The ground where Asamu-Oni sat was saturated with wrong. The Sygola trees around it, lush with life only days before, were dead and decaying now, their leaves gone, their trunks split open and festering like corpses. The lagoon was a deep red, like an eyeless socket, a pit of blood in the jungle. Gone were the laughing Zipsum of the Riverswift Tribe, the birds of the air, and the frogs in the lagoon. In their place maggots and bacteria swarmed, greedy for this hoard of carrion, but an observant eye would see how quickly the scavengers were destroyed by the malevolent presence in that place. Their shriveled corpses piled up, becoming food for the next insatiable but doomed flesh-crawler.
Karia wept to see the destruction as she asked the presence, "Who are you?"
I am Asamu-Oni, the one who rots.
"Why are you here?"
I was called.
"What is your purpose?"
I will avenge my brother, Garandou-Oni, the one who takes.
The trunk of a giant Sygola tree collapsed with a noxious fart. Rotting from the inside, foul gases built up until they forced their way through the soft bark, rending the tree in half. Karia shuddered, the smell was horrible. Asamu-Oni shifted his weight, sending black tendrils leaking along the ground, pulling himself like an obscene pile of refuse through the jungle.
"They will be expecting you."
That is good. The taste is sweeter when the death is foreseen.
"Many things have been foreseen regarding them."
But only one of these is certain.
"I have given them gifts and curses for moments such as these."
Your breath is wasted Karia. I am going to eat your children. All of them. And then I will shit them out and they will sit on you, rotting, for eternity.
New Technology Summit
The seabirds of Marina wheeled through the air above Goshi's flagship Mothra. The crew today was unusually tense. The Executor had returned from his summit with the Biomade Oversight Council visibly pleased. Seeing a man who never showed emotion, and whose whims could result in your death, being outwardly happy was a very unsettling thing. Every sailor and officer on that boat was making every effort to be invisible.
For one person aboard, being invisible required no effort. Her livid eyes materialized out of the shadows, followed by a bright pink bob. Her footsteps making no sound, she slipped down the corridor and out the hatch, stepping nimbly into a shore-boat and nodding to the man at the engine. Without a word he took her skipping across the waves toward the docks. No one on Mothra knew who this girl was, and no one wanted to know. The Executor kept his own council and it was safer that way.
Slipping through the streets of Marina she drew no attention. Despite her remarkable appearance, she had a gift for being inconspicuous. In a city like Marina - full of plazas and monuments where people congregate for long strolls and outdoor meals - it was even easier. No one noticed her slipping the lock on a wealthy townhouse door. She was forgotten before the door closed behind her.
Inside was a subtly lavish apartment. It had a furtive quality to it, as though it knew it was expensive, but didn't want you to know. No big show pieces, but here and there little touches peeked out, indicating someone with champagne taste. From upstairs the steamy sweet smell of a Thula pipe (a local opiate) drifted down. She made her way up the carpeted staircase and into the room from whence the perfume emanated.
A skinny Biomade man with more than a few broken veins in his cheeks failed to notice her until she was already seated in front of him. He jumped suddenly, disturbing the coals under his Thula pipe and burning his knee.
"Ow. Oooh. Hot!" He patted the spot with a cool silk pillow and made awkward faces. "How did you get in here?"
"Nevermind. You sent a message."
"What? No I didn't. I mean, not to you. How did you know?" He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog from his mind. Focus would be necessary and he could hardly see straight.
"You're slow today Sawaguchi. If an old friend of former director Yamoto..."
"Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto," he corrected her.
"If an old friend of Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto starts inquiring too much around this business I'm going to find out."
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her suspiciously for a few moments hoping desperately that she was not reading his mind at that very moment. It was a desperate ploy to stall for a moment to regain some sobriety.
"But, your story seems so unlikely," he protested. "I'm sure that his factor was a girl called Samara and he would have told me if he'd changed something that important before his death."
"Fine. Don't believe me, but then, how did I find you, Sawaguchi? How do I know so much about your relationship to him? Why do I keep intercepting your messages? You must have a better explanation." Despite herself, she was enjoying the game, a little.
Head swimming, he admitted he had no such explanation.
She leaned closer to him and put her index finger under his chin. Her smile was impish, and he had to admit, sexy, the kind of girl Yamoto would have liked. "Listen," she said, "Just tell me what you wanted to give to the Biomade Oversight Council today, before I intercepted the message."
The walls were sprouting lilacs. The drugs were taking effect.
"It's just a file. Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto made me promise to deliver it to the Biomade Oversight Council when Executor Blade was making his proposal to them about some new technology. The Lord was convinced that this technology represented a terrible danger and he said the file would prove it." Sawaguchi paused and she blinked her big red eyes at him in anticipation. "He said if we delivered it too early, then Blade would have time to do damage control. Too late and the technology would already be approved. But if we did it at the Summit then the licenses would be revoked, the project sunk, and that would be that."
Sawaguchi couldn't tell if it was her touch, or her proximity, or the drugs, but something was making him very dizzy indeed.
The girl pulled her hand away and gave him a pitying expression. "Apparently you didn't hear then?" she said.
He stared blankly.
"They moved the time of the meeting up this morning. Blade got his technology approved hours ago. The demonstration was a huge success. Apparently he teleported a HeiShi soldier across the room before their very eyes."
Sawaguchi suddenly looked more alert - and very alarmed.
"But... no. But, my contact on the council said the meeting was this afternoon," he felt the floor crumbling out from beneath his feet.
"I'm afraid that I intercepted those messages too."
His face melted into tears, "He only asked me for one promise. For years he was doing me favors and he only asked me for one promise..."
She watched him sink to the floor and dig his fingers into the lush carpet. "The DisLocators are already in mass production. With this announcement, Goshi is ready to start deploying them. Soon Geneva Prime will have thousands of soldiers equipped with them - the most mobile army in the world."
Every word made him shrink. He sobbed feebly and grasped for the pipe, sucking white cloud through the bubbling tube.
In his incoherent state he babbled, "Maybe it's not too late. I can still give the file to the Council. They might review their decision."
He was still babbling when the psychic knife passed through his temple.
"The permission was just a formality in any case, but Blade would rather if you didn't hand that file in after all." She drained his life right out of him, and kept on draining long after he was unconscious until his body was a dried husk on the floor.
A clear acrylic disk sat on the top of a beautiful wooden chest of drawers nearby. She snapped it in half and strolled casually from the room.
For one person aboard, being invisible required no effort. Her livid eyes materialized out of the shadows, followed by a bright pink bob. Her footsteps making no sound, she slipped down the corridor and out the hatch, stepping nimbly into a shore-boat and nodding to the man at the engine. Without a word he took her skipping across the waves toward the docks. No one on Mothra knew who this girl was, and no one wanted to know. The Executor kept his own council and it was safer that way.
Slipping through the streets of Marina she drew no attention. Despite her remarkable appearance, she had a gift for being inconspicuous. In a city like Marina - full of plazas and monuments where people congregate for long strolls and outdoor meals - it was even easier. No one noticed her slipping the lock on a wealthy townhouse door. She was forgotten before the door closed behind her.
Inside was a subtly lavish apartment. It had a furtive quality to it, as though it knew it was expensive, but didn't want you to know. No big show pieces, but here and there little touches peeked out, indicating someone with champagne taste. From upstairs the steamy sweet smell of a Thula pipe (a local opiate) drifted down. She made her way up the carpeted staircase and into the room from whence the perfume emanated.
A skinny Biomade man with more than a few broken veins in his cheeks failed to notice her until she was already seated in front of him. He jumped suddenly, disturbing the coals under his Thula pipe and burning his knee.
"Ow. Oooh. Hot!" He patted the spot with a cool silk pillow and made awkward faces. "How did you get in here?"
"Nevermind. You sent a message."
"What? No I didn't. I mean, not to you. How did you know?" He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog from his mind. Focus would be necessary and he could hardly see straight.
"You're slow today Sawaguchi. If an old friend of former director Yamoto..."
"Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto," he corrected her.
"If an old friend of Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto starts inquiring too much around this business I'm going to find out."
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her suspiciously for a few moments hoping desperately that she was not reading his mind at that very moment. It was a desperate ploy to stall for a moment to regain some sobriety.
"But, your story seems so unlikely," he protested. "I'm sure that his factor was a girl called Samara and he would have told me if he'd changed something that important before his death."
"Fine. Don't believe me, but then, how did I find you, Sawaguchi? How do I know so much about your relationship to him? Why do I keep intercepting your messages? You must have a better explanation." Despite herself, she was enjoying the game, a little.
Head swimming, he admitted he had no such explanation.
She leaned closer to him and put her index finger under his chin. Her smile was impish, and he had to admit, sexy, the kind of girl Yamoto would have liked. "Listen," she said, "Just tell me what you wanted to give to the Biomade Oversight Council today, before I intercepted the message."
The walls were sprouting lilacs. The drugs were taking effect.
"It's just a file. Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto made me promise to deliver it to the Biomade Oversight Council when Executor Blade was making his proposal to them about some new technology. The Lord was convinced that this technology represented a terrible danger and he said the file would prove it." Sawaguchi paused and she blinked her big red eyes at him in anticipation. "He said if we delivered it too early, then Blade would have time to do damage control. Too late and the technology would already be approved. But if we did it at the Summit then the licenses would be revoked, the project sunk, and that would be that."
