CLOSED SIGNUPS WHALE FALL

[unanun]

Adelheid stood at the foot of the stage. She had not moved since the detachment disappeared into the maw, rappelling down on a knotted rope made of the stage curtains. The majordomo had long departured with jingling fanfare, disappearing to the backhouse to continue wringing his hands. Several patrollers dangled their legs at the edge of the hole.

The rope twitched and all heads shifted to it, like dewflowers catching the sun. The ones that ringed the hole were the first to reach for their masks, personalized contraptions of leather, vellum, and filter material. They strapped them tight around their clean shaven faces and gripped their spears, long shafts of pointed bone, as they braced themselves at the precipice and looked down. An irritated shake of Adelheid's scabbard forced them at ease as she ascended to the stage and peered down maskless, steadied against the rope. In the wet darkness was the faint flicker of a flare at the bottom, drifting like a spore as it climbed the knotted ladder.

"Eggs," Xola gasped into Adelheid's ear as soon as she was free of the dark. "Everywhere." Behind her, Sekani's ribbon curled into circles, over and over and over.

---

"The Specter will have to be quarantined." The weight of responsibility grew Adelheid against the majordomo, who had shrunk even more against her newfound authority. "We will stretch a vellum ceiling over the amphitheater and isolate the bowl." The majordomo sputtered with much chiming, but could not formulate a riposte until the firecracker minordomo ducked around him. "There will be patrols placed in shifts at the top of the ring -"

"The Red Specter will not be quarantined." She was dressed in facsimile of her superior, and although she was a head shorter than Adelheid she stood straight, edging out the hunched over majordomo. "We have shows scheduled nights from now. Madam Roussa will not stand for this. What is the reason?"

"I cannot say, until I have given my report to the council. You may come along and make your case." The Captain-Commander's white tunic was in sharp contrast to the revealing jewelry of the minordomo. "But until we have decided on a firm course of action, for the safety of Cadia I have to-"

"Have to? Safety?" A finger stopped just short of her nose, and though Adelheid did not flinch she blinked. "You have no grounds inside of Cadia. No authority. Until you come back to me with an edict, leave. At once."

"..."

"Are you going to use your heirloom on me?" Adelheid's gaze was yanked to her hand, gripping the handle of her star-iron sword. "Because that's the only thing that will let you keep your goons here."

The extended silence was broken by the rattle of the sword, as she tilted the pommel of the still-sheathed blade to the stairs that led back up to Atrium. The Captain's eyes spent just a moment to take in the frightened quirk of the minordomo's lips. She snorted and left with her detachment.

"Send for arbormancer." The minor punched the major's arm. "Now!!"

---

"... a nest." Adelheid finished her testimony. She sat erect at the head of the long wooden table, both of her palms placed on its surface, and only at the conclusion of her report did she bring her hands together, one over the other in front of her.

"Unprecedented." The old matriarch of the cutters was nearly agape the entire time. "The belly is the thickest part of Cadia. Surveys have shown layers of blubber at several times a Cadian's height, ending in impenetrable wallskin. We've never been able to go past it, even with the current - current thinning of the ceiling." She fiddled with an earring.

Keeper Ulmar adjusted his glasses, one paw for each temple. He had done that often over the testimony - perhaps an adjustment was in the future for him. "I am unaware of any record of incursion from the belly. There is some oral history of insectsign at the tailward fringe communities, but I am inclined to dismiss that as hearsay. There just has never been any thing like this!"

All eyes turned to Adelheid, but she squeezed her hands on top of each other and remained silent.

"There-" all ears turned to Barca, blonde and clean-shaven, robed in simple patrol garb. "There have been some trends reported from the waystations outside. It is still too early to tell - "

"Ah! Y-yes." Adelheid only nodded in confirmation. She had removed circlet from her brow for the meeting.

"..." Barca frowned nearly imperceptibly as he continued, "but we have seen bugsign closer than normal at this time of the year. Our forecasting cycles are off, and we misestimated the Hydell bloom." He looked to Adelheid, but the Captain-Commander lowered her gaze from Kolmi, who sat at the opposite head of the table, to the councilwoman's hands, and remained quiet.

The water clock struck for the last time of the day, but there was no sign that the meeting would come to an end. The keepers of time locked the tube into place as the ceiling continued to dim. Kolmi stood and moved about the chambers, pouring luminescent fluid into various vials and small jars.

"How deep did your scouts say this nest went?"

"Deep!" Adelheid snapped to attention for Kolmi. "A mix of antlion mucous and dirt. They reported eggs, a twisting structure as far as they scouted, and the- and the fungus."

.....

....

...

..

.

---

"No ..." breathed Abraham, horrified. "A nest!" Barca and Abraham whispered to each other near closing hour at What A Waist.

"But.. but.. they have to.." Abraham's head jerked all over the place. He began to pant, perspiration beading on his forehead. "We have to purge- we have to salt the eggs.. desiccants.. Why isn't the Specter completely surrounded?"

"Of course we have to purge it. But Tora was still bickering with Adelheid. She's so green. Hasn't even memorized the cycles yet. Tora kept pushing ambergris to repair the belly, but Kolmi refused. Said there hadn't been a proper accounting done." He took a long swig. "Then someone from the Specter came in and barked about schedules until I forced the session to adjourn for tomorrow."

"What?! Fire! Just fire and salt!"

"Calm yourself!" Barca tapped his mug on the table. "I'm working on it."

"I- I have to go. My family." The grandpa and veteran left his half finished mug on the table. Barca remained to finish his own drink, and left a coin behind.

"Hey, Davreth..." Gorhal paused between his tenth or twentieth ale. The barkeep looked up from polishing the countertop.

"What's a 'nest'?"

Just outside the door, Barca snapped his fingers. A small flame appeared above the fading tattoo on his palm, though he did not need it in brightly lit Atrium. He rubbed the scar across his cheek, the one that had forced him into retirement, a victim of his very own rules, and set off for home.

 

[Itari]

Press the treadle. Push the shuttle through the warp. Pull down the comb. Again. And again. And again. They were the same motions she had done almost every day for the last seven years. The same motions she would do until she was old and wrinkled, from the moment she woke up until right before bed. She wanted nothing more than to pick up the loom and throw it against the wall. But weaving was all she knew how to do. All she would ever know how to do. She couldn't afford to take the time to learn a new skill. She calculated their remaining budget for the hundredth time. With Oscar's jogumba they wouldn't have to worry about food for a week. If they could sell twenty more yards of fabric by the end of the week they'd have enough to buy more supplies for both herself and Zuzen. But to realistically sell that much, Celia would have to finish weaving at least two bolts in the next three days. Of course, this all assuming Zuzen could sell an item or two as well. She glanced at her mother's loom sitting in the corner of the room. Cobwebs hung from its dusty frame.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Standing on the doorstep was a woman wearing the most ridiculous amount of jewelry she had ever seen. Just one jewel from the woman would be enough to feed her household for a month.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes. I am the minordomo of The Red Spector. I'm looking for a Zuzen Barre. Is he available?"

Of course. They were always looking for Zuzen.

"Yeah. Wait here."

Celia left the glittery woman on the doorstep and went out the backdoor to the little shed that was Zuzen's workshop. The door was slightly ajar; the lock was warped and prevented it from closing all the way. She knocked twice before sticking her head inside. Zuzen was bent over his bench, working on a glider. The broken ray sculpture was pushed to the side and Celia felt a pang of jealousy and guilt go through her.

"Someone at the door for you Zu."

Zuzen looked up from his work, "What? Who?"

"Someone from the theater."

He stood up, confused, and followed Celia back to the front of the house.

The woman had invited herself inside. When she turned to the pair, her various accessories made her sound like a wind chime. "Are you an arbormancer?"

Zuzen scratched his head, "Well, no, not strictly speaking. I can do bone and metal and I've never tried but I bet I could do…"

"But you can shape wood? Without ambergris?"

"Yes, but-"

"Perfect. You will repair the stage at The Red Specter for us. We will pay you seven hundred bales."

"Absolutely not!" Celia cut in before Zuzen could say anything. "We can't afford to do such a large job for so little. It'll take him at least a month to fix that hole!"

The minordomo looked down her nose, "We'll pay you in full upfront. I'm well aware of your situation. You won't be able to replace your lost stock and sell it before you default on your debts. At least, not with the way your mother handles money."

The twins flinched and their hands instinctively sought one another. The minordomo looked around the small living room theatrically. "I don't see her. Is she at the gambling house now? Or perhaps one of the bars?"

Zuzen grit his teeth and squeezed Celia's hand. "I'll be over in an hour."

"You'll come with me now. Or else we will only pay a fraction as a deposit." The pompous peacock pulled her brother's hand out of hers and Celia was left alone. The sound of her footsteps filled the empty room as she walked back to the loom.

 

[strangeatlas]

"What the hell is an assistant magical effects supervisor? I sure as hell didn't need any assistance before, why do I need it all a sudden, Tav? Eh?"

Tav and Fretty sit across a table at What a Waist. Fretty is hunched forward over his drink, which is mostly full. Tav's drink is empty, as he absently looks around for Davreth.

"Fretty, please, my dear friend, there's no need to feel threatened!" His voice is condescendingly melodic. "You should think of this as a boon! We're going to write and produce twice the shows at Seray Manor, so we're going to need twice the manpower. And there's undeniable talent among the refugees of The Specter." He waves at Davreth, but Davreth doesn't see him.

"That so-called talent turned their back on you when you needed them! They've a talent for shitty… shitty friendship, or something. And what the hell is she doing at the Seray. I thought her, of all people…"

Tav gives up on Davreth, and turns to Fretty. "Look, Fretty, there's a reason I don't employ you as a writer, and there's a reason I don't employ you as a manager. And Madam Roussa is the best of the best in managing talent, there's no denying that."

Fretty draws his head back in disbelief. "Did you just say employ me!?"

"Yes I did, and sometimes I wonder if you forget that!" said Tav, then mutters, "in fact, she's been nagging me to remind you." He notices Fretty's shocked face. "Look Fretty, we started as partners, sure, but after a week of that, it was clear you'd had enough. We agreed. Stick to your fireworks, it's what you're good at," and Tav jabs him in the chest, perhaps a bit hard.

"She's been nagging you a lot, from what I hear." Fretty seizes and downs the drink in front of him, belches loudly, and replies, "look, Tav, I can make shit fly, but this much shit ain't gonna fly, even with a whole piss bucket of ambergris." He breathes deep, stands, and raises his voice to a bellow, "I ain't about to start taking orders from that overdressed bitch. Either Madam Roussa is out, or I'm out, and you'd better believe half the true-blood Seray folks would come with me." He slams a finger to his chest. "Before they were Seray, they were my crew!" Nearby, patrons have quieted from the commotion.

