Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Again. Again! She runs as fast and hard as she can, and Bella’s here first. Again.

“Stay back,” she croaks, desperate. Not for herself. Not because she’s scared of her Bella. But because she doesn’t want to hurt Bella, she doesn’t want to perform this play, she can’t break her kitten[1]. Not like Mother broke Molech. “I don’t want to hurt you, Bella.” Her words are so stupid! Wheezed, directed at the floor, they come off as false bravado, not a desperate plea to end the tragedy.

Then she looks up and there are ribbons. Very cute ribbons. They bounce when Bella shifts her weight. They’re on top of cute socks and there is a skirt swishing at eye level all full of lace, and it’s so wonderfully ridiculous that Bella would come out here like this, instead of in something practical, and— buttons. When she raises her head, the world is a swell of golden buttons.

It’s the Auspex that rouses her out of a reverie of round, golden, shining full moons, straining in their parade up and down the hidden mountains. The Auspex, which overlays a tiny cartoon Bella, staggering from foot to foot, purple bubbles rising from her head only to pop one by one as she waves a pinecone staff like a conductor leading a servitor orchestra. “Bella,” Redana gasps, “of all the times to be playing dipsomaniac[2]! With the Eleutherios[3] here?? You— you— sillyhead!”

She stands up to shake some sense into her little drunk kitten, only she doesn’t, because her leg decides not to be there for her, and now she’s clinging to those loose sleeves as she makes her way back down to the ground, hitting every button as she goes. Some of them even stay in place!

***

[1]: Golden eyes gleam in a pale face, her body crammed into one corner, and she looks so scared and she doesn’t have to be—

[2]: the Dipsomaniac is a common palace entertainment: take a Servitor, dress them in bells and purple and black, and have them drink wine meant for their betters. They are under the host’s protection for as long as they find the Dipsomaniac amusing.

[3]: ”We have all unmasked save you, master of the revels. Lay aside the wreath and the mirror, I pray you; the servants’ childish frenzy has grown tiresome to us...”
“I wear no mask.”
“No mask? No mask!”
— The Bloody Masque, written during the Third Sanctristry of Nossos.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“That is old magic,” you murmur, half to yourself and half to her. “I have not done it. The journey among the dead. The old heroes would do it to bring things back; their beloved, or wonderful things, or bounty, or... well, what did you bring back? Knowledge, I think. And now you’ll have to share it, even the bitter knowledge.”

Then your head lifts, and you notice, as if waking from an afternoon slumber or if suddenly startled from reverie, the shaking of bells. It does not do to speak of such things where anyone can hear, after all.

Breathless Dead

Stamina is not in question. Neither is speed, neither is grace, neither is will. Redana Claudius trained for the Olympics, and under normal circumstances, not even the Owls of Athena could keep up. But this is not a normal battle[1] and this is not an Olympic track, under the lights and the eyes of the cheering crowd, sacrificial smoke lingering in the air as she opens the throttles of her heart and lets air cycle through the seven stations of the body. This is animal panic and pain and desperation not to be caught, even as every moment the Owls prove that they could, if they wanted, if she stopped being entertaining, if she proved herself exhausted, catch her. So she must not stop. She must not grow tired. She must have wings like eagles in the palace paintings, the eagles that only lived in the Imperial Menageries as art projects created by her mother's finest genetic weavers. She must be Artemis on the hunt, Hermes quick as thought, Zeus in her aspect as victor--

The claws shear through her belt, and she sheds another layer of her defenses, letting belt and tools fly behind her. There is no laughter. There is no chittering amusement. There is no mockery, save for the silent blows. They are herding her like a doe, but all she needs is a moment to break through the unseen net, a sign from on high. Until such miracle, she must simply run, and run, and not think. Thinking is impossible. Thinking will get her caught. Thinking is drowned out by the headache, throbbing, blinding, behind her eyes, as she exerts harder and harder, her skin dry and hot as she pushes hard; she is master, not water, her will is iron.

Her will is nothing. It is blind momentum that keeps her from falling onto her hands and knees and begging the Owls for a time out while she fumbles for a canteen. And there's no Bella here to cheer for her from the sidelines, white tail swishing with its beautiful pink bow while she claps her hands, cheering words lost in the engine churn of muscles and the breath ringing hot and furious in her head. No Bella at all.

Don't think.

Don't hurt.

You're not going to hurt her.

She can't have caught up. And she'll... don't think about that. Don't think about her. Don't think about being held by her. Being told you're coming home. But the thoughts that break through the surface of the froth are colder, crueler: long dreadlocks and long fangs, a Strategist's robe and a spear. And here a Claudius again. No. No. No.

Here, a vaulting leap, a ruined and twisted bridge shattered by starfall, but the leg buckles underneath her as the Queen's vengeance lances through her, throbbing, agonizing, and for a moment her stomach plummets as she looks down into the slit-brown waters, and then there's a hand around her wrist, cold and taloned, and the sudden stop threatens to pull the arm from her shoulder, but she's throwing herself into the pull, momentum sending her hurtling into the framework below once those sharp fingers suddenly release, and then she's moving, still moving, clambering like a golden-eared monkey hand over hand, and the shadows all around her both empty and full of threat, and if she shuts her eyes and lets herself move by instinct she's doing the bars, racing a complaining Bella whose tail drags on the sand behind her as her rounded black shoes dangle over the sand, and Watch

She misses a handhold and hits the duracrete rolling, vaults up on her palms, and crosses both hands in front of her chest to block the blow. Fight. Fight fight fight! Golden fire and silver shards! The three(?) leave one path open as they circle, and Redana howls as she pushes off her lame leg and launches herself between a thorn-hedge and once-gaudy brick, hearing (on purpose, they want her to know) the scrape of talons on the rooftops, her hair unfurling into a golden flag as her tie snaps, severed without her even seeing it.

A belt loop catches on a protruding branch of the hedge and she slams her head into the brick wall, stars exploding behind her eyes, the Auspex's data garbled as it jars, and the soft whisper of feathers behind her, and she throws herself forward and sheds her skin like a serpent, hits the pavement on her good knee and rolls forward, head tucked in, and keeps running, the pulsing purple veins in her leg starting to glow, to glow, to shine--

And then there are more Owls, there, too, arrayed with pike in the square, and so down she goes, down, hurtling into the darkness below the city through the open access hole, where there is no light, no light, nothing but the flash-sensories of her Auspex scanning through different wavelengths, dry as bone where once there was a great moving of unclean waters, and the Owls can see in the dark, why did she come down here, but if she just keeps running, just keeps running, she'll outrace even the mirror that shone with Bella's laughter. Even that, even so. Just become motion, transcend pain, pain is for the embodied and she is become motion itself, the force acting upon a body, and if she floats over her own shoulder, the pain becomes something known and disregarded, so run, run, Redana, run.

Run to a miracle.

***

[1] There is no such thing.

Breathless Dead

There is a crown of pain around her head. It throbs in time with the distant beat. Distant? Still loud, but not shaking her bones. The pitted, dilapidated stone is cool against her forehead, and that coolness staves off the urge to lie down until the world steadies. Her arm hangs limply by her side. Her fingers are still locked around a twisted ruin of metal; with her other hand, she scrabbles at her fingers, pulls them away until the smoking hilt clatters onto the ground.

“No,” she murmurs. What she means is: Bella isn’t Molech. What she means is: she isn’t Nero. What she means is: take this cup of bitter wine away from my lips. Please don’t make her drink. When she pushes her left hand into her sealed pocket, the comforting weight of the golden obols is gone; she has no offering left to make.

She crushes her eyelids shut and shakes like a cat about to bring forth hair. No. Control yourself, Dany. You are watched and witnessed. The gods move behind the curtains and the world bulges and thins where they walk...[1]

She lets out a ragged sob, and then straightens, chokes back more. They came here on a mission. A core, a map, a lead. If she can find it with Alexa...

The attack is sudden, without provocation. The claws kiss her skin sweetly, tearing through the durable weave of her spacer’s coat like it was woven of cobwebs and morning dew, and for a moment she thinks that Bella has come to kill her or— but no. Black feathers and silence. Kaeri[2]. The owls of Athena. See all, say little. Her sword arm chooses this moment to throb to agonizing life, hot needles and pitch, and the sound that comes out of her hoarse throat is animal. Her balance is off; she stumbles into another, there without the appearance of movement, and vicious talons press against her chest, feathers whispering against her throat. She tears free, undershirt tattered and spilling open, and hurtles forward with the panic of prey. Her arm bounces and fills her mind with white hot agony, too slow in its recovery; her legs move independent of her, Auspex pumping raw data into her nervous system to keep her footing as she flings herself outwards, away from the dance, away from her friend, away from her Bella, into a maze of war-blasted streets and desolate monuments.

And the Kaeri follow, silent, unseen, like the Hounds of Artemis baying at the heels of their former mistress.

***

[1] Somebody smart said this. Pseudo-Dionysus? Vermillion of Amas? Seven Righteous Flame of the Pentateuch? Who cares? They all came here, to this, the lid peeled back and away, seeing the monstrous stirring of divinity as a sailor clinging to driftwood sees the intimations of a whale close below. This is a shared experience state. This is shamanism.

[2]: for more information on their cultural exploitation points, optimal deployment strategies, and uses in conflict, see Annals of Athenian Victory: Vol. XXI, XXVI, XXXIII.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

It shouldn’t hurt. It really shouldn’t. You imagine these things so bright, so vivid, and even though you are wrong in so many particulars, you find delight in those dreams despite. But there is a bitterness to the taste, and as that gentle voice runs like a river to the sea, and beyond to France, and beyond to cities vaster than any that have ever been in this land, you feel... wrong.

“If that’s true,” you say, forcing yourself to laugh at the description of a fire-dancer, “why ever would you come back?” Ah. How dangerous. The words have already left your lips. “Why didn’t you stay...?”

Because now the mountains feel small, and the rivers mere rivulets. Because the marvels of Britain are small and grow smaller; because you are a daughter of giants, and you are small, and you are plain compared to dancing-girls and striped cats and cities the size of England...

Fellowship: The Heart

Wormwood!

The worst thing that could happen to a station is for its Central Administration Spine to become corrupt, malfunctioning, alive. Which, of course, is what has happened here, because it must happen. The laws of misfortune and disaster demand nothing less. So you live, and you hate, and you torment those who fall into your clutches-- and now you have indigestion. Impossibly, something has happened to deny you your right to torment and bring disaster onto the heads of those who walk your halls, and now there is the merest sliver of a god of the Heart attempting to worm its way down into you, get its fangs around your spine, and drag you up wailing. If it is careful and clever, it will replace you, and make the station an extension of itself. If it is reckless, it will unmake you, and Wormwood Station's careful knot of misfortune and disaster will collapse and this abscess in reality will be undone, scattering you across the face of the Heart.

And so you roil and rage, and in your rage--

You open locks that cannot be easily closed.

Belated Bookkeeping

Ailee has definitely caused collateral damage, insulted someone in charge and upset the natural order, so that's 3 already on the ol' Response Level. You're lucky that you haven't pushed hard against the communities here, what there is of them. But you just angered Wormwood Station, so you've hit 4, and it's time for me to start cashing in consequences, namely:

• Bad Weather (Accidents)
• Guardian
• More Than It Seems (Clockwork)
• Wild Animal (Angel)

***

Coleman!

Once, all of these old stations were manned by... whoever. Possibly by you kobolds, before you became the people of the trains. But there was a backup, one that you've learned better than to mess with. They were arcane constructs of some sort, powered by crystals and intricate clockwork systems, but misalign a crystal by even a bit and they'd wake up and try to shish-kebab you. So it's best to just leave them in their pods and add some padlocks, just to be sure.

And now they're pouring out of employee doors, marching in uncanny silence save for their ticks and tocks and whirrs. Their three eyes on their simple, geometric heads glow baleful green, and their pacification devices are overcharged and hideously deadly. Because of course this would happen. The worst possible thing always happens here.

You bowl through a pile of them, smash through several walls as Sasha bellows her rage, and then collapse several floors into what once was a food court as the floor underneath her gives way. Everything's on fire, but you're safe. Safe as houses! Once you collect yourself, you'll be out of here before smoke inhalation becomes a problem at all--

waaaaaaaooooooow.

Angel of Wisteria, Again

Gaze of Destruction: the Angel is Piercing, Burning, Ranged, Reload at anything it looks upon.

Emissary of the Heart: the Angel cannot be damaged by the works of the Heart. For these purposes, both Ailee’s magic and Sasha count as “of the Heart.”

I Bring The Heart: the world around the Angel is highly mutable, and moves around it can be used at any range.

***

Jackdaw!

You have a nose for words. Interesting words. Words like ACCESS CORRIDOR -- KEEP OUT. It implies a door that can be locked behind you. You slip through, it's unlocked, and slam the lock shut before the incinerator constructs can catch up, all inner furnace and sparking pilot lights, or worse, more of those armored rats worshiping the dragon. King Dragon. Here in the shape of rails and stones, and too terrible to face.

Lights slam on, one by one, until you see the massive device down at the end of the hallway. It has... a lot of sawblades. And drills. And spiky bits. And it's not moving, but if it started moving, it's the size of the access corridor and there's not a lot of place for you to go, but if you managed to squeeze past, maybe there'd be, like, an engine or a pilot's seat back there? But who are we kidding? This is a terrible place, and if you tried to get in, it'd start up just when you're most vulnerable.

So. Your options are up the corridor (???), down the corridor (sharp knife engine), or back through the door (into the warzone).

***

Ailee and Lucien!

Outside the Hive is chaos. The station is having an acid reflux, the kind that happens when overheated dragons show up inside your tunnels, and now there's actual acid dripping from the ceiling, making a lovely rain for Lucien to dance through. Then there's the gargoyles falling off the ceiling, the weak tiles just waiting to break underfoot, and your lack of any sort of map around here.

If you just hammer your way through the chaos, Ailee, you'll get somewhere interesting, but it won't be your choice. Or you can point Lucien in a direction and trust their Fools' intuition to take you there, but it'll be more difficult for you to avoid the danger; you'll be rolling to Overcome with Despair, but you'll have more say on where you end up.

What's your call?

Breathless Dead

SPEAK TO ME—
the ten thousand arrayed in disarray
thrashthresh against the ruined brown,
the sky falling in flakes of cloud
to grind within the lost hope host and
the forgotten bacchanalia

unreal amalgamates throb in strobelight
sing the dundadadundadundadundun
SPEAK TO ME—
you drown in the firethrob of revel,
thousand-handed Haephestine labyrinth
mire of doubted expectations
and there is no line or star or sign
Hermes taking the cigarette break
on far Olympian shores

I raise my hand—
it falters
I raise again—
it sinks
A third time, anon—
the waves close over us
and Baradissar drowns anew

[The Get Away is a 5.]

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Jezcha!

“So how does it work, master of the seen and unseen arts?”

The hum of it drowns out anything else you might have heard from within the Pillar. It stands squat by your father’s desk, richly engraved bronze and gold. And it hums to set your teeth on edge.

“The unseen waters of chaos all about are manipulated by these humans,” the Grand Artificer says, folding her hands in her long sleeves. “They draw down disaster, not knowing what they work. And so we simply make it louder, more turbulent, and confound them.”

“And there’s no way that you can do it without restricting our access to Caphtor?” Your father’s growl is dangerous, but the Artificer nimbly slips through his words with a bow.

“The djinn’s essential vibrations and the magic of Set are of the same base nature. This is a mystery... and yet one we grow close to unlocking, with your support, o generous one.”

“And once we do,” you chime in, “we’ll know everything we need to crush the Phantom Thieves once and for all...”

***

Anathet!

The experience of going through this portal is... wrong. Unsettling. Like pouring out spaghetti into a pan, only it’s risotto instead. Your insides twist and you hear a terrible groan hammering at your eardrums. And then you’re stumbling into a bush.

Notably, there aren’t bushes in the cellars of the Seneschal’s palace. It is bright day, and the sun shines dappled through the branches of the sighing woe-willows, and you have faceplanted into— not a bush, more of a hedge, really.

“Who’s there?” You’d have something more clever to think of, once your stomach settled, only Canada has walked right into your back and smooshed you between her and the hedge. Leaves go up your nose. Twigs press against you in soft spots. And you are about to be discovered!

***

Canada!

You’ve been through the vortexes (vortices?) that Set can make. But this time, it’s disorienting and unpleasant, an experience like missing a step going down the stairs in the dark; your stomach falls out the bottom of your hips and keeps going. When light hits you again, it’s too bright. You stagger forward into Set.

“Who’s there?” A high, lilting voice. Tirzah’s older sister, the sickly one who stayed in her room and did arts and crafts. Not the sort of person you want to get caught by.

What is Set playing at?

***

Lamassie!

You almost get it to work! You can’t be denied! You’re sweet as sugar and smooth as silk and a very, very good girl, yes you are, and that’s when somebody collides with the Hedge of Triumph that faces the Paradise Pavilion. It takes a lot of work to keep all of those scenes of military glory from being overgrown, you know!

Spies? Did the Resistance send someone to contact Anathet, and now they’re at risk of being compromised? Political schemes? The Lynxes react immediately, Am’met circling to flank while Visha’an unholsters his ornate laser flintlock pistol and drops a hand to his dueling saber, and Lady—

Lady squishes your face up against her as she clings to you for support and comfort. “Who’s there?” You can feel her heart fluttering in her chest. (And the softness of her skin, warm like something left out in the sun, and the softness of her pressed up against your cheek, with but a wispy little veil between you—)

“Two,” Tirzah says lowly, and how is that fair? How did she get over here that fast, did she scamper? Lady turns to her sister (and gives you a full faceful). “Suddenly... Janissary, wait to fire on my mark.”

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Oh, Constance, you couldn't refuse, could you? Not when the thought of riding and resting your feet tempted you so sweetly. You are mortal as are the rest of us, after all. So you let the knight swing you up onto her horse, both legs swung to one side, so that you could ride side-saddle as the knight led the horse out, and weren't you supposed to be going home now? If only, if only. Fate makes fools of us all as the wheel turns.

So here you are, underneath the stars and the expanse of heaven's road, and when you look up into the face of that oak-strong knight, your face is painted in moonlight and limned with the gleam of stone. And you almost don't recognize your own voice: "I am listening, Robena," you say, and your words are thin as gossamer. "Speak. Please."

Breathless Dead

Thrummmmmmm.

The electric guitar is an instrument sacred to Zeus of the Thunders. When Redana strums the ancient instrument, her riff is the sound of building thunder, her scrape of the strings the sound of the thunderbolt striking home. How did she get it? Good question. All eyes were on the performance; for all we know, her father slipped it into her hands.

The floodlights snap onto the figure of the imperial princess standing tall[1]. Under them, her face is in shadow, save for the cold blue fire of her Auspex. And under her fingers the strings scream. The storm builds and builds, and there’s an anger there, expressible only through the medium. A defiance. Her mother might not be in the stands, but she plays like it’s Nero sitting in the royal box.

She doesn’t sing about the king of diamonds, the king of spades. All of her focus is laser-keen on the strings, on not making a single mistake, on matching the energy of eight atomics with nothing more than the feedback whine and the incredible building speed.

A speed, in fact, that calls for incredible vocals, words spat out like fire, words to match what Redana Claudius is laying down.

Bella might be able to do it, if somebody shoved a mike into her hands. But not Alexa. Redana has miscalculated, overcome by fervor and the rush of the moment. This won’t play out the way she hopes— but let’s listen anyway to that rock-and-roll heart.

***

[1]: this is a figure of speech.

***

[8 on Keep Them Busy. Redana will face retaliation, but creates an Advantage for Alexa. One that Alexa’s gonna botch. Redana also burns her second Obol as the price of invoking the gods and the power of rock.]