122: A Crisis of Faith
The mysteries of the ancient kingdom of Alterna, once the head of a vast empire that spanned the length of Ducorde before falling to ruin overnight, have never been quite so well-categorized.
But within the halls of the Imperial Museum of Alternan History, our brave adventurers have learned a great deal about the Alternan Empire. How it was founded ages ago by the incomparable Relis Laurent, how she scaled the treacherous Gap of Alterna to meet the Twelve themselves before eventually ascending to join them in divinity, though not before establishing an empire that would stand the test of time, one day growing strong enough to place a few dozen of her most treasured belongings into a museum devoted to her memory.
At least one of these treasured belongings appealed so much to Orrey that he attempted to touch it with a pencil, which led to him being placed under a form of house arrest in another realm.
The thought of waiting an eternity for someone to come and decide what to do with the potential thief sent Orrey scrambling for stories, and once he appealed to a higher authority than Alterna itself -- the Twelve, the very gods themselves -- Orrey's captor sent a message to the Grand Theologian of Alterna to verify the geas placed upon an Oracle of the time.
Two-thirds of the way through the Museum, Fayth informed Orrey that the Grand Theologian wished to meet the Oracle at the conclusion of the tour.
It is in the immediate aftermath of this declaration that we join our brave adventurers...
**
"There are two rooms remaining. When you are ready, please proceed," Fayth says.
Orrey plunges ahead, needing no second invitation.
Isa proceeds.
Yves hurries right after Orrey, possibly to see if anything else is going to get poked, anyone else is going to vanish, or anywhere else is going to be hiding inside a wall painting. Museums are so much more interesting than he thought back when they were elementary school trip destinations.
Linnet trails along, keeping a wary eye on Orrey and Yves, and a differently wary eye on Bast.
Bast moves on to the next room with one last glance at the misshapen wreck of the central pedestal, crossbow at the ready.
“An empire is not an Empire without a capital. An Empress is not an Empress without a castle. We would not be a people without a home. While Empress Laurent would not see the completion of her empire’s capital during her time on our plane of existence, soon the city of Alterna would bridge the Gap of the same name, a triumph of engineering that would never be rivaled by any single structure in Ducorde, let alone an entire nation.”
The room itself is in shambles. The center of the chamber has fallen to the Alterna’s destruction, collapsed into the placid sea below. What remains provides a weathered backdrop to the treacherous terrain, even as Fayth’s narration rings out.
Across a gap that looks far more dangerous than it likely is, swirling waters hundreds of feet below, lies the rest of the tour. Around the edges of the room, atop unsteady masonry and before exhibits long ago consigned to the sea, are what remains of points of interest.
"Some items may be temporarily off display," Fayth says without even a hint of emotion.
Yves edges up toward the hole in the floor, and looks down. "...I hope no one objects if Diabolos shows up to help us across this, if need be," he says half under his breath. Because if there's one thing ancient shadowy serpents of bats and lurking appreciate, it's helping their friends mind the gap.
"Fayth, how long did the first Empress reign?" Orrey asks. "In fact, do you have dates for all of the rulers of the Alternan Empire?"
"Empress Laurent ruled for twelve years, and yes."
"I would love to hear all about them!" Orrey says, sketching a quick timeline in a notebook.
"No," comes the equally emotionless response.
Orrey raises an eyebrow. "Restricted information? Or just outside your purview?"
(Linnet searches the room for anything that would make a stable walkway across the gap. For the rest of the party.)
"It's a long list between Laurent and Huw. We'd be here all day." Isa points out.
Bast walks along the ragged edge of the floor with a frown, looking for a spot to rig up a crossing that isn't likely to crumble into the sea.
"The Gap of Alterna," says Fayth instead, "refers to the geological formation atop which our city is built. A perilous series of rapids and rocky terrain make this region uniquely inhospitable to travelers, let alone any permanent residents. However, the Empress knew immediately that there was no other home for her people than here, the site of her visitation with the gods themselves. The Empress attracted the realm's most brilliant minds to her, and the architect Pollendina would soon prove his worth to the empire."
