Tatterdemalion

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Sara Jimenez puts a comforting, mentorly arm around dear, sweet Pasey her name is Pasey this must be commemorated. “Pasey,” she says, to Pasey, whose name is Pasey, “take it from me. I have been in your shoes. Right where you are, trying to choose between the show and the girl. You feel like you’re nothing if you’re not living up to your rep, like everybody’s going to forget you. Going with her is a risk, and that’s terrifying. The kind of terrifying that makes you show up drunk at weddings, or vainly try to keep things down low with a one night stand. But between you and me,” and this whole wedding, and everyone watching on stream, “she’s worth more than the show. Being with someone who loves you means more than being on the cover of Excelsior Magazine, twice,” she humblebrags, because she literally can’t help herself. “If you gas her, pistol whip me, and carry off this whole evil scheme without a hitch, you’ll spend the rest of your life burying the regrets. If you go with her now... I can at least tell you that you won’t regret it for a minute, no matter what else happens, Pasey.”

For the first time this whole wedding, she lets her hardlight generator whir to life, and shines a spotlight down on the two, stepping out of the light. It’s their moment.

[9 on a Provoke to “kiss her, stupid.” I would like to suggest that Sara likely has influence over Dominus for that +1.]

Then she trips on a comatose mook and stumbles backwards into the waiting arms of Euna Kim (soon to be Euna Jimenez-Kim, and that only because the other way around is just begging for it to be slurred into “Kimenez,” which isn’t anything).

“Hey there, beautiful,” she says, sotto voce. “Come here often?” Outside, robots are exploding, and where the happy couple should be saying their vows, there stands the new will-they-won’t-they ship teetering on the choice only they can make, in the spotlight, and Sara Jimenez looks up at Euna Kim’s chin and flashes her a cheesy, ridiculous smile, because she can already see that telltale wrinkle of her nose. “I don’t say this often, but are you the deadly sin of pride, sweetheart? Because I think I’m falling for you.”

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Alina!

Before you leave, Cassian takes the time to inspect his absolutely broken nose in the mirror. With very satisfying whimpers and squeaks, he pushes it back into place, and then a pale light plays at his fingertips. His face goes even paler, almost snowy white, as he runs one finger along his bridge. “Good as new,” he sighs, before sponging at the nosebleed and reapplying his blush.

Ah. That’s why Oberon keeps Cassian close. He’s a healer, a great big... a goblin battery, that’s what he is, to charge his father when he’s out of energy. The fight against Oberon will be a lot more dangerous if something doesn’t happen to Cassian beforehand.

Given the slightest opportunity, he’ll learn exactly what you think of his advances.

But you’re a little distracted by Ourania. She was holding it together for you, and now that she’s being called upon to be ready for the wedding, well... when Cassian started helping her into her wedding dress, you could see just how extensively the black-purple veins have spread across her back and shoulders. It’s possible that when she suggested you use Argossa, she was trying to make her own sacrifice in your stead.

Ourania...

She’s not having to hobble her way up the stairs onto the tea veranda, now a wedding stage. She’s limply being carried in the pincers of one of the Garthim, her wedding veil hiding the flawless black pearl set between her lips (to avoid inconvenient objections), her normally lustrous and shining hair bound into a dull, severe bun. If any half-respectable fox saw this, they’d call the whole thing off in horror and spend the rest of the day letting Ourania lie in the bath while preparing hot chicken noodles and tea, and then soundly spanking the would-be groom while dangling him upside down and lecturing him on how! you kidnap and marry! a queen!!

As for the wedding stage itself... the sky is slate grey, and snowflakes dance down, reminding you of Ilumina. Your home, freed. You have to keep it safe, no matter what. No matter the cost.

Garthim line the aisle. Of course, like any good invader, he has to set up a gaudy, lavish wedding. Hyperborea’s intimate, loving promises made before a few family and friends, and the exchange of clothing and jewelry, is so much better than this extravagance. It’s a display of Oberon’s power, his will to dominate, his army of magic sea parasites, and Cassian’s gaudy decorating sense.

You follow Cassian down the aisle with those ridiculous, mincing, hurried steps, waiting for the moment to make your move. Until... oh, no, Adila!

Cassian, no!!

***

Adila!

Hornet squeezes the badge, and follows that lifeline with you back to the present. To the time that is Now. To be with her friend, who is you, and you swell with pride as you come back to yourself, and stare into a nightmare.

Garthim feed on magic, and also on magical creatures. Magical creatures deep in the sea often object to being swallowed, and do their best to slip out of that awful mouth, which is why the mouth (surrounded by waving, barbed maxillipeds) is lined with bony teeth, all the way down the neck. And you’re staring down one right now.

The Garthim (plural) surrounding you and Hornet are trying to pry the two of you apart, but it was an uphill battle even before Hornet lifted her feet off the ground and wrapped you in a full-body hug. She’s little more than a snack for them, while you’re the main course they want to feast on, digesting you and your magic for... who knows how long it would take.

Why are they suddenly so active? You see the smug smile of Cassian Fleet as he glances over his shoulder at you, and know: they’re being directed. He told them to eat you.

And suddenly becoming huge might risk squishing Hornet, who’s standing between you and that nightmare mouth, forced down by walls of ersatz muscle into the dark furnace at its heart.

And, ridiculously, over the awful chittering you can hear the ominous, dirge-like wedding march. Things have already started. You saved your friend, but at what cost?

***

Kazelia!

You’re the ringbearer! Congratulations! These rings, he must have commissioned specially. On one of his journeys across Hyperborea, he doubtless stopped at Hobling Keep and slipped in as... someone. Not a peasant, not a shepherd, perhaps some rich Jedadi merchant or a dour Deep Hollow dandy, someone who could afford these interlocking serpent rings. Ouroboros, leashed.

You stand there in your stockings and squeaky-polished Mary Janes, and a dress the exact color of sunless ice, so ostentatiously precious and frilly and poofy that it is attempting to annex everything around you. There is a hair bow. It is enormous and easily gets caught on things. It is proving to be very difficult to hold both spear and ring cushion, and fighting in this is more likely to end with you face planting than anything.

Too bad Asteria’s wardrobe ended up being useful for your father one more time. And too bad that everything’s falling apart around you. They have Alina and Cassian’s trying to get Adila eaten and the dress has its own center of gravity, and you still don’t know how your father is poisoning Argossa or where it’s hidden...

But before you can think that it is hopeless, Mother Void takes the thought apart. Lies...

Then there must be hope. Somehow. Somewhere. Even in the dark...

Be a light.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

“Dominus,” Sara says, in that tone of voice. The carnival barker. The are you all watching? And almost everybody knows it. Almost everybody. “I will marry you.”

Gasps! Is this a sudden plot twist? Was this the plan all along? Did Sara spend years stringing Euna along just so she could pull this off?? Or, less outrageously, is this a weird charity thing she’s doing? Speculation runs rampant as Sara steps inside the radius of the rock-steady gun, well aware that Dominus could easily throat-punch her. But throat-punches don’t go off on accident. Usually.

“But Euna has spent the last three years earning the right to get to call herself my bride,” she says, hamming it up. It’s not yelling, but she knows how to project to an audience. “Three years, Dommy! During which she overcame every challenge, every doubt, every hurdle! And now you want to come in and get to say you were my wife for the rest of your life?”

She breathes in deep, eliciting gasps as she subjects herself deliberately to Dominus’s mind control, challenging her. You could use it. Or...

“Not unless you beat me in a wedding challenge. Then you get everything. The certificate. The money. Euna’s dress.” She turns and mugs to the audience. “(Trust me, she looks much better without it.)” Nervous laughter! Aren’t we having so much fun, Dommy?

@SARAHPHIM snaps her fingers imperiously, the sound distinct and crisp in the cavernous hall. “Somebody get me the good champagne and the shot glasses from the back! Last woman standing gets the prize!”

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

You’d normally expect to see Sara whip out a phone or a camera drone and start streaming the awesomeness in front of her. But, nah. Not today. And there are a couple of reasons for that.

Number one, she’s watching Euna, starry-eyed and sighing. She really did rub off on her, huh? This is a total @SARAHPHIM move: breaking the cannon, mowing through the minions with brutal but non-lethal takedowns, smacking around Comstar. She rubs her cheek and watches the love of her life take the vestigial stick out of her ass to beat Comstar to within an inch of her life.

Hell. Fucking. Yes.

Oh, and (old habits die hard) also on her mind: the audience is full of versions of her, which means that Sarasylph has her shakycam pointed at the ceiling as she obliviously reacts with squeaks and tiny cheers, Phimmy’s got a director’s beret and curled mustache and an entire film set she pulled out of her leggings, TigerCam and Sarrrrrrrrrra Shanties and Last Bloom Of Twilight Light and The 1001 Streams are all recording this orgy of violent bridal rage for all time.

She’s not going to insult Euna by stepping in. This is her one chance to be Bridezilla, and that means it’s Sara’s job to look fab, not get kidnapped, and kiss her after she yeets Comstar through a stained glass window. Or possibly into the line of fire of her own stupid cannon. In fact...

“Hey, honey!” She points at the ominously whining cannon. “Throw her! Throw her!”

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Are you kidding? Of course I put some of my will into doing this! This is my job! It’s not my destiny, which is to be the best Rinley ever, but it’s my job, which means I’m on the clock and people get mad at me if I don’t do it, and there might be a termination of benefits if I don’t uphold my part of the deal, but the rewards are amazingly worth it. Exhibit A: scritchie scritchie scritchie, wub wub wub, whoooosa good kitty, huh? Whoooo’s my widdle ray of sunshine? It’s you! It’s youuuuu!! You’re my widdle Swiss croissant~!!

[Will 2 + Superior Cat-Speaker 2! A default outcome of 4 suggests that this is effective and brings me closer to my goals.]

It’s only once he’s doing his content squint and has stopped batting at my hand whenever I slow down that I lay the bait. “You know,” I say, so slyly, “I just so happen to have some kitty treats, but I was planning on giving them to a very clever cat who could find a place with information on the glass dragon. Maybe we could turn this into a mutually beneficial arrangement? You know: I scritchie your tummy full of wuv, you scritchie mine, that sort of thing.” Scritchie scritchie! His tummy is so full of wuv! If I brought him over to Dulcy, she’d measure him with a set of calipers and put him on a scale and then tell me that it was scientifically proven that his tummy was, in fact, 83% saturated with love and attention, but that his Badness Levels were unusually high for a cat of his size, and that he was shedding all over her black wardrobe please take him away Rinley before I am left with the prospect of starting laundry day three days early! This is because she is a sillyhead who doesn’t understand how cat hair can tie any ensemble together.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

Unravel. Unwind. Jump. You skip from situation to situation like a broken illusion, which means... well, you’re not sure if there’s a technical term, but your gut instinct says that this is very bad. “Lose Hornet’s mind to the timestream forever, temporally unmooring her, dooming her to mix up past and future for the rest of her life” bad.

“Friendship: data point,” she says, opening up a Science Journal. You’re sitting at her thirteenth birthday party. There are seats for twelve princesses. Hornet is sitting alone in front of a cake shaped like interlocking gears. “Adila, my Best Friend, has informed me that Hypothesis #17 is incorrect, and that friendship is not gratitude. Data points from Charts C7 and F4 support this interpretation.”

A jump. Iron Star is on your back and Hornet is looking up at you, her mother’s loving hand on her shoulder, as you prepare to go and show off for your crush. “After the dramatic failure of both the Friendship-Generating Spleen and the Friendship-Attracting Appendix,” she says, rubbing her side, “and in light of this new data, I am forced to conclude that Hypothesis #18 is, in fact, correct.”

A shiver. The cold immediately begins to destroy you. Frost forms a rime on your scales. Your wings freeze into useless place. The sky is huge and black; all around are snow-covered lumps the size of goblins, and lightless, heatless generators. Your eyes begin to fail, stinging with the sharp pain of absolute cold, but still you see Hornet sitting in a Marvelous Ambulatory Armchair, ice creeping up her tiny body.

“Namely,” she says, into the still and bitter air, “that Princess Hornet is a friendship null zone, incapable of interacting with its chum matrix or the fondness array, uniquely flawed and unviable for further residence in Hyperborea.” The Best Friend contract slips from one hand and shatters into a thousand pieces of ice when it brushes against the snow.

“It makes sense,” she says, as you become nothing more than another dead statue in this wound-down pocketwatch fortress. “I was the flaw in the data all along.”

You can’t stay here. You’ll be lost, too. Everyone will understand; it’s just Hornet, after all. How will anyone be able to tell the difference? She’ll just not make any sense, as usual. No one will blame you, Adila. It’s better than losing yourself here, too, in the dark future of Oberon’s victory, in the empty wasteland of Hornet’s forlorn heart.

It’s done. Let go.

***

Kazelia!

Your father hands you a pin and expects you not to stab him with it.

The flower is delicate and clear, a bloom of frost to go on the lapel of his wedding suit. The suit is perfectly fitted; he is leaner and sharper than you remember. Maybe he is melting here, too slowly to be noticed. Maybe, here, he cannot hide his heart any longer. His eyes are a smoky grey, and reveal nothing.

“Did you think that you could win?” The pin is too heavy in your fingers. Don’t drop it. Don’t lunge forward. “I am forever. I am inexorable. And I am so much bigger than this world. Your new stepmother was content to stagnate here, but she will grow vast and beautiful once I show her the worlds beyond. She is the only one to ever complete me.”

She is the only one to ever complete me. He’s said this before. He’s married before. And his brides never meet his impossible expectations. What do you remember, Kazelia?

***

Alina!

When Cassian comes back in, it’s in a sharp black suit with white gloves, his hair slicked back and the amulet heavy and leaden on his chest.

“Right,” he says, with a wicked smirk. “Now that I’m finally prepared... let’s get you lovely ladies ready for the ceremony!”

You are doomed.

Fellowship: The Heart

Coleman!

She’s as quiet as a snake, and you have to choke down a surprised bark when you realize that you’re not alone.

She’s made of driftwood, mostly. Ink-blotched envelopes are crammed into her ribcage in the shape of organs, each and every one completely illegible now. Her hair is lank moss, muddy brown and reeking, and her eyes are smooth pearls, unnaturally bright. Her teeth are silver and gold, dull in the rotten black wood of her jaw.

She is the Flood, in the same way that you are one of your fingers. And if she touches you she can make your body forget its pains, or erase memories that cause you grief, or fill your lungs with brackish water.

“It is a long way to Terminus,” she exhales, her stamp-stained lungs slowly contracting. “Many of the things that hunt them would not give you anything but my death.” Forgotten, choking, erased from the Heart; and maybe a day after, or a century after, it would vomit forth your bones for some other explorer. She turns on you, as inevitable as a wave. “Give it to me. You will name a price.”

***

Jackdaw!

A bell begins to ring. It is deeper than you would expect from its small size, and dull, dull, dull. It sounds like it comes from some impossibly vast distance, despite the fact that you can see it hanging over the bar, which is a very neat trick indeed.

The matron sets her fishy lips in a grim line. “Our stories aren’t ours. They’re consigned. But you want a lesson? Here she comes to give it.”

She gestures for you three to follow her outside, and... there’s something about the way that bell’s ringing that makes that seem like a very attractive proposition.

Fellowship: The Heart

So a note on mechanics! =D

This specific mode of Fellowship has what is called a Response Level, intended to keep you from squatting in one place. The response level rises when you piss off The Boss of the area, when you break the rules of the local community, or the first time you do any of the following:

• cause collateral damage
• deface a place of power
• harm the local wildlife
• insult someone in charge
• or upset the natural order

And, incredibly, you’ve gone from zero to three in one posting cycle, which means I make three moves in response immediately.

I’m marking Famine, Show of Force and Wild Animal immediately, with an eye to Guardian and Bad Weather moving forward.

And if you hit 6, that’s when things really get bad.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

“THAT’S MY WIFE, EVERYBODY!”

Ignore the fact that the whole point of this ceremony is that they’re not married yet. Ignore that Comstar is obviously posing and trying to make it sound like she’s still being talked about. Ignore the motorcycle and the thugs in suits and gowns.

Just focus on the adoration and joy in Sara’s voice. And how it’s one of those sentences that changes with the inflection. She could have gone with “that’s my wife” or, more on brand, “that’s my wife.” But no, she went for “that’s my wife.” Wife. Wow. They’re going to be wives. Has that sunken in yet? Maybe not. From the look of worshipful awe on Sara’s face, she’s finding new facets of delight even now at the altar.

“She means that, by the way. She’s going to make a point of breaking people’s legs. She’s switching off the limiters that stop her from snapping them like twigs when she steps on them right now.”

She stops, pecks her battle bride on the cheek, and then adds in a stage whisper that provokes nervous laughter from the audience: “Can you see about breaking Comstar’s jaw, too? We still owe her another asskicking over that incident...”

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Alina!

Diana breathes easily. There is a rosy flush to her cheeks, and every part of her is more vivid, more unreal, as if a master painter had prepared the finest paints in all of Ilumina to depict her, in your arms. There is no doubt now. She will live.

Maybe she won’t ever forgive you. Maybe she’ll wake up and tell you that you only saved her to salve your own conscience, and that she will never trust you again, you lying, selfish princess.

But you can live with that. Because she’ll be alive. And that’s what matters.

When you look up, through a crack in the fetid black shells that surround you, your eyes meet Ourania’s. Her eyes are wet, and full of pride in you. And if she could speak, she would say something like: even now, after all these centuries, I can be moved by the heart of a princess. Isn’t that marvelous? Isn’t that wonderful?

What do you say to her, while it is just the two of you, in the heart of occupied territory, as you do your best to breathe through your mouth and not touch any of the still, waiting, hungry constructs around you?

***

Kyouko!

The Garthim hunt by sensing magic. To this end, you have been leading them on a merry chase, tossing your smoke bombs one way and your lively coils another, seeking out the weak point: Prince Cassian Fleet.

Cassian

Interference — you can’t Get Away while Cassian has his attention on you.

Heart of a Healer — Damage this stat to restore all stats of a Threat in scene.

Amulet of Sarcosis — Cassian controls the Garthim, and keeps them from rampaging across Argossa trying to eat everything magical. Everything.

Weenie — damage one of Cassian’s stats and he’ll immediately wet his pants and try to scamper out of the scene by the most direct route.

You have a very particular set of skills. Unfortunately (and this is your greatest weakness, the curse of your arts, never to be revealed to an outsider), you must declare your intention to woo and marry Cassian for your skills to work on him at all. And you haven’t quite worked up the courage to do something that hideously gross.

So. While your girlfriend is menaced by her father... what do you do, Kyouko of the Apricot Clan?

***

Adila!

“I’m so glad you asked!” Hornet chirps delightedly, her tail’s fluffy tip wagging. “It is an Unstoppable Bazaar Organizer, and it’s going to make everything neat, and put up signs and labels so that nobody gets lost, and make the streets wider so that people stop shoving me, and assign loud zones where people can be loud if they want to be, so that I don’t have to go there!”

The famous Souk of Ropes is pulled down, a knotted and tangled mess of black market stalls and hideouts dangling between three spires. There are quite a few screams as the Organizer begins feeding ropes and black marketeers into its Automatic Sorters.

“And once it’s done,” she says, almost wistfully, her manic energy suddenly petering out, “everyone will see how much better it is and want to be my friend because I helped.”

That’s... true. Pretty much every one of Hornet’s inventions was designed to help people, even if sometimes you have to turn your head and squint to figure out where she started from and how she ended up with a giant scorpion that makes people invisible by stinging them.

(“Thank you,” Tashanna says, laughing, squatting on her haunches to look Hornet in the eye. Hornet is marveling at the precise curve of Tashanna’s winged eyeliner. “Truth be told, it takes quite a bit of time to put on every day, but that’s the price of beauty!” She laughs and ruffles Hornet’s hair, not noticing the infinitesimal way that Hornet tenses up, dimly aware she’s being patronized. “If only we all got to be invisible now and then!”)

Hornet’s looking up at you through her goggles, her tiny body nestled up to you. “Can I make anything for you, Best Friend?”

***

Jessamine!

Shiva knickers testily as you shift your weight. You have Rita cupped in one arm, check. Dandy has her arms wrapped around your waist, check. Azora is secured side-saddle on Shiva’s rump by bands of dark magic, check.

“Okay, girl,” you whisper in her ear. “Let’s go save Kazelia.”

Immediately Shiva’s shining glass wings flare out, and with a gallop and a few strong beats, she soars up from the roots of Argossa.

Maybe Oberon will figure out you’re coming, but that’s a risk you have to take. The stairway up is impossible to avoid detection on, and you don’t have time to climb for days. You soar up on the back of the fastest pegasus in Hyperborea, silently pleading for your sister to be all right...