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@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ src/chapter2.md
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src/chapter3.md
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src/epistolary/index.md
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src/epistolary/00054.md
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src/epistolary/00055.md
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src/bestiary/index.md
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src/bestiary/aetherwael.md
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src/bestiary/aur.md
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@ -7,4 +7,4 @@ public: yes
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<dt>Aetherwael</dt>
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: A void whale. Most commonly observed in the swimming in the earth's atmosphere, where they come to breath air. But they spend most of their time in the void of space, where they dive to great depths.
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: <details></details>
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@ -6,5 +6,6 @@ public: yes
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---
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<dt>Horkosgrampus</dt>
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: Toothy whales with a single long tusk. They are mostly scavengers, and are only provoked to violence in the presence of a lie or the breaking of an oath, in which case they go into a frenzy preying on the liar or liars. They can smell blood from a great distance, but can hear a lie from much further.
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: <details></details>
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@ -24,4 +24,4 @@ Paths:
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- Retriever: Contractual Obligation, An Auspicious Start, Two In The Hand, The Triple Lindy
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- Were-Hare: Lepusthropy, Beast Sense, Hybrid Form
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- Tasseomancer: Reading, Ceremony
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- Tasseomancer: Reading, Ceremony, Steeping
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@ -0,0 +1,318 @@
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---
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title: 00055
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created: Thu, 05 Jan 2023 08:21:34 -0700
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updated: Thu, 05 Jan 2023 08:21:34 -0700
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public: yes
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syndicated: yes
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---
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### 00055 {#00055}
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> The nibs had disappeared.
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>
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> Inky had spotted the small ceramic and wicker teapot among a long
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> row of boxes and bowls at the antique shop on the thirteenth floor
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> of the Wandering Bazaar while looking for a Near-weightless
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> Verifying Matter enclosure (NVMe) to their Handy Duffer Discette as
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> a primary storage. The witch shopkeeper, Agate, had helpfully
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> mentioned the teapot could be used to steep very acidic or alkaline
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> solutions, as well as distil solubles. The box it was subsequently
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> packed in did not include instructions on activating the
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> precipitation feature. With the shop not returning for another week
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> by Confidence's reckoning, Inky had used the teapot in the meantime
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> to rinse off any impurities from an old set of nibs — the very
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> first functional set they had made as an apprentice inkling —
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> except the nibs were nowhere to be found when they poured out the
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> citronella solution and removed the lid. Inky supposed it was to be
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> expected — some witches liked to go on about equal payment for
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> wishes, as if it were as easy as reading off a price tag, and it
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> was difficult to stay irritated at a cute teapot for long. Inky
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> wrote it off as a gift for what would hopefully thereafter be a
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> cutely functional teapot. The shop had a no-refunds policy.
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>
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> Then came the dream. At first Inky had attributed them to reading
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> the book on the mythology of The Trine that they had slipped out of
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> the Runesocesius Library, along with an obscure cactus
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> leather-bound manuscript containing first-hand accounts of the
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> Artifice Wars. When the dream repeated itself on the third night,
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> Inky suspected it had something to do with the crystals under the
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> Milk Market's roof. While not horrifically bloody in the way Master
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> Corraidhín's description of the vision he had from the first
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> crystal had been, it was haplessly boring when lucid intervention
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> didn't seem to have any effect. It ran on like a low-budget B-Grade
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> play that had only three scenes with a few props each. By the
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> fourth night, the dream had become worse than a nib-nibbling teapot
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> that they stayed up entire nights for the rest of that week while
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> they were camping at the Milk Market.
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>
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> It was mostly an excuse to drop into the kitchens downstairs —
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> which they could now enter on the pretext of visiting Bread to
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> observe the apprentice's progress — in the early morning hours and
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> push new tea blends onto its unfortunate occupants. Most of the
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> three dozen or so infusions had been full of fruits and spices, six
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> of which would go well with items on the empanada shop's current
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> menu. A handful were medicinal after procuring a herb illustrated
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> on one moth-bitten page snatched on the hotel steps back on the
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> Peak. A few others were teas in the loosest sense of the word.
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> These were as tasteless and colourless as tap water, only the scent
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> offering a faint clue as to their ingredients. They had other
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> applications, least of which was in a prank on one empanada chef.
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> (Inky left him a box of zephyl tea — another Kelsun Peak speciality
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> besides mulled wine — before he could too riled up, though.)
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>
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> The note left at the Milk Market was the black cherry atop the
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> hassle cake. Confidence was fairly sure that the fine establishment
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> mentioned in the note wouldn't appear on the day indicated.
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> Couldn't "Mother" have chosen to meet somewhere a little more
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> convenient? So it was that despite the shop having a no-refunds
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> policy, or because of it, Inky found themselves returning to the
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> antique shop inside the Wandering Bazaar a week later looking for
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> another item. "Do you sell flight vessels that could transport
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> people to and from specific places … such as the Harpoon Club?"
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> they asked the witch.
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You and the witch go back and forth a few times before she realizes
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that you want to visit a place where it is when it isn't there.
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"Transdimensional extratemporal colocation?" Agate claps her hands in
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delight. "This is going to be fun! A witchy problem wants a witchy
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solution. That's what my Auntie Tenfingers always said!"
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"Why bother with flying contraptions when you yourself are a
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perfectly adequate vessel? I'm going to prescribe you a dream
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ritual," she says, scribbling in a notebook. "It's complex. But only
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because it's a lot of steps. And the timing is kind of particular in
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a couple places. But if you follow the directions, you shouldn't have
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any trouble." She rips the page out of the notebook and hands it you.
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"Basically, you'll enter a host's dreams, and then delve into the
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Collective Unconsciousness. From there you should be able to find the
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Wandering Bazaar's pocket dimension. Of course you'll need to find a
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guide to take you there. You'll have to find one in the Sea of
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Dreams."
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"And you'll need this!" She ducks behind the counter and reappears
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with a smoke-gray box bound with thick black ribbon. It's about as
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long as her forearm. She unwraps the box and opens it and pulls out a
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thick, round candle. It is an unhealthy, sickening translucent
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yellow. In the base of the candle is a large, blackened, withered,
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and shriveled hand. It is within and without the candle. As though it
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is grasping the base of the candle, but also like it has been molded
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into the candle on purpose. As though the hand is imprisoned in the
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wax. You can just make out a hazy small round object in the center of
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the candle through the wax. A large nut or marble. The hand looks
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like it is reaching for it. The candle has been burned down a fair
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bit. The wick is low and trimmed, and the edges are black and warped
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where the fatty wax has melted and hardened. You guess there's only
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about two-thirds left of the candle.
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The witch measures down from the top of the candle with a length of
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string and bores a small hole in its side. She wedges a large nail
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into the hole, leaving half of it jutting out. "A crude clock," she
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winks at you. "Place the candle on a hard metal plate. When it burns
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down enough for the wax here to soften, the nail will fall out and
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strike the plate and wake you up."
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She pushes it across the counter toward you and frowns. "Eh, should
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be okay," she shrugs. "But if at any point it looks like the base
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gets soft enough that the hand might be able to grasp the eye," she
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cautions pointing toward the round object in the center of the
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candle, "smash the thing. As hard as you can. Destroy the hand, and
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run."
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"The rest of the instructions should be pretty self explanatory!" she
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exclaims, perking up. "Let me know if you have any questions!"
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<details>
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<summary>Ritual Details</summary>
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Ritual Steps In Brief:
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1. Find a volunteer to be the Dream Host.
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2. Link your sanctum to the place where the Bazaar will be on the
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appointed date. (You can't just do your ceremony out in the open in
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the middle of the street! Find somewhere you can safely leave your
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bodies for a few hours.)
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3. Draw a circle of salt.
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4. At the appointed time, put the Dream Host in the circle. Also the
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Travelers (you), the Dream Sigil, and the Nyxmaer Candle.
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5. Once the Host is asleep (Sleep spell not included), light the
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candle and enter the Host's dream.
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6. Turn "away" from the dream, cross the Sea of Dreams to the
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Collective Unconsciousness.
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7. Find the Bazaar's pocket dimension.
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</details>
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> The day the letter arrived Alex was nowhere to be found. It was a
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> bit strange, somewhat chilling even, that he'd disappear like that.
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> Ever since they had arrived back at the Milk Maid he'd been seen
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> skulking about his uncle's study, or pacing the garden out back
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> somewhat agitatedly. Unbeknownst to the party, Alex had anticipated
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> the arrival of the letter, HQ had been following every lead they
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> could pull in since he began with the Ginnarak recovery team. Not
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> that they really had much to go off of, but the courier who left
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> the letter wasn't hard to track. That was, until he slipped inside
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> one of the ever changing shops right as it was moving along.
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>
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> The trail went cold after that. Which meant Alex had to get it
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> moving again, or at least the crumpled communique he'd received
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> said as much. Things were moving too quickly to think too hard on
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> the how, all that was needed was action, something drastic to flush
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> things out.
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>
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> That's why Alex finds himself on the east side of the market, skulk
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> about the back alley behind The Temporal Cup.
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>
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> "Gotta get this shit ready, there's no other options here" Alex
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> thought to himself. He loathed this type of work, it was messy,
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> abhorrently vile in his mind, but what choice did he have? His
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> hands worked deftly at the wires in the small package hidden inside
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> the recess of a loose brick. Once finished, the little packet came
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> to life, muted lights blicking away happily as the brick slid back
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> over it.
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>
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> This was the 3rd and final eavesdropping device, all placed at the
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> busiest cafes in market, all rigged with self destruct mechanisms
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> large enough to level the building if they're found.. The
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> eavesdropping Alex could abide by, but the wanton destruction for
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> the sake of security was painful to swallow.
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>
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> But once again, it wasn't much like Alex had a say in the matter.
