15[20:41] <@VoxPVoxD> Miles away from anything with a name, the hirelings move through the forest and the armored man rides in front. 15[20:42] <@VoxPVoxD> For Keldar, the going is slow. He's on point, riding one of those huge, yellow, rank-smelling flightless emas birds that the tribes of the East uses as beasts of burden. He's riding in front of a bare handful of his own people, and behind them, thirty or forty men and women of the local Flaeli tribe, their guides in the vast forest. Keeping pace with Keldar on his own (much cleaner) emas is his employer, Tepet Sachin. 15[20:43] <@VoxPVoxD> It was at Tepet Sachin's behest that Keldar rode out here, tracking a lead on the fabled Tomb of Cerulean Winds. The Dynast's anima blows stones and sticks out of their path as surely as everyone's hair whips up every time he stops the company to measure the wind. "We are getting close. The wind tells me so." 15[20:43] <@VoxPVoxD> Tepet Sachin had better be right; it was his money that got Keldar out here, and his money that secured the Flaeli as guides. The slight, sneering man's say-so got them marching out here in the darkest part of night, for the legend holds that the Cerulean Wind blows only after the sun sets. 15[20:44] <@VoxPVoxD> Only one of Keldar's own people made this leg of the trip, the rest keeping camp (and watching over the treasure recovered when Keldar repelled some roadside bandits who'd underestimated him). It's Anilom, the trapmaster, swifted runner in the company. He holds the torch aloft as his own riding-bird cantors behind them. 15[20:44] <@VoxPVoxD> *swiftest 15[20:47] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar knows that the Tomb of Cerulean Winds has been lost since the First Age, and this far East it's a fair bet that not even the canniest Scavenger Lord would've found out. They're a solid three weeks' ride from Nexus, Keldar's home. 15[20:48] <@VoxPVoxD> So now, in the dark, with only the creeping patter of their entourage and the stink of the emas to break the long, late silences, what's going through Keldar's mind? [20:50] <@Ferrinus> "I should hope so," 12says the tiger of Nexus. Keldar doesn't mind the smell of emas birds - in fact, it's been a while since he's consciously noticed it. The same goes for weight and heat of the heavy armor plating his body and the balance of the straight sword that's strapped across his back. Out here, on the job, in unknown territory, the only concession the scavenger-mercenary's [20:50] <@Ferrinus> 12willing to make to comfort is the bandanna that's keeping his hair out of his eyes. [20:52] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's thinking about his employer. This guy's supposedly got whatever mystic know-how it takes to find the place we're looking for, and enough silver to get professionals chasing after fairy tales... but what good is he, otherwise? Is he a sorcerer, a warrior, a merchant? To what extent has it seemed like he's really had an idea of what's going on? 15[20:54] <@VoxPVoxD> "Am I boring you, scavenger? Surely your exorbitant fee is sufficient to buy a held tongue." Tepet Sachin's an odd duck. He looks weak, and if Keldar wasn't subject to constant reminder of the dragonblood coursing through the Dynast's veins he'd be liable to write him off as a fop. But the fact is, ten thousand dragons rule the world, and Tepet Sachin is one of them. [20:55] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "What? Heyyy, I'm glad! Means this is working, right?" 15[20:57] <@VoxPVoxD> He's callous and condescending towards Keldar and his people in particular ("scavengers" all), but he has the uncanny center Keldar's come to associate with Dynasts immersed in the Immaculate Faith. Though you wouldn't know it from the finery he sports, Sachin has the air (heh!) of a monk. 15[20:58] <@VoxPVoxD> He stops the march periodically to draw the air through his nose, smelling it with an expression of concentration one might see on a musician deep in performance. Afterwards he'll often issue curt orders to adjust course, sometimes dramatically, though as the night's worn on those adjustments have been getting finer and finer. 15[20:58] <@VoxPVoxD> All told there's not a lot to recommend him as a traveling companion or conversation partner. But the Dynast seems to know his business and, importantly, the money spends. [20:59] <@Ferrinus> 12Ah, the monks... yeah, that'll be why Keldar hasn't been too sassy over the last few weeks. He actually has seen the Immaculates in action, and later made a point of seeking out whichever mason'd last repaired that building and complimenting him on the sturdiness of the construction. 15[21:04] <@VoxPVoxD> It's only visible for moments - their pace through the woods and the inconstancy of the torchlight mean you'd have to have incredibly sharp eyes to catch it. So it isn't by sight, precisely, that Keldar notices the strange behavior of the plant life. There's just something at the back of his mind - the honed instincts of a seasoned adventurer - that have him looking in just the right place at just the right time. 15[21:05] <@VoxPVoxD> The ferns on this side of the path are larger than the others, their leaves thinner and sharper, and colored faintly blue. [21:05] <@Ferrinus> 12It's with an apparent stretching, shoulder-rolling motion that the warrior prepares himself to draw. Maybe it's just habit, though - what's the significance? 15[21:08] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar's been in this business a fair few years now, and he's seen enough tombs in his career to know that when they're damaged or derelict - as First Age ruins almost always are - they can have bizarre effects on the surrounding environment. So in the mutation of these plans Keldar sees a sign, not only that they're getting close, but that it's this way. [21:09] <@Ferrinus> 12Sachin seem to notice? 15[21:10] <@VoxPVoxD> He did, but a hair slower than Keldar himself. Feel free to lord it over him a bit. [21:11] <@Ferrinus> "Ah, right there." 12Of course, the Exalt had clearly spotted it by the time Keldar was in his second syllable, but it still looks a bit like he needed the tip-off from the mortal. 15[21:13] <@VoxPVoxD> "Hmph. So it is." Sachin barks a few words of whatever Forest-tongue dialect the Flaeli speak, and the entire company begins to veer right, crashing about in the dark. [21:14] <@Ferrinus> 12It'd be nice if Keldar could follow them, but he's got his own interpreter for it, if need be. What's important is that he be able to tell at the glance the difference between a passage to a restroom and a passage to an industrial furnace. 15[21:15] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom throws torchlight over flora that get bluer and bluer as they progress. The leaves become sharper, like pine needles almost, as they come upon a small outcropping and the rare clearing. The outcropping overlooks an expanse of high blue grass, which conceals decaying animal bones on the ground. 15[21:16] <@VoxPVoxD> It's only when the pass the outcropping into the clearing that the entrance to the tomb is apparent; it's behind them, a grotto carved into the earth, its entrance a straight shot through the clearing to the horizon, as if opened to catch the rising sun. [21:18] <@Ferrinus> 12Decaying animal bones, eh? That's always a sign to watch for. What's it look like killed 'em? 15[21:19] <@VoxPVoxD> They look crushed, mostly. [21:20] <@Ferrinus> 12Horizontally or vertically? Either way, you can be well sure that Keldar's going to be on the lookout for giant blocks or mechanized platforms or suchlike as he motions the people behind him forward and makes ready to set up a traditional base camp/perimeter. 15[21:21] <@VoxPVoxD> The Flaeli are silent and reverent in the tomb's presence. The passage into the grotto is dark and exceedingly narrow (it looks like the entrance was once wider, but has collapsed partially). They look like they were... maybe constricted? It's a bit hard to theorize given the state of the remains, but it doesn't look mechanical. 15[21:21] <@VoxPVoxD> With Tepet Sachin's translation, the Flaeli set up an encampment and a watch. 15[21:22] <@VoxPVoxD> A steady wind whistles from deep inside the cave, rushing past Keldar's head and giving him the sensation of running. [21:23] <@Ferrinus> 12Hmm. Well, you do get giant snakes hereabouts. After giving a few instructions, sweeping part of the perimeter, snacking a bit, and otherwise making ready, Keldar addresses the dynast again. "So - this place close at daybreak or similar? What kind of window've we got?" 15[21:24] <@VoxPVoxD> Tepet Sachin: "At daybreak the winds cease, but now that we've found the tomb we have no need for them. The entrance itself ought to remain open." [21:25] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar nods. What're we here for, anyway? Obviously he's claimed some percentage of the general take - there's bound to be tons of decorations and grave goods and so on of great value to collectors and nobles - but what, specifically, has Sachin said he wants with the place? 15[21:27] <@VoxPVoxD> The order was very clear - Keldar has finders' rights to everything within the tomb, save its most precious treasure: the Ring of Cerulean Winds. The name is misleading, as the Ring is purported to be the size of a crown or a chakram rather than the sort of thing you wear on your hand. But you try telling the savants that. [21:31] <@Ferrinus> 12It's a shame it's probably secretly worth more than the rest of the tomb put together, but on the other hand that'd make the thing really dangerous to try to fence. "Alright, then," 12says Keldar. "Normally protocol is to make camp and go in at the top of the morning, when we're fresh... but that's when we haven't been operating on bat hours for the past three weeks. And the [21:31] <@Ferrinus> thing's subterranean, anyway." [21:31] <@Ferrinus> 12Does Sachin intend to go in, or just wait for us to come out? 15[21:33] <@VoxPVoxD> Tepet Sachin has already started brewing tea. [21:34] <@Ferrinus> 12Ah, yes. Ah, yes. Ahh... yes. Well, it's no more than Keldar expected. 15[21:34] <@VoxPVoxD> In his defense, it smells like really good tea. 15[21:34] <@VoxPVoxD> It looks like the only person set to follow Keldar in is Anilom. [21:35] <@Ferrinus> 12Can Keldar get a couple tribesmen? 15[21:35] <@VoxPVoxD> If he's insistent. [21:36] <@Ferrinus> 12Oh hell yeah he is. You think you just wander in on your lonesome into something like this? Scavenging is a PROCESS. "And bring extra poles-" 15[21:37] <@VoxPVoxD> There are poles aplenty among the (three? four?) Flaeli men that set up to accompany Keldar and Anilom into the tomb. [21:38] <@Ferrinus> 12Soon Keldar, Animlom, and four people whose names Keldar's made a point not to learn are in the thick of it. Well, in the first few feet of the thick of it. There's a lot going on - careful chalk marks, thorough use of torches and lamps, long-distance prodding of unusual panels... it goes faster than you might think, but only because the two mercenaries are so practiced in the routine. [21:40] <@Ferrinus> 12There are a few supernatural touches. In particular, Keldar's leaving breadcrumbs, kernels of an alchemical clay that, once cracked open and exposed to the air, will shine a cheerful green for the better part of a day. As well, Keldar's got a few bronze seals with common first age glyphs stamped on them, a committed-to-memory list of anyone rumored to have been buried in the tomb, [21:40] <@Ferrinus> 12etc. 15[21:44] <@VoxPVoxD> The passage in is very narrow - at least for the first leg (looks like this first corridor's about 30 yards long, sloping gently down and curving to the left) they'll only be able to enter single file. But Keldar is a damn professional. They're methodical (Keldar manages to spring several poison dart traps at a distance), they're efficient (it only takes them about an hour to get through) and ultimately... they make this look easy. 15[21:45] <@VoxPVoxD> A couple things of note as they progress into the tomb: 15[21:46] <@VoxPVoxD> -The markings Keldar notices are consonant with the rumored provenance of the Tomb of Cerulean Winds: that this is the final resting place of some ancient Lunar Anathema. Indeed, there are many traps with the Old Realm sigils for DANGER and POISON that might once have yielded hateful snakes, or covered Anilom in enormous spiders, which a combination of Keldar's own savvy and the liberal application of torchfire render toothless. 15[21:48] <@VoxPVoxD> -The wind gets steadier the deeper they go, and its effect more acute. Where it was imperceptible in the woods, and put Keldar to mind of running swiftly in the clearing, now he feels invigorated, as if he'd just finished a sprint and caught his second wind. [21:50] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar shoots Anilom a grin before turning a corner. This is more fun than usual. 15[21:50] <@VoxPVoxD> -The creatures Keldar finds (the snakes, the spiders, the odd dead rodent) seem to have traces of the same mutation that plagued the plant life around the tomb - they're all quite blue, and their skin is rough and sharp to the touch. [21:51] <@Ferrinus> 12Good thing we went in sooner rather than later. Keldar doesn't care to turn blue. 15[21:51] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom gives Keldar the thumbs-up. It looks like he's feeling it too; Anilom is the jittery type at the best of times. 15[21:53] <@VoxPVoxD> -The tomb itself is badly ruined and collapsed from within. Keldar's internal compass suggests, as they wind deeper into the tomb, a sort of coiled, almost nautiloid structure, like corridors curled up on themselves. There are branching side-corridors - or there were - but they're collapsed so fully that it'd take an excavation crew, or some really irate Earth Aspects, to bust through them. [21:54] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar wonders if it'd be worth it, what with the risks of mutation. Maybe if you just didn't tell 'em...? 15[21:56] <@VoxPVoxD> Finally, though, they arrive at what must be the central chamber. Great stone doors are shut but not sealed; a silver locking mechanism which looks quite well-preserved was physically smashed apart at some point, and only gravity sees the doors settle back into a closed position. Sheer muscle should be able to force 'em open. 15[21:59] <@VoxPVoxD> The door is overlaid with pictograms and Old Realm script. Keldar doesn't recognize all of them - his Old Realm vocabulary doesn't give him a poet's license - but he gets the gist. This is the resting place of Miranjani, the Blue (Cerulean, probably) Wind. Stylized blue orbs and whorls predominate, and the wind itself whistles through the gaps between the door and the floor. It's coming from in there. 15[22:00] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom gestures, getting the Flaeli tribesmen in position to help Keldar force the door open, or else do it themselves on his order. [22:14] <@Ferrinus> "Little weird for a demon, yeah? Still, guess it's good the spiders and shit weren't a bigger part of their idiom." 12Keldar won't be part of the crew actually forcing the doors open unless it takes every last bit of manpower to manage - he'll be back a little ways, ready to react appropriately to whatever turns out to be on the other side. 15[22:18] <@VoxPVoxD> The Flaeli aren't strong enough to try and brute-force the door, but with their trap poles they're set up to try and lever it open. Anilom directs them with gestures. 15[22:21] <@VoxPVoxD> They wedge the poles into the cracks, and push with their shoulders. For a moment it looks as if the poles will snap - but they don't! The doors scrape open, swinging outward on some very degraded silver hinges, only visible as the doors move. The wind almost knocks them on their asses. [22:21] <@Ferrinus> 12Never doubt the good ole ten fwwwoooah! [22:22] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar braces against the blast, squinting past a raised forearm. 15[22:24] <@VoxPVoxD> Within... there's a sarcophagus, propped up on the vertical. It's wearing jade and jewels, and wedged in crossed arms is a golden ring, the size of a tambourine, from whose center emerges a howling wind. There's more treasure at the sarcophagus's foot, including a milky white stone about the size of an apple. The walls were once rich with pictograms and Old Realm no doubt recounting the fearsome deeds of this demon, but they've been worn smooth. [22:24] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Oh, hell yes." [22:24] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Man, imagine if we had, like... a wheeled cart, and we'd just hold the ring pointing backwards-" 15[22:26] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar's pretty sure that it's the damage to the chamber that's causing the wind to act up like this - it's funneling whatever powers the tomb *through* the ring, keeping it going at essentially full blast all night long. The damage to the chamber, Keldar notes, is extensive, between the worn-smooth sigils and the cracked and splintered fixtures. 15[22:26] <@VoxPVoxD> It takes him a moment to see why. 15[22:28] <@VoxPVoxD> Sleeping behind the sarcophagus, so large and so dark it was mistaken at first for a shadow in the chamber, is a massive creature. Its body is immense - Keldar's guess 12 to 14 feet long, maybe as heavy as a quarter-yeddim - and it rises and falls slowly with its sleeping breath. 15[22:28] <@VoxPVoxD> Its face, if it has one, is hidden behind its sleeping bulk, so Keldar couldn't easily guess what *kind* of creature it is. 15[22:29] <@VoxPVoxD> But it's deep, deep blue, and its fur has the spiked character of the plants and vermin found on the way in here to an extreme degree. 15[22:29] <@VoxPVoxD> "What do you think, boss?" Anilom whispers. 15[22:29] <@VoxPVoxD> The wind all but steals the whisper away. If Anilom weren't right next to Keldar he'd never have heard it. [22:31] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's quick to withdraw behind one of the doors, and he licks his lips as he considers the prospect. "Our friends know anything about it?" 15[22:32] <@VoxPVoxD> "About what?" 15[22:32] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom glances at the Flaeli here, but they're all superstitiously avoiding looking into the tomb's heart - a custom of theirs, one suspects. [22:32] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's wondering if the Flaeli recognize it as a local god or whatever. 15[22:33] <@VoxPVoxD> They do seem reverent rather than specifically fearful. [22:33] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar, whispering: "Ask 'em about it." 15[22:36] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom is local to these parts, in the loosest sense (he's from east of the River Province, out past what you could credibly call the Threshold) but it takes him some linguistic fumbling to get more than a few words across. Finally he reports. "They say the beast is the son of the cerulean wind, and guards his tomb day and night. They say we have to outrun it if we expect to leave alive." [22:38] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar licks his lips. How light on his feet is Anilom, generally? Keldar's no slouch, of course, but he is armored. 15[22:40] <@VoxPVoxD> That's why he's here. Anilom once raced down a Nexus laundry line to bring Keldar a bottle of wine when Keldar couldn't be bothered to get out of bed. Then he raced back when Keldar, mid-hangover, started getting mad at Anilom asking Keldar to pay for the wine. You'd scarcely find a fleeter foot in all the Scavenger Lands than he. [22:42] <@Ferrinus> 12All right. Alll right. "Allllll right. Anilom - prioities are, yeah, the ring, that... pearl or whatever it is by the feet there, the other gems... sec, though." 12In terms of the passageways leading out - they all big enough for something that size to fit down them? Any unsprung traps or precipices or similar that Keldar might use to his advantage to cut a chase short? 15[22:43] <@VoxPVoxD> That thing could fit through the corridors, but it couldn't possibly move quickly. It'd have to crawl, almost. Keldar didn't leave any traps unsprung that'd deter a creature of that size, unfortunately. [22:44] <@Ferrinus> 12Couldn't possibly move quickly... unless it were a snake or centipede or something. I'm wise to you, monster manual. How about the doors - would we have to close them against the wind, or did they open into the chamber? 15[22:46] <@VoxPVoxD> The doors opened outward, and would shut into the wind, though it looks like they're heavy enough to do so if you give them a shove on their way. [22:47] <@Ferrinus> 12Oh, yeah? Basically, Keldar wants to try to just trap the monster in there the moment it looks like it's going to wake up, or failing that lead it into narrow enough tunnels with enough crap and debris in the way that it might at least be slowed down... but, worst comes to worst, there's a reason he wears armor on these trips. "...yeah, okay. You and you, ready with that door, you [22:47] <@Ferrinus> two, take this one with me, Anilom... whenever you're ready." [22:47] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "We're lucky, it doesn't even wake." 15[22:50] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom takes a few deep breaths and limbers up. His back's to the wall, but a moment later he's bracing against the wind. 15[22:55] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom's in like a dart, running like the wind was at his back instead of his chest. He snatches the ring and the stone, but the force with which he grabs the ring ends up snapping the arms off the dessicated corpse holding it, releasing an intense, musty perfume into the air. 15[22:56] <@VoxPVoxD> The great beast snuffles and starts, groaning audibly. The voice is mammalian. 15[22:57] <@VoxPVoxD> Anilom bolts down the hall without waiting for Keldar or the Flaeli. In his haste, he drops the white stone on the floor in the chamber as he goes. [22:58] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Fucking - close 'em!" 12Keldar growns and heaves, giving his door as hard a push as he can before, himself, bolting. He really leans into the run, of course, stooping to scoop up the dropped treasure as he goes. 15[22:58] <@VoxPVoxD> The beast rises, unwinding so its head, almost solid blue but streaked with its original tawny color, is half-visible in the shadows of the torch one of the Flaeli was left holding. 15[23:01] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear's roar rattles the tomb, knocking dust and stones loose and precipitating a minor collapse somewhere in the complex. But without the wind blowing out (it broke as Anilom took the ring and fled) the door shuts swiftly, before the bear can get out. [23:02] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Hah!" 12Not many can say they've laughed in triumph while fleeing in terror. Keldar can. 15[23:02] <@VoxPVoxD> Does he stop to grab the stone that Anilom dropped? [23:03] <@Ferrinus> 12Yeah, he scoops it up on his way. 15[23:03] <@VoxPVoxD> And away we go! The Flaeli can't quite keep pace with even the heavily armored Keldar as he flees to the surface. [23:04] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar'd stop and wait for Anilom, but these guys? It probably won't even eat them, since they like it so much, Keldar bets. 15[23:05] <@VoxPVoxD> Let's find out. 15[23:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar's not quite far enough away not to hear what happens. There's a great rumbling sound, the sort Keldar associates with a falling tree or great mechanisms turning, which is almost immediately subsumed by the screaming sound of the Cerulean Wind itself... as the stone doors buckle and blast apart. 15[23:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Does Keldar spare a look back? [23:07] <@Ferrinus> 12If it doesn't cost him any speed. [23:07] <@Ferrinus> 12Hell, maybe if it costs him a bit. Good to know what's up if he actually does decide to come back here with a small army. 15[23:07] <@VoxPVoxD> Then he'll see that his guess was mostly right. The bear doesn't eat the Flaeli. It can't, because it's somersaulting forward, rolling like a massive blue spinning boulder. It simply crushes them. [23:08] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "HOLY-" 15[23:08] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear's spines seem almost to make it more aerodynamic, channeling air off its back as they jut out at gentle curves like the spines of a hedgehog. 15[23:11] <@VoxPVoxD> The Flaeli are speedbumps enough at least that Keldar can clear the rest of the tomb and make it out of the clearing with a moment to breathe. Anilom is standing there, staring at him. 15[23:11] <@VoxPVoxD> *out of the tomb and into the clearing [23:12] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar comes skidding out into the torchlight, practically falling forward, but he turns the motion into a sort of lunging stretch and ends up still on his feet. He twists around - it sound like the monster's still coming? [23:12] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Fucking hell, Anilom! Didn't drop the ring too, didja?" 15[23:13] <@VoxPVoxD> The beast is still coming, but Keldar had a very solid head start. 