Go spend some time near the anima lens. Maybe we can figure who operates it and when and if there's any part of it that could be used to disable it without making it obvious that it's disabled. Then again, if it lets them see the little anima creatures it might not be possible to do so. But either way we'll need to find a way to disable it or know the times when it's safe to operate. Maybe we can animate something nearby to cause an accident? Maybe we can unplug something? Maybe we can send a bug to cause a short circuit?
Oh, idea! Maybe we can animate a part of the lens itself or put a small undead creature in/near it and then deanimate it? That way when we want to disable it we just telerot there and do the deed.
Also, do non-puppet undead (the ones controlled by the little creatures) also have an anima link to us?
You check your duty belt before continuing. You've got...a baton and a handgun as weapons. The guards up on the catwalks of the admin building and the outer walls have rifles and the armory has rifles as well.
Non-puppet undead, as well as the puppet undead, do not HAVE to have a link to you. But that link is how you control them, so without it they would either just go comatose or begin behaving however they desired.
You head up to the roof of the admin building, moving as though you have a definite purpose and drawing no suspicion as far as you can tell. Its near sunset by the time you reach the lens and there's no one around in this very top section of the building; though there are guards on duty directly below. The lens and its housing area remind you of a lighthouse; the lens is a large thing, a metal tube maybe a foot and a half long held in a roof mounted frame. The outer casing has handles on it and it seems like it can be pointed up or down as well as rotated in place. Inside the tube itself is what appears to be a long piece of glass cut to fit the frame. Its so thick that the view through it is highly distorted and foggy, though not impossible to understand. Like looking at the world through murky, moving water. From one side you can't see anything special, but when you move to the other side the anima is visible through the lens. You had wondered what you would see, since the anima is always visible to you, but through the lens it is something else entirely.
The anima you see is somewhat hazy and translucent, almost as though made of condensed and solidified steam. The anima through this lens is living neon fire; vibrantly bright and multicolored in a way you never saw. Every creature that swims above has its own colors and patterns, all of them almost blindingly brilliant. The anima itself is like a flowing sea of blue-purple silk, nearby creatures like living jewels, polished metal, carved stone, and even ghostly light. Its very beautiful. And unlike the hazy mundane world, the anima is perfectly clear and sharply defined. You can even see straight through the buildings and walls, the projections of the anima that mark living things standing out through concrete and steel like sunlight through cheese cloth.
You look for a clue as to how it works, and perhaps a way to sabotage it, but both remain completely beyond your gasp. To you this nothing but a large glass lens in a metal casing; there are no obvious mechanisms by which it works. And as such no obvious way to sabotage it without...well...getting extremely blunt about it. As you crouch to look at the underside of the casing, hoping to find the secret down there, someone steps up onto the platform with you. You both freeze for a moment as you notice each other. You note quickly that he's got a pack of cigarettes and lighter in his right hand and was digging through the pack.
"Whatcha doing there?" He asks. Its not accusatory, not yet at least, more just curious or confused.