"Compendium of the Awakening" by Hope, formerly #163 'Cassie'

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

// The first journal, the Compendium of the Fallen, can be found here: http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=34325.0 //

[This small, white journal is sealed by a silver clasp that's been stamped with a bloody kiss, and can usually be found tucked away somewhere in #163's robes]


This book is the PRIVATE property of Experiment #163 'Cassie'. If you are Master and reading this, shut it NOW!

This tome is the property of Hope. Reward offered for its return if stolen.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

When we first arrived in the Drain and settled in a little, having missed father so much, I asked him to tell me the story of how he'd gotten me again as we sat by the fire. Recalling the tale of abandonment, youth, and prodigious magic, he recounted how my mother, then only four years older than I am now, left me with him despite Amadeus being only sixteen and not the true father, because the two of them were utterly incapable of agreeing on anything besides their dislike of each other. So it was I came to Amadeus's arms as a babe, to be raised in the ways of the Vaunted, and, when old enough, to begin experimentation on as #163, the latest prototype in the Arisen Army's quest for a true immortal, neither living nor dead nor undead nor unliving, but somthing new and unusual.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

Today, while walking through the southern woods in our surface outfits which we wear to confuse and lull the surfacers, it struck me that the upper world could at times have a beauty of its own, apart from that I've known all my life. The quiet crypts and silent tombs, the bubbling and scents of strange and wondrous potions and poisons in hidden laboratories, or the miraculous workings of a body whether alive or undead....these things, for just a moment, paled as I felt odd emotions run through me, glancing down at myself in a peasant's somewhat ill-fitting clothes.

So it was that I asked Amadeus whether he had ever wondered, wondered about our lives and how they could have been different. Sixteen when given me, and him still fairly fresh to the Arisen Army from out of Waterdeep, yet he kept me instead of using me up or giving me to a minion as a snack. He has always wanted love and a family, he said, and from this I take it he must have lost his own back in Waterdeep, and it drove him to study the darkest arts here, though he has never gone into any detail about his time there in the city.

But it is not often one finds love, not in a society of dark mages and darker clerics, whose power is one that is full of risks, both for the user and the victim, and attracting evil attentions via its use, preys upon the sanity of its users: hence why older necromancers tend to be on the more psychotic side, unless they've a most powerful will. Few would love a necromancer, knowing what she is, and even fewer some of the sacrifices that must be made in the pursuit of mastery.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

Continuing the previous discussion as we wandered the Outskirts, Vistani Camp, and sewers, we finally made our way back to the Drain, relaxing by the fire. Master started reminiscing, or so I gathered from his expression, and we spoke of the reasons Amadeus had never gotten together with someone else in all my years. Projects and politics, he said, had interfered, whereupon I, who had dominated eighteeen years of research and experiments, promptly apologized for ruining life, yet he claimed I wasn't a project, but his greatest success, which makes me feel warm and happy inside, even though I've a long way to go.

He's begun working, too, on a copy of all the research and experimentation I've undergone and will undergo at his hands too, so if he perishes I won't be left without a way to finish. I really wish he wouldn't talk like that: those long days without him, stuck in that sun-lover's temple, showed just how badly I missed and needed him. I think...I think I don't see Master how I used to anymore. We spoke of beauty, inner and outer, and how the eyes can deceive, when I told him how I saw him. I can see he's unhappy, on some level, and thinks I won't need him if he finishes me...but that's only not needing him physically, in terms of maintenance and upgrades to my body, I said, trying to hint I still would emotionally. Unfortunately, I don't think he quite understood due to exhaustion, and laid down minutes later...

Sigh. What are these feelings?

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

Vampires. Always opening their mouths for one thing or another. I made a jest about how Master was mine only, and she couldn't have him, and she just blurts out that I...love...him! I couldn't believe my ears, and worse, he thought it was 'highly doubtable'! Ugh...so embarassing, I almost went back to sleep. Though...could she be right? What is love, anyway? I'll have to ask around, I guess. Time for research, it seems!

Oh no, Master has fallen ill! I tried everything I could short of opening him, but he claims he'll worsen until he dies, with him getting sicker with each gain in power! His culmination of me, he claims, will be the end of him. I don't want that! He's Master, he's been around ever since I was a baby. I don't want him gone, I'll make him like me! I'll augment him using his own supreme knowledge. I'll give him a structure like mine, so he won't die from this -necromancer's curse-, and then we can be together for eternity as Master and Apprentice.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

[This entry seems tear-stained, written in a shaky, weak hand unlike her usual composed and thick letters]

Date - Unknown

Oh no, oh no...what have I done?! Master is FURIOUS with me, and sad, no no no. I can't believe it, that I could hurt him like that when all he wanted was to protect me. I'm so stupid, and now my ankle is ruined and Serafim said to never expect help from her again (not that I ever did in the first place). But Master, ugh. How could I have been so stupid as to push him away like that, forcing myself on someone they were protecting me from?!

Maybe I should go find Rendall and let him punch me again. Perhaps it'll knock some sense back into me. I never wanted to hurt Master; he's my world and my Master and my only companion! He's my everything, and I just...is this what they call love, this wrenching feeling inside that's filling me with regret over this? I just don't know, but I'd do anything if it meant he'd just smile at me again and take care of me gently like he always has. Oh, Master...!

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

So be it. Serafim has made my course clear to me, once I apologized to her and Master, telling me that love is only worth it when you can endure its loss. If that is the case, and I am truly a monster as she, then I will take a place in the world, and force it to accept me. I will not allow, will not tolerate, this weakness of the heart. If Master will not be mine, then I will eagerly learn all his lessons before tearing the title of Master from his all-powerful hands and using it to bend eternity to my whim. I shall have all of time to build myself a companion who can last forever with me, so there is no need to feel for Master, to fret and become weak over his loss.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

What a pair of fools we were! Master and I have just obliterated irrevocably any chance I can take to the surface again, at least until I can learn to hide myself magically, or attain such power that, like Serafim and Sabel, I stand so far above mortals that their pathetic attempts become meaningless. A disaster, we at least salvaged it by all but killing a pathetic follower of the sun, who sought to impose his will on us. The spider ring paid for itself in full with just that one defense, and Grim took over the handling of the body after we had him in the dirt. A mixed victory, I suppose, but certainly a full one for the Vaunted. Fear the Night, mortals, fear Velsharoon's unholy power! Undeath and immortality are the true paths to power, as the Lord of the Forgotten Crypt and the vampires have proven, holding their own against a half-dozen and driving them all away. I only wish that...no, forget it. It cannot be, so I will not even imagine it, Master and I. He was so courageous and powerful....

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

I...feel differently, almost. Something teases at me, gives me an odd feeling. I had a conversation with the stone-masked man today in the Drain, after destroying that fat male vampire's coffin, and him with it, once a master mage had crushed him into mist. He spoke of tampering as an abomination of the natural process, that the weak are meant to be devoured via natural selection. However, I countered with the natural process of the weak growing stronger, such as plants developing poison, and animals becoming immune to it: improvement through self. He took this seriously, and we discussed golemcraft, soul transference, and ways of improving me further. He finally handed me a number of potions, Endurance, Strength, and Barkskin, which was funny. I'll admit to teasing him about it, asking if tinkering wasn't abominable after all, and he said that his narrow view on life had been challenged, and he had much to think on, asking me my name. I showed him my forehead, and he instead gave me a most unusual, but somehow fitting name.... Hope. Hope for a better future, Hope for improvement, Hope in general. I had never thought about it that way, but that is exactly what I am, what the entire Experiment is.

I am the Hundred and Sixty Third Hope of Velsharoon. Cassie is my tag, and #163 my Designation, but...

I am Hope. I am Hope. And who is to say that Hope cannot take many forms, many paths? Perhaps I shall follow my Name for a time, and see what strangenesses it might lead me to. I have a feeling Master might soon regret not accepting my offer to read this Compendium, but whether I shall give it to him if he asks...well, I could always tear out this page, first.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

My new life on the surface as Hope seems to be doing better than I thought it would! I helped an Elf of gold skin, gold armor, and gold eyes the other day assemble a camp for  himself and travellers, and he invited me, along with his kin, to Har'akir a few hours ago! They were wary of me at first, in fact all the way until we got back to Barovia, but we had a good time and did quite a bit! It was a crazy couple days: those Elves can FIGHT! Master mages, master archers, the one of gold can even become an Iron Golem at will. Perhaps best of all, though: I've now nearly achieved Second Circle in the Arcane, and though it cost me every single coin, acquired a powerful robe from the Mist Camp that had the Elves take one look at me and go, "Lich!" That...that was absolutely priceless, I wish I had a mirror. The only bad thing was when a desert troll wrenched my shoulder, damaging it. I had the iron golem tug my arm to get it back into shape, but it still doesn't feel right. Hopefully the support isn't damaged already, with no Master to fix it, since I can't really reach my shoulder to operate on it.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Unknown

Power. I can feel it, growing and flowing through my physical structure as I destroy mummy after mummy in the hot desert. It's exhausting, both physically and mentally, but incredibly rewarding. The challenge is so far beyond anything I've encountered before, their magicks outshining mine like bonfires to a candle. And yet, for all their might, they're nothing to me. I don't mean they're easy, or they're weak. I mean their existences are voids, and they accomplish nothing with their brief eternity, save to kill and to fall in their turn. I can see myself in them, but I will not be like them, I will not waste eternity being a mindless slave. Hope shall carry through, finding the determination to exist at all costs, to learn all there is, and use that knowledge to crack open the very vault of the sky and the bowels of the earth, the depths of the mind and the soaring heights of the heart, in my endless quest to quench this void inside, the endless hunger for knowledge and power.

And speaking of mummies, I found Red outside the temple earlier, the gnome mummy. Some few spells were tossed between the mummy and the hin Elly, but I grew bored of the undead's dramas. Coming back out of the temple, I said a few words on the matter before unleashing the searing light of the divine against him, seeking to spur others to action. It worked, and in mere instants, he lay dead at my feet. A job well done, and now only two left to burn from this world of mine.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Barovian Calendar

A most curious thing, indeed a series of most curious things, have occured in the past few hours. Awaiting dawn in the Mist Camp, a Vistani woman appeared before me, noting that many things awaited my coming, while I stood there waiting for them to come to me. She then pulled out a Tarokka deck, and a card flew free to land at my feet: The Prison. A most fitting card for such as I. From the mists, then, came her little daughter, Laetitia Cornell, to read me the card.

"You feel in a prison because you are away from home, nothing is consistent to what you knew. And the prison, yes, people are afraid of you and you have not power enough to break the chains. This is not a reading, you know, readings are done with more cards and all. This is....else."

A most interesting and correct...else, then, and at 'else', her mother quickly silenced her, saying Laetitia didn't need to go into it. I wonder why not? We were getting along extremely well...it must have something to do with the Vistani's secrets, which the Cornell won't even tell her husband, Ernst. The mother also made a curious and disturbing statement on why the Vistani didn't fear and revile me...

"We sell future to mortals and we sell a past to gods, we are not afraid of anything."

All words having been said, the daughter sent me to fulfill the price of the reading: a quest for Dementlieuse cookies. Having acquired several and some flowers of gold for the child, to get in her good graces, I returned. It seems she then went against her mother's wishes, and interfered somehow in Vistani matters, because she led me into a patch of mist, took my hand, and we travelled together through it to meet her father, Professor Ernst Cornell, at her...home, a secret trio of rooms in a Dementlieuse restaurant. It turns out he teaches history and cultures, and we had a most delightful conversation, as well as securing me a job! I am to be his assistant and advertiser for his upcoming classes, in no less than the Arcane facility at the University!

Before I forget, I must also note that a gray mage in the Mist Camp informed me that despite its seeming mundanity, the Tarokka card, indeed all of them, had a power that could be tapped. Yet, she warned, power in the wrong hands, could turn to a curse.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Barovian Calendar

It is odd to me, this surface world. They cry about monsters, but shun me when I seek to destroy them, and call me mad if I consort with them. It would be so much easier if they'd make up their minds. It has also occured to me that truly destroying the final opponents who stand against me, may not be possible after all due to their power and skill, and I may have to devise subtler methods of victory such as the theft of whatever they most desire, instead, lest I in turn fall: after all, there's always a stronger nightmare. I suppose I will try it, for a time, and see what this surface world is truly like.

So! Rather than continue my tireless hunt for their lairs, I shall instead focus my efforts to a single thing: freeing Master. Yes, I said Master. While not in need of maintenance as yet, it truly galls me to leave him in that...that THING's embrace. If taking him from her, and leaving her to suffer impotently is experimentally possible, then that's what I'll do: after all, love is only worth it if you can endure it's loss. Perhaps stealing Master from Serafim will break her heart once and for all, causing her to hurl herself into the sun's light? That would be exceedingly amusing to watch, for the wretched misery she's put me through with this. Well, it would suffice to break her grip on him, or somehow...get him to take me back. Even if I have to force my way back. I'm his life, his Experiment, the one he raised from...the very start. There must be something there, mustn't there? I think I lost sight of what I truly wanted along the way, blaming Serafim when Master wished her company himself.

Master, come back to me!

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Barovian Calendar

Finally, people who can fix me! I was going to ask Thorn, but some females named Seamus, Rhetra, and Isi all but tossed him aside in their efforts to aid me, and aid me they did. Using my full complement of tools and notes, they skillfully re-opened my dislocated shoulder, removed and replaced the worn, mangled pins with magicked new ones, sliced away old, internal scar tissue, then carefullly ensured full movement of the joint before closing it back up and giving me restoratives of several kinds to help it heal before helping me lay down to sleep for a full day. It is good, now, to not have to worry so much about regular maintenance. I wish Amadeus would get over this latest obsession, but....oh well. Life goes on, as I've learned, and I've things to do. These people have so many excellent suggestions for upgrades! But I have to remember, I need those which extend my longevity first. Amadeus told me I didn't need him since I had his notes, so very well. I seem to have found an expert bunch, though not quite as skilled as he or I, yet sufficient in their fields...and I can train them up to my own skill level if necessary.

Note to self: They have experience with soul transferrence into a living construct which has no soul. DON'T DO IT. The soul could be corrupted in the process if anything goes wrong at all, or even completely lost, having no host body.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

[A copy of Amadeus's notes on her structure from the former Compendium have been accumulated here loosely, bound in string]

*Notes on Cassie's/Experiment 163's anatomy structure has been added to the Compendium, and information regarding the current status of her joints and muscle structure has been described in hefty detail, along with sketches and layouts of plans for future modifcations. Scrolls containing the current spells and necrological processes instilled upon her body and their effects have been added as well*

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Akuecha persvek iejir, ilieh persvek loerchik.
Iteshk di wer kornari dronilnric dastudr.

Forged in blood, perfect in pain.
Sorrow of the heart brings strength.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

//Since it seems certain people and groups have trouble keeping OOC separate from IC, there'll be no more entries here until the reign of stupidity ends. If you don't like something in-game, you deal with it in-game, and too bad if you can't handle how the server works in regards to dealing with characters you don't like.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

// Alright, so I lied about no more posts, but still won't post anything of interest or use. //

[A smattering of sketched diagrams here and some scribbled notes, apparently for the creation of one or more false legs.]

WARNING: This design will permanently remove the capacity to swim using the leg(s).

Intended Augmentation by design: enhanced grip, therefore less falling over.

Remember to include the shifting counterbalance to improve overall stability.

Remember to have a detachable 'shell' crafted to shield and access the biomechanical mechanisms if necessary.

See bottom diagram for inspiration on connecting and grafting both existing and new muscles and other tissues to the thigh, pulley system and mechanical leg.

Note to self: Consider detachable armor plating or somesuch for various parts of the design.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

[Some further scribbling is added later]

Additional thought hinted automatic claw grip may be detrimental for climbing and other activities. Add function to manually loosen, tighten, or lock the pulleys, such as a pair of lockable spools for storing or releasing excess material. Don't forget to add indicators and an automatic joint lock for a mis-matched calibration to avoid damaging mechanisms or body.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Barovian Calendar

Note to self: remember to cancel the order for the leg.

The healing houses in Dementlieu did a far better job on me than Amadeus ever did. Perhaps necromancy isn't always the best solution? Probably shouldn't ponder that too much, being a Cryptskull. Heretical thoughts, out of my head!

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Barovian Calendar

Odd, the compliments and surprise from of those males around me, the ones who know me as well as any mortal I give a glimpse of my thoughts to. I looked at myself in the lake recently, and could barely recognize what I saw. I begin to wonder now, as my body recovers from the exhausting and painful healing rituals, if perhaps the Experiment is destined, at least for now, to be a failure. Already I am stronger and much less frail than I was before, which is odd, though I did find, to my surprise, that I'm no longer capable of withstanding fire on my own. Winter doesn't feel like it will do me harm, though, and hopefully I won't change that much.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Barovian Calendar

Amazing, the amount of work I can get done in a day now, and without the constant pain that was my companion for a third of my life! The University and great libraries of the Port are nearly as astounding, their endless shelves of thick tomes occupying almost every minute of my waking time these days, when I am not hunting down the minimum sustenance for living. So much to read and learn of, experiences and tales I haven't dreamed or been through myself. The surface truly is full of strange and sometimes wonderful things, despite its scariness. I think though, that it is about time to pull myself out of the dusty tomes in the dim forest of shelves, and seek the sun once more for a time to think and process all the new information.

[Experiment 163 - Cassie]

Date - Year 768, Baro

Emotion. Such an odd thing, and so contrary. Why does it go against rational, logical thought? I saw Danisha clinging to Crimson the other day, and quickly became irritated about it, though I was unsure why, and wished to toss her off him. When I asked Jethro about it, he explained it as jealousy, and that I must...must...LIKE Crimson, to feel jealous about him and Danisha touching each other. I don't get it. I certainly don't want him or anyone else as a mate, though our chats are often enjoyable. That doesn't seem enough reason to feel this way, though, like I want to fireball her for getting near him. He's not mine, and I don't see a logical reason to want him as my own...ah well.

On a somewhat related note, the female named Amaratha keeps hugging me, and tried something she called a...what was it, a tickle?...on me, earlier while we were camping in the wilderness. Bah, this healed, living form seems to have some odd quirks, to set me off into laughter like that. Quite the feeling, though it seems she has a similiar weak point. If others share this property, it could make a fine way to temporarily incapacitate someone, assuming they aren't armored. Touching and hugging still feels awkward, weird, uncomfortable, and yet...somehow oddly good. It seems there is still much I've yet to learn about being a person instead of an experiment.