15[23:13] <@VoxPVoxD> "He did not." 15[23:13] <@VoxPVoxD> It's at this moment that Anilom slumps to the ground, face in the grass, his back riddled with arrows. [23:13] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Listen up, a HUGE fucker of a bear's c-" [23:14] <@Ferrinus> 12Steel scrapes as Keldar draws, immedaiately pushing a foot back towards the tomb as he peers over his blade at whoever's arrayed before him. "Fuck is this." 15[23:15] <@VoxPVoxD> Tepet Sachin is visible over the heads of the Flaeli, all of whom have short swords and bows already at the ready. The ring is in his hands, and a tiny mote of his own anima swirls within it, a pale blue that matches the sky in these predawn moments. 15[23:17] <@VoxPVoxD> "Scavenger. Here we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. You have come for nothing. You will leave with less." Sachin barks a word. Keldar doesn't need to know Forest-tongue. He's heard "kill him" in just about every language those words are still said in this day and age. 15[23:18] <@VoxPVoxD> Sachin raises the ring to the heavens, and in a flash he's off, racing west, leaving a trail of cerulean wind in his wake. 15[23:18] <@VoxPVoxD> Behind the Flaeli, on the horizon, the sky's turned pink. [23:19] <@Ferrinus> 12Sachin must've been harder up for money than he looked, Keldar thinks. Can't afford the actual fee, and can't afford the hit to reputation he'd take just plain not paying the company. So you pick a job that's real dangerous, reaaaal out of the way- "You son of a bitch." 15[23:19] <@VoxPVoxD> At the same moment, with a thunderous crash, the bear spin-dashes out of the mouth of the tomb, emerging like a cannonball into the heart of the green. 15[23:19] <@VoxPVoxD> So it's come to this. 15[23:20] <@VoxPVoxD> A pack of killers before him. A beast of legend behind him, and in the middle one man, his sword, and his wits. 15[23:20] <@VoxPVoxD> In that moment, the sun crests the horizon, a flawless golden curve defying the line between land and sky, dictating day and night to the land below. 15[23:20] <@VoxPVoxD> Breathe in. [23:22] <@Ferrinus> 12Time slows as the monster rears up behind Keldar and the arrayed Flaeli recoil before him. The paws of the bear are a deathtrap and the natives encircle the tomb entrance completely, which means the only way, the only way out, is through. [23:23] <@Ferrinus> 12And the thing is, there are five arrows in Anilom's back, which means at least that many of the tribesmen have to die before Keldar's done here. [23:24] <@Ferrinus> 12These calculations take place in the split-second in which Keldar's stumbling forward slightly with the force of the monster's arrival, the next swear word he was preparing to loose knocked from his lungs by both the shaking of the earth and the sheer force of surprise. By the time the mercenary's steadied himself, though, he's decided on exactly what he needs to do - and step one [23:24] <@Ferrinus> 12is to take his next breath. [23:32] <@Ferrinus> 12The next step is to bellow in inarticulate rage and crash straight into the Flaeli ranks. They might know how to deal with deer and boar and snakes and things, especially when those things are fleeing, but let's see 'em take on an armored swordsman who doesn't let them draw far enough away to harry. Let's see those puny swords they've got deal with bonafide Nexus-forged armor! 15[23:38] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear's quills glitter like sapphires in the dawn light, and its roar drives the birds from the trees. Wildlife scatter as it falls upon the Flaeli. In their own way, they worshiped this creature, and in this moment it pays back their red reverence. Keldar is framed by tides of blood and bodies as he charges into the fray and the bear devours the stragglers. Those that don't fall to claw and sword drop their weapons and scatter like leaves on the wind. [23:44] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's roaring resolves into "That's right! That's FUCKING right!" 12by the time he's on the far end of a swathe of some dozen corpses, and his sword's dripping red to the hilt. Breathing hard, teeth bared, he looks around at the fleeing tribesmen and, in particular, at the huge, sky-colored monster that's even now ripping men apart behind him. [23:47] <@Ferrinus> 12...he'll leave it to it, he thinks. He's not an ungracious person. [23:47] <@Ferrinus> 12Grabbing a nearby Flaeli who's just missing both his arms and shoving him roughly backwards towards the monster, Keldar sprints. [23:54] <@Ferrinus> 12It's nice when being pissed off actually helps Keldar think his way out of things rather than interferes. Every Flaeli the mercenary cuts down to distract the oncoming monster's basically a two-fer. 15[23:55] <@VoxPVoxD> 10Indeed, Keldar leaves enough corpses in his trail that the bear slows. Two, four, six... Keldar cuts 'em down faster than the bear can gobble him up, and the bear gets more lethargic with every corpse. 15[23:56] <@VoxPVoxD> Eventually the bear just, stops, and rests on a flat rock warmed by the rising sun. It lets out a blood-drenched yawn. 15[23:57] <@VoxPVoxD> So... with the beast behind him, his sword in his hand, some strange exhilirating burning in his every breath... which way? What now? [23:59] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar reaches into one of the pouches on his belt, withdraws the strange white stone, and eyes it for a moment. If there's no particular effect, he'll shake his head to himself, pocket it again, and then carefully mark where he is, where the tomb is relative to he is, and most importantly where the rest of his support crew and their base camp sort of thing should be relative to [23:59] <@Ferrinus> 12where he is. [00:00] <@Ferrinus> 12He needs to find them - and fast, he realizes, because if Sachin tried to murder him, he might go for them next. Then he'll... come back around here, he supposes, get enough spears together to maybe bring down the monster entirely and reap as much wealth as can be reaped from the tomb of the blue wind. [00:02] <@Ferrinus> 12Then it's back west, where the company will be told the score and Sachin will be, if not actually slain like the dog he is, at least blacklisted or similar. 15[00:03] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar finds his company greeting him with shock. Where is everyone else? What happened to the employer? What does he tell them? 15[00:03] <@VoxPVoxD> It looks like whichever way Tepet Sachin rode didn't cut this way. [00:05] <@Ferrinus> "We got fucked, boys and girls." 12Keldar's sitting by now, wiping his sword down more thoroughly with a cloth than he was able to with some grass on the walk here. "Tomb's real, take's real - but Anilom's dead. Killed by the treefolk on the Exalt's order." [00:06] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Sachin zoomed off, dunno where. But we're not getting the second half of our commission, which means we'd damn well better scour the actual tomb." 15[00:07] <@VoxPVoxD> "Anilom?" "Those dogs!" "We'll make that asshole regret crossing us, boss." [00:08] <@Ferrinus> 12He's still breathing hard, he finds. His sword's at a mirror sheen. ...must've been some powerful damn wind back there, to still leave him feeling this energized. "Let's move. You all ready? The spikebear - it's full, asleep. Best chance. I'll take point, anyone who can handle a spear take a point of their own, heh." 15[00:09] <@VoxPVoxD> It's a bare quarter-hour before Keldar's company is ready to head back to the tomb. 15[00:13] <@VoxPVoxD> The tomb is how he left it. People marvel at the carnage. "Did the bear do all this?" [00:13] <@Ferrinus> 12Is the bear sleeping where Keldar left it? "Some of it." 15[00:14] <@VoxPVoxD> It was there, yeah, about 200 yards out from the mouth of the tomb. 15[00:15] <@VoxPVoxD> It's mid-morning now, incidentally. It's been four hours and thirty-one minutes since dawn. 15[00:15] <@VoxPVoxD> ...how does Keldar know that? [00:16] <@Ferrinus> 12Well, that's step one. Keldar's delving backup crew isn't actually any kind of army - they're smart enough to keep their spears pointed in the same direction and will probably mostly be good for keeping this thing hemmed in and distracted - but the mercenary himself feels like a score of jade talents right now, and this fucking thing's at least indirectly responsible for Anilom's [00:16] <@Ferrinus> 12death. 15[00:16] <@VoxPVoxD> Is he going for the bear? [00:17] <@Ferrinus> 12Spinning his blade in one hand periodically, beckoning his followers forward just a little bit, to within an arrow or spearcast's distance, Keldar advances on the thing step by quiet step. 15[00:18] <@VoxPVoxD> Turns out you can only be so quiet in a suit of articulated plate. 15[00:26] <@VoxPVoxD> But Keldar's already in a battle posture as the bear wakes up. It's still full, it's still sleepy-- [00:26] <@Ferrinus> 12Turns out you don't have to when your enemy's confused and sleepy. Keldar's third step is part of a jog and his fifth is a run; he shouts and executes an upward swing that flows more smoothly than he can believe, one that'd have split the monster's head entirely if it hadn't flopped backwards ridiculously to wind up on its back. 15[00:31] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear's hind claws come up almost as fast as Keldar's sword, but-- [00:34] <@Ferrinus> 12But Keldar's in the air. The sun's not that high in the sky, and yet all the bear sees is a silhoutte rimmed in the dawn's glare. 15[00:34] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar's company holds their collective breath. [00:36] <@Ferrinus> 12This is insane. This is ridiculous. Keldar never - every damn time his entire life he's moved to block something, there's been this massive, glaring opening. How's he never seen it? [00:37] <@Ferrinus> 12This idiot monster's left its entire torso exposed. The sheer fact of its opposing Keldar's completely left it - it's like it's asking to die! 15[00:38] <@VoxPVoxD> And what does Keldar answer? 05[00:39] <@Ferrinus> 12The mercenary doesn't actually realize what he did until the blood's already spraying. His backup crew watches, agape, as the mercenary knocks one hindpaw aside with his sword, uses the motion to spin and backflip something like twice his own height, twist around in midair to angle his blade straight down, and plummet meteorically straight into the monster's heart. [00:39] <@Ferrinus> 12It's so damn easy! [00:41] <@Ferrinus> 12Standing on the freshly-forged corpse, Keldar draws his blade smoothly out of the creature's heart, pulling it back with his right hand while stretching his left forward so as to peer at the bear's face between his fingers. He stares at it for a moment, but it's all a pose - he knew it was dead before he'd landed. 15[00:42] <@VoxPVoxD> Ruthless. Fearless. Flawless. Keldar descends like a geometric principle, and the beast is dead before his boots hit the stone. [00:42] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar, hopping lightly down to the ground: "And that's how it's DONE. Six, check if the body's valuable. Huril, gimme a rag or something. The rest of you, get the poles together, at least three of the traps looked like they had auto-resets." 15[00:43] <@VoxPVoxD> Nobody's listening. 15[00:43] <@VoxPVoxD> Everyone's staring at their boss in awe and wonder. [00:44] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Hey. Hey! We're on a - alright, I guess we're not TECHNICALLY on a clock, though I dunno what that fucking Dynast's getting up to right now." 15[00:45] <@VoxPVoxD> Huril provides a rag. Six has got the tongs out. 15[00:45] <@VoxPVoxD> Everyone else prepares to loot the tomb. [00:47] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Alright, let's move. We're cutting our losses to the godsdamned bone." 12And on he goes, ready to pore into side passages, keep whatever darts and spears and venomous snakes look fit to be sold, and of course strip that jewel-bedecked corpse from head to toe. 15[00:47] <@VoxPVoxD> If they work click, and work clean, then they should have all the tomb's riches (and the bear's thickest quills, which seem to be flecked with blue jade) picked clean before the sun's started to set. 15[00:48] <@VoxPVoxD> And they do. 15[00:48] <@VoxPVoxD> They're professionals. 15[19:34] <@VoxPVoxD> This river has no name. 15[19:37] <@VoxPVoxD> It's too narrow; it'd be a cobweb on a map of the Scavenger Lands, invisible on one of the grand maps of Creation that hang in the halls of great savants and mediocre nobles. It feeds into a river which feeds into a river which is a tributary of the great Gray River, which in turn blossoms into the Yanaze before joining the sea. 15[19:38] <@VoxPVoxD> Out here, though, the rivers have no names, and neither do the settlements that dot them. A village like this one is populated by a handful of families, men and women who'll live their lives from birth to death without ever going farther than the borders drawn by the horizon. What use would such a place have for a name? Who would even name it? [19:40] 4They call the village "Town." They call the village down the road to the west, "West Town." They call the village down the road south, "South Town." [19:40] 4They. We. Us. [19:40] 4Gary's not having a good day. 15[19:40] <@VoxPVoxD> It's fertile land, at least. In a typical year you can expect four good harvests before the Five Days Darkness. One such harvest has just come in, without incident. But that's cold comfort, because Gary's a man down. 15[19:43] <@VoxPVoxD> The barley's fit for eating right now, but there'll be no supper until Marko comes home. He was supposed to be back by dawn, having left the day before to trap fish upriver. You have to go farther and farther every season. The rivers aren't as fertile as they used to be. 15[19:43] <@VoxPVoxD> It's not like Marko to tarry. [19:43] 4First stop's his hut. Wife's in. "Ceci, where's Marko at?" [19:44] 4Gary's gotten used to how much she looks like Olla. [19:44] 4Took awhile. 15[19:45] <@VoxPVoxD> "Has he not returned?" Ceci only looks like Olla until she frowns - then she looks like their mother. "I'd expected him by midday at the latest. It's not like Marko to tarry." [19:46] 4Gary shakes his head. "No." 4It's an answer and an agreement. [19:47] "Tyro and Nork are back." 4There's time before...well, sundown's relative now. "We'll go lookin'." 15[19:47] <@VoxPVoxD> Wildflowers burn up and down the riverbanks, reds and golds like the battle standards of dragon-houses known only by legend in this deep country. Fat bees frolick from blossom to blossom, their flights erratic to the point of drunkenness. [19:47] 4Bugs. Could swat 'em. Best to leave 'em be. 15[19:48] <@VoxPVoxD> Tyro and Nork are good men, sturdy and reliable. They brought more than their share of grain in these last few days. They're ready at Gary's word. What does he bring with him? [19:49] 4From the chief's hut -- where he lives, now -- Gary grabs a rucksack with some poultice and clean cloth. Just in case. He hesitates walking out the door... [19:49] 4Sword's right there. [19:49] 4Could be animals. Gary takes it. 15[19:49] <@VoxPVoxD> Smart. [19:50] 4Looks like a cane, too. Hopefully Marko won't need walkin' with it. 15[19:51] <@VoxPVoxD> The moon's risen early. Usually you don't see it creeping up the horizon until nearer to dusk, but there's a good few hours of daylight left and there it is in the west, full as you please. There's no roads into or out of town, so Tyro and Nork follow Gary north-northwest along the river. [19:51] 4Huh. Odd, this sky. [19:52] 4No point thinkin' about it. [19:52] 4Sky does what it'll do. 15[19:52] <@VoxPVoxD> True enough. [19:53] 4He told Tyro and Nork to bring their animal arms. Tyro's probably got a bow. Nork's a spear man. Both are old weapons, made by their fathers. [19:54] 4Gary hopes it's an animal. 15[19:54] <@VoxPVoxD> They meet Marko up the river a ways, his trap-sack full of fish. He's got a bit of a lopsided gait - did he twist his ankle? He smiles at the sight of his kinsmen, and his grin is crookeder still. "Ho!" [19:54] 4Gary frowns. "Marko." [19:54] "Wife's worried." [19:54] "What happened to mid-day." [19:55] 4Sees the gait. "What happened to your ankle." 15[19:56] <@VoxPVoxD> "Gary! Caught my leg in the river, you see, pulling up the trap. Twisted it between some rocks. Took a while to get it free and then I fair couldn't stand with the pain." The leg he favors is soaked through to the knee. [19:56] 4Gary nods and offers his shoulder. [19:56] 4Soaked through with water, yeah? [19:56] 4Not the other thing. 15[19:58] <@VoxPVoxD> It's... mostly water, seems like. But there's a sweet smell too. Honey? [19:59] 4Huh. [19:59] 4How many fish Marko got? 15[19:59] <@VoxPVoxD> 14Five and five and five again. 15[20:00] <@VoxPVoxD> About a dozen, Gary'd guess. 15[20:00] <@VoxPVoxD> Maybe a few more. [20:00] 4That's...goodly. 15[20:00] <@VoxPVoxD> It'd hardly be worth the trip if it wasn't. [20:01] 4Coming back's worth the trip. Town needs all hands. [20:01] 4Honey... 15[20:03] <@VoxPVoxD> Marko takes Gary's help to get off his bad ankle, and Gary gets the feeling like he's liable to get one of those stings when you touch a metal tool after staying in bed too long. 15[20:03] <@VoxPVoxD> "I hope... Ceci wasn't worried too much." [20:04] "She'll abide." [20:05] 4...Probably nothing. "She's tough." [20:05] "Nork, you carry the fish." 15[20:05] <@VoxPVoxD> Marko grunts in assent. Nork takes the fish. [20:06] 4Time to head home. [20:07] 4Gary hands Marko the cane for his off hand. [20:07] 4Sword. [20:07] 4Cane now. 15[20:08] <@VoxPVoxD> The trip back is slower, but not much, when Marko has the cane to lean on. The light's turned golden with late-afternoon. The sun has started sinking and the moon rises to meet it. This happens from time to time nowadays, though Gary doesn't recall it happening in his youth. [20:08] 4He'll glance to sky from time to time. World is tough, but beautiful. Take the beauty when you can. 15[20:10] <@VoxPVoxD> Ceci's glad to see Marko back, though she frets over his leg. "It'll heal," reassures Marko. "I just need to get some food in me. I feel starved." [20:10] 4Five and five and...hrm. Hmm. Marko's heavy on him, even with the cane. Might be something under there needs poultice. [20:10] "Food soon," 4Gary says. [20:10] 4That's how it is. [20:10] 4Communal meal at the end of the working day. [20:10] 4Keeps everyone together. Keeps everyone family. That's what father said. [20:11] 4Hunters get to see the fishers. Both get to see the farmers. The housewives and househusbands, too. Kids meet, mingle. Get to know each other. Form bonds. 15[20:12] <@VoxPVoxD> 14Your debts are my debts, cousin. We have fed and bled together. [20:12] 4Huh. This sky... [20:12] 4Gary puts the sword back where it belongs. 15[20:13] <@VoxPVoxD> It clacks against the wall as Gary sets it down. 15[20:13] <@VoxPVoxD> I have not forgotten. I will not forget. [20:14] 4Gary leaves it there, among sandals and smoothed sticks. [20:14] 4Then he takes an amble about Town. [20:17] 4Father said men were two things. Who they were, and what they did. Themselves, and that constant thing outside themselves: that perception. [20:17] 4He said a good leader knows the man, and knows the shadow he casts. [20:18] 4Gary didn't know what those words meant, then. Struggles with them now. [20:18] 4Pretty, though. [20:18] 4That constant thing... 15[20:18] <@VoxPVoxD> Town is simple and fair. The huts are arranged in loose circles like people huddling around a fire, and the firepit at the center of town is high and hot for cooking. Running clean past the firepit, on the far side from Gary's hut, is the long table where everyone shares the evening meal. [20:19] 4It's Jia and her sons cooking, tonight. He told her light on the meat and preservables. [20:19] 4Who knows the harvest before it's in. 15[20:19] <@VoxPVoxD> Marko's out at the big table where everyone takes their evening meal, running right through the center of Town. He's facing out from the table, his leg bound up in poultice. He's putting the finishing touches on Jer's flute. Jer's been whittling that on and off for a couple days now, when there wasn't work to be doing. [20:20] 4Jer's a pretty hand with a pipe. Not so much with a knife. 15[20:20] <@VoxPVoxD> The bees dance ever closer to the heart of Town. One stops to rest on the table near Marko and he crushes it with a sudden, savage movement of his fist. [20:20] "Marko." 15[20:20] <@VoxPVoxD> "...you'd think the smoke would keep them away," says Marko. [20:21] 4Gary's close enough to see it juice out. [20:21] "Ain't need to do that." 15[20:22] <@VoxPVoxD> "True enough, Gary. Beg pardon." [20:23] 4Gary shakes his head. "Ain't my pardon to beg for, some bee-god coming up the river lookin' at the wildflowers sees you doin' that." [20:23] *comin' 15[20:24] <@VoxPVoxD> Now Marko winces like the bee burned him. "No need to be making trouble," he agrees after a pause. [20:24] 4Gary nods. "Poultice good?" 15[20:26] <@VoxPVoxD> Marko nods. "It pains me less now. Should be good as new in a day or two." [20:27] "Good. Need you fishin'. Good haul today." 15[20:29] <@VoxPVoxD> 14You loathe forgetting. But it's remembrance that pains you more. 15[20:29] <@VoxPVoxD> I remember every moment of silence. [20:30] 4The graveyard's close. He could go visit them. [20:30] 4...He's got duties here. [20:30] 4He moves away from Marko. [20:30] 4Food soon. 15[20:31] <@VoxPVoxD> Food's being dished up right now. It's good. People eat well here in Town. The land provides. Does Gary say anything before bread is broken? [20:32] 4No. Father said things on holy days and days special to Town. This ain't one of those. Talking before food tonight would be pretension. [20:33] 4When the Five Days Darkness is done, then he'll have words. 15[20:33] <@VoxPVoxD> Then they eat, and well. Marko eats with neat steadiness. [20:34] 4Town keeps a fire burning all night in the square, and a strong arm or two stays up. Gary confers with tonight's -- woman named Kola -- then heads back to the chief's hut. Darkening. Quieting. [20:35] 4He lives here alone. [20:35] 4Alone, now. 15[20:36] <@VoxPVoxD> He sees it, but he doesn't hear it, standing in the doorway. He doesn't hear it because the arrows make no sound. [20:37] 4Oh 15[20:38] <@VoxPVoxD> Tyro gets one in the side. Nork gets one in the throat. 15[20:38] <@VoxPVoxD> People are screaming. [20:38] 4no 15[20:39] <@VoxPVoxD> 14I call you to account, cousin. I invoke the debt and I challenge your word if you refuse. Have you no honor? At long last? 15[20:39] <@VoxPVoxD> 14I call you to account, cousin. I invoke the debt and I challenge your word if you refuse. Have you no honor? At long last? [20:40] 4But we didn't even 15[20:40] <@VoxPVoxD> I will not refuse you. But you will not anger me. 15[20:42] <@VoxPVoxD> People are falling. The able come out with whatever arms they have. The weak and the young hide. There are riders, small gray things with wart-riddled skin riding wolves of surpassing beauty. Their bows are twisted vines. Their arrows insults. [20:43] 4Can we [20:43] 4A woman's throat explodes with a blade. [20:43] 4We can't fight them. 15[20:43] <@VoxPVoxD> "I should thank you, brother, for the meal." 15[20:44] <@VoxPVoxD> That's almost Marko's voice. 15[20:44] <@VoxPVoxD> In the sky behind him the sun and moon are almost touching, one above the other, like the top and bottom halves of an hourglass. [20:44] 4Is he -- he can't -- has he been shot? There's this...pain in his head -- "What?" [20:44] "I--" [20:44] 4Gary stumbles back into the town square, jaw lagging behind. [20:45] 4What sits, where Marko sat? 15[20:46] <@VoxPVoxD> He's taller now. His face is stretched taut, and runs like wax. As it sloughs away, something lavender-skinned grins beneath, its hair a wreath of laurels and thorns. His eyes are sapphire glass. 15[20:46] <@VoxPVoxD> His voice sounds like the flute he carved. "I can't remember the last time I ate so well." 15[20:46] <@VoxPVoxD> "I have a memory of Olla stuck between my teeth. Would you like it?" [20:47] 4Gary knows, dimly, something of what's happening. Father drilled that into him. This isn't Marko. [20:47] "We -- tribute. We can talk. We can pay tribute." 15[20:47] <@VoxPVoxD> "You are paying even now." [20:47] 4Olla's name registers late. He smothers what comes up from his mind. [20:47] "But." [20:48] 4Gary's lip trembles. "Y-you never even asked." [20:48] 4Around him, his world dies. 15[20:48] <@VoxPVoxD> The laurels unravel and rise to full prominence. They curl up and out, entwining and circumscribing the moon and sun as they cross paths in the sky. 15[20:49] <@VoxPVoxD> 14You swore an oath, cousin. [20:49] 4But inside. 15[20:49] <@VoxPVoxD> 14You swore and you are overheard. 15[20:49] <@VoxPVoxD> 14You swore and you are overheard. [20:50] 4Louder, the words come. Half-wail. Half-fury. "We never even talked!" 15[20:51] <@VoxPVoxD> The river that becomes the Gray flows backwards. The sky is a violet curtain. There is no one left outside to die. 15[20:53] <@VoxPVoxD> Gary, son of Gray, standing amidst broken bonds and forsaken hospitality, finds solace as he stares into the blank heart of the eclipse. The next words are only a whisper. He can't make them out. But he sees three left hands, one lithe and draped in bangles of silver, and two more wreathed in golden armor, clasped around the same stone. Blood runs from it, staining their wrists like the juice from an overripe fruit. 