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Well ... shit. Were you not being so tightly kept by the keeper, you would never <span class="mu-i">ever</span> consider doing something as rash as this … but you cannot bear to put off the emitter Organ any longer than you already have. So, then …if by the Mercy of the Maker, this patch of the Strangeness is just in the First Degree – that is to say, if it is not in a communicable state – then you will have to try to win your way through it to the Organ. Of course, you are going to have to contend with the near-surety of a gradient. Simply put, it is very rare that the Strangeness is spread this widely in a non-communicable state. If you were to find the Breaching Point – or with a cast like this, the Breaching Field more like – the Strangeness present there and in the immediate surroundings of the Breach will almost certainly be at a higher Degree than the Strangeness furthest from the Breach. Enough of the Strangeness in the Second Degree can spread the Strangeness in the First Degree quite far – just as enough of the Strangeness in the Third Degree can spread the Strangeness in the Second Degree, and so on.
And your Strange-Staining Scarification Glyph doesn't distinguish between Degrees of the Strangeness … well, sometimes the Strangeness at higher Degrees shifts color and swirls faster – but not always, and even when it does, the changes can be so gradual you cannot immediately determine where the First Degree ends and the Second Degree begins. Your father did teach you a trick, where you can approximate the location of a Breach – and therefore, where the Strangeness is more likely to be in a higher Degree – based off of the geometry of the patch of the Strangeness, as the Strangeness will almost always spread itself radially. But … there are serious limitations to that method. For a start, this patch is <span class="mu-i">massive</span>. You cannot see the end of it, in fact, from where you stand on the stairs, you cannot even see evidence of a curve. Beyond that, you need to consider that this might have been from more than one Breach, caused by more than one cast – that sort of thing can quickly warp the geometry of the spread in unpredictable ways, especially if one of the Breaches released the Strangeness at a higher Degree than the other or others. And finally, you cannot forget that there is a ranged-remediation cast operating right now. Who can possibly know what that may have done to the spread?
This is going to be a real headache, isn't it? For all you know, this entire patch might be in the Second Degree, and it is only being held steady by the presence of the ranged-remediation cast. Silently praying that this isn't the case, you unsling your haversack, and then you fish out one of the rags that you cut previously to deal with the Logic Organ. You allow yourself just enough time to finish the prayer, then you wad up the rag and through onto one of the Estranged steps in front of you.