Isa tries something. "How many Architects dwell in the Empire currently?"
Yves does some very thoughtful staring at the hole in the floor. The walls. The ceiling. The hole again. He is making little interested noises at the back of his throat, a hand resting on his messenger bag.
"At any time there are roughly three hundred Architects throughout Alterna," Fayth replies, "all learning from Pollendina's legacy."
"How many White Mages?" Isa continues.
"Between three thousand eight hundred and four thousand three hundred," Fayth says.
"How many Gunbreakers?"
"Three."
Apparently satisfied with the sturdiness of half a display case lying covered in some rubble, Bast starts kicking at the fragmented pieces still clinging to an intact side board.
"Alright that was actually a surprise," Isa mutters.
Linnet grabs the board Bast found, probably dislodging centuries of historically significant dust, and maneuvers it over the gap. "Right, no falling into the sea this time, everyone."
Fayth's voice sounds just above Bast's head as he steps within the observation zone for an exhibit that no longer exists. "The initial design for Alterna saw a city of tiers climbing the mountains, with a path leading ever higher to the Empress's castle. However, Pollendina elected not to use this concept when the Great Crystal's importance was truly realized, and instead made use of the peerless magic bestowed upon Alterna by the Twelve to create the final design that you see in these original blueprints carefully maintained for over nine hundred years." There are no blueprints. There are, instead, a lot of holes in the floor.
Yves looks up from his thoughtful staring as the board crosses his view. "...oh! Right. That. I suppose that would be much simpler that... I mean, yes, of course, bridges, those are a normal sort of thing which make a great deal of sense and which we should, of course, try to use before anything requiring, say, asking some mysterious friends to change the direction of gravity or cover things in vines or, you know what, never mind. It looks like a good board. Great. Bridge-board. All for it." One of his lop-ears twitches.
After helping Linnet maneuver the board into position, Bast looks up. "Are copies of the blueprints available elsewhere for closer study?"
"Hm. I wonder if the design of Cardia was based on that initial concept. We don't put the King at the top, of course." Isa gauges the width of the hole.
"Very good! The original concept for Alterna would later be used when Alternan explorers founded the vassal state of Cardia."
Yves mouths vassal state to himself, and keeps a carefully steady expression while, uh, contemplating the bridge. That's right.
"Aha," Isa says, with a note of pride. "Good to know."
"The final concept," says Fayth by Orrey and Isa, "became the multi-sector design that you see here. The vast 'floating city' all extends out from this central hub, one of only two sectors connected directly to the ground and not just another sector."
There is nothing about the current Alterna that would call to mind the phrase 'floating city.' If what Fayth is saying is true, the original Alterna must have been many times larger than the surviving ruin.
After a pause, "Fayth?" Linnet speaks up with a question for the first time in a while. "Why did you say that sylphs increase your language acquisition? Are sylphs specially connected to Alterna somehow, or to the Crystal, or are we just that unusual?"
"For more information on sylphs and the Great Crystal, please seek out Professor Hesiod at Brasge University," Fayth says to Linnet.
"...noted." Linnet gives the ceiling an annoyed glance and floats over the gap.
Orrey rifles through his pack of gear and pulls out a rope and a grappling hook that Celeste showed him how to use. A quick flip of the rope, a twist of the wrist, and repeating 5 more times after 4 failures to catch the hook on anything solid, he swings across the gap. Looking back, he wonders why he bothered when he could've likely made it just by jumping, but at least he's used some of the gear!
Yves puts a foot on the bridge-board very cautiously indeed, and checks its sturdiness.
Isa makes a running broad jump over the hole, and claps Orrey on the shoulder. "Nice."
Orrey smiles at the praise. "Can't all be Dragoons bouncing all over the battlefield."
"Oh, good point. Fayth, how many Dragoons does the Empire field?"
"One thousand Dragoons exist within Alterna," Fayth says.
Bast, after checking that everyone is across safely, strolls across the gap as if the board were the middle of a level street.
