their mentor. Perhaps she didn't walk through the portal with them. 00;08;44;05 - 00;09;24;10 Maybe she went back for an important scroll or was way late at the last moment. But moments became minutes and those became hours. And, in the sweat and humidity of the island, the Hyphonians accused Vennik of sabotaging the talks. Swords were drawn; blood was shed. It’s an old story. By the next morning, thousands on both sides of the conflict lay dead – including the three judicial assistants. And as clerics and doctors combed the dead to see whom they could help and whom they could bury – a small rip in space and time opened up and out stepped High Arbiter Camille González , ready to begin the peace talks. 00;09;24;12 - 00;09;30;11 Now, a day late and a few thousand bodies short. 00;09;30;13 - 00;10;01;17 When the high arbiter realized in what I would imagine to be horror what had happened, the mistake that had been made, she worked with the local clerics to resurrect her assistance at her own expense, and quietly left Hikkoma by boat. As the violence, which became known as the 15 Days War erupted around them. None of them would speak about this publicly, ever, stating only for the judicial record that it was a logistical and communications failure which could not stem the tide of local aggression. 00;10;01;19 - 00;10;25;18 And that’s generally the story. The tale of Camille Gonsalaz is known by some as a metaphor for being a day late and a copper short. It’s known by most, at least in the now-Hyphonian-controlled island of Hikkoma, as divine intervention: indicating that the Gods themselves wanted the war which saw the Hyphonian republic victorious over their neighbors, so much so that they prevented Gonsolaz’s arrival. 00;10;25;20 - 00;10;48;16 Her absence meant their victory. The story that is somewhat less well known is what happened to Camille González in the 18 months that followed. It started small. She would miss meetings. This is on the record. She would be easily distracted and had been called out by heads of state a number of times for being inattentive in their presence. 00;10;48;19 - 00;11;14;06 She would make these snap judgments in adjudications independent of the facts, and would become winded during long decisions, breathing so heavily that she would have to leave the room. This was recorded on no fewer than four occasions. Much was done by her aides to limit and downplay her erratic behavior and preserve the public's perception of both her and the office of the arbiter. 00;11;14;09 - 00;11;42;00 But eventually, something had to be done. It was a notable, swift, unfortunate decline. The arbiter, who came back by boat from her failure on Hikkoma island, had changed fundamentally for Camille González. There really was no going back. Eventually, her colleagues in the capital asked Camille to step down, which she did quietly and lived a private life until the weeks before her death. 00;11;42;02 - 00;12;16;26 By then, her condition had progressed to the point where she could no longer live on her own. Doctors and priests, the best available, had failed in their attempts to reconcile this degenerative malady. so her final month was entrusted to the caretakers at Father Fitzgivin’s Home for the Chronically Infirm and Alchemically Afflicted. It would be there, on what would end up being her deathbed, that we come by the account which pertains most to us now. Knowing the end was near, and realizing this would be their last chance to see their former mentor 00;12;16;29 - 00;12;39;01 González's three former aides, the ones who died and were revived in Hikkoma, made the pilgrimage to Father Fitzgivin’s with the outward intent to celebrate their declining figurehead and see her off into the next life. But there was an ulterior motive. Camille had never spoken about what happened for the day she was missing en route to Hikkoma. 00;12;39;03 - 00;13;03;12 So her former aides made a secret plan to ask what had happened all those years ago. What went wrong? What did Camille remember? And as luck would have it, one of the aides, Daria Parentis kept exceptional notes. Later in her life, she wrote in a private correspondence. It took us a whole week to coax anything out of her. 00;13;03;14 - 00;13;29;27 Every time we spoke about Hikkoma, she would just change the subject or go mute. In the end, it wasn't even the request that got through to her. We offered dear Miss González the opportunity to come back to the Capitol and see the sunrise over the Basilica. Just one last time. She used to love that. She seemed excited about the prospect, and when we opened up the portal to make the journey, Camille's face lost all of its color. 