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[Liquefied Spleens]

Sydney, are you clothed?
You pull the towel around yourself, considering the T-shirt is probably enough to land you a public indecency ticket. You tell him yes, and he enters. He seems... a lot more serious then when he walked backwards fingergunning.
So. I told you we needed to have a talk. How long is Meandra going to be gone?
However long it takes to get shirts big enough for me. Considering her, probably about an hour.
Good... Put the tome on the floor, please, we need to talk about it.
The tome?
You know what I'm talking about, just pull it out. Sucy and Yunikki are out, at the moment. At my request. I need to see the tome, so I can work this out.
...Ok? I'm guessing you mean this thing? You pull out the tome and drop it on the floor with a resounding thud. It seems...  lot more weighty than the size would imply. You see Hal's eyes flash a strange, white colour for a second as he first glances at the tome, which makes you take a smell distance back. You're already lying down, and Hal is already sitting on the floor. He takes a deep, nasal breath with his eyes closed, trying to gather up some courage, it seems. Then he speaks with a voice that reminds you of a gravestone being planted in the ground.
Give me permission to open it.
What? I mean, it's just right there. Go for it.
Give me exact permission, this book is protective.
You sigh and roll your eyes. I allow you, Hal Durran, to open this book and look through its contents. I allow him to use it without anything weird or horrible happening to him.
Thank you. Pretty exact, have you done this before?
I want to a magical school, Han. Magical contracts 101 is a required yearly course.
Good. He opens up the book, very carefully. His eyes turn a more permanent milky white. The eyes remind you of all the corpses you worked on in your schoolyears, and it gives an uncomfortable feeling to see an obviously alive person with a dead man's eyes. He looks through the pages, scanning the pages and not really reading any of the words.

The first tome. I see. What have you discovered in that thing?
A couple summoning rituals, mostly just different types of eldritch creatures. Haven't tried to summon any of them, most of the sidenotes seem to talk about doom and death.
Sidenotes?
Yeah, the previous owners left behind their own bits and pieces of information. Tests and somesuch. The book keeps track of it all, even gives them some unique ink, from what I can tell.
Haven't tried anything? Good, good. I'm... really relieved. Right, let's get to the meat of things. Do you know what this thing is?
A weird clingy book that likes talking to me when things are getting weird?
Which is why you ate that heart, I suppose... Before you ask, that wasn't so much the book as it is the ritual itself. Deciding to eat the heart of such a creature is something nigh-impossible to stop. And the result... He gestures at your hand, which you self-consciously keep against your chest. The teeth can be felt through the towel and the shirt, and you feel more disgusted about the fact that you're not disgusted about it. The damned thing feels "natural".
These tomes don't lead to anything good, there are very few owners that make it through without dying, and those that do tend to be marked by the end of it. But... The way you've been using it is actually rather safe. Purely for info. I approve. Now, on to some thing you may not know.
With a blink, his eyes are given life once more.
To most people, the book is impossible to see. Generally, the book allows itself to be seen by people you allow, people the book deems useful, people with some kind of detection spell and, finally, the undead.
Is your transformation getting worse already?
...Yes. I had hoped for years, but that might have been a little too positive. I already knew OF the tomes, but when I saw it before you ate the heart I realized things must be worse than I thought.
How long do you think you have?
Who can say? A year, a month... Either way, I'm dead enough to see that book.
Is there anything we can- You are interrupted by a knock on the front door. With nobody else in the house, you decide to look for yourself.

There is a dwarf in uniform in front of you. He seems to be part of the police force of the city, but not part of the heavy response units, by any means. You peek out of the doorway, only revealing your top half. The dwarf has to step back to look you in the eye. Damn, you are a tall glass of water now, and among these dwarves it's really gonna end up weird.
Sydney Aestinus. We'd like to request your presence at the station. A witness claims you have knowledge of the driders. If you do not wish to come for fear of your own life, that is within your rights. However, we have the right to arrest you after a day, due to your lack of citizenship. Will you comply and follow now?
Are you for real?
We do not joke with the law, madam. You have the right come by yourself or with police escort. If you do not come within 24 hours, we will come to detain you with force.
...

Go with him.
Well, better get this over with...

I'll come on my own.
I'll come when I feel like it, alright?

Take a hike.
Shut the door in his face.

Other.

