Ghyll:Zyrgian Asylum

The Zyrgian Asylum for the Mildly Mad (Not a very pleasant place!) is a pleasant place (NoOOoOoOO!) intended for the peaceful "rehabilitation" of those who have gone just a little "off" the beaten path, or who otherwise are just a bit perturbed with the way their life has turned out. While the Asylum accepts self check-ins, their clientele largely consists of confused (or drugged, or unconscious) dropoffs or "vacationers" that haven't yet realized what'll happen next.

Nor will they remember it, really, due to the "magic" of targeted memory erasure, a form of brain damage that just so happens to affect unwanted or painful memories. This process has proven quite hopeful for those who need to keep their secrets kept or their hearts uplifted. Has a pesky underling gone rogue and now fights publicly against your hidden conspiracy? Has a thief snuck into the Black Hall and threatens to expose the dangers you've placed within? Do you hate your ex-boyfriend and wished he'd just leave you alone? Targeted memory erasure doesn't merely solve problems: it removes them entirely, plus it's a lot cheaper than hiring someone from the Back Market.

Although a complicated procedure (I've yet to understand how a memory could "freeze" at the moment of unconsciousness, creating enough of a marker for the process to remove the harmful recollection), the success rate is nearly 90% in one out of two patients. Nearly no one ever regains that which they lost (really!), and the Asylum has promised never to keep records of their patients (uh-huh!). With that said, there have been two well-known admittances:

• In -9 EC, after watching all their research companions die in barely innocent ways over the years since -22 EC, the remaining two EctoMechanaut researchers of the Brothers of the Lantern checked each other into the Zyrgian Asylum in hopes of amnesty by deletion. They've been there ever since, metaphorically chained to a treatment that can't quite remove the mutating tendrils of what they've seen and discovered. There have been numerous attempts by EUPHORIA members to release these chains but, more often than not, the instigators have become the victim of the same process they were to save others from.

• Vemish has been sent to the Asylum nearly ten times within the last five years. Unfortunately, it appears his particular "condition" is akin to a list of checked boxes on a "to do" list. Remove the memory and you remove the check, or so became the conclusion after his third discovery of the secret trail through the Azura Mines, and the second ruining of expensive laundry. Since he's stopped going (more accurately, "being delivered") to the Asylum, there has been no redux, something the Thungerbarg rejah is most happy about.

Citations: Black Hall, EctoMechanauts, EUPHORIA.

--Morbus Iff 13:55, 22 Apr 2005 (EDT)