"Vault of Heavens? You guys a merc group or something? 'Cause honestly that sounds like the name of a bandit group from this one game I used to play. Anyway, sure, I'll just go get my friend, he'd probably appreciate the food. Wait here."
Go get Alphonse and see if he can walk/limp with his new walking stick. If not, I'll just carry him back to ... Mustachio or whatever his nickname was. Then presumably it's go to meet the Captain or whoever!
Mercenaries, the man laughs, good god no! Merchants! And the Vault of Heavens herself, she is a beauty of a vessel. But why prattle on? Come and see - the village is more than ready to welcome you, and they do intend to have one last feast before heading back. After all, there were plenty of profits made!
Yes, you say, you'll be back in a moment. You head back inside and look at Alphonse. You hand him the cane, which he examines in bewilderment. Buckle up, Alphonse, you're heading into the village! His eyes go wide. Do you really have to do that he'd really like to stay here actually on second thought that's probably not a great idea sure he'll follow you right away and stay within sight at all times. That's the spirit, you guess. He limps after you as you walk out, and Big Dipper looks him over with a critical eye. Doesn't he know this man?
[Have We Met: 3]
One of the occupiers, wasn't he? A collaborator? Fallen on hard times then? Er yes sir you could definitely say that is a thing that has happened in a great many ways, Alphonse replies nervously. Become a trader as well then, Dipper inquires, and Alphonse shrugs noncommittally, er there's been something of a change in management and such very nasty business not really at liberty to speak about that presently he'll have to forgive him. Dipper laughs - such is the way of revolutions and their children. Oh well. Come along! Hornsweir awaits!
You travel between the deserted farms, and as the three of you move you see occasional shadows in the hedgerows and moving between trees, following you from afar. You mention this to Dipper, who seems unperturbed. Don't mind them, he chuckles, they're just shy. You notice the town is a little more active - there's even what you could consider a bustle emanating from beyond the gate, which begins to open well in advance of your approach as several sleepy-looking heads poke out from above the sharpened wooden palisade.
It's not uncommon for villages to have a main artery, so to speak, but Hornsweir has something better described as a spine - a single thoroughfare from the gate to the docks, where a square opens up and you see in the distance the origin point of the mast that towers over most of the structures - a sleek bronze longboat, gleaming darkly in the early morning sun, attended by crowds of dark-skinned sailors with the occasional locals mixed in, filtering in and out of the boat and into the streets of the village, which boasts more broken windows and open doors than you would expect of a vibrant riverside community. An inn by the gate stands unmolested and roaring with the last of a long night's festivities, a drunken local-looking fellow falling out of a third floor window and flopping on the ground, getting up seemingly unharmed and stumbling back in through the door.
Big Dipper, comes a sudden shout from a nearby rooftop, back from his morning skulk already! You look up - atop a house that was no doubt once well-appointed before several people applied considerable skills to making it otherwise stands a tall, rather elderly woman with a veritable mane of white hair that a comb seems to have never quite tamed. She balances on the gable on one foot, lifting her other foot to about eye level slowly before lowering it again. And he's brought a handsome stranger as well! Her voice, though grandmotherly and spoken in very much an indoor tone, carries through the noise perfectly. Behind her, balancing with a variable degree of incompetence and inversely proportional mortal fear, are three young women in slightly more piratical garb.
Great Rainbow, Dipper bows, he has taken the liberty of inviting these strangers to the Captain's table tonight. They are to be treated well. Oh, she says as she crosses her legs, places her hands behind her back and puffs up her chest, does he think her to be some kind of thug? She gently steps off the roof and floats three floors down to the ground, sashaying your way with a very pleased expression. She flutters her elaborately painted eyelashes and you feel a tingling in the back of your skull.
[Intriguing Thoughts: 2]
She stops in front of you and curtsies - third mate Rainbow at your service, sir. You seem like an altogether
spicier find than the usual fare, she says as she offers a well-manicured hand. Dipper steps back a little, frowning discreetly.
((And again Thomas stumbles into power he doesn't believe in. This game is great.))
While one part of him wanted to stop and see what in the world these people thought they were doing, another part was rather enjoying this newfound singing ability. As a compromise, he turned to the ranger and attempted to signal a question as to if they should stop.
Ask the ranger non-verbally if we should stop. Stop he does. If stopping, greet the newcomers.
You look at the ranger. He does not look back. You decide to keep singing in spite of the worm-riders' protestations, and inhale briefly before starting off another verse, same as the first!
WORM
[Word: 1]
The worms start to undulate as they continue to emerge, their long tails emerging from the ground at points diametrically opposed. The earth shakes, and you feel twenty-seven hearts beating to the same rhythm, your own included. You begin to lose yourself in the song, and start to undulate yourself despite the movement coming off as distinctly improper to you. The worms emerge fully from the ground, each several thousand feet long in total. For a moment you feel terribly insignificant in the face of these veritable Empire State Buildings of the annelid world, and you notice Claire fall silent as they begin to wind together, their bodies intertwining as they start to block out the morning sun. One of the riders falls down next to you, groaning in pain as he rolls on his side. People continue to rain down, and then the worms close in around you in the most incredibly well-coordinated group hug you've ever seen.
[The Worm God: 2]
You continue to sing for as long as the ranger does, and he draws a large knife as you see a little trail of saliva run down from the corner of his mouth. As all goes dark you see him leap into the mass of worm-flesh, and Claire hugs you from the side and closes her eyes as panic overtakes her.
The next few moments are ones of sliding flesh and many, many hairs running over you as you feel yourself drawn into a massive ball of seduced worms, your sense of direction utterly confounded as everything becomes earthy-smelling, clammy wormskin sliding all around, forcing you into a dark alcove between segments, damp from head to toe, Claire helplessly hanging on to you as she tries not to move in the face of all this. You try not to as well, as you figure it'll be a little simpler this way. There is a lot of motion and a lot of slime, and you can discern little else for the time being in the interests of keeping as much of this out of your eyes as possible.
Everything comes to a sort of equilibrium in a matter of minutes, and the rampant motion of the worms starts to oscillate, settling into a pattern of sliding gently back and forth. Beyond the sounds of friction between them, and muffled groans from further on, you hear only silence for a few moments more before Claire starts to say something, her face buried into your neck. A little hard to make out amid the general worminess, but you think it's something to the effect of whether you have any ideas on how to get out of this.
"That's what friends are for! I still have legs to catch things with, so help me out a little."
Grab his neck or waist or something with my legs and hang like a cape or something on him.
"Up and out to the surface we go! By the way, I didn't hear you introducing yourself."
You hold onto the fellow's back with your one and a half legs as you instruct him to fly! Fly and take him back to the surface, back where things began to make sense! Onward, loyal friend! Whatever his name is!
Say, what is his name, you wonder of him. He looks back. Oh, uh, Earnest. Yeah, Earnest. You shrug - very well then, Earnest, to the surface! And Earnest spreads his wings as you hang onto his back (well, more like off his back) and float gently behind him as he takes flight, his eyes darting every which way to check if anyone can see, and up into the dark you go. He flies as you would expect, with precipitous dives and sudden turns, seemingly a little disoriented by your presence. You occasionally see others like him flit past, diving out of darkness briefly before they see you and retreat back in mostly. Some watch, however. And quite a few follow. A procession begins to form as followers swarm behind you, chittering to themselves as you are dragged in front of them, looking to each other with their compound eyes, their heads twisting rapidly back and forth, antennae twitching.
You feel warmer, and progressively claustrophobic as you are taken further and further, and soon the people following behind you are legion, their many eyes settling upon you as you come to a stop in a place that burns with blue, pulsing fire, creatures of a vast variety of changing shapes cartwheeling along the edges, transforming constantly to fit into spaces as they gather round in force. You see, but do not feel a ceiling - and neither do you sense a floor. You simply hang there on Earnest's back as he settles into place.
He was brought here, a stern voice remarks. Indeed he was, Earnest replies. He ate half. Half an apple, one voice asks. Half the basket, Earnest returns. You hear the gentle noise of chitinous heads nodding in what might be approval.
[The Tree of Knowledge: 6]
He has endurance, a smaller, girlish creature says. He also can be astute, Earnest replies. This is doubtful, an oddly familiar sound comes from right above you, and briefly you think you have seen a face. One of his tricks, presumably. No true sign of worthiness. You sense Earnest shrink back a little. Tricks would not work, he says experimentally before a smidgen of doubt creeps into his voice, would they?
A vigorous argument seems to break out. They would, some voices say, and to assume they wouldn't is folly. They would not, others dissent, and to immediately assume they would is to defeat yourself before the battle has begun. You feel them mingle together, ebbing and flowing around your body like a patch of surf.
"Well, the language barrier is nothing a good REVELATION can't take care of."
Repeat question and communicate desire to enter town in a hopefully more enlightening manner.
You face the town and let your eye gape at them as you shout the Word.
REVELATION
[Word: 5]
You split the night with a sudden flash of inspiration, your eye growing vast and dreadfully incandescent as you step confidently onto the bog, the waters retreating around you, scrambling and clawing themselves to be out of your way. The bottom of the bog is like bubbling tar, and it burns under your feet as you walk forward and toward the town, where you see it continue below the water line - under it lie yet more people - thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, an aggregation of lost souls holding on to the town above them for dear life as they are dragged through the bog.
You are soon next to them, and most scramble away under your gaze, retreating deeper, causing the town above to lean gently in your direction. But soon many more flow back into place, intrigued - perhaps even hopeful. They clutch on to you, and you know better than to fear them. Clambering over each other they pile on, lifting you and your companion up as they compose a single, crawling tower of bog-eaten boneless flesh which you ascend like a living escalator to the foot of the stone wall and rise further as the foundation of the town itself welcomes you.
You look one of the creatures on the walls, its full and intense yellow eyes in contrast with its malnourished body lending it the look of an aye-aye. It groans quietly as it tilts its head and offers you a hand - you take it and with seemingly no effort at all it lifts you above its head, placing you at the top of the wall where a grand assembly of ghouls stand around you. You sense that they have nothing for you, and with a wave of your hand effectively dispel them every which way down the roofs and into the darkened alleys below, leaving but one grinning creature as the rest scatter, a tall, hunched figure that resembles the giant on the road - standing nearly upright it handily towers over you, and it takes care to bow very low indeed to make its position clear, its elaborate yellow alderman's robe catching a great deal of dust and damp on the terrace he greets you from. You walk up a ramp along the gutted ruins of a tavern laid atop an ancient cathedral, the rickety wooden planks connecting roofs bending under your step. One of the ruined walls swoons at a glance from you, and collapses into an alley upon no doubt quite a few scurrying creatures if the gurgling is any indication.
You walk up to the alderman and greet him politely, your companion nodding in rhythm to your words in what seems like holy ecstasy. The alderman raises his head, featureless but for one solitary hole that opens into an undulating mouth full of lamprey teeth. A growl escapes him and resolves into terribly polite words - greetings, wonderbringer. How can this fair township serve your needs?
"Fantastic," I say. "We also want a minder, right? The head minder girl seems pretty good at what she does. She also doesn't like me much, but I think she should still cooperate if we appeal to her ego and her curiosity."
I look around the room. "But first we have to leave here. The only obvious exits I've seen on this floor are some windows, but hopefully there's something a little gentler. This lair has to have some sort of escape hatch, right? I wouldn't build a lair without one." I begin searching the alchemy lab for hidden exits.
Oh, so you know her personally! That makes this easier! Well, assuming you can find her.
And, the doctor looks around, this doesn't look very much like a
lair as such. More of a den. Not very well-hidden either. More than anything it reminds her of a reinvented closet. The lack of windows certainly says as much to her. All credit to Ms. Augusta, however, she appears to have made the best of what she had. Whatever this thing she's made really is, of course.
[Emergency Exits: 5]
You appreciate the speculation, you mention as you check the walls, but could she help you search as well? Oh right, yes! She's somewhat unsure about exits, mind you, but it would be a very poor manor if it didn't have a secret passage or two. Probably not in here, of course, since this place is wall-to-wall workbenches and cabinets.
You pause and look around as something occurs to you - you don't really see any kind of bin in this room, or even a bucket. But what does catch your eye, however, is a floorboard jutting out a little near one of the desks - unobtrusive, but upon a closer look undeniably artificial. You step up to the workbench, placing your hands on it. So you're working here, and you've just done a bit of work on... poisoning something, you guess, and then you have some leftovers, so you put your foot here and press on the board - well no, seems a little stuck, you give it a swift kick and voila! A panel pops open on the ground, revealing an oddly elaborate little tunnel leading downward into darkness. It seems like it'd be fairly unpleasant to fall down through. And the smell that starts wafting up it is one of corpses - assuredly many of them, in fact.
On the bright side, the doctor says, it might not
just be a hole that they dumped undesirable corpses into.
Leif Erikson, Miner
- Half-basket of apple-like mushrooms
- Itchy Woolen Britches (worn)
- Traces of Mischief: No Arms
- Apples to Apples: Circle of Friends!
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- Body Count: 228
- Mead of Poetry (4 shining revelations remaining)
- Enders' Friend: The Grave of Red Clouds Parting
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron spear
- 1.03 gp
- The Box: ?
- Induced Lucidity: the Aftermath, or the New Beginning
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Perception, Memory
- Tricks of the Mind: Engagement, Negation, Abstraction, Prestige
- Tricks of the Mind: the Self, the Other
- Gods of the Underground: Did You Just What
- A Visit From The Stork: Is What You Yes
- The Voracious Dark: Two Deals Made
- The Voracious Dark: The Promised Sixth
- Moth's Flight: the Way to Rise
- The Miracle of Life: Wayward Rabbit
Eileen Minett, Vinyl Collector
- Distilled alcohol (in flask)
- Spirits of salt (in clay jar)
- Soaps of elk, bear, bat and snake
- 5 flasks of lamp oil
- Linen stoat shirt (worn)
- Stoat trousers (worn)
- Comfy slippers (worn)
- Never-made scimitar (blackened, slightly dull)
- Tooth-handled hunting knife
- Black leather boots
- An assemblage of amber and amethysts
- Silver thread-necklace
- Onyx spiral earrings
- 2 oaken rings
- Rusty, bloodstained knife
- A Word: HUNGER
- A Word: SYNTHESIS
- A Weapon: Explosive Cysts
- Grenade Jumping: A Solid Technique
- The Good Doctor: Secret Histories
- Sword of the Sand People: Cleaning Supplies
- Sword of the Sand People: The Services of a Minder
- Higher Tonight: There And Back Again
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo (worn)
- Leather boots (worn)
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14033 gp (in sack)
- Poor Unfortunate Soul: Forever Captive
- The Queen's Guard: Actual Asset
- Powers of the Beyond: Gardener of Thoughts
- Garden of Thoughts: the Stoat-Magistrate
- Dusty Wooden Speaking-Trumpet
- Crossbow Bolt (in throat)
- A Word: REND
- A Word: SILENCE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: Run Like Hell
- Induced Lucidity: A Garden Well-Tended
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- Anglefork Castle: the Great Worm
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday ± 2 Days
- Doomstones: So High Up But Such A Bitter View
- The Majordomo: A Great Divide Between Us Now
- The Voracious Dark: Decreasing Demand
- The Voracious Dark: More Specific Requests
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- A Word: WORM
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Make A Man Out Of You: Battle-Tested
- Ranging fork
- 2 feet of sinew-thread
- Tooth-needle
- Traces of Mischief: Whole-Body Radioactive Burn
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- Travels In The Fourth Dimension: Sunday, July 25th, 409 S.D.
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- Lonely Roads: The Man, The Legend
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- A Boy's Life: A Hunting Companion
- Body Count: 2
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- Wounds: 1
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Bog mummy (wearing metal helmet)
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 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)
- A Wealth of Burlap Ribbons
- The Winding Path of Inspiration: The Less Dangerous Friend
- Fuligin Gates: A Delivery for the Town
- The Crawling Township: Wonderbringer
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Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 264007 times)