ꙮ Early dinnertime, around the campfire in the Travelers’ Valley. Some of you wound up helping out, here and there, with food prep - root vegetables from the valley below, another stew that’s been bubbling away all day, this one with some donated Samudran peppers in it, that Tasna’s been taking deep breaths of every time she’s been nearby. Archie and Luĉja brought something out of the Library kitchens to share, too.
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#chapter 4: the beast
#tasna
#duskomira
#rohsu xilai
#full cast session
is snacking upon a spiny cactusfruit- a brilliant red peel and lime-green inside, very watery to the bite. His eyes gleam at the banquet, and doubly so at what Archie and Lucja have brought.
: “Oh ho, a preliminary appetizer before the main battle?”
slouches in from somewhere–he’s been out with Xilai for part of the day, learning more about the valley garden and comparing it to Almachadta’s ‘food forests.’ He pours himself a cup of mead, flops down by the fire, and takes a sip. “Good evening, everyone.”
: “The product of some early experiments in our new kitchens. Try some!” He gestures to two large serving bowls - one labeled “Almachadtan? ravioli” and the other “Shark-fin soup (base)”.
ambles over to the ravioli and thinks that whatever a raviolo is, he would like a lifetime supply of them, please. Probably says as much, in between chomping on them contentedly.
ladles himself a small portion of the shark-fin soup and sniffs at it cautiously.
glances at the small mountain of ravioli and then peers around curiously about what they’re serving it with.
juggles bowls as he has the Almachadtan stew, the Samudran pepper stew, and the shark-fin soup base! He maneuvers some ravioli onto a plate, and stacks a few pieces of bread on top, for cleansing the palate between portions.
isn’t particularly hungry - they’ve eaten quite a bit during the testing process, but definitely makes sure to grab a small bowl of Tasna’s cooking.
joins him, curious to see if it might provide a taste of home.
makes herself a similar sampler plate, smiling a bit sharply as she ladles up some of the shark-fin soup in particular.
ꙮ There is mead - more effervescent and sparkly than you’re probably used to, if you’re from Almachadta, because Xilai’s tastes run that way, or the Travelers’ in general do and he’s adjusted to accomodate them, it’s unclear which. Always unclear, which of their mannerisms are theirs and which developed from decades of being in each others’ company, honestly, but the end result is the same, very much a deep regard for their guests’ comfort. Duškomira’s perched on a rock nearby, playing something soft on a gentle clay flute.
tilts his head back to watch Duskomira play, then gives in to temptation, and pulls out his own wooden flute. “May I join you? Feel free to lead, I’ll follow.”
nods to Wolf. “Of course.” And she switches gears, a little - playing something a bit more direct for Wolf to harmonize with.
weaves in effortlessly–after a couple of minutes, using a couple of daring little counterpoints to indicate to the other that she doesn’t need to take it easy on him.
, for her part, is enjoying the spicy, peppery taste of home– but eventually puts down her bowl of stew, pacing herself. “So, last night you told us -your- story, and filled us in on what you know of what’s been going on across the planes, and gave us the tomestones besides. Is there anything we can tell you before the train back to Queenstown gets here?”
tries a bite of the ravioli! The cheese and spinich are great, the savory spiced topping weaves the dumplings’ doughy exterior further than its physical form allows, and then for his second bite, he dips a bit of it in the Almachadtan stew for some rooty flavor.
: “Yeah, I’ve been wondering.”
: “What were you all doing travelling around? Just sightseeing?”
: “Why mess with the messages encoded into the rites at all?”
: “Suppose I can answer both of those at the same time. At first, it was just Khejvard and Xilai, here. Back on Samudra, I had– I’ve talked to a few of you about this, but I’d noticed information encoded into what should have been perfectly random, noisy processes, information that pointed me to the Septentrione. On my last expedition in Samudra, I discovered a Door, and I sent my consciousness through into the ambient moisture on the other side, because I could tell that if I stepped through physically, the interference would scramble my– my mind, my self. I met Xilai and Khejvard, then – and they, and the Beast, expanded my mind and my thoughts. There is a– a plant that Xilai brought with him which is rather marvelous, in a double-edged way. I saw a group of us – I was quite certain it was the three of us, and others, weaving our gnosis together as one. And– while I was traversing the threshold, I saw brief flashes of five worlds– so I knew that there were two others. The Rite-Tones were, initially, an attempt to reach out across that gap, and contact Duškomira, and help her make her way here. I felt– I thought, I believed, I was certain that we had work to accomplish, together.”
takes a sip of her mead. “…of course, things didn’t… go that way. We reached out to Ciet, as well– I’d developed the farcaster into something that let me contact Almachadta, and… I thought when Ciet made it here, the next steps would make themselves apparent to us. And then Ciet did not arrive, and the next steps were…” She shrugs.
puts down her flute, at some point. “We spent some time hunting. Trying to understand the Beast. Understand why all roads seemed to lead here.”
has been listening intently, knees drawn up and chin propped on his hand, ever since Tasna started talking. “Signal embedded in noise…I wonder.”
: “Do you think there’s a connection with the interference we experienced trying to cross into Samudra?”
: “Scramble your self, eh…?” He chews on a piece of bread and washes it down with a bit of mead.
: “As we lost memories?” Wolf says darkly, nodding at Awoken.
: “It does seem the Architect might not have taken things from us on purpose.”
tilts his head from side to side. “Could be, could be. Or maybe they’d receive the spark of enlightenment.”
nods to Duskomira. “Did you come to any further understanding?”
nods to Archie. “The thought occurred to me when you described it, yes. That, the interference of the Beast itself, the– one of you, yesterday, mentioned a chaotic howling… So many things preventing a message being clearly sent from here to there, until the six of you.”
: “Chaotic howling?” Luĉja shakes their head. “Different than the far-caster interference then? That is my song.”
shrugs. “We’re pretty sure it has -something- to do with the Deepforge. And something to do with the moons. Have you been -down- there, yet? It’s fucking strange. No offense.” A glance to Luĉja.
: “None taken.”
: “Though, it does seem that it might be our destination sooner, rather than later.”
: “Not yet, but now I’m looking forward to it double.” He dips another ravioli into the Samudran pepper soup, takes a bite, chews a few times, and slowly comes to a stop.
