//“For there is a musicke where-ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus farre we may maintain the musick of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the eare, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whatsoever is harmonically composed, delights in harmony.”//
[[Follow the Music]]
The City of Essex is a paradise of light and sound and rare beauty against the featureless blastland of the Lonestar wastes. Built on the corpses of a dozen cities that came before it, the first stop on the Bravado line, Essex is a metropolitan hub composed of steel manufacturers, watering holes and the penultimate seat of the Grave Council, a bank of incredible size where all the violence in the Lonestar is recorded by placid Full-Dead in dusty accountant’s suits.
You are traveling there now. Perhaps to celebrate the anniversery of the end of [[The Hiway War]] at the [[Festival of Light and Sound]].
Or perhaps to see [[The Fountainhead]].
Either way, you’re going. How do you arrive?
[[By the Ox]]
[[By Boat]]
[[By Airship]]
When Hiway Robb was finally killed at the zenith of the Hiway War, twenty-one Braves gave their lives to hold off the Stampede, a legendary horde of Zed so great in size that it covered entire cities and their surrounding countrysides with moving corpses. A kind of legged ocean of gnashing teeth and clawed and grasping hands that tore down infrastructure as quickly as it dismantled the bodies of those unfortunate to run counter to its flow.
Destroyed by a psionic bomb designed not only to atomize the biomass of the Stampede - but to erase the collective imprint from the Mortis itself, the Stampede now rests safely in the collective and lengthy memory of Lonestar survivors.
The Festival of Light and Sound is held for twenty-one days every year to mark the end of that terrible conflict. Essex is a city of music and rare beauty. Courtiers from the Wastes All Over attend and attest the memory of an old war with new and lovely things.
[[Follow the Music]] The Fountainhead was, originally, a pre-fall terraforming biocomputer designed for the cyclic process of matter for the purpose of ecological maintenance. A hopeful rocket, shot into the infinite darkness of the future that sputtered and failed before it could arrive.
Until now. The Fountainhead, after eons at the knee of the Mortis Amaranthine, has woken up.
You have heard this infant morgue, man-made by those who could not possibly understand the implications of their high-science,
Can think.
[[Follow the Music]] The rhythmic clanking of steel wheels over steel tracks lulled you to sleep about an hour ago. The metal-voiced scream of breaks against both wakes you up now.
The Ox, a massive train built out of a dozen different derelict construction vehicles, various retrofitted locomotives and the engine of a single downed jet plane, bears you into Essex.
The Ox runs the Bravado Line between the boomtown of Bravado and the tradetown of Essex and exchanges between the two cities raw goods, manufactured products, and - in the case of the car in which you currently reside, people.
[[Look around the train-car]]
The shipyard of Essex is found at the end of a long and snaking estuary that begins at the Spoiled Coast. For the better part of three hours, your boat has navigated the slimy and oil-slick waters that characterize this part of the Lonestar wastes. You avoid phantom crags and grasping zed and isolated patches of flaming topography where the brine of salt and diesel has ignited and cast the stony shelves that surround you in a wavering, soft relief.
It has been a very long morning.
The town of Essex lies before you now, the prow of your boat knocks gently into the rubber-encased dock that floats haphazardly a few feet out from shore. With all the practice of professionals, the boat’s lines are tied off and the ship properly moored.
Distantly, you smell something delicious. The sound of music is thick on the wind.
[[Disembark]]
Below you, the tradetown of Essex looks like a series of dilapidated, concentric circles. You peer out of a pane of blast-glass three inches thick and wonder, offhandedly, where it came from. Your breath mists the plexi.
The airship you ride in hums beneath your feet. You can feel the heart of the great machine thrumming with all the gravitas of tectonic motion, air bladders expanding and deflating in real-time to maintain the ship’s relative axis. Coolant pumping through pipes that might as well be veins, and the distant and military shouts of the crew as they coordinate the flight path into The Scrapes.
[[Look at the City]] Four years ago, an undead warlord of incredible conviction ran roughshod over the Lonestar wastes. Hiway Robb, namesake of the Hiway War, sought to tear down the establishment that choked and chafed the Lonestar’s common man. For seven years of blood and strife, he sought it.
And in the end, he succeeded. The ruling class of pureblood Oil Barons fell into anonymity, their lands forfeited to superior arms, their families killed and their dynasties scattered. The unfortunate who labored beneath the Barons rose up in a tidal wave of righteous and angry hope and wiped clean the slate of the world with the bloodied shirtsleeves of their former masters.
And then, some argue, they failed in the final mile. In the vacuum of power created by the Hiway Conflict, the hungry and downtrodden took upon themselves the mantles of their oppressors and new powers rose to take their place, creating a new class of oppressed in the shadow of old pain.
In the Lonestar we have a saying as old as the war. //“Everything happening has happened before.” //
But recently we’ve taken to the affix, hopefully,
//“But that does not mean that it will always happen.”//
[[Follow the Music]] There are dozens of bodies pressed into this train car. Slightly claustrophobic, the crowd shuffles slowly, making space and taking it. A space opens and a woman fills it by sitting next to you. Her face is nondescript, her hair is brown and braided and her clothes are worn. But she carries a case for what you assume is a guitar and her smile looks line sunshine breaking through the marine layer.
“You comin’ up for the Festival?” She asks. Her voice is soft and lilting. It reminds you of a pureblood accent but you can’t be sure.
[[Say that you are.]]
[[Say that you’re here for something else.]]
Your feet touch the cobblestones of the Docks proper and for a moment you feel like the world is swaying around you. But it passes as quickly and your land legs are as good as your sea ones.
The docks are loud, sailors shout from the prows of their ships down to the sailors that fasten cleatlines who in turn yell at their dockmaster to pass the message along with yet more powerful lungs.
The smell of cooked and seasoned fish is nearly as distracting and you see the telltale shape of a pop-up bar with smoke pouring out the makeshift chimny just half a block down.
[[Head into The Swaying Anker]]
[[Explore Essex]] It goes on...for a long time. Essex is big - a metropolis by the wasteland standard. You can see from your vantage that the city possesses four quarters, a dockyard and a train station - measures of wealth largely unheard of and funded, you expect, by the taxes imposed on travel into the city as well as upon the Grave Bureau - which, even from this height, stands out as one of the largest buildings in the city; a megalith of brass and stonework.
The docks are thick with activity. Miniature by distance, ships pole their way up the delta from the Spoiled Coast and their passengers disembark into a flurry of bodies. You cannot pick out any single individual in the crowds below.
To the east you see the dark wound in the dirt - the Dead Drop; Essex’s largest morgue and really no more than a cleft in the blastland too deep to climb out of. Bodies pile up there. Zed pressed shoulder to shoulder, with only their rotten heads exposed to the noonday sun…not wholly distinct from your view of the docks.
Eew. Anyways. You’re nearly there now.
[[Dock and Disembark]]
"Me too!" She replies, teeth flashing in a grin. "I've been workin' on a song to perform too."
[[Ask to hear it.]]
[[Nod politely.]] "The Fountainhead then?" She inquires, eyebrows dissapearing into her fringe incredulously. "You're a tourist?"
[["A professional, actually."]]
[["An interested party, at the very least."]]
Her face, if possible, brightens further. "Sure! I'm Kashmere by the way."
She reaches down and flicks open the guitar case. Inside is an instrument so old you think someone probably thumbed out a tune on it when the bombs started to fall.
Kashmere lifts the thing into her lap and strums a few notes. When she sings her voice is like scratchy honey;
//"Oh when I went down to 'Vado
I was in the rents -
And the Grave Tax was soon to be due,
So I did the only thing I could,
I teamed up with you!"//
She bangs out a catchy tune that echoes her words and continues,
//"We were like a Bonnie and Clyde
Or a Jesse and James,
We dogged till the law was dead,
And when 'tween us there was a pile of Brass,
You shot me in the head!"//
[[Clap]]
[["Wow that was terrible."]]
"Anyways I'm performin' up at the Amberdraught's estate - or what's left of it, later today. You should bring your friends and come watch me!"
[[Get ready to disembark]] Her eyes go wide, like dinner plates. "Wow. You're a Grave Robber? You know anything about that music folk keep goin' on about since the Fountainhead rose up?"
[[Reply that you have.]]
[[Reply that you haven't.]] She nods. "I got no clue what's goin' on with that thing. But you heard of the Grave Music people keep goin' on about?"
[[Reply that you have.]]
[[Reply that you haven't.]] Kashmere stops strumming and grins. "Thanks! I'm going to perform it the whole way through up at Amberdraught's estate later today. Come watch me!"
The train begins to slow further, pressing you into her shoulder. Kashmere puts her guitar away. "Thanks for letting me sing for you. You looked like the kind of person who'd say yes to something like that."
[[Say that you’re here for something else.]]
[[Get ready to disembark]]Kashmere's closes like a fist and you can see her insides collapse.
"Oh. Sorry to bother you with it."
[[Apologize to her]]
[[Get ready to disembark]]
You disembark into the Ox Yard.The train station sits in the geographic center of the city - Essex being built around it from its inception. The Ox Yard is a huge circle of grassless dirt, partitioned off with ancient cattle guard, where the shipping containers either recently unloaded or imminently to-load are stored. The poorest of Essex and the surrounding wastes sleep and work here. Laborers looking for their next meal unload cargo from shipping containers into flatback pickups and deadsleads to be carted across the greater Lonestar Wastes.
[[Explore Essex]]
She shrugs, "at least you're honest. I'll try and...fix it by this afternoon. I'm performing it up at Amberdraught's estate for part of the Festival. Maybe...it'll be better by then."
[[Get ready to disembark]] "Gosh, I hope you figure out what's goin' on then." She replies feverently, "My grandpa woke up last week in a terror when he heard the music in his dreams. He woke up with one of those crystals clutched in his hand. The ones that put music in your mind?"
[[((LORE MORTIS AMARANTHINE)) "We're calling them symphonic lattices. At least for now. They're crystalized memories. Just...of music."]]
[["I've heard of them. But only a little."]]"Oh boy howdy," She begins with the kind of mad energy that characterizes a gossip, "The Grave Music sweeps you up and carries you off while you're sleeping, I hear. My gramps heard it last week in his dreams and he woke up with one of them crystals in his hand - the kind that's been cropping up since the Fountainhead rose up. They each got a song in 'em."
[["What was your Grandfather's song?"]]
[[((LORE MORTIS AMARANTHINE)) "Those crystals are called symphonic lattices - at least until we have a better word to describe them."]]She nods "Big word. I was...hopin' to find one myself. Just for me. A song all my own."
[[Get ready to disembark]] "I only know a little myself." She confesses, "but I'm hopin' I find one myself. With a song just for me."
[[Get ready to disembark]] She smiles softly, "It's called Fiddler's Green. He told me it's an old sailing tune he sang as a boy."
[[Get ready to disembark]] She nods "Big word. I was...hopin' to find one myself. Just for me. A song all my own."
[[Get ready to disembark]] The bar is cool and well-kept. It's propriator a Baywalker to the bone, Roscoe specializes in a particular drink, dangerously blue, dangerously alcoholic - and possessing a gummie shark you understand has absolutely no connection to the [[Candy Store]], another well-known Essex establishment.
[[Order a Dark and Stormy]]
[[Order some food.]]
[[Ask after the town gossip.]]
[[Explore Essex]] You're in the city properly now. You know there's supposed to be some kind of event up at the Amberdraught estate here in a bit. But you could kill some time in the city until then.
[[Explore The Grave Quarter]]
[[Explore the Scrapes]]
[[Explore The Docks]]
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]]
[[((IF YOU ARE READY FOR THIS ADVENTURE TO END)) Head up to the Amberdraught Estate.]]
“The Candy Shop” has stood in Essex since its inception, and will likely last until the town’s demise. Pressed and suffocating between two huge steel mills, The Candy Shop is little more than a perfunctory veneer for the largest Crystal Candy manufacturer in the Lonestar; the best kept secret everybody knows."You've heard of me, then." The baywalker winks and mixes the drink with all the practice of a professional.
When you drink it you stifle a cough. It's good - but it's strong. The gummie shark tastes exactly like every other gummie candy you've eaten in your life. But it feels a little special.
[[Order some food.]]
[[Explore Essex]] Another figure, a husky and mustached cowboy of a man, brings out a plate of fish and fried potatoes. You eat them. It makes your entire day better. You consider changing your socks too.
[[Explore Essex]] The airship descends slowly to the level of an ancient oldcestor building - or the skeleton of it. Built of stronger steel than we can fathom now, this spire has endured - you expect- since the fall.
Teams of dockworkers throw up lines to the airship's crew, the bladders beneath your boots inflate and you can feel the ship descend until it is roughly level with the haphazard outcropping of metal that serves as a tie off for the gondola of the zeppelin.
In a flurry of activity the dockfolk secure the lines and thus the airship. The cabin door depressurizes and you step out and onto the windy roof of a skyscraper that bends and flexes beneath you. You stumble as the ground pitches.
[[Oh god oh god oh god.]]
[[((LORE WASTELAND SCIENCE)) Oldcestor buildings were built to flex. We wouldn’t be safe if it WEREN’T bending like this.]]
A rough arm catches yours and you do not fall. An Rover, you expect by the scarves, hauls you to your feet. "Watch it," he says not unkindly, "I'll walk you to the stairwell."
[[Walk with him.]]
[[((SKILL BALANCE)) "I'm fine."]]
You don't panic, but you do stumble. A rough hand catches you before you pitch to the ground and a Rover, you can tell by the scarves, steadies you. "Hey buddy, watch yourself." He says not unkindly, "Let me walk you to the stairwell."
[[Walk with him.]]
[[((SKILL BALANCE)) "I'm fine."]] The building pitches again and the Rover, whom you now realize is much older than you thought, catches your arm in a strong grip. Together you walk to the stairwell and out of the wind.
Inside the building you can still hear the roar of the wind outside - but it is quiet enough to have a conversation.
"Howdy, Partner. You okay? It's always a trip - or uh, well it wasn't this time at least."
[[Introduce yourself.]]
Excuse yourself and leave to [[Explore Essex]] The building pitches again and this time the Rover, whom you now realize is much older than you thought, himself stumbles. You catch him by instinct and together you walk to the stairwell and out of the wind.
Inside the building you can still hear the roar of the wind outside - but it is quiet enough to have a conversation.
"Thanks, partner." The Rover says, putting his hands on his knees and breathing deeply, "Always a trip - or never, ideally."
[[Introduce yourself.]]
Leave him be and [[Explore Essex]] "Pleasure." He replies, starting down the long staircase to the building's bottom floor. A series of switchbacks, repaired and retrofitted for all the years between now and the Fall, the stairs are nearly as dangerous as the roof you've just departed.
"Name's Jimothy Bishop but most folks call me JB." The old Rover introduces himself. "You hear for the Festival?"
[["I am."]]
[["No, the Fountainhead."]] "Aahh - so am I." He replies with a largely toothless grin. "I brought me a song all the way from Waking to perform at the Amberdraught e-state later today." He streaches out the 'e' in estate so long you think it might break the vowel.
[[Ask to hear his song.]]
[[Nod politely and continue down the stairs.]]
"Aah are you one of them specialists then? Them Graveheads who make math outta magic?"
[[((GRAVE ROBBER OR GRAVE ATTUNED))"I suppose you could say that."]]
[["No. Just an enfranchised citizen.]]
He pulls out a tiny guitar, the tiniest you've ever seen, and without missing a beat begins to play and to sing. His voice sounds wheezey but his ear is perfect. The song marches on like a hymn.
//"I was many miles from Bravo when the bomb shook the earth.
I was chilled to my narrow bones and wide-eyed with thirst - -
I was many miles from Bravo but I knew that you had gone
I hope you took what you could 'for the bomb pushed you on."//
He pauses a beat to retune and you realize you're probably about half-way to the bottom of the spire.
//"And I thought you might be home by now"// JB says planitively - and continues,
//"But you're many miles from Bravo with our father and our son.
So take what you can 'for the Grave takes someone."//
[["That wasn't bad!"]]
[["That was, in fact, very bad."]] You leave the Rover be and move on yourself. The staircase is long, nearly 60 floors, but eventually you get to the bottom and find yourself among the dessicated skeletons of a few hundred sky scrapers. As if amongst a bunch of burnt-out trees, you find yourself on the edge of Essex.
[[Explore Essex]] "Well neat!" JB says, "You know anythin' about that Grave Music that's been permeatin' the zeitgeist of the city n' all that?"
[["Insomuch as I know it some kind of psionc interaction - or a function thereof - between the local Mortis Amaranthine and the Fountainhead."]]
[["Yeah. It's probably got something to do with the Festival going on. What we do up here affects what's going on...down there."]]
"Aah. I gotcha. Well you know I veen workin' on some music for a show later today..."
[[Ask to hear his song.]]
He grins again, "Thanks! I'll be singing it later at Amberdraught's estate. I hope you come listen to the rest. I hope she does too."
For a moment the old Rover's eyes go distant and pained. You can't grow old, you muse, unscathed.
You arrive at the bottom of the spire and part ways. Around you are the towering skeletons of ancient buildings whose purpose escapes you.
Welcome to "The Scrapes."
[[Explore Essex]] His face hardens. No one likes a critic. "Well I suppose you'd better avoid the Amberdraught e-state later today, partner. 'Cause I'll be belting that one till she hears me."
JB quickens his pace and leaves you behind. Eventually you make it to the bottom of the spire and into the sprawling quarter of the city entitled "The Scrapes."
[[Explore Essex]] "There's too much for one man," Roscoe complains, "Too much going on for that kind of question, pal. Narrow it down for me."
[["Well - what about that Grave Music I've been hearing about?"]]
[["Tell me about the Fountainhead."]]
[["I heard something about music crystals?"]]
[[Explore Essex]] He nods as if this makes perfect sense. "O'course. The ol' Gravemind never mindin' her own business, eeh?"
Eventually you make it to the bottom of the spire and part ways. JB reminds you he's playing his set in a few hours up at the Amberdraught estate.
[[Explore Essex]] "Just like, I reckon, how our choices n actions n such reflect the Beat set deep n close to our bones." He agrees, "Can't change a note without changin' the whole tune n all."
Surprisingly insightful, you think.
Eventually you arrive at the bottom of the spire and part ways. JB reminds you that he is performing at the Amberdraught estate later today.
[[Explore Essex]] "Oh that's a good one." Roscoe replies with a toothy grin. He pours you another drink. "Get this. Ever since the Fountainhead's been operatin' - bout a month now - we been hearin the weirdest music. It's hardly music. Just some sounds that sound like they ought to go together in the order that they are.
"But the part that spooks me - is that folks that hear it late at night? Wake up out in the Dune Sea - or not at all. I heard about a guy last week who stumbled home from my bar drunk n woke up a mile closer to Bravo just off the tracks.
"Poor bastard had to walk home with no shoes. Figure he walked //there// with no sure too since he left'em here that night."
[[Ask after the town gossip.]]
"Whole thing is bullshit," Roscoe says emphatically, "well - bullshit in the way something is when it's totally ludicrous and completely true.
"Last month a new morgue rose up but it's...not like the other morgues in the city. Dead Drop's an old mining shaft - makes sense the Mortis'd put a morgue there. Cistern's an ancient water facility - lots of moisture for fungus and, I dunno, just the right kind of place for a morgue.
But the Fountainhead is a...what do they call em?"
[[((TECHNOSAVANT))"A biocomputer? A terraformer?"]]
[[Wait for Roscoe to find his words.]] "Oh yeah those things." Roscoe fishes around in the pockets of his vest, of which there are probably four dozen, and pulls out a dodecahedron of muted crystal and palms in a gloved hand it for you to look.
Roughly the size of a walnut, the crystal is a muted green, like seaglass.
[[Touch it.]] "Exactly. Both. It's not a place it's a...thing. And when I walked through it last month... it saw me. Not like how the Gravemind sees you - all of you - all you ever been and could be. But just me."
Roscoe shivers. "Anyways there's some kinda symposium up at the Amberdraught's place, wrecked as it is, today. I bet The Scientist could help you out if you're an expert on that kinda' thing."
[[Ask after the town gossip.]] "It's a terraformin' biocomputer" a voice from the back of the bar offers up as if they've had this conversation a dozen times before. "Designed for the cyclic process of matter for the stewardship of a habitable eco-system n' all that."
Roscoe nods sagely. "Yeah. That."