Sawaguchi couldn't tell if it was her touch, or her proximity, or the drugs, but something was making him very dizzy indeed.
The girl pulled her hand away and gave him a pitying expression. "Apparently you didn't hear then?" she said.
He stared blankly.
"They moved the time of the meeting up this morning. Blade got his technology approved hours ago. The demonstration was a huge success. Apparently he teleported a HeiShi soldier across the room before their very eyes."
Sawaguchi suddenly looked more alert - and very alarmed.
"But... no. But, my contact on the council said the meeting was this afternoon," he felt the floor crumbling out from beneath his feet.
"I'm afraid that I intercepted those messages too."
His face melted into tears, "He only asked me for one promise. For years he was doing me favors and he only asked me for one promise..."
She watched him sink to the floor and dig his fingers into the lush carpet. "The DisLocators are already in mass production. With this announcement, Goshi is ready to start deploying them. Soon Geneva Prime will have thousands of soldiers equipped with them - the most mobile army in the world."
Every word made him shrink. He sobbed feebly and grasped for the pipe, sucking white cloud through the bubbling tube.
In his incoherent state he babbled, "Maybe it's not too late. I can still give the file to the Council. They might review their decision."
He was still babbling when the psychic knife passed through his temple.
"The permission was just a formality in any case, but Blade would rather if you didn't hand that file in after all." She drained his life right out of him, and kept on draining long after he was unconscious until his body was a dried husk on the floor.
A clear acrylic disk sat on the top of a beautiful wooden chest of drawers nearby. She snapped it in half and strolled casually from the room.
Fractal Games
Infinite curves on invisible planes generate, turn, swell, and simulate 3-dimensions across a lighted acrylic screen. Each iteration no matter the level of magnification, mathematically identical, formed from some portion of the whole. Rei had never seen such a complex fractal.Not that she was a mathematician mind you, but she dimly remembered Dr. Soren using fractals in his lessons about predicting the movements of the tides, or the shape of trees, or the way different materials would crack when impacted by a bullet. The shapes were burned into her memory bank, deep in there, and none of them compared to this one in terms of the disparity between their Hausdorff dimension and the topological dimension.
Whole days had gone by before she even discovered that Spark's Journal had an interface. She could manipulate the image slightly, zooming in and out, or freezing the movement. Rei turned the picture over from every angle time and again attempting to discern if it was following a pattern of exact self-similarity or quasi self-similarity, or whether it might be an optical illusion entirely generated by mere statistical self-similarity. It was work dredging up these childhood geometry lessons. More tinkering eventually brought up a blank command prompt. She stared at it, with no idea what to type.
Evening after evening of examining the damn repeating curves began to have their effect after all. Rei was dreaming in fractals. When she closed her eyes she saw fractals. The fractals were leaping out at her from the forest as she walked; in the clouds in the sky. It was as if her vision was being trained by the prolonged focus. The world itself seemed to be taking on a pattern of predictable sets in infinite iterations. Meaning, is the illusion we see when our mind has transposed the fractals into plants and faces.
Then one morning, before the sunrise, Rei woke up with a start. Spark you genius! The fractal is multi-stable. It can be calculated in two ways. You built choice into this journal of yours.
The cursor in the command prompt blinked. Rei could begin the calculations for the fractal as if it were in either the deterministic or the stochastic mode.
Which would it be?
For the Love of Backstory
Moses is almost always forthcoming.
"I, uh, well, my parents died when I was about 8, I think - a cave-in. They didn't double-join the i-beams in the tunnel above ours and...well, anyway, there was a cave in. I was stuck down there for...I dunno, a long time. I slept six times before they found me. I think the news said a week. I knew my parents were dead, and for a while I thought I was too - that I'd become a ghost, down there, until I heard the digging sounds, and then I felt all of the pain. My arm" he holds up his right, mechanical arm, " was crushed and my leg too. The female bone." No, you correct him, probably the femur. "Oh."
"So I was sent to an orphanage. I had a lot more of me mechified than most of the other kids, but it was just, um, prosthetics at the time." The word is said carefully and slowly. "It was weird, because my brother, Tank, he survived. He's my big brother - older too. Really big. And I still have a couple cousins, but..." He stops.
"I don't know where they are, now."
After a while he continues. "But I ended up at this orphanage. And I was kinda famous, so people would come to see me sometimes. They just wanted to look, and I didn't talk then, so that was ok. Then - have you heard of Amuro Namie?" You have - she is the daughter and sole heir of a powerful Allskin family in Geneva Prime with connections to Goshi. "Well, she came to see me, and I remember that she was so pretty, I said 'you're pretty', and I hadn't talked in a while, so everyone was surprised. So after that I lived with the Amuro family, in their high-rise, in the middle of the city."
"It was really nice. I was really happy, and Namie was happy. I got much better upgrades, and I got to thinking about what I would do with myself, what my Job would be. I figured, I'm a survivor. I survived a cave-in, so how could I do a Job that was about surviving? That's how I got to be a Deep Delver, and I started fixing myself up to do that."
"So things were going good, and I grew up, and they tried to teach me a lot of stuff about the First Minds and about sitting still and about bowing. I think some of it stuck. But I turned 15 and it was time for me to get a job on my own, and I was all set to be a Delver. But Namie had another gift for me. She had this box" he indicates, pointing over his right shoulder, to the warm, clicking box that is now scuffed with wear but still quite intact "and she had a socket for it specially made. We mounted it, me helping and looking in a mirror - she didn't want anyone to help, and didn't want me to tell anyone. I didn't figure out why for a while - I just thought it was a secret, like our secret. And I guess its also that."
He walks for a while, very quiet (for a Mechified) and doesn't respond to your further prompts for some time.
"I'm changing. Everything is changing. So fast. I feel like...like I always keep seeing clearer, but I can't...say what I see. Its so different." After a few false starts at going on, "But after I left the Amuros, I think Namie's dad was happy I was gone, and she couldn't really visit me in the mines. She wrote a few times but...I'm not much of a writer, so I guess she gave up on it. Its...getting from the mines to their high-rise...its a long way, you know? Not just miles."
"So I was a Deep Delver, got promoted to Second Class. I saw my brother a couple of times - he's a 'spitter, and...well, I told you how big he is." Moses holds his arm over his head as far as it will go to indicate what he means. "But I think he was doing ok. Finding good work. I wasn't close with my cousins, but they helped me get in on a delving team. I got good at tossing big rocks onto a conveyor, and alter did my own delving. I was pretty good at it. Careful. No...no cave-ins for anybody else. And that's about that, before...all this happened."
"I, uh, well, my parents died when I was about 8, I think - a cave-in. They didn't double-join the i-beams in the tunnel above ours and...well, anyway, there was a cave in. I was stuck down there for...I dunno, a long time. I slept six times before they found me. I think the news said a week. I knew my parents were dead, and for a while I thought I was too - that I'd become a ghost, down there, until I heard the digging sounds, and then I felt all of the pain. My arm" he holds up his right, mechanical arm, " was crushed and my leg too. The female bone." No, you correct him, probably the femur. "Oh."
"So I was sent to an orphanage. I had a lot more of me mechified than most of the other kids, but it was just, um, prosthetics at the time." The word is said carefully and slowly. "It was weird, because my brother, Tank, he survived. He's my big brother - older too. Really big. And I still have a couple cousins, but..." He stops.
"I don't know where they are, now."
After a while he continues. "But I ended up at this orphanage. And I was kinda famous, so people would come to see me sometimes. They just wanted to look, and I didn't talk then, so that was ok. Then - have you heard of Amuro Namie?" You have - she is the daughter and sole heir of a powerful Allskin family in Geneva Prime with connections to Goshi. "Well, she came to see me, and I remember that she was so pretty, I said 'you're pretty', and I hadn't talked in a while, so everyone was surprised. So after that I lived with the Amuro family, in their high-rise, in the middle of the city."
"It was really nice. I was really happy, and Namie was happy. I got much better upgrades, and I got to thinking about what I would do with myself, what my Job would be. I figured, I'm a survivor. I survived a cave-in, so how could I do a Job that was about surviving? That's how I got to be a Deep Delver, and I started fixing myself up to do that."
"So things were going good, and I grew up, and they tried to teach me a lot of stuff about the First Minds and about sitting still and about bowing. I think some of it stuck. But I turned 15 and it was time for me to get a job on my own, and I was all set to be a Delver. But Namie had another gift for me. She had this box" he indicates, pointing over his right shoulder, to the warm, clicking box that is now scuffed with wear but still quite intact "and she had a socket for it specially made. We mounted it, me helping and looking in a mirror - she didn't want anyone to help, and didn't want me to tell anyone. I didn't figure out why for a while - I just thought it was a secret, like our secret. And I guess its also that."
He walks for a while, very quiet (for a Mechified) and doesn't respond to your further prompts for some time.
