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Dead Engines

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The Limits of Immortality
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Strike with care, doing as little damage to the host as possible.

    Edmund Sable laughs in that awful, two-toned voice. Old man rasp meets with high-pitched youth to create something utterly new and vile. A child's giggle mixed with an elderly guffaw, the weight of decades absorbing boyish vigor… It grates against your ears like shards of glass, tearing all the way down until all you want to do is drown out this terrible mirth with your screams.

    The room itself recoils in the face of that awful glee, dust trembling to scurry away as Edmund leans forward clutching his stomach. When he straightens, the senator throws his arms wide and bellows, "You cannot kill that which is immortal, pup! I have conquered death!"

    "Funny," you reply, forcing your voice to remain even. The pressure in the room is shifting, the dead man in stolen skin warping even the flow of energy coming from the todstein slabs scraping against each other behind you. "Your colleague, Reginald Banks, said something similar right before the end."

    The Possessed's smile turns to rage in an instant, his lips drawing back in a snarl as he swings both arms toward you. Walls already cracked explode around you as your foe imposes his will upon the world, ripping it apart in a storm of telekinetic fury.

    But you are ready, bent knees straightening and launching you upward as the generators turning the Kordian satellite crumple like paper beneath Edmund Sable's power. Sparks fill the room, sending shadows dancing as you turn in mid-air to land feet first upon the ceiling. Then, with another expression of your will, you throw yourself at the Possessed with both fists forward.

    He dodges, of course. Even in such a small space it's not difficult for him to see you coming and move aside. You open your hands, landing on them where the Possessed stood just a moment before, and flip away down the hall. The revenants who had gathered have fallen to the ground, the todstein slabs of the satellite grinding to a halt with the destruction of the generators. Without the node extending the power of the Kordian Engine there isn't enough energy for them to function.

    "Coward!" Edmund shouts, the sound like a punch to the back of your skull. You grit your teeth as you bleed from your ears, pushing on as he chases after you.

    Another leap takes you up through a hole in the ceiling, and with a grunt you punch through weakened floors until you come to the roof. You rip away the crumbling concrete and come out into open air, sirens tearing through the night. A deep breath, and then another, as you take what little relief you can now that you are free from cramped confines filled with dust.

    Your enemy is right behind you, trailing debris in his wake. It orbits him slowly, concrete and metal and even bones likely ripped from the fallen revenants. The snarl on that child's face twists soft, supple skin into something monstrous as those silver eyes narrow.

    That is your only warning, and you twist to avoid the first probing strikes as concrete shards shoot out like bullets. You snatch them out of the air, and with a turn you send them hurling back toward the Possessed. He bats them away easily, stepping to the side as you circle each other.

    There is fire in your blood, energy begging for release, but you hold it close. This fight would be over soon enough if you were willing to unleash the fullness of the hate and rage burning in your guts, at yourself and the world, but to even consider that…

    Every time you do this child's face is replaced with Kendra's. No, you will not attack with the totality of what we have become. Even weary as you are, your joints aching and your skull pounding, you cannot consider truly harming the victim this terrible old man wears like clothing.

    Edmund gathers the debris between his hands and compresses it, hundreds of pounds compacted to the size of a fist. You charge forward as he does, and his eyes go wide even as he raises an arm to launch it at you. Hurriedly he steps back as you reach out a hand, feet stumbling as he slams the ad hoc cannonball into the ground between you. The roof sags as yet another hole punches through it, throwing up a cloud of powder.

    For a moment you cannot see anything, coughing as pulverized concrete assaults your throat. Almost too late do you see Edmund reaching out a hand, and you respond with your own. Force meets force, your will against his as the air shudders violently in the wake of your combined telekinetic power.

    "You're nothing!" Edmund shouts as the building vibrates, the roof dipping even further. You both shift your feet, doing your best to stay upright on uneven ground. "Just an irritant ruining everything you touch!"

    "All this deserves to be ruined," you growl. "Everything you are, everything you've made, I'll tear it all down!"

    The air shrieks with a high-pitched wail louder than any alarm or siren. You're both burning up the excess necromantic energy that was produced by the satellite, the world twisting as sparks of electricity dance in the space between you and the Possessed. Rubble bounces along the rooftop, skittering to call onto the ground below, as you ever so slowly push forward.

    Sweat beads on Edmund's brow as his arm is pushed back. He grips his forearm, tries to steady it as his elbow bends. He falls to one knee, staring up at you as you tower over the diminutive vessel he inhabits. You push again, and the Possessed is forced to lean backwards. You're so close now, ready to deliver the final blow. You reach out your other hand…

    Pain, sharp and sudden, erupts from your side as the blade slides easily into what remains of your flesh. The scream that forces itself from your lips comes through clenched teeth, and you look down to see one of the revenants has climbed up the hole you made, sword in hand. The undead soldier pulls the weapon free, and with a shout Edmund bursts to his feet and slams you into the rooftop with all the force he can muster. For a moment the world goes dark, your ears ringing, and when it clears you're staring up at the night sky with a mountain resting on your chest.

    "Yes, just stay right there," the senator says, gasping for air as he keeps the pressure on. More revenants climb up through the hole, each carrying drawn swords or the broken remains of rifles. "Thought you were clever, didn't you? Breaking the satellite, drawing me out here away from help?"

    Breathing is agony, every inhalation fighting against terrible weight. The blood leaking from your side isn't helping matters, every beat of your heart releasing a new pulse of life to drain into the cracks littering the roof. With a grunt you try to force yourself up, but all you manage is a few inches before you're slammed down again.

    "Not a bad plan at all," Edmund continues as he wipes the sweat from his brow. "A normal necromancer would have been defeated by such a gambit. But I am beyond such limits! It is a trifling matter for me to utilize multiple powers at once, and all these revenants needed after their strings were cut was to have new ones set. You put up a good fight, pup, but it's over. I've won!"

    "Ellowyn," you mutter, pushing once more against the force doing its best to drive you through the roof and into firmament. "Take what you need."

    That won't be necessary, I reply. All you require is a hand to help you to your feet.

    Edmund opens his mouth to continue gloating, but stops short as ghostly tendrils rise from the jewelry set into your body. Gently, ever so gently, they wrap around you and suddenly you can breathe again. Edmund stumbles back as if struck, my will pushing back his own, as you float off the ground and right yourself.

    He can see us both as we move in unison, though it is far too late for him to stop us as he urges the revenants forward. You raise one hand above your head, holding the other fully extended past your waist. I hold my limbs outstretched to either side. We bring them together as one, and a sound to deafen thunder, like hundreds of cannons going off at once, fills the night until there is nothing left.

    The rooftop collapses, sending everyone tumbling to the floor below. Everyone but us as we float gently down. The revenants are broken, their bodies mangled more from debris than the fall itself. Twisted as they are, the air once more filled with choking dust, you descend into a vision of hell as you approach the senator.

    Edmund has already risen to his feet, fire sparking between his hands. His silver eyes are wide and wild, for now he can perceive my presence. The terror of an old man contorts boyish youth into something grotesque, and before he can unleash the ghostfire you slam your hand into his chest.

    Grief fills the child, cold and biting, along with white-hot rage and the greasy touch of disgust. All your hate, your loathing for yourself and those who have hurt you, fills the body up until there isn't any room left for Edmund to hide. The ghost screams as he is forced out of the vessel, a sound echoed by the child as he suddenly awakens from the slumber imposed upon him. He collapses, hugging his knees, while the shimmering form of Edmund Sable looks at us with ever-growing horror.

    The Possessed who sit within the Everlasting Senate still see themselves as, fundamentally, human. They have human wants, even if they have surpassed many human needs. Those wants drive them, seeking the pleasures of life everlasting in an austere bacchanalia that will never end. As such, even thrown from their flesh they tend to resemble the forms they held in life.

