Well. Not quite what I expected. Maybe we can get some information from this guy, at least.
"My friends and I are sightseers, looking to experience everything your great nation has to offer. Could you tell us a little about the surrounding area? We tried to ask at the inn but the innkeeper seems to be out on an errand."
[I See Nothing, I Know Nothing: 2]
Sightseers, he says with a mystified expression, where from? And why? Good god, why come here of all places? Not that there's
anything here, oh no, nothing at all.
Surely he couldn't have missed these lush woods, or the roadside inn, you say. And he didn't, thank you very much. Can hardly beat away all the things that live in the woods around here, the watchstoat relates. And the poor woman at the roadside inn, she tries her hardest too, you know. Brings him food and drink, sometimes! Poor old lonely girl, sitting on a dead inn on land like this. He's been places, you know, places like this - used to be in the army and what have you, marched on the big crusade, hunted the damn old king all the way to the north, like the good speakers said they should! And can't say no to the speakers, you understand, not if you like your bits in place and your soul intact.
He pauses, his black eyes darting around in a sudden flash of terror. He takes a step back, then sighs with relief. Always feels like they're listening. Anyway, would you like to visit the tower? It's got a fine view of all this great lot of nothing about if you'd like to come up and make sure. A shame a place as barren as this can't have the decency to also be boring.
[A Peculiar Scene: 6]
The doctor looks at the watchtower, a rickety wooden thing constructed out of a great number of planks, its backbone clearly formed by the central bronze ladder, probably once capable of folding up, but not since somebody nailed it to the ground.
Odd, she says, the more horrible things you hear about in the woods around here aren't the sort to be befuddled by ladders. Or doors. Or sometimes walls, if you believe the stories.
The watchstoat shivers at the memory - the things here don't climb. Don't get him wrong, he says, he's sure they could if they really wanted to - bastard things are like cats, see, but toothier, bigger, with white shining eyes. Seven of them come along every night, then they sit in a circle and, well... well, they just mewl. But it's a mewl like you wouldn't believe - cuts to the bone. Maybe to the soul.
Oggie, observing with interest, leans in and sniffs the air. Peculiar stoat - marked with something. Noxious, but saddening.
Alright, he's willing. Bring him in.
As for early adopter's bonus... well, I suppose there's possibility of having slightly increased authority amongst his peers, being a bit more equal than others, you know? Perhaps transmit messages to fellow clanmates through mythspace without actually being earshot of them. Not sure if that's possible, but we could test it. Maybe allow him to have his own dream building, leave his permanent mark in the world... I suppose there are options. Having large number of followers would allow gods to have very solid knowledge about affairs of mortals, that ought to be helpful when asking assistance from them.
Oh, and make the memory theater private property, as well as the outdoor theater which displays what my eyes see. No need to let every visitor see those. But gods of course have permissions, how could I deny them.
You let the elder into your burgeoning mythscape, and immediately you feel a sudden sense of relief as he looks around the area, scratching his head. Aha, he says, it's exactly like he remembers these things! Good show, very quick work!
He steps forward into the Field of Deeds, where a few Æsir not very keen on learning from history amuse themselves by throwing spears at a shiny fellow and laughing as they miss completely. The elder goes over immediately to have a chat with them, slapping one of them on the back hard enough to knock them over.
Supposing he'd best be left to his own devices for a moment, you take a moment to shunt your memory theater and viewing area into a different mindscape, which they do quite readily with a cheery BWOOOooooo
ooooo as they disappear from immediate observation and presumably land on a different branch. You leave an eight-legged horse for any divine to ride into there if they'd like to see what you're up to. None take the offer up just yet, it seems.
Before you're quite done, you are slapped suddenly on the back by the elder in a very familiar fashion and fall face first to the ground. Haha, he says, sorry about that! Anyway, he starts saying before you get up, quite a nice place you have here! He could envision a great deal of applications for it! So the first question, he says, is how would he go about getting someone else in? You wouldn't happen to have some kind of minder trick to let him do it to someone, he imagines you could fix something in a jiffy if you put your mind to it, isn't that right? Hoho!
Ah, no wonder Rainbow wanted to get her claws on him so badly, Daniels muses as he stands.
"Friends, I've wandered this world and the one before for quite some time without a clear purpose, it's true. But as empty in my soul as those days were, they did teach me a vital lesson, one I still hold dear today: Strife is the root of enlightenment. If the world were a perfect place where all was provided for us and there was no need to desire something better, would any of us be worthy as individuals as we are today? Would we truly know life? I think not. The struggle to improve your situation and self is what makes us who we are! It's what makes me what I am. And tonight I wish to demonstrate the value of that lesson to you."
He dramatically gestures to the juggler plates.
"Tonight you will witness two unformed beings, half-realized potential only actual used to this point at all, battle for the right to exist as a fully-fledged individual! Not only will it be a spectacle of violence, but a tangible instance of a being clawing its way into fruition! Two halves will enter the conflict. The one that leaves will be a whole. Crew of the Vault of Heavens, I give to you..."
I've always wanted to say something like this.
"JUGGLERMANIA SHOWDOWN TURBO SLAM!"
Make sure to use a dramatic, passionate voice while saying all that.
The table listens in rapt attention, most with a sort of unthinking exultation. You see Alphonse with his mouth wide open, Peaks is staring at you with her strange eyes sparkling and utterly mesmerized, Dipper has slumped forward on the table and is reaching slowly toward the captain as you would toward a distant sun. Only Two Shores listens with a politely raised eyebrow. This sort of reply isn't really protocol, you get from her look, which rapidly turns to abject surprise as you announce the main event.
[Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother: 2]
The covers fly up into the air as the jugglers spring into action, two inhuman colossi of leathery, desiccated bacon. One bristles with dripping claws, droplets of which leave cigarette burns on faces and slowly eat through the bronze table as a careless swing sends them flying all around, contorting on its six equivalent limbs with far, far too many joints as it bounces toward its adversary. The other one is, if anything, even more horrible, buzzing like a plague of locusts as a dozen trap jaws on it open and stingers blossom on every inch of its streamlined form.
[JUGGLERMANIA: 2 vs. 5]
They crash into each other with a horrendous shriek echoed by a few members of the audience as alien acids get into regrettable places - a crewman freed of the spellbinding thrall of the captain decides to leap overboard immediately as he screams from the developing chemical burns. Bits of sizzling rubbery meat fly into faces and on plates, insects violently spilling out of them every which way. You catch a glimpse of the second juggler, flying in an arc as its jaws snap asynchronously, its adversary momentarily de-limbed and sent tumbling along the length of the table, disintegrating a beautiful roast boar with its thrashing as it prepares to leap upward.
[SHOWDOWN: 5 vs. 6]
The acidic juggler breaks into a dead sprint, not pausing for a second as it turns right upward and sprints up the mast and dives into the flying one from above - claws fly and serrated jaws snap as a rain of flesh and acid comes down upon the feast in anticipation of the meteoric drop of the two jugglers - the table nearly snaps in half and the feast flies into the air in a ballet of extraordinary ruination, the flying one driving its opponent into the unforgiving metal with all the downward force its dozen wings could muster. Bugs of shapes and sizes you haven't seen spill like a newborn sea over the food on display, boiling blood scalding the nearest unfortunate sailors as they hit the deck.
[TURBO SLAM: 3]
The formerly spellbound crew watch in horror as the flying juggler rises from the table, the acidic one stuck in its torso. A shriek of pure, unadulterated death fills the feast as the victorious juggler reaches an efficient completion amid a rain of sweetmeats, driving slightly under half of those remaining to run for their lives in terrible error as one final, reflexive spray of corrosive spit covers the remains of the table and anyone who hadn't been wise enough to hit the deck promptly.
The whole juggler looks at the destruction around itself with a sense of closure as the more broadly profiled foods arrive last on the table and the surroundings with a deafening patter in the stunned silence. It folds inward somewhat, mildly disappointed that it didn't even get to use the
really cool weapons yet, its jagged form deflating to a more manageable and smooth eight feet in length, then it drops on all sixes and swivels its terrible scolex to look around. More to indicate that it's done here than out of necessity, considering how many eyes it has.
You can't exactly call the ensuing period a stunned silence, not with so many folk wailing like that. But it does certainly appear to have given the key figures some pause. Peaks leans out briefly from cover, then ducks down again. Dipper splashes overboard in a panic before he remembers that he could swim before he could walk. Two Shores stares out in a mix of extraordinary alarm and mild awe at the display, then inspects her sword briefly for any acid damage. Your three minions seem to have had the sense to dive overboard before anything happened to them. Alphonse is screaming to high heaven and clutching his face while a physician calmly describes his selection of soothing balms and half-masks. A cook wipes a proud tear from his eye.
The captain appears to have taken a full face blast of errant flesh-eating mucus quite well, which is to say that it has slid off him like quicksilver. When he speaks, you can hardly hear him.
How
quaint, you think he said before his legion of homunculi slowly raise him up again and glide him toward the quarters rapidly - the door unfolds like its job is on the line, and whirrs shut loud enough to make one's feelings clear. Two Shores rushes to follow after a second's distraction, but bumps into the door as a time-honored manipulation fails to take hold. She looks at the mechanism in utter puzzlement.
You look at the juggler, who starts grazing on the solid turf of mangled food. A bit lacking in protein, it clicks to you conversationally. Quite good otherwise.
Something at your peripheral vision. You turn to look - a homunculus has stepped into a pool of misplaced corrosive mucus. It turns to the sky in a pantomime plea, waving its arms as its legs slowly disappear into the mass, mutely cursing cruel fate.
Surely there's something to put in front of the hole? Block it up a bit? If not, deal with it.
[Out of Sight: 4]
You try debris, but none of the available kind is large enough to cover it. You borrow some leaf-leather from Nobody down the hall, but that wafts into the hole suddenly when you're not looking. Not to be deterred, you borrow some more and also forage for some bricks topside, and shortly you've managed a nice enough covering for the hole, at least to the point where you don't think bats could get up through it. Silver and Gamble seem to find it acceptable enough, and so you lay down to rest.
[From The Depths: 5]
You're sleeping well enough, you think. Until you're not. Always the tricky thing with sleep, that. You open your eyes to the pitch blackness of the chamber, the lantern that lit your way having been extinguished come bedtime.
You can't move, you don't think. And you can't feel yourself breathe, or even feel much of anything aside from the persistent, blanket-penetrating chill and stillness of this cellar. But you do see something. A figure, darker still than the shapeless oneness of the rest of the wine storeroom. It looks down at you without eyes.
Employ more caution, it says. It is unwise to sleep near open holes.
You awaken in pitch blackness. Gamble is snoring, sounding like he's half a mile away in the consuming gloom.
"What can I offer? Little tangible, I'm afraid. Advice, knowledge, an education, perhaps, is the payment I can give."
Surely there's something I can teach her. Some experimental technique or synthesis, maybe?
You haven't quite seen her lab, but there's a good chance she doesn't know how to do a Diels-Alder reaction. You've got that going for you, at least.
[Can We Work Something Out: 4+1]
Lady Craik, naturally, only becomes more delighted when you start to explain. You've got, you figure out reasonably quickly, about a century of the history of organic chemistry to get through, and that's before things get
esoteric. And she's more than willing to listen, if quite pickled.
You do get your tour of the labs once you get deep into talking shop - she's got an experiment going in every room, to one degree of abandonment to another. Most of them, obviously, are in the sphere of either fragrance or preservation, or a mixture of the two when something happens to be both foul and valuable - you're not much good on the specifics of preserving an item, obviously, but your understanding of the underlying chemistry and advice on lab equipment seems to be invaluable to the point where Lady Craik occasionally blinks and her persistent hiccup lapses as she takes a note or two in a notepad that looks frilly before you realize it's simply dilapidated, her responses turning from politely interested to genuinely intrigued.
It's been several hours, you think, when you've managed to walk a full circuit of the premises, the entire compound the size of a city block packed with pots of strong-smelling chemicals of all kinds and purities - your fire safety tips for these are nodded at, but the notion of an actual fire starting in the Tell of the Setting Sun seems laughable all on its own. A torch,
hic, a torch has trouble staying lit around here for ten seconds, let alone a,
hurk, something you can't be bothered to spare twenty matches on!
In any case, you find yourself eventually in the latest experimental area - used to be occupied by a lodger, Lady Craik says, but he turned to,
hurk, dust some years ago. Happens if you don't keep yourself in,
ghurkhuhuhuh, good spirits. Her knees knock against one another with a hollow thud as she delivers that one.
Anyway, you do check out the latest experiment. It smells as remarkable as you were led to believe - in fact you do believe you were undersold on the notion, you think from the ground as stars swim around your head. And that's when you just wafted it toward your nose with your hand. Quite incredible,
hic, innit!
Eventually you manage to get on your feet, and you are led back to Improvised Laboratory No. 19, which has lain unused for quite a long time indeed, and looks to be more of a study these days than a legitimate laboratory. All of the shelves are full of manuscripts from scientists (yes, certainly scientists, Lady Craik would specify) - to be specific, the great chemical minds of the old state of Makala, back when it was still a place of enlightenment!
Will you be checking through these for some kind of formula, you ask. No, Lady Craik says! No. Hahahah!
Hurk! No! No, you'll be extracting their
scent!
Leif Erikson, Miner and Lush
- Sealed alchemist's brass box
- Half-basket of apple-like mushrooms (hallucinogenic)
- Paper party crown (worn)
- Moth-robe (worn)
- Itchy Woolen Britches (worn)
- A Word: INEVITABLE
- A Word: APOCALYPSE
- A Word: DRINK
- Body Count: 228
- Mead of Poetry (4 shining revelations remaining)
- Enders' Friend: The Grave of Red Clouds Parting
- Inscribed Wooden Stylus
- Iron spear
- 0.03 gp
- The Box: ?
- Induced Lucidity: Jehwlheimr, The Land The Gods Remember
- Compatibility: Minding
- Tricks of the Mind: Perception, Memory
- Tricks of the Mind: Engagement, Negation, Abstraction, Prestige
- Tricks of the Mind: the Self, the Other
- Tricks of the Mind: the Mythscape
- 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: Honorary Clansman
- A Night That Burns Forever: Juicy Gossip
- 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
- 4 flasks of lamp oil
- Oil lamp (lit)
- Linen stoat shirt (worn, plasma-scorched)
- 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
- The Old Mistress: Like A House On Fire
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Wounds: 1
- Red and gold vest and breeches combo (worn)
- Leather boots (worn)
- Rubber mattress (filled with water)
- 14031 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 Word: EXECRABLE
- A Weapon: Murder-Thought
- Uncoupled: Strength
- Wooden Door
- Induced Lucidity: The Silent Garden
- Elongated Affairs: Enemy of the New State
- A Place In History: Vastly Unreliable
- 2 rats, crushed
- 1 rat, strangled
- 1 rat, live
- 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
- The Vault of Heavens: Special Treatment
- Scars of Time: Practiced Acquaintance
- The Night Sky: How Very, Very Quaint
- Petty Crimes: Minded For Safety
- Fires, Pines & Day, Minions At Law: On Retainer
- Body Count: 3
Thomas Minstep, Insurance Agent
- A Word: ABSENCE
- A Word: GOODBYE
- A Word: WORM
- A Weapon: The Sword They Fear
- Insurance contracts, signed in triplicate: 13
- Gamble
- Nobody Cares
- Helen Clampitt
- Lily
- Undine and Prosper Eke
- Silver
- Tabernacle, treefisher scout
- Treefisher elder
- 4 treefishers
- Make A Man Out Of You: Battle-Tested
- The Grip of Tharn: Insurance Against The Storm
- Ranging fork
- 2 feet of sinew-thread
- Tooth-needle
- A Bowl, Black and Knobby
- Tight Leather Pants (worn)
- Incredibly Tight Blue Dress (worn, mutilated, mildly provocative)
- The Queen's Guard: A Reward Well Earned
- The New Queen: Lasting Gratitude
- The Box: Absolutely Delightful
- Body Count: 12
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- A Word: REVELATION
- The Wicked King's Missive On Economic Reform (in massive silver scroll case)
- Traces of Mischief: Glowing Facial Rift
- The Serpent's Egg: Dissemination
- Body Count: 4
- Cornerstone Helm (worn, collecting light)
- Bottle of aspirin
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 6 gp
- 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
- The King's Court: The Greatest Gift of All
- The King's Court: The North Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: The East Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: The South Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: The West Wind's Gift
- The King's Court: A Gift For The Wicked King
- Wizzards Bargins: A Spool of Copper Wire
- Wizzards Bargins: A Roll of Your Finest Sticky Tape
- Wizzards Bargins: A Hunk of Exquisite Graphite
- In High Spirits: A Mind To Be Respected
Author
Topic: Our Salvation: It Is Written (Read 264124 times)