Tatterdemalion

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

You squat there in the dust, river-daughter, the world having shifted underfoot. Just as well that you are the one here, that Robena does not have to try and keep her footing. You can handle the ways in which the world may change unexpectedly and dangerously in a moment.

“Why are you here, ageless one?” Several names are possible. Do not make an assumption before you are certain. Bend like the willow. “I am listening now.” The world around you is a still thing, easily drowned in his eyes. You are listening. What else could you do?

Sunshards

Ah, that’s too bad, isn’t it? Rose from the River frowns as she considers the scene before her, because she knows that there is a simple way to clear her path. Sheep are easily panicked; one Throat-Fortifying Breath and she could send sheep and peasants alike scattering, slipping on wet grass in frantic desire to return to a place of supposed safety from fangs and coils. It would save her time and effort.

But it would be like stirring up silt at the bottom of a lake. Satisfying at first in its swirls, still it would muddy the waters and make them unwholesome, impossible to see through. For we stumble through the world blindfolded, listening to a thousand instruments all around, and only with careful practice may we discern the pure flute of the Way, its soft notes audible even in the thunder of drums and the screech of electric strings.

And so it is that Rose from the River stops and unties one knot in the woolen scarf: the one that secures Chen as a bundle to her staff. Hoisting Chen under one arm, she approaches the assembled travelers with incongruous calm, as if Chen of the Twin Shards was as natural for a traveler to carry as a piglet or a lamb.

“Peace be with you,” she says to the woman who has paused in the erection of her tent. She bows, and Chen bows with her, feet in the air. “Forgive me, but I believe I may be of assistance with this flock. Please look after my companion.” This done, she sets Chen face-down into the mint that grows wild by the roadside.

This is another part of the game, after all. Chen will most likely be served tea while Rose works, and asked if she is all right, and if she wants her restraints loosened, and what news from her kingdom, and she will be just as safe as she was in Rose’s care. And if the little princess wants to break free, well, that just makes things more entertaining.

Rose does not, however, resist the temptation to pat Chen’s rump affectionately before shouldering her staff again and approaching the sheep. Can she be blamed for wanting to hear that flustered, muffled squeak again?

Now, for the sheep. She takes the goat by one horn and pulls him steadily away from the yeller’s wagon. Poor goat! How it scrabbles for purchase on the road, doing its best to resist and dig its hooves in, bleating complaints! And yet Rose does not so much as miss a step, her grip on the goat restrained but irresistible. “That’s enough mischief,” she says to it. “Come on. We’ve work to do, you and I.”

Once released among the flock, the goat might try to sneak back, but here he will find the path blocked. Rose from the River will not draw her blade for the likes of a herd of disorderly sheep, but her staff-play is more than fine enough for them. See how she hooks one end under the goat’s belly and lifts him up and around with a click of her tongue. See how she raps it on the road in order to guide sheep up and away.

Several sheep, perturbed by the beginning of what will be a successful herding, make a valiant attempt to scatter in the opposite direction, further down the road. Skillful Thorn Pilgrim! She vaults up on her staff and lands neatly in front of them, having performed a perfect Cloud-Passage Leap across the herd. What grace in her effortless ascent and landing! And what patience she shows with the miscreants, guiding them back towards the perturbed herd.

She is merely one woman, but she is Rose from the River, and she has hounded many in her long lives. Fortunate sheep! They will not be bound and carried off to those who would see them further oppressed! They need not fumble down sepulchral alleyways, blind and frantic with terror, split apart from the mass of humanity all around them by the knowledge that the thing that hunts them could be anyone, that any offer of shelter or assistance could be the jaws of a trap closing shut about them. They must instead simply fear the staff of Rose from the River striking the ground beside them or rapping their rump to get them moving. And instead of bleak cells that their credit will be charged for the privilege of occupying, drooling around black rubber and cuffed to a wall as they wait for Enhanced Interviewing, the sheep’s prison will be one of clover and mint and earth apples, and soft places to sleep until the long dawn.

Who dares help her in the herding?

Sunshards

Oh, Chen. Poor, sweet, innocent little Chen. The flash of those eyes is enough, isn’t it, for the Princess to suddenly understand that she has made a dreadful, delightful mistake. Maybe she could sputter and try to play it off as being intentional, but look at that blush! Rose from the River can feel the girl’s red cheek through the scarf, it’s so warm.

