The Jewel in the Skull

“It was my crowning achievement! It should have shown them all that Pandit Freud was just a crazed charlatan, obsessing only about the most simple of biological functions, ignoring the wider world and its infinite fractal nature, in his perverted pursuit of fleshly perfection. While he was busy with cutting up our experimental participants for his base interests, I managed to create a work of sublime beauty. A construction that was only intended to serve the simple need of water and waste disposal for our city, but it became so much more. Through my vision, and the simple application of basic sorcerous science, the city’s plumbing became a monument to my findings regarding the true nature of consciousness and reality itself. Trickling down through miniscule pipes, the fresh clean water of a multitude of mountain springs coalesced into a reservoir above the city, filling our minds, bodies and souls with cleanliness and the inspiration of the beyond, while beneath us, our waste was washed down into the primordial ooze, along with our unfulfilled desires failed dreams and nightmares.” Pandit Jung took a deep breath, looking around, before remarking, “In the case of my mentor, this was not just figuratively speaking. His waste was often caused by his failed experiments, some of whom were quite nightmarish, even to us.”

“I managed to harness the strength of the beautiful symbolism of this system into raw power, fuelling my mentor’s experiments. Of course, he couldn’t stand this. Here he was, pandering his flawed theories to our people, while all the while, secretly needing the fruits of my superior thought to even conduct the most basic of experiments. The situation was untenable. The adventurers’ arrival was the catalyst for the events that followed. He knew he had been weakened by us having to negotiate with the subderro, and so he had to get rid of me. He cast me out to fend for myself. I was captured by the Broken Lance Orcs, who tormented me with their pitifully banal tortures. I must admit, I was certain that I would die a rather nondescript death at the hands of the orcs, before I was acquired by your agents.”

Pandit Jung rubbed the manacles on his wrists. He eyed the self-dead pig in the corner with a gluttonous gaze.

“So you want me to map out my masterpiece? Yes there is a way directly into the treasure chamber from these tunnels, but do you think that this way is actually a feasible way to sneak into the city? I mean, there is something I didn’t tell you…Freud found a way of controlling the most heinous of the waste feeders. He inserted a scrying gem into its forehead. You would need to trick it into the vortex before he uses it to kill you.”