Tav rolls his eyes and smooths a lock of curled hair out of his face. He stands, and fumbles in his pockets. "Fretty, I really hope you don't mean that, but if you're serious, I'll of course have you back any time you like. You may need to start as an assistant when you return, though." He tosses some balleens on the table, enough for both their tabs and more, and turns to leave. Fretty is frozen with a red face and bulging eyes.

Tavolt is a few steps away when Fretty shouts to him, "you ain't a kid anymore Tav, and you can't keep making the mistakes a kid's gonna make. She's only ever gonna love herself!"

 

[strangeatlas]

"What's this, another costume for tonight's production?" Tavolt asks his new assistant, Vedmire. He holds up a brilliant red tunic accented by countless ornaments made of precious metals. They rattle with the movement.

"No, Madame Roussa chose that for you to wear for tonight's opening."

Tavolt give a knowing chuckle, but when Vedmire stares back coldly, Tavolt is surprised, "Oh, you are serious!"

"And the Madam instructs you to wear this sash with it as well," he says, pulling a shiny black silk sash out from a bundle of cloth. It is studded with tiny diamonds which flash brilliantly in the dim light.

"Well… I suppose… it's not so bad…once you're used to it." Tavolt eyes it up and down, but has not yet suppressed his grimace. Vedmire neglects to reply, so Tavolt moves on, "have you seen Samara? She was supposed to come by this morning."

The assistant shrugs with glazed eyes, "she's probably gone with the rest of Fretty's crew."

Tavolt purses his lips and stares towards the door. "Ah, well, let's get Yumi started on her role, she's probably a better match for the challenge, anyway. Yumi's performance at The Specter was phenomenal last month." He looks to his assistant. "It's nice to be finally working with real talent. Ack!"

Tavolt stumbles forward, groping for support. Vedmire, stunned, moves aside just as Tavolt crashes into the side of a table and stops his fall. He is bent, leaning heavily on it now. His hand slips under his shirt and comes out with a trace of red.

"That salve isn't doing half of what was promised!" Tavolt heaves, "and what kind of 'healer' is that Elira anyway? Her carelessness has put me on a slow torturous route to the same exact end!" Tavolt stares at Vedmire, who looks bored. "Well, can you get me a new bandage wrap? We can't have blood on my precious new evening wear, can we?"

"Actually, the blood shouldn't show in this shade." Vedmire points out, fingering the cloth, but when he sees the look on Tavolt's face, he sets it down and heads out of the room.

Tavolt grabs a sword prop to use as a cane, thumping it on the floor as he struggles over and sits in the bay window which looks out into the front of The Seray Manor. Not only has the massive scab covering his left side been bleeding lately, but his step has gained a worsening limp.

He watches a few people start to line up in front of the door, even though it is the afternoon show and it is over an hour before the show begins. He sits up straighter now, and breaths more evenly.

Vedmire returns with a gray bandage cloth and tosses it on the floor near Tavolt. "There's someone wandering around outside, claiming to be your brother." He leaves before Tavolt can reply.

Coiran was battered in the storm of activity throughout most of the halls of The Savoy Manor. Even before he arrived, his plain garb was already filthy, having spent the last few days wandering the Atrium with Gemmi, with no baleens and no shelter. Eventually, wandering in The Seray Manor, he finds sanctuary from the bustle in a workshop of sorts, filled with parts for the stage and partially-finished props. Someone in the back is sawing, but is too busy to notice his entrance.

He appraises the workmanship, shaking his head. He finds a comfortable place to set down a sleeping Gemmi and spends the rest of the time smoothing his hand over a warped piece of bone which was causing a hinge to jam on a strange construction.

"That piece is supposed to be warped, actually," Tav interrupts, "in the play, the character is forced to open the piece using bonemancy, but can never get it perfectly back in shape. Some things are irreparable." His hand slides under his shirt, to his bandage.

"I could fix this with water and a strong brace," Coiran observes.

"That's not the point," Tav chuckles. "Coiran, what are you doing here? I've heard you've been wandering my old haunts in the Atrium without a single baleen to your name, living off the Grace of Cadia. Been hard on the times?"

Coiran looks around the workshop, "you've really made quite a theater out of this old clearing house. Seems you are doing well."

"Things are a little more than well, actually!" Tavolt thumps his way over to the window and gazes at the growing crowd outside, waiting for the doors to open. "Everyone needs a little distraction these days, and where do they turn to but the one theater still open in town?" He turns back to Coiran. "And if they aren't distracted, then they are gossiping, about me! What secrets is he hiding in his play? Will he hint at something in the darkness hiding just beneath our feet, something the council doesn't want us to know?" He finishes with a spooky gesture. "Who knew fear could sell more tickets than joy?" He gazes into the dimming ceiling of the Atrium. "And believe me, my dreams have been wandering in some dark places of late." He turns back to Coiran. "The darker the better!"

Suddenly, Tavolt's face is full of exaggerated concern, continuing "but come, there must be some reason you're here. Do you need something? I hope you're not so desperate as to come to me for help, of all people." Tavolt ends with a condescending smirk.

Coiran has been trying to find a place in the floor which didn't creak, but has failed. "I…Perhaps… it was a mistake to come here."

"Coiran! Let me help you out a little. I know why you were wandering in my old haunts. I drink with all the people you've been shaking down, after all." Tav pauses as Coiran waits for him to continue. He enunciates each word, "you've lost Gemmi's new eyes, haven't you?"

Coiran checks that Gemmi is still asleep. "Please, Tavolt, this is difficult for me–"

Tavolt claps, "Ha! The nerve, saying that to me, after your attitude at the infirmary." He starts to limp forward, the sword thumping and floor creaking, "go on, ask! Do you want my help? No, perhaps it is better to say you need my help. Go on, all you have to do is say it, is that so hard?" He's close to Coiran now.

Coiran is sweating, gritting his teeth. "Will you help me?" Coiran struggles, under his breath.

"No!"

"No?"

"See the thing is, such important things are going on at The Seray, things that require a certain prestige to pull off. I'm just getting a taste of it now. If I'm going around back alleys carousing with degenerates, well, what does that say about the quality of my plays?"

He returns to the window and grins as the audience outside begins to clamor towards the doors. "This theater is the new heart of the Atrium, and the Atrium is the heart of all Cadia. You see, we've got to keep beating, and beating strong, or everything comes to a halt." He is sounding the beat with the sword on the floor. The Seray finally opens its doors, and with the blockage released, the crowd floods in, racing for the best seats. "People look to us to know how to feel about all the madness going on. Surely you now understand, this is important work: work that will define who we are as Cadians."

Coiran stares at Tavolt with a look of disgust, saying "I'm taking Gemmi away from this sick place." He leaves, Gemmi just starting to stir on his shoulder.

"Is that really all you have? Is that all there is?" Tavolt calls after him, and after hearing only silence in reply, chuckles and shakes his head.

 

[FrostedCaramel]

Estra

---

Estra had been standing across the street from Bur, watching silently as he haggled over the price of food; rather unsuccessfully; for a while before she watched him give up in bewilderment. She scowled at the shopkeep from where she leaned, giving time for Bur to disappear into the twists and turns of Atrium before she pushed off the wall headed straight for the same place Bur had just failed.

"I'll give you three pieces," she opened with a motion of her hand toward the dishes that Bur had been trying at.

"Five and I'll make it yours."

"Five for just one? No no, you misunderstand, I want both for three, I see it only fair for what at offer," she frowned at the meager plates of mushrooms and fish, barely worth three if all things were to be considered, likely the shopkeep was simply trying to recoup losses from the rather abrupt end of the festival.

"No can do miss, it's ten for two."

"And that's absurd, you know damn well a plate's not even worth two pieces," she began, her temper edging out of her usual aloof calm as the shopkeep held his position as a stonewall might stand against the tide.

"Four and I can part with one."

Estra sighed heavily, beginning to understand now why even Bur had given up with the man as she brought a hand to the bridge of her nose.

"I think we're not seeing the same plate here sir," Estra started again as she waved at the gruel on sale, "I will give you three, no more, willing, I'd give less."

The shopkeep scoffed and waved a hand at her, "I say the same I said to that freak, five for a plate, or you can take your pieces elsewhere."

Estra cocked her head at the aging man, her eyes settling coldly over him as stared at her in annoyance, "I see now why you charge such absurd prices, you scare everyone away," she stated matter of factly with a disinterested wave of her hand.

The shopkeep stood triumphantly as Estra seemed to make to leave, though the red-haired woman noted a slight sway in his statue-still stance as she turned to leave, a shuddering, barely noticeable, adding itself to the man's movement as she began to step away. The shopkeep stuttered out a couple of words Estra couldn't quite manage before he placed a hand down heavily on the table before him shaking the arranged pots and cutlery as he did.

Estra stepped back toward him, her eyes alight with worry as she shot glances up and down the empty road.

---

"I guess you talked some sense into that old man?" Bur asked as he took one of the plates offered by Estra.

"He had a change of heart," Estra agreed.

 

[Kuno]

Xola

⬤ ⭘

Collab with

N/A

Cadia

everywhere

⭘ ⬤

Burn them all.

Three words, so beautifully simple in their structure, yet so conclusionary a solution to their crisis. Three words, two items, and one action, and the patrol could put to bed the growing infection in the belly of their home. Burn them all, her subconscious whispered, over and over like a siren's song. Xola stared into the bowels of her drink, listless.

She was never one for secrets. She couldn't stand the burden of knowing things others should have known but just couldn't, either by the will of the secret's progenitor or the malignancy of the secret itself. Secrets broiled in one's head like a tumor. They were wholly unnecessary to a woman like her, and she resented being saddled with one.

People would find out. They always did.

"Another?"

"No."

The barmaid gave her a significant look before pouring her another mug of ale. Xola sighed heavily. Even her lies were becoming flimsy in her distraction; the barmaid had seen right through her.

If someone had claimed to have seen the patrolwoman enjoying a drink at What A Waist a few days ago, anyone who knew her would have called them a liar. She typically preferred the privacy of her own home and patrons of her own careful choosing, but alas, she couldn't be quite bothered with it; not tonight, when the day had been long, and the night looked longer than the very reaches of that foul rot in Cadia's underbelly. A nest sat festering in their sanctuary, their home. And what were their leaders doing?

Barca was there. Her eyes slid his way, watching as he finished his drink and promptly left the bar. She hadn't said so much as a word to him, save to hear what shift she had. The bare minimum of an assignment had been given her: to help patrol the edge of the hole, lest another antlion make its way to the surface. She didn't question what would happen if one did. What she questioned was…

She downed her mug of ale in one go.