00;13;29;29 - 00;13;50;21 She screamed and hobbled from the room. We found the poor thing under a large tree in the courtyard of Father Fitzgivin’s rocking back and forth like a sick child. It was an open secret about the high arbiter and how she, after Hikkoma, once used magic to travel ever again. Sticking to roads and ships and carts and horses. 00;13;50;28 - 00;14;25;21 Everybody thought it was for the spell that had delayed her and caused no end of guilt over the 15 Days War, and all those lost and between sobs. Poor thing. In the courtyard of that hospital, she breathed the heavy sigh and squeezed out. It was not meant to last that long. Later, at the arbiters funeral, Daria Parentis would retell the story as a sort of eulogy, encouraging all to see beyond the mistakes we cannot control and not let them define us as it would seem. 00;14;25;24 - 00;14;51;24 Miss González had Daria painted Camille as both the first and final victim of the 15 Days War, and used her parting phrase. It was not meant to last that long, as a message of hope and inspiration for all those who struggle. She concluded her remembrance in her life. Hi, arbiter González was a just and kind person, a woman of character. 00;14;51;27 - 00;15;15;16 And I only wish she had known that whatever pain she was feeling in the end, the unearned guilt or shame or harm that was not meant to last so long may have felt lighter, and the duration shorter. If she had known that she could share this burden with those who loved her. So, my dear mourners, turn to your loved ones and neighbors. 00;15;15;18 - 00;15;54;02 Those who appear to struggle, and those who do so invisibly, and tell them it is not meant to last that long, and a pain shared is a pain diminished. But, dear investigator, I do not believe that is at all what the dying person we knew, as Camille González meant by that statement. After Camille González's death, the cleric's records from Father Fitzgivin’s were meant to be incinerated, but ended up finding their way to one of our keen freelance investigators, who will remain nameless because technically, I think this is a crime. 00;15;54;04 - 00;16;18;04 Though I will remind you, it is amazing what a kind word and small sack of coin will get you in the world of renegade archivism. For the most part, the text is mundane and clinical, painting the portrait of a sad, broken person who spent her waking hours holding back what must have been unimaginable guilt and anguish growing inside her over the years, like a child or a parasite. 00;16;18;06 - 00;16;44;20 She would talk to herself sometimes in the common tongue, sometimes in unintelligible gibberish, oftentimes shouting at the top of her lungs and then getting out of breath. However, there were a notable number of security interventions in her final days, notable as she was an aging and infirm person and her body was actively giving out almost every night while apparently sleepwalking. 00;16;44;22 - 00;17;19;09 The dying Camille would attempt to cast a transposition spell, the very same spell that failed her in her attempt to broker peace in Hikkoma. This is important because she used to need the aid of scrolls and devices to cast this spell, but now, apparently in her sunset could do so at will. When the orderlies would stop her as she was about to step foot into the shimmering, opaque portal, she half asleep and as some nebulous tic rage would scream desperately in what sounded like religious tongues. 00;17;19;12 - 00;17;41;16 That is, it sounded that way to most of the staff. It turns out that one of the hospital's night minders understood old Crossic -- a vestige from their time in school. Crossic is an ancient iteration of the current common tongue spoken in the Veldic region. The minder made a note in the file. It was too peculiar not to document. 00;17;41;19 - 00;18;21;14 Apparently Camille Gonzolas’s screaming wasn’t without meaning. In the dead tongue, which by all accounts Camille did not know, she kept repeating the words “Nephrasa,” which means ‘to cut away the dying flesh” and “Nopstasis” which means “home.” This is only compounded by another staff note from what would be Camille’s final night day amongst the living. Apparently, the night minder, whilst pulling the former High Arbiter away from the portal she had just incanted -- heard a distinct noise coming from the rip in space in time. 00;18;21;17 - 00;18;41;22 The note in the file said that it sounded like a very distant bell, akin to the kind ships used at sea. When it's dark out and they're nearing shore. 