Assume The position.
"Praise the SUN."
SUN
The word reverberates in your mind, and you are bathed in a soft, warm radiance that shines upon you and glares off your reflective robe. It is a pure white, illuminating the courtyard to midday's brightness. The crowd collectively breathes in, observing your praise in plain and unabashed awe. The light brightens to a peak, the courtyard growing brighter than daylight for but a moment before it darkens once more.
As the people look on in wonderment, the priest, who seems to have been grinning ear to ear in ecstatic glee throughout the display, raises his arms in imitation of you. "Praise be!" he bellows. "Praise the Sun!" A few echo his cry, and imitate you in turn, the attention of the entire yard now resting squarely upon your grossly incandescent, though currently dimming form. The others start to join in, perhaps not convinced, but definitely very excited.
"They probably kill him when they catch him, but that's just the risk one have to take if one wishes to escape the prison, which is also why I have learned to serve my punishment. Notably less common practice in western countries, thankfully.
So, gotta pass some time before evening comes, right? Tell me more about yourself. You said you had a reputation as a small talker before? And is there something wrong with your face?"
Oh, she did! She used to be the proper lady of the castle, and a rather beloved hostess at that. Well, before the queen came and took over when her education demanded the attendance of Anglefork's splendid minder tower. You venture a question on how long ago this might have been, and she counters with a question of what year it is - the obvious answer doesn't make any sense to her for some reason, so you both move on with the conversation. She didn't mind the takeover, she mentions, as she had already moved here at this point. Her countenance demanded it, she says.
Her face, then, you ask with perhaps a little less tact than you should. What's the matter with it? Truth be told, she doesn't entirely know. The minders aren't sure, either. But it has severely deleterious effects on any beholder, she discovered. Hits people straight in the heart and the brain. It's some kind of strange disease, the minders said. Something about her visage becoming a yawning chasm of uncertainty that twists the minds of any onlookers into shapes described as direly unnatural. Might have something to do with the Corner of the World being so close, actually. Something about the infinitely tall mountains tends to disagree with the physically possible.
She elected to come here for the sake of public safety. She's come to quite enjoy the darkness and the confined space, really. Never liked roomy places to begin with. At least here she can feel all the walls, explore the ceilings. And she gets a lot more exercise with nothing better to do. She'd recommend spending some time in the dungeon to the poor little queen, really, were the suggestion not somewhat likely to be misconstrued.
Of course, conversation is something she's quite missed. The minders have been trying to visit her often, but they do have such important business to attend to. And the queen sometimes, too, but your cellmate fears she finds her somewhat unsettling for some reason. One wonders why - she's certainly been nothing but pleasant, she feels. Perhaps it's the dark, but hardly anything one can do about that without needlessly endangering Her Majesty. Maybe some audiences with the common folk may be in order in the near future if this siege business goes well. She hasn't been following that too closely, truth be told - military matters have always been very boring to her. Politics as well, now that she thinks about it, her rather strong opinion on the stoat question notwithstanding.
Thomas looked at the shiny fellow. Well, that's a thing, and probably the main focus of whatever this event was, and- oh no, is it SUNSET? Did he already miss the meeting? Well, there's one problem that can be fixed.
Go grab that sandbag and see if it can be made into a pants-like apparatus. Dump it out if need be. Then watch the performance, maybe see if they drop a time or date.
It cannot, unfortunately, not with the current nonexistent tools at your disposal, though you fail to discover this before an uncomfortable amount of sand has graced your lower quarters. So you return to-
SUN
-er, well, you return to the doorframe, and notice that the fellow has gotten quite a lot shinier. And the courtyard seems to have gotten considerably brighter, too. A bit brighter than day, if that makes any sense. Must be some heavy-duty lighting at work. Guess they don't value their authenticity
that much. Or maybe they're just a confused sect of neopagans with a healthy appreciation for special effects. You make no assumptions.
The gathering people look to be eating it up, in any case. Very favorable crowd, you suppose, to be impressed by a spotlight or two to that degree. They start praising the sun and everything under the guidance of the filthy, bloody lunatic accompanying the shiny gentleman.
"Hmm. Living things, eh? You'd think you'd get to trying something bigger than rats after a while. Eh, I suppose I can try it out with a rat at first. Is everyone here, should I start?
Oh dear, that fellow's rather shiny. Maybe I should step behind this here pillar in case of sudden lasers or somesuch."
Go behind a nearby pillar.
The captain of the guard ought to make an appearance, the shirtless man tells you. He seems a bit busy, but it would be poor form to start without him. He's the second most senior member of the gathering right after himself. And the shiny gentleman makes for a nice enough distraction that he's sure the people already gathered wouldn't mind waiting a little longer. Shiny things do tend to keep one's attention all too well. You suppose that's sensible. An equally sensible idea to perhaps not stand directly within sight of Mr. Codeburn's radiance - you haven't experienced a proper lasering yet, and you'll be damned if you plan to start now. You jump behind-
SUN
-a pillar, yes. You feel this was a very good decision, given the shiver that passed over you just now. Not that you hear screams of agony and horror or anything, or see winds of ash blowing from disintegrating, charred skeletons either. Maybe it's just some good old-fashioned UV-C, you suppose. The courtyard is bathed in surprising brightness, and the shadow of the pillar you stand in looks that much deeper now as the light brightens to a slightly unnatural peak before dimming to less unsettling levels again. You hear praise leveled at the glorious Sun coming from the crowd. Bet they'll change their tune when their birthmarks start to turn malignant.
Okay, whatever the people over there are doing creeps me out less. And I don't really want to know if there are consequences to attending this ritual unprepared. I approach the sparkly man.
Almost deific in his sparkly shininess, Mr. Codeburn certainly delivers, assuming a position you think you've seen somewhere before, speaking the words, praising the
SUN
... he flashes with white light that has no visible source, outshining the setting sun itself as you approach carefully, his reflection making you avert your eyes at first. Quite literally brilliant, he bathes courtyard in a great and mystical light, for a moment making it brighter than day. The castle folk are suitably impressed, needless to say. Seldom does one see a prophetic appearance with more than parlor tricks to back it up. The unkempt, bloody fellow who heralded his arrival is quick to capitalize on the moment, leading the more easily impressed into a massed sun-praising session. Looks like the makings of a fun night for many.
A Word does not have a singular meaning. Like regular words, it depends on context and intent a great deal.
Eric Codeburn, COMPUTISTICS SPECIALIST
- Wounds: 2 (alleviated)
- A Word: SUN
- A Word: MOON
- Perforated Burlap Sack
- Inscribed Brick ('Water')
- Anglefork Castle: Minister of Moronic Affairs
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Great Illuminator
- Robe of Mirrors
- Adherents of the Great House: Enemy of Memory
- Well and Truly Narked Upon: 1
- Friends in Low Places: a Successful Transaction
Leif Erikson, Miner
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- 1 gp
- Anglefork Castle: A Different Sort of Confinement
- The Box: an Earnest Conversation
- The Prison Stone
- Elongated Affairs: Beneath Contempt
- Elongated Affairs: A Noble Task
- Elongated Affairs: The Numbers of the Stoat
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Queenly Garments: the Humble Dress
- Sticks: 0.95 (total)
- Rat Pantheon: Disliked
- Traces of Mischief: Mouthful of Blackness
- Anglefork Castle: the New Queen's Confidant
- Doomstones: A Disinterest
- Origins: Witness to Dissolution
- Tower of the Mind: Confusion
- Gross Incandescence: Highly Illuminated
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: the Sword of Destiny
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Profane?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Priceless?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Purple?
- The Apron of Mediocrity
- The Man With No Shirt: an Asset
- Doomstones: a Delay
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Gross Incandescence: Unilluminated
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- Naked
- Anglefork Castle: Dude, Where's My Car?
- Traces of Mischief: Sandy Groin
- Gross Incandescence: Partly Illuminated
Author
Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 259801 times)