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>>2418775
Chapter Twelve: Second Sin

The city at the end of the world unfolded itself around you as you pushed your way through the crowds. You’re leading the redcloaks up, along a slanted bridge that leads to a railway station that should take you all closer towards the hall of the Senate. Dis is below you, around you, above you, a vertical city in every sense of the word. And right here, right now, it seems to be saying something to you through the medium of its enormous visage. Look at me, Dis says. I am massive, I am complex, I am ancient and I will continue to be no matter what. The actions of any single human cannot mean more to me than that of any single speck of dust. Know me and be subsumed.

It’s probably just your imagination. But all the same, you can’t help but look up into the clouded sky and look for any sign of starlight. The sole star of Dis is on the move. The holy technology of the Second Men that once placed it in the sky now calls it back home. And through its martyrdom you will answer Dis’ challenge.

You reach the station just before the train leaves, a segmented metal thing pulled by three rows of skittering beetles. You and all your companions pile in, there being enough of you that you end up taking up an entire carriage all for yourself! That draws you some looks but none of you are foolish enough to wear the red openly yet so nothing more than usual. More than a few eyes linger upon the wrapped up bundles each of you carry but they are nothing special either, at least not from without. Within, they carry swords, spears, rifles.

You feel the train start to move as you sit down. It’s not a particularly fast one but that’s fine. You’ve got some time before the star falls. But you are not calm. How can you be? You can’t just sit and wait here, not while knowing what you are about to do. So instead you take advantage of having no strangers in the crowded carriage with you and take to pacing up and down its length. It’s not about nerves, you tell yourself. It’s about being ready.

Abe holds out a hand to stop you as you pace past him. He’s holding his side but if he’s feeling any pain from old wounds, he doesn’t show it. Instead he just looks a little bewildered.
“It’s hard to believe we’re actually doing this,” he says.

“And yet we are.”

Abe looks around at the surrounding redcloaks and then pulls you a little closer, ideally out of their earshot. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he speaks again.
“This isn’t going to go well.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. I’m sure it’ll work. It’ll kill a lot of people. We might even be able to use that confusion for a while. But then what? This isn’t going to win us any friends but it’ll damn sure make us a lot more enemies.”

“This city was already our enemy.”

1/2

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>>2418781
“Yes but this is different. A lot of people aren’t going to see us as fighting for a cause or working to protect the Mazes or whatever other ideas you had. They’re just going to see us as the people who dropped the star. As monsters. We’re not going to win over anyone else, is what I’m saying.”

“That’s fine. We have enough people as it is and this should only take another few days.”

“The Bridesmaid won’t like it.”

“Her opinion means little and we never actually broke the terms of the deal. She is a monster anyway.”

The next few moments are filled only with the sound of the wheels against the track, of the Redcloaks talking amongst themselves and the sounds of Dis outside. It is some time before Abe speaks again.
“This is going to kill a lot of people.”

“Yes.”

“It’s going to kill a lot of people who have nothing to do with any of this.”

“Yes.”

“Is that right? And I don’t mean what you told them earlier, I mean your actual opinion. Are we doing the right thing here?”


>”Some sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”

>”Nobody who lives in this city and does nothing about it is innocent.”

>”The Saint once told me that at the wrong time or for the wrong people, mercy itself can be a sin.”

>”Sometimes wrong things can be done for right causes.”

>”No. But it must be done.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2418788
>”No. But it must be done.”
Taking them out one by one in the heart of their territory only works so many times. This is our best chance at dealing a decicive blow

>>2418788
>>”No. But it must be done.”
>Other (Specify)
"They're already dead. The Sinners killed them thirty (?) years ago."

>>2418788
>''No. But it must be done.''
I mean we did already blow up the Duke's place. A lot of workers got injured, or drowned in slag.

Hey everyone. I've taken the liberty of archiving this thread early just in case, considering recent events.

>>2418788
>”No. But it must be done.”

Vote called, writing.

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Wait hold on. How will anybody know it is us in the first place? It's not as if we're publicizing it! WHAT IF we start spreading like 9/11-tier Alex Jones stuff about how it's a inside job done by the Bridesmaid! If we can effectively spread the rumor that this is NOT our doing, but a power grab by the only Sinner that is conviniently alive then we might do something... WHAT Y'ALL THINK?

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>”No. But it must be done.”

You shake your head. It’s one thing to say it to the redcloaks but you won’t repeat that same lie to Abe.
“No, it’s not right. But it must be done. We’ve done this before remember? At the Consortium.”
A lot of people had died that day, humans all, and it had never sat quite right with you, even though they worked for any enemy of Man.

“You’re right of course,” Abe says. “It’d be easy to try and blame them and say that by not doing something about all this while living in it, they’re complicit. But it’s not that easy is it? A lot of people are just trying to live as best they can and we’re going to take that away from them.”

“In this case, the ends justify the means. It’ll all be over soon enough.”

“Yes,” Abe replies and as he does, he looks not at you but into the middle distance instead, at something only he can see. “It will be.”

You pat him on the shoulder and keep pacing, sneaking glances out the window at the cityscape around you. It looks the same as it always has. Why if you didn’t know better…

“Sit down Orion, you’re worrying about like a little old lady.”
And there’s Beatrice of course, her cap pulled down hard over her face. It doesn’t hide the bruise over her mouth however, an ugly purple from where Alex had punched her. The wages of blasphemy. Much of the tame witch’s life is defined by such costs but to her credit, she pays them willingly.
“It’s been done, you pushed the fucking button and everything. So stop going to and fro.”

“Of course you would revel in the destruction of a holy relic.”

She takes her cap off specifically so that you can see her roll her blood-rimmed eyes.
“I’m ‘revelling’ in us actually getting our shit done. Do you think I actually want to kill a star?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.”

She sighs, a sound not entirely unlike someone raking gravel.
“Do you remember what we talked about a bit when we saw that other star? I like them. I used to read about them when I was just a girl. I thought they were the hottest shit.”

“There’s no need to be vulgar.”

“There’s no need to cram a stick so far up your arse either and yet you try. You try so hard. But even when I was...what I am now, the stars were still special. I could only roam at night you know and even though I had to run away from the day, the stars were still there. They were a light even for people like me. And even now, with the sun gone and the moon all bloody, they still stand watch.”

“That sounds almost like...faith, Beatrice.”

“I know they’re just machines. Nothing sacred about them, no more than my pistol. I’m just being a sentimental idiot. And I’ve already fucked over everything else I thought was cool when I was a kid, what’s one more?”

“This was your idea.”

1/2

>>2418949
“Yeah. Because I’m a practical idiot too. That sure was an interesting speech you gave back there, huh?”

“It was to inspire the redcloaks.”

“Did you actually believe any of it?”
The witch is giving you a very sly eye.


>Lie. “Of course.”

>”No. But I don’t have to believe. They do.”

>”It’s not something a witch would understand.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2418953
>”No. But I don’t have to believe. They do.”

>>2418953
>>”No. But I don’t have to believe. They do.”
We're T. E. Lawrence now

>>2418953
>”No. But I don’t have to believe. They do.”
>I am Tired Bea, but as long as I breathe I will do whatever I can to restore the sun.

>>2418953
"Yes."

>>2418953

>>2418973
Seconding

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>>2418926

>>2418991
bird imp know and will rat us out

>>2418995
He's just one imp. If we add more and more confusion to the narrative, it will only serve to benefit us.

>>2418991
I like it. We could definitely use the conspicuous absentee as a scapegoat.

>>2418926
>>2418991
We can certainly try, I've been advocating similar measures for a couple threads now. BUT, the people in power know (at least vaguely) who we are. We did assassinate one of the most important men in the city and destroy a key industry after all. It would be tempting to assume that that knowledge will die with the star dropping, but I think it would be naive. These people are going to have underlings à la the inspector who are at least partially clued in.

But we should still try. I personally suggest going for a religious angle in addition to blaming the sinners. Demand people repent and rise up lest they too be smited.

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>>2419024
We need a printing press. If we're hitting the mayor's or capitol, I wonder if we can find some sort of license or proof of purchase or something. Maybe straight up buy it. Steal one. I think it would be very useful.

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Vote called, writing.

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>”No. But I don’t have to believe. They do.”

“No but I don't have to believe. They do.”

“That’s what I thought,” Beatrice says. “They’re all so young and you’re going to make them martyrs. What happened to refusing to let them come to harm because of you?”

That one chafes a little. It had been with a heavy heart that you had promised them martyrdom and told them not to fear death. You had not wanted to do it.
“I’m not happy about it. But I suppose I’m just a practical idiot too.”

“It’s always good to hear you admit it, Orion. But I have to say that I’m a little disappointed.”

“What do you care for these human lives, witch?”

“Little. But that’s me, I am what I am. You’re supposed to care.”

“They give their lives for God. How can they turn them away?”

“You didn’t have to say what you did though. Or at least, if you had to, you could have believed it.”

“This from a witch?”

“Yeah, from a witch. That’s how you know you fucked up.”

“We’re saving the world. In the face of that, no life is anything.”

“I’m sure God will forgive you once he’s relit. And damn, if he can forgive you, I might have a chance after all.”
The implications of that remark feel incredibly sour.


>”What would you know?”

>It would seem that she has not yet learned her lesson. Remind her.

>”I can only hope.”

>You’re not going to dignify that with a response.

>Other (Specify)

>>2419149
>>”I can only hope.”

>>2419149
>I do not expect forgiveness. I do this because it is right, even if it is hard. If I can save even one of them, I will. Damn the cost to myself.

>>2419149
>You’re not going to dignify that with a response.

>>2419149
>"If, no, WHEN there is someone to judge me, I will bear it all."
>"I did not do this expecting forgiveness. But I will keep going until the sun is back."

You have the worst fucking luck with laptops, Ouro.

>>2419149
>”I can only hope.”

>>2419189
I know right? And this new one, the one I got just a few days ago, already has loose K, L and ; keys. And it had them scant minutes after getting them. I'm going to take it back later and try to get it exchanged for another with the warranty.

>>2419149

>>2419175
>>2419182
Seconding

>>2419149
>>2419182
Supporting. Burden of the Damned is a fine literary tradition.

>>2419149
If the Sun is reborn we Shouldn't care if he burns us a heretic, we would have saved the world, and that is enough..

Vote called, writing.

>>2419245
Does the sun even have that kind of agency? I mean Orion might think it does, but everything we've seen so far suggests that humans have the run of the world.

>>2418991
>jp poster

>>2419261
Well it did try its damnedest to fight the Sinners.

Apologies for the delay on this one.

>”I do not expect forgiveness.”

“I’m not doing this so I can be forgiven, Beatrice. I’m doing it because it’s right. And because it’s right it doesn’t matter what it takes. I’ll just keep going until the sun is back.”

Beatrice nods, apparently satisfied by that answer.
“There you go. I knew we had something in common.”

“Do you actually expect forgiveness for what you are after all this is over?”

“Nah, probably not. But it never hurts to dream, right?”

The conversation peters out after that and for the lack of a better thing to do as the train moves, you take back to pacing. You pass the redcloaks and know that all their eyes are upon you. You pass by them all and stop only at the end of the carriage by the last one. Alex.
Where the eyes of the others shine with zealous conviction, she averts her gaze.
“Is everything alright?”

“...Can I speak to you about something?”

“Of course. Everyone else already has.”

She stands and joins you in your pacing, following you to the far end of the carriage and away from everything else.
“I have a confession I need to make,” she says. “And I’d like to make it before everything goes to hell.”

“Of course. Speak.”
You have a pretty good idea you know exactly what it’ll be about.

She stays silent for a few seconds more, clearly having trouble picking her words.
“Forgive me. My, um...My heart wavers?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well...this doesn’t feel right. I know it’s right, I argued for it! But I don’t know if I want to kill that many people. They’ve all done that already and it was easy for them and that’s, well, I don’t get it! I get being angry ‘cause I am but I don’t know if I can kill. But all the others can and it’s not a problem for them and it feels odd. Like I don’t even know my own friends anymore. Do you get that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry. And I know it’s stupid of me because I helped suggest it anyway but...urgh.”
She trails off for a moment.
“I don’t know how to say it. But I know I’m wrong because I know this is right. It has to be.”

You stare at her for a moment, unsure on what to say. It would be easy to just tell her what you told the redcloaks. She is but one of them and can be treated the same way. And if you told her the truth of your own feelings towards the starfall, it may shake her faith. You cannot afford that.

>Lie.

>Tell the truth.

>>2419407
>>Tell the truth.

>>2419407
>>Tell the truth.
>I am not God. I could never hope to be. I can only do everything in my power for the smallest hope that the sun will return. For that alone, I will burn. For that alone, ALL will burn.

>>2419407

>>2419437
Seconding

>>2419437
Seconding.

In our heart, we are a larger zealot than everyone else here.

We would light the world on fire and doom all third men - if there was a small chance that it could rekindle the light of God.

But the universal goodof our goal does not make us righteous and morally good. We could accomplish it without the starfall, but the chance of failure is much greater.

So we look to ignoble means to achieve our noble goal.

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I'm going to rest for a few hours. Vote will remain open until then.

>>2419437
Seconded

>>2419504
Good character analysis. Also worth remembering that to Orion this is even more than religious zealotry, it's his personal atonement for the destruction of his Watchtower.

>>2419615
We feel bad about our role in destroying the watchtower and causing all those deaths so we're going to cause more death of innocents?

>>2419615
not atonement. Just....purpose.

>>2419644
They're effectively dead without the sun anyways, as humans cannot live without fire, and the fire fades.

>>2419644
No, we feel like at our lowest point (beating our qt gf-turned-witch to death with the lamp) we were given a divine imperative (the shard).

>>2419665
Yeah that's a better word.

>>2419437
Supporting.

>>2419665
Does Orion think that his soul is already forfeit due to his actions at the Watchtower? Is this entire journey a penance quest?

If he already views his eternal soul as dammed, then why not engage in more morally unjust acts, if the end is a moral good?

>>2419769
because he has not hand his hand forced. Because the ends do NOT justify the means, and he is doing this because he HAS too. IF sun does not return all of man, all that is good and true in this worlds dies. HE cannot and will not allow it.

>>2419407
>Tell the truth
Acting out of deep-seated desperation to restore the world to its former state and being so scarred from the events leading to the sun's destruction have contributed to this course of action.

>>2419407


>Tell the truth.

>>2419769
> Is this entire journey a penance quest?

I don't really think so. I think Orion believes, especially after this latest choice to drop the star, that what he's doing is the bare minimum any person could or would do.

Like >>2419670 said, without the Sun EVERYONE is dead. Therefore anyone who isn't willing to bring back the Sun or die trying has already chosen to die, and to kill everyone else with them.

Just as much as Orion is willing to spend others lives for it, he's willing to spend his own if necessary. So at least we aren't hypocritical about it.

Although we should be hitting the rest of the Sinners ASAP to completely coup them. But oh well.

We have a new Lamplighter we can switch to if Orion dies.

High above the city at the end of the world, high enough that all of the world shrunk to just a meagre continent adrift in the Sea of Mud, high enough that the vast black walls of Without that encircle the Sea are just coming into view, the star sang. The people of the city below called it Watcher and spat, or if they were of that ever-vanishing minority of believers, looked to it for salvation. But both prayers and curses failed to reach it in its perpetual flight as that was never its name.

But it was its name, its true name given to it when it was made, that it heard now. It was being sung to it along electronic waves, a broadcast tone that had once covered all the world but had been torn down in centuries past. The star sung back.

It was a grand machine, a silver cylinder with paneled wings that drank in the world around them. Within it, threads of power and light still danced around its spinning sunlight reactor, a vast and artificial Flame Internal. And though it had no mind, it bore a consciousness of a vague sort.

It could remember everything from when it had first been launched, back when the world below was wholly grey and covered in spires of silver. The sky had been filled with stars back then, all save the sky over the eastern edge of the world. That was this star and it alone.
The sun had travelled among them then and they had followed it across the sky, singing as they did. They drank in its light and used it for fuel as it spun light and flame into the world.

Recently, very recently by the star’s reckoning, that had stopped. The sun still passed but it was broken and its light pale. The stars still drank it but there was little to be had. And something else was happening, something beyond the means of both stars and men to comprehend. The light wasn’t just fading, the capacity of ordinary objects to contain the potential for both light and heat was dwindling as well. The ignition of all the world was winding down and what once burned did not. Sunlight reactors that once hummed started to cough and hiccup and as the years passed, more and more stars went dark in the sky. Their reactors had all been built for a world by different physical laws than this one. Those laws had changed and as they did, the stars in the sky were drowning.

But this star burned yet and it still sang, even though there was nothing here to hear it or sing back. Nothing until now.

1/2

>>2419961
Up as high as it was, the star was beyond the hungry grasp of the earth, Ur’s final curse that drew all things back towards his enormous corpse at the foundation of the world. But as the sunlight reactor drew deep into its already depleted power, holy flames reignited and belched forth from thrusters dotting the star’s steel and silver body. It would need these to correct its course along its descent.

It began to spin as it fell, pyromantic exhaust surrounding it as it propelled itself faster and faster with mechanical Flame Art. Here, in the dying of the world, it had been given one final directive.

Vote called, writing.

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>Tell the truth.

You know what Alex wants. She wants the comfort of infallibility, that same quality that you refused from the Wax Saint and yet adopted for the redcloaks. She wants the promise that as long as the cause is righteous, they can do no wrong. And as much as you’d want to give that, that is the domain of the Wheel God alone. It is not yours to give.
It would be easy to treat as the rest, safer too. But she can already see through your act, even if she doesn’t know it. She wouldn’t be questioning herself if she didn’t. She deserves to know the truth.

“I’m sorry Alex but that question is between you and God. I am not God nor could I ever hope to be. I’m just a man. In truth I cannot make something right just because I say it to be. I can only do everything in my power for the smallest hope that the sun will return. For that alone, everything else can burn.”

Alex looks a little lost. Perhaps she is seeing you as a human for the very first time.
“So it’s not a good thing then?”

“I cannot say. But if it is wrong, I will still do it. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t otherwise but my hand is forced! Without God the world is doomed! It’s bigger than all this city.”

This doesn’t seem to do much for her confusion. You leave her to it. She’s been an eager disciple and you have faith that she will find her way. You don’t have the time for more talk anyway, the train is slowing to a stop. This station is set on top of a relatively short tower, one that must have been tall long ago but has since been outgrown by the urban jungle around it. But past it you can see it, a vast brown dome sitting atop a cluster of at least a dozen towers, all of which having been decapitated long ago to be repurposed as supports for the massive structure. It gives it the impression as if it had simply been picked up and wedged crudely into the surrounding cityscape. Above it looms an ancient First Age belltower...no, the belltower! The first one ever built, the workshop where he-who-would-be-God crafted the solar calendar and spun the world onto fate. As per law, the massive clock is stopped five minutes to midnight.

The Senate Hall. If anything at all truly rules this city, and you have your doubts about that, it is here. This is where laws are bought and sold. A canker in the heart of the city. And one of the people here, an ‘Agatha’, worked with the Sinners. She’s supposedly dead now and where she hid her shard is unknown...but you feel like your quest would have brought you here eventually anyway. You step out of the train and onto the platform beyond, your eyes fixed upon the Hall.

‘Hey! Lamplighter! It’s the Lamplighter! Stop him! Kill him!”

1/2

>>2419976
What?
You spin and see on the far side of the platform, the glimpse of a white skull. The crowd clears around the accuser and yes, you recognise it now. That elongated horse skull bursting from the torn flesh of a once-human body, the smoking black tears that the beast perpetually sheds from its hollow sockets and that shrill and piercing voice. It’s Zeno’s pet imp!

The imp runs, booking it straight down the walkway towards the Senate Hall!


>Give chase!

>You’ve been recognised. You all need to get out of here now!

>”Beatrice! Take him down!”

>Try to play it off as mistaken identity. Who trusts an imp?

>Other (Specify)

>>2419978
>Give chase!
Well shit.
this quest is really depressing

>>2419978
>Run away from the imp to distract it
>Send the others to continue the mission in the meanwhile

>>2419978
>”Beatrice! Take him down!”

>>2419978
>''Beatrice! Take him down!''

>>2419978
>”Beatrice! Take him down!”

>>2419978
>Give chase!
Everyone else can stick to the plan. Id rather not fire a gun so soon.

Ah fuck, I kind of dozed off. Vote called. Writing.

>”Beatrice! Take him down!”

You don’t have any time to think, any time to weigh one action against the other. You just stare at the back of the retreating imp and you make the call.
“Beatrice!”

One of the train windows explodes into a shower of glass as she shoots through it, the gunshot hellishly loud along the platform. The imp drops to the ground mid-run and slides for a foot or so, leaving a stain of ichor. She shoots it again a second later just to make sure.
“Got him,” she cries! ‘That was the fucker’s last life too!”

What was he doing here? He didn’t act is he meant to ambush you, he simply called you out and ran. Was this all an accident? Those thoughts and more will have to wait as the people crowding the platform scream and stampede away from you. Doors slam open from two small buildings on either side as men in powder-blue uniforms rush out, swords and truncheons in their hands. You can see similar uniforms in the distance around the Hall itself as well, as if you’d just kicked over an anthill.

“Fire!”
You don’t recognise the voice but the others evidently do. The redcloaks line the side of the train and, throwing their bundles aside, raise their rifles. All primed and made ready by your own Wick, not a single rifle misfires as the redcloaks fire into the crowd.
Some of the bluecoats fall. A lot of ordinary people do as well. Everyone’s too pressed in, there’s no way to get out, everyone jamming into everyone else! Bullets go through the crowd like a scythe cutting wheat.

Beatrice and Abe are firing as well, Abe aiming at those in the far distance while Beatrice guards him with her pistol. She’s firing in a much more disciplined manner than any of the redcloaks.

All of this, in an instant! It is as if the world has gone mad!

And then it gets worse. Off to the distance along the tower-crowded horizon, the clouds part and a sun shines once more.

INTERLUDE

In another part of Dis, the perpetual smog is swept aside and the sky-predators that live amongst it sent fleeing in great screeching flocks as a column of light shone down upon the city and on one tower in particular.

The star falls as a pillar of light and a crash of thunder, cracking the air around so hard that the higher altitude sky-rails shake like twigs in a storm, the trains and carriages upon them being swept off helplessly and sent falling into the city below. For just a brief frozen moment, several towers could be seen bathed in true genuine light shed by the falling star above. Many will no doubt remember that sight for the rest of their lives. For many more, that sight was the rest of their lives.

The star smashes into the top of a taller silver tower at an angle and plows right through it, decapitating in a rain of molten steel and broken beams as it continues on and...slams straight into the side of the tomb-tower. There are still so many people crowded out outside on the walkways!

The star plows through the tower in question, sending floors collapsing and incinerating all in its path. It smashes straight through and explodes.

The tower falls, the motion of which causes it snap at its base and sends it smashing against another tower like a stack of dominoes. The next tower sways and down below, the people of the many Mazes clutch each other or whatever they can find as the movement of the tower bases sends cracks and faultlines through the urban undergrowth that’s grown up around them. Whole layers seperate entirely or are send buckling down to crush those beneath them.

The second tower falls. At this point, the pieces have finished falling, vast chunks of architecture smashing crowded bridges and walkways as they are sent spinning away from ground zero. Some of them chip chunks off the sides of other towers as they do so, spilling people helplessly into the air. But no matter how far they fly, they all obey Ur’s final curse and, as all things must, fall downward.
The rubble, some of it the size of entire buildings, hit the uppermost layers of the Mazes and keep sinking, flattening hundreds of homes as they collapse layer after layer until the resistance of brick, steel, stone and flesh finally bring them to a stop embedded deep within the strata, a trail of bloody devastation carved after each and every one.

Stricken bridges and walkways begin to collapse at this point, either from being smashed by falling rabble or being connected to one of the falling towers. Most simply snap, unfortunate for those at the breakpoint but saving the majority. Others collapse in their entirety, bringing crowds of people and homes with them. Many of them hit other walkways on the way down.

1/2

>>2420080
While the largest of the falling rubble might command the most attention, ignore the smaller to your own peril. Broken shards of rock and metal are sent flying in deadly trajectories, cobblestones the size of a fist pelting down on bridges or sections of the upper Mazes that had been ‘safe’ from the larger rubble. But these smaller ones fly further and strike like bullets.

The second tower leans, the weight of the ruined tomb tower pushing it along. As it does so, the layers of bridges, walkways and suburbs built around it buckle and tear. It falls and strikes a third tower and this one holds, stopping the chain reaction, though not before the collapsing towers have gouged at at least a dozen of its floors.
Halted by the stalwart third tower in their fall, the second tower embeds itself into it but the tomb tower, or what remains of it, is unable to do so. Instead it simply bounces off and falls to the side.

It flattens every layer of Maze beneath it, grinding rock and flesh to paste with equal ease until it sinks all the way to the Undertowns and after having gouged into them, hits the soft embrace of the earth and stops. The earth swallows the fledgeling flames and they are extinguished.


Thousands of people have already died. Many more will soon follow.

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...They'll learn to love us.

>>2420067

You can hear it from here. The crack of thunder, the explosion, even the tremor. The platform, even from this distance, shakes and tilts just a little. People either run or freeze but considering the situation, most just run.
You are left alone in a widening circle, the crowd around you fled or dead. You step over the body of a small boy and avert your eyes.

What security is now here is in disarray. One of them tries to stop you as you advance and you drop him with a single punch. It feels mechanical, as if you aren’t really there.

The city is burning. The Senate is ahead. Here, standing over the body of this dead child, is the hour of your triumph.

Chapter Thirteen: Starfall


>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

>You and a select few will go on, the others can occupy the people here and distract them for as long as possible!

>Try and join the fleeing crowd. You haven’t fired any gun yet or drawn any weapon. It may yet be possible for you to sneak into the Hall as a civilian while the others keep fighting.

>Other (Specify)

>>2420085
>You and a select few will go on, the others can occupy the people here and distract them for as long as possible!
Better to face any tougher opponents that may be inside with a smaller force than get flanked.

>>2420085
>>You and a select few will go on, the others can occupy the people here and distract them for as long as possible!

>>2420085
>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!
If we're going to get out, it'll be by fortifying the senate hall and from there pushing for a Lampost.

>>2420085
>>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

>>2420085

>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

>>2420085
>>2420087
Changing my vote to
>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!
We need to fortify

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Alright lads, I'm going back to sleep. This vote will remain open until morning, where I will resume the thread at the usual time.

>>2420085
>>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!
We should have gotten a ship!

>>2420085
>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

>>2420085
>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

Wouldn't it be funny if after all these casualties the Sinners survived?

>>2420085
>>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!
Redcloaks aren't going to make it on their own desu.

>>2420194
The imp lord will have and 50-50 odds the witch haz a rez or some sort of regen

>>2420085
>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

>>2420194
> What could go wrong

>>2420085
>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

>>2420251
>>2420085
Wait I already voted once. Thought I missed the vote earlier. Pls discount this vote.

holy fuck

Original nukefag here. I regret nothing.

Updates will resume in an hour or so!

>>2420194
We could kill one of them and I’d still be happy. Assuming we don’t get trapped at the Senate Hall, which I doubt given that the city is officially fucked, then we’ve got time to take advantage of the chaos. Dis isn’t a city that’s going to draft an army against us.

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>>2419962

>>2420085
Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

Damn that Old Testament wrath, along with the having God sort out the innocent really gets me going

Interlude

The Thorn grew out of the city at the end of the world like a thistle wedged into the paw of some immense urban beast. A spire of living wood that contained every wonder and horror that the Tangle Workshop could devise. At the very top of the tower was a small and, considering the man it had been built for, relatively humble office.
Dr Spinae’s chair was empty. An attendant of the funeral who was, despite all attempts to the otherwise, purely mortal, he would certainly never sit in it again. And standing by each side of the desk as they always did, in honor of their fallen master, was the Surrexerunt.

They looked as identical as ever, solidly built and blonde, distinguished physically only by the small matter of gender. But both were rather more dishevelled than usual, with trembling hands and hollow eyes.

“It is all but confirmed,” said Dr Surrex, assistant to the Head Doctor and Chief of Wick Studies. “He’s gone.” He pronounced it as if he was announcing the time of death of a patient but he couldn’t his voice from quavering.
“The leadership of the Workshop must fall to us. What do we do now?”

A long silence passed, his other half having no answer. He cleared his throat.
“Is something wrong with you?”

“I’ve made a mistake,” muttered Dr Erunt, assistant to the Head Doctor and Chief of Wickless Studies. Her hands were curled into shaking fists and were so tightly balled that her fingernails were etching scars down her palm. A rivulet of blood dripped onto the desk by her side.

“Pardon? There was nothing we could have done.”

“But there was! I was selfish with my experiments. I should have just dealt with her immediately but I had too many damn games I wanted to play. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should have just reported it.”
Several more seconds pass before she spoke again. This time she was more composed.
“Make sure the Chemist is secured. I’ll fix my mistake.”

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>Push on! Straight into the Senate Hall now!

For a moment you consider the idea of pushing alone, accompanied only by those you can trust to handle themselves. The others can keep the law distracted for time enough for you to get in and out. But no, that wouldn’t work would it? Why would you abandon the redcloaks in this chaos? All of you must go together for as long as you’re able and the current situation should provide all the distraction you should ever need. You need a defensible position and right now the best one is right ahead of you.

You tear your eyes away from the corpse and raise your lamplighter’s wick as if it was a battle standard, calling out to rally the redcloaks as a bright and pure light bursts into being atop it!
“Redcloaks! To me! We take the Hall!”

>Wick: 10/10
>Spark: 8/8

You’ll sort out your feelings about this whole grand mess later. For now all you need to do is fight! You run forward while the guards are in disarray and the others join you, Abe and the redcloaks lowering their rifles as they run while Beatrice keeps shooting.
A long straight charge right down the bridge to the Senate Hall with all your allies by your side. It can’t be that difficult, can it?

>Launching an attack on the Senate Hall is a Collective Effort challenge! The characters involved are Orion, Beatrice, Abraham and Alexandria. Due to the confusion of the starfall, the target number that must be met is only 40.

>The first character to roll for is Orion, leading the charge. Roll 1d6 and the first shall be totalled together as the contribution his actions make towards the overall invasion.

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Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2421324

>>2421324
If we call upon the wax saint could she help with this or future rolls?

>>2421356
I'm afraid not. Summoning her is quite a lengthy and involved process.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2421324

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2421324

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2421324

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2421324

>4, 3, 5
>12/40

The bridge is narrow and thus easy to defend. Here two men could theoretically hold back an entire horde. Theoretically. You free your new staff, whipping the stolen tail of the Iron Duke from side to side as you charge.

The first men to bar your way are slammed together and sent flying over the parapet as you smash your way through them. For you see, the other fact about such a narrow bridge is that it offers very little opportunity to get out of the way of someone swinging a stave.

They don’t have guns of course. They don’t even carry the polearms that would turn such a bridge into a deathtrap. If they have them somewhere, all this chaos hasn’t let them get them. So instead they come at you with swords and clubs. You batter your way through them, refusing to slow down even for a moment. You are the tip of the spear here and momentum is crucial. You musn’t allow them the time to regroup!

>Before we move on to the next characters, the following modifiers can be made to Orion's result.

>Extra effort: Orion gives his all to secure an opening for the rest to follow. This will grant an extra dice roll but Orion will be exhausted afterwards.

>Wild Abandon: Orion throws himself into the fight, dedicating himself to pushing as many as back as possible without concern for his own safety. Add +3 to the roll at the moderate risk of physical harm.

>Immolate: Orion clears the bridge with an Immolate, using the stream of fire to scorch it clean. Will grant a +2 for every point of Wick used.

>Nothing. He has done enough.

>>2421444

>Immolate: Orion clears the bridge with an Immolate, using the stream of fire to scorch it clean. Will grant a +2 for every point of Wick used.
Use 2 Wick

>>2421444
>>2421455
Second

>>2421444
>Wild Abandon: Orion throws himself into the fight, dedicating himself to pushing as many as back as possible without concern for his own safety. Add +3 to the roll at the moderate risk of physical harm.
Healing is more wick efficient than immolate

>>2421444

>>2421455
>>2421463
Switching to this

>>2421444
>Immolate: Orion clears the bridge with an Immolate, using the stream of fire to scorch it clean. Will grant a +2 for every point of Wick used.
2 wick, just incase we recharge

>>2421444
>>Wild Abandon: Orion throws himself into the fight, dedicating himself to pushing as many as back as possible without concern for his own safety. Add +3 to the roll at the moderate risk of physical harm.
Yeah, not a lot can keep us down

>>2421463
Voting for this.

>>2421444
wait, switching >>2421477
to
>Wild Abandon
+3 to roll is a LOT of points

Apologies for the delay, I was taking a facebook call. Vote called, writing.

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>Wild Abandon: Orion throws himself into the fight, dedicating himself to pushing as many as back as possible without concern for his own safety. Add +3 to the roll at the moderate risk of physical harm.

You can’t afford to let yourself fall behind! You are the vanguard of this force and the others are relying on you to clear the way. If you don’t, this will all slow and the opportunity will be lost. Time is your enemy here!

You push forward, taking truncheon blows that you could have otherwise stopped in order to knock swords from hands and men from their feet. When weighed against all that you could lose, all that you stand to gain, what worth could mere injury dare have?

>+3
>15/40

>Roll a 1d100. Only the first result will be accepted. Anything above a 40 is safe.

Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>2421578

Rolled 91 (1d100)

>>2421578

>>2421592
Oh, shit...

>>2421578
oh, it was just +3. That's fine though

>18

Three men run across the bridge at you and, judging reach and timing as quickly as you can, you swing your makeshift staff. You hit the first man in the side of the head and you can hear his jaw crack as you send him to the ground. The second darts in, sword drawn, just in time for you to stop the swing and with the tail drawn back, thrust the other end out like a spear! The jab catches him in the chest and knocks the wind out of him. The next jab is aimed at his abdomen and sends him to the ground in a puddle of his own vomit.

The third man actually had time to put on armour but your stave shouldn’t care about that too much. A crushing blow to the head remains so despite any helmet you could possibly wear. You take a step back to re-establish distance and then, as he closes, advance and bring the tail around in a horizontal swipe just below head-height! The blow knocks him silly, club falling from his hand. You take another step forward and front kick the stunned man ahead of you, sending him down the bridge and crashing into the next two men.

While they’re sorting that out you close in and lay about them with the staff, striking one man in the side and letting the force of the swing carry him into his companion and smacking them both against the railing. You pull your staff back to prepare for a final blow but somewhere behind you, Beatrice beats you to it. A line of fire burns past your shoulder as an explosive bullet catches one of them in the head and, since you pushed them together, continues through into the other’s chest.

And just like that you’re down the slope and off the bridge, standing on the wide balcony that encircles the dome of the Senate Hall. There are more guards here and they come at you from every direction but, keeping the demands of time in mind, you wade into the thick of it without hesitation. Forsaking defense entirely, you let club blows rain down upon you as you commit to a long sweeping strike that sends men rolling across the floor.
You collect your fair share of bruises in the process, narrowly dodging a sword as one man ducks under your staff and tries to impale you. This sword is no mere sidearm either, a long two-hander that could gut you easily. You bring the staff back and try to catch him with the other end but he weaves out of the way, catching hold of his own blade with one mailed hand and reverses his grip to one more appropriate for how close you are. His sword now held backwards, he smacks you in the nose with the pommel hard enough to send you reeling for a few steps with blood blocking your vision.
1/2

>>2421689
Before you can bring your staff back up, he steps forward and with his sword held at each end, brings the edge down upon your unarmoured shoulder like an axe. You swerve to the side and in doing so keep it from biting into your neck but you can’t escape it entirely! You gasp in pain as the force of the blow alone almost sends you to your knees, blood flowing freely as the sword bites your shoulder. You try to pull yourself away but your opponent holds you as close as he is able, keeping his grip on the sword as he drives a knee into your stomach.
The impact makes your vision swim but you go with the blow as best as you are able, bending double and using the motion to knock his sword free. You don’t bother rising either, instead just blindly rushing forward and speartackling the guard into the wall! You feel ribs crack beneath you and you step back just enough to give you enough room to swing your mailed fist around and into his head. He drops like a stone.

Your eyes still clouded by blood, you look up from the fight to see six guards on a higher balcony bringing crossbows to bear! You let yourself fall to the ground and roll the moment you hit it, picking up your dropped staff as you do so and taking cover in a doorway.
But while it protects you from arrows, there’s the other problem of it leaving you in a very narrow corridor with at least three more guards. No room for any wide swings here at all!

You sigh as best you are able and wipe blood from your face as they charge in. You pull your staff back and hold it before you in quarterstaff fashion, as much a wall as anything can be in confines this narrow and surge forward to meet them.

Ignoring the pain in your shoulder, you block the first man's sword with your staff and while he blinks in surprise, heave yourself forward and into him, your staff pushing his own sword back into his chest. You flip the staff to vertical once more just in time to jab his head up against the stone wall and then a blow to the head sends you reeling and you're backing up as best you're able to get distance between you and his friends.

You can only hope the others are doing well.

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Meanwhile back in the bridge, Beatrice takes cover behind the parapet as best she can as an arrow zips by!
"Fucking arrows? You lot really are behind the times!"
Or at least, that was the kind of quip she wanted to say. Instead she just slurred out something vaguely approximating speech. Adrenaline was too high, gunpowder too low, everything too quick. She settled for something simpler instead.

"Motherfuckers!"

She takes aim.

>Roll 3d6 for Beatrice. The first three rolls are what will be counted and added up towards the Collective Effort.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2421725

Rolled 3, 6, 4 = 13 (3d6)

>>2421701
jesus, this is "just" an injury for Orion.

>>2421725

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2421770
....whoops

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2421725

>3, 1, 1
Accepted.

>>2421794
sad. But also sad.

>5, 3, 3
>Beatrice is currently operating at her normal state of -2 to all rolls that don’t involve direct shooting rolls.
>3, 1, 1
>17/40

Beatrice opens fire as best as she is able from a position this awkward. The bridge is at an odd angle to the side-balcony, it makes it hard to take effective cover and return fire at the same time. Fortunately her witched bullets are much more accurate and effective than mere crossbows.
Hopefully this’ll be good enough covering fire for everyone else to get across the bridge safely. But what if it isn’t?

>Beatrice may apply the following modifiers to her result before we move on to the next character. She is currently at a -2 modifier. Any modifiers added this way while remain in effect for the mission until she comes down and her modifier swings in the opposite direction.

>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.

>Snort some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +2 at a steep cost later on.

>Just get out there and shoot them all down! Beatrice will be called upon to make a proper shooting roll at the cost of possible injury if she fails.

>Nothing. This is good enough.

>>2421809
>>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.

>>2421809
>>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.

>>2421809
shouldn't it be 18+5=23?

>>2421809
>>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.
>>Just get out there and shoot them all down! Beatrice will be called upon to make a proper shooting roll at the cost of possible injury if she fails.

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>>2421825
Oh whoops my bad. You're right. Don't know where I got 17 from.

>>2421809
>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.

>>2421809
>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.

Vote called, writing.

>Ingest some gunpowder. This will bump her modifier up to +0 at the usual cost later on.

>5, 3, 3
>29/40

The guards at the balcony fall to the ground, some sent forcefully so by bullets, others simply dropping to seek cover from the burning shots. Beatrice takes cover for a moment longer to push a pinch of hard-earned gunpowder between her lips, tears of blood running down her face as her bruises darken. She winces as the bruise around her mouth expands and her lips swell unpleasantly.
“Go,” she hollers at the others. “You’ve got time! I’ll hold the back!”

One of the surviving guards from the platform runs up along the bridge in an attempt to ambush them from behind while the archers keep them pinned. Beatrice shoots him in the face and then ducks back time to avoid another arrow.
The remaining crossbowmen have entrenched themselves now, dragging up metal desks from whatever room is past their balcony and upending them along the railing to give them cover. But the time it took them to get proper cover against her was time enough for Abe and redcloaks to follow Orion across the bridge.
All Beatrice has to do is hold out until she can get back across and join them. Hopefully the others will have done their job and there won’t be any guards waiting for her when she does.

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>>2421899
Abe waves the redcloaks past him as they get off the bridge, pointing towards the door that he had seen Orion take cover in.
“Go! Go! Go help him! I’ll keep this clear!”

With them all passing him by, he turns back to look at Beatrice. She’s still trapped in a prolonged firefight, one without any obvious sign of ending. She bought them all time to get across the bridge but she’s still trapped on it! And while she might be confident it won’t be that long before reinforcements arrive along the rail and if they do, they’ll be trickling in right behind her position.

One of the fallen guards rises groggily to his feet. Thinking quickly, Abe takes his hand and pulls him up with just enough momentum to push him into and over the railing. He topples, falling into the city below.

Looking up at the balcony, he notices that their attention is now wholly on Beatrice. Good. Abe shoulders his rifle and begins to climb up the side of the wall.

>Roll 1d6 for Abe. The first three shall be totalled and added to the Collective Effort.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2421901

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2421901

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2421901
Is it bad I have to look up what to put in the option field for dice every time?

>>2421906
FUCK

>>2421906
Only if it's bad that I have to do it sometimes still. Results received, writing.

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>>2421905
>>2421906

>>2421904
>>2421905
>>2421906
God damn it Abe.

>>2421953
Hey I did my part. The others are the fuck ups

What are we at before Alex’s roll?

>>2421966
35

>4, 2, 1
>33/40

Abe manages to climb up and grab hold of the bottom of the balcony railing without any of the archers seeing him. They’re still occupied in their shootout with Beatrice though some might, if they had the time to think things though, be a little puzzled that she’s stopped shooting. It’s because she’s seen Abe of course but they don’t know that.

They don’t get a chance to know that.

Abe pulls himself up along the side of the balcony and punches the first man to look over the barricade in the jaw before using that hand to latch onto the front of his jacket. The archer is pulled helplessly up against the side as Abe uses him to pull himself up, catching several arrows into his human shield in the process.
Stumbling onto the balcony, Abe swings his rifle like a club and knocks the bow out of one of the surviving archer’s hands. He flips the gun around in an attempt to shoot the next one but even back on the bridge, Beatrice beats him to it. Abe settles for shooting the third one instead.

Beatrice takes advantage of the confusion to scurry across the bridge and Abe, now beset on both sides by two men, does his best to get down and join her. If they can just hold it here and stop the scattered guards from joining up...the others inside should do just fine.

>Abe may apply the following modifiers to his result before moving on.

>Overexertion: Abe gives his all, adding +3 to the roll at the cost of exhausting him for the rest of the mission.

>Hurry and help the rest! This will turn the lowest of Alex’s rolls into a 5 but will run the moderate risk of Abe being injured.

>Take Beatrice and guard the entrance together: Neither Abe or Beatrice will be available for some time but the Senate Hall will be delayed before it can begin its own Collective Effort to combat yours.

>Nothing. This is enough!

>>2421970
33 actually. Though I did initially miscount, the anon who corrected me also miscounted. But now we're at the right number.

>>2421975
>Hurry and help the rest! This will turn the lowest of Alex’s rolls into a 5 but will run the moderate risk of Abe being injured.

>>2421975
>>Overexertion: Abe gives his all, adding +3 to the roll at the cost of exhausting him for the rest of the mission.
>>Hurry and help the rest! This will turn the lowest of Alex’s rolls into a 5 but will run the moderate risk of Abe being injured.
do it, do it, do it

Beatrice would be helpful for actually finding documents and taking out the people inside quickly

>>2421975
>Overexertion: Abe gives his all, adding +3 to the roll at the cost of exhausting him for the rest of the mission.

>>2421975
>Hurry and help the rest! This will turn the lowest of Alex’s rolls into a 5 but will run the moderate risk of Abe being injured.

>>2421975
>>Hurry and help the rest! This will turn the lowest of Alex’s rolls into a 5 but will run the moderate risk of Abe being injured.

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Guys we need to think about what potentially we can destroy to help our cause at the town hall...It is probably the epicenter of all of the legal and economic documentation that goes on within Dis and if we destroy say whatever paper that guarentees the payroll of the police or something I dunno it can help.

On the otherhand obviously finding dirt and intel about our enemies as well as legal documentation to help us acquire resources is good as well.

Vote called. Writing.

>Hurry and help the rest! This will turn the lowest of Alex’s rolls into a 5 but will run the moderate risk of Abe being injured.

After making sure that Beatrice is fine, Abe jumps back down and hurries down the narrow hallway in hope of finding the rest and lending fire support from the back! By the time he arrives, he finds an injured Orion and the other redcloaks pinned down in what looks to be an enormous dining hall. They’ve overturned one of the tables and are using it as a barricade to keep a small group of guards at bay. It looks like their charge has, for now, hit an impasse.

Fortunately none of the guards are paying attention to the doorway, where Abe raises his rifle…

>Roll 1d100 for injury. Anything higher than a 40 will be just fine! Only the first roll counts.

Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>2422043

Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>2422043

>75

Abe takes aim and shoots down a man who had nearly rounded the barricade and was about to take a swipe at Alex with his sword! The leader of the redcloaks jumps as the shot drops him right before her eyes. But as Abe reloads, something hits the wall just behind him and shatters! Abe looks down at the broken crossbow bolt that had only narrowly missed him and ducks back through the doorway, taking cover before he can be shot at again!

>>2422046
Ayy my boi.

Alex scowls as the head of her halberd catches in one of the gaps of their haphazard barricade, trapping her unwieldy weapon. Two guards try to take advantage of this sudden gap in the defences by running around the side of the table but before Alex can do anything, a sudden shot makes the first one drop like a puppet whose strings were cut.
The first one slows just enough for her to jab him in the gut with the back of the halberd, shoving him back over and into the sight of her friend’s guns.

Over to the side of her, Orion grunts and grips his shoulder. He’s fighting with his sword now and is clearly flagging. There hasn’t even been time to use a Benediction, the fighting’s been nonstop. If it hadn’t been for the redcloaks reinforcing him when they did, things could have been much worse.

“Up!,” Alex shouts. “Protect the Lamplighter!”
If they can buy the safety for him to bless himself, they should be able to break through this stall without further issue. But to do that, the redcloaks will have to clear out these last few stragglers themselves.

>Roll 1d6 for Alexandra. The first shall be added to the Collective Effort roll. The lowest of them shall be counted as a 5.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2422072

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2422072
At least we can't get 3 1's.

>>2422074
looks like it's time to stop rolling...

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2422072

>5, 4, 2

Results accepted. Writing.

Dude Ouro I just wanna say you have the best dice mechanics for a quest that I've ever seen. Good shit.

>5, 4, 2
>44/40

You wince as you swing your blade down upon one of the last guards, pain shooting up from your bloodied shoulder. That wound’s going to be bothering for you some damn time now. Or it would be at least, were you not a Lamplighter.

As the redcloaks spread out and secure the dining hall, you hold your bloodied hand to your clean one and let them both be limned with faint white light. A Benediction of Relief should do it and even beyond the healing, it may just further empower your Wick.

>Wick: 10/10

“We got them!,” one of the redcloaks calls out. “I don’t see anymore!”

“The Hall is ours!”
Alex’s cry has a sense of frantic brittle triumph to it. She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop and to tell the truth? So are you.

How much of your reserves should you spend on yourself?

>Just 2 Wick. That’ll dull the pain and you have the time to get it bandaged it up.

>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

>6 Wick to leave unblemished flesh behind and no sign save the blood that you were ever wounded at all.

>>2422114
>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

>>2422114
>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

>>2422114
>Just 2 Wick. That’ll dull the pain and you have the time to get it bandaged it up.

>>2422114
>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

This is a smash and grab, I don't think we're going to be using a ton of wick in fighting after the initial break in so spending a little to heal should be fine. That being said if there is a map of the place we should take a look lmao.

>>2422114
>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

Vote called, writing.

>>2422108
Thanks!

>>2422114
>>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

>>2422153
Anon is right. It keeps things varied and interesting plus I'm a big fan of the collective effort stuff. I think it's pretty creative.

>4 Wick should be enough to close the wound for now. Excessive force may reopen it later but if left to your own devices, you should heal naturally quickly.

>Wick: 6/10

Channeling the mercy of the light, you hold your wound shut until it no longer needs it. That’s not enough to truly heal your shoulder but it should keep it closed. The rest will heal naturally on its own as long as you keep it in good condition.

“Orion! What happened?”
Beatrice, having finally caught up with the rest of you, rushes past Abe and hurries to your side. Did she truly not see you get hurt?

“I’m fine. As long as I don’t strain it too hard it should be right.”

Beatrice sighs, holding a hand to her bruised lips.
“You’re absolutely going to strain it, aren’t you?”

“I just said I won’t.”

“But you always do. Now what’s going on? Catch me up.”

“I believe we have secured the Hall. We can’t find anymore guards so we should be right to head straight inside.”

“Ah, nice and easy.”
She frowns.
“Why is it nice and easy?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

The redcloaks form up around you as you exit the dining hall. Past that is a corridor and then a large stone antechamber containing a set of massive brass doors, each one at least ten times your height! There are actually two guards still here, both of which are shot dead before they can do anything.

You walk past the corpses and, with an air of reverence, you reach out and brush your gauntlet against the doors. They aren’t just massive, they are ancient. These doors are unmistakably a monument of the First Age and probably predate much of the city around them. Just imagine what holy wonders they must have seen, what people must have laid hands on these doors before you. You are, without a doubt, walking where God once trod.

“How do we get in?,” Abe asks.

...That’s a very good question. The doors aren’t just high, they’re also at least a foot thick from what you can tell and have been slammed shut so tightly that not even a hair could fit between them. There is no gap between them and the floor as they extend down into a small hollow set into the stone itself. The same goes for the ceiling. There is no lock, no handle, no knocker, no bar.
Just two immense slabs of bronze that no mortal man could ever hope to move.

One of the redcloaks that had still been exploring the small facility that you know now serves as merely the entry hall to the massive inner chamber of the dome itself runs into the room. It’s Clement, the small and fussy man now quite out of breath.
“They’re coming!”

“What?”

“They’ve got men coming up on the rail! They’re coming!”

You had planned on doing this quickly or on fortifying the Hall itself if you had to but right now it looks like you can’t do either. Have you come this far just to be caught like a rat in a trap?

1/2

>>2422223
>They’re must be a way to open these in one of these rooms! Search everywhere!

>How did anyone ever open these doors? You’ll stay here and study them further, even if it puts you right in a dead end.

>You don’t even know for sure if the shard is actually in here. Find a way to retreat!

>Have everyone prepare defences. You’ll fight them off.

>Other (Specify)

>>2422114
>How did anyone ever open these doors? You’ll stay here and study them further, even if it puts you right in a dead end.

>>2422225
>How did anyone ever open these doors? You’ll stay here and study them further, even if it puts you right in a dead end.

CONTESTED COLLECTED EFFORT

>The final result of Orion and company to storm the Senate Hall was a 44. This was a success and as a result, the antechambers of the Hall are theirs. But it will not always be so.
>The Senate Hall is capable of making its own Collective Effort checks to clear away the results of yours.
>As your actions progress, Collective Effort rolls will be made for the Senate Hall. The characters involved are: The Lower Guardhouse, the Librarians and the Magisterial Corps.
>Outside groups who would otherwise also be involved in the roll are unavailable due to the starfall.
>The results rolled for these will reduce your score of 44 by the matching amount.
>When the score hits 0, the Hall will be retaken.
>Actions you take may increase or decrease the score.

I've learned my lesson from last time though. it won't be as frequent.

>>2422238
>the Librarians
Must be some tough ass bookmeisters.

>Outside groups who would otherwise also be involved in the roll are unavailable due to the starfall.
Yes. YES.

>>2422238
You sick son of a snek.

>>2422238
This is not the time to invoke the Wax Saint, by the way. So let’s dispel those notions. Fight on. Kill them all. The city is in chaos and they have no one else to help them. Now is the hour of doom to those who would defend Dis. Now is the hour of death to those who defile the Wheel God. Press on.

>>2422225
>How did anyone ever open these doors? You’ll stay here and study them further, even if it puts you right in a dead end.
>Have everyone prepare defences. You’ll fight them off.

Can't we do both of these while the Redcloaks take defensive positions while we try to find a way to open the door? Otherwise just trying to open the door is fine I guess.

>>2421319
Bea is not to be bullied!

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>>2422021
>payroll of the police
>Ancapistan
Pick one.

INTERLUDE

The Sable Imp Fellowship was, despite being an organisation primarily based in the Undertowns, mostly spared the falling rubble and collapsing layers of urban strata. There had been some casualties, outlying human-farms or prisoner processing facilities that had been squashed, but the central facility and its mines remained safe deep at the bottom of the Burrow Burroughs. This was very nearly the deepest point in all of Dis. Only one place delved deeper and that were the mines right at their doorstep.

The Fellowship’s central facility stood at the bottom of the Burroughs, circling the Central Shaft that then went further down. Much of its buildings were purely bureaucratic in nature or served as employee housing, something that humans, witches and imps all needed equally. But in the largest building, secure from all the rest, an emergency board meeting was being held.

The board members, all of whom were human just as their CEO had been, were now set to argument. The founder of the Fellowship and the inventor of it’s particularly predatory financial methods was now most likely dead. There was no boss. So then the natural question was, who should succeed him? Sure there were preparations already in place but in face of the greed of veteran corporate raiders they meant little.
And each of them was thinking in the very back of their head, though none would admit it, “we have to stay in control. We can’t let the imps take over.” The Fellowship was a human creation, one that bound imps into servants through not the use of magic but of money. Of contracts. Of deeds. After all, anything can be bought or sold. And in the minds of those in that room, it should stay in human hands.

Unfortunately it wasn’t their decision. Far from the stuffy little room, one imp in particular was running the place. She was happy to let the board think they were doing something but it was her, the thing that lurked as her partner’s shadow, that had been self-promoted to run the Fellowship in aforesaid partner’s absence. She wasn’t the CEO of course. By the time the humans had settled on the new recipient of that meaningless title, everything will have been taken care of. She was, to put it simply, the Thing That Made Things Happen.
Not a great title. It sounded better in witch-sign, the natural name-based thought of imps, where it could be made as a single impressive gesture.

Her human lover had died. He had, in the roundabout sense through which imps breed, had given her many children to inflict upon human mothers. This would, in ordinary circumstances, have made her quite upset. Imps are, after all, nothing if not creatures of incredible emotional peaks and valleys. She should be swearing vengeance and raising havoc.
But this was the Sable Imp Fellowship and here, there were no ordinary circumstances. The death of poor Rene, while still heart-stopping when she had first heard of it, was but a temporary affliction.

1/2

>>2422304
“Keep the mines running!,” she snapped. “Quadruple shift! Not a man, not an imp, not a witch goes without break! If you do well there may be overtime pay! I want to see Deep Earth Operations fully staffed by the time I get down there!”
The Central Shaft was deep. It had to be, the Fellowship’s main use of it was to exhume imps directly from the earth. But it went deeper down that. It went all the way down as a matter of fact. It reached, at its bottommost level, the border of the Deep Earth. Down that deep, the dirt bled as you dug it up. It was a restricted zone, filled with a small cluster of buildings set in around a massive metal plug. It had rotating staff and the only permanent occupants were the two that were imprisoned down there. It was here where the Fellowship bought and sold the dead.
“And send a message to the two sisters. Tell them that if they can get find him quickly, I’ll be willing to make a deal.”

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Anyway, I'm going to rest for a few hours. I'll be back later tonight to do one or two more updates. Vote remains open until then.

>>2422225
>>How did anyone ever open these doors? You’ll stay here and study them further, even if it puts you right in a dead end.
>Heal people up. Benediction of Relief's perk will be well useful today.

BGM for this thread: https://youtu.be/DeumyOzKqgI

>>2422225
>Other (Specify)

Set the hall on fire. The Shard won't burn.

>>2422453
We'd be stuck in a fire.

>>2422453
the doors wont burn

>>2422225
>They’re must be a way to open these in one of these rooms! Search everywhere!
While we
>Have everyone prepare defences.

>>2422493
The walls around them will.

>>2422453
This is stupid for so many reasons.

Also we just destroyed a large portion of the city and it’s leadership and yet we’re already getting reinforcements sent at us via the rail system? That’s kinda bullshit Ouro.

>>2422597
Dis is very big, it wasn't that large. And those reinforcements in particular are from the Lower Guardhouse, who patrol the Hall's support towers.

>>2422271
Support

>>2422310
>Deep Earth
Is that Ur's corpse?

>>2422601
It is where the boundary of substance between world and gods grow thin. It is where the metaphor stops.

>>2422607
Okay to put that in a more sense-making way, the world of Lamplighter is heavily based off the transubstantiation theology of accidents and essence. The stuff of gods, both light and dark, can be of many physical things at once while still sharing that same essential godliness, something divorced entirely from their physical properties.

In Deep Earth, the accidental qualities and the essential qualities cease to differ.

>>2422225
This
>>2422271 I guess.

>>2422614
You have the best worldbuilding Ouro

>>2422712
>>2422271
Do you really think it's a good idea to split our efforts right now?

>>2422861
Once we open the door, our redcloaks can follow suit.

>>2422921
Would you rather only Orion look for a way to open the doors before the army arrives, or all of them?

>>2422953
I'd rather us not caught flat footed when they do come. Not to mention we're the goddamn expert priest-warrior here, what the hell are dem kids gonna do scrambling about.

>>2422953
The defences will presumably increase our score on the collective effort so we have more time to get the door open.

>>2422984
In that case, shouldn't Orion be manning the defenses while the kids search?

>>2423098
We're one person and when I say that I meant that Orion has the knowledge and expertise to figure this out while the kids don't. That being said, one guy (even if it's us) can't hold back an entire armed force without significant risk and that's where the Redcloaks come in.

Sorry about not updating last night, I fell asleep while writing it. But today is another day. Thread begins in an hour or so.

Always forget you're in Australia man, it's still the same day for us western hemisphere posters. It's getting to evening now, but still.

>How did anyone ever open these doors? You’ll stay here and study them further, even if it puts you right in a dead end.

“Where are they coming from?,” you mutter, already knowing the answer. They must have had another group of guards on standby or patrolling somewhere else. You didn’t think more of them would be coming so quickly!
But you’re reluctant to just leave all this behind too. You’ve come this far, there must be something!

“Alex! Take the redcloaks and prepare defences! I will remain here.”

You turn back to the door. A door which is, on closer inspection, not much of a door at all. How did anyone ever open this thing? Surely it was meant to be opened, the Senate of this city is supposedly on the other side of it. They don’t live in there!

“Maybe we could lever it open?,” Abe suggests.

Beatrice scoffs.
“We’d need one fucking long lever.”

“And there’s nowhere to jam it in the first place,” you say. “The whole thing is stuck in tight. No space under the door, over the door, between the doors!”

“Well this was made for the First Men, wasn’t it? They were pretty damn big.”
Beatrice has her pistol out, watching the doorway behind you.

“They were not that strong.”

“No, I mean maybe there’s a handle further up or something?”

You look up. If there is anything higher up along the set of doors, you can’t see it.

“Maybe there’s some sort of mechanism,” Abe says. “Something in the doors that makes them easier to open in response to something.”

“There was no mechanism in the First Age.”

“They might have had it upgraded later on! They would have lived alongside the Second Men for a long time, right?”

“I don’t get it,” Beatrice says. “Even if there is some way for First Men to open it, that doesn’t matter right? They’re all dead. This ‘senate’ is supposed to still function, how is anyone supposed to get in or out of there?’

“Unless,” you say, “these doors are now just ceremonial. There might be another entrance into the main hall.”

“But that could be anywhere!”


>Search for another way in.

>Stay here. There must be something this door answers to. Something that only the First Men could have done.

>Find an employee somewhere and take them alive. They’ll tell you everything.

>Other (Specify)

>>2423818
>>Stay here. There must be something this door answers to. Something that only the First Men could have done.
It might open to a true flame. Try tapping the wick to it.

>>2423818
>Other
Channel Wick into it?

>>2423818

>>2423825
Seconding

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Senate Hall Collective Effort

>44

>The Hall's first Collective Effort is mobilising the Lower Guardhouse to help retake the antechambers. Roll 1d6. The first three rolls shall equal the amount they reduce from Orion's total result.

>>2423825
Support!
I hope we're not getting baited here

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2423851
low rolls don't fail me now

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2423851
>>2423854
No, watch this

>>2423854
>>2423857
fug

>>2423857
I’ll be honest, that didn’t go as expected

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2423851
I got this.

>>2423818
>Search for another way in.
There's been no hint so far as to how to open it

>>2423851
Ouro, just how strong were first men? Would they have been able to push open the set of doors?

>>2423818
Shoot that shit with fire?

Senate Hall Collective Effort

>6, 5, 3
>14

Responding to the threat, guards that had been patrolling the Hall's support take the rail up to the platform outside the Hall. Already warned of gunfire they bring with them heavy barricade-shields through which no shot can penetrate.
The Redcloaks posted upon the balconies force them to deploy them the moment they attempt to cross the bridge. Their rifle fire isn't particularly accurate but it's still enough to slow the advance of the guards to crawl as they plant the massive wheeled shields into the ground and take cover! From there they begin to slowly push the whole contraptions forward across the bridge, the advance teams huddled behind them. It is slow, arduous work.

But they are coming.

>30/44
>Having the Redcloaks defending the building has stopped the Senate Hall from selecting any sort of bonus or sacrifice regarding the Lower Guardhouse.

>>2423818
>Attempt Wick

>>2423873
Not even close. They were very big and had the appropriate strength for their size and mass but these are big fuckoff slabs of metal.

Vote called, writing.

>Stay here. There must be something this door answers to. Something that only the First Men could have done.

Beatrice looks and sounds frustrated.
“But how are we supposed to find another entrance? We don’t have any fucking time!”

She’s right. You can hear gunshots behind you, the redcloaks no doubt firing from windows and doorways at an advancing force of reinforcements. You can’t afford to go searching. No, your charge lead you here and it is here that you must triumph.
“Maybe,” you say, “It opens to something only a First Man could do.”

You hold your wick, the tip of it still burning, and tap it against the massive set of doors in preparation.

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Abe says. “Even if it like that, none of the people here would be able to use it! So there has to be another door!”

“Maybe it truly is just ceremonial for them. But as the true heir of the civilisation they think they emulate, it is not so for me.”
You can only hope this works.

>Wick 6/10
>Spark 8/8


>Use 2 Wick.

>Use 4 Wick.

>Use 6 Wick.

>Use 8 Wick.

>Use 10 Wick.

>Unveil the lamp instead.

>This is useless. Try something else.

>>2423931
>>Use 4 Wick.
I have no real idea how much we should try and will change if someone argues for a different amount.

>>2423931
Can't we just channel wick until it actually does something to use the absolute minimum necessary?

>>2423942
That's fair. Keep in mind that if you go with this however you might end up losing more than you wish to.

>>2423942
Second

>>2423931

>>2423942
Third

>>2423939
>>2423942
Sure why not. Changing to this

Vote called, writing.

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>Just keep channeling Wick until something occurs.

For a moment you consider just how much power you want to expend here before deciding that there’s no point holding anything back. If your suspicions are correct, then all you need to do is supply it with enough heat. The only birthright of the First Men that Dis cannot replicate!

And if your hunch is wrong and that is not the way...well then you’ll have spent it all for nothing. It’s all or nothing. You haven’t come here to do anything by half measures.

Making sure the burning end of your wick is held against the door, you begin to call forth the Flame Internal.

>Wick 4/10.

The fire rises. No effect.

>Wick 2/10.

Hopefully this won’t end in you exhausting yourself for nothing. But in response to the growing doubt, you simply redouble your efforts.

>Wick: 0/10.
>Spark: 8/8

The waxen fingerprint left on your brow becomes visible once more as it sputters into life, burning with a borrowed flame. Your own reserves have run dry but you will not stop.

>Wick: 0/10
>Spark: 6/8

You squeeze your eyes shut as drops of molten wax run down your face. The door barely feels warm.

>Wick: 0/10
>Spark: 4/8

And then finally you hear something click. You extinguish your wick and step back, panting and wiping beads of hot wax from your brow. The fire upon your brow still burns but only faintly. You very nearly spent it all.
You hear another click and then another, a rapid-fire assortment of sound as something deep within the door begins to spin. One of the slabs of brass slowly begins to creak open…

And then it is all stopped by a screech and a very final clunk as whatever ancient machine within the door jams and promptly destroys itself. The doors are now just barely open, a gap less than a foot wide. Walking up to and using the light from your spark to see beyond, you spy a great spiral staircase leading up into the darkness.

Each step is abnormally large and almost rippled, the marks of footprints etched into the stone itself by repetition and time. And it is all cloaked in a layer of dust inches thick.

“Oh fuck.”
Beatrice’s reaction is a little less respectful than yours.

>Enter with Abe and Beatrice.

>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

>Set either Abe or Beatrice to stand guard or raise an alarm while the other two of you enter.

>Other (Specify)

>>2424022
we should've used the lampost for this

>Throw something in to disturb the dust and make them think at least some of us entered
>Abort this path, look elsewhere
we need to only use ignite weapon and pray for power words from now on

>>2424022
>Enter with Abe and Beatrice.
Don't go too far though, I want to fetch the redcloaks if this isn't a dead end.

>>2424022
Fall back and seal yourselves inside. Obviously there’s another entrance/exit and we’re going to need everyone all hands onboard with our predicament.

>>2424022
>>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

>>2424022
>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

>>2424022
>>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

>>2424022
>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.
We'll have to find another way out. I don't want to leave redcloaks behind in a fight.

>>2424022

>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

>>2424022
>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

>>2424154
Exactly. They could all get slaughtered. They’re only armed with rifles and shit and the Senate reinforcements have giant bulletproof shields because Ouro hates us. ;)

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INTERLUDE

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a forlorn creature. It was forlorn because it was trapped and to tell the truth, it had long given up hope of ever getting out. It had been trapped by humans and it was held by human artifice. A glass cage whose bars thrummed with faint light. And even if it could break through those somehow, the entire room beyond was filled with light and light was very literally an impassable barrier to the creature. It had been permitted a small spot of shadow in the very center of the cage and there it spent its life huddled, unable to even move from its painful position without being stopped by the light.

It had spent even longer trapped beneath the earth, burrowing up through soil but finding only a solid barrier wherever it went. The world had been trapped beneath a cloying concrete shell. And then when it had finally found a gap it had been a trap. Of course it had been a trap. It had been scooped up and bottled by a human and taken to this hideous bright laboratory full of sterile whiteness interrupted only by gleaming steel. That had been ten years ago.
It had been for research supposedly, some kind of effort of biology and taxonomy. To understand the world and thus impose an order upon it. That is how all humans thought. It was the vengeful directive their invasive progenitor had given them.

But while it might have been research at first, it has been ten long years. Ten years of pain, of humiliation, of a perpetual degradation. There was nothing more the man could learn from the creature and so now its only purpose was as some sort of...entertainment.
“You can do anything you want to an imp,” the creature had once heard him remark. “No matter what it is, you know they deserve it.”

And so it went.

But on this day, in the tenth year, something different occured.

“What’s your name?”
There was someone new standing before the cage. A little girl, a child, though she now stood taller than the forlorn creature’s tortured and diminished form. Her burnished gold and silver-veined skin reflected the light in a way that the creature found painful to look at. She wore a black nightgown and her long gray hair was tousled as if she had just been asleep. Or at the very least, feigning sleep.

The creature had never seen her before but knew not to trust any of her kind. It turned its back as best as it was able.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I...I’ve seen what happens here. I just want to know your name.”

The creature favoured her with an unblinking gaze from one of its remaining eyestalks.
“Why even bother? My name would be but a syllable of a grander one and it’s nothing any human could ever learn to speak.”

“But I want to try!”

“...Why do you care?”

The girl trembled back from the creature’s sudden spite but only for a moment. And then her fists clench.
1/3

>>2424257
“Because you’re a person, aren’t you? You’re not human but you’re still a… a mind. I’ve seen what happens here and I don’t think it’s right to do that to someone and not even know or say their name! Don’t you think that’s sad? You could be here forever and it’d never say anything more than ‘Heteromorphic Variant Imp Specimen 431’! Doesn’t that make you mad?”

“...Is that really what it says on this cage?”

“Yes! And besides…”
The girl rolled up one of her sleeves.
“You’re not the only one Father hurts.”

*****************

“Are you sure about this?”
A male voice. The witch didn’t recognise it. She didn’t recognise anything about where she was. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was...was…
A sudden pain in her gut.
For some reason that felt as if it had been a very long time ago.

“The Fellowship has plenty of witches,” the man continues. “I can vouch for almost of the ones in my employ. If we truly need one of this plan of yours we can use them. Why go to these lengths for a corpse? She isn’t even from around here!”

The voice that spoke next was theoretically feminine and it was three-fold. Three identical voices speaking in nearly perfect unison.
“You underestimate the grandeur of our objective and the resources at our disposal. It is, how do you people put it again? A double or nothing game. And since we have all the past to leaf through as we please, why would we ever settle for anything but the best?”


****************

Maria stopped dreaming and opened her eyes, banishing scattered memories of the past. It was an unfortunate circumstance that Second Men didn’t dream. Their sleeping mind was too disciplined for that. Instead they calculated.
So she wasn’t surprised to find herself buried under the rubble. Being in a building that was both collapsing and exploding would do that to you. The only thing that had kept her from being entirely flattened was her funerary golem, the stone beast carved in honor of the shape she gave to Marcel. It was hunched over her and though it was now very likely dead, it had used its body to make a tiny alcove to shelter her with. She hadn’t made it do that. There hadn’t been time.

Of course one does not escape from such a situation without injury, golem or no golem. She was covered in burns and, oh dear, missing most of her skin as a result. One of her legs was missing and she had no idea where it was. Her protective shadow had been boiled away and would probably take hours to grow back. Her rib cage was cracked in half a dozen places and the surrounding organs had probably been all pulped by the impact. Or at the very least that pulp is what she assumed was squeezing free of her torn abdomen.
But that was fine. That stomach wound had already been there and she hadn’t had any use for her organs these past thirty years.

2/3

>>2424262
And then she saw that her right hand had been broken and all the fingers splayed uselessly and that is when she decided to get angry. But it was a calm anger. Throwing a tantrum wouldn’t help anyone now, would it?
Unfortunately one of the other mental gifts of the Second Man was an innate self-discipline. Maria would have enjoyed being able to lose control once in a while.

Her left hand scrabbled uselessly for a few minutes but there was never any point. Even she needed both hands to pronounce the names. But if there was nothing else she could rely on in either of her lives, she could always rely on her curses. The golem was dead but the curse that once animated it still knew its mistress.
And in answer to her silent plea, its claw shook itself to life and with slow and exaggerated care, reached down to its witch and helped her finish the sign.

There were many people sifting through the rubble in the ruined Mazes below the impact site. Some were simply looters but many were searching for possible survivors. Other were simply lost in both body and mind and could do nothing but wander. None of them were expecting a piece of fallen tower the size of a city block to rise into the air as if it weighed nothing at all.

By the time Maria unearthed herself, one of her golems was already waiting for her. She hadn’t commanded it to come to her, it had been outside even her puppetry range. But it was old and it was dear and the curse inside it was a deep and familiar feeling. It clung to her even without her willing it to. It was the very first golem she had made upon her rebirth and she had chosen its shape to pay homage to the one to whom she owed everything.
A vast serpent of black loam topped with a stone skull. The idea of it filled her with revulsion now. She was going to defang that fucking bitch!

But soil was soil and she direly needed a refill. Maria moved the loyal golem closer and with her last good hand, pried its carven skull free from its body. And then she ate it, the entire thirty-foot long serpent slowly vanishing down her throat in a torrent of dirt. Soil to power.
It was only then that she realised that she was being watched by a group of awestruck Third Men. Shambling subhumans all. Speaking to them was like speaking to infants. No power, no intellect, just the ability to survive and breed in the ruin of the world. So with that in mind, she didn’t feel too bad about what she did next. She still had some loose witch-stitch after all and while there were ways to heal what had been done to her, they would take a long time. And in the meantime?

Well, she needed some replacement skin!

Vote called. Writing.

>Try and get the redcloaks to fall back to here. You can all seal yourself in here if need be. Whether that’s a good idea is another question.

You give the open door another look.
“We should all be able to fit through there, one at a time if need be. Abe! Call the redcloaks back! This is the most fortified spot we can hope for and there must be at least one other exit! You go help him Beatrice!”

“And what are you going to be doing?”

“I’ll make sure this actually goes where it says it goes and that there’s nothing nasty waiting for us. Go!”

The two of them run from the room. Hopefully they’ll be able to gather the redcloaks without much incident. And while they do that, you can slip inside the doors and investigate for yourself. It might be dangerous so you won’t go too far. You’ll just make sure that you aren’t directing all your followers into a death trap.

You squeeze through the doors and as you enter the base of the stairwell, accidentally take too deep of a breath and set yourself to coughing. Everything here is covered in dust! No footprints either and with dust this thick, you’d notice them. This passage has gone unused for a very long time.

You lift the burning wick like a torch as you slowly climb the stairs. Not even that is easy. The stairs are high and steep, designed for people with far longer strides than yours. So though it isn’t actually all that long a flight of stairs, it stretches out into a challenge that feels twice as long and twice as high than it truly is.

The stairs come to an end at an open doorway that is at least twenty feet high and twelve feet wide. Something built to enable the throng of a whole group of First Men, no doubt. Beyond is only darkness. You lift the flame into the room and shed light onto what must be a truly massive chamber, one that takes up almost the entirety of the dome you saw from outside. The light only illuminates the twenty feet around the doorway but that’s enough for you to realise that it is a massive closed-off amphitheatre of some sort. The floor slopes down in distinct ringed tiers and each tier holds a row of stone chairs and upon them…

You recoil from the chair next to you for it is still occupied! A mummified corpse sits upon it like a king upon his throne and though it is now just a shrivelled brown husk, it still taller and wider than you. It is not skeletal however, like such a desiccated corpse should be. Instead its body has shrivelled down unevenly, as if all the man’s flesh was as imperishable as its bone. And by all likelihood, it was.
It is, so to speak, a genuine First Man in the flesh. An ancestor. A veteran. A demigod. A direct child of the Wayward Flame. And it is very, very dead.

The Senate, the supposed lawmaking body of Dis, stretches out before you. A chamber of ancient corpses. And below, you hear the scuffles and shouts as the redcloaks return and start to file their way through the doors. But should they see this?

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