00;18;41;24 - 00;19;07;09 While a bit unsettling, it's not clear what high arbiter Camille González meant by these ravings. The mind went under tremendous pressure and certainly seem unhinged to the rest of us. And she was sick. And at the end of her life, still, there are some at R.U.E. who believe that this is evidence of some kind of planar trans junction, or what might commonly be referred to as stowing away like trespassers on a sailing ship. 00;19;07;12 - 00;19;43;26 These escape attempts would happen when Camille's waking mind fell asleep and she was perhaps less guarded, more open to suggestion, The current fringe theory, which I cannot say I fully support, is that, for whatever reason, something or someone hiding in the space between the departure and the arrival of the failed Hikkoma teleportation event waylaid the high arbiter and changed her, or replaced her or infected her, depending on who you speak to, stowing away and bringing itself back into our world. 00;19;43;29 - 00;20;03;29 This caused a breakdown in her psyche and led to a premature death. The body is only meant to have so many souls, and the late night attempts to initiate another portal was this stowaway trying to return home. But again, these are unsubstantiated theories based on documents stolen from a palliative care hospital. So take them with a grain of salt. 00;20;04;02 - 00;20;27;26 The official stance from the Veldic Capital is that Camille González gave all she had in the pursuit of justice and equity, and to speak ill of such a dedicated public servant after her demise is punishable by a week in the stocks. So, for our part, we believe that the high arbiter died a hero and morbid queries into her final hours are little more than some un actionable supposing by simple private citizens. 00;20;27;28 - 00;20;53;21 What is much more concrete, dear investigator, are the recent updates to the Ghost Foot Arcane Courier Union's contract with several kingdoms across the Western Province? The ghost foot A ghost feet, the ghost Feet couriers are a union of incredibly talented incantation rogues who smuggle information into and out of highly secure and sensitive areas using a privately cultivated school of runic teleportation magic. 00;20;53;23 - 00;21;17;09 These spells and abilities are very powerful and highly protected. Trade secrets, you'd say, and it's said that a ghost foot courier spends more than half their life absolutely nowhere, as they are always in between the two ends of a transposition. It's rumored that they can even intentionally delay their exit from a teleportation spell. To throw off would be pursuers from their trail. 00;21;17;11 - 00;21;43;05 They're really quite good. This is not a paid sponsorship, just admiration. But even the most powerful of arcanists need insurance. And it's in a recent update to the coverage contract, specifically the life and dismemberment clauses for their active union members that we can see a reactionary narrative begin to form. After all, why would they be asking for more protection if there wasn't something to protect against? 00;21;43;07 - 00;22;05;05 A short note, Dear Investigator, about the following sections. They are lifted directly from a somewhat publicly available draft of the contract between the Ghost Feet Rogues and an insurance underwriter, and it is therefore somewhat dense. It begins with the standard boilerplate listing the contract as between Burray and Vice as insurers, and the ghost foot arcane courier union as policyholders. 00;22;05;12 - 00;22;24;18 Whereas the insurer is in the business of providing workplace insurance coverage, and whereas the policyholder seeks to obtain workplace insurance coverage for its union members. And Whereas the parties wish to enter into this contract to establish the terms and conditions under which such coverage will be provided. You get the gist. It's an insurance company providing coverage for workers. 00;22;24;19 - 00;22;59;19 The relevant bit here comes under article 14, subsection 6.2, which was newly created article 14 enumerates covered activities and includes some extremely mundane entries like 14 .1.1 parcel delivery activities related to pickup, transportation and delivery of packages and documents, including handling, obfuscation, loading and unloading. But subsection 14 .6.2 is brand new and reads as such. Activities related to the redacted and related protocols hereafter the passenger contingency to be rectified in the following manner. 