"I'm changing. Everything is changing. So fast. I feel like...like I always keep seeing clearer, but I can't...say what I see. Its so different." After a few false starts at going on, "But after I left the Amuros, I think Namie's dad was happy I was gone, and she couldn't really visit me in the mines. She wrote a few times but...I'm not much of a writer, so I guess she gave up on it. Its...getting from the mines to their high-rise...its a long way, you know? Not just miles."
"So I was a Deep Delver, got promoted to Second Class. I saw my brother a couple of times - he's a 'spitter, and...well, I told you how big he is." Moses holds his arm over his head as far as it will go to indicate what he means. "But I think he was doing ok. Finding good work. I wasn't close with my cousins, but they helped me get in on a delving team. I got good at tossing big rocks onto a conveyor, and alter did my own delving. I was pretty good at it. Careful. No...no cave-ins for anybody else. And that's about that, before...all this happened."
Walking... and more walking
Well now, intrepid adventurers, you have 600km to traverse overland just over half of which is forested (not jungle anymore, but temperate-wet forests - like California Redwoods). I'm going to stick to my previous number and say you guys make 25km/day (you are faster over the plains, but much slower through the woods, it evens out). Thus you have 24 full days of travel ahead of you, to arrive on the 25th day at your destination - the landmark Inari's Grandmother, about 10km away from the Grand Chantry. You can look on the map to get your bearings.
The purpose of this 4th-wall breaking post is to begin a conversation about what you do with the journey. Use the comment threads to tell me, and each other, how you spend the evenings and nights. What do you chat about? How do your relationships with each other change as you get to know one another in long conversations? You may feel free to actually post story entries describing the journey if you are moved, but at least drop me a comment so I know where to pick up with you at the start of next session.
I am not saying that the journey goes smoothly and nothing happens on the way there. I will deal with any events that happen along the way separately, but for the remainder of the time spent walking and walking some more, I want to cover it out of game so that the actual session can focus on interesting action. Lacking Peter Jackson's budget for panoramic landscape shots, this section of the story will be much less interesting than when the Fellowship walks for years on end.
Discuss.
Hope on the Horizon
The Wandering Star peeked over the horizon. It was late rising tonight, though it is difficult to call something late which never follows a schedule. Nevertheless, as Luna slipped beneath the sea of leaves that is the canopy of the old growth forests around the Grand Chantry, Elder Moon thought to herself that the star was late. Waiting for it to come up she had lost a great deal of sleep.
Yes, waiting for the Star, that's it Moon, my dear. It has nothing to do with the message you received, or the butterflies you've had ever since it arrived.
Elder Moon gave her inner-critic a stern look. A member of the Elder Council could certainly expect to retain a certain amount of dignity - even in her own mental monologue.
Nevertheless, it was true that she had been giddy this evening, an odd feeling for a fox-daughter of her age. Yet, even the oddness of it gave her pleasure. She felt light and hopeful, which made her all the more nervous and cautious. Now was not the time to go getting one's hopes up. All the signs, all the omens, all the observations and predictions were pointing to catastrophe. Daily news arrived from the mouth of Zipsum messengers describing more and more deforestation by the Children of Steel. Rumors were beginning to fly of demons haunting the jungles. The very behavior of the Wandering Star seemed ominous in the context of the oppressive reality of impending disaster.
Moon had countless reasons to be worried, which is why she found it so worrisome that far from feeling afraid she felt... excited.
One week ago the delegation of the Choir of the Seasons arrived at the Chantry carrying a sedan with the Most-High Soul-Singer Elder Winter inside. The rare visit, of the most honored living Prill, was occasioned, he said, by the near certainty that something prophesied to him long ago was about to take place. So certain, he said, because he was about to leave this sorry world and his aching body behind and so it had better happen any moment now, or else... Moon had to admit that it had taken several days of patiently listening before she honestly believed that he wasn't just a senile old baritone.
Why the Elder Winter had specifically summoned her and demanded her presence by his bedside every day since his arrival, she could not fathom. However, he had ceaselessly shared with her the things he had been told to expect in his youth. He had told her of the coming of spring. He had spoken of the arrival of guests, sojourners, bringing with them the tide of renewal. He had explained the secret meaning of the Wandering Star and even taught her a portion of its private symphony. Whether anything he said was true or not, it was an incomparable honor to be given this time in his presence so close to his final hour, for beyond doubt his health was deteriorating rapidly. He would not again depart the bejewelled halls of the Grand Chantry.
And then... this afternoon, she heard a whisper on the breeze. The gentle caress of a distant loved one carrying a message - just as her own Mokuzai was fond of doing. The message said, "We are coming. Me and some companions. Meet us at Inari's Grandmother."
She nearly swooned. He's alive! He's alive and he's coming back to me! She'd relived the moment a thousand times in her heart since the message came and each time new joy sprung out of the weeks and weeks of worrying. Mokuzai was coming home, and though it was difficult to imagine that anything could be more wonderful than this news, it was also true that he was bringing companions, guests, sojourners. Is it possible that this could be a coincidence? So soon after she had believed Elder Winter's prediction? Is it not more likely that these companions were the very ones Winter spoke of? The ones who would bring renewal?
Despite all of her attempts to chide herself into reserved hope, she could feel the music bursting from her soul, a triumphant melody of resurrection. This, she was certain, is what it has all been pointing toward. The Dusk Sages and their obscure lore, the Anakarix and their mathematical prophecies, the Prill lore-singers and their aural wisdom - were they not all singing about this moment? About these people? About this historic culmination?
The Wandering Star rose late tonight - an omen of doom. Staring straight at the orb of light on the horizon she said, confidently, "You don't scare me. For I have heard the music of salvation."
Yes, waiting for the Star, that's it Moon, my dear. It has nothing to do with the message you received, or the butterflies you've had ever since it arrived.
Elder Moon gave her inner-critic a stern look. A member of the Elder Council could certainly expect to retain a certain amount of dignity - even in her own mental monologue.
Nevertheless, it was true that she had been giddy this evening, an odd feeling for a fox-daughter of her age. Yet, even the oddness of it gave her pleasure. She felt light and hopeful, which made her all the more nervous and cautious. Now was not the time to go getting one's hopes up. All the signs, all the omens, all the observations and predictions were pointing to catastrophe. Daily news arrived from the mouth of Zipsum messengers describing more and more deforestation by the Children of Steel. Rumors were beginning to fly of demons haunting the jungles. The very behavior of the Wandering Star seemed ominous in the context of the oppressive reality of impending disaster.
Moon had countless reasons to be worried, which is why she found it so worrisome that far from feeling afraid she felt... excited.
One week ago the delegation of the Choir of the Seasons arrived at the Chantry carrying a sedan with the Most-High Soul-Singer Elder Winter inside. The rare visit, of the most honored living Prill, was occasioned, he said, by the near certainty that something prophesied to him long ago was about to take place. So certain, he said, because he was about to leave this sorry world and his aching body behind and so it had better happen any moment now, or else... Moon had to admit that it had taken several days of patiently listening before she honestly believed that he wasn't just a senile old baritone.
Why the Elder Winter had specifically summoned her and demanded her presence by his bedside every day since his arrival, she could not fathom. However, he had ceaselessly shared with her the things he had been told to expect in his youth. He had told her of the coming of spring. He had spoken of the arrival of guests, sojourners, bringing with them the tide of renewal. He had explained the secret meaning of the Wandering Star and even taught her a portion of its private symphony. Whether anything he said was true or not, it was an incomparable honor to be given this time in his presence so close to his final hour, for beyond doubt his health was deteriorating rapidly. He would not again depart the bejewelled halls of the Grand Chantry.
And then... this afternoon, she heard a whisper on the breeze. The gentle caress of a distant loved one carrying a message - just as her own Mokuzai was fond of doing. The message said, "We are coming. Me and some companions. Meet us at Inari's Grandmother."
She nearly swooned. He's alive! He's alive and he's coming back to me! She'd relived the moment a thousand times in her heart since the message came and each time new joy sprung out of the weeks and weeks of worrying. Mokuzai was coming home, and though it was difficult to imagine that anything could be more wonderful than this news, it was also true that he was bringing companions, guests, sojourners. Is it possible that this could be a coincidence? So soon after she had believed Elder Winter's prediction? Is it not more likely that these companions were the very ones Winter spoke of? The ones who would bring renewal?
Despite all of her attempts to chide herself into reserved hope, she could feel the music bursting from her soul, a triumphant melody of resurrection. This, she was certain, is what it has all been pointing toward. The Dusk Sages and their obscure lore, the Anakarix and their mathematical prophecies, the Prill lore-singers and their aural wisdom - were they not all singing about this moment? About these people? About this historic culmination?
The Wandering Star rose late tonight - an omen of doom. Staring straight at the orb of light on the horizon she said, confidently, "You don't scare me. For I have heard the music of salvation."
Rei's Legacy
The Gogajin might have written this for Rei:
Rei, she was a wee lass
Who thought that we were too crass
She stood up to our women
Who put Kiyoshi's head a-swimmin'
And now she's lyin' on her ass!
Rei, she was a wee lass
Who thought that we were too crass
She stood up to our women
Who put Kiyoshi's head a-swimmin'
And now she's lyin' on her ass!