"'A nest?'" She echoed, glancing aside at Gorhal. Simple, lovely man that he was; some people considered his brash ignorance an annoyance. But Xola had come to find it greatly refreshing. One could only stomach ambivalence and veiled words for so long.

Her horns dipped to the side as she leaned in, a desire to be heard amongst the growing rabble clear. "A nest is a collection of eggs…like an animal's home. Where they raise their babies."

She smiled kindly at him. "Like our bedrooms."

It was only until she watched the understanding color in his eyes that she turned away, content to raise her mug. "Another, please," She asked the barman.

There was still time before she had to mind the growing maw beneath Cadia.

Coded by Ardent

 

[Oxymoron]

A few nights had passed since the incident at her fathers grave. Despite having set the diseased flower down so long ago she still carried its implications, weighing on her otherwise quiet mind. Minnow would spend as much time as she could afford locked within her home, desperately whittling away the hours in an effort to distract herself from that one night a few days ago. The diseased tree and the bug at the atrium; what did it mean? Just the thought of it brought a tremor to her hands, the knife briefly slipping from her grasp and slicing a bit of her skin around her thumb. Her fingers were already covered in wrappings and poultices, a collection of decorated cuts and wounds gathered from her worried wood whittling. She dropped the small knife onto her table, only quietly sighing as she rubbed the soreness of her thumb. It was no use; she just couldn't shake the feeling. A creeping sense of dread loomed over her since that day. It was an omen of she ever saw one. Oh, why couldn't this just happen to anyone else? Minnow was content to live the rest of her life here in this little property of hers. She tore another length from the already prepared roll of cloth to wrap around her thumb as she stood from her seat, deciding to turn in early that night. Maybe she just needed a good nights sleep.


Cadia had other plans for her, as just as she began to step up the stairs she heard the sudden sound of approaching. . . singing? Uh-oh. Instantly, she scrambled for her window, slowly tugging open the curtain just enough for her to gaze out to the approaching strangers. Members of the patrol, what were they doing all the way out here? When Thomas was alive she remembered receiving many visits from the likes of them but none this. . . happy? She could see them standing at the edge of their fence exchanging words with each other. Her sheep flock behaved themselves, shuffling about and only occasionally giving the strangers odd glances or bleats. Maybe they just wanted to give the herd a little pat on the head. Sometimes, whenever a kid wandered too close, they'd want to do just th—


The patrolmen jumped the fence. Without a moments hesitation she swung the curtain closed again and hooved it across her house. There, leaning just beside the front door was her pitiful weapon of choice. A crook carved from a gnarled branch of an old tree, a bronze bell tied to its hook. Though meant to lead her sheep out into pastures now it would be used to lead a bunch of hooligans back across the fence. It was all so simple sounding in her head, yet when she picked up the staff and reached for the door handle she instantly felt her legs grow weak. A chill traveled her spine as the realization of what she was doing slowly set in. She wasn't a hero, what was she going to do with a big bell on a stick? Her mind told her this was the right thing to do but her poor heart didn't have the strength to. As she mulled over her ideas, however, more shouting broke through her thoughts.


A cloaked fellow had corralled the hooligans before they could even reach the sheep, she could see it through the peephole in her door. Instantly she felt her worries melt away, the breath she had been subconsciously holding in pouring out of her as her grip around her crook loosened. In her head she thanked the kind stranger a thousand times over from saving her the hassle of a confrontation she was not at all prepared for. She would wait until the footsteps were out of earshot before she finally pulled the door open, peaking her head out first to glance in all directions to make sure the coast was clear.


Minnow instantly hoofed it right to the pen, vaulting the fence in one motion with her crook by her side. The chime of the bell was a sign to all of her flock to gather around, each one of them marching forward and lining up before her for roll call. As she counted them all one thing became certain: Someone was missing. The faunus counted them all in her head first, then again with her fingers, then once more after running back inside for a parchment and quill to make absolutely sure that her count wasn't off. She was pacing now as she weighed her options, her hooves beating a new path into the dirt of her farmland. How could this be?! Did one of those patrolmen make off with one of her herd when she wasn't looking?! Impossible, she would've heard!


That's when she saw it. The answer was subtle to most but obvious now to her. How could she have not noticed? When the patrolmen had jumped the fence one of the planks that had laid balanced between the spires of bone had come loose, the lower beam of a far side laying askew. The gap was far too small for any of the adults to squeeze through. When the realization came to her what little color her pale face had was drained right out of her body.

Lillia had escaped.
​

 

[strangeatlas]

"Unprecedented, absolutely unprecedented."

Tora was walking through a blackened tunnel of raw flesh. Blood was draining slowly out of deep cracks in the charred tissue and yellow blisters surrounded the most intense of the blackened remains. She was dressed in vibrant colors of the cutter uniform, bright so that cutters could easily see each other and avoid accidents while operating while suspended and gliding on Cadia's skin. Here, they stood in stark contrast to the black flesh of Cadia's wound. She approached a charred protrusion and caressed it gingerly before crumbling it to dust in her glove.

"This will all need to be removed to allow the healing to begin." Touching her earings, she paused momentarily to listen. Through them, she could hear Cadia's pulse. It was weak here, the circulation was poor. More bad news. "This will take years, maybe decades to heal–even with the aid of whatever ambergris we can get." She turned to look at her followers.

Cutters, taking their cues from her, surveyed the walls of the former antlion nest with shock. Ninli had shown up out-of-uniform, probably unsure of what a meeting within the heart of the Atrium could mean. Her eyes passed over her, but she neglected to comment on it. There will already be enough difficult memories here today. "And Her scar will be with us forever."

For the next few hours, she toured the remains of the antlion nest, torched the day earlier by a team of patrolmen led by Barca. The one thing she would admit to herself was that there were no signs of antlion remaining. But the cost? She shuddered. The Long Range Patrol were the last people that should be applying destructive magic within Cadia Herself. It was also unprecedented. They always seem to forget that Cadia, lifegiver and sustainer of all things, was a living creature, not some sort of hole in the ground. This magnitude of a wound to the belly was unprecedented. No one, not even she, knew what would come of it.

***

"Perhaps councilman Barca, in his age, simply forgot that we never drew up a formal vote on the matter of burning the nest. A forgivable offense, if the consequences were not so dire," Tora began the next council meeting.

"By the time you got around to allowing a formal vote, antlions would have been pouring from the nest." Barca replied, rolling his eyes towards the other council members. "We had a quorum and a majority were in agreement, I did not see any purpose to delaying while you wring your hands."

"Your memory continues to fail you, councilman. The cutters awaited an allotment of ambergris that was required to correct the situation the proper way." She glanced at Kolmi, "It will take far more to heal Her now that Barca has made his mess. Perhaps in the future, the cutters should not be so forthcoming with ambergris, in case some amount is necessary for adequate care of Cadia."

"Let's stay focused on the present and not what could have been," Kolmi replied, "the antlion nest is destroyed, yes? And Tora, you yourself said the healing will be decades, more ambergris will surely be found in that time." Kolmi turned to the other members. "In my opinion, enough ambergris has already been wasted on that ridiculous festival."

"That festival is one of our dearest traditions. Ambergris belongs to all Cadians, not just the ones who play silly tricks in their laboratories," Tora replied, eyes wide and head drawn back.

Kolmi, closed her eyes and began rubbing her temples, "I think we should move on, it seems everything has worked itself out, even if not ideally. This bickering and accusation is not helpful."

"The wound will heal in time, but once a rule is broken it must be enforced, lest it be forgotten," Tora began. Kolmi cocked her head towards Tora, eyes partially open, while Barca was looking at the floor, tapping his finger on the table impatiently. Only Ulma seemed to be paying attention. "We haven't even discussed how the Patrol used destruction magic within Cadia, or that Barca acted without a formal council vote! These are significant transgressions of our traditions here." Turning to Barca, she continued, "and somehow the news of a nest beneath the Atrium was leaked, perhaps a clumsy digression from a patrolman?"

Barca stopped tapping and laid his hands on the table. "Never has the cutters allowed such an egregious infiltration of foreign creatures into our homeland," Barca replied and glancing around at the other members, said, "it required an unusual response. The Patrol, of course, hopes it won't be necessary again, but that is not within my control." He raised his hand, "let's vote on a motion, if you like, I motion to move on from this terrible event, as we have much else to discuss, and we've already spent considerable time on it."

Tora watched with shock as each member accepted the motion, even Ulmar. She ceremoniously voted against, but they moved on.

***

Her cutters were quiet as they watched her returning to The Specter. Her stiff, brisk walk told them the meeting did not go well. When she was close, one ventured, "what happened mistress? What will happen to the patrolmen who did this?"

She decided to dodge the question, for now. "This area is for cutters only now. Inform anyone from the patrol that they've done enough damage." She picked out one of them, "what do we know about the rumors about the nest, who started them?"

"Well, we know there's been a lot of rumors and speculation emerging from that new theater, The Seray. From what I know, that moron who was at the center of the attack is in charge there, and has been putting on some rather unsettling plays."

Tora thought, and remembered the testimony. The man droned on for quite some time about his own affairs while the council awaited crucial information on the attack. He seemed quite the selfish type. "Yes, I've spoken a bit with Madam Roussa about his man. I recall when Madam Roussa ran The Specter, her productions were rather affirming of Cadia's beauty, rather than this fear mongering."

"Indeed, mistress, they celebrated Her Majesty, rather than speculating on supposed imperfections."

"Cadia in her natural form functions perfectly, but sometimes obstacles prevent her natural function. It is our job to remove those obstacles and allow Cadia to express Her perfection." She turned and looked to the center of the Atrium. "Sometimes there are individuals who obstruct the normal function of our community. Then, it is better to move them aside and allow things to resume healthy function."

"I don't quite see what you mean, mistress."

"Perhaps we could remove this new theater manager from the position, and place Madam Roussa in charge of theatrics once again. Hopefully this confused new playwright can find something more useful to do than to spread rumors and mischief."

"My understanding is that most of the performers at Seray Manor are from The Specter, and aren't particularly fond of their new boss. I don't think there will be many complaints about the change."

When her cutters left to start their work, she returned to her own thoughts. There is another obstacle who is more important to displace, but his removal will take patience and time. She didn't like the way opinions seemed to be shifting all around her. People must somehow be reminded that it was their traditions that have kept the peace in Cadia for centuries.