00;22;59;21 - 00;23;21;21 For each suspected passenger encounteree, read the policyholder will be made whole by the insurer for a period of two years of a union scale salary, or a total of 121,561 gold pieces. Whichever is satisfied first, suspected passenger encounterees will be mechanically quarantined for a period of no less than one calendar year from the date of their initial document and suspicion. 00;23;21;22 - 00;23;50;11 During this time, a joint investigation is to be conducted into their identity and sovereignty by the insurer and the policyholder or their representatives. If the findings of the above investigation indicate that the suspected passenger encounteree is in fact redacted, an additional coverage of 95,346 gold pieces will be paid by the insurer to the policyholder, and the encounter will be euthanized at the policyholders expense, according to redacted standard. 00;23;50;13 - 00;24;16;02 An overdue courier will be considered a suspected passenger encounteree if any two of the following criteria are met within a given time frame of one hour. Post transport event. The overdue party was at any time left alone while sustained in between redacted, the overdue party is left unaccounted for for a time period greater than 21 minutes. While in transit, the overdue party returns in an unexpected location. 00;24;16;04 - 00;24;41;19 The overdue party upon their return is not witnessed to be eating or drinking unprompted until they witness others do the same. An overdue party upon their return makes any reference to redacted in the third person conjugation. The overdue party, upon their return does not repeat the designated past phrases. The overdue party upon their return speaks a language or languages not listed in their intake scrolls. 00;24;41;22 - 00;25;20;17 The overdue party fails the redacted and related breath and pulmonary testing. Apologies, dear investigator, for the rudeness of all those redactions. Even with our extensive network of correspondents, finding uncensored documentation from clandestine organizations like insurance companies, and to a lesser extent, pan dimensional information brokers and thieves can prove challenging. What this does illuminate is the notion that something is happening in the space between magical movement to the ghost feet couriers, a type of uncanny interdiction, so much so that it needs to be formally addressed for the safety of a workforce, a workforce. 00;25;20;17 - 00;25;56;15 I would remind you, whose job is predicated on entering and exiting highly fortified and dangerous locales. These are the same arcane couriers who replaced the staff of inexorable rigor with a fake whilst it was being held by the undead archmage Garatus the Discourteous. They are no stranger to hazard pay, but this talk of a quarantine protocol, euthanization, and of markers for launching an investigation – it’s not what you do to protect an individual from danger. It’s what you would do to protect an organization from an outsider. A parasite. A passenger. 00;25;56;17 - 00;26;16;19 Recently, one of our correspondents with connections to the Kingdom of West Heilig, noted that the ghost feet did not renew their operations contract for this season. In fact, a little digging seems to indicate that West Heilig is one of three kingdoms that have had their contracts canceled by the Ghost Foot Arcane Courier Union, And while not much is offered in the form of negotiation or explanation. 00;26;16;22 - 00;26;45;27 The final termination paperwork for West Heilig had a two word reasoning stamped in the form field on the cover letter. Insufficient personnel with cracking around the O and the U, as if the stamp had seen a lot of use recently, it would appear that whatever the redacted passengers are, their presence can no longer be safely ignored. Together with our colleagues at R.U.E. will dive into some possible explanations for these anomalies and how, if they are what we think they are. 00;26;45;29 - 00;27;25;10 A careful investigator can teleport safely, mitigating the threat of stowaways, hitchhikers and a happens that and more after a break. Stay tuned. Investigator. This episode of Alchemy Investigations is brought to you by HarbingerGrove Tomesellers and their soon to be published best-seller: “Painting Portents: The Visions and Vale of Dame Xaxxon Miswit”. An upcoming, enthralling, and inscrutable biography from acclaimed author Dr. Naomi Uvash concerning the reclusive art dealer Xaxxon Miswit and the strange, pre-cognitive predictions found within their labyrinthian collection of painting, tapestries, manuscripts, and objet d’art. 00;27;25;11 - 00;27;50;15 As one reviewer raves– part biography, part prediction of the end times – I simply could not put this grimoire down. The book would not allow it. So dear Investigator, pre-order your copy today anywhere fine HarbingerGrove Tomes are sold and find yourself amidst an unfathomable excursion into Miswit and Wisdom. And now, back to our episode. 