15[20:54] <@VoxPVoxD> Breathe in. 15[20:54] <@VoxPVoxD> He's ablaze. [20:59] 4Father said once that life wasn't a path. Life isn't a place you're going. Life is where you stay. Life is where you sleep. Life is the common things you share with your family, with your lover, with the land and the sky and the people that you know, and that know you. Life is not a journey, Father said. Life is a quietness, calm beneath the eyes of Heaven. [20:59] 4For the first time in his life, Gary, Son of Grey, eyes wide and heart broken, goes on a journey. 14A stranger comes back. [20:59] 14The stranger exhales. [20:59] 14Then he opens milky-white eyes and smiles. "So. Now we're going to talk." [21:00] 14Behind him, the implacable gold-rimmed fury of Heaven burns. 15[21:01] <@VoxPVoxD> The thing-that-was-Marko looks on the stranger with naked loathing. "You have hidden away your own face." [21:10] "You'll be civil with me or I'll wear your eyes as earrings. A moment, please." 14Then Stranger raises his voice, and the great gold-rimmed shadow swells. "EVERYTHING STOPS." 15[21:11] <@VoxPVoxD> Everything stops. 15[21:11] <@VoxPVoxD> The bees scatter from the riverbank. 15[21:12] <@VoxPVoxD> The hobgoblins drop their bows and move to flee, unless the stranger bids them to stay. 15[21:12] <@VoxPVoxD> The noble, in his emerald raiment, sits up straight. [21:12] "NOBODY LEAVES." 15[21:12] <@VoxPVoxD> The hobgoblins stop. 15[21:13] <@VoxPVoxD> Like reined beasts they wheel about and linger in the burning heart of Town. 15[21:14] <@VoxPVoxD> There's a flash of light and a rush of warmth and suddenly there is a wriggling weight in the stranger's pocket. [21:16] 14The stranger: "If I see a hobgoblin near a door, it dies. If I see a hobgoblin near a human, it dies. If I see a single bee -- any bee at all -- before this conversation is finished then Heaven help me you'll wish you'd been born with wings and that I didn't have the favor of the sky itself. I suffer the insult of your presence on the bank of this river with strong reservation, [21:16] outside thing. Any further suffering will be yours." [21:17] 14In Old Realm: "Do you understand the ground rules?" [21:18] 14The stranger's face is impassive, but his hand reaches into his pocket. It's...hmm. [21:18] 14It's certainly alive.l 15[21:18] <@VoxPVoxD> The noble raises his hands and responds in kind. "I will honor your terms and the rules of etiquette. You should know, though, that I'm not empowered to address them all. The bees aren't me." That's a Fae grammar, the stranger knows. The bees aren't me is the only way the Wyld can say The bees aren't mine. [21:23] 14The stranger stares back with white eyes. "My terms are unfair? Of course my terms are unfair. It is traditional to make a guest feel welcome by providing them with something familiar. This is my gift to you: your existence hangs on the whims of an insect." [21:24] 14He turns his head. "WHO YET LIVES IN TOWN?" [21:25] 14As the stranger shouts, he removes his hand from his pocket...and meets the mouse. [21:26] 14The great, dark figure that has subsumed the stranger's shadow turns with him. 15[21:32] <@VoxPVoxD> Voices come. There's Ceci, there's Jer. Tyro is wounded but alive. Jia and the two younger sons. The eldest is face down on the ground. 15[21:32] <@VoxPVoxD> All told, about a quarter of Town's able-bodied adults, and almost all of its vulnerable, survived the attack. 15[21:33] <@VoxPVoxD> That'd put the dead at... fifteen. [21:33] 14The stranger: "Any hobgoblin that does not wish to violate the just-stated terms should array themselves behind their master. This isn't a question, it isn't a request, and it won't be repeated." [21:33] 14The stranger: "Any hobgoblin that does not wish to violate the just-stated terms should array themselves behind their master. This isn't a question, it isn't a request, and it won't be repeated." 15[21:33] <@VoxPVoxD> They comply with quicksilver haste. [21:33] 14How many hobgoblins are there. 15[21:34] <@VoxPVoxD> Four. 15[21:35] <@VoxPVoxD> Something alights on the water, in the river that runs alongside Town. A swan makes its landing there, sleek and white. The river barely ripples beneath it. 15[21:35] <@VoxPVoxD> It watches. [21:35] 14The stranger, who still wears the mien of Gary, son of Grey: "Jer, Jia, Horoth and Nuds--" 14Jia's sons, the stranger recalls somehow. "--I request your presence in the square. You will not be harmed." 15[21:43] <@VoxPVoxD> One by one they emerge. Jer is just on the brink of manhood. Horoth and Nuds have a fair few harvests yet before then. Jia walks in front. All of them hold their heads high as they emerge from the hut. [21:43] 14The stranger walks over to the hut where they've emerged from, releasing the mouse to the ground as he goes. He doesn't particularly care if the outsider sees it. The thing's agreed to talk. [21:44] 14As the stranger reaches them: "I know I look different." 14White hair, white eyes, great silent shadow staring down, rimmed with sunfire. "But I am still your chieftain. And no one else from Town will die here today -- if you do exactly as I say." 15[21:45] <@VoxPVoxD> The mouse scampers away, scurrying into the next hut. 15[21:47] <@VoxPVoxD> Jia and her sons nod. Jer does too. [21:51] 14The stranger: "Don't bother with cushions. I don't need them, and we're going to burn everything these monsters touch." 15[21:52] <@VoxPVoxD> They set to work. 15[21:52] <@VoxPVoxD> The swan drifts back, letting Jia draw fresh, sweet water unimpeded. It's still watching. [21:52] 14The stranger turns back to the outsider. "So I'm going to talk a little bit, and when I'm done, I want you to tell me if this makes sense." 15[21:53] <@VoxPVoxD> The table comes out. The stranger is offered Grey's sword. The tea is set to brewing. 15[21:53] <@VoxPVoxD> The noble: "Fair enough." [22:11] "It's going to take Jia -- that's her name, Jia -- ten minutes to make tea. It's fantastic tea. I have memories of tea from all across Creation, and it's not the best I've had, but it's better than anything in this Direction." 14The stranger pauses, smiling. "This goes one of two ways. The first way is, you and I can have a civil conversation right here, at this table, about how the [22:11] structure and terms of your recompense to this little fishing village for the fifteen lives you took. The tea arrives, we drink it while it's still hot, we remark on the depth of flavor and the character of the presentation, and then we seal our accord. [22:11] "The second way is, I fucking kill you." [22:11] 14The stranger points his cane at the hobgoblin behind the seated outsider. "Then I tell that guy to sit down. I make him the same offer. Maybe he understands it, maybe he doesn't. Probably not, but I'm willing to be surprised. And then he and I agree to terms and drink tea, or I kill him too. And I just--" 14he indicates the next hobgoblin "--keep--" 14and the next "--going until [22:11] I'm drinking tea. I'm not too particular about the company." [22:12] "That makes sense to me, given all the bodies on the ground around me. Does that make sense to you?" [22:20] 14As the stranger speaks, he watches with empty eyes, seeing things his body never saw with perfect vision. [22:20] 14He will find the thing that makes it hurt. 15[22:23] <@VoxPVoxD> The noble listens attentively, his face a mask. But there is something of the chaos, and he can see it bubble forth. This is a creature, fundamentally, of spite. The idea of fair recompense, of being gracious or accomodating, is anathema to him. He will do only what he can be forced to do, and the second the reins are loose he will lay in tenfold for every indignity he's suffered. [22:23] 14And by the time he's done talking, the stranger realizes he'll be drinking tea alone. [22:23] 14But that doesn't mean he won't try. 15[22:24] <@VoxPVoxD> The tea's done. The river is all but still. The swan watches, and so does Town. [22:25] 14The stranger: "I'm waiting for an answer." [22:26] "One way." 14The stranger motions Jia back from the table before she can serve the tea, keeping her out of the way. "Or the other." 15[22:26] <@VoxPVoxD> "Yeeeeessssss." It comes out like a fresh burn. 15[22:27] <@VoxPVoxD> "I will lissssten." [22:27] 14The stranger smiles and motions for Jia to serve the tea. And when she has, he asks her to leave the pot and go back inside. [22:27] 14The stranger: "So what do you have to offer me in return for fifteen lives?" 15[22:28] <@VoxPVoxD> She does. It smells good. [22:28] "Drink up." 15[22:28] <@VoxPVoxD> He does. He pulls a face and grins his crooked grin. "Delicious." 15[22:37] <@VoxPVoxD> The noble runs a long lavender finger around the rim of the teacup as he eyes the stranger across the table. "How about this." 15[22:40] <@VoxPVoxD> "First, I will immediately withdraw, and never trouble these people again. Second, while I can't give them themselves back, I can promise that their dreams will be untroubled by the memory for the fullness of their life. Third, to you, as a gesture of apology, I will commend a token permitting you to call once upon my service, with no condition, for a term of service not to exceed one month and one day." [22:40] 14The stranger raises his eyebrows. He holds the cane firmly at his side, thumb on the thin metal ring near the top of its length. [22:51] 14The stranger: "Well. That's quite an offer. But it's not really what I had in mind." [22:51] 14The stranger: "The first two conditions are immaterial -- I gain the same guarantees by breaking every moving part of you that came into my world and burning what's left. The third condition -- you do not owe me an apology. You owe it to the Town. And I do not ever want to see you again in Creation. My counter-offer: the first two conditions stand. The third condition is this: you [22:51] will walk back to the Wyld. You will walk back there, now. And whenever you walk out of the Wyld, the first thing you will do is go find a calendar. You will not kill anyone. You will not eat dreams. You will find a calendar. [22:51] "And if you can find a calendar -- if the sons and daughters of man still marks the days passing in Creation -- you will walk back into the Wyld, and by the knowledge of constant time you will continue to be bound. [22:51] "Fourth condition: you will swear this oath in the eyes of the Unconquerable Sun, and you will beg for the anarchy of unexistence should you break it." [22:52] "Find your tongue or find a weapon, outsider." 15[22:59] <@VoxPVoxD> "Have you ever been to the honey maze?" [23:00] 14The stranger: "Is that a tongue or a weapon?" [23:01] 14The thumb slides forward. The top third of the cane separates from the bottom. Between them, a glint of the world's hardness. 15[23:02] <@VoxPVoxD> He rises. His hands go to the sword at his waist. "She will need only the barest pretext to take you there. Good riddance to this place, and the vermin within it. I would sooner face her lance myself." 15[23:02] <@VoxPVoxD> With that he turns to depart. [23:02] 14The stranger: "I didn't hear an oath." 15[23:04] <@VoxPVoxD> He stops as if struck. He turns, slowly. "I swear by my name, which is all that I am. I am Neamh of the Emerald Host, and I swear that I will not set foot in these stinking lands again for as many days as you can bear to count." [23:05] 4The stranger breathes out, and touches the truth carved by a liar's tongue. The great thing behind him glows brighter on the rim -- and falls darker in the center. [23:05] 14The stranger breathes out, and touches the truth carved by a liar's tongue. The great thing behind him glows brighter on the rim -- and falls darker in the center. [23:06] 14The stranger: "I have bodies to bury. Get out of my sight. Compliment the teamistress." [23:07] 14The stranger: "In that order." 15[23:07] <@VoxPVoxD> The oath mars the raksha's flesh - as it must, for their word is the sum of their being. The laurels that frame its beautiful and terrible face turn dark and wind tightly. Neamh rides out of these lands and into fathomless chaos. "Your tea is superlative," he offers to Jia. They are the last words he speaks in this tale or any other. [23:08] 14The square is quiet for a moment... [23:08] 14Then the stranger slumps back down to sit at the tea table, and pours himself another cup. 15[23:09] <@VoxPVoxD> "May I?" [23:09] 14The stranger looks up. 15[23:11] <@VoxPVoxD> The voice came from the river. A woman is there, garbed in flowing white, her hair the color of straw spun to platinum. Her eyes are silver. 15[23:12] <@VoxPVoxD> The swan is gone. [23:12] 14The stranger's eyes narrow. He knows what she is by...instinct? Forgotten memory? Something else? [23:12] 14He knows he's in no shape to do anything but have an actual conversation over tea. 15[23:13] <@VoxPVoxD> He remembers... something. He couldn't say what. The words for it are lost. 15[23:13] <@VoxPVoxD> But in there is no fear in their eyes as they meet. [23:13] "Jia," 14the stranger says, "We will leave for South Town tomorrow morning. We will see that the dead are buried, and the survivors tended to. But now, right now, what I need you to do is put on another pot of tea...and get everyone that's left inside the chieftain's hut." [23:13] 14The stranger: "I will come for you when it is time." 15[23:14] <@VoxPVoxD> Jia bustles off without a word. [23:14] 14When Jia's gone, the stranger motions for the woman to sit. [23:14] 14He'll get the new pot in ten minutes' time. [23:15] "You," 14the stranger says, "were watching." 15[23:15] <@VoxPVoxD> She sits. "I was." [23:16] "First time seeing the Fair Folk at the bargaining table?" [23:17] "If you can call them that." [23:17] "If you can call this that." [23:17] 14He knocks twice on the table. [23:17] "Marko used to play bones on this." [23:19] "I should get you a cup." [23:20] 14He rises to do so, tossing the one the outsider drank from into the firepit as he passes it. In a moment he's back with something clean. 15[23:21] <@VoxPVoxD> She smiles and accepts it with gratitude. "Anything is a bargaining table once a deal is struck. I've treated with the raksha before. But you, stranger, are unprecedented." [23:22] 14The stranger smiles back. It's a bit of a grimace. "Unprecedented is a strong word. I prefer unexpected." [23:24] 14His eyes drift up to the sky for a moment. The Unconquerable Sun and Luna have parted, now...but they're still close. From this angle, they're side by side. 15[23:25] <@VoxPVoxD> "He certainly didn't expect you. You don't come to a village like this expecting a sight like that. I saw it from miles away." Her eyes have raised to the specter of the stranger's anima, and past that to the eclipse. "Do you know what they say an eclipse is?" [23:26] 14The stranger thinks, and frowns. There's a lot that's just...not there. That's what it feels like: things missing. And in their place...a man named Gary. [23:26] 14Past tense. [23:26] 14The stranger: "I might have, once." [23:26] "Indulge me." [23:27] "What do they say an eclipse is?" 15[23:27] <@VoxPVoxD> "They say an eclipse is the moon sharing a secret with the sun." 15[23:27] <@VoxPVoxD> Something wriggles into the stranger's lap. Then it squeaks. [23:27] 14The stranger realizes, for the first time in a long, long time, that there's color in his cheeks. [23:28] 14That snaps him right out of it. [23:28] "Hello there." 14He lifts the little thing up and places it on the table. 15[23:29] <@VoxPVoxD> The mouse has fur the white of fresh snow, and eyes the color of gold. They reveal an intelligence you don't often see in mice, or even men. [23:31] 14The stranger runs a gentle finger down the fur of its head and neck, white eyes looking into gold. Then he takes his teacup off of its saucer, and dribbles some into recessed bottom of the little dish. 15[23:31] <@VoxPVoxD> The mouse likes the tea too. [23:32] 14The stranger nods approvingly. "Would you think it too forward if I asked you a question about the swan?" 15[23:33] <@VoxPVoxD> "Only unexpected." [23:34] 4That widens the smile, before it softens. "It's a personal question." [23:34] 14That widens the smile, before it softens. "It's a personal question." [23:34] "Did you choose it, or did it choose you?" [23:35] 14If the mouse wants more tea, the stranger will oblige the saucer. 15[23:36] <@VoxPVoxD> The mouse wants more tea. 15[23:36] <@VoxPVoxD> "We were both Chosen by another." [23:37] 14More tea he shall have. [23:37] 14The stranger nods at her response. The expected one, he knows somehow. The diplomatic one. The one that says nothing, but doesn't insult. 15[23:37] <@VoxPVoxD> "May I ask you one in turn?" [23:38] 14The stranger: "Only unprecedented." 15[23:39] <@VoxPVoxD> She smiles at that, a smile that can catch the sun and throw it back. "What do you answer to, stranger?" [23:40] 14It is unprecedented. This is the first time someone's asked him that. He's only been alive for an eyeblink of the sun. [23:40] 14He thinks. [23:46] 14There are twenty-seven years stained into his mind. He was not here for them -- someone else was. But it's not Gary's father who died to sickness in his fifty-third year, bitterly disappointed in how his son was unwilling to stand up to South Town fishers encroaching on their plots. It's his father. It's not Gary's wife who was killed by a spinebear who got too close to town because [23:46] 14no one was keeping watch. It was his wife. It was Gary -- it was him -- who looked up into the sky and saw the sun and the moon consorting. But it was a stranger that visited that heaven. And it was a stranger who came back. [23:47] "The best policy, in names as well as deeds, is the truth." 14The Exalt smiles. "I am Stranger-Visits-Heaven." 15[23:48] <@VoxPVoxD> She inclines her head, respecting the truth of Stranger's words. "Well met, Stranger. I am the Ambassador of Night and Day." [23:51] "Well met, Ambassador." 4The smile broadens. "And that, if I don't miss my mark, is the sound of a kettle boiling. I'll be back." 14Halfway to the hut, with his back to the beautiful swan, he permits himself a laugh. [23:52] "Well met, Ambassador." 14The smile broadens. "And that, if I don't miss my mark, is the sound of a kettle boiling. I'll be back." 14Halfway to the hut, with his back to the beautiful swan, he permits himself a laugh. [23:54] 14Back. Yes: finally, he is back. A new day beckons, dawned by Sun and Moon. And beneath them both, he returns to the table, and refills three cups. 15[18:52] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn Magala sits second chair, to the left of Presiding Magistrate Judge Peligin. Opposite Judge Magala, to Peligin's right, sits Judge Marlan. This is the last case before their days' duties are discharged. The facts are straightforward - Kaandesh is a smith in the employ of Al-Haba, one who stands accused of stealing a large quantity of precious scrap copper for resale. 15[18:53] <@VoxPVoxD> Kaandesh is an older man - late 30s - and his hands are already knotted with labor. The advocate here on Al-Haba's behalf is a clean, groomed patrician named Saul. Tarn knows him well from his night job. 15[18:54] <@VoxPVoxD> The contracts are all clearly laid out and agreed-upon, but the actual evidence, as usual, is thin. Not thin enough not to justify a ruling in Al-Haba's favor, indenturing Kaandesh to them for what would likely be the term of his natural life. But thin enough that if you didn't want to, you could stand on principle. 15[18:55] <@VoxPVoxD> Where does Judge Magala's heart hang this late afternoon? [18:56] "There's not enough here to prove that this man actually stole the copper that you're missing. Your records are of course impeccable, and I would suspect theft rather than waste or neglect, but..." 3Tarn shrugs. "I cannot sentence this man to repay you for something you cannot prove he stole." 15[19:01] <@VoxPVoxD> Judge Marlan snorts. Peligin raises an eyebrow. Tarn knows that by speaking up he's marking a writ that Peligin and Marlan will have to sign too. The prospect of contradicting a magistrate in open court - there's minutes now, can you believe the Civilities that are trickling down from the Council these days - is far more trouble than a finding in either direction would be. 15[19:02] <@VoxPVoxD> Judge Magala trusts his intuition, though. Something about this is odd. 15[19:05] <@VoxPVoxD> "...third chair defers," says Marlan after a pause. It falls to Peligin, then, to render the verdict. "We hereby return a finding of No-Finding: Charges Insubstantial. If you wish to pursue an appeal, refer to the sub-archivist's office no later than close of business tomorrow." Peligin takes up the half-stone with his gloved hand and claps it against the stone podium. "Adjourned." 15[19:07] <@VoxPVoxD> There aren't many government buildings in Nexus, as there isn't technically a government. The magistrates held court today in the atrium of one of the city's finer private libraries, and it's to one of their lavish reading-rooms that Peligin, Marlan, and Magala retire. "Enjoying yourself, Tarn?" says Marlan. He's in a sour mood from the looks of it. [19:08] "Should I be?" 3He shrugs. "Does it bother you that I take this seriously, as you should?" 15[19:13] <@VoxPVoxD> Marlan: "Don't be dense. You know what you've signed us up for. Even now, Saul is reporting back to Haba himself, who'll have it in Iridan's ears by sundown. The last thing any of us needs is more pressure from the damn Guild." 15[19:13] <@VoxPVoxD> Peligin looks bored. "It's done. What use is there in fighting about it now?" [19:14] "I know it's a pain in the ass, I don't disagree there. But that doesn't mean I'm basically going to make Kaandesh into a slave because his employer can't keep track of his own goods." 15[19:16] <@VoxPVoxD> Marlan: "Impractical as ever. Head in the clouds! Do you know that across Nexus this month there've been, half a dozen cases like this one, and every other one - every one you weren't sitting on - was decided in the complainant's favor. What use is your principle to them, eh? You can't judge them all." [19:18] "Maybe so. But I'll be damned if I take away a man's freedom because deciding fairly is work. 15[19:19] <@VoxPVoxD> Marlan's got a head of steam going, but Peligin holds him at bay. "Speaking of work, Tarn, I'm given to understand that you're on call tonight?" [19:20] "Yeah. I've got to get going soon, in fact." 15[19:21] <@VoxPVoxD> "I as well. If you'll excuse me, gentlemen." Peligin sweeps out of the room. He's a tough guy to get a read on, which is as good or bad a sign as your general impression of the human condition allows. Marlan remains, exasperated. "Tarn..." 15[19:21] <@VoxPVoxD> "Today. Today you can help him." 15[19:22] <@VoxPVoxD> "But what are we going to do when you pick a fight you can't win?" 15[19:22] <@VoxPVoxD> "Who'll help you?" 15[19:23] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn knows that, obstinate old poor he may be, Marlan's a decent man. Especially for the kind of life the magistrates of Nexus tend to lead. But he doesn't have Tarn's resolve. 15[19:23] <@VoxPVoxD> *old boor [19:24] "I don't know. Someone, I hope. Doesn't mean I'll give up. Look, I've got to go. Take care." 3Tarn makes to follow Peligin out into the streets. 15[19:26] <@VoxPVoxD> Nexus is alive. [19:26] 3For all that it's full of greed, and crime, and corruption, there's no other place like it, even in the wild Scavenger Lands. 15[19:29] <@VoxPVoxD> The City of Rivers is thick with life. Tarn's only taken half a pace out on the street before he has to weave out of the way of a running child, chased by her older brother. Crowds, carts, animals, stranger things (in the evening air over this district tonight is a cascade of vermillion sparks, pulsing overhead like a living firework)... it's enough to overwhelm. The canniest man in some far-flung River Province town might find himself an easy mark for the operators of Nexus. 15[19:30] <@VoxPVoxD> The next intrusion on his personal space is more intentional. Tarn followed Peligin out, and it seems Peligin waited for him. There's a heavy hand on Tarn's chest, and Peligin's unlined face is a mask of jocularity. "Have you heard who you'll be getting your work from tonight?" [19:32] "No, but I have a feeling I won't like the answer." 15[19:33] <@VoxPVoxD> "When Saul lays into you, feel free to put it on me. He owes me, anyway." [19:33] 3Tarn laughs. "I guess this is what Marlan was trying to impress upon me. Oh well, I've had worse, I'm sure." 15[19:34] <@VoxPVoxD> "We all have," says Peligin. "I'll see you tomorrow." [19:37] 3Tarn claps him on the back before heading off. Saul it is, then. Long day's going to have a longer night. 15[19:39] <@VoxPVoxD> It was a long day indeed, so Tarn's only got about an hour to himself between when his day job ends and his night job begins. How does he spend it? What does he do before he shows up at the Princess Crimson tea shop later that evening? [19:42] 3Not much time to do anything important, but he can probably find somewhere to get a hot meal between now and the real work. 15[19:49] <@VoxPVoxD> Saul (who's changed from his court clothes to something finer still) will be disappointed that Tarn already ate. "Such a pity. First you spit in my face, and now you reject my hospitality. Sit down." [19:50] 3Tarn's face is more impassive here than in court. This is the job. "What can I do for you, Saul?" 15[19:51] <@VoxPVoxD> "Do you know surgery, Tarn?" [19:52] "No, I don't." 15[19:53] <@VoxPVoxD> "Well, we do. We have a number of doctors and surgeons on retainer. We get a cut of their fees, we supply them, and from time to time we benefit from their service and their discretion. Or rather..." Saul pulls a small roll of parchment from an inner pocket. "We did." [19:54] "And I assume you would like to again." 15[19:55] <@VoxPVoxD> Saul unrolls it across the untouched meal. Names, places, dates... these are evidence reports, straight from the Council archives. Murders. Dated five, ten, and fiteen days ago apiece. "We would like to project a sense of confidence. We would like prospective partners to know that we will look out for them, and those who cross us will meet retribution." 15[19:59] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn's good at this, and picks a few salient facts up after only a cursory examination. 15[20:01] <@VoxPVoxD> -The pattern in all three murders is the same. The body is grisly eaten, half-devoured, leaving messy remains which have to be conveyed to the Coronary and Crematorial Temple in jars. Notably absent from each, though, even half-eaten, is a single vital organ. From the first, the intestinal tract. From the second, the liver. From the third (the most recent) the brain. One of these sets of jars - the most recent - has not been disposed of and remains on file along with other recent corpses and victims of violent crime in the temple. 15[20:03] <@VoxPVoxD> -There is no sign of murder weapon, and no identifying marks, though the air around the victim in each report is remarked to be 'fetid in the extreme'. 15[20:04] <@VoxPVoxD> -The particular mention, at each scene, of cat's fur. Not only does this solidify a common pattern, but furthermore, there was mention of cat's hair in the case they adjudicated just this evening, where Tarn decided against Saul and the Guild. [20:05] "Very strange. Seems like some sort of ritual murder. Anything else?" [20:06] 3Tarn decides to keep that last observation to himself. Never know who's involved in what, in Nexus. 15[20:06] <@VoxPVoxD> "Yes. You might cross paths out there with Raptor Quan. It turns out that Doctor Shivalen's family - Shivalen is the second victim, see here - retained the Green Apples to find the killer themselves." 15[20:07] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn knows Raptor Quan - he's good, but what he has in talent he lacks in scruples. [20:08] "Just what I need. If he does find the killer he's probably going to start a fight with him in the middle of the street." 15[20:08] <@VoxPVoxD> "Mmm. I trust that we can depend on your... principles... to see you to the discreet solution." [20:09] 3I'm sure that's what you're depending on. "I'll do what I can." 15[20:09] <@VoxPVoxD> "Do you need anything more?" [20:12] "No, I don't think so." 3Tarn stands and makes ready to leave. "I'll be back when I have something, unless you'd rather I contact you some other way?" 15[20:12] <@VoxPVoxD> "I'll be upstairs. One more thing before you go." 15[20:14] <@VoxPVoxD> Saul stands himself, and leans across the table. Quite a lot of food's gone to waste tonight. "The labor and materials we failed to recoup tonight could've paid your salary for a half-decade, Magala. I invite you, in the future, to remember what you're worth." [20:15] "Noted." 3His face is still an impassive mask. It's the only way you keep this job, even if you do what they want. You listen to scolding and move on. 15[20:16] <@VoxPVoxD> Saul's face spreads into an oily little smile. "I wish you luck, magistrate." [20:18] 3Tarn nods and takes his leave. He might be doing it for a scumbag, but there's no question whoever's doing this has to be stopped. 15[20:18] <@VoxPVoxD> And in Nexus, that's about the best you can do. 15[20:20] <@VoxPVoxD> There's a saying among the Nexus upper classes: 'like your work, like your boss, like your pay: choose two.' 15[20:20] <@VoxPVoxD> The less fortunate, of course, would be blessed to claim any one of those privileges. 15[20:22] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn's got a few leads so far. The murder scenes, (each the physician's home or office), the Crematory Temple (where bodies confiscated for reasons of crime and health are kept until they can be conveyed to their next-of-kin and their rites of death) and the ritual angle - could Tarn perhaps consult with a sage or savant and determine the pattern at work? 15[20:23] <@VoxPVoxD> In any case, Nexus is alive, and as any surgeon knows, the flesh yields its secrets to a steady hand. What's Tarn's first move? [20:23] The Temple seems the best bet, or at least the most likely to go away if he doesn't make it a priority. They don't tend to keep remains around long, even if they're evidence. 15[20:26] <@VoxPVoxD> The ride to the Temple is awkward. Streetcars bustle up and down the streets, weaving through rickety wooden catwalks and over stately, ancient stone bridges. People are crammed in the car, people going to or from work, people out for a night on the town... and him. He always seems to be a head above whatever crowd he's moving through, he's always there when you aren't thinking of him. In his mask the city's true face is reflected back. 15[20:26] <@VoxPVoxD> Nobody makes small talk when they ride with the Emissary. [20:27] 3So they don't. Even Tarn isn't tempted. 15[20:30] <@VoxPVoxD> They say the Emissary's as old as Nexus itself, that he strode in and wrote the city's Dogmas in his own hand when the Empress raised her throne. Tarn wouldn't know anything about that. They say the Emissary is a sorcerer, an ancient war machine of the First Age, a trickster god in disguise. Tarn thinks that's nonsense. They say the Emissary can boil a man from the inside out with just a look. Tarn's seen that happen. 15[20:31] <@VoxPVoxD> People find excuses to change trolleys or get off a stop early. When the Emissary gets off, near the Council Tower, everyone on the streetcar lets out the breath they didn't know they were holding. [20:31] 3He's always been a bit curious. To have power like that... is there a normal man under there, or really something weirder? In any case, not really worth aggravating him to find out. 15[20:34] <@VoxPVoxD> In any case, the Coronary and Crematorial Temple is a spare manse of white soapstone (from where? no stone like this is found in the earth anywhere in this Direction). It's the cleanest-smelling place in the city, its air open and bright and unsullied by the stink of river waste or the cloying perfumes the wealthier districts use to mask it. Tarn breathes easier, here, than anywhere else in the city. [20:35] 3If anywhere can afford imported building materials, it's Nexus. 15[20:36] <@VoxPVoxD> It's guarded by uniformed men whose faces are covered by veils and whose bare arms are blistered with scars and tattoos. They have punch daggers at their waists and a pair of firewands (firewands!) apiece. 15[20:36] <@VoxPVoxD> "Business, citizen?" croaks one. [20:37] "I'm Guild Investigator Magala, here to see some remains returned from the scene of a murder. What's left of them, anyway." 15[20:40] <@VoxPVoxD> "You got proof?" 15[20:41] <@VoxPVoxD> The sun's all but set, and the sky is twilit violet. By the time Tarn gets out of the Temple it'll be dark. [20:44] 3Tarn shows his Guild investigator's signet. Just because he wears two hats doesn't mean everyone needs to know. 15[20:44] <@VoxPVoxD> The two guards confer and then admit Tarn into the temple. 15[20:48] <@VoxPVoxD> The temple is as spare and spacious within as it seems from without. The high, bright ceilings seem to catch and hold the sunlight - if Tarn hadn't just come in from outside he might easily mistake the time for late afternoon. Secretaries and mortuary-savants scurry to and fro, the red-white mantles of office such people wear billowing behind them. You have to do a lot of walking around in this building - its layout is not suited for the use to which it's currently being put. [20:49] 3Strange. Wonder what its original purpose was? Tarn doesn't know much about geomancy, but even he can feel the energy of this place. 15[20:55] <@VoxPVoxD> The Prosector's Archive is wide and airy, filled with instruments and long soapstone tables. The shiftwork rotation within the temple is such that some segment of this room is always in the process of being cleaned, which can be inconvenient depending on where what you need is stored. Tarn gets lucky, though, and the evidence he came for is in the far rear of the archive, well past the segment of the room being cleaned by a half dozen labor-worn people in flawless white smocks. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> Bodies are kept in drawers - long, chilled drawers. Part of the magic of this place goes to keeping these drawers cool somehow. A body left here won't spoil for weeks or more. [20:56] 3Tarn's medical knowledge, as he indicated, is lacking. But maybe there's something so unusual here even he'll be able to make note of it? 15[21:02] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn might not be a physician himself, but he's pored through enough crime scene evidence to make some educated guesses. The remains, being, uh, let's call them "uncontiguous", they've been stored according to the dictates of Civility in the appropriate format - a loose bin for the irrelevant viscera, and a jar each for the gut, heart, brain, and liver. Even with the air-clearing of the temple, the smell at this distance is foul. 15[21:04] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn studies them carefully and makes note of a few things - one, the principal wounds seem to be grievous slashing wounds - a body cut and pulled apart simultaneously. Secondarily, though - past the stench - there are numerous bite marks, which from the lack of bleeding were almost certainly inflicted postmortem. Whoever (whatever?) killed this man stayed behind to eat him after. [21:06] 3A beastman, maybe? Smart enough to cut, hungry enough to eat? In Nexus, though? And against specific targets? 15[21:07] <@VoxPVoxD> It doesn't quite pan out. And what about the missing - wait a moment. 15[21:07] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn looks at the drawer again. 15[21:08] <@VoxPVoxD> The jar with the brain is empty, of course - kept here because the jars must be maintained and cleaned as a set for some arcane reason - but the others... intestine, liver, and heart. 15[21:08] <@VoxPVoxD> What was missing from the three victims again? 15[21:09] <@VoxPVoxD> This one's missing a brain. The second was out her liver. And the original victim was parted wholly from his intestines. 15[21:09] <@VoxPVoxD> That leaves... a heart. [21:10] 3That's not good. So obviously there's at least one more target. But what are they going to do with this stuff? Tarn's going to have to find more information on what could be done with a full set of organs like this. [21:11] 3Were there four surgeons? 15[21:11] <@VoxPVoxD> There were only three case files given him. Tarn's deduced, though, that there must be a fourth victim... but who? [21:13] 3Surely even Saul could have figured out who the next victim would be if there were only four surgeons and three of them were dead, Tarn tells himself. Better to pursue more esoteric leads, then. 15[21:13] <@VoxPVoxD> What's the plan? [21:16] 3A sage who can tell him more about the possible rituals here could be helpful... but if something seems like an animal, it could be something else entirely. Tarn decides to check out the crime scenes, heading for the first victim's crime scene first. 15[21:20] <@VoxPVoxD> It's well dark by the time Magala reaches the offices of the late Puko Stone, a small private practice in a well-off district far from the river. The door is locked and the lights are out - Stone was a lifelong bachelor and since his death the building has yet to be reoccupied. [21:21] 3Unless there are guards, Tarn's going to let himself in, one way or another. [21:24] 3The picks are out, and it's easy. In Nexus, no one looks twice. 15[21:27] <@VoxPVoxD> Maybe the fact that the locks yield so easily should be taken as a sign that the doctor had nothing to hide. Or maybe they were broken and then replaced by the landlord. Either is equally likely. The air in here is vile and stale, like someone was sick in a bucket and then varnished the floors with it. The murder scene was in the office, Tarn recalls, on the second floor. 15[21:32] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn combs the place. There's still a blood stain seeping into the fine carpet in the upstairs office. That pattern - might've come all the way from Gem, even. There's not much here, everything of note was in the files. Except, wait... the doctor's correspondence. He maintained a healthy exchange of views and news through couriered notes to a number of people in the city - there's a prelate of the Crematory Temple, there's someone with the health office, there's Judge Peligin - and finally there are notes from three other surgeons. [21:33] 3Uh oh. Are two of them the other murdered surgeons? 15[21:34] <@VoxPVoxD> They are! Shivalen, the second victim, and Willow, the third, are both here in Stone's correspondence. 15[21:34] <@VoxPVoxD> The third physician on record here is Moira Malcavet. There's an address on each letter. [21:35] 3The third letter seems the most important. Tarn reads the address and looks over all three letters for content. 15[21:37] <@VoxPVoxD> They're largely benign professional correspondence. A lot of talk about necrotized flesh and how quickly you have to work to save how much of a limb, etc. It was a subject of some debate between them. [21:38] 3Nothing probative, or at least nothing that warrants delaying beelining for the fourth surgeon's address. Anything else here stand out? 15[21:43] <@VoxPVoxD> Actually... Tarn checks those notes again. Something about the patterns of writing... aha! These physicians aren't talking about what they're talking about. They're speaking in code. Now, ordinarily Tarn would have to take this to one of his contacts in the Nexus underworld for a full sense of their coded contents, but in a flash of insight he's able to parse the particulars. The necrosis... a debt incurred. The rate of decay... how long they have before payment is extracted by force. Hours of necrosis... days of time. 15[21:44] <@VoxPVoxD> It fits with the facts he's already discovered. These physicians feared for their lives, worked tirelessly to provide what they feared would be taken from them (their organs?) and expected payment to fall due for them every five days starting from about two weeks ago. 15[21:44] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn realizes then that that would put the fourth murder on this very night. [21:45] 3Well, time to hustle, then. No more clues or subtlety. Run! 15[21:47] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn moves like hell was after him. The crowds of Nexus part like muddy water as he cuts a path from Stone's office to Malcavet's - it's two districts away, so a steady run (and a brief hop on a gondola) get him to the door within a quarter-hour. 15[21:47] <@VoxPVoxD> The lights are on upstairs and the smell is so much worse when it's fresh. The air is bilious with danger. [21:48] 3Damn it. Hope I'm not too late. 15[21:49] <@VoxPVoxD> Despite the stench, people are moving past him in every direction. Across the street a stall tips over and fake jewelery spills into the thoroughfare, snatched up by opportunistic passersby. Nexus is an easy city to lose yourself in if you need to. [21:52] 3Tarn's no fool, even as much as he wants to prevent another tragedy here. He makes his way carefully into and through the office, eyes peeled for the first sign of danger. [21:53] 3He heads quickly but quietly up the stairs, tensed to spring and trying to find the source of that awful smell -- presumably the attacker. 15[21:55] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn insinuates himself into the home unbeknownst. There's a bed and milkbowl at the bottom of the stairs - Moira keeps a cat here. No sign of it though. What Tarn finds when he approaches the office is silence. Silence, and Moira Malcavet pointing a flame piece at the door ready for whatever's coming. 15[21:56] <@VoxPVoxD> She doesn't see him, though. 15[21:56] <@VoxPVoxD> No sign of the source of that stench... [21:57] 3She seems ready. Were the others? She obviously had to know something's coming, even before he did. But what is coming? 15[21:57] <@VoxPVoxD> Is Tarn going to watch and wait to see? [21:58] 3If he jumps out to warn her, she might shoot, and he might just make everything worse. He's going to look hard for the source of danger, if he can. 15[21:59] <@VoxPVoxD> One soon presents itself, first as a heavy grunting sound, then as a spatter of steaming blood throwing itself from midair onto the floor. Moira screams. 15[22:00] <@VoxPVoxD> It's like watching a loom at work. Ropes of flesh and muscle twist and slap against each other, spurting out of thin air, winding together, blossoming rank fur and high, jagged spurs of black bone from the head, shoulders, and backbone that begin to resolve in the half-light. [22:01] 3What the...?! Tarn was prepared to deal with goons, with a psychopath... maybe even an animal. Those things he can do something about. This... 15[22:04] <@VoxPVoxD> What has come into being before Tarn and Moira both is a great rust-colored ape, stinking and slavering, its back a forest of wicked spikes. It roars. The burning in Tarn's throat grows fiercer. He can see, past the ape, past Moira, through the window, at the blank black sky of the night. 15[22:04] <@VoxPVoxD> There are moments when even the Sun hides its face. In those moments, the weak hang in peril and evil abides. Who will stand for them? 15[22:05] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn's chest is on fire. 15[22:05] <@VoxPVoxD> Breathe in. 15[22:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Tarn is not there. What remains is an impression, a specter, a shadow, a saint - an avatar of mystery whose face is the eternal foe of the craven. [22:06] 3I'm not ready for this, says a small part of Tarn's mind. Marlan's question echoes in his mind. Who will help you, when you're in over your head? [22:07] 4A stronger voice answers his unspoken question. Will you stand by here when you can help another? [22:15] 4The Judge is surrounded by a bright light that seems to flicker, bringing to mind a thunderstorm on an overcast day. From within the stormy clouds, countless eyes seem to watch all those who would commit wrong within their sight, taking measure and passing sentence both. [22:23] 4No time to waste, then. Fear melting away, The Judge rushes forward faster than either the surgeon or monster can react, clearing the monster by using its spines as stepping-stones, and somersaults over. While still flying through the air, he drives a fist hard into its muscled shoulder, surprising it and driving it off balance. [22:24] 4He doesn't speak, just stands between the woman and the monster, fists raised, feet apart. 15[22:29] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira finds her breath. "TWO demons?!" The flame piece speaks next. The Judge is a blur, and where the flames are he isn't. The gout of fire splashes against the tapestries on the far wall and they catch fire. [22:30] "I'm no demon. I followed this thing's trail here, suspecting it would come for you, and come it has. Would you be left to its judgement?" 15[22:36] <@VoxPVoxD> "Spare your words, demon!" 15[22:39] <@VoxPVoxD> The actual demon does not. Its voice is low and guttural, and its breath is viler than its stench. "You pay now." It's inhumanly fast; as the Judge weaves out of the way of the flame piece shot the ape weaves in, shattering the desk and backing Moira into a corner with sudden ferocity. She's all but crumbled beneath the onslaught - her next breath might be her last. Behind them all, the fire on the tapestries begins to spread to the fragments of wood and paper and ink from the splintered desk. It's spreading. [22:46] 4Judge drops low as the demon rushes forward, driving a hard kick into the beast's knee, or what passes for it. A loud crunch forces the monster to try and reel away from the blow... only to topple over, howling, into the flames rapidly spreading from the surgeon's flame shot. [22:48] "I don't think you want to die, and I don't want to kill you. Shall we?" 15[22:49] <@VoxPVoxD> The blood ape staggers backward, falling, bleeding, reeking... it's not dead until it lands, which it does, punching through the wall and impaling itself on a wooden beam that doesn't yield to its bulk. 15[22:49] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira is shaken, and the flame piece is dry. She drops it. "What... what is..." [22:50] "I don't know who sent this thing or if more are on their way. I don't know why it's here to kill you. I also don't know if you deserved any of it. But I'd like to find out. We can either leave together or not, but we need to leave now." 15[22:53] <@VoxPVoxD> "Where?" 15[22:53] <@VoxPVoxD> The ceiling's starting to collapse. The fire is visible out in the street now. [22:53] "Do you know somewhere safe?" 4Do I? 15[22:54] <@VoxPVoxD> That'd depend, ultimately, on whether the demon dying means Moira's out of danger. 15[22:54] <@VoxPVoxD> And, if not: who still threatens her? 15[22:54] <@VoxPVoxD> Immediately, though, anywhere is safer than a burning building. [22:56] 4Is the building open to the sky, now? "Go downstairs. I'll watch out for you, though I suspect no one will notice your passing when I depart." 4Even muted though it is, The Judge's anima is still brighter than the fire. 15[22:56] <@VoxPVoxD> The building's stable enough that she should be able to flee safely, and the Judge's banner will only burn against the sky once he leaves himself. 15[22:59] <@VoxPVoxD> When the Judge stands beneath open sky, what image do the people of Nexus see for miles around when they look out their windows? [22:59] "Let's go. We're going to have to go to ground, probably somewhere unpleasant. But it's better than burning to death or being eaten." 15[23:02] <@VoxPVoxD> "Where?" [23:02] 4A dark-clothed man stands in the doorway of a burning building, burning more fiercely still. Spilled jewels and back-alley deals are forgotten for more than an instant as a towering bonfire of flickering grey from within which watch a myriad of gold-pupiled eyes, seeing all. "Follow me, and be ready. We will undoubtedly be pursued, but whether they come for you or I, who can say?" 15[23:03] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira nods. [23:05] 4Judge makes his way through the streets, with the greatest ease he ever has. Is this how it feels to be the Emissary? His thoughts wander back to the fearful gazes of trolley-riders, mirroring those of the crowds parting in terror before him. He searches out a sewer entrance, an abandoned building, somewhere he and his unexpected charge can hide for a while. 15[23:14] <@VoxPVoxD> In the sky above Nexus, the Judge's watchful eyes look down, facing everyone who raises gaze to meet them. On the streets below, he is a blur, and his charge keeps apace. 15[23:18] <@VoxPVoxD> The sewers of Nexus are not made for running, but they do their work well enough in times of desperation. They're dark and dank but after getting a face full of blood ape, it's almost refreshing. They steal into the darkness without any visible sign of being followed, or-- wait. Something is following them, ephemeral and swift. A six-winged spirit. [23:20] 4Even in this new glory, Judge isn't quite sure what to do about spirits following. Does it look aggressive? 15[23:20] <@VoxPVoxD> No. It looks observant. 15[23:21] <@VoxPVoxD> "Where are you taking me?" asks Moira who hasn't noticed the spirit. "Do you live down here?" 15[23:22] <@VoxPVoxD> "Who are you?" 15[23:22] <@VoxPVoxD> "What are you?" [23:23] "I'm trying to take you somewhere we aren't followed. As for the rest, we can discuss that after we get there. Wherever 'there' is." 15[23:26] <@VoxPVoxD> The Judge hears the rustling of a cape. Something's going to come out from around the corner ahead - he's got a moment to react. [23:28] 4He puts a hand out to Moira. "Hold on." 4Then he squares himself up. He can't hide right now, so he's got to be ready for anything. 15[23:29] <@VoxPVoxD> So the question is this. 15[23:29] <@VoxPVoxD> Is this more or less awkward than the first time he saw the Emissary today? 15[23:30] <@VoxPVoxD> He's there, now, cloak and mask. His staff of office is nowhere to be seen - he's frequently seen without it. He didn't have it when Tarn saw him boil that man alive. [23:30] 4He doesn't drop his stance, but he definitely doesn't try to make the first move. "Of all the people who could have followed us... I wouldn't have expected you." 4He definitely didn't expect to be directly addressing the man today. Especially not as though they were equals. 15[23:31] <@VoxPVoxD> In the Emissary's mask, the Judge's own hooded face is reflected back. He can see, as well as feel, the burning mark upon his brow, the circle surrounding nothingness. 15[23:31] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira freezes. 15[23:34] <@VoxPVoxD> The Emissary's voice is an even baritone. There's some sense that the voice emerges from the mask rather than the man's throat. How would you tell, though? "Tell me what's happened." [23:36] "This woman's life was in danger, three of her colleagues were murdered by a demon. I killed that demon and brought her here to elude pursuit." 4No sense lying. He's probably been watching the whole time, or could tell a lie when he hears one. A man who can boil you alive isn't to be fucked with. 15[23:36] <@VoxPVoxD> "Whose demon?" [23:37] "I don't know. I'd like to find out." 15[23:37] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira, abruptly: "Peligin." 15[23:37] <@VoxPVoxD> "The magistrate." [23:38] "What? Why?" 15[23:39] <@VoxPVoxD> The Emissary is also attentive." 15[23:39] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira: "I- he was- his body. It keeps... he's dying." [23:40] "Is that what the removed organs were for, then? To... rejuvenate him somehow?" 15[23:40] <@VoxPVoxD> "We, all of us, we were supposed to keep an eye out for usable organs. Something discreet, something... something nobody would miss. We tried so many cadavers but none of them were any good. He kept making more and more bizarre demands." 15[23:40] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira: "You know about it?" [23:42] "The other surgeons who died, each was missing an organ. One a brain, one a liver, the other intestines. I suspect they were after your heart." 15[23:43] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira: "Since Bubo got hired away we haven't..." She looks from the Judge to the Emissary. "What should I do?" [23:44] "Why did you owe him... this Peligin?" 4Judge says, keeping his tone even. 15[23:46] <@VoxPVoxD> "The Guild... they've been paying us less and less. And we aren't mercenaries, we can't, we can't just go into one of those tea rooms and make demands. They'd kill us. But Peligin... Peligin had money. And he needed help. He's truly suffering." 15[23:47] <@VoxPVoxD> "It seemed... we were doing good work. We were helping people. You don't realize how good that feels until you haven't done it in a long, long time." [23:48] "Good work? Where were you getting the organs you were trying to give him before he decided to start collecting his own?" 15[23:49] <@VoxPVoxD> "I told you! Cadavers. People don't - nobody cares if their loved one is short a liver when it comes time for the funeral." [23:51] "I'll speak to Peligin. And find you a place to lie low until you're out of danger... unless you had something else in mind?" 4The Judge regards The Emissary, who has remained silent this whole time. 15[23:52] <@VoxPVoxD> The Emissary speaks here. "I will take her into custody. She will be safe." 15[23:52] <@VoxPVoxD> He looks directly at the Judge here, and for the barest instant he thinks he can see his eyes - his real eyes, not the eyes of soul's judgement - reflected back. 15[23:52] <@VoxPVoxD> "You were never here." [23:53] 4Judge isn't really sure if he should be worried or pitying, here. But he meets that gaze. "And I never will be." 15[23:53] <@VoxPVoxD> Moira: "Wait!" 15[23:53] <@VoxPVoxD> "Who are you?" [23:54] "Merely a judge, young lady. Leave me to my work, and stay safe." 15[23:54] <@VoxPVoxD> "What are you a judge of?" [23:56] "Everything under the Sun." [00:02] This story starts on a road. [00:02] It is a quiet road; a dirt road; a winding road. It runs next to a river, except when it curves off around a great rock or zags between some especially large trees, and then it doesn't. It fits three men walking abreast, except when it widens as it crosses an empty field or riverbeach, or narrows as it runs through settled land or fenced pasture, and then it doesn't. [00:02] And at this very moment, it feels the feet of one white-haired blind man with a cane in his hand and a blanket tied across one shoulder like a bandolier, until he hears a squeaking off in the bushes -- and then it doesn't. [00:03] They have been following him for...oh, ten minutes now. There are four of them. The youngest is Tasha, youngest son of a strong woman and a man who died, slight and tan and resentful his last name ends in what's a feminine vowel in Riverspeak. [00:03] The second-youngest is Antiosh, a proud and hard-featured teenager with a scar on his clavicle and no right pinky. He's proud he has the first, and proud he lost the latter. There is a wide, curved sword at his waist. [00:04] The third-youngest is Selevin, student of the soaring Crane, confident and wiry. He no longer assures his three friends that he could best them all with the power of Crane Style martial arts, because after one day of particularly spirited advocacy, they came at him with switches and contested that point. He acknowledges they beat him. They acknowledge it still took all three of them. [00:04] The eldest, and the leader, is Olla, daughter of Liok and Morna, the bravest and least responsible scion that her clan has seen in many generations. It is odd, then, as she grips her spear in both hands and motions to the three boys to spread out as they close on their target, that this is the most responsible she's been perhaps her whole life. [00:04] "Where do you think he's from?" Tasha whispers to her as Antiosh and Selevin slip across the thinning road, quickly and quietly. [00:04] "Focus," is all the response he gets. [00:04] "I mean...what if he doesn't know our language?" [00:04] Now she spares the young man -- the boy, really -- a glare. "We have swords and spears. He'll know the language we're speaking." [00:05] Tasha swallows and nods and wilts back a step or two, letting Olla take the lead. He's got a knife on his belt. He saw it for the first time this morning. [00:05] That's when the white-haired man -- Olla had thought him old, but this close she can see his face is smooth an unlined, older than any of them but not an elder by any stretch -- that's when he steps off the road and into the brush. He's no longer using the cane to walk. He steps nimbly around a tree. [00:05] The three boys stumble to a halt, surprised, looking at each other with growing panic. Olla glowers and waves Antiosh and Selevin off the road into the bushes, then grabs Tasha and pulls him with her as she does the same. [00:06] 14Up ahead, Stranger-Visits-Heaven is looking for a mouse. "Ra, squeak if you can hear me. Squeak twice if you're in trouble." [00:06] 14Stranger hears a single squeak bit deeper into the underbrush than the one which got him off the road. He relaxes a slight bit. [00:06] "Squeak three times if you remember when you agreed during first lunch to stay close to me on the road in exchange for us taking second lunch two hours earlier than normal." [00:06] 14Now he gets three squeaks. They're only a little bit ahead now. [00:06] "Squeak five times if--" [00:06] 14Stranger enters the clearing and stops speaking. He stops walking. He stops relaxing. The annoyance slides from his face. It is replaced with a measured, impenetrable calm. [00:06] 14The carts are filthy, covered in shit and blood. There are five of them, each one broken, shattered as if struck by mighty and uncaring force. There are no goods in them, at least none from any conventional or moral trade -- instead, the beds of the carts are host to corpses, two or three each, the source of the blood. [00:07] 14They're only barely recognizable as human; there's no way of telling who they were in life. Most of each one of them has been eaten, as if by wild animal. One presumes that's where all the shit came from, too. [00:07] 14Ra, Mouse of the Sun, squeaks sadly from atop a nearby rock. There's nowhere on the carts suitably clean enough to perch on. [00:07] 14Stranger says nothing further now, just beckons him back with the hand that hasn't fallen to his sword. The blood is dry, but this still happened recently -- what's left of the flesh hasn't begun to rot. He doesn't remember any wagon trains with five carts passing him in over the last few days. In fact, he doesn't remember wagon trains of any size passing him over the last few days, [00:07] 14ever since he crossed the Second Bridge of Gon Lipang a few days back. [00:07] 14He knows its name because someone -- presumably the Gon Lipang in question -- had written so on the side in a beautiful, flowing archaic River dialect of Old Realm. [00:08] 14He recalls now that there was a small wagon train parked next to the bridge as he'd approached. At the time he assumed they had stopped for a break. But Stranger likes to meander -- likes to amble -- likes to fully invest in the fiction that he is, in fact, a blind man. Wagon trains like to get where they're going, on time. Usually they passed him. That wagon train never did. [00:08] 14Stranger no longer thinks they were just stopping for a break. He wonders if the Second Bridge of Gon Lipang is a line of demarcation of some kind. A territorial marking. Hrm. [00:09] 14He continues circling the scene. There's something else wrong here, but he can't quite put his finger on -- ah. It comes to him as he's staring at a shattered wheel. These are heavy, commercial hauling carts. They have great big wheels -- from where he's standing, he can see that at least three of the carts had theirs shod in iron as well. [00:09] 14He suspects the axles and rod fittings would also be made of iron, if he cared to look. And yet...the forest around the clearing is unmarred by bent grass or divots or broken tree branches. There are no furrows in the ground where the carts were rolled into the clearing. [00:09] 14Stranger-Visits-Heaven knows what happened to these carts. He just needs to know how, and then he can begin to discern why. And that means: "Children, it's time for you to come out now." [00:10] Thirty feet behind him, hiding behind an aging oak, at first Olla thinks she's misheard the white-haired man. Then she wonders: what fool allowed any of the clan's children out into the forest?! Then she realizes he means the four of them. [00:10] She looks at the three boys similarly hidden around her. They stare back at her, wide-eyed. She swallows the lump in her throat -- no matter how the man knows they're here, he's still blind. And even if he's not blind, he's still just one man. And she can't appear weak or indecisive anymore. [00:10] "Surround him," she hisses, and the four of them crash forward through the trees. [00:10] 14Standing near the carts, Stranger whispers, "Up on my shoulder, Ra. Children like adorable little gluttons." 14Ra nips him lightly in reproach, and Stranger allows himself a grin. Then he calms his face and his mind as the four teens burst into the clearing. [00:11] Olla notes with nervous satisfaction that Antiosh and Selevin do as she commanded -- they slip around the man's right and left side, circling in front of him, Antiosh with his sword out and Selevin with his hands up like a brawler, his Crane Style forgotten entirely in the shaking adrenaline of real combat. [00:11] Tasha freezes up a bit next to her, but her elbow into his shoulder snaps him out of it; he draws his knife and holds it out in front of him in an artless but unmistakably threatening manner. She lowers the point of her spear and slowly advances towards his back. [00:11] She doesn't process the white-haired man saying, "I would prefer to let you keep your weapons," until the tip of her spear touches his side. [00:11] Or at least, Olla thought it did. She never feels that slight telltale resistance of cloth or flesh on the spearpoint. Suddenly, he's moving down the spear shaft, cane in hand, and the only thing her tip is finding is air. The cane flashes once -- twice -- and she yelps as it raps across her knuckles, dropping her weapon in surprise as much as pain. [00:12] Then, almost faster than she can track, he's swooped around behind her, past her -- and now he's got Tasha. The man's just, picked him up. In one hand he holds his cane, and tucked under his other arm, squawking and kicking, is an eleven-year-old boy sans knife, dropped in the grass somewhere. And if anything, the man's moving faster now. [00:12] He flutters behind Selevin, easily sweeping his feet out from under him with a flick of his cane and sending the "martial artist" tumbling to the grass, and then he's moving on-- [00:13] To Antiosh who, bless his pluck, has decided he's had enough. "Let him go!" the boy roars. Well, tries to roar. That'll come in time. But even if there's not much reverb, there's no trembling, and later Olla will be proud of him for that. [00:13] Now she just stares, jaw hanging open, as the man flicks the point of his cane up into the air to meet Antiosh's blade, holding his walking stick it as if it were a sword, clearly inviting the teen to duel him, Tasha squirming under his other arm and all. [00:13] "You can swing at me, and I will parry," the man says to Antiosh in a calm, clear voice that carries easily despite his back being turned. "You can slash at me and I will dodge. But do you trust me -- and yourself -- enough to put him in that danger?" [00:13] His lower lip trembles, and for a half-second Antiosh looks as if he'll burst into tears of frustration and rage. But then he masters himself and sheathes his sword. "Let him go. You made your point." [00:13] 14Stranger-Visits-Heaven treats himself to a smile in the privacy of his own mind. The child's choice not to fight when presented with an unwinnable battle speaks to wisdom beyond his years. His fury and sorrow at having to make that choice -- and yet making it anyway -- speaks to virtue. And virtue is a rare thing in men of any age. [00:14] 14And so it is that Stranger turns around and sets the youngest child back down on his feet with both hands, frowning in mock disapproval as Ra follows him, bouncing down his sleeve and onto the child's head. "It appears my mouse likes you." [00:14] Tasha feels something moving on his head and looks up -- into a pair of big, golden rodent eyes. The mousey's snout twitches, and his whiskers tickle Tasha's nose. "Waaah!" [00:14] 14Stranger keeps the disapproving frown on his face a couple seconds longer as Tasha waves his hand over his head to try to dislodge Ra, and Ra easily bounces around each of his swipes, landing on his shoulder, the crown of his head, his other shoulder, his neck-- [00:14] 14He turns to the young woman, her face flushed with anger and embarassment, perhaps not in that order. She's picked up her spear, though she's holding it gingerly. "There's still four of us," 14she offers. [00:14] "Properly speaking, really now there's three of you," 14Stranger says, indicating the boy. "He's fighting the mouse." [00:14] "Olla, this was a bad idea. We should leave him alone," Selevin says, and his voice IS trembling. "Please?" [00:14] Something in his words freezes the white-haired man where he stands, and a look passes over his face that Olla doesn't understand -- something like anger, something like shock, but older and harder than both. In that moment, she could swear the clearing darkened -- but that the white-haired man was glowing at the edges, a muted, transient fury, like the sun behind a passing cloud. [00:15] "What...did you just say?" the white-haired asks Selevin, but his eyes -- milky, empty eyes that should be blind -- stare into Olla's own. But they're not empty now. They're burning with fire so bright it has no color. It hurts, but she can't look away. [00:15] "I said please," the teen whispers. [00:15] And just as soon as it began, the moment ends. The cloud passes from in front of the sun. The man's eyes are milky and white once more. "I...yes, of course," the man says. "That's alright. It's...everything is alright. I'm not going to hurt you." Olla blinks, and the spots in her vision begin to fade. "I would appreciate it, though, if you'd move the spear." [00:16] "Good. Good." 14Stranger allows himself a slight smile -- this time on his actual face -- as the youngest boy giggles, now trying to play tag with Ra as he darts from shoulder to crown to shoulder. "I take it that you are not bandits by trade?" [00:17] "As if you couldn't tell," 14mutters the boy with the sword. He's sulking. Even wise, virtuous teens sulk. [00:17] 14As a rule, Stranger does not respond to sulking. To the children as a group: "I am Stranger-Visits-Heaven. The mouse currently alighting across your young friend's head is Ra, and he is my friend and companion. What are your names?" [00:18] "I'm -- hehe -- Tasha. Your mouse tickles." [00:18] "Hello, Tasha. Yes he does, doesn't he? That is one of the few reasons I keep him around," 14Stranger says. Ra makes an aggrieved flubbing noise. "That's rude language, Ra, and I won't stand for it around children." [00:18] "What kind of name is 'Stranger-Visits-Heaven?'" 14the boy without a weapon says, faced screwed up in confusion. [00:18] 14Stranger strokes his chin. "Rather long and unwieldy, What-Kind-Of-Name-Is-Stranger-Visits-Heaven, but I can't say I disapprove of the latter bit. I usually suggest people call me Stranger, for short, but with two of us that might get confusing." [00:18] "What?" 14The teen blinks, startled. "Oh, I...I'm Selevin." [00:18] 14Stranger stops contemplating for effect. "Ah! Excellent. Greetings, Selevin. I assume you're a martial artist, given your robes and belt and failure to bring a weapon to an attempt robbery. Keep your feet planted firmly and farther apart when you're not in your proper fighting stance. In line with your shoulders is best, perhaps a bit wider. It makes it harder to trip you like I [00:18] did. [00:19] "Also, when a strange man disarms one of your fellows and grabs hold of another, get in your proper fighting stance." [00:19] Selevin just nods, still not entirely sure what's going on. [00:19] "I'm Antiosh," 14the boy with the sword offers without further prompting. He still looks a bit crestfallen. [00:19] 14Stranger gives him a solemn half-bow, which the boy returns with awkward hesitation. "Well met, Antiosh. Now that we know each others names, I say this with the full confidence of new friendship: chin up. No more sulking. I'm many times your age and I, craven blackguard that I am, took a hostage. The weapon for such a situation is your words, not your blade. You failed no one here [00:19] today. Not yourself, not your friends, not Heaven." [00:19] 14Then he turns to the young woman and finds himself slightly, strangely hesitant. "...He said your name was Olla." [00:19] She narrows her eyes. "Yeah. He did." [00:19] The man just nods and looks away. "It's a beautiful name. I knew someone else with it, once." [00:19] Olla's unsure what she's supposed to do with that. "Okay...?" [00:19] But instead of saying anything more, the man just smiles and turns away. It's a tight, sad smile, and Olla is fairly certain it wasn't meant for her. [00:20] 14Stranger turns away from...Olla...and takes a few steps towards the wrecked carts, his hands finding his hips. "Now that we're all properly introduced, I'm going to guess the reason these carts are empty save for, presumably, their murdered and disgraced owners has something to do with the reason four children without a life taken between them are trying their hands at highway [00:20] robbery." [00:21] 14He squints and looks up into the empty, sparkling blue sky. "And when I know what the relationship between those two reasons are, I'll should have a better idea of what's going on this side of the Second Bridge of Gon Lipang." [00:22] 14Stranger clasps his hands and turns back to the children with a calm smile. "After all, how the carts got here is simple and mostly unremarkable. What they were doing hundreds of feet above the ground in the first place -- now there's where stories live." [00:27] It is with great reluctance that the four children take the strange man they found on the side of the road home with them. [00:27] "It's been three months since the last merchant tried to come to town. They ate him in front of Da, just to make a point." Olla keeps herself from shivering. She'd been there too. "At least they let the children go inside, first." [00:27] "What are they, exactly?" 14Stranger asks, though he already has a few informed guesses. [00:27] "Beastfolk," says Antiosh. His face is still dark, but with anger now. He carries it like mature anger; like anger well-justified. "Shapechangers. Wildmen." [00:27] 14Stranger shakes his head. Mostly to himself: "Yes, yes. But what kind of beastfolk." [00:29] Selevin snorts. "There's not different kinds of beastfolk. And if there was, it wouldn't matter knowing them. My da says all that matters is they're out there, they're savages, and they want us dead." [00:30] 14Stranger: "Well. At least it's becoming a bit clearer why they might be angry with your clan." [00:32] "That's not all," Selevin continues. "My da also says they make their women lie down with whole packs of animals, and if a beastman baby dies when its born, they eat the--" [00:33] 14Stranger cuts him off. "Thank you, Selevin, that will be sufficient. You may have to pretend to respect the things your father says. I, happily, do not." [00:34] That clouds Selevin's brow. "My da's smart." [00:36] 14Stranger keeps a sigh private. "I'm sorry, Selevin. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sure that of the things your father knows about, he knows a great deal. What I meant to say was this: the reason you are having problems with the beastmen and the reason that your father and the other people of your clan believe such things about the beastmen so strongly they tell them to their [00:36] children, are likely, at their root, the very same reason." [00:37] 4Antiosh: "...So they don't do those things, then? The laying with the animals and the baby-eating?" [00:37] 14Antiosh: "...So they don't do those things, then? The laying with the animals and the baby-eating?" [00:37] "...Why did the beastmen start killing the merchants, Olla?" 14Stranger says, turning away from the two boys. [00:42] 14The young woman shakes her head. "I don't know. There was no reason. We woke up the morning after the harvest feast and the beastman king -- or elder, or something -- he's just out there in front of our hut, sitting there, all his men with him. Waiting for us to wake up." [00:46] "Da sent me inside -- sent everyone inside -- but I tried to listen from behind the door. He, the beast king I mean, he said something like...if we wanted to eat like them, we had to live like them. He said he'd kill any merchant who tried to bring us food, and anyone who planted crops. Any farmers." [00:48] "Da laughed at him. Spit in his face. Said the only reason they were talking was so Burthum could get the clan's men ready to fight. So Burthum and the men burst out of the common huts with spears and swords." [00:48] 14Olla's voice is flat and factual. "And that's when the beastmen changed, and killed all of them." [00:49] 14Stranger, quietly: "What did they change into?" [00:50] 14She shrugs. "Birds, I guess. Or something like a bird. Something with wings, but bigger and meaner than any bird any of us have ever seen." [00:51] "The men who couldn't fight, or that Burthum hadn't been able to rouse up in time, they left them alive. Didn't hurt them, either. Except my da." [00:51] 14Antiosh: "Olla..." [00:53] 14She presses forward. "They maimed him. Made his arms and his legs useless. But they made sure he lived." [00:53] 14She presses forward. "They maimed him. Made his arms and his legs useless. But they made sure he lived." [00:54] "They told him when he was ready to die, all he had to do was crawl out into the woods, alone, like a straggler separated from the flock. And then -- only then -- would they end him." [00:56] "I woke up three days ago and he was gone." 14Olla's jaw snaps shut and she strides forward, ahead of the group by a couple steps. She's said her part. [00:58] 14Stranger lets her go. He is quiet for a few moments longer as they walk; then he turns to Antiosh. "So they let you hunt?" [01:00] 14The boy with the sword almost spits his laughter out. "Oh, sure. They let us hunt. They let us find a deer or a wild emas, track it, line up a shot with arrow or spear -- and then suddenly there they are, swooping out of the sky in those great bird forms of theirs, poaching the kill." [01:06] "We're welcome to challenge them for it, they say." 14He spits in the dirt. "Only took one or two times for us to stop doing that." [01:08] 14Stranger is, by this point, almost certain the five of them -- six of them, sorry Ra -- are being observed by some means. The question is whether there is an actual beastman nearby or if it is some kind of passive blessing of watchfulness that alerts them whenever the clanspeople launch a hunt. [01:09] "I presume that it is significant that you hunted me, just now, but we were not interrupted by any...swooping." [01:11] 14Selevin nods. "They don't care if we hunt other people. It's a...what was it. A compromise. Told Olla that herself, she did." [01:12] 14Stranger begins nodding, then pauses with a frown. "Say that again, Selevin?" [01:12] "They don't care if we hunt oth--" [01:13] 14He waves a hand to cut the boy off. "No, no. The second part. Who told Olla about the -- wait, what am I even doing. I'm sorry, Selevin, excuse me." [01:14] 14Stranger quickens his step to catch up with Olla. "Who was it that told you that you could hunt humans?" [01:20] 14Olla's still staring straight ahead. "She showed up the same day my Da...died, while Selevin's da was trying to convince what men were left it wasn't right to make me chief. He told her he was chief now, and she told him if he spoke to her again she'd rip his tongue out his mouth and eat it. He hadn't been polite." [01:24] 14Her knuckles are white around her spearhaft. "Then she came up to me and said since my da did what he did, there was a bit of leeway they were willing to give us. We still couldn't farm, but we could dig roots out of the ground and such, and eat the leaves off trees if we fancied. And the beastmen wouldn't poach us, if we hunted humans coming through our lands. But we weren't allowed [01:24] to leave. They still weren't satisfied, she said." [01:25] "And we still couldn't have merchants. Then she showed me these five pieces of paper with writing on them, and wax on the bottom. Covered with blood. I don't know what they were, but I got the message. Guess they came from those carts." 14She pauses. "Bad way to die." [01:27] 14Stranger doesn't interrupt her, and waits a moment once she's done speaking to make sure that she's finished. Then he asks Olla again: "Who was she?" [01:30] 14The young woman shrugs. "A beastman. Beastwoman. She didn't give a name. Different from the others, but mostly the same. When she landed, she was a swan. When she said what she did to Selevin's da she was this great big mean monstrous honking thing. But by the time she reached me, she was a woman, a normal woman, in a beautiful white dress." [01:30] "Blonde hair?" 14Stranger asks. [01:31] 14Olla looks over at him for the first time since pushing ahead of the group, her eyes going wide, then very narrow. "...How did you know?" [01:32] "Educated guess," 14Stranger says, then veers suddenly off the dirt road into the underbrush. [01:34] "AH," 14the white-haired man yells into the woods, his voice echoing. "WHAT A PERFECT DAY IT IS, FOR HUNTING..." 14Stranger pauses and turns back to the four children, who are staring at him in shock and fear. "What do you hunt around here? Rabbits? No, of course, you already said, deer and wild emas."  [01:38] 14He turns back to the woods and starts walking forward, sticking out his cane and hitting every tree and bush in his path as he passes, making as much noise as possible. "A PERFECT DAY, THAT IS, FOR HUNTING DEER, AND/OR WILD EMAS. IT FEELS GOOD TO KNOW THAT MY SUCCESS IS CONTINGENT ON A COMBINATION OF MY SKILL AS A TRACKER, THE BLESSINGS OF THE RELEVANT LOCAL GODS, AND BLIND LUCK." [01:40] "I HOPE THAT I AM NOT SWIFTLY AND THOROUGHLY INTERRUPTED." 14About a hundred feet off the road, Stranger finally pauses. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you actually make me hunt down a goddamn emas I will be thoroughly unhappy with you." [01:42] "You mock us," says the crow on the branch above him as it writhes and transforms into a slight young man with feathers in his hair. [01:45] 14Stranger looks up, smiling. "Greetings! Hello there, young...folk. Yes, I suspected you just had someone follow any poor fool who leaves the village. There can't be very many of them left at this point, and the sort of sorcery it would take to enforce a thing like this frankly wouldn't be worth the effort." [01:48] "Elder said not to kill any of you unless you were hunting something other than a human. But you were hunting me. And guess what?" The young crowman's eyes flash with anger as he pulls himself into a crouch, modest wings sprouting again from his back. NOW there's swooping. [01:51] 14The "fight" is short and unremarkable. It ends with the crow-boy whimpering on the ground, hopefully without too many bruises from the cane across his back. Stranger sighs. It's a sign of respect, in a way. This teen was actually trying to kill him, and was good enough to do it had Stranger not taken him seriously. So he had. Thankfully it ended up little more than a thrashing. [01:53] 14He reaches down and pulls the boy to his feet. "So. Introductions. You go first." [01:53] The young crow remains silent, looking away. [01:58] 14Softly: "Young man, I'm the only human in two days' travel in any direction that would stop hitting you once you yielded, let alone help you to your feet afterwards. Especially after you made it clear your heart held no similar mercy. I suspect both you and them have significant, if not precisely good, reasons for that. We'll get to those in time. But right now what I need you to [01:58] do is tell me your name." [01:59] 14This boy is different from the children on the road. His lip doesn't tremble; he doesn't waver or shiver. His eyes dart back to Stranger with suspicion, taking the measure of his temporary captor, and then he looks away again. "Qaile." [02:00] 14Stranger frowns. "...Quaile?" [02:00] "No. Qaile." [02:00] "Qaile." [02:00] 14The young crow nods. [02:07] "Well, Qaile, my name is Stranger-Visits-Heaven. Three words, all strung together. It's a bit of an odd name, so that should help you remember it. What I need you to do right now is fly home and tell one of your elders my name, that I am not from the human village, and that I could have killed you when you attacked me but I didn't. For my trouble, all I respectfully request from you [02:07] and yours is one very simple, very small thing." [02:10] 14Stranger steps away from Qaile. "I want you to tell the Ambassador of Night and Day that I am currently lodging at the human village, and would be honored if she'd grace my presence for dinner and a word." 14The corners of his mouth curve up slightly in an unmirthful smile. "Tell her she has three days before I start selling the villagers the clothes off my back." [02:12] "...Why." The crow wings furl and unfurl behind him. Like Olla clenching her fists. [02:13] 14Stranger keeps his hand away from his 'cane.' "Because this needs to stop." [02:15] 14Now he meets Stranger's empty gaze. He recognizes what he sees there. Mature anger. Anger well justifed. "You don't even know what they did to my people--" [02:20] 14Sparsely, without emotion: "The night before their harvest, the chief of their clan and his trusted second, a man named Burthum, got most or all of the men of the village together under cover of darkness and made their way to your nest, quietly, without torchlight. They knew that night before the harvest in this season in this Direction is a night when Luna hangs with heavy significance [02:20] in the sky -- a proving time for boy-children and girl-children becoming adults. [02:24] "Perhaps their harvest was bad this year. Perhaps one of yours did one of theirs some wrong they'd swore they wouldn't forget. Perhaps they were just mean, cruel bastards who didn't think you were people. Even if I could ask them, I'm not sure it changes anything. They entered your nest. They killed the chicks too young to resist and the nestmothers who tried to protect them. They took [02:24] the bodies. And they took the eggs. [02:28] "They probably buried or burned any of the bodies that were too human. Too much like them. Not only would it be hard to explain it to the rest of the clan, but they didn't want to think of you like that. The next day, they didn't want to present their mates and children with the slaughtered corpses of a proud people in close attunement with both Creation and the Wyld, who through skill [02:28] and instinct learned a balancing point between two worlds in conflict. [02:29] "They wanted roast duck. They wanted omelettes." [02:33] 14And Stranger sees in Qaile's eyes now another familiar thing: the wisdom to know not to attack Stranger, or the four human children behind him on the road. The virtue to demand justice in the face of duty -- and then to do his duty anyway. [02:41] "It is a horrific thing they did to you," 14Stranger says, "made even more horrific by its banality. It is an atrocity as old as Creation itself, and Creation has a long history; little of it pleasant. You and your people have shown admirable restraint in your revenge. You allowed their children and homemakers to live, after they took yours from you and desecrated them. [02:42] "But those who slaughtered have themselves been slaughtered. The man who led them, broken and made to beg for -- be complicit in -- his own death. [02:46] "It's time to talk. I'll be in the village. Please tell the Ambassador I look forward to dinner." [02:47] 14Stranger turns, and feels the crow's eyes bore into his shoulder blades every step of the way back to the road. [02:49] "What was that," 14Antiosh says quietly, hand on the hilt of his sword. Ra scurries onto Stranger's leg and the leaps up onto his shoulder. It appears he successfully kept the children from following Stranger off the road -- something he really should have remembered to tell them not to do. Good mouse. [02:50] 14There's a rustle, a great flapping of wings, and a sudden, strong breeze -- and then a crow shoots up into the air above the canopy, wheeling once overhead and cawing before flying due east. "That was you," 14Stranger tells him, "only different." [02:51] 4The boy with the sword frowns. "What's that mean?" [02:51] 14The boy with the sword frowns. "What's that mean?" [02:52] 14Stranger shakes his head. "Nothing. Nothing. We should get a move on. I'm afraid I'll have to impose on your kindness for a meal, Olla." [02:53] 14Olla frowns. "We have little food, but we would be happy to share what we have." [02:54] "Mmm. Unfortunately, there's a bit of a complication." 14Stranger grimaces. "You'll never guess who's coming to dinner..." 15[20:42] <@VoxPVoxD> The bell rings, and they descend en masse. Dozens of them, shoulder-to-shoulder, advancing in waves upon waves on the feeble tents. 15[20:43] <@VoxPVoxD> The people inside the tent always underestimate their numbers. They haven't the resources to satisfy them consistently. Sometimes their ill temper evaporates like morning mist. Sometimes they fall to grousing. More than once it has come to blows. 15[20:43] <@VoxPVoxD> But these are the rules of engagement at suppertime. 15[20:46] <@VoxPVoxD> After the cooks dish out the fish stew the Alliance supplies its work crews for weeknight supper, they congregate at wooden tables, usually two crews to a table, to eat busily and argue over the day's events. 15[20:47] <@VoxPVoxD> The topic that at the forefront of Mud and Straw's mind tonight is, as it so often is, culinary. 15[20:48] <@VoxPVoxD> "This is pig slop, boss. Back home my wife makes the best curried fish anywhere on the river. We should tell the foreman we want better food." 15[20:48] <@VoxPVoxD> Poco is a small man, hard worker. Prone to complaint and agitation. [20:48] 3The table hushes momentarily- but only momentarily- as the brick-laden sling is set to rest on the packed earthen floor with a tired grunt and the creaking of wood signals Mud and Straw's intentions to sit. 15[20:49] <@VoxPVoxD> "Shut up, stupid. You want to pick a fight over the food? The scaffold went down this afternoon, almost took two of Geli's crew with it. You didn't see that, though, did ya. Cause you were still at lunch, eating the food you're complaining about." 15[20:50] <@VoxPVoxD> Taigo is prone to complaint himself, but mostly about Poco. [20:51] 3He sits, eyes closed, wedged in tight between his workers. Three-men thick and half again as heavy, Mud and Straw's nostrils open to take in the aroma of the soupy mixture steaming in the bowl before him. Is that.. a hint of.. is it lamprey? [20:53] 3A crudely-carved wooden spoon is raised before the fat man's dust-caked beard. He sniffs again, rolls his wrist to stir the spoon's contents once over. 15[20:53] <@VoxPVoxD> It is. The work crews fish the rivers as they build the levee. Working the nets is tantamount to a day off. Usually the Grey provides - especially this far upriver from the pollution of Nexus. But lately the fish have been sickly, off-tasting, and sometimes downright strange. [20:54] 3He puts the spoon in his mouth, swishes it between his cheeks a moment, and then can bear the self-denial no longer. He swallows, and the spoon falls for another scoop, then another, then another. [20:55] "Just like like mother used to make, Poco." 3He never had fish as a child. [20:56] 3The bowl is soon empty. They've been using riverwater again, he can tell from the thin grains beetween his teeth and the grit on his gums. 15[20:57] <@VoxPVoxD> Mud's crew put in a full day today, and they worked hard, as they typically do. Almost half-finished, the levee's a sight to behold, a monument of earthwork scabbed over by wood-and-reed scaffolding as people adjust the blocks according to the dictates of the foreman, who studied architecture all the way on the Blessed Isle. 15[21:00] <@VoxPVoxD> It was hard, though. Like Taigo said, there was an accident just after lunch and two men out of another crew almost drowned. Mud's seen the foreman's records, before the foreman knew Mud could read. Only a third of the men and women working here under the banner of the Grey River Alliance can swim. [21:01] 3It's not a bad construction, Mud would say if they asked him. But they've been skimping on the bricks, and shoring up the foundations with mud. That won't last, not for years it won't. 15[21:03] <@VoxPVoxD> That's the prevailing problem with the project, as far as Mud can tell. There's competence, sure, there's backing. There's arms and backs fit for the work that needs to be done. But the one thing they lack - the one thing the project is suffering for - is vision. The foreman is a dreary little man, more accountant than architect. His principal concern is making sure the project stays under budget. [21:04] 3At present, there's only a handful of reasons the fat man hasn't complained; among them is the fear of alienating the cooks, who have yet to divulge their mashed buckwheat recipe upon him and the concern that the loss of his job and the end of his career could turn his weekly search for distilled spirits into more of a challenge. But first and foremost, Mud doesn't want to see this [21:04] 3all come crumbling down before it's even seen completion. So the man eats his muck-filled soup and advises others the same. [21:05] 3Brave men find a greater purpose in the army, and then become dead men. Smart men find a greater purpose in the bureaucracy and maybe, just maybe, he may get to have some finery in his life before cholera claims him. [21:07] 3But that's a bunch of navel-gazing, an activity that for Mud and Straw is beyond useless. The fat man leans forward and playfully catches the men on each of his sides in the crooks of his elbows, roaring with practiced joy. "Come on, guys! Another day, a talent's pay!" [21:07] 3Really it's more like a month, or several. But it never hurts to be optimistic. 15[21:08] <@VoxPVoxD> The men roar in time with him, and then, at turns, so do many of the other tables in the comissary. Mud's well-known around the camp, being both hard to miss and hard to ignore. He's largely well-liked, too. [21:08] "When the week's done, I'll buy us all a keg!" 15[21:08] <@VoxPVoxD> "So, boss," the voice is Tumir's. The others call him 'Oak' because some quirk of his lineage, some god or spirit or dragon-kissed wastrel some generations back presents itself in him as a shock of green, matted hair, with veins running through it like the backs of leaves. "What are you going to do when the contract's up?" [21:09] 3Incidentally, this is why Mud and Straw sleeps at the work-camp, as generosity is inversely proportional to his stated goal of achieving finery. Always his own worst enemy, Mud. [21:11] "Ahah.. well let's see.." 3Mud leans back,each arm still wrapped firmly around the neck of men at his side. He scratches his own beard as the bigger of the two fights him off. Grinning: "There's a whole other river a few hundred li to the south, I hear..." [21:12] "And, goodness, past nexus there's an even BIGGER one, and really if you think about it, the ocean's just a lake putting on airs." [21:15] 3The smaller man, his face now smooshed against Mud's belly for the better of several minutes, has finally capitulated his struggling. Mud lets him go with a laugh and bangs his fist on the table. "But that's too far ahead for Mud and Straw!" 15[21:19] <@VoxPVoxD> The orange light of sunset spills in through the tents. It's quite a sight, if you're the sight-seeing type, to watch the sun sink beneath the western horizon from atop the levee. Inside the tent, though, there's only the sound of raucous laughter. 15[21:20] <@VoxPVoxD> The laughter's so great that it takes Mud a while to notice that, outside, the still-thriving camp is oddly silent. [21:20] 3The fat man's croaking laugh sounds as though it could rip the fabric, and it takes him many minutes to bring his roiling folds of fat back under control. [21:22] 3He's still chuckling as he makes for the open flap, the candlelight spilling within out onto the darkened packed mud. "I'll go see if I can get us some of that rice-wine the supervisor was talking about t'other night!" 15[21:23] <@VoxPVoxD> An arrow zips by Mud's head, close enough that he can hear it buzz through the air as it pierces two candles at the flame, blowing them out and plunging the front of the tent into darkness. [21:23] 3People think Mud doesn't pay attention. That's what they get, thinking he can't pay attention. [21:25] 3But, you know what, that's on them. Mud and Straw hasn't been made a fool by anyone else other than Mud and Straw, and that's how it's always suited him. "BOYS, WE GOT BANDITS!" 3he roars into the night! [21:25] "GRAB YER SHOVELS AND THROW DOWN!" 15[21:25] <@VoxPVoxD> Outside there is quiet carnage. Half a dozen men are dead, arrows in their necks and backs, some of them slumped at the shoreline, the Grey bearing their blood on to the sea. Others are held in silent grips, a hand over their mouth and a blade to their throat, as dark figures hold them perilously close to the high river. [21:26] 3Mud's face balloons in hideous fury. Those are- THOSE ARE HIS FRIENDS! [21:27] 3Swollen, sausage-like fingers close around the jute rope holding the brick-sling. His free hand closes around the muddied handle of the bronze shovel. 15[21:27] <@VoxPVoxD> As the men inside the tent clamor in anger and confusion, Mud notices something worse. The main of the levee, the solid embankment that holds the river away from the camp when it's high and angry, as it is tonight, is cracking. A spiderweb of dark fissures spread out from a raw red sign carved into the stone, something harsh and profane that seems slick with blood in the dark. [21:27] 3Friends first, dam later. 15[21:29] <@VoxPVoxD> People are coming out of the tent now, behind Mud, holding picks and shovels and knives and pots from the cook-tents. There's not a sword between them, ten or fifteen men heeding the call rather than bickering with themselves inside the mess. [21:29] 3This is his project, this is his friends. This is him. They may as well have killed his mother, ancestors guide her to rest. 15[21:30] <@VoxPVoxD> The nearest attacker is about fifteen yards out, nocking an arrow. There are more in every direction towards the river, engaged in private struggles. 15[21:30] <@VoxPVoxD> They are but black silhouettes against the deepening sky - the torches are out. [21:31] 3Mud and Straw raises the sling of bricks before him, a makeshift shield that creaks and groans with each swing. He widens his stance, kicking off his sandals and letting his toes down into the thick of the mud. [21:34] 3The roar's not even thrown from his lips between gobs of saliva before the obese shiftmaster is crashing forward through the bloodied tentfabric, swinging a hundred pound sling of bricks and dragging the sharpened shovel in his wake like an impromptu axe. [21:44] 3It doesn't make any sense. Mud's been with this crew for years, he's seen them fight riverbeasts and give even the Foreman's guards pause that one time pay was late. There's no way a bunch of no-name bracket-stealing scavenger-land scum could do.. this. [21:45] 3Unless- unless. Mud is in mid-swing as his eyes glance over at the cracking levees and suddenly it's all completely obvious. 15[21:50] <@VoxPVoxD> Another arrow goes whizzing by Mud, this one throwing off his balance and causing his mighty blow to go wide. Mud gets in close enough to smell the dank, wet rot of the archer's body, and see its tattered hide armor drip water on the ground. 15[21:50] <@VoxPVoxD> Smoothly it nocks another arrow. [21:58] 3Mud staggers forward behind the whistling sling of bricks, tears trailing the corners of his eyes. Those are his friends-! 15[21:58] <@VoxPVoxD> The next arrow cuts through Mud's work clothes and pins him briefly to the ground. The archer doesn't make a sound. His face is bloated and flaking away with decay. [22:02] 3A meaty palm grabs the mud-slicked shaft and squeezes, crushing the waterlogged wood to slime. At his side lies the sling of bricks, the rope collapsed and the bricks spilled across the muck. Mud, now covered in it, doesn't get up; instead, he splashes his hands and feet, lunging up to grab the archer by his collar! [22:10] 3The Fat Man grabs at the apex of his lunge and allows the merciful grip of gravity to do the lion's share of the effort, attempting to drag his assailant down into the muck in what is almost certainly the most classic workman technique for grounding and preparing to work over a man what wronged you. 15[22:16] <@VoxPVoxD> The next arrow doesn't even slow Mud down. 15[22:18] <@VoxPVoxD> The archer's back is to the levee now. Water's seeping through the cracks. [22:19] 3Like the beast from down below, Mud's fingers, thick as snakes from a hearty meal of ugali and honeyed dough wrap like ripe around the archer's neck and pull him inevitably down into the mud. [22:22] 3And now HE is on top. [22:23] 3Slick palms grasp for a weapon. The shovel, the sling, anything- and then Mud's fingers close around a heavy, angular object. [22:25] 3Mud sinks to his haunches atop the creature, letting his weight pin it down as with his free hand he brings the brick crashing down, splashing blackened viscera with each hammering blow. 15[22:32] <@VoxPVoxD> The work crews spill out from the comissary tents, brandishing tools and implements, and fanning out looking for monsters. 15[22:34] <@VoxPVoxD> The undead creature nocks another arrow, unsteadily now as one of its arms are broken. It raises it in the same stance, unevenly now that one of its legs is longer than the other. But the physics the arrow describes are the same. Another arrow requires Mud to swat it away with a great swing of his arms, leaving his vast torso exposed again. 15[22:34] <@VoxPVoxD> The fat man casts a long shadow in the nearly setting sun. [22:40] 3Mud is screaming. A lot of people are screaming, now, as the swarthy workmen pick up shove and adze and awl and, hardened from a lifetime's work under the blazing sun, present a not-insignificant fighting force in their own right. A tent behind Mud explodes as one of the workleaders slashes down upon it with a heavy iron chain. [22:43] 3The brick, discarded. Mud is still on top of the abomination, arms locked around its neck as it still fumbles for the bow. He picks it up, slams it down into the mud. Something cracks inside; others are leaking. Mud picks it up, slams it down. Their tussling has slowly migrated toward the side of the levee, festooned with the project's ropes and scaffolds. [22:56] 3The fat man staggers out of the mudpit like a furious bull hippopotamus, dragging the muddied, bloodied archer with him, still weakly trying to string its bow even as Mud smashes it bodily against the fire-hardened bricks and hurls it airborne, spinning, to dash upon the rocks on the riverside of the levee. [22:57] 3That was only one. [23:01] 3Mud is gasping, staggering back through the mudpit, improbably only nearly slipping in the slick muck, sliding to a stop close to where the abomination attacked him. Gotta do something, gotta do something- 15[23:01] <@VoxPVoxD> The battle rages on up and down the river, as the undead - and they are all undead, Mud is sure, now - and the workmen face pitched battle on the scaffolding, atop the levee, and along the riverbank. The tide is turning. 15[23:01] <@VoxPVoxD> There's a moment of sheer relief when even the blood-red sigil cut into the stone flickers and goes dim. 15[23:01] <@VoxPVoxD> And then Mud sees why. 15[23:01] <@VoxPVoxD> The levee bursts. [23:02] 3No no no no gods no  no no nononono grandpapa no 15[23:03] <@VoxPVoxD> The Grey River surges out from between the cracks, rushing around the crumbling stone and collapsing scaffolding, spreading out to consume the camp. 15[23:03] <@VoxPVoxD> The water is choked with living and dead alike, all of them pulled down and out in the current. It's as high as Mud's ever seen it, as swift, as fierce - why?? 15[23:04] <@VoxPVoxD> Then, floating almost lazily on the river's surface, buoyed by a swarm of blowflies, are two amphibian heads, eyes blown out, tongues lolling, joined at a neck that's been rotted to mush. 15[23:06] <@VoxPVoxD> But as the river surges and spreads, there's a more immediate concern - past the work camps are the larger facilities, the semipermanent township built in the levee's shadow. There's an infirmary, there's dormitories... a little prayer pagoda. A few dozen workers even brought their families out here. 15[23:06] <@VoxPVoxD> And all of it will soon be washed away. [23:07] 3Mud and Straw stands up to his belly in the fetid water watching drowned bodies drift by and decides in that moment that it will not come to pass. 15[23:07] <@VoxPVoxD> The sun is setting. The air is hot and harsh in Mud's throat. His comrades are drowning, their spouses and children will soon follow. The levee, raised in defiance of the gods, is crumbling, and so too has the god who hated it most. [23:08] 3He breathes in. 15[23:08] <@VoxPVoxD> It's inescapable. It's inevitable. A simple and irreversible fact of the age is this: things fall apart. 15[23:08] <@VoxPVoxD> Breathe in. 15[23:09] <@VoxPVoxD> The sun sets, and his soul ignites, rising into the air as if to catch one last glimpse of it before the flat earth hides it in the fullness of night. [23:23] 4My soul burns hotter. [23:23] 3Mud and Straw turns, drops the brick, and wades into the expanding tide of death and destruction. [23:24] 3A brick's just a lump of clay and sand until fired in the kiln, melted, tempered, hardened. [23:30] 3The water pushes them into his waiting arms, spread wide to hold them all. Waterlogged timber, floating rivergrass, the long-dead, the freshly-dead. Mud and Straw pushes forward against the tide, and it yields to him. With each step the footfalls grow louder, reverberating through the water and sending up a spray of foam. The dripping mass catches and clogs, growing in size with each [23:30] 3step back toward the breach until with a disgusting slurp the now hill-sized mound of twisted bodies, logs, and muck finds purchase in the middle of the breach. [23:30] 3It is only then, as the gushing streams thin to rivulets where muck meets brick, that Mud allows himself to open his eyes: [23:31] 3Hanging above him is heaven. [23:32] 3Towering spires shoot to endless heights, each brick engraved with the high deeds of the men and women who crafted it it. Great manses and cathedrals, buttressed on pure, gleaming marble and bejewelled in stones with no earthly like. 15[23:36] <@VoxPVoxD> The corpses and debris fit into the cracks like puzzle pieces. The water pressure sucks them in further, actually tightening the seal. 15[23:36] <@VoxPVoxD> Mud and Straw exhales. The levee holds. [23:37] 3Statues stand in phalanx across the rooftops, grooves perfectly designed to channel the rainwater into torrential displays of architectural prowess. A great crane spun of orichalcum and steel raises a grand statuary into its place on a single thread of divine thread, from which the fates cut lengths to measure the days of men. [23:38] 3The face of the saint he recognizes, as the crane sets its load into its appointed niche; it is his own. 15[23:40] <@VoxPVoxD> There's still a rush of floodwater heading for the stabler campsite. Men are washing up on the shore of the river. By Mud's reckoning, a little over half of them that went in. [23:40] 3There are others still alive, Mud registers, and turns away from the odd display. But it is dark. 15[23:41] <@VoxPVoxD> It's not that dark, with Heaven above. [23:41] 3Is the remaining floodwater deep enough to flood the camp? [23:43] 3Regardless, Mud wades forward through the calf-high water, scanning for survivors. He'll carry them out over his shoulder two at a time, if need be. 15[23:46] <@VoxPVoxD> The floodwater will damage the camp, but the people aren't in any danger. [23:46] 3He follows in its wake, picking men and bodies out of the wreckage. [23:46] 3Please let nobody else die tonight. [23:50] 3He is covered from head to toe in the muck, his gut piercing through the water like the prow of a very curiously-designed boat. 15[23:51] <@VoxPVoxD> Mud trudges through the water, heaven high and hot above him. The sod-and-wood buildings don't hold up well in the flood - they'll all need extensive repairs, but the people in the camp are moving in a surprisingly orderly fashion, going to higher ground, staying tightly close to high torches held in the center of the group. 15[23:51] <@VoxPVoxD> Did they have emergency drills when Mud wasn't looking? 15[23:54] <@VoxPVoxD> Giving orders is the foreman, Caius Palla. He's speaking calmly and clearly, even though his pants are rolled up to his knees and his legs are embarrassingly pale. 15[23:54] <@VoxPVoxD> It looks like everyone's basically alright. People aren't even paying that much attention to Mud. [23:54] 33First thing's first: Make sure not a one, not a single one of those dead things has made it this far, and then go speak to the foreman. 15[23:54] <@VoxPVoxD> There's no sign of undead this far from the river. 15[23:55] <@VoxPVoxD> The foreman does a double take as Mud gets close. "What?!" He looks up. "What." 15[23:55] <@VoxPVoxD> "What." [23:55] "It's real bad down by the levee, boss." 3Mud murmurs, having sloshed out of the muck and onto the dry ground. [23:55] "I'm here to make a report for crew thirty-three." 15[23:56] <@VoxPVoxD> "Oh, uh, what is," the foreman blinks. "Report." [23:57] "I'm the only one what's left, and the levee almost broke. Patched it up, though." [23:57] 3He gestures over his shoulder with his thumb, back toward the sound of the running water. 15[23:57] <@VoxPVoxD> "Are you hurt?" [23:59] 3Mud stands there in silence for a moment longer, gasping like a carp on the floor of a fisherman's boat. "...No." [23:59] "I... we need to go back!" [23:59] "There could still be survivors!" 15[00:00] <@VoxPVoxD> Caius: "Yes, you're right. The civilians are safe now. The next step is recovering survivors from the river." [00:01] "With your permission, foreman, I could take some security and go back to the levee-" 3He wipes the mud from his eyes, easing the dull sting. [00:02] "I don't understand, I think- I think it was sabotage." [00:02] "Daspes is dead." 15[00:04] <@VoxPVoxD> "That's good procedure. We need to keep most of the guards posting watch with the civilians, but I can spare eight men." Caius turns and whistles, and a few armed men break off from the civilian groups and converge on the foreman. Each of them does a similar double-take at the sight and burning of Mud and Straw before settling into a stoic focus. "Where to?" 15[00:05] <@VoxPVoxD> The foreman gives no response to the apparent death of Daspes. [00:05] 3Mud points. "I would ask for a torch to light the way as he we go, but." 15[00:06] <@VoxPVoxD> "Sure. Let's go." [00:06] 3He sloshes off back into the spillwater, turning to regard the guards with him. "Come. be wary of any bodies you see." 15[00:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Mud and the eight guards march down to the riverside. 15[00:06] <@VoxPVoxD> The good news: [00:07] 3He starts off, the light pouring off him, glittering torchlike on the surface of the murky water. 15[00:07] <@VoxPVoxD> -There are numerous survivors groaning, passed-out, or staring in vacant rapture up at the sky, all along the riverbank and up against the levee. 15[00:07] <@VoxPVoxD> -All of the drowned dead seem to have been destroyed or washed away. 15[00:07] <@VoxPVoxD> -The levee continues to hold. 15[00:07] <@VoxPVoxD> The bad news: 15[00:08] <@VoxPVoxD> -There are still far fewer men at the levee than there should be. Mud would estimate 20, 30 dead, or two out of every five workers who were at the river tonight. [00:09] 3Poco? Taigo? 15[00:09] <@VoxPVoxD> Almost all of Mud's crew are accounted for. Taigo is the lone missing man. But Taigo could swim. He might've ended up downstream. 15[00:10] <@VoxPVoxD> -The levee, ingenious though its plug may be, will require extensive repairs and likely, Mud notices, a full redesign in order to contain the river at its highest. 15[00:10] <@VoxPVoxD> For now, though, in the moment, there is peace. [00:10] "Then the rest were washed downstream." [00:11] 3Mud sits atop a pile of muddied gravel at what he can only assume is the ruins of the old bricksmithing station. "Tomorrow morning we'll send out a party downstream for the missing. For now, try and take a tally so we know exactly who is missing." 15[00:12] <@VoxPVoxD> "Yes, sir." [00:12] 3Why would someone do this? Why had the foreman so expertly organized the stable evacuation? 15[00:12] <@VoxPVoxD> The guards work quick. dragging men in neat rows, laying them out in workgroups. [00:12] 3He couldn't possibly- could he? [00:13] 3He's the foreman. The mere idea is preposterous. 15[00:13] <@VoxPVoxD> It's quite late by the time everyone's accounted for and in sickbeds or resting. 15[00:13] <@VoxPVoxD> Many of the men in sickbeds are babbling about Heaven. 15[00:13] <@VoxPVoxD> The foreman, however, is not. "Mud, do you have a moment?" 15[00:14] <@VoxPVoxD> "The administrator wanted to talk to you." [00:15] "I'm hardly at my best, boss." 3He can but offer a weak chuckle. Not an inch of his body is unsoiled by muck. [00:15] "But for the good of the project, of course!" 15[00:16] <@VoxPVoxD> The administrator's office is luckily at the far end of the camp, where the flood waters couldn't quite reach. There's a short porch, so only the first step up to the little building is wet before Mud steps on it. 15[00:16] <@VoxPVoxD> It's quite cozy in here. The administrator is sitting at a little desk, clearly hammered from raw wood by workmen, looking over a ledger. "Sit, please," she says without looking up. [00:17] 3Normally, both Mud and the Administrator would insist that the former bathe before meeting him. Today is under unusual circumstances, however. [00:17] 3Squish. 15[00:18] <@VoxPVoxD> By now, Mud's bonfire has gone out, and though he feels the breath of the earth with every step he takes, it hasn't ignited within him like that since. "I understand you did exemplary work protecting our crews, their families, and the levee." [00:19] "I... uh, I y-yeah, Yeah I did!" 3He laughs, thumping his palm against his chest with a wet smack. 15[00:21] <@VoxPVoxD> The administrator looks up. The candlelight catches in the lenses of her glasses, giving them a yellowish glare. "I think it would be to the benefit of the project if you took over as foreman. Do you agree?" [00:22] 3Mud returns a confused stare. "....Nope." [00:23] "I like my job. I do good work." [00:23] "I never had any problems with Caius." 15[00:26] <@VoxPVoxD> "Mmm. I suspected as much. The problem is this: Caius will resign tomorrow. The chief engineer is gone, and given this disaster, we won't soon find an adequate replacement. Caius ran an efficient project, but ultimately not, I fear, an effective one." 15[00:26] <@VoxPVoxD> "You, however, would excel here." 15[00:26] <@VoxPVoxD> "You could lead from the front, managing work crews directly. Getting your hands dirty. Hauling bricks, if you like." 15[00:26] <@VoxPVoxD> "It would be, in essence, your project." [00:28] 3Squish. He's leaning forward, squinting. "...My project." 15[00:29] <@VoxPVoxD> "Entirely." [00:30] 3The wet leather is beginning to chafe his thighs, so Mud balances back and forth between buttocks, his terror now giving way to cautious excitement. [00:30] "I.. well, what the hell, not bad for the son of a no-account farmer, you got yourself a new foreman." 15[00:32] <@VoxPVoxD> The administrator smiles. "I'm happy to get you where you need to go." [00:34] "First thing tomorrow I'm gonna put out an order for some additional cooking equipment and cooks. Some people in the workcrew, not naming names," 3hegrits his teeth and looks bashfully from side to side, "been saying there's graints of mud in the curried fish. Crazy talk, I know." [00:34] "But you know, after this accident, we're gonna need to raise morale." 15[00:35] <@VoxPVoxD> "Of course. Whatever you need." 15[00:35] <@VoxPVoxD> "For now, you should get some rest. Big day tomorrow." 15[21:01] <@VoxPVoxD> Supper has come and gone, and Xu Sim sits among the dying. 15[21:02] <@VoxPVoxD> It's a small, prosperous kingdom, and the man in the deathbed was a small, prosperous king. But some maladies are beyond any mortal genius to cure. Some roads to the next life cannot be traveled backwards. 15[21:04] <@VoxPVoxD> Novak the Shepherd lived long and ruled well enough. He's surrounded by family that, in this last, vulnerable moment, truly love him, and who many mourn his passing. 15[21:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Of Xu Sim they're less fond. Novak often consulted with the physician-sorcerer in his final months, and the princelings and advisors crowd the room (though none save Novak's wife has a more prominent position than Xu Sim at the bedside) have taken to suspecting him of manipulating the dying king, of dripping poison into his ear alongside the medicine in his throat. [21:07] 05 Xu Sim's skin would be browner, if he spent any time outdoors. His hair would be darker, if it was not exposed, despite his best caution, to all manner of alchemical reagents. And his shoulders, draped in a simple robe, wide sleeves pulled back to reveal careful, scarred hands, might not be quite so stooped if Man was not meant to be Mortal. 15[21:07] <@VoxPVoxD> None would dare give that thought voice in Novak's presence, but Xu Sim can feel their eyes on him, and the hate in those gazes is like a heavy hand on the neck. [21:08] 05 After a beat: [21:09] "My lady." [21:12] 05 His fingers feel for any pulse, any sign of life that might yet remain within the King. It's certainly a lost cause, however. He knew that morning that the digestion had stopped, that the King's guts were filling with black blood, that his body had begun to die even as the last of his spirit clung to the body, with only a mild tincture of laudanum to dull the pain and senses. 15[21:13] <@VoxPVoxD> Outside the window, in the deepening honey-colored light of late afternoon, visible as a subtle elaboration of the horizon, are the great walls of Lookshy. Queen Lenora has a hand on the king's brow, and her head is bowed. She doesn't acknowledge the doctor. 15[21:18] <@VoxPVoxD> Novak hasn't quite passed yet; his breathing is shallow and labored but it hasn't yet stopped. Xu Sim would guess he has about an hour lef.t [21:19] 05 Above the deathbed is a small vial of blue glass, wrapped in bands of brown leather. Trailing from its opening is a delicate silken strand. Xu reaches delicately toward the bottle and allows a drop of the liquid within it to collect on the thread; he slowly manipulates the droplet across the thread and into Novak's mouth. [21:27] 05 The tincture so administered, he turns in his seat to a small, low table lying next to the bed. He sifts through the materials there - a scalpel for bloodletting, bottles of leeches and other insects, more vials - of mercury, cinnabar, powdered lead, scrolls of carefully brushed notes, a collection of quartz crystals of varying colors, tree-wax, fresh ginger root, dried centipedes - all... [21:27] ...these and more, the tools of his ministration. 15[21:28] <@VoxPVoxD> One of the king's cousins cannot restrain themselves. "What are you feeding him?" [21:31] "Sixteen parts water. Four parts honey, collected from bees fed on chrysanthemum flowers. Three parts powdered ginger. One part butter fat. One part powdered oyster shell, for thickening. One dash of powdered elemental brimstone. A few other trace ingredients." 15[21:33] <@VoxPVoxD> The same cousin: "What could that possibly do for him? Honey and brimstone?" [21:36] "The brimstone may spur his black bile from the complacency of laudanum. And the honey, I learned long ago, helps a spoonful of medicine go down. For him, a few drops should now suffice." 15[21:40] <@VoxPVoxD> Lenora looks up, first at Xu Sim and then at the rest of the room. "Where is Piotr? Where is my son?" 15[21:41] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr, heir apparent, is not in the room. He's been seeing to his father only sporadically in the past few weeks. 15[21:42] <@VoxPVoxD> One of the advisors: "My lady, he is absorbed in his grief. The eastern tower..." [21:44] 05 Xu's eyebrow twitches. [21:44] "He should be here. Summon him, straightaway." 15[21:48] <@VoxPVoxD> "Magus, with due respect--" 15[21:49] <@VoxPVoxD> Queen Lenora: "Do it." 15[21:49] <@VoxPVoxD> "...right away, your majesty." [21:49] 05 Xu glances at the advisor, then back at the Queen. 15[21:52] <@VoxPVoxD> Neither meets his gaze. 15[21:53] <@VoxPVoxD> The advisor is gone for some time, during which Novak coughs, foamy spittle clinging to his lips. The queen wipes it away. [21:53] 05 Xu Sim carefully stretches his hand and reaches for a small silver chalice. He holds it a fingerbreadth above Novak's mouth and nose, for three breaths, and then brings it to his own face to examine the King's own breath. 15[21:56] <@VoxPVoxD> The breath is subtly necrotic - parts of him are already dead. It won't be long now. [21:57] 05 He glances behind him. Has Piotr returned? 15[21:57] <@VoxPVoxD> When the advisor returns, the prince is in tow. Piotr is a tall, strong man, wearing fine robes and talismans - Xu Sim has always suspected Piotr of being a sorcerer himself, though he'd never admit such things, as sorcerers are typically regarded with mistrust that an heir apparent can ill afford. 15[22:01] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr sweeps past the extended family to take a place by his mother's side. "Mother..." he places a gloved hand over one of his father's. "Father..." [22:05] 05 Xu nods, deferentially. Piotr has grieved heavily, and final moments like these can bring important closure. 15[22:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Novak seizes up slightly a moment after his son touches him. Only slightly, though - Xu Sim's medicine eases the worst of the pain. "All will be well," Piotr whispers. 15[22:06] <@VoxPVoxD> Novak's last breaths are phlegmy and weak. 15[22:07] <@VoxPVoxD> Lenora's face is in her hands. Piotr crosses the king's arms delicately and wipes the last of the spittle from his mouth. 15[22:07] <@VoxPVoxD> Nobody says anything for some time. [22:07] 05 Xu withdraws the strand of silk from the old king's mouth and puts a small cork stopper in the bottle. [22:10] 05 His heart is genuinely heavy - the old man was not a bad client, especially before the illness took its final turn for the worst . [22:12] 05 And of course, the very real possibility these nobles might try to lynch him is not to be discounted. 15[22:14] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr rises to his full height. His shoulders seem heavier now. "We have. We have arrangements to make." He guides his mother out of the room. 15[22:20] <@VoxPVoxD> Something catches Xu Sim's eye as they depart. There's something in the color of Piotr's skin, a certain jaundice, nearly concealed by his long sleeves and gloves and the honey-colored light of the late day. Novak himself had that same cast to his skin when Xu Sim was first sought for treatment. [22:24] 05 Xu rises to his feet, squinting in disbelief as the son departs. What on earth? Is this a new jaundice? He glances back at the princelings, hangers-on, and grieving family members - do they bear such a discoloration? 15[22:25] <@VoxPVoxD> They do not. It seems the son alone is afflicted. [22:27] 05 It's possibly extremely dangerous - and, what's more, it's singularly peculiar. Xu bursts into the corridor after them. 15[22:28] <@VoxPVoxD> The ferocity of this startles the queen and prince when Xu Sim catches up with them on the way to the king's study. "Scholar?" Piotr never uses the word 'magus'. [22:30] "Your arm!" 05 he stammers, distractedly. [22:30] "Your Grace," 05 he attempts to recover [22:30] "Pardon my impertinence, but I am terribly concerned by the jaundiced appearance of the skin, on your arm. Your grace." 15[22:31] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr's eyes narrow. "Mother, see to the ministers. I need to speak with the Scholar." [22:31] "Yes, most urgently!" 05 concurs the man of medicine. 15[22:32] <@VoxPVoxD> Whatever emotion plays across the queen's face is hidden to them both; she has put on the mantle of courtly dignity that she requires to conduct herself as queen even in this moment of grief. Collecting herself, she says. "Go, then. I will handle them." 15[22:32] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr: "Please. To my study. Where we can have some privacy." [22:34] "Yes, of course. I fear I needs must conduct a full examination." 15[22:37] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr leads Xu Sim to the highest tower of the palace, which from its highland perch is already treated one of of the finest views in all Creation. From the wide banks of the Yanaze to the fortress-city of Lookshy and the sea beyond, to the farmlands that lead into Nexus in the distance - on a clear day a keen eye can see for hundreds of miles. 15[22:42] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr's study is impressive - odds and ends from every corner of Creation, at a glance, must have taken a fortune to collect. And books that vary from brand-new to astonishingly ancient. There's a heavy, deep green rug over the wooden floor, and the desk is covered in parchment in symbols Xu Sim can't read. They surround a drawing of something that might be a human head, or might be some horrifying grub eating a human head. 15[22:42] <@VoxPVoxD> "Sit, please." 15[22:42] <@VoxPVoxD> "Drink with me." [22:46] 05 Xu scans through the regalia. It is even more impressive than the view, in its own way. What knowledge must be contained within this study! 15[22:47] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr reaches for a decanter with his gloved hands and sets it on the desk, covering the drawing of the head. Then he produces two glasses from cabinets under his desk. After pouring a drink for Xu Sim and one for himself, he sits. "You have keen eyes, Scholar." [22:50] "You honor me, your Grace. But are you not afraid for your safety?" 05 Xu takes a seat as well, and the glass, which he discretely examines. Something about the situation seems increasingly amiss, but it would take some nerve to try to poison an alchemist. 15[22:52] <@VoxPVoxD> The glass obscures Piotr's smile as he drinks. After he sets the glass down. "I have powerful friends." 15[22:54] <@VoxPVoxD> Xu Sim's paranoia is warranted. 15[22:57] <@VoxPVoxD> It's deviously subtle - in the glass, rather than the decanter, the discoloration of it obscured by the intricate carving-work done at the glass's heavy base. The poison itself is a preparation of some obscure heavy metal, something native to the barren wastes of the south, where it's occasionally admixed with firewand powder for aesthetic effect - it will produce a brilliant green muzzle flash when discharged from a flame piece. [23:00] 05 Xu tries not to betray the revelation as he raises the glass to his lips. He lowers it again, pensively. 15[23:01] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr: "In truth, I fell ill before Father did." [23:02] "I don't doubt you have very powerful friends, Piotr. But such a sickness is very serious." 05 he gives a level stare at the King-in-waiting. 15[23:03] <@VoxPVoxD> "You did admirably in slowing Father's necrosis - it's not uncommon for people to lose limbs to the affliction. You couldn't keep the rot out of his guts, but we'll be able to hold a proper state funeral for him." 15[23:03] <@VoxPVoxD> "I pity him his weakness. He would never have accepted a permanent solution." [23:04] "Surely, his is the only truly permanent solution." [23:04] "Though lamentable." 15[23:05] <@VoxPVoxD> The heir shakes his head. "There are greater forces in this world than death, Scholar." 15[23:05] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr takes off his left glove, revealing a half-rotted hand, withered and dark, wrapped up in a gauntlet of metal that seems dug into his flesh. Viridian light spills from the joints, which are many and fine indeed. [23:07] 05 Xu Sim recoils, but only for an instant. 15[23:08] <@VoxPVoxD> "You are a sorcerer, that much is beyond dispute. Have you treated with demons, Scholar?" [23:09] "Not to date. And this is the result of your explorations into such?" 15[23:11] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr: "They're not all animals, tempters, monsters. There are demons who offer us wholeness. Who can bring health where death would have come. He demands only flesh that would be given to rot." 15[23:11] <@VoxPVoxD> "I know you didn't drink, by the way. You wouldn't be upright if you had." 15[23:12] <@VoxPVoxD> "He requires only one final sacrifice of me. It doesn't need to be painless." 15[23:12] <@VoxPVoxD> "You should be flattered. I need the brain of a genius." [23:16] "I would not be much of a genius without it, I'm afraid. So I must refuse your generous flattery, a final time." [23:18] "Perhaps, if we had worked together, your father would still be alive. It seems such a waste to do things your way." 15[23:19] <@VoxPVoxD> Outside, the sun is setting. Is the air getting warmer? Xu Sim feels a prickle of heat at the back of his throat. 15[23:20] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr sighs. "It's too late. He's already coming. Tonight, at the new moon. He will need something." [23:22] "I don't think you've thought this plan of yours through very thoroughly, Piotr. There has to be another way." 15[23:23] <@VoxPVoxD> "You have no idea what I've been through. I was a demon already, you know. Out in the desert. It was a night like tonight. They cursed me. I became Anathema." 15[23:23] <@VoxPVoxD> "I wandered for days. And out there, in the desert, I found a road to Hell." [23:24] "And you followed it?" 15[23:25] <@VoxPVoxD> He takes his own empty glass and crushes it to sand in his gauntlet. "That sound... that gentle shattering sound... it's only one note of their music. Their endless, beautiful music." [23:27] "But you returned," %c05 he reasons. [23:28] "Is that necrosis some parting gift of your demonic hosts?" 15[23:30] <@VoxPVoxD> "No. This is." Piotr clenches his fist, and the viridian light flares, reflected in the sweat on his brow, and... lingering. There's a brand on his forehead, visible in that light, a half-filled semicircle that glows a sickly green. 15[23:30] <@VoxPVoxD> Behind Xu Sim, a heavy iron bar falls on the door, locking them in. It'd take three men to lift that. 15[23:30] <@VoxPVoxD> "Walk with me to hell." 15[23:31] <@VoxPVoxD> Xu Sim's heart pounds. His throat burns. Did he get poisoned after all? What is this? The world is moving, the world is spinning, the world is alive-- 15[23:31] <@VoxPVoxD> Breathe in. [23:34] "No." 05 Xu feels bizarre. A thousand mortal lifetimes worth of memories flash before him in an instant. He can comprehend so much more now, but even the sudden flash of cognition isn't enough to process what he realizes he has to do next. [23:37] 05 He slams his hand down on the endtable, flinging the poisoned glass at Piotr's face. [23:39] 05 He then backflips behind the chair to take a concealed position, but it's not fast enough to hide. 15[23:44] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr swats it away, and his soul burns hot and sick. If it weren't for Xu Sim himself, it'd be dazzling to behold. His other glove comes off, revealing an intact hand, and together his arms move in great, sweeping gestures, stopping at precise points, shaping the world's Essence to call some great magic forth. [23:45] 05 Swirling mandalas of brilliant mathematical Truths inscribed in ancient, modern, and unspoken tongues and scripts envelop the man. [23:53] 05 As Piotr chants, Xu Sim drops into his own, opposed, cantata in a language he has never heard natively spoken - or has he? His voice is sonorous as it rings out, invoking a different reality from the one the enemy sorceror is attempting to bring about, sloughing away his magic - if inefficiently. 15[23:56] <@VoxPVoxD> It's efficient enough to anger Piotr, who endeavors to shout him down with alien proclamations, the laws and song of some distant and terrible land where silence is death and freedom is a stranger. He describes its borders mathematically, anatomically - it is a warning, a promise, a curse. He burns brighter, but still not bright enough to drown out Xu Sim. Outside it is well dark. It's like hours have passed rather than minutes. [00:22] "Have you no shame? Didn't you ever learn right from wrong?"05 Outmatched in direct sorcerous competition, Xu Sim opts for a more direct approach - vaulting across the room and, at the last moment, dropping and falling - his whole body twisting into a kick aimed upwards and sideways, straight for the chin of the diabolical Piotr. [00:22] "Your mother will need a son, not a devil!" 15[00:23] <@VoxPVoxD> Piotr is strong, dreadfully so - he casts Xu Sim's kick aside, but it breaks his concentration. There's an opening... [00:33] 05 This fight will end in disaster if Xu Sim doesn't find a way to end it. But something about the window, that beautiful view, the setting sun - it holds the answer. Shouting words he does not recognize, words his tongue has never spoken, Xu Sim rushes again towards Piotr. Such strength! But Xu digs his heels in, his arms and hands flail for purchase on the infernalist's body. The beads of... [00:33] ...one of his talismans, a grand bejewelled affair, slip around his thumb, and the much shorter Xu finds himself lifting up, below the center of gravity - and pushing - as hard as he can - towards the narrow glass of the window-- 15[00:40] <@VoxPVoxD> It feels like midnight. The sky outside is black as pitch, safe for the radiance spilling from the window, the colors of a painterly sunset. Piotr falls, the chain of the talisman breaking and leaving the bulk of it in Xu Sim's hand. Piotr pinwheels in the air a moment, but the tower is very tall, and he's able to compose himself before a fatal impact. He reaches out and his gauntleted hand digs into the wall, half-melting a furrow in the stone, splintering wood. Smoke rises. 15[00:41] <@VoxPVoxD> Guards are outside. An alarum sounds. The noise is chaotic. [00:42] 05 Midnight - could the ritual be stopped? Piotr said it was out of control-- 15[00:43] <@VoxPVoxD> There's a cloying, antiseptic smell in the air. 15[00:43] <@VoxPVoxD> It's the sort Xu Sim might himself employ to clean and mask the smell of a deeply infected wound. 15[00:43] <@VoxPVoxD> Despite Piotr's ejection, Xu Sim is acutely aware he is not alone in this room. [00:50] 05 Xu turns on his heel. he whips the talisman into his hand and begins spinning it around in the palm of his hand, mumbling half to himself as he carefully examines it. Giramande might strike at a moment's notice but there's another genius nearby whose brain might deserve to be eaten rather more than Xu Sim's. 15[00:52] <@VoxPVoxD> Indeed, Xu Sim can see a sickly green light coalesce in the center of the tower room, on the round green rug. The air is pulsing, suppurating. It's an ugly, artful thing. [01:04] 05 Working faster than he's ever worked before, Xu Sim coaxes into existence his most reliable sorcerous trick - six crystalline wings beat rapidly from the shining iridescent body of a jewel. He projects a tiny piece of his soul into it - a part that will relay what he has seen to Queen Lenora - her son has summoned a demon and in fact considers himself Anathema. [01:08] 05 Xu Sim watches as the air condenses and coalesces before him. The old trick is his last chance to escape - the light shining around him -- the anima -- it was simple enough to fold in on itself, to ride it out of time and space and escape to a different place, a place of power. [01:09] 05 As he concentrated in on stepping into the light blazing out from his forehead and Disappearing, he stared intently at Giramande, who would not be dining on his brains tonight if indeed he had anything to do with it. 15[01:10] <@VoxPVoxD> Giramande sways. 15[01:11] <@VoxPVoxD> He's nearly seven feet tall, rail thin. His skin is mottled and dark, where it's visible beneath a leather smock and the tools at his belt. His hands are long and clever and he holds them out for balance, a finger raised like he's demanding patience as he collects a thought. 15[01:12] <@VoxPVoxD> The thing on his head ripples and scuttles, insectile. Copper plates flatten and flare, and beneath them tiny flesh and metal pistols push and pull. When the panels are at their widest, Xu Sim can see the barest flashes of gray. 15[01:13] <@VoxPVoxD> The demon's eyes are obscured by copper plates, but Xu Sim can tell he's being watched. Studied. When the demon bows, it's as if his helmet has only just consented to gravity, pulling him fiercely downward. 15[01:14] <@VoxPVoxD> When he rises, much more slowly, Xu Sim is almost gone. He can hear only the crushing grasp of a metal claw on the windowsill, and see the demon's thin brown smile as he says, "All will be well. All shall be well." 15[01:16] <@VoxPVoxD> *** 15[01:16] <@VoxPVoxD> It's sunset again. 15[01:18] <@VoxPVoxD> Xu Sim is on the mountaintop. He can see the palace in the distance, through the long and marbled nave. It's a straight shot from this high temple to the palace. Xu Sim had heard of it. It was mighty, once - a true place of power. But now it's a ruin. Destroyed, so they say, by the Anathema, eons ago, in their fall. 15[01:19] <@VoxPVoxD> The mere thought of the word prickles his throat. Is that what he is now? 15[01:20] <@VoxPVoxD> He has time to contemplate this. Beyond the palace, beyond the walls of Lookshy, beyond the sea, the Blessed Isle - beyond the borders of all Creation, the sun sets. Come, twilight, come. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> The Flaeli are speedbumps enough at least that Keldar can clear the rest of the tomb and make it into the clearing with a moment to breathe. Anilom is standing there, staring at him. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> 12Keldar comes skidding out into the torchlight, practically falling forward, but he turns the motion into a sort of lunging stretch and ends up still on his feet. He twists around - it sound like the monster's still coming? 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> 12Keldar: "Fucking hell, Anilom! Didn't drop the ring too, didja?" 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> The beast is still coming, but Keldar had a very solid head start. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> "He did not." 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> It's at this moment that Anilom slumps to the ground, face in the grass, his back riddled with arrows. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> 12Keldar: "Listen up, a HUGE fucker of a bear's c-" 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> 12Steel scrapes as Keldar draws, immedaiately pushing a foot back towards the tomb as he peers over his blade at whoever's arrayed before him. "Fuck is this." 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> Tepet Sachin is visible over the heads of the Flaeli, all of whom have short swords and bows already at the ready. The ring is in his hands, and a tiny mote of his own anima swirls within it, a pale blue that matches the sky in these predawn moments. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> "Scavenger. Here we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. You have come for nothing. You will leave with less." Sachin barks a phrase. Keldar doesn't need to know Forest-tongue. He's heard "kill him" in just about every language those words are still said in this day and age. He holds the ring like a chakram and glides down from the riding-bird's back, settling lightly on his feet. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> Behind the Flaeli, on the horizon, the sky's turned pink. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> 12Sachin must've been harder up for money than he looked, Keldar thinks. Can't afford the actual fee, and can't afford the hit to reputation he'd take just plain not paying the company. So you pick a job that's real dangerous, reaaaal out of the way- "You son of a bitch." 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> At the same moment, with a thunderous crash, the bear spin-dashes out of the mouth of the tomb, emerging like a cannonball into the heart of the green. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> So it's come to this. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> A pack of killers before him. A beast of legend behind him, and in the middle one man, his sword, and his wits. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> In that moment, the sun crests the horizon, a flawless golden curve defying the line between land and sky, dictating day and night to the land below. 15[20:56] <@VoxPVoxD> Breathe in. 15[20:59] <@VoxPVoxD> 12Time slows as the monster rears up behind Keldar and the arrayed Flaeli recoil before him. The paws of the bear are a deathtrap and the natives encircle the tomb entrance completely, which means the only way, the only way out, is through. 15[20:59] <@VoxPVoxD> 12And the thing is, there are five arrows in Anilom's back, which means at least that many of the tribesmen have to die before Keldar's done here. 15[20:59] <@VoxPVoxD> 12These calculations take place in the split-second in which Keldar's stumbling forward slightly with the force of the monster's arrival, the next swear word he was preparing to loose knocked from his lungs by both the shaking of the earth and the sheer force of surprise. By the time the mercenary's steadied himself, though, he's decided on exactly what he needs to do - and step one is to take his next breath. [21:08] <@Ferrinus> 12It starts with sound. There's something like the spinning of a great wheel, or the shearing of metal against metal, or the splitting of thunderheads. It rises and rises in pitch and intensity, a promise of potential calamity that builds with every fraction of a degree that Keldar's chin rises, every ounce of force with which he tightens his grip. [21:11] <@Ferrinus> 12Then there's light. The rose-orange hues that had been rimming the edge of the ancient tomb and dappling the tops of the trees deepen and intensify, stretching down and out until it's as though no tomb or trees exist to obscure the colors of the sunrise. Piercing all that, though, is the sunrise itself, a golden-white radiance that flares directly behind Keldar and brightens even as [21:11] <@Ferrinus> 12the sound loudens, ray after ray stabbing out through the haze until eight in all frame the warrior. [21:14] <@Ferrinus> 12Finally, there's pressure. It's not a disc that's rising through the scenery behind Keldar, either shining so brightly so as to be seen even through the ground or actually shattering the very terrain with its approach, it's a sphere. The dawn is here, ripping apart the world, casting the ground that Keldar stands on in a washed-out glare that leaves every combatant sharply-defined [21:14] <@Ferrinus> 12but washes out everything irrelevant to war. Great wind and force blows hair and robe and bandanna away, as though Keldar, simply settling into a swordsman's stance, were rushing forward at all those assembled, tearing up the half-real terrain beneath him and framed and followed in every movement by an ascending, too-close sun. [21:16] <@Ferrinus> 12A stylized image of the celestial cataclysm that speeds behind Keldar now shines in bright, clear gold on the mercenary's brow. Keldar himself doesn't seem to have noticed what's happened, or else seems to have expected it, because he looks back at Sachin with simple, steely resolve. [21:16] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Come and get it." 15[21:17] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear roars. 15[21:17] <@VoxPVoxD> The Flaeli gasp. 15[21:17] <@VoxPVoxD> Sachin grins. 15[21:33] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear and Keldar collide, and for a moment the clearing is dimmed as the bear stands near enough to the blazing anima to throw a shadow over the land behind it. [21:33] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar dashes forward at the same moment as the bear of the cerulean wind lunges. The roaring around him intensifies as he covers ground, and he leaves a trail - the tip of his sword is held low, inches above the earth, and in the light of the Solar's anima the soil and rock itself splits and shatters, thrown into an eruption of fire and stones as the great glaring sun behind Keldar [21:33] <@Ferrinus> 12consumes the very terrain. A savage upward stroke smashes straight through the monster's descending paws, leaving the bear rolling backwards and Keldar briefly airborne. 15[21:37] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar rises into a tide of Flaeli arrows, which buffet his armor. [21:38] <@Ferrinus> 12He's got his sword up, blade turned flat and clasped with both gauntlets, but that just keeps the hail of angry points out of the Solar's face. They're otherwise as unavoidable as falling rain. 15[21:51] <@VoxPVoxD> A bright spot shines in the bear's shadow as Sachin's anima flares blue, flaking apart at the edges, creating the impression of feathers on the wind. He holds the ring in his hand and hurls it. As it spins in a hissing arc, a disk of spinning blue-tinged air buzzes to life around the ring, steadying its flight and coming at Keldar in a swift arc around the bear, spinning like a sawblade. [21:52] <@Ferrinus> 12The chakram's worse. Keldar sidesteps behind the bulk of the still-reeling bear, but not fast enough to stop take him out of Sachin's line of fire. He spins towards the attack, blade plunging like a diving bird in the path of the attack, and the block's perfect - edge stopped dead, force blunted and dissipated by arm and armor - but, unfortunately for Keldar, this isn't the kind of [21:52] <@Ferrinus> 12thing you want to meet head on even if you're superhumanly tough. Even as the chakram rebounds, a howling halo of wind sends the Solar ripping backwards across the terrain, drawing a furrow in the ground as he shrinks relative to his own anima. 15[21:52] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar manages to dodge, but is caught off-guard by Sachin appearing on the *other* side of the bear, catching the ring as it spins around and falling forward with a fierce kiai that brings a gust of wind forth, knocking Keldar back to the mouth of the tomb. 15[21:56] <@VoxPVoxD> If nothing else, Keldar can find solace in the knowledge that he was right. That's a technique of the Immaculate Monks, for sure. [22:07] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar snarls something unintelligible, and leaps. He's silhouetted by his personal sun as he hangs in the air, and there's an actual crack of thunder as, on the downward arc, the warrior lays the Bear of the Cerulean Wind out in a single punch. [22:09] <@Ferrinus> 12The Dawn Caste hits the ground before the bear does, actually dashing forward under its bulk to stab and shove his way through the Flaeli engage the Dragon-Blood directly. Sachin's too fast, ducking and swaying around the mercenary's sword, but he's lost the advantage of range. 15[22:10] <@VoxPVoxD> The bear recoils, staggering on its hindlegs, tongue lolling out with the force of the blow. The bear roars, stumbles, and falls flat, unconscious. Sachin bows beneath Keldar's blade, going down and popping up behind him, hands running parallel, one almost touching Keldar's back, the other holding the ring. His anima has coalesced into a bird - one of the terns of the Inland Sea. [22:12] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's surrounded, but each of his opponents sees the blazing golden sun as though it were behind the Dawn Caste warrior, rushing forward through an endless stream of stellar debris. [22:17] <@Ferrinus> 12Fierce as the Dynast-Immaculate is, he's not Keldar's clear superior. When he goes on the offensive he finds himself stymied at every jab and kick by parries that threaten to remove limbs unless the attacker reconsiders. 15[22:24] <@VoxPVoxD> Sachin dances in and out of Keldar's range, peppering him with feints and jabs that can't break the warrior's stance. The fallen monk's anima flares, though, and the winds that whip up knock more than one of the Flaeli out of the clearing, skidding back into the trees. [22:25] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's already a little windburned, looking as though he'd spent the last few hours hiking up the side of a northern mountain dressed no more heavily than he is now. It hasn't fazed him, though. [22:29] <@Ferrinus> 12As Sachin moves faster and faster, Keldar begins to turn but stops. He just lets his eyes dart back and forth, waiting, waiting... there! Wait, fuck! 15[22:39] <@VoxPVoxD> The fury of Sachin's anima has the Flaeli taking positions in the glory of Keldar's. Their blades are drawn when Sachin once again strikes Keldar from behind, failing to break his stance but with a hoarse roar hurtling the warrior up and out of the clearing, past blades that clatter uselessly against Keldar's plate. [22:43] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's second meteoric landing in the same minute is much less graceful. He craters the ground, the great sun behind him briefly dipping below the horizon, before leaping to his feet with a roar and hefting his blade to produce a second sunrise. 15[22:46] <@VoxPVoxD> "YOU KNOW, MERCENARY," 15[22:46] <@VoxPVoxD> Sachin's voice carries on the wind, high and loud. 15[22:46] <@VoxPVoxD> "...I NEVER DID THANK YOU FOR SCROUNGING THIS UP!" 15[22:47] <@VoxPVoxD> "PLEASE ACCEPT MY INFINITE-" BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT 15[22:47] <@VoxPVoxD> "- GRATITUDE!" [22:48] <@Ferrinus> "Fuck!" 12Keldar's knocked right back over in the superhuman effort it takes to not die on the spot, actually spinning on his axis through the air a bit before landing roughly, kicking up a great plume of dust and shattered timber. He's springing up immediately, but his stance is broken and his breath ragged. 15[22:51] <@VoxPVoxD> A score of Flaeli arrows whistle through the air towards Keldar, but they're running against the vortex of air that Sachin's anima tern is kicking up with its great sapphire wings. The wind is so fierce that the missiles are arrested in midair, and fall sideways, landing harmlessly on the forest floor. [22:54] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's staggering backwards in the very same hurricane, enfolded by waves of grass and dust and, it must be said, having had the wind knocked out of him. For a moment - just a moment - he considers flight. He can't hide from the Dynast like this, obviously, but maybe he can outpace the man, use his own followers as distracting bait... these are the calculations you have to make in [22:54] <@Ferrinus> 12this business. [22:57] <@Ferrinus> 12But that wouldn't be living up to the sun burning on Keldar's brow, for all that sun's running briefly dry of power. And it wouldn't be living up to Keldar's own idiom. And it'd deny this bastard the death he so richly, richly deserves. Keldar stomps, his anima flaring with essence pressure to release a wave of dust and grit that briefly overcomes the winds of Sachin's own tern, and [22:57] <@Ferrinus> 12then he charges, rising up out of the haze as the sun does through morning mist. [23:02] <@Ferrinus> 12The Flaeli draw back instinctively, giving Keldar a clear path to their wind-aspected master. Roaring murder with every stroke, the Solar swings and swings and swings, forcing Sachin into an increasingly-inelegant retreat. 15[23:06] <@VoxPVoxD> For the first time, Sachin looks off-balance. His stances become awkwarder, and his breathing more labored. [23:12] <@Ferrinus> 12Not as off-balance as he's going to be! Keldar's suddenly a rosy orange after-image of himself, in front of which is a golden-orange afterimage, in front of which is a golden-white one, in front of which is Keldar himself, roughly smashing into Sachin with one shoulder and then swinging furiously through the man's position even as the man flies backward. [23:14] <@Ferrinus> 12The Flaeli are an afterthought. Keldar's advancing on the once-monk, teeth bared and brow blazing, and with an absent-minded shrugging motion swings his sword through a barrage of spears and arrows. 15[23:22] <@VoxPVoxD> Sachin has to hurl himself bodily backward to escape the last and fiercest of Keldar's strikes, and skids to the ground, his robes tearing and jewelry scattering against the uneven, sharp bluegrass. Still, the whipping winds urge his momentum onward, and the skidding slide morphs into a backwards somesault that sees Sachin grouching, holding the ring to the ground for balance, one hand askew. 15[23:23] <@VoxPVoxD> Sachin exhales, and the tern flares, wrapping its wings around him, and he leaps backward, beginning to run on eddies and currents of air, as fast as the wind can bear him away from the demon. [23:24] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar was ready for that, but not actually prepared, so to speak - his sword stabs down into the hem of a robe that simply tears away, and his mailed fist clasps on burning cold bult ultimately insubstantial air. "Get back here. GET BACK HERE YOU FUCK-" [23:31] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's voice thunders across the eastern woods, and the angry, pursuing sun of his anima glares at the retreating Sachin through seemingly all obstacles - but the warrior himself is fast obscured by the closing ranks of Flaeli warriors. He rounds on them, literally - turning one way and another to draw warriors closer and closer together, and then exploding outward with ferocious [23:31] <@Ferrinus> 12spin that leaves twin contrails of essence and blood as it rips into the ranks. [23:33] <@Ferrinus> 12Their yells aren't as loud as Keldar's. The warrior fells three men in as many more seconds before he's noticed that they're surrendering, and then turns immediately for the blasted, wind-scarred path that Sachin's left... but no. Even in as little time as that took, the man's out of reach. Did he head for Keldar's followers' camp? 15[23:34] <@VoxPVoxD> For the first time, a demigod deigns to pay attention to the Flaeli, and his wrath is swift and illimitable. Dozens fall before Keldar's blade, and the line breaks immediately. Some flee, some cower. Some of the cowering may yet survive. Sachin cut a sapphire path to the south-southwest, which would put him in the general direction of the camp. [23:37] <@Ferrinus> "That goddamn-" 12Keldar rounds on the natives, glaring. He points directly at the unconscious spine-bear, then thrusts an open palm out at the natives. "LEAVE IT." 12And then he's off, racing towards his own encampment and turning a moving portion of the forest around him into a washed-out cosmic battlefield. 15[23:39] <@VoxPVoxD> A bird flying over this portion of the great Eastern forests would see a towering display of light cut westward, away from the rising sun, into the lowlands where the woods thin. 15[23:42] <@VoxPVoxD> The good news is, the perils of the wilds that might impede or ensnare a lone traveler yield and tremble before the golden warrior charging through them. 15[23:47] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar knows the forests well enough to take a straight shot back to the camp. But so did Sachin, and Sachin had the wind at his back. 15[23:49] <@VoxPVoxD> The camp looks like a hurricane hit it. There are tents and supplies blown about all over the little hollow where the Green Apples set up camp. But there are bodies among them too - in the trees, face down ni the grass, in the firepit... 15[23:49] <@VoxPVoxD> Nobody's left. [23:50] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar staggers to a halt among the wreckage. He falls forward, plunging his blade into the ground as though it were a walking stick as he gasps for breath. Then, after taking a second look around, he ignores the presence of the blade and sinks to his knees. [23:51] <@Ferrinus> 12From miles away, a roar of frustrated range emanating from beneath a blazing, hurtling sun-disk is seen to kick up a second wave of birds from the endless treeline. 15[23:52] <@VoxPVoxD> Keldar's anima throws an unforgiving light on the bodies. They're washed out, featureless shapes on the ground... but the blood shines like rubies in that glow.