[[Ask after the town gossip.]] And suddenly you do not hear the docks anymore. You do not hear anything at all. In the total vaccume of silence that, you expect, applies only to you - you begin to hear this distant sound of guitar with too many strings.
A ghostly voice with an accent you do not recognize beings to sing.
You feel as if your nose might begin to bleed.
[[Snatch your hand away.]] Roscoe laughs a little and pockets the crystal again. "I couldn't rightly explain that one. Had to show you. S'my song I reckon. I know it from somewhere - sometime."
[[Ask after the town gossip.]] The northwestern quarter of the city is aptly named. The buildings here are old - older than the rest of the city. Stone and ironwork charactertize the streets and buildings here - as does it the steely expressions of the undead strains that make their home in the low apartments and thin townhomes crafted from the bones of older buildings still.
[[Go to the Grave Bureau]]
[[Go to the Dead Drop]]
[[Explore Essex]] Once, the Scrapes might have been the most magnificent part of the city. The old bones of skyscrapers reflect the weak sunlight in about a hundred different colors. Rust reds and impossible blues, chemical purples and the occassional, alarming yellow. Ancient paint flakes off and drifts like snow - or dandruff, to coalless in piles like snowbanks.
There's a few locations of note here.
[[Head to the All Faith's Chapel]]
[[Check out The Northeast Hallows]]
[[Look up at The Spire]]
[[Gaze out at The Towers of Frost.]]
[[Explore Essex]] The Docks of Essex are a sprawling and low complex of wooden boat-houses and ancient steelwork. The sound of shouting sailors is a distant but persistant drone in the distance. This area sees a lot of crime - but largely polices itself.
[[Head over to The Paradise Bar]]
[[((ANY LEVEL OF CRIMINAL INFLUENCE)) Check in on The Candy Shop]]
[[Attend the Ladybird Botanical Gardens]]
[[Go to the Squared Circle Gym]]
[[Explore Essex]] Largely residential, the Northeast Quarter has a thriving drink economy.
[[Go check out The Cistern.]]
[[Head over to The Drafthouse]]
[[Get a drink at The Elbow Room]]
[[Go peruse the Pfarmer's Market.]]
[[Explore Essex]] You head towards the geographic center of Essex. You've heard enough about whatever's happening there you figure you might as well check it out.
The Amberdraught estate was lovely, once. Less than two months ago it was a white-washed, plantation style home that stood on a perfect emerald lawn in a perfect, profitable town.
Now, the front facade of the Amberdraught homestead is missing. The rooms themselves are exposed to wind and rain and sun, obscured only by a few plastic tarps pinned in place for privacy.
A smaller home, probably constructed from the broken bones of the first, sits off and to the side. It looks like this is where the Amberdraught family has been living for the better part of a month.
A research tent and a small library have manifested on the lawn. You can see the thin figure of The Scientist even from your vantage at the base of the lawn, which slopes upward.
And there it is, a huge ediface of white stone, protruding from the ground like a deadlocker with a six-inch steel blast door. The thinking morgue. The tiny and stupid god.
[[Walk up to the Fountainhead.]] More bank than church, the Grave Bureau is a triple-story stone affair with real glass windows. It’s front entrance, double-doored, is flanked by a pair of painstakingly carved and triple-headed lions; snarling at you pointedly. The steps are steep and well-worn by those looking to pay or to dispute their Tax. The whole place smells faintly of rot.
Here is where the Grave Taxes are recorded and kept. As you push the doors to the Bureau open and pass into its cool interior, you find yourself in a marble hall lined with quiet teller stations. Full dead, mostly; in beiges and browns with padded elbows, their eyes downcast on their work - they record and account all the carnage in the Lonestar with impassive eyes and steady hands. The room is largely silent.
Except for one teller, a woman in a burlap suit and a close-cropped bob. "Hey!" She whispers as loudly as a person might shout, "Over here!"
Aah, you might actually know her.
[[Head over to Deadeye's teller station.]]
[[Approach but indicate you don't know her.]] "Good to see you again!" she whispers through the metal grate that seperates the two of you - probably to dissuade robbers from pulling a gun on this friendly full-dead. "Are you back in Essex for the Fountainhead? Did you walk through it?"
[[I did.]]
[[Fuck that. I didn't.]]
"Oh I'm terribly sorry. I thought I recognized you from about a month ago." She looked embarrassed, "A-are you here to pay your Grave Tax?"
[["Sorry, Grave Tax?"]]
[["I'm not, sorry. I was just taking a look around."]]She shudders, "me too. I thought maybe...I don't know. It might interact with my biology and do something...else."
[["What do you mean?"]]
[[((LORE MORTIS AMARANTHINE)) "You thought your genes might be noncontemporary enough to...destabilize the machine?"]]
"I did," she confesses. "It was...terrifying. And I don't think I'd do it again. But I do know that thing can think. I remember it thinking...with me. Like how a body uses a brain."
[["What do you mean?"]] "The Grave Council stewards all the Morgues of the Lonestar" the full dead explains. "If you make use of them - we track and tax that usage to facilitate their upkeep. It keeps our mortis infrastructure functioning and our Hiway Robbs without their Stampedes."
[[That's not what Amberdraught is saying. I hear he wants to own the Fountainhead.]]
[[How'd you get the rights to all the morgues in the whole Lonestar?"]]"Aah of course. Sorry about that, again. Please don't mention it to my boss." The teller gestures with her thumb to a severe and whiplike gentleman behind her. His nameplate says "Abernathy".
[[Excuse yourself and head out.]]
"I just think that maybe the Fountainhead can do more than a normal morgue is all. I've got a...sense for it. I've been necrokenetic all my life, see. And there's something - massive - about the Fountainhead I can't really put my finger on yet."
[[Excuse yourself and head out.]] Her mouth pinches into a frown. "He's such a politician. I'm sure he just wants to tax its use - and overtax it, I'm sure. We don't charge more than a few brass per death. I bet the ol' Governor will charge a tin-note at least."
[[How'd you get the rights to all the morgues in the whole Lonestar?"]]
"Well after the war...who else wanted to do it? Back then Grave Science was just in its infancy. There were hardly any Robbers and we didn't even aknowledge Attuned as anything other than mystics and witches.
"The Council used to just be the Imixin Unborn from down south. But a bunch of undead strains teamed up with them once they started to gain ground as stewards and morgue attendents. Eventually folks just...bought in."
She laughs a little, it's dry. "If you look enough like a zed most people just assume your place is a morgue."
[["Would you rather be somewhere else?"]]
[[Excuse yourself and head out.]]"I could be somewhere else." She sighs, "But I couldn't be //someone// else."
[[Excuse yourself and head out.]] You leave the Grave Bureau and head back into the Grave Quarter properly. The light is wan here. And the air smells like dust.
Leave the Grave Quarter and [[Explore Essex]] "God no." Deadeye balks, "I just hoped it might churn me out as something else. Maybe something with skin that doesn't sag and a heartbeat that occurs more than once a minute."
[["You want to be a different strain?"]]
[["I think you're fine the way you are."]]"I'd like to be a pureblood," Deadeye says dreamily. "All pink and wrapped in lace. I'd like to laugh more. And I have a feeling I...can't see as many colors as I used to."
[[Excuse yourself and head out.]] She smiles but it's forced. "It's not exactly, and excuse me here, about you. I'd just like to enjoy the person I look at in the mirror is all. I'd like to feel like it was me."
[[Excuse yourself and head out.]] Less a morgue, so much as a gaping wound into the Mortis Amaranthine, the Dead Drop is a deep mine shaft descending into the earth. Far, far below your booted feet - as you stand on the edge of the Drop - you can see the undulating mass of zed so horribly pressed together that at best you can see the baked carapace of their skullcaps - and nothing more.
You've heard, in circles where these kinds of stories are traded, that these zed can act in terrible harmony. Smashing themselves together into a kind of primordial muck - and scaling the cliffs below you like a terrible and thousand legged centipede.
Gross.
[[Explore The Grave Quarter]]
[[Explore Essex]] The All Faith's Chapel is sequestered away on the ground floor of an ancient cinematic complex. Maintained by members of the various faiths, the vestments of these can be found festooning the dessicated theater with little regard for form or structure.
An alter of bones sits adjacent to a carefully laid kitchen table complete with offerings of roast chicken and casserole. Both of these are located near what looks like a statue composed entire of murdergoatdeer antlers in the shape of some lycanthian godhead.
The priests here are placid looking and well-dressed.
Somewhere above you, you hear something that is neither placid, nor you expect, well-dressed.
[[Head up into the Atrium]]
[[Explore the Scrapes]] instead. 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 Hallows are surrounded by tents. Hundreds of them. Made of dropcloth,or impossible and ancient textiles that have lasted since the fall - or simple animal leather sloppily tanned, these tents are, at any given time, largely uninhabited.
Over the years the process of building a campsite to wait for your loved one has become culture. Because of the nature of the Hallows, with its long and meandering cooridors and collapsing walls, it often takes several hours to several days for a person to emerge following their rebirth.
Those campsites are often left standing until the person in question returns. Or, in the event they do not, the campsite becomes a memorial.
[[Explore the Scrapes]] The Spire is one of the tallest structures in Essex, and is a central receiving point for zeppelin and airship traffic arriving in the city. The Cloudskippers collect dues and docking fees from non-Tribes affiliated merchants, but the secure berths and easy access to the Oxline make this an easy expense to justify.
You can see it from where you're standing, as a matter of fact. You imagine you could see it from just about anywhere in Essex. Right now there's about a dozen zeppelin's moored at the dock. You recall that Governor Amberdraught recently passed a law against flying over Essex Airspace.
Neat.
[[Explore the Scrapes]] You have to climb atop another scraper to see them, but there they are. Outside Essex proper, the Towers of Frost were probably once magnificent. Now, these twin high-rises are some of the most poorly kept in the city.
You've heard rumors, however, of a zeppelin docking there at night. Clever, really, since you can't climb the structure any other way.
[[Explore the Scrapes]] The sounds become more distinct once you're on the second level of the complex. You hear voices through a heavy wooden door - and the sound of a struggle.
A man's voice filters through "Get //off// me you illiterate troglodyte.”
Another voice returns, scratchy and low, “I prefer to think of myself as an illiterate trog//delight//.”
[[Bust in. Be a hero.]]
[[Knock]]
Leave and [[Head to the All Faith's Chapel]] You kick the door open. It's very cool.
Inside there are two figures. One you quickly determine is a tainted, largely by the smell and the expression of explicit violence painted perpetually across their ichor-covered face.
The other is a priest of the chapel. He is holding a book close to his chest, protectively. You peg him as an Ascensorite. It's the robes.
"Can I help...you?" the priest asks, stilted.
"I fucking //told// you." The tainted says, grinning with too many sharp teeth.
[["What's going on here?" ]]They both stop talking inside for half a second. Then there is an enormous sound of scuffling, cursing and nonmeticulous violence. There's an impressive THUD.
A...person opens the door. They appear to be dressed in a jumpsuit in much the fashion of a Prudence Penitent. Only this one is dyed black and, you can't help but notice, the number on the jumpsuit has been altered to "#0033".
Classy.
"What can I help you with?" What you quickly realize is a tainted asks. Their voice sounds like they eat at least six packs of cigarettes a day. Their breath smells like it too.
[["What's going on here?" ]] "What's going on is I'm trying to get my book in the library here." The tainted explains with an ugly look at the priest. But I'm being told it's "too controversial" by some windbag who hasn't seen controversy since he //ascended//.
"Your book marks you as a prophet, Mx. Guile." The priest returns with a frustrated gesture. "We don't take new books. We collect old ones."
The tainted's face screws up in indignation. "You don't know what new and old //mean//, guy. You don't know that everything that's here is just a bunch of repurposed bullshit on a cosmic scale and even my new shit is just a bunch of old shit but better organized."
The preist looks haggard. "Hawk it to this...person then."
And before the tainted can respond he shoves his book into your hands, steps out of the room, and vanishes down a hallway.
Discreet.
[[Look down.]]It's a book, you suppose. Or at least a solid attempt.
The binding appears to be made of human hair. You don't want to think too hard about the leather.
"It's probably fate you're here, kiddo." The tainted informs you, leaning in very close.
"Read my book."
[[Read it.]]
[[Fucking leave. ]] "You're gonna...actually read it?" The tainted looks flabbergasted. "Wow - no one ever reads it. You know what? You can have it. If you're gonna read it then keep it. I can write another. I'm a prophet after all."
They leave, strangely, through the window. When you look for where they went - they're gone.
Whatever.
[[Crack open the tome.]] Nope nope nope. Final Knight Bullshit.
Not getting caught up. Not you. Not today. Not in this fucking town. Not that fucking Final Knight.
You shove the book back in the tainted's hands. They don't look upset, just resigned. No one ever reads the book.
[[Explore the Scrapes]] The Machinations
of
Guinevere Guile, Second Demon,
and
She Who Goes Before
[[Keep reading]] 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.
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.''
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. ''
[[Haha. What the fuck.]]
[[Stop reading.]]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.
And in the theater of the Mortis I see the great gates of Forever swing open 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.
[[Keep Going]]
[[Stop reading.]] That's really quite enough of that, thank you.
You set the book down and wipe your hands.
[[Explore the Scrapes]] 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.
//“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.” //
[[Wow. Okay.]]
[[Stop reading.]] 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.
[[I wonder if...they ever stop?]]
[[Stop reading.]] They really don't.
[[Read The Canticle of Fire]]
[[Stop reading.]] The Canticle of Fire
-----
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.
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.
[[Alright. Summmon that canticle.]]
[[Stop reading.]]
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.
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.
[[More like knight fuckus. Keep readin'.]]
[[Stop reading.]] 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.
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.
[[Guess I'll follow too.]]
[[Stop reading.]] 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.
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.
[[Oo Furcas what'd you DO]]
[[Stop reading.]] 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.
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:
[[Become deeply enfrachised in this conflict.]]
[[Stop 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.”//
[[Oh shit.]]
[[Stop reading.]]
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.
[[Oh shit Cemira what can you DO girl]]
[[Stop 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.]] And in the screaming moment before their blind eternity the twin demons did smile in all 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.
[[Finish reading]] Your teeth itch. And your eyes hurt.
You put the book down. It can stay here.
[[Explore the Scrapes]] 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.
[[Stay a while.]]
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] You head over to the Drafthouse; a popular pub near the Oxline, famous for being equally easy to find a drink as company for the night. The Accesensorite proprietor, Malorous Mab, holds court here at night and frequent visits from the Cali*Co Caravan keeps the place busy at almost all hours. Mab, a known Final Knight, keeps the Governor’s rules in check, but anything can be had here, for the right price.
You know Mab keeps a rouges' gallery in their pocket. If there's an unspoken for power in Essex - it's the drafthouse.
This time of day there's only a few haggard drunks getting their first draught of the day.
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] 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 Amberdraught after their easy supply of ingredients dried up following the war.
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 meander about, mugs clutched close and countenances just as tightly guarded.
[[Buy some Amberdraught Beer]]
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] Buckets upon buckets of floral and vegetal life spill forth onto tables covered in dappled light punching through canvas stretched from poles of stalls that are patched together with love and care. Pfilomena Lovelace, a local Quiet Folk, runs the Pfarmer’s Market and works hard to make sure all local crops, goodies, snacks, and meals are represented.
[[Order Hell-Oat-Tay]]
[[Order Nuked Fruit]]
It's quiet here. That's a nice change from the bustle of the city.
You wait for a while. Eventually someone joins you. An older woman, saltwisened and bent. Her scales remind you of stumpwater. The long tendrals that hang from her chin recall to mind a protean catfish. You might recognize Esca. Or you might not.
Either way she seems to recognize you.
"Hello, dearie. Here for a reason?"
[["The Fountainhead, actually."]]
[["The Festival, honestly."]]
[["I was just looking for some place quiet for a while".]] "Mmm." She nods, her narrow lips pursed. "I'm here for the same reason. Lots of things to learn. Lots of sinkholes to break our ankles in, dearie."
[[Stay silent.]]
[["Please explain." ]] The old saltwise smiles and her eyes crinkle with the effort. "That's lovely, dearie. Have you found a song?"
[["How do you mean?"]]
[[((GRAVE ROBBER OR GRAVE ATTUNED OR LORE MORTIS AMARANTHINE)) "Do you mean the symphonic lattice?"]]
"This is it, then." The saltwise tips her head to gesture to the gaping mouth of the cistern. "No quieter place in the whole city. I'll leave you to it."
[[Wait a while. Relax.]]
[["Wait I wanted to talk about something."]]
"I don't think I know enough yet to speak on it. But...old women worry. It's our job." She smiles, "I just...think there's an order to things. And it's larger than we know."
That's good enough for you. Maybe you should just [[Wait a while. Relax.]]
Or leave and [[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] some more.
"I don't think I know enough yet to speak on it. But...old women worry. It's our job." She smiles, "I just...think there's an order to things. And it's larger than we know."
That's good enough for you. Maybe you should just [[Wait a while. Relax.]]
Or leave and [[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] some more. Esca pulls out a dodecahedron composed of...crystal. It's colored like an Amberdraught beer, barely opaque and the color of sunsets. She palms it in her gloved hand.
She holds it out for you to touch.
[[Touch it.->Next passage 1]]
Her smile becomes a grin. "I do, dearie. Do you know about it?"
[["I know what it is...functionally. But not where it comes from or anything else about it.]]
You settle down. This place is full of echos.
After a while you think you can hear the distant sound of piano.
But that seems impossible.
[[Listen harder]]
"And what was that, dearie?" Esca pauses.
[["The Fountainhead, actually."]]
[["The Festival, honestly."]]There it is. Distantly. On the wind.
In your mind?
All at once you feel panic rise up in your chest and you stand. It's too quiet here. You need to leave.
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] "A professional ought to know what they're working with, dearie."
Esca pulls out a dodecahedron composed of...crystal. It's colored like an Amberdraught beer, barely opaque and the color of sunsets. She palms it in her gloved hand.
She holds it out for you to touch.
[[Touch it.->Next passage 1]]
It was quiet before. It's silent now. You can't hear anything at all.
Until you hear something. Distantly at first. Then louder.
It's a song. One you've never heard. In a language you don't know.
It fills you up. You spill over. Your eyes are full of tears.
[[Snatch your hand away. -> new passage 2]]Esca returns the dodecahedron to her pocket carefully. "It's music from my childhood, dearie. I'd forgotten it. But I remember now."
[["What was that?"]]"Music." She replies blandly. "The memory of it, at least. Manifested in this crystal. I'm sure the Curators would love to sequester these away. But then...what happens to the memory?"
[[Shrug.]]
[["What do YOU think happens to it?]] She smiles faintly. "Thanks for hearing an old woman out, dearie."
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] "Well. I think it stays there forever. And I think that's a terrible fate for a song."
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] It tastes like the kind of yeast grown in paint thinner - but it's better than any other beer you've had in the past few months. You knock back two before heading out.
You flip the bartender a currency. He doesn't seem to mind where it comes from.
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] A hearty maize covered in...pain? Why is your mouth on fire?
Your kingdom for a glass of water. Of milk. Of anything that isn't this sulpherous corn purgatory. This is hell and it's very very hot and in this clarion instance of true and actual suffering you think you might be Damned.
But you drink some water and eat a nuked fruit to wash it down. Which is very pleasent. But also covered in fleshy noduels that reminds you uncomfortably of eyes.
[[Explore The Northeast Quarter]] You thought this would be terrible. It definitely looked terrible.
But when the Unborn passed over the mutated...mango? You summoned all the courage that lives in your bones and bit into it.
And it is pleasent. You eat two more.
[[Order Hell-Oat-Tay]] 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.
Currently, it looks like the Paradise Bar is closed. On the front door there is a plaquard that reads "BACK AFTER MY GIRL KASHMERE GETS HER SONG" in a messy scrawl.
You hope no one needs to use the morgue.
[[Explore The Docks]] Before you is a tiny storefront with faded lettering on its haphazard wooden signage; “The Candy Shop” has stood in Essex since its inception, and will likely last until the town’s demise. Pressed and suffocating between two huge steel mills, The Candy Shop is little more than a perfunctory veneer for the largest Crystal Candy manufacturer in the Lonestar; the best kept secret everybody knows.
[[Head inside]]
[[Explore The Docks]] You find yourself looking out over a few overgrown acres of farmland along the edge of a dwindling river that feeds into the Essex Dock system downstream. The water is questionable. The soil is questionable. There is wildlife but it is mutated: either a little too large or a few too many eyes.
The Gardens are not the most developed and maintained spaces in town--members of the Amberdraughts have long since abandoned it. A few upstart farmers have started patched plots of plants here, then gotten discouraged and contemplated their life choices and left. Abandoned and broken tools are littered here and there like the snaggle teeth of a candy-addict.
Nobody seems to be here.
[[Explore The Docks]]
Leather of dubious origins is stretched drum-taut across the ring of the Circled Square Gym. If you squint it looks like there might be ink stains in intricate, intentional patterns scattered across the four corners that have been stomped into pliability by years of conditioned footwork. The air here is humid and thick with sweat. A hodgepodge of mismatched workout equipment, training spaces, and a series of obstacle courses are set up inside this emptied warehouse.
Sometimes the tired husks of Grave Bureau workers punch the bag on their lunch break due to its close proximity. Other times athletes in crews with performance and strength in mind meet up in secrecy to knock the comrodrie into each other. It is here that knuckles are split consensually and arguments settled with effort on the mat.
But as it stands, it looks like everyone's vacated for whatever's going on up at the Amberdraughts place.
[[Explore The Docks]] The walls are lined with dusty, sparse shelves. There is a single person inside, a gentleman of indeterminate strain but possessing very bad teeth stands behind the counter and is clutching the largest bag of taffy you have ever seen.
The door into the back is already open. Strangely, it appears you were expected.
"Hey sweetie. Head on in."
They have the wrong guy. Head out and [[Explore The Docks]]
[[Head into the Candy Shop Proper]]You enter the darkness of the doorway and the door shuts behind you. Electric lights flicker on with a Edisonian buzz and the corridor, you can now see, extends a hundred feet ahead and terminates in a doorway that, from where you're standing, looks open.
[[Walk forward]]When you pass into the room beyond, another version of the candy shop behind you. The same shelves, as if transposed, are heavily laden with dimebags full of Crystal Candy. The sharp, crystalline structure of the stuff catches the electric light and throws it back outwards - making the room sparkle with shards of light as if through a prism.
Behind the counter, clutching a enormous bag of Crystal Candy, is a man who looks eerily similar to the bouncer in the previous room. His strain as indeterminate, his teeth just as bad.
"Jerry sent you in? I'm Jerry, sweetie. Can you do a job for me?"
[[PROFICIENT CRIMINAL INFLUENCE "That depends entirely on how much you're paying.]]
[["I...could."]]
Decline and leave to [[Explore The Docks]] instead. Jerry Sweettooth raises his unkempt eyebrows into his unkempt hair. "I think we can pay you just fine, stakes considering. I'm looking for someone."
[["Who?"]]"I'm looking for someone. Someone important. But the kid doesn't realize he's a fucking goldmine. They've been callin' him the ''Mad Prophet on Cutthroat Alley''since last month. But the kid's shit and he's got more crystals growing out of his craw than either you or me got all over our grey matter combined.
"And I want you to go get'em for me."
[["Sounds easy. Is he on Cutthroat Alley right now?"]]
[["I'm not gonna merc a fuckin' kid, Jerry."]]They've been callin' him the ''Mad Prophet on Cutthroat Alley'' since last month. But the kid's shit and he's got more crystals growing out of his craw than either you or me got all over our gray matter combined.
"And I want you to go get'em for me."
[["Sounds easy. Is he on Cutthroat Alley right now?"]]
[["I'm not gonna merc a fuckin' kid, Jerry."]]"Probably. Kid never leaves. I hear his mom has shingles."
[["Anything else you can give me?"]]
[[Leave for Cutthroat Alley]]"Kid's a fucking abomination, sweetie." Jerry replies icily. "Can hardly move or talk or see with all those fuckin' growths. Least we could turn it into something people enjoy."
[[((MASTER CRIMINAL INFLUENCE))"How about I turn YOU into something people enjoy unless you get off this kid's case right fuckin' now, Jerry?]]
Agree to the hit and [[Leave for Cutthroat Alley]]
Fuck this. You're not killing a kid. Duck out and [[Explore The Docks]] "Kid's chock full of psion crystals he's about to explode, sweetie. Don't get immolated with mind fire, I guess?"
[[Leave for Cutthroat Alley]] You arrive at a thin and snaking backstreet three blocks behind what was once the Governor’s Mansion; Cutthroat Alley is the premier location for marauding, murdering and meticulous violence. If you’re here, it’s for a good reason. If you don’t have one of those - someone else might.
The black walls of factories that line this alley are like the sheer cliff faces that characterize a mountain path. Bristling mercenaries stare down at you from atop buildings, bows or boomstocks clutched in capable hands.
Here you can buy most anything. The ramshackle storefronts are little more than temporary pop-ups to aid in the quick dispersal of evidence in the event of Lawdog interference. The air smells like sweet meats and Crystal Candy. The alley winds onwards for nearly a mile - and rarely can you leave by the same route by which you arrived.
[[((IF YOU MET CALEB IN "THE FOUNTAINHEAD"))Go find that fucking kid.]]
[[Search out The Mad Prophet the old fashioned way.]] Jerry balks. "Hey, guy. I'm not tryin' to make waves. If you don't want the job that's fine. Just leave."
Leave and [[Explore The Docks]]
Secretly [[Leave for Cutthroat Alley]] You know where he's gonna be. He was here last month when you decked that idiot and took a job from Kingsly that you definitely failed to complete.
You head over to the same food cart as last month and settle down to wait. Caleb will be here shortly. You're sure you'll hear him coming first.
[[Wait patiently.]] You've heard of this guy, actually. Or at least of about half a dozen guys like him. Prophets parade - it's a law of the universe. So you settle in to wait next to a food cart selling grilled cheese for a few hours until he comes, exactly as you expected, trasping down the Alley.
His entire body, including his face, hand and feet, are covered in bandages. Save for the unruly mop of red hair atop his head, his entire body is masked by old and stained linen.
[[Confront him.]]
[[Follow him.]] When Caleb comes by you trip him, unceremoniously, and drag him into a nearby cleft in the Alley.
He tries to punch you. But the gangly teenager shoots wide and when you give him a solid kick the ribs - he shuts up and sneers. You last interaction didn't start out much better.
"You again, huh?"
[["I could say the same thing to you."]]
[["I didn't want to be here again. But here I am.]] He completely ignores you and continues to make pace down the Alley. When he does pause - it's for breath. The prophet speaks with all the muffled authority of a godhead behind his linen wraps.
"It's HERE" he insists to no one in particular, "It's HERE and it COMING and it's not BELOW us anymore. It's BETWEEN us. BETWEEN us. BETWEEN us."
[[Talk to him.]]
[[Deck him.]]You track him for a couple hundred feet. He ignores you completely. You're not even trying very hard. Eventually he pauses long enough for you to do something about it.
[[Deck him.]]
[[Talk to him.]] He looks down, abashed. "I couldn't leave this town. It's my ma she's got-"
[["Shingles, yeah. I know.]] He looks down, abashed. "I couldn't leave this town. It's my ma she's got-"
[["Shingles, yeah. I know.]] You punch a teenager in the mouth. It works. Good job.
He tumbles back into the brick of a steel mill and between the bandages you can see a single glaring eye; colorless and hateful.
"What'd you do that for, shithead?" He demands thickly, and attempts to stand.
"Just a job, kid." [[Knock him out and drag him back to The Candy Shop.]]
[["Cause you're not listening, dickteeth. Stop shouting long enough for me to tell you what's up."]]He ignores you. It's like talking to a brick wall if that brick wall was screaming and also, apparently, one of the most powerful psions alive.
[[Deck him.]]You drop him off with Jerry. The tired body of a broken boy might haunt you a little. But your pockets are heavier now.
[[Explore Essex]] He finally shuts up. For a moment.
[["I got sent by a Jerry, kid. Not some schmuck in a suit."]]"And it's the people," he continues. "It's my fuckin' home, guy. I'm not leaving just because some Candyheads want my skin."
[["It's more than a few. I got sent here on another job to nab you. Eventually they're going to pick someone whose competent enough not to look you in your big fuckin' eyes."]] He winces, "another one, huh? They've been getting bolder. I had to ash a guy last week. They'll find my ma eventually. That'll be rats."
[["Leave, you tremendous idiot."]]
[["I just came to warn you. Good luck."]]He sets his jaw behind the bandages. "I wont. Besides -" He starts unwrapping the bandages on his left hand, "I need to show you something."
He's going to do that fucking thing again. You just know it.
[[Let him touch you.]]
[["Fuck off, Caleb. Just tell me."]] He shrugs. "'Preciate it, guy. Don't tell em you found me, eeh? Buy me a few more hours."
"Sure, kid." Leave and [[Explore The Docks]] You're not in the Alley anymore. You're not anywhere.
You're a series of concentric circles expanding outward into infinity. You break on the shore of the universe. You fracture. You hear.
It wants to be music. It nearly is. Your nose begins to bleed.
[[Pull away.]]
"It's the fucking music, guy. I can hear it. It used to be screaming that didn't mean nothin' at all. Now it's music sung by nobody. I fucking hate it. You fixed it last month - fix this too."
Shake your head and go [[Explore The Docks]]. "It's the fucking music, guy. I can hear it. It used to be screaming that didn't mean nothin' at all. Now it's music sung by nobody. I fucking hate it. You fixed it last month - fix this too."
Shake your head and go [[Explore The Docks]]. It's huge, up close. You can hardly hear the music played lower on the lawn. It's in your ears, but not your mind.
The Fountainhead is roughly rectangular, with the mouth of the morgue facing outward towards the city in a southernly direction. Its walls are cement, best as you can tell. And on the front of it you see its six-inch-steel-blast door hermetically sealed against the goings on above ground.
Somewhere below you, you hear Amberdraught begin to speak.
[[Listen]]Amberdraught is a broad man, with a red beard and redder hair. His waistcoat strains at the buttons and, despite the appearance of his estates, he maintains an air of aloofness and surity only the most practiced purebloods of the oldest families can achieve.
"My peers and patrons," he begins; his voice reminds you of of a radio personality, "Thank you for your time, attention, and service to our shared city. Thank you for being with me - and my family-" Amberdraught gestures to the thin woman and several daughters behind him, "For the fourth annual celebration of Light and Sound. To recall the time when we were not blessed with full bellies and fuller flagons-" He raises a glass of his namesake beer and grins impishly. "And to drink to the death of Hiway Robb, may he never rise again."
The crowd amasssed below him claps. A hundred electric lights in a hundred colors spring to life across the lawn; planned surely. From your vantage even the stuffy members of the Grave Council seem enthused.
[[But what's that...sound?]] Those further down the green can't hear it yet but...yes.
You turn around and gaze at the Fountainhead. A knot forms in your gut.
It is //keening//.
[[Back away.]] The lawn falls quiet. Everyone hears it now. You expect they can't tell where it's coming from yet.
You watch the steel door begin to flex. Your nose begins to bleed.
[[Run.]] In slow motion, you watch the superplastic hinges on the blast door disintegrate as if they were made of cotton candy on a wet day. Half a second later, you hear it. Another quarter of a second and you're blown off your feet so entirely that when you recover your bearings halfway down the lawn and look up you see that the several ton pannel of bomb-proof metal has separated itself from the Fountainhead's frame and launched itself across the green with such speed and surety that it liquified the stage upon which Amberdraught had previously stood.
You have about five seconds to look over the bloodied remains of his staff before a more bizzare sound still prompts you to look back at the Fountainhead.
[[Something is coming out.]] Something that you can only, in this hectic moment, think of as //energy// is pouring out of the Fountainhead's mouth. The lawn in front of it has vanished, atomized in the heat of detonation. Bodies, half charred or wholly ashed, extend outwards from either size of the cone of destruction funneling out of the morgue's only ingress.
And inside the door, you see the most terrible and splindid light you could imagine.
[[And then something is there.]]It shouldn't exist. That's your first thought.
[[But it does.]] And your eyes disbelieve it. It has too many joints. Too many angles. Your head swims, but you adjust. Its skin looks like wet obsidian, or tires after a good rain. It's mouth is - you're not sure where its mouth is.
Until it opens three of them and screams with a claxon cry that has no place in your ears. Your other nostril is wet with blood now.
[[Get away.]] You move. Fast. Others aren't so lucky.
The Monster goes from being wholly still to anything but faster than you can think. In a whirlwind of teeth and motion it charges down the lawn moving with too many joints along an incline that should not support its weight, and crashes into the line of people who stand paralyzed at the botton of the green.
You can see the blood from here. None of it belongs to the Monster.
The screams finally start.
[[Oh. Fuck.]]
The maelstrom of blood and terror ends in a crescendo of staccato beats and breaking bone. And then the Monster is gone. Vanished.
By the time you get to the bottom, it's long over. There's dozens of corpses, more than the number of dead, you think, thanks to the Monster's apparent predisposition for bisection.
The smell of blood is heavy in the air. The smell of ozone is more present still. You see the bloodied figure of a rover bent over the corpse of a woman in brown. They both clutch guitars.
Something terrible has invaded your home. Your world. You've heard stories about this.
But you never thought it would happen to you.
[[Fin]]
Thank you so much for playing Dystopia Rising: Texas' ''The Crystodyne Princple'', y'all. There's a lot more where that came from.
Meet us in the Lonestar Skies Discord May 9th at 9:30 AM for Opening Annoucements!
There's a terrible threat bearing down upon the city of Essex. Let's tell a fucking cool story about it.
-The entire DR:TX team and
Shan and Aesa He winces, "A Jerry? They've been getting bolder. I had to ash a guy last week. They'll find my ma eventually. That'll be rats."
[["Leave, you tremendous idiot."]]
[["I just came to warn you. Good luck."]]