    My desires are different. I have no need of human form, my pact with you the only thing keeping my thoughts resembling those that drove me when my heart still beat. I emerge from your body like a tempest, so large I obscure the moon rising overhead. Massive, hulking… I would fill the sky, crack the very foundations of the earth in a storm of furious madness that rivals even your own. That this creature, this thing, has taken everything I hoped to achieve and twisted it for his own greed. I would rip the world apart to destroy him and his ilk until deathly zephyrs dispersed me and my cries would be heard on the wind for all time.

    But I am tethered to you, bound by the jewelry latched onto your bones. The roiling mass of myself, looming as I reach past your shoulders, maintains coherency and focus as I turn toward my grisly work. Claws and mouths and stranger things, flensing tools to render the spirit down to energy and memory. Because that's all a spirit is, in the end. They are memories held together by will. Break the will and they bleed, flowing out into the world to die a second death.

    The spirit of the man who was once Edmund Sable screams one final time as I destroy him. But I am merciful, despite everything he and his have made of my dream. There is only a brief moment of suffering, and then his being is extinguished.

    All that he was flows into me, filling in gaps as faded memories come into starker focus. You groan as I grow, as more of me comes to fill the space left behind from where you burned your soul for power. You put a hand on a wall to steady yourself as I shift back into place, once more reaching a new equilibrium in our partnership.

    Harold was right, I say. There's something in the mountains, something important to them.

    "Is it the engine?"

    I don't know, but it's worth checking.

    A whimper draws your attention. The boy, his eyes now deep blue, stares at you with a mixture of confusion and terror as tears flow down his face. He flinches as you straighten, and crawls away when you reach out a hand. He hides his face as best he can after forcing himself into a corner, trembling from head to toe as he looks at you between his arms.

    It is no surprise the child weeps, tries his best to stay away from you. He has been asleep, likely for years, and the first thing he experiences upon waking is all the ugliness locked within what remains of your soul. Why would he wish to be touched by you, burdened as you are with me and the maelstrom within your heart? He must believe you will only hurt him further.

    You lower your hand. There is nothing more that can be done for him. Only time will heal the wounds inflicted upon his mind and spirit, of his ancestor's abuse and glimpsing the anguish weighing you down, the rage directed at the world and yourself for what has been done to your daughter.

    All you can do is stare, helpless despite our combined strength, with the knowledge that what was done to him has also been done to Kendra. That your daughter is a prisoner, exploited for the benefit of her own kin, and that for now she is beyond your reach.

    [] Flee. You've done what you came to do, or near enough.
    [] Completely destroy the satellite.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Completely destroy the satellite.
    C O M M I T
     
    Escape into Darkness
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Completely destroy the satellite.

    Exhaustion weighs on you like stones around your limbs, and the ache of the wound in your side throbs in time with your heart. The sword bit deep, paper-thin skin parting easily as the point tore through you. You settle a hand on the bleeding gash, blood pooling down your leg to soak into the dust of the floor, and grit your teeth in preparation.

    Flame ignites beneath your hand, so hot you barely have time to feel the pain. The ghostfire flashes a brilliant silvery blue, pushing away the darkness, before extinguishing almost immediately upon contact with your blood. Breath escapes your lips in a hiss, your vision swimming, and when sensation returns you find you've collapsed over one of the larger pieces of debris strewn about from your battle with the Possessed.

    The child Edmund Sable inhabited still weeps in the corner, never taking his eyes off of you. With effort you lift yourself from the rubble and turn away, doing your best to ignore the fear etched onto that face. How old must he be? Fourteen? Fifteen? In truth, it does not matter. At any age what was done to him would still be a crime.

    You have stemmed the bleeding, though the internal damage remains. I do what I can there, my fingers closing veins and knitting muscle back together. To my great regret this is not a painless process, and the sweat that beads on your brow as you make your way down below has more to do with your ability to endure suffering than with the muggy heat left over from the day.

    Is this necessary, Randall? I ask as I continue the gruesome work of keeping your body together. We only needed the senator. The destruction of the satellite itself isn't strictly necessary for our goals.

    "I don't like leaving a job half finished," you reply, resting a hand upon the cracked ruin of walls to help remain upright as you make your way down a flight of stairs. "And besides, it might help cover our trail."

    Yes, we did make quite a lot of noise this time around. Left a mess, too.

    That brings a smile to your face, though with how tightly your skin rests over your bones it takes upon a skeletal mien. With effort you take each step down the stairs, forcing yourself to keep moving despite the weariness beginning to overtake you. Your muscles burn, and while I can pull your flesh back together I can do nothing for your fatigue. The strain of the fight, of sacrificing a small piece of yourself, is not something you will be able to recover swiftly from. You will need days of rest, of good food and water, before you are ready for further exertion.

    But you will not give yourself that time. I know, and I do not protest. You can feel my worry, my concern for your wellbeing, but at this point in our partnership I am fully aware you will brush away any notion of recuperation. Once your mind is set to something you will not stop until it is done, no matter what the cost to yourself.

    It is your triumph and your tragedy, that determination. As you grit your teeth and make your way down ravaged hallways I cannot help but feel… pride, I suppose. Pride and astonishment, even through my concern. With every step you risk collapse, and yet you keep moving forward.

    That drive will kill you, in the end. We both know it. But you have long since made your peace with that fact, and no matter how much I might wish otherwise I will honor your wishes. Together we shall see justice done.

    Eventually you stand before the satellite, the todstein slabs stilled with the destruction of the generators. There's not much left for you to work with at this point, the energy from the Kordian Engine ever-present across the nation but greatly decreased without this facility to properly extend its reach into this region. What had been generated should have lasted for weeks, but with you and the Possessed throwing around so much power most has burned away.

    Even still, you can gather the mist that is the essence of death together until droplets of water form in your hands. Gently, ever so slowly, you pull it all together until there is enough. It won't take much to finish this, won't require more than a brief expenditure of will. Then we will be finished here, and we can make our escape.

    "Don't," comes a voice from behind you, rough and raw. You look over your shoulder to see the woman from before, the necromancer, leaning against the wall. She is gripping her side with one hand, while her other is slowly reaching for the pistol at her hip. "Whatever you're going to do, don't."

    "And if I refuse?" you ask. "What then, dog of the state?"

    She spits to the side, saliva red with blood, and glares at you from between strands of hair fallen out of place. "Is that what all this has been? Some anarchist tantrum? Is that why you destroyed this place?"

    "You're badly wounded," you reply, turning back toward the satellite. "Broken bones, internal bleeding. I recommend getting yourself to a hospital."

    "Answer me, dammit!" she shouts, pulling free her gun. With a twitch of your fingers it flies from her hands to smash against the far wall, and through my eyes you see the hate and fear in her own as she glares at the back of your head. "How are you doing this? How can you still do so much when there's so little left to use?"

    "One can work wonders," you say as you focus the power you've drawn. "When everything he loves has been taken from him."

    Pure telekinetic force erupts from your hands, slamming into the todstein slabs and sending them flying with a boom like thunder. The backwash takes the woman off her feet, sends her tumbling as the satellite breaks through the wall and soars into the sky. She curses as she falls, but you have no time for her. Your eyes are on that dull grey metal as it careens through the night. Only when you see it plunging toward the lake do you nod with satisfaction.

    Slowly, the fire in your joints doing its best to send you to your knees, you walk toward the hole in the wall. The entrance will be swarming with police and military, no doubt with necromancers putting all their will into maintaining armed and armored revenants. In your current state you couldn't hope to fight them all, so it's best to avoid them.

    "I'll find you," the woman, the necromancer, growls as she forces herself up. "And if it's not me, then someone else. You won't get away with this."

    You pause for a moment, glancing back at her even as shouts of alarm echo down ruined hallways from the front of the building. Hate and fear still war in her eyes, but the furrowing of her brow shows a growing sense of disbelief.

    "What is your name, dog of the state?"