00;27;50;18 - 00;28;09;19 Finally, dear investigator, I would like to tell you a story, one that hopefully gives a bit of context through its margins. I love stories that are typically footnotes in larger and more important narratives. The kind of thing you would see referenced in an academic or alchemical text, and then used as a jumping off point for the author's real work. 00;28;09;22 - 00;28;31;24 But very often it's those endnotes and errata where the real mystery lives. Euclid the Inconsistent was a brilliant conjurer of the nameless epoch. He was one of the original Oryx Talentia wizards – many of whom are responsible for spells and abilities that have become all but mechanically ubiquitous to us now. The basic building blocks of magic that were captured from the Gods. 00;28;32;01 - 00;28;54;26 Together with his band of mages, Euclid held back in the Invasion of Igros Nost, defeated the skeletal army of Serrah the EverKind, and – for our purposes – made impressive contributions to the field of magical movement. Before Euclid, teleportation incantations were incredibly dangerous and usually reserved for those in the tightest of spots or those wishing to hasten their own demise. 00;28;55;01 - 00;29;22;03 However, through careful and methodical study, Euclid was able to investigate certain properties of these abilities and make some of the most valuable breakthroughs. This realm had ever seen. For one, he was one of the first to postulate that teleportation does not deconstruct the traveler and rebuild them, or kill and revive them. Otherwise, curses and or boons granted pre teleport would be wiped out when arriving, as they are generally linked to the corporeal form. 00;29;22;06 - 00;29;47;00 Euclid was also able to add certain verbal inflections to the casting of these abilities, to greatly increase the chance of a successful transit. This is why most transportation invocations end with a verbal lilt like this. His discovery for, as he put it, increased and sustained extra temporal stability while evoking Spiralized displacement and propulsion through Opal Ichor. The term Opal Ichor is important here. 00;29;47;02 - 00;30;08;09 It's what he used to describe the theoretical substrate that one travels through while teleporting. The traveler does not experience this. Opal Ichor. They should not experience anything at all if the spell is performed correctly, but in probing at the edges of what makes the ability work. Euclid pierced the walls of the tunnel, his words connecting one side of the leap to the other. 00;30;08;11 - 00;30;31;02 In so doing, he described magic itself, bleeding from the portal as if it were Opal Ichor, hence the name. As he grew older and his birthdays began to be counted in the three digits, and then more, it was noticed that he didn't seem to physically age as roughly as some of his colleagues. His slight features remained clear, and his hair full and lustrous under a large cap. 00;30;31;05 - 00;31;02;10 In fact, when asked why he looked so young, he would often joke that one does not age when in contact with Opal Ichor, insinuating that all of his work in the field of transposition was keeping him young. As with many wizards of his age, he had the typical phases. At first he was an adventurer, then a hermit, then, when stereotypically mad with power, then found redemption through a former apprentice, he took on an alter ego, got into politics, started a cult, was usurped, then defeated and exonerated, and finally settled as the court wizard of the Quetzas Regency north of Imgrassa. 00;31;02;13 - 00;31;24;27 And given his good works, Euclid was quite the gate for them. In fact, through his research into transposition, he hoped the Quetzas family lines, set up a series of arcane sigils meant to surreptitiously move the royal family about their vast kingdom so that they might be ever present and ever ready to help their subjects as needed. Of course, these were largely used for family infighting, secret trysts, smuggling, assassinations, and the like. 00;31;24;27 - 00;31;44;06 But that wasn't Euclid's fault. Royals will, as they say. Royal. It was in the Quetzas royal capital, a few years into his time as their court mage, that Euclid would meet his unfortunate end. And a warning here to some of our colleagues who may be sensitive to this. There will be a brief discussion of suicide for the next minute or two. 00;31;44;09 - 00;32;08;12 According to historians at the time, Euclid the Inconsistent suddenly and unexpectedly took his own life by leaping from one of the precipices in his research tower, falling several dozen stories to his death on the cobblestone street below. He died shortly after impact. Now, history believes it to be a self-inflicted death because being a wizard of some standing, Euclid had any number of tools at his disposal to preclude hitting the ground. 