Coleman groans. Clowns are a pain, but the Ringmaster's memory is worse. The indignity of having a clown passenger on board isn't as bad as the threat of having a train destroyed or finding your path abruptly blocked with a circus. They'll just have to put up with--

...straight up into a fireman-carry, never stopping for a moment, weaving away from the biggest active threat right now, and also the Wreck.

And just like that, the problem solves itself.

"Can we experiment on that thing first?!"

And just like that, the problem unsolves itself,

"Nope! Not today! Moving out!"

That's the thing about keeping yourself between a threat and your friends. It means that when it's time to turn tail and run, your friends are also directly in line between you and the exit.

Now if only he thought there were enough time to both grab them and get away unscathed. But if the two idiots don't have the sense to run, he'll have to have the sense for them.

[7 on Get Away, taking Ailee and Jackdaw with him.]

Coleman!

Good thing, too: the Wreck shoots after you, apparently having been waiting for an opening, and by the time you’ve got them in the stairwell, you’ve barely got any time to brace before it slams its bulk into you. Sasha’s legs whine as she tries to plant her feet, but the floor underfoot is slick.

You’ve got a little bit of time: Sasha’s very fast, and you’re a good engineer. Enough time to figure out a plan. Ailee’s got a big fuck-off hammer, maybe that might help crack the shell?

***

Ailee!

You are denied your vengeance! And now you’re in some gross stairwell. It’s horribly treacherous underfoot, but, oh, yeah. You can fly. So in the event that this calamari platter cracked open Sasha and ate your guide, you and Jackdaw would still totally be fine.

But you don’t want that, do you? You want victory. You know, if Coleman managed to hold that thing steady, you might be able to take out your clown-based frustrations...

***

Jackdaw!

She is below. This isn’t the last obstacle. That would be kind, and fair, and the Heart is neither of those things. The Flood is waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs, just to make leaving that much harder. You can feel her, hear the furious rush of her waters.

This will, however, not be anything for you to worry about if the giant crab thing scuttling towards Sasha at high speeds smears both of you into a greasy paste underneath Sasha.

***

Lucien!

Well, isn’t this a merry farce? You and the clown go one way, everyone else goes the other. At least this way you’ve got time to chat, and a clear shot at its nigh-impenetrable back, if you had a clever plan.

“Why, thank you, my good man,” the clown says, giving you a questionably soggy clap on the shoulder. “That was one of my former students, you see, back when I was chasing after fleeting collegiate fame. But now I am pursuing life eternal! Have you ever considered your own mortality? Why, one day you might just wake up and the old ticker you’ve got there comes to a sudden stop, and then where are you, I ask you?”

Oh god. You’re getting recruited for a cult. By a clown.

Lucien!

Well, isn’t this a merry farce? You and the clown go one way, everyone else goes the other. At least this way you’ve got time to chat, and a clear shot at its nigh-impenetrable back, if you had a clever plan.

"If". The plan was the time to chat - Professor Pagliacci seems to have been a lot more successful dealing with the Flood until now, and Lucien would like to keep him as an ally in spite of Ailee's best efforts. Let's do our best to keep this fight 5 on 1, not 4 on 2.

Also?

Oh god. You’re getting recruited for a cult. By a clown.

Words cannot express how much I wish to subscribe to this man's newsletter. I am all about that deep clown lore. Probably not going to join, but Lucien's not lying when he promises to be a very enthusiastic listener.

[Speak Softly - 5, 3, +2 = 10]
[What can they tell me about killing the Wreck, what should I be wary of when dealing with them, What do they want, and how can we help them get it?]
[Fast Friends, emphasis on "Fast" - I gain a Bond with them. Now, no matter how much the rest of the Fellowship antagonizes him, we're buddies. Aren't we? Of course we are.]

Lucien smiles, this one takes a lot less effort on his part. He grips the hand on his shoulder and gives it a friendly, reassuring squeeze with his own soggy-sock-gloved one - the one not holding the pistol, at least. His words have a laminar flow to them - smooth, clear, hypnotic. Polite pauses that just aren't long enough for the other speaker to get a word in, but imply they could have.

"I'm considering my mortality right now. Awful stuff. But enough about me! A clown collegiate! Wonderful! Becoming a clown doesn't seem like an impulsive decision; Hardly an idea you just get in your head while you wait for the kettle to boil, is it? I'm sure you have some interesting reasons I'd love hearing all about. Fascinating ones."

