GM: So er... oops. Deadlines to get a prototype out for PAX happened, followed by illness (unrelated) and certain family shenanigans I'd prefer not to get into (related in a different sense). Sorry the update took so long, there's been something of a struggle to find time and it's mildly possible
I fell off the writing wagon a bit there...
Before people ask, yes I will be updating NMWHISWBAACFRTT (I prefer to alternate updates).
I've also had some internal waffling re: game mechanics (which != dice mechanics!), but I'll talk about that post-Update. Without any further adieu!
~*~
You grimace, still cradling the speck of Light in your hands. The Breach twists before you.
"We can't take this through." You mutter. The admission leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.
"Eh?" Cato looks surprised, then looks back to the Breach. And the Seal it implies. "...Oh. Right. Y-Yeah, that would be bad..."
"Can you take the Juvenile back with you and fetch a Scholar?"
He nods. "Yeah, sure thing Boss. The Queen...?"
"Just tell her why, she'll understand."
Cato shrinks a little. "R-Right."
...You suppose to a regular Youkai the Queen is a little imposing, but
somehow you suspect she'd appreciate having the Breach resealed by accident less than having to take a report from a regular rather than one of her Lieutenants. The Queen isn't stupid.
"Go on ahead," you order, "I'll hold onto this here."
Cato nods, waving the Juvenile over. "Come on, kiddo."
There's a scuffle of cloth and the scrunch of gravel, and you abruptly realise the Juvenile is squeezing it's newfound hat in horror.
"...Yes, you can take it with you." You tell it, raising an eyebrow.
The Juvenile skips, bursts into a black cloud of animate shadow with a hat in it, and drains away through the twisting crack of the Breach.
You both watch, as the hat's bobble gets stuck in the pinhole of the Breach, sticking out like a small, fluffy blob in mid air before finally pulling through with a 'plop'.
You spare Cato a glance; you won't say anything if he won't. The man just shakes his head before cracking a grin. "See you in a bit!"
Another burst of shadow cloud that drains away through the hole, and you're alone on the rooftop once again.
You sigh, watching the air fog in front of you. The cradled bauble of Light is still warm in your hands, broiling away any shadow that gets too close.
You try to spin it, realise you can't tell whether its spinning or not when it's a spherical blob and kind of give up. Shifting shadows around within the cage makes it move and shift in response, and you almost try shaping it by concentrating shadows in certain points, but the concentration of Light is too small to really work with.
Another sigh tears from your lips; this one more a hiss of frustration. Light energy,
finally, in the hands of a Youkai and... what
could you do with it exactly?
As a lazy experiment, you transform your cage into a flat plane beneath the energy blob. It shoots up into the air. You form a flat plane above the energy blob. It shoots down towards the ground.
You form two planes, and blob starts bouncing around between them, but it's hard; it never seems to 'bounce' perfectly and you have to keep moving the planes around to compensate. You quickly realise part of the problem is that the blob is also being repelled by
you, the biggest concentration of Shadow here; throwing off any attempts to aim and forcing you to respond very quickly to the blob's unexpected movements; throwing the planes of shadow all over the place to keep it in.
You manage to reign it in fast before it flies out of your control, and watch it bounce back and forth inside a shadowy box of your own design. Back and forth. The Shadow and Light never actually
meet, the two instead always pushing away from each other, but your mind can still the little 'Boing' sounds when they repulse. Boing.
Boing. Boing. Hehe. If you got another person to control the other plane this could actually be pretty fu-
souvenirs, you're supposed to be gathering
souvenirs.
You quickly glance around the rooftop, confirm nobody saw that and collapse the shadow-box back into its cage. A pretty small cage for a pretty small blob of Light energy; you can just chain the thing to your wrist and stop having to pay any attention to it. It twinkles everywhere you go.
Smiling fondly at the little thing, you drop off over the side.
~*~
The unknown land of unknown buildings presents some previously unknown problems. You didn't see it coming.
Maybe it's just that you've never exactly gone souvenir hunting before. There's never been anywhere
to hunt souvenirs before. One black, icy shard of splintering rock from one side of the Dark Kingdom is about the same as an black, icy shard of splintering rock from the other. Not much in the way of travel opportunity, you might say. So you're left with something of a quandary...