00;32;08;14 - 00;32;28;16 He could have flown away, turned into a large bat, or simply teleported back to the top of his spire, or anywhere else for that matter. He could have reversed gravity, summoned a hawk companion or simply turned into rubber, and bounced to another day, even if he were unconscious. A magician of his stature would have had contingency upon contingency for something as mundane as a multi-story plummet. 00;32;28;19 - 00;32;53;10 The fact that he ended up dead was a strong indicator that he actively sought that out. Most of the time when people share the story of Euclid's life, they use it as a cautionary example to describe what happens when people of great talent take bureaucratic jobs and settle down into a life of monotony. They cited as a quiet retirement, being the true killer of anyone with an adventuring heart. 00;32;53;12 - 00;33;16;19 This is, of course, nonsense and does a great disservice to the value rest can offer us, but it is specifically nonsense when describing Euclid. The inconsistent. It is often suggested that Euclid left no note nor context for his actions. And while the lack of a note is technically true, there is a bit of context. It just wasn't written down, or at least not by Euclid. 00;33;16;22 - 00;33;40;15 You see, the old wizard had been working, at the behest of the Quetzas family, on a magical method to conceal someone within a teleportation spell to cloak them in Opal Ichor. As Euclid wrote in his notes, and the day of his death was the day before he was meant to give his findings to the royal family. So presumably he spent that day hopping into and out of liminal space. 00;33;40;18 - 00;34;08;04 Perhaps Euclid saw something or worse, inadvertently transported something back with him that was so uncanny, so intimidating that in an effort to contain it or worse, escape it, Euclid leapt to his death. You might, dear investigator, think this is quite the stretch. And perhaps it is. But there is one fact about Euclid's death that really enhances this theory. 00;34;08;07 - 00;34;31;10 The Quetzas family had spent a lot of money to secure Euclid into their employ, and they were not going to give up on that investment so easily. A little thing like death could be remedied. So they arranged for a resurrection with the court's clerics. Without getting too far into the ontological weeds here for any ressurective magic to work, the target spirit, soul, essence, whatever you want to call it, needs to be accessible and most importantly, willing. 00;34;31;17 - 00;34;57;10 That's what the clerics use to reinstate the mortal form. But when the Quetzas clerics tried to revive the physical body of Euclid, the inconsistent, they ran into a wrinkle. And when reporting back to the royal family on their charge to reawaken the soul inside Euclid's body, they could only ask which one the high priest of the Quetzas court had found not one, but two spiritual entities bound to Euclid's battered form. 00;34;57;12 - 00;35;24;13 This gave the resurrective Arcanist some amount of pause. Cramming the wrong soul back in a body is generally frowned upon, as it is typically a precursor to unmitigated catastrophe, and as far as anyone knew, the wizard should only have had one soul in his wizened body. So where, pray tell, did this additional passenger come from? Now, of course, Euclid the inconsistent had lived a long and storied life as a magical being. 00;35;24;13 - 00;35;54;13 He had seen some things, and there is no telling what kinds of spells and rituals he had undertaken and encountered. It's amazing that he persisted as long as he did with the traditional number of fingers, let alone souls. But this situation was not done evolving, and it was about to go from bad to worse. The clerics worked for three days on Euclid's body, fighting the fight against decay and conducting ritual after rite, attempting to ascertain the nature of who was who and what was what. 00;35;54;15 - 00;36;27;16 Until finally a specialist from the regional synod was brought in to communicate with the now dead Euclid. Reaching out to the spirits inside of him for a fact finding seance. It should be noted here that even though they were able to communicate with the deceased Euclid and whoever else, it was not a resurrection in the traditional sense. These sorts of seances use a third party vessel, typically a scribe or lesser priest, in the order to temporarily hold the deceased spirit or spirits in this case, and permit the Spirit's use of the vessel's voice. 