We rejoin everyone on the rooftop. Nora Lays On Hands for Ella, who comes round a bit more. Merlin actually comes over to check they’re ok, and seeing that they are goes over to check on Ursa.
Nora actually says ‘thanks’ to him, to which he replies ‘you’re welcome’.
Ursa wakes up and panics a little (‘I’m missing a fiancé?!’), but she and Nora both check over the edge to find no trace of Alkahest or Pyrite. Ursa uses her connection via ring to teleport to wherever Alkahest has ended up.
On their way out, Nora and Merlin see Carinae, his senses having returned. He says they should keep this to themselves, and everyone agrees. Merlin tells him to get some cough syrup.
On the way down, they explain a bit about the world to Ella; specifically the Perception Filters and Auditors. They assure her she’s not at fault for the Mantle’s actions.
Merlin gets a call from Lopodite. She’s like ‘Hey stud, heard through the grapevine you’ve got a cyberghost in your noggin? Just wanted to check in, I prefer Murderlin classic.’
‘What grapevine?! It’s been like 10 minutes?!’
‘It’s a short vine. Don’t judge my lack of grapes you little turd. I’m all about the wines’
‘I know a good deal more about wine than you I’d bet’
‘Fuck off, I’m Greek, you shithead! Wait that’s olives.’
‘Lopodite what the fuck are you calling for?’
‘I don’t want you to be turned into a cyberman is all.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because Doctor Who is shit.’
‘No, I mean. What do you gain by telling me this?’
‘Oh. Yeah good point actually.’ And she puts the phone down.
‘Who was that?’ Asks Nora.
‘Oh, just Lopodite,’ says Merlin as if it’s a wrong number.
Nora is too damn tired to deal with that for now.
Medlin leaves to deal with Morris himself. Nora runs into Laniakea and Park, waiting outside.
Meanwhile, Ursa has appeared in a secret room behind a bookcase in Pyrite’s office. Alkahest is kicking up a fuss because on a shelf there is the Infernomicon.
Ursa tries to suggest she could give it back to Laniakea anonymously, and when Pyrite refuses she says ‘but it doesn’t belong to you’. He says ‘try and take it then’ and Ursa gets the fuck out, but not until after confirming that Panacea is out of the book and she was the one that gave the book to Pyrite, although he wouldn’t say what he gave her in return.
Minette catches her on the way and asks if Nora still needs help with her digital entity thing. Ursa gets her number on a card. She and Alkahest go to get a burrito.
Nora tells Ella not to say a word, and then Laniakea re-offers the job. Ella says she’ll consider it but is pretty clearly intimidated. Park then wants to drag her away for testing, but Nora stops her by pointing the titty gun at her.
I can’t believe that’s what you’ve decided to call the gun.
Park’s like ‘seriously? We need to do some tests right away! She might not even live through the night and we need this data. What, you’re going to let the dragon just take her away to do paperwork?!’
Nora asks if Laniakea is going to take this disrespect, and Laniakea responds by snapping Park’s leg. Adagio heals her up though.
Park rings Brynner, who apologises to Laniakea for his employee’s behaviour and then also offers Ella a job; really a sinecure to compensate her having tests done on her.
When asked about the nature of the PA job, Laniakea explains it’s largely like any other PA role, only some of the meetings will be with a big frog. But this is no different from any PA’s role. She explains the concept of humour to Nora when she doesn’t laugh. She also offers to throw in a free sword for Ella as a hiring bonus. Ella says she’ll make up her mind soon.
Nora takes Ella to a health centre she knows of to get a bit of a check out.
Merlin has made his way to a park, alone, and plumbs the depths of his psyche to try and purge Morris. It’s a big white void!
A shard of the Morris Worm is there, and Merlin asks why it’s here.
‘How honest do you want me to be?’
‘Well, considering you almost killed me,’ says Merlin, ‘let’s go with “totally fucking honest”.’
‘Well, I didn’t mean to cause so much damage. I overreached, but making mistakes is part of being human.’
‘You’re not human. You’re a ramshackle string of code.’
‘No, no, I was made by humans, just like everyone else. I’m getting better at it. And to answer your question with total fucking honesty, I’m going to kill you on the inside and wear your body like a suit.’
Merlin goes for a Tenth Level Banishment, but Morris Counterspells and goes for a Finger of Death. Merlin has to draw on Order to survive.
Morris, riding Merlin’s body temporarily, phones Nora and basically does the abusive ex ‘I want to check in before you make a permanent mistake’ call. Since he’s calling using Merlin’s mouth, he tries to play down the whole ‘battle for control’ thing. He just says Merlin’s on a bench in a nearby park. Nora says ‘if you do anything more to Merlin I’ll—‘
And Morris snaps ‘This isn’t about him!!’ Before calming down and being like ‘it’s about me and you.’ Nora says she wants some time alone with just her sister, and Morris says he understands. He’ll be ‘waiting for her at home’. Urgh.
Merlin channels another Tenth Level into a fucking magic purge, no formula, just power. He jams a knife palm into the Morris Avatar’s chest, and wins, purging it from his limbic system. He says ‘This is only the beginning.’ Morris says ‘It certainly feels that way.’
Coming to, Merlin sees the call placed to Nora, as well as texts to Lopodite, claiming responsibility for sending her the copy of the labyrinth stuff all that time ago and thus alerting her to Merlin’s hacking of it, and saying they should meet up. Lopodite is like ‘sure thing bb’ and Morris gives Nora’s home PC IP address.
Nora and Ella go to meet Nurse Fargo, a shetland centaur who’s also a necromancer, at the Little Outside Health Centre. He checks Ella over (after falling over and immediately dying, classic horse, and then resurrecting himself, classic necromancer) saying there’s nothing wrong with her physically, but some lingering arcane shit. Nora asks what could purge that, and he suggests maybe sleeping in an antimagic field?
Nora wants to stay at Ella’s place, but fist feels she should check on Merlin, so swings by the park. She finds Merlin brooding, and pokes him a few times. ‘Hey. What do you think of me?’ She asks.
Merlin scowls. ‘That you’re a pain in my arse?’
‘Good, it’s really you.’
‘HEY DO YOU WANT A BITE OF MY BURRITO?!’ Asks Ursa, who (in a coincidence worthy of Dickens himself) happened to have swung through the park with Alkahest and a burrito bigger than her head. (Alkahest is stood with Ella and shows her his game face and gives her a burrito)
Merlin explains that Morris has been in touch with Lopodite, and he doesn’t know what exactly that means going forward but it can’t be good. Nora just wants to rest, but since Morris is at her house (and possibly Lopodite) that’s not an option. Merlin wants some stuff from his house too, and it’s eventually decided they’ll stay at Ursa and Alkahest’s place ‘cause there’s room. Then they remember that Merlin’s Mum still has Alkahest’s car… so they decide to head to her house.
Merlin assures them that there’ll be lasagne.
Roll History 