Fae Mood - A Flying Circus Quest
- Thread starter Texas Red
- Start date
- Original Mature Fantasy Action
10-15 Thalassophobia
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Accept the Deep Ones move, spend 4 XP, +1 Stress.
People seem to be torn between wanting to accept the move and wanting to reject it, so I would like to have a compromise. The rejection sentiment mostly seems to be on the basis that Edgar is acting in a manipulative way while Hilda is in an altered state. That is immoral. But he doesn't realize that it is immoral. He believes he's helping, which he probably is! So since people are torn, and the consensus on the side of rejection seems to be to not break trust, though that's close too. So this is the compromise. Hilda's gonna take the move, as well as 1 stress. This is going to plant a seed in her mind too, that what Edgar did and is going to do is wrong, and probably send her spiraling while still clinging to her obvious love for Edgar though she hasn't vocalized it yet. This will need to be addressed later.
You screwed the cap shut and made sure it was tight, before tugging your mask off and taking a deep breath of unfiltered air. It felt… blasphemous, almost, to even consider this, but Edgar wasn't really asking you to have faith in anything, other than trust him. You didn't know. "Could you undo it if I needed it to stop?" You asked, trying to keep an open mind.
"Yes, but that's more unpleasant. But I can draw their attention from you if it's hurting you." Edgar explained, taking off his backpack.
"Is this ritual, like, why you're…" you asked, gesturing to your head, to reference, like, everything with Edgar.
"Oh, no. We're born like this. I know some inlanders who participate in the faith, you won't look any different." Edgar responded. You thought hard about this. It felt dangerous. But really only because you didn't understand it all that well. You trusted Edgar, hell, you let him into your head, you trusted him with this.
"I could use some advice." You said, stepping off the foothold on the side of Edgar's plane and back onto the dock, walking around to him. "What do I need to do?"
"You still have that knife I gave you, right?" You reached around in your bag and pulled it out. It was still in its sheath. You didn't have much use for it, though you valued it higher than any gift you'd been given from how much work Edgar put into making it personalized to you. It would make a good focus, if you thought about it enough. Maybe later. You weren't in the headspace for it. Edgar took out a canteen, marked with some runes, and poured some water into an oil pan in the middle of some mechanical tools. "How this works is that you need to sit down, relax, prick the tips of all five of your fingers until you bleed, and then dip your hand into the water. It should be simple from there." Edgar explained.
You looked at him in horror. Bargaining with blood? Was he fucking crazy? Using your own life force for spells, blood magic, was a taboo in your coven. You'd heard stories of people becoming monsters by consorting with devils by bleeding for them, or dropping dead from casting spells using no focus but their soul. You swallowed hard. Well, this was different, right? Edgar wouldn't ask you to do anything that would hurt you. It's just a few drops of blood, anyway, it would be fine. You sat down on the ground with your legs crossed, and unsheathed the knife, holding it shakily. You honestly didn't want to do this. You just wanted to do what Edgar said. He was always a comfort to be around now. Was it from the-?
"Do you want me to do it?" Edgar asked, sitting down next to you. You nodded slowly, still looking at your hand. He grabbed your hand and took the knife from your other, immediately moving to press and twist the knife's tip into your fingertip, then doing the second, the third, and the rest, feeling the searing stinging turn to a throbbing pain as small drops of bright red blood began forming from the wounds. Your heart picked up in pace, and your breathing quickened. Your ingrained terror of blood magic made your hand tremble like crazy sticking your hand in the salt water, which burned your wounds. "Close your eyes and focus on the sea, alright? You're going to see some things, and know a name. You say their name to welcome them in. Alright?" The only comfort you had now was Edgar holding your shoulder.
It wasn't as immersive as your nightmare with them, but it was still terrifying. It was like a train of imagination you couldn't control or influence. You felt like you couldn't open your eyes. The features of your patron came into view in a sequence, like a monster stepping from the shadows in a nightmare. At the bottom of the Dark Sea there was endless eyes, black, smooth skin, in a shape like a ball, covered in writhing, slimy tentacles. Their jaws were an abyss, a cylinder of curved white teeth, like fangs, drawing prey deeper with every movement when they got a hold of it.
Stosneita
"Stosneita." You mumbled, feeling nauseous. Tears felt hot on your face in contrast to the freezing air around you in the real world. "She's back." You said, opening your eyes again and looking around. The dream was over. You pulled your hand from the salt water. Your heart was racing, you were sick to your stomach, and Edgar was holding you to his chest. There was a quiet voice at the back of your head. You knew it was her. She was whispering… compliments. She told you how brave that was to trust your friend, and she was so glad she could finally talk to you when Edgar's said so much good about you. Everything she said felt genuine. It was comforting, just a bit. Like Edgar speaking.
