*What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and [[say to you]]*
*"This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more;
"And there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you,
[["All in the same succession and sequence".]]*
*Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?
Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him:
[["You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."]]*
(css: "font-size: 50%;")[― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science]
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|sample3)[(transition: "dissolve")+(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 500%;")[**Galatea**]]
|sample4)[(transition: "dissolve")+(align: "===><===")[[Travel to Essex ]]]
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}The City of Light and Sound and rare elegance; citrine beauty of the Lonestar wastes, Essex . Once, Essex’s most distinguishing feature was its place on the [[Bravado Line]], just one stop up from the boomtown of [[New Bravado]].
Now, following [[the events of the past two months]], Essex has become a kind of nexus for religious activity in the Lonestar. The Fountainhead does not speak - but it has made a promise.
You find yourself heading towards Essex to see if machines can be better than men.
[[What called you here?]] The Ox is a massive locomotive built out of the ruins of a hundred derelict trains, half a dozen construction vehicles and the functional engine of a single downed jet plane.
It rockets between New Bravado and Essex at ludicrous speed bearing product, and people, between the two.
Boomtown or bustville, the city of New Bravado was built on the ruins of the town that came before it. It's a saying 'round these parts that *"things that are happening have happened before"* - but we reckon the mistakes of the old world don't always inform the failures of the new. So these days we tack on an affixin' phrase; *"but that doesn't mean it'll always happen."*
New Bravado's primary export is artifacts, pulled from the primordial muck below the town's surface and from the bowels of an ancient facility whose purpose is poorly understood to the small peoples of the Lonestar Wastes.
[[Travel to Essex ]]
Two months ago The Scientist, a recently awakened Semper Mort in a lab coat, re-activated an ancient terraforming device located deep under the foundation of Essex.
The Fountainhead, a machine whose origins stretch back into nonhistory, had lain dormant and unused.; its purpose never realized, its parameters never fulfilled.
Until the Survivors of Essex found and gave The Fountainhead the tools it needed to change the world to its designs.
And, in an act of hubris unique to those who wander these wastes in search of better selves, instead told The Fountainhead that *it* would need to change to live in *their world*.
[[And it agreed.]]
A terraforming device designed to maintain a perfect ecosystem; to steward the cyclic process of death and rebirth. But also, a gate.
Or an attempt at one.
Whatever designs the Great Men who birthed The Fountainhead held in their hearts, they trapped a terrible Monster in the furthest reaches of their laboratories and kept it there for eons uncounted.
Until that Monster woke up. And, blinded by light or circumstance, ran roughshod over Essex.
[[And so, as we commanded it, the Fountainhead changed to account for this.]]
We bridged the gulf in intelligence with a psion, flexible minds around brittle stones, who spoke as a metatron for a tiny god, whose brilliant and perfect and divine idea
[[Was to eat it.]]
And so the Survivors of Essex sealed off what avenues of ingress and escape they could divine; the four morgues of Essex that lie at each of its cardinal points, and lured the Monster to the mouth of the Fountainhead, its Atrium
And in an incredible moment of perfect harmony, when the music of the world thrummed in the bones of the Survivors who had not only taught the Fountainhead to think - but to sing,
[[It killed and ate the Monster whole.]]
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|sample1)[(transition: "dissolve")[And for a time after that, The Fountainhead was quiet.]]
|sample2)[(transition: "dissolve")[But then, it wasn't. ]]
|sample3)[(transition: "dissolve")[[Travel to Essex ]]]
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The Fountainhead was built to purpose, possessing a directive to alter and steward an ecosystem for the benefit of its inhabitants. To terraform the world that came after in the fashion of what came before.
But in the salvo of its sentience we told the Fountainhead that it must *itself* change instead.
However, this directive lurks lower than the high-brained hopes and poetry we sung into its infant soul. And, as The Fountainhead needed to scan contemporary biological data to determine the elemental and constituent components of our world,
So it intends now to scan the electric impulses that spider across our gray matter and imagine *with* us a more perfect creation than we have been saddled with.
[[And it dares to make something new in that image.]]
And so now you go to Essex, city of Light and Sound, to see and to hear if this great claim might come to pass.
[[How do you arrive?]] [[By Train]]
[[By Boat]]
[[By Airship]]The train tracks beneath you hum and clank. You rocket across the Bravado blastlands at a speed unheard of just a half decade ago. An hour ago you boarded the Ox from Bravado. It's been a sleepy town for the past three months when compared to the events in Essex. You miss the faces there - but you assuage yourself that many of them are traveling with you to the City of Light and Sound, on the same train - in fact.
The train carriage you are currently occupying is nearly full. By scheme or happenstance, you have managed to land a position in first class. What wakes you is the gentle tinkle of glass as a plate is set down in front of you. You’d nodded off waiting for breakfast - but it’s here now.
Across from you is a younger person whose gender you imagine hovers somewhere in the ephemeral middle. Their broad shoulders belay the heavy kohl around their discerning eyes and after a few moments of intense staring, what you now realize is an Unstable shakes their head and leans back in their chair.
[[“Can I help you?”]]
[[Say nothing.]]
You're surprised the ocean hasn't fucking *evaporated* in the nearly nuclear heat of the Burning Season. Around you, the mug and mist of early summer in the Lonestar cloys in your lungs and invades your nose as the scent of old fish and older sailors becomes nearly overwhelming.
Before you are the Docks of Essex. They’re busy, busier than you’ve ever seen in the Burning Season - busier than you’ve ever seen them. Despite the oppressive heat, the docks are packed with bodies - many of them clothed in white linen - with strange marks on their foreheads.
“Damn cultists,” A sailor near you mutters. “Winds at their backs, I’d wish they’d find some other rock to worship.”
The sailor in question is a middle-aged woman with gills and the blank eyes of a blind fish. From the way she’s tying off a knot in her lap however, you figure she’s fine.
[[Say nothing in reply.]]
[[“Cultists?”]]
The hum of engines below your feet lulled you to sleep hours ago. Now, their absence brings you to wakefulness. The vacuum of sound presses against your eardrums and hints at danger.
You ride a chartered zeppelin into Essex, in a tiny gondola suspended beneath a blimp large enough to eclipse the zealous Lonestar sun. In the heat of the Burning Season, three months out of the calendar year during which the wastes around New Bravado and Her Outlying Territories withstand temperatures of inhuman degree, you can’t help but wonder if some arcane mechanism deep in the bowels of the airship has faltered and failed.
From your left you hear a cracked voice, [[“You look nervous, friend. Are you worried?]]
An elderly man, somewhere in his fifties, with more rot than skin is sitting next to you. What remains of his hair is starkly white - as, strangely enough, are his irises.
At his feet are three bags, all barely closed at the zipper and nearly bursting - one far enough along in the process that you can see the tattered edge of a book poking through the canvas fabric. His entire body is swathed in what looks like wool - despite the overwhelming heat.
The Retrograde looks at you expectantly.
[[“I have no idea what’s going on here, honestly.”]]
[[REQUIRES: LORE WASTELAND SCIENCE. “No. In instances of extreme summertime weather the helium in the envelope begins to superheat. This causes the zeppelin to rise unduly. So occasionally the captain needs to cut the power to whatever heating element keeps this thing afloat." ]]
He grins at you toothily, well, what incisors he has left click together in the aproximation of a smile, and says. "Don't worry. It's the Burning Season. Means the captain's got to pull some crazy manuvers to stop us from punching through the troposphere, kiddo.
"He'll turn the engines back on soon as we start decending. Over Essex now, I imagine. Say -"
He looks you over in a critical way, "What brings you to Essex when the weather'd rather you wait to come calling?"
[["I'm here for religious reasons."]]
[["I've heard some shit about the Fountainhead."]] Rodger’s eyes go wide. “Well uh, yes. That’s exactly how I understand it too. Are you here for the symposium, friend? The conversation needs more people like you.”
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]
"Well hey-de-ho," The Retrograde exclaims. "As am I. Rodger Right'n'Well as you please, xer." And extends one swathed hand to shake yours. "Sainthood by happanstance but commited as can be. Pleasure to meet another one of the holyfolx.
"What faith d'you ascribe to, friend?" Rodger inquires lightly.
[["Sainthood as well, friend."]]
[["Darwin, actually."]]
[["The Fallow Hope."]]
[["I'm a Knight of the Damned, believe it or not."]]
[["I know I don't look like a lush, but I'm a Hedonite."]]
[["I ascribe to a Grave Cult."]]
[["The Seasons guide me."]]
[["The ones who are here to see the show, friend, The Chruch of the Telling Visions."]]
[["Flavor of the city, actually, I'm a Courtier to the Kings and Queens."]]
[["My church is at the kitchen table, I'm a member of the Nuclear Family."]]
[["I'm an athiest."]]The Retrograde dons a sly look, "Oh? The tiny god made magnificent, eh? It’s supposed to be five hundred feet tall, made of pure osseous matter and pockmarked with black holes that hold the whole world inside each and every one.”
“I hear it’s promised with all the mouths it possesses, to fix this broken wasteland and build a perfect city for us. I understand a *miracle* is going to take place, friend” The old man rolls his eye in a good-natured way, “I'm Roger, by the way. Roger Right'n'Well of the Ashes. Are you attending the symposium later today? I understand a woman will be there who intends to sacrifice herself just that cause.”
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]
"Aah! A sibling of the faith! I came to this belief by friendship and I live by it. Blessings of the all things on your shoulder, friend. Are you perhaps here, as I am, to attend the Library of the Allfaiths? For the symposium they are hosting there today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]
"I've seen plenty of your ilk in the past few weeks," Rodger expresses, looking unsurprised. "I understand the Fountainhead is particularlly interesting to a sect of worshippers whose vision of the future so often looks like our collective past."
He pauses, then looks ashamed. "That was ungenerous of me, friend. I apologize. Are you here for the symposium at the Allfaith's later today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]“The militarian discipline then? Good health on your Minister and good health on your General. Are you going to attend the Allfaith’s symposium I understand is happening at the Chapel today?”
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]
Rodgers expression goes dark for a moment, then he blinks and his face is a mask. "We all make choices, friend. It isn't mine to judge yours. May you suffer well and learn from it."
He looks like he's about to say something more but stops himself, "Are you intending to, excuse the expression, *suffer* through the symposium at the Allfaith's later today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]Rodger laughs, "Right! Surely, friend! Your method of worships has always sat well with me. No spoilers here, no-siree. Are you, and I understand this is not exactly the scene for most members of your respectable religion, perhaps intendeding to attend the symposium offered by the Allfaith's chapel today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]Rodgers eyes shoot up into his wispy, white hair. "Most folks aren't comfortable admitting that, friend. But I find, generally speaking, the Grave Methods to be harmless - if arcane to me."
"Are you perhaps looking to speak on behalf of your system of thought at the symposium later today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]Rodger nods sagely and breaths to recite;
"*In Autumn we make war and in heat and hale we march.
And in Winter evermore we tend our holy hearths.
In Spring we wander under clouds and are thankful for the rain.
For when Summer comes and brings its heat, we’ll begin it all again.*”
“Didn’t think I’d know that one, did’ya?” He inquires slyly, “Are you in town for that symposium the priests are holdin’ at the Chapel?”
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]
The old man grins slyly, "but so easy is it, in a theatre like ours, for the auditor to become the actor - and the signal to conspire us to greatness without foreshadowing."
"Are you, auditor or actor, perhaps intending to attend the symposium of all faiths at the chapel in the city, friend?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]
"A Musician, then!" Rodger's face lights up, "I have always felt the beat in my bones and admire its followers, friend. Are you perhaps here, given the climate, for the symposium bein' held up at the Allfaiths?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]"My mother was a father, and my father a mother." Rodger replies with a gentle smile. "The nuclear faith lives close to my bones and closer to my heart, friend. Health on your family. Are you perhaps attending the symposium offered at the Allfaith's chapel later today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]"Aah. One of the silent majority. Here to observe or to test your own brand of faith? Does the symposium at the Allfaith's chapel interest you? Are you attending later today?"
[["I am, in fact."]]
[["I am not."]]"I'd hoped so. I think this conversation requires as many mouths as we can feed to have it, friend. I worry at the Church of the Tiny God. I worry at their zeal. I worry how they will act when proven terribly wrong in their beliefs. Faith is a journey, friend. Not a destination."
Below you, the engines kick on again and, for a moment, the world is suddenly gray and dark. The zeppelin passes through the cloud layer and then, below you, the massive sprawl of Essex fills your vision to the horizon. Thousands of people live here. The largest city in the Bravado territories looms below you. At its center is the monolithic Fountainhead, an obelisk of white stone.
"Oh good, we're here." Roger says, and begins gathering his things.
[[Get ready to disembark.]] "I'm surprised." The Retrograde confesses, "I would have thought any and all travelers to Essex were here for the same thing. The Fountainhead, while it lives and lasts, is the most exciting thing the Lonestar wastes have seen for the better part of four years."
Below you, the engines kick on again and, for a moment, the world is suddenly gray and dark. The zeppelin passes through the cloud layer and then, below you, the massive sprawl of Essex fills your vision to the horizon. Thousands of people live here. The largest city in the Bravado territories looms below you. At its center is the monolithic Fountainhead, an obelisk of white stone.
"Oh good, we're here." Roger says, and begins gathering his things.
[[Get ready to disembark.]]
You gather what things you have with you as the airship descends to the level of The Spire, the tallest building in the Scrapes; the district of Essex which contains the ancient skyline of whatever city came far, far before it.
Below you, you can hear the shouts of the [[Cloudskipper]] sailors as they toss their weighted lead-lines to the workers aboard your own ship.
With the practice of a profession, the zeppelin is tied off and you move to disembark. Rodger is right behind you, struggling with his three bags of, presumably, books.
[[Help him.]]
[[Let him be.]] Airfolk, Windkin, Sky Rovers; the Cloudskipper Collective is a flotilla of zeppelins that travel the windy eddies above the Lonestar as merchants, traders, and occasionally heroes. Thanks to recent advances in technology the Cloudskippers are able to carry massive loads across huge distances largely away from the Mortis threat. Because of this they are generally understood to be the most reliable merchant caravan in the wastes - but also the most expensive to charter. Their chief vessel, a galleon of a blimp called they affectionately refer to as “Skyfather”, is said to never touch down - possessing dual engines in its belly and smaller craft who ferry fuel up to its altitude.
"Thank you for this kindness, friend. I am not as hale as I was before Old Age took her turn on me." He hands you the largest of the bags, the one with the split seam. It is heavy - but you manage it easily.
