Sagas of Wayward Suns - Arc 1

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Gentle River

River smiles at the remark, though he feels a pang of sympathy. "Thorns was a beautiful city, my friend. One otherworldly threat at a time though, yes?"
 
The procession meets you in the square. The horsemen wait far back on the avenue*, well out of the way. Men who are not men carry the palanquin--automata of carved darkwood and gears and valves. Tick, tick, tick like Varangian clocks. Careful as new mothers with their babes, the machines fold into themselves and settle the palanquin five yards away on the ground. As one they somehow shift toward you, ticking, folded up like discarded dolls.

A dense bead screen obscures the inside of the palanquin. A wisp of smoke or maybe incense pours out.

The square is absolutely empty. Everyone has gone indoors.

From within the box, a soft, childlike voice, "How may this one serve such lights as yourselves?"

@Ragoza

* Your fretful captain is among the horse riders, looks glum with his now rain-creased feather hanging limply from his hat. He'll nod to you. Seems to be wearing new trousers.
 
Red Snow

Red crosses her arms over her chest, treats the palanquin to a particularly unamused scowl. Briefly nods back to plume hat, feels a little better about the whole situation seeing the flaccid feather.

"Out of the box, now. I won't ask twice."
 
@Ragoza

A watery laugh of delight. "Such lights as yourselves walk into a foreign dream in the skin of Men and presume to be the lucid masters of all. That won't do, they say, that won't do. You have come to end Zala, yes?" A strange moment of quiet muttering inside the box. "End it as it is now."

Tick-tock, go the sleeping porters. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

"A waste of such lights as yourselves. It is meant to touch nothing but be seen and wondered at, not kept in the gut of the flintsparks of Men's souls."
 
Red Snow

Right, they've been warned.

Red keeps one eye on those weird wooden doll...things as she marches to the palanquin. Her left hand drifts out slightly and Wolf's Hunger falls from the space between worlds and rests in it, growling on the edge of hearing. Her right hand bolts out and grabs the beaded curtain.

"I told you I'm not asking twice," she snarls as she tears the beads away.
 
Iskandr

Oh, I see. There's either something terrible in that palanquin, or something stupid pretending to be something terrible.

Almost without him noticing, his bow is in his hand, as Red stamps over to the palanquin.

"You'd think someone would have mentioned something about the new governor being some manner of godling, really."
 
The sky briefly, almost imperceptibly, flashes red. The clouds, for a heartbeat, turn to rust. The rain, for an instant, searing metal. Or was it? Nothing is harmed, no one notices outside your newborn Circle.

Inside the box, among threadbare pillows and the stink of incense mixed with the rank horror of some carcass-like stench, sits something that looks like a child. Or perhaps a overly short, bald...man, woman?...wearing simple rags and lying upon its back in comfort. Stares at the ceiling until Red tears the beads away, eyes swiveling to meet hers.

A voice like a choir singer, "Oh, what have such lights as yourselves presumed now?"
 
Resonant Hammer's Descent

As the palanquin gets closer Hammer's attention is captured by the automata carrying the thing more so than the conversation going on in front of it.



As he hears the curtain pulled aside, however, his attention is drawn back to the confrontation. He recoils slightly as the being swaddled within speaks. He plumbs knowledge that he doesn't fully remember getting, attempting to recognise what the... childthing is.

[Rolling Int Lore (The First Age) with full excellency. Pools at 3|10]

 
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Gentle River

At first, River is revulsed by the being in the palanquin. He steps back reflexively at the cut-glass voice razoring its way down his spine. But it's a passing moment, like a shadow flickering across sunlight. He looks at the creature again, but this time with cool, appraising eyes. And knowledge comes to him in that instant, as though always on the tip of his tongue, or an instinct as natural as breathing.

After the momentary flicker of horror across his brow, River's face settles back in to his typical easygoing grin, though this time it has all the mirth and good humour of a shark scenting blood. He lightly steps forward, the caste mark on his brow flaring back in to life and golden light shimmering along his body, and when he speaks his voice reverberates with tones of brass and glorious wrath. His eyes seem to burn.

"Presumed, creature? You have gravely misunderstood your situation here. We do not presume, we demand. But I will grant you mercy, and air to speak words of apology for your presumption."

Regally, he raises one hand, signalling to the others. "It can't hurt us unless we attack it. We walk bound in oaths as old as the dawn of time, and they are... they are on our side. Unless you strike it, it must forbear threat of violence."

He takes another step forward and hunkers down on one knee, the companionable gesture echoing the way he spoke to a small boy when he came to town a whole lifetime ago. He meets the creature's dead, hideous eyes gaze for gaze, and waits for them to blink.

"You will speak your name and purpose."

OOC: River regained 5m personal during the hour or so downtime before the palanquin arrived. He's spending 5m peripheral to Activate Harmonious Presence meditation and a further 2m on the Presence Excellency for 3 dice (1m discount from HPM.)

Rolling Charisma+Presence to try and intimidate the thing in to speaking the truth.



Pools are at 8/16. Anima's back to Glowing.
 
Ferat:

Ferat folded his arms and watched. The others had knowledge he didn't, they'd sort it out. He had heard a curse, long ago. "May you live in interesting times". Absent-mindedly laying a hand on shalla's head, he mused that times were certainly very bloody interesting right now.
 
