"Ah, glad to have found you. Do you have your purple garment on you? If so, give it to me. If not, take me to it. Thanks!"
Extortion!
[I Need Your Clothes: 1]
Purple? The majordomo is shocked. Why would he wear a purple garment? That's the royal color. Fit for a king or a queen, which he feels the need to inform you he certainly is not. He believes it ought to still be illegal to possess anything purple in Benzerwald. Creates confusion, you see. The royal guards don't like it, being big fans of the color purple that they are.
Your attempt at extortion is cut short, however, when a unified shout of triumph is emitted from the singing and praying crowd as the darkness in the sky recedes, revealing a small proximal sun. You look up at the now-blue sky contemplatively. Does that mean it's daytime now? Seems a little odd. You don't
think it's been that long.
On the bright side, you can see now. You look back at the majordomo, and note that he seems to be fully decked out in completely awful purple-and-green livery. You cast a critical eye at him as he looks back quizzically. What? You ask if he's still committed to that 'purple is illegal' thing, and he says yes without a hint of shame in his eyes. What does he call that, then, you ask about his livery.
He looks down, seemingly not understanding your question. Orange and gold, the colors of his house. Is there a problem?
Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. I climb in and start crawling to the left.
[Labyrinths of Anglefork: 3]
You explore leftward along the passage, which leads you along the wall, with strategically placed peepholes (or perhaps murderholes, you're pretty sure at least one of them's well-positioned to use for stabbing somebody asleep). It runs along the entirety of the wing, and at the end of the passage there is a hole leading down. Feeling around with your foot you locate a peg set into the wall, and another beneath that. Seems like you're supposed to climb down or something.
Also, seems like the castle is brightening up. Not that this helps in the passage, which is still pretty much pitch black.
Singing is promising sign of merrymaking and good drunken party. Praying is not. And lack of burning churches can be rectified later.
Locate singers and join the party wholeheartedly, singing about great treasures taken from enemies. Also try to create a minder trick to incude state of drunkenness on others. Test it.
"I love good party!"
[Tricks of the Mind: 3]
Well, you know how to make an alcoholic grapefruit. And how to send people packets of self-unwrapping information, sort of. You think that's a good recipe for getting someone absolutely knackered, so you try it out, sending a joyful-looking lady one such grapefruit. She looks at it confusedly. You don't think she's ever seen one of those before. Or at least that's what you think. She really just looks at her hand, so who knows what's actually happening there.
[Unleash the Animal: 3]
You don't think you mesh well with the party guests, either. It might have something to do with the way they can't see you and you're not calling out to the sun in glorious song to save them all from eternal darkness. Nevertheless, some of them try to accommodate you anyway, pretending to politely listen in the middle of their chanting. Or maybe they're not and you're just hoping they're listening.
Well, the sun comes out anyway, so you congratulate them for their fine effort. Well done, well done indeed! Now can you get to the drinking and revelry? A few look up at the sky at the question. Some of them are up for it, you think. Quite a few others just seem vaguely apprehensive despite the way Sun-Mouth Prudence appears to be assuring them that the ritual has worked perfectly.
Thomas sighed. No closer to any real answers, other than the location of... well, a road of sorts. All he needed was transportation and he'd be off.
"Thank you for the assistance, sir guards. I must be going now... but I'd rather not walk all the way down the road to the highway. Is anyone driving that way? Maybe a loaner bicycle?"
Surely futile quest for transportation.
[Foreign Devilry: 2]
They make a very good effort at pretending not to know what a bicycle or a car is, you must admit, looking almost genuinely bewildered by the very request.
In even worse news, even if your request wasn't hopelessly strange and near-indecipherable, the red-haired guy points out with what you hope is self-awareness rather than a vaguely patronizing smugness, there's kind of a siege going on. It might take a while to resolve. You're free to pitch in, though, he says with a chuckle. Maybe if you explain everything to the stoatmen they'll just let you leave.
You notice the castle brighten up. Is it morning already? With all these special effects it's hard to tell.
Mother of fuck I just fled the town and almost killed myself three times for no reason?
To hell with that!
Go hide in the trees and lift the darkness I created with SUN.
You're kind of already in the trees. You're not sure you want to climb one, since they're a bit burnt and ashy. Nevertheless, they might offer you some much-needed cover, as you get the feeling things may get potentially hot out here.
[Under Cover of Trees: 4]
Since running away is probably a better option than trying hide up in the branches, you just stand behind the tree, make ready for some applied linguistics, and then hop out, hands waving in arcane patterns even before you form that most wonderful syllable.
SUN
[Word: 5]
You need light. You need warmth. And you need this fucking darkness gone. You sense it up in the sky, your brother sun. It is enveloped in darkness, its passion smothered all but completely, much like your moonstone was. The solution seems intuitive now that you've come to know the extremes - the sun awakens slowly and steadily, power pouring into it as it starts to overcome the dark.
You're beginning to get good at this, you think as you withdraw your touch from its nascent mind so that it does not begin to recognize you, to remember why it sought you. It merely builds a glow, knowing no other purpose for now. And then, once daylight is safely restored, it stops. You lower your arms. Looking good, you think.
Lowering your eyes, you regard the area surrounding the castle. The stoatman ranks look relatively disorganized, metal-clad officers and padded grunts moving about as they enact twenty different protocols for minder trickery, all to absolutely no effect. Some of them appear to have knelt down and placed their heads on the ground, some have gathered in circles and begun shouting inspirational phrases, a few are trying to maintain formations and firing positions, but seem to be sorely lacking in anything worth shooting at. A few are trying to recover things off scorched and dust-flayed corpses strewn about here and there.
On one hand, they seem quite disorganized right now, although regrouping even as you consider them. However, you do believe there are still more than four hundred of them here, all of them rather decently armed and, more notably, completely cut off from any avenue of retreat. You think Sun Tzu had something to say about a situation like that.
Eric Codeburn, COMPUTISTICS SPECIALIST
- Wounds: 3
- Body Count: 62
- Floral Nightgown (worn, burnt, wet)
- A Word: SUN
- A Word: MOON
- Anglefork Castle: Minister of Moronic Affairs
- Sweet Escape: Wizard In The Tree Line
- The Impromptu Prophecy: Child of the Sun and Moon
- Adherents of the Great House: Enemy of Memory
- Well and Truly Narked Upon: 1
- Friends in Low Places: a Successful Transaction
- Army of the New State: 455 Stoatmen
- Army of the New State: a Confluence of Tactics
- The Good Doctor: the Solitary Candidate
- The Birds: Feeding the Crows
- Subordinate Moonstone (3 tons, uncomfortably close)
Leif Erikson, Miner
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- Wounds: 1
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- 1 gp
- Anglefork Castle: A Free Man
- The Box: ?
- Tower of the Mind: a Lack of Patience
- Imaginary Inebriation: Buzzed
- Induced Lucidity: the Burning Church
- The Prison Stone
- Elongated Affairs: A Noble Task
- Elongated Affairs: The Numbers of the Stoat
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Cormick's Condescending Riddle
- Tricks of the Mind: Perceptual Rebuke
- Tricks of the Mind: Erikson's Inexplicable Grapefruit
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Wounds: 1
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: CHAOS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Rat Pantheon: Disliked
- Traces of Mischief: Mouthful of Blackness
- Origins: Witness to Dissolution
- Tower of the Mind: There's Something To Remember
- The New Queen: And Something To Forget
- The Queen's Guard: Bringer of Doom
- Gross Incandescence: Crumbling Shell
- Touch of Flame: the Secrets of Flammability
- Inscribed Brick ('Water')
- The Voracious Dark: Two Connections Given
- Body Count: 1
- Never In: the Obvious Candidates
- Labyrinths of Anglefork: A Downward Shaft
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Sensible Solution
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Wounds: 1
- Voluntarily Naked
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door (held)
- The Majordomo: A Mystery of Colors
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: the Sword of Destiny
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Priceless?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Purple?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: A Profane Megalith
- Tower of the Mind: Endless Well of Mystery
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Doomstones: ?
- A Place In History: Emergent Abomination
- Anglefork Castle: the Great Serpent
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Touch of Flame: the Second Degree
- Gross Incandescence: Unilluminated
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- The Impromptu Prophecy: ?
- The Voracious Dark: Two Connections Given
- Body Count: 2
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- Anglefork Castle: From Another Time, Another Land
- Traces of Mischief: Sandy Groin
- Gross Incandescence: Partly Illuminated
- Tight Leather Pants
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Friday, July 23rd, 409 S.D.
- The Majordomo: Happy to Redirect
- The Queen's Guard: Okayed by the Queen
- The New Queen: Within the Margin of Sanity
- Tower of the Mind: the Quest for Signage
- Body Count: 1