[[Descend the Spire.]] You offer no help and Rodger asks no kindness. He manages behind you with the tenacity of a man who has come this far - and intends to go further.
[[Descend the Spire.]] At a similar pace to the Retrograde, you descend the Spire staircase by staircase. Rodger is mostly quiet, he appears to be focusing on not breaking his neck on the haphazard steps that have been retrofitted to the building's steel skeleton.
The wind whistles cruely through hollow windows, and through them you can see the Fountainhead in the middle of the city. In the early light of morning you can barely see the halo of light that incircles its zenith but you know it is there, like a heat mirage.
You arrive at the bottom of the Spire, in the dusty ruins of the Scrapes. Above you, the sky is a narrow band.
“Have a good stay, friend.” Roger says, just slightly out of breath. “Thank you for your company. For your trouble?”
He reaches into the bag with the split seam and fishes out a small book which he hands to you. “I hope to see you at the symposium later today.”
[[Pocket it for now and move on.]]
[[Flip it open and read a few pages.]]
You'll read this later. As much as you appreciate the gesture. Maybe books just ain't your speed.
[[Head into Essex proper.]]Huh. You think maybe you've heard of this one before. In your hands you hold the thin volumne titled **The Machinations of Guinevere Guile, Second Demon and She Who Goes Before**.
You've heard this is some screwball bullshit but also you guess it's gaining traction since that book guy just handed it to you.
[[Sure, read it.]]
Nah, not now. [[Head into Essex proper.]] The city is huge, as huge as it ever is. But with the pressing biomass of so many tourists and holyfolx you feel as if Essex has closed in on itself. You find yourself in the city, on a market street where food carts and street performers nearly outnumber its other occupants. Preachermen and passives throng around you and, distinctly, you smell something delicious.
[[Get some food. You’re starving.]]
[[Find a high point to observe the city from.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 200%;")[The Screaming Moment]
"At the start of everything it was **still and boring.** The cavernous nothing of Before contained no echo for there was no mouth to scream defiance and no air to carry it to the edges of the Blind Eternity that ignores those who do not thrash triumphant. All persons shared the same face and all of those faces looked down so enamored with their small works and smaller world that never once did a man look up to see that he was painting the same work as his brother and so they were happy and pathetic and lived small and anonymous lives until they could not anymore and when the skies fells and their sad and unoriginal works were vaporized in the serial heat of nuclear detonation and what remained was nameless slag it was Known to all men that only the First is honored in all things and those who follow after are doomed to their own derivation and the unnamedness of The Shill."
You knew this was going to be dense but c'mon. [[Stop reading.]]
Fuck it. Sure. [[Keep reading.]]
You snap the book smartly shut. That's enough of that, thank you. Guile's a right maniac bitch, you figure.
[[Head into Essex proper.]] In the heat and fallout of the First Days man reclaimed himself and made names that were not his own and spoke praises to those names unuttered for epochs and we did not discover but rather recalled the perfect clarity of violence and the found for ourselves that the unending miasmic moment of Before had been fractured into a splendid and broken phantasmagoria, **a fractaling and imperfect spiral of Great Perhaps** and finally we were allowed a sunrise that belonged to us and only us and finally the uninteresting and sallow majority had departed to gates unopened and left us a lovely and beautiful fellscape upon which to make merry and **our will is the first and last inch of us and only our own failings might prohibit us from the glorious and dizzying climb that looms lovely and deadly before us all.**
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Alright. Okay.]]Rebel against the Blind Eternity that threatens to return with all the safety and security of the domestic and embrace instead the Screaming Moment and wage wanton until the end of time here in the heart of our Dreaming and **wear your howls like a crown and never again allow the timid and cold to steal into the place of your power and render you yielding and compliant.**
That's plenty, thanks. [[Stop reading.]]
[[I guess if there's more to read...]](align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 200%;")[The Machination]
In the crucible of the Mortis where I sought the beat of my **fifth heart** and came upon the aspect of myself that haunts me now. A soft and mellow caricature who effected upon me the simmering and stately rage of the ill-represented in the highest court and it was with this Pride made Holy in my gut that I snapped her narrow neck of my untrue and alter self and made quick work of the corpse as is right and proper in the manner of my kind. Sated and beatful with heart in my chest I left her bones to rot in the blood and dross of our forebears and sought the cause for a sixth heart beyond the reaches of that fell place.
But as I turned to leave the ocean and expel the vast and hungry darkness that floods my veins like so much brackish water, alive and filthy and full of stars I am seized by the throat that is not mine and made to look into the unliving eyes of my fifth heart who has cause to crave me and I am being killed all at once by the aspect of me who dares pity.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Onward.]]And in the theater of the Mortis **I see the great gates of Forever swing open** and and my breath belongs to me again and the shaed that dare oppose me lies killed at my feet as before but these eyes that are not mine are wide and lidless and my mind is filled with the roaring of the ocean and beyond the gate I see a figure as tall as the highest mountain and as graceful as coiling mist and as bent as a great and burnt-out tree and she was all of these things and none of them and with seven stars upon her brow and the Mark of her glory emblazoned across her eyes I beheld myself and the multitudes of me gathered there fell silent at the sight of her.
When she spoke her words were a rough chord and honey across my brain and I did not understand the language but rather its intent and I felt blood well up from under my gums and my teeth did begin to bleed as I heard myself speak and also spoke. Razors drew understanding across my skin and I knew and I knew and I knew all the things there are to know and her face was as wide as the sky and her perfect mouth opened up --- and like a thousand thousand lemmings all of me strode between the sharp teeth of her impossible palace and what was left was only myself and myself and the blood in our mouths.
**Her voice was syrup and poison and spoke from all the grinning mouths that she had eaten and given place and what words I did fathom I scrawl here for all Eternity blind or otherwise.**
[[Stop reading.]]
[[And what did she say, you mad bitch?]]
*"Run counter not to me in this; be the narrow edge of the blade and make the wound that blood follows after. Seek the welling of new and dynamic things and never allow the right of rule to those who would stymie the world in all her turnings and seek to destroy the slow and ponderous route of the democratic. Thus always to tyrants falls the mantle of queenship and it is better always to lead from the front. Take always and take always and take always unto yourself the spoils of power and placement and utter not the words that would remove you from your chosen throne. Go Before so that you may not see and entertain the solemn and doleful eyes of those who would follow after. Take pleasure in all of this, through your body will break and your soul be forfeit do this thing and do this gladly for I am Guile most vengeful and flagrant and greedy of gods and demons and my thirst for you shall never be sated.”*
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Aah okay.]]And when I finished speaking I could taste the **bile and ichor that fell from my mouth as truthly as the First God** and knew the things I had told myself to be uncontestable. And I turned to face myself and saw at last that it was my mouth that had opened to the impossible palace with those imperfect geometries and it was the **fifth heart that stood before me alive and indignant and full of pity and it was she I killed again and again until I had killed myself so thoroughly that I was the last alive in the Hall of the Dead at the gate and Forever and strode from that place as whole as the the night sky resplendent with stars and velvet darkness and as empty as an abcess newly drained** and at last I killed the aspect of myself who had spoken first and I felt myself a Metaton in earnest and my voice and my message would cry clarion and claxon across the land if only I had a mouth as wide as the sky that could swallow the world whole and **all would know what it is that I know.**
[[Stop reading.]]
[[There's still more? Fuck me. Okay.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 200%;") [The Canticle of Fire]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Furcas, Knight of Hell]
In the era following Before but precluding the **Great Perhaps of the Now** there was a time where gods and demons and men intermingled and bred great and powerful children who smote and smoked with all the mad energy of the primordial amaranthine that churns and roils beneath us. When the sky was marbled black and blood and lightning spidered across the oily clouds without pause and the air smelled of ozone and sulfur and lived in our lungs as a miasma that promised greatness for those daring enough to breathe deeply of the world and her promises of distant power.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Aight, Furcus. This better be good.]]There was one who walked Brother Issac’s path long after the eve of his ascension who took for himself the teachings of that distant time and wrought for himself a future so splendid and triumphant that his throne shone like innumerable golden teeth atop his black and impossible palace. Furcas Knight of Hell was among the first to commit his life to the art of our philosophie and practike for the full duration of his time in this Place and it is his Canticle we summon.
Born atop Mount Carrion where the First Demon received his Revelation Furcas was born to a low and despotten mother who died soon after to the gore of his coming and little more is known of the womb that bore him. The child defenseless he was taken in by a wolfkind who smelled the scent of birthing on him and knew him as her own. Huge and black the mother of his young years spoke only small words and was as much a companion as parent beyond the first decade of his pilgrimage. Furcas spoke the language of beasts as fluently as the tongues of men and mastered quickly the trick of both to turn the ear of any beast or boykin who dared listen.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[I'm a boykin. I'm listening.]] Atop the mount Furcas grew wide and grisly and his teeth grew sharp in the aspect and honor of his mother and his skin scarred and dark to match her own. He grew tall and muscled and assumed for himself at an early age the first aspect of power as he tamed and took for himself the denizens of that Place and made them his servants though he knew not the word for what he did. The few humans who stumbled upon his infant kingdom became his flock and as easily as he had taken to the Wyld and Wanton ways of his kind, and so came the seven Names that would come to follow him in first loyalty and later leering and laudable hunger.
It was on the eve of his sixteenth year that Furcas killed the wolf that had been his mother and took her pelt as a coat to carry with him always. He took his youngest brother who was as huge and hulking as any member of his brood save for the white coat that rendered him unalike and it was his liquid and bloody eyes that would bear witness to all of the Great and Terrible Happenings that loomed before them.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Keep it up. Terrible Happenings. This is my shit.]]And so Furcas stole away from Mount Carrion from the crags of his birth and took with him in his train the Brother Wolf he came to call Pale and the Seven Names who knew him totally and pledged themselves to his throne upon the wolf’s back. With all the glory of well-waged war, Furcas took upon first the settlements at the base of his mountain, rolling over them like a great fog that swallowed up all things and burned away the dross and weakness that plagued them as a disease the chattle. He was as a cyclone and a wave all at once and it was with splendid coldness that he swept across the land and gathered up all the parts of his power and his Names followed after.
Furcas spoke like nectar and bent thousands to a cause that had no name. He saw with clarity that the beauty of the battle is not for the cause under which is it waged but rather the perfect and clarion geometries of of a thousand thousand bodies moving under purpose. Each war in serial a better one and so rose to his seat of power Knight Furcas who saw the Truth beneath the bodies that fought in his Name and that is that the Man has no Purpose save for War and the right to contest himself against his fellow man in pursuit of power and greatness.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Pretty NIETZCHE if you ask me. Keep going.]]And it was in the trenches of his most Perfect War in his fortieth year that **Furcas came upon his greatest triumph and his ruination** when he took a screaming child from the breast of her dying mother and into his train where he raised her to be his successor - knowing that his immortality would last as long as his wars and that someone would be needed to wage them as he did.
He called her **Cemira** for the wolf that raised him and he gave her the youngest of Pale’s brood to be her nursemaid who she named Furon and rode as gallantly as any prince a hoofed beast of similar stature. His Names loved her as dearly as they him and Cemira wanted for nothing save for a greater challenge over each hill she crested. She grew tall and broad as her father and Furon the color of night as his granddam before him. All things great and brilliant in Furcas reflected in Cemira and she took to his craft with all the aplomb of a child born to War.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Aight Cemira. What are you gonna do?]]
Furcas stole the world away and rewrought it in his image and in doing so made for his daughter the perfect stage upon which their final exchange might be made. On the eve of the Long Nights that would follow Furcas and Cemira stood atop an obelisk above an ocean of black sand under an opal starscape and traded between them these words for all Eternity blind or otherwise to hear:
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Eternity hears a lot from this writer. So do you. Keep reading.]]
Furcas: *“Run not counter to me in this, Cemira my daughter and heir eternal, for I and mine will visit fire and famine upon you and yours till desolation rings all the demons in the outer-dark look upon amazed and recognize that business is the vengeance of common and uncourtly men.”*
Cemira: *“I am vibrant in my power and splendorous in my bearing, Father and Godking and Pontifex, and it is my will and my mein that will cover and convert this land and its peoples to my cause. The sky turns above us as surely as your power begins to fade. I will take it from you and honor you with the exchange rather than see you fall to age and common illness. It is an expression of my love and devotion that I kill you now, Lord Furcas.*
Furcas: *“For all my love I will raise another daughter to your station when I have killed you, child. Die well as I have instructed.”*
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Oh shit Furks, what are you DOING.]]
And so they waged their perfect war upon one another and upon the world and all things that had been were no longer and the ground rose up to meet them and the sky fell at their call and the First Lord and his Child made merry and macabre on the bones of the earth and remade it to suit their animus and it was the most glorious battle known before or since and that Moment might never have ended save for the betrayal of the Seven Names that loved them both so dearly.
Three sided with Furcas, his oldest and most powerful allies who had known Celia’s namesake and bowed at the haunches of that ancient wolf.
Four sided with Cemira who had known her since childhood and Furcas only as long as he had been king of the mountain and ever after that. They saw the babe she had been and the woman and queen she would become and in a fit of nobility they broke from their bonds and attacked Pale who was tangled with Furon in a storm of blood and fur and teeth.
His brother and mount distracted by his once allies, Furcas redirected his remaining three Names to the battle and faced down the beleaguered figure of his daughter alone.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[DEFINITELY KEEP READING.]]It was known that Furcas possessed the kingly arts of pyromancie as few others and he conjured for himself a storm of fire that tore at the clouds above and incinerated the dead below and bent that cyclone to the purpose of his daughter’s destruction with the coldness that characterized his early conquests.
Cemira had learned these tricks of thought at her father’s knee and she too summoned the might to contest her father’s highstorm and pressed against his cause with her own so that the sky was rendered the orange of old iron and the air grew first hot - then unbreathable as the fire ate the oxygen from their lungs and when the two gouts of flame pressed upon one another so did they scream that they broke and enfolded one another and suddenly it was known to both Furcas and Cemira that their glory and their purpose was before them yet and they screamed a carnal warcry that echoed across the world and for an instant the Seven Names and the Twin Specters did look up and recognize that vengeance is the business of common and uncourtly men before they were vaporized in the heat of serial nuclear detonation.
[[Stop reading.]]
[[Fucking nice.]]And in the screaming moment before their blind eternity the twin demons did smile in finality knowing they had enacted great change upon the world and given rise to a new and glorious cause and achieved for themselves the highest form of power a man may obtain. And when the fires of their final and perfect war did fade what remained was a broken blastland of possibility with no one yet who lived to remember the Names of the Seven or their Lords and instead the few that clawed their way forth from the muck and mire of radioactive swampwaste knew only the highest triumph of them all in the shadow of their glory - survival.
