Be wary of favors freely given. Doubly so for spirits. Ohanzee cursed himself. He'd been running on empty for so long that he hadn't even realized that any information acquired yesterday might be suspect.
"Cursed Raven" he said aloud. Celestial Raven was silent.
>>@Team [Ohanzee] I'm sorry, I must have been out of it more than I thought yesterday. I'm surprised we made it this far alive considering the trust you placed in me.
He tossed what he knew - or, thought he knew - around in his head, supplemented with the newly clarified information.
>>@Team [Ohanzee] Ok, based on the information I have available to me, here's how it appears to have gone down. Late last night something happened to make us suspect our Johnson - I'm talking about Red team here as I'm still not sure how Blue team fit in - and we, um, burned some bridges. I'd guess that the bomb might have been constructed after this point, but Katsina makes a good point - we seemed to have had a good amount of time between the actual run to acquire the artifact and the time we woke up. So our late night disagreement with the Johnson likely took place after we'd had the artifact in our possession for a while. Sometime after 10pm, but before midnight, we triggered the artifact and that led to the amnesia - most likely. It's still possible that the artifact isn't responsible, but I'd put that possibility as remote, especially considering what I have discovered.
>> In my attempt to communicate with the artifact, I was overwhelmed by countless "voices" - speaking in different languages, some quite possibly old. I don't now if the artifact itself is intelligent, but it certainly seems to contain a large number of, for lack of a better understanding, minds. I suspect that ours - the old us, of course - are among them. Destroying the artifact could free them, or ensure that they are lost forever.
>>In any case, it appears that destroying the artifact was NOT our original intent, but at some point after acquiring it we decided to do so. This may have been because of some knowledge our previous selves had about the artifact, or it may have been a simple negotiation tactic, or retribution, against the Johnson. In either case, if we decide to go ahead with the artifact's destruction, we'd best pick a remote area devoid of metahumans and be very far away before the bomb detonates because if it does destroy the artifact, the energy released will be titanic. I'm guessing anything within kilometers would be affected, though not necessarily lethally so. I can't exactly predict what the damage would be as I have no reference - destruction of vessels with this much stored power is nearly unheard of.
>>I wish I had more for us to use to base our decision off of, but I don't. If it helps, I strongly suspect that our infection is not related to the artifact, simply because the infection does not carry the artifact's aura. But, unless we can find any evidence from our old lives that indicates that the infection predates the acquisition of the artifact - medical records, anything - we can't know for sure. Perhaps if we can get to a properly equipped medical facility, Doc can give us better answers. But that is unlikely to happen before our vote tonight.
Ohanzee searched his memories, as suspect as they had proven to be, trying to remember if anyone had shared any info with him about where they might have lived before. Perhaps, if they had been infected, he could search their residence and neighbors for other infected in proximity. But, no, all of the identities that had been shared appeared to be fakes, so no one seemed to have a good candidate for a previous residence.
>>Listen, if we can find out where any of us had stayed prior to the "artifact job", maybe I can scout it from the astral and look for signs of the infection. If we had it for any amount of time, and it is communicable, our neighbors should also have it. Or maybe I'll get lucky and find medical equipment that might indicate that we were at least actively attempting to treat it. That would be a strong indicator that the artifact is not involved in the illness.
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At Katsina's announcement that enemies had been spotted, Ohanzee replied.
>>@Team [Ohanzee] Can you give us an approximate location? I might be able to take a discrete peek.