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> The first sign of objection, an inclination that he'd refuse
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> orders, and they'd have an assassin on him before he could leave
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> the alley. And if he took it out, they'd send double, there'd be no
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> rest.
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>
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> --- Later that day
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>
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> Alex watched twtxt feeds scroll through from his monitoring
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> devices. Most of it unimportant gossip. So and so haves an affair,
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> what's for lunch, where to find good empanadas in the market, so on
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> and so forth. An endless stream on the pulse of the market.
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>
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> It was errant curiosity to watch these, the Magic Lichen in the
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> monitoring system was trained to hunt for any hint of what the
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> courier was up to, any twinge from Blavin and his ilk. It'd send
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> alerts straight to him as soon as something came up, but it was
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> interesting to see the pulse of the city trail by. And what else
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> could he do? It was too dangerous to go back to the Milk Maid, any
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> hint he was there could blow his cover. Best to lay low for the
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> time being, let the scrapers scrape and the agents comb the streets
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> until they get a bead on their target.
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Milk Market HQ ought to be quiet. Alex has been conspicuously absent.
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Missing in action. Inky seems to be out making rounds delivering tea,
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or spending more time than usual at the empenadaria. So Milk Market
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HQ ought to be quiet.
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Instead, a certain young hemogoblin and a certain yellow duck (both
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of whom have yet to be named, by the way) are squealing as they
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rampage through the rooms on the top floor of the building, upsetting
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the furniture in their wake and in general making a huge mess.
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It took some coaxing on the hemogoblin's part. The duck was
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determinedly uninterested in anything besides a soak in its tub and a
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nap on its cushion. And it did a good job of ignoring the persistent,
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pestering goblin for most of the afternoon. But jumping into a wooden
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tub full of blood cracked the foul's disinterested facade. It gave
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furious chase to the goblin until the heat of the moment cooled down.
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At which point the two of them simply enjoyed the thrill of chasing
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each other through the apartments.
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Confidence is actually the first one to stumble across the carnage.
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They were just popping by to drop off some new pamphlets, but froze
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in the doorway when they saw the suite in disarray and the walls
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plastered with blood and feathers. "What the toque..." And then they
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quietly closed the door and left without going in after all.
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~
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Gliftwirp browses the stalls trailing behind the Wandering Bazaar. He
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is bare chested save for a sleeveless vest. He wears long, baggy,
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striped trousers bunched at the ankle, and a bright red sash tied
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loosely around his waist. He grins a wide, gap-toothed grin as he
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thumps a melon.
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"Look at the size of this melon! And perfectly ripe!" he beams at the
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stall vendor. "You'll be here next week? With more like this?"
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Very few people would be able to tell Gliftwirp's profession from his
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attire. For those who can, one look at his red sash would immediately
|
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cause them to give him a wide berth. Because Gliftwirp is a
|
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warpwefter. A master assassin trained in the ancient art of
|
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sarong-fu. That is, the deadly application of soft and flexible
|
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weapons. Whips, chains, garrotes, nunchucks. And most famously---and
|
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most effectively---sashes, sarongs, scarves, and the like. The saying
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goes that a clothed warpwefter is never unarmed. Nor even is a nude
|
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one if they can get their hands on *your* clothes. And a warpwefter
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can sneak their weapons into the most secure of locations.
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"I am a visitor here, and don't know my way around," he keeps up the
|
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small-talk with the vendor, having paid for the melon. "Do you know
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if there is a building around here called 'Milk Market?' I'm supposed
|
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to meet someone there. No, they're not expecting me. It's going to be
|
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a surprise!"
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He grins his wide toothy grin.
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~
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The twtxt feed from the listening devices is dull and quiet. The
|
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monitoring software is designed to only deliver messages containing
|
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certain buzzwords. And those messages are few and far between.
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You decide to tap into the unfiltered stream and let the endless
|
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waves of blather wash over you. It's inane. Idle gossip and mindless
|
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chitter-chatter.
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After a day or two of this, you notice yourself getting
|
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uncharacteristically agitated. You squint at the lines of messages
|
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coming in and notice a few transposed characters in some of them,
|
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forming new nonsensical words. A couple messages are missing some
|
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whitespace, squishing words together in maddening run-ons. Glitchy.
|
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There's no reason the listening devices should be returning errors
|
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like this.
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Later still, the feeds have gotten worse. Some words seem to be
|
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written backwards. Entire messages are garbled word soup, devoid of
|
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any meaning or sense whatsoever. Some of the timestamps are invalid
|
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datetimes. But you prefer them to the ones that are valid, but which
|
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are stamped years ago. And you far prefer them to the ones that are
|
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stamped far in the future.
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The anomalies are overall infrequent. On their own, they don't amount
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to much. And when you show them, nobody at HQ gives you with much
|
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more than a slightly patronizing, indulgent shrug. But the glitches
|
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shouldn't be happening at all, is the thing. And when you compile
|
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them all together, you start to notice things. Patterns insinuating
|
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themselves, maddeningly just short of reason or meaning. Like a song
|
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stuck in your head when you can't remember the lyrics or the melody.
|
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But there's something there nonetheless. The promise of something, at
|
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least. Something bigger. A wide tapestry of links and connections,
|
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wanting to be known.
|
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|
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There are names. Ellis, the lady in red who sits at the center of a
|
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tangled web. Ousia, a sea of endless knowledge. A sea of magic. The
|
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215R Dude, a denizen of the other side who can deliver you to its
|
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shores. Other strange beings who lurk just out of sight, just beyond
|
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the veil of perception. The veil that you are now beginning to pierce
|
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with the snippets and snatches of information you pluck from your
|
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feeds.
|
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|
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You start to see signs of the veil elsewhere. Of the conspiracy.
|
||||
Whatever. You can't decide what to call it. Street graffiti outside
|
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of a red spider spinning a red web. Phrases like "215R" show up in
|
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random articles in the paper. As though the secret world is trying to
|
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cross over. Or to draw you into it.
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|
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WHAT DO YOU DO
|
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26
src/notes.md
26
src/notes.md
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@ -22,8 +22,8 @@ updated: Sun, 27 Nov 2022 02:24:11 -0700
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Upcoming NPCs and/or monsters
|
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- [ ] Jorunna Parva, sea bunny time lord <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorunna_parva>
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- [ ] Hap-n-stance, moon rabbit: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit>
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- [ ] Jorunna Parva, sea bunny time lord <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorunna_parva>
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- [ ] zai-ni (zine)
|
||||
- [ ] zeyeknee (zine)
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||||
- [ ] standard ed
|
||||
|
|
@ -121,18 +121,18 @@ The year is defined by Lua, the Red Lady's phases:
|
|||
|
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| # | Name | Lua | Season |
|
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|------|-----------------|-----------------|--------|
|
||||
| 1 | Thawing | 1ST QUARTER | Spring |
|
||||
| 2 | Icebreak | waxing gibbous | Spring |
|
||||
| 3 | Springtide | waxing gibbous | Spring |
|
||||
| 4 | Ripeberry | FULL | Summer |
|
||||
| 5 | Fullhorn | waning gibbous | Summer |
|
||||
| 6 | Fallsrun | waning gibbous | Summer |
|
||||
| 7 | Cornreaping | 3RD QUATER | Autumn |
|
||||
| 8 | Hunters | waning crescent | Autumn |
|
||||
| 9 | Beaverlodge | waning crescent | Autumn |
|
||||
| 10 | Longnight | NEW | Winter |
|
||||
| 11 | Howling | waxing crescent | Winter |
|
||||
| 12 | Snowfall | waxing crescent | Winter |
|
||||
| 1 | Unare | 1ST QUARTER | Spring |
|
||||
| 2 | Tornare | waxing gibbous | Spring |
|
||||
| 3 | Ternare | waxing gibbous | Spring |
|
||||
| 4 | Qatthai | FULL | Summer |
|
||||
| 5 | Pethai | waning gibbous | Summer |
|
||||
| 6 | Sestoren | waning gibbous | Summer |
|
||||
| 7 | Hestur | 3RD QUATER | Autumn |
|
||||
| 8 | Oktober | waning crescent | Autumn |
|
||||
| 9 | Nongogl | waning crescent | Autumn |
|
||||
| 10 | Dekgogl | NEW | Winter |
|
||||
| 11 | Elfswel | waxing crescent | Winter |
|
||||
| 12 | Dozwel | waxing crescent | Winter |
|
||||
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
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|
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285
www/index.html
285
www/index.html
|
|
@ -312,6 +312,7 @@ of the Were-Hare</a></li>
|
|||
<li><a href="#current-story" id="toc-current-story">Current Story</a>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><a href="#00054" id="toc-00054">00054</a></li>
|
||||
<li><a href="#00055" id="toc-00055">00055</a></li>
|
||||
</ul></li>
|
||||
<li><a href="#bestiary" id="toc-bestiary">Bestiary</a></li>
|
||||
<li><a href="#geography" id="toc-geography">Geography</a></li>
|
||||
|
|
@ -344,11 +345,11 @@ Runesocesius</a></li>
|
|||
</ul>
|
||||
</nav>
|
||||
<h2 id="stats">Stats</h2>
|
||||
<p>Total length: 58151 words / 248 minute read. (Mind you, that’s the
|
||||
<p>Total length: 60917 words / 260 minute read. (Mind you, that’s the
|
||||
length of this entire page, including all the extra bits and bobs. Not
|
||||
just the story.)</p>
|
||||
<p>There have been 189 messages posted over 175 days since the first
|
||||
post on July 13, 2022 for a daily post rate of 1.08.</p>
|
||||
<p>There have been 192 messages posted over 185 days since the first
|
||||
post on July 13, 2022 for a daily post rate of 1.03.</p>
|
||||
<h2 id="about">About</h2>
|
||||
<p>This is a game that me and the kids in the basement are playing over
|
||||
email.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -513,7 +514,7 @@ Set, Mountain Range Glyph Ink, Bead of the Werehare</li>
|
|||
<li>Retriever: Contractual Obligation, An Auspicious Start, Two In The
|
||||
Hand, The Triple Lindy</li>
|
||||
<li>Were-Hare: Lepusthropy, Beast Sense, Hybrid Form</li>
|
||||
<li>Tasseomancer: Reading, Ceremony</li>
|
||||
<li>Tasseomancer: Reading, Ceremony, Steeping</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<h3 id="jarrod">Jarrod</h3>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6099,6 +6100,266 @@ appear at East and Lowland.) It is in fact not scheduled to appear until
|
|||
a week and a half after next Selday, on Third Tensday. (When the Bazaar
|
||||
will appear at Cathedral and Pine.)</p>
|
||||
<p>WHAT DO YOU DO</p>
|
||||
<h3 id="00055">00055</h3>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The nibs had disappeared.</p>
|
||||
<p>Inky had spotted the small ceramic and wicker teapot among a long row
|
||||
of boxes and bowls at the antique shop on the thirteenth floor of the
|
||||
Wandering Bazaar while looking for a Near-weightless Verifying Matter
|
||||
enclosure (NVMe) to their Handy Duffer Discette as a primary storage.