[[Stop reading.]] "Are you...going to eat that?" The Unstable gestures to your plate.
You look down. The wait-staff has delivered you a pile of eggs thoroughly inundated with bright yellow cheese. You think you see a few cleverly hidden mushrooms in the greasy but, at least to most, appetizing mass.
[[“You can have it.”]]
[[Indicate that you intend to eat the eggs.]]
The Unstable, strangely enough, looks slightly uncomfortable. They weren't here when you fell asleep. Were they?
"Are you...going to eat that?" The Unstable gestures to your plate.
You look down. The wait-staff has delivered you a pile of eggs thoroughly inundated with bright yellow cheese. You think you see a few cleverly hidden mushrooms in the greasy but, at least to most, appetizing mass.
[[“You can have it.”]]
[[Indicate that you intend to eat the eggs.]]
"Oh *thank you.*" The Unstable replies with feeling. They reach across the table and drag the fine china plate towards themselves and dig in.
You're glad you didn't want it. Upon further reflection this person looks underfed. Their hair is the pale blonde of someone who has either spent exactly none or a large amount of time in the Lonestar sun. Their eyes are a washed out blue that informs the same thing.
They polish off the plate and push it away from themselves. The white shirtsleeves of what you realize is a kind of priestly smock are greasy with egg.
"Reverend Clearwater, at your service. It’s a pleasure to eat - sorry, *meet* you.”
[[Introduce yourself.]]
[[“Why don’t you have your own food? This is first class.”]]
"Aah sure. of course. I'm sorry to have asked." The Unstable's stomach growls audibly despite the din of the engines just two cars ahead of you.
As if trying to distract themself they ask, "Is it appropriate to ask your name right after shaking you down for a meal, friend?"
You know what? Nevermind. Actually, [[“You can have it.”]]
[[Introduce yourself.]]
[[“Why don’t you have your own food? This is first class.”]] "A pleasure to meet you, xer." The Unstable replies. "Reverand of the Telling Visions - though these days I feel like the more like a slapstick tinnyflick than the majestic ideations of my younger years. My convent bunks with [[House Rabbit]] of the [[Tribes Disperate]] if you know the folx. Good people, good food."
The Reverand's stomach growls again. The train's breaks begin to sqeal. Essex is on the horizon. At its center, rising above the residential buildings of the Southwest Quarter, is The Fountainhead.
[[Look closer.]]
"An unfortunate and unplanned vow of piety." The Reverand replies with a sour smile. "I paid for my ticket early this morning, right before being robbed by those terrible [[Ox Killers]] right before I boarded."
[[Introduce yourself.]] By the standards of the Tribes Disparate, the Ox-Killers are a young clan. Formed in response to the rise of the Railroad Commission’s jet-engine locamotive this tribe shares a hatred for the industrialization of the wastes that borders on the fanatic. Held barely in check by the power and charisma of Holy Mother Queen Jasper and the combined military might of the other members of the Tribes Disparate - the Ox-Killers are unique in that they are both too useful to kill and too dangerous to let operate autonomously.
[[Introduce yourself.]] At the height of the Hiway War, a family of Rovers was saved by the selfless actions of Braves. Given a ride, fuel and the means to protect themselves - this tribe is no quicker to forget kindess than cruelty and the memory of a Rover is a long and steadfast thing. Made up of farmers, craftsmen and commonfolk - the leader of this tribe, Momma Rabbit, amassed a following in the wake of the War thanks to her clever mind, steadfast nature and commitment to decency. House Rabbit joined quickly with House Antler and has been instrumental in the economic growth of the Tribes Disperate, and the strong and steady voice of Ms. Rabbit reminds any faction that steps out of line of the debt they owe to the former inhabitants of Bravo. House Rabbit has no single unifying system of belife, but any member of this tribe will express, before all else, that the last and best thing we have is decency. The Great Burn four years ago destroyed more than lives, it struck deep into the heart of a culture. Thousands of displaced peoples starved, died, were reborn and remade in the image of pain and fire. Hundreds of small tribes roam the Lonestar, each possessing its own small, hastily pieced together culture and traditions. Largely itinerant the Tribes Disparate possess varying goals and systems of belief. Some are raider bands, some upstanding whitehats - most occupy a moral gray space reserved for those who are simply trying to survive in the wastes. Even from here, half a mile away, you can see why people have begun to flock from across the Lonestar to kneel at the Fountainhead's alabaster steps. Probably 300 feet tall, this edifice of stone and steel appears a pockmarked pillar with a crown, a halo, of disturbed air about its zenith. Not quite light, not quite wind.
[[LORE ANOMALY: Psionics, then.]]
[[Divine enough, you suppose.]]
You've heard about what the Survivors of Essex did a month ago, stringing a psion up - at her own volition, to speak on behalf of a god with no mouth. You hear it killed her. You hear it was horrible.
You sniff derisively, [[Divine enough, you suppose.]]
[[Pull into the station.]] "I think it *is* divine." The Reverand says across from you, peering out the same window. "Not divine in the sense that a god lurks and lives at the top of that tower, like some say. But divine enough to move a people to incredible action."
They cast their arm out, gesturing at the packed traincar. Around you is the accumulated biomass of the Lonestar upper crust. "If these people are willing to leave their safeholds and plantations to peer up at the monolith - then I am hardpressed to call it anything other than an act of God."
The Reverand grins elfishly. You're not sure if he's joking.
[[Pull into the station.]] The train slows to a reasonable speed and you pass through the Southwest Quarter of Essex. To your right is the Scrapes; a quarter full of towering monoliths from a distant age that, you think, decay right prettily in the morning light.
"Oh, one more thing." The Reverend says. "For your trouble." They fish in the smock they're wearing for a moment before pulling out a very thin volume. "Reading for the road. I finished it while you slept - it seems only fair."
You take the book and the good Reverend Clearwater waves cheerily as they step away. "I hope to see you at the symposium happening at the Allfaith's Chapel later today. If you finish the book - donate it to their library."
Take a moment to [[Read it now.]]
Pocket the book and [[Head into Essex proper.]]
She doesn't seem to mind. Sailors are always ready to tell a story. "Been here for the better part of a month, I tell you. Since that horrible Monster attacked the city they've been callin' the Fountainhead their new god. F'you ask me - there's some loon up top callin the shots. That Pfilomena don't know shit about it."
[[Say nothing. ]]
[["Sorry, Pfilomena?"]]The Satlwise grins atyou. Sailors are always ready to tell a story. "Been here for the better part of a month, I tell you. Since that horrible Monster attacked the city they've been callin' the Fountainhead their new god. F'you ask me - there's some loon up top callin the shots. That Pfilomena don't know shit about it."
[[Say nothing. ]]
[["Sorry, Pfilomena?"]]The Saltwise doesn't seem to mind. At least you're listening. "She's this quietfolk who could stand to be a little quieter," The Sailor tells you conspiratorially. “Last month I heard she shoved her hands right into the Fountainhead and got’em burned off for the trouble. Now she’s spakin’ truths and claimin’ to be the chief priest of their new *religion*.”
[[“And what’s that religion...called?”]]
"She's this quietfolk who could stand to be a little quieter," The Sailor tells you conspiratorially. “Last month I heard she shoved her hands right into the Fountainhead and got’em burned off for the trouble. Now she’s spakin’ truths and claimin’ to be the chief priest of their new *religion*.”
[[“And what’s that religion...called?”]]
The sailor holds up her hands and shakes them in the approximation of jazz, "they call'emselves **The Chruch of the Tiny God** or somethin' equally pretentious. They're a bunch of zealots for a cause they just decided on and," The sailor rolls her eyes, "it sounds like that Pfilomena is gonna throw herself right into the furnace today in some grand display."
[["She's going to kill herself?"]]The boat thumps gently against the dock and sailors move around you with the ease of long practice. They tie off the leadlines and the sailor you're speaking to just shrugs. "That's what it sounds like. But not before she explains herself at some kinda symposium later today I hear they're holdin' at the Allfaith's temple in the Scrapes."
"Figure you'd better head there if you got anythin' at all to say to ol' Pfilomena. She won't be around much longer, I reckon - anyways you here about the Tiny God or something else?"
[["I'm here about the Fountainhead, yes."]]
[["I'm here for something else."]] "It figures!" The sailor exclaims, "I can't imagine anyone traveling this time of year without a divine mandate from a god, tiny or not! What's your name, stranger?"
[[Introduce yourself to the Sailor.]]"Huh! This time of year? I'm impressed. I can't imagine ever wanting to go anywhere during the Burning Season, stranger. What's your name?"
[[Introduce yourself to the Sailor.]] You flip it over and observe a small, dusty and worn, book bound in primitively tanned leather of indeterminate origin. Symbols in dark red are painted on either cover and the font is something alien, made of broken angles and lines, but the back cover bears the circular mark of the [[Redwater Clan]], a well-known identity in the Lonstar.
[[Close the book.]]
[[Read.]] "Pleasure, xer!" She replies. "Name's Morg, just Morg."
The other passengers of the ship have begun to disembark, their footfalls echoing on the deck and adding to the din of the docks. "Preciate your listenin' to a sailor's tale. Take this for your musin's."
Morg passes off what looks like a small journal to you. "Picked this up last week, thought it was interestin' enough to read. Figure you might too if you're the steely-spined sort who travels when the world would kill ya given the chance."
Thank her and pocket the book before you [[Head into Essex proper.]]
Take some time and [[Read it.]] When you open the book you realize it is a journal. But with only a single, lengthy entry written in reddish brown ink.
You wonder if whoever this belonged to lost it.
Or if they threw it to the winds.
[[Read on.]]The Lascarians of Redwater Hold, located on the northern banks of the lake near Bravado, is are a formerly isolationist clan that has slowly and cautiously been integrating into the world after taking in the refugees of, and weathering the fallout from, the Hiway War. Enigmatic, pragmatic, and from a society of ancient traditions and castes that have seen them survive in a brutal world, an increasing number now drift among the “Above-born” learning and acclimating, before returning back to their underground stronghold, where trade and outsider influence has taken root, sharing space with the ways of a people born and bred in the dark Below, where strange voices whisper stranger words.That's enough of that. Not too dense but it's time to [[Head into Essex proper.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 200%;")[THE BOOK OF THE SHADOWED PATH]
[[Flip the page.]]
[[Close the book.]] *We few have learned the truth. The Founders built our home with purpose and wisdom. They knew Gods slept beneath the world
Waiting
to be
Found*
[[Continue.]]
[[Close the book.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 200%;")[These are the Laws of the Gods Below]
[[Learn them.]]
[[Close the book.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[There are no Gods but those Below.]
[[Alright. Got it.]]
[[Close the book.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[The Gods Below exist in all things.]
[[All of em?]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[The world is filled with monsters; We hunt them to prove our strength.]
[[Sounds pretty cool. You're in so far.]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;") [In the Last Sleep we become monsters, so must we fight the monster that lives within.]
[[Demonstrably true. Continue.]]
[[Close the book.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;") [Do not surrender to Death, but do not fear it.]
[[Good policy.]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;") [Not all can accept the truths of the Gods Below. Be mindful who it is revealed to.]
Well. That Reverend didn't seem too worried. But then, he wasn't a Redwater.
[[What's next?]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;") [First Law]
The Gods Below are ancient, and sleep where the tunnels are silent and cold. This is not the realm of those who walk Above, but those born Below, and so the Above-born have forgotten the Gods Below, and replaced it with their Lights, their Signals, their false gods.
[[Aah. Okay the cult part. Got it.]]
[[Close the book.]]
(align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Second Law]
As the Gods exist in all things, so do We.
We are all connected.
We are all children of the Gods.
Seek out each other.
[[You can't get away from people in this fucking town. No problem.]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Third Law]
The Gods below send the monsters to test us. We must be worthy of the world.
Only the strongest and wisest of the children survive.
We are strongest together.
Knowledge gives strength and wisdom both.
Build. Learn. Grow.
Everyone has a role to play in the battle.
You must know yours.
Not all monsters are Dead or Raider.
Some hide behind the smiles of the civilized.
Be watchful, and guard your siblings.
[[Funny, you think, how everything at its extreme sounds like that Final Knight shit.]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Fourth Law]
Inside every person is the nature of their better self and the nature of a monster.
We must fight it while we live so it is only in the Last Sleep that it is able to roam free.
[[That seems a little bleak. But that's religion for you.]]
[[Close the book.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Fifth Law]
The cycle of Life and Death are constants of the world we live in, Below and Above.
Do not give your Life freely, but neither fear Death, for they are interchangeable.
In Death we are given visions of our truer natures. It is our calling to take this truth and grow from it.
To do otherwise is to give into weakness, and we must be strong.
So is the cycle ours, so is the Last Dance a corruption of the cycle. Refuse it, should it be offered.
[[Aah. A directive. The first one you've seen so far. No Dancing.]]
[[Close the book.]](align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Sixth Law]
The truths of the Gods Below are anathema to most Above-born faiths.
They might accept our ways, but the truth will cause them to fear us, and fear leads to unnecessary violence.
[[That's all the laws.]]
[[Close the book.]] The following pages are illegible, written in a cramped scrawl, though drawings of strange places and creatures, with littered symbols between, dominate most pages.
Huh. You hope you're not cursed for reading this. That's some occult shit right there.
[[Close the book.]] You're not far from the Pfarmer's Market. You walk a few blocks in the direction of the smell that alerted you. When you arrive however, in addition to the foodstuff you anticipated - the Market is absolutely packed with linen-swathed persons. Their foreheads are marked with a black spot.
[[Flag one down and ask who they are.]]
On second thought how about you just forget the grilled cheese and [[Find a high point to observe the city from.]] [[The Cistern]], an ancient water-treatment facility at the southern end of Essex, is probably your best bet. You can see the whole city from there.
[[Go to the Cistern.]] You see one strangely dressed person loitering at the edge of the crowd, as if waiting his turn. You flag him down and ask his purpose here. He seems almost affronted that you asked.
“We worship the Tiny God. Our leader will speak here later today before she Commits herself to it.”
You can almost *tell* this guy just said the word “commit” with a capital C.
[[“Pfilomena Lovelace, you mean?”]]
[[What’s with the black smudges on your forehead?”]]
"Correct. She has communed with The Fountainhead and tells us that in order to commit to our shared vision for a better world, she must Commit herself to the cause. A sacrifice we admire and perhaps, one day, strive to emulate.”
[[This guy is bonkers, probably. Disengage.]]
[[“What shared vision?”]]
