A dirty job

Bloody gore dripped from his fingers as he sat on a makeshift chair in frustration. Exhaustion and annoyance were fighting for supremacy. Grimly he looked at his handy work.

The Shadovar woman lay gutted and bloody on a wooden table, pale gray skin seeming to suck what little light he had lit.

Garathel wiped the blood... (or was it ichor, the Halruan was never sure) off his hands and sighed.

"Not there either... Where are you...." He frowned as the quill danced across a book copying every word he spoke. He was tired, and he was getting cranky. He'd been at this too long already and not nearly enough answers.

"The specimen seems to be healthy... Welllll... before the autopsy of course!" Looking at the scattered organs arranged around, he quickly added, "Now... now I doubt any but the strongest resurrection would bring her back.

"Which suits me just fine."

The others had left him in peace. Though nobody had made much of a fuss when he stated he was going to start his experiments that very night, he suspected that this kind of work was at the least distasteful.

Truth of the matter, he wasn't comfortable with this aspect of 'the Art' either. He had little interest in Necromancy, He took some basic classes, new some basics in anatomy... but if there was anything fundamentally different between the body here, and an average ordinary human woman.... he couldn't find it.

"Body appears... normal. The residents of Thultanthar are 'physically' as human as the residents of Halarahh... which makes sense since they are all descended from the same Netherese...

"The grayish skin... seems to be from a complete lack of daylight of their homeland. Though they've been 'back' for over two years... whatever is different about them seems to have stuck.

"The body seems to have been infused.. with the plane of shadow.... How or what that means, I don't know... and neither does Raziel."

His planar ally had been eager to help in the beginning, and Garathal was eager for the help... However, it seemed all for naught. The plane of shadow apparently was too close to the material plane... Not an outer plane... not an inner plane... and they rarely stirred out of their own little demiplane.

So the githzerai's unique knowledge failed to extract any more secrets than his own divination had. Then they had started on the organs... Starting with the brain, he had searched for any evolutionary difference... but no... nothing. Razial had departed shortly afterwards... eager to rest and replenish his own spells... but Garathel wasn't so willing to stop. He worked most the night.

"The magic resistance has to come from SOMEWHERE... But I don't have any idea where..."

The magic resistance concerned him... more than he was willing to admit. Every spell he had thrown at her had failed to connect. Every sign pointed to more of these battles... and if his magic wasn't effective, then he didn't know what to do..

If he could find the cause he may be able to break it...

"But that's a big IF right now..." he muttered aloud. "They all seem to have the same thing going for them... My magic and theirs aren't compatible... Fine I can deal with that... but my arcane and clerical spells are different too... but I can still affect clerics....

"At first I thought Drow. Also known for their magic resistance, but we KNOW the cause of that... Various radiation from the underdark.. When they leave that, they lose that.

"They have no radiation I can detect... though I have no great luck detecting their magic.... Still, it CAN'T just be a spell or mantle they prepared ahead of time... It's too.. Common.

"It all comes back to the plane of shadow doesn't it... If it's infused in them... are they now 'Planar Creatures?"

He stopped and looked at the body with a curious look. That line of thinking hadn't been expected.

"What makes a Planar creature... Planar? Angels... Demons... I've always associated them with more... ehhh... religious origins. But what if it's simply... being born in a different place...

"Demons... Devas... They have specific abilities that are natural to them... Spell like abilities (though I hate any terms that trivializes the work wizards put into their study.) Abilities that are a part of their nature... I had thought they were biological... but maybe it's more than that... simpler... Maybe they are just a different breed of demon."

He glared at the body. It was an interesting theory... but it had as many holes in it as anything else he had come up with... The bodies didn't fade back to their home plane when they died. Demons did.

"Perhaps... perhaps the planes are too close? Who knows... maybe I can dismiss them?"

With that thought in mind, he waved his hand to a floating spell book and watched the pages turn to the next spell he wanted. Deep in thought he prepared the next divination and continued his research...

Interesting ideas... but were they interesting enough...