Luctari had mentioned Daranirajido’s strategy. He was not making an explicit move on the goddess, Zraazrondre, and as a result her hands were tied. Aleem decided to take a leaf from the godling’s book. Indirectness.
“I won’t insult your intelligence by asking you if you know what an emanation ritual is,” Aleem said. “But tell me, how familiar are you with the concept of incarnations?”
“Quite familiar,” Wulry answered with a casual air that came across to Aleem as a little forced. There was a sudden intensity to the man’s eyes that couldn’t have been hidden by any amount of blitheness. “Top tier forbidden stuff, right there. Very forbidden, in fact.” He leaned forward, his face only inches away from the bars of his cell. The smile he wore looked sharp enough to cut through steel. “Now you don’t mean to tell me that you have knowledge of how to perform such a ritual, do you?”
The air grew cool against Aleem’s skin, and were it that Luctari hadn’t already scared him shitless, Aleem might have started to feel some apprehension. For all that Speckled Eye dabbled in the circulation of dark arts, there were certain lines no reasonable-minded person was willing to cross. Incarnations were not the same things as avatars.
To put it simply, creating an avatar involved a god manifesting themselves through a consenting mortal. Such a thing required mutual agreement and long-term collaboration between the god and a mortal in their service. It was essentially a channelling through, a conveyance of greatness through a not so great medium. An incarnation, on the other hand, was far more vile. It was barely a few steps above thralldom and outright possession. When a higher-order entity incarnated, they took on fleshly form. In other words, they forcefully infused the entirety of their essence into a mortal body. And that body would ideally belong to a child whose Sithen was not fully formed. Such things were hardly ever consensual, of course.
Quite a few doomsday cults in ‘Tales of Woe’ had successfully facilitated incarnations. Concreting beings of infective madness and destruction into physical form. The process also involved blood sacrifice on an industrial scale. The point here was that most agreed that such knowledge was better left alone. Whenever such cults cropped up, it wasn’t long until a Kill Quest was issued to have them implacably exterminated before they succeeded in giving form to something nigh eldritch. Aleem doubted that Wulry would immediately kill him if he hinted at knowing how to conduct such a ritual, but there was no sense in pushing the envelope.
“Far from it,” Aleem said smoothly. “However, a Faajian [Warlock] by the name of Orotaz recently facilitated such a ritual not too far from here.”
Wulry’s smile fell. “[Warlock], you said?” There was a penetrating intensity to his gaze. “When? And where exactly?”
“Don’t know the precise location,” Aleem said with a shrug. “What I can tell you, though, is that it happened a short distance from here, at about noon, two days ago.” Wulry made to say something but Aleem spoke on over him. “The ritual failed. But Orotaz is set to give it another hearty attempt, and he’s had plenty time.”
“And you’re telling me that this can be [Confirm]ed right now?” Wulry asked earnestly.
“I mean, if you can bring a votary of Akeshi’s down here,” Aleem said, glancing over at the gallery’s gate once more, “sure.” He’d spoken in jest.
However, Wulry turned his head to the side. “Nii? Grab Serend and Retti—
Aleem’s eyes bulged. “Wait, I—”
“Then just bring Serend. It’s urgent,” Wulry continued speaking. “There’s something you need to hear. Quickly.”
“I didn’t agree to meeting with anyone else,” Aleem said hurriedly. His heart was thudding in his chest. Nii as in Nii R’shai? Holy fucking shit.
Wulry gave Aleem an odd look, but a reassuring smile dampened it. “They’re on the payroll. It’s fine.”
“I—” Aleem licked his lips, mind spinning. His hands trembled. Luctari’s reaction was still very vivid in his mind, and it overlapped now with a hysterical and very dangerous future version of Nii R’shai. He had not expected to run into her so soon. She was an NPC who often accompanied Wulry Cosk. She could get really … brutal when pushed, and one of the things Aleem intended to share with Wulry was guaranteed to throw her off her rocker. “You mentioned a Nii. That wouldn’t happen to be Nii R’shai, would it?”
Wulry cocked an eyebrow and let out an incredulous laugh. “You’re really starting to unsettle me, lad. Just how much do you know about—” he paused and squinted his eyes at Aleem. His face softened. “Look,” he sighed, “I … really don’t know what your deal is, but you look miserable and terrified. Not a good mix.”