"A thumbprint. The most easily accessed form of unique data we possess. What our Tiny God needs is information. The information stored in our genetic sequences, friend. In order to achieve the shared vision we will dream together - it requires the grave power that lurks in each of our bodies - the creative force that brings us back when we die."
"Lady Pfilomena will Commit her Infection to it."
[[This guy is bonkers, probably. Disengage.]]
[[“What shared vision?”]] You're good here. Let's just [[Find a high point to observe the city from.]] "Of the world we dream together. Today we attend the Fountainhead and build something better for ourselves. We will walk into its atrium and tell it what we need. And it will give it to us."
[["Keep dreaming, friend.]] And leave.
[[Tell him you hope everything works out for him.]] The cultist's eyes go hard. "I invite you not to dream then. The world we build wont be for you."
[[This guy is bonkers, probably. Disengage.]] "It will."
[[This guy is bonkers, probably. Disengage.]] The second largest morgue in Essex, the Cistern is underneath the remains of a water treatment plant from oldcestor times. Long since dried up, the pipes clogged with fungal growths of the Gravemind, this morgue echoes the still of a grave even during the busy trading season. The stark concrete walkways remain empty of animal or plant life, and only the Groundskeepers keep a watch here.
The morgue beneath the Cistern is quiet when you arrive. But the huge spire of broken pipes and derelict filtration infrastructure invites you to climb it.
[[Look out over the city.]]
[[Climb it.]]Essex is busy. There's...a lot going on, you guess. But you can see all the common haunts from your vantage and so picking where to go is simple as choice.
[[Head to one of the city's five morgues.]]
[[Try one of Essex's many bars.]]
[[Head to the Docks District and look for some trouble.]]
[[Explore the Scrapes.]]
[[Visit the Fountainhead.]]
[[ENDS THE GAME: Attend the Allfaith's Symposium]] You do. It isn't easy but you scale the rusted pipes with the practice of a Survivor. Below you lies the City, six thousand lives all living at once. More than anywhere else in the Lonestar and much of the Wastes beyond that.
Weird. The world’s as small as its gods, you suppose.
"Oh hello, dearie." A cracked voice greets you from behind, at the top of this monolith - of all places. And the face of the Graverobber Esca peeks out at you from behind a particularly fat pipe.
[[“Holy SHIT, lady. You scared me.”]]
[[Greet her reasonably and placidly.”]]
Essex is huge, huge enough that no less than five morgues have manifested in the past four years. You consider going to one.
[[Check out the Dead Drop.]]
[[Explore the Cistern proper.]]
[[Take a look at the Northeast Hallows.]]
[[Grab a drink at the Paradise Bar.]]
[[Go take a good and proper look at the Fountainhead.]] Essex has a healthy drinking culture. If a city can possess such a thing.
[[Head over to the Elbow Room.]]
[[Grab a drink at the Paradise Bar.]]
[[Head to the Docks District and look for some trouble.]] They've got plenty of drink there.
[[Head over to the Drafhouse and pay ol' Mab a visit.]] There's at least one bar here. You've heard it's called the Swaying Anker but for some reason the only pub you find is called the Swaying Wanker - you figure that'll have to do.
Otherwise you guess you could pop on over to [[Cutthroat Alley]] and look for a different and more nefarious brand of trouble. Ancient monoliths, skeletons to a bygone age. The Scrapes are a section of Essex that extends well beyond the borders of the town itself. The rusted bones of old buildings flake orange and yellow in the early light of morning. The ancient walls are falling now - but still bear the ancient graffiti of an era long past.
As a matter of fact you see some newer graffiti, as demonstrated by the still-wet paint, on the wall of the Allfaith's chapal as you pass it.
[[Go read it.]]
[[Move on.]]You do. You arrive in the middle of the city, easily the busiest part, to part the throngs of cultists who vie for viewership at the feet of the structure.
Probably 300 feet tall and some 50 feet in diameter, the Fountainhead is an alabaster edifice of stone and steel, pockmarked with holes - ports, you've heard them called.
Huge wires, thick as a man's waist, protrude out of its base and into the wet loam beneath the structure. These pulse, you think, almost imperceptibly, as if with a heartbeat.
The top of the thing has a different sort of hollow - something exuding not light or wind but what is probably an isolated psionic disturbance. You can taste the barest hint of ozone on the back of your tongue.
Beyond that, the Fountainhead appears inert.
[[Go to the Cistern.]] You suppose it's about time you checked out the Symposium. You've heard enough about it. Pfilomena Lovelace is supposed to give some kind of speech, you've heard.
[[Go to the Allfaith's Chapal.]]
"You're the one who scaled *my* home, dearie." She reminds you with a sly smile. "The burgler does not scold their quarry. It's bad form."
"What brings you so high this morning - early riser?"
[["The Fountainhead."]]
[["Nothing in particular."]] "Good morning, dearie. Early riser - literally." She smiles, her teeth are serrated. "What brings you here?"
[["The Fountainhead."]]
[["Nothing in particular."]] "God or machine, I do know." Esca replies lightly. "But me knowing sways no hearts nor binds no wounds. The people of this town will eat their own before the night is over, dearie. I'm staying right here - where none of them will think to find me."
[["Will it come to that?"]] She raises the skin where an eyebrow would otherwise be. Esca is a saltwise, her scales recall to mind the dark and filmy flesh of the deepdwelling anglerfish.
"I know the things that draw people, dearie. And it is never 'nothing in particular.'"
Fine then. I'm here for [["The Fountainhead."]]"It always does." She says sadly. "Those corpses below have chosen their fate, knowingly or not."
[["They're still alive, aren't they?"]]
Esca smiles wanly now. "“Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life, dearie. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species at that.”
Oh wow that made you uncomfortable. Time to go. Climb back down and [[Go to the Cistern.]]
[[GRAVEROBBER or GRAVE-ATTUNED: "Bold statement, grannie."]]
She smirks at you. "We'll see when this is over, dearie. If anything is ever truly over."
Climb back down and [[Go to the Cistern.]] Less a morgue, so much as a gaping wound into the Mortis Amaranthine, the Dead Drop is a deep cleft of stone descending into the earth. There are no ladders or easy ways down the shaft, but the Dead Drop is normally crawling with the undead. The yawning chasm still manages to attract its fair share of treasure seekers seeking rumors of oldcestor compounds deep underground.
[[Look down.]]The second largest morgue in Essex, the Cistern is underneath the remains of a water treatment plant from oldcestor times. Long since dried up, the pipes clogged with fungal growths of the Gravemind, this morgue echoes the still of a grave even during the busy trading season. The stark concrete walkways remain empty of animal or plant life, and only the Groundskeepers keep a watch here.
[[Take a look around inside.]] Built in the remains of an oldcestor structure of concrete and metal formerly known as an outlet mall, the Northeast Hallows is the most used Morgue.
The shells of the former buildings here often serve as makeshift shelters for the poorer and dispossessed in Essex that are not welcome in the Oxyard.
The Grave Council looks the other way, as they know the difficulty of not having a home.
You see the hundreds of mutli-hued tents that surround the mouth of this morgue. Most of them are empty. One of them isn't.
A figure in beige stands reading a flier. They are not moving.
[[Go meet them.]]
[[Go to the Cistern.]]
It feels like this place is never open. This small morgue is underneath a still operating saloon, with the basement morgue exiting outside into the streets. A tradition of offering a free drink to anyone recently returned is upheld, but the clientele here tends also to attract the rough and rowdy looking for a drunken brawl or a fight with the undead. The Baywalker bartender, Kurt, maintains the premises and keeps careful watch on who comes and goes from the bar.
But Kurt isn't here. There's just a piece of paper nailed to the door.
[[Read the hastily scrawled note.]]
You do. You arrive in the middle of the city, easily the busiest part, to part the throngs of cultists who vie for viewership at the feet of the structure.
Probably 300 feet tall and some 50 feet in diameter, the Fountainhead is an alabaster edifice of stone and steel, pockmarked with holes - ports, you've heard them called.
Huge wires, thick as a man's waist, protrude out of its base and into the wet loam beneath the structure. These pulse, you think, almost imperceptibly, as if with a heartbeat.
The top of the thing has a different sort of hollow - something exuding not light or wind but what is probably an isolated psionic disturbance. You can taste the barest hint of ozone on the back of your tongue.
Beyond that, the Fountainhead appears inert.
[[Go to the Cistern.]] You pass into the bowels of the ancient facility, beneath the water tower. It smells lightly of decay and of the kind of mold that grows on still water. When you cough, you can hear the echo thrown back at you as if four others had coughed the same cough.
But there is nothing else for you here.
[[Go to the Cistern.]] above and reconsider your options. Far, far below you are the undulating forms of thousands and thousands of zed. Earlier, you considered how large the city of Essex was.
It's population is nothing compared to the number of shambling dead you see below you, compressed to bulging at the bottom of this canyon.
That's enough [[Go to the Cistern.]] A full dead, one of the Grave Bureau's accountants, stands reading something pinned to the side of a tent. It looks new.
She sees you and jumps. "Excuse me. I didn't notice you. Are you here about..." The full dead gestures inarticulately to the paper.
[[Read the flier. Messily Scralwed.]] (css: "font-size: 150%;")[**“Faith without work is just talk.”**]
A Nuclear Family Mother once said that to me. Their words have echoed in my head for the years that I have walked these wastes since the old town of Bravo was bombed. In the time before the bombing I was told that I would never learn the “truth” of my faith. That I would only ever know half-truths (css: "font-size: 150%;")[**for I was not a priest, not an Ascensorite,**] so how could I ever truly understand faith as one who was born and felt their faith every waking moment?
How could a simple (css: "font-size: 150%;")[**Yorker**], with only a hope and a dream, ever truly understand what it means to embody a faith so strongly?
(text-style: "upside-down")[So I died in a fight against a shadow of myself. ]
I refused to choose inside the Mortis Amaranthine, so it was chosen for me.
(text-style: "upside-down")[I got what I wanted but I lost what I had.]
I did not know it then, but I was reborn. Gone was the Yorker of yesterday, born was the Ascensorite of tomorrow. That Ascensorite that would seek stories, (css: "font-size: 150%;")[**the veritable keys to invoking our experiences. The Ascensorite that would not shut out ANY part of the Signal, no matter what it was. Telling Vision, Arcadian, Enlightenment, Kings and Queens...they are all a part of the road that will lead us to tomorrow. A road of so many shining and shimmering colors that if you could see it your heart would burst, your mind would sing, and you would understand how every single person who walks these wastes is just a player on a stage. We have our entrances. We have our exits.**] A strain in their life plays many parts.
I’ve decided to play my part in the best way I can. I will follow the stories of my King in the Darkness. I remember the words of Jacob Skull.
(css: "font-size: 150%;")[**“You must choose a path.”**]
I have chosen, Jacob. Wherever you are right now, I want you to know by my deeds of my choice. (css: "font-size: 150%;")[**I will walk the rainbow road to tomorrow wherever that may lead**], I will shake hands with anyone that I can, and I will hear their stories.
Now, I must go hear the voice of a very small and weird god. I touched it when it wasn’t ready before -- without permission, and it took my whole experience through a whiplash. (text-style: "upside-down")[I was punished for not being patient. I am ready to be patient now. I am ready to hear what must be sung.]
To my fellow TVs, Arcadians, and other followers of the Signal...listen and watch with your hearts. Remember that no matter how dark it gets, that deep down there’s a light that never goes out--illuminating the path ahead. Together we walk this road, and together we will learn.(css: "font-size: 150%;")[ **All scripts, all fables, all stories--are all true. Some might be different versions, but all of them--true.**]
*-Chucklefuck Taylor, Paver-Saint of the Rainbow Road*
[["What?"]]
"Written by a person who'd made a choice." The full-dead suggests sadly. "I find that people often come to this morgue - to think and reflect. This Paver made his choice here. I wonder if he yet lives."
[["Wait, choice to what?"]]
"To Commit himself." She replies darkly. "To the Fountainhead."
[["Why would this person do that?"]]She shrugs and laughs dully "Why does anyone choose death for a purpose? Because it fills that god-shaped hole in his heart, I suspect. He will not, I believe, come out of this morgue if he returns. You are not here about him?"
[["I'm not."]]
"Then I will keep this." She says, and remove the flier to put it, folded, in her breast pocket. "Deadeye, by the way. You look familiar."
[["I've been around. We've met.]]
[["One of those faces, I guess."]]She nods. "Good day, xer. This is not the only instance of this behavior I've observed. Beware gods, friend. The tiniest ones ask the most."
Leave and [[Go to the Cistern.]] She nods. "Good day, xer. This is not the only instance of this behavior I've observed. Beware gods, friend. The tiniest ones ask the most."
Leave and [[Go to the Cistern.]] *Snow come, cover ground
Hide our tracks and smother sound
Wynter come and we are found
On our heels, a shadow hound.
Rain come, flow free
Shake the branches of the trees
Carry us this Light and me
Over the waves of a shadow sea.
Stars come, shine bright
Guide us through this endless Night
Weary now, but you must fight
Do not drown in Dark when there is still Light.*
[[Huh. Some kind of prayer, you suppose.]] You knock on the door a few times but it's locked tight. Maybe Kurt's religious and he's attending that Symposium you've heard about.
[[Go to the Cistern.]] Before you is The Elbow Room; a shiny, brassy building that looks like the walls of a train car welded together and polished to a dangerous shine. Possessing three stories, this bar is the premier drinking location in Essex. The Elbow Room is known for serving the Amberdraught’s own beer and, to smaller circles, its famous Brew - which has never really been the same since the Hiway Conflict nearly four years ago. You’ve heard the proprietor of the bar, Rose Rivershack had to fold her dynasty in with Amberdraughts after their easy supply of ingredients dried up following the war.
[[Head inside the Elbow Room.]]Double-click this passage to edit it.One of the more unregulated zones in the Essex metroplex, Cutthroat Alley earned it name. You've heard of one person of note who hails from this small community of murderers and mauraders however - **Caleb the Cutthroat Prophet** is said to be one of the most powerful psions in the Lonestar - but at the cost of much of his independence and mobility.
[[You know Caleb. He's a fucking idiot.]]
[[Seek out the Cutthroat Prophet.]]
[[I'm just here for a drink.]] An idiot and historically very easy to find. Prophets are a loud lot. You find Caleb balanced precariously on the hood of a food cart - previously selling grilled cheese, temporarily confiscated for the purpose of prophecy.
“Your god is *too small*.” You hear the red-headed scrap of a boy implore the crowd. “To affect the changes it promises. And too *stupid* to know that itself. Your god is a fraud - a fake just like a zed is a fake person. Don’t you GET it?”
