westwhere | hale and whole

hale and whole

HALE AND WHOLE

BEHIND YOU | MAGICAL SERIES OF EVENTS | THE SCENIC SCIENCE ROUTE | SPREAD YOUR JOY

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Talismans burned, Serthica’s undeath reveals itself:

■ The dragon eye allows indefinite access to the undeath-sight pendant feature. Use it 15 minutes at a time, with a 45-minute cooldown.

■ Those who delivered talismans or the eye have residual immunity: they cannot be sensed by mannequins or by undead linked to the curse-sickness. This is transferrable once.

The Merchant presents the Serthica findings, recommending evacuation. Outvoted, he agrees to sponsor the group until the beacon’s annual start-up. To heal Serthica, the party must destroy the magical anchors of the curse-sickness, develop its science/herbal cure, then distribute it across the overground citadels.

BEHIND YOU

Courtesy of Five Hargreeves, the Child of the Unwinding you slayed his father, the undead lord Beastmaster. The burlap mannequins released from Remembrance actively hunt you.

■ They are constantly watching, stalking, hunting. You always hear the deep asynchrony of their footsteps. Some mannequins bear an uncanny human likeness: staring extensively chills you.

■ Most mannequins cover up in excess clothing and swarm you in crowded spaces to stab. They borrow your appearance, if they touch you. Some devolve into eldritch forms, mimicking voices or puppeteering husked corpses to lure you.

■ Each mannequin has a one-word code on its nape or right calf — once spoken, the creature glitches, letting you run.

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A MAGICAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

The corrosive magic that spreads throughout Serthica is anchored in two areas: a port dock and a former Mouse House shelter. Cleanse it through exorcism, purification, healing spells, or by planting wards borrowed from Karsa.

This magic feels hot, asphyxiating, aggressively proliferating, intrusive. Uncontained, it gradually feeds off your power. It might drive you to anger, bitterness, doubt or violence.

To Arc III survivors, it feels like the overwhelming power native to the Ke-Sanwon volcano (not dark water).

■ Once you’ve destroyed both magical anchors, inhuman-looking mannequins deactivate. Human-presenting ones seem sluggish and inattentive.

■ Finn’s mannequin remains alive when supplied life or magical force (think 5% of someone’s reserves) — either through weekly transfers or a rewiring of the magic that sustains her (by a party magic user, or Finn can learn the skills in later travel.)

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✘ WET OF THE DOCK'S WET

At first, locals don’t remember the putrid inactive dock exists as a distant extension of Serthica’s port, located past a familiar deserted marketplace. Here, rotten wood, a stench of perpetual moulding, torn ropes and rusted chains.

■ Thinking extensively about the dock before finding it incurs nausea, vertigo and the animal instinct to flee.

■ Persist, and you learn this dock was once used to smuggle in illegal arrivals from Ke-Waihu. Later, it loaded the bodies of the plagued that were burned at sea.

■ Rotten wood planks can break, dropping you into paralysing waters. The dead might reach out from the depths to drag you in.

■ You hear alluring, wind-born whispers of, How chilly it is, while the cold abruptly intensifies, and, It’s warm in the waters.. Won’t you… jump in?

■ Ships no longer call here — yet a small boat stops for you. You might feel compelled or curious to join the lone passenger — a man in white, whose features you forget after. As the boat drifts, attracting the swimming undead that seek to climb in, the man offers safe return, if you answer: What do you most want? Where would you stop to obtain it? Lie, and the boat capsizes, leaving you to swim back amid undead. Answer honestly to return unharmed.

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✘ (UN)SHELTERED

Visit the impoverished, underground Mouse House and avoid breathing in the thick, memory clouding sedative infusions. The grandiose shelter is familiar, its recalling the ruined mansion of the Unwinding. Locals say the house — which preceded Ma’am Mariol’s shelter as an orphanage — is haunted. The coal sickness spread overground after a child was adopted from here.

■ Spirits jump to throttle you or trip you down stairs, throw knives or lock you in claustrophobic rooms. Stair steps, window sills and roof beams readily collapse.

■ The last entries of house logs, found open on a library desk, mention seven freshly arrived children — six native to the Mouse House, including Gavroche, and one heavily burned boy from Ke-Waihu.

