Pulsing Crystal
The Pulsing Crystal is a mysterious, sentient object located in the Serbule Crypt. It is the source of the undead manifestations of Khyrulek including Khyrulek and Khyrulek's True Form, her sentience and soul are contained in a pocket dimension inside the crystal.
“Well, when you kill my undead bodies I just come back, because those emotions still exist in me. The only way to kill me would be to destroy the tiny dimension where my soul lives. I've searched for a spell that's powerful enough, but never found one. So as far as I know, I'm unkillable.
It's a small world without a sun. There's no air except around a small farm I made. There are undead caretakers, some rhinos and other augmented animals... but mostly, it's just a mansion surrounded by nothingness. There's no way in, as far as I know.
Well there's the sentience that you're talking to, plus two undead bodies of me. Once is fueled by my rage, and the other my despair. A third one is trying to form, based on my jealousy of the living, but I'm keeping that under control! I do a lot of meditation.
Location
Located on Floor 2 of the Serbule Crypt, the Pulsing Crystal is located behind a magic wall. The room before the crystal is guarded by Khyrulek's True Form, and her pet Rhino, Feverdance.
Show Item
Unusual items can be shown to the Pulsing Crystal, resulting in a comment about the history of the shown item.
Item Response “It's old money, called an obol. Before the Council came along these obols were used for all sorts of modest purchases.
“It's old money, called a drachma. They were quite valuable before the Council came. You could buy a month's food with one drachma.
“It's old money, called a tetradrachm. They were quite valuable before the Council came. A single tetradrachm could easily feed, clothe, and house a large family for a month.
“This... this is from an evil time, long before the Crone Hegemony, when the god Ilth Hale was more powerful and corrupted entire cities. If you ever meet one of her avatars, I'm sure she'd be amuse by this old token of a bygone era. But since she's the god of sorrow and loss, you generally don't want to amuse Ilth Hale...
“That's a chunk of an abomination. Hmm, looks like Dalvos's handiwork. Never met him, but he's quite powerful.
“Ah. Well, you see I've been experimenting with magical animals for a few centuries, and I went through a large rhino phase...
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“Hey, that's mine! You stole it from me! You... must... calm... I'm calm. It's okay. Not hateful...
“Oh, I had one of those when I was alive. They were a huge fad at the time. This one looks really old, though.
“Hm, this is ancient! It harkens back to when the dwarves were consorting with 'demons' to learn new forge secrets. Nice find!
“It's from the Elvish lands. It'd make a great collectible for an elf lover, I suppose, but it's not really very powerful.
“It's from the Elvish lands. It'd make a great collectible for an elf lover, I suppose, but it's not really very powerful.
“It's from the Elvish lands. It'd make a great collectible for an elf lover, I suppose, but it's not really very powerful.
“It's from the Elvish lands. It'd make a great collectible for an elf lover, I suppose, but it's not really very powerful.
“Where in the world did you find this? It's quite lovely. Someone's soul is in there, you know! Now, I'm not suggesting you do this, because it's technically evil, but if you prepared it in a potion and drank it, you'd gain some of the dead person's memories. And possibly their opinions, phobias, and fears. I believe orcish thaumaturges know how to brew the potion, but I can't imagine they get to do it very often. That stone is quite rare!
“Oh, do you see the safety runes? This will slowly imbue everything around it with chaos. In people, that causes a rare kind of fatal illness, so you should probably avoid touching it or storing it in pockets that are too close to your body. Actually, you should probably just get rid of it, unless you're going to put it into a dwarven automation.
“A Dwarven invention, but beloved by human merchants. The rune painted on the stone is just a standard gateway rune. Activating it unleashes a tiny battery of magic stored in the stone itself.
“It's a prism. When light goes through it, it is turned into differently-colored light via a magical concept called Refraction. I've heard you can also Refract some kinds of magic through a prism, turning it into other kinds of magic. But it sounds very finicky and unreliable to me.
“It's from an old cyclopic home or building. When the Cyclopes were friendly with the crones, the crones provided these nails by the thousands, and cyclops construction was revered everywhere. But then the cyclopes grew angry with them, and the crones activated a secret back door that caused all those buildings to collapse. I'm sure it can't be dangerous anymore, though... probably.
“This 'sand' is actually the powdered remains of a golem. A seeker-destroyer golem, I think... a common footsoldier among various demon races.
“Interesting! This pattern is actually a ley-line map. Encoding them in this way creates magical energy -- it's one way of creating runes. This one could probably help you create a powerful healing rune, if you studied it for a few years.
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