"It's quite all right, Shores, I'm happy for the opportunity to learn from you in and of itself. Let me know when you'd be ready to resume."
After she leaves, Daniels turns to regard Linda. "Would you like to go meet some of my other friends? Maybe we'll go find Dan and my assistants, see how they're doing."
Go find Dan.
On the background of Linda's all-encompassing delight for existence itself the additional joy of finding more friends is but a slight blip.
[Distractions in the Hold: 4]
Dan seems to be having a bit of fun, apparently at the behest of your assistants. You find them all in the hold below, surrounded by crates upon crates of goods both looted and smuggled from the collapsing kingdom you're on the cusp of leaving entirely behind. In the past two days they seem to have discovered the joys of having a creature around that can produce a stupendous variety of mucus for a vast variety of purposes, including most pertinently a sort that looks a lot like rubber cement, which your assistants have wasted no time in abusing for the purposes of terrorizing their fellow crewmates. The latest of these is a sleeping woman that, you discover, they had Dan soundlessly retrieve from her hammock after a night of heavy drinking and stick to the ceiling. All three of your assistants appear to be hiding behind some crates while Dan sits below, watching and clicking softly, having been instructed to drool corrosively on the ground.
When the woman wakes up and quite reasonably begins to suspect that she is about to have some highly suspicious eggs laid in her chest cavity by your xenomorphic friend, her muffled screams underneath the excessive amount of mucus are impressive. Fires snickers along with Day from their hiding spot while Pines just has a calm smile plastered across her face as she keeps nodding slowly.
Oh hey, Fires says as she notices your arrival and the snickering immediately quiets down, uh, hey boss! They were keeping the juggler amused, as you said. He's a cool guy once you work out a rapport, it turns out!
Yeah, like, Day also starts to nod, he can make all kinds of fun party favors with those salivary glands of his! They've been having an enchanting time, like.
Pines begins to chuckle as well. Shoulda seen Dipper when they had your boy drool into his rum, dude's been locked in his room screaming about all the fun colors since yesterday, haha. The other two begin to make gestures at her about keeping quiet, but she doesn't appear to notice.
So, like, Day begins to steer the topic of conversation as she adjusts her shawl reflexively, anything they can help you with? Training's going well, right? No problems here if you were just checking in, they've been handling things quite well as you can see, like.
Dan finally notices you as well and gingerly trots over to your position on his multitude of legs. Hello, he clicks at you. While you were away he was practicing humor. It is a lot like intimidation and he thinks he is getting good at it. The captive crewmember on the ceiling looks at you pleadingly as she notices you and your assistants off to the side.
... And I still need to collect a sample for the tape. Good job, Wilde.
Take advantage of my regained mobility to look around for another sharp thing, preferably one which won't violently disagree with being used as such. Hey, maybe I can just cut the clothes free again.
[Dangerous Angles: 6]
You wander around a little while along the catwalks on the lower levels, looking for something that'd be suitable for carving these spider nets at the bottom of the alleyways. There ought to be something sharp around (and preferably non-hostile at that) that you could use, you think as you wander along the beshadowed streets.
Eventually, you're not sure in how long, you manage to locate a particularly derelict-looking ex-alleyway between a leaning temple and a petrified nunnery, slightly outside the merchant quarter proper (not that it's easy to make a distinction here in the properly abandoned levels). The floor appears to have collapsed downward in a landslide of cobblestones and accumulated garbage, all starting from a crack in the wall at the dead end of the alleyway. Lodged in his crack, and presumably originating it, seems to be an ancient battleaxe. Next to it, in the nunnery's corner, sits a long-immobile, somewhat short figure mummified with age that appears to have put on a set of plate armor slightly less than halfway, a few of the missing pieces still unstolen at the bottom of the landslide. A row of fossilized girls peers petrified at the figure from the nunnery's ancient windows with what might be worry or amusement, or a mixture of both.
"It's just a pleasant walk in the woods, really; why not just go straight for it? Least chance of trouble, really, since it's the fastest way, right?"
Right? Encourage to go straight for it.
Your followers seem terrified at the prospect, but then you are the man with the sword and the can-do madness to see them through - turning around now might very well be as certain a death as going straight on, and so you head on.
[A Walk In The Woods: 3]
Tabernacle keeps an eye out, and so do all others, not daring to speak or make a sound as you go on the final approach and the trees thin out - about a mile off to the side a group of clansmen in extremely colorful garb or perhaps body paint wander, indubitably keeping an eye on you and proceeding roughly at an even pace with you. Treefrogs, Lily whispers, no mistake - never seen them this close before. They're not attacking... yet. Wonder if that's a good thing, Helen mutters. Probably not, responds Tabernacle, clanfolk letting you know where they are is seldom a good thing - probably expect you to turn back at the sight.