You have acquired Deep Ones. Call out to your patron to receive +1 Forward.
You have acquired Creepy. You are not effected negatively by the traditions, personal moves, or rituals of the Fischers.
"Are you ok?" Edgar asked, gently petting your ears. You just nodded a little, and eventually found the strength to get up and go make your preparations for flight.
You spent the remainder of your time before the flight cutting up your old dress and stitching it to line the inside of your new leather jacket. It still held its magic, and you were far warmer in that dress than even your parka. It was half destroyed anyway. You cut the front down the middle and stitched it into the main torso of the coat, and took the sleeves you'd torn off and stitched them back into the coat. You felt warm as a spring day wearing it. It always got colder the higher you climbed, thinner air and all that, and it was winter now. Being four and a half kilometers up would have you freezing even in your heated dress.
It didn't take long to realize what went down between you and Edgar wasn't cool, while sewing. You weren't in a good state of mind. You still weren't. It took you ten minutes to thread a needle with how much your hands were shaking. You should have said no, you know, exercising will. You weren't really sure why you didn't do so. Well, you aren't in a good headspace, and you're on drugs shooting your anxiety through the roof.
There was also the fact you let him hypnotize you into being highly agreeable some time ago. He could have done that to indoctrinate you or- No, he wouldn't do that to be malicious. That was just fun between the three of you. Unless he was in for a long con. Like you thought when you first met him. Maybe your coven was-… stop, that's misandry, or whatever. They weren't right about a thing. You didn't feel, like, betrayed, you were just out of your mind stressed and you felt that whether he meant it or not, he proselytized to you at a time when you were in a time of need for support, not new faith.
You were feeling a lot about that. You still trusted him. You trusted he didn't try to take advantage of you. But you were weren't happy with him. This was something you two would need to talk about. Some other time though, you didn't want to throw either of you off your game before the mission.
Riya handed you a device looking a bit like a gas mask, and two identical ones to Edgar. It was a face mask that would go over your mouth and nose, attached to a tin can marked "Sauerstoff" by an air hose. There was a small metal loop on the side, like the pin of a grenade.
"Pull the tab if you need air. These only last for an hour or so, use them wisely." Riya explained, while you could hear Joli turning the Osprey's propeller to prime it for takeoff. You both just nodded at her.
Time to do some more air patrol. It'll be 2d10+5, +3 from Edgar's calm and +2 from the binoculars. Roll them until you get a full success or a miss. Once again, a miss means I get to be mean to you, and full success means you find what you're looking for. When you roll a partial, say what else you find. Something simple, cool sights high above the ground in the mountains. You'll be above AF 4, meaning you can see some freaky shit in the sky! Get creative! Final note. Every air patrol you do not get a full success on adds +1 to every next roll on this patrol. This stacks.
It would be pretty funny if you just immediately roll over 15.
People seem to be torn between wanting to accept the move and wanting to reject it, so I would like to have a compromise. The rejection sentiment mostly seems to be on the basis that Edgar is acting in a manipulative way while Hilda is in an altered state. That is immoral. But he doesn't realize that it is immoral. He believes he's helping, which he probably is! So since people are torn, and the consensus on the side of rejection seems to be to not break trust, though that's close too. So this is the compromise. Hilda's gonna take the move, as well as 1 stress. This is going to plant a seed in her mind too, that what Edgar did and is going to do is wrong, and probably send her spiraling while still clinging to her obvious love for Edgar though she hasn't vocalized it yet. This will need to be addressed later.
You screwed the cap shut and made sure it was tight, before tugging your mask off and taking a deep breath of unfiltered air. It felt… blasphemous, almost, to even consider this, but Edgar wasn't really asking you to have faith in anything, other than trust him. You didn't know. "Could you undo it if I needed it to stop?" You asked, trying to keep an open mind.
"Yes, but that's more unpleasant. But I can draw their attention from you if it's hurting you." Edgar explained, taking off his backpack.
"Is this ritual, like, why you're…" you asked, gesturing to your head, to reference, like, everything with Edgar.
"Oh, no. We're born like this. I know some inlanders who participate in the faith, you won't look any different." Edgar responded. You thought hard about this. It felt dangerous. But really only because you didn't understand it all that well. You trusted Edgar, hell, you let him into your head, you trusted him with this.