: “Aw dang!” he says, barely covering his mouth with a quick hand.
stage whispers to Salme. “(We forgot to zoom in on the moons!)”
: “(Oops).”
: “…eh, we’ll do it later!”
: “Xilai, my understanding from the Rite-tones is that your crossing was … not easy, and that you remember very little. Do you remember anything about your crossing? Was it with any purpose?”
frowns, and shakes his head. “I do not. I remember– Like Tasna, I appeared in the middle of a battlefield. Instinct guided me, I entered the Rite, ended up guarding a stranger’s back, and then he turned and smiled at me, and that’s how I met Khejvard, but– for a while I could barely remember my own name. Just a duty to protect the innocent.”
: “Bits and pieces about my world have come back to me, since then, but… I don’t remember anything about -what- I was doing that led me here.”
: “That must have been very difficult,” she says, and then after a moment tilts her head and considers that. “Duškomira, if you were in contact with Tasna before, did you remember anything more? Did you also appear in the middle of a battlefield?”
: “I was… chasing… something? Someone? There was a cavern, I remember there was a cavern. But that’s about the extent of it.”
’s ears perk up as he thinks of a question, and he leans forward–but holds his tongue until Duskomira is done answering Salme.
chuckles, softly. “Battle was over by the time I showed up, when it was my turn. Three of them had gotten the starch kicked out of them, but they won the Rite, and I helped drag them back to civilisation.” She motions at Wolf.
: “Duskomira, Xilai. Does the name ‘Zosimos’ mean anything to you?”
looks at Xilai.
looks back at Duškomira.
ꙮ They both shake their heads, in unison.
nods, sighs. “Well, that was worth a try, at least. Thank you.”
: “Beat me to the question. I’ve been reading your Library.”
perks up a little at that and smiles at Tasna.
: “It seems silly to … overemphasize ‘arrival on a battlefield’ because there’s obviously … a lot of battlefields here, but it’s interesting that you all three arrove there. Also interesting that … Xilai, you remember a cavern? The gate on Samudra I guess wasn’t in a cave, but on Almachadta it was.” She shrugs.
: “I mean, you could consider the part of the Septetrione cave-like, if you were so inclined. An interior space in a remote area.”
: “Clearly, it was the closest thing back home that it could find.”
: “It’s a big one, but yeah, cave works.” Another bite of bread, another sip of mead. The peppers linger on the tongue, and so another bite of bread is needed.
is saying it lightly, but also, like…. huh.
: “Your phrasing seems to assume a conscious actor with an intention. But who?”
: “Gnosis always has a weaver. The Threshold wasn’t a natural process, and I’m absolutely certain that SOMEONE was encoding information in… exigencies of the laws of physics itself for me to find. Haven’t the foggiest idea who, though, and I’ve been gnawing on that one for decades.”
: “So…” He picks up the bowl of shark-fin soup base, and a spoon to go with it. He’ll try it without any addons, first.
: “Is there anything that made you all go…”
: “‘Hey, time to settle down and raise glass sharks?’”
: “Tasna, I think I might have your answer there.”
is the one who speaks up, softly, rumbling. “Ciet didn’t make it across. Tasna took it hard. We wound up Hunting, wound up trying to make lives better person by person if we couldn’t… understand what we’d been put here to do. And then… time passed, as it does. We found the valley, or the valley found us. We wanted… somewhere we could grow things, and just be, for a while. And then we grew things, and we just were. And then Khejvard began his rest.”
glances, curiously, Wolf-wards.
: “The name that Duskomira and Xilai didn’t know. Zosimos. When you said there was signal encoded in noise. I think he may be why.” He glances at Salme. “This is as much your tale as mine, sister.”
tilts his head towards Wolf.
shrugs and at least starts off. “Back on Samudra, Salme went deep into the Mask, and communed with the spirit-memory of the First Sword-Saint, a being named Bahamut. He had been given the Mask by one Zosimos, a…man, we think…from before the worlds were split into the five we now have, as a way of retaining knowledge and memory. But he had done something else–he had ‘sung Truth into Fire’…which is where I come in. I, who can hear the Song of the worlds more clearly, can glean…image. Memory. From its depths. Of the time before, the world before. I am not the only one. The Iros of Samudra can, as well. As can Saranzaya, here.”
nods, quietly, listening.
: “Ah. Yes. And,” she looks at Duškomira, “the jernos of the Reach, who traded that name which the Scorpion Queen misheard as ‘hero’ for rail lines connecting them across the Beast. I think. Caion postulated that there might be a distant root that unites them all, but hadn’t gotten back to me yet. I don’t know ancient, but … I was thinking of the word ‘oneiromancy,’ how that maybe sounds a bit like ‘hero’. And I was also thinking of the word,” and here she looks at Wolf. “‘Hierophant.’ A word that means divination through dreams, and a word that refers to a priest with sacred knowledge. Dreamers, all, but also doers.”
blinks, and reaches into his belt pouch, bringing out something wrapped in cloth.
takes a sip of the shark-fin base… a proper foundation for further seasoning and development.
: “Hmm.”
: “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…!”
peers curiously at the item Wolf retrieves from his sack.
watches Wolf as well, intent.
unwraps the cloth, revealing a gilt-edged deck of cards, which he begins to riffle through–except it’s right at the top of the deck, as if it was waiting for him. He stares at the card for a long moment–then shows it to Salme. It’s Saranzaya on the card, eyes closed but a third eye on her forehead open; she’s crowned with a circlet of crystal and haloed by light. The text at the bottom reads: ‘V: The Visionary’.
knows what he’s reaching for. I bet. I bet. I bet it’s the deck.
glances over Wolf’s shoulder, and softly ‘mmmmhmm’s.
folds his arms over his chest, thinking. “Zosimosis actions on Almachadta make sense without much of any thought. The ones on Samudra mostly make sense, with a bit of lateral thinking. But. Why in the world would he have put something in the deepforge to broadcast something slow and vague and in a language even we can’t decipher, and then cover it up with static…?”
: “Why’d he turn himself into a nooplankton? Not enough information to guess…” Wolf says, distantly. He’s still looking at the card, and looking faintly uneasy. “That was not the picture on the card, before.”
: “Is it a language?”
: “What was the picture on the card before? Anyone familiar, or …”
shakes his head. “No. Same crown, same third eye, same halo, but the face was…just someone.”
: “It sure as hell sounded like words.” A pause. “Did you not listen to it after Lucja and I mentioned isolating it?”
: “Mmm. Tell me what the Irós and yeresh mean, to your worlds, in your own words? Because from what I’ve been able to gather, this world hasn’t got that. It has a Queen instead. Maybe whatever Zosimos put into place here got overruled, too. I’m sure she had her reasons, but I for one would like to know what the Beast gave up, and why.”
: “I hadn’t, but I mean. It could be two things.”
gives the Awoken an exasperated look, then flicks something in the air, turns something, before sliding something else and letting sound pour into the cavern.
thinks quietly for a moment, fingers idly riffling and playing with the cards, keeping The Visionary on top. “The term is so old that the meaning has been largely lost–yeresh, that is. We are often called ‘Ember-Priests,’ for we hold the Fire; we keep the balance. We warm, we guard, we…destroy, when necessary. There is a myriad of other names–Wayfarer, Shepherd, Pathfinder–“ He cuts off abruptly as the song begins to play, caught half-unwillingly by it.
: “…Okay it’s mostly just humming for a while but it does have words later.”
: “(You couldn’t have just used the music player Synthesis gave us?)” She mutters, fondly, to Aurelius.
Without meaning to, Luĉja rocks along to the song and hums with it.
: “Relocating everyone into the library seemed like a lot of effort.”
: “It works outside of the library?”
shakes her head at him.
ꙮ Yes, but that wouldn’t have let Aurelius show off.
concedes, at least in her head, that she does like seeing Aurelius show off.
looks like she’s in the process of eating a particularly unpleasant lemon.
: “That’s maddeningly almost words, I’m with you there.”
idly traces a finger along the ground as The Signal plays, making swooping curves, stopping as the words come in… and then tracing again once it’s back to humming.
: “…nope, I got nothin’!”
: “I attempted to share my gift with Lucxja, to bring the meaning clear. It…didn’t work. It was like we were not…meant to know. Not yet.”
: “Yes, that’s the confusing part. Considering every other language instantly parses with no effort, Ancient aside, and I don’t think that was Ancient.”
shakes his head. “It has some phonetic similarities, shared vowels and dipthongs here and there, but it doesn’t seem anything like the recreations of spoken Ancient I’ve worked on.”
: “I caught… fragments. Syllables, connecting words. I’ll buy a hat from the Bazaar and eat it if it’s not Ancient, actually, but I sure as fuck couldn’t get any meaning out of it. Ancient, if you obscured it deliberately, maybe. Tch.”
: “Hmm…”
: “Do you think we could channel this Song through a different medium? A visual one?”
: “ I think we may have to get closer.“
: “I don’t think they have computers yet, and I don’t have synesthesia, at least.”
: “I mean, if you look hard enough, you probably could.”
, meanwhile, has been giving Wolf an odd look ever since before the music started playing. “And on Samudra, the Irós are- from what I remember you saying yesterday, they’re literally responsible for anyone going anywhere, from island to tower to island?”
: “What’s pellucid gnosis for if not for seeing that kind of thing?”
: “Well but. What if it’s not about the words at all but the … lengths of the notes? Or the absences in between. Like the code on the farcaster.”
: “Caion and I have tried various methods of transmitting visual information through a sonic medium as part of our encryption games, and generally, we’ve found that it’s hard to make anything that still sounds like music. If The Signal is a visual-audio encryption of some kind, it’s done in a far more sophisticated a manner than I’m familiar with.”
catches Duskomira’s words. “…yes, in fact, they are. They…sing their ships, from place to place. It’s remarkable.”
: “Hmm… no reason to not take a swing.”
nods. “I trained as one, once.”
: “Did you? I don’t think I knew that.”
nods. “I was a little embarrassed to bring it up, since I ended up abandoning my training when I went to the Academy, but it’s something I was raised with. I wouldn’t be confident saying I could do it now, but things like that tend to stick with you.”
: “How’s it feel, being lashed to the deck?”
: “Feel like I’d remember, if there were anything like that where I’m from.” And she glances at Xilai, who shrugs in a very Xilai kind of way.
: “I don’t know, I get the impression not a lot about Valais is remembered in general, but.”
: “I mean, I feel like I should remember a lot of things that I manifestly don’t. I’ve just gotten used to it, at this point.” And she laughs, lightly, and takes a sip of her mead.
: “Anyway, here’s sort of what I’m getting at.” He produces a wrapped cloth, made of a hunter-green cloth, from his pocket. He unwraps it to reveal a shard of Ra’Kaznar metal.
: “First off- does this look familiar to any of you three?”
straightens up, and stares at it. “Yes. Don’t know why? Feel a way about -that-, for sure. What in the world is it?”
puts on his gnosis-spectacles and flicks through lenses, staring at the strange shard of metal.
ꙮ It shimmers both radiantly and tenebrously.
: “Ra’Kaznar metal. Made from just about any assortment of metal, bathed in the light of a loving sun.”
: “Tin, aluminum, nickel…”
: “They become this.”
files away a little note for the next telescope adventure.
: “…No wonder you said you could easily get more.”
: “What I’m speculating is that- The Signal, when perhaps exposed to or channeled through a different medium, no matter how radical, might provide a different illuminating view of what exactly it is.”
tilts his head, shrugs. “Not against trying it, certainly.”
nods. “Certainly a theory worth testing.”
: “The Song touches every aspect of us, of the universe, of the ground we sit upon. Such it weaves matter and gnosis into things infinitely varied.”
: “Or… hm. Maybe the problem is that it’s being channeled through a medium, in the first place, and that’s obscuring it into noise.”
: “What medium? The radios? Sound itself?”
: “if it’s a signal, that means it’s going to be attenuating rapidly as it’s distant from its source.”
grins. “Now I really want to see it quadruple.”
: “So it’s as Wolf said—we need to get closer. Or find some trick to collapse the distance between here and there.”
: “If you got close enough to where it’s being generated, it’s possible you could clean it up enough to amplify and hear.”
nods.
looks at the Awoken. “Distance tricks are your specialty.”
winks at Wolf!
: “Things like that involving places you’re unfamiliar with or have never been to are really dangerous, though.”
nods. “We already have at least a working theory of where it’s coming from - Deepforge. If that’s where both the signal and the noise are coming from, our path at least in theory is relatively clear.”
: “Yeah, better off just going in person after the Iron Chef.”
: “Worth takin’ a look at with your own eyes, regardless.”
brushes his hair out of his face. “Danger is my nom de plume! But yeah, we’re not missing Iron Chef for anything.”
: “By the way–who said…that someone on the Beast traded something to the Queen for rails?”
gives Salme a you-want-to-handle-this-one? look.
: “Sure, Danger.”
: “Ah. That was me. That was Jae’s version of the story. That she wanted the title of ‘hero,’ that she didn’t want there to be ‘jernos’, and in return she made sure those from the Reach could travel wherever they liked. She said it happened a long time ago. So long ago most people don’t remember. I was trying to recover the term for Duškomira, since it came up.”
suddenly gets up and walks out to the entrance of the Cave and looks up out into the sky.
: “Wayfarers, pathfinders, train-builders. Hm.”
looks thoughtful. “Trading one kind of pathmaking for another, perhaps?” He scowls. “But why would the Queen not want there to be something like the yeresh or Iros here?” He blinks at Aury. “Aurelius?”
ꙮ You’re outside, right now, in the open valley. Five moons in a single graceful arc, in the middle of the sky.
looks over, curious and a little concerned.
swears under his breath.
: “Because SQ is the most self centered person you will ever meet, even if they’re a lot more friendly now.”
: “Hmm. Was giving realtime updates. That’s good to know.”
: “Oh dang, we lost another one?”
: “Huh so I guess losing one isn’t something we feel“
growls softly under his breath. “It’s happening quickly…”
: “No, it’s not. You just look up and one more’s fucking -missing-.”
: “Or hear, or have any way of noticing. Just gone. How bizzare.”
: “How very strange. Not quite on any regular interval that I can determine, either.”
: “No pattern to it at all, at least, none that Tasna’s been able to tease out, and if she can’t, I doubt anyone can.”
scratches at the side of his face and closes his eyes, slowly raising the mug of mead to his lips and taking a slow sip.
: “Tch.” She frowns, and then looks back to Wolf. “Anyways, that’s why I was curious about what the yeresh and Irós meant, on your planes. I can’t… I don’t know. I feel like it’s more than just egomania, not that our dear Queen doesn’t possess that trait.”
: “And when I asked her about it she went puzzle-box on me.”
: “The thing that worries me, the thing that scratches at me when I hear about that–we are not just pathfinders. We keep the old knowledge. We see what came before.”
: “And I think… if my read on her is right, she’d rather everyone live in the moment rather than think about the past or–“ -and her eyes flicker up to the five moons- “-the future.”
: “Has anyone been to one of the moons?”
: “I think she acted with good intent, if not foresight. Duškomira wondered what got lost when Jae took and transformed that word. And I’ve started to wonder that too.”
glances over to the Awoken Prince, and shakes her head. “Not that I’m aware of, at any rate. I know there’s a -pile- of failed flying machines people have tried to build over the years, and I don’t know if any of them could have made it remotely near one of the moons, either, if they could even get up in the air.”
: “So the Beast traded… something, for trains and interconnectedness through other means, and we don’t know why, or what we traded away.” She leans back, takes a sip of her mead. Looks up at the moons.
shakes his head at the Awoken.
: “I think. Well. It’s not quite as refined as a guess, but. I think the emphasis on remembering and wayfinding are important, but the yeresh are still more than that.” She blushes. “I have a story that … might be instructive? If you don’t mind, Wolf. Of anyone else.”
makes ‘go ahead’ gesture with the hand that isn’t holding the deck.
: “I never wanted to be yeresh,” she begins, voice dropping into a story cadence. “I knew I wasn’t built for it—but I always admired them. There was one woman who,” she blinks, as the full force of the memory slams into her suddenly. “I was nine, or maybe ten, and I was very scared. Iikka, my grandparent, had been fighting with Marjaana, the village head—something about our house, it being too big for just the two of us. They both tried to keep me from hearing the worst of it, I think, but I had a bad habit of listening at keyholes. Marjaana wanted us to move, said another family needed the space, and Iikka said they’d burn the house down and them with it if she tried to force the issue. There might have been more to it, but I remember being scared of losing our house, of losing Iikka, of … how tense everyone seemed.” ⁂
: “And then the yeresh came. She was beautiful—long white hair, eyes the clear, endless blue of a deep-fed spring on a bright day. She seemed to almost float, but I also remember she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or her white robes muddy. I don’t know what she said to Iikka or Marjaana or any of the other people involved, but she took time to speak to me as well. She asked me if I was happy, living with Iikka. What I wanted. If anything needed to change.” ⁂
: “Iikka was stubborn. They—they wove, but their legs and back were bad, and it made walking hard. I did what I could, but what they really needed was to let the healer do deep gnosis-work on them at least once a week. That’s what I asked her for. That and the ability to stay in our home. Both things happened seemingly without effort.” ⁂
: “It was like watching the tension ease. It had felt, before, like something would break, maybe break badly enough to splinter us all down the center. And then this yeresh came, and she knitted us back together even stronger than before. That’s what the yeresh do. They can heal communities. Iikka was getting the care they needed, and Marjaana would come over to play cards again, and there was—an agreement, that if Iikka passed, our house would pass on to a family that would cherish it, and that I would stay with that family if my parents wished me to.” ⁂
’s eyes go wide, and suddenly he’s leaning forward, eyes narrowed–it looks like he’s almost trying to do math in his head.
: “She witnessed these promises, and then helped us repair one of the older homes for the family that needed space. She didn’t wield a hammer as ably as she wielded words, but no task seemed below her.” She frowns a bit and dredges the memory a bit deeper. “I don’t know if the Irós do any of that. And, of course, there are better and worse yeresh. Her apprentice was something else entirely. If she had time for everyone, there was no one he didn’t look down upon. He had a snide, surly comment for every kind word she spoke, and when it came to wielding a hammer …” ⁂
tilts his head, mug of mead resting on the ground, enraptured by the story.
thinks deeply about the question as he continues to listen to Salme’s story.