“Why, Your Majesty,” Rose purrs, draping the scarf around Chen in loose curls, suddenly and wickedly servile, “when asked so forcefully, how can your humble servant refuse? I shall return it to you at once, O Most Imperious Excellence!”

The strike, sudden and sure, is hidden by the scarf passing over Chen’s face. The river-washed fabric is pushed between those soft lips by two insistent fingers, getting it well-packed in her cheeks, making sure it’s pressing down her wagging tongue comfortably. Once satisfied that the Princess’s complaints (or are they rapturous thanks? with that expression, it might be difficult to tell) are appropriately (but not oppressively) muffled, Rose drags her fingers out of Chen’s mouth and wipes them off on the dark-haired girl’s bottom lip: front, back, front again. This done, she pats Chen’s comfortably filled cheek like one might indulgently show affection to a precocious child.

“There, a gift from me to you. Do try to hold onto it better than you held onto your sword, Chen of the Twin Shards.” She stops, leans in, cupping Chen’s face as she pretends to listen. “Oh, I assumed that you wouldn’t need help, but I suppose a girl your age needs accommodations from her elders now and then.”

The scarf is pulled firmly over Chen’s lips, pressed up on one side against the bottom of her nose ticklishly and cupped beneath her chin on the other as Rose knots it well behind the Princess’s hair. Of course, there’s quite a bit of scarf left, but rather than wrap it around and around Chen’s head until there’s nothing left poking out, not nose or lashes or hair, she slips either end around and around Chen: under her armpits, around her adorable tummy, and between her bound ankles. There’s just enough left over to secure the ends to the staff-form of the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade.

So little Chen has gotten away easy in one sense, for Rose from the River has not covered that precious scarf with others, smelling of small pink flowers, to muffle her until she can make no more squeak than a mouse; but instead, she finds herself lifted into the air like a bindle as Rose from the River effortlessly hoists the staff onto her shoulder, one hand cupping its butt (and not Chen’s) to serve as counterbalance. The scarf digs in an unavoidable amount, but it is fluffy and large and Rose knows the art of suspension well enough to distribute her weight. (And, having only so much scarf and so much acquaintance, pointedly did not pull that scarf between Chen’s thighs.)

Imagine if anyone happened upon them now! Here Chen sways, a caught little trophy, gagged with her most beloved scarf and suspended from a traveler’s walking-stick by the very same, unable completely to hide herself in those strong arms! She is like a mountain-goat caught by the Sourcefall shepherds, except for the fact that she is, blessedly, right side up. She has all the time in the world to stop and admire the landscape while Rose moves with at a surprisingly steady clip down the road. That is, if she can avoid daydreams of her peers laughing at her and playfully swatting her unprotected rump as Rose from the River dangles her like a toy before them. Or of Rose walking through a Terrace-town with Chen swaying behind her, stared at by dumbstruck peasants, the tale of her defeat at the hands of a simple monk sure to spread! And, oh, whatever would Princess Qiu think?

But even as Rose continues on her way, a prickling knot twists inside of her. She did not need to feel such savage delight in battle; she could not keep herself composed, a weapon in the hands of a mighty yet subtle wind. She burst off her leash like an overexcited wolfhound, and left herself blind to the quiet signs and tugs of the Way. Even now it is difficult for her to focus on divining on which way her many-chambered heart is being led; her thoughts drift ever back to the Princess on her shoulder. That look as the gag was pulled tight! That look as she buried herself in Rose’s arms! Maybe she should stop and check on the Princess, tease her more (was it enough for the surrender offered?). Maybe she should... no. She has to shut her ears to the symphonies without so she can hear the faint melody of truth within. She is not allowed to tarry longer and seduce the pretty young thing until her head spins and her chest bounces and she begs wordlessly for kisses and more than kisses.

She is not allowed, because the knowledge that she would be trading personal pleasure for what is best for everyone hangs around her neck like a yoke. And like an ox in the field, Rose from the River obediently follows the switch on her flank and the tug on her ring, not looking back at the delicious meal just over her shoulder.

It has to be enough to know that she has made Princess Chen happy.

