ꙮ The night after meeting Zaedulf, Saranzaya put all of you up in a comfortable, spacious inn much closer to the heart of Queenstown. There’s still a tram ride, but it’s only one, and it’s short. The Courtyard was immensely comfortable, and the 36th Tower had its remarkable Samudran amenities, but here you’re in the beating heart of Queenstown, and that’s its own wonder. ⁂
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- Yazhn Ravhi, the Hierophant
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#wolf
#saranzaya
ꙮ And that night, in his room at the Queenstown inn, Wolf dreamed. He dreamed of something he’d never dreamed of, before– dreamed of a mountain that’d been carved, thoroughly, warrened with passageways, first mineshafts and tunnels and then the broad avenues of a city built into the mountain, enormous caverns within the mountain boiling with gnosis, a perfect circle carved into its peak, smooth-walled. He dreamed of a great and beautiful fiend rising with swift wingbeats from the depths of the mountain, new-forged, to greet the day. ⁂
ꙮ And he dreamed, in the distance, of a colossal grey octahedral crystalline monolith, reflecting light off its surfaces as it hovered in the sky, nearby, observing– here, for the moment, but he knows he’s dreamed of it before– remembers it, in the background, when he looked up, in his dreams, and saw a tower grasping for the sky. Something about it feels like a comfort. Knowing it’s there. ⁂
ꙮ The great fiend looked at him, then, in his dream; looked him right in the eye, and it smiled. And then, he awoke. 🙧
blinks awake, staring up at the the ceiling of his room–he had marveled at the intricate patterning of red-on-red stone in the night before, but now he does not see it. He stares for a long moment, then blinks and sits up. He dons trousers, then tunic, then his red coat, newly edged in black, and goes downstairs for breakfast.
ꙮ Breakfast, at least, is refreshingly mundane. There’s whole heaps of smashed-and-pan-fried potatoes, and bowls of some kind of lightly-sweetened porridge, and sausages, and fried eggs of some lightly-domesticated lizard-monster that seem to be a Beast delicacy.
piles his plate high with the potatoes and fried eggs, and a smidgen of the porridge, and goes to work. He drums his fingers on the table between mouthfuls–unconsciously repeating the staccato, rolling pattern of the Beast’s worldsong.
ꙮ The constant beat, in the back of your head, the rhythm of a drum, or a heart, or a world. It does make it easy to be in the here and now.
finishes his breakfast and returns to his room for his new weapon–the strange pole-staff that Zaed had called a “naginata.” He caresses the haft before he picks it up–it doesn’t seem to want to leave his hands. He heads out to the street, using the naginata as a walking staff–at least here, the casual carrying of a weapon doesn’t seem to be an oddity. He finds his steps swaying to the steady throb of the worldsong, eyes going a little heavy-lidded, letting the music tug him in whatever direction it so wills.
ꙮ Most people are carrying something that’s legibly A Weapon around, even if it’s just a sword holstered at their hip; some of them are extravagant in ways that you cannot imagine could be practical. You get the sense, here, in the middle of the crowd - and it very much might not actually be the case, it’d be impossible to tell for sure one way or the other, but it -feels- like everyone’s, on some level, on beat with the Worldsong, when you flow with it like that - crowds you’d expect to get jostled by moving out of the way at the right moment, one body in an intricate dance the size of the city itself.
ꙮ And your path takes you, as many paths in this part of Queenstown might, to the vaulted cross of souks that form the entrance to the Bazaar.
pauses at the entrance to the Bazaar, feeling a strange frisson–the sense that this place is, in a very strange way, as sacred as a temple, and as much the beating heart of Queenstown as the palace with its Throne of Blades is. Then, with a small smile playing around his lips, he steps across the threshold, letting the scents and sights wash over him like a tide.
ꙮ It’s loud inside, but a different kind of loud. Overlapping chatter, friends meeting each other by the huge fountain-statue of the Scorpion Queen that dominates the crossway. Vendors whose grandparents’ grandparents clans had stalls here, probably, selling cloth and tools and weapons and rare and expensive monster parts (and at least one just… selling mangosteen juice by the cup, because people get thirsty everywhere.) Most of the Bazaar, these days, sprawls out well beyond the covered souks, a crosshatching of roads and paths lined with stalls and structures, full of streamers of coloured silk and signs advertising wares.
wanders through, aimlessly, letting the overlap of voice, scent, and sight become as much of a song to him as the world’s is. He stops where the whim suits him, doling out portions of the lucre gifted him in exchange for a small selection of items that disappear into his belt pouches. A small hank of gloriously crimson thread for Salme, a small pouch of nose-tingling spices for Archie, a bit of sparkling stone for Lucxja to carve. Once, he stops and looks for a series of long minutes, before haggling intently with the armorer whose works caught his eye–a much bigger chunk of lucre (but not as much as it could have been) later, he walks away with a finely-forged vambrace strapped to each forearm, each in turn attached to a fingerless glove of supple leather backed with more steel.
ꙮ An excellent choice, and finely bargained for! Past the entrance, there’s a -structure- to the Bazaar that you can see when you take a step back, after your various purchases - a way that people and goods flow through it, a circulation around a central point, a bright-windowed structure on a hill, so that it can observe, and be observed – and Zaya’s there, you can see the bright red of her silks, which makes sense in immediate retrospect. Her own castle on a hill, although much less grand, and as inviting as the Castle is looming.
eyes the structure for a long moment, then heads in that direction, the staff-end of his weapon thumping nicely on the stone-paved streets. He’s not not pleased at the looks he gets as he passes–glances ranging from the curious, to the respectful, to the admiring.
ꙮ Quite a lot of the latter, honestly. You cut a dramatic silhouette. Zaya herself notices you, and looks– both happy to see you, and oddly visibly-relieved, and by the time you reach her centre of operations, she’s extricated herself elegantly from what looks like it was the world’s dumbest argument she was mediating, or smoothing over, or– something. They’re both on their merry way, now. Well. One of them looks merry about the situation, the other not so much. If there’s a Rite about it later, that won’t be Zaya’s problem!
glances after the retreating pair. “Lady Saranzaya,” he says, with a deep bow. (He’s learned how to do it without accidentally pointing the naginata at anyone. Not anymore, anyway.) “Please, I don’t wish to interrupt.” Wolf glances after the pair again, looking amused. “Though one suspects that there wasn’t much resolution left to find, there…”
: “-Another- blasted merchant passing off copper stripped from ruins as if it’s newly-mined. It’s not like the stuff’s not valuable, either, but it takes gnosis etching completely differently, and–“ She shrugs, expansively. “Just another day, really. It’s lovely to see you, I hope Queenstown is treating you well?” She gives the vambraces an approving glance-over.
smiles, lifting a hand to turn it this way and that–showing off the subtle etching around the edges of the forearm plate, which looks like an intricate criss-crossing of overlapping threads. “Quite well. It is…” He looks around, admiringly and no little awed. “…it is unlike anything I have ever seen before. Now I know why Aurelius was unimpressed by our ‘capital’ back on Almachadta.”
admires the work, and then tilts her head. “Oh, I imagine I’d be impressed, were I to visit. Everywhere has its story and its way of doing things, and I hope I get the chance to see yours.”
: “As do I. It is very different. Much…greener.” Wolf laughs. “What we lack in metal we make up for in trees.”
lets out a soft, almost wistful sigh– and then looks up and over at Wolf. “What’s that like? I’ve dreamed of that much greenery, but I’ve never seen it with my own eyes.”
stills a little, gaze sharpening, then he smiles–and holds out his hand, palm up. “I could describe it to you, but…if you’d like, I can show you.”
reaches out her hand, places it over his. “Salme mentioned, and I’ve read in your library, a little about a technique like this you’re working on. I’ve been very curious.”
gently wraps his fingers around hers. “I’ll try for a light touch, but be warned, the sharing can be intense.” Wolf closes his eyes, and gently–ever so gently–reaches out with flourishing gnosis. Nothing so deep as the sharing with Silver-Throat, hopefully, but just enough for memory to cross the gap.
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d8] -> 8! It ✨explodes!
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d8] -> 8! It ✨explodes!
ꙮ Ascension!
- The Wolf-Priest‘s 🟢flourishing gnosis has ascended unto the 10ᵗʰ rank.
- The Wolf-Priest invoked their 🟢flourishing gnosis [d10] -> 7.
ꙮ That is certainly a success. Describe the memory that you share? You feel her awed surprise, as she feels it - her admiration for your skill, her joy at something wholly new, immediately, as your minds touch.
remembers a halcyon day from a flourishing season spent wandering a chunk of the forest near Kesset–the temperature just warm enough that the shade of trees was welcome; a soft breeze gusting through and sending the treetops swaying, dappling the undergrowth with an almost liquid light. Great trunks, older than any man alive, pushing up into the sky, their boughs shielding the gentle, emerald-tinged glow of the Centrelight. ⁂
A woman in white robes with white hair flickers at the edges of the memory, the connection just deep enough for glimpses to “leak” through. He remembers–you remember–laying side by side with her beneath a particularly ancient oak, talking and laughing as the leaves rustled overhead. Her voice is husky, warm as centrelight, and his memory of her is suffused with a deep and abiding love–the love of a son for a mother, or a brother for a sister, and you bask in the knowledge that it is well and truly returned. ⁂
Shot through it all is a deep and abiding sense of peace, of love for a verdant world that, while not without its dangers, sings to its children, in a voice that sounds like the sound of the wind through sunlit leaves. 🙧
lets out a slow breath, of wonder, of beauty. Just basking in the moment, and the memory, and the dappled, warm komorebi; underlying it all is a sense of recognition, of comparison, which she makes no attempt to hide - oh, it does not look like THAT, it looks like THIS, this is what a forest really is - and, in turn, minds touching like this, you get vague glimpses of a dream of green, wild and sprawling on all sides, of wood paths over wet, murky ground, of great shaggy trees with exposed arching roots, leaves blocking the sight of the tower that rises in the distance, until she blinks it away, present in the moment of the vision of Centrelight. “(Oh. It’s -beautiful-.)”
nearly gets caught up by the vision of the swampy forest, the distant tower–but recovers his focus, keeping the memory towards the front until it comes, as all things must, to an end, with a return to Kesset under the dimming of twilight. He gently withdraws the link, then takes a moment to center himself with a deep breath and exhale. “Haah. Hrrrm. Still getting the hang of that.” He smiles, almost shyly. “One hopes it was pleasant.”
: “I… yes.” She’s, visibly, still there, in her own mind, at least, feeling that unusual warm light on her skin, breathing in the misty air. “Goodness, yes.” And she has– she has so many questions, and does not know which ones it would be appropriate to ask, and none of them seem quite as important as committing that vision to her own memory. Softly: “Well, now I know I’ll find something to be impressed by.”
gives her a little space, a bit of a chagrined look on his face. “For…what it’s worth, to my own eyes, this realm is an equal in its wonders.”
does beam at that, because she knows he’s telling the truth, and she gives him a bit of a curious look. “Now I have to ask, from the perspective of a newcomer to my… entire world. What caught your eye the most?”
chuckles, leaning on a convenient bit of stone as he leans his head back in thought. “Hmm. I would say…” He rocks back forward with a wry smile. “I’m sure it’s so mundane to you, but there is so much metal here. On my world, it is terribly rare–the blades I lost to the Queen were a princely gift from my master upon my ‘graduation.’ Here, you build with it, as we would use lumber.”
looks wry. “And here, carved wood is rare and precious, and it’s hard to imagine having enough lumber to build with. I suppose people managed to figure out how to make shelter out of whatever they had available, wherever they were. I admire that.”
grins. “Indeed. On our journey, I have seen many fascinating things, and met people of types I could have hardly imagined. But no matter the world, no matter whether the people were humans or groups of sentient Pearls or Endjinn…people are people everywhere. It’s a great comfort.” Wolf leans back again, studies Zaya quietly for a moment. “Tell me, Lady Saranzaya–though I fear this is a bit of an unfair question, for I think I already know the answer–do you dream of the Mountain?”
looks at him, like she’s been expecting the question, hoping for it, even, and is glad to hear it asked- a palpable relief, almost, on her face. “Shot through with workshops like a fanciful daydream of the Adaman District?”
blinks, then barks a short laugh. “…oh dear. Yes, though that was not the mountain of which I was thinking…but I did dream of that one, just last night, in fact. For the first time, to be quite frank.”
blinks, and then blinks again– and looks thoughtful, holds up a hand. “No, wait. When I was very young, there was another mountain. I haven’t had that dream in so long, I’d almost forgotten it.”
: “A mountain overlooking a rocky shore, with white-foam breakers?” he asks, softly. “So high it looked to split the heavens, capped in snow and ice?”
nods, more unsteadily than you’ve seen her yet. “Whole… palette of -colors- one can’t even find, here. Yes. And a– what I thought you meant when you talked about your home, until you showed me. Green and lush, but in a different way.”
: “A swamp,” he says, giving name to experience. “With a Tower.”
: “Swamp. What a… word that -sounds- like what it is.” She nods, again. More steadily. “So… vivid. Always the same. The same views, the same perspectives, for me, at least.”
: “Yes.” He meets her eyes, squarely and frankly. “You should know that one of the things that we have found, is that in every world we have visited so far, there are people–not many, but some–who dream these dreams. I did, and I suspect now that my master did also. The Iros of Samudra see the same. And now you, here. I believe these things to be dreams of the world-that-was–before what was one became five.”
returns the gaze, and listens- and her eyebrows knit, a little- but she nods. “I’ve always been the only one I knew. But it felt like- they were things that were there, that other people should see. I remember being convinced as a girl that other people would dream the same dreams. I didn’t know why. I…” She laughs, very softly. “I suppose I was right, after all this time, then.” A pause, and then, as soft as she’d laughed. “The world-that-was. Hmm.”
: “We know precious little more than what I have shared, alas. But there is one thread in particular that I have wished to pick at–one that you, or the Queen, might be able to aid with. We know that, in the far distant past–far distant, not long after one was made five–there was a man who, it seems, on each world, lived and aided it. Amongst his deeds was to bury knowledge of the world-that-was in such a way that certain people could access it–people like the yeresh, the Iros, and yourself. His name was Zosimos.”
: “The First King.” She lets out a puff of breath. “We don’t have… much in the way of records, here. Jae’s told me a little about him. That the stories about him being a tyrant were… just that, stories. That he was just a tired man, happy to lay down his burdens and let her take charge. And I think I’d know if she was bullshitting me with that one. But how could he have been…” She shakes her head.
: “We aren’t sure. But we think that he created a system of…’continuity,’ one might say, for each world. Something that would allow knowledge and civilization to carry on after a quite-literally world-ending disaster. For Almachadta, the Mask. For Samudra, the creatures known as nooplankton. And for the Beast…the Queen herself.”
frowns, softly. “You think he… -made- her, somehow? Or– enlisted her, after she got here from… wherever she was before?”
: “Not made, I don’t think. Enlisted, more likely.” He smiles wryly. “She’s…like us. A world-traveler. It’s…complicated, and I don’t understand it well enough to explain it without causing harm, so I will not try. But I’m starting to have a theory of how he could do all these things, in all these places, all at the same time.”
: “Still, it is…speculative at best.” He leans back again, and sighs. “It is good to know, at least, that we were right. The dreams are in each world. And now…a new dream. I had not dreamed of that…Hollowed Mountain before. Nor of the crystal that observed it, not so clearly.”
nods. “I know a -little-, and I’ve suspected more, and it’d. It would very much be like her to see work that he was doing, and decide that she could do it better, if I’m being honest.” She laughs, a little, and looks up. “I’ve dreamed of the– I call it the Forge. Like the Deepforge, but on the surface? Did you dream of grinning, joyous fiends pouring out of it, too?”
: “Hah. Yes. Like the fiends that Aurelius and Lucxja have spoken of, but…greater, and grander, and like a herald of wonder.”
nods! “And that obelisk, the watcher. Sometimes it’s there, and sometimes it’s not, or it’s far away…” She shakes her head. “What I’d give to know what -that- means.”
: “And why was it…comforting?” Wolf smiles crookedly. “Trust me, my friend. Every answer I have found so far turns into more questions. The man turned himself into a…a fish. It baffles.”
: “I’ve always wanted to see a proper fish, but probably not one that used to be an entire-ass person and now exists solely to baffle us.” She laughs.
chuckles. “Also, it’s not really a…fish? It’s more like a…” He makes a vague wavy gesture that’s clearly supposed to imply frond-y tentacle-y things. “One of them just thinks it’s a fish.”
: “…like a land-kraken? Except they talk? That’d be unsettling, I’m glad land-krakens can’t talk.”
: “Maybe? They’re not very big, at least the nooplankton aren’t…” He trails off and then just bursts out laughing. “Goddess bright, it all sounds so absurd.”
laughs, with him. “I think so many things do, even things we look at and touch every single day, if you somehow take enough steps back to look at them from far enough away. Or maybe I just spent an hour babysitting an argument with an obvious answer, and everything and its cat seems absurd.” She shrugs, expansively.
chuckles. “Indeed. Aurelius’ consternation when he realized that Almachadta is…” He shakes his head. “Ah, how to explain. You know how the world is round, with the moons overhead?”
nods, and looks a little like she suspects she knows where this is going, and holds back a smile.
: “On Almachata, the world is also round, but we live on the inside of the sphere, not the outside.” He shrugs. “Normal, to me. Aurelius was quite disconcerted.”
pulls a wry face. “Seeing wide open sky–well, overcast–on Samudra was a bit of an adjustment.”
laughs, brightly. “Oh, stars. That must be– I’m sure I’d need a few moments. Will, when I find out how to make that journey.”
smiles. “You get used to it.” He stands up straighter, stretches. “Ah, forgive me. You are a busy woman and I have taken up much of your time. But I thank you–both for the information, and the companionship.”
waves it off, with a smile. “What’s the point of being in charge of this place if I haven’t the latitude to spend some time talking with a new friend? Come by any time you’re in the neighborhood.”
: “Likewise. Your hospitality has been much appreciated.” He gives a flourishing bow, then takes up his naginata again, looking at it with a bit of a wistful look. “…what a strange gift this thing has been. It feels like it has always been mine.”
: “As soon as you reached -out- for it I knew something special was happening. I don’t have Jae’s instinct for the… weight of things, to people, but. I’m– does it sound odd to say I’m glad it found its wielder? Annarr would be happy to see it in use.”
smiles, a bit wryly. “I wish I understood it, is all. Most of the confusing things we encounter seem to have a reason, even if we don’t know what it is. This just…happened. Ah, well. As my master would say, only a fool looks a gift swift in the mouth. …or the ass.” He snorts. “She had an…interesting…sense of humor.”
laughs, softly, and– tilts her head to the side. “Was that… her, in the vision you shared?”
ducks his head, just a little. “Aye. She taught me everything I know. And some things I still don’t.”
smiles. “Isn’t that the way of it? Every so often, a lesson my Papa taught me under the guise of a calligraphy lesson ends up sneaking up on me in an alley and shaking me down for spare Lucre.”
: “Indeed.” He snorts. “And sometimes it’s simply her voice in the back of my head going ‘don’t be a damned fool, boy.’”
chuckles, at that. “For every ‘doesn’t seem like the foolish sort’ there’s at least one voice like that in the back of the head, isn’t there? Ahh.” She stretches, from side to side. “I -do- see people starting to mill about, though, so you’re probably right that I need to go take care of that. Stars abide and it’s not more copper strippers causing problems.”
tosses off a jaunty little salute. “Fair winds and fair paths, Lady. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
just grins, and returns the gesture. “And I you. You know where to find me!”