00;36;27;19 - 00;36;58;04 In appearance, this looks very much like a traditional possession, but with precautions in place so things do not get too far out of hand. The science was not, unfortunately, recorded verbatim, but afterward the visiting high cleric from the synod, a person by the name of Altus Pour-Array, wrote their account, which was published in the synod's archives. It reads the deceased was temporarily communed through the power of our goddess at midday, and was asked as to the nature of his spiritual surplus. 00;36;58;07 - 00;37;21;06 The poor Euclid did not at first know what was being asked of him. He tried to recount his final moments, mentioning something about a visitor to his chambers, but was constantly interrupted by a great and urgent need to draw breath and exhale sharply. As such, he. 00;37;21;08 - 00;37;49;28 Salient details were omitted through this heavy breathing, and when we asked him to repeat himself, he took in another breath, just as deep as the last. The wizard became distressed as the ritual began to wane, the connection severing. Knowing his time was growing thin, he paused, forcing out all of the air from the poor vessels lungs, and whispered in a horse borrowed voice. 00;37;50;01 - 00;38;17;05 Burn my corpse, you fools, and was thus made silent. The visiting cleric conveyed this to the royal family, and after some initial disagreement, Euclid's final wish was granted at the insistence of the synod, and he was cremated, never to be contacted or returned to this mortal world. The history which surrounds this story paints the seance’s effects as faltering, due in part to the precarious nature of Euclid's soul. 00;38;17;05 - 00;38;42;26 Duality. In death, as in life, he was ever inconsistent. Some, including members of the US royal family, even alleged that the cleric's misconducted the ritual. But dear investigator, I have a different theory. I have heard this story a number of times from different historians and bards, and each time I get caught up on those deep, unfortunately timed breaths that Euclid kept taking. 00;38;42;29 - 00;39;18;22 I do not think that they were a malfunction of the ritual, but were instead a type of communication in and of themselves. It's just that Euclid wasn't the one communicating something, or someone was intentionally forcing the old wizard, and by proxy, the vessel, to be silent at very specific moments, forcing the vessel to draw breath instead of speaking, interrupting, censoring, and preventing the dead wizard from saying too much about what he saw in his final moment. 00;39;18;24 - 00;39;49;20 I think two people were speaking at that science, one through words and one through silence, because there are two things we know for certain, spiritually speaking, even in the afterlife, Euclid the inconsistent was not alone. And silent partners are never really silent. One final note here investigators a linguistics lesson. The old Crossic word for breath is Anemeiah which quite literally translates to imparting life. 00;39;49;22 - 00;40;14;02 In many ways, we see the act of living as the act of breathing. Oftentimes, our first act upon this plane is to draw breath and let out a whale just as we are born. I have to wonder, dear investigator, is something similar not happening here? Somewhere between the spell and the effect between the incantation and the teleportation. Are we taking our first breath somewhere else? 00;40;14;05 - 00;40;39;24 And if so, are we bringing that back home with us? Smuggling some foreign and unknown ether in the very heft of our lungs. Only to release it out into the world when we return and exhale. And I cannot stop thinking about this. Is that all we are returning with? Or are there other passengers from the Opal Ichor hiding within us, waiting to be released? 00;40;39;26 - 00;41;12;29 I sure hope not. What I do hope, dear investigator, is that the preceding stories have helped to illuminate some of the specific issues underpinning these strange transportation anomalies. A wary traveler is a safe traveler. And of course, we at Alchemy Investigations do not mean to insinuate that all magical transport is wholly dangerous. Given roadside bandits underwater superfauna and roving gangs of accosting drakes, teleportation remains the statistically safest means to cross any large distance. 