“Weakest link in the coral,” Luctari’s voice came back to him unbidden. Aleem clenched his teeth but the words did not stop coming. “Delay the inevitable. You are uniquely positioned to help your patron Tutelar. You can buy her time. KILL YOURSELVES.” [Trance] had grown to juggle more than three things at once. He detached the thoughts from being included in his Skill and instantly they dissipated like so much dust.
Wulry was watching him uncertainly. “Pretty obvious that you’re in over your head.”
“Well,” Aleem tried to regain his composure, “I don’t see anybody else stepping up to keep things from going to absolute shit.” His tone was much sharper than he’d intended.
“What are you,” Wulry gestured, “thirteen?”
Aleem didn’t dignify that with an answer. He just glared at the man.
“To tell you the truth,” Wulry said, shaking his head, “wouldn’t even matter to me if you were sixteen. Not trying to meddle or anything, but this is hardly the sort of sewage for a … a young man to be trudging through. Ya know?”
A hundred witty retorts ran through Aleem’s mind at the speed of thought, yet his shoulders sagged even lower. He bit down on his bottom lip the instant it began to quiver. That tight, tingling sensation returned, plaguing the bridge of his nose, prickling his eyes. He diverted his head to the side, as though to watch the gate, but really to hide his struggle against long-suppressed tears. Everything was just fine.
“Uh… um…” Wulry said eloquently, all the wind apparently knocked out of his sails. He scratched the side of his cheek. “Hmm. Look, I uh wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings, la—”
“You didn’t hurt my feelings,” Aleem grumbled. Sniffling, he rubbed his sleeves against his eyes violently. This was so embarrassing.
“There’s um nothing demeaning about crying, you know,” Wulry said, and he sounded so incredibly uncomfortable it almost made Aleem feel better. “Tough people,” the man gestured awkwardly between himself and Aleem, “cry too, you see, just like anyone else. And that’s uh that’s fine. It’s normal. If—”
“Please, stop,” Aleem said, his voice raw. He massaged the bridge of his nose, fighting the urge to hide his face behind his hands. “Just—just stop talking.” He wanted the floor to swallow him right then.
“Look, I’m sorry I—”
“Apology accepted,” Aleem said hurriedly. He tapped his forehead. “Forgotten. Didn’t even happen.”
“Fine by me,” Wulry said, though he didn’t sound like he truly meant that. He folded his arms across his chest, tapped his thumb against his arm, then craned his neck as though to try glancing at the gallery gate, which was pretty much impossible from his vantage within the cell. It was a testament to his discomfiture that he didn’t just use his spirit-tool to spy the hallway. “Where in the fells are they?” the man muttered to himself.
Aleem took a calming breath. He really needed to keep it together. No, he was keeping it together. This whole situation was just … a lot. But he was going to be fine. He would have to be fine.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “You have a Cleric of Akeshi on your payroll?”
Wulry twisted his lips, a small smile hiking up his cheeks. “Something like that.”
Aleem glanced at the gallery gate. He felt like he’d done that a hundred times this evening. “Do you want me to move on to the other particulars?” He’d promised three portions of information and had only touched on the first part of it.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Wulry said, “I’d rather we wait for my associates. Also, I was going to use the Nemithon to gauge your honesty, but Nii has [Assay], which is a far better option.”
Aleem’s chest tightened. [Assay] was a truth-testing Skill. Naturally, it didn’t so much test the truth as verify that a person’s sincerity was neither born of oscitation or phrenic influence. Only very high-level appraisal Skills could determine truth-value, and there were so few of those. R’shai’s Class allowed her to interact with the mind, amongst other things, so this was easily in her wheelhouse.
“Nii is good people,” Wulry said, probably reading something on Aleem’s face. “You have nothing to worry about. She’s … she’s a precious soul.”
Aleem nodded reluctantly. Expecting the worst at every turn had insidiously become his watchword. This was quite sometime prior to the events of ‘Tales of Woe’, so maybe R’shai wasn’t off the deep end yet. It wouldn’t do to judge a person’s character based on their future actions…
He’d need to think about how to phrase that better in his head.
“Ah,” Wulry said, perking up. There they come.”