|
||||
The witch shopkeeper, Agate, had helpfully mentioned the teapot could be
|
||||
used to steep very acidic or alkaline solutions, as well as distil
|
||||
solubles. The box it was subsequently packed in did not include
|
||||
instructions on activating the precipitation feature. With the shop not
|
||||
returning for another week by Confidence’s reckoning, Inky had used the
|
||||
teapot in the meantime to rinse off any impurities from an old set of
|
||||
nibs — the very first functional set they had made as an apprentice
|
||||
inkling — except the nibs were nowhere to be found when they poured out
|
||||
the citronella solution and removed the lid. Inky supposed it was to be
|
||||
expected — some witches liked to go on about equal payment for wishes,
|
||||
as if it were as easy as reading off a price tag, and it was difficult
|
||||
to stay irritated at a cute teapot for long. Inky wrote it off as a gift
|
||||
for what would hopefully thereafter be a cutely functional teapot. The
|
||||
shop had a no-refunds policy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the dream. At first Inky had attributed them to reading the
|
||||
book on the mythology of The Trine that they had slipped out of the
|
||||
Runesocesius Library, along with an obscure cactus leather-bound
|
||||
manuscript containing first-hand accounts of the Artifice Wars. When the
|
||||
dream repeated itself on the third night, Inky suspected it had
|
||||
something to do with the crystals under the Milk Market’s roof. While
|
||||
not horrifically bloody in the way Master Corraidhín’s description of
|
||||
the vision he had from the first crystal had been, it was haplessly
|
||||
boring when lucid intervention didn’t seem to have any effect. It ran on
|
||||
like a low-budget B-Grade play that had only three scenes with a few
|
||||
props each. By the fourth night, the dream had become worse than a
|
||||
nib-nibbling teapot that they stayed up entire nights for the rest of
|
||||
that week while they were camping at the Milk Market.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was mostly an excuse to drop into the kitchens downstairs — which
|
||||
they could now enter on the pretext of visiting Bread to observe the
|
||||
apprentice’s progress — in the early morning hours and push new tea
|
||||
blends onto its unfortunate occupants. Most of the three dozen or so
|
||||
infusions had been full of fruits and spices, six of which would go well
|
||||
with items on the empanada shop’s current menu. A handful were medicinal
|
||||
after procuring a herb illustrated on one moth-bitten page snatched on
|
||||
the hotel steps back on the Peak. A few others were teas in the loosest
|
||||
sense of the word. These were as tasteless and colourless as tap water,
|
||||
only the scent offering a faint clue as to their ingredients. They had
|
||||
other applications, least of which was in a prank on one empanada chef.
|
||||
(Inky left him a box of zephyl tea — another Kelsun Peak speciality
|
||||
besides mulled wine — before he could too riled up, though.)</p>
|
||||
<p>The note left at the Milk Market was the black cherry atop the hassle
|
||||
cake. Confidence was fairly sure that the fine establishment mentioned
|
||||
in the note wouldn’t appear on the day indicated. Couldn’t “Mother” have
|
||||
chosen to meet somewhere a little more convenient? So it was that
|
||||
despite the shop having a no-refunds policy, or because of it, Inky
|
||||
found themselves returning to the antique shop inside the Wandering
|
||||
Bazaar a week later looking for another item. “Do you sell flight
|
||||
vessels that could transport people to and from specific places … such
|
||||
as the Harpoon Club?” they asked the witch.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>You and the witch go back and forth a few times before she realizes
|
||||
that you want to visit a place where it is when it isn’t there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Transdimensional extratemporal colocation?” Agate claps her hands in
|
||||
delight. “This is going to be fun! A witchy problem wants a witchy
|
||||
solution. That’s what my Auntie Tenfingers always said!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why bother with flying contraptions when you yourself are a
|
||||
perfectly adequate vessel? I’m going to prescribe you a dream ritual,”
|
||||
she says, scribbling in a notebook. “It’s complex. But only because it’s
|
||||
a lot of steps. And the timing is kind of particular in a couple places.
|
||||
But if you follow the directions, you shouldn’t have any trouble.” She
|
||||
rips the page out of the notebook and hands it you.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Basically, you’ll enter a host’s dreams, and then delve into the
|
||||
Collective Unconsciousness. From there you should be able to find the
|
||||
Wandering Bazaar’s pocket dimension. Of course you’ll need to find a
|
||||
guide to take you there. You’ll have to find one in the Sea of
|
||||
Dreams.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And you’ll need this!” She ducks behind the counter and reappears
|
||||
with a smoke-gray box bound with thick black ribbon. It’s about as long
|
||||
as her forearm. She unwraps the box and opens it and pulls out a thick,
|
||||
round candle. It is an unhealthy, sickening translucent yellow. In the
|
||||
base of the candle is a large, blackened, withered, and shriveled hand.
|
||||
It is within and without the candle. As though it is grasping the base
|
||||
of the candle, but also like it has been molded into the candle on
|
||||
purpose. As though the hand is imprisoned in the wax. You can just make
|
||||
out a hazy small round object in the center of the candle through the
|
||||
wax. A large nut or marble. The hand looks like it is reaching for it.
|
||||
The candle has been burned down a fair bit. The wick is low and trimmed,
|
||||
and the edges are black and warped where the fatty wax has melted and
|
||||
hardened. You guess there’s only about two-thirds left of the
|
||||
candle.</p>
|
||||
<p>The witch measures down from the top of the candle with a length of
|
||||
string and bores a small hole in its side. She wedges a large nail into
|
||||
the hole, leaving half of it jutting out. “A crude clock,” she winks at
|
||||
you. “Place the candle on a hard metal plate. When it burns down enough
|
||||
for the wax here to soften, the nail will fall out and strike the plate
|
||||
and wake you up.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She pushes it across the counter toward you and frowns. “Eh, should
|
||||
be okay,” she shrugs. “But if at any point it looks like the base gets
|
||||
soft enough that the hand might be able to grasp the eye,” she cautions
|
||||
pointing toward the round object in the center of the candle, “smash the
|
||||
thing. As hard as you can. Destroy the hand, and run.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The rest of the instructions should be pretty self explanatory!” she
|
||||
exclaims, perking up. “Let me know if you have any questions!”</p>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<summary>
|
||||
<p>Ritual Details</p>
|
||||
</summary>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="https://tilde.town/~dozens/quest/ritual.png"
|
||||
alt="ritual outline" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">ritual outline</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
<p>Ritual Steps In Brief:</p>
|
||||
<ol type="1">
|
||||
<li><p>Find a volunteer to be the Dream Host.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Link your sanctum to the place where the Bazaar will be on the
|
||||
appointed date. (You can’t just do your ceremony out in the open in the
|
||||
middle of the street! Find somewhere you can safely leave your bodies
|
||||
for a few hours.)</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Draw a circle of salt.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>At the appointed time, put the Dream Host in the circle. Also the
|
||||
Travelers (you), the Dream Sigil, and the Nyxmaer Candle.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Once the Host is asleep (Sleep spell not included), light the
|
||||
candle and enter the Host’s dream.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Turn “away” from the dream, cross the Sea of Dreams to the
|
||||
Collective Unconsciousness.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Find the Bazaar’s pocket dimension.</p></li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The day the letter arrived Alex was nowhere to be found. It was a bit
|
||||
strange, somewhat chilling even, that he’d disappear like that. Ever
|
||||
since they had arrived back at the Milk Maid he’d been seen skulking
|
||||
about his uncle’s study, or pacing the garden out back somewhat
|
||||
agitatedly. Unbeknownst to the party, Alex had anticipated the arrival
|
||||
of the letter, HQ had been following every lead they could pull in since
|
||||
he began with the Ginnarak recovery team. Not that they really had much
|
||||
to go off of, but the courier who left the letter wasn’t hard to track.
|
||||
That was, until he slipped inside one of the ever changing shops right
|
||||
as it was moving along.</p>
|
||||
<p>The trail went cold after that. Which meant Alex had to get it moving
|
||||
again, or at least the crumpled communique he’d received said as much.
|
||||
Things were moving too quickly to think too hard on the how, all that
|
||||
was needed was action, something drastic to flush things out.</p>
|
||||
<p>That’s why Alex finds himself on the east side of the market, skulk
|
||||
about the back alley behind The Temporal Cup.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gotta get this shit ready, there’s no other options here” Alex
|
||||
thought to himself. He loathed this type of work, it was messy,
|
||||
abhorrently vile in his mind, but what choice did he have? His hands
|
||||
worked deftly at the wires in the small package hidden inside the recess
|
||||
of a loose brick. Once finished, the little packet came to life, muted
|
||||
lights blicking away happily as the brick slid back over it.</p>
|
||||
<p>This was the 3rd and final eavesdropping device, all placed at the
|
||||
busiest cafes in market, all rigged with self destruct mechanisms large
|
||||
enough to level the building if they’re found.. The eavesdropping Alex
|
||||
could abide by, but the wanton destruction for the sake of security was
|
||||
painful to swallow.</p>
|
||||
<p>But once again, it wasn’t much like Alex had a say in the matter. The
|
||||
first sign of objection, an inclination that he’d refuse orders, and
|
||||
they’d have an assassin on him before he could leave the alley. And if
|
||||
he took it out, they’d send double, there’d be no rest.</p>
|
||||
<p>— Later that day</p>
|
||||
<p>Alex watched twtxt feeds scroll through from his monitoring devices.
|
||||
Most of it unimportant gossip. So and so haves an affair, what’s for
|
||||
lunch, where to find good empanadas in the market, so on and so forth.
|
||||
An endless stream on the pulse of the market.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was errant curiosity to watch these, the Magic Lichen in the
|
||||
monitoring system was trained to hunt for any hint of what the courier
|
||||
was up to, any twinge from Blavin and his ilk. It’d send alerts straight
|
||||
to him as soon as something came up, but it was interesting to see the
|
||||
pulse of the city trail by. And what else could he do? It was too
|
||||
dangerous to go back to the Milk Maid, any hint he was there could blow
|
||||
his cover. Best to lay low for the time being, let the scrapers scrape
|
||||
and the agents comb the streets until they get a bead on their
|
||||
target.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Milk Market HQ ought to be quiet. Alex has been conspicuously absent.
|
||||
Missing in action. Inky seems to be out making rounds delivering tea, or
|
||||
spending more time than usual at the empenadaria. So Milk Market HQ
|
||||
ought to be quiet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Instead, a certain young hemogoblin and a certain yellow duck (both
|
||||
of whom have yet to be named, by the way) are squealing as they rampage
|
||||
through the rooms on the top floor of the building, upsetting the
|
||||
furniture in their wake and in general making a huge mess.</p>
|
||||
<p>It took some coaxing on the hemogoblin’s part. The duck was
|
||||
determinedly uninterested in anything besides a soak in its tub and a
|
||||
nap on its cushion. And it did a good job of ignoring the persistent,
|
||||
pestering goblin for most of the afternoon. But jumping into a wooden
|
||||
tub full of blood cracked the foul’s disinterested facade. It gave
|
||||
furious chase to the goblin until the heat of the moment cooled down. At
|
||||
which point the two of them simply enjoyed the thrill of chasing each
|
||||
other through the apartments.</p>
|
||||
<p>Confidence is actually the first one to stumble across the carnage.
|
||||
They were just popping by to drop off some new pamphlets, but froze in
|
||||
the doorway when they saw the suite in disarray and the walls plastered
|
||||
with blood and feathers. “What the toque…” And then they quietly closed
|
||||
the door and left without going in after all.</p>
|
||||
<p>~</p>
|
||||
<p>Gliftwirp browses the stalls trailing behind the Wandering Bazaar. He
|
||||
is bare chested save for a sleeveless vest. He wears long, baggy,
|
||||
striped trousers bunched at the ankle, and a bright red sash tied
|
||||
loosely around his waist. He grins a wide, gap-toothed grin as he thumps
|
||||
a melon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look at the size of this melon! And perfectly ripe!” he beams at the
|
||||
stall vendor. “You’ll be here next week? With more like this?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Very few people would be able to tell Gliftwirp’s profession from his
|
||||
attire. For those who can, one look at his red sash would immediately
|
||||
cause them to give him a wide berth. Because Gliftwirp is a warpwefter.
|
||||
A master assassin trained in the ancient art of sarong-fu. That is, the
|
||||
deadly application of soft and flexible weapons. Whips, chains,
|
||||
garrotes, nunchucks. And most famously—and most effectively—sashes,
|
||||
sarongs, scarves, and the like. The saying goes that a clothed
|
||||
warpwefter is never unarmed. Nor even is a nude one if they can get
|
||||
their hands on <em>your</em> clothes. And a warpwefter can sneak their
|
||||
weapons into the most secure of locations.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am a visitor here, and don’t know my way around,” he keeps up the
|
||||
small-talk with the vendor, having paid for the melon. “Do you know if
|
||||
there is a building around here called ‘Milk Market?’ I’m supposed to
|
||||
meet someone there. No, they’re not expecting me. It’s going to be a
|
||||
surprise!”</p>
|
||||
<p>He grins his wide toothy grin.</p>
|
||||
<p>~</p>
|
||||
<p>The twtxt feed from the listening devices is dull and quiet. The
|
||||
monitoring software is designed to only deliver messages containing
|
||||
certain buzzwords. And those messages are few and far between.</p>
|
||||
<p>You decide to tap into the unfiltered stream and let the endless
|
||||
waves of blather wash over you. It’s inane. Idle gossip and mindless
|
||||
chitter-chatter.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a day or two of this, you notice yourself getting
|
||||
uncharacteristically agitated. You squint at the lines of messages
|
||||
coming in and notice a few transposed characters in some of them,
|
||||
forming new nonsensical words. A couple messages are missing some
|
||||
whitespace, squishing words together in maddening run-ons. Glitchy.
|
||||
There’s no reason the listening devices should be returning errors like
|
||||
this.</p>
|
||||
<p>Later still, the feeds have gotten worse. Some words seem to be
|
||||
written backwards. Entire messages are garbled word soup, devoid of any
|
||||
meaning or sense whatsoever. Some of the timestamps are invalid
|
||||
datetimes. But you prefer them to the ones that are valid, but which are
|
||||
stamped years ago. And you far prefer them to the ones that are stamped
|
||||
far in the future.</p>
|
||||
<p>The anomalies are overall infrequent. On their own, they don’t amount
|
||||
to much. And when you show them, nobody at HQ gives you with much more
|
||||
than a slightly patronizing, indulgent shrug. But the glitches shouldn’t
|
||||
be happening at all, is the thing. And when you compile them all
|
||||
together, you start to notice things. Patterns insinuating themselves,
|
||||
maddeningly just short of reason or meaning. Like a song stuck in your
|
||||
head when you can’t remember the lyrics or the melody. But there’s
|
||||
something there nonetheless. The promise of something, at least.
|
||||
Something bigger. A wide tapestry of links and connections, wanting to
|
||||
be known.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are names. Ellis, the lady in red who sits at the center of a
|
||||
tangled web. Ousia, a sea of endless knowledge. A sea of magic. The 215R
|
||||
Dude, a denizen of the other side who can deliver you to its shores.
|
||||
Other strange beings who lurk just out of sight, just beyond the veil of
|
||||
perception. The veil that you are now beginning to pierce with the
|
||||
snippets and snatches of information you pluck from your feeds.</p>
|
||||
<p>You start to see signs of the veil elsewhere. Of the conspiracy.
|
||||
Whatever. You can’t decide what to call it. Street graffiti outside of a
|
||||
red spider spinning a red web. Phrases like “215R” show up in random
|
||||
articles in the paper. As though the secret world is trying to cross
|
||||
over. Or to draw you into it.</p>
|
||||
<p>WHAT DO YOU DO</p>
|
||||
<h2 id="bestiary">Bestiary</h2>
|
||||
<p>Some of the creatures who inhabit the world of Basmentaria</p>
|
||||
<dt>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6109,6 +6370,14 @@ A void whale. Most commonly observed in the swimming in the earth’s
|
|||
atmosphere, where they come to breath air. But they spend most of their
|
||||
time in the void of space, where they dive to great depths.
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="aetherwael.png" alt="aetherwael" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">aetherwael</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
<dt>
|
||||
<dl>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6302,6 +6571,14 @@ of an oath, in which case they go into a frenzy preying on the liar or
|
|||
liars. They can smell blood from a great distance, but can hear a lie
|
||||
from much further.
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="horkosgrampus.png" alt="horkosgrampus" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">horkosgrampus</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
<dt>
|
||||
<dl>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
File diff suppressed because it is too large
Load Diff
Binary file not shown.
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 1.3 MiB |
308
www/rss.xml
308
www/rss.xml
|
|
@ -286,5 +286,313 @@ NOTE GDB INDICATES SOME ANOMALY</code></pre>
|
|||
]]>
|
||||
</description>
|
||||
</item>
|
||||
<item>
|
||||
<title>55</title>
|
||||
<author>dozens@tilde.team (dozens)</author>
|
||||
<guid isPermaLink="false">55 - Thu, 05 Jan 2023 08:21:34
|
||||
-0700</guid>
|
||||
<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jan 2023 08:21:34 -0700</pubDate>
|
||||
<description>
|
||||
<![CDATA[
|
||||
<h3 id="00055">00055</h3>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The nibs had disappeared.</p>
|
||||
<p>Inky had spotted the small ceramic and wicker teapot among
|
||||
a long row of boxes and bowls at the antique shop on the
|
||||
thirteenth floor of the Wandering Bazaar while looking for a
|
||||
Near-weightless Verifying Matter enclosure (NVMe) to their
|
||||
Handy Duffer Discette as a primary storage. The witch
|
||||
shopkeeper, Agate, had helpfully mentioned the teapot could be
|
||||
used to steep very acidic or alkaline solutions, as well as
|
||||
distil solubles. The box it was subsequently packed in did not
|
||||
include instructions on activating the precipitation feature.