An awkward clearing of the throat, a very apologetic glance towards the Wreck. "It's a bit loud to talk properly though, isn't it? Should probably fix that. And you're obviously here for your own reasons, I'm sure; I promise we'll help you however we can once this is sorted out. At the very least, I'll stop Ailee from getting in your way. I hope. I am an honest man; I can only promise my best, on that one."

Dreadfully rude to interrupt a conversation to go kill a horrific zombie crab artillery bunker, but needs must I suppose. "What's our clever plan?"

The entire party had come together to thwart her righteous vengeance.

Fire burned in Ailee's eyes, the wroth of a dragon who had been told that the whole world was against him - and so the entire world would need to be destroyed. Arcane power ran along her glyph- patterns, violet and red and green and black and the concentration of indolent vice seemed to hang in the air like a singularity. Everyone here was well within the blast radius.

And then, incongruously, Ailee took a deep breath, raising her hand from her diaphragm to her throat as she breathed in, and pushing it out in front of her as she breathed out. The storm of arcane power quelled like it had been sucked into a vacuum. Ailee was back to being a regular mousegirl instead of the immanent arrival of the Lord of Fire.

"Okay," she said. "Fine. I understand. I won't kill everyone. I am a team player and understand when I've been outvoted."

Oh, you have got to be kidding.

"I'd settle for killing that!"

Sasha is not happy right now. Coleman's murmuring to her as she tries her best to bolt, wincing as stalactites crackle and crumble against her cabin. Surrender isn't an option, much as he'd like it, and there's a part of him wonders whether sacrificing the wrench to spare Sasha might not have been a better option.

And the wafting smell of the sea spiraling out of the tunnel whispers that things are going to get far worse before they get better.

So, improve the situation. This is the best place to keep it at bay--it's narrow enough a passage that there's really only forward and backwards. Keep it pinned in place, and it means that the boom happens at a safe distance. At least, that's the hope.

[Balmas's dice strike again: 6 on Keep Them Busy]

The staff whipped back into Jackdaw's hands, and at her whisper grew to the size of a tent pole. She drove it into the ground behind them with both paws, bracing it and herself against Sasha's back.

"I - nghhh! - second the motion!" She shouted over the din of battle.

[Helping Coleman to offer Hope: That's now a 5 + 2 + 2 = 9]

Lucien!

“What ho, a bit of civilization down here, what?” The clown agreeably pumps your hand. “Between you and me, this is a right ghastly place. I have all sorts of theories on why the true source of immortality is down here, and why it desires the fulfillment, no, the exaltation of passion. It is not just a rite of passage, it is a crucible, a prison for gods like itself. Only those who are willing to shed their restraining ego deserve paradise, which is internal irregardless of the external factors— why do you think we associate clowns with joy, with celebration of existence, with a numinous dread?”

Numinous dread is right; clowns are infamous for being unhinged and violent down here. You saw that with his response to Ailee, and while that’s cowed him for now, the more he “ascends” into immortality, the more likely he is to try and force a rematch. Traveling with him is like traveling with a growing bear: very useful until you realize it’s gotten big enough to rip your arm off. Double that if you ever visit the infamous Dark Carnival, of which you have only heard whispers.

“I wanted Grail lore,” he adds, swinging into melancholy again. “But now Miss Sundish has riled the local god. Every place in the Heart is under the dominion of one Power or another, you know, even if it is a distant feudalism. This place will be nigh uninhabitable soon enough. Do you think she would mind dreadfully if I were to bring my donkey along?”

If you were to convince him that he would get closer to understanding the Grail by tearing that thing’s head off, he’d do it. Especially if you convinced him Ailee would appreciate it. On the other hand, that might not kill it, but nobody appreciates a head being torn off.

***

Team Sasha!

It is a battle for the ages, which mostly means it’s adrenaline-packed and you spend most of it trying not to die or accidentally set off all that gunpowder.

Walls are torn open. Stalactites fall from the ceiling. Bookshelves collapse. This place is close to falling apart: stay much longer and the whole thing might collapse into the Flood.

That would be a Bad Thing, by the way.

Ailee, don't provoke them. Ailee, don't get angry. Ailee, don't hit that clown. Choruses of restraint right up until the moment she actually showed some. Indecision - that was it. Not just a word, a vice. The presence of the King in all his shadowed glory. Hellbent energy. Thank you for helping her bring it out, friends.

She breathed it in deeply. Power to chain. Power to bind. Power to lock entire lives away inside themselves. Exactly right.

