((Holy crap, I lived. Or bought myself some time, at least.))
I swing the blade at the spirit, hoping that I can get it back in there somehow.
[Tragedy In Two Halves: 1 vs. 5]
The spirit streaks along the ceiling as you swing the blade in its direction, tearing through the air. You swing and it connects - the serpent halfway into two, its mockery of your face opening down the middle as it reveals a long mouth that immediately sprouts teeth of congealed agony. It rips forward, two strips of teeth wrapping around your body, holding fast and then grinding around each other, tearing flesh. No blood spills as it drags along you, every bit of it lapped up by the spirit. It grows stronger, greater in scope.
As its wailing becomes increasingly humanlike it detaches, taking a moment to regroup into a form very closely mirroring yours, a deep red likeness fashioned from your blood. You feel a strange weakness coming on as it -
she starts crawling toward you on all fours, howls for your blood articulated into basic words. Feed her, sustain her! Make her whole!
"Are you deaf or something? I'm not a minder, but a miner. I'm not even human if I'm to believe that shitty wish granter. I can perfectly copy minding techniques after seeing one, but that's only because minding is easy and that's how the well granted my wish. Have you not been listening at all? Oh wait, you are different one. Sorry, you all look same.
Well, you see, the minders tried to summon demons to save their asses, but damn fools were not good enough for that. Instead they managed to get attention of some otherwordly hungry darkness who handled rest and summoned me and few other guys to feed it."
Finish the report with more or less detailed and factual version of events as far as I can recall. Let's leave out the whole disagreement part between me and knight's second cousin. Don't want to make myself look too bad. Employ lots of flailing and miming.
And offer him a vodka fruit.
[The Salient Parts: 5]
Takes a bit to relay your glorious story, naturally. And as with any oral history, there's plenty of abridgement. Mostly on the memorizer's part as he interjects occasionally with handy summations of faff and interesting-sounding embellishments to help with the remembering. At the end of it, you think he's about got the gist of it. And he does a really funny impression of your smiling and flailing explanations, you discover.
[In Grapefruit, Truth: 4]
Of course, this is only after the situation has been sufficiently lubricated with application of grapefruits, which the memorizer seems rather appreciative of, if not overly interested in indulging in. He passes for sober by the end, but only barely. As does the tale, you reflect. Ah well. Now's the time for him to be on his way, right?
Right, says the memorizer. Just gotta get naked and swim the river out to town, then relay this to the someone-or-other they got installed there if he understands correctly. And also get as far away from this fucking siege camp as possible before everyone gets eaten or something. Anyway, you have fun now, you lovely gobshite, he'll go off and be somewhere far away for the rest of his natural life if you don't mind. And with that he runs off, seemingly with the intent of leaving you alone in the tent. You guess you can't really blame him for the fact slipping his mind, excited and buzzed as he appears to be.
"Yeah, I'm gonna wait for that guy in better armor to explain his position on things because I think you guys are too low on the totem pole for me to trust your word being carried out."
Wait for superior armor guy to explain his position on things. Repeat my questions (why you wanna kill everyone here, any possibility of letting me go maybe?) if need be.
The officer looks up, seemingly a little desperate. Do consider it, human! It's a limited time offer and- wait, better armor guy? She looks back and nearly falls off the pyramid as she sees the incoming stoatman. Oh dear, her posture seems to tell you as she dives off the pyramid. The people at the wall, realizing one by one that somebody presumably quite important is coming, have a similar reaction, and the ratio of stoatmen who run and the ones who try to get back into formation is 50/50 or thereabouts.
The knight, however, does not seem overly interested as he runs past the stoats, ripping the trumpet from the officer's hands as he comes to a very deliberate stop atop the mayor. Human, he shouts through the trumpet-
Yes, yes, you shout back, surrender or die and all that. You had questions! Why do they want to kill everyone in here?
[Solid Answers: 5]
The knight lowers the trumpet a moment, thinking. Then he replies, speaking loudly, deliberately and with a great deal of enunciation - the royal house and its holdouts represent the old state. Their death is absolutely required for the new state's unquestioned existence. They must not be permitted to consort with the powers of the Corner of the World, the Land of El, Elizabeth, the Kingdom of the Dead or any other actors on the political stage, and the complete annihilation of the royal family as well as immediate employees and associates is the method deemed appropriate by the Prime Speaker of the new state of Benzerwald. This will be achieved by one set of means or another, but it
will be achieved without a shadow of a doubt.
How about the whole extermination thing, you ask? If you hand over the queen, can you just get this business over with? The knight says unfortunately no. Her associates must also be slaughtered and irrevocably disposed of. Everyone in the castle has been marked for death by one means or another. You nod and figure you'll ask another question, but he continues - you are Mr. Daniels, apparently. You may be subject to a special exception, or at least occupy a position of uncertainty, being very possibly an unknown factor brought about by the exact sort of meddling this scorched earth intervention was supposed to prevent. As such, if you assist the siege effort your case may be of special interest to the Speakers such as himself, and your lack of complicity in the crimes of the old state (if he understands your situation correctly) may be a further alleviating circumstance despite your deeply unsettling and threatening nature.
He lowers the trumpet again, a heavy visor failing to obscure a certain brightness in his eyes you can see even from atop the wall. He seems to be anxious about your response, you think.
"Pardon me! What? Yes, yes, I know where they are now; they moved overnight due to intractable structural and safety concerns. They're over this way; follow me?"
Lead on
Perhaps Mr. Wilde will have better luck with the minders - in any case you explain the situation to him and lead him through the foyer and up to the second floor where the minder room awaits. You usher him and his lovely companion in, lingering at the door a moment. Should you follow? The girl seemed a little displeased at your presence when last you spoke.
"Oh, excellent. What were the safety concerns, then? I take it they had something to do with that poor boy?"
Follow.
Mr. Minstep proves greatly useful, taking you right to a strange room on the second floor of the castle. Inside there is a concerned-looking girl no more than twelve years old, surrounded by even younger children of various ages sitting at the walls and on furniture. All except the girl are looking contemplative to a distinctly unchildlike degree. The girl, meanwhile, immediately swivels her head to observe your arrival and that of the servant girl.
Minders, says your companion. A bit younger than she'd have thought, but these look reasonably legit. She looks their way, then takes a sudden step back as the little girl gives her a rather savage-looking glare. The minder girl then looks at you.
Great. Another one. She
can't help you, you understand? Whatever the hell you're supposed to be, she's gotten way too involved with it already. So just turn around and go away now before something adverse happens again. Go badger the well if you want answers. Or favors. Or really anything.
As the minder girl glares your way, the servant has taken cover behind you. Maybe you shouldn't linger here long, she suggests. Minders have
ways, you know? Honestly, she's kind of unsure what you were doing here to begin with.
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: Cheerio!
- 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
- Wounds: 3
- Traces of Mischief: A Bubbling Scar
- Reclaimed Hooded Robe (worn, quite comfortable)
- An Arm And A Blade (blunted, lacking in spirit)
- 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: Above An Ancient Sea
- The Impromptu Prophecy: the Sensible Solution
- Sweet Little Children: Kindness
- A History of Violence: A Budding Intellect
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- 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
- Elongated Affairs: The Speaker's Stance
- 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
- Traces of Mischief: Nausea's Depths
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- 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: Starting The Day Right
- Tower of the Mind: A Friendly Suggestion
- The Obsolete Class: Let Them Be
- Cruelty-Free Foods: Treats Survived
- 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: Trustworthy Individual
- The Flip Side: An Unclear Trail
- The Doom Guard: Incentivizing Outcomes
- Tower of the Mind: Don't Let The Door Hit You
- A Frightening Door: An Understanding
- The Voracious Dark: Backed Away