ꙮ Rifton, and its environs. Or, for the moment, just Rifton. Where, in Rifton, might Luĉja be found?
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can likely be found at the wall by the gates. They have no need for great crowds and difficult questions. Not when the horizon could hide danger and progress.
ꙮ You hear a familiar voice call out, from vaguely in the direction of the bulk of the town,
(They’re also trying to get Kurat used to Ĉasid)
: “Hey, Luce!” She ambles up towards him. She’s changed into something slightly more practical - like she might expect to get into a scrap more than expecting to make a good first impression. “What’re you up to?”
: “Hello, Saranzaya! For now, I am watching and waiting. And attempting the have the large one learn some gentleness with the small one. They are…working on it. I have heard that the fiends still cause problems this far out?”
ꙮ Ĉasid very very enthusiastically wishes to be Friends with Kurat. Kurat is… ambivalent about the proceedings, to put it mildly, although expressing his ambivalence with reasonable politeness. Fiend-dogs can velvet their paws, too! This only seems to have encouraged Ĉasid, who believes themself to have discovered or invented a Fun New Game called ‘get gently batted skyward’. It’s a process, is what I’m saying.
: “Have you…been well, this last month and thirteen days?”
gives him a glance-over, at length, in the process of watching the coeurl and dog-fiend’s antics with a smile on her face. “I’ve been worried. And keeping busy. The Queen’s acting weird, the fiends are kicking up, and half the moons fucked off somewhere, and I don’t have much in the way of answers, yet. But it’s good to see you again.” A pause. “I talked with Aurelius a little while ago, and he said something…” She trails off.
: “It is good to have work to do in troubling times. I am glad you have spoken with Friend-Aurelius. I cannot begin to guess which of the many things he may have mentioned. Or that you may have read on your tomestone. May I be of assistance?”
smiles, again. “I’m mostly saving the tomestone for the train, honestly.” And then she looks up: “He said that you -all- lost your memories, when you were taken. But it seems like you– either remembered me, or you’ve gotten very much better at faking it, and you looked like you knew your way around as soon as we got to town, and you clearly-“ -she gestures vaguely. “-remember Kurat, so my guess is you got at least some of your memories -back-. But… still, first off, that sounds– harrowing, and I’m sorry. And, second, if there’s anything you don’t recall, or anything I can do to help ease any of that, I’d like to.”
nods, gears turning. “That was true. Many things have slowly come back to everyone. I was fortunate enough to have an…experience with some strange creature. I will happily tell you the long story if you wish. But in facing this…entity, I regained almost all that I had forgotten. And saw things that trouble me, but that I do not understand. I do not speak of it often with the group. I do not wish to cause any angst. It is a difficult thing to know that you once knew something. To choose a name you know is not your own.”
: “I also enchanted my very own blade, which I’m sure our Queen will take absolutely no interest in when we arrive in Queenstown.”* They laugh and draw their crystal greatsword, to show Saranzaya.
she listens, nods– then, blinks, raises an eyebrow- and then stares in wonder and open admiration, gently reaching out a hand towards the blade. “May I touch it? It’s -remarkable- work. Also, she’s going to challenge all of you on sight even more than usual, I hope you’ve warned them all. She knew you all were coming, it– feels like the first thing that’s at all piqued her interest in weeks.”
: “We will warn them again. I had the thought just over a week ago and realized that I would need to craft a new weapon. Seeing as how my first sword is somewhere in her throne. You may examine it to your heart’s content. I cannot take credit for how fine it came out. It was originally common stone. The transformation into crystal was unexpected.” A pause, a brief hiss of steam. “The Queen is full of Ennui, then. The fiends continue to trouble the Beast. Does the Glory of being the Savior of the Beast not stir her lately?”
gently runs her hand along the blade, probing it with gnosis - and the crystal lights up, like beams of light flickering to life through the waters of the Sea. She whistles. And then smiles sadly. “Her heart’s full of Desolation, Luce, and I don’t know why. Other than that I have the feeling she knows something and isn’t telling me, and I have the sneaking suspicion that reading your Library will tell me what she won’t, and– not until the train.”
: “I would not be surprised if she knows more than she tells. And doubly unsurprised if it were her knowledge we would need to save whatever ails this world. Do not worry though. I am sure a proper Rite will stir her spirits. And we all know she likes fighting Endjinn.”
: “Have you ever…had a vision of something and known things about it, despite being completely unable to explain why?”
nods, almost immediately. “I have dreams, I’ve always had dreams. I’m now reliably informed I’m not the only one.”
: “Have you ever dreamed that someone was trapped in a bottle? Hanging by a chain?”
gives Lucxja an alarmed look. “I didn’t even know Endjinn could dream.” Pause. “Flickers of it, though, through fire. It’s an image that sears itself into you, though, isn’t it? I couldn’t– make heads or tails of it.”
: “I sometimes dreamt of the Deepforge. This was not while I was asleep though.” Luĉja takes a moment; not to breathe, because they don’t do that. But to compose themself. “This was when I confronted a thing that is made of fear. It started…more mundane. A grotesque representation of violence against the helpless. I do not fear violence. I merely dislike it. But then it changed. Clear as day. An iron circle, surrounded by twelve iron spheres. The bottle, hanging by a chain. The woman in the bottle…trapped…staring at me…mouth bound in cloth and chains.” They stand for a moment. “Saranzaya I do not fear many things. No beast, no fiend, no challenge. But this vision has not left my mind. And it frightens me.”
: “The spheres must be the moons. The ring…the Beast? But who is trapped within? And what is so terrible that they have been bound thus?”
she shudders, and nods, in recognition. “It was a little while after you were taken, I– I saw that in my dreams. She was staring right into my eyes, she looked– like she was in tremendous pain.” Her voice is very soft. “The fiends are coming out different, Luce. I’ve been assuming it’s– related to whatever’s happening with the moons. And the ground itself has been shaking. Barely noticeably, I wouldn’t have even picked up on it without an instrument I snagged off an inventor in the Bazaar. It’s the other reason I’m out here, actually, this is one of the places that’d reported a fiend surge. And I think it has to be all connected to one other?”
nods. “The fiends have slowly been changing for almost one hundred years. I was hoping they would start coming out in a way where I could make peace with them. Last I checked…they were just more violent. The ground shakes? This is worrysome. Shall we do a bit of fieldwork, then?”
: “If there is one thing I have learned in my travels…it is that so far…everything has been connected to everything else. Your mind burns like fire. So too does Aurelius’. We will find what causes this.”
frowns. “Yeah, well, they’re -quickly- changing, now, apparently. I was– the other reason I was looking for you is that I was wondering if you’d be willing to go poking our noses into corners with me, so.” A more-confident smile. “Sounds like I have my answer to that question already. I don’t want to spend too long out there - I just heard something about a fiend lurking relatively nearby, I’d love to get my eyes on it.”
’s eyes shine bright. “I will skip nearly anything for fieldwork, Saranzaya.” They would grin if they could. “Kurat, come! And do NOT lose the coeurl! Actually…give him here.”
laughs. “Well, good, that hasn’t changed.”
: “Many things will change on the Beast. But this seems unlikely to be one of them. I will follow your lead.”
ꙮ The kitten is being recalcitrant about going back into Luĉja’s pocket when he could, instead, be Harassing Kurat, but eventually gets the memo that they are Going Somewhere and Doing Something and gets with the program; Saranzaya leads the way, tells jokes about the Bazaar as they wait for the gates to open– she’s got a fairly crude map of the local area, drawn by someone who claimed to have seen (and run away from) the fiend in question, and she knows where it’s not from scouting she’d done the day before.
ꙮ Luĉja, Pellucid or Radiant, please?
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🟡radiant gnosis [d12] -> 11.
ꙮ Success! You see it - you SENSE it long before it has the chance to get the drop on you from behind, and an advantage in the Rite which immediately ensues; the stakes of which are life and death, kill or be killed. If you raise your blade just so, the fiend will meet it, instead–
raises their blade just so
ꙮ –and it crashes down against it. It’s an ahriman, but it’s profoundly wrong; an ahriman ought to be a soft, fleshy thing, like an eyeball with huge bat-wings and pale yellow skin that makes surprisingly fine leather. Instead, it’s red as an artery, its wings are tattered - not ripped, but rotten-through, flying on gnosis more than anything remotely aerodynamically sound - patches of its skin are squamous to the point of looking crusty, with tufts of weird hair sticking out at wrong angles, as if there could be correct ones. It’s missing a mouth entirely, and, most notably, instead of one enormous eye, it’s got – the bulk of its body is speckled with eyes in every which direction, only some of which appear to be remotely functional.
takes a quick count of the eyes, as they recoil from the thing that should not be, before making sure they’ve dispatched it.
whirls, a second after you, and has her brush in her hand, and paints a thin wash in the air in front of both of you that immediately becomes a thin crystal shield that shatters crunchily with the weight of the ahriman’s impact, fragments of gnosis-glass burying themselves in the fiend’s flesh.
ꙮ It’s not dead, is the thing - the eyes (there are at least thirty of them, maybe more; it’s very difficult to count while it’s still moving, and the damn thing’s hard to look at) blink and swivel fitfully, peering in both your direction and Zaya’s; it’s dripping ichor where it slammed into Luĉja’s blade.
takes a step forward, then back, pulling their blade free, before breathing a gout of flame from their faceplate while preparing their next sword strike. Their words tinged with fire “What has happened here?” as much to the Ahriman as to Saranzaya.
ꙮ It lunges forward, mindless, fixed on Luĉja, fixed on its prey. ⁂
, with careful brushwork, invokes something like a tangled thorny vine made of the ephemeral crystal, and the ahriman falls for her trap, throwing itself against Luĉja again- where the vine fuses to the shards embedded in its flesh, pinning it in place as Luĉja’s vorpal weapon slices it nearly in half.
: The fire fades from Luĉja’s face, but is quickly replaced by a flash of crystal. They take the impossibly large blade and bring it crashing down into the Ahriman, green, blue, and now, traces of red in its wake.
: “I can’t believe I’m saying this…but they might have been better when they had teeth.”
ꙮ The wound across the thing sneers and writhes, the corners of it turn down in an abomination’s cruel joke of a frown. It opens this, that passes for a mouth, its remnant eyes focusing less and less on Luĉja, and it hisses, “–ever-watchful, she yearns for her own–“
ꙮ It doesn’t get any further than that, and falls to the ground with a wet thud.
’s head snaps to the Ahriman, their eyes burning a tinge of red. “I don’t like sharing dreams with you.” They run the corpse through. Again.
is trying to catch her breath. And mostly succeeding. And staring at the body in both horror and profound curiosity.
: “What… the fuck?” She reaches out with one hand and, more importantly, her gnosis - pokes it, rougher than she needed to, with a stick made out of crystal that she immediately dismisses with a flick of her hand. “What the fuck.”
: “Luce, what did you mean by ‘sharing dreams’.” She crouches down next to it, immediately taking samples of its ichor.
: “I don’t know why I know. But the words on the chains. I can’t read them. I don’t know what language they’re in. Those words. Are on the chains.”
immediately, almost comically turns her head towards the Clockwork Knight. “Oh, fuck, I hate that. That means I was sharing dreams with it too. Dislike.”
: “Would you like me to stab it again for you?”
: “I think it’s been pretty thoroughly stabbed at this point. Ugh. Stars, it’s… sticky.” She’s trying to take more samples- of the wing, of some of its skin, with the practiced efficiency of someone who’s not done a lot of fieldwork but still knows how to analyze and make use of a hunt’s remains, inside and out, and even so, she’s struggling a little with this. Trying to get the– the scales, the hair, everything that shouldn’t have been there and was.
immediately gets to work carving and separating what little remains are actually useful. More practice for sure, but just as much difficulty. This thing is wrong.
: “I leave for one month and the fiends go from big and scary to materially useless and existentially horrifying. Dislike.” They borrow Zaya’s phrasing.
ꙮ With the two of them both working on it, it goes a lot faster, although not any more -pleasantly-.
: “Well, there’s still enough normal fiends and monsters about to hunt, thank goodness. I’m– I was going to say I’m happy to have hit pay dirt rather than another morbol with slightly -worse- breath than hunt-reported standard but nothing about this brings me joy at all. Ugh.” She stands up, attempting to brush a piece of gunk off of herself, and instead it just sticks to her hand and stretches with comic elasticity before loudly snapping, and she curses at it inventively under her breath.
: “I too find no joy in this hunt. This fiend’s flesh makes me wish I had taken to wearing gloves.” They look down at their coat. “I suppose I will have to start doing laundry again.”
looks wry. “Hopefully the Inn has some good de-griming soap, I have a feeling this is gonna take an application of various of the Bazaar’s best to be good as new. Ugh.”
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight invoked their 🔵pellucid gnosis [d4] -> 1.
: “I wonder which type of gnosis would clean the best…” Luĉja trails off a little, lost in another silly science experiment. “Oh. We need to carry this back. Here.” They take a stone from their back, concentrate, and snap it. A large canvas bag materializes. “We can burn the bag when we’re done.”
take half instead of 1
- Luĉja, The Clockwork Knight has gained 1 Arete, and now has 4.
ꙮ It’s not the most lovely canvas bag in the world, but it definitely doesn’t need to be, and it gets the job done. It’s destined for the incinerator anyways, after all - the two of them manage to wrestle the fiend’s disgustingly useless, misshapen corpse into the bag and someone - probably Luĉja, I assume - takes on the onerous task of schlepping it back to Rifton. At least it’s not far…?
is happy to tote the bag back to Rifton. They will be even happier to leave the bag somewhere other than the Inn.
: “That’s a neat trick. Ugh, I’ll throw some preservation ash into the bag, seal it shut, and roll it around in the yard, that’ll be good enough. Somehow I feel like decay wouldn’t even want this thing and would politely leave it to us. Ugh.” After a bit: “Thanks, Luce. I’m really glad you were there.”
: “You are most welcome! And I am thankful for your presence as well. It is good to not be alone in such times and against such enemies.” A pause. “Also.” Another. “I appreciate you for doing the same, but longer ago. My heart was full of Desolation then, too. I was not able to see your actions properly. I spent a long time alone. It has been wondrous not to have spent the last month and thirteen days thus. Thank you, Friend-Zaya, for the help then, and the help now.”
: “I would offer you a hug, as is customary with the humans…but we are both covered in ichor. Perhaps another time.”
looks up at him, and - despite the circumstances and all the ichor - beams radiantly. “I’ll hold you to that once we’re no longer disgusting, Luce. Hopefully next hunt we go on is a bit less appalling?”
: “Moons above, it had better be. I don’t have enough coats for it not to be!”
laughs. “Fingers crossed, then.”