Pride burst around her in its jagged emerald flames, spreading in technicolour black and poison green eyes. She was going to demonstrate why she was worthy. She was going to bind a Vice in real time. Willpower struck the flames and carved them into runes. Her eyes closed and she levitated off the ground, traveling cloak falling to the ground to reveal long, bare limbs covered in elaborate arcane sigils, burning green. The green and black caught and carved around the muddy maybe blue-gold-white. Pride dragged the fog into place, sharp and smiling with triangles like the Coyote in the moon.

She spun in place, wrapping the blackness around her in a dress. Midnight satin, jagged zig-zags of green, short and sharp and with a long flowing train behind her held aloft on their own dark wings. Her fur-sigils flowed and merged into brilliant green painted eyes, looking about everywhere with pure white irises. Her hair undid its loose, casual brushed-back state and resumed its destined form - as long and cascading as a unicorn's mane. The tip of her tail burst into emerald fire and left aftertrails like a paintbrush across canvas. The sword-smile settled into her hand, an optical illusion impaled on its tip.

Magical transformation complete, Ailee snapped into the air like a curse, carried by fire and vision into one perfect strike and fade. Her feet have touched the ground and her sword is already fading back into her smile - and Indecision is lodged in the heart of the Wreck.

A terrible vice for such a creature. Should it stay in its shell, or burst out from it? Should it threaten to detonate its gunpowder or avoid it for fear? Should it attack or flee? It stands paralyzed by the branching paths. Every second its options change and so it has to reassess - again and again. It's still considering its options when its skull is crushed by an out of control locomotive, bringing an end to its malformed existence.

[Finish with hope because she just damaged her Pride: 6,1,6 +1, making the total lucky 13.]

Traveling with him is like traveling with a growing bear: very useful until-

Ah! Ah! All I needed to hear! The pins out on this grenade - I'm happy to try to keep my hand on it long enough to throw it at someone.

The rest of the party probably needs a sales pitch, and the Professor needs a motivation...

First thing's first.

Lucien feels a deep spiritual connection to donkeys. They keep ending up in places they shouldn't be. They're smarter than horses and don't startle nearly as easily, but nobody would ever think about putting them in a cavalry regiment. They refuse any order they think is stupid, and they're only as loyal as they feel their master deserves.

The fact that this donkey was being led by an overeducated clown gone mad in the pursuit of power - well, most people would see themselves reflected in that one, and Lucien was no exception.

"Of course you can. I'm sure it'll beat Ailee on stubbourness and smell." It's at this point, of course, that Ailee stops trying to kill their one ally and actually does something clever and useful against the Wreck instead. Credit where it's due. "Well. Smell then. Flood water, in our defense. Me and Jackdaw would love to host you. The other two..."

[Talk Sense using Wisdom: Appeal to Desires - 3, 4, +2 = 9]
[They do what I ask, but I owe a favour]

Lucien points to the blasted-out way down. "If you can stop that thing long enough for us to make it out, or kill it, I'll make sure Aille forgives you for your crime of being an authority figure at some point in her life. She likes useful people, and right now," - Lucien wiggles his bleeding, pie-scorched fingers and points to his still-stinging and watery eyes - "You don't have much competition." Pause. "Actually, scratch that. You're going up against the train team for brownie points. Harder ask. Clowns I understand*. But trains? Train crews?" Lucien shakes his head. "Now, those are terrifying. The things they know... I try not to think about it, you understand. Makes them very slow to trust; paranoiacs the lot, and Coleman's no exception... Might be a lot harder for me to put in a good word with him, unless you really impress him right now."

Lucien crouches low with his back to the statue, preparing to move silent and barefoot. "I've got your back, but the spotlight's on you. I'll stay out of sight, ready to tag in for anything. Just give the word, loud as you like."

*This is what we in the business call 'a lie'.

Whatever happens next Lucien's gunning for that way down, quick and quiet. He plans to be true to his word on backing the clown - sorry, Grail Questant - up if the call comes.

The word is whoop!

It’s the only word suitable for riding atop an infant train that’s just clobbered the monster that was going to eat you all, right up until your best friend put on a masterclass of style and fire and magic and ran it through with a flaming sword of concept. “Nice one, Ailee!” she cheered, and nice one?! It was more than nice! Way more than nice! But she was giddy with victory, and not even that little problem could bring her down.

Which was the precise moment her heart sank, and dragged the rest of her down with it.

Jackdaw clung to Sasha’s smokestack to keep from falling off. No. Not here. It wasn't fair. It wasn't! “H-hey! Everyone! We’re not...um, at the bottom of the stairs, there’s-” And where there ought to have been words, there was cold. There were arms hugging herself. There was water, pouring from her mouth, hissing into great clouds of steam on Sasha's back. And even that, she knew she hadn’t said right.