The Worth of the Gift
I feel ill when I take the lock of hair from Edana. I try not to show it. I want to refuse it. I feel the urge to throw it down in the dirt. But if I refuse it, I'd offend her, and I'm beginning to suspect that there are few things more dangerous than offended Gogajin. To remind me that I am desirable? Why would I want to be reminded of that?
I stuff the gift into my pack and mumble a faint thanks in Zipsum.
Oh yeah. I speak Zipsum now. It's very strange. It came very naturally to me, this squeaking Karian language. From what I've heard of Gogajin, I am sure that if I studied it, it would come just as easily, just as naturally. Was I designed with a talent for languages in mind? If so, why wasn't I trained in this before now?
Maybe it doesn't matter.
I am glad to be leaving. I see the bloody smear in the quarry that marks the place where Kufu devoured the mad Biomade sniper, and I stop short. Mokuzai has discovered something in the grass.
"May I?" I ask.
He holds the object out to me. It is a strange device, oddly shaped, but clearly Cheldrun. I don't recognize it, but Eris's blood still covers it. Moses opens the end of it, and shows that there at the heart of it, surrounded by circuitry, is a tiny shard of White Rock.
"White Rock," I murmur. Mokuzai looks disgusted.
It always comes back to White Rock. Everything.
Based on the design, I'd guess it was probably meant to be... inside the body. Eris had this?
White Rock. It touched her life just as it has shaped mine. I was born from the White Rock. If Inase Spark is my father, then the White Rock, whatever it is, is my mother. I am stained with its power. Maybe that's what the Kyo-TeeShee mean by 'goddess.' Maybe it's someone who was made with White Rock.
I frown.
Moses wasn't made with White Rock. Neither was Kiyoshi. Mokuzai was touched by White Rock, but I don't think High Dive or Una had ever encountered it before we all met. Maybe being made with White Rock is just one of the ways you can qualify for the state which the Kyo-TeeShee think of as 'godhood,' whatever that is.
I clean the device as best I can, wrap it in cloth, and slide it into an empty dagger-sheath on the pant leg of my leathers.
---------------
Two days later, after we have made camp for the night, I walk a short ways into the wild woods, the strange device in one hand, the lock of Gogajin hair in the other. I look at each in turn. Gogajin hair. Cheldrun device. Remembrances. I didn't know Eris the mad sniper, but it doesn't seem right for her to die like that out in the jungle with none to remember her except for the Jevumm that ate her. I wonder what she was like. Did she have any friends like mine? Were there people who thought she was desirable? ... Probably.
Who cares? She's just some crazy sniper that Kufu ate.
A memory comes back to me suddenly. There was an old Cheldrun holo-vid that Sever and Stitch snuck into the compound, once. It was the first time I had ever seen anything from the outside world. It's a story about comrades. Two soldiers, Biomade both of them, fighting at the front against the Gogajin. At the end, one of the two is dying, and she turns to her comrade and hands him a small locket. Within is a picture of her in happier times. She'd always said that she kept it to remember the better times, and to know that they'd get better again some day. But this time, this time she said, "Take this in remembrance of me."
He did.
Two possible remembrances. Two paths in the forest. One the last material witness to a dead Cheldrun sniper, the other a part of a Gogajin who gave unwanted attention. It's not a difficult choice.
In the end, it's the lock of hair that I discard like the piece of trash that it is, and the Cheldrun device that I re-wrap in cloth and carefully put back into the empty knife-sheath.
Edana didn't take something important into account when she handed out her gifts. Something that should have crossed her mind, but didn't.
I don't want to remember being desired.
I stuff the gift into my pack and mumble a faint thanks in Zipsum.
Oh yeah. I speak Zipsum now. It's very strange. It came very naturally to me, this squeaking Karian language. From what I've heard of Gogajin, I am sure that if I studied it, it would come just as easily, just as naturally. Was I designed with a talent for languages in mind? If so, why wasn't I trained in this before now?
Maybe it doesn't matter.
I am glad to be leaving. I see the bloody smear in the quarry that marks the place where Kufu devoured the mad Biomade sniper, and I stop short. Mokuzai has discovered something in the grass.
"May I?" I ask.
He holds the object out to me. It is a strange device, oddly shaped, but clearly Cheldrun. I don't recognize it, but Eris's blood still covers it. Moses opens the end of it, and shows that there at the heart of it, surrounded by circuitry, is a tiny shard of White Rock.
"White Rock," I murmur. Mokuzai looks disgusted.
It always comes back to White Rock. Everything.
Based on the design, I'd guess it was probably meant to be... inside the body. Eris had this?
White Rock. It touched her life just as it has shaped mine. I was born from the White Rock. If Inase Spark is my father, then the White Rock, whatever it is, is my mother. I am stained with its power. Maybe that's what the Kyo-TeeShee mean by 'goddess.' Maybe it's someone who was made with White Rock.
I frown.
Moses wasn't made with White Rock. Neither was Kiyoshi. Mokuzai was touched by White Rock, but I don't think High Dive or Una had ever encountered it before we all met. Maybe being made with White Rock is just one of the ways you can qualify for the state which the Kyo-TeeShee think of as 'godhood,' whatever that is.
I clean the device as best I can, wrap it in cloth, and slide it into an empty dagger-sheath on the pant leg of my leathers.
---------------
Two days later, after we have made camp for the night, I walk a short ways into the wild woods, the strange device in one hand, the lock of Gogajin hair in the other. I look at each in turn. Gogajin hair. Cheldrun device. Remembrances. I didn't know Eris the mad sniper, but it doesn't seem right for her to die like that out in the jungle with none to remember her except for the Jevumm that ate her. I wonder what she was like. Did she have any friends like mine? Were there people who thought she was desirable? ... Probably.
Who cares? She's just some crazy sniper that Kufu ate.
A memory comes back to me suddenly. There was an old Cheldrun holo-vid that Sever and Stitch snuck into the compound, once. It was the first time I had ever seen anything from the outside world. It's a story about comrades. Two soldiers, Biomade both of them, fighting at the front against the Gogajin. At the end, one of the two is dying, and she turns to her comrade and hands him a small locket. Within is a picture of her in happier times. She'd always said that she kept it to remember the better times, and to know that they'd get better again some day. But this time, this time she said, "Take this in remembrance of me."
He did.
Two possible remembrances. Two paths in the forest. One the last material witness to a dead Cheldrun sniper, the other a part of a Gogajin who gave unwanted attention. It's not a difficult choice.
In the end, it's the lock of hair that I discard like the piece of trash that it is, and the Cheldrun device that I re-wrap in cloth and carefully put back into the empty knife-sheath.
Edana didn't take something important into account when she handed out her gifts. Something that should have crossed her mind, but didn't.
I don't want to remember being desired.
Episode 15: The Ballad of Edana Griolsa
Where am I?
Where am I?
There's an echo in the darkness.
Who are you?
Who are you?
No, not an echo. I am not alone, even here.
I thought, in the end, I would be afraid, but I'm not. I don't know where I am, but I am not afraid.
Where am I?
Where are you?
Ah. There you are. I have so many questions -
But it all falls away in a torrent of fiery agony, pouring like liquid metal into my skull, filling it like a bowl of pain.
I sit up, see that I'm back in the quarry. Una mumbles "that's odd" and collapses on top of me, utterly exhausted. I feel bad because I'm not very soft. Someone carries her off to rest. The pain dulls to a throbbing ache that consumes my skull. I can barely think around it. The pain distracts me for a long time - we tell something of our story to Edana and the other Griolsa, and they tell us of their own story. Its...incredibly sad. Another mark against us.
We should never have come here. We should have...I don't know. Died out among the stars and left Karia alone. We've brought nothing but evil. Their people are Goshi slaves. The ones they sent to find out what happened were enslaved or killed as well.
What is there but to tear it all down?
That night, we ambush some Eyeless who have come upon our hideout. It feels...good, and also terrible, to kill them. Kyoshi is a whirlwind of steel, genuinely frightening. I...wish I had his focus. He is fierce but...measured, maybe, is the word. He makes me feel clumsy, swinging my heavy arm and throwing rocks.
But they do the damn job, don't they.
The next day I end up looking for Edana. Una wakes up really sick and we need to find that cure that Highdive was brewing. And I realize that all of the Gogajin who got cut might be poisoned too. Edana doesn't like it, but Larkin already has the idea, and I just jump on with him. Its weird. I don't want to do anything that Edana thinks is a bad idea - but the Gogajin aren't afraid, so I don't let myself be afraid. There's a hole in my head, and I'm still bandaged up, but so are they, and they're just flesh and bone.
I love these people. I love them so much. I want to live here forever. But by coming here, I've destroyed their home.
We go into the village and everything is going good until Kyoshi and I come upon this...I dunno, crazy lady, digging through Rei's bag. I figure she's not a threat and go to take the bag, but she somehow throws me on my ass. She's a lot stronger than she looks. She whips out of the way of Kyoshi's sword but isn't fast enough to dodge a shower of rocks. She has second thoughts after that, but scampers off. I tell her 'nice throw' - because it was, and it seems to surprise her. I just don't know if she was that serious. If she's that good, and all she did was throw me...I'm not sure what she's after. Then she goes...fuzzy...and leaves. I don't have time to think about it - good riddance, I guess.
