Thomas sighed. Another vague answer. But really, he's not surprised this is Pennsylvania. It does make some sense. "Right. Are the stout fellows still blocking the way out? Because I'd like to bid a couple farewells then be on my way."
Tell the helpful trainer guard that I have fulfilled my contract and must be on my way; thank her for the training. The queen's next to say farewell to.
The sword replies that no, the sieging force was kindly donated as material to facilitate his formation, and thus no longer technically exists. While their sacrifice was ultimately in vain, their material will still be put to very good use.
You open the keep's door, coming face to face with a well-manned barricade of royal guards constructed of what little furniture the castle still had. Much to your convenience, they do manage to recognize you in the middle of shouting an order to attack, and you even manage to dodge the flask of oil that nearly flies into your head. The ground gets a little slick, however.
Wait, shouts the guard who trained you, pulling back the hand of another guard about to throw a lit torch in your direction. That's not the demon, that's that, er, recruit. The guards all look at her in silence. Recruit?
More of a contractor, you mention, attracting the looks of all the guards. The keep seems dead silent apart from the guards present, you happen to notice, no trace of the previous clamor of mobilized servants.
Right, your instructor says after another long pause. Did you see anything out there? Where is the demon? Is it coming this way?
[A Satisfactory Explanation: 6]
Technically yes, you suppose, in that the fellow agreed to be your sword after you beat him in a mostly fair and highly interesting duel. You almost hear the rise of eyebrows at that, and in response present your evidence. See, you say, there it is right there. There are a few moments of silence once again, after which a particular guard asks if anybody else just heard the sword talk. The others nod, and you see very cautious looks being directed your way now.
Feeling the ice forming already, you try to break it in advance by saying that really you've had a lot of fun and that the training did come in quite handy, but now that the contract's fulfilled you really need to be on your way, and could you see the queen before that maybe? You figure a farewell's in order there.
They seem to need to think on this request a little, your instructor taking a moment to look in the direction of your sword. You feel a strange quiver in the blade after a couple of seconds as it seems to attempt a shrug, and promptly disappears from your hand.
No worries, Mr. Minstep, you hear the voice of your sword. You can never be separated as long as the contract is in place. But one can become less obtrusive as the situation demands.
Right, says your instructor, before being cut off by a guard you recall being near the queen's quarters at last visitation. Right, says he, as long as you keep your doom sword away you can visit the queen. But you will be observed, make no mistake!
"I never can leave you alone, can I? Well. Oi Wilde! Go back to normal, I need to have a talk with you. I don't want to have to kill you just yet, so be snappy.
...
Minstep, what happened in the last few minutes? I was otherwise occupied."
Attempt to sternly lecture Wilde back to normal. If that doesn't work, REND him into some smaller pieces and see if that helps him any.
[Addressing A Mountain: 5]
Oi, you say! Oi there! What do you think you're doing! Stop that this instant, you enormous pile of whatever the fuck! The shrieking pauses as Mr. Wilde slides a little around, seemingly not very gifted in hearing. But you do sense that something's paid attention, even if only a little. You think a rational argument's unlikely to work, to be honest, so you guess you'll just shout a little louder. Seems to be the way forward. Oi! Oi, you in there! Come on!
[Reaching Out: 4]
A few moments pass as gears (possibly very literal ones, if the sloshing sounds are any indication) turn in Mr. Wilde's... er, thinkbits, you guess. Judging from the sounds he's making, though, you don't think he's really open to rational argument. Especially given how he's started pointing all those teeth of his at you. Sigh. You guess you tried. Plan B!
REND
[Word: 5]
You raise your mutilated hand, having a jolly fine thought at the tip of it. It raises a very good point, you feel, uniquely incisive in this circumstance.
See, you figure it's a lot like trimming a hedge. This one's just slightly more ambulatory than most. With a gesture you send your intent in a loop, and off come some five hundred pounds, vitreous humor and loose teeth pouring out of the inner layers you uncover. Circling round, you peel elegant spirals of lymph-soaked skin and compacted hair, and sever great lengths of shapeless stomach interlaced with lattices of bone. Knots of distended arteries burst into fountains of bright red blood, superfluous hearts needing but one decisive poke before their own maddened contraction tears them to pieces of woven muscle. The third go round takes you on a tour of livers beyond belief, burning with overdriven production, and trunks of bone burst with generous spilling marrow as you carve them neatly into pieces. Clusters of raw nerve and buttery glia are swum through with greater ease as you turn them to simple puree with but the tiniest flourish. Glands of all stripes disgorge multicolored fluids into the air as you eviscerate, pierce and send them flying in gentle arcs.
Flesh spills like a burst dam along your ankles, frightened rats budding off from quivering masses. Viscera spill into the old well like a drain as you go nine times around on a grand tour of disturbed anatomy, until all that's left is a representative mass the size of a marble, held aloft only by the circling force of your thought, frightened of falling lest it cross its path. You let it hang a second as you incline your head, then flick it in your direction, catching it out of the air with your functional hand. It's a variegated little nugget, surprisingly pregnant with meaning. All it needs, you find, is a gentle squeeze, and the internal pressure does much of the work. With a final howl the little cyst bursts, and out of it comes a physically improbable amount of dedifferentiating matter with the rough consistency of whipped cream. You layer into a leaning tower of roughly your own height, and with a slight hiss you see the shape of an anatomically correct Mr. Wilde define itself, coated in panicking rats and a few spare organs as your allowances for faulty memory sort themselves out without need for further motivation.
You turn Mr. Wilde around with a careful eye to check on him more closely. He opens his mouth to hiss weakly, eyes full of impotent bestial bloodlust. You roll your eyes and backhand him across his impertinent mug, nearly snapping his jaw in half as he flips and falls on his face into the mixed pool of what was formerly his unbound form, rats and organs sliding off his surprisingly clothed body. You give him a generous ten seconds to regain consciousness as you step to loom over him. He starts coughing weakly before then.
Oi, you say. Oi Wilde, you done being uncoupled? 'Cause you can keep going if not.
"Sorry, blood in my ears! And I was helping!"
I find the most solid-looking thing in the area and hide behind it.
You guess the most solid thing would be that sacrificial slab somebody has helpfully put up near the blacksmith's workshop. As the courtyard roars and Mr. Daniels runs interference you dive behind it, cowering in the hopes that the stone does not fall on you in all the chaos.
The sound abates for a moment. And then comes something else.
REND
You feel like you are almost better off not seeing what results from this, especially given that the splatter reaches the very door of the blacksmith's residence. In the air you sense something extraordinarily malevolent and especially lethal. Yep, probably safer here, even with the looming threat of unfavorable gravity.
You wait until the sounds and smells (of which there are many, each more questionable than the last) settle down, crowned by a bone-cracking smack and a wet squelch. After this the only thing you hear is faint nagging, which signals to you that a certain threshold of safety has likely been crossed.
Avocado of acceptance? No, too obviously outlandish. Majority always wins this type of arguments. If they don't fast enough, then perhaps I should encourage the INEVITABLE.
You stay back and watch as the stoatmen try to address this problem the only way they know how - browbeating by a majority backed by spurious argumentation.
[Giving In: 5]
Fortunately the non-assertive guard remains non-assertive, and soon the other troops in the back are on their way, beaming at what a great idea splitting away seems to be, leaving but one guard with a whole lot of sunflower seeds to get through in her post.
[Proactive Approach: 3+1]
Lee, who currently looms on the winery's roof right above the guard, having used your distraction to her advantage, gives you a look from afar. It seems to ask a very simple question - now?
Not the kind of sorting I want! There goes the sleep-paralysis theory.
Remember the bit where I was on the verge of waking up? Any chance of getting back to that?
[Seize the Waking: 3]
Well, you do hear somebody ranting in your direction. Somebody new. You suppose that's of some interest, maybe you should really get to them and wait no that's not what you meant wait!
Suddenly you feel a great pain, followed by an immense lightness, which then gives way to mounting pressure and a feeling of shrinkage. You feel like your head's about to explode, and then the feeling is kicked up a notch to the point where you can barely think. And then, release. Is it your skull breaking open? A cascade of multiple strokes? For a moment, your sense of body is completely gone, only to come back seconds later as what feels like a freight train smacks into your jaw, ringing your spine like a bell.
You tingle all over as you accidentally inhale flowing warm lymph and bile, and start to cough. What a unique flavor to awaken to.
Oi, you hear a familiar voice. Its presence reminds you of an all-encompassing pain your brain had so kindly failed to note until now. Oi Wilde, it continues, you done being uncoupled? It sounds a lot like Mr. Daniels. He can keep going if you aren't, he says with more than a little unkindness.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- Wounds: 1
- Improvised Quarterstaff
- Body Count: 1
- All Broken Up: In A Winery By The Trail
- 4 large red berries
- Damp and moldy fuel
- The Queen's Guard: A Roaring Good Time
- Reappropriated, Clean Skirt
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron Spearhead
- 1.03 gp
- Anglefork Castle: A Free Man
- The Box: ?
- Tower of the Mind: Convenient Relocation
- Induced Lucidity: A Concert For The Gods
- 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
- Tricks of the Mind: Headfirst Dive
- Tricks of the Mind: Lend Them Your Limbs
- Tricks of the Mind: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
- Tricks of the Mind: Erikson's Seeds of Discontent
- 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
- Moth's Flight: The Second Try
- Troubles In Anglefork Town: More Lethal Than Anticipated
- The Secret Life of Stoats: Harnessing Potential
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Wounds: 4
- Reclaimed Hooded Robe (worn, torn)
- Giant White Mushroom
- A Word: SEA
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: CHAOS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Rat Pantheon: Disliked
- 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
- The Voracious Dark: Three Connections Given
- Stone's Glory: An Uncivil Disagreement
- Body Count: 1
- Never In: Change of Priority
- Labyrinths of Anglefork: Tunnel-Literate
- The Flip Side: Crippling Indecision
- The Impromptu Prophecy: ?
- Sweet Little Children: Fond Farewell
- The One They Fear: Largely Irrelevant
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Naked
- Wounds: 1
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- 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 Armor of God
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: A Master's In Chemistry
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: A Sliver of Perfection!
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Beauty of the Material
- Tower of the Mind: Endless Well of Mystery
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- Doomstones: ?
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- 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: A Source Provided
- The Voracious Dark: More Specific Requests
- The Good Doctor: A Recommendation
- Labyrinths of Anglefork: Suspended Above
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- Wounds: 2
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- 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: An Unknown Quantity
- Make A Man Out Of You: A Crowning Achievement
- The New Queen: A Conditional Meeting
- Tower of the Mind: Advice Given
- The Obsolete Class: Let Them Be
- Cruelty-Free Foods: Treats Survived
- The One They Fear: A Satisfactory Contract
- Body Count: 2
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- Wounds: 4
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 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: A Strange Day In The Making
- The Doom Guard: the Inquisition
- Tower of the Mind: An Interruption
- A Frightening Door: An Understanding
- The Voracious Dark: Backed Away
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Measure
- The One They Fear: Largely Irrelevant