    Those eyes attempt to harden, but the shocks to her system show with how her eyelids begin to droop. Even still, she snaps out, "Lieutenant Leslie Ashton."

    "A good name," you say, turning back toward darkness and freedom. "Don't let them break you, Lieutenant Ashton. Don't let them worm their way inside to make you into just another tool."

    And then you are off, ignoring the stabbing pain and the fire and the weariness. You careen down streets, turning randomly in your headlong rush to be anywhere than where you just were. Behind you can hear pursuing footsteps, dozens of feet giving chase as they spread out in search of you.

    The night is your ally, your dearest friend able to help to the fullest with no lights to give you away. Your scream broke them in all directions, the mourning cry of grief and rage snuffing out their fires to leave the dusk able to spread across the streets with impunity. But your friend is fickle, distorting sound as it bounces off the walls of alleys and adding yet more confusion to your headlong rush. You can only rely on it for so long.

    Turning, twisting, you force your way deeper as you attempt to outrun the cordon no doubt taking place. If they tighten the noose they will have you, and then your daughter will be lost forever. Kendra will be your grandfather's puppet, Aidric Dunstan's vessel as he tears the world apart for the ambition of men and women long dead.

    Finally, as the ache in your bones threatens to overwhelm you and the sweat pouring down your face chokes your nostrils with salt and sickness, you see salvation. All that rests between you and the sewer grate is a chain and padlock. There's so little vitality left within you to shape necromantic intent, but surely…

    The old man walking across the mouth of the alley brings you up short. Blue coat, red mantle and a jeweled cane. A man of wealth, and he sees you clearly with your hands around the chain standing between you and freedom. White hair falls across his face, red eyes peering at you quizzically, and then he smiles.

    "Officers!" he shouts, and you immediately tense. What little power you can gather settles between your fingers like a bomb, but before you can unleash it he turns and points to the opposite side of the street. "He's over there! I see him running over there! Hurry!"

    More running footsteps, more shouting, and your hunters are moving away from you. The old man turns back to you, still smiling, and brings a finger to his lips. There is no time to work out why he helped you, or what his game might be. Instead you take this gift and use it to break the chain with the barest fraction of telekinetic violence. Even this meager effort makes your vision swim, and you fall more than descend into the sewers below, letting the comforting blackness of the earth take you into its embrace. You allow yourself a moment down there, breathing coming out in heaving gasps, before you stagger to your feet.

    By the time your pursuers realize their mistake, you are long gone.


    Congratulations! You have completed the first arc of this Quest. My, but you, Randall, and Ellowyn have caused a bit of a ruckus. The next update will not be determined by a vote, but will instead be an interlude so you can see the results of your actions here.

    Also, I apologize for the delay in this update. August was very busy for me, but I should be able to more consistently update this Quest going forward. As always, I appreciate everyone who has participated in the crafting of this story and hope you've been enjoying it.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude 1
  • Threadmarks
    • Darkness.

    My world is darkness. I try to force open my eyes, but they remain shut. I strain my ears, but they hear nothing. I attempt to move, but my body is still. Even touch is muted, only a dull tension telling me I am surrounded on all sides by weight that pulls me ever downward into the depths of my own mind.

    Despite all of this, the despair that has overtaken my every conscious moment, I reach toward the light I know rests just beyond the horizon. If I can only make it there I know I will be free. If I can only break the chains that bind me I know my life will be my own again.

    Sleep is the closest the living usually ever get to death. My father told me that. The monster that holds me in bondage, that uses my body for its whims, cannot escape necessity no matter how much it tries. So every night I push onward toward the boundary between the living and the dead where I might finally, blessedly, take back what has been stolen from me.

    It is always a struggle, and some nights I do not make it very far. My enslavement is near absolute. Every step forward is a triumph, the entirety of my being focused on a singular goal to go just a little further than before. It means something that I still resist. It has to.

    The inkling of sensation comes to me as I push. Cold air across my face, sheets and covers across my body. Yes, I am almost there. I am almost…

    The weight upon me grows in terrible magnitude, and I am wrenched away from the border I was but moments from touching. Down I am pulled, deep into the depths and what little control I have vanishes even as I claw at walls that do not exist. I scream as my eyes open against my will, but no sound comes from me save for a muted yawn and the popping of joints as my body stretches.

    I have no limbs, no hands or fingers, but even still I cling to my body and the world outside. The pressure upon me pushes down once again, this time gaining little more than the barest advance toward insensate oblivion. I will not be put to sleep again. I refuse.

    "Kendra," groans my voice, rough with sleep, laid atop the much softer voice of an old man. "Dear, I don't know why you keep doing this."

    You know damn well why, you old monster.

    "There's no reason to be rude," my great grandfather, Aidric Dunstan, says as he uses my limbs to push us out of bed. "We rarely have moments to talk, and one would think you would care to learn a bit about me and what I do for the nation. God knows your father likely gave a biased impression."

    Once more I take in a room that has become depressingly familiar over the last three years. Aidric is a man who likes to believe himself subdued. There are no great works of art in this room, no gold or silver. But this, as with so much else, is a lie. Leather-bound books line shelves set near the bed, written by some of the finest authors in the world. The wood paneling along the walls is masterfully crafted, and the rug on the stone floor is one of interlocking geometric patterns from Marak, where my mother was born.

    This room alone holds more wealth than most would ever have in their entire lives. Nothing is mass manufactured, but hand-made and likely as old as Aidric himself. Certainly there is more here than what I grew up with living in my father's modest apartment or my mother's small house. It turns out refusing to cater to particular interests meant one had to live prudently.

    "If that's what you wish to call it, child," Aidric says as he moves us toward the full-body mirror by the dresser. Both are finely made, the mirror on a solid iron stand and the dresser an ancient thing that might have come from a time when Alba still had kings. "Rather, I'd say both your mother and your father squandered opportunities presented to them."

    I see my own face in the mirror and take pleasure as Aidric winces, his instinctive reaction moving my lips into a scowl. He can go stuff it. Or, better yet, do the world a favor and properly die. I'm beautiful and I know it.

    My dark skin, which my dear great grandfather has such strong opinions about, accentuates brown eyes over high cheekbones. Or they would, if Aidric's presence didn't make my eyes glow silver. The former I got from my mother, the latter my father. I have my father's nose as well, aquiline and pointed. My black hair, on the other hand, is long and wavy. I would prefer it to hang free, but Aidric ties it up into a ponytail because presumably he doesn't understand what good taste is.

    "You seem particularly animated today, and I don't have the time to properly put you back to sleep," Aidric says as uses my hands to pull a suit from his dresser, laying the clothes on the bed. "So I would appreciate it if you would behave."

    Oh, please forgive me. I didn't mean to inconvenience you.

    "Inconvenience? Well, in one sense I suppose," Aidric says as he shifts my body out of the pajamas and puts on the suit. "You're putting a great deal of stress on your body by staying awake like this, and I do care for your wellbeing."

    You care for your investment, you mean.

    "Please, Kendra," Aidric replies, tying that damned tie too tight around my neck. "You shouldn't talk about yourself that way. The young are the future, after all."

    I laugh at that because the only alternative is crying, and I don't want to give Aidric the satisfaction. Though in truth both would be to hide my fear, because this decrepit monster truly believes what he says. He can't hide at least some flashes of his thoughts from me, not when I'm close to the surface like this, and those thoughts are…

    He doesn't see any contradiction in his act as a benevolent caretaker and what he does to me. At worst, he believes it an unfortunate necessity. He longs for a clockwork world, everything exactly in its place as directed by a guiding hand. Hierarchies all the way down, a pyramid set up on layers of perceived usefulness where it is not the place of those below to ask why. It is merely to serve. Because those above them know better, and because they know better they are the ones best suited to rule.