***

Tora found herself wandering once again to the grove of ancestors. The future had never seemed so uncertain as it has now. Returning to the grove reminded her of the strength of the foundations of Cadia. Countless generations and centuries of memories could testify to the permanence of their traditions. She shook her head: this was just a small part of her adoration of the grove. After all, there was a reason she always visited the same branch of the same tree.

 

[strangeatlas]

Even the veteran patrol were huffing through their masks in this part of the trek. It was dark when they began, but the light had grown blindingly bright from the avenue of open sky visible between the edges of the rising buffs on either side. Days were always this bright out here, they assured, nothing unusual yet.

The greenhorn was lagging behind, but not too far, especially for her first time. Their goggles clouded with each breath. Sweat and condensed breath obscured the greenhorn's vision. When she was around a bend, the others nodded approvingly, but when she was in earshot, they snapped between teases and rebukes. She shifted her bag and listened without complaint.

The fissure began to tighten until they were single-file, and occasionally they were forced sideways through tight spots. She noticed them checking their suits after each squeeze, and followed their example. The crack ended abruptly with a mushwood ladder, its rungs polished from use.

"We're near the top."

The patrolmen were restless, packed in with little room to maneuver. Some of the patrol had crossbows out, pointed up, and were scanning the narrow gap above them. One of the patrol was taking point, and he was exchanging jokes with the others up front. Eventually, the squad commander wanted on with it. He swallowed, adjusted his goggles, pulled his gloves tight, and patted each of three knives at his belt. Then he was up, slow at first, then faster. Eyes followed him up.

At the back, the greenhorn was soon staring down the path where they came. A few paces there, a twist in the fissure blocked the view of the way they came. A patrolwoman startled her with a clap over the shoulders. "This is why I told you to huff it. Next time don't find yourself in the rear." They both stared at the turn in the path. The bright sunlight on the edge of the rock above cast a grotesque shadow over the avenue of rock. "Much more dangerous in the back than the front, in my experience."

A call rang out from the patrolman taking point, and masks hissed as their collective breath was released. Shoulders sagged, crossbows clicked as they were uncocked, knives slid into sheaths. They were up, one by one, on the ladder. Last, it was the greenhorn's turn. She found one rung was cracked as she ascended, and it bent as she stepped on it. "Fix me" was etched in it, and sanded by the passage of countless boots and gloves. The crack of light above was brightening as she ascended. She saw the patrolwoman above her disappear from the ladder into the light. She was now alone. She gazed back at the path below. It was black with shadow. Somehow, the dark womb of rock felt safer open expanse just above her. She held her breath and pressed upward.

Light flooded her eyes. She pushed herself out of a thin crack onto a flat rock face where the rest of the patrol had already spread out and were taking in the sight around them. The bright sun lit a daunting expanse of lavender sky, and the greenhorn caught herself before she swooned. Her chest tightened and she coughed. Her head swam with the vast openness of the sky. The explosion of details in the landscape was assaulting her, every bit clamoring for attention. She forced herself not to look away. She started to her left, where the rock continued upward, sheer and hard. She felt the tightness pass, and took a deep breath. Her balance settled. She pressed on. To her right, a space for about fifty people ended in a cliff that opened a view of miles around them. Following the horizon from the southeast, a forest of mushtrees strangled one another, and a wisp of deadly spores was being carried north on the wind. Next, crags and rough hills rose and tore up patches of mushtree and silvergrass, with a roaring, foaming river dividing them before it settled into a wide, flat expanse of desert. Scattered there, great clusters of koral polyps, feasting on the drifting spores. Koral formed a spectrum of pale blues, lavenders, pinks, and grays throughout the desert: brain koral, staghorn koral, bigfoot koral, moon koral, bucket koral, and splash koral. A speck moved among them: a behemoth, from the look of it. Above, a great medusa flower floated, dangling deadly tentacles ready to snatch unwary prey. Its shadow blackened a wide patch of the land below.

"Don't worry, we're keeping an eye on it," the patrolwoman told the greenhorn. "It's floating north at the moment, no danger to us." She gestured towards a thin path clinging to the cliff face. "Come on, you need to see this." They slid along the path, keeping one hand on the many jagged blades of rock which covered the rock face, sidestepping on the narrow sections. Finally, the two of them reached a second outlook.

"Is that…?''

At the center of a valley, surrounded by a ridge of rough cliffs, lay Cadia. The sun reflected off Her waxy skin and reflected brilliant shades of purple and blue, and Her contours were accented by strands of silver and gold like necklaces, set in deep grooves in Her skin. Her fins cast deep shadows on Her side and on the ground below. In those shadows, she saw patches of blue light from the bioluminescent fungi slowly fading in and out. On one patch, she saw specks: cutters at work, cleaning off some dark green growth that had spread across the side under one of Her fins.

Far to the west, mountains rose across the horizon. Peaks sliced the sky and bore mushtree forests as thick as mold on cheese that struggled to climb just a third of the mountain's height. She counted seven medusa flowers floating across the horizon, their distance and immensity betrayed by their apparent stillness and a thin mist that concealed their deadly tentacles and fronds. Crags which were ideal antlion nests were scattered throughout the surrounding foothills.

Against this backdrop, Cadia seemed a tiny lump of soft flesh, immobilized and helpless. Cadia, where her father taught her to swim in iridescent ponds, and where her mother watched the blurred glow of the moon in the field under the translucent Sky Dome. When she was fourteen, she discovered a hidden alcove near her home that no one knew, and would steal away there to read about the feats of the Patrol. Inside, luminescent fungi reflected light off a rainbow film that showered her in colors. A vein of Cadia ran through and she lay against it and listened to the sounds of Cadia's heart. She would often nap there on long lazy summer days. She remembered when she brought her first love there and shared her first kiss. Yesterday, she found her younger brother sleeping there. She yelled at him, and told him never to come back, but he had done nothing wrong. Once she got back, she wanted to tell him: it's alright, you can come as often as you like, it's your spot too.

She remembered once, when she was twelve, she had an argument with her mother and ran away into the wilds of Cadia. She was lost there for three weeks. She never intended to scare her mother so badly. But she herself was never scared. She climbed ridges of bone and swam in sweet, fragrant ponds. She listened to hundreds of glass toads lull her to bed in a pouch of warm skin. She spent a day in a chamber where Cadia's voice echoed, in long low tones. She thought that Cadia would always be there, wherever she went.

But now she realized: Cadia was not everywhere. Cadia was somewhere, and you could leave. If you left, what you found was dry sand, bare rock, deadly spores, and hungry tentacles. Cadia was finite and delicate, and without her, life would be impossible.

The Fluke, the Grove of Ancestors, the Atrium, and the Chamber of Sky, her home, a list of countless alcoves, groves, ponds, fields, and pockets, each with a name that was special to her. They were all contained in what lay below her. Her mother, father, brothers, sister, friends, enemies, and all the strangers she could ever meet. They were all Cadians, living together under Her watchful care.

Cadia was where we all belong, she realized. She now knew that the Patrol was not right for her after all. Although she was glad she went on this excursion, and she would never forget what she saw, now, she never wanted to leave Cadia again. Why would any anybody leave?

End of Chapter Two

 

[unanun]

CHAPTER 3
FEVER​

It took a long time for the gongs of the atrium water clock to fade from Vanaya's mind. The reverberations of the hollowed out bone shook her chest and ears, and when she was visiting the council to deliver a report she could tell the hour was approaching by the tension curling in her stomach. Sometimes she plugged her ears just before the gong, and other times it caught her at the table and she had to close her eyes to wait for the trembling to pass. The days were another rhythm that she tried to shed as well. Sometimes she would wake up just before she thought the gong would strike, and other times she would gasp awake, roused by the ringing silence.

This morning she woke to the purple dawn. She was visiting one of the fields that she had set up near a porthole, to study the effects of the sunlight on the growth of crops. Predictably, some of them thrived, and others withered. She was almost angry at how well everything could be organized into two neat columns in her notebook.

"Like the inside and the outside," she muttered to keep her throat limber.

"Lo, there!" An Estarii emerged from a drainage vein, freckled in blue.

"Mornings."

"What have you?"

"Mmmmmm. Hmmmmm." Vanaya rubbed her chin. "I have food and rot."

"Which one is which?" Things grown in the shine of the outdoors were shunned in atrium, but at the edge there were no such superstitions.

"Urrrr." She squeezed her head and tilted her eyes.

"Ah! You have not had the first meal."

They stopped their barter for now. Vanaya nicked an artery and drew scalding hot blood into a cup, where she sprinkled a desiccated breakfast. The leaves swelled and absorbed nearly all of the blood, poaching itself into a delicious broth. Its vitality flowed into Vanaya's growing smile.

"So..."

"You can see it yourself. Species that have grown in the nooks and crannies of Cadia love the dark, and those that have been cultivated in atrium and near portholes have become used to the energy of the outside."

"Unsurprising."

Vanaya flashed him an irritated glare, softened by their long friendship. "Sound arguments need proof, friend. You simply cannot say that is what it is." She smacked her journal open to last month's page, littered with graphs and tables. "Observations that do not change character no matter whose mouth speaks them."

"So just speak the truth, then. Cadians from atrium are so troublesome." Something at the far edge of the field caught the Estarii's eye. "What is that?"

As they walked over, Vanaya was suddenly aware of sweat on her brow. The crops had pierced the ceiling and irrigated themselves with blood. Veins invaded the xylem and connected the roots to the top flesh, incorporating the plant into a new pulsing vascular structure.

"Cadia!!"

She sliced a few open and flipped to a new page in her journal. Her unsteady hands sketched out fibrous structures, eaten away or calcified to serve as a scaffold for what looked like scar tissue.

"I've seen this before." Her voice trembled. "When patrolmen return from the slit, and a spore makes it in with them." She reached for her amulet for comfort, but before she recited the prayer, before the words flashed in her mind, even before thought coalesced from intent, saplings exploded from the soil and caught her forehead.

Ringing...

There was only ringing.

It flooded every sense. Her tongue and limbs were numb. Sky-sickness came in waves. Her vision was red and full of floaters. Blood dripped from her chin and stained a growing spot on her dress. In front of her was a unstructured mass of verdant green. Pustules swelled with sap and popped. Buds formed then leaves burst from within, throwing a storm of petals. The whole thing pulsated and kept folding over itself, growing to the borders of the plot and spilling over to her feet.

A blob of lymph sweated out from nearby flesh and engulfed the writhing green. The plants blackened away, and the lymphocyte aggregate grew in size until it covered the entire plot, finally killing the spell. In the vacuum of noise, she realized that deafening pops and cracks had filled the space just moments before. She could not hear her own gasping.