Heading back, I see a flash, and a bang, and before I know it I've called up...something - I dimly remember calling on it yesterday, it's...something inside of me. Will. Mana. Something. But I give it out, and shields come up just in time. The bullet misses Kyoshi - he's so fast! - and just slams into me and stops there. Nice try.
And suddenly she's flying off the cliff, with Kufu behind her. I hadn't forgotten about him. I wondered where he was in all of this. I guess it makes sense...hunting. And now he's...eating. I feel...ok about that. She shot me. Maybe twice. And for no reason I can figure out. She said something about how we were supposed to be 'evil'. Who's telling her this stuff? Well, now she's tiger-shit.
I think all of this is getting to me. But I know she's being eaten, and...I don't feel that bad. I guess...there's bigger stuff going on than one more damn crazy person trying to kill us. Get in line, whoever you are.
A lot of our time after that is spent helping the Griolsa and just watching them. I watch Edana going among them, encouraging them. I can't imagine how they feel right now, but they accept it. They see good in it. I can't, but they do, and they're the ones who have lost a lot.
When Matthew wants to talk to me, I wonder what it's about. He has to have something to say, because it looks like he's stuck here, cut off from the maniacs who brought him here, except for the Zipsum he calls Tricks. Maybe Eris was with him too. I just don't want to find the time to figure it all out.
Matthew wants to know if I'll come with him back to Geneva Prime to pick up with this plan that Ryu-whatever told him about, about how the First Mind experiment was wrong, and how we should all be one. And I start talking to him. I tell him all the things I tell myself, and he just talks right back, about how I'm special, about how I'm different, I'm famous. I don't want to be famous! He has no idea of how much others have had to suffer because of me. Everyone I've known longer than a few months is dead for all I know. Crushed. Scattered. Buried. Burned.
And I see something, wondering if it's true. There is something different. I couldn't see it before. Something different about all of us. I see...that Matthew won't come with us. So I push him. I tell him a true thing; it sounds true, and it feels true.
There are some people who find out what is happening, what is wrong in the world, and they feel like they have to do something about it. And there are other people who know something about what's going on, but they don't feel that...whatever it is. Maybe they think someone else will do something. Like the Cheldrun, they think it is someone else's problem, or that it can be fixed with money or bombs. Or like the Gogajin, they know what's happening but they love their lives as they are, they can't see all the things they can do, all the strength they have, apart from their life now. They're...too selfish, or too...I dunno...beautiful to see. At least, to see like I see.
I ask - which kind of person is Matthew? But I already know. He followed Ryu here and he wants to follow me home. He just doesn't see. And I don't know what else I can tell him to make him see. But I see that we're parting, and that he's not a threat to the Gogajin. He's not a bad person. But I'm not who he's looking for, and he's not what this...what this world needs. Maybe someday.
I respect that he's honest about himself. I think we part on good terms. I look forward to one person, at least, who I won't have to fight if I ever come back to Geneva Prime.
If I ever come back. With every kilogram of me, I don't want to. But can I get away from it? Can I really leave? I don't know. Maybe the Prill know.
Una's powers are growing. She cured everyone in the quarry. It was funny talking to Tricks about it - yeah, she has magical healing powers. You either get it or you don't. But Tricks is looking for the angle, just like a junkie. It isn't just drugs, it's the way that you think, the way you look at the world. Looking for the angle. How can Tricks get some of that? If you knew, you'd have it already.
Go home Tricks. You don't have anywhere near the stomach for it, buddy. Go home and look for angles there. There aren't any angles where we're going. There's just a price, charged over and over and over again. And this isn't for you. Keep Matthew safe, if you can, if you're really a guide. I hope no one pays you enough to make you try to shoot me one of these days. You'll just learn the hard way.
But after all of this, I relax. I see more clearly. Edana talked about how it is that we could be risking all of this - what would make us risk all of this, what would make us keep going even when all these horrible things keep happening? And I didn't know what to say. None of us said anything.
Because we're not thinking about it that way. The cost? Cost!? No, we don't see it that way at all. We see something terrible happening, and we have to do whatever it takes to make it right. We have to do the thing that Matthew can't, that Tricks can't, that even Edana can't, not because we're better, but because we have to. I look around at these weird people who have become the closest thing to family for me, and I know that they have to too, that even Rei feels something like what I feel.
So we're going to see this through to the end.
After that, I feel so free, so calm. I play with the Gogajin kids a little. I take a nap. I was dead and now I'm alive. I've been buried more than once and have dug myself out. I've been stabbed, burned, and filled with bullets of all kinds, poisoned, paralyzed, thrown around, hit by a train, slashed with evil mind powers. I've fought a giant demon and been thrown into a building while stuck in a train car.
And dammit I'm still here. And if there is anything I can do to see that people like the Griolsa are still here when it's all said and done, then I'll do it. And I think these people I'm with will do it too.
***
When we're leaving, Edana talks to us, and she gives out gifts. So that we'll remember, as if there was any way we could forget the Griolsa, with their mighty blade and their huge hearts and the great cairn they'll build to honor their dead. She gives us gifts, when she has nothing, and humbles us all.
She gives Rei a lock of hair, to remind her that she's desirable. I think Rei turns the deepest shade of green I've ever seen, aside from maybe frogs and grass. She gives Kyoshi a mead-horn, to remind him of temperance - and when he shouldn't be temperate too. Looking back, its probably good he never got that donkey-sex. She gave me a stone, to remind me that it isn't the work, but those you work with that matters. I know. Believe me, I know. She gave the gathered tears of the Griolsa clan's grief to Una, to remind her that she doesn't need other Vorax to be loved. She wilted and straightened up at the same time, and her feathers stood out as if she was cold. Even when I feel really bad, I know that I'm not the last Mechified. Not by a long shot. But...poor Una. Adonna gave a bag of oats to Highdive, to remind her of hospitality. I'm not sure if she got the message, but maybe she was still mad at Tricks. I thought she was going to kill that guy when he started talking about his wild cousins. And finally she gives Mokuzai...breath. I'm not sure I get it, but Mokuzai looked happy.
And so we took our leave, and shortly after, Kufu took his leave of us. I wonder what he learned from Eris.
I wonder if we'll see any of them again.
I'd rather have a bite from a Jevumm or a kick from a Gogajin than a parade in Geneva Prime.
The forgiveness of the Griolsa clan is so heavy...I can hardly bear it. And even now we can offer nothing in return, except our departure, which might buy them some safety. Its so heavy, but I can carry it.
And I think we'll have to carry a lot more before this is over.
Where am I?
There's an echo in the darkness.
Who are you?
Who are you?
No, not an echo. I am not alone, even here.
I thought, in the end, I would be afraid, but I'm not. I don't know where I am, but I am not afraid.
Where am I?
Where are you?
Ah. There you are. I have so many questions -
But it all falls away in a torrent of fiery agony, pouring like liquid metal into my skull, filling it like a bowl of pain.
I sit up, see that I'm back in the quarry. Una mumbles "that's odd" and collapses on top of me, utterly exhausted. I feel bad because I'm not very soft. Someone carries her off to rest. The pain dulls to a throbbing ache that consumes my skull. I can barely think around it. The pain distracts me for a long time - we tell something of our story to Edana and the other Griolsa, and they tell us of their own story. Its...incredibly sad. Another mark against us.
We should never have come here. We should have...I don't know. Died out among the stars and left Karia alone. We've brought nothing but evil. Their people are Goshi slaves. The ones they sent to find out what happened were enslaved or killed as well.
What is there but to tear it all down?
That night, we ambush some Eyeless who have come upon our hideout. It feels...good, and also terrible, to kill them. Kyoshi is a whirlwind of steel, genuinely frightening. I...wish I had his focus. He is fierce but...measured, maybe, is the word. He makes me feel clumsy, swinging my heavy arm and throwing rocks.
But they do the damn job, don't they.
The next day I end up looking for Edana. Una wakes up really sick and we need to find that cure that Highdive was brewing. And I realize that all of the Gogajin who got cut might be poisoned too. Edana doesn't like it, but Larkin already has the idea, and I just jump on with him. Its weird. I don't want to do anything that Edana thinks is a bad idea - but the Gogajin aren't afraid, so I don't let myself be afraid. There's a hole in my head, and I'm still bandaged up, but so are they, and they're just flesh and bone.
I love these people. I love them so much. I want to live here forever. But by coming here, I've destroyed their home.
We go into the village and everything is going good until Kyoshi and I come upon this...I dunno, crazy lady, digging through Rei's bag. I figure she's not a threat and go to take the bag, but she somehow throws me on my ass. She's a lot stronger than she looks. She whips out of the way of Kyoshi's sword but isn't fast enough to dodge a shower of rocks. She has second thoughts after that, but scampers off. I tell her 'nice throw' - because it was, and it seems to surprise her. I just don't know if she was that serious. If she's that good, and all she did was throw me...I'm not sure what she's after. Then she goes...fuzzy...and leaves. I don't have time to think about it - good riddance, I guess.
Heading back, I see a flash, and a bang, and before I know it I've called up...something - I dimly remember calling on it yesterday, it's...something inside of me. Will. Mana. Something. But I give it out, and shields come up just in time. The bullet misses Kyoshi - he's so fast! - and just slams into me and stops there. Nice try.