Orrey glances at Isa. "How many does Cardia field these days?"
After much consideration and boot-poking of the board, Yves shakes his head. "It's a good board," he says to Linnet, "but it's just... physical! I don't know how people trust completely physical things." On which note he calls up a glossy steel orb, and walks away to pop it onto a wall. Yves then walks along the wall over to the other side of the room. As one does.
"Fifty-eight companies," Isa responds instantly and reflexively, "for a total of ten thousand, eight hundred Dragoons. That includes House regiments, of course."
"You'll leave historically significant boot prints all over the exhibit. Stop that," Linnet chides Yves, none too seriously.
"It's not a historically significant wall at this point," Yves objects, standing at ninety degrees to the rest of the room. Even his dangly earrings dangle toward the wall. "I'm not touching a relic of the empress or anything!" He's not looking at Orrey while saying this or anything.
Orrey frowns at Yves and mutters, "I only touched it with an eraser..."
Linnet does some quick mental math. "So there's a hundred and eighty-six-and-a-bit dragoons per company? Or are some of them just not full?'
"And it turned out fine," Yves says soothingly to Orrey, "so, like the boot prints, it's all good." He walks through the next doorway--and promptly falls onto the floor, as he moves out of the scope of the orb. "...ow."
Orrey shakes off the remnant shudder from thinking about eternity in a hole and moves on to the next room.
"It varies by company," Isa says. "The Southern Fleet can drop up to three hundred spears on a target at a go, but most of the house fleets usually sit at a few dozen."
“Listen to what some of Alterna’s greatest minds have had to say about Empress Relis Laurent, and reckon with her legacy in this, our final stop on the tour of the Imperial Museum of Alternan History.”
The sixth and final room of the tour has fared much better than the fifth. A stable floor supports multiple walls guiding the visitor through a path lined with portraits stretched from floor to ceiling, though many of the paintings themselves have been destroyed through centuries of neglect.
"Do you have all of that memorized, Isa?" Orrey asks, impressed at the warehouse of military knowledge.
"Right up until I got on a train with you all, I was at the military academy," Isa points out.
Yves gathers himself from a lightly bruised heap on the floor, and gets himself dusted off. Jewelry untangled. Satchel resettled in place. "Right," he says, with all the dignity he can muster, "look at all this... history."
"Right, right, and every student there also has all of that memorized?" Orrey asks.
"The ones who want to pass Logistics do," Isa says, her helmed regard sweeping across the portraiture.
Orrey walks over to the first painting. Or what's left of it.
Only half of the painting remains, showing a white human woman with red hair laced with white, though her expression lies hidden behind the tattered remnants of canvas. Words written on the wall to its right remain. “It is with heavy heart and deep humility that I come before you all to say that Empress Laurent has ascended to join the Twelve high above us all. May we all continue on in her name and mold Alterna into the bastion she would have made it with her own hands.” Empress Kreia, 12-34
"Pretty sure we could get the rest of this from a book somewhere." Linnet scans the room without much interest.
One painting lurches (figuratively, let it be said) into Linnet's line of sight to prove her wrong.
"Gyah! Okay, okay." Linnet finishes shuddering and takes a look at it, properly.
“Empress Laurent established a course of action that all future Emperors and Empresses would follow. Without her, it is safe to say that none of this ever would have been possible.”
The white human woman in the painting is calm and serene, with long braids trailing down on either side of her face. Her body is wrapped in a one-shoulder yellow dress, with an ornate cape draped over her shoulders. Linnet has seen her face before. Linnet has seen her multiple faces before.
Asura, Queen of the Eidolons, 616
Orrey is taking as many notes as possible, including sketches of whatever is left on the paintings.
"Fayth? Why is Asura here?" wonders Linnet.
“I can still feel her presence, even now, when I walk the streets of this magnificent city. I see her hand in the spires. I hear her voice in our song. I must believe we have made her proud. I carry that wish in my heart.” Angerrial Fein, 73. Fein was the last citizen of Alterna who knew the Empress personally at the time of his passing. No trace of this painting remains.
"Asura, Queen of the Eidolons, is a valued ally of the Alternan Empire," Fayth says.
"...I see." Linnet wanders further along, lost in thought.
"Where do the Eidolons live?" Orrey asks.
"I do not have that information available," Fayth responds.
Bast, not having a particular stake in anything here, wanders up to a random painting that catches his eye.
“A true champion of the people. She brought order to chaos and structure to madness. Without Empress Laurent, humanity would have died out in Ducorde generations ago.” Mazin Uriah, Scholar, 515.
The little of this painting that survived shows a brown-skinned man with thinning hair and gray eyes.
"Valued..." Yves rubs behind one ear, staring at the painting of Asura. "Valuable. Hm. Yes. I suppose that does make sense. Not how I would usually define 'ally', but I suppose that's how empires work."
“The world is poorer for her absence, and the Twelve richer for her presence.” Karl Engels, Forty-Seventh Grand Theologian, 946.
Only the lower third of this painting remains visible, showing a crimson cloak heavy with medals and jewels.
Linnet is doing her stare-into-the-air-while-doing-math thing again. "So if those numbers are the dates when people were quoted and/or memorialized here, Asura was placed here three hundred and some years before...everything. And yet Fayth still uses 'is' to refer to her."
Yves looks faintly suspicious of the whole notion of doing math with history. That's not how math works.
"When did the Empire and the Eidolons form their alliance?" Isa asks.
"The, uh, Event didn't happen till 957. So maybe Fayth is stuck sometime before that." Orrey says.
“We must all strive to uphold her ideals and her desires. As Alternans, and as her people.” Ivy Lenore, official biographer of Empress Laurent, 121.
The frame exists, and the backdrop shows a simple sitting room. It is only the figure themselves in the painting that has been burned away.
"And they quote figures until 946, which gives us a pretty narrow window. That helps." With what? Don't ask. Linnet's not there yet. "Fayth, is Engels the current Grand Theologian?"
"108 AE marked the Alternan alliance with the Eidolons," Fayth says. "Yes, Engels is the current Grand Theologian."
"What is today's date, anyway? I lose track all the time." (No answer.)
"108..." Isa pauses. "Who was the Emperor at that time?"
"Emperor Arundel."
“Relis Laurent is an inspiration to us all, and it is only by following the path she carved that the Empire will forever rule.” Empress Huw, 955-current
This last statement has no painting to go with it; just a gap in the floor, and the sea far, far below.
"Well fuck me," Isa says, not intending to be heard.
"Not right now." Linnet floats over the next gap and peers ahead.
Yves walks from painting to painting, staring at many defaced spaces where faces presumably once were, and chewing on his lower lip.
The chaotic wreckage in next room can only mean one thing -- a gift shop, albeit one that briefly turned ninety degrees to the left, judging from the utter destruction strewn about the floor.
Before that, though, there is a pedestal with an empty basket on top, matching the one the "crystals" originally came from.
"Is this where we find out?" Orrey asks.
"Please return your crystals one by one," says Fayth.
Orrey places his crystal carefully in the basket.
Yves is immediately distracted from any deep or worrisome thoughts by the reminder of interactive novelty. He beelines for the basket, and ends up standing directly behind Orrey, as if a queue is about to break out.
Fayth speaks as Orrey's crystal returns to the basket. "Rean Wissenland, Engineer. One of the most brilliant minds of his era, Wissenland personally devised numerous enhancements to Alternan society, most notably in the Floating Aqueduct and the Palamecia, named for his partner, the sixth ruler of Alterna."
Isa takes her time, looking around at the detritus.
Linnet nudges Yves and floats patiently behind him, trying not to step on anything and break it further.
Yves pops his crystal in next, and then bounces on his heels. "What's mine?"
Orrey turns towards Yves as he steps aside, grinning. "So neat!"
To Yves, Fayth recounts, "Jakob Niewan, Sentinel. Granted his post by the first Arithmagician of Machanon, