“The engine,” Redana says, thoughtfully[1]. “If the engine is the solution... wouldn’t channeling its fire through the flooded areas not just flash-fry the crabs and the water but likely destroy all of us, too? Because that’s really dangerous.”
A pause. Redana doesn’t look away from the Hermetic. She’s fixed. Her mind roars like an engine. “No, that’s not what you’re saying. What you’re saying is that the most important part of the ship is the engine. It powers everything else, which has various functions, but it is essential. Only it is essential.”
Her Auspex is running diagnostics and showing her how such a terrible thing might be dangerously done. It would be mad, but perhaps just mad enough to work?
“So... if we cannot safely refurbish the decks below... we detach them. We install bulkhead seals, sever the ship in half, let the sea in space drift forever. That’s a lot of our cargo space and cannons, though...”
***
[1]: or, as Bella might put it, dangerously thoughtful. In the sort of mood where she might find herself marching merrily to a chaotic end, step by step.
“What’s yours is mine!” That jab definitely went up a nostril, ack. “Now what are you?”
The wand is withdrawn, but only so that the figure can begin circling you ominously. Glass crunches loudly (just like snow) under their tiny boots. “What is it? Smells like mold. Belongs to her, but even water boils away, yes, yes!”
Around they come again, and the wand jabs you roughly in a kidney. “Hand it over! I don’t care what precious forgotten memories you have safe, all I care is that they’re all mine! Don’t you know the law, numbnuts?”
***
Lucien!
The angel actually seems rather disinclined to follow you once you get up out of the food court, though it’s a close thing; you swear that the last explosion singed your hind end as you dove up onto the broken tiles of a... rather dingy, very abandoned indoor market. Shelves lie empty or prone as far as the eye can see, stall signs impossibly bleached white, the only remaining symbols the signs of a train, everywhere.
The arrow is a bit of a surprise.
It bounces off the tiles a hair away from your head, and you follow its previous trajectory up to a rather singular fellow. He’s wearing something that was once an usher’s uniform in a previous incarnation of existence, covered in tiles stitched carefully onto the fabric. Blackened, broken bones hang from his necklace and the fringe of his sleeves, and, my my, is that facepaint meant to imitate a skull? What artistry!
Seeing that his shot missed, the gentleman in question lets out a long rising-and-falling whoop that sounds eerily similar to the cries of the angel below. From the corridors all around, similar whoops echo.
That probably doesn’t mean “hello, new friend, you have passed the trial of the Angel and are our new shaman.”
***
Ailee!
It was one heck of a gamble, but it turns out that Bees can understand your wiggling dances. Huzzah! Their answer, however, involves a swirling swarm with lights flashing in unison to make glyphs in Prelapsarian Huzzu.
A performance before one’s higher caste, with the tail stroke that specifically means it was appreciated. An enemy, combined with a festival mask (the closest the language can come to a disguise or false pretenses), beneath the interrogative dots. A wickedness (with the sub-glyph for truth to distinguish it from theoretical evil, the problem of), combined with the Seat of Reason (and the Huzzu didn’t believe that was the brain). Clarification, requested urgently.
A thought runs from the flashes of the bees on the walls, regurgitating stony paste and shaping it with their stubby little manipulator limbs, and you can see it swirl into the bees that are communicating with you.
An encore performance, requested. Urgently.
More and more bees are filling the corridor, landing on the walls, and staring at you with those glowing blue eyes.
***
Coleman!
Here you are, staring up at the New Arrivals And Navigation Board. Passengers disembarked: three, in the Galleria, the Interfaith Chapel, and the... throbbing cancerous growth. Ew. Ewwww.
Still, there’s been no recent First Aid logs (though pretty much all the logs are showing EXP. under condition which isn’t reassuring) which means they’re still alive. All you have to do is get them all together, find some safe spot in this nightmare, and prep Sasha for a real run on the tracks.
That’s the thought going through you as the oversized, makeshift carabiner flies through the air. It locks around your neck, and the cable attached to it pulls taut. You’re jerked off your feet, hard, and as you gasp and catch your breath, you’re stepped on. Also pretty hard.
You look up into the figuratively burning eyes of a Wolf. It’s one of the most intense looks you’ve ever been pinned by. She opens her mouth, and the words that come out creak with disuse.
“The train.” She nods at Sasha, waiting below the narrow stairway up to New Arrivals. “It... yours?” The cable tightens by another ratchet. It’s connected to a jury-rigged launcher. If you could just reach out and touch the cable release... “Take with you.”
Her cheeks are gaunt, one ear is gnawed down to the skull, and her clothing is filthy: ragged rags wrapped around her limbs and a colorless, threadbare jacket hanging off bony shoulders. When she licks her lips, her teeth are yellowed.
“Now.”
Old Scars — whenever you Speak Softly with Wolf, pay a price per question; whenever you Forge a Bond, pay a price. Answers are hard won with her.
Survivor — Wolf has Protection, and can extend this to one other in arms’ reach.
Look Out For Number One — if damaged, Wolf will immediately disengage and return later. When she comes back, she immediately makes a Hard Cut.
You have an advantage in this dance, an edge of reactive speed that Shamash (for all their brute-force acceleration) does not. This fight is going to be shatteringly big; you have aroused the ire of a god. Whichever direction you go in, the two of you are going to leave a trail of destruction in your wake.
Outside, it is dusk, and far off down the Road of Shamash the arena is prepared for your triumphant battle. Is that where you want to make your stand, in the place that was prepared for the two of you? Or do you want to cause chaos in one of the Temples together? Do you want to drag him below into the tight confines of the slave-city despite the terrible collateral? Or do you want to bring him to the very palatial estate of the Seneschal?
Drive: to flinch at the very brink of self-destruction.
Moves: # Unleash their Voice and cause devastation # Suddenly overwhelm with their armor’s advanced thaumatech # Refuse to take decisive action or end a threat # Lash out in unthinking fear and anger
Conceal. Don't feel. Don't let it show. Breathe in deeply. The world around you is huge and loud and overwhelming. You cannot allow yourself to be this disoriented. She's behind you; she can see the stiffness. You're as frail as a twig ready to be snapped, Constance, you always have been. This knight, she was from the tower that ran by the river.
You remember Lady Sandsfern, don't you? You made a game of spying on her, half-wild river-child that you were, fresh from your mother's side. You made the rivers and fens of the Low your secret kingdoms, and above them all the tower was a constant landmark.
You don't know what happened to that tower; you were away, anointing the secret faces of the sun in a rough cave, the way your mother taught you. And then you stayed away because you were still young, and afraid, and if you did not approach that fire-ruined axle of your youthful roving, you wouldn't have to admit that it was not a forever. That things could fall apart if you didn't look after them.
So you didn't dig for secrets.
And you still don't remember the knight's name.
So instead you allow yourself to grow distracted, accepting gifts with the poise and grace that is expected of you: a soft benediction of sky and earth, the touch of your hand upon theirs, and then carrying it yourself instead of letting the knight do it for you, because then you would have to acknowledge the knight, and show your weakness to her, and that is what you are not allowed to do. You are a daughter of rivers, a daughter of giants, intercessor between mankind and the worlds seen and unseen. You do not forget names and sheepishly admit to being too afraid to pursue the truth.
(You have to take the gifts. It's part of the bargain. It's who you are: you are the person who accepts the need of the people, the need they have to change the minds of the winds and the rain and the wheel. The need to say to yourself: I did something. I did what was expected of me. I gave a gift, I will receive a gift. And there is truth to that, but even more truth to the fact that your acceptance of the gift is as much for their sake as it is for yours.)
Ah, right. You're here already. This isn't really the right place, but it is your job to mediate the practical necessities of the keep market with the old traditions. And, besides, don't all traditions start somewhere? So you've made this the right place. There's an idol that's usually kept in a storage shed to keep the amiable peace between her and the young priest who advises the Duchess, made in the shape of the wheel and the disc. Burnished metal shines in the sunlight, hammered crudely into shape by your own hands (and the blacksmith was honored by the visit, never mind that you had to swing the hammer with both hands and a war cry to rally your strength). It is hung with charms and flower wreaths made by children and lovers, and it is here you will bid farewell to spring's rain and new growth and welcome lordly summer.
Oh. Right. You can't carry the gifts offered to you (and by proxy, the world you all must live in, the land that loves you all, and the great wheel of the seasons) and carry out the ceremony. There's dancing that everyone has to join in, and cutting open fresh fruit (in a gentle echo of older, cruder traditions), and you must prostrate yourself before golden summer and thank the season for accepting your hospitality, in the same manner one thanks their liege lord.
So you have to do it.
You have to talk to the knight.
"Here," you say, and hand her the gifts. It is a process that involves carefully passing them from one set of arms to the other. "Hold these." Where are you supposed to look? You try staring directly at her breastbone, then decide that it's more natural to look at her face, then decide staring directly into her eyes makes you seem confrontational, so you-- don't drop the honey!
You fumble it and, worms below, the noise that comes out of you as you bend half over to catch it! You stop it from cracking open on the cobblestones, but only after making an absolute fool of yourself. You stay there, for a moment, your pulse hammering and your cheeks white hot with dismay.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Be their druid, their firm center point. Be their tower that will not burn.
"Thank you," you say, and pull out a simple kerchief (another gift from another time, put to good use). Each gift goes in, and then, there, a simple knot makes it easily portable. "Thank you," you say again, foolish, trying your hardest to be who you have to be. And then you make the mistake of looking at her face.
Redana is quiet. She lets Iskarot finish, then lets the silence stretch out as she stares into the swirling skies. Someone uncharitable might even wonder if she was even aware it was her turn to say something. But then, lo, she speaks! "How would a follower of the Saffron approach crabs in the lower decks, Master Hermetic? I'm listening."
And she pivots to face him, a surprisingly graceful motion involving using her rear end as a pivot point and her arm as a lever. The heel of her splinted foot makes a forty-five degree angle on the floor, almost perfect. And it's the almost, isn't it? Proof enough that she's not really some perfect champion sprung fully formed from Zeus's brow. She's just a young woman (recovering from a wound that should have rendered her disabled for the rest of her life) almost literally starry-eyed at the sight of the cosmos.
One that has been burned by a grueling educational program, but is still willing to be vulnerable to a Hermetic. If he has any wits, he'll treat her evenly and methodically, helping her to open the doors of a plan herself while sharing his insights; if he is too brusque or condescending, not adhering to the golden mean, she will withdraw slowly but surely.
It is Ishtar who is waiting for you at the Bridge of Heaven, before the array of your chariots. It was always Ishtar who would. The curtains of her palanquin part as your priests approach their holy vessels, and one gauntlet wreathed in lapis lazuli makes an imploring gesture.
“Shamash,” she says, and she dares to use her Voice on you. On YOU. On Shamash who Breaks the Horizon. As if you did not have Dampeners worked into your helm. “Stay. I have prepared a feast in honor of your aspect as Champion of Heaven, First of the Fleet. A year has passed since I gave birth to this festival, all in your honor. Stay with us.”
“It is my prerogative and duty to conquer the proud sky,” you respond. A check. “Nothing may bind me or keep me in check.”
“Yet stay,” Ishtar pleads, stony-faced in serene radiance under her crown of many banners. “I will offer you whatever you may wish. Babylon the Great is the perfected world, and all that may be wished is within it.”
“Save for that which Shamash brings on swift wings, and Marduk with the tramp of many feet which are not his own. Are you perhaps lost in memories of the days before creation, sister, that you must be comforted?”
As direct a rebuke as you can make. The gauntlet withdraws sharply. Good. Ishtar has been getting too proud for someone who has only been part of the Pantheon for a few centuries now.
“I will bring you trophies, sister,” you say, and bow low. “Ones befitting a Queen of Heaven.” Because you will, inevitably, win.
You just hope the Zhianku makes their struggle entertaining for a little while.
***
Smoke rises and is filtered out by your helm. You could (and have) walk on the outer shell of a chariot and never for a moment struggle for breath. Struggle is for those beneath you. Struggle is for those who fear losing their lives.
...that creature is strange. It puffs and parades itself around like one of your exalted servants, taking pride in its barbarity. Yet you have held this world for years. How has its pride not been broken by seeing the ruin of its world’s champions? (It is Zhianku. It trained in their rude academies, belaboring under the useless thought-construct of a soul. There is no such thing. There must not be. When you die you will stop.)
Still. You find yourself interested in bringing it back. The way the court ogles at it is entertaining enough, and its brashness, its spirit... perhaps maybe you will not kill it. Maybe this time you will be like your brothers and sisters who do not kill, who do not glory in the fires in heaven, who do not dash chariots against the rocks and know their captains to be dead upon impact. Maybe you will bring it back and ask Ishtar to break it in, to gouge out its higher functions until it never so much as thinks (ha!) of Looking at you.
Of seeing the you inside of Shamash.
You rise with a grunt. The music stops instantly. You wave a hand. “Continue. I merely follow the wind.” That is enough to keep the idiots from panic as you take the slow path to the rear chambers where your true tribute is being made ready.
And there it is. The Zhianku student. The one who sees. The mocking trickster. It stands among your gold as if saying: I know the secret, too. This is my power now. I will take it and pry the helmet off your skull and now there will be two dead gods on this planet.
And no wild death-yearning can stop the blind horrified panic of losing your gold.
The Furnace in your chest ignites. You burn gold without thought. The distance between you is cut roughly from existence. Your fingers curl around its throat and you lift, the words of your arm an inferno branded on your being. POWER. STRENGTH. GLORY. The Furnace roars hungrily as you bring it close.
It Looks at you again, or tries to: the lenses of your helmet filter out the cognitohazard battering at you, reducing it to a smoky figure writhing in your grip. It is like holding smoke. It will be out soon. It will have your gold.
The generators in your helm flicker to life with a thought, triangulating on its head. You unleash your Voice. Let Ishtar have her irresistible commands; you have the Wind That Consumes.
The wall behind it cracks like a hammerblow from the backwash of your Voice. The creature goes limp, and before you boil the brain in its skull, you disengage the generators and toss it down to the floor.
There is silence but for the ragged whine of aftershock. The Inquisitor and her servants are on their faces, not daring to rise. You watch the creature.
“Do the machines spark it within me?” Redana considers it for a moment, cradling the bread bowl in one hand. “I don’t think I can be curious. I know all their parts. I can figure out what needs to be fixed. And it’s a good workout, too. When I get it running, I’m satisfied. But I’m not curious. It’s enough to know that it’s working again, that I took something broken and made it better.”
She looks out at the swirls of red and white, biting her lips thoughtfully. The thought works through her. “That, though. Out there.” She points at a swirl that might have been the flick of a tail from some sea-dwelling beast, disappeared back into the dust. “That! I want to see what’s beyond that, what’s hiding inside it, and... I want to see it all. I never could have dreamed that this would be out here! I’d seen drawings, but the real thing is, wow! That’s what makes me curious, Master Hermetic, that’s what makes me want to walk! Is that the Saffron path? Or something connected to it?”
She turns and looks hopefully at the priest of Hermes, suspended in a moment of possibility where she’s ready to believe anything. It’s so painfully earnest, isn’t it? The hope that she might be told her wanderlust is contained within the saffron, or that there is an ancient order of knights-compass in whose steps she could follow, or that the Hermetic might tell her to follow the rainbow road of the mariner-priestess...
This is your fault. You know that as soon as you hear that droning, terrible bell drop down into audible octaves, sending your heart plummeting. This is going to happen to your friends because they stayed with you and Sasha.
clang. clang. clang.
There’s no time. All at once it surges around you, sand shivering out of existence and replaced by pitted stone and corroded steel, toxic quicksilver and fire. So much fire. You are alone, now, you and Sasha. The others are gone.
clang. clang. clang.
When you hear that bell at a station, that means an engineer is needed. When a crew hears that, they stop and bank the fires and send their best down into the bowels of the station, to the Central Administration Spine, to uncover the need. The less time between peals, the more pressing the matter.
clang. clang. clang.
But it’s very rare to hear that dreadful noise indeed, because the ancient masters who built, or shaped, or summoned, or grew the stations of the line? They laid a working upon their masterpiece, built a station and annexed it and its metaphysical weight. Accidents and disasters and curses and wrecks all slide down from the stations and end up in Wormwood Station, where the bells never stop.
They end up here.
clang. clang. clang.
Crackling, distorted laughter issues from the sparking, broken speakers embedded into the walls. Once they were beautiful fleur-de-lis ornaments, but now they look like they’re liable to give you tetanus if you so much as touch them.
“Now Arriving,” the speakers proclaim, the cheerful and caring voice of a Station underlaid with something deep and jagged and darkly wicked. “All passengers disEMbark at Terminal [bzzzzzt]. Mind the Gap. Mind the Step. Please be aware there MAY be delays in Departure. All outbound trains scheduled for departure at [bzzzzzzzzzt]. Mind the GAP.”
clang. clang. clang.
A train has the weight, physical and metaphysical, to barrel through Wormwood and save the crew from hell. Sometimes you see things through the windows. Sometimes you see people-shaped things running for the train, waving, sobbing. Wait, they silently scream before they’re lost in the distance. Wait.
clang. clang. clang.
Welcome to Wormwood Station. Mind the gap.
Disaster and Ruin. Everything in Wormwood Station is going wrong. This is because Wormwood Station is the place where things go horribly, terribly, impressively wrong.
The Boss: ????
Response Level 0.
***
Jackdaw!
There is a wand pointed up your nose.
A minute ago you were excitedly pointing out that the Forest was erupting within sight, thick black brambles choking the sand, ravens darting out to spear fat white worms on their beaks. Then there was the sound of a doleful, foreboding, desolate bell, and then a loud rushing, roaring noise, and your grip was torn away. And now you’re here.
There’s a huge stained glass window of unfortunate design arching above your head. Its subject matter is glorious, from what you can tell, all magnificent spires and beautiful trains and strangely-dressed people, but it is too heavy. It sags dangerously, and shards of glass shatter down from where it is cracked, drifting in a smoky breeze like snow. Huge glass-drifts fill the room, and you can already feel dangerous, shining glass settling in delicate specks on your clothes.
There is a wand pointed up your nose. The hand that holds it is clapped about in dreadful black iron. The helmet of the figure has grasping horns like bony fingers, but don’t be confused. They are shorter than you. As short as Ailee, even. And they have a similar tail, probably, under the barbed armor. It’s just that the faceplate is a snarling furious dragon.
All around you, among the glass-drifts, unfortunate kobolds slave away filling chests of black iron with glass. They are not dressed for the elements. The glass leaves clean white scars everywhere. Around them are these tiny black knights, armed with firewands and spears, with golden talismans and good-luck charms.
“In the name of King Dragon,” the rat squeaks, “you and your former belongings now belong to the Under-Empire, longlegs! Hand them over!”
I Bring The Name: the Chief Squeaker can manipulate both fire and gold as they wish, up to and including using them as Ranged, Burning attacks.
Noooo, My Scheme-Plans! when this stat becomes damaged, the Chief Squeaker suffers an ironic and terrible circumstance that removes them from the scene (or Takes them Out, if it’s the last one).
I BRING THE EYE: the Chief Squeaker can leave curses on those they damage, all highly Dragon-themed. Turning you into a pathetic little kobold is a favorite.
***
Lucien!
waaaaaooooow, sparks the angel.
It sightlessly stalks through the burning food court, its halo of white wisteria crackling. Its wings drag on the floor, knocking over tables and chairs. Whatever attracts its attention has that mournful head swing ponderously towards it, the wisteria parts, and then—
krakboooom.
That was a vending machine, which is still sparking with blue and white arcs of lightning, having just sprayed boiling drinks inches from your hiding spot.
Everyone said the Heart was mercurial, especially as you got lower, but this is ridiculous. One minute you hear an alarm bell, the next you’re tying a rag over your face to avoid dying of smoke inhalation before the angel can get you first.
waaaaaaaooooooow, it hums thoughtfully, and then incinerates a refuse bin.
Gaze of Destruction: the Angel is Piercing, Burning, Ranged, Reload at anything it looks upon.
Emissary of the Heart: the Angel cannot be damaged by the works of the Heart. For these purposes, both Ailee’s magic and Sasha count as “of the Heart.”
I Bring The Heart: the world around the Angel is highly mutable, and moves around it can be used at any range.
***
Ailee!
Whooooo boy! That was one hell of a shunt!
That’s a technical term. You would be very happy to explain it to others in small little baby words like this: “when a shunt happens, it’s because things from one u-ni-verse just went into another u-ni-verse.” But even that’s a simplification. Where you are right now is, if you’re right, and you always are, an artificially created and sustained miniature looped universe/timeline. Things come in when it intersects with Universe Prime, but there’s probably specific ways to exit the loop/torus manifold. Maybe you don’t quite know what those are yet, but you’re getting there. Like it’ll be hard.
The more pressing matter is the swarm of Bees that’s started glowing and humming angrily. You’re inside one of their hives, all slate-blue stone and gently throbbing azure circuitry. The Bees themselves (fat fuzzy beans with no mouth and giant solid blue eyes, wings buzzing at roughly the speed of sound to keep them from their assuredly intended destiny as caterpillars) are agitated about this. Really agitated.
One shoots lasers from those furiously glowing eyes and zaps you right on the paw. It feels like getting tapped with a smoldering coal, more annoying than painful... but you are surrounded by roughly seven bajillion bees.
(Also, if they really get angry, they will all land on you and vibrate at pandimensional frequencies until you are delicious baked mouse.)
I have decided it is time for More Heart. I would suggest figuring out your End of Session move pretty sharpish. I have decided to encourage this with Post.
Do you remember playing with her, Robena? Her laughter bubbling up into a delighted shriek as you chased her through the rushes? The gap between her teeth when she grinned, holding up a well-armored gentleman snapping his pincers helplessly at the two of you?
She’s different now. Of course she would be. But you must have stared longer than you meant when you saw her emerge from the mist on the Low. She wore a wreath of large black berries and jaunty river-lilies, and when her boatman pulled the boat ashore she offered him her hand like it was a sacrament.
And now the two of you are here, in Lostwithiel, and she still seems out of place. Or is it Lostwithiel that is out of place? She walks barefoot and her shoulders are straight and proud, and the crowd parts before her instead of causing her to dart here and there. How could the vivacious young girl you remember become something like this, a pillar of the old faith hung in garlands, taciturn and stately?
Then a child darts away from their sibling, clutching a toy, and runs into her. Hard. Constance sways dangerously, like a willow tree, and the toy (a simple doll) goes flying. People nearby gasp, and the mother (who had been haggling too intently to keep track of her child) starts making frantic apologies to the Woman of the Low.
Then Constance squats down, one hand outstretched to keep her balance, and waves the child over. (They are young enough that their gender is entirely “sticky face and grubby hands”.) She pulls a berry free from her wreath and pushes it into the child’s hands, then whispers in their ear.
Awe-struck, the child toddles back to their mother, holding that berry like it’s a precious jewel. And Constance, rising elegantly, smiles. It’s like day breaking on the hills.
Then she looks at you and her smile cools. What have you done wrong?
***
Composed face. Be the one they expect you to be. Everybody’s looking up to you, Constance. A daughter of giants and a wise woman of the woods doesn’t smile like a silly girl at every handsome knight that crosses her path.
When the little darling ran into you, you nearly crumpled into the arms of this burly, grim, intriguing knight. One who definitely is not interested in things like “tea in a sacred garden,” before you get ideas. She’s here as your escort, nothing more. Keep that in your head, daughter of giants!
It is your duty, your obligation to be a stone axle around which the world can turn. You call upon the seasons to remember their ancient oaths, to show their most pleasing faces, and to receive sacrifice. A boon for a boon, a song for a song. (And thank goodness you have not been called upon to beg from them a life.)
You danced the maypole by the shores of the Low, this past season; you buried gifts in the earth and called on it to remember and reciprocate; you fanned the flames and sang the night through to bring Spring to high waxing. And now you are here, confident, focused, not offering your fruits (such as they are) to a strange knight.
A bark; you jump. Just a dog, excited by the attention he’s getting from passers-by, rolling around by a stall. Not dozens of dogs baying and barking and howling, off in the distance at twilight, deep in the Treffwood.
Is it a rumor if you have heard it? Or is it still a rumor if you have not seen it, despite watching the tangled branches carefully, half expecting to see a flash of panthers’ spots, a serpent’s neck?
The Beast of King Pellinore is here. And it will be your responsibility to stand between it and the people of Lostwithiel, if it crosses the threshold, if it bursts forth from the Treffwood to tear up crops and frighten oxen and devil the countryside.
There is nothing like it in the rolls of beasts, and you are not prepared. So all you do is keep your eyes peeled and watch the woods by twilight, listening to that far-off calamity of hounds.
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