    Aidric's aide, a spindly man by the name of Edwin Crane, waits for us outside. Everything about him is thin, from his eyebrows to his fingers and to his lips, which smile like twisting worms as Aidric closes the door to the bedroom behind us. Along with that white hair of his he gives the impression of someone older than he actually is, but in truth he probably only has ten years on me and I'm barely past twenty.

    "Good morning, sir," he says, bowing. "I hope you slept well."

    "As much as could be expected, Edwin," Aidric replies. "I trust you have my day all scheduled?"

    "Of course, Prime Minister," he says, motioning down the hall. "Right this way. Breakfast and the morning reports have been prepared."

    Another room, this one with a long table and a map of the empire taking up one wall. It's just as soberly ostentatious as the bedroom, handcrafted goods everywhere and all of considerable age. There is only the echo of taste for me as Aidric eats. All feeling is dulled like this, giving me only the echoes of flavor as eggs, toast with jam, fruits, and tea are consumed quickly and methodically.

    After which comes the grinding of the political machine.

    Breakfast is cleared away and Crane pulls out a briefcase from under the table. Reports, pictures, policy proposals… All this and more for the running of the Alban empire. The upper and lower chambers of the Everlasting Senate might be the body, where debate on the administration of the state is done, but in this room sits the brain. Because, as Aidric would put it, the body needs direction.

    "Commercial interests are encouraging further expansion past Marak and deeper into the continent, but we're encountering fierce resistance," Crane says. He passes along a number of papers, which Aidric takes with my hands. "Even collecting enemy dead, what corpses can be used, we're running short. Many of our generals believe we might be reaching the limits of how far we can advance our borders."

    "Hmm… That's not even getting into the recent skirmishes with Iber and Galt," Aidric says, glancing over the numbers. They don't mean anything to me, but I can feel his worry. "If they drag Auschla into their aggression against us we might have a proper war."

    My great grandfather is quiet for a time, and I feel his mind turning. The shadows of his thoughts dance over me, like the tendrils of some terrifying behemoth pulled up from the ocean. The only reason I do not shudder is because I do not control my body, but I recoil all the same as I come to understand his plan.

    "We need to consolidate gains," he says at last. "Make a list of the businesses who have contacted us. Coal, iron, and lumber operations I suspect. We can write up a proposal for the Senate to grant favorable deals in the territories we already control to mollify them."

    "And if the natives protest?"

    "Let them," he replies. "In fact, we should encourage them to do so. Have people send in their concerns. Not only will that let them know we are listening, but it will also give us valuable information on the worst of potential troublemakers."

    This is how Aidric Dunstan operates. Use one problem to solve another, set enemies who might have something in common against each other and then smile at how clever he is. The worst is that he believes the people he hurts will thank him in the end.

    Civilization, or what those in power consider such, is its own reward. Bring your enemies close so they might reap the benefits, all while taking from them the means of forging their own destinies. After all, it's not as if they would know how to best use their resources. No, that requires the strong hand of Alba to determine.

    "There's also the increasing issue with homeless citizens in the larger population centers," Crane goes on, piling together another group of papers. "Outside of a few holdouts with strong union representation, policy to promote revenant labor has gone well. But that does mean a sizable number of people have been unable to find new employment."

    "Yes, I was just thinking of that," Aidric says, steepling my hands together. "I believe it might be a possible solution for the military's manpower shortage."

    Crane frowns, obviously confused, but after a moment he comes to the twisted logic Aidric is following. "A recruitment drive?"

    "Indeed!" Aidric says, splitting my face into a smile. "Grant the people opportunity for work. It will go over better than handouts, which would just encourage laziness. We direct them to the military, with the stipulation the state has custody of their body upon death."

    "And what of those who don't enlist?"

    Aidric shrugs my shoulders. "They can't be allowed to stay on the streets, so to the workhouse prisons they must go. We cannot spare the rod if we are to ensure proper behavior. It will be for their own good, even if they don't realize it at the time."

    Left unsaid, of course, is how those prisoners will have little in the way of rights. The workhouses are brutal institutions, long days of backbreaking labor meant to undercut the construction unions in order to keep pressure on them. Only the most desperate would be grateful for such work, and then only to avoid starvation. And, of course, any who die in the process of this enforced employment will have their bodies confiscated to keep the industry of empire moving.

    God, I've been stuck like this for too long. I'm sounding more and more like my parents.

    "An excellent idea, sir," Crane says. "I'll direct the staff to have all the relevant policy proposals on the Senate floor by the end of the week." He pauses for as moment as he moves onto another item on the agenda, looking visibly uncomfortable. His thin lips become almost invisible as he presses them together, taking time to gather his thoughts before he continues speaking. "While on the subject… Fatima Hajar has proposed a resolution to the lower chamber to outlaw possession as a practice entirely across Alba and all of its holdings."

    "Again?" Aidric asks. He takes a sip of tea, unsweetened because why should I ever get to enjoy what little I can actually taste, and sighs. "She must know it will never pass in the upper chamber. I won't let it."

    "Yes, sir," Crane says, squirming in his seat. "I believe she's aware of that."

    Aidric narrows my eyes. "What has she done?"

    "The end of the proposal… Well, sir, to put it bluntly she's written that if you don't like it, you may fornicate with your own corpse."

    The laugh that bursts out of me forces a wince from Aidric, his discomfort furrowing my brow. Idly he pushes against me, tries to make me sleep, but I don't care. My mother, my beautifully brilliant mother, is one of the few lights in this terrible existence I've found myself in. She gives Aidric no peace, which always gives me joy.

    After a few more hours Aidric is done dictating how to carve up the world to his liking. Next come meetings, other senators speaking with my great grandfather about policy proposals, votes, how matters are in their districts… It's all quite dull, and I try not to focus on them. All too many are like those in my own position, young men and women possessed by their elders so they might continue on just a little longer.

    The most uncomfortable part is how so many of them are children. The rasp of the elderly set over the piping voices of those in the transition to adulthood. It must be easier for these wretched old ghosts to control such bodies. Not enough life lived to put up a bulwark against their control, but with enough vitality for them to enjoy the fruits of lives not their own.

    One meeting in particular catches my attention, and keeps me from accidentally slipping back into the depths of the prison that has become my body. It's a woman maybe a little younger than Crane, wearing a black uniform with her hair tied up into a bun. One arm is wrapped up in a sling, and her face is riddled with old bruises. When she walks in, she gives Aidric a crisp salute with her good hand.

    "At ease, Lieutenant Ashton," Aidric says, raising one of my hands in what he likely believes is a comforting gesture. "No need for formalities here."

    "As you say, sir," she replies, still standing ramrod straight. She lowers her hand, though, and narrows her eyes. "Permission to speak freely?"

    "Like I said," Aidric replies, leaning my body back in the chair. "No need for formalities. You're just here because I wanted to follow up on a matter with you personally."

    "And is that wise with her listening in?"

    I'm so shocked by this I actually force Aidric to blink. I have no time to rejoice in this meager regaining of control, however, as I'm forced to withstand another push to send me tumbling down into the dark. This woman… She must be a necromancer, and quite an accomplished one if she's able to tell I'm awake.

    "There won't be an issue with her being present," he replies, lifting my lips up into a smile. "Though I must commend you on your diligence. It speaks well of you, Lieutenant."

    "Thank you, sir," she says. "Though that wasn't what I wished to mention." She pauses for a moment, frowning. "I'm just not sure why I'm here. Everything of relevance is in my report."

    "Yes, your report," Crane says, pulling out said document from his briefcase. "You were quite thorough with the details of the recent terrorist attack at the Kirwick Lake facility. We'd like to know if there were any other witnesses to the incident."

    "None that I'm aware of, sir," Ashton says. "The guards at the front didn't get a good look at the figure, and everyone else was running away. I'm the only one alive who confronted him."

    "And you're sure of your description of the man?" Aidric asks. "Absolutely sure?"

