(OOC Thread)Prologue: Echoes
We’ve lost the Drogue.
Too many of their kind have been taken, and the Oversoul
has been corrupted. Their connection to it has driven them
insane. Not tainted, thank the powers, but still insane.
I believe we can beat the Plasm, despite the setbacks,
but I do not know if we can ever restore the Oversoul.
Victory may be bitter, but I will not tolerate defeat.
Joan HawkwoodThere was a saying back in Joan’s village, one she never appreciated until she started traveling: “The world is as constant as the ground you walk on”. When she was a child, it seemed comforting. The harvests were reasonable, the weather seldom dangerous, and the fish plentiful. The saying had once seemed an assurance that the world was a constant place. Now, her home far behind her, the saying has a different meaning.
The world changed every time you took a step.
Now, with Tala under her, the blue tinged radiance of an unfamiliar Lighthouse at her back, her lungs filled with the cold, thin, and curiously damp air of this elevated hinterland, the saying felt all the stronger. She was used to the bright green-gold light of her own tower, of tall trees that didn’t burst into verdant leaves except at their heads. She was used to crystal creatures that bathed in the light, and for the lizards to outnumber the mammals. This place was nothing she was used to. The trees here were thin, stick-like things that put out grasping handfuls of leaves as soon as they left the cold earth, the desperate foliage taking a variety of striated hues that all seemed sickly. Like all trees, they had leaves only on one side, but their lee side didn’t show their wooden bones. A thick layer of a jelly-like shelf fungus clung there instead, healthier seeming than the tree itself. The animals here were strange as well. There were few lizzies here, and a number of fat little furred mammals that Joan had never before seen. Joan loved her Chattel, but there was something very odd about seeing more fur than scale when observing the wilds.
The Phari light behind her was at peak luminescence, but, at this distance, the light is warm only in comparison to the shade. Still, it gives more than enough light to see the road and guide the expedition. The three powered wagons, half-dozen researchers, and dozen caretakers and assistants, are no small venture. Add in the Nav-Squad on loan from the Crystal University and the White Company itself, and it’s clear that there is a small fortune in play. This was a privately backed darklands expedition, but there could be no illusions about its grand goals. It’s the biggest job the White Company has ever taken, and also the most personal. Ralai Kankuul was the leader of the researchers and the primary source of funds for the expedition. He was an elder Keelai, an accomplished lumographer, master lumomancer, and a long retired Guide for the University of Light. More importantly to Joan, he was a teacher and friend from long ago.
He had also become thoroughly undignified in his old age, as his current position sprawled on top of the lead wagon indicated. He looked quite dead; belly up, limbs askew, and wings spread wide. Only regular shallow breaths indicated that he was still alive, merely sunning in the thin light.
Ralai cracked one eye open as Joan kneed Tala level with his wagon, the sharp and cloudless orb of a younger bird fixing on her immediately.
“Dear endless heaven, I seem to be approached by a chattel that clings to the surface of the world, and human clinging to its back for fear of falling into the sky. Tell me, fair and all-but-falling stranger, what is the name of the bizarre land I have come to?”
Svurrl and RolThe wagons that Ralai had commissioned for the expedition were large, sturdily built, well insulated, and seemed to have had all of their prior maintenance done by complete criminals and utter charlatans. Svurrl, Rol, and two of the Temani maintainers that Ralai had hired were cramped together inside the last wagon of the caravan, perched on various boxes and jabbing fingers at a burnprint of the same wagon’s undercarriage.
The primary shaft that ran from the steam engine and drove the wagon forwards was cracked, badly. Rol had spotted the problem last night. A bump in the road had cast a stone into the shaft during the day, and against all reason, that stone had lodged itself into seemingly solid wood. A finger deep, two inch wide, three foot long section of travel softened wood caulk had came out along with the stone when Rol attempted to remove it during nightly inspection. Judging by the edges, the main crack was fairly recent, likely only developing a week or two before the vehicle was rented out to Ralai, but it was clearly growing at a disturbing rate. The expedition pace had been slowed considerably in order to minimize the damage, but the matter was still urgent.
“We don’t have the supplies to make repairs on damages like this” hissed Creel, the larger and redder of the two Temani.
“Stupid, thieving, gutless, incompetents!”The second Temani, Veraki, clasped two hands to its left side and wrung the third absently, occasionally using it to make a stabbing gesture at the burnprint.
“We could build a patch, bolts here and here… It would contain the worst of the damage and slow the degradation.” Veraki flipped its stalk eye upwards, the Temani equivalent of a shrug.
“We have the supplies, and the work could be done easily when the wagons stop for the night.”Creel made a cutting motion with one hand, the mouth in its chest baring several rows of blunt teeth.
“We don’t have a three foot brace, and just trying to patch up the worst of the damage might be pointless. The shaft could break around the repairs just as easily, and the screw tears might even accelerate the process. Pointless to attempt to patch stupidity, no amount of metal can span that void…” Creel’s voice remained at a dangerous hiss, and a few words in a guttural Temani dialect followed its common. The wagon went still for a minute, then Creel sighed.
“I did not mean to speak harshly, ‘Aki, and you’re right. We have the materials to bolt on patches. We’d need at least two to significantly improve the shaft’s survival chance, and the drilling could complete the split that’s forming, but it is a chance. We should make it to this town of Ralai’s in another day or two, and we can make real repairs there.” Veraki nodded absently, its free hand tapping the edges of burnprint shaft, sketching out where the crack would be. Its stalk eye flicked upwards after a second, beginning another shrug, but Veraki started when his eye passed Rol and Svurrl. A slow flush of unusually dark red crept onto its face as it looked at the two.
“I apologize, honored protectors. Creel and I have worked together for a long time, we sometime forget there are other voices to consider.” The Temani paused, seeming to search for something to say.
“Do… do you see any alternatives?”
Averrco and MurdrenBy and large, protection work was utterly boring. Ninety-nine hours out of a hundred involved standing around smartly and performing the same job as a very expensive scarecrow: Look solid, and provide a passive threat to anyone with too little sense and too much ambition or desperation. Every mercenary reacted differently to the boredom.
“And so the Blind King, he orders Tamak bound in chains and brought in court before him. When it’s done the Blind King says: ‘What manner of monster is before me? My eyes have gone, but I would know the creature that has taken my wife and daughter from this world. I would know the monster that sang in drunken revel of the way he stabbed and twisted his dagger. Tell me, monster, are there any words to redeem your sins?’” Some drank on the job, letting alcohol compress time and make their days shorter. More often than not that tactic succeeded, compressing time right down to penniless retirement or to a young grave, depending on the mercy’s luck.
“The court is silent after the King speaks, but Tamak is undaunted, and the smile never leaves his face when he replies. ‘Oh King, you have the wrong of me. Your wife and daughter are very much of this world, I swear by my life and honor that I did not bare a blade against them.’” Other mercenaries developed the ability to sleep standing up or even while keeping a patrol. Some of those folk are successful, but a good number end their careers by failing to wake up when a quiet blade comes for them.
“The King is furious, naturally, and he roars at Tamak. ‘Do you think me a fool, boy! I heard the screaming of my love, and though I could not get through the door to save her, I felt the hot blood upon the sheets when you had escaped!’ The Blind King, overtaken with rage, took up his great axe, preparing to pass judgement upon Tamak. ‘As you pierced the heart of my house, I shall cleave your heart in two’.” A very few developed a soldier-like precision, somehow managing to keep their body and mind on target for endless days of monotony.
“The king raised his axe to strike, but he stopped as Tamak began to laugh. ‘Great King, I believe that we have a misunderstanding,’ Tamak said, still almost sobbing with laughter. ‘I admit that your wife and daughter screamed, and I likewise admit that I was the cause to their cries, but, dear king, you do not understand. I sang of my prowess with my dagger, ‘tis true, but it was not their hearts I pierced. May the Sea of Ghosts take my soul if this be a lie, but I swear to you, great king, my steel has never left its sheath!” Borou finished at last, letting a brief pause hang in the air before both he and Mara nearly collapsed from laughter.
Borou and Mara were of a different class of mercenary; those that told stories and truly awful jokes to pass the time. Mara was the leader of the Nav-Squad that Ralai had recruited to help guide the expedition, and Borou was her second and, judging by the faded ink drawn over the old brands on his cheek, her bondmate. Mara’s team only had two other members, a Keelai that was currently in the air with Lora, and a human pathfinder who was currently scouting ahead and trying to find a decent path for the wagons through the stony soil. Mara herself was an odd character. Her right arm was heavily scarred and missing the smallest two fingers, and she’d dyed her thin mane of silver hair with sunburst stripes of red and gold at the tips. She was vicious, boisterous, good natured, and a crack shot with a long-rifle.
“Well, I see your time scumming through taverns was not badly spent,” Mara managed at last, wiping a tear from her eye.
“That was truly terrible… It’s too tame to be from soldiers, it’s not farmer language, and there aren’t enough big words to be an academ joke. Where did you get that one?”Borou grinned, getting his own laughter under control.
“You may not believe it, but it was a group of Kadi priests. One of the branches of the Earth Mother doctrine apparently has a very aggressive policy of ‘make love, not war’.” “Kadi priests,” Mara breathed, chuckling again.
“Light bless the crazy tunnel thumpers.” She shook her head and turned to Murdren.
“Alright, Bale, you’re up. Give us your best shot. I want to hear the kind of stories that can make rocks blush. Unless…” Mara let that hang, slanting a mischievous eye at Averrco and Borou.
“You fellows want to make this interesting?”
Lora Kal GaraFar above the rest of the expedition, riding cold winds and catching the sparse drafts of rising air to stay aloft, Lora flew. Flight like this was unique to the Keelai, a starkly visible symbol of their place apart from, and above, the other races. The caravan below Lora was a thin line surrounded by even smaller specks, with guiding torches forming bright pinpricks of light to highlight the wagons. All the lights were still green, no sign of danger detected on the ground, and no need for Lora to save them. Not yet, but anything could happen on this terrain.
The earth here was strange. Colder, more prone to furred mammals and furrier fungi than it was to the lizards and water filled plants of Lora’s home, but she had seen the like of this place before. More curious to Lora was the way the ground rippled. From the ground, it would merely seem to be rocky, with odd upthrust formations of stone contrasting with the thin trees at irregular intervals. From the air, Lora could see a pattern. It was immense, so large that she could only really see a single curve, but it was undoubtedly a regular ripple. It looked as though some great hand, spanning kilometers, had pushed into the soil and shoved it to create the sweeping ascent and the cold plateau the caravan now rolled across. It looked… hasty. The edges were broken, riddled with deep crevices, and massive, ancient stones had been thrust upwards, like broken bones poking up through lacerated flesh. No civilization had ever truly taken root here, not if the old maps of the past empire were any judge. War camps had been made here, even one Fanai fortress built for the resupply and rest of their drudge hordes, but no Keelai had ever been fool enough to try and claim these cold and broken lands. Better to leave the habitation of such places to creatures incapable of realizing the squalid wrongness of their surroundings.
”You see the shapes? You see the broken stones?” The voice was faint but piercing, spoken in a Keelai sub-language known as Shriek. The sounds used to speak the common tongue were designed to be universal, and the softness of the language let the wind carry it away. Imperial Keelai was a better language for the air, able to cut through the wind and still be heard. Shriek was... informal. Some might even term it a degenerate version of the Imperial language, but it was very, very effective at being heard while on the wing.
”Strange things, no? Have you ever seen anything like them?” The speaker was Hamana, a Keelai aerial scout with the Nav-Squad that Ralai had hired. He was young, stupid, blessedly impressionable, and incapable of ending a sentence declaratively. He listened to Lora, and the long spells they spent in the air gave them ample opportunity to talk. There were days when that was a burden.
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Topic: Lighthouse: The Age of Destiny, the Age of Ruin (IC, Prologue: Echoes) (Read 4697 times)