00;41;13;02 - 00;41;37;08 But if you do decide to touch the opal ichor as Old Euclid would say, be mindful that it is really you who returns and returns alone. Perhaps this is where the old wanderer saying comes from. Travel far, travel quick, return alone. That's the trick to wit, the Registry of Unexplained Encounters has provided a list for the ever vigilant traveler. 00;41;37;14 - 00;42;09;00 The following are items to bear in mind when traversing the realm. While none of these are ironclad rules, if you experience one or more of the following phenomena, please do report the experience to your local Bureau of Arcane Transposition office. There you can fill out a B.A.T. form and have your experience logged. For the record. If you or your traveling companions experience lost time between the initiation and conclusion of a teleportation spell, ritual, prayer, or ability totaling more than seven seconds. 00;42;09;02 - 00;42;58;02 If you or your traveling companions report consistent repeating visual or auditory sensations while being magically transported, especially if those sensations include the feeling of being touched or watched. If you or your traveling companions notice any scars, marks, or tattoos when exiting a teleportation spell that were not present when the spell or ability was initiated. If you or your traveling companions exit a teleportation event at an unexpected location more than two times in succession, if you or your traveling companions attempt to cast or activate trans positional magic while seemingly asleep or unconscious, if you or your traveling companions do not visibly exhale upon reaching your destination. 00;42;58;04 - 00;43;22;12 As a somewhat organized society, we would like to think that we have matters well in hand. But the true bearings of magic remain largely mysterious to us, even to the most prolific of its practitioners. Every day we borrow power from forces we have yet to begin to understand and use them to save time from a long journey or produce a campfire instead of chopping wood. 00;43;22;15 - 00;43;56;03 But energy, they say, has to come from somewhere. And what if, dear investigator, every time we borrow that energy, we are incurring a debt. What if somewhere someone has decided, it's time to collect. Thank you for listening to tonight's episode of Alchemy Investigations, where we have shed some light on recent magical anomalies related to teleportation and travel. We have partnered with the Registry of Unexplained Encounters and offered some bellwethers on how to identify when these anomalies may be taking place. 00;43;56;05 - 00;44;34;22 We are not, unfortunately, in a position to identify the root cause for these seemingly linked oddities, but we can surmise from the list of corpses and vanished couriers that whatever is waiting for us in the opal ichor either wants out or desperately wants company. For now, this has been Ichabod M. Groster for Alchemy Investigations. Farewell, investigators and beware. 00;44;34;24 - 00;45;00;12 Alchemy Investigations is produced at Else Break Labs and is hosted by Ichabod M Groster. This episode and its related materials are released with absolutely no warranty nor support, and are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution noncommercial share alike 4.0 international license. If you are interested in learning more about tonight's mystery or want to explore others, please click the link in the description or visit us at our website. 00;45;00;14 - 00;45;27;10 alchemyinvestigations.com. There, Ichabod will explain the resolution of this particular scenario and offer tips on how it might be run as a tabletop role playing game One-Shot, or as part of a larger campaign in your next game night. Tonight's story all names, characters, and incidents therein are works of fiction. No identification with actual persons, living or deceased places, structures, ideals and or products is intended, nor should be inferred. 00;45;27;12 - 00;46;00;27 Alchemy investigations is supremely thankful to our wide network of correspondents, correspondents like Sheldronne Rasp for their work on the Royal Quetzas Historical and Liturgical Archives, and Connie Parentis for sharing her great great grandmother's original marginalia. And of course, thanks to you, dear investigators. Stay well and stay curious. This transcript may contain small inconsistencies. If you encounter one and would like to report it to be corrected in subsequent updates, please contact us at ichabodmgroster@gmail.com Alchemy Investigation and its related materials are offered with absolutely no warranty nor support and are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).