This/Survivors song/heap

A fragment of the Garden of Remembering

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Revision as of 15:09, 18 August 2015 by Apheori (talk | contribs) (+)

This is the heap, a scratchpad for all the random snippets and bits that have yet to find a place.

Don't read it.

Script

Ariel and Coraline

ARIEL
I can't believe it worked. I mean, obviously it did, but the odds of an intersection in this simple of a search pattern, they're astronomical. The space, and the time, and the universe, it's so huge, and all we had was a name, and it just happened to be right, or mostly right, and to find you here in the right town at the right time of day... you could have been anywhere. You could have been anywhen.
CORALINE
Maybe I am!
Coraline wiggles her fingers dramatically.



----



ARIEL
Yes, it is a key... and it's the only one shaped like a key.

Something important

ARIEL
It's like staring your own death right in the face when it's already happened so long ago.
VARDAMAN
Ariel...
ARIEL
(suddenly frowning, then looking at Vardaman intensely)
Vardaman! I... I forgot what I was saying?
VARDAMAN
(he rolls his eyes)
Of course you did.


...something probably important is said/happens here.


VARDAMAN
Your dreamer told you all of this?
ARIEL
No, not her. The other one. The one that's... here. She's been in the room, waiting, all these years. Waiting and watching, and holding no wrath.
She's proud of him. She's so proud of him. So sad, but so proud of him.

Giant shepherd's crook

They're in some shop with a giant shepherd's crook. Nolan is staring at it.
NOLAN
(deadpan voice)
I want it.
SHOPKEEP
Sod off, kid.
NOLAN
I want it. You will sell it.
SHOPKEEP
Oh, I will, will I? You got 25?
NOLAN
I will give you 10. You will sell it to me.
SHOPKEEP
Sod off.
Kit scoots in and tries to steel Nolan out; when this fails he turns to the shopkeep and hands him some money.
KIT
Here's 20.
The shopkeep grumbles and hands Kit the crook. Kit gives to to Nolan, after which he finally stops resisting and allows himself to be steered out.

Strange silvery key

Erry is lying against a tree. Nolan has wandered off for a bit, probably to relieve himself or something, leaving the camp alone.
The angle is odd - we see it a bit as Erry would, everything a bit fuzzy, not quite there, with swirls of shapes and colours drifting in and out of view.
An angel, MYRR, lands beside Erry and stands uncertainly for a moment, then says something unintelligible.
Erry giggles and reaches out to touch the angel; she winds up smacking its leg.
The angel says something important.
Erry stares for a bit and then finally nods vaguely.
ERRY
It'll be done, mun!
The angels hands her something and hovers for a moment more before teleporting away... or possibly just disappearing. Erry hugs the object for a moment before tucking it in the blanket beside her and falling asleep.


LATER:
Nolan comes back to find a peculiar silvery key on Erry's forehead.



----



Erry holds the key up to the light.
KIT
(matter-of-factly)
So that's the sympbol of the Chosen of Kyrule, who acts as his will upon the worlds.
Erry stares at it for a moment, starting to look more and more freaked out, then throws it into the air and runs away screaming.
Jora catches it and gives Kit an annoyed look, then goes off after Erry.
NOLAN
Er?
KIT
(grinning)
Responsibility. She hates it.
NOLAN
But it's a symbol. It doesn't mean we have to be responsible, just that it's a symbol of something that is.
KIT
It implies responsibility. Someone trusting her with something. A god trusting her with something. Er.
NOLAN
Er.

False front of Erry

JORA
Erry, why do you always act so crazy?
ERRY
I don't! I'm not. Nuh-uh.
JORA
I'm serious. You're eight, but you act like a crazed monkey, bouncing about, and not even forming whole sentences most of the time. But you're not really that stupid, are you?
ERRY
Maybe I want to be a crazed monkey.
JORA
Do you? Do you really think it suits you?
Erry seems to consider this, but says nothing.
JORA
You can read, too. I've seen you. Why don't you ever show it? Or are you planning to take everyone by surprise when they least expect it?
ERRY
(surprised)
You noticed?
JORA
Kit hasn't.
(smiling)
Time it well, my little monkey, and you shall shock the hells right out of him. But don't forget to speak in the meanwhile.
ERRY
But what do I say?
JORA
Doesn't matter. Doesn't even need to be to anyone. Just don't become me, will you?
ERRY
But I'm not you. I'm me.
JORA
(smiling)
Of course you are.

Faith in a table

ARIEL
Might as well have faith in a table?
Vardaman grunts.
ARIEL
I'd trust a table.
VARDAMAN
Of course you would.
ARIEL
Very solid things, tables. Very real.

Angels and angeloids

Aeryin explains her angelic heritage.
CORALINE
How does that work? I mean...
(She looks at Myrr)
Can angels have babies?
MYRR
We do not.
ARIEL
Convergent evolution. With contact with a same or similar environment, distinct needs arise which lead to the development of the same structures and features despite unrelated lineages. It's the reason elves and humans look so similar, and why we get so many different kinds of beetles that all look the same. They're filling the same space in the universe, and so they wind up taking on analogous traits.
CORALINE
Don't beetles usually just do that to look like inedible things and not get eaten? That's more than just specific to the ecosystem.
ARIEL
To a beetle, the ecosystem is the universe. And we all have things in our universes which shape us into what we are.
VARDAMAN
Well, that's helpful.
ARIEL
I know!
CORALINE
So what are you saying?
ARIEL
Well... planeborn aren't descended from creatures of the planes; they are creatures of the planes. Aeryin here is angelic for the same reasons angels are.
FULLER
(looking oddly at Aeryin, like he never noticed anything)
How are angels angelic?
CORALINE
(after a bit of a pause)
Welcome to the tautology club.
ARIEL
The first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of the tautology club.
CORALINE
The second rule of the tautology club comes after the first rule of the tautology club.
ARIEL
The third rule...
VARDAMAN
(coming up behind them and interrupting)
Shut up.

Obelisk

SOMEONE
Every town has an obelisk. Black stone pillar with a tapered top and a sort of hole or orb through it about two-thirds up, some marked, others not, they dot the landscape.
SOMEONE ELSE
What are they for?
SOMEONE
I don't know what they're for, we just put them up, marking the place. This place is real, this place is known. you know?

Key investigation

INT. Some temple thing or something.
Nolan has cornered a PRIEST. Jora is lagging a bit behind.
NOLAN
Show me to your sheep.
PRIEST
(trying unsuccessfully to back away)
My child, there are no sheep here...
Jora scoots over to them.
JORA
Actually we were just looking for someone who can identify an object for us.
NOLAN
(still standing uncomfortably close to the priest)
Can you?
PRIEST
What sort of object?
JORA
We're not really sure. That's part of the problem. But it's dangerous, and there were mushrooms involved.
NOLAN
Psychedelic sheep.
PRIEST
(becoming somewhat unnerved)
That's... not a whole lot to go on.
Jora sighs. Nolan just stands there staring at the priest.
JORA
It's a... key. Silvery, about yea big, shaped like the crescent moons, with the figure of a tower going through the middle. We don't really know what it is, or where it came from, but it's powerful, more so than anything we've seen.
NOLAN
Sound like anything?
PRIEST
And what, this... key just fell out of the sky?
JORA
Dunno. Gal who... acquired it was hallucinating. Got some bad mushrooms. Seemed convinced that a giant bird had... she said the bird came out of a wall and gave it to her. There weren't even any walls around. We were in the woods.
NOLAN
She said it was a clock, too.
(he looks at Jora)
Is it a clock?
JORA
I really don't think so.
PRIEST
Um, that's a fascinating story, but I really don't think...
NOLAN
(getting even more uncomfortably close, right in the priest's face)
No, you don't, do you?
JORA
Nolan...
NOLAN
You know what we're talking about. You just think we're playing with you. And maybe we are. Maybe you're just a little toy to us, and I could tweak you like a sheep's balls, but you should still tell me what I want to know, because if you do...
(he grins slowly, drawing it out for maximum effect)
I'll go away.
PRIEST
(quickly)
It's the World's Key. Planets and planes, and through it all, the spire of Death. The key that can open all gates, that can bring the bearer forth into whatever world he desires.
NOLAN
(still grinning)
Yes?
PRIEST
It's the key to all the realms of life and death. It's... it's the symbol of the champion who will walk the realms as the Lord's will upon the world. But it's Kyrule will that determines whose hands it falls into, not...
NOLAN
Really. So if we have it, it's Kyrule's will?
PRIEST
You can't possibly...
NOLAN
(finally backing away)
Keep telling yourself that.

More heap or something

She gave him a look normally reserved for the criminally insane: utter fascination.

Join the temple, investigate some murders, and generally be a drunken lout

Assassination

She felt something brush by her and instinctively reached out to swat at it. It turned out to be a man, who materialised in front of her as her hand brushed his arm. He grabbed her hand and yanked her forward, and then suddenly let go, vanishing once more.

She felt... funny. Like it was raining, except there was a cramp in her chest. She noticed that the group of priests had apparently seen the commotion and were moving toward her. Why were they worried? People vanish sometimes. She'd had weirder patrons. He hadn't hurt her. Had he?

She looked down and realised there was something stuck to her chest, and everything was getting very, very fuzzy. "Oh," she said softly. This wasn't supposed to happen. Had she failed? She realised she had, and the panic filled her like the greatest of nightmares, except it was fuzzy and distant, and it was too late now anyhow. Even the magic wouldn't come, just a terrible blankness where it should have been, and a dagger where her life should have been.

Then the darkness was flooding back, full of voices. Except this time the voices were different - welcoming. Familiar, rising around her. One of them said, "Fucking batshit."

She thought she felt someone catch her.

Sober

She awoke to voices. They swirled around her, content to a roar, to a whisper, pleading and cajolling, begging and screaming and chittering. They were everything. The world. A whole lot of nothing. She had to think, to get away, to stop them, but they would not stop and she could not think, so instead she looked about in desperation and found a whole lot of some things. Some walls, mostly. Some furniture. Some objects. A couple of other objects that swirled with their own strange whispers, their own odd shadows. Souls. Mortals. The strange ones that came after. The strange ones that never were. A myth. A legend. And still the voices, yelling and shrieking and singing with madness.

One of the shadows mouthed words and they formed in the space, jostled by voices. They were torn to pieces before she could even try to read them, so she mouthed her own, told the shadows what she needed, whatever it was. She didn't know. The cacophony was too great to tell, there was only clamour and sense and what needed to be done, and so she did it, pulling out pieces from her bag and mixing them in the glass that was now before her. Vodka. Adder root. Seravos. Denna seeds. Less juice. Ghorram. A concoction that mixed to the rhythm of the voices, the voices that overwhelmed, the voices that defined the instant.

It hit her like a brick to the head. Possibly a gold brick. Possibly wrapped in a slice of lemon, possibly taken to the brain. She had no idea. Everything was just swimming. The voices were gone. The glass was empty. The men were staring at her in concern, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Gravity thought it did, but it really didn't matter either. She eyed it warily regardless.

"Whaaaah," Coraline said finally. Or something along those lines. She didn't really know. It didn't really matter. One of the men said something else, and the other responded, saying something as well. Whatever it was, it was lost on her. Then the latter was guiding her out of the swimming room into a swimming corridor and through swimming halls and everything was just gloriously fuzzy beyond belief.


Coraline's head hurt. She felt heavy. Everything felt heavy. Her body felt heavy. The blankets felt heavy. The hand on her shoulder felt heavy.

"Get up," the man in robes was telling her. "You need to get up."

She groaned, or tried to, though nothing really came out. The heaviness was immense, rather like the pain in her head. She could hardly even imagine what it would be to move. The scope of the very prospect seemed epic, a feat for the ages.

Then he was pulling her out of bed himself, and she was even helping, sort of, and then she was standing before him and he was looking at her uncertainly, and her head really hurt. The light hurt. The shadows hurt. His face hurt. Everything seemed to hurt. She closed her eyes.

That hurt too.

"Come," he said, and she realised even his voice hurt. But she followed him regardless.

Space around seemed to swim as it passed by. It still hurt her head, but swimmingly. So she stared instead at the guy's back, at the robe that rippled as he walked, but that, too, was swimming in strangeness. And that, too, hurt. She almost tried to think about what had happened, how this had happened, but the prospect of that, too, hurt. So she didn't, and simply followed.

Ritual

He gave her the skull, and she held it in her hand uncertainly. She had absolutely no idea what was supposed to happen here, but clearly something was supposed to happen, so she held it up, and addressed it, "Alas! Poor Yorrick, I knew him well, Horatio, a man of infinite jest, of... er..." She looked around, then hastily handed the skull back. The keeper took it, looking rather surprised, but nodded.

Coraline stared at him blankly.

More ritual

They were before an alter. Coraline looked at it blankly. It looked like an alter.

"Well?" the priest finally asked.

"Oh," she said.

"Will you pledge yourself to Kyrule?" the priest persisted.

"Sure," she said. "Why not?" Kyrule was fine. She'd not named him for nothing. Or had she? She couldn't really remember. Her head hurt too much to press the matter, anyhow.

There was an awkward silence.

On a whim, Coraline poked the alter. "Hi," she said.

Then she was surrounded by warmth, suspended in light. The pain faded away into nothing, and everything simply faded away. She found herself floating amidst nothing at all, at peace with the world. At peace with nothing. Everything was simple, clear, laid out before her.

And then it all flooded back - not the pain in her head, but the world itself; the voices, just out of reach; the room swimming around her; the alter; the mask; the priests looking on, overseeing this ritual she had probably just completely butchered.

"Holy buckets," she said.

Names and info

HANRON
Coraline Henderson.
CORALINE
Hmm?
HANRON
That's not even your real name, is it?
CORALINE
What is a real name but one you use and make real?



HANRON
The library is at your disposal. There are also frequent seminars that may be of interest - they are provided for the acolytes who study here, but there are no requirements or restrictions on showing up.
CORALINE
Folks just go to what they're interested in?
HANRON
To a point. Some are needed just in general, or for specific path a priest wishes to take, but for your part you shouldn't need to worry about that. Show up if it looks promising or useful, act normal, and learn what you will.
CORALINE
Right. I've joined a cult, I'm an acolyte. I'm doing acolyty things.
(she takes a long drink from her pocket bottle)
Perfectly normal.
HANRON
(starting to look concerned)
Drinking is not normal.
CORALINE
Okay, that could pose a problem.
HANRON
Addictions of the body...
CORALINE
I'm a Carrier of the Death of Souls. Doesn't it strike you as at all odd that I'm here and... well, coherent, among other things?
HANRON
But the amulet...
CORALINE
...only suppresses the effects to a point. Doesn't explain how I got here, either. And you want to know how? My great grand secret for the ages?
He doesn't answer.
CORALINE
(hefting the bottle)
Booze. I just need to stay drunk, and that ain't easy, either. I suppose I probably could try to get a more inconspicuous bottle, though.
You don't want to see me sober. Sober, I'm... well, I'm just another Carrier. It's quite sad.
HANRON
If this works for you, is it possible... is it at all possible that this might work for other carriers, to bring them back?
CORALINE
I wish. It doesn't actually fix anything, just... staves off the voices a bit, you know? Makes me relatively functional. But for other reasons I'm not nearly as affected in the first place.
HANRON
Go on.
CORALINE
I... no. I don't really want to get into that. Just please don't look at me and expect others to be like me.
HANRON
Why would I do that?
CORALINE
Er...

Lunatic woman

Coraline is on a messy bed, with old sheets. She wakes slowly. Her head hurts and she touches it briefly, then notices the woman nearby, moving her head unusually and rubbing it as well.
WOMAN
This isn't. It's wrong. Too late.
(she notices Coraline and backs away)
Waking. Stay back!
The woman makes a threatening gesture.
CORALINE
It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you.
Are you okay?
WOMAN
No? Okay. Not okay. Not the words!
(she grabs a knife and points it)
If just the right words. If you could hear what I'm trying to say!
CORALINE
I hear you.
(she sits up and takes in the room, before looking back to the woman)
What are you trying to say?
WOMAN
What? No. No, no, no. Not possible. That's not.
The woman waggles the knife and then suddenly drops it and scoots toward the other side of the room, toward a makeshift oven, muttering something.
Coraline looks after her confused, then gets up and quickly grabs the knife off the floor. She gives the madwoman another worried glance, but the madwoman is still muttering at and poking the oven, so Coraline goes and checks the 'door'. It opens slightly when she tests it, clearly not locked.
When Coraline turns around again, the woman is standing in the middle of the floor staring right at her.
WOMAN
You. Do you... understand me?
CORALINE
I... I think so?
WOMAN
But the words. These aren't... the words are broken.
CORALINE
Words don't break.
(she hesitates)
I understand you fine. Tell me what's wrong.
WOMAN
These...
(there is a long pause as she figures out how to explain it)
I can't speak words. I can't hear them. Not the right words. Unintelligible speak. I hear people and I know they know what they're saying, and I know what I'm saying, but they don't know what I'm saying and I don't really know either except it's not the right words, even in my head it's wrong. Jumbled. Wrong words. I try to say my words and they come out wrong. They're not right. They're not right.
CORALINE
So it's... the wrong language?
WOMAN
What? No! No, not language. Words from the language. Not the right words, but words. That aren't the right words. I don't understand them. Not my own, not others. Not until... right now. With you?
(she cocks her head weirdly)
You're... different.
CORALINE
That's... aphasia?
The woman looks confused.
CORALINE
It means... it means you can't speak because the words aren't going through your brain right. So the associated meaning just gets lost...
How long has it been like this?
WOMAN
Months. Years. All the same I don't know.
CORALINE
And you've... been here?
WOMAN
Can't go home. Can't speak and tell them how to open it, can't talk to anyone. Thought I was possessed. Demons don't possess, but they don't know that here.
CORALINE
Here, as in Cerris?
WOMAN
(she nods)
In Volundris they'd know. They would know what to do. How to fix this, how to fix me. But I can't get there. Can't talk, can't...
The woman stares at Coraline longingly, then her expression shifts to a sort of futile terror.
WOMAN
No no, no, no, no, no, no no NO NO!
This is a dream. Can't be happening. Can't even speak, no, so my brain makes it up, over and again. No! You're not real!
Coraline goes to her to try to comfort her. It winds up a bit awkward, but there's a hug involved somewhere, and some clinging, and a bit of random hair-pulling.
CORALINE
Shh, don't fight it. It's not a dream, I'm real. I have a hangover that is very insistent on this. I'd have it tell you all about it, but I'm afraid it's a bit of a personal thing...
The woman looks confused.
CORALINE
I understand you because I understand everyone. Language isn't a barrier, if something is meant by the words, then I can pick it up, and I can speak it in turn. Even if the words themselves are broken, even if it isn't a language. It doesn't matter.
WOMAN
How is that possible?
CORALINE
(she shakes her head)
I don't know. It started when I got to this world. I think... it might have been something a god did. So that I'd have a chance. Bastard.
The woman smiles slightly. Then the smile fades into another look of horror.
WOMAN
(accusingly)
And you're going to leave. With your god magic and your understanding. You'll leave, and there will be nobody left to understand. And it will be the same. The same.
She starts moving toward the door. Coraline scoots over slightly as well, but then the woman runs for it and blocks the way, hefting another knife as if out of nowhere.
WOMAN
I won't let you! I can't be alone! Not again! Not without words!
(yelling)
Without words!
CORALINE
Um.
(she holds up a hand disarmingly)
Do you have a name, madwoman?
WOMAN
Rutabaga.
CORALINE
Rutabaga?
WOMAN
No, no, no. Words. Wrong. Names...
CORALINE
Names don't translate?
WOMAN
Yes! No! No no no!
CORALINE
No, wait!
(she holds out her hands again)
It's fine. You can be Rutabaga for now. We'll get you fixed.
WOMAN
What? No! It's not possible!
CORALINE
Rutabaga, listen to me. You said in your world, in Volundris, they'd be able to fix this. We just have to get you there.
WOMAN
But the names...
CORALINE
I know the name because I've heard it before.
WOMAN
No...
CORALINE
I'll get you there. I'll get you home, trust me.
WOMAN
Trust?!
CORALINE
Trust me. You're alone, you can't talk to anyone, you can't tell them what you are, what happened to you. They fear you because they do not understand, and yet you mean them no harm, you simply want to be, and to go home, and to speak? To share your words, to share your experience, to have someone undestand, to not be alone. That's what you want, above all else.
The woman stares at her.
CORALINE
I know this because it is the same for me, not because I cannot speak, but because I can, and even more so because of what lies within me. A curse. I, too, am broken, in a different way. Just an emptiness. Voices and pain that I cannot explain, I cannot tell anyone, even when I need more than anything else someone to trust, someone to turn to and tell me everything will be okay, because there isn't anyone. Not anyone at all.
WOMAN
But you have words. You have the words! You can explain, tell them what it is...
CORALINE
Tell them what? Tell them that I am the Death of Souls, that I am the Carrier?
The woman expresses some sort of shock, and a small amount of fear.
CORALINE
I know what it's like to be alone! I'm trying to fight this, but instead of helping, all those who even know anything would rather kill me. Do you know how many times I've been turned away, how many bounties put on my head, how many swords drawn at the very mention? I know what it's like!

Solution

"Kyrule would have that I help you, though I do not know what all that would entail."

"So what, I should just trust you?" Then she shrugged. "Well, why not. So tell me, then. What do you know of the Death of Souls?"

"I know it is old, a curse that devours everything that a person is, and spreads to others in insatiable hunger. I know there have been crusade after crusade to try to eradicate it, and yet still it persists. I know there are stories told about it, theories and fantasies and even those who would try to master it, but it never helps. It never works."

She nodded.

"Is that what this is about? You're on... some kind of mission?"

"Not as such." She looked at him carefully, then said, "I'm afflicted. I carry the Death of Souls within me."

He didn't react, not like the others had. Instead he simply said, "I see."

"That's what the alcohol is for. It drives away the voices. Keeps me sane." She stopped and then corrected, "Well, maybe not sane, exactly, but it keeps me me."

"That's it? The solution is alcohol?"

"Doubt it," she said. "I think it's more just putting things off. Driving the hunger away in confusion, because how can it eat my proper self when my self is too buried in shalott to even show its face?" "I won't hurt anyone, though. Well, not with this, at least.

"So there's no cure."

"Not that I know of. But you do have resources. Books. I dunno, maybe there's something here..."

Reminiscing on cultisting

Three hundred years ago, Coraline Henderson, then going by the name Anja Torn, had been a regular customer at the Empty Cistern, even then one of the oldest taverns in the city.

It wasn't that the place was close to where she was staying (because it wasn't), it wasn't because it had good service (because it really didn't), it wasn't because the clientelle were respectable (if anything they were the opposite), and it wasn't because the booze was good, although it actually was most of the time. The reason she went here because because nobody cared - eveyrone here was here because nobody cared; nobody cared about the law, or about propriety, or about anyone else's business. People came, they went, and they got, if not exactly discretion, a good heaping dose of apathy.

So Coraline got no trouble here walking in dressed like an acolyte of Kyrule and ordering a triple-dose of 20-stone shalott, even though it was well-known that the acolytes were not permitted alcohol. Indeed, it seemed some of the temple's higher-ups had a made a point of visiting all the bars in town to let them know, just to be clear, but they would have skipped this one.

She got the same trouble as everyone else, of course. The general suspicion, shifty-eyed watching as she passed, the curiosity of what might be wrong with her that was gone as soon as she was, but that was really it. All in all, the Cistern of the time was the sort of place where the more normal you looked, the better off you were - if you looked normal, people had to guess, and the imagination often filled in far worse nightmares than reality ever could. And aside from the robes, Coraline looked pretty normal.

The only real trouble had come the first night she was there, or might have had she responded differently.

She had been sitting at the bar minding her shalott, wondering vaguely how drunk she could safely get and still maintain her cover, when someone sat down next to her and said, "Hey, you going to stop that?"

Not even sure what she should be stopping, she looked around. Turned out someone had died, something which often happened there - a body was slumped over a table and it sounded like people were bidding.

She took this in and just said, "I don't want him."

Somehow that settled it. The guy grinned gappily at her, slapped her on the shoulder, and left. This was the nature of the place, lawless, godless, and ruled only by the order of commerce, of what people wanted. And if someone died, that was valuable.

Of course, had she really been an acolyte of Kyrule and not just posing as one, that could have presented something of a problem. The religion was very much against the mistreatement of the dead, and selling bodies very much qualified as mistreatment in their book. But she wasn't one, and in her somewhat more practical view of things, the dead were already dead. They weren't apt to care.

Nor was anyone else, there. And so, during her stay in the city of Soransie, she came to frequent the place.

Arbitration

"I have spoken and that is final. Shut up leave me alone I'm drinking."

Wizarding

Basic Necromancy was at four. It covered the general theories, and would begin practical studies in reanimation in the next few weeks. Coraline was good at theories, but the reanimation part worried her. It sounded suspiciously like magic, and she had no idea if she could actually do magic.

Not normal magic, at any rate.

Elementals

Coraline had a problem with elementals. Namely with the entire concept.

They were supposed to be summoning air elementals today, but though she pointed out air wasn't really an element, the professor wouldn't listen. So she tried to think of something that was air. Oxygen? An oxygen elemental would probably burst into flame. Nitrogen? But what the hell would be the use of that? It'd be invisible. Carbon dioxide? Good way to suffocate people, if nothing else... but not exactly an element either. Hydrogen would flat out explode. Helium would be funny but not very useful.

Something radioactive, perhaps. Radon? She could give everyone cancer! Okay, maybe not that either.

She sketched out a periodic table in search of ideas. Something further up the table, something inert. Neon? Nice noble gas, and nice and colourful if given electricity... sure, why not.

So she focussed her mind on neon - atomic number 10, simple assortment of electrons, nobody cares about the neutrons - and she twisted it into the spell they'd been going over all morning, with, of course, an added electrical current thrown into the weave to make it actually show up.

There was a brilliant flash of light, and then a form of intense red appeared before her. She giggled as the rest of the class turned to look, then shielded their eyes from the red-orange glare of the neon.

"As I said," she announced to the class, "Air is not an element. This, however, is. It's neon, one of the elements that is found in air."

"Cute," the professor said, and gestured to dismiss the elemental, though when Coraline felt a bit of a rush of warm air afterwards she was pretty sure it had just exploded.

Random

"It's not that I'm incredibly drunk," she said. "It's just that I am incredibly drunk."




"It's not like I'm worried. If I could think straight about anything I'd be worried, though."




It hadn't been the sister. It had been the sister's dog.

stuff

  • wallet
  • phone
  • bluetooth
  • mouse
  • three flashdrives
  • bus passes
  • cuddly sea-anemone toy
  • two books - House of Leaves, Guild Wars Factions art book
  • pens/pencils
  • notebook/pad thingie
  • wad of eraser - 'kneaded rubber'
  • floss
  • screwdriver set
  • wirecutters
  • pliers
  • two knives
  • set of upholstery needles
  • file
  • pair of chopsticks
  • small scissors
  • MAGNETS
  • hairclips
  • sunglasses
  • extra socks
  • small mask (filigree-style)
  • tube of ointment
  • superglue
  • deodorant
  • lip colour (paint stuff and balm)
  • empty metal water bottle
  • bars of soap
  • clothes
  • spoon
  • bristle comb
  • set of small pots
  • some dried food
  • smoked meat
  • waterskin
  • some money (Verash currency)
  • rope


  • Strange coin


  • jeans
  • xkcd sysadmin t-shirt
  • huge-ass coat
  • scarf
  • beanie
  • mittens
  • boots

...and a staff weapon. Dzang, girl, you go into the world with an odd assortment of junk.

Zombies with rocket launchers

Ariel ran down the slope, waving her sword and yelling. It wasn't the smart thing to do unless you wanted to draw attention, but she felt watched and for lack of a better idea it seemed as good a way as any to draw any watchers out. And out they came - zombies armed with... well, she wasn't quite sure. Something thick and cylindrical and very, very black. And pointed at her.

Vardaman just stared at her for a moment, then yelled, "Get down!". She saw he was already behind a stump as she managed to dodge the first couple fireballs, but the third hit her square in the face.

Everything exploded.


Ariel looked down the slope. They had stopped by a large stump, because something didn't feel right. Eyes. There were eyes. And she remembered the fireball coming toward her, getting bigger, and nowhere to go...

"There are undead down there," she said, and cast a seeker spell. The glimmer highlighted through the trees.

"How did you know that?"

That was the question, wasn't it? And how could she explain that she could go back and do anything over, that whenever she died, she simply got a horrible jolt and then could refocus wherever, and, for that matter, whenever? Some wizards did it; she knew this because they had been the ones to give her the idea in the first place, but not with this level of control. No mortal should have this level of control over their own deaths.

"Lucky guess?"

He snorted. "Armed?"

The stupid thing, of course, was that if she didn't have this fallback, she would never be so reckless in the first place. It just worked so well, and as awful as dying was, you got used to it. Just like how dreamers get used to waking up in the morning, she supposed. It sounded dreadful.

"Got blasty things."

"Great." He screwed a knob onto the end of his staff and hefted it. "Good thing we've got blastier."

Everything went white.

Random

"I remember too much. I don't know what has already happened, and what yet needs to happen."

Meet in the park

Vardaman was seated on one of the benches overlooking the park. He looked utterly out of place in this civilised land, a warrior shrouded in leathers and death, and he looked tired.

Ariel sat beside him. She supposed she probably didn't look much better. Younger. Prettier. Dirtier, if anything. Lost and tired.

They watched nothing in particular. Clouds drifting overhead. Some kids playing ball. A man with his dog. Wind in the trees.

"Anything?" Ariel asked.

"No."

"I think I found him."

"Aye?"

"He's dead."

"We knew that."

"Not exactly," she said. "His name is not in the Book of the Dead. He was taken without passing through the halls of judgement."

"You can't know that."

"Probably Saro."

He winced. "How?"

"You would have paid their price in full. Mine was cheaper."

"And what did they ask?"

"They could not buy what I do not have, but whores are universal." He looked at her, but she said, "Don't worry, Vardaman. It was interesting."

"Heh." He smiled slightly. "Everything is, to you, isn't it?"

"It's new."

Death and judgement

She was standing in a vast hall, walls distant, ceiling high above. Everything was grey. An enormous throne stood before them, and on it a winged cat groomed itself, but it was simply background. A robed figure read off names, one by one. Names for those around, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

A whisper tugged at the back of her mind as she stared at nothing. There was only nothing, and more nothing. This place, and nothing, and then the whisper again.

Ariel, it said. The space was clearer. There was a concept here.

Ariel, listen to me. And then she saw the others. She saw the cat, and the robed figure, and the sarcophagi lining the walls. She saw the others, shades one and all, and raised her hand to look - she was as they were. Not quite there, not quite real.

"Dreamer," she said aloud. And she listened.

You are Ariel Sartorien. Remember who you are and all else will follow.

None of the others noticed. None of them moved, simply waiting in turn for their names and sentences to be called, the Voice reading them off, one by one, the winged cat behind him ignoring it all with style.

Names. Lives. Judgements. Sentences. She listened, half hearing, half waiting, half wondering what the hell she was going to say, because she was going to have to say something, and half, somewhere in the very back of her mind, smacking herself for forgetting the meaning of the word 'half'.

"Augorine Zha Siel. You have lived in service, and for your acts and deeds you have been judged as true. Go forth."

"Dyre Austeroferoz. You have lived in fear, and made the world your own, but throughout you have lived without faith. Go forth."

"David Weaver..."

The souls, once called, simply faded away, each by each.

And then it was her turn.

"Anja Torn," the Voice intoned. "You have-"

"No," she interrupted. "My name is Ariel Sartorien!" The Voice moved as if to speak, but she continued over him. "I'm Ariel! I dream the Dreamer's dream, and act as her will upon the world, and you will let me go. In the name of Eapherod, and for the sake of the god you serve in turn, you will let me go!"

Her voice echoed for a moment, and then a silence fell over the hall.

"I see," the Voice said finally.

Ariel stared at him resolutely, though she wondered vaguely where the hell 'Eapherod' had come from. Some webcomic, perhaps? She had a vague idea of shapes on a page, and weird speech bubbles. But what was it?

"Very well," he said. "You have lived and died in the service of your god. Go forth and continue as she commands."

Now you run for it, the Dreamer whispered as everything went blank. And be careful. You never know when some...

New god: Eapherod

"Vardaman," Ariel began, "Have you ever heard of Eapherod?"

"What, the god of dreams?" He looked at her for a moment, then said, "Of course not. Who's heard of her?"

"Right, nevermind." She stared into the fire.

He finished a shalott and threw the bottle into the fire.

"Vardaman," Ariel began again as he tried to wrest a new bottle out of his bag. "Yesterday, had you ever heard of Eapherod?"

"What?" He gave her a weird look. "Why would yesterday be any different from today?"

"The world of men is dreaming," she said. "It has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up."

"That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"Yes."

"Good. I'm glad we've established this." He popped out the cork and took a long swig, savouring the strange textures of the top of the bottle.

"Vardaman," she said when he was done choking on the fumes. "Have you ever died?"

"Er... no?"

"Oh."

"Have you?" he finally asked.

"Of course."

He stared at her.

"It's like waking up, I suppose." She cocked her head. "Except I can't imagine ever waking. So instead of waking I die. Whereas you wake, so you don't need to die."

"That's... lovely."

"Is it?"

"No." He glowered at her. "Seriously, woman, I have no fucking idea what the hells you're talking about."

"Sorry," she said.

Shrine and no mystery

"I know many things," Ariel said. "I know the atomic weight of curry, and the favourite colours of cast of Waste Land, and time it takes to drain a human body of blood given inadequate suction, and the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything."

"What is it?" the priestess asked.

"42," Ariel said. "At least that's the answer I'm sticking to. It's all a book, see. Always books."

"Right," Vardaman said, and got back the entire point of their being there. "Priestess, is Eapherod real?"

"Of course?" She looked at him quizzically.

"See?" he said, turning to Ariel. "Not made up. You now have the word of a woman in a weird black dress on that."

"Everything is made up at some point," Ariel said.

Vardaman rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry," the priestess said, "But is there some particular problem you have?"

Vardaman grunted. "Dreams. Fucking weird things. Now zombies, those are sensible. You know where you stand with zombies."

"Where?"

He paused for a moment, then said. "Preferably very far away."

Ariel looked at him, confused. "But we've gone well out of our way to fight them."

"Right," he said. "And we've generally done it from a distance."

"Except when they had rocket launchers."

"Zombies aren't supposed to have rocket launchers."

"But those did."

"Those were different."

"Who are you people?" the priestess interrupted.

The two wanderers exchanged glances, and then Ariel said, "Well, he's a deathdealer, and I'm... I'm real. I'm real and I have pills and I am very clear on this."

The priestess gave them a long look.

"We were just leaving," Vardaman said, turning Ariel around. "Sorry to have bothered you."

But then Ariel pulled free. "Wait," she said, turning back to the priestess. "Do you dream the Dreamer's dream?"

"Of course."

"What is the square root of rope?"

"String?"

"Who reigns king of the sandcastle?"

"Kyrule of Arling Tor."

Ariel shrieked and hid behind Vardaman.

"What," he said, moving out of the way, "are you even on about now?"

"Who would you say reigns, little dreamer?" the priestess asked, as though in a trance.

Ariel stared for a moment and then sighed. "Oh, it's Kyrule. Definitely Kyrule. He just... he scares me, is all." She paused. "I mean... I could say Sherandris, but he ain't here and I ain't been anywhere but here, and he's going to die, the Dreamer doesn't want him to, but she made it so and now he's going to die just as sure as she is." She stopped for breath, then looked confused. "I'm confused."

Vardaman took the opportunity to finally steer Ariel out of the shrine.

Hells

Honoured Dead

Ahead, three daemons stood over a solitary figure - an Honoured Dead, alone for reasons they could only guess. One of the daemons poked at him mockingly, and there was a roar of laughter as the Honoured backed away, looking around frightfully in the hopes of salvation.

Vardaman moved to pull Ariel into an alley, but the Honoured had already spotted them.

"You!" the Honoured commanded, "Help me!"

"Oh, shit," Vardaman muttered. They both felt the compulsion to obey, despite the seemingly worrying odds - the daemons were twice as big as they were, and as the Hells were their realm, only all the more powerful - but they also had little other incentive to resist, as such would only arouse suspicion.

Drawing his sword, Vardaman walked slowly forward and stopped in front of the Honoured, looking calmly up at the daemons while Ariel lingered behind, hopefully doing something useful. He wasn't sure if he could take on all three of them at once, and the Honoured Dead soul behind him had shown no signs of competence.

"You've got yourself an army now, dead soul," the lead daemon hissed. "Damned souls to do your bidding, and you think it'll save you?" Its companions bellowed laughter.

"Uh," the Honoured said. Then Ariel let out a yell and, jumping out from behind him, threw a pair of spells at the closer daemons. The leader dodged, but she managed to hit another. It disintegrated.

Taking his cue, Vardaman leapt forward as well, dodging around the others and slashing and stabbing at them with the agility born of years of simply trying to stay alive. It was short work, and as the last toppled behind him, he turned and angrily yelled at Ariel, "Can we perhaps come back to that discussion we were having before?"

"Er," she said, and hid behind the Honoured Dead.

"You know, that one about consequences!" He stopped as though finally noticing the petrified Honoured he'd been shouting around. "What?"

The Honoured let out a deep breath. "I thank you," he said, not looking at either of them.

Vardaman grimaced, then said, "Perhaps you can help us in turn. We're looking for someone..."

"Vardaman," Ariel interrupted, stepping around the Honoured soul. "Don't."

He looked at her. "What?"

"He won't know. No Honoured Dead could."

Vardaman groaned. "Oh, right. Of course not. They won't know anything. It's not like the name was in the Ledger." He stopped and then threw his arms into the air. "The name wasn't in the Ledger. Fuck! So how do we even know he's here, then? This could just be a wild goose chase!"

"Have faith." She smiled slightly. "For without it, what do we have left?"

"Eternal damnation?"

"Besides that?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it's just fucking eternal damnation." He grumbled, then swung his sword up and pointed it at the Honoured. "You," he said, "What do you know of daemons?"

The Honoured took a step backwards, probably more out of surprise than anything else. "The Lords rule the Hells. The lesser daemons serve them in battle?"

"Yes, yes," Vardaman said, lowering the sword. "But what do they do? How do they plan, where do they congregate, and if they try to pull some fucking stupid shit under the gods' noses, how would they go about it?"

"That's impossible. They cannot go against the gods, to do so would be..." he stared at Vardaman.

"What?" Ariel said. "Unthinkable?"

The Honoured nodded mutely.

"Think it."

"I..." he began, but then he stopped to think, to really think. "In the pits. In the fields. The Lords of this level reign from there, and the bloodiest battles are fought before them, with fodder of souls and soldiers. It is utter chaos, and neither side pays heed to details." He looked up at Ariel and Vardaman. "That is all I can think of. But at best you will only find scavengers... they would not actually pull anything. They could not."

"Yeah," Vardaman said. "The daemons of the Hells trying to spread their hell? Unthinkable."

Temptress

"Ariel, you are the worst temptress ever."

"Oh?"

"You turn me against my god, and for what? Such a betrayal should at least entail some fun in the doing."

She laughed. "You're actually enjoying this, aren't you."

"Never."

"Not even a small bit?"

"Only if we get out of this alive."

"Afraid to face your god's wrath, are you?"

"Shut up."

Escape up the river

"I'm afraid Ariel isn't available at present," Ariel's voice said. "She has had a significant trauma, and while the nature of dreams is resilient, even she cannot rebound so quickly."

"Then who..." Vardaman began.

"Eapherod," Kyrule said. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Ariel smiled, whoever she was. "With a little patience, certainly. Do I know you?"

"Do you?" Kyrule said.

She looked at him for a moment, then said, "You are Kyrule of Arling Tor. I know you for the king you are, but you know me for something else entirely. What is it?"

"I only know a name. In your words, who are you?"

"Athyria of Kenning Vos."

"And Sherandris?"

"Reigns king of the sandcastle." When he said nothing, she asked, "Did Eapherod ever say who reigns?"

"I did not yet know to ask."

"Ask her if you get the chance."

Death explained

"A house fell on me," Ariel said.

Vardaman turned toward her. "What?"

"You asked how I died," she said, staring off into space. "A house fell on me."

He rubbed his brow. "An entire house."

"Yes."

Confused, the high priest looked enquiringly to Vardaman.

"Just ignore her," Vardaman said. You've got to hand it to this gal, he thought to himself. Always chooses the absolutely weirdest times to raise questions... and damn strange ones they tended to be, at that.

"Okay..."

The mystery

"Coraline's the mystery! We have to save her."

"Save her from what?"

"From the princess, of course!"

Random

Go on, then. You will find the keys to the cupboard behind he who reigns king of the sandcastle. Riddle? Sort of. But you'll see what I mean. Pass the gates, find the mongoose, and you shall see.

Eapherod

"Isn't Eapherod dead?" Vardaman asked. Then, suddenly looking very confused, he turned toward Ariel.

"Don't look at me," she said. "I haven't the foggiest idea about anything because I don't have the foggiest idea about any of this and I don't have the foggiest idea at all because I don't know anything because I don't know anything and I don't know anything and I don't know anything and it's all not anything so don't look at me!" She clapped her hands over her ears and stared determinedly off into space.

Vardaman blinked. Lacking any idea of anything better to do, he blinked again, and then a few times more. Finally, he said, "What?"

"Yes," the man said.

But Vardaman wasn't so sure. Eapherod had certainly seemed alive when she'd spoken through Ariel before. If that had been Eapherod. What had Kyrule called her?

Ariel interrupted his thoughts by saying, "The wombats are right, you know. Gods really are entirely more trouble than they're worth."

"No," the man said.

"No," Ariel said.

"Yes," the man said.

"Yes," Ariel parroted.

"Yes," the man repeated.

"The Dark Sister cannot die," Ariel explained. "She who was living is still living, though not necessarily here. I bet your Kyrule knows. He's awfully shiny. I doubt she'll listen to him. I know I wouldn't."

"Yes," the man repeated again, not really paying any attention.

"Sometimes I'm her, you know," Ariel said dreamily. "I wonder who she'll be after she dies. I wonder if death truly is the heaven to the hell of dying. I don't want to see it, but there's nothing to see anyway. Nothing is scary. Defines too much."

Later, she added, "She doesn't want to die either. She just knows she has to in order for all this to end. For herself to have a proper beginning. Her other self."

Ariel's reactions to gods

Vardaman elbowed Ariel in the ribs.

It took a moment for her to respond, but when she did, he said, "Kyrule."

She hissed.

Then he said, "Eapherod."

Her eye twitched.

"Alyre."

"Her I like," Ariel said.

He shook his head bemusedly. "You are bizarre."

She grinned and said, "Veshura!'

"What about her?"

"I like her too."

"Bizarre."

"Name reminds me of Ganesh," she said. "Deeds of Boethia. No real downsides."

"And would those be cats or gods?"

"Why choose? Why ever choose when you can have cats and gods? Lokshmi forever!"

He looked at her.

"What? Lokshmi is awesome. Saves the world, you know. She does. I think?"

Random

"The cleric has a bunch of dead gods in her head. She'll tell you all about how these are better than yours. And perhaps they are. They're older, at least."




"Hazz'ridan!" Ariel yelled angrily.

"You and your cursing Hazz'ridan." Vardaman shook his head.

"It's what he's there for. Grack!" She glowered for emphasis.

"To be cursed?"

Ariel looked at him. "He's a bloody god of dead ends. What the buckets else would he be there for?"

Juggling ale

She juggled some ale. Something niggled in her mind, something about the mystery. Who was it? Where were they going? Who was this Coraline? There was something about it that she was unsure about, but she also wasn't sure about just what that was.

Vardaman, of course, was still drinking his. Strange effect it had on him. Was it because he was human? Or was it because he was real? In dreams, it was as though everything was real, and everything was nothing. Perhaps that was also why the ale changed nothing. It was all still real, all still there, all still so perfectly reasonable. Juggling ale, of course, was reasonable too.

"Nice," someone said.

"Hmm?" she turned toward the voice, then completely freaked out. It was... what was it? A monster, a horror, a... a... "AAAAGH!" she yelled, and dropped the ale all over her feet in her haste to get away, to flee.

"I'm sorry," the figure said. It looked... human? Underneath the horror, a human. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She backed away. "I... I... what... you..." She stopped for breath. "What are you?"

It looked confused. "A humble priest, nothing more."

Ariel looked at it. It was... terrifying. She wasn't sure why, but here, standing before her, she perceived a monster. And yet all she saw was a man, an ordinary man, robed in black. Strong in his faith, coloured like Vardaman. Like death. Like Kyrule.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He looked genuinely concerned.

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. It's your Lord. Your Lord scares the ever-living shit out of me, frankly, and I guess I freaked out a bit because of that and I'm sorry."

"Why?" he asked.

She looked at him again. That was, actually, a rather excellent question. Why, indeed? Because... "Because I fucked up," she said. "I fucked up and now, to me, he is a symbol of that failure." She unconsciously drew the ale back up off the ground into a twiling ball and laughed. "How stupid is that?"

"But why would Kyrule be such a symbol?" the priest asked.

She flinched at the name, but said, "He caught me."

"Caught?"

She broke the ball up into bits and started juggling again. "That's what we call it. The souls of the dead just sort of drift out, you know, until the deathgod catches them. And one time he caught me, and it didn't go quite proper. I'm not sure why. Something about... something. I can't explain it, it's just this feeling, it was missing and it didn't work."

The priest-horror looked confused.

"Wasn't his fault, though" Ariel said. "He did everything proper. It was the Dreamer, she kind of borked it."

"What dreamer?"

"Oh, Eapherod as Eapherod, she never would. I don't think she ever could. She's too... well, let's just say she knows a thing or two Kyrule don't. Or she will. Once she finally shows up all those years ago." Ariel laughed and lobbed a ball of ale at the priest's head.

When he ducked, she darted past and out the door, out into the night and the sweet, sweet wind, where she could yell and chatter with all her might, without anyone to object.

Dead body

Ariel poked the body with a stick. "In my professional medical opinion," she said dramatically, "this is a dead body."

"Really?!" Vardaman said with mock shock.

She dropped the stick and knelt down by it. "Oh, yes." She started checking out various aspects of the corpse in more detail - limbs and various regions for bruising and signs of broken bones; eyes and mouth for general oddities; wrists, ankles, and neck for ligature marks; everywhere in general for discolourations; and so forth. "Hey Vardaman," she said, "how do undead work?"

"You know what?" he said, picking up Ariel, "You're done here." He carried her several feet away and set her down again, facing away. "Stay there, yes?"

She eyeballed him, but said nothing as he went back to the body. And, for the time being, she even stayed put.

Thing with Ariel and a hole

Ale on head

Ariel announced, "Vardaman activates special power: become shit-faced drunk!"

He responded by dumping the rest of his ale on her head and shoving the empty mug back toward the barkeep.

Ariel stood and glared at him.

The barkeep gave him and Ariel an odd look, but, when it became clear she wasn't actually going to do anything about it, obliged and refilled the mug, which Vardaman took and happily went back to working on.

"Right, then," Ariel said, and wandered away from the bar. She cast a quick spell to get the ale out of her hair and, twirling it between her hands absent-mindedly, wondered just what to do now.




"What are they?" Ariel asked.

"We have no idea," Nellis said. "They act like zombies, but they're... well, they're not. They're not really undead at all."

Woods

They set out into the woods as soon as they were equipped. The ranger took point, guiding them through the dark, with Ariel and Nellis close behind. It seemed a mission of great importance and urgency. Ariel had a really bad feeling about it, but said nothing.

The clearing wasn't far. They came out of the trees and were met by a well of moonlight and utter horror rising out of the brush, sinking into the depths of what seemed almost a ravine, though in truth it was nothing more than a small hollow. Dark and indiscernible objects littered the floor, but what drew the eye, what really drew it, was the pool of absolute nothing in the centre. It was a blackness so pure it gleamed, though no light could ever reflect from something so hungry, so empty.

"Now you see why we were concerned?" Nellis whispered.

The ranger led them to a group of rocks overlooking the hollow. From here they could see everything, but anything looking up would be unlikely to see them, if it even looked with eyes. For the moment all was still, so it was hard to guess.

"Stay here, then," Ariel said. "I'ma get a closer look." She had no idea what she hoped to accomplish, but part of her knew this was too important to trip up over such meddling details as her innate incompetence. As she stood, she faded into the background, not exactly invisible, but just not important anymore. The others could still see her, but anything that didn't know she was there would have had a very hard time ever noticing her.

She half slid, half fell down to the bottom, but none of the mounds stirred. They seemed... asleep. Animals of the forest that were no longer animals, slumbering together irregardless of what they had been - a bull here, a mountain cat there, rabbits, wolves, badgers. But now they were dangerous, paying her no mind as she walked past only because they didn't know she was there. She could feel it, the menace, the fright, the confusion... the hunger. It scared her.

And the closer she got to the pool, the stronger it got.

She stopped by its shore. Oblong and dark. Flat and empty. The same from all angles. It looked like a rendering error, almost. A rendering error that had tried to mate with a black hole. She picked up a pebble and dropped it in. It hit in silence and disappeared.

Ariel looked around, but the slumbering mounds around were as still as ever. Nellis and the ranger seemed to still be by the rocks. It was all on her at the moment. Fuck, she thought, and stuck her bow into the ground so it stood by the shore, by the edge, like a sentinel. And so it would be.

Focussing her mind on the bow such that she could return to it, and only it, she jumped into the pool of blackness.

Visions

She was in a room, square by rectangle by square. The walls were smooth and precise. The ceiling glowed, an indistinct light source. The floor had a slightly raised pad on one side, and a slight indentation on the other. There were no windows or doors.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece." The voice filled the room like an intercom. It made as much sense as one too.

"What?" Ariel said.

There was no response. No change.

The bow echoed in the back of her mind like a beacon, though she wasn't entirely sure what to do with it.

She sat on the pad. She paced and waited. The voice returned, and repeated its words.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

She tried to argue, tried to plead. When it came again she tried to throw a piece of her clothing, but the robe had nothing to throw. It was simply there.

She sat. She waited. The voice came and went. She waited and responded. It came and went. She stood, she spoke, she bounced off walls. Mad words came to her lips and filled the room. The voice still came, still stayed the same, still intoned its odd request.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Nothing changed.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Repetition of silence and voice.

Light without shadow.

Sound without source.

No hunger. No sleep.

The voice as she sat and waited. The silence as she told herself stories, as she tried to dream, oh, how she tried to dream. But there was nothing left to dream. There was nobody to be. Who was she?

Long silence, interruption and long silence. Nothing to say or do. Nothing but walls. Floor. Ceiling. A bow in the back of her mind like a beacon. The voice.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Nothing but time.

Time.

"Prisoner 8471369, you are called to stay. Stay your piece."

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

There was simply nothing. She slipped into the void.


She was standing by the pool again. Memories, voices, feelings, flooded about in a cacophony of normalcy. She knew who she was. She knew where she was. Her hand was on the bow. The pool was before her. It had all been... a dream? Or had it? She stared at the pool in abject terror. If it was a pool. If it was anything at all.

She would have to try again.

Everything about her wanted to flee, but instead she focussed on the bow and leapt once more.


... (another)


She was standing by the pool, shaking. A lifetime. It had been an entire lifetime. Forever in a moment. And now here she was again. What was this? What?


... (another)


Closing the hole

She was standing by the pool. None of it meant a damn thing. It was all just objects, fragments, pieces and pieces of nothing at all.

She shook herself. What the hell had happened? Nothing had happened. Everything had happened. It didn't matter. Here she was.

It's a portal. A hole. the Dreamer said. You know what you need to do.

Ariel looked around at the slumbering mounds and nodded. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and got to work, driving it into each form, and waiting while each ceased to move and became mostly harmless once more. Dispersing the darkness. When the arrow faded or broke, she simply got out another.

Then there were none left, just empty carcasses. The sky was lightening. Birds and insects sang, though none particularly nearby.

Nellis and the ranger were picking their way past the forest's dead like the uncertain victors of a battle that had made no sense. Probably because it hadn't.

"What now?" Nellis said.

"Now we pray." Ariel said, looking toward the pool. The portal. They needed to get rid of it.

Nellis raised an eyebrow.

Ariel paused, but pulled out another arrow. "This," she said, pointing toward the portal. "While this is here, it won't ever stop."

"But how?" the ranger said.

She smiled and turned back to it. In truth, she was scared out of her wits, but it didn't matter. It couldn't. She said the words. "Kyrule of Arling Tor," she intoned, "I, who have no name, would call on you in the name of Kenning Vos, to close this hole upon your kingdom, and upon all others. Act through my motions, and end this."

Then she whispered, "Dreamer, guide my eyes, for I cannot see."

She poked the pool with the arrow.

There was darkness. There was light. There was pain, and then there was nothing at all.

Sunlight exploded into the clearing. The pool was gone. Ariel lay by her bow, the strange shadowy arrow still in hand, all too still. But the air had cleared, and the sense of wrongness that had pervaded the area was gone as well.

Nellis ran and rolled her over, but she was clearly dead, skin too pale to seem skin at all, eyes that faded into blackness. The arrow dissolved into dust as it slipped from her lifeless hand.

"What in the hells?" the ranger asked. "The Lord of Death wouldn't take her for that, would he?"

Nellis shook his head. "I don't know. With this... it may have been a necessary sacrifice."

The other bowed his head, then shook it. "She knew."

"Perhaps. It was certainly no coincidence that I found her." He sighed. "Let's get back to the city."

Awkward conversation

"I was created with a single purpose in mind, and I existed to fulfil that purpose above all else. But something came up that took precedence."

"What?"

She shook her head. "It is strange to have one's very existence called into question, and then sacrifice everything for that question. Very strange," she said. Then she looked straight at him. "We look to our kings, Vardaman."

"What happened?" he asked, confused.

But she only shook her head again. "You should ask Kyrule. My Dreamer would not have me say."

Random

"Eapherod is just a sideshow."




"Do you think the gods ever get stoned?"

"Have you ever seen a bellduck?"

Another hells thing

When she passed through the Gate, she was alone. Whether this was by design or instead a simple struck of luck was unknown to her, but it didn't matter - the course was the same regardless. Forward, and on.

It was a standard hell: plains of lava, interspersed with the Towers. Souls and demons stood around and passed from each to each, doing their things, striding across the firey ground as though nothing were off. Cosmetic? she wondered vaguely, and looked up to the closest tower, directly ahead, welcoming all who passed the Gate with its immense architecture. It would be the proper way to go. The standard, the expected. Best avoided.

She skirted across the lava fields instead, dancing through the licking flames. She didn't know where she was going, but she had an idea regardless. This way. Onwards.

Back door

The back door was untended, so she pushed it open and slipped through.

The other side was a breath of strange air, architecture reminiscent of a rising city, party guests in formal attire, fake snow falling to the carpet. A large evergreen was decked out in tinsel and baubles.

Christmas? Ariel wondered. But how? Then one of them was telling her, "Welcome, welcome! Take off your coat!" and she was ushered up into the next hall.

This was not a Hall of the Hells, however. This was a high society Christmas party in full swing, full of lights and colours and laughter, with trees lining the hall, tables full of delights, and a dance floor that mesmerised with its swing and twirl. She pushed past guests who smiled and laughed, and guests who paid her no heed at all. Her dress did not fit this, with her leather coat and long pants, but she noticed a few others in similar interspersed amongst the crowd. Other denizens of the Hells? Somehow she didn't think so. This was personal to her.

Or it would have been, had it been her own memory.

It's mine, she heard the Dreamer whisper in the back of her mind.

Ascension

She darted past the demon before he could really make note, and he made no further move to stop her. Up, she pressed. To stairs. To the lifts. Around the demons, away from them. They would question, and answers she did not have. A demon on the landing, so take the lift. Prisoners in the hall, so take a moment to join them, blend in, and rest. Not that she truly needed it in this place, but it was in her nature to stop from time to time, so stop she did.

They talked, they mourned, and they did not discuss their fates. She reminisced with them, calling out the oddities of life, and the strangers that had been known, and they all nodded and understood. Yes. They'd been there.

Then the guards called for a move on, and she slipped away.




She paused at the landing. A guard stood before the next door, though it didn't look like any she'd seen below, so she headed for the lift instead, and the guard began to move too, gliding towards her at angles. Then she was inside, the half-doors closed, and the guard stopped as the lift began to rise.

More guards when she came out, here covering each of the three exits. She rolled past the closest before it could react, and realised what they were - not flesh and blood and magic like the demons themselves, but mechanical. Automatons to guard and hunt. No demon would show mercy, but they did have humour - these would not. This made them dangerous.

She threw her coat over the one at the stairs and didn't stop to check if it had even worked as she ran past, up, up.

These stairs ended in a lobby, two more of the automaton guards silently waiting for her. She pushed the nearer one away as it made a grab, and followed the force of the action over it in a long leap, landing heavily on the hard grey floor. As she regained her feet, several more automatons glided out of doorways. Behind her, the automaton she had pushed was rising wobblily, but the other was also approaching, cutting off all escape.

Ariel stopped, and sighed. "I surrender!" she said, holding out her hands. Somewhat to her surprise, the automatons likewise stopped, then one drifted toward a doorway and she implicitly knew it expected her to follow. She did.

It led her up three floors and down several corridors before stopping outside some sort of office, two demons standing guard by the door. After a moment, the door slid open and she was ushered before the desk, and the grotesque occupant of the desk. He considered her for a moment, and she regarded him as well - a large demon, out of place but not in a pretentious corporate office, nameplate, in-box, telephone, plastic plant and all. The imagery had to be drawn from her own mind, the Dreamer told her. The odds of something this specific appearing somewhere so distant were slim to none.

"So," he said silkily. "Ariel Sartorien, is it?"

She didn't answer. He knew enough already.

He paused, then nodded. "Very unusual for a Damned to come so far. Are you, then?"

She waited a moment for him to go on, but he didn't. "What?" she finally asked.

"Damned. Are you really?" He was smiling slightly now, as though enjoying some private little joke.

"Should I not be?" she said innocently.

Now the demon broke out into a full grin, horrifying in its potential. "Let's find out," he said, and the office faded away into nothing.

Vardaman and Coraline

VARDAMAN
Are you Coraline Henderson?
CORALINE
(looking him over)
No. Should I be?
VARDAMAN
Are you?
CORALINE
Whatever it was, I'm innocent, really.
Zaeres raises an eyebrow.
CORALINE
Well, probably.
VARDAMAN
(suspiciously)
Probably?
CORALINE
Weeell, if this is about a pile of bodies, I might have done that.
VARDAMAN
(looking somewhat worried now)
Erm...
ZAERES
Supposing this is your Coraline Henderson, what would you be wanting of her? An answer to that might help to... persuade her more agreeable nature.
VARDAMAN
You know what, I'm really hoping she's not.
CORALINE
Aww. You're just saying that because you're not drunk enough yet.
VARDAMAN
Are you trying to bribe me?
Coraline grins, and hefts a bottle of shalott.
CORALINE
Will it work?
She waves it and nearly falls over, but before she can Zaeres grabs her shoulder.
VARDAMAN
Right...
CORALINE
Yes, alright, fine. I'm Coraline, though please don't call me that? Names are dangerous, is all.
VARDAMAN
So what, then?
ZAERES
Denereise.
VARDAMAN
And Kyrule called you Coraline because...?
CORALINE
(waving the bottle)
Because calling me Nelanor would have been really weird!
ZAERES
Nelanor?
CORALINE
(still waving the bottle)
That's my name. Don't wear it out.
ZAERES
Your true name? Oh, Denereise, you just told us your true name.
She swings the bottle at him, but misses completely.
CORALINE
Stuff it, Alores.
VARDAMAN
Is it really?
CORALINE
Sandcastles.
VARDAMAN
(he groans)
Oh.
ZAERES
What.
BARKEEPER
(leaning forward)
Is there a dragon involved?
CORALINE
(perking up)
You know, there totally should be.
VARDAMAN
(ignoring the barkeeper)
Nelanor of...?
CORALINE
Kenning Vos.
VARDAMAN
I know the name. Why do I know the name?
CORALINE
(now acting less drunk and more just tired)
Because time.
VARDAMAN
Time?
CORALINE
Zrai. Teleoth. Zorachar. Ejran. Athyria. Sherandris.
Isarra. Nelanor.
VARDAMAN
Fucking hells.
CORALINE
(tiredly)
Time.
BARKEEPER
So. Dragon? Or no dragon?



----



VARDAMAN
Will you stop acting drunk?
CORALINE
But I am drunk!
VARDAMAN
That's entirely beside the point!
CORALINE
(she suddenly relaxes)
Okay, you're right, it is.

Fuller's wife

FULLER
Hold a moment. Is this a mission that might be considered 'worthy'?
CORALINE
Worthy of what?
FULLER
You know, a worthy cause. Just. Proper. Good.
CORALINE
(confused)
You mean like with orphans and stuff?
FULLER
Er...
(he stops to think)
I don't think so? I mean is it more a matter of getting treasure or whatever, or more along the lines of 'this is right and we're doing this because it's right' sort of thing?
CORALINE
I think it's mostly just an OH GODS I DON'T WANT TO DIE sort of thing, really.
FULLER
Oh. Well, it don't really matter to me one way or another, 'cept if it is a worthy cause and stuff I should really tell my wife. She's... into that sort of thing.
VARDAMAN
Into?
FULLER
You know, real pally and shit.
ZAERES
(smiling)
Tell me, Denereise. Are you a worthy cause?
CORALINE
(She snorts with laughter)
Fuck me.
VARDAMAN
(He grunts)
I dunno how worthy this is, but there's an angel involved.
CORALINE
Oh, no, no, no...
VARDAMAN
(surprised, but somewhat pleased by this reaction in spite of himself)
That was my thinking too. So I let this crazy person I know take her shopping. We'll see if there's still an angel involved after they're done.
Anyway, Fuller, go on and get your righteous lass. She should meet our dear... cause and decide for herself, I think.
FULLER
(he shrugs)
All the same to me.
He heads out back.
CORALINE
Crazy person?

Crown

AERYIN
(laughing)
Fuller, you look ridiculous. Why in the hells are you wearing that stupid crown?
He flourishes it.
FULLER
Oh, it's perfectly cunning.
CORALINE
Like a knitted stocking cap from your mum?
AERYIN
He would wear one of those far more proudly.
FULLER
You know I would.

Dead Fuller

There was a fight. Fuller got killed.
CORALINE
You know, this sort of thing is exactly why I like to avoid fights.
(she winces)
Sorry. That's a pretty stupid thing to say now, isn't it?
Aeryin glares at her.
ZAERES
I could raise him as a zombie if you'd like. You'd get to keep all of his good looks and charm, but without any of that troublesome soul business.
AERYIN
(furious)
Why... you... How dare you!
Ariel places a hand on Aeryin's arm, but looks off into the distance.
ARIEL
So according to the liquids guy, who isn't the bear soup fellow, there's three things you need for a resurrection: a soul, some kind of component, and... and...
(she stops, trying to remember)
Glue?
CORALINE
I think Zaeres said the soul was the glue, Ariel.
ARIEL
What, no, I said that. I wanted glue because I was trying to make some tape.
(she shakes her head)
Nevermind.
AERYIN
Vardaman, is there nothing you can do? Plead to your Lord for his return? A resurrection...
VARDAMAN
You know it's not done, least of all by us.
ARIEL
You did it for me, didn't you? Not that it worked, but... still."
(Her eyes narrow in accusation)
And you spoke to her! What did she say?
VARDAMAN
Just some things that didn't make a whole lot of sense. Ariel, come here, will you?
ARIEL
(obliging)
Wot?
He draws her slightly away from the others and whispers something in her ear. A hushed discussion follows.
AERYIN
He's really dead. After everything, I couldn't protect him.
CORALINE
But you can't protect everyone all the time. Sometimes things happen. It's just life.
Aeryin closes her eyes. Nobody says anything for a bit.
CORALINE
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Ariel runs back and starts to kneel over Fuller's body, then suddenly lies down on top of him. Vardaman comes back as well.
AERYIN
What...?
VARDAMAN
Ariel...
ARIEL
(in a whisper, her head on his chest)
Dreamer.
Suddenly Fuller stirs, and groans.
AERYIN
Fuller?! Fuller!
Ariel scrambles out of the way as Aeryin pushes to his side.
FULLER
(sitting up)
Aeryin, what...
They hug and kiss and crap.
VARDAMAN
(to Ariel)
Good job. Your first divine spell. You're clearly a cleric now.
ARIEL
Er. That... so... what happened was basically that... er... I prayed to Eapherod and she... did some stuff... and... sent me some magic and... interceded before Kyrule to get the soul of the dead into... er... this... what?
VARDAMAN
Basically.
ARIEL
Er. I think I'll stick to sorcery.
Vardaman snorts.
ZAERES
But I've seen resurrections before. They don't look like that. They're generally flashier, for one.
CORALINE
But why would you expect flashy from a god of dreams? In dreams everything is normal. It all fits. Even when there are suddenly tentacles everywhere, it all fits.
ARIEL
Tentacles!

Fancy last meal

CORALINE
So.
AERYIN
So.
CORALINE
So we're all here, at this nexus point, this turn of the story, this place where the plot thickens and congeals. And we're faced with an overwhelming question.
(she picks up a menu and flips it melodramatically)
What shall we have to eat?
FULLER
Important questions.
VARDAMAN
What about how we're planning to pay for this this? Anyone stop to think about that?
ZAERES
As I said, money is not an obstacle.
VARDAMAN
You said money isn't an obstacle, not that you'd spend it on us.
MYRR
(staring at her menu)
I do not understand this. These... courses. Does this mean we are to eat multiple... pieces?
(she looks up)
My apologies. You know I am not well accustomed to the matters of food.
FULLER
(jabbing a fork in Myrr's direction)
Remind me, why did we bring her?
Aeryin snorts.
VARDAMAN
Something about politeness and togetherness and propriety and crap.
(he shrugs)
Fuck if I know.
MYRR
So we are together?
VARDAMAN
(He grunts.)
Looks like it.
MYRR
If we are of common cause, then we are always together.
VARDAMAN
Sure.
A waiter appears behind her.
WAITER
(solemnly)
Are we ready to begin?
Vardaman shrugs again. A few of the others look uncertain. Zaeres looks around the table consideringly before finally settling his gaze on the waiter.
ZAERES
Yes. I believe we are.
CORALINE
Do you use real coconut milk? I only ask because we always had to use canned stuff back home and it was kind of... off. Funny aftertaste. Not at all like what you got in Singapore. And don't even get me started on the mangoes.
WAITER
We do not serve mangoes.
CORALINE
Of course you don't. There's no way you could get them this far north.

City of Death

CORALINE
I don't want to run anymore. I just want to stop. To stop. To stop letting everybody down, to stop ruining everything, to stop having to run because there's nothing else I can do, there's nothing else left! I can't take it anymore, and I know this is utterly selfish, but dammit, please, help me. Help me stop running.
KYRULE
From here, you can be saved. Push the curse back into the world, and you will be free.
CORALINE
That ain't freedom. That's just running. More running on top of everything else.
Kyrule says nothing.
CORALINE
Isn't there anything? Anything else?
KYRULE
There is... another possibility. A sacrifice. But it is not meant for you.
CORALINE
And why not?
KYRULE
You should go. Free yourself and go. Wait for your story to follow.
CORALINE
Is it because I'm Nelanor? Because I was the one who named you King? Is that it?
KYRULE
Go. It is not your concern.
CORALINE
It bloody well is. Tell me, Kyrule.
KYRULE
Are you asking as Nelanor?
CORALINE
What?
KYRULE
Free yourself and go, Nelanor of Kenning Vos.
He vanishes. Coraline stares at the spot where he had been.
CORALINE
(yelling after him)
Can't you at least tell me where the fuck my soul even is?!
There is no response. Swirls of dust drift across the street, a sphinx licks itself in a doorway, the river makes its strange creaking noises in the distance. A little ways down the street, a Lost walks into a lamppost.
CORALINE
Right. Fine.
She pulls out a bottle of brandy and took a swig.
BERTRAM
(behind her)
That's one way to avoid your problems.
CORALINE
What, you got a better idea?
BERTRAM
(He shrugs)
Do you know the name Shalias zu Harenai?
CORALINE
Aye.
BERTRAM
Her story, that of the Betrayer, is that to which Kyrule referred. Like you, Shalias carried the Death of Souls, and like you, she chose to fight it, though not in... quite the same way.
CORALINE
Yeah, but that's not really helpful here.
BERTRAM
Shalias found a way to end it, though this solution, too, was not the one you found.
CORALINE
So my ways are better all around, are they?
He raises an eyebrow.
CORALINE
Well, aside from the whole not working. Did hers? Work, I mean.
BERTRAM
She never carried it out. The price was too high, and she chose to save only herself instead, pushing the curse back into the world, where it has led to the destruction of thousands.
CORALINE
And that... is what Kyrule wants me to do? What she did?
BERTRAM
Shalias betrayed her faith and her obligation to the people she should have protected. You share no such obligation. These are not your people, and Kyrule is not your god.
CORALINE
Right. So what exactly was it? That she didn't do.
The Voice doesn't answer.
CORALINE
I assure you my intentions pursuing this are purely sexual in nature.
He doesn't respond to this either and they stand around awkwardly for a bit.
BERTRAM
Find the rest of your soul, Coraline Henderson. The gateway is in the ruins beneath the Amn.
CORALINE
What didn't Shalias do?
BERTRAM
There you must choose.
CORALINE
(giving up)
Choose what?
BERTRAM
Whether you will make the sacrifice, or save yourself.
CORALINE
(finally snapping)
For the love of all things shiny, what sacrifice?!

Fragments of a soul

It shifted in her hands - first a rock, then a mask, then a sword, then a length of chain. It knew no more what it was than what it was supposed to be, and yet it clearly wasn't anything more than an object. But nothing is more than an object, now is it?

"What is it?" she asked.

"An emblem." He gestured toward the pits. "A representation, if you will, of what has come to pass. Of what was lost."

She watched it for a time as it changed, never the same thing twice, though at times similar. It could not make up its mind, if it even had one, because it did not know. "It's the mystery," she said finally. "Ariel thought I was the mystery, but really it's this. It's him."

"So you see it," the dark figure said. "So it shall be."

And then she awoke.

Randomness

"I don't see it. This is madness."

World's Gate

When Coraline, Myyr, and Fuller passed through the World's Gate, it was not as an epic finale to their grand quest. There was no fanfare, no drama, no replay of history to beckon them down the same desperate paths as had claimed the lives of the heroes of yore. Instead, they stepped through to the Underworld quite undramatically, looked around uncertainly, and then made sure their radios were still working.

When the Gate closed, they made sure they were still still working.

Turned out they were.

"Hey, you never can never be quite sure with these things," Fuller whispered. "Can't trust this kind of magic."

Myrr gave him a look that said absolutely nothing. Coraline snorted.

They appeared to be on a street of sorts, though it was unlike any street any of them had seen before, simply a perfectly flat, straight length shaped into the sandy, dusty terrain. Behind them it ended at an impossible wall, too high to follow, and ahead it stretched through further lifeless hills and crannies until the sand gave way to city, a vastness that spanned the entire horizon, sprawling in shapes and forms. One broken tower soared above the rest, fading into the sky itself, but it seemed to only emphasise how jagged the rest were with its own irregular form.

It was clear that nobody out here had been expecting them. People, or what had once been people, loitered in the sand, but it was with such a listless air that they might as well have been sand themselves. Nobody was going anywhere. Some of the denizens glanced at them in passing, but few even saw them at all. It was questionable that most ever saw anything anymore.

"This is the sky under which you will end, Coraline Henderson," Myyr said. "I do not know when or how, but it is so."

"I don't want to hear that," Coraline said. The sky was like an abyss, black and swirled over with other shades of black, but it had no depth to it. It was just there. It made her feel sick.

"It's an abyss," Fuller said.

"How abysmal of it."

"Yeah."




The battle had spilled into the streets, though this high up the defenders definitely had the upper hand. Those skirmishes they ran into were small enough to walk around without any trouble.




Coraline propped up her staff and sighted down its length. "I see some folk out there. They look important. Think I could hit them from here?"

"Don't," Myrr said. "It's not our fight."

"It's a fight, though. Could be interesting to try." Fuller grinned, but it was clear his heart wasn't in it.

End of Dream

"Fuck," Ariel said, and shattered into dust.

The dreamer had died, and her dream died with her.




Coraline never exactly got the news. When there was no response from Vardaman and Ariel, it only confirmed what she already knew to be true.

They had lost.

The Between

Souls rising around. Swirls of light dancing upon ground and surface. Pools shimmering into the distances, spires rising from their waters. Depths falling into nothing. A feeling of a vast cavern, a vast space between places. A realm of transition, and of motion. No way in. No way out.

Voices fill the space. Of memories, of fragments. Lives too precious to let go. Voices that threaten, that plead, that question. Confusion and tulmult. Echoes and whispers and shouts of secrets and legends. The shout and the call and the reverberation of voices against the vastness.

It is not a real place, but it exists. Like the room. Like the garden. Like the city above. It is there, but not.

Those who live will never see it, and those who see it will not remember.

Or so everyone thought.

The kids looked up when they saw the newcomers approaching.

The souls within the soul, the place where they should be

Door

CORALINE
It's like a videogame... except if it were one I wouldn't be standing here in my undies.



----




DOOR
Oh, hello, welcome, welcome! If I'd known there was a lady coming I would have been able to give you a proper welcome.
He doesn't seem to notice her attire - or lack thereof.
CORALINE
Hi...
(she looks around)
Do you get a lot of visitors here?
DOOR
Oh, none. In fact I'm not sure there have been any at all. It's a very quiet place, this. I can hardly remember...
(he looks at her bemusedly)
You haven't seen a dog, by any chance?
CORALINE
Who are you?
DOOR
Oh, well, that's... you know, I don't quite recall. Doesn't matter, though. What good is a name, really?
CORALINE
Francis Door?
He flinches.
CORALINE
But this is a dream.

Avatar of the void

Coraline is in her tavern behind the bar. Toast is toasting in the kitchen. An overnight is drinking some tea, looking hung-over. This... hadn't been what she'd expected coming downstairs; for some reason she had expected a library... but she'd found a bar instead. Weren't they the same?
She looks back to the toast, to the archives, to make sure. When she looks back, the overnight is gone, replaced with a cloaked and hooded figure watching her from within its shadows.
She frowns, for that wasn't there before, then looks back toward the kitchen again. There is now a dog curled up in front of the fireplace.
CLOAKED FIGURE
This isn't you.


Party info

Party:

  • Ariel Sartorien (lunatic - mage/cleric/hunter)
  • Ense Vardaman (deathdealer - cleric/hunter)
  • Coraline Henderson (librarian - mage/sniper)
  • Lord Alores Severin Devres Agustine duSante Zaeres (mage)
  • Fuller Taeth (mercenary - warrior)
  • Aeryin Vals (guardian - cleric/warrior)
  • Myrr (angel - cleric)


Conversation handling:

  • Ariel: Atrocious, something about being nuts, tends to say all the wrong things if she's even paying attention at all
  • Vardaman: Good, but tends to say too much when drunk (and is usually drunk), also very jaded
  • Coraline: Decent, but clueless about the world and later drunk
  • Zaeres: Excellent right up until the point where he loses interest
  • Fuller: Questionable, though good at yelling/threatening
  • Aeryin: Decent, in the sense that she's actually sane and capable of carrying on a conversation
  • Myrr: Terrible, serious communication barriers

In the game, Fuller is listed as the party leader. So long as his wife is with him, he's not really the party leader. (Though here the leader proper would be Coraline.)
Vardaman or Aeryin often take point in anything involving talking to people, unless Ariel says something stupid first. She usually does.


Fights:

  • Ariel: *pokes it with a stick*
  • Vardaman: "Ugh, not again."
  • Coraline: *shoots it*
  • Zaeres: "I'll just stand over here and see what happens."
  • Fuller: "Attack everything! Attack!"
  • Aeryin: "Take point. I've got your back."
  • Myrr: "Is this our concern?"


Why don't Vardaman and Zaeres have any problems with each other? Deathdealers do not tolerate vampires, nor any undead, but especially vampires... not that Vardaman is at all typical of a deathdealer.

Fuller and Aeryin are married. It makes as little sense to them as to anyone else, and yet it works. Potentially too well at times - when you see them in battle it all falls into place.


Gods:

  • Ariel: Eapherod ("Is the Dreamer a god? I thought she was just a voice in my head.")
  • Vardaman: Kyrule ("Don't get me started on gods. Don't even.")
  • Coraline: n/a (*mutters something about foot fungus*)
  • Zaeres: n/a ("I make my own divinity.")
  • Fuller: Orin ("Huh?")
  • Aeryin: Orin ("What about them?")
  • Myrr: Kyrule ("I serve Kyrule, and act as his will upon the world.")


Alignments:

  • Ariel: Chaotic neutral (She's insane, but not necessarily good or evil. Just insane.)
  • Vardaman: Lawful neutral (The world is harsh. And so is he.)
  • Coraline: Neutral (Lawful about some things, chaotic about others. She generally means well, but her logical approach to overall problems often leads her to do things that others would consider to be quite cruel.)
  • Zaeres: Lawful evil (Usually a decent guy to be around unless you manage to tick him off. Won't help at all unless he likes you, though.)
  • Fuller: Neutral evil (He really likes to attack things. Doesn't have very good manners. Not sadistic or cruel, though, just belligerent.)
  • Aeryin: Neutral good (Too practical to be considered lawful in practice, though she usually leans toward it. Finds Fuller's antics to be more funny than anything else.)
  • Myrr: Lawful good (She's an angel and the right hand (or possibly wing) of a lawful deity.)

Vardaman and an angel

EXT. TOWN STREET - DAY
Vardaman is standing by a street watching folks go by. He looks bored and mildly irked, for whatever reason.
An angel in resplendent horror appears behind him (MYRR) and he turns quickly, starting to draw a sword. Then he sees it's an angel and stops, looking a bit confused.
VARDAMAN
Oh, uh...
MYRR
Be not afraid, mortal. I am Myrr of Souls, the Falcon of Kyrule, and I have come to offer you a task...
The angel stops, looking around. People are staring in varying states of awe, confusion, horror, and curiosity.
Vardaman now looks more than just mildly irked.
VARDAMAN
Will you put your fucking hood on?
MYRR
(pulling down her hood)
I am sorry. This was not meant to alarm, but it is easy to forget the ways of mortals.
This hides most of the horribleness.
VARDAMAN
Yeah, I can see that.
Suddenly Ariel jumps at them out of the growing crowd and starts waving some massive leeks in Vardaman's and, as soon as she notices, Myrr's faces.
ARIEL
(screaming)
I found CELERY!
VARDAMAN
(trying to push her away)
Um...
ARIEL
Celery! Celery!
RANDOM CROWD PERSON
But those are leeks...
VARDAMAN
(trying to hold Ariel away at arms' length)
Will you fucking...
(he suddenly decides to just ignore her instead)
Alright, Myrr. What is it?
ARIEL
Celery!
She smacks Vardaman in the face with a leek.
MYRR
It is a difficult matter, something not to be taken lightly. You should know that you have been chosen for your unwavering faith and strength in the midst of most difficult darkness, and this will be the truest test of your resolve to...
VARDAMAN
(interrupting)
Get to the point, will you?
ARIEL
(even more loudly than before)
CELERY!
The angel takes a step backwards, then adopts the exact same stance as before.
MYRR
It is a difficult matter, something not to be taken lightly. You should know that you have been chosen for your unwavering faith and strength in the midst of most difficult darkness, and this will be the truest test of your resolve to stand as Deathdealer.
Vardaman groans, but lets go of Ariel.
Ariel stops waving the leeks, looks at the angel, looks at Vardaman, and then looks back at the angel consideringly.
Meanwhile Myrr goes on at length. We don't really care so we'll just skip past that.
Most of the crowd realises it doesn't care either and wanders off while Vardaman and Ariel wait for Myrr to actually get to some sort of point.
Two hours later:
Ariel is leaning against Vardaman and drooling on his sleeve.
MYRR
You must find a wanderer, one not of these worlds, who has been cursed. You call it the Death of Souls, but though its very presence threatens to consume everything that is, this time it is different. This story mimics that of Shalias the Betrayer, and as Shalias, you will know the Carrier by her stance and by her fate, for she too will hold the golden coin. You will join her cause and aid her to the end, whatever it may be. This shall be your task. So it has been decreed.
Cue flashback to Vardaman and Coraline at some bar. They're both rather drunk by this point, just babbling about something utterly inane.
Vardaman stares at Myrr for a bit, then moves slightly. Ariel startles and then stares at him.
VARDAMAN
Do you people practice sounding cheesy?
ARIEL
(wiping off her face with a leek)
You know, that's the mystery. We need to save the mystery, you know. You promised.
She waves some leeks for emphasis.
VARDAMAN
Great. It's like it's all been fated to work out.
ARIEL
(beaming)
Oh, don't worry. My dreamer is way too incompetent to have planned this.
(mumbling)
Eapherod, on the other hand... no, she's not quite that on top of things either.
MYRR
(to Ariel)
Your mystery has placed you on this path for a reason, child. Do not waver, and the truth will shine through.
ARIEL
Yes, yes.
(she drops the leeks and tugs on Myrr's arm)
Let's go shopping.
MYRR
(moving toward Vardaman)
You will need guidance...
VARDAMAN
(backing away)
Oh, I think I know where to find her. You two have fun. Shopping.
ARIEL
Good fun! We'll get you a nice hat and a box of wangs and some shiny paint and everything. And maybe even some swords! And we could go all out and...
(she lowers her voice dramatically)
...get things like travelling supplies and foooood!
Vardaman gives them a small wave as he leaves, and Myrr relents and allows Ariel to tug her off back toward the market.

Meeting

INT. TAVERN
Coraline is at a table with a mug. Vardaman stands over her.
The barkeep gets up very, very slowly.
VARDAMAN
Karoliina Hämäläinen.
Varaman drops the deathgod's coin on the table in front of her, and then sits in the chair across.
Coraline startles and shrinks away, but doesn't say anything or get up.
VARDAMAN
(sliding the coin toward Coraline with a finger)
Don't lose it this time, will you?
Coraline stares at it and then glances uncertainly upwards at him.
CORALINE
I... what?
VARDAMAN
You swore the oaths and gave your name, and Kyrule took you as one of his own. Do you think he will forget you so easily now?
There is a long pause in which Coraline looks down at her drink. It's depressingly empty.
VARDAMAN
Why did you do it?
CORALINE
What?
VARDAMAN
You're a witch. Why become a Deathdealer?
CORALINE
I was drunk.
VARDAMAN
You're always drunk.
CORALINE
It seemed right?
Vardaman grunts.
CORALINE
(she sighs and shakes her head)
I shouldn't have, I know. I can't just take it back.
VARDAMAN
No.
CORALINE
Peledeska wanted you to take it back. She wanted you all... but she's gone now. Like none of it ever happened.
Vardaman gives her a worried look.
CORALINE
But it did! You can't just make something happened unhappen. Even if you remove it from all the worlds, eradicate all reference, destroy any indication that it ever was, it still happened.
You know I did it beause of Azorres. He told me a story that... well...
I don't know. I need to stay close to Kyrule. It's why I'm here. It's why I'm here at all. She made him what he is and now he's the only thing tying back to her and if there's any chance at all it's going to be through him. Adopted brother of an adopted sister?
(spitting the words)
It's all so perfect. Miten meni, noin niinku omasta mielestä? Täydellisesti!
Coraline collapses on the table, head in her arms.
Vardaman gives her a long look.
VARDAMAN
(finally, indicating the bar)
I'm going to go get a drink, and then we'll try this again, okay?
Coraline doesn't respond.
Vardaman grabs her mug and goes to talk to the barkeep.
The barkeep makes a sign of respect and bows slightly.
BARKEEP
Hail, Deathdealer. What can I get you?
VARDAMAN
(indicating Coraline and then plopping down the mug)
Refill for the idiot, and I'll take some of the same.
The barkeep gets him two shalotts and Vardaman brings them back, sliding one at Coraline, who hasn't moved since he left.
Vardaman sits and gives her a long look.
Finally he pokes her with the mug and she sits up a bit and takes it.
CORALINE
Oh... er, thanks.
VARDAMAN
You know you have an angel after you?
CORALINE
(tiredly)
Yes.
VARDAMAN
Great. Let's just deal with that.

More stuff

If he thought you'd gone on that oath, I wouldn't be here.

Right... well... That's not all there is to it.

It


I haven't slept in almost two months now.

Oath

"Kyrule of Arling Tor, I will guard you, now and always. You know I will."

Fuzziness.

Dead Agata

"Agata..." she turned fractically back to the high priest. "I had a cat with me before. Have you seen a cat anywhere? Is she alright?"

He frowned. "No," he said slowly. "Why...?"

She looked around, trying desperately to remember. The priests were watching her curiously, but this had nothing to do with them. Something about death. Blood. One soul?

There was a knife on the alter, and she grabbed it, looked at it in momentary confusion, slashed at her other arm, and immediate dropped to the floor. "Blood of my blood," she said, drawing the sigil again on the tiles. It was almost the same as before, but not quite. This one was for the present, for renewal. For life.

"What are you doing?" the main guy cried, and jumped forward to stop her. But the last stroke was quick, and she was done before her got there, flashing the entire shape into darkness, black smoke rising and coalescing in the circle.

She was already feeling light-headed. Bad idea, perhaps. But done was done, and the shape was there. Paws, whiskers, ears. Tail. A feline smile, a weight of fluff.

"It worked," Agata purred. "You're better than my last witch."

"Agata!" Coraline screamed, and drew the cat into her arms, hugging it, getting blood all over its fur and also herself in the process, but not even caring. She kept trying to say something else, but nothing would quite come out, and just sat there rocking back and forth, cat in her arms, tears streaming down her face, blood down her arm.

"What..." someone started to say, but was interrupted by the high priest sweeping forward and covering Coraline.

"Everyone, out," he commanded, but then ammended that the main guy could also stay.


Later, after the place was cleared and Coraline had managed to calm down a bit, he mused, "So this is how you survived at all. You're a witch."

"Good witch," Agata said. "Wouldn't have done this for my last one."

"Yeah," Coraline said. "Er, sorry about your floor. I kind of panicked a bit there."

"Floors can be washed," the main guy said, "but what of everyone who saw that stunt of yours? What in the hells are we supposed to make of that?"

Agata peered at him suspiciously. "Old magic," she finally said when nobody else said anything.

"To ressurect your familiar?" the high priest asked.

"She died for me," Coraline said. "I didn't know how to face that. I could feel her gone, I just knew what she'd done, and it was too much. So..." she shook her head. "I did something?"

"Wasn't completely gone, now was Í?" Agata said. "You still knew what to do. I was the only one who ever knew that."

The other Coraline

But if I do this, what about the real one? What if it deprives some other girl out there of her birthright?

You're from Ord, right? Coraline Henderson. A peculiar name.

Yes...

You don't know where you came from. Lived on the streets, hitchhiked about, eventually wound up here.

Lost family

Coraline entered the room hesitantly, so much so that Faulo wound up having to pull her the rest of the way in by the hand. There were three of them waiting there - an elderly fellow who looked oddly familiar, a woman who seemed quite preocupied by the ceiling, and another guy who seemed to be some sort of guard. A cliché of a guard, at that - he had a suit, some sort of gun thing, a pair of sunglasses, and what was probably an earpiece for the ordian equivalent of a radio.

The man fixated on Coraline at once and stepped forward hopefully. "Coraline?" he asked.

She startled at the name, but managed to mostly cover her surprise. "Um," she said. "Hi?"

"It is you," he said, smiling. "How lovely you've grown, just like your mother."

She looked at him, confused. She didn't know this man. This was all just a horrible inter-universal mixup. Except the thing was, he looked like her crazy uncle Frank. Just without the long scar across the top of his face.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking a step backwards, "but who are you?" She wasn't even sure if she was playing along or not at this point. Mostly, she was just confused.

"Coraline, this is Lord Teller," Seras said. "He's your uncle."

"Frank?" she asked quitely.

Heading to pick up material

"So what are we doing?"

Coraline looked around. "I'm not entirely sure. The lifespan of phonebooths is one of those mysteries of the the universe."

"Uh huh."

They both just stood there for a bit.

"I'm not sure," Coraline repeated. "Frankly it's been awhile since I've been in a city like this, and the last time... we knew where we were coming from and going ahead of time. Get through customs, and then the first stop was the place we were staying. And they always had information around the train stations," she mused.

Deathdealers

They were down to three.

They had passed all the trials. Achieved all the things. And now, standing at the end, holding their mugs, they were down to three still standing.

It was a potion, that last step that would turn them into the true swords of the god. It was just water, of course, but it was also more than water. Molecularly it could be anything it wanted, Coraline supposed. She wondered what she was doing here, what she was thinking. This was not what she was supposed to be doing, she knew that much. But at the same time, it made sense. It had made sense all the way here and now here she was standing with these two warriors who were willing to do anything for their god, to give up all the world to be his will.

All she wanted was to survive.

She clutched her mug of water-not-water closely, and the others, too, held theirs in trepidation. All they had to do was drink. It could kill them, of course, but it wouldn't, not if they were truly strong enough to be what they needed to be.

Garen smiled slightly, and Martel just looked down.

It was Coraline who drank first, first a tentative sip, then large gulps until it was all gone, deep breath at the end. The others followed suit, not wanting to be outdone, and then Garen just laughed.

"Well, that wasn't so hard!" he said.

Coraline smiled too.

"Speak for yourself," Martel said. He was almost shaking. "It's over, then?"

"No," Coraline whispered. "Now we must last the night."

She sank to the floor slowly, drifting down like a lost shawl, down down down across the tiles, her hair trailing after into a whispering puddle, the others moving to catch her as she slipped out of grasp...


She was in a space. Everything was dark, but she could see herself. Everything was peaceful, quiet, calm. All her pain gone. All the voices silent. Just her own self, free and alone, sitting in the dark.

She let it be. Simply sat. Waited. Not for anything in particular, just nothing at all.

There was a presence before her. A figure, shrouded and dark, but against the darkness of the space, infinitely bright.

"This place. Is it yours?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"She called it Midnight," he said.

"It's been called a lot of things," she said.

"It's not real," he said.

"No," she said.

"But it is," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"You can't stay," he said.

"I know," she said.

"You need to wake up," he said.

"I know," she said sadly.

"It's all right," he said. "You don't need to be afraid. Not here. Never here."

Suddenly she was hugging him. Surprised, he hesitated, then embraced her in turn.

"It's all right," he repeated. "You're safe. I'll protect you, my dreamer."

"I know," she said, and awoke.


Coraline was lying on the floor. It was morning. Martel was sitting up, rubbing his head. Garen moaned.

"What... just... what..." Garen said.

"Yeah..." Martel agreed.

"That was weird," Coraline said, getting up. She felt better than she had in months, stronger, more aware, the voices pushed away into the back of her mind.

"What?" Garen asked, still lying flat on his back.

Coraline opened her mouth to answer, then reconsidered. "What... happened?" she asked. "Did you dream?"

Martel shook his head, then winced again. "One moment we were all drinking, the next... floor." He spread his arms to demonstrate, and added, "Looks like we all made it. Yay!"

"I'll drink to that," Coraline said, pulling Garen up off the floor. He practically bounced.

The door to the chamber boomed open and Harrus swept in. "Well, you're all Deathdealers now. Congratulations," he said flatly. "There are those who will think you are the chosen of Kyrule, but you know that's not true. You chose yourselves. You chose this."

"Kyrule's big on choices, isn't he?" Coraline said, cocking her head.

Harrus snorted. "You'd know more than most, wouldn't you?" Then he addressed the other two, handing each a coin, "I'm proud of you, you know. Now get out there and guard the world."

"That's it?" Martel said.

"What about her?" Garen asked, indicating Coraline.


Notes on the Death of Souls

  • Contagion: Usually folks just die immediately as a result of contagion, as opposed to turning, hence relatively low spread
  • Spread by those who don't just die ('carriers') trying to eat their souls - hunger the result of trying to fill the resulting hole?


Early stages (0-3 days)
  • hunger
  • restlessness
  • fear
Intermediate (0-4 days)
  • insatiable, overwhelming hunger
  • loss of awareness
  • seeing things that aren't there
  • hearing voices
  • loss of ability to sleep
  • extreme twitchiness
  • eyes turn black
End (0-7 days)
  • utter madness
  • voices shouting
  • loss of soul/self
  • contagion
  • death


  • Longest recorded carrier lasted 11 weeks. Survived by application of soulbinding and devouring the souls of spirit forms. Succeeded in curing the infection from self; method used and current whereabouts unknown.
  • Longest recorded non-magical carrier lasted 13 days since initial infection.
  • Average lifespan for carriers: 5 days.


BOUNTY: Black soul gems (Carrier 'souls' turn black in soul gems). Bounty only allows one black soul gem at a time. Attempts to turn in more than two at a time result in no bounty, confiscation, and a black mark (to stave off practice of allowing infection for monetary gain)

Bounty put out as a result of sudden rash of outbreaks that occurred 2-3 years ago; rates are down again, but the disease/curse remains more common now than it used to be.


Carrying soul gems may help to prevent infection upon normal contact; use of soul gem upon Carrier death appears to reliably prevent the curse jumping to nearby hosts.

Upon carrier death, Death of Souls appears to have a ~20% chance of jumping to any nearby living creature of sufficient base soul type. Jumping to two from a single dead host has been observed/reported once.

The Pampered - evening

The place Coraline wound up at was loud. It wasn't a pub, exactly. It definitely wasn't an inn. It wasn't much of a restaurant or a cafe. Mostly it was a hole in the wall that happened to to have food, drinks, and a whole lot of noise.

It was also full of smoke.

Agata just rolled her eyes. She didn't even bother commenting.

Coraline trucked up to a random guy who seemed to work there, asked if they had shalott, and when he ayed, pushed her way upstairs and monopolised a table. Then Thimble and Tress hopped on the table too, leaving no room for even anything that would normally go on a table.

Agata put her ears back unhappily.

Coraline got her shalott, and only later did it occur to her to also get food. The food wound up on top of a cat, resulting in more than a few amused looks from other patrons, and a particularly irate one from the cat.

Then Agata asked, right in her ear, "Where are you going?"

"What?" Coraline said.

"Where are you going?" Agata repeated. "Are you even planning to go on? Or are you going to do something stupid instead?"

Finland

"Everything is forbidden in Finland, or if it isn't, then it's taxed."

~ A Finn

The thing about Finland is that, if one were to simply sit down and start describing it, it wouldn't even sound like a real county. It has seasons and people and things and glow-in-the-dark deer and giant statues of butts and tar-flavoured lemonade. It is a country where people will tack letters to the wall rather than interact with each other directly, where everyone will just stand around waiting rather than say anything when a bus driver forgets to open the doors, where personal space is not just valued, but imperative. Graffiti is short and to the point. Sarcasm and cynicism are taught in schools.

Metaphors comparing Finns to drunk, angry bears have proven effective, and general descriptions of antisocial engineers have also held quite well, despite most Finns not being, in fact, either engineers or antisocial.

One Finn explained, when asked how to approach a Finn, "You don't. You just don't."

Coraline was not necessarily an exactly average Finn, but she was also by no means unusual.

Steel (sword)

The thing with steel was that its hardness seemed to depend entirely on the carbon. If anything, the iron in it was the weakness. So Coraline had wanted a diamond sword. Just a big-arse sword made of solid diamond. Or better yet, some sort of carbon compound that was even stronger. Like... graphine or something. Because that was totally a thing.

Unfortunately Barney had thought her mad when she'd brought it up. Ambiguously more or perhaps less fortunately, this had also led to him following her around trying to sell her a sword for the better part of four months.

Now she had a sword she could scratch with her earrings, but on the other hand, she had a sword.

She drew it slightly and examined the blade, and realised Barney really hadn't been kidding when he'd said it had had her name written all over it. There, down the blade, was etched rather beautifully, 'Lyra Zidane'. An old name, now, but still a dear one, and she smiled slightly upon seeing it.

This ain't even living

CORALINE
Everything is noisy. That's my world. Constant noise. Sounds that don't fit, voices that aren't there, a clamour and tumult and thunder of noise, noise, noise that never stops, until one day when it will, when it will all stop and I will finally have peace, and on that day I will probably be dead. But it's still something to look forward to. It's something. No more fuzziness. No more noise.
GUY
And that's it?
CORALINE
It's peace. Freedom. Something else that ain't this.
GUY
It's death, though. That's not what you want.
CORALINE
Death? I'm already dead.
(she laughs humourlessly)
I'm drunk. I can't even put proper concepts together. I can't care about anything, not really. It's a life, sure, but it's not living. It's just one thing in front of another, moving, forward and on, but not properly living.
Because I still remember. I still dream of what it was to go through life, to be properly aware, to be a proper person interacting with the world and experiencing things in full without this fuzzy mantle covering all the sharp edges... I remember anger, fear, hatred. And pain. I remember them as concepts, but what they feel like I cannot even comprehend. Instead I'm just here, existing, ambling, and it's all good, all the time, but I cannot even love, either, not really.
GUY
That's not really...
CORALINE
It is! It's the only existence I've got, and it's horrible, but I have to have it, because the alternative is so much worse. Like this, I have fuzziness and a not-quite world, but without it I have nothing at all, only pain and horror and a terrible emptiness. And the voices, that never stop.
This, it's quiet. It's quiet, at least.

Escape from the Hells

Vardaman pushes and pulls the other two into the boat as the ferryman watches impassively. Charo slides into the bottom and sits wearily. Ariel collapses in a heap.
There's a long pause. Vardaman stares at the ferryman. The ferryman does nothing.
VARDAMAN
I don't suppose you'll get us out of here?
FERRYMAN
Do you have the fare?
VARDAMAN?
What?
(he checks his pockets)
Oh, no, I must have left it in my other pants...
Ariel slowly stands up behind him, taking on an aura of auraness. It's very presency. And commanding. And stuff.
ARIEL
Ferryman. You will take us from this place.
FERRYMAN
You are damned and bound. Without the fare, you cannot leave these realms.
ARIEL
You will take us. I command it.
There is a long pause. Vardaman raises a dubious eyebrow.
FERRYMAN
(bowing slightly)
Very well.
The boat slides silkily over the water...

Awkwardness

ARIEL
Vardaman, think about it this way. It's like when you lose a screw, and you don't know where it went. You take another screw and this time you watch where it falls.
VARDAMAN
Then you lose two screws?
KYRULE
Or you find both.
ARIEL
Either way you still need the screw you lost, so the second screw is a risk you can afford. But this time you're watching, so even then you're not likely to actually lose it.
VARDAMAN
What are screws?
ARIEL
They're... little thingies that hold stuff together. Easy to drop when you're working with them, though.
VARDAMAN
And the screws in this metaphor would be...?
ARIEL
Kyrule?
KYRULE
Lost souls.
ARIEL
Unfortunately I don't actually have an overabundance of souls to throw at the problem, or even any spares, so that's an issue.
KYRULE
Fishing for a donation, are you?
ARIEL
Weell...

Digital

You forget so much when you go digital. You forget how to cut out and store a template for a poster, how transactions are all made on location, how you have no idea at any moment what is happening anywhere else. You forget the girls they hired to manage the records, you forget the store-rooms filled with nothing but papers, the indexing systems, the boxes. You lose the uncertainty of printing, and you lose the danger of only having a single copy, because now there is never only a single copy. You forget the worth of things, and only know the worth of names.

And then you go back. And you forget how much trouble it was to guard your name, how easily things could disappear, how scary it was when your entire work could be lost. You forget the monotony, the simplicity, the boredom. You forget what it feels like to run on the road, to go south for the winter, to come home after. You forget the friends you made and never met, the things they made you feel, the things you shared with them. You forget what it's like to have fifty pens and yet find that none of them are the one you want.

And then you go back.

Back in a world of ideas, of conceptual currency and ephemeral product. A world where food is cheap and work is expensive, a world where you can hop from planet to planet in a matter of minutes and yet still see nothing new. Updates stream throughout the stars and indeed here we know it all, and yet still we know nothing, because people. People never change.

The Queen's Bust

There is an inn. The sign says 'The Queen's Bust', with a picture of a bust of the queen under it.
JORA
Really? Queen's bust? That's the best they could do?
KIT
I don't get it.
JORA
Bust.
Kit looks confused.
JORA
This?
She gestures toward her chest, which Kit glances at before suddenly stopping and staring as though seeing it for the first time.
KIT
Woah. That... you... woah!
JORA
(irritated)
Kit!
ERRY
What's so great about that?
NOLAN
It's a boy thing.
ERRY
Like sheep being a Nolan thing?
NOLAN
Boom.

Before

DRINK!

VARDAMAN
DRINK!
CORALINE
DRINK!
VARDAMAN
DRINK!
The barkeep comes over and looks at them flatly.
CORALINE
(pointing)
Drink?
VARDAMAN
YES!
The barkeep refills their drinks.
CORALINE
Yes!
They drink their drinks.
Vardaman stares at his empty drink disappointedly.
VARDAMAN
FUCK!
Coraline peers over at his drink, then at her own.
CORALINE
FECK ARSE!
VARDAMAN
DRINK!
CORALINE
DRINK!
The barkeep refills their drinks.
CORALINE
DRINK!
Coraline drinks and throws her cup over her shoulder.
Vardaman drinks.
VARDAMAN
DRINK!
CORALINE
PERKELE!


Strange mask: Kyrule

The mask was almost identical to the one she had in her notebook. Hers was a modern excuse for filigree: laser-cut aluminium. Here, intricate swirls and elaborate patterns arose out of the stone, mathematics of chaos that mostly worked out shifting in and out of focus. Only the circle at the top was empty, where the emblem should have been. The trinity.

"Who the hell are you?" she said.

Impromptu barkeep

"Then we'll have to come by later, get to know this new barkeep of yours." The officer nodded, tipped his hat at Coraline, and turned about and left, soldiers at his heels.

Delaroy just stared after them, panicked. "I... fuck!" He turned to Coraline, and said, "You need to get out of here. I can make up a yarn about how you fled, but you need to leave now if you're going to have any chance!"

"Wait," Coraline said, placing a hand on his arm. "Why not play it through?"

"What?"

She smiled disarmingly. "What's where, what do people usually get, what sort of cocktails are popular in the area? Tell me what I need to know, and I will be your barkeep."

He looked at her incredulously. "Do you know anything about bartending at all?"

"I know how to mix flavours so they work well together. I know a good barkeep judges the appropriate shalott based on body weight and height with some sort of scaling for apparent base tolerance." He looked sceptical, so she added, "I've seen it done a few times."

Delaroy sighed. "Look, I appreciate the offer, but I can't risk it. If it doesn't work, it'd be both our heads for sure."

"I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think it entirely doable," Coraline said. "Remember, it's both our heads on the line, mine too. And even if they buy your story otherwise, that'd still be a mark, whereas this way you come clean and get a barkeep on top. You do seem to have been looking for one for quite some time, after all."

"But..." Delaroy started, then he seemed to change his mind and shrugged. "You know what? Fine. Come on."

Drinking and storytelling: Francis Door

"Francis Door," she said.

He took a long drink. "Yeah?"

"You know the story?"

"Yeah."

She downed her shalott and pushed the mug forward for a refill. "What do you make of it?"

He took a long breath. "Crazy shit," he said. "Damn crazy shit."

"How so?"

"Well," he paused, thinking. "You got this guy. A fuckin' normal guy. He loves a few things in life, his god, his work, his woman, and for them he'd give up anything. For any one of them he'd give up the others, if it came to it."

"Is that what happened?"

"Near enough. It was his wife's sister, if you can believe that. All the stories say it was his wife, what say it at all, but it was her fucking sister."

"What..."

"Right?"

They minded their drinks. Things swam swimmily around them, objects in space. They watched, and listened, and drank.

"Some folks would do anything for family," Coraline said. "Is that so wrong?"

He stared at his shalott and tipped it randomly. "'Snothing wrong or right about it. That's just it. Just shit what happens, an' choices what don't work out. Swhat makes it all so fucked up."

Kalona - winter, four years past

High in the foothills, Kalona was walled, dead, and silent, an oasis of silence cradled amidst the snowy trees. The heavy gate was ajar, but before it were bodies: three of them, collapsed in the road, discoloured corpses frozen through, arrows protruding from their backs. No sign of the shooters on the walls. No sign why the gate would still be open, if it were so imperative that nobody get out.

Not even cawing disturbed the whispers as Coraline approached. Just silence, and the roar of the wind in the pines.

She ducked through the partially open gate and tried to take in everything at once, staff at the ready. It didn't work; instead she nearly hit herself on the head with the staff and got her foot stuck in an upturned wicker basket she'd failed to spot on the ground. She stopped and tried again.

There wasn't anyone about. No movement between the houses and workshops, though something creaked somewhere. The streets were strewn with senseless objects.

She heard a creak again, but nothing of the view had changed. Above her a banner flapped half-heartedly. She pulled the basket off her foot, searched a few of the buildings, found some supplies and no people, and few bodies. In some, it appeared as though the occupants had tried to pack up and leave, with shelves bare and tables cleared quickly, while for others it was as though the occupants had simply vanished without warning. Fires burned down to ash, tables set, food out, tools in their places.

Leaving one of the last ones, she was startled by a creak again behind her, much louder, and then realised it was the door closing behind her, simply reminding the world that it was still there. It was still a door. It still functioned.

Again she looked around. Still nothing. Detritus and nothing. Dead objects littering the cobblestones, buildings gaping at the wind. Shutters hanging open, but doors shut tight, guarding the possessions of the dead.

Then movement caught her eye. Something around the corner over there. Gripping her staff, she moved towards it, and a sheet billowed into view before catching on the ground further on.

A moment later, rounding the corner proper, she saw someone. He appeared to be an elf, but mad, crazed, a hunched figure not aware of his surroundings, scrabbling at the ground as though chasing something that was not there, shuffling forward, all the while jerking to voices that existed only in his own head.

She could almost hear them as she watched. She wished he would speak. She wished she could hear the Mad Words, to really hear them for what they were, but instead the elf said nothing as he scuttled about.

He hadn't noticed her. She moved closer, but pointed the staff at him all the same.

"Hello?" Coraline called out. "Can you hear me?"

And he just stopped. It was as though the world had stopped with him, until he turned, so very slowly, and stared at her with gleaming, hungry black eyes. He stretched out a hand, grasping toward her, and then she felt him pulling at her mind, tugging at her very being. It was the strangest feeling she had ever experienced.

Her staff went off without her even realising it, firing wildly several times, and suddenly the feeling stopped. The elf lay dead before her, claw-like hands still reaching toward where she'd been standing. One of her shots had clipped the side of his head, enough to kill him outright.

Suddenly he looked so normal.

Verash - spring, three years past

After the constant mugginess of the rest of their trip, it had been an unusually nice day.

Merrs was riding ahead while Coraline and Costa followed behind and generally utterly failed to make conversation, though a few snippets did occur. At one point she asked exactly what Merrs' deal was.

"What exactly is Merrs' deal?" were her precise words.

There was a pause while he considered the question. Then, instead of answering directly, Costa responded, "It has been my life's work to seek out and, if possible, bring forth the Light of Azorres. A chosen one who would lead the faithful, acting as a guiding star in the world of the living, out of their suffering."

They rode in silence for a moment, then it hit her like a brick through mud, which is to say very, very slowly. "Merrs?" Coraline asked. Then she added, "So he's a very holy man."

"Yes," Costa said.

"I hope he doesn't want to be a waiter," she said.

Costa gave her a look of utter confusion. She laughed happily.

"Nevermind," she said.

They'd lost sight of Merrs over a small hill, but caught sight again as they topped the rise. Now he was joined by a small group of what appeared to be bandits of some sort.

There were four of them. They seemed to be telling Merrs to get off his horse, or something along those lines. Whatever it was, he wasn't doing it, instead just sitting there, apathetically ignoring them as they shoved swords at him and yelled crudely.

"Agh!" Costa yelled, and drove his horse toward them, yelling at the top of his lungs, trying to get their attention. It only took a moment and they turned toward him instead.

"Oh, look what we have here, lads!" one of them said, probably the leader. The bandit swaggered forward as Merrs slid sideways off his horse behind him. "Reinforcements!"

"You rat bastards!" Costa screamed. Suddenly the sky was full of lightning, cracking and thundering even without clouds. Then it struck, shaking the very ground and obliterating three of the four bandits in an instant.

At the same time, the horses bolted, leaving Costa clinging for dear life in an attempt to get his back under control, and Coraline on the ground not far away where hers had thrown her.

Aside from Merrs'. For some reason Merrs' horse was still just standing there.

The last bandit, who had somehow escaped the lightning, fled.

Coraline got up quickly, grabbing her staff. She seemed to be fine, but Merrs, on the other hand, wasn't moving. As she walked toward him, she raised the staff and fired, hitting the fleeing bandit in the back. She watched the man fall without even caring, and only as she dropped to her knees beside him did a look of concern cross her face.

"Merrs?" she said, rolling him over.

He groaned. There was blood on his jacket. It seemed one of the bandits had thought it funny to poke him when he didn't cooperate.

"You idiot," she said, pushing aside a few layers of shirts and jackets to find the wound in his abdomen, still bleeding. It looked deep, but she didn't know how deep, especially with all the blood. Whatever the case, she also had absolutely no idea what to do about it - even if she could stop the bleeding, there were probably some important organs in there, and such.

So she put her hand on it, instead, because that totally made sense, feeling the blood and the heat and the sense of pain and hurt, and then there were voices rising all around her, a strange sensation of drowning in nothing, and after the screaming, only blackness.


When she awoke, the voices were still louder than they had been, more present, more constant. The crackling flames before her hissed and spit and babbled, their voices right at home amidst the rest, and she watched them dance, not really thinking, not really listening.

She realised Merrs was nearby, weaving flowers out of grass. "Costa's still trying to find your horse," he said, not looking up.

Twilight glowed off the broken clouds, mirroring the colours of the flames across the landscape.

"What..." she began, then stopped. "Oh. Are you okay?"

"No worse for wear," he said, closing his eyes. The voices drifted in and about the spoken words like fishes.

In the end, Costa never did find the horse.

Verash - spring, three years past

Coraline had always wanted magic. Through her entire life, it had been a bit of a dream, a longing, a need for something more beyond the bland, bland world to which she belonged. Eventually she'd grown up a bit and her focus had shifted to words, which were their own sort of magic - the only magic her world had - and to dreams, where it didn't matter what was real and what wasn't. But dreams ended. Worlds faded as she always awoke, and after that there were only words. Sweet, sweet, tantalising words that still left her wanting at the end, because they, too, were never enough.

So she had pushed it away, that want, that need, and she had dreamed amongst her hoarded words.

But now she was here. And here there was magic. And it was real.

She wanted to be excited. She was excited. She wanted to sing and dance and shout into the wind, but the wind was elsewhere, taking the evening off. Something about it felt off.

And that's where the uncertainty crept in. Something wasn't right, because it couldn't be.

It couldn't be real. There was no way it could be real. It hadn't happened. None of it had happened. It was just a dream. A new reality, a new world with simple answers and big dreams and strange magics... and escape.

A way out.

She was a coward. After everything, she had proven a coward. All the dreams of being strong. All the daydreams and the nightmares and the playing with swords, after the chainmail shirts and the trebuchets and the illusions of power. Even when her parents had told her, no, no, little girls are not Roman soldiers, little girls are not alien commanders, they're... well, things that exist, princesses or something, she had still wanted to fight, to take on the world, to be that elf on the elephant, leading the army into the light. And a princess too, of course, but not just any princess. But then the brick of real life had hit her, and after everything she wasn't a princess at all. Not any princess. And she couldn't handle it.

And now here she was. Playing the hero, the strong, the gal who had everything in order save for a place to belong, because in this place that she had escaped to, she could never belong. There was no way. No way at all.

It wasn't real.

Some day she would awaken only to suffer for this silly dream, as she had suffered for all the others. As everyone had always said she would, from all of those that had come before. There would be no option to simply 'show them', for there was never anything to show.

The realisation hit her like real life all over again. That horrible search for a job. That wave of despair, those months teetering on the edge, those stories and dreams and words that had kept her afloat through it all, but only barely. That final surrender before it all ended. Here she was, wherever she was, alone. Hopeless. No future at all, just useless and dreaming. Hiding behind her dreaming, but the dreaming was shallow and it could not protect her. Nothing could protect her.

She heard them now, through the silky darkness of the night, the voices of her past and present. Calling out to her. Laughing. Mocking. Wondering. They didn't even care, for she was already lost, but sometimes they wondered. Whatever had happened to Coraline? Whatever had happened to that gal down the block, that girl in Databases who had always dressed up, that barrista with the funny hair? Oh, but she had failed, disappeared, fallen off the radar, never made it anywhere, not even out her own front door. They mocked and they chattered and they questioned. Who are you, little dreamer? Who do you think you are? Did you really believe it could be true? Are you this silly, this hopeless, this ridiculous? Oh, you pathetic little girl, you, who could not even handle real life!

Voices that rose around her, shrouding like a second night, voices that called to her fears and failings, voices that reminded her of who she had been and what she had lost, voices that left no room for escape, not now, not this time. And other voices too. Others which were not her own, others which were older, stranger, but just as bereft of hope as she was.

As the blackness pulled her under, there was not even silence in its shadows.


It didn't even stop when she awoke.

Coraline woke screaming. She couldn't help it, couldn't stop. Then the others were holding her down, holding her back, gagging her, silencing here, but even still she tried to scream, scream through the cacophony, scream for silence and respite, for an end, for an escape.

And then she realised it was gone. It was over, whatever it was, replaced instead with something else, something far more real, and she finally stopped. She was alive, and free, and here, and here she wasn't alone, here there were no voices, just the wind's singing, just Costa holding her down and Merrs telling her it's okay, she's home, he won't let her go. Just her overwhelming exhaustion, just a bird calling out to the day.

She nearly choked on something in her mouth.

"Gloria?" Costa said. That was her name, as far as they knew.

She nodded slightly.

"If I take this out, you're not going to start up again, are you?"

She shook her head, and he ungagged her. She tried to sit up and had some trouble at first, but then managed it. She was so tired. She couldn't recall ever being so tired.

"The hell?" she said weakly.

"I could ask you that," Costa said. "What happened? Do you know?"

She shook her head. "How... I feel awful." Merrs sat down beside her. It was midday and the sun was gleaming with the brilliant force of spring, but though the day itself was warm, she felt cold, even wrapped in her coat.

"You've been out an entire day," Costa said, giving her some dried yam. "We found you by the trees, but when I tried to heal you it was as though nothing was wrong. Nothing physically, at least."

"Oh," Coraline said. She realised she could still hear the whispering, even now, but the specificity was gone, replaced with only the usual vague voices.

She didn't know what to say. Was this... she didn't even want to think it. So instead she chewed on the yam and stared at the ground. Nice, solid ground. Lots of dirt and rocks and little half-dead plants and bits of twiggy things.

"You almost left. Has that happened before?" Merrs asked.

She shook her head. Not like this, at least. There had been voices, of course, but the last time they had stopped when she had blacked out, not like this. This had been so much worse. And this time there had been a feeling that had come with them. A sense of space, of vastness.

"When I healed you," she said. "It was kind of like that, only not really."

"And you feel better now?" he asked.

"Better," she said. "I feel like I got eaten by a cat with a gizzard full of toasters."

"But it already happened, and now it's over." Merrs said. "Now you feel better."

"That's..." It was a reasonable way to look at things, she supposed. "Sure."

Merrs stood and helped her up as well. "Come," he said, taking her arm. "Let's walk."

It was difficult at first, as she was quite stiff and quite sore, but as they got moving she began to really feel better. The stiffness and the pain subsided. She realised she was shivering, and drew her coat tighter. But she was all right.

Costa caught up a little later with the horses and everything packed up.

It was strange going, however. The world felt wrong. Not real. Not like a hallucination, necessarily, but like how it had felt going outside after spending 40-odd hours straight in a basement staring at four computer screens working on her animation final project, getting the last bits of details in the objects, setting up the lights and camera paths, and rendering, rendering, tweaking, and rendering.

Then she'd stepped outside with it all on a CD and the real world had just looked wrong. The leaves on the trees both too clear and not clear enough, the sunlight and the shadows too bright and too dark.

This felt like that.

"Perkele," she said to herself.

Avatar of Eapherod

Coraline kneels before the statue, and an avatar shadow form appears and regards her.
SHADOW
The Nighmares of the lost are cold and empty, wayfarer.
CORALINE
The sweetest ones are never empty. They're just really, really convincing.
(she walks around the shadow, examining it carefully)
Who are you? You're not Grenth, obviously. Lyssa, perhaps?
The shadow doesn't respond.
CORALINE
Abaddon?
The shadow flickers slightly.
SHADOW
No.
CORALINE
You're her, aren't you? You're...
(she stops suddenly and glances back at Ariel, who isn't paying attention)
You're the Dreamer?
SHADOW
I dream, and the worlds dream.
CORALINE
But you don't recognise me?
The shadow doesn't respond to this.
CORALINE
Maybe I'm wrong.
Coraline pulls a small case out of her bag. Inside it is the mask-sunglasses, which she puts on the shadow.
CORALINE
It's perfect.
The shadow reaches up to touch the mask with a ghostly hand and then explodes.
The mask clatters to the floor.
CORALINE
Okay, not the reaction I was hoping for.
VARDAMAN
Really?
Coraline kneels again, grabbing the mask, and the shadow appears again as though nothing had happened.
CORALINE
Shadow of Eapherod, we seek your blessing, that you might aid us in our adventures.
SHADOW
And what do you offer, wayfarers?
CORALINE
Uh... hold on.
(she rifles through her bag and pulls out a small book)
A book of art from the collector's edition of Guild Wars Factions?
The shadow gives her a nod and takes the book.
SHADOW
This is acceptable. It will be guarded within the Dream.
CORALINE
Cool?
SHADOW
Go, then, in the shadow of the Dreamer. Your Nightmares will be sweeter than all.
The shadow vanishes and blessing effects happen.
CORALINE
Okay, not the reaction I was hoping for, either.
Coraline picks up the mask.
AERYIN
And what were you hoping for?
CORALINE
You know, I'm not really sure.
Coraline kneels again, and the shadow appears again.
SHADOW
You have your blessing. Why do you summon me again?
CORALINE
Uh... can I just keep giving you stuff to see what happens?
VARDAMAN
(disappointedly)
Really?
SHADOW
You may proceed.
VARDAMAN
(even more disappointedly)
Really?
Fuller, meanwhile, starts hitting on one of the shrine maidens.
Aeryin goes over to him and clears her throat loudly.
Fuller starts hitting on her instead, in exactly the same way.

The Heresy of the Betrayer

"'Justice' is an illusion, a story told by those who need something understandable and concrete with which to comfort themselves. It applies in specific cases, and it works in various contexts, but it doesn't scale. When you look too closely, the illusion falls apart."

~ Karoliina Hämäläinen, On the Nature of Stable Societies

The simple story goes that Shalias zu Harenai, daughter of the then ruling house of Meloroth, betrayed her people and her God, and in her arrogance she fled, releasing the Death of Souls upon the worlds in order to escape her own punishment.

The truth is rarely simple.



  • family from Melorath
  • grew up on cerris with brother and mother
  • little known about childhood
  • apparently went off and did stuff
  • ...
  • contracted death of souls
  • soulbinding and devouring souls of spirit forms
  • investigated binding for larger forms, to replace what seemed to be missing
  • Eventually traced the 'missing' to the between/passing/dealy/place
  • opened up a gate on the Amn
  • ...
  • needs strife, war.



We tell the simple story because the truth is dangerous, not just to us, but to Shalias herself, who was no betrayer at all. Her faith, even tested, was stronger than we see in all the worlds.

Thus I can only conclude that the important thing here must be the story, the narrative that must remain in place. But that leaves no room for truth, for the real story, which must also have its place, for without truth, what have we but nothing at all? What have we but masks, and lies, and dreams?

It is almost heresy to make this connection at all, but only in faith can we accept the reason, and tell the story as the story is.

- Harramont of Ammarand

Placeholders

I will stab you all with a giant tuna.

  • gaher - hmong (Kuv yuav nkaug koj tag nrho nrog ib tug loj heev tuna.)
  • soravia - slovenian (Vse vas bo zabodel z velikan tuna.)
  • deslau - malay (Saya akan menikam anda semua dengan tuna gergasi.)
  • abaeranoth - german (Ich werde euch alle mit einem riesigen Thunfisch zu erstechen.)
  • lesk - afrikaans (Ek sal julle almal steek met 'n reuse-tuna.)