The Alchemic Psychopomp

But what will become of my tomes? Someone must find them, surely. Everything I’ve learned cannot be lost with me. Much like the long-lost secrets I’ve been seeking, my tomes will eventually be prised from my skeleton.
Still, I’m not dead yet, and I owe it to the whatever future researcher is fortunate enough to find these tomes to fill them with as many secrets as I can. Therefore, I will go on seeking, and I will write up until my final moment.

-This article is excerpted from a doomed researcher's Compendium of Secrets, one of Sof Sators's Fabled Compendiums. It contains uncommon, forbidden, or even dangerous knowledge-

I encountered her in one of the far-flung laboratories in the mountains behind Arun. Neither of us were supposed to be there, so our chance encounter brought with it an immediate, silent accord to maintain our secrecy. At once, without even knowing who the other was, we became accomplices in our investigation of the place. Does it violate that accord to write about her now? I never learned her true identity, so I can't disrupt her anonymity. This is just a story I have, a person I met, that I feel the need to record. It's funny, I think, that I entered that laboratory seeking the alchemic secrets of the Osseans, but the most interesting thing I discovered was the Alchemic Psychopomp.

-Vali Neyr

1027 CR

Identifying Characteristics

I initially mistook her for a sollin anthral, meaning she lacked any signs of claws, hooves, horns, or tail, but in rerospect I might have missed a few details. The different kinds of anthrals look very similar to me. I might have missed if she had claws on her hands or blunted horns concealed in her hair, a tail beneath her robes, any of which would have revealed her to be littorn. I write this because someone else might find it significant, not because I am personally concerned about the nuance of one kind of anthral or another. To me, she was much more characterized by the air of coldness around her, by which I mean she moved slowly and efficiently, straight-backed and direct. She did not waste any movement on idle expression or gesture, and her voice was flat and unwavering as though very bored. Despite this, there was also a levity to her, as though she found her existence -- or my existence -- to be amusing in a way that was not quite funny. Her dark lips did not smile, no lines of joy ever creased her pale features, and there was a death-like emptiness behind her icy eyes, yet her choice of words was clever, her observations bouth poignant and irreverent, and her gaze restlessly roving in search of some interesting thing to see.
She was fond of the color green, it seemed, and wore this almost exclusively. Green dress, green robe, green cloak and hood, accented only here and there with black fur.

Personal History

I was aware of the mythic figure of the Alechmeic Psychopomp before our meeting, and her behavior did nothing to counter it. She is said to have learned from the Osseans themselves and been witness to their demise, and to have transcended the natural limits of anthral lives. She is best-known for her letters, many of which have been stolen or recovered and become items of interest for collectors or researchers attempting to prise her expansive knowledge from her correspondences. I asked her about this, and she was open about her annoyance of this fact. She does seek secret knowledge and ancient magic, and claims that she has discovered many fascinating and horrifying things throughout her centuries of life (not the least of which being the magic by which she goes on living), but unnlike myself she believes that knowledge comes with an inherent danger. She wishes to share her discoveries only with select individuals, with whom she shares long correspondence, but with the growth of her reputation it became more common for her letters to go missing out be outright stolen. She told me that she originally tried to conceal her letters or send them by special courier, but has recently stopped writing letters entirely.
Her life has been one of research and ingenuity, uncovering alchemical truths that others had attempted to conceal, and using these to invent new concoctions and magics. Apparently, her ability to commune with the dying was the discovery that set this in motion, as she used this to take the secrets from aged alchemical masters that would otherwise have never shared their greatest discoveries. The way she tells it, she sets a lure that causes dead souls to pass by her on their way to wherever they are going (she seemed to know more about what lies beyond death than she said, but I failed to convince her to tell me), and can "catch" and hold them to speak with them.
This ability quickened her studies and set her on a great journey throughout Sof Sator, traveling the continent from end to end, over and over, as she heard about the coming deaths of knowledgable masters. She claims to have held the souls of many famous academics, seekers, and sorcerers, and her recovered letters also back this claim. Education and Intellect
She has clearly been thoroughly educated, though I can't tell if this was done at the colleges in Arun, in Revan, or one of the other institutions throughout Sof Sator. I can tell, at least, that isn't exclusively self-taught, simply because of how efficiently she found her way through the files and records of the laboratory where I met her; she was clearly no stranger to the cataloguing system employed by the academics of Arun, a system which has left me vexed time and again across me many visits. Her learned nature was reiterated when I met her later in the city of Arun itself. When we spoke of the secrets we had been seeking and shared what we had uncovered (I always freely share everything I know, and let her read through my records with neither hurry nor expectation of anything in return), I noticed she expressed her knowledge using the lectural hierarchy which was originally taught in Arun and Revan. Speaking with her felt very much like speaking with a long-tenured professor, or the kind of academic who communicates always as if drafting a paper for review.

Moral Standing

Unforunately, the Alchemic Psychopomp disagrees with me soundly on the sharing of knowledge. I made my records freely available to her. She secreted away everything she knew. When I made my case to be one of those select few worthy of her knowledge, she rightly pointed out that any secret shared with me would be widely known soonafter. Given our differing ethics, I should be grateful she was willing to speak with me at all. Now, the thing you'll most want to know about is her ethical stance on the interrogation of the dead. Firstly, I'll remind you that the binding of ghosts is commonplace in Arun, and using spirits to power magic had been a sorcerous there well before the influence of the Osseans. With this fact in mind, the Alchemic Psychopomp's questioning of the dead seems relatively benign. She did not, as far as I could tell, hold any dead soul against its will, or maintain any unrelenting grip. The way she spoke of the dead had a respect to it, and her explanation of the process sounded almost gentle. The Alchemic Psychopomp told me that she believes she makes death a less jarring transition for those whom she touches, giving them a moment's pause before they are swept into whatever lies beyond, letting them express final thoughts and unburden themselves of their secrets.
How many souls does she touch? Is it only one soul here and there, every now and again, or does she run her waxen fingers through the spirits of dozens and hundreds each night? Perhaps more? Of this, she gave no clue. I did ask her directly, but the question seemed to place a burden upon her, and she struggled to turn it aside, so I took mercy and changed the subject.

Species

Anthral

Age

300+

Descriptors

Female
Icy blue eyes
Short, dark hair
Waxen complexion
Lacking fur
Common size and shape
Plantigrade