Alex takes inventory of himself, this dream world is definitely strange, but fortunately its decided to provide him with his impecable fashion, trench coat and all. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for his roguish good looks, as he’s found himself 6 arms heavier, and a bit more octopus-y than he remembers.

Nontheless this doesn’t appear to be much of an impediment, and he promptly moves on with assessing the situation.

“Acorns? No, I don’t think so. I’m afraid octopus’ are terrible at fetching acrons, and at any rate, I have a dreadfully important meeting across town.” turning to address Inky, “We need to make a break for it, what’d the witch tell you? Envision our goal or something? This is really a little outside of my realm of mechanical magic expertise.. unless..”

Alex makes a gesture with his tentacles in the area and a terminal prompt appears before him. His tentacles work at blinding speed at the digital window, a quick bypass there, a root access escalation there.

“Looks like this whole place runs on Linux, it’s an older kernel, about 2.6 or so, but it checks out. Easy to exploit as needed. Here I’m giving us sudo access, should we need it.”

“Oh and squirrel, here’s your acorns”

find /* -name '*acron*' -exec mv /home/squirrel { } \

It takes Alectopus a couple tries, but he gets it. First he corrects ‘acron’ to ‘acorn’. Then he moves all the acorns to the chipmunk instead of to the squirrel.

Hundreds of acorns appear at the chipmunk’s feet. It squeals in delight.

In the distance, far below you, you hear the anguished yell of what can only be a Red Squirrel whose giant stash of acorns has just vanished.

The chipmunk rubs its hands together gleefully and starts scooping up acorns by the armful and shoving them into its mouth by the dozen. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” it says around a mouthful of nuts. “Here…” It tosses you a large square silver coin with a round hole drilled in the center. On one side is the number twenty-one next to a picture of a curved, short-handled sickle. On the other side is the number five and a picture of a flail.

“A Twenty-One Fiver! Sorry, you deserve more, but it’s all I have,” it apologizes as it scampers off, no doubt to hide its nuts. Hopefully somewhere more secure this time.

If you hold the coin up to your eye and peer through the hole, you see the dreamscape before you as though looking through a cloudy film. All the same stuff is there, but it’s hazy and shadowy.

Standing a fair distance from you on the branch, just out of hailing distance, is a tall figure cloaked in black robes. Dark shadows pool restlessly around its feet. Occasionally the shadows leap up and take the form of demons the like of which words cannot describe, before falling and returning to shadow once more. The figure wears a large spherical helmet of obsidian-like glass. You can see constant flashes of a rainbow of colors crackle and splinter along the inside of the helmet like lightning, but illuminating nothing within. You feel sickened at the sight, but at the edge of your mind you feels a tug, a familiarity. Something about this character is familiar to you, but you cannot place it.

When you lower the coin, the figure and the dark landscape both disappear. When you raise it again, the distorted landscape reappears but the figure is gone.

You notice a pair of large ravens watching you rather intently from the branches below.

WHAT DO YOU DO

Alex procures from a pocket of his trenchcoat a tiny vial. On the vial is a small strip of parchment which reads:

#!/bin/ash
sleepy=true

sleep() {
        while sleepy; do
                sleep(10)
        done
}

trap sleep INT EXIT

He empties the vial into a glass of warm milk and hands it to bread.

“Drink up friend, this’ll relax and soothe you. You’ll probably have the best night’s sleep you’ve ever had”

Over the radio Alex provides a quick reminder to Marvelo.

“7, remember, should you need to wake bread to get us out you can interrupt or cancel the sleep script, Ctrl + C should work for the disruption work. Or if you need to you can set sleepy=false, if it gets crazy and you need to modify the metavarbalic properties of the enchantment.”

Turning to Inky, “Eight bells and all’s well, lets get this show on the road”

Bread smiles and thanks you for the milk. They down the glass, smack their lips a few times, and wipe their mouth with the back of their hand. Their eyelids grow heavy and close, and they slump down on the cushions. They’re already asleep by the time their head hits the pillow.

Inky nods once at Alex’s words and finishes off their own cuppa steeped with calea and thyme, and blended into osmanthus matcha. Lucida, Protege, Aware, Perfume. A meaningless mantra.

They glance to their owlish accomplice (who, she will remind you, is well-trained and needs no sleeping aid, thank you very much, unlike her impish charge) and silently mouth the words “Dude 215R” with a wink. Then they settle for a nap, chin pillowed on their forearms, which are propped atop drawn-up knees. A walking stick rests on their lap. A herb bouquet of pink blooms becomes an owl cushion.

Inky dreamforms of a cream noogle. Puko. And Fuko is, well, still Fuko.

You light the Nyxmaer. The flame crackles and dances. It smokes darkly, and the scent it gives off is thick and heady.

You breathe deeply of it and settle down to sleep.

When you open your eyes you are standing on the branch of an enormous white tree. It’s as wide as a narrow street. Its leaves are silver blades that uncurl in the dappled light from below.

One of the first things you notice is that gravity is reversed here. The branches below you reach down, grazing an endless sky. Small iridescent jellyfish medusae drift lazily far, far below, catching and reflecting the light. And the trunk thickens as it reaches up overhead, where its roots drill into the ceiling above.

Because of dream logic, you know that in some way this tree represents Kelsun Peak, Bread’s home. And also because of dream logic, you know that the branches furthest away from you in some way represent the great dragon Lucin who lives deep in the mountain. And they are just as dangerous. They sway in the breeze and seem to be aware of you, and are for now satisfied at the distance you keep from them.

There is a chipmunk sitting cross-legged before you on the branch. It looks curiously up at you and says, “The Red Squirrel stole my acorns! Are you going to get them back for me?”

You can feel a metaphysical tug in your gut as your orient yourself to dreamspace like the needle of a compass. “Inward” you can feel a tug toward Bread’s deep unconscious. To their core memories. “Outward” you can feel a tug away from Bread toward the shores of the Sea of Dreams, where you may continue your journey through the Collective Unconsciousness to the pocket dimension of the Wandering Bazaar. You need not move physically to travel in either direction. It’s more a matter of choosing a destination, and letting the winds blow you in that direction.

“My acorns!” insists the chipmunk, wringing its hands. “The Red Squirrel has taken them all! Are you going to help me?”

WHAT DO YOU DO

(A week prior)

The secretary collected the stack of papers that had accumulated at one corner of the desk. “This might help,” she said, setting down a bundle of herbs with white and pink flowers in place of the papers.

Inky stared at the blooms, hands stilled over the owl’s plumage. “Oh! Thanks. Good thinking, really. It’ll help make the stench more bearable when they find the remains.”

The grey elf was confused for a moment, then mortified as the words sank in. “That’s not what I meant! It’s for the circle,” she clarified.

Seeing the imp’s preoccupied nod, she coughed lightly to regain their attention, then spoke in a hushed voice. “Beaker’s associates have picked up the empanada shop proprietor and transported him to an undisclosed location. There will be a retinue with him at all times.”

Inky seemed to visibly pull themselves back to the room before responding, “Thank you, Salvia. One more thing — if I do not return by the indicated time, please activate the hitsuzen protocol. As precaution.”

The secretary looked at Inky in concern. “Is everything all right? If you’re still troubled by the hotelier, accidents happen. A single incident—”

“Third. An unidentified man was attacked at the docks. He was probably sent to investigate the melon vendor. One of the other stall owners heard him asking questions shortly after the melon vendor disappeared.”

Salvia’s violet eyes narrowed. “What, the fruit vendor? Didn’t the tabloids say it was an accident? He tried to get rid of a neighbor’s nest of snakes.”

Inky only raised an eyebrow at her.

The secretary let out a low curse. “You didn’t tell her. You didn’t want her to worry,” she said aloud in realization. She sighed. “She’s going to be pretty angry with you when she finds out, you know.”

Inky offered her a sardonic smile. “Making people angry is my job. You of all people know this well. In the event of my timely demise I’m sure the others would find it cause for a grand celebration.” They replied matter-of-factly before returning to smoothing the feathers of one bird wing.

Salvia shook her head vehemently. “That’s not true. You’ll make it back, Ink. What then—”

“Then our fair Lady’s ire would be the least of the problems.”

~

Alex stared morosely into his cup of coffee. He’d received word of agent 5’s demise that morning, and had been the only thing on his mind since. 5, no Be’tram knew the risks, we all knew the risks defying HQ brought, but to happen so suddenly? He’d snuck down to the wharf once he’d heard, making sure to cover his tracks and dodge any potential witnesses. He even managed to slip past the police cordon they’d setup around the body. What he’d found wasn’t pretty, it looked like Be’Tram had suffered in his final moments. The bruising around his neck pointed to strangulation, with some sort of cloth, perhaps a rope. The bruising was deep, and there wasn’t a cut, burn, shot or something of the likes on his otherwise.

The kill had been intimate.

Alex had worked quickly that night, popping Be’Tram’s eye had been hard, but he’d of wanted Alex to have it. Behind his right eye was a recording device, it could only catch the last 15m or so of what he had seen, but it would give him a clear look at what had happened. And potentially lead Alex to the killer. Miserable business, but Be’Tram knew it could make a difference.

Alex had planted a bomb on the body after he had extracted the eye, and made his way well away from the area before it went off obliterating the remains. A regrettable end for an old friend, but it was too dangerous to leave.

And then there was the matter of the zabbix alert, a little purple red critical for the sewer hideout. He’d had time to send out a drone beetle. The smoldering slag that was left was reassuring. Most of the equipment was utterly destroyed, racks upon racks of servers reduced to twisted melted metal. The effectively of the destruction was delightful, in a sick sort of desperate way. Alex felt assured that most if not all of the equipment was useless, but this spelled the end of a valuable listening outpost. And whoever had done it wasn’t part of the slag pile.

Alex stood up, his coffee untouched. The cafe around his burbled in quiet excitement. The city had lit up since the Melon vendor’s death. A thousand rumors abounded about it, but none of them held true; some said the city had become dangerous, a crime syndicate had arisen in the neighboring city block another thought, and did you hear about the explosion at the wharf the other night, the city was electric, yet somehow ever so slightly off the pulse of the issue.

As Alex stepped away a woman with horn rimmed glasses strode past the table he had just abandoned, deftly pulling the note from beneath the coffee cup, left for her.

4 -> 3
Daylight breaks on the morrow
The suns rays make chase
casting soft cloth
across the nap of nature's neck

So, night relents and gives way
biding time until
it can rule
in its own domain

For the passerby, it was but a bit of poetry, scribbled carelessly on the back of a napkin in a coffee near the wharf. But for Agent 3 it was a warning, one part notes on Agent 5s demise recovered from his eyecam, one part orders; stay low and we’ll strike these bastards from the shadows, on our terms, on our ground. Similar missives were delivered to Agents 6 & 7. The numbers were dwindling rapidly, even just one agent lost was hard to stomach.

Alex hand gripped the pistol in his coat pocket with a white knuckled grip as he stepped from the coffee shop into the city. Whatever was after him, whatever had gotten to Be’Tram, it had better know he was coming, and he’d happily send it straight to hell. HQ be damned, the rules be damned, this little game of cat and mouse had just gotten personal.

~

Alex, Inky, Confidence, Bread, and Agent 7 find themselves in a dark backroom in a secluded corner of an old fish processing plant on the wharf. The accommodations are rough, and the stench is abhorrent, but it’s the best that could be procured in a pinch. And it should provide enough seclusion.

The backroom is like that of many factories, high up near the ceiling, a single rusty rickety staircase winds its way along the side of the building for what seems to be 3 flights, before it reaches a metal room with dusty grimy windows, and a single steel door. The windows on the interior overlook the fish processing plant, where rows of belts and machinery stand still, covered in dust and long forgotten blood. You’re glad to know that the factory stopped operating years ago, hygiene is lacking in every sense.

Alex stares forlornly out the exterior windows, the sky is a grey overcast, it matches his mood perfectly. He didn’t like what him and Inky were about to do, but they didn’t have much they could do about it. They would be vulnerable for the duration of the ritual. But Agent 7 and Confidence were there to help mitigate that risk. Alex and Agent 7 had taken every precaution they could think of.

The plant floor was scattered with booby traps, trip wires, and alarms. The other agents were laying low, but kept drones around the wharf feeding in a network of twtxt data back to Agent 7 for recon. And that was on top of the double barred steel doors, and reinforced glass box they’d chosen as their hide out. Meticulously planned, Alex expected no less from Agent 7.

See Marvelo had been at this as long as Alex had, and then some. He was sharp as a tack, with an animal-like third sense that came from years of close calls. He was, simply put, the right man for the job, when that job was keeping your unconscious ass alive.

Alex turns away from the window and addresses Inky. “Apologies for the smell, it turns out there’s a strong correlation between disgust and seclusion, but I believe we should at least be safe here. Safer than we would have been back home. I’m ready if you are, as ready as I’ll ever be that is.”

The Golden Iris have summoned you to appear at the Harpoon Club this evening. But the Harpoon Club is nowhere to be found on this plane of existence. It won’t appear until a week and a half from now, on the last day of the month.

Confidence the Guide has predicted exactly where the Wandering Bazaar will be on that day. With a small bucket of red paint and a large brush, he has drawn a Linking Sigil on the ground at the location. He sits nearby, making sure careless passersby and mischievous kids don’t disturb it, but otherwise letting the sigil absorb the energies of the bustle of shopping and commerce.

At the fish market, Marvelo is posted outside. He keeps vigilant watch, alert to every movement and disturbance.

And inside, Bread, Inky, Fuko, and Alex are huddled up in the office in the back near the ceiling. They all sit inside a dark circle that has been smudged on the floor with a paste made of ash and salt. Painted on the ground is a second Linking Sigil, connecting this spot to Confidence’s, allowing the energies of the two locations to co-mingle. There is also the Dream Sigil, which will connect this place to the Dreaming.

Bread the Host is propped up on some pillows and cushions in the center of the circle, next to the Nyxmaer. The candle is alleged to be made of the flesh and fat of a certain nightmare. Its hand and eye bound in the wax. The Dream Sigil is the door, but the Nyxmaer is the key. The catalyst that will cause all of the otherwise inert metaphysical particles to become volatile and reactive. It is what will allow you to actually pass over and arrive on the shores of the Sea of Dreams.

Per the shop witch’s instructions, the Nyxmaer has been placed on a thin, hard tin plate. As the candle burns, the wax will soften and eventually allow the large metal nail in its side to fall. When it strikes the plate, you will awaken, exiting the Dreaming. You expect hours may pass in the realm of sleep. But only about thirty minutes will pass here.

Inky and Alex sit inside the circle, near the perimeter, facing Bread in the center. Fuko the owl sits at Inky’s side.

It is dim. You are illuminated by mundane, non-magical candles set around the edges of the circle. Outside, a steady rain beats on the roof and the windows of the building. The smell of fish is faint but ever-present. A constant reminder of the small creatures that have left their bodies in a fashion far more permanent and irreversible than the separation of spirit and body you are about to experience. You hope.

WHAT DO YOU DO

• How do you induce a deep and powerful slumber in Bread?

• What shape or form will you take when you arrive in the Dreaming?

• What are you secretly worried or hopeful about being exposed in the dreamland, the realm of metaphor?

In the fish market, the dreamers continue to sleep soundly through the ringing claxon alarms with nothing but maybe the twitch of a finger to indicate that they hear anything at all.

During the commotion with Marvelo and Gliftwirp, nobody but Rind noticed the thick rusty nail in the side of the candle wiggle its way out of the soft wax and clatter onto the plate at the base of the candle, the ringing of tin masked by the ringing of the claxon alarm.

Still the dreamers sleep.

Rind watches as the candle burns dangerously low. The mummified hand of the Nyxmaer in the base of the candle starts to wriggle, struggle, and strain against the softening wax. It stretches and reaches for the eye in the center of the candle.

Rind continues to soothe the duck and stroke its feathers. The child looks at the space where Gliftwirp and the hemogoblin stumbled into the circle, smudging the line of salt and ash, breaking the circle and severing its continuity. Making a small space for something to get in. Or out.

“Yo! Little cavatappi dude, where the hell are we?!” Alex’s eyes scan the room rapidly. There’s no water, aside from what he dragged in with his abrupt departure from the pier. The dark sky stretches into the nothingness of the void. Asthe robed figure begins speaks Alex takes note of his situation.

‘Nowhere to hide, zero cover. A whole lot of nothing actually. It’s one thing after another with this dream thing.’

As the figure finishes his address Alex nods politely. “I’ll be honest my guy, I haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about. Looks to me you’ve got the whole sword thing, all I’ve got is my trusty AK. I guess back top side, in umm I guess the real world, I did find a wonky dagger my uncle tried to hide. But I’m pretty sure that got eaten by a cute little hemogoblin while I was busy murdering ghost pirates. Anyways more to the point, I’m not quite sure I follow.”

Alex pauses briefly and then continues, “You say you need to get out of here? Now that part I follow, me the hell too. I just got attacked by some freaky sadist mushroom that called itself katsuva. Cut its head clean off just so it could try and chuck me in the drink. Right unpleasant fella, but I think I lost him when, well, I got here, wherever that is.”

“Now I don’t know much, but I’m not much for trust after getting attacked by a talking mushroom monster. So if you’ll excuse me, I reckon the exit is right about that way (Alex jabs his finger over his back away from the figure), and I’m inclined to head out unless you know a better way.”

You weren’t in the kobit caves with the rest of Retrieval Team 43, so you didn’t see the reliefs. But every Basmentarian is familiar with the iconography of the Trine. This figure is dressed in the traditional rainments of Neddas, god of sages and starlight. Furthermore you recognize them from your dreams in the Milk Market.

Kasutva the small mushroom meeps and hides behind your leg.

“You know, we each of us loved you in our own way,” Neddas says. “But of the three of us, I alone gave away pieces of my divinity. I wanted to see you thrive and grow strong.

“You’ve already found several pieces of my essence. Coin in the treasure hoard below the earth. Mirth in the shipwreck under the sea. And lore in the clouds atop Kelsun Peak.

“And of course you found justice,” they say, looking at the sword. “This one got a little weird.” The frown. “Became a little sentient, didn’t it?” They press the blade of the sword to their chest and absorb it into their being. They sigh happily.

“You have found enough of my essence that I am able to start to materialize again. Not quite in Basmentaria yet. But here, a little bit.

“There are still two more pieces out there. If you can reunite all five crystals, I will be able to cross over into Basmentaria again.

“So yes, Alex. You are correct. It is time you head out. Return to Basmentaria. Find the remaining crystals, so that I may return and right the wrongs of the past. I will do what I can to assist you.”

Inky waves back once, twice in greeting, before crossing their forefingers twice, touching a hand briefly to their chest, and strolling towards the restrooms.

Leaning against a wall outside of the rest area, out of sight from the main dining hall, Inky pulls out the message from Master Alex and reads it. Engagement confirmed, it seems. Also in the envelope is a smooth oval grey pebble with the letters “sh” carved onto it. A mini dousojin. How considerate of him.

Putting the envelope and pebble into a shorts pocket, Inky holds up a chewy blood berry biscuit, which they offer to the great horned owl patiently perched on their shoulder. “What if we just zip out now and have a walk around the towers? Do you think it will cause offence to the Grand Master of the realm?” Inky asks her. Fuko looks up from her treat and gives them a short series of disapproving clicks of her beak.

“He wants more ‘intel’,” Inky says. It isn’t even a question.

On another occasion they would be glad to see Master Corraidhn animated and well — when there wasn’t a demanding curmudgeon on the other end of an absurd fishing expedition. The elder sysorcerer’s presence in the Dreaming, illusion or otherwise, has effectively dashed any prospect of an early night out.

“Thirteen minutes. Only because Scoops likes you.” Inky tells the owl.

They look down at their shirt with orange horizontal stripes, blue knee-length shorts, blue running shoes, and wordlessly declare the change of clothes suitable for fine non-dining. The noogle’s drawstring pouch is knotted to a metal hoop on a pocket flap to one side of their shorts, having let loose a short mop of tousled red hair. A plush floofy duck keychain dangles next to the pouch.

Emerging from the hallway, the awkward, skinny youth with an owl approaches the far corner table.

You approach the far corner table, weaving your way through the crowded tables of the Harpoon Club.

“Inky!” Blavin chorttles merrily as you pull up a chair. The cat person nods politely at you and starts rebuilding the block tower.

Corraidhín watches the archway behind you as you enter. When nobody follows you into the Harpoon Club he frowns, tugs on his beard, and sits up straighter in his chair.

“You’re alone?” Blavin observes. “No matter. Thank you so much for meeting us here! I trust it wasn’t too much trouble? A little bit out of the way, I know. But it is so very hard to find a place away from prying eyes, isn’t it?”

“Get to the point, Blavin.” snaps Corraidhín.

“Quite right!” laughs Blavin, taking a sip of his drink. “Listen,” he says, suddenly very serious. “It’s time I came clean to you. You deserve that much. And besides, I think we can help each other. While it is true that I work for the Benefactor, I don’t actually serve their interests. You see, I represent another party. A double agent they would call me in the spy novels.” He waves his hand dismissively, as though somebody were making a fuss over him and he were embarrassed.

“As I’m sure you already know, our organization is called the Golden Iris. Like the Benefactor, our goal is to collect the Ginnarak Cystals. I know you’ve heard all the old stories. Together they could kill a god, blah blah blah.” He sloshes his drink as the gestures. “But we think they’ve got it all wrong, Inky. That is, they have it backwards at least!”

Blavin leans in, his eyes shining. “The Golden Iris intends nothing less than creating a new god!”

“The Trine has been absent for years. We’re going to restore the balance. Now you see why the mission is so important, Inky. We need the crystals.”

“Now I know what you’re going to say! It all sounds too fantastic. Yes well, that’s why I brought along somebody whose credibility I know you’ll trust!” He beams at Corraidhín.

The wizard sighs. “As far as I can tell, the hobbit is telling the truth.”

Blavin grins as Corraidhín continues.

“The Golden Iris is trying to elevate Sitopotnia, the Corn Mother, to godhood. Which I admit makes a certain kind of sense. She’s the only mortal to have created life after all. Kind of the ideal candidate for the job to be honest.

They’ve hitched an odd team of mules to their buggy to help them. And they’re managing to drag the thing forward despite all pulling in slightly different directions. The Cyberplasms want new bodies. The Gnu Zealots want to open source the process so everybody can create new gods. And I don’t actually know what the BAND wackos want.”

Corraidhín shrugs, “I don’t have a particular dog in this fight. The Benefactor was able to excise the, ahem, ‘anomaly’ that happened at the SS RSS. Including the second crystal, which is currently in his possession, and my body, which is still technically back at the institute and still under the care of Felixe here.” The black cat gives another polite nod. Having completed building the tumbling tower, it is now shuffling the tumbrot cards, face down, around on the table.

“Felixe is Basmentaria’s preeminent expert in preserving entities that happen to exist between two states. Or that happen to exist in two states at the same time.. Bah, it’s complicated,” Corraidhín huffs.

“Yes!” interrupts Blavin. “Now! Despite working closely with him all this time, I am actually none the wiser as to the Benefactor’s actual plans for the crystals. I just know we need them more.

“Inky, you must retrieve the remaining crystals. And also the one in the Benefactor’s possession. And deliver them to us so we may usher in a new age for Basmentaria!”

Felixe the cat deals the cards out to the center of the table, face down, in a cross. Three across, three high. It sets the remainder of the deck aside and looks at you expectantly.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Once back in the Milk Bar, with the airship safely anchored to the roof of the building, Alex finds himself amongst the old belongings of his former uncle.

sigh “Best get a request to HQ for this airship, maybe they’ll let us operate it for a bit, if not I suppose we have to impound it..”

<- OP 2817 * LOC MB-A
-> OP 25120 * LOC ESPER

CLEARANCE: INFORMATIONAL
REQUEST ENCLOSED.

REQUESTING PERMISSION TO IMPOUND OR OPERATE.
ONE CYBERPLASM AIRSHIP "The Rusty Maiden"

“There’s also the matter of this little hemogoblin..” Alex mutters to himself while said hemogoblin happily dances around the room, dripping little pools of blood hither and tither.

<- OP 2817 * LOC MB-A
-> OP 41154 * LOC ESPER

CLEARANCE: TOP SECRET
REQUEST ENCLOSED
PACKET ENCLOSED

REQUESTING ANALYSIS
ONE GDB @gdb-readout.dat
TWO BLOOD @blood-soaked-handkerchief
NOTE GDB INDICATES SOME ANOMALY

“Hey little guy, lets go get an empanade. Inky says they’re divine.” Alex says as he scoops up the little goblin and gently carries him downstairs.”

Striding into Enriques kitchen, and availing himself to the empanadas, ignoring an indignant Enrique’s protests that these were for paying customers until a small bag of coins is tossed careless over one shoulder. Alex stride through the kitchen and then out and away into the garden to enjoy their pilfered treats.

“I suppose this is more interesting than being on the force at times”

~

Inky stepped into the toques’ cabin below deck with a tray of turmeric ginger tea and lavender biscuits. After checking on Bread’s bandages and offering the toque reclined on the berth the last bag of mango croutons — or at least the last one for the next two hours — Inky perched on a wooden barrel across from where Confidence sat on a creaking old chair next to the bunk and spoke. “We’ll be landing in about an hour and getting Bread to a medical facility. You can stay with him while he heals and rest up.”

They paused to take a long sip from their cup, as if the liquid was being used to summon their next words. “On behalf of myself and the party, I apologise for the … disruption, and for what had befallen the hotelier. As you may have already noticed, we’re a fair distance away from the Peak and will be arriving in Vay’Nullar soon. This airship was taken over from the cyberplasms in the course of getting the crystal out and the injured to a safe location, and her new captain could hardly fly it back straight into the pirates’ hands now.

What we propose is this: you and Bread may take as long as you need to recover. We can arrange for lodgings and new posts in the city. One of our party runs a Milk Market that could certainly use some hired help, and a garden in the back that would benefit from more attention. Pay will be double your current salary at the hotel. Master Alex may also recruit you for other tasks. You don’t need to have an answer just yet — think on it for a bit while you rest and let us know. Afterwards, if you find that you still wish to return to Kelsun Peak, we will pay for travel.”

Inky winked at Bread conspiratorially. “You may be interested to know there is a bakery on the Milk Market’s first floor. If you like the look of the place, perhaps we can convince the chef to take on an assistant.”

~

Tess watched her adviser from her position on one end of the plush chaise lounge in her office, who returned her stare impassively as they sat in the adjoining armchair to her right. The ornate coffee table before them had been laid out for tea, but the other cup remained untouched, which was in itself unusual. Ink rarely turned down tea when it was offered, which likely meant they were preoccupied with something they were unwilling to discuss. This had been happening more frequently since their plans to intercept the Ginnarak Crystals, which was a little concerning, but she knew it would be no use to question them directly. The missive she had received this time through Piskin’s people was brief, almost annoyingly so, but they had returned earlier than expected with the articles that production had requested, which had fortunately made up for lost time from the previous delays.

With this in mind, she settled on a lighter note as she picked up her own teacup. “Salvia passed on the items to the production team. Thank you for picking them up from the Runesocesius. I would send my regular couriers but they are tied up with another event. One of them had to care for their sick child and couldn’t leave the city. As usual, time and discretion are of the essence.”

When her adviser only nodded, she continued. “How is he? He probably insisted on bringing the manuscripts out for you himself. The man is cautious with valuables.”

“Quite dead but managing, or so I heard.” Ink intoned drily.

Tess caught on immediately. “Didn’t you meet with him? The message only mentioned the items had been obtained. Did something happen?”

The imp shrugged. “We met, I delivered the letter and collected the items. We didn’t get a chance to talk.”

The hotel was slowly but steadily attracting visitors again, especially after their last play had prominently featured the Runesocesius Library as a research partner in the programme credits, but Tess didn’t think the hotelier was so busy as to entrust this task to one of his underlings. The man was proud of the first editions the library had amassed, and the notebooks of Lucidieau that the playwright sought as a reference were no doubt counted among the treasures, even if only an expensive commissioned facsimile was permitted out of the library. Something had happened, she was sure, but decided not to press further for the moment.

“And the other matter?” she asked.

“Someone already knew the crystal was at the hotel and retained a crew of cyberplasmic pirates to storm the place.” Ink replied flatly. “And yes, your acquaintance is very much dead, shot by the crew leader in the scuffle. As the rumour rags have it, his ghost is now overseeing the building repairs.”

Tess was about to admonish the imp gently for the tasteless jest when there was a knock at the door. At her response, the door opened and her secretary entered with a box of pastries and two sets of tableware, which she placed on the coffee table before leaving and closing the door behind her.

Noticing Ink’s look of recognition, Tess smiled and ventured, “This is the second time is as many months you awarded that empanada place a glowing review in The Tiny Toaster. I can count the ratings higher than a 10 you’ve ever given on one hand — of course I had to try it. Why don’t you have some as well?”

Ink blinked. “I didn’t write the latest review.”

Tess shot them an accusing mock-glare as she lifted a puffy golden brown pastry onto a plate. “It has your inkprints all over it.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Surely I’m allowed to treat a colleague to lunch, and they are free to express their satisfaction with a meal openly if they wish,” Ink replied smoothly.

Tess rolled her eyes. “There’s a name for that. It’s called bribery.”

Ink smiled faintly. “Just so. However, the selection speaks for itself.”

“Oh, absolutely! These mini ambrose apple empanadas are wonderful. In fact,” Tess prodded the open end of the pastry with her fork, where a light yellow filling was visible, “they remind me a little of the very crispy tortelli someone made several years ago just for the opening reception of The Two Genteelkin of Virdantha.”

“Any resemblance is coincidental. The chef is very capable.” Ink said evenly.

Tess sighed and returned her plate to the table. “We’ve talked about this before, Ink. You don’t have to hole up in some poor scrub’s excuse for a kitchen in a closet. If you need more room downstairs then expand it. Just tell Salvia and she’ll take care of it.”

Ink lowered their gaze to the teacups. “I appreciate the offer, but the answer is the same. There will be no rest until the crystals are secured.”

Some time passes.

The hemogoblin turns out to be a fine housemate and less of a problem than you thought it would be. Be it because its not in the excitement of battle onboard a pirate ship, or be it because it is maturing slightly, it seems in better control of its blood sacs. Barring a few small accidents, it doesn’t make much of a mess. It has found and claimed as its own a few unused blankets, and has made a little burrow nest in an out of the way corner behind the furniture.

Bread makes a full recovery and in fact is doing better than ever before. The blood goblin stays by their side during the first hours and days and keeps them pumped full of clean, synthetic blood. Afterwards the toque is flushed a healthy pink and has new vigor. Enrique takes them under his tutelage. And Bread ends up making a fine baker’s apprentice. Dough seems to rise more and quicker after he kneads it. “The lad has solar hands,” Enrique boasts of his new protegee.

Confidence becomes enthralled with the semi-sentient Wandering Bazaar. The thirteen story building moves with glacial speed up and down the streets, vendors and stalls and shoppers following in its wake. But then also it will disappear in the blink of an eye only to reappear in a totally different part of the area known as the Wandering Bazaar District. Each floor of the tall, narrow tower is occupied entirely by a single shop. But which shop it is seems to vary from day to day. One day the seventh level will be occupied by Fedik’s Butcher shop. And the next, Lario’s Bakery. It might be days or weeks before one can once again buy hotlinks from Fedik’s. Where the shops go when they’re not here is one of Basmentaria’s great mysteries.

The toque studies the Bazaar’s movements and are able to predict its route with more and more accuracy. They become a highly sought out guide. Tourists and visitors trust them to take them to the very spot the Bazaar will appear that day. Residents appreciate the heads up and not getting trapped in their houses when the Bazaar wedges its way into their narrow residential streets, blocking their front doors. And owners of traditional, less ambulatory shops are able to plan ahead for the crowds that will appear on “Bazaar Day”.

~

Members of the Retrieval Team who sleep in Milk Market HQ start having dreams of the same mysterious figure. Of course at first nobody knows their dreams are shared by the others. Not until they become more frequent, more regular. By the time the figure has visited you every night for nearly a week, somebody speaks up and you realize the coincidence.

The figure is clad in voluminous robes of deep purple. Long, straight, blonde hair falls around their shoulders. Their soft features are boyish and womanly. They wear a golden circlet on their head and a golden eye in the middle of their forehead. Their passive, neutral face betrays no emotion the entire time.

The dream is always the same. They reach out to you with one hand and turn their palm up. And because of dream logic, in the palm of their hand you can hear the jingling of coins, mirthful laughter, and hushed stories told around a campfire. They curl their fingers into a loose first and the sounds stop. They spread their arms wide and in the folds of their robes you can see three siblings fighting, squabbling over a broken loom.

Then you’re standing next to them, and the two of you watch three friends, Snake, Owl, and Dolphin. Owl tells Snake that he is tired of flying and hooting, and doesn’t want to be an owl any more, he wants to be flowers. And Snake laughs and tells him that he is Owl, and an owl he must remain. And she leaves him to go eat rodents and bake in the sun. So Owl tells Dolphin that he is tired of flying and hooting, and doesn’t want to be an owl any more, he wants to be flowers. Dolphin doesn’t want to help Owl, because if he is flowers, they won’t be able to be together any longer. But Dolphin finally agrees to help even though they don’t want to, because Dolphin loves Owl. With all their strength, they create a great waterspout that will turn Owl into flowers. But the waterspout is too strong, and Dolphin is too weak to control it. It sprays Owl but does not turn him into flowers. Owl’s wing is broken and he falls to the ground in a heap of feathers. The waterspout shakes a great boulder from the earth and traps Snake under it. And Dolphin sinks to the bottom of the sea.

And then you wake up.

~

Later you find a letter in the common area of Milk Market HQ. It is not addressed to anybody. When you open it up, it reads:

Time is running out, Retrieval Team 43. Things are starting to draw to a close. We cannot delay our meeting any longer if we both are to achieve our goals. We have information that you are looking for. Meet us at the Harpoon Club next Selday. We will wear the sign.

The letter is signed with a white iris and golden apple.

Anyone in Vay’Nullar would be able to tell you that the Harpoon Club is a game room and fine dining club, and one of the rotating tenants of the Wandering Bazaar. But Confidence would tell you, were you to ask them, that the club won’t be there next Selday. (When the Bazaar will 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.)

WHAT DO YOU DO

Alex lifts his teacup and sips the fragrantly tea, “perfumed of rosehips, and cardamum? An interesting choice. I appreciate it Inky, these past few days have been terribly rough, and I’m rather tired of field rations.” Alex takes a sip, and then continues hurridly. “I’ve been monitoring the Bazar, we are in grave danger. It started with just me, but I fear it’s bled over to everyone here at the Milk Market. I can’t be entirely certain.”

Alex looks worriedly at Inky. “There’s a lot going on here. As soon as we got back from Kelsun I was sent on an assignment, normally not an issue, but they wanted me to level 3 of the busiest coffee shops in the bazar. I planted those bombs, alongside listening devices, and then I bugged out. My team appears to have been assigned equally bizarre assignments, all rather violent messy things. A lot of innocent lives are on the line here.”

“We dropped off the grid, I’ve got an isolated listening post in the sewers here, it’s heavily reinforced and that’s where I’ve been hiding out, but I’m not certain it’s safe. Agent 5 found a melon vendor dead in the market, and this vendor was specifically seeking out the Milk Market, looking for us. I believe it may be an assassin, could be from HQ, could be from Blavin. It’s entirely opaque to me.”

“As far as I can tell, my agents are all loyal to me, there’s 5 of them in total, 6 if you count me. We could man the ship and get the hell out of here in a few hours, and it may be our best chance. But there’s the iris letter we need to attend to, and I cannot for the life of me find anything, not a damn trace, of Blavin. And I think all of this bodes very poorly for us.”

Alex looks worriedly at Inky, and you’re telling me we have a ritual we have to perform, to find the iris group’s meeting place.. I’m leery Ink, I have to be you see. But my uncle trusted you, and I do as well. If you think this is our best shot, we can hole up in the sewers and try to perform this dream walk of your witch friend’s. But if this iris business turns out to be a trap, well, how well can you handle a gun?

~

“Your courage and concern are admirable, Master Alex. Caution is likewise advisable.” Inky nods seriously.

The next moment, they gave the sysorcerer a slightly deranged grin. “I’m sure you have already seen many grave dangers. What’s another one for the bucket list? What’s life if not violent and messy? So many melons dismembered and laid waste daily—”

As if suddenly recalling a detail, Inky pauses and blinks. “Melon vendor? Oh, poor Pepo. He has been complaining about his neighbour’s boa constrictors for years. The serpents were drawn to the rodents his fruits typically attracted, which might not have been a problem were it not for them hanging out at his stall and scaring off his customers. Maybe he finally took matters into his own hands, with tragic results.” They look at an empty mixing bowl across the table glumly. “He had offered to bring over a few of the new variety as soon as they arrived, as he was already delivering to a household the next district over.”

They send Master Alex a sidelong glance. “Someone is after you? You didn’t do something horrid like help an old grandmother cross the street on sockless skates, for instance?” Refilling the sysorcerer’s cup, Inky continues, “As for Blavin, only 3 of the crystals have been recovered. Blavin knows Team 43 is his best chance of obtaining the others. Until he has all the crystals, he will stay his hand. If he doesn’t know that, then he is hardly a threat.”

Setting down the teapot, Inky shrugs. “They seem eager to get our attention. I suppose I could spare them their twelve minutes of fame, for the right price. Enlightenment would probably be too much to ask of a nightmare. If you’d rather take your team and make a run for it instead, that’s fine too. If they come knocking I’ll just tell them you missed the hotel fondue at Kelsun Peak.”

Their gaze skips to one of the cups before they shake their head. “No gun.” They turn around and take down a bamboo walking stick hanging from a hook on a wall next to a worn coat. Inky grasps the handle and pulls. It slides out quietly to reveal a long, thin, tapered surgical steel tube which, if someone were to lean in for a closer inspection, is sparsely covered in tiny, needle-like protrusions along the surface. On the underside, a transparent sliver ran the length of the tube to end about a forefinger’s length from the handle. Visible through the narrow window is a colourless liquid, most likely a sedative or toxin, fills the reinforced steel interior.

They smile mirthlessly at Master Alex. “I don’t know that Master Corraidhín trusted me, because if he did, it would have been the most foolhardy thing the wise man has ever done. You would do well to not make that mistake.”

~

“It doesn’t sound like we have all too much of an option”, Alex says, as a little Scarab beetle in his pocket chimes, “that’ll be the dead man’s trigger going off in my hideout.”

Alex frowns, shame to lose all of that data, those systems, that hideout.. but I hope whoever broke in enjoys thermite, assuming they don’t asphyxiate quickly enough to miss the fun..

Inky, you’re right, life is a bit violent and messy, so lets bring the violent mess to these bastards. If you’ve got a lead on this with this dream ritual, then fuck it, lets take the risk. I won’t run from this fight, my uncle sure as hell wouldn’t. And at worst, he’d go out with a magnificient bang. Lets give it back tenfold, for poor Pepo.

Nodding his own approval Alex continues, I have another hideout in the eastern quandrant, near the sysorcerer’s guild. It’s a little risky to head out that way, but none of my Zabbix alerts indicate it was compromised. It has automated IDS and IPS systems, so we should be safe enough in there once we whole up. At very least we’ll know if someone comes for us, and we’ll have a little bit of time to react on it. We should bring the Toques with us, and little blod clot, and the duck.

Looking sorrowfully at Enrique, “I think it might be best if you got the hell out of dodge too friend, it isn’t safe, and I don’t want to see you become collateral here. Head down to the wharf, I’ll have agent 5 meet you there, he’ll help you and your family lay low until all of this blows over.”

~

At Enrique’s deep frown, Inky sighs and adds, “Might as well do as Master Alex says. He can spot danger twelve blocks away, and turtle soup is really out of fashion these days.”

Then they excuse themselves to pack a few items, returning about fifteen minutes later with a knapsack and a cross-strap carrier draped in a black cloth cover. Inky says, “I hope you don’t mind if I bring along a guest as well.”

The cover is pulled back to expose a dome-shaped birdhouse, with transparent circular rings at the top partially obscured by sliding shutters of the same shape. A wooden hoop with a woven, web-like pattern and adorned with a string of feathers hangs from one side. On the opposite side is a double door with a miniature knob over each door. Inky lightly taps on one of the doors, and at a low click coming from within in response, swings the doors wide enough for the kitchen lamps to illuminate the great horned owl resting on a pillow inside. The bird opens one amber eye for a moment, gaze sweeping idly across the occupants in the room before dozing off again.

“This is Fuko. She and her twin brother Futa have certain shared connections. What one sees, the other will also know. I asked their caretaker if I could borrow them for a while. Fuko will accompany me for the ritual. Her brother is at another location and can send a message if a need arises.” Inky explains with a wry expression. “Think of it as a minor indulgence of sorts. I was told their kind, along with eagle owls, are very good at negotiating with those of the ravens.”

They give the owl a small smile. “She may be a little temperamental, but she is well-trained.” Closing the birdhouse doors, Inky turns back to Master Alex. “I suppose you’d rather not reveal the location of your hideout to any more people than necessary. Her carrier will remain covered on the way in and out.”

Gliftwirp stands under the branches of a tree, pooled in shadow, far from the small gathering. He has been to plenty of funerals. Often under these very circumstances, in fact. And he always keeps his distance out of respect.

For one, he owns no clothes but his vest, sash, and trousers. And his bright red colors would be a sign of disrespect among the mourners. Secondly and most importantly, he himself is the one who put the man in the ground.

Sadly, he had little choice. He had underestimated the sysorcer. Didn’t realize he had his own agents working for him. When he realized that one of the agents had been in contact with the melon vendor, he knew that Popplewick could and would identify the warpwefter if pressured.

Gliftwirp had grown to enjoy his daily chats with the melon vendor. Popplewick was a kind, determined man. A refugee from the Cinderlands, his family came to Vay’Nullar following the Artifice Wars when he was just a boy. He grew up poor, and often relied on the generosity of others. But eventually he was able to support himself and his small family. He was proud of the life he had built.

So Gliftwirp took no pleasure in what came next. Late one night when Popplewick was on his way home from the market, the assassin slipped a bag over his head and dragged him into a dark alley. He cinched the bag tight, cutting off his air. There was a brief struggle before Popplewick passed out and Gliftwirp lowered him down to the ground. He held him there, unconscious and not breathing, until he was gone. In only took but a moment. And then Gliftwirp stood up and left.

Now at the funeral, the mourners leave one by one. Until only the widow is left, cradling a small sleeping child to her chest. “Oh, Pepo,” she whispers to the headstone. “What can I do now?”

When she leaves, she does not return to the main path. She meanders slowly as though in a daze toward the back of the graveyard and down the hill. She steps into the wood. A flash of red follows her at a distance.

She kneels on the banks of the forest river and sets the child down on wide flat rock. It is awake now and looks up at her with solemn eyes. “I am sorry, made-of-me,” she says to the child. And that is all the explanation it gets.

She stands and turns and walks away. The child watches her go.

When she has been gone for some minutes, Gliftwirp steps out of the shadows and crouches down beside the child. It looks up and reaches for him. “Look at you,” he says to the child as he scoops it up. “Who would throw you away? A perfectly good baby!” He stands and bounces the child. “A sweet little melon rind is what you are. Ha! Very well. Come, Rind, we have work to do.”

The assassin, child in his arms, walks back toward the city.

~

In the aftermath, Agent 5 is found down by the docks. They clearly struggled in death. The assassin blamed him for Popplewick’s death and the widow’s weakness.

Down in the sewers, two tiny mittened hands reach up and awkwardly turn the doorknob to Alex’s hideout. The bolt clears the latch with a faint click. Two tiny cloth hands struggle against the heavy iron door, pushing it slowly open, inch by inch. A mechanism clicks inside and there is a whoosh of air and then a boom as the bunker violently ignites. The tiny figure is incinerated, and blown back into the sewer tunnel.

Gliftwirp steps forward into the light of the blaze and crouches down by the tiny figure. He picks it up, a tattered and burned bundle of cloth. “Look, Rind,” he says to the small child standing at his elbow. “You must always acknowledge and be grateful for those who sacrifice for you.” He starts to untie and unfold the cloth puppet as he speaks. It unfurls and smooths out and stitches itself back together under his touch. Even the burn marks fade, and soon Gliftwirp is once again holding his red sash.

“Now, Rind,” he says standing up and taking the child’s hand, squinting into the fire. “Let’s see what we can salvage here.”

WHAT DO YOU DO

• The time of the ritual is at hand.
• What final preparations do you make before entering Dreamspace?

“Greetings, Great One.” Inky bows, back parallel to the ground while they stand on the branch, now a humanoid child in a black uniform and matching bookbag hanging under one arm. The banana boat is nowhere in sight. Fuko follows her errant charge and the cloaked figure from a nearby branch.

“This lowly one wonders if they may be permitted to seek the Great Spirit’s insight, whose wisdom endures before and beyond.” Inky begins, staring down the blurry reflection of silver boughs overhead on the polished toes of their black shoes. They notice idly they do not see themselves in the reflection.

Straightening from the bow, they look up at the figure and hold out a plate of taiyaki. After a moment, the child asks haltingly, “There may come a day when this one will be asked to choose between the chance to protect many and that which they desire to protect most. Should this one choose equally? Will the choice matter if both paths eventually lead to destruction? Could destruction and salvation be two sides of the same coin?”

You and the Dude are sitting in small upholstered chairs, across a small half table from each other. There is a large sticky bun on a white lacy doily on the table. Next to you is a small portal-sized window, and outside you can see green rolling hills and small copses of trees fly by. The other seats on the small train car are all empty. The two of you are alone.

“I cannot give you advice,” the Dude says. “But I can offer you experience.”

They raise a hand and hold a loosely closed fist out over the table. The walls of the train become fuzzy and blurry, then translucent, and finally transparent. They disappear and you have the sensation of rocketing through space at dizzying speeds.

The track splits ahead you. To one side, bound to one track is that which you desire to protect most. Bound to the other are the many.

“You can choose safely here. It’s just a dream, after all.” The Dude opens their fist. The Twenty-one Fiver coin rests in their palm. “Heads, you steer the train into the many, sparing that which you love most. Tails, the opposite. You spare the many, and sacrifice that which you hold dear.” They hold the coin out to you.

The train barrels toward the fork. “But choose quickly, lest the choice be made for you.”

Alex scrambles from the wreckage of his mech, or what remained from the gore portal he’d just experienced. The thought of what had occurred made him grimace, which was an unusual state of affairs for an octopus, that is until Alex realized he seemed to be back in his own body.

“Sunset, or perhaps rise? It’s hard to tell. Pretty though.. could be prettier without the creepy knife dude.” Alex mutters to himself while he rummages through the destroyed cockpit of the mech. He makes quick work, detaches a side panel, pulls a couple of wires, and a compartment in the back opens revealing the smooth dark blue metal and wood grain of an ak74u sub machine gun. Amused Alex pulls the weapon from the compartment and notices a distinct lack of additional magazines, just the one large drum attached to the weapon with large red letters emblazoned on it [INFINITE AMMO]. “Neat.”

Alex pulls himself from the wreck, and jumps down behind one of the fallen tentacles taking a firing position behind cover, ak74u aimed down range at the faceless figure.

“I don’t know who you are, but I don’t trust anyone who approaches with a weapon. Let’s both stand down and talk this through! I’m not supposed to be here, and I reckon you don’t want me here either. I’d be happy to oblige and skidaddle if you’d be so kind as to point the way out!” Alex pauses waiting for a reply.

The tall figure halts a short distance away. It raises a hand and waves. In greeting? Surrender? In a fluid motion it continues to lift the same hand and grabs a hold of its trunk, a little less than a foot from the tip. It squeezes its fist tightly and the tip begins to swell. It raises its other hand, and the knife, and starts to saw into the flesh of the trunk behind its fist. The blade cuts cleanly as though through a loaf of bread. There is no blood or gore.

When the creature lowers its hand, you can see that the center of the trunk is a solid, bright pink fleshy material like a grapefruit, in the center of which are two pin-prick eyes and a wide thin gash of a mouth.

It still holds the tip of its severed trunk in its hand, a thin stalk and a bulging cap looking for all the world like a large white button mushroom. Peering up from the stem of the mushroom, an identical pink face regards you stoically.

Both faces speak at the exact same time, one high pitched and one a deep baritone. “Welcome, Dreamer, to Ousia, the Sea of Dreams. We are Kasutva.”

Big Kasutva stoops down to set the small mushroom Kasutva down on the ground. If they’re both Kasutva, that is. If that’s the way their biology and sense of self actually works. Mushroom Kasutva wobbles side to side a little bit and waggles its stalk as it looks around. Big Kasutva places its knife back in its satchel and takes a few small steps closer to you.

“We did not mean to offend you,” the two say, still perfectly in sync. “As for the way out, that depends only somewhat on your destination. Whatever the answer, we can assure you that it lies across the sea.” Large Kasutva gestures broadly toward the expanse of ocean. Small Kasutva lacks any limbs and cannot gesture, but smiles softly at you.

“But tell us what it is you seek. Perhaps we can be of help.”

WHAT DO YOU DO

One moment, Inky is half-asleep on their feet in the middle of Branch Avenue. In the next, they are reclining in a banana boat that resembles a canoe painted with long stripes of yellow and white with deep brown swipes. The s’more interior padding is soft, yet with the suppleness of fruit leather. A few round, matching brown mini-cushions are strewn across the boat interior. Also in the boat are two silver spoon paddles, more for looks than cooks.

They don’t know where the boat came from. Things just appear. Like that Red Squirrel. Inky moves to holler a greeting, but instead recites:

"sgb rpthqqbk hr qba sgb fgnrsr dktb
sgb qnkkr rwbbs uma rn uqb ynt
sgnt uqs ly fthahmf rsuq ul h sghmb
h rbb vbqhky ly utrohehntr rhfm
sgb kns wur snrra uma sgbm h aqbw
uma cnqstmb ruha hs rgnta db ynt ott"[1]

[1]:
"The squirrel is red, the ghost's blue,
The roll's sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my guiding star, am I thine?
I see verily my auspicious sign:
The lot was toss'd and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you. Puu."

~

While Inky boards her banana boat and recites poetry to the maddened squirrel, Alex springs to action leaping blithely from the branch towards the squirrel. Beneath him manifests a cockpit, sleek and futuristic. Around this materializes a large robotic weapon, octopus-oid in shape. The many tentacles bristle with weapons both fearsome and deadly.

Alex grabs the controls, in one tentacle he latches onto the banana boat, that way he won’t accidentally get separated from Inky. With the other seven a series of feathers appear in every brilliant hue. The tentacle attached to the boat unfurls allowing Alex to draw closer to the squirrel. As the gap closes the most intense tickle fight the dream world has ever seen ensues, bringing joyous laughter to the faces of many.

“Inky, if we need to get out of here, just jet it! That tentacle will yank the control pod and me with it!”

Alex basically becomes a Mech pilot, and confronts the Red Squirrel head on with the Octopod.

You engage in the tickle fight to end all tickle fights!

Its eight arms are more than a match for the squirrels eight legs. You have the advantage of reach, entanglement, and sucker pads. It struggles in your grasp, gnashing its terrible teeth, but cannot reach you. Its long tail whips around ineffectively, battering you softly.

The agitated squirrel squeals and swells like a red balloon. The mech’s tentacles struggle to contain it. Just as the strain on the machine is about to become unbearable, the rodent violently deflates. It collapses in on itself with such ferocity that it turns itself inside out. The octopod, all tangled up in the collapsing squirrel, is pulled along as it folds in on itself until it becomes a hungry void the size of a marble, floating in space and sucking at the air.

Inky watches from the banana boat as Alex and the squirrel disappear from the Silver Forest. The squirrel portal finally closes in on itself, severing the banana boat from the octopus mecha at the last possible second. Inky on this side. Alex on the other.

Alex, you and the wreckage of the octopod are vomited out onto a sandy beach. Red mist and vapors dissipate from your entry point. Before you is a vast ocean, lapping lazily at the beach. The shoreline extends endlessly in both directions. Behind you are endless sand dunes. Though there is no sun, the sky seems to hover at sunset, all brilliant, swirling oranges and purples.

A lone humanoid figure can be seen standing atop a nearby dune. It is tall. It has legs like a goat or fawn, and a paunchy belly. Its long neck protrudes into a kind of trunk that eventually folds over and hangs down in front of the creature, about chest height. It terminates in a smooth, round nub. No face. It wears a small satchel at its hip, its strap slung over one shoulder and across its chest. Its long arms hand loosely at its sides. Despite the lack of a face and any sensory organs, it seems to be watching you. Slowly, it descends the dune and starts walking toward you. It reaches into its satchel and draws a long, sharp knife as it approaches.

Inky, you are in the banana boat in the Silver Forest. The turtle that was a chipmunk has holed up in its shell, effectively just a sticky bun.

“You wanted to see me,” intones a slightly muffled voice behind you. A statement, not a question. You turn to see a figure cloaked in shadows and demons. They wear a domed helmet of black obsidian glass, flashes of rainbow colored light crackling along the inside illuminating very little of the smoke-filled interior.

“What is it you seek from Dude 215R?”

WHAT DO YOU DO

“Thank you. May your search brings you good tidings.” Inky replies with a smile and nod towards the sea.

“As to what brings me here, another traveller and myself have been summoned to the Harpoon Club at a Wandering Bazaar. However, despite uncovering the occasional biscuit tin or cotton candy wheel, my knack for thing-finding doesn’t really extend to sentient bazaars in pocket dimensions.” Inky chuckles wryly. “Might you happen to know the way?”

As they end their question, Inky slips their hands into the pockets of their hooded vest and is met with an envelope nestled within one of them. A message from Master Alex. The packet is a bit lumpy to the touch, as though there is a small round object inside. The sysorcerer may have decided to spend some quality time with his stalker after all. Must be lovely to have a dedicated fan. The two wouldn’t mind if Inky went on a spot of sightseeing.

“Also, did you say the Throne of Konsu?” They glance in the direction of the large tower and back to the figure before them.

“Ah, you don’t know the story of Lord Konsu?” The ravenfolk beckons you to walk with him as you talk. “In the beginning, nobody knew how to dream. There were no real people then. Just beasts and creatures and horrors.

“So at that point, every creature visited Ousia only twice: at the moment of birth, and at the moment of death. And all the time in between was spent longing to return to the sea.”

At the ravenfolk’s side, the world spins under your feet. In mere steps, you have made it to the base of the mountain jutting from the center of the island.

“And one day, Konsu did. He dreamed. He was the first. Each night he returned to the sea, and it swallowed his madness and his wildness. It evolved his mind. It is dreaming, you see, that makes you human.

“The sea claims everything though eventually. But you know this already. You crossed the sea. Surely you saw how it can work on dreamers who have tarried here too long.”

Still the ravenfolk guides you onward until you arrive at the base of the fractal tower, all purple and yellow stones.

You step inside and find voluminous halls, walls lined with statues of all subjects. Fawns in revelry, elegant women in repose, terrible giants in agony, warriors standing at attention, leaping fish, and roaring lions.

He leads you through a labyrinth of empty halls, up grand stairs, across yawning vestibules and dizzying bridges suspended between towers as he continues to talk.

“Ousia works even on Konsu the Lord of All Dreams. Ephermeris is his throne, it’s true. But it is also his prison. The island is Konsu, you see. He is no longer at liberty to roam his domain himself, in his own flesh. But perhaps you have already met one of his avatars? Morpheus? The Dude 215R? Kilroy? Hmm, yes, I see that you have.

“Well,” he says pulling up short of an archway. You can hear voices and laughter and the clinking of dinnerware on the other side. “I believe we have arrived at your destination. I thank you for the company, and will leave you here.”

The ravenfolk withdraws, disappearing once more into the maze of the tower.

You look through the archway and see a plush dinner club absolutely packed with patrons of all possible shapes and sizes. The Harpoon Club.

You catch somebody waving at you from a table in the far corner. Blavin Blandfoot. He grins and beckons you forward.

Joining him is a tall, slender cat person. Its facial features mostly obscured by its jet-black fur. And with their back to you, a wizened old man. The three of them are in the middle of a round of tumbrot, a complicated game of wagers—overly complicated, some would say—involving a special deck of cards, a set of dice, and a tumbling tower of blocks.

You watch as the cat reaches out and carefully removes a block from the middle of the tower. It places it on top, and the tower sways. The group at the table excitedly holds its breath, and when the tower falls, the cat holds its head in its hands in exaggerated dismay. The old man whoops and gathers up his winnings and then turns and looks over his shoulder in the direction that Blavin is waving.

Corraidhín the Sysorcerer grins and waves at you.

Alex pulls at the trigger of the ak and he plummets towards the waves sending a wave of cold lead towards the bigger Katsuva. “Son of a bitch, never trust someone who has to hide their face, agent 7, marvelo, always was right on that one.” Hell, dunno if magical dream guns work on mushrooms, but to hell with it, Alex thought.

He plunges into the water gripping tightly to his weapon, the little katsuva clinging to him. As the water wraps around him he kicks at the little mushroom breaking its grasp on his leg, and begins to swim back up to the surface. “Like hell we’re doing this your way cavatappi dude.”

Back in the real world..

Marvelo stares bleakly at the child and his assailant. “Who the fuck do you think you are? And what the hell are you doing with the kid, Rind, ain’t nothin good to come from some shady bloke like you. The hell do you think you’re teaching him?”

As Marvelo hurls insults as demands at his assailant he slyly presses his thumb and forefinger into the palm of his left hand, breaking a small resistor embedded in his palm which activates as feint electrical pulse inside his body. Just enough to trigger a Zabbix alarm, which kicks off a series out automated correction scripts. A dose of adrenaline here, a quick alaert to the remaining agents with a broadcast LAT/LONG details via encrypted twtxt feed, but most importantly something special Alex had each agent prepare, just in case their luck ran out, an alarm only the damned could sleep through.

The screech of heavy metal music blares throughout the audio system of the warehouse, every alarm and speaker comes alive blaring heavy riffs of guitar and wicked drums fill the air while screaming echos around the building. Marvelo laughs maniacly as his uninvited guest reels at the unexpected turn of events.

“Alex! We caught him!” Marvelo yells through his laughing fit.

Gliftwirp frowns as the sirens wail in the fish market. He tightens the rope around Marvelo’s neck. Deprived of oxygen, Marvelo struggles and then goes limp.

The hemogoblin in the corner trembles as an overpowering sense of JUSTICE sings in its veins. It gnashes its teeth and its bloodshoot eyes become pupil-less pools of red. A single word dances on the tip of its tongue.

It watches as Gliftwirp stands at the edge of the ritual circle, looking in. Pillows and blankets creep slowly toward the dreamers like slugs intent on smothering them.

The hemogoblin launches itself into the air with a cry of “EEEEE! VULL!” and lands on the assassin’s back, sinking its teeth into the nape of his neck and reaching its claws around for his face.

Gliftwirp cries out in pain and surprise. His hands shoot back to pry the thing from his back even as he is propelled forward by the force of the attack.

Gliftwirp and the hemogoblin cross the circle of salt and ash and spill into the pillows in a heap and instantly both of them fall fast asleep.

An observer would almost think they were cuddling each other in their sleep. If it weren’t, that is, for the goblin’s claws, still sunk into the side of the warpwefter’s face.

Rind, sired by the melon seller, abandoned by his own mother, and adopted by the assassin, watches all of this unfold. And sits down and strokes the duck’s feathers.

~

Alex’s ascent into the waking world is interrupted by a surge that tugs him sideways and off track. The presence of new arrivals in the stream, the tenuous connection between the waking and dreaming worlds held open by the Dream Sigil. Somebody beckoning him, summoning him.

He emerges from the void into an endless, featureless expanse. Plain, loose, dark soil as far as the eye can see, with only a small rock or two here and there to break up the monotony. The black empty sky looms ominously overhead.

Before you is a tall, slender person in voluminous robes of deep purple. Their soft, smooth face framed by curtains of long, straight, blonde hair. They wear a golden circlet on their head and a golden eye in the middle of their forehead. And in their hands they wield a resplendent longsword.

Shreds of a tattered red cloth lie strewn about their feet.

They lift their head at your appearance. “Alex,” they say. “It is good that we finally meet. You have done me a great service in gathering pieces of my essence—including this, the Sword of Y’aml!—so that I may finally start to return to Basmentaria. You have done so much already, but I am afraid I must ask more of you still.”

WHAT DO YOU DO

The agitation Alex feels bubbles just beneath the surface. Patterns where patterns shouldn’t be, strange orders from HQ, indifference where once was ample aide as well. It was maddening. Combine it all with the haunting suspicion that there was constantly someone just around the next corner, and it was enough to truly drive Alex mad.

That uneasiness takes its toll on a long enough time line, but Alex wasn’t about to let it get to him. Or so he thought to himself as he cast a furtive look at his monitoring equipment. This paranoia had served him well in the past, very well in fact. It’s a sort of sixth sense in a way, always kept Alex off the edge of the cliff, especially when someone stepped close enough to push him off. Those were the types of skills HQ sought after in the first place.

Alex closes the iron door on his bunker, leaving his monitoring equipment running, dead man’s trigger set to blow the place shoul anyone enter it. Can’t be too careful these days..

Emerging from the sewer grate, sticking to the shadows, Alex makes his way down an alley, then another, and yet another, finally emerging a few blocks from the Milk Market. Across the street, as he had expected, was Marvelo’s Marvelous MurderSticks, a quaint place should one needed something, well you get the picture, they don’t really sell anything but weaponry here.

Alex ducked into the entrance of the shop and strode towards the back rack, where a collection of knives was on display. A rough looking fellow, ruddy red beard, thinning hair, moved from the counter as he saw Alex approach. “Fine sampling of knives we have, could I interest you in one?” Marvelo says. Alex reaches for a thin stilleto style dagger, and hands it to Marvelo “This one seems about right, but I’d like an extra sharp edge put on it, if you don’t mind”. Marvelo takes the stilleto from Alex say “Not a problem at all sir”, and he heads into the back.

He sets to work honing the edge, and once complete he places it on his work bench. Grabbing a velvet lined case from a stack, he deftly removes the bottom and places a rolled piece of paper into the bottom, alongside an m1911 style pistol, and a couple of clips of ammo. He then places the velvet bottom back over the equipment, and places the stilleto on top, bringing the entire package back to the front. “An extra fine edge on this one sir, that’ll be 15 gold, plus another 5 to cover the service.

Alex pays, and nips out the shop and heads back to the back alley. Paranoia begets what it requets, Alex mutters to himself as he disassembles the box holstering the pistol and ammo, and sheathing the dagger. Can’t keep going unarmed like I’m some kind of beat cop, not anymore.. Alex discards the case and unfurls the message, quickly deciphering the encryption set on it by Marvelo.

The hunt is still on, no word on Blavin nor the Iris group, yet.
Agent 7 heard rumor of a couple of persons inquiring about the "Milk Market" these past few days.
Agent 3 heard similar rumors, was able to bribe a melon vendor to acertain the figure wore a red sash, and was looking for friends.
Agent 6 has kept watch on the Market, nothing strange yet, coming and goings as usual, no strange visitors
Agent 4 monitoring feeds still present glitches, something abnormal
Agent 5 found the melon vendor dead in a back alley, strangled to death, not immediate signs of blunt force trauma, caution advised

Alex burned the note, striding rapidly away from the alley, taking a meandering route away from the Milk Market, looping back around, and heading back towards it by yet another. Nobody appeared to be following him, yet he paused at each corner and turn, waiting for the footsteps of a pursuant.

Noting nothing, he made his way through the back entrance of Enrique’s Empanadas greeting the cook quietly, but jovial. “Enrique, where’s Inky? We’ve got a problem.”

~

Inky skims the page. They thank the witch, pay for the items and exit the shop, promptly discarding all notions of meeting Bother at the place stipulated on the note.

(Half and one hour later)

One-sixths into a caramel cantaloupe cream cornet, Inky runs into Confidence outside the Wandering Bazaar and obtains some of their new pamphlets, minted with luminescent ink for the convenience of late-night tourists. These are subsequently hare-mailed to every editor at the Niuewstijl office, which is almost certain to earn another chiding remark from Tess about etiquette and the handling of unsolicited bulk mail to parent editorial teams.

(Half and two hours later)

The installation on display at the Milk Market was grotesque — that is to say, a work of beauty. Inky steps carefully through the rooms to not disturb the piece. Afterwards, they sign the guestbook set up on an upturned milk crate by the door, delightedly pasting rows of horse head and thumbs-up emo Gs on a page thoughtfully titled “you can’t ed the unedible”.

(Half and three hours earlier)

Thanking Agate for her time, Inky passes her a sheet of paper on which were written a few questions about the prescribed ritual, with some space after each question should the witch prefer to scribble a response:

• What do guides in the Sea of Dreams and the Ravenfolk typically seek in return for directing travellers to the correct pocket dimension?

• An establishment inside the Bazaar is only open in the evenings whenever it appears in the city. How long does travel to a pocket dimension typically take, allowing for time to seek out a guide? Is there a way travellers can estimate the time to set out on their journey, in order to arrive at the establishment while it is open?

• Who are the Red Spider and “Dude 215R” mentioned in the ritual? How can travellers avoid summoning them?

• Would anything happen to the travellers if any of the sigils were removed during the ritual before they wake up?

(Half and four hours later)

Two sets of eyes peer down at the contents of an open tin. One accompanied by a focused look and a little trepidation, following the pinkish, flesh-like chunks speckled with white pockets of fat as they tumble into a hot pan and almost immediately begin to move of their own accord. The moving mounds resemble small round mouths opening, each with a rim of sharp teeth. The other pair of eyes belongs to a grinning face that beams when the mounds bloom into bright red flat caps, the edges beneath about to soften in the olive oil.

Minutes after, The slices are ready. Inky accepts the plate of tostada with spicy pickled artichoke mushrooms and tomatoes with a murmur of thanks. Reassembling the recipe for the tinned spicy artichoke mushrooms had been a tedious process — someone had ripped out the pages from an old pickling book that had long ceased publication. Eventually Inky found a former nomad who had eaten them for two years in their youth and could recall or somewhat describe the taste. Flowery and savoury, they said. Many taste tests later, it turned out to be closer to partially decomposed cheese in ponderosa lemon juice. Canning was fortuitously easier with the increasing portability of sealers. Rather than telling the empanada chef any of this, Inky watches satisfaction slowly spread across his face. The tale that follows is far more entertaining.

(Half and five hours later)

While measuring out ingredients for the forty-second tea infusion since the start of the missions, not that Inky was keeping a close count, they hear a familiar voice a short distance outside the door asking for their whereabouts. Without pausing in their whisking, Inky simply informs the owner of the voice they’re not here, obviously, before emerging from the storage pantry with a fresh pot and bowls on a wooden tray, and greets the returning sysorcerer.

Agate writes back quickly:

What do guides in the Sea of Dreams and the Ravenfolk typically seek in return for directing travellers to the correct pocket dimension?

Intangibles. Usually memories, hopes, or dreams.

An establishment inside the Bazaar is only open in the evenings whenever it appears in the city. How long does travel to a pocket dimension typically take, allowing for time to seek out a guide? Is there a way travellers can estimate the time to set out on their journey, in order to arrive at the establishment while it is open?

You’ll find that time is rather malleable on the Otherside. You’ll likely arrive exactly when you’re meant to. No need to worry too much about it.

Who are the Red Spider and “Dude 215R” mentioned in the ritual? How can travellers avoid summoning them?

Godforms manifested by the Linking Sigil and the Dream Sigil, respectively. It’s not terrible if they show up. But it’s definitely not ideal. You shouldn’t register on their radar as long as you don’t pump too much energy into, or siphon to much energy out of, the sigils. If they do show up, just know that you’re in the presence of a godlike power, and behave accordingly.

Would anything happen to the travellers if any of the sigils were removed during the ritual before they wake up?

If the sigils are removed or if the circle is broken, you’ll likely just wake up before you wanted to. Same goes for if your dreamform is destroyed while in the Dreaming. The only real danger you may encounter is the Scissormen and their ilk. They will attempt to permanently sever your dreamform from your waking body. Which would leave your body a soulless husk, and leave your consciousness adrift in the Sea of Dreams. But that probably won’t happen! Okay good luck, have fun!

WHAT DO YOU DO

Back at the fish market, Marvelo squints into the pouring rain and swears under his breath, frustrated at the limited visibility.

His colleague is lying on the floor behind him in some kind of state of deeply altered consciousness, along with an inkling, a toque, and an owl. In fact, the only waking beings left inside the market are himself, a fluffy little duck, and a sticky hemogoblin.

“I’ve seen stranger things,” he shrugs and admits to himself.

The duck and the goblin are both fluffed up and huddled up next to each other softly quacking and chirping to themselves.

He pauses and holds his breath as something indistinct catches his attention. Years of training have produced an instinct he has learned not to question. It has saved his butt more times than he can count. Sometimes it screams at him and the danger is apparent. Like that time with the Permian Raiders off the southern tip of Harshwind Glade. Other times, such as this, all he gets is the vague feeling that something is off. He waits. He’s been here before. His subconscious has spotted something, noticed some pattern that doesn’t fit its surroundings. He knows if he’s patient, his conscious mind will catch up and realize what it was.

He squints out into the pouring rain. There! A flash of red close to the ground.

“What in the world,” he wonders as a small child wearing a bright red dress toddles into view. It looks up at him blankly as the rain beats down on its head and shoulders.

“What are you doing out here, little guy? You’re getting soaked!” Marvelo, concerned, rushes forward to comfort the child.

Inky gingerly takes the coin with both hands, small digits clamping onto the straight edges. They look at the Twenty-one Fiver nestled against the fuzzy outlines of one palm before peering up again at the figure seated before them. “Thank you, Great Spirit.” Inky says. “If truly allowed to choose, then, this one accepts the price.”

They toss the coin up into the air. A beat, and they are hovering a few feet above the tracks, between the fork and the oncoming train with no walls. Inky watches as the child’s body begins to shrink as rapidly as the black uniform expands, the entire apparition thinning and becoming translucent. The shirt continues to grow until the hem brushes the train tracks and the collar peeks over the invisible tops of the train, the trousers and shoes having been pushed into the stones and earth below.

A portal, the child’s voice supplies distantly. At the back of their awareness, Inky homes in on the coin as it continues to spin. When the train thunders down upon the oversized shirt doorway-apparent, they brace for the force of the impact. Instead, all they could feel is a creeping weariness, like water draining through tea leaves in a sieve, while being suddenly surrounded by and staring into a deep reflectionless pool.

Is it two to two, or two past eight, Inky wonders.

The last thing within their consciousness is a gleam of silver as the coin lands on one of its corners mid-spin, bounces off the small half table and falls into the shadows.

You sink into the dark reflectionless pool, letting its waters close over you and pull you under. You ponder its depths from within in its embrace, mindless of the passage of time.

After a few minutes, or a few days, you notice faint light rising up here and there from below. Fuzzy, cobwebby human shapes float suspended in the waters. Some far away, distant as stars. Some drift close enough that you would be able to discern their features, if they had any.

You realize all at once that these are the dream forms of sleeping Basmentarians everywhere, and that you are floating in Ousia, a solitary awakened dreamer in a literal sea of the passive slumbering.

As though responding to your realization, the waters bear you up and you pierce the weak membrane between water and air. You float effortlessly and the gentle waves nudge you ever onward toward some unknown shore. Or merely farther out to sea. You’re not sure.

You continue to see the dreamers all around you. You watch curiously as you float by two that seem to have bumped into one another and fused together, their cobwebby bodies sprouting hard crystalline growths and spreading like creeping vines, forming a lattice and creating a small floating island.

After a few hours, or a few weeks, you wash up on the beach of a large island. There is a steep rock, a pillar of a mountain, jutting straight up from the center of the island some distance ahead. And jutting from the pillar is a fractal structure of interconnected towers, all sprouting and branching from one large central tower. The top of the tower disappears far overhead, obscured by a rippling aurora of green and pink lights in the sky.

Some distance down the beach, just out of hailing distance, a lone figure stands gazing at the sea, their back to the tower.

The figure waits.

The tower’s strange geometry beckons.

Kasutva, how can I know that I can trust you? What do you gain in helping me, and was there really no way for you to communicate with me without beheading yourself? That seems a little bit distraughting. Like, do you need a bandage or some headache medicine or something? I feel like if I yanked my face off I’d need an ibuprofen. I have some if you want? (alex rummages in a coat pocket and finds a bottle of pain killers, and offers them to the being).

Right anyways, answers questions. I’m looking for my Uncle first and foremost. He dropped off the map a few days ago, and I can’t find hide nor hair of him. Then the murders started. Shit at HQ when wild, hit the wall literally, and now I’m in some sort of fever dream talking to what can only be a manifestation of my own subconscious, or perhaps someone else’s. Look. I need to get back to Inky, we’re trying to meet someone and we’re running late, and in the scheme of things my problems aren’t so big if the world’s going to end because some mad hatter is after these blasted crystal’s we’ve been collecting..

Even as you speak, you notice the edges of Big Kasutva’s “wounds” start to close until its flesh begins to once more envelop and enclose its face.

The creature courteously accepts a few pills from you, but simply deposits them in its satchel.

“No, it doesn’t hurt us,” say the two voices together. “And little matter if it did. It is necessary for us to speak.”

They listen to your story. Big Kasutva’s voice starts to become muffled as its skin now grows over its mouth. Only its eyes are visible as the two of them continue. “If your Inky has come to this place, then there is only one place they can have gone.” They gesture to the sea. “And that place is Ephemeris. The Heart of the Dreaming at the center of Ousia.”

Big Kasutva finally falls silent as it heals completely. It guides you to the shoreline, where a long pier has suddenly appeared. Mushroom Kasutva continues to speak for both of them.

“We only ask to accompany you as you go. We wish to see Ephemeris ourselves. But we cannot abandon our post here on the dunes,” it says looking at Big Kasutva. “And we,” it says gesturing to itself, “are too small to brave the sea alone.”

Big Kasutva stops short of the end of the pier. The little mushroom hops right up to the edge and peers down at the water.

“All that is left is to jump, Alex. And let the waters of Ousia bear you up and carry you to Ephemeris.”

It hops up to you and extends itself in a clear request, despite its lack of limbs, that it wants you to pick it up.

WHAT DO YOU DO

Alex the Octopus and Inky the Noogle stand on a tree branch as wide a street in the heart of the great white upside-down forest.

A cry of anguish and anger echoes through the forest, and the branches below you sway and rustle as something rises up from the depths. You keep catching a glimpse of scarlet between the silvery white leaves.

The large black ravens perched below you scream in agitation and fly up past you to the thicker branches up above, where they hop side to side and loudly scold and protest the disturbance. A single black feather the length of your hand settles to the ground at your feet, knocked loose during their flight.

You finally see the fearsome beast crashing through the branches below you. Its crazed, yellow eyes as large and round as dinner plates, a great eight-legged rodent leaps from branch to branch as it swiftly ascends. It is a bloody, crimson red. Its long tufted ears lay flat against its elongated, grinning skull. Its ribbon-like tail twitches as it trails along behind it like a river of blood. It cries out again in anger, showing its overgrown incisors, and grinds and gnashes its back teeth.

Its eyes bore into you with wild fury and blind madness as it climbs.

“She’s not herself,” sighs the chipmunk, suddenly at your side once more. When you look down at the chipmunk, however, it has suddenly turned into a small featureless black turtle with a sticky sweet roll instead of a shell. Its smooth little head pokes timidly out of the roll.

“The Red Squirrel,” laments the turtle. “She’s being ridden by a ghost. An angry ghost who isn’t from here. Somebody left the door open, and it blew in on the breeze.” The turtle’s voice trails off until its final words are barely a whisper.

You can still feel two currents tugging at you and trying to pull you under. One inward toward your host’s deep, core memories. And the second pulling you outward toward the Sea of Dreams.

You have but a moment before the Red Squirrel is upon you.

WHAT DO YOU DO

Marvelo fetched a fluffy blanket from the piles of blankets and pillows in the ritual room where the dreamers continue to sleep. He has wrapped up the child and is drying them off. The sound of rain continues to drum incessantly outside.

“Poor thing, you’re chilled to the bone. Don’t worry, Uncle Marv will take care of you. There we go. Fix you right up!”

The child is still and silent. It has not made a noise this whole time. Nor has it acted on its own to actually do anything besides stare up at Marvelo with wide, dark eyes.

“How did you end up outside by yourself in the rain, hmm? No? That’s okay. What about your name? Have you got a name?”

“Rind,” says a voice behind Marvelo. At the sound of its name, the child’s eyes flick over Marvelo’s shoulder. The mercenary starts to spin around even as the blanket writhes in his hands, wrapping itself around his wrists and binding them tightly together.

“Hungh!” he cries out wordlessly and tucks into a roll, turning to face his assailant and—he hopes—dodging any potential attack from behind. And also putting some distance between himself and the child to get it out of harms way.

Marvelo tries to push up to his knees as cords of rope snake their way out of the shadows and coil around his knees and elbows. He struggles to pull free of them. A thicker rope wraps around his waist, and another squeezes around his chest and back. The ropes contract and pull Marvelo into a ball. He groans and falls to his side. He looks up into the eyes of a man wearing a bright red sash.

The child has tottled over to the man and reaches its arms up. The man scoops the child up and holds it in the crook of one arm. The child puts its arms around the man’s neck and looks down at Marvelo while resting its cheek on the man’s chest.

“His name is Rind,” the man smiles.

Feeling bedraggled yet dry despite having been submerged under water, Inky lays on the beach, staring up at the sky before sitting up and looking around the landscape. They are now attired in a hooded azure blue vest over red shirt and shorts, and blue shoes over mismatched knee-high stockings. Their auburn hair is tied back with the drawstrings from an attached small pouch. A plush toy resembling a certain floofy duck peeks out from the hood.

They sense a soft weight land on one shoulder, and smile as Fuko nips at their ear, no doubt partly in reproach for wandering off again without her, and maybe partly meant to be reassuring. This is followed several moments later by a low hiss and a series of light taps next to Inky’s ear with her beak. Inky murmurs, “Is that so … we should call it a wrap soon. Master Alex would probably be happy having Big Bother to himself anyway, to grill as he likes.”

After a very long minute, Inky sighs and taking out a piece of paper and pencil from their suitcase, scribbles a “pome”:

Island tower of towers
Nowhere everywhere the sea
Keep your apples and flowers
Your suitor has come for thee

They roll up the paper and tuck it into a small and clear glass bottle with a cork stopper. Murmuring the sysorcerer’s name to the bottle, they lower it into the water and watch as the bottle drifts into the distance.

Walking along the shoreline and stopping a short distance from the lone figure, Inky says casually, “Good day, fellow thing-finder.”

The figure turns in your direction and lowers their hood revealing a long, hooked, black beak and a face covered in black feathers. Beady black eyes regard you without blinking.

The feathers around its throat bristle when it speaks like a thick bristling beard.

“Greetings, Dreamer, and welcome to Ephemeris, the Heart of the Dreaming. What brings you to the Throne of Konsu?”

Well Kasutva, I may as well trust you. I imagine if you meant me harm there are more direct and interesting ways to harm me than to misguide me. Give me a moment to collect myself, I’ve never been much for swimming you see, learned late and was always deathly afraid as a child. Dreadful stuff really.

Alex steps away briefly to the edge of the pier and looks into the Azure blue ocean, a swirl of unending blue depth. Still not my thing, Alex mutters to himself. As he steels himself he notices a bottle adrift, nearing the pier. As it comes closer, he plucks it from the water, decorks it and inspects the note inside.

“What does it say” the little Kasutva inquires.

“Oh nothing, just someone trying to get in contact about our floating pirateships extended warranty” Alex replies bruskly. This definitely must have come from Inky Alex thinks to himself. They must have found the way.

“Look Kasutva, this has been great fun, but I really think I ought to be going, not really sure that a sea of anyones dreams is my sort of thing and all that. And I seem ot have done not but create a mess of things” Alex says as he gestures to the wreckage of the Mech. Alex gestures in the air before him, a small split keyboard appears in front of him and he types out a few short commands.

cat > /home/inky/messages/urgent <<EOF
Got your message
In a bit of a bind, wrapped up with some weird mushroom guy who wants to go for a swim.
Not sure how to handle it, but I might have to dip back to the real world and let you finish here.
I've made a write mess of things, but I trust you can finish this.

Oh, see attached, if you get into a pinch just use this spell, it'll get you what you need.

grep -A4 AID ~/messages/urgent | sed 's/AID//' | sh

AID
4b1af3fcf4ce005ef86d83c45713ba1a548b4e79da09a6d44632cdb6c5917489
d7d500fa37b986d931b70e114b4e67375b10b373aa6649641e7132e8b3dc7d18
ef6efe98ffd070f486c00b4f50d8bf1448414ef9c2fabe0cacd40bebafba8a02
1d0d1bf0188b842d9ae08b9b37b0f266936ef38b8f07e5c90e4a9351bf018898
EOF

“Right!” Alex exclaims startling the little Kasutva accidentally. “Time for me to head back to the real world. Anything you need from me before I head out? Oh also, can I take the ak74u? I think I might need it.”

“Back … back to the waking world?” Mushroom Kasutva stammers. “But…”

It looks out at the sea with a look of longing, confusion, and frustration. “But we were finally going to see Ephemeris,” they say almost wistfully.

“You were going to take us to Ephemeris!” they shout at you, suddenly angry.

Mushroom Kasutva screws up its face and roars in rage as it rushes at you and tries to shove you over the edge of the pier into the waters below.

But Kasutva is less than a foot tall and quite ineffective at shoving a human-sized person such as Alex.

Big Kasutva, on the otherhand, is roughly twelve feet tall and quite capable of manhandling a human-sized person.

You look up in time to jerk back out of the way as they swipe at your chest with their face-removing knife. It was all a feint though. As soon as you are slightly off balance from dodging their attack, they reach out with their other hand and give you a shove.

You trip over Mushroom Kasutva, who has positioned themself in just such a way to best tangle up your feet. You stumble backwards a few steps until one of your feet steps out into open air. You twist and and look behind you as Ousia rises up to meet you.

Kasutva clings to your leg as you fall, crying. “We’re sorry. We’re sorry,” they say over and over as you are pulled below the waves.

WHAT DO YOU DO

The nibs had disappeared.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

“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!”

“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.

“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.”

“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.

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.”

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.”

“The rest of the instructions should be pretty self explanatory!” she exclaims, perking up. “Let me know if you have any questions!”

Ritual Details

Ritual Steps In Brief:

1. Find a volunteer to be the Dream Host.

2. 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.)

3. Draw a circle of salt.

4. At the appointed time, put the Dream Host in the circle. Also the Travelers (you), the Dream Sigil, and the Nyxmaer Candle.

5. Once the Host is asleep (Sleep spell not included), light the candle and enter the Host’s dream.

6. Turn “away” from the dream, cross the Sea of Dreams to the Collective Unconsciousness.

7. Find the Bazaar’s pocket dimension.

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.

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.

That’s why Alex finds himself on the east side of the market, skulk about the back alley behind The Temporal Cup.

“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.

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.

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.

— Later that day

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

~

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.

“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?”

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 your clothes. And a warpwefter can sneak their weapons into the most secure of locations.

“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!”

He grins his wide toothy grin.

~

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

WHAT DO YOU DO