|
||||
With the shop not returning for another week by Confidence’s
|
||||
reckoning, Inky had used the teapot in the meantime to rinse
|
||||
off any impurities from an old set of nibs — the very first
|
||||
functional set they had made as an apprentice inkling — except
|
||||
the nibs were nowhere to be found when they poured out the
|
||||
citronella solution and removed the lid. Inky supposed it was
|
||||
to be expected — some witches liked to go on about equal
|
||||
payment for wishes, as if it were as easy as reading off a
|
||||
price tag, and it was difficult to stay irritated at a cute
|
||||
teapot for long. Inky wrote it off as a gift for what would
|
||||
hopefully thereafter be a cutely functional teapot. The shop
|
||||
had a no-refunds policy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the dream. At first Inky had attributed them to
|
||||
reading the book on the mythology of The Trine that they had
|
||||
slipped out of the Runesocesius Library, along with an obscure
|
||||
cactus leather-bound manuscript containing first-hand accounts
|
||||
of the Artifice Wars. When the dream repeated itself on the
|
||||
third night, Inky suspected it had something to do with the
|
||||
crystals under the Milk Market’s roof. While not horrifically
|
||||
bloody in the way Master Corraidhín’s description of the
|
||||
vision he had from the first crystal had been, it was
|
||||
haplessly boring when lucid intervention didn’t seem to have
|
||||
any effect. It ran on like a low-budget B-Grade play that had
|
||||
only three scenes with a few props each. By the fourth night,
|
||||
the dream had become worse than a nib-nibbling teapot that
|
||||
they stayed up entire nights for the rest of that week while
|
||||
they were camping at the Milk Market.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was mostly an excuse to drop into the kitchens
|
||||
downstairs — which they could now enter on the pretext of
|
||||
visiting Bread to observe the apprentice’s progress — in the
|
||||
early morning hours and push new tea blends onto its
|
||||
unfortunate occupants. Most of the three dozen or so infusions
|
||||
had been full of fruits and spices, six of which would go well
|
||||
with items on the empanada shop’s current menu. A handful were
|
||||
medicinal after procuring a herb illustrated on one
|
||||
moth-bitten page snatched on the hotel steps back on the Peak.
|
||||
A few others were teas in the loosest sense of the word. These
|
||||
were as tasteless and colourless as tap water, only the scent
|
||||
offering a faint clue as to their ingredients. They had other
|
||||
applications, least of which was in a prank on one empanada
|
||||
chef. (Inky left him a box of zephyl tea — another Kelsun Peak
|
||||
speciality besides mulled wine — before he could too riled up,
|
||||
though.)</p>
|
||||
<p>The note left at the Milk Market was the black cherry atop
|
||||
the hassle cake. Confidence was fairly sure that the fine
|
||||
establishment mentioned in the note wouldn’t appear on the day
|
||||
indicated. Couldn’t “Mother” have chosen to meet somewhere a
|
||||
little more convenient? So it was that despite the shop having
|
||||
a no-refunds policy, or because of it, Inky found themselves
|
||||
returning to the antique shop inside the Wandering Bazaar a
|
||||
week later looking for another item. “Do you sell flight
|
||||
vessels that could transport people to and from specific
|
||||
places … such as the Harpoon Club?” they asked the witch.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>You and the witch go back and forth a few times before she
|
||||
realizes that you want to visit a place where it is when it
|
||||
isn’t there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Transdimensional extratemporal colocation?” Agate claps
|
||||
her hands in delight. “This is going to be fun! A witchy
|
||||
problem wants a witchy solution. That’s what my Auntie
|
||||
Tenfingers always said!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why bother with flying contraptions when you yourself are
|
||||
a perfectly adequate vessel? I’m going to prescribe you a
|
||||
dream ritual,” she says, scribbling in a notebook. “It’s
|
||||
complex. But only because it’s a lot of steps. And the timing
|
||||
is kind of particular in a couple places. But if you follow
|
||||
the directions, you shouldn’t have any trouble.” She rips the
|
||||
page out of the notebook and hands it you.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Basically, you’ll enter a host’s dreams, and then delve
|
||||
into the Collective Unconsciousness. From there you should be
|
||||
able to find the Wandering Bazaar’s pocket dimension. Of
|
||||
course you’ll need to find a guide to take you there. You’ll
|
||||
have to find one in the Sea of Dreams.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And you’ll need this!” She ducks behind the counter and
|
||||
reappears with a smoke-gray box bound with thick black ribbon.
|
||||
It’s about as long as her forearm. She unwraps the box and
|
||||
opens it and pulls out a thick, round candle. It is an
|
||||
unhealthy, sickening translucent yellow. In the base of the
|
||||
candle is a large, blackened, withered, and shriveled hand. It
|
||||
is within and without the candle. As though it is grasping the
|
||||
base of the candle, but also like it has been molded into the
|
||||
candle on purpose. As though the hand is imprisoned in the
|
||||
wax. You can just make out a hazy small round object in the
|
||||
center of the candle through the wax. A large nut or marble.
|
||||
The hand looks like it is reaching for it. The candle has been
|
||||
burned down a fair bit. The wick is low and trimmed, and the
|
||||
edges are black and warped where the fatty wax has melted and
|
||||
hardened. You guess there’s only about two-thirds left of the
|
||||
candle.</p>
|
||||
<p>The witch measures down from the top of the candle with a
|
||||
length of string and bores a small hole in its side. She
|
||||
wedges a large nail into the hole, leaving half of it jutting
|
||||
out. “A crude clock,” she winks at you. “Place the candle on a
|
||||
hard metal plate. When it burns down enough for the wax here
|
||||
to soften, the nail will fall out and strike the plate and
|
||||
wake you up.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She pushes it across the counter toward you and frowns.
|
||||
“Eh, should be okay,” she shrugs. “But if at any point it
|
||||
looks like the base gets soft enough that the hand might be
|
||||
able to grasp the eye,” she cautions pointing toward the round
|
||||
object in the center of the candle, “smash the thing. As hard
|
||||
as you can. Destroy the hand, and run.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The rest of the instructions should be pretty self
|
||||
explanatory!” she exclaims, perking up. “Let me know if you
|
||||
have any questions!”</p>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<summary>
|
||||
Ritual Details
|
||||
</summary>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="https://tilde.town/~dozens/quest/ritual.png"
|
||||
alt="ritual outline" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">ritual outline</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
<p>Ritual Steps In Brief:</p>
|
||||
<ol type="1">
|
||||
<li><p>Find a volunteer to be the Dream Host.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Link your sanctum to the place where the Bazaar will be
|
||||
on the appointed date. (You can’t just do your ceremony out in
|
||||
the open in the middle of the street! Find somewhere you can
|
||||
safely leave your bodies for a few hours.)</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Draw a circle of salt.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>At the appointed time, put the Dream Host in the
|
||||
circle. Also the Travelers (you), the Dream Sigil, and the
|
||||
Nyxmaer Candle.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Once the Host is asleep (Sleep spell not included),
|
||||
light the candle and enter the Host’s dream.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Turn “away” from the dream, cross the Sea of Dreams to
|
||||
the Collective Unconsciousness.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Find the Bazaar’s pocket dimension.</p></li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The day the letter arrived Alex was nowhere to be found. It
|
||||
was a bit strange, somewhat chilling even, that he’d disappear
|
||||
like that. Ever since they had arrived back at the Milk Maid
|
||||
he’d been seen skulking about his uncle’s study, or pacing the
|
||||
garden out back somewhat agitatedly. Unbeknownst to the party,
|
||||
Alex had anticipated the arrival of the letter, HQ had been
|
||||
following every lead they could pull in since he began with
|
||||
the Ginnarak recovery team. Not that they really had much to
|
||||
go off of, but the courier who left the letter wasn’t hard to
|
||||
track. That was, until he slipped inside one of the ever
|
||||
changing shops right as it was moving along.</p>
|
||||
<p>The trail went cold after that. Which meant Alex had to get
|
||||
it moving again, or at least the crumpled communique he’d
|
||||
received said as much. Things were moving too quickly to think
|
||||
too hard on the how, all that was needed was action, something
|
||||
drastic to flush things out.</p>
|
||||
<p>That’s why Alex finds himself on the east side of the
|
||||
market, skulk about the back alley behind The Temporal
|
||||
Cup.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gotta get this shit ready, there’s no other options here”
|
||||
Alex thought to himself. He loathed this type of work, it was
|
||||
messy, abhorrently vile in his mind, but what choice did he
|
||||
have? His hands worked deftly at the wires in the small
|
||||
package hidden inside the recess of a loose brick. Once
|
||||
finished, the little packet came to life, muted lights
|
||||
blicking away happily as the brick slid back over it.</p>
|
||||
<p>This was the 3rd and final eavesdropping device, all placed
|
||||
at the busiest cafes in market, all rigged with self destruct
|
||||
mechanisms large enough to level the building if they’re
|
||||
found.. The eavesdropping Alex could abide by, but the wanton
|
||||
destruction for the sake of security was painful to
|
||||
swallow.</p>
|
||||
<p>But once again, it wasn’t much like Alex had a say in the
|
||||
matter. The first sign of objection, an inclination that he’d
|
||||
refuse orders, and they’d have an assassin on him before he
|
||||
could leave the alley. And if he took it out, they’d send
|
||||
double, there’d be no rest.</p>
|
||||
<p>— Later that day</p>
|
||||
<p>Alex watched twtxt feeds scroll through from his monitoring
|
||||
devices. Most of it unimportant gossip. So and so haves an
|
||||
affair, what’s for lunch, where to find good empanadas in the
|
||||
market, so on and so forth. An endless stream on the pulse of
|
||||
the market.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was errant curiosity to watch these, the Magic Lichen in
|
||||
the monitoring system was trained to hunt for any hint of what
|
||||
the courier was up to, any twinge from Blavin and his ilk.
|
||||
It’d send alerts straight to him as soon as something came up,
|
||||
but it was interesting to see the pulse of the city trail by.
