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Answers The assorted Chosen and elementals dispatched to Diamond Tor had finally regrouped at Mercy’s runabout. A sheet of canvas, topped with one of linen, had served to convert one of the beds in the vehicle’s little sleeping area into a vaguely workable operating table, if an uncomfortable one for patient and doctor both. Mercy had drawn the curtain to let Ceaseless and Butterfly do their delicate work on Rakim relatively undisturbed, then made his way back to the command chair of the runabout, where he strapped himself in and silently prepared the vehicle for departure. Never and Bolt had left for the Jewel by air, while the rest of the party opted to remain in the submersible for the return trip. Butterfly and Ceaseless were needed for Rakim’s surgery, and he supposed Damnation, Spark, and Layna didn’t want to leave their respective associates alone on the trip. Spark’s expression suggested that the experience would be a thoroughly miserable one for him, but he had nevertheless insisted on staying. Mercy looked around the cabin once more to ensure that everybody was more or less secured, then urged the runabout into motion, as gently as he could, before easing it below the waves for the duration of the trip. --- Never was awakened by crackle of electricity and the sensation of slow descent. ”We’re here,” Bolt announced. Down below, the deck of the Jewel awaited them, berthed as it was just where Butterfly had left it. The others weren’t in sight yet, but then they were taking the longer way around. --- Rakim came to in the Jewel’s sick bay, bearing the marks of both his injuries and of Butterfly’s particular brand of medical treatment. Ceaseless’ intervention had made all the difference in the world; absent the slivers of supernatural malevolence tainting his wounds, they had closed up largely on their own. His heartbeat was still unsteady from the cauterization, lending an unpleasant numbness to his extremities, but the Lunar had endured far worse before, or so he would swear to anyone with the temerity to ask. The cabin around him was blurry, out-of-focus. His eyes weren’t yet quite obeying him. In his staggered state, he knocked a bottle of embalming fluid to the floor with a deafening crash, and gagged at the stench. Rakim lurched to his feet, trying to get away from the sickening, chemical odor. Never caught him before he could do any more damage, to himself or the ship. “Easy, tiger,” she said calmly. “If it’s fresh air you’re wanting, that lies upstairs, but perhaps this will help in the meantime.” She uncorked a skin of wine and pressed it into his clutching palm. While no expert on vintages, this one was local, purchased in the Tiger’s own city, and she hoped the taste of home might bring him around more quickly. “Rrrrrr…” He rumbled softly, taking a sniff before he dared a swig. “Tastes like a pickled durian.” He pulled a look of disgust before his expression softened. “Just as I’d remembered.” Rakim gave Never an appreciative nod. “Better than that poison the little girl served me.” “Don’t let her hear you say that,” Never said, with the ghost of a smile. “I made you a promise and I am here to keep it, whenever you’re willing.” “Well!” Rakim’s nostrils flared softly. “It took enough to pry it out of you!” He glanced around the cabin, sniffing for eavesdroppers. “The Commissar’s source - it was you, wasn’t it?” “Yes,” Never admitted. “But it’s… complicated.” She sighed, trying to think how best to explain. “I was known by another name at the time, Passions. My Lady had sent me to ensure the opening of a door to another world, one that exists here on this island. I worked towards that end for some time, until I discovered that opening this door would cause a calamity that went against every oath I stood for. The plague of insects was an attempt by another party to disrupt the ritual. It was successfully stopped, in the end, and Passions sacrificed something very important to empower the screaming man atop the tower to act as a firebreak for the insects. They were not her- or my- doing.” She leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching for his reaction. “The me that we fought in the tower was the shard of loyalty to my Lady that Passions cut out of her own soul. If you still wish to fight me for having played a role in all of it, I understand, but know that I crushed the stone that held that loyalty to dust with these hands.” She uncrossed her arms, showing him her wounded fingers, clean now and already beginning to scar over. “I only had hints that any of this was true until we found the stone in the tower, because my Lady has a fondness for tearing unwanted memories out of her pets’ minds.” It was terrifying, baring her truth to this stranger, but she’d promised, and now it was done. “Now you know what I know. If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer.” Rakim’s claws came out and his eyes narrowed to slits. His ears twitched and his tail lashed as he shrank back into a hunch - a gesture that would indicate contrition in a human, but in a tiger signalled a readiness to pounce. His breath came in heaving, wracking gasps and when he could bear it no more… ...he lifted the wineskin to his mouth and drained the entire thing in one long, continuous gulp, glaring daggers at Never the entire time. “Another,” he growled. She lifted the sailcloth off an entire crate of them on the floor next to her and kicked it over to him. Several skins later, he’d calmed enough to look at her without baring his fangs and growling. “Who unleashed the swarm? What did you mean, a firebreak?” “Nikanor,” Never said. “And by firebreak I mean the song of nothingness that has turned this corner of the island into a desert wasteland. It weakened the rogue Deathlord’s spell enough that there were some survivors. Without it, the Green Isle would have been devoured to the bedrock.” “loving. Wizards.” Rakim spat. “Do they ALL just go lifting rocks to see what nightmares crawl out?” “The nightmares are often the point,” Never said, having similar opinions. “One of them must have been there,” Rakim reasoned. “No-one else could have opened the seal. Pathfinder and his friends couldn’t do it alone - they said so, when they thought I wasn’t listening. His people didn’t want to risk any of their sorcerers in our world. So.” He crossed his massive, stripey arms. “Who helped him? Did they work for your Lady too?” “I was her only asset here that I know of and I am no sorceress. There was a lunar, Moore-” “That loving IDIOT!” Rakim roared, shaking a few more specimen jars off of the shelves. “I warned him not to trust that metal bastard, I loving warned him! Every time, he thought he could reason with that murderer, every gods-damned time…” He slammed his fist into the wall, then slumped forward against it, face pressed into the shelving as tears began to flow down his cheeks. “Gods drat you, Franklin. Why didn’t you listen?” Never simply waited, averting her eyes to his private grief. She could hardly offer words of comfort when so much of this was her fault. “All of you...all of you brought this here...you and your evil loving Lady...” Rakim sobbed. “...why couldn’t you have left us alone?” “Please don’t blame Miss Passions,” came a nasal voice from just outside the door. Rakim froze. Slowly, he turned his head, staring in wide-eyed disbelief at the infirmary door. Then he hurled himself forward and tore it open. On the other side was a portly man in half-rotted silks, his paunchy skin sallow in places and sunburnt in others. His frizzled beard had gone grey - from stress, certainly, for the Chosen did not age. His once-full cheeks were sallow and sunken, and his watery eyes were bloodshot. He gave a weak smile, baring a familiar pair of yellowed buck-teeth. “The Lover Clad made fools of us all. And you were right, Rakim. I should have listened.” The tiger scooped Moore up and pulled him into a bone-crushing bear-hug. “...ow…” Moore wheezed. “I go by Never now,” said Never, masking her surprise. This had just gotten interesting. “Where were you?” Rakim demanded. “I could ask the same of you, you know...er, not that I would,” Moore hastily added, catching sight of the look on the cat’s face. “We all thought that you’d died!” “‘We’? The others survived?” Rakim asked. “I did. So did Harun. The White Lion…” Moore’s face fell, giving him a haunted look. “He tried to stand and fight, and...he died.” “You’re sure?” “I saw the swarm engulf him. When it passed...only his armor was left. And ‘Rangi…” Moore himself began to sob. “H-he...we couldn’t find Leo, and the R-runners were right in its path. I’d already...already left...with as m-many as I c-could save...but another stormwind carried them to me. ‘Rangi wasn’t on it, and the Runners, they told me he’d…” “I know,” Rakim rumbled. “We saved Leo’s people,” Moore said, miserable. “Even though we couldn’t save her.” “She lives, Franklin,” the tiger told him. “I would have fought and died too, if she hadn’t hit me over the head and flown me away.” He set the other Lunar down, patting him on the head with his massive paw. The cycle continued in this fashion for some time - shock, grief, revelation, relief - before they again addressed their hostess. “You must have questions too, Miss Pas… er, Never,” Moore corrected himself. “About the remaining gaps in your memories, and many other things besides. What answers I have, are yours to know.” “That I do, but I would invite a few more to hear those answers,” Never said, making to leave. “Enjoy the wine, I will return to spoil your reunion soon enough.”
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May 14, 2019 19:57
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Incremental Idle Games - Watcher at the Gates of Sorrow, by the docks The roar of the crowd could be heard all the way at the waterfront; likely one of the crew had caused an upset. And that low, almost moan from the spectators must have been from something He, Jackal had done. This was almost the appropriate distance to appreciate the other Abyssals from. Watcher swept his gaze around the docks and the ocean beyond, keeping alert as he had promised; should the others need a rapid escape, his ship was not even moored, simply floating within a short leap of the end of the wharf. With the Admiral on board, the Revelation’s manta fins undulated slowly in the water to keep the craft well-aligned and gently rocking back and forth as if it were still on the open ocean. The only concession Watcher made for his own amusement was the bag of fried...somethings he was slowly crunching through as he listened to the noise coming out of the arena; was that cheer good for the crew, or a sign that something going wrong? With everyone’s attention on the arena (or possibly the antics of He, Jackal), the waterfront’s guard was at minimal strength. Anyone left was there on punishment detail; the rest of the city had gone to watch the spectacle. So it was that when a pair of frigates came into view, rounding a spar on an islet some three kilometers to the east, no alert was raised. They flew no colors, bearing down silently upon the harbor with disquieting speed. Without a sound, Watcher made known his wishes and the sail began to rise. A scant dozen of his sharks would remain at the wharf, in case of trouble, while the rest piled back into the ship as it began to glide towards the boats, lifting signal flags requesting identification from the mysterious frigates. No need not to be polite, at least while firing solutions were still being calculated. --- “Captain, they’re hailing us.” The bosun of the Ignis lowered his spyglass. “I can see that,” said Dragonlord Raime. “XO, correct me if I’m mistaken, but wasn’t the harbor meant to be undefended?” “That is what our agents reported, yes.” His XO nodded. “Then who is that?” “It would appear to be…” his XO consulted her naval registry. “Ah. That is one of the Anathema vessels. The triumph flown is that of the Watcher at the Gates of Sorrow, an Abyssal Anathema.” “The ones who took Thorns from us?” The bosun gulped. “Our intelligence suggests that the Watcher’s lord is a rival to Thorns’ captor, actually,” the XO said. “Our intelligence also said that the harbor would be undefended,” Dragonlord Raime noted. The corner of his lip turned up, and flames licked from his mouth in irritation. “Flag him down. Signal that we wish to parlay.” “Do we wish to parlay?” his XO asked. “Our flame cannons are much more eloquent at close range.” --- The leading vessel hoisted its colors, and Watcher recognized the personal triumph of Dragonlord Cathak Raime - a Dynast known less for his seafaring prowess than his faculty for siegecraft. Semaphore flags invited Watcher to approach - specifically, to pull alee and lower boarding ramps. The Revelation began to close with the other ships, but began to turn to the side at the edge of polite earshot. While the frigates were still closing with the harbor, Watcher’s ship angled to remain between them and the town as he began to shout. “Ahoy, Dragonlord. What brings you to these parts? Surely not simply to share bread and salt with an old man. It’s not common to see someone as prominent as you flying no identification, as if a common bandit--I assume for some pressing reason?” “Ha! I’m certainly no common bandit, I can assure you,” Raime shouted back. “So, speaking of bread and salt, why aren’t you dining at the table of your fellow hellspawn?” “With all due respect, sir, the term ‘hellspawn’ is both inaccurate and misleading. The Underworld is very different, both metaphysically and culturally, from the realm of the Yozi, or any of the other three groups you could have been referencing with the term.” Watcher coughed into a rough handkerchief, collected himself, and continued. “I am merely a humble traveler with a ramshackle craft and a certain disposition towards...justice. So at the risk of repeating myself, are you accepting or refusing an offer of freely given hospitality?” “Was such an offer made?” Raime asked with feigned innocence. “It’s hard to hear at this distance - sail a little closer, and we’ll show you the warmth of our hearth.” Watcher’s eyes narrowed, and he widened his arms. “I am afraid that, as a responsible citizen of the sea, I must insist that you not approach the harbor any further without revealing your intentions, given your unidentified approach and responses thus far.” “Why, we’re here to perform a service!” Raime shouted. The marines next to him shared knowing glances and laughed quietly. “A service for this poor, benighted isle and for all Creation! These are lawless times, haven’t you heard? We come to restore order.” While the Dragonlord rambled, Watcher’s ears picked up a splashing sound that had nothing to do with the pounding surf. It was coming from behind the rear vessel, the Pointed Inquiry, at an angle blocked by the hulls of both ships. But not for nothing had Watcher been given his title of admiralty. He knew the sound of boarding vessels being dropped into the sea. “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, during a parley even.” With that, Watcher turned slightly to address the Dragonlord’s XO. “Note that I gave him three chances to end this. I will give you exactly one.” With a completely unnecessary snap of his fingers, the Revelation began to race behind the frigates, eager to reach the more fragile boarding vessels. If I can, spending 10m, 1 WP on Invincible Admiral Method for the beginning of NAVAL COMBAT The Pointed Inquiry began to jibe before Watcher had even finished snapping, and having to circumnavigate the turning vessel put the Revelation in an awkward position. Lazily, the Ignis reversed course, taking the opposite path. It had to turn, while the Revelation did not, but it had a shorter distance to reach its destination, and when it, too, had passed the Inquiry, its broadside would have a clear shot at the Revelation’s own flank… Raime spends 4m on Fine Passage-Negotiating Style to add two automatic successes to his Naval Stratagem (Positioning) roll and gets: 1 2 5 10 10 10 10 10 for a total of 12! Watcher’s going to have to pull a real miracle out of his grizzled butt if he wants to salvage this! The captain of the Inquiry spends the same amount and rolls 1 2 3 3 8 8 8 9 10 for a total of 8. Watcher grimaced as he noticed the Ignis begin to line up a shot--it was a legitimately clever ploy. In another setting, the maneuver would have been taught in naval academies of the Realm, perhaps named after the Dragonlord in perpetuity. But the Revelation was not solely subject to Creation’s laws, and so just before the Ignis came into view, the sails began filling from the other direction; a stiff breeze continued, but now the faintly glowing tatters were following the winds of the Underworld. The boat creaked and shifted, bones bending almost to the point of snapping as the engines tilted to face the other direction as well. A zombified shark was flung forward by the sudden reversal, nearly sliding off the deck before slamming into a bulkhead. The Revelation’s course correction took it again on the opposite side of the Inquiry, this time opposite the boarding craft and seemingly the focus of its opposition. Watcher’s Invincible Admiral Method gives 6 dice this turn after some dice tricks, leading to a pitiful Positioning roll for 19 dice that resulted in: 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8 for a total of 4 suxes. After spending a total of 2 motes on Immortal Mariner’s Advantage and 1WP on Indomitable Voyager’s Perseverance to reroll all failed dice, he somehow turned that into 21 successes. Yeah. “How…” the Ignis’ bosun began. “...the gently caress?” its XO finished. “Anathema devilry,” Raime spat. “Stay the course! Fence him in!” The Revelation was nearly dead in the water for a moment relative to its prey after its sudden stop. Normally this would make a ramming maneuver nearly impossible. However, most ships didn’t have jaws--the Revelation did. Watcher leaned forwards slightly when the entire deck rose several feet, then backwards as it dropped directly on the stern of the Inquiry. He spent a moment to lock eyes with the captain of the ship he had just mauled, as if waiting for a response while his boat chewed. 4 motes for Implacable Sea Wolf Spirit to make maneuvers take -2 momentum for the rest of the scene, then spending 3 motes on Excellencies, 3m on Ship-Breaker Method to make rams deal more, and 1m to double 9s for 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10 to 16 suxes “Prime grenades!” the enemy captain screamed. “All hands, repel boarders!” “But we’re not being boarded!” her adjutant protested. “Idiot!” She smacked him. “Hit those teeth with your axes!” And so the crew set about doing just that, hacking, chopping, and gouging until the Revelation had taken its last splintery bite. Same roll as before, plus Ocean-Darting Maneuver to double 9s. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 plus two autosux means 10 total. Pointed Inquiry takes 4 Hull damage before the Revelation is dislodged, one base plus two for six threshold sux plus one for Ship-Breaker Method. Raime and the leader of the small strike craft make token rolls to oppose but lolno.. “Get those cutters deployed!” the captain of the Inquiry shouted. “Drown that devil in blood!” The Revelation simply continued to crunch down on the stern of the Inquiry, savaging it from side to side to fend off the other, smaller craft. Now taking -8 dice to the maneuver roll from all the enemy ships. 4 motes of Excellency, 1 mote to double 9s, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 for a total of 13 suxes on another ram. Down to 3 momentum. Try as they might, the crew of the Inquiry simply couldn’t repel the Revelation’s determined assault. Plank by plank, rope by rope, the giant, animate shark jaws chewed through the Imperial vessel, rupturing bulkheads and pulling sails down to the deck. Its captain simply stared in horror and fascination, then grim resignation. As the Revelation bit out a few key structural supports and the Inquiry began to fold in half, she simply pointed behind Watcher and smiled. The Ignis had achieved its firing solution. Five smaller craft swarmed at the Revelation’s flanks like flies, waiting for their quarry to become carrion. Watcher called out to the captain of the Inquiry, finally. “Your zeal is to your credit, if misguided. I would wager your companions will attempt to sink my ship, rather than assist you. Remember that.” The Revelation finished gnawing through the enemy ship’s deck, lowering its prow so the implosion cannon could fire directly into the hole. A small singularity ripped through the lower decks, pulling the air out and replacing it with seawater, sinking the ship in seconds, rather than the usual minutes or hours. The pull, however, was so strong that the Revelation was dead in the water for several long seconds. Throwing 7 motes to Excellency now with a -12 penalty from being swarmed, 1m to double 9s. 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 for a total of 7 suxes. Good enough? “Fire,” Raime said, and his guns did just that. Great torrents of firedust issued from the cannons and fell in volleys from the Ignis’ mortars. Liquid fire spread across the top deck, licking at every exposed surface and setting alight all that it could. The Revelation’s bony ‘timbers’ shuddered and moaned, wailing like the damned as they warped from the terrible heat. As the fire licked across the deck towards him, Watcher spent a moment to stare through the flames at Raime, meeting eyes for an instant before closing them. He could feel the heat pushing at him, blackening the already yellowed ivory of his chair. The sickening smell of burning, embalmed meat mixed with the salty tang of a thousand litres of seawater boiling in a flash. The Abyssal simply loosened his shoulders, pulled his head up, and breathed--and so did the Revelation. The massive jaws opened up again, still half-full of broken planks and...other things, and began to pull in the air. And the water. And the flames. The ship bulged as it filled, tenebrous membranes plugging the gaps between enormous ribs now feet apart. The heat vanished, replaced with the frigid stillness of Oblivion. Watcher’s eyes opened, pure black, as he intoned the deepest truth he knew: “All is Void.” The inky gaps between bones began to shrink, taking with them the contents of the Revelation’s gaping maw. The blaze was no more, its fuel gone down the gullet of the beast, leaving only blackened bones and scorched sinews--no worse than before, really. ---- In the Underworld, a small boat plied the waves for pale fish and the echoes of past offerings, lost to the deeps. A few waves over, a slice of even deeper darkness cut out of the night sky. The ghastly fisherman stared, perplexed, until what could only have been a second sun erupted in a crimson spray. He cowered in the bottom of his skiff, convinced that he was dissolving in the light. Only the pressure wave a second later convinced him otherwise, nearly blasting him overboard. And then, the strange sound of wood clattering together, and a loud splash. Terror paved way to surprise, then jubilation--fresh salvage! The fisherman tacked towards the wreckage, peering into the depths and readying a rod for anything of value. He reached down to snag a piece of fine, only somewhat bloodied silk that must have recently been part of a sleeve, when he was suddenly yanked down and off his skiff, into the dark water below. Desperately grasping at the assorted flotsam and jetsam, he pulled himself back above water to see a burnt and blackened figure clumsily grasp a rope and begin to sail away, towards the distant shore. ---- Watcher exhaled, finally, his serenity broken. Not quite nothing, not yet. Using Hull-Preserving Technique for 5m, 1WP to no-sell the flames “D-dragonlord,” the Ignis’ bosun stammered, “did you see that? The flames just-” “I have eyes, you idiot,” Raime interrupted and smacked him on the back of the head. “Don’t worry about those flames, I have plenty more.” Fire wreathed him in a scorching nimbus, blackening the deck around him. “Keep him occupied; I’m going belowdecks to suit up.” “You mean-” his XO gasped. “I mean that I’m going to level the playing field,” Raime said. During the brief reprieve, the Revelation turned to face the small boarding craft--though individually useless, as a mass they were quite the thorn in Watcher’s side. Tiny, fragile, rammable thorns. Choosing one seemingly at random (when in doubt, third from the left), the Admiral skewed back and forth as if herding the smaller craft, picking his chosen prey out of the safety of their comrades. 3 motes of Excellency and 1m for double 9s on a positioning roll at -10; 2,3,4,5,5,5,7,8,9,9,9,10 for 10 sux It was like watching a pod of whales - a pod of one single, gargantuan whale - herd smaller fish into a bait ball before it struck. The Revelation lunged, and one was swallowed up; it lunged again, and another boat simply vanished from the seas. Madly, the Ignis’ XO spun the wheel, straining to line up the ship’s broadsides for another salvo, inching closer and closer to a firing solution until a strange bird landed on the helm in front of her. “Officer,” the gull croaked. “I counsel retreat.” “What in the-?!” She nearly lost control in surprise. “Are you…” Her face went white. “You’re him. Sam.” “Oh, good.” The gull ruffled its feathers and picked out a few broken quills from its wing. “I don’t have to brief you, then. The duel with the Imperatrix is finished. Your opening is lost.” “But the siegemaster is donning his-” “Flames don’t burn so well from the bottom of the ocean, Talonlord,” Sam croaked. “And his warstrider isn’t suited to amphibious assault. Retreat now, and you’ll save his life.” “Fine!” She spun the wheel so fast that he had to lift off to avoid having his neck broken between the spokes. “YOU said that the city was undefended! Only one ship, with a skeleton crew!” “No, I said one ship with a crew of skeletons,” Sam squawked. “Very important distinction. I expected that the Inquiry would draw it off while the Ignis made landfall-” “We tried,” the XO sulked. “It was a brilliant maneuver. Then that accursed thing escaped our trap by sailing backwards on the winds of the netherworld.” “...I honestly did not know they could do that,” Sam said, as bewildered as she was. “Let’s discuss it further once we’re out of range of his implosion bow?” “Agreed.” The Revelation did not pursue, instead circling back to the site of the Inquiry’s demise. Releasing a dozen sharks into the water to discover any salvage was all Watcher had time for, as he might be needed as an escape route for those still in the city. There would be time to deal with Dragonlord Raime another time, he was sure--such a man, with such an ego, would be back to settle the score. And so the black ship slipped through the water back to the docks, little worse for wear but its Admiral looking a bit peaked from the exertion. And so was thwarted a deadly assault upon Nirix, and the city remained safe, at least for another day. And its ruler and guardians did not know that anything had happened at all, and continued on in blissful ignorance. At least for another day.
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May 22, 2019 03:45
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Spectator Sport The lions circled in the pit. Chosen warriors of light and dark, two peerless masters of the exalted arts of violence, here and now would settle- Wyrm did nothing to suppress a long, slow yawn. She lashed out to seize a platter - the arrival of the main event had left much of the remaining banquet untouched and unguarded. She dragged the roast boar over, to a more comfortable distance, then slouched over in her chair. The corner of her eye still watched the fight, her own fighter’s instinct’s toyed with what may happen should she fling an errant stone into their little dance… No, she’d let them play. Whether the old corpse or the young queen triumphed here made little difference to Wyrm. Either way it would be over soon. She tore little scraps of flesh off of her prize and settled in to watch the crowd. With everyone watching the battle, who was left watching her? Not everyone present had the stomach for violence. Mizune and the other ratfolk observed the duel more out of respect for their queen than out of any love for the spectacle. Their robes told a story, as did the attire (such as it was) on the wolves and horses. Well-woven and carefully-mended, as fastidious in their make as the records they kept. They’d spoken with a common cadence, a common inflection, a familiarity she’d not observed with the humans and other breeds of beastfolk in Nirix. Refugees. Nikanor’s destruction had toppled more than one dominion upon the Green Isle. One of its missing Lunar sovereigns must have had more of a scholarly bent than the Pit Lord. To them, the Imperiatrix offered protection and shelter; in turn, they managed the duller affairs of state for which she had no patience. This was not a single power behind the throne, but an entire bureaucracy, orphaned of its old purpose and turned to a new one. Nirix’s gladiatorial matches were, by quasi-religious tradition, public events. Not everyone was a citizen or subject - merchants and traders from foreign quarters, dignitaries of the surviving polities of the Isle, and warriors seeking their fortunes were to be found in the seats. Some watched with more calculating interest than others. And a few… A look of outright disdain. A purposeful stride, apart from the thronging of the crowds. Pointed stares directed when Wyrm’s attentions seemed elsewhere. A face, or two, that the captain recognized from a certain list of missing persons, skulking ever closer to her own seat. Bodies commandeered by the Free Riders. Wyrm reclined, a smile spreading across her face. When she’d bent back far enough to see her entourage, her fangs were bare and her eyes wild. The air froze as she tensed and whispered, “Freemen.” She pushed off the table, tilting her chair to the verge of toppling over, “This would be the time for them to kill one, or the other... or both...” Her eyes snapped back toward the crowd, “From near enough to make the locals think we planned it, so that this mob wastes all their effort getting skewered while their agents slink away... ” She snapped forward, slamming an open palm onto the table, as she scanned the audience again, “Or take a shot at me.” Somewhere along the way, the accusation became a challenge. A man whose face matched the description of an AWOL ensign paused at the sound, regarding Wyrm in the fashion of a hyena stalking a lion in the moment that the wind shifts. Too late. As the dust settled in the ring Wyrm stood ready - Bow in hand, foe in sight, and an old man broken and bleeding in the dirt. Yes, despite everything else, this was a good day. Blood pooled freely on her brow as shadows darkened underfoot. The Hunt was on. Wyrm Activates Flashing Vengeance Draw and Joins Battle. Essence - 11/16 Personal 18/21 Peripheral @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,2,3,6,6,7,8,8,9,10 for a total of 6 successes +2 auto from flashing vengeance draw ‘Has the specter of sports hooliganism reached even the sacred sport of gladiatorial combat?’ Jackal thought to himself as his deep concentration on the duel below was broken by the sudden appearance of would-be assassins. “Can’t we just have a diplomatic mission without one of these? We should have subordinates to just kill these rabble at this point.” Joining Battle. 3 sux Essence 13/16 21/21 Peripheral “You say that,” Wyrm swayed to the side, snatching up a fistfull of arrows, “But you know, it’s been a while since I just shot someone.” ‘Someone’ caught Wyrm’s eye and, noting her murderous attempt, faded back into the crowd. Her skill at vanishing was nothing short of supernatural, of a kind the captain usually associated with Never and Onyx, or with Mercy when the commissar was absolutely-determined to spring some bad news upon her by surprise. He, Jackal, could however still make out a telltale silhouette amidst the cheering audience. She drew closer, something small and pointed concealed in her sleeves. Ghost Merc 1 rolls into battle at 9 initiative and promptly uses a MYSTERIOUS MARTIAL ARTS MOVE to retry Stealth! She succeeds vs. Wyrm but Jackal can still pick her out of the crowd. Currently she is at MEDIUM RANGE but will close to SHORT next round if not stopped. Additionally, said move had a cost of 2i, dropping her Initiative to 7. The other someone, the no-longer-missing ensign, just stared gormlessly as he felt for his cutlass. Ghost Merc 2 rolls in at only 5, and cannot retry Stealth. He looks ready to attempt a Rush maneuver once he can close to Short Range. Bear in mind that without Charms, you’ll need to aim to shoot at a target further away than Short Range. Wyrm’s breathing slowed. The noise of the crowd faded from her notice. The world distilled down to the weapon in her hand and the dead man in her sights. A little twisting spark of doubt tried to remind her that the one she couldn’t see deserved more. But then, it has been a while since she’d had such a nice, clean shot. “He’ll do.” Wyrm aims. “Ah… It would be better if Never was here to take care of those.” Jackal said as his eyes changed into a deep black color. “It seems one of those would-be assassins has danced with us before, the one who ventilated our good old Unterpol friend. Be careful, Wyrm, that one is quite acquainted with the arts of the office.” Jackal activates Eyes like Dagger Glance, aims The possessed ensign, recognizing the threat (if not to life, then at least to limb), tried to hurl himself behind a slab of rubble thrown from the deific struggle in the ring below. A moment later, a drunken soldier from the Imperiatrix’s own guard stumbled into him and pushed him partly back into the line of fire. Ghost Merc 2 moves to Short range and attempts to TAKE COVER, but rolls only 2 sux on Dexterity+Dodge. Instead of Heavy Cover, he gains only Light, for a mere +1 Defense Shameful, if not unexpected. The spy had succeeded in placing none of himself beyond Wyrm’s reach, trading the faint hope of ever putting his sword to use for the certainty of dying in a ditch. Such grievous error called for reprimand. Without pause the shot was off to tell this fool no part of him was safe. 1m to Wise Arrow to negate cover, 5m Archery Excellency for a 23 die Withering attack [7:04 PM]BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,1,2,3,3,3,3,4,5,5,5,5,5,7,7,7,8,9,9,10,10,10,10 for a total of 14 successes With a peal like a tolling bell, Wyrm’s arrow struck his acorn-helmet, knocking it from his head and knocking him senseless. It seemed that the advantages of physical form also came with some of its frailties. He reeled, clutching his head and staggering. Wyrm inflicts 8 initiative damage, driving Gormless to -3 and CRASHING him! She gains 14 initiative - 1 from a successful hit, 8 stolen, 5 from crashing an opponent. Still mingling with the crowd, Maude locked eyes with Jackal and saw the killing intent behind his glare, and so in turn did he see the killing intent behind hers. Time stood still, a split-second spun into an eternity, as they made their moves - she gave a flick of her wrist, and Jackal twisted aside, drawing upright again without a scratch on his body… ...or so it seemed, until he felt the cold numbness spreading up his arm toward his chest. The poisoned needle slipped from his wrist with a delicate *clink!* against the banquet table, the sound lost against the clash of blades below and the roar of the crowd. Ghost-Merc 1, AKA Maude-Who-Knew, throws a poisoned needle in a DECISIVE attack supplemented with BIRDSONG OVER BLADES. Unlike a normal Decisive attack, this does no direct damage. It does apply the poison on her dart, however, and doesn’t reset her Initiative nor break her stealth with respect to onlookers. She rolls ten successes vs. Jackal’s 7 Evasion (with Reed in the Wind), so that’s a hit. He loses the benefit of his aim, but he doesn’t need to aim to hit a target at Short range.[/i] “Poison…!” Jackal grunts, his eyes sizzling with dark energy. “drat these worms!” He grunts, trying to shoot twin bolts of pure darkness at the assassin’s direction, yet they seem to vanish in the air completely. @Plutonis, you rolled 1,2,2,3,3,4,4,4,5,5,5,6,6,7,8,9 for a total of 3 successes Wyrm tensed a moment at the shouting, the reminder of another target still out of sight bit the corner of her eye. The feeling passed as she saw only He, Jackal, was under fire. He’ll be fine. She eased back into her usual swagger as she turned to see the other moron downrange still hadn’t made a move. No. She slapped the clutch of arrows into her other hand and held her bow aside. With a quick hop she dismounted from the table into the rows on rows of the audience. Her boots clicked smartly on the stone as she marched through the crowd to close on the shaken mercenary. Once Wyrm had circled to the proper angle she snapped to a halt and looked down at the arena. “Hey, Tiger!” She drew her pistol and set her sights, “Have a mouse!” Applying Force Without Fire (3m) and Full Excellence (10m) to another withering attack to launch this mook into the arena. ( 0/16 Personal 17/21 Peripheral ) Jupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,8,8,8,9,9,10 for a total of 8 successes Stunt Dice: BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,10 for a total of 2 successes “Are those...oh no, Captain!” Finally cognizant of the battle ongoing in their midst, Rose leapt to her feet, lunging through the gout of firedust to follow the possessed ensign to the arena floor. Already, Alicia was bearing down upon this new aggressor, red daiklave in hand and murder in her eyes. “Imperiatrix, wait!” Rose cried. “O wicked spirit who afflicts the unwary soul, BEGONE!” She thrust her open palm directly at the victim’s brow chakra, and spiritual force lanced from her hand. An ephemeral specter, a shadow overlaying the ensign like a silken shawl, tore away from him, wavering in the air a few inches behind the man himself, still connected by threads of ensnaring darkness. “THIS is your enemy!” Rose pleaded. “WAIT!” the ghost screamed. “I DIDN’T MEAN-” Alicia sliced it in twain in passing, not even sparing a glance at Wyrm, Rose, or the ensign as she stomped out of the arena to sulk. The flame piece slid home without a fuss. One thing was done, on to the other. Wyrm turned back and surveyed the crowd between herself and Jackal, her eyes darting from face to face as she teased her bowstring. “Who’s next?” Wyrm rolls Per+Awr+5ex to re-detect Maude ( 0/16 Personal 17/21 Peripheral ) BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,3,4,4,6,6,8,8,8,9,9,10,10 for a total of 9 successes Maude answered with another thrown needle, this one deftly aimed at a vein in Wyrm’s right arm. The projectile found its mark, slipped through the armor’s gap at the crook of Wyrm’s right elbow...and met the unyielding resistance of the captain’s undead flesh. It fell away with a sad *tink!* as it hit the ground, its poisoned tip bent from impact. Maude attempts a Piercing attack aimed at Wyrm, and manages an execrable three sux on 14 dice. Exactly enough to hit Wyrm’s evasion, so Wyrm drops 4m on Spirit Strengthens the Skin to nullify the benefit from Piercing. Damage dice come up...zilch. Maude gains only the point of Initiative from hitting, which just offsets the cost of making a Piercing attack. Her Initiative remains unchanged at 7, Wyrm’s remains sky-high at 25, and Jackal’s up again. With the assassin continuing to evade his attacks, Jackal recognizes that perhaps this path isn’t the most optimal to confront them… Instead he clutches upon his wound and on a theatrical tone, howls towards the crowds on the amphiteather, his voice echoing towards the beastmen and human crowd. “Murder, murder! Assassins from the Blessed Isle! They come to kill the Imperatrix and ourselves! Stop them! Stop them before they kill her!” Rolled 11 sux! “What?!” “Who?” “Where?” “Down there, you see? The Imperatrix already cut him down.” “No, there’s another! Look, she poses as an emissary!” “To intrude upon a matter of honor - sacrilege!” “Protect Her Radiance!” Spectator by spectator, the crowd in which Maude had hidden began to turn against her. Her practiced facade of naivety and ignorance crumbled, and the silken cords of her unassuming garments began to writhe and twist of their own accord, wreathing her like the arms of a kraken. The mob came at her with fist and club, fang and sword, yet she stepped between each blow as if she were strolling through the waving fans of an imperial procession. Each stride brought her closer to the captain, malice glittering in her dead eyes. Mob is rolled into battle at static Initiative 5. It’s Size 2, comprising the several dozen spectators in the ringside seats with you, and between the drunken revelers and Alicia’s elite honor guard, averages out to Battle-Ready troops with Average Drill. They try to get a piece of Maude, but roll only 3 sux to hit - nothing doing. Wyrm smiled back. “You should leave.” She shrugged, waving her readied arrows in the vague direction of the Imperial outpost, “If you crawl back to your urn right now and stay put, I may just leave you alone. I don’t have time to swat around dead mice - I’m no Tiger.” Her caste mark simmered on her brow, tension building as the distance closed between them. Wyrm didn’t need an answer. Maude was already far too close to be ignored. She’d bite. Trance of Unhesitating Speed for 5x5 Decisive Attacks (4m1w) 2m Excellence on each 0/16 Personal 8/21 Peripheral 9/10 Willpower 3:28 PM]BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,2,2,2,5,5,5,7,7,7,9,10 for a total of 6 successes [3:29 PM]BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,5,7,8,8,9 for a total of 4 successes [3:29 PM]BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,1,2,2,2,3,3,4,6,7,7,10 for a total of 4 successes [3:29 PM]BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,2,4,5,5,5,6,6,6,7,7,10 for a total of 4 successes [3:29 PM]BOTJupiter: @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,2,3,5,5,5,5,6,6,7,9,10 for a total of 4 successes Maude was quick; Wyrm was quicker, and while the crowd hadn’t a prayer of striking the nemissary, the press of the mob proved one distraction too many. The first shot skewered her vessel’s left arm, spraying a fine mist of blood over the quarried stones. The fluid was dark and powdery, carrying a bittersweet, chemical aroma, and Maude continued her advance despite the wound. Wyrm’s second and third shots pierced her heart. It would have been enough to kill any living creature, but Maude was no such thing. Just as Wyrm had done to her sniper in the siege of Thorns, so did Maude seem intent on doing to her. The fourth shot tore out her knee, and that she couldn’t ignore. She stumbled, catching her balance on her wounded arm while the other still clutched her poisoned needles. Five more paces - that was all that lay between her and her quarry. Five more paces, and Maude could count this a win despite everything. She made it four before the last arrow severed her spine. Her garment’s whirling tendrils of silk went still, and she folded grotesquely in half at the hip. A shot to the main mast, and the sails were coming down across the deck. Dead in the water. There was a rush of spiritual pressure and a chill like someone had stepped on Wyrm’s grave. She felt an unseen force prowling about her like a starving beast, struggling to claw its way into her head through the dark recesses of her mind. Scratching and scraping at every loose panel, every unsecured hatch, seeking a purchase somewhere, anywhere... “I wouldn’t recommend that,” spoke a soft, boyish voice nearby. “The captain never touched her tea.” The pressure receded, and the chill dissipated, coalescing toward the source of the voice under the silver dome of a covered platter. Its bearer, clad in smart-looking servant’s attire with a plunging v-neck, gave the assembled diners a sly wink while the mob busied itself tearing the dignitary’s corpse limb from limb. “My apologies,” he said, offering a mocking bow. “It seems our entertainment wasn’t up to the standard of the Pit Lord’s domain.” He turned his head to regard Relic’s crucified form, high on the far wall, and Jackal caught sight of two familiar-looking scars on the servant’s chest, hidden just under the fold of his tunic. “But then, whose is? Beside He, Jackal’s, of course.” “You again.” Jackal says, shaking his head in disappointment and spitting a black gunk on the floor. “This assassination attempt is ill-advised, considering what happened to your colleague. But it must be obvious that you have some sort of predictable trump card or want to parlay or something boring like that. Just say your piece and make it worth my time, lackey.” He then turns to Wyrm and snarls. “Where is the doctor? There’s some remaining filth from that bitch that needs to be taken care of.” “He’ll be around.” Wyrm replied. For her, hearing Jackal’s temper flare confirmed the fight was over. If He, Himself, wasn’t immediately lunging at this new arrival’s throat, that meant small odds of an immediate threat. Wyrm shouldered her bow and watched closely as the mob went on shredding the body. She wondered if she’d get any of those arrows back. After a quick count of how many still survived, she spared a side-glance at the intruder, “You want to entertain me, find better clowns.” “Still donning their costumes, I’m afraid.” The Lunar who’d introduced himself as ‘Sam’ turned and paced up and down the length of the long stone table. “Lady Mataji.” “Who dares address me without - wait, it’s you!” Mataji exclaimed. She crossed her arms and scowled, drumming the jade-capped nails of one hand against the table. “So, one of the face-stealers - has my grandfather engaged the services of every devil in Hell?” “Just the ones who share his enemies,” Sam said. “And as for You, Jackal, I regret to inform you that wasting your time is the point.” He stretched out his arms, then adjusted the fabric of his uniform with his free hand. “Those costumes take a long time to put on. Don’t,” he said sharply all of a sudden. “I - I wasn’t...what?” Sam’s command hadn’t seemed directed at anyone in particular, but V’neef Auling froze in his seat nonetheless. He held a length of cord tied for a tourniquet, and a small knife for bloodletting, both halfway to Jackal’s afflicted arm. “I was just going to help him!” “Exactly. Please don’t,” Sam told him. “Setting aside that he’s the last person to deserve your efforts, we went to a lot of trouble to poison him as a diversion. I’d hate for us to leave with nothing to show for our efforts, but if you insist, your face would make a fine consolation prize.” Auling choked and made a small, sad, frightened noise. Wyrm stepped between them. The summer air still writhed in pain around her, the Captain’s anima was coiled and ready to strike out into the light of day. Sam had her full attention. “You missed. Your prize is my permission to walk away. If you need more to show you can have wounds to lick while you re-organize your toys.” For an instant that spanned an eternity, they held there - Wyrm and fish, dragon and bird (and of course, He Jackal), frozen in place, locked in stalemate. Auling held a fraction of an inch from Jackal, medicine in hand, waiting for the tension to break, and when it did… “...ah, I’ve had worse offers. Enjoy your drinks, folks, and your cozy new relationship with the mad tiger’s madder successor. Be seeing you all.” He smiled, baring a mouthful of interlocking fangs like textile shears. “Maybe you’ll see me too.” He blew a kiss and vanished through the thronging crowd, gone in an instant as if he’d never been. “...phew.” Auling breathed a sigh of relief and set about draining the poison from Jackal’s wound, cutting off its spread with the cord before making the incision. “You want me to hit him?” Herald asked angrily, looking rapidly back and forth between Wyrm and Auling. “Bet that stupid platter makes a great lightning rod.” Wyrm bit the air, gave a sharp hiss at the parting lunar, and then with great reluctance settled down. She was entirely too sober to take up the offer. This fight was over. For now, they all had better things to do. She snarled something one could understand as ‘Not today’ and marched back to the booth to resume command of her lunch. “You okay, bro?” Herald asked Auling. “...I will be,” Auling said, shivering. He tapped his fingertips against Jackal’s injured bicep, drumming against key meridians. Something green-black and viscous oozed from the wound at his urging. “Is this...hemlock?” Auling wondered aloud. “It smells like it, and the symptoms are the same, but it’s too thick - oh, she jellied it with blood-moss. That’s…evil. The stickiness lets it cling to a blade, and the moss causes the wound to clot right away so none of it bleeds out. But I think…” He pressed, and what came out next was just blood, admixed with no toxins other than the ones Jackal drank as a matter of course. “That should do it.” Auling uses Venom Expulsion Method to treat the poison straight away, and 4m Excellency - 11 sux on 13 dice. Jackal is insta-cured! “Hm. A job well done, although honestly my blood could as well poison that toxin itself.” Coming from Jackal, this was the perhaps the closest to the highest praise one would get. “Of course, it would be nice to enter an operation without having every single one of our enemies one step ahead. It could be a bluff but the shapeshifter said his mission is complete. And who knows who else shadowed us to this place.” Wyrm suddenly bit down choking back a spike of nausea as an unacceptable noise tried to escape her - Wyrm looked to Herald and Auling, “Get the old man back to ship, get him stable. Don’t revive him yet - he needs his rest.” She motioned for Rose to follow, then regarded He, Jackal, “We need this city ready to act sooner than the enemy would like, which means getting the pit-queen settled comfortably on her throne. Let’s go train a tiger.” “We have a heroine and we have our villains. The only thing that is left is an audience, and there’s no better devil to whip one than the old Jackal.” He says with a sly smile. “Give me a pulpit and a mob far larger than the one that set upon poor Maude will start searching for people to tear apart.”
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Jun 3, 2019 03:04
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A Reunion Spoiled Captain's Quarters, the Thousand-Facet Jewel, northwest of the Green Isle Tick. Tick. Tick. A single clock stood in the corner of the Jewel’s captain’s cabin, furnished by its previous owner and miraculously-undamaged during its tenure as a warship. Varangian in design, it operated via the arcane workings of a long, golden pendulum below the face and countless cogs of patinated brass turning under the armature. For a mortal owner, it was an extravagant luxury; for the Chosen, who could mark the passage of time through their own spiritual ties to the motions of sun, moon, and stars - even the strange, dead stars of the Underworld’s sky - it was worthless, save as a conversation piece. Tick. Tick. Tick. There was little conversation in the cabin at the moment. Captain and crew, passengers and guests sat in a truncated circle, all eyes on the newcomer. The spirits had been confined to the kitchen for the time being, where the tiled walls and deck (another extravagance by the original owner, a consummate gourmand) ensured that none of them would be eavesdropping on the debriefing that had yet to start. There, Ambassador Bolt and Queen Nuria pored over maps of the Green Isle, taking in the strategic view, while Layna watched with interest and Spark heaved into a basin. Tick. Tick. Tick. Franklin Moore - administrator, sorcerer, Exalted of Luna, a collection of titles that would have commanded respect on any other day in front of any other audience - sat uncomfortably in his chair, nervous and sweating from the tension. He wrung the tattered rags of his clothing between his hands, fraying them further. Silence was not his native tongue, but everything about the setting felt wrong to the No-Moon - foreign, yet familiar; civilized, yet dangerous. Where to begin? What to say in front of the woman who’d saved the Isle, yet killed it? Or the stranger who now wore her face? The irony of the situation did not escape him, and he cracked a nervous smile, looking at no-one in particular. Tick. Tick. Tick. “Er...you’ve a lovely ship, Captain,” he said at last, addressing Butterfly. “I love what you’ve done with the…” his eyes slid across Jenkins’ sutured features, and he shuddered softly. “...crew?” whirrrrrrrrrrr… Butterfly turned off the stove for the kettle, keeping eye contact on the unknown man. On one hand it would be rude to deny tea and hospitality to a guest, but on the other… “I'm sorry, who are you, and why are you on my ship?” Mercy broke the ensuing uncomfortable silence with a dry-sounding cough, met Butterfly’s eyes, then glanced pointedly at a fresh-made string of origami cranes hanging from the roof near one of the windows. She’d folded them, without apparent muscular effort or thought, as soon as the group had arrived in her cabin, out of the closest suitable thing at hand. Unfortunately, that seemed to have been Kaida’s duty-officer reports. Butterfly glanced over, and shrugged. “It's for good luck!” she said, reaching up to pluck one down. “Well, it's good to meet you Mr. ...Rakim Isle? No wait, wrong one,” she plucked another, “hmm...No-Moore?” Then she unfolded the wing. “Oh! Moore, No-Moon caste.” “Yes, that’s me,” Moore said. “Franklin Moore, Minister of Chiefs of the Berkshire Republic...or at least, I was. Our geopolitical situation is in a bit of a state of flux at present - some of our geography has gone missing, and our politicians aren’t yet sure what to make of that.” “Truthfully,” Mercy said, “we believed the Republic to have already fallen. Our advance scouts reported that nobody had had any word from the Republic since a bank of Wyldfog took up residence over it. We assumed that it had dissolved entirely alongside the Kingdom of the White Lion, after the business at Diamond Tor.” The steady look he gave the disheveled man was not as piercing as it otherwise might have been, though he still noted the usual details out of habit. “I take it that this is not the case?” “We’ve...relocated,” Moore said, somewhat defensively. “Admittedly, much of the real estate upon which the Republic was situated has become less...real, but its people remain, on other parts of the Green Isle or neighboring lands.” “So, uh, just into the Wyldfog?” Butterfly asked, serving cups of tea to everyone. “Not sunken under the ocean? Has anyone checked above and below yet?” “Well, that’s what’s so obnoxious about the Wyld,” Moore mused, taking the tea and extending his pinky before he sipped. “‘Above’ and ‘Below’ don’t like to stay put. Initial reports suggest that the Emerald Court took the chaos as an invitation to press beyond their usual boundaries.” “The fae were sworn to Hamilcar not to leave their domain,” Rakim growled softly. “I know,” Moore said simply. There was a long, awkward pause - neither of them liked much to think about what that meant. One of Mercy’s eyebrows quirked slightly at the implication before returning to studied impassivity. “None of the information I’d been privy to suggested he was anywhere near Diamond Tor when the ritual was conducted.” He looked at Rakim. “What you said on the subject suggested you believed him away from home at the time of the incident. Did he let you,” and here his gaze flicked to Moore as well, to indicate he meant ‘the Lunars of the Isle’, “know he was leaving, or why?” “He did,” Moore said with a strange, bitter smile. “He had heard rumors of the return of the Solar Exalted, and the appearance of the Abyssals. He left to investigate them.” “Well, you found us!” Butterfly beamed, unable to keep up with the conversation. At this, Mercy only closed his eyes and lowered his head, his expression sorrowful. She glanced out the window, where Diamond Tor continued to loom ominously in the distance. “Oh, you meant them,” she said, taking a long sip of tea so she didn't have to reply again. “To the world above,” Mercy said, without looking up, “there is no ‘them’. Just ‘us.’” Butterfly quickly gulped down her tea, annoyed Mercy didn't catch her signal. “Well, until we make ourselves known.” “For my part, I believe that unity and understanding are always preferable to strife and ignorance,” Moore said. “Your friend Pathfinder killed thousands and destroyed my kingdom,” Rakim snarled. “...usually always preferable.” “Your kingdom yet stands,” Mercy said, looking up at last. “Bloodied, threatened - but it stands. Only one other was so lucky. Has anybody heard from them?” “Not…directly,” Moore admitted. “But a large delegation of Delzahn merchants arrived in Emerald Harbor from Chiaroscuro, and integrated with the Tya traders without any apparent friction. Critical relief supplies pour in, and at very favorable rates. I suspect al-Rashid’s hand...feather...talon...thing in this.” Mercy nodded, his eyes far away. “Possibly the Captain already knows about that group - I suspect that she has access to her employer’s information-gathering network. I hope so. That’d be a surprise she doesn’t need at the moment.” He focused back on the two Lunars in the room. “Is this sort of invisible-guidance approach in keeping with al-Rashid’s M.O.?” “He liked to say we should ‘trust in the invisible hand of the market’ before vanishing from sight,” Moore said. “I assume you mean Wyrm there, this is all news to me,” Butterfly interjected. Mercy nodded once to both of them - to Moore, in acknowledgement of information received, and to Butterfly, as confirmation of her comment. Then, seeing the other Deathknights in the room disinclined to comment, he continued, looking at Rakim next. “And did you get the answers you were seeking?” he asked. “All but one,” Rakim said with a low, agitated rumble. “Now that you know your lords did this, what will you do with them?” Mercy had met Rakim’s gaze as he’d asked his own question, and he held it as Rakim responded with a question of his own. After a few seconds, though, it became clear that though he might have been looking at Rakim, he wasn’t seeing him. He had made as though to speak almost immediately, then stopped again, just as quickly, and his expression grew troubled as he thought. Never, silent up until that point, barked out a very uncharacteristic laugh. “Do with them? What of my story makes you think such a thing is possible, even if we wanted to?” She stood up, barely as tall as the Tiger sitting down. “Do you have any idea what you ask? Do with them! What would you do with Luna if she were to bare her fangs and give you an order you despised, but couldn’t disobey without breaking the oath that gave you breath? Do with them!” Her fists clenched and for a moment it looked like she would punch him right in the face. “What will they do with us when they find out about this nest of sedition, more like!” Ceaseless let Never Mercy had continued to stare, unseeing, as both Never and Ceaseless spoke. He gave no visible signs that he had heard, but even as his mind raced, he found many of the points they raised mirroring his own thoughts. When Ceaseless fell silent, Mercy’s eyes refocused on the here-and-now, and he finally responded. “I might not have put it the same way,” he said slowly, “but much of what they’ve said their way, I’d have said in mine.” His gaze, which had begun to waver, snapped back up to meet Rakim’s once more. “And yet, none of that changes what you’re asking - or why. You’re not stupid; you understand that we only have a free hand this time, because all of that,” he gestured towards the window, and its view of Diamond Tor, “was… ‘counterproductive’. You’re asking about the next time. But…” His eyes flicked to Never in a look of apology. “She’s talking about the last one. You saw it yourself - the last time her Lady ordered her to do wrong, she refused outright. What you didn’t see was the cost. For her rebellion, her Lady carved away that part of her she thought responsible, then tried to start over with what was left.” His gaze grew more severe, until it was not quite accusatory, but undeniably questioning. “And if that were it, if our hides were the only ones on the line, your anger would be justified. But they’re not.” He nodded meaningfully towards the deck, towards the galley, where the ship’s lesser officers and resident spirits waited. “We won’t be the only people to suffer the consequences of our actions. You of all people ought to understand that.” “Did I ask you what it would cost when I helped you bring down Ashes?” Mercy shook his head ‘no’. “You thought your kingdom dead at the time.” “I feel very lost right now,” Moore sighed. “Ashes?” “Our first common foe,” Mercy said. “Only one, besides Dyval,” Rakim growled, sulking. Mercy nodded impatiently at the absurdity of the statement, his eyes fixed on the tiger. “Rakim,” he said sharply, trying to meet the tiger’s eyes, “could you take me in a fight? Or Never? Or Damnation?” The question was as absurd - laughable, almost - as the statement that had preceded it, but Mercy’s tone was as serious as any judge’s. “Yes, yes, and ‘maybe’,” Rakim said without hesitation, with a note of pride on the second ‘yes’ and a bit of a huff on the ‘maybe’. “And yet even you couldn’t so much as touch the Weaver when you attacked him at Skullstone,” Mercy said. “He didn’t even have to fight back.” Rakim had nothing to say to that, but his eyes narrowed to slits and his tail began to lash so furiously that it tore several of the origami decorations from their wires. His growl deepened until the others could feel it through the floorboards. “Rakim, be sensible!” Moore urged. “Your people need you!” “NO, THEY DON’T!” he roared, and charged out of the room. There followed a brief silence, which circumstance stretched into a seeming eternity, before Mercy stood, holding up an open hand to Damnation and Moore. “I’ll talk to him - or else it’ll just come up again.” Without waiting for a response, he walked out after Rakim.
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Jul 7, 2019 17:40
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Herding Cats - An Unnamed Palace The Imperatrix’ living quarters were situated in the old Tengese palace adjoining the arena, where the Pit Lord’s forces had first overrun their captors and seized power over the Green Isle’s eastern coast. The building had sustained damage in the revolt, and then again when the deadly swarm had spread across the isle; though less than the western half had suffered, scoring and gouges were visible in the red sandstone. Portions of it had been rebuilt by its new ruler, while reconstruction on its western wall continued apace. A long, ragged furrow trailed from the arena exit to the palace steps, marking Alicia’s path as she’d dragged her sword along in a sulk. The two massive horse-men at the gates were both shaking softly with dread; clearly, their queen had been by recently. Nevertheless, they had the presence of mind to cross their halberds at Wyrm’s approach. “Our apologies, captain,” the palomino said. “It is late, and the Imperatrix is not receiving visitors at this hour.” “It would be best if you returned in the morning,” the chestnut agreed. “For everyone’s sake...and safety.” Wyrm advanced regardless, “Good, she’ll receive intruders.” She cut her pace just slightly as converged on the guards and judged if she’d need to duck under their arms. They motioned as if to bar her passage, but something in her bearing, her eyes, put them off long enough for her to slip past into the palace foyer. “Hey, wait!” the palomino cried, panicking. “You can’t-!” “Do you want to be around when she meets the Imperatrix?” the chestnut cut him off. “...Deathknight sorcery,” the palomino muttered. “We saw nothing.” Before vanishing entirely into the palace, Wyrm spared a quick look back, “You tried.” That said, she went on undeterred. She’d need to guide. Like any other seat of power, this place was built to exalt its ruler as the center of their world. All roads would lead her to the throne. The only question was who she would find there. The furrowed channel in the stone continued across the marble tile of the palace interior, continuing through once-lavish gardens and a grand ballroom, before leading Wyrm to a spacious chamber with lapis-and-emerald columns flanking the path to a chryselephantine throne that would beggar a Guild Factor. It, too, had been set with precious gems once; those had been prised loose from their settings and tossed aside. In their place had been fixed lumps of common quartz with a tiger’s-eye banding. Alicia sat upon the throne, slumped forward from her injuries and clutching the hilt of her red daiklave. Its point was angled downward at the floor, and it seemed heavier in her grip than it had during the duel. At the intruder’s approach, her ears sprang to attention and swiveled in the direction of the sound. “Captain Wyrm,” she said without looking up. “Have you come to ask for his remains?” Wyrm shrugged, and spent a moment slowly looking over the room before responding. “Dear Uncle needs his rest. He really shouldn’t have his blood back in until he’s somewhere dark and quiet. Poor thing, he’s easily distracted.” She turned aside, and started to pace the width of the hall, “Do try to understand - when he was buried, chosen had nothing better to do than parade around comparing honors. This is how he used to make new friends.“ “Hm? Ah,” Alicia said, hastily masking her surprise. “I should have known. Nothing from the Underworld knows how to stay dead.” She spun the sword against the ground. “He owes me his counsel, then.” She lifted a hand and swept it back over her scalp, forcing her ears to lie flat again. “‘A dragon must be baited into baring its neck’...” she echoed, and her grip on the hilt tightened. Wyrm stopped. A terrible grin swept over her face, and a faint hissing laugh crept through her teeth, “There!” With a snap of her fingers she wheeled about and took one heavy step toward the Pit Queen. “I am here to answer what you Can’t. Stop. Asking.” Each word brought Wyrm closer. Her voice rose sharply. With each breath she stoked bitter embers that she’d buried long ago back to horrid, screaming unlife. The pain of old wounds soon burned just as fresh as a life ago and a world away. With the same audacious fury that lead her to her grave, Wyrm roared, “Who says you’re no Tiger?” Alicia stood. More blood seeped from her open wounds, trickling red rivers across throne and floor, but something more stirred her now; a flame that mere mortality could not easily quench. “All who dare approach me,” she snarled. “Who presume familiarity,” she spat. “I, who stood against the devouring dark and burned it away with the fires of the sun. I, who took up the Pit Lord’s blade when no other would dare lift it from where it fell.” Step by bloody step, she lurched toward Wyrm, lifting the blade to point at the deathknight. “All who whisper when I pass, thinking I won’t hear them and strike off their heads for their impudence, as they would never have dared for him!” Alicia bared her teeth, still stained with Relic’s blood. “And you...do you feel so safe as to come before me now, as though you won’t share in your uncle’s fate?” Wyrm activates Mastery of Small Manners, attuning to the culture of The Pit. There was peril in the atmosphere, as familiar to the weather as rain, storm, and fog; its marks were worn into stone and wood like the etchings in the marble, like the scorched fork of a lightning-struck tree. It had built up over years and settled down in layers of bloody sediment; chop open a trunk, and count the battles it’d seen in its rings. Scars over scars over scars, and underneath… ...a soft, quivering core of fear. Of when will it be enough? Wyrm paused, and let her temper cool. She rolled her head aside and patted her exposed neck. “Go on then - bite.” “I might yet,” Alicia spoke, narrowing her eyes at Wyrm. “State your business. Plainly.” Wyrm’s head snapped upright, “To fix this, so we can go hunt dragons.” Arms folded, she went on, “No, it’s not the other way around. There is no trophy big enough to shut them up. They know you’re strong, they know you’re fierce, they know you’re everything they say they want out of a leader. If this were about any of that it would be settled. Instead, you don’t feel safe here on your own throne and every one of them out there is terrified of you.” She offered her neck again, “Plain enough so far?” “...you speak from experience,” Alicia observed. She took three paces forward, each step a reverberating boom in the cavernous hall. “I’ve heard that your kind are chosen at the moment of death. So.” She stopped, relaxing her grip on her sword for the first time since the audience had begun. “How did you die?” “A little steppe-wolf wanted nothing more in life than to prove she was a good brother. Thought she’d run off and catch a dragon, all on her own.” Wyrm closed her eyes and shook her head. “Since they can’t defeat you, their only option is to hold out until you find someone else to do it for them.” “Fools,” Alicia muttered. “I would be rid of them, if I only could, but ingrates and cowards are seldom honorable enough to announce themselves.” “You’ll be rid of me soon,” Wyrm slid a half-step back and began to turn away, “Could be rid of me now.” “Crawl back into your grave, if you must,” Alicia spat. “I’ll still be here.” “Yes,” Wyrm’s eyes snapped back, “You will stay exactly where he left you, and keep hoping he’ll come home.” Imperatrix Alicia Sheng posted:Wyrm activates Motive-Discerning Technique and goes all in on Read Intent on which of those words hurt most. BOTJupiter:@A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 1,3,4,4,4,5,6,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,8,9,10,10,10 for a total of 12 successes (13 Really, from double-9s) He left you - He’ll come home. “You never found a body.” Wyrm’s dead, hawkish glare stayed locked on Alicia, “So where is he? That’s what they whisper from the shadows when they know you’re listening and it’s what you scream back every time you nail another trophy to his wall. If anyone in this pit must be the next Great Tiger it’s obviously you. They know that.” Her voice dropped to harsh rasp of grave law, “No one inherits anything unless Rakim is dead.” A trace of heat returned to her eulogy, “But he can’t be dead. You all survived on what he taught you and he remains the greatest man you know. So where is he? He would never abandon you. He would just up and vanish without warning, return the next day unannounced without a word of explanation, but not for an entire loving year without so much as a dead elf on the doorstep to say he’s thinking of you.” Her tipped just slightly, with a faint pop, “How long did you wait to build that fountain?” quote:Seven dragons of bronze and copper coiled and thrashed, caught eternally in their death-throes, with water spilling from their open mouths and open wounds. A statue of an enormous tiger, twice the height of the genuine article, stood over the vanquished serpents, his jaws wrapped around one dragon’s throat while his claws tore two others to shreds. In the light of the setting sun and the dusk-glow off of the red stone of the walls and basin, it looked almost as if the fountain flowed with real blood. “Honored Memory of Your Founder sounds like you’ve buried something, but I don’t hear anyone mourning at your first ancestor’s empty grave. That’s no memorial - it’s bait. It stands there carrying your faith that any day now, Live or Dead, he’ll turn up to bite its head off and demand to know which of you dense motherfuckers tried to make him a Holy Icon.” Wyrm did her best to twist the words into Rakim’s distinctive snarl, but quickly sprang back to her own dry rasp, “At least then he’d be where he belongs - with you.” Influence Roll - into a 2 die stunt Wyrm throws Masterful Performance Exercise, 3m of excellence and a willpower for 16 dice and 3 auto sx (Leaves her with 5 peripheral motes and 9wp) BOTJupiter @A_Raving_Loon, you rolled 2,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,8,9,10 for a total of 5 successes Total of 8 Successes “I owe him everything,” Alicia said, her voice low, soft, and dangerous. “But I don’t need his help to protect myself.” She leveled her sword at Wyrm’s exposed throat. “Why should I need yours?” “Good.” Wyrm smiled, “Now tell him that yourself - He’s back tomorrow,” she bared her fangs, “We’re going hunting.” With a click of her heels, the captain wheeled about and set off marching back out of the room. —- “You shouldn’t have done that,” the palomino guard told Wyrm as she exited the palace. “You really shouldn’t have done that,” the chestnut concurred. Wyrm shrugged as she crossed their line again, “Had to be done. Better now than later.” There was a rising tension in the air, an imminence like a storm about to break. A sensation to which the equines were well-attuned and to which Wyrm had grown accustomed. An eerie silence hung over the courtyard as the captain’s form receded into the twilight. “Maybe…” the palomino muttered. “Maybe she’s…” Whatever ambiguity he meant to address was resolved in a sudden, violent fashion as an entire block of quarried granite burst through the canvas curtains over the construction site and plowed six feet deep into the flagstone with a shattering crash. Wyrm watched the dust settle, then gave a quick nod. “She’s fine.”
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Jul 7, 2019 17:59
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The Pine Forts By night, under the cover of darkness, the Daughter of Onyx and Silver made her approach. At that hour, Dyval’s camp was asleep. Night was a poor time for construction work - perhaps some of the beastfolk could have managed it, but those were prisoners and slaves, and when their overseers slept, they were confined to their quarters. Blind gaolers and sighted servants made an excellent time for revolt. Or for scouting, as the case might be. The Dragon-Blooded in the fortified cove might have noticed something amiss...but then, they were only so many, and sentry duty was a poor use of their talents and time. Some slept in their lodgings, some stood watch by torchlight; some were alert and dutiful, and some were in their cups. Dyval’s recruiting drive had rounded up an eclectic motley of soldiers and sailors and thieves and wastrels. Each had their uses, but not all of them were useful now. Onyx leaned her head from side to side, feeling the satisfying pop from the vertebrae in her neck as she did so. She grinned up at her partner, the familiar thrill of the job mixing with the tingle of the thunderbird’s presence - a tingle entirely distinct from the static electricity surrounding Blood-on-the-Wind. “Ready for this? It’s not exactly a full-frontal assault, but…” She trailed off, fangs glinting in the moonlight. ”Onyx, love, you know that I appreciate variety.” The clouds were unusually-low over the island this evening - at the height of the season of Fire, the skies ought to have been clear and starry. Perhaps it was Blood’s handiwork, or perhaps the Abyssals had brought some of the chill of the grave along with them. Or perhaps the geologic upheaval had been enough to alter the isle’s weather patterns. ”I’ll do what I can to remain discreet, but it won’t mean much if they have sorcerers or other spirits keeping watch.” The fog gathered closer around Onyx, cool and soft against her skin. ”Perhaps you could be a dear and...clear a path for me?” Onyx’s eyes closed and she inhaled, savoring the fog. When they opened, her irises were gone, replaced with pure white before the Deathknight faded from awareness. Not gone, just sideways from reality, and really just… easier not to notice. She concentrated, and felt it: the smell of ozone; the reckless, panting joy of battle; the feel of hard rains soaking you to the bone. <I picked up a new trick, lover. Wanted to surprise you with it.> Activating Spirit-Sensing Meditation, 3m Peri, Screaming in Silence, 5m Pers, Unseen Wisp, 5m Peri (4m + 1m for anima ping). Pers: 14/19 Peri: 16/24 WP: 10/10 The world of spirits became clearer to Onyx, and she saw several beings clustered around a spire. <North tower is probably where Dyval’s got his pet sorcerer, if I had to guess. I’m seeing another half-dozen scattered around the camp, but you can probably spot them better than I can.> Blood’s thoughts came back as a sort of silent pressure within Onyx’s skull, like the change in the air before a storm broke. <I’ll look, but I really see best by day. A night raid with sorcerous guards...perhaps we should have brought Spark along. But then, he’s finally worked up the nerve to tell Butterfly about his feelings. Now that he’s broken out of his shell, I’m sure he’ll want to make up for lost time.> <You know, I don’t know a whole lot about Thunderbirds (present company excluded) but I didn’t think that repression was a common trait. I’m guessing there’s a story, there?> Onyx hugged the shadows, alert for anything that could be trouble. <We vary as humans do, if not in all the same ways.> Blood’s misted form followed Onyx’s movements, prowling out of sight of the other spirits. <Some storms break all at once. Others need to wait for the right conditions. Spark has always been shy and reserved. Perhaps if he’d had parents…> Onyx exhaled slowly, nodding faintly. <I think I know how that one goes.> She dragged her mind away from that life, focusing on the task at hand and swiftly ascending to the rooftops. <Based on what you’re seeing, where do you think supply chains would be coordinated from? Or, I guess a better question is, where do you think we can disrupt them best?> She surveyed the camp, making a mental note to talk to Blood about military tactics and logistics if this sort of infiltration was going to become a regular assignment. <I see plunder coming in from two directions,> Blood whispered back after a brief absence. <Cargo unloaded from the docks, and provisions from the northeastern road. Let me see...they stay apart until they reach that crane atop the cliff, and then I see both types of parcel together. I could try my aim at that cargo arm...unless you’d like to pay his quartermaster a visit first?> Blood rolls Wits+Bureaucracy with a 2-die specialty in Reaving and a 4m excellency: 11 sux on 15 dice, dayum. She finds some quality plunder! Onyx tracked what Blood described, nodding at the last suggestion. <Quartermaster is probably as good a place as any to start. I’d rather not tip them to our presence before we have to, so we might need a distraction.> The Deathknight frowned. <And probably someone to pin the blame on, too.> Her eyes scanned the facilities, locking on an implosion bow very clearly pointed at <… huh. Ramshackle slave quarters. Built out from the side of the cliff on platforms. With siege artillery aimed them. Pretty effective way of making sure they stay submissive, though a touch overblown.> Fangs glinted in the moonlight. <I might have an idea, but I’ll need your help to pull it off.> <Just tell me where you want me,> Blood sent back. <Naked, in the light of the flames of this place, once we’ve finished wrecking it. In the meantime, we need to have a Dragonblood, preferably unconscious, but dead if necessary, and I need a quill and parchment.> There was a pause, and a short burst of trepidation surged through the link. <How are you at sales contracts?> <Formal or clandestine?> <Clandestine’s better. I’m thinking that an under-the-table deal for some slaves went south, and our unfortunate soldier decided to try and get rid of the evidence.> <Short, cryptic, and with unexplained cash hidden away in his quarters. Plenty of plunder nearby for that.> Onyx felt the brush of her lover’s wings as Blood began to condense back into material form. <Perhaps it would be best if, should they decide to look closer, their quartermaster were indisposed?> <I like the way you think. Let’s go pay the QM a visit.> There was a beat. <Probably a good idea to know the correct bunk to plant the evidence in before going to plant it.> Onyx rose up on tip-toe and locked her lips firmly with Blood’s, before dropping back down to a crouch, motioning Blood to follow her lead. spending 3m Pers for 6 dice (thanks to Shadow Cloak Technique) for… 4 sux on 19 dice. What the gently caress, Orokos. Pers: 11/19 Peri: 16/24 WP 10/10. Dyval’s quartermaster stood at the wharf, overseeing the disposition of the last few items of cargo. Ships came and went, unloading tribute and receiving pay; the youngblood captains strove to outdo one another in their plundered offerings, and thereby earn a place at the Admiral’s side. Quartermaster Jemaine took it all in with the same look of studious detachment as he’d worn at the gala. For each item, he marked a tally on his slate and sent the bearer on their way. In truth, he judged more than just the tribute. The state of each captain’s vessel also spoke to their prudence, or their daring. Those who’d nearly wrecked their vessels without a commensurate prize to show for their efforts...well, they could still be useful in other capacities. Onyx crept closer along the tangle of petrified roots that erupted from the cliff face. The slaves had cleared the most-obtrusive clusters and dredged the worst of the deadfall from the harbor, but enough was left to provide a superb angle of approach for any assassin. The soldiers were too busy enjoying their winnings to notice the intruder, and her muted spiritual presence baffled the demonic sentries. Root by root, branch by branch, she stalked directly over the quartermaster’s head - - and he saw the reflection on the water’s surface change, and glanced up. Quartermaster Jemaine spends 2m on 1st Awareness Excellency and gets 6 successes. With the -2 external for Unseen Wisp, that’s exactly a tie with Onyx. This isn’t a ! but it’s definitely a ? Onyx slowly shifted, hardly daring to breathe. Instead, she forced her Essence to mimic the moonlight’s reflection on the cavern ceiling, the ebb and flow of the water dictating her speed as she eased into deeper shadows, eyes locked on the Quartermaster. Spending 1wp, and 8m (4 Pers, 3Peri, plus one for anima ping for another Stealth check augmented by Just Another Branch Deceit; 19 dice plus four successes (JABD + WP), five if Onyx has 50% hard cover or better. 12 successes, 13 if hard cover applies. Pers: 7/19 Peri: 12/24 WP 9/10 The quartermaster kept staring at Onyx’s hiding place for a disconcertingly-long time. At last, he looked away, and motioned for the shackled porters to stow the rest of the cargo at the dockside store-room rather than hauling it up to the crane. It was time to call it a night. “Fangs Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three,” he spoke abruptly, addressing the the Peleps soldiers drinking by a bonfire. “I am retiring to my quarters. You will escort me.” The Dragon-Blooded sergeant of the 23rd Fang stood and saluted before anyone could ask any stupid questions. “Affirmative, sir. Alright, you dogs! Fall out!” He didn’t bother asking if the quartermaster was expecting trouble. If the quartermaster was asking for a guard detail, then it went without saying that he was expecting trouble. All ten soldiers fell into formation, four each to his front and back and one to either side. The petrified branches were too perilous to walk upon at this time of night. They would be taking the long way, up the zig-zag ramps quarried into the cliff face. Onyx slowly exhaled. <That was too close.> She looked at the path they were taking, and slowly allowed herself a grim smile. <Looks like they've left us the direct route.> She continued stalking through the stone branches, eyes on her target. <Why don't you check out the cargo they just stowed, and then meet me further up? If there's anything good, you'll probably find it faster than I will.> <Flatterer,> Blood answered, and pressed extra-close against Onyx before dispersing toward the store-room. The tingle of static clung to Onyx even after she had gone. The Day Caste gave a soft, shuddering sigh before heading out. She moved more quickly, now, traversing the petrified limbs in an arcing interception path. The shadows obliged her, deepening almost imperceptibly as she passed through. With two fangs guarding him, the quartermaster moved considerably more slowly than she did. If I knew where he was going, it might make more of a difference. As she got closer, she reassessed her plan of attack. It took a long time for the quartermaster to reach the top of the cove, especially with his escort in tow, and without a clear destination in sight, Onyx was forced to move at Jemaine’s plodding pace. Along the way, lurking, malevolent presences drew close to the party; wisps of green flame blossomed in mid-air where the bound demons pressed against the veil, salivating at the scent of flesh and blood, only to recede in grumbling disappointment at the sight of the insignia on the soldiers’ armor. The sergeant drew a line in the scree with the toe of his boot and spat over it, glowering at the unseen horror until it slunk back to its post. The Day Caste sucked air noiselessly through her suddenly bared fangs. A thought hit her. <Blood, that soldier you ate back at the party… have you had a chance to go through what he was wearing?> <Hmm? Sorry, love, a bit distracted at the moment. They’re keeping some MARVELLOUS plunder in here. That particular morsel...I gave his chain to you, and what was left of his armor to Butterfly. Why do you ask?> <Was there a jadesteel pin in there anywhere? One of the sergeants just made the demon guards back off by brandishing it at them. I'm no sorceress, but I'm guessing that there's some kind of condition attached to those pins as part of the binding.> <No, I don’t recall...oh.> Blood’s thoughts trailed off, and Onyx picked up a twinge of discomfort from her lover. <I have been experiencing some indigestion since then, but I’d just put it down to his poor hygiene. Let me just…> Onyx felt a spasm of nausea, and then a sharp, stabbing pain in her own esophagus, followed by more of the same in a cycle that lasted several minutes. <OoOoO that was unpleasant. PLEASE tell me this horrible little thing was worth that.> <Should mean that we don't have to deal with the sorcerer’s pets, which both makes our job easier and helps us sell the “inside job" story. I'll find other ways to make it up to you, I promise.> Onyx subconsciously rubbed at her own throat, wincing. <How fast can you get here?> <Fast as lightning, dear...although that may warn our prey a little too early. A minute, please.> The fog rolled in, mist rising off of the waves and shrouding the lower reaches of the cove. The demonic sentries reacted with interest, probing at the mist, trying to decide if it brought anything new and delicious with it. <Ahhh…> Blood crooned. Something small and gleaming fell from the fog into Onyx’s hands: a brooch of dark jadesteel, polished to a mirror shine in some places, pitted from acid in others. <I do hope this little trinket does the trick - those demons are getting a little too close for comfort, and I don’t think that I could manage them on an upset stomach.> Onyx nodded, affixing the pin to her sleeve, where the sergeant had shown the demons his insignia. <If I’m wrong, tonight may get a lot more interesting that we’d hoped.>The Day Caste continued to stalk the quartermaster’s retinue, her footfalls matching the mist for silence. Her eyes flickered sideways, gauging the demon’s reactions as she ghosted forward, though her attention remained focused on the soldiers ahead. <Any bets on how inconvenient our new friend is going to make this?> <If it screams, very inconvenient indeed. And Erymanthoi can scream quite loudly indeed.> <I was referring more towards the quartermaster up there, but that’s an excellent point.> Although she was confident that they had not yet been detected (due to the lack of immediate attack, strident alarm calls, and/or evidence of mobilization), Onyx nevertheless threw her cloak back over her left shoulder to ensure that her new badge of office was in full view. Best to look like she belonged wherever she was, after all. The demons had appeared to give an opportunity to present credentials to the soldiers, and she was in no mood to take unnecessary chances. <Sorry to pull you away from the plunder, lover. This way we can go through it together.> <We’ve all the world to plunder, and all the time in the world to do it.> Blood nipped at her cheek affectionately. The demons hovered before Onyx as an immaterial miasma of hunger and malice, studying the design on the pin to be sure that it matched. At last, they reluctantly concluded that it was the correct insignia, and that they were not allowed to eat these persons, whereupon they dispersed into a general air of malaise and resentment. Quartermaster Jemaine’s lodgings were on the northern spire, guarded by an ever-denser swarm of demonic sentries. His escort seemed distinctly-ill at ease with such creatures, the vein on his forehead growing more prominent each time he brandished his own insignia to ward them off. Jemaine appeared disinterested, detached from the spectacle of it all. He was the sort of quiet professional that every theatrical dictator, tyrant, or warlord depended upon to carry out the dull affairs of state, caring only for the task set before him, and right now that task was to reach his bed. No-one noticed the pair trailing them from a distance, save the spirits that let them through as indifferently as they had the quartermaster himself. He dismissed his guards with a wave of his hand, then stepped through the heavy door to the alcove in the stone where he made his lodgings. Onyx tensed, then forced herself back to an at-ease bearing. She could make it in, but she'd be grappling alone with a Water-Aspect, and she doubted that he would be dumb enough to try to take on that fight without raising the alarm. <All right. We know where he bunks, now, and we know that he works late. At least sometimes, anyway.> The Deathknight started back towards the cove, pin still displayed. <Looks like this is going to be more than a one-night stand. Why don't you show me what you've found, and we can check his office for some writing samples. I think the QM would be an ideal patsy.> <Boring people always are. Now, as for that plunder…> Silently, the duo returned to the dockside storeroom and slipped in past the sentries. The Peleps marines thought the place well-defended, and perhaps it would have been against anyone else, but who in Creation could stand guard against wind and shadows? <Such MARVELLOUS toys> Blood crooned softly. <Silver, pearls, and jade...someone’s been raiding tribute ships. But we’re not here for anything so pedestrian, are we?> A flash of blue, chased with gold, caught Onyx's eye. <Speaking of pedestrian…> She pointed to a jadesteel chassis, barely peeking out from under a protective cloth tarp. <I think we just found our way out of here. You know how you loved riding Vincent...?> 4m Personal on 1st Larceny Excellency, 3 sux to Spotte Loote. <Surely that isn’t…> A soft breeze stirred the building’s interior, lifting the tarp a short distance and passing over the cargo underneath. <Oh, hello, you gorgeous thing. What in the world are they doing, keeping you hidden away like this?> Electrical sparks danced over the navy-blue jadesteel, stirring the machine’s internals and rousing it to life. <Oh...oh my, darling. You give the best presents. I’ll have to think of a way to return this favor.> Onyx's pupils dilated as she felt every hair on her body stand on end from the static electricity suffusing the room. <Mmm. I have faith in your creativity.> Reluctantly, she forced her attention back to the task at hand. Her eyes flashed over the office, drinking in every detail; cataloging, collating, and drawing conclusions in a matter of seconds. <Hello… what have we here?> Onyx uses Crafty Observation Method to case the scene and find examples of Jemaine's writing. 5m, Peripheral (hooray Mute keyword); 9 successes. In the corner was an overturned crate of cowrie shells, the common currency of the West and the legal tender accepted by the Empress in lieu of silver or jade (the former of which the Direction notably lacked and the latter of which was difficult to mine in the region, commonly-found as it was on the seafloor). Mixed in with the jumbled strings of scarlet shells was a crumpled memo. Captain Anko, While your diligence in scouring our theater of operation for fungible assets is to be commended, regrettably, I must inform you that these shells are accepted as tribute only by grace of our Empress (Ever May She Reign), and only later by the grace of our Emperor Dyval (Ever May He Reign). The Bursar of Barbarian Tribute tallies them only reluctantly, and Imperial holdings outside of the Western Ocean not at all. Notably, all Imperial holdings that DO recognize the Cowrie either belong to our rivals (who will not conduct business with our known agents) or to House Peleps (in which case the matter of payment is immaterial, for they will render unto us as we comand). Your efforts may well assist in the consolidation of our existing holdings, but will do little to fund our soon-to-be-Emperor’s campaign to claim what is rightfully his. May I suggest that in the future you focus your acquisitory efforts on the collection of tribute known to be in arrears - most notably that unjustly-appropriated by the privateers of V’neef, who wrongly consider the Imperial Merchant Marine their own franchise. Their diversion of House Peleps’ rightful stipend is a shameful chapter in our otherwise-noble history, and its remedy a top priority for the Admiral. RECEIVED: Tribute in the form of two-thousand, two hundred and forty-five ordinary cowrie shells of tenderable quality, equivalent to six-thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five silver Denarii; Eighteen large cowrie shells of exceptional luster and quality, estimated equivalent to nearly two talents of fine silver; and fifty-five chipped, flawed, or broken shells, worthless. NOTARIZED by Peleps Kaizoku Jemaine, Quartermaster-General of the Water Fleet. The note was damp, dank, and wrinkled, ink smudged in places and smelling of something remarkably like stale human urine; on its reverse was a scribbled tirade accusing the Quartermaster of shameful misconduct, both professional and sexual. ’WHO FOUND YOU THAT WRECK TO SALVAGE’ was the outraged demand concluding the rant. Onyx choked off a gleeful whoop of triumph before it could become anything more than a soft "hee!" She licked her lips with an almost obscene eagerness. <Blood, get over here; I just hit paydirt. Sorry about the smell.> <Whatever did you find, love? Nothing as exciting as our new toy, surely…> The Abyssal shoved the memo in her partner's face. <Do you have any idea…? If we weren't on a job…> Jumbled, jubilant, half-formed thoughts flashed across the mental link as Onyx grabbed the thunderbird's face in both hands and dragged her down for a savage kiss. After a decent interval, Onyx forced herself back under control. <Okay… okay. We need to grab some parchment, or vellum, or something, and then we need to clear out for tonight. I want to draw up that contract properly, and I don't feel like getting interrupted by some idiot night watchman.> <Are you sure about that?> Blood batted her eyelashes in the dark; with the shuttering of the nictitating membranes over her eyes, the gesture was as terrifying as it was romantic. <I could always go for a celebratory snack…> The thunderbird leaned in a little too far, and found herself stuck, wedged between two narrow shelves. She gave a soft trill of annoyance. <...but then, I’m still working off the last one.> In reply, Onyx simply grinned, fangs fully extended. <Lover, the things I’m going to do to you…> Another savage kiss, this time full of promise. <Let’s get going. Tomorrow the real fun starts.> MadcapViking fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 7, 2019 18:19
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The Waves, Ceaseless and Unending, Devour the Shore and Moore - Waarddrooobbbe! Sartorial Emergency on Aft Middeck! - 4th of Resplendent Fire Ceaseless let the silence of Rakim and Mercy’s departure linger briefly, then spoke. “Mister Moore, let’s get you cleaned up and well-appointed once more. Your appearance suggests that you’ve spent the last several months hiding in a coffin. I think you’ll appreciate whatever I can whip up for you more than what the ship’s captain might devise.” Moore glanced doubtfully between the extravagantly frilly Butterfly and the engineer’s crimson, black, and bone motif. “Errrr...,” said Moore thoughtfully. The Lunar shrugged resignedly and responded, “I shall be most grateful, sir. Lead on.” Ceaseless led Moore to the bathing area, noting a few decorative elements from the ship’s prior glory years that still remained in place as they walked. “Whatever else one might think about Butterfly’s tastes, one must admit that she has built a quality bath,” said Ceaseless. “One minor aspect which I, alas, have no ability to remedy at the moment: the various cleansing agents within will leave you smelling quite…floral.” The pair arrived at a door and the engineer gestured grandly inside, “Here we are. Just hand your rags to one of the attendants to be burned and enjoy. If there’s some aspect of the controls you can’t figure out, I’m sure an attendant can assist with that, as well.” “Please,” Moore huffed, “I understand bathing. We’re not savages.” He began to twist and fiddle with the knobs, dials, and levers, attempting to match input to output. The various faucets poured forth perfumed bubbles, blood thinned with grain alcohol, sand, and burning pitch (the last of which ignited the alcohol). “Er...pay no mind,” Moore said, hastily dousing the flames. “One of these must be for water…” Ceaseless peered at the controls. “Try the one with the flaming skull and crossbones sign on the knob. That’s probably a warning that Layna, the resident fire elemental, should avoid it.” With that puzzle solved, the engineer nodded a goodbye to Moore and set off on his mission of strategic fabric piracy. One brownish purple velvet curtain with white streaks from the wall of a passageway (a quick snap of the fabric deposited a small pile of salt and mildew neatly in a nearby corner, revealing a lovely shade of rich maroon), two white silk towels from the bottom of the communal towel cupboard (“Silk towels?!,” muttered Ceaseless.), the leather for one black and one royal blue future zombie saltwater survival suit plus a bolt of linen from Butterfly’s workshop (“Blue zombies? Really?”), and several yards of canvas, one dead rat and a spool of tough sail-stitching thread from the sailmaking stores (“She’s got paddlewheels anyway.”). Returning to the workshop, Ceaseless cleared as large a space as possible in the center of the room and laid down his first piece of cloth. The “You’ll be my awl,” said Ceaseless to the rat and waved it toward the pile of leather pieces. He replenished the blood on the needle and this time the blood was absorbed by the metal. The engineer smoothly threaded the needle and got to work. For each stitch Ceaseless put into the fabric, the needle popped back out to Ceaseless’ fingers by itself. As he gained confidence in the mechanics, the engineer sped up, until by the end of his work it would have seemed to an observer as if he simply brushed his hand along the desired seam. When the rat finished poking the required holes in the leather with its tail it sat in place and began gnawing its rear legs off. As each bone came free, the rat polished it clean and Ceaseless plucked the bone up to use as cufflinks and other such fasteners. When the faithful rat had reached all it could, its sinews and tendons wiggled free and into the band of Moore’s new hat to stiffen it up. A few moments later, Ceaseless stood back to admire his handiwork on the tailor’s dummy. Linen underclothes, silk shirt, black leather pants, blue leather weskit, maroon velvet tailcoat, and blue leather tophat with maroon velvet band just above the rim. The more practical outfit laid out on the table consisted of less formal black leather pants and loose silk poet shirt. He swept them up and returned to the bathing room, just as Moore finished removing the tomb filth from beneath his fingernails. “I suggest the formal outfit, my friend,” said Ceaseless as he laid the clothes out in the dressing area. “That kind of thing always helps fortify a fellow for hours of questions and revelations, which I suspect is next on your agenda.” Spend 4 Essence for Craftsman Needs No Tools, 6 Essence for Flawless Handiwork Method, 9 Essence for max Excellency, 2 die stunt, one bonus sux for using a zombie rat to the fullest. .roll/re10 20; you rolled 1,2,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,5,5,5,5,6,7,7,8,9,9,10 for a total of 8 successes vs difficulty 4. Counting as two basic projects fulfilling two basic objectives for first (causing Moore to gain or strengthen Intimacy and supporting Ceaseless’ Intimacies) and one basic objective for second (supporting Ceaseless’ Intimacies) results in 9 silver XP (4 sux beyond difficulty means exceptional results). Moore reviewed the outfits and sighed the long-suffering sigh of a man destined to forever be misunderstood and underappreciated by his peers. He nevertheless smiled politely at Ceaseless and said, “Thank you, your craftsmanship is both exquisite and remarkably speedy. I never cease to be amazed at the prowess of the Chosen of...mmm…various entities.” After a brief moment he winced and added hastily, “No pun intended.” Ceaseless smiled a rare genuine smile behind his veil, bowed slightly, and departed. Bouquet fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Aug 14, 2019 |
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Aug 14, 2019 00:34
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Confrontation With Jemaine's memo safely tucked away, Onyx and Blood had withdrawn from the fort as easily as they'd infiltrated, making their way silently to where Onyx had stored Conquering Black Shadow. Retrieving the bike, they spent another fifteen minutes skulking away from Dyval's holdfast before Onyx unfolded her bike. She looked up at Blood, eyes sparkling hungrily. The Deathknight pressed close to the Thunderbird, fingers brushing a few stray hairs back behind the taller woman's ear before trailing down, languidly, towards her belt. She flicked a glance to the folded blue jadesteel assembly Blood had carried with her, and broke into a grin. "Race you back?" “Is there a prize?” Blood asked, eyes half-lidded as she unfolded her new acquisition. Onyx stood on tip-toe to whisper in Blood's ear. "Anything you want." She nipped her girlfriend's earlobe before setting back on her heels, eyes smoldering. She smiled wickedly and, as Blood's Rider began to crackle to life, leapt on her own and sped off towards the rendezvous point, cloak billowing behind her. --- Rakim had fled both the cabin and the ship, taking flight as soon as he’d reached open air. Mercy reached the deck just in time to see a kestrel disappearing to the east, in the general direction of the distant bank of Wyldfog. It appeared that the Lunar desired solitude. A hiss of exasperation escaped between his teeth before he bolted for his runabout. The little vessel was still suspended alongside the Jewel by a mooring rope, down which he slid until he was close enough to hop to the access hatch on the submersible’s dorsal surface. He flicked the hatch open with the practiced motion of a foot, then yanked it closed again after him as he jumped down the ladder. He ran to the helm, and directed the vessel to follow. As Mercy was getting underway, from the opposite side of the Jewel, twin bow waves came hurtling toward the ship, dragged by streaks of white-blue and nothingness flecked with red, respectively. The darker streak was in the lead, but only just. Onyx wore an almost manic grin, visions of Blood dancing in her head, when Rakim's exit caught her eye. She registered it as background, until she spotted Mercy's runabout following, and faltered for half a second. It was enough. Blood pulled ahead by inches as both bikes hurled upwards to clear the deck rail and slewed to a stop. “A stunning upset!” Blood proclaimed, sliding from the seat before it had even fully stopped. “Incredible! Unprecedented! And now…” She wrapped herself around Onyx, blind to all but her lover, planting kisses and love bites and sliding her hands beneath the Day Caste’s garments. “...the victorious heroine claims her prize…” Onyx's eyes rolled back, briefly, as she bit her lip and stifled a moan before her face contorted into a look of pure murder. Growling softly and muttering savage curses in Old Realm, Seatongue, and Guild Cant she remounted her Swift Rider, jacket flapping open in the sudden acceleration, her belt now loose around her hips. Someone would die for this. “What? Onyx, darling, what are you - come back!” Blood squawked, flustered and indignant, several pieces of smallclothes still hooked on her talons. As it became apparent that the runabout was heading for the Wyldfog, and with Blood's protests ringing in her ears, Onyx amended her thought: several someones would die for this. --- The seafoam grew denser as Mercy approached the Wyldfog, white peaks as stiff as meringue despite the tropical heat. Mercy could tell when he crossed the threshold into a bordermarch - the bubbles began to leave the water altogether, floating above the frozen waves in a bewildering assortment of sizes and shapes like pearls on a string. Some were large enough to hold a man, and here Mercy understood what Moore had meant when he said that direction had become ‘uncertain’ - entire landmasses hung suspended in some, islands of natural geography torn from Creation proper and set adrift in chaos. A tiny islet drifted by, a single palm tree on a hemispherical cross-section with roots trailing down below the bubble like a sea-jelly’s tendrils. Finding Rakim was as simple as following the trail of dead fae. Creatures half-eel, half-lap-harp lay dead upon the white, their wiry guts playing discordant, mournful songs as they spilled from their split bellies. Mercy brought the runabout to a halt next to one of the larger suspended clumps of earth, and tied the vessel’s mooring rope off to one of the larger roots that hung from it, nearly to the ocean’s surface. (In concession to his surroundings, he stabbed it with one of his sai first, to ensure that it wouldn’t untie itself as soon as he was out of sight - or try something untoward as he climbed.) Having secured his vessel, he climbed up the root to the lower surface of the earthberg, and then around and up to its upper half. Rakim stood over the carcass of something vast, iridescent, and vaguely-piscine, his fur matted with its unearthly gore. His ears flicked at Mercy’s approach; he sniffed at the air once and bristled. “Come to gloat?” he asked, not bothering to turn. “To talk,” Mercy said, just loud enough to be heard. His voice was level and even; if anything, he sounded more tired than triumphant. “You left before I could finish, and I think it’s important you hear the last bit.” “What’s the point?” Rakim asked. He wiped his claws on a palm leaf and whetted them against an exposed rib. “You’ve said your piece. You won’t turn on your masters, and my people will never have justice.” Mercy looked Rakim in the eyes, his expression utterly serious. “No,” he said, “I didn’t. Never said she’d tried and failed already; I said that we weren’t the Deathlord’s equals in a straight fight, and neither were you - and that was all that I said.” “None of us were a match for Ashes either,” Rakim snapped. Mercy nodded, once, slowly. “That we weren’t, save together. But if you believe anything I’ve ever said, believe this: as strong as Ashes was, the Deathlords are in another league altogether - and Nikanor, mightier still. Powerful enough to hold four of them at bay at once, back at Skullstone. Strong enough to capsize that entire citadel by just taking hold of an interior wall, and…” Mercy made a twisting motion with one arm to illustrate the point. “Strong enough that the likes of me, or even you, aren’t going to win in a slugging match.” He paused a moment, saw the inevitable assumption building behind Rakim’s eyes, and continued before the Lunar could speak. “And none of that means that we cannot win.” “I know what Nikanor can do,” Rakim said grimly. “I’d seen that long before we met. But now we all know what the Lover has done. That name…” he laughed darkly. “You all hate her. But you serve her anyway.” “No,” said Mercy grimly, “I don’t. I never have, and I never will. And after what we saw at the tower, I suspect my colleagues who do are rethinking that position. We-” He cut himself off sharply. “I simply need to keep her from interfering for long enough for the rest to come around. At present, I’ve only got one weapon - the knowledge of what she did at Diamond Tor, a year ago.” He looked around, found a likely-seeming rock, tested it with a kick, and then sat on it. “The problem being, going public with it would be tantamount to starting an Underworld civil war - and before you ask ‘who cares?’, I do. There’s more to the Underworld than just the Deathlords, and a lot of innocent people would get caught in the crossfire.” “’Would?’” Rakim snapped. “They already have!” “Adding to that list doesn’t help those already on it,” Mercy said. “Most civil wars don’t end in complete mutual destruction - and even if we could guarantee that this one did, writing off the collateral damage from it as ‘acceptable losses’ is how Ashes would have handled the problem. If we wanted to do that, we could all have just stayed home and saved ourselves the trouble. That’s why I’ve been digging this whole time - I’ve been looking for a third option. Somewhere in all the cryptic loose ends we’ve run into along the way, I think I might have found one.” “How?!” Mercy looked profoundly uncomfortable for a moment, as though caught between two opposing impulses. He opened his mouth to begin, then closed it again, looking wretched. Finally, he forced out, “Half of my friends on the crew would probably consider me telling you this a betrayal. I need your sworn word on this, Rakim - this cannot go any further.” “I know how to keep my mouth shut,” the tiger grumbled. “Fine. You have my word.” Mercy nodded. Some of the worried lines in his face smoothed themselves out, but instead of speaking, he took a deep breath, and reached out with his mind, instead. Instead of a tactile sensation, as he expected, he smelled the hot-metal scent of spilled blood, and heard the roaring of a crowd, underlaid with the sound of steel under strain - twisting, warping, shattering. <There is a story,> Mercy began, inside Rakim’s head, <that has kept cropping up, over and over and over, since we were sent on this mission in the first place. The story of a lost continent, destined to return. The story of the Third Heaven - Olv-Kai-D’Nah. We got a version of it from a ghost, back on Petraya. The story goes that it was something that was... left behind, after the great war that threw down the First Gods. A paradise, basically - a place offering life without want, virtue without suffering, death without loss. But the gods and some of the Chosen grew jealous, so they did… something. Sealed it away, put it to sleep beneath the waves somehow. To await the time when the Chosen - the ‘right’ Chosen, whatever that means - would walk the world again.> His mouth set itself into a wry almost-smile. <’A bedtime story for children’, right? Only one problem. Every time it’s been mentioned in their presence, our Lords have immediately shut the line of conversation down, and none too gently. It’s like they’re... afraid of it, somehow. Hell, the one ghost who did tell us the story did so on the explicit condition that we never breathe a word of it to the Silver Prince. And as near as I can tell, Ashes put his whole psychotic plan into motion in the first place because of it - he was convinced that the stories were right, that it was coming back - soon.> Rakim’s brow furrowed and his ears flicked in irritation at first at the intrusive sensation of contact, but his expression shifted Mercy began to recount the tale. First annoyance, then boredom...and then, suddenly, intense interest. <And if they’re afraid of it…> Rakim thought - it was unclear if he knew Mercy could hear him, or if he did, whether he cared. Mercy nodded. <Then it’s a potential weapon against them,> he sent. “But it’s pretty thin,” he continued aloud. “Nothing as to the specific nature of those fears, or how we might act on them, or who ‘the right Chosen’ are… just a whole lot of speculation. Something that dubious, I might not even have brought it up to my colleagues, not until I was more sure about some part of it - but you needed something.” “Hide your fangs behind a dutiful smile, until you’re ready to strike.” Rakim grunted. “That I can understand.” A low thrum that was not so much sound as the absence thereof cut across their conversation, as a death-goddess of alabaster and blood stepped from the shadows, clothes still partially-undone, idly whirling Castle-Captures-the-King. "Speaking of hiding until you're ready to strike, does either of you Void-damned assholes care to tell me why I had to leave." The soulsteel chain snapped as it wound once around her. "My." Another whipcrack. "Girlfriend." Another. "To come find out why you both lit out like the Guild was coming to collect overdue interest?" Mercy blinked once. A friendly ‘I didn’t know you were back’ died on his lips while he took in the… circumstances that Onyx’s choice of words and state of dishabille suggested. “In reverse order, then,” he said, “To discuss an apparent misunderstanding, because I had to keep up with him, and... chose - which, incidentally, was appreciated but unnecessary.” Onyx's eyes narrowed, and the finely braided soulsteel links wrapped around her writhed like an angry serpent. The Day Caste tightened her grip on her weapon, fighting to keep it from lashing out of its own accord. "What 'apparent misunderstanding'?" “Who the gently caress is this?” Rakim asked Mercy, jerking his thumb at Onyx. Mercy sighed, pinching at the corners of his eyes with middle finger and thumb. “This is the Daughter of Onyx and Silver, a deathknight serving on the Revelation, a fellow servant of the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible, a general pain in the rear end, and my oldest friend. You’ve never met her before, because she thinks ghosting in and out of conversations without anybody noticing her arrival or departure is so funny, she decided to make it a lifestyle.” He shook his head at Rakim’s irritated-cum-blank look. “She’s dating Blood-on-the-Wind.” “Oh, that one.” Rakim snorted. “She brags about you enough that I thought she was making you up.” Onyx's grip loosened, slightly, and Castle-Captures-the-King clinked softly in response, miffed. The redhead was no longer glaring, exactly. Instead, she was studying the two men out of the left corners of her eyes, her head cocked suspiciously to the right. "She… does?" Mercy nodded, his expression knowingly mischievious. “If you hadn’t kept trying to embarrass me back in Stygia, I’d have figured she was making up half of the things she mentions, too.” His expression turned more serious. “To answer your previous question, several. Most importantly, we learned that the Lover was the primary impetus for the black swarm that engulfed the Green Isle a year ago - and that that constitutes something pretty close to treason itself.” At her look of shock, he held up an index finger. “I’ll give you the point-by-point reasoning later. The upshot is that our responses convinced Rakim that we wouldn’t - or couldn’t - swear we’d not let something like that happen again. I felt it important to convince him otherwise.” Onyx's jaw dropped and her weapon coiled itself on her belt as she gaped at Mercy. She raised a finger for a few moments before finally closing her mouth into a vague frown, furrowing her eyebrows, and slowly lowering her hand. Still at a loss for words, she busied herself readjusting her gear (and clothes). "That… does explain a few things, yes." She finally volunteered, weakly. Mercy’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. In all his association with Onyx, he had encountered very few occasions where he could recall her being at a loss for words. He caught her eye, but gave no outward sign of amusement (if only because he knew he’d never get a moment’s peace from her retaliatory pranks if he did). “It does,” he said, “my apparent haste being one - it was a time-sensitive topic, I’m afraid.” “Everyone hosed up until it was too late and some loving horror started crawling through brains to get at the gate,” Rakim snorted. “So loving Nikanor had to kill people until there weren’t enough brains to crawl through. Also, I was right about that windup dildo Pathfinder all along. There,” he told Onyx. “I just saved you two hours of him briefing you.” "...You're being optimistic if you think he'd stop at two hours." Onyx snorted, characteristic smirk returning as she soothed her still-sulking chainklaive on her belt. The soulsteel weapon somehow managed to glower at Rakim (and, peripherally, Mercy) without any features, radiating sullen menace. She held up a finger, brows furrowed. "Sorry, quick question. Who's Pathfinder?" Mercy sighed and shrugged. “An emissary from outside Creation, Hell, and the Underworld altogether.” When she opened her mouth to inquire further, he shook his head exasperatedly. “And this is why I give people the long version - which I’ll be happy to give you on the way back.” He gestured downwards, towards where his runabout was moored. “You can stow your ride in the cargo hold again - I’ve got to bring the runabout back either way, so this’ll be easiest.” Onyx shook her head emphatically. "I'll find you. Now that I know that nothing mission-critical is on fire, I have some, er... other business… to attend to." The soulsteel Swift Rider growled its aggressive absence of sound as she hopped on and her Essence flowed into and through it. The Day Caste threw a flippant salute, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. "Catch you later, Commissar." <...How in the Labyrinth am I going to make this up to Blood?> Mercy watched her mount her swift rider before nodding satisfiedly himself. “And that’s my cue as well, I think,” he said to Rakim. “I’m sure you can get back under your own power, but two can travel as easily as one, if you’d like a lift.” vdate fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 21:38
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Seafood Surprise - First Course! At the word lift, the earth-berg they stood upon began to do exactly that. Something stirred the solid seafoam, churning it into choppy peaks and undulating troughs. The orchestra-innards of Rakim’s kills spilled down the sudden incline, playing sharp notes of alarm and tension as they plunged into the white. Had they been in Creation, they might have taken it for a storm, or else some tectonic upheaval...but no. Land and sea moved with a purpose. Several of the earth-bergs sank, then abruptly rose higher than ever, borne aloft on writhing columns of milky tendon. They could have been the arms of an octopus or kraken, but there were no suction cups. Instead, opal spines the size of saplings erupted through the soil, turning each into a thorny flail the size of a fishing boat. Five shimmering orbs - perfect pearls as wide as Rakim was tall - arose from the depths and converged into a rosette surrounding a jawless mouth lined with obsidian teeth. The offal from the tiger’s rampage spilled into its gullet; each string-note rose to an ear-splitting crescendo before falling silent. Rainbow veins pulsed beneath the pallid flesh, limning its frills with dazzling colors as its eyestalks swiveled to regard the Chosen. The behemoth sea-slug was still hungry. Mercy let out a hiss of frustration between his teeth, but unhesitatingly sank into a combat-ready stance with unnatural speed, trailing little whorls of heat-distortion behind his limbs as they moved. His hands assumed the ready stance that Cynis Xulan had showed him, but then...waited, seeming to be setting up for something else. Spending 5m1wp (out of peripheral) on Flash-Fire Technique; lets me roll JB twice and take the better of the two. Anima now Glowing. Aaaaand...that’s 3 sux on JB. welp. Shoulda dropped some mojo on the excellency, but one lives and learns. pre:Last Mercy Given Init: 6 Evasion: 5 -0: [X] [ ] [ ] Pers: 16/16 Parry:5 (currently only against nonlethal) -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 26/31 Soak: 10 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] Anima: 1 In: [ ] Rakim drops 3m on the Perception Excellency and 3m more on Predator’s Unwavering Eye: double 9s pays dividends and gives him 7 sux for a starting total of 10 init. pre:Rakim Init: 10 Evasion: 4 -0 [ ] [ ] Pers: 11/17 Parry: 6 -1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 29/38 Soak: 15 -2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 4/8 Hardness: 4 -4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] In: [ ] The swift rider made short work of the distance she had already traveled, racing over the wyldfoam. Onyx’s Caste mark abruptly started bleeding, just before her anima wrapped her in terrifying anonymity. She stood on the seat of her bike and leapt to engage the beast, vanishing into the flickering, pulsing shattered nothing of her anima banner's bats. Spending 19m (out of peripheral): 3m for Blinding Battle Feint, to roll JB with Dex + Stealth, 5m for a Stealth Excellency for 10 successes; 2 successes off the stunt dice, leaving her a starting Initiative of 15. She then spends another 8m to reflexively activate Crystal Chameleon Form, since Onyx covered two range bands to get to Close range, and another 3 to activate Feather-Foot Style to mitigate the terrain. Anima is now Totemic. pre:Onyx Init: 15 Evasion: 6 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Pers: 16/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 7/26 Soak: 8 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] In: [ ] Behemoth Slug rolls JB for its main body and two appendages! 4, 9, and 8 sux, leading to starting initiatives of 7, 12, and 11, respectively. pre:Devouring Maw Init: 7 Evasion: 3 -0: ??? Motes: 30/30 Parry: 2 -1: ??? Soak: 8 Hardness: 0 -2; ??? WP: 10/10 -4: ??? In: [ ] Lashing Pseudopod Init: 12 Evasion: 4 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 5 -1: [ ] [ ] Soak: 12 Hardness: 4 -2: [ ] [ ] WP: N/A -4 [ ] In: [ ] Hardened Mantle Init: 11 Evasion: 3 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 6 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Soak: 16 Hardness: 10 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: N/A -4: [ ] [ ] In: [ ] 3m on MArts Excellency to supplement a Decisive attack against the Pseudopod. Because Onyx established Stealth against it and went before it on the first round of combat, she gains the benefit of an Ambush, and the pseudopod's defenses are set to 0 against this attack. 15 damage dice easily exceeds the Hardness of the Pseudopod, resulting in 5 Lethal to the appendage. Initiative resets to base. Onyx's Form means that she now has 1 Afterimage active pre:Onyx Init: 3 Evasion: 6 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Pers: 16/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 9/26 Soak: 8 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] In: [ ] In several of Creation’s schools of martial arts, there was an exercise in which a student endeavored to extinguish a flame without striking it. For students of the Fire Dragon Style, this exercise graduated to being on fire, and endeavoring to avoid being extinguished by the furious blows of one’s instructors. The titanic nudibranch had never practiced either form, while Mercy was proficient in both; its efforts to smash him only batted him about like a leaf on the wind, like trying to catch a single, falling cinder. pre:Lashing Pseudopod Init: 12 Evasion: 4 -0: [X] [X] [X] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 5 -1: [X] [X] Soak: 12 Hardness: 4 -2: [ ] [ ] WP: N/A Onslaught: -1 -4 [ ] In:[ ] The Armored Mantle performs a Defend Other on the Devouring Maw! Any attack directed at the Devouring Maw must now contend with the Mantle’s Parry of 6, and still beat the Maw’s defense with additional successes to strike the Maw instead of the Mantle! Furthermore, incoming damage to the Maw is reduced by half the Mantle’s Parry score. Rakim tears into the Lashing Pseudopod with a Withering attack, spending 3m on the Dexterity Excellency and 2m on Divine Predator Strike: he hits with nine successes versus a modified defense of 4, and inflicts 6 initiative damage (he rolled two 10s on the attack roll, adding three dice to post-soak damage, but got unlucky on the damage roll). pre:Lashing Pseudopod Init: 6 Evasion: 4 -0: [X] [X] [X] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 5 -1: [X] [X] Soak: 12 Hardness: 4 -2: [ ] [ ] WP: N/A Onslaught: -2 -4 [ ] In:[ ] Rakim Init: 17 Evasion: 4 -0 [ ] [ ] Pers: 11/17 Parry: 6 -1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 29/38 Soak: 15 -2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 4/8 Hardness: 4 -4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Anima: 1 Onslaught: 0 In:[ ] As the appendage that Rakim had assailed suffered his attentions, it writhed involuntarily - while the wounds he inflicted appeared superficial compared to the thing’s total mass, they certainly still seemed painful enough. The pseudopod’s movements gave Mercy an idea - and if it worked right, it’d leverage (literally) the creature’s own strength against it. Of course, it’d require him to stand very near the end of the pseudopod, which was hardly the place one wished to be when it was serving as an impromptu flail, but such were the risks of the Chosen. He put the middle finger and thumb of one hand into his mouth, and blew a ear-piercingly loud and shrill whistle blast to attract the thing’s attention. When one of the creature’s eyes fixed itself on him, it found the deathknight standing stock still, arms apparently crossed, a fist tucked beneath each arm, utterly at peace. It regarded him for a moment in nudibranchial puzzlement, before one arm whipped out and back, hurling a wide fan of knives at the gash Onyx had left in the pseudopod. Spending 14m - 10 on a full excellency, 4 on Seven Points of Weakness Strike to negate 5 of the pseudopod’s Soak. Per Thes, that’s a 2-die stunt, so +2 dice, +1 success. I got 14 successes on the roll + 1 autosux for a total of 15 sux versus the thing’s effective Parry of 3. That’s 22 raw damage, minus 7 soak (since 7PoW ate 5 of it) for 15 dice. 8 initiative damage, meaning Mercy would gain 9 - except that the Pseudopod is now Initiative Crashed, so make that ‘gain 14’. Um, yikes. pre:Last Mercy Given Init: 20 Evasion: 5 -0: [X] [ ] [ ] Pers: 16/16 Parry:5 (currently only against nonlethal) -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 13/31 Soak: 10 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] Anima: 2 In: [ ] Lashing Pseudopod Init: -2 Evasion: 4 -0: [X] [X] [X] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 5 -1: [X] [X] Soak: 12 Hardness: 4 -2: [ ] [ ] WP: N/A Onslaught: -3 -4 [ ] In:[ ]
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Nov 6, 2019 18:54
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Seafood Surprise - Second Course! Mercy smiled thinly - he had certainly gotten its attention. His smile didn’t falter even as the pseudopod he’d pelted with knives hurled itself out to the side instead of up, as he’d hoped - its movements had been made clumsy by pain. As the tentacle curled (and swung) in towards him in an ever-accelerating arc, he brought down his left fist, which had been tucked under his right arm, still holding a single knife in a saber grip. With the practiced flick of a wrist, he launched the knife into the air, then caught it with the opposite hand, turning to his left, into the arc of the tentacle’s swing. As it came within arm’s reach of him, he finished the motion, thrusting the knife straight out with his right, letting the creature’s own momentum drive his knife straight into the long, leaking gash that he’d torn at mere moments before. The Lashing Pseudopod is on the ropes, so Mercy’s gonna convert that 20 Init into a Decisive attack on it to try and finish it off. Given that its current effective Parry is 2, I’m going to gamble on just using the base diepool of 10, and get 9 successes - more than enough. Converting that 20 Init into damage gets me… 8L damage dealt - this thing is very dead. pre:Last Mercy Given Init: 3 Evasion: 5 -0: [X] [ ] [ ] Pers: 16/16 Parry:5 (currently only against nonlethal) -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 18/31 Soak: 10 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] Anima: 2 As his knife was driven grip-deep and beyond by the force of the pseudopod’s own swing, Mercy drew a second knife with his other hand and jammed it into the hole thus dug in the tentacle, alongside the first. Then, with a roar that echoed with all the rage that the Neverborn had so frequently spewed into his head as of late, he wrenched the knives apart in opposite directions, perpendicular to the first cut. In their wake, a pinprick of shadow burst through the tentacle where his first knife had pierced it through completely. A moment later, it expanded into a plane of cutting darkness, paper-thin, but wide as Mercy’s armspan, which sheared through the tentacle-like pseudopod like a hot knife through butter. A fraction of a second later, the end of the pseudopod dropped limply to the ground, and silvery hemolymph sprayed wildly from the stump left behind. ”...I was gonna do that…” Rakim grumbled under his breath, and bounded forward along the floating islands, digging his claws into the seams between armored plates to force them apart and expose the soft tissue beneath. Where they found purchase, rivers of polychromatic ichor poured forth. Rakim takes a movement action to close from Short range to Close with the Armored Mantle. Ordinarily, this would count as Difficult Terrain, necessitating two turns’ worth of movement, but Rakim’s a cat with no time for that! He leaps, rolling seven successes against Difficulty 5 to make it in a single jump, and attempts a Decisive Attack! 4m Dexcellency, 3m Finding the Needle’s Eye - 14 dice, and a base of six successes. Dinging the Mantle’s Defense by 1, ordinarily this would hit. BUT WAIT! Thanks to the Mantle’s Amorphous Armor Merit, 1s on attack rolls subtract successes when it’s Defending Other or taking a Full Defense action! And Rakim rolled three 1s! BUT WAIT AGAIN! Finding the Needle’s Eye let’s Rakim reroll as many as 3 1s! They become a 4, a 6, and a 10, netting him 8 sux all told with no malus. He hits, and deals 8L, which coincidentally is his exact limit on damage versus a foe with Legendary Size (the Mantle also has this trait). pre:Rakim Init: 3 Evasion: 3 -0 [ ] [ ] Pers: 11/17 Parry: 5 -1 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 27/38 Soak: 15 -2 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 4/8 Hardness: 4 -4 [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Anima: 1 Onslaught: 0 In: [ ] Hardened Mantle Init: 11 Evasion: 2 -0: [X] [X] [X] [X] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 5 -1: [X] [X] [X] [X] Soak: 16 Hardness: 10 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: N/A -4: [ ] [ ] In: [ ] And inside those holes, opalescent murder. Hundreds of pearly spines launched forth from the mantle like a battery of ballistae, scattering every which way but clustering generally around Mercy’s position. It didn’t seem terribly-fond of Rakim, either, but then Rakim hadn’t yet cost it a pseudopod. Against any mortal target, or even an army of mortals, this would have been a coup de grace. Sudden death. No survivors. Only the kind of seafood buffet where it’s the seafood that gets to feast. Mercy dodged every spine with his superior skill. Onyx seemed to be struck, but a moment later the volley was revealed to have hit only her afterimage. The spines outright shattered on Rakim’s rock-hard pectorals, giving him a mild sneezing fit from the powder but leaving him otherwise-unharmed. The nudibranch’s body-language was inscrutable, but if there were any way for it to convey I may have bitten off more than I can fit in my tooth-lined gullet, this was it. Nevertheless, it extruded two more pseudopodia from behind its mantle. These were thicker and less-flexible than the one Mercy had severed. Their range of motion was more limited. They also ended in fanged lamprey-maws that drooled acid. So there was that. Devouring Maw activates its Extrude Feeders charm! It pays a total of 14m2wp, but now there are two Digestive Pseudopods on the field, at Initiative 4 and 5! This guy can’t roll for poo poo, huh? pre:Devouring Maw Init: 7 Evasion: 3 -0: FILLED Motes: 16/30 Parry: 2 -1: ??? Soak: 8 Hardness: 0 -2; ??? WP: 8/10 -4: ??? In: [ ] Digestive Pseudopod 1 Init: 4 Evasion: 3 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 4 -1: [ ] [ ] Soak: 10 Hardness: 4 -2: [ ] [ ] WP: N/A -4 [ ] In:[ ] Digestive Pseudopod 2 Init: 5 Evasion: 3 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 4 -1: [ ] [ ] Soak: 10 Hardness: 4 -2: [ ] [ ] WP: N/A -4 [ ] In:[ ] The vaporous images of Onyx grinned, asynchronously. "Took the words right out of my mouth." She ran up one of the still-intact spines, and used it as a springboard to launch herself at the first pseudopod, followed closely by an afterimage. The first attack shattered into prismatic confetti, and the afterimage that had followed abruptly solidified, as Onyx flashed in and back. She crouched at a slight remove, her weapon held left-handed in a reverse knife grip, the chain wound around her arm, across her shoulders, and down to her right fist. As she settled into a defensive stance, a long, narrow cut on the pseudopod opened and began to ooze ichor. First Light Feint, 4m Peri, to make two Withering attacks against Digestive Pseudopod 1! 5m Pers, on an Excellency for the first attack, 11 successes. No damage, but the pseudopod takes a penalty to its Defense against the next attack equal to the number of extra successes on her attack. Uh. My math says that that's a -7 penalty to the follow-up. She gains a point of Initiative and spawns a third Afterimage, as well. Follow-up attack will be from Short range, consuming one of the active Afterimages. Otherwise unsupplemented attack, 15 dice, plus 2 dice for the stunt, 6 sux, for a total of 8 post-soak damage dice: 4 Initiative damage! Digestive Pseudopod 1 is Crashed! 2 Afterimages active. pre:Daughter of Onyx & Silver Init: 14 Evasion: 6 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Pers: 11/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 10/26 Soak: 8 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] In: [ ] He took a deep breath and spread his arms wide again, and as he did so, his anima, which had been sucking the shadows around him into itself for some time, roared wholly to life, revealing its bandaged, one-eyed form, holding the badge in place. He balled his hands into fists, and slammed them together, knuckles against knuckles, palm inwards. The bandaged figure melted into threads of light, merged with the shadows swirling around him, and coalesced again as his armour and gauntlets, badge snapping into place as one of the rondels. Though the Wyld-behemoth certainly could not see his eyes now through the closed helm and crystal viewport, he made eye contact with the behemoth nonetheless, extending a single finger on one hand and crooking it at the creature in a gesture of mocking invitation. pre:Last Mercy Given Init: 3 Evasion: 5 -0: [X] [ ] [ ] Pers: 16/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 6/31 Soak: 13 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 7 -4: [ ] Anima: Iconic In: [ ]
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Nov 6, 2019 19:21
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Seafood Surprise - Third Course! Start of Round 3 Initiative: Onyx - 14 H. Mantle - 11 D. Maw - 7 D. Pseudopod 2 - 5 Rakim - 3 Mercy - 3 D. Pseudopod 1 - 0 (CRASH) As Mercy transitioned from Shadow to Arbiter, Onyx turned her back on the first pseudopod and abruptly accelerated towards the second, Castle-Captures-the-King unspooling and trailing behind her. She flickered past it, searing afterimages materializing in her path and her wake before one reversed course and assaulted the tentacle-like appendage. As the two Onyxes crossed paths, the second afterimage solidified and lashed out in the confusion, lightly touching down where her illusion had begun its return orbit, a wheel of agonizing nothingness whirling beside her. At the beginning of her turn, Onyx spawns a third Afterimage, so she's using First Light Feint again, 4m Peri, to make two Withering attacks against Digestive Pseudopod 2, both at Short range. 3m Pers, on an Excellency for the first attack, 6 successes. No damage, but the pseudopod takes a -2 penalty to its Defense against the next attack. She gains a point of Initiative and respawns a third Afterimage, which she promptly uses for the second attack. Again, attacking at Short range, 2m Pers plus two stunt dice for a total of 19 dice, 13 successes! Between its Soak and residual Defense, that translates to 13 damage dice: 4i damage! Onyx is now at 20i. 2 Afterimages active. pre:Daughter of Onyx & Silver Init: 20 Evasion: 6 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Pers: 12/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 6/26 Soak: 8 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 9/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] In: [ ] Armored Mantle uses Defend Other on Digestive Pseudopod 1 and flurries with a Full Defense action. Normally, this would not be a permissible combo, but the Mantle’s armored plates have the Shield tag. Any attack directed at the Pseudopod must now overcome the Mantle’s (boosted) Parry first! Note that the Mantle is not subject to most Onslaught penalties, and does not subtract its Wound Penalty from its Defense. pre:Hardened Mantle Init: 10 Evasion: 2 -0: [X] [X] [X] [X] Motes: 10/10 Parry: 5+1 -1: [X] [X] [X] [X] Soak: 16 Hardness: 10 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: N/A -4: [ ] [ ] In: [ ] The thing’s rosette of pearlescent eyes fixated upon Mercy more intently. Was it rising to his taunt? Did it look…angry with him? Its eyes flashed, and everything in the path of its gaze dissolved into more of the frozen foam that made up the seas. It scored channels through rock and stone, sending bubbles flying like ashes from a bonfire, and where it struck Mercy, even his armor began to dissolve with such explosive force as to blast him off his feet. The Maw’s Aim action taken at Mercy last round pays due! It uses its Gaze of Dissolution to make a Withering attack at Medium range! 9 successes hit versus 5 Evasion. Mercy uses Spirit-Hardened Frame and Walking Cadaver Grotesquerie (Durability of Oak Meditation and Spirit Strengthens the Skin, respectively) to reduce its 9 post-soak damage to 4, but three successes still slip through - enough to Crash him! pre:Devouring Maw Init: 16 Evasion: 3 -0: FILLED Motes: 21/30 Parry: 2 -1: ??? Soak: 8 Hardness: 0 -2; ??? WP: 8/10 -4: ??? In: [ ] “Not bad, for a dead man!” Rakim laughed, noting Mercy’s survival, and lunged for the creature’s exposed gullet. It shrank from the tiger’s approach, retracting its vulnerable eyes and throwing more earthbergs into his path, but he merely used them as additional stepping stones as he bounded forward. One particularly-massive boulder caught him squarely in the muzzle… ...but as it spun round, he was seen to be clinging to the side of the rock, dug in with his claws. He kicked off when his side of the stone was facing the monster again, and resumed his course, laughing all the while. Rakim is attempting to close the distance with the Devouring Maw, but it’s at Medium Range from him! He takes his reflexive movement to enter Short Range, and Rushes it with his Combat Action to keep it from kiting him. This is a Combat Movement check of Dexterity+Athletics - Rakim’s base pool is 8, and Deadly Beastman Transformation adds his Strength for a total of 13. He also drops 2m on Instinct-Driven Beast Movement, which adds an automatic success. The Maw resists with its own Combat Movement pool of...4. On which it rolls 2 sux, both of which came from a 10. Not looking great for slug-boss here… ...except that the chaotic landscape counts as Difficult Terrain for anyone except the monster, since it kind of IS the terrain. Rakim’s roll has to achieve 5 successes to avoid taking TWO turns per range band moved, but the autosux from IDBM pulls him through! He closes to Short Range and the Maw can’t escape him next turn with its own reflexive movement, and he also gains 1 initiative for winning a Rush while using IDBM. Beset and bedeviled by a foe that refused to obey even the tenuous physics of the Wyld, the appendage that Onyx had just aggressed dealt with her and her flickering afterimages by simply spewing acid everywhere, melting through anything and everything that might be Onyx or one of her hiding spots. Instinctively, Onyx flickered even further out of range, but not before a glob of the acid spattered across her right glove, sizzling hungrily through the scarlet-chased black leather. "ShitshitshitFUCK!" Onyx activates Light-Threading Technique (4m, Peri) to generate an Afterimage and move a Range band away; she's now at Medium Range! She burns an Afterimage to raise her Evasion by 1, and dumps 6i into Reed in the Wind for another 3-point boost, for an Evasion of 10! BUT! With double 9s, the acid attack beats her Evasion with 11 successes! 4 damage dice coming Onyx's way! HOWEVER! Onyx has Silken Armor, which has a Hardness of 4! That's just enough, and averts any damage roll! Whew. The Day Caste snarled as she reflexively ripped off the rapidly disappearing garment and cast it aside. Her eyes glowed red with murderous hate, she was suddenly gone: all of her afterimages shattered at once and she rematerialized on the far side of the pseudopodt, her velocity somehow undiminished, but moving back toward whence she'd come. Castle-Captures-the-King flickered forward even faster, eagerly seeking the nudibrachial Essence buried beneath the Wyld-spawned flesh of the behemoth's appendage. "That," she hissed as she passed by the offending member, "was not very polite." Onyx disapproves of this turn of events! In response to the attack, she activates Shattered Crystal Rebuke (6m, Pers) and burns her remaining 2 Afterimages to close the distance to Close range with the Digestive Psuedopod for a Withering Counterattack! Per Thes, this is a 2-die stunt, and she spends another 5m (Pers) on an Excellency, for a total of 22 dice on the attack. 10 successes, which, after applying the thing's Parry and Soak, nets Onyx 11 damage dice: 4i damage, and the Psuedopod is CRASHED! Onyx nets 4i for this exchange, leaving her with 24 Initiative. 0 Afterimages active. pre:Daughter of Onyx & Silver Init: 24 Evasion: 6 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Pers: 1/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 2/26 Soak: 8 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 10/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] In: [ ] He nodded once - as a repository of the void’s rage, it would do nicely - and gestured at it, even as the smoke of his anima began to condense onto the tentacle in ropey black threads. Rolling Charisma+Presence to try and command this thing to do my bidding once raised, 7 dice base, spending 4m on dice (and 1 wp on an autosuccess)...for 4 sux, plus 5 from stunt dice, for a total of 9 successes. 15/16 personal, 0/30 peripheral, 8/10 wp...which a 2-die stunt benefit brings straight back to 10/10. Sluggishly, it stirred once more. Twitching. Rousing. Then it unfurled all at once, in much the same motion as Castle-Captures-the-King, if Onyx’s weapon had been the size of a fully-grown anaconda, and to very similar effect. Lashing Pseudopod wakes up under Mercy’s command, rejoining battle at 5 initiative, zombified by his Anima, and smashes Digestive 2 for another 14 points, putting itself at 20 after the point for hitting. pre:Last Mercy Given Init: -1 (CRASH)Evasion: 5 -0: [X] [ ] [ ] Pers: 15/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 0/31 Soak: 13 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 10/10 Hardness: 7 -4: [ ] Anima: Iconic In: [ ] Onyx: 24 Zombie Pseudopod: 20 Devouring Maw: 16 Hardened Mantle: 10 Rakim: 5 D. Pseudopod 1: 0 (1 round to reset) Mercy: -1 (2 rounds to reset) D. Pseudopod 2: - a jillion (2 rounds to reset)
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Dec 11, 2019 01:47
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Seafood Surprise - Fourth Course! Onyx's momentum carried her swiftly past the limp and disoriented pseudopod that had ruined her glove, now hopelessly thrashed by the tentacle animated by Mercy's dark Essence. Watching it unfurl, a slow, pointed grin spread across her face. "Hey, Commissar. You ever read the after-action report on our first encounter with Cynis Xu?" Mercy’s helmet blocked her view of his facial expression, but something about the posture of his silent response suggested amused resignation. Keeping one fist clenched and raised in front of him as a guard, he unclenched the other and stuck it out to one side, then curved his hand into a hook. Out by the shore, the zombified tentacle raised itself up, snakelike, before contracting along its length, elongating as though it were a bowstring drawn taut, its end hooking to mimic Mercy’s movement. Then, just as Mercy bent wrist and elbow into a larger hook, it did the same, curving its hooked end into the centre of a tightening spiral. Then, as he swung the arm sharply inwards, turning his wrist up, it matched him, moving to place Onyx in the middle of the contracting spiral, scooping her up as she had once done to Damnation. The light behind Mercy’s visor flared, and he moved his wrist in a tight circle around the axis of his arm. And out by the shore, the entire tentacle began to spin At the nadir of the second swing, she slid one leg under Conquering Black Shadow as it lay on its side where she'd left it, smoothly planting herself in the saddle as the zombie appendage began to build up speed. Her speed increased as the tentacle whirled her again and again, adding to her already considerable momentum. Just before she blacked out from the centripetal force, her arc brought her perpendicular to the Mantle. She jerked herself free from tentacle's grasp, and hurled towards the behemoth's armored section like a bullet from a sling, low and flat. She waited until the last second and then laid the bike down into a slide, skidding narrowly through the gap between the Mantle and the Pseudopod. As she slid through, she flicked her wrist and Castle-Captures-the-King shot forward, eagerly wrapping around the Psuedopod's shaft. Onyx used the tension in the chain to right herself without fully stopping, and with another flick of her wrist, brought her chainklaive to heel. Instead of sliding around the appendage, however, the soulsteel weapon decided the shortest path to Onyx's side was rather more direct. The chain sheared halfway through the psuedopod before the blade unbound itself and whipped through the spurting wound to land, somewhat smugly, in Onyx's outstretched hand. Onyx doesn't feel like letting the first Digestive Psuedopod recover enough to pull that acid trick as well. Her weapon has the Flexible tag, which means that she ignores the Mantle's Full Defense, making her target number 9. She spends a WP and 8m on a Decisive attack and rolls… 6 successes, plus an autosuccess. Bollocks. BUT WAIT! Per Thes, that's a 3-die stunt, which adds 2 more autosuccesses! And in 3e, tie goes to the attacker! She hits! 9L to Digestive Psuedopod 1! It's Incapacitated! Onyx's Initiative resets to base, and she's got nothing left in the tank until next round. 1 Afterimage active pre:Daughter of Onyx & Silver Init: 3 Evasion: 6 -0: [ ] [ ] [ ] Pers: 0/16 Parry:5 -1: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Peri: 0/26 Soak: 8 -2: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] WP: 11/10 Hardness: 4 -4: [ ] In: [ ] Zombie Pseudopod makes a Decisive Attack against Digestive Pseudopod 2, hitting with five successes and doing 7L - enough to max out the target’s -2 levels, but two shy of Incapacitating it. It takes 1A from an undodgeable, unblockable counterattack - Onyx’s weapon has the Reach tag, so she doesn’t have to worry about that. Zombie Pseudopod’s initiative resets to 3. Frantic, what remained of the creature’s mantle began lobbing more spines at Rakim, while its eyes fired a withering barrage of annihilating Wyld-energy, seeking to catch him in a deadly crossfire...but he was too quick, too agile. Where a few bolts struck him feebly, his tattoos flared to blinding brilliance, and he laughed. Then, he was upon it, and began to rip and tear anew. Maw and mantle try to shoot at Rakim, but with Agile Beast Defense, their feeble efforts of 3 and 4 successes, respectively (forgot to deduct wound penalty on the roll) just give him another point of Initiative apiece. Then he tears into the vulnerable maw with a Withering attack, 3 dice Dexcellency + Divine Predator Strike. Thanks to DPS, his 10s on the attack roll add directly to post-soak damage, and he rolled five of them. Combined with his base damage and his DBT bonus, that’s 38 dice post-soak, rolling 25 levels - more than enough to Crash even a Legendary Size foe. Maw initiative 16->-9, Rakim initiative 5->7->43. Okay, I’m invoking Sudden Death - this fight’s all over but the crying. “Hey, ugly!” Rakim roared. “Don’t play with your food.” He took the briefest of pauses for a poo poo-eating grin at Mercy before looking back at the monster. “Same goes for you, slug!” Then he broke off the food fight in a decisive and rather spectacular fashion, grabbing the monster’s own zombified, half-digested tentacle (and what was left of the pseudopod it was crushing), leaping high into the air, and slam-dunking the entire mass into the behemoth’s own mouth. Witless and endlessly-hungry, it partook with aplomb, gorging on its own flesh, and not stopping with its severed portion. In great, gnashing bites and undulating swallows, the monster began to...devour itself. When it ran out of flesh, it began taking in earthbergs, seafoam, and the very Wyldfog itself, the psychedelic landscape imploding upon itself until all was contracted into a single, pearlescent nucleus. Then it swallowed even that, and the world exploded. A shockwave ripped through the water, sending up towering waves and blasting away the choking fog. In its wake, foam became seawater once more, and earthbergs settled back into earth. Sunken islets erupted from the deep, everting to spew forth the boulders and palm trees the behemoth must have swallowed up. Piece by piece, Creation began to reconstitute itself from the monster’s innards. When it was finished, the Wyldfog was gone for a dozen kilometers in every direction, and half of the ocean had become stable land beneath their feet. Of the beast, all that remained were a few scraps of mantle, and a single, shining eye. From where he stood, some ways back from the epicentre of the change, Mercy could only look at the devastation Rakim had wrought and whistle. The noise’s pitch rose as he relaxed his combat posture and his armour and helmet dissolved back into the flaring black unlight around him, before tailing off as the eye rolled to a gentle stop against his boot. He bent and picked it up, the enormous pearl filling his palm and then some - he estimated it to be nearly three-quarters of a foot in diameter. Mercy picked his way across the new island to his allies - a much easier process than it might have been before. He bowed his head slightly to Rakim, not the gesture of a subordinate, but of a colleague, recognizing a job very well done. He opened his mouth to speak, then held up a finger as the silences of Onyx’s ride drew closer, then cut off as she bade it sleep once more. “Very nicely done,” he said quietly, “though I question if it was in a position to appreciate the parting quip. Still…” He held out the pearl to the other two. “To the victor go the spoils, and I’d say either of you have more claim to the title than me.” “Heh. Eheheh. AHAHAHAHAH!” Rakim let out a soft chortle, which rapidly gave way to uproarious laughter. “That was GREAT! Ahahaha! THERE was a real fight!” "I'm so happy for you." The pearl was abruptly gone, vanished into one of Onyx's saddlebags. She tipped a sardonic salute with one finger. "Gentlemen." As the hungry sonic emptiness of her ride sped away, the feeling of breath held in anticipation, the sound of a swung razor, and the heat of spilled blood scratched insistently at the back of Mercy's mind. <If Blood isn't in a forgiving mood, Commissar…> ”Onyx!” A shadow fell over Onyx, and then on top of her, blanketing her in a squall of feathers. ”I was so worried for you! You took off without warning, and I thought that I could find you through the fog but it was all wrong and I couldn’t breathe and then-” Blood caught herself midway through preening Onyx’s hair, realizing at last that she wasn’t alone. ”Well. I see that you all managed to have fun without me,” she huffed, forcing herself into a state of composure. Onyx felt the breath leave her lungs with a gentle whuf, and hugged the thunderbird back, tightly. "...Sorry, babe. I saw Mercy take off after Tall, Striped, and Brawny over there and didn't think and didn't mean to make you worry or mad or…" Onyx's voice was soft, almost on the verge of trembling. She bent down to her bike, now lying undignified on the ground, and fished out the pearl, using the motion to hide some surreptitious scrubbing at her eyes. "...Got you something." ”Why, whatever DO we have here?” Blood asked, grasping it in an upturned talong to inspect. ”Oh, my...this is a precious thing. Dangerous, too...but then, all the best things are.” She tilted her head at Rakim and Mercy. ”You slew a behemoth, didn’t you?” Mercy had cocked an eyebrow and briefly met Rakim’s eyes as soon as Blood had tackled Onyx in her giant-eagle form. His expression had been kept carefully neutral all the way through Onyx’s apology, though amusement danced in his eyes. At Blood’s question, his expression unfroze as he considered. “Rakim had the honour of the kill itself, but I suppose that it might have been a behemoth, yes. I’d thought it simply a Wyld-mutant, but I suppose the transmutative gaze was a little too explicitly-supernatural for it to be.” ”This is its heart,” Blood said. “No, it was one of its eyes,” Rakim snorted. ”It was a Wyld Behemoth, kitten. Whatever else this organ is, it’s the core of its identity. The closest thing it had to a soul.” “Wait, it is?” Rakim said. “drat you, Onyx, I was going to eat that!” ”Were you? Well, far be it from me to deny you your prize.” Blood held it out, offering it to Rakim. Rakim took a single, tentative lick and turned a nauseated shade of green so pronounced it was visible through his fur. “...nEveR MInd yOuRe wElComE To iT” Mercy nodded sagely, concurring with the spirit of the assessment if not the tone. “And I’d have no more use for it than him-” He cut himself off as a thought occurred to him. “But I know somebody who might - as a component for Butterfly to use. A gift for Layna,” he elaborated, “in honour of her progress." He looked to Onyx and Blood apologetically. “It’d be unseemly to lay claim now, I realize, but...” ”In its raw state, it’s of little use as a weapon, unless you were to serve it to your enemy as hors d’oeuvres. It needs the touch of a master artificer to bring out its true destructive potential.” Blood extended her claw and dropped it once more in Mercy’s outstretched hands. “I do look forward to seeing what she makes of it.” He bowed slightly in response. “I do thank you - both of you - and I owe you one. But for now, it’s likely best we head back. We can set Moore’s mind to rest that Rakim and I haven’t tried to kill each other, Butterfly can see to getting this processed, and we can all get back to what we were doing before.” He smirked at Onyx, very slightly. “You can come and see me about repayment once you’re done.” ”And speaking of ‘repayment’,” Blood whispered, leaning in to give Onyx the tiniest of nips on the ear.
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Dec 11, 2019 01:54
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You Died “Should we just...leave him there?” “He’s dead, isn’t he?” “Aye, but so he was before he challenged Her Nibs.” Pain. Emptiness. A hollow sensation in his breast. Up on the arena walls, at the highest ring of seats from which the least-worthy could observe the blood-sports of Nirix, Relic roused to consciousness at the sound of voices, the smell of his own dried blood, and the feeling of soulsteel nails piercing his flesh and spirit. “If he has indeed perished, then he should be returned to the earth,” spoke a familiar (and pompous) voice. “Let him seek perfection in his next life.” “What, he put you in charge of his funeral arrangements, dragon?” “Don’t talk to me like that, peasant!” Strange. He was dead. There was no mistake about that. The last strike of that duel had been fatal, and then the armor itself had dealt him the finishing blow. If this was some kind of heaven or hell, it was one beyond his wildest imaginings. The man out of time tried to stand up, but couldn’t. For his efforts, all he received was a sudden jolt of blinding pain, above and beyond the hurt of whole-body impalement. He did not try again. Instead, he remained at rest, and waited. As his life had, this too would soon pass. Many idle thoughts crossed his mind, but one echoed persistently, gaining a grip on him. What is that boy doing here? “You en’t among peasants here,” the other speaker growled. “You want our respect, you earn it down there, like he did.” “I...consider myself a close confidant of Master Relic’s,” Bezekir said with a note of wounded (and wholly-unearned) sincerity. “If you respected him at all, then surely you should accord me the same.” “Oh, so he’s yours, is he?” the other laughed. “Then see if you can’t loot some courage off his corpse with the rest of his gear. Mind you don’t touch the tiger’s blade - queen’s real possessive of it, y’see.” A dark-clothed, wizened figure flanked by half a dozen skeletal sharks strode towards the corpse, shaking his head. “Did they just leave him here?” With a deep sigh, Watcher gave the body a piercing glance and a prod of his foot. Supernal Control Method to full Occult Excellency: Jupiter: @oldmidgetwillow, you rolled 1,1,1,3,3,3,4,4,4,5,6,6,7,7,8,9,9,10,10,10 for a total of 11 successes There was something there still--some latent Necrotic Essence in the distinctive pattern that Relic gave when not-dead; Watcher gave another prod to see if it was just a ghost, but if so it was tightly bound enough to perhaps be able to be worked with. “...Up.” He gave the roustabouts standing about a scathing look and had his bodyguards form a pyramid of zombie flesh which the elderly Admiral gingerly scaled. Grasping Relic’s body not ungently, Watcher slowly slid the other Abyssal down the blade, ignoring the loud cracking sound as the ribcage ran afoul of the crossguard. Separated plasma and thick blood began to ooze out as Relic slipped off the sword with a final push; his ersatz doctor quickly applied pressure to both ends of the hole and passed him to the nearest zombie, which picked up the pressure on Relic’s not-quite corpse and started dragging him to the Revelation’s medical bay. Watcher wiped off his hands with a rather musty-looking handkerchief and sniffed at Bezekir. “Come along or not, but don’t take all day.” ---- It was perhaps unexpectedly bright in the medical suite on the Revelation--the typical users did not need lamps to see well, but apparently there was such a thing as ambiance which could affect recovery times. All the more reason not to linger. Relic was strapped onto a metal slab with a variety of chains and ropes--truth be told, as many as were easily available. One could never be too careful with someone in shock who was capable of going berserk. “Uh...hey!” Herald’s voice piped through the door, which he opened and stepped through and only then remembered to knock. “Admiral! We need to-” “I...think he’s got this?” Auling interrupted him. “But...Captain Wyrm told us to collect him,” Herald said, abashed. “She...didn’t say from where…” Watcher gave out a long, deep sigh, turning away from what appeared to be a long eel that slithered into Relic’s armor the moment it was unsupervised. “Because she assumes that you possess and utilize common sense.” His voice softened a touch. “If she believes you worthy, then be so. No matter--I am nearly done here.” An actinic flash came from Relic’s armor, accompanied by the smell of ozone. Awakening the fallen warrior had proven to be no simple matter. His condition was stable -- too stable, as his wounds refused to mend, and any attempt to remove the spikes protruding from his body merely resulted in an upsurge of new ones. But for someone learned enough, prepared enough, there were ways. A donation of blood caused the armor to kickstart itself, spreading the fluid throughout Relic’s outer shell. It seemed to have no effect, at first...but then suddenly, the armored knight began thrashing against his restraints, as a metallic noise not unlike a saw grinding its teeth against steel rose from his helmet, filling the air. “W-what’s happening?!” Auling demanded, panicking and jumping a full three feet back from the operating table. “Is that still...is that Relic?!” “I think so?” Herald asked, unfazed. He bobbed his head, trying in vain to get a glimpse of Relic’s pupils behind his visor. “He probably just needs a fresh sacrifice and he’ll be fine! It’s okay, Relic!” the thunderbird reassured him. “Wyrm’s not a morning person either!” The chains went taut as the deathknight strained against them, rattling menacingly, but they held nonetheless. As gauntleted fingers dug into the slab, seeking a way out, pitch-black essence began pouring out of the armor in waves, dimming the lights to a faint glow and instilling an icy chill upon the air. “Ah, good. Do try not to die again.” Turning to Herald, Watcher frowns. “I take it back. Feel free to collect him.” Watcher tossed a bony key to the thunderbird and walked out, unwilling to stick around to see what happened when Relic was freed. The walls could be replaced, if need be. “But...he’s still…” Auling mumbled fearfully. “Uh…” Herald made a fist and slapped it against his palm. “Play you for it?” Herald made shears. Auling made paper. “...two out of three?” he asked, gulping. “Come on, bro, you’ve got this!” Herald slapped him on the back. “Just, take this.” He passed Auling a prybar. “If that’s not enough, I’ll tighten the chain again.” Whimpering, Auling rolled up his sleeve and held it out, looking away and closing his eyes as he inched closer to the ravening Abyssal. Bound to the slab, there was no way for Relic to bite anyone and drink their blood, even when offered. It was a small comfort, but still sorely needed. It was a pity, then, that one tiny detail had been overlooked: a deathknight locked inside his armor could not possibly bite anyone. If he had any capacity to feed, it must naturally be done through a different method. The moment Auling was close enough, Relic’s hand shot out, grasping his breeches and pulling him in. His arms moved on reflex, putting one within reach. Seizing it, the deathknight pinned Auling against the slab and raised his three middle fingers, sharpened to needle points. With pinpoint precisión, they dug into his veins and arteries and began draining his blood with a greedy, slurping sound, pulling it up through the armor's grooves. He tasted like spices. Like cloves, and cinnamon, and mace and coriander and ginger and galangal and a thousand other delicacies. He tasted like life, and body and armor alike drank deep from that wellspring. Every draught restored a measure of sensation to Relic’s battered form. It was intoxicating. “OW OW OW THAT HURTS YOU’RE TAKING TOO MUCH!” Auling screamed. If Relic heard him, he did not seem to care. It was only after he'd drank his fill that he let go -- and as he did so, all his muscles went slack, the spikes piercing his body retracted, and new blood began pouring out the wounds. A low groan escaped his helmet. "So this...must be...what death feels like…" “IT FEELS BAD,” Auling announced. “Here, lemme get that!” Herald swooped in and began to bandage Auling’s wounds. “Drink this.” He offered the Dynast a pitcher of cold, clean water. “It’ll help.” Auling took the proffered drink but otherwise just whimpered while Herald patched him up. "I would…avail myself of your ministrations...ere long, Herald," the deathknight said, between pained breaths, as the slab was gradually painted dark red. "I have no desire...to return so soon to the grave." “Huh? Oh! Oh, right!” Herald flitted over and began to artlessly pack his wounds with gauze. “Wow, bunny did a number on you. Normally the Chosen stop bleeding after a few seconds but...huh. I could...cauterize this for you? I guess, if you want?” "Almost. Not...cauterize. Weld." There was something mildly upsetting about the way his armor looked. The shape of the wounds seemed to shift every time Herald looked at it, as though it were trying to find a way to pull itself together. "I must...work fast. Must become…ghh...battle ready." “Uh, uh…here!” Herald took the key that Watcher had tossed him and began to undo Relic’s restraints. “If I leave these on, I’ll just electrocute you, so...try not to maul anyone this time?” “...I’m dizzy,” Auling murmured. “Tired. Think I’m going to...lie down…” “Yeah, I don’t think he has any more left in him,” Herald observed. “And Wyrm’d get mad if I let someone else drink from me.” "I will do...my best. I pray this...does not...kill me," Relic said, shoving the chains to the ground as they were unlocked. "Perhaps it will make me...stronger." He tried to laugh. A spasm of agony turned the sound into a strangled gurgle. “Alright.” Herald picked up some grisly-looking cutting implement from the tray and passed it to Relic, handle-first. “If you’re gonna bite anything, this is it. And, uh…” he glanced to Auling as well. “You may not wanna look.” "I would rest…elsewhere," Relic advised, after a few unsuccessful attempts to use the instrument as a gag. "No one…close by will sleep...for a while." If anything, he was underplaying the infernal racket that followed until the pain overwhelmed him, and he slipped into unconsciousness. Listeners who heard it from portside has difficulty sleeping that night, as the memory of the wild, maddened screams of unmistakable torture haunted their dreams, providing them with ample nightmares filled with metallic terrors.
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Mar 10, 2020 22:44
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If A Tree Falls On A Dragon... A dainty, gilded ceramic bowl hit the table. It took its time to come to a complete stop, and for that time the faint ring of it wobbling was the only sound in the room. The moment it fell silent Wyrm produced a sealed silk pouch. She deftly snipped open one corner of the bag with a tiny knife, which vanished back into her pockets as abruptly as it had appeared. A gentle tip of the pouch sent a stream of finely crushed leaves pouring into the bowl, quickly anchoring the dish in place. When the last pinch of dust had fallen, a flick of her wrist banished the pouch back to its hiding place. A matching long pipe sat ready, primed with a charred ember. Wyrm skimmed the peak off the heap of leaves, leaving it level with the top of the bowl and shepherding the excess into the pipe. A few quick puffs stoked the ember to life, and the Captain was ready to start her day. She took a long, slow drag and allowed her attention to drift to the extravagantly dressed rat-man who’d somehow gotten in here while she wasn’t looking. After savoring the taste a while, she released her first breath squarely at Moore, sculpting the smoke into a raspy, “WhoTheFuckAreYou?” “Ah.” Moore wrinkled his nose against the smoke and waved it aside before answering. “I am Franklin Moore, Minister of Chiefs of the Berkshire Republic - or at least, I was. Now, simply a citizen of our Green Isle, like any other. Although I suppose our other residents are rather less-proficient at shape-changing and sorcery...but no matter! Forgive me, but I believe our ignorance to be mutual. Rakim’s introductions have been...well, you’ve met Rakim, haven’t you?” Wyrm leaned back, staring into space, “Have I?” On review of the past season, she couldn’t find a time she’d managed to corner the big cat. She knew who he was, and how he was, and he’d snuck all about the fleet grumbling about taking back his kingdom. Another hit of the pipe eased her back down to the man in front of her. “Him, no. You though, Citizen… Office-holder...“ Wyrm let the titles roll off her tongue, carefully judging their flavour. With a snap, her fingers he pointed at Moore, “The little book-mice scurrying about the edges of the pit. Those are yours?” “Yes!” he answered excitedly. “And book-men, and even a few book-wolves. The Swift Hooves have their own tallying system, and keep primarily oral histories, though...but that might just be their poor depth perception, I imagine reading is a terrible strain on their eyes. Ahem.” Moore composed himself, recalling his own question. “And I’m acquainted - passingly - with Sir Mercy and Dame Never, but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a Stygian fleet flying your colors.” “How many Stygian fleets have you seen, exactly?” asked Ceaseless from the corner in which he leaned. The engineer had followed Moore to this conference on the assumption that firstly, it would be useful to have the Revelation represented at this meeting and secondly, that none of the other ship’s officers would bother to attend, even if they had been invited, which seemed like the kind of detail Wyrm might forget. “Er...just the one, really,” Moore admitted. “Unless all of the marauding ghost-ships I’ve seen were secretly privateers.” “Not surprising,” Mercy said in a quiet voice. He’d been standing back from the table, arms folded behind his back, waiting to see how things would go. “The colours, I mean. Wrong side of the world for the Winter Navy to get too many ships out here - under normal circumstances.” He let the circumstances of the meeting imply how much hold ‘normal’ had over current events. “It’s true,” Moore acknowledged. “The Mask of Winters must have quite a lot invested in this Peleps admiral’s downfall.” His beady eyes grew a little beadier as he spoke, shrewdly gauging Wyrm’s reaction. “And I hope you’ll understand when I say that we’ve come to regard a Deathlord’s attentions with some amount of wariness, even with a dragon on our proverbial doorstep.” Wyrm immediately soured at the reminder of certain recent discoveries. She’d tried to keep her usual distance from the details, but with the intensity of the situation there was no avoiding Never’s full report. Resolving her stance on that was a matter for another day. With a flick of the pipe she knocked the first pinch of ash onto the table. “Good.” Her free hand slammed a scroll onto the table, which unfurled into a tentative map of the island. “You and I have a war to plan.” “So much for proprieties, then,” Moore said sadly, then scrunched up his nose as he took in the map. “...why is my sacred orchard on fire on your map?” Mercy cleared his throat in a faintly embarrassed way. “One of our…colleagues occasionally gets a little over-enthusiastic in depicting the success of his plans. More importantly, Dyval’s been using it as a way to keep his army effortlessly fed and watered. Given the horns-of-plenty and fountains-of-blessing that he had set up at his party, we assumed that the garden was his doing as an extension of his apparent understanding with Heaven. Now that we know otherwise, those plans can be changed as appropriate.” Wyrm had found some distraction in arranging pens and brushes while Mercy spoke. She now held a quill ready to update. “It is aiding your enemy. Unless you have the means to swiftly take and hold, or relocate it,” She slashed the point over her fingertip, and drew a tiny bead of blood, “It goes.” “You see, this is why we can’t have nice things,” Moore grumbled, looking distinctly-disgruntled. “...I’ll salvage what I can of the magics I used to grow it.” Wyrm held a moment, a blank stare fixed on the defeated man before her, “That’s all?” When Moore offered no response she fell back into her seat. An unholy shriek of wood scraping wood cut the air as Wyrm turned her chair just slightly to the right. “Ceaseless?” “We might be able to do something sneakier,” said Ceaseless slowly. “If we could induce some kind of subtle undetectable change in the supplies produced, we could turn their logistics advantage into our own weapon…” The engineer trailed off in thought. “Straightforward disease or poison wouldn’t work; they’d discover that too quickly.” He cocked his head back for another moment. “What if...what if we figured out a way to make it so anyone who ate or drank from the resources produced with the help of Moore’s artifacts was inflicted with a kind of latent curse. If they were killed with a soulsteel weapon, they would rise as a zombie shortly afterward. Maybe even under control of their killer, but even if they ended up just randomly fighting it would be a much greater hindrance to our opponents. The zombies would be infectious, of course. Uhh, if possible. I’ll have to think about how it might be done.” “Hmm...I think one of my treatises mentioned a way to force a ghostly rise. I think...it involved bees?” Butterfly scratched her head. “Plenty of those in a garden like that, I imagine.” “Infiltration, subversion…” acceptable flavor, fair texture, but still not quite what Wyrm wanted to hear. “The time you’d need to spell out such a curse, to give your poison time to spread, all while smothering any alarm that risks informing them their well is tainted.” this had the distinct aftertaste of siegecraft, “What can you do that won’t mean staying here all season?” “I mean, we could always steal it back,” the Daybreak shrugged. “It’s of lesser value to us, but useful to Moore. Steal what we can, and when we get caught, we just scorch and run.” “Or...perhaps...we could also re-align the holy pyres fueling its geomancy,” Moore said, scratching his once-stubbly chin (more out of habit than anything). “A garden of Tea…” Butterfly looked up in thought, eyes twinkling in a daydream of wonderful memories. “They would not be able to live on tea alone, but they might just seize it to trade for actual provisions,” Moore said, oblivious to Butterfly’s thought process. “But if I were to infuse it with an excess of Lunar Essence, the grove could be turned a bit…feral.” He looked almost as distasteful at the thought as he had at razing it. “It would go from an asset for the invaders to a liability, and Rakim could help in reclaiming it once they’re gone. He does like to hunt monsters…” Wyrm’s hand drifted back towards the map, “And to do that you need-” “Only time, and a lack of interruptions,” Moore said, confident once more now that the discussion was back in his own comfort zone. “...and perhaps a few other ingredients, you needn’t worry, I can procure them on my own.” Butterfly fingers wiggled a mental abacus. "Even to move Petraya from Tea back to Fire took a great deal. Nearly turned the entire island into a crater...maybe the Moonsilver Manikin would have something. Now plants you would have an easier time, more tinkering access points to…" She blinked. "Wait I've done this before. Yeah, let's do this! Lover said she wanted a repeat demonstration." “We do both.” With a few quick penstrokes Wyrm amended the flames around the garden into wild roses, “You inflicted your other little renovation on something left abandoned and placed exactly on its’ edge. It only took a nudge to tip it back the other way,” She made a few accusatory jabs at Butterfly, “And the birth of a dragon to keep it from erupting anyway. This garden will be tended, and its’ keepers will be watching out for pests.” She set the pen aside and started arranging little coloured stones, “Unless they have some greater concern than chasing butterflies.” Wyrm set up her formations along the frontier between the city and the Imperial outpost, “From all these roads, we take those most suitable for haunting. I’ll arrange a few timely skirmishes to wet your brush and you will paint us a proper killing field. When they notice your good work they will devote their time to vandalism.” “Erm. Yes. ‘Vandalism’. ‘Haunting’. ‘Killing field’.” Moore fidgeted in his seat, nervously tweaking at the tassels of his new garment. “These are the sorts of words that raise concerns.” He chewed his lip, torn between his desire to see the Green Isle liberated and his deeply-rooted managerial instincts...and then, all at once, it came to him. “Oh. OH! Please, humor me -” he moved the tokens representing Wyrm’s proposed expeditions to the roads running east and west, between the garden and the dam. “Focus your efforts on securing this route, and I can guarantee that Dyval’s baggage train will come to you.” There was faint but unmistakable hiss as Wyrm clawed the air over her men. She seized the stones, and quickly slid the little motes of polished obsidian to their proper places. Each was uniquely detailed with fine lines of vermillion which held very specific meaning to their captain’s eye. When all hands reported in good order, she reached back to her supplies and promptly slammed a fistful of plain ivory cubes into the wilderness before her army. At every step of this, her eyes were fixed on Moore. She settled back in her chair and took another taste of the pipe. “Do go on.” “I...aha, yes,” Moore said, evincing some degree of concern over Wyrm’s fixation. “Undoubtedly, you’ve noticed our recent, explosive growth in enormous, petrified trees. It’s a bit basic, I’ll grant,” he said, picking up a cube and squinting as he spoke the word ’basic’, “but as a Lunar, and as a bureaucrat, I am used to working with what materials I have. A tree falls…” he knocked an empty fountain pen across the map, blocking the road between the fort and the garden. “...and Dyval shall have to divert his baggage trains, or else dredge a new harbor. Either outcome is to our benefit.” Wyrm probed the makeshift barricade from a few odd angles, “They could undermine you, or tunnel through, maybe bridge over you…” she leaned closer, squinting at the map as she went on muttering, “but do they feel safe enough to commit their own hands to make work crews, when they’ve not felt strong enough to subjugate their neighbours...” Her words dissolved into unintelligible whispers. She gently teased the corners of the corners of the cubes as increasingly vague scenarios played out in her mind. At once, Wyrm fell back in her chair and fixed on Moore again with uncanny clarity. “Do it. Reclaim your garden, rouse it to chase out your unwanted guests, and when they move to flee shut off their exit. Then I will have my way with them.” “Ah! Excellent, excellent,” Moore exclaimed, braiding his fingers together in obvious relief at having negotiated an agreement. “Yes, I’ll begin making arrangements at once. Perhaps some sort of signal...er, no, never mind. You’ll know when my part in this is done.”
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Apr 11, 2020 20:43
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In Our Time of Dying When Relic next opened his eyes, starlight was filtering through the starboard windows of one of the Envoy’s guest cabins. He was prone, presumably on a bed, but what caught his immediate attention was not the room but its other occupant. Never Within Reach perched on the back of a chair at the foot of the bed like a white cloaked vulture, her faceted monocle glimmering as she kept careful watch over him. “I heard you lost a fight with a rabbit,” she said, when he finally stirred. His body still ached dimly, pulsing with waves of exhaustion and pain in a way he had not experienced for a very long time. So long, he had forgotten there existed sensations such as this...carefully so as not to strain himself, Relic turned to look at her with just his head. “The price of victory would have been high. Whether it was worth paying or not is something I still do not know, but human lives are not so easily reacquired once given away. Better to be cautious than reckless with them.” “Does your own mean so little?” she tilted her head to the side. “From what Herald tells me, you didn’t expect to wake again.” “Man is a creature with more than one body. His soul lies not only within him but without, in the things and the people he seeks to obtain and protect. But most of my soul is lost to time. What’s left is not so valuable it cannot be sold when the time is right, as it was then.” He sighed...and quickly dissolved into pained coughs. “You did not come here to listen to the ramblings of a wounded man, however. Tell me, Never Within Reach, to what do I owe this visit?” She was about to correct him, to say that she had been posted as a guard after what had happened with Auling, but it was a half-truth at best. She’d volunteered precisely because she wanted to hear the ramblings of, as he so eloquently put it, a wounded man. “Out of all of us, you alone stand without liege. That gives you… perspective.” She hopped off the chair and approached his right side, brushing her fingers against the metal that coated his arm like a second skin. “Have you truly no recollection of who did this to you?” A single finger rose up to wave, back and forth. “If I did, I would not have left that ill-fated meeting without orders. We all signed a covenant, and such things are to be respected. I was equipped, and then I was forgotten...and made to forget as well.” There was the slightest tinge of bitterness to his voice. “Yet for what reason, I cannot say. Do you find yourself doubting your master?” he asked. “Such questions are not asked lightly.” “My thoughts are all too heavy of late,” she admitted. With Relic, her speech fell into the archaeisms she’d been taught when she first learned the tongue. It reminded her of… who? She didn’t know. “Does that respect not need to flow in both directions? A knight who serves a master who treats her as a plaything… Can she be called such, or is she merely a fool dressed in uniform instead of motley?” “Worse,” said Relic, gravely. “A knight who persists in serving an unworthy liege beyond a moment of crisis is not simply a fool. What her master would know her as, is as a toy, or a pet.” There was a pause. “And you fear that is the name your master would give you?” It is one she has already given me, Never thought silently. Though the way her hand balled into a fist may have given it away. “She cared for me, once.” The lies we tell ourselves. “But I have been put aside for prettier dolls. And yet she will not let me go. Every time I test my bonds I too am made to forget. Carved out like a holiday gourd and left empty. Why?” This despair, this is why. She drinks it like a fine wine. “I… am as trapped as you are.” It was strangely freeing to say it aloud. To admit what everyone already knew, but she had never in any of her ‘lives’ been able to come to terms with. “So it is,” the armored knight said, nodding slowly. “It is not polite to speak ill of another’s liege, yet I must admit this: when I witnessed how the Deathlords comported themselves, I did not see wise rulers. All I saw was not-so-petty tyrants. Do you seek to escape the one who holds you in thrall?” he asked, and his voice was a quiet thing -- partly from his injuries, yes, but moreso because of a sudden gentleness, as an older relative might have had for a younger one struggling to put the pieces of their life together for a great decision. “Not for my own sake,” she whispered. “I will not forswear the oath I gave, to free the Masters from their endless torment. But I have seen little reason to believe my Lady ever plans to pay more than lip service to that noble goal. And I see even less reason to believe that the path they have demanded we walk will lead to a future at all. There has to be another way...” Her tone was far more desperate than her words warranted, serious though they were. Something had changed, and her eyes pleaded with him to give her some shred of hope. “There is,” said Relic. “Yet you act as though there isn’t. What keeps you from giving to these tyrants what their rule naturally arouses?” Never held up two fingers. “Our combined strength may not be a match for a single Deathlord, and there are a dozen of them.” One finger went down. “Even if it were, in trade for the power we were given, a shard of our very essence was paid. It is kept under lock and key to prevent any of us from becoming too… independent. With this sliver of our souls they can shriek into our very minds from their palaces in the Underworld, and much worse. If…” She caught herself and shook her head. “This is the stuff of dreams and fancy, and if I continue speaking I will be joining you on your deathbed ere long, without the benefit, if it can be called that, of your armor’s powers of revival.” “Ah,” Relic said, and fell silent. “So not content to merely pull on them, they even see fit to flaunt the strings. It is the kind of hubris that gave rise to palaces of pure gold, in the time in which I still lived. To rebel, if it is even possible, would require a sacrifice that would make you as I am. It is a fate I would not wish upon anyone,” he said, in a tone so quiet it was barely a whisper. “And yet...” “And yet,” Never echoed. “The vexing thing is that if I have come to this conclusion now, I must surely have already done so, and failed in whatever plan I tried. She will be waiting for me to try again like a cat at a mousehole.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “I am disadvantaged at every turn, by her design. I cannot win this game, not when she controls the board. I am only a pawn in her service, not a player-” So seek out another player. One whose designs more closely resemble your own. Never bit her lip hard. For a moment there was utter silence in the room. A box had just been opened that could not be closed again. “...you have given me much to think about, for a man who intentionally lost a fight with a rabbit.” “A player only throws a game when he grows tired of it.” Even faded and weak, Relic’s voice still carried a hint of smugness. “Those who would master it should learn to distinguish a concession from a loss.” “A point I will concede,” Never said, the hint of a smile playing at her mouth for the first time that evening. “If you can spout philosophy you have little need of a guard,” she added, turning to leave. “I will tell Wyrm you’re fit enough to talk. Though…” A hint of curiosity played at her eyes. “Are you truly so old that you remember the Age of Dreams?” “It was not known by that name then,” he said, his voice older now, and distant. “It was simply life. There was much wonder in it, but that was not truly what differentiated it from this world. It was its people...” A long sigh escaped Relic’s lips. “There was a kindness in them then that has been lost to time. Or perhaps it only existed because life was easy. I do not know.” “If it was easy, then why are you so well versed in dealing with tyrants?” Never asked, more seriously. “What else would one call the shining ones who ruled the world?” the deathknight replied. “Some were good and kind. Others thought of it as their plaything. No matter the era, power never changes, and neither does its effect on people. Learning how to mitigate the damage the latter group could wreak was what taught me the art of subtlety that I so often employ these days.” “Such a skill remains evergreen,” Never agreed. “Do you think it one of them who dressed you so?” “No,” Relic said, shaking his head. “One singular characteristic defined the shining ones, and that was their penchant for showmanship. If they had been the ones to dress me, they would have wasted no time parading me in front of their peers, instead of hiding me deep within the Underworld. What use is a toy if it is never taken out of its box?” “Perhaps they were ashamed of what they had wrought. If so, they would spare no effort to bury it where no one would ever see, even to the point of blinding that toy to its own intended purpose.” There was a long silence as those words sunk in. At last, Relic spoke. “You asked me earlier why my life meant so little to me. Why did it mean so much to you when you died? What drove you to claw your way back and sell your soul for another chance at living?” She faced him directly, pulling her collar down to reveal the rope scars, still as white and livid as the day she’d died. “Justice,” she said fiercely. “A pretty word for a petty revenge on those who’d betrayed me, sold me into the arms of my enemies, but not just for that. All my life I struggled against the powerful. A losing battle, one inch at a time, but for me the blood I made them pay for those inches was worth it. Anything to slow the tide, inexorable though it may have been… And in the end, I stood alone. My companions were beaten into submission, not by the enemy, but by their own despair, their own weakness. And when I was given the choice, when I was offered real power… I turned it not on my foe but on my friends. On those who had given up… Who’d given me up…” She hugged herself, pain coursing through her body as the Masters punished her for transgressing, for admitting to being that long dead girl. But that pain was nothing compared to the anguish of seeing herself as the monster she had become. Immobile as he was, Relic could do nothing but watch -- and that helplessness stirred a half-forgotten pain within him in turn. A pain that went back to his dread revival, too… “I came back for my city,” he said, his hands slowly balling up into fists. “My people. On the eve of the day I was supposed to assume the mantle of their protection, our world ended.” He could still see it now. A vibrant explosion of glass and colour, enveloping his entire field of vision, piercing his body with its shards. “I was desperate to save them. To protect them. So I gave away the world, for a chance at keeping my people safe.” Pain seeped into his voice -- not the kind of pain that came with physical injury but the quieter, subtler kind of pain that came from open wounds upon the soul. “Pointless. There was nothing left for me to save. Everything I cherished was nothing more than dust and air. I thought the destruction of my city to be my fault, a mistake in how I carried out the ritual ceremonies. But if one of the shining ones was responsible for it...” He was broken, immobilized and unable to stand. And yet, in that moment, the air faintly hummed with barely-contained violence, empowered by a hatred so strong and so deep it could swallow the world if left unchecked. Never stared at him, blindsided by this revelation. She had often wondered if Relic was some long lost nobility by the way he carried himself, but the way he spoke of his city made clear that he was far more than that. “What was it called? Your city.” “Era.” The word was spoken breathlessly, and could not be uttered any other way. How could one single breath contain so much sorrow? So much anger? So much happiness, and so many memories? It was not a name she knew, but the Underworld held the knowledge of ages past, if one knew where to look. She stepped back to his bedside and held her hand out where he could reach, if he so chose. “Do you seek justice, Relic of Era?” He heaved a deep, deep breath before answering. “No. Justice is not a comfort for the dead, but the living. As much as I might wish to have someone else to blame, nothing in my memories suggests there was another responsible for the death of Era. For its destroyer to seek justice on its behalf would be the height of hubris. What I seek is to pay my respects to it, and properly honour the memory of its dead. But...” The word was spoken hesitantly, unwilling to hope, to even entertain a semblance of desire for absolution. “...The gaps in my memories linger still. If Era is to be properly remembered, I must recover what I have lost. And if it would come to pass that Era was destroyed by another’s hand...then, and only then, would it be right to seek justice.” Slowly, weakly, his gauntleted fingers moved to seize Never’s hand in their grasp. But though his grip was weak, it was steady, and outside forces would not have found it easily broken. She clasped it with both of hers. “Then what must be found first is the truth, painful though it may be. If I can help, I will.” “Thank you, Never Within Reach. I am in your debt.” Simple words, full of weight. As were the words that followed. “How will you break your own chains? If there is aught I can do for you...” “When the time comes, I will ask. For now, they are loose enough that they do not chafe so badly. I must use the freedom of inattention while I still have it.” He nodded, slowly. “And what do you plan to do with it?” Never smiled, showing her fangs. “You’ll see.”
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Apr 12, 2020 00:55
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Two Can Keep a Secret, if Both of Them Are Dead Never Within Reach skulked outside the door to Butterfly’s workshop. For the third time her hand rose to knock on the jade-inlaid wood and for the third time it fell to her side, clenched in frustration. This was foolish, dangerous, involving her friend in something that no good would- could ever!- come from. But she had to know. And there was only one person in Creation who could be trusted with something this important, this secret, this precious. She hoped. The door burst open as she kicked it in with the fury of her own inability to feign politeness. “Butterfly!” she barked at the interior, cheeks flushing with something like guilt. “We need to talk… please.” Butterfly looked up from her chair, staring blankly at Never. Her eyes flickered to her desk, where she was reading a book...an autobiography of the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears, held upright next to a couple other salacious tomes in the series. "Never! Uh…" Butterfly quickly slammed her research material shut and unceremoniously slid the books off the table away from her friend. Her own cheeks flushed, she held a smile of complete sincere innocence. "Hi! What, uh, what's up?" Never’s eyes bounced from the book to Butterfly’s face and then to the space off the table where the book had ended up. This was a terrible idea. But she had committed to it and so she gulped and said simply. “Not something we can talk about here. Can you come with me for an hour or so? Bring your doctor’s kit.” "Uh, sure!" Butterfly said, sliding in between Never's line of sight and the books on the ground. "Uh, travel kettle okay, or do I need to prepare for open heart surgery again?"” “No surgery,” Never said, shaking her head. “Meet me on the deck when you’re ready. Bring the Phoenix stone.” “I mean it’s right there…” Butterfly said, pointing to a hook on the wall that held up a study tea kettle by a strap. Once Never turned her head she stepped forward and stumbled into her friend in a desperate attempt to prevent her from seeing more of the research materials. “There I got the bag--and I got the stone right here so we’re good let’s go no time like the present,” she stuttered loudly, slamming the door behind them. “Right! Now...deck and then where to?” --- Some time later their boots alighted on the sands of the Whisperless Desert. It was a fair way from the spire, though that landmark dominated the horizon. Never gave a soft sigh of relief as the ever present presence in the back of her mind quieted to nothing. Her wings folded down into the shimmering violet and green cloak and she sat down, cross-legged, and pulled her hood back. Her long hair was braided through with bone charms that rustled as she tapped the sand beside her. “Do you have the tool for measuring hearts?” she asked, unsure of the word. “Uhh...heart size, heart beats, or blood flow?” Butterfly asked back, digging through her kettle. “I don’t need a tool for size, beats I’ve got, and I thought you said we weren’t doing surgery?” “Beats,” Never said. Even here, when she knew she was safe, the words were too terrifying to say out loud. Butterfly snapped up, yanking her stethoscope out of her kettle-bag. “Okay. Got it. You uh…” She tilted her head, noticing Never’s hesitation. “Are you alright? You didn’t get sick, did you?” “No,” Never said. But when Butterfly went to put the stethoscope to her chest she put her hand over the cool metal and pushed it down, to rest over her belly. Butterfly stayed quiet in confusion, but listened anyway. (3,5,6,7,8,8,8,9,9,10 for a total of 8 successes) “Wait.” Butterfly blinked, then looked up at Never’s face. Then back at her stomach. Then back at Never. Her face turned as red as it had back in her cabin. “How many?” Never asked, her own heart racing harder than it ever had in a fight. “H-h-how many? You… “You’re pregnant!?” The empty land around them swallowed the echo, but it still sent a chill up Never’s spine. “I wasn’t sure,” she said, pulling her knees up guardedly. “Thank you.” “What...how? I...no don’t answer that it’s…” Butterfly pulled away and paced back and forth a bit. “I thought we were too aspected to unlife to be able to...well, no, we’re still alive, enough...but, still, isn’t this like against the laws of life and death? Well...the rules really weren’t supposed to be there because undeath wasn’t supposed to happen and yet here we are creating the impossible because that was the entire purpose of the Exaltation in the first place. But it’s more than just the laws of nature and our defiance it’s--” “It’s this place,” Never said, when Butterfly paused only to take in a breath. She picked up a handful of sand and let it sift through her fingers. “It’s unaspected, or close enough-” “Waitwaitwait, you and Bolt?” Butterfly threw her arms wide, glancing around. “Here? That’s...that’s just unsanitary, Never.” “We had a blanket,” Never said, blushing. “It was very romantic. I told him my Name and everything.” Butterfly’s face took another shade of red, and she fell backwards on her hands and feet. “I don’t even know where to begin. Your Name? I mean, I guess this is the place for it…but, uh...does he know?” Never shook her head. “I didn’t even know for sure until just now. I…” She hugged her knees tight to her chest. “I don’t know what to do, Butterfly. It shouldn’t have happened, couldn’t have happened, but it did, and if anyone tries to tell me I can’t keep this miracle…” Her cape flickered into razorsteel wings in a protective halo around her. “Woah, hey hey hey,” Butterfly said, hollering as she slid back for a moment, before carefully trying to crawl closer. “One step at a time. We’ve got time to figure this out… ...um...can I come in for a hug?” In that moment Never looked more like a guilty teenager than she ever had in her life. “Do you promise not to tell anyone?” “I...I promise…” Butterfly mumbled, inhaling sharply, “buuuut Ireallythinkyoushouldtellhim” “I will,” Never said, her wings lowering and folding over her shoulders. “Soon. But he’s not who I’m worried about finding out. If our Lady...” “Or the Neverborn...yikes. Okay...uh, no notes, no paper trail, maybe we need a codeword, and…” Butterfly glanced around the desert. “I guess I can try to make a netherglass room? See if that can keep things a bit more secret? Plus a place for, well, later...oh I should write this--no, no notes. Crap.” Never’s eye’s widened. “Netherglass… Butterfly you’re a genius! I thought I would have to fly all the way back here when it was time!” “I mean, I don’t know if that’ll block spooky Neverborn vibes. But it’s something we could probably use a room like that already considering how many blasphemies we’ve already committed, what’s one more?” With a sigh and a nod, Never opened her arms for the inevitable. Butterfly charged in from the side, careful not to bowl Never over. “We’ll figure this out. However you decide to continue from here, I’ll help. Just...can I take another look?” She slid her stethoscope back up to her ears. Never gingerly pulled her coat up to give Butterfly a better listen. “Okay...alright. I think that’s...oh!” She looked back at Never. “Um, make that two more blasphemies.” ”Two?!”
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Apr 12, 2020 01:06
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Last Mercy Given - A Word In Your Ear - Guest Cabin, 5th of Resplendent Fire, RY 768 The business at Diamond Tor was done, he’d managed to convince Rakim to settle down, and they’d slain some sort of Wyld-slug. For the first time in what felt like a week, Mercy let himself relax. He lay back on the bed he’d been allocated aboard the Thousand-Facet Jewel, headed even now to their rendezvous point in Nirix. His thoughts drifted to his own quarters and his own personal effects. They lay particularly with one of those effects, left sitting in a drawer of his desk - the ancient manual for the Path of the Arbiter. With time to himself for the first time since their departure for Diamond Tor, he thought back to what he had learned about it on the night before they’d reached the Green Isle proper. quote:Last Mercy Given - Library of the Thousand-Facet Jewel, Evening, 30th of Ascending Fire, RY 768 Back in the here-and-now, Mercy sighed before rising from his borrowed bed. He left his cabin, and headed instead to Layna’s, where he’d arranged to meet with her after his return from his foray into the borders of the Wyld. His conversation with Advice had been weighing on him very nearly ever since it had occurred. Given Layna’s concerns about what the Heavenly authorities might think of her drive towards self-improvement, he figured she at least deserved to know the style’s source. That thought, however, had spurred others. Thoughts about - among other things - the Walker in Darkness, and of her attendant train of dancers... and if an offered choice could be called that, if it lacked tenable alternatives. That had made him consider his own situation, and Layna’s, and that in turn had made him consider the parallels between them. They had not been at all difficult to spot - but he distinctly disliked what the recognition of those parallels inevitably implied about Layna’s apprenticeship. Consequently, he’d asked to speak with her - about all of it, or as much as he could safely tell her. Together, perhaps they could lay some of those parallels to rest. He stopped in front of the closed door to Layna’s cabin. He’d taken no effort whatsoever to diminish the sound of his footfalls, in the hopes that he might avoid interrupting another romantic interlude. (In truth he didn’t expect Butterfly or Spark - or Layna, for that matter - to be so bold, but it never hurt to take precautions.) He listened closely, but couldn’t discern any sound of conversation from behind the door - and so he crisply rapped his knuckles against the door twice, and waited. “Ah!” The door slid open a crack, then opened wider as the occupant recognized their guest. “Sifu!” Layna stood in the doorway, fully-clothed, while Spark sat on the floor next to a short stack of scrolls, no signs of romantic conduct in evidence. “I didn’t think - was I due for training?” Mercy shook his head, smiling. “No, not precisely. Something you’d said in one of our earlier post-training discussions prompted me to make some inquiries the night before we departed for Diamond Tor. What with everything that transpired there, this was the first time I’d had to come and talk to you about it since. But…” His eyes momentarily flicked to Spark, then back up to Layna. “...well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt anything.” “Spark’s teaching me! It’s...what did you say it was called, again?” “Foundational theory of the five elements,” Spark said. “The nature of matter.” “It’s really complicated!” Layna said, although from what Mercy could see, Spark had brought a novice’s texts. Mercy’s face had broken into a wider smile at Layna’s first statement; at the second one, he carefully kept the smile from turning puzzled. “Most subjects seem so when they’re unfamiliar ones. But I’ve always found you a quick study, in other fields. I trust you’ll prove likewise here.” He arched an eyebrow at her, very slightly, as he said the words ‘quick study’. “I hope so,” she said earnestly. “But...what did you want me for?” Mercy’s smile faded to seriousness before he responded. “During one of our prior sessions, you had previously expressed some concern regarding the approval of the Heavenly authorities of your association with us and your tendency towards… independent study in general, yes? And I assured you that they had many bigger things to worry about?” “I remember,” Layna said. “They only mess with you if you’ve made enemies,” Spark added. “Or if they were already after something else and you’re just...in the way.” Mercy nodded. The behaviour Spark described was consistent with what he’d heard of Heaven’s conduct, both in Stygia and here in Creation. “As I said, the night before we departed, I spoke with Advice Well-Taken; I wished to ask her what she knew of the ancient treatise from which I’d learned of the Path of the Arbiter.” He looked to one side slightly, as if taking note of the doorframe of Layna’s cabin for the first time. “Ah, may I come in? I’d prefer not to have the rest of the conversation in the hallway.” “I…” Spark tensed a little, guarded in posture. “You can come in,” Layna said, then turned to Spark. “We can finish this another time.” She leaned in and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek. “I learned a lot today. Thank you.” Blushing furiously, Spark gathered his lesson materials and saw himself out with a mumbled farewell to each of them. Mercy nodded and smiled in a way he hoped was apologetic as the thunderbird passed, then shut the door once Spark had departed. He held up a finger and waited until he could no longer hear Spark’s footfalls before continuing. “Apologies,” he said with a sigh. “But what Advice told me, roughly speaking, was this - Heaven is frequently overtaxed, and the Sidereal Exalted doubly so, to the point that a destiny intended for a king may be so long in coming that it winds up affecting their children or grandchildren. She told me that the Path of the Arbiter was a potential solution to that problem, created anonymously by one of the Sidereal Exalted, as a means to enact a ‘change of plans’ for certain destinies, as necessary in response to crisis.” He looked into his apprentice’s eyes, entirely grave now. “She also told me that it was never officially released, never taught to anybody in Creation, because none of the Sidereal Exalted could agree on which of their number would have control over the teaching.” “Oh! You mean…” Layna frowned, puzzling out Mercy’s statement. “...wouldn’t that mean...if I start to learn it…” she gulped. “...they might start to mess with us after all?” “Quite possibly… but not certainly.” Mercy said. “Advice likewise described the practice of the style as tantamount to taking hold of a loose thread in the tapestry of Fate - likely one’s own - and pulling. It might very well attract attention - but in so doing, it would also deny Heaven the means to directly influence or investigate you.” He shook his head in a dissatisfied way. “But that’s all still at least somewhat speculative, and I’ve had more than my fill of that of late. Nevertheless, I felt that you deserved to know.” “Then...thank you,” she said. “I...I always knew that this would be a dangerous choice…” She clenched her fists, then looked Mercy in the eye, resolute once more. “...but so would staying on Lordsmeet, waiting for the ocean to take us.” Mercy nodded satisfiedly, but not in a way that indicated he was done. “Then you intend to continue learning - and I am glad to hear it. But I did have another question.” His gaze went far away for a moment, as he pondered how to ask it. Eventually, he fell back on the tone he used when asking his ‘instructive questions’, after a training session. “Why, when I asked, did you choose to learn from me?” “Because I was tired of being nobody,” she answered, just as she had the very first time he’d asked, and then: “...because it’s not safe to be nobody.” Mercy nodded. “So you said before, at least the first part, and it was a good answer - but you misunderstand me. That was the answer to the question ‘why did you choose to learn?’ What I’m asking is, ‘why did you choose to learn from me’?” Layna started, going bolt-upright, her heartbeat quickening and her eyes falling away from Mercy’s mismatched set. “...you were the first person ever to offer,” she said at last, guiltily. Mercy nodded, eyes shut, but smiling, in the manner of one who knew something to be true but nonetheless waited for confirmation. “I suspected as much,” he said calmly. “You had no other choice.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “And now?” he asked. “And now...I don’t regret any of it,” Layna said. “I’d make the same choice all over again.” Mercy let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding, though he slowed its release enough to make it somewhat less obvious. His shoulders tensed, as though restraining himself from some motion. “Well enough,” he said, before meeting her gaze again. “I just wanted to ensure you were aware of the alternatives available to you - that there were alternatives available to you now.” “There are…” she said. “But...none of them are here. With all of you.” Mercy broke into a broad grin, the tension truly broken. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I reckon Butterfly and Spark would be happy to make a sorceress out of you, were you to ask. It’s always good to have something in mind for the future. As for now, however…” His grin grew broader, and he gestured abovedecks. “You’ve restated your dedication to this line of tuition - so I figure it’s time to let you prove it.” Layna offered a quick bow. “Yes, sifu!”
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May 14, 2020 14:57
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Placeholder to keep this from going to archives which will be replaced by a real update before the weekend is out. Also, having learned a lot about the concept of Executive Dysfunction lately, can I just say: gently caress Executive Dysfunction.
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Aug 14, 2020 16:51
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