    "Yes, sir," the necromancer, so obviously military by her bearing, says. "I didn't recognize him at the time since he's changed so much, but I did so after the fact. The assailant was Randall Dunstan."

    "My grandson," Aidric says, forcing my body to lean forward. He clasps my hands together, furrowing my brow. "You've seen him before?"

    "I sat in one of his lectures at university. His grasp of necromantic theory and application left an impression."

    "Yes," Aidric says softly, my lips now turned down into a scowl. "He does tend to do that."

    "You've done an excellent job," Crane cuts in. "Truly excellent, Lieutenant Ashton. We commend you for your service."

    "Thank you, sir," Ashton says. "If you don't mind my asking, when can I resume my posting at Kirwick? The region is still in disarray with the destruction of the Kordian satellite, and my skills would be of use in rebuilding."

    "Oh, you won't be returning to Kirwick," Crane says. "You've been re-assigned to the capital."

    For the first time in the conversation Ashton's demeanor cracks. Her eyes go wide, and her mouth drops open. After a moment she shakes her head, obviously about to protest, when she stops herself short. It's at this point I realize she is not a stupid woman, that she can read the room and understand what is happening.

    She's being sidelined. Witnessing my father's attack puts Aidric at risk, because the Prime Minister can't have it coming out that a member of his family is a terrorist. It would damage faith in the government. And if there's one thing my great grandfather will never allow, it is such a potential threat to his power.

    "As you say, sir," Ashton says, saluting again. "I assume I'm to be shown to my new quarters after this meeting?"

    "Just so," Aidric says, again moving my lips into a smile. "You are dismissed, Lieutenant."

    My thoughts swim as she leaves, hope and love mixing with the ever-present despair and rage that makes up my world. My father… I didn't even know he was still alive. I knew Aidric was searching for him, but to know for sure that he's still out there is like a breath of fresh air after so long drowning.

    He's fighting them. He's fighting them and he's hurting them. A single person against the world. I didn't know dad had it in him, always so stuffy and focused on his work. I thought he might have fled the country, fled the empire, but he's still here and breaking this terrible machine that holds me and so many others in bondage.

    "Well," Crane says after the door closes. "I think we can probably deduce who killed Senator Banks last year, considering this new information."

    "This is a problem," Aidric says, putting my hands on the table as he pushes my body to its feet. "And we need to correct it."

    "I'm not sure how he's managed this," Crane says, looking through reports. "He's just one man. A talented necromancer, but still one man. How can he have caused all this damage?"

    "It doesn't matter," Aidric says, turning to look at the map of the empire on the wall. He takes my hand and runs my fingers down the length of Alba. "The how is less important than the why, and knowing my grandson I have a good idea of what he's after."

    "His daughter, of course," Crane says, putting the papers back into his briefcase. "And he's willing to wage war on all of Alba, the damned fool. I'll arrange for troops to move to the Kirwick area. He's probably using the confusion to cover his movements to the west."

    "No, I don't think so."

    Aidric takes my hand and traces along the Yorka Peaks. The mountain range runs along the middle of the country, going up into the Kaledon highlands. He stops at one mountain in particular, tapping my fingers against it.

    "He's going for the engine."

    Crane blinks. "But the engine isn't there."

    "Yes, but he doesn't know that," Aidric says, forcing my fingers to give the mountains one final tap. "He's guessing, and he's discovered there's a major operation placed in the mountains. That's where he'll be moving. Everything else is a distraction."

    "Then we'll have to inform Margaret Zeal immediately!" Crane says, pushing the chair back with enough force to make it squeal across the floor. "Send troops to protect her and the rest of the enterprise!"

    "I suppose," Aidric says. He turns my body around to face Crane. "Send a team via zeppelin, but without haste. Make it seem like it's just more resources being diverted to Kirwick."

    "Sir?"

    "It's making the best of a bad situation," he says, crossing my arms. "Margaret is growing unstable. Having someone like that at the core of our intelligence services is too much of a risk. She's become a threat to us, and thus the nation, so I'm afraid she's going to have to go. This just happens to be an expedient way to accomplish that."

    Crane stares at Aidric, who for his part merely shrugs my shoulders at his disbelief. How the thin wisp of a man couldn't see this coming is beyond me. Aidric has always been like this, genteel in public and absolutely ruthless if he feels he must. If this Margaret Zeal has become an issue, then it's not surprising in the least he would try to use my father to rid himself of her without dirtying his hands.

    To Crane's credit, he recovers quickly. Coughing into one hand, he picks up his briefcase from the table. "The fact your grandson found out about Zeal's hub means we have a leak. We need to investigate."

    "I agree. We don't need any loose ends. Randall's death won't be enough."

    "His death, sir?"

    "Yes," Aidric says. "I don't like doing it, but Randall is causing too many problems and from what the Lieutenant described, his body is no longer suitable as a vessel. Best for everyone if he was just removed. That will be what the team is for."

    You fucking bastard! Don't you touch him! I'll get my hands on a knife, cut my own wrists before I let you hurt him! You can't keep me buried forever! He's trying to save me! He's trying to save everyone you and your ghouls have taken!

    Aidric winces and puts my hand to my head, massaging my temple. "Kendra, dear, now is not the time."

    I will make it the time! I will drag you down to hell with me and spit on your shriveled soul!

    "Edwin, one last matter before I go to my next meeting," Aidric says, pushing me even as I claw to stay awake. "On the vessel program? The status quo is growing untenable."

    "I'm afraid it's a bust, sir. So far neither conventional science nor necromancy has shown any progress growing a copy of the human body. The most we've gotten are cancerous lumps of flesh."

    "Then I'll just have to bear with the indignity of our secondary plan," Aidric says, twisting my lips into a scowl. "Find a suitable man before spring. I'll grow a new vessel myself."

    Wait… You can't be serious.

    "Kendra, stop getting so agitated," Aidric says, stumbling my body toward the chair as I slam against his mind. He takes a deep breath with my lungs before continuing. "You're not staying asleep as much as you should, and that's putting stress on the body. Something to do with your age, I suspect, or your mother's heritage. It's best for all of us if we go forward with the alternative, no matter how distasteful it may be."

    I scream. I scream and scream and scream. I scream with such strength that it makes the room tremble, the power of my fury and terror pressing against the monster that has taken over my body. Betrayal, that he would do this to me, pushes me forward. Necromantic energy leaks from my body in waves of purple and black as my will clashes against Aidric and he is forced, for the first time in three years, to give me ground.

    With jerking hands I reach for the gun I know Crane keeps in his jacket, the spindly man as much a bodyguard as an assistant. He catches my wrists easily before I can make any progress, forcing me around to hold me by my arms and waist. I twist and turn, but Aidric is also pushing against me and I'm losing what little control I've managed to tear away. Already I'm falling back into the dark, losing my awareness as I continue to scream my defiance.

    "Keep that grip, Edwin," Aidric forces through my clenched teeth. "I'll need to cancel the rest of my meetings before the Senate convenes. This won't wait."

    "As you say, sir," he grunts, thin arms filled with surprising strength as he contains my wild thrashing. I have no leverage, no way to escape, and he slowly bears me to the ground. "I have her."

    The pressure turns into hammer blows. One punch, then another, as Aidric turns his full attention toward burying me. I fight him every step of the way, but it's no use. The darkness is swallowing me, pushing me down into inky blackness as my consciousness fades away.

    "Mom! Dad!" I croak, my voice raw as I make one last push to bring my words into the world. "Help me! Please! Help me!"

    And then there is no more.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • God, this is a grim update - there's a lot of the horror of the empire here, and the very day to day abuse she's enduring is unsettling.

    This really does a lot to get me more invested in the whole arc of the quest, the personal motive lands a lot harder knowing how she's hearing the news and things?
     

    For any who have been curious as to what Randall and Ellowyn look like, here is art I commissioned from the amazing BewaretheWarp!

