Tatterdemalion

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Mittens!

Eupheria's laugh is as clear and sharp and fragile as the finest crystal glass. She rears back and holds one hand to her mouth, laughing like your Momma laughs when you tell her a joke while doing a handstand, but... harsher. There's less fun and more anger in it, and your little stomach sinks hearing it. She's not going to give you the answer you were hoping for, or even the answer buried deep in her heart. She's going to share some of her pain with you.

"When I was your age, Mittens," she says, with a grand wave of her hand, "I thought love was the best thing that had ever happened to Hyperborea! I thought it was multiplicative, that the more I gave out the more came back to me, and that would just make the world better and better and better!" She stands and does a twirl in her beautiful bride's gown, and the only thing that spoils it is her smile, until she opens her eyes and they're just as jagged and bitter. "Then I met this wonderful, lovely pit of love! The more I shoveled in, the more convinced I became that eventually, sooner or later, I'd get something, anything back! Yes, she taught me the most important lesson about love: it's a hilarious farce!"

The look on Old Adila's face before the wall of careful indifference comes down is almost tragic. Of course she feels terrible about it. She still has a conscience, after all, buried deep (deeeeeep) down.

"Everybody falls for it! Oh, I'll do anything for love, they say. Ha! Love isn't this special, unbreakable force! It's a bridge between two people, and sooner or later, a heavy enough weight will make it snap!" She twirls Caddy, and the sound of cables snapping under terrible strain fills the entire compartment in high fidelity audio.

"But you don't have to take my word for it," she adds, quite rightly anticipating your objections. She snaps her fingers, and the door on the right side of the cabin slams open in a howling gale. There is nothing beyond but sideways rain and shrieking wind and the terrible, ear-splitting cry of the Roc. Then, Eupheria uncurls one hand next to you and offers you Gold: shining, glorious Gold.

"You can have our Gold, Mittens," she purrs. "Just tell me I can do whatever I want with your Rita, and you can have it back. It'll make your next room-- all the rooms-- a pleasant stroll in the park. It's practically cheating!" Her fingers start to curl shut, silently putting you on a very short time limit. You're on the spot and she's got five hands on your shoulders and back pushing you to the door, it's getting closer and closer and your lights can't overcome the horrible, hungry darkness beyond the doorway and Gold's right there...

***

Kathelia!

The way out of the next room is very obvious. It's a giant door in one side of the massive wheel of the room, with a delicate series of keyholes in its center. The trick is going to be getting the keys, or, rather, buying them. The room itself seems to be the Bazaar folded in on itself: the shops and the spires, the rope ladders and the towers, the stalls and the fountains and the streets, stretching below you and above you, and ropes spun carefully between either side of the wheel serving as a second highway, and it is here that the Nightmare Army is going on a shopping and bartering spree.

The first order of the day is going to be figuring out which vendor is selling the actual keys, because it seems like every other stall has a different set of keys on sale, and then the second order of the day is going to be haggling for them, and then the third order of the day is absolutely going to be figuring out how to pay for them. The fourth order of the day is figuring out how to do a three-legged race with a cheerleader fox who is clinging to you and purring happily, her tail swishing and knocking gremlin porters head over heels, her arm wrapped firmly around yours (seeing as she's holding pompoms), and gosh is this the curse or is Kyouko just enjoying not having to be the "villain" now that she has a bit of plausible deniability??

Okay, she's covering your mouth with her tail when you try to speak and then giggling until she doubles over. She's definitely still a little bit "villain" mode.

***

Adila!

What emerges from the muck is not the snake-husband. The snake-husband was made out of stone, you see, and was similar to a cobra, and also had laser eyes. This giant sea snake is made out of glass, and is -- as mentioned before -- a sea snake with rippling feathery sides, and also she has poisoned laser eyes. She also has a really wet, detailed mouth, and while you're pretty sure letting her swallow the Jedadi mercenary and the Watchwoman wouldn't be fatal at all, it would be, well, like being trapped in a giant, wet, rippling tunnel, and it strikes you that there is absolutely something worse than being tied up. Oh, gosh. Just infinitely worse.

The problem is that you have made the gremlins practically invulnerable to being rushed, and as soon as the, well, let's call her a snake-wife, as soon as the snake-wife bends down they're just going to toss their sacrificial captives into her mouth! Bull-rushing them is out of the question, and you don't have very much time at all before the two of them meet a slimy, disgusting doom.