[Rose from the River feels Guilty about her indulgence, and takes -1 to Emotional Support until it is resolved, such as by sacrificing something important just to hurt herself, or by Emotional Support. She currently has 1 XP (because she does not miss rolls) and 1 String on Chen.]

Breathless Dead

Redana shrugs off her coat and begins to modify it distractedly. She had made it more military in aspect, thinking Vasilia would want to project strength: epaulettes, braids, and a double row of buttons. The buttons stay, but her fingers smooth out the rest of her decorations back into the fabric. Instead... something more Hermetic. Bella would know what to put on there. A wing? A talon? The wand? The tablet? An eye, ringed in feathered orange, bright and stark on the dark synthfabric.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, and not just because they have the right to travel among the stars. The Auspex makes something breathtaking out of the throbbing furnaces and intricate fields, magnetic and otherwise, like an impossible butterfly pinned against the glittering stars. Of course Mother forced them out here to be her hands and eyes and ears. If something like that hung like a second moon over Tellus, it would always be an implicit challenge, even if the entire Ceronian fleet sat on their haunches by its side.

Then she closes her eyes and focuses. Everything’s been so... so unreal. Ever since Baradissar. Ever since Bella. Ever since she was touched by Dionysus who makes women mad. If he had touched her differently, what would she have done to Bella? If he hadn’t touched her at all, would she have given in and been taken home by her, in her fury, with her threats?

Was Dionysus on her side at all, or was the Mirrored-Mask simply touching a coin as it spun through the air to make it land on its side?

What’s important is that Alexa is on her side. What’s important is that the Starsong Privateers believe in her. And so she believes in them, too.

“Awaiting your orders, Captain,” she says. There is, unconscious, underneath, her mother speaking through her. She does not ask Vasilia if she may be of use; she simply asserts that her place is, in this moment, doing whatever she can to assist Vasilia. Confidence. She has to have confidence. Alexa deserves that, at least.

And Alexa deserves the gentle look that Redana shoots her way as the princess pulls on her remade jacket. One that says: you got this. One that says: I’m thinking of you, so don’t worry. One that says: you’re not alone, Alexa.

Fellowship: The Heart

”Now, at times, brothers in the Blood, a pilgrim will come crawling up to me and ask: why?

“Why?

“Why a carnival? We hold life everlasting, we hold the holy Transubstantiation, we are made pure by the Blood, and we run a sideshow and rides? Oh, tell me, Ringmaster, why do we have a riding wheel when ain’t nothing to look at but more of the Wound in the World all around? Where’s the castle, where’s the statues, where’s the seven thousand step temple?

“Well, I could tell you what I tell the pilgrims. I could tell you all that it’s because we’re called to be Life, and Life is ridiculous as much as it’s lethal— because, let’s face it, you and me are the only ones who get on the ride who won’t get off sooner rather than later! Yeah! Yeah, let me hear you, brothers! Whoop it up!

[pause for howling]

“So why shouldn’t we let our little operation be like the life of the uninitiate? Why shouldn’t we take our little grain of death and wrap it up in gaslight and grease paint and fried megagator? Why shouldn’t we tell the rest of the world the joke and laugh at them for not getting it?

“But let me lay the truth on you. That’s right, I’ll lay it on you righteous! That’s nothing but another hoop for them to jump through! Ain’t no choice in this!

“We hold the Dark Carnival, day and night, no matter how the Wound contracts around us, because it was here waiting when I got here. The lights were on, the sausages were hot, and I wondered who stepped away and left it running—

“But then I found the Grail, here, and it realized it don’t so much as matter if I don’t understand. We have got Eternity; and so this’ll be the last thing standing when all the other lights. go. out.”

***

The Dark Carnival smells of fried food and sugar-breath and dried blood.

The lights overhead are bright, bright enough to see by, but the cavern roof above (if this is a cavern) is nothing but a suggestion in the dark between the bulbs. And there is a crowd.

Some of the things that pass you are inhabitants of the Heart, almost-Angels. Some of the things that pass you are fellow delvers, looking for the exit, bristling when you get too chummy, as if you mean to take their supplies or their tickets. Some of the things that pass you are tall and cloaked and unfold spindly arms to play the Toss-a-Ball. And some, unfortunately, are clowns.

There is a conditional docility that lies upon them, saturates them, when they leer at you in greasy polka-dot aprons and lean casually against the posts of a ring toss. That you are safe, so long as you do not break the spell. If only you knew what was forbidden you! What in the Heart holds them back from the impossible, brutal violence promised in their bulging muscles and beetle-dark eyes, in their rows of teeth and their rust-brown nine-pins— and how you could avoid the forbidden secret that will cause them to tear you limb from limb, laughing and honking and praising the Holy Grail.

And you travel with a man who wants to become one.

“We’re going around in circles,” he says, confidently, “because we have not gone there.” He jabs his turkey leg at the massive red-and-burgundy Big Top that squats at the center of the labyrinth-carnival. From the food square, delineated by thin ribbons fluttering between posts, it seems deceptively easy to get to, as if five minutes (surely ten at most) would get you there. “The Grail knows. I am ready. I have witnessed the death of Wormwood Station; I have passed through the Stations, if you will forgive the joke. We must go there, comrades. And when my honor guard brings me before my apotheosis... then you will be allowed to leave. The signs are clear.”

Shrieks ring out above the tents. They coincide with the dreadful rattle of the Jet Courser, but correlation is not necessarily causation. Wolf continues to stuff coleslaw tins into her coat.

Fellowship: The Heart

To simplify, I will give you all a Boon.

Level Up.
Repair one (1) piece of Gear.
Heal one (1) Stat.

The Dark Carnival awaits.

Sunshards

“Oh, Chen,” Rose from the River purrs. One hand holds the princess’s jaw cupped in her palm, and she guides (gentle but insistent) that face to look up at hers. “Of course I will get away with it. Princess Qiu hunts me, Princess Yin would best me, but neither one of them has gotten the better of me yet. Do you know why?”

Rose guides Chen down onto her knees on the grass. One arm keeps her pulled in close to her firmness, but twisted just enough to the side that she can guide Chen’s wrists together. Around and through, around and through, making a crossed X harness of soft silk rope, as gentle on her skin as the last breath of twilight. “Because I am not your peer, little girl. I was older than the broken suns. I was born to outwit and harry those more cunning and desperate than you. I am Rose from the River, and you lost this fight the moment you drew your blade.”

One hand strokes hair out of Chen’s face, slow, sure. The wrists secure, Rose smears a strip of demon-binding tape over the rope in a band, securing it from the mischief of princesses. Chen is now helpless to undo the binding by herself. She drapes more rope over Chen’s arms, pulling them close, securing a knot above her elbows. “But you princesses... you always think that you are the most perfect and clever thing in existence, as long as Qiu is not in the room. You ridiculous little thing! Prancing about in your colorful silks, thinking yourself invincible!”

Rose uncoils the scarf from around Chen’s neck, ignoring any protests to the contrary, and drapes it around her own shoulders. Then she lays Chen down onto the grass, which tickles at her through the silk—

Ah. That would be the fingers of Rose from the River, surprisingly cold, running right up Chen’s spine, underneath her bright top. Her chuckle is wicked. Having thus distracted the Princess, she wraps her endearingly solid legs in coil upon coil, snug at ankle and knee. No escape save for hopping along. The Thorn Pilgrim idly considers making dear Chen do just that. It would be quite entertaining, after all.

“There will be no escape for you, Princess,” she hisses. It is like walking out onto a needle-thin peak and balancing on one foot, to say that. But she puts her weight upon the needle to overcome it. Chen is safe. Chen will be imprisoned, and then (after being told there is no escape, after being silenced, after being made helpless to save herself) she will be released. It is safe. This is safe. This is safe because Rose from the River has chosen to make it safe.

This is how the mountain did not end, but it is how the mountain should have ended. That is the promise of the world she now loves.

“You’re my trophy, little girl,” Rose says, securing knots with clever fingers, making sure the weight is distributed properly, that there is no painful pinch or dig. “I will challenge the likes of Jezara and Jessic and bring in tow a little pack-slave, a silenced mouse of a girl, wearing much less than this. You will be decoration for their Guards and Priests to gawk at while I topple thrones in the name of the transcendent Way. But, dressed like this, you must have always known that was your fate, no? Deep in your heart, you knew that one day your beauty would shine in my service.”

She pulls Chen back up to her knees and secures a small tie from wrists to ankles, slack enough to not grow uncomfortable, then wraps it, too, in that seal-tape. This done, she turns Chen around to face her, and holds up the scarf with an evil smirk.

“This is almost as lovely as you are,” she breathes. “How fitting that you should bring it to me.” One hand palms the folded fabric from her pack, even while she rubs the scarf against Chen’s face. “Do you have any last words, Chen, former heiress of Ys and Sourcefall~?”

But even as she gloats, our dear Thorn Pilgrim cannot hide the gentleness of her eyes. How strange, that the eyes of a serpent could so easily show affection and vulnerability— there, betrayed in her lowered lids, the shape of her brow, the way her eyes linger on Chen as if looking at a beloved child. That she is pampering, indulging the girl, giving her the very treatment she has dreamed of but cannot voice. That alone may betray her villainy to Chen, daughter of two crowns, unveiling it and leaving its compassion bare.

[Since Chen has the move “Help Me~~” she may take this information about Rose’s heart and identity, as well as 1 more XP.]

Sunshards

When Chen feels those strong arms wrap around her and looks up at the huntress, we must forgive her if her heart skips a beat. Rose from the River is, for a moment, naked intensity; her pupils bared slits, her nostrils flaring as her chest rises and falls against the back of Chen’s head, her fingers locked tight around the wrist of Chen’s sword hand. The Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade is half-sunken into the turf. For a moment, Chen may even worry that she is at risk of being eaten in wonderful and terrible ways. But then Rose from the River laughs, a low chuckle, rich and dark as river-mud, and allows her energy to bleed away and recirculate, changing into new forms.

Two new arms unfold from her body (how unfair that must seem!) and one new hand, which feels like smooth yet inhuman bark on Chen’s skin, cups the Princess’s chin. The other toys down Chen’s side, brushing with careful softness down those flimsy silks. And there is nowhere to hide from Rose’s eyes, which are watching carefully: do you like this, little Twinshard heiress? How fast does your heart beat in your chest? That fourth hand lifts from Chen’s side and then presses down on her chest, searching for that heartbeat.

“I am a follower of the Way,” she says, muzzling and dragging back the part of her that wants to mark her catch. Dear Thorn Pilgrim! How her own heart beats, holding the Princess so! “But I am obligated to help you, since you have asked for my assistance.” Her thumb brushes against Chen’s lip, and then gently opens her mouth, letting those helpless pants wash over her barkskin, still smoothing, still changing. “I will aid you in finding your path. But the first step is learning how to let go of your ambition and self-assurance, and I think...”

She leans in closer, her braids spilling over her shoulder, making a curtain for the two. A moment of privacy. Who would dare part that foliage? This close, the flowers in her hair smell like plum blossoms at the very end of winter. It’s sweet, almost intoxicating. “I think you desire my lessons, Princess Chen.” Her thumb presses down on that lip, ever so gently. “I think that you began this fight so that you would be here, even if you did not know it. And while I am not a member of the Black Snakes, I have learned pedagogy from their order.”

She shakes Chen’s wrist with a flick of her hand and the crystal blade falls from her grasp. It’s so close! She could reach out and grab it! But Rose giggles to herself, and lifts Chen off the ground as if Chen weighed no more than a pillow, grip firm but not painful. “Do wait just a moment, little Twinshard. I need my bag.” But instead of moving, she settles into place, one hand cupping Chen’s cheek, fingers resting on her lips, the other running through Chen’s hair, her original two distributing Chen’s weight evenly. Something slithers in the grass, off towards the bag. The smell of her is all around, and each can feel the beat of the other’s heart.

“There are eight million paths for you to take from the moment you wake up, Chen.” The dropping of the honorific is scandalous and overfamiliar, is it not? “Some, naturally, are better than others. For you to take a knife and stab your mother would be a very ill path, and perhaps for you to take up a brush and paint would be a much better one. But what to paint? How to go about the process? What to learn? Infinite variables. Infinite paths.”

The pack slowly begins dragging itself across the ground towards the two. Is that right? There’s hardly any way that Chen can turn her head to look.

“But there is a path that maximizes goodness and elides suffering. Our duty as moral beings is to search for it. To follow its footprints, to feel it tug at our heartstrings, to be willing to shed our vices and our attachments in order to walk where we are needed. We are called to surrender, Chen.”

The pack flops open next to Rose, and one of her braids brushes against a side pocket. Dark, soft ropes spill out, and a roll of demon-sealing tape, and... something folded carefully. Rose’s cheek touches Chen’s own.

“Allow me to offer three paths for us to walk, your radiance. On one, I will put you down and apologize for my audacity in daring to oppose you. Then we may go chase after Yue, and perhaps come to blows again when we have caught her. On another, you will surrender to me, the victor of our little game, and I will offer you further instruction in my faith and my protection from danger as we travel together.”

Her voice drops. One finger brushes between Chen’s teeth for just a moment. The fingers running through Chen’s hair tighten and tug her slowly but inexorably back. “Or, if you want to play as we travel together, all you need to do is tell me that you are a Princess and I will never get away with subjecting you to this indignity. That, simply. Do you understand?” Is that a note of excitement in her own voice? She does, after all, yearn to be the Adversary. How her heart beats like a drum on Chen’s back! Yes, it must be her hope that Chen chooses the third, yet... it is not entirely a selfish hope, is it?

“So how may I serve you, o mighty and revered Princess Chen of the Northern Wind, heir to the twin powers of Sourcefall and Ys?” And effortlessly she spins the power, positions herself as if she was a humble handmaiden, eager to help, despite the way she holds Chen in her embrace, her limbs like the branches of an oak, heavy and still and sheltering Chen from any storm.

[Rose from the River uses her one String immediately while offering Chen another. Chen may mark XP if she plays the damsel with Rose from the River. Rose’s choice from Chen’s Fight is, of course, to find an even stronger position holding Chen, from which she may offer Chen varied paths. I feel it would be spamming moves to Entice here, even if Rose is hammering Chen’s buttons.]

Breathless Dead

Redana sets the loose sheafs of paper down on the altar of Hermes with revenant care. She may still be fragile after what happened on Baradissar, her heart still weighed down with sorrow like lead, but she’s had enough energy to prepare this offering: her handwritten notes on the journey, her observations on the nebulas and the vagaries of Poseidon’s domain, complete with her careful, cramped sketches.

Feeling miserable and sluggish and vulnerable is one thing. Neglecting her responsibilities as a mediator between Olympus and her people is another. She has offered Artemis arrowheads hand-carved from scrap metal, inscribed with her holy insignia, in the hopes that it will blunt whatever offering Bella has made, and as for Hera...

For Hera, her shorn locks of golden hair, braided into grain-sheaves. Beauty and artistry and the kitchen, which is the heart of the home[1].

But this, for Hermes, whose mysteries she is being invited to study? This is special. “Messenger,” she says, head bowed. “Last Guide, Caduceus-bearer. I offer you observation and study, in the hope that you will find within some fortunate insight or information new to you. Please, ease our path and open our eyes to the wonder of the universe, if it should align with your transcendent understanding. In the name of the Threefold Magus, I beg you to accept.”

Then she remains, head bowed, listening to the sound of her heart, feeling the ache of her muscles, trying to quiet herself into something worthy of brief notice by the god of the Saffron Path.

***

[1]: don’t be fooled. Redana is under no illusions that the offering will be accepted. She still has to try. She won’t give her stepmother the opportunity to call her ungrateful.

Fellowship: The Heart

Deep within the bowels of the Heart, that terrible wound in the world, that prison of forgotten ruins, the air is still and hot around the bones of a dead city, bleached white and black. Walls lean. Streets lie crooked. The world yawns empty.

A wall sloughs open with a careless shrug. Dust spins and spirals. Groaning, rust-bloodied rails rise up out of the broken earth.

And Sasha screams out of the collapsing reality pocket faster than the Legendary ‘11, running down those comforting rails until Coleman manages to get his claws around the brake. Behind — at a safe distance, thank whatever gods can see this deep down — Wormwood Station implodes with a shriek and a damned wail.

Well. Nothing more to be done about that. There will be dire consequences for what has transpired, but most of them are the sort that you won’t have to worry about, since they’ll happen to other people. Really, if your name’s not Coleman, you don’t have much to worry about at all.

And here’s some real good news: you’re deeper. A lot deeper, actually. Too deep to think of going back up, not when the Heart’s core is so near. Pick yourselves up and carry on.