"...entirely worth it. I don't know exactly when I stopped caring that this wasn't a dream or a video game or something, but ... this is life more than anything else ever has been for me. And goddamn does that guy deliver."
Head back to priesty.
"Okay, now that I've confirmed that the horrific sacrifice I made for personal power has actually been delivered upon - unlike a certain other someone...thing who we'll not speak of - I'm back to hear about the prophecy! So speak up, it's about the best thing you can do for your existence right now."
You ask the priest for his input, but he just continues weeping at his poor abused window. You try to soothe him with an earnest request for prophecy. Priests ought to be all over that! He isn't. You try for some time. You get impatient. Bleeding scratches start to appear along his bearded, unkempt face. He doesn't seem to particularly notice.
[A Clue: 4]
Come to think of it, you don't think he's actually acknowledged your presence in the last fifteen or so times you've tried to speak or quip to him. This seems almost as suspicious as it does displeasing.
Fear is in air, wonder if that's sufficient for mob minding.
"Ah, important one arrives. Or dangerous one. Probably both, all things considering. No offense taken ...probably." Friendly slap on lieutenant's back.
"Well, the thing is that shortly after my arrival into Anglefork Castle I was thrown into cell with the person whose stone this is. Rather soon she puked it out and told me to take it to her relatives on this side of wall. Telling her number too; three, six, four. It didn't take long for her to get violent so I got assigned into another cell and she escaped shorty afterwards through main doors. Through the path she cearly wasn't planning to take originally. But whatcha gonna do? When opportunity presents itself one should take it. Didn't see her afterwards and nobody wasn't talking about escaped sods, so I assume she was caught, executed and buried. Took little adventuring in the labyrinth beneath the castle, but after that I came here, told the story and this fellow wanted to kill me slowly.
Oh, and this is for you. My gift to you for trying to get me killed. Eat." Last words are aimed at lieutenant, offering of alcoholic fruits.
You look at the line of stoatmen, currently all staring at the plated figure. An opening!
[Theory's Fruition: 1]
Or perhaps not. There is disunity. Fear. Awe. Hints of something unusual. An emotion you do not recognize. An echo of something else, rustling beneath the surface. A glint of something savage runs through their eyes, intrigued by a careless prod.
You are brought out of consideration by a stern tap on the shoulder. Best to keep your minding to yourself, friend, the armored stoatman says. Beneath his full helmet you see one of his yellow eyes start twitching. Indeed, best come along peaceably. This is probably a conversation to have further away from the walls, oh yes it is. Probably such a conversation indeed.
Might as well.
Stay and observe the majordomo. Perhaps watching him can lend a hint to the dynamics of the castle? Or at least he'll eventually have a moment to spare.
[Method To The Madness: 4]
The majordomo gestures and commands, and the servants spill around him. Not with any correlation to what he's ordering them to do, you notice. And it's just them running along back and forth, muttering about lateness and preparations and what have you, not legitimately doing anything. Honestly, this seems to be a game they're playing. One that the majordomo appears admirably committed to. You try to ask him for assistance three more times at what feel like opportune moments, but meet with only a glare of vague irritation. The fourth time, though, he seems to have had quite enough.
You, he says! Get the thing! Not any thing in particular, mind you. Luckily, you know better than to ask questions. You run down the hall, then run right back. He orders you the other way - make sure the feast is ready, he says! You jog after an older servant who lets off a small giggle as she gets out of earshot of the majordomo. You share a look of understanding as she imitates his mannerisms along the way. She doesn't seem to be taking this quite as seriously as the others.
"Oh, right. Thanks."
Frisk the idiot, then. You never know.
[Beautiful Loot: 4]
Searching the fellow, you find that he's not so much unconscious as he is completely incapable of putting up any resistance. Not that this necessarily matters. He has 6 more shiny golden coins on him placed in a pocket, and also quite a wealth of other knickknacks. A pair of misshapen dice, a lock of unknown hair, a single iron nail, never used. They're definitely curios of a sort, you suppose.
So, the girl starts to say, how do you want to do this? She takes the arms, you take the legs? Carrying someone in full armor up a set of stairs is kind of a bitch for the most part (god she hates it when these morons party in their armor), but she figures it shouldn't be too bad if you can help out. Least you can do for half the loot, right?
"I'm grateful for any information you have. Do you know of the stoatmen? They're the ones besieging Anglefork, and I know worryingly little about them."
Stoatmen? A new scourge, no doubt. Sixty scourges she has seen, sixty-two there ought to have been. Each came with the name of a century, towering over the kings of its time. Each was brought down in glorious conflict.
The buzz deepens as low hisses split off from it. You see Anglefork primeval, an ancient, twisted sea, bubbling with explosions of brilliant light. Here the settler, first among the kings, would face the echo of the end times. It was brought low, and it was brought far. It will come back. As it began, so it must end. The first folk trawled the waters and fished out the forests, where dwelt the second scourge, the many-stranded ones. Plagues of spores gave rise to gardens of sweet aromas that heralded death. The land was to be burned three times, scoured until nothing remained, the scars sutured to let nothing out ever again. The land was stretched across the sea precariously thinly, but El met Benzerwald met Elizabeth, and many more states met in the joining as well. Then came the men of the south, who demanded their share - they were the third scourge, and they were met with an open wound in the fabric of time. A dangerous thing indeed. They were seen again since, but only in dreams, and none would admit the fact of their birth.
She does not stop. The fourth scourge was the eater of time, emerged from the torn suture at its appointed date. The wound was mended with the centuries that spilled from its veins, and some of the leftover ages were bequeathed to the land of El for their aid in this endeavor, whether they wanted them or not. A hundred and fifty years were burnt in offering to the triumphant king. Yeah, you think she's intending to tell you about the full sixty. The fifth scourge was the plague of the future, the disease that tore at the minds of the descendants of the great hunters of the previous scourge. They were corralled over decades, and set aboard flaming barges as they were loaded off into the twisted subterranean sea. They were told to never return, and were observed as they turned to ash on the bent horizon. Their inevitable return was the sixth scourge, when the king called up the whole nation, from the smallest child to the most helpless elder, to bring out a greater flame so that their horrid shadows may be shrunk to a shape that could be dashed against the rocks of the Corner. Thus was the army of the old kingdom born.
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: A Concert For The Gods
- The Prison Stone
- Elongated Affairs: Concerning Developments
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Cormick's Condescending Riddle
- Tricks of the Mind: Perceptual Rebuke
- Tricks of the Mind: Erikson's Inexplicable Grapefruit
- Tricks of the Mind: Speak With The Mob
- 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
- Army of the New State: 455 Suspicious Stoats
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Reclaimed Hooded Robe (worn, quite comfortable)
- 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: Ark of the Nameless Queen
- Window Into Dream: The Cataclysmic Theory
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Sensible Solution
- Sweet Little Children: Kindness
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Traces of Mischief: A Bisected Left Kidney
- Traces of Mischief: Ruined Left Hand
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door (held)
- The Majordomo: ?
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: the Path Revealed
- 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
- Wounds: 1
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: Busy Morning
- The Good Doctor: House Call
- The Queen's Guard: Okayed by the Queen
- The New Queen: Beauty Sleep
- Tower of the Mind: A Friendly Suggestion
- The Obsolete Class: Playing Along
- Body Count: 2
- Army of the New State: 455 Stout Strangers
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- Wounds: 1
- 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)
- Blue Shards of a Probable Bottle
- Blue Glass Shiv
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- An Obsolete Class: Opportunities
- A Frightening Door: An Understanding
- The Voracious Dark: Backed Away