Grab the beetle with my other hand, preferably in a manner in which it can't hit me with anything dangerous, and keep sawing myself free.
[Still Got My Other Hand: 1]
The beetle is ready for you this time and with a mighty sweep of its sharp carapace takes one of your fingers clean off, grabbing the severed bit in its mandibles and skittering off into the dark with it before you've recovered, leaving you there bleeding and still stuck to the web by your feet.
In addition, the commotion you've stirred up down here is attracting several curious eyes - an ornery street sweeper glares down at you from a catwalk above, as does a fairly sharp-looking guardsperson, though neither of them seem very keen on offering you any bloody help from the looks of it.
Better let Elder handle communications since I'm a newcomer here. If he's not up for it, then explanation goes in way of "scary shit went down in tunnels, and good party afterwards made sun more tolerable".
Yeah, Monkeys are banned from Jehwlheimr, don't want thieves in there. What about other clans in vicinity?
Also, feel up Elizabeth's mind extremely carefully, courteously, and definitely non-sexually. Measure our difference, what kind of gal is she? If she notices my moves, greet silently and ask directions to The Grave of Red Clouds Parting. Actually ask directions in any case.
The gray manikins prove sufficiently inquisitive and distracting to amuse you all well enough for the coming minutes as Elizabeth reconfigures herself to permit you proper entrance worthy of a clansmeet, and the elder is most eager to explain the unlikely set of adventures that led you all the way here!
[Preparations for the Meet: 2]
As for other clans, the Goats appear entirely occupied by the Monkeys robbing them blind for sport (not that they particularly mind, being easygoing sorts about that kind of thing) and no others appear to have approached this particular way into the city. You leave them to it and instead turn to the city herself.
[Pleased to Make Your Acquaintance: 3+1]
You can speak to Elizabeth a little more directly than most - her mind is vast and compartmentalized to the point where you doubt you could attract her full attention and reasoning ability, and in any case she seems to be quite busy presently and, while curious about the fact that a minder has somehow found his way into the Moth clan, appears to have greater concerns at the moment.
Such as opening the way, for instance - the gates finally open for the Moths and let all of you into Elizabeth's splendid passages. She is a fine city indeed, built in the finest traditions of ancient El, beautiful when she was born and having only aged gracefully since, free of human life or adherence to a set layout, shifting her districts and buildings around along the years as she sees fit. The city is alive, but currently silent save for some distant voices - other clans, also here for the meet. Most of them seem to have arrived well ahead of you.
The Moths are guided by an entourage of manikins along Elizabeth's shining peaks and bountiful curves, finding your way into her darker places, in your particular case a fittingly complex labyrinth of bizarrely masterwork slums, constructed by a hand familiar with the idea of squalor but too overcome by aesthetic concerns to fully commit to its principles. It is a building that could easily fit a thousand people, rich in alcoves and corridors and cubbyholes and more, and lit very artistically with deep shadows for any enterprising Moth to hide in as they please. The elder, as you might imagine, is quite thankful for such a well-made abode for the clansmeet.
You on the other hand have other concerns - the grave of Red Clouds Parting, to be exact. So you decide to ask the city herself for assistance.
[Gravespotting: 4]
It's near one of the towers, apparently, but Elizabeth sadly can't inform you where exactly as it does tend to be unfortunately difficult to see around that area. Just walk around until you find a sufficiently tall building and look for an appropriate grave marker. Sounds like a person from El, yes? Probably near one of the towers in that case.
Daniels' eyebrows rise in recognition. That was quite a gift the alchemist was hoping to accomplish.
"How much do you need?"
Figuring out how to jailbreak my flesh? Hell yeah I'll give you some samples, just don't take too much from any one place.
Oh, just a few pounds like she said. Hold on a second, it'll only hurt for a little bit and, well, just think of the potential dividends!
True to her word, Peaks quite deftly begins to slice at you like so much roast beef, carving out around five pounds of mostly muscle out of your arms and legs and also a little bit out of your abdomen. You stand there and try to power through the pain as she then grabs some disinfectant-enriched glue from her toolkit and pours it down your gaping open wounds, then presses them shut to let it set. Tossing the meaty chunks she extracted into a few jars of yellowish solution she's grabbed for the occasion, she is quick to thank you and then run off quite excitedly to engage in whatever terrible experiments she has planned for this veritable wealth of material.
Not long after you step out of the rapidly coagulating puddle of your own blood Shores returns, and looks a little surprised as she looks up from her notes. Oh dear, she says, are you quite all right? Nothing seems likely to burst, is it, that would throw off her estimates quite a bit if that were the case.
Thomas blinked. "No, silly. Gamble, bearded fellow, was the first in your group I ran in to, was wearing the insurance contracts for a bit? Don't be silly,
let's go on out."
Go out to the others, with or without Gamble.
First of all, Silver is reasonably sure that the first one of his group that you ran into was himself - why, he was absolutely petrified at the time, it's embarrassing to recall. Second of all, why would you wear insurance contracts, that wouldn't even work and it sounds quite disrespectful to the hard work of the functionaries who spent veritable hours drafting all of it up into a usable form.
Eh, says Evey, couldn't have been that important of a person, could he? Otherwise someone'd surely remember.
You then check on the others - still sound asleep near as you can tell, although in the omnipresent dark and terrible chill it is easy to lose track of any one person, to the point where you're tempted to check and re-check again.
[A Good Night's Rest: 4]
This isn't a good place for people to be, all things considered. The terrible conditions should have been indication enough, but here your followers seem to have put up for now. To get them moving you will need to wake them and then convince them to come after you in the middle of the night while having precious little idea of where you're going.
Not that this isn't something that's impossible, Silver is quick to add, just that he'd personally much rather finish getting some rest so that you can go places in the morning. Unless that's, well, something you'd absolutely not like to do under any circumstances, which he hopes they would understand just as well as he does.
Well these guys are hardly helpful. "Let's see if we can get any of them to snap out of this."
I try various means of waking the patrons up: shaking them, throwing a drink in one's face, tickling them, etc. I encourage Oggie and the doctor to try out any ideas they have, as long as they don't seem likely to injure the patrons or further terrify them.
[Warped By Fear: 3,
2]
Oggie cracks her knuckles - she'd love to help you interrogate these stoats. So you spend a few minutes putting their resolve to the test by various means - pouring liquor up their noses, holding them over the fire, shaking them with the sort of monstrous vigor you've come to expect from Oggie, even tickling. Eventually you do manage to get the musician gibbering well enough to discern at least some form of meaning - she speaks of screaming and blood, and of a fear that takes a sudden and terrible shape, seizes your heart and makes it beat so hard that you begin to bleed from your eyes and ears and pain overtakes everything - it's infectious, she feverishly mutters, transmits itself through the screams, you see...
[A Skilled Deduction: 3]
Well, the doctor says, that does certainly sound like some manner of sorcery at play. Far less straightforward than you'd expect of something called a ghoul - usually you would expect a thing like that to, for instance, squat at a graveyard and munch on spare corpses, perhaps, rather than explode hearts and, from the looks of it, claim people's wits in the process.
It's still here, the musician continues to softly proclaim, it's still here, the ghoul walks the street, the ghoul hides in the eaves... can't you feel it too?
Leif Erikson, Mastermind
- Sealed alchemist's brass box
- Half-basket of apple-like mushrooms (hallucinogenic)
- Paper party crown (worn)
- Moth-robe (worn)
- Itchy Woolen Britches (worn)
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- A Word: DRINK
- Body Count: 228
- Mead of Poetry (2 shining revelations remaining)
- Enders' Friend: The Grave of Red Clouds Parting
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron spear
- 0.03 gp
- The Box: ?
- Induced Lucidity: Jehwlheimr, The Land The Gods Remember
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Perception, Memory
- Tricks of the Mind: Engagement, Negation, Abstraction, Prestige
- Tricks of the Mind: the Self, the Other
- Tricks of the Mind: the Mythscape
- Tricks of the Mind: Demiurgic Orgion
- 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 Shaman of Festivals
- Dreams of the Dark: A Promise Broken
- A Night That Burns Forever: Juicy Gossip
- The Miracle of Life: Wayward Rabbit
- A Faith Is Born: 200 Moth-Believers
- Monkey Business: In Terribly Good Health
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Distilled alcohol (in flask)
- Spirits of salt (in clay jar)
- Soaps of elk, bear, bat and snake
- 4 flasks of lamp oil
- Oil lamp (lit)
- Linen stoat shirt (worn, plasma-scorched)
- Stoat trousers (worn)
- Comfy slippers (worn)
- Never-made scimitar (blackened, slightly dull)
- Tooth-handled hunting knife
- Black leather boots
- 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
- Sword of the Sand People: Cleaning Supplies
- Sword of the Sand People: The Services of a Minder
- Higher Tonight: There And Back Again
- The Old Mistress: Like A House On Fire
- Our Old Bridge Is Falling Down: A Monster Hunter
- She Who Fights Monsters: Ghouls Under Bridges
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Wounds: 2
- Linda the peg-legged manikin (lively, joyful)
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo (worn)
- Leather boots (worn)
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14031 gp (in sack)
- Poor Unfortunate Soul: Forever Captive
- The Queen's Guard: Actual Asset
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Garden of Thoughts: the Stoat-Magistrate
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Word: EXECRABLE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door
- Induced Lucidity: The Silent Garden
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- 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 Vault of Heavens: Special Treatment
- Scars of Time: Meticulously Analyzed
- Process of Elimination: Pounds of Flesh
- The Night Sky: How Very, Very Quaint
- Fires, Pines & Day, Minions At Law: Dan Duty
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- A Word: WORM
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Insurance contracts, signed in triplicate: 12
- Nobody Cares
- Helen Clampitt
- Lily
- Undine and Prosper Eke
- Silver
- Tabernacle, treefisher scout
- Treefisher elder
- 4 treefishers
- Make A Man Out Of You: Battle-Tested
- The Grip of Tharn: Insurance Against The Storm
- Ranging fork
- 2 feet of sinew-thread
- Tooth-needle
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- The Voracious Dark: The Place of Lost Souls
- The Voracious Dark: Testing Run
- Proof of Concept: An Interesting Student
- Body Count: 12
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- Wounds: 2
- A Word: REVELATION
- A Word: THANKS
- The Wicked King's Missive On Economic Reform (in massive silver scroll case)
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Cornerstone Helm (worn, out of light, collecting)
- Bottle of aspirin
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 4 gp
- 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
- The King's Court: The Greatest Gift of All
- The King's Court: The North Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: Makala's Old Glory
- The King's Court: The South Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: The West Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: A Gift For The Wicked King
- Wizzards Bargins: Copper Springs from Old Bobbleparts
- Wizzards Bargins: A Roll of Your Finest Sticky Tape
- Wizzards Bargins: Styli of Ancient Plumbago
- In High Spirits: But Not Very Useful In The Lab
- Traces of Mischief: Missing Finger