"I could use some advice." You said, stepping off the foothold on the side of Edgar's plane and back onto the dock, walking around to him. "What do I need to do?"
"You still have that knife I gave you, right?" You reached around in your bag and pulled it out. It was still in its sheath. You didn't have much use for it, though you valued it higher than any gift you'd been given from how much work Edgar put into making it personalized to you. It would make a good focus, if you thought about it enough. Maybe later. You weren't in the headspace for it. Edgar took out a canteen, marked with some runes, and poured some water into an oil pan in the middle of some mechanical tools. "How this works is that you need to sit down, relax, prick the tips of all five of your fingers until you bleed, and then dip your hand into the water. It should be simple from there." Edgar explained.
You looked at him in horror. Bargaining with blood? Was he fucking crazy? Using your own life force for spells, blood magic, was a taboo in your coven. You'd heard stories of people becoming monsters by consorting with devils by bleeding for them, or dropping dead from casting spells using no focus but their soul. You swallowed hard. Well, this was different, right? Edgar wouldn't ask you to do anything that would hurt you. It's just a few drops of blood, anyway, it would be fine. You sat down on the ground with your legs crossed, and unsheathed the knife, holding it shakily. You honestly didn't want to do this. You just wanted to do what Edgar said. He was always a comfort to be around now. Was it from the-?
"Do you want me to do it?" Edgar asked, sitting down next to you. You nodded slowly, still looking at your hand. He grabbed your hand and took the knife from your other, immediately moving to press and twist the knife's tip into your fingertip, then doing the second, the third, and the rest, feeling the searing stinging turn to a throbbing pain as small drops of bright red blood began forming from the wounds. Your heart picked up in pace, and your breathing quickened. Your ingrained terror of blood magic made your hand tremble like crazy sticking your hand in the salt water, which burned your wounds. "Close your eyes and focus on the sea, alright? You're going to see some things, and know a name. You say their name to welcome them in. Alright?" The only comfort you had now was Edgar holding your shoulder.
It wasn't as immersive as your nightmare with them, but it was still terrifying. It was like a train of imagination you couldn't control or influence. You felt like you couldn't open your eyes. The features of your patron came into view in a sequence, like a monster stepping from the shadows in a nightmare. At the bottom of the Dark Sea there was endless eyes, black, smooth skin, in a shape like a ball, covered in writhing, slimy tentacles. Their jaws were an abyss, a cylinder of curved white teeth, like fangs, drawing prey deeper with every movement when they got a hold of it.
Stosneita
"Stosneita." You mumbled, feeling nauseous. Tears felt hot on your face in contrast to the freezing air around you in the real world. "She's back." You said, opening your eyes again and looking around. The dream was over. You pulled your hand from the salt water. Your heart was racing, you were sick to your stomach, and Edgar was holding you to his chest. There was a quiet voice at the back of your head. You knew it was her. She was whispering… compliments. She told you how brave that was to trust your friend, and she was so glad she could finally talk to you when Edgar's said so much good about you. Everything she said felt genuine. It was comforting, just a bit. Like Edgar speaking.
You have acquired Deep Ones. Call out to your patron to receive +1 Forward.
You have acquired Creepy. You are not effected negatively by the traditions, personal moves, or rituals of the Fischers.
"Are you ok?" Edgar asked, gently petting your ears. You just nodded a little, and eventually found the strength to get up and go make your preparations for flight.
You spent the remainder of your time before the flight cutting up your old dress and stitching it to line the inside of your new leather jacket. It still held its magic, and you were far warmer in that dress than even your parka. It was half destroyed anyway. You cut the front down the middle and stitched it into the main torso of the coat, and took the sleeves you'd torn off and stitched them back into the coat. You felt warm as a spring day wearing it. It always got colder the higher you climbed, thinner air and all that, and it was winter now. Being four and a half kilometers up would have you freezing even in your heated dress.
It didn't take long to realize what went down between you and Edgar wasn't cool, while sewing. You weren't in a good state of mind. You still weren't. It took you ten minutes to thread a needle with how much your hands were shaking. You should have said no, you know, exercising will. You weren't really sure why you didn't do so. Well, you aren't in a good headspace, and you're on drugs shooting your anxiety through the roof.
There was also the fact you let him hypnotize you into being highly agreeable some time ago. He could have done that to indoctrinate you or- No, he wouldn't do that to be malicious. That was just fun between the three of you. Unless he was in for a long con. Like you thought when you first met him. Maybe your coven was-… stop, that's misandry, or whatever. They weren't right about a thing. You didn't feel, like, betrayed, you were just out of your mind stressed and you felt that whether he meant it or not, he proselytized to you at a time when you were in a time of need for support, not new faith.
You were feeling a lot about that. You still trusted him. You trusted he didn't try to take advantage of you. But you were weren't happy with him. This was something you two would need to talk about. Some other time though, you didn't want to throw either of you off your game before the mission.
Riya handed you a device looking a bit like a gas mask, and two identical ones to Edgar. It was a face mask that would go over your mouth and nose, attached to a tin can marked "Sauerstoff" by an air hose. There was a small metal loop on the side, like the pin of a grenade.
"Pull the tab if you need air. These only last for an hour or so, use them wisely." Riya explained, while you could hear Joli turning the Osprey's propeller to prime it for takeoff. You both just nodded at her.
Time to do some more air patrol. It'll be 2d10+5, +3 from Edgar's calm and +2 from the binoculars. Roll them until you get a full success or a miss. Once again, a miss means I get to be mean to you, and full success means you find what you're looking for. When you roll a partial, say what else you find. Something simple, cool sights high above the ground in the mountains. You'll be above AF 4, meaning you can see some freaky shit in the sky! Get creative! Final note. Every air patrol you do not get a full success on adds +1 to every next roll on this patrol. This stacks.
It would be pretty funny if you just immediately roll over 15.
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Well, that was about as horrifying as i expected. Hopefully Hilda can escape once she's in a better headspace, and teach Edgar some boundaries.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I will allow a vote after the mission where Hilda can ask Edgar to remove it. I'll give an XP refund if you all decide on it. Also I'm glad I could depict it as horrifying to inlanders as I always imagined it being!
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Next opportunity :
Gifts from the Abyss: Your connection to the Deep Ones is physically changing you.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Shhhhhhh, spoilers.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Anyway, mine.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hence why I gave her Deep Ones.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Great, what does the squadron see?
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
I spy, I spy, with my little eye :
Something big, and green.
Most of himmilgard is densely forested, given the wind little room to play and grow powerful, something which has suprised many a pilot when they cross into dangerous skies. But when the forest is destroyed, whether by wildfire, battle or human hand, the wind can play at it's leisure. It grasps the dust and sand from the soil, leaves from the surrounding forests, and it rushes onward, until it hits one of Himmilgard's great mountain ranges, and is pushed up, up into the sky. There, this wildspring of nutrients and material causes a verdant explosion of life, the air thick with aeroplankton, swarming with shimmering schools of feeding flying fish. As the warm air cools, it starts another movement, a swift plunge downward, falling onto the leeward side of the mountain. Although most of the life in the plume is destined to die when the wind changes, the phenomenon can bring life to even desolate mountainpeaks for weeks at a time, coloring entire mountainsides green.
Honestly I'd appreciate an option to just have Edgar remove the hypnosis and have a long, important talk about boundaries and explicit safe consent, with Riya included.
Polycule Vibes, I shall continue them.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's Always Sunny music
The Gang Learns About Healthy Sexual Relationships
Next Air Patrol.
That's a 23. Full Success.
That's a 23. Full Success.
- Location
- Earth, probably.
- Pronouns
- None/Any
Clearly our new connection to Stosneita is working in our favor, and I hope for a long and fruitful partnership with her!
Is it possible to reconnect with Stosneita if Edgar removes the connection? Honestly, I would feel bad for her if we couldn't. So far, she's been nothing but kind; it's just bad timing for Hilda.
If things go well maybe Hilda won't want to break the connection. Perhaps Stosneita can help with the other soul? Who knows what the future holds.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Something I've realized as an error on my part that some folk might think is interesting is that Edgar's plane's cockpits are backwards. Usually the pilot is in the back, but that's where Hilda sits as referenced multiple times during the mission where Riya got shot twice. So Edgar sits in the front, and Hilda swivels that gun just over his head every time she moves it. If you look in the First Flights book you can see where I made my error. It doesn't change anything mechanically, it was just a mistake on my part. Though I say that Hilda can access the engine for repairs and such freely, without needing to wingwalk.
Happens to the best of us, and since Edgar was flying solo it's easy to explain as him liking the forward seat better and not moving back when Hilda came in.
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's about what I assumed. The HMG is mounted at the nose of the aircraft anyway, so being closer to the irons of the weapon makes sense too.
- Location
- Salt Lake Ciy, UT
@Texas Red thank you again for sharing your writing! There's a lot to like about this update, but both creepy and instantly lovable and loving the deep one is is near the top of the list! Also, this:
I love this, because it reminds me of the time that the Australian Government banned an episode of Peppa Pig.
Because what's amazing about this instance is that the episode in question did not contain any of the classic "hot button" topics that get episodes of children's shows get banned.
It was an episode about spiders, and how you shouldn't be afraid of spiders because they perform an important role in nature, so if you see one in your house, you shouldn't be afraid of it but leave it alone or just take it outside.
While this is a noble and even helpful concept in Peppa Pig's home country of England, it is irresponsible lunacy in Australia.
That's what I'm getting from this. For Edgar, (which is how they have been presented in the core book as well as official associated fiction) the deep ones are a helpful positive influence in his life, they are creepy, but they are an unalloyed good that loves all humans, but can't tell us apart from without being "offered" our blood.
For Hilda, Offering your blood to a supernatural entity, is irresponsible lunacy.
I love this, because it reminds me of the time that the Australian Government banned an episode of Peppa Pig.
Because what's amazing about this instance is that the episode in question did not contain any of the classic "hot button" topics that get episodes of children's shows get banned.
It was an episode about spiders, and how you shouldn't be afraid of spiders because they perform an important role in nature, so if you see one in your house, you shouldn't be afraid of it but leave it alone or just take it outside.
While this is a noble and even helpful concept in Peppa Pig's home country of England, it is irresponsible lunacy in Australia.
That's what I'm getting from this. For Edgar, (which is how they have been presented in the core book as well as official associated fiction) the deep ones are a helpful positive influence in his life, they are creepy, but they are an unalloyed good that loves all humans, but can't tell us apart from without being "offered" our blood.
For Hilda, Offering your blood to a supernatural entity, is irresponsible lunacy.
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11-1 Too Simple
- Location
- 100 Meters From Your Location
- Pronouns
- She/Her
For once, you were thankful your old plane got wrecked. When Joli spun the prop of Edgar's plane, still in her mask, gloves, and goggles, it ignited just about instantly and started pouring out green exhaust. Your old rotary would be pouring it in your face. Edgar's engine was a 210 horse-power Brant Patriot, a powerful, loud liquid cooled engine. Being liquid cooled, it was best to let it warm up before takeoff. It usually took a few minutes, your margin was to let it go for about five, especially now that it was winter. The oil and water were at its ideal temp in about two, and climbed to significantly over ideal when you took off shortly after and circled town a few times to wait for Riya. You cranked the lever on the radiator all the way, opening the slates wide and letting the airflow hopefully keep the water inside from bursting a pipe. The engine was still a little hot for your liking, but that was to be expected with the fuel you were using.
Once again, back to the mountains. Edgar stayed below three kilometers until the rising peaks forced him to climb higher. You were thankful for stitching your old dress into your new jacket, as even with the magic heating your body you still had your hands in your pants against your thighs for warmth when it wasn't your turn to steer. You had the map on the floor of your cockpit, assisting with directions. Though you spent most of your time above four kilometers, you stuck mainly within visual range of the airship trade valleys as they had clear paths you memorized even before taking off. Unless there were specific memorable landmarks to go off of, environments tended to all look exactly the same. There weren't any big signs on a mountain to point out which they were, and maps were refined, but not completely accurate the majority of the time. You reached the peaks you were mostly confident were the location you were searching for, and began patrolling the area, using Edgar's new binoculars to scan the grey and white landscape below for angular differences to suggest a structure. Edgar had to pop one of the breathing masks a short time after ascending to your cruising altitude. It seemed like he was more affected by the thinning air than you, though it was still worrying with how much breath you had to suck in to feel normal. You held off on using your air can, you wanted to land before that.
When turning your head a certain way toward a random mountain, your binoculars were meant by pure matted green. You pulled away the binoculars and looked at where you were peering now with your unassisted eyes. The face of one of the mountains was coated in pure green, like dense spring grass. None of these mountains contained much soil at all though, and the green was stuck to the mountain near-vertically. Back home you were told that men waged war not only against themselves, but the Wild too, which you'd seen plenty evidence of. However, days after the horizon burned red from the flame of napalm and mass graves, the mountains in view of the village would be splotched with bright green life for a day. It was always interpreted as the Goddesses reminding the coven that life will always be back, no matter how much burns. It felt incredible to finally see a green mountain for yourself.
You have discovered beauty, -1 Stress.
A while after passing that good omen, you found the base you were looking for. A small thing, jutting from the side of a mountain, clearly only accessible by air. It was flanked by runways with one big one down by it's front. The base itself was just two connected concrete structures: the bigger one more than fifty meters wide with a huge set of metal shutter doors, probably a warehouse, which meant the smaller was likely the operations center. On the front runway, there was the crumpled carcass of a small airship. The metal supports were torn and jutting towards the sky like a rib cage exposed to the elements, and the only one engine was attached to the canvas fuselage. The binoculars were very helpful for figuring out what you were getting into from the air. Edgar brought the plane down onto a patch of grass on the side of the building, nearest to a door. You always thought seaplanes couldn't actually touch down anywhere but water, but that wasn't true. Soft grass was just fine, if a bit jolting and bumpy.
He popped his second oxygen mask, as he was clearly struggling to function otherwise without it. You learned Riya didn't actually bring one, as she apparently spent most of her life this high, so the altitude didn't affect her much. The freezing weather did though, as she was shivering and chattering like crazy as you all regrouped. You used some fire magic to comfort her with a hug, which seemed to help. Edgar detached the drop tanks from the bottom of his plane and stacked them on a wheeled pallet leaning against the wall of the building, which squealed horribly with every movement, but at least rolled. Edgar took a beeline through the facility for the hangar with the fuel to find the plane in question, while you and Riya went to investigate the downed airship.
It seemed like the airship burnt down, to some degree. Some of the canvas was burnt, but the nose to middle seemed relatively intact. The tail was seared and black, and where the engines were mounted was completely bare of canvas. That's where the fuel tank was too, torn into scrap against the asphalt runway. Your guess as to what happened was that the fuel tank sparked and ignited during the crash, and started a burnout that was slowed by the thin air, cold, and torn gas bags. Stepping through the airship's wreckage felt more intimate than you thought it should. The new voice in your head granted some reassurance though, assuring you it was safe, and it was not in any way immoral. You were simply using what others could not. It felt like you were picking through a body on your way to the cargo hold, which was charred, but mostly untouched by the flame. You pushed the shutter door open, finding a single large crate inside rolled against the wall from the crash, already on wheels. After cracking the top off the crate, you found a huge amount of wood chips along with a large radial engine, ten cylinders in two layers around the crankshaft. The chrome was still shiny like new. You burnt a path out of the wreckage using your finger like a welding torch while Riya pushed the crate out and towards the hangar. Edgar stepped out of the hangar through a regular door next to the massive shudder door wall, holding his flight goggles in his hands. He looked like he's just seen a shade.
"We've got the engine. What's up?" You asked, as he just kind of gestured towards the hangar. He looked speechless.
"I need you to tell me if you see what I see so I know I'm not crazy." He said, turning around and walking back towards the hangar. You helped Riya push the crate back through the opened doors, and into the hangar. The light filtering through the dirty windows of the shutter door allowed just enough light to know what you were looking at.
It was less like a plane, and more like a sleeping beast. It was a biplane with a meter wingspan, taller than a story, with four engines, each pair in a push-pull arrangement. It had a gunner at the nose, the middle of the tail, and the belly, and you had to get inside of it through a door behind the wings. It was the biggest, most advanced plane you'd ever seen. And it scared you in a way you'd never felt before. Because you knew, somehow, exactly what this was. The Von Morgan Pferd, a superheavy bomber created by the Fokker Kingdoms just before the war, and paraded through your city. You remembered the day clearly. It was a sunny, warm day, and you watched the plane be towed past you by two automobiles sitting on your father's shoulders. You didn't question where the memory was from anymore. It scared you as a child. You were told the prototype crashed on its first mission. You believed it to be a blessing. Something that terrible doesn't have a place in this world. a voice you'd only heard in dreams spoke.
"They built another?" Karl said, a meter or two to your right. You snapped your head around and gasped, seeing a figure in the dark, and ignited your hand on fire to get a better view. When the light actually illuminated the room, the figure was gone.
"Hilda?" Riya asked. There was fear in her voice.
"I don't know." You responded, staring into the darkness. You pointed at the plane. "That thing can carry two tons of ordinance. They made it to level cities. I thought they only made one." You said, speaking quietly, like you were afraid of waking the machine.
"Why does the professor want this?" Riya asked in disbelief.
"I didn't fuel it. I just… spent like two minutes staring at it. What do we do?" Edgar asked, as your sensitive ears picked up a distant sound. Plane engines. And not just one.
The Horror
[ ] Get rid of this abomination (Say how)
[ ] Take it back to town (Stuff the engine in the trunk)
[ ] Leave it
Additionally…
[ ] How do you react to the plane and people noises you hear and heard?
Once again, back to the mountains. Edgar stayed below three kilometers until the rising peaks forced him to climb higher. You were thankful for stitching your old dress into your new jacket, as even with the magic heating your body you still had your hands in your pants against your thighs for warmth when it wasn't your turn to steer. You had the map on the floor of your cockpit, assisting with directions. Though you spent most of your time above four kilometers, you stuck mainly within visual range of the airship trade valleys as they had clear paths you memorized even before taking off. Unless there were specific memorable landmarks to go off of, environments tended to all look exactly the same. There weren't any big signs on a mountain to point out which they were, and maps were refined, but not completely accurate the majority of the time. You reached the peaks you were mostly confident were the location you were searching for, and began patrolling the area, using Edgar's new binoculars to scan the grey and white landscape below for angular differences to suggest a structure. Edgar had to pop one of the breathing masks a short time after ascending to your cruising altitude. It seemed like he was more affected by the thinning air than you, though it was still worrying with how much breath you had to suck in to feel normal. You held off on using your air can, you wanted to land before that.
When turning your head a certain way toward a random mountain, your binoculars were meant by pure matted green. You pulled away the binoculars and looked at where you were peering now with your unassisted eyes. The face of one of the mountains was coated in pure green, like dense spring grass. None of these mountains contained much soil at all though, and the green was stuck to the mountain near-vertically. Back home you were told that men waged war not only against themselves, but the Wild too, which you'd seen plenty evidence of. However, days after the horizon burned red from the flame of napalm and mass graves, the mountains in view of the village would be splotched with bright green life for a day. It was always interpreted as the Goddesses reminding the coven that life will always be back, no matter how much burns. It felt incredible to finally see a green mountain for yourself.
You have discovered beauty, -1 Stress.
A while after passing that good omen, you found the base you were looking for. A small thing, jutting from the side of a mountain, clearly only accessible by air. It was flanked by runways with one big one down by it's front. The base itself was just two connected concrete structures: the bigger one more than fifty meters wide with a huge set of metal shutter doors, probably a warehouse, which meant the smaller was likely the operations center. On the front runway, there was the crumpled carcass of a small airship. The metal supports were torn and jutting towards the sky like a rib cage exposed to the elements, and the only one engine was attached to the canvas fuselage. The binoculars were very helpful for figuring out what you were getting into from the air. Edgar brought the plane down onto a patch of grass on the side of the building, nearest to a door. You always thought seaplanes couldn't actually touch down anywhere but water, but that wasn't true. Soft grass was just fine, if a bit jolting and bumpy.
He popped his second oxygen mask, as he was clearly struggling to function otherwise without it. You learned Riya didn't actually bring one, as she apparently spent most of her life this high, so the altitude didn't affect her much. The freezing weather did though, as she was shivering and chattering like crazy as you all regrouped. You used some fire magic to comfort her with a hug, which seemed to help. Edgar detached the drop tanks from the bottom of his plane and stacked them on a wheeled pallet leaning against the wall of the building, which squealed horribly with every movement, but at least rolled. Edgar took a beeline through the facility for the hangar with the fuel to find the plane in question, while you and Riya went to investigate the downed airship.
It seemed like the airship burnt down, to some degree. Some of the canvas was burnt, but the nose to middle seemed relatively intact. The tail was seared and black, and where the engines were mounted was completely bare of canvas. That's where the fuel tank was too, torn into scrap against the asphalt runway. Your guess as to what happened was that the fuel tank sparked and ignited during the crash, and started a burnout that was slowed by the thin air, cold, and torn gas bags. Stepping through the airship's wreckage felt more intimate than you thought it should. The new voice in your head granted some reassurance though, assuring you it was safe, and it was not in any way immoral. You were simply using what others could not. It felt like you were picking through a body on your way to the cargo hold, which was charred, but mostly untouched by the flame. You pushed the shutter door open, finding a single large crate inside rolled against the wall from the crash, already on wheels. After cracking the top off the crate, you found a huge amount of wood chips along with a large radial engine, ten cylinders in two layers around the crankshaft. The chrome was still shiny like new. You burnt a path out of the wreckage using your finger like a welding torch while Riya pushed the crate out and towards the hangar. Edgar stepped out of the hangar through a regular door next to the massive shudder door wall, holding his flight goggles in his hands. He looked like he's just seen a shade.
"We've got the engine. What's up?" You asked, as he just kind of gestured towards the hangar. He looked speechless.
"I need you to tell me if you see what I see so I know I'm not crazy." He said, turning around and walking back towards the hangar. You helped Riya push the crate back through the opened doors, and into the hangar. The light filtering through the dirty windows of the shutter door allowed just enough light to know what you were looking at.
It was less like a plane, and more like a sleeping beast. It was a biplane with a meter wingspan, taller than a story, with four engines, each pair in a push-pull arrangement. It had a gunner at the nose, the middle of the tail, and the belly, and you had to get inside of it through a door behind the wings. It was the biggest, most advanced plane you'd ever seen. And it scared you in a way you'd never felt before. Because you knew, somehow, exactly what this was. The Von Morgan Pferd, a superheavy bomber created by the Fokker Kingdoms just before the war, and paraded through your city. You remembered the day clearly. It was a sunny, warm day, and you watched the plane be towed past you by two automobiles sitting on your father's shoulders. You didn't question where the memory was from anymore. It scared you as a child. You were told the prototype crashed on its first mission. You believed it to be a blessing. Something that terrible doesn't have a place in this world. a voice you'd only heard in dreams spoke.
"They built another?" Karl said, a meter or two to your right. You snapped your head around and gasped, seeing a figure in the dark, and ignited your hand on fire to get a better view. When the light actually illuminated the room, the figure was gone.
"Hilda?" Riya asked. There was fear in her voice.
"I don't know." You responded, staring into the darkness. You pointed at the plane. "That thing can carry two tons of ordinance. They made it to level cities. I thought they only made one." You said, speaking quietly, like you were afraid of waking the machine.
"Why does the professor want this?" Riya asked in disbelief.
"I didn't fuel it. I just… spent like two minutes staring at it. What do we do?" Edgar asked, as your sensitive ears picked up a distant sound. Plane engines. And not just one.
The Horror
[ ] Get rid of this abomination (Say how)
[ ] Take it back to town (Stuff the engine in the trunk)
[ ] Leave it
Additionally…
[ ] How do you react to the plane and people noises you hear and heard?
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[X] Take it back to town (Stuff the engine in the trunk)
[X] Ask your pen pal Deep One if they can give you more info about the noises and ask them if they know what's going on with Karl. Get the hell out of there. Get the hell out of there.
We already know the doctor wants to use it to get rid of the toxic gases in the cities and I trust Doctor Elena. Just because it was a weapon of war doesn't mean it can't be repurposed into improving the world.
[X] Ask your pen pal Deep One if they can give you more info about the noises and ask them if they know what's going on with Karl. Get the hell out of there. Get the hell out of there.
We already know the doctor wants to use it to get rid of the toxic gases in the cities and I trust Doctor Elena. Just because it was a weapon of war doesn't mean it can't be repurposed into improving the world.
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- Location
- Earth, probably.
- Pronouns
- None/Any
[X] Take it back to town (Stuff the engine in the trunk)
I'm perfectly comfortable giving these townsfolk and one ethically dubious scientist a massive warplane that has a track record of not getting off the ground.
[X] How do you react to the noises you hear?
-[X] You should... talk to someone? Maybe? Stosneita you can sort of understand, you did make the deal, but you didn't think you signed up for the other guy.
-[X] After you tell the others about the incoming planes and prepare your next steps.
I confess I'm also partial to the idea of just trying to pretend that nothing is wrong but I think, in this case, Hilda's hypnosis would lead to her talking to the others, though maybe only when the mission is finished.
edit:
I am, admittedly, also very in favor of
[X] Ask your pen pal Deep One if they can give you more info about the noises and ask them if they know what's going on with Karl. Get the hell out of there. Get the hell out of there.
I'm perfectly comfortable giving these townsfolk and one ethically dubious scientist a massive warplane that has a track record of not getting off the ground.
[X] How do you react to the noises you hear?
-[X] You should... talk to someone? Maybe? Stosneita you can sort of understand, you did make the deal, but you didn't think you signed up for the other guy.
-[X] After you tell the others about the incoming planes and prepare your next steps.
I confess I'm also partial to the idea of just trying to pretend that nothing is wrong but I think, in this case, Hilda's hypnosis would lead to her talking to the others, though maybe only when the mission is finished.
edit:
I am, admittedly, also very in favor of
[X] Ask your pen pal Deep One if they can give you more info about the noises and ask them if they know what's going on with Karl. Get the hell out of there. Get the hell out of there.
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