They had to get past. If they could just go a little further, a little past her reach, they could escape. (For a time. No one truly escapes her. No one.) In a daze, she slipped off Sasha’s back, and started rummaging through the wreckage of the battle. Mostly rubble, torn pages, wreck and ruin, but still! Not all was lost of this place. Not yet. And that was their hope.

Libraries weren’t the word for the big room where you hold all your books. They were so, so much more.

[Activating Let Me See That:
• What was this made to do, and how do I use it or break it?
• What's wrong with this, and how might I fix it?]

Coleman is out of the train in a flash, and giving Sasha the pat-down of her life. Who's the best train? She is, of course, and she's earned an extra rich dose of fuel tonight--it's oak, your favorite! You don't like that coarse stuff we normally source, but this is special, just for you. Apparently some rich bureaucrat bit it, and you know they didn't need their desk, so I managed to score some of the worksurface just for you! And then we've got a polishing cloth, and you've been such a good girl who just needs love and care, and to press just that little bit more on because we can't stop for too long or else the cave collapses, but you've done oh so very well, good job Sasha! Yes you did~!

Jackdaw!

The Tyrian Spire was extruded in order to be a lure. Those are the words rising up inside you, darling. You look up at these books and know that they were grown here for the purpose of bringing people just like you here. It is... difficult, right now, to say whether it is a lure of the Flood or for the Flood. It would make a terrible sense that the Flood would churn it up out of her waters, hide her knowledge inside it, and bring poor doomed fools right to her banks. But that doesn't quite fit the brief image you gained of her. It's just as likely, really, that something even more potent than she made this place so that she would coalesce herself around it and try to drag it down into her. To bring all those books (perhaps poisoned?) down into her deeps.

The books here are dangerous, dear. If you stuffed them in a bag, you'd be able to use them later, but you must not let yourself believe that doing so would be safe. They are quietly inviting, suggesting that you should read them, that what you want to know is inside, perhaps on the next shelf, or in the next chapter. Really, it's fortunate that you were touched by the Flood. Otherwise, maybe Ailee would have victoriously brought down that Wreck and then turned around and found you gone, scampered off into the stacks. As it is, looking too closely at the titles makes you sick to your stomach. Who knows how much time the clown spent here already? Perhaps you have saved him by stumbling across him.

As for fixing it? You would have to talk to the entity that caused it to be, in order to address or alter its fundamental purpose. Which would either be the Flood, or, perhaps...

Do you believe in the Shadow King, Jackdaw?

(They say he lives below Terminus. They say he is the first being who lived, or the last. They say he grows the Heart like a bonzai tree. They say he is the warden of the caged gods. They say all sorts of nonsense. But every story has its seed.)

***

Team Sasha!

You now are being guided by an elderly professor-turned-clown who is carefully holding onto a woefully face-painted donkey, perched upon Sasha's shoulder. "Climbing up was harder than going down will be, I think. The Flood likes things to be down and stay down, but Little Lightfoot here kept her footing, didn't she?"

The walls are clammy and water drips up and down, both ways, almost as if the tides were rolling in and out. The roar grows louder and louder as you make your way down upon Sasha. It's a very tight squeeze, and slow going, which means you all have a little bit of time to stress out about what you're going to find down at the bottom.

You'd think that with the battle over Ailee would have transformed out of her crackling black nightmare energy princess dress. Nope. From the way she acted this was just her look now. Make eye contact with her and a crackling flower of staring emerald energy eyes bloom behind her like the world's most intimidating peacock display. There's a low danger hum as energy coils around her arms like bracelets and after a while your brain stops noticing it as anything other than a vague sense of tension. Occasionally small bits of scenery catch fire around her.

"So boring," she said, a blazing hot specter of Impatience rising above and around her. She cupped her hands and addressed Coleman: "Hey! Short stuff!" it was okay when she said it. "Can't you make this hunk of garbage go any faster?"

"I didn't think that would stick," Lucien admits, glancing behind them. "Missed the train, but still punched the ticket. As it were."

He's looking at the clown as he says this, and not Sasha.

Amazingly, Ailee broke into a fit of giggles at Lucien's comment so genuine that it snapped her out of her aura of coruscating energy. It happened so fast it was startling - one moment you'd become almost used to her being a vibrant, sibilant nexus of draconic nightmare energy, and the next she was an ordinary white-furred mousegirl trying to stifle laughter with her wrist. The transformation had a very [SCENE MISSING] energy where the wise would reflexively check their watches to see if they'd just had a run in with the time knife.

"Do another one!" she demanded.

Oh no! The word is snort! Loud, undignified, and impossible to hide!

W-well, it was really good! That was really smart. She, um, she liked it, and…

Jackdaw huddled beneath her cloak in her latest failed attempt to disappear forever. A cloak which bulged with a few recent, stomach-turning additions.

She didn’t believe in the Shadow King. That word needed a knowledge she simply didn’t have. Perhaps no one did, but that wasn’t a thought she rested on often. She liked to think it was out there. She liked to hope in the Shadow King. Hope that somebody extruded this lure for a good reason.

For whatever hope was worth to her.

"So boring," she said, a blazing hot specter of Impatience rising above and around her. She cupped her hands and addressed Coleman: "Hey! Short stuff!" it was okay when she said it. "Can't you make this hunk of garbage go any faster?"

Getting a hand over Ailee's mouth is a journey in itself, because the universe clearly is poorly designed by people who have never had to get a stool to reach high shelves. He clambers up Lucien, sticks a toeclaw through a belt loop for balance, and--

And the dratted mouse has the sheer indecency to laugh and cover her own mouth before he can get there. Not fair, universe. Not fair at all.

"Never," he hisses, doing his level best to keep the train from hearing, "ask a train to go fast unless you've done your due diligence to clear the path."

Dammit, this is not a dignified position from which to administer correction. Still, he rallies magnificently. See the way he stands, like a gentleman adventurer clinging to the peak of a frost-ridden summit? Tall and proud and noble? Definitely not questioning his choice of support, no sir.

"Words for the wise," he finishes. "We go carefully."

Team Train!

In the world above, there exists a certain island that is dreaded by experienced sailors. It is ringed with jagged rocks, which have been the death of many a fine vessel, and on this island live the Sirens. A common misconception is that they are seductive, luring sailors to their doom with quivering bosoms and honeyed bower-songs. The truth is that their songs offer explanation. Come here, they sing, and we will tell you why. We will reveal the movements of the wheels that turn the world; we will pull back the veil and show you the figures of the gods, great and terrible. We will tell you the future by revelation of the past; we will make everything make sense. Everything that happened to you happened for a reason. Come listen. Come listen.

The things that roost here, at the point of Descent, are not sirens. They are antisirens.

Look at one. Marvel at its burnished skin and its three fine feathered heads, singing in harmony about the freedom of forgetting. About your secret shames and your painful regrets. About all the things that chased you down here. Forget, they sing: forget. The world is meaningless and cruel, and the only way to survive is to forget. Knowledge brings suffering. Forget. Forget.

Then you look away, and—

What were you looking at?

There are bones caught in nets that rattle on the edges of this massive whirlpool, this cosmic drain. They are not bleached, but moldy and cracked, as if something with long beaks sucked the marrow out, and...

Was there a way down?

Look again.

There’s a... a thing. Made up of stone things. Leading to... you know, it’s long and stringy. That thing. Which could go down. Down. Down. Drown.

What were you looking at? Why do your ears hurt? Why are you crying? Why are you still alive? Living hurts. Remembering hurts. Nothing matters, nothing has a reason, and nothing never shatters.

[Overcome 2d6 - 1, 3 + 0 = 4]

Lucien holds his gun close to his head and fires up. He's not even aiming yet - his first plan is to deafen himself for a bit, or drown out the singing.

Click, click, click.

Powder wet.

What was he trying to do again?

"Good idea, Lucien," said Ailee. "This fucking noise makes me want to shoot myself too. Listen to these idiots! They're missing every, whatsit. Note? Bar? I could do much better. You know what? I will do much better!"

Her eyes ignite a brilliant green. As forgetfulness seeps into her mind the only things left to her are those supernatural concepts bound to her soul, chief amongst which is of course pride. She clambers up onto the bow of the train, clears her throat, and begins belting out her song at full volume.

"OH your man won't dance BUT I WILL
He's just a cup of punch that you'll spin
You're gonna hang him from the sail of a sinking sloop
Something something something and the dope you do
You get NA NA NOTHING FROM ME"

While she may not be the musical genius she thinks she is and didn't fully remember the words to this song even before the antisirens began to sap the memory from her mind, she makes up for it with total shameless from-the-diagphram loudness that will drown out the hypnotic music for just a little bit.

[Keep them Busy: 7]