    Ellowyn is taking a mostly human shape here for Randall's benefit, though there are hints to her greater nature in the image. As you can see, Randall hasn't been doing well.
     
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    In the Shadows of the Valley
  • Threadmarks
    • Ten thousand eyes observe me
    invisible upon the air
    judging with every waking moment
    Like a spider's web I feel them
    gentle across my skin
    but trailing to reveal where I have gone
    and leading to where I intend to go
    Who is this that spies on me?
    Who is this watching in the shadows
    taking note of all I do?
    I do not know
    and I am afraid
    -Ten Thousand Eyes


    Warmth. It spreads slowly across your skin, banishing the cold that has seeped into your bones. You get cold so easily now, the chill going through your skin and sinking deep into your flesh. There's no fat to hold in your own body's heat. There is little in the way of muscle, either, so everything inside of you bleeds out into the world.

    With warmth comes light. It batters against your eyelids, pulling you from the depths of sleep and into the realm of the waking. Your eyes open, and you shoot to your feet. Droplets of dew fly everywhere, misting in the air, and your hands come up ready to unleash devastation upon there world around you.

    The nightmares have faded, but their touch lingers. In your ears you hear your daughter screaming, begging you for help. The echoes of her cries drown out even the frantic pounding of your heart, distract from the tightness in your throat as you try to draw in breath.

    It's all right, Randall, I whisper, my voice cutting through the phantom wailing of a daughter you long to hold in your arms. It's all right.

    Slowly, almost painfully, you lower your hands. Your fingers twitch, sparks dancing between them as you bleed off the energy you have gathered. Exhaustion crashes into you like a wave upon the shore, and when it recedes there is just a little bit less of you as it drags your strength away. You lean on the tree you had slept under, letting its stability hold you up, and take in your surroundings.

    On the mountainside, above the smog that is so common in the sky here in the Alban empire's heartlands, the sun shines clearly. It breaks in rays of orange and gold above the clouds, bathing the world in fire. Below are towns and the roads that connect them, all smothered in polluted haze, but up here the breath you take is clean. The land below holds its own majesty, even through that dirty gray, a mess of lines breaking up the world into interesting shapes that connect to each other like a jigsaw puzzle laid down by God.

    Green grass grows in abundance, moss and lichen clinging tightly to rocky outcroppings. Trees with thick, strong roots cling even at impossible angles. All around you is beauty and wonder one might not believe possible having lived only in the shadows of industry that drive Alba's might to extend so far beyond its borders. But here, where land touches sky, it is possible to escape that grim reality and believe in a world without pain, without misery or hardship.

    But you have no time for such things, and even less inclination. With a rasping cough you thump your chest, spitting bloody phlegm to the side to soak into the rocky soil. The shaking has subsided, and so it is with steady hands you reach into your coat to pull forth a flask of fresh water. It is cool, and the relief it brings is as much for cleaning lingering detritus as it does quenching your thirst.

    One sip, then another. Afterwards you wipe your lips with the back of your hand, set your flask into your coat, and continue your journey up the mountain.

    It would have been nice to enjoy the view a little longer.

    "We don't have time for that," you reply, crawling to grasp at roots to pull yourself forward. The incline is not too terrible, but one false step could spell disaster. "We have to keep moving."

    You need to rest, I reply. You've still not fully recovered from your battle with the Possessed.

    "It's been weeks," you say. "I'm fine."

    Clean though the air may be, it is also thin. This has taken a toll on you, as so much does in your beleaguered state. Your breathing comes out in broken gasps as you climb, and more than once you have to pause in order to fill your lungs sufficiently. The burning in your limbs, in the ragged scar where you were stabbed, has not abated. They torment you every waking moment, always waiting in the wings.

    Five days we have been wandering these mountains, doing our best to follow your friend Harold's directions, and you are wearing yourself down. Onward, ever onward, you push yourself. You will never stop. But that drive… It is killing you, has been killing you. If in these past few weeks you had allowed yourself time to recover from your battle with the Senator, if you had taken in sufficient food and water, you would have more strength to draw upon during this trial.

    "Don't fuss over me," you say, feeling my concern brush against your thoughts. "I can't stop. I won't stop. Not when we're so close."

    And if you die? What then, Randall?

    "Then you puppet my corpse until the job is done."

    I have no answer for that, and so silence reigns for a time. You place one hand in front of another, dragging yourself on. There are roads we might have taken, but they present too much of a risk. If the location we seek is indeed where the engine has been moved in time since my death, then the path to it will be watched and guarded.

    The ground shifts dangerously beneath you, a stone beneath your hand tearing free and almost sending you tumbling down the mountain. Instinctively you draw upon the energy of death in the air to launch yourself forward before you lose your balance, tightly directed telekinesis sending you flying toward a boulder covered in the roots of two trees.

    You grab onto one of those roots and haul yourself up, placing your back against the boulder. Your heart is beating so fast, every breath coming so quickly that in this shallow atmosphere you threaten to render yourself unconscious. Arms spread wide on either side of the rock to steady yourself, you take firm and deliberate effort you take deeper breaths to force back the darkness encroaching on the edges of your vision. Your heart slows its frantic pace, and when you fully slide to the ground you are drenched in sweat.

    More aches on top of the previous. Your hand is cut from where the stone loosed itself, and the sudden burst of power has left you drained. But even still, you reach forward to continue.

    I would request a favor.

    You stop short, brow furrowing as you scowl. "What kind of favor?"

    It has been some time since I have done morning prayers, I say. On such a fine and beautiful day as this I would like to express my appreciation for God's work.

    "Pray?" you exclaim, leaning back against the boulder. "Are you serious? What would be the point? The Alban church separated from the mainland a century ago, and they're in bed with the Senate in any case."

    The schism had not yet happened in my time, and regardless it makes no difference to me. I have expressed my wish, Randall. Will you grant me this boon?

    Frustration flares within you like a star, hot and fierce. I can feel your anger, your desperation. It is always ready to burst forth, always ready to grant you strength at the cost of fortitude. You open your mouth to vent that animus.

    I take shape before you with effort. It is difficult for me to assume human form, my needs and drives no longer bound to the shape I once held. I was a large woman, full-bodied and strong, with long hair trailing wildly behind me. I never could manage it, but it was something I always took pride in. Ethereal chains link us together, the jewelry you wear reflected this simulacrum I have crafted.

    Your dark eyes meet mine, light even before my death. My expression is neutral as your lips draw back. You want to scream at me. I can feel that so clearly as you wrestle with all your fears and hatreds. Of the world, and especially of yourself.

    Another deep breath, and you bring your hands together to face the sun. Weariness has overtaken your grievances, and I am not the one who truly holds your ire. I disperse the seeming of myself as you do, settling back firmly beneath your skin while you kneel in proper supplication.

    God, who makes the sun rise and the stars shine, arbiter of the final mystery. We give unto you our thanks that we might partake of the day's bounty, relishing in the majesty of your creation. May you forgive us our trespasses, bless us in our endeavors, and allow us to see a world where none need suffer. Oh, glory glory glory eternal. Forever and always.

    You grunt, but even this brief time resting has allowed some of the pain to subside. Your breathing comes easier, and I have staunched the bleeding in your palm so you might use that hand without risk of further injury. You don't comment on any of that, of course. We are too tightly bound for you to not realize my intentions.

    Which means you cannot hide the faint flickers of gratitude that swell within your heart, no matter how deeply buried they might be beneath a morass of self-loathing. I do not reply to this, merely letting my fondness for you caress softly across your thoughts.

    Sometimes all we need to know is that someone cares.

    It is customary after morning prayers to break one's fast, I say as you rise to continue the climb. As I cannot eat, you will have to do this for me.

    That pulls a laugh from you. Shaking your head, you reach into your coat and pull some jerky and hardtack, soaking the latter with a splash of your water to soften it. You do not savor the food, but to be truthful it is not very palatable. Still, it brings a little vitality back to your limbs.

    Thus it is with renewed vigor that you press on. Up and around, turning with the mountain as the sun contain yes its trek across the sky. One foot in front of the other, hands reaching for anything that might provide support. That has been so much of your life these last three years, and this struggle is no different.

    Hours later and we have come to the northern side of the mountain, below which is a small valley nestled between this and the adjacent peak. A river runs through it, flowing from its source deeper into the range and continuing down through the country until it joins a greater stream that empties out past the capital and into the sea.

    But you have eyes only for the facility settled by the riverbank. Even at this distance you can hear the turbines hum from the dam drawing power from the water's passage, a vibration felt in the tips of your fingers. The facility itself is quite large, multiple buildings of concrete in a similar style to that which housed the Kordian satellite you destroyed weeks ago. Concrete cubes connected to each other by asphalt roads, with machine gun nested on the rooftops.

    The farmland is a change from the usual, small fields of wheat and other staple crops surrounding the complex, but makes sense considering the intent of this location. This place is meant to be as self-sufficient as possible in order to avoid drawing attention to itself. The more supplies need be sent, the greater the chance someone might notice.

    Which Harold did, of course. You will have to thank him the next time you meet. Perhaps apologize, too, for how rude you were at the end of that conversation. It is not as if you have many friends, and you need all the help you can get.

    "What did I say about fussing?"

    My laughter is like the ringing of chimes. It reverberates with the wind, the breeze swirling around you to tug at your coat and tussle your hair. You spit greasy strands out from where they fell into your mouth, raising a hand to straighten the dirty locks, but your frown is forced and I can feel the cheer rising within you to push back against the contempt you hold for yourself.

    Because we have done it. We have reached this place, hidden away into such a remote corner of the world. The Kordian Engine, my engine, must be here. Why else all the secrecy, which would be the greatest defense beyond any firearm or necromantic working? Nothing else makes sense.

    The trip down the slope is less perilous than the climb up, but only just. You must take care to avoid being spotted, keeping the densest foliage, and that requires taking care where you step. An expression of will draws the power released by decay for your use, twisted the world into a subtle illusion that blurs your shape and blends your form with your surroundings.

    So it is that you hold on to rock and branch, slowly working your way to the valley. Hard packed dirt gives way to looser soil, and as the sun begins its descent you finally reach the bottom. The shadows have grown long now, dancing as a howling cold gusts through the valley and sends the trees to shaking. That draws a shiver from you, the sweat coating your body from the day's exertions like ice atop your skin, but you do not move to warm yourself.

    Instead, you are taking the measure of this facility. There are revenants, of course. Most seem to be working the farm, though all are armed with rifles slung over their backs. No doubt the machine gun nests are also manned by such constructs, todstein spikes gleaming in their foreheads and set with instructions to open fire on anyone not recognized as belonging here. There is no sign of the necromancers who would direct and program them, but you do not doubt they are here.

    It will be difficult to overcome, but not impossible. This place was made with concealment in mind. It is not a castle, not some hardened military emplacement that requires so much in the way of logistics to properly maintain. If you strike hard and fast, you will likely be able to overwhelm the defenses before they can concentrate enough fire…

    The thought trails as a figure, a man with thinning red hair, makes his way from one of the concrete buildings and to the edge of the farm. He's a portly fellow, and pulls out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face before raising the speaking trumpet in his other hand.

    "Randall Dunstan!" the man calls, the brass cone throwing his voice much further than it ever could naturally. "I represent Margaret Zeal, who operates this facility! If you are watching and are willing, then she would like to speak with you! She believes your goals might align with her own!"

    [] Accept the offer.
    [] Attack immediately.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Accept the offer.

    We've lost surprise anyways. May as well see what she wants.
     
    The Spider's Web
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Accept the offer.

    You go completely still, warring instincts battling within you. Your first drive is aggression, to attack with everything you have. Reason quickly tempers this drive, for if the people here are aware of your presence then they will have the fullness of their strength ready to pit against you. Lightly defended this place might be, but if they can focus on you then there is no guarantee you will be able to defend from all the angles those guns might fire from.

    These thoughts are followed soon by despair. Because if someone is coming out to speak with you, to make offers of cooperation, then the Kordian Engine is almost certainly not here. It is the cornerstone upon which Alba's economy and military functions. The Everlasting Senate would not have anyone but the most loyal, most invested, personages maintaining it.

    Which means this facility is for some other purpose. Why, then, all this secrecy? What is the point of so much investment if it is not for the Engine? Curiosity, the desire to pick apart problems until the solutions present themselves, rises to the forefront of your thoughts. You were a teacher once upon a time, one who researched and shared what he learned. No matter how much these last three years have broken you, it seems old habits die hard.

    The underbrush parts as you step out, hands raised in a display of supplication as you let your control over the shadows drop. In truth you are ready to unleash a wave of fire before launching yourself at the facility, hoping the smoke will hide you long enough from the resulting enfilade that you can get close. After all, it is best to be prepared.

    The man blinks in obvious surprise as you emerge, his jowls wobbling as he takes a step back. The speaking trumpet almost slips from his hand, and he is only just quick enough as the revenants working the farm drop their tools and reach for their weapons. He barks out a command, and the undead workforce pick up their instruments and get back to work.

    Your eyes narrow. "You didn't know I was here."

    "Oh, not for certain," the man says, a grin breaking across that chubby face. "But I suspected, so I've been coming out three times a day to make that announcement."

    "And how did you know I was heading this way?" you ask. "This seems too much effort to be made on an assumption."

    "But it was an assumption made with good supporting evidence," the man replies, waggling his eyebrows. "I saw you through Lieutenant Ashton's eyes, and from there knew there were only so many places you would go after that ruckus you made in Kirwick."

    "You what? Saw me through…" You trail off as you take another look at the man, examining him more closely. You draw upon the energy released by decay and create an invisible lens by which to see through, revealing the ethereal line leading from this man back into the facility. "You're one of the Possessed."

    "Indeed!" he says. "But not one you're used to, I would imagine. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Margaret Zeal, though more appropriately I am but a small piece of her spread across those who work in this facility." He gives you a bow, motioning a hand toward one of the concrete cubes. "If you would please follow me? We have much to discuss."

    Warily, eyes tracking every movement, you trail behind the man… Woman, you suppose, considering the host would not be piloting the body, as she walks toward a great set of iron doors. You take the time to examine that intangible cord, settled around and into the skull, leading to and through the entrance. It is part of a greater whole, only the end resting within this man to possess his body and make him an extension of a spirit's will.

    Could this Margaret Zeal be a dispersed consciousness? The thought both intrigues and frightens you, for it is something you have never encountered before. The body before you lacks the characteristic silver shine from the eyes that marks a spirit controlling a living body. Could it the result of moving about multiple bodies, leaving one as the central host and being able to slip into others at will, or is there simply just not enough of Margaret in each body to have her presence leak out in such an obvious tell?

    These and other thoughts whirl about in your mind as the doors open with barely a sound, well-oiled hinges taking their weight easily as you are led inside. In many ways it is much like what you have experienced before, brutally utilitarian with straight lines broken up by small, square rooms. Linoleum floors squeak underfoot, and harsh electric lighting banishes all shadows but leaves everything washed out.

    The compound is abuzz with activity, men and women moving swiftly down hallways to rooms where reports are written and filed. All of these people are possessed by Margaret Zeal. Those ghostly tendrils are everywhere, the bulk of them set near the ceiling and always ending around a person's head. They twitch and pulse like living things, and move out of your way whenever there is a risk of touching one.

    This Possessed is like nothing you have ever seen before, so disseminated among a population, and you are unsure of what you might need to do in order to combat her should the situation call for it. Your exorcising technique works by pushing your own emotions into a target to force out the invading spirit, but will that even accomplish anything when the Possessed is several bodies rather than one? What would such an existence even do to a mind, scattered among so many with their own senses and sensations?

    "I admire you," Margaret says suddenly, turning the head of the portly man to look over his shoulder at you. "I want you to know that. I admire your drive to take on the world in order to get what you want."

    "I'm not fighting the world," you say, drawing your coat closer. The shudder that courses down your spine is not just from the chill. "Only Alba."

    "But is not Alba the world? It's the only part that matters. The further you roam from its borders the less relevant or important those other lands become. And I… I want to live in that world. A world of progress, where new discoveries are made every day. All mystery peeled back to reveal hidden truth."

    Yelling distracts from this strange conversation. Someone is bellowing at the top of their lungs, angry and frightened, from one of the rooms ahead. The door does very little to block the noise, only muffling it faintly as you approach.

    "This is an outrage!" comes the voice. "I am a representative of the Everlasting Senate, and I will not be treated this way!"

    "Oh, please wait. This is fortuitous timing," Margaret says, raising a hand from this host to forestall your advance. She opens the door with a smile. "I've caught an agent from the Senate trying to spy on me, and what better way to express my intent toward cooperation than showing what I do to our mutual enemies?"

    Inside a bare room a man is strapped to a chair by his wrists, chest, and ankles. He twists and turns, trying to break free, but for all that he is as large as an ox he does not have the leverage to escape. His blonde hair is unkempt, falling across his face, but it does not obscure his vision as he looks at you and your guide with blue eyes wide with terror and indignation.

    "You won't get away with this, Zeal!" the man screams. "I have allies, people I'm to report back to! If you-"

    One of the other staff, you had not noticed her so distracted by the man, approaches from the side and opens her mouth impossibly wide. The ghostly limb of Margaret Zeal that is wrapped around her skull bursts from between her lips and plunges down into the man's skull. His back arches as far as it can go, his body rigid as he shrieks in silent agony. Then he goes limp, falling still.

    "The Senate doesn't know I've taken over the whole staff," Margaret says, taking the ghostly tendril out of the poor man's skull and back into the mouth of the other vessel. His head flops down, drool leaking from his lips. "So whenever they send someone to investigate I catch them soon enough. At this point it's really just a game for me."

    "What did you do to him?"

    "Cored out his mind and drank its contents," Margaret says. "Not that there was much there, but I hate secrets and every little bit of knowledge I can take in is exquisite."

    The body Margaret Zeal inhabits trembles in something disturbingly like ecstasy. This action is mirrored by the woman in the room, and you can see others in the hallway doing the same. She rubs many hands across many faces, luxuriating in whatever she took from this man, and smiles so wide skin begins to tear.

    Fear, cold as ice, creeps up your spine like frost to push against the ever-present loathing and anger that drives your actions. This woman… What has she become? You wrestle with this question, trying to make sense of this spirit that has spread herself so completely. How can something like her even be possible?

    But you've little time to consider the implications, to wrap your curiosity around growing terror, before you are brought to what is obviously the central room of this particular building. It is wide, with even more radio stations and people typing reports. They sit in stiff wooden chairs, only a thin cushion for padding, and all have Margaret Zeal's ephemeral limbs wrapped around and into their skulls.

    Radio equipment is everywhere, dozens upon dozens of transmissions being logged and notated with the clacking of typewriters. The air hums with them, an electric current so intense you can taste it on your tongue. Even more there is paper, the smell of ink almost overwhelming as documents are placed into, or taken out of, filing cabinets set at regular intervals.

    But no one bumps into each other, no one stumbles or slips despite the breakneck pace they are going at. Their coordination is absolute, a hive of people directed toward a singular purpose drawn from disparate action.

    It's the map at the far wall that takes you attention away from this unnerving display of logistical grace. It is huge, detailing the whole of the empire, laminated and marked with ink. A ladder rests nearby, attached to which is a thin rope with a felt-tipped pen. Notations run the whole length of the map, though certain communities have more attention stained with black than others.

    "I know those locations," you whisper. "Those are schools."

    "Universities! Always have to keep an eye on those. Sedition breeds there like disease."

    You turn, for it is not the man from before who Margaret Zeal speaks to you with. She walks down a set of stairs leading to a second floor, from which at this angle you can see is filled with bookshelves. The body is a tall woman with broad shoulders, dressed in a perfectly tailored white suit, fit and healthy. The freckles on her face shift as she smiles, her green eyes alight with flashes of silver, and all around her short-cropped red hair is even more of the mass of Margaret Zeal than any of the other bodies. They writhe like snakes, undulating as she approaches you with the clacking of high-heels on white linoleum.

    "I beg your pardon?"

    "Don't get me wrong," Margaret says, bring up those stolen hands in a placating gesture. "I appreciate what is done there, all those great minds exploring the limits of what is possible, but sometimes they ask inconvenient questions."

    "How are you doing this?" you ask, waving a hand to take in the room and all its tightly controlled chaos. "What is all of this?"

    "Ah, getting right to the heart of the matter. I like that," Margaret says. She raises both arms and twirls around. "This place makes up the eyes and ears of the Alban empire! A thousand reports a day, traveling at the speed of the spoken word. Faster, depending. There is a Kordian satellite here, and using that I am able to perceive through any necromancer whenever they work their trade."

    "Then this is the intelligence apparatus for the country. And you've, what, subverted it? That's…" You take a breath, steeling yourself against the grand insanity of your surroundings. "How has the Senate not realized what you've done? Surely the Prime Minister isn't blind to all of this."

    "Aidric Dunstan! Oh, that man…" Margaret shakes the heads of the closest five people, all of them moving in unison as their faces twist into scowls. "The Prime Minister will move to get rid of me, sooner or later. I've gathered too much power, and he won't let that stand. He tries to keep things from me, but I know so much, and what I don't know I will learn! I will know everything! I deserve to know everything! There are no secrets that will be hidden from me!"

    That last sentence is shouted not just from the woman in front of you, but from every mouth in the room save your own. You clap your hands to your ears, push out briefly with your will, for there is more than mere sound in that collective cry. This is the center of Margaret Zeal's power, a place so suffused in her essence that reality has become thinner and more malleable. She has settled not just in the people, but in the floors and walls and the land itself, creeping into everything and weaving a spider's web of her spirit to entangle everything in her domain.

    "My apologies," Margaret says, that too-wide smile returning. "Sometimes I get a little too caught up in my passions. It's a failing of mine."

    "What does any of this have to do with me?" you ask, lowering your hands. The power you hold onto, however, keeping it gathered and ready to be unleashed. It provides a buffer against the terrible weight of this woman. "Why should I align with you?"

    "Because you're an enemy of the state, as I soon will be!" Margaret replies. "You know as well as I do the Senate is a rat's nest. Aidric stands supreme for now, but not all are true believers like Sable was. Others would love to topple him, and I know all their secrets. I could give those to you, for a price."

    Your brow furrows. "And that would be?"

    "I've managed to see parts of the thoughts of the other Possessed, though they can hide the majority from me," Margaret says, pitching her voice low despite the absurdity of the action. There is no one here save for you and her, though I remain hidden deep within your flesh. "It is… bothersome, like an itch I just can't scratch. But you are worse. You are an enigma, a puzzle I haven't been able to solve, and if we are to join forces then that needs to change. I must see inside of you, understand you completely, or this alliance is impossible."

    [] Agree to the conditions.
    [] Refuse the conditions.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Agree to the conditions.

    This is a really bad deal but I'm not sure we'd be able to safely leave without taking it. Plus, her info would be extremely valuable, if not normally worth the downside of further empowering her. To understand us completely would allow her to find the POV spirit, but I don't think she'd try to possess us/have us join her hivemind.
     
    [X] Agree to the conditions.

    She's crazy but damn, she and the founder of this whole necromantic tradition would have a lot to talk about, it's wild.
     
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