@Hair

The automata, while aesthetically unique, are a manner of servitor. They're actually a package deal with the now filthy palanquin. By and large, carrying it is their only function. Could they fight? Sure. But they'd be worse than an untrained human soldier in all but strength.

As to what the occupant is? Nothing comes readily to mind save some vague notion that this isn't actually it. Just a shell or body something far larger, vaster, has slithered into a portion of its intelligence to see Creation on its own terms.
 
@Chaka

"Ah. The gilt tongue of moon-shadowed light." It never turns its head toward you, merely peers at you with those strange, rheumy eyes. "I am Mul Hyades. And you...hehe...my purpose? Oh, such lights as yourselves have all been draped by blankets of time, your sight lost." Its eyes take on a strange auroral glow. It laughs, wheezes like an old man.

With all the glittering innocence of a child ripping off a spider's legs, it says, "See."

A kaleidoscopic horror show reveals itself in your soul's eye in less than a second:

A strange geometric grid of cubes expanding toward infinity, each a reality beyond comprehension bracing into collapse.

Yourself, floating in the midst of brackish, empty space; like an invisible mote of dust, you float blind beneath the immensity of some horrible thing rising from the dark to break some surface beyond.

Looking down from unimaginable heights on a Creation bathed in ruddy twilight, each city a cinder beneath chiming balls of fire.

A luminous being, four-armed and terrible, waiting in the depths of a dead palace situated in a dead canyon screaming a wordless name across a rainbow of realities.

And then nothing. "What do you see?" It murmurs, laughing quietly to itself.
 
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Red Snow

Would have preferred if it had just attacked, honestly. You know where you stand when a horrible beasty attacks you.

Red is at a bit of a loss as River negotiates with whatever the hells occupies the palanquin. Presuming that River will scream if it attacks, she walks up the avenue towards the waiting guards. Wolf's Hunger rests easy in her left hand, visible but not directly threatening. For the sake of convenience she beckons Plume Hat over with an outstretched hand before pointing at the palanquin.

"Your governor, you said? Explain."
 
@Ragoza

"You know how in some tales there's usually some ominous warning or vague cryptic shite about such things? Well there, you get to suffer it now with the rest of us." Plumed Hat claps a hand over his mouth, paling at his own brutal honesty. He lowers his voice, leans down, rivulets of water pouring from his now deflated hat. "It appeared a month ago, after the Satrapial-Hetman--what did you call her, eh, governor, yes, as earlier--after Satrapial-Hetman Koskeda uprooted her troops and fled for Dezsofi." He makes a sign against the evil eye and spits into a puddle. "You figure it out. You think a soul in this town will say no to that? It killed one of the left-behind Immaculates."
 
Gentle River

Years of practice have given River a good poker face, so he manages not to curl up in a ball and start screaming and crying uncontrollably, though he's definitely looking a lot paler than usual. He does his best to memorise the details as he struggles to compose himself, to allow his mind to try and understand the enormity of it all. He'll ask the others about the vision later. If there is a later.

"The end of everything." He gets back on his feet, slightly unsteadily, and wipes a trickle of blood away from his nose with the back of his hand. "How... pedestrian."

Everything is definitely fine. He gives a moment's thought to the foetal-position-and-weeping idea, and dismisses it for plan B. More conversation.

"Well, Mul Hyades. That was bracing, but can you perhaps be a bit more specific about why you're interested in Zola?"
 
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Red Snow

Well look at that, now we know where we stand.

She leans in close.

"This could get ugly soon. If it does you and your boys are in charge of protecting the townspeople, understand? Let us deal with whatever that thing is."
Red claps him on the shoulder and wheels around, Wolf's Hunger flowing into a two handed grip, ready to strike as necessary. She fixes her gaze on the palanquin and resumes listening to the thing talk to River.
 
Resonant Hammer's Descent

Hammer steps forward and gently lays a hand on River's shoulder. "Easy now, Little Dove. This is but an avatar for something larger, something beyond space itself."

 
Iskandr

The hunter has circled around without taking his eyes off of the threat.

Resonant Hammer attends to River. Good.

Red Snow's Herald stands ready. Good.

He speaks softly to the guards.

"It killed an Immaculate? How, and what happened to the body?"
 
@FuzzMonster @Ragoza

Plume Hat wipes idly at his gloves, staring at the horror in its box. "We're not entirely sure. Lots of screaming and fire, though. They toppled an Islander villa in...whatever happened. Cored the poor bastard's head with flame, though the priest himself was of Hesiesh's ilk."

He wheels his horse around, signing something to the others. "Lock it all down. Keep people home!"

His gaze flits back to you two. "Just a carbon skull left on a ravaged, twitching body. Old Koblyz swore he was somehow alive."
 
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@Chaka @Hair

It gives Hammer an appraising look before chuckling, "you're in the know, right? At least some twilit lights such as yourselves haven't been so dimmed." It smiles in a way that could never be seen as one. Something palsied and infantile in the gesture.

Weepy eyes swivel back to River. "Big things, small beginnings, big things, you know." The carrion scent briefly swells like a ripe carcass. It sighs. "A flare is a flare is a flare," it chuckles, eyeing the nimbus around your body.
 
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