|
||||
And what else could he do? It was too dangerous to go back to
|
||||
the Milk Maid, any hint he was there could blow his cover.
|
||||
Best to lay low for the time being, let the scrapers scrape
|
||||
and the agents comb the streets until they get a bead on their
|
||||
target.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Milk Market HQ ought to be quiet. Alex has been
|
||||
conspicuously absent. Missing in action. Inky seems to be out
|
||||
making rounds delivering tea, or spending more time than usual
|
||||
at the empenadaria. So Milk Market HQ ought to be quiet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Instead, a certain young hemogoblin and a certain yellow
|
||||
duck (both of whom have yet to be named, by the way) are
|
||||
squealing as they rampage through the rooms on the top floor
|
||||
of the building, upsetting the furniture in their wake and in
|
||||
general making a huge mess.</p>
|
||||
<p>It took some coaxing on the hemogoblin’s part. The duck was
|
||||
determinedly uninterested in anything besides a soak in its
|
||||
tub and a nap on its cushion. And it did a good job of
|
||||
ignoring the persistent, pestering goblin for most of the
|
||||
afternoon. But jumping into a wooden tub full of blood cracked
|
||||
the foul’s disinterested facade. It gave furious chase to the
|
||||
goblin until the heat of the moment cooled down. At which
|
||||
point the two of them simply enjoyed the thrill of chasing
|
||||
each other through the apartments.</p>
|
||||
<p>Confidence is actually the first one to stumble across the
|
||||
carnage. They were just popping by to drop off some new
|
||||
pamphlets, but froze in the doorway when they saw the suite in
|
||||
disarray and the walls plastered with blood and feathers.
|
||||
“What the toque…” And then they quietly closed the door and
|
||||
left without going in after all.</p>
|
||||
<p>~</p>
|
||||
<p>Gliftwirp browses the stalls trailing behind the Wandering
|
||||
Bazaar. He is bare chested save for a sleeveless vest. He
|
||||
wears long, baggy, striped trousers bunched at the ankle, and
|
||||
a bright red sash tied loosely around his waist. He grins a
|
||||
wide, gap-toothed grin as he thumps a melon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look at the size of this melon! And perfectly ripe!” he
|
||||
beams at the stall vendor. “You’ll be here next week? With
|
||||
more like this?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Very few people would be able to tell Gliftwirp’s
|
||||
profession from his attire. For those who can, one look at his
|
||||
red sash would immediately cause them to give him a wide
|
||||
berth. Because Gliftwirp is a warpwefter. A master assassin
|
||||
trained in the ancient art of sarong-fu. That is, the deadly
|
||||
application of soft and flexible weapons. Whips, chains,
|
||||
garrotes, nunchucks. And most famously—and most
|
||||
effectively—sashes, sarongs, scarves, and the like. The saying
|
||||
goes that a clothed warpwefter is never unarmed. Nor even is a
|
||||
nude one if they can get their hands on <em>your</em> clothes.
|
||||
And a warpwefter can sneak their weapons into the most secure
|
||||
of locations.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am a visitor here, and don’t know my way around,” he
|
||||
keeps up the small-talk with the vendor, having paid for the
|
||||
melon. “Do you know if there is a building around here called
|
||||
‘Milk Market?’ I’m supposed to meet someone there. No, they’re
|
||||
not expecting me. It’s going to be a surprise!”</p>
|
||||
<p>He grins his wide toothy grin.</p>
|
||||
<p>~</p>
|
||||
<p>The twtxt feed from the listening devices is dull and
|
||||
quiet. The monitoring software is designed to only deliver
|
||||
messages containing certain buzzwords. And those messages are
|
||||
few and far between.</p>
|
||||
<p>You decide to tap into the unfiltered stream and let the
|
||||
endless waves of blather wash over you. It’s inane. Idle
|
||||
gossip and mindless chitter-chatter.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a day or two of this, you notice yourself getting
|
||||
uncharacteristically agitated. You squint at the lines of
|
||||
messages coming in and notice a few transposed characters in
|
||||
some of them, forming new nonsensical words. A couple messages
|
||||
are missing some whitespace, squishing words together in
|
||||
maddening run-ons. Glitchy. There’s no reason the listening
|
||||
devices should be returning errors like this.</p>
|
||||
<p>Later still, the feeds have gotten worse. Some words seem
|
||||
to be written backwards. Entire messages are garbled word
|
||||
soup, devoid of any meaning or sense whatsoever. Some of the
|
||||
timestamps are invalid datetimes. But you prefer them to the
|
||||
ones that are valid, but which are stamped years ago. And you
|
||||
far prefer them to the ones that are stamped far in the
|
||||
future.</p>
|
||||
<p>The anomalies are overall infrequent. On their own, they
|
||||
don’t amount to much. And when you show them, nobody at HQ
|
||||
gives you with much more than a slightly patronizing,
|
||||
indulgent shrug. But the glitches shouldn’t be happening at
|
||||
all, is the thing. And when you compile them all together, you
|
||||
start to notice things. Patterns insinuating themselves,
|
||||
maddeningly just short of reason or meaning. Like a song stuck
|
||||
in your head when you can’t remember the lyrics or the melody.
|
||||
But there’s something there nonetheless. The promise of
|
||||
something, at least. Something bigger. A wide tapestry of
|
||||
links and connections, wanting to be known.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are names. Ellis, the lady in red who sits at the
|
||||
center of a tangled web. Ousia, a sea of endless knowledge. A
|
||||
sea of magic. The 215R Dude, a denizen of the other side who
|
||||
can deliver you to its shores. Other strange beings who lurk
|
||||
just out of sight, just beyond the veil of perception. The
|
||||
veil that you are now beginning to pierce with the snippets
|
||||
and snatches of information you pluck from your feeds.</p>
|
||||
<p>You start to see signs of the veil elsewhere. Of the
|
||||
conspiracy. Whatever. You can’t decide what to call it. Street
|
||||
graffiti outside of a red spider spinning a red web. Phrases
|
||||
like “215R” show up in random articles in the paper. As though
|
||||
the secret world is trying to cross over. Or to draw you into
|
||||
it.</p>
|
||||
<p>WHAT DO YOU DO</p>
|
||||
]]>
|
||||
</description>
|
||||
</item>
|
||||
</channel>
|
||||
</rss>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -312,6 +312,7 @@ of the Were-Hare</a></li>
|
|||
<li><a href="#current-story" id="toc-current-story">Current Story</a>
|
||||
<ul>
|
||||
<li><a href="#00054" id="toc-00054">00054</a></li>
|
||||
<li><a href="#00055" id="toc-00055">00055</a></li>
|
||||
</ul></li>
|
||||
<li><a href="#bestiary" id="toc-bestiary">Bestiary</a></li>
|
||||
<li><a href="#geography" id="toc-geography">Geography</a></li>
|
||||
|
|
@ -347,11 +348,11 @@ Runesocesius</a></li>
|
|||
</ul>
|
||||
</nav>
|
||||
<h2 id="stats">Stats</h2>
|
||||
<p>Total length: 58151 words / 248 minute read. (Mind you, that’s the
|
||||
<p>Total length: 60917 words / 260 minute read. (Mind you, that’s the
|
||||
length of this entire page, including all the extra bits and bobs. Not
|
||||
just the story.)</p>
|
||||
<p>There have been 189 messages posted over 175 days since the first
|
||||
post on July 13, 2022 for a daily post rate of 1.08.</p>
|
||||
<p>There have been 192 messages posted over 185 days since the first
|
||||
post on July 13, 2022 for a daily post rate of 1.03.</p>
|
||||
<h2 id="about">About</h2>
|
||||
<p>This is a game that me and the kids in the basement are playing over
|
||||
email.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -516,7 +517,7 @@ Set, Mountain Range Glyph Ink, Bead of the Werehare</li>
|
|||
<li>Retriever: Contractual Obligation, An Auspicious Start, Two In The
|
||||
Hand, The Triple Lindy</li>
|
||||
<li>Were-Hare: Lepusthropy, Beast Sense, Hybrid Form</li>
|
||||
<li>Tasseomancer: Reading, Ceremony</li>
|
||||
<li>Tasseomancer: Reading, Ceremony, Steeping</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<h3 id="jarrod">Jarrod</h3>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6102,6 +6103,266 @@ appear at East and Lowland.) It is in fact not scheduled to appear until
|
|||
a week and a half after next Selday, on Third Tensday. (When the Bazaar
|
||||
will appear at Cathedral and Pine.)</p>
|
||||
<p>WHAT DO YOU DO</p>
|
||||
<h3 id="00055">00055</h3>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The nibs had disappeared.</p>
|
||||
<p>Inky had spotted the small ceramic and wicker teapot among a long row
|
||||
of boxes and bowls at the antique shop on the thirteenth floor of the
|
||||
Wandering Bazaar while looking for a Near-weightless Verifying Matter
|
||||
enclosure (NVMe) to their Handy Duffer Discette as a primary storage.