Basic Stats

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Level: 12
HP: 55/55
Poison stings: 0/1
Restraint 1/3
Mana: 00/60
Corruption: 6/10
Thirst: Sated

Children
Adam 5/5
Alice 6/6
Cactus: 8/8

Items and equipment

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Equipment:
Far too tight T-shirt

Items:
First Tome of Eternal Darkness
.44 Revolver (empty)
.44 bullets(x56)
Holster
Longsword (in scabbard)
225 dollars (lvl3)
Magic Cookbook
The Cure (cures vampirism)
Blood Vials (X5)

Skills and spells

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(invests 2 of your max mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect average beast: Allows you to resurrect creatures such as dogs, cats and other similar-sized creatures.(invests 7 mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect Humanoid: Allows you to resurrect humanoid creatures. (Invests 10 mana) (Costs 14 mana)
Reshape minion plus!: Allows you to majorly change the appearance of your resurrected minions.
Control Undead: Allows you to attempt to control an undead that doesn't belong to you. (mana cost of 2 per second, unmastered)
Minion Vision: Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Disintegrate undead: Delete a corpse you currently control.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (Drains 0 mana)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (1 per second) (average limb takes around 20 seconds to properly graft)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You could try putting it in a flame of some sort to keep it around. (9 mana)
Soul battery: Allows you to use a soul-infused flame as a small mana-boost. This snuffs it out, however
Undead flashbang: Allows you to blow up a minion for a flash-bang effect. (9 mana)
Stitch: allows you to close a wound and stop bleeding as fast as you can stitch. Costs zero mana, but requires something to stitch with.
Siphoning Cloud: Breathe out a cloud that drains the life from victims and gives it to you. Adds a LOT to intimidation (4 mana)
Smoke Cloud: Breathe out harmless but thick smoke. (1 mana)
Deathbolt: A bolt that hurts the body's connection with it's soul. Causes minor wounds to appear over the body as it attempts to compensate (1 mana)
Doombolt: A more powerful version of the above (4 Mana)

Companions
Tom (cat)

Skills:
Claws: Your arm has been replaced with a powerful claw. This is BOUND to you, and cannot be removed.
Pride: You have a mind-controlling leech in your arm. This is so mindblowingly unethical/illegal it would put you in "kill on sight" status with a lot of organisations/people.
Broodmother: Once per day, you can sting something to create spiderlings, which are large, clever spiders that adore you by default. Your instincts cause you to be VERY protective of them.
Crossbow usage: Novice
Gun usage: Novice
Oral Fixation: Can cast spells spells from the mouth.
Draining: Can drain blood using fangs.
Major experience in blocking and swordplay.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: Excellent 
Corpse Cutting: Quite Decent. 
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge
Soul Sniffer

[crazyabe]

Go with him and get on with the bloody plot!

[Egan_BW]

Ask him to wait here until we can actually dress ourself, then head to the station with him.

"Fear for our life", what a load of baloney. Those driders are SOFT, and we are decidedly not.
Well, except the big one. She's not soft, just senile and probably idiotic naturally. Should see about shoving a leech into her face.

[RAM]

Sort things out with Hal first. And you'll need an outfit, which means waiting for Meandra... Could we arrange an escort in a couple of hours. We deserve a procession...

[omada]

ask him to wait

"my friend is coming with  decent clothes, i want a escort but I won't be going anywhere this way"

[RAM]

I guess we should talk about saving Hal too. Any ideas? Try to turn him into a drider thrall that retains most of its mind in the hopes that it replaces the curse's metamorphosis? Take him to a dwarven master-smith to get the curse expended as a reagent for animated armour? Drown him in a divine font and then pay for the resurrection? Master control undead and hope that curses hat cause undeath count as undead themselves? Build a phylactery to incorporate into his new body so that his soul and mind remain within it? So long as it is a part of the armour, Death ought to be fairly reasonable on the whole "avoiding the cycle" thing on account of death by smashing being practical... Take a shot at converting him into a vampire. Try to use the awesome Sloth arm that we totally chose last level to place him in stasis until we find a cure? Just tell Alexia to eat the curse? She'll eat anything... Send a messenger to that one corruption cult of knowledge that we sort of like and see if they know of a cure? Find some sort of monster that reproduces by conversion that Hal is cool with joining? Throw him into a chaos vortex and hope that we agree with its sense of humour?

Or, I dunno, we could try something crazy, like research or asking for help...

[Egan_BW]

I say we eat the curse. Would been easier if we had gluttony... ;p

[RAM]

Could try to control the curse with a mind-leech. Of course, if there was an accident then, well, the mind-leech IS completely irreconcilable.

[omada]

We should teach Alexia and Sidney how to sing and make they sing this

[RAM]

I'd rather see a proper duet. Cloning can't be that dangerous... Or maybe some sort of necromantic simulacrum?

[omada]

Hmmm, we have a lot of clones already

[Liquefied Spleens]

I don't suppose you'd mind if I waited for about an hour? I'm kind of indecent right now, and a friend is getting some clothes.
Burnt your clothing? Understandable. We expect you at the station in around two hours. Be there, or there will be legal ramifications. Good day, ma'am.
He closes the door for you and walks off, guessing from the footsteps. He really doesn't care for nonsense, does he?
...Right. Hal!? You call out to the ranger from down the hall. He responds, mostly just to confirm he's still there.
Right. Let's continue where we left off... Can we help you, somehow?
I don't know for sure. I'm afraid that it might not be possible to stop, unless...
Is this really the time to stop for dramatic pauses?
Oh hush, I'm thinking. Right, so... There's a bit of a detail that I didn't quite mention. I mentioned it was a long story, aye? Cursed armor, all that? I actually took the curse upon myself to spare another person. A girl.
What?
Yeah, this girl I was travelling with. She was the one to take the actual armor, and the curse. She's still wearing the stuff, too, considering it's just about impossible to break. On her, it was a matter of hours before she'd turn into a dullahan. Female dullahan are a strange breed, not quite the classic ones. They're closer to an aspect of death, scythes and somesuch. The witch I spent time with taught me how to transfer curses like that.
I suppose she was rather pretty?
Beauty makes fools of us all, I suppose. But the main reason is, I'm resistant to curses by default, and the fact that I'm male improved my chances. I figured I would have found a way to cleanse the curse before it got too far, but considering I'm undead now...
Maybe the dwarves know something?
That's what I was hoping for. But sadly, they don't know much about magic. It's odd, they clearly use tons of magic to keep everything here going, but they don't know a single thing about casting most spells. Couple of experts, sure, but nothing useful.
Alternatives?
I suppose... We'd have to find the armor again. Try to put the curse back on that hunk of junk. It'll take some really dark magic, necromancy of the highest calibre... So that's why I'm hoping you might be willing to help.
I'm not exactly a master, you know. My mana's rather stunted in comparison to most.
But you KNOW more than almost anybody. You explained the black vomit before, you're a damned encyclopedia on necromancy at this stage.
I'm flattered, but they don't teach us curses beyond the most basic "how to avoid". It's kind of banned on tower grounds.
We'll cross that bridge when we get to it... Are you willing to leave the dwarven cities when you're done here? I know it's a lot to ask, but I don't want to die like this.
I'll need to think about it. If I leave now, it might put Meandra in danger. I should visit the police, at the very least.
Understandable. Now, that's all there was to say, I suppose. When do you think Meandra's getting here?

As it turns out, half an hour. You and Hal just rest on the sofas and pillows for a while, glad to have the ability to just sit down. Things are always so damned busy, it's a joy to just...
We could use that curse.
What? You say out loud. Hal just says he didn't say anything, before returning to his nap.
Please, just try to "think" what you want? You know, think of a sentence?
Fine. Well enough. How would we "use" a curse like that?
Easy. If we get free reign over that curse, we can force people. A ticking timebomb they can't do anything about. OR, even better, we CONTROL the dullahan.
We can't even control a single zombie, at the moment. Not to mention the whole "ethics" thing.
We're nothing if not exceptional, darling.
Shut up
What? It's true. I'd know.
We're not considering this.
Fine, next question. Do you really need all that clothing? Let's be honest here, covering up seems like kind of a waste.
...What the hell are you on about!?
Our body is a temple, and we're not allowing any followers! I know you weren't present for the rave, but sex sells, lovely. She calls you "lovely" in the same way one would refer to a lover. This is sick and wrong on so many levels you're kind of speechless on the matter.
...What did we do.
Oh, nothing too bad, but the things people did FOR us? Ohhh...
WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS.
Because it's funny, lovely.
It's really not.