You have absolutely no idea what any of the stuff in this place does.
At least the size of the Breach itself limits your options; only small or squishy objects can hope to squeeze through. Long but thin stuff, maybe – you could accidentally poke Palatine or Caelian in the eye sending it through; bonus points – but all the same. You'd like for these things to have
meaning.
They're going to be the first relics of the Sunlit Realm the Dark Kingdom will be seeing, after all.
Hehe. You can almost imagine it. Long will the Kingdom remember this day; you can almost see them being put on display; on carved stone plinths with carved stone plaques with your carved stone name on it, saying 'I did this! I was the first one out there!'. Your decisions here will be of vital importance! This is
history in the making!
...Once you stop waffling and start picking stuff up, of course.
But what to even pick? You're back in the lower levels of the building the Breach is sitting atop of, feeling your feet crunch on detritus and discarded paper. Feeling the dust, hanging in the air. You're like 99% sure most of the stuff here is supposed to be trash.
You spy a flash of silver amidst all the crud; a sort of rounded cylinder shape with a grove towards one end. It's dusty and nestled in amongst a bunch of abandoned books (-and isn't
that a bizarre thought-), but it cleans up nicely enough once you swipe it with shadow-stuff a few times. Surprisingly light for a metal object. Small enough to fit through the Breach, but pretty. For the Queen, then.
You encase it with Shadow, and leave it dangling on your wrist next to the captured Light.
For the other Lieutenants......
hrrrng. You'll just go with whatever matches them best, you guess. Viminal is the easiest; him being the Master of the Archives, you just roll up one of the many (
many) pieces of paper left scattered around until it's in a thin enough tube. He'll object to seeing paper treated that way, but honestly it'll be receiving far better treatment in the Kingdom than it's seen here. The others...
Palatine, something small and annoying, Esquiline something pointy (you'd pick something 'large and heavy' but anything matching that description is never going to fit), Caelian can fetch his own damn souvenirs and Quirinal can get something old, ornamental and thoroughly useless. The only one you're really drawing a blank on is Capitoline; you only really associate her with the Gatehouse but that post bores her to tears...
Such a quandary.
For Palantine you find this squashy ball thing that squeaks when compressed (as you
possibly discovered by accident picking it up and
possibly confirmed by screaming and throwing it very hard against a wall), for Esquiline you picked up one of the odd black stick things lying around all over the place (not actually that pointy, but it'll do) and Quirinal proves something of a stumbling block; there are plenty of things that look old, ornamental and thoroughly useless here, but nothing of the sort that will fit through the hole of the Breach. You eventually find an odd piece of metal piece bent into a very regular looking rounded rectangular shape with an odd circular decoration on one end and decide to just run with that. He'll complain but that's basically all Quirinal is
for.
Capitoline... you just kind of give up and grab a something-you-have-no-idea-what-it-does. It's a thing. It's a mysterious thing. Hopefully, unlocking it's mysterious mysteries can keep her entertained, or something. You'll freely admit this is not one of your cleverer plans, and you're mentally apologising already. Sorry, Capitoline.
Well. Souvenir hunting complete! You examine the small collection of items currently dangling off your wrist with satisfaction. And all completed without anyone realising you forgot all about it;
no-one suspects a thing.
"Yo, Boss? Boss...? B-oh, you're down there."
You cross your hands behind your back and turn
very quickly.
"Cato."
He nods, dropping in through the window. "Boss."
"The Scholar has arrived?"
"Upstairs, poking away."
"Very well; lead on."
Cato grins, de-substantiates and flies back up out the window. A feat you can't repeat whilst carrying a dozen objects or so.
Curses.
~*~
You reach the top level as quickly as you can whilst still being dignified about it, to find Cato standing gingerly next to a figure of sweeping black cloth, all swaying and flicking in the breeze. A certain living raggedness to the edges of the cloak easily identifies it as a weakly held shadow-weave, and the attire is easily recognisable regardless; the Dark Kingdom's Scholars.
Currently, they're examining the webbed, twisting crack of the Breach. To be more precise, they're sticking their finger in it.
"
Fascinating..."
