"Will do; do you want me to take him back once that's done? And do I just follow the road to get to the town, then?
Quick clarification, then farewell and onwards once more.
No, and yes. The watchman feels no need to say more, and continues to avoid eye contact as he hands you the mummy - it's just as light as it looks as you take it into your hands, its leathery flesh perpetually damp. You need to make a brief catch as its boneless head lolls back, the weight of the helmet threatening to snap it off. You consider how best to carry it, and the thing seems to require a bit of persuasion to permit much of anything, but eventually you manage to have it hang on to your shoulders limply, vinelike arms wrapping around your neck as it rests its head on your shoulder. And with that you bid your farewells and push the shed door open, making your way outside.
The bog is faintly illuminated by the diffuse light of the rising sun struggling to filter through the dark eastern haze on the horizon. You carefully move onto the bone footbridge between the islands and begin a ponderous crawl, the unsteady and displeasingly rubbery construction swinging to and fro as you move along.
[Rubbery Crimes: 5]
All the while you hear the mummy mutter and moan on your shoulder, shying away from the waters of the bog. It seems surprisingly effective at balancing as it shuffles to one side or the other to help you avoid falling into the murk, and so you make your journey of many hours as the path winds along, bending eastward as you take what seems to have been some amateur architect's idea of a scenic route. Very occasionally you see something jutting out of the bog - the tops of half-decomposed trees that have sunk into the water along with their forming substrates, mingling with islands of free-floating detritus composed of things both man-made and natural that travel on the minimal bog currents, or perhaps even under their own power. You even see a single rocky spire, its sharpness suggesting an artificial origin, partly eaten by the bog, leaning precipitously toward the west.
The footbridge winds upward after several hours of crawling, and you see that ahead something of a causeway is poised to begin - you quicken your pace and get atop it quickly, standing on your own two feet again as the mummy very noticeably shivers on your back. The gravel crunches beneath your feet in a most unusual way, seemingly composed entirely of dead spiders, pillbugs and insects, sharp little bits of cockroach chitin crunching as you step onto the causeway proper, your feet sinking ever so slightly into the strange material.
It's a very tall causeway, you find, and it goes up and down along the way as the exoskeletons have possibly naturally evened themselves out into gentler angles, their sharpness and roundness varying greatly and seemingly determining the properties of the road along with it. You walk a little while along it, and hour perhaps, before you see it branch off into two directions, to the right and to the left, going roughly northeast and southeast. The mummy around your neck begins to pull back, trying to make you rear up like a horse, but lacking the actual strength to compel you in any fashion.
You think you see a break in the path to the northeast half a mile away, and something moving around it, you figure after taking a minute to take stock of your options, while on the other one you see another fork about a mile off, two ways heading east and south from there.
Well, fair enough. Just carry the bed with me as I go searching for the queen, then. If all else fails, follow any shouting I hear.
[Taking This With Me: 4]
You are about to set yourself to work on removing the bed from the premises before you realize the bedframe actually has no legs, and seems to be just a part of the floor. So instead you just take the rubber mattress, which seems to hold up relatively well as you raise it up, water sloshing inside it as you carefully navigate it outside of the room and down the steps, then out the door into the street. Holding it above your head you move out, and begin to wander the town.
[Dismal Places: 6]
They seem to have done a rather admirable job clearing the place of any bodies - not a noose remains filled, not a single victim lays on the streets as night has fallen, and nothing has been left for the dogs to get to. All that remains on the air is a faint, sweet smell, and the only shouts that you can hear are rather distant. You head on through the streets and come to the last known location of the queen - the ruined town hall.
There's a lot more people here than before, you notice as you approach - a hundred, perhaps two hundred. Possibly three, even - you keep seeing more along the edges of our vision, standing on rooftops, looking through windows, hidden in alcoves. And... a lot of stoatmen appear to be among them, come to think of it. You slow your approach. And... none of them appear to be moving at all, their fuzzy shapes standing like statues among the ruins, all facing toward the center, where you see only a vaguely humanoid figure, arms outstretched, a dark and indistinct line running from indistinguishable face to its waist, the plate armor beneath it having ruptured from an emerging bloom. All is still, all is silent, and only the faint moonlight illuminates the area, which despite having more than half the crowd of the stoatman army nevertheless feels completely abandoned, the figures looking more like grave markers than living things, the overwhelming majority of them being stoatmen, with a few humans mingled in for a little variety. All of them bear marks - some are partly crushed, some have great trails of blood coming out of their throats, a few seem mangled to be almost unrecognizable, and you nearly step into a bit of paste that has bloomed into a colorful fungal patch.
"Well, uh, thank you! My mother always said one should know how to sew. I didn't think I quite took to it, but I suppose it beats nothing? Maybe this bedroll next."
Okay, fix the torn bedroll? Then we can camp in earnest.
[Supreme Needlework: 2]
You are about to get right down to it before you realize that you do not actually have any more thread. You look at the ranger, but he's sorry to say he's fresh out as well - good sinew's hard to come by in the bush, don't you know! Have to wrestle something big and toothy for it most often. Or worse, a moose! You ever wrestled a moose? It's a lot of work!
You turn back toward the tent. Claire seems to have fallen asleep at this point, curled up in her bedroll, confident that you'll be able to provide your own sleeping arrangements. You look at the needle in your hand, but it seems similarly unhelpful without something to thread it with.
Ah, the ranger chirps helpfully, perhaps
you could go on and hunt something! You are far larger than he is. Why, he'd foresee you'd have no trouble at all subduing a moose. At least for long enough to harvest some sinew, he means. He can hand you his trusty fork if you like: it's served him well for many years now, he says as he retrieves a rusty, yet seemingly incredibly sharp two-pronged fork from his pocket.
Leif smiles. "It is easy to underestimate fool, isn't it? But let's address the problem then. At the moment you are my only option for fixing it. What I need to do to not shame the Moths?"
For once be a serious student. This seems to be important. Morals and ethics of the Morths? Definitio of a Rabbit? What's significance of clans other than being groups of people under one name?
She motions for you to resume walking, and recites the requisite guidelines as you move: be subtle, ideally be unseen. Speak with other clans, but say nothing of use. When asked about important matters, lie - moreover, lie convincingly. Say no more than you must. Leave false tracks - several sets, preferably. Keep sharp, and keep your weakness to yourself. Do not trust another clan, but suffer their excesses with dignity.
Do all this, and you will be a Moth-friend, and not a Rabbit as you show yourself to be - foreign, ignorant, stranded, naive. Acceptable for Gallflies to lay eggs into, good for Dogs to surround, great for Monkeys to rob, excellent for Shrikes to vivisect and perfect for Dragons to butcher. Beneath concern for Moths, until they get close enough. You understand, yes?
Leif Erikson, Miner
- Itchy Woolen Britches (worn)
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- Body Count: 228
- Mead of Poetry (5 shining revelations remaining)
- Enders' Friend: The Grave of Red Clouds Parting
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron spear
- 1.03 gp
- The Box: ?
- Induced Lucidity: the Aftermath, or the New Beginning
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Perception, Memory
- Tricks of the Mind: Engagement, Negation, Abstraction, Prestige
- Tricks of the Mind: the Self, the Other
- Gods of the Underground: Did You Just What
- A Visit From The Stork: Is What You Yes
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
- Moth's Flight: the Way to Rise
- The Miracle of Life: Wayward Rabbit
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- The Mind, It Goes A-Wandering: 1
- Linen stoat shirt (worn)
- Stoat trousers (worn)
- Comfy slippers (worn)
- An assemblage of amber and amethysts
- Silver thread-necklace
- Onyx spiral earrings
- 2 oaken rings
- Rusty, bloodstained knife
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: SYNTHESIS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Grenade Jumping: A Solid Technique
- The Good Doctor: Secret Histories
- Higher Tonight: There And Back Again
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo
- Leather boots
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14033 gp (in sack)
- The Queen's Guard: Actual Asset
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Garden of Thoughts: the Stoat-Magistrate
- Garden of Thoughts: Alphonse the Clerk
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Run Like Hell
- Tower of the Mind: Endless Well of Mystery
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- Anglefork Castle: the Great Worm
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- Doomstones: So High Up But Such A Bitter View
- The Majordomo: A Great Divide Between Us Now
- The Voracious Dark: Decreasing Demand
- The Voracious Dark: More Specific Requests
- The Good Doctor: A Vague Memory
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- Troubles In Anglefork Town: Bearer of the Sword
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- Tooth-needle
- The Doom Guard: A Productive Discussion
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Traces of Mischief: Whole-Body Radioactive Burn
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday, July 25th, 409 S.D.
- The Good Doctor: An Island of Sanity
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- Lonely Roads: The Man, The Legend
- The One They Fear: A Satisfactory Contract
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- A Boy's Life: Out Back
- Body Count: 2
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Bog mummy (wearing metal helmet)
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 6 gp
- Poor Misshapen Dice
- Lock of Hair (unidentified)
- Iron nail, unused
- An Inauspicious Key
- Burlap Foot Wrappings (worn)
- Burlap Hand Wrappings (worn)
- Moth-Eaten Hat (worn)
- Respectable Brown Skirt (worn)
- Old Brown Waistcoat (worn)
- Bright Yellow Tunic (worn)
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Less Dangerous Friend
- Fuligin Gates: A Delivery for the Town