I HAVE COOL SHIRTS! Meandra yells as she goes through the door.
Oh thank god.
That desperate?
Happy for the distraction. What have you got?
Ok, so, I have a couple of coats here, for colder days, and these shirts are pretty cool, too! Some of them got stuff on 'em! I like THIS one for ya!
She's holding up a pink shirt with some writing on the front. Big bold white letters that state "You can't handle this" with a drawing of abbs over where your belly would be. Trashy, at best, but Meandra likes it a lot.
After some digging, you go for a white button-up shirt and a black vest. You leave the top buttons undone, it looks better like that. You make sure that you don't show any cleavage, though, even though that's actually a little harder since your size change. You're BEYOND annoyed at that development, but you'll find a binder. Whatever

Take the gang with you to the police station
Best not take any chances

Go alone.
You're decent, and they on't attack in broad daylight.

Don't go at all.
Might be risky to start blabbing to the police about these driders. They're rather well-connected, if you had to guess.

Go to the driders.
Better start tearing that place down yourself.

Other.


Basic Stats

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Level: 12
HP: 55/55
Poison stings: 0/1
Restraint 1/3
Mana: 00/60
Corruption: 6/10
Thirst: Sated

Children
Adam 5/5
Alice 6/6
Cactus: 8/8

Items and equipment

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Equipment:
Far too tight T-shirt

Items:
First Tome of Eternal Darkness
.44 Revolver (empty)
.44 bullets(x56)
Holster
Longsword (in scabbard)
225 dollars (lvl3)
Magic Cookbook
The Cure (cures vampirism)
Blood Vials (X5)

Skills and spells

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Magic:
Resurrect vermin: Allows you to resurrect very small creatures such as rats(invests 2 of your max mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect average beast: Allows you to resurrect creatures such as dogs, cats and other similar-sized creatures.(invests 7 mana) (no mana cost)
Resurrect Humanoid: Allows you to resurrect humanoid creatures. (Invests 10 mana) (Costs 14 mana)
Reshape minion plus!: Allows you to majorly change the appearance of your resurrected minions.
Control Undead: Allows you to attempt to control an undead that doesn't belong to you. (mana cost of 2 per second, unmastered)
Minion Vision: Allows you to see what a minion sees. The minion must have eyes.
Disintegrate undead: Delete a corpse you currently control.
Animate Piece: Allows you to animate just a piece of dead tissue. It requires your constant attention, and cannot act independently. (Drains 0 mana)
Graft: Allows you to use dead tissue as a replacement limb. Requires a lot of mana. (1 per second) (average limb takes around 20 seconds to properly graft)
Gather Soul: Allows you to make a soul visible. You could try putting it in a flame of some sort to keep it around. (9 mana)
Soul battery: Allows you to use a soul-infused flame as a small mana-boost. This snuffs it out, however
Undead flashbang: Allows you to blow up a minion for a flash-bang effect. (9 mana)
Stitch: allows you to close a wound and stop bleeding as fast as you can stitch. Costs zero mana, but requires something to stitch with.
Siphoning Cloud: Breathe out a cloud that drains the life from victims and gives it to you. Adds a LOT to intimidation (4 mana)
Smoke Cloud: Breathe out harmless but thick smoke. (1 mana)
Deathbolt: A bolt that hurts the body's connection with it's soul. Causes minor wounds to appear over the body as it attempts to compensate (1 mana)
Doombolt: A more powerful version of the above (4 Mana)

Companions
Tom (cat)

Skills:
Claws: Your arm has been replaced with a powerful claw. This is BOUND to you, and cannot be removed.
Pride: You have a mind-controlling leech in your arm. This is so mindblowingly unethical/illegal it would put you in "kill on sight" status with a lot of organisations/people.
Broodmother: Once per day, you can sting something to create spiderlings, which are large, clever spiders that adore you by default. Your instincts cause you to be VERY protective of them.
Crossbow usage: Novice
Gun usage: Novice
Oral Fixation: Can cast spells spells from the mouth.
Draining: Can drain blood using fangs.
Major experience in blocking and swordplay.
Climber
Crafty: Bolas
Cooking skill: Excellent 
Corpse Cutting: Quite Decent. 
Animal handling: inexperienced.
Necromantic knowledge
Soul Sniffer

[crazyabe]

Take the gang with you to the police station.

[Devastator]

"Does it have to be the same suit of armour?  Could we get the dwarves to create a blank suit, and then transfer the curse onto that?"

We should head alone.  They may have more trackers.

[Egan_BW]

Hey, now that we're bigger and have an even bigger arm, maybe we should consider getting a greatsword or something. Fits better than a dinky little longsword, and something heavy would let us do some real damage.