"Ma'am, I don't think-"
"Silence, I am quite certain this thing is approaching mostly harmless." The figure waves their free hand in Cato's general direction. "This composition is extremely-"
With a
schloorp you can hear from the opposite end of the rooftop, the robed figure's arm abruptly disappears into the Breach, leaving behind a smokey, spiralling stump.
"...Oh."
"...Told ya."
You begin to wonder if this is a bad time.
You cough, let your hair flick out in the wind and advance. The Glare really is practised in a mirror; the Queen holds a contest every few months whenever Esquiline pesters her enough about it.
The effects are immediate; Cato looks even more uncomfortable and the Scholar actually turns to look at you.
"H-Hey Boss, funny thing happened..."
"Mild, structurally hostile tendencies were unexpected though in hindsight, somewhat predictable."
The Scholar is quite calm standing there, one arm tailing abruptly off into a wispy stump. Admittedly it just blends right in with the weave of the cloak; it's hard to tell any difference. Honestly your more worried about the arm sucked through the Breach; the Queen is on the opposite side and if it hit her it would be
really embarrassing...
You cough again, eye the stump a second, then turn to Cato.
"You reported to the Queen?"
He nods. "I did; worked out okay. She's still waiting."
...Meaning she probably
did just get hit by that arm. There goes your dignity quota. You turn to the Scholar, focusing the Glare.
The Scholar offers you her other hand.
"Tullia, of the Scholars."
...You shake the hand.
Tullia shifts, readjusting the set of her cloak. As is typical of the Scholars, her face is mostly obscured, but what you can see of her chin proves she is an elder Youkai. Older than you at any rate.
"I hear you have already harnessed the power of Light?"
You... shoot an odd glance at Cato, who seems to be aiming to set records for 'looking most uncomfortable'.
Silently, you raise your arm, letting the caged blob of Light dangle in the open air for both to see. The Scholar leans forward.
"Hm..." they raise a hand to their chin, "an admirable start, if lacking in quantity. For a proof-of-concept however, exceptionally adequate."
...You'll assume that's a compliment. The Scholar nods to herself, before continuing.
"How was it achieved?"
Once again, you have to turn to Cato. Once again, Cato has to look even more uncomfortable.
"I... ah..." His eyes dart between you and the obscuring cloak of the Scholar. "...I just kinda did it?"
The cool air turns eerily silent. Belatedly, you realise you're still doing the Glare but it's too awkward to stop doing it now. Cato seems to crumple like one of Esquiline's warhammer practise targets.
"I-I'll er... I'll just go show you... both...?"
And then he jumps off the building. The Scholar sighs. For a moment, you're just left with the wind and the alien skyline beneath an alien sky.
"...I admit," she says quietly, "this world is quite beyond my expectations."
To that, you can only relate. But at least there's one thing to your advantage:
"The simpler it is to gather, the easier it is to study."
The Scholar gives a quietly pleased chuckle. "Entirely verifiable! I will accept that for the now."
You offer a smile, and let her fall into place as you walk toward the ledge. The secrets of Light and Dark await you below.
"Oh, and could you lend me another hand?"
~*~
On reflection, you actually find yourself agreeing with the Scholar. It's almost
offensive how simple this is.
"So, uh..." Cato stands awkwardly beneath one of the many metal poles with lights on the top, "I... kind of saw it there and it's just... well,
there and not really doing anything; suspicious, right? Wasn't sure if it was gonna be dangerous or not so I just kind of went for it, like this..."
You watch as Cato de-substantiates himself, envelops the top of the pole like a big angry cloud and then comes back down again, form shakier and weaker with wisps at the extremities, but with a small golden glob in his hands, just barely smaller than a fist.
Already, he's starting to lose hold of it. The Light slips and slides – rejected by Cato's body-mass, you recognise – and is broiling away his hands whenever they instinctively try to close over it to prevent it escaping. Only a quick cage and a counter-balancing shadow-plate on your part manages to roughly stabilise it. Cato offers you a weak nod in gratitude.
Above, the pole is dark and even seems to be smoking slightly. Without the Light in the way you can see the metal innards clearly, but they don't particularly mean anything to you. You're sure it would make sense to a denzin of the Sunlit Realm, you bitterly observe.
Looking down, you find Tullia is
already poking it again. With the new arm.
"And it required no magic or incantation?"
"I know! I er... wasn't expecting it to work, t'be honest..."
Tullia pokes the blob. Suppressing a wave of irritation you reposition your plate to prevent the Light from being repulsed out of its cage. "With all fairness, I would not have either."
You draw control of the Light blob over to you by shifting the cage's shadows around, coercing it into the rough centre of the three of you (and
coincidentally away from Tullia), whilst pulling in a few more local shadows just to reinforce Cato's weakened form after pulling the Light-grab stunt twice. To her credit, the Scholar catches on quick, and the three of you even out your positions into a roughly equal triangle, easing the stresses on the cage.
Tullia strokes her chin. "Hm... so Light and Shadow reject each other naturally? That simplifies a lot of things."
You nod. "We can manipulate the Shadow, and thus manipulate the Light."
"A fair conclusion."
Cato gives you both a thumbs up.
"Hm..." Tullia tilts her head. "There...
are some records of Light manipulation in the Archive, but they're extremely old. And they're records of it being done by members of the Sunlit Realm, not by us."
You frown. "You don't know how they did it?"
Tullia can only shrug. "They were of the Sunlight Realm, it probably comes as naturally to them as the Shadows do to us. They can, however, confirm the
possibilities."
From the stress on '
possibilities', you can tell she's looking forward to it. An admirable trait in a Scholar, you suppose.
You nod. "I'll review them immediately."
You catch Tullia's wince. "Understating the
age of these records is quite impossible, I warn you. They are extremely fragile, and the writing archaic. Translation will be required. The records also greatly exaggerate, we believe; they are far from fair accounts. Honestly, it would be prudent to expect very little of them at all."
You frown. Always, you have so little to go on...
[ ] Review the old records later
[ ] Don't bother; focus on research in the Sunlit Realm
"Though," Tullia adds hopefully, "with this, I
do believe that weakening or breaking the Seal should very well be possible."
You flash a grin.
That was never in doubt.
With a little more deliberation you agree on your course of action. With Light this easy to catch you can afford to play a little loose with it; with Cato providing overwatch, you and the Scholar run it through a variety of exercises. When released, it dissipates harmlessly. By manipulating the cage you can manipulate the shape, sketching out rough, wobbly forms of sigils and runes in the Light's power. Compression proves a repeated problem; your shadows just start broiling away at a certain distance and you can never quite get the Light into a properly compact ball. Straight lines are a challenge even for you, having to take into account disturbances from your own physical form as well as others and even the ambient shadows surrounding you. Even moving it can be trouble in large amounts; the Light becomes sluggish and you can accidentally boil off the cage containing it if you try moving it too fast. It's finicky, it's resisting your control and you're even sure what you're meant to be
doing with it. This is... going to take some practise.
But it's possible.
And then the sky starts to
change.
~*~
Cato is the one to warn you.
"Boss!"
You look up, from the swirling cage. He's standing on a roof, looking up further still and-
You blink. At the beginning, the sky was so
clear; there were tiny pinpricks of light yes, but so distant and so far. Now?
Now... it's beginning to fade. It's like the light is diffusing outward in a soft shell; blocking your vision not with a wall but more like some sort of fog. Even those tiny pinpricks are gone from your sight; washed out by comparison.
You and Tullia exchange a look of alarm.
"When did this happen?"
"I... dunno!" Cato panics. "I didn't notice it until now! It crept up on us!"
Of all the things you were expecting from the Seal, sneakiness wasn't one of them.
You abandon the Light you'd been encaging and regather your shadows defensively. The Breach is only a few buildings away. Tullia hisses at your side.
"What do we do?"
You should:
[ ] Retreat to the Kingdom and inform the Queen.
- [ ] Drop everything (can de-substantiate to escape immediately)
[ ] Remain where you are. If it's a response, someone has to guard the Breach from the outside.
Cato should:
[ ] Retreat to the Kingdom. He can't be much use here and someone must keep the Queen informed.
[ ] Remain here as a second pair of eyes. The more information the better.
Tullia should:
[ ] Retreat to the Kingdom. Scholars are known to be frail, and the Queen needs to be warned.
[ ] Remain here; her knowledge and intuition may be valuable.