: “I … remember him,” she says, wonderingly, almost distracted, “with his scraggly beard and breaking voice, covered in sweat and whining, though I can’t remember what he said. A couple comments, all of them—not malicious but they still felt cruel. Like he was better than the rest of us.” ⁂
: “And then once I said something back–Light, I can’t remember what. I was helping out, though. Everyone helped out, even children. At some point he called me an uppity snit and I remember biting him. Not hard enough to trigger a Rite, but …” ⁂
grimaces at the mental image.
looks…riveted. His hand over his mouth, just staring at Salme, unblinking.
is now fully off-topic, lost in the memory. “There’s a trick to biting someone and not letting go but also not triggering the Rite. You have to keep the tension in your jaw but not let your teeth dig in too deep. He yelped, he yowled, he shook his arm trying to get me to let go. I didn’t. We wound up both getting lectured by the yeresh, him worse than me. She said something that convinced me to let go eventually, which is maybe the more impressive feat.” She laughs a little. “I wonder what happened to that asshole.” 🙧
slowly turns his head to look at Wolf.
follows Awa’s gaze, and suddenly it looks like she is working a very complex math problem.
: “Surely, you must have heard of this guy.”
just lets his head sink into his hands, his face entirely covered. But his ears? Bright fucking red.
’s mouth slowly creeps into a cheshire-cat smile.
: “No way.”
looks between the two of them. “Seems like someone made a first impression, eh?”
is doing something TRULY magnificent with her eyebrows.
: “That was you?!” His voice is a wreck. “Goddess bright, fuck me.“
laughs from the belly, flopping forward and back, hand pounding on the ground.
cannot maintain his composure in the face of Wolf’s plaintiveness, and very suddenly and helplessly bellow-laughs.
: “That was you??” She’s pointing an accusing finger at him, like a parody of the ghost summoned by Libra. “You were such a fucking asshole!”
very hastily busies themselves with grabbing all the dishes, lest they break and fall over laughing.
drags his fingers down his face just enough to expose his eyes. “Yes, I am allowed to have had an embarrassing childhood, thank you…” He shakes his head, and rather helplessly, starts laughing himself. “Oh fuck me, to have that moment come back around now.”
: “Wolf! You- ahhaahahah- you amazing delinquent!”
: “Excuse you. I was a child. You were at best a teenager, feuding with a child. I recall that being the lynchpin of the lecture.”
is maintaining her composure through years of having been the Primus of the Zeroth Circle. Chipperly, “I broke a record for near-expulsions from the Academy that I dearly hope hasn’t been surpassed.”
snorts softly. “Yes, I’m surprised I still have ears after that scolding.” He laughs, just…helpless before the wild coincidence of it all. “If I may, Salme, provide some context, and…the aftermath…that you lack?” Wolf rubs his face–not upset, just…very embarrassed, and chagrined. “Because there is a tale after that tale.”
nods and gestures for him to continue.
: “Please give us the other side of the wolf that blew down the pigs’ house!”
shakes his head again, and pushes his hair back off his face, taking a deep breath and collecting himself. “I have always heard the Song, as I do now. I do not remember otherwise. It is a powerful gift, but not, always, an easy one. I knew, from a young age, things I should not. Perceived that which I should not. My parents, goddess love them, tried their best. But…” Wolf gives a wry smile. “They were not, precisely, equal to the task. In fairness, not many would have been.” His gaze goes distant as he looks into the fire, seeing something there, perhaps, that no one else can. “I was a strange child, and other children are not often kind to strangeness, and so I learned to cling to my gift like a raft upon the sea.” ⁂
: “Which is a kind and adult way of saying that…I became an arrogant little shit, quite quickly.” He smiles up at the group, looking up from the fire. “To be fair, it was comfortable for no one–not for me, not for my parents, and not for those in my village. I cannot blame my parents for being relieved when a yeresh came to the village, drawn by rumors of a strange, half-feral child who knew and could do things he should not be able to do.” He smiles, distantly again, at a memory. “Diana, she was called. Still, as then, one of the most striking women I have met, with a voice that sounded like the smoke of warm hearth-fire. She was the first to be able to explain some of what I heard–some of what I was. And offered–to my parents and myself, that I might be her apprentice. That I might become a yeresh, in time. I went with her.” Wolf smiles and grimaces all at once. “And…I hated it, almost instantly.” ⁂
laughs a little.
joins her, thinking back to his Irós days.
looks a little wry, a little familiar with the contour of the story, and listens.
: “My parents had indulged my whims–Diana expected me to listen. I had wandered, wild, drifting for hours in the Song when it suited me–Diana walked down endless roads, and put me to work. And in between the endless walking, a never-ending series of villages–all alike, to my eyes–with a cavalcade of the most banal and boring problems, problems more often than not caused by their own stubbornness, or mistrust, or deceitfulness. Worse, instead of simply marching in and telling them what to do, Diana would listen. And ask questions. Half the time, she wouldn’t even do anything, except somehow convince people to talk to each other or admit their fears or secrets, and then we would move on.” Wolf leans back a bit, craning his neck back to look up at nothing in particular. “I admit that the only thing, in those days, that I respected her for was her prowess in battle–which was the one thing she refused to teach me.” ⁂
is listening raptly but does take a moment to glance at her tomestone, raises an eyebrow, and types something before going back to listening.
: “Then, one day, in another stupid little village, there was another stupid little problem, but…in addition, there was this stupid little girl who would not leave me alone.“ He smiles at Salme, a bit twistedly, clearly both remembering the young man’s disdain, and feeling the older man’s affection. “I was hot, and I was tired, and I was angry, and I called her–yes, an ‘uppity little snit,’ thank you Salme. I had forgotten, you know.” Wolf doesn’t look displeased, just…amused. “And the little thing bit me.” He sighs, shakes his head. “I knew better, thank all the little gods, than to invoke a Rite on a child…not that I’m entirely sure I would have won. And I then got my ears scolded off by my master, who had had quite enough of my attitude, thank you very much.” He clasps his hands in front of him, and they twist on each other a bit. “So, being young, and arrogant, and wounded, and very stupid, I did something rash.”
⁂
: “(You? Something rash?)” She stage-whispers with large eyes.
snorts and rolls his eyes at Salme good-naturedly before continuing. “I decided that I would show them all. That I was better. That I was special. I had already spent long hours in the Song, and was already well familiar with the images that flickered therein. I decided that I would dive deep, deeper than I ever had before, and bring back some knowledge or wisdom from the heart of the Song, and show them all.“ Wolf’s voice perfectly captures the kind of headstrong, somewhat whiny anger that must have propelled him at the time. His smile grows tight. “I was a fool. I lost myself. Lost and adrift, so deep that I could no longer tell which way led back home. All I remember–for I remember precious little of that dive, thank the goddess–was crying out, in terror and desperation. For her.” ⁂
: “And just…just when I thought myself completely lost….I heard it. A voice. A song. Laden with kindness, and worry, and love…and a power that I had never know before.” He stares back into the fire, eyes dark and distant. “I clung to it like a lifeline. With all of my strength and all of my fear. And, bit by bit, she sang me home.” He shakes his head, and looks up at the rest of the group, ending on Salme. “For the first time in my life, I was…humbled. I was so weak that I couldn’t rise from my bed for days. And the worst part, I think…was that my master didn’t scold me. She just sat down beside me, when I was well enough to talk, and asked…’have you learned your lesson now?’ I had. I very much had.” ⁂
chuckles lightly, but not enough to interrupt.
: “From that day forward, I started, haltingly…to listen. To question, that which I had thought I’d known. To try and understand what drove my master, and to understand the strange and intimate power she wielded. I came to understand, slowly, that I had been a fool. And, not wanting to be a fool anymore, I started to learn. It was the start of wisdom.” He smiles at Salme. “So I suppose, my friend, my sister, I should thank you. For, unknowing to both of us…without you, I would not be the man I now am.” Wolf laughs, soft and warm. “More than you thought you’d get out of that bite, hm?”
: “The yeresh are truly… special.” He then breaks out into barking laughter.
blinks, and then grins, and then breaks out into a low, warm laugh. “Yes. It’s. Yes.”
glances between Salme and Wolf while nursing a bottle of sarsaparilla from the cave entrance. “Being a child sounds exhausting.”
looks at Aurelius and then laughs. “Some of us can’t just come into being, fully-formed, from smashing two different weirdos together.”
looks to Luĉja. “Actually. You didn’t have a childhood either, did you?”
: “Not as such. I was made as you see me. Though. It did take some getting used to customs and culture here. Almost like a childhood, perhaps? Not that I was small, but that I had not yet learned to be an adult?”
snorts, glancing back at Aurelius. “You’re not wrong. I think that’s why we only have to do it once.”
rumbles, “Finally, not the odd one out.”
: “You too, then, did not grow?”
looks at Rohsu with curiosity.
also looks at Xilai curiously.
: “I do remember– not well, but I remember what must have been a long time spent in training with my cohort. Learning what my tasks would be when I met the outside world. But– no, on Mu, a cohort of Kin and humans are produced by the Vehru, the Kin who caretake and provide, when a new cohort is necessary.”
: “And they’re produced as … adults?”
: “Near to such. In this plane’s terms, old enough for their first Hunt.”
: “That’s. Convenient?”
: “Fascinating.”
, who has heard this before, mostly spends the time recovering from his ordeal of teenage remembrance.
: “Certainly seems to have its upsides.” He chuckles, softly. “Took me some time to get used to seeing very small humans running about.”
: “I did have a question, actually.”
perks his ears up a little, ready to respond.
glances at Wolf. “That… thing you did, with your voice, when we were talking, earlier.”
tilts his head. “Aye?”
: “Can you… do that when you want to? Can you all do that? What do you call it?” He leans forward, curiously.
: “We call it ‘speaking with style!’”
: “I believe all of us can, at this point. In…several variants, actually.” He looks around the group. “I don’t really understand it very well myself, so I’ll ask someone else to explain.”
: “Absolutely no one ever calls it that.”
stares at the Awoken. “Like that, yes.”
: “It’s just infusing trace amounts of gnosis into your words when you speak. You’re actually doing it right now yourself, you just don’t notice or realize it.”
: “Oh, you mean like this?”*
snorts, chuckles at Archie. “Showoff.”
: “And, when we don’t bother doing it, we sound … different.” She cuts her eyes to Duškomira. “I believe you know that trick.”
sticks his tongue out playfully at Wolf.
: “I believe this is more accurately called, ‘Alethic.’ It seems to have to do with fundamental truths.”
: “Hn.”
gestures at Luĉja. “That’s the one I mean.”
: “Is it familiar to you somehow?”
looks unsettled, but intrigued. “It is the tone in which I heard my God’s voice. I had never heard a… living person speak it.”
: “It’s what?”
glances back over his shoulder. “(You pretending to be God on Mu, Glory?)”
’s eyes glimmer. “That’s interesting.”
: “What is your God, on Mu?”
: “I remember… it’s bound up in my memory of my duty. My duty to… humans, to my Kin, to my God. I remember hearing Him speak to me, and when He did, it sounded just like that. I have not heard it in so long I almost forgot what it sounded like.” He shakes his head.
shifts his eyes left and right and scrunches up his lips in restraint.
looks pained. “That is… a question for a Yazhn, not for a Rohsu. I know that it is our duty to build Him. He spoke to me, when I needed to hear His voice, from the kinder world to come. And no matter how hard I listened, I haven’t heard His voice since I came here, so I suppose He can’t hear me from so far away, so I just. I try to remember.” He scratches at an ear with a clawed hand.
: “Ah don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll find them within two, three days tops within getting there.”
relaxes, a little. “Anyways, it wasn’t something I was expecting to hear, that’s all.”
: “To…build God?”
nods, seconding Wolf’s question.
: “They just need the right… medium.” He winks!
gives the Awoken a flat, level stare.
nods to Wolf. “He is not here yet. Like– my friend whom I mentioned to you, He is yet to awaken. Mu is harsh, and there’s work to be done to make it a place of joy.” He looks at his hands. “Work someone else’ll be doing while I make this mountain valley a garden, I suppose. Feels like I’m still doing the work, feels right.”
: “Do you remember what you were building that … was your god?”
would put his hand on Aury’s shoulder if he was next to him, but he’s over by the cave mouth, so he gives him a knowing nod that says ‘I’m putting my hand on your shoulder from a great distance.’
nods. “I am Rohsu, my duty was to protect humans and Kin from anything that would threaten them. That’s part of the Great Work, too. But, I mean… we all know how to garden.” He chuckles, like that’s self-evident to everyone.
relaxes a bit at that. “Oh. Gardening was the building of your god?” Like that makes more sense, but it seems to, to her at least.
: “Prince Danger, how much do you know about gardening?”
: “We will make Mu itself a garden. However long it takes.” And even though he’s -here-, and not there… he still says it like a confident ‘we’.
: “You put the thing in the ground and give it water and nutrients and light. I made a sprout appear on Almachadta, remember?”
beams at the Awoken.
: “Perfectly normal plant behavior that was.”
: “A little Endless Possibility Gnosis never hurt, either!”
looks a little confused, but he’s smiling!
: “I did … have one thing I wanted to bring up.” She says, after the conversation seems to have lulled. “About the gates. About intent. Wolf thinks Zosimos was the one trying to draw you hypothetical five here to the Beast. I’m … not sure who it could have been, but when I was talking to Tasna I showed her the memory of Ciet’s attempted to crossing, and there was someone on the other side holding the door open. I thought, for the longest time, it was Tasna herself. But it wasn’t.”
nods, a bit, recalling their conversation.
: “I guess,” she blushes a little, having interrupted. “That … you all thought there was some purpose in bringing you all here and that is, to me, some sort of proof that there was … something that could be construed, at least in that moment, as a someone, trying to ease the way. I have no idea what that means. But.” She shrugs, a little uselessly.
: “To be fair, I just think that if there’s a signal in the noise it might be related,” Wolf says, amiably. “But at the same time, he seemed to want…good, for the worlds? Stability, at least.”
nods. “It’s just the memory of … hands trying to hold the way open … it just feels. Striking.” She shrugs again.
gives Salme a Look but manages to keep her mouth shut.
rubs his chin, thoughtfully.
, meanwhile, nods. “For a long time, I thought I must have been mistaken. About there having been an author of the patterns I noticed. But then you showed me that vision, and– those hands.”
: “It still could be Zosimos. We know there were at least five … versions of him. It could be him, or another echo, or something else entirely. But I think that proof of intent is important.”
looks… thoughtful, but whatever he’s looking thoughtful about is- as he would probably put it, A Yazhn Question, Not A Rohsu One.
muses to himself out loud, “The invisible hands, made visible.”
: “Yeah, like, at the very least you don’t get four entire ass Gates in different worlds leading to a single location on accident, at least.”
: “It’s purposeful travel all the way up and down…”
: “Right, that can’t be a coincidence. For some reason, our paths led here, I’ve just. Never been able to understand why. Or even formulate a remotely testable hypothesis.”
: “So wait, does that imply that Beast would have been the crossroads of all the planes? So the Obsidian Road may not have always been there, or it may not have always served its current function, or it may have always been there in its current function as some sort of back entrance?”
: “That’s always been one of my hypotheses, at least.”
: “Someone must have blazed a strange, sunless path. And it takes but one.”
: “Yes.”
: “Jae?”
shakes his head. “She seems rather… planebound. Otherwise she would have left already, yeah?”
: “Unlikely, she’s been stuck here the entire time from what I gather.”
: “She seemed… surprised when I showed up, even though that was after Xilai. If she’s responsible she’s a much better liar than I thought she is.”
: “I think … the Obsidian Road is very old. Archie, Wolf, you recall the memory, right? Of a tower, falling?”
: “Again, not outside of the realms of possibility, but with very little in the way of being testable without her developing a sudden case of being willing to use her fucking words.”
chuckles at Tasna.
nods at Salme. “Aye. Which is now in the deck.” And there it is to hand–a tower, struck by lightning, falling.
: “I have. A theory. And it’s … Jorule thinks it’s a stupid one. Caion, though,” she looks at Archie, a little hopefully, “Thinks it might have merit.”
: “Let’s hear it!”
: “Well, I didn’t hand Jorule a Scholar’s crest, so– what the Awoken said.”
looks like he wants to make a comment more fit for his past self, but swallows it.
smiles a broad smile that’s as full of love as it is of stories. “When he thinks an idea has merit, it usually means it’s dangerous or brilliant, often both.”
: “I said it works as a metaphor, and works well, but *literally*... it's, eh, hard sell.“
: “I think the Beast is where it starts. The—I know we haven’t verified cycles, but we know that records on Samudra only stretch back 1296 years. I have Jae’s word that something happened precisely that long ago. Almachadta’s life-death cycle is about that long, though getting a precise measurement is hard. And I’ve been thinking—what if the Beast is an actual, physical Beast? What if it wakes, and moves through space? We know something basically cracks it open and eats Almachadta. What if it’s the Beast uncoiling? And what if Samudra, below, is effected by the fallout?”
: “Maybe the rest of it is wrong, but what if the Beast is where it starts?”
blinks rapidly as he digests that idea. “And…Mu and Valais ‘above’…both shrouded, in their own way…”
: “Oh sure, leave out the part about Almachadta being a Literal Melon and make me look like an asshole.“
: “What if the Beast is where it ends?”
blinks at the Awoken. “…go on…”
: “Many roads leading here. Travellers from multiple worlds coming here and then… becoming stuck.”
: “The Beast, devouring worlds, bringing an end to them…”
: “….would certainly explain why our paths led here, if – whoever it was thought that we could do something to stop that from happening.”
turns to the three ex-travellers: “Oh, and Mu and Valais are not part of the observable universe. At least not that we could find so far.”
: “Are stars visible, from Valais? Do you remember?”
raises an eyebrow, at that. And then frowns. “I remember stargazing. Before I even came here. So they must be, right?”
grimaces at … Aurelius, though really she’s grimacing at Jorule. “Almachadta does look like a melon from space, yes. I think that drives home that it is something that calls out to be devoured. I think the fire could come from the burning gnosis of the Beast, that which incinerates all written records on this plane and also burns Almachadta. I think it is the devouring that is critical here.”
cracks his knuckles. “Looks like there’s more lookin’ to do!”
shudders, as he is wont to do when the destruction of his world is bandied about.
glances at Salme. “The process of fire and the process of consuming the energy in food are, fundamentally, the same process, it’s why people are warm.” Pause. “And now I’m very, -very- curious about the Deepforge.” Pause, again. “And you should know that the further in to the Deepforge you -go-, the more it looks like… parts of a living thing. So. There’s that.”
glances over at Lucja.
: “There’s one another thing maybe worth noting.” She touches her irrica bracelet, which doesn’t really match anything else she’s wearing. “Almachadta is surrounded by irrica rings, thousands of them, countless. And when I was compiling our latest guide and recalling our moments in sanctuary there was … an opalescent white sand, or sand-like something, where we first engaged in the Rite for the Architect. I don’t know. If that means anything, but.” She shrugs. “Maybe it’s the remnants of Almachadta’s rind. Maybe they fall to Samudra and disrupt it?”*”
looks directly at Lucja.
: “Apparently that’s a -new- development, by the way.”
: “Wait, you saw the worlds from outside?” Wolf finally twigs to what’s been chewing at him. “How?!”
: “What is?”
looks over to Wolf now. “The telescope, in the observatory room.”
: “We wrote down coordinates so anyone could easily find them with a little armwork.”
looks like he got the memo about seeing the worlds from outside as Wolf commented on it and blinks repeatedly.
is a little lost in thought, but catches the glances. “That makes sense. When I was made, I felt a warm, enormous presence.”
just looks boggled for a moment, and then clearly files that away in ‘the weird stuff Awa, Aury, and Salme get up to’ and moves on.
: “There’s a thread on the linkpearl and it’s accessioned under {The Shape of Our Cosmos}?” She supplies helpfully.
: “So noted…”
gives Salme a thoughtful look. “I don’t suppose you happen to have any unused irrica you could leave me as a gift to analyze?” She sounds Hopeful. Adorably hopeful, honestly. Does she even have a lab here worth a damn? Probably not, but that doesn’t matter.
glances at Aurelius. “Aury always has a bunch of Random Shit in his pocket dimension. Though if you really need it …” she reaches for her bracelet and hesitates before slipping it off and offering it to Tasna.
pulls out a small chunk from somewhere and tosses it to Tasna.
shakes her head. “No, I’m not going to take that. Especially when– oh, thank you, you’re magnificent.” She pockets the tiny chunk with ALACRITY.
slips her bracelet back on, relieved. She would have, if it would have led to answers. But.
looks over at her with the knowing smile of a fellow researcher. “I’m not going to let you keep these, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t show off how awesome my boyfriend is. Pop these on and take a look!” He pulls the gnosis-spectacles off the band of his sash and gives them a quick wipe before presenting them to her.
: “Anyways, if there’s anything else–“ –she glances at the other two, briefly, and they both nod– “–we can talk about it in Queenstown after the next train in, we talked and decided we didn’t want to miss the Grand Soups this year after all–“ –and then she’s UTTERLY sidelined by the gnosis-spectacles for a little while, oh no.
: “(Aury, you should toss the Traveler’s Guide to her on the train),” kinda smiling at her distraction.
: “Oh, sure. I figured you had already done that when you talked earlier, but yeah.”
: “Ahh, we’ll be on the next train, unfortunately, packing for a trip to Queenstown for some of us who aren’t Duškomira is a whole entire process.”
: “But, there’ll be time.”
shakes her head. “No. I showed Duškomira the Valaïs entry, but that was all.” She frowns. “You know. Jae talked about getting us a printing press. I wonder if we could make copies while preserving the updating abilities?”
bus-throws with a “Sometimes, Duška just takes off for Queenstown and we only know it because she vanished and took her shop-cart.”
: “Xilai! For goodness’ sake.”
: “That would be hard without knowing where they’re coming from.”
shrugs, innocently.
laughs, following it up with another spoonful of shark-fin soup!
joins in the bus-throwing. “Did you know Saranzaya was convinced she’s never met Duškomira in her entire life?”
actually cackles. “Oh, dear. I suppose I should properly introduce myself, this trip.”
politely but insistently pries back his spectacles with a wide smile. “We’d love to see you at Iron Chef trying out the Soups! Luĉja and I have been working on an entry to compete with since Jae issued us a challenge.” He smirks a little. “Well, I suppose I issued the challenge and she defined its terms more clearly, but.”
does give back the spectacles, of course, although not without a last admiring glance. “Yes! Yes, thus the hunt for the glass sharks that led you straight to us, and she had to have known what she was doing there, that’s just her style. Just for that, I hope you all win, although don’t tell anyone in town I said that or else they’ll try to keep me off the judging panel I’m going to shoehorn my way onto.”
: “Don’t worry, even if I’m cheering for you, I’ll still judge fairly. Still, I wouldn’t want to be your competition.” She grins.
: “Don’t worry - you won’t need favoritism to justify voting for us.” It’s not the purple you’re used to, but the glint in his eye seems to shine as brightly as it does in battle.
claps heartily! “I love it! Ready your ingredient list, Archie!”
: “Though, wait. The tip that got us out here—are you saying that came from Jae? I thought it was one of you three.”
: “I’m -assuming- it was that theatrical little minx pulling a fast one on everyone simultaneously. I could be wrong. It wasn’t us, at any rate. Unless–“ –she glances at Duškomira.
: “Well, now I wish it had been me.”
murmurs something very unflattering about Jae under her breath. “Archie, you’d better kick her fucking ass.”
cackles, again.
: “Worry not, Friend-Salme. Archie has tricks up his sleeve that no one on the Beast could dream of.”
: “You’re personally invited to help be one of our taste testers before the big day to make sure that we do. Either way, I’m confident in us.”
considers the kinds of food she’s been willing to ingest without complaint, and says, “I’m willing to help in whatever way you can but there are probably better taste-testers out there.”
: “Just…do better than the pies, please.”
: “Oh. Wasn’t there going to be a dessert round of pies?”
: “Luĉja was trying to get you a guest judge position, Wolf.”
looks like a man trying to decide whether to fight, or flee.
: “With all due respect. No. Thank you.” His voice is weak.
: “Wolf, surely there is no cause for alarm. After all, I am famous for my choices in food. Surely you trust your favorite Endjinn?”
eats a rock, for fun
ꙮ Mercifully for Wolf, there’s a train to catch back to Queenstown that’ll shortly be taking up everyone’s time!