Vanaya wildly looked around and found her friend. Even in this panic, he looked like he was trying to decide whether her atriumic decadence was to blame. They both stumbled to their feet and ran in two different directions, to tell the same observation, in two different ways, to two different audiences.

version 1

Even stripped down, Vanaya had to dab sweat from her forehead.

Only one breath ago, summer and winter were different words for the length of sleeves and pants, and those were only suggestions, not rules. Hardier Cadians had no problem frolicking in shirts spun from golden flax, but the seniors sometimes shivered if they didn't wear coats with blubber stitched in between the leather.

This summer was different. Instead of stretching and rarifying into cooler times, it slowly ramped until residents of Atrium began to complain. The heat accumulated in the ceilings of the dwellings, a persistent fog that woke up many in the night with a dry throat and covered in sweat. For a while, they were able to find comfort sleeping on the cool flesh at the edge of town, but burning blood rushed through those veins too and drove them away. That was when the school of ice magic acquired their cachet.

Vanaya surveyed her fields. When the summer became long the crops in her other fields had gone wild, growing well past their cycles without bearing fruit nor seed. They pierced the ceiling and irrigated themselves with blood. The constant drip attracted Cadia herself to the crops - veins twisted their way through the xylem and connected the roots to the top flesh, incorporating the plant into a new pulsing vascular structure. She had sliced a few open the other day and made detailed drawings off their innards. The fibrous structure was being slowly eaten away or calcified, neutralized to only serve as a scaffold for whatever was driving Cadia mad.

She turned to her fallow research plot, a small square set near her living quarters where she experimented rather than grow crops for sale. In adherence to tradition, the soil was a mix of dirt excavated from below Cadia, old planet matter, and a fraction of flesh that was scraped by the sharp tips of the plow.

Vanaya crouched by the edge of the plot and clasped her amulet. Before she recited the prayer, before the words flashed in her mind, even before thought coalesced from intent, saplings erupted from the soil. She cried out and fell back, scrambling away from the vines that overflowed from the plot, churning the soil to mud with their violent growth.

A gelatinous mass sweated out from nearby flesh and attacked the vines, engulfing the writhing green. The plants burned black as they were digested, and the mass grew in size until it covered the entire plot, whereupon the spell finally ceased its effect. Vanaya's ears were ringing. In the vacuum of noise, she realized that deafening pops and cracks had filled the space just moments before. She could not hear her own gasping.

She did not look up from the ground. Blood dripped from a gash somewhere on her head and dripped onto her hands.

She could feel the mass looking at her.

Stumbling to her feet, she dashed for her cabin, then veered off down the road to Atrium with nothing but herself.

 

[unanun]

The field faded with the turn of a corner, but the panic stayed with her. The walls that heated and nourished her were now hostile, and just like the gong that sounded in atrium, she waited with every fresh step and turn for a mass of lymph to sweat out for her. Her gait was unbalanced on the trail. The flesh had been compacted down by feet, hooves, sleds, and wheels, but she still found reasons to stumble until her she could not suck enough air to feed her legs and she collapsed to the side. Even with everything that had just happened, Cadia still embraced her, the elastic arterial walls coating her form, wicking away her sweat and fear with that pulsating warmth she had always known.

She raced through the pages of her notebook, loading, squeezing as many charts as she could into her mind. Trends, observations, anecdotes, sketches... her eyes saw them all, though nothing stuck. Maybe there had been an incursion. She knew that some portholes had been growing thin, but the cutters were so diligent, stretching vellum over carapace, oiling the blisters as they breathed with Cadia. When she broke from the churning, her breathing had almost steadied, and she only trembled a little as her feet brought her back to the little lean-to that sheltered her research.

There was not much of it left. Most of it had been dissolved, eaten away just like the barren fields that surrounded it. The soil had erupted everywhere, and at the bottom of the shallow plots she saw weeping flesh, coated with mud made from the blood of Cadia. She touched the gash on her forehead, and the blood was mixed with sweat. Without the aid of fear, the summer returned.

"Cadia ..."

The word changed from prayer to plea. There was nothing to gather here, and so she turned towards atrium.

---

The trail was swelling with lymph. It oozed out in thousands of pinpricks from the surface, the drops coalescing into a translucent layer. Vanaya tossed in a flower from her sack, cut from a decorative tuft planted by the Estarii. The lymph swarmed and dissolved it.

She brought her foot forward. Jerked it back. Paced back and forth, biting her lip and panting. By the time she grew desperate enough to try tip toeing along the trail, the rest of the conduit was glistening too.

She was forced into a lesser used vein, the ones frequented by the Estarii. As she pushed through the valve into the dark, blood languidly piled up on her toes and flowed past. She stumbled forward with her hand on the hot walls. Her stomach was empty, and a headache assaulted her mind. She allowed herself a sip from her canteen and continued forward.

Further down her hand found another tuft of decorative grasses that her nose had already sensed. Her stomach was empty, but it still turned over as she clasped her amulet. Her mind froze blank until the hunger pangs brought her back, and she leaked out the spell from her mind syllable by syllable.

The grass burst outwards into an armful of thick, succulent leaves that she feasted on. With her belly full, she tipped a tiny ember of fungus into her cupped hands and blew on it until it grew into a glob of turquoise, which she smeared over a cattail and held up as illumination. The walls appeared grey in the light, smooth and muscular.

Up ahead was a gate that sucked shut once a second, crushing the trembling cattail that Vanaya held up to it. She cried in frustration, and tripped as she turned around, falling face first into the blood. She drank some of it by accident and tried to vomit it out, but no matter how far she stuck her fingers down her throat it would not come up. Her body had already greedily absorbed it.

The gong of Atrium echoed faintly through the tunnels. She had to be close. Tora would want to know.

version 1

Vanaya stared down the trail that led back to Atrium. The flesh, compacted down by ages of feet, sleds, and cart wheels, was swelling with lymph. It oozed out in thousands of pinpricks from the surface, the drops coalescing into a translucent layer. She tossed in a flower from her sack, cut from a decorative tuft planted by the Estarii. The petals and pollen burned on the layer, crumbling to black as the fluid followed an almost capillary force upwards to engulf the plant.

She pushed her way through a valve and into the next section of the vein, a lesser used conduit that was still alive, but sometimes travelled by the Estarii. Blood languidly flowed about toe deep, and as it piled up on her feet and washed over, she tried to remind herself that this was the true Cadia, and the madness outside was something else. It was dark inside. The tailside people knew how to follow the veins to their destination, but Vanaya was not nearly confident enough and stumbled forward with her hand on the hot walls. Her stomach was empty, and a headache assaulted her mind. She allowed herself a sip from her canteen and continued forward.

Further down her hand found another tuft of decorative grasses that her nose had already sensed. Her stomach was empty, but it still turned over as she clasped her amulet, leaking out the spell from her mind syllable by syllable.

The grass burst outwards into thick, succulent leaves. She snapped off chunks of them in her mouth and stuffed into her sack. She tipped a tiny ember of fungus into her cupped hands and blew on it until it grew into a glob of turquoise, which she smeared over a cattail and held up as illumination. The walls appeared grey in the light, smooth and muscular.

Up ahead was a valve that sucked shut once a second, crushing the trembling cattail that Vanaya held up to it. Frustration forced tears from her, and she had to double back to find another route, falling face first into the blood that poured from the junction every time it opened. She drank some of it by accident and tried to vomit it out, but no matter how far she stuck her fingers down her throat it would not come up. Her body had already greedily absorbed it. She could only continue on, bathed in a substance that now felt so hostile.

The gong of Atrium echoed faintly through the tunnels. She had to be close. Tora would want to know.

 

[fatalrendezvous]

"I knew this was a bad idea," Gorhal lamented, short of breath and with his hand resting on one of his knees. The Patrol's drillmaster was doing all he could to teach the hulking orc some discipline, to get him acclimated to troop movements and to follow direction. "Move your hide, Gorhal! You may be big, but you got more blubber on you than Cadia herself if you can't keep up!"

In truth, most other recruits would've passed out from exhaustion long before this point. Even the drill instructor's voice was starting to go hoarse from having to shout for so long.

Gorhal growled with contempt, adjusting the ill-fitting armor that burdened his movements to little relief; they simply weren't made for a man his size. He straightened and resumed his run, plates of armor flopping awkwardly around him. "Haa-- I knew this was a bad idea. Hoo... hoo... never shoulda listened to Davreth about joinin' the Patrol. He's-- hff-- not my friend. Never been my friend." But gods did he want an ale right now. Or ten.

"Move, Gorhal! I got children not even born yet that move faster than you!"

"...and I'm gonna smash that drill man...! Ngraaa!" Anger bubbled in his veins, fueling him where his own will was failing. He bounded past each ten-yard marker in hardly a few strides despite having run around the course at least two dozen or so laps already. One-hundred-eighty, one-hundred-ninety, two hundred...!

At the end of the track was Gorhal's logging axe, and twenty wooden dummies littered with sword gashes and cuts. They were meant for a party of recruits to dash to, one per dummy, to work on their form and conditioning after intense physical exertion. But there were not twenty recruits today - just one Gorhal, who had pulled the axe from the dirt and awaited instruction, panting.

"Swing for the left arm, Gorhal!"

With a snarl, the brutish recruit swung the axe down and chopped the dummy's arm clean off.

"FOR CADIA'S SAKE, THAT'S THE RIGHT ARM. LEFT. ARM!"

Confused and with sweat dripping down his forehead and blurring his vision, Gorhal roared with frustration and swung at the other arm - whichever fucking arm it was, left right top bottom, he didn't care anymore - and promptly removed that one as well, before moving to the next dummy. Swing for the head, for the chest, cleave down the center, chop the legs. Each of the instructor's next commands he followed, and before long Gorhal stood amidst a veritable slaughter of wooden men.

Silence hung for a few moments with little other than Gorhal's exhausted breaths, before it was cut by the drill instructor's laughter. "Nicely done, Gorhal. Approach."

The orc let the axe slip from his hands and fall to the ground. His clambering footsteps carried him over wooden body parts down the field towards his instructor. "Knew this was-- bad--" his lamentation came to a sudden halt as the sight of his drillmaster became clear enough through his sweat-fogged vision. In the man's hands was a large double-sided battleaxe, probably fresh-formed at the hands of one of the metal shapers. The drill instructor could barely hold it with both hands.

"Welcome to the Patrol, Gorhal. This is yours."

What started as a stare of disbelief turned into chuckling, then into full-bellied guffaws of whooping laughter. Gorhal took the shiny new axe and hoisted it triumphantly above his head. "I KNEW this was a great idea!!!"

 

[Kuno]

FEVER PITCH​

Old Matt Machak certainly wasn't as young as he used to be.

The heat wore on him like an aged, layered quilt, and sweat beaded at his brow and nape. There used to be a time when the cold whipped through his clothes straight to the bone, and he would pray with every fiber of his being for warmth so he could get right back on his boat and to his fishing.

He'd be damned if he wasn't wishing for the exact opposite now.

"Darned heat," He grumbled. He took a swig from his water canteen, face twisting as he realized it had already grown lukewarm.

Nobody quite knew why Cadia was getting so hot. Folks had plenty of theories, sure, but Machak didn't care to hear not one. As long as the weather was fine enough to fish, off he went with his boat, waving away his neighbor's words in his typical curmudgeonly fashion.

The fish won't be biting anymore with this heat. You won't catch anything!

Bah! What did they know?

The boat rocked against the waves gently lapping at its sides. The lake was quiet—he idled near the skullward edge, line cast into the water, his hands still and his face determined. The boy wasn't out there. He supposed Oscar was preoccupied with other things, though it chafed at him some that perhaps he had fallen prey to the same dissuasion. Perhaps he would catch a fish for both of them—not that he was having any luck in spite of his best efforts. Cast after cast, hour after hour, his efforts brought back nothing but his own dying bait. His stash of worms was growing low.

It was not until he cast out into a thick group of reeds that he lucked out. The line pulled taut immediately. Machak scrambled to his feet, adrenaline flooding through him.

"Oh ho, we've got a big one!" He crowed, his face splitting into a grin. And boy, was it fighting him! He pulled and pulled, and the line stretched ever more taut, the weight behind whatever fish he had grabbed resisting him with brute force. He cackled as he brought the line in, the water parting around his trophy.

"That's right, come to Papa! Come on-"

He broke off as something burst free from the reeds at the end of his line. His hook had gone through something, but it was no fish. Slowly, his eyes traveled down the length of the pale, large protrusion of flesh. There was a toe being pulled up from the water from his hook, and from there was a leg, long and slender, a yellow garb inching back against the ebb and flow of the water.

From within the reeds, a pair of deadened eyes stared.

----------------------------------​

As if the heat wasn't bad enough, now there was a ceaseless knocking to keep one awake.

BOOM BOOM BOOM.

"Alright, alRIGHT."

Deelie, the old retired patrolman, stumbled from bed, grasping blindly for a robe. What time was it? Nevermind that—he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, staggering towards his front door as well as could be managed. It wasn't the first time he'd been roused by a frantic knocking. He no longer belonged to the patrol, but his experience in healing brought him all manner of folk who, like him, stayed on the outer edge of the lake. Most of them were work accidents. A blade in the thumb, a knuckle broken from a missed hammer swing, someone's thrown out back… but he took any of those over the babies.

Goodness. Let this not be a baby.

"Well?" He boomed, swinging open the door with significant force. He'd been an imposing man in his tenure, and the effect hadn't lessened any in retirement.

The two teenagers before him were paler than he'd ever seen them before. "M-Mister Dee-Dee-Dee-"

"C'mon, out with it!"

"Sir, there's a body," The other one whimpered. He was a lanky lad with a spring of red hair. "In the lake. Machak found a lady's body in the water."

Deelie froze. A body in the lake?

The old Patrolman in him took over at once.

"Show me."

He grabbed his coat from a hook by the door and hurried off, the boys struggling to keep up with his long strides.

 

[Itari]

The door to The Red Specter was locked. Zuzen knocked, first timidly, then more strongly. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Hey!" Zuzen jumped, nearly dropping his bag supplies. A patrolman was approaching him from the side of the building. "What are you doing? This building is off limits."

"I- I was just- I'm here to repair the stage." The patrolman raised an eyebrow. "Um Madam Roussa hired me?"

The man rolled his eyes. "You think you can trick me? Madam Roussa moved all her productions into the Seray Manor."

"What? No no no. You don't understand. They came to my house." Zuzen scrambled through his bag for the contract. "I've already made a down payment on the materials. They're supposed to reimburse me." Measuring tools, various pieces of crumpled paper, and a notebook clattered on the floor. Zuzen quickly sorted through them on the ground and showed a crumpled contract to the patrolman "See? Here. I've been hired to repair it."

The patrolman gave Zuzen a pitying look. He was about to say something when a Faceless crashed into him. They tugged insistently on the man's shirt. A red rope floated above them, twisting into various shapes. The man nodded and the faceless took off again down the street. "Look kid, I'm sorry but I can't let you in and I gotta go. There's an emergency." The patrolman quickly sprinted off after the Faceless.

Zuzen sat slumped on the steps of the abandoned theater long after they left. He was vaguely aware of the panicked shouts of people who ran past him. After sometime another patrolman came to chase him off the property and Zuzen quietly gathered his things and returned home.

"Why are you home so early?" Celia was still working on the loom, as usual, cut off from the commotion that was happening outside.

"They don't want it repaired anymore. There wasn't even anyone there to let me in." Zuzen sank into a chair in the kitchen. Unpaid bills and debts littered the table. "It doesn't matter anymore though."

"Doesn't matter? What do you mean it doesn't matter! What are we going to do, Zuzen! How you seen our finances? We do-"

"You don't get it Celia! Think about it! First the antlion. Then magic going crazy and the heat. And now people are running around outside like headless chickens. Cadia is going to shit. The money doesn't matter anymore."

Celia sat down in the chair next to him. "What do we do now then?"

 

[strangeatlas]

Coiran sits in the depths of his workshop, at home. It is a long hall, flanked by shelves. Toward the front, a workbench lies opposite to a desk. The desk is bare, with many drawers that conceal iron tools for detail work. Beyond that, drawers stretch along the walls at the bottom and shelves higher up. On the right, one shelf holds a long progression of prototypes of Gemmi's eyes, abandoned and dusty. The three shelves on the left hold his collection of lockboxes, some iron, some wood, some from Cadia's living flesh, some as large as a chest, some as small as a fingernail. Each has a unique design. Some open with a key. Some open by sliding moving pieces into a particular pattern. Many have peculiar riddles carved into them. They are covered in decorative carvings and embedded metals that intertwine and encrypt the internal design of the lock. None of them have been opened by anyone except Coiran.

At the end of the hall of shelves and drawers lies a mechanical rocking chair set facing a window. Coiran rocks silently in it, whittling a piece of bone into a functional shape. He is wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants despite being saturated with sweat from the heat. He is turned facing a window which observes the iridescent pool outside his house. The light thinly illuminates the darkness of the workshop, and turns Coirans face into a landscape of blue and shadow. He hears a knock at the door down the hall from him. He pauses his whittling, but simply lifts his gaze to the window.

The light in the pond outside puslated gently. Here and there brighter regions came and went, swallowed by dark patches that eventually gave way to the light once more. It was there that he proposed to Tenna and where they got married. It was here that Tenna told him they'd lost their first born in the womb. They sat together here and gazed across the water countless times before, and he promised her they would make a life together here. He built this house in the year before they married. Not all at once, at first just one room, the kitchen, and this workshop. Now the house was two stories, reaching up the the ceiling of the cavern, and accommodates a room for each of their four children, themselves, and a guest bedroom.

He hears the knock again, louder this time. He stands and walks his way on the left, past the lockboxes, pausing to place the piece inside a drawer that contained a handful of finished pieces like it. Finally, at the back he unlocks the door, and leaves it closed as he turns and sits at his desk.

The door opens noiselessly. "Strange that the door keeps getting locked, is it broken?" Tenna's voice slips in, as the door begins to open.

"The lock is working as it should," Coiran replies.

Tenna opened the door further, and peered into the dim space. Her features are soft and round, although now her brows form a hard look as she tries to pierce the darkness in the space. She's dressed lightly, her thighs and shoulders bare. Her hair is lifted over her head in a knot, and the hairs which escaped are plastered on her forhead and neck. Her body is as plump and soft as a down mattress, and deals poorly with the heat. She sees the window at the far end, shimmering with light from the lake. "I'm looking for my mother's pendant."

"It isn't here," Coiran replies without moving his eyes from her.

"How do you know that?" Tenna pushes through the threshold lit by the light from the hall and is bathed in the shadow of the workshop.

"There is no place for it here. I would not take the pendant in here." He watches her continue forward and tosses his arm up. "Fine, look around if you must."

Tenna wanders to the right, and after skimming her eyes over the desk, approaches the last prototype of Gemmi's eyes on the right. Coirans eyes follow her hand as she gently touches a thin metal strip on it, turns her hand, and rubs the dust between her fingers. She glances and meets his gaze for an instant, then steps onward to a drawer.

She opens it, and the contents are plainly categorized by function and size. Her hand descends. He listens as pieces are shoveled around randomly. He watches her scoop two handful of pieces and dump them across the top, before closing the drawer and moving on to the next.

"When did you lose it?" Coiran watches her continue with brows hard.

"After you came back from the Atrium."

"I haven't seen it since I've been back, it's not here."

"Maybe Gemmi hid it here." She moves on to the left side and tries to open a lockbox.

"Gemmi wouldn't put it in there, she can't open them. Neither can you."

She puts it back and looks down the shelf. "Why do you have so many?" She tries the next, and it is also sealed shut. "You have no idea what Gemmi is up to. You headly speak to her anymore."

"She can't come in here, it's always locked. She didn't put the pendant in there."

"She used to come in here all the time." Tenna gives up and moves on to the back of the room. The lake catches her eye. She stares at the it, as if lost in a memory.

He walks to her from behind and begins to wrap his arms around her, but as he does, she startles, shrugs his arms away, and returns to a drawer.

"She may have taken it to the Atrium with you and lost it there." She hastily wipes a tear off her cheek. "Seems like you were hardly keeping track of things there."

Coiran turns to the drawers and begins putting them back in place. "The pendant is nothing, I can easily make another just like it."

Tenna's voice stiffens. "Do you really think that's the same?" She turns to Coiran and watches him continue to reorganize things to precisely how they were. "You aren't even trying to look! I can't believe how quickly you give up. You always give up so easily."

"I've looked!" Coiran throws the drawer shut, the contents mixing within, "I've looked as long as it was reasonable to! And I haven't given up."

She stares at the piece of bone he was carving, then at an incomplete lockbox on the shelf made from the same bone. "Did you know Gemmi has barely left her room all summer?"

"I", Coiran pauses then neglects to continue. "What does that have to do with the pendant?"

"Nothing, I just thought you should know."

"Alright." Coiran moved on to rearrange the drawer next to where Tenna is standing. She stares at him, watching him work, with a look of mild disbelief.

"Sometimes, I think you wouldn't notice if we all just picked up and left. You'd just carry on, locked in your workshop." Tenna's eyes pierces his as he looks at her. Her eyes are glazed with tears. He cannot hold the look for more than a moment.

He turns from her, with his head hung low. Tenna wipes another tear from her cheek and walks to the house again, her bare feet padding softly as she leaves. Coiran listens to the sound of them and the click of the door shutting. Silence floods the workshop. Coiran is still frozen, his head hung low. Drops of sweat run down his hair, and puncture the quiet as they slap the floor.

Finally, he moves. He retrieves the incomplete lockbox made of bone and takes it to the workbench. Nearby, he retrieves his hammer. He stares at the work, with tiny groves set and waxed, minute designs and switches. Hairline carvings swirl across the faces of the box to decorate it. Among them is a depiction of Cadia, an abstract rendition of a family taking shelter within, while abstract horrors swirl without.

With a single blow he decimates the entire structure. Pieces fly, skittering across the bare floor into a thousand places. He drops the hammer on the floor, and walks to the end of the hall. He retrieves his pack from the wall. Then, walking past the window in the far side of the workshop, proceeds out the back door, to a path that leads past the lake and on to the Atrium.

 

[strangeatlas]

"Go home, Tavolt, you've had your last. I've seen to it with Davreth, he won't give you another." The patrol captain is a stout man, his tunic soiled by days of hard travel, and aside from a stubble of beard a few days old, his face bore scabs in the distinctive shape of a mask across his face.

Likewise, a group of patrol sit, covered in grime and dirt fresh from the outside, saturated by a layer of sweat that bleeds into their tunics. They'd return from a hard run, and could do nothing but hover over the glasses, saying nothing and avoiding each other's vacant gazes.

Only their captain is standing, glaring at a drunken Tavolt, who has clapped one patrolman over the shoulder as he pestered them, and leans on him for support. The patrolman sits still, but his shoulders are stiff. His knuckles are white from gripping his mug. A ribbon of scar tissue sweeps across his head, leaving a strip of hairless, uneven flesh. His right earlobe looks like it was chewed off some time ago.

"Get off of me!" he shouts and shoves Tav's hand away. Tavolt spins, one foot slipping up, and falls backward onto the bench and table. The scarred patrolman is knocked to the ground. Glass mugs shatter on the floor. Ale and liquor splash and flow as drinks empty onto the table. The patrolman on the ground is showered.

The crowded tavern turns silent. Tavolt, sitting with his elbows propped onto the table, rolls his head around his shoulders, and finds the man. His eyelids hang unevenly, and a shocked face slowly morphs into a grin. "I think that means he'll be picking up the tab!"

The skin on the scar turns blood red, and rage washes over his face. He is up, and seizing Tavolt's lapel, pins him down on the table. The edge of the table crushes into Tav's back, and he whines and grimaces from it. Red spots appear on his left side, and slowly meld into one as they spread.

"Leave him be, Quita! Off him!" The captain bellows. The others in the patrol are surrounding him, eyes fixed, eager to see punishment.

"Just one more of your jokes, and I'll rip out your jangles and cram them down your throat." the patrolman whispers into his ear as he lets Tav up.

Tav awkwardly regains his balance and tries to fix his lapel, finding it ripped. "I thought you all had some sort of honor code! Don't you have any respect for a decorated veteran of the patrol?"

The Captain places himself between Tavolt and Quita. "Shut it, Tav, you've never been on Patrol."

"Not so! See this scar?" He leans past the captain and towards Quita and points at his cheek. "Not as pretty as yours, but I bet the story is better! You see, I was on Patrol about thirty summers ago, during the infamous Mercutian expedition."

"Cut the bug mud, you aren't old enough for that."

"No, no! I was only twelve at the time. I was quite the promising young lad, so they let me on."

The Captain steps up to Tavolt. His eyes were exhausted, but now they burn. "Don't you dare talk about the 'Cution!" he rasps, "my mother died on that day."

His eyes are locked with the captain. Tavolt's grin vanishes as his hand slips under his shirt, to his wound. "Oh, I remember, I do. Orders came to strike camp, and move, but no one could find her. Supposed to be on lookout and turns out she was off with some dufus." He sends an accusatory finger into the air. "Serves her right, I say!"

The entire patrol drops their mouths open, and watches their Captain, who approaches Tav, forces him to turn and presses him towards the entrance of the tavern. Tavolt has trouble keeping pace, stumbling a few times, but each time the captain catches his fall and thrusts him back on his feet. The patrol follows as other patrons watch them warily.

They are outside. The captain turns Tavolt back around, and through gritted teeth, says, "Alright skyjocky, let's see what kind of meat you're made of." He lands a punch deep into Tavolt's gut. Vomit erupts out of him and he folds begins coughing. The captain pulls up on his matted hair until Tavolt straightens out, upright. A grimace turns into a lazy smile. His fist sweeps across it, and Tavolt spins into the road.

He lies motionless in the street, mouth and side bleeding, and the liquor he'd been drinking all night staining his lapel. He tries to push himself up, but vomits again, and instead rolls to the right in a feeble attempt to avoid it.

The captain watches, and when it seems he won't get up, begins to turn.

"You know, I wonder, perhaps you lost your mother and father that day, to the same behemoth? You remind me a lot of that dufus. We'll never know, seeing as they found nothing but a scrap left of her."

The captain turns and sees the blood-soaked teeth grinning up at him. He sweeps a kick low into the wound in Tavolt's side. Tavolt is coughing. The captain kicks again into the wound. His nose is running, but he doesn't seem to care. He kicks again. His hat falls off from the effort and his hair dishevels. The patrol has gathered around, and Quita joins the captain, kicking his other side. Tavolt is coughing in fits, but in between catches a breath and forces an insincere laugh. Tears are streaming down his face.

"Do you remember-"
A while after the last gong of the day, the fungus also go to sleep, and most of the bone and fishscale paved paths darken. The voice does not belong to any regular, and the crowd around Tav gets in a few more kicks before Abraham emerges from the shadows, into the glow of the blubber lanterns at What A Waist. His face is not a familiar one either, and it takes a bit of time for the captain's pause to filter down.

"- how we used to haze the new recruits, Tav?"

Abe shuffles forward and the circle parts for him. He bends down and brushes some hair and blood out of Tav's eyes. There's a faraway look on his face, as if he is sleepwalking, and he doesn't seem to recognize the person that he is attending to.

"The patrol was a way to scare kids straight, back then. The really bad ones … the ones who would cut a big hole in Cadia and stuff other kids inside, or the ones that stole Minnow's sheep and ate them by the roadside. The ones that didn't know how to control their gifts and ended up hurting people, maybe on purpose."

He continues, maybe lost in early onset dementia, speaking to no one in particular. The ring of people cast furtive shadows over the two of them in the middle, like a spell circle, and he's giving the incantation. Maybe that is triggering his memory.

"We didn't have a name for it before Barca. Shudders, jitters, the quease, sky ills. But we sure knew how to use it! They'd shove a kid or teen at us—just like you, Tav—and the first thing we'd do is drag 'em outside. They wouldn't look up, no … we had to tilt their head up, because in Cadia, there's no reason to look up.

"Everyone throws up. Even if not on the first look, probably on the second, or maybe the day after. We all do it, eventually. When they did, we'd grab them —" Abe puts a hand over Tav's mouth and another on the back of his head, "and squeeze the mask in place.

"Lesson one of the Outside, never take off your mask.

"Are you being a good kid, Tav?" He looks sad. "Why are you getting yourself into trouble?"

Abraham's rambling seems to have diffused the anger of the squad. The team looks at their captain, who is giving the veteran a conflicted look, and they silently recognize that there is a thread of veracity to some of the claims. The squad disperses into the dark.

Tavolt coughs, and rasps, "Was all part of my strategy, old man." He tries to sit up, winces, and lays back down. "You see, they think they're winning, but that is precisely when they're most vulnerable. Ow!" He rolls over to his stomach, and dragging his lower body, begins to claw towards the tavern door. "Now seeing as they've run off," he pauses to pant a few times, then continues to crawl, "guess it's time for a victory pint."

"Davreth won't welcome you back tonight, and maybe not the next few nights either. Come on, I live not too far from here, and I have a few things that can quench the thirst from a fight." Abraham stoops and rolls Tav to his back. "I'm old now, so you'll have to help at least a little."

Exchanging grunts, Abraham lifts and shoulders Tav, and they shuffle down the road together.

 

[Kuno]

FEVER PITCH II​

The sweltering heat and swell of bodies did little to chase the ice from anyone's bones. There was a frenetic madness in the way the small crowd hovered about the lake's shoreline, Machak's boat drawing closer and closer towards them. The old man himself was not on board; two young patrolmen, Arnold and Ilmaki, instead commandeered his vessel, the looks on their faces grim. A blanket had been thrown over the body sitting between them in the boat's belly, a pair of blue tinged feet sticking out from beneath.

"He ain't doing much."

"I didn't ask if he was doing much, I asked if he saw anything!"

Deelie had grown terrifying in the span of half an hour. The sight of onlookers already gathered at the shore had incensed him unnecessarily, and the two boys sent to go fetch him bore the brunt of his frustrations. Puffed up, the tall man bullied his way through the concerned citizens. A few recognized him.

"Deelie! What's going on–"

"–heard there was someone–"

"A body–?"

"Machak!" Deelie boomed, seizing on his target at last.

The old fisherman had shrunk into himself on a log by the water, staring off wordlessly into nothing. A hard shake roused him, but slowly; he lifted his head to stare at Deelie with sunken eyes.

"What happened?"

"I…I was fishing," He started haltingly. "I was fishing and my…my hook got in…"

Tears sprung to his eyes.

"Oh no. Oh, she's dead, she's dead."

"Machak!" Deelie barked, but the old man had retreated into himself once more, burying his face into his hands. The retired patrolman made a frustrated noise in his throat and turned away. Just in time – the boat had just reached shore. He recognized the men on board as new recruits from right before he retired. Ilmaki, he believed, served directly under Adelheid. He must have been another patrolman close enough in the area for the boys to go fetch.

He strode forward into the water to meet the boat before either Arnold or Ilmaki could get out. Arnold in particular looked haunted.

"Captain," The redhead went, "It's not good."

"A dead body in the water is never good. Now–"

"No," He said forcefully, shaking his head. "You don't understand. You can't let them see."

Deelie glanced at Ilmaki. The young man, typically joyful by nature, was green about the gills, an inexplicable anger rimming his eyes that he'd never seen before. And Arnold looked…

He needed to see. He had to see.

Slowly, reaching over the boat's sides, he pulled the blanket back from over the body. He sucked in a breath. And then another.

It was in vain. It felt like someone had ripped the air from his lungs, and he fumbled for a moment, the gold of a government official's robes swimming before his eyes.

"Ilmaki," He finally murmured after he had composed himself. "You will go straight to the council hall. You will not speak to anyone. You will not stop for anyone. You will fetch your commander Adelheid, and you will tell her, and her only that…"

By Cadia. His eyes closed, a steadying breath coming in the interim.

"Tell her that Councilwoman Tora has been killed."

----------------------------------------------------------​

It seemed that the only things that kept cool in Cadia anymore were the drinks. Forget heading down to the lake for a refreshing dip in its endless waves; What A Waist was conveniently close to the hub of town, and every worthless person seized the opportunity.

Not that Davreth, of course, minded the sudden influx of business. The man himself had disappeared, having mentioned something or the other about going down to the cellar to get more ale. In the meantime, the rabble of senseless conversation continued in his tavern. There was a man at the fore telling a ludicrous story…something about Cadia and–

"–the vines, man, they were growing fast as a man running!" He was haggard, disheveled, and most likely drunk. Nevertheless, his audience was captive.

"Where'd ya see that?"

"Out by the fields!" He exclaimed, pointing–as if they could literally see them through the walls. "All over ta' place. Big, big bustling plants that looked like spores–"

"Spores?" A blonde woman said incredulously. "In Cadia? Lay off the ale, honey."

"Ish true!"

"Mmhm." The woman turned away, her plaits swinging. "Davreth, another r–where'd he go?"

 

[Itari]

collab with @Kuno

Through the streets of the heart of Cadia, a white figure flashed in and out amongst the crowds.

"Faster, Sekani."

Xola the Fleet was unusually impatient. The patient inflection of her tone had given way to a growing edge. Their summons had filled her with an urgency only to be sated with their arrival.

Disturbances in Cadia weren't just new to her; they were entirely unheard of. When Xola had gotten news that a swelling crowd was growing at the tailward edge of the lake and that a lone patrolman was unable to disperse it, she had known then and there what she had known in the bowels of that tunnel beneath the stage.

Something was terribly wrong.
She leapt nimbly over a stooped old woman and her basket, her head only slightly turning to make sure Sekani was keeping up.

Sekani was one of the few in the patrol that could keep pace with Xola during sprints; it was one of the many reasons they were often paired together. At this pace though, Sekani would tire long before Xola did. Luckily, the pair had been fairly close to the lake when the summons went out. Sekani didn't have the same urgency Xola did, but followed her nonetheless. When they arrived, the crowd near the lake was so large, they had a hard time seeing what was even causing it. The air was full of panicked voices overlapping each other.

"...murdered!!"

"Who…?"

"...council…"

Sekani wiped the sweat off their forehead and wished they had worn something lighter. The heat was unbearable. They lightly jumped over the crowd, using their heads to help them get across and joined another patrolman who was already fighting to be heard over the panic.

"Please step back! Return to your homes! The Council will make an announcement once the situation has been resolved!"

At the front their red rope formed a horizontal line and began corralling a section of the crowd away from the shoreline. Sekani raised their hands and made a motion for everyone to step back. It was a terrible job for them. They were much smaller than the average person, and most of the people simply looked over their head and ignored them, and Sekani found themself being pushed back into the shallows of the lake. Their legs got caught in the overgrown vines and they fell. As soon as they landed in the water, the vines seemed to grow in an attempt to hold them down. Sekani drew their knife and cut them away and staggered back to their feet. They turned to Xola, who had also made it to the front of the crowd by now and pointed down and shaped their rope into an upside triangle split in half. Danger.

The warning was duly noted. Her hooves stomping roughly into the sand, the satyr was undeterred in her stance.

"Go home!" She heard that same man boom again.

"Or what?" A voice retorted back. Instantly, there was a ripple of murmurs throughout the crowd, and Xola felt her shoulders square as some fearful eyes fell upon her first, then Sekani. Or what, the voice had asked. Slowly, her hand went to the hilt of the blade at her side, her body tensing.

For once, Xola did not want to know the answer.

 

[unanun]

The satyr's gaze roved over the crowd, held back by Sekani's thin red suggestion. In the heat, the opinions, demands, and harassment mixed together into an indistinct assault. A voice cut through the din:

"We have a right to know who was in that lake! The patrol's been all over the place recently, parading like Cadia's own calves!"

A wave of fevered yeah's washed over the patrolmen. The loud-mouthed Cadian, who might have stumbled over from the cool refreshment at What a Waist to join the revelry, had not expected such encouragement.

"Since—," he looked around, licking his lips, "Since when did the patrol start thinking they were better than everyone, huh?! When did they start taking over the Waist, coming in all covered in shit from the Outside? They beat the ambergris out of Tavolt the other day!"

The prolonged summer had damped the usual flight of gossip, and this revelation sent the crowd over the edge. They began to shout, the throng of arms and mouths melting into a monster. It forced Xola back, and her hooves left furrows in the mud as the patrolmen were pushed into a tightening circle around the two blue feet and the boat. She swept Sekani behind and placed herself between the mob and the two tadpoles.

"Maybe... maybe one of you killed Tavolt later!! Finished the job!"
"Pushed the body into the lake!"
"Too bad Machak's an expert fisherman!"

A drop of sweat escaped the wick of her brow and crawled into her eye.

"Let's see if there's any blood on their swords!"
"Killers!"
"Killers!!"
"Murderers!!!"

She batted the sting away with a practiced one-eyed flutter, and the heckler guffawed, clearly thinking he was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. He puffed up, swelling at least a head taller. Someone nudged him forward. A piece of sod flew over their heads. He lunged forward to triumphantly sweep her out of the way, then froze.

A sliver of killing edge glinted between Xola's scabbard and hilt. It nicked the edge of the vellum-tight tension, and the deafening silence of the crowd was the sound of it ripping away.

The satyr and the Cadian caught each other's eyes. Every time he tried to look away she stabbed him with her gaze, and dragged his affixed attention back to her. In her cornea he saw his face, nose comically large. His lower jaw distended and the skin ripped open. The bone split at the front to two halves of an antlion's mandible. Pupils bloomed in the whites of his eyes, impinging on each other like foaming soap and merging into compound eyes. His hair stiffened and thinned out to sparse patches, revealing his new carapace.

Xola blinked, and he gasped through locked teeth. He staggered back, clutching at his chest where she had carved a white-hot horizontal cut.

He looked down... and his shirt was whole. He looked back at her and saw his reflection unaltered. She had not withdrawn more of the sword. The crowd was still screaming. He realized the half-truth of his hallucination, fueled by one too many mugs of Davreth's special ale: that in her eyes he was morphing into an antlion, and she would have no qualms gutting him. He scrabbled his way upstream, but the mob continued to burn, no longer in need of his spark. One Cadian made for the hilt of Ilmaki's sword. Another swept aside Sekani's rope and went for the robes, seeking the dagger within.

---

WILL WE NOT AFFORD THE DEAD THEIR OWED DIGNITY?​

---

Just above streaked a Pleuris, red plumed and lithe. With a shrill cry Ren descended and alighted on the back of the boat, dragging a heavy cloth across it from skull to tail and hiding the relief of the dead body.

The crowd jerked back to reveal Adelheid, resplendent in silvered chitin, her fiery hair blowing back from the force of her words. She strode toward the corralled patrolmen, who gave them the salute of the Outside, discreet and silent.

"What is this?"

The lingering magic of her Battle Cry imbued her rebukes with a mother's harshness.

"Has the summer planted a spore in everyone's lungs? I know the season has been long, and we have all been tested in many ways, but are we really so frail that desecrating a corpse is sporting fun?"

"Leave!" Only Xola and Sekani did not flinch. "Leave! Gather your lost wits and find your shame!"

In the vacuum of the lost tantrum, Adelheid turned back to Xola, Sekani, Arnold, Ilmaki, and Deelie.

"Deelie, take Machak back home. The rest of you take the boat, two to each side." A shard of ambergris gleamed dead center in her circlet, and strength chased away their nerves. "We will go straight to the council."

 

[FrostedCaramel]

Estra & Bur

It had been quite the spectacle since the moment it had begun. First that fisherman, nearly capsizing his boat in the reeds, then came the boys and the start of the crowd. Next were the whispers, the curious words carried along in Cadia's veins by Her beating heart, then the anguish took hold followed close behind by the crowd's shock at the gravity of what they were witnessing.

Bur had motioned with a wave out across the lake from where they sat aloft in the branches of a great barrow tree, toward the crowd as they had swelled in numbers and their emotions had begun to sink into the very roots of the barrow tree, a potent poison makings its way into the great tree from the same lifeblood that sustained it.

"It gets worse," he said as a matter-of-fact, the silhouettes of a few more Patrolmen became visible at the edge of the lake, "always, it gets worse."

Estra shrugged at his side, her back leaned against Bur as she lazily watched the growing commotion at the lake's edge with disinterest.

"It's none of our business, let the Cadian's bicker, squabble, murder one another," she brought a hand up over her back to reach for Bur, "It's their problem, let them solve it."

She couldn't see Bur from where she lay against him, but she could feel his unease as the barrow tree shuddered beneath them.

"What is our concern, even?" he asked as he watch the crowd press into the sparse picket of Patrolmen, "Cadia sickens, your people burn her, tear the rot free, murder their kin…" he reached a hand up to meet Estra's, "When does it become our concern?"

Estra remained silent at his side, her blue eyes searching the crowd for an answer.

The commotion across the lake intensified, beginning to border on madness as the crowds' fear overwhelmed their senses. Bur could make out the shouts of anger directed at the Patrolmen as he watched the crowd surge forward, the protectors of Cadia driven into the water lapping at the lakes edge.

"We should do something," he said quietly as he watched.

Estra scoffed quietly at his side, "You mean I should do something," she retorted with a shake of her head, "It's not our problem, not yet."

Bur was silent for a moment, his eyes contemplating the sight of the crowd about to come to blows with the Patrolmen. He had no doubt that the Patrolmen could take a number of them down with them, but the crowd would win. He could see the future laying out before him as those three cloaked figures were pushed steadily back to where they would surely find their end among the reeds, drowning in mere inches of water at the hands of dozens of incensed Cadian's. Had they foreseen this as their end? Had they expected to die at the hands of those they protected? Or had they seen a death more fitting for their station, out in the wilds in search of secrets and glory? He couldn't know, would never have the chance to ask as the second Patrolmen was pushed back into the waters edge, that cool water lapping greedily at its next guests.

"They'll be overwhelmed."

"Three more for the lake," Estra agreed as she turned her gaze elsewhere.

Neither had noticed the Pleuris, or the arrival of the paladin in silver.