|
||||
The witch shopkeeper, Agate, had helpfully mentioned the teapot could be
|
||||
used to steep very acidic or alkaline solutions, as well as distil
|
||||
solubles. The box it was subsequently packed in did not include
|
||||
instructions on activating the precipitation feature. With the shop not
|
||||
returning for another week by Confidence’s reckoning, Inky had used the
|
||||
teapot in the meantime to rinse off any impurities from an old set of
|
||||
nibs — the very first functional set they had made as an apprentice
|
||||
inkling — except the nibs were nowhere to be found when they poured out
|
||||
the citronella solution and removed the lid. Inky supposed it was to be
|
||||
expected — some witches liked to go on about equal payment for wishes,
|
||||
as if it were as easy as reading off a price tag, and it was difficult
|
||||
to stay irritated at a cute teapot for long. Inky wrote it off as a gift
|
||||
for what would hopefully thereafter be a cutely functional teapot. The
|
||||
shop had a no-refunds policy.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then came the dream. At first Inky had attributed them to reading the
|
||||
book on the mythology of The Trine that they had slipped out of the
|
||||
Runesocesius Library, along with an obscure cactus leather-bound
|
||||
manuscript containing first-hand accounts of the Artifice Wars. When the
|
||||
dream repeated itself on the third night, Inky suspected it had
|
||||
something to do with the crystals under the Milk Market’s roof. While
|
||||
not horrifically bloody in the way Master Corraidhín’s description of
|
||||
the vision he had from the first crystal had been, it was haplessly
|
||||
boring when lucid intervention didn’t seem to have any effect. It ran on
|
||||
like a low-budget B-Grade play that had only three scenes with a few
|
||||
props each. By the fourth night, the dream had become worse than a
|
||||
nib-nibbling teapot that they stayed up entire nights for the rest of
|
||||
that week while they were camping at the Milk Market.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was mostly an excuse to drop into the kitchens downstairs — which
|
||||
they could now enter on the pretext of visiting Bread to observe the
|
||||
apprentice’s progress — in the early morning hours and push new tea
|
||||
blends onto its unfortunate occupants. Most of the three dozen or so
|
||||
infusions had been full of fruits and spices, six of which would go well
|
||||
with items on the empanada shop’s current menu. A handful were medicinal
|
||||
after procuring a herb illustrated on one moth-bitten page snatched on
|
||||
the hotel steps back on the Peak. A few others were teas in the loosest
|
||||
sense of the word. These were as tasteless and colourless as tap water,
|
||||
only the scent offering a faint clue as to their ingredients. They had
|
||||
other applications, least of which was in a prank on one empanada chef.
|
||||
(Inky left him a box of zephyl tea — another Kelsun Peak speciality
|
||||
besides mulled wine — before he could too riled up, though.)</p>
|
||||
<p>The note left at the Milk Market was the black cherry atop the hassle
|
||||
cake. Confidence was fairly sure that the fine establishment mentioned
|
||||
in the note wouldn’t appear on the day indicated. Couldn’t “Mother” have
|
||||
chosen to meet somewhere a little more convenient? So it was that
|
||||
despite the shop having a no-refunds policy, or because of it, Inky
|
||||
found themselves returning to the antique shop inside the Wandering
|
||||
Bazaar a week later looking for another item. “Do you sell flight
|
||||
vessels that could transport people to and from specific places … such
|
||||
as the Harpoon Club?” they asked the witch.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>You and the witch go back and forth a few times before she realizes
|
||||
that you want to visit a place where it is when it isn’t there.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Transdimensional extratemporal colocation?” Agate claps her hands in
|
||||
delight. “This is going to be fun! A witchy problem wants a witchy
|
||||
solution. That’s what my Auntie Tenfingers always said!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why bother with flying contraptions when you yourself are a
|
||||
perfectly adequate vessel? I’m going to prescribe you a dream ritual,”
|
||||
she says, scribbling in a notebook. “It’s complex. But only because it’s
|
||||
a lot of steps. And the timing is kind of particular in a couple places.
|
||||
But if you follow the directions, you shouldn’t have any trouble.” She
|
||||
rips the page out of the notebook and hands it you.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Basically, you’ll enter a host’s dreams, and then delve into the
|
||||
Collective Unconsciousness. From there you should be able to find the
|
||||
Wandering Bazaar’s pocket dimension. Of course you’ll need to find a
|
||||
guide to take you there. You’ll have to find one in the Sea of
|
||||
Dreams.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“And you’ll need this!” She ducks behind the counter and reappears
|
||||
with a smoke-gray box bound with thick black ribbon. It’s about as long
|
||||
as her forearm. She unwraps the box and opens it and pulls out a thick,
|
||||
round candle. It is an unhealthy, sickening translucent yellow. In the
|
||||
base of the candle is a large, blackened, withered, and shriveled hand.
|
||||
It is within and without the candle. As though it is grasping the base
|
||||
of the candle, but also like it has been molded into the candle on
|
||||
purpose. As though the hand is imprisoned in the wax. You can just make
|
||||
out a hazy small round object in the center of the candle through the
|
||||
wax. A large nut or marble. The hand looks like it is reaching for it.
|
||||
The candle has been burned down a fair bit. The wick is low and trimmed,
|
||||
and the edges are black and warped where the fatty wax has melted and
|
||||
hardened. You guess there’s only about two-thirds left of the
|
||||
candle.</p>
|
||||
<p>The witch measures down from the top of the candle with a length of
|
||||
string and bores a small hole in its side. She wedges a large nail into
|
||||
the hole, leaving half of it jutting out. “A crude clock,” she winks at
|
||||
you. “Place the candle on a hard metal plate. When it burns down enough
|
||||
for the wax here to soften, the nail will fall out and strike the plate
|
||||
and wake you up.”</p>
|
||||
<p>She pushes it across the counter toward you and frowns. “Eh, should
|
||||
be okay,” she shrugs. “But if at any point it looks like the base gets
|
||||
soft enough that the hand might be able to grasp the eye,” she cautions
|
||||
pointing toward the round object in the center of the candle, “smash the
|
||||
thing. As hard as you can. Destroy the hand, and run.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The rest of the instructions should be pretty self explanatory!” she
|
||||
exclaims, perking up. “Let me know if you have any questions!”</p>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<summary>
|
||||
<p>Ritual Details</p>
|
||||
</summary>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="https://tilde.town/~dozens/quest/ritual.png"
|
||||
alt="ritual outline" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">ritual outline</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
<p>Ritual Steps In Brief:</p>
|
||||
<ol type="1">
|
||||
<li><p>Find a volunteer to be the Dream Host.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Link your sanctum to the place where the Bazaar will be on the
|
||||
appointed date. (You can’t just do your ceremony out in the open in the
|
||||
middle of the street! Find somewhere you can safely leave your bodies
|
||||
for a few hours.)</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Draw a circle of salt.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>At the appointed time, put the Dream Host in the circle. Also the
|
||||
Travelers (you), the Dream Sigil, and the Nyxmaer Candle.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Once the Host is asleep (Sleep spell not included), light the
|
||||
candle and enter the Host’s dream.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Turn “away” from the dream, cross the Sea of Dreams to the
|
||||
Collective Unconsciousness.</p></li>
|
||||
<li><p>Find the Bazaar’s pocket dimension.</p></li>
|
||||
</ol>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<p>The day the letter arrived Alex was nowhere to be found. It was a bit
|
||||
strange, somewhat chilling even, that he’d disappear like that. Ever
|
||||
since they had arrived back at the Milk Maid he’d been seen skulking
|
||||
about his uncle’s study, or pacing the garden out back somewhat
|
||||
agitatedly. Unbeknownst to the party, Alex had anticipated the arrival
|
||||
of the letter, HQ had been following every lead they could pull in since
|
||||
he began with the Ginnarak recovery team. Not that they really had much
|
||||
to go off of, but the courier who left the letter wasn’t hard to track.
|
||||
That was, until he slipped inside one of the ever changing shops right
|
||||
as it was moving along.</p>
|
||||
<p>The trail went cold after that. Which meant Alex had to get it moving
|
||||
again, or at least the crumpled communique he’d received said as much.
|
||||
Things were moving too quickly to think too hard on the how, all that
|
||||
was needed was action, something drastic to flush things out.</p>
|
||||
<p>That’s why Alex finds himself on the east side of the market, skulk
|
||||
about the back alley behind The Temporal Cup.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Gotta get this shit ready, there’s no other options here” Alex
|
||||
thought to himself. He loathed this type of work, it was messy,
|
||||
abhorrently vile in his mind, but what choice did he have? His hands
|
||||
worked deftly at the wires in the small package hidden inside the recess
|
||||
of a loose brick. Once finished, the little packet came to life, muted
|
||||
lights blicking away happily as the brick slid back over it.</p>
|
||||
<p>This was the 3rd and final eavesdropping device, all placed at the
|
||||
busiest cafes in market, all rigged with self destruct mechanisms large
|
||||
enough to level the building if they’re found.. The eavesdropping Alex
|
||||
could abide by, but the wanton destruction for the sake of security was
|
||||
painful to swallow.</p>
|
||||
<p>But once again, it wasn’t much like Alex had a say in the matter. The
|
||||
first sign of objection, an inclination that he’d refuse orders, and
|
||||
they’d have an assassin on him before he could leave the alley. And if
|
||||
he took it out, they’d send double, there’d be no rest.</p>
|
||||
<p>— Later that day</p>
|
||||
<p>Alex watched twtxt feeds scroll through from his monitoring devices.
|
||||
Most of it unimportant gossip. So and so haves an affair, what’s for
|
||||
lunch, where to find good empanadas in the market, so on and so forth.
|
||||
An endless stream on the pulse of the market.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was errant curiosity to watch these, the Magic Lichen in the
|
||||
monitoring system was trained to hunt for any hint of what the courier
|
||||
was up to, any twinge from Blavin and his ilk. It’d send alerts straight
|
||||
to him as soon as something came up, but it was interesting to see the
|
||||
pulse of the city trail by. And what else could he do? It was too
|
||||
dangerous to go back to the Milk Maid, any hint he was there could blow
|
||||
his cover. Best to lay low for the time being, let the scrapers scrape
|
||||
and the agents comb the streets until they get a bead on their
|
||||
target.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Milk Market HQ ought to be quiet. Alex has been conspicuously absent.
