Circ

The Land of Skara: and the Songtale of the Breaking

I think I might have to get in this too!

@odium

Woohoo!

The Land of Skara: and the Songtale of the Breaking

@Izurich

Oh! This looks neat. Unless I have a better idea down the line, right now, I'm thinking of coming up with a Kroca Bard!

And an alternate name for the gatekeeper sect, hmmm... what about 'The Archivists'? They hoard knowledge in their archives, hidden away from the common people.

@Izurich

I'm loving it! Can't wait to see what else you come up with. :)

The Land of Skara: and the Songtale of the Breaking

This sounds fun! Might play a fae if that's allowed.

@Drifting Pollen

Fae is fine, or any magic / fantasy creature as long as they aren't inordinately powerful.

The Land of Skara: and the Songtale of the Breaking

Okay, I'm tentatively interested right now. Will the RP's plot center around our characters having to go on a big quest, or something? Or will it be more slice of life/focused on our characters learning and groaning? Or will it be both?

@Dragonfly 9

We're going to start out on a quest to Lundros and participate in the Festival of the Breaking. Very Brothers Grimm.

The Land of Skara: and the Songtale of the Breaking

The Land of Skara
–––––––––––––– ⍱ ––––––––––––––
and the Songtale of the Breaking

The word for world is rock, and the word for rock is Skara. It is the foundation. It is the difference between up and down, order and chaos, darkness and light, cold and warmth – for the near-stars cannot pierce it, cannot blind the world from below, cannot through it melt the ice and snow.

Discord | Full-size Map | Roleplay Thread

About the Game

This is a new setting, so please bring original content and characters.

Characters should be primarily good at one thing, but they may have a secret thing we learn they excel at as their story progresses.

To start, players’ characters will make the pilgrimage to Lundros for the Festival of the Breaking, a once-in-a-generation event that, likely being young, they have never experienced before, but have heard of from their parents and grandparents. It is intended to bode times of prosperity, good harvests, and bountiful trade.

As such, this is an adventure RP of between 5 and 15 people where our characters travel the dangerous land of Skara to reach their destination, some of us meeting one another along the way and making friends or enemies! It is mid-fantasy, medieval, and the climate is cold so wear lots of layers. Once we reach Lundros, we'll participate in the games of the Festival, and when the Event Itself occurs, new opportunities will open up for our characters to explore and exploit!

About the Land of Skara

Towns are rustic and primitive, built using a timber or stave-style motif while more elegant houses employ plaster infills. Cities inspire a sense of awe and grandeur, built of commonplace and abundant black basalt in an architecture reminiscent of the Mudéjar or Asturian styles. Rumors swirl that more grand structures in cities and ruins long-since abandoned are from a time-lost civilization whispered as the Age of the Broken God. Skara is generally cold and snowy, with pine and birch forests, oak groves, and treacherous white-capped mountains; however, there is a great deal of geothermal activity, which gives life to springs and oases around which towns and cities grow. The mountains to the northwest of Lundros are perpetually covered in ice and snow, as are the northern seas.

There is a great deal of integration of the various creatures, intelligent and otherwise, who live in Skara, due to the many cycles of civilization ascending and collapsing. So talking hares may live side-by-side with humans. It is now in the late spring of this cycle, with ancient knowledge mostly lost or buried under rubble.

Festival of the Breaking

Predicted by the star sages to come when, in the sky, the two near-stars mate, the Color of the World changes, and their love melts the ice along the northern coast. Normally, two near-stars light the world of Skara, one blue and one yellow. The Breaking occurs when they eclipse one-another, forming a single, green star, that changes the color of the world and focuses the light of both on the planet, warming it enough to break apart the otherwise endless ice of the northern seas. 

State of Technology

Technology is pre-industrial, with no firearms nor capacity for rifling; potentially gunpowder exists, but is only used by alchemists for fireworks or magic displays. Overall, the tone is rustic, quiet, and exhibits a oneness with nature. Information is not printed nor mass-distributed, but passed around via illuminated hand-written encyclicals or word-of-mouth. While commoners know how to read, there is much divergence of dialect, actual books are expensive and hard to come – particularly due to the gatekeepers of folk magic. Thus, most individuals' exposure to the written word is in deeds, notes of sale, or leaflets that often include misspellings and regional vernacular. Books that do exist are often magical, preserving their ancient power in leather-bound volumes vouchsafed in the hides of thinking, feeling, sophisticated beings to best-preserve their mystic energy.

Magic Foci

Magic is budding and mysterious, with enchanted forests, harts peering into the soul, fae seducing the arrogant in deadly groves, etc. But words can transform and through them power can manifest, be it through an infamous name or a compelling story; this is known as fable magic. However, due to the power of stories, dreams, and ideas, gatekeepers exist who repress books, stories, and disappear troubadours and bards with tongues too loose for their liking. Giving something care, a face, love, and a name can bring it to life, but without any of those things, that creation may wither away unless it finds its own reason to exist in a journal of self-discovery.

• Primal, the magic of fae, tanooki, dryad, nymph, and other magic beasts.
• Fable magic, the power spun of tales, heroism, and infamy that is written of in secret tomes and sung of by bold bards. However, books are rare, and their access limited by the gatekeepers (do we want to name this sect something else?), whose mysterious motives evade the light. There is also danger in this magic, for words contain the power to influence mood, imagination, and action. Town elders often warn against malicious fable-spinners whose evil songs cause the sad to despair and seek death – and, when a stranger’s voice deepens in song, claim safety lies in plugged ears and silence.
• Hereditary magic, the power of vitality passed from generation to generation. While rare to be born under such a sign and fortuitous to be of such a line, this power need not be limited to those individuals, for there is profit to be made in the trade of moon blood, life blood, and mood blood, reagents which can be bottled and employed in various learned arts.
• Learned magic, the study of other forms of magic, of pacts between mortals and the ultramundane, of alchemy and artistry – this is a dangerous form of magic, and often takes a lifetime to master.

Areas of Interest

• Isnida, a mysterious and as-yet unvisited land.
  
  • Nidaros, pirates, merchants, and travelers tell tall tales of a city of necromancers across the ocean.
• Islund
  
  • Lundros, a metropolis tucked several kilometers inland from the ice-bound inhospitable northern coast of Islund and situated between the banks of the rivers Frosvin and Koltvin. At its center is a basalt citadel and in the air magic wafts with as vague an impression but, for some, as potent an effect as pollen. Wealthy and prosperous, it is home to many guilds, businesses, and even an academy of mystic arts. Peace is maintained by the Guards of Kol and, as times require, hired mercenaries loyal only to the purse. It is in Lundros that travelers from all across Skara gather for the astrological festival known as the Breaking.
    
    • Luminae Magic Academy
    • The Starburst Chamber, where the elites of Lundros known as the God-Colored Council – merchant guildmasters, mercenary generals, head bankers, and magic academy deans – meet and decide Islund’s policy, taxation rates, food distribution, and so forth, has a beautiful dome stained glass ceiling that paints the interior of the chamber in beautiful colors.
  • Fyrkat, an unexceptional village merely  an eight-day journey by peddler’s wagon to arrive from Stavkat; by bearback, merely five days.
  • Stavkat, an unexceptional village.
  • Grykat, a small town on the edge of civilization. Its inhabitants are primarily impoverished, living in squalor and dirt. Houses are mud-huts, the people barbarians of a way. The ground is infertile, and the people live primarily from raiding neighboring towns and villages, pillaging what they can. The hometown of Cerwin, a high status man in Lundros.
• Roh, a section of a city or town with its own culture, policing, and government; these pay taxes to Lundros in the form of grain and gold in exchange for the city’s army maintaining peace, centralized grain storage and distribution network that ensures survival throughout long winters, and hub of learned magic professionals who visit Rohs as necessary to address more nuanced concerns or plagues.
  
  • Niþroh, the row of crows, the section where crowfolk, also known as Kroca, live, characterized by eyries, teetering towers, and feather-thatched roofs.
  • Faeroh, the row of fae, where magic creatures who enjoy communing with more material creatures, given over to nature, flowers, and trees ensorceled together to form domiciles.
  • Menroh, the row of humans, the largest part of any town, often subdivided into districts for commerce, education, and so forth.

Commonplace Fantastic Creatures

Almost any magical creature you can think of will be in this setting! Intelligent talking beasts, fae, sprites, hobbits, elves, dwarves, lizardmen, koblods, ghosts! All living together in mostly-harmony! A good reference for ideas is anything CR3 and below on this page: Pathfinder Bestiary: Monsters by CR.

Kroca, a type of crowfolk, who can walk upright, talk, but for them flight is rather rough.

Slimes, a group of organisms that are made up of a round slimy material, hence the name. Their location dictates their biology. Can be found more frequently in humid areas and when it rains.

Naming Conventions

For thematic consistency in place names, the prefix for islands is -is. Meanwhile, other geographic features employ a suffix, which for rivers is -vin, for cities is -ros, for towns is -kat, and for boroughs or districts within cities and towns it is -roh. Often, cities and towns will have identical -rohs, as in rows of houses, meaning familial or racial houses, due to the self-sorting of the fantastic creatures who dwell within them, fae with fae, human with human, dwarf with dwarf; there is, after all, a great deal of comfort in familiarity. Local vernacular often drops the suffix, meaning, for example, the villagers of Fyrkat may simply refer to their hometown as Fyr.

Example Character Submission

Played by Circ, Skolt & Pite, brother and sister, are Kroca children of fishers from Fyrkat. Their mother's fishing boat is shaped like a dragon and can talk, because it was brought to life by her love after she spent months crafting it and caring for it. However, neither child is interested in fishing. Pite is an herbalist, but not the healing kind; the oracular kind who can make teas or read the leaves for visions or unwanted pregnancies. Skolt is a troubadour, a brawler, and a cloud-dreamer who protects those in need with his Macuahuitl, a flat club with obsidian plates in the side-grooves, both a weapon and a xylophone-like instrument; its obsidian blades are normally held rigid, but by sliding out a thin reed from the center of the club, they loosen enough for musical vibration. The twins share a secret language and possess bonded minds.

Expected Level of Effort

At least a paragraph or two, as is befitting of the Casual section, of at least 150 words per-post. No mega-posts, as those can be intimidating to others and time consuming for people to read, so nothing in excess of a page or so, think under 1,000 words.

Power Scaling

If you're familiar with TTPRGs, such as D&D and Pathfinder, think between levels 1-5 for your characters. Our characters can't travel to different planes or teleport around the world (yet), but we can use magic to help guide us through a forest or light up dark places.

Visual Aids

Lundros

Fyrkat

Stavkat

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

—— Earth F67X: the Asomatous Détente & Terrestrial Customs

Careful not to touch the document, Tāwhaki dutifully examines each field and footnote, murmuring an occasional word or phrase in his infernal purr-cum-baritone while his malefic eyes trace the laser-etched char of characters seared into the holy-white parchment: “Selena, f67x, San Pedro de Urabá, 12 // aught-9 // 22, unbalanced scales, gibbous air trine descending into retrograde.”

A pause, then he reaches out an atramentous paw, claws extended, and bats at the ostensibly ordinary slate countertop. A resounding screech, as claws meet rock, awakening an opaque void writhing holographic within. He takes his time deciphering the contents.

“Mrrrrrrrrrreow,” he muses. The demon hunter is in no immediate peril other than, it would seem, failing her mission to slaughter one of Hell’s demonic denizens sauntered astray to egoize in his daddy’s personal demiplane. Glancing back at Ilaria, he demands, “why are you wasting my time?”

“All my paperwork is in order, I assure you,” the angel responds.

He stares at her, his red gaze unreadable, vacant, inward. Is she arrogant or imbecilic? Is Heaven really so out of touch with mortals — that bad at keeping tabs on the whereabouts of those who are, for all intents and purposes, under their so-called care? Probably. An arrogant being cannot behold the beam in its own eye, after all, and none exceed the arrogance of beings self-described as divine. Maybe there is another explanation, perhaps even a good one, but he doesn’t care. His job is to erect barriers for angels seeking entry into Earth. To obstruct. In a flat, humorless tone, he states, “This is Terrestrial Customs for f67x, Earth.”

“Yes, I am aware,” the angel agrees, her feathers unruffled and her tone neutral.

“Your demon hunting ditz is not on Earth.”

“Yes, I am aware,” the angel again agrees.

“You have no business on Earth, there is no portal proximate to your human counterpart on Earth. I cannot approve this request,” Tāwhaki elaborates.

“I have to go through Earth to get there,” Ilaria patiently explains, not missing a beat.

He contemplates the darkness vortex betwixt his paws, hisses, and flicks it aside into a whorl of infinitely diminishing nought. Of course, it is unbecoming of an angel to transfer direct to a pseudo-Hell such as Aeternus, but he is under no obligation to offer her any such favor, at least, not without one in return. All to aid a vaguely-imperiled demon hunter, hah! Also possible is that the master of Aeternus has, as humans did on Earth, emplaced measures inhibiting the unannounced arrival of angelic tourists. Batting that thought around in his mind, he cheshire grins, as his job may be to keep angels out of Earth, but luring them into places like Hell ... well, that’s another matter entirely!

“Earth is not a transfer terminal,” he concludes, “It delights me to announce that you’ll have to find a different means of travel to Aeternus. I recommend a portal to Hell, which delights in stray angels coming in for a visit, however temporarily. Or perhaps you’d prefer my home, Entobalti, a necrolivid hipasia of immaculate suffering contrasted with which Hell seems strikingly pleasant? That said, this is not a general service terminal. This is Earth customs, for travel to Earth. If you want me to assist you with travel elsewhere, you’ll have to wait for a break in my shift and, you know, give me a reason to aid in your journey during my personal time. Or you can try to open your own portal.”

“Kitty hell, you mean? Sure. Adorable. So long as I get to where I need to be on time,” Ilaria relents all too easily, her tone changeless, unperturbed.

Recalling Entobalti, the Dissonance of Infinite Pains, impregnates his thoughts with nostalgia. Ilaria’s reductive naïveté in casting it as an adorable kitty hell widens the grin on his face. A poor metaphor for the the place, a pseudo-reality in a superstate of positive and negative corporeality. In his mind’s eye, it is an eternal implosion, spherical, pulsing, multi-layered. Bands crisscrossed upon bands of innumerable screams stretching and snapping back against the whole, an endless intermingling reverberation of exquisite and novel torment.

“As it happens, I have a break soon,” he seductively purrs, high-stepping through the picture frame and exiting a mirror a stone’s throw down the length of the service desk. “Naturally, I’d be doing this as a purrrr-sonal favor. But purrrr-haps you could deliver a package. A gift for Balam, my mother. Here, in this little red box beneath my paw.”

Almost imperceptibly, he nudges it forward. It slides the slate length effortlessly, as though the distance were negligible, as though space itself were merely a plaything contracting at his behest. A small, red, leather-bound carton sealed with meandering black ichor. Both seem impossibly alive.

He lifts his head, their eyes meet, his big, red, and pleading.

“But a trifle.”

He laughs, breaking character. Just as impromptu, he pounces forward, and vanishes through another mirror, before unnoticed, or, more likely, entirely absent, yet now flat and face-up atop the desk. His tail vanishes into the impossible plane, then, from behind Ilaria, his voice, amplified by an improbably massive gilt-frame silverglass, sings, “Pre-purrr yourself, angel. The path through Entobalti is right behind you.”

Neo Babylon

Tough, no chuckle even, Hafadac sighs inwardly as his joke flops, but he plays an upbeat farce. Wet eye scans the three Rats who haven’t thus-far fled, the sad circumstances of their present straits a log for later if rels unsour and situations norm: ‘Sledgie,’ ‘Sourpuss,’ and ‘Mouse.’ Syndicate scum, note—dangerous, probs own this place, harass squatters. Responsive, his other, digital eye relentlessly vacillates, the yellow on black dimming to a buzz-kill intensity while the smile halves and stops winking. Suddenly awkward, shy, he pulls up his hood. Where skin isn’t hidden by jacket, joggers, kicks, and power-fist, it is easy to see his life light mellows to match his mood and deep, smooth, unhurried voice.

“Heard the, uh, stone person; yeah? You’re safe, from us leastwise; maybe safer with. Heck, we should all stick together! You cool cats seem street smart. Why not? What’s worstcase? Oh, yeah... food, food. Don’t have any. Hah! But I’ve got energy shots, you can eat the whole thing.”

Without ado, he reaches in his jacket and reveals a handful of 2 ouncers. Luminescent green-gold liquid sloshes inside, shimmering with flecks of white and the promise of vital verve. They resemble little test tubes, but there’s no obvious cap. Hopefully they don’t assume these are exotic narcotics, he worries behind a grin. Hafadac offers them to the Rats and the stone person, Pillar, the latter whom he recalls mentioning eating. Clueless how. Nada point to prejudge, he decides. Better to observe. Allow others to observe, too. One of the two shots still in hand he pops into his mouth and chews through the sugar, cellulose, and glycerin casing until the flavor shot bursts with a vibrant cara cara punch, chews it all up like saltwater taffy.

“Name’s Hafadac,” he babbles around a chew, “friends call me Glowstick — maybe we catch up with Ivory and Skeksi?”

Too eager to await an answer, he scampers off, gesturing for them to follow. Dilapidated wood planks creak under his bounce, shadowless. Damn, that moon is bright. Weird, too. Where am I even? Time for contemplation short, he arrives at the door just as the avian and robotic duo finish wrecking the padlock.

“Thirsty?” he offers with a catch-toss of the energy shot still in his hand.

Bigger up close, the warehouse looms ominous, pregnant with possibility, perhaps with an exterior clue in the form of signage. Nada. No idea who’s bad side they’re about to get on, what with the breaking and entering. Maybe for the best. Lots of debris, with scans for objects of interest — weapons, spray paint, signage, architectural themes, wifi, access ports — ongoing. Maybe inside, he’d learn more. But for now, he sates his curiosity and asks, “Recouping from what?”

— ⚈ —

Intrusive thoughts unwind time in his mind, backing him into the corner of his situationship. He’s not physically tired. More manic than normal, actually. But his mind is fraught, nervous system taut, and he’s performing like an absolute fake. Bravado. Same insane mental mode that precipitated his pale paralysis ride of white lights and faceless phantoms. No accident, if bad decisions pass for intent. That’s nature, the fate of those who don’t fit in with the rest of society and have the temerity to believe, think, and act like they can just be. Just exist. Bright blood, body mods, tats—all cool. Animism—weird, but still friends. Backing down from a dare? Not in a dozen lifetimes, even if everyone knew the risks.

— ⚈ —

Stale air from the building’s exposed innards hits his nostrils, and just like that Hafadac’s back.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

—— Earth F67X: the Asomatous Détente & Terrestrial Customs

When Ilaria flutters up to the service desk, it appears unoccupied. Opposite the gold-flecked slate surface, she sees nobody. Nor, really, anything other an inchoate whirling maelstrom. Worse, it is mostly free of clutter. Only one item of note rests upon it, an antique gilt frame. Therein pictured is a Ghibli-esque depiction of a demonic black feline gasconading its dull, opaline wings, flared feathers reminiscent of a painted bunting’s. Malefic rosso corsa eyes reflect forbidden abyssal sigils and hint at hunger, narcissism, and a haughty ego. Scrawled in black sludge on the picture frame is the message out to lunch — Tāwhaki.

While angelic and innocent, Ilaria is no fool, and defies the infernal ruse. She locks eyes with the catmonic creature in the picture and politely, but firmly, requests, “Excuse me, may I go through?”

No reaction, but as the minutes pass, the cat’s cloying ceases to entertain, so it sighs, and stalks out of the picture frame, a consecutive three-tailed taunt brushing underneath Ilaria’s nose. Flames accompany each tap of its amber claws against the slate slab, and it turns its rear to her, tails aloft, glances over its shoulder, and huffs, “Mark your name, god-slave, along with your destination, reason for your terrestrial sojourn, and the names of the humans you desire to vex,” — and taps a foreclaw on a piece of parchment that was not present prior.

“To whom am I speaking?” Ilaria demands.

Reclining on the slab directly in front of the frame, which now houses an erupting volcano, the feline licks its paws slowly, ignoring Ilaria, but eventually gets bored, yawns, stretches, and replies, “Tāwhaki, drude and prince of Balam, unrivaled magician, seer of past and future, gestalt of lies, spawn of fire and ash, and ...” he allows for a dramatic paws, “duty agent of f67x’s terrestrial customs and metaphysical portal containment and control.”

Neo Babylon

White, weak light splays through a pane, intermittently illuminating a dew-warped reality in pulsar flashes complementary with a siren’s baleful wail. A world beyond his reach, increasingly distant, redshifted. Along his bewildered periphery, it forms a hole in the sidereal blur within which aperture clarity reconciles and digital mountains rise and crash. Rusty, cramped mountains with shattered pits for eyes. To him, they feel dead, and with him by chance or fate in passage intertwined. Ice knots up inside his gut, he needs to hurl. He can’t. Can’t move. Still, a few wink, offer hope—beatific, bright, neon, shimmering. He cherishes that, the light and its melancholy, anodyne lies. He mourns its transience, pattern ever less periodic and ever more by darkness deformed.

“Hafadac, you’re going to be alright.”

Na~ah, he can’t articulate to rebuff, chemically sluggish and suspended from concern—ethereal. A cloud. A rain cloud. If only, ... if only he could gather his thoughts, exist beyond those argent pulses, ... care.

Eye droops, blinks, refocuses. So suave, his yellow and black kicks. Prized possessions, second only to his hooded jacket, similar color motif, but rather than abstract interlace it boasts eastern dragons racing down either sleeve. Must’ve been opened up, chill air and latex pressure probes inside his abdomen.

There’s so much he’d like to say, but his mouth won’t open. A gurgle, he hears—sanguine, the texture, not the hue. So much he longs to do, but his limbs lie immobile, his body inert. How can he denounce that acerbic stench or recoil from the roving six-eyed beast if he can neither plead nor flee? The light blinds, but the room is dark. Relentless, the wail drones on and on and on and his mind conjures up a tundra, two wolves, one dead, the other eternally mourning.

Finally it—zot swallows him, lured by his careless, carefree nature.

Tears trace down his cheek like Tetris blocks.

— ⚈ —

This feels right, Hafadac reflects, roused from a peculiar insight, a flash of portent between the when and the now.

Rump firm atop damp, rough concrete. A weird, cratered moon peers down at him, his vision captive. No need to shiver, he embraces the brisk foretaste in his soul before it robs him of warmth. Sonorous, distant, poignant, he hears the toll of a bell, as though it heralds an important moment.

Dunno where I’m at, how I’m here, who made me whole, but ... feels right. Dunno how else to put it. Better than ... what? What happened?

You there, Khodai? This Elysium?

No lingering musk.

Seated, propped up by a metal pole, detached, itself wedged against the floor and the wall of this large, dark, liminal space. Firm against his back, not sharp, piercing, penetrating like—well, perhaps best to dwell on that later. It feels empty, if only because he’s there again, in that moment. White, weak light. Reality on pause. No strobes, no darkness, no many-eyed monster. Just constant airy peace drifting on a night wind. Present within himself, in the lull, Hafadac breathes serene and silent. Waves break against the wharf, reliable, reassuring. Across the way, a dillapidated warehouse, vast sheets of aluminum pulled from the sides. Easy to see into. Starlings in the rafters, broken skylights with shards of glass lining the window frames, and beams that stretch on forever, foreshortening into an artificial horizon.

Now, the time is now.

Palm braced against the floor, Hafadac lets his wet eye rest, stands, and listens.

» “Alight, DLC dropped — I have good news — ” ...
» “If this goes violent — Come closer — □□□□-□□□□-□□□□ —” ...
» “We have to celebrate! — Be quick about it! —” ...

As desired, an eye in the storm. Photoreceptors in his digitized mask dim a brilliant arc display that fades to muted gold, this world cast in the light of his own blood. Three souls he feels an inexplicable bond with, strangers whom, in so brief a spell, he is too dumbfounded to assay. Pristine chaos saturates the milieu. ‘Ivory’ dashes for the door, ‘Skeksi’ speaks, and ‘Pillar’ rumbles. Meanwhile, Hafadac’s half-gaze settles on the dazed middle-aged man holding a large stone.

Cheeks hollow, clothing torn, the man’s appearance speaks to his begrimed and desperate but, as yet, undefeated spirit. Tenuous and selfish, yes, but it strikes Hafadac that this person and his comrades grasp at life, clinging to a narrow implausible hope that their crimes, as yet uncommitted, might improve their dire circumstance. So he strides forward, wraps his arms around the guy, back-taps, a real bro-hug, and, voice mellow, deep, soothes, “Hey, buddy, uh, just wanna let you know it’ll be alright. Keep blinkin’, you’ll see again. Say, wanna hear a joke? Yeah, yeah. Why did the Mexican take anti-anxiety meds? For HISPANIC attacks!” Another firm open-palm thump on the man’s back, and he steps back, catches the rock as it drops, and nervously tosses it from one hand to the other.

A pained chuckle and the man muses, “That’s messed up.”

Rather than ruin the moment, Hafadac’s half-mask flashes indecisive between a bright yellow pixelated half-smile over a winking eye and a thumb’s up icon.

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: the Mainline Defensive Array

Dom burst through security at the Mainline Defensive Array with a badge flash, Trimble Place entrance. Almost fell down the wet tile stairs, but grabbed rail a blink before kissing the on-duty MP’s polished steel toes. Good luck, Trimble was right off the lockers; made sense, most military personnel domiciled just north of the array mid-island in relocated mid-century brownstones. By the time he reached his locker, he hopped on one sneaker until he dislodged his other foot from his sweat and rain-soaked gray sweatpants.

I smell like ass, but ...

Thoughts luxated and out of breath, Dom shoulder-smashed the adjacent metal cabinet, span his combo, popped the door, grabbed a bottle, and doused himself in cheap cologne. In retrospect, might’ve been better to let his musk migrate from civilian grays to combat greens. Too late, he needed to be operational. Almost presentable, he sprinted another kilometer and reported for duty ... only to sit at his drone combat terminal for six hours of intense, maddening, crotch-sweat inducing basically nothing.

Electroskeumemphic scans of Allure City indicated business as usual, a reality confirmed by a dozen other pilots. Alas, no missile strikes today. Thaumic indicators likewise were standard. Every band was disgustingly normal. Assigned persons of interest did nothing relevant, nothing worth killing them over. No real information, just gossip. An alien ship, maybe, in distress, no apparent threat, possibly, ambassador en-route to the EEE, if the thing even existed in the first place. Just a rumor. No confirmation for loose-lipped low-ranks. A second potential signal, nothing definitive. Six hours dilated by tension into six heart-palpitating minutes, he felt a tap on his shoulder, the relief unit.

“My turn, Thug. Ugh, ever shower or is that just the ‘rone makin’ ya ripe? Like rushhour at the whorehouse.”

Exhausted and, at last, adrenaline-drained, Dom merely glared. Chronometer said he’d been awake 26 hours. Bleary and weary, he stumbled back to the lockers, found liquid soap and a stiff towel, and hit the gang showers in pure zombie mode. Still wet, he made a b-line for the emergency bunks, zipped himself into the blackout curtains, and memory banked.

“What the —” Dom shot up, bumped his forehead in the darkness, dropped back. Sheets drenched, cold sweat, gooseflesh. Face wet, too. Didn’t speculate on why. Didn’t wait, but by rote executed what years of therapy demanded: “DisSys: Lis,” he instructed, and his military-grade mastoid implant recorded audio, “Log, private, 3.3.40. Dream, initial sequence: Future, time indeterminate, married to Vesca, two kids—mine, Hell yeah! Not sure how, but with my frozen removed ovaries. Wife not happy about that, called me a liar. Family ruined, made a liar again, hauled away by police as a Xeno serial killer. Gov now Xeno-friendly under ... OH HELL NO.”

Dom breathed deep, calmed himself, and continued talking while the memory remained fresh, “Second part, final: don’t know where I am, when I am, and no certainty on wife or kids. But I’m happy. I wake up in the dark, just like now—total blackout, light and sound-proofed bunk, maybe a bunk, not sure, talking, recounting my dream. Then bam, I realize: I got morning wood. Swollen, engorged, intact, finally fucking complete, functional in every way. No need for therapists or doctors or geneticists. No massive debt military insurance refuses to cover. No homelessness. No kids hating me. And I know ... I know I gotta choose one or the other.”

Dom paused, assessed, then added in a whisper: “It sang to me. It is leaving soon. No more time. We’re cooked.”

… Ϟ

—— Earth-F67X: the Kithless

Now the Kithless was without crew or pilot. Nobody was present to take pleasure in the scenery as it surfaced alongside the floating city-state Vervet. Nobody was onboard to admire the sun as it set vibrantly downward, dashed along the waves like the scattered scales of a cosmic golden koi. Fully automated, the yacht docked in the Comte Foundation’s private marina and powered down. In the ship’s lounge, a letter waited patiently for anyone who was eventually curious enough to investigate. It explained in simple terms the absence of the foundation’s president, Czes Schäfer, as well as the foundation’s lead attorney and rights advocate, Lionel Duperie. It further included an apology to the board for lack of advance notice, as Czes’ majority shares had been distributed equally among the foundation’s thousands of employees, worth trillions of dollars, each one made a millionaire overnight and with a vote in the foundation’s future actions.

… Ϟ

—— Earth-F67X: Africa: Nyundo, Marange

Ever since that horrible day, bed-ridden. An empath, Makemba sensed the pain of those around her in the long-term care ward. Worse, she felt their pity, for here was her bed, her home, her future, her inevitable death. If not for the Popobawa’s curse, and her duty to heal those afflicted by it, her body would be young and hale. Instead, she was ancient and crippled far beyond any hope of recovery. Unable to change her bedpan. Unable to ebb her empathy. Unable to change the television channel, or better yet turn off the infernal machine and instead read a book. Now, there was her salvation. Audiobooks. She could recline, eyes shut, and let the words rouse her emotions enough to drown out the intrusions of the souls with her in a place of discarded hopes.

Today, the television was on and loud enough to annoy, although she understood only the subtitles. Something about a Rapture, but not quite. Nobody remembered clearly who went missing, despite numbers in the apparent millions. An inconsequential millions, so far. Maybe this wasn’t news, but some fantastical drama set in Japan designed to tease the mind with alternate realities where dreams whispered songs and sweet goodbyes.

Listless, her gaze floated to the time in the bottom-right corner of the screen, next to the ever-scrolling chyron.

3:00 a.m.

I should try to sleep.

Weakly, she tapped a button and activated a dose of mind-numbing y-aminobutryc acids. It lessened the intensity of her empathic curse, but she was only permitted two doses every standard diurnal cycle. Happy for pseudo-silence, as the foreign voices on the television were ultimately white noise, she dozed off.

For her, the decision came easy.