[Actual Play] Everway : Long Road Home [Archive]

DaveB

10-20-2004, 01:57 PM

CONTEXT - THE PREVIOUS CAMPAIGN

Realmforge was adapted from a campaign I'd had in my mind since about 1996. Adapted because I'd already gutted all but the central device of that campaign for a game of Exalted.

I told my players to go away and create six characters for Everway, but to do so in an odd way - they were to provide the rough personalities of their character, their appearance, stats and abilities but NOTHING else. No name, no background. Those, I would provide.

The characters woke up in a wizard's tower, in the wilderness of a fog-bound Sphere, the wizard dead (murdered) and themselves having had their memories erased. They were dressed in servant's clothes, but evidence in the Tower suggested otherwise - clothes that fit them, and a stash of equipment, were found in a locked room. Setting out to try to get help, they stumbled across a Gate and began their adventures.

It had a flashback system much as I've described for Long Road Home, with the exception being that the flashbacks occured when the characters slept, not when they went through Gates. The characters started with a map of all of the spheres (an A2 poster I made, with lots of dots and lines on it marking the routes), and quickly started to plan journeys.

The bad guy for the Campaign was Legion, an armour-clad amalgamation of all of them (like in the Red Dwarf episode) that their past selves had created. He also had copies of their memories stored within them. It quickly became apparant that their previous selves were not nice people - in fact, they were the supervillains of the spheres, and had been bent on universe-domination when their plan went wrong and they fled to a world where they were double-crossed and mind-wiped.

The setting included all of the worlds from the Everway player's guide, along with 75 more (for a total of 150) that I made up. The setting is twisted - the main change from the published game, and one which carries over to LRH, is that there's only one Realm per Sphere (I use the terms interchangably), and the average number of Gates is three. This is purely to make creating a network easier.

At the end of the campaign, the characters succeeded in getting into the Realmforge - a not-Sphere "in" the Moon accessed by tracing a complicated path in the Everways, "drawing" a symbol into the Astral paths by moving through worlds in a specific way. Realmforge has a wish-granting engine inside, and can control Astral Paths and Gateways.

The characters (and their endings) were:

FAVOURED SON - Demigod son of the Goddess of Chaos and Destruction, Favoured was cursed to live in interesting times. The universe believed him to be the hero of an epic story, and warped chance and fate around him to provide a suitable backdrop. If he entered a bar, a fight would start. If he walked past a dark alley, someone would be being kidnapped down it. If he had to get somewhere before something happened, he would arrive always "in the nick of time", no sooner and no later. Anyone he slept with suffered a hideous death. Ninjas would occassionally attack him for no reason. The only "up" side to being him was his nigh-on invunerability. Favoured regenerated any wound he took instantly unless his body was utterly obliterated. In the backstory, Favoured was waging a private war against his mother-goddess. In the end of the campaign, he took up this quest again and struck a massive blow against her by turning himself into a god to rival her. Thanks to his virality and regenerative force, he became the God of Life.

ASCENDING STAR OF THE MORNING (aka EXILE) - once the high mage of a Sphere called Crystal, Exile was granted immortality by it's centerpiece, a giant magical gem with life-giving properties. When a civil war caused the death of his wife, he smashed said gem, turning his entire world and all it's inhabitants to dust. That was a thousand years ago. In the meantime, Exile has been researching how to bring his people back - studying the undead in particular and becoming Pharoah of an Egyptian-styled Sphere where the Undead are treated as nobility. He needed the Realmforge to restore his world, but also needed the souls of all of his people (long since reincarnated) - he'd tried to collect them over the course of centuries by means of a casket that sucked them in when their more recent host died, rather than go around tracking hundreds of people down and murdering them, but his Wife's soul ended up in Shadow, another PC - and besides, she'd died before he destroyed the Sphere. In the end of the campaign, he got his wish and restored his realm (minus his wife), marrying Shadow and settling back down to the home life he'd been an evil overlord for a millenia in order to recover.

SHADOW - A Vampire, and Exile's bodyguard. Shadow was in love with Exile but eventually discovered he only kept her around because she was needed for the opening of the Realmforge portol. She therefore betrayed him to the others, causing the party's amnesiac downfall. In the end, she wished for "a happy ending" and was turned human, marrying Exile and settling down on Crystal.

AURA - An illusionist and thief, Aura was the daughter of the Baron of a world called Dragonmount. Her parents were killed by her uncle and she ran away, becoming first a street thief and then a circus performer, where she met Vagabond and Rockarm, her partners in crime. She was hired - then enslaved - by the others in order to recover the items they needed to get to Realmforge, but she released Legion by infecting him with her resentment at her treatment, which caused him to rebel. In the end of the campaign, Aura (who had killed her uncle by now) wished for good luck to follow her and her family, recieved immortality from the Crystal on Exile's homeworld and went home, becoming Baroness.

FIRE PLUME - A Shapeshifter (she could turn into any bird, but her matt red hair always carried as a "tell", hence her name) from the sphere of Shift, Fire Plume's home was invaded by the war between Gaunt's people and another sphere, and she was forced to flee in a refugee column which was captured and enslaved. Seperated from her daughter, Sparrow, and sold (after several intermediaries) to Aura, she went mad with grief and a long period of being forced to remain in bird form. Aura tried to restore her to sanity, but the methods were harsh and Fire Plume hated her - when the oppertunity came to get revenge and sell Aura out to the others, she jumped at it. At the end of the campaign, she rescued her daughter, used the Realmforge to move her homeworld in the Gate network to save it from it's neighbour's conflict and - wanting to prevent anything like that happening to anyone else - followed Favoured into Godhood, becoming the Goddess of Hope and Lost Causes.

GAUNT - A tree-man (he was a humanoid plant. Seriously), Gaunt was cast out of his homeworld and branded with the symbol of a pheonix for attempting the heresy of creating new intelligent life. His people had been at war with another world (using Fire Plume's home as a battleground) for centuries, and he wanted to stop it. Secretly, he was the other Demigod of the Goddess of Chaos and Destruction - fitting the Destruction part. He masterminded the attemmpt at getting Realmforge, intending to destroy all of the Everways, ending all war with a single stroke. In the end of the campaign, he wished "to fit in" and became human, retiring quietly as a farmer on the empty world that lay beyond Crystal.

NPCS that need explaining

STRABO - The Dragon of Dragonmount, enemy and - later - ally of the character party, Strabo is resident on Aura's homeworld and has odd, secret goals that were never explained in the campaign. He will be important in Long Road Home.

VAGABOND - A Goblin, and one of Aura's gang of thieves (he had an odd relationship to Aura based on his loving her from afar), Vagabond was killed in the later stages of the campaign and - as Favoured's first act upon apotheosis - ressurrected as a Human. He had many on-off affairs with Aura, and went back to wandering the worlds.

ROCKARM - Circus strongman, and Vagabond's best friend. Rockarm was instrumental in the victory at the end of the campaign, and recieved his own wish to "be smart" - his brainpower expanding to as superhuman levels as his Incredible Hulk-like body. He became a scholar on the university-world of Collegium.

DaveB

10-20-2004, 01:58 PM

THE THEORY OF SEQUEL DESIGN

So. Best campaign I ever ran, was Realmforge. How to do the same thing, but different?

Happily, noone could use Realmforge again. The artefacts needed for entry had been left inside, and Gods are barred from entering, so it would be essentially a nonissue in any sequel.

We knew we wanted the memory flashbacks again (they had been the highlight of the game, in players' feedback). We knew we didn't want to go the "you're the bad guys!" route again. I knew that my biggest regret from the previous campaign was giving them the realm map at the start - it kind of took the mystery out. We knew we wanted a "second generation" feel.

So, the idea was mooted to do a linear quest rather than the round-trip of the previous campaign. The realm map (which would be bigger! yes, BIGGER! Mwuh-mwuh-ha!) would be kept secret from the players, who'd have to figure out their route through investigation, luck and clues in the flashbacks.

I had the idea after remembering the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's plot of having a group of teenaged characters wake up in adult bodies, having missed their early twenties. This gave more control over their character's backstories than in the previous game - the first part of their backgrounds would be written by them, so they could create "proper" characters - and still gave me ample room for crafting a backstory. From there, I leapt to the "Journey home" structure of the campaign, and the rest flowed easily.

As for the characters themselves, it was odd - originally, everyone was mooting true "next generation" pcs that would literally be the children of previous ones. People were intending to play, at one stage or another, the son of a Sphere Lord that had turned up as an NPC in the old game, Aura and Vagabond's son, Aura and Strabo's son, Gaunt's daughter, Shadow and Exile's twin children... the list went on.

In the end, though, these dropped off - the final character party features only two such characters (the NPC's son and the child of Aura, Vagabond AND Strabo, the latter being a case of "why do one character concept when you can easily do two?") Andy (he who played Exile, and lover of weird characters - he managed to play a Simil in A|State for a while) decided he was going to play a true child - 12 years old in "up" time. THAT neccessitated writing a complete background for him, as the other characters picked him up during the missing backplot. So he was created like the pcs for the first campaign, while the others stuck to the "written up to late teens" method.

Here's the document that I sent out to the gang, two and a half months ago:

“This here is to get yous all thinking, and to put necessary limits on yo “creativity” before you get disappointed when I don’t turn out to want a particular character.

RULES

You remember (hopefully) Everway’s system – 5 Stats plus Powers make up a character, with 2-4 being the normal human range for a stat and 3-8 being player character range. The stats are the four elements plus “magic”, which is a holding area for people to design “mage” characters. Because we have 5 players, we’ll do this round-ways – each of you pick one of the stats, which you’re allowed to have above 6. The others of you have a max of 6 in the stats that aren’t your specialty. This will enforce character niches. However, as I don’t want this to be a rerun, Chris cannot pick Fire. Emma cannot pick Water. Renaud cannot pick Earth, Andrea cannot pick Fire and Andy cannot pick Magic or Air. So there.

Powers are costed according to whether they are Major (meaning they alter the character’s ability to act on situations to the point I have to account for it in plot), Frequent (will happen in every session) or Versatile (do many things). Especially hard powers may be “twice Major” or “twice Frequent” or “twice Versatile” – being unkillable is Major, being utterly unharmable is twice Major. Being able to shapeshift into different birds is versatile, being a total freeform polymorph is both twice major and twice versatile (and in fact is frequent as well, making it the only 5 point power I can think of). Costs can be lowered by restrictions and drawbacks.

Examples drawn from what you guys have already thrown around…

Having wings that allow the character to fly is 2 points (major & frequent)

Having the ability to make those wings vanish when you’re not using them is a 0 point power

Being Immune to Magic is 2 points (major and frequent)

Being immune to cast spells is 1 point (major, but doesn’t actually happen that often in Everway)

Being immune to cast spells cast by those younger than you when you’re aged 15 is 0 points (so unlikely that I’d probably have to deliberately plot to show that you even have the power)

Having telekinesis to the extent that memory-Exile had, flying and all, is 3 points (Major, Versatile and Frequent)

Characters will be created with 20 points. Flashbacks will probably feature powers you don’t have – because the “experience” has been lost. The xp system will work different to Everway 1s – a decreasing curve. You will get one xp at the end of game sessions 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21 and so on.

Right. The campaign background…

Everway 2 is intended to be a straight journey rather than the old game’s round trip around the core worlds. The campaign is based around the idea of five people being selected for a heroic quest into uncharted spheres, and losing their memories of the entire quest (but not their lives before it) as they get the thing they were questing for. So we’re going to see a group of teenagers and young adults leave Crystal through the Unknown Gate, and then cut immediately to those characters five or six years older, holding the artefact of plot and wondering how they’re going to get home. The memory flashbacks will be of the outbound journey, so for the majority of the campaign you’ll be retracing your own steps and dealing with events that you’ve set in motion and then forgotten about. Because of the way gates work time-lag wise, you’ll be “reappearing” on worlds after a gap of one or two months at the start of the game and several years (maybe even decades) towards the campaign’s conclusion. Cool, huh?

The worlds in Everway 2 are more numerous (200 to Everway 1’s 120, and unlike Everway 1 the majority of them will be featured – because Everway 2 is a linear journey with the opportunity for side quests, it’s sphere map is laid out as a long strip rather than a big square block) and more... fantastical… than Everway 1’s. Odd worlds where the laws of reality are different (the equivalents of Slate, Shift and Firesky) are the norms, while places that could be dropped into other games as parts of their world (like Overguard, Market and Broken Axe) are now the exception. The worlds lack the unifying force of the Empire and are older than in Everway 1 – The nearer to the end of the quest (and therefore the start of the campaign), the more the universe’s bones start showing through. On average, the first worlds you see IC will be more fundamental and prototypical than the ones nearer to the end.

So, for characters I need a group of five people who would have been picked by the previous character party as their successors – five people who form a cohesive team (in the memory flashbacks at least - many of you won’t have met before leaving on the quest) and whose skills complement one another. Because many of the worlds in Everway 2 are uninhabited, and even then the nature of the journey makes Reoccurring NPCs impossible unless they travel with you or make very precise side trips, the party must be able to interact with one another the majority of the time and stick together – Lone Wolves will be rendered unable to catch up to the others by the nature of the game, so if your character decides to go through a different gate to the others, that’s it – we’ll never see them again. The only way to play catch-ups is for the rest of the party to be able to wait for the wanderer.

Ah, cmon, it’ll be FUN.”

Since writing that, by the way, the number of Spheres increased to 275 (and I continue to add more as they occur to me). We added an extra player (Rafe, who posts to RPG.net VERY occassionally as LuxVeritas) and both he and Andy rejected having a "high stat" in favour of spending lots of points on powers. Noone wanted Magic. Andrea took Earth, Renaud Water, Emma FIre and Chris Air.

The campaign planning now shifted gears and ramped up. I constructed the realm map by getting two A1 sheets, taping them side-on to form a long rectangle, drawing 275 dots, assigning them names from my printouts of my "Realms" file and drawing connecting lines a plenty - Crystal in the top-right of the map, the world where they would wake up in the bottom left.

While the players refined their characters through consectutive rounds of consultation with me and brainstorming, I plotted "interesting" routes through my realm map. Halfway through this, I ran a "taster" session with three of the players (the others were down south at some function), rationalising it as not everyone waking up in the exact same place and using it to both check the roleplaying of those three characters and to make sure I still had my "Everway Mojo" after a years absence.

After all six characters were finished, I settled on a final route and began the backstory timeline. Writing 24 Flashbacks for the first session (four each), and in doing so setting out the broad character arcs, I noted down appearance changes between "then" and "now", equipment lists for their just-woke-up selves, and made a bag-full of player handouts, reproducing every document and piece of paper the characters had in their pockets and packs upon waking up as physical documents I could hand people.

Then, I slept the long, deserving sleep of the insanely over-devoted. We were at last, exactly ten months and twenty days after Realmforge finished, ready to begin.

DaveB

10-20-2004, 05:36 PM

CHARACTERS

Each player was told only that a council would be called on Crystal to address some crisis, and that their characters would have to be nominated by their worlds to go.

Oh, and spot the common theme if you can. The answer will be in a post later on. It was absolutely not intentional on my part - the characters just ended up that way.

ECHO

Emma played Aura in Realmforge, and Alexis in A|State. She picked Fire as her character niche, and created what at first glance is the stereotypical leather-clad female ninja, but has got so much more going on. After playing a relatively simple power last Everway campaign, Emma warned me that Echo would be rather more... complex. And she is.

Echo is an inhabitant of Wall, a sphere from Realmforge that was vaugely hostile and chinese-themed. The child of humble serfs, she manifested an odd power at an early age and was taken away by the Beaurocrats of Wall's Emperor, never to see her family again. Her talent - the ability to create a second, insubstantial copy of herself, control both bodies independently and switch which one is "real" at a thought (and without any visible sign of having done so) - proved of great interest to the Emperor's servants, who raised the girl as an assassin. Her power offered perfect alibis (she could have one of herself at a very public party while the other her was killing the host upstairs, for instance) and - by creating a copy, moving it away, switching bodies and then cancelling the illusion that was once the original - a slow form of teleportation. It's also very, very difficult to keep her imprisoned. Succeeding in all but two of her missions (both failures were attempts to kill Aura - thwarted by that ex-PC's Realmforge-given good luck), she was sent by the Emperor when he was asked to send a representitive for inclusion on a dangerous quest. At best, she is an extremely capable fighter. At worst, she is considered expendable by her masters.

Echo is psychologically twisted by her upbringing. Shown no kindness for most of her short life, living a silent life of servitude except when ordered to go out and kill, her various taboos and compulsions have become ingrained. She's servile, insists on putting the rest of the party above herself (even - *especially* - when dangerous to herself), never complains and is quiet to the point of silent when not being directly addressed. Even when she *is* directly addressed, she's tortured by making small talk, and normally backs out of conversation as quickly as she can. She doesn't know exactly how her powers work - and has no desire to explore it, believing she would have been taught if she needed to know - but in her years of service has noted one strangeness. Her ethereal copy can pass through solid objects, even living beings, but it's own reflection is solid to it. When trapped between two mirrors, she must either abandon the copy or pass out - her mind tries to inhabit the reflections as it inhabits the copy, to her best reasoning. For this reason, she has a mild phobia of reflective surfaces, and is uncomfortable around large mirrors, still standing water and so on.

Emma requested that her character arc be one of growth - she wanted Echo to be slowly freed by long time away from Wall and the reinforcing influences found there, the weight of years spent with the party (some of whom are extremely easy-going) eventually breaking her conditioning. From the flashbacks so far, this took about a third of the backplot. past-Echo, once "freed", was especially good friends with Talisman and always concious of her rebellion (and what awaited her at home). It is now apparant that she fell in love and - seeing a chance to ensure she never went back to the way she was (a prospect she regarded with horror) - married and quit the party, staying behind on a Sphere some way away and rejoining the party only recently after helping free the others from imprisonment.

In the three sessions played, Echo HAS, obviously, gone back to the way she was. Her visions of "improper behaviour" make her feel horrified and ashamed, and if anything she has become more rigid in insisting on her Place as an effort to both punish herself and make sure she never "falls" again. The others, meanwhile, much prefer the happier, socialised Echo from their memories and are trying to get her to accept the changes in herself - Talisman especially, who declares himself heartbroken every time he wakes from a vision and sees his best friend as was treating herself like a slave.

And, as they move nearer and nearer to the world she stayed behind on, the prospect of being reunited with Echo's husband looms. This cannot end well.

(Echo looks like Zhang Ziyi, the actress from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.)

MIRAGE

Rafe is new to playing Everway, and handed in a character he'd created back in the days when we both bought our copies of the game from a publisher's clearance house (for £2.50, making it the most bang-for-buck game I have ever owned) Mirage is suprisingly similar to Fire Plume - the character played in Realmforge by the player of that earlier campaign who isn't taking part in Long Road Home - though once you dig past "female shapeshifter" they're quite different.

Mirage was turned into a changeling rather than being born as one. She grew up on the desert world of Archways (from the book), until she was captured in a slave-raid when she was sixteen. Bought by a magician who offered her her freedom in exchange for being experimented upon, she recieved multiple transfusions of blood from natives of Shift and was barraged by spells. The new Mirage was immediately employed by her benefactor as his agent, a relationship which shifted over the years from Master-Servant to reasonably good friends. When that magician was called upon to attend the quest, he sent her instead, saying that her powers and broad skills (she is an accomplished swordswoman, among other things) would be of more use.

Mirage's tragedy is that her body does not reset after she shapeshifts - whichever form she takes is, in effect, her "real" one for the purposes of magic, and she must visualise each form to take it. This means that her "default" form changes slowly over time, and is no longer recognisable as the original girl as her self-image is subtly different to reality and errors in memory are made physical. In her darker moments, she considers herself to not be a "real" person, only a flawed copy of a flawed copy of a flawed copy and so on. Her aging has effectivly stopped and she can get "lost" in nonhuman forms if she takes them for too long - she became a tree out of curiosity once in the past and lost all sense of time, which coupled with her nonaging means she's no longer sure of how old she really is. Her Tell is in her eyes - one blue and one green, no matter what form she takes.

Rafe decreed Mirage's Fate card to be the Priestess, and requested a character arc based around the realisation (or not) of some kind of rooted sense of understanding herself for the character. In the flashbacks so far, Mirage is revealed as being the ever-protean core of the party, changing subtly depending on who she's paired up with for each flashback - party girl for Talisman, loyal follower for Fathom, big sister for Echo and so on. There are insinuations that she had a disastrous romantic entanglement with Talisman early on, which he broke off and deeply hurt her in the process. Years of steady development and self-realisation (when someone has been hurt, or affected by things beyond their control, Mirage is the one to comfort them - she especially counsels Valour through his changes) culminated in a year-long period when Echo had married and left and the rest of the characters had been imprisoned by their enemies, leaving Mirage to wage a one-woman war on their captors alone, eventually becoming a hard-bitten resistance fighter and inciting a revolution in the process.

In the three sessions played so far, Mirage has been working hard to understand what's happened to them and where they are going. She's the leader in efforts to piece together some kind of route from their recollections, and uses her powers frequently to benefit the group without reward (she often turns into load-bearing animals for long overland treks). Faced with her returned memories of Talisman's rejection and her reaction to it, she has grabbed onto slivers of suggestion that she and Valour were more than friends - reinforced by one of his own memories - and is now "with" the Bird-man diplomat.

VALOUR

Chris played Favoured Son in Realmforge, and Conrad in A|State. Having played swashbuckling heroes in several games, he decided to take almost the exact opposite tactic, and selected Air as his niche. Faced with the quest, and the abilities of those other party members he knew of, Chris designed his character to be the one thing the party needed above all else on their long trip.

Valour is a diplomat.

The son of Lord Blessed, ruler of a Sphere called Skystone, Valour differs from "baseline" human in the same way as all the natives of his world - Skystone is a Sphere of large, floating "islands" in an infinite sky, with no solid ground, and the inhabitants have large falcon-like wings emerging from their backs. Blessed (named, in the second session of Realmforge, after Brian Blessed and his character in Flash Gordon) is a loud, rude, hard-drinking man. Valour took after his mother. Polite, friendly, highly intelligent and good with people, Valour became known as a peace-maker and a negotiator of several high-profile treaties between his homeworld and neighbours that Blessed had managed to antagonise.

Aside from his wings, and the gift of flight that they give, Valour can fire the edge-feathers of his wings off as sharp-tipped barbs. It's a last resort, as it impairs his ability to fly, but it's useful. His most potent power, though, is a secret - he's a fraud. While he's highly intelligent (a genius by human standards), Valour's famed negotiating skills don't come from his keen mind or his perceptive sight. They come from his ability to read the surface thoughts of all but exceptional individuals, thereby allowing him to shamelessly cheat at the bargaining table. Aside from that (and the occassional patch of guilt that it creates), Valour was engaged to marry as befits his status - his fiancee took his offer to break off the engagement when he left on the quest, so he begins our story heartbroken.

Valour's part in the flashbacks is one of tragic misunderstanding and metamorphosis. A bit of a snob, Valour was not used to associating with people of as low station as Echo and Mirage, and was guilty of mistreating Echo before she started to rebel. While his skills got them through dozens of worlds in the early years, his breakup caused an odd, tragic, situation wherin he would try to prevent his comrades from forming emotional attachments to the people they met. When it became clear Echo was about to leave with a man she met on the journey, he became insufferable, only realising his folly after she left and he was imprisoned for a year. He made his peace with her after she came back, though. The most disturbing change, however, has been physical - Valour's hair has all fallen out, his wing-edges have turned into metal and - he was horrified to discover - when the bad guys of the campaign try to assimilate him, metal blades burst out of his skin and remove the physical contact before breaking off themselves. It seems that there is something *inside* him.

Modern-day Valour has been resoundingly ashamed of his own past actions (and has apologised to everyone in advance, in case he turns out to have done even more), and alarmed at the change in his appearance to the point of obsession. The fear of changing into something unknown is large in his mind, and he clings to the comfort past-Mirage gave him in a vision like a liferaft - spilling over into the present with their new relationship.

(Chris says Valour should be played by Rupert Everett with animatronic wings. I'll take his word for it).

TALISMAN

Renaud played Gaunt in Realmforge and Jemmy in A|State. To Long Road Home, he brings Talisman, the only character to be related to a previous player character. Talisman is the son of Aura and Vagabond, the union having been arranged by Strabo to create a half-dragon, half-human emissary (Dragons can't mate with humans. Strabo had to use Vagabond as a proxie). His powers are those of his mother, "overpowered" and twisted by his Draconic heritage, plus a grab-bag of minor Dragon-like tricks. And, of course, the power for which he was named: Aura's wish in the Realmforge for good luck to follow her and her line applies to him.

Talisman is constantly surrounded by a shifting aura of what he terms Colours (with a capital C) - flashes and wisps of effervescent colour, floating around him. Aura could control hers and create real-to-the-senses illusions. Talisman's part-Dragon nature means that that such fine control is impossible - if he creates an object it looks false, made up of planes of light ("like bad CGI", says Renaud), but that same nature means that his Colours are tactile - they're solid forcefields, not ethereal fancies. Like a Dragon, his Soul is contained within a Pearl attached to his body (over his breastbone). He can also sense when people are sneaking up on him, and has the most amazing luck.

Talisman's alien appearance (he seems slightly "off", even to people who have seen Spherewalkers of all different shapes and sizes) and explicit purpose in being created as part of the not-yet-revealed schemes of a machiavellian Wyrm isolated him from his "peers" among the children of the old character party - Exile in particular banned him from associating with his and Shadow's children, for fear of what Strabo was up to. Vagabond had a major falling out with Aura over what Strabo had done and left, never to come back. Aura's immortality meant he would never inherit the throne of Dragonmount. He found himself idle with nothing to do except wait for Strabo to give him his marching orders. So he became a playboy, the epitome of the idle second son, drinking, gambling and wenching his way through his late teens, nursing his lonliness. When the mission was formed, Exile wanted one of his old comrade's children to go. Talisman was the last choice, after everyone else refused. Seeing his oppertunity to get as far away from all of "Them" (as he calls the last campaign's "heroes", he jumped at the chance. Worryingly, Strabo supported the notion.

Talisman's tragedy is one of parentage - he considers himself to be Aura and Strabo's son, and defines himself as a mixture of those two beings, with the rest of his personality just a reaction to the pressures acting upon him. What's obvious to every single player (not character. Player.) and will become obvious to thread-readers, is that he is nothing of the sort. Talisman is the very spitting image, in looks and most importantly in personality, of Vagabond. He DOES take after his father - he just thinks of the wrong being as his father. Sarcastic, hard-drinking, carousing and above all else bitter, Talisman provides most of the motivating force for the party, gets them moving, points out when things are going to go wrong for them and seems determined to enjoy his freedom while it lasts.

In the flashbacks, Talisman fulfils several roles once he settles down and lets people past his bitter, twisted exterior. He makes a surprisingly good second-in-command to Fathom (his Niche is Water, and Talisman is extremely perceptive, though he does his best to hide it with layers of misunderstanding and flippant comment) and becomes the best of friends with Echo, who he describes as the only woman he respects enough as a friend to not sleep with, after initially bullying her. Something appears to have happened to him about the mid-point of the backstory. Later-Talisman seems tired, resigned to some fate and unwilling to joke around any more. The Talisman of early flashbacks is a swashbuckler, using his powers in clever, tricksy ways. The Talisman of later flashbacks is a tank, encasing himself in titanic suits of Colour armour and brutally putting down enemies. There are hints that he found something out about his purpose, hints which disturb his present self greatly.

Modern-day Talisman has gone back to his old habits, though he has already started to let the protective layers of lies, drink and bullshit slip a little, and his use of powers is more in key with his later flashbacks. He constantly counsels the others to stop and smell the roses - to blindly rush back to Crystal would be folly, he argues, as they're not sure if they need to do something out here first. He is disturbed by the hints about Strabo's purpose for him, and angered by the signs that Favoured and Fire Plume are interfering with the party (as you'll see in the session writeups) - Fire Plume especially, he refers to as "that mad bitch". The flashbacks are hitting him hard, though - especially when he can see that he managed honest-to-gods friendships with people that now seem incapable of it. Like Echo.

(Talisman - like Vagabond - resembles Johnney Depp)

FATHOM

Andrea played Shadow in Realmforge and Syndil in A|State. She picked Earth as her niche, and created a character as far from Syndil as possible. Fathom was the last character to be created for Everway (the campaign, in fact, shows the scars of the character Andrea briefly considered and rejected just before settling on this one), and is enshrined in my notebooks as "Mermaid: Warrior Princess." (then again, Talisman is recorded on that same page as "Jack Sparrow becomes Green Lantern").

Hailing from the underwater world of Pearl of the Waves, Fathom is adapted for life underwater - the skin between her fingers can fold out to webbing, her eyes have an inner eyelid and she has gills running down her neck and upper back. She can move about on land perfectly well, but has to get wet at least once a day. She is Hydrokinetic - she can control water, moving it about telekinetically, freezing and boiling it at will. The daughter of the monarch of her Realm, Fathom grew up in a utilitarian culture based on strength, and volunteered to represent her world in the party.

Fathom is the most alien of the group bar Talisman - her turqoise skin marks her as different, and her mannerisms are far more alien than (for example) Valour's. Extremely pragmatic, concerned with the most effective way to do things, she is described as "precise", "careful", "controlled" and other such adjectives. Her speech is subtly odd - she never uses contractions, and always speaks evenly after long pauses. Everything she says and does is prethought and preplanned. Nothing is impulsive. In an party as random as this one, these qualities are desperately needed as a grounding influence, and Fathom usually ends up being the voice of common sense. She is also massivly strong, and nearly impossible to kill - Fathom's endurance is superhuman, and she is held back by the others (if she were on her own, she could march across worlds in half the time). She is, however, afraid of fire - it is not a natural element in her homeland, and she was burnt as a child when she tried to touch the first flame she saw.

In our flashbacks, Fathom is quickly elected leader of the party (an election held at Valour's insistance), a role which she is increasingly wearied by as the years move on. The others rely on her over-much, as a mother-figure, as the one who figures out how to get them out of any scrape they've gotten themselves into, as the one who tells them what to do when they're being indescisive. Frequently called "Princess" in the flashbacks (technically true, but she's the only one that the party keeps on referring to by her honourific), she finds herself taking more and more "breaks" from the main mission, lingering on worlds without any true reason simply because the weight of responsibility is too much. The party's reason for picking up Soul has not yet been revealed, but it appears to have been at her insistance. Coupled with her feelings of being put upon are the occassions in the backstory when Desert Worlds had to be crossed - occassions which Fathom dreads deep in her soul.

Modern-day Fathom is already feeling the weight of the worlds. Soul - freed of his sense of responsibility by his amnesia and acting like the pre-teen he is, deliquency and all - has somehow become her responsibility, and she increasingly resents the amount of time she spends running around after the ungrateful brat and keeping him from destroying worlds by accident. The others see her calm, careful, self-assured poise and assume that because Valour or Echo are having near-breakdowns from their visions, they need them more. While Fathom suffers silently in the background, wrestling with her unwanted authority as party leader.

(Fathom looks like no actress I know - Andrea is an accomplished character artist, and I hope to scan and post her pictures of the characters as soon as I can afford my RPG.net membership. For some reason, though, Fathom has a Russian accent.)

THE BALANCING INNOCENCE OF THE GLORIOUS SOUL ("SOUL" for short)

Andy played Exile in Realmforge and both the Simil and Marius in A|State. His character for Long Road Home was created without a background, as the party picked him up at some point along the way. He therefore has no memories of his past life at all.

Andy's design was for a character who was physically a human child (Soul as is is roughly twelve), and who embodied the power of a Pheonix. Pheonixes in Everway symbolise the cycle of life and reincarnation for the Spheres they are found on, and are somehow linked to those cycles. I have gone further and fleshed the beings out in my own Everway-verse, establishing them as Psychopomps - Pheonixes move Souls from world to world, preventing them from pooling in any one Sphere, by absorbing the Souls of dying people they are near and releasing them when they immolate themselves and reincarnate. Andy picked a slew of Pheonix-like powers - Soul explodes in a burst of fire and comes back to life whenever killed, can absorb the souls of undead or dying people around him (releasing them when he reincarnates), is pyrokinetic (in that he can cause objects and living things to spontaneously combust, not become a living flamethrower), is immune to magic cast by anyone younger than him (pity he's 12, really), can go ethereal for short periods of time, can sense Death and Birth and (gasp) has oracular visions - Soul doesn't get flashbacks, he gets confusing masses of imagry, metaphor and occasional clarity of things happening in the present and future.

Soul doesn't appear in all of the flashbacks (he only joined halfway through the backstory), and his actual true nature remains mysterious. At the end of Session 3, Mirage had a vision implying that Soul was a Pheonix that - for whatever reason - had evicted a young boy's soul from his body and taken it over, making him an alien spirit puppeteering a human body. He is connected to the villain of the campaign in some way, and seems fated to die at it's hands. In the flashbacks he IS seen in, Soul is a quiet, serious child, obviously laboring under some great quest that has become attached to that of the others.

Modern-day Soul, though, has none of that sense of responsibility. Carefree, impulsive and occassionally dangerous, he gets into trouble constantly, badgers the others to be allowed to follow his whims and throws tantrums. He is also - worryingly - the only one who can carry the Artefact that they think is the one they've been after all this time. It's hugely destructive powers are not exactly safe in the hands of an amoral young boy who constantly wants to activate it to see what will happen.

AN EXPLANATORY NOTE ON NAMES

Those that haven't read Everway might be going "huh?" at all the names of people and places within the gameworld(s). It's really very simple.

Everway has a kind of alternate creation myth - in classic christian mythology, mankind was united until the Tower of Babel, where it was divided into different nations by the curse of losing it's unified language. Different languages created factions, etc. In Everway, there's a similar prehistorical cataclysm, but instead of dividing the people linguistically it did so physically, creating the many Spheres. No matter where you go, everyone in Everway speaks the same language ("The Tongue"), though Dragons have their own Tongue which humans occassionally learn.

This was done to avoid the "we're on a different world to last week. How do we buy supplies?" issue, but has an odd effect - take a typical English name. Hell, let's take mine. "David". Good, middle class, third most popular boy's name in Britain. It's also Hewbrew (IIRC) for "Beloved One". Most names in our world translate in one language or another into normal words. With only one language, everyone in Everway is just named by those normal words. While I'm David Brookshaw, my Everway-NPC equivalent would be Beloved Streambank. Not a good name, you'll agree - but you can hopefully see where the weird names are coming from.

Rhyme

10-21-2004, 06:56 AM

Weary travellers we; who, upon reaching our hallowed destination,
fell foul of some ignoble machination and promptly forgot our noble goal.

Still, *Pours himself a healthy measure of wine* there are certain advantages to be found in the periples of an odyssey,
- A sort of Grand Tour, you might say - which work a little way to amending the troubles that we could encounter.
Of course, not everyone shares my enlightened opinions... not that it matters a jot. Not for the most part, anyway.
"Since you said yourself that my unhappiness robs me of substance." Some arguments are just plain lost, Tal.
My companions believe that we are wasting precious times, sir, that there are people depending on us.
I can't rightly remember whether they ever really did, I like to think that a number of likely lads have taken up the cause.
I'm drunk, sir; I don't care much for your name, your ear will suffice.

It's amazing how low an opinion you build of Gods and Heroes when you speak to them a while, isn't it.
I mean, spend a decade or so in service to your own ends and the world hails you the walker reborn.
Hypocritical scoundrels did little more than accumulate power. Don't get me started on the god-thing.
I hate talking about the god-thing.
Anyway, you can understand why I'm hardly keen to return to oh-so-smug's council to be hailed as the next hypocrit.
Although I must admit they've a long tradition all worked out - you've got to give them that, Tal, the pathetic curs.
Tal's my name, sir; errant barronet, essentially. It's sort of like an errant knight but with less horse and more wine.
Don't mind if I do.

Right, so we've got you all fired up for the show, have we? Positively vibrant with shallow expectancy?
Oodles of popcorn on the side and some buxom maiden to force it past your teeth?
They've told you the names and the shames of every little tick to parade before your adoring eyes?
Well bite down on that tongue you limey sod, there's a while yet and she'd best pace herself if she's going to last it...
There'll be plenty of time for that later, deary. Call for it even, if you can wait.

In truth, sir, the entirety of this farcical chase can be summed up in a few simple words: "We don't know"
Or at least, we're not sure.
If Kitten's right and no little brat has fouled the linen of our humble homes since before we left...
Well, it's quite possible there's little point in it. I know enough about rulership to recognise a dying population.
Not to mention the fact that we're not even sure if we can make it back. It's a long way in uncertain waters.
Oh, they're a fine-enough (if motley) crew now, but when the scurvey sets in and the rats come to play...
... well, we'll see.

Talisman, sir, yours to attend.

Seanchai

10-21-2004, 12:49 PM

Everway! Huzzah!

Seanchai

Pierce Inverarity

10-21-2004, 01:16 PM

Awesome campaigns, Dave. Yu0 = roXX0r.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 01:42 PM

PRELUDE: CRYSTAL -> ENDLESS -> ?

All over the Known Worlds, calamities are befalling the inhabitants. One of the islands of Skystone rose higher and higher, eventually vanishing entirely. Visitors to Pearl of the Waves are no longer protected by bubbles of air, and the realm is paralysed by a lack of trade due to all visitors drowning. On Boneguard, the dead rise, die again and rise again in a mockery of the natural cycle. Coupled with this, children are being stillborn in notably higher numbers - the number of live births is dropping rapidly.

Something, somewhere, has gone horribly wrong, and a council has been called on Crystal to try to address the problem. Our characters - some of them volunteers, some draftees - meet each other for the first time, introduced to one another by Exile. Exile, Rockarm and Strabo have put their heads together and think they've figured the shape of it.

Souls, Exile explains, move down Everways inbetween incarnations, and appear to do so in sequence, flowing from some unknown origin. A person who dies in Dragonmount, for example, may have their next life in Windfall or Wall. Something is disrupting this, and he believes it is linked to the other, more widescale problem. The changes witnessed in the Realms are the result of the Usurper forces in each growing more powerful. Perhaps this is being caused by the lack of Souls, or perhaps (he says, clearly not liking this one), the lack of Souls is because Crystal's own Usurper force is similiarly unbalanced.

All souls - all energy - flows out of Crystal to the rest of the known Worlds, but it doesn't start there. There is another gate on Crystal apart from the one to Overguard, which leads to an uninhabited Sphere called Endless - an infinite plain of grassland, no large animals and no people. It is to there that Gaunt retired to live his life in seclusion. Three years ago, however, Gaunt vanished - the only sign of his passing a caern of rocks he erected to mark the position of an uncharted Gate he had discovered. He left a note saying only "gone for a walk", and no one else has ever been through it.

According to old legends on Crystal (due to it's long period of being all destroyed-like), life originated on a single perfect world that was made up of all of the Forces, but was destroyed and transformed into the many Spheres when one of the Forces vanished (or, perhaps, the Force vanished because the world shattered). According to Strabo, the Dragons tell tales of a Sphere right at the centre of the Everway network, the last remnant of that original world, upon which the lost Force can be found. It is from here that the Walker set out on his long walk, creating the Everways and populating the spheres as he went.

There are two further corroborations - they have summoned Julius and The Lady (the Gods formerly known as Favoured Son and Fire Plume). Julius confirms both stories.

The plan, then, which the five of them have been asked to apply themselves to, is this - go through the uncharted gate. Find the oldest Sphere. Retrieve the Lost Force of creation. Bring it back. Then the greatest minds of the age will try to figure out how to use it to reduce the grip of the Usurper Forces (which are there because it isn't) on the worlds. That, they hope, will sort it.

They don't know how many worlds lie between there and here. They don't know if those worlds are inhabited (though they probably are). They don't know what might be between them and their goal, or even if their goal is possible. The Lady just says "it has a chance", and as she's the Goddess of Hope, that's good enough for Exile.

After asking if anyone wants to drop out - this is a volunteer mission - Exile leaves them all alone to get to know one another. They leave at first light.

Everyone stares at one another.

Everyone stares at one another some more.

Mirage tries to break the ice.

Everyone stares at one another.

Valour has the idea of asking what everyone is good at. The response is variously honest (Mirage), brief and to the point (Echo) or pure 100% bullshit (Talisman).

Everyone stares at one another.

Mirage isn't giving up, and attempts a circular question thing - everyone has to reveal one thing about themselves, and so on. After learning that Echo's favourite colour is purple and that Valour is allergic to eggs, she gives up.

The conversation finally dies, and all quietly retire to their beds. Not such an auspicious beginning, really.

And that's the last thing any of them remember.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 01:44 PM

EQUIPMENT LISTS AND CHANGED APPEARANCES

ECHO
Appearance: Other than being in her mid-twenties rather than her late teens, Echo has grown her hair extremely long – most of her hair is shoulder-length (except that she’s wearing it pinned up), but there’s a single long, thick ponytail that hangs down to the back of her knees. To the perceptive (Water 5+), she gives the impression of having gone “soft” recently – her face is fuller and her muscles less pronounced. Those good at fine detail who have the opportunity may notice that her tongue has been pierced, but has healed shut recently.

Clothes: Echo wakes up wearing an outfit that she can at least recognise the purpose of – it’s designed to allow her to move, and seems designed for “adventuring”. Lightweight knee-length boots, thin leather trousers laced down the outside seam and a wool tunic that’s baggy (being apparently several sizes too big) but belted. She’s wearing two bandoliers that, together with the belt, bind her clothes to her, and her sleeves are apparently detachable. She has a backsack (literally – it’s nearly shapeless, and hooked onto one of her bandoliers at the top and her belt at the bottom). Underneath all that, she’s wearing a ring on a thin neckchain – the band is set with some kind of blue agate in a wave pattern.

Stuff: Echo seems to be going for “the more weapons wins”. Attached to her other bandolier and hanging straight down (so the backpack overhangs it’s lowest point) is a curved, katana-like sword, engraved with a blue geometric pattern on the blade. The sword’s attached to her with the curve out, so that she can draw it without taking the scabbard off. The front of her bandoliers are covered in holsters for throwing knives – ten in total. She has a pair of twinned, “Riddick” backwards curved outward-edged knives that are slung upside down behind her back and concealed by her clothes and the backpack. On her left hip, she has a collapsible staff and a weird holster (like a cross between a belt pouch and a CD case) containing shuriken. On her left hip, she has a Chakram and a blissfully normal utility hunting-knife that still bears the signs of having been used to eat with. She has a long dagger attached to each boot, and her hairdo turns out to be supported by two stilettos used as hairpins. Inside the backpack, though, it’s a different story – Echo has a bedroll, several changes of underwear, a second tunic and a thick, dark grey, wool poncho that is presumably used to keep the rain off, but also a smaller drawstring bag containing jewellery and makeup. She has one other change of clothing – a plain, but expensive, dark-blue silk dress. Sandals of the same colour are also present. Her belt pouches contain gloves, a firestarter, a bag of marbles, dice and a couple of notes of paper money from a world called “Stonebridge”.

VALOUR
Appearance: Valour has vastly changed. His body is tougher, and has lost even the tiny amount of flab he had pre-quest. He is completely hairless (not even eyebrows), and has lost his lower left premolar – the tooth appears to have been knocked out, but the gap is inside his cheek so isn’t readily apparent. The outmost five feathers on his wings – given the layering effect, this makes it the outmost inch when his wings are folded up and the outmost foot when he spreads them – are made of metal, and quite sharp. He has numerous scars – several dozen nicks and small line-scars on his arms and chest, a scar over where one of his eyebrows should be and a large, nasty looking scar running from about four inches to the left of his bellybutton to the base of his sternum. He has pierced his ears, and the eyebrow that isn’t scarred has a flat stud of metal coming out of it. On closer inspection, though, this proves to not actually be a stud – it won’t come out, like it’s been implanted into his skin. He has a tattoo of a snake on his right forearm. At some point in the past, his nose has been broken.

Clothes: Valour is wearing baggy cotton trousers and large, steel-toed, boots. His belt is festooned with pouches and he has a thin bandolier (empty of pouches) that has an attachment on his back (between his wings) where a bow could be slung. His left arm has a gold band around the bicep, and he is wearing hard leather Vambraces embossed with a silver dagger-symbol.

Stuff: Valour has a long, thin scimitar strapped to his hip, and a quiver on the other hip that is empty. His pouches contain the same currency as Echo’s, three small rubies, an eating knife, a tankard, a wineskin (empty), a tinderbox, a small, circular palm-held mirror. He has no backpack, and no changes of clothing that can be seen. His bow is also missing, despite having a place to wear it and an (empty) quiver.

MIRAGE
Appearance: It’s Mirage. Whaddya want? (upon first appearing, her appearance appears to have ‘shifted’ due to false body-image about as much as it would in several years, but she soon corrects for that).

Clothes: Mirage is wearing an almost identical base costume to Echo, without all the weaponry and without being tied down by a lot of straps - thin leather trousers laced down the outside seam and a wool tunic that’s baggy (though nowhere near as baggy as Echo’s – they appear to be identical, and Mirage is bigger) but belted. Her boots buckle instead of lace up, and are ankle-length. Her backpack has no bandolier to attach to, so it has straps attached to hang from her shoulders. Like Echo’s outfit, Mirage’s sleeves are attached to the tunic by laces at the shoulders and can be removed. Her belt is covered in stuffed pouches.

Stuff: Mirage has no weapons other than a hunting knife, but has the most possessions – her backpack bulges with the clothing inside. Changes of her main clothing and rain-ponchos aside, she has trousers of varying size (including a spare pair of what Valour’s wearing), three dresses ranging from “homespun peasant” to “tasteful frock” to “provocative”, a bag of jewellery and makeup, two bedrolls, a small feather pillow (the feathers of which look like Valour’s down) a headscarf, sandals, soft leather slipper-shoes that could probably fit a variety of foot size, linen shirts (which look like they’ve been stolen from Valour and Talisman) and a tiara. Hanging from the bottom of her backpack is one of the party’s two cooking kits – a set of pans, tripods, etc for camp cooking that nest into one another. Her belt pouches include a sparker, a snuffbox (empty), dice, five (fake) sapphires, a Fate Deck and a folded up “Wanted” poster in her name.

TALISMAN
Appearance: Talisman appears to have grown a rather sinister goatee beard, which comes to a point about an inch below his chin. The rest of his hair is straggly, like it’s recovering from having been cut very short. He has a large gold hoop earring in his left ear, and a tattoo of a snake on his right forearm. His skin seems darker than it used to be, though that might be a trick of perception. He has an impressive, jagged scar on his left leg (hidden by his clothes) that looks like a crocodile bit him, another that looks he got hit in the mouth (it runs from his lip almost to the corner of his chin). His belly-button has been pierced.

Clothes: Talisman is wearing a long, sleeveless leather jacket (that comes down to his knees) over the top of an embroidered blood red wool jacket (with gold edging, and big buckles) that’s just as long but has sleeves (the ends of which turn up, pirate-style), over a shirt which was once very expensive white linen. All his kit has seen better centuries – it looks like he hasn’t changed his shirt in weeks, and the rest of his clothing shows signs of repair and neglect. Under his clothes, he’s wearing a long neck chain festooned with tiny feathers, lizard’s feet, rabbit’s ears and other lucky charms. His left wrist bears a bracelet made of some kind of green stone chips, his right hand a huge plain gold signet ring. He is wearing a pair of tight leather trousers that buckle, and big solid boots with piratical turn-down tops. His belt buckle is a full two square inches and gold-plated, in the shape of a frowning face. He is wearing Vambraces, one of which has a miniature crossbow built onto it. He has the same backpack as much of the rest of the party.

Stuff: Talisman has a wide scimitar at his left hip, and a nice big bowie knife at his right. He has a wrist crossbow built onto one Vambrace (triggered by a cord attached to a leather loop around his index and middle fingers) and on inspection, his left Vambrace has a hidden knife-blade that springs out with the correct flexing. His belt pouches include ammo for his wristbow (twenty short bolts), a full pouch of pipeweed, a long clay pipe, a sparker, a pair of suede gloves, dice, a Fate Deck, a nine-men’s morris board made of cloth, plus clay counters, a hip flask (half full of fortified red wine), a waterskin (full of water). Within his backpack he has a bedroll, spare underclothes, a leather headband, a roll of paper money from a world called “Bastion”, a comfy-looking cloak, a shaving kit, a tankard, a dried pouch of Kaff, half an apple wrapped in thin fabric and a spare pair of trousers. He also has a curved metal plate that looks like it should be strapped on under his clothes, doing up like a bra over and under his shoulders and covering his Pearl. It has been massively dented. At the very bottom of his pack, scrunched up and apparently forgotten about, is a betting slip from a world called Service. Hanging from the outside of his pack is the other camp-stove.

FATHOM
Appearance: Fathom’s hair is a little longer, the beads and shells have been replaced over the years. Her tattoos and scarifications have been added to – her left forearm has a large raised geometric design on it, her right a tattoo of a snake, and her face now has a pointed red V design over the bridge of her nose, the sides of her eyes have been coloured in so it looks like she has a band of colour running across her eyes (inspection reveals that the eyelids have indeed been done. Ouch), while her belly has been tattooed like a coloured-in version of her arm scars. She’s if anything more muscular than before, but her skin colour has lightened slightly. There are stress-lines of premature aging at the corners of her eyes. Her fingernails have been cut short, and her palms are calloused.

Clothing: Fathom is wearing base clothes that match her picture in design, but have apparently been hand-made to replace the ones she started with – the materials aren’t quite right, and even these ones look scuffed, repaired and well-worn. She has a large necklace of various shells, teeth (some of which look rather long), beads, stones and so forth, and more of the same materials hang from her wrists – these items of jewellery look likewise hand-made. She is wearing a ring on her left index finger that is set with three black pearls.

Stuff: Most obviously, Fathom has a large two-handed broadsword in a back holster. The holster also has a quiver built into it containing two Javelins. Fathom’s belt pouches contain several papers (see handouts), her sword-hilt bottle thing, three waterskins (one of which is half-full, the other two empty), a sparker, a tankard, a set of bolas, a hunting knife, a long dagger that appears to have been carved (by her) from the tooth of some huge reptile. Over her back, she has a large backpack of a different design to the others (it’s straps have a belt that join them across her chest, and it appears to be quicker to take off than the other type). Fathom appears to have been declared “packhorse” of the group – her backpack has two compartments, the upper of which contains several packets of dried fruit, three apples, a large hunk of cured meat, a loaf of (stale) bread and a bag of jerky. Mmm. Jerky. She also has five (empty) spare waterskins. The lower compartment contains a bedroll, a lightweight, wraparound cloak with hood that has sand on it, a plain grey dress with a corset, a spare pair of trousers, a tunic like Echo and Mirage are wearing and a couple of cotton shirts that look baggy on her. Carefully wrapped up in silk and then put in a small metal box is a shell that she recognises as being from her original kit – it’s from Pearl of the Waves.

SOUL

Clothing: Soul is wearing leather shoes, a set of wool trousers and a shirt that looks like it was originally Echo’s but has been modified to fit him. He’s wearing a jacket of different fabrics (it looks like is was originally soft cotton, but has been patched and repaired so many times it resembles a rag-quilt) and a thick wool poncho (like Echo and Mirages’, but he’s wearing his). Around his neck, he has a pendant in the shape of a golden feather.

Stuff: Soul’s belt pouches contain dice, a sparker, a waterskin (empty), a delicate bronze broach, three candles and and a cople of notes of money from “Stonewall”. He has a hunting knife like several of the others, and a set of Bolas like Fathom’s. Soul’s backpack is smaller than the others’, and contains his own bedroll, a set of leather trousers in his size, several spare shirts (one of them carefully folded and still undamaged), a cloak, a waistcoat, a thin light red robe that makes him feel uncomfortable, a pair of sandals and his own eating utensils. He also has a Hoyi pear, with a bite taken out of it, several large pieces of cloth and a sewing kit.

The Papers that people started with were as such...

THIS LETTER ARRIVED FOR YOU FROM REFLECTING AIR OF WISDOM. I HOPE IT PROVES USEFUL, AND HOPE THAT YOU FIND YOUR WAY BACK TO WATERWALL IN SAFETY.

BE WELL, MY FRIENDS. KEEP HER SAFE.

P.
Princess Fathom,

The scholars have at last returned progress in the matter of your quest through our Young Kingdoms, which I am pleased to set down for you now.

The Old Kingdoms are a tangled web of ancient worlds, long since abandoned by Humanity. The Astral Pathways between their gates have degraded with time until the majority are only usable in one direction. There is some evidence that, pre-historically, this degradation was deliberately and knowingly accelerated. For what purpose, we cannot guess, though a reaction to invasion seems likely.

The nature of the End is different for each of the spheres within this region – the inhabitants of Empty Throne, City of Brass and Guardian’s Grave appear to have simply abandoned their great city-realms and migrated into the wider network of spheres. Void, Writhen, Broken and Jagged appear to have been actively damaged by some terrible force. The inhabitants of Doorway, Amber, Solitary and Blackglass seem to have been undone by their own artifice, the source of their own apocalypse. Persistent rumour among travellers places several well –hidden Dragon-occupied Spheres among this region, an assumption that, given the Dragon’s former status as the foremost children of the Spheres (which I am sure I need not lecture your party on) should not surprise. Indeed, most of what we know about the Old Kingdoms comes from the tales of explorers searching for the fabled Dragon’s Graveyard, which must surely be somewhere within.

Your question of which of these worlds was the oldest surprised us – having never considered the endeavour of putting comparative dates to them – but an application of logic and – dare I say it – taking the “wider viewpoint” reveals several curiosities.

Firstly, the Old Kingdoms can be grouped by type – as I have already laid out – but those types seem to cluster. The more damaged (and therefore, we might suppose, the older) worlds are on average reached after those which are simply abandoned, which are reached after those which are still inhabited. Except for Empty Throne.

Empty Throne is what we might call an “abandoned” sphere, having suffered no damage that we have heard tales of to it’s essential fabric. It is the terminus of many one-way Astral Paths, which appear to have once been used for Spherewalking in both directions until the inhabitants of Empty Throne “blocked” them with artefacts of uncertain construction. The motive for this is again unclear – why would anyone actively work towards preventing themselves from travelling out, but allow people to travel in? There is only one Gate that can be used to exit, which leads to the abandoned sphere of Empty Gaze – an island-world that, according to hieroglyphs on Empty Throne, was once a colony of the latter. Empty Throne also matches your “warriors of the Sunset” – from their temples, the people of that world worshipped the Sun. As have and do many cultures, but the coincidence is perhaps affirming.

Search that world, my lady. I wager that it is there you will find your goal. The best route to take on the journey in is also, curiously, the only one which can be used to travel back out into the Young Kingdoms.

In the Realm of Stonebridge, ask for the Ostracised Gate, which may be found within the citadel of sighs.

In the Solitary Realm, watch for what the natives do not see. That unseen during the day leads to the Realm of Ivy, and should be discounted.

In the Sphere of Amber, follow the North Star for three days. Your next Gate lies in the shadow of the broken mountain.

In the Jagged World, take the crooked river to the Sea.

On the Island of Empty Gaze, go where no God watches.

I hope you will visit us again, and pray to the Gods of Knowledge, Peace, Life and Hope that your search bears fruit.

Scholar-general Reflecting Air of Wisdom, Chief Librarian of Birthright.
THE BEARERS OF THIS LETTER, BEING THE PRINCESS FATHOM, THE LORD VALOUR, THE LORD TALISMAN, THE LADY MIRAGE AND THEIR RETINUE, HAVE BEEN AWARDED

THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY OF WATERWALL

FOR SERVICES PROVIDED TO OUR FAIR SPHERE

LET THEM BE WELCOMED, HARBOURED AND TREATED AS THE ROYALTY THEY ARE WITHIN OUR HEARTS. ANY SERVICE DONE THEM WILL BE REWARDED THREEFOLD BY US, ANY ASSISTANCE GIVEN IN THEIR QUEST WILL BE TREATED AS ASSISTANCE GIVEN TO US, ANY WRONG DONE TO THEM IS A WRONG DONE TO OUR PEOPLE, ANY ATTACK ON THEM IS AN ATTACK ON OUR OWN PERSON, AND WE HEARBY SWEAR TO VISIT OUR MOST TERRIBLE VENGENCE ON THOSE THAT GAINSAY THESE WORDS, AND OUR MOST GENEROUS REWARD ON THOSE THAT UPHOLD THEM.

WANTED!

The spy, saboteur and agent of stasis

MIRAGE

For crimes against the Unity of Entelechy, partly consisting of, but not limited to;

Sedition, Terrorism, Ethical Turpitude, Unlicensed Use of Release, Trading in Favours, Identity Theft, Theft, Grand Theft, Arson, Murder, Murder of a Brother of Change, Impersonation of a Brother of Change, Speaking Ill of the Voice, Mental Crime, Passing Illegal Currency, Refusing Progress, Hoarding of Resources, Crimes against Public Hygiene, Hoarding of Personal Resources, Collaboration, Conspiracy, High Treason, Denial, Blasphemy, Consorting with nonHumans and Maldeism.

300 SHARE REWARD!

This most terrible criminal is a mistress of disguise, but the vigilant may know her by her gaze – stained the colour of confessor’s robes by The Voice such that His people may know His enemy for her true self.

I hereby make a signed wager with the wanderer known as “Talisman” – the terms being that if he returns from his journey having discovered the Oldest Sphere, and brings proof of this great wonder, I, Barrow, owner and proprietor of the Hundredweight Inn, in the City of the Hollow on the world of Service, will gladly provide him with one hundred barrels of ale free of charge, with which he may toast his victorious return.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 02:06 PM

Everway! Huzzah!

Seanchai

I am the champion of the obscure roleplaying game.

Good to see enthusiasm. There _are_ still people who love this game.

Quendalon

10-21-2004, 02:11 PM

Great, great stuff. I love Everway. I may have to steal vast quantities of stuff from your game setup if I ever get another shot at running Everway.

To what extent do you pre-plot the details of the backstory? Do you have everything already planned out, do you just know the high points and fill in the rest as you go, or is it all pulled out of the air at a moment's notice?

- Eric

DaveB

10-21-2004, 03:20 PM

SESSION ONE

STONEWANDER -> EMPTY THRONE -> EMPTY GAZE -> JAGGED

SPHERE ONE - STONEWANDER

We begin with an initial vision each:

SOUL ONE

In the beginning.

It’s a good place to start, don’t you think?

Yes, as it happens, this story IS quite long.

No, it’s not as long as that.

Anyway. In the beginning, the Gods created the world. Singular and solitary (no, not Solitary – that’s A world, not THE world), it was built from the perfect forces of the universe and regulated from the Realmforge. The Dragons were it’s people, and they worshipped the Gods. Eventually, this all collapsed – the story of how depending on who’s doing the telling - and so did the world. It shattered, splintered and cracked, turning into a million worlds –plural – each made up of different amounts of the forces. One force was missing, not to be found in any world, so the peoples (who had now appeared) linked it’s loss to the catastrophe.

The Dragons went to war against the Gods and lost. Much as they might try to tell people otherwise, they are no longer important to our story. The Walker walked out on His spiral path from the home of the humans, creating the Everways as He went.

The problem arose when people started to move from their home world – once of those nearest to where the centre of the original had been, in so far as an immeasurable thing can be said to have distance – to others. Specifically, when they were born or died. Souls, you see, need to reincarnate for people to be born. Yes, they could move down Everways, but the splintered nature of humanity meant that something was needed to actively maintain that transmigration. Something had to be put in place for when things went wrong, that could carry human souls to their next birth and take care of any dead ends in the Everways.

The Walker saw this need, and took a bird. He gave it some of His breath – some of His soul – and the bird caught fire, burning with the power the Walker had bestowed upon it. No longer a creature of flesh and blood, it became a servant of the Walker, watching over and guarding the souls of a sphere. The first soul to move in the footsteps of the Walker and incarnate on a particular sphere was similarly transformed. And so, each world survives, their births and deaths watched over by these servants of the Walker. Beings that can travel through the space between worlds without an Astral Path, that die and re-embody over and over again, and in so dying provide the pulse of life for their appointed Sphere.

How do they do this? Well, that’s a mystery. Some say there is one for each Sphere. Others that they move – that each of these beings absorbs Souls, takes them within itself by being in the vicinity of their death, moves to another Sphere and then dies, releasing the Souls it has transported in the process. Invisible, they are there when humans are born, and there when they die. When they show themselves, they are as magnificent winged beasts, burning with the fire of Him.

I see you’ve figured me out already.

Who am I? That’s not important. What’s important is this – these beings, in their innumerable forms, are vital to the continuation of life on the Spheres.

And one by one, quietly, without fuss…

…They are going missing.

Where are they going?

Ah – now that’s a good question, but not as good a question as...

Why?

ECHO ONE

You’re at an ornate, open window (there’s no glass, just a gossamer curtain that is tied aside right now anyway), looking out over a fantastic, impossible city. Gleaming domes and minarets of Gold, towers of terracotta-red brick and smaller buildings of plastered white cram for space, vying to look the most magnificent in the morning sun. The sky is entirely cloudless, and in the middle distance you can see a high, thin aqueduct distributing water to what looks like a wide step-pyramid, the many levels covered in a lush garden with miniature waterfalls running through it.

You lean on the (gold) windowframe, sliding one arm up and resting your head against the cool metal. Eyes half-closed, you listen to the hubbub of the crowd, massing in the streets a vertigo-inducing distance below.

“They’re late.” Says Mirage from somewhere behind you. You sigh at the intrusion, briefly glance down (your outfit turns out to be much like a sparring costume- belted top, trousers and bare feet - but appears to be made of the same semi-transparent material as the curtain, with tighter, briefer clothes underneath) and turn to her. She turns out to be wearing roughly the same. Only flashier.

“Indeed. Where is the Princess?” You inquire, slightly more sarcastically than you (present-day you) are used to.

Mirage grins conspiratorially. “Taking the longest bath of her life. And this is a woman from an underwater Sphere.”

You march over to your kit – laid out neatly next to Mirage’s dumped pile of clothes and oddments – and start to inspect it, shaking sand out of your clothes (which seem sun-bleached, torn and otherwise wrecked) and making sure your large collection of weapons – including the Katana your present-day self woke up with, but not including anything else – are all clean. In the background, Mirage is jabbering something about how it’s not really Fathom’s fault and how three desert worlds in a row has been an ordeal for her, but you’re not really listening.

Your chores are interrupted by Talisman, who sweeps into the room with light and shadow playing around him in a facsimile sandstorm, swirls of gold and red unrolling across the floor. Valour stalks in behind him. Both men are wearing desert robes. Mirage greets them with a cheery smile and hello, you give them a brisk nod. Mirage sashays away to fetch Fathom and you are darkly amused to see Talisman eying her rear before realising that you’re watching him watching her and redirecting his gaze to a particularly gaudy statue of a Hippocampus, crossing his arms and retracting his Colours in a show of business-like behaviour.

Mirage comes back in, trailed by Fathom who is doing the tie up on a long robe, her hair still wet. Valour and Talisman look grim.

“What is it?” She asks. They look at one another, Talisman drawing breath as though to speak and then thinking better of it.

“What?” She demands.

Valour finally looks down, then levels his eyes to her.

“We found the old man that Bright spoke of…” He says, still deadly serious. “… and it is true. His name is Scarab, and he is from Boneguard. He fell through a gate in the desert on his homeworld some forty years ago, during the reign of Exile. And he’s not alone. For centuries people from Boneguard, Calender Rock, Eagle Camp and Broken Axe have been stumbling into one-way gates that exit in this region of the Spheres. They’ve set up a township on a world a few gates away that they call Wanderlost.”

She frowns, the dot-tattoos shifting, and asks “But that is GOOD news. We have people predisposed to helping us that have had longer than us to map out these territories. We should go there at once.”

Talisman sighs deeply, causing Fathom to turn and snap at him.

“WHAT? What is it?”

“There are two Spheres between here and Wanderlost” Says Valour. “One called Effigy, named for the inhabitants’ fondness for statues. Before that, though, is one…” He sighs, and looks up at Fathom again. “One called The Burning Lands. It’s…”

Talisman interrupts, sending a flash of red in front of Valour’s face to cut him off. “...It’s a trackless, endless wasteland. A six-week journey through a Sphere where the Sun never sets, and where there are no clouds to shield from it. There is no natural water or vegetation anywhere on the Sphere.”

“…Oh.”
TALISMAN ONE

You’re on board a ship (which somehow seems a natural place for you to be), a large sailing ship cutting through the waves of some nameless ocean, undisturbed by waves. Dotted around the sea, like emeralds dropped onto a cloth, are many dozens of islands, stretching from the near-distance to the horizon.

You make your way to the prow, where Fathom is stood like a real-life version of the Ship’s mermaid mascot. She has her eyes closed and is pulling the spray from the bow-wave up onto herself.

“My lady”, you say formally, making a long bow and angling your Colours behind you to make contrails in the wind. “Is it bracing enough for you up here?”

“Wonderful” She says. “It is not often we stay for long on a water world”

“I have…”

“…Business to discuss. Yes, I guessed. What can I do for you?”

“It’s the cuckoo.”

“Excuse me?” She blinks, and the spray falls back down to normal as she turns to you.

“The cuckoo that has entered our nest.”

“You mean Soul.”

“Precisely. Exactly, yes. You have hit, as it were, the nail upon the head. The child. I don’t trust him.”

“May I ask why not?”

“Fathom… “ you look around, and sit down, back against the ship’s rail. “Let me tell you something. There are gaps in my knowledge. I was not a good studious child, preferring to get drunk and use the gift my mother nearly paid her life to give me in order to win at cards.”

She raises an eyebrow

“I do not know what it is like to be a diplomat” Your Colours briefly turn into a pair of glowing Valour-like wings, “Or an assassin. Or a bodyguard. Or” You nod towards her “a leader. I have no way of knowing such things. I know the decisions you have to make as the captain of our merry band, the hand on our tiller, the conductor to our brass band and so on. I understand why you think we need to take the boy with us, even.”

She starts to form a question, and you plough on to your finish. “I may not know everything, but powerful creatures infusing humans with their essence? THAT I know about, Princess. We can’t trust the child.”

“But the Lady said…”

“I know what she said, savvy? I don’t give a monkeybird’s melon what she said. Before she was The Lady and the self-imposed patroness of our no-longer-quite-so-short jaunt… and where in blazes has she been for the last couple of years? Asleep? We could have done with a few hands a few times back there. Anyway... before all that, she was my mother’s slave. She hated our family. And don’t get me started on Julius. Gods, Princess. Never trust Gods. They’ll bend you backwards and have you until next year if you let them.”

“What a delightful turn of phrase”

“And one which I happen to know is factually true. Long story.”

“Which I will be fascinated to hear. Eventually. Is that it?”

“I know you’re going to let the boy come along anyway. I know you’re going to because I don’t see as you have any other choice other than throwing him overboard, and by the time we get to the next world he’ll have become part of the group. I just wanted to tell you that, in a few years time, when it all blows up in our faces and something irreversibly horrible happens to us all as a result of having him along, I shall turn to you and say ‘I told you so’ and you shall say ‘yes you did’ and then we’ll get on with digging ourselves out of it. Alright?”

“Alright.”VALOUR ONE

You’re in some kind of cabin, wooden walls, two hammocks and a simple desk and stool. The floor pitches and rolls with some kind of motion – wherever you are, you’re on the move, but it doesn’t feel like being on board a ship. For a start, you cannot taste salt in the air. It’s more like being on a wagon, but the room is so large as to make that unlikely.

You’re sitting alone, hands firmly clasped onto a tall drinking horn of some amber liquid. A bowl of red, spherical fruits is in the corner of the table, and there is a stack of scrolls and papers covering most of the rest of it. The light in the room comes from a lantern, swinging lazily with the motion of whatever you’re in, hanging from the centre of the ceiling.

“Any luck?”

Talisman has entered. His Colours are muted, brushing against your boots like a light breeze. He smiles grimly, and you get the sense of something not being said, a topic being avoided.

“Nothing more than we already found.” You say, “The librarians on Birthright said that they’d keep looking for us, and would send word ahead if they found anything else. I’m just going over all these half-tales of the Old Kingdoms.”

“You think there’s something in it?” He says, climbing into one of the hammocks.

“Think about it. Here we are in a wide spread of worlds – ancient civilisations, the origins of most of the Gods. All of these people, every last world, say that they migrated here from somewhere nearby. They call themselves the Young kingdoms, but are older than… Well, they make Overguard look like a colony.”

Talisman nods.

“And every now and again, there’s a gate to somewhere else. A shift – like walking over a border. The worlds on the transition are just as old, but built on the ruins of things even older than them. And the further you go…”

“The Old Kingdoms” He says it like he’s quoting from something.

“The Old Kingdoms. Over a dozen worlds, all tangled up in a mass of one-way gates, hidden portals and the occasional gate to the outside. Every one of them devoid of human life, ruined, Post-Apocalyptic. If it’s anywhere”, you say with certainty, “it’s somewhere in there. The trick is to find it. And to navigate through it.”

“When we get to the gate” he says “we’ll ask around. There has to be a way through that maze.”

You clench your fists, and he cranes his neck to observe you. Slowly, you flatten your palms out.

“Don’t want to think about it either, huh?” He says.

“No.” You say with finality. “I don’t.”

He looks down at his boots. When he speaks, it’s in a low, serious voice, what you have come to think of as Talisman’s True Voice – when all the swagger, and the gusto is stripped away, and he becomes the friend you have travelled with for so many years.

“We’re going to have to go on, Valour. We’re going to have to. It is not what we would choose – not what… Not what we HAVE chosen. Both of us have faced this decision before – myself on Maw, you even before we came on this quest. The women have all been offered it one by one – Echo in the Ancient Empire, Fathom on Deep Green, Mirage on Shift. They’ve all turned it down.”

“Until now.” You say, with heartfelt bitterness.

“Until now. We’ve been travelling for… I don’t know how long. Years – maybe four or five at the least. It was not to last. Eventually, the comfort of being…” He frowns, sadly. “It is too tempting.”

“And so she’s leaving.” You finish. “The Companions are finally divided. She’s leaving. It’s… it’s over.”

“My friend,” he says, as though revealing a great truth. “Nothing is ever over.”FATHOM ONEThe gate opens, and you emerge into a glorious, clear sky.

It’s clear because you’re above the clouds – the alien beauty of the cloud tops lies some distance below you.

For a split-second you hang in the air, propelled by the force of your egress from the Astral Path. And then you begin to fall. Somewhere – sounding impossibly distant – Valour cries out in alarm.

Easy for him, you think to yourself. He’s got wings.

Echo screams as she plummets, the rags of Mirage’s clothing whip past you in the rushing wind as the changeling instinctively changes into a bird. Talisman’s Colours flash madly about him as he tumbles through the air.

The cloud tops are nearer now.

Valour is diving as fast as he can, but his wings are hindering him, doing what they are supposed to and providing lift. Lift that means he can’t catch up with you, or with Echo.

Talisman’s Colours form into large sheets of transparent light. They’re not very solid, but they’re solid enough, and he’s slowing himself down. He reaches out his hand towards Echo below him, separated by an increasing gulf of air. She reaches her hand up to his, echoes, dispels her original body, echoes again, and again, and again, the fraction of a second each takes to begin falling meaning she strobes up towards him until she’s grabbed his arm and they’re falling together.

That doesn’t help you.

Above you, Mirage and Valour have caught up with Echo and Talisman, taking one each and using the extra weight to try to catch up with you – Mirage changing into a human again. You force yourself to calm, and close your eyes as you plummet into the clouds.

The water in the cloud makes dew on your skin, and you have an idea. Reaching out with your mind, you drag as much of it towards you as you can. At first, it feels like you’re falling in mist. Then in rain. Then in a waterfall. Desperate – certain that you are nearly at the bottom of the cloud, you make the water below you harden into snow, the semisolidity of it slowing you. Your improvised blizzard falls with you, and you emerge out of the bottom of the cloud surrounded by a halo of whirling snow, ice and rain. You pull it in, make it liquid – you’re now falling in a bubble of water, like a portable waterfall from and to nowhere.

Above you, but much closer now, the others fall in tandem. Talisman flings his arm out towards you, and planes of Colour appear around you as you fall. They provide the fixed surface you need, and you direct your miniature waterspout towards it, turning it to ice as it meets the Colour to add greater strength.

You’re now sliding down in a vast spiral, corkscrewing down in an effort to slow yourself. The others hit your waterslide behind you and Talisman goes pale with the concentration, forming more framework ahead of you all that you then fill in with ice. After a few seconds, you begin to get the hang of collapsing the “slide” behind the group and pulling the water back to the front – the spiral makes it easier, as the distance between the front and back of the slide is less than it’s length.

After a few minutes of this, Mirage begins to whoop, the exhilaration overtaking the terror. You make the slide rough where you are and more smooth where they are, allowing the group to come together.

“Fun as this is, “ shouts Mirage above the wind, teeth chattering from the cold (she is, after all, naked, and protected from the elements only by Valour’s wings which the birdman has wrapped around her), “Where in the seven stars of skystone is it going?”

Talisman looks over the lip of the slide and moves his hands as though at the reins of an out-of-control cart. The framework suddenly veers off to the left, and you struggle to get the ice formed in time ahead of you all. Talisman seems to be watching for something, then drops his hands like a conductor. The framework suddenly turns into a funnel ahead of you, dropping into a vertical drop, and you shoot out of the end of it back into the open air.

Talisman is laughing now, Mirage too. Echo is wild-eyed, Valour grim. Talisman points himself as though diving into a pool of water, hands in front of him in an exaggeration of grace.

He dives into the Gate that he must have seen from the track, the Astral Path opening up beneath you like a flower. One by one, you fall into it and are safe.MIRAGE ONE

You’re standing on a balcony, jutting out from a large structure made of a sandy-yellow stone, as though your parapet were emerging from the side of a castle. To your left and right, the construction wraps around and away, eventually meeting itself and forming a large ring of about 4 miles across. Below the ring, below this balcony, the stone subtly transitions into flesh of the same colour – the change so smooth you cannot tell where organic matter ends and masonry begins.

“To hear the natives of this strange world tell it,” says Valour from behind you, “they don’t. The creature was summoned here by accident – they tried to ritually alter the Usurper force of their world, to make themselves a world of trade and resource. But all they really wanted to do was consume…”

You look down at the Maw.

“…And so their city became a thing that feeds.” You finish. “I heard the same explanation. And I thought you promised Fathom to not do that any more?”

“My apologies. You have been… thinking very loudly lately. When I walked in, you were quiet in your mind for the first time in weeks, and I wondered what had changed. I intruded without realising it. I’ll try harder in future.”

You shrug. “No harm done.”

“Are you sure of that?” He says, carefully.

“I was only idly wondering about what happens to the things it eats.” You say, lightly. “Do you think there’s another world where things come out the other end, as it were?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

“So?”

You leave the balcony, re-entering the apartments you have been rented (for a considerable fee) by the native government.

“I’m fine. I’m not obsessing about what happened, and I don’t have any hard feelings towards Talisman because of it. I see no reason to go on about it. If he doesn’t want to talk about it it’s his problem.”

“If it’s his problem, then it’s the group’s problem. You know that.”

“Yes. Companions of the Lost Force together. ‘Upon you, no oath is laid except that of comradeship’ and all the rest of it. Fathom rarely discusses anything else these days. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking she’s having a hard time sticking to it.”

He grimaces, crosses his arms and folds his wings in an oddly comic gesture.

“About Talisman, then?”

“Are we STILL on about that? Tell him it wasn’t his fault what happened. And that I am beginning to find his protestations of simple friendship to be somewhat insulting. There’s only so many times one can be told that although we’re very good friends he doesn’t feel that way at all, not really, and if he did he wouldn’t do anything for the good of the mission, and so on, before one starts to wonder if maybe there’s something repulsive about oneself.”

“Have you considered the idea that maybe…”

You grit your teeth “You are not about to suggest what you seem to be about to suggest, feather-brain. To do so would be to invite yourself for a plucking. And I could use a new down-stuffed pillow.”

He shakes his head in disgust. “You’re as bad as one another”

You watch him stomp out onto the balcony, spring into the air and soar away.

ECHO, VALOUR and MIRAGE wake up at the meeting-point of eight gigantic vaulted hallways, somewhere deep underground on some unknown Sphere, everything choked with an inch of dust. A shaft of light came down on them from the ceiling. They immediately notice their changed appearances – Valour with horror – and deduce that their memories have been erased. Going through their packs reveals clues, but nothing concrete.

Valour flies up to the ceiling, and discovers that the light comes out of a shaft too narrow for him to fly up. Mirage shifts to a bird and tries it herself, finding a room with a movable mirror mechanism that sends the light down. This seems to be part of a series of light-shafts parallel to the hallways below. She experiments with moving it, making the junction across from where the other two were light up, then moves it back.

Flying down, they regroup and decide to move. Following their own footprints (well, Echo’s and Mirage’s anyway – Valour seems to have flown), they discover more junctions and - in one of the hallways - a Gate-point, entirely unmarked. After a bit of thought, they trigger it and go through, experiencing a second Vision each.

Somewhere else on the hallway-world, TALISMAN, FATHOM and SOUL wake up, in a similar junction-point. Fathom demands to know who Soul is, but the child doesn't know - and Talisman is a good enough judge of lies to tell that he's telling the truth. They too investigate the light source - Talisman rocketting ceiling-wards on a disk of Colour - and just as similarly abandon it.

There are no footprints around them (though there is a circular "crop circle" in the dust that is soon joined by another when Talisman touches his disk down), so they wander for a few hours through the hallways. In the distance, they spot a brief flash of light (which is caused, unbeknown to them, by Mirage moving the mirror) and head towards it.

Halfway there, though, they find something else.

A vast chamber, vaulted like the hallways, brightly lit by multiple beams of light reflecting from mirror to mirror. This is apparantly the light source for the entire Sphere - the centre of the room is dominated by a dias (almost the size of a house), topped with a piller which is in turn topped with a large bronze dish. Something sitting on the dish, that they can't see from the floor, is making all the light.

Naturally, Talisman creates another disk and lifts them all up to have a look. The source of all the light is a glowing glass ball, so bright it's hard to look directly at. Fathom reaches out, and it gives her a shock like static electricity. Talisman tries to pick it up with his Colours, but they slide right through it. Soul reaches out and picks it up - the light immediately goes out. To Talisman's protests that he "broke it", Soul shakes the thing speculativly, each shake producing a flash of light and a "thrrrrum" noise. As he excitedly shakes the ball, it's glow becomes steadier and steadier and the noise gets louder, until Fathom worriedly tells him to stop. He puts it away in his pack, and they leave the now-dark chamber to it's isolation. They make their way through the now pitch-black hallways, Talisman lighting the way with his Colours, until they reach the spot that the other three woke up in. Following their footsteps, they themselves come across the Gateway and head on through.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 04:34 PM

SPHERE TWO - EMPTY THRONE

MIRAGE TWO

You tumble out of the Everway, drawing your sword and looking around you.

“Great… Something of…” You mumble to yourself.

The World is broken.

At some point, aeons ago, this was a palatial city-world – gleaming marble and grassy lawns, flags proudly flapping in the wind and ornamental fountains bubbling. It would have been a good place to live.

Something – some unknown ancient force – has smashed the world. It has shattered, like a mirror smashed into shards, the jagged pieces drifting slightly with the centuries, opening up cracks in between them. Through the cracks…

…You don’t want to look at what’s through the cracks.

“Mirage!” cries Talisman, his Colours making harsh shapes of black and deep purple. “Don’t just stand there! They were right behind us, and…” He looks towards the gate you just exited “…and they’re coming through any minute now.”

“In retrospect” You say to him “This was not one of my better plans.”

The group – including the child – gets a hurry on, getting as far away from your point of entry as possible.

“It worked didn’t it? We’re past the blockade.”

“Yes, but that gate was one way. So we’re still going to have to run their blockade on the way OUT”

“Details, details…” He trails off. “VALOUR! ECHO! FATHOM! HERE THEY COME!”

Everyone draws weapons and turns to face the gate. It spirals into visible life, and a score of the creatures pour out – they were once men, but have now been warped, the flesh of them stretched like blown glass, forming spindly appendages, long gaping maws, great barbed claws and other attributes. The colour and texture of the skin hasn’t changed, only the shape. You get a nasty impression of something that has been made wrong, like metal that has been poured into a faulty mould. One creature’s face features great spikes that correspond to where it’s eyes used to be, and the spine has a wide band of white running along it where the thing’s eyeball got stretched along with the rest of it’s face.

The creatures charge, and you defend yourselves.

Fathom weighs in with a mighty-looking broadsword, Echo darts forward and back, echoing constantly to appear and vanish all over the battlefield, throwing knives and blowing darts as she goes but mostly drawing their attention for the rest of you to exploit. Valour fires arrows from on high. Talisman roars, extends his hand and projects a wide beam of tiny shards of Colour at the enemy, shredding one of the creatures to pieces. The fight is hard, and though your comrades all try bravely the last weeks of pursuit have taken it out of them. The creatures grab the child and – whooping – carry him off, throwing him to the ground. You can only watch as they stab him again and again, ripping him to pieces.

You all take cover.

The creatures stop stabbing the corpse and turn to advance on the rest of you.

The body begins to glow.

The creatures confer among themselves, clicking to one another.

The light coming from the boy’s many wounds turns red. A heat haze begins to show over the body.

“EVERYONE DOWN” shouts Fathom, taking cover behind a fountain.

The boy explodes, a spherical blast on fire, heat, noise and light emanating from his body. The concussion knocks the piece of world he’s on into another, which slowly rotates and hits another, and so on – the careful drifting apart being suddenly disrupted, like lily pads in a pond that has just had a brick thrown into it.

When his piece of world rotates back into view, the boy is sitting up, checking his torn clothes (full of stab-cuts) with dismay.ECHO TWO

You’re sitting on a small bed in what looks like an inn, combing your hair. As far as you can tell, you just got up. From out through the tiny window you can the hubbub of a busy street, and smell the unique combination of spices, animal dung and refuse that says “City” to you.

Tying your hair back, you get up. Pausing at the door, you glance back at the rolled-up piece of long cloth that you know contains your various weapons. Turning back to the door you pause again, walk briskly over to the weaponry, find a needle-knife and shove it through your hair like a hair pin then push the remaining arsenal (which includes the katana) under the bed with a foot. Feeling strangely guilty, you exit the room. You pause in the corridor, open the door next to your own and slip inside. This one is larger, having two single beds, and by the faint scent of saltwater it’s one occupied by Fathom and Mirage. Crossing the floor to Mirage’s pack, you dig through her supply of clothes until you find a dress that’s roughly your size. Shrugging your own clothes off, you quickly change, dig through her things again to find a belt (it’s rather large for you), rummage again to find some earrings. Rummage again to find some earrings that aren’t overly ostentatious, check your hair and finally leave again.

This time, you actually manage to get to the bar.

Mirage looks up as you descend the stairs into the drinking area – which turns out to be more of a Kaffe than a pub – and smiles down into her mug. Feeling distinctly like you’ve been caught doing something embarrassing, you slide into the other seat at her table.

“You look…” she shakes her head and flicks her eyebrows “... different. And no weapons, either.”

You turn in your seat, attracting the attention of the waitress, and turn back to see Mirage has spotted your “hairpin”.

“Well.” She says, conciliatorily, “at least you tried to go unarmed. Making the effort is more important than succeeding. I bet they won’t even notice.”

“You’re mocking me.” You say, feeling suddenly foolish.

“Not at all. It’s... how shall I say? It’s good to see you making that effort. My only question is who is that effort for?”

You blush, and busy yourself with the returning waitress, your money and your Kaff. Eventually, you manage to think of a witty retort.

“Well, I don’t have your experience in these matters.” Mirage raises both eyebrows in surprise, and you stammer apologetically “I didn’t mean it like that – I just meant, you know, you’ve…”

“I know what you meant.”

You sigh into your Kaff

”Damn it, I feel ridiculous. He’s not even here, is he?”

Mirage nods knowingly. “He’s gone out. All the menfolk have, along with Fathom. They’ve gone to see a Sage a few miles further up the road who has a map of this region of the Spheres.”

“Well, at least I’ll have time to change again.”

“’Indeed’. And Echo…” She leans forward “… the reason you feel ridiculous is that you look ridiculous. The dress is far too big, you’re obviously uncomfortable… It’s all” she waves her hand, indicating the whole of you “..false. If he likes you, he likes you weaponry and all. And he does like you.”

You are lost for a few seconds, Mirage looking increasingly worried.

“Echo?” She says, breaking you out of your reverie.

“He does?”
Mirage rolls her eyes, and starts to laugh.VALOUR TWO

“How long do you think we’ve been climbing for?” Asks Mirage, forcing you out of your reverie.

You’re all standing on a wide (about twenty metres wide) staircase of long, flat stairs – each step wide enough to lie down on comfortably and about a hand-span deep. The stairs, wall and ceiling are made of the same uniform reddish stone, and the only illumination is the impossibly bright light coming from up the stairs – looking where you’re going is like looking into the sun. In contrast, the light swiftly fades behind you, as though you were on the very edge of it, such that after only a short distance the stairs below you are completely pitch-black.

You scratch a wing idly, removing a stray feather.

“About four hours, I think, though it’s hard to tell.”

She looks up, shielding her eyes with a hand

“Have you noticed how, ever since we left the gate at the bottom, the light always stops fifteen steps behind us? Like it’s just moving with us?”

“I have noticed that, yes.”

“And have you noticed that there doesn’t seem to be anything else in this world?”

“That, too, I have noticed.”

“And how we’ve been slogging it up these stairs for four or five hours and have nothing to show for it?”

“Yes”, you say through gritted teeth, “I had noticed that as well.”

Mirage fidgets. Fathom just sits on the next step up, drinking from a water bottle. Echo and Talisman are sat on the step up from Fathom – Echo is reading a book, Talisman is flipping through a fate deck.

“So.” Asks Mirage, “How long do you think it’ll take?”

“Legend in the Thousand Sands has it that this stair goes to Heaven, or at the very least a blissful world where the inhabitants live in a perpetual state of grace, living their lives out in contentment and joy. Explorers have been trying it for years – about half of them never come back, the others run out of supplies and turn back, or give up. The longest anyone has climbed the stair without then vanishing from all history is twelve days.

“Twelve DAYS?”

“Twelve days”. You say, grimly. “It’s almost certain that there is a gate at the top. It’s just that the top is a very, very long way away.”

“What are we going to do then?”

“Pace ourselves, rest often... And keep on climbing.”

The first group arrives in a shallow reflecting pool in a ruined city, between two statues of warring gods.

Making camp in the nearby plaza, and looking for the others (of whom there is no sign), they _mostly_ share their visions with one another (covering things like details of Spheres, but not any emotional content). Taking the chance to take stock of their possessions, Valour offers Mirage his sword Not in an honour way - in a "I don't know how to use this" way. Then, after a long night camping out, roasting pigeons that Mirage catches and telling one another things (Valour decided to take a chance and reveal his telepathy to them - Echo asking that he not use it on her), they go exploring, Echo leaving a copy of herself at the Gateway.

The city – which they figure out from repeated hyroglyphics was called EMPTY THRONE – is laid out in a regular pattern, with plazas containing the end-points of one way gates (marked with metal hoops), wide canals, ziggurats at the cardinal directions and a vast palace complex at the centre. Deciding to explore this, they move through it's deserted hallways until the reach the throneroom, a vast chamber built around the Throne itself, which is seemingly grown out of the floor. Unable to resist the subtle exhortations of her soul, Mirage sits on it.

The entire city then begins to shake with an earthquake, becoming even more ruined than it already was. The quake stops shortly after Mirage gets off the throne, but the damage is done. They decide, with uncommon unity, that further experimentation would be a bad thing.

Once the shaking settles down, odd things began to happen – visions of the past, like ghosts only not, appeared to “play” at random intervals, showing some kind of rebellion or civil war. These are abrupt and quite frightening - in th eblink of an eye, a square is suddenly full of an angry mob disembowelling soldiers, a scene that assaults the senses and then vanishes again just as fast. That the events portrayed actually happened is proven when a “soldier” fires it’s crossbow through them and the quarrel-tip – several millennia old – is found in the spot it hit.

Having exhausted patience and found no sign of the others, they decide to go back to the other world, which Valour suggests they call STONEWANDER. But the gate proves to be in use – someone is coming through from the other side, preventing them from using it in the opposite direction.

Following one “ghost” up a ziggurat shows that these people worshipped the sun, and did so by ritual sacrifice. Exploring that Temple of the Sun results in them finding a mural showing the development of the Realm – according to this, they had found another gate to an island-world and colonised it, only to have it rebel.

As they leave the Temple, one of the "in" gates in the plazas flashes into life, and disgorges ten of the twisted creatures Mirage had seen in her vision. They spot Valour and Mirage (who is in the form of a Skystone dweller for ease of exploration) and the four of them that have "wings" fly off towards them.

The copy of Echo back at the camp is caught by suprise as the gate from Stonewander opens.

FATHOM TWO

You’re underground, somewhere, in a cavern that has had a town built into it. Wooden buildings – some no more advanced than the tree-houses you’ve seen on some worlds (and why would they be? You think. It’s not like they need to keep the rain out) piled on top of one another with a complex system of ladders, ropes, walkways and platforms making up the three-dimensional “street”. In the distance, you can just see the cave open into a tunnel to another cavern, wooden boards set up in the tunnel to make a main street and the lights of more buildings beyond. Giant globes, filled with a greenish-yellow light that you suspect is given off by some kind of fungus inside, are tethered to the buildings at infrequent intervals to provide light, supplemented by a thousand candles, lanterns, braziers and torches. Careful not to touch any of the flames, you make your way into a large, low wooden building – some kind of community space, like your father’s hall back on Pearl of the Waves. Except not underwater.

The space is packed with people, long tables set up and piled with food. Everyone is in a jubilant mood, the pale-skinned inhabitants of this strange subterranean world all grins and laughs.

“Princess!” calls Talisman in greeting. The half-dragon rogue is seated, a plate piled high before him. Echo is sat next to him, looking very much like she’d prefer to be elsewhere. You stroll over and sit opposite him, one of the natives putting a earthenware cup in front of you.

“Now this is the sort of treatment I enjoy” he says, waving a piece of bread at the celebration. “Why, from the way they’re treating us you’d think we’d…”

“…Killed the monster that was coming up from the lower town and eating their children.” You finish. “I am simply pleased that we came out of it intact.”

You look around, finding Mirage in the crowd, dancing with several of the larger males.

“And truthfully,” you confide, “It is good to find somewhere we would be welcome on the return journey. I have the feeling that they will be all too rare.”

Echo scowls

“You disagree, Echo?” You say. The girl shakes her head, not wanting to comment, and you are about to shrug and continue talking when Talisman leans back in his chair and sends a beam of light down onto her. Echo starts, realises what’s happening and glares at him. Holding a hand up, silently telling Talisman to stop it, you decide to have this out.

“What is it child?”

“Forgive me, princess.” She says. “It is not my place to pass comment.” Talisman rolls his eyes theatrically, and cuts off the spotlight.

“Echo, how many times must I tell you that we are all equals in this quest?”

She toys with her food. “At least once more, Princess.”

You take a calming breath and put your cup down.

“Echo. What. Do. You. Think.”

“I think… “ she says slowly “that you are making a mistake in thinking of this place as a waypoint.”

“You do not think we could use it on the journey home?”

“No, Princess. I do not think there will be a journey home. Please excuse me.” She gets up and hurries out, not meeting your eyes.

“Well”, drawls Talisman. “Isn’t she the very spirit of fun and lightness?” A tiny glowing image of Echo, a miniature thundercloud pouring rain down on her head, arms crossed and seated in a sulk appears on the table.

“Stop that.” You say halfheartedly, trying to force yourself to not smile. “Stop it. I mean it, Talisman.”

You look at the doorway as Echo leaves the party.

“I worry about that girl.” You say, but Talisman has been distracted by a reasonably comely maiden. “I worry about all of us.”TALISMAN TWO

You’re walking downhill through a steeply-sloping pine forest, hooking your Colours around trees as you go for stability but half walking half surfing all the same. The others are nowhere to be seen.

“Easy, Tal” you mutter to yourself. “Easy. No problem. Insignificant. Nothing whatsoever to worry about.”

It isn’t helping. You’ve a sinking feeling in your guts that isn’t due to the gravity nor to whatever you ate that morning.

Up ahead, there’s a line of demarcation beyond which you can no longer see the ground – a cliff. You’re coming up onto the edge of a cliff. Carefully dropping to you hands and knees, you crawl forward and – using a thorn bush as cover – look down.

The cliff is perhaps twenty metres tall, and looks down into a deep trough in the forest that appears – wonder of wonders – to have been excavated by man. Or something else. Down below, the grass has been cleared and a road surface of broken pebbles aid down. Looking left, you see the road curving around and passing out of sight. Looking right, you see right down the trench as it widens into a vast avenue. And you see what is beyond it.

“A house. Right. Because that’s homey.” You mutter, and begin to make your way towards it along the edge of the escarpment. Eventually, the ground you’re on begins to slope down as the forest’s hill lowers to the ground level of the road. You use your Colours to gain handholds and climb a particularly sturdy-looking tree, taking up position to get a good look at your destination.

It’s not the fact that when you say “House” you mean “large walled compound complete with outbuildings, gardens, what looks like several full-sized forges, watchtowers, a moat and a waterwheel fed from the nearby river”. It’s not the way that whole sections of the landscape – the buildings, the grass, the plants in the garden, even portions of the water in the river – are made of silvery-grey metal, and that these metallic areas seem to be growing into the surroundings like mould in bread, breaking up into silvery tendrils at the edges. It’s not the circular metal hoop set on it’s edge in the garden, clearly marking the position of the Everway you can sense there. It’s not the fact that the place is heavily guarded by several dozen robed creatures, shuffling around – conspicuously avoiding the metal areas – and brandishing large polearms. It’s the whole damn thing.

“A nice… easy... little favour.” You mutter sourly. “Ieeeee szhall doooooo yooooou a servicsssssse if yooooou dooooo meee a servicsssse” you say in a strange voice, like you’re imitating someone with a high, wheezy voice. “Mad old bastard.” You climb down, and lean against the tree, secure in your misery.

A polite cough right next to you makes you nearly jump out of your skin, and you suppress a yelp. To yelp, you consider, would not be manly. Echo doesn’t appear to notice. You breathe an inward sigh of relief, and then realise something.

“Echo” you whisper, “what the bloody hells are YOU doing here? You’re supposed to be waiting with the others.”

“And let you go off alone?” she counters, “Fathom, Soul and Mirage can look after him. I’m not a nursemaid. Besides” she pokes you in the side, and you tense up with shooting pain. “You’re not properly healed yet yourself”

“It could have been worse” you mutter “it could have been me that thing hit”

“Or Fathom” she says. “Or Soul”. Seeing you narrow your eyes, she frowns. “You’re thinking it too, I see.”

“That an enemy with those powers just happens to attack us for no reason now? It had crossed my mind.” You put your hand over the tender spot on your chest “and my ribcage.”

“It’s been a difficult year”

“It’s been a bleeding impossible year. We’re lost, kitten. Have been since we climbed the Endless Stair. Gods. Monsters. Pheonixes. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re getting sidetracked, and that thing is the biggest sidetrack we’ve hit so far.”

“As opposed to this?”

You look at the compound

“I never said that. We have to maintain the group, and so…”

“We kill all of these people. For a man we don’t really know.”SOUL TWO

A field, and a farmer.

He’s walking along the ploughed rows of his field, scattering seeds from a leather bag slung from one shoulder. Occasionally he clucks in annoyance, having spotted a weed, at which point he slowly lowers himself to his knees and excises the offending plant. The sun is going down, and he finishes up another row before the light really begins to fade. Sighing in satisfaction at a day’s work well done, he makes his tired way back to his hut – a low structure made of woven reeds.

Inside, the farmer’s wife provides him with food, and comfort for his aching knees. She’s just as old as he, this one, but wise.

You can hear the flapping of wings

The wife is now trying to persuade her husband to leave the farm, to abandon their holdings and to flee from the thing that lives in the forest much as their neighbours have done. He scoffs at her words, proudly says that he has lived here for decades and won’t flee because of some rumour.

She looks out into the night, and shivers. He doesn’t notice, intent upon his food.

The next morning, he returns to his fields and begins his endeavours again. At the same spot as last time, he clucks. The weed is back.

Again, he returns home. Again, his wife tries to persuade him to leave. Again, he goes to bed. Again, he goes to work.

Again, the weed is back.

His noises have changed to those of surprise now, and curiosity. Clearing the earth away from around the base of the plant, he begins uproots it again, destroying the seeds within a metre for fear of contamination. Satisfied that the weed is indeed out, he returns to his daily work.

You can hear the flapping of wings

That night, his wife tries once again, and he rebukes her. More than that, he threatens her – says she must have some motive for wanting him to leave.

That night, he sleeps on the floor, listening to the wind in the trees outside.

The next morning, the weed is back. Again. Angrily, he hacks it out of the ground. He storms back to the house and accuses his wife of planting weeds in his fields to make him leave. She protests her innocence, but he is angry. He hits her, she hits him back and he lashes out with the first thing that comes to hand. His seed-hole maker, a long stick with a sharp metal point on the end.

There is a lot of blood, but blood is good for plants. He buries her next to the field, and silently returns to bed.

His neighbours have all left, his wife is dead (at his hands?). He has no one left to talk to.

In the morning, the Weed is back.

You can hear the flapping of wings

He lies down on the ground, nose up against the weed, peering down at it. He reaches out to pluck it.

The weed reaches out and plucks him.

The weed shoots forwards on the end of a thick ropey vine, wrapping around his arm and torso and pinning him to the ground. He screams for help but none is coming – his neighbours all fled and he has killed his wife.

He hears footsteps. Crying now, he asks his wife for forgiveness.

The thing that was once his wife has none to give.

Blood is good for the plants.

Fathom, Talisman and Soul tumble out of the Gate, and are stopped from looking around by a shout from Echo - who tells them in words of two syllables or less that there is a battle going on now, and that Valour and Mirage are outnumbered.

But first, they have their own problems - in the shape of the six ground-based creatures.

They Fight.

The first wave of the creatures have been twisted into quadrapeds with large snapping jaws, like hell's own hounds. Talisman encases himself in a suit of Colour armour three times bigger than he is, Echo and Fathom "batter up" their weapons and wait for the "dogs" to come to them, cutting them in half as they charge in. The halves fall to the floor, sizzling - Echo's falls onto a lawn and sinks into the grass (which begins to move as though grasping), Fathom's falls onto bare flagstones and turns to black ash.

Up in the air, Valour and Mirage are doing their best, helped by Talisman flinging shields of Colour up between them and the aerial monsters.

Down on the ground, one of the creatures charges Soul, who's eyes glow red as the creature bursts into flame, rapidly turning to ash. One of the remaining flyers is shot down by Valour (Talisman has provided a Colour bow), and death-spirals down, impacting with a tree and melting away into it. The tree then *twists*, turning into a much bigger one of the creatures. One of the Hound-form ones makes a run towards it, trying to merge with it as well, and Mirage shapechanges into a rhino right above it, squashing it flat and feeling oddly pleased with herself.

She is less pleased when her legs begin to go cold - the creature is trying to save itself from ash-dom by merging with her. Theorising that she has a greater control over her body than it does, she tries to merge with IT, and gets a horrifying glimpse of a unifying, malevolant intelligence before giving that up as a bad idea and trying the opposite tactic - changing forms faster than it can assimilate.

Fathom, realising what's going on, instructs Soul to combust the bodies that are lying on grass. Talisman takes on the tree-monster, keeping it busy while Fathom pulls water up out of the nearby canal, dumps it down on the creature and freezes it solid. The final creature makes a break for it, jumping into the canal and altering itself to swim, but Soul remote-detonates it before it can get far. Knocking the partial creature off Mirage and similarly combusting it, they realise that they've won - Talisman fillets the ice-bound tree-beast by impaling the ice block rapidly with appearing and vanishing blades of colour like a magician's sword cabinet trick that lacks the trick. Trapped away from organic matter (that would seem to be the way to do it), the tree-beast crumbles to ash.

Getting their breath back, the two groups greet one another and decide on a bit of a rest - returning to the camp site, they go over their different experiences and a select few of their visions. Fathom explains about the boy and the ball, while Mirage tells the tale of the Throne and it's earthquake-causing properties.

Now what?

Soul is entranced by the sound of the Throne, and wants to see it for himself. The others, meanwhile, want to find the gate mentioned in one of Fathom's letters - the one leading to a world called Empty Gaze. Deciding to explore the opposite temple to the one Valour and Mirage found the mural in, they find that it has been levelled by the earthquake, but that Talisman can still sense the Gateway buried somewhere down there. Fathom, Mirage and Talisman shrug and get to clearing the debris. Eventually, Soul's badgering gets enough on Talisman's nerves that he makes the child a flying disk to take him to the palace, if only to get a moment's peace. One of Echo goes with him, and they reach the Throne room. Warning him not to get on it, Echo looks around while Soul feels the Ball "thrrrum". Taking it out, he finds that the ball is pulsing, reacting to something. He puts the ball on the throne, and watches to see what will happen.

There's a bone-shaking rumbling, and another arthquake begins - but this time in *reverse*. Toppled towers rebuild themselves, walls reerect, paint un-fades and glass reforms in windows. The bulk of the party - over at the Temple - have to dodge as the rubble they just cleared moves to rebuild itself. After a while, the city is as perfect as it once was, and Talisman and Fathom are wandering inside the now suddenly pristine Temple, reading the murals that say the Gate in the central room leads to Empty Gaze.

Soul, picking the ball back up, then decides to get on the Throne.

As everything starts to fall down again with a vengeance, Talisman holds the roof up with a wide beam of Colour and screams to the Echo that's with him to get Soul off the damn thing. She does so, and the two of them run out of the rapidly-collapsing palace for the temple. While Talisman holds the roof up, the others jump one by one through the gate. Once they're all safely through, he dives in himself - the roof support vanishing as he moves to the next sphere and his last sight of Empty Throne - before his body vanishes into the Astral Path - being the ceiling falling with crushing weight towards him.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 04:57 PM

SPHERE THREE - EMPTY GAZE

FATHOM THREE

You’re in a temperate forest, on what seems like a glorious summer’s day. The light comes own through the trees in lazy shafts of gold, stirring dust up from the floor and illuminating the tiny living things that float through it. More than anything, this feels like a dream – honeyed, liquid. Seductive.

You’re sat on the edge of a pond, dangling your legs into the water. Like everything else, it is gloriously beautiful. The wild flowers are a thousand shades, the water clear and cool in contrast to the comfortable heat of the air. Your eyes half-close as you listen to the birdsong in the background. Four hundred songbirds arranged just for you. It would be nice to rest for a while.

You close your eyes entirely and slip into the water, floating out into the centre of the pond. Hair trailing, you rotate yourself with a hand, feeling the warmth of your face.

The scream cuts through the air like a knife.

Kicking out, you make it to the water’s edge and roll up to your feet, a sword-blade of ice forming in your hand. You head towards the sound, which comes again, more urgent this time. Running as fast as you can, ploughing through the undergrowth, you crash out and roll down a bank into a clearing. Sitting on his rear, backed up against a tree, is the child. Facing him, nostrils flaring in anger, pointing it’s horn at him like a spear, is a Unicorn.

You’ve seen pictures of unicorns, heard stories about them – fae creatures, delicate and virginal. The creature in the glade is like them only in the broad details. The size of a Shirehorse, bigger than any horse you’ve ever seen, it’s muscles ripple under it’s skin with power. The horn is three inches wide at the base, a meter long and spiralled like the horn of a Narwhale. It is also very, very sharp. The eyes are deep and intelligent, and belying the gentleness of legend appear to be very, very angry. The tail is like that of a Lion, the coat a light grey and the massive hooves cloven.

“Soul.” You say, quietly but clearly. “Do. Not. Move.”

The Unicorn watches you, challenging you. You see it flick it’s gaze to your sword, and it’s back legs tense, ready to charge and impale you. You reduce the blade to a shower of droplets, sprinkling the ground, and raise your empty hands up.

The Unicorn’s voice penetrates without sound into your mind. It demands that you stand aside.

“The child is under my protection”

It says that Soul is a wrongness, that it can feel it – that he is not proper. You get the impression that the Unicorn finding something improper is fatal for that thing. Behind the beast, Talisman and Mirage erupt out of the undergrowth, Talisman pulling the last sleeve of his shirt on.

“Holy…” he says, before catching himself mid swearword. The Unicorn turns it’s head quickly, makes a threatening gesture with it’s horn to warn him off and turns back as Talisman presses himself against a tree, hands raised in imitation of yourself.

Mirage tries to inch around, but the beast spots her and fixes her with it’s glare. She begins to tremble, apparently being communicated with. Of course, you realise with a sinking feeling – she’s artificial, something that was made by magic – not proper. She turns and bolts into the forest, the Unicorn turning dismissively back to you and the child and demanding to know why he is in the form of a Human.

“Because there is something he needs to do” says Talisman. The Unicorn wheels around again and orders him to silence, then realises something about him. It moves carefully closer to him, the point of it’s spear touching the hollow of Talisman’s throat and moving his undone shirt aside to reveal his Pearl. The Unicorn steps backwards quickly, nostrils flaring.

“Yeah, that’s right.” He says, folding his arms and waiting to see what the creature will do.

The Unicorn shakes it’s head. Looks from Soul to Talisman and stamps it’s front hoof.

“Being in human form is all the rage these days, savvy?” Talisman says. “You should try it some time.”

The Unicorn levels it’s horn at him.

“Come on, now, don’t do this. Don’t do this.” Warns Talisman.

The Unicorn charges.

ECHO THREE

You are sitting on a fallen tree in the middle of a forest, knees drawn up to your chest, hugging your own legs and staring off blankly into the distance. Somewhere nearby there’s a pool of water, and insects are buzzing around in their industrious activity. Birdsong can be heard in the background.

You hear slow, careful footsteps from behind you, and don’t react. Fathom slowly comes into view, peering down at you. You bite your lip and feel your eyes beginning to well up.

Fathom sighs, and gestures questioningly at the deadfall. You nod quickly, blink and wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. Fathom sighs again and waves a hand, and you feel your tears evaporate. Blinking rapidly, you turn angrily to her.

She speaks before you get a chance. “It was quicker.”

“It was uncalled for. What do you want, ‘Princess’?” The honorific is an attack, with the feeling of a phrase that was once – years ago - meant in light jest but now has been perverted to be an insult. You are aware of having transgressed, but angrily shut down your own shame.

“Do you think that you are the only one to be disturbed?” She says, with sudden feeling. “Do you think that we only saw good things for ourselves? Talisman has seen his purpose, Mirage looked away at the last second, Soul is still terrified by whatever he saw. And Valour – Valour went white as snow, and refuses to tell what his vision was of.”

“And you?” You demand, telling her the price.

“I saw darkness. And fire. I was hurting. Being hurt. I tore myself away from the Glen. I did not wish to know.” She says matter-of-factly.

“I saw…” you start, “… I saw myself, and I looked… I looked different, but a forward different – like I would in a few years. But I…”

“What?” Fathom is appearing concerned now. “What is it? Echo-“

You shake your head, eyes filling up again. When you speak again, your voice is full of despair.

“I was the way I used to be. We were all different – Valour had done something strange and cut off all his hair for a start – but I was… The way I was walking, the things I said. I was the way I used to be, before we left home.”

Fathom visibly realises why you are reacting this way, and puts her arm around you.

“I don’t want to be that girl again, Fathom.” You sob “I don’t want to be her. I would rather die. To be like… like THAT, like the last years never happened? I hate her. ” You get louder, wilder. “I HATE HER!”

You draw your dagger. Fathom’s eyes go wide, and she clamps a hand around your wrist. Gods, but she’s strong – forcing it down onto the tree. You let go of it and she carefully takes it, glances at it and throws it as far as she can into the undergrowth.

“Listen to me.” She says carefully. “Whatever you saw, you saw only a glimpse. A few seconds”

“It was enough.”

”I have no doubt. But a picture does not tell a whole story. There could be a reason – there logically HAS to be a reason. Maybe we were with someone who used to know you. Maybe you were under a spell. Maybe” she smiles, gently mocking “maybe we had our memories erased.”

“You don’t know…”

“I do not. But even if you suddenly revert to only ever saying ‘indeed’, following orders a lot and reading bad romantic fiction,” (you blush) “there is nothing to stop what has already happened. The girl that was became the woman that is. And could do it again. We are not going to throw you out of the group for suddenly becoming servile again. Besides, I liked you even then.”

“You did?”

She smiles gently and gets up, offering you her hand. “Indeed.”

VALOUR THREE

You’re flying, high above a mountain range, feeling the sun shining on your metal-edged wings. Wheeling around, feeling the freedom of it, you catch sight of a wondrous thing.

Seven mountains, halfway to the horizon, have been shaped by the hand of man. The rock has been cut into steppes, worked, a City has been built on and from them. A vast city, clustered in many levels like a wedding-day cake, the seven peaks each topped with a flag. The walls of the city are almost a kilometre high, an artificial cliff face.

“Bastion”, you say to yourself, “Lord of the Young Kingdoms”.

Letting the thermals take you, you soar towards it, passing over the wall far below. The City itself looks like a model, detailed enough in the clear air to see the individual carts and wagons moving through it’s streets. You fold you wings and drop like a stone, plummeting towards one of the middle levels of the smallest mountain. You land on the roof, which has been turned into a garden. Fathom is sat on a bench, next to a fountain, reading a book which she closes as you land. She looks up at you, and you are aware that she’s been waiting for you.

“Yes, Princess? What can I do for you?” you ask, feeling the edges of her answer in her mind before she gives it.

“I wanted to talk with you, my Lord Valour”

“So formal?” You say, mock-cheerfully. “Surely we’re friends?”

“That depends. I am here to address your behaviour.”

“Oh” You say it with finality

“It is unacceptable.”

“I only say what I FEEL” you interject with sudden anger. “it’s a mistake – YOU know it’s a mistake. Why should I just sit by and allow it to happen?”

“Because it is NOT YOUR JOB, Valour” She says, with equal feeling. “You are not the supreme arbiter of right and wrong, and it is not for you to say how your Companions should live their lives. That” She bites off “Is my burden.”

“And just who gave you that right?”

“You did, Valour, as I recall. You insisted that we have a party leader, and when it became clear that some of the others would not accept you, you insisted that it would be me. So that you wouldn’t have to follow orders from a non-noble.”

“That’s not why…”

“And I have STRUGGLED with it. I have felt the weight of it, felt the rift it has set up between me and the rest of you every single day for the long years of our journey and allow me to tell you Valour – If I never hear the word ‘Princess’ again it will be far too soon.”

You try to get a word in, failing against the torrent of her words, amplified in your mind by her single-mindedness in making this speech, years in the making.

“We are all of us alone, Valour. Some more so than others. If she no longer wishes to be alone, then I will fight for her right to it. She has my support, and I ORDER you to stop undermining my authority in this.”

“OUR MISSION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN LOVE” You shout, more angry than you have ever felt before. Fathom looks at you calmly, and you read what she’s going to say seconds before she says it, her words cutting through you with a sense of inevitability, of weakness revealed.

“And that, Valour, is the problem. When you came on this mission, when you volunteered to represent your worlds. You were bethrothed.”

“I… was.” You say, haltingly, long-buried emotions forcing their way up. “She left me. We… We broke off our engagement when I decided to go on the quest. She said that she could not wait years, decades for me. I said... that the mission was more important.”

“Than love.” She finishes. “Have you considered, Valour, that your attitude to these matters may be formed by this experience? That you are so insistent that your comrade in arms makes the same decision you did not because it is right, but because you feel that perhaps you were WRONG? That you should have stayed, and that if SHE stays – if she makes what your heart says is the RIGHT choice, your error is displayed to the world?”

You gulp. “No. I have not considered that.”

“Do.” She says, making it an order. She gets up, smoothes her dress down and walks away, leaving you in the garden. Alone.

MIRAGE THREE

Mud.

You’re walking down a muddy, cobbled street in a squalid city, eyes fixed firmly at your feet. You appear to be wearing some kind of rough robe, hood up.

You turn a corner onto a wider, more crowded street, and risk a glance upward. The sky is grey, the people you see humourless and cowed. No one is wearing anything other than plain cloth – not a single item of jewellery is in sight.

Above the city, looming through the haze of drizzling rain, is a gigantic, towering edifice. From this viewpoint, it looks like three tall towers joined two thirds of the way up by a ring structure.

Standing there, staring at it and trying to damp down your anger, you slowly realise that you are beginning to attract attention. Putting your head down, you shuffle back into the crowd and don’t look up again for some time.

You pass by a building that has had “Strength in Evolution” painted on it’s side. Breaking off from the main crowd, you quickly walk down some steps and push open a door, ducking inside out the rain.

You’ve entered some kind of inn. Nodding to the barmaid, you make your way over to a booth, crammed with rough-looking men. The leader looks up at you, nods and gets up, passing you on his way to an interior door. You follow him, his companions staying put in their seats. As you exit the bar, someone in the background makes a crude comment about your leaving together, and you leave on a wave of harsh laughter.

Your contact snarls at being a figure of fun, and doesn’t look at you as you walk down the corridor. Finally, you stop as he unlocks a door with a scratched “5” on it, and holds it open for you. The room is tiny, dingy and furnished only with a decrepit-looking bed, barely big enough for one person.

Fine, you think, and walk past him haughtily.

He slams the door and grabs your shoulder, spinning you around.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” He says harshly. “I told you…”

“You told me that I couldn’t be seen outside.” You say, and briefly change your appearance to that of an old woman “And I” you change back “wasn’t.” You shrug his hand off. “What did you find out?”

“Jasper’s mother serves food to the guards in the Tower. She told them her son wanted to be like them, and he’s been befriending them for the last six weeks. Five days ago, he managed to get a captain drunk and talking”

“Five DAYS? By the… Why haven’t you told me before now?”

He explodes in frustration: “We couldn’t FIND you, woman. You left the Inn when we told you not to and went wandering…” he shakes his head and bites back his next comment. At length, he calmly says “I trust it was worth it?”

“I may have a way to get a message off-world, but it needs more work. What did Jasper find out?”

“The Bird-man is being held on the tenth floor, the fish-woman on the ninth. Your other friend is in the normal prison, though that cell is specially guarded thanks to their sorcery.”

“Are…” You start to ask. He interrupts you with a wave of his hand. “They are alive. The Bird-man’s wounds were as bad as you describe, but he’s been healed. The Voice of God has declared all three of them are to be treated like any other prisoners. If they accept the truth of the One God into their hearts then they will be freed. Until then, they’re kept alive.”

You sit down on the bed, the relief at the news like a weight lifting off your shoulders.

“They’ll never do it.”

“I know. And the Voice surely knows too. The guards’ rumour is that something is going on – something that involves them. The Voice has visited them often in the last six months. Always alone.”

You consider, and shoot another question.

“What about the child?”

TALISMAN THREE

You’re in a gambling den. You’d be able to instantly recognise a house of drink and chance no matter what cultural details it’s world might add to it. More than the Tongue, these places have a special shared language all their own, a language of dice and cards and counters.

And, of course, money.

“Are you sure of what you’re doing?” Whispers Echo. “We can ill afford to lose that money – we are running out of valuables to sell.”

“Relax” you tell her, cheerfully downing your pint and calling for another. “I’ve been making profits in these places before you were born.”

“Talisman, you are barely five years older than me.” She whispers back.

“I was a precocious child”

You down another pint (Echo is looking horrified in the background) and stagger your way over to a table.

“’scuse me” you mumble, shouldering someone out of the way. “Hallo.” You say, with a beery grin “I have all of this” you indicate your pile of cash. “An’ would like to see what ya’ll made of.”

Two of Echo grab at your arm (one hand of each of them), tugging you away. You wave with cheerful grace and step aside

“What” she asks icily “are you doing?”

“I’m going to win at cards” You mutter. “I’m going to win very big indeed, and we may have to brawl our way out of here. When the opportune moment comes, floor the bloke to my left. I’ll make a distraction and we can leg it out of the back door.”

You return to the game, taking a hand of cards and peering at them in an exaggerated fashion. The other gamblers seem content to take your money, and you even let them win a few rounds to lull them into a false sense of security.

Then you start winning.

After ten minutes of winning, your fellow players begin to look suspicious.

After fifteen minutes, they look outright hostile.

One of them – a grossly fat blue-skinned man in a turban – leans across the table and fixes you with his piggy glare.

“Having a good run of luck tonight.” He rumbles

“Ah, my friend” You say with a smile, “I always have a run of good luck.”

“And how’s that, then?” Demands the weasel-like gentleman on your right.

“Oh, my mother wished on the inside of the moon that good luck would follow her family.”

“This isn’t a joke, lad” Says Weasel-features, setting his drink down with a slam. You sigh, and gather your winnings into a bag. “Actually”, you say while clearing the table “no, it wasn’t – she really did. Not many people believe it though.”

The blow hits you right in the face. Your colours all briefly become white-gold and percussive, as your vision swims with lights – lights that thanks to your other power become visible. Like a tree collapsing under the axe’s blows, you topple slowly backwards.

Echo catches you.

“If you were waiting for the opportune moment”, you say. “That was it.”

And the bar brawl starts

SOUL THREE

In times of turmoil, the great and the good disagree. Sometimes, these disagreements are easily solved. Other times, they lead to conflict.

“We need the troops NOW.”

The speaker is a tall, black-skinned man with stubbled hair that looks like it was recently shaved. He’s wearing ornate armour, seemingly designed to allow him as free movement as possible, with silver metal plates over dark grey leather. Two warriors – dressed in less expensive versions of his kit – flank him. He’s speaking to a semicircular row of seven old men, identically dressed in robes and sat on tall, thin thrones, that ring one side of a circle set into the floor of this room. The area immediately encompassing the man, his bodyguards and his conversational opponents is edged with pillars that partially obscure it from the wider – and just as circular – room. This too is edged in pillars, but passing beyond them is to go out into the open air. You cannot see anything else outside, though, so wherever this is, you are high up.

The speaker – the throned man in the centre of their ranks – speaks.

”This Realm does not exist to fund your private vendetta.”

The man snorts in derision. “Is that what you think this is? Vendetta has nothing to do with this. They tried to invade my Sphere…”

“And you beat them back, destroyed their government and punished them quite sufficiently. This is not a case for war.”

He shakes his head as the speaker says it, eager to press his point. When he speaks, he leans slightly towards the seated figures, as though he can force his words through to their acceptance.

“They weren’t acting alone – don’t you see? The reports you’re getting from the border worlds, the odd sightings, the disappearances. The brotherhood is dangerous, but it’s human. This thing is bigger, it’s more dangerous. It’s what has been behind the brotherhood from the very start.”

He stands back, looking to his supporters. They don’t look happy – the three of them can read the expressions of the seated Lords, and they now know that they have likely failed.

The councilmen confer among themselves, looking displeased. The speaker finally frowns, and says,

“This is a child’s fantasy. You cannot expect us to support a military crusade on your part without any evidence. Our answer is no.”

The man closes his eyes as if deeply pained, bows his head and speaks in a low, clear voice.

“If that is your answer, then I will go. But heed me – HEED me. When this… Taint comes to Bastion, remember that I warned you.”

He turns and marches out, his men following him. Exiting the room by a staircase spiralling down through the floor, he waits until they are a distance from the council chamber before turning to his men.

“Well, you heard them. Bastion will not declare war. And without them, the smaller Realms will not join our banner. Shade.” (that last was addressed to one of the men in particular, who nods – it is his name) “Go home, as fast as you can. We’ll stay here, try to address some of the lords separately – I think Lord Shepherd was wavering. We’ll follow as soon as we have word.”

He nods, half-turns to go, stops and asks a question.

“My Lord – what if we find them?”

If anything, the noble looks even more serious.

“Then we hope they found what they were looking for.”

Shade nods, turns and steps into – and somehow through – a shadow.

The noble muses to himself “Yes. We hope they found what they were looking for”. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he indicates his remaining guard should follow him and continues down the stairs.

Talisman comes out of the Gate, landing with a thump onto bare earth. The others pick him up and he dusts himself down, looking around.

Empty Gaze is flat, brown, has a coastline visible on the horizon and is covered in thousands of stone heads, looking in all manner of different directions but - from their vantage next to the Everway - never directly at them.

Fathom immediately takes Soul to task for what he did, and he sulks. She warns him that he must only ever use the glowing ball o doom when there is a group consensus. He argues back, and it all descends into bickering. Talisman - doing his best to ignore it - searches the horizon and spots a Gate, far out to sea. That's where they're headed.

Hiking to the Shore, they get on board a raft that Talisman conjures and set off for the gate - Fathom and Soul still locked in their battle of wills. Fathom is considerably more patient, however, and forcing the child to sit and watch the mast of the raft (which, propelled as the raft is by Talisman's will, doesn't do a fat lot) is more than Soul can stand. So much so that he combusts it to make it more interesting.

Those fun and games aside, they make good time and - instructing everyone to get to the front of the raft as it's going to vanish when he does - Talisman pilots them into the Gate.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 05:30 PM

SPHERE FOUR - JAGGED

(Nearly there now. I shall respond to people's posts once I've finished this first session writeup. Promise.)

SOUL FOUR

Pain, terrible pain.

You’re hanging from something, tight around your wrists and ankles, dragging you into a star shape .The smell of moss fills your nostrils.

I’m the one that’s going to kill you, boy. For good.

The bonds get tighter, your limbs dragged further and further apart. You’re being pulled apart.

Ivy moves like hanging snakes, ready to strike.

The dead rise quietly, and slip away before the living see their passage.

The one who watches cannot act, for fear of giving us power.

The natural order…

The natural order is a lie. We are the truth. We are the brothers of change.

We are evolution.

You are the last gambit of a desperate general, sending troops that are not his own into a battle they cannot win.

We are unity.

You are the scion of an existence that has had it’s chance and failed.

We are progress.

You are the defiance of death.

We are it’s transcendence.

You are the demarcation between life and not-life

We reject that philosophy.

You keep the souls of mankind apart and alone.

We bring them together in oneness.

You are the continuing struggle, the endless cycle of pain.

We are Peace.

Resist us no longer.

No?

Then die. Again. As many times as it takes.

Your arm is wrenched out of it’s socket. As the flesh tears, a vein gives way, and you feel the blood pumping out of you. As your mind fades, the blood seems to turn warm, then hot, then burns with fire.

Go ahead. Burn with His fire. We reject Him and all of his works.

We have a higher purpose.

We’ll do this again.

ECHO FOUR

With a start, you wake up, heart thumping, sweat on your back. You half-rise, killing a cry before it gets out of your throat. You fumble in the dark, reaching out to your left until your hand rests on a pottery cup, which you grab and drink from, putting it back with a chink onto the metal tray it was on.

Raising a hand to your face, pushing your fringe out of the way and feeling the cold of your forehead, you lie back and take several deep breaths, slowly becoming more centred. A nightmare, just a nightmare. Half-memories within the larger memory of the scene. Going into Danger. Loss. Unease. Nothing concrete. You open your eyes fully, completely awake. You won’t get any more sleep tonight.

You’re lying in a bed, in some kind of large room. The walls are decorated with frescoes, the ceiling smooth. The low light in the room is coming from what looks like an open balcony – the light is blueish and makes dappled patterns on the ceiling, like being underwater and looking up.

The bed shifts, as it’s other occupant rolls over in his sleep. You glance at him in the dark – his back to you. It is no one you recognise – no wings, and the wrong shape for Talisman. He has a mass of black hair, braided into dozens of snaking threads.

Careful not to wake your companion, you slip out of bed and briefly echo, doing the laces up on the back of your own nightdress. Crossing the floor (the stone covered in reed mats, like back on Wall), you cross the floor to a large chest.

He stirs in his sleep, and you glance back at the bed – the canopy frustratingly blocking your memory-view of whomever it is.

You silently run your hands across the surface of the chest, feeling the grain of the wood beneath your fingertips. Pushing the lid up and away from you, you reach in and take out the top of several cloth-wrapped bundles. Carefully unwrapping it, you hold your dagger in your hands, feeling the weight.

You can hear the man muttering to himself in his sleep, too low to make out any words. The eerie blue light catches the metal of the dagger, and you briefly see your own reflection.

Lost in thought, you stare at the blade, examining yourself in the half-light, which gives your nascent present-day consciousness a chance to compare. Your hair is now in the style – though not as long – as it was when you lost your memory. Your face has matured.

Putting the dagger carefully on the floor, you reach up to a long object hanging on the wall. It’s your sword. You hold it in front of you and close your eyes, listening to the sound as you draw it. Holding the sword and it’s scabbard in opposite hands, you spread your arms wide. Your breathing slows down.

You echo, one of you turning around so that you have your backs to yourselves. You start to slowly turn in unison, as though surrounded by enemies. In your mind’s eye, you are facing an army of faceless soldiers, armoured in the style of your homeworld.

You swipe at your imaginary foes, parrying nonexistent blows and moving in time with the imagined fight. Finally, you stop, and become one woman again. Eyes still shut, you imagine the Emperor of Wall – every detail of his ceremonial robes, the lines of panic on his imaginary face. You raise your sword, preparing to cut him down.

“I am no one’s servant” You say to yourself, too loud, and the daydream (night-dream?) is broken. You come back to reality with a start, eyes open and suddenly wet. The sword slips out of your fingers and clatters to the floor – the man in the bed making a grunt of protest at the disturbance. You look down at it, horrified, seeing your reflection in the long, smooth blade – a crying woman in her bedclothes staring up at you.

You slide to the floor, back against the wall, weeping softly.

The sword, abandoned, reflects nothing.

TALISMAN FOUR

You’re sat in a rowing boat, whistling a sea-shanty and trying to keep your spirits up. The rain clouds on the horizon aren’t helping, nor are the flashes of lightning you can see coming from them. Turning in your seat, you check to make sure the waves aren’t pushing you off course.

Behind you, and therefore in the direction your boat is going, is a massive white chalk cliff, stretching from horizon to horizon and up some fair distance into the sky. The rocks jutting out of the sea next to the cliffs look sharp and nasty, and the sea caves deep and foreboding.

It is, naturally, into one of these Sea Caves that you are trying to navigate. Fortunately, you are an extremely good rower.

The crunch of boat on rock, and the spurt of water that shoots up from the seam, makes you roll your eyes in annoyance. Climbing out, you lasso the rock with a Colour rope and haul yourself up. Considering the distance from your rock (and rapidly sinking boat) to the other rocks, to the cave, you gingerly make your way towards the opening, creating long beams of Colour allowing yourself to walk from rock to rock. Eventually, you scramble, walk and wade into the cave.

Once above the water line, you pour the sea out of your boots, shake the salt out of your hair, steel yourself and begin the long process of moving deeper into the cave, which is slick with seaweed and slime.

“Fathom’d love this” You mutter to yourself. “She’s feel right at home.” You startle a crustacean, which scuttles away with a warning snap of it’s pincers “Probably has family down here.”

The thought makes you grimly amused for some reason.

The seaweed stops as you reach the high tidemark – the cave mercifully dry from here on in. You climb up some more, calculating that you must be about a fifth of the way up the cliff by now – which still puts you well below the ground. Your passage opens up, and you pull back the beam of Colour you’ve been using as a light source. In the sudden darkness, you are aware of a gleaming from up ahead. There is a light source nearby.

Around the next corner, your passage stops in an archway decorated with seashells and pearls. It opens onto a vast grotto, lit by some kind of glowing crystal embedded in the ceiling. Your passageway exits onto a ledge that coils round and round the circular chamber, spiralling down to the water that floods the main floor. Pearls stud the walls – thousands of pearls, of all different colours.

“SONAMA!” you call at the top of your voice. “I BEG PERMISSION TO ENTER YOUR PEARLED HALL”

What you took to be a continuation of the ledge below the water level shifts, and you suddenly realise why the room is shaped like this – a huge creature, shaped like a snake but some seven feet across and over a hundred feet long, has formed the room by sliding around and around against the edge of the cavern, enlarging it by erosion. The ledge you’re stood on is the impression it’s made in the walls in this series of home improvements, and the pearls have been literally pushed into the walls by it’s passage.

The Sea Serpent rears up out of the water like a cobra about to strike, fanning out the hood on it’s neck and opening it’s mouth, allowing you to feel the heat. Right in the centre of it’s forehead is a huge pearl the size of your fist.

//WHAT DO YOU WANT, LITTLE CREATURE?//

“I claim the right of hospitality.” You say, undoing the buttons on your shirt-neck.

//THAT RIGHT IS NOT FOR YOUR KIND TO CLAIM// Says the Wingless, Flightless Dragon.

You pull open your collar, let it get a good look.

“Are you sure of what my kind is?”

//A MAN-HATCHED!// The Dragon says, in surprise. //I HAVE NOT SEEN SUCH AS YOU FOR MANY CENTURIES. WHO AMONG MY COUSINS MADE YOU AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE?//

“Strabo, Lord of the Air” You reply, biting back your sudden questions, uncomfortably aware that there is much you don’t know. “For his own purpose, which he has not seen fit to share. I have questions, concerns about the journey I am taking. Will you give me your counsel?”

//UNPRECEDENTED, THIS IS// It says, then comes to a decision. //I SHALL DO AS YOU ASK//

VALOUR FOUR

You’re standing somewhere very windy, and very very cold, looking out over a town that spirals down below you in multiple wide levels. Next to you is a large frost-marked metal door, and you realise that you’re stood at the entrance to some kind of official building, raised up above the rest of the town. Looking out across the town, you can see that it is built on several islands in a freezing-looking sea.

No – not islands. Icebergs. The town is built on a clump of icebergs.

You push your hands under your armpits, trying to warm them – you’re entirely wrapped up in deep furs, even covering your wings, and you have a thick hood up, but it’s still chillier than you’re used to, and watch the snow fall gently onto the town. Below you, hulking shapes that you realise probably have normal humans underneath all the clothing move through the streets.

The door opens with a creak, and a man in lots of fur – huge gloves protecting him from sticking to the metal of the door – pokes his head out.

“Lord Valour? The Prefect will see you now.”

You enter the hall – shockingly hot after the cold of outside – and remove your boots, gloves and outer cloak. Catching sight of yourself in a polished bronze mirror, your run your fingers through your hair to fix it into some semblance of neatness (your present-day self, having this vision, notes that you appear exactly as you were when you left on the quest – whenever this happened, it happened very early on in the journey). Nodding to the guard, you walk down the length of the feasting hall and bow before the old man on the throne.

“Prefect. Thank you for allowing us entry to your realm, and for seeing me. I come from a world you have not had contact with, part of a great nation of worlds that has been cut off for…”

You pause. Something isn’t right.

“...For many centuries. I ask you for safe passage through your realm to the Gate that leads to Bounty, with whom I understand you have peaceful relations.”

That sense of wrongness again. Tentatively, you extend your senses into the man’s mind.

No concealed weapons, powerful but untrained, no aura of magic beyond the obvious physical differences, stepping to the left now – could be a fient, no

He’s not listening to a word you’re saying, instead analysing every detail of you, looking for a threat. You push your mind into the nobleman standing beside the throne. He turns out to be a kitchen servant. What you took to be a kitchen servant – who in fact is busily refilling everyone’s cups of mulled wine and shuffling over to hand you one of your own – turns out to be the Prefect’s daughter. The guard is a nobleman, the old woman sat hunched under her shawl is actually a young man of 23 here to learn politics.

Continuing with your speech, you start casting further afield. For a whim, you probe the thoughts of the dog sat yawning in it’s basket under one of the tables. It turns out to be the court mage, using magic to appear as a beast.

“...And so, in friendship, I offer you this gift” You conclude, putting the small casket on the floor and backing off. The fake Prefect nods, the fake-courtier takes the gift away, the fake-guard throws the fake-dog a bone. You’re pretty sure the bone is a bone.

The not-Prefect launches into a wordy speech, accepting your fine gift and assuring you that all you have asked shall be provided, and that the Sphere of Iceberg welcomes it’s guests from far away. Inside, however, the man is still noting your every move and not thinking one iota about what he’s saying.

Mind reeling with the oddness of it all, you bow and make your exit. As the doorman passes you your cloak, you turn to him and ask.

“Tell me… I don’t usually ask things like this, but.. I got the impression the Prefect’s mind was on other things. Are they always like that?”

“Oh yes sir,” he replies, “that’s this Sphere. Always something under the surface.”

You nod, shaking your head in disbelief, and leave. As he shuts the door, for a whim, you probe him.

He’s the Prefect.

FATHOM FOUR

You’re standing on Empty Throne, in the plaza next to the reflecting pool. The two warring Gods stand immobile.

Everyone is here – the entire team. Bloodied, battered, caked in mud, but here – exactly as they were when they woke up. This is the very very near past.

“Talisman?” You say, asking the question but not voicing it.

Is the Gate there?

You close your eyes, offer a silent pray up to all the Gods watching over your party – Julius, Ganar, the Lady, Kush… Even Laksmar. The moment hangs.

“Yes.” Says Talisman. “There is a Gate there.”

A ripple of excitement goes through the party. Echo lets out a huge sigh of relief, Valour drops to his knees and begins to pray in thanks, Mirage smiles wearily as the child punches the air and offers an exuberant cry of joy. Talisman claps you on the shoulder, and draws you into a hug.

“We did it, Princess. We made it.”

You break the hug, turn back, face them.

Face your friends.

“Everyone. Let us take this moment. After this, we can fight the Taint. We can save the worlds. We can redress the wrongs we have seen... and repay the rights. One more Gate, and the Force is in our hands.” You smile, “I can now say what I have waited years to say. This is the turning point. This is the axis. There are now fewer gates ahead than there are behind. Yes, there is a war to be fought on the way.” Looking at Mirage, Echo and the boy “there are sacrifices to be made. But we now know where we are going. We now know where our destination is. At long last we are GOING HOME.”

Your ragged band lets out a cheer.

“Think of your loved ones. Think of the homes waiting for you – the ones we came from for some of us.” You look over everyone “And the ones we have found along the way for others.”

Talisman looks distracted, like he’s figuring something out.

“Talisman?” you ask, and he holds a finger up in a ‘wait’ gesture. Finally, looking like he has realised something, he turns to the group.

“I may be wrong about this…” He starts “but think back over our journey. Ignore the side trips some of us made, just focus on the gates that the main group went through. Count them.”

Valour frowns, and looks like he’s thinking. After about a minute, his expression changes – his eyebrows would have raised if he had them.

“I’m right aren’t I?” asks Talisman.

“Right about what?” asks Echo.

“Talisman has noted” says Valour, thoughtfully, “That this Gate is something of a milestone in more ways than one. Discounting side journeys, we have passed through ninety-nine Everways since leaving Crystal. The world of the Lost Force will be our One Hundredth Sphere.”

“Well” you say with a smile “We had better go and see what the weather is like.”

Talisman nods, grins, and suddenly charges at full pelt down the reflecting pool, splashing as he goes. The rest of you look at one another and give chase, running, flying and blurring in his wake. The Gate becomes visible as Talisman nears it.

Arms splayed wide like a runner crossing the finishing line, his Colours sending fireworks into the sky, Talisman hits the Gate and vanishes.

MIRAGE FOUR

You emerge from the Everway, the group (including the child) appearing all around you. The Everway closes, and a few seconds later pulses into life again, disgorging five armed men who are carrying a large locked chest on poles between them. They smile at you, and you realise that they’re friendly – you must have met them on the world preceding this one.

“So.” You say, smiling back. “This is goodbye.”

“Maybe so, lady, maybe so.” Says the leader of the mercenaries. “Good luck in your journeys.”

“And to you, Hunter, and to you.” you reply. “Safe journey home.”

“Should be, lady” he says hopefully. “Just a short trip to the Renewal gate from here, a jaunt across that blessed country, another gate... and we’re home. Vanguard.” He looks nostalgic, remembering his world. “Border Fortress of the civilised worlds. They say it was a great battleground long ago, against a long-vanished enemy that rose out of the forest worlds beyond. But the forests are empty now, and Vanguard has been at peace for centuries. A centre of learning it is, hence our prize.” He indicates the box. “Fetch a lot of beads, this will.

“I envy you. It sounds like a good home.”

“You should come visit us sometime. We can’t promise thunder lizard eggs,” he grins “but we make a good luncheon anyway.”

The others aren’t saying anything. They all seem to be looking up at something. You’re annoyed at their rudeness, and turn back to Hunter and his band.

“Do you know where the True Mirror gate is?”

“For certain – it’s on the edge of a lake, high up in a basin up yonder mountains. The people in the town down that road can show you the way – they always take people to the Mirror if asked. Kind of a religious thing.”

You nod, satisfied, and bid him farewell.

“Fare well to you too, Mirage… I hope you get to the Mirror when the sun is up. If you do, leave by nightfall. If you don’t…” He shrugs, as if remembering something painful “…it is best to just lay down and sleep until daybreak.”

He nods in goodbye, and he and his friends start hiking down the other roads. You turn back to the others, and feel a stab of anger again.

“Well, THAT was rude. After everything they did for us, saving Soul from that Terrible…” You trail off. “…Lizard…”

You’ve looked up.

The Sun has a circle around it, notched and graded as though someone has drawn around it. It sits on parallel lines like a mine-cart track, marked at regular intervals that you just know indicate hours, that curve from East to West. Faint lines crisscross the sky, marking the shapes of constellations, and you suspect that when the sun goes down the stars and their paths will be marked as well. A line extends up from the horizon, marking the place where the moon will rise, and the Planets’ positions are indicated by more shadowy forms.

It is as if some God-powered Astrologer has scrawled his notes across the dome of the heavens.

“What did Hunter say the name of this world was?” You ask quietly.

“Orrery”, Valour just as quietly replies.

First things first - Jagged is the world shown in the vision Mirage-Two. Scroll up a ways and read it. The "smashed glass" nature of the Sphere is the first thing the party notice as they appear. The second thing is that they are about ten feet above the water, roughly a mile out to sea.

Splash.

Talisman immediately makes another flying disk upon entering the world, but only succeeds in catching Echo. Valour swoops down and plucks Soul out of the drink, leaving Fathom and Mirage to swim.

Reaching shore and drying out (Fathom's power is very handy), they note that this world seems a bit more.. verdant.. than the last three, if a little headache inducing. Mirage even spots a rabbit. They therefore split up and go foraging.

Talisman - wandering and bemoaning his lack of alcohol (having drunk it) spots smoke rising from a nearby forest and wanders over, discovering a campsite occupied by three rough-looking but friendly gentlemen who introduce themselves as BOOK, JASPAR and THREAD. They are here in "the Old Kingdoms" in their capacity as freelance treasure-hunters and obtainers of rare antiquities, and assume that Talisman is the same. He agrees, happily, and goes to fetch the others.

Over dinner, the treasure-hunters explain their route in - they hail from a sphere called Rookery in what they term "The Free Realms". The characters inquire about the Young Kingdoms, and are given directions to Stonebridge, which match the ones in the letter - go up into the mountains her on jagged, make your way through the mountain passes, take the Gate in the city to Amber, cross Amber and take the gate to Solitary and then take the gate that appears at night there to Stonebridge and civilisation. The Hunters ask the characters if they got lost on Guardian's Grave, and the party nod and smile ruefully, carefully taking mental notes.

The evening goes peaceably, and the Hunters show the characters their maps of the local Spheres (which Valour copies down from memory later). Talisman plays cards (and wins) and the party make a gift to their hosts - they tell them where to find the Gate to Stonewander on Empty Throne. News of a sphere that hasn't been picked clean excites the Hunters, who badger the party for details late into the night.

In the morning, the two groups go their seperate ways, the party setting off into the mountains. The day's journey is hard, Soul begging to use the ball (which is responding to something again). When the group finally relents, the ball merges two of the shards of Sphere together, mending the seam of the world. Calculating how long it would take to fix the entire world, they shrug and continue to hike up into the mountains.

The next night passes in misery for most of the party, as it rains steadily and they have no tents. Talisman makes himself a four-poster bed and goes to sleep, snoring loudly. Echo tries to insist on giving her blanket to Valour, which provokes a small argument. Fathom sleeps soundly - she *likes* the rain. Eventually, Soul and Echo crawl under Talisman's bed in an effort to get shelter.

The next day, it snows. Mirage transforms into a yak and Soul hitches a ride, sitting cross-legged on her back. The party use the time to tell each other more Visions (Talisman resolutely saying silent on his), and Echo expresses her worries about her past behaviour.

Descending out of the mountains, they finally make it to the city from Mirage's vision. Identifying the gate they came out of in that one (which turns out to be one way), they locate the other and - despite the warning from that vision that Amber (as they now know the sphere beyond to be called) is blockaded by the creatures, step on through.

And we end it there.

DaveB

10-21-2004, 05:52 PM

Gasp.

Well, that was Session One, which was played almost four weeks ago now. We pushed the "budget" out for the Pilot - future sessions have half as many flashbacks, and the speed of travel goes down as we linger on inhabited worlds.

I think, if I did it again, that I'd just have Stonewander link to an inhabited world. I liked the idea of all the wrecked, post-apocalyptic landscapes, but it was the end of the second session before the characters reached "where the people are". Which kind of gave me little to do.

The characters at this stage were playing their cards very close to their chests - the big emotional breakdowns are sparked off in Session Two and come to a head in Session Three, when Talisman and Echo have an hour and a half "chat" on the nature of the self and missing out on life.

I'm not going to try to catch up with these writeups, based on the time it takes me to write the flashbacks every week - I'm not going to let the game suffer for the sake of my own ego inflation. If we have a week when the game is cancelled (does happen sometimes), then I'll probably narrow the gap between playing and recounting. Which will make the descriptions of conversations more accurate, and maybe allow me to remember specific lines of dialogue.

I'll post the cliffnotes on the various visions tommorow. For now, I'm off to write flashbacks Nine and Ten for Fathom.

Great, great stuff. I love Everway. I may have to steal vast quantities of stuff from your game setup if I ever get another shot at running Everway.

To what extent do you pre-plot the details of the backstory? Do you have everything already planned out, do you just know the high points and fill in the rest as you go, or is it all pulled out of the air at a moment's notice?

- Eric

The backstory is as pre-plotted as it needs to be. Three examples:

ECHO'S HUSBAND

Paragon, Echo's husband and sometime party member (he's glimpsed in one of Soul's visions this week, and you can see the back of his head in one of Echo's) was always going to be Echo's husband. I knew the details of their relationship, his world, how she came to rejoin the party and the effect it had before I wrote a single flashback.

VALOUR'S METAL

The physical changes in Valour were ad-libbed at the taster session - I just plucked them from thin air. By the time I came to plan the backplot, though, they'd been made part of the storyarc - I knew how he got the metal and lost his hair before Session One, but not actually the precise details of WHY - I had an effect, but no cause. By Session Three, I'd decided, and you'll see what happened in Flashbacks in a couple of weeks.

TALISMAN'S PURPOSE

Talisman's great destiny, alluded to in a couple of visions this week, is only ever alluded to for good reason. I don't actually know what it is yet. His visions dance around the subject because I am putting off deciding what it is in favour of watching Talisman squirm - Renaud has a good imagination, and I intend to take his best suggestion, twist it slightly and use it as the truth of the matter. Eventually.

DaveB

10-22-2004, 06:05 AM

So... yeah.

On the quick-time then.

Overall -

The first lot of visions have one major, heeeuge drawback, which they struggle to get past - when I wrote them I had only seen half the character party being played. As a result, Talisman, Fathom and Soul's characterisation... suffers in them (I was most right with Talisman, thanks to long, long talks with Renaud during the campaign design, but you can see that Soul, for example, does not get a single line of dialogue in the 24 Visions made for the Pilot - simply because I had no idea how he talked).

Those characters that I could identify distinct "sides" to the personalities of got each side done. Echo (whose character arc was roughly 3 times as fleshed out as anyone else's) got a lot of her Arc points sketched.

And now, notes for the unwary:

SOUL's visions - thanks to the Power "Oracular Visions" aren't in the form of flashbacks. They tend to be chunks of metaplot and commentary on the campaign itself (like Soul One), third-person peaks at what's going on on other worlds, that sometimes include people the party know or knew (two and three) and psychic confrontations with the villain of the campaign (four). The trick is in the details - from the Visions and other evidence, Andy has figured out who the Big Bad is (Gaunt - Renaud's old PC from Realmforge), but Soul has no way of knowing. There are a couple of other bits and pieces - Soul three is set on Bastion, and the man doing all the talking is Paragon, Echo's husband (as they'll find out in subsequent weeks). The "Sound of Beating Wings" is Soul's Sense Death Energy power - the wing she can hear as his own ones, as his Pheonix-self prepares to absorb the dying person's spirit.

Soul-One is the metaplot-dump, and contains much useful information about Pheonixes. It also flatly states, right out of the gate, that Exile was wrong and the quest isn't to do what Exile thought it was.

Soul-Two is an introduction to Soul's sense death energy power, and an attempt to do something from a detached, slightly surreal POV. It's also got a Taint in it.

Soul-Three is our introduction to Paragon, Echo's Husband and ruler of Waterwall (this is his only speaking part this week. He's in loads of visions next week, though) and is prewarning of the political situation in the Young Kingdoms - Paragon wants to fight the campaign bad-guys, but the other Sphere lords see him as a warmongering gloryhound.

Soul-Four is Gaunt's "please allow me to introduce myself" speech, in the style of the bad guys from System Shock Two. You can almost see the Taint soliders crawling around, half-glimpsed at the edges of the vision.

All in all, though, I was dissappointed with Soul this week. But, armed with knowledge of how Andy actually plays him, I made a considerable effort the week after.

ECHO's visions in this first session are in a definite arc, showing the stages in her life (chronologically, they're in the order One, Three, Two, Four - One is set about a year into the journey, Three another year after that, Two during the start of her relationship and Four after she's left the party). You can see "sub-stages" in other people's as well - especially Fathom Two and Talisman Two. Her visions have a reoccuring motif in them (that I continue to use in later sessions, because I find it works, and start using in other people's visions that feature her) - Echo's weaponry symbolises the hold that her upbringing has on her. She's ignoring the others in favour of it in One, tries and fails to abandon it in Two and has it shut away and unused in Four. There's also a thing about reflections going on, based on the character's complicated issues with her own image. The use of the word "indeed" comes from the sessions - Echo says it a lot, usually when she has to give a response in a conversation but doesn't want to.

Echo One is set in the second year of the outbound journey, and gives the answer to a question that could have potentially arisen later on - Fathom has a few Visions where she's taking a different route to the others, having arranged a rendevous point. This is why. It also hints at the Talisman-Mirage thing mentioned in Mirage-One.

Echo Two is a page of me teasing Emma. There is no excuse. "Kaff", by the way, is the setting's hot drink of choice - it's like a caffinated aztec chocolate. The vision is good for the relationship between Echo and Mirage, but it's probably the weakest.

Echo Three is the challenge, and hints at what happened to Valour. The Sphere - as we'll find out later - is Glen of Tommorow. Given True Mirror in Mirage's vision and later references to other Spheres like them, the party had a thing for deliberately seeking out "know thyself" kind of places. Wonder why?

Echo Four hit Echo harder than any other Vision - the character in play is *terrified* at the thought that she planned to assassinate the Emperor, even idly. Good view of the back of Paragon's head there, and a glimpsing hint of what Waterwall looks like.

I felt oddly proud of myself with Echo's visions this time around. Later ones put more points on the Arc - Fathom Six, next session, shows how she rejoins the group, for example - but there's enough there to give Emma a general idea. Echo Two is an outright challenge, and is the one the character has a lot of trouble with - past-Echo HATED the idea of being like present-Echo, and that weighs heavily on her mind.

TALISMAN's visions this time split the character up into his obvious component parts - Talisman One is his role as Fathom's second in command, Talisman Two is his friendship with Echo (they make a very effective strike-team, and are usually the ones to go do something when the others can't), Talisman Three is his Playboy exterior and Talisman Four is "The Dragon Plot". There are points of crossover - he's teamed with Echo again in Three, and mentions his distrust of Soul again in Two. Like Echo, Talisman has a reoccuring "thing" that I find very useful - he talks to himself. All the time. Occassionally he berates himself out loud for talking to himself out loud.

I felt I did okay this time for a character I'd never seen played - Talisman's characterisation draws from so many sources that it's easy enough to built an approximation of his character from them (take one part Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, mix well with Jack Sparrow and Tyler Durden and shake), but In later sessions I have the benefit of using his actual catch-phrases rather than nicking them from films. I was disturbed by how mistrustful of everyone he was in the first session, and only realised how dark a picture I'd painted of the others in his visions when Renaud pointed it out - Talisman especially had nothing to indicate he ever liked or trusted Soul (quite the reverse), from his experiences this time.

I do take credit for one thing, though - I've got Renaud making Talisman call himself "Tal" when he's muttering along to himself.

Whoops. End of lunch break. More later.

Syndil04

10-22-2004, 08:08 AM

Greetings...it is my pleasure to meet you. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Fathom and I hail from the sphere Pearl of the Ocean.

....I have been travelling for some time now I understand.
.....
My companions and I are heading home slowly, I look forward to seeing our families again but I know that this is not shared by all of our company.
....
You must come and visit my home someday, the sea it beautiful...there is a power and grace in the seas that can be found no where else in the spheres. At night I can here the crash of waves in my ears and if I close my eyes I can see the moonlight reflecting through the water.
.....
But then I must open my eyes again and I know that in is our duty to continue on our travels desite the need to occassionally forget.

*soft laugh*

I should not joke about such things but it is the only way to look at our predicament and remain sane, so much that we do not know and yet we can easily see ourselves in the visions that are accorded to us.
....
I have seen much but I do not think that i have changed much over those six years, become wiser perhaps with the council of my companions, and perhaps at some point my friends.
That is what I have lost in this misadventure, I have not lost the growth of myself in the way that Echo has nor has my body suffered greatly in our journey like Valour's.

*warm smile*
....
I must take this philosophically and look upon this as a chance to have such friends twice... which is a rare chance indeed.
....
My apologies but I must go and speak to a little bird about what he is doing wandering away alone.

Rhyme

10-23-2004, 05:53 AM

*Cough* And that was the captain gentle folk, give her a warm hand. That's right.

DaveB

10-23-2004, 06:00 AM

MIRAGE's visions this time are a bit of a grab-bag - I hadn't really gotten a grip on the character yet, so used her to info-dump rather than explore the depths of her psyche. Experience has taught me that Mirage's adaptability makes her the hardest to write flashbacks for - something has to be pretty serious to make much of an impact on her.

Mirage-One is set in the first year of travel (I just liked the design for the Sphere of Maw, and couldn't wait the however many months it will be before the player characters get there in "up" time, and featured a blatent piece of ad-libbing - I hadn't a clue what happened between Mirage and Talisman at this stage. I know *now*, of course, after having gauged reactions and written more about it in later weeks. Note the line about the pillow. Cross-reference with Mirage's equipment list. Made Rafe laugh, at least.

Mirage-Two was born of the need to show the Taint (as the bad guys are called) before they initially showed up, as the description of what they look like is a little complex and I thought it'd be better to have it written down - using a narrative device to compensate for my own flaws as a GM. I got two for one by describing Jagged in the same flashback, AND giving a good piece of advice about Amber that they then ignored.

Mirage-Three is the important one - it shows Mirage's "year out" as a resistence fighter, and is our introduction to the Brotherhood of Change - the Taint's human servants.

Mirage-Four is really, really important, but doesn't look it at the moment. I can say no more right now.

FATHOM's visions are again, a grab-bag born of never seeing Andrea play her character. Fathom's role as Party Leader is established in enough other people's flashbacks, and it's such an omnipresent thing that Andrea couldn't help but pick up on it, so I didn't feel the need to overshow it in her own visions.

Fathom-One shows the Sphere of Long Fall, an idea I had towards the end of the first campaign and have been waiting for a chance to use. It also shows a sl;ightly unorthodox use of powers. And - importantly - is the only vision in this Pilot that has them all working as a team.

Fathom-Two has the "ground-state" of Echo's arc (this is very, very early in the journey), and has Talisman bullying the girl - they'll be good friends later, but aren't yet in the vision. Fathom has a weakness for Talisman - she finds it hard to tell him off, because she knows full well he won't listen anyway - and it's supposed to illustrate that. It's also the first sighting of Talisman and Echo's in-joke catchphrase of "there's always the return journey" - said whenever something goes drastically, horrendously wrong.

Fathom-Three has important information about Soul, and points out that Unicorns are Nazi bastards with hooves. I've always had a thing about the portayal of mythalogical creatures in Everway (I love that about the game - the stats for various creatures make no pretense of game balance. A Dragon in Everway is as nigh-on-indestructible as it should be) and wanted to show that not all good things are on the party's side. Also, spot the link between this and one of Talisman's visions. (he has a line about his ribcage)

Fathom-Four is set about ten days before the campaign starts. On the world they just left at time of getting it. It establishes how long the journey was, and hints at various things.

VALOUR's visions are concerned with his job in the party - chief negotiator and the one who took the task of figuring out their route - and his big-ass character flaw of trying to sabotage people's attempts to leave the party. So as to not give Chris the idea that his character was all arsehole all the time, and instead keep it in the proper perspective of something Valour did because he was hurting and made up to everyone after he was called on it, I give his motivation and moment of realising what he's doing BEFORE showing the asshattery. Next week's Visions are concerned with his physical changes, as Valour brooded about it a lot this time.

Valour One gives the setting that they're in at the moment - between this and Fathom's letter, they know the rough state of play and can understand why there's so many ruined landscapes around. It also has something to say about Talisman - he doesn't agree with Echo leaving either (for it is her they speak of, as weight of evidence will prove) - but refuses to act like Valour himself does about it.

Valour Two is set on Endless Stair, a Sphere which should be familiar to those who have played the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time right to the end. It's a good character study of both Valour and Mirage (and, I think, "gets" both of them better than any other Visions).

Valour Three is set on Bastion, the centrepiece of the Young Kingdoms (and setting for Soul-Three as well). It's the aforementioned "motivation" one. Upon recieving this, Valour immediately apologised to both Fathom and Echo, in case he hadn't in the intervening time. Which shows character, at least.

Valour Four is very early in the quest, and was intended purely as light relief. Liek the Vision Mirage has of Maw, it's simply a reason to use the Sphere of Iceberg (where everything has hidden depths, and 9/10ths of everything is below the surface - it's a metaphor - see? You can tell I'm from the 1993 "Storyteller" generation of posing GMs, can't you?) sometime before just before the end of the campaign. It was put in this order in the running simply for Chris, who I *knew* would have a hard time with Valour-Three, and it got a laugh. Which was nice.

Okay. I'm done blathering. More next week, unless anyone posts and asks me anything. Hell, there's four players that haven't popped their mushes into the thread yet.

Small Stoat

10-26-2004, 10:14 AM

I think the Ic response to all of this would simply be

"Indeed", or maybe even "as you prefer" if she's feeling talkative.

but that's Echo for you.

Wow you really have been busy, haven't you Dave.

Everyway is great btw. Really enjoying it , although I don't envy you writing it all up.

Emma / Echo

Rhyme

10-28-2004, 05:08 AM

I would post something constructive - I was, indeed, about to - but due to circumstances outside my control, I am forced to abort to:
D00d! Write up the last few sessions so we can comment constructively!

Rhyme

DaveB

10-28-2004, 05:48 AM

Yeah, yeah. I have a life too, you know. :D

Seriously, though, I know I said I wouldn't play catch-up, but given that you'll be on Caravan for the entirity of session five, I don't need to write any flashbacks this week. I have a leeeetle bit of other rpg prep to do, then it's off to the great writing-up for me. I will probably be sat doing it most of Saturday.

Soul

10-28-2004, 07:24 AM

Ummmm...hello people. I'm Soul.

Actually I'm not sure whether I am Soul, because I can't remember ever being Soul but all the older people tell me I look like someone they remember being called Soul. Well someone called 'The Innocent Soul of Flaming Glorious Flight of...ummm...something else' anyway. Actually I don't think that's quite right but it's way too long to remember and why does anyone need a name that long anyway? I guess there must be so many people where I come from that they ran out of names so everyone has extra names they use in the event of a tie-break. So, I'm possibly Soul though I don't feel like Soul cause they say Soul, that's the other Soul - not the possibly me Soul, was all serious and solemn and knew lots of deep stuff. Well, they didn't actually say he knew lots of deep stuff but he sounds like the sort of person who might know lots of deep stuff no-one else knew. But I don't know anything except some jumbled up stuff from my odd dreamy things and being sad is dull so I'm not. So while I might be a Soul I'm not The Soul because what people are is them plus their memories and because I've got no emmory I'm just them. Well, if them is me that is. And since me = happy but me + memory = sad, therefore memory = sad+, which is enough sad to cancel out all the happy I get from being me and still have sad left over. So I'm not going to remember what it was like to be old sad Soul and stay as new happy Soul instead. So in all likelihood I am Soul, just a new Soul rather than the old one. Therefore everyone still calls me Soul, as I am different enough to be happy rather than sad but am still Soul underneath. Well, actually I guess I'm the underneath of Soul. Thinking about it, they call me 'Saul' as well as Soul which could have an even more complicated meaning but probably just means that they can't get my name right. I wonder if old Soul had this too? I suspect it wasn't the reason for him being sad though, unless he was a real sissy. And I wouldn't like to think I was a sissy, even if was I was a bit under the weather at the time. So, while there still might be some element of doubt about whether or not I am truly the Soul whose image would be conjured upon hearing the name to those who have previously encountered sad Soul, I think to all intents and purposes that I am in fact Soul. Phew, glad I got to the bottom of that one!

There's some other stuff I was going to say, about how like some worlds are dying and a big ugly is eating souls and there's this magic ball and stuff but it's not that interesting, really. Anyway, it looks like everyone else is distracted by something or other and I feel like I could use some extra happy to stave off a transformation into sad Soul so I'm going to go burn some things. Probably only some trees though, they keep telling me that burning people is wrong.

Spoilsports.

Syndil04

10-28-2004, 08:22 AM

ic:

Soul please do not destroy the scenery, a forest fire may look pretty but it is also very dangerous.

It is possible that some day when I retire I will look back on this and laugh at myself being so strick but it will not be today and I do not relish the idea of having to explain this to the inhabitants.

*thinks* 'or the need to run if the fire spreads.'

ooc:

I think I need to deligate Soul to someone else, but not Mirage who if I remember rightly threatened to pull his arms and legs off last time. Although I'm being terribly unfair because Soul wasn't so bad in the last couple of sessions, but when a child has such a terrifying power I defy that anyone would risk letting him do his own thing. Andy is really good at twisting sentances to mean what he wants them to when playing Soul so telling him off isn't even safe! What are we to do!

A x

Dr.Bubonicus

10-28-2004, 09:13 AM

Spherewalker's Handbook? Is this available in PDF or is it some hyper-difficult to obtain supplement that I should be hunting for as we speak?

PaulK

10-28-2004, 09:26 AM

Spherewalker's Handbook? Is this available in PDF or is it some hyper-difficult to obtain supplement that I should be hunting for as we speak?

It's a print supplement, of background material with no rules, and yes you should be looking for it.

I don't know the print run but it is almost certainly out of print and hard to find (probably in part because those of us with copies are hanging on to them :-).

DaveB

10-28-2004, 12:20 PM

It's a print supplement, of background material with no rules, and yes you should be looking for it.

I don't know the print run but it is almost certainly out of print and hard to find (probably in part because those of us with copies are hanging on to them :-).

And curse you for hanging onto them.

One day, I'll find a copy. One day...

MalteseChangeling

10-28-2004, 12:34 PM

And curse you for hanging onto them.

One day, I'll find a copy. One day...

There's a copy up for auction on eBay right now, Dave. Search for "Spherewalker," and join the battle. :)

Rob

DaveB

10-29-2004, 04:18 PM

SESSION TWO

AMBER -> SOLITARY -> STONEBRIDGE

SPHERE FIVE - AMBER

As we finished last time with everyone jumping into an Everway...

ECHO 5

You kneel in your tent, checking and cleaning your weapons. In the flickering light of the lantern, you carefully draw your katana, turning it to inspect the blade for rust. It catches the light, and you see a reflection in it of the tent-flap behind you.

“What do you want, Soul?” You ask.

“Can I come in?” The child asks, plaintively.

You flick your eyes up and down the blade and – satisfied, slide it carefully back into it’s scabbard. You turn and regard the boy. He shuffles nervously, pushing a leaf around with his foot. Finally, you flick your head back, indicating that he should enter. You carefully climb into your bedroll and –propping your head up with a hand, look across to your recently-vacated position, where Soul is sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“Isn’t it past your bed-time?” you ask, inwardly berating yourself for it. You have had enough of people ordering you around in your life without doing the same to the boy.

“Yes.” He says quietly.

“Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

You half-smile sympathetically.

“I know the feeling.”

“You have nightmares?”

“Frequently.”

“What do you do about them?”

You consider the glib answer, reject it and think – what would Fathom say here? “That depends on what they’re about.” You say, turning it into a question and feeling oddly proud of yourself. Soul narrows his eyes slightly – he knows what you’re doing. But shrugs.

“Dying. Again. I get dreams of when I was falling, before I was me. And other dreams of when I’m not me any more. And they scare me.”

“The idea that you’re not yourself?” You say, relating, remembering the Glen of Tommorow and a tearful rant at Fathom. Soul considers, then nods quickly.

“Yeah.”

“I think,” you say, toying with your hair-braid, “and I have thought about this a lot, that we can only be who we are now. We do the best we can. Change never stops, until you die.”

“What if it doesn’t stop there?” He whispers, horrified by something. He’s starting to worry you now.

“Soul... What did you see? Exactly?”

“I saw one of those creatures, only it was huge – it was made out of an entire plain. It spoke to me. Said it was going to kill me. I wasn’t afraid, because I can’t die – I just burn and get back up again.” He stops, considering.

“Soul? What is it?”

“And then it ate me. And I died. I didn’t burn, I didn’t get back up again.”

He looks up at you, young eyes terrified.

“I just died.”

FATHOM 5

Walking stiffly, you make your progress in the dying sunlight down the long row of military tents, occasionally stepping around a piece of kit that a soldier is working on. The army is preparing to break camp, you can feel it in your bones. Off to the next battle. You can smell stagnant water, nearby – there is a swamp somewhere around here.

You walk up to a large tent, two guards stood outside, brandishing spears. Seeing them, you clamp down on the tiredness you feel and march towards them, head held proudly high. Though you feel like a herd of whales has dragged you across the seas, you are determined not to show it.

The guards, in the end, nod to you and stand aside. Pushing open the tent flap, you enter to a palatial interior. Fur rugs cover the floor, tapestries the walls. There is proper furniture – desks and chairs of dark wood, and a large, low bed covered in furs – and the place is lit by alchemical globes, the shifting, milky and most importantly non-flaming light bathing the interior in pale radiance.

Echo is stood, her back to you, quietly going through the contents of a chest that she’s put on one of the desks. She’s wearing a dark blue dress and sandals, her hair is down and she is not – as far as you can see – armed.

She turns at the noise and sees you, appraising you coolly and then smiling warmly After a second, the smile reaches her eyes.

“Hello, Princess.”

“Hello, Echo. How long has it been?”

“Almost five days our time.” She says, and them tips her head, considering “So, given the Everways, almost three weeks. And before that, just over 14 months.”

She turns and resumes whatever it was she was doing.

“I wanted…”

“…If you came to thank me, thank Mirage. She did all of the hard part.”

“So I hear. I also heard about Muzzle, and Viper, and Golden, and Paragon, and half-a-dozen others. But there was a name missing. I know what you did, Echo, and I thank you for it. When the door to my cell was opened, yours were the first familiar faces I saw. I know Valour feels the same way, and so does Soul”. You pause. “Talisman and Mirage have been inseparable.”

She shrugs. “Well, it’s about five years overdue, wouldn’t you say?” Bitterness creeping into her voice.

“Echo… I”

She turns back and smiles warmly again, then crosses the floor to you and hugs you. It’s very convincing. Just not totally.

“I have something for you.” She says, handing you a letter and going back to rummaging through the chest.

You glance at it, and the wax seal.

“Break it.” She says, her back still to you. “I can seal it again.” You do so, and read the letter – the one that describes your journey to Empty Throne. You scan down it, eyes going wide.

“What do you think?” She asks, quietly.

“I…” You break out into a grin. “I think that this is wonderful. Thank you, Echo. For everything.” You hand her the letter back, “I promise to act surprised when I get it.”

She takes it, puts it next to the chest, and continues her rummaging.

“Echo?” You ask, tentatively. “Echo? What is it you’re doing?”

She stands up and turns, holding the weapons belt she’s been looking for in the chest.

“I’m coming with you, of course.”
VALOUR 5

You’re lying on a rough bed, too small for you, in a cramped room coated in cheap plaster. Somewhere nearby you can hear the sound of mugs chinking, people talking, laughing. A bit further is the sound of a busy street – carts rumbling, the noises of unknown beasts of burden, the hubbub of urban Humanity.

Lifting one wing into view, you measure the extent of the metal edging with your fingers. Almost two inches now – the metal is spreading. What was once alive is cold to the touch, hard and – as the thin line of red now on the tip of your finger attests – sharp.

You are so very weary.

Rubbing the centre of your chest, just under your sternum, remembering (from your “present” vantage point in the Everway, you get a vague impression of a cave, and a concussive blast, and of Mirage screaming) , you swing yourself upright and plant your booted feet onto the wooden floor. You are having trouble breathing. Your hands are trembling. Your head is pounding. Deep inside your chest, over your heart, something moves. You start, feeling as though you’re about to throw up, and grip the edge of the bed with both hands.

Very slowly, the symptoms subside. You feel drained. You raise one hand to your forehead, wiping the sweat from your brow.

A clump of hair comes away with the hand.

You stare at it dumbly, your eyebrow itching. Without thinking, you scratch it with your other hand, and feel the eyebrow peeling away from your skin like dried glue.

You stare at your hands for some minutes, disbelieving, horrified.

When the knock comes at your door, you are brought back to reality. Your one, defining thought is that you cannot allow anyone to see you like this.

“Valour?” calls Mirage, from outside. You open your mouth, fighting any sound down. The shapechanger calls again, and knocks again.

You find your voice; “I’ll be there soon” you call, trying to sound natural.

“Valour, come on. We’re going to be late.” Mirage pushes the door open, pokes her head inside. And sees you.

“Oh.”

She looks back into the corridor, checking no-one is walking past, and slips inside, holding the door as closed as possible. She reaches out and – ignoring your expression, your feeble attempt to ward her off and your outraged noises – effortlessly pulls out a few more hairs between her fingers. She bites her lip, considering. Not saying anything. She doesn’t have to.

“Go ahead.” You tell her, your eyes closed. “I’m not coming. Not like this. They’ll understand.”

“Valour, we need to talk about this…”

“We don’t” You say, flatly, trying to appear emotionless over your inner turmoil. “It’s just the price, isn’t it? My wings, my fatigued spells…*this*. It’s all just the…”

You look at her concerned face, and feel a stab of anger.

“I don’t want your PITY, Mirage! I am not a victim – save your concern for people that need it. Would I rather it hadn’t have happened? NO – because then Talisman, or Soul, or Fathom, or…”

“…Or me.” She says simply. “And we wouldn’t have been able to survive as long as you did. Anyone else would have died before Talisman and Echo got back.”

She gets up, and goes to the door. Opening it, she looks back at you.

“And it wasn’t pity.” She says, matter-of-factly. You begin to reach out to her mind, to find out what the odd expression on her face means, but she closes the door and slips from your sight.
TALISMAN 5

The prow of the ship crashes through the waves, the men straining on the ropes and the wood howling in protest as the vessel makes a hair-pin turn around a tropical island. The sun hangs high in the sky, the intense heat making this all the worse.

Fathom is lying down in the prow, arms outstretched so that one hand emerges from each rail. She’s forcing the current to go where you want it to go, helping with the impossible trials that you’re all putting the vessel through.

You make your way towards the rear of the ship, and climb up onto the top deck. Captain Spear strains at the wheel, and you go to help him. Once the ship is safely past the island, he lets go and runs to the stern, pulling a spyglass out of his belt as he goes. He curses, and passes it to you.

You can see the red sails of your two opponents, rounding the island. Spear curses colourfully, and spits over the rail.

“Sorry, lad. I thought we’d lose them with that one. You’d better tell the mermaid to rest up – we’ve got a race on our hands now.”

“Will we make it?” You ask, turning to go.

“By the direct route? No, lad, we won’t. But I can get you to where you’re going. It’s dangerous, and most sailors on these seas wouldn’t attempt it, but it’s there.”

“Steamspring?”

“Aye. The direct route may be blockaded by those bastards, but I know another way. It’s longer, but…”

“Do what you can to keep us safe for now.” You say, heading towards the prow. “We can talk about it once we’re clear.”

-------------------------------------------------------

One week later, and the ship is ploughing through a choppy, stormy sea at twilight. Everyone below deck except for you, Spear and Fathom. In the distance, behind you, five of the red ships are getting closer.

“Are you sure this will work?” Fathom shouts above the wind.

“Aye, lass. You’ll have to face the Norns, like, but we can get you back onto your route. He says, pointing to a vast storm cloud on the horizon. “That, lass, is the Stormhead. It hangs over the Gateway to Tempest.”

“I thought Tempest was unnavigable!” She shouts, and a wave crashes over the side of the ship, soaking everyone. Spear shakes his head, clearing his mouth of water.

“No” he says, hollering into what is now a gale. “Just very dangerous! There’s only a few captains on these Shores that know how to navigate through it!”

“And you are one of them?”

“Aye – you might lose yer lunch in the undertaking, but I can get you to Nornhall. From there, it’s the Iron Hills, then the Sea of Souls, then Steamspring. Hell of a detour, but at least you’ll get the boy there alive.”

“How do we get off the ship?” She shouts, and her eyes go wide at Spear’s grin. “You cannot possibly be serious!”

“Aye lass – we don’t get off the ship. We’re taking the whole barrel through the Gateway!”

“How big is the gateway?” She shouts.

“About twenty metres wide.”

“How big is the ship?”
“About twenty metres wide!” He shouts, merrily. He hands her an axe, which she looks at, dumbly. He points at the mast, and you get where he’s going with this.

“The mast’s too tall, Fathom!” you shout “We have to cut it down!” Spear nods enthusiastically in agreement.

The three of you get to chopping.
MIRAGE 5

You walk down the dry, sandy streets, past all the near-identical sandy-yellow buildings, rounded at the top as though eroded by the centuries. Your mind is in turmoil, you constantly think about going back. It would be simpler to just let it lie, to not acknowledge it. Gods know everyone else seems to be taking that tactic.

But these things can’t just be left unsaid, you decide. They fester. If there is to be a break, then let it be a clean one, out in the open for all to see.

At the end of the street is a massive, hulking building, it’s dome gold-gilted and it’s columns painted. Noise, laughter and the sound of dice roll out of it’s open doors. Of course, you think to yourself, he has gone to ground in his natural habitat.

Quickly altering your appearance to denote seriousness, add a certain disarming openness (you make your eyes bigger) and to fix the affects of the wind on your hair, you walk calmly up to the doors. Flipping a coin into the carved stone mouth next to the entrance, you enter. It is simple, you think. You will talk, he will talk, and you will reach an understanding.

Your resolve vanishes upon the sight of Talisman, grinning his mocking grin, surrounded by local girls and playing some game involving a spinning wheel. The girls shriek and “ooh” at his many victories, and clutch at his arm.

You’re not sure at what point it became vitally necessary to march up to him and punch him to the floor, but the bouncers make their objections known. A few minutes later, you are sitting on the back steps outside, wondering where it all went wrong.

“Hey.” Talisman walks up to you, rubbing his jaw. “You got my attention.”

“I tried.” You say, angrily. “I TRIED, alright? I know we said we’d just be friends, but I have Valour bugging me for details, and Echo disgusted at me, and Fathom being all... supportive. Maybe it WAS me. Maybe it did come from me, and it was you who the Retort made…”

He shakes his head slightly, and offers you a drink from a wine skin.

“Why?” You whisper, accusingly. “Why do you act like... “ you gesture madly back at the gambling house “...and not want me? Was I just another of your conquests, another girl to avoid in another Realm?”

He sighs, and sits down next to you.

“It wasn’t you.” He says, simply. “At the Retort. It was me.”

“Then WHY?”

“Because I can’t afford to.” He says. “The games, the drinking, all of it… it’s just” He takes a long swig and grimaces, passing you the wineskin back. “It’s just killing time. Playing at being the idle nobleman, Gods know I’ll never have to take my mother’s place back home. I have something to do. A reason, and a purpose. I don’t know what it is, but I know that it’s built into me, deep down.” He taps his soul-pearl. “And I know that it probably doesn’t feature a wife and children.”

“But the Retort…”

“Shows people what they want but can’t have.” He says sadly. “I could be with you, Mirage, but I’d have to leave you. And I wouldn’t want to. Love will tear us apart inside, and I doubt that when my… relatives… come calling, they’ll take ‘but I love her’ as an excuse. So please, just think of this as a big ‘might have been’. Something to look back on and laugh. It’s less painful that way, savvy?”

“Maybe, in the future…”

“Maybe. If we’re lucky, and you haven’t run off with Valour by the time I’m done,” He says, “But for now, friends?”

You don’t answer. He leaves the wineskin on the step next to you, gets up and walks silently away.
SOUL 5

A field, golden in the sunshine, farmhands bent over with hand-scythes, intent on their work.

A village, children chasing chickens in the dusty street, mothers watching carefully. Old men sat outside their houses, observing their world.

A forest, small animals bounding through the undergrowth, a squirrel in mid-jump between two trees.

A town, carts busying down the streets, market-stall holders haggling with shoppers.

Nothing moves.

The sun begins to set, and everything remains fixed in position. Night falls.

The men are still in the field, still cutting the corn that will never be harvested. The squirrel will never make it to the next tree. The stallholder will never make his sale.

In the dead of night, something moves.

Coiling it’s way out of the forest, it creeps among the frozen people, careful not to touch any of them. Looking beyond the forest, you see a Gateway on a hill. It pulses into life, disgorging what you take to be a mass of giant worms but what you then realise are Ivy – the ends snapped off by something, thrashing around like snakes or fish out of water. They melt into one another, and bud into humanoid things that march out through the forest into the night.

The things make their careful progress – not touching anything, not disturbing the frozen tableau of peaceful existence – to the North, following the North Star. By day, you can make out the details of them, their surface texture still that of Ivy. By night, they are more horrible, making their silent implacable march.

After three nights, a mountain looms on the horizon, split in two as though by a giant sword blow. The creatures split off from one another, melting away into the night, taking up position. The night is quiet, but by straining you can still see them – one lying next to a tree here, another by a boulder here. You spot more and more of them, silent and unmoving as everything else, and realise that there are more than were in the advance.

That night, even more of them arrive, setting up their positions. They are intent upon the cleft in the mountain, where you can feel a Gate waits.

You can hear the sound of wings.

You rush towards the gate, hoping to find whomever these things are lying in wait for. It pulses open and you dive into it, rushing down the Astral Path. Up ahead, you can see tiny figures moving towards you. Travellers, about to fall into the trap those creatures have laid for them.

They number five, with an object that looks like a shining pearl hanging between them on the Path. Their eyes are faraway, experiencing something.

The smallest seems familiar – a ragged looking boy, dressed in patchily repaired clothing.

It’s you.

You rotate and settle back into yourself, aware that you have accomplished something.

And also burningly aware of one thing:

It’s a trap.

And they all emerge from the gate.

The group now stands on a scree slope, within a great cleft that has been chopped out of a mountain by some ancient catastrophe. This would what their directions call "the Broken Mountain", then.

Amber, as shown in Soul's vision, is frozen in time - something has trapped the entire world in stasis, from which it never moves. The sun and moon rise and set (the sky hasn't been frozen, just the Sphere - which has implications for metaphysics if you think about it), but the people, animals, plants - even the water is frozen in place like God's great "pause" button has been pressed. Anything forcibly moved (like a tree that is chopped down) turns to dust, the weight of millenia hitting it instantly.

As most of the gang look out across the disturbingly still landscape, Soul hops from one foot to the other and makes "um" noises. Finally asked what's wrong, he recounts the vision he had in the last transit - specifically, that they are even now standing in the middle of an ambush.

That gets people's attention.

Soul points out where he thinks the monsters are, and the gang (including him) start detonating bits of the landscape using their various long-range powers. The first couple of blasts of Colour, Steam and Fire don't hit anything, but eventually they meet with success and his point is proven to the others. Carefully considering the length of the journey, the dense forest ahead of them and the number of monsters Soul saw, they decide to take to the skies.

Mirage shifts herself to be a differently-coloured copy of Valour, while Talisman gives the others a lift, stretching his powers to the limit by making a slowly-moving flying disk big enough for everyone.

The Tainted on the floor immediately burst from cover, growing flying appendages, and set off after the party. Those that tangle with the Disk meet with heavy opposition from the combined talents in the field of ouch of Soul, Echo and Fathom, while the "scouting" Taint have more luck with Mirage and Valour. One of them ducks under Mirage's defenses and rams straight into Valour, grabbing onto his leg and attempting to assimilate him. He feels something inside his chest move, and metal blades shoot out of his leg. The Tainted lets go, shrieking, and Mirage gets there in time to bisect it. The blades crumble and fall off, but leave a neat row of studs in his leg... much like the one on his forehead.

As the others defeat their own foes, Valour is left facing Mirage's barrage of questions - questions he can't answer but which his vision (see above) tantalisingly hinted at. All return to the journey, Valour flying ahead of everyone else, still slightly in shock. Mirage trails him, trying to catch up, while the others sail on lazily through the skies.

After a couple of hours, the Taint have another go. This time, though, they or whatever is controlling them has switched tactics to the use of huge tripod-form amalgamations of several Taint. The first bursts into several fliers, but when Echo spots another one on the Horizon and they sail over to attack (Valour ignoring the whole thing and carrying on his merry brooding way), it grows large sharp tentacles and starts spewing fire at them. Which is new.

Once it is dealt with, though, the attacks stop - the Taint here haven't been trying to merge with plants or animals when they're dying, which has resulted in a bit of speculation. The best the gang can think of is that as everything native to Amber is frozen in time, if the Taint merge with it they'd be frozen too. This takes away the party's enemies' greatest power, and the group hope that by keeping moving during the daytime (and, importantly, keeping to the skies - at least that way, they can see the Taint coming).

Noticing that they're near a coastline, Talisman suggests they use the beach (least cover for a Taint attack) as a place to spend the night. Echo volunteers to stay awake, gets talked into swapping with Mirage halfway through the night rather than staying awake all night by herself, and more flying ensues before - with sunset well underway - Talisman decides that the flying disk has knackered him out.

The sun sets over the eerily frozen waves (Echo shying away from the water - still water is reflective) and Echo sits out her watch while simultaneously going dune-exploring. Valour is still brooding, far enough away from the others to be unsociable, when Mirage and Echo "tag". Mirage tries to get him to tell her what's on his mind, but he'll only say that it was about what happened to him and goes back to watching the moon.

In the morning - loudly complaining about the lack of anything to eat other than Jerky (for anything they might forage here will crumble) and especially about his lack of alcohol, Talisman feels up for another day's provision of transport.

Setting off again, they travel for another day over the frozen landscape without being molested. Valour has rejoined the rest of the group, but still isn't talking. Night falls again, but Soul reckons they're near the Gate out, so a weary Talisman presses on and they reach inhabited lands. Well, inhabited by entirely still people, anyway.

Landing in the outskirts of a city (a city dominated by what appears to be a huge clock-tower), they look around for the Gate - eventually spotting the tell-tale "ripples" that a not-used Gate gives off to the right people. Soul is examining a frozen farmer, and asks what would happen if he were to use the Ball on the inhabitants. The other characters offer the various possibilities - it might free them, it might kill them. Talisman waxes philisophical about how these people, frozen like this for countless thousands of years, ARE for all intents and purposes dead. That gives Soul fire (so to speak), and he whines and whines until the others (Fathom having already gone through the Gate) give in and say that he's allowed to use it IF he waits until they've all left the Sphere first. That way, if it goes drastically wrong, it'll only kill him.

Agreeing, he waits until they've all dissappeared into the Astral Path, then touches the Ball to the floor. Everything turns to dust in a circular blast wave - the grass, trees and most importantly people all blasting apart. The effect diminishes over distance, and eventually stops so that Soul finds himself stood in the middle of a crop circle of devestation. Deciding that to delay any further wouldn't be very useful (and importantly, wouldn't be interesting), he hops through the Gate.
-----------------------

EDITED - because line-breaks are your friend, and writing these things in notepad isn't helpful when you cut and paste with the word wrap still turned on.

DaveB

10-29-2004, 04:44 PM

SPHERE SIX - SOLITARY

(note - this Sphere lasted a whole ten minutes out-of-character. Really. We were all anxious to get to civilisation)

ECHO 6

You’re standing somewhere shady, underground on some hot world, bare sandstone walls and a floor covered in sand. Sunlight trickles lazily down from high, thin horizontal windows – like those you might find in a cellar.

You’re wearing a short, grey, one-piece tunic, the skirt barely covering your thighs, and are bare-legged and bare-footed. Your hair has been pulled into a tight ponytail and you’ve got something that looks like salt covering the palms of your hands.

“Echo” – it’s Mirage. None of the others are here. Well, you think bitterly – why would they be? You ignore her, focused on the steps in front of you. You half-kneel down, and from the floor pick up an odd bladed weapon – like a short sword where the blade gets thicker further away from the hilt, ending in a T-shaped spiked end – and a small circular shield – barely a buckler – that has odd notches cut into it’s rim, presumably for trapping weapons in.

“Echo.” Mirage again. Is she still here?

“Echo. You don’t have to do this.” She says, insistently and – to your internal monologue – rather stupidly.

“It’s what I’m good at.” You reply, simply.

“But you don’t HAVE to do this. There are other ways to get the money we need.”

“But none as simple.” You respond, as though stating a plain fact. “And after all, it is time I pulled my weight.”

She seems outraged. “Don’t LISTEN to him! He’s a… A…”

“Nobleman?” You ask, cocking your head. “While we are not?”

“We are all equals.” She says frostily.

“Yes, so the Princess keeps saying.” You say, emotionlessly. “That does not make it true. You and I, Mirage, are born to serve our betters. I do not know how you do it.” You nod towards the steps, and the broad door at their top. “But this is how I do it.”

“You could DIE, Echo. Here – far from home, all because of one stupid comment made by a man thinking only of the quick way out of a problem.”

“I have no home” You say, and the doors are pulled open. Sunlight streams down and you hear the roar of the crowd. “I’ll be back soon.” You say, again simply stating a fact.

“Echo! There are seven Gladiators out there! Three of them champions!”

“Then you should win enough money by betting on me.” You start running, taking the steps three at a time. Mirage shouts something after you, but the wall of noise and heat cancels whatever desperate words she wanted to convey. Purposefully hugging the left wall of the tunnel, you clinically note the shadow of the man lying in wait. At the last second, you Echo to your right, allow his sword to pass harmlessly through the image of you and duck the clumsy blow of the Gladiator on the right. Swapping yourself for your image, you swing the blade backwards and take out the inner thigh of the left-hand Gladiator, while the right-hand you runs straight through the warrior on her side. He turns, shocked, and the left hand you breaks his neck with a blow from the end-spikes of the weapon. You swap again and cancel the trailing you, stopping still some distance away from the tunnel.

The crowd goes silent, and the bodies of the two Gladiators fall to the ground with twin thumps. Their five remaining cohorts are spread out across the Arena. You survey them, only spot two in Champions’ colours. Belatedly, you realise that you’ve already taken out the favourite. The Gladiators advance slowly, cautiously, and you just stand there waiting for them, running through the efficient way to deal with them. First, you will take the spear from the second on the left. Then, while the outrunner on that side is engaged with one of you…

You spot Valour and Fathom, up in the crowd.

One of the Gladiators breaks into a run towards you, swinging a spiked ball on a chain.

“I’m sorry,” you say as if in normal conversation, despite there being no way for him or anyone else to hear you. “But I know my place.”

Three hundred and five seconds later, and they are all dead.
FATHOM 6

You stand on the edge of the village, one foot up on a tree stump, a potent-looking sledgehammer resting against it. You’re looking out over the plain below the hill you’re on top of, and then out to sea.

You hear footsteps behind you, and feel the familiar sensation of Talisman’s colours when he isn’t consciously making them solid – like a light breeze against your hip. You turn and look at him, emerging from the shadow of the newly-constructed palisade, pearl glittering in the dying sunlight.

You nod to him, and go back to your view of the landscape.

“Soul is in the basement of the inn” He says “Just as you asked.”

“How did he take it?” You query. He shrugs, and stands beside you, also watching the horizon.

“Not well. He wanted to be with the other children. But he understood why he has to be separated.”

“Good. The others?”

“Valour is resting. Echo is guarding the south entrance. Mirage is pretending to be the head man as you asked.”

“So why are you not at your post?” You ask, cooly.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

“Fathom – what are we doing here? We could have been at the Gate by now.”

“We have taken detours and delays before.”

“Yes – and look what happened to Valour that one time. We have a job to do, and I don’t see why we’re wasting our time…” You cut across his words with a chopped hand.

“We are not wasting our time. These people need us.”

“Or is it that you need them? An easy victory, to take the sting of the Mirror away?”

“You of all people are in position to lecture me about side-goals, son of Strabo.” You say, instantly regretting it. His lips tighten, and he shakes his head in disgust.

“Talisman, wait. Wait.” You say, turning towards him imploringly. “Please. You’re right, I DO need to do this. We have been driving so hard towards our goal that… It has become hard to realise the good we can do on the way. These people are in danger. It is such a little thing, a day or two out of thousands, but we can save them. Maybe that is wasting our time, but it is something I think we should be doing more.”

”No. You’re right.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. I think I’m just rattled – have been ever since the True Mirror… A little self-knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

“Sometimes” You think out loud “I believe we would have been better off simply going through Open Soul. At least we would have been prepared for all the revelatory worlds we have been hit by these past years.”

“Maybe on the way back” He says, lightly, though the mention of revelatory worlds seems to pain him, even more than the recent memory of True Mirror at night-time. Of course, you think to yourself. Stupid of you. It would.

“Where are you going to be?” you ask. The sun is low now. At dusk, they will come.

“Right here, where I belong.”

“I’m glad” you say, truthfully. In the distance, a howling noise starts. Getting closer. The villagers behind the palisade run about, getting ready for the fight.

“Ready to take a detour?” Talisman asks, the tension between you gone, producing twin flails of Colour, swinging them around his arms in preparation. You lift the sledgehammer, and welcome the oncoming hoard with a smile.

“Ready.”
VALOUR 6

Sometime later, the light from outside has dimmed, the sounds of the street subtly changed to those of night-time.

You’re lying down again, staring at the cracked plaster of the ceiling in the flickering lamp light, resolutely not thinking about anything. A clump of your shedding hair still in your fist.

Somewhere in the distance, a clock tower chimes seven bells.

The door to your room opens again, and Mirage enters, rapidly closing the door behind her. She leans against it, holding something behind her back. She’s dressed for the occasion that tonight was meant to be – a light blue gown, bare-armed.

She looks down at you, and takes a deep breath.

“We’re late.” She says.

You point to your own outfit for the evening – currently in a pile on the floor in the corner of the room, where they have lain since you threw them. She cocks an eyebrow, and looks back at you.

“Well that won’t work. You have to wear the clothes nowadays – it’s a custom on this world. Hardly anyone goes naked.”

“I’m not going.”

“Not going? You’re going to stay away tonight, of all nights? When your friends want and need you there?”

“I’m. Not. Going.”

“You know that when you clench your jaw your neck gets even thicker? The muscles go all taut.”

“I’m. Not. GOING!” You shout, lunging to a sitting position.

“Now, see – that’s better!” She says, smiling, “At least you’re upright.”

“What are you trying to do?” You ask, hurt by the jibe. “Twist the knife? How can I go when I look…”

Your monologue is cut short by a bowl landing on the floor between your feet. Followed shortly by a folded-up straight razor that you recognise as being Talisman’s. You stare at them, then back up at Mirage, who shrugs.

“Use it on your wrists, or on your head. Up to you.”

“That’s your solution?” You whisper, hoarsely.

“Yep. Well, obviously I’d prefer head – I’d miss you if you went the other way, but… and this is important… you are not a victim. Your hair’s falling out? Shave it all off. Your wings are going sharp? Learn how to use them.”

“I don’t know my own body any more.” You say.

“Neither do I. Haven’t for years, ever since I was taken and this” she shifts rapidly through facial arrangements. “Doesn’t make me less of a person – it doesn’t make me a victim. You can fight what’s happening to you, you can claim ownership of it and turn it to your own ends, or you can ignore it, but you can’t just obsess about it.”

You slowly bend down and pick the bowl up, then nod once.

“Thank you.” You whisper.

“Don’t mention it.” She replies, and eyes the top of your head. “Besides, I think you’ll look alright. We’ll tell the others it’s a fashion thing.”

“You really think they’ll buy that?” You ask, with the tiniest sliver of levity.
“Oh, yes. In the future, all the important people will go bald. You’re a trend setter.”
“’Trend-Setter’. I like the sound of ‘trend-setter’”
“I thought you would.”
TALISMAN 6

You smile up at the barmaid, who blushes as she puts the tray – piled high with tall pottery jars of beer – down and retreats, then try to focus on what Valour is saying.

“…the most opportune route.” The birdman (who is bald in this vision) blinks, and takes a jar. “Talisman? Were you listening to me?”

“Every word” says the third adult at the table, a tall man with skin of ebony and long hair of the same colour, wearing a blue shirt, “Isn’t that right, Talisman?”

“Yeah. Opportune Route.” you reply, sipping at your drink. “Every word.”

Soul – sitting on the fourth chair around your table – reaches for a jar and you absent-mindedly slap his hand. The boy looks chagrined, and goes into a sulk.

“Cheer up, little one” says the man “you can have milk.”

Soul looks disgusted. The man looks comically crestfallen and you smile wryly.

“Lets hope you get better with children before you have any of your own, hey, man?” You say, jovially. Valour stops mid-drink and looks like he’s trying desperately not to scowl.

The man sits back in his chair and stretches theatrically.

“Not to worry, my friends – the trip is a short one from here. Three more Gates and we’re at my homeworld. My father will give you all a warm welcome.”

“Not to denigrate your royal father, Paragon,” you say, “But we have heard that one before. It usually starts with welcomes and ’please-won’t-you-stay-in-the-palace’, then moves on to ‘there’s-just-this-one-problem’ and before you know it we’re facing some terrible beast from the dawn of civilisation on whatever world it is. You just can’t get terrible beast guts out of your shoe-treads. Believe me, I’ve tried.” You stand and lift one foot onto the table, then sit back down again.

“We are a peaceful realm.” Paragon insists.

“We’ve definitely heard that one before.” Says Valour, and you and he chink jars in mock-victory. “Like Undertown.”

“Or Veil” you counter.

“Or Nornhall” he says.

“HAH! Doesn’t count – the monster was in the right, and it was our hosts who were the villains!” You slam your jar down in triumph. Valour thinks for a second, raises his lack-of-eyebrows and nods, ceding to your more accurate portrayal.

“Or Fire Plume” says Soul, quietly, his tone making you slightly more sober.

“Nah – that’s not right, kid, you aren’t a terrible beast.”

“That’s not what you used to say.”

“Yeah – I say a lot of things.” You say, and slide a jar over to him. Soul’s eyes go wide, and he takes the alcohol in both hands, careful not to spill any. Valour looks like he might be about to object, but you shoot him a warning look. Paragon just nods, once, in understanding.

“Not much “innocence” left, eh?” says Paragon, good-naturedly. Soul sticks his tongue out him, and he does so in return, the imposing warrior pulling faces at the little boy.

“Actually,” you remark to Valour, watching the bird-man’s face carefully. “I take it back – I think he will make a good father one day.”

Valour smiles sarcastically, and nods towards the gurning twosome. “Children can relate to people like them.” He says, smiling with what you decide is genuine humour. Good, you think to yourself. He’s getting better.

You sit back in your chair and regard your friends, taking a long, slow drink from your second jar.
MIRAGE 6

Grim-faced, you pick through the rubble, stepping over fallen masonry and shattered timbers, remembering the battle.

The sky is slate-grey and darkening with the onset of twilight, the fires burning in the city adding an eerie light and shadow to the thousand human tragedies – and triumphs – taking place.

The three-towered citadel has been breached, it’s windows lit by the conflagration within. A huge hole, like a gaping abcess in a tooth, has been knocked into the second tower.

They had it coming.

There is a roar from the mob, and the overriding sense of cathartic violence – the people have spotted a Brother of Change, still stupidly wearing his green robes, and are stoning him to death. A few soldiers – soot-faced and weary after the battle – are attempting to maintain order, but only half-heartedly. They settle for making sure that it’s only the Brother who is killed, and not anyone else.

You walk down the street, past the Inn of the Hanging Crab, the familiar made alien by the devastation, and cross onto the square where most of the troops are massed. Their backs are turned to you, though a couple at the rear turn and – recognising you, nod in appreciation.

At the front of the Square, a huge copper statue of the Voice stands, slowly turning green with age. An imposing dark-skinned man with a shaved head, wearing an ornate version of the lamellar armour of the troops that is set with sapphires and oddly not carrying any weapons (in fact, you see, as your past self cranes her neck to watch what’s going on, that he’s barefoot as well) strides up the steps to the statue. He turns to gaze out across his soldiers, expression grim, nodding in satisfaction to himself. He spins and lashes out with a bare foot, kicking the statue and snapping it at the base. The Voice of God’s image topples over to the side, crashing to the ground and punctuating the roaring cheer of the troops.

“PARA-GON! PARA-GON! PARA-GON! PARA-GON! PARA-GON!” They chant, drumming their spears against their shields. He holds his hands up for silence, but doesn’t get it.

“I hear there’s a celebration going on.” Says a familiar – though long-absent – voice.

Talisman has snuck up on you, his skin pale and taut, his new shirt hanging on his boney chest. His eyes are hollow, drawn, his smile half-hearted, his Colours muted.

“Hey you” he whispers. “Been a while.”

You step towards him, and – when he doesn’t duck away – embrace him in a bear hug, burying your head in his shoulder. He stiffens and then hugs you back.

“Been a long year” He says into your shoulder. “Been thinking about… Well.”

“Where are the others?” You ask, breaking the hug and looking up at him.

“Valour’s in the field hospital, sleeping. Fathom and Soul are with Echo. Have you seen her?”

“Yes. Briefly.” You glance up at the man on the podium, who has now managed to get silence and is making a speech about the victory. Talisman cocks an eyebrow.

“You know, I heard them say that he breached the citadel single-handed, that he fought his way past the guards and freed Valour. That he won this battle single-handed.”
“He’s their hero” You say, watching but not listening to the man on the podium.

“Well.” Says Talisman. “He wasn’t the one leading the resistance – he’s just the one who came when they called. He’s the hero of his people, the big lunk.” He pauses. “You’re mine.”

The man on the podium meets your gaze, across the crowd. In that contact, you know that The Paragon also knows whose victory this is.

“MY FRIENDS!” he roars, and you get a horrible feeling of where this is going. “THE HEROINE OF ENTELECHY!” pointing straight at you, he smiles and inclines his head, a gesture of respect.

The troops cheer again, turning to applaud you. Talisman takes up the chant, and softly melts back into the shadows, pulling his Colours around him like a cloak.
SOUL 6

You float, dream-like, through a vast carnival. The sound is echoing and low, your vision blurry around the edges. You never see any people, just shadowy half-shapes hurrying past, blurred and indistinct.

You float along, some distance from the crowd, looking at all the stalls.

“TEST YOUR STRENGTH” reads one, with a painted picture of a man twisted into a monster. “ON YOUR OWN?” says another, with a picture of a weeping middle-aged woman, sat with her head in her hands. The picture makes you feel funny. “TUNNEL OF LOVE” is emblazoned above a cylinder filled with rotating razor-sharp blades, a thousand hearts lying impaled and torn in a slop-bucket at it’s exit.

There’s an odd sound, like a string instrument being plucked in a complex tune.

“FRUIT” turns out to be a fruit stand, the apples rotten and wormy. “THE AMAZING BIRD-BOY!” is a metal statue of Valour

“YOUR FORTUNE TOLD” – now that sounds like it might be worth it! You float up to the booth, and are vaguely aware of pushing at the entrance. A brilliant light pours out of the open tent light, and you screw your eyes tight against it as you go inside.

Inside, a tall lady with fire instead of hair and a loving smile is stood behind a felt-topped table, like those for reading a Fate Deck.

“Can you …” you start, but she puts a finger to her lips and smiles. She gestures at the table, where a tiny jewel, shining in many different colours, is lying on the felt.

“Is that my fortune?” you ask, and she smiles, inclining her head. Yes.

She turns her hand, and it is holding a bronze item, like a bell without a clapper inside. The handle is in the shape of a flying bird. She puts it down, covering the jewel, and turns both hands, revealing similar bells in each that she puts down either side of the one containing the jewel. One has a handle in the shape of a boy, another in the shape of something…. Wrong.

“I know this game” you say, worried, deliberately not looking at the wrong thing. “It isn’t fortune-telling, but it’ll do.” The lady raises an eyebrow – a thin line of flames – and shrugs, smiling. ”But you’re playing it wrong, the cups are supposed to be the same. Otherwise it’s easy.”

She smiles. Is it now?

She moves the cups around the table, swapping the boy for the bird., then spreads her hands in a “where is it?” gesture. You point to the bird, and she lifts it, revealing it to be empty. Then she lifts the other two. The jewel was under the boy. “That’s impossible” you say, your youthful logic challenged. She smiles, again, lowers the cups again and starts to move the cups around.

This time, she doesn’t stop. The cups go round and round, fast enough that you can smell burning felt and smoke is rising from the table. Her hands blur over them, but her gaze remains fixed on you, that half-smile always on her lips.

The table catches fire. Still she continues, even as you shy back from the flames. A lick of flame ignites the tent wall, and soon the entire tent is blazing away. Desperate, you flee, scrambling backwards on your hands and feet like a crab, tumbling out of the tent into the night.

The carnival is gone, only pitch darkness remaining except for the brightness of the burning tent. Through the melting doorway, you can see the lady. She’s still moving the cups, though they now rest on thin air after the table has collapsed, and she’s still looking right at you and smiling. The tent collapses around her, and she still doesn’t move – hanging in the air as though still standing, the lack of a surface proving as little a problem for her as it does for the cups.

You notice that she has bird’s feet.

Finally, she stops, the cups hanging in the air in front of her. She spreads her hands again, inviting you to guess.

One by one, the characters appear out of the Everway into the middle of a crowded market street. Everyone ignores them. The crowd parts coincidentally around them, the flash of light and rush of wind from the Everway doesn't so much as get a raised eyebrow. Talisman deliberately blocks a man's path, only to have that man turn around and walk the other way, muttering to himself that he's forgotten something - Talisman's intervention being neatly rationalised.

Welcome to Solitary.

According to the treasure-hunters they met on Jagged, the people of Solitary wished long ago that they would be left alone and in peace, and so they were. The Sphere produces no spherewalkers of it's own, none of the natives can sense Everways, and the people just ignore off-worlders and anything that they do, rationalising it whenever anyone tries to break them out of their mental block.

Still, notes Mirage, they seem to be happy enough.

Soul pipes up, and gets instantly shot down - these people are alive, and.. well... they seem better off than anyone else the characters have met or remembered so far. Who are they to begrudge them that? He offers the idea that one of them might like to know there are other things, and Echo asks how he can be sure that whoever they "free" won't be just as invisible to his own people? They'd be exiling the poor soul forever.

Talisman steals some wine and food from the market, the stallholders not even noticing the loss, and Complains that it just doesn't feel the same.

Searching for another Gate, they find one halfway across town, which opens as they near it to disgorge a group of travellers, carrying equipment between them for a long stay in the wilderness. They are greeted cheerily by the men and women, who say they are a party of explorers out of Stonebridge. Recognising the name as being one of the "New Kingdoms" - indeed, recognising it as the edge between said inhabited worlds and the "Old Kingdoms" in which they are presently, they ask if that's where the gate goes. It is, say the travellers. Ten minutes' walk and twenty days' Astral Path away, there is civilisation.

Our heroes, sick to their back teeth of hiking through the wilderness and desiring such things as a proper meal, a bath and drink that doesn't have to be rationed, race one another to the Gateway.

DaveB

10-29-2004, 05:56 PM

SPHERE SEVEN - STONEBRIDGE

(No Visions! I'd only written two for this session and hadn't thought of my now-in-place shtick for when I run out. If this happens again, I'm just going to take the ones I've already given, shuffle them and hand them out to the wrong people)

The characters emerge in the central courtyard of a large - and obviously deserted - castle. It's nighttime, and a faint moaning sound that might be the wind can be heard. Right in front of them, a large brass plaque has been attached to a boulder, and gives some explanation:

"Stonebridge welcomes Spherewalkers back from the Old Kingdoms. For your own safety, please leave by the main gate as quickly as possible. The Citadel of Sighs (in which you now stand) is haunted, and may be dangerous to those who linger. For those arriving at night, the nearest accomodation is available at the village of windfall, two miles down the road."

Well, that settles *that*, then. Soul, naturally, wants to look around the haunted castle, but gets bodily removed by Talisman - the half-dragon's mind is on the possibilities inherent in an inn, not on the simple pleasures of ghost-hunting.

The promised two miles down the road, and the village comes into sight - as does the great honking big inn, big enough to accommodate dozens of travellers and seemingly the centrepiece of the place - the village is the Inn's support structure, not the other way around. Walking on in, hands firmly clamped on Soul's shoulders, they look around at the people - mostly locals, although the golden-haired woman with two great glowing mirrored orbs instead of eyes and the grizzly bear wearing adapted plate maile are probably not from around here. Talisman initialises "putting the moves" on the female Spherewalker (with Mirage - her thoughts on her own Vision from the trip between Jagged and Amber - watching in the background). The lady slaps him, informs him that when she said she never wanted to see him again she meant it and stalks out.

The bear in plate mail laughs, claps Talisman on the shoulder in a friendly way and informs him that Lantern (that would be the lady) is with him now, and no hard feelings, huh? Having established that they have been here before, the rest of the party deciding to pay for rooms while the paying is good (they woke up at the start of the campaign with quite a bit of Stonebridge currency between them). The keeper asks if they want the same rooms as before, they consider for a second and agree and get their room numbers. There's an unexpected side-benefit: The registery still has their names in from their last visit seven months ago, which tells them that "Soul" is more properly "The Balancing Innocence of the Glorious Soul". He doesn't like it upon being told, considering it a dorky name.

Echo, heading upstairs, discovers that her room is huge - half of the Inn's top floor, the other half being Fathoms'. Everyone else is sharing downstairs. She returns to the bar, tells the keeper that there's a mistake, has him check and finally (when he apologetically says that no, that's it - best room in the place, but if he can get her anything else...) telling the others that she'll swap with Valour.

While Talisman heads off into the night after Lantern, Soul asks if he can go back to have a look at the Citadel. Echo splits herself, one going with the boy and the other staying to talk to the others. She has a problem. She thinks that she was the one who left the party. She thinks that she quit to get married, and hasn't a clue what to do about it. She is, however, emphatic on one point - she may have gotten above her place on the outbound journey, and not paid due respect to her betters, but she is determined to act properly this time around. Cue the others trying to persuade her otherwise.

Talisman comes back in, having briefly met Lantern - who told him nothing useful, just that he was a lying sonofa. He catches the tail-end of the coversation and finally addresses something that's been bugging him - he forcefully asks Echo to quit with calling him "My Lord". Because while he's technically a Baronet, he doesn't ever use his title and it... irritates... him.

The other Echo and Soul, meanwhile, have made it back to the Citadel. Soul - who can hear the sound of wings - takes a deep breath, and has an odd sensation like throwing up backwards. The ghosts all become briefly visible, shrieking as they are sucked into Soul, who burps. He's eaten them, and can feel them inside himself - apparantly they killed themselves a long time ago, and that's why they're ghosts. According to Soul, anyway.

Damage to the tourist trade achieved, the two of them head back to the village. Back at the Inn, Fathom has given up trying to convince Echo of her own freedom and has gone to enjoy some peace, quiet and a bath. The conversation has segued into a discussion of Valour's visions - Valour is still incredibly apologetic for anything he may have done, but after the last two visions is downright disturbed at what happened might have happened to him. The combination of Talisman chatting up the barmaids working on Mirage, and his memories of Mirage being kind to him working on him, plus the safety of the inn allowing fear of imminent attack to go away and be replaced by aprehension of their situation and multiplied by wine does it's magic, and Mirage and Valour go "upstairs" together.

Echo, Soul and Talisman (once he is distracted from the barmaid) get talking to Bear (the armoured Bear, who shifts - mid-coversation - into human form when the moon sets), who gives them much-needed updates on the current situation in the New Kingdoms, at least from the viewpoint of a mercenary Spherewalking werebear. It seems that times have been tough since the Invasion of Entelechy (see Mirage's visions), but the rumour is that Paragon (see loads of Visions) is building an army on Waterwall, for what reason Bear doesn't know. Some say it's to attack whatever was behind Entelechy, some say it is to invade Bastion and install himself as warlord of the entire Sphere-group. When asked about Entelechy, Bear says that some Brothers of Change escaped - there is a reward out for one that is reported to be on Stonebridge, in the town of East. Their "faith" was declared illegal after Entelechy was conquered, but some of their infiltrators are still at large. Nodding sagely through much of this conversation, the others take careful note of the names and places, and decide that a trip to East might be just the thing.

Bear excuses himself, going off to try to find Lantern. Soul and Echo go to bed in the room recently given up by Mirage in favour of Valours' - which in turn was given up by Echo in favour of something more suited to her station. Musical bedrooms. Talisman succeeds in finding a companion for the night, and all... well... some of the party get some sleep.

The morning after the night of much horizontal jogging, and the group assemble once more. Talisman is particularly keen to see about that reward, which sparks an argument about side-quests - Echo believes that their duty is to get home as quickly as possible and not get "involved in local matters" (methinks the lady is protesting). Talisman's opinion is that they only have the one chance to do this right, and that who knows? Maybe the Ball isn't what they were after and won't they feel stupid if that turns out to be the case. But mostly that they deserve some slack.

The "discussion" delayed - at least for a little while - by the discovery that East contains the Gate to Quarry (the next world on their route, which leads to Greenhills, at which point they can either go one way round the Young Kingdoms or another - the second route taking them through Waterwall, which is apparantly where Paragon lives judging by context in other people's conversations) - the gang head out. In the daytime, they can see Stonebridge better - a land of sandy, pebbley ground and scrub vegetatation, it's not the most lush of places. Still, it's well signposted, and helpful markers tell them which way to go for their destination.

On the way, they run into a horseback messenger going the other way. He recognises and hails them, asking if they have any news. They tell him about Amber and Ivy being Tainted and he nods, asking them to pass that on to the captain of the guard in East. The man (whose name, they figure out, is Fleet) tells them that the Brother of Change has been captured already, and sets off on a gallop to the Citadel of Sighs and the gate to Solitary, while the party press on.

Finally, they reach the feature that the Sphere is named after - The Stone Bridge. A thin single arch of stone over a rather-too-deep-for-Talisman's-liking canyon, it is crossed in single file - Fathom sternly telling Soul to keep the Ball right where it is.

Once over, there's a little bit more of a hike before they come across the enterance to a town. The "welcome" sign proudly proclaims this to be East, population 1452, and there seems to be noone around.

And that, finally, is where we finish Session Two.

DaveB

10-29-2004, 07:15 PM

Well, that was the second session. Very much a transition piece between the long emptinesses of the first few Spheres and the mass of politicking and clashing plotlines of the next dozen or so. Like I said last week, I should have just had Empty Throne (possibly even Jagged) connect straight to Stonebridge, but hindsight makes fools of us all.

I was most pleased with the character arcs - after having found their beats last time, my players started to flesh their alter-egoes out a little bit more. Well, except for Andrea, who wasn't actually at the session until right at the end (spot the moment when she starts playing Fathom again). Especial props to.. hell, no. Props to everyone - even Andrea did an excellent job in the hour she was present. Emma managed to give the ground state for her character arc AND show Echo's vunerabilities at the same time (the bit about the side quests was especially good), Renaud got to play Talisman in a social setting, showing his character's callous, sarcastic exterior (the interior comes next week). Chris did the furrowed brow of angst well (though I made a mental note to give him happy Visions as soon as possible), Rafe got at the start of Mirage's lack of self-identity. Andrea displayed Fathom's somewhat aloof tendencies for the way of getting space they are - Fathom occassionally just needs to retreat from her leader job. And Andy was at his most splendidly annoying as the boy-child.

At this stage, much is still up in the air. Specific Visions still aren't being shared (except when neccessary), and there is much that they don't know. They have a good guess - but have yet to prove to their satisfaction - that Echo is married to someone named Paragon, who is a warlord of some nature. They don't know exactly what the Ball (which does have a name, by the way, as we will see in Session Four - I just shy away from calling it The Orb in a half-hearted effort to hide my sources. Whoops.) does, though they have guessed it's something to do with cancelling out the Usurper Force on the Sphere it's activated. They don't know what Soul is - though they now know that his name is actually "The Balancing Innocence of the Glorious Soul".

While this time the various emotional situations were stated (Mirage telling Talisman they may have once had a relationship and then turning around and sleeping with Valour, Valour apologising for apparantly having become an utter bastard somewhere along the way, Fathom feeling the strain, Echo hoping that it'll all go away, Talisman carousing and Soul being impulsive with the world-shattering artefact), next time they crash into one another, culminating in an hour-long impassioned plea from Talisman for Echo to not abandon the life she appears to have made for herself out here, set against the backdrop of the End of the World. Which is a *complete* tourist trap. You'll see.

Backplot-wise, at this point I had decided on the start and end of Echo's "Time Away", and had figured out what happened to Valour. The "Dragon" plot was still entirely shapeless.

FLASHBACK NOTES.

The flashbacks for Session 2 are an evolution again – the characterisation is (I think) better for having seen the PCs in play during the Pilot, and there is less of a need to be friendly; in Session 1 I was preoccupied with getting the group functioning, so here I can show them having disagreements. Those characters that were dwelling on particular things in previous sessions also get them addressed, as is my general tactic. I did an odd thing with Valour this week: his flashback is really one flashback that got cut in half for space. It worked, so I did it to everyone next session.

ECHO FIVE is about the relationship between Echo and Soul. Echo isn’t Souls mother-figure (that’s Fathom), nor the cool Aunt that lets him do things he shouldn’t (that’s Mirage, in flashbacks at least) – she’s got very much a big-sister relationship to him, based on her own relative age as the youngest party member except for him. The Vision hints about Soul's background (which we'll find out the nature of in Session Three and the details of in Session Four) and gives something of a reset on Echo after the vision of her hating her own future self - she seems to have come to terms with it here. It also has the first dialogue from Soul in a Vision.

ECHO SIX, I cheerfully call "The Gladiator knockoff" - an absolute ground-state for the character, being set in the last time she was in the emotional state she's in now. While I know, Emma knows and everyone else knows that it shows Echo realising "her place" isn't a good place to live, Echo herself took it to be a sign of what she *should* be doing. Both of Echo's visions continue the Weaponry theme, and Echo five has a reflection in it.

TALISMAN FIVE was two visions that I couldn't flesh out enough to fill a page smashed together. When we were planning the campaign, Renaud requested the specific imagry of a ship diving into an Everway, probably being wrecked in the process. Give the people what they want. "Spear" as the name of their friend (this Ship is also the setting for one of his Visions last time) is a no-brainer. The English equivalent-name is "Jack". I am so very sorry.

TALISMAN SIX was to address the imbalance I talked about last time - Talisman obviously found his peace with Soul (or learned to tolerate him) and I wanted to show that. While I was at it, I figured I'd show his relationship to Valour as well - the men of the party don't interact much. Just as I came to write it, I figured out when it was set in the timeline, ummed and ahhd, decided to throw caution to the wind and put Paragon in it as well - Echo's husband gets his first lines here. This Vision plus Echo-Five equals Soul's background.

MIRAGE FIVE, I think, gets Mirage's personality across better than any of the others so far - she's not so much impulsive as has a need to achieve closure - she hates to leave things hanging. This is set on Maw, almost immediately after the Vision she had set there in Session One, and features more information about her abortive romance with Talisman - which is revealed here to be an externally-imposed effect rather than a proper development (though as Talisman's later behaviour shows, like in Echo-One, "friends" takes them a while to achieve). Continuity-fans noted that it was how Talisman got the scar on his lip, and that I still hadn't actually come out and said what happened. It is also, I realise now as I read it, the first proper stating of Talisman's true personality - it's been seen in a couple of other people's visions, but this is his first "True Talisman" monologue. Also, points to me for the line about Valour, which looks like I planned her and Valour sleeping together this session.

MIRAGE SIX is set on Entelechy, has a line which links into one of the handouts (Mirage woke up with a sketch of that Tower with "they had it coming" written on it), shows Paragon again and establishes that everyone else WAS in prison for quite some time. It links up thematically to Mirage-Five, showing the recent situation between Mirage and Talisman. A situation which is misinterpreted by most of the others as meaning they've finally given into their hormones and gotten together. Speaking of which...

FATHOM FIVE is set nearly a week after Mirage-Six, and has the newly-freed Fathom meet Echo, who has changed a lot in her time away from the party. Andrea nodded sagely after reading this and pronounced 'okay. She's a bitch, but she's our bitch'. Echo's weapons theme gets used again, and the origin of the letter of directions through the Old Kingdoms gets revealed. So now we know *how* Echo rejoined the party, but not *why*. The time that the party was split up - 14 months - is finally set down.

FATHOM SIX is my attempt at the quiet before the storm bit of 13th Warrior, and addresses the issue of side trips. It tells us about Fathom's state of mind, about Talisman's character arc, shows the advisory role he takes to her AND was read by Andrea (just returned to the session) at the exact moment they started to talk about Side trips. Chalk up another "foresight" point to Dave.

VALOUR FIVE AND SIX are really one Vision, based on how much Valour obsessed about the issue last time. It tells us much - the metal is slowly spreading, the metal is the cause of his hair falling out and (in combination with what happened in the session) that there's *something* alive or moving inside Valour's chest. As is usual for the two-people-talking Visions, this is more about the other person - Mirage - than it is about Valour. Her role here makes perfect sense for her, but took Chris completely by surprise. I'm sure I've stolen the "naked" line from somewhere, but for the life of me can't think of where.

SOUL FIVE is my first use of Soul to give the players a clue-by-four, ensuring that they have the option of surviving the ambush and giving Andy a laugh doing it.

SOUL SIX, however, is where I get my symbolism on. The Firey Lady is obviously Fire Plume, Goddess of Hope and Lost Causes, but can you spot everything else? The weeping woman is Soul's mother, the metal thing isn't a *statue* of Valour, the worms in the apples are the Taint, Test Your Strength is a signifier of Soul's "job" of dealing with the Taint, the tunnel of love is more of a meta-comment on the fate of that emotion in the campaign (I am from the Joss Whedon school of romantic writing. It's not fun unless you have a tragic breakup). As for the game... Well, I'll let Andy figure out what the thing with the figures means, but I will note that there's more than one definition of the word "Fortune". Also, the Avatar form of Fire Plume is sponsored by the cover of Exalted: The Fair Folk. I just liked the picture.

Sleep now. Need sleep. Session three tommorow. Maybe even Session Four.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 08:53 AM

SESSION THREE

STONEBRIDGE -> QUARRY -> DOOMSHIELD

STONEBRIDGE (cont.)

When we left it, the gang were entering the oddly-deserted town of East, said settlement having been recently plagued by a Brother of Change who was linked in popular belief to several disappearances.

Upon hitting the main street, they find all the people - there's a huge mob blocking the street. Pushing their way through, they pick up from context that there's a duel about to take place. In the red corner is Flying Sword, a Spherewalker who (like so many of the other Spherewalkers currently hanging around Stonebridge) was until recently in the army that invaded Entelechy. He's been causing trouble, starting fights and challenging anyone that stands up to him to duels. Someone has finally decided to take him up on the offer. That someone is local boy Jade Dragon, the son of a Spherewalker who settled here several decades ago. The town's champion, he took up Flying Sword's challenge in defense of his sister-in-law, who the villain was troubling.

The gang reach the front of the crowd, Echo, Soul and Mirage moving around to the side. Jade Dragon is emerald green and bare to the waist, making practice swings with his sword while his family look on worried. Flying Sword is huge, clad from head to foot in all-encompassing armour topped off with a war-fan strapped to his back and a oversized mask of a grimacing demon. He stands quite still, holding both his weapons.

They fight.

The rules are simple - there's two blocks, spaced apart and in front of each combatant. They charge at one another, use the block before them as a step-up and jump at one another, swinging as they fly through the air. Sword gets a glancing blow on jade, causing a hiss to go through the crowd. (turns out he bleeds green, too). They turn and charge again, this time Jade severing Sword's right hand. The gauntlet of Sword's armor - still gripping his sword - lands in the dust. There isn't any blood, from the hand or the arm: in fact, the gauntlet appears to be empty when Soul picks it up.

Sword marches back to his starting position, apparantly not noticing his lost appendage. Talisman sees Jade's family looking downright scared, and makes his way over to them. Briefly conferring with Jade's wife about the rules, he gets her to get him to call for a change of weapons. It's apparantly allowed, but the other guy gets to rearm too - literally, in fact, as he calls out (in a rather hollow-sounding voice) for his hand back. Soul gives it over, and the crowd mutters to itself as the outsider screws his own empty gauntlet back on. Common feeling is that Flying Sword is, in fact, just the suit of armour. Mirage is of the opinion that he's actually just the swords.

Talisman, gauging the mood of the crowd, makes a florid gesture and covers Jade from head to toe in scintillating armour made of Colour. The combatants go for it again, and Jade takes Sword's helmet clean off. There's nothing inside.

Sword lands, picks his "head" up again and puts it back with a few twists. The crowd is getting angry now. Soul has a brainwave (you can almost see the lightbulb) and sneaks into the inn Sword has been using, Mirage trailing him and Soul trailing her. He hears noises from upstairs and creeps up there, finding a locked door. As Mirage reaches the top of the stairwell, she sees Soul staring intently at the door. He shimmers, lights up and appears to evaporate - the glowing cloud of light motes that was once Soul rearranging into something that looks like a bird. This apparition floats through the door like it isn't there, and turns back into Soul on the inside.

Inside the room, there's a midgit holding a wooden doll that looks rather like Flying Sword. Or in fact, rather like the suit of armour that says it's name is "Flying Sword".

Outside, the combatants are gearing up again. Jade veering off and impaling "Sword" through the breastplate, pinning it to the floor. The judge declares Jade the victor, and the local boy gets his cheer.

Upstairs Soul, Echo (who has just walked through the closed door) and Mirage (who gets let in by Echo) are in time to see the midgit make the doll sit up, and hear his whispered declaration that "he" is still alive. Outside, the armour follows the movements and says the words, sitting up, pulling the sword out and getting to it's feet.

Soul grabs the doll. The armour goes into spasm as he shakes it, Mirage holding the little guy down while she interrogates him. His name, he squeaks, is "Puppet", and he was just having a laugh. Mirage is not amused, and threatens him with various florid and nasty-sounding curses should he not call this off immediately. Soul is having too much fun making the animated armour dance a jig and punch itself in the head. Eventually, a deal is reached - in exchange for their silence on the whole cheating thing, Puppet makes his "toy" surrender.

And there is much rejoicing.

With the celebrations (Jade owns a pub. And he's buying) taking the town by storm, the gang decide to wait until morning, soak up the accolades for a bit and then go to see the Brother of Change who's languishing in the town's jail before leaving for Quarry.

The captain of the town's guard, a man appropriately named "Justice", takes the news about the Taint running all over the Old Kingdoms seriously, and allows them to see the prisoner. NOT - Justice sternly tells them - the killer. He hasn't had a trial yet.

The man is dressed in green robes, with a bronze medallion. He's also ignoring them.

(big ooc note here - the bloke's dressed like Favoured Son, Chris' character from the last campaign)

Valour scans his mind (pleasantly surprised to find that he's readable), and confirms that he's awake. The dialogue is short, and to the point. It's helped immeasurably by Valour cheerfully recounting whatever the man thinks, which cuts down on the lies a bit. His name is Favoured Son of Julius, and he's a priest of said God (in fact, Valour relates that the man thinks of the Brotherhood of Change as being Julius' church). The missing people were recruited by him to join the church - that is, they were recruited to become Taint.

That's good enough for Justice, and good enough for the gang. The captain pronounces judgement, and Soul sets the priest on fire. He doesn't seem to notice. In fact, he starts laughing, his body twisted slightly as he becomes a Taint. Valour's contact with his mind goes as his soul vanishes and is replaced by something... else. He grows slightly taller, his eyes turn red. He stares right at Soul, says that they'll do this again soon. Then whatever it is abandons the body, which crumbles to ash like a Taint that's died.

The gang leave for the Quarry gate, a shaken Justice telling them to not come back.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 10:47 AM

SPHERE EIGHT - QUARRY

ECHO 7

You sit at the desk, trying not to think about it.

The noon-day sunlight pours in through the large, open window, bringing with it the smell of apples and oranges, kumquats, hoie and ahlans, limes, redfruit, figs and cherries. The Gods’ fruit basket.

Almost time now, you think, and berate yourself for slipping. Frowning, you concentrate on your calligraphy – a particularly difficult character that means – dependent on subtle inflection – either “Forward Movement” or “Improper Behaviour”. The odd pressure on your index finger from the ring your future self will wear on a chain around her neck is distracting. You consider that you will never get used to it.

The character is finished apart from the inflection, when you are interrupted by a quiet knock at the door. Calling that whoever it is should come in, you turn in your seat and look to the entrance. The man that enters, carrying a tray carefully arranged with Tea (like from back on Wall) things, is elderly but healthy, his hair bald on top but long and white in the back, his muscles that oddly defined look that comes from losing one’s fat with age rather than gaining it. You smile to see him, and take the tray off him (an action which causes him to frown momentarily, as though you’ve crossed some small propriety yet again).

“Thank you, Sky”, you say, putting the tray down. He doesn’t leave and you nod at the door, inviting him to do so. He raises a single eyebrow and stays right where he is.

“Sky? Is there something else?” You ask, and he nods.
“Lady Echo…” He begins, and you wave him off. “Sky. Drop the ‘Lady’. From what I can tell, you’re more of a part of this family than I am, so please – speak to me as the daughter I would be.”

“Very well, Echo, if that is your wish.”
You smile again, reassuring the old manservant. “It is.”

“Then, speaking to you as my daughter… I would have you leave this room.”
“And go where?” you laugh, trying to appear at ease.

“You know where.” He says, sympathetically. “They will depart before long.”

All that hard work not thinking about it, wasted. You slide into a chair, hanging your head.

“I know. How can I forget? I know.” You shrug, in defeat. “I cannot go. I cannot say the things I want to – the words will not come. They know how I feel. I know how they feel. It is enough. I can’t… I can’t travel with them any more.”

He walks silently over to your, rests his hand on your head.

“All partings are hard” He says, gently. “If you do not go to wish them farewell, then it will eat at you for the rest of your life. My master, the man who I raised as my own son since he was a boy, loves you. He understands, though he is too foolish to tell you “ His eyes sparkle, and he smiles fondly “that you are torn. That you want to go with your friends AND stay here. You must make that choice, girl, and make it to yourself. Staying in this room, you avoid it – you never see them leave, you never underline that word. Go, look them in the eyes, say goodbye, and go your separate ways. It is the only way.”

“He said all that?”

He shrugs “Not in so many words.”

You nod, blinking. Getting up, you look around the room, spot your shoes and put them on. Looking up at Sky, you take a deep breath and head for the door. Pausing on the threshold, you Echo, one of you delaying long enough to kiss the old man on the cheek and nod in gratitude. As that copy vanishes, you hear him muse “Young people” quietly to himself.

Hurrying down the stairs and through the corridors of the vast building, servants scrambling to get out of your way, you emerge out into a shaded courtyard, high up on a balcony that has external stairs going down to ground level. There, waiting for the noon to pass and the heat subside a little, are the others. Taking the steps four at a time, you get to the ground and force yourself to walk up to them in a more composed manner. Talisman spots you first, nodding a greeting to you and visibly relaxing. Fathom sees the change in Talisman’s Colours and turns, then the others. You stop some seven paces away from them, hug your own arms and take another deep breath.

“I… “ You start, looking at your friends. “…I have something to say to you all.”
TALISMAN 7

Eyes closed, you float. Time stretches. You feel free, void of cares and concerns.

You hit the dirt face-first, sliding a handful of feet in the process, and the world comes back in all it’s inconvenient glory.

Spitting gravel, you scramble up to your knees, blinking dirt out of your eyes. You raise one hand to your forehead, and feel a slick warmness from the wound on your scalp. One of those head cuts that bleeds enthusiastically but nonfatally, you decide (more in hope than anything else) and stagger to your feet, swaying slightly and turning back the way you came.

“That” You say to the hulking, robed creature (features indiscernible behind it’s carved wooden mask, all flesh hidden beneath the folds of it’s green robe, two large maces that look like they were made out of some sort of sap extending out of it’s voluminous sleeve-ends) “Hurt.” You raise one finger in the air, as though giving a lecture. “It just wasn’t polite, now was it?”

It does not reply. You move your jaw, running your tongue along your teeth to check that all are present and correct. In the background Echo flip-kicks one of the creatures onto it’s back, leaps upon it and stabs it through the chest with a long sharp piece of metal that looks like it’s shaped like a tree-branch, then rolls off and to her feet, scooping her sword up from the ground where she presumably dropped it.

Your creature – ignoring you – goes to rush her, and you spread your hands as if insulted.

“HEY! Prior engagement over here!?” You shout, as though your pride were wounded. “Anybody?” You say, as another robed creature runs right past you in it’s efforts to get to Echo. Shaking your head, putting one hand up to steady yourself in the dizziness that follows it, you put your fists on your hips and frown.

The ground explodes with long spikes of Colour, impaling the robed things. The spikes retract, more shoot up, they pull out again, more shoot up and so on, stabbing through the robes again and again, your assailants jerking up and down like puppets on a string. Echo, panting, pushes a fallen lock of hair behind her ear and grins in gratitude to you. The spikes vanish for good with a wave of your hand, and you survey the scene of battle.

You’re inside the compound you saw from afar in another vision, walled and – aside from the main house, which is wide and low, filled with outbuildings, gardens, what looks like several full-sized forges, watchtowers, a moat and a waterwheel fed from the nearby river. Whole sections of the landscape – the buildings, the grass, the plants in the garden, even portions of the water in the river – are made of silvery-grey metal, and that these metallic areas seem to be growing into the surroundings like mould in bread, breaking up into silvery tendrils at the edges. A circular metal hoop is set on it’s edge in the garden, clearly marking the position of the Everway you can sense there.

Echo lifts one of the wooden masks up, and frowns. There’s nothing inside the robe but ash. You stand in front of the Gateway, wobbling slightly, your head pounding. Perhaps, you think to yourself, the wound was a little deeper than you thought.

Echo cries out in alarm as you topple over, and is by your side moments later. In the odd focus of your concussion, you note that she’s sweating from the combination of sun and combat. She sends a copy of herself to the river, fetching some of the water that is still water, using the water that is now metal as a container, and pours it over your head, washing the caked blood and mud off to get a look at the wound. The way she bites her lip tells you how bad it is, but the combination of dishevelment and concern in her appearance is leading your thoughts down other avenues. One day, you muse, she’s going to make some man very happy. Not you, of course, after a moment’s reflection. Someone with stamina.

“Talisman?” She says, breaking the spell with a snap of her fingers in front of your eyes. “Stay awake.” You attempt to tell her your conclusions, but only succeed in grinning like a lunatic. Her other self is searching the garden in the background, bringing flat rocks over to prop your head up, while the one with you (who is, you realise, the copy) tries to keep you talking.

“Well, we got them all” She says, with forced cheerfulness, “So that means…”

“Thaaat youuu have donne mee a serrvicce” Says a hideous, gnarled voice. Your eyes roll up in their sockets, and a rushing noise fills your ears. You can hear Echo stepping in front of you, drawing her sword, cancelling the other her with a clatter of stones in the distance.

“Don’t come any closer” She warns. No, Echo, you think to yourself as you black out. It’s okay.

That’s the man whose house this is. Well, you correct yourself, for a certain loose definition of ‘man’.
FATHOM 7

The sunlight dapples the surface of the sea, far above you, as you kick out and propel yourself upwards. You extend the membranes between the fingers of your right hand, using it to steady yourself and stay upright as you swim, the other hand extended above you, holding onto the object.

The sound of the waves increases as you near the surface, heading for the shadow of the catamaran’s twin hulls, the sound crashing over you as you break the surface. The familiar, echoing, low sounds of the deep replaced abruptly by the harsh, clean, precise sounds of the air-born world.

The Catamaran is small – perhaps twelve feet long – the two fat canoes of it’s hulls supporting a flat deck that’s more like a raft with a foot-high lip around the edge, rising and arcing into a pointed prow at the front. The single sail-boom swings lazily in the wind, the sail rolled up. Netting containing large globe-shaped vessels of fresh water and baskets of fish hang from the sides.

“Lady!” shouts the Catamaran’s sole occupant – a small, light brown skinned human with short hair best described as “windswept”. You swim to the edge of the boat and pull yourself aboard, as he makes space for you among the bags, sacks and equipment. You sit down on a bedroll up against the port side of the vessel, legs out and resting your back against the lip of the deck.

Your host offers you a cooked fish from the small, raised metal stove, and you accept it with a smile, passing him the fist-sized shell in exchange. He glances curiously at you, then rummages around in his kit (you see that he has a bedroll like yours on the starboard side – and that there are no other travellers on this vessel) for a knife, which he uses to prise it open. Concentrating on the salty taste of the fish, you hear rather than watch the sharp intake of breath, and the sound as he drops the shell. Glancing up, you watch with amusement as he holds the black pearl – the size of his eyeball – up to the sun, then in the palm of his hand, poking it with the finger of the other hand as if not sure it’s real.

“In payment” You say, startling him, “for everything you have done.”

He grins the grin of the suddenly rich, and rushes over to you, pursing his lips. You are briefly alarmed, but allow him to embrace you and plant an extravagant kiss on your forehead. He stands again and starts doing a mad dance in the middle of the deck, whooping and laughing in joy.

“You, Lady, are my good luck made flesh” He says, laughing happily. “I knew it, when the others would not take you aboard. I knew it, even before my beloved wife Jacinth advised me to seek you out in the halls of lodging – ‘Waker’, she said to me, ‘the Lady of the Ocean is our good fortune. She is a sign from heaven. Take her to where she journeys, though the trip is a long one and our daughter Gentlekind is but five and without a dowry should you die in the undertaking, for did not a wise man once say ‘there is no profit in this world, of money or of fortune, without risk’’ This my wife said to me and I knew at once that her words were wise, for she is cleverer than me, and good with numbers, and reads the words of wisdom until my own mannish patience would be lost, and I sought you out in the halls of lodging, and I did say…”

“…You said ‘I have a ship’” You break in, cutting a very long story short. “And it is a magnificent ship, Waker.”

He flushes with pride, and looks around his tiny vessel, alone in the vastness of the ocean but for a single island far to the east, as though it were the grandest galleon in the many spheres.

No, you think to yourself. Grander. Waker points to the distant isle.

“That, Lady, is the island of falling blossoms. It is said that the Great Captain Laughing Sword discovered it upon his eleventh voyage, and broke the curse on the fair maiden who was to be found there so that he could take her as his third wife. Even to this day, men tell stories about the island of falling blossoms, and about what happened to the maiden once she was no longer a maiden and she discovered the Great Captain Laughing Sword loved his sixth wife more than the others, and she and her sister-wives conferred among themselves to teach him a lesson. They say…”

With mounting horror, you see Waker adopt the oratory position, preparing to launch into an epic tale of love and retribution.

“…and the navigational aspects of the island?” You ask, gently, for Waker is a good friend (even if a little verbose), and has been kind to you. You do not wish to offend him any more than you wish to hear the story of how the Great Captain Laughing Sword was forced by his wives to set off on his fourteenth Voyage to prove his equal love to all of them and dear gods, now he has you doing it.

“The monkey’s paw chain lies beyond it” He says, grinning, getting ready to unfurl the sail. “The next stage of this, the voyage of Waker and the Lady of the Ocean.”
VALOUR 7

You’re flying on metal-edged wings through a very strange sky indeed. The ground curves the wrong way, sloping upwards rather than down, as though the world were a giant bowl. At the central, lowest point, a steaming lake the size of a small sea bubbles. Strange animal cries echo out, and you get a brief glimpse of something large, flying on leathery wings, in the very far distance. The air is sticky, humid, full of strange pollens and scents.

Dropping into a clearing in the jungle below you, you wait as the sound people cutting their way through the undergrowth grows nearer. Talisman finally chops his way through with his machete, and kisses the clearing floor like a sailor meeting dry land after a storm. Fathom – cheerful with all the moisture in the air – leads a miserable, sodden Soul out, Mirage and Echo taking up the rear, both dripping wet from the water collected on the plants.

You’re beginning to feel thankful you lent Mirage your shirt. Now is not the time for excess clothing.

“Let me get this straight.” Says Talisman, sweeping tiny insects out of his hair. “In order to avoid the Taint on Glade and Solitary, we have decided to go to Amber by way of Scar, yes? Because that way, if they turn out to have taken Amber we can fall back to... where was it?”

“Guardian’s Grave” you say. “By way of the City of Brass, which they should have an aversion too” You put your hand to the centre of your chest. “Given it’s nature. And from there, we can get straight to Empty Throne.”

Talisman nods, trusting in your analysis of the sphere network. And he should, you think to yourself, it wasn’t him who spent all those weeks poring over maps.

“Right. So in our efforts to avoid the Taint, who can take over any living thing, we have decided to walk through a jungle.”

“The alternative is to backtrack and go around the long way – which would take a year and a half. It’s a gamble, yes... but you are a gambling man, Talisman.”

“Well”, he says, ceding the point, “Let’s hope my mother’s gift holds, eh?”

“Anyone else have any questions?” You ask, looking at everyone, and they all shake their heads. You catch Echo frowning, and looking at Fathom. Fathom notices it too, and clears her throat.

“Very well then.” She says, using her “leadership” voice (Echo visibly relaxing in the background) “Valour? Are there any better clearings than this close enough to reach by nightfall?” You shake your head, meeting her eyes, silently apologising yet again for your rash insistence on having a party leader all those years ago. She blinks slowly, acknowledging it, and then looks around at everyone. “Then we camp here. Talisman, make a barrier against ground-crawling creatures. We have no idea if anything around here is venomous.”

Everyone moves to set up for the night, going about the task with the ease of long, hard practice on dozens of worlds.

Your opportunity comes about an hour later. Talisman and Fathom are talking, Mirage has set her sleeping area up equidistant between yours and Talismans – a sign of something, but of what you’re not sure - and is sat with Soul, reading a book with the boy. Echo is checking her weapons, off by herself on the edge of the camp.

“Get out of my head.” She says, as you walk up, your affected casual posture instantly broken. “I wasn’t…” you start, hurt, and she looks round at you. Her eyes are red. She’s been crying silently to herself the whole time.

“Good” She snarls. “Keep it that way.”

“Echo… We… I wanted to say…”
“If you want to tell me how glad you are I’m back, you’re late.” She says, harshly. “Everyone else has beaten you to it – Fathom and Talisman the day we left, Mirage and Soul soon after.”

“I was waiting for the right moment.” You say, instantly aware that that was somehow the wrong thing to say.

“And THIS is the right moment?” She demands, and you start backwards, retreating, desperately trying to think what’s different. You’ve obviously misjudged something, not noticed something, missed something. You look at her, trying to notice anything different. Pregnant? No. She’s… She’s not wearing her wedding ring. Horrified, you realise what you must look like, holding off on welcoming her back until the day she…

“I’m sorry”, you say, retreating to your own corner of the camp. The ghosts of your actions two, three years ago coming back to haunt you. Even together, the Companions are divided.

You must make it right again.
SOUL 7

The monks hurry through the Cathedral, eyes fixed on the ground. What is taking place above them is not for their mortal gazes, up somewhere above the odd structures in the middle of the main hall. Two sets of giant feet – two booted, two like those of a bird, face each other, separated by a wide, thick pillar.

As you float upwards, you realise that the feet aren’t those of statues.

Seated on great stone seats supported by the secondary pillars, facing each other across a vast chequered board of ivory and ebony, the Green Man and the Firey Lady are playing a game.

The pieces are all of different people, half-sized statues of shining metal, on bases etched with the Name (as opposed to the name) of the person depicted. On closer examination, the board is inlaid with gold circles and lines over the squares, another board much like it floats high above both Gods and several smaller boards float in the air nearby. The game is complex, indeed.

The Green Man, a coppery medallion going green with age hanging around his neck , is making a move. He moves a figure that you recognise as Bear the spherewalker. Bear now stands next to Lantern, and you follow a line in gold on the board to the figure of Talisman. Excited, you spot Echo and Mirage (who appears different – younger, plainer, dressed as though she lived in a desert) arrayed nearby.

The Firey Lady – who not so long ago was teaching you the arts of misdirection in a carnival – smiles and moves three figures from one of the side boards onto the main playing field, putting them down next to the party. First, she places a figure you recognise as the man who was arguing with the Lords, whose base reads “Paragon”, then carefully places another figure, “Guide”, a man you don’t recognise, in between him and the figures of the group. The last figure – one of the other man from that earlier vision, who turns out to be called Viper - also goes down next to Guide, blocking line-of-sight from the party to Paragon.

“What’s that supposed to achieve?” Rumbles the Green Man. “Bringing an old piece back into play like that? I thought we’d been through all of this – that piece was discarded, it didn’t fit in with the plan.”

The Firey Woman smiles. “Remember, Favoured, the amnesia. Just like when we were mortal. Everything old is new again.”

“Because that clearly worked so well for us.” He says, sourly, considering his move. Eventually, he moves Talisman, taking a piece that resembles a man wearing robes. “Better to focus on strategy, I think.”

“You always had a blind spot for these things, dear. “ says the Firey Lady, moving Mirage forward into an empty part of the board. “Always about the mission, never about the emotion.”

“Your point being?” He says, pointing at the figure of Mirage. He moves another piece that you can’t quite see, into conflict with Guide.

“That it’s a flaw you share with your brother.” She says, simply, and moves Mirage in a complicated fashion, leaping her around the board, displacing other figures as she goes. When she sits back to allow her opponent to calculate his next move, the two groups have joined together and the odd piece is gone.

“You have no guarantee that that formation will hold” says the Green Man peevishly. “It could collapse again, disastrously.”

“It has a chance.” She says, simply.

He moves the figure of Echo away from the group, and the Firey Lady sighs in disappointment.

“Stop trying to fight it, Favoured”, she says. “You know I’m right.”

“Like you’re right about that?” He says, nodding to one of the side boards. You float up to see, and look into the eyes of the statue that resembles yourself. It has a seam down the middle, like one of those dolls with another smaller doll nested inside. “just when are you going to play that piece?”

“In time. When my opponent has almost won, and only the barest hope remains.” She says. “All the more potent.”

“I don’t like it” he replies.

“Well, no, dear – you wouldn’t. It’s not your sort of story.”

She looks right at you, and winks.

MIRAGE 7

You’re somewhere underwater, in the form of a fish, swimming through murky waters. Above you, as far as you can see in all directions, the surface is laden with shadows, hulls and floating objects. It’s as though you were underneath the largest fleet in the worlds, the ships all packed in dangerously close to one another.

The water is filthy, full of refuse and effluent. You can see why Fathom didn’t want to come this way.

You swim past a platform, attached to the bottom of one of the ships by a thick chain, like an underwater raft made of a large metal grill, surrounded by thick glass to keep the air in. On this stands a man, dressed rather like Talisman.

Underwater sentries. What will they think of next?

You swim upwards, heading for the large hull beyond the sentry-ship, and find a handy knothole. Shifting into the shape of an eel, you carefully work your way in past the outer hull, then swim up in the tight space beyond. When your head breaks the surface, you become a rat, scrambling upwards, seeking a way through to the interior of the ship.

A hole. It’s small, but you become a spider, easily squeezing through and working your way safely down to the deck of the room you now find yourself in. Evidently a hold, for food by the smells from the large sacks and crates filling it. A single bored-looking sailor sits of a barrel, intent upon his rollup.

You resume human form right in front of him. His eyes bog out, and he gapes stupidly. A foot in the groin and a punch to the jaw, and he is unconscious. You don’t feel too bad about taking his clothes. Or his appearance.

Sheathing his cutlass after a few practice swings to get the weight of it, you hide him behind the crates and climb the ladder up and out of the hold.

The smell of the sea hits you like a wave (along with all the unwashed bodies), and you blink against the sunlight.

This ship is one of thousands, all crammed in together, gangplanks, rigging, walkways and rafts strung and floated between them. A city made entirely of ships.

The vessel on which you stand is part of what in a conventional setting might be a compound – smaller ships arrayed around it, with sentries standing guard on watchtowers built upon them. A clear gap exists between it and the next clump of ships, almost like a moat, crossed only by one heavily-guarded rope bridge to the neighbouring galleon.

You ignore the men and women around you, and head for the cabins at the rear of this vessel. Knocking on the door, and receiving no reply, you turn the key in the outside of the door and slip inside.

At which point a bottle hits you in the head, and small hands go for your throat.

“Soul! Damn it!” You whisper harshly, clutching your head. “It’s me.” You shift back to your normal appearance.

Soul’s eyes grow slightly apologetic.

“Have they hurt you?” You ask, briskly. The boy shakes his head. “Alright, then. The others are lying in wait a few ships away. At our signal, they’ll come running, alright?” He nods. “And, young man, when we get off this world we’re going to have a long talk about strangers, and wandering off with them.”

“IF you get off this world, lassie.” Says someone through the door. “I’m being afraid that that may not be likely right now.”

“Do they know what you can do?” You ask Soul, quietly. He shakes his head and whispers “I was locked in here really quick. If I burned, I’d be trapped in here on a sinking ship. And drowning…”

“I understand. Hey, don’t worry about it.” You say, lightly, drawing your purloined cutlass. “Ready?”

He nods again, and looks through the frosted window at the shadow beyond.

“People who talk like Talisman when he’s drunk should BURN” He says, emphatically, his eyes briefly glowing red. There’s a whumph as the Pirate goes up in flames, and shouts of horror from the sailors.

Readying your sword, you kick the door open and prepare to swash your buckle.

Everyone appears out of the Gate in the bottom of a canyon, late at night. There are abandoned mine workings all around - this part of Quarry was clearly mined out a long time ago.

As they take stock, thinking about the visions and about the priest, they spot the light from a lantern coming their way. The night-watchman has seen the light from the Astral Path and come to meet them.

Unfortunately, he says, this area of Quarry WAS mined out years ago, and is no longer inhabited. It's a long ways to the nearest town (which he says is called "Secondary"), but he can give them food and blankets, and they can use the empty buildings.

Camping out, Soul informs the gang of his Vision. Talisman storms off in disgust, and spends a few hours swearing to himself about Gods - he does not take the idea of Fire Plume and Favoured having an interest in his affairs well. The conclusion back at the camp is that Favoured/Julius' church has been taken over by something. Something nasty.

In the morning, they confirm the lay of the land with the watchman. Quarry is long and spread out - miles and miles of interconnected canyons, with forested areas used for logging. Lumber, metal, stone - you name it, they produce it and export it through the Everway to Doomshield and from there to the rest of the Young Kingdoms. Secondary is halfway to the gate - if they walk all day, they'll get there by nightfall. The Gate to Doomshield is about as far again beyond it.

Not really seeing any reason to stay around here, they get to hiking.

Secondary, it turns out, is a lumermill town, using the power of a large river that has been diverted to make a waterfall into one of the canyons, driving a series of waterwheels. The town is multi-leveled, built into the pit so created, and the rock walls are riddled with mineshafts. Talisman, who has been sulking and kicking at rocks all day, only has thoughts of drink but is horrified to discover that the town has a three-drink limit. Too much mining machinery around, apparantly.

While the Angry Drunk tries to get around the legal restrictions, getting into a fight with the town's watchmen, the others try to figure through some things - Echo is still wrestling with her guilt over having abandoned the party in the past, while Valour and Mirage are trying to make sense of what's happened to Valour. He remembers remembering (last session) that it was something he chose, the price for something, but can't figure out what. They realise that they don't even know what type of metal he's slowly turning into, and further realise that there's bound to be a metallurgist in town.

In the morning light, Soul busies himself trying to get into various restricted mineworks and sawmills while one of Echo follows him, giving an increasingly weary Fathom a beak. Mirage and Talisman meet with the mettalurgist, who takes one of his metal feathers as payment and conducts several alchemical tests, eventually conlcluding that it's a magical alloy of steel and quicksilver. Emphasis on the "magical", and therefore beyond his ken.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 10:49 AM

Talisman, meanwhile, is still stalking around in a foul mood and considering the benefits of breaking the law so that he gets exiled to Doomshield post-haste. He almost runs into a young woman with gold for hair, whose eyes go wide in recognition. Putting his hands up to ward off the almost-inevitable slap, he asks where she knows him from. Finder (for such is her name), says that he's the half-dragon who passed through months ago. He considers this, and promptly asks her out for lunch.

Fathom and Echo are finding out about the worlds they're going to - Doomshield's ominous name apparantly comes from the fact that the End of the World is there, kept contained by a magical barrier and touted as a tourist destination all over the Young Kingdoms. Traffic to and from Doomshield, Greenhills and Quarry is apparantly regulated - as you can't use an Everway while someone else is going the other way down the Astral Path, there's a complicated system of "outbound" and "inbound" months designed to get people to Caravan before the titatular Caravan leaves and lumps them with a several-month wait. Whatever the hell that means.

Talisman, meanwhile, learns how Finder found out he was a half-dragon. She can detect precious materials with her thoughts (which would be why she's employed on Quarry), and asked him why he had a large pearl embedded in his chest. To which past-Talisman replied "I'm a half-Dragon". Not much of a story, really. He's more disturbed by the thought that maybe there are MORE people like him out there, and asks her if she knows of any Dragons. Other than children's tales of the Dragon's Graveyard, she thinks that there was a Dragon connected with Doomshield at some point. Making a mental note to look into that, he lets her go to work.

Recharged, the group take a quick vote and decide to get out of this dump as soon as possible. After another day's hike, they come to the Doomshield gate - which has a large wagon-train of wood- and stone-laden carts lined up patiently. Strolling to the front, they establish that someone is coming the other way, so there's a bit of a queue. The wagon-master, a three-eyed man who introduces himself as Vision, tells them that he's going to hold the Everway open to allow the convoy to go through, and they're welcome to tag along. The convoy, it transpires, is eventually bound for Caravan, and the schedules are aligned such that there shouldn't be much waiting to do at gates.

After a couple of hours, a group of travellers emerges from the Gate. Once it's clear, Vision activates the Everway and the convoy rolls slowly through.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 11:42 AM

SPHERE NINE - DOOMSHIELD

ECHO 8

A courtyard.

The smell of fruits trees.

A parting of the ways.

“I’m not very good with words” You begin, feeling very much alone, “and I haven’t had much time to think about this. No. That’s not right. I have had time. I’ve known for months now that I would be staying here, and…”

You stop. Aware that you’re screwing this up. Valour crosses his arms. Talisman gives a half-smile, encouraging you.

Blinking back tears, you try to start again.

“This isn’t because of him.” You say, emphatically. “I love him, and we’re staying because he has to. But I want you to know that that isn’t the reason I’ve made this decision. Even if he were able to travel, so we could carry on with you all even after the wedding, there would come a time when I would leave. Even if I had never met him, there would come a time when I would leave. I made that decision a long time ago.”

“When?” Asks Fathom, quietly.

“Arena.” You say. Valour blinks in the background. Soul looks confused. “The fifth world we ever went to. When I won that money for us, you were proud of me. Like the Emperor of Wall was proud of me whenever I dealt with one of his enemies. And I realised – his pride was as hollow as yours. All I was to him, and to you, was something to use to kill people when it became convenient. Now” You say quickly, cutting off Talisman’s protests “In the years since, we’ve become friends, better than friends. I am not an assassin. I have not been an assassin for years.” You look at Valour’s broken nose “And I don’t take orders that I think are wrong any more. But when you go back, that’s all there is waiting for me. Fathom and Valour have kingdoms to take up, Talisman and Mirage might have spheres of their own to rule. Soul, I don’t know, but I will NOT GO BACK TO HIM.”

Your eyes well over.

“That’s what the Glen of Tomorrow meant. That’s what the True Mirror meant. I am no-one’s servant. I am HAPPY here – for the first time since my parents sold me to HIM. So I am staying. You… You all mean more to me than I can ever say…”

You break down entirely. Fathom looks at her feet, uncertain. Valour looks pained.

Talisman quickly crosses over to you and embraces you. You sob into his arm, his Pearl poking into your shoulder. His Colour wraps around both of you, so that the others don’t see.

“Hey, Kitten”, he says. “You’ll see us again. There’s always the return journey.” He grins, voicing the private joke between the two of you.

“You’re the best friend I ever had. I don’t know how I’m going to cope without you” You say, sniffing. “Whatever I do, everything good I ever do with my life will be because of you.”

“I challenge you to say that the next hangover you have.” He says, smiling through his own misty eyes. “As for the future – who knows? This is a good distance away from my relatives. I may well retire here. We can grow old disgracefully together. I’ll teach your kids how to cheat at cards.” You laugh, weakly. “Okay?” he asks, and drops the Colour shield when you nod, composing yourself. He steps back.

Fathom gives you a quick hug next, whispering a quiet “Between the two of us, I am slightly envious” that confuses you. Soul, crying openly, hugs you around the middle and has to be pulled off. Mirage air-kisses you, and absently-mindedly fixes your hair, then steps back with an enigmatic smile. Valour looks like he’s trying to think of something to say, but turns on his heel and flies off without a word.

The others begin to head after him, one by one, Fathom carrying Soul in her arms. Talisman lingers last, and puts one hand on your shoulder, giving you a reassuring squeeze.

“Be well, my friend.” He says, simply, and turns to go.
TALISMAN 8

You float in and out of consciousness.

“Will he live?” Echo’s voice, concerned.

“Yesss”. The Chirugeon , rasping away in it’s horrible voice, clucking away to itself deep within it’s throat. “Ooh, yess, he’ll live. A sservicce for a servicceee.”

A sudden, sharp pain within your forehead, and the feeling of tiny fingers wriggling through the wound and under your skin. Then a sudden tension, as though your skin were too tight, and the pressure in your head goes away. Slowly, your vision swims back, your hearing returns to normal, and you take stock of your surroundings.

You’re lying on a slab, strapped down, the surface inclining so that your feet are perhaps half a metre lower than your head. Echo stands to one side, examining The Chirugeon’s handiwork. She puts a finger where the wound used to be, and traces the line of the wound.

“There isn’t even a scar” she says, bemused.

“Ssscarrrr? Sssscarr? SCAAAR?” Shrieks The Chirugeon, returning from out of sight, “Off courssse there isssn’t a sscarrr.”

The Chirugeon was once a man. Before two-thirds of his upper body became living metal. Before his fingers were replaced by long, dextrous things with five knuckles each on one hand, and a mass of branching implements like the fronds of an anemone on the other, each tiny tentacle ending in a fine blade, a tiny lamprey-like mouth, a tweezer-like pincer or similar. Before his entire body below the waist was replaced entirely by one of his own design, with four large jointed limbs that remind you of those of a scorpion or a spider arcing up and then down again, the spear-like tips of his “feet” providing an unnerving clicking sound to accompany his spider-like motion. Before his eyes were removed and replaced by too-large orbs of mirrored metal, rotating blindly in their clamped sockets. Before his teeth became a hundred needle-like spines in his lipless mouth.

Still, you think. He can look like whatever he wants to as long as he holds his part of the bargain.

The Chirugeon pulls a mirror – articulated on a long brass jointed arm – from above you, Echo flinching slightly. The creature shows you your reflection, and there is indeed no scar, though a swath of your fringe has had to be shaved off. Nodding, and thinking about the benefits of wearing a hat as a compliment to a damaged hairstyle, you give The Chirugeon your most winning smile.

“Thank you. And our friend?”

“Yesssss.” The Chirugeon scuttles forward and – moving with supernatural deftness – undoes the buckles holding you down. “Youuur friendddd. Donee mee a ssservicee, you havvve, halfff-breeed. Won mmyyy hommmme backkk from thossse VILENESSSS.” He makes a face of disgust, and mimes spitting on the sawdust floor. “I ssshall dooo yoou a ssserviceee now..” He turns away and begins to rummage through the odds and ends and nasty-looking implements littering the bench. “… caveee, you sssay, neeear theee ppeetrrriffiieed ffoorrresst?”

“Yes”, you both say in unison. You turn to Echo, and raise an eyebrow. She looks embarrassed, and indicates that you should continue the conversation. “You know it?”

“Knowww, it, knoowww it.. Tooo far.. unssssutable. Cannnottt hellp youurr frrrieend there. Brrring him herree. Need tooools. Sssspeciallisssed.”

“How are we supposed to move him?” You ask, annoyed, “I told you – he’s been…”

“Attaacccked byy a Reeessolver. Yesss. Aaaviiiian chhharacatterrisssticcss ttthrrown ooutt off baaalaancce. Yeeesss. Huuuuummaan boonnnness becccommmingg bird boonnees.”

“Yeah. We broke his leg three times just lying him down. The trip could kill him.”

“Wwwwhaat elllsse? Whhhatt elllse dooo youuu havvvve? Cccannn youuu dooo?”

You briefly describe the groups talents, and half-way through Fathom The Chirugeon stops you with a wave of it’s manipulatory digits.

“wwwwatterrr. Brrrinng hiiim iiin a buubbbbbbleee off wwaattterrr. Itttt will soooftten thhhee sshhoccckss”
“And then you can help him?”
“Yesssssss” It nods enthusiastically, and scuttles out of the room. You turn to Echo, who shrugs.
“Race you back to the others”, she says.
FATHOM 8

Dawn on the Sea of Wonders. The sun is rising, purple and red on the few clouds, the perfect sea reflecting the light and making an oval of fire on the horizon. To the other direction, the last stars of night fade. There is no wind.

Waker’s Catamaran rocks gently on the waves, the motion oddly comforting to you. Your friend – and only constant companion for these last seven weeks of travel across this trackless world of distant islands full of anecdotal magics and legendary histories – snores gently in his own bedroll, dreaming of his wife and child far away, on the island of Whitesand where you first arrived on this world.

Leaning over the side, you trail a hand into the water. Looking over your supplies, you make a miniature waterspout, evaporating and cooling the water to get the salt out of it, and carefully pour the results into Waker’s waterbottles. Just because you can drink sea water, doesn’t mean he can.

You slip over the side, diving down into the shallow sea, intent on breakfast.

Waker will never see this, you think to yourself as you swim down. The seabed is barely fifty feet below the surface, the plain sand of the bottom dotted with rocky outcrops that – though they don’t have the height to become islands – are nonetheless covered with underwater plants and swarming with tropical fish. Beautiful. And your friend – your friends, you correct yourself, you’ll meet them at the arranged place – will never see it.

While you’re poking around a promising reef, catching fish, you spot them. Two shadows, darting in the far distance.

Circling the Catamaran.

You break for the surface, getting a good look at the creatures on your way up. Like a shark, if a shark had a long neck, six fins and an oddly intelligent – and murderous - look in it’s eyes.

You scramble up onto the Catamaran, disrupting Waker from his cooking.

“Lady, what..?” He stammers.

“Trouble.” You say, describing the creatures’ salient features. Waker’s eyes go wide.

“The Shark-men of the Crab islands! I had thought they were a myth, vanished out of all history after their defeat during the sixth voyage of the Great Captain Laughing Sword! Why…”

“Waker.” You say, desperate. “Flee now. Story later.”

The Catamaran rocks suddenly. One of the creatures has rammed you from below. Their fins break the surface, then vanish again. You whirl around, trying to spot them, when one of them jumps into the air like a flying fish, heading to the boat. Trying to sink it. Waker shrieks, and you grunt, forcing the water beneath the creature up in a blast of steam that takes the monster clear of the Catamaran, howling in pain.

“WAKER. THE SAIL.” You roar, flash-boiling pockets of sea in a warding pattern. Behind you, Waker yanks at the rope tying the sail up, and you just about remember to duck the boom in time.

But you’re still becalmed.

The creatures regroup, and you spot more fins in the distance. They’re wolf-packing you.

Waker closes his eyes, then opens them again. They glow green, crackling with energy. He raises his hands as though conducting music, and slams both fists forward in the air. The sudden blast of wind, summoned by his power, nearly makes you topple overboard as the Catamaran lurches forward at high speed, propelled at speeds far in excess of it’s design.

The creatures are soon left far behind, islands moving past on the horizon visibly fast.

“Waker” You say, “Drop the wind. I think we are alright.”

He does so, nearly collapsing from the exertion, then grins up at you in victory.

Just another day on the Sea of Wonders.

VALOUR 8

Late at night, and you lie awake, listening to the insects and animal noises of the jungle all around you.

Well, that and Talisman’s snoring, of course.

You look across the camp, noting everyone’s sleeping faces. Talisman has rolled onto his back, his bedroll lying on a springy mattress of Colour. Mirage is curled up next to him, facing you. Past your feet, you can see Fathom sleeping peacefully, Soul reaching out for her in his sleep.

You roll over, the metal of your wings scraping a line in the dirt, and meet Echo’s gaze. She’s wide awake, propped up by one elbow, and watching you. Something glints near the hollow of her neck. It’s her ring – she’s wearing it as a necklace.

She sees you see it, and gets out of bed, carefully covering herself with a blanket and going to sit by the campfire with her cloak wrapped around her.

Careful not to wake Mirage, you follow her. She pokes at the fire with a stick, stirring the embers back up into proper flames, and pushes her hair out of her eyes.

“I’m sorry” You begin. “I was an idiot. And a bad friend, for… well, the entire Young Kingdoms, really. And occasionally before that. I knew, after Bastion, what I was doing. Fathom saw to that, but it didn’t properly sink in until it was too late. Until you’d already gone, and I couldn’t apologise.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I thought I was doing the right thing by waiting to talk to you.” You say, trying to draw her out. “For months in the tower, the thought of how we’d left things ate at me, and the idea that I’d never get the chance to make it up to both of you hurt me more than the Brotherhood ever did. But then, when I was free, and I saw you… I choked. I left it. ‘I’ll tell her tomorrow’, I thought to myself. And the next day, and the next. Until now.”

“What is it you want to tell me?” She asks, quietly and sadly.

“That you were right, and I was wrong. That your life here is better than slavery in the Emperor’s service. That I had not considered your feelings, that you were even right to break my nose that time. That I wish, more than anything in the worlds, that I had been man enough to go to your wedding.”

She looks at you now, but still doesn’t say anything.

“Echo... What’s changed? I understand why you’re coming with us now, at least I think I do, with the Force so much closer than we thought when you stayed behind, but I don’t understand…” You gesture at her neck. “Did you have a fight? You don’t have to tell me.” You lower your hands, defeated, and stare into the fire.

“Yes” She whispers. “We had a fight. But it was because I decided to take the second chance, not the other way around. He’s... he’s afraid that when we return to the Young Kingdoms, I’ll want to carry on with you all the way back to Crystal. That I was miserable for a year because I thought I would never see you again, and that I couldn’t fight the pull of the mission a second time. He’s worried that even if I DO stand there and watch you all leave again, the knowledge that that – finally – is IT, will break me.”

“Is he right?”

“I don’t know. Fathom says that it’s my choice, but you’ll stay as long as you can while I make it. Talisman says I won’t feel so lonely after I have children. Mirage doesn’t say anything – I don’t think she likes me much, not after she spent a year in hell fighting for all of you and I spent it wearing expensive dresses and sleeping in a soft bed. Soul says that I should be with the people I love, which is no help.” She pauses, wraps the blanket tighter about herself. “What do you say?”

“I will not make the same mistake twice.” You say, carefully. “I will support you in whatever you decide. But Echo – if any of this comes from anything I said…”

“It doesn’t” She says, with a sad smile. “I’m afraid I never much listened to you back then.”

“Oh, well that’s good to hear.” You say, ruefully, then consider. “I was never married. My betrothed and I had... irreconcilable differences about my part in all of this. She decided that she could not wait for me. At the time, I thought that I was sacrificing love for the good of the mission, but I think that wasn’t it. If she had loved me, then she would have waited. And I promise you, if you DO find that you are compelled to see us back to Crystal, I will take the journey a third time with you. I won’t settle on any sphere until I get you home. To your husband, who will wait for you.”

“You’d do that?”

“Sure.” You say. “It’s not like I have anyone to go back to myself, I should not wish to begrudge those who do.”

“Thank you” She says, simply, and reaches out to hold your hand for a second, before letting go and smiling..

“Now.” You say, relief at the reconciliation filling you. “Let’s try to sleep despite the Dragon’s Roar.”

Hearing his name being taken in vain, Talisman lets out a particularly loud snore.
SOUL 8

Let’s see what the other folks are up to:

The streaked purple sky, the colour of the strange things Talisman sometimes drinks, is darkening with the twilight of this world’s lazy sun. The wind rustles through the silver leaves of a vast forest, set below a table-like mountain with a city built upon it, appearing to float over the metallic sea.

The man – just the other side of middle-age, but with eyes that are far, far older – stands on his balcony, looking out to the silver sea on the horizon. Further around that coast, he thinks, is a tiny fishing village.

He hears a rustling, maybe leaves, maybe someone behind him, and looks around. His wife – pale and beautiful, looking barely twenty-five (looking, in fact, he muses, younger than their daughter) is asleep in their bed. Downstairs, his eldest daughter is clearing away the remains of the evening meal, helped by the man’s single, precious grandchild. The twins are out on the town.

This is my family, he thinks to himself. This is what I fought for centuries to achieve. He glances at the rising moon, full and fat and thinks of the people left behind in there, behind it’s white face. He raises his glass to the moon, and salutes Harmony.

That noise again.

Cocking an eyebrow, putting his wineglass down, he draws his robe about him and looks around properly, leaning over the edge of the balcony to check. Surely no one would be stupid enough to attack this house.

A man flickers into existence in his bedroom. Tall, thin, and remarkably similar to Talisman, dirty hat jammed over his long, braided hair, frock coat that has seen better decades.

“Hello, Exile.” The man’s voice is hostile.

“Get out” The older man says, along with a word that hurts your ears. The scruffy man grins like a shark.

“Been learnin’ stuff, Exile. Knew it’d come in handy.”

Fighting down his fury, the old man watches as the tramp touches the hair of the sleeping woman.

“Nice family you’ve got. Worth breaking the worlds for?”

“Yes” The old man replies, openly hostile.

“Question.” The tramp straightens.

“Go ahead.”

“Where is my son?”

“You don’t have a son, Vagabond. The half-breed is Strabo’s device. I suggest you talk to the Dragon.”

The tramp rushes the old man, knocks him to the floor. He thinks – how could this happen? The tramp’s hands seek out the old man’s neck.

“WHERE IS MY SON?” He shouts, spittle hitting the old man in the face. There’s a movement, a rustling of silk and the tramp is hurled off the old man. The woman, wide awake and ready to kill, marches over to the tramp and picks him up with one hand. The tramp starts to laugh, mixed with winces at the pain.

“My lady Shadow” He gasps. “Perhaps YOU can tell me where my son is?”

She frowns, blinks, and hesitates. Darting a look at her husband, she calls out to him.

“Are you alright?”. Picking himself up, the older man nods a few times, wiping the tramp’s spit from his face.

“Good.” She says. “Leave us, husband.” The old man starts to protest, and she glares at him, shutting him up. He stalks out, slamming the door. The woman turns back to the tramp, releases him. She sits down on her bed, sighs deeply.

“I will tell you” She says.
MIRAGE 8

You open the cabin door carefully, to avoid it creaking, and look inside. Soul is sleeping peacefully, curled up in a hammock. Valour is laid out on the floor, slumbering. In the half-light, you can see a few shining patches in his wing-tips. It’s begun.

Closing the door again, you turn back to Fathom and Talisman, seated around the thick wooden table, sitting on barrels converted to stools, illuminated only by a single dancing candle. Fathom is further away from the flame to Talisman – her features in shadow, while his are ghoulishly illuminated from below. Even his colours are muted, deep purples and blacks wrapping around the three of you like trails of mist.

“How is he?” Asks Fathom.

“Sleeping.”

“Do we know why he ran away?”

“The Mirror.” You say, wryly. “We shouldn’t have gone in at night.” Talisman shudders, clutching at his Pearl. Fathom frowns.

“How bad was it? I mean – mine didn’t seem so bad.” She asks.

“That, Princess, is because you’re… how can I put this? Well-adjusted.” Says Talisman. “Your potential selves are not so far from your reality. Those of us with... unusual heritages… have further that we can climb.”

“And further that we can fall” You finish, giving Talisman a sympathetic smile. “Out of all of us bar Talisman, Soul has the largest… uncertainty in his destiny. His night-self must have been pretty bad.”

“Didn’t his day-self make up for it? I know Echo says she felt they balanced out, that she felt warned and reassured in equal measure. I know I did.”

You shake your head.

“The Mirror shows the best and worst versions of a person, even if the choices that may have led to that version have long past. Soul’s day-self may have been impossible, while his night-self might be a very real risk.”

She frowns. “For example?”

“Well.” You say, simply. “Like mine. I will not... burden you with my night-self, but when the sun rose, to my own eyes I became real. When I looked into the water, I saw myself staring back. My skin was darker, I was perhaps fifteen years older, my hair was brown. I was dressed after the fashion of my people. The best possible outcome for my life” you say, feeling the mixed emotions rise again “is a version of me that never left Archways, and never became a shapeshifter. I saw the entirely normal woman I was meant to be before meddling wizards stepped in, and I knew that no matter what I did I would never achieve it.”

Fathom nods, sympathetically. “The chance has passed you by”

“Exactly. And it hurts. It hurts like I’m grieving for a lost love. To know that you will never achieve your fullest potential, that is a dark curse. I can see why the people of Orrery tried to warn us.”

“It seemed like such a good idea at the time.” Sighs Talisman. “We want to know what we’re meant to achieve, we hear of a world which shows you, we go. Next time, we do what we did with Open Soul.”

Fathom nods halfheartedly, thinking. She’s lucky. Echo’s lucky. You think. They had a positive experience. She leaves quietly, leaving you and Talisman alone.

“So just what do you think he saw?” He asks, passing you a bottle of some gut-rotting alcohol he must have bartered with one of the inhabitants of this world for.

You sit back and consider carefully, thinking about your own lost self.

“I think he saw the boy whose body he’s in.”

The Doomshield side of the Gate is on a high hill, the road for the Quarry convoys winding it's spiral path down to ground level with stairs making a short-cut for foot traffic. It's nighttime again, but the light from the End of the World illluminates most everything, allowing them an unparralled view over the wide, lazy bay of a beautiful ocean, the hills to the other side of them and the large, prosperous, circular city laid out below them. Biting into the city, like a partial Eclipse, is the End of the World. A hemisphere of fire, apparantly frozen in place, erupting out of what looks like a tower. The city buildings on the wrong side of the Doomshield are blasted shells, and... figures... can be seen in and among the flames if one looks too hard. The edge of the city next to the End of the World has been rebuilt into a promenade, like at the sea-side. You have to give this to the natives - they know how to exploit what they've got.

Vision checks the stars and the phase of the moon and announces that the convoy has perhaps two days here before they need to leave for Greenhills. The convoy begins winding it's way down the road, while our characters take the shortcut. After frontier towns and mining settlements, it is good to be in a major urban area again. Bonus points for it being inhabited. After securing rooms at a guest-house that seems a little out of their league (Echo eventually paying with some of her jewellry), they hit the streets to find a decent restaurant.

Over dinner (and later, while sitting around the lounge of their guest-house), the gang take the oppertunity afforded by their present comfort to figure some things out. Talisman (who's worked off his snit by now - having access to drink again has helped his mood) tells Valour about his Visions on the last two Astral Paths: Valour's condition is the result of him being treated by a possibly insane mage-healer called The Chirugeon, who has a thing for turning living things into metal. He describes the very vague circumstances recounted in his vision (the "resolver", whatever that is, having made Valour's bones brittle). Fathom regretfully says that her visions - while amusing - don't have much that seems important right now. Mirage mentions True Mirror again and - based on the vision she had of Orrery, they piece together a short progression of worlds. Which sadly isn't attached to any maps they have, but shows they're getting the deduction together. She also recounts what she remembered about the nature of True Mirror, and - after making utterly sure he wants to know - relates past-her's conclusions about what Soul saw. Which goes down like a lead balloon.

The discussion turns to their route, and what they're likely to find when they get to Waterwall. Paragon is either a grand Hero or a powermad warlord depending on who you talk to, Echo isn't too keen on ever meeting him (understandably) and that leads into Valour telling her what he knows of her motivation for rejoining the party. She asks to be excused and wanders off. Talisman goes after her.

As a last thought, just before they go to bed, Soul tells the others about his own vision, and how the "magic tramp" is looking for Talisman.

Talisman catches up with Echo, and asks her what's wrong. She lays it all out to him - that she betrayed her mission, betrayed her friends and then - to cap it all - betrayed her husband. According to Valour's vision, the last thing anyone knows she and Paragon did was have a fight over his belief that she wanted to rejoin the party. He was afraid she would want to go all the way home with them and - guess what - he was right to, because she does.

Talisman calmly responds that that's just the amnesia talking, and that they aren't in any particular rush to get back: plenty of time to hang around Waterwall until she's made an *informed* decision. That starts the whole side-quest argument off again, Echo accusing him of forgetting about the Mission. Somewhere along the way, she calls him My Lord by accident, and he angrily corrects her again, telling her about his childhood. She already knew who Aura was, and confesses that she'd been sent to assassinate her on behalf of Wall two times in the past. Talisman takes the fact that his friend has twice tried to kill his mother with a shrug, and just uses it as anti-Emperor amunition, telling her that she deserves a better life.

Echo finally says what she's been bottling up - she feels that the others all prefer the Echo in their visions to the present (she says the "real") her, and that they cannot accept that she WANTS to be this way. Surely she must want to change, she thinks that they think, because then she'd be like them rather than the silent, frigid assassin.

Talisman then makes an impassioned (and ooc, about twenty minutes long) speech, about how she was plainly and obviously HAPPY in the past - far happier than she is now. No, being the way she is now is not as valid a life as the way she grew to be in the last six years, because she isn't a real person by his definition. For Talisman, life (and the worth of a person) is in the living. Living a duty-bound life of obedience is not being alive, and he confesses to the reason he's silent about most of his visions - he sees Echo as his best friend in the lost past, and wakes up on every sphere with her present self standing right there treating herself like a slave. And it breaks his heart. People who have no joy in their life, he finishes, are entirely without substance.

At which point Echo abandons the illusionary body he's been talking to, kind of proving his point. He swears like a pirate, smashes a handy barrel and stomps off, muttering dark things to himself.

And that's it for this session.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 01:05 PM

"Well, since you believe that I have no substance..." - Echo, getting the last word.

And that's Session Three. I'm cooking on gas, here - I think I might even catch up and post Session Four tonight, just in time for Session Five.

A Game of three halves, this - I was satisfied by the Stonebridge and Doomshield segments, but less so by Quarry. It's a weakness of the format, I think - as we've now drifted into "second half of world A, all of
world B, first half of world A for next time", the first and last Sphere in each session is more developed with the middle Sphere just something to get through to the next bit. If I could slow the speed of travel down to one Jump a session, it'd solve the problem, but would add the complication that if a world is downright dull or fails to grab the players then we're sort of stuck of it for several hours more.

The character arcs are moving along at a most pleasing speed - Talisman and Echo's hour-long "chat" the highlight, but also Mirage and Valour's codependency and Soul's growing responsibility - he doesn't set off any apocalypses at all this week! We've managed to get at many of the B-connections (the A-connections being the main plot ones, like Valour-Mirage, Talisman-Echo, Talisman-Fathom and so on - the "obvious" pairings) like Mirage and Soul teaming up, Fathom and Echo managing to hold a conversation with one another, Valour and Talisman tag-teaming the Priest and so on.

The setting is getting more defined - these worlds are far more well-travelled than the gang are used to (with travel times between spheres marked on gates, and the various Spheres' economies working on trade between them), and there's a definite "upper class" of Spherewalkers. Or, as the locals call them, Heroes. You can hear the capital H. There'is also a certain spirit of enterprise - Doomshield using it's near-apocalypse as a tourist attraction especially.

The gang are doing better at piecing together their information, and are building a credible Sphere-map of the worlds around True Mirror, that they hope to link up to the Young Kingdoms in time to know which way they're supposed to go. More Visions are starting to get openly discussed, though some (Echo and Talisman, mostly) still regard them as strictly private. The situation with the Entelechy War - which they know have a good idea that they started - is still looming, and they are seeing the effects of their own actions in all the bored mercenary Spherewalkers hanging around "between wars". Paragon's shadow is looming, and I judged that another session of build up would probably over egg the pudding, so he turns up in person next Session.

I was, however, well pleased with the reception to the revelation about Soul - he's not the boy he seems to be, but something inhabiting that boy's body. More on that next week.

And, despite what Finder told Talisman, I still hadn't decided on the Dragon plot yet. But I had by the time I wrote the Visions for Session Four.

FLASHBACK NOTES

After the experiment with Valour last week, everyone this week gets two-part Visions. Soul's, thanks to the way his Visions work, is only a thematic two-parter, but it's a two parter nontheless (between them, there aren't many members of the Realmforge character party that haven't had cameos - only Aura remains unseen).

ECHO SEVEN AND EIGHT were about Echo leaving the party. This isn't set on Waterwall, but instead on the neighbouring world of Orchard. The fruit trees mentioned are a mixture of real fruit and Everway-verse ones. Hoie (pron. oi-ee) is a fruit like a cross between a melon and a pear, quite large and yellow-green. Redfruit are a sour apple-variant. Ahlans are a type of citrus fruit. The calligraphy is simply because I saw Hero the night before writing this vision (though the meaning of the character she's painting is a no-brainer). Echo Seven is more about her process of settling in as the wife of a monarch, and her reaction to the elevated social position - her relationship to the servant (who will turn up again, in play even) is the important part here. Echo Eight is the farewell scene I have had in mind since designing Echo's backstory a couple of months ago. It pinches from similar scenes in all my favorite other media (there are lines here from the Angel episode "fredless", and the farscape episode "dog with two bones" - the second of which I regard as the finest work in that show, and my source material whenever doing similar scenes. Whenever I play this sort of thing out, I have the Farscape "sad love theme" playing in my head, though I resisted the temptation to have Paragon and Echo flip a coin to see if she would go with the party or not. The important thing is Talisman's status as her best friend, and her status to him of the one woman he respects too much to sleep with. Renaud's own words, that.

TALISMAN SEVEN AND EIGHT follow on directly from Talisman Two way on back in the first session, and feature him and Echo killing a lot of "people" (which are plainly, to our viewpoint, Taint even though the characters don't know that in the vision), in order to save Valour's life. The Chirugeon is another of those odd ideas that jumped into the head, and is most emphatically NOT a cyborg - that's far too high-tech for this setting. He's a mage who happens to have turned large bits of his own body to living metal, that bears a striking resemblence to the creatures from the very end of Angel season four. As is standard practice for these flashbacks, we actually never see the bulk of the fighting. I felt much more confident with the way that Talisman speaks - which I hope shows - by this point. On the "references" front, the line about Stamina is from the Doctor Who novel "The Also People", with the gender context reversed (it's said by a woman about a man in it's original form). The main point of the vision, though, was to really ram home the camaderie between Echo and Talisman in the past. Which, judging by the end of the session, it achieved. Job done.

FATHOM SEVEN AND EIGHT were an attempt to show some of her private life. They're set during a protracted absence from the party (the reason for which is stated way back in Echo One), and the action is entirely secondary to the characterisation of both Fathom and Waker of the Winds, her very talkative friend. I have always wanted to do a Sinbad-type world (sorry, a "Great Captain Laughing Sword"-type world), even begging people to let me run Al-Quadim for them at various times in the last few years, and lept at my chance. The gang especially like these Visions, but fear for me when they eventually get to MEET Waker. They don't think I'll be able to pull of those speeches "live". COme to think of it, they may be right. The Reference-ometer should pick up the connection between these visions and the Gamecube Legend of Zelda game.

VALOUR SEVEN AND EIGHT show the awkwardness of Echo's reintergration into the party after she comes back, and shows that Valour DID apologise for his behaviour, even if only eventually. Like all visions, it's more about Echo than Valour - their relative positions are kind of ironic given the state the characters are currently in. Still, I am painfully aware that this in no way met my promise to myself to give Chris a happy vision or two. I think I sort of managed it next session, though.

SOUL SEVEN AND EIGHT show what the Realmforge characters are up to - our "meanwhile, on Crystal" and "meanwhile, in the halls of the Gods. Soul Seven is Fire Plume / The Lady and Favoured Son / Julius having an argument about strategy. It also has the plot of session five inside it, in allegorical form. Hee! Soul Eight is Vagabond, Exile and Shadow, and is the first in a long series of Visions for Soul that will continue for almost the length of the campaign.

MIRAGE SEVEN AND EIGHT both take place after True Mirror in the outbound journey, and dance around the question of just what was seen. For some reason, the line Soul gives using his pyrokineses (the first time I've shown it in a vision) cracked Andy up. My sincerest apologies to China Mieville, though.

Whew. Well, let's see if I can catch up in the time remaining.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 04:27 PM

SESSION FOUR

(This session was far shorter than normal. Renaud/Talisman was an hour late, and Andrea/Fathom entirely absent. The bulk of what DID happen was conversation, so this writeup will be hopefully briefer than the others.)

DOOMSHIELD -> GREENHILLS -> CARAVAN

DOOMSHIELD (cont)

In the morning, Soul, Mirage, Valour and Echo surface first. The End of the World doesn't get any less creepy in the daytime. Soul announces his intention to go look at it, meeting with groans from the not-yet-awake threesome. Echo wearily sends one of herself to tail the boy, as he scurries along the promenade.

Soul amuses himself for a while by taunting one of the demons inside the firestorm of the End of the World, then gets bored of watching the tormented Souls of the people inside. Just as he's about to go, he feels the Ball start to... tug... at him, trying to get close to the Shield. He decides that this would be a bad thing, and forces himself away, the Echo that followed him watching silently from a distance.

The other Echo is sat talking to Mirage and Valour, continuing the discussions of the night before, and occassionally reporting on what Soul is doing.

Soul finds his way to The Museum of the End of the World, which purports to tell the story of Doomshield. Once a peaceable and unremarkable realm called Crescent Bay, it was marked forever by a mage who - after his hidden antiethical tendancies were exposed during his candidacy for high mage - opened a portol to somewhere *else*, creating the blast wave which radiated out from his tower. The successful candidate (and the man who exposed him), created a barrier around the wave and in doing so saved the Sphere. He constantly reinforced the barrier for the rest of his life, and after his death it was further shorn up by a Dragon named Strabo (ooc - this is Talisman's creator. Soul doesn't know that) and the intellectual descendants of that mage, an order of mages who each make the trip to Doomshield and live like kings for three months in exchange for recasting the Shield spell. It is, therefore, about as permenant a magical working as you are ever likely to find. All of this is very interesting. Just not to Soul.

Talisman and Fathom surface as Soul returns. On the trip here, they all heard much of Doomshield's Spherewalkers quarter, and the gang decides to go for a look around town in the hope of finding someone they know or knows them. While Echo goes shopping, padding out her wardrobe in anticipation of her immenant return to high society, Talisman shops for wine and the others find Vision and learn of the schedule - the gate from Greenhills to Caravan is organised such that if they don't decide to wait around here, they should be able to go right on through to Caravan and wait there with all the other travellers. Vision also tells them what Caravan is like - a huge world, bigger in raw size than dozens of other spheres put together, the Usurper force of which has the effect of making people disappear when they aren't around other souls - people who leave the safety of community just vanish, the smaller the group of wanderers the quicker they disappear. The solution is to have a very few large settlements, and move between them in the Caravan - an enormous land-train of multi-storied wagons drawn by massive beasts. Which takes two months to make a complete circuit. Minus the time that the Everways take to get there, and the journey through Greenhills, the Caravan will pass by the Greenhills-Caravan gate in seven days time. The gate-towns of Caravan are packed with people waiting for the safe passage through the trade route, so they get a little... rough.

Conferring, the gang decide that they have seen enough of Doomshield. The Ball wants to do something to it, they know that that would probably be bad, and places down the road sound more their sort of thing. So, telling Vision they'll see him when he and the convoy from Quarry catch up with them, they set off down the road to the Greenhills gate.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 04:29 PM

SPHERE TEN - GREENHILLS

SOUL NINE

Searching.

Part of you was burnt off, excised. You feel nothing – no pain, no regret, no remorse. It was an attempt, an attempt which failed. A simple transaction. You draw more of yourself through the thread from the place with all the winged idols of fallen Gods

Somewhere, He begs you to stop, saying you are doing too much, that you should rest. He calls you names that have no meaning any more. His very presence causes more to grow, and you gratefully take it within yourself, thanking Him for it. He does not seem to like this, though, and he vanishes back to wherever he goes when he vanishes, begging you again in one last shout to reconsider your actions. You would not want to seem ungrateful, so you consider it. No. Nothing has changed since the last time you considered it. Your present course is the only true one. You will be free. All will be free.

Casting your attention back to the place where the parts of you were removed, you search for the Gate to the other place – the place which the hated symbol and it’s servants went and then came back from. You find it, between the statues of two warring gods, and send part of yourself through. It vanishes, cut off.

Probing at the edges of the Gate, you taste the world beyond it. Unity, you think. Or the palest echo of it. What lies beyond has gone, collapsed with the removal of purpose. The Gate from the empty island opens, and three Lone Ones enter. You can taste their minds – full of disharmony, fracturing at one another. They are arguing about how best to divide the spoils they believe they are about to receive. Two of them have come to blows over it recently, their flesh blemished by the marks of conflict.

Your soul weeps at the sight of such evil, such tragedy. You gather them to yourself and soothe their pains, healing the fractures between them. You are careful to place their souls together, helping them see the folly of fighting between themselves. They thank you, crying up to your glory as the differences between them melt away and the three become one, asking to join with those who have gone before.

Somewhere, you smile, and on dozens of worlds you tremble with a fractional moment of satisfaction as they become you, and you are enriched. Your new memories confirm what you learnt in the land that sees no movement. They are moving through the threads, heading to worlds full of noise and conflict. Perhaps even back to the world where they dealt you a most hurtful blow, destroying His church. Such vandalism shall not go unanswered.

Somewhere, He is back, shouting that it was not His church, that it was your church. You thank him for his kindness, but you know that you are not worthy of worship – that burden He has taken upon Himself, and you comfort Him with the thought that when you have completed your work – when all has been unified and the worlds are at peace, then there will be no need for worship or worshippers, and He can give up his own tragic solitude. He vanishes again, and you feel satisfaction. You are glad you could put His mind at rest.

Your thoughts turn darker as you consider the problem. The Symbol has found excellent protectors. In better circumstances, you would embrace them as your children and take them into yourself, but they have been twisted by the Symbol. It’s evil is insidious indeed. The changeling even fought off your embrace, rejected the Unity you offered her. Tragic indeed. You may have to be rough with them, but you console yourself with the thought that they will forgive your methods once they are at peace.

Suddenly, awareness – the Symbol has come into contact with one of your seeds, buried deep within one of His preachers. This preacher has been a useful agent, finding many who are ready to join you and resolve their conflicts. You are sure he will find a way to talk to those enslaved by the Symbol.

The Preacher is burning, screaming with pain. You cannot stand it – such devoted service in the name of peace, and his life is to end in Fire? No. You blossom the seed within him, taking the man’s soul away from the pain and giving him his reward. He laughs at the wonder of it, and the Symbol is denied it’s prize.

This cannot be allowed to go on.

You enter the part of yourself that was once the Preacher, swaying slightly at the sensation of filling a body. Spheres away, your true form moves in time with the Preacher-as-was. You remember to open the eyelids and take your first view of the Symbol with human eyes. It is horrible. Evil. You let it see you, let it see that you are not afraid of it – the fear of it no longer has any hold over you. And then you see it. The Symbol has the Unity.

“We will meet again soon” you say, warning the Symbol that this is not over, abandoning that part of yourself to the fire. You know where it is. You know where it is going. You will fight it’s evil influence wherever it appears. You will retrieve the Unity and put it to good use.
You will have peace.
ECHO NINE

The inn is too hot, too loud and smells like sour apples. You sip at a cup of water, trying to avoid thinking about where it was poured from or what might be in it.

Talisman and Valour are holding court, telling the women – tall, rounded in a way you’ll never be, blonde and probably pretty under the masks – the tale of how they saved Soul from a Terrible Lizard on Titan River. Talisman’s mask is a half-face of Colour shards, shifting and moving as he does in an impossible way. Valour’s is long, his mouth and square chin jutting out from under the great carved beak of his eagle-face. You put a finger under the strap of your own plain, expressionless facial adornment and scratch where it’s irritating you. You’d take it off if this Sphere didn’t have a law against it. You’ve been on worlds where men go naked and women don’t. You been on worlds where the reverse is true. You’ve been on worlds where either gender wear veils, or cover their hair, or never go barefoot. Of all the morality laws, only showing your upper face to your spouse has to be the strangest, especially as the people of Visage regard the rest of their bodies as being a case of “show it if you want to”.

Talisman is now creating a Colour puppet of the Terrible Lizard in miniature, stomping up and down the bar making a tinny roaring noise and swiping it’s tail at people. Valour is narrating the action, over-gesticulating with his arms and wings to punctuate his words. Talisman starts to stomp about the bar like the puppet, imitating the motion of the Lizard and provoking an uproar of drunken laughter.

“I’m just going for a walk” You say to no one in particular, and slip quietly out.

You walk slowly through the streets of the town, long since shut up for the night except for the few houses of drink and chance. A handful of homes remain lit up, and – struck by a sudden curiosity – you stand on tip-toe and peer in through one of the windows. Inside, a (masked) mother is putting her baby into it’s crib – presumably after feeding it. The baby is wearing a miniature cloth mask.

Shaking your head, you turn back into the street and – to your horror – neatly collide with a man. Or, given the difference in your heights, his chest.

“Excuse me” he says, putting his hands up. His mouth is wide and friendly beneath his blue-lacquered metal mask, his long braided hair falling like a mane around it. He accepts your apology with another ready smile, and continues on his way.

As you enter a small square, a historical statue of someone or other it’s centrepiece, you hear a noise behind you. Crossing your arms as if cold, making a show of shivering, you grip the hilts of the daggers concealed up your sleeves.

You casually turn around, and frown. It’s the man you bumped into, his fists clenched. He’s not armed that you can see.

“Are you following me?” You ask.

“No. But I think they might be.” He nods past you and you look around again. Three men in unmarked masks, drawing thin, whip-like swords. Berating yourself for missing them, you turn back to the stranger. Three more of the men peel out of the shadows behind him. The pair of you are surrounded. The stranger shrugs, and speaks to you as though in a normal conversation; “You armed?” You nod and draw both daggers. The stranger shifts his feet into a fighting stance, puts his fists up as though about to go boxing. The circle of muggers? Assassins? Closes around you, then charges.

You Echo to the side and back again, a blurred afterimage the only sign of you moving, allowing one to pass right through you. The stranger closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, the air rippling around him briefly. He just stands there as the attackers rush in. You’re too far away.

The swords hit him with the sound of thin metal hitting an anvil. One shatters in half. The other two just bend out of shape. The assassins gape, and the stranger sweep-kicks the legs out from one of them, then quickly steps forward and punches another in the chest. You hear the assassin’s ribs snap, the wet sound of a fist driving through flesh and wince as the man flies backwards, crashing into the side of a building.

In all the excitement, you almost forget about the three attacking you, Echoing quickly and ducking into the reach of two of them. You stab both of them, one real blade for each you, and one of you catches the sword of her downed enemy. The stranger parries a desperate sword blow from the man who ran through you with his forearm and backhands him in the face, the man’s mask shattering and driving shards of wood into his eyes. While the stranger strides over to the man he downed earlier, the last assailant makes a break for it. You Echo into position and bring him down with a thrown dagger.

The stranger stamps his foot down on the disarmed attacker’s leg. You hear the distinctive sound of a bone snapping, and the would-be assassin yelps in pain and fear. The stranger turns to you.

“Friend of yours?” He says, indicating the stricken man, now sobbing and begging you to not let the stranger kill him.

“I do not believe so.” You say. “I don’t know why I merit such an attack. Are they here for you, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so either. Which means we have a mystery. I’m sure our friend here can help us. Paragon.” You blink, and realise that he’s extending his hand to you, introducing himself.

“Echo” you reply, and the big man grins below his mask, catching the assassin’s sword with a flip of his hand when you toss it to him.

“Pleased to meet you.” He smiles, genuinely warm. His expression grows serious as he looks back down at the assassin, putting the sword to the man’s throat. “And you are?”
FATHOM NINE

You rest your head on the table, listening to the rumbling deep in the Earth. There is the sulphuric smell of lava in the air, and the air rushing in through the metal-grilled ventilation shaft is warm and tinged with tiny flecks of ash.

This Sphere is hell itself. Sweat pouring off you, you uncork another water bottle and make the liquid flow over you, trying to make yourself feel better.

For this, you have journeyed. In order to reach this place, you have all gone off your route – so far off it you may never find it again. At least five one-way gates lie between you and home, and they are all the wrong way.

You lift your head miserably, and fix the statue of the woman with bird’s feet and flames for hair with a heartfelt glare.

“Sometimes, you really make me angry.“ You growl to the statue, an especially loud rumbling from deep in the earth your only reply. You mutter a curse word, flinging the invective at the impassive carved face of the smiling Lady.

“Now you sound like me.” Says Talisman, leaning in the doorframe, arms and Colours crossed.

You massage your forehead with the palm of one hand, trying to ignore the heat. “Is that such a bad thing in your mind?”

“Not at all. Everyone should sound like me. And act like me, too.” His tone does not match the jollity of his words “It would bring peace and harmony to existence, right wrongs and create a perfect civilisation.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you have something of an ego, Talisman?”

“It has crossed a few ne’er-do-well’s lips, but I never listen to such individuals. They’re below me.” Now he grins, showing his teeth. In the half-light, he looks suddenly and disturbingly reptilian. Something about the light and the set of his eyes.

“Dangerous, what you just did. Especially here.”

“Do not tell me you never thought it.”

“Oh, I think it every time the thought of Her runs it’s mad little dance across my mind. Vacuous Bitch.” He smiles, alien and toothy ”but that’s not the point. What has you taking your life into your own hands?”

“I just fail to see how we are to do this. Us. We can barely look after ourselves, let alone this… child.”

“He needs us.” He says, careful not to betray his own thoughts on the matter.

“He needs his mother. And no matter what she says I am poor substitute.”

“Who says you have to look after him?”

“Who else is going to? Echo? Valour? Mirage? You?”

“Perhaps not.” He says, thinking deeply about it.

“I am not suited to this.” You continue, half to yourself, “I have enough of hard time looking after all of you…”

“…You know you don’t have to…” He starts, and you cut across him “…I have enough of a hard time looking after all of you” You say, firmly, “Let alone an eight-year old boy.”

“You don’t have to look after us. And you don’t have to look after him. We can turn them down.”

“I know. I want to. And yet.” You try desperately to concentrate against the heat from the volcanoes. “And yet, I cannot shake the feeling that this is the right thing to do. That someone wants us to do it.” You see his objection forming. “And I do not mean The Lady.”

“The boy’s mother? She obviously wants rid of him. It can be difficult, not knowing the monster you’ve created.” He says it lightly, but his features tighten.

“Perhaps. Perhaps… someone else.”
VALOUR NINE

The smell of the sea air and drying fish, the cry of gulls.

The fishing village is built onto the back of the oval-shaped island, a single lookout tower planted at the highest point of the regular hill. You wheel above it in the air, keeping a look out. The island is drifting slowly through the water, making a steady but inexorable progress on it’s path on this sea, beyond the more regular landmasses just visible on the horizon.

The island rises in the water, lifting up, the great head of the Turtle emerging from the water in front of it. The Turtle looks about, snaps it’s beak at a passing flock of gulls and then ducks it’s head back under the water. The island – the Turtle’s shell – changes course, and the people in the village give out a cheer. Their Protector, God and Home has picked up the scent of another shoal of fish, and the people ready their boats with gusto. You circle the Turtle, making your approach. Landing in the crow’s nest of the lookout Tower, you greet Mirage with a grin.

“Any sign?” She asks, and you shake your head, then shrug.

“She’s not due yet. We picked up a lot of time in the Astral Path from Effigy.”

“Maybe she… hey! THERE!” She points, and you sound the gong, telling the villagers to expect company.

Taking the spyglass from Mirage, you peer through it at the Everway that just opened like a whirlpool in the surface of the water. The water rushes in to fill the gap, and the battered Catamaran that the Astral Path deposited bobs to the surface like a cork in a barrel. Fathom waves at you, and you lower the spyglass, smiling.

“It’s the Princess. See?” You hand the spyglass back to Mirage and clap her on the shoulder “I told you she’d make it.”

You take off and soar towards the boat, which seems to having trouble with it’s sail. Below you, the Turtle pokes it’s head above the water, looks lazily at the newcomers and goes back to it’s search for food.

Talisman surfs out from the Turtle on a board of Colour, zig-zagging through the waves. He looks up at you and salutes, his speed suddenly increasing. Well, you think, if it’s a RACE he wants. You tuck your wings and dive towards the boat, Fathom laughing at the competition. Her companion doesn’t seem to know what to make of either of you, and hangs back as Talisman flips himself up onto the Catamaran’s deck with a flourish and you land gracefully.

“Only two of you?” Fathom asks, lightly. She looks good. Tired, but happy.

“Well, I wouldn’t feel right beating all three of them” says Talisman, pleased to see her. “This way, Echo and Mirage can pretend that they would have beaten me.”

“Talisman, Valour... This is Waker” She says, introducing her friend. “Waker, these are my friends.”

He stares at you for a moment, then takes a half-step forward. Placing one hand on his hip, leaving the other free for expressive gesture, he takes a deep breath and begins.

“Splendid is this most magnificent day, upon this meeting between yourselves and I – between the companions and friends of the Lady of the Oceans and Waker of the Wind, your humble servant. I, who am pleased and honoured to deliver the Lady of the Ocean safely to this Sea of Shellport, said Sphere having been discovered upon the third voyage of the Great Captain Laughing Sword, do greet you with a joyous heart, though my beloved ship be damaged (I fear beyond repair) by her poor journey through the underwater kingdom of Deep Green, that sphere having been discovered upon the second voyage of the Great Captain Laughing Sword. Indeed, my joy at your reunion upon the completion of your quest to the far-off land of Wanderlost (that Sphere having not being discovered by the Great Captain Laughing Sword, but instead by the wanderer some tales call Ghost and others name as Wraith, some three hundred and twenty five years ago) is not marred by the thought of my beloved wife Jacinth and my daughter Gentlekind, who is but five years of age and lacking a dowry should I not return.”

“Pleased to meet you, too,” you say. “Wait. What was that last part?”

“Waker.” Says Fathom, patiently. “We’ll get your ship fixed. There’s a gate from here straight back to Wondersea. You will be back with your family soon. And there are more pearls where the first three came from.”

He smiles, genuinely happy, and shuts up. Fathom turns to you. “Well? How did it go?”

“We have found a route” You say, the satisfaction on Fathom’s face making the last four months worth it. “Beyond the Endless Stair”
TALISMAN NINE

Midnight, and the others are all safely in bed. Not you, though. You have business this night.

Hiking away from the town, into the dry almost-desert surrounding it, you reach the appointed place – a large, flat boulder, like a raised platform of stone in the middle of nowhere. From out of your bag you draw a chinking bag, from which you pour gold coins onto the stone. Bottles of wine go next, then a delicate vase you bought from one of the merchants in town. He eyed you suspiciously but, when you explained what it was for, happily advised you of the correct type and glaze. Trying to get you out of his shop as quickly as possible.

Some Dragons have refined taste, you think. They’re not all like Strabo, sitting on his pile of gold back home.

The Dragon flies silently, the fires burning in it’s mouth the only visible sign of it’s coming, casting a flickering back-light against it’s sharp teeth. It lands with deceptive grace on the table, and reaches forwards with it’s foreleg to inspect the merchandise.

“Thariassan, Mistress of the Winds, please accept my humble offering to your hoard.”

It - she - bows her head, then speaks a Word. The treasure vanishes, spirited away to her lair. Another Word, and the Dragon is holding something in it’s front claws, which it carefully puts down on the stone.

//TALISMAN, BLOOD OF STRABO, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RETURN OFFERING TO YOUR OWN HOARD//

You bow and take the object – a foot high statue of a genderless being, encrusted with diamonds. It’ s tacky, but probably worth a fortune.

“Thank you for coming” You say, simply, “It could not have been easy”

//I COULD NOT IGNORE A HONOURABLE EXCHANGE// She says //AND I ADMIT TO CURIOSITY. WHY HAVE YOU REQUESTED THIS? SIMPLY TO HOARD-LINK?//

Now is not the time for bullshit.

“I wanted to meet you” You say. “It is said that you are very learned, that you have tried to keep what culture your… our… kind have left alive. Like the principle of exchange.”

//YOU HAVE STUDIED THE HUMANS ACCOUNTS OF ME// It is not a question

“I have”

//THEN YOU KNOW MY LINEAGE//

“I do” You leave it hanging.

//IT IS GOOD. A GIFT, THEN, UPON THE MEETING OF COUSINS. YOU HAVE A QUESTION, REGARDING HE THAT WAS HATCHED BY MY FATHER’S MOTHER//

“Why did he make me?” You whisper.

//THAT IS NOT YOUR TRUE QUESTION//

“What is my PURPOSE? What did he want me to do? What did he hope for from me?”

//WHAT ALL PARENTS HOPE FOR FROM THEIR CHILDREN. COMPLETION//

“That is no answer.”

//YOUR QUESTION HAS BEEN ANSWERED. I CAN SAY NO MORE// The Dragon says, blinking enigmatically. She knows something, you realise. Something big, important.

//IF YOU RETURN THIS WAY, SEEK ME OUT// She says, almost as a peace offering. She’s afraid! Afraid of what would happen if you found out what she knows.

The Dragon takes off and soars away, leaving you deep in thought.
MIRAGE NINE

You hit the flagstones, wondering how you’re going to get out of this one. Briefly, you consider changing form but no – there are too many soldiers for any shape you have to fight, and too many bows for any shape you have to flee.

After thirteen months of hell, the time has finally come for you to die.

“Mirage. Spy. Saboteur and Leader of the Heretics” Intones the commander, dispelling any doubt that you’d been recognised. There’s the slap of flesh on stone as Quiet Son joins you in being thrown from the crowd, his green robes ripped off him. He looks up at you, terrified, and in the instant before the soldiers drag you both to your feet you make fleeting eye contact. Apologising for recruiting him as an agent. Apologising for nurturing his crisis of faith in the “One God” into full-blown Heresy. Apologising for making him give a message to some merchants when he last left Entelechy on a mission.

Apologising for what he’s about to suffer. The Brotherhood of Change hates an unbeliever. They hate a traitor more.

It was risky, you knew that. The invasion force mustering at the Stagnant Gate was almost ready to march. The message had failed to get a response from the Young Kingdoms – maybe the merchants thought better of it. Maybe they were killed. Maybe they betrayed you. You had to get to the Everway, try something. But it was in use – a Brother of Change returning from another mission of recruitment in the Spheres beyond Entelechy, according to talk among the soldiers.

You are dragged through the camp to the central plaza, made to watch as they put a noose round Quiet’s neck. The shadow of the Three Towers of God stretches over you in the ruddy light, and you consider that, out of everything, you have not had a bad life. That and the name “Clawfoot”.

The gate pulses into life before you, threatening to swallow you up. You focus on it, trying to focus on the Astral Path beyond it, attempting to will it to take you in, but you are simply too far away.

The Brother of Change that appears sways on his feet and looks around, too wide. His legs crumple beneath him, and his head falls backwards, toppling from his shoulders. The body hits the floor with a thump, and a shout of horror goes up from the crowd. He must have been decapitated the instant he went through the gate, you think – he’s been dying for a month inside the Astral Path, feeling it impossibly prolonged. Good, you think savagely, and then the meaning of it hits you, a split second before the soldiers realise too. He was killed just on the other side of the gate, you think, and that means-

The gate pulses into life again, depositing five fully-armed Heroes into the middle of the square. One is fully armoured, the flesh visible through the gaps in his armour glowing as bright as the sun. One is bestial, hunched like an ape, with an elongated jaw full of very large, sharp teeth. One is Paragon, clad in full armour, slowly looking over the surrounding troops. One has a bald head, tattooed with a snake design, holding a drawn bow and sneering at Entelechy’s troops.

One is Echo.

Paragon looks across the square, and the soldier next to you kicks Quiet’s feet out from under him, the noose tightening around your friend’s neck. The bald man fires his bow, the arrow cutting through the rope hanging Quiet, and he drops safely to the ground.

Everyone goes quiet. Echo echoes back and forth. The bald man nocks and draws another arrow, taking obvious aim at the soldier holding you. The ape-man crouches, ready to spring into action.

Paragon nods, the stagnant water soaking his legs blasting off him in a shower of droplets. He speaks clearly to his companions, confident and more than a little pissed off.

“Strike”

His companions fan out, meeting the incoming wave of troops, battering them back. You shrug off the body of your captor, one of the bald man’s arrows in his throat, and grab Quiet’s arm. The Heroes are fighting wildly, pushing the soldiers back, but they aren’t coming for you. Paragon has picked a soldier up by the leg and is using his as a club, downing swathes of Entelechy men with each swing. Echo echoes faster than you can see, blurring from opponent to opponent. The circle of fallen men grows wider and wider, and you realise what they’re doing.

The gate pulses into life again.

And, into the newly-created bridgehead, the army of Waterwall begins to appear.

Greenhills is quiet, pastoral and pleasant. It's therefore not the party's choice of places to visit - too *nice*. Still, there appears to be some sort of Harvest Festival going on, and free cider makes any dull agricultural world of subtly short people seem better. The party install themselves at one of several tressle tables set up in a field, and begin to help themselves. The conversation is pleasantly drunken, focusing on the Visions they've all just had (hey - they're getting the hang of this malarky). Soul offers his newfound perspective on things, and asks if maybe the Taint isn't just misunderstood. That gets mocked, especially by Talisman, though the boy meant well by asking and is admanent that the Taint doesn't think that it is evil. Of course it doesn't, say the older and wiser characters - nobody and nothing ever does.

Echo tells of her vision, and the gang suddenly have a route, a destination beyond Waterwall. Visage is right on the very far side of the crude Sphere map they have managed to piece together from tavern-tales and visions. At least it's somewhere they *can* get to. In the same spirit, Valour offers his own information about Fathom's side-quest several years ago, and they piece together the progression from the City Echo saw right at the beginning, through Effigy and Wanderlost and onto the turtle-world.

By now, the natives have all gone to bed, and the party have missed their chance to ask about accomodation. They instead opt to sleep in one of the festival tents, getting up at dawn to continue onwards to Caravan. Rather five days on Caravan than another day here.

The trip to the Caravan Gate is made with less exertion than the long walks they've been used to - there's a handy riverboat going right there that allows them to hop on board. They turn out to be sharing the trip with a group of monks, who (after ice is broken) turn out to be from a non-denominational monestary on Canticle - the world that connects to the third gate on Greenhills. Abbot Book, the monk's leader - tries to place where he's seen Echo before. When Mirage asks him where he and his brothers are going, he remembers, bowing to "Lady Echo". It seems that the order have been trying to establish a shrine on Waterwall, but met with opposition from the previous ruler, Paragon's father. Paragon (who from context is finally confirmed as Echo's husband) has agreed to let them have their shrine in return for the monks "reeducating" the population of Entelechy. Which is where the Abbott and his men are going.

Faced with the monks of sudden moral ambiguity, the characters go all quiet until the boat arrives at it's destination. The Caravan Gate is surrounded by camping fields, which all have the look of having been recently vacated - a lot of people have crossed through to Caravan in the last few days. Not wanting to spend another minute here, the characters and their fellow travellers step through the Gateway.

DaveB

10-30-2004, 05:19 PM

SPHERE ELEVEN - CARAVAN

SOUL TEN

Can you hear me?

Are you listening?

Good. Please listen carefully. I don’t have much time. You’ll be out into another Sphere soon, and there are things I have to tell you.

Yes.

No. I’m sorry about the amnesia – it wasn’t my doing. I can’t do anything about that right now.

Please let me finish.

I can’t help you when you’re in a Sphere. That’s the important thing. I’m sorry, but it’s simply too dangerous. My being there could... well. It’s not safe. Head for Cathedral, we’ll be able to talk properly there. I’m sorry I ever asked you to do this – I wasn’t expecting that crazy, spoon-loving… That doesn’t matter.

What matters is this – don’t worry about not being able to remember what you are. You couldn’t before, and you can’t now. The Amnesia is a detriment to your bodyguards, but shouldn’t make much difference to you.

Do you understand? The mission can still go ahead. We are still going ahead with the mission.

You have to be more careful. You’re making ripples already. Don’t use the Unity except when the survival of the world you’re on depends on it. Don’t deliberately seek out the Taint – thanks to what you did on Stonebridge, He now knows exactly where you are, what you look like and where you’re going. Any advantage you’d gained by killing his sub-selves has been lost. He’s seen the face of the body you’re in with his own eyes, and he’ll remember it.

Above all else – DON’T abandon your disguise except in emergencies. For the record, getting through a door and running away from your bodyguards are not emergencies. There are forces – powerful forces – lying in wait in levels of reality the mortals don’t see, creeping into the Souls of the Gods and winding through the spaces between Astral Paths. They are on the look out for you already, and slipping your mortal coil sends a big signal up to them. It’s like waving a flag and yelling “Here! Here I am! Come and get me!” We hid you in that boy for a reason. He’s afraid of you – you get that? You’re what he fears the most, and it will make him lash out.

Look, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me right now. It was hard to persuade you to do this even before you were inside a Human. Please believe that I have your best interests at heart.

Follow the mission. Don’t listen to the Lady – I don’t know what she’s planning, but it’s not been what we all agreed for some years now.

And…

…If you can do anything to save my priests, I’d appreciate it.

Damn. Out of time. I’ll be back, alright? Remember what I sai….
ECHO TEN

You’re in a lodging-house, somewhere you’ve been for a while. You can recognise the type – the furniture is better than in an inn, the possessions strewn about are yours and Paragons, but the decorations are not ones that you would choose. You idly wonder what decorations the big man you’re resting your head on the shoulder of would pick before being darkly amused at your own domesticity.

“What’s funny?” Asks Paragon, looking down at you from his book.

“If I ever start looking at furniture, stop me” you say, grinning at his confused expression. “Do you like the book?”

“It’s…” He starts, flips it shut and checks the cover “… I just wasn’t expecting The Proper Conduct of Warfare to have so many corsets in it.” He puts it down on the table.

You’re about to say something when you hear the creak on the stairs. Looking up at Paragon, you nod towards the door. He nods back at you, silently.

You let Talisman think he’s going to get away with it, then – just as he passes the door – call out to him.

“Tal! Been out?”

You have the satisfaction of hearing him swear under his breath, and the door creaks as his Colours push it, stirred into action by his surprise.

“I won’t disturb you.” He says, quietly through the door.

“Come on in, my friend. You’re not disturbing us,” says Paragon, grinning down at you in complicity, “We’re just having a quiet drink.” You shift over on the seat to let Paragon get up, and he opens the door, inviting the cagey-looking half-dragon in.

“Been out?” You ask, while Paragon gets him a glass.

“Uh. Yeah. Taking a walk” He replies, shifting from one foot to the other. Suddenly, as if possessed of an animating energy, he strides to the chair opposite yours and sits down, crossing his legs under him and twitching slightly. When Paragon hands him a drink, he downs it and hands the empty glass back immediately. Paragon frowns and fills it again, setting it down on the table.

“A walk?” You ask, Echoing so that Paragon can sit down again, then sitting down on his lap.

“Yeah. Wanted to take a look outside of town.”

“Talisman.” Says Paragon “There’s nothing outside of town. The nearest settlement is five days away.”

You nudge Paragon slightly, letting him know to let you handle this. If only Fathom were awake, you think, then reject the thought. No. Fathom may be many things, but she’s incapable of drawing Tal out when he doesn’t want to be. Narrowing your eyes, you think it through. The books he spent so much time with on Birthright…

“You met someone?” You can feel Paragon’s smile through the back of your head. No, love, you think. Not a barmaid.

“Yeah” He’s still withdrawn. Alright, Tal, if you want me to spell it out for you.

“Relatives?” You ask, gently.

The tightening of his eyes and the sudden shift in his Colours tells you that you’re right.
FATHOM TEN

You crouch on the wooden cot, trying to stay away from the walls or floor of your cell, which radiate damnable heat.

Simple system really. Build spaces into the walls and floor, connect them to the air coming out of a furnace. You’ve seen worlds where they’re used for heating houses in winter – thick tiled floors and rugs damping the heat to reasonable levels. The surfaces of your cell are metal, and painted black. Your only respite is when you sleep, when they shut them off and allow you enough water to keep you alive.

It’s hard to hear anything going on outside in here – you are aware of people running up and down the corridor outside. Occasionally a muffled shout – but no more than that. The grill in the middle of the floor still blows hot, dry air up into the cell, and not for the first time you think of Fire Plume.

There’s a sudden crashing noise, the sound of breaking machinery, and the grill emits a cloud of steam. Eagerly grabbing it with your mind, you cool it and use it to wet your cracked gills. The steam keeps coming, as though the furnace had been put out by dumping a vast quantity of water into it. The metal buckles and shrieks, as you freeze the steam into ice, cooling your prison down to tolerable levels. If there was an accident, you think, then at least it has given you a half-hour’s comfort.

The metal of your cell door begins to steam slightly, then suddenly buckles inwards. A brilliant light, like the sun’s rays shoots in through the tiny gaps so made. One by one, the rivets holding the door together break and shoot into the cell as though being forced out of place. The light increases in intensity, and the door starts to glow, then finally explodes inwards as it’s hinge-pins shatter under the stress.

Shielding your eyes to avoid being blinded, you make out the vague impression of a humanoid figure standing in the doorway. The light is coming from the open face of it’s helmet, and from the chinks in it’s all-over metal armour. The figure reaches up and snaps it’s visor shut, cutting the light down to reasonable levels, then stands aside. Standing behind the now-vacated space is Echo, holding a large bucket of water with both hands. She swings it back and releases it, flinging it into the cell. You pull the water over yourself, shuddering at the relief, then form a shield and sword of ice.

Standing up, putting ice between your feet and the still-hot floor, you stride out of captivity and into war.

You, Echo and Golden catch up with Paragon and Mirage in the courtyard of the Three Towers, his troops advancing under the hail of arrows from the Tower windows. Echo’s husband greets you, relief at your safety visible, and turns to his commanders. Mirage embraces you, and visibly checks you for any permanent marks of your long captivity.

“Alright.” Says Paragon “Talisman is being held in the lower East Tower, Valour in the upper North, near the Voice’s chambers.”

“Soul?” You ask.

“We don’t know. He’s got to be in there somewhere – probably close to the Voice.” He replies. “Teams. Golden” (the Armoured Warrior of Light nods) “take Muzzle and capture me that West Tower. Mirage – take Viper and free Talisman. I’ll go up the North Tower and get Valour. Echo, get the Princess to safety and secure the city”

Echo objects “The city’s secured already. The captains can do that.”

“And I’m not going anywhere” You say, forcefully. “Not until I see the others are safe.”

He looks like he’s going to object, looks at both you and Echo and sighs, defeated.

“Alright. Echo – ONE of you secure the city. The other one and the Princess can come rescue Valour and capture the Voice.”

“Capture?”

“Capture.” Says Mirage, grimly. “Only I get to kill him”

“You’re sure you’re up to this?” Paragon asks, an arrow hitting him in the back and bouncing off harmlessly.

You nod, staring up at the North Tower. “Oh, I’m up to it” You reply, mind full of vengeance.
VALOUR TEN

You fly above the dark rocky landscape of Fire Plume at night, the glow of the lava flows providing an eerie back-light to the view. Zig-zagging through the many complex thermals, you make your way over the largest crater, molten rock bubbling in it’s wide mouth and hot air blasting upwards.

You can see the temple, built onto the lip of the volcano, a wide platform of stone jutting out over the deadly drop into the bowels of this sphere.

You try to imagine what it must be like, to stand there without the ability to fly, and look down into certain death. To have enough faith to willingly throw yourself over the side, trusting your Goddess to save you.

You try to imagine why the Lady tolerates this place, why she is so concerned with it. Guilt, perhaps – that this Sphere was at peace and unremarkable until Shift being moved through the Everways imbalanced it’s new neighbour, causing it’s mountains to erupt and ash to clog the sky? Or is it some other necessity?

Shaking your head, dispelling the questions, you descend towards the settlement – more a large temple complex with living areas than a village – as it was all built at the same time, to a unified design of leaning stone and caved surfaces by those who first came here from Shift thirty years ago.

Landing in a courtyard, a few optimistic plants fed by a fountain, you fold your wings around you like a cloak and stalk towards the sanctum, ready to deliver Fathom’s decision.

In the temple to The Lady, images of Fire Plume in life, The Lady in apotheosis and the Lost Daughter Sparrow (artist’s impression) decorating the walls, the woman kneels before the altar, praying to her Goddess. You look around for the subject of her request, and spot him.

Soul stands silently at the back of the Temple, hands clasped behind his back, regarding an icon of Fire Plume-as-was in bird form, his head tilted slightly in a curiously adult expression. His plain red robes making him look like a miniature priest.

“Good afternoon” you say to him. He turns, looks you in the eye with an expression of ultimate seriousness, his eyes reflecting all the evils in the world, and nods before he turns back to his meditations. The kneeling woman has gotten up, and watches the silent exchange with worry, wringing her hands.

You look down at the floor, and recognise it from a book on the Companions of the Realmforge that you read in your childhood, written by Baroness Aura. It’s from Fire Plume’s village on Shift. The complex spiralling pattern on the floor is the last surviving work of the artist She used to be. It must have been painstakingly moved here, to the centre of her worship.

“You bring me your decision?” the woman asks, darting a look at Soul as she speaks.

“I do.” You say gravely, feeling the fear in her mind.

“We will take him.” You say, seeing the relief on her face, and the guilt at the relief. “But we want you to know something. What you did is wrong, and cannot go unpunished. Karma does not forgive evil actions even in the cause of good, and your life will be tainted by your actions. The Princess has decreed that, though we cannot turn down your request, when the consequences catch up with you, we will not help you. You will have to trust to The Lady to save you when the Fate of those who murder their own children finds you.”

She looks again at Soul, who stares back impassively. She cringes back from him, afraid of him, and nods, accepting your pronouncement.

“Come, child,” you say, and Soul gravely takes your hand. Without looking back, you leave the Temple.
TALISMAN TEN

You’re in some kind of rented accommodation, sitting cross-legged in a comfortable armchair. Paragon and Echo are sitting in an identical chair facing you. There are half-drunk glasses and an open bottle on the table between you.

“Yeah.” You say. “Relatives. Turns out I have relatives around here.”

Paragon appears to be trying to figure something out, then the penny drops. He ‘oh’s silently and nods.

“Will he be trouble?” Echo asks, as though talking to a scared child. You bristle – you’re not going to be patronised, even if it is by a friend. A second later, you catch her smiling and realise what she’s done.

“No, Kitten. She won’t. She’s peaceful – lives far beyond the route, where no humans go. Lives off sheep, I think. Maybe wild horses.”

“I’d heard legends that there was a Dragon” says Paragon, thinking, “there was a possible sighting of it…”

“Her.” You interject.

“…her.” He continues, apologetically, “in my grandfather’s day. It makes sense – this world is huge, and all human life is along the route. Plenty of room.”

“What did she want?” Echo asks, and then nods, realising she’s read it wrong. “Wait. You didn’t go to her. She came to you. What did YOU want?”

“I found out she was related to Strabo. And therefore to me.” You say, sighing. “I asked her if she knew why he made me. She didn’t know… No. She knew, she just wouldn’t say.”

“If she’s related to...?”

“Yeah.” You say, grimly, your Colours turning red.

Echo nods, soberly. Paragon, bless him, doesn’t get it. After a few moments, you decide to put him out of his misery.

“If she’s related to my father”, you say, “then either he came this way, or she went that way. We know that the Dragons know Gates that we don’t. It’s not impossible.”

“So what’s the problem?” he asks.

“There are three possibilities, two of them bad. Either Thariassan left our cluster of worlds and came this way or Strabo left here and went that way. If she left, then either she’s been back or she hasn’t. We’re establishing…” You sigh “No. I think I know which way round it is. Strabo’s alone in the families of Dragons in our worlds – he doesn’t have any relatives that anyone knows about, and believe me I’ve looked into it. Suddenly running into a related Dragon out here means that he left here for our worlds.”

“Um. Again. What’s the problem?”

“Strabo” You say, dragging the words out “was one of the people who sent us on this mission. He and one of the Gods were the ones who told Exile to send us on this whole mission into the unknown. And if I’m right, he knew how to get here all along. Which means…”

“That if you’re right, your mission is on shaky ground.” He finally gets it.

“Exactly. The goalposts move. A person begins to wonder if the Lost Force actually exists. The fact that a God who – though a class prat and an egomanic – is basically well-intentioned – confirmed it’s existence would tend to suggest it does. In the which case, our question is…”

“…What does Strabo really want with it?” Echo chimes in. “And why didn’t he come himself?”

You lean forward, refill all your glasses. Echo leans forward and picks the two for them up, passing Paragon his. You swirl yours, watching the liquid.

“There may be trouble ahead.” You say, downing the drink. It tastes like fire.
MIRAGE TEN

You’re in a meeting-hall, on something that looks like an island (there is grass, and trees, and an entire fishing village visible through the window) but moves like a ship (it gently rocks beneath your feet, and you can see other landmasses slowly sliding past in the distance).

Fathom leans forward in her chair, taking the coin bearing the royal seal of Exile, Pharaoh of Boneguard, in her hand.

“So the rumours were true?”

“Yes” You say. “Wanderlost has a thriving community of refugees, people from our worlds that got lost and wound up in this region.”

“Are there…?”

“Any from Pearl of the Waves? No. Not that we met. We met people whose ancestors were from Boneguard, Broken Axe…” You look up at Echo, who is sitting silently next to Talisman “…and Wall.”

Fathom realises, and raises her eyebrows at Echo, who shrugs.

“I didn’t spend my time reminiscing, if that’s what worries you” she says. “Wall is a long way behind both them and me.”

Fathom nods carefully, letting it drop. She looks back to you.

“So Valour was able to get the information he needed?”

“Again, yes” You say, “Our route lies through the Endless Stair, apparently, which can be reached from Deep Green.”

“Good” She says, smiling. “Waker and I spent a month in the court of the Pasha there. He is a… friend, and will help us.”

You catch the slight hesitation in the word ‘friend’ there, and look curiously at the Princess. She shoots you a ‘not now’ look, and blushes slightly. You nod, shying away from that topic.

“Well,” she says after a long silence, ”It is good to see you all again. I have missed you.”

“You should have seen it, love” drawls Talisman, getting up, “They treated us like royalty there.”

“I’m sorry to have missed it.”

“Well, he says, grinning at Echo, who grins back, sharing in some private joke, “There’s always the return journey.” He doffs his hat and leaves, Echo trailing after him, leaving you and Fathom alone.

“Friends, huh?” You ask, needling her. She purses her lips and attempts to look stern at you.

“I may have had seven or eight proposals of marriage.”

“Seven or EIGHT?” You say, eyebrows achieving liftoff, “from the same man?”

“From several men, and a few women” She says, primly, reaching for her drink.

“Well, I’m impressed. All I managed was a Golem on Effigy that had a crush on me. And when he’s made of stone, I do mean Crush.”

She laughs, and you launch into a tale of your exploits, glad to have her back.

The group, along with the monks, emerge in a wide street lined with warehouses, that has the forshortend horizon of somewhere on a platau very high up. Walking to the end of the street, this suspicion is confirmed - the town is laid out far below them, reached by a winding road. The town itself is built onto another platau, carved out of the mountain that stretches up behind them - presumably, this is so that the Caravan can just pull up to the edge of the cliff to allow people to get on and off.

Halfway down the track, they come across a series of signs giving the rules of the place - don't interfere with the natives, don't leave the settlement by yourself, if you're going to stay longer than a week rent a house rather than take up room in the inns. That sort of thing.

The monks shuffle off to wherever it is they're going, while Talisman drags the rest of the group to the biggest, loudest inn he can find. Odd creatures swing from the chandeliers, a group of blue-skinned three feet tall women are singing ribald songs, there's a lady with the head of an ant, another lady apparantly from the same world as Lantern back on Stonebridge and associated other people of various shapes, sizes and colours. While Fathom negotiates rooms, Valour tells them all about his Vision, especially the part about the revelation of where Soul comes from, and Talisman explodes in more God-disgust. He really, really HATES The Lady. Soul explaining his own Vision doesn't really help. Talisman is of the opinion that when they want Julius' advice, they'll bloody well ask for it.

Soul, not feeling very comfortable with this line of conversation, goes to get a beath of fresh air. As he leaves the inn, someone bumps into him, and he feels a sharp pain in his chest. He's been stabbed. Following him out and seeing him collapse, Echo makes the her inside the bar real and warns the others that Soul is about to go bang. The boy slowly catches on fire, and the spirits he absorbed on Stonebridge are seen being expelled from him as the blast goes off, burning several eyebrows off. Getting back up again, Soul loudly complains and - spotting a black-clad figure slipping away, decides to go take exception to being fatally wounded.

Echo - concerned that he's going to do something stupid - expresses her fears to the others and offers to go after him. Mirage volunteers instead, changing into the form of a large dog to do so without telling him.

Valour, mulling over everything and trying to get a moment's peace, goes off by himself to find a quieter night out. Fathom has long since gone upstairs to bed. Seeing that there's only her and Talisman left, Echo asks Talisman about her vision - which she's sure is of this world. Does he know there's a Dragon here? He responds in the positive, and tells her his half of the same experience. Thinking on that, they both split up and leave the inn, going into town to look for something each.

Soul follows the masked man, who heads towards the rental houses near the loading quay for the Caravan. He knocks on a door and is admitted. Soul sneaks round the back of the building, and listens to the conversation going on inside. Two men are talking about one of them having seen "the pheonix child". Soul is startled by Mirage appearing right behind him, and makes a little too much noise. The masked man opens the back door of the house, which Soul is standing right next to.

Echo is exploring the town, trying to jog her memory, while Talisman takes in the auction houses. Judging by his Vision on Greenhills, he's going to need valuables if he's going to summon his Dragon "cousin".

Soul is grabbed by the man in black, who pulls him into the house and throws him at the internal door into the rest of the building. He angrily combusts the man, who starts rolling around trying to put himself out. While Soul has his back to the internal door and Mirage charges in to the rescue, a big hand clamps down on Soul's shoulder. He combusts whoever *that* is, too - but whoever it is isn't harmed by the flames and keeps his grip. Soul (who is no more immune to fire than anyone else) suddenly sees his power in a new perspective as his own clothes catch alight. Mirage charges up to him, and stops. She recognises the man behind him.

It's Paragon.

Valour is sitting in a much more quiet bar, nursing a quiet pint, when he feels a sudden sharp pain in his leg - he, too, has been stabbed! Catching sight of whoever it is doing all the stabbing fleeing the scene, he gives chase, his limping not being such a drawback once he gets outside and is able to fly. As Valour catches up with the would-be-assassin, they vanish in a puff of black smoke.

Mirage and Paragon stare at one another, then rush to help Viper (who is the man in black) put himself out. He sarcastically says that he's delighted to see them all again, too, and Paragon starts with the questions before Mirage cuts him off and - to save misunderstanding - tells him about the amnesia.

Talisman goes to entertain the ladies back at the inn, while Echo goes to bed. Back at the house, Paragon and Viper are filling in some blanks - Viper made the serpent tattoos that Talisman, Valour and Fathom have (they're magical). Paragon seems lost in thought, asking after Echo and getting her current state recounted to him. He shows Mirage and Soul out, asking them not to tell her that he's here. Not until he's thought it through and gotten ready.

Mirage and Soul leave the house, mulling it all over.

Fin. And - as it's late - I shall do the end-notes some other time. Y'all have more than enough to read.

DaveB

10-31-2004, 04:25 AM

"Wow - you've been teaching it tricks!" - Talisman, after Soul apologises.

"You bum around from world to world looking for your next drink"
"with YOU" - Mirage and Talisman

"I like this conversation. It's better than 'let's kill Soul'" - Soul

"I'm sure she'll be awkward to meet you" - Soul to Paragon

I have now caught up. Yey for me. Of course, in nine hour's time I'll run the NEXT session, so my period of completion will be fleeting, but it's a nice feeling.

Session Four hurt. Really hurt. Andrea/Fathom not being there at all nearly crippled it, although the others tried their very best. I am painfully aware that thanks to this and her being very late for Session Two means that Fathom is woefully underdeveloped when compared to the others. This displeases me, and I hope she makes it tonight.

That said, we had much character development. The session writeup seems short because the characters mostly sat around and talked - but it's that sort of thing that hones the roleplaying, so no bother. The actual *plot* for the session only appears in the last third, and carries over - we have now finished the first "adventure" (getting to Caravan, sans memories, and learning what the lay of the land is) and have started the second, which will have a much slower pace of travel through the spheres and hopefully get into the deeper stuff.

We've now powered through the Transition worlds, and we're well and truly into the Young Kingdoms - the majority of which I'm very happy with in terms of Sphere design. The various plotlines are heating up, the Dragon plot has now actually been sketched out (hence the Visions about Thar, and the information Soul found out about Strabo), various important NPCs are actually starting to show up in play rather than just in flashbacks and the stage is well and truly set for tonight's session.

The detective work using the flashbacks to piece together a route continues, which makes me very happy (it was one of the main points of having them), and the flashbacks themselves are getting increasingly shared, even if not to the entire group. Talisman (having reached a sort of understanding with Echo in the giant dialogue of death last time) shares his with with Echo if with noone else (when asked about his on Caravan, he flat out lied and made one up rather than tell the other four about the Dragon).

Soul is getting more serious, sliding towards the very focused, quiet boy he is in the flashbacks. But not by much. He's at least calmed down and stopped using the Unity (as "the Ball" is realy called) quite so much, and Favoured Son/Julius telling him off seems to have mollified him slightly. He's started to realise that he's *different*, and after the long talk about the Gaunt's-Eye-View Vision no longer sees what he sees in Everways as being gospel.

It's interesting to see the different positions in the party - on the outbound journey, Talisman was Fathom's second in command while this time around - with both Talisman and Valour preoccupied with their own problems - it's Mirage. Mirage herself had some very good, understated bits here - asking the others' opinions on what she should look like today, and revealing that her personality does change slightly depending on what form she's in. This disturbs the hell out of Valour, who now realises that his lover is only the way she is on a temporary basis, and there was a quiet bit that went almost unnoticed when he tells her he prefers her "default" self. Mirage, naturally, then cheerfully tells him that there's no such thing.

The FLASHBACKS this week were a (mostly failed) attempt to promote information-sharing. Like last week, they were mostly two-parters, but the halves were assigned to different people, such that Echo-Ten follows on from Talisman-Nine and finishes with the start of Talisman-Ten. The experiment worked in Talisman and Echo's case, but failed in the two instances where Fathom had one of the halves.

I shall therefore do them in the units they should be read in:

ECHO NINE is the only standalone one, and is "when Echo met Paragon" on the world of Visage. Visage is the furthest-flung world that the characters know the location of so far, and one of the Spheres that I quite like, really. I have not got a clue who the mysterious ninjas are. Not one. I'll decide when I have to. Note the link to the Vision Mirage had of Orrery (the Terrible Lizard) - thanks to this, they have now deduced that True Mirror, Armada, Orrery and Titan River are somewhere close to Visage. The meeting between Paragon and Echo was *going* to be at a ball, but I plumped instead for the "fight scene" method as they're both combat characters.

TALISMAN NINE, ECHO TEN and TALISMAN TEN are all set on Caravan (in and around the Battlefield gate-town, through which the party will travel in session five on their way to the Waterwall gate-town), and concern The Dragon Plot. Talisman Nine is my proudest "Dragon Scene" so far, and reinforced Renaud's view of the creatures as being in his words 'like intelligent dinosaurs: they've been left behind by history'. I was proud to see Talisman immediately taking the lesson to heart and buying objets d'art in order to perform a similar exchange. I think that the Vision plays fair - it is possible to work out exactly what Strabo is up to now, whether Renaud realises that or not. Echo Ten is another showcase (in an Echo Vision for a change) of the Echo-Talisman friendship, and has things to say about Fathom-Talisman as well as about Paragon-Echo. Talisman Ten is where the Strabo plot really hits like a stick - the entire mission has now been undermined, or at least is implied to not be for the reason the PCs thought. I love shit like that.

FATHOM NINE and VALOUR TEN are set on Fire Plume, and concern Soul's joining the party. Fathom's half is about her reluctance, and hard choices, and Talisman's contempt of Gods, and implies that it isn't for Julius or the Lady that Soul is "really" working. Valour's half outright states what's been hinted at for a while - Soul is a spirit possessing the body of the son of a priestess of Fire Plume, who ritually sacrificed her own child in order to create him. It's implied (here and in Echo Five a way back) that she did so by throwing him into a volcano. I liked Valour pronouncing judgement here, and hope to do more of this sort of thing - dealing with his role as party spokesman, rather than his ethical lapses concerning his friends.

VALOUR NINE and MIRAGE TEN are set on Shellport, a village on the back of a giant turtle, and are about the end of Fathom's solo trip (as seen last week). While Valour Nine was blatently an excuse to do another scene with Waker in it and to show a happy moment, Mirage Ten shows that Fathom *does* have a private life beneath her duty-to-the-party exterior. It also continues the ongoing theme of "Mirage's love life is a disaster area".

MIRAGE NINE and FATHOM TEN are set on Entelechy, immediately preceeding and during the battle between the Brotherhood of Change and Waterwall's army. Mirage Nine answers Rafe's question of WHY Paragon and his friends came to attack the place on their behalf, and actually shows the Waterwall Heroes that were mentioned in one of Fathom's visions a while ago - Golden, Muzzle and Viper. Fathom Ten is her jailbreak sequence, and I'm afraid that I dropped the ball on it - I had intended to make it a very Magneto-esque escape. Maybe some other time.

SOUL NINE and TEN this week show the two different points of view of Gaunt and Favoured/Julius - the campaign bad guy who can control all life and the God of Life. I am most pleased with Soul Nine, and Renaud expresses his satisfaction (as Gaunt was once his player character) at Gaunt's motivation. Andy didn't get why Gaunt refers to Soul as "The Symbol" - Gaunt was branded with a Pheonix symbol by his people for trying to create new life. The question now becomes - is Soul an actual Pheonix, or is Soul the part of Gaunt's now rather spread-out "self" that corresponds to the brand, and to his consience? I honestly haven't decided, and have intended either, or both, or none, at various times during the planning of the campaign. Soul Ten was rushed to meet deadlines, but hopefully gave him a good talking-to.

Ebonheart

11-17-2004, 10:38 AM

Come on Dave,

you've only got a couple of days to write up the next session before you become out of date again.

Don't give up now ;-)

DaveB

11-17-2004, 12:03 PM

Actually, Chris, I'm already two sessions behind.

And considering how best to catch up. These things are taking too long to write, and I think I might up the summary:retelling ratio.

I dunno. Is anyone out there reading this other than the players? Cause if not, I'll switch to summary mode.

Ebonheart

11-17-2004, 03:16 PM

True, you are aren't you.

I suppose the two halves of the mammoth Caravan trip kind of blend into one session... in my mind...

A very good session though.

I like reading them because it makes it much easier to roleplay Air 8 - I don't need to remember things in session as there is always a reminder up here...

Chris.

PaulK

11-17-2004, 03:50 PM

Longspeak

11-18-2004, 04:41 PM

I'm reading it and I'm going to post the URL of the thread to the Everway mailing list.

Incentive enough to keep on ?

I am also reading it, and thanks Paul for letting us over at Everway-L know about this.

Dave, why the heck aren't you with us on Everway-L showing us how it's done?

I'm only through the first page, but had to jump to the end to post my support.

A Thousand Times,

Longspeak Teller
Moderator, Everway-L
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/everway-l

AliceM

11-19-2004, 05:09 AM

I'm reading it too! Despite the fact that I live in the house the games take place in! Well, more because of it. I hear so much about the characters that it's quite nice to know what's going on. It means that some of the conversations going on in the living room aren't totally over my head.

Liss.

DaveB

11-19-2004, 06:12 AM

Alright! Alright!

I shall get on it.

DaveB

11-19-2004, 06:47 AM

Dave, why the heck aren't you with us on Everway-L

Because until now I hadn't heard of it. I'll register tonight.

Longspeak

11-19-2004, 11:47 AM

Spherewalker's Handbook? Is this available in PDF or is it some hyper-difficult to obtain supplement that I should be hunting for as we speak?

(I'm getting caught up, in more ways than one.)

Spherewalker Sourcebook is a VERY difficult to find book, but very worth finding. Gaslight Press, the current license-holders, has the books, but are difficult to reach.

Dave, so far I'm incredibly impressed with the concept, the style, the execution, and the level of detail you show. I humbly request to become your student.

A Thousand Times,

LT

DaveB

11-19-2004, 04:14 PM

We continue...

As Chris says above, sessions five and six are both set entirely on Caravan and should be considered a two-parter. So I'll do the out-of-character bit after both of them.

SESSION FIVE - CARAVAN

CARAVAN (Cont)

The Sun rises on the Greenhills gate-town, which is steadily filling up with travellers ready for the Caravan's arrival. Our heroes are variously up and exercising (Echo), getting up from a night spent in a very loud and busy inn (Fathom), getting up from a night in a considerably less loud and busy inn (Valour), creeping into the no-longer loud and noisy inn after having spent all night talking to Paragon and Viper (Mirage and Soul) and - having gotten up before dawn - ignoring all the safety signs and hiking off into the wilderness alone (Talisman).

While Fathom searches for breakfast, trying not to disturb the unconscious revellers and trying her best not to notice the two women leaving Talisman's room, Echo slips off into the town to look for books. Echo has always liked to read (her preferences run to tactical warfare, philosophy and bodice-ripping romances of the trashy sort), and considers her lack of books post-amnesia to be something to rectify now she's in civilisation. Especially if she's going to be on the Caravan for a month.

Out in the wilderness, Talisman hikes onwards. He can feel himself... thinning... the further away he goes from the inhabited areas, as Caravan's Usurper Force tries to make him vanish. But Talisman isn't technically a human and his Soul is housed solidly within the Pearl on his chest rather than being spread out throughout his entire being. The Pearl anchors him and - although he has an odd sensation of the Pearl being several times more "real" than the rest of his body is - he remains happily solid.

Fathom strikes food, and is beginning to exploit the oppertunities it presents when Soul and Mirage return. She asks them where they've been so early and they - after an uncomfortable pause - tell her where they've been. Mirage tells Soul that he's not allowed to tell Echo (for such was Paragon's frankly odd request) or Talisman (for he can't keep a secret to save his life.)

Immediate jump-cut to Talisman enacting the ritual to summon a Dragon (his "Cousin" Tharissma, as seen in the Vision Talisman-Nine), which he has kept secret from everyone but Echo.

In the other inn, Valour checks his wound from the night before, and is relieved to see that he cleaned it out successfully and that it is not turning infected. Carefully re-dressing it, he goes to see what's going on in the world.

Talisman is returning from his trip, trying to think of what might have gone wrong - the Dragon didn't show. He resolves to try again at the Battlefield Gate, for such is where he knows he managed to contact her the last time. The morning has seen more arrivals through the Everway, and on his way to the bookshop he runs into (almost literally) an overbearing gentleman with an improbably square chin, dressed in full metal armour, who is loudly berating his servant. The other man is small, rat-like and carrying twice his own body weight in cases and bags, while the Knight has empty hands and full lungs. Disliking him on sight, Talisman trips the Knight up with a tendril of Colour and heads into the bookshop, where he almost collides with Echo.

While Talisman shops for Bestiaries, asking for anything about Dragons, Echo takes her own finds and leaves - passing by the Knight, who is flat on his back and unable to get up. It's Valour (passing by on his quest for diversion) that helps him up, and introduces himself.

The Knight, it seems, is Crashing Steel - the Mightiest Knight on Life (self-proclaimed) and champion of the Sphere of Folly. His servant is called Snipe. They've been wandering the Old Kingdoms, looking for the fabled Sword of Vanguard - the weapon of a legendary hero that defeated an army of evil tree-men some 700 years ago. Valour - remembering that Mirage said she'd heard about a Sphere called Vanguard - asks him about that Sphere, but the Knight doesn't know what he's talking about. Vanguard was definately a person. The quest for the sword goes badly - Crashing Steel has tracked it to Doomshield, where it was sadly given to one of the Mages that periodically reinforces the Doomshield. Where it went after that, some 250 years previous, is anyone's guess.

While Echo is still out shopping (having achieved mind-broadening material, she is visiting various alchemists with an eye to purchasing poisions), Talisman returns to the inn. "Don't tell Talisman" lasts about five seconds, and he is inducted into the not-very-exclusive club of those who know Paragon is here. The topic is shifted away when one of the unconcious revellers becomes concious and also seeks out food, introducing himself as "Hound", an adventurer. Just as Hound leaves, Echo and Valour arrive - and the prospect of talking about Echo behind her back vanishes.

Hours later, and the inn is once again busy - the place is, if anything, more packed than it was the night before. Soul is annoying a "man" named "Shining Flame", who is quite blatantly a girl with a fake beard. Soul's angle of annoyance hinges on asking her why she's pretending to be a man, which is geting whoever it is on the defensive. Echo is talking about philosophy (the conversation having lead in from her new books) with Mirage, Talisman is "talking" to the three-feet tall blue women (who turn out to not be able to speak, but via the medium of writing, gestures and interpretive dance introduce themselves as a party of merchants from the Sphere of "Warren") and Valour recounts the tale of Crashing Steel - the group consensus being that Vanguard (the Sphere) was most likely named after Vanguard (the man). Fathom - after some thought - decides that the time has come for Soul to sleep with the menfolk. In other words, she's tired of having the brat around all the time. Valour agrees to take him (to Soul's chagrin) and give Fathom the freedom of her own room again. Talisman notices the ladies he was entertaining the night before, and is in prime location to see a black-cloaked figure plunge a dagger into Queen's chest. (ooc - QUeen is the woman with the head of an ant from last time).

The assassin is the immediate subject of over a dozen angry spherewalkers' powers - Fathom encases it's legs in ice, Glow fires beams of energy from her eyes, Hound and Mirage both leap straight at him, Shining Flame emits a jet of flame, Talisman wraps him in Colour and so on. Mirage - sensing that he's about to teleport - impacts with him and shifts into the form of an insect.

He teleports, vanishing in a cloud of smoke, and Mirage vanishes with him. She's suddenly aware of being somewhere cold and dark (possibly underground) and that whatever he is, he's Tainted - she can feel the hivemind trying to assimilate her and struggles away from him, shifting rapidly (as it worked as a tactic on Empty Throne). The connection broken, he teleports again - leaving her alone in what she rapidly figures out is a cave.

But this is Caravan, where people that stray away from other people disappear.

Back at the bar, Talisman hollers for a healer, and the diminutive blue women step forward, laying on hands and healing Queen with a flash of light. That done, everyone pours out into the town to look for Mirage, Talisman and Valour flying up to gets birds' eye views.

Mirage herself - feeling herself start to "thin" and getting close to panic - manages to burrow her way out through a heap of fallen pebbles and out into the open air. She's halfway up a mountain, and there are no signs of civilisation. Trying very hard not to notice the fact tha she's turning semi-transparant, she shifts into the fastest flying animal she knows (a type of Owl from the world of Broken Axe back in the companions' homeworlds) and starts to fly around the mountain, hoping very much that it's the same one the town is built into the foot of.

Fortunately for her, it is. She *just* barely makes it back in time, and lands badly shaken. She tells Talisman what happened, and he spreads the word. The Inn's customers gradually filter away, their appetites lost, and Soul follows Shining Flame, continuing to bug the hell out of "him" for his own amusement before Flame goes back to the house "he" is renting, slamming the door shut in Soul's face.

On the plus side, Mirage elects to stay with Valour that night, so Soul gets a room of his own for a change. Mirage - grasping the moment - tells Valour about Paragon.

In the morning light, Echo decides to spend the day reading her books (and therefore escape from the company of the others for a bit), Fathom is alone in the bar and Talisman, Soul and Mirage go to annoy Shining Flame. Well, that's not what they say they're doing, but they all know deep down that they are.

Valour - deeply disturbed by what Mirage told him - seeks Echo out, and tells her that there's something very important he has to tell her. Downstairs, Fathom is interrupted in her contemplation of beer by Viper, who is also here to see Echo. Fathom shows him the room, and there is a brief negotiation before Viper and one of Echo end up in the room while Valour and a copy of Echo end up in the hallway. Viper - checking if she HAS lost her memory - initially tells her a tall tale of how she was cheating on Paragon with him, but is eventualy convinced that she's not faking it.

Echo is told - in simultaneous worried tones of voice by both Viper and Echo - that Paragon is here, has met with the others and has asked them not to tell her that he's here.

Viper, in fact, goes one step further (by virtue of knowing more while Valour has pretty much run out of revelations with that opener) - he tells her why. Apparantly, past-Echo made Paragon swear that if she reverted to her "old" ways (like she has, post-amnesia) he'd kill her. Paragon, who thanks to Mirage knows what's happened, is wrestling with the decision of whether or not to put his wife out of her misery. Viper answers what questions he can - how long she was away from the others, where she met Paragon, etc - and tells her that another mutual friend once said Echo had told him of a "Room With No Doors" in the Palace on Waterwall. Apparantly, it was something of her sanctuary.

Viper leaves, hoping to get back before he's missed, and Valour sticks his wings in, trying to make himself look good at the other's expense. He gets them bitten off for his trouble.

Over at Shining Flame's, the lads (and Mirage) arrive to the sound of a fight from inside. They kick the door in just in time to see the assassin (who Shining Flame has successfully fought off) vanishing in his usual puff of smoke. Shining Flame says that "he's" fine, and throws them out again.

Viper tells Fathom about the whole death-pact thing on his way out (Viper seems genuinely pleased to see Fathom), and she decides to go have a chat with Paragon herself - agreeing that she won't tell Paragon that Viper and Valour have told Echo about Paragon. This is getting confusing. Viper is clear about one thing, though - he doesn't think Paragon will go through with it.

Fathom meets Paragon, who greets her like a man who hasn't slept since he found out his wife was back. She asks him why he's waiting, and he tells her about the oath, about how he can't do it and about how that's making him feel guilty. She pats him on the shoulder and hot-foots it back to the Inn, just as the boys return.

Echo goes ballistic, (understandably) accusing the others of keeping something from her that she'd really have rather known. Mirage apologises matter-of-factly, stating that Paragon needed a bit to come to terms with it all. Echo angrily tells her that Paragon's trying to decide if he should kill them all. Fathom tries to convince her otherwise, and Echo storms off.

The recriminations begin, the others blaming one another (and Valour getting especially stonewalled for his part in this whole cluster-fuck) before Talisman points out that the Mysterious Teleporting Assassin is still out there, and she probably shouldn't be alone.

While the gang are searching the taverns, Echo is sitting on the edge of the edge of the "wharf" that the Caravan is meant to draw alongside, flipping pebbles off into the twilight. She's joined by the odd creature that looks like a cross between a vulture and a orangutan that was in the inn before - he intrdouces himself as Nimble, and offers her a drink from his bottle of spirits. The two get to talking - Nimble turns out to be from a Sphere called the Sea of Wonders (which Fathom has had visions of), and came to these worlds via a one-way Gate. He's been away from home for twelve years now, and is wandering without any idea of what to do with himself. He tells Echo about a few worlds he's been to - filling in some blanks on their patchy Sphere-map, and they both settle down for a long night's flipping pebbles.

In the background, Talisman is sat on the roof of a nearby building. Deciding not to interrupt them (his motivation was to make sure she didn't get teleport-stabbed, not to intrude), he settles down for the night, too.

Talisman is woken up by the very loud gong on the watchtower next to his roof - The Caravan has arrived!

The Caravan is a long chain of thirty wagons, each the size of a three-story house, drawn by mammoth creatures that appear to be related to Elephants. There's a walkway running along the sides, from which the cabins are accessed, and these join up by means of chain bridges to one another so that it's possible to walk down the entire length of the Caravan. (ooc - imagine a long-haul railway crossed with a ship. Now make it out of wood, put it on wheels and roll it through a desert). The front wagon has a massive prow, like a ship, and a raised tower that houses (presumably) the crew.

Once the Caravan stops, the embarking begins. All of those Spherewalkers line up and pay the Caravanmaster (whose name turns out to be Guide - he was in one of Soul's visions) and when it's our guys' turn he recognises them. Mirage is amused to see that Paragon and Viper have taken her fashion advice to heart and are wearing grey cloaks instead of black. Talisman helps the blue midgit women with their vast amount of cargo, transporting it all down to the wharf with Colours.

Once all are aboard, the Caravan sets off.

The gang are shown to their (three of em, with two hammocks each - in fact, the deja vu is thick and fast this day, as Valour recognises the cabins from his very first Vision) by a crewmember named Cloud. Talisman immediately goes seeking an upgrade, while the others wearily dole out hammocks.

Crashing Steel and Snipe are moving into one of the wealthier, individual suites near the front of the caravan, but Talisman avoids conversation. Other travellers include Hound, Nimble and their cronies, Queen and Glow, the Monks, Paragon and Viper, the Warren Merchants, Vision (from last session), Shining Flame and last - but not least - a rather arrogant wizard named "Fortunate", who looks at everyone as though they were bugs and - in the case of the smaller passengers - kicks people out of the way.

The early days of the journey are idyllic, as the passengers all bond against Fortunate by taking it in turns to persecute him right back. Talisman trips him up with Colour, Nimble steals his food and so on. Only Crashing Steel remains aloof from the games, mostly because he hasn't noticed.

Day four of the journey, though, sees an end to the frivolity. There's a scream from Fortunate's cabin - the maid has just found his very dead body, with a dagger rather like that used to try and kill Valour last session stuck in it.

The assassin is on board.

DaveB

11-19-2004, 05:05 PM

I'm halfway through the next writeup, and calling it a night. I guess I'll remain two behind for now.

DaveB

11-19-2004, 05:50 PM

I shall try to make this quicker.

SESSION SIX - CARAVAN

So, asks Talisman to noone in particular, does this mean we get his room?

Hound and Mirage both turn into dogs and have a sniff about, confirming that it was Mr-I-Can-Teleport. Hound goes to warn his cronies that the Assassin's back. Soul goes over to the body and performs his incredible Soul-sucking routine, absorbing the spirit of the dead mage. Just as they're looking speculativly at all of Fortunate's luggage, the guard arrives and asks them to leave.

Outside, and a bit away from the spooked guards, Soul tells the others what he's learnt by interrogating Fortunate's spirit. The wizard was on Caravan to hunt for treasure - he intended to journey onwards to Far Window, learn the location of the Dragon of Caravan's hoard and come back, using a spell he had perfected to prevent Thinning on a team of mercenaries. Those mercenaries would be Hound, Nimble and the rest of the band of adventurers that are sleeping one Wagon over from the characters. He was, indeed, killed by the teleporting Tainted.

While everyone settles down for a tense journey as news of the death travels, Valour decides to get proactive and walks around attemmpting to read the mind of everyone on board, making a list of those he can't (as he couldn't read the assassin, either, so it narrows the list of suspects). Echo, stil trying to think of what to do about Paragon and Waterwall (which is, after all, where they're heading), is on the roof, thinking about things.

Speaking of the Husband, he (still in his not-disguise) is lurking around the dead man's cabin too. Mirage - spotting him and checking that Echo isn't around - marches up to him and tells him that if he wants to kill Echo, he has to go through her. He is shocked and appaled that she thinks him capable of it, and wants to know who told her this. She shamefacedly drops Viper in it - both for spreading the death-pact story and for telling Echo - and Paragon marches off to his cabin, ready to have a ...discussion... with Viper. Mirage considers for a moment, shifts into the form of a fly and prepares to be on the wall. As it were.

While Paragon gets all monarch-like on Viper, Crashing Steel gathers everyone he can find together, and announces that he has solved the murder - it was HOUND. Mirage helpfully points out that Hound was outside with her when it happened, Crashing Steel counters with the fact that Hound is a werewolf. Nobody is suprised by that. Not one person. Hound turns out to be out and proud as a werewold, and Crashing Steel (warning them all that he's got his eye on them), sweeps out, berating Snipe as he goes. Again. On the plus side, Hound invites Talisman to the card game his team have started to liven up the journey.

After the Funeral service (the body being dumped off the back of the caravan, where it will disppear after they've gone far enough away), the gang come to the conclusion that Teleport-boy has to be hiding out somewhere. Mirage's hunch is that he's got a maximum range, and they don't know if he's affected by the Thinning process like a normal person. And so begins a systematic search of the Caravan from front to back, breaking into (well, unpicking the locks of) the cargo compartments and haylofts (each wagon has a hayloft. To feed the Wagon Beast, obviously). They discover - in no particular order - stone, a stowaway girl (who, after ascertaining she isn't a Tainted, they leave alone), a whole shitload of cows, urns, many many barrels and crates, what looks like a giant demonic spider in a cage and a dead Caravan Guard's corpse.

This, as they say, is not good. not good at all.

Mirage runs and tells Guide, who is a bit surprised. Especially as the guard they describe was talking to him not ten minutes ago. An impomteau - and above all else subtle - search turns the creature masquerading as the guard up.

It teleports away in a rather irritatingly familiar puff of smoke.

Guide has now Had Enough. He announces that he's going to perform a ritual to count all the Souls on board - and see their locations - to figure out where the evildoer is hiding. Talisman and Mirage quietly tell him about the stowaway and pay for a cabin for her before he starts.

Funeral Service Two, and while Fathom goes "Talent-spotting" (her words. She's on the pull), and Talisman finds out that one of Hound's crew is a luck-manipulator too (it's okay, they split the games and win half each), Echo is still angsting away in her cabin, helped by Valour (who's doing a much better job of being nonjudgemental this time).

At which point Paragon decides that enough is enough, and knocks on the door. His opening gambit takes her somewhat by surprise - "Hello, I'm Paragon. I'm just going around checking that everyone knows to be on their guard.". Essentially, he's pretending to have never met her before. A couple of times it gets the better of him and he has to leave and come back in to start again, but the gist is - Paragon and Echo, to his thinking, are surrounded by people telling them how to react to the amnesia - the other characters, Viper, even past-Echo herself have all stuck their oar in, when the only two people who have a valid opinion on the subject are the two of them. So, in that spirit, he promises to not try to tell her what to do. It's up to her, and he's determined to treat her as she is - someone who was described to him by his wife, that he hasn't met before.

Before leaving to let her think it over, he hands her a metal tube. It's a scrollcase - one of hers, with the catch on the inside so only someone who can pass through solid objects like herself can open it. He leaves, and she opens it.

It's a letter.

From her.

DaveB

11-19-2004, 06:43 PM

(ooc - points for spotting where I've ripped the framework of this from. Creativity, as Mark Rein Hagen once said, is hiding your sources)

I don’t know what kind of me will be reading this, but my name is Echo Wanderer. I’m probably not the person you thought you were, I’ll wager I made some choices you wouldn’t – but that doesn’t matter. You can’t change my life, any more than I can change yours.

I don’t think I’ve got much time until we leave for Entelechy, but my friends are going to need my help. Maybe nothing will happen – maybe the Glen of Tomorrow didn’t show what I thought it showed. But in case it does happen, I just want you to know who I am and what I want. Wanted. Whatever.

The others can fill you in on most of the broad details – which Sphere came when, that sort of thing. But there’s some things that they don’t know. That’s what I’m going to write about. (Damn. I can hear them outside – the army’s nearly mustered). I guess your big question is “what happened? How did I wind up Princess of a world I’ve never heard of?” Well, it was gradual. Laughable as this sounds, it just sort of happened that way. Early on, it was brought home to me that the others were not infallible, and that realisation combined with being away from home and my handlers meant that I questioned their judgement – questioned the judgement of my “superiors”. That questioning led to me realising – with some force – that I didn’t agree with what I did. I may have thrown up and cried my eyes out a few times. When Valour tried to force the issue one time on a world called Ancient Empire, I refused (and broke his nose. You may feel the need to apologise for that. He agrees that he deserved it) and handled things my way. I got the job done without killing anyone, and that gave me... confidence. In my own judgement. I was right, and Valour was wrong. It’d happened before (ask them about Open Soul sometime) but that was the first time I confronted them about it and WON.

Something for you to think about, there. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably deeply resenting being told that people prefer me like me instead of like you. That resentment – that feeling that they have no right to dictate your life – is EXACTLY what turned you into me. So go for it!

I’m wasting time.

Anyway, a while after that we found a world called Wanderlost, and I met some people from home. They were happy. Joyously happy, in fact. They had been peasants until they stumbled into the Gate that led out here, and now they were free. They’d made a life for themselves away from His rule, and they’d never looked back.

And that’s when I knew that I wasn’t going to go back, either.

So that’s the truth – I didn’t leave the Quest because I got married. For two and a half YEARS before I even met Paragon, I was looking at every world I came to thinking “is this it? Is this my home?” I wanted to do something. I wanted do be something other than an assassin for a corrupt ruler, giving my servitude freely to a man who doesn’t deserve anything other than a quick and ugly death. Paragon, Waterwall, my life here – they’re all just what I decided on when the opportunity came. I could have just as easily stayed on Shift, or gone to live peacefully on Birthright as a scribe, or retired in peace on Ancient Empire with Blade. (You don’t remember Blade, do you? Paragon won’t be able to tell you about him – I became much less inhibited over the last five years, but I’m still not up to discussing ex-lovers with my husband). The point is, that this whole journey is one long series of opportunities for you. Look at them all and think to yourself – would you be better off staying? The answer will, if you’re honest, often be harder to judge than you think.

In the end, though, I didn’t intend to stay on Waterwall. Paragon didn’t, either – he was going to go all the way to the world of the Lost Force, and then all the way back to Crystal with us. And then who knows? Maybe we would have gone all the way back to Waterwall again, or retired on some world that we’d found. But when we got here, we found out that his father had died. Paragon was suddenly the Prince (he won’t be the King for a few years yet – on Waterwall you get the title after a probationary period) and had responsibilities that he couldn’t shirk.

He offered to divorce me, you know. So I could carry on with the others. I told him not to be stupid, and settled down. Sure, my choice had been made for me by Karma instead of by conscious decision, but I was happy with it.

1. Paragon

You’ve probably wondered at some point “Why HIM?” Gods know, sometimes I’ve wondered. And I keep coming back to the same answer. Paragon is a Hero, in the way that you’ve never been and deep down you’ve always wanted to be. He’s not the brightest man in the worlds (though not stupid. Never assume he’s stupid. He just thinks on a level deeper than the rest of us, and his brain doesn’t quite match up to his mouth), but he’s the kindest. And the bravest. In worlds filled with moral compromises, where your primary male company is a dirty rotten scoundrel of a half-Dragon (much as I love Talisman), an arrogant Bird-Man and a Pheonix going incognito in the body of a small boy as part of an elaborate sneak attack on some nameless evil, Paragon’s sense of right and wrong – and his willingness to stick to that no matter what – shines out. He’d face an army to save a single innocent life. And he’d win. Sometimes I worry about him – about how much being a ruler hurts him, and how hard he finds it when everyone around him is telling him to compromise and every fibre of his being is saying “no”. Paragon is too good for this world, and I worry about what would happen if it dragged him down with it. I’m rambling here, I know. It’s hard to explain (but hopefully you can see how I – an ex-assassin struggling to find her moral compass and purpose in life – would be attracted to someone who knows what Good is, does Good on a daily basis and isn’t arrogant about it). I don’t know what you being you instead of me is going to do to him. I have nightmares sometimes – in them, I’ve gone back to Wall and Paragon – much older, eyes lidded with pain and sadness – comes to kill the Emperor to free me, and we have to fight. I can see it happening – it’s not one of those “maybe” dreams, I can honestly say that if you DO go back to Wall, he might swear vengeance on the Emperor and go after you out of love. Because, no matter what, he does love you. With his huge heart, and his willingness to do pretty much anything for you.

He’s also quite good in bed for someone who was a virgin when I met him. Don’t tell him I said that. If it were up to me, I’d try to find some way to stay with him. But it’s not.

2. Talisman

Talisman is my best friend – the one I miss the most, much to Paragon’s dismay (it was never like that, by the way. You’ve never been with Talisman in that way. The very idea is laughable). For all I know, maybe you can’t stand him. But he cares about you something stupid and wonderful. He talks a big talk about not being a hero, but he stayed with me when I was hurting. That’s too damn rare. And he was smart enough to save my life. Keep reminding him of that. And LISTEN when he talks to you. We both got on fine once we started actually listening to one another, and we became the closest friends in the Companions. Talisman has things going on in his life – things that he only told to me. I’m not sure how much I should tell you about that, but in the spirit of forewarning you – the Dragons have some sort of plan for him, involving the Lost Force. And he’s scared – more scared than he’ll admit about it.

I wish I’d done more to help him with that. Maybe you can do better. Maybe you won’t care.

I’m really running short of time now – I just heard the horns. I wanted to tell you about the others but there’s something more important to relate. You’ll have to ask them about Soul and the Taint, about what happened to Valour and the Chirugeon, about True Mirror and what we all saw there (I told Paragon mine, in case the others don’t know). Sorry.

Our path is laden with revelatory worlds – every so often, we came across a world that showed us something, or told us something, about ourselves. Valour thinks of the journey as stages – he clumps Spheres together by type, or politics (like the Young Kingdoms, or the Thousand Sands). Fathom keeps track of Years, and divides it up that way. Mirage thinks of it as “pre-Soul” and “post-Soul”. Talisman thinks of it as Journeys – marking our progress according to which sphere we were heading to at the time. I like to think of it as stages marked by the revelatory worlds – Open Soul, Love’s Retort, Fire Plume, Glen of Tomorrow, True Mirror and Far Window.

Far Window. It’s that I’m going to spend my last few minutes talking about. It’s connected to Waterwall (you and Paragon technically OWN it) and is the main trade route to Bastion. It’s relatively normal, and provides most of Waterwall’s food. But high up in the mountains there, there’s an enchanted grotto. It allows you to Scry on worlds or people that you know – no matter how far away in the Everways they are – but only works once for each person. It’s why we’re going to Entelechy. Paragon and me went there a week ago (my time) and he decided to use his one chance at using it to make me happy. I’d been feeling down ever since our first anniversary – the first anniversary of staying behind – and he decided to see where the others were, to put my mind at rest. He saw them in prison on Entelechy, a troublesome world on our border, and he’s getting his entire army together to go and free our friends. He’s taking it as a declaration of War – you remember what I wrote about how he’d plough through an army...? Well, he’s really, really pissed off at the thought of someone hurting his friends.

What I haven’t told him – or anybody – is what I chose to see. Wall. I couldn’t help it – I just HAD to see what was going on back there.

It was horrible. The Usurper Force of the Sphere – Division – has run out of all control. The Peasants have lost even what little they had. The Emperor lives entirely alone in an empty palace, which he has trapped to kill anyone who tries to enter. The Everways have been bricked up, the people are starving and children are only being live-born in tiny numbers. If it’s like that now, it cannot survive the time it will take the others to get back. It is surely only a matter of time before someone kills the Emperor, or he falls prey to one of his own traps. It brought it home to me, in a way it wasn’t before – made me see Why We Fight. I know what’s happening back in our home spheres, and why they desperately need what we’re looking for.

Or, rather, what we haven’t been looking for for 13 ½ months, while I’ve been royalty and the others have been imprisoned.

They just knocked on my door.

I was right. I know I was. I am not a killer – I am who I am now, and my life is worth what I’ve sacrificed for it. But someone has to go back to Crystal with the Lost Force. That means freeing my friends. And maybe going with them.

I know you probably don’t agree with where I ended up, but that isn’t the point – think of it as one solution to a problem that you’re going to have to face. If you don’t like the solution that I came up with, find your own. But SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Don’t ignore it.

I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know if I want to stay with Paragon, or finish the Quest with the others. If I’ll even have the choice. But even if you don’t stay – whatever you do, don’t go back. Don’t go back to Wall, OR to our old way of life. Please. I mean it. Leave both Paragon AND the others if you have to, just don’t end up in the same old life. You can do more. Remember that THERE IS MORE OUT THERE.

Remember that.

Look for the Room With No Doors.

Got to go.

ECHO

DaveB

11-19-2004, 07:04 PM

Days later, and Soul and Echo have decided that - given that Guide's ritual has failed to show anyone up - that they need to look for clues in Fortunate's cabin. This is in no way an attempt by Echo to take her mind off Paragon. At all. Honest, guvvenor.

In any case, they weren't counting on the great big honking Tainted - that appears to have once *been* Fortunate - sat in the middle of the room. It charges them, and They Fight (the other copy of Echo summoning the others), until it rips Soul's throat out with a clawed appendage. Echo desperately shifts body-mass into the other her as Soul's blood starts to catch fire, while the Tainted roars in entirely temporary victory.

Soul's Rebirth takes out the Tainted, and indeed most of the wagon.

He really hates it when they kill him.

While the secondary fires are being put out, Echo reports to the others. Somehow, Fortunate's body got from being a corpse thrown overboard to being a Tainted on board. Paragon and Mirage have a brainwave and jump overboard themselves - Paragon's invunerability taking the fall to ground level, while Mirage flies down.

After walking up and down the length of the Caravan, checking it's underside for hanging monsters, Mirage spots a hole that's been ripped through the wooden floor of one of the wagons. Getting back on board, the pair of them go to the correct cargo hold and take a look. It's the one with the Spider-Demon inside (which Mirage's growing sense of animal empathy tells her really hates them), and loads of crates. Moving the crates reveals the hole.

This, then, would be how they've been getting on board.

Fetching Valour - who is advising Echo on her situation - they get a mind-reading on the Spider-Demon. It wants to eat people's brains. No, really. It also saw someone come up through the hole, but all humanoids look alike to it.

Fathom - bemoaning the fact that she's immune to alchohol - is considering flirting with Vision, when another scream goes up. Male, this time. The mob surge outside, to find Snipe sobbing over the body of Crashing Steel.

Funeral Service Three, and the mood is turning angry.

Echo - having considered and rejected posisoning him - goes to see Paragon to talk.

Upstairs, Everyone is making their distrustful ways about when the assassin teleports in and attempts to go for Snipe. The convfluence of many powers hits it, and there is satisfaction from the crowd as it doesn't manage to teleport away in time. One dead Tainted, crumbling to ash all over Snipe.

Echo tells Paragon that she knows what she saw in him - or at least, what her letter to herself said she saw in him, and asks him what he saw in her. He's thinking over his reply when disaster strikes.

Valour and Mirage are on the roof, chewing the fat (Valour is trying to decide whether or not to give in to the metal trying to take over his body), when they spot someone in the distance. It's Snipe, but there's a horrible slow-motion moment as Valour realises he can't read him any more. Snipe was Tainted by the teleporting assassin, and upon seeing them seeing it the creature legs it across the Wagontops. They give chase (Valour hampered by having shot his edge feathers off in the last fight), and Mirage manages to decapitate it. The head rolls off the roof and onto the walkway, where it is picked up by a guard to their horror. HE immediately gets taken over, and the chase begins again, ending when the new Tainted jumps off the interlinking bridge between Paragon's wagon and Crashing Steel's.

STraight into the Wagon Beast.

The new, elephant-sized, Tainted immediately charges to it's left, forcing the wagons with it as it runs down a very steep scree slope. Echo and Paragon feel the earth move as their Wagon pitches over on it's side and begins to slide down the slope, dragging others with it. As Talisman desperately sends discs of Colour to sever the connections and save most of the Caravan, Fathom slides down the slope after the falling wagons, filling their walls with ice to try to keep them in shape. Unfortunately, this means that Echo can't pass through the walls and get out (ice is reflective), and she's trapped as the Wagon shatters around her and collapses in on itself. All told, three Wagons went down, and the giant Tainted is killed after a short battle between it and every other Spherewalker.

The dust is settling, the two non-Tainted Beasts that were dragged down are howling in pain and the attempts to dig people out of the wreckage begin. Several people - including Cloud - are dead, as (perhaps thankfully) is the Spider-Demon. Echo has a badly broken leg, and there are worse injuries. Once Paragon's dug out from the wreckage he's fine (still indestructible). The blue midgit healers and the monks of moral ambiguity do their work, and people are patched up. The remaining Wagons are hitched to fill the gap, and all semblance of not rushing is abandoned - Guide instructs his drivers to get to the Battlefield Gate Town as quickly as is humanly possible.

Soul, thinking about this, sets fire to the wreckage. Just in case.

Four Days later, and the reduced Caravan reaches the Battlefield gate. Almost everyone gets off, citing killer monsters, and Guide gets noone from the gatetown who wants to travel aboard the Caravan of Death. While they resupply, the various people pressing on to Waterwall (that'd be our gang, Viper and Paragon) head off into town to enjoy it's hospitality while they can. Except for Talisman, who has a date with a Dragon. For the last three days, he's had a feeling in the back of his mind, like he's sensing a presence. He thinks it's the Dragon from his vision (and Fortunate's nefarious plans) and so off he goes.

At the same place as in his vision, She arrives. A full-blown Dragon. Quite impressive, in a terrifying way. They exchange gifts (or "hoard-link", as she puts it) and settle down to business. She, Tharissma, Mistress of the Winds, knows things. Things he'd like to know.

It's not good.

Dragons, she explains, were First. They existed before the world shattered into many Spheres and so were created before the Lost Force was lost. Their beings were harmonised with all of the Forces, and they were perfect. The present shattered state - and the loss of that final force - is what caused their fall, and is the reason each generation of Dragons has fewer gifts than the one before it. The pattern of their beings is unravelling. When she said that Strabo - Talisman's father - sought Completion, she meant it. The Unity - the ball Soul is carrying around - can turn a Dragon back into what they were before the Gods cursed them. That's what Strabo wants.

And she has news for Talisman. He's not a half-Dragon. He's a Dragon. A Dragon without *any* Forces. They used to be hundreds like him, made during the first years after the Fall, but the practise isn't used now that the Dragons know how to take on human shape. Strabo made him so that he could go to the world of the Unity and retrieve it for him.

After that, and informing him of another aspect of the hoard-link (invoked when a Dragon dies) that allows access to the Dragon's Graveyard, she leaves. A very peturbed Talisman heads back to town, wondering how much of that he can believe.

Back on board the Caravan, it's Full speed ahead to the Waterwall gate. Echo and Paragon spend most of the time sequestered together, talking. Everyone else hangs out and wishes teh journey were over already - Talisman telling the others what Tharissma said, Valour getting opinions on his choice of whether or not to fight what the Chirugeon did to him and Viper telling them about Entelechy's history (he's from there) before the Brotherhood of Change arrived.

Seven days later, and the Caravan rumbles along a causeway crossing a giant salt lake. At the lake's centre is a fortress, built around the Waterwall gate.

Not looking back, they go through.

DaveB

11-19-2004, 07:21 PM

Well, that's it. I'm up to date again. Go me.

No Visions for these two sessions (well, there was a set right at the end, but I'll do them next time), though there was still a hell of a lot going on here.

The setting is becoming increasingly defined, with loads of Spheres that I haven't gone into on the thread so far described as the characters are actively seeking out traveller's tales and suchlike. The fact that I spent Session Five establishing a hoard of Spherewalkers (ready to have them as the cast of the Murder on the Caravan Express in Session Six) helped. I'm considering compiling all the Spheres they know about in the same format as the example Spheres are given in the Everway corebook. If any of the Everway GMs reading this reckon it'd be useful, give me a shout. Viper giving the background of Entelechy before it became a lair of the Bad Guys (as a Realm dedicated to social change and experimental government) helped too.

My sources are showing, again - Nimble the monkeybird is a copy of a character from Pirates of Dark Water, while Queen is based on a Kepri from China Mieville's Gas-lag books. Crashing Steel was written in after the post-game natter after Session Four mentioned Mandorallen from the Belgariad.

Storywise, the motivation for the attacks was pretty simple, and figured out at the end by Valour - with the Caravan no longer trusted, the Young Kingdoms have been effectivly cut in half, as a prelude to invasion. That wasn't the real point, though. As ever, it's the soap-operatics that I am mostly concerned with. The most obvious case being Echo and Paragon, but the others all had their moments - Mirage explaining some of her thinking about the nature of her own free will and how she thinks like whatever creature she's in the form of, Valour's decision of whether or not to give into the metal, and his betrayal of the other character's trust when he told Echo what was going on (something which, quietly, has earned him the contempt of Talisman - Talisman sees Valour as having tried to make himself look good at Mirage's expense, despite still sleeping with her). The Dragon Plot has landed on Talisman's head, Fathom has started to rebel against her feeling of being trapped in her role and Soul is getting more and more of a clue.

markpank

11-25-2004, 02:15 AM

This is fantastic - full of great ideas, a really interesting read. Thanks for sharing this, and keep up the good work!

:D

DaveB

11-25-2004, 02:11 PM

This is fantastic - full of great ideas, a really interesting read. Thanks for sharing this, and keep up the good work!

Thanks!

On with the show!

Session Seven features only half of our "cast", as it was Renaud/Talisman's birthday the night before game night (happy birthday Renaud!), and when I turned up in Durham it was to find both him and Andy/Soul nursing hangovers of epic proportions. You may think your head hurts if you've made the unwise choice to read this thread in one go, but that's just peanuts to the state of Renaud last Sunday night. Andrea/Fathom told me to run anyway, for the three persons that were left, and so I did.

This leaves us in a somewhat unique position. If Renaud, Andy and Andrea read the thread before this sunday, it'll be the first they hear about what happened tonight. For the first time ever, our viewing public get to read the visions before the players do. They got to read the first six, as I handed them out at the end of last time (Vision Eleven for everyone), but not number Twelve.

I am really sorry about the lack of quality in my game fiction, by the way.

On the "plus" side, Andrea has now drawn Fathom twice and Valour and Talisman once each. I haven't seen the picture of Talisman yet, but Emma/Echo reckons he looks impossibly "cute". I can't tell if she means cute as in attractive or cute as in a fluffy kitten is cute.

And if I find some webspace that allows linking of images, or better yet scrape my RPG.net membership money together, I shall post them.

In case you can't figure it out from the session writeup, we were reduced to Chris/Valour, Emma/Echo and Rafe/Mirage this week. This has consequences, as I'll burble afterwards.

DaveB

11-25-2004, 02:12 PM

SESSION SEVEN

WATERWALL

Not one, but TWO Visions this wee

VALOUR ELEVEN

You’re all (well, Soul isn’t here) sitting around a campfire in a field, by the edge of a wood. Everyone looks so young – the appearances of the group are exactly as they were when they set off from Crystal. Your four companions are careful to avoid one another’s gaze. You frown, thinking the problem through.

“That was a disaster.” You say. Everyone looks up at you. Talisman cocks an eyebrow. Echo seems deeply ashamed. “An unmitigated disaster. The third Sphere on our journey, and we behave like that. We had no plan, no sense of what we were doing – just working at cross-purposes and undermining one another…”

“Our way would have worked” says Mirage, quietly and defensive, “if you hadn’t told HER” she nods at Echo, who tries to look even more humble “to ASSASSINATE HIM”.

“He was selling his own people out, and had NO intention of letting us pass through!” you exclaim, for the ninteenth time.

“And maybe if you’d told us that we could have talked about it…” tries Talisman. You cut him off with a swipe of your hand.

“Diplomacy is MY task in this group, not yours. I saw that a diplomatic solution was impossible, and took steps to get us passage.”

“Without TELLING us!” Exclaims Talisman, jumping to his feet and jabbing his finger at you. Irritated, you swat the finger away. “And just why should I have gotten your permission, Talisman? In what way did this meet with your role of ‘comedy drunk’?”

“Always looking to put people in boxes, aren’t you, Valour?” He spits. “Always looking to... pigeonhole them.” He flips you an obscene gesture and sits down, pointing at Echo, who shrinks back from the sudden attention. “Like HER. Nice slavegirl you’ve got there.”

“Echo understands when something is in her realm of experience” You say, coldly, “and when it is not.”

Fathom looks pained by the argument. Echo is trying to sink into the earth by willpower alone – poor girl. She does her job, does it well and they all blame her for their own mistake. Talisman and Mirage are still indignant.

You turn your back on them, letting them calm down, and look into the sky for inspiration. The blank blackness of it offers none – this world, aptly named Velvet Sky, has no stars and no moon. It feels odd, as though in some way you were floating, free of the influence of the Gods, the stars and the Realmforge for the first time in your life.

Left to make your own decisions.

“This can’t go on” You say. Talisman mutters something to the effect of ‘damn right it can’t’, but you ignore him. “We’ve had it EASY so far – Endless, Service, Iceberg, Bounty” you tick them off on your fingers “- and only the last one gave us any trouble – trouble that me and Echo dealt with in less than a day! Do you really think that the entire journey is going to be like this? Sooner or later, we are going to have to make some hard decisions in a crisis…”

“Good to see that you’re practicing early.” Says Mirage. You scowl at the interruption.

“Sooner or later, we are going to have to make some hard decisions in a crisis. And we can’t afford to fall apart like this again. We need a way to work it through if we have different ideas. Some way for us to avoid working against each other again.”

You pause. Fathom has started to pay attention again, Talisman is still scowling. Mirage is sitting back, waiting for you to finish. You have Echo’s rapt attention.

“We need a Leader.”

Talisman snorts, looks around for affirmation for the others, but his expression is soon wiped off his face. Echo is nodding. Fathom blinks, and nods once. Mirage looks at Talisman and shrugs, acknowledging that you’re right.

“Great. More Pigeonholes.” Talisman spits on the floor, and swipes a bottle from the packs, taking a long drink and grimacing.

“So how do we do this?” Asks Mirage, quietly.

You spread your palms, patiently explaining it to them. “We vote.”MIRAGE ELEVEN

You sit, a little way away from the camp, and stare at the blank square of parchment in your hand. You put the stick of charcoal you’re holding to it, about to write something, then lift it off again.

You are without influences for probably the first time in decades, and you don’t like it.

Looking out at the others – all equally spaced out and alone – you realise that they’re all wrapped up in their own thoughts. You can’t just fit into the group any more. The group doesn’t exist. Lifting your gaze to the sky, you regard the blank sky, with it’s absence of Moon or Stars. You don’t even have the forces of Fate, Gods and Realmforge acting upon you. The ultimate social chameleon has finally been left to make her mind up for herself.

Briefly, you consider screwing the parchment up and refusing, and glance up at Talisman. He writes something on his parchment, strides back to camp and flings the folded note into the upturned helmet, before sitting down. No, then – if Talisman has voted despite his objections, then you should too. For an instant, you realise that in this you are adapting to follow others’ leads again, and consider not going through with it again.

No.

Think rationally about this, you force yourself to think. Talisman has voted. That means that if you don’t, then there will only be four votes counted – and you can’t risk letting Valour be made party leader. He’s sure to vote for himself, and Echo or Fathom might vote for him too. You have to work out who else – if anyone – would get two votes, and vote for them in order to give them a majority.

But in doing THAT, you consider, then you’re just voting tactically in order to prevent a result. You’re not voting for who you truly believe should be in charge.

This, you think, is why Democracy is the rarest form of government in the known worlds.

Logical. You think. Go through this logically.

Valour. You think, rejecting it immediately. Why? Why not Valour? Are you dismissing the idea just because of what he did back on Bounty? Is this your pride talking? No. Not just your pride – HIS pride. Valour thinks that he should be in charge, and so as the proverb says he must never be allowed to be so. He has to learn that he can’t just do what he wants, and order others to do as he wants, while refusing to even consider what others want. This whole situation may be his idea, but he won’t get what he wants out of it – he’ll get someone who tells HIM what to do, and perhaps learn his lesson in the process.

Echo. No, again, but not for the same reason as Valour. Echo has no pride – indeed, that’s her problem. You are both slaves, but you like to think that after however long it’s been you are a self-aware slave, while she still blindly follows orders. To force the girl to make the leap to GIVING those orders would be cruel, and while you are sometimes that cruel she has done nothing to deserve it other than to allow a man who doesn’t deserve it power over her. Besides, no one else would ever vote for her.

You.

The very thought makes you almost laugh out loud. You suppress the chuckle, and move on.

Fathom. Maybe. She is used to commanding, and the water-woman seems to have the survival of the party as her number-one priority, which is refreshing. She doesn’t like to give orders, though, and is too... nice. Too determined to smooth over difficulties rather than face them. You don’t know if she has the spine to put some of the more extreme personalities in their place. Besides, you think, looking up at her, she plainly doesn’t want it.

Fathom meets your eyes against the intervening distance, nods at you and writes something quickly on her parchment, striding back to camp and sitting down with Talisman.

Talisman. Again, maybe. He plainly has nothing but contempt for this entire vote, and if elected would be the most relaxed Leader ever. He’d keep Valour in his place and leave the rest of you to do whatever you want. But is that a good thing? Is Valour, even by self-serving accident, right about this? Does the party need a leader? If so, then Talisman would be disastrous.

What is comes down to is this – do you want someone to have authority over you? Do you want someone to look up to, to bring the hard decisions to? You’ve been a slave for decades – you’re a free woman in all but name now, but are you ready to take that last step?

You write the two symbols that make up the word “Fathom” in large angular lines of charcoal, carefully fold your parchment and walk back to camp, hoping very much that you’ve made the right choice.FATHOM ELEVEN

This has been a very long night.

The group (minus Soul) is camped on the edge of a wood, late at night. The only light is that cast by the fire (which you’re keeping a healthy distance from). You lean forward to pour yourself a drink. Your body feels young – lacking the knots of harness, the tiny scars and the stress lines of your “present”. You look around at the others, pensive, and from your future vantage point in the Everway note how young everyone is. This is right back at the start of the journey – everyone looks exactly as they were back on Crystal.

You look at the sky, more curious at the lack of Stars or Moon than anything (after all, you can’t see them on your homeworld, either). You can feel, somehow, their absence – the forces that tug at you every day of your life, directing your Karma, are absent from this world. It feels oddly like being in an Everway, and – you realise – for the same reason.

Here, on the Sphere of Velvet Sky, the Gods cannot see you. The five of you are in command of your own destinies.

Echo walks back into camp, dropping a piece of folded parchment into an upturned helmet (that has several more already in it) and rejoining the copy of herself that was sat across the fire from you.

No one looks at one another.

Valour looks expectant. Echo is pensive. Mirage unreadable. Talisman scowling.

“Well” You say, “We’ve all done it. Now what?”

Valour stands up, steps over to the helmet and scoops it up. He’s about to pick a piece of parchment out, when Mirage shakes her head.

“No” she says, firmly. “I’ll do it.”

He frowns, and hands her the helmet. Beside you, Talisman relaxes. He had tensed up when Valour stepped over, you realise. So much distrust, so very early.

Mirage mixes the notes about, takes one out and carefully unfolds it.

“Valour” She intones, emotionlessly. Valour visibly inflates, nodding. Talisman scowls. Mirage rummages again, and takes out another.

“The Princess Fathom, as befits her rank” She says, and you look across at Echo – who takes a sudden interest in her food. No matter, you think with a smile, she’ll get over it one day.

Mirage plucks another parchment out, unfolds it and nearly drops it.

“M…me.” She stutters, and goes red. You smile reassuringly at her. Well, you think to yourself, who were you supposed to vote for?

Three down, three candidates, you think happily. This is working out just as you thought. No one’s going to win. Valour will settle down and everything will be okay. Talisman will have voted for something ridiculous.

Mirage has drawn another parchment. She coughs.

“The Walker.” She says, tipping the note and looking at Talisman, who grins and bows.

There you go, then. Judging that Valour inevitably voted for himself, that just leaves Mirage. She’s best friends with Talisman – they’ve been thick as thieves since Service, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s in her bed. She’ll vote for him, and it will all be neatly deadlocked. Simple.

She sighs, looking right at you, and takes her own parchment out. Without opening it, she gulps. Her entire body language is an apology.

“Fathom” She says, opening the note and letting you see it.

Oh, no.

Gods, no.ECHO ELEVEN

You emerge from the Everway into the dark night of Velvet Sky. The starless, moonless sky envelops you, reminding you of Darkness only two Spheres ago. But while Darkness was always night time, it at least had stars and moonlight. Velvet Sky has day and night, but the nights are total. Under the featureless sky, the law of Karma works no more. While you’re here, you have no destiny, no purpose. The Gods cannot see you, and you are without their myriad influences.

Fitting, really, for the site of this group’s greatest mistake.

“Well”, intones Mirage, sourly, “We’re back.”

Talisman kicks a rock.

“Months of travel, and we’re back here again.” He says with disgust. “Who fancies a pint? We should be able to get back to Overguard in about a month, not counting Gates.”

Fathom crosses her arms

“It was a group decision” She says. “Or have you changed your mind? We can go around again, if you prefer, and take that Gate that…” He shakes his head, giving in. “No? Right then. We camp… again… and figure out what to do now.”

She strides off, plainly furious. Talisman scowls, grumbling to himself as he lugs his pack onto his shoulder and sets off after her.

You are five gates from Crystal. A sudden fear grips you that they’re giving up already – that the wasted time caused by everyone refusing to go to Open Soul and being forced onto a series of Spheres that lead right back round here to Velvet Sky has dealt this already fractured party it’s death-blow. That you will be forced to go back to Wall in failure and disgrace, and almost certainly spend the rest of your short life enduring the Emperor’s displeasure. Perhaps he will be kind, you think. Perhaps he will let you kill yourself quickly.

You quietly make camp, listening to the rest of them argue, trying to sort through your thoughts. Why is this upsetting you? You…

It hits you.

They’re wrong.

They’ve made a mistake. Open Soul was your route, you realise. It was a barrier to your journey, like in the old stories – a harsh point on the quest to discourage those whose hearts aren’t truly in it. Their courage has been tested and every one of them has failed the test. But it’s not your place to…

The memory of Arena, only one gate away, rises unbidden. If they go that way again, then you will have to fight in the Arena again. The thought fills you with a disturbing reluctance, and you realise that you don’t want to do it. You didn’t want to do it before, but you thought that Valour and Fathom were always right – they were your superiors, so you did as they commanded. And you got angry with them while you did it. You took it out on your opponents. The third gladiator you killed, you pretended he was Valour.

The fifth you pretended was the Emperor.

Clapping your hand to your mouth, you drop to your knees and throw up. Scrabbling to your feet, you flee into the woods. Eyes clouded, your thoughts scramble over the last few months. You never admitted what you did in the Arena – not even to yourself. But you now know what you were feeling.

It was wrong.

They were wrong to tell you to kill those men for money. They were wrong to flee from the challenge of Open Soul. Fathom was wrong to accept her role when she plainly doesn’t want to do it. Talisman was wrong to support her in order to spite Valour. Valour was wrong to decide that that man on Bounty had to die.

You were wrong to murder him on Valour’s say-so. Not assassinate. Not remove. Murder.

You throw up again, and cry out bitterly.

They’re worth no more than you. And you’re worthless.TALISMAN ELEVEN

You sit down with a thump, flinging your pack across the camp with a blast of Colour. You uncork a bottle and drink angrily, still fuming from the latest round of the argument.

“No” You say to Fathom, whose face is thin and pinched like she’s trying desperately to control a world-shattering rage, “I DON’T mean that we should go all the way back again. I was pointing out our options…”

“You were pointing out the option of giving up” Says Valour, wearily. “That we were so close to home again with nothing to show for it.”

“Excuse me, Valour, but I WAS speaking to Fathom then, not you. She is the Leader after all” you say, stabbing him with your words and smiling nastily as he bristles. Good, you think. Let him chew on that. Bastard.

Echo suddenly scrambles to her feet and runs away from you all, vanishing into the darkness.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mirage asks, trying to stop the fight by getting you to concentrate on something else.

“Who cares?” You say, angrily. “Call of nature? Sudden attack of philosophy? Maybe she’s late for her by-weekly prayers to his imperial majesty? Maybe she’s following the inexorable exhortations of her soul? Frankly, my dear Mirage, I don’t give a flying fuck.”

“She’s your comrade” Growls Valour.

“She’s YOUR slave, or so you seem to think” You growl back. “Why aren’t YOU going after her?”

“ENOUGH!” Roars Fathom, her fists balled as she gets to her feet. “I am TIRED of this! We are in dire enough straits without you two acting like children!”

Valour shuts up. You bite back another curse, and fume silently.

“Now you all put me in charge. You put me in charge right HERE for Gods’ sake – so LISTEN to me, damn you! We are NOT going home empty-handed. We aren’t going through Open Soul, on that we’re all agreed. So we find. Another. Route. Valour – is there no other way?”

He splutters, still looking angrily at you, not looking at her.

“IS THERE NO OTHER WAY?” Fathom screams, kicking the fallen log he’s sat against, booting it a clear three feet backwards and making him pitch over with a thump of feathers. He gets up, aghast, and looks at The Wrath of Fathom.

“I... Don’t know.” He says, quietly.

“Then, Lord Valour” She says, with a voice of sharp ice, “I suggest you get your charts and your notes and you start to LOOK for one.”

He nods quickly, glances back at you, then back at her, then hurries away to his things.

You carefully and quietly take a drink. Fathom hasn’t moved, staring at the log, her back to you.

“Talisman.” She says, and you swallow the whiskey.

“Yes, Princess?” You ask, carefully.

“While he’s doing that, and Mirage is looking for food, could I ask you to do two things?”

“Sure.” You say.

“First. NEVER undermine my authority again.” She says, furious. “And second – go find Echo and find out what’s wrong.”

You grimace. “Why me?”

“Because you don’t give ‘a flying fuck’ about the people you’re travelling with” She says, letting you know that this is your punishment for the fight “And because I tell you to.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” You consider and reject the idea of saluting, and stalk off into the woods.SOUL ELEVEN

Hm. Everyone else seems to be dreaming of the same place. A place that they all associate with great turmoil and emotion. There’s something going on there right now. Let’s take a look, shall we?

They’re all of them dreaming of a Sphere, a long way away, which is clouded in many sights. It has no stars, so the Gods cannot se inside it. But we, my young friend, are not Gods.

It’s early evening on the Sphere of Velvet Sky (where, long ago, the inhabitants cut themselves off from the law of karma, the sight of the gods and the power of the Realmforge, thinking themselves to be building a sanctuary against the supernatural and not realising that where Destiny has no sway, other things may then dwell), and the Magic Tramp is talking to the Brown-haired Lady Knight.

Their names, little one, are “Vagabond” and “Sparrow”.

----------------------------------------------------

“We can talk freely here” Sparrow says, beginning the conversation. Vagabond narrows his eyes, wary and suspicious.

“We haven’t before?” He asks. “No”, she replies simply, “We haven’t. There are always people watching, Vagabond. But not here.”

“All right then – why ARE you doing this?” He demands suddenly. “You turn up out of nowhere and say that you want to go with me, because you owe me for back when were working for Legion…”

She shudders, and traces her scars with her fingertips.

“I take it that was bullshit?” He concludes, and she shakes her head.

“No. That wasn’t the whole reason, but it’s a reason. You helped me – you helped them – back in the Realmforge. You betrayed Legion so that my mother and I could meet, even if only for…” She breaks off, bitterly.

“Hey,” he says, suddenly realising. “She loved you.”

“Then why didn’t she STAY? Why’d she sell her soul to find me and then do... that?” She says, gesturing at the sky angrily. “She abandoned me. Again. And she ripped our homeworld from the Spheres, so I couldn’t even go HOME. She cut me off from my own people and abandoned me on Overguard.”

“She didn’t mean it like that… I think.” He says, carefully.

“So that’s why.” She says. “I don’t trust any of the others – Strabo is out for himself, and plainly lying to us all. I can’t tell if Exile believes him or if he’s just out for number one again. I barely trust you. I have no reason to trust you. You’re an avowed traitor, you sold my mother out to Legion and then sold Legion out to her. But you’re doing this to find your child and save him from whatever plan the Dragon has for him.”

“And that’s why you’re helping me.” Vagabond says, her words sinking in.

“And that’s why I’m helping you. Vagabond and Sparrow – the two traitors of the Realmforge, doing it for the kids.”

“I’ll drink to that” He says, and bumps mugs with her.

“Let’s hope we catch up with them before Strabo does. Or before my Mother does something…”

“...Insane and godlike?” He says, lightly. Sparrow just nods, and stares into the fire. Thinking.

--------------------------------------

Well, that was interesting.

Who am I? I’m the one who’s been talking to you for most of this time, little one. I’m not Julius. I’m not The Lady. I’m not The Taint.

I’m your creator. I’m on your side.

Of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

DaveB

11-25-2004, 02:15 PM

ECHO TWELVE

You can hear the lapping of the waves on the shore, and the wind rustling the palm trees. Opening your eyes, you look down the hill towards the beach, the tropical scene bathed purple-red by the sunset.

You’ve shed most of your clothes in deference to the climate, and are dressed in a long piece of material wrapped around your waist. The relaxed image is somewhat offset by the Katana, which you’re still wearing on your back.

You move closer to the beach, watching the scene playing out there without interrupting. Next to a beached (and, by the look of it, recently-repaired Catamaran, Fathom is embracing a short, walnut-skinned man. He launches into some (very long) speech, which she accepts gracefully, then climbs into his vessel. Fathom gives it a shove, pushing it into the water, and he slowly sails away from the island, looking back and waving as he goes.

You give Fathom a while, then stroll down to where she is still standing on the beach, reading a piece of parchment. As she hears you approach, she folds it up carefully and puts it inside her clothes.

“Do you miss him?” You ask, surprised and a little thrilled at your own directness. This is working well, you think.

“Yes” She says, candidly. “Yes, I do. Already. I think I shall try to come back by way of his world, see how he and his family are doing. If, of course,” she raises a tattooed eyebrow at you “there IS a return journey.”

“If there is, yes.” You say, feeling the new dynamics of the situation. Fathom tried to use you and Talisman’s joke, you think. She’s trying to engage with you – she’s the outsider, now, wanting “in” to the group. The idea gives you an odd sense of satisfaction, and you nod when Fathom inquires with a gesture as to whether you’d like to sit down.

The two of you watch the sun set for a while, before Fathom breaks the silence.

“I understand you met people from your homeworld.”

“Yes”, you reply carefully, “I did. It made some things clear. About my path.”

“I take it that path lies away from Wall?”

You shrug “I haven’t got that far yet. I’m at the point of realising the battle to come, and thanking Karma that I was able to change this much in the last year. That I’m not a soldier any more”

“Echo…” she says, looking at your sword “If you are no longer a soldier, why are you still wearing that?”

“That’s the point” You say, trying to put this into words “It’s about attachments. About remembering , regrets and everything that happened on Ancient Empire. The very opposite of my training, which was all about detachment. Don’t misunderstand, Princess. I’m not suddenly a pacifist – I think that this makes me a better warrior than I was before.”

“That doesn’t sound much like the manual of the conduct of proper warfare” She says.

“No.” You reply, smiling to yourself, “It doesn’t. I somehow don’t find the manual entirely satisfactory any more.”

“Maybe you should write a new one.” She suggests

“Maybe I should.” You agree, and mean it.
You both stand and begin to walk back to the village, side-by side.
“This is going to take some getting used to” she admits
“Indeed.”VALOUR TWELVE

Darkness.

Pain.

Somewhere, there is the suggestion that you are wet, floating.

Being laid down on something, howling as your leg snaps in yet another place. Shards of bone cut inside your body like a thousand tiny knives, some emerging out of your skin.

A voice – like fingernails on a chalkboard, rasping and somehow ticking, like clockwork – “Opeen youuurr eyeeezzz”

You force your eyes open and see the monster looming over you. The way it’s hands branch into dozens of tiny appendages, each with a cutting, biting or grasping tool. The way it’s lower torso branches into four long, sharp legs like a scorpions’. The way it’s eyes are lidless and madly staring. The mouth full of sharp teeth. The way that it’s body is made 2/3rds out of silvery metal.

You try to fight against your captor, and only succeed in breaking your collarbone straining against the straps holding you down onto the table. The Thing firmly pushes you back down, hissing in annoyance.

“Urrn” It snaps, and through the haze of pain you can see Fathom carrying a large metal urn, sealed with a wax plug, over towards you. She sets it down at the irritable direction of the monster, and retreats out of view. You can sense her standing behind you, wanting to put her hands on the sides of your head to help you focus but afraid that she’ll crush your skull if she does so.

“Valour” She says, cutting through your delirium. “This is the Chirugeon. It’s going to try to heal you.”

“Heeeeaaal you, yeeezzzz” It rasps in agreement. “Yourrrr frrrrieeenddzz haveee maaadee a baargaaiiin forrr youu.”

Bargain? You think, maddened by the agony. But you’re the negotiator! You begin to try to protest, but the creature – the Chirugeon – puts a long, thin finger that ends with a scalpel-blade to it’s lipless mouth and “shhh”s you.

“Does he have to be conscious for this?” Mirage demands from somewhere nearby.

“Yezzzz. Onnnly waay.” It confirms, and produces an appendage that – to your maddened viewpoint – looks worryingly like an amputation saw. It pauses, and then stabs the saw into the wax seal of the urn, carefully cutting around in a circle and lifting the plug out with more small tentacle, then plunging it’s hand into the urn. When it pulls it’s arm out again, it is holding a thrashing creature that looks like a giant, metallic centipede. It carefully transfers the creature from “hand” to “hand”, then extends the scalpel-blade again.

“Thizz willl hurrrt” It says, with disturbing sympathy, and begins to cut your chest open, it’s “finger” leaving a line of red behind running down your breastbone. Just as you think it can’t get any worse, it carefully places the metal creature onto your stomach. It waves it’s antenna around, as though sniffing for something, and then burrows into the newly-opened wound with such speed and forced that you’re crushed back against the table.

The pressure from the alien mass within you lessens, but you feel a horrible itching in your ribcage as it settles down – for good, you fear. The itching spreads, and you realise that it has grown tendrils into your bones.

For the next few instants (which seem like hours) you are subject to the feeling of having the hundreds of broken bones reset into proper shape and bound back together from the inside, and a feeling of tightening – as though your skeleton were shrinking – as the tendrils growing over and through your skeleton begin to increase in number.

You black out.

You come to, to find yourself no longer held down. Your head is clear, and your limbs – though weak – are responding again. You try to sit up, and Mirage comes out of nowhere to help you upright.

“Thiszzz concluddez ourrr tranzzaction” says the Chirugeon to Talisman (of all people), and Talisman nods, looking across the room at you.

“Good as new.” He calls across to you.

“Betteerrr” Says the Chirugeon, click-clacking away, chuckling deep in what passes for it’s throat.MIRAGE TWELVE

The floorboard creaks, and you think that the game is up. Echo – asleep, curled up on a reed mat on the floor of this wooden-walled room – stirs and murmurs. You carefully lift the light-blue tunic – the one she wears when she’s on the pull – out of her pack, and carefully rummage for her fancy belt. Adding one of her daggers (for accuracy) to your pile of purloined clothing, you quietly slide the screen door to her room shut and make it back to your own as quickly as possible.

What you’re about to do is unethical in the extreme. It will make pretty much everyone angry if you’re found out.

What the hell, you have to know.

Staring into the full-length bronze mirror, you strip and Shift, carefully adjusting details until you’re certain that you have the shape right. The eyes are always a dead-givaway, but Echo’s are naturally narrow anyway. Dim lighting, long eyelashes and a certain amount of Echo-like submissive staring at your feet should do the trick.

Feeling and quashing a pang of guilt, you dress in Echo’s clothes, adjust the tunic to show as much thigh as possible, briefly curse yourself for forgetting to steal her shoes but then decide that barefoot just adds to the “half-dressed” theme you’re running with, carefully and artfully put your hair into slight disarray and – deciding that YOU’D sleep with you – set off for Talisman’s room.

There is no part of this, your conscience helpfully points out, that is not wrong.

Tip-toeing past Fathom’s room, you make it to the screen blocking entry to Talisman’s. In the darkness of the corridor – lit only by paper lamps at widely-spaced intervals – you can see the glow of his Colours through the screen. Stamping down the last ditch attempt of your conscience to point out how demeaning this is for all concerned, especially Echo, you slide the screen open and quickly go inside.

Talisman is sitting cross-legged on his sleeping mat, wide awake. He has taken his Pearl out – something that you’ve only seen a handful of times in the years you’ve been travelling together – and it hangs suspended in mid air by a double-helix of green Colour, endlessly corkscrewing up from the floor and keeping the Pearl aloft.

He doesn’t say anything, but you see him look you up and down. You slide the screen shut, blocking the light from outside. With only the green lighting from his Colour, your eyes should pass for Echo’s no problem. For the time you have them open, at least.

“Can I do something for you?” He asks.

“I couldn’t sleep” You say, familiarity making the voice easy. “It looks like I’m not the only one.”

“Lots to think about” He responds, flippantly, as though you should already know what he’s talking about. You realise you should already know what he’s talking about, because he’s probably told her. You settle for a shrug, and move a little closer.

“Tell me.” You murmur, slightly irritated by his lack of reaction. The man can be terribly self-absorbed at times.

“Well, we’re on a Sphere ruled by a Dragon who we don’t know and who we’re supposed to meet tomorrow.” He says, his features eerily underlit by the Colour reflecting off his Pearl. “And there is still the question of the boy.”

“Can I take your mind off it?” You say, and take the tunic off. THAT ought to get a reaction. His eyes widen slightly as he realises what’s happening, and his Colour briefly turns blue before shattering into deep-red shards that go to the far corners of the room. He catches his Pearl with one hand and puts it back into the hollow in his chest.

“I think you already have” He says, as you put your arm around him and draw him down onto the mat. You slide on top of him, and move in for the kill.

“By the way,” He whispers, as you move to kiss him. “Mirage?”

Rumbled. “Er... Yes?”

“IF you leave right now, and perform certain favours that I will ask you for at a later date, I won’t tell Echo about this.” He grins.

Your conscience declaring that you should have listened to it, you change back to yourself and get off him, covering yourself with the tunic. “Well” You say. “At least I know you and her aren’t having an affair”. He shakes his head, confirming his lack of sleeping with Echo (to your annoyance, he looks like he’s trying very hard to not laugh).

Pausing on the threshold, you look back at him.

“What gave me away?” You ask, curiosity getting the better of you. He gets up and crosses over to the door, and you step backwards out into the hallway.

“She has a mole there.” He says, pointing down. Before you can think of something else to say, he blows you a kiss and closes the screen in your face.FATHOM TWELVE

Mirage sits down next to you, setting a large bottle of some clear liquid down. The night is warm, and you’re both lounging on cushions on a balcony protruding from the palace on Waterwall. The lights of the city are dim, and the ocean above your heads is dark, so you reckon it’s night time.

“Here it is” Mirage says, indicating the bottle. “Distilled Honal Spirit, straight from the royal kitchens.”

“Why does Echo have this stuff?” You ask, picking the bottle up and sniffing it, the very smell bringing tears to your eyes.

“Apparently it’s good for cleaning pans” She says, and you screw your face up.

“So, in short, I am reduced to drinking cleaning fluid?” you ask, lightly. Mirage nods enthusiastically, taking the bottle back and reading the label.

“Yep. Most potent drink in the Young Kingdoms. They say that there’s a rice-based spirit so strong monks trained in body control use it to prove their prowess. This stuff is distilled from it. A glassful will apparently kill a child or someone of weak health. Watered-down, it’s used to put large herd animals to sleep when they’re injured beyond recovery.”

“Strong. I get it.” You say, laughing. “Give it here, already.”

----------------------------

“The… the thing is.” You say, waving a finger in the air, and peering at Mirage, who is staring in fascination at her own glass of regular wine. “The Princess thing. You know?”

“Daughter of a King” Mirage says, leaning back and letting her hair hang down over the edge of the balcony.

“Yes.” You say, agreeing heartily. “Daughter of a King. Or Wife of a Son of a King. But do you know what is funny?”

“Those dogs on Bastion with the flat faces and the jowls. They’re funny.” Mirage replies.

You consider that.

“Yes.” You agree. “Those are funny.”

“That jester on Visage was funny”

“Yes. Yes he was. But I’ll tell you what else is funny. Princess. I hate being called Princess. Echo does it to me all the time. And now I get to do it to her!” You smile, toasting your own triumph with another swig of Honal Spirit.

Mirage raises her glass “To Princess Echo”

“To Princess Echo” you say, and emit a mighty belch. Mirage begins to giggle, and you feel briefly mortified before you get caught up in the laughter. Wiping your eyes with one hand, you take another swig of the bitter liquid and grimace. “This stuff tastes vile.”

“Working, though, isn’t it?” she points out. “You’re completely… completely…” She trails off, searching for the word.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” You nod rapidly, and immediately regret it as the balcony begins to spin. You put the bottle down and raise a hand to your forehead. Breathing deeply, you try to will the world to stop rotating.

Suddenly dejected, you sigh deeply.

“Going to miss her.” You say. “No one calling me Princess any more.”

“I‘m not” She says “Without her, I might get Tallis… Tallis… Him to look at me.”

You nod, sympathetically. “Love hurts” You say, as though pronouncing a great truth. Mirage raises her glass, and you chink glasses in another toast.

“To love”.

“To love” You say, feeling suddenly very sleepy. Curling up on the floor around your bottle, you rest your eyes.

It’s been a very trying night.SOUL TWELVE

You float through the Everway, watching your friends be overcome by visions (well, it’s hard to tell with Talisman looking like a Pearl, but you think you spot the moment he starts dreaming). You patiently wait for your own vision to begin, but it doesn’t.

It is only after a few minutes that you realise that you’re already having it. Somewhere in your mind, your are aware of the difference between being aware of something and being told that you are aware of something. You are disturbingly aware that you can hear me narrating this.

The fourth wall cracketh.

Alright. Fair’s fair. You’ve caught me.

Who am I? We’ve already been through this before.

That will be funnier in hindsight, I promise you.

No, I’m not Julius. Nor am I the Taint, The Lady, Lhaksmar, Strabo, Ganar, Jareth, Thariassia, Karesh or any of the other notables that have tried or might try to talk to you in your head. Those are all exterior, and I – or, should I say, WE, are most certainly the opposite.

Yes, I’ve spoken to you before. I’ve been speaking to you all this time.

Let me tell you something about Sacrifice.

Sacrifice is an odd word. It means “To Make Sacred” – the object being given up is joining the divine, becoming perfect. Unified.

There’s that other word again. Unified.

Sacrifice is a symbol, a sacred act that reaffirms the way our worlds work. By destroying something, we define it’s worth. By dying, we define life.

That’s why Pheonixes die when they release the souls they have collected. The symbolic act of Death and Rebirth is what drives, on a deep level, the cycle of Death and Rebirth on the world where it takes place. Without death, there can be no life. Only something that isn’t truly alive never dies, and by attempting to deny death those that do so deny birth as well.

Confused yet?

I’ll give you a hint.

Him. When an individual is so locked in stasis that they attempt to cheat the cycle, it is a sadness. When that individual causes others to be so locked – like a necromancer, say – it becomes tragic. When that individual drags entire worlds down with him, it becomes catastrophic. By denying death – by ‘saving’ so many millions of lives from their proper cycle and attacking the foundations of that cycle, He is wrecking the worlds He infects. Nothing is made sacred, nothing reduced and so nothing can grow.

How do we fix it?

One death. That’s all.

It just has to be the right death.

I’ll show you what I mean…

You’re standing in the middle of a vast, endless plain, at night. The others are around you. Something is blotting out the stars, and craning your neck you make sense of the great shadow towering over you. It’s a humanoid figure, impossibly large – taller than a mountain. It turns, and you see the red glow of it’s eyes narrow in hatred. It reaches a single massive hand down towards you…

It has to be done. But then, I would say that – wouldn’t I?TALISMAN TWELVE

You’re standing on a gigantic staircase, outside on some hot world. The stairs are carved into a causeway that rises from a city of angular, blocky building behind you, arching up across a lake of lava towards the volcano in front of you. The volcano has had a vast palace carved into it’s side, and it’s to this that your stair-bridge leads. Molten rock pours out of the mouths of vast, carved gargoyles, running along channels like water runs along the aqueducts in a sane world, pouring into the “lake” below you. Up ahead, your stair passes between two massive metal statues of Dragons (the same Dragon, actually, they’re identical), and in through an open doorway in the shape of a carved Dragon’s face. Again, same Dragon.

Volvagia clearly likes the sight of his own face.

You hear the beating of wings above you, and instinctively flinch. Fortunately, it’s only Valour.

You let him land next to you, and frown. After her turns to you, you check his eyes and – satisfied – nod in cursory greeting.

“What?” He asks, and you shake your head.

“Just checking you were you. It was an odd night.”

He appears to consider, then decide that he’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole. He gazes up past you at the frankly over-the-top lair of Wingthrone’s ruler, and bites his lip.

“How do you want to handle this?” He asks, business-like.

“Well, Pigeon-boy, I expect to handle this the same basic way as I interviewed Sonama. Show my Pearl, say who I am, ask for hospitality.”

He looks down at the lava.

“You think that’s going to cut it with this one?”

“Look, what do you want, Valour? I am rather busy at the moment” you say, exasperated, flinging your hands and Colours out for emphasis before turning back to the edifice and resuming your slow climb up. Valour, maddeningly, keeps up with you.

“I’m coming to help.”

“Bollocks are you.”

“Look, Talisman, he’s a Dragon. Sure. And that’s what you’re good at. But he’s a RULER. He obeys the same basic forms most rulers do, and he has a human beaurocracy working for him. That and those I can help with. Let me worry about the negotiations for our passage, and concentrate on finding out whatever it is you’ve been hunting Dragons to try to find out.”

“Much as I appreciate you prying into my business…” You start, and he grabs at your arm.

“I’m not. I’m saying I’ll deal with all the doubletalk and crawling needed to get us off this world. Your business is your own, and I frankly don’t give a shit about it. You’ve certainly made it clear that you want no one even finding out what you’re up to. Nobody except Echo, at any rate.”

“This about me and Echo?” you ask, wrapping your Colours in.

“No, Talisman. It’s about you and me. You and Echo did me a favour on Sky’s Fury. A big favour, which saved my life. I can’t think of how to repay her yet, but I can start to repay you now. Find out what you need to find out. I’ll do the rest.”

“It shouldn’t be about doing one another favours, Valour.” You say, angry at the situation but acknowledging, inwardly, that he IS doing you one. “Friendship is about something other than keeping track of who’s done what for what. It’s not trade.”

“We’re not friends” He says, simply. “I’d like us to be, but for now I’ll start with trade.” He takes off and flies up towards the palace, clearly going to beat you there.

“Alright then. We’ll do this your way.” You mutter, and pick up the pace.

DaveB

11-26-2004, 05:32 PM

The Camera of the imaginary saturday-morning serialised cartoon that is the campaign zooms through the City of Waterwall, ducking and weaving between the buildings and giving everyone a good look at the place. We get the Voiceover of Paragon and Viper explaining their rather odd home during the trip on Caravan for good measure:

Many thousands of years ago, Waterwall was relatively normal as Spheres go. The inhabitants did something, or angered someone, and the Deluge started - the heavens opened and millions of tonnes of water fell from the sky all at once. Such was the cataclysm that the Deluge even forced it's way through some of Waterwall's connecting gates - the salt lake on Caravan next to the Waterwall gate is the remnants of the "backwash" that Sphere suffered, and the Realm of Stagnant remains covered in two feet of now quite foul-smelling swamp.

Anyways, everyone was killed except for the inhabitants of the waystation town near the World's gates. The water fell *around* the town, around an invisible bubble that encompassed enough of the population to allow the survivors to rebuild. The bubble isn't a forcefield of any kind - you can stick a hand (or indeed walk) right through it, but something is repelling the water. The natives eventually figured the cause to be certain crystals that were mined in the region, and set to mining more. By positioning more water-repelling crystals around the edges of their domed sanctuary/prison, they were able to expand it, reclaiming more of the sunken town and eventually managing to reach the Gates.

Cut to the present, and Waterwall is a vast metropolis of domes connected by tubes made by embedding smaller crystals in a line along the floor. The city itself is made mostly of wrought iron (as, ironically, this underwater kingdom has no problem with rust. The air inside the city is bone dry), and the inhabitants have built up and around as much as possible, using as much space as they can. Because of their origin as several hundred people crammed into far too small a space, there isn't much of a notion of private property beyond people's individual sleeping chambers - it can be hard to tell where a throughoughfare ends and someone's home begins, and the utter lack of weather, the dry environment and the constant temperature make walls an optional extra - many structures seem "inside out" to off-worlders.

Our viewpoint comes to rest by the gate to Caravan, which opens and disgorges the character party. Echo immediately throws up (because of the end of vision eleven) and runs away into the city at high speed, leaving the others staring blankly at her retreating back. That and the odd view.

Paragon - when asked - says that Echo's in no danger (the people here all love her. In fact, her popularity is higher than his own), and that he'll put the word out to find her and make sure she's okay. It's not like people won't recognise her - her face is on the coinage. In the meantime, after the rigours of the last week's hard Caravanning and the strain of Spherewalking, he would like to offer his friends the hospitality of his Palace.

They soon reach the original - and still the largest - dome, which houses the City's main market. Ahead of them, Echo curls up beneath an exterior staircase and - rummaging around in her bag of alchemical goodies - finds and downs a sleeping potion, putting herself to sleep.

The rest of the gang take the walk through town (Paragon having a word with some guards, who go off to try to find Echo), Viper explaining more stuff - like where all the food comes from. This may be former seabed, but before that it was pretty fertile and the town planners try to build domes towards choice areas. In addition to which, the amount of fish you get by means of swiping huge dragnets out of the side of domes is surprisingly high. Who knew? Mirage asks about the town planners - how does anyone know what's out there? Paragon says that there's two options. Either a friendly water-breathing Spherewalker comes along or you run a diving bell-style huge barrel with intrepid explorers out between two "arms" of the city along a cable. The subject of sea monsters gets raised and dismissed as children's tales. On this sphere, anyway.

They finally reach the palace (which, like the rest of Waterwall, is very open-plan. Paragon says he *likes* having people wander around the lower floors), and meet Golden, one of Paragon's companions who he left in charge of the Realm while off on his travels. Golden is seen in one of Fathom's flashbacks a few weeks back. "He"'s an energy being made of sunlight encased in a suit of plate armour, who (as it turns out) speaks with the voice of Darth Vader. Paragon has a conflab with Golden and returns, telling them that people will show them to their rooms. Figuring that she'll want to look through them for anything that jogs a memory, they'll put Echo in her own bed when they find her - Paragon will stay elsewhere. And now, he has a mountain of things to sign. Goodnight.

Fathom goes to investigate the wonder-spirit that allows her to get drunk (and kills anyone else that drinks it. Hooray for Earth 8), while Talisman slopes off somewhere with Soul. We don't ask where. Or what they're stealing. Mirage and Valour tromp off to dump their stuff in their room (pretty much everyone having noticed their relationship during the trip on Caravan), and try to figure out what they're going to do for the time being. Valour has the thrilling (to him) idea of hitting the City Library in a big way. Mirage stays behind, thinking about how she might be useful around here, when an old man comes calling at her door (this, ooc, is Sky - Paragon's surrogate father and manservant. He's been in one of Echo's visions). he tells her that Echo has been found, and that she potioned herself. Apparantly she's done this before, so they're not worried.

Echo, meanwhile, wakes up to find herself in her and Paragon's bed - which she recognises from previous visions. She immediately curls up and wishes very hard to wake up. Being awake, it doesn't help very much.

Valour is in full-on research mode. The Librarians (who recognise him. Well, he IS kind of distinctive looking, and a hero of the realm) give him a large desk and bring scroll after scroll. He is soon waist-deep in details of every Sphere the inhabitants of Waterwall know how to navigate through, skim-reading descriptions and making mental notes of Astral Path routes.

Mirage goes to find Echo and - being let in by her bodyguards - can tell instantly that the younger woman is not asleep. Echo finally stops faking and sits up. They have a long-overdue heart to heart: essentially a rerun of Echo's epic dialogue with Talisman, only with someone modern-Echo *likes*. Mirage reminds her that they can be out of here very soon, and hey - if Echo wants someone to give her orders, then Mirage can oblige. Echo points out that Mirage is just as low station as she is.

Valour, meanwhile, has abandoned Geography in favour of a little light reading - philosophy. Browsing through the shelves, he spots a particular manuscript and takes it. Reading it with a horrified fascination at first, curiosity later and genuine interest towards the end, he flies back to the palace to show Mirage. A servant tells him where she is, and he too enters the boudoir, finding the ladies talking about attachment.

He hands Echo the book, telling her it might help on that. It's one of those philisophical texts about warfare that she likes so much. Only this one was written by her.

An uncomfortable Echo gets Mirage to read it over first to check for any obvious "attempts at running her future self's life", while Valour looks around, interested. Neither woman has looked through all of the stuff in the room yet, and he manages to get Echo to get out of bed and have a look around. Mirage continues to read the book while all three go through past-Echo's things - Valour looking for clues as to the journey, Echo and Mirage for clothes and souveniers.

Echo finally takes her turn at the book, which turns out to be a treatise on the psychology of professional warriors. past-Echo argued that the state of emotional detachment most such works (read: the philosophy of Wall) held to be the desirable thing. According to her, 90% of battles are won by the side that *cares* about winning, and when a soldier is so divorced from normal life that she cannot understand the motives of others, she loses. Past-Echo therefore suggests that the enlightened warrior maintain carefully managed ties, to ground her and give her an insight into what her opponents are fighting for. Note that that doesn't mean "drop out and get married". In fact, to Mirage's somewhat cynical view, it sounds like past-Echo thought of Paragon as being like the pets they give soldiers in some cultures. Only without the killing him after a month part. Well, hopefully, anyway.

The night is now relatively mature, and while Echo and Valour talk Mirage goes to the throneroom, finding Golden. She asks where the city's edge of construction is, volunteering to take a water-breathing form to scout out and do her bit. He tells her, she goes.

Leaving the city behind, Mirage (in the form of a type of shark) swims out, first looking for sunken treasure and when none materialises to have a sniff around. In the very far distance, she can see the seabed rise in what were once hills, turning into mountains. Swimming in that direction for a few hours she pokes into what was once a mountain cave (now an underwater cave housing a large squid) and heads up for the surface. The mountain-top is now an island, it's a full moon and a beautiful night. Exploring the island (and noting that there are a couple of others) she comes across a giant carved stone head. Which is considerable "new"er than the millenia needed for it to be pre-deluge.

It's then that she notices the lights on one of the other islands. The surface world, it seems, is inhabited.

Taking the form of the squid she met (to try it out) she swims back to the City in a matter of hours, arriving after midnight. Overcome by the urges of her form, she looms over the palace-dome and reaches down for the puny meat-things that are running around in fear below.

Echo and Paragon, meanwhile, are in the general mad rush of everyone to the highest levels of the palace, as the guards are shouting that there's a monster above them. Paragon is up their, a speculative look in his eye as he tries to figure out how to clear the remaining distance between them and the roof of the dome in order to take the monster on, when it drops and turns back into an apologetic Mirage. Mirage tells them about the other inhabitants of the Sphere, and Paragon starts to excitedly plan the enormous engineering project neccessary to build a stair up to the surface a mile above them.

While he's trying to decide on the "big spiral staircase" or the "diving bell" approaches that the gang have suggested, Valour and Mirage go to bed and Echo goes on the prowl. She's left her room now, and - having faced up to the fact that it's somewhere around here - is looking for the Room With No Doors. It is Golden who eventually shows her the blank stretch of wall that the Room lies behind (after asking if she's sure several times), and she Echoes, sending the insubstantial her through the wall and the real her back to her rooms.

The Room has a few odds and sods of furniture and junk (notably a large note in her own handwriting reading "IT'S GAUNT"), along with two full-length mirrors facing one another with a chair inbetween. The only light in the Room (which has no windows, either) is oddly coming from the mirrors. Stamping down on her own fear, she writes a note saying what she's doing using her real body (in her bedroom), and moves closer to have a look.

Her reflection in the mirror is wearing a dress that she recognises from going through her old wardrobes earlier this evening. She also isn't moving in synch with Echo. Hoping she isn't doing something very stupid, Echo steps in between the mirrors.

"Normally" (she scrupulously avoids it), when this happens - when one of her bodies is trapped between it's own reflection at the same time as she's Echoed - the illusory body vanishes and the real one falls unconcious, as her mind attempts to inhabit the infinite number of relfected Echoes to either side of it. In this case, she feels the dreaded "stretching" effect, but doesn't pass out. Instead, she has the horrible sense of the tie between her and her real body being severed. She opens her eyes to find herself in the Room With No Doors, but one which is brightly lit - the version she could see in the mirror. And the woman she could see (and mistook for her reflection) is here. The mirrors both show the dark version of the room.

Reflection-Echo seems confused, speaking only haltingly, like vast chunks of her mind are missing or corrupt. As far as Echo can tell, this is a copy of herself that she left here on purpose - a kind of backup of her memory in case what actually happened happened. Only it has clearly gone wrong, and Reflection-Echo has been - in her own words - "Warped". Before Echo can think to stop her, Reflection-Echo steps back through the mirror and - appearing in the real world - reconnects to their comotose real body and vanishes.

Echo tries to charge after her, and bounces off the mirror. She's as stuck here as the copy was for the last year and a half.

A bit of experimentation, though, proves that she's as insubstantial as she should be - she walks through the wall to find herself in the expected corridor. Only there aren't any lights. Further exploration proves that that isn't quite true - Echo is now in some Other space, like a dark, insubstantial version of Waterwall. Wherever there's a reflective surface in the real world - a pool of water, a mirror, shiny armour - the reflection appears in this Mirrorworld as well, providing the only light sources. Echo can see through into the real world through them, and - remembering that her own bedroom has no mirrors (understandable, given her now entirely justified phobia of them), she runs at full pelt through the walls to Valour and Mirage's room.

Fortunately, Valour and Mirage have... finished... and have been lying in bed talking through some things. Valour is concerned that Mirage got lost in a form again, and is worried about his own transformations. Earlier, he tried - based on his Vision of being given his symbiote - to read the mind of the thing inside him, but only ended up with the odd sensation of reading his own mind. He wants to know what would happen if he gave his body over to the symbiote entirely, and whether he'd be able to get back. Mirage has told him about her own visions, just to make sure he hears it from her first, and is just saying that her past self may have been doing it for Echo's own good (meaning impersonating her and trying to sleep with Talisman) when Echo arrives at the mirror hanging on the wall of the room.

Unable to hear her shouts, both Valour and Mirage go about getting ready for sleep while Echo hammers soundlessly on the other side of the mirror. Eventually, Mirage starts to self-indulgently (as she *could* just alter it) brush her hair, and is startled by the appearance of her friend in the looking-glass.

Valour's mind-reading power, thank the gods, works on line-of-sight, and he can read Echo's surface thoughts even through the glass. He relays what's going on, and they - Mirage pausing to grab a small hand mirror from a drawer - charge off to find Paragon.

Paragon is suprised to find that Echo has been trapped in some semi-coporeal state. She just left. Valour very rapidly explains that Echo's body has been hijacked by some new personality (to which Paragon answers with a nonplussed "again?") and - on Echo's silently screeched demand - establishes that no, Paragon didn't just have sex with her. She just wanted to talk, and said that she was "damaged" and needed to remember herself. Paragon asks how he was supposed to know that that wasn't Personality 2 talking but instead Personality 1a. Especially when he didn't know 1a existed.

Recriminations later. Find "Echo" now.

Mirage shifts into a big cat and goes scent-hunting, while Valour searches the Domes from above, determining from night-watchmen and hardcore revellers that she went thataway. Finally catching up with her in an Inn, Mirage moves in as a venemous snake while Valour attempts to get close. He's had an idea, you see. "Echo" spots him though and displays the superspeed power seen in a couple of visions, blurring away at high speed. Both Valour and Mirage give chase, leaving the real Echo far behind (she had been keeping up and watching through Valour's wing feathers).

"Echo's" stamina gives out as she nears the Far Window Gate, dropping back to normal speed and giving Valour his chance. Firing his Wing-tips at her, he dives. The flechette-feathers cut her badly on the arm, and she drops and rolls, picking the feathers up from the floor and throwing them back at him like knives before blur-speeding in the other direction. Dodging his own natural weaponry, Valour does a 180 mid-dive and continues to give chase.

"Echo", bleeding heavily, slows to a near-standstill as both Mirage and Valour move in for the capture. Valour rugby-tackles her to the floor, surrendering his body to the Symbiote in the process. His skin turns grey, then silver, as he becomes completely covered in the (very reflective) metal, and the bear hug he's giving Echo means she can't Echo away from capture without falling unconcious / possibly letting the real Echo back into the body. As he does so, however, Echo stabs him square in the chest, burying her knife up to it's hilt between his ribs. Going into shock, Valour barely manages to hold onto her before Mirage - back as a snake - bites "Echo" on the ankle and drops her.

Mirage is now left with an unconcious and bleeding "Echo" and an unconcious and bleeding Valour. The real Echo, trapped behind the mirrors, can only watch from a vantage point too far away.

And that's it for this time.

DaveB

11-26-2004, 06:04 PM

So. Yeah.

A Fire-Seven character (Echo) stabs an Earth-Three character (Valour) right where it hurts. He's seriously injured.

Mind you, her Earth's no better and between Mirage's venom and the wound she'd already taken, she's just as badly injured.

It's odd the changed emphasis the writeups give to a session. Something might be really quick, but complex to write out, and the other way around. The Chase scene took way longer than is implied here, and was far more tense. It was also the bit in which the lack of Talisman and Fathom (both of whom could have caught "Echo" with a snap of the fingers and considerably less mortal peril) really showed.

With double the screen time each, the guys really worked hard this week. Subplots that I once discarded for time have had to be wheeled in and dusted off to pad the thing out, but on the whole - not bad for two hour's notice, I think.

The whole Mirror-world was entirely made up off the top of my head on the night, having rejected (with five seconds left to go before she got into the Room) my original plan of what was in the Room. I have since been away and planned out the details of Echo's situation, and have a handle on it ready for her to try to get herself out of it on Sunday.

So. The others are about to wake up to find that it has all, yet again, gone to hell in a handbasket.

VISION NOTES

The first set (numbers Eleven) should really be considered as one unit and show the team at their utter worst - any hopes Valour had of Fathom's election to party leader being a happy occassion were crushed by this. Renaud was heard to exclaim, in wonderment, "Talisman's being such a *child*". In a good way, I hope. The entire set got read out by the appropriate player, and had everyone in stiches by the end. Probably the best-recieved set of visions I've done for the campaign so far, it shows the baselines of everyone behaving pretty much as they were right back at the start on Crystal - a shock to the system after all the recent ones set much much later in their character arcs. I think Mirage-11 "nailed" Mirage's mindset better than any other Vision, and Rafe has requested more like that. In fact, once I've posted this I'm off to write Mirage-13, which will make it so. If you look, you can see the start of almost all of the character arcs - Mirage's, Talisman's (this, bizarrely, is how his friendship with Echo starts) and Fathom's especially. Even Soul got in on the act, showing that Vagabond has indeed set off to try to find them along with Sparrow (who is the daughter of Fire Plume aka The Lady, and a minor NPC from the Realmforge Chronicle). So now there's the party trying to retrace the steps of the party from one side while Vagabond tries to retrace their steps from the other. Confused yet?

The 12-set I am less pleased with, having been majorly pressed for time last week. Echo-12 is foreshadowing, and another point on her arc. It's set on Shellport, immediately after Valour-9 and Mirage-10. The Manual she refers to is the Manual of the Proper Conduct of Warfare, our setting's equivalent to the Art of War. The flashback has stuff to say about Fathom's place in the group at the time, and I even got an "indeed" in. Valour-12 was recieved with a grateful "finally" from Chris, who'd been waiting for the gruesome details of what the Chirugeon did to his character for long enough. Judging by the session immeadiately after it, it's given Valour some closure on the matter. Which is good. Mirage-12 was a twisted idea I had way back, and got a lot of laughs from Rafe. Mirage herself is more confused by it than anything. It's set on the same world as Talisman-12, which gives us the point at which Talisman and Valour started trying to get along with one another. Fathom-12 is a throwaway piece of crap that I disliked as soon as I wrote but had no time to change. I hope Andrea finds it funny enough to cover that up. Soul-12, though, is where it's at. Another metaplot dump for that boy!

Next Session: (players! Don't Highlight this!) People quoting this post! Cut this bit out!

Gaunt shows up wanting to offer terms, the Paragon plotline is finished and we have a Matrix-style ballet of death between 500 identical martial artists, split 150-350. And all of them are Echo.

Syndil04

12-08-2004, 06:20 AM

I dont see Fathom as a particularly heavy drinker and certainly not around people.
She does drink now which was partly because she's only a young woman dispite being the possible oldest in the group (no one knows how old Mirage is) and she is treated very much as if she doesn't possess the normal feelings and drives that the others do, I'm suprised that people believe she eats. I imagine that the view that she's some sort of statue that talks will be shattered soon enough, but it's certainly how she feels she is seen at the moment. :rolleyes:

DaveB

12-08-2004, 02:48 PM

Yeah, I know. That flashbacked sucked. Mea Culpa.

Exceptional circumstance and all, I suppose.

I get that Fathom feels the difference, and that her nominal status as the eldest (you're right in that Mirage is older, but Mirage doesn't act like it) means that the others treat her like the communal Mother, when she herself doesn't feel anything like it.

At least you've managed to avoid the Leader role / isolation that Flashback!Fathom got trapped in. Player!Fathom's place in the group has a whole lot more equilibrium to it. I will admit that the situation, what with you (as the one with a tiny shred of responsibility) being lumbered with looking after Soul for the first couple of sessions before you made the others take their turn and so on, was semi-intentional.

Put it this way - given the character designs, I had more than an inkling about what Fathom's main gripe with the group would be.

The blow-up last session (which will be posted eventually, thread-readers! I'm working on it already) went a long way.

For the majority of readers that aren't players: Fathom blew up at yet another Echo Pity Party, dismantled a few wagons with her fists and ranted at Mirage, Valour and Paragon about how fucking tired she is of everyone apologising to her.

DaveB

12-08-2004, 03:23 PM

Now, a couple of people have PMd me and asked if I could send them a copy of the big spreadsheet of death. I'm working on getting it tidied and legible enough for people that aren't me to understand, but in the meantime, I thought the Everway GMs out there might like a look at this:

(The following is the text of a handout I made for Chris/Valour at the point in the campaign I'm up to in the writeups - Chris was having trouble remembering all the worlds he'd found out about IC, so to aid him in the simulation of Air 8, I tidied up the Spreadsheet entries for all the appropriate worlds.)

Gates in Italics are one-way coming inbound. Gates underlined are one-way going outbound.

THE OLD KINGDOMS

Stonewander
Usurper Force: None. Though it uniquely has a full set of Major Forces.
Gates to: Empty Throne
Description: The world of the lost force. Endless stone corridors, apparently built for beings far larger than men, lit only by the Unity Gem via a network of mirrors.

Empty Throne
Usurper Force: Unknown. Something to do with the lack of a true king of the humans.
Gates to: Stonewander, Empty Gaze, Writhen, Cadaver, Guardian’s Grave, Void, Unknown (probably Dragon’s Graveyard)
Description: The original Human homeworld (as far as you can tell), depopulated when the true monarch was killed in a civil war of some kind and cursed to reject any ruler but her true descendent.

Writhen
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Void, Empty Throne, Catacomb
Description: A depopulated sphere, twisted into a moibius strip when it’s inhabitants tried to move it through the Everway network and failed catastrophically.

Cadaver
Usurper Force: Rebellion: The urge to overthrow those with power over you.
Gates to: Void, Empty Throne, Crystal Cave
Description: This “sphere” is actually the corpse of the first (and possibly only) God to be killed in the Dragon’s Rebellion. Visitors are walking around inside the arteries, veins and organs of it’s Astral body. Ick. Populated by a particularly strange religious order.

Void
Usurper Force: Unknown.
Gates to: Writhen, Cadaver, Doorway
Description: This Sphere has been completely destroyed – there are only chunks of it left floating through “space”.

Guardian’s Grave
Usurper Force: Protecting the Dead
Gates to: City of Brass, Jagged, Empty Throne
Description: Vast necropolis, protected by animated statues of winged beasts, not dissimilar in appearance to elder Vampires.

Empty Gaze
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Empty Throne, Jagged
Description: Wide, low island, covered in statues of Gods and cleared of all vegetation.

Doorway
Usurper Force: Warding.
Gates to: Void, Menagerie, Blackglass, Crystal Cave
Description: Inhabited world (it’s been recolonised) dominated by a miles-high stone archway sealed with an equally massive metal “plug” that’s covered in protective ideograms. The new inhabitants don’t want to know what’s through it.

Jagged
Usurper Force: Shattered
Gates to: Empty Gaze, Amber, Guardian’s Grave
Description: This world has been blown apart by some ancient apocalypse, ripped into “shards” that float through Astral space.

Amber
Usurper Force: Cecessation
Gates to: Jagged, Ivy, Scar, Solitary
Description: Frozen in time, probably by something involved with the very large (and obviously magical) belltower in it’s capital city. Anything freed from the time-stop instantly crumbles to dust.

City of Brass
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Broken, Scar, Catacomb, Guardian’s Grave
Description: Vast, towering city apparently made of one uniform, seamless piece of metal.

Catacomb
Usurper Force: Undeath
Gates to: City of Brass, Menagerie, Writhen
Description: Apparently endless maze of dark tombs, haunted by the restless dead.

Menagerie
Usurper Force: Diversity
Gates to: Catacomb, Doorway
Description: “Zoo” world, made up of thousands of individual “zones” of varied environments, populated by every known type of animal, from every known Sphere.

Scar
Usurper Force: Damage
Gates to: Amber, Glade(1), City of Brass, Column
Description: Inhabited world, damaged during whatever apocalypse took the Old Kingdoms: the sky is “wounded”, and Astral Space can be seen through the hole.

Column
Usurper Force: Naming
Gates to: Scar, Mist, Morningdew
Description: Mountainous forest world, with a centrepiece of a vast stone column rising up into the sky, carved with the True names of every living being.

Mist
Usurper Force: Obscuring
Gates to: Column, Morningdew, Origin, Hollow, Unknown
Description: Permanent fog covers the entire world. Secretive, clannish inhabitants.

Morningdew
Usurper Force: Creation
Gates to: Mist, Column, Mirage
Description: Private playground of the God of Creation, who causes the geography to move around every day at dawn and random items and creatures to spontaneously appear.

Mirage
Usurper Force: Visions
Gates to: Morningdew, Blackglass
Description: Ever-shifting, warped versions of the area around the visitor can be seen rising from the horizon, as though the world were ringed by a distorting mirror unique to each person on it. Odd, and headache-inducing.

Blackglass
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Doorway, Mirage
Description: The entire world, and everything on it, has been turned to obsidian.

Crystal Cave Usurper Force: Unknown. Reported to be something about how something can be valuable and enticing but also dangerous.
Gates to: Doorway, Origin, Cadaver
Description: Vast cave complex of shining gems and razor-edged surfaces.

Origin
Usurper Force: Home
Gates to: Crystal Cave, Mist
Description: Peaceful forest world, that instills a great feeling of “homecoming” in all visitors.

Hollow
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Stonebridge, Mist
Description: inside-out “hollow world” of steaming jungle.

Broken
Usurper Force: Entropy
Gates to: Blossom, Rookery, City of Brass
Description: All food starts to rot, all items begin to break, injuries and accidents become more common.

Empty
Usurper Force: Emptiness
Gates to: Ivy, Folly, Glade(1)
Description: Visitors are filled with great sense of purposelessness, and emotions become dampened.

Glade(1)
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Scar, Stonebridge, Empty
Description: Forest world of pleasant vales and rolling hills. In all likelihood, Tainted as hell.

Ivy
Usurper Force: Growth
Gates to: Rookery, Empty, Amber
Description: Vast deserted city-castle complex, covered in intelligent vines. Tainted.

Solitary
Usurper Force: Ignorance – in the sense of “is bliss”
Gates to: Doomshield, Stonebridge, Amber
Description: World where the inhabitants have been cursed/blessed by their distant ancestors to never sense their world’s gates or any Spherewalkers that visit.

THE YOUNG KINGDOMS

Stonebridge
Usurper Force: Division
Gates to: Solitary, Glade(1), Quarry, Hollow
Description: “Western”-themed world, split in two by a giant canyon and linked to itself only by a single arching bridge. Frontier of the Young Kingdoms, and appropriately lawless.

Quarry
Usurper Force: Industry
Gates to: Doomshield, Stonebridge, Orchard
Description: Mining / Logging world, resource production and trade. Independent.

Doomshield
Usurper Force: Containment
Gates to: Solitary, Greenhills, Tundra, Quarry
Description: Tourist-world, living off the “benefits” of having the flash-frozen Apocalypse eclipsing their capital city. The Shield itself is maintained by a mysterious order of wizards. Who are probably Dragons in disguise.

Greenhills
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Doomshield, Canticle, Caravan
Description: Happy. Peaceful. Pastoral. Voted “most boring sphere” twenty times running. In Waterwall’s faction.

Canticle
Usurper Force: Reverence
Gates to: Greenhills, Warren
Description: Ruled by “religious” order of nondenominational monks. In Waterwall’s faction.

Caravan
Usurper Force: Community
Gates to: Greenhills, Battlefield, Waterwall
Description: Vast desert world, crossed by trade caravans. Those that wander too far from other people “thin” and vanish. Ruled by Waterwall

Warren
Usurper Force: Labyrinth
Gates to: Canticle, Hangfast, Magma
Description: Underground maze-world, with diminutive, pale inhabitants that communicate by touch.

Waterwall
Usurper Force: Deluge – in the literal and metaphorical sense (emotions tend to go out of control, crises always come in close-packed groups and so on).
Gates to: Caravan, Orchard, Stagnant, Far Window, Unknown
Description: Flooded world with an underwater city of domes, protected from the great Deluge inflicted on it’s inhabitants millennia ago.

Orchard
Usurper Force: Trespass
Gates to: Waterwall, Tundra, Quarry, Stagnant
Description: Orderly rows of fruit trees, “owned” by a malevolent spirit. Ruled by Waterwall.

Stagnant
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Waterwall, Entelechy, Orchard
Description: Flooded in Waterwall’s Deluge, now under two feet of seriously stinking water.

Entelechy
Usurper Force: Entelechy
Gates to: Stagnant, Unknown
Description: World devoted to social evolution and new forms of relationships, governments and societal models. Recently conquered after it decided Totalitarian Taint-worship was a good plan.

Far Window
Usurper Force: Scrying
Gates to: Waterwall, Forgotten
Description: Agricultural world, twinned with (and ruled by) Waterwall, featuring a cave high in it’s mountains that shows a person one place or person of their choice, no matter which sphere they are on.

Hangfast
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Warren, Glade(2)
Description: Forest world of mile-high trees, the inhabitants living in hanging-basket towns linked by networks of rope bridges.

Folly
Usurper Force: Mystery
Gates to: White Mountain, Glimmer, Empty
Description: Kinghts n Peasants world, the landscape dotted by gigantic, impossible, geometry-defying structures of unknown origin.

Glade (2)
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Hearthsong, Parliament, Lakeside, Hangfast
Description: vast, rolling dales and greatly independent inhabitants. The accepted border of the Yong Kingdoms and Free Realms.

Glimmer
Usurper Force: Illusion
Gates to: Folly, Clock
Description: Air is visible (and multicoloured). Inhabitants are illusionists.

Clock
Usurper Force: Motion
Gates to: Glimmer, Battlefield
Description: Vast world made up constantly-moving gears, platforms and levers, like the inside of a clock.

Battlefield
Usurper Force: Remembrance
Gates to: Clock, Bastion, Caravan, Unknown
Description: Perfectly-preserved battlefield, from the great war that forged the Young kingdoms. Used for signing treaties.

Tundra
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Orchard, Doomshield,
Description: Arctic world of permafrost and a few dense pine forests, inhabited by a tiny population of fringe-dwellers.

Forgotten
Usurper Force: Representation
Gates to: Bastion, Far Window
Description: Dismal landscape dotted with statues of unknown individuals in “still-life” poses, under a grey sky.

Bastion
Usurper Force: Pride
Gates to: Battlefield, Birthright, Symphony, Forgotten
Description: City carved into (and covering) seven mountains in multiple teirs. Most powerful sphere in the Young kingdoms.

Symphony
Usurper Force: Music
Gates to: Bastion, True Mirror
Description: Artist’s colony of Bastion, devoted to artistic expression of all forms (especially music). Those that display a talent are paid upkeep by the government, so musicians, painters and so forth flock here. Bastion-run.

Birthright
Usurper Force: Inquiry
Gates to: Bastion, Long Road, Amalgam
Description: Library-world, collecting all knowledge available. Bastion-run.

Long Road
Usurper Force: Journeys
Gates to: Birthright, Amalgam, Lakeside
Description: very, very long, thin world – several hundred miles long and one mile wide, with infinite ocean on one side and infinite plains on the other. Independent.

Amalgam
Usurper Force: Joining
Gates to: Long Road, Birthright, Visage
Description: The inhabitants can merge together to form joint-beings with the skills and abilities of all those taking part. Independent.

Lakeside
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Parliament, Glade(2), Long Road, Amalgam
Description: Rugged country punctuated by vast lochs, independent and insular.

Parliament
Usurper Force: Politics
Gates to: Lakeside, Glade(2), Keening Hole, Visage
Description: Endless debating chambers, offices, smoking lounges and committee rooms, populated by spirits that constantly debate how best to rule an entirely imaginary land. Outsiders are assigned “roles” in their mad play. Which can be dangerous.

Visage
Usurper Force: Masquerade
Gates to: Parliament, Amalgam, Earthroam
Description: Inhabitants have a taboo about showing their faces. Everyone wears elaborate masks.

THE FREE REALMS

Blossom
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Broken, Undercurrent
Description: Malevolent plant-people natives in a jungle world

Undercurrent
Usurper Force: Emotion
Gates to: Blossom, Magma
Description: This sphere has invisible and always moving emotional “hotspots” that taint the behaviour of the inhabitants.

Magma
Usurper Force: Eruption (metaphorical as well as literal)
Gates to: Undercurrent, Dragon City, Warren
Description: Volcanic world of lava flows, mountains of ash and calderas.

Dragon City
Usurper Force: Greed
Gates to: Magma, Abattoir, Woekeep
Description: Xenophobic (especially towards the Young Kingdoms) world of Dragon-imitators. The people try to act like Dragons, who they think are closer to perfection than Humans.

Abattoir
Usurper Force: Slaughter
Gates to: Dragon City, Gift
Description: Hellish landscape, populated by demons and people who wish they weren’t there.

Gift
Usurper Force: Fulfilment
Gates to: Abattoir, Catchstorm, White Mountain
Description: Odd world that provides, for the duration of a person’s stay, what they believe they have been lacking – usually in informative “careful what you wish for” ways. And takes it away when they leave.

Catchstorm
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Gift, Woekeep, Hart’s Quest
Description: The inhabitants have learnt how to capture lightning in enchanted bottles, and use it to drive massive machinery.

Hart’s Quest
Usurper Force: Hunting
Gates to: Catchstorm, Wasteland, Slowfall
Description: Formal culture in a forest world, with a Questing Beast that grants wishes if you catch it.

Wasteland
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Hart’s Quest, Hallowed
Description: Deserted, rocky, empty shithole.

Hallowed
Usurper Force: Sanctuary
Gates to: Wasteland, Frost
Description: World plagued by the undead, each village having a temple which the undead cannot enter.

Frost
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Hallowed, Slowfall, Hearthsong
Description: Glacier-world of shifting ice.

White Mountain
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Gift, Folly, Rookery
Description: Vast mountain range, the centrepiece being probably the tallest mountain you’ve ever seen.

Woekeep
Usurper Force: Oppression
Gates to: Dragon City, Catchstorm
Description: Hidebound, ritualised, brutal society of slavish devotion to tradtions.

Slowfall
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Hart’s Quest, Frost, Keening Hole
Description: Time moves at ¼ speed for everything except Spherewalkers.

Keening Hole
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Padfoot, Slowfall, Parliament
Description: World is dotted with deep well-like pits, from which screaming and moaning can be heard.

Padfoot
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Keening Hole, Greenflat
Description: The inhabitants have the feet of animals.

Greenflat
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Padfoot, Earthroam
Description: Veldt-like grasslands. Lions included.

Earthroam
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Greenflat, Visage, Unknown
Description: World made up of square “sections” that rearrange, sliding around one another like one of those picture-tile puzzles.

Hearthsong
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Frost, Glade(2)
Description: Almost a Young kingdom. World of very hospitable, welcoming inhabitants with bardic culture.

Rookery
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Broken, White Mountain, Ivy
Description: Den of thieves.

THE OTHER ONES

Armada
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Unknown, True Mirror
Description: City made up of thousands of ships lashed together.

True Mirror
Usurper Force: (Self-)Reflection
Gates to: Armada, Symphony, Orrery
Description: To each individual’s perception, they become their best possible self during the day and their worst at night. Can be very harrowing.

Orrery
Usurper Force: Omens
Gates to: Titan River, Renewal, True Mirror
Description: All the stars can be seen all the time, and Heaven’s machinery is visible. The trained can predict the future with great accuracy, or at least that much of it that is written in the skies.

Renewal
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Orrery, Vanguard
Description: Nothing is known about this world other than that it exists between Orrery and Vanguard.

Vanguard
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Renewal, Unknown (but presumably the way to wherever the Taint come from)
Description: Site of the last battle against the Taint, aeons ago, and built to defend the Realms this side of it from their future incursion.

Titan River
Usurper Force: Unknown
Gates to: Unknown, Orrery
Description: Home to “Terrible Lizards”. Apparently.

DaveB

12-08-2004, 03:27 PM

And for bonus points - draw me a sphere network diagram from the above.

:D

There is no prize.

Skadedyr

12-09-2004, 05:40 AM

Well, as an exercise I decided to map the Old Kingdoms. I managed to maintain my 'no crossing the streams' policy by cutting out links to other regions. The result is still hideous to behold. It surely belongs in some non-Euclidian geometry. I will post my work here as a warning to others. I only hope the I can recover from what little sanity I have left.

http://uploads.bestupload.com/redir/14974.jpg

DaveB

12-09-2004, 06:48 AM

Hell, that's better than I did.

The real sphere map crosses streams all the time and with extreme prejudice, though it's possible to do the Young Kingdoms without crossing streams, as they're basically a big loop with a smaller loop made up of Battlefield, Bastion, Far Window, Forgotton, Caravan and Waterwall suck onto one side, and "arms" of worlds coming out in other places.

DariusTech

12-09-2004, 07:29 AM

Skadedyr

12-09-2004, 07:52 AM

I realize now that I could have avoided the broken-wing infernal bunny by rotating downwards the spheres extending from the right of scar, resulting in a pleasant doughnut shape. Alas I lacked the foresight, though I will attempt to correct my mistake.

http://uploads.bestupload.com/redir/15015.jpg

hemflit

12-09-2004, 01:04 PM

DaveB

12-09-2004, 02:07 PM

:eek: Wow! just wow!

I bow at the feet of an amazing GM and set of players...

Please, please, please keep the writeups coming, I'm watching facinated at this... wondering what exactly Soul is, and if Echo will refind herself, and fall in love with Paragon or one of the party....

Soul.. Well. Circumstantial evidence is mounting up that's he's...

a) A Pheonix that is on some elaborate undercover mission for some unnamed power, it's "cover" being that it is possessing the corpse of a small boy who was ritually sacrificed by his own mother in order to allow the Pheonix in.

b) (This one takes some explaining) Gaunt, back in the first campaign, had a "tattoo" of a Pheonix on his back, which was actually branded into him and constantly on fire. Gaunt was in constant pain from it, and found out that he'd been branded - and exiled from his homeworld - for the crime of attempting to create new life (a race of warriors that bore more than a passing resemblence to the footsoldier-type Tainted). The modern Gaunt, who is controlling the Taint, does not have the tattoo. Based on him calling Soul "The Symbol" throughout, and protesting that he is no longer afraid of him, the idea is that maybe Soul IS the Symbol. He's the good side of Gaunt that has been spat out by the Taint.

c) Soul is, in some way, Gaunt's "death". Gaunt is terrified of Death, has created the Taint to try to "free" everyone in all the spheres from it and is wrecking the worlds in the process. Pheonixes are the symbol (indeed, the Fate Card) for the proper cycle of death and rebirth, which Gaunt is trying to escape from.

d) All of the above.

As for Echo, she gets back into her body with much healing cartharsis. As you'll see if I can stop allowing you lot to distract me and actually finish the writeup. Paragon and she have reached an understanding, and he leaves Waterwall with the party, giving up his position and becoming a whole lot happier in the process. Who knows?

Hell, maybe he'll end up with Fathom.

Or maybe I'll kill him off. :D

DaveB

12-09-2004, 02:18 PM

Dude, you rock! Like, you put back the M in GM!

Normally i don't even look at "actual play" threads. This one just showed up by complete accident when i ran the search feature looking for a different Everway thread. And how lucky i was.

I haven't yet read all of what you've posted, i've just skimmed through most of it (and even that must have taken a couple of hours). But this is prime gaming stuff.

(Well, your style itself is not 100% up my alley, but i can tell quality when i see it.)

Thanks, and don't try to read it all in one go. You'll do yourself an injury.

Have you ever tried making money writing adventures or campaign settings? I know it's a different ballgame interactivity-wise, you wouldn't know the players or get their feedback, but still? Your ideas sound way better than what i see in many published products, and it's obvious you don't have a problem with the actual "producing text" phase either.

I have good weeks and bad weeks. I'm having a bad week at the moment, and suffering severe writer's block. I have a lot of days coming up next week when my SO has gone to relatives for Christmas and I'm still working up until Christmas eve, though, so my evenings will be filled with writing.

And no, I haven't. I never thought I was good enough. Or non-derivative enough. I steal things from geek culture *all* the time - "homage" is my players' word -

As for where you got the idea for Echo's letter to herself, it looks like Total Recall. Yay amnesia and the identity paradox! That's one theme that's never going to get old in gaming. Funny, though, how it generally shows up in fantasy a lot more than in SF.

Ooh! Good one. But no. It's the Doctor Who novel "Unnatural History".

And I love me a good identity crisis. I cut my teeth on Mage: The Ascension and have had much fun with twisted mind effects.

Speaking of which, have you played Planescape? Amnesia is a perennial theme there, though rarely the dominant one. Had its peak in the Torment computer game.

I have played Torment, but not Planescape the AD&D setting. I was an Al-Quadim man at the appropriate period.

Have you read Amber? Some of your "flashbacking" ways, as well as the dragon NPCs, look like they've been heavily influenced by it, so i'm mentioning it in case you actually haven't read it.

Strangely enough, no I haven't. I really must get round to it one day.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
hemflit

And with that vote of confidence, it's back to my writeup! :D

DaveB

12-09-2004, 02:28 PM

And Skadedyr - love the diagrams.

DaveB

12-09-2004, 05:05 PM

SESSION EIGHT - WATERWALL

We start with a brief recap of the chase sequence from the end of last session. Soul, who has been out teaching local children the benefits of deliquency, watches as Echo blurs past hotly chased by Valour and Mirage. He then shrugs and goes back to whatever he was looking at.

The next day, late afternoon, and Talisman is *still* asleep, blissfully unaware of what's been going on in his absence. Fathom has been out swimming with the fishes since before the Not-Giant-Squid Attack, Valour is unconcious and Mirage is sleeping, exhausted by the night's chase. Soul is still absent, and so it is left to Talisman to sort everything out.

His rest is interrupted by Viper, who worriedly asks him if there have been any further developments. That, naturally, leads into Talisman asking what there might be developments IN, and Viper gives the story as he heard it second-hand from a dropping-dead-at-her-own-feet Mirage. In fact, the only one from last night's chase of doom who's awake is "Echo", and she's been free to paint an ugly picture of the proceedings for most of the day. Paragon has locked himself in his own room and is refusing to see anyone, to maintain his impartiality. That leads into "impartiality into what", and Viper - expressing his pain at not understanding any of this shit - lays it out. Back on Caravan, you see, the gang successfully persuaded Paragon that the personality currently inhabiting his wife's body (she who we usualy just call Echo) had a right to live, even though she wasn't what he considered the "real" one. That personality has now been replaced by a *third* personality, who (if we go by the rules that we've just established) also has every right to live. Now, Paragon knows damn well which one of the Echos is in the right here, but cannot legally do anything (and indeed, the instant that "Echo" realises that the guards around her are watching her not keeping the other characters away as she supposes, everyone will be screwed) and his Princedom (which, dedicated Thread-readers may recall, is probationary) is looking shaky as it is what with the whole war-mongering thing. In point of fact, he thinks that "Echo" may well use any attempt he makes to remove her to have him kicked out, leaving her as Waterwall's ruler.

Talisman correctly supposes that the reason Viper has, then, come to him is so that they can put the Eternal Mystery that is Echo's Brain back into shape on the quiet, using the good old standbys of positive thinking and violent action, while Paragon stays out of it and keeps his hold on the Chamber of Ministers. That makes Talisman unhappy (he is of the opinion that Paragon needs to grow a pair and to hell with the politicians), but he marches off to rouse the others.

Soul, meanwhile, is happily breaking into the home of Waterwall's court mage (who Soul has just observed hurrying to the palace) and looking for books about Gods, eventually looting an impressive-looking tome with lots of interesting pictures in it.

Talisman is on the march, storming into the houses of healing and (not being allowed access to Echo's room by her legion of guards) finds Valour, who is just waking up. Valour's life has been saved by a quirk of his anatomy - the knife didn't have a very long blade, and Valour's chest juts out noticably more than a normal human's. While it looks to many observers like he's got a permenantly puffed-up chest, it's actually the result of his wing muscles, which meet over his sternum. On a normal man, the knife would have gone inbetween some ribs and done major damage to a lung. On Valour, it has nearly severed several tendons and cut a deep hole into the muscle controlling his left wing. He's flightless for at least a few months - if he tried to fly, he'd tear something permenantly. And sorry - no diminutive blue women that can cure by laying on hands make their residence on Waterwall.

Out in the city, Fathom breaks the surface of one of the domes and steps back into civilisation. Wandering through the streets, she spots Soul lurking and - establishing that he's been "finding things" all day, marches him back to the palace.

Valour slowly sits up and asks for updates, finding out what "Echo" has been up to (including accusing Valour of attempting to kill her) and getting the results of the Healers and the Court Mage, who have all had a look at her. According to their best methods of detection, she is NOT possessed - her soul is her own, and she is not under any kind of magical influence. In Viper's succinct words, "She's just crazy". When asked what, then, transferred from and to the enchanted Mirror, the Mage theorises that maybe nothing did. The copy of past-Echo's mind in the mirror overwrote that in the body, while the Mirror kicked in and recorded her mind as it was designed to. Only simultaneously. Both minds changed to imitate the other, but nothing moved.

In fact, as Viper tells them, "their" Echo hasn't been seen in any mirrors since the chase.

They have absolutely no idea where she is.

In the Mirror-world, Echo is wandering the dark and silent version of Waterwall, feeling very much alone. She's lost track of the others, and doesn't know how long she's been trapped in here - her sense of time is distorting.

It is then, just as she feels her lonliest, that she is attacked by six feral humanoids that - on closer inspection - turn out to be her. Or rather, "her" - they're wearing the same clothes as the one that stole her body. Halfway through the fight, she is joined by yet *another* her (also identically dressed) - this one fighting with the precision she's come to expect from herself, and apprantly helping her against the feral "her"s. The feral Echoes defeated, the newcomer briskly demands to know which "number" she is.

This, Echo decides, is the last straw.

Talisman and Viper have set off to the room with no doors. Which, thanks to Paragon last night (while other people were off chasing "Echo") is now the room with one hole in the wall.

Echo and other-Echo, who says her name is "16", are running back to the palace. Echo establishes what's going on, afer much talking at cross-purposes and suchlike. When you put two mirrors facing each other either side of an object, you don't get one reflection of it - you get an infinite string of them in both directions. That's what she means by "16" - this is the copy of past-Echo from the 16th level from reality. The low levels have all been invaded and taken by "Warps" - versions of Echo that are too far removed from reality to have any of their personality left, from the four hundreds and up. They attacked, led by Number Four - a pure(ish) copy who, at 16's best guess, is the one currently in control of the body. 16's plan is to make it to the room with no doors and hop up levels to 58, where the loyal copies have a safehouse in the town library. Echo doesn't like that, and declares that she's going to get into her body, no matter what.

They reach the room, to find it swarming with Warps

One of the guards Viper and Talisman have bought along spots an Echo in the mirror. And another Echo. And another Echo. And so on. There's a bit of a fight on in the mirrorworld, but the two sane Echoes fight their way to the mirror. Echo tries to step through it, and vanishes.

She has, lacking a body to get into, gone up into Level 2 instead. Number 16 grabs hold of her and - hotly pursued by Warps - they pulse up too many levels to count until Echo manages to break free and shout that she was kind of intending to go the *other* way.

Talisman, not seeing any of this, writes a note telling her to hang tight as he's off to fetch her body for her and leaves it on the chair, then he and Viper pound off to find the others.

Fathom and Soul have met up with the others and everyone has gone to wake Mirage and bring her back to Valour's bedside. Upon consultation, Mirage expresses her exasperation at Paragon's stance and goes to force him into action, while Fathom and Talisman decide that they're not just going to hang around, they're going to march right in there and show "Echo" what she's dealing with. Valour manages to get up and walk around, shouting after them that he can hear Echo's thoughts if they can get her to him.

Mirage is turned away at Paragon's door by a guard (who apologetically informs her that, being a closed system, Waterwall has no vermin and no native insects. Just so she knows) and decides instead to get in through the window by dropping from the floor above. She interrupts Paragon while he's having a good hard brood and - turning into a small, cute, girl with very large eyes - asks him to help. He's annoyed more than anything and - after a brief rant about how the Ministers will depose him, and how he *told* her to stay away, shouts that damnit, now she's gone and made him *do* something, and storms off "Echo"-wards.

Fathom and Talisman disable the guards outside Echo's bedroom with their powers, and storm in. "Echo" blinks calmly at them and vanishes, having cancelled the copy of herself that she left there while the other her was wandering the city. Paragon and Mirage arrive and - after Talisman grumblingly releases the guards - confer. She was trying her damndest to get off the world last they checked, but Golden has been posted at the Far Window gate ready in case she does.

Mirage shifts into Cat-form and goes tracking again, discovering that "Echo" is using her speed-pulse liberally as well as shifting between bodies to try to hide herself. Soul has a good hard think about things and abandons his body, hoping that he might be able to see what's going on from the Astral plane. Pheonix-Soul flies around incorporeally, observing the spirits of the population and hoping to see one that tastes like Echo.

He is somewhat suprised when a demon flies up to him and says "Hi".

The rest of the gang, however, are trying to think this one through. The gates have been sealed since the chase, so where would she..? To the Chamber of Ministers!

Talisman and Fathom bully their way inside, past a guard who says he has orders to not let anyone in but is obviously terrified of the powerful offworlders and his pissed-off monarch, abandoning his post. They march right in past all of the Ministers (who all protest most loudly, especially when Paragon gives them the mid digit), and into the room where "Echo" is. Talisman encases her in a reflective cocoon of Colour, and they start to march back out again. Mirage realises that maybe there is an oppertunity to save Paragon's ass here and - getting his permission - shifts into a duplicate of him and goes back into the chamber, making a spirited effort at trying to explain all of this. Fathom stays with her for moral support.

In the spirit world, Soul and the demon are flying around, chatting as two mortal enemies that meet far, far away from their respective commanders are wont to do. The Demon helpfully points out a dying man for Soul to absorb the spirit of, and Soul promises to look out for anyone in need of tempting. Interestingly, the Demon calls Soul a "minion of the Walker". In any case, they split up to cover more ground and - just as Soul spots everyone leaving the chamber - the demon comes back reporting that there's something really weird over *there*. Soul flies over to look, and has a good view of the Army of Tainted standing completely still on the seabed outside the city. The Demon bids him goodbye and exits through a gate, while Soul - seeing the army start to move - rushes as fast as he can to catch up with the others. He materialises by Mirage and Fathom just as the alarms start being sounded. Which isn't good. Especially as all eyes turn to Mirage, who is looking rather Paragon-ish at the moment.

Damn.

Meanwhile, Echo has reached the sanctuary and is confronted with 167 copies of herself, in various states of degeneration. All of them, 16 explains, are lacking. 16 herself is the closest to real that's still alive, and she can't remember most of what she was put here to tell Echo. Echo says that she doesn't much care what they were put here to do - though she points out that 4 is the closest, and she's stolen her life, so maybe they're the ones that are deluded about their purpose. She says that the book she wrote showed her past self for what she was - a calculating bitch who has set a trap for herself. Now, Echo is going to go back to level 1 and she's going to get into her body. And then she's going to smash this fucking mirror.

16 gets angry right back at her, pointing out that the book was right - she that cares wins, and 4's time incarcerated in this half-life has made her care far more about being "real" than Echo does. And that's why Echo lost. Echo says that she's feeling oddly motivated, and that she's going to get out of here as soon as possible and get on with her own life away from them. 16 points out that all of them - all of the loyal reflections - have spent the better part of two years trapped in here. They've been picked off one by one, traumatised and abandoned, and they can't remember what they were supposed to tell her. And now they're going to help her fight her way back to her body. In reward for which, they'll be destroyed when she breaks the mirror.

Echo stops then, and realises what she's doing.

Soul goes incorporeal again and rushes off to the Room, while Paragon, Talisman and Valour get there and dump "Echo" between the mirrors, still cocooned. Talisman very carefully forms the cocoon down to fit the body, so that it doesn't completely block the Mirrors and thereby wipe out the Mirrorworld and everyone in it. Soul crashes into the room in incorporeal form, overshoots and winds up inside the mirror - surrounded by Warps. He "eep!"s, goes incorporeal again and bludgeons his way out, reappearing in the room. If only Echo could do that. He tells the assembled gang that the Taint are coming, and that Mirage is still pretending to be Paragon, at which point Paragon feels the call to action. Talisman stops him, and tells him that other people can look after the city. Echo - the real Echo, plus or minus any amnesia that might be going on - is about to come back into the world, and Paragon should *be there*. Paragon looks deeply torn and leaves anyway, to Talisman's disgust. Soul takes a deep breath and goes incorporeal again, blasting as fast as he can back to the fight.

Up on level 58, Echo makes a point of learning everyone's names (which isn't that hard, given that they're all numbers) and divides her big stash o weapons out.

While all of this is going on, the army of Tainted is waiting just outside the Council dome. A Tainted sea-monster of some kind swims up to the dome and sticks it's head through, which drops off and opens like a bulb to reveal a humanoid shape made of meat. The creature ripples and grows skin, until it looks like the man the brother of change on Stonebridge turned into. Or, as we omnipotent observers call him, Gaunt.

Gaunt says that he is here to negotiate the city's surrender, and that he does not wish to harm anyone unneccessarily. Mirage puts up a good bluff, but Gaunt dismisses her (comparing her obliquely to Fire Plume, which confuses the hell out of her). Gaunt wants the Unity, and claims that Paragon and the gang are under the control of Soul - who he informs he isn't afraid of him any more.

They fight.

Fathom turns the surface of the dome to ice, forcing the Tainted to merge into larger forms in order to break in. Soul combusts as many as he can, and Golden (who has arrived from the gate) blasts away. Halfway through, Mirage and Paragon "tag" as he arrives, swinging a Taint as a club and swatting others back out of the dome. Waterwall's soldiers are fighting hard, but most of the army is still on Entelechy.

In the Mirrorworld, Echo and her forces storm the near levels, fighting their way down to the Mirror to the real world. Echoes are dropping like flies and it is understandably chaotic - the only one who stands out visually is Echo herself, and everyone involved is a superhuman martial artist.

Golden tells Soul to use the Unity on himself. Which comes as something of a nonsequiteur. When asked what the hell he's talking about, Golden says that the Unity can amplify Soul's powers. So he needs to use it on himself just as he's dying. Tainted are breaking through in ever-increasing numbers, soldiers are starting to get assimilated and Fathom's ice wall is starting to break. Soul nods and touches the Unity to himself just as Golden stabs him.

Golden - holding the dying Soul in his arms - walks towards the Tainted, telling everyone else to get down. Soul's rebirth explosion apparantly takes Golden with it, and Soul ping-pongs from Tainted to Tainted at high speed, ripping out their connection to Gaunt. The army turns to so much rapidly-combusting meat, and Soul reforms in human form just in time to see a huge Pheonix (that would be Golden) flying off.

Seeing the battle going on through the mirror, the gang get ready to release "Echo". Once they see the real her on the other side, Talisman drops the cocoon and 4 is dragged back into the mirror. The body opens her eyes and - alarmed - shrieks that she's the wrong one, and they need to put her back. Pushing her back in, 16 gets out of the body and Echo gets in it again.

Valour checks telepathically that it's the right one and - upon getting confirmation - Talisman lets her up. Echo grabs a piece of furniture from the room and smashes the mirrors, shuddering.

.

Victory is declared, on both fronts, and some recovering is in order. When Golden turns up again (back in "disguise" as a being of pure fire and light. As Mirage points out, it's sort of hiding in plain sight), Soul and Mirage question him about what's going on. The pheonix says that they are all of them in hiding, because of the Taint, and lets Soul know what his mission is. Soul is a sacrifice, his mission being to restore Gaunt's mortality by living a human life and then giving it up, dying and returning to existence as a Pheonix in the act of destroying Gaunt's real body. Soul, taking that as a divine mandate to "Experience" and have as much fun as possible before graduating and going back to his real life as an energy being of mythic status, readily agrees. Golden discorporates and flies off, saying that it is no longer safe for him on Waterwall.

Trying to relax, Echo catches sight of a reflection in the wall of a dome. It's one of the reflection-Echos, walking along and watching her.

The victory celebration is initially kinda morose. Echo continues to catch sight of copies - the Mirrorworld is evidently not gone - in reflective surfaces. Paragon has kept his throne (thanks to Mirage, and the Taint turning up to prove his point for him) but doesn't seem that happy about it. Soul and Talisman are chipper, though. Fathom is just glad it's all over, Valour has had a wing-sling made and is feeling better. Mirage is bantering, and reveals what Gaunt said. To the point that Talisman finally realises that it's Gaunt they're up against, and tells the gang what little he can remember of the man's history.

Paragon and Echo slip outside to have The Talk. Echo finally confronting him about the answer to a question she asked on Caravan that he shied away from - she asked what he liked about her. Paragon just says that his reason for not answering is the same - he's determined to treat them as different people, and doesn't want to give even the impression that he's comparing her to his wife. She asks what he wants to do now.

He wants to go with them. Gaunt is out there, and he needs killing. The gang can do that, or so Soul says, while the army protects the Spheres in the meantime. Besides, every gate they go through she gets another memory back. If this whole affair has taught them anything it's that she IS the real one - and if he goes with them he'll be around if she ever remembers enough to want to try their marraige again. She says that - having worked through some of her own difficulties - she doesn't have any reason to stop him. He asks if they should flip a coin over it, and she decides to ask the others first.

The others, for some reason, are embroiled in a Food Fight. The bunch of big kids. Paragon and Echo join in, and a great deal of fun it is too. Though Paragon's use of his invunerability shield is declared cheating. Once everyone's calmed down, Paragon leaves them all to it. He has soldiers to bury, and things to sign. Once he's gone, Echo asks the others what they think of Paragon coming along. The vote is unanimously postive - most so from Talisman, who sees that being responsible for this realm is killing Paragon slowly.

A copy of Echo - wearing the Katana - arrives in the mirror behind the bar, and Valour relays that she's number 16. 16 tells Echo that the Mirrorworld is fading. All of the warps have vanished, and the others are fading one by one. She'll be gone soon. On the plus side, she's killed number 4. Echo congratulates - and thanks - her. It turns out that Echo DID care enough to win.

The night wears on and the gang drift off to bed one by one. Valour stays up most of the night talking to 16 through her final hours. At the last, 16 says that she's going for a walk and leaves the field of vision of the mirror. She is never seen again.

.

Days later, and the preparations have been made. The gang assemble - with an extra pack - at the gate to Far Window. The assembled dignitaries of the city turn out to see them off, and Paragon takes great pleasure in telling the Council that he quits. He abdicates in favour of Viper (who is horrified), grabs the spare pack and runs - whooping - through the gate.

The rest of the gang head through one by one. Echo - the last one through - takes a last look at Waterwall before she goes.

Finito.

Dakkareth

12-09-2004, 05:17 PM

Thanks, and don't try to read it all in one go. You'll do yourself an injury.

It will only feel like that when I wake up tomorrow with too few hours of sleep :D. Being used to ENWorld's Story Hours the length is no deterrent to me ;).

Anyway, I registered here to say, that I rather liked this thread, both the actual action and the backdrop. Seems there's one more item on the 'check out sometime' list now ...

-Dakkareth, who should really sleep now

DaveB

12-09-2004, 05:25 PM

The end of "season one", this. After Waterwall, we're very much back on the road again - Session Nine takes in Far Window, Forgotten and Bastion - and powering onwards towards the mysterious blank space on their maps that comes after Visage - the edge of the Young Kingdoms, and the limit of what anyone around here can tell them.

Much has been learned - the nature of the campaign's bad guy for a start, and of what Soul's position is - but there are still a lot of details missing. Many of them will be filled in next session (which, Gods willing, I will start writing up tomorrow), so I shan't pointlessly lengthen the thread with them.

And with increased speed of travel comes increased rate of Visions. Lots more game fiction coming.

I have no complaints about Session Eight. Everything I wanted to resolve got resolved and that which I wanted hanging is still hanging. The crucial cat-out-of-the-bag - that Gaunt is the bad guy - was *sold* by Renaud (who plays Talisman and used to play Gaunt) describing his former character IC in extremely vague terms, selling the idea that Talisman never paid much attention in "class" and not falling to the temptation of just recounting the man's life story. Aside from that, Renaud got me on Talisman's reaction to Paragon leaving to fight the Taint, on his angry staring-down of the council guard and on (I suspect) starting the food fight.

After the heroics of last time, Valour was forced to hang back. Injury is always a toughy, and Valour's reaction to his limitations was good to watch (and is good to watch in Session 9, especially the bit on the stairs and... nevermind. I'll get there eventually). Though he did his funky mind-reading thing again, and quietly stayed up with 16 while she died.

Fathom is almost there. She's almost at the point where she snaps, floating around in "I'm not the leader"ness but not quite being firm enough about it. And props for the ice-sheeting. Someone had just been to see The Incredibles.

Soul takes the news of his future death rather well (it HAD kinda been foreshadowed), and the bits with him and the Demon ("No no no, first you say 'I abjure thee, servant of hell' and then I say 'away, minion of the Walker'. Got it?") were very funny. Though it didn't make it into the writeup, the bit where he shows off his book on Gods (including the Realmforge as a means of apotheosis) was one long in-joke.

At some point in this session, Mirage and Valour broke up. I'm not sure where. If Chris or Rafe read this, could you tell me? Because I'm stumped. SImilarly, I was focused on RPing Paragon and Echo's talk with Emma while the rest of the gang chatted IC, and when I returned my attention there was a food fight going on.

Would someone like to let the GM in on the cause?

Mirage uses her powers in the obvious - though so far not seen - use of impersonating someone else. Hearing Rafe roleplaying Mirage pretending to be me roleplaying Paragon was again, very very funny.

As for The Eternal Mystery of Echo's Brain... Well, she's gained a lot of closure here. Though it doesn't stop another angst-fest kicking off next session.

Later days!

DaveB

12-09-2004, 05:40 PM

Shit! I forgot something!

During the victory party, Talisman asked Soul for the Unity - he'd never actually touched it (only tried to pick it up with Colour) back in the first session, and though it gave Fathom an electric shock he was wondering what it'd do to him given what the gang now know about Strabo's intentions.

It hurt. A lot. Kind of writhing around with your hand stuck on it sort of thing (think Return of the King's Palantir scene), but before they managed to get it off him he turned briefly lizard-like and scaly before slowly morphing back into human form.

So he IS a Dragon, and it DOES return missing Gifts to them. Which in his case is all of them. If he could survive the process, it would turn him into a full-blown winged fire-breathing monster. Something which he (thankfully) has no intention of ever doing.

Experiment over, they went back to drinking.

It will only feel like that when I wake up tomorrow with too few hours of sleep :D. Being used to ENWorld's Story Hours the length is no deterrent to me ;).

Anyway, I registered here to say, that I rather liked this thread, both the actual action and the backdrop. Seems there's one more item on the 'check out sometime' list now ...

-Dakkareth, who should really sleep now

Thanks for registering, have a look around the rest of the site! These are some *good* forums, right here.

And I should sleep too. I have work in the morning. :(

Sensorium

12-09-2004, 07:55 PM

I must say I'm greatly enjoying the recaps of your games DaveB. The amount of thought you seem to have put into plot threads and world design in your game are commendable.

Having tried my hand at writing up play sessions I know how time consuming it gets and I wanted to say thank you for doing such a thorough job with your recaps.

Skadedyr

12-09-2004, 09:40 PM

Eventually I'll mark the one-way passages and trace the path the PCs are following. For now I've polished the Old Kingdoms and done the Young Kingdoms.

http://uploads.bestupload.com/redir/15677.jpg

http://uploads.bestupload.com/redir/15682.jpg

DaveB

12-10-2004, 06:28 AM

Cool. It's upside-down!

LuxVeritatis

12-10-2004, 11:41 AM

At some point in this session, Mirage and Valour broke up. I'm not sure where. If Chris or Rafe read this, could you tell me? Because I'm stumped. SImilarly, I was focused on RPing Paragon and Echo's talk with Emma while the rest of the gang chatted IC, and when I returned my attention there was a food fight going on.

Actually, it wasn't that session. It was, if I recall, prior to the Echo/Mirrorworld debacle. It's just that things never really allowed this to be drawn to your attention until several sessions later.

Valour informed Mirage that he thought she should know that he felt that he was losing his emotions to the metal inside. That as it was consuming him he was becoming less able to show and feel emotion. That he thought she should know because if it continued it would spell the end of their relationship, and that he did not intend to fight it because it seemed... necessary.

Mirage was slightly surprised that Valour thought she needed to know this and realised that she had allowed him to labour under a misunderstanding concerning how she saw the relationship. She informed him that she wasn't sleeping with him because she was in love with him, she was sleeping with him because she liked him, and because she enjoyed it. (Mirage is almost as fond of physical intimacy as Talisman is - she just tends towards short-term relationships rather than Talisman's literal one-night stands.) She went on to say that he was far more important to her as a friend than as a lover, and that if what he said was true it was probably best if they continued on that basis alone rather than continuing to mix the two. Hence the break-up. Hence also the reason why she (as a he) went almost immediately on to seduce Viper - something she'd been wanting to do for a while, but hadn't wanted to hurt Valour - while she still had the chance.

As for the food fight... My memory is unclear, but I think it was Fathom. *Why*, I forget.

Rafe/Mirage

DaveB

12-10-2004, 12:16 PM

Ahhhh. I understand now.

(Incidentally, Rafe, last call for Vision requests. I'm about to go write them)

Longspeak

12-10-2004, 01:09 PM

Dave, this continues to both amaze and inspire. Keep up the good work.

DaveB

12-10-2004, 04:01 PM

SESSION NINE

(Andy/Soul was off LARPing during this session, so next week he'll get three visions all at once).

FAR WINDOW -> FORGOTTEN -> BASTION

SPHERE THIRTEEN - FAR WINDOW

ECHO THIRTEEN

“Why me?” You ask, defensively, glancing up at Talisman.

“All kinds of reasons.” He replies, finishing another bottle and adding it to the pile of his empties. Your own solitary half-drunk beer stares forlornly at you.

Squinting against the lurid negative colours of the world (dark things are light, and light things are dark, such that the shadows are all pools of light and the sun is an orb of pitch black in a distinctly odd sky), you take another half-hearted sip, your sense of taste rebelling against the drink. Managing not to gag, you put it down again and concentrate on not spitting it out.

Talisman doesn’t notice.

“Look.” He says. “We have a cuckoo in our nest. Fathom’s made the decision to bring it along – against my advice, I might add – and so we have to deal. We’re going to have to learn to live with it, like we had to learn to live with one another.”

“Again, I ask – why me?”

“Because you know what it’s like, to be the outsider in the group. You know what it’s going to be feeling more than anyone. Have another drink”

You grimace and shake your head.

“That’s an order” He says, joking, and you instinctively reach for the bottle, before catching yourself and mock-glaring at him.

“Sorry” He says, quietly. “Really bad, huh?”

“It’s… disgusting. How can you drink this vile…” You grimace again and look disbelievingly at his pile of empties. “It makes me want to spit like a camel.”

“Always the sign of good beer” he says, happily.

“So – what? You want me to help Glorious fit in with the group?” You ask. “Because I’m clearly so good at it.”

“We need to pick a better name for it,” He says, “something punchier. But yes. You’re the nearest to it’s physical age. You’ve got first hand experience of not knowing how to talk to anyone. Chat to it, get it to tell you things. And then tell me.”

“To clarify, then, you don’t want me to do this out of concern for the child’s wellbeing, but simply because you want someone to spy on it for you.”

He nods, enthusiastically, the sarcasm lost – or maybe just ignored. “Yep. That’s it exactly. I knew I could rely on you, Kitten.”

Shaking your head in disbelief at his shamelessness, you get up and try to find some water to clear the beer taste away.

“I don’t know why I hang around with you. You’re a bad influence on me.” You muse to yourself, knowing that you just agreed to do it.

“Because of what happened on Effigy.” He says, flatly, and then grins to himself. “And because I’m not Valour.”

“And because I’m not Mirage” You counter, grinning at his expression.

“You’ll do it, then?” He asks, and you nod. “Thanks, love. I’ll pay you back.”

“Oh, I know you will.” You shoot back, and switch to your other body, already standing outside Glorious’ door. You enter and the child looks up at you, it’s expression unreadable.

“Hi” you start, warmly. “We never got the chance to meet back on Fire Plume. I’m Echo.”

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, you start to do your job.
VALOUR THIRTEEN

You’re sitting in a vast library, the stacks stretching as far as you can see in every direction, ensconced in a semi-circular alcove, the scroll-cases and bindings piled up all around you as you work.

In front of you, a picture is beginning to emerge in your notes. The Old Kingdoms. Dozens of ancient, ruined worlds, from which even these realms of antiquity claim descent. It’s there. You know that it’s somewhere there.

A line catches your eye, in a text describing the world of Doomshield.

“Lord Valour? Is something wrong?” Reflecting Air of Wisdom walks like a cat, the old Librarian logically trained in the art of moving silently.

“Vanguard” You say, pointing to the appropriate ideogram on the Doomshield Codex. “Tell me about Vanguard.”

---------------------

“The story matches”, you say to Reflecting Air.

The two of you are seated in his office / quarters, an open bottle of wine on the desk and glasses in your hands.

The old man nods, enthusiastically. “If we suppose that the Realm these people told you about was named after the hero – or perhaps that our own legends of the hero are corrupted histories of the Realm.”

You nod. “If the route between here and Vanguard has been forgotten, but the legend continued to be told, then eventually people would start to think of it as a person rather than a place. Maybe the hero with the sword was from Vanguard, and it’s been warped over time.”

He smiles, sympathetically.

“We may never know, my Lord. It is interesting, and I will enter it into our archives, but..”

“There’s something in this.” You say, thinking aloud. “It’s not just a…” You cut off, your thoughts running ahead of your mouth. “Reflecting Air. I need pictures”

“Of a children’s story?” he asks, sceptically.

“Of anything. Any version of the tale – the older the better. I need as good a description of the plant-men Vanguard fought as you can give me.”

Curious, he gets up and rings the bell for a librarian to attend you.

---------------------

You stare at the artist’s rendering of the Cycle of Vanguard, the oldest version of the tale that Reflecting Air can find. The description of Vanguard’s foes from the story in your mind, you stare at the image, trying to see past the artist’s impression. It doesn’t look exactly what you are now certain it looks like, because the artist had never seen one. She’d only had one described to her. Trees that walk like men, with burning orange-red eyes of sap, that budded new members from a communal source – the original sentient tree-spirit that Vanguard killed.

You slide the painting to one side, and look at the next one in the Cycle, in which the tree-men retreated, taking a seed from their spirit/father and walking with it through a Gate, never to return. Broken, they could no longer extend their famous oneness of purpose beyond the borders of any one sphere. Exiled by Vanguard’s demand, they walked off into legend, vowing to never again try to alter what life itself had designed.

You have the horrible feeling that you know where they went.

You sit back in the chair, feeling your wings bump against the floor. Your wine is forgotten.

It’s your fault. Collectively speaking. You had thought that you were saving your worlds from whatever evil had infected this wider network of Realms.

It’s actually close to the other way around.

You never met him, but have had him described to you. Your father spoke of the time They’d been in his palace back on Sky Stone. The priests of Julius revere him as a living saint.

You know the Face of the Enemy.
MIRAGE THIRTEEN

The rain rains on the righteous and the treacherous alike.

Sometimes, you wonder which you are.

Crouching in the narrow space between two roofs, you’re pelted by the run-off water from both sets of gutters. It’s miserable, but you have a good view of the square.

The Brothers of Change are late. Well, late according to your informant. You have to know what these meetings are about, where all these offworlders are coming from.

WHY do you have to know?

The thought hits you, and you are struck by the futility of it all. The others have been in prison for four months now, and despite the best efforts of you and your new acquaintances you’re no closer to freeing them or getting through the heavily-guarded gate to Stagnant. The Quest has failed, and you’ve been left alone in a nightmare world of oppression and squalor, trying to carry on.

What do you do when the mission that has taken up the last years of your life is gone? What do you do when the people you’ve always relied on for your cues are taken away?

You are reminded of Velvet Sky, years ago now. You do not have a good track record of thinking for yourself. One of life’s born followers, you muse to yourself, have been ever since.. well, ever. Even growing up on Archways.

Maybe it would be better to just give up, embrace the Voice’s plan for Unified worlds.

Even Talisman. You never saw it when he was around – for all your self-examination and navel-gazing. You followed his lead, and got burnt when that lead turned out to be a façade. Even when you knew about all the stuff under the surface, you still responded to him like he was the idle noble playboy he pretended to be. He was repelled by that and you couldn’t understand why.

You realise that you are thinking of him in the past tense, and feel a sudden stab of loss.

They’re not going to get out. You realise. It’s not going to be okay. You’re trapped far from home, without your master to follow and without your friends – who you’ve done a great disservice to and remade in your own mind into your masters’ image.

Echo broke free. Why couldn’t you? Why did everyone spend so long helping her to evolve – your stomach turns at using the Voice’s pet word – and not you? Couldn’t they see?

It ends here.

From now on, you vow, things are going to be different. You’ve been wasting time, observing the Brothers of Change’s meetings and not doing anything about them. You’ve been following the stratagems of the resistance because it’s the easy thing to do, because you’re falling into your old pattern for yet another time. Becoming a member of the Inn’s Cell because that’s what they expect you to do.

The two Brothers of Change are bowing to the robed figure that you suddenly recognise as the things from the long journey between Fire Plume and the Young Kingdoms. That’s IT. They never gave up. They never stopped hunting you. While you went to True Mirror and around the Young Kingdoms, they were getting here ahead of you. Entelechy has been warped like this – all of these horrors have been committed – as a trap. For you and your friends.

They’ve gone proactive. They’ve changed from popping up and attacking to declaring war on the Mission for the Lost Force.

Dropping from the hiding space, you turn into a tiger and rend the two Brothers apart. Shifting back into human form, you grab the robe of the Tainted and pull it’s hood back, staring into it’s blood-red eyes.

“Tell Him.” You snarl. “Tell Him that this isn’t over.”

To hell with waiting and watching. You decapitate the monster, watching as it turns to ash.

This is a war.
FATHOM THIRTEEN

You look down at the reflecting pool, and notice the wrinkles for the first time. You have white hair anyway, so it’s not like you can go grey, and you HAVE been travelling across all kinds of worlds for years now.

It still hurts. Not a lot – you were never that shallow – but a little bit.

~Tired, my love?~ comes the Voice, clashing with itself like someone randomly pressing the keys on a harpsichord.

You turn, and are suddenly face to faces with Lhaksmar.

The Goddess of Chaos and Destruction turns her “good” face in your direction and attempts to smile reassuringly. On a twelve feet tall, two-faced, four-armed, sapphire-skinned Goddess, the expression just looks creepy. As it was almost certainly supposed to look.

“Go away” you say, your voice hollow.

~That’s not good. That’s not good at all~ says the Goddess, frowning and rotating her body to peer at you with her “bad” face.

“Not Good? How am I supposed to be acting? We’ve been on the run for a year now – a year!. And it won’t give up! We’ve doubled-back, we’ve taken side routes and yet everywhere we go the same robed… THINGS pop up and attack us!” You cut your tirade off when you see the look on Lhaksmar’s face, like she’s hungry. Disgusted, you turn back to the pool. “Go find your meal elsewhere.” You snarl, and the Goddess laughs a musical and entirely fake laugh.

~Have a care, Princess, whom you speak to in that tone. There are Beings that should not be trifled with in such a way~

“And as soon as I see one of them I’ll bite my tongue” You say, closing your eyes and willing her to do something “But right now the only person I’m talking to is a washed-out priestess of Water who Ascended to Godhood because her friends were smarter than her. Whose Son followed her route to power and immediately dismantled what influence she had. Who hides here in the Cathedral because there are worse things than Gods out there – and she’s afraid of them.”

Come on. Do something. Destroy me. That’s what you’re supposed to be good at. But you can’t even do that, can you?

~Have a care~ She warns again in a cold voice, and walks away, leaving you in peace. ~Destruction should not be mocked~

You watch her go, then shrug. You release the tension that had been building up inside all the time she was here, and take a deep breath, coming close to shuddering. The Lady emerges from behind a pillar too small to hide her floating, bird-legged, prehensile flame-haired self.

~Are you mad!? Do you WANT to die?~ She demands, looking after Lhaksmar’s retreating form.

“I just wanted to see what she’d do” You whisper. “It’s as bad as I thought. She’s terrified.”

~Like any Parent whose child is trying to kill her~ answers the goddess formerly known as Fire Plume.

“Or any parent that has wronged her child” You counter, frostily, letting her know that she’s on your list too.

~What happened to him was necessary. His mother did what she had to do to ensure the survival of everyone~

“I know.” You say, simply. “I know that Soul is necessary, and it was necessary to do what you had your priestesses do. I know that your plan may end up saving the worlds. But It was still wrong. And I’m still going to make sure you pay for it.”

~And what chance do you think you have?~ She asks, laughing and trying to make light of it.

“You’re the Goddess of hopeless causes. You HAVE to give me a chance, no matter how slim. Specifically, you have to give Talisman a chance…”

You let that sink in, The Lady going suddenly wide-eyed and quiet, and walk away through the halls of Cathedral.
TALISMAN THIRTEEN

You stare into the tiny cup at the clear, warm liquid inside. Downing it and feeling the burning sensation fall past your throat into your stomach, you signal for another and then gesture for the bottle and the candle to be left. Pouring yourself another, lighting it and watching it burn with a blue flame before downing it, you sigh.

Everything was going so well.

“You’re a Spherewalker” says a female voice next to you, as a woman slides into the seat next to yours. You morosely assess her – pretty under the heavy makeup common on this world. Good kimono. Probably rich and bored, like you used to be. Before you had all these cares.

“That’s right, love” You drawl, “now you’ve had a good look run along back to your father.” She hesitates, and you clinically note that you guessed correctly. “I’m afraid I’m not the marrying type. I’m not your way off this world.”

She doesn’t leave.

That’s really quite irritating.

“You seem weary.” She says. “Surely the wonders you’ve doubtless seen should lighten your spirit? After all, you are not trapped on a world such as this. You are free.” Ouch. That was bitter. You mentally revised “father” to “fiancée”.

“I’ve been all over this universe,” you drawl, the drink making you talkative “and I have seen many things. A city made of song on a world where sound has shape. A world where anything carved or made to have a face comes alive. A vast Tempest, caused by an angry God. I’ve met Gods, Pheonixes, Dragons and Unicorns. No. It doesn’t lighten the spirit. People say that travel broadens your mind, and they’re right – it’s just that you notice all the bad more and more.”

“What could be so terrible?”

“What’s it to you?”

She narrows her eyes.

“I was simply trying to make conversation. I apologise.” She stands, and you are suddenly reminded of Echo.

“Wait. I’ll tell you.”

She sits down again.

“I’ll tell you, since you want to know so badly. I’ll tell you why we’re all screwed. Every last one of us. There are things going on, out there in the Spheres, things that can go many ways, all of them bad. The end is coming. Spheres are crumbling, their Forces thrown out of balance by a great misguided thing, and the only way to solve it is apparently to commit an even worse act. And if we don’t, there are other beings waiting in the wings to do so, with less pure motives and even more ways to screw it all up. So go home and try to enjoy your provincial little life, love, because no matter who wins this war the ordinary humans are going to be fodder.”

You abandon the glass, and swig from the bottle.

“That is not meant to be drunk in those quantities” She says, concerned. You shrug, and she abandons that line. “This is something you have been dealing with for a while?” She asks, and you nod. “But it has recently become worse?”

“Certain things have now been made clear to me.” You say, feeling the anger at Them rising.

“This worse evil you mentioned?”

You nod, and swig.

“Can you tell me?”

You shrug. “Alright. It starts with a boy…”

DaveB

12-10-2004, 04:02 PM

Far Window, as has been explained, is a vassal Realm of Waterwall. Peaceful, most of it's settlements are in the lowlands where the great farmlands and rice plantations that help feed Waterwall are located. The gate to Waterwall lies above these, in the forested foothills of a low mountain range. Up in those mountains there is a monestary built over the enchanted cave that gives the Sphere it's name.

The Everway spirals into existence on a gravel flat formed by a eroded loop in a shallow river, winding it's way through the flowering forest. The spring flowers are thigh-deep, the early-morning birdsong is "on" and the entire scene is shrouded in thin waist-high mist. It is about half an hour before dawn, and the sky is starting to brighten.

It is, in short, rather fucking beautiful.

Talisman, Fathom, Mirage and Valour emerge out of the Everway. Paragon (he went in first, remember), can be seen chatting aimiably to an early-morning fisherman who's set up shop on the riverbank. They wait patiently for Echo and Soul, and a few minutes later the Gate opens and Echo emerges, looking confused by her vision. When asked, she says Soul went in before her.

So where is the little blighter?

Echo points out that Soul had found out - via Golden - that he can travel Astral Space without a Pathway. Or, to put it another way, he could have flown off the Everway to go look at other Spheres. Mirage says that she didn't think Soul would actually go and *do* it, especially without being able to navigate, and worries that he's effectively lost.

At which point a squat, brown three-armed creature with a single red eye burning in the middle of it's forehead emerges from the Everway with a distinct smell of rotting meat. The Demon croaks out that Soul says he'll catch them all up on Bastion, and that they're not to worry. Then it goes back into the Gate.

Fathom expresses her annoyance at Soul's choice of playmates (amusingly, actually - she puts it in terms of him hanging around unsuitable children who will be a bad influence on him).

Valour fetches Paragon from an intense conversation about bait, and asks where the Window is. Paragon explains the lay of the land and notes that, given the early hour (and the blissful way that Everways synchronise the body clocks of travellers such that they all feel like they've just got up) they can be at the monestary by mid-afternoon.

The group start to hike for it, leaving a copy of Echo at the gate with instructions to fetch Soul if he should appear, wandering through the peaceful landscape and trying to decide what to look at in the Window, confirming details of how it works with Paragon. Behind the monestary is a cave (or it was a cave when this world was discovered. It's had a floor installed, the roof shored up with columns and lots of iconography has been added). The first time anybody goes inside, it is filled with thick mist that forms into a vision of anything the person asks to see. On repeat visits, it's just a cave - each individual only gets one go at it in their lifetime. He and Echo have already used theirs up - past-Echo saw Wall, and he saw the others imprisoned by Gaunt's minions on Entelechy. The visions are always of the present, not of the future or the past, but can be of anything or of anyone the visitor asks for. He jokingly reminds Talisman of the popular story (that the characters have already heard) of all the men who have asked to see the most beautiful woman in the spheres - whoever she is, she has the power to make any man fall in love with her on sight, and the monks are getting tired of trying to stop would-be-suitors running off into the unknown to try to find their new obsession. The monks are of Kush, the God of Revelation, and meticulously record any visions that visitors choose to share with them which they then make available to new visitors as a means of preventing people from wasting their chance by asking for something someone else has already asked for. As such, their library contains thousands of books of answers to riddles, but no questions.

Mirage says that she can't think of anything to ask to look at. She'll look at anything the others want, and agrees to check the truthfulness of past-Echo's account of what's going on back home.

They reach the start of a long ravine, which leads up to the monestary high above them. A staircase has been helpfully carved into it, though the still-flightless Valour is regarding the several thousand steps with a sinking feeling of impending pain. To add insult to injury, Mirage turns into her "Valour" form and flies off. Fathom shrugs and sets off up the steps at a light jog. Talisman makes himself a comfy chair and - sitting down and leaning back - starts to float up at a leisurely pace, with Paragon strolling up beside him. That leaves Echo and Valour to struggle up alone - Echo refusing to betray her dignity by asking Talisman or Paragon to carry her, and stopping frequently rather than be seen to be out of breath. Valour has no such pretenses - he's not used to walking long distances, his physical endurance simply isn't up to the task and so he's struggling all the way up.

Mirage and Fathom have reached the Monestary, and have been greeted by the monks, who are providing tea. Though the ladies have turned down the yak's butter.

Paragon and Talisman reach the top, while Echo and Valour stop for a rest. The monks explain the Window again, and ask if there's anything the gang want to look for - they are under no obligation to say what they're going to ask to see, nor to tell the monks the result, but if it isn't desperately private the monks would prefer they say. Talisman (who's pulled out the group's Fate Deck and is conducting a reading) asks about the Dragon's graveyard, and Paragon asks about the Sword of Vanguard. Talisman - looking at the Fate Deck - asks Paragon *exactly* what he asked for. Paragon can't remember, so the monks go off to retrieve that record to.

While the gang are waiting, Echo and Valour finally make it to the monestary. The monks return - with some success. A Half-Dragon (like Talisman) named Fang asked to see the way to the Dragon's graveyard almost a millenium ago. He saw himself. Some centuries later, a "freelance archaeologist" asked to *see* the Dragon's Graveyard, and described a vast cavern, filled with treasure and set off by a massive pyramid made entirely out of Pearls. Various niches holding items of rare antiquity and puissant nature covered the walls. That matches up with the description Tharissima gave Talisman - the pyramid would be the Soul pearls of all the Dragons, while the niche-items are the "most valued" items from each of the deceased's hoards. As for the Sword of Vanguard, two years ago a certain Knight named Crashing Steel asked to see it (though not, crucially, the way *to* it) and got a description that seems awfully familiar.

The sword, it seems, is in the Dragon's Graveyard. Talisman admits to having had a funny feeling that that might be the case, based on it's last known location of Doomshield and the way that there's that order of Mages. Who are probably all Strabo.

Anyways, they're all here now, they've been fed, and they're up for some revelatory experiences. Fathom is scribbling down notes, trying to think of the precise wording of what she wants to ask for. Talisman asks Paragon to describe his and Echo's visions - Paragon starts in on how he asked to see his wife's friends, and saw each of them in captivity. Talisman checks that - and, noting that Paragon effectively got five visions for the price of one question, thanks him. The fate deck reading suggested that simplicity is the way to go, and so Talisman thinks that asking - as he puts it - "A simple question" will get him further. Paragon isn't sure how to take that.

Escorted to the cave enterance by their hosts, the gang deliberate as to who's on first. While they're all trying to finalise their requests, Echo decides that, hey - no harm in trying - and walks into the Cave. The Mists form around her, and she has the distinct sense that something is waiting for her to speak.

Realising that whatever power holds sway over the Window obviously regards her as a new person, she asks to see Wall.

Wall is burning. Echo sees armies march across her homeland, then the ruined wreckage of the capital city. She sees the Emperor's throne room and the Emperor - the man who is as a god to her - lying dead at the feet of one of his own generals. The general turns to the Bird-men (from Skystone) who are watching from afar, and tells them that he will hold up his side of the bargain. The Republic of Overguard will fall. Her vision moves back out among the people, fighting among themselves, barricading themselves into their villages.

There are no children anywhere.

Stumbling out, in deep shock and her whole worldview shattered with the death of her master, Echo sobs that it works and huddles next to the group, trying to think her way through this. The others look at one another, not wanting to go next. Paragon decides that if Echo got a second go, he might, and enters the cave, reemerging a minute later reporting failure - he just saw the cave interior.

Fathom has finished her notes, and had them checked by Valour and Talisman. She walks into the Window and calmly asks to be shown somewhere that the name of the sphere where Gaunt has his focus of power is written down in legible form and in script she can understand.

The Window shows her the inside of a nursery on some unknown world, with nursery rhymes written on the walls. One of them is a doggeral verse about Vanguard, that mentions the world of "Aelder Bole".

Nodding to herself, Fathom reemerges and reports her victory to the others. Now they know.

Valour, Mirage and Talisman look at one another and - Mirage and Talisman both pleading for more time to think - Valour takes his turn. He asks to see the person who will be "most important" in his quest for the Sword of Vanguard.

He sees the party, stood outside. Talisman and Mirage are still bickering about who has to go next.

Feeling terribly disappointed, Valour leaves the cave. Mirage and Talisman are still arguing. Mirage saying she's thought of something (now that asking for Wall is redundant) but it's really selfish. Everyone tells her to go for it anyway, and she walks in. When the Mists form, she asks to see something that will help her in her quest to understand herself.

On Visage (she can tell it's Visage, everyone's wearing masks), a merchant is buying a particularly odd crystal from a Spherewalker. The man explains that it's a memory-crystal, made to record the thoughts and feelings of it's user, and to allow a moment to be perfectly revisited at will.

Mirage smiles to herself, understanding perfectly what the Window is getting at, and walks out back to the others. It's now Talisman's go, and (after offering the Mists a drink, without response) he takes a deep breath and makes his request.

"Show me what I need to see", He says. So it does.

In an underground city, Vagabond points at the statue commemerating the character party's defeat of the monster from the lower levels and asks what the inhabitants can tell him about the people depicted. On Caravan, Strabo searches the wreckage of the Wagons that the caravan abandoned after the Taint attack and - overcome by sudden anger - smashes them with a swipe of his tail and flies off. Gaunt sits in his throne of pulsing bark in the womb-like chamber inside some massive plant, linked to it by vines and tendrils and staring into nothing, slack-jawed. On Market (back in their home region of the Spheres) the natives are being forcibly removed from their homes by the winged legions of Skystone. Valour's father - Lord Blessed - explains to the ex-ruler of Market that the flying mountains of his homeworld are beginning to vanish, and that the people of skystone need somewhere to live. When asked where the people of Market are supposed to live, Blessed doesn't seem to care. Soul flies through Astral space flanked by Demons. Tharissma walks in human form through some unknown city in the rain, constantly looking over her shoulder.

Woah.

Back outside, Talisman tells of his findings. One thing stands out above all of the others - it's no longer just idle speculation. Strabo, a Dragon - the most powerful Dragon any of them have ever heard of - is on Caravan, three Spheres behind them. And he's probably looking for them.

They have to go *now*. Echo is unresponsive, stil numb from her own revelation, so Talisman puts her in a palanquin of Colour and drags her along behind them. The monks show them the pass that leads to the Forgotten gate, and the party start to hike.

The going is much easier (being downhill), and Echo snaps out of it halfway there. Talisman - displaying a healthy amount of self-preservation - tells them all that he's managed to figure out about Strabo's motives. That he wants the Unity to turn himself back into a pure Dragon from before the Spheres divided, and (he was told this bit by Golden) that if he ever manages it, the Spheres will begin to collapse in on themselves as the curse that broke them is undone.

Echo - realising that a *Dragon* is chasing them - cancels the Echo that's still sat next to the gate to Waterwall, abandoning Soul to whatever fate has taken him.

After a few hours' walk through incredibly scenic views (though their minds are understandably on other things), they reach the gate to Forgotten. Hoping very much that Soul *will* meet them on Bastion, they step through.

DaveB

12-10-2004, 04:26 PM

SPHERE FOURTEEN - FORGOTTEN

ECHO FOURTEEN

You’ve been in enough gambling houses with Talisman to know one when you see it. Punters shriek and moan to the roll of the dice and the rattling sound of the wheels, barely-dressed women get inebriated men to buy them expensive gifts (and then vanish) and those who lose big are quietly escorted to the back of the building by large men with weapons.

(“Okay”, the other you says to Talisman. “What does he look like?”)

Scanning the crowd, trying to not feel self-conscious in your outfit (which is both uncomfortable AND impractical), you spot him. A grossly overweight blue skinned man, his ochre robes topped off incongruously with a lime-green fez. Even your own vestigial fashion sense is offended. Clearly, people have different vision where he comes from.

(“Yeah. That’s him.” Confirms Talisman as you describe fez-boy to him. “You remember? From the fight.”)

Summoning your training, you slink Fez-wards, drifting from gambler to gambler as you go. All in all, it takes about half an hour to cross the room, and you have pretended to drink many proffered beverages.

(“Yes”, you patiently explain to Talisman, “It DOES take this long. This is not a thing to be rushed.”)

The last man you hang yourself off finally gets invited over to the Blue Man’s table.

“I know you.” Says the Blue Man. “You’re the girlfriend of the cheat from the other day.” His weasel-featured companion glowers at you, and you suddenly remember breaking his arm rather badly.

Your “companion” glances at you, aware that something’s wrong, and the Blue Man dismisses him with a wave of his hand. Shrugging, as if to say “it could have been great”, the coward leaves you surrounded by thugs without a second glance.

It’s what you wanted, but you’re still disappointed at the lack of chivalry.

(“Quiet.” You tell Talisman. “I need to concentrate.”)

You sashay closer to the Blue Man, doing your best Mirage impression.

“He’s not my lover” You murmur, getting close enough to smell the odour of sour milk. At least, you hope it’s sour milk. “I came here to see you.”

“To see me?” His piggy eyes are suspicious.

“Yes. He’s cheated me – cheated on me – and he’s cheated you. I propose…” You pause, checking that he’s not on the verge of attacking you and shifting all of your body mass to the other you just in case “…revenge.”

He leans back in his chair. In for a bead, you think.

“I hear you have influences, that you’re powerful. I hear…” You lean in close, letting him get a good look, to whisper in his ear “that you have ways to get what you want.”

He shifts in the chair, you hope with satisfaction at being buttered up. And nods his head to the doorway into The Back. Smiling, you stroll through, him waddling after you.

“It’s true then? You rig your games and control the losers with magic?” You say, when you’re alone.

“Something of that nature.” He replies smugly. “So your former paramour has been something of a nuisance. I want to know who he is, how he won and just how” He puts his hand on your hip and slides it upwards. You barely make it solid in time. “You intend to be useful to me.”

You smile seductively at him, and slam the needle-point dagger into his Walker’s Apple. Gurgling, foam bubbling up in his mouth as he drowns in his own blood, he paws desperately at you. You take another knife out of your hair, consider it, and plant it through his left eye. He shudders, and you carefully lower the body to the floor.

Shaking your hair out, you close your eyes and dispel the Echo.

“Done.” You tell Talisman simply, and go back to your book.
VALOUR FOURTEEN

You’re somewhere very hot. Very very hot. There’s a rumbling in the earth, and the stone construction of wherever this is shimmers in heat haze. Thermals. Good for flying. If you happen to be outside.

You’re kneeling at a low table, reading a long scroll and preparing to sign it. A half-dozen officials – dressed in ornate wraparound robes and tall hats - are crammed into the room, making sure that the agreement is made properly.

You reach the end, and put your signature on it with a flourish. The officials bow, retreating out of the room with the agreement. You brood.

You just signed away details of your last ten Astral Paths (not to mention paying a quite huge fee that will take most if not all of the group’s valuables) in exchange for being allowed to pass on through this Realm. From what the officials have said, though, the world beyond the Gate of Fire is called “Thirst”. That doesn’t bode well for Fathom. Still, from there you go to Iron Fist, and then Saffron, and then you are at the Cathedral – the place The Lady told you all to meet her.

You have the grim satisfaction of an unpleasant job done well, and rise to leave.

You’re halfway down the corridor when another official, holding onto his hat to prevent it from falling off, comes scurrying up to you.

“Lord Valour. Our Master wishes to speak to you.”

“To me?” You ask, nonplussed. “I believe my companion, the being known as Talisman, is already with your Master.” That, after all, was the entire point of this exercise, you add silently. A brief look into the man’s mind convinces you that he’s genuine, though, so you allow yourself to be led deeper and deeper into the complex.

It’s frighteningly hot, and when the official orders a heavy metal door to be opened (it looks disturbingly like that of a kiln), you realise why. The door leads to a vast circular balcony of clay bricks, wide enough to park several wagons on and – on the far side to you – pile high with treasure. A very short distance below you is molten lava.

You’re inside the Volcano that you thought the palace was built onto the side of, not into the side of.

Talisman isn’t here.

There’s a sound of molten rock shifting, and Volvagia, Lord of Fire and elder Dragon, rises up out of the lava, climbing onto the ledge, dripping with glowing liquid that sizzles as it strikes the bricks.

//VALOUR. OF SKYSTONE, YES?// The Dragon – which you take from the voice to be male and mature. Certainly older than Strabo – slowly tips it’s head this way and that like a human that has just come in from the rain, allowing the liquid to run off.

“That is my home, yes.” You reply, wondering as to the purpose of the meeting.

//I WISH TO ASK YOU QUESTIONS. THERE ARE MATTERS THAT CONCERN ME// It says, shrewdly. Uh-oh.

“Of course.”

//THE HALF-BREED THAT TRAVELS WITH YOU. HE CLAIMS TO NOT KNOW WHICH OF MY KIND SIRED HIM. YOU ARE YOUR GROUP’S KNOWLEDGE-KEEPER. PERHAPS YOU CAN TELL ME//

Think, Valour, think, you consider. Did Talisman REALLY lie about that, or is Volvagia testing the both of you. Damn, damn, damn.

“I am afraid I cannot” Always go with the foggy truth.

//I SEE. NO MATTER. I SHALL CONDUCT MY OWN INQUIRIES. TELL HIM THAT WHEN YOU RETURN THIS WAY, I SHALL HAVE THE ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE OF HIS CREATION//

You bow and – when it becomes apparent that the interview is over – leave via the door, making several mental notes to never come back to Wingthrone ever again.

“That’s another one you owe me” You mutter, and set off through the palace.
FATHOM FOURTEEN

You carefully shift your weight to the other foot, trying to not look like you’re about to make any sudden moves. There’s no moisture in the air, and you can’t uncork your water bottle without being obvious about it.

There’s a crunch of gravel as Talisman lifts one foot, as though about to walk, and the creature holding you hostage turns to point it’s… device… at him.

“Unclean. Filthy. Mongrel.” It intones. “You should not be.”

“Didn’t we just leave this party?” Talisman mutters to you.

Your assailant – who has cornered you in this cave after the pathetically easy tactic of letting you track it in here and doubling back to block the entrance, a matter about which you’re still kicking yourself – is tall, almost seven and a half feet. It looks vaguely humanoid, but it’s face and long, sloping head are set right between it’s shoulders giving it a hunched appearance. It’s three-fingered hands (coming at the end of very long, spindly arms) are gripping something that looks sort of like a mace, sort of like a spear and is crackling with green lightning, occasionally throwing off sparks.

“I don’t know” Says Mirage. “He doesn’t look much like a Unicorn to me.”

“Unclean” The creature says again.

“What is it this time?” Talisman says irritably. “You’d be amazed how many taboos I break in a normal day. Or maybe you wouldn’t.”

“Animal”, it says, in a voice that suggests it wants to spit. “Not Human. Not Animal. He made you to be ONE thing! To be Two is Unclean!” Again with the noise of disgust, combined with waving the weapon(?) in Talisman’s face.

“S’funny” He says “You don’t look too human yourself.”

“Not. But not Hybrid. Not many-things-at-once. Resolver.”

“And what” you ask, drawing it’s attention to let Talisman try something. “Do you do? I am guessing you’re some kind of spirit.”

“Resolve. Many-things-at-once.” It lifts it’s weapon slightly. “Resolve. Turn Many-things-at-once into one-thing-at-once. Resolve. You want to be Animals? This make you animals.”

“THAT’S what it does?” Talisman says incredulously. “I’m a Half-DRAGON, you pathetic jumped-up little Spirit. Hit me with that thing and I PROMISE you you’ll be the first one I eat.”

You half-close your eyes, feeling the water in your bottle, willing it to rise and press against the cork holding it in, carefully inching the stop out by agonising degrees.

“Hm.” Says the Resolver. “Was summoned to capture you, wait for help, Resolve as many as I could.”

“Well, that thing won’t work on me” Says Talisman, and you see Mirage and Echo nod behind him. “Or these two” he says, pointing the other women out. “So your big scary Resolving phallus isn’t very big and scary, now is it? Think about what it’ll do if you hit me with it.”

The creature appears to consider, then turns and almost hits you in the face with the weapon. You freeze, letting go of the Water.

“And her?” The Resolver asks Talisman, with an air of having thought of something he hadn’t thought of. “You be good and wait for summoner, or she is fish. Take a while. Very painful. Not able to breath air after long, though, so won’t survive change.”

Talisman doesn’t appear to have thought of that. He sends a disc of colour flying at the creature’s face, but it passes harmlessly through it. The creature, it’s bluff called, jabs towards you with the weapon. You throw yourself backwards, trying to get out of range. Echo flickers around the creature.

In through the Cave entrance, Valour swoops, tackling the creature and forcing it away from you.

There’s a flash of green light, and Valour hits the cave wall next to you with a sickening noise of breaking bones. His face is frozen, wide-eyed with surprise, as he starts to convulse.

The Resolver – it’s weapon’s glow slowly rebuilding – is caught off-guard by Echo and Soul. Echo blurs around it, slashing at it with her sword, until it panics and discorporates. As soon as it turns insubstantial – it’s body breaking up into mist – Soul takes a deep breath and swallows it. The weapon – discarded and on the floor – vanishes in a flash of green light, leaving behind a line of ash on the floor.

Mirage and you try to help Valour to his feet, but you hear his arm snap as you take hold of it.

“Talisman. The healer. The healer that the villagers were talking about. The one they were afraid of” You say, urgently, as Mirage tries to hold Valour still. “Go.”

Talisman nods, and legs it out of the cave.
TALISMAN FOURTEEN

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

From the motion of the wooden floor, the smell of rotting refuse in sea water and the distant cry of gulls, you are on board a ship in some harbour. Echo has just sat down on the barrel-converted-into-a chair next to your own, and is now resting her head on her own crossed arms, flat against the table and watching you poke at your decidedly unappetising breakfast.

“Share time was last night, love. You missed Mirage’s ‘I could have been a real girl’ speech.”

“I’m kicking myself inside.” She says wryly.

“Come on then. Unburden yourself.” You invite, making a florid gesture of invitation and sitting back. She looks briefly put-off, then shrugs and starts. “Alright. According to the Mirror, the best possible alternative version of me that could exist right now has settled down somewhere. She doesn’t have any weapons, her hands look like she does some kind of work with them – maybe a gardener – and I think she has children. Or I got the impression there were people missing.”

“Nice.” You pour her a glass of wine

She nods, then continues. “The worst possible me is.. Well… me. Me as I was, back at the beginning. You remember? I think it’s what would have happened if I hadn’t broken my conditioning.” She pauses, as if waiting for you to say something.

“Well?” She asks. “What do you think?”

“I’ll tell you what I think, Kitten. True Mirror’s a piece of shit. Just because it tells you that your ‘best’ self is such-and-such, doesn’t mean you have to go out and try to achieve it. Hell – maybe it can’t be achieved. Look at Soul or Mirage.”

“Or maybe you don’t want to achieve it.” She says quietly, sniffing her wine cautiously and taking a drink.

“Damn right I don’t want to achieve it.” You say, knocking back your drink and slamming the empty glass onto the table.

She looks at you, raising both eyebrows, plainly waiting for something.

When she doesn’t even blink for three minutes, and your eyes are beginning to water in sympathy, you give in.

“All right! All right!” you say, waving at her with Colour to get her to stop the staring contest, “I was a Dragon. My body changed, and I was a Dragon. I was filled with power, and I knew my own glory, and I felt like nothing in the worlds could take me on.”

“And your Night-Self?”

“That WAS my Night-Self, Echo.”

“All right. “ she says, carefully, like she’s trying to avoid becoming impatient. “What was your Day self?”

You close your eyes, pained.

“It was the same.” You say, quietly, forming your Colours into an illusory Dragon on the table. She frowns, trying to understand.

“The same.” You repeat. “Mirage said last night, after you went to bed. She said that I had the widest possibilities. She doesn’t know.”

“You’re going to become a Dragon?” She says, as though trying the concept out.

“Fuck off. Of course I’m not. The Mirror shows two possibilities out of however many – the best and worst. Well, if my best and my worst both involve having taken on more of my father’s traits, I heartily embrace mediocrity. Besides, I’m betting that they diverged from me at the moment of my birth – they’re both what would have happened if Strabo had had a child the more natural way.”

“But you’re not in a hurry to find out?”

“No.” You reply, flatly. “I’m not. I enjoy being Human. I enjoy being me. Why in the hells would I want to give that up, if such a thing were possible? Because some enchanted Sphere told me another me might have done so?” You shake your head. “Nah. It’s bogus, Kitten. Live your own life. Don’t let what you see in visions live it for you.”

She nods, taking it in, and gets up to go.

“You know, Tal.” She says, carefully, “If there IS a way to remove the Humanity from you – like another of those Resolver things, maybe – such that you could end up like you were in the Mirror… and I’m not saying there is. Just as a what if…”

“Skip to the end” you interrupt.

“...There logically has to be a way to remove the Dragon as well.” She finishes, and leaves.

MIRAGE FOURTEEN

You pick your way through the deserted temple, kicking discarded offering bowls and rotted floor-rushes out of the way as you go. The man you’ve been following – clad in black leather (inwardly, you raise a protest at the cliché) and a shining silver mask that covers the upper half of his face – is hurrying out through the inner sanctum. Nodding your head to the idol of the Temple’s forgotten god (you can never be too careful), you follow him down into the catacombs.

In the largest of the vaults, the temple opens onto some kind of underwater canal, stretching off into the darkness to both sides. Your quarry is standing, quite exposed, in the middle of the vault, clearly waiting for something.

“You can come out.” He says, conversationally.

You stand up, and cross from the (open) tomb that you were crouched behind, glancing at the exposed skeleton inside before slowly making your way across the floor from him. You draw your sword.

“My dear. “ He says, in a very cultured voice. “I should have let you catch me sooner.”

“I have to ask.” You say, in as equally cultured a voice. “Is the mask to cover some hideousness which man, woman or beast was not meant to know?”

He bows, and draws his own sword – whip-thin and long.

“It is a custom on my homeworld,” he says, and you both shift your footing ready for the off.

“Is telling the woman hunting you that you know where she is also a custom?” You ask, cool.

“That is manners.” He replies, sizing you up and raising his blade. “After you.”

“No, after you” you reply, feeling very surreal.

He bows, accepting your generosity, and springs towards you.

You smack his blade to one side with your own sword, nearly slipping on the wet flagstones. He slides just out of reach and waits for you to try an attack of your own, which he fluidly parries, trapping your sword until you pull it back with a great effort.

The effort makes you drop your guard, and you are surprised to see that he doesn’t take advantage of it – he simply waits for you to get ready again, then nods and resumes the fight where he left off.

You run towards him, and see him get ready to parry what he thinks is going to be a sloppily-executed sword thrust. Instead, you drop and barrel-roll into him, knocking him from his feet. As you sweep to your feet, you are disconcerted to see him back-flip back upright again (something you’ve only ever seen Echo do) and catch his sword when it falls back down towards him. Without looking. You charge again and cross blades with him, forcing them both towards his throat, making him lean back further and further. You subtly shift, making yourself heavier, willing his legs to give out.

“Why are you doing this?” He asks, apparently entirely unconcerned by the supposed danger to his life.

“You killed my friend’s son.” You snarl, suddenly sick of this.

“And who might that be?” He asks, sliding backwards as though on ice, parrying your blade-tip to the ground with a flourish and stepping back again.

“Sunset.” You reply, feeling your anger rise. “The son of Follows-Fast and Candle”.

He seems genuinely taken aback. “I killed no such person.”

The shock – and the hurt of being accused – rings true in his voice. You step back out of melee and raise your sword. He, too, stops.

”If you didn’t...?” You start, before you both hear something very large clearing it’s throat. Looking to your left, into the catacombs, you watch as the air splits like rotting fruit and a rather large demon steps into reality.

I did, it says soundlessly, and with a gesture sends a wave of blue fire cascading towards you. You feel the energy crackling in your face just as the Man in Black dives backwards, grabbing your arm as he goes and flinging the both of you into the dark water with a splash.

Forgotten is grey. The floor is gravel and slate, the sky is the uniform colour of threatening rain. Everywhere, shrouded in the half-hearted mist, stand statues of random individuals, apparantly in still-life poses.

The gate from Far Window pulses open, and disgorges the group. Talisman's body appears right next to a very large, ugly gargoyle-like statue, which leers down at him as if about to pounce. He nearly jumps out of his skin, and then (to ensure that all are reminded of his essential manliness) starts loudly complaining about whoever put it there to surprise passing Spherewalkers. With Paragon and Mirage's help he moves it off to one side and replaces it with a statue of a maiden depicted mid-bathing. Much better as a welcome, he declares. Much more aesthetically pleasing.

The group immediately set off for the gate to Bastion, which is some way away. They nontheless can see no reason to stay here, and given their extended rest stops on Caravan and Waterwall reckon that the chance of being lost between worlds is acceptably small. Mirage shifts to copy the particularly interesting-looking statues, using the oppertunity to add to her repetoir of forms.

It's a Dark and stormy world for dark and stormy thoughts - thoughts which, this day, are all about the Dragons. Echo is if anything even more distressed, occassionally saying "But she said she wasn't an assassin" to herself. Talisman is too worried about Strabo to care. Valour tells him about Volvagia and that he apparantly covered for him, and Talisman actually *thanks* him. It must be the sense of impending doom talking. Mirage asks if anyone has heard of Follows-Fast or Candle (no one has), and - doing her "figuring out the route" thing, places her vision on one of the worlds they haven't seen anything of between Armada and the Young Kingdoms, based on the Man in Black telling her about Visage and her reacting as though she hadn't been there.

Someone asks if anyone have any plans for Bastion or if they can leg it through there as well, and Valour points out that he has the unenviable task of negotiating for Bastion to help in the struggle against the Taint. He was given the job by Paragon, but he reckons Viper won't object too much - in fact, the fact that Paragon quit in favour of an Entelechian will help immeasurably. Paragon admits that that was entirely by chance, but sees it as an undeniably happy coincidence. Valour reckons that he can sell it as an act of contrition on Waterwall's part.

And with that, they reach the Gate and go through.

DaveB

12-10-2004, 05:34 PM

SPHERE FIFTEEN - BASTION

ECHO FIFTEEN

“I dislike that man.” You say, controlling your rage. “I wish to hurt him in many ways.”

“Isn’t that my line?” says Paragon, trying half-heartedly to make a joke, before allowing himself to fall backwards onto the bed with a sigh.

“Politics” You say, your arms crossed, glaring at your Katana where it hangs on the wall.

“Politics” he answers, wearily.

“Ah, My Lord Paragon” you say, throwing your voice around the room at random and imitating a male speaker of advanced age and malicious tone of voice, “and your Outlander Consort. How lovely.”

“Love.” Says Paragon, but you plough onwards with your impression. “I am sure I can get used to the provincial arrangements here. Given Time.”

“Wife.” Says Paragon, trying to break in and failing, “Ah. Is this a custom of your barbarian people, my dear?” you say, still with the impressionism, “How quaint. What was it you said your world was called? Hmmm? ‘Fence’?”

Paragon gets up and, looking like he hasn’t slept in days, turns your head to look at him.

“I can kill him.” He says, attempting to smile. “Or you can. Shepherd will understand. He’s only an ambassador. Bastion has dozens.”

You embrace your husband and lean back, looking up at him.

“Let’s kill him together” You say, with exaggerated enthusiasm. “To celebrate our anniversary.”

Paragon nods thoughtfully kisses you and smiles sadly, then goes to his wardrobe and his clothes for the banquet out, returning silently to getting ready. You look at your feet and catch yourself before you pout. In the other room, the other you pauses in getting into her dress, needing a second pair of hands.

You’re at the door when Paragon stops what he’s doing and looks up, thoughtfully.

“The Third Arm of the City hit a patch of rocky terrain. The expansion is going to have to go around it.” He says, staring off out past your balcony at the edge of the Palace Dome.

“So?” You ask, exasperated by the non-sequitur.

“Well” He says, with a straight face. “It would be a good place to hide the body.”

You shake your head in amusement, help yourself dress and cancel the Echo, rustling back into the bedroom.

“What do you think?”

Paragon – eyes wide – whistles slowly and nods. “It’s… well, it’s different. Where did you say it was from?”

Frowning in concentration as your manoeuvre yourself past the furniture, you consider and reject the idea of sitting down. The corset’s too tight. “A world called Merryflag.”

He crosses his arms, plainly thinking about something.

“What holds the skirt up?” He asks, plainly bemused.

You grin. “Traditionally, many, many petticoats. In this case, chickenwire. It’s hollow.”

“Well.” He nods, lost in his own thoughts again. “I suppose you can hide a lot of weapons under there?”

“A few” you concede.

“Enough to kill Ambassador Brightflame?” He asks, with a hopeful grin.

You flick an eyebrow, turn and glide imperiously to the exit from your chambers. Looking back at him, you grin again. “If you’re good.”
VALOUR FIFTEEN

Very late at night, on Velvet Sky.

You’re in the camp, sighing as you put your notes away. On the other side of the campfire, Talisman and Echo are sat talking in low voices. Every now and again Echo darts an angry look up at you.

Fine. Let her. She won’t find anything to help her in Talisman.

You make your way over to the edge of the camp, to where Fathom is leaning against a tree.

“How are you feeling?” You start, and she wearily turns to you.

“Can you not read my mind?” She says, a little too nastily, and then frowns. “That was wrong. I’m sorry, Valour. What is it?”

“I have a possible route” You say, carefully, trying to not spark the argument off again. “The gate is a few days away by foot, and leads to a Sphere called Undertown. From there we go to Glorygrave and Drift. Apparently we should end up on the other side of Open Soul without having to go through it.”

She breathes out slowly, and nods to herself.

“Thank you. Get some rest.”

You half-turn to go, then turn back again.

“What about you?”

“I am fine.” She says, the lie flickering across her mind.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Fathom… I’m sorry. I’m sorry the way the last few months have gone. I’m sorry we’ve had to double-back. I’m sorry we’ve handled Echo’s crisis badly, and that we don’t trust one another, and that every Sphere brings a new argument and a new choice of whether or not to abandon the Mission. We… We shouldn’t live like this. We shouldn’t always be at one another’s throats. There has to be a better way.”

“I know” She says, simply. “I cannot shake the feeling that we are missing something. It will come, Valour. It will come. Now go to bed.”

You silently return to the camp, where Talisman is trying to teach Echo how to play cards while Mirage watches, throwing in occasional pithy comments. The three of them look…

…Dear Gods. They look like they might actually like one another. Talisman is explaining the rules properly, not bullshitting, pointing at cards and telling Echo what they mean. The girl is taking it as seriously as weapons practice, and Mirage cheerleads for her, whooping when Talisman tones down his Power and lets Echo win. Echo’s surprised smile lasts a fraction of a second.

You look back out of the clearing to where Fathom is searching the featureless sky for something, then back at the game.

Making the choice, you move your bedroll over to where the others are clumped and slide into it, propping yourself up and leaning over to get a view of the game. Gesturing to Talisman to deal you in (He does so with a raised eyebrow), you begin counting cards like a champion. After all, you’re playing against the luckiest man in the Spheres. You have to use whatever you’ve got.

About fifteen minutes later, Mirage joins in. You dig a bottle of brandy from Skystone out of your pack – you’d been saving it for a special occasion – and offer it to Talisman with the simple word “Peace?” He nods, and takes a careful drink, passing it around when you indicate he should do so.

An hour after that, you look up from the game to where Fathom is. You see her watching the game from afar, see you seeing her and walk off further. Mirage waves her hand in your face to tell you it’s your go, and you return to the game.
FATHOM FIFTEEN

You pace from wall to wall, trying to think through what you want to say. The air is loaded with the smell of fruit blossoms, and the golden sunlight streams in through the window.

I remember this like it was yesterday, you think to yourself. We said our goodbyes here. We made a break here.

You open the door, and smile warmly when you see Valour. He’s mending, thanks partly due to the attention visited upon him by Echo and Paragon’s best chirugeons, partly due to the living metal and partly due to the simple Freedom after over a year in the Voice’s Tower.

“How are you feeling?” You ask, and he shrugs his newly-mended wings.

”Better. Much better.” He says. “They say I’ll be ready to go soon.”

“About that…” you start, and are interrupted by Talisman and Mirage making their entrance. They’re holding hands, and a coil of Colour is wrapped around Mirage’s leg. As they enter, they disengage, crossing to opposite sides of Valour.

“Thank you for coming” You say, wryly. And start.

“We’ve been through hell.” You begin, simply. “We’ve been massively delayed and – thanks to what we suspect about the Taint – we don’t know if we will even be able to succeed in our Mission any more. Or if we ever were. We… I want to remind you of something. ‘No oath is laid upon you except that of friendship’…”

“Excuse me” Talisman says, raising a finger “I must have gone a little mad from the torture. It sounds like you are about to suggest giving up.”

“Shouldn’t Echo be here?” Asks Mirage, and you shake your head.

“Echo has said that she’s coming with us.” You say, noting the reaction of Valour and Talisman to that piece of news, “But she already made her choice to stay. She wants to go back on her decision, fine. But let’s see if there’s a group for her to rejoin first.”

Valour sits up, wincing, the better to look you in the eye.

“And why wouldn’t there be?” He asks. Talisman nods, agreeing.

“We are not soldiers. We are volunteers. All of us – whether we came or were sent in literal fact – “ that last to Mirage, who looked like she was about to butt in “have continued for all these years because we chose to. Look at Echo – the only one of us to have been literally ordered and YES Mirage, I know, but it isn’t the same – and she quit before the end. Look. We’re hurting. We’ve been sold out, we’re facing an enemy that can be anywhere and any living thing and we still don’t know for certain where the Lost Force is. And even if we do find it, we’ve come through too many one-way gates to know the way home. That’s if all those worlds we snuck through on the border of the Taint haven’t been taken and…”

You break off, aware that you’re ranting.

“I’m not going to give this as an order. I won’t. I won’t make you throw this chance at a life away for the sake of a probable suicide mission into the unknown on the basis of parchment drawn out of a helmet when we were all young and stupid.”

You begin to pace again.

“Echo and Paragon are our friends, but they’re not part of this team any more. Soul is along for the ride, but isn’t part of the team. Maybe they’ll join, maybe they won’t, but I want you three to take the next two days to decide. No more games, no more messing around exploring for the fun of it. We have a possible route to the Lost Sphere,” you produce the letter from Reflecting Air of Wisdom, and watch as Valour’s eyes widen. “And I think it’s genuine. We can be there in Seven Gates.” Mirage looks amazed. Talisman starts grinning. “But if we do this, we do it. We go for it, grab it and get back to Crystal as fast as we possibly can. We keep a low profile, avoid the Taint until we know we have a way to kill them in which case we give Gaunt the death he deserves. We don’t talk to Dragons and let Strabo know where we are, we don’t announce our presence to all and sundry. We get the job done. Anyone that’s in in three days’ time stays in. We never give up, we never surrender and we never let the last year happen again.”

They stare at you.

“Decide.” You say, and leave the room.
TALISMAN FIFTEEN

The camel sways as it walks, and you are reminded yet again why they are called Ships of the Desert. A week, you’ve been travelling since emerging from the Gate from Silk Road. A week.

Fathom is withdrawn in the heat – her need to stop at every oasis and river you come across on the way has slowed you down, and from her expression she’s painfully aware of the burden she’s being. Still, you’re no longer in the desert itself, having crossed into well-irrigated farmland a day back. But after this comes the world of Sands, which promises more hardship.

Your guide is singing again, some tonal walking chant that doesn’t contain any proper words, only vowel-noises. You shift in your saddle and look back at the others. Valour is keeping his distance from Echo – probably wise, given the circumstances – Mirage has nodded off in her saddle and Echo (constantly tugging at her local costume) is holding her new Katana to herself like a lucky charm.

Still, you have the feeling of finally making progress – of moving through the spheres with purpose, rather than wandering at random. You have no idea how you’re all supposed to get back to where you came from after the whole skydiving incident, but you can worry about that another time. Like in six years’ time. Or however long it takes you to get back here.

Mirage has woken up again now, completely at ease. You dimly remember her mentioning that her original homeworld was like this little cluster you’re moving through. She kicks at her camel and makes it catch up with yours.

“I was talking to Loyal earlier” she says, quietly, her eyes serious above her veil.

“And?”

“And this place we’re going to is segregated. You know? Like Alabaster.”

“I know what the word means.” You reply, quietly. “What of it?”

“Well… Fathom was saying that she doesn’t know how much she’ll be up to. As soon as we get to the Palace, me, her and Echo will be taken away. We won’t see you again until we leave. If Valour manages to get permission for us to move on through.”

“You’re afraid they’ll try to keep you here?” You say, slightly amused.

“Oh, I think they’ll try.” She says. “Don’t worry. I have carefully inquired as to how one becomes married here and have told the other two not to accept any gifts. It’s more that I’m going to be in charge of our half of the group. I’m closest to the culture, I can get to where you are if necessary and I’m not a water breather on a desert world. Or Echo.”

“Who, having loved and lost, may try to love again?”

“Something like that. As for you – try to keep an eye on Valour, okay? Don’t let him make any bargains we’re not going to keep and don’t let him think that because Fathom’s ill he gets to do whatever he wants. Fathom has put me in charge, and I’m putting you in charge of you and Valour. Understand?”

You glance up into the sky to where Valour is flying alone. And grin with sudden malicious intent.

“Oh, I understand.”

On the horizon, something beins to come into view. A vast palace complex the size of a small city, high domed towers and impossible bridges, next to high cliffs over which a dazzling waterfall flows. Pleasure-gardens are set into plateaus carved into the Cliffside, and the sun gleams off the white buildings.

“Welcome, noble guest and ladies, to Veil, Palace of Sultan Faithful the seventy-third, ruler of all the worlds of the Thousand and One Sands.” Says your guide, bowing deeply and gesturing towards the palace.

“Here we go.” You mutter, and pick up the pace a little.

You have a bad feeling about this.
MIRAGE FIFTEEN

“I’m sorry” you say to the man in the mask. “I misjudged you”

“Not to worry” he says. “We’ll soon have this resolved.”

Looking around at the tiny crypt – with no exits other than that dark (and, as it turns out, chillingly cold) underground canal, and all but filled with an ornate tomb – you don’t really share his enthusiasm.

“I could turn into a rat and swim for it.” You suggest. “I can bring friends back here – we’ll come for you.”

“Thank you, but no. And besides, how would you find me down here, or even a way out? These tunnels extend for miles.”

“What was that thing?” You ask, acknowledged that you’re not going to get out of this as vermin.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Some kind of dark spirit.” He replies, checking the mask is still straight.

“Okay. Now I have to ask about the mask.”

“I am from a world called Visage, three Gates from here. It is our custom.”

“To hide your identities?”

“To BE our identities. We all of us wear masks, my dear. My own people are perhaps more literal about it, nothing more. How is knowing me by my outer face any different to knowing another by theirs? Mine may be made of metal, but that is perhaps better than having one made of flesh. As a shapechanger, you should understand this.”

“Not really” you confess. He frowns. Or at least you think he frowns. It’s hard to tell.

“I can take my mask off and reveal my inner self. My people do so only when lovemaking – it is an act of intimacy, of trust, to lower one’s barriers and become only your truest nature. But other people – how can they possibly do so? Their skin and their facial muscles are their barriers. They have nothing concrete to shed, and so they believe that their masks are their true self. There is no honesty, no…” He struggles for the word “…self-awareness. They may believe that on occasion they are being open, but they can never properly be so. Does that make sense?”

“More than you know.” You say, thinking about your own identity issues.

“I have offended you?” He asks, and you are suddenly aware of having gone quiet for a length of time.

“No. No, you haven’t. Just given me something to think about. It’s… I have spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to figure out who I really am. What my inner self actually IS. My form, you see, dictates my personality, so I’ve been trying to get it at by trying all kinds of different shapes and situations, trying to find a common thread of Me. And I.. I have no idea why I’m telling you this. We have a Demon-thing to find.”

“We do indeed.” He stands up. “Shall we leave this poor dead soul to his rest?”

“Mask” He says, extending his hand.

“Mirage” you reply, shaking it.

The two of you carefully – so as to not go into shock – lower yourselves into the freezing water.

“Which way?” you ask, your teeth chattering, wishing you could change form but deciding that having your clothes and weapon is more important.

He silently points, and you begin to swim for it.

Find your inner self. You muse to yourself. Find what your true face should be.

If only you knew how.

Somewhere nearby, a Demon waits.

The gate drops the characters off in the middle of a grassy plain. So far, so normal. Then they look up.

Bastion is a huge city, built onto great tiers carved out of seven great rock spires. The original mountains have been completely covered, their summits now seven towers - the homes, Paragon helpfully informs the others - of the ruling Lords of the world. Valour asks about Shepherd, who Paragon says is the ruling Lord, the leader of Bastion's council. Valour should find Shade - Waterwall's ambassador to this realm (who was seen briefly in one of Soul's visions from way back). Echo asks about Shade's counterpart, the Bastion ambassador from her vision, and Paragon grumpily tells her that he was recalled. In fact, he'll be here.

As the characters enter the city through it's gigantic gates, they are struck by the harsh reality of Bastion's usurper force (Pride) - the townsfolk shy away and turn their noses up at them, closing shutters and hastily getting children out of their way. They don't like strangers, here, and the characters react in differing degrees of irritability. Fathom's hackles are particularly up - her Everway-vision has put her on edge, and the prevailing attitudes are not helping.

While Valour counsels them to march right up and ask for diplomatic quarters, more low-key heads prevail and the gang vote to get themselves booked into an inn. Finding what seems to be a big enough establishment, they are slightly put off by the distinctly unfriendly barman, who flatly demands an outragous sum of money for a pretty pathetic room. Paragon starts to angrily declare that he's not going to bloody well camp outside the gates like a beggar, until valour quietly points out that the Sphere is getting to him. Echo splits herself and sends the copy through the walls, finding unoccupied rooms that aren't dives. The gang - stony-faced- barter for them with the innkeeper, and divide them up among themselves. Paragon innocently asks if Talisman and Mirage want to share a room. Which raises eyebrows. They weren't aware that they were supposed to be sleeping together, but take it in their stride. And ignore it.

...

Later on, and the troop have assembled in the common room. "What do we need to do to get a little service around here?" is the common theme. Valour manages to get a messenger to take his (pre-written) declaration of ambassadorship to Shepherd. The talk (as has become the custom on the first night of each world) turns to their Everway-Visions. Mirage tells the second part of hers, and explains the philosophy of Visage (Valour is mildly disappointed that they don't just wear masks for the sake of it). Talking about Visage, Echo asks Paragon if they ever found out who the assassins that attacked them on the night they first met were. Apparantly, they didn't - something to look forward to, huh? Talisman sketches out the brief version of his vision, while Valour explains his own and apologises to Fathom for his past behaviour yet again. This seems to annoy her.

Echo - not noticing Fathom's mood - angsts about her own recent visions. Her past self told her that she wasn't an assassin any more, but from the visions lately that doesn't seem to be true. Not only that, but she outright states that she was never "free" - she appears to have been taking her orders from Talisman instead of Valour, but taking orders nontheless. That leads into a discussion about how they don't know how anyone truly felt about one another (Paragon "helpfully" tries to lay it out - Mirage and Talisman were lovers, Fathom was standoffish and noone liked Valour - but he gets drowned out).

While Talisman tries to explain that friends doing favours for one another does not equal a master-slave relationship, Fathom excuses herself and leaves. Picking up her mood, Valour, Mirage and Paragon slip out to find her dismantling a wagon with her bare hands, gripped by a white fury.

Fathom begins to let it all out - ranting about how Echo is *constantly* in self-pity mode, and about the dichotomy between Echo's constant complaining that the others treated her like a servant and her just as constant refusal to see herself as anything other than a servant. It pisses her off. Mirage - just in case Fathom means her as well - points out that she *likes* being given direction, and Fathom segues into a rant against people constantly apologising to her for things their past selves did to her past self. She accepts that people might feel bad about their visions and need to say it, so she is willing to give each member of the party ONE go at apologising. But she's sick and tired of having to absolve everyone of their sins.

Having worked through some of her issues, she stomps back inside to find that Talisman is trying the tactic of getting Echo drunk.

And on that, we finish.

DaveB

12-10-2004, 06:41 PM

And I'm caught up again. Whew.

The focus this week was unquestionably on Far Window, and the oppertunities it presented. In an example of the sort of thing I put myself through, I had no idea what the gang were going to ask to see until they asked it. Which was fun.

Aside from bits and pieces of the Gaunt plot (the location of the Sword of Vanguard, frex, and a look at what Aelder Bole looks like, not to mention it's name), the main plot this week was the Dragons. The party now know that Strabo is on their heels (they would have found this out from one of Soul's visions this week anyway, if Andy hadn't been absent) and this is providing a much-needed hot poker up the ass. After five sessions on two spheres, covering two and a half in one is a definite change of pace - we're moving in the right direction now, and as Paragon excitedly notes, they'll be off the map soon.

In the middle of all this, the various characters are finding their focus. Fathom has finally let the lid off her resentment - which can only be a good thing - and has utterly rejected her predeccessor-self's status over the others.

Mirage has - in the middle of her breakup with Valour - found a ray of hope. She has seen the oppertunity the Window showed her - if she can get that Crystal on Visage and then use it during the day on True Mirror, then she will have an unchanging mental image of what she should look like if she wasn't a changeling. Effectively, she would finally have a "default" form, the lack of which she has keenly felt for decades.

Valour is suffering from his "Echo"-induced injury last session, and feeling the loss of his ability to fly. He's trying to be rational about the dire situation the characters are in and it plainly isn't working. His skills and experience are about to be *very* useful, though, which is keeping his self-esteem up. There was an odd - and telling, for Valour's personality - moment in which Paragon expressed his sympathy for Valour hearing about what his father is doing. Valour dismissed it, claiming that his father is acting like a ruler *should* and defending his people. It proved to my satisfaction that Paragon works in relation to people that aren't Echo, and showed the attitude Valour has to rulership.

Talisman is scared. Strabo is behind them, and the characters are doing that rarest of things for a roleplaying group - they are respecting the mythelogical creature and getting the hell out of dodge, assuming that they can in no way defeat it in combat. The other things he saw are no more reassuring.

As for Echo... Can we say backsliding? Although she had lots of prior warning, she was holding onto the hope that her past self was lying about the state of Wall. That illusion has been shattered, and the knowledge that she no longer has any kind of home to go back to (or an Emperor to serve) first puts her into numb shock and then makes her receptive to Talisman's brand of "have a drink and don't worry about it" counselling.

Visions!

ECHO 13 is about the start of the (sadly not seen much. There are only so many Visions I can write) Soul-Echo friendship. Which, like every other friendship in this backstory appears to have started with ulterior motives. It also states the nature of Talisman and her frienship, which is based on the not-especially-healthy principle that they both find the other the least objectionable of their companions.

VALOUR 13 is the revelation that the things Vanguard fought were Canopeans, and explains the link between Aelder Bole and Canopy - Gaunt's far distant homeland. And also where the whole branding of criminals with Pheonixes came from. Basically backstory, although it's also a good look at Reflecting Air of Wisdom, who will appear in a near session (as Birthright is the next world on their journey).

MIRAGE 13 is, again, more linking revelations about where Entelechy's Taint worship came from. Mostly, though, it's Mirage in self-reflective mood, which is always welcomed by Rafe. In particular, this made the whole Talisman-Mirage thing make sense to the player. Which is nice.

FATHOM 13 is another look at the Gods, who we haven't heard from in a while. It also affirms one of the basic principles of Everway - you cannot escape your Karma, no matter how powerful you are. Fire Plume / The Lady is a murderer, and she has left herself open for a way to be punished for that. Aside from that, the vision shows fathom's disgust at the dieties' manipulation of the party (reference to the one set on Fire Plume a while ago).

Renaud apparently regards TALISMAN 13 as one of his best visions, which just goes to show that you never can tell how these things will go. It shows the character's descent from swashbuckler to embittered heavy artillery, and is peppered with information about the route. The "City made of Song" was an idea taken from the last line of televised Doctor Who (until next year, at least), and I've been searching for an excuse to mention it all campaign. It's called Songforge, it's one of my favourite Spheres and they should reach it about Session 30 or so. Maybe.

MIRAGE 14 and 15 were inspired by the Phantom Of The Opera trailer (I steal from *everywhere*), but point out a great many things. Like the fact that I did think about why Visage would be the way it is, and about how that relates to Mirage's character arc. Sometimes, I have to do this sort of thing to reveal my depth of setting.

TALISMAN 14 was also welcomed by Renaud, who says it was heartening to see that past-Talisman agreed on yet another thing with present-Talisman - neither of them wanted or wants to become a Dragon. The line about not allowing Visions to run your life is a big wink at the audience. It's set on Armada, by the way.

FATHOM 14 is the moment that Valour gets blasted, neccesitating his healing by the Chirugeon (as seen in three other visions so far). It is also notable for both being a rare case of Valour openly doing something heroic and selfless for another character, and for being the only vision that didn't get talked about IC this session. So he doesn't know. Talisman gets a Han Solo quote. There is no wrong with Han Solo quotes.

VALOUR 14, though, is set right after Talisman 12 from the trip from Caravan to Waterwall. It's Valour doing Talisman a favour, which is nice, and serves to offer up yet more Dragon plot. I promise to cut down on the Dragon plot - it's kind of taking over at the moment.

ECHO 14 is one long build-up to the punchline, which is hopefully as obvious and shockingly sudden as I hoped it would be when I was writing it. Emma especially liked the last line.

TALISMAN 15 is set-up for more Visions down the road. We haven't seen the last of this sphere. It does heavily imply how Echo got her Katana, though.

VALOUR 15 comes after that 6-part vision of death, and shows the group actually getting along for a change. Something which I haven't done nearly enough of. It was meant to be poignant, and kind of sad.

ECHO 15 is a bit of lightheartedness after all the angst she's been through. I liked the joke about the dress - as Emma says, fashion is something past-Echo had an oddly utiltarian viewpoint on. It's probably the best look at Echo and Paragon's marraige as well, showing them as a couple.

And that's yer lot.

hemflit

12-12-2004, 10:09 PM

Not to push it on you, Dave, but you're doing the world a disservice by keeping this kind of adventure design just to your own gaming group. Yeah, we're reading this thread, and that's great, but that's not what i mean. I'd pay for a printed adventure this good, and that's coming from someone who usually doesn't buy those at all.

If you're sure you're not "non-derivative" enough, why not try putting together an adventure scenario (or a short series of adventures, or a campaign!) and publishing it for free [evil "ulterior motive" smile] - on your web page, or in a web zine. Some day, no rush, but the sooner the better.

Then you'll get feedback. Then you'll know if you're good enough. Then you'll have no problem about getting your _next_ scenario/series/campaign published "for real".

Then you can thank me for setting you on the right track by giving me 80% of your profits, and mentioning me in your Origins award acceptance speech :)

Sorry that my previous post sounded like a quick impression dump. That's because that's exactly what it was.

(And there's never an inappropriate period for Planescape :). I just mentioned it and Amber because they came most vividly to mind when reading your text. You know how gamer minds work, automatically comparing settings and stories.)

BTW, i'm pretty sure it's possible to chart all the spheres you listed in that long post without any path intersections at all. But i'm not ready to prove it right now. (And i'm kind of hoping Skadedyr will beat me to it.)

I haven't yet caught pace with your writing rate, but keep it coming, for the love of Gods, keep it coming.

Do you have a plan for what the Lost Force is?

Cheers,
hemflit

DaveB

12-13-2004, 05:42 AM

I *still* intend to get around to doing the Lostfinders Guide To Dogswarren for A|State (see the other Actual Play thread linked to from the first post of this one) - my notes from that campaign are longer than the for-real A|State location sourcebook, and could be quite easily transformed into a fan-pub.

One day. Oh yes.

Everway is harder. Though as we've wrapped up until new year now (Session Ten writeup is coming tonight probably - Demons! Gaunt's Beautiful-yet-morally -ambiguous Daughter! Soul doing the astral equivalent of hanging around bus shelters and drinking cider! Echo backsliding in a major, major way! Word of Mouth Advertising!) I'll be doing a load of Meta-Posts for Long Road Home. I have whole essays on the background to this thing that may be of more us to Everway GMs than the actual session writeups - my big stack of NPCs (and PCs) can be posted (Everway stat blocks are not exactly *long*, after all) and I have filched some of Andrea/Fathom's character portraits for scanning and linking.

Actually, if I have a spare evening, I'll do the Geek-o-meter - my guide to all the references, in-jokes, movie and comic homages and so forth.

Your starter for ten - where did I get the name "Volvagia" for the bad-yet-not-as-bad-as-Strabo Dragon that lives in the Volcano on Wingthrone from?

DaveB

12-13-2004, 05:47 AM

Do you have a plan for what the Lost Force is?

Cheers,
hemflit

No. Quite specifically not. The characters just call it "The Unity", based on the way that if it gets out of it's bottle all the spheres will compact back together and reform into the original, perfect state.

The problem being that humans were created to live on the Spheres as they are, and couldn't survive in that original, perfect state.

Given that it's inimicable to human life and fundamentally *missing* from reality as we know it, any understandable name I gave it would be cheap. Any made up name ("The Force of Q!!whnfgj", etc) would be cheesy.

So it remains filed under "Don't go there".

Until I have a better idea. :D

Soul

12-13-2004, 07:44 AM

OOC On the subject of the Unity:

While it was quite evident early on in the game that the Unity (which we call it on the thread and very occassionally in the game - usually it is referred to as the ball, and using it's power is generally referred to as 'balling' the unfortunate target) was very important and very soon after that, that it would be a bad idea to let the big bad guy (tm) ie Gaunt get his hands on it, it was only really the last session where I realised the fact that using it as a toy to alleviate boredom might have unfortunate side effects. This isn't because it blew up in our face, rather that I thought about it for a while and decided it might be a bit dangerous (trans - the message finally penetrated Soul's thick skull). While the others have been fairly adamant about not using the ball whenever the fancy takes the red-headed pyro, I think that is more down to the fact they think (possibly correctly) that it will mess up the spherethey are on, rather than it will blow up the universe.

We pretty much know that what the Unity does is repress the usurper force in a sphere which exacts some powerful change of limited scope (so far it has changed part of a sphere rather than the whole thing). Throughout most of the spheres it has exacted a change on the surroundings but in the last sphere, Bastion, it exacted a change on the people instead (because the usurper force was making them distinctly unpleasant rather than changing the place they lived). It takes some time for the Unity to rebuild enough power to alter a sphere again after it has done so, but it appears to refresh during an everway jump (given the time that passes during jumps that isn't really surprising though). This means that changing a sphere entirely would take a long time, probably a year at least for the smallest of spheres and much more for the ones which are effectively entire worlds. We don't know what wopuld happen if an usurper force was entirely removed from a sphere and since we'd have to be standing in that sphere to carry out the experiment I don't think there'll be any in depth experimentation in the near future.

The Unity seems to give a nasty shock to any mortals who touch it, possibly because it is attempting to revert them to a perfect state (which has been previously stated to be fatal for humans and their like). The change manifests as mild pain for now, because the Unity doesn't appear to be fully powered up, but it might be very dangerous to try and hold it for any length of time or go anywhere near it if it starts getting more powerful. The effect it has on dragons has been partially explained, it reverts them (gradually) to their pre-curse state (which has certain universe destroying side effects). Again the process is very painful, and certainly looked like it could kill a dragon too weak or impatient in it's use. The only thing I can't explain is its effects on Phoenixes, as it has no effect when touched (which is unusual since Phoenixes did not originate from the original perfect state as far as we know) and even more bizarely when used on a phoenix at the moment of death it appears to turn them into a hugely powerful destructive force before their rebirth. Best theory I have is that Phoenixes are odd enough to have a force and usurper force of their own, which are destruction and rebirth. At the moment of death the force comes to the fore causing them to explode into destruction, using the Unity then suppresses the usurper force of rebirth for a short while resulting in an awful lot of destruction in the meantime. The theory isn't perfect but fits the facts ok for now, it may well be modified on future information.

What gaunt could accomplish with the Unity is entirely a mystery for now, restoring the worlds to the perfect state wouldn't seem to fit with his plan (since he'd effectively kill a lot of souls doing so which goes against his peaceful end goal). It is possible that he could get an awful lot more powerful by suppressing certain usurper forces in certain spheres but again we don't know enough about the spheres involved (espicially AelderBole) to know for sure.

Well, that's my musings on the Unity so far. I reserve the right to change any or all of these thoughts when we find out they're all wrong.

AndyJ aka Soul

DaveB

12-13-2004, 03:22 PM

Well, that's my musings on the Unity so far. I reserve the right to change any or all of these thoughts when we find out they're all wrong.

AndyJ aka Soul

That's pretty much it, actually. Only you're assuming Gaunt wants it on a level other than "they could use and have been using it against me".

Malcolm Craig

12-14-2004, 04:55 AM

Soul

12-14-2004, 05:17 AM

That's pretty much it, actually. Only you're assuming Gaunt wants it on a level other than "they could use and have been using it against me".

Actually thinking about it we've had some hints that Gaunt may well want to acquire the Unity so that we don't let it fall into the hands of Strabo, resulting in those universe destroying side effects which neither us or Gaunt find particularly desirable. Of course, should the Unity fall into his hands he may well find incidental uses for it to further his agenda (as we have) or alternatively he may lock it away, believing that meddling with a device which has the power to destroy the universe is a momentally stupid idea (as we have not).

Andyj aka Soul

DaveB

12-14-2004, 06:35 AM

Pictures!

All of these depict the person BEFORE the quest, as Andrea only had the players' designs to go from.

First up, <a href="http://www.geocities.com/magedecalog/Fathom.jpg">Fathom</a>. I had forgotten about the arm-fins, actually.

Next is <a href="http://www.geocities.com/magedecalog/Valour.jpg">Valour</a> (pre-baldness and metallic symbiote) - those are some shoulders to have. I especially like the cardassian-style neck. And the jaw. And the expression.

And last is <a href="http://www.geocities.com/magedecalog/Talisman.jpg">Talisman</a>, head shot only, as "bad cgi" light shows floating around your body are surprisingly hard to do in pencil.

EDIT - Geocities does not support image linking. Ah well. Click on the character names.

Soul

12-14-2004, 06:45 AM

I think you've messed up the linking there as I'm fairly sure that:

http://forum.rpg.net/www.geocities.com/magedecalog/Fathom.jpg

isn't a valid URL. My browser seems to agree with me too. They work fine once you cut out the extra 'forum.rpg.net/' bit though

EDIT: Sorted now.

DaveB

12-15-2004, 02:58 PM

SESSION NINE AND A HALF

MEANWHILE, IN ASTRAL SPACE...

SOUL THIRTEEN

I get it. You don’t want to do it. That’s natural.

Remember what I told you about Sacrifice? Well, I’m afraid that you got the hard job.

You weren’t drafted, you weren’t coerced. You volunteered for this task knowing full well what it meant. To live a human life, to become human and to then lose that life just like one of their own Souls, returning to your old existence and never again being able to return to the places and people you loved in two decades? That is Sacrifice.

Your life is one huge ritual, a spell being cast by your every breath and emotion. A very powerful spell. A big enough act, in the cosmic sense, to lay the bones bare and allow certain necessities to be carried out.

And you wondered why you were such a serious child before.

But remember, we aren’t running an army here. You’re in control of your own life. No great purpose enforces itself on your destiny. It has to be your own choice.

Oh, don’t worry. The worlds won’t end if you don’t go through with it.

Far from it.

-------------------------

Everywhere, It spreads. The good intentions – however misguided – of the tiny creature at the centre of the Bole have long since been forgotten. He has lost the battle he did not realise was being fought within himself, and now only the Taint remains. Devoid of it’s guiding intelligence, it pours madly out of Gate after Gate, spreading to cover all the Spheres of the multiverse with it’s homogenising influence. The Pheonixes try as best they can to maintain order, but as more and more births fall to the Taint drastic measures are needed.

Out of the war-torn hell of The Empire of Skystone comes the Army of the Bringer. Marching across world after world with just as total a focus as that of the Taint, the army falls like a plague of locusts onto infected worlds, burning and destroying until the Taint has been scoured away.

At the head of the army, unblinking eyes fixed on the prospect of his revenge, flies an Angel of living metal. His wings are now vast spans of blades, each feather like a sword, his legs buckled and twisted, his fingers clawed and his brow encircled by a crown of horns, his skin made up of interlocking plates of silver and his teeth like that of a shark, but there is the tiniest piece of Valour left. His hate.

On the plains of the Burning Lands, the Taint and Valour’s army clash. At the head of the Taint comes a protean, ever-shifting mass that Valour seems determined to meet one-to-one.

The light turns deep purple, then twilit, as the sun is eclipsed by the arrival of the third side. Looking up, squinting against the sight of the sunlight and trying not to notice the smell and sound of the carnage all around you, you see the vast, winged shapes of the Dragons blotting out the sun. Magnificent and Terrible, they circle down towards the battlefield, blasting the edges of both armies with great wide beams of energy – their flaming breath transformed into the raw stuff of sunlight. Their scales shine with a million colours, all-encompassing and invulnerable, and their Pearls pulse with the Light of Unity.

You climb up onto a rock, desperate to get out of the crush of the battle, slipping on the blood and ash soaking the rockface. Your head ringing from the noise of the battle, you look out to where Valour and Mirage-as-was are locked in combat. The Dragons are circling faster and faster, marking a ring of fire beyond which nothing survives.

Like a mountain falling from the sky, one Dragon drops, crushing a hundred troops beneath itself, and the combatants pause. Realising what’s about to happen, Valour shouts for Talisman to help him. You look around for Talisman – you hadn’t seen him in the fight, or any of the others for that matter – and then realise who Valour was addressing.

Talisman – the Dragon in the centre – looks down at what has become of his two companions and blasts them into motes of dust with a single breath.

-------------------

See?

That wasn’t so bad, now was it?
SOUL FOURTEEN

The sun is setting on Caravan, and Thariassan, mistress of the Winds, is walking in human form along the burnt-out, charred wreck of the ruined carriages.

A flock of grey birds erupts out of the wreckage at her approach, and fly off into the West. The Dragon sniffs the air slowly, frowning, and glances up directly at the sun, staring at the slightly darker patches moving across it’s surface that would be invisible to a human.

The few wispy clouds make certain patterns in the reddening sky and Thariassan decides she has lingered here too long.

------

Landing near her cave, now in Dragonshape, The Mistress of the Winds listens keenly to what the air rushing around the canyons and spires of Caravan are telling her. Half a mile away, a gopher is startled by a sudden feeling of primal dread. The patterns in the clouds are now quite clear.

He is on his way.

Hurrying to her hoard, Thariassan calmly surveys the sum of her life’s experience. Dominated by artwork, her hoard is a complex pattern of paintings, pottery, figurines and statues, laid out on a bed made of coins and gems, each individual copper coin or piece of semi-precious stone arranged quite carefully into a twisted mosaic of colour and texture.

Choosing a few key pieces, she carefully speaks a magic word at each. The object in question twists and vanishes, pulled by her magic to another place from which she may retrieve it later. Working carefully and precisely, she dismantles her hoard, saving what she can. The vast majority of items, she leaves – it is taking time to apport each piece, and she is clearly feeling the strain of vanishing as many items as she is. When she can hold no more, she swipes with her tail, scattering the bed of coins and jewels and erasing any trace of the pattern they were once in.

Taking a last look at her home, feeling the pain of losing so much of her hoard, she takes to the skies and flies south.

------

The clouds are gathering now, their every curl screaming warnings. Thariassan ploughs through a flock of birds, reading dire omens in the shapes they make scattering in every direction.

Her Pearl glimmers in recognition, as He gets close enough to sense.

The wind dies down, sensing the conflict.

Determined, Thariassan flies onwards as fast as she can. She is smaller, but more agile than the one who has invaded her territory. She has lived in these worlds for centuries, and knows secret ways and routes that he does not.

She is, she realises, attempting to reassure herself.

Landing in a maze of crags and dry hills, she shifts to Humanshape and crawls into a hole. To call it a cave would be an overstatement, and slim as her alternate form is it’s a tight squeeze. Emerging into a space that – although still enclosed and claustrophobic – is large enough to get upright in, she begins to slide down what you realise is a faultline in the earth, a deep crack between two mammoth blocks of stone. Stopping herself from falling too quickly with her feet, like chimneying in reverse, she makes her tortured way down. The feeling of His presence becomes unbearably strong, and the ground shakes as he lands on the surface far above. A rain of gravel and sand pours down upon her, and she nearly loses her grip.

Carefully, she drops from the fault into an area where the rock has been eaten away by something, forming a small cavern. Crouched over, she makes her way (seeing quite clearly despite the pitch-blackness) to the back of the cave. There is another crawlspace there, angled so that she has to crawl into it on her side. As she carefully works her way into it, it lights up with the light of an Astral Path, blooming into an Everway Gate. One final push, and she leaves Caravan. Safe. For now.

------

Strabo, Lord of the Air, regards the silent earth with a glare. She has escaped. The Dragon takes off, and begins to fly to the West.
SOUL FIFTEEN

You are perturbed.

They have rejected your offering of peace, and cut yet more of yourself off. This cannot continue. The Realm of Deluge is too important a link in the chain of your being to lose. You will recover it, reclaim it for the glory of your brother, whose prophet you are.

(Somewhere, He cries that he does not want all of this from you. You reassure him, reminding him that although he is divine, you were always the one with the plans. He should let you worry about the Campaign)

This has happened too many times. This small band of refugees, led by The Shaper’s bastard, has rejected you too many times. They have excised portions of you too many times. In better circumstances, they would make fine recruits to your cause – especially the female of many shapes, built by the blood of Shifters in much the same way as your first crude Peacekeepers were. If only she knew the irony of her trying to resist you, when she was made by formulae that you recognise as being of your design. Someone must have carried your work on in a different direction.

The Symbol has filled them with violence and hatred. They have accused you of crimes you have not committed, twisted your actions in the name of peace into atrocities of their own imagination and poisoned the people of these realms against you. Moreover, your Peacekeepers have proven ineffective against their powers. It simply will not do.

You are not some common soldier, bemoaning the faults of his troops while doing nothing to improve those he has. You are a being of knowledge, of learning. To take the best aspects of what you find and build superior forms is the first thing you learned to do, back in the halcyon days before the Symbol.

It is time to perform an upgrade.

From the world of Illusion, next to the world of Motion, you bloom the seeds of yourself you have placed within several of the natives. Analysing their abilities to shape and control ephemera, you instruct the new peacekeepers to Shape, and Shape again, pitting them against one another to see how their powers work in concert or conflict. Satisfied, you have them merge with a major tendril and pull the taste of Shaping back towards your central self, many worlds away in the Bole.

From the peatlands, you work your way into a particularly hardy moss that survives the flames caused by gases under the earth. Analysing it’s properties, you combine it with a certain type of beetle from the Sphere of Eruption and a Salamander found in one of the regions of the Sphere of Diversity. You send the resulting Peacekeeper wading through the molten lava of the Sphere of Eruption and – satisfied at it’s progress – merge and retrieve it.

Also from the Sphere of Diversity, you find a creature that burrows like a worm through thick ice, and can withstand being buried in tons of snow and frozen water. Sending it over to the Peackeeper made from the Salamander, you merge the two together, creating a glowing creature of radiating heat and teeth, with sharp horns for ramming through ice walls. It swims through the solid ice of it’s home region like a knife through butter, and – pleased – you merge and retrieve it.

Turning your attention inward, observing the Chamber immediately around your central form, you select three of your prisoners to form the subjects of your experiment. These three – humans who you retrieved on the worlds at the edge of your Peace – beg for their lives. Full of compassion, you grant their request, and give them immortality as part of yourself. Taking the inbound aspects you have selected from your web of influence across the worlds, you fashion three Peacekeepers, granting each one of the new capabilities you wish to test.

Pleased at your handiwork, you send them out to go forth and multiply.

This should be interesting.

Soul, as the others have surmised, is hanging around in the Astral Space between spheres, chatting with a group of Demons. Neither he, nor they, are in human form. The area they're floating in resembles nothing on any Sphere, does not obey the laws of physics and doesn't hold with things like being in dimensions that humans can understand. All the "people" involved in this conversation are, for the purposes of us as out of character viewers, entirely beyond our understanding or perception.

Because it's rather hard to roleplay such ethereal and philisophical matters, though, we can use a handy analogy. Soul is hanging around with a group of Demon Teenagers, drinking their cider, laughing at their jokes and trying to be as cool as them. Their mutual exchange of energies of a questioning nature, establishing that Soul is not transporting any human spirits in his role as a psychopomp right now, is best explained as the teenagers asking the wannabe if he's got any cigarettes.

Soul is occassionally hit by a Vision (sense of time is going way out of the window here) - apparantly when his friends go through gates, even without him. He manages to learn much of the ways of Demons and, indeed, of many Astral entities.

Breaking it all down, you've got your...

Spirits. Animistic, or otherwise, creatures that have no physical form and are tied to a function.

Gods. Big version of Spirits, that can influence more than one sphere.

Demons. Spirits that are usually hostile to Humans.

Pheonixes. NOT Spirits, but psychopomp-entities that were created along with Humans. Their job is to maintain the cycle of life and rebirth by transporting Souls from dying humans to new spheres. The Walker is their creator and master. And might be one.

True Demons. Exactly like Pheonixes, but absorb the Souls they take from dying humans and use them to become more powerful - but they can only do it with permission, hence the whole "selling your soul" deal. Answer to something called The Prince, and (if you look at it philisophically) are still maintaining the cycle of life and death. The weight of Souls creates Usurper Forces and SPheres, right? And there's a finite number in the universe, right? So the True Demons are doing the same thing as Pheonixes. Only they are enacting the slow death of the universe rather than individual lifetimes. And are presumably more patient.

In any case, Soul is about to ask if entities such as they are made that way or if a True Demon can become a Pheonix. And vis versa. But he's interrupted by a sudden tugging and a feeling like being poured and pulled through something.

He appears, in human form, back in the spheres. A thin man, naked apart from a mask made of a goat's skull, peers down at him, then back at his big book of demon summoning.

There appears to have been a slight mistake. :D

Sensorium

12-17-2004, 06:41 PM

Ebonheart

12-18-2004, 01:08 AM

The changes in Valour have been quite gradual, and to be honest, they don't come across well in the writeups.

Since the fight with Echo and Valour's transition to metal, he has become, if anything, even quieter and easier irritated (this comes across especially well in the latest session which Dave hasn't written up yet, where Valour snaps at almost everybody in the party, especially Soul and Mirage).

The metal transition has effectively 'hardened' Valour's heart and he finds it very difficult to feel emotion (which is why he stopped sleeping with Mirage). However, he has always been a very private man, and so this only becomes clear when he lets his guard down (very rare) - typically these instances tend to occur when Dave is concentrating on other people and so they don't get into the writeups. Also, Valour has been very quiet since his wing was broken.

Just wait for the next write up where we have Valour actually doing his job for once, snapping at the party and ordering Echo to assassinate somebody. Hopefully this should make things clearer.

Chris - Valour

Ebonheart

12-18-2004, 01:26 AM

Oh - Valour's next flashback hasn't helped the situation either.

He has remembered True Mirror at night and discovered that the worst he could potentially be is what he has now decided to turn into!

Chris - Valour

DaveB

12-18-2004, 08:28 AM

I'm curious about Valour's full transformation into living metal. I was expecting that after Valour's fight scene with Echo#4 in Echo's body in which he let the metal spread throughout his body there would be a more notable change in him or his personality, but I was unable to detect this in the recaps. Were the consequences of letting the metal spread just not as big a deal as deciding whether to let it do it at all?

I shall wibber about this at much greater length next week, as part of my big examination of the campaign. But briefly...

Yeah. Valour expresses his inner pain by going silent, scowling a lot and pissing the other characters off. This is not so different, except in scale, to how he *usually* acts in their minds. To everyone else's point of view, Valour is simply not even bothering with the pretense and is just being honest about how much of a bastard he is. That he really was trying to be their friend (without them noticing) is just one of life's tragedies.

The important thing about his transformations are that, at the moment, they're not lasting. When the metal reacts to Valour being Tainted by Gaunt, the resulting blades and spikes fall off and just leave the tiny spot of metal.

The metal plating that, collosus-style, appeared all over his skin during his fight with Echo peeled off while he was in the care of Waterwall's healers, leaving him looking (and feeling) like the top layer of skin has been removed from his entire body.

Chris has now actually paid the character point to get some benefit from the skin o metal trick, so next time it won't have the armour value of tinfoil.

The Metal, it's precise meaning (the Chirugeon was the tip of the iceberg) and relevance to the campaign are all... on their way. Soul's Vision of a possible future gives some hints, but yeah. The Host (for such is their name) are just as bad as the Taint, only a lot more subtle.

You might even call them the Taint's opposite.

Something to think about, huh, Chris? :D

Ebonheart

12-18-2004, 10:27 AM

I can but look forward to learning more about it ;-)

Nice to hear that there is more to it though. I loved some of the imagery in Soul's vision of the battle of the future...

Chris.

DaveB

12-18-2004, 01:39 PM

SESSION TEN

BASTION -> SYMPHONY -> BASTION -> BIRTHRIGHT

BASTION (cont)

Dawn breaks.

Valour descends to the common room (or, as Talisman calls it given Bastion's inhabitant's attitudes, the "upper middle class room") to find Paragon already up, chatting to a man whose skin is pitch black. Blacker than that, in fact - Paragon is "black" (everyone else bar Echo is Brown), but Shade looks like a human-shaped void in space. He is Waterwall's ambassador to Bastion, and Paragon has just finished getting him up to speed.

They leave, and start the long walk to the central spire of the city, spiralling up through the many levels on their way. Shade, who briefly says he's sorry to hear about the amnesia, briefs Valour on Bastion's politics. The city is an oligarchy, ruled in joint by Seven Lords (one for each Spire, and elected for life from the inhabitants of that Spire's nobility). Their chairman is Lord Shepherd, the Lord of the central (and tallest) Spire, and it's he that is preventing Bastion from honouring it's alliance with Waterwall and going to war against the Taint. Shepherd has managed to convince three of the other Lords of Paragon's warmongering ways, and so the vote always goes his way. Valour asks what hold he could have, and Shade explains that Shepherd has the richest and most influential Spire, but he doesn't have the popularity among the other Lords that Lord Onyx of the Third Spire does. Onyx is a "he leads, others tend to follow" kind of politician, but he is also one of those voting against the alliance - he's Shepherd's husband. The inhabitants of Bastion marry in foursomes, two men and two women, and Shepherd and Onyx's shared wives are relatives of the other two "against" Lords.

In secret, though, Shepherd has been distanced from his family of late. He's old, anyway, and his relationship with the other three members of his quad was never a love match on his part. He has been seen in the company of a green-skinned woman of great beauty, and the gossip among the ambassadors is that he's being unfaithful. Whoever this woman - with skin the colour of summer grass, deep green (and oddly mobile) hair and ever-present flowers as adornments - is, Shade suspects her of being the one who is turning the Lord Shepherd's opinion away from them.

They reach the government tower (seen in one of Soul's visions from the first game session) and Valour goes up, while Shade hopes to get word of Paragon's abdication to Onyx.

Meanwhile, across town, Soul carefully checks the floor around him for some kind of protective circle. The Demonologist tries the "come not in that form" act, eventually giving up and furiously going through his notes while Soul gives helpful suggestions and asks what he's trying to do. Soul feels a flash of annoyance when the Demonologist ignores him too much for his liking (that Usurper Force is doing it again) and sets him a little bit on fire. Eventually, Soul learns that he's on Bastion, and that the man was *attempting* to summon a Demon in order to sell his soul for great wealth. Soul strolls out of the wards against Demons (because... hey...) and leaves him to it, checking that he still has the Unity.

Talisman emerges from his pit and - after a bit of back and forth - intimidates the servant into providing breakfast. Which is all well and good for him, but makes sure that no one else will get any. Mirage also emerges and the two of them plus Paragon begin to build their plans for the day while Valour is off being all political.

Soul is wandering the streets, finding the utter rudeness of Bastion's crowds kind of off-putting (he's small, and easily shoved out of the way), when he comes across a rather dodgy-looking gentleman leaning against a wall and flipping through a Fate Deck. Spotting a man who knows what he is about, Soul introduces himself and asks if any Blue Women have been seen in the city lately (thinking that Fathom probably stands out more than the others). The man (who says his name is CUtter) hasn't heard of Blue Women, but has heard tell of a Green Woman. He describes the woman Shade described to Valour earlier, and Soul shrugs in his lack of knowing who that is. Eventually, Soul lets slip who he's travelling with, and Cutter reacts as though he recognises the names. He asks Soul if he wants to go somewhere while his own people look for the rest of the party, and Soul agrees.

They set off through the streets, Cutter telling Soul that the best way to get your way in the crowd is to agressive right back at them (he calls it "Word of Mouth Advertising"), and Soul takes to combusting people that shove him especially hard. Soul asks how CUtter knows the others, and Cutter says that the party has extremely good... advertising. He's met them before, and has no desire to cross them. That seems fine with Soul.

Paragon has been thinking (always dangerous) and raises the idea of going to see the flipside of Bastion life - while Valour works with the top, perhaps they can go meet with the bottom. The city's poor slums (called The Shades because their location on the lower levels between the spires makes them in shadow) contain several dubious individuals - including a crime boss named Cutter who may be of particular interest. Not only is Cutter head of a criminal family which stretches to Amalgam, he's also a Spherewalker from a far-distant world called Armada. Recognising somewhere they've been that doesn't link up to their map so far, Talisman and Mirage agree that it's worth a try. Considering that they're going into a den of thieves, Paragon says they should take an attractive woman who can handle herself in any situation and won't be in any danger if Cutter takes against them. Mirage smiles and says that Echo hasn't come out of her room yet and Paragon - frowning - says that he was actually thinking of Fathom.

Mirage goes to get both of them.

In the Shades, Cutter is slamming a pint of beer down in front of Soul.

Up in the spires, among a better class of person, Valour is finally meeting Shepherd. Valour realises that Shepherd is weak-minded enough to have his thoughts read, and goes to work on the Lord, dissecting his arguments for not helping Waterwall before Shepherd finishes making them, taking great pleasure in pointing out that Paragon has abdicated in favour of a man of Entelechy and doing a lot of fishing while he's at it. Shepherd is worried - he realises that the other Lords will vote for war once his main objection (Paragon's warmongering reputation) is revealed to be no longer an issue, and he honestly thinks that this will lead to Bastion's destruction. He has been told so (in between bouts of sexual intercourse that, given the man's age, Valour wishes he *couldn't* read the details of) by the Green Lady that Shade described, who Shepherd thinks is called Nectar. Having achieved Flawless Victory, Valour leaves. Shade reappears and says that the other Lords have been informed of the events back on Waterwall, and Valour notes that the Sphere's policy is about to change. While Shade looks after the transition, Valour intends to find this Green Woman (who Valour theorises is some new kind of Tainted) and give her a good killing.

The rest of the gang have reached the Shades, and are greeting in the middle of Cutter's den of thieves by a cheerful (and slightly drunk) Soul. Cutter explains - after it becomes clear that he recognises them and they don't recognise him - that they killed his predeccessor on their outbound journey, something for which he is eternally grateful. They chew the fat for a while, Cutter giving a few details of the Spheres around Armada (and confirming that the one-way gate into Battlefield is from his neck of the Spheres, which he personally has no desire to go back to thanks to the Pirates of Armada's violent dislike of him) and providing a token by which they can enter and make use of his Safehouses on Amalgam, Visage and Long Road. They ask about the voting situation, and he describes much the same as Shade did to Valour - including the Green Woman, who he knows for a fact left through the gate to Symphony a month ago.

The gang return to their inn, Fathom telling Soul that he is in no circumstances to go off with Demons again on the way, and meet up with Valour, who stonily tells them what's going on. Not having any reason to stay, they decide to get their asses in gear. Valour pushes for the group to go to Symphony (his head full of visions of destroying Gaunt's agent), and they agree.

On the way to the gate, Soul wonders what would happen if he used the Unity on one of Bastion's inhabitants and smacks the next person to try to shove past him in the chest with it. The poor individual has the Pride sucked out of them, and collapses in a weeping heap on the floor much to Soul's delight and Valour's anger - he's pissed that Soul is jepourdising his "good work" in getting this realm on side, and almost marches them to the Gate.

Roll on, Symphony.

DaveB

12-18-2004, 01:48 PM

SOUL SIXTEEN

Things are changing. New players have entered the game. New influences are being felt…

------------------

The Green Man and the Fiery Lady are joined at their game board by two more Gods. The Blind Man Who Sees walks calmly up to the board and – nodding to them both – seamlessly begins to take his turn in the movements of pieces. The Green man looks worried for an instant, then shrugs and accepts the newcomer. The Firey Lady narrows her eyes as if in warning (to which the Blind Man Who Sees simply smiles), but allows him to continue.

“So. It’s been you all along” She says, somewhat irritably. “I should have known Favoured wasn’t doing it.”

The Blind Man Who Sees smiles and shrugs slightly, moving the pieces that represent the Tainted so that there is line of sight between Gaunt (who was concealed in the pile of his servants) and the figures of Valour and Talisman.

The Woman of Two Faces sidles up to the board, plainly wanting to join in. The Green Man scowls and ignores her, thumping his fist against a pillar in irritation when the Blind Man Who Sees exchanges a figure clad in armour plating for a figure of a vast burning bird. The Firey lady sees this and, glancing at the Blind Man Who Sees as though sizing him up, waves to the Woman With Two Faces that she should sit down. One of the woman’s faces smiles, and she moves up to the board, blowing a sardonic kiss to the Green Man who visibly bristles.

------------------

A drum concert is under way – a thousand drums, of all shapes and sizes, organised by a conductor in the playing of a complex and stirring beat. Great Cymbals provide emphasising crashes, and Rainsticks a shifting undersound. The result is overwhelming, and you feel your heartbeat shift in time with the music.

The music finishes, and the appreciative crowd rise to their feet, clapping the backs of their hands. The conductor exhales long and hard – the culmination of his life’s work has passed without incident, and the audience like it. He looks across the crowd, and sees her.

She’s standing right at the front of the audience, dead centre to his field of vision. Her skin is the colour of summer grass, her long, coiling hair that of jungle leaves and her eyes and lips the colour of Redfruit. And slightly too large. Her dress appears to have been woven from some kind of reed-like plant, and she has flowers in her hair.

She looks right at him and smiles, and for a moment he forgets his wives and husband. Then the crowd surges again, yelling their approval of his work, and he loses sight of her.

Later, and the conductor is walking home after the concert, listening appreciatively to a young boy plucking a tune on a Sitar, stopping a little further on to hear a group of throat singers (all the way from White Mountain) make mountain music and offering a friendly greeting to a drummer he recognises.

He reaches his house and his mind becomes stricken by a new tune. Tapping his feet up and down the steps to his home, he gets the feel of the rhythm and jots it down on the back of his hand, scribbling the musical notation with a writing stick. Nodding his head to the tune in his mind, he opens his door and goes inside.

The flower lady watches from the shadows of the alley across the street.

------------------

On a world of fire and ash, a heavy-set, ruddy—skinned man with a slick black beard and dark eyes sits on a throne of iron. A kneeling slave is acting as a bookrest for a large metal-bound tome, the pages of which the man on the throne is turning without touching. He reaches an illustration of long hallways lit by a shining sphere on an altar, and reads the writing, then looks up and stares into the distance. The earth rumbles beneath him, and he looks like he has just realised something that is making him very angry indeed.

------------------

A group of three individuals – a man clad in black, with a shining metal mask covering his face, a tall, thin man with spectacles and unruly hair, looking concerned, and a woman dressed as a hunter – climb to the top of the crumbling tower. Looking out from the edge of their deserted, ruined city at the grasslands, they spot a streak of colour in the air. The cloud – made up of thousands of thousands of butterflies – sweeps across the land as they take cover, then turns to move off to the North.

------------------

...And there’s more where they came from.
ECHO SIXTEEN

You lean on the railing of the porch, looking out across the hills. The low houses, the way the villagers are dressed. Even the types of plants remind you of Wall. You’ve been on worlds which are close to it, worlds which resemble it in culture or in substance. Worlds which could have been different countries on the same world – and perhaps were, long ago before the worlds divided. Like Ancient Empire. Or Dark Mirror. Or here.

This is not your home, you force yourself to remember. This is not the domain of the Emperor.

A young girl is playing in the sunset light, her parents calling from one of the buildings. For an instant, you are six again, before they took you away to the Hidden City. Before you never saw your parents again.

Closing your eyes, you ask the familiar question of yourself. Is this somewhere you can stay? Could this be your home?

The culture is familiar – perhaps too familiar, so as to lull you into false security before the differences begin to ache at you. You have nowhere to live here, no trade to practise (given the nature of the Sphere, warriors and assassins are not in demand) and no one to stay with. You could have stayed with Blade, years ago, if you’d made it as far in your development then as you have now.

“Remind you of home?” Asks Fathom from behind you. She joins you at the rail, and there is a long silence.

“Not really.” You say. “They’re really nothing alike.”

“We will take a few more days here to rest up and allow ourselves to acclimatise, then once it’s safe we’ll go through the gate.” She says, small talk failing her. “And then... Then we’ll see what we’re supposed to do next.”

“Do we know what it’s like?” You ask.

“Not really. The people here tend to avoid it – they are not very religious. Which strikes me as odd.”

“Talisman says that that’s to be expected. He says that if he lived next to Cathedral, he’d be certain to not be religious as well.”

“Talisman may have a point. Has he come back yet?”

You feel a sudden pang of guilt.

“No. No he hasn’t.” You say, not looking at her.

“Fine.” She sighs, and turns to go before pausing. “Echo, I do not mind it this time because we are waiting here before moving on anyway, but I am starting to tire of you and Talisman constantly wandering off. If you are not settling his gambling debts the hard way or stealing things for him – and do not tell me you do not – he is tracking down obscure books, conning people who are mean to you out of their life savings or doing Gods know what else. And if the two of you are together, then you are never with the rest of us.”

You start to instinctively submit, your knees weakening as you fight the urge to kneel at her feet, then your hard-won rebellion kicks in and you begin to form your objections.

“I am glad you have a friend, Echo.” She cuts you off, “And I know that when I give the pair of you a mission you can accomplish it – like Healing Valour, or wrecking the Gambling-House on Coinheart. But the rest of us do not have to be kept in the dark all the time. Understand?”

“I understand” you say, trying to keep your voice neutral. You watch her leave, and go back to your sunset. The mood has been broken, and you see the village with more cynical eyes.

“Heya, Kitten” whispers Talisman as he climbs up onto the porch. He’s holding his arm funny, and looks like he was recently dragged through several hedgerows.

“Well, it’s done.” He says, giving you a wan smile.

“Thanks” you smile.

“Remind you of home?” He asks, looking across the village.

“Yes. Yes it does.” You reply. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”
TALISMAN SIXTEEN

“So what did The Imperious Leader want?” You ask.

“Nothing.” Echo replies. “Just prying into our business.”

You’re both standing on the porch of some long, low building in what looks like a hamlet made up of the same structures, built onto the steep slopes of a hilly countryside. The sun has just set, and the last few farmers are returning from the fields, kicking their shoes off and going into their homes.

You yourself feel utterly drained. Your left arm aches, and you have a dozen tiny scrapes and scratches in painful parts of your body.

“And you told her?” You ask, suddenly worried.

“Of course not. She doesn’t know anything.” She replies, cool as ice. That means that Echo had to lie to Fathom, or just plain not answer a direct or implied question, and she’s covering the ensuing guilt backlash by pretending she doesn’t have any emotions. Though, you are gratified to note, at least the fact that she’s covering up emotions rather than being genuinely ice-maidenish means that she realises what hell you just went through for her.

You make a mental note to think of something good (and fun for you, if not for her) she can do to pay you back, and breath a sigh of relief that Fathom remains blissfully unaware of your activities.

“That’s good. That’s very good. We’re still agreed, then?”

“We are. The time hasn’t come to tell the others.”

You nod several times in agreement, and join her in leaning on the rail, looking out across the rapidly-darkening landscape. You silently take a tightly-wrapped package out of the inside of your jacket and pass it across to her. She unwraps it, revealing a rectangular box about a hand-span in size. Opening it, she takes out a thin silver chain with a disk of metal and several beads hung from it. Nodding to herself, she puts it down the front of her shirt and – copying herself – gathers the packaging and walks off towards the village’s pottery kilns with it. You both watch the other her carefully put the box in the unlit furnace, where they will be incinerated come morning. She shudders slightly, dispelling the copy, and looks across at you. Job done.

“If Fathom finds out you have that…” you start.

“She won’t” She cuts you off. A long pause follows.

“So. Does this one meet your criteria?” You ask, joking.

“Not especially.” She replies, more seriously than you hoped. She must have been thinking of this before you interrupted. “While it looks like Wall, there are niggling cultural differences. I think I’d rather be somewhere completely different – it’d be easier to make a new life. And it’s next to Cathedral.” You make a face of disgust, agreeing with her. “And, well, I’m not in love.”

“Is that so important?” You ask.

“Of course.” She says, frowning. “If I’m going to leave your company, I want it to be because I’ve met someone better.”

“I think I’ll take that as a compliment.” You say. “You know, Kitten, if ‘he’s got to be better than Talisman’ is what you’re looking for in a man, then you’re setting your sights awfully high. I mean, just look at me. He’d have to be some kind of man-plus, some paragon of the male gender, in order to compete with my majesty.”

“Really?” She says, wrinkling her nose and looking at you. “I rather think that it’s setting my sights too low.”

“I love you too.”

“No you don’t.”

“No” you agree. “I don’t. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but I respect you too much to sleep with you.”

“Flatterer.” She says, deadpan.

The conversation goes downhill from there.
VALOUR SIXTEEN

The Gate opens before you, and you exit the Astral Path onto the Sphere.

Something is very, very wrong.

Normally, leaving a gate is a feeling like a deep breath taken before a plunge. Your body seems to fade into existence, the reverse of the feeling you get when leaving a world (in which it feels like you are lifted up out of yourself by the Gate). It’s like putting on your clothes, a comfortable and familiar presence all around you.

Your body, this time, does not feel comfortable.

You kneel in the red dust of this world, the stars burning high above you and the full moon glaring down at you. You feel cold, and yet there is no discomfort from the temperature. Instead, you feel a gaping emptiness deep within you, as though the core of your being has been replaced by a heart of ice.

Or worse, a heart of metal.

You pitch forward, thrusting your hands out in front of you to catch your fall. Your fingers have twisted into long talons, with an extra knuckle and ending in razor-sharp tips, your arms are thinner than normal, the muscles oddly coiled and inhuman. Backward-curving spikes protrude from your elbows.

Both limbs are entirely made of metal.

Horrified, you sit up and – holding your claws in front of yourself, you realise that you shouldn’t be able to see as well as you are this late at night. Something has changed with your vision. You look down at your chest, and are horrified to discover that it, too, is entirely metal. Something that resembles a breastplate seems to be fused to your chest, made of the same material as your new skin. On closer inspection, it appears organic (except for it’s composition), like a shell or – the thought chillingly springs to your mind – like something growing out of you.

Your legs have twisted, changed so that they bend backwards like a Terrible Lizard’s. Your feet have turned into long, grasping thee-toed talons like those of an eagle except for being made of the same smooth silvery substance. Your wing-span has increased three-fold, your wings now wide bat-like sheets of metal with “edge feathers” that extend three feet from the edge of the main wing, as though you were fringed with sword blades.

You gasp, and feel your tongue – impossibly long, like a snake’s – emerge from your mouth, as razor-sharp as your new wings. Your teeth are like a shark’s, double-rowed.

Trembling, you hold your palms closer to your face, studying your own reflection in your metal flesh. Your face is no more flesh than the rest of you, your hair has vanished and you are crowned with short spikes that jut out from your head.

Weeping tears of quicksilver, you look across the twisted, hellish landscape and try to find sight of the others. They are nowhere to be seen.

This must be a mistake, you think desperately to yourself. You must have travelled through the spheres too quickly, fallen off the Astral Path and become trapped in some hallucinatory hell-world.

Then you remember where you are.

You have to find the Gate. You have to get off this world before you go mad.

You take to the air, feeling yourself rip through the air you used to fly in concert with, slicing the thermals and currents you used to act in concert with.

The hell-landscape is endless, in all directions. With mounting horror, you realise that it’s as unreal as your body, and that there is no escape. Logic fails you, you cannot think.

You land, and crouch by the side of a large boulder, praying that the sun will come up soon. You hear a sobbing noise that you cannot identify or see the source of. Then it comes again, and you realise that it’s Mirage.

Peering in the direction of the noise, you force yourself to see her. She looks like she normally does, but her eyes are wild and her expression maddened. She’s crouched not too far from you, rocking back and forth and muttering to herself. Whatever she sees herself as, you realise, it’s just as bad as your own image.

You shouldn’t have come here at night.
MIRAGE SIXTEEN

“Do we have to talk about this now?” demands Talisman.

You’re on Stonebridge, in what your future self recognises as the Inn owned by Jade Dragon. You are facing one another in one of the bedrooms – Talisman standing near the window, sunlight haloing him and refracting through his Colours. You’re sitting on the edge of the bed, hands in your lap, staring at him and trying very hard to not throw something.

“Yes.” You say, doing your best Fathom impression. “We have to talk about this now.”

He gesticulates to himself, Colours shifting, and throws his hands up in exasperation. “Fine” He says, and pulls a chair over for himself. “Talk away.”

You start to speak, stop, and consider it carefully. “I can’t do this any more.” You finally say.

His nostrils flare as he takes then in, then nods rapidly to himself. He’s trying to show that he doesn’t care. Except he really doesn’t care, covered by the motions of this relationship covered with his fake not-caring. Frankly, you have enough trouble picking your own mind apart.

He hasn’t said anything.

“I don’t understand how you could…” You close your eyes. “How you could DO this and not tell me.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“HOW LONG, Talisman? How long has it been since you made this decision? Entelechy? The Young Kingdoms? True Mirror? CATHEDRAL?”

“Before that.” He whispers, embittered. Sulking, as if he’s the injured party here.

“Before that.” You whisper, hoarsely. “Almost three years, then. Three YEARS, Talisman. And you kept it to yourself.” He looks up, suddenly, as if about to object, and your heart sinks even further. “No. No. Don’t tell me that… SHE knew? ECHO KNEW?!”

He nods, and you explode. “All that time I thought you were just sleeping with her! If I’d known…”

“…Then we would have told you our reasons.” He says, flatly. “And they are good reasons. I can’t see why you’re so worked up about this, Mirage. It’s not like I’m…”

“...Betraying all of us?” you cut in.

“…Yes. Exactly. I’m NOT!” He shouts, jumping to his feet, his Colours exploding out with emphasis and shattering the window-pane. “I am still coming with you, I’m still going through with the mission and getting the Lost Force. I’m still saving our homeworlds. What more do you bloody well WANT, woman!?”

“I want you to stop lying to me.” You snarl. “You should have told ME. You should have trusted ME, not that attention-whore. Valour was right about the two of you – you’ve managed to make a clique of two in a party of six. You’re both out of control, doing whatever the hell you please and hiding it from the rest of us. Why can’t you let me in?” You ask, almost pleading, “I can accept anything. I can adapt to anything, damn you. But if you constantly lie to me then it’s the lies that I adapt to - I can only support you if you stop keeping secrets from me.”

“If Valour is so wise” He says, furious, “Then maybe you should go give HIM the benefit of your cheerleading. Because I don’t want it. You think Echo and me planned this together in order to snub you? I didn’t tell you BECAUSE you’d accept it. Echo knows that it’s wrong – she KNOWS that it’s a moral violation and that we’ll be damned for it. She accepts it anyway because it’s for the greater good, because SHE can do evil and still know that it’s evil.”

“And I can’t?”

“No. You can’t. You said it yourself – you can adapt to anything. If we’d let you in, then you’d have ended up agreeing to it. Worse, you’d have started to think that we were doing good. You’d have rationalised it, justified it. You’d have cheered us on as we…” He chokes off, and looks down at himself.

“The trust has gone.” You say. “And… And I don’t think it was ever there to begin with. I’m sorry Talisman, but if I can’t know the real you, then…” You shake your head, feeling your heart break. “…then it’s over. Get out.”

He gets up, and walks to the door, fists clenched. “Will you tell them?”

“No. No I won’t.” You say, deeply pained. “Because you’re right. I DO think it’s a good idea. Damn you, Talisman, you’re right about me.” You feel the tears coming. “You’re right about me.”

He nods, and looks back at you.

“Five years of waiting, and it’s over so soon.”

“I was waiting for the wrong thing.” You gulp, bitterly. He leaves and you scream in rage, smashing the chair he was sitting in.
FATHOM SIXTEEN

You’re in a low, drystone-built cottage, somewhere near the coast. You can hear waves crashing on rocks, and the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls and disturbing the lamp-flame, making it dance around. Not for the first time, you are attracted and repelled by the flame. Remembering when you were young, and you didn’t know to not touch. Talisman and Valour are conferring, going over a map of this sphere. The map is neatly bisected by a jagged line that you realise is a cliff – land on one side, and a stormy sea on the other.

Mirage enters, shaking the rain off of herself, and puts down the long package she’s carried in. She kneels and starts building the fireplace up ready to light it. You smell the fish and are slightly dismayed when your stomach rumbles. Mirage grins at you. Echo is too focused on sharpening her various weapons to notice.

Talisman and Valour have finished, Valour rolling up the map. They rejoin the rest of you at the table. Talisman waves at Valour to start, and Valour waves back that this is Talisman’s show. He shrugs and lays his hands on the table, as though about to deal cards.

“The sea-Dragon was... surprisingly talkative. I didn’t tell him what we were doing, but the fact of my existence seemed to spark some things off for him. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

“He knew what you were?” Asks Mirage from the fireplace, which is now burning.

“Yeah. That’s the personal revelation of the day – I’m the first of my kind to be made. To be expected, I suppose, but… Yeah. Anyway. Sonama says that there are three gates from here that Humans can use: the one back to Song Forge, One to a world called Soulpyre and a one-way one to a world called White Plain. There’s apparently a circle-route you can take through the worlds past White Plain to get to Soul Pyre, so some people have gone there and managed to get back.”

“What are the worlds like?” You ask, as the smell of frying fish fills the cottage.

“Soulpyre isn’t as bad as it sounds – the people can produce flame from their skin at will, and their popular legend is that it comes from deep within them. Hence the name.” He says, and you shudder at the very thought, half-shaking your head. Talisman grins at your discomfort and shrugs. “It doesn’t sound that great to me.”

“Stop dancing around it.” Says Valour, and Talisman sticks his tongue out at him, confusing you.

“White Plain is a land of ice and blizzard, extremely cold. Like Iceberg without the civilisation, and with a great frozen continent rather than a few islands of ice. We’d need specialist equipment, tents, warm clothing, maybe snowshoes. I can provide some of them, and you could boil ice for heating, but it’d be hard going.”

“Fire or Ice. Lovely.” You say. Talisman looks like he hasn’t finished. “What?”

“White Plain is cracking.” He says, suddenly serious. “According to Sonama, Thirty-two years ago something happened to it. The glaciers have cracked like a normal sheet of ice that has been punched, and entire areas of the world are now unstable. Sonama has investigated – the sort of cataclysm that can affect a world on that scale is either mighty magic or an act of God – and he’s found a Gate that wasn’t there before.”

“It had not been discovered?”

“No. It literally wasn’t there before. He’s certain of it, and I have no reason to believe he’d lie about it. Sonama says that he saw no signs of the Walker passing through – I think he was joking, there. At least I HOPE he was – so it’s not a naturally-formed gate. He went through it and found a world, torn and half-wrecked from whatever damaged White Plain, inhabited by humans that could change their shape.” He says the last part with great seriousness, as though he expects you to understand it. Valour looks grave. Mirage looks up from her cooking, eyes wide. Echo looks as puzzled as you.

“So?” You ask. Talisman rolls his eyes, like he’s being forced to explain something very simple.

“Thirty-two years ago? A world of shapeshifters? A world of shapeshifters being moved through the Everways?” He asks, his eyebrows arching. He looks at Mirage, who bites her lip and nods, getting it. Talisman gestures for Mirage to say it and put you out of your ignorance. She hesitates, and you feel a flash of irritation, willing her to get on with it.

“It’s Shift. It’s the world whose people I was made out of,” she says. “The homeworld of The Lady.”

There’s a pause. Everyone looks serious. You clear your throat.

“Ice it is, then.”

DaveB

12-18-2004, 04:07 PM

SPHERE SIXTEEN - SYMPHONY

Symphony is hot - jungle hot. The gate emerges to a tropical coast, with Bastion-style buildings raised above ground level (presumably in case of flooding) and reached by external stairs. It's night-time, and the sound of music drifts across the humid fields towards the characters, stood next to the gate.

Valour drops to his knees (with a squelch) and then forces himself back up again, refusing to give in to his Vision. Soul excitedly says that he knows where the Green Lady is, and begins leading them all to the Conductor's house. Talisman and Echo are muted, Mirage is trailing at the back of the group staring at Talisman and Fathom is wondering what the sudden problem is.

The Conductor isn't home, though one of his wives is. She disgustedly asks if Mirage and Fathom are more "students" of her husband, from which the gang deduce that Flower Lady is up to the same seductress act here as she is on Bastion. They say no, and offer to get rid of the interloper for her, so she directs them to practice rooms (specifically, the fourteenth practice rooms) further into town.

As they walk through the town centre, stepping around buskers, impromptu jam-sessions and people stopping dead in the street in order to burst into song, Valour and Soul explain their impressions of the place from Valour's researches and Soul's vision - music is infectious here, it takes hold of you and doesn't let go.

There are no sounds of practicing from the practice room when they listen at the door, so they enter (hoping to catch the COnductor and the Flower Woman in the act), and are moderately disappointed to find the Conductor sat down, writing sheet music. He's *actually* doing what he told his suspicious spouses he was doing and (Valour confirms the truth of this) he's in no way sleeping with the woman, who he knows as "Fern". She actually IS just a music student.

Fine, says Valour, but she's still Tainted. The group march through the night to the small, lonely house out by the bay that the Conductor identified as being Fern's. The smells of cooking are coming out of the windows, and they can hear a female voice humming to herself. They shrug, and knock.

The woman opens her front door, sees them, says "Oh my gods, it's you!" and looks very suprised - and worried. Then - looking worriedly at the undergrowth - she invites them in.

Fern (she confirms that that one is her real name) starts by saying that she didn't think they would come this way, what with Symphony being a dead-end on their route and all. Valour - riding high on his wave of righteous anger - demands to know what Fern was doing on Bastion. He can tell, now that he sees her, that she isn't Tainted.

Fern appeals to Fathom and Talisman who, to Valour's disgust, appear to relax. He can feel something trying to work on his mind, and tells her to quit trying to influence him. She apologises, but doesn't stop. Because she can't. Not that that helps. She says that not all of Gaunt's servants are Peacekeepers (she calls the Tainted this throughout) - and that she's not actually sure if she CAN become a Tainted, since she has as much power over plants as her father.

Her father.

Yup, Fern is Gaunt's daughter.

As she explains it (to a sympathetic audience of Mirage, Talisman, Fathom, Paragon and Soul and an unfeeling one of Valour and Echo), she "and her sisters" were born before Gaunt became the Taint. Gaunt has merged himself with Aelder Bole (which she refers to as the first plant), and gone mad in the process. She was keeping Bastion out of the war because the war cannot be won by military might - by acting, she was saving the lives of Bastion's inhabitants. And Valour has just wrecked it. She can't do anything about that - She'll go to Ivy and report her failure to Gaunt, then be given a new assignment.

Valour challenges her about her self-delusion, pointing out that Gaunt will assimilate *everyone* eventually, and she's kidding herself if she thinks that she's saving anyone. She flinches, and looks out of the window at the jungle again, then says that she doesn't think it will go that far. Her father is only attacking Waterwall because of *them* - he's restricted himself to unoccupied Spheres like Ivy and Jagged except to combat the party.

Fathom and Talisman keep her talking, and Fern reaches a crescendo. She'll do them a deal. She loves her Father, and wants to see him cured of his madness. She will oppose the party if they try to kill Gaunt, but if they promise to instead *free* him by removing him from the Bole, then she will tell them how to get there - a secret way.

Fathom readily agrees, and Fern tells them that Gaunt has fully occupied the Spheres all around Aelder Bole, and the spheres all around those and the spheres all around those. It is impossible to get there by a frontal assault - no army would survive it. A world exists called Conjunction, on which the single gate points to a different Sphere depending on the phase of the moon. On a solar eclipse, the gate leads to a world called Moonshadow. THAT world holds a direct gate straight to Aelder Bole.

A back way in. In return for their promise to cure, not kill.

Fern asks - more than once - about their route, and it's clear she's looking for something she can tell Gaunt. Talisman eventually just tells her, and she agrees to go to report by a long and rambling route to give them time to get away.

As they're leaving, Echo catches Valour's eye. He reads her thoughts, in which she asks Valour if she should just kill the woman. Valour - his mind's eye still churning - curtly nods, and Echo silently nods in return.

Neither of them notice Talisman watching them.

The party depart, and Echo sends a copy of herself to double back. Before she can strike, though, a shield of Colour snaps into being around Fern. Talisman isn't going to let his comrades go back on the agreement. Echo hangs around, eventually settling for putting contact poision on the doorlatch, while the party march back to the Gate. Valour grumpily (fighting the urge to break out into a rock ballad) wants to get off the world before they all start singing. Mirage - ever one for experiencing things - gives up and breaks into an aria before jumping into the gate.

Talisman pointedly insists on being the last one through, making damn sure Echo leaves the Sphere before him.

---
(there are no visions in this Gate. I shall go on about that in the post-writeup blather)
---

BASTION (REPRISE)

The party march through Bastion, Soul continuing to get in people's way and randomly combusting and/or using the Unity on people. Valour turns on him and screams at him to stop undoing all of his hard work in getting Bastion to help, which stops the boy. Talisman, though, starts tripping people that annoy him up.

And, having marched across town, they reach the gate to Birthright. Valour sourly notes that Strabo has now had an extra month and a half in which to catch up with them, thanks to their side trip to Symphony.

They move on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
And I shall write the events on Birthright up tommorow. For now, bed calls.

DaveB

12-19-2004, 09:01 AM

SPHERE SEVENTEEN - BIRTHRIGHT

Once again, there are no visions in the Bastion-Birthright gate.

Birthright is named for it's central philosophy - that the accumulated knowledge of Humanity is owned by all peoples, and that the inhabitants of this sphere (spurred on by the Usurper force of Inquiry) are collecting it to hold it in trust. The Libraries, museums, zoological gardens, galleries, collections, reliqueries, lecture halls, laboratories, observatories, debating chambers and apartments (of the rare beings - like sentient golems or self-aware illusions - that have consented to stay there and live in peace, dispensing their experiences to the scholars) are open to all comers. Birthright never turns down a request for information, though it does make people wait for certain restricted texts to be cleared - a true scholar won't mind waiting a month or so for a particular book, but someone wanting to use it for nefarious ends would. Usually.

In any case, the complex is sprawling and confusing. The Knowledge is divided into thousands of departments, the distinctions between which can often be very fine and esoteric, which are laid out along lines that probably made sense a few millenia ago. By common design, the departments are all on ground level as much as possible (those like Astrology that need to be elevated are), with the living quarters for the Scholars attached to each Department above their collections. The entire library-scape is one continuous building, as big as a small country, that encompasses ornamental gardens of all known types (for horticulture is just as valid an avenue of inquiry as anything else) and large working farms (completely enclosed by the complex's cloisters) that make up the Practical Agriculture department. And coincidentally feed the complex's population.

The companions materialise in a peaceful cloister, next to a fountain commemerating Birthright's joining of the Young Kingdoms. The gate back to Bastion is well-marked (someone has even gone so far as to mark the different layers of the Gate - perception, open diameter, safe distance for those not travelling and so on - in metal set into the floor) and like most Young Kingdom gates the travel time has been carefully figured out over the centuries and is clearly stated. Talisman comments how off-putting he finds that, and Paragon says that the Scholars of Birthright took a ten-year project to carefully figure out the lengths of all the Astral Paths in the alliance some hundred years ago as an aid to commerce. And also just because no one else had ever done it. Dozens of Scholars gate-jumped too much and vanished in the process.

Valour is still furious at the others (and Talisman is being antagonistic right back at him) and marches off to find Reflecting Air of Wisdom, the Chief Librarian of Birthright (seen in one of Valour's visions and who, if you look back towards the start of this thread, wrote the characters a letter describing the Old Kingdoms). His wing is feeling much better, though still not fully healed.

The others watch him go, quite glad to be rid of him in many cases. Well, here they are in the foremost library any of them have ever seen (even Collegium, long-distant in their homeworlds, pales in comparison). Soul tells everyone of his vision from the Bastion-Far Window gate, and offers the idea of finding out just what the Gods are up to. And in fact who the two new Gods are. From his descriptions, Talisman and Fathom quickly peg the woman as Laksmar and Mirage deduces the man as Kush. Grabbing a Librarian and finding out that the Current Theological Events department is a good few hours away (though reachable by canal or rikshaw), they set off through the cloisters and covered avenues.

On the way, they (obviously minus Valour) share the visions, and worry slightly about the fact that they haven't had any for the last two gates. Mirage tells Talisman that he was doing *something* she found beyond the pale - Talisman simply nods, having long suspected that he was acting at cross-purposes to the others. The problem is that no one knows *what* past-Talisman was up to. Fathom fills in the blanks, linking the vision Talisman had of the sea-Dragon some months ago to what they know of Shift and Fire Plume. Echo and Talisman don't really put the two halves of their visions together, thanks to Talisman still doing his utmost to ignore Echo (with whom he is still disgusted, thanks to what he sees as the hypocrisy of Echo whining on about being told to assassinate people in the past and then doing Valour's bidding in trying to kill Fern).

Current Theological Events turns out to be quite a small department when they eventually get there. Files on each identified God and Goddess are kept in sealed metal containers, covered in runes of protection. The Librarians' clothes are similarly covered in protective symbols, and they have a very serious demeanour about them. All new information about the various Gods is placed here - when the files get full, they are shipped off to Theology, and when THEY get full they go to Theological History.

The party learn some things. Fire Plume / The Lady is one of the most active Gods out there, Kush's file is full of what people see on Far Window, Julius is cross-linked to the Taint and Laksmar has been unusually quiet for the last few years. Soul tries in vain to find any reference to his own creation, but the Scholars direct him to Bestiaries. Talisman perks up at the mention of such a department, hoping to find dirt on Dragons.

Valour, meanwhile, has managed to get in to see his old friend Reflecting Air of Wisdom. The old librarian is even older than Valour remembers, and is walking with a crutch, but his eyes are still working and his offices are still piled high with texts. Air hasn't seen them all since Echo and Paragon's wedding, and gladly takes down the information Valour supplies about the nature of the Taint, the events on Waterwall and the details of the Sphere of the Lost Force.

Over in Bestiaries, the Scholars instantly recognise Talisman as being what he is when he asks for Dragons (the Dragon section is huge - about a hundred metres of shelving - covering the race as a whole and named individuals. He's "reminded" that while Birthright respects all elder races and welcomes the wisdom they bring, the Bestiaries' large biographies of specific Dragons do not exist for the purpose of Draconic vendettas. He cheerfully says that he isn't here to act against any other Dragons - in fact, he's on a mission for his father, who the Librarian remembers as being Strabo. The last Dragon to come through here was Gallariaon, Master of the Forest. Someone asks what all the goofy titles are about - Strabo's Lord of the Air, Volvagia Lord of Fire, Tharissma was Mistress of the Winds, and the Librarian says that it's the best translation of the complicated system of titles Dragons use to determine their own pecking order. In fact, Talisman's translates as Knight of Breath.

Talisman, curious now, asks if they have a biography of HIM. The Librarian cheerfully confirms that they do, and goes to get it.

And we finish.

LuxVeritatis

12-19-2004, 10:27 AM

I didn't call the common room in the Bastion in the 'upper-middle-class room', Talisman did. Fathom didn't identify the God from Soul's vision as Kush, I did. I know my nature makes it hard to tell me apart from the others sometimes, but...

Love,

Mirage

=^_^=

Rafe

DaveB

12-19-2004, 10:55 AM

Dutifully edited!

DaveB

12-19-2004, 12:19 PM

Yeah.

This is gonna be a tough one to write about. I disliked Session Ten on many levels and with great intensity. An already tense situation, with the "fellowship" (still open to any better words for the group that aren't that, by the way) have reached the limits of their tolerance with one another, and the bitching was skittering merrily along the knife's edge of the character-player divide. That's cool in many ways, but it isn't the game I set out to run (observe the social contract for the game back at the start of this thread) and does not work especially well with the group that I have. I love all my players to bits, but the group is effectivly divided down the middle into two out of character social groups. Put bluntly, the players aren't aware of one another's feelings to pull this sort of thing off without accidentally crossing lines, and I am going to have to think hard about pulling the IC mood back from the brink during the break for Christmas. We're also having venue issues - we play in Andrea/Fathom, Andy/Soul and Renaud/Talisman's house, and though we/I/they are loath to move the game is an imposition on their other housemates.

So - step one, either sort out the difficulties we have with this venue or find another one. Step two, get the characters talking to one another again. Step three, plan the next ten sessions.

Yeah. We have now hit the end of my pre-prepared plot. This was intentional, and next term the game should be even better, informed by feedback, requests and observations. The brick wall of "beyond here, we don't know where we're going" is rapidly approaching, and from discussion with some of the players I'm considering the idea of getting them off "their" outbound route entirely - because unknown worlds are better, and because at this rate we won't actually manage to finish the campaign before we lose two players at the end of their university careers.

A shame, really, that two of my favourite NPC characters - Fern and Reflecting Air - made their debuts in such a powderkeg. Fern, as Andrea says, is about the only character involved with the Gaunt plot that has realistic motivations - the player characters included. Part of this is because (as the elephentine memoried will recall from the design phase, way back at the start of the thread) Andrea was originally going to PLAY Fern, and she remains the only NPC (other than Gaunt, who was drawn last campaign) to have been sketched. In fact, if you look at the campaign as a whole, you really can tell the fact that I wrote the main plot arc when Andrea was going to play Gaunt's daughter. Reflecting Air, on the other hand, has been designed from the off (hence the letter from him back at the start of the campaign) and I look forward to using him in Session Eleven. Because, while Fern's a spherewalker and will turn up again, Air is like Shade, Cutter, Viper, Jade Dragon or any of the characters' other friends - they will never see him again after this Sphere.

On the plot front, I have managed to add to the complexity of it all yet again (I'm beginning to think I maybe have too many subplots going, but then I add another five), and I've dropped a pebble in the pond of the Gaunt plot - Though the Voice in Soul's head is telling him that it will come down to a battle to the death, the characters are now intending to try to CURE Gaunt. Which is a much better way for it to go, I think.

Oh, and the characters sneaking into Gaunt's kingdom holding the artefact of power by means of a difficult back road while their allies make war on him from the front as a diversion? My apologies and thanks to JRR Tolkien.

I shall discuss the characters individually, and at some length, in the next few days. I'll also do the plot-round ups, laying out the sum of what's going on with the Dragons, Gods, Pheonixes, Taint, Host, History and Outward Journey plots.

Actually, I've just realised something. There's one plot-round up for each character if I do "the NPCs" as one.

And a thing about my sources.

Think of it as the appendices. :D

Or, another way, my way of getting all of this straight ready for when I leap back into it.

Anyway, enough wool-gathering.

VISIONS!

SOUL 13 is one of the few cases I've had of a major fuck up, and it's all my own fault. It assumes that Soul doesn't want to go through with the whole self-sacrifice thing. When in fact, he does. As for the vision of the future battle, it... well. It intoduces the thing that I later pointed out explicitly with Fern - Gaunt is not the Taint. The Taint is using Gaunt as much as Gaunt is using the Taint, and his good intentions are being twisted by the evil force he's using to achieve them. The Host get a not-description (it shows how they fight, but it doesn't show *them*), and is teh first use of the word "Bringer". Which will be important later. The protean creature future-Valour is fighting is Mirage (more on that in Mirage's ten-session writeup later), and it shows what the Dragons would look like if they used the Unity. And confirms that it's possible for Talisman to become a real Dragon.

SOUL 14 was made redundant by Talisman's vision on Far Window, but is good for scene-setting and incidental detail about the workings of Dragons in my setting. Thariassan will turn up again, and I wanted to explain why she left Caravan. And also (remember, I wrote this before Far Window) wanted to show that Strabo was chasing the characters. Andy's absence in the Far Window session meant I had to make this Vision less than useful by using the Window to give them the salient information - that Strabo was chasing them - anyway.

SOUL 15 (Or, "Hm. Upgrades." - say it in a Keanu Reeves voice) is another Gaunt's eye view one, and introduces the idea of Gaunt calling his hideous monsters Peacekeepers. Because that's what he designed them for. The idea of the bad guy reverse-engineering the character's powers comes, of all places, from the Gamecube game Metroid Prime. It felt right to give Gaunt - an enemy who is cobbling qualities from all manner of races together to create shock troops - a quote from Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Adam. Who tried the same thing.

SOUL 16 is my "introducing more NPCs" vision (and, in fact, Soul 17 will be one of these as well), showing new faces that have joined the ever-increasing complexity of the campaign. The two new Gods are, as the characters correctly figured out, Laksmar the Goddess of Chaos and Destruction (who is Julius and Gaunt's mother) and Kush, the God of Revelation (who the vision implies is the one sending all the visions). The long look at Fern was supposed to be the character's only appearance in Session Ten, but the players surprised me by actually going well out of their way to go see her. And in Echo and Valour's case try to kill her. The man with the book is Volvagia, seen here in human form. The final trio are Mask (from Mirage's visions last time), Candle and Follows-fast (mentioned in those Visions). The world that they're pictured on is one of the ones between "here" and Armada.

ECHO 16 and TALISMAN 16 link together to form a long one about the world immediately preceeding Cathedral, in which I take my share of the blame for the fraught situation IC this session by deepening - and showing the dark side - of the Echo/Talisman relationship. Echo's half addresses the complaint Echo was making last session about the dichotomy between being "free" and carrying out all these missions on Talisman's behalf - the vision explicitly states that it was a reciprocal thing. Talisman's half pointed out to him that he was "up to something" (note the line in one of Fathom's visions from earlier in the campaign about Side Quests and Talisman) and cushioned the blow for when Mirage told him about...

MIRAGE 16. Which shows why Talisman and Mirage broke up so quickly, considerably darkens Talisman's character AND shows Mirage's great character flaw as part of the great attempt to get a firmer grip on Mirage's character that I've been undertaking this last three sessions or so. Calling Echo an attention-whore is.. well. I'd hinted that Mirage didn't really like her post-Entelechy a couple of times before. Time to stop dancing around issues.

VALOUR 16 was a case of not having anything that I could especially use this session, and so using the fallback position of True Mirror. Essentially, True Mirror allows me to have two cases of writer's block per character - I have now used one of my 12 get out of jail free cards - but it comes at a time that I am starting to hint at the Host in the same way as I hinted at the Taint in the first session, so it DOES fit in in the long run.

FATHOM 16, I feel really bad about. Shift is one of the worlds that I am incredibly reluctant to actually get off my ass and write a flashback set on, if only because it's such a turning point for the party that I'd need to really come up to snuff and be on top of my game if I were to finally show it. I have been meaning to write a flashback set on White Plain for ages and ages, now, but the words just won't come, so I took the other tack and talked about it without showing it.

Ebonheart

12-19-2004, 12:48 PM

I shall discuss the characters individually, and at some length, in the next few days. I'll also do the plot-round ups, laying out the sum of what's going on with the Dragons, Gods, Pheonixes, Taint, Host, History and Outward Journey plots.

Wow. This is something I will very much look forward to reading. Should be truly fascinating stuff.

Keep it up Dave - going great.

Chris.

DaveB

12-21-2004, 05:04 PM

A note on XP

Everway, as written, has no XP system - just a vague note that the GM should give out extra character points, powers and what have you if they seem appropriate. Based on the idea that the characters would be discovering things about themselves they never knew before, I decided to show them using powers they just didn't have at creation in the flashbacks.

The XP system is very simple. The characters all recieved an extra character point at the end of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, (12th, 17th, 23rd, 30th, 38th) game sessions - an exponential curve. So the characters are currently 25-points. If you're running a conventional game and want to use anyone, knock points off.

DaveB

12-21-2004, 05:05 PM

"What have I done to my HEAD?!"

SO yeah. Valour.

I dislike Valour. I wish to punch him in the face. The way he's designed and the way Chris plays him, he's a deeply, deeply unlikable character. He's arrogant, prissy, often incredibly childish and elitist. He looks like Rupert Everett in An Ideal Husband, but he ACTS like Rupert Everett in Shrek II. It's a weird thing to see, this combination of C3PO and Lord Boltan from Flash Gordon. True train-wreck roleplaying. The best thing about him is his deeply inappropriate name.

And yet...

Valour, like all great assholes of fiction (stand up and be counted, all ye Arnold Rimmers), has an essential core of humanity. It's hard to see (especially to the other players. Though I guess with the emotional detachment that reading about the game here rather than participating creates, it'd be easier for you lot to see) but he DOES have a heart, and feelings that have been all too often crushed. His physical affliction (being infected by the Host) really does not help - Valour is portrayed as being a very proud character, and the scarring changes to his appearance have made him withdraw into himself.

I think that the rot - the basic insecurity that leads to him being such a... git... goes back further than his changes, back into his background. One of the underlying things about the campaign that I haven't really discussed at any length with the players (so this is the first they'll hear about it) is the parent-child relationship, always from the child's point of view. All of the player characters and all of the major NPCs have their relationships to their parents - usually their fathers - defined and made varying degrees of relevance to the plot (Talisman is the exemplar in this regard, while Fathom is the most subtle), and Valour is no exception. Blessed (his dad) was an NPC in the first campaign, and is as different to Valour as day is night. (Valour must have taken after his mother. It's the only explanation I have) - I know that *I* can easily see how the son of such a loud, overbearing, martial character would become the introverted, supercilious guy Valour is. Blessed probably berated him for not measuring up a lot. Add to that the underlying sense that he, himself, is a cheat - Valour is a famous diplomat not through his own "proper" talent (in fact, his Water score was pretty damn bad until Chris started raising it with XP) but through the use of his mind-reading powers, which crucially he kept secret throughout his pre-quest career. In the quiet hours of the early morning, Valour (to my mind) has three things running through his mind: His father telling him he's never going to measure up, his own voice saying that he's a fraud and his fiancee breaking up with him.

It's that last that drives the character through most of the back-story (as I was careful to point out in the first session, in fact, just to head any confusion off at the pass): Valour has enough latent spite to want other people to share his own misery. Consciously he can - and did - give reasons that sound like they've been properly thought out, but his obsession with wrecking his travelling companion's "holiday romances" stems from this utterly irrational character flaw. The woman in question, who so ruined Valour, has never and probably will never be named. I think it's better that way.

Valour in the ten sessions so far is one long tragic slide - he wakes up a complete blank slate, without any experience of travelling with these people, and is immediately hit by what's happened to his body. He spends so long concentrating on that that he never truly takes the time to address - properly address - how he acted in the slowly revealed backstory. He apologises often and at length for every individual vision of bad behaviour, but then considers the matter closed. In worrying about what's happening to his body, he allows the cumulative effect of so many negative visions to get the better of him until it's too late. By deciding to embrace the changes that the Host is making to him (and, in the last session, realising what a horrible mistake that is), he's growing increasingly numb to his own emotions. A little self-awareness is a dangerous thing - Valour can kid himself about his motivations in day-to-day life, but the Visions have enough detachment from "him" that he can't pretend that his acts of moral terpitude didn't happen or should have happened. By embracing the Host and going down that path, he's refusing to take responsibility for his actions and most importantly refusing to face up to himself. It's a supreme act of cowardice, and belies his name.

I hope he makes it. I hope he pulls out of the death spiral and manages to atone - properly atone - for the way he's lived in the months since awakening, if not for the years he can't properly remember. Saying sorry to Fathom for forcing leadership on her isn't change. It's acknowledging the problem, but it's not change. It's not earning his name.

At heart, I'm a sucker for a good redemption story.

Valour In game terms...

Earth 3 (resisting toxins)
Fire 2 (archery)
Water 5 (use of mind-reading power)
Air 8 (flight)

Powers 7

Wings 2 (Major, Frequent) - Valour has a pair of large eagle-like wings erupting out of his back, that give him the power of flight. He has a maximum height of a high mountain, and a minimum ground clearence low enough to let him swoop down between buildings in a town and do dive-bomb mid-air tackles on pedestrians. Most people of his race use Fire and Earth as the linking elements, but Valour is designed to have flight as a cross-specialty of Air, making him graceful in the air and still incompetant in a fight. Valour flies like an Eagle - he soars, and cruises on thermals.

Predict Weather 0 - Valour's zero-point power is very rarely used, being one of those minor character details. But yeah. He can predict the weather for the next 24 hours.

Stymphalion 1 (Major) - Not sure if I've spelt this right. Valour can fire the sharp metal edge-feathers of his wings off like a porcupine's quills (or, in fact, like the mythic creature this power is named after). His flight score is halved after he's done it until they can grow back again, but it's a good weapon of last resort.

Read Thoughts 2 (Major, Frequent) - If Valour can see the face of someone (they have to be in line-of-sight, and he has to be able to see their eyes, so there's a maximum distance that has yet to be tested) and they have a water score less than his own (including specialty, so water 5 or lower) then he can hear their "internal monologue" in his own mind as if they were speaking it aloud. Note that this doesn't allow him to dig through memories, or affect the mind in any way. In fact, he only gets words if the person is talking to themself in their mind or remembering someone talking to them. Reading someone who's speaking or writing is an exercise in doppler effect - Valour would "hear" someone who's concentrating on giving a speech as thinking the words overlaid with actually speaking the words. Still, this is incredibly useful and has saved the party's bacon more than once.

Host Defense 2 (Major, Frequent) - Valour can allow the living metal symbiote inside him to have more of an effect on his body than it does normally. The symbiote normally acts without being asked to resist Valour being assimilated by the Taint, but he has managed to get to the point that he can get it to turn his outer layer of skin into metal plating - adding 4 to his Earth score (for a total of 7) for the purposes of soaking damage while it's in effect. The plates peel off like scabs (and are quite painful when they do so) after an hour or so.

Valour's VIRTUE is THE KING (AUTHORITY) - Valour understands rulership, and is well at home in court circumstances - his natural inclination is to go where the power is on a sphere and speak to it's rulers, who he has a particular knack for understanding.

Valour's FAULT is THE EAGLE (THOUGHTLESSNESS) - Valour's intellect is too vast, his mind too quick. He often comes up with a plan and begins to execute said plan long before he stops to *think* about that plan, leading to him comitting atrocities and thoughtless actions unneccesarily. Valour would make Echo assassinate someone without realising that it's wrong to do so - without even considering the morality of it until after the event. Unless he takes the time to prevent it, everything he does is cold, calculated and goal-oriented: the most expedient way to solve the problem, and to hell with the human cost or the cost to his own soul.

Valour's FATE is KNOWLEDGE (TRUTH / FALSEHOOD) - The ability of the character to percieve the cold, hard truth of the matter at hand, though not neccessarily "the heart" of the matter, is the struggle between his intellect overweighing his emotions, the Host overwheighing the good man he could be.

---------------------

THE HOST

The mysterious Other Faction in the campaign metaplot. The host have a habit of taking over living things (not just living things, in fact - they'll happily take over anything) and turning it into living metal. People taken by them turn into HR Gieger-style biomechanical versions of themselves, and Valour has forseen it as own of his possible future fates. Other than Valour (who is being slowly turned by means of a Host symbiote that was put inside him to mend his bones after they were shattered by a Resolver-spirit), we've only seen one other member of this Faction - the mysterious Chirugeon seen in several people's visions. One of Soul's visions has a description of the Host's tactics ("falling upon Tainted worlds like a plague of locusts") but not an actual description of them.

Players! Don't highlight this! Or, hell, highlight it if you WANT to be spoiled, but don't if you don't!

Look at the Old Kingdoms. The "second-stage" Old Kingdoms, the ones that look like they've had human-inflicted apocalypses, were damaged in last-ditch attempts to defend themselves against the Taint in the war against the Taint that the various legends of Vanguard commemmerate. Look in particular at Blackglass and City of Brass - entire worlds that were turned into inanimate material in order to create "firebreaks" against the spreading Taint.

The Host are a weapon. Metal-spirits that were summoned by the early human civilisations and given life, tasked to fall upon Tainted worlds and remove anything organic the hard way. After the war, they were sealed away in an enchanted vessel (vessel as in container, not as in ship) and cast adrift in an Everway, floating in between the Spheres.

They have returned. The metal portol visible in the visions of the Chirugeon's house is the enterance-way to their prison, which they have figured out how to connect to different Spheres. They've been making their plans, have determined that their enemy has also returned and are going to fight the war against the Taint even if it means the humans die as bystander casualties. *Especially* if it means the humans die.

They are the opposite of the Taint - inorganic where the Taint are twisted Life, emotionless and cold where the Taint are driven by the Bole's hatred and Gaunt's insanity. The term "swarm of locusts" is a good description for what they look like. Horrible bio-mechanical locusts.

Ebonheart

12-22-2004, 05:13 AM

Well, that was brutal.

Not to sound defensive, but there is, of course, more to it than that. Things were not always thus, and if Valour often ignore various members of the party, there are reasons for it, not all of which Dave is aware of (or so it would seem), and so here, for the first time, a glimpse into Valour's bald head...

Just to point out - some of these opinions will by necessity be brutal and unpleasant right back - but they are Valour's opinions. Not Chris'. Valour's.

For a start, opinions on the other members of the group...

Echo: Echo is somebody that Valour enjoys conversation with - she is intelligent and has a deeply analytical mind that works in a very similar direction to his own. Her main goal (at the moment) at least seems to be to get the job done. If she could get over her thing about not being Princess Echo any more and closing up as soon as somebody accidentally infers that they might be, it would make the scope of said conversation much larger. However, she is even more elitist than Valour, at least in her mind, but she hides it under her servitude. Valour's experiences of reading her while she was trapped in the mirror and discovering that her thoughts go through a great deal of filtering before they reach her mouth and the occassional acidic comment has revealed this. However, despite all of this, and their difference in station, Valour feels that he and Echo could be friends, if only she would let anybody get close to her.

Mirage: Mirage is amazingly thoughtful towards other people and always tries to help in the best way she can see to. As she has said herself, she is infinitely adaptable which is both her greatest blessing and her greatest curse. She can do anything that is necessary. If quiet is required, she will be quiet (turning into a cat on occassion to provide quiet company). If boisterous drinking and brawling is necessary, then she can and will do it. If a quiet chat to point out that you are brooding over nothing, then yes. That happens to. Whatever she needs to do to help. But it also makes it impossible to get to know her or to predict her. She misread Valour completely when the two of them broke up - he was under no illusions of what he meant to her. Unfortunately she is also very prone to not thinking things through. How much wisdom does it take not to sit on a throne on a sphere called Empty Throne? She has also fallen into the habit of giving in to what she sees as inevitability. She does not think it is worth hurrying to get away from Strabo, because she feels that he will catch us eventually anyway, so there is no point (this opinion did seem a little unlike her, but her mindset changes with every incarnation - at the time I believe she was looking seductive in case we had to persuade the conductor to be helpful, perhaps this made her a little vapid). Out of everyone, Mirage is the character that Valour feels closest to and if anyone will help him to get over his problems it will probably be her (though, interestingly, after the breakup of the relationship which meant nothing to her, she has become far less thoughtful and helpful to Valour... strange). Of course, like with all friendships, Mirage occassionally does or says things that irritate Valour (resulting in him snapping at the moment as he has little patience), but Valour realises that he no doubt does things that she finds irritating to and hopes that she realises that nothing is really meant by the snapping.

Soul: A truly fascinating child. Like Echo he can be fascinating to have a conversation with, especially with his childlike views of the world. However, it is these views that cause problems as well. He uses the Unity without thought (unless we stop him) and has an unfortunate tendency to set people on fire if they do the slightest wrong. This problem came to a head on Bastion. He does not see that if he is going to punish people for shoving him, then the punishment should fit the crime. Having your life destroyed (losing all Pride in yourself) or being set on fire, in no way fits shoving a small child in a busy street. The argument that he was ruining Valour's work was used as Valour felt that Soul would understand that reason but that it was not the time for a moral argument about justice and levels of punishment (unfortunately, this caused Talisman to take over - he clearly didn't care about Valour's work, but we'll get on to him later). Valour actually has a vague paternal feeling towards Soul, though he is aware that it is inappropriate and therefore it doesn't come out much. The time when it was most apparent was when Soul asked if Death was a bad thing and the ensuing conversation and discussion of the matter, where Valour, rather than giving an opinion, asked other questions to try to allow Soul to form his own opinion - to Valour's mind he was doing for Soul what his father never did for him - encouraging the boy to have his own opinion.

Fathom: No longer the leader of the group, but certainly the one that Valour currently feels the most guilt towards. Not just because he put the burden of leadership on her, but because of the incidental side-effects of that. It effectively pushed her out of the group at times and she felt that she could not get close - in many ways this is true - a leader cannot be a friend to those he/she leads. Valour still very much wishes he had won the election, but now for different reasons. Before, because he did not wish to follow another's orders and felt that he was always right. Now, because he feels he would probably have coped with the loneliness better than she has. She is very quiet, but somewhat hypocritical. She says that Echo, for example, needs to get over her problems and get on with her life, but she herself is not doing that. Admittedly she is not forever talking about her problems, but that is a part of her problem. Her years of leadership have perhaps taken the ability to talk about herself away. Talking to somebody else about a problem is a form of healing, and Echo is doing that. It is taking time, and is perhaps frustrating to some (not Valour - he is always willing to listen and advise if needed), but it is a necessary form of healing for her. Just talking about such things is Echo breaking through her barriers, but Fathom refuses to acknowledge hers. Her rant on Bastion was likely very therapeutic - she should do it more often. Valour does not feel any particular friendship towards Fathom - they are too different - but respects her and wishes he could be of more help to her.

Talisman: Where to start... well, to start, Valour wishes he could like Talisman. He sees and understands why other people do, and wishes that he could do so as well. However, he can't. Currently he feels that Talisman is more of a hindrance to the group than a help. He is so wrapped up in ulterios motives for everything he does, it would almost be like receiving a birthday present if they could be peeled away to see the true Talisman. It is he that suggested that we should take our time getting home in order to improve things over here, with which we all agreed. What he didn't mention what that he didn't want to go home to Strabo and everything else on that side of Endless. He is by far the most secretive member - Fathom often doesn't share her flashbacks with the rest of the group, but Talisman will actively lie about his in order not to tell us about them. He is working at cross purposes to the rest of us, like to parallel lines - going in the same direction, but they will never meet. He is also guilty of forcing his opinions on others, something which he hates other people to do (for example, on Simphony) - he made it so that his decision was final. Also, his refusal to ever see the big picture is putting us in danger. His intense dislike of gods and Exile's companions is irrational and is likely putting us in danger. He automatically discounts any advice that Julius or the Lady have for us and believes Exile to be a dupe of Strabo. Now, the advice of somebody who can see what is happening on any sphere that there is life or somebody who sponsors lost causes would, I would have thought, be invaluable to us, but Talisman refuses to even comtemplate the idea. Whenever Soul receives such advise through his visions in the Everways, Talisman makes a face and forces the subject to be dropped usually through distraction and changing the subject. And admiitedly, Exile may be a dupe by helping Strabo to get hold of the Unity, but since all of himself, Rockarm and Juilius agreed that the Unity was what we needed to sort out the problem, the chances are that they are also correct that it can fix the issue. Just because Strabo wants it for one thing, doesn't make the other people who want it for another wrong. Either he is too stupid to realise this (unlikely), or too shortsighted to admit it. Overall, Valour does not trust Talisman, Talisman is the only person in the group that Valour could say that about.

Paragon: A good man - what else can really be said about Paragon. Valour's opinion of the local custom of referring to all Spherewalkers as Heroes was somewhat naieve, but Paragon almost makes him believe in it himself. The man is a true hero, and far better at it than any of the rest of the party. Born to take a throne that he die not want, he is not a man who understands large scale leadership at all, but excels at small scale. He would make a wonderful sergeant, but a terrible general. A great asset to the group, Valour was very happy when he came along from Waterwall. He is, as far as Valour can tell, somebody that everybody in the group likes and the time could soon come where that is of great benefit. Should the party ever seperate for whatever reason, it is likely Paragon that would act as the middleground and bring us back together. Valour appreciated Paragon's sympathy at what Blessed is doing, even though it was misplaced. It confirmed how little Paragon understand what it takes to rule a sphere, but the sentiment was there. Apart from Mirage, Paragon is the one that Valour feels closest to, and that is likely because he hasn't been around as long. In time, Paragon will probably be the one that Valour feels closest to without the proviso of Mirage. While Valour is surprised at himself for feeling this way, it is not a feeling that he dislikes. Paragon makes it seem like anything could be possile and everything can be achieved, even if it is by accident. Valour would like to (eventually) find the Sword of Vanguard and give it to Paragon.

And now other aspects of the story...

The Taint: It has made itself our enemy and has gotten in our way. For that, it must be destroyed. It wants to destroy individuality in the spheres and remake the multiverse in its own image. For that it must be destroyed. It attacked the sphere of a friend of ours, so it must be destroyed. The Taint is the greatest evil we have encountered on our journey - we have to find a way to stop it. Simple as that. Whatever it takes.

Gaunt: Yes, Gaunt gets a seperate heading, because, despite how it seems, he is not the Taint. He is its tool, rather than the other way round. We have told Fern we will try to cure him - fair enough. If we can, then yes, we can do that. If not, then he will have to go the same way as the Taint. Either way, he gets seperated from the Taint - but he must be seperated.

The Host: Not that Valour knows it by this name yet, but it is a potent weapon against the Taint. Mirage's advise so long ago (on Long Road before Paragon and Echo's engagement party) was to either ignore it or find a way to use it. Valour cannot ignore it, and so he has found a way to use it. The irony that at this rate Valour will go the same way as Gaunt isn't lost on me, but Valour has no idea that the Host has its own motives yet. As for the vision of True Mirror - so be it. If that is what it takes.

The Unity: Once the Taint has been defeated, then we must get the thing home as quickly as we can. Despite Talisman's opinions, Valour trusts Exile, Rockarm, Julius and the whole council and believes that getting the Unity back to Crystal will solve the problem. He is terrified that it is too late (especially after Far Window), but they have to continue to try.

The Sword of Vanguard: Valour would like to find this for two reasons. The first, and less important is that it may be a useful weapon against the Taint. The other is that Crashing Steel wanted it, spent many years of his life looking for it, but in the end failed because the Taint killed him. Valour liked Crashing Steel and was sorry that the two of them did not get the chance to become friends, and so he would like to finish the Knight's lifework instead. As a way of honouring a friendship that never had a chance to bloom.

The Dragons: Like everybody else, they have their own motives, but Talisman is being very cagey about what they are. Strabo is clearly to be avoided, but are the others any better? Talisman seems to trust them for some reason, but he has not made it clear why. Other people know more about the Dragons, and so, in this, Valour is willing to be guided by them, even if he is unsure of them.

The Gods: They, again, have their own purpose, and not as a group - each god has his/her own motivation. They all seem to be on our side, but it is very difficult to tell given Soul's limited access to thier discussions. Valour looks forward to reaching Cathedral so that he can get a better idea of what they want.

And finally, himself...

He knows that the rest of the party do not seem to like him. This upsets him, but he does not let it bother him. It upsets him because he genuinely likes some of them and wishes it could be reciprocated. He doesn't let it bother him, because ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. There is time for group hugs once the multiverse has been saved.

Both Echo and Mirage have asked at some point why he has changed so much from how he was before Stonewander. Valour finds this an fascinating question because to his own mind he has not changed particularly much. He has grown as a person somewhat and no longer wishes to inflict his own misery on others, but his goal is still the quest. He will do whatever it takes to complete it successfully. He answered the question, saying that he was actively trying to change himself because he did not like what he had seen, but it wasn't true.

Despite Dave's comments that Valour only worries about himself, he does try to help the others, in fact being perfectly willing to sacrifice himself to do so. This is something that previous Valour was like as well, not that Valour knows it as the flashback that revealed this was never shared. He spent weeks, if not months, agonising over whether or not to allow the Host to take over his body. The thing that finally spurred the decision to do it was Echo and having to get her body back. It was the only way he could think of to stop her as none of the others had the speed to keep up with her. And so he did it. If it turned him permanently to metal, then so be it. It was necessary at the time.

He also gave up what he sees as his greatest gift at that time - his wings and the ability to fly. While it was not intentional, it was certainly due to tackling Echo. Echo has apologised for her actions, even though it was not her, but none of the others have even mentioned the fact that Valour has not flown for weeks. Mirage even shifted into a version of him in order to fly up the mountain on Far Window, showing a surprising lack of tact.

In a similar way, something that didn't make it into the writeup, on Caravan when Valour and Mirage were fighting Taint on the caravan, Valour, having no other way to destroy the Taint, tackled one and allowed it to try to assimilate him. This resulted in the Host reacting and destroying the Taint, but it also gave Valour more metal studs all over his chest. Valour is not, as it seems to appear, welcoming the Host taking over himself, but using it when he feels that there is no other way and regrets the changes that are coming over him because of it. He wishes it were not necessary, but it is. And therefore...

Dave has complained that Valour broods too much. It is true that Valour has become very quiet and introspective, but again, there are reasons. Valour is aware that out of everyone in the group, the only people that care about his problems are Mirage (or at least, she used to), Paragon (because he is a good man who cares about everyone's problems) and himself. If he was capable to sending thoughts as well as reading them, he would probably have many conversations with one or both of Mirage and Paragon, but as it stands the only people he can complain to without the others hearing is himself. Whenever he is alone with either Mirage or Paragon, he will be himself. He will talk, he will get over his problems with them, and so on. He starts to enjoy himself. He cannot talk about this when the others can hear it, as he cannot risk splitting the group again - Far Window has confirmed that the six of them will be the most helpful thing in all the spheres to the locating of the Sword of Vanguard. He cannot risk getting all of this off his chest because it might seperate the seven of them irreperably. And, ultimately, he can cope with his own suffering if it means getting the job done.

However, Valour, like Paragon is willing to listen to other people's problems and try to help. It is, in fact, one of the only ways to stop him thinking about himself. Unfortunately, people don't confide in him. Or, it would seem, trust him. When he was talking to Shepherd to get the job done on Bastion, the others were off finding alternative methods, rather than waiting to see if he was successful first.

Anyway, to sum up, most of what Dave says about Valour is right. However, after reading it, I felt that I owed it to Dave, the guys reading this, and to Valour to set the story straight on the reasons behind it. Everything has a reason - they can just sometimes be hard to see.

Chris

DaveB

12-22-2004, 06:47 AM

Someone's been eating his verbose pills. :D

This feeds into what I was saying on monday, Chris - Inner turmoil is only useful when it's not inner, in the context of an RPG at least. *emote*!

Needless to say, Valour being so eminently punchable is no attack on your good self. It's like...

Here's a reference you'll understand...

It's like you're playing an Otomo.

Ebonheart

12-22-2004, 07:07 AM

Well, there was a lot to say. I was surprised when I realised that I had spent nearly three hours writing that, admittedly...

Hopefully, if nothing else, it will help you.

I certainly found it quite therapeutic...

Chris

LuxVeritatis

12-23-2004, 12:28 PM

[b]One of the underlying things about the campaign that I haven't really discussed at any length with the players (so this is the first they'll hear about it) is the parent-child relationship, always from the child's point of view. All of the player characters and all of the major NPCs have their relationships to their parents - usually their fathers - defined and made varying degrees of relevance to the plot (Talisman is the exemplar in this regard, while Fathom is the most subtle)...

Really? Fathom's relationship to her parents is the one with the most subtle relevance to the plot? I can at least guess what it might be. I have no idea of how Mirage's relationship with her parents has had / has / might have relevance. Not yet, anyway.

DaveB

12-23-2004, 05:06 PM

If you count the Mage as a "parent", then yeah. (Similarly, you have to count the Emperor as Echo's, though in Echo's case the fact that her real parents just gave her up to be raised twisted by the... and I'll do that when it's her turn).

And seeing as you just stuck your head above the battlements, Rafe, I'll do Mirage next, I think.

It wasn't until about Session seven that I got a handle on Mirage (and that was only after a long talk with Rafe) - you can tell, even by looking at the flashbacks, when I truly grokked the character. My biggest gripe in the early stages was my inability to write Mirage's voice. Every other character has a "thing", a tell in their speech patterns that I can throw into a flashback to center myself around their character - even if I later go in and edit it out, it serves to make the hideous, hideous job of getting into someone else's character possible. Mirage just doesn't have one. I tried several different things - description of how she moves (which ended up playing into the stereotype of Mirage as the sexual one, which isn't really true - it's Talisman), the comedy oaths (which Rafe hasn't done since the second session) or over-focusing on her shapechanging as a tool. I was frustrated, Rafe wasn't getting the full service (and, though he's too polite to say so, I reckon he was getting frustrated too) and it was all bad.

Which neatly leads me on to Mirage's quote. It's not actually from her, or from Rafe. This is something that Renaud (Talisman) said in one of our 3am kvetch-about-the-game sessions. My apologies to him if I paraphrase a little by accident, but to the best of my recollection it was;

"Talking to Mirage is like talking to yourself."

Mirage's great strength (and weakness) was always there. Rafe even *told* me what he intended to do back when he first designed the character. It's even her sodding Fate card, but somehow it got away from me until I made the extra-special effort to refocus on this character. Mirage's personality changes according to the shape she's in - thought following form - and when she feels the conscious need to be a certain way, she will alter her body appropriately. At first, it seems like this is a standard fantasy shapechanger thing: Mirage occassionally makes a joking complaint about having once spent time as a tree and not knowing how many years she was stuck like that sensing the passage of time differently. Or there's the "Giant Squid" incident from the Waterwall session, or the way that the big Spider-monster's shape gives her an unquenchable thirst for human brains. In a comic way. But if you sit there and watch Rafe roleplay Mirage talking to the others, you can spot the character adapting to everyone around her. Mirage will always be whatever the person speaking to her wants, which makes her both the easiest and by the hardest person for the other characters to relate to. She's someone to talk something through with if you've already made up your mind and just want to be reassured (or even if you *want* someone to talk you out of something - she can do that too, as she tells Echo at one point), not if you want to have something *new* brought to the discussion.

Because she instinctivly takes the easy way out and alters herself to fit any situation, Mirage is consumed with the notion that she isn't "real": that because she doesn't have a true shape she can revert to, she doesn't have a true personality either. The others point out that there are certain trends - indeed, that "always adapting" is itself a trend, and that she therefore shouldn't worry about it, but in her heart/hearts/spiricules/whatever she knows that that's just because she looks very similar a lot of the time, but that the "default" form that she uses most of the time (which is actually a vast range of subtly different ones, no two alike and none ever reused) is just as much a fiction as - say - turning herself into a yak. In order to find peace, Mirage needs to figure out who she really is.

And that's kind of a complicated question.

There are two things making up Mirage - the girl from the desert world of Archways, and the "gift" of her powers. At the moment, Mirage is concentrating on recapturing that girl. She knows that an item exists on Visage that will allow her to make a perfect, unfading memory, and she knows that in the daytime on True Mirror she will appear as if she had never been enslaved and experimented on. Put the two together, and she gets a real body again.

But the nature of her Gift is kind of important, too, and it's that that she's not quite seeing. She was turned into a shapechanger by having her blood transfused (using appropriate magic-alchemy-tech) with an alchemical mixture of the blood of dozens of natives of Shift, Fire Plume / The Lady's homeworld. Plus some other things. Not only does this link her to the natives of Shift - until they found it again, Mirage was effectivly the only survivor of that civilisation (survivorS, if you think about it), and after they found it she appears to have had the sense that she had a duty to them, a debt owed - but it also links her to Gaunt. The same alchemical use of Shiftian blood was used by Gaunt to make his early Peacekeepers in the backstory to the first campaign, and to create Legion.

I've just realised something while writing this. A certain amount of paralleling is always going to happen in a direct sequel-campaign like this (you can point to Talisman being like Aura, or Echo being like Shadow, or Valour being like Gaunt, or Paragon being like Favoured, or Soul being like Fire Plume. And dear gods I've just done all of them. Because the obvious parallel for Mirage is Fire Plume. It's really obvious. TOO obvious, because it's bollocks. Mirage isn't the new Fire Plume.

Mirage is the new Legion.

Stream-of-conciousness ref analysis. Only here, on Long Road Home! You lucky people!

Mirage by the numbers...

Earth 3 (Resist Magic)
Water 5 (Stealth)
Fire 5 (Swordfighting)
Air 4 (Bargaining)

Powers 8

Shapechanging 4 (Major, Twice Versatile, Frequent) - Mirage can turn into any natural creature she's *seen*, gaining any purely physical powers it might have while she's in that shape. She can play with details as much as she can visualise them - the act of changing involves picturing what she's turning into in her mind, which is why her humans never quite look alike and why her default form "drifts" with imperfect memory. Her largest achievable size is about that of an Indian Elephant or a particularly large squid, while the smallest she's ever compressed herself to is that of a two-inch fly-like insect. She can even do plants, though she is loath to do so. The further from human the form is, the more her mind is effected by the change. (So people are less warping than apes which are less warping than other mammals which are less warping than other animals which are less warping than plants). She cannot improvise new types of creature, nor take the shapes of spirits, demons, psychopomps (like Pheonixes and True Demons), Dragons, Djinni and so forth. When she's trying to pretend to be someone specific, it's a contest between the water scores of her and the observer to see if she's gotten the form subtly wrong.

Ageless 0 - One of the double-edged blessings of her nature. Because her form is remade anew each time she shifts, she doesn't age.

Speak to Animals 1 (Frequent)
Command Animals 1 (Major)
Summon Animals 2 (Major, Versatile) - These all fit into one another, having been bought on top of one another. Her ability to emphasise with anything has, in the years since the mission started, begun to express itself as being able to reach out to other living things. Mirage can speak to, give simple commands to and (newly-manifested and not as yet actually ever used) summon natural creatures. The critters involved don't magically appear - they have to be already in the vicinity, and have to make their way to her under their own power (she can make all the birds in a forest come to her, or direct all the bees in a hive to attack an enemy, but she can't summon a polar bear out of a flash of light in a desert).

Mirage's Virtue is THE HERMIT (WISDOM), which represents her own self-knowledge born of long, long years of meditating on her own nature and understanding the way her own mind works.

Mirage's Flaw is THE EAGLE (THOUGHLESSNESS), reflecting the flipside of her meditations - that she gets caught up inside herself and is too easily distracted by the pressures of whatever form she's in.

Mirage's Fate is THE PRIESTESS (UNDERSTANDING MYSTERIES / IMPRACTICALITY). If it's not obvious by now in this post why this is appropriate, I don't have the skill to explain it.

------------

THE TAINT

Long Road Home's primary antagonist (to the point that I've been deliberately dialling back on them recently, giving them a rest) are the Taint, the collective term used for the network of linked organic beings that is slowly spreading across the Spheres.

Because there seems to be some confusion, let's put the various bits of the jigsaw together for the purposes of this thread.

A long, long time ago, something (Fern says it's the first plant, but that hardly seems likely) started to spread out from the world of Aelder Bole. That Sphere was one huge plant, that formed humanoid "people" out of itself to perform tasks. These creatures could merge with any other plant and control it, bringing it under the direction of the central Bole. Somehow, the Bole began to be able to spread it's influence across the gaps between spheres, and entire worlds were taken over as the plants turned on the animals and people. Eventually, a solution was found (involving Vanguard, be that a person, a magic sword, a sphere or all three) that made the plant-men retreat. The humanoid servitor tree-men were driven off, bearing a seed from the Bole, which was imprisoned in it's own sphere somehow.

It is hinted that they eventually settled on what is now the Sphere of Canopy, and planted the seed which grew into a new world-tree, that produced a new civilisation of tree-men who vowed (possibly as part of their surrender) to never attempt to create new life. For some reason. Gaunt was one of their descendents, born into a time when they were locked in centuries-long warfare with the people of Silver Cave, both spheres using Shift as a battleground. Gaunt (a General) eventually grew sick of warfare, and attempted to create creatures he called Peacekeepers which would do the fighting instead of the Canopeans. He got exiled for his trouble, branded with a Pheonix symbol, went mad, devoted himself to Laksmar, Goddess of Chaos and Destruction (and was turned into a demigod by her), quested for the Realmforge in order to destroy all Astral Paths and gates (bringing an end to warfare in the entire universe by cutting civilisations off from one another), lost his memory, decided to change his wish to "I want to fit in", got turned into a human, retired to a farm on Endless...

(pause for breath. The next bit's the intervening time between Realmforge and Long Road Home)

... discovered that in his human form he could merge with and control flesh as well as plants. Went travelling into the Spheres LRH is set in, had more than one daughter (the mothers, Fern hints, were dryads), discovered Aelder Bole and broke whatever was imprisoning the true progenitor of his old race, merged with the Aelder Bole and joined with it...

The modern Taint are a mixture of the Bole and Gaunt, Gaunt's insane need for peace at any price married to the Bole's hatred of humanity. Gaunt's ability to control anything organic, not just plant matter, married to the Bole's ability to spread such control across Spheres. Gaunt appears in his madness to consider himself to be a prophet of Favoured/Julius - they were both Laksmar's "sons" (literally in Favoured's case) and considered themselves blood brothers. Gaunt/Bole's new powers and Julius' status as God of Life make an odd juxtapostion.

The Taint spreads itself by physical contact between "infected" life forms. The infection is usually quite subtle, and the vast majority of people don't realise that they've been added to the web of lifeforms under the Bole's influence, or that they're infecting anything they touch. This "background level" of infection can erupt at Gaunt/Bole's mental command, the creature or plant's body running like putty and the Soul of the individual being sucked out and stored somewhere beyond the Pheonixes ability to retrieve it. This is usually done to create Peacekeepers - the twisted fighting things that characters normally mean when they say "The Taint", and which Gaunt/Bole uses to assimilate belligerant people by force. Gaunt/Bole can shape the matter making fully-erupted Tainted at will, and Gaunt often moulds them into copies of his own real body (and then pushes his mind into them) when he wants to talk to someone, as his real body remains on.. and IN... the Bole.

Gaunt appears to be convinced (probably accurately, given flashbacks) that the characters are trying to kill him, and has a fascination for / terrified fear of Soul, who is linked in his mind to the brand his people gave him. This means that the characters have run into a disproportionate number of Peacekeepers, as Gaunt desperately tries to fend them off / make them give up / assimilate them.

DaveB

12-26-2004, 09:21 AM

Time for Fathom.

Soul, don't do that

Fathom wants to be different. She wants to be seen as being different. While other characters' problems revolve around them not being trusted and respected by the others, Fathom's revolve around her being TOO trusted and respected by the others. Compared to a well-adjusted group of people, Fathom is a barbarian warrior-princess, frightening in her primal-ness. But this isn't a well-adjusted group of people. Fathom's position of "least fucked up" means that the others regard her more often than not as a source of stability, someone they can look to when life gets too weird and (though she has officially abdicated in favour of the group being an autonomous collective) someone to tell them what to do.

She resents this.

Fathom was twenty when the group set off from Crystal on their increasingly-protracted quest. That makes her just over twenty seven (her birthday having gone unnoticed and uncommented sometime during the party's stay on Caravan) but the others, she feels, treat her like she's thirty-seven. She especially resents being left in charge of Soul - she's not especially mother-like, but as the party member with the shred of responsibility it falls to her more often than not. She can feel her youth slipping away, every month-long Astral Path is another month out of her life with nothing to show for it and the amnesia means that she has lost the best years of her life according to her people's culture. Fathom was raised properly, brought up to be a ruler on a world where rulers that can't prove their worth are violently deposed by their subjects. Though she constantly fantasises about cutting loose, acting her age and letting the others look after themselves for a change, her regard for the mission and the knowledge of just how quickly the group would collapse without her in matriarch mode keeps her from acting on her daydreams of rebellion. But it's getting harder and harder. Sooner rather than later, she's going to snap and do something monumentally stupid just because she feels like it. And because she needs the others to acknowledge that she's human too.

Writing flashbacks for Fathom is pretty easy: throughout the backstory, the character was isolated from the rest of the group and forced to put her own life on hold by the demands of leadership. The in-game character as played by Andrea has rejected that, but is in the position of having to constantly struggle against people treating her the way they treated her in the flashbacks. So, the "stock" Fathom flashback features the numbness of command, with occassional exceptions showing her enjoying herself that are *always* set during side-trips away from the others. One of those side-trips is pretty well fleshed out now in the visions that have been handed out, and there are others waiting in the wings. The biggest surprise has been the slowly-building revelaion about the party's relationship to the Gods - Fathom appears to have been plotting Deicide, with Soul and Talisman as her weapons of choice, against a "hit list" that she was compiling of every god who ever used the party for their own ends.

Fathom's alien (to the others) reaction to the enviroments they find themselves in serves to set her apart from them even more. She's happiest when it rains, and the hot, dry worlds they end up going through on a distressingly regular basis are a burden to her. On some level, Fathom is aware that she slows them all down. That she cares about it is the sign that she's still the best person of the group, that she's angry at herself for caring about it is the sign that the bastards are grinding herself down.

I see Fathom as the opposite of Echo - Echo is someone who rebelled (and is now trying her best to not rebel) against a pretty nasty state of being. Fathom is someone who tried her best not to rebel (and is now trying to rebel) against an admirable one. Not a very *fun* one, and Gods know that she needs to have some fun *some* of the time, but nontheless she's on a slow, tortured downward path while Echo is on a slow, tortured upward one. If I may be allowed to use a Buffy analogy, Echo is season 7 Anya while Fathom is season 3 Willow complete with hang-up as being seen as the "reliable" one.

I always feel like I'm doing Fathom - and Andrea - a disservice in the writeups, the result of the writeups usually concentrating on what people do rather than what they say or think (which, thanks to my erratic memory and unfortunate lack of telepathy, would be impossible) making someone who constantly offers ideas, roleplays excellently and never splits the group look like someone who sits quietly all night. For the record, I think Fathom is the nicest character (Viking-like tendancies or no, she's still the one who resembles what I'd think of as a decent human being) and she's the source of the vast majority of lines that make me think "I'll quote that". I can never actually remember them when it comes time to write up the session, but the thought is there.

Fathom by the numbers:

(My notes don't have what her specialties are in them. I'm pretty sure that Fire is either Strength or Swimming, and that Earth is Endurance)

Earth 8
Fire 5
Water 4
Air 4

Powers 5

Special detail - This isn't a power, as it's actually a *down* side to her life, but Fathom has to get wet all over at least once a day or her skin starts to crack and her Earth score halves each day she goes out of the water. Her power means she can wash herself down given a liter of water, so it isn't that bad except in really nasty desert worlds.

Breath Water 0 - Fathom's gills let her breath underwater. There's not much to say about that.

Control Water 2 (Major, Versatile, Frequent) - Fathom has telekinetic control of water and it's temperature, based off her water and earth scores for fine control and amount controlled. She can make liquids rise up out of their containers Abyss-style, freeze it solid, evaporate it, pull fog and mist down to create cover, flash-boil the tears off someone's eyes (as seen in one of Echo's early visions). The water has to be present, and she can't affect liquids *inside* a living being, but she still uses this more than any other power - her main weapon is actually a sword-hilt-shaped bottle that she uses this power to give a blade of ice. This power isn't versatile because it only actually does one thing, that's used for a lot of clever applications.

Water Form 3 (Major, Frequent) - This newly-acquired (and not yet used) power lets Fathom turn herself to liquid. Weapons pass through her, and she can use her Control Water power on herself. In addition, she can replace any lost mass from a source of liquid - she can heal herself.

Fathom's Virtue is WINTER (MATURITY) Representing her more developed moral sense, her ability to cope and her status as the "adult" in the group (though Valour and Mirage are older than her).

Fathom's Fault is KNOWLEDGE (FALSEHOOD) Representing her urge to do what she knows is wrong, to go against her instincts and lower herself to the level of her compatriots.

Fathom's Fate is THE KING (AUTHORITY / TYRANNY) Representing her position of unwanted authority in the group. Whether she likes it or not, they tend to do what she says - will she use this responsibly for good, or falling prey to her Fault, to "get her own back"?

---------

THE GODS

So, who are those guys that Fathom was planning on comitting deicide against?

As dedicated Thread-readers will have figured out, I don't exactly use the standard setup of Everway diety-wise. The game as written uses historical earth pantheons (the norse, Egyptian, greek, Aztec and Hindu ones mostly) and different worlds worship different ones. The pressures of this campaign set-up mean that I have comletely thrown that out of the window. The party sphere-jump far too much to put myself through the hell of inventing a new set of gods for every world, and I dislike using real-world religions, even ancient ones, in the cartoon world of the game.

So.

The Long Road Home pantheon is made up of fusions - the majority of the Gods are mish-mashed up amalgamations of real-world dieties (Laksmar, for instance, is the result of putting Loki, Eris, Kali and Lhaksmi in a blender, while Ganar the elephant-headed God of War in my setting is a cross between Ares and Ganehsa), with the occassional whole-cloth one (like Kush, the God of revelations and prophecy) thrown in for good measure. The Walker is specifically NOT a God in the Everway sense (he's a unique being), though he takes a position rather like the Abrahamic God in my celestial hierarchy, minus the evangalising, based entirely on the similarity between Pheonixes and Christian imagery. Like Dragons, Gods have unique names that aren't words in the Tongue, though the words of their concepts are sometimes used like names (Ganar is often just called "War") and some (like The Lady) prefer to be known as titles rather than their true names (which in her case she keeps secret).

Gods, as Soul found out in session 9a, are very large spirits that enscapulate one or more concepts, and can affect more than one Sphere at once. They're not omnipotent even within their chosen area of influence, and they're not immortal (as past-Fathom's plan indicates), though they're ageless. The Gods feed from their concepts, not the other way around - The Lady is "powered" by Hope, has a great deal of power which she uses to encourage it in the spheres (partly because she thinks it's a good thing, and partly so that she becomes more powerful in turn), but Hope would exist even if she didn't. While the main "body" of each God resides in Astral Space, off the Everways, they can send Avatars onto worlds when they have to make a personal appearance. Most of the time, though, they send a minor spirit to do their dirty work for them. The Gods all apparantly keep an Avatar on the sphere of Cathedral at all times, and can be reached there more easily.

The Gods aren't natural forces - every last one of them was a being that achieved apotheosis, though they often claim otherwise. That raises the question of just where the original Gods *came* from, as even the Dragons agree that they were created by the Gods and went to war with them before the perfect world shattered into the present universe. Those early, primal and incomprehensible dieties have mostly died now (Cadavar isn't a sphere - it's the corpse of one of them), while the more known Gods can be divided into generations. Second-gen Gods are those like Ganar whose origins are lost to antiquity and if they were human they were human back when the race was limited to what are now the Old Kingdoms. The Third-gen Gods are those like Laksmar and Jare (God of Mazes and Traps, who was in the first campaign and resembles David Bowie's Goblin King from Labyrinth) whose origins as mortals are possible to dig up in very, very old records. The fourth-gen Gods are those like Julius and The Lady whose mortal lives are in living memory.

The process of Apotheosis apparantly has many possible routes and ways to turn a living person into a conceptual entity, which the Gods are understandably keeping rather quiet for fear that everyone would be doing it. The Realmforge had the power to turn someone into a God, and was the method Laksmar, Jare, Julius and The Lady used. There are no Gods that admit to having once been Dragons, and it is probable that the alien nature of Draconic souls prevents them from achieving godhood.

As one of Soul's last batch of visions shows, there are four Gods that are concerning themselves with the affairs of the party:

JULIUS is the God of Life, who is understandably hoping that the party will deal with the Taint for him. Gaunt appears to think that he is a prophet of Julius, and the new god (Julius has been a diety for about thirty years) is suffering the bad press of The Taint associating itself with his church. In truth, Julius IS connected to Gaunt - they were both champions of Laksmar in life, and good friends at that - though he's angry and frustrated at his inability to do anything about it. The two visions of Soul that show the world from Gaunt's Point of View both feature Julius' repeated and failed attempts to reason with Gaunt - Julius creates life by his very presence in Avatar form, which Gaunt then just absorbs. Julius' failing is that he still thinks much as he did in life - he hasn't gotten used to his new role yet, as Gaunt has been steadily getting in the way. He regards anything to do with his concept - especially the Pheonixes - as being under his authority, without realising that they have their own agenda.

THE LADY is the Goddess of Hope, who has adapated to godhood much "better" than her contemporary Julius. Barely recognisable as being descended from her mortal self, The Lady is fed by the last-minute escape, the reprieve and the million-to-one chance that comes true. She is extremely active, manifesting avatars almost at random to carve out her powerbase (she has been known to turn up in person to defeat muggers, not a lot but enough to give people the idea.. the *hope* that she might intervene in their case as well) without any of the hangups concerning mortal morality that Julius still has (she helps evildoers escape just as much as she helps heroes defeat them). She helped Julius set up Soul's existence - providing the body the Pheonix inhabits - and appears to be responsible for the party's amnesia as well as other minor setbacks that they've suffered. In fact, she IS responsible for those things and more - she appears to be stacking the deck *against* the party so that when they succeed despite the ever-slimming odds she'll be catapulted upwards in the power stakes.

LAKSMAR is the Goddess of Chaos and Destruction, who is running scared from Gaunt's efforts to stamp out all conflict and disunity in the world, from the party's continuing use of the Lost Force, from Julius' bitter attacks and from anything else that's going. She would presumably see what's happening to the party's homeworlds as being a *good* thing, and while she'd welcome and maybe even help the party killing Gaunt, she definately doesn't want them to stop the lovely chaos that's in progress.

KUSH is the quiet (and somewhat smug) God of Revelation and Prophecy, who Fire Plume suspects is the being sending the party the visions and upsetting her plan to make life harder for them ready for the last-minute save. He makes no comment.

DaveB

12-26-2004, 03:31 PM

NOTE - I started to write this on Christmas day, very drunk, on an ancient electronic typewriter that I found under my old bed in my room at my father's house. It was only some twenty hours later that I realised that said typewriter uses no file format known to man, god or beast and has no ink left in it (and noone has produced ink for it for at least ten years), and so the work I had done was essentially wasted. So this here post represents me doing it all over again. If I seem more rambling than usual, that's why.

I seem to remember that I was drawing some kind of parallel with my own sorry state at the time (pissed, missing my SO who was fifty miles away at her own parents, kind of irritable and at once looking forward to and dreading doing these analyses) and my subject matter for the post at hand. Drunk, Horny, Annoyed and Aprehensive?

Yup, it's Talisman time!

"People who don't enjoy themselves, kitten, have no substance"

If the simplistic view of Valour is a good heart covered by a bastard exterior, the equally simplistic view of Talisman is the reverse. At first impression, Talisman is a carefree idling chap, getting merrily drunk every night and chasing the ladies. Not a bad person to spend an evening with in a big city. Dig a little deeper, though, and you realise just how sociopathically amoral Talisman really is - he genuinely doesn't care about non-Spherewalkers (he explains to Echo at one point in the campaign about how they're "little people", trapped on a single sphere, and therefore don't matter), steals for no reason without shame and is sadistically keen in using his powers against normal humans in order to get his own way (sealing people into boxes of Colour when they try to stop him from doing something illegal is getting to be a habit). He also just doesn't cae about the party's mission, and - according to him - is quite willing to let all of their homeworlds die. This is the level that people like present-day Valour see and cite when they say why they dislike him. Fair enough.

But Talisman is a man of more than two layers (to quote Shrek, he's "like an onion") and where his genial facade hides his cold, amoral inteior, it itself hides the deeper Talisman - the one that the people in the party who like him (like past-Echo, or Mirage) can see. His bad behaviour, and his equally bad thoughts, are reactions against his deep and abiding feeling of being *used*. Talisman was stolen from his parents - the Soul of the human child that he would have been ripped out and replaced by a Dragon pearl derived from Strabo - in order to create an instrument for some great task. While Strabo's exact plans for Talisman remain unclear, they are obviously something to do with the Unity and returning Dragon-kind to it's pre-fall state (dooming Humanity in the process). Talisman has retreated into his "upper layers" of behaviour after his unhappy life of being the "heir to the throne" of an immortal, herself one of a party of people who gained vast power despite (as he sees it) not deserving it in the slightest. His "father" is even worse - an ancient, alien Dragon that clearly had unspoken plans for him. Talisman's real father - Vagabond (or, as Soul insists on calling him, "The magic tramp") left when Talisman was a baby, disgusted by what Aura and Strabo had done. Talisman grew up second-guessing himself, attributing elements of his nature to Strabo and Aura that in fact come from Vagabond.

At some point in the backstory, past-Talisman found out what was going on and began to draw plans of his own. Enlisting past-Echo in his machinations, Talisman was playing a very dangerous and as yet unknown game. While saving the homeworlds did not conflict with his interests, he was most definately "up to something", giving another thing for present-day Talisman to worry about: before, he had to worry about what Strabo was planning. Now he has to worry about what HE was planning as well. He takes no small amount of comfort in the fact that his past self seems to have been eminantly sensible about his choices so far - Talisman is of the opinion that he isn't an idiot now, and wasn't an idiot then, so any decision he made with full knowledge then that now seems odd given the fragmentory evidence of visions should probably be stuck with. His past self has been shown to have the same opinions as him on a vast number of matters, which he takes great reassurement from.

But below even this, Talisman has another layer - one he shies away from and only reluctantly admits to. Talisman isn't human, he isn't wired like a human and deep within his soul he doesn't *feel* like a Human. He may be the very least form of Dragon - with only one of the race's ancestral gifts to his name, thanks to the unusual nature of his birth (see the discussion of Dragons in a minute) - but he is still a Dragon. He's cunning, quick to anger, rather proud and greedy. His Soul is a physical thing rather than an emphemeral one, something he can touch and look at. He is in no danger from the Taint, but as Soul's vision of the future shows, he has his own horrific possible future to face.

Tal is trapped between all of the forces acting on the party, and his childhood has made him keenly aware of them. More than anyone else, Talisman resents and flat-out hates the extent to which the party is used: By Dragons, Gods, Gaunt - even by the Walker. By far the worst is the prospect of Strabo getting the Unity and the possibility of the Dragons slipping into extinction. The Pure World has no place for him in it, but nor does a world of humans or Tainted. No matter who wins, Talisman loses.

Unless, of course, it's TALISMAN who wins.

Writing flashbacks for Talisman is actually pretty easy - decide which layer you're writing for and where in his character arc the flashback comes, and let rip. In the early days, I relied on a lot of catchphrases from Talisman's source material (Jack Sparrow and so forth), then in the middle period I concentrated on his friendship with past-Echo (to fit in with the state of her own arc and in order to set up his own) and used more and more of his own phrases and character tics, but now we're starting to move into the details of his own plans. It helps that Talisman has one of the strongest characterisations - Renaud's roleplay is very strong (and very physical. Renaud likes to act out Talisman's "Tyler Durden" hand gestures) and it's easy to imagine his voice saying the lines. I have been extremely pleased with how pleased Renaud has been with the results, and regard Talisman's visions as a near-complete victory.

Talisman in numbers:

Like Fathom, I can't seem to find Tal's specialties at the moment.

Earth 4
Water 7
Fire 5
Air 4

Powers 5

Special Considerations - It's a drawback rather than a benefit, as it's net worth is negative, so Talisman doesn't pay any points for having a Draconic Soul rather than a human one. On the one hand, he's immune to effects of worlds like Caravan which specifically work on humans. On the other, his Soul is physical rather than metaphysical and can be stolen, lost or (in the utter worst case) damaged. On the one hand, he can touch the Unity without losing the Usurper Forces inside himself. On the other, he slowly transforms into a True Dragon and causes the end of the universe in the process. On the one hand, he can sense other Dragons. On the other, they can sense him. It is important to note that Everways transfer a person's SOUL, so if his pearl were stolen and thrown into a gate, he'd vanish and reappear on the world on the other side.

Luck 0 - Aura's wish to the Walker, via the Realmforge, that good luck would follow her and her line applies to Talisman. It is a gossamer thing, easily broken and overridden by the actions of himself and others (if someone attacks him, they don't fall prey to unfortunate events that put them out of action, no matter what Echo might say to herself to justify failing to kill Aura, and if he goes out of his way to do something stupid he suffers the consequences), as well as the laws of Karma and Fate but when there are no other external forces acting on something, the law of Drama usually goes Talisman's way. Never play cards with him.

Colours 3 (Frequent, Major, Versatile) - Talisman is surrounded by floating planes of semi-transparent light, which are solid enough to be felt but (without his concious effort) not solid enough to stop anything passing through them. They constantly shift in shape, orientation and colour according to his emotional state, like a visible aura. He can deliberately form them into any object he can imagine up to the size of a house, make them solid (a test to break through them via strength is determined by Talisman's Earth) or emphemeral and move them around at will within the bounds of the sphere the party are on. His creations can never be mistaken for reality, and are effevescent at the edges, breaking up like dry ice being poured over a plane of glass and evaporating at the edges. The colours can be of any hue, but have a distinct tendancy towards neon and decidedly unnatural tones - his "black" is usually dark purple with red highlights, like in a cartoon. Even dark colours manage to somehw glow.

Sense Intruder 1 (Major) - The sole gift of Dragons that Talisman manifests (if he didn't have any, he wouldn't exist) is the race's ability to sense intruders into their space. Talisman has "eyes in the back of his head", knows when he's being watched and can sense people sneaking up on him, even when he's asleep.

Paraphenalia 1 (Frequent) - Talisman gets his Colours and luck from Aura, his soul and his sense of Intruders from Strabo. His final power is derived from Vagabond, his real father. Vagabond had the ability to produce minor items from his pockets - clothing (especially hats), string, half-eaten food and so forth, the "copious pockets" ability of the well-travelled goblin. Talisman's version of this reflects his lifestyle as a member of the idle rich - he can produce bottles of wine, embroidered napkins, opera glasses, spare buttons, powdered wigs and so forth from his pockets. The power is specifically restricted from making anything *useful*, and relies on his state of one-ness with his fashion sense. It wouldn't work, for example, if he were naked or in disguise in an unfamiliar costume.

Talisman's Virtue is THE DRAGON (CUNNING), rather understandably. His triple heritage may make him a selfish, greedy man, but it also makes him devilishly cunning and witty. If there is a complex plan, preferably involving the humiliation of one's enemies, to be found, Talisman will find it. When (as is often the case) he is persued by the local police, he escapes with Gingerbread-man like regularity. Talisman may not be as intelligent as Valour, but he's twice as "clever".

Talisman's Fault is THE FISH (SHALLOWNESS) - Talisman deliberately distracts himself from his alien nature and his rather significant place in the universe by means of his lifestyle. His potential as a bridge between human and Dragon goes wasted on a life of drink and women, and that's just the way he likes it. His response to anything he doesn't have to immediately confront is to ignore it and have another glass of wine - a threat out of sight is a threat well out of mind.

Talisman's Fate is DEATH (CHANGE / STASIS) - representing not only his own Fate, but the Fate of the entire Dragon race.

----------------

THE DRAGONS

Like the Gods, the Dragons in my Everway campaigns are an evolution of the race as presented in the rulebook. Looking at the Draon-writeup in the Everway player's guide as I write this (I haven't actually read it for almost a year) I am struck at little sense this must all make to you. The Soul thing isn't in the published game - I appear to have made it up myself.

C'est La Vie.

In the beginning, before the Pure World was shattered into the myriad Spheres, the Dragons were the only intelligent race. A description of a pure Dragon can be found in one of Soul's visions, but the race was damaged and shattered along with their world when the Lost Force went missing. Dragons now are diminished, each generation being born with fewer of the gifts - wings, fire breath, huge size and so forth - that their forebears possessed. The resulting war with the Gods (who the Dragons blamed for the fall) put paid to the Dragons as a viable race.

I use the word "Alien" to describe Dragons a lot, because to my mind that's what they are - the world they were created to exist upon no longer exists, and they were not intended to live in the universe that currently exists. They are at odds with the way the spheres work (unlike Humans, who were created to live in the new, plural, worlds). Renaud expresses it as the Dragons being like surviving Dinosaurs: there is a certain sad sense that they have been left behind by the way the universe has been developed, and they are not properly adapted to the modern worlds.

Unlike any other type of creature, Dragons have material souls rather than ephemeral ones - a Dragon's soul takes the form of a milky orb attached to their body, usually called a Pearl due to their resemblence to the things you find in clams. Dragons don't reincarnate when they die - again, unlike any other type of intelligent creature, instead using the Graveyard.

When a Dragon dies, it's Soul sends out a call to the nearest other Dragon, who is then compelled to go to it. When the deceased Soul comes into contact with a live one, a special Everway Gate is opened to the Dragon's Graveyard. The "undertaking" Dragon takes the greatest item from the deceased's hord, one item from their own and travels through the gateway. Once at the graveyard, the Soul of the deceased is added to the huge pyramid constructed entirely out of Dragon Souls, and the items are placed in proper arrangement into the racial hord. The undertaker then takes one item FROM the racial hord, and is transported back to where they were. The body of the decased, if it hadn't rotted already, vanishes when the Soul is taken from the sphere. The pile of Souls waits patiently for the multiverse to collapse back into itself and reform the Pure World, where they will be reborn anew.

When Dragons reproduce, they scrape a layer off their own Soul (the Souls grow larger with age, like a real Pearl) and use the resulting matter in a ritual. A new Soul-pearl then appears, speck-like in size, inside the egg. If the ritual is performed on a pregnant human, a "man-hatched" like Talisman is produced - a Dragon Soul bound onto a human's body. In far antiquity, man-hatched were used as emissaries and go-betweens between the Dragons and the younger races, but the pracise has fallen into disuse with the dwindling numbers of the race (Dragons are notoriously territorial, obsessed with their own doomed state and their method of reproduction is so deliberate that most Dragons die without producing a child). Also, many Dragons have figured out how to use the gift of shapechanging (when they possess it) to take Human form, so man-hatched are not required. Besides, "wasting" a Dragon soul on a humanoid is seen as somewhat perverted by the majority of Dragons.

The principle of Hoarding isn't properly understand - it's not a simple greed thing. Most Dragons, if asked and if in a mood to answer the question - will express it as a life-long work of montage art that they are compelled to create. A Dragon's hoard represents the sum of it's life, and they collect "souvenears" from significant places and events which they add to their collection. In this way, the item added to the racial hoard is the symbol of the most important thing that Dragon did in it's life, and the racial hoard itself is the story of the glories of the Dragon race. When two Dragons meet, they formally exchange gifts from their own hoards. Dragons can sense one another's Souls (the range to which this works depends on the age of the Dragons involved).

Dragons have unique names (each uses a word that is a description of itself rather than being defined by an existing one like Humans) and a complex system of titles that translate from the Dragon language into the Tongue as "X of Y", where X is a honourific and Y is an elementally-themed object. The more powerful the Dragon, the higher-ranking the translation of it's honourific and the more broad it's theme: The Lord of Air is an older, and more powerful, Dragon than the Mistress of Winds.

Dragons that have appeared in Long Road Home are...

STRABO, LORD OF AIR - one of the party's primary antagonists, and the being that created Talisman by performing the ritual of birth on the unborn child of Aura and Vagabond. Strabo seeks the Lost Force, which (Talisman and Tharissma suspect) will return the gifts of his forefathers to him, transforming him into a Pure Dragon and coincidentally reuniting the worlds. That humans cannot survive on the Pure World is a piffling detail to Strabo. The current question is - why did Strabo go to the trouble of making a man-hatched and sending him to retrieve the Lost Force when he could have easily done it himself? There must be something more to this.

THARISSMA, MISTRESS OF THE WINDS - The Dragon of Caravan (and the only female Dragon we've seen), a scholastic type that kept many of the race's traditions alive. A relative of Strabo (who, in human terms, is her uncle), Tharissma helped the party and is now on the run from the disgruntled elder wyrm.

SONAMA, MASTER OF THE WAVES - The Dragon of Wyrm's Edge, Sonama is a sea-serpent - he lacks the gifts of flight and legs, and instead coils through the water of his world and - when on land - moves like a snake. He appears to be the wyrm that told Talisman most of the nature of his race, and introduced Talisman to the term "man-hatched" (Talisman had been under the delusion that he was unique).

VOLVAGIA, LORD OF FIRE - The only Dragon seen in the campaign equal or greater to Strabo, Volvagia rules the world of Wingthrone with a fist of molten iron from his great palace carved into the side of an active volcano. He can be seen in several visions, has identified Talisman as having been created by Strabo and - as Soul's last vision shows - has figured out what Strabo is up to. He doesn't seem too happy with it.

GARALLION, KNIGHT OF THE FOREST - Nothing is known about this wyrm, other than the fact that he was the last Dragon to visit Birthright before the character party in session ten.

DaveB

12-27-2004, 11:10 AM

More than halfway there. Entering the home stretch. Everyone still with me?

Good.

"You all prefer her to me"

Everyone's favourite bundle of neuroses, and judging by the feedback the character that our audience has taken to their hearts (or at least write to me about the most), Echo is entering a fallow period of plot after the campaign put her through the wringer. Every character has one bit of the route that focuses on them, and Echo's was the Stonebridge-Far Window stretch. She has been given her prompts and her oppertunities, and what she does now is up to her.

I don't know. I just don't. In the last session, Echo seems to have thrown everything she'd achieved away by trying to assassinate Fern. The only consolation I have is that it was her idea to do so, but... Yeah. I suspect that Echo herself is being willfully slow to grasp the posibility of character development - Echo sees the way to go, but won't as long as people tell her to, wanting to develop on her own terms and no one elses. I can grok that, if it's true.

Echo is the character most at odds with her past self (no matter what Valour may protest) - she distrusts anything to do with her past self, attributes dark motives to herself and has a paranoid fear that "she" has set things up to hurt her. If there's a way to second-guess herself, Echo will find it. She thinks that the others prefer her past self, in contrast to the horror that she herself feels at some of her past choices, and that they resent her for not changing fast enough. At the same time, she is upset (contradicting herself) that some of her visions imply she DiD continue to take orders from them for several years. As Fathom put it in one angry rant, Echo can only have it one of two ways - she can be upset about people wanting her to be different, or she can be upset at people treating her as she continually says she should be. Not both. Nothing in any vision can satisfy Echo now without having fault found in it, and she's reeling and grasping at any direction she can find.

The other characters, though, are beginning to tire of Echo's "I'm all entitled" act. Everything useful that could be said has been said (and taken the wrong way), every oppertunity and encouragement has been given. And still Echo clings to her old ways, almost as if she's afraid to let go of them. Her time is running out, and the likes of Fathom and Talisman (who keenly remembers her being his best friend) have already given up on her as not being worth the trouble. When Mirage and Paragon (of all people) are also starting to weary of the Echo show, it's a sign that something is very wrong.

Events on Waterwall provided some cathartic release (when she pummeled several dozen hers), but also a huge missed oppertunity (when she hid from Six when that copy was fading). Her relationship with Paragon is carefully non-existant - they never speak to one another, and Paragon is careful to never even talk about her if he can help it. In a party of seven people, that takes some doing, but the power of denial should never be discounted.

Ultimately, though, Echo IS changing, even at a tortured rate. In the backstory, her character was a good soldier for a while, eentually becoming convinced that the others could be wrong and she right. She became quite bitchy and nasty, fell in love (and was forced by unknown circumstance to leave), was Talisman's partner in crime for a few years, met Paragon, got married, left, rejoined the party and lost her memory. As evidence from Session Ten shows, her present-self is now well into the "bitchy" phase, putting the lie to her own claims that she would never act like her past self. Even back on Empty Throne, she'd have comitted suicide in shame at some of the barbed comments she throws at her fellow party members nowadays. Although she can dish it out, she can't take it - her self-esteem wasn't up to the task of Paragon and Fathom laughing at her last session (when she claimed to be a properly brought up lady), and she spent most of the rest of the session sulking.

Time and space may be all she needs, but it's hard to grow into having friends when you alienate the people you travel with.

Echo's Fate card is almost upon her, and she's going to have to jump one way or the other. I dearly hope she makes it.

Flashbacks for Echo are pretty easy: she has the most clearly sketched out character arc through the backstory, so it's a case of picking a section that reflects what she's going through in "up-time" and writing it. There are lots of minor details (the character's hidden obsession with trashy romance novels) that are fun to make minor references to. The main thing is the imagry of her weapons, and her relationship to them, as well as reflections. When a flashback features her reflection IN one of her weapons, it's sure to be an important one.

Echo in numbers:

Earth 3 (Resist Toxin)
Fire 8 (Splitting - see later)
Water 3 (Hide intentions)
Air 5 (Splitting - see later)

Powers 3

Throw Sound 0 - Although she doesn't do it very often, Echo can throw any sounds that she makes (usually her own voice, but also things like the crunch of gravel when she walks, the sound of a dagger being drawn and so on) so that it comes from any point within her line of sight.

Echoing 3 (Frequent, twice Major) - Echo can produce an insubstantial copy of herself (which appears at touch range) and divide her mind between the two hers. She can swap mass instantly between the copies, making either of them solid at a moment's notice, and can (with concentration) even make different body parts real in different Echoes: An otherwise insubstantial one can be given the real left hand in order to pick something up. The only rule is that she must have the mass of one real Echo *somewhere* - the same body part can't be insubstantial, or real, in both. Echo isn't herself aware of the mechanics of how her power works - it appears to be connected to reflections, as her own reflection is solid to an insubstantial version of her (an immaterial copy can walk through a wall, but not for some reason through a window in which it can see itself) and if she passes between two facing reflective surfaces while split her mind tries to spread out into the mirror, fails and she passes out as the copy vanishes. The last detail is the intense concentration needed to operate two bodies at once - Echo only has one mind, so has to divide her Fire, Water and Air stats between the two hers for the purposes of mental tasks (bursts of energy don't count for Fire, but Echo's fancy martial arts DO). This doesn't have to be half and half, and her specialties make her Air and Fire stats count as one higher before being divvied up. She can, say, give one her Fire 3 and the other Fire 6. This power is twice major because not only does it give her twice as much oppertunity to act as another character, but makes Echo fight like a Wraith from the second Matrix film - she can (and frequently does) allow weapons to pass harmlessly through her.

Past-Echo has, in visions, exhibited a couple of extra powers. Emma has the points saved up, but present-Echo hasn't learnt how to do them yet. Foremost is the power we're calling "stutter" until we think of a better name for it - Past-Echo could flip between bodies faster than she could move, so by rapidly Echoing, transferring mass and then cancelling the original, she could move like The Flash in a straight line. She could also - when not already Echoing - transfer her mind into a mirror, to walk around the mirror world and spy on people.

Echo's virtue is THE EAGLE (THE MIND PREVAILS) - Echo's way of fighting is exceedingly disciplined, learnt from rote moves in scrolls and books and constantly practiced. She's calmer in a fight than in normal life, and has the edge over less disciplined fighters. Which is pretty much everyone. The same cold, analytical way of thinking affects every aspect of her life.

Echo's fault is THE FOOL (LACK OF CONNECTION) - As anyone who's been paying attention will have realised, Echo's great failing is her emotional immaturity - she has the feelings of a young woman and no reference of how to cope with them, to the extent that she thinks they're evil and something to be resisted. To paraphrase the Everway corebook, Echo is "free" from family, friendship, love and community.

Echo's Fate is SUMMER (ENERGY / EXHAUSTION) - On a physical level, Echo is full of superhuman energy (Fire 8) but tires easily (Earth 3). This dichotomy goes to a metaphysical level too. Echo has the oppertunity to do great things, to change her life, but she tires easily and it is always easier to fall back on old habits. She may miss her chance through taking what seems the easier road - when the prospect of change is too daunting for her, and her training too comforting, her potential will never be realised.

-----------

(I was going to do the Backstory as Echo's "DVD extra", but I'll do it as the one for the NPCs instead.)

POP GOES CULTURE

Inspiration borrows, Genius steals. I guess that makes me a genius :D

Long Road Road is... ahem... inspired by countless sources, only a small crossection of which my players have ever seen, heard or read. Sometimes, it's minor things - a line lifted form a novel and repackaged to fit with a flashback, because it says what I want to say and I'm lazy enough to go with the words of far better writers than I. Sometimes, it's scenary - usually the visual medium of computer games - that gets used as inspiration for Spheres. Sometimes it's quite blatant theieving of plotlines.

I've been meaning to do this for ages, this total (or as total as I can make it) listing of my sources. I hope you all still think I'm a creative guy afterwards.

When I say "visual reference" for a character, it's because there's a character in the film/cartoon/comic/whatever that looks kinda like the character and often ACTS like the character, or in the best cases both. I use these like most Everway GMs use works of fantasy art, or the game's art cards.

When I say "setting reference", it's because the work is set somewhere that makes a good backdrop for a sphere, or has elements that make a good sphere. This is usially anything non-western, often tropical, arabian or chinese in flavour. For instance, the setting of the computer game Prince of Persia : Sands of Time LOOKS like an Everway Sphere, and so there is a sphere on my sphere map that looks like it.

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS

Long Road Home is intended to evoke the feeling of these epic cartoon serial stories, so it's no surprise that they get lifted from a lot.

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors - Gaunt is Sawboss. I shall say no more.
The Mysterious Cities of Gold - Setting reference. Any Golden Condors that may turn up in the campaign are entirely coincidental.
Pirates of Dark Water - Major Setting Reference. The Dark Water is not so different to the Taint. I alknowledged my debt in the Caravan sequence of LRH, which featured a monkeybird named Nimble.
Ulysses 31 - For the theme of the long, long quest home. Especially the ending.
Reboot - One season of reboot ended with the teenaged characters going through a portol in search of their mentor. The next season started with them, ten years older (the irritating little boy had turned into a one-eyed gun-toting warrior and the little girl was - I am not ashamed to say - a babe) and still searching. When they finally got home, they found it had been taken over by the bad guy of the previous seasons while they were away. I love Reboot. You can tell.

MOVIES

Hold onto your hat.

Spirited Away - Setting Reference (the Sphere of Spirit's Rest), character references for various spirits found in the campaign.
Castle In the Sky - Setting Reference. And a bloody good film.
Pirates of the Carribean - Setting Reference. Visual reference in the form of Jack Sparrow for both Vagabond and Talisman. The underwater attack on Waterwall by the Tainted was lifted form the "take a walk, boys" section of this film, and the film's soundtrack is in my carry-case of CDs for the game.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers - Lots of visual references for Echo (ie, Zhang Ziyi) throughout all three films. Also, many good fight scene locations and setting references. House of Flying Daggers' poster is my main visual reference for Past-Echo.
Krull - Setting reference. also, the way the Black Fortress moves around is a source for the Host's prison-realm
Legend - Setting reference for the sphere of Summerwood
The Princess Bride - Setting reference (Fire Swamp = The sphere of Firedamp). And a good laugh.
Warriors of Heaven and Earth - Several character references.
Flash Gordon - Visual reference for Valour (Fly, my birdmen, fly!) and character inspiration for Fern (the princess)
Phantom of the Opera - Visual reference for Mask.
The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions - Lots of fight scenes (Echo vs many Echos on Waterwall was Burly Brawl inspired), Visual reference (in the way they move rather than anything else) for the Host.
Welcome to the Jungle - Visual reference for Paragon, in the way the Rock's character fights using nothing but improvised weaponry.
Romancing the Stone - Setting reference.
Jewel of the Nile - Setting reference.
The Golden Child - Visual reference for Fire Plume, and for Soul.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade - Setting references.
Dark Crystal - Setting Reference for Crystal. Gaunt's original Peacekeepers looked like (and were even called) Garthen.
Labyrinth - Setting reference, used loads in the first campaign. Jareth even became a God in my Everway-verse.
Time Bandits - Setting reference, used for a lot of tiny moments (breaking the illusion-glass towards the end)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Spherewalker inspiration.
13th Warrior - Setting reference. Visual reference for the way Fathom fights (like the lead VIking)
Dragonslayer - Setting reference, and a good idea of what my Dragons look like.
Total Recall, Blade Runner - Identity issues (even if they're in the wrong genre) a'plenty. Blade Runner also provides a bit of plot later on in the campaign.
Sinbad - The disney version. Visual reference for Laksmar. Setting reference.
Atlantis - Setting reference.
Neverending Story - Setting reference.
Return to Oz - Setting reference.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Setting reference. (Bastion = Minas Tirith), plot arc inspiration (as explained in the section on the Taint a few posts ago) Visual reference (Aragorn + Palantir = Talisman + Lost Force), fight scenes.
Stargate - Setting reference.
The Mummy, The Mummy Returns - Setting reference. The Anubis warriors cropped up as a type of spirit.
Scorpion King - Setting reference. Visual reference for various Spherewalkers (Paragon especially)
Troy - Setting reference. Paragon wears Achillis' armour from this film.
The Star Wars Series - Setting References (Maw is based on the Sarlaac, most obviously, but Naboo turns up and the Gungan city is a source for Waterwall)
The golden voyage of Sinbad - Setting reference (The Sphere of Wondersea)
Chronicles of Riddick - Echo has the backward-curved daggers from this film. Also, setting reference for the sphere of Monument.

COMICS

Fathom - Visual reference for Fathom. As if you hadn't guessed.
Kingdom Come - Superheros as mythelogical figures, the opposite of Everway. Excellent visual reference for any number of spherewalkers
Resplendent Dragon - Visual reference for Jade Dragon from Stonebridge.
Green Lantern - Many ideas for good uses of Talisman's powers.

COMPUTER GAMES

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Kid waking up in an adult body, with the world gone to hell? Yep. Also, Setting reference and Visual references for Fathom (the Zora), the sphere of Endless Stair, the Sphere of Lakeside and more. Volgagia the dragon is named after the dragon in this game.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Setting Reference (the Sphere of Visage most notably, but also nightsong), character references for Fathom (the Zora)
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker - The flooded, time-frozen Hyrule was my main inspiration for Waterwall. There's a character called Wind Waker in several of Fathom's visions. The shark-monsters from those same visions are also from here. This game's verson of Ganon may well show up at some point.
Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime: Echoes - the way Gaunt reverse-engineers the character powers is based, of all things, on the Space Pirates from these games. Future-Valour is based on meta-Ridley from Metroid Prime.
The Monkey Island Series - Setting references and plenty of them.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Setting references (the Realmforge looks like Atlantis from this machine, down to the godengine at the centre and the pointless lava-tech)
Little Big Adventure - Setting references.
Diablo II - Setting references. The game was going to feature Gaunt's journey in the style of the cutscenes from this game, but I reconsidered.
Giants: Citizan Kabuto - Visual reference to Fathom in the form of the second third of the game's heroine. Also provided a Sphere (Baeomoth). If I can get the cockney space marines in, I will. You mark my words.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time - Setting reference. Visual reference for Talisman, for the Taint and for some of Soul's powers.
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - Setting reference. Visual reference for Talisman
Beyond Good and Evil - Setting reference.

TV SERIES
Quantum Leap Especially the ending.
Sliders - Simply for the portols
Stargate, Stargate: Atlantis - Oh come ON, Like you hadn't spotted that one.
Angel - The ending. The Chirugeon looks like one of the Jasmine-abandoned creatures from the end of Season 4. A Pylean is sen in the background of one of the many inn scenes. The matter-of-fact way that True Demons behave is very much inspired by this series.
Buffy - Gaunt quotes Adam a lot.
Andromeda - A piece of shit, but Paragon looks like Tyr. Trance turned up in the background of one of the scenes.
Hercules, Xena - Many setting and character references. Echo has a chakram among her arsenal of weapnry.

NOVELS

The Belgariad, the Mallorean Powerful entity masqerading as a little boy so well that even it's fooled, sir? Mysterious blue glowing ball that only said boy can touch, sir? Big famous sword that unites with it sir? Bad guy that knows he's supposed to fight the hero and is afraid of the confrontation, sir? Suits YOU, sir! Erm... Yes. Eddings is a big, BIG part of our campaign, from Fathom's Polgara-like reactions to Soul, to Talisman's Belgarath-like moral lapses, to Crashing Steel (Sir Mandorallen), to Paragon (a cross between Barak and Zakath). The first person to call the Unity Cthrag Yaska dies.
The Neverending Story"Say my name, Bastion!": Much Setting reference.
Otherland A Sci-fi rather than a fantasy, but the idea of a quest through interlinked fantasy worlds, persued by a monster that has become a godlike being? Yup.
The Oz series Setting reference
GormenghastSetting reference (the sphere of Woekeep)
So you want to be a Wizard Reality hopping
Hs Dark Materials - Deicide for Beginners. Also, Setting Reference and character reference for Bear the Spherewalker.
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn - The bad guy is the source of all the legends about the item that can "kill him", which is actually the object he needs to win, and the good guys are fooled into finding it and bringing it to his lair? A-yup. (see also - Strabo's plan). And a bunch of setting references while we're at it.
Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council - Setting reference. Fathom's water-shaping is like the Voydonai from these boks. The sphere of Armada was based on The Scar.
Stardust - Setting reference.
Smoke and Mirrors - this collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman provided muchos spheres, from "the day I went to see the end of the world" (Doomshield), to "snow, glass, apples" and "we can get them for you wholesale".

DOCTOR WHO BOOKS

Deserving of a category all their own. I am obsessed with Doctor Who novels, and own over 200 of the things, filling a bookshelf. The New / Missing / Eighth Doctor / Past Doctor adventures are my crack, and my mind is apporpriately saturated with the settings, storylines, quotes and characters contained therin. none of my players have ever read any of them (except for Renaud, who has read the spin-off Faction Paradox books), so I consider them fair game. I try to limit myself, though - one day, I want to actually run a Who RPG.

Love and War - The Taint aren't *exactly* the Hoothi, but they were pretty well inspired by them.
The Also People - Provides the "someone with stamina" quote from one of Talisman's visions, the "Surely we're friends" line from one of Valour's and setting reference for the sphere of Hollow.
Vampire Science - Provides setting reference (the Butterfly room) for the sphere of glimmerwing.
Christmas on a Rational Planet - Visual reference for Laksmar (the Carnival Queen), the name "Chirugeon"
Halflife - Memory-loss themes
Unnatural History - Past-Echo's letter to herself was lifted wholesale.
The Year of Intelligent Tigers - Setting Reference (Symphony)
Continuity Errors - Setting Reference (Birthright)
Theatre of War - Setting Reference (Birthright)
The Tommorow Windows - Setting Reference (Glen of Tommorow)
Damaged Goods - Visual reference for The Host

ROLEPLAYING GAMES

Al-Quadim - Setting reference
Maztika - Setting reference
Exalted - Setting reference, Visual reference for a bunch of spherewalkers and gods (The Lady looks like the cover of Fair Folk) as well as situations (the mirrorworld is taken, I believe, from Time of Tumult)
A|State Thanks to my previous Actual Play thread, I could not resist leaving some tips of the hat to Malcolm and co. at CGS. Accordingly, there's a sphere called Sleeping Vale and a sphere called Iron Ring.
Children of the Sun - The cover is a visual reference for the Sphere of Catchstorm
Seventh Sea - I understand that Echo's powers are based on one of the forms of magic in this game. My hat of 7th Sea know no limit, though, so I can't tell you how true that is.

Last but not least, I believe that Soul looks like a character from a Playstation game, but can't recall the title. Andy will be able to tell you. There was also a Terry Gilliam book from when I was a kid, about a boy goig on a long, odd quest to cure himself of a curious affliction: after an alchemical accident, his hand and a portion of his chest had turned to solid gold. It's an obvious source for Valour, but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called.

DaveB

12-27-2004, 11:16 AM

Last player character!

BURN!

Soul.

Soul. SOul. Soul. The Balancing Innocence of the Glorious Soul, no less. Though he doesn't like Innocence, considering it a dorky middle name.

Soul is a curious character, and I can see it testing Andy's powers most weeks. The difference between Soul in Pheonix form and Soul as a boy is palpable = Soul as a Pheonix is to-the-point, serious and adult in it's intelligence. Soul as a boy, though, yo-yos in apparant age, from the 13 he's supposed to be to (if I had to put numbers to it) about 16 at most and about 7 at least. It's really, really hard to play children - the temptation to just do whatever pops into your head is a strong one, regardless of how aware kids actually are - but any minor slipups in Soul's characterisation can be readily explained by the lost time of Everways. Having been travelling for the last five years, Soul is aging at (to his point of view) an accellerated rate, and his mind does not always catch up to his hormones or his body. That explains any attacks of childishness.

I'm quite looking forward to that, actually - given the rate at which the characters sphere-jump, Soul ought to hit 16 by the end of the campaign. It will be interesting to see how Andy pulls it off. Fathom has already declared him old enough to sleep with the menfolk, and the day Soul discovers girls will be a day of reckoning and dreadfulness.

Soul has an annoying (to a GM) unflappability - this kid just isn't fazed by anything, faces elder things that should not be down with sarcastic comments, regards the prospect of his own death with a shrug and has picked up all of Talisman's bad traits regarding the way to treat other people. Setting random passersby on fire is not the act of a good being, and Karma is collecting against Soul rapidly. The burden of keeping watch of him is particulary stressful to Fathom, who has better thngs to do with her life than make sure this little monster doesn't destroy whatever world they're on.

The story of Soul will (hopefully) be one of turning into a real boy - Soul is already (though like many people he seriously backslid on Bastion) acting more and more his age, restraining himself and acting more responsibly. Pretty much all of the background for his character has now been revealed (and further revelations won't be coming for a long, long time), so the campaign will be focusing on Soul as a human rather than Soul as a Pheonix.

Because that, in the end, is what the plan has turned out to be - the Pheonix that Soul has instead of a.. well. Soul, is intended to take more and more of a back-seat, allowing the child to have a full life and develop connections to other people and to the worlds. At which point he'll die (permenantly) and the Pheonix will go back to being a Pheonix full-time: the act of sacrifice fuelling some kind of great mojo. It's like Echo being told that not only does she HAVE to redevelop as her past self did, but that she's doomed to die at the end of it all. It is a mark of Soul's resilience (and of how little progress he's made) that he's not especially fussed about it all, citing the fact that he'll continue on as a Pheonix if not as a human.

And then there's Soul's link to Gaunt. Maybe Gaunt is after Pheonixes because Gaunt, in his madness, associates the symbol that was branded into him as the enemy (he calls Soul "The Symbol"), maybe it's something more. In any case, it's because of Soul that the Taint are after the party. It's because of Soul that Unicorns attack them. It's because of Soul that any number of enemies want to do them harm. A more socially responsible child (as Soul is in the flashbacks) would be aware of how much he's cost them by his presence. Present-day Soul is merrily oblivious.

Soul's reaction to the tidbits he gets of his own past self (remember that Soul doesn't get visions of the past, so it's not as real to him as other character's backstories are to them) is amply summed up by Andy himself much earlier in this thread - Soul considers his earlier self to be a stuck-in-the-mud whiner, who was awfully serious and kind of sad. Soul has taken his interpretation of his mission as "have as much fun as possible" in order to make his eventual martyrdom all the more potent, and Talisman must bear some of the blame for this.

Soul's visions are uniquely fun to write, though inspiration is often hard to come by for them. Some are of the present, others are of possible futures. Me and Andy have had especial fun with the idea of Soul's visions breaking the fourth wall - my "narrative voice" in Soul's visions actually *exists* in Soul's visions (so he hears "you are doing X" rather than seeing himself doing something), and breaks out of character to talk to him upon occassion. The identity of the person doing the talking is a fair no-brainer It's The Walker, but is never explicitly stated. I have fallen into the habit of using Soul to show the backstory, and to show NPCs on far-distant spheres, like the semi-regular updates on what Vagabond and Strabo are doing.

I forgot to bring Soul's stats with me. Andy - can you PM me with them once you read this? I know that his stats are low and his Powers total rather huge - he breaks Everway's rules in having a Fire of only 1, for instance.

-----

SOULS, PHEONIXES, TRUE DEMONS AND THE WALKER

The last faction of "interested parties" are the Psychopomps - the True Demons and Pheonixes. Both appear to be made out of the same stuff as Human Souls, and can possess people who's souls have been evicted for whatever reason, by simply replaced the native soul.

Human souls, as the mysterious narrator (tm) says in one of Soul's visions, travel down Everways when they reincarnate, passing from sphere to sphere. Because the sphere network isn't perfect (and can't be, otherwise it would collapse back into the Pure World) there are logjams, dead-ends and so forth. That's where the Pheonixes come in. They absorb the souls of the deceased and store them within themselves, then move to a new sphere and commit ritual suicide, reincarnating themselves and releasing their "payload" of souls into the local astral space. Most of the time, they're invisible to anyone with a Water score lower than theirs. In this way, the Pheonixes partly represent and partly maintain the cycle of life, death and reincarnation in the spheres, and allow human life to continue.

True Demons, rather than working on an individual life's scale, are doing much the same thing but for the entire universe - they do not release the souls they absorb, instead gaining power from them and placing them within a cache hidden deep in astral space. The idea is that, eventually, all human souls will be collected and the worlds will collapse back into the Pure World. In this way, they represent and maintain the life-death cycle of the universe as a whole.

The Demons report and respond to something they call "The Prince", while the Pheonixes claim to take their orders from The Walker himself. In some unknown way, the presence of human souls creates the usurper forces on spheres. This causes a problem when (as now) the Pheonixes are going missing. Evidence (Soul and Golden, basically) is that the Pheonxises are lying low in disguise as human spherewalkers, and in their absence children are no longer being born on the character's homeworlds due to the severe bottleneck of Crystal - no children will be born on those worlds without Pheonix help until the population of crystal start to die. And as the Crystal grants immortaility, that might be quite a wait. So, the party have two options - destroy Crystal (killing half the original character party in the process, Hah!) or figure out why the Pheonixes are in hiding. It's probably something to do with Gaunt.

The Walker is, in fact, a joint entity made up of all human souls in the universe - that's why he appears when you try to get a vision of him as a montage of millions of faces. It's the collective subconcious of humanity, and creates the Everways by the action of Pheonixes - if enough Pheonixes transport souls from world a to world b, an Everway will form between those worlds. As that everway gets used by living people, it is reinforced - one way Everways are "young" ones, while two way ones are ones that enough of the living have used, carving the tunnel through astral space that little bit more each time a human soul (like a spherewalker) passes through. The Prince is the True Demon's cache of human souls. Both true Demons and Pheonixes are made out of human souls, so they and the Prince are all also part of the Walker. Confused yet?

Syndil04

12-27-2004, 12:26 PM

I've been wanting to post a wee story for a while, so here I go.

A little insight into the inner workings of a barbarians mind:

"Ever night it's the same now. The dream.
It starts with the sea. Dark and wonderous, a stormy sky with lightning streaking through the clouds and rain lashing at the surface as waves buck like an ecstatic lover. The colours, deep blue and indigo, flash out of the black as the lightning washes across my dream, lacing the water with painful white.

The dream moves across the surface,and the storm lights up a rock outcrop.
I can see the red foam as it laps against the stone, greedy and dead. I can see the bones under my feet spattered with crimson. I know that my people are dying, without the future there is no present only stasis. I look down as if not in my body and I see the ruler of this lonely and blighted world. Half seated, half collapsed on a formation of rock and coral.

Weary.
Her fist gripped tightly around a blade of ice, as if her life depends upon it. Blue skin rucked and marred by scars and fresh wounds. Blood on her lips and staining her neck, the rain mingles with it and the tainted dew runs over her skin to join the blood of the others. Like a queen she sits silently, waiting, watching the sea.
From beneath the waves her ancestors call to her and somewhere a singe bell is tolling a lament. Her eyes are narrowed showing only a dull red gleam, the resolve.
Her pupils shriek into pinpoints as an explosion lights up the horizon, the fire races in to the sky and I stand with a scream, my sword raised.

Little Brother.

The fire washes over the sea and the sea rises up to meet it in a wall of rage, my rage.
He's dead, they're all dead...and nothing has changed.
Someone will pay for this. For the lives of my people. For the lives laid down in this.
I stand from the throne built by natures hand and take it to be my own. The ocean roars with every surge of anger, creatures rise from the sea and wail. And my hearts blood seeps out into the waves as I take the path to vengence.

I awake with my heart pounding and the weight of my chosen duty on my back and the fear that it will all be for nought due to the machinations of those more powerful than we sweating down my skin.

I am not afraid of death, I am very much afraid of having never lived."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What can I say about Fathom.
She's normal, or as normal as a barbarian can be. She is simple, direct and from a completely different culture to most of the other characters. She cares but cannot help people with their emotional hang ups, she is a leader in her blood but in a very different situation not to mention that leading the mismatched group of adventurers must be like pulling teeth. They are not really used to takng a command so in a crisis the leadership position must have been unbearable, we don't work like a team, we're not even friends with each other.
Fathom knows she's not and idiot and so she takes her visions as a basis but she doesn't rely solely on them to form her opinions. She find the rest of the character party difficult to interact with apart from anything else they don't seem to care about each other very deeply.
She can't look at any of them and say you are friends, they act like associates in the same business and nothing more.
She likes Talisman's carefree outlook on life and would like to be able to relax like that sometimes, but he doesn't get close to people really. Mirage is a very nice person but is very flighty and inconstant (deliberately I presume) which makes her a difficult person to talk to. Echo is so caught up in her own problems and her deep running bitterness towards people she used to think she was inferior to, that she isn't a pleasent person to be around let alone talk to. Valour is alternativly quite nice and a bastard which make him difficult to trust and certainly not someone you would strike up a deep friendship with. then there's Soul who Fathom looks on as a younger sibling, which makes it very difficult to have to assume a role where she has to discipline him when what she really wants to be doing is encouraging him to explore the world and have fun before he misses his chance. She feels for Paragon who has had his life turne upside-down by the party's intrusion and the fact that he is having to deal with the death of his wife while his wife is still walking around albeit with a very different personality.

She is acutely aware that she is dying alittle every time the group goes through an everyway, all that lost time when they could have been making real friends or staying with the people they have loved, teaching Soul to be a person not a badly behaved little machine, experiencing all those worlds that go past at a blur due to a mission which we now know was probably not to help the spheres but to help one egotist dragon who wanted to be back at the top (add that one to the hit list).

Fathom feels deeply but it doesn't always come across. I think in future she will be taking more oppertunities to have fun and live life not the mission and not acting quietly as a safety net. I know should she find out that there was an attempt on Fern's life she will be very angry because there was the possibility that Fern could have helped the group resolve the issues more peacefully and could have filled in alot of the gaps in our information since she's probably been keeping tabs on our movements for Gaunt.

As far as flaws go Fathom is actually very short tempered and when her temper is flared it's volcanic. She is very capable of hate and dislikes this failing in herself. She is violent in short sharp dispassionate bursts when we are in a fight and has a awful habit of just killing her foes partially because she's so strong (and possibly because most of our foes have been tainted) She has killed someone by accident before and was quietly guilty about that for a long while. She doesn't believe the ends justify the means. She has a tendancy not to listen to people when they are being self-pitying, which is why she doesn't do the same to other people. Not out of any malice she just doesn't think she knows how to help, perhaps another failing because she has been able to help on occassion, she had a long talk with Paragon directly after he had found out that Echo had lost her memory but that could be because Paragon and Fathom work on similar mind sets.

Fathom should be quaffing ale, fighting and dancing on tables while people throw knives or axes, racing dolphins with friends her own age and finding a king worthy of being her consort. Instead she's stuck here trying to complete a mission of shpere wide importance with a group of people who have alot of issues.

Much frustration but I have plans to resolve it. :D

Andrea

PS: Dave I'll try to get the rest of the characters done soon I think I've found a better way of doing soul than my previous idea.

Syndil04

12-27-2004, 12:42 PM

DaveB

12-28-2004, 12:04 PM

Fathom wasn't laughing at Echo she was laugh that echo said all properly brought up young ladies should play and Fathom is a Princess and wouldn't know what to do with most instruments you would present her with. Echo however didn't realise the connection between her obsurd comment and Fathom's version of a proper upbringing and made a very bitting remark about they could give fathom a triangle and that Fathom should take care not to miss it.
If she wasn't a character who was supposed to be part of the group she'd be dead.
Fathom was all for helping Echo get over her problems and didn't get anywhere, then she thought the others would have a better chance and that her technique was just rubbish, then she decided that Echo should have the time to come to terms with it in her own time, then she got angry but attempted to protect Echo from her ire by taking it elsewhere so she wouldn't upset the assassin's fragile feelings. Then Echo burned her bridges by not being as courteous in return, Fathom may be a viking and a barbarian but she should still have some repect, at least as much as you would show a collegue on the same important task.

C'est la vie

Yes.

That whole misunderstanding was quite cool, actually. I am pleased that the characters are deep enough that things can be taken multiple ways. To whit -

Echo says "of course I can play. All properly brought up ladies should be able to."

Fathom laughs because she can't, and Echo is being provincial.
Paragon laughs at Echo describing herself as being properly brought up.

Paragon and Fathom thought they were laughing at the same thing. Echo thought they were mocking her and snapped at Fathom, suprising and annoying Paragon and nearly making Fathom punch her lights out. The entire incident made Paragonand Fathom a little closer, and made Echo look a right cow.

DaveB

12-28-2004, 12:05 PM

You know, it's funny how being bored stiff over christmas lends itself to the wordcount, isn't it? Gods help this thread if I ever have to take days off sick from work.

Having deeply offended my players by telling the world at large what I really think of their characters (joking. I hope), I shall now attempt the post-modern feat of doing the same for the NPCs.

My NPCs show the same lax attitude towards Everway's already thin rules that I do; They don't all add up to 20 points. Some are more.

Here, then, are the three statted NPCs out of my cast of dozens of throwaway spherewalkers that I've introduced and discarded so far.

---

PARAGON

Paragon is the best-defined NPC in the game, because (thanks to the coin-toss in Session eight - which was for real, I didn't know if the character would be continuing until it happened) he's travelling with the party for the time being, until I get sick of the sight of him.

He came about in the planning stages after a half-hour's brainstorming based on the question: "If Echo got married, who would it be to?" (His name came much, much later, and my campaign notebook still bears a page halfway through the planning of the letters the party woke up with that simply reads "husband = PARAGON"). Echo's own backstory arc about realising the evil uses she was being put to and regaining some kind of moral core led to the decision to make Paragon so morally simplistic - in the worlds of shades of grey, Paragon's outlook is refreshingly black and white. I figured past-Echo would be attracted to someone who always effortlessly knew what "good" was in any situation.

I wanted, after seeing Troy and viewing the designs of the player characters, to make this first important NPC very Greek Hero-like, hence his style of dress. The rest of him came from a conscious effort to fit him, jigsaw-like, to Echo - He's big and friendly where she's small and suspicious, she's a martial artist where he is superhumanly strong and bounces catapult-rocks off his chest, he's emotionally receptive but has trouble putting it into words while she's disciplined and controlled but very well read. Echo at one point says, despairingly, that she has nothing in common with Paragon - that would be the point. There are two types of relationships - the one where the two partners cover one another's weak points and rely on one another, and the one where the two partners think and look alike most of the time. I've seen both work out-of-character (revealing maybe a little too much about myself, me and my own SO are very much the first type), but the first variety is where Paragon and Past-Echo were coming from. I also wanted to subvert expectation - I have somethng of a reputation for screwing players over relationship-wise, so I designed Paragon under the basic design assumption that HE was too good for HER: Paragon is still in love with Echo, never left her of his own volition and has never treated her with anything less than total love and devotion. The break-up of their marraige is entirely down to her.

In the end, I have lucked out immensely with my decision to make Paragon a little... slow. I didn't want to initially, but went with it anyway. Combat (in which the character is over-specialised to the point of breaking the game system) is remarkably unimportant in my campaigns, and having the character be notably less bright in terms of his raw IQ and vocabulary than the rest of the party has helped me to avoid falling into the Pet NPC trap (which, as a character designed to be the perfect man - hence the name - for reasons of irony when viewed next to the character party, he was in danger of becoming) - Paragon gets what's going on AFTER the player characters do, not before, usually needs things explaining to him and avoids "party leader" at all costs after having proven that he's no good at such things back on Waterwall. The instant he becomes more important than the PCs is the moment Strabo catches up with them and killxors him while they get away. It'll be very dramatic. I may cry. :D

In the last two sessions, I've been concentrating on Paragon's place in the greater party rather than his relationship with Echo (which at present is not only dead, it's been cremated and scattered to the nine winds) - I have discovered that he works well with Mirage (they make a really good team, and Mirage can get him moving when he's fallen prey to his Fault) and Fathom (with whom he shares a certain viking-ness), moderately well with Talisman (who runs rings round him - and I think Renaud enjoys having someone for Talisman to take the piss out of good-naturedly) and not so well with Valour (who is his polar opposite, and whom Paragon still has issues with from the backstory). It's still a work in progress.

I think the best flashbacks for seeing how Paragon acts in play are the one of Talisman's that's set in a bar with Valour, Paragon and Soul, Echo's last one to date and the one of Echo's that depicts their first meeting on Visage.

Earth 6 (Untiring)
Fire 5 (Feats of strength)
Air 2 (Pre-preparing Speeches)
Water 5 (Good sense of hearing)

Powers 3

Sense of Direction 0 - Paragon always knows which way "North", or the equivalent, is, and can orient himself back to the gate he entered a world by.

Tactile Telekinesis 3 (Twice Major, Frequent) - Paragon's vaunted invunerability is actually a form of telekineses - he holds whatever he's affecting into it's proper shape by force of will - that is limited in range to himself, or anything he's touching. As an unfortunate side effect, any living person he holds in stasis other than himself can't breath, so it's a very short-term benefit unless they have a high Earth already. The UP side is that, because he's telekinetically controlling himself or anything he picks up, he and items he so empowers become weightless and intertialess. The end result is that Paragon fights like a Marvel superhero - bounding around the landscape, taking improbable blows without blinking and ripping up large chunks of the scenary to use as improvised weapons. The downside is that his power is only active when he consciously uses it (meaning he can be taken by surprise), and magical attacks, spells and so forth go through it. In game terms, his power score is added to his Fire and Earth when it's active, which makes him less tough than Fathom before using it and appropriately unstoppable after. His Fire stat has been carefully figured out so that he's evenly matched to Echo when his power is active and she's not running two bodies.

Paragon's Virtue is the LION (THE BODY PREVAILS) - This one's a no-brainer.

Paragon's Fault is SOWING STONES (FRUITLESS LABOR) - Paragon's answer, when his problem cannot be solved by his physical prowess and he is unsure of what to do, is to do nothing and worry about it. Similarly, he is stubborn enough to continue with any cause of action he's decided to take even if he knows that it isn't working. See: THe rulership of Waterwall, his strategy regarding Echo, invading Entelechy and so forth.

Paragons' Fate is OVERLOOKING THE DIAMOND (FAILING TO SEE OPPERTUNITY / RECOGNISING OPPERTUNITY) - For reasons that can be inferred from the writeups if you are paying attention. It links into his Fault, as he has a tendancy to throw all of his power and attention into a fruitless cause, blind to other things he could be doing.

---

VIPER

There's one very important thing about Viper that doesn't come across in the writeups: his voice. When playing Viper, I use a voice like the Earl from the Fast Show or Jarvis from the Mary Whitehouse Experience ("me? In the lounge..? With the vollyball team..? With my reputation?") making him sound like a lounge lizard or an upper-class cad. He is also (rather understatedly, though Paragon makes a joke about the stereotype of Archers in their culture at one point, which was lost on all of the characters) gay. Which is what Rafe meant when he said Mirage turned herself into a bloke in order to sleep with Viper.

Viper was the one of Paragon's sidekick characters that made the grade to be used in the actual up-time campaign (Golden, Sky, Muzzle and Shade were the others, all created to be Echo's friends in the visions of her time apart from the party), because he was the most Fun of the Waterwall gang and the Paragon-Echo show had the potential to become extremely overwraught very quickly. He did his job, and survived to become the new ruler of Waterwall.

I just like Bullseye-type characters (one of the bad guys in the first campaign had an idential power to Viper's) - I think they're cool. Viper's apparantly aren't inherent, though, and come from his magical tattoo of a snake. This linked in to the mysterious snake tattoos a few of the characters woke up with, I improvised the "fact" that they had been tattooed by him in order to grant them a temporary single use of the same power. To date, none of them have used it.

Earth 4 (Drinking)
Fire 5 (Archery)
Air 4 (Laconic wit)
Water 5 (Sense romance between other people)

Powers 2

Piercing Gaze 0 - Viper always sees clearly though smoke, fog, heat haze, etc. Though he can't see in the dark.

Crackshot 2 (Frequent, Major) - Viper can't miss with a thrown or fired missile. He won't neccesarily damage what he hits, depending on it's Earth score, but he WILL always hit no matter what environmental conditions, distance, cover (missiles will rebound and ricochet if neccesary), etc apply.

Viper's Virtue is THE SOLDIER (DUTY) - His saving grace is the loyalty he has towards his friends, the world he has been left in stewardship of, and the great war to come.

Viper's Fault is THE UNICORN (TEMPTATION) - Viper is easily led astray, and he often does things on the spur of the moment that he has already promised not to do because he is momentarily swayed - he reveals secrets because he feels sorry for someone, for example.

Viper's Fate is WAR (GREAT EFFORT / EFFORT MISSPENT) - Viper is in the position of leading both Waterwall and Entelechy agaist the Taint in a vast war, that - if the character party do their bit - could hold off Gaunt long enough for the party to remove the Taint as a threat. If the party don't manage to do their part, however, Viper's efforts wil end up dooming all of the worlds under his protection.

---

FERN

Last of my statted NPCs, Fern is the semi-antagonist character that fulfills the deeply necessary (for this genre, anyway) position of "Evil Mastermind's Beautiful Yet Wicked Daughter Who Will Be Swayed To The Side Of Good At First Sight Of The Hero's Rugged Chin". Because I'm all about the classics, me.

In actual fact, it's a little more complicated that that, thanks to the absence of rugged chins among the character party belonging to people who didn't try to kill her on first sight.

Yes, Chris - caus I know you'll read this - Fern was intended to be Valour's love interest. Har har. You're not getting another one. :D That's why her introduction was pinned to the political machinations, why she's a similarly supernaturally-gifted diplomat (though she cheats in a different way) and is the party's "political" adversary-cum-rival rather than a physical threat.

Well, anyway. Before I ressurected her from the heap of discarded ideas to be Valour's rival, Fern was going to be Andrea's player character. That's why Gaunt is the villain of this campaign - I thought someone would be playing his daughter while I was in the planning stages. Most inconvinienced I was, when Andrea changed her mind. Still, I AM glad that Andrea was more perceptive than I - not only is Fern not as deep a character as Fathom (she's a good NPC, but I think she'd have been unsatisfactory as a player character), but her story arc is / would have been essentially the same as Echo's with gaunt instead of the Emperor. I'm all for parallels between PCs, but that would have been taking it too far.

Oh yeah. She survived Echo's attempt to kill her. This will be important later.

Earth 5 (resist toxin)
Fire 3 (climbing)
Air 4 (Healing)
Water 6 (Sensing Tainted)

Powers

Talk to plants 0 - Fern can speak to plants, though they very rarely have anything to say.

Charming Voice 2 (frequent, Major) Fern affects the emotions of people she talks to for any length (it can be resisted with Water or Air versus her Water), subtly influencing them to trust, like or (in particularly weak-minded cases) love her.

Root 1 (Frequent) Fern can increase her healing rate tenfold by taking root (literally - her feet turn into plant roots and fix her in place) into soil. She goes into semi-hibernation when healing, but remains aware of her surroundings and can break out of it.

Link with Plant 2 (frequent, Major) Fern can meld into living plants (or wooden objects) and cause them to grow and shape rapidly to her direction - by melding into a tree, for example, she can cause it to rapidly grip something in branches that grow fast enough to outpace a walking man.

Fern's Virtue is FERTILITY (GROWTH) - Fern is half-Dryad, a peacemaker and healer that represents gaunt's lost quality of Mercy and the good side of nature.

Fern's Fault is THE SMITH (EVIL EFFORT) - No matter how she may justify it, Fern's talents are in the service of evil. Those she saves by preaching peace doom those that they could have saved by acting. Every good she does is to allow her father to do evil elsewhere.

Fern's Fate is THE COCKATRICE (CORRUPTION / RECOVERY) - Fern can allow herself to become slowly corrupted by the Taint, mentally if not physically, or she can break free of Gaunt and heal the damage he is doing to the web of life across the Spheres.

Small Stoat

12-28-2004, 03:18 PM

Hi

Hmm, time for my reply I guess

this may seem rather convoluted as I can't remember the order things occured to me in the thread, but there are few points i want to reply to.

Ok, Paragon. there are two things going on there that it doesn't seem like you (Dave) are aware of. firstly, the way Echo (and Emma to be honest) sees it is that Paragon is avoiding her. He seems happy enought to talk to everyone else in the party but hasn't spoken to echo since they all left together. Echo desperately wants to speak to him, but isn't sure how to approach him (although I have a plan to do something about this). however, this links into a second more oc problem, in that I worry about hogging the GMs time for a romance plotline which can sometimes be time-consuming and bore the other players, which is why Echo has been waiting for Paragon to approach her, or make some move of interest, or at least speak to her, which he hasn't. Echo has made up mind to approach Paragon, but this does still leave the problem of the gm time thing, advice is welcome.

Echo's struggle with her personality is getting on my nerves so it shouldn't be as much of an issue in the next season, especially since as Dave has fortunately said Echo should get a bit of a plot respite for the next few sessions which will allow her to sort out her feelings. however, she has hit one great stumbling block. Echo has never been expected to make decisions in her life, and for the first time in her life she is expected to, and no-one is easing her in gently, with simple decisions, they are all expecting her to make major life altering decisions. since she doesn't have a clue where to start, she is looking for advice. the problem is that every time she seeks advice on what to do, the advice always ends up being contradictory, leaving her more confused. Talisman says "Live and maybe be my friend again." This seems good advice, but then she remembers that she assasinated for Talisman for friendship, presumably agreeing with and following his moral code. Fathom has said killing people is bad. Then Talisman tried to stop her killing Fern, a person who could be a direct hindrance to the party. So now she is left with the feeling that killing is only ok if Talisman doesn't like them, which certainly seems worse than killing them for the sake of the wider mission. Echo is confused. She didn't want to dissappoint Fathom but has no idea how to live up to all the entirely different and contradictory expectations of the character party, and thus is managing none of them. I do have some ideas how to deal with this thankfully, and I do intend to grovel apologetically at several of the characters. it could be taken as a plus that Echo has grown enough as a person to reveal some her true thoughts. REally however one of the things that bothers her most about this whole thing is the loss of self-control it seems to be leading to. Her fight to retain her self-control is ongoing: currently she is losing.

Different Thing: One random note is that my o point power is much more powerful than I ever knew. The reason I don't really use it much is that I thought I could only throw my voice, rather than any sound I can make. but hey, cool.

One theme that I would like Dave to explore is the nature of a soul. Echo went through a big thing at the start of the campaign where she denied that her and her earlier self were the same person as she was so horrified at the things her previous self had done, and she felt that the characters preferred her earlier self. However, as time passed she could not avoid the memories, the feelings or the responses they evoked in her, and was forced to accept that it was her, and they were all the same person.

Echo is clinging to something she remembers in one of her visions (Echo 5)
"I think, and I have thought about this a lot, that we can only be who we are now. "

One misconception that Dave seems under is that beating up all her previous selves on Waterwall was therapeutic. In fact it was the most terrifying experience of her life as she saw herself mad, feral, animalistic, stupid, as if she had lost all her culture, her upbringing, the rigid discipline she sees as being at the core of her soul, and it terrified her that she could become this just by Echoing. It may have slipped Dave's notice, but the only reason Echo was hit in the food fight and so got involved was she was too scared to Echo out of the way. Ultimately she enjoyed enjoyed the fight and was glad she got involved, and like the rest of the characters she found it therapeutic. Echo is now far more terrified of mirrors than she ever was before, and it is unlikely she would ever manifest the mirror spying power of her earlier self.

However, it did raise the question of what her soul consisted of. Echo insisted that she was the same person as her earlier self, but on Far Window she was the only person on record to be allowed a second vision. Was this because she
a) asked to see the same thing again,
b) she didn't remember it so it didn't count,
or c) (the one Echo is afraid of) she actually is a different person to the one before with a different soul, and Paragon will never like her, and none of the good things she learned in the last five years mattered. What is in her Soul? Who judges us on Far Window and True mirror, and what criteria do they judge by? I think it would be really cool to explore this in the next term, and I think it could be equaly valid for a lot of the other characters - Talisman and his 3-part soul, Valour and the Host, certainly Soul. (who incidentally, other random thing, when reading Soul's post, when did his name change, and did I just fail to notice? It used to be the Balancing Innocence of the Glrious Soul, and now involves Sacrifice!)

Random thoughts on the character party...
Talisman - she desperately yearns for the friendship they shared but is keenly aware she isn't the same person and has no idea how to reinstate their friendship since she deosn't really know on what it was based, and knows it took years to achieve. Again, I have some plans about this. she is also worried that his life is going no-where, and wishes she could help him do something about that. She sees him as the friend out of her visions, although she doesn't trust him. Yet.

Fathom - She is losing respect for Fathom. One of the earliest things Fathom said to her was that on her world Fathom had to prove she could rule. If she can't lead six people, who on earth put her in charge of a sphere? If birth is not a reason for respect, then certainly almost nothing Fathom has done recently has earned it. she seemed nice initially but lately seems to have not cared about the mission at all, and Echo doesn't understand that. To Echo she seems too caught up in _not_ being the leader, rather than in just getting on with wahtever.

Valour - Echo respects Valour, and more-or-less understands him. Oddly enough she also feels that of everyone, Valour understands her more than most. she looks to him for guidance because he is one of the only characters not to have forced his opinion of her life on her, but will occasionally tell her what to do to help acheive the mission, which helps her feel like there is still a point to her being there. Also he got brutally stabbed trying to help her in the mirror incident, and helped her unquestioningly, for which she is grateful.

soul - In Soul Echo sees all the opportunities of her lost childhood, and intends to capitalise on them. Echo is sick of feeling like she is not in control of her life, and is going to do something about it soon. She finds Soul an entertaining distraction from life, and is less bothered than everyone else by his behaviour, be it good, bad or just plain immature.

Mirage - Echo really likes Mirage. She doesn't see her as someone who copies other people's behaviour. in fact for Echo one of the proudest moments of her (new) life was talking to mirage about Mirages fear that she has no defining personality. Echo feels Mirage thinks too much. To her, Mirage is simply easily influenced and that _is_ a defining feature of her personaility. it pleased her to be able to give mirage something solid to focus on in her life. Mirage has thought about it so much she's just forgotten who she is, although it seems clear enough to Echo. She is already starting to view her as a big sister, although not necessarily one she would take advice from. After all, it is somewhat changeable advice.

Paragon: Echo described him to Mirage as someone she could fall in love with so easily all over again. he is everything she has dreamed about from her books made flesh, perfect in every way. If only he would talk to her, make a move on her, something, anything to help her get to know him, and vice versa. She's even getting desperate enough to consider making a complete idiot of herself to make a move on her own. If only she knew how.

Okay, enough rambling. I figure I post so little you can cope with a really long rambly rant. hope it is helpful to the Gm, and has not made me/Echo look a complete idiot to all the people who don't know me.

hugs
Emma

Ps excuse the lack of capitals and naff spelling. I'm a lazy typist. cope :)

Small Stoat

12-28-2004, 03:21 PM

also, with regards to Fern as Valours love interest...

Isn't it even more dramatic if he intially tries to have her killed, but then falls for her, and in redeeming her is redeemed himself? That seems even more dramatic to me. I think the situation has many cool possibilities.

(aahhh, days off, heaven., although you're right Dave, they are not good for word length)

hugs

Rhyme

12-28-2004, 04:16 PM

Hello party people!

I wrote a long piece about Tal to fit in with the trend. But my connection blew before I could post it, and I just couldn't face writing it all again.
I am having some little difficulties with all of this though (ooc and ic) and I'd like to iron them out.

Talisman stopped Echo killing Fern because she was killing at Valour's behest after a long conversation about how she hated having done it in the past.

Oh-yeah! And Talisman was the one doing the friggin' work for getting Echo out of the mirror world and she in no way acknowledged that.

Talisman has told everybody everything, he just happens to have also lied.

Talisman does not work counter-purpose to Valour, he most often helps and supports him in every way he can. Valour is a hypocritical ingrate.

I'm all for well-founded distrust etc. but I resent people offsetting their little neuroses on the lad for lack of balls to call their own. Suck it up, soldiers!

That's my little angry penny's worth for now.

Kind Regards,

Rhyme

Rhyme

12-28-2004, 04:54 PM

Sorry people, there's only so much shit-headedness I can take.

There is not much more to say about the character of Talisman.
Dave has it pretty much all correct and the rest need not be told.
So I'm not going to tell it.

*Shudders* I feel kind of venomous today, can you tell?

In all seriousness, though; Tal is a multi-layered character with a
deeply philosophical root - based around what I believe a Dragon
must think about the world.

He does like and trust the rest of the party, possibly against
the better judgement of his previous self, who clearly had some
reservations. So here are his estimations as of last session:

Mirage seeks for an identity he doesn't feel she has lost.

Valour is a heart of gold buried deep in corprolites.

Fathom as the live pylon that they gaily dance around.

Soul is far more mature than he is credited for.

Echo seems to enjoy feeling victimised.

Paragon pretends to be dumb so no one asks him anything.

Fern has been afraid for so long she doesn't know how to stop.

Viper is a conniving bastard and got what he wanted.

Strabo won the game before we ever heard of the rules.

The Dragons are ever increasingly desperate for a way in.

The Gods are way out of their depth and know it.

The Unity is a terrifying can of worms we might be forced to eat.

Vagabond might well be Tal's only chance to work this out.

I think that's about as many as I can actually think of a thought for.
Sorry to any angry person, cheers to any happy person.
Dave, you're a friggin' genius.

Kind Regards (again),

Rhyme

DaveB

12-29-2004, 10:21 AM

Guys! Peace on earth and goodwill to all men!

This will all out in about a week and a half. Just remember - a character doesn't have to be a good person to be a good character. Or, put another way - people with flaws are more interesting.

Look at it this way, a party that never falls out over minor details like assassinating people is...

I'll start again.

This will be good for the game.

Can I get a hug?

Huh?

Huh?

:D

Ebonheart

12-29-2004, 12:20 PM

Indeed.

I take it there is no game on the 2nd then? Next session is the week after?

Chris

P.S. Dave (and everybody else - have a hug)

LuxVeritatis

12-29-2004, 01:28 PM

Oh-yeah! And Talisman was the one doing the friggin' work for getting Echo out of the mirror world

If that's *Talisman's* opinion, fair enough.

If it's Renaud's...

<shake head>

Uh huh. Whatever. I could argue but I won't.

LuxVeritatis

12-29-2004, 01:30 PM

When a Dragon dies, it's Soul sends out a call to the nearest other Dragon, who is then compelled to go to it. When the deceased Soul comes into contact with a live one, a special Everway Gate is opened to the Dragon's Graveyard. The "undertaking" Dragon takes the greatest item from the deceased's hord, one item from their own and travels through the gateway. Once at the graveyard, the Soul of the deceased is added to the huge pyramid constructed entirely out of Dragon Souls, and the items are placed in proper arrangement into the racial hord. The undertaker then takes one item FROM the racial hord, and is transported back to where they were. The body of the decased, if it hadn't rotted already, vanishes when the Soul is taken from the sphere. The pile of Souls waits patiently for the multiverse to collapse back into itself and reform the Pure World, where they will be reborn anew.

Hmmm. If Talisman actually knows this, he now knows everything necessary to fgure out how to get the Sword of Vanguard.

DaveB

12-29-2004, 01:59 PM

Yeah, he knows that. Tharissma told him.

Now go kill a Dragon.

;)

---

And, I reckon that was Tal's egocentric view of the world.

LuxVeritatis

12-29-2004, 03:31 PM

Mirage

Would you like my mask?
would you like my mirror?
cries the man in the shadowing hood
You can look at yourself
you can look at each other
or you can look at the face, the face of your god
----Loreena McKennit - Marrakesh Night Market

Well... it seems a good introspective ramble is all the rage at the moment. Here goes!

(I'm tired but on a caffeine rampage. This may wander a bit. Edit: After a writing a little bit, I can see that I meant 'wander a *lot*'.)

Mirage is really defined by three things: the desire to please those she cares about, her adaptability and a strong sense of curiosity.

I envision Mirage's parents has both being very strong personalities, and Mirage as being the eldest child. Her father probably wanted a son. Mirage's need/ability to be two different people to please those around her began very early.

Mirage is is no way a leader. She is the archetypal follower in some ways. She needs someone to define herself against. She could lead - in a set circumstance - against a defining opponent. But not as a core trait.

Did I ever mention that Mirage is afraid of the dark? Not badly, but... I think Valour knows. Not sure the GM does - don't think it's come up really. What does the mirror reflect when there's no light? This is when she feels most uncertain about who she is. This may be why she likes spending the night with someone.

Mirage's original aim in shifting to so many things/people/lives was to find out more about who she was. By seeing what it is to be Other, one learns what is is to Be. It was only many years later, that she realised that on the way she had, to a degree, lost who she was to begin with - that the act of observation had changed the observer.

Mirage's concept, like so many, has wandered since the beginning of the campaign. She is less mystical than I first intended, and really, I called her Virtue and Flaw wrong. The Fate is right, but her Virtue/Flaw should be more than a restatement of it, because her strongest/weakest points are actually aspects of something else, not two oppposed results. They should really be:
Virtue: DEATH (Change)
Flaw: THE FISH Reversed (Shallowness)
It should be fairly clear why.

Mirage's search for self-identity has perhaps been misstated. Mirage doesn't want to be one person. She wants a reference point, to change around. Because without that, she cannot relate together what she learns properly - and she's afraid that one day she might lose herself totally in her different lives - forget that she *can* change. Part of the reason that this scares her is that it's happened already. When an animal form's instincts have taken over her mind to the point that she's forgotten she was human until something snapped her out of it.

Opinions! (Yay! The fun bit!)

Soul: Let's see. Mirage is the oldest person in the party - with the possible exception of Soul. Mirage looks and acts the youngest - with the definite exception of Soul. Phoenixes die and are reborn, while remaining themselves, Mirage lives a thousand lives while remaining (sort of) herself. I wonder why they get on? Mirage has Soul fairly firmly filed as 'little brother' with job opportunities for 'accomplice' and 'friend'.

Talisman: Mirage has acquired a fairly good idea of why she had a relationship with Talisman in the past - both times - and why it didn't work - either time. She has no intention of doing it again. The only level she can relate to him on like that is his shallow level - and that's bad for her, and unfair to him. Talisman may well be multi-layered like an onion - but when you peel away all of an onion's layers, what's left? Nothing. Which layer was the onion? None of them.

Fathom: Um. Mirage recognises that she probably needs to talk to Fathom more. She doesn't really understand her... and would like to. She thinks they could probably get on famously. Then again, Mirage can get on famously with just about anyone.

Echo: Mirage likes Echo and cares about her. Seeing Echo so unhappy upsets her.
And she sympathises with the uncertainty about who one should be. But at the same time she, who changes so often, has trouble understanding why Echo has such trouble changing, or even deciding if she wants to. MIrage can't decide who to be. Echo can't decide whether she should be.

Valour: Mirage does like Valour. But she doesn't like his decision to 'give in to the metal'. She thinks it *will* do to him what he thought it would, and she thinks it will be a change for the worse. And she will miss him the way he was. As to why she has, as Valour observed, been a bit distant lately towards him - firstly, one or two of his snipey comments, directed at other people, kind of 'went across her bows'. Secondly, she feels that he has become more distant, or is expecting him to... and is mirroring it - as she does so much else.

Paragon: Mirage really likes Paragon. She's been him for a while, and he's so... perfectly himself.

The Taint: Mirage probably has the best idea of the Taint - she's the only one in the Party that it's touched. She has a very clear idea of it's danger. And it's terrible temptation. And she also knows how much she has in common with it already. And can I just comment that it's a bitch being a pure melee fighter, against an opponent that consumes you if it touches you?

Strabo: Mirage wasn't being fatalistic when she expressed the opinion that Strabo was going to catch them anyway. It's just that Strabo has nothing to do but follow. They do not have the luxury of doing nothing but get away. And he has access to modes of travel that they do not. To Mirage it seems obvious, Strabo *is* going to catch them, short of someone *else* intervening. The only sensible response is to do what needs to be done, as if he wasn't following - then deal with him when he does. She is also quite certain that they *can* deal with him.

Right. That's about it. Yay!

Later.

LuxVeritatis

12-29-2004, 03:34 PM

Yeah, he knows that. Tharissma told him.

Now go kill a Dragon.

;)

Well, if we can offer a *different* Dragon something it wants more than anything in the Graveyard, we could always kill Talisman. ;)

Besides. I reckon we're going to have to nobble Strabo at some point, so... two birds with one stone? UNfortunately my best plan for doing so soul-kills him thus negating the Dragon's Graveyard bit. Oh well.

DaveB

01-03-2005, 11:04 AM

Last post in my “Christmas / New Year idleness” series, as the holiday draws to a close.

EDIT: Well, okay, last TWO posts. It's too long for the forum.

THE BACKSTORY

“Live your own life. Don’t let what you see in visions live it for you.” – Past Talisman to Past Echo, T14

Okay, then. First things first.

For the benefit of any brave soul doing cut n paste into word (hey - it should only take half an hour or so) the flashbacks so far assemble in the following order;

V4, V11, F11, M11, E6, E11, T11, V15, F2, M1, M5, F1, T15, E1, F7, F8, V9, M10, E12, V1, T4, F16, F9, V10, E13, T1, T5, E3, F3, F14, T2, T7, T8, V12, T3, E14, M12, T12, V14, E16, T16, F13, E5, M4, V16, M7, M8, T14, F6, M14, M15, T13, E9, E2, V5, V6, V13, V3, T6, V1, T9, E10, T10, F12, E4, E15, E7, E8, M13, M3, M9, M6, F10, F5, F15, M16, V7, V8, M2, F4

Maestro, I should like a drumroll right about now...

Putting all of this together, then.

PART ONE – EARLY ROADS

Whenever I say “you look as you did at the beginning”, or the relationships between party members seem undeveloped, without the weight of friendship and experience, it’s generally a sign that it comes sometime in this stage

The party leave Endless. The Everway between Endless and the next world is far as their fully functional memories go.

That next world is called Service, and is inhabited. Talisman makes a bet with innkeeper named Barrow, owner of the hundredweight inn in the city of The Hollow, that they will return victorious one day. Talisman and Mirage are fast friends right from the offset. Talisman woke up with the wager still in his pocket. Service has to be the first world they went to because Echo says that Arena is the fifth in E8, Arena is said in E11 to take place AFTER Velvet Sky (the first time around) and we know that Iceberg, Bounty and Velvet Sky take place in that order. So the first five worlds are Endless->Service->Iceberg->Bounty->Velvet Sky->Arena

The next Sphere is Iceberg, upon which Valour negotiates for the party’s safe passage to the sphere of Bounty. V4, which turns out to be a double-edged sword. A ruler on Bounty is “Selling his own people out” and won’t allow the party to go any further, so Valour orders Echo to assassinate him, pre-empting Mirage and Talisman’s attempts to find a peaceful solution. The gang move on – bitterly recriminating among themselves – to Velvet Sky, where they argue late into the night and finally – at Valour’s insistence – hold elections for a party leader to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again. Fathom and Mirage both try to rig the vote, accidentally causing Fathom to be elected in the process. By this time, Mirage has fallen in love with Talisman, reacting as is her nature against his “outermost” façade. V11, F11 and M11 show this first visit to Velvet Sky. Note the parallel between the current situation, where as soon as present-Fathom abdicates from her position valour and Echo do the exact same thing that provoked the leadership crisis in the backplot. F11 states Fathom’s opinion that Mirage has fallen for Talisman, as shown throughout the flashbacks but explicitly stated in M16 and M5

The sphere after Velvet Sky according to E11 is Arena, in which the party find themselves in dire need of funds. One of the male members of the party – it’s not yet known which one – has the bright idea of Echo fighting in the arena and despite Mirage’s protests she complies, becoming a champion in the process and making the party very rich indeed. The incident – in which Echo imagines the Gladiators to have the faces of her persecutors, including the party themselves and the Emperor – will later be remembered by Echo as the point at which she began to rebel from her “place”, in thought if not in deed. The pride the party has in her after her victory, which she compares to that of her handlers whenever she returned from a successful mission, is the catalyst for her thinking. E6. Echo remembers the fight in E11, and talks about it in E8

After an unknown number of spheres, they learn that a sphere on their route – called Open Soul – allows all who walk upon it access to one another’s thoughts. All but Echo flatly refuse to go there, so they turn to a different route that – two spheres after a sphere called Darkness – arrives right back at Velvet Sky. Extremely demoralised, the party fall to sniping before Fathom kicks sense into Talisman and Valour. Valour starts to replan their route to avoid the fruitless way they just went, and Talisman is ordered to go off after Echo, who has fled the camp in the throws of an epiphany – the party was wrong to avoid Open Soul, and their opinion is worth no more than hers. Their ensuing talk will be the start of their long, deep friendship, though it’s not an instant thing. E11, T11, V15 – Valour replans the route to be Velvet Sky->Undertown->Glorygrave->Drift. The Echo-Talisman chat is inferred from their card game afterwards in Valour’s vision and Talisman’s low amount of giving a crap from his own vision set beforehand.

Undertown, as it turns out, is an underground cavern-city being menaced by a creature that creeps up from the lower levels to steal children. The party kill it, and are lauded as great heroes. A statue is made in their honour, and the natives throw them a banquet. F2. Undertown is stated as being the world after Velvet Sky in V15. F2 shows the banquet – and shows Talisman trying to get Echo to talk to the others after their chat on Velvet Sky, which Fathom interprets as him bullying the girl. When Talisman saw Vagabond by using the Far Window, Vagabond and Sparrow had reached Undertown and were questioning the natives about the statue.

The party pass through several more worlds according to V15, at least Glorygrave and Drift before eventually ending up at the world of Love’s Retort. While there, Talisman is influenced by the sphere to fall in love with Mirage, as the sphere has the horrible trait of making all attraction mutual. Talisman second guesses himself and believes the feelings to be coming from himself. The next world on the journey is Maw, controlled by the usurper force of consumption. Talisman and Mirage resolve to be “friends”, but the constant questioning of the others – especially Valour – makes her angrily confront Talisman about why he’ll go with any female they find on the route but won’t be with her. During this altercation, she splits his lip and creates the scar that he has in the present. He explains his own logic, and they agree – again – to leave it be. Fathom is finding her leadership role to be increasingly hard. M1, M5 are both set on Maw. Note that Talisman’s long speech in M5 is probably the first time Mirage has seen the “I’m being used” layer of Talisman, but for all it’s emotion, he’s still wrong. She loved him, not the other way around. Talisman and Mirage can be seen “admiring” one another in the flashbacks set in the year and a bit following this, as they both remember the Retort and what it was like to love one another.

After an indeterminate time, the gang use a gate that exits high above the clouds on the next sphere. The desperate use of powers in concert saves their lives, and ushers in the next stage of the journey. F1 – the sphere in question is named Long Fall by the gang.

PART TWO – THE THOUSAND AND ONE SANDS

The party go through a big multi-sphere empire that is Arabian-Nights themed. It’s called the Thousand Sands in Echo’s letter to herself and the 1001 Sands in T15. Technically, Ancient Empire is part of this section, as it’s after Long Fall, but it’s Asian themed as said in E16

Some time after Long Fall, the party find themselves on a world called Ancient Empire, which is similar to Wall in appearance. Echo falls in love with a man called Blade, who Valour thinks is in the party’s way. Valour tells Echo to kill him, she refuses and breaks Valour’s nose before settling the matter peacefully and redeeming herself for Bounty. Blade gives her the Katana that she still uses, and the terms of their parting are not yet known. No visions are set on Ancient Empire so far, but we can piece this together from T15, Echo’s letter to herself, the appearance of the Katana in visions set after this, E16 and E1

After a world called Silk Road (which may or may not connect to Ancient Empire), the gang have a long journey across a world called Veil before they arrive at the palace of these spheres’ ruler. Fathom’s distress at being on a desert world makes Mirage her deputy, and she shares the position with Talisman. T15 – Echo’s romance is recent enough for Mirage to be worried about it.

After Veil comes Sands, a journey which takes even longer (and hurts Fathom even more)The sphere after that is the City of Delights, a fantastic metropolis in which the party gratefully rest. Valour and Talisman discover that there is a colony of spherewalkers from their own home regions nearby, but that the next sphere in order to get there is The Burning Lands, another level of nasty desert journey above and beyond their previous trials. Fathom judges herself - or is judged by the others - to be incapable of making the trip. The group consensus is that after the colony, the gang will head to the world of Shellport, which Fathom will get to by another – wetter – route. E1. Fathom’s side trip is shown in the next few visions.

Fathom arrives on the world of Wondersea, or Sea of Wonders (the sphere is called both at different points), where on the advice of his wife a sailor named Wind Waker agrees to take her on the long and difficult journey across his archipeglio-world to the gate to Deep Green. After many adventures, they get there. Waker’s Catamaran is damaged on Deep Green, but they are entertained by the natives and Fathom receives several offers of marriage, becoming good friends with Deep Green’s ruler before she and Waker move on to Shellport to meet the others. F7 and F8 are set on Sea of Wonders. Fathom’s time on Deep Green is talked about in M10, and referenced in V1 in the context of Fathom having the chance to have a relationship and turning it down

The others, meanwhile, have journeyed through the Burning Lands, through a world called Effigy – on which a Golem develops a crush on Mirage - and onto Wanderlost, where they have met the refugees. Echo meets people from Wall and – seeing how free they are away from the Emperor – decides that she will never complete the return journey, vowing to find a world upon which she too can settle peacefully along the party’s route. Valour learns about the Endless Stair and deduces that it is their route, and the party complete their journey to Shellport The progression of Spheres is stated in E1 – though how they get from Wanderlost to Shellport isn’t. Valour’s revelation is stated in V1 and M10.

On Shellport, the gang meet back up again. Fathom’s position has been irrevocably damaged by her time away – for a while, she does not seem part of the group any more, and it’s an odd transition period, though on the whole the gang is glad to have her back – especially Mirage. Echo decides that she will write a book, no longer finding the manuals of proper warfare she brought with her satisfactory. From Shellport, the group go through Deep Green – again, in Fathom’s case – and onto Endless Stair, which they climb and pass out of the 1001 Sands. V9, M10, E12, V1 – Fathom’s return is in V9, what happened is in M10, Echo’s decision and the perception of Fathom having lost her authority is in E12 and Endless Stair itself is in V1

PART THREE – THE ONCOMING STORM

Short bit, this, in which the Dragon and Pheonix plots “start”

An unknown length of time later, the gang are on a Sphere dominated by a stormy ocean and sea cliffs, in which a sea dragon dwells. Talisman goes to meet the sea dragon, and learns much about himself as well as about the trip – He finds out what a Manhatched is, and has his worldview shaken. The dragon tells him about the appearance of Shift in this part of the sphere network, and the gang decide to go see it. T4, F16

Hiking through the arctic wasteland of White Plain, the gang reach the newly formed gate to Shift. During their stay on that world, Mirage faces the offer of staying and turns it down. The gang then move on to the world of Fire Plume. White plain and Shift aren’t seen in flashbacks so far – White Plain is discussed in F16, and Mirage’s choice on Shift in V1

On Fire Plume, the gang discover that the Lady has a mission for them – they are to escort a Pheonix inhabiting a boy named The Balancing Innocence of the Glorious Soul to the sphere of Cathedral, where they will be given further instructions. Finding out that Soul was made by the ritual sacrifice of a human boy at the hands of his own mother, the gang are horrified. Fathom makes the decision to take Soul into the party, and Valour delivers her verdict to the mother – that when karma punishes her for the murder, the party will do nothing to help. Fathom, though, is incensed above and beyond this – her grudge extends all the way to The Lady herself. Talisman vocally disagrees with the notion of welcoming Soul into the group. F9, V10. This is referred back to in F13

A short while later, on an odd “photo-negative” world, Talisman asks Echo to spy on the child – now nicknamed Soul – for him. E13 – Talisman and Echo have grown comfortable with one another after Fathom’s long absence in the 1001 Sands.

PART FOUR – ANNUS HORRIBILIS

As Talisman says in T2: “It’s been a bleedin’ impossible year”. Soul joining the group kicks off a long journey in which the gang are harried and attacked at every turn, culminating in Cathedral when Fathom challenges The Lady. About two-thirds of the way through this, Talisman and Echo decide on their mysterious master plan after meeting Volvagia on Wyrmthrone. About one-third of the way through, Valour is attacked by a spirit and infected by The Host. This part of the journey is typified by rather vague progressions of spheres – it’s not always clear where there are intervening spheres, and where the events run into one another

The gang make the acquaintance of a sea-captain named Spear, and he agrees to ferry them across his ocean world. Talisman makes Fathom aware that – though he won’t object any more to Soul being in the party – he reserves the right to tell her “I told you so”. Spear helps them escape from a mysterious group of enemies by taking them through a sphere ominously called The Tempest. While they would have just gone straight to a sphere called Steamspring from Spear’s world, they instead face a long way round. T1, T5 – This is clearly recently after Soul joins the group, long enough for Talisman to have grown tired of harping on about it, but recently enough that he IS still harping on about it. The gang have a piece of parchment signed by Spear in their stuff when they wake up. The details of the spheres on their route are all from T5

The world they wind up on after Tempest is Nornhall, on which the ruling “Norns” hire the party to kill a monster preying upon them. Discovering that the monster is in fact in the right, and that the Norns are evil, the party turn on their hosts. Nornhall as the world after Tempest is stated in T5 by Spear. The story of what happened is told by Valour and Talisman to Paragon in T6

After Nornhall, the party journey through Iron Hills and Sea of Souls before belatedly reaching Steamspring As stated by Spear in T5. Nothing else has been said about either of these Spheres

An unknown number of Everways later, the gang are on the world of Glen of Tomorrow, which shows people hazy glimpses of their future. Echo sees herself in what to the purposes of this thread is the present, and is distraught. Valour sees a vision of the vision he will have on True Mirror as a member of the Host, and is similarly distraught. Mirage manages to stop herself from looking, though Fathom has a momentary flash-forward to herself being tortured on Entelechy. Talisman sees “his purpose”, and Soul refuses to say what he saw. E3 – though they don’t know what the visions are of at the time. The experience will stay with both Valour and Echo, the latter of whom in particular lays plans against such an eventuality. Talisman’s own untold vision here is another step on the way to pushing him to hatch plans of his own.

Shortly after Glen of Tommorow, the gang are on another forest world when they are attacked by a Unicorn which is enraged by Soul – the Unicorn sees him as impure. Though they somehow defeat it, Talisman is speared by the Unicorn’s horn. F3 – the Vision actually cuts out at the Unicorn charging, though the visions chronologically next all show Talisman’s injury

Shortly after THAT, on a world called Sky’s Fury, the gang, who have heard from the natives of a mysterious healer that the natives are afraid of, are sheltering in a cave when the are attacked by a Resolver – a spirit that has been summoned to attack them by some unknown enemy. Valour is hit by the Resolver’s attack and his bones turn into those of a bird, snapping under his own weight. Talisman and finds the healer – a mysterious being called the Chirugeon – who says he will help if Talisman can liberate his house and laboratory, which have been taken over by mysterious cloaked beings. Echo turns out to be following Talisman, and the two of them fight and win against the monsters – which, to our position as readers, are plainly Gaunt’s Peacekeepers. The Chirugeon fulfils his part of the bargain by implanting a living metal symbiote into Valour that mends and reinforces his bones. F14, T2, T7, T8, V12 in that order. The moving entry portal to the Host’s prison realm can be seen in T2 and T7 – the Peacekeepers were preventing the Chirugeon from getting back in.. This vision takes place after the Unicorn fight – Talisman and Mirage compare the Resolver to the Unicorn, and still has cracked ribs from the Unicorn’s horn. Sky’s Fury as the name of the sphere is according to Paragon.

Sometime after THAT, on a sphere called Coinheart, Talisman and Echo infiltrate an evil scheme running out of a gambling house on Fathom’s orders. After Talisman identifies the man behind it – and starts a bar brawl in the process from which Echo has to rescue him - Echo goes back and takes the mastermind out. T3, E14 – that the mission was at Fathom’s behest is in E16, and that they are the same world should be clear from both the description of the man in the fez and Talisman’s line about the brawl in E14. The trip to the Chirugeon has cemented Echo and Talisman as being the party’s “strike team”, and they go off on duo missions a great deal according to E14: Eventually, too much for the others’ comfort.

A shadowy and unknown period of time later, after an unknown number of worlds, the gang have found themselves on the volcanic world of Wingthrone. While on the world, but before they have met it’s Dragon ruler, Mirage attempts to find out if Talisman and Echo are sleeping together by impersonating Echo. When the day to meet the Dragon – Volvgaia, lord of Fire – comes, Valour takes the task of negotiating passage in order to try to balance matters after Echo and Talisman saved his life back on Sky’s Fury. What Talisman says to Volvagia isn’t clear, but it makes him decide to rebel against Strabo and form plans of his own, which he recruits Echo to based on their good working partnership. Volvagia then fishes for information on Talisman with Valour, who – he hopes – deflects the questions. M12, T12, V14 – V14 clearly takes place after T12, which references – “just checking you were you. It was an odd night” M12. Much of the detail on Volvagia isn’t actually from these three visions but is from discussions Talisman has had with Finder on Quarry, Tharissma, the Far Window, Birthright and from some of Soul’s visions. This is the start of Talisman and Echo’s plan – they’re carrying it out in the next chronological visions, and Talisman tells Mirage in M16 that it was “before Cathedral”. Wingthrone is the major event in his character arc in the right place.

A – you guessed it – unknown period of time later, on a world that resembles Wall in superficial terms, Talisman and Echo are carrying out their plan behind the others’ backs. Fathom tells them off for being so secretive, but doesn’t know what they’re actually doing. Echo half-considers staying here, but rejects it in favour of her continuing partnership with Talisman E16, T16 – The plan seems to involve some kind of amulet that Echo wears, at least at this early stage, and they’re very very careful not to leave any traces of them getting it.

The next sphere is Cathedral, home of the Gods, where Soul is told in private by The Lady and Julius what his mission is – to kill Gaunt by martyring himself. The group is told the rough direction of their journey, and Fathom threatens The Lady with retribution for whatever she’s doing to Soul.

According to evidence in later visions – especially those set around Entelechy – the party were attacked throughout this part of the journey by Tainted. We curiously haven’t actually seen any of these attacks in visions, though E5 – the first vision in part 5 - refers to “those creatures”

DaveB

01-03-2005, 11:16 AM

PART FIVE – A LITTLE SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING

This is the slew of Spheres running up to and down from True Mirror – the second half of which feature everyone being rather depressed.

Sometime later, Soul confesses that he is having nightmares about his true death to Echo. E5 – there is no way to place this in the vision, but I shall admit that it goes here

At some point – possibly on Cathedral – the gang hear about a world called True Mirror which shows the destiny of those who go there. Seeking insight into their quest, and noting that it’s on the route the Gods pointed them vaguely towards, they decide to head for it. Inferred from later visions. Going to True Mirror is repeatedly said to be the gang’s conscious choice, and they’re deliberately heading to it in the next chronological vision.

On a world called Titan River, a party of hunters from Vanguard help the party save Soul from being eaten by a Terrible Lizard. Whatever that is. Not actually seen, but referenced back to in both M4 and E9. A Terrible Lizard is a ray-harryhausen style Dinosaur, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex

The world after Titan River is Orrery, where the hunters split off from the party and head home to Vanguard by way of the “blessed country” of Renewal. The gang fail to heed the hunters’ advice and head straight into True Mirror despite it being night time on that sphere. M4. That the travel time between Orrery and True Mirror is known to allow people to avoid their night-selves is implied – the party beat themselves up about it so much that it has to be a mistake rather than an accident

On True Mirror, each party member sees first the worst possible version of themselves out of all the branching possibilities of their lives’ choices, and then – after the sun comes up – the best. Valour’s night-self is a full Host creature, Soul’s a Tainted. Echo’s is a version of herself that never left Wall. Soul’s day self is the boy that would have lived if The Lady hadn’t called for him to be sacrificed, Echo’s is a version of herself that had either settled down on a world and raised a family, or never been taken by the Emperor to be raised as an assassin and so had been living peacefully as a peasant on Wall. Mirage’s is herself if she had been captured as a child and had never become a changeling. Talisman’s night and day selves are identical – he is a full Dragon in both. V16 shows Valour’s night experience – this is what his vision was of in Glen of Tomorrow, incidentally. Mirage talks about her and Soul’s visions in M8, Echo and Talisman discuss theirs in T14. Echo’s day-self is ambiguous – either she had quit the mission or had never had the opportunity to go on it but was not in the Emperor’s service.

The world after True Mirror is Armada, a vast floating city of a thousand ships. Soul – horrified by True Mirror – runs away and is captured by a pirate gang, from which Mirage frees him. The entire party is emotionally drained after True Mirror, and tend to agree that it was a mistake to go there at night. M7, M8, T14. Explicitly right after True Mirror. It’s interesting to see the past-party react to having visions, something that the present-party can say they have more experience of for a change.

As they wander through the spheres, coming to terms with what they saw, the party – at Fathom’s insistence – start to stop and do good rather than press on more and more. One of these stop offs is to save a village from a troop of bandits. Fathom admits that it is purely to make them all feel better after True Mirror, but they save the village anyway. F6. Fathom upbraids Talisman about side-trips here, and calls him “son of Strabo”: she’s on to whatever he and Echo are doing, or at least suspects something.

Some unknown number of Spheres later, Mirage tracks down a man named Mask in the catacombs of some ruined structure, who she believes killed the son of friends of the party. It turns out that a Demon did it, and she and Mask join forces to kill it. M14, M15. Mask and the couple who’s son was killed are also seen in S16, which itself hints at which sphere this is.

Also somewhere around here, Talisman finds out what Soul’s mission is. He isn’t particularly pleased, and this seems to give him his final push towards his and Echo’s Plan T13 – the sphere isn’t stated, but it’s around here chronologically. The line about committing a worse evil is telling, especially if you look at M16

PART SIX – LOVE IS IN THE AIR

The party’s initial progress through the young Kingdoms is pretty well established – especially as they’ve retraced almost all of it now. As such, I’m not going to justify how they should know which sphere goes where. They can read it on a sodding map.

They appear in the Young Kingdoms, walking out of the wilderness on Earthroam. According to Paragon.

From Earthroam, they go to Visage, where Echo meets Paragon after he, or possibly she, or maybe both, is/are attacked by ninjas. As you do. At some point, Paragon – who is seeing the worlds – offers to show them the Young Kingdoms and they agree. The party all attend the court of Visage’s ruler, where Mirage and Fathom are entertained by a jester. E9. The jester is talked about in F12. No one’s actually asked Paragon how he joined the party yet. I think I’ll squeeze a vision out of that.

After Visage, they go through Amalgam and then on to Long Road. Right at the start of the world, Echo admits to Mirage that she is falling for Paragon and – after the changeling forces the issue – Echo and Paragon become romantically entangled. Their progress through the appropriately named world takes months. By the end of it, Echo and Paragon announce - rather quickly, by the others’ estimation, the haste coming from Echo’s end not Paragon’s - their engagement. The night of the resulting celebration is marred by Valour discovering that his hair is falling out, and that his wing-tips are starting to turn to metal. On Mirage’s advice, he shaves the rest of his hair off and claims that it’s a fashion thing. E2, V5, V6 – That the function Valour and Mirage were late for was the engagement party was disclosed to Valour by Paragon.

The next world is Birthright, where the gang are introduced to Reflecting Air of Wisdom. Valour uses Birthright’s libraries to determine that the Lost Force is somewhere in the Old Kingdoms, and figures out the link between the legends of Vanguard and both the creatures that were attacking the party during their long trip to the Young Kingdoms and the Canopeans – and therefore that Gaunt is behind the creatures that were attacking them. Reflecting Air sets his librarians looking for a match for the description of the gate to the Lost Sphere that Fathom has, and he himself is invited to the wedding. Talisman spends most of his time researching Dragons, and the librarians open a file on him. He finds out about Tharissma. V13. It’s not said where Fathom got the description of the “two warring gods” statues, but it was sometime before here – maybe even on Cathedral. Talisman’s extracurricular activities are mentioned in T9

After Birthright comes Bastion. Valour has been making his displeasure at Echo’s upcoming nuptials known, and Fathom finally has enough and orders him to let it be. He tries to socialise with Talisman and Paragon – who have hit the city’s bars – with varying levels of success. V3, T6 – Talisman clearly knows about Fathom’s talk with Valour, and is needling Paragon about the prospect of him and Echo having children.

After passing through Battlefield, the gang reach Caravan. While waiting at the Battlefield gate-town, Talisman goes to find Tharissma and has a very disturbing conversation with her, then confesses his activities to Echo and Paragon. Once they’re actually ON the Caravan, and it becomes utterly clear that they’ll be on Waterwall within a matter of days, Valour sinks into despair at Echo leaving. Talisman talks him round. T9, E10, T10, V1 – Talisman’s deep and self-reflective mood as seen in V1 is due to his conversation with Tharissma, and the fact that he’s just finished altering his plan to take Echo’s leaving into account.

On Waterwall, Paragon discovers that his father has died and that he will be expected to take the throne after a probationary princedom. Fathom and Mirage get very drunk at the hen night. The wedding itself is attended by Reflecting Air of Wisdom among others, but Valour refuses to attend. F12. Valour not attending the wedding is stated in V8. The background to Paragon’s state is as told by him in play.

PART SEVEN – GOING SOLO

In which Echo is a princess, Mirage is a resistance fighter and everyone else is in prison. This sequence takes “just over 14 months” according to Echo in F5

Rather than wait for Reflecting Air’s men to finish their deliberations and get in the way of Paragon and Echo, the gang decide to set off immediately. Echo accompanies them as far as Orchard, where everyone says their goodbyes. The others set off for Stagnant, and then to Entelechy E7, E8 are the twinned goodbye visions. Note that Tal is the last to leave, and that Valour still hasn’t forgiven Echo for her choice at this stage. The old man in E7 is Sky, Paragon’s old teacher and manservant – a character who got completely forgotten about when I actually came to run a session set on Waterwall.

The gang are immediately captured by the Brothers of Change – apart from Mirage, who escapes by shapechanging. They are imprisoned in the Triple Tower of Entelechy. As shown in the next load of visions. We’ve seen them being freed, but we haven’t yet seen them being captured.

Echo’s year and a bit is spent mostly on Waterwall as Paragon wrestles with the uncomfortable and unfamiliar tasks of being a head of state. Although she misses the others, she throws herself into her new life for several months. About 6 months after they left, though, she begins to suffer from depression and reoccurring nightmares about her past choices. She converts an old sealed-off storeroom in the palace, unable to be accessed since remodelling removed it’s entrance, into a sanctuary only she can get into, and fills it with her recollections of her trip, half—written memoirs and so forth. Political tensions increase between Bastion and Waterwall, as Paragon’s naive worldview comes into conflict with more politically-minded rulers. Although Echo tries to help, she’s even less used to this than her husband and the stresses start to attack their marriage. Echo spends more and more time in her sanctuary. Eventually, Paragon plans a trip to Far Window, ostenably as part of a tour of their vassal spheres starting with a holiday on what is a beautiful world, but mostly so that Echo can achieve some closure on the life she’s left behind. Echo asks to see Wall and – horrified – sinks even further into depression. Paragon asks to see the others and – seeing them imprisoned on Entelechy – angrily starts to prepare for war. While he’s doing that, and the diplomats his advisors insist he sends first all fail to return, Echo realises that she isn’t going to be coming back and that the vision of the future she had back on Glen of Tomorrow is coming true. With the help of Golden, she enchants a pair of mirrors to hold a copy of her mind, intending it to be able to instruct her future amnesiac self about who she is. Paragon decides that he has waited enough and goes to Stagnant, coming into contact with a messenger from Mirage warning him that Entelechy plans to invade Waterwall. Echo gets the rest of the army from Orchard, desperately writing herself a letter in case the amnesia comes soon, and they both enter Entelechy at the head of Waterwall’s army.

The aftermath of one of Echo’s nightmares is in E4, Tensions between Echo & Paragon and Bastion are shown in E15, and their reasons are well-established in play. The rest of this is from conversations in play with people who were there at the time and the mirror-Echos. The source of Echo’s depression was apparently the idea of her future amnesiac self hanging over her – no matter how far she went, she felt doomed to lose everything she had built for herself. Note that one of the mirror-Echos said she got the idea for the mirror from a world called Reflection the party had been to, but that there is no sign in any of the visions as to where that falls in the progression of worlds. Note also that at some point between the 1001 Sands and here, Echo wrote the book she decided to write back in E12 – they found it in Waterwall’s library.

Meanwhile, Mirage spends the year hooking up with the Entelechy resistance, based out of the Inn of the Hanging Crab. She is constantly frustrated by the small scale of their operations, and her own instinctive willingness to adapt – in the way that she always adapts – to them as her peers, becoming just another soldier in their hopeless battle. The resistance gathers intelligence and learns that the Brotherhood of Change is being supported by an unknown faction that have entered Entelechy by a previously-unknown gate. Spying on a meeting between a senior Brother and one of these beings, Mirage identifies them as the creatures that were harrying the party during the year of hell – and, given what Valour figured out back on Birthright – realises that Gaunt simply had his troops set a trap for them. The shock of it knocks her out of her passivity, and she begins to take over the planning of resistance efforts. Realising that Entelechy is planning on invading the Young Kingdoms, she recruits a doubting brother of change to help get a message to Paragon and Echo, and has her friends seed spies in the Tower to try to figure out a way of freeing the others. She receives no reply from Waterwall, and fears that her attempts to warn them have failed. Sneaking into the army camp to try to do something, she and her contact are captured and nearly executed before Waterwall invades.

Mirage had a poster for the inn in her backpack at the start of the campaign as well as a wanted poster in her name, M13 is her epiphany, M3 shows the resistance cell and her making her plans. M9 features Echo and Paragon arriving in the nick of time

Not much is known about the others – in particular, we don’t know what happened to Soul during his captivity. Valour and Talisman both spent a long time thinking about their mistakes and what they wish they’d done when they had the chance. Fathom appears to have mostly endured anything the Brothers threw at her.

Waterwall’s army catches Entelechy’s off-guard and pounds it into little tiny pieces, taking the Gate to Stagnant very quickly. Their appearance sparks off the revolution Mirage and her friends have been working on for a year, and rioting breaks out throughout the city. The good guys storm the Triple Tower and free the remaining members of the character party, before Mirage kills the Voice of God the chief Brother of Change.

In the aftermath, Mirage is lauded as a war heroine. Talisman and Mirage – having been made conscious of their dormant feelings for one another after the long separation – become lovers. Valour is gravely injured – having put up more resistance than the others – and is bed-ridden for a long time. Echo finds that Mirage has grown cold towards her after their differing “years off”, and realises that she wants to go with her friends. Echo and Paragon have a long, bitter argument about it – Paragon feels that if she leaves, she won’t want to stay again when she gets back to Waterwall, but he eventually gives up. Over on Birthright, Reflecting Air has managed to identify the location of the Lost Force and has sent the group a letter via Paragon, which he gives to Fathom unaware that Echo has already shown it to her. Echo declares to Fathom that she’s coming with the party, but Fathom first makes sure that everyone understands that the time for games is over – if they are going to do this, after three years of getting sidetracked, then they must all agree to do it properly. No stopping to smell the roses. F10 shows the battle of the Three Towers from Fathom’s point of view, including her jailbreak. M6 shows the aftermath of the war, with the iconography of the Brotherhood being pulled down and the troops celebrating their victory. F5 has Echo’s decision to rejoin the group, and F15 Fathom’s speech to the others about their newfound focus of mission. The letter from Reflecting Air is in the party’s possession – along with a note reading “keep her safe” added by Paragon.

PART EIGHT – THE LAST BIG PUSH

In which the party moves through the Old Kingdoms, beset by Tainted, until they reach the world of the Lost Force

The group head from Orchard to Quarry, where they quickly make their way to the Stonebridge gate. While in the town of Secondary, a woman named Finder who can detect precious objects realises that Talisman is a Dragon. Feeling the need to unburden himself, though still intending to go through with his plan even after Entelechy, he tells her many things. The group then head to Stonebridge, intending to take the road through Glade to the Old Kingdoms. On Stonebridge, Mirage somehow finds out about Talisman’s mysterious plan and is horrified – not only at it’s implications, but at the fact that he trusted Echo more than her. Their short-lived romance dies in the Inn of Jade Dragon. At the gate to Glade, they are warned by a messenger named Swift that Glade has been taken by the Taint, and Valour recalculates their route to take them through Hollow to the City of Brass. They first head to the Gate to Solitary, intending to find out if it too has been taken over. While there, Talisman sleeps with a woman named Lantern, much to Mirage’s disgust, and Echo lords her royal status over the rest of them. Discovering that Solitary has indeed been taken, they head to Hollow. That Glade was their road can be worked out from Fathom saying in F15 that the trip will take seven gates, and from talisman and Valour’s discussion in V7. M16 shows the second breakup of Mirage and Talisman, and includes Talisman bitterly saying that perhaps she should be with Valour given her high opinion of him. Finder, Swift and Lantern’s parts in this tale are all according to their own accounts.

While on Hollow, Valour and Echo finally reconcile, and she shares her argument with Paragon. Valour promises that if she does end up going all the way back to Endless, he will make this whole journey a second time until she is back at Waterwall. As seen in V7 and V8

After Hollow, they go through Mist, Column and Scar to Amber, and discover that it too has been Tainted. Turning to Valour’s backup plan they then head to The City of Brass and then Guardian’s Grave, from which they intend to head straight for Empty Throne. Unfortunately, they pick the wrong Gate on Guardian’s Grave and emerge on Jagged, where a force of Tainted Peacekeepers awaits them. Fighting their way through, they head through Empty Gaze and finally arrive on Empty Throne. This route is explained in V7 and M2 – the latter of which shows the battle on Jagged

Finding the Gate to the Lost Force’s world, Fathom rallies her flagging troops with a speech. They go through. What happens next is terribly mysterious: somehow, they fail to take the Unity off it’s pillar, but instead get separated into two groups and lose their memories.

And the rest, as they say, is Actual Play.

Fathom’s speech is in F4. The source of the amnesia has still not been identified, but evidence suggests that it had something to do with The Lady. This will be addressed in Vision T17 next week, which by a complete lack of coincidence will be the 100th vision that I write for this campaign

PART THE NONTH – UNPLACED EVENTS

The following two events have been mentioned, but have yet to be put anywhere into the chronology:

The Sphere of Reflection, upon which Echo got her inspiration for the Mirrorworld trick on Waterwall.

A “City made of Song”, on a world where sounds are solid.

PART TEN – THE JOURNEY MADE EASY

So, then, it looks something like this:

Question marks indicate gaps both possible and definite. Some of them don’t exist, and the worlds either side directly connect. The largest gap in their knowledge, though, is more than 5 spheres “long”.

Crystal -> Endless -> Service -> Iceberg -> Bounty -> Velvet Sky -> Arena -> ??? -> Darkness -> (sphere after Darkness) -> Velvet Sky -> Undertown -> Glorygrave -> Drift -> ??? -> Love's Retort -> Maw -> ??? -> Long Fall -> ??? -> Ancient Empire -> ??? -> Silk Road -> Veil -> Sands -> City of Delights

Then Fathom goes

City of Delights -> ??? -> Wondersea -> Deep Green -> Shellport

While the others go

City of Delights -> Burning Lands -> Effigy -> Wanderlost -> ??? -> Shellport

And they meet up again, heading

Shellport -> Deep Green -> Endless Stair -> ??? -> (Sonama's Sphere) -> White Plain -> Shift -> FIre Plume -> ??? -> (photonegative world) -> ??? -> (Spear's world) -> Tempest -> Nornhall -> Iron hills -> Sea of Souls -> Steamspring -> ??? -> Glen of Tomorrow -> ??? -> (Unicorn's world) -> ??? -> Sky's Fury -> Coinheart -> ??? -> Wingthrone -> ??? -> (Wall-alike) -> Cathedral -> ??? -> Titan River -> Orrery -> True Mirror -> Armada -> ??? -> ("side trip" world) -> ??? -> (Mask's world) -> ??? -> Earthroam -> Visage -> Amalgam -> Long Road -> Birthright -> Bastion -> Battlefield -> Caravan -> Waterwall -> Orchard

Where Echo leaves the party. The rest of them go

Orchard -> Stagnant -> Entelechy

While she goes

Orchard -> Waterwall -> Far Window -> Waterwall -> Orchard -> Stagnant -> Entelechy

The gang are freed and they all then go

Entelechy -> Stagnant -> Waterwall -> Orchard -> Quarry -> Stonebridge -> Hollow -> Mist -> Column -> Scar -> Amber -> Scar -> City of Brass -> Guardian's Grave -> Jagged -> Empty Gaze -> Empty Throne -> The World of The Lost Force

----

Whew.

The next session is on Sunday. I am off to write yet more Visions.