You pass along one of the minor bluffs toward the looming metropolis of Elizabeth, her five tall towers regarding you with strange curiosity, a few winged shapes circling around her outskirts that seem to be making your people more nervous the closer you get. This is nothing compared to how they react when you notice half a dozen tall figures emerge from their well-chosen cover to greet you. Whereas you may have had doubt about certain others, these resemble clansmen in a broader, non-Australian sense that you're quite familiar - to a man and woman they are garbed in white robes, with a few off-turquoise and light green numbers in the back, each one streaked with reddish-brown swirls, points and more accidental-looking flecks. Each has at least one spear hoisted along their backs with a head that seems not so much fashioned to facilitate stabbing as it is to make the stabbing as painful and brutal as inhumanly possible. In every fold of their filthy white smocks a sharp knife or two appears to hide, as you discover when you hear a good dozen or two more being drawn in the brush around you.
[A Curious Case: 5]
A tall fellow in a turquoise smock with particularly rich ornamentation slinks forward from among the Shrikes, the look in his eyes being the sort usually reserved for a five-alarm clown fire. The clansmen all keep low and mostly out of sight (oh my, there must be really quite a lot of them, Silver whispers), just enough to make their fifty-odd numbers and murderous intent only barely kept in check by sheer bewilderment clear.
Wayward Rabbits, he points to you with a very well-used gutting knife, you approach the site where the clans are set to meet - your trespass is unprecedented in the history of the unspoken agreement. Explain yourselves, or they will conduct a divination on the spot.
The Treefrogs watch from a distant bluff as your followers shrink into a small crowd, slowly encircled by Shrikes. The towers of Elizabeth look down from several miles off. The Shrikes are already sharpening knives.
Hm, so is it dead, or just gone? I suppose I should take a look around. I wish the innkeeper well, then leave the Nuts and Humphrey to search the neighborhood for more signs of ghoul... affliction? Haunting? Whatever it is that ghoul was doing.
[The Investigation Continues: 4]
It becomes clear soon enough that you've addressed the symptom rather than the cause - while the innkeeper's well-wishes and the general merriment inside the Nuts & Humphrey do much to assuage your concern, the docks area still looks to be under a shroud of a broader sort of fear, thrown into sharp relief by the power of your strange cure creating a golden, shining oasis of joy in the middle.
What's interesting is the border region between the inn and the rest of the area - the fear and the synthesis pushing against each other as a cautious few people ebb and flow around the area, almost as if the fear itself were alive in a sense, and suddenly wounded as it twitches throughout the district.
More than that, you can't shake the feeling outside that you are being closely watched, much more closely than before - as if a pair of eyes were fixed on the back of your head at all times, staring unblinkingly. As Oggie looks around instinctively as well and the doctor seems momentarily unnerved, you know that you've all been marked to one degree or another.
[The Doctor's Insights: 5]
Aha, the doctor says, that just about settles it in that case! Don't you see? You seem to be dealing with some variety of minder on the loose - happens now and then, she'd suppose, what with the uprising and such. Stoatfolk really are a bit superstitious about them, it seems. Can't really blame them, of course, what with the feedback loops they must be exploiting here - she's heard anxiety is a considerably untapped resource in common minding practice, especially when dealing with crowds. Can't say she's familiarized herself directly with the theory in question, but minding warfare, particularly the mythical variety, was certainly a subject of study in the towers, this much she is aware of.
You can't help but perceive a tinge of momentary panic in the air as the doctor explains all this, followed by a hasty retreat of the sensation of surveillance.
Oh my, says the doctor, seems like they're quite close as well! How fortuitous!
Leif Erikson, Mastermind
- The Mind, It Goes A-Wandering: 2
- 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 (2 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
- Tricks of the Mind: Demiurgic Orgion
- 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 Shaman of Festivals
- Dreams of the Dark: A Promise Broken
- A Night That Burns Forever: Juicy Gossip
- The Miracle of Life: Wayward Rabbit
- A Faith Is Born: 200 Moth-Believers
- Monkey Business: In Terribly Good Health
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
- Our Old Bridge Is Falling Down: A Monster Hunter
- She Who Fights Monsters: Minders In The Streets
Jack Daniels, Karate Man
- Linda the peg-legged manikin (lively, joyful)
- 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: Meticulously Analyzed
- Process of Elimination: Pounds of Flesh
- The Night Sky: How Very, Very Quaint
- Fires, Pines & Day, Minions At Law: Dan Duty
- 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: 12
- 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
- The Voracious Dark: The Place of Lost Souls
- The Voracious Dark: Testing Run
- Proof of Concept: An Interesting Student
- Clans of the Northern Wilderness: A Knife At The Throat
- Body Count: 12
Oscar Wilde, Chemistry Teacher
- Wounds: 2
- A Word: REVELATION
- A Word: THANKS
- 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, out of light, collecting)
- Bottle of aspirin
- Time-ender's measure (wrapped, processing? stopping?)
- 10 m of rope
- Half a candle
- 1 rat, skinless and smoked
- 4 gp
- Lock of Hair (unidentified)
- Iron nail, unused
- An Inauspicious Key
- Moth-Eaten Hat (worn)
- Old Brown Waistcoat (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: Makala's Old Glory
- 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: Copper Springs from Old Bobbleparts
- Wizzards Bargins: A Roll of Your Finest Sticky Tape
- Wizzards Bargins: Styli of Ancient Plumbago
- In High Spirits: But Not Very Useful In The Lab
- Traces of Mischief: Missing Finger