You cannot see his face - it is obscured by bandages, but you imagine his expression is pained.
[[Continue to listen.]]You want to hear him, or speak to him - or just prove to yourself he's real.
He's easy to find. Prophets are a loud lot. You find the Cutthroat Prophet balanced precariously on the hood of a food cart - previously selling grilled cheese, temporarily confiscated for the purpose of prophecy.
“Your god is *too small*.” You hear the red-headed scrap of a boy implore the crowd. “To affect the changes it promises. And too *stupid* to know that itself. Your god is a fraud - a fake just like a zed is a fake person. Don’t you GET it?”
You cannot see the Prophet’s face - it is obscured by bandages, but you imagine his expression is pained.
[[Continue to listen.]]
You look for a place to drink - there's plenty. But before you can decide on one you stumble upon the very prophet you'd intended to avoid. That's always how it goes - isn't it?
You see the Cutthroat Prophet balanced precariously on the hood of a nearby food cart - previously selling grilled cheese, temporarily confiscated for the purpose of prophecy.
“Your god is *too small*.” You hear the red-headed scrap of a boy implore the crowd. “To affect the changes it promises. And too *stupid* to know that itself. Your god is a fraud - a fake just like a zed is a fake person. Don’t you GET it?”
You cannot see the Prophet’s face - it is obscured by bandages, but you imagine his expression is pained.
[[Continue to listen.]]"The approximation of a man is not a man." Caleb persists, "and the approximation of a god is not a god - not even a tiny one."
And it is at this moment when the first stone is thrown. A cobble, probably pulled up from the alley itself, is lobbed directly at the forehead of the Cutthroat Prophet from the anonymous crowd gathered to listen.
And in an impressive act of reflex, Caleb catches it before it can strike him. He casts down the stone as if he has barely registered it and continues:
"When you go to dream with the Fountainhead you go to your doom."
[[The crowd is starting to look angry.]] "Your doom and your death-"
This time the stone hits the prophet square in the mouth and he topples backwards in a magnificent spray of blood. The crowd is angry and rushes in to meet him.
[[Save him.]]
[[Don't.]] The Cutthroat Prophet, you reflect, is probably an idiot. You dodge through the bodies and towards his prone form. They're scared to touch him - probably rumors you haven't heard yet. You scoop him up into your arms, Caleb is alarmingly light, and cart him into a nearby sub-alley, then another, until you've lost the bulk of the crowd.
[[Wake him up.]] Kid's gotta learn, right?
When the crowd draws close to the prone form of the Cutthroat Prophet you're proven wrong. Someone *else* is learning today.
The bodies of the crowdgoers fly backwards all at once, accompanied by a *snap* that sounds like the crack of a whip. Several of them have bloody noses. You smell ozone.
In the middle of the space created by what looked like a powerfully clever telekentic blast, Caleb wobbles and topples over.
You pick him up and move him somewhere safer; a nearby alley smaller than the Cutthroat main. Someone's got to do it.
[[Wake him up.]] His eyes crack open at your extended prompting. He rubs his head gingerly and you can see the sharp angle of a psion crystal pressing against the bandages he's wrapped himself in.
"You?" Caleb asks blearily, unsure if he recognizes you.
[["Me. Good to see you again, dumbass."]]
[["We haven't actually met. It just looked like you needed some help."]] His eyes narrow painfully at you. "Thanks, I guess. Are you here to stop it again? For real this time?"
[["Stop what?"]]Blearily, he nods. "I do need help. I need help stopping it."
[["Stop what?"]] "The Fountainhead. I don't...I don't like it."
[["Why don't you just leave? The people here treat you like shit."]] "My mom's here she's..."
[["Got shingles?"]]
[[Stay quiet.]]He barks a mad laugh. "Much worse. Her name is Pfilomena Lovelace and I think she is going to kill herself today."
[[Oh fuck.]]"...Her name is Pfilomena Lovelace. And I think she is going to kill herself today."
[[Oh fuck.]] "Yeah. And I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to stop her. She's...stronger than I am."
[["Psionically?"]]"No of course not. But she's my *mom*, man."
[["If you wouldn't leave town before when the entire population of this city intended to kill you because your mom wouldn't leave - I don't imagine there's anything we can do now."]]
Caleb shakes his head sadly. "She's gone mad. I'm afraid all I can do is clean up the mess."
[["We could kill her first."]]
[["Maybe everything will turn out the way the Cultists think? Your mom's not an idiot. She *did* commune with the Fountainhead."]]He shakes his head. "I want to kill you for suggesting it. But I get why you did. I won't do it. And if not her - then someone else. The problem is systemic."
[["I'll do my best then. You do yours."]]He snorts and replies cryptically, as if from memory: "Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound."
[["I'll do my best then. You do yours."]]
He nods. "I'm sure I'll see you soon. One way or the other."
That's enough for now. [[Go to the Cistern.]] A spacious and well-run establishment; The Elbow Room hosts various occasions on behalf of the Amberdraughts. Upon entering its saloon-style double-doors you can see why. Three stories above you you can see the distant and polished ceiling, with each floor overlooking those below it.
Brassy banisters line the tiered floors and on the bottom floor, where you stand now, you lay eyes on the largest distillation machine you have ever seen. A gentleman in red and a gentleman in blue stand behind the bar but in front of the great copperbottom monolith polishing glassware.
Various townsfolk, and even some cultists, meander about, mugs clutched close and countenances just as tightly guarded.
[[Get a drink. And a bite to eat.]]
[[Go to the Cistern.]]
You're parched and famished - it's been all morining since you saw a snack. You trade a few currency to the fellow in red behind the bar and several minutes later a tray of food, mostly raw greens (you assume because of the heat) and a very cold tankard of hootch, appears before you.
Just as you're about to dig in, a voice erupts behind you, at elevation.
You turn in your seat to see a priest, festooned in gold and gaudy plastic, possessing a pair of sunglasses that, for lack of a better descriptor, *shutter*. He beings to speak from the third level down to yours.
"Proud are we who rebuild a slain world." his is voice thunderous in the otherwise quiet bar. "Proud are we who have the gift of hindsight, to look upon the sins of our ancestors, upon the land ruined by their folly, and learned from their hubris. Proud are we who relish that escape, to see the golden age they once achieved and reject that birthright in the knowledge those glories were built on stolen freedoms and inequity."
[[Oh, you think. A firebrand.]]
[[Get up and leave.]] "I tell you now that pride is in vain, for their specter still haunts us. Shackled are we by the myth at the foundation of that toppled tower. By a lie so pervasive as to be disguised in its utter ubiquity. Our faiths are disgraced by the illusion of multiplicity."
The priest pauses for breath. You can see some of the security guards discussing something a few feet away from you. One of them gestures to the priest on the third floor of the building.
"Unlike our forebearers, there is no excuse to be made for ignorance. Death reveals the unity of all things, and in fear we reject it."
[[Well, guy, better talk fast. You begin to eat your lunch.]]
[[Get up and leave.]]
Double-click this passage to edit it."The operations of the Grave are *well known*; It is the font from which our being springs and it is the archive to which our memories return. We walk in borrowed flesh. We hear whispers echoed back from infinity. We die and we glimpse a continuity of being between all things living and dead, we experience in no uncertain terms-"
A guard pops up behind the priest, from your vantage you cannot tell from where, and seizes him around the waist.
"But like children rejecting medicine for its bitterness, so many deride this common experience as a TRICK." the priest spits, wrestling at the burly arms that are dragging him away from the bannister.
[[Continue listening. This is getting interesting.]]
[[Get up and leave.]]
"They build false idols with their backs against the sun and claim the light shines from them." He announces, unpurturbed by the muscular guards attempting to wrestle his thin frame away from the makeshift podium of the railing that overlooks the Elbow Room.
"They fixate on dogma, repeating their tenants like words off a script as if piety were the function of a machine."
[[Keep listening. Dinner and a show.]]
[[Throw him some snaps. The guy deserves it. He's clearly rehersed this.]]
[[Get up and leave.]]
"There is shame on all the churches! It is it any wonder, then, that the common ground of interfaith dialogue is so often the mockery of a third?
That our community of faith is plagued by *division* when undivided truth reveals itself time and time again?"
The priest is barely holding onto the bannister now. But his words are frank and fill the room up as if it were an auditorium.
[[Let him finish.]]
[[Get up and leave.]]
"There is shame on all the churches! It is it any wonder, then, that the common ground of interfaith dialogue is so often the mockery of a third?
That our community of faith is plagued by *division* when undivided truth reveals itself time and time again?"
The priest is barely holding onto the bannister now. But his words are frank and fill the room up as if it were an auditorium.
[[Let him finish.]]
[[Get up and leave.]]
"Listen before to be heard; there are not seven, but One Light.
There are not four, but One Cycle.
There are not thirty and three, but One Ambition.
Not picture and sound, but One Signal.
Look past the symbols and into their meaning.
Find your faith in the spaces between."
The priest shouts the last of his sermon from the bannister, white knuckled and unrepentant. When at last he spits out the final words he releases himself and you hear something explode above you. You smell smoke.
"He smoke-bombed!" You hear one of the guards yell, exasperated.
You hear the door open behind you. You turn. You see the same priest escaping but lock eyes.
He winks.
[[Finish up your meal and leave.]]
Outside the Elbow room you see that same priest shaking a spray can of black paint. Without looking at you he tags the building's siding and flees.
Upon closer inspection you can see he's written his name.
*Paris $ircus, Fifth Eye Open.*
Huh.
That's probably enough bars. [[Go to the Cistern.]] I have been asked many times by all varieties of persons if I “have” a faith. I have been asked if I pray. If I believe in heaven or hell. If I believe in God.
I have walked the wastes ages longer than most. I have no means of discovering how long I have been here. As such, each passing day to one of the living leaves its touch upon my mind as if it were a single moment.
All the same, my proximity to the living has granted me a meter by which to count out the passage of time; Their deaths.
[[Morbid. You already like it.]]
[[That's enough.]] The generations that pass, the settlements that fall. This makes it extremely improbable that any member of the living might grow close enough to me, evoke enough fondness in my cold heart, to have the grounds to ask these questions. That I might believe they would even understand, have the scope to comprehend what I might tell them. They ask it in such a trivial fashion. I am disinclined to answer them. Why should they be entitled to any part of my history? When no one came to save me, to help me, to have mercy on me, why should I then be asked to freely give an account of this long and terrible life?
Why should I give any God the pleasure of having their name spoken on my lips?
[[Who is this take-no-prisoners full dead? And why does she hit so fucking hard?]]
[[That's enough.]] You close the thin volume. Your heart is heavier but you can't articulate why.
Might as well [[Head into Essex proper.]] My home, as I understand the word, lies back in the Sunken Saints. I crawled from the mud of the swamps and roamed the forests until I was found by those of my own kind. I knew not who I was, nor anything of my life before. This is the first thing that separates us from the living. The living have experiences through which they build and define themselves. Memories give us a lens through which we view the world, and therefore, help us codify ourselves. With no knowledge of where, when, I had come from, I was nothing more than an aperture of consciousness. But I was taken care of well. I was loved. Vale Iron City had become a haunted place, but there were still others like myself to reach out to. A certain esprit de corps, lost here in other corners of the wastes.
[[A good place, you figure.]]
[[That's enough.]] In the interest of expediting the story, I will shorten a timespan of perhaps a hundred years, perhaps two, perhaps three, to this: I left. Vale Iron City was put behind me, and it was the last mistake I would ever make in this life. I was foolish. And I paid dearly for my mistake. And I lost the only person in this life that truly cared for me. Was this God’s doing? Was it my own? I am uninterested in knowing this. In the itemized list of damages that have been inflicted upon me by the Almighty, the loss of my home holds no place. I do not care who is to blame, besides the members of the living that facilitated it.
I outlived them all. They died alone and afraid, slowly, and without help. That was my doing, not the doing of a God.
[[Stone fucking cold.]]
[[That's enough.]] I lost Vale Iron City. And I yearn for it every moment that I am lucid. The gentle activity, the company of other Full Dead, the stillness and silence and sensitivity to the needs of the reposed unliving. I long for that time, that memory. I long for that comfort again. All the same, I doubt I shall ever find comfort on this plane. If comfort is left for me anywhere in the wastes, it will never show its face.
I would do well to stop this longing. Such desires have not served me in the past. I have passed the opportunity for comfort and rest. I have now only the option to take my deliverance by any means I may have. Nothing ever done in this world got done by the want alone. And nothing ever cast upon my soul was brought down by my prayers. None of what comes to me now is weighed upon by what I did then. I may lift my hands to the sky in despair or in fury, but it will not be to ask forgiveness or beg the mercy of an incapable, flawed being.
[[Continue reading.]]
[[That's enough.]] The living are harsh and unpredictable, they turn on one another. Their emotions race through them. They regret so easily. The living feel things so fleetingly. It must be a terrible way to exist to have such a short scope through which to measure your life. My mind is already stretched thin across the gap of death that stole away memories of my life before, the gap of time that swallows entire months of my existence if I make no record of them, the gap of the Mortis, whose breath animated my body and now, therefore, takes tax in the form of my own mental faculties. My spirit has been lost through many sieves. And the way to hang on to who I am is by using my own two hands.
Many take this to mean that I do not have faith. That I do not believe in a God. That, surely, there can be no heaven. That This is Hell and We Are Damned.
Such is the philosophy of cowards.
[[She doesn't fucking stop.]]
[[That's enough.]]I live my cold days with the certainty that this cannot be Hell, true Hell, and that may never be taken from me. This world is not my home. I am only a visitor until I am retrieved, until the debt to me is repaid, until the Lord themselves asks for my forgiveness. I spent my last earthly moments in a house of God. In my time before, I was devoted. Devout. I gave everything for my Lord, and when it was not rewarded, when the Lord did not spare me an ounce of mercy as my life ran out like the last grains of sand in the glass, I gave my last breaths, too. I gave my last breaths to renounce my faith, to curse God for what they had allowed to happen, to shame them for turning their back to those of us that were going to die there as we prayed for help.
And then, once the world was no longer bright and loud and harsh and terrifying and lonely…
It wasn’t.
[[She doesn't remember her life but I guess she remembers...]]
[[That's enough.]] I took in a breath and did not find a lung full of smoke. I tasted honeysuckle on the wind, a cool breeze of the freshest air anyone could ever know. Warm sun shone down on my shoulders from a sky that was an impossible blue. There is no blue on Earth, before or now, that could hold a candle to this shade. And it stretched on in every direction forever over beautiful green rolling fields that waved and danced in the wind.
I stood in a river of cool water and felt what I can only describe as peace in my heart.
There is a misunderstanding of the meaning of Heaven. What it is, and what it is not.
Heaven is where the burdens of the mind and soul are lifted. Heaven is the place where all heavy things are left behind, and you don't have to carry them anymore.
This memory alone keeps me on this Earth. Knowing, even for a moment, that I would get what I was owed. Before it was taken from me.
[[Well fuck. Nothin' good lasts, you suppopse.]]
[[That's enough.]] I was plunged down into that water and it became mud. My mouth filled with dirt and slime and I was choking. Drowning. And that was my awakening in this life, that was the rebirth, that was what I was granted. I climbed from the swamp with no knowledge of who I was, where I had come from, or even the bliss of God’s heavenly shores. I had nothing. I had no one. There was no self-pity and there never would be. I did not raise up my hands at the cruel and horrifying reality I was thrown into. I did not blame my situation on anything or anyone. I did not need to find comfort by resigning myself to “Hell.”
What happens in this place, this world, will be no casting of dice or turning of cards, it shall be no spinning wheel of fate or fortune. It will not be to blame on, or to the credit of, a God. It will be my own doing, as it has always been. There shall be no comfort for me here, none that I do not constrain with my own two hands, as the Lord made capable to compensate for his own neglectful grip.
Faith is not a matter of clinging on. Faith, true faith, is an act of relinquishment. Faith is letting go.
[[Yeah well I'm faithful I can't put this shit down. Keep reading.]]
[[That's enough.]] Once, long ago, I believed that the hands of God could stop wars, and perhaps they can.
I believed in many things. I believed my faith would be rewarded. And now that I find myself with the Lord in my debt, I must wait for my repayment. I live with the knowledge that nothing was done for me out of answered prayer, but with my own two capable hands and the strength of my own will.
[[Keep going.]]
[[That's enough.]] I have been challenged on more than one occasion. If I wish so badly to return to Heaven to collect what I am owed, why would I not so easily end my own life? Why would I not remove myself from this wretched, disgusting world, full of heinous, monstrous people that have sought only to destroy each other? Even Those Who Came Before, though long, long after my own time, destroyed the world, they spat upon God’s creation, why would I wish to set foot upon the same ground as them? ‘For all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.’
I am tired. In my soul. I long for one night to fall asleep and never be awoken, for the many lifetimes that have passed with no respite. No peace. No shelter in this wasteland of time and memories and pain and fear and anger and hunger. It’s all the same. I feel as though every day that passes I must drag myself across a sea of knives with my own two hands. When it would be so easy to not. To stop. To decide to stop.
[[Nearly done now.]]
[[That's enough.]] I did not give my permission to leave this realm, or any other, and I will not grant it. I am patient. I will keep the Lord in waiting, and, at my leisure, They will answer to me for Their mistakes. When at last we meet, the Lord will beg for my forgiveness the same as I have begged for help. My time ends on my authority now. God abandoned Their privilege to my fate, now I take it in my hands.
*'I say unto you, whoever believes shall have eternal life.'*
Indeed.
[[Her sarcasm scrapes at your brain like a wire brush.]]
[[That's enough.]] There is hope yet left in the world. If it must be dug from the cold Earth or fashioned from whatever means are at hand, it exists. When from this Earth I, again, depart, will I be ushered from it with the same hope and love that I left behind? Will I be extended the grace I was denied the first time? And the second? There is nothing else to be taken from me. I know the color of my soul. I know what I believe. I know what I am owed.
I have made a mark for myself here on Earth as one of the greatest bookkeepers in the wastes. I have filled hundreds of ledgers, and will fill a hundred more, yet, with the numbers of my own riches and those for whom I count and keep track. And perhaps this is because I will never lose track of the Lord’s debts. When at last I arrive again on the celestial shores of Heaven everlasting, I will know what is owed to me. I will be begged for my forgiveness.
And I, being a more merciful creature than the God whom I served, will grant it.
[[Fuuuuck.]]
[[That's enough.]] There is nothing to be gained from an indentured God. I do not seek to rule anything or anyone. Not Earth, not Heaven, and certainly not Hell, a place that cannot be imagined by the cowards that proclaim to hold power within it. I am my own sort of Lord. My domain is my ledgers. My books. I speak in the tongue that is the language of numbers. I build my shrine of good bourbon and fine art. And if I am blessed by moments of peace, perhaps now and again I may find one of the respiring, one of the small and fragile living, who might even be willing to share a moment with me, who could possibly comprehend the journey I have taken to be here. To be alive. As alive as I can be. I am here to spread my wealth and wait for my time, on my own schedule, by my own permission.
May my silver perish with me. It is not the riches of this world that I live for.
---
*Vivianne Mallory Grier. Born 1844. Died 1865. Born again. And again.*
[[That's enough.]] In white letters outlined in black, painstakingly, the lengthy tirade must have taken all night. You're impressed.
(css: "font-size: 150%;")["It is not that we should want for fame."] The text begins, large and deliberate. (css: "font-size: 150%;")["Our power and very purpose is gained from an audience." ]
You can't help but snicker. You get it. [[Read onward.]]
[[Move on from this.]]You pass further into the Scrapes, beyond where most townsfolk would stop. This far into the wastes is dangerous.
Go back and [[Go to the Cistern.]]
[[Explore deeper.]]You [[Move on.]](css: "font-size: 150%;")["Many often lose sight of that and seek to grow their audiences for their fame and power. Yet this is not where we gain our purpose."
"Without our audience we are just voices in the dark of nothing. Our audiences do not need us, we need our audience."]
(css: "font-size: 125%;")["We must become rock stars once again, not for our own legacy but that we could give to so many more what they need!"]
The text is getting smaller, as if the writer had more to say than wallspace to say it.
[[Let's see how they finish out.]]
[[Move on from this.]] "What our Kings and Queens gave us! Hope! Inspiration! A common and shared understanding without the need to explain!
"To join us all in feeling what we mean and sharing that with so many others because it proved one thing then and will prove it now again.
We Are Not Alone. We Are Infinite. Even when we die and go.on from this place never to return we were there for someone, we were with someone, we shared meaningful moments and trivial hilarities.
[[Touching. Finish it up.]]
[[Move on from this.]](css: "font-size: 110%;")["And because of that we live on because we have made life live on.
We Are Not Alone.]
(css: "font-size: 85%;")[Defiance is the nature of existence in that we defy dying with every breath we tell the Mortis to fuck off and we continue to live beautiful lives.]
(css: "font-size: 75%;")[Let Us Be Together Again.]
(css: "font-size: 30%;")[The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am Not Afraid To Die." ]
(css: "font-size: 200%;")+(text-style: "shadow") [**Sun Queen**]
[[Move on from this.]] The further you go the more dilapidated it becomes. It's quiet here, more quiet than any morgue.
You find some words scraped into the rusting metal of a car door. You have no idea how long these words have been here:
*By wind and sand and running (text-style: "strike")[doon] dune
I shall not die by light of moon
By chip and card and rolling dice
I shall not die by dagger's slice
By upturned cup and cocking gun
I shall not die by glare of sun
With (text-style: "strike")[poppet] pocket sand and cutting glass
No misfortune shall cross my path
And when in Death's embrace I dance
I'll know my odds and take my chance
For I am loved by Lady Luck
Unlike those poor bastards
I buddy(text-style: "strike")[fuck]*
[[Cute. A Vegasian prayer.]] There doesn't seem to be much else out here. A few shamblers, maybe.
[[Go to the Cistern.]] When you arrive - it's packed. The chapel, normally pristine as a priest's bedsheets (denomination depending), is covered in layers of graffiti. The talks don't appear to have begun yet - but everyone is here waiting for it.
[[Kill some time upstairs in the Library.]]
[[Wander around and see who showed up.]]
You decide to head upstairs. Here is where the Essex Allfaith's chapel makes its true name - in the leaflets and ledgers it maintains in the form of the Lonestar's only religious library.
Most volumes are accepted here. Barring instances of personal prophecy, of course.
You hear a sour voice in an adjacent room. It cracks as if the speaker has eaten their sixth carton of cigarettes and just been turned down for, probably, not the first time.
“It’s not an instance of personal prophecy, *monk*. It’s a vision of the past.” The voice insists, frustrated.
[[Check it out. You love that bullshit drama.]]
[[Nah. Go to the Library instead.]]
It feels like everyone is here. Everyone who matters, at least.
You see the thin figure of The Scientist, the maniac who started all of this, standing on a kind of central dais with a second, much younger, figure.
You suddenly recognize her from the descriptions:
[[Missy Amberdraught.]] The demure and debutant niece to the imprisoned Augustine Amberdraught and the assassinated Audelia Amberdraught; Missy Amberdraught is wearing a puratanical white dress that comes to her calves, white cowboy boots, and a broad-brimmed derby hat complete with tiny zeppelin. Her hair is blonde and carefully curled. Her eyes are as blue as the Lonestar Sky.
She looks profoundly nervous. You don't imagine she was prepared to inherit her family's dynasty quite yet.
[[Look around some more.]]
You see entire crews here, ones you recognize. [[The Curators]], a tribe of archivists, are here in force. Their modest robes nearly look priestly - but you suppose that's framing.
In the back of the room you can see who you assume is Pfilomena Lovelace. She is currently in talks with one of her flock - but you recognize her by description.
Her head is shaved, probably for her own ease. Her hands are calcified stumps of bone carefully hidden by full bell sleeves. You wonder why. Her expression is steely. The look of a woman who goes proudly to her end.
But there's not much to do while you wait. Why not go [[Kill some time upstairs in the Library.]]?Archivists every one of them, the Curators believe that the fall of man is cyclic and inevitable and an occurrence not to dread, but to account for. Books burn, leaflets mold and the oral tradition truncates in the event of nuclear demise. But psion crystals - those last. By arcane science poorly understood outside their small cult, the Curators truck in memory. They pay small prices for the psion crystals that grow in the gray matter of aberrants. Not all of them contain useful memories, most are dross. But some; the crystals that pass into their distant vaults, are said to contain the secrets of the world. Another voice returns "this is *obviously* a thinly veiled attempt at social commentary, Guile. You can't pass this off as a vision."
The first voice returns, heated, "Visions are *always* social commentary you inundated headcase. They're made by *people*."
"Or gods."
"*UGH.*"
[[Juicy. Go check what's up.]] It's a huge room, richly decorated with the vesements of religion across the experience of lineages.
There are thousands of books here. But a few catch your eye.
[[A thin and leather-bound book whose pages are ancient musical sheets.]]
[[Some kind of manifesto written entirely in red ink.]]
[[A personal journal completely covered in...moons?]]
[[A very old volume titled in faded letters: "The Narrow Path."]]
[[What is clearly just a letter, contained in a shadowbox.]]
[[ENDS ADVENTURE: That's the bell. They must be starting soon.]]When you enter the room you see two figures standing about six feet apart from one another, as if preparing to fight in earnest.
But one is a scrawny Tainted who looks like they need a meal more than a match cluching a thin booklet to their chest.
While the other is an overweight priest, probably a NoA, in robes that streach tremendously at the shoulders and gut.
You expect they won't kill eachother.
[[Ask what's going on.]]The Tainted responds before the priest can. "This antediluvian philistine continue to insist that my writings have no place in this library despite my repeated and *successful* attempts to reverse-burglarize them into the collection."
The priest looks taken aback for a moment, "you did *what*?"
[[Take a look at the book in question.]]It's bound and thin. Even from where you're standing you can see the title **The Canticle of Sun** and just below that in smaller, but still assertive text, **The Black Vestal Mammon**.
"I've got about ten copies ferreted into these shelves, priest." The Tainted continues archely. "You might as well just put'em in the ledgers."
The priest looks as if he's going to rupture something. That shade of purple can't be healthy. "On principle of my practice I will *not*."
[["Uh. Can I have a copy?"]]
This is less exciting than you'd hoped. [[Nah. Go to the Library instead.]]
The Tainted rounds on you and immediately presses the volume into your waiting hands. "Anyone who wants a copy gets one. Even if I gotta kill a different guy to get a copy back."
The priest looks like he's going to have a apoplexy. You think maybe you should go. You've probably made this worse.
[[Thank the strange Tainted and leave.]] They wave you off and produce another copy of the book from somewhere on their person. The priest throws up his hands.
[[Make some distance and read it.]]
[[Nah. Go to the Library instead.]] You crack it open. Here we go.
[[Tune into the Slantways Prophet.]](css: "font-size: 200%;")[**The Canticle of Sun**]
(css: "font-size: 150%;")[Black Vestal Mammon]
(css: "font-size: 50%;")[Dedicated to my Idiot Kid, Vaan.]
---
This vision cometh to me while dead. Delivered to me by something neither Mortis nor Vital but instead the lid of my fifth eye that I did open to see the life of a woman who walked the Path before me and called herself Sister Mammon and it is her Canticle we summon.
The sun hung like a golden plate, pounded into shape and displayed proudly, on the celestial mantle above the Dune Sea. The sky behind it was shades of green and blue and the sands below had been bleached perfect white generations ago when the bomb fell and the first nuclear summer rendered this place a crucible of light and heat.
[[Oh you know this writing. Here we go.]]
Nope not again. [[Put it down.]] The caravans of the **Anneh Yaba** snaked across the featureless landscape; nearly a mile long and a quarter mile wide. A meandering municipality, the modular housewagons favored by these itinerant folk were stucco and vibrant in a hundred different shades of blue, red, green and yellow.
The smoke of a hundred moving cookfires and a thousand churning motors made the air shimmer and, in the warm orange light of early evening, cast everything in soft gold.
[[Sounds like old Rovers.]]
[[Put it down.]] The Slantways Prophet is unerringly opaque, you reflect.
You consider speaking to Guinevere herself. But [[Nah. Go to the Library instead.]] She's bonkers. Sister Mammon stole into the caravans of the Anneh Yabah in the guise of a tradeswoman. She was a scholar of lore and language and so when the ancient and roving principles were invoked, Sister Mammon spake their promises and drank the third cup offered to her and never before and as first moon since her coming rose over Anneh Yabah she supped with its headsman and ate sweet meats cooked on the hot steel of his engine block and traded pleasantries like coin.
[[Sister Mammon's a fuckin' con. Nice.]]
[[Put it down.]] And it was to the sharp notes of the Anneh Yabah’s lap instruments that Sister Mammon did travel for some weeks towards the **Roving City of Barouge** and it’s very beating heart and the ambition of her own, **Scion Vossa**. The task that loomed before her was both too great and too grand to fathom without heresy and so she pondered it greedily. The winds chased the Anneh Yabah to Barouge and on them Sister Mammon could hear the sound of a more spectacular suffering and the color in her cheeks was ruddy and high with the promise of glory.
[[Less grim than most Final Knight Bullshit. But definitely that same bullshit.]]
[[Put it down.]]
She was to steal, from that wandering city of Barouge, a Scionic Shard of spectacular size and power. That crystal, nested in the heart of an itinerant desert kingdom like an everburning ward against the night that presses inward; Scyon Vossa was the prize of kingdoms - and the power source for a city of some ten thousand. Sister Mammon was to steal this arcstone of their covenant and plunge their city into darkness and quiescence and so **Change** would come upon them.
And so the sun rose and descended over the Dune Sea and the caravans of the Anneh Yabah followed the road of glass that Barouge paved in its passing. Twin rivers of vitrified sand, superheated by the pressure of that city’s metalithic treads, broke under the heel of some five hundred rovers and served as a road and a map to the **Wandering Eye** with it’s high and mighty walls.
[[I feel like I know that name. Wandering Eye.]]
[[Put it down.]] A fortnight passed and in the early light of morning the spires of the city’s main control bridge crested the horizon in the west. The Anneh Yabah caravans, not built simply for the ponderous and stately promenade of common tradesfolk, evoked their shared majikk and to each house a Scyionic and to each magnificent ride a special and specific cell in which the Scyionic is kept for fuel and for speed, eeking out the monstrous energy that lives close to their bones and transforming it into glorious momentum.
In the space of three days the Anneh Yabah did reach the boarding docks of Barouge and it occurred to our Sister Mammon not for the first time that Barouge screamed. Distantly like a keening woman, intimately it roared with all the heat and fury of the thousand churning engines that keep its massive chassis, easily a quarter of a mile at its widest, moving at speed. Its underbelly looked a jumbled, welded mesh of steel members salvaged surely from the corpses of cities that existed before the Dune Sea and it was the walls of Barouge that resembled an iron mouth, gaping open around the city’s perimeter.
[[Metal.]]
[[Put it down.]]And it was with the practice of a thousand lifetimes that Sister Mammon did press her way into the city. She did not enter through their loud and lordly gates but rather in the business of the common and uncourtly she scaled the seamless edifice of Barouge’s walls using that ancient art of **Telekynetica**, propelling her own body gaily upward towards the unforgiving sun with only her will.
She did crest the rise like a winged predator and cast her sharp and knowing gaze down upon on the city below. Cloistered here and all places, its ten thousand people had grown soft and complacent and Sister Mammon knew it was her duty and her delight to show them the Glory of the **Great Perhaps** and to take from them the stability that hobbled.
[[She's just gonna fuck this whole place up, huh?]]
[[Put it down.]] And so she plunged into the Marketplace, unseen save for a single child in undyed linen who begged at the corner. Sister Mammon did place her hands on the child’s head and did not hate him for what the city had wrought from him. But she hated the city and its high walls for keeping the potential of its citizens inside as much as the threats that define them out. She gave the child her pouch of coins and told him and all Eternity, blind or otherwise.
*“Take what I have given you and make more with it. Be never satisfied, sibling, with the trappings of the present and pleasant things. Power begets power begets power. And the clout of coins only lasts so long as the city does. Make temporary power pemnement and spend it wisely.” *
She told the beggar child to flee the city and moved towards its center. The middle of the roving city rose up like a tower of perfect quartz, with a hollow at its crest that contained the purpose of her ingress. The Scion Vossa thummed with energy as maggikal as any godhead and Sister Mammon did know in the hollows of her heart that she would die retrieving her quarry.
**And she gloried in it. **
[[Dope.]]
[[Put it down.]]
With the incredible grace of a telekynetic Sister Mammon jumped and strode across the small and flat-roofed buildings at the city’s edge towards its crest and epicenter.
But her silhouette, white and red with those two gleaming guns, was well known and worrisome to the guards of Roving Barouge who sought her with their own magigiks and maladies and tried to kill the Black Vestal as she stalked her prey.
Each time they fell upon her, Sister Mammon did escape. Her image was like a mirage in the white heat of the Dune Sea and the courtly men of Barouge did not know her suffering and so their supple and softened hearts faltered before hers and spake red glory across the bricks of their homesteads.
[[She fuckin' gutted those dudes.]]
[[Put it down.]] The center of the city was encircled, when Sister Mammon reached it, by a brilliant wall the color of brass. Reflecting the sun it was impossible to look at in the noonday sun and would burn the eyes of all those brazen enough to gaze upon it.
But look upon it Sister Mammon did and, blind as an infant, she did scale those perfect and ardant walls till their zenith was beneath her and she arced over them as a peregrine falcon might the mountain’s top before plunging into the heart of the city and the heart of its defenses.
Sister Mammon did land lightly as her maggiks did allow and broke the neck of some forty guardsman who did stand between her and her quarry. She fell upon them without fury, for these men struggled and strove. But she did not spare them as it was a contest of will and Sister Mammon was a good and honest woman.
[[A real peach, I bet.]]
[[Put it down.]]Sister Mammon did stride up the steps of the **Ardant Castle** and to the great and brassy doors of the **Godking Nahlik**’s own estate and she did knock three and thirty times on the metal and waited duly and respectfully to be admitted. She did this because the door had not affronted her and was beautiful. She did this because the suffering was holy that birthed this art. **She did this because she chose to and it is the purview of the powerful to choose.**
But when the Godking Nahlik only sent more soldiers to shoot at her from the pigeonholes of his white castle she did open up herself upon the great and brassy door and smote it into seven pieces which shattered and clanged like a wedding bell on the stone steps at her feet.
[[A certified bad bitch.]]
[[Put it down.]]And it was those soldiers who shot from pigeon holes that she next killed and it was only one, a young woman who nearly bested her in an act of wild self-preservation, that she did spare long enough to brand with her sigil and then kill with her own two and honest hands. Later, that woman would become a queen in her own right. And it was her city that would come to power in the shadow of Barouqe’s passing. **Her name was Ardentia. And you may know her as the First Pharaoh. **
[[That what now?]]
[[Put it down.]]
Sister Mammon did push further into the seat of Barouqe’s power and she did sweep over its halls like a thick and rolling fog and spake blood across the walls as she wound her way up its many sharply architectured steps towards the headwaters of the city’s wealth.
And when she crested that perfect and final rise she did see the face of the Godking Nahlik who she had known once as an infant and whose mother she had loved and killed with her own two and honest hands. Sister Mammon spoke thusly to Godking Nahlik and to all Eternity Blind or Otherwise:
*“The seat of power must move, the sun must set and the moon rises again on the peoples of Baroque. The sky is bleached with your wealth and your radiance and no longer can your citizens love the suffering they endure for the glories they achieve. The Crystal and your Godhead must acquit this place and it is by my will and my arm I will see it done.”*
[[She's gonna fuckin' do it.]]
[[Put it down.]] And so Nahlik did not speak but instead gestured with his thin and smooth-ed fingers for his honor guard to dismantle the Black Vestal at the foot of his throne.
Fifty men in plate fell upon Sister Mammon who struggled and strove against them as the rocky edifice does the thin and salty spray thrown up by some distant ocean. Their blood rendered her a splendid hue in the hall of the Sunking as the day tended towards its end and the sky above them turned red and lovely, Sister Mammon did pursue the retreating and sickly form of God and Sun Nahlik to the final floor of his lofty palace.
[[Not today, bitch.]]
[[Put it down.]]
And in the middle of that great garden did sit the Scion Vossa, a scyonic crystal so huge as to outweigh the head of any nobleman and powerful enough to move a city at speed. Its color was citrine and the sun poured through it as words through the mouth of some distant and truthful god.
And in the middle of that great garden, Nahlik did rest his hands on the Scion Vossa and evoke for himself his art of Necrokenetics and set upon Sister Mammon with all the fury of those she had slain in the halls below.
But Sister Mammon had known greater suffering than any soldier she killed. And so she strode to the dais unmolested and set her own two and honest hands on the neck of Godking Nahlik and killed him as slowly as it was his sin that had rendered his people weak and his city fat and stupid.
[[Right...on?]]
[[Put it down.]]And it was as the last of Nahlik’s life slipped from his purpled lips that Sister Mammon did sprout forty arrows from her back as the last of the Sunking’s guard arrived but arrived too late. And it was with a terrible scream that Sister Mammon faltered but did not fail as her own blood spake across the many faces of the Scion Vossa.
In the seconds she had left to choose, Sister Mammon chose and stole the Scion Vossa from its dias and threw herself up into the air with every ounce of her majjak that remained in her dying body. High, high above the city of Barouge she drifted for mere seconds, at the crest of her arc she pondered the whole world beneath her and saw that it was good.
[[Mammon what will you DO.]]
[[Put it down.]]And then Black Vestal Mammon reached into the dark corners of herself and detonated the Scion Vossa over the Ardent Castle in the shadow of the true sun; a tropospheric nuclear explosion that rendered the city inert and unmoving for all the years ever after.
And Black Vestal Mammon did burn. **There in the empty sky above the city she wrought her will across the dunes as surely the Knight Furcas and Cemira before and as surely as Gaul Tyrson after** and the City of Baroque would never again rove, stranded in the middle of a terrible sea of superheated sand forevermore.
[[She fuckin' did it, I guess.]]
[[Put it down.]]But its people would grow strong, after they died. And it was the strength of their hatred that saved them and the church of the Black Vestal that begat all that they would become ever after.
---
Welp. There you have it. [[Put it down.]] "The most simple and foremost rule of the universe is simple.
From Destruction springs Creation. From Chaos, Order must arise. Death always gives way to life.
This is the rule, and for this rule, there is no exception.
But when I look at the world around me, I am filled with sickness and BLACK bile, as I see the multitudes oblivious to this, most simple of understanding. The masses fail to comprehend the most basic of the basics.
We have long since lost our way, forgotten ourselves in the sea of leisure we possess.
Tell me honestly, how can one know who he is, if he has faced no trauma?
[[For what is clearly a King's Court text, this is feeling very Knighty.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] (colour: red) [*From the Journal of Ericsson von Hulu-Netflix-Washbourne the 4th*
**On The Light of Hedon and Other Things**
Certainly, reader, as you travel the wastes you have encountered many of the various ignorant masses wasting their time with ground spirit worship. Or maybe it is some pedagogue that insists it speaks for a great Oldcestor device—as likely to be little more than a bread warmer as it is to be some horrific doomsday device. As someone that has set off at least six world-ending devices, I assure you that our bodies have evolved far beyond the capability to assign divinity to such things. They are a major nuisance for a few years at most now—but I’m no Graverobber, so don’t expect some bullshit triste on our rejuvenating nature.
If you are reading this, then you were probably properly educated at a settlement and are at least familiar with the major religions of my day. Hopefully you aren’t a fucking idiot Tribe of Seasons that some equally stupid yokle took pity on and taught how to read. If so IGNORE EVERYTHING IN THIS JOURNAL ABOUT HOW TO BUILD SHIT! I know your plans, you ditch sitters.]
[[This dude is rude. But also slaps??]]
[[Be done reading this.]]You open it. You don't know how this got here, or why it qualifies as a religious text.
[[Read it anyways.]] The old book is falling apart. It probably lived through the bomb that leveled Old Bravo.
[[Read it then.]] You gather your things and [[END ADVENTURE: Go downstairs.]]Allow me to expound; I understand that problems exist in every man’s life, these problems do in fact shape the way he views the world, and of these petty, squabbling issues, I do not refer. The common man may grow up without a father, lonely, a social outcast, without a penny to his name, becoming well acquainted with death and misery, and still have no earthly idea of the trauma life can inflict upon him.
We have sat in stagnation for such a monumental time that a clear path is no longer obvious.
The “Self” in Selfish, has replaced the “I” in Individual.
A slave to his simple satisfactions, how can a man understand his nature? That, primal, powerful, pure essence, the most basic make up of his inner being, the elusive bit of his existence that, at its purest root, defines him as human.
[[Dense. Suffering breeds...security?]]
[[Be done reading this.]]You hear the bell ring below. It must be time.
[[END ADVENTURE: Go downstairs.]] Being that man no longer understands himself, how could he scrub the satisfactions of his life away and reclaim that vital part of his very soul that he has so lost touch with?
**PAIN**
Pain, pain to the point that a man forgets himself, and the thresholds he once held crushed so completely, that everything he knew is erased, and only the true essence of his being remains.
A Baptism by fire.
And it is for this clear, concise reason that we must Act."
[[Oh. It keeps going.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
"I’ve begun my song in a folded paper without lyrics, I will sing to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life.
Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the page disintegrates, we will perhaps again sing, tutor and learn. When this paper symphony joins the soil, and carves parallel musical lines in the dark, we will sing together.
If only the Hermit had experienced this, they would have realised their own symphony, as am I now. Just as I am becoming this song, so he became his travels, retreating into the burning roads, the music, the infection.
Returning to my shrine afterwards, hands still shaking and a head split open by the impact. Goodbye to tearful friends and traumatised family, goodbye to the symphony, goodbye to the tangible, goodbye Sound, goodbye Melody, goodbye music, goodbye Old Bravo.
[[Oh wow. That dates this. This probably shouldn't exist.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] This road is dark in the moonlight; it is hard to navigate with such insufficient light.
There are lines of Music reflected in these tragedies. The nightmare creatures have risen to the surface, but the music cannot allow them to stay. I have become fixed: open and staring, an ear turned on itself. I have become a silent song, whose lines form a perfect map of Bravo.
Blind with panic, deaf with the roar of the battle, heart stopped on those killing fields
I have run out of places to weep. I will abandon this body and call it once again mere robes.
We will lead new signal in the air, invisible lines etched into the sky"
[[Depressing, dude.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] "Perhaps for some people who think about it, there’s nothing but infinite oblivion, the eternal erasure of your consciousness, or for some it’s eternal life and their God’s glorious kingdom or eternal cycling through all the inhabitants of their world.
Any of these options, any of them are just-- erasure, or contentment or revival, any of them are fine as abstract concepts. But eternally, eternally? You can’t possibly conceive of the length of eternity.
**I have.** It’s maddening and hopeless but it’s this burden we’re all saddled with from the moment of our creation. It’s a finish line that, by its definition, will never arrive.
It stretches forever and ever, it’s too ambivalent to even taunt those trapped behind it. It is the cruel price of existence and it is too horrible to bear once you’ve seen it. Existence, life, is… horrible.
To exist... to live is horrible."
----
[[That's plenty, thanks,]]
Double-click this passage to edit it.(colour: red) [With that out of the way, you’ve seen me mention I am a follower of the Light of Hedon before, and if you don’t wipe your ass with a pine cone and dress in itch-vine to prove to the seasons how strong you are, then you are probably asking how such an erudite individual as the famous Ericsson von Hulu-Netflix-Washbourne the 4th could possibly waste his incredible mental acuity on acts of distinctly disprovable happenstance.
First of all, I know you said Netflix instead of my proper name. Secondly, shut the fuck up and listen instead of asking stupid questions, if you were so smart you would not be reading the personal diary collections of the most intelligent mind of the modern era, would you?
Now that your peanut brain is properly chagrined, it is like this: the Light is a philosophy, not some incense burning, animal sacrificing hooey that one does in order to make sure the mean hot ball in the sky comes up and let’s us all see the scary shambling hordes during the day.]
[[Inflammatory. They don't make em like this anymore.]]
[[Be done reading this.]](colour: red) [I ain’t saying some of the faithful--I AM AWARE OF THE HYPOCRISY IN MOCKING RELIGIONS AND THEN CALLING MY FELLOWS IN THE LIGHT FAITHFUL. YOU DID NOT GET SOME CLEVER MIND PLAY OVER ME, YOU ARE AN IGNORANT SAVAGE NOT FIT TO LICK MY BUTT CLEAN WITH YOUR NOSE!—don’t act like this. Some build shrines and fucking alters to the seven sins. To each their own, to me, they’re fucking idiots, but one of the greatest tenants we follow is not to ruin someone else’s good time. So I usually just call them morons and take a piss and call it a day.
So here is why you, enterprising future innovator here to beg from my genius, should follow the Light. It is the only one of the major civilized religions that tells you to take care of yourself AND help others. “Oh, but Mr. von Hulu-Netflix-Washbourne the 4th, what about the Final Knights?” Did a donkey kick you in the head as a baby? Do you have donkey brain? The Final Knights are out for themselves at all costs, they are the ultimate Spoilers. “Oh, but I know this ONE Final Knight—” NO! SHUT YOUR WORD HOLE THAT MAKES THE INVISIBLE SOUNDS OF WHAT YOU IMAGINE MY VOICE TO SOUND LIKE AS YOU READ THIS! You don’t know a good Final Knight, you are a fucking sucker and they are scamming you. That Final Knight still eats people and is using their money to hang themselves from hooks and scream about how amazing they are. Don’t be an idiot.]
[[Don't be an idiot. Got it.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] (colour: red) [So, as a builder, you need to think bigger than yourself, is what I am saying. The Light might extol the “sins” of the World Before—and do not be mistaken, they ARE sins in excess or when used to rob others of their Good Time. To survive in this morass that our Oldcestors left us with you need to have Pride in what you do, and in yourself—that’s how you hold onto hope when so much will be taken from you in your life.
You need to Envy what others have, so you can strive to have just as much and make them Envy you in order to strive to out pace YOU—that’s how a healthy community grows.
You need to indulge in Gluttony whenever food and comforts are plentiful—it is how you celebrate all of the hardship you have, and will endure.
You must be Greedy, seek out supplies and trade for your settlement in excess—a community cannot grow without such.]
[[Makes sense so far.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] (colour: red) [You need to Lust for a better today—because there is no tomorrow, anyone that says otherwise is a hoarding garbage dump that lacks the basic understandings of how economics works.
You need to luxuriate in Sloth on the rest day—because hard work gives rest its meaning.
Finally, let anyone that crosses you know the extent of your Wrath—because otherwise HOW WILL THEY KNOW? YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THEY KNOW!
All seven in balance, but there is one sin that must be used least of all for it is the most destructive in this Wasteland we call home. I hear your sad shit brain already assuming I mean Wrath, because you are a pathetic wretch that needs MY GENIUS to help you build a better future! No, spit-sucker, it is SLOTH that is the most dangerous of all. Sloth leads one to languish, to stop seeking, to stop bettering. It becomes less about creating and more about taking from others. The overly Slothful are the worst of Spoilers, for it is they that ruin everyone’s **Good Time.**]
[[There's a bunch of missing pages here. But it picks up again.]]
[[Be done reading this.]](colour: red) [You will see Spoiler Hierophants, maybe you have only seen them. They are the ones that openly brag about how they are the Hierophant. They are the ones that demand tribute, and give little in return. They only communicate through shouted demands and demeaning lectures about how you are not earning enough. Put those fuckers in the ground, spit on them—then give them a hand up and tell them how worried you are about how severely out of balance they are by allowing other sins to take root in them.
A Hierophant should be monuments to Sloth, they should be passively taking your tribute with a thanks and a blessing. They should redistribute those resources where they will do the most good for the community. They should stoke your Lust to find more through inspiration—and they should do nothing else and allow you to provide.
If a Hierophant is doing more work than their flock, they must be removed and a more generous and much lazier individual take their place. For the good of the Light. For the good of the community. For the good of your ear drums.]
[[For a very angry, probably dead Pureblood, this Netflix guy is pretty reasonable.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
(colour: red) [I end with this, promising builder of the future—even if you have mud in your brain and choose not follow the Light, at least do this. **Remember that nothing matters.** Nothing. That statue you built? It will be rust and ruins. That radio tower that is standing by your blood sweat and tears? It will be blown up in a raid soon.
Everything changes, nothing stays the same. Live in the now. When life takes everything from you—and take it from me, even if you think your tragic backstory means nothing can ever be taken from you, life will find a way you fucking Final Knight wannabe—feel that pain. Let it hurt, rage, cry, scream, hold to your family and friends. Whatever you need. Then repeat these holy words, and move on:]
[[Flip it.]]
[[Be done reading this.]](colour: red)+(css: "font-size: 300%;")[**“That was ten minuets ago.”
**]
(colour: red)[Grudges are for simpletons. Be better than that. They want to see you hurt, they want to be remembered. The best revenge is forgiveness and forgetting. Trust me—nothing makes a Final Knight bullshit artist rage more than greeting them with open arms after beating the shit out of them for what they did to you.
**-Ericsson von Hulu-Netflix-Washbourne the 4th**]
----
[[Be done reading this.]]
PaMa Roux got me this little book to write my thoughts in. They say that if I can explain what happens it will help me feel better.
[[Who wrote this, a kid?]]
[[Be done reading this.]] *How many miles to Bravado?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by soft moon-light?
Yes, and back again..
If your heels are nimble and your toes are light,
You may get there by soft moon-light.*
[[Cute.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] The cycle moves through us all. As I wax and wane, I feel my own understanding of the world wax and wane. The full moon is the climax of death and destruction. The new moon, born again, brings hope of an ever new love.
[[Some kind of...moon worshipper then.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] Death and Life are the only truths. Through Death comes new Life. We cannot move forward without allowing the cycle to progress. Slinky was nice. She made sure Life came for me.
[[Huh?]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
(css: "font-size: 300%;")[I am the Moon. ]
(css: "font-size: 250%;")[I am the Moon. ]
(css: "font-size: 200%;")[I am the Moon. ]
(css: "font-size: 150%;")[I am the Moon.]
(css: "font-size: 100%;")[I am the Moon. ]
(css: "font-size: 50%;")[I am the Moon. ]
(css: "font-size: 30%;")[I am the Moon. ]
(css: "font-size: 10%;")[I am the Moon.]
[[Oh. No. They're fucking insane.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]For each season, for each natural element, there is an Avatar. I am the Moon. You must be tested. If you fail, you must leave the cycle so that the next Avatar may move forward into the place you left empty by your inability to succeed. I am the Moon. I will not fail.
[[Informative. Thank you, literally-the-moon.]]
[[Be done reading this.]] (text-rotate:45)[Essex Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.
Essex Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.
Essex Bridge is broken down,
Broken down, broken down.
Essex Bridge is broken down,
My fair lady.]
[[Is this just a...kid's journal?]]
[[Be done reading this.]] The seasons have no beginning and no end. They continue in ceaseless harmony, as the tides upon the shores, as the Moon across the sky.
We never rest, the cycle continues on and on.
When Death comes for me once and for all, I will rest. Until then, the Moon needs to pull the tides, the Moon needs to perform their dance with the Suns, the Moon must (css: "font-size: 120%;")[go and go and] (css: "font-size: 100%;")[go and go and go] (css: "font-size: 80%;")[and go and go and go and go and] (css: "font-size: 50%;")[ go and go and] (css: "font-size: 30%;")[go and go and go]
----
[[Be done reading this.]]
In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.
The old tenets:
* Hunger is suffering; the horde’s hunger is insatiable.
* Life is imperfect, empty, and fleeting.
* Seek out lore so you may better understand Death and the Grave.
* Those who truly understand the Grave will never be a slave to it.
* Peace lives in the void.
[[An old Robber practice. You've heard of this.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earths masters or that the common bulk of life and substances walks alone.
The grave minds were, the grave minds are, and the grave minds shall be.
Not in the spaces we know but between them. They walk serene and primal. The wind gibbers with their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. As a foulness shall ye know them.
Their hand is at your throats ye they see them not and their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Man rules now where they ruled once.
They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall they reign again.
[[Cheerful. Just like a Robber.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
There is only one more page, a looseleaf piece. In a messy scrawl:
*It's lost. There is no peace anymore. Everything I understood has changed, was it ever true? What lore is left to seek out, what good would it be? There is nowhere left to turn from this this empty, fleeting life, and nothing can save me from that hunger."*
-----
[[Be done reading this.]]
You descend into the main hall of the chapel and see those gathered have assembled themselves. Where previously this was sold to you as a kind of Allfaith's meeting you now realize has been usurped for the purposes of Pfilomena Lovelace, who now stands at the pulpit.
[[Well, you might as well listen.]] “Children of my flock and those who seek the same absolution I do. Thank you for coming and hearing me today of all days. I am Pfilomena Lovelace and this afternoon after lunch I will Commit myself to the Tiny God who rules us and attune my Infection to its purpose.”
The crowd around you shifts, some uncomfortable others excited.
“The Fountainhead has spoken. To me. To others. And it has promised us something nearly unfathomable.
The Fountainhead has promised us a better world.”
[[So have others.]]
"First we will dream together. A better world in the theatre of the Mortis and we will tell those stories gaily and hopefully and fill the mind of our Tiny God with frank and beautiful imaginings that spur it to creation and art.”
Pfilomena raises a calcified stump to the congregation, as if imploring them to take it.
“We will cleanse the land and calm the seas. We will cool the Burning Season herself and this land will be good for all men of all stripe and stroke. We will achieve all these things not through the hard toil of war but through the simple and supplicating hope for something better.”
[[...]]
“Because the Fountainhead wills it. Because we will it. We will not waste this gift and boon from those who walked this land before us. We will take their apology. We will make a better world with the tools they have left us and Essex will be a bright and shining beacon for all the Wasteland to look upon and emulate.”
It looks as if Pfilomena Lovelace is beginning to cry.
“I can only wish I could be here to see it.”
[[Lady, people come back.]]
"My Infection will be fully committed. I do not intend to return from this pilgramage. But in the beautiful trees that follow in my wake I hope that my flock recalls the hope we felt today and the conviction that leads to greatness for all."
[[Oh. Okay.]] Pfilomena Lovelace extends both arms outward, as if she will take flight. The stumps at her wrists are dry and white.
"Go! Dream! Walk into the Atrium of the Fountainhead and instruct the world we will live in when the sun rises tomorrow. Make it brave. Make it brilliant. Make it worth it."
The gathered cultists scream their support. Many others stay silent.
But when Pfilomena Lovelace moves to march to the center of the city and beging the process she describes
[[Every single person in that chapel follows her.]] (align: "===><===")+(css: "font-size: 300%;") [F I N ]
Thanks for reading! This is just the first adventure of the day! We've got plenty more planned for you.
From all of us at the DRTX team, welcome to Lonestar Skies: Galatea!
See you out there!
<3
-Shan and Aesa You unlock the box and remove the letter. It's recent. You might even recognize the handwriting. It's pink.
[[Charming.]] (colour: red + white) [
From the desk of Conradine Charming
My dearest Landra,
When we spoke aboard the Ox, you expressed interest in a deeper explanation of the Signal. I’m more than happy to deliver.
Think back to our conversation for a moment, or any conversation. A person sends you a message, and you receive it. You send one back, and they receive it. And it continues on. When the first conscious minds began sending these kinds of messages to one other, that’s when the Signal was born.
And the Signal propogates itself. It can do so simply, through speaking or writing or even body language - and more complicatedly as through the radio and oracle boxes - and via all manner of amazing technologies that we lost to the Fall when the Oldcesters forgot what the Signal was for, using it not to connect and spread helpful good, but to spotlight and lie, to persecute and divide.]
[[Aah. A coherent explaination of the Signal. You can see why this was locked in a box.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
(colour: red + white) [You’ll notice when someone unacquainted with the faith thinks about the Telling Visionaries, often they’ll just see the celebrations, the plays, the silly going-ons that seem to have so little depth, and think that’s all there is to us. But those things aren’t the point. That’s not really what the Signal is for either. Those things are merely celebrations of the fact that we CAN do those things in the first place.
When those unfamiliar to it first hear of Scripts, they think a Telling Visionary chooses one and molds their entire view of the world around it, putting blinders on to other ways of thinking. That’s not the case. Think if it thusly: when you hear a story, it hasn’t added anything to you but a new memory. But if the story truly resonates with you, it teaches you something that’s already important to you - something you already have inside you. That, my dear, is what a script is for!]
[[Huh. Okay.]] (colour: red + white) [Moreover, the Signal teaches us that every faith is not only real, but actively needed. The Darwins try to restore the technologies that propagate it. The Nuclear Family and Fallow Hope take certain narratives and keep entire communities safe with them… and of course, there are so many more examples (but I only have so much paper, and more to say than I can fit on it).
Lastly, the tenet that many have the most trouble with is that the Signal is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I’ll explain that. First, think of a rock sitting on the ground. It can’t send a message to another rock, or do anything whatsoever. Now think of great authors, playwrights, even musicians, scientists. Imagine how much those people cared about those ideas - so much that they wanted to share them throughout the whole world.]
[[Gutsy. Let's see how she rounds it out.]]
[[Be done reading this.]]
(colour: red + white) [Now with that longing in mind… realize how much the Signal itself must have longed for a way to be carried and shared. **It wanted that so much, consciousness was the natural result.**
I would love to continue our talks at some future point. Until then, I wish you only the best of scenes.
Ever yours,
*Conradine Charming
Talent Manager*]
----
[[Be done reading this.]]