|
||||
Missing in action. Inky seems to be out making rounds delivering tea, or
|
||||
spending more time than usual at the empenadaria. So Milk Market HQ
|
||||
ought to be quiet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Instead, a certain young hemogoblin and a certain yellow duck (both
|
||||
of whom have yet to be named, by the way) are squealing as they rampage
|
||||
through the rooms on the top floor of the building, upsetting the
|
||||
furniture in their wake and in general making a huge mess.</p>
|
||||
<p>It took some coaxing on the hemogoblin’s part. The duck was
|
||||
determinedly uninterested in anything besides a soak in its tub and a
|
||||
nap on its cushion. And it did a good job of ignoring the persistent,
|
||||
pestering goblin for most of the afternoon. But jumping into a wooden
|
||||
tub full of blood cracked the foul’s disinterested facade. It gave
|
||||
furious chase to the goblin until the heat of the moment cooled down. At
|
||||
which point the two of them simply enjoyed the thrill of chasing each
|
||||
other through the apartments.</p>
|
||||
<p>Confidence is actually the first one to stumble across the carnage.
|
||||
They were just popping by to drop off some new pamphlets, but froze in
|
||||
the doorway when they saw the suite in disarray and the walls plastered
|
||||
with blood and feathers. “What the toque…” And then they quietly closed
|
||||
the door and left without going in after all.</p>
|
||||
<p>~</p>
|
||||
<p>Gliftwirp browses the stalls trailing behind the Wandering Bazaar. He
|
||||
is bare chested save for a sleeveless vest. He wears long, baggy,
|
||||
striped trousers bunched at the ankle, and a bright red sash tied
|
||||
loosely around his waist. He grins a wide, gap-toothed grin as he thumps
|
||||
a melon.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Look at the size of this melon! And perfectly ripe!” he beams at the
|
||||
stall vendor. “You’ll be here next week? With more like this?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Very few people would be able to tell Gliftwirp’s profession from his
|
||||
attire. For those who can, one look at his red sash would immediately
|
||||
cause them to give him a wide berth. Because Gliftwirp is a warpwefter.
|
||||
A master assassin trained in the ancient art of sarong-fu. That is, the
|
||||
deadly application of soft and flexible weapons. Whips, chains,
|
||||
garrotes, nunchucks. And most famously—and most effectively—sashes,
|
||||
sarongs, scarves, and the like. The saying goes that a clothed
|
||||
warpwefter is never unarmed. Nor even is a nude one if they can get
|
||||
their hands on <em>your</em> clothes. And a warpwefter can sneak their
|
||||
weapons into the most secure of locations.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am a visitor here, and don’t know my way around,” he keeps up the
|
||||
small-talk with the vendor, having paid for the melon. “Do you know if
|
||||
there is a building around here called ‘Milk Market?’ I’m supposed to
|
||||
meet someone there. No, they’re not expecting me. It’s going to be a
|
||||
surprise!”</p>
|
||||
<p>He grins his wide toothy grin.</p>
|
||||
<p>~</p>
|
||||
<p>The twtxt feed from the listening devices is dull and quiet. The
|
||||
monitoring software is designed to only deliver messages containing
|
||||
certain buzzwords. And those messages are few and far between.</p>
|
||||
<p>You decide to tap into the unfiltered stream and let the endless
|
||||
waves of blather wash over you. It’s inane. Idle gossip and mindless
|
||||
chitter-chatter.</p>
|
||||
<p>After a day or two of this, you notice yourself getting
|
||||
uncharacteristically agitated. You squint at the lines of messages
|
||||
coming in and notice a few transposed characters in some of them,
|
||||
forming new nonsensical words. A couple messages are missing some
|
||||
whitespace, squishing words together in maddening run-ons. Glitchy.
|
||||
There’s no reason the listening devices should be returning errors like
|
||||
this.</p>
|
||||
<p>Later still, the feeds have gotten worse. Some words seem to be
|
||||
written backwards. Entire messages are garbled word soup, devoid of any
|
||||
meaning or sense whatsoever. Some of the timestamps are invalid
|
||||
datetimes. But you prefer them to the ones that are valid, but which are
|
||||
stamped years ago. And you far prefer them to the ones that are stamped
|
||||
far in the future.</p>
|
||||
<p>The anomalies are overall infrequent. On their own, they don’t amount
|
||||
to much. And when you show them, nobody at HQ gives you with much more
|
||||
than a slightly patronizing, indulgent shrug. But the glitches shouldn’t
|
||||
be happening at all, is the thing. And when you compile them all
|
||||
together, you start to notice things. Patterns insinuating themselves,
|
||||
maddeningly just short of reason or meaning. Like a song stuck in your
|
||||
head when you can’t remember the lyrics or the melody. But there’s
|
||||
something there nonetheless. The promise of something, at least.
|
||||
Something bigger. A wide tapestry of links and connections, wanting to
|
||||
be known.</p>
|
||||
<p>There are names. Ellis, the lady in red who sits at the center of a
|
||||
tangled web. Ousia, a sea of endless knowledge. A sea of magic. The 215R
|
||||
Dude, a denizen of the other side who can deliver you to its shores.
|
||||
Other strange beings who lurk just out of sight, just beyond the veil of
|
||||
perception. The veil that you are now beginning to pierce with the
|
||||
snippets and snatches of information you pluck from your feeds.</p>
|
||||
<p>You start to see signs of the veil elsewhere. Of the conspiracy.
|
||||
Whatever. You can’t decide what to call it. Street graffiti outside of a
|
||||
red spider spinning a red web. Phrases like “215R” show up in random
|
||||
articles in the paper. As though the secret world is trying to cross
|
||||
over. Or to draw you into it.</p>
|
||||
<p>WHAT DO YOU DO</p>
|
||||
<h2 id="bestiary">Bestiary</h2>
|
||||
<p>Some of the creatures who inhabit the world of Basmentaria</p>
|
||||
<dt>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6112,6 +6373,14 @@ A void whale. Most commonly observed in the swimming in the earth’s
|
|||
atmosphere, where they come to breath air. But they spend most of their
|
||||
time in the void of space, where they dive to great depths.
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="aetherwael.png" alt="aetherwael" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">aetherwael</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
<dt>
|
||||
<dl>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6305,6 +6574,14 @@ of an oath, in which case they go into a frenzy preying on the liar or
|
|||
liars. They can smell blood from a great distance, but can hear a lie
|
||||
from much further.
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
<dd>
|
||||
<details>
|
||||
<figure>
|
||||
<img src="horkosgrampus.png" alt="horkosgrampus" />
|
||||
<figcaption aria-hidden="true">horkosgrampus</figcaption>
|
||||
</figure>
|
||||
</details>
|
||||
</dd>
|
||||
</dl>
|
||||
<dt>
|
||||
<dl>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6498,12 +6775,12 @@ they can deliver to her the Quintessence</li>
|
|||
<p><strong>NAMES AND NPCS</strong></p>
|
||||
<p>Upcoming NPCs and/or monsters</p>
|
||||
<ul class="task-list">
|
||||
<li><input type="checkbox" disabled="" />Jorunna Parva, sea bunny time
|
||||
lord <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorunna_parva"
|
||||
class="uri">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorunna_parva</a></li>
|
||||
<li><input type="checkbox" disabled="" />Hap-n-stance, moon rabbit: <a
|
||||
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit"
|
||||
class="uri">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit</a></li>
|
||||
<li><input type="checkbox" disabled="" />Jorunna Parva, sea bunny time
|
||||
lord <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorunna_parva"
|
||||
class="uri">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorunna_parva</a></li>
|
||||
<li><input type="checkbox" disabled="" />zai-ni (zine)</li>
|
||||
<li><input type="checkbox" disabled="" />zeyeknee (zine)</li>
|
||||
<li><input type="checkbox" disabled="" />standard ed</li>
|
||||
|
|
@ -6605,9 +6882,11 @@ checked="" />・゜゜・。。・゜゜_o< QUACK!</li>
|
|||
rival: the gophers of Retrieval Team 70</li>
|
||||
</ul>
|
||||
<p><strong>CALENDAR</strong></p>
|
||||
<p>The period of Moonmoon’s rotation is 10 days. This is a week. The
|
||||
period of Selene’s rotation is 30 days (3 weeks). This is a month. The
|
||||
period of Lua’s rotation is 360 days (12 months). This is a year.</p>
|
||||
<p>The period of Moonmoon’s rotation is 10 days. This is a week.</p>
|
||||
<p>The period of Selene’s rotation is 30 days (3 weeks). This is a
|
||||
month.</p>
|
||||
<p>The period of Lua’s rotation is 360 days (12 months). This is a
|
||||
year.</p>
|
||||
<p>Days of the week are divided into godsdays, moondays, earthdays, and
|
||||
‘Tensday’.</p>
|
||||
<table style="width:97%;">
|
||||
|
|
@ -6853,73 +7132,73 @@ period of Lua’s rotation is 360 days (12 months). This is a year.</p>
|
|||
<tbody>
|
||||
<tr class="odd">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">1</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Thawing</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Unare</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">1ST QUARTER</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Spring</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="even">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">2</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Icebreak</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Tornare</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waxing gibbous</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Spring</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="odd">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">3</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Springtide</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Ternare</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waxing gibbous</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Spring</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="even">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">4</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Ripeberry</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Qatthai</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">FULL</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Summer</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="odd">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">5</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Fullhorn</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Pethai</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waning gibbous</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Summer</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="even">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">6</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Fallsrun</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Sestoren</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waning gibbous</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Summer</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="odd">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">7</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Cornreaping</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Hestur</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">3RD QUATER</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Autumn</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="even">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">8</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Hunters</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Oktober</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waning crescent</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Autumn</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="odd">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">9</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Beaverlodge</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Nongogl</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waning crescent</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Autumn</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="even">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">10</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Longnight</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Dekgogl</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">NEW</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Winter</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="odd">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">11</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Howling</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Elfswel</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waxing crescent</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Winter</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
<tr class="even">
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">12</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Snowfall</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Dozwel</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">waxing crescent</td>
|
||||
<td style="text-align: left;">Winter</td>
|
||||
</tr>
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue