Elliott: GLITCHTV: Episode Sixteen
a Gailizia Fantastic story
Radegesis: Isn't this the quest where the notes are "if you can't find a handy dragon, it may metaphorically be the cool MILF down the street"?
Gailizia: Yes.
Yes, it is.
Radegesis: 1/chapter flavor, baybe!
Elliott: Gods.
You're all so hornt up for MILFs.
Radegesis: I would like to reiterate: I am the normal amount of respectful for MILFs.
Gailizia: Look, you can scar us with them this time!
Radegesis: However, I can only egg on my compatriots.
Sadabus: I'm not horny for MILFs.
Radegesis: Sad doesn't count; he's evil.
Sadabus: True!
Gailizia: Sad lusts only for buff men and petplay.
Elliott: The stage is dark. The stage is empty. The stage is a lie.
But so is the dark. So is the emptiness. We call them a lie, and then know that they are so. There is light, for we have unmade the lie.
(No, Iolithae Septimian is not here.)
(Do not ask.)
In the light, we see a couch, and recumbent upon on it the lank form of a man made of 70% height, 20% quirk, and 10% spiritus Dei.
(She's not, for realsies.)
Wendell Korbb has finally taken up Gailizia on their offer for therapy. The session is coming to an end. Where might Gailizia have guided such a conversation, given their druthers?
Radegesis: (Nobody say 'well, well, well' or she'll pop out from under the well.)
Sadabus: Really, we ought to get Sadabus into therapy.
Gailizia: It's the first talk! She knows he has Deep Hangups and a Dark Past about trusting Riders! She's going to let him do the steering for now, and trust that he'll open up with time. She can't do good work if there's no trust there!
Radegesis: Some light discussion of… well, if you ask about his workplace he might count it as espionage, so.
Gailizia: Is he ready to process a Body Adventure with someone who was there? Only time will tell.
Elliott: Is anyone, ever, ready to process a Body Adventure?
Gailizia: She closes her little notebook.
"So, it looks like our time is about up. How're you feeling?"
She's dressed in a tasteful blazer with tasteful comically large novelty buttons.
Radegesis: (:spotattention: on how he's really feeling, if that's something he's concealing.)
Elliott: "You know," he says, swiveling back upright with an understated but notable cartoonish sproing, "lighter? Like… this helped. This was cool. I've tried therapy before, but either it's with a mortal and then you get all," he gestures broadly, but you get the meaning of "dementia animus," "or it's a Power and then they've got that over your head forever. You ever actually meet Counseling's-Regal? He's a trip."
If you had to get a read on him right now: He's honestly doing better. You can read it in the slant of his shoulders, the little spark in his eyes. He might actually be better-adjusted than you thought; you didn't get too far into the Rider thing, but he doesn't seem aggressively propagandized. He even lets slip something that you can tell he thinks he shouldn't have:
"When I was new to all this, and learned about the War… there was a time I really wanted to fight. I'd never wanted that before, but I had Thunder in my veins. I was strong. I had never been strong before, or even thought about the remotest possibility of ever being strong. I tried to sneak out of here once. It didn't work well, but Ibzuderiel was… kind about it. Kinder than I deserved."
Gailizia: Gailizia smiles. "I'm glad to hear it! My… privileged position in relation with everything definitely helps with my client pool."
She stands up with him and offers him a lollipop. "Maybe we can talk about it another time? Maybe not. Your call."
She smiles, implicit invitation to return hanging.
Radegesis: Somewhere offscreen, Rad holds up a Utena-esque sign saying ARE WE JUST GONNA LEAVE THAT THERE
Elliott: "Let's do that. Sometime, I mean," he says, taking the lollipop with absolute delight. "Mmmm. Grapple."
Gailizia: "Great!"
She checks her watch.
"Oh, hmm, I should probably get going too. I've got a thing, probably."
+1 XP, You make a pinky promise with a ghost, with an angelic being, or in a flashback, because this is spiritually like making a tiny promise with a thing touched by angels.
Elliott: I don't know quite where you were, but I know where you (probably) are now, and it's the studio. Did Eric give you a whole big room for your office? Was this some kind of phantasmagoria? Who knows? But you walk out a door and into the studio, and look: There are the others, too.
I've got a question, though.
If Jupiter was going to call one of you, which one would it be?
:spotreckoning:
Semegastes: God, that's a question.
I think we need more information.
Radegesis: Rad cannot legally answer this question without bias or daydreaming.
Semegastes: Calling for help, or calling for cheap labor, or calling to yell at?
Elliott: The former.
Sadabus: I'm reliable about giving help!
Although it depends on what kind you want.
Semegastes: I say Gailizia.
Elliott: Gailizia does usually seem the most put together.
Gailizia: I did just therapy a dude.
Elliott: And so: ring ring ring.
What's Gailizia's ringtone?
Gailizia: God.
What is her ringtone?
Radegesis: Surely March of the Gladiators?
Elliott: Pagliacci?
Radegesis: Is that Afrocircus song from the Madagascar trailers also burned into your minds?
Elliott: Whatever it is, you get the call!
The panicked call.
"Hey, Gai. There's…there's some shit going down right now of the seemingly not good variety."
Elliott: Wendell must hear that, because he looks worried.
Radegesis: Oh, panic? That's definitely an us kinda situation.
Gailizia: It's gotta be some kinda weird circus cover of something as a bit. Either that or something out of left field that Annalee chose as a different bit.
Radegesis: What's, like, therapy music?
Elliott: "There's a big-ass undead… thing? Coming out of the ground down by the fairground. It's dressed like… well."
Gailizia: Gailizia loudly frowns. "Well, that's no good."
She texts Semegastes despite them living inside her head.
hey let the gang know spooky shit is happening at the fair. jupiter is there too
She looks up at Wendell, flashing a small smile. "The work is never done, ain't it?"
Elliott: Jupiter sends a picture of a corpse-thing clawing its way out of a split oak. Its flesh is a mangled mess of ichor and rhizome, animal and plant. But it wears the unmistakable regalia of a Rider — and not just any Cant, but one of your own ilk.
Sadabus: …so you're saying it has a hat.
Describe the hat! :spotcreation:
Gailizia: Give us the hat facts.
Radegesis: "God, I hope that's not Vidamir; he looks like ~~shit~~. Well, I guess they look like ~~shit~~ no matter who they are."
Elliott: The hat is wide-brimmed and ancient. You can tell at a glance that it was once fabulous, even by the standards of the Strategists. Three ruined feathers extend from its wide brim, from Not-birds hunted to extinction in defiance of Ninuan's sanctity; such was their beauty and the vainglory they engendered.
Radegesis: "I… don't know if that's a point for or against it being Viddy. Either way. Away we go!"
Sadabus: "I'll get the brooms."
Gailizia: Gailizia, as a matter of course, will arrive just in time.
Elliott: Just as you go to leave the studio, a figure walks in and strides past you in the opposite direction. "Good luck," they say, moving with purpose and certainty.
Semegastes: :spotreckoning:
Radegesis: Nobody just wishes me well, mister!
Or miss!
But more homoerotically, if it's a miss.
Gailizia: Hmm! How curiously specific! I think I will take a moment to observe them, because I'm the bitch with perfect timing! :spotreckoning:
Sadabus considers just cursing first on general principles and finding out who it is later.
Elliott: The figure is… indistinct, even under the white-hot fire of your attention. That shouldn't be possible, and yet it is. Their body is… nothing. A bare sense of presence, the color of a mirror — not greyish-silver, as so many imagine, but true looking-glass silver, which is colorless except when reflecting the world back into itself.
This curiosity is somewhat spoilt by the fact that the figure wears an old plaid coat, fleece-lined and patched over so many times it's impossible to tell which bits were original. But their eyes… oh, stars are falling there, of course.
Sadabus: Oh, so that's who it is.
Well, it's probably not a big deal.
Let's go deal with this other thing.
Semegastes: "Hey there, fellow Rider, welcome to the Semegastes Sarcocystidae 24-Hour Livestream Super Special! Have we met before?"
`Intensity, invoking a title`
Gailizia: Gailizia, on hearing them start this bit, very purposefully puts their phone into their pocket. Time basically doesn't pass when you aren't online, you see.
Elliott: "Don't think so, Semegastes, but it's a pleasure," they say, and there's a pleasant musicality to their voice. They don't break their stride, but they do turn around and start walking backward so they're free to give you a very amiable finger gun. "Dollars to donuts says your friend gets in more trouble by the second. So, sincerely: Good luck. If y'all have trouble, I'll be along shortly."
Semegastes: The livestream chat pogs. :turnback:
Elliott: The next person to use that as a verb will take 108 Burn.
Sadabus: If you give me that much Burn, I promise the Wound that follows will be worse.
Gailizia: "Don't leave too big a mess."
Gailizia continues on her way to the fairground.
Radegesis: Rad must follow Gailizia. Run to trouble!
And also, I guess, ~~hot clowns!~~
…`flustered`
Semegastes: Semegastes and their liveblogging team (the Technical Kids with smartphones) follow along.
Semegastes: However, Semegastes does want to know what mirrorpants' deal is, so they're gonna toss out a Greater Investigation, asking livestream chat what his deal is.
Sadabus: considers terrible Wounds.
Oh, I know!
Sadabus: I'll develop a hunky alternate personality, Sadabus Argand.
(you say it like it's French)
Gailizia: I can hear it!
Radegesis: No! Not a French name! Ultimate signifier of evil!
Elliott: And so you go! And so you go! The stranger heads further into the station, and you move swiftly but efficiently to the fairground, where Jupiter awaits. Chapter, 1 XP
Semegastes, you're baffled but… the chat seems not to know? Your miracle is bouncing up against another. You'll need 3 Fugue to break through it.
Semegastes: I'll take it.
Gailizia:
clownfucker69: you break my heart
Elliott: Someone throws out a $19.99 superchat to let you know that they're apparently a farmer? They live on the outskirts of Kolme County. Before you guys, they sometimes got involved when Weird Not-Stuff happened. Generally regarded as helpful but of unclear motives and frighteningly direct methods.
Gailizia: Love a farmer!
Sadabus: Farmers!
Those guys are the worst.
They're always having children.
Boy children.
Farm boys.
And you know what farm boys do. :fuguechip:
Radegesis: …farm?
Gailizia: Toss hay?
Radegesis: Make do?
Sadabus: Rise up and destroy evil overlords!
Gailizia: Truly, the ultimate antithesis.
Elliott: Anything else here, or are y'all on your way?
Radegesis: And now! :spotattention: on Jupiter, and what Jupiter wants!
Gailizia: I'm already there, because time is fake.
Elliott: Y'all, Jupiter is halfway up a tree when you get there. Not the tree the corpse is finally clawing its way free of, but another, sturdier tree. They've got a camera pointed at the scene, because you know that Jupiter recognizes ratings when they seem them.
Today, they're wearing pinstripe pants, a flouncy blouse, and aviators. It's a good look, but a full 98% of their looks are good, verging on exquisite.
"Hey, folks," Jupiter calls down when you arrive. "The thing over there poofed a duck out of existence. So, that's y'alls deal, right? Just reached out with that broom and swept them aside and poof."
You can see now.
Semegastes: :spotreckoning: + #selfie! on the Monstergeist.
Gailizia: Gailizia nods.
"Yeah, that seems like an us thing."
She looks back to the rest of the Chancery and points at them with her thumb.
"Any of y'all know them?"
Elliott: The Strategist-thing emerging from the earth does have a long and elegant broom. In its other hand, wielded like a dirk to a rapier, is a feather duster made of hundreds of those same precious feathers that adorn their cap.
Sadabus: "Oh, we definitely need one of these."
"Think of the money we can avoid not paying for janitorial services!"
Radegesis: "Oh, ~~hell~~ no. If this ~~bitch~~ tries to clean me I'm blasting Destruction. What kinda ~~shit~~ is a World-Breaker's Broom?" :fuguechip:
Gailizia: "Any… zombie… maids?"
Elliott: With one great, final heave of effort, it pulls itself from the tangled roots, pulped wood, and muck.
Gailizia: Gailizia strides over, hands in pocket.
"Hey! You're obviously not okay, but are you, like. Less not okay?"
Radegesis: Rad trails behind, doing her best to look threatening. Y'know, just in case.
Sadabus considers his magical options.
Radegesis: :spotnudge:
"Take the nice, uh, clown's hand here."
"It's the nicest option."
Elliott: They do not respond with any vitality, any elan, any of the style and verve which is a Strategist's Eide. Instead, they brandish their broom and duster, and whip a storm of wind that flenses you to the bone. Every speck of dust and dirt upon you becomes like a stinging scourge.
Radegesis: "Oh, so we're playing hardball. Fine."
Stunt of Untouchability + //cool// / flustered
Sadabus: I cast grease.
Once they slip, I cast web.
Semegastes: Semegastes beckons forth the all-destroying divorce-flame that burns in the heart of Everett Neff, and shapes it into a floaty barrier to burn away the teensy projectiles. `Greater Spherecraft`
Sadabus: Oh, hell with it: lesser planar ally.
I summon a paraelemental of ooze.
Elliott: This is, btw, a level 8 miracle.
Semegastes: …I'll spend another 3 Fugue to bump my Spherecraft to 9.
…and my Fugue to 80, so, uh-oh.
Sadabus: Also I, I dunno, dimension door behind another tree while I do this.
Radegesis: Hm. Level 8.
Gailizia: Gailizia pops like a large balloon, scraps of Gailizia-esque latex being shredded in the wind, the sound both loud and stunning, before dropping out of the tree where she was hiding behind Juniper all along.
"Mmm. So we're doing it like this, then?" :fuguechip:
`Greater Cliffhanger, also level 8`
Radegesis: I guess it'd better be a Greater Stunt of Untouchability, +2 Stilling to bring it up to 8 for a total of 4 Stilling, +1 XP.
Rad walks forth through the wind and the dust, flaying and scourging, like a summer rain. Please. The actual nasty stuff is already on the inside of her. She levels Gabrelt, tip flaming.
Elliott: The Strategist rages against defenses. It mumbles, but those mumbles echo through bone and marrow:
Unclean. Unclean. UNCLEAN.
Radegesis: "I showered just last ~~fucking~~ Tuesday, bud, save it. What the hell do you want?" `Intensity`
Elliott: Did you?
Semegastes: "…it is absolutely a Monday, Rad."
Radegesis: Spotlight me to prove I didn't!
Sadabus: "The world is wrong, my dear Radegesis," explains Sadabus from behind his tree. "And also, apparently, unclean."
Gailizia: "Don't you have a spell for cleaning?"
Elliott: I'm gonna call for Ability 2.
Radegesis: nnnghghgh its just a shower
Elliott: "You'll fail. YOU'LL FAIL," it wails.
Radegesis: 2 Wear! For spite!
Elliott: It wails.
Sadabus: Meanwhile, my ooze paraelemental wanders through it.
Schlorp.
Radegesis: Someone spotlight something about this guy! I'm all out
Sadabus: Any time Sadabus says he's doing a D&D spell it's gonna be a Lesser Stunt.
Semegastes: It is at this point that Semegastes feels a `sensation of danger.`
Gailizia: Gailizia approaches them again, tearing off her blazer to reveal her full clownish regalia underneath.
"And if we fail we will pick up the pieces, time and time again."
She limns herself in the Vastness-of-All-the-World and the world bends as distance grows and the Vastness fills the sky around her, an imposition of awe and smallness.
“Rich with dice, and feast, and river-wine:"
She grows closer.
"Noble servant to the people of the void”
"I am Gailizia Fantastic, and where the world demands I break, where it demands I fail, where it will not let me be, I shall not be cowed."
`3 Fugue for Greater Spherecraft, +1 XP. Costumery and Lesser Intensity for free. Applying my Bond "I wish to alleviate the burden of this wrongful world"`
Radegesis: You might even say we've ‘walked into a dragon’s den`!
Gailizia: You're goddamn right!
Radegesis: I hate to throw another Fugue chip on top of that Fugue but :fuguechip:.
Gailizia: Oh, also the Spherecraft is effectively level 7, Since I spend 2 Cost and get four levels on the effect.
Semegastes: Oh, shit; you're still Wailing?
Gailizia: You Fucking Know It
Radegesis: Hasn't stopped yet!
Gailizia: I'm halfway through the quest to stop.
Elliott: The Strategist gestures, and Sadabus' elemental is unmade. It turns to face Gailizia now, and its Wailing eyes meet her own. There is a terrible shudder in the world, like the last note of a long symphony is dying in the air.
"Be Not," it says, and mud begins to dribble from the sides of its slack mouth; from the space beneath its fingernails; from where its eyes might have been if it had them; from the open wounds that cover its broken, gnarled form.
The being rises up upon a pillar of cyclonic muck, and its heart is a storm.
Radegesis: "Way ahead of you, pal. We already are. Er, aren't."
Elliott: `Greater Shattering, with a Greater Contagion levied at Gailizia as the mud of its forming monster-body creeps towards her from the ground.`
Gailizia: What's the intent of the Contagion?
Elliott: It is a curse of purification. It should be like a thousand blades of pure water that scour every imperfect thing from your body. But this… it's wrong.
It's Creational, rather than phantasmagoric.
It is a curse that will fill you up with the world's imperfect stuff, weigh you down with it, make you choke on the filth.
Radegesis: Creational? Dude, what the ~~fuck~~ is wrong with you?
Elliott: Clearly, demonstrably: most things.
Radegesis: Rad levies Gabrelt in front of her, cutting the stream of mud apart to splash on either side.
`Ignition`
Elliott: Can that contending against a 9?
Gailizia: Well, hold on a second…
`Something rips the wickedness from you or otherwise aggressively purifies you; or, you bleed for an enemy’s sake`
Radegesis: …"whhrglrgbrlgblbgl" as mud blasts around Gabrelt into Rad's face.
Gailizia: I am potentially down to be horrifically afflicted with purity, but in its stead I'm also quite down to devise a way for me to bleed.
Elliott: Preferences?
Radegesis: That dust attack earlier seemed flense-y.
Gailizia: Yeah, but I popped.
Doesn't really count, does it?
Radegesis: Shoot, right.
Gailizia: Didn't do it for them, either.
I like Rad jumping in because it's very true to her, but now I want to find a way to bleed.
What's up with Gabrelt right now?
Radegesis: Fortunately, Rad has jumped in and immediately just been blasted with mud.
Gabrelt's pissed I didnt pay for the Greater Ignition to cut my way out of this.
It's up to you and Sem, the wailyboys!
…and Sad, if he wants to blast Cost.
Semegastes: Semegastes is no longer Wailing.
That last quest cleared it.
Gailizia: Because Gabrelt getting pissy and doing something that ends in me getting stabbed by it because I'm still trying to help a maid fucker is very funny to me.
Radegesis: OOH!
Well, now…
I'm gonna have to check the Flore miracles to make it do that.
Gailizia: I Want Gabrelt And By Extension Rad To Stab Me. :utenarose:
Radegesis: …
[cool/flustered]
What's that a Greater… Ignition? Glorification?
To kind of let it fly free with its own will like that>
Gailizia: Hey, what if it murdered me?
Radegesis: Well, I think that would be a great way for me to take a Wound against violence.
Semegastes: Greater Guidance lets it move on its own.
Radegesis: Alrighty!
Gailizia: Hey, Elliott? I'd like to be murdered, because I'm committed to the bit.
Radegesis: Rad, honestly, isn't overthinking it. She thought cutting a stream of mud in half was a reasonable thing to do, and "reasonable" is maybe not a judgement call she should really make, but it didn't work. Egg on her face! A really muddy egg. But while she's kind of okay to take that lying down, someone else isn't. Something else.
Elliott: I…?
That's…
…a choice.
Radegesis: Yes, just want to doublecheck that this is a consensual murder for everyone here.
Well, the murder isn't for everyone, just the consent.
Elliott: So, what's Gailizia's motivation here?
Gailizia: I think Gabrelt wants to murder this Strategist.
I think Gailizia doesn't want that, because she's upholding her Bond and general stance against murder.
I can get 5 XP for bleeding for this fucker.
Also we have yet to do anything in Ninuan.
Also I'm a dramatic and messy bitch.
Elliott: :thumbsup:
So: :spotcreation:
Radegesis: Wings of phantasmagorical fire slice out through the torrent of mud. A halo blasts into life at the head of the spear. Gabrelt, Angel Which is Cruelty, demands blood. With a Greater Glorification, spending one Immersion to bring the level up to 9, it lances out — such was the fire that fell on the dinosaurs. Such was the fire of the sword that guards Eden. Such was the fire that Radegesis Ichneumon wielded when she rode for the Host, and slew things that were full of light and love. Such is the fire that lances through Gailizia's own core, without the courtesy to cauterize, and into this unknown Strategist's corpus.
From behind! Hath Cruelty no chivalry?
Shame I already compromised a core principle, or that'd count. But: the flame blossoming from Gabrelt's tip, the blood blossoming from Gailizia's skin, the blastwave that scorches a whole new crop circle into the dust.
Elliott: And then, Gailizia:
:spotcreation:
Gailizia: It hurts.
Oh, god, does it hurt.
Time is an endless cascade of moments, and Gailizia knows the trick of slipping in, confusing and moving them so she's never quite late, but the iron rule she must abide by with this small miracle:
What's happened, happened.
True to its name, an angel can not decline beauty. True to its name, it is cruelty that blossoms into flowers of burning fire and pain across her. Her Infection is pernicious, and a cruel angel could not refuse such an opportunity.
She cannot undo what is done, so she reaches out intead, and takes a hold of that current of moment following moment, and then—
skips
a beat.
The Interstice Sublime, a moment of bliss, of lost time, of the possibility of happiness, intercedes-
-and she is on her knees, burning, bleeding, crying, the unfurling Strategist before them free of Gabrelt's flames.
"I was serious," she says quietly. "Please don't kill the people we meet."
"Radikas… I don't blame you."
:spotreckoning: how do people respond?
‘`I’m invoking Greater Agony for free, and spending 4 Fugue for Greater Spherecraft with an effective level 11, which gives me 1 XP. I also get 5 XP for bleeding for an enemy. Perfect Timing, of course, is automatic.`` :fuguechip:
Semegastes: "…can I get an f in the chat, folks?"
:turnback:
Radegesis: "Fuck!"
She hurls Gabrelt into the ground, point first — murder the fucking ground if you want to, asshole. She rushes to hold Gailizia and, she guesses, this other guy who also didn't necessarily deserve to die.
"Gai, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You too, dirt boy. I'm sorry, okay? I promise. Never again."
Serious Fugue Wound: I will not shed blood.
Elliott: The Strategist — or the ruins of one, at least — recoils. Is this recognition, or rote instinct? Does it sense the sincerity of Gailizia's act, or simply respond to stimulus like a cornered animal? Whatever the motive, it seeps away; it sinks down into the ground until there is nothing of it left.
Chapter, 2 XP
What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far-far-away?What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
Far-far-away.What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far-far-away?A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far-far-away?Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
Far-far-away?What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
Far-far-away?—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
What is it Gailizia sees, when she wakes back in the True Land?
Gailizia: She is on her back when she wakes up, and she stares into the distance, looking at nothing at all save herself, a head full of static.
She turns her head and looks the other way, and thinks of the little smile that Annalee makes when a bit is finally too much and she begins to laugh.
How beautiful, she thinks for timeless time.
She pushes herself up, mud dripping from her, and finally begins to see. There is the silvered tug of wind against her skin, and the impression of grasses and their songs brushing against her. Not her Sanctuary, but somewhere calm, as she sees it.
+1 xp, the work is never finished
Elliott: Gailizia, there's something you should know.
Something about Perfect Timing.
Gailizia: Yes?
Elliott: Sometimes, other people have it, too. And sometimes, even the most perfect of timing can't put you in two places at once.
It takes you a moment to feel the throb of it; it is distant and strange, like a sound heard through water. But in the moment you cut from existence, something else happened.
Scalbrand screamed.
If you tug at the slim cord that ties you to them, you feel a flutter of relief. They are fine. They are unharmed.
But that is a surface analysis. A recognition, a glance. And as you dwell upon the essence you have intermixed with their own, you realize: Scalbrand is not alright. Scalbrand is alive, and Scalbrand is well, but Scalbrand is in exquisite pain. You might follow the thread then, from you to Scalbrand and Scalbrand to Uul, and find static on that final line. The agony of wholeness, newly discovered and rudely stolen.
Semegastes, what do you do here in the lands behind the Cup of Fire?
The Strategist is gone; Gailizia is gone.
To your left, Wendell is helping Jupiter down from the tree. There's something strangely protective in his bearing, something simultaneously kind and fierce.
Semegastes: Semegastes is getting down in the mud the Monstergist disappeared into, licking at it to pick up hints of trace Ninuanni elements resonant to the microvibrations of heartbreak that compose their Sphere, trying to get a handle on what exactly just happened.
[Greater Investigation]
Elliott: In the silvered lands, however…well. All is beauty. All is grandeur. The tree stretch out; the shores are warm. The air smells of fruit blossoms and clear streams, the good cold of early spring.
What does Gailizia do here, surrounded by bliss and yet burdened by this new and terrible knowledge?
Hmmm. Can you clarify what you're looking for with this Investigation, V?
Semegastes: Basic information on what this guy's deal is.
Gailizia: She finally gets to her feet, sighing, whispering "I'm coming," into the emptiness that stands between the two of them.
She looks to the not-waters, and she looks to the silvered not-trees. She plucks a flower and tucks it into her hat.
:spotdecisive: She begins her journey home.
Elliott: You know how when you enter a Zelda boss, it gives their name and a weird title?
Semegastes: Yeah.
Elliott: You get an absolutely bugged out version of that, with their name and luthe written in apocalyptic chickenscratch. Inscribed over that knowledge is the sensation of not a name, but a title: The Custodian. They are of Ninuan. They are of Creation. They are of the combination of Ninuan and Creation.
:fuguechip:
Semegastes: Could I get any sense as to whether there's any connection between The Custodian and CALAMITY QUELLED?
Possibly with a :spotreckoning:?
Elliott: Gailizia passes by the wild fauna of this shore: Hope-crabs scuttle across the smooth pebbles, while a crane whose wings are song and sunlight dips its beak into a pool and draws out some gleaming prize.
They are of…decidedly similar nature. The thing is: CALAMITY QUELLED felt… controlled. Balanced. The Custodian? Not so much. The Custodian was wrong in ways you didn't think possible; wrong in ways offensive to both the Is and the Not. CALAMITY QUELLED was something different; if you had to pin a word to the music of that blade, it might be Reconciliation?
Who, among the Host, might Gailizia least like to see on this path?
Gailizia: Oh, now you want an ex. :fuguechip:
Radegesis: A full like ten minutes later, "Hey. Sem. Are you licking the mud?"
Semegastes: "It's not the mud, it's what's in the mud."
"That guy was some kind of… really, profoundly fucked up guy."
"I think we should go poke at the magical key thing inside of Uul and see if we can figure out anything about that guy."
"Err. Inside of… Uul and Scalbrand. Scuulbrand? Scalbruu? What are we calling it?"
Radegesis: "…sure. Good a plan as any. Hope Scuulbrand are doing alright."
"Oh. That, I guess."
Were Rad in higher spirits, she could make a joke about a cocktail named Scalbruu. Alas!
Semegastes: Back to the station!
Radegesis: [Batman transition noise plays]
Elliott: Descend down far enough into the flesh-cathedral that is Uugaruu, and you hear the weeping. The screaming. Further and further down the Yellow Brick Throat (no convenient trains this time) until you reach the nexus of its being and find Scalbrand alone, cradling a scrap of inert plasm in their cupped hands.
Semegastes: "Shit, what's wrong, buddy?"
Gailizia: Prasliva Tycho. Deceiver, great dancer, beautiful laugh, ex. pState of the Radical Manifestos that Prasliva Tycho Publishes. They ran a print shop together once upon a time.
Semegastes: ‘`Empathy Stunt, backed by my Bond of intertwined destiny, to try and figure out what’s happened.``
Radegesis: "Oh, ~~fuck~~ me, can one thing not go horribly wrong today?"
Elliott: Oh, Gailizia. Oh dear, sweet clown.
It's grace which greets you where the streams of Ninnuan narrow enough to cross. Someone leaps from stone to stone, every move a pirouette. They waltz with themselves and with the stuff of the Not: The blushing-pink winds play partner when they lead. Across the stream, they've left a pile of books, strewn open with picturesque perfection. And they turn their head towards you as only a dancer can, every movement crisp and exact and thruming with intention.
"Oh, my Fantastic little darling. Whatever have they done to you?" :fuguechip:
Semegastes is able to navigate Scalbrand somewhere adjacent to Chill; their voice is still a newborn rasp, but the resonance of their feelings is quick to close the gaps. The stranger came, and ripped Uul from both Scalbrand and Uugaruu. You can see it now: The ripped and scabbing ganglia where Uul once infected the Imperator. The stranger pulled Uul apart, took something from inside, and then folded Uul within their arms, like a quartered blanket. And they left.
Semegastes: …
Radegesis: "Mother~~fucker~~."
Semegastes: [Wailing] :sememote: Let's start a Strategy to fix this.
Gailizia: "Oh, Praslin—Prasliva. Just figured I'd die for the sake of a bit."
She gently, unconsciously, touches against the texture of a faint scar where Galbrant pierced her.
"Visit home, smell the roses, all that."
Semegastes: I think my plan involves using the lingering traces of Semegastes encasing the key as a homing beacon to find this motherfucker, and then returning the key to heal Scalbrand and Uul, possibly using heaping helpings of Semegastes as glue.
The livestream is going wild with the :infectionchamp: emoji.
Elliott: "Visit?" they ask, and their voice contains so many things like longing and sadness and frustration and pity. "You don't need to visit home, Lizia. You could come home, you know, well and truly."
So, Semegastes has the stuff of a Strategy now. This is a viable method. Are you relying on Ability to move towards the next step here, or Lore, or something else entirely?
Semegastes: Sensing myself feels like Eide to me.
Gailizia: Gailin puts a hand to her face, not wanting to have this argument again.
"Prasliva, I could no more do that than you could let lie the Lie. You know that."
Radegesis: I could see Lore too.
Gailizia: Lore makes sense to me since it's dead-you.
Elliott: "Do you know me so well?" Prasliva asks, crossing to Gailizia in an instant until their breath is so near and so warm. In the cold of the morning, it fogs with effort, or hope, or both.
"You don't have to fight it, if you don't want. I'm sorry, you know," and they cast down a glance, their eyelashes flourishing. "But you could come back. Be back. I won't press you to take the sword and bridle. No one will. But you are missed, my Lizia. We are dimmer without you; our stars less clear and lustrous. What if, Gailizia? Aren't those wonderful words?"
Prasliva will take your hand, if you allow it.
"What if?"
Decisions, Semegastes?
Semegastes: Lore seems to take the day.
Elliott: Do the thing!
Semegastes: There's not really a good specific sense-dead-parts-of-you miracle, I was figuring, just… Strategy.
Gailizia: When in doubt, Investigation!
Semegastes: Sure.
Greater Investigation, where's the key?
Elliott: The monkey's paw answer is: With the stranger. The more miraculous and holistic answer is: With the stranger, probably on their farm on the outskirts of Kolme County.
Radegesis: "Aw for the love of— alright, back in the van,"
Semegastes: "No, fuck that."
Navigation
And since I need to speed it up, I'll :spotreckoning: what Semegastes is doing, which is permeating the stone corpses that encircle the key, twisting and warping them into a portal that will swing open through space.
Radegesis: "Oh, yeah, way better." Way better to be out from between these walls of warm, pulsing, yielding flesh.
Elliott: The stones come undone. They spin. They glow. Chevrons are probably locking into place. The Chancery pass through this portal and step between bright green cabbages. Before them is a small home, wooden and battered. The stranger is seated on a swing on the patio. There's a little card table set up with a few glasses of iced tea, and he has CALAMITY QUELLED laying in his lap, its blade wrapped in a fold of thick leather.
Semegastes: Semegastes destroys the iced tea from inside the glasses with a lazy gesture, wanting to impress upon Farmegist that they are Wailing.
Radegesis: "They're serious about this, by the way."
Elliott: "That's fair," they say.
Radegesis: God. This ~~fucking~~ sucks without Gai to therapist at people.
Phantasmagorical!
Elliott: "But if you want any more tea, it's going to be hot. Pitcher's basically empty."
Semegastes: "I do not want any more tea. I want answers."
Radegesis: "I'll show you hot," Rad snarls, and visibly restrains herself. Very hold-me-back-hold-me-back.
Elliott: "Yeah, I thought you would," they say, and there's no rancor in their voice or their bearing, only a weary duty.
Semegastes: Let's go ahead and Destroy any reticence they might have to be forthcoming and helpfully complete with their answers.
Elliott: "The angel isn't dead, for starters."
Radegesis: While I bring an [Intensity] from the other end.
Semegastes: "So what."
Elliott: The stranger makes a small motion with their fingers, and Semegastes finds their own Destruction not only unmade, but excised.
"I'm not going to play cryptic with you, Semegastes. There's a lot you all should know. Deserve to know. But let's holster the six-shooters, right?"
Gailizia: Gailizia allows it, and takes her other hand with her own. She rests her forehead against Prasliva's. Her words are quiet, intimate.
"If I could stay… I would be so happy, for a time. But my infection would creep back in, and I could never be satisfied as it itched at me, the awareness of that wrongness that's inherent to my Wyrd. That there is a world, and that that world is wrong, and that even in silvered Ninuan it creeps into my life. And that—"
Her voice catches.
"—that I would have left people behind."
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
"They are wonderful words. So is the feeling of someone you love besides you in the morning. Of seeing motes of beauty in the wrongness."
She brings their hands together and presses them against her chest.
"I'm sorry, Praslin. I'm so sorry."
+1 XP, the work is never done
Radegesis: "Cute. You wanna talk, then talk. We've had a long day, and it only promises to get longer."
the work is never done
Radegesis: (I know we don't get any more XP for that but the mirror is fun.)
Semegastes: "You've grievously wounded, tortured, something that one of my closest friends cares dearly about. I'll stay my Hand for now, but you'd best hope that you have an exceedingly reasonable explanation, and that we end this conversation with the key back in my hands."
Elliott: "I could rearrange the stars for you," Prasliva whispers. "Just reach up and pluck them and set them down into the shape of your smile. But that's not going to be enough, is it?"
They look up, then from side to side. "What do you see here, when you look? It's so gauzy to me, so vague. You can see our home, and even then… you'd choose the cattails. I don't blame you, Lizia. But I also don't understand."
There's a long, pleasant silence, and Prasliva bends to the river, takes one of their books, and presses it into Gailizia's hands.
"For the road. To entertain you on the way, and maybe one day, you can return it?"
The stranger sighs. "Let's start with the most important parts, then. The ruined angel isn't dead. It also isn't in pain. I regret that I had to take such drastic measures, but one of them had to be sealed away. Of the two, the Actual seemed the more deserving. The pain it feels… I regret that. Deeply. I understand it. But the pain of what it was becoming? You can't imagine. Not just the danger it would pose to you and to me and to this whole place, but to the Worlds and to itself."
Semegastes: "What gives you the right." :sememote:
Elliott: "Fucks almighty. What gave you the right to make a person out of a pillar? What gave you the right to butcher an angel? What gave you the right to stand here, in a world that isn't yours? What gives any of us the right to exist? I'll answer every question you ask me, but I won't abide sanctimony. Not with all the bleak fucking service I've rendered to this World since before you ever thought of hanging up your stirrups, Rider."
Gailizia: Gailizia has a small smile as she accepts the book.
"I'd like that very much."
She soaks in the silence for a little longer.
"I see a stream, and the stepping stones across it, and the blushing wind, and someone I love dancing with and alongside it."
"Maybe one day I'll figure out a way and come back. In the meanwhile-" she holds up the book- "this is a promise."
:spotdecisive: She leaves Prasliva, taking her gift and making her a promise. :fuguechip:
Semegastes: "Cowboy, not less than a hour ago, you decided that some nebulous threat was so important that you had to go and maim something alive and becoming and beautiful. I'm not talking ancient sins, I'm talking the choices you are making right now. But fine, no sanctimony. Let's cut down to pure pragmatism. Explain what, exactly, made this dismemberment necessary." There's a pause, as Semegastes considers striking the cabbages from the fields, nullifying the richness of the earth so that no thing might grow there, but they burn the impulse from their mind. There's no allowance for distractions, here.
Elliott: "They were becoming an Emissary."
Radegesis: "Ooh, ~~shit~~, did you capitalize that? Now I'm scared."
Semegastes: "Was that thing we dealt with earlier also an Emissary?"
"Feather duster, mud, strange alchemical marriage of Creation and Ninuan?"
Elliott: "It was. Or rather: It was a very early, accidental, disastrous attempt. I can't tell you the Custodian's name anymore. Their soul's poem is written in mangled sounds. But I knew when it started to stir — and the others, too — that something had gone wrong. I will admit, with great regret, that I sent you on the way to help your godling friend knowing quite well that you'd be taking care of something that ought rightly have been my work. But I'm old and I'm tired, and I needed the time you might buy me. So I went in while you went out, and I excised the tumor from Uugaruu's body before it could fuse with the Actual. Before the transformation could really start, while there was still time to save them both."
Semegastes: "Save them from what? If the Custodian was a disastrous attempt, then surely there has to be a way to be a way to ensure that Scalbrand and Uul didn't end up like that, so what's the problem, old timer? What's there to say that an Emissary, whatever that is, can't just… be?"
Elliott: "Gaidel," they say. "Gaidel Bybreith."
You realize that this is their name… and also, the preamble to something else. They lean forward in the swing, hands folded protectively over CALAMITY QUELLED.
"Do you know what this place is?"
It's honest. They want to know.
Semegastes: About fifteen seconds later, the Technical Kids, who're listening remotely, pick up on the "godling friend" bit. "Jupiter?"
"Just that it's a farm, out on the outskirts. Haven't visited before."
Radegesis: :spotcreation: on this, BTW, not that he really needs the encouragement.
Just, i forgot that the term for "i am paying attention" is :spotattention:.
Elliott: Gaidel nods to the Kids. "The same."
Then, to Semegastes… well, they take in a very long breath:
"This place is called the Wracking Shore. It's where the floatsam of the War ends up, the jagged little bits and fleshy chunks. Back at the start of hostilities, both sides discovered that if you let the debris pile too high, it started to get toxic to the Is and the Not. They were mutually mutinous. So they found this place, and they found Uugaruu, and they made his music and his Hunger into a current, to drag all the detritus here. This is the great boneyard of the Valde Bellum. Why do you think the Chanceries always end up here? You wash out of the war and you end up caught in that same eddy."
Radegesis: "So… what, you're talling me this is where midlife crises go to die? Didn't have to get all cryptic about it. And what're the Emissaries for?"
Elliott: "The Emissaries aren't for anything. They're not part of anyone's plan. They're a consequence of this place. The process of picking the debris out, sorting it, putting the Is with the Is and the Not with the Not… it's called the Reconcilliation. It's supposed to be a truce that gives both sides a chance to reclaim what they've lost before it putrefies into something that'd harm us both. An Emissary is something that tries to stand in the middle of that process. Tries to be of Creation and the Not. But they always go toxic. They are internally inconsistent. And no matter how good the intentions are that go into their making, they always, always, always end up wrecking the world where they pass."
"Well, I tell a lie."
"The first Emissary was part of a plan. A fucking bad one by a shitass little badger."
Radegesis: Oh, man. Rad clenches a fist. Right now is a really, really good time to have something to be angry at.
Semegastes: "And CALAMITY QUELLED over there ended up inside Uul as part of that Reconciliation? And that's the reason Uul was growing on Uugaruu to begin with?"
Radegesis: Oh, man. Rad clenches a fist. Right now is a really, really good time to have something to be angry at.
"Also, want it on the record this 'never the twain shall meet' shit, I think that's bull, but."
Elliott: "A… let's call her a former associate put CALAMITY QUELLED there. She thought it would make for safe keeping. Didn't think anyone would look there, and Uul's form… kept it isolated, if you catch my meaning. I didn't know where she'd put it until you wrapped it up in something I could catch the scent of."
Radegesis: "Hey. Question number two. Noble of Hunger, called the Maw, real ~~fucked~~ up. That sound like this Emissary ~~shit~~?"
Elliott: "Maw's just fucked up as far as I can tell. Uul wasn't a kind taskmaster. So not an Emissary, no."
Semegastes: "I can't believe you're right."
"Emissaries always go bad? How can anyone possibly know that for sure? CALAMITY QUELLED is between the Is and the Not, so are we also going to say it's some eschatologically toxic disaster?"
"Maybe you have good intentions, maybe you didn't mutilate a practical child for no good reason at all, but you're not infallible. And I trust Gailizia's handiwork much more than I trust you."
Elliott: "Semegastes, if you waved your Hand, what would happen?"
Radegesis: "Someone would shut up for once in this stupid life?"
Semegastes: "I pride myself on precision, even in these extremes. Maybe I'd just burn an 'S' into that awful coat of yours."
Radegesis: "Oh, the cool S. Do it do it do it."
Elliott: "You know, this is actually a bad example, because the real answer right now is: Nothing. But any other time, against anyone else? You know what happens."
Semegastes: "It's a shame I can't just destroy all the rambling between here and you actually getting to the point."
Elliott: "The point is that I know enough of what will happen because it's what happened. And when an Emissary blossoms, shit gets bad fast. Thousands die before anyone can bat an eye. Centuries of pain get burned into the fundament and firmament like salt rubbed into the earth. If I hadn't acted now… well, fair money says that sometime in the next few days, you'd have woken up to corpses. All of the folks here. The kids," they say with a gesture towards the Technical Kids. "The young. The old. The wise and the bold. Parents putting skin on their newborns for the first time. And it would hurt like nothing you've ever seen. And then the real badness would begin."
"It's not right that I should choose who lives free and who dies in shackles. But perfect isn't always possible, Semegastes. Sometimes, the choices fucking suck, one and all."
Semegastes: "So we should just take you at your word, because what's happened in the past is the only possible thing that can happen?"
"No."
Radegesis: "Thank ~~fucking~~ god you're here to make all the hard choices for us."
Semegastes: "Maybe the choices suck, but you aren't making them for me."
"Respectfully, give me back CALAMITY QUELLED, and leave me and mine alone."
Elliott: "No," he says. "I'm making them for the shadow of someone you maimed and a fledgling almost-person."
"And I can't give you the key."
Semegastes: "Can't, or won't?"
Elliott: "Won't."
Radegesis: "Don't make this messy, old man."
Semegastes: "I'm sure there's a very, very convincing reason why only you are wise enough to have the magic key. But I don't care to listen to it. If we can't talk this out, you know where this goes."
Elliott: "And you're wise enough? You don't know what it opens. You don't know how this whole place works. You don't know anything except the fact that you think that because you've given up the War, that makes you the sole arbiters of virtue. Well, preach to someone else. I was Chancery while you were still executing Magisters."
Radegesis: "Yeah. Now all you execute is kids."
Semegastes: "I won't make any claim to virtue. I'm just an e-celebrity."
Elliott: "I haven't executed anygoddamnone."
Semegastes: "But this key can heal Scalbrand and Uul, and I know how much blood I'm willing to shed to take it back."
Elliott: "It can't," Gaidel says. "I'm sorry."
They mean it. The key can't heal them.
Semegastes: Not even for a Strategy snack?
Gailizia: Get the body back.
Semegastes: "Then we'll find another way, and if you come for us again I'll go out fighting. Maybe I'm not wise, maybe I'm a fool and a moron, but how else is a Strategist of the Host supposed to have any hope for the world?"
Elliott: This would be an Epic Strategy, and even then have incomplete, temporary, or costly results/consequences.
"Will that give you pleasure, Semegastes Sarcocystidae? Being right, even when it costs you the world?"
Semegastes: "If I'm right, it won't cost us the world."
Elliott: "That kind of hubris killed my Chancery. It guts me to watch it happen to the third."
Semegastes: "You could help, you know. I'm sure you've been around long enough to see plenty of Emissaries, and hopefully you've been writing things down. Maybe if we see what went wrong in the past, we can figure out a way to do it better."
"Would a pocket realm work? A dead world somewhere on the Ash? Out past the end of time? I don't know, but I bet you could help cross off some of the wrong answers."
Elliott: "I told you: I'm not here to be cryptic. You want to know what I know? Come and ask. Have a glass of tea without unmaking it. I'll tell it all, true and straight, but I won't help you until you bring me something that'll work."
He listens to Seme's first thoughts, but count off a few objections on his fingers: "First one always seeps back out; Emissaries are Riders even by the standards of Riders, and there's nowhere they can't go if they've got a mind to. Time… well, same problem."
Semegastes: "…is it something they do on purpose? The way you'd said it, the death and destruction sounded like an involuntary reflex."
Elliott: "A little of both. Sometimes they don't mean what they do. But that's the thing about this Cant, Semegastes: They want, so badly, to make two irreconcilable things into one. And it always ends with ash, poison, and dead folks."
- Elliot motions for a close, unless there are last thoughts.
- Elliot lets the curtain drop on the image of Semegastes making postulates.