I investigate what the zombies are up to now.
[Hiding Bodies: 2]
The hand of the priestess naturally leads to the rest of her, who seems to have stopped in a position to help you up. Her other hand is pointing toward the tomb directly opposite the one to the ratshit shaft.
The armored corpse, however, is nowhere to be found at the moment.
Go off in search of a key, or maybe a less forbidding but nevertheless just as interesting door.
[Key to the Heart: 1]
You don't think a key is likely to be easy to find just like that, so you go and find a passing guard and say that you've found an interesting door. She seems a little surprised at your address, taking a moment to look you over before asking which one exactly - the reinforced one over there, you point. The one with the slot. Would she happen to have a key for it? Or know anyone who does?
Oh, she chuckles. Ohohoho. You must not be very familiar with this place, she says. And she'd understand why you would ask, really. Nevertheless, she feels you should be informed of Rule Three of living in the keep.
Do not talk about the door.You glance back a moment, at which point the guard chuckles sensibly again. Sounds like you've not been informed of Rule Four.
Acknowledgement weakens the seal, don't you know.
Oh dear, you say. The guard asks what brought this fit of inquisitiveness on. You wouldn't by any chance have forgotten Rule Two as well, would you?
The dreams are lying, friend. She pats you on the shoulder. Be on your way.
Must be one of those dinner-theater things, like with the pirates or knights, except bigger. A mystery one, even! Might as well play along.
"All right, sure. Let me take a look..."
Read. Study. Interpret?
[Scholarly Analysis: 5]
There's a whole lot more sonnets here, you find. Most of them are borderline incomprehensible. Quite a lot seem to be trying to sound vaguely ominous.
Know the one they fear
Plumb the depths for its brother
Answer their power
With what we can never see
And what we must never knowFrom nothing they rise,
What womb is responsible?
Truth squirms in my mind.Now shall rise new gods
Towers of inhuman flesh.
Lucky are the dead.Of course, these are just the comprehensible ones. There's others.
There once was a man who must help me
He must help me and oh gods please save me
Bring me salvation
Sweet disintegration
The void it is eating my soulI stand at the door
My friend still speaks so softly.
I fail to wonder.I sit here for hours
Listening to others think.
I see through their flesh.Assuming all these are by the same author, you think you can pretty safely separate about three different artistic periods, no doubt shaped by occurrences of the poet's life. There is the philosophical period, where the poet tries to approach the deeper mysteries of the universe in his work, which the girl says is the earliest period if the dating is correct. Then follows the noticeable revolutionary period, where the poet has chanced upon a system of beliefs that he feels will change the world. Then there's the oh god make it stop period, where the poet seems to have been going through some emotional turmoil, perhaps a breakup with a significant other or something of that nature (a remarkably good guess, the girl replies). And finally there's the acceptance period, where the poet settles down in his conflict with what they perceive to be certain unavoidable circumstances in their life. Just your average cycle of poetic development, you would suppose. Not particularly good poetry for the most part either. Doesn't even rhyme half the time, though at least the walls are blissfully free of that abominable free verse nonsense. Though a lot of it does sound like something you'd play a bongo to regardless, which the girl admits is an interesting idea.
"Right, anyway here we are. I'm told you possess a magical word thing that'd let you get this here stained glass window out of the frame without it breaking. Take as much time as you need to, just get it out without it breaking. I need it for a thing, and unless you know of any other priceless objects I'll be very displeased if you do break it."
Menacingly give quest! Prepare to enact consequences if necessary.
Righty ho. So you want a party or something. And a window. Mr. Erikson is right on that, turning toward the glass.
INEVITABLE
He stands there a moment, taking time as he stares out at it. You look on bemusedly as he remains there, mostly motionless, for the next five minutes.
"Party?"
INEVITABLE party glass down. Broken glass doesn't make good dance floor.
Afterwards fall into my inner world.
You're not sure how, but you're going to party the shit out of that window. Party it right out of the frame, and then party up and down it until the cows come home or more likely until you pass out, which you foresee is going to happen in the next couple of minutes regardless of any other circumstances. So really there is a lot of inevitability to work with here. Theoretically. You think you'll just try it.
INEVITABLE
[Word: 2]
You go up to the window and poke it with your finger. It doesn't seem terribly inclined to party, being an inanimate object and thus probably not quite as subject to your gifts as anything with, say, a mouth and a nervous system to blast with a whole lot of inhibition. You guess you could just try and party up the wall or something. Or up the window. Or, more likely, through the window. In your time you've partied straight through a lot of windows. Broken glass is kind of a bitch. Especially in windows this large. A falling shard of these could probably take your head off if you weren't careful.
You consider this a moment before you realize you had an appointment with a much nicer place to be in, and immediately fall into the lucid (insofar as lucidity can be applied to you in the present state) world of grapefruit, skerries and burning churches you've built up in your time.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- Wounds: 3
- The Queen's Guard: A Roaring Good Time
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- 1 gp
- Anglefork Castle: A Free Man
- The Box: ?
- Tower of the Mind: Convenient Relocation
- Induced Inebriation: Comfortably Drunk
- 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
- Party in the Courtyard: Celebration in Earnest
- Never In: Swallowed By The Pit
- Gods of the Underground: Did You Just What
- Labyrinths of Anglefork: Tunnel-Literate
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Naked
- Wounds: 2
- An Arm And A Blade (blunted, bloodstained)
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: CHAOS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Rat Pantheon: Disliked
- Traces of Mischief: Mouthful of Blackness
- Traces of Mischief: Loosened Smile
- 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
- 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: the Crossroads
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Sensible Solution
- Sweet Little Children: Pointlessness
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- Traces of Mischief: A Bisected Left Kidney
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door (held)
- The Majordomo: ?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: the Sword of Destiny
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Something Priceless?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: An Unspeakable Garment
- 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
- The Obsolete Class: Suggested Victims
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Touch of Flame: the Second Degree
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- The Impromptu Prophecy: There's A Mountain Higher Than We Knew
- The Voracious Dark: Three Connections Given
- The Good Doctor: A Recommendation
- Body Count: 2
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- Anglefork Castle: From Another Time, Another Land
- Gross Incandescence: Partly Illuminated
- Tight Leather Pants (worn, wet)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Saturday, July 24th, 409 S.D.
- The Majordomo: A Fresh-Faced Lunatic
- The Good Doctor: House Call
- The Queen's Guard: Okayed by the Queen
- The New Queen: Within the Margin of Sanity
- Tower of the Mind: Ancient Literature
- Body Count: 1
- Army of the New State: 455 Stout Strangers
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- Wounds: 1
- Burlap Foot Wrappings (worn)
- Burlap Hand Wrappings (worn)
- Moth-Eaten Hat (worn)
- Respectable Brown Skirt (worn)
- Old Brown Waistcoat (worn)
- Bright Yellow Tunic (worn)
- Blue Shards of a Probable Bottle
- Blue Glass Shiv
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- An Obsolete Class: Incidental Observer
- A Frightening Door: Observe the Rules
- The Voracious Dark: Backed Away