And suddenly she's flying off the cliff, with Kufu behind her. I hadn't forgotten about him. I wondered where he was in all of this. I guess it makes sense...hunting. And now he's...eating. I feel...ok about that. She shot me. Maybe twice. And for no reason I can figure out. She said something about how we were supposed to be 'evil'. Who's telling her this stuff? Well, now she's tiger-shit.
I think all of this is getting to me. But I know she's being eaten, and...I don't feel that bad. I guess...there's bigger stuff going on than one more damn crazy person trying to kill us. Get in line, whoever you are.
A lot of our time after that is spent helping the Griolsa and just watching them. I watch Edana going among them, encouraging them. I can't imagine how they feel right now, but they accept it. They see good in it. I can't, but they do, and they're the ones who have lost a lot.
When Matthew wants to talk to me, I wonder what it's about. He has to have something to say, because it looks like he's stuck here, cut off from the maniacs who brought him here, except for the Zipsum he calls Tricks. Maybe Eris was with him too. I just don't want to find the time to figure it all out.
Matthew wants to know if I'll come with him back to Geneva Prime to pick up with this plan that Ryu-whatever told him about, about how the First Mind experiment was wrong, and how we should all be one. And I start talking to him. I tell him all the things I tell myself, and he just talks right back, about how I'm special, about how I'm different, I'm famous. I don't want to be famous! He has no idea of how much others have had to suffer because of me. Everyone I've known longer than a few months is dead for all I know. Crushed. Scattered. Buried. Burned.
And I see something, wondering if it's true. There is something different. I couldn't see it before. Something different about all of us. I see...that Matthew won't come with us. So I push him. I tell him a true thing; it sounds true, and it feels true.
There are some people who find out what is happening, what is wrong in the world, and they feel like they have to do something about it. And there are other people who know something about what's going on, but they don't feel that...whatever it is. Maybe they think someone else will do something. Like the Cheldrun, they think it is someone else's problem, or that it can be fixed with money or bombs. Or like the Gogajin, they know what's happening but they love their lives as they are, they can't see all the things they can do, all the strength they have, apart from their life now. They're...too selfish, or too...I dunno...beautiful to see. At least, to see like I see.
I ask - which kind of person is Matthew? But I already know. He followed Ryu here and he wants to follow me home. He just doesn't see. And I don't know what else I can tell him to make him see. But I see that we're parting, and that he's not a threat to the Gogajin. He's not a bad person. But I'm not who he's looking for, and he's not what this...what this world needs. Maybe someday.
I respect that he's honest about himself. I think we part on good terms. I look forward to one person, at least, who I won't have to fight if I ever come back to Geneva Prime.
If I ever come back. With every kilogram of me, I don't want to. But can I get away from it? Can I really leave? I don't know. Maybe the Prill know.
Una's powers are growing. She cured everyone in the quarry. It was funny talking to Tricks about it - yeah, she has magical healing powers. You either get it or you don't. But Tricks is looking for the angle, just like a junkie. It isn't just drugs, it's the way that you think, the way you look at the world. Looking for the angle. How can Tricks get some of that? If you knew, you'd have it already.
Go home Tricks. You don't have anywhere near the stomach for it, buddy. Go home and look for angles there. There aren't any angles where we're going. There's just a price, charged over and over and over again. And this isn't for you. Keep Matthew safe, if you can, if you're really a guide. I hope no one pays you enough to make you try to shoot me one of these days. You'll just learn the hard way.
But after all of this, I relax. I see more clearly. Edana talked about how it is that we could be risking all of this - what would make us risk all of this, what would make us keep going even when all these horrible things keep happening? And I didn't know what to say. None of us said anything.
Because we're not thinking about it that way. The cost? Cost!? No, we don't see it that way at all. We see something terrible happening, and we have to do whatever it takes to make it right. We have to do the thing that Matthew can't, that Tricks can't, that even Edana can't, not because we're better, but because we have to. I look around at these weird people who have become the closest thing to family for me, and I know that they have to too, that even Rei feels something like what I feel.
So we're going to see this through to the end.
After that, I feel so free, so calm. I play with the Gogajin kids a little. I take a nap. I was dead and now I'm alive. I've been buried more than once and have dug myself out. I've been stabbed, burned, and filled with bullets of all kinds, poisoned, paralyzed, thrown around, hit by a train, slashed with evil mind powers. I've fought a giant demon and been thrown into a building while stuck in a train car.
And dammit I'm still here. And if there is anything I can do to see that people like the Griolsa are still here when it's all said and done, then I'll do it. And I think these people I'm with will do it too.
***
When we're leaving, Edana talks to us, and she gives out gifts. So that we'll remember, as if there was any way we could forget the Griolsa, with their mighty blade and their huge hearts and the great cairn they'll build to honor their dead. She gives us gifts, when she has nothing, and humbles us all.
She gives Rei a lock of hair, to remind her that she's desirable. I think Rei turns the deepest shade of green I've ever seen, aside from maybe frogs and grass. She gives Kyoshi a mead-horn, to remind him of temperance - and when he shouldn't be temperate too. Looking back, its probably good he never got that donkey-sex. She gave me a stone, to remind me that it isn't the work, but those you work with that matters. I know. Believe me, I know. She gave the gathered tears of the Griolsa clan's grief to Una, to remind her that she doesn't need other Vorax to be loved. She wilted and straightened up at the same time, and her feathers stood out as if she was cold. Even when I feel really bad, I know that I'm not the last Mechified. Not by a long shot. But...poor Una. Adonna gave a bag of oats to Highdive, to remind her of hospitality. I'm not sure if she got the message, but maybe she was still mad at Tricks. I thought she was going to kill that guy when he started talking about his wild cousins. And finally she gives Mokuzai...breath. I'm not sure I get it, but Mokuzai looked happy.
And so we took our leave, and shortly after, Kufu took his leave of us. I wonder what he learned from Eris.
I wonder if we'll see any of them again.
I'd rather have a bite from a Jevumm or a kick from a Gogajin than a parade in Geneva Prime.
The forgiveness of the Griolsa clan is so heavy...I can hardly bear it. And even now we can offer nothing in return, except our departure, which might buy them some safety. Its so heavy, but I can carry it.
And I think we'll have to carry a lot more before this is over.
Episode 14: Innocent Bystanders
*gurgle* Ow. These Zipsum are too damn fast. The horror that was once Leaps-over-lakes drags his poisoned blade from my gut, I fall back utterly frustrated, but in no shape to garner a second attack. Everything was a bloody blur for a while...I know I healed myself at some point...then...huh? Rei? Rei was standing in front of me, blocking an attack from another abomination. I think, "Wow, Moses is really getting into her..." Then she was brutally cut down, and my fury at the destruction of a beautiful sentiment in action rose me to my feet. The rest of the battle was a whirlwind of blades and energy. How quickly a holy place falls.
As soon as the dozen or more altered Zipsum were dead I flew up to be sure there were no more coming. I can't explain my relief when I only saw two Gogajin at a dead run towards the top of the mountain. People gathered, and we all headed back toward the village. Turns out several of us were poisoned, and Mokuzai wasn't sure how to heal it. Great. I take this happy moment to notice that the discolored spot on my wrist has spread all the way to my elbow. Great. Can the day get any happier? Oh yes! Kiyoshi delightfully informs us that the Leaps-over-lakes said that all who helped us would be destroyed. Dare I say it? Great.
There seem to be Cheldrun visitors in the village that Larkin and company aren't too thrilled with, but at this point an impending Zipsum invasion weighs heavily on our minds. High Dive tries to brew an antidote to the poison, but too soon hordes of Riverswift are seen running toward the village. The large Gogajin drums beat ominously. A happy youthful Gogajin tells Edana there will be a big party because the Zipsum are coming...I just hope he doesn't die.
He can't die. There has to be something I can do. I am tired of my impotence against these unnaturally powerful beings. I fly high as the rest of my friends prepare for what seems like a hopeless battle against several hundred soul-sucking Zipsum. I felt hot tears boiling over my cheeks as my heart desperately hoped for some way to stop the onslaught, my ire rose, and I flew. I flew over the center of the seething mass, looked them in their non-existent eyes and screamed like I have never screamed before. I saw light shining impossibly brightly and then I was drawn into the black. "Please," my dying consciousness pleaded, "let me have saved my friends..." I blessedly didn't have time to consider the unlikeliness of that outcome.
I came to far from the battle, and didn't take time to wonder how I got there. I flew up and right back to see how I could help. To my horror I saw Kiyoshi unconscious at the tip of another man's blade. I silently dived toward the man to knock him off the roof, hoping to mess him up, as well as get him away from my nest-mate. Annoyingly, the man landed with a graceful roll, and still in possession of his blade, but at least he was farther from Kiyoshi. Blessed Edana picked up Keibatsu and Kiyoshi so that I was free to retrieve High Dive from the fray.
Rei was having fun with some sort of tornado effect she had whipped up, but we still decided that given our grievous injuries we should head for the cave in the quarry with the others. We arrived at the cave to find many badly injured and poisoned. Moses and Mokuzai were unconscious. Poor Mokuzai was just drained from the stunning things he had done with lightning, but Moses had a hole through his head and a life force that was barely existent. I cracked my proverbial mana-knuckles, and walked over to begin some much needed healing.
As soon as the dozen or more altered Zipsum were dead I flew up to be sure there were no more coming. I can't explain my relief when I only saw two Gogajin at a dead run towards the top of the mountain. People gathered, and we all headed back toward the village. Turns out several of us were poisoned, and Mokuzai wasn't sure how to heal it. Great. I take this happy moment to notice that the discolored spot on my wrist has spread all the way to my elbow. Great. Can the day get any happier? Oh yes! Kiyoshi delightfully informs us that the Leaps-over-lakes said that all who helped us would be destroyed. Dare I say it? Great.
There seem to be Cheldrun visitors in the village that Larkin and company aren't too thrilled with, but at this point an impending Zipsum invasion weighs heavily on our minds. High Dive tries to brew an antidote to the poison, but too soon hordes of Riverswift are seen running toward the village. The large Gogajin drums beat ominously. A happy youthful Gogajin tells Edana there will be a big party because the Zipsum are coming...I just hope he doesn't die.
He can't die. There has to be something I can do. I am tired of my impotence against these unnaturally powerful beings. I fly high as the rest of my friends prepare for what seems like a hopeless battle against several hundred soul-sucking Zipsum. I felt hot tears boiling over my cheeks as my heart desperately hoped for some way to stop the onslaught, my ire rose, and I flew. I flew over the center of the seething mass, looked them in their non-existent eyes and screamed like I have never screamed before. I saw light shining impossibly brightly and then I was drawn into the black. "Please," my dying consciousness pleaded, "let me have saved my friends..." I blessedly didn't have time to consider the unlikeliness of that outcome.
I came to far from the battle, and didn't take time to wonder how I got there. I flew up and right back to see how I could help. To my horror I saw Kiyoshi unconscious at the tip of another man's blade. I silently dived toward the man to knock him off the roof, hoping to mess him up, as well as get him away from my nest-mate. Annoyingly, the man landed with a graceful roll, and still in possession of his blade, but at least he was farther from Kiyoshi. Blessed Edana picked up Keibatsu and Kiyoshi so that I was free to retrieve High Dive from the fray.
Rei was having fun with some sort of tornado effect she had whipped up, but we still decided that given our grievous injuries we should head for the cave in the quarry with the others. We arrived at the cave to find many badly injured and poisoned. Moses and Mokuzai were unconscious. Poor Mokuzai was just drained from the stunning things he had done with lightning, but Moses had a hole through his head and a life force that was barely existent. I cracked my proverbial mana-knuckles, and walked over to begin some much needed healing.
Shrouded House of Bones
Jin-kalys stares, sputtering, into burning golden eyes framed in a face of bright orange and black. The creature lounging easily before him thrums with power barely withheld. It yawns, showing teeth shining like blades, then transfixes him once again.
"Tell us a poem." The voice vibrates the air and Jin feels it thrumming in his chest cavity like a Zipsum drum.
A poem. Oh gods.
A full season past, Jin-kalys departed Sighing Web of Trees, the village where he had lived his quiet life up to then, leaving the Academy where he had been carefully trained in the sophic arts and sciences at the feet of the Great Doctors of Arborealis Heliophilius, in the ways of curves and lines, of truth's vertices offered in sunlight's verity.
He has since wandered, seeking something he cannot comprehend, but which he knows is crucial. The calculations are...inerrant. Inexorable. The ineluctable Nexus drawing ever closer. It comes to him - nine branches. Each branch is necessary in its own way, providing the balance of angular measurements at the vertices he's found, meeting at the Apogee and Perigee and bending on their course through time, aligned to intersect with the Chronologic Ellipse. Instantaneous angle is approximately equivalent to the distance in time between each as they pass into the Eccliptic, at which point, they resolve as one would expect, intersecting at the Nexus. The key is the curvature -
"Lizard. Give us a poem, or give us your flesh."
Jin is wrenched back out of his reverie. "I. Ahem. Yes. A poem." He closes his eyes and lowers his tail and slows his breathing. The breathing of the Jevumm standing around him in a semicircle is utterly unnerving. He smells their predator stink and the musk of their terrible meeting-place, deep in the jungle.
It comes to him when he's finally calm. Saborakalys. Of course! The first poem he ever learned, in an ancient mode inherited from the Dusk Sages themselves (or so it is said). Jin clumsily renders it into his halting Jevumm, hoping the syllable patters translate -
Dawn burns, sets alight
Kindling the mind - molten gold
Mist is departing
Slowly morning stirs
Sluggish blood thaws and slips free
Murmuring gently
We inherit dawn
Speakers of the love of Sol
Loving speech of leaves
Incline inward, now
Sitting quiet breathing with
Sighing Web of Trees.
Bright golden eyes narrow. Isilo Govelara, his muzzle whitened to show his age, power undiminished, smirks, if such a thing is possible.
"You have brought no fire...yet neither do you bring offerings. You say you come here in peace - it hardly matters. You will be eaten regardless. But we are curious. Your poem has purchased some time for you. How do you wish to use it?"
Jin's vision swirls madly and a great fist clenches his heart as it hammers against his chest. Eaten. No! Not now! I've only begun! He looks around, eyes wide. They are all watching. A few draw closer silently, and he can almost feel their breath.
Behind Isilo's massive form, there is the Bone House, the ancient meeting-place of the Govelara Jevumm of this region. There is no broader Jevumm culture, only local cultures. Truly, somewhat like the Anakarix, though two races could hardly be more opposite.
The Bone House is constructed entirely of bone and sinew taken from the victims of the Jevumm for generations. At the base, filthy bones are yellowing and cracked. In places they have been replaced with gleaming bones, fresh from Jevumm jaws.
A low growl of impatience snaps him back to his awful present, out of reverie.
"I...Great one, lord of the G-Govelara, Isilio Who Sups On M-Marrow, I...I introduce my...h-humble self, Jin-kalys, student of Helio-...student of great m-masters of Sighing Web of Trees, far from this forest. I. Yes. I come in peace, of course. I come t-to...to speak to you, Great lord of hunters. And-and your people."
How can I say this? With a mathematical schema scratched in the moist dirt with my tail!? A detailed chain of argumentation drawing on rich sophic traditions they've never heard of!? Gods! That one licked her lips!
"Great lord. Karia is dying! If you will help me. If...if a particular one of you will help me, and if we can find others...we can save her."
The laughter of the gathered Jevumm is terrible to hear.
There is no sound when one of them slams into him, bearing him down, grinning, crushing him beneath its weight. She begins to laugh with the rest, mouth wider and wider, coming down to crunch out his life.
"Your name is Varissa! You have walked the earth for thirty-three journeys of the sun! You've taken a-a bullet, whatever that is - the wound lingers! And-" he can't go on. Her eyes are wide and her paw is lighter on his chest. The clearing has quieted.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
Varissa ignores him for a moment, pretending to be caught up in the kill, risking retribution despite the blood-hallowed ground. She leans close until her great head is all Jin can see.
"How do you know this?"
Despite himself, he leans forward a bit, painfully, struggling to breathe under her weight.
"I'm. Wisdom. Of Karia. I. Know. You. ::wheeze:: Hunt. Vorax."
She leaps back, snarling, looking around in alarm, but Jin was quiet, so only she would hear. He braces himself against a nearby tree and pulls his battered body upright. They are all watching now, intent. He has to be careful.
"Yes. I know. And I need you to find...to find one for me. No one else can. Then, we need to -"
"This is foolish. Stop playing with your food. Are you eating this lizard or not?"
Isilio is standing, now, larger than the others, some of whom melt back into the jungle before evening falls, no longer interested in what seems like abject foolishness which could become much worse, fast. They depart silently, with no goodbyes, for this is a rare meeting, and will not occur again for many seasons.
Varissa glances to him, but pins Jin with a glare of mingled hatred and shock. "No. I will not eat him. Yet."
"Then go. The kill you offered pleases the spirits, and its blood has fed the land, mingling with the others. Go and take that lizard with you, to do with as you wish."
She slowly changes to her two-legged form, and Jin is unmoved by her feline beauty. He sees only his mission, his vision, his very life, hanging by a whisker-thin thread. She says the ritual words to Isilio without taking her eyes off of Jin. "Feast on the marrow, and may the spirit-gift sleep within you until Karia claims you."
She shoves him ahead of her, still far stronger than he is, taller as well, radiating hatred and musk. Jin's tail is rigid with fear.
When they are a few dozen meters into the forest, out of sight, she grabs Jin by the dewlap and slams him into a nearby tree with bone-loosening force. Her grip moves to his throat and begins to squeeze. She hisses and growls in his ear.
"Now, lizard, explain yourself, and I might not tear you apart."
"Tell us a poem." The voice vibrates the air and Jin feels it thrumming in his chest cavity like a Zipsum drum.
A poem. Oh gods.
A full season past, Jin-kalys departed Sighing Web of Trees, the village where he had lived his quiet life up to then, leaving the Academy where he had been carefully trained in the sophic arts and sciences at the feet of the Great Doctors of Arborealis Heliophilius, in the ways of curves and lines, of truth's vertices offered in sunlight's verity.
He has since wandered, seeking something he cannot comprehend, but which he knows is crucial. The calculations are...inerrant. Inexorable. The ineluctable Nexus drawing ever closer. It comes to him - nine branches. Each branch is necessary in its own way, providing the balance of angular measurements at the vertices he's found, meeting at the Apogee and Perigee and bending on their course through time, aligned to intersect with the Chronologic Ellipse. Instantaneous angle is approximately equivalent to the distance in time between each as they pass into the Eccliptic, at which point, they resolve as one would expect, intersecting at the Nexus. The key is the curvature -
"Lizard. Give us a poem, or give us your flesh."
Jin is wrenched back out of his reverie. "I. Ahem. Yes. A poem." He closes his eyes and lowers his tail and slows his breathing. The breathing of the Jevumm standing around him in a semicircle is utterly unnerving. He smells their predator stink and the musk of their terrible meeting-place, deep in the jungle.
It comes to him when he's finally calm. Saborakalys. Of course! The first poem he ever learned, in an ancient mode inherited from the Dusk Sages themselves (or so it is said). Jin clumsily renders it into his halting Jevumm, hoping the syllable patters translate -
Dawn burns, sets alight
Kindling the mind - molten gold
Mist is departing
Slowly morning stirs
Sluggish blood thaws and slips free
Murmuring gently
We inherit dawn
Speakers of the love of Sol
Loving speech of leaves
Incline inward, now
Sitting quiet breathing with
Sighing Web of Trees.
Bright golden eyes narrow. Isilo Govelara, his muzzle whitened to show his age, power undiminished, smirks, if such a thing is possible.
"You have brought no fire...yet neither do you bring offerings. You say you come here in peace - it hardly matters. You will be eaten regardless. But we are curious. Your poem has purchased some time for you. How do you wish to use it?"
Jin's vision swirls madly and a great fist clenches his heart as it hammers against his chest. Eaten. No! Not now! I've only begun! He looks around, eyes wide. They are all watching. A few draw closer silently, and he can almost feel their breath.
Behind Isilo's massive form, there is the Bone House, the ancient meeting-place of the Govelara Jevumm of this region. There is no broader Jevumm culture, only local cultures. Truly, somewhat like the Anakarix, though two races could hardly be more opposite.
The Bone House is constructed entirely of bone and sinew taken from the victims of the Jevumm for generations. At the base, filthy bones are yellowing and cracked. In places they have been replaced with gleaming bones, fresh from Jevumm jaws.
A low growl of impatience snaps him back to his awful present, out of reverie.
"I...Great one, lord of the G-Govelara, Isilio Who Sups On M-Marrow, I...I introduce my...h-humble self, Jin-kalys, student of Helio-...student of great m-masters of Sighing Web of Trees, far from this forest. I. Yes. I come in peace, of course. I come t-to...to speak to you, Great lord of hunters. And-and your people."
How can I say this? With a mathematical schema scratched in the moist dirt with my tail!? A detailed chain of argumentation drawing on rich sophic traditions they've never heard of!? Gods! That one licked her lips!
"Great lord. Karia is dying! If you will help me. If...if a particular one of you will help me, and if we can find others...we can save her."
The laughter of the gathered Jevumm is terrible to hear.
There is no sound when one of them slams into him, bearing him down, grinning, crushing him beneath its weight. She begins to laugh with the rest, mouth wider and wider, coming down to crunch out his life.
"Your name is Varissa! You have walked the earth for thirty-three journeys of the sun! You've taken a-a bullet, whatever that is - the wound lingers! And-" he can't go on. Her eyes are wide and her paw is lighter on his chest. The clearing has quieted.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
Varissa ignores him for a moment, pretending to be caught up in the kill, risking retribution despite the blood-hallowed ground. She leans close until her great head is all Jin can see.
"How do you know this?"
Despite himself, he leans forward a bit, painfully, struggling to breathe under her weight.
"I'm. Wisdom. Of Karia. I. Know. You. ::wheeze:: Hunt. Vorax."
She leaps back, snarling, looking around in alarm, but Jin was quiet, so only she would hear. He braces himself against a nearby tree and pulls his battered body upright. They are all watching now, intent. He has to be careful.
"Yes. I know. And I need you to find...to find one for me. No one else can. Then, we need to -"
"This is foolish. Stop playing with your food. Are you eating this lizard or not?"
Isilio is standing, now, larger than the others, some of whom melt back into the jungle before evening falls, no longer interested in what seems like abject foolishness which could become much worse, fast. They depart silently, with no goodbyes, for this is a rare meeting, and will not occur again for many seasons.
Varissa glances to him, but pins Jin with a glare of mingled hatred and shock. "No. I will not eat him. Yet."
"Then go. The kill you offered pleases the spirits, and its blood has fed the land, mingling with the others. Go and take that lizard with you, to do with as you wish."
She slowly changes to her two-legged form, and Jin is unmoved by her feline beauty. He sees only his mission, his vision, his very life, hanging by a whisker-thin thread. She says the ritual words to Isilio without taking her eyes off of Jin. "Feast on the marrow, and may the spirit-gift sleep within you until Karia claims you."
She shoves him ahead of her, still far stronger than he is, taller as well, radiating hatred and musk. Jin's tail is rigid with fear.
When they are a few dozen meters into the forest, out of sight, she grabs Jin by the dewlap and slams him into a nearby tree with bone-loosening force. Her grip moves to his throat and begins to squeeze. She hisses and growls in his ear.
"Now, lizard, explain yourself, and I might not tear you apart."
A Requiem for Riverswift
Inari had always liked the Zipsum. You could mess with them all day long, and the next day, provided you had candy or a particularly tasty nut on hand, they'd forget all about it. Usually. Well, he thought so, anyways. I'm getting a ways away from the point, here. The point is, he'd always liked the Zipsum, and was therefore horrified by what he saw when he came over the deep, verdant rise and saw the Riverswift encampment off in the distance.
The young Prill's heart was close to the forest; he could sense the wrongness coming from the distant tree-village far more than he could make any details out visually, and what he sensed chilled him to the bone.
What he saw was almost worse.
First dozens, then hundreds of the Riverswift Zipsum, swarming out the front gate of their village, dressed for war. But that wasn't what horrified him.
No, what horrified him was the bloody, empty sockets where their eyes had been. Not all of them were eyeless at this point, but enough that he didn't want to get anywhere near them.
'Well,' he thought absently, his mind oddly detached from the horror of the eyeless Karians racing through the valley below, 'I guess that means I won't be able to ask Speaks-Profound-Always for her insight in my Quest...'
A shift in the behavior of the racing Zipsum. A dozen of them changed course and rushed straight towards his position.
Inari's eyes widened. Not knowing what else to do, he immediately began to sing. His was the song of Wood; the song of vitality; the song of all that was green and growing. In his song could be heard the joy of spring, of nature's first golden green, and the precious, precious illusion that there would be no new winter to come. It resounded over the rise, and all around him the voices of the wind through the trees, of the growing grass, of the birds, of all Karia lifted up in denial of the horror below.
The Zipsum were upon him. None of these were eyeless, but those that he had seen had made such an impression on him that he felt no desire to remain here.
Inari ducked underneath the poisoned blades of the first of his attackers, then the second. The others circled warily, waiting for an opening.
He did not intend to give them one.
Another slash, another frantic dodge. His back collided with a great purple-leaved tree, and he knew that he would not be able to dodge again.
"Sorry, friends," he sang, every word matching a new note in the song of Wood. "But this is one dance I'm just going to have to sit out."
With that, he stepped backwards into the supposedly solid tree, and was gone, leaving the angered Zipsum furiously stabbing at the knotted bark with their poisoned blades.
A moment later, a hundred kilometers south of the Riverswift village, a completely exhausted young Prill staggered out of a huge, cragly old tree and fell to his knees. He took a deep breath, and then another, and another. Damn. He'd seen his whole life flash before his eyes! That had taken more out of him than he'd expected, but he was glad to be alive. Whatever was wrong with those Zipsum, it was bad, bad news.
Bad enough that he might just have to make a little side trip to the Grand Chantry and report directly to the Choir of Elders.
He'd never had much respect for authority figures, but at this point, he wasn't sure what else to do. Hopefully, once he'd made his report, he'd be able to head back out and continue with his Quest. No, scratch that 'hopefully.' 'Definitely.' He didn't want to get stuck with those tradition-bound, terrible old Prill for any longer than he absolutely had to.
But what he had sensed, there... he felt bile creeping up in the back of his throat, and immediately he began to sing once more. The sheer growth and vitality of the song of Wood soon formed a kind of a buffer around his mind, a shield made out of life and joy and the promise of renewal.
Soon, he was back to his old, cheerful self.
Still, best to warn the elders. Besides, maybe one of them would be helpful. Give him a little insight into his Quest. Not like Winter.
Tossing his pack over his shoulder, and almost instinctively hiding his trail with every fox-trick he knew, Inari began the trek back towards the Prill lands.
Meanwhile, a hundred kilometers to the north, the Riverswift made for Ben Hamor.
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