Dead Sky: An Exalted Quest

[Gargulec]

[X] Flee your manse before your enemies attack again.

Click to shrink...

You know what to do. Your enemies must soon realize they failed to kill you, a powerful sorceress. They are already bold enough to assault you in the seat of your power, which means you have suffered a terrible, but certainly temporary setback on the road to the Work, which is your birthright. This setback likely means that you are not safe here, that your puissant defenses have been shattered and your sorcerous servants banished. Which can only mean one thing.

THE GAUNTLET: Cut your loses. Run. You'll reclaim your throne in time.

You spring to your feet, ignoring the pain in your chest. Pain is better than defeat, and you will not be defeated tonight. Not by them, whoever they are. You grab only the ritual blade, light enough to carry on your flight. And then, you run.

The manse is surprisingly small for one belonging to you - perhaps it is a good sign. You think, as you find a spiralling stairwell leading out of the reflecting pool chamber, and into gloomy below, that perhaps this is not your seat after all, but just an outlying tower, a forward base. You are not abandoning your fortress, only withdrawing from a besieged salient. The notion comforts you as your awkward run makes you yelp in pain with every other step.

You run - or more like tumble - downstairs, through a number of dusty, dark platforms. Air here smells of salt, and age. But there is no time to investigate any of that. Soon, you find yourself at the bottom of the tower, and then, ahead of you, there is the escape route: a door open into the night, through which again you see a shred of the familiar sky. Go!

With a stumbling step, you leave the manse behind, and enter freezing winds.

???: You're alive.

The voice comes from what you mistook, at first, for some kind of a mound. It is an easy mistake to make, especially in the dark, especially when you are in such a rush. But the mound shifts, and you see that it is a person, easily two heads taller than you. Their arms spread lazily, like branches of ancient oak. It doesn't escape your attention that a spear the size of a small tree waits in her grasp.

???: Honestly, kind of surprising.

[ ] Do I know you?
[ ] My servant! You survived the assault!
[ ] We have no time to waste! We must run, now!
[ ] Get back, brute! I wield the Death of Obsidian Butterflies and I will not be stopped on path!

 

[Gargulec]

[X] We have no time to waste! We must run, now!

Click to shrink...

"Our," you have no idea why, but this our comes in naturally, as if this hulking presence was a part of the greater constellation of 'us', "enemies are closing in! We have no time to waste! We must run, now!"

The great looming presence is quiet for a short moment. Then, they sigh: a keen sound, like winds barrelling down mountain slopes.

???: "Calm the fuck down."

Their hand lands on your shoulder and closes on it. There is enough strength in its bulging muscle to pick you up like a stray kitten.

THE LOVERS: You would like that, wouldn't you?

Thankfully, you've lost too much blood to blush properly. But the voice and the touch are both familiar; they've been following close behind you lately. You frown, and as you do, an image emerges from the floatsam gyre that is your memory: a broad-shouldered wolf-woman, grey, gold, and silver, sucking out marrow from cracked bones as you explain something to her. And yes, that's her: the looming shape ahead of you has all of her dimensions, all of her sounds and odours. It also has her claws, currently digging into the parchment-thin skin of your shoulders.

???: "Your enemy has left. Three hours ago. Nobody's coming for you."

[ ] My enemy?
[ ] How do you know they've left?
[ ] I think I know you.

 

[Gargulec]

[X] My enemy?

Click to shrink...

???: "The clean-shaven woman with a sky-torn knife, yes."

The wolf-woman speaks with well-practiced, if rather exasperated patience, the kind you would extend to slow children or particularly unruly mules. Which is rather demeaning, although you are used to it by now.

THE SORCERER: It's unfortunately common for sorceresses, evens ones as exceptional as you, to be saddled with physically-adept minions necessary for menial tasks. It also unfortunately common for such minions to develop delusions of superiority, on the basis of being able to fold you in half in their muscle-bound hands, ones used more to brutish pursuits of violence and ravishment instead of...

THE LOVERS: No. Stop. Shut up.

You blink. You are experiencing very conflicting emotions, including a very intense and somewhat directionless feeling of abject shame.

THE LOVERS: Good.

You blink again. The wolf-woman gives you a moment.

"The clean-shaven woman with a sky-torn knife, yes?"

???: "Yep. Her. She's left. Three hours ago. After dealing you a mortal wound. And stealing that tube you've been carrying around."

[ ] Mortal wound?
[ ] Tube?
[ ] How do you know all of that?

 

[Gargulec]

[X] Tube?

Click to shrink...

???: "A leather scroll tube you have been carrying with you ever since we've met, and which you have forbidden me from ever touching, on pain of-"

She pauses, and taps her claw-tipped fingers against your shoulder. The pins-and-needles sensation sends a cold shiver down your spine, or at least would, if the freezing wind had not gotten to you first, which it did.

???: "-of ripping my soul free from the wretched host my barbarian body, then having the finest necro-smiths of Stygia forge it into a soulsteel mount on which the mongrel pelt stripped from my back will be mantled"

THE SORCERER: It is vital to keep your minions in line, and in fear of your power.

There is another awkward pause.

"Was I serious about that?"

???: "Absolutely. You alright?"

[ ] Yes [lie].
[ ] No, I couldn't finish the Work.
[ ] No, I had the tube stolen from me, and I think it was important.
[ ] No, and I am not sure why I am not dead right now.

 

[Gargulec]

[X] No, and I am not sure why I am not dead right now.

Click to shrink...

???: "Yeah..."

The hand on your shoulder opens, and then a long claw skids down your chest, stopping at the open mouth of the wound punched through you.

???: "Clean blow. Straight through the heart."

From her tone, you can infer that she is both impressed by the quality of that swordmanship, and confused by the fact of your continuing presence among the living.

???: "I could - maybe - live through that. If I got lucky. Which means that your soul should be currently taking a dunk in Lethe. And that woman with the sky-torn knife, all wreathed in violet? She's not the kind that makes mistakes. Which makes it very confusing."

THE GAUNTLET: Survival is control.

"What does it mean?"

???: "I have no idea. Maybe you're just the luckiest bitch alive. Maybe it's one of those delayed blows you people love so much. You know, you hit someone, they feel mildly queasy, five days later their heart fucking explodes."

THE GAUNTLET: She is wrong. Luck is not a factor in games of survival. That you are alive right now is nothing but the predictable outcome of a series of actions you have taken, and a culmination of consequences of your choices. No miracle held you alive. Only volition. And the willingness to suffer for it.

"I don't think this is what's going to happen."

You are quite sure of that. Your heart is not under a curse, though it may be pierced. But you are neither dying, nor about to die. Not from that wound, at least. For whatever reason. In fact, you can almost explain it.

THOUGHT UNLOCKED: Emptying the Holds.

???: "Shame. I've always wanted to see that trick in practice. It's such a fun idea."

THE SORCERER: Parlor tricks. Debauchment of secret knowledge. Street-fair showmanship characteristic of minds capable of greatness, but unwilling to pursue it. True power is not within some rudimentary katas, but unlocked through...

THE LOVERS: Jealousy is not a good look, you know.

Your head hurts.

THE CAPTAIN: Ma'am, I must warn you. Those two will keep on bickering in her presence. This cannot be avoided. But this cannot be indulged. The Work is still within grasp. The journey is not yet complete. Focus on it.

THE GAUNTLET: Which means, first of all, ensuring your survival.

Oh, right. The freezing wind. Hypothermia. You got distracted.

[ ] I don't know why I am still alive, but I think I'm about to freeze to death. I need your cloak.
[ ] I don't know why I am still alive, but I think I'm about to freeze to death. I need your warmth.
[ ] I don't know why I am still alive, but I think I'm about to freeze to death. Stand back. I need some room to work.

 

[Gargulec]

[x] I don't know why I am still alive, but I think I'm about to freeze to death. Stand back. I need some room to work.

Click to shrink...

Death couldn't hold you back. A cold breeze won't, either. You tighten your grip on the hilt of the ritual sword, feeling the emerald bite.

THE SORCERER: That's the spirit. Broadcast your puissance to Creation! Let none doubt you. Let none walk away unawed.

???: "Don't pop a vein."

THE LOVERS: This will not impress her. She never cared for any of that stuff.

The tip of your blade slices through the thin layer of snow at your feet. Its crescent arcs are perfectly measured; lines drawn interlocking and intricate. You don't have to think about them, the pattern comes into its own without the effort of thought. But let's make no mistake: this is more than just rote memory. This is more than skill.

You breathe. With each cut, you paint in green a star-lit path through which the primordial Essence of Creation flows. But this is no mere sorcery of the air and fire; you do not invoke water, wood and earth. The patterns drawn ascends, from the bones of the land up, and towards the Celestial. There is nothing you have to coax into existence, no act of summoning: all that is to do is to cut through a path down which Heaven can descend.

Each pattern invokes a pattern; every truth written into the cold air demands repetition. The blade in your hand becomes a blur of emerald fire; your invocation shimmers in an expanding arabesque and though your mind may not know what road exactly it is that you are building, you soul sings in joy.

THE SORCERER: Nothing they did could ever take this from you.

The snow begins to melt, then turn into steam; as it rises, illuminated brilliant emerald, it distorts the contours of you. Though you may be small, your work is that of titans. Each cut is a line of law that the sky imposes upon the lower realms.

THE SORCERER: Ten aeon may pass and Creation slide to dust, and still you will burn unextinguished.

There: see? The pattern catches fire! Tendrils of flame close around the brilliant cage, wrapping the script of your law with an embrace of a coming conflagration. You close the final arc and raise the blade straight to the sky. There, you hold it, just long enough for a single word in the first language of stones and stars to fall from your lips.

"IGNITE."

SPELL REMEMBERED: Magma Kraken.

A bolt streaks from between the stars into the blade, and through the blade into the pattern you've readied from it. Saturnine flame illuminates the night in emerald, and then explodes outwards. Stone sizzles and cracks: the first flame of Creation yet-formed is squeezed from, in lithe, burning pillars; they sway gently in the wind, sun-bright.

THE SORCERER: There. Warmth!

There is a stupid grin on your face - you turn on your heel to face the wolf woman. In the light of your kraken, you see her clearly, huge, hoary, the orange light dispersed into silver in the matted knots of her hair. She, too, is smiling, despite herself, canines showing.

THE LOVERS: Think nothing of it.

THE SORCERER: Infer everything from it.

Behind you, tentacles of the Magma Kraken arrange themselves into a fiery halo. You command one of them to cradle you gently, and provide you a seat high above, so that you may tower over this brute.

OCCULLT (NORMAL):

CHECK FAILED

Then the fact that you have a huge wound pierced straight through your chest and have been dancing in high winds in nothing but a tattered, wet robe, finally catches up to you. Briefly, you feel extremely tired. The chains of your will loosen just a bit. But you don't need to give the first flame of Creation much slack for it to run rampant. Which it does.

You lose control over the spell.

???: "Shit."

The last thing you see before a burning tentacle yanks you by the ankle and launches several yards into the air is a silver shimmer opening on the wolf-woman's brow.

[ ] Try to get the spell back under control.
[ ] Let her handle it.

 

[Gargulec]

[X] Try to get the spell back under control

Click to shrink...

Once again, you find yourself suspended between the sky and a hard place - but, and it surprises you how much lucidity you can manage in the very brief moment between the burst of upwards acceleration, and the unavoidable downwards slap of a magma tentacle about to swap you from the sky, this time it is better. At least you are closer to the stars now. As is usual in situations like these, time slows down to a crawl, giving you an excellent view of the unfolding disaster.

THE GAUNTLET: So, we're here once more.

You were kind of expecting the other guy.

THE GAUNTLET: You have forgotten this, but consequences tend to shut him up.

There is a lesson in this, you realize, and one you should probably consider. Later: when you are not suspended.

THOUGHT UNLOCKED: Peaks and Valleys.

What about the other guy, the one that always sounds reasonable and in control?

THE CAPTAIN: MA'AM, WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, WHAT IN ALL HELLS WAS THAT ABOUT?

Oh. Well, that makes sense. He did strike you as a bit too attached to this "reason" thing. And there is no real help forthcoming from her, right?

THE LOVERS: Sink or swim, bitch. Your fault.

Yeah, she has a point there. As usual. So that leaves-

THE GAUNTLET: That leaves us.

It's actually incredible. Shouldn't you be panicking right now? You mean, you are mid-throw by a monster of primordial fire that you have unleashed, and if the tentacle connects, it will probably snap your spine like a twig and put an a definitive end to the Work.

THE GAUNTLET: No. This is your blessing. At the precipice of disaster, you never fail to find clarity.

And outside of it?

THE CROW: Rarely.

What is he doing here, all out of the sudden?

THE CROW: Watching. Having fun.

Right. So, so let's go back to the matter at hand. The tentacle in front of your face bends delicately against the cloud-strewn sky, it's arc leisurely bending towards your body, which is currently rotating slowly through the air. There is also a building silver bonfire directly behind you, but it would take too long to twist your head to glance. Celestial power remains at hand, green light trailing faintly the tips of your fingers.

OCCULT (NORMAL):

CHECK SUCCESS

The spell is not yet fully outside of your control. It's just a momentary lapse. Under normal circumstances, it would take only a brief effort of will to seize control of it again.

THE GAUNTLET: Unfortunately, you do not have this kind of time.

So what do you do?

THE GAUNTLET: Make it.

How?

THE GAUNTLET: You only need a moment. And this thing is mindless. You can influence it: redirect the slap ever so slightly away. If you make it reach for that wolf-woman, it will listen. This will get you the opening you need, get back in control, and get one of the tentacles to break your fall before you splatter against the rocks.

Oh. But-

THE GAUNTLET: She'll live. Probably.

Is there no other choice.

THE GAUNTLET: You can dismiss the spell.

This sounds much better!

THE GAUNTLET: Which means you will smash right back onto the cold ground with nothing to cushion the fall. A few broken bones at minimum. You are actually moving very fast. It only appears slow because your mind is throwing itself into a nasty overdrive.

So it's either hurting the wolf-woman, or yourself?

THE GAUNTLET: Yes.

This choice sucks!

THE GAUNTLET: It is what it is.

[ ] Redirect the blow to the wolf-woman and regain control over the spell.,
[ ] Dismiss the spell and break yourself against the hard ground.

 

[Gargulec]

[X] Dismiss the spell and break yourself against the hard ground.

Click to shrink...

Between the choice made, and hurt promised, stretches that realm of regret.

It takes a tiniest effort of your will to scatter the power across four directions: where there was flame, now are sparks, and soon there will be nothing. You are still spinning through the air, but you have the peak of your ascent, and now, you fall down. Then, time catches up to you.

???: "Fucking id-"

The crunch is sickening, but the pain mercifully sharp enough to knock you instantly out.

YOUR DEATH: It hasn't even been an hour.

What? No! Not her again! You flail against the dark sea, making a terrible splash of the night closing in around you.

She only sighs, more concerned than disappointed. You notice that this time, she is without a sword. Absent the badge of office, she appears far less imposing. In fact, looking at her tiny frame and a shroud-like robe, you find yourself inexplicably sympathetic towards her, in spite of everything she is. Or represents, if this is still this metaphor business. There is just- she is only a child, and they made her Death! Your Death, no less, your personal nemesis and the greatest enemy of your Work. This is unfair, and she deserves better than that, and better than you.

THOUGHT UNLOCKED: Those Violet Sorrows.

You shake that away. If you are here, this means that...

YOUR DEATH: You are dying.

Again?

YOUR DEATH: Still. You never stopped. No one ever does.

This is a technicality, and you won't stand for it. You just want to know if you are about to die, on account of breaking yourself against the rocks.

YOUR DEATH: Unless your companion abandons you in the snow, you should be fine. We'll only have to spend some more time together. You are far harder to kill than anyone gives you the credit for. Unfortunately.

She sighs again, and rubs her temples with the almost-skeletal fingers. You cease your flailing and try to stare her intently.

YOUR DEATH: You look like you have questions.

[ ] Who am I?
[ ] What is the purpose of the Work?
[ ] Who is my companion?
[ ] What is this place?
[ ] Are you really my death?
[ ] Do you have any games here?

 

[Gargulec]

[x] What is the purpose of the Work?

Click to shrink...

YOUR DEATH: To free you from the sense of guilt over having lived.

This sounds terribly selfish and unlike you.

YOUR DEATH: You barely know what "yourself" is, anymore. But yes. there are other, fringe benefits to your wicked little plot. A general cosmic realignment across two different skies, and a new kind of cosmic justice to counteract some very old, and very grave sins. But, ultimately, it's about your guilt.

This strikes you as more proper scope for your ambitions.

THE CROW: It's also impossible.

YOUR DEATH: Oh, now you show up to help me get through to her.

THE CROW: No, that is impossible as well.

You hate that word: "impossible". In fact, if you only could erase it from your innermost lexicon you would. Also, obviously your Death and the mad personification of the most deceitful star is going to try to convince you that the Work is impossible. If not for it, you would have long since given yourself into their grasp.

THOUGHT UNLOCKED: Most Deceitful Star.

THE CROW: Case in point.

YOUR DEATH: I hate how we always end up at this conclusion. Ask me about something else.

[ ] Who am I?
[ ] Who is my companion?
[ ] What is this place?
[ ] Are you really my death?
[ ] Do you have any games here?

 

[Gargulec]

[X] Who is my companion?

Click to shrink...

YOUR DEATH: Her? Honestly, I don't have that much to say about her. She doesn't visit often. But you should ask them about her.

Her finger indicates up, towards the distant sky, where, veiled behind a layer of swirling dark, your stars shine on, undeterred.

THE CAPTAIN: She is an insubordinate servant loyal only to treasure.

THE LOVERS: She is the one who never loves you back.

THE GAUNTLET: She is what you don't know how to sacrifice, and so, a weakness.

THE SORCERER: She is a churlish thug, heir to a tribe of wanton savages and chaos-eaters.

That's kind of an unflattering picture they're painting of her. It makes you second-guess if you even should stick by such an unpleasant-

THE CROW: In all of Creation, she alone is safe to trust.

And her name, you finally remember, is Ciara Cold Eyes. You are pretty sure she hates you.

YOUR DEATH: It's a good thing you managed to dredge this one out from the wreckage of your spirit, isn't it? Well, she also seem to be actually taking care of you, again, so our time is running short.

But is there enough of it left for one more question?

YOUR DEATH: Ask.

[ ] Who am I?
[ ] What is this place?
[ ] Are you really my death?
[ ] Do you have any games here?