■ The ghosts of orphanage caretakers are enjoying a tea party. They ask if you are a servant or a guest. Answer ‘servant,’ and you must pour tea, as attendants stab you with cutlery when you’re within reach. You are dismissed once you finish pouring. Answer ‘guest’, and you must join them at the table and perform whatever they ask: slap yourself, dress up as a doll, answer inconvenient questions, etc. You can leave once someone else has poured tea.

■ Find the dark magic source in the house greenhouse that has been overrun by ruinous mould. While physically unharmed, you feel overcome by crippling fear, loneliness, abandonment or futility. Talking about it helps soothe it.

THE SCENIC SCIENCE ROUTE

The science-based cure requires retrieving resources and researching an answer. Godspeed.

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✘ THE SEED & THE STORM

The Unwinding revealed strands of juniper and rosemary that cure the sickness. Cain d’Ubiq confirms quantities of each plant remain cryogenically intact aboard the Serthica Aerial Healing Unit ships that were caught in the crossfire of the Sibilant Sands, when Eidris and Minaras fought their last battle. Find the vessels to retrieve the goods.

■ Take your transport flier or one of Cain d’Ubiq’s martial, fire-breathing dragons to traverse the Sibilant Sands, roughly one day’s flight each way of Serthica. Expect a hard ride, amid the growing howl of winds whipping your face and the accelerating pulse of a breaking storm.

■ Martial dragons challenge inexperienced riders, but fly sturdily through intermittent sandstorms and whirlwinds.

■ The ships can be found near dragon bones and human skeletons, in stages of burial or disrepair, stranded between rocks, or threatening to collapse once rattled.

■ Beware serpentine barbed wire animated by dark water, which jumps up from the sands. Just as vile are buried vermin-like creatures that send their razor-blade-ended tentacles to strike out from below ground.

■ Members of protest group Remembrance are also unearthing ships. They plan to board mannequins on the vessels, pass them as Minaraian and attack Eidris once more.

■ Their volatile leader Chrichter is personally fixing a ship.

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✘ THINK, TANK

Time to liberate a lab. Minaras’ foremost medical unit is the Conclave Healing Academy, comprising research labs, libraries, equipment rooms and sample collections, including some of the coal sickness.

■ The Academy connects to the centre that treatsZenobius and brims with healing apprentices. Bring juniper and rosemary samples, pose as a bright-eyed novice healer or a concerned relative of Zenobius, or barge in.

■ The Academy is cold, sterile, clean and swarmed by practising medics and academicians. Some even debate resurrection and immortality. Access is barred below, where you can hear occasional, sharp… growls.

■ Several basement laboratories are marked to study the coal sickness. Steal the entry codes from guards or tease them from a lowly medical intern — but don’t linger on the corridors long. Large clockwork hounds patrol and are attracted to sweat, a heightened or rapid pulse, shortness of breath or other biological signs of fear.

■ Take over a lab to concoct a cure elixir from the herbal strands. Test it against the coal sickness samples. Work safely, or the start of a blood cough might announce you’ve taken sick.

■ Hold the fort until your cure’s done, while guards and hounds try to enter your lab through air vents, windows or ram the door. Fight back, distract them or persuade the Academy protective droids they’re the enemy.

■ Anyone affected with the sickness can drink the cure without waiting to destroy the magical anchors. Symptoms fully disappear within 24-72h. Characters remain sensitive to the un/dead.

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SPREAD YOUR JOY

Mass-production time: take over the former underground Remembrance headquarters, one of Cain d’Ubiq’s factories, or make potions in your back yard. The cure can be drunk or absorbed through skin and must be spread overground.

You can pursue your own ideas, but some suggestions on the house:

■ Take your dragon or hijack a Minaras airship and a diffuser to spray down an incense mix that contains the cure. Minaras airships sleep in secured bays you’ll have to infiltrate. Careful taking a dragon into Minaras or an airship to Eidris — local authorities may perceive this as a security breach.

■ Reprogram or con hapless droids to feed the cure as ‘novel vitamins’ to their owners.

■ Commandeer the Mouse House train that ferries supplies from the Serthica ports and spray the cure on produce and grains.

■ Minaras High Councillor Arabella has been previously targeted by Remembrance and could be subtly persuaded to help by her rescuers.

■ Vanessa’s contact, crime boss Artemius Bale, might also have his people sneak the cure into waterways — if you cut a deal.

■ …lemonade stand?

NOTES:

■ We need one finished thread of breaking the anchors and supplying, making and distributing the cure to get the Very Best Ending, but there are multiple other finale options too — link your threads by 29 November!

■ Thanks to Finn and the Doctor’s efforts to help Ma’am Mariol’s orphanage, enjoy tips, information and help with legwork from her street-smart urchins.

■ You can ask for Artemius Bale & others here or at the NPC inbox!

■ BACK TO THE TOP.

QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Here, the Doctor is in his element. Concocting a cure to help, to aid, in the hopes of overcoming the sickness and putting everything right. One hopes, anyway. There's the small matter of needing entry codes to enter the lab, but again, he's not at all worried. For his psychic paper to work, he has to be confident and sell the lie without any hesitation. So as he rounds a corner and meets with a guard blocking the entrance, the Doctor smiles and flashes his psychic paper, introducing himself, "John Smith, here to help! Doctor John Smith, that is."

There's a cursory glance from the guard at the "badge" that's actually blank, though will look anything but to more incompetent minds, generally. It's always a risk and he can never be entirely sure it will work, though he has to believe it will. He's done it plenty of times before and it's only been on rare occasions that it hasn't worked.

Sensing a member of their group coming up behind him, the Doctor doesn't miss a beat at all, glancing over his shoulder with a nod at his companion.

"And my colleague, of course. We're putting our best people on this and we don't have much time."

Truthfully, he's grateful for the back-up. Even if they're allowed entry into the lab, he's expecting a bit of bother surely awaits them beyond these doors.

Wrath walks slowly up behind the Doctor as he is reference, and the Time Lord lies to the guard with ease. They have not seen one another since the Tower when there was little time to talk, but he remembers all that he saw there in that room, every detail.

Wrath stands directly behind his shoulder and looks down at the guard. Most mortals react to Wrath as if he is a panther: both threatening and captivating all at the same time. The guard doesn't risk looking at Wrath long, which works to their advantage in conjunction with the paper the Doctor holds and the lies he spins.

The guard stops, looks again at the paper, looks back at the Doctor before he nods. Throughout all of this, he doesn't look Wrath in the eyes. "Right, of course, Doctor Smith. Don't mean to get in the way, but security's tightened lately with all that's happened. I'll have to check up front to make sure everything's signed in and proper. But there's a free lab's right down at the end of the hall to your left."

It's hard to say how long the ruse will stand especially with the guard checking on credentials, but at least for the moment, they're cleared to go to the lab.

So focused on making sure the clever little trick with the psychic paper would work, it doesn't register for the Doctor until a moment later just who is with him. It's either the best or the worst time to see the man again; he hasn't decided yet. They'd met in person at what was arguably one of the Doctor's most vulnerable moments since being here, though what he remembers most of the experience - apart from the dreadful grief that overcame him and lingered long after the Tower - was Wrath helping him through it.

That terrible floor with its ability to extract memories, twist and turn them into desires and then reveal untold horrors to be relived, is something he hopes never to experience again in his time here. More than that, he hopes no one else has to go through it.

"Thank you, we'll all be on our way then," he nods to the guard, crafting a smile before they make their way down the corridor and he stuffs his psychic paper back in one of his pockets. They don't have much time, but before long, he's sure the guard will be the least of their worries. A bit unsure of himself (unfamiliar territory for him) and how to approach this conversation, the Doctor fidgets with his bowtie a little, but plasters on a brief smile.

To Wrath, now: "I don't know if anyone's told you before, but your timing is impeccable." Yes, there we go. A bit of levity, yet a call-back to what they'd been through in the Tower. Talking about it, but not.

Wrath walks beside the Doctor down the hallway toward the laboratory, eyeing the way he fidgets with his bowtie. Certainly having someone witness such a painful and vulnerable moment would be difficult and uncomfortable for any person. He imagines it is on the Time Lord's mind at present, and it is made more evident by the words he gives.

"...it is generally not the reception I receive."

For good reason. His reputation precedes him, and it is not as if he is close with his brothers. Those relationships are difficult to describe for anyone accustomed to more mortal families.

"However, I have never been in a situation quite like this one before either."

They are a group working together toward a common cause in an entirely other world - far from the Heaven and Hell and mortal realms he knew.

Their shared experience in the Tower is at the top of his mind, of course, and he feels a sense of unease in not knowing what Wrath might say - or not - about it. Though, the Doctor is good at avoiding the deeper things as it pertains to himself, pushing it aside for now. They don't know each other all that well yet, and Wrath has seen more of him than most have. It's a strange connection to have with another, though he's finding that's increasingly common here. If he wasn't entirely mad before, this world would have driven him to it.

"No, no, it wouldn't be, would it?" From what he knows of Wrath in return - no, not the reception he'd receive at all. And based on the guard's reaction to him as well, the way he never quite looked Wrath in the eyes, it certainly clues him in to others' perceptions of him as well.

"It's a unique experience for me, too. Funny thing about the universe, never stops surprising you. I've never assumed I've seen everything at all, but this place has been - I don't think there's a word for it. Not yet. Oh! Something to work on later, a new word," he says this almost idly, almost trailing off, his attentions elsewhere now as they near the end of the hall, where they need to turn left. He hears...something, movement near them, but nothing he can see or sense just yet himself.

Wrath lifts an eyebrow at the rambling though he says little in response at the moment - he does clock what he says, however, an experience that is unfamiliar even for someone who travels among the stars, universes, planets. Has there been no other universe pulling in people from multiple worlds, stranding them there? Has he not found it before in his travels? He thinks all of this without speaking.

Wrath's focus is on the area around them - who is moving, what is moving, where it is moving to and when. He lifts a hand up beside the Doctor as he hears the movement ahead around the corner where they have to turn to - the metallic sound of manufactured feet against the floor beneath.

He stops, and his voice drops.

"There is a droid ahead. Does your badge work on them as well?"

He did not get a look at the paper (though it would have appeared blank to him if he had), but he could hear the lie he spun and imagines the paper was part of it.

One of the more unsettling experiences in his recent travels occurred when he'd been lured to a planet by a malevolent, incorporeal entity under the pretense of aiding a few Time Lords who had supposedly survived the Time War and needed his help. Somewhat like his experiences here, he'd never had an actual face to go with the enemy, but it wreaked havoc nonetheless and he was trapped on that planet at the end of the universe. Hundreds of other Time Lords had been similarly trapped and hadn't survived. Even then, though, he'd had resources available to him that he lacks here, as if whatever has trapped them knew precisely who it was bringing, and why.

"It has before," the Doctor answers confidently, thinking of the factory he'd broken into with Red a while back.

Yet, Serthica has proven to be reliable in its...unpredictability, in all things. He's also seen so many variations in the droids here, he's not sure what they're to encounter around this corner. Hunching back his shoulders, rolling his neck around in a circle, the Doctor smiles confidently and turns the corner. The moment they're met by the droid, he reaches for the psychic paper again, holding it out.

"Oh, lovely to meet you! Dr. John Smith," he holds out the badge, only for a few seconds before pocketing it again. "My colleague, Dr. Rathbone. Here to look at the samples."

Around another corner, or perhaps behind them, yet still at a distance, the Doctor could swear he hears a faint...growling sound? Could that be right? It reminds him of those hounds that had circled the premises after the summit months ago. The sooner they get into one of these labs, the better. If his ruse works again, that is. If not, they may have to get creative, and quickly. A moment left to wonder, and then at last, they're waved past the droid.

"...Rathbone?"

Wrath's eyebrow lifts in question as if to ask if that was the best name he could come up with on such short notice. Granted, Wrath has never pretended to be human of any kind, and so the idea of having a human name is strange to him in general. They are not far from the door to the lab thankfully, and Wrath holds it open for the Doctor as he eyes down the length of the hallway when the growling approaches.

There it is - a large clockwork hound who appears to be sniffing for something, someone. He prefers his own puppies, but they would not fit within these halls. Wrath smiles at it (threateningly, begging it to try and knowing it is no match for him - an entire pack of them would not be) before he steps into the room a moment later and then turns first to lock the door, but then to lift his hand up. Ice spreads over the door and against the wall, thick and heavy.

Even if someone has the key on the other side, they will not be able to get in.

"You've what you need to develop the cure?" He is assuming that is why the Doctor came to these labs. "I'll watch the entrances."

...and likely ask him about the room, about what he saw when watching the entrances turns out to be boring.

If asked, the Doctor might even agree that Rathbone was perhaps not his best work, but it gets them through, at least. When he notices the clockwork hound himself, the Doctor is rather predictably unfazed, at least for now. Going by his companion's composure, the Doctor's even more assured that they have relatively nothing to worry about here.

The ice spreading over the door and wall does get a lift of his eyebrows, a nearly delighted grin as he steps through the door and into the lab itself.

"All safely tucked away," he nods in response to the question, gesturing to his pockets, deep enough to have been able to carry the herbal strands he's been safeguarding.

"The ice! That's good, by the way. Brilliant, in fact. Comes in handy often, I imagine!"

He really is more impressed about it than he might outwardly appear to be, only because his thoughts are already ten paces ahead on what needs to happen for concocting this cure.

While he talks, he's also getting to work, pulling out the juniper and rosemary, laying it all out on the workspace in the lab and putting on a pair of clean goggles before washing his hands and donning some gloves. For now, he's in a perfect state of deniability, that they might never have to actually speak of what happened in that room in the Tower. Though, on some level, he's aware that can't last forever.

"...it can," He spends most of his time in the Underworld where he is the king, and so rarely is he in a situation like this one, "But I prefer a proper fight."

Freezing someone is not nearly as satisfying. Wrath's gaze takes in the ingredients as he pulls them out. He can smell the juniper and rosemary. From the other side of the door, he can hear someone attempt to knock, which is swiftly followed by a failed attempt to open the door. He walks along the perimeter of the laboratory to see if there are any other openings, but there are no windows.

The only other option would be the vents, and so this is where Wrath stands in front of, waiting. More people have made it to the door, but the ice is so thick they've no chance of getting through unless they have the kind of magic his wife possesses, but none of these guards or hounds do.

It's disappointing.

Wrath gives the Doctor some time to work before he does bring up the room again. He is casually walking toward a vent where he hears movement as he does so. He could fail to ever bring it up again, but he's certain the Doctor would wish to clarify, to not allow assumptions to grow.

"You said previously you had been exiled - was it because of what was witnessed in the room?"

"A proper fight, yes, I do as well. I'm currently undefeated in the Berkhamsted annual water balloon fight," he mentions off-handedly, already onto the next thing he needs to do. Of course, he's well aware that Wrath is referring to a far different fight than one of water balloons, but equally, the Doctor has been in so many fights he'd prefer not to think of much at the moment.

He gets a few beakers filled with water warmed up, going off what he'd learned of concocting the cure earlier in one of the research libraries.

"Ah-" Of course. Yes. The talk. It had to come; inevitable, really. To see glimpses of what Wrath would have witnessed, but not to have the entire story, well, naturally anyone would be curious. The Doctor keeps so many secrets, avoids answering questions like this generally, but two things are working in Wrath's favor in terms of garnering a truthful response from the Doctor: he's distracted with making the cure and his defenses are down a bit, and Wrath helped him in that room so it feels owed. Normally, though, when the Doctor reveals a truth that leaves him vulnerable, he's able to run away from it. That won't be the case now and that's unsettling, to say the least.

"That, well, being exiled..." He'd said too much. He talks and talks too much sometimes. There's no going back from it now.

He pours a blue liquid into one of the beakers before immersing a few strands of juniper and rosemary in there as well, letting it bubble up.

"No. I was exiled long before that and not because of that," he attempts to explain. "I was only a few hundred years old at the time. Different face, even."

It's not that he's unwilling to tell Wrath the full truth, it's simply...not a truth he often shares. If he's pushed and prompted further, he'll manage to work himself up to it.

Wrath has no idea what a water balloon is so the context goes over his head a bit, but he can put the pieces together to imagine the answer. Water with a balloon. It would certainly not be the deadly, bloody fights that Wrath so very much enjoys, but it is not surprising that the Doctor would enjoy such fights.

He's a strange individual - not quite like anyone Wrath has met before.

Interesting. He was exiled for something else, but what was shown in that room indicates he had been able to return. Different face, he notes that as well, even as he hears the rattling within the vents. These animatronic dogs will be little match for the King of Hell, but he prepares himself nonetheless while the Doctor focuses on creating the cure.

"So what was it I witnessed within that room, Doctor? You felt guilt - that much was clear."

Whether he was truly responsible or not, it's another matter. A clockwork hound breaks free through the vent, and Wrath folds it in two.

He'd prepared himself for this question right after they'd left that room; or, he tells himself he prepared for it, yet expecting to be asked and actually being asked are such wholly different things. He could have spent years preparing for this and he still wouldn't have been ready to answer. And, for once, he must answer truthfully, he's well aware. Oh, he could try to lie as he often does, but there's an imbalance between them; Wrath saw it and didn't leave the Doctor to his own devices in that room.

While he's not prepared to fully bare his soul down to every last detail, he also doesn't think Wrath expects that. He wants to know what happened in that room. It's a fair question, in the end.

He's quiet for a moment, briefly glancing up towards the vents, focusing back on the beakers, then going quiet again while Wrath quite easily disposes of a hound coming through the vent. Impressive.

Right. Okay. He's delayed it long enough.

"There was a war in my universe. The war to end all wars, The Last Great Time War, for the sake of all creation," he explains quietly, purposefully distracting himself with what he's doing so he need not look at Wrath. "A war fought between my people, the Time Lords, and the Daleks. The Daleks were...to put it simply, a race of genetically engineered mutants, housed in a metallic shell. Their creator engineered them for the purpose of wielding a master race to conquer the universe and I'd been fighting them on and off my whole life. They're violent and merciless, and if they'd won the Time War, the universe, all that was or ever could be, would have fallen to their will."

When a vial of elixir appears to be done, he empties it into a separate vial.

"What you saw in that room was the last day of the war. A very bad day filled with terrible things."

Terrible things and impossible choices, though he doesn't say that last part out loud. How do you say that you destroyed your own people for the sake of the universe? Wrath, perhaps, might persist though, and the Doctor knows it. Still, his guilt at being the sole survivor would be enough on its own, even excluding he was the reason for it.

Wrath dispatches another of the hounds when it pushes through the vent after the first, but he does not need to focus on the battle much at all as he can tell the Doctor does not need his full focus to work with the ingredients and brew the appropriate cure. Clearly, his intelligence and experience drives his actions forward with ease, allowing him to recount something both difficult and painful at the same time.

And Wrath listens to every detail that he shares.

War. Wrath knows war. He was created for it, General of War is one of his titles for a reason. How many wars did he fight for his Maker before he had found his way away, before he fell to escape and have his power to choose what battles he fights, what he makes of himself? He would not be able to count them all. But the Doctor speaks of a war between the Time Lords and another race he has never heard of, mechanical and dangerous.

There was so much fire in the room, and while he might think the Doctor's guilt comes from surviving alone, Wrath remembers Susan's words: You did this - not You left us, not You weren't there. It speaks to another reason for his guilt. It speaks to a choice he made, an action that he took, but Wrath does not push any further nor will he ask despite the deep understanding there is more to the story. In Hell, any exchange of information, any vulnerability comes with a cost, and the Tower forced it from the Doctor for Wrath to view it without a cost. He already knows more than he should, more than the Doctor would like.

Another vent is broken through, and Wrath is inhumanly quick - the speed of a demon as he takes out another of the hounds.

"...and Gallifrey did not survive it." It's more statement than question. "I cannot pretend to know what it is like to lose as you did." He is immortal. Grief was stolen from him the one time he could have felt it. "The Tower's ability to rip whatever it pleases from our minds and twist it, display it as a show was-" Well, he should like to destroy the Tower for it. "...its own Hell."

"No. But the universe did." An answer, perhaps, in an oblique way void of enough context. Gallifrey didn't survive, but the universe did and it was the only way it could have survived. Had he not made the choice, Gallifrey would have perished regardless, and all of life along with it.

The Doctor wouldn't presume any such thing, but that Wrath doesn't question him further feels like a mercy nonetheless.

He says nothing else for a long while, fiddling with the vial of elixir, carefully masking himself before quietly announcing to Wrath, "Step away a bit, just to be safe. I'm testing the elixir against one of the samples."

It should be quick and shouldn't disperse much, if he's got the elixir right, but he can't be too cautious. As he tests the elixir against one of the coal sickness samples, the Doctor watches under a microscope as it has the intended effect, relief flooding him now as he smiles.

Washing his hands, unmasking, pushing his goggles up, the Doctor's smile turns into a bright grin. "This, this...this, this is a beautiful day, oh a very, very good day! What we've been after, it's here now, we just need more of it, so much more. Oh, you were brilliant, too, absolutely brilliant, with the-" He makes a few uncoordinated arm and hand gestures in the air, trying (and failing) to properly mimic how effectively Wrath dispensed with the mechanical hounds. "And the...thing, all of the things, you did those things very well."

Meanwhile, Wrath is inwardly experiencing disappointment that there was not more for him to do, no blood to spill and no one to terrify. His gaze drifts mournfully over both of the crunched hound bodies that lie at his feet. They were entirely useless. His own puppies would have created far more of a challenge, and he does miss them, but they also would not have fit through the vents.

It is moments like these he longs for the kraken once more, which was truly a fun and challenging fight. Or even one of the many battles he has fought which require true wit and strategy, he could command his forces and burn the eyes from the enemies who dared get to close to his wings.

He only turns away from his reminiscing at the Doctor's reaction to his successful creation. Wrath raises his eyebrows in a moment of genuine confusion that actually pierces the icy, neutral expression he ordinarily wears. Ah, yes, mortals do... this (though the Doctor's particular enthusiasm sets him quite apart from actual mortals - he wonders if it is a Time Lord trait or more of the Doctor's individually).

"...your actions were also efficient."

From Wrath, this is genuine praise. He once told Emilia, as means to explain why their marriage bond to one another made sense, that they were 'well suited enough'. He thinks she would approve of his complimenting another. He was... responsive.

"And now we must leave with it."

Though the Doctor hasn't known Wrath very long, he feels he has a decent enough grip on his personality to understand this likely is one of the highest compliments he might receive from him. It's all the same to the Doctor, though, of course. Outwardly, he can praise himself enough for the two of them, though inwardly, his thoughts on himself are always far more mixed.

Taking more notice of the hounds now, it occurs to the Doctor this must have been a somewhat anticlimactic fight for Wrath, who earlier had noted a preference for a proper fight and this was anything but. He'd dispensed with them all with such ease and even the Doctor can appreciate his technique.

Having a moment to really reflect and think about their conversation, the Doctor is also grateful that Wrath didn't pry more. He certainly could have; if anyone was within their right to ask more of him, it would have been him.

"Off we go, no time to waste," he agrees, but then, a moment's pause to express some kind of indirect gratitude. "You're a good man to have around."

Probably something he also doesn't hear much. At least for the Doctor, of the two recent situations they've been through together, this rings true and genuine. He can only judge, at least so far, by what he's personally seen and knows of him.

Wrath pauses following that statement, watching him in the aftermath.

It is not a statement Wrath has heard previously at all for a great deal of many reasons. In this case, 'good' appears to reference how effective he is so he does not see a reason to disagree with that particular part of the statement. Wrath is both effective and efficient, and any individual should prefer to have Wrath on their side than as their enemy. Otherwise, Wrath would certainly not claim to be 'good' on any morality sense, but they spoke about that previously - the complications and falseness of the idea of good and evil.

However, there is one clarification he will make in response to the Doctor's statement as he walks past him toward the door: "...demon."

He is no man as the Doctor is not quite human either though he has similarities to them. Wrath's only similarity to a human is looking like one except for the gold in his eyes.

"I'll make a path. Move to the exit."

Wrath lifts a hand and the ice around the door disappears.

A brief pause, his eyes narrow closed for a second in recognition of his misstep. "Demon! Yes, sorry, sorry. A figure of speech, that - good man - it all gets a bit..." He waves his hand around his head a little before finishing his sentence, "...jumbled, sometimes."

The word, demon, has different connotations for the Doctor. For a moment, he recalls that some of his enemies had once referred to him as a demon as well. He has an endless fascination for the many ways that words have far different meanings throughout the universe. Though, of course, Wrath had explained the meaning quite well as it pertains to his world in their first conversation, and he'll take care to choose his words more carefully.

He does move towards the exit as instructed, and he's endlessly more fascinated by Wrath's abilities now that he has time to really observe him.

"We should do this again sometime," he tosses over his shoulder, jovially. "Well, not this exact thing, mind you. These circumstances, specifically. But, being of use together."

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