Aleem squinted at the gallery gate but saw nothing, heard nothing, which meant that Wulry had just cheated. Aleem considered making a comment about Wulry’s spirit-tool but he felt that would be going too far. It wasn’t so much that he was averse to overawing or upstaging an unrepentant showman like Wulry, but Aleem was fully committed to not being too presumptuous with his foreknowledge. He glanced back at the man. “I don’t see any—”
“Give it a moment,” Wulry said smugly. His cheer was back on. A mask of geniality surrounded by dense red hair.
Soundlessly the gate leading into the gallery opened and a lithe, brown-skinned woman walked in. She looked to be in her twenties with curly sable hair that flowed all the way down to her waist. She carried a ridiculously cumbersome equipment on her back and Aleem thought she looked very familiar, though he couldn’t quite say where he’d seen her. She certainly hadn’t been a character in the game. The thing on her back was strapped to her by thick belts and loops across her ample chest and thin torso. It was a musical instrument, a Shlöck, to be precise, and quite the complex contraption, being both of the percussion and stringed variety of instruments. It required a frightening amount of expertise to use. One particularly overpowered [Vates] in ‘Tales of Woe’, O’Freiga, loved to use the instrument to wreak havoc.
Aleem realised that he’d been staring. The music woman didn’t seem to notice though. She had a chronically far-off look in her eyes and held in her hand a cane that resembled an alpenstock. She tapped the stick twice against the ground as she moved down the hall, and Aleem reeled where he sat, blinking. Her movements were so smooth and casual he’d almost missed something obvious.
She was blind.
“Oh,” the woman said in a voice so melodious it gave Aleem goosebumps. “There’s someone else in here.” She came to a stop, having already entered the range of the gallery’s enchantment. He wouldn’t have been able to hear her otherwise.
Behind the blind lady stood a blond-haired woman, fully clad in the signature olomti panoply. Nii R’shai. She was handsome and strongly built with a great sword, bothering on comically large, peaking over her shoulder and towering over her. In that one thing she and her counterpart were similar. Aleem didn’t even want to ask why she was dressed like an Olomti. She’d often posed as an arcane swordstress in the game, which wasn’ R’shai’s Class focused heavily on mind magic.
“Hello,” he said, remembering his manners. He waved at both newcomers and instantly felt stupid. One of them was blind. That didn’t seem to stop her from waving back, though. Aleem narrowed his eyes.
“Welcome, welcome,” Wulry sang, waving his hands in front of Aleem, who now noticed that the cell’s bars had vanished entirely.
When and how in the many names of soup had he done that?
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“Please! Come,” Wulry spoke on, leaning out of his cell. Aleem scooted to the edge of the hallway to give the man space. “Sit anywhere you like. I’d like you to meet our new friend, Two—I mean,” he coughed ostentatiously, then splayed a hand in Aleem’s direction. “You’ll address this gentleman as Twenty-two.” He dropped his voice into a stage whisper. “It’s a code name, see? I’ve taken on the alias ‘Jewellery’.”
R’shai rolled her eyes so hard, Aleem feared she might be having a seizure.
“That sounds so exciting,” the brown-skinned woman said with blinding cheer.
“Oukmos’s hairy armpits, Wulry. If you brought me down here to waste my time, I’m going to geld you,” R’shai said dryly.
“Oh no need to be so violent, my precious…” Wulry made a show of brainstorming for all of two seconds. He snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Grouchy.”
“What did you just call me?” There was no heat in her voice, just tired incredulity.
“And you, dear Serend,” Wulry gestured benevolently at the brown-skinned woman, “your code name shall be ‘Shiny’, because you bring light to the grimmest crevices of the soul.”
“I love it,” Serend said in a keen whisper, a hand on her chest. Aleem wasn’t even sure whether she was acting.
“Excellent! Grouchy dearest, why don’t you come sit beside me?”
“I’ll stand,” R’shai said, folding her arms. The look on her face straddled boredom and impatience.
“Suit yourself,” Wulry said. “Shiny?”
Serend lowered herself to sit beside Aleem, placing her cane across her thighs. She smiled warmly at him, and he reluctantly returned it. Up close, he could see for a fact that she was blind. Her eyes were the most magnificent grey he’d ever seen. She smelled of oiled wood and what he could only describe as rubbing alcohol. It seemed to be coming from the shlöck strapped to her back.
“So what’s this about?” R’shai asked.
“Twenty-two here has been sent by a Client of the Eye,” Wulry said, the cheer in his voice draining to something more tame. “He has vital knowledge to trade, and I lack the expertise to properly assess his claims.” He nodded at his companions. “That’s where you two come in.”
“If this is about assessment, I see where I come in,” R’shai said. She jutted her chin at the dark-skinned woman, “but what about Serend?”
“Well, our friend believes that his ‘intel’ can be [Confirmed].”
R’shai squinted at Aleem, a serious expression stealing over her features. “And … you believe him?”
Wulry shrugged. “Does it matter what I believe?”
Serend looked at Aleem, and he got the odd impression that she was in fact looking at him. “You understand how the [Confirm] Skill works?” When Aleem nodded, she said, “Then you must know that it’s only ever used to determine events that’ve left a great mark on the fabric of reali—”
“He understands all that,” Wulry cut in.
Serend sighed and turned to Wulry. She seemed anxious. “This will—it will take a lot from me, you realise? Confirmations are not easy. I might not be of much help to Hetti for a good while afterwards. And I certainly won’t be able to do this again for months.”
“We’ll manage,” Wulry said cooly, and Aleem got the feeling their conversation had more nuance than was immediately apparent.
R’shai herself let out a skeptical huff, but did not add anything to their exchange.
Wulry nodded at Aleem.
“A [Warlock],” Aleem began, already feeling tired of repeating this so many times, “attempted to incarnate a godling right here in Ontnmor. The ritual failed, but he might already be making preparations to try again.”
There was silence in the gallery, and Aleem suspected that had little to do with shock or disbelief. He noted a tinge of anticipation in the air; they were waiting for something. As if on cue, a warm sensation washed over him. Something about it felt similar to Luctari’s scan, but this one was much subtler. Warm water without wetness, dribbling over his skin.
“Huh,” R’shai finally said from her place against the wall. Her arms were still folded. “He’s definitely convinced about everything he just said. No phrene as far as I could see. Thought impressions seemed solid to me.”
Her Class was terrifying. Aleem shuddered when he remembered some of the horrific things she’d gotten around to doing in ‘Tales of Woe’. He brushed the memories aside. She was not that person. Not yet anyway.
She shook her head. “I’ve known folks that wholly believed in the invisible, untouchable skylands. Sometimes conviction is just proof a person might be real soft in the head.”
The ‘skylands’, as she’d called them, were in fact real … and invisible … and a little incorporeal sometimes. But Aleem didn’t take offence at her jab, he’d think the Floating Isles didn’t exist too if their roles were reversed. Lord Shonsu, a prominent denizen of the aisles, and ruler of Skylurk had been a player character in ‘Tales of Woe’, so there was no resealing the ‘invisible people exist’ soup can for him.
“We need that confirmation, Serend,” Wulry said, a slight trace of urgency in his voice.
“Well, here goes,” Serend said, her voice quivering a little. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.
Aleem found that he was holding his. He was about to see something exciting. Confirmations in the game had always been rather vivid for the Skill user—Luctari, specifically. On the very rare occasion that a fact was being [Confirm]ed in the presence of a person who actually knew that fact to be true, they’d get sucked into a portion of the working as well. It’d never happened to any of the player characters, but the game had presented the experience as a very trippy one.
Serend’s eyes shot open, and now they were glowing a bright amber that lit up Wulry’s cell and their corner of the hallway. R’shai had to shield her face with a hand, swearing softly. Wulry closed his eyes, but Aleem watched on through a pained grimace.
Rainbow light undulated across Serend’s eyes. They roiled like streams of multicoloured radiance, then split into several thin strands that extended out of her eyes in chaotic patterns. Her head titled upwards and her hair floated out behind her in loose prehensile tendrils. Her arms began to rise slowly and Aleem noticed that it wasn’t just her arms. Even her clothes seemed to tug upwards, as if gravity had changed direction.
Aleem could feel a splitting headache coming on.
His own hair began to jerk against their roots. His clothes rose off him, as though trying to lift him to the ceiling. He braced himself against the wall behind him. His eyes burned, and everything in his field of vision was swallowed by the rainbowed brightness.
His consciousness stuttered.
And then he saw.
* * *
The [Griot]’s grey eyes morph into the great golden index finger of Bakalktumadiv, glimmering in the all-togetherness of all that has ever been.
Slyly, slyly, the world unravels and reveals her winnowing majesty. The driving and dripping of the gilded tip. The splitting of Creckowan and Salgad. The ominous shadow cast by Daibon’s surly oppression, its lavish Outwardness; dwindling rapids, dying vortices. The tremors of Sooterkin upon involute Weave, Rerrongcha and Hwoix perverted by craven warlockry.
It all conspires West. The great and golden finger points…
WEST
A tiny boy, trivial. A square chit on a Ronda board. A pawn. He crawls, this boy, and then he looks Aleem in the eye, for Aleem is a mirror.
“West,” the Golden One whispers.
“West,” both boys chorus. One is a man, but a child in body. The other is a boy foredoomed and half-reset. They are both lost.
“Beware the Deyegint stretch,” says the Golden One.
CAUTIONNNN
* * *
Aleem’s eyes fluttered open, a block of text crowding his vision. His pulse was throbbing in his ears.
The Skill [Trance] has levelled up!
[Trance] Level 8 (< - - - 7)
He blinked away the notification, wheezing soundlessly. The rainbow light was completely gone. He was slumped against the corner, head tilted sideways so he could see Serend beside him.
She let out a sharp breath and sagged in on herself. “Oh, boy,” she swayed where she sat and reached out a hand to steady herself against the wall behind her.
Aleem’s mind was spinning, racing to process everything he’d just seen in that vision. The second half had been particularly worrying. He needed some time to think.
“How bad?” Wulry asked, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand.
Aleem closed his eyes, he was breathing heavily, but could not hear it.
“Oh, it’s bad. Real bad,” Serend said hoarsely, but Aleem thought he heard a smile in her voice. “Twenty-two was right. Gods. A very conclusive confirmation. I gleaned everything down to the location of a ritual circle!”
Aleem looked and confirmed that she was, in fact, smiling. They all were, actually, and Wulry’s was the sharpest of the lot. Aleem was very confused. This was not the sort of reaction he’d been expecting.
Serend had scooted to place her back against the wall. Her chest was heaving with effort, but he could not hear her breathing. Her half-lidded eyes and lazy smile made her seem exhausted and on the verge of sleep. She gave him a limp thumbs up.
“Holy shit,” R’shai whispered, running a hand over her hair and chuckling. She and Wulry shared a very meaningful look that suggested … relief.
“What’s going on?” Aleem asked. “Unless, I’m missing something, an incarnation is still very bad news.”
“Exactly!” Wulry agreed, training that vulpine smile on Aleem and pointing emphatically at him. He wagged his finger with ill-contained excitement. “This is the best kind of bad.” He turned to R’shai. “Nii, what do you think?”
The blonde didn’t take her eyes off Aleem. She tapped her gauntleted finger against her clavicle, her expression growing thoughtful. “The boy knows too much. I could try editing his recollection, but that’s not easy to do with strangers.”
“True. But also not proper,” Wulry added with a smile, “him being a Client and all.”
Aleem began to sweat, clammy forehead becoming even clammier.
He sat straighter, licked his lips, mind working hard to keep up with this sudden development. There was some measure of protection offered to clients of the Speckled Eye, but in all worlds, there was always the possibility of meetings devolving into savagery. Neither Wulry nor R’shai, as the game had presented them, were sticklers for the rules, but Aleem had taken it for granted that they would not resort to some form of heavyhandedness. What had changed? His gaze swivelled between the two of them. “We’re all on the same side—”
“Relax,” Wulry said, chuckling. “We’re just having you on, lad. Breathe.” Wulry gave him a reassuring smile, but it did little to put Aleem at ease. “In the spirit of our ongoing transaction, I’d like to show you something I suspect your master would appreciate.”
Aleem was still on his guard, but he forced himself to visibly calm down. Perhaps he was being too paranoid. If these people wanted to attempt something, he wouldn’t be able to stop them anyway. “I’m listening,” he said.
“As you might imagine,” Wulry tapped his knuckles against the floor of his cell, “I’m not here by chance.” He leaned forward. “You see a while back, there—”
“He was issued a Quest,” R’shai cut in. She glanced at the redhead. “Wulry, you don’t have to drag everything out.”
Wulry cast an irritated look up at her and sighed. “No understanding of panache,” he grumbled.
Aleem didn’t wonder whether they were this unprofessional in front of every Client, because he knew for a fact that they were.
“I was issued a private Quest. You’ll be bound to secrecy if I show it to you. And there’s an unfortunate addendum that would require you to aid me in whatever way you can.”
‘Tales of Woe’ had never explored the mystery surrounding Wulry Cosk’s presence at the site of the Creckowan Disaster. The character had claimed that he’d merely been passing through, but that didn’t quite line up with his goals at the time. This was one of many abandoned plot threads that had plagued ‘Tales of Woe’.
Nevertheless, theories abounded, and the most popular of these insisted that Wulry had been at Ontmor to steal something. As an influential and highly secretive brokerage, Speckled Eye was not squeamish about theft. And Wulry’s Class, while not specifically suited for such a thing, was perfectly adaptable. The question, though, of what exactly he’d come to steal was one that hadn’t been answered to any satisfying extent. Some theories had suggested a Quest as a possible explanation, but there’d been very little evidence to support those. Now Aleem absolutely had to know.
“So are you interes—”
“Yes!” Aleem lurched forward reflexively. They were both looking at him with various degrees of bemusement. He cleared his throat. “I mean, of course. I’m very interested in this Quest.” If there was even the slightest chance that he could secure more assistance from Wulry and R’shai, Aleem had to take it.
“There aren’t any rewards for you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” R’shai said, giving him an amused look. “It’s a private quest. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“I do. This is what my Master would want,” Aleem said. “Show it to me.”
Neither of them seemed terribly convinced, but he received a notification.
ALERT
You have acquired the temporary boon [Quest Adjunct]
You have earned the Title: Forsworn
Before he could take that in, another block of text manifested before him.
LO!
Mhetep of Founding and Ingress has issued a private Quest
Fortuity billows in the peninsular West. A relic of great importance, wielded by a precipitate [Warlock]. Find the Dawal of Rerrongcha. Reclaim it before unspeakable evil is wrought.
Rewards upon completion:
[NONE]
“Dawal of Rerrongcha,” Aleem said, keeping down his excitement. He recognised that term from the game. It was one of two divine relics that Daranirajido had corrupted as a result of his incarnation. The relic allowed an entity to be in two places at once. This had accounted for his very successful incarnation into a human body. If Wulry and his team managed to steal this, it would, well, it wouldn’t solve all of Aleem’s problems, but it would be a very good start.
Losing an integrant right after suffering from the effects of a failed emanation ritual, was sure to put a damper on Daranirajido’s plans. This was precisely the sort of forward motion he needed.
Also, it seemed to him that Zraazrondre was in fact getting help from a few gods, contrary to what Aleem’d first thought. They were being subtle about it too; nary a mention in the Quest of who truly stood to profit from the relic.
This was good. The silent snores of Serend reached him. Why could he suddenly hear her now that she was asleep? Wulry and R’shai, however, were watching him intently.
Aleem dismissed the notification and smiled at them. “When—”
The walls trembled. Wulry and R’shai glanced up at the ceiling as fine plumes of dust fell.
“What was that?” Aleem asked them.
R’shai exchanged a look with Wulry. Something passed quickly between the two, and then she began heading out of the gallery.
The gallery trembled again, this time much more violently. R’shai slipped out of the gate, a hand reaching for the sword on her back. Aleem's mind was spinning. Maybe it was an earthquake? Beside him, Serend stirred from her sleep.
“Just stay calm,” Wulry said to Serend and Aleem in that soothing voice people often used when they were trying to keep you from panicking in a situation that warranted panicking. The man was still staring up at the ceiling.
“What’s going on?” Serend asked, she went about unstrapping her instrument.
Wulry didn't seem like he would answer for several long seconds, dust plumes descending with the next quake. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained, and Aleem noticed a thin sheen of sweat on the man’s forehead. Aleem deemed that even greater cause for concern than anything the man might have said. “The Outpost seems to be under attack.”