Also, you're trying to think of something while desperately trying to duck out of the way of green laser blasts that leave the swamp bubbling noxiously and make any stray gremlins hit by it keel over groaning and clutching their stomachs. There's always "plan: punch a hole right through her," but that seems really uncomfortable after what happened with the snake-husband, and if you hurt her how will you ever manage to coax her onto a date with the snake-husband???

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

"For the record," Sara says, sourly, "Plan A was going to be super radical. The drones were going to get blown out of the sky." No thrills of fear running up her back over how fast she was being tracked by that AA fire, nosiree! To distract herself from being mean at her awesome maybe girlfriend, she scans the field from the steps. If she can't do her stunt, she's going to make sure that her next move -- synchronized with Errant this time -- is decisive and awesome as hell.

["Who here is most vulnerable to me?"]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

"That's Ferra, all right," Sara drawls, looking down at the ruin of the AA batteries. She's leaning up against a doorjamb, ignoring the polite chirp of please keep arms and legs inside the institute during flight operations, looking down at the chaos: the madness of Vicki, the arrival of the Knights, the rocket moments away from launch. "Let's get the band back together."

She takes a deep breath, grins, and switches the stream on. A snap of her fingers, and then the institute's speakers start blaring "Toxic," because any fight scene worth its salt needs the backdrop. Then she turns and lets herself fall back out the doors, and plummets, even as the drones scream into the sky. She's cool. There's a whole plan, you know? And she's got her role in it, same as everybody else.

Spears blossom around her, and she grins. Let's get to work.

[Unfortunately for her, that's a cool 6 on her Assess.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

The gremlins go wild. Their shrieks are ear-piercing as they run back and forth in circles, waving their spears in a very unsafe manner. But you had the right instinct: even though they're eyeless, they can't resist the opportunity to be overdramatic little goofballs, just like their creator. It's taking all of your self-control not to herd them. Down, girl! Stay!

Then one, in an intimidating bone-and-feather headress, hops up onto a standing stone and begins a chant. One by one, the gremlins join in: BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA YOU FOUR AH!

A terrible black spine cuts through the water, the first sign of something very big, given the terrible ripples and the way the water is trembling in its wake. Mimsley is panicking, and once she sees what's coming, she'll probably faint dead away. Your advantage? Your speed, and the fact that Dandy is with you, and the two of you working together can overcome anything. Also, the gremlins are little goofballs that barely come up to your shins.

***

Mittens!

Everyone at the table stares at you in shock. Adila I looks like you slapped her across the face. Azora is slack-jawed. And Eupheria... it's so hard to read her, even as plastic as she is, because of those swirling, arresting eyes. But from the way one hand flutters against her bridal gown, and the way another hand intertwines bashfully around Caddy, it seems that you've actually managed to touch her. That'll likely last... well, until she thinks of something fun to do with you, or until you try to take Caddy away, but there it is, for everyone to see. A glimmer of the old Euphie.

Then she slams several of her palms on the table and leans forward, her grin manic. "Why, do I ever, sweetheart!" She pinches your cheeks, giving you some air kisses, and then spins you out into a tangle of puppet strings to start doing an avant-garde tap dance, more of her arms providing instrumentation with a hurdy-gurdy and a record wheel as Azora dumps handfuls of cookies onto her plate.

"What do you think, Addie?" For a moment... she forgets. "This one's all about flexibility and balance! How far down can you limbo while still managing to tap dance? And... there, the double backflip! Nobody's ever put one of those in a tap routine before, I'm pretty sure!!"

"It's... a dance, I guess?" Adila's arms are crossed, and she's doing her best not to watch, because even she would have to admit you're doing an amazing job under Eupheria's direction.

"Oh, you're no fun!" Euphie sticks her tongue out, even as you do a perfect high jump. "That's why I have so much planned for you, you know. I'll put a smile on that face one way or another!"

***

Kathelia!

The only problem there, sport, is that you didn't expect Kyouko to grab your head (still holding her pompoms) and kiss you back in such a way that makes it clear she's very, very happy to be kissed by you. She's... gosh!! Toe-curling! She's the best at kissing. Like, she's kissing the way that your books suggested kisses were like! She kisses you until you have to frantically pat her because you need to come up for air, and even then, she rests her forehead against yours and giggles breathily and, gosh, wow, why did it take you so long? Quick, ask her out!

Sure, Eska's got the rest of the chamber aligned just so and is about to wipe you off the face of Hyperborea, but do you want to go to your doom knowing you didn't shoot your shot? Just do it! Or, you know, do your best to escape, possibly using her ninja cheerleader skills to get both of you up to a vertical passageway up above your heads, and then ask her to go to prom with you! Wait, you already did that. Um, ask her if you can find a quiet room in the labyrinth for more kissing practice! Or something! Just do it already!

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET

Of course. It all makes sense. This is what she was looking for, all along! Not dumb white picket fences and pies cooking in the oven! Before her eyes unfolds a vision of the world where everything turns in a great wheel. The seasons turn, and life turns to death to life again! Why should Big Underworld get their soul portfolios stuffed with ghosts? Why should psychopomps have to ferry humans to their eternal reward every second of every day? If Mother Earth had her way, it would all be part of the cycle! Life turns to death turns to life! Numinous awe fills Elodie up to the brim, and tears prick hotly at her eyes.

She wiggles like a happy sardine in the sheaf.

"Yes," she cries out, in a way completely unlike she might cry out with her arms wrapped around any hypothetical boys. "Yes, yes, yes! I want to change! I want to throw my life in the garbage can and recycle it, I want to be the person turning your wheel!" She reaches up and touches the flowers, and they don't wilt away! This is fantastic! "Is there, like, a prayer I have to say, or-- how do I break my mind chains?" She tries imagining a chain and then snapping it! Wait, is snapping the right action? Maybe there's a specific way she's supposed to destroy her mind chains. Is there a twisting motion to it, maybe?

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

Sara looks up at Euna with wide eyes, her aviators knocked askew, her world tumbling around under her feet as she scampers towards something beautiful and glowing, and when she finally processes I love you her lips part and she says, helplessly, reverently, “Let’s do that again.”

The base rocks beneath their feet as a laser nearly knocks the whole base out of orbit, and an understanding passes between you. Save the world now. A whole fucking lot of kisses later.

“I’m at your disposal, commander,” she says, reaching up and readjusting those aviators. Gotta look cool. Gotta put on a show. Gotta make the whole world watch. “Whatever you say, I’m yours.”

I’m yours.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

A labyrinth is unicursal. There is one way through, no branching paths. You picked that factoid up as a child; it was part of a theological debate about the nature of the future, as to whether it was a maze with so many different branching paths that a princess must choose between, or whether it was a labyrinth that wound through strange twists and turns of fate to the place where you were always going to end up.

Language matters. Eupheria called this a nightmare labyrinth. She probably just means it’s full of twists and turns and you’re supposed to stay confused and discombobulated, but... but maybe it’s another layer of her jokes. That you’re all going to end up at the same place, one way or another.

The contrast between the cold, brackish water and your warm scales is one that it is easy to lose yourself in. There isn’t silence, because there’s cricket-song and frog-song and the beat of Dandy’s heart, which settles into the same pace as yours as she lies on your back, head down to keep her mane of frizzy hair from being seen. Her chest barely rises and falls as your hearts beat a slow dance through the swamp.

Dandy doesn’t mold herself to the expectations of other people. She opens herself up and shows them that they are part of her experience, too. Whenever you breathe out a plume of fire, Dandy is already heaving out a silent sigh alongside you. Together, the two of you meditate, and beat in time, and exist.

You don’t need to look up to know that Dandy has a serene, satisfied smile on her face, and you don’t need to ask her to know that the two of you are somehow aligning chakras. It’s part of knowing her for so long, and it’s a part of emptying out your mind, too, letting knowledge like that surface from inside you.

Adila’s not here right now. The first Adila. The empty space inside you is hard to resist prodding, like the space where a baby tooth’s fallen out. If Dandy wasn’t here, and it was just you drifting through the swamp alone, you might get lost in that prodding, but the faint rise and fall of Dandy’s chest keeps your mind clear and receptive to thoughts that bob up out of you. Like labyrinths.

The swamp is guiding you not out towards an exit, but towards the center. You go along with it, taking the path of least resistance, and go along the labyrinth inside the labyrinth. No branching paths, no choices to make, just one path leading you in towards the center. Towards the standing stones.

It’s the drums that make you lift your heads in unison, ever so slightly. The gremlins swarming around the standing stones have stone spears and grass loincloths, and have raised a very abstract idol, all dizzying spirals. They dance and chant around it, and one of them is doing a perfect soprano, its head thrown all the way back, its teeth all pointing up at the sky.

This is because they are preparing a human sacrifice. Probably not really intending to carry it out? Like, at most they’ll dunk their captives in the water over and over again or poke them with stone knives until they’re bruised all over, but still, what a terrible fate!

The bright red hair of the Jedadi warrior chained to a boulder, wearing an impractical chain mail two-piece and veil set, is vaguely familiar. But more familiar is the struggling, panicking form of Mimsley Trotter, hapless Watchwoman, next to her. Though the Mimsley you knew and loved didn’t have mouse ears and little whiskers on her bulging cheeks.

You’re completely unseen, nothing more than a moss-covered log. You’re invisible. You’re a shadow. You have the element of surprise.

***

Mittens!

Adila I cradles the back of your head and smooshes her mouth against yours to the sound of Azora’s giddy laughter and applause.

“And Ansila and Marina lived happily ever after,” Eupheria says, her voice aglow with the joy of performing. The little pony between you and Adila whinnies and keeps chewing the carpet serenely. The Queen, meanwhile, is draped like a snake over the dining car’s elegant glass-and-crystal chandelier, her many hands wriggling like centipedes as she directs the two of you with a plethora of fingers.

Being a puppet is weird. It would probably be even weirder if you were actually made of wood and glitter and glass, but thankfully Eupheria didn’t think of that. Yet. Please don’t give her any ideas, Azora. It’s more like your whole body relaxed and stopped paying attention to what you wanted to do, and now every muscle impulse and twitch is alien, an impulse from Eupheria’s fingers. A multitude of nearly-invisible magic strings extend from every part of your body, passing through each other instead of tangling up, jerking and twitching as you move, each one wrapped around a different finger.

What’s not weird is that you’ve had an insight into Eupheria. You were right on the money. She’s not just a natural performer, she’s a multidisciplinary artist, as delighted to perform an intricate and intimately directed puppet show as she is to make her nightmare army and labyrinth of torment. As Azora makes an offering of delighted laughter, Eupheria lets out the most genuine and innocent laughter you’ve heard from her all day.

Then she spins you into an elegant ballet performance for an encore, a daring avant-grade variant on the end of Act I from The Swan Princess and Ourania. Adila I is the Swan Princess, taking you up on the high jumps, seducing you with the stretch of her legs and fluttering of her plumage, while you are Ourania, coy and elegant and... unexpectedly cruel, if we’re being honest, sending the Swan Princess sprawling with an expertly choreographed backhand.

It barely connected— again, expertly choreographed— but when Adila I looks up at you, extending one hand in vain supplication, her eyes are burning. The kind of look you give someone before you say “toss her in the web viper pit and nail down the trap door.” Or “dangle her out the window all night, upside down, and then invite our subjects to come and laugh at her.” The kind of look that would turn a lesser princess to quivering jelly.

I mean, she’s probably mad at you for bringing up puppet shows in the first place? Maybe she blames you for this whole thing? Maybe you have made an enemy for life? Meep.

“Oh, but silly me,” Eupheria adds, “the tea’s getting cold! Everyone, come and sit down!” And with a last flourish, Adila I is made to smoothly pull out your seat and bow, to which you reply with a perfect curtsey, before all the strings shoot back into Eupheria, who’s down to a much more manageable eight arms now.

“Now, go ahead, tell me your favorite parts so far,” she says, beaming at you. It looks like you’re expected to go first!

***

Kathelia!

When you look up, Kyouko’s looking down at you with a peachy flush to her cheeks and little hearts in her eyes. She wiggles on top of you, and she lowers her head, huffing softly as her lips part and—

ZAP!

You both are hit full force by a wind blast, Eska having knocked it out of alignment with one shiny limb, and you are sent tumbling into a heap together. She grins at you, her lips forced open into the rictus, and then does an acrobatic backflip into another set of crystals, which she also knocks out of alignment, pointing them straight at you.

Kyouko’s curse kicks in hard and she throws her arms around your head and screams for you to saaaaaaaaaaaave her, Kassie! She’s the cheerleader in distress who needs you to woman up and save the day and your face is being smushed into heavenly softness.

The part of you that is still a tactical genius and analytic mastermind slams into the part of you that is helpless and gay and being smothered to wonderful death in the perfect mental meet cute. Gosh, she smells wonderful, like an autumn morning when the sun’s out and you have a cup of cinnamon apple tea in your hands as you walk with her and— oh, right, a) Eska intends for this place to be your last room and b) you need to breathe.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

Oh, girl. Oh, you had to say it, didn’t you? Threaten to divide Sara from the group again, to be partners with her geeky little bro, leave her behind in the dust. She helps spring you out of AEGIS, she comes for you when nobody else does, and this is how you treat her? Like she’s disposable, your sidekick?

Let’s see if you blink, then.

Sara steps in too, closer, inside Euna’s personal bubble, but she’s never really cared about those, has she? “Go ahead,” she says, silky. “Give me your best shot.”

You gonna back up your big words, Euna? You gonna slug Sara for the crime of having feelings, huh? The blood pounds in Sara’s throat as she holds her breath and waits for you to make your choice, bomboncita.

And maybe you notice that she’s tensing up because she’s a little bit afraid you’re going to hit her, and she’s too stubborn to flinch away. Maybe you notice how she’s shaking just a little, and anxiously playing with the thumb on her right hand, for all that she’s trying to be the biggest thing in the room right now. How her wings are tucked in around her protectively. And maybe you put together that you and Victor kept something from her that she knows now, and of course she lashes out like the tiger.

She is so afraid she’s not really important to you. That’s why she’s in your face, watching your eyes, waiting to see if you knock her to the ground for being a pain in your ass. If you leave her on the ground again. If you walk away from her again.

Because Sara is arguably the dumbest genius on this ship, and she’d rather swallow her own tongue than grovel and ask if you’re mad at her, do you trust her, why didn’t you tell her. It’s macho street posturing, and isn’t that a bit of a reminder that some of us didn’t grow up in a good arcology?

She’s hard and brittle as the glass that the light shines through, daring you to pitch a baseball through her chest.

[Provoke 12 — admit to Sara that you need her, Euna, and add a Team to the finale— or mark a condition.]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

"Errant!"

That's trouble. Really, you should turn around and walk back outside rather than getting distracted by the wing harness that makes your teammate look like she just fell from heaven and made it look good. The wings are so dark that they're glossy, each feather part of an intricate system of stabilizers hooked into her flight gloves, and she shows off her control over them by touching you under the chin with the enormously powerful hardware, dragging it across your skin like a whisper, and... damn. Damn. You really should scold her for being irresponsible with something that could give you a concussion, but. She makes it look easy, doesn't she?

That voice is trouble. It's a trademark "heads will roll" sugary sweet. But that touch. And the way she's still glowing, literally surrounded by a halo, her turquoise hair shining with light, the way her aviators drink in the light and hide her beautiful eyes behind the dark lenses...

"Let's go kick some ass," Sara purrs, using a twitch of her fingers to make the aforementioned hardware drape the Stymphalian feathers against your back, drawing you in close. "Tell you what, I'll take Vicki myself, and you can unplug Victor's evil computer." Over the course of that sentence, her voice becomes progressively more icy until, by computer, it's positively sepulchral. The wing retracts sharply. "Don't wait up."

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET

{SCENE — the Mountain Summit, overlooking the Forest in every direction—
Time, Morning Tea—
ELODIE alone upon the cliff.}

ELODIE: The friends that I have made have all abandoned me;
the fault, my own, despite the vampire’s spell.
Now soon I shall be dragged back to Sleepshy;
already I hear the toll of its monstrous bell.

Timothy! I love you—
no, you saw the truth, I may not lie.
I love that which you are symbol of:
a mortal life for you and I,
the smell of pastries in the oven,
the flowers growing strong on the sill,
the silly human sport of watching football,
making the cashier wait for change at the till.
A life with permanence and stillness,
one house, one town, one lover true,
instead of a life spent ever traveling,
draped in death’s sepulchral hue.

Shall I then abandon my mad quest?
The ground yawns warmly far below.
One step, and I shall be in my father’s arms,
to drown in his profession’s undertow.
I could, with a step, abandon my mad dreams:
my pastels, my garden, my human boy.
I could return, disgraced, and resign myself
to life as that athlete’s cute chew toy.

It is but a step—
Little more—

But then what shall all of my dreaming have been for?

My dreams... they are of sunlight,
and flowers that do not wither at my touch,
and being held by the one that I love,
and keeping rabbits in a tiny hutch.
I again deny my father and his name!
I again refute the underworld’s call!
Although I do not know the way,
I abjure the Furies one and all!
I will live—
I will live!
Do you hear me, Father?
I will live!

Then by the power of my heart,
the monstrous power held within my bones,
I speak a word to command her to appear,
spoken in dominating tones.
Gaia! Mother Earth! Rise from your stony bed,
shake off the slumber of the season hence!
By she who bears the blood of Death,
appear before me, heed my request!

Show me what dread power I may call
to unshackle my blood’s destiny
from the paths that lead to underworlds
and doom me to their misery!

I care not for the price!
I care not for the pain!
I care only that I,
I’ll see sunlight again!

Come forth now, come forth!
I will not be denied!
I bring the winter,
and winter shall die!

I shall be the spring!
I shall be its airs,
I shall be your maiden,
I shall take up your cares!

Come forth! In your aspect,
of maiden or wolf,
come forth by my word
and show me my truth!

{ELODIE falls senseless. A voice can be heard in the Incantation which follows.}

[12 on Gazing into Abysses.]