"Joy." wierd said in a flat, languid tone. He didnt trust zanz, and there was one thing you could never count on when wars were concerned: containment. Fighting a serious external threat meant both sides would be willing to engage in guerrilla tactics, and that dirty little backwaters like the one the bay12 forumites had found themselves in made good spots to put insurgent forces... from both factions. wars had a nasty habit of tracking completely ideologically neutral territories and nations into their bullshit, as the strongmen battled to see who's balls really did hang lower in their trousers.
If the fighting was going to stay out of this world, now that pandora's box had been opened in the figurative sense, it meant hammering the lid of that accursed box shut, and glueing the edges so that nothing could get in or out. His power over the road of the dead was not up to this task. the dragons and apparently their sworn extradimensional adversaries used different methods of traversing the void. Perhaps he could discover a way to protect this universe somehow, but he needed to know more information first. So much new stuff to learn, so little time... so much work to do too.
He let out a sigh mixed with a groan.
"do you think that fat-head left anything useful in his quarters?" he asked wearily.
"Corai, --or Zanzetkuken?" asked hugo. His expression was confoundment, mixed with a slight hint of concern.
"Zanzetkuken." he said.
Hugo was evidently still struggling with the idea of his condition. Though, now that he had thought about it, the almost instinctual urge to kill corai had abated considerably, but totally unnoticed until now. He had mentioned corai several times since hugo had latched on, and not once did that festering rage beneath the surface threaten to claw itself into the real world in the form of brutal savagery.
"Huh..." He muttered.
"What was that?" hugo asked.
"Nothing. Just noticed something funny. Dont worry about it."
"You've said a lot today that makes me very worried." hugo retorted. "being secretive about it doesn't encourage my confidence."
wierd chuckled.
"I just noticed something that feels a lot like my missing conscience, that's all. I just realized I had thought about Corai without immediately wanting to kill him." He smiled. "I hope it lasts."
He had an idea brewing in the back of his head that might just work, but would be dangerously skirting the line on ethical use of souls. Necromancers that had violated that taboo were something he was contractually obligated to "clean up", but if he could find out exactly how these extradimensional incursions from neighboring realities were being done, maybe he could .... alter... the normal sealing sigil used to can the unholy undead. Perhaps there was a way to wrap up the whole universe in little closed bands of void with banished necromancers swirling around inside like a big, yucky cocoon.... He doubted it would actually work, or even that there were enough evil necromancers in the world to use for raw material in the first place.... First, he needed to know how those dragons, or worse, their enemies, were getting from plane to plane without their physical substance disintegrating, or going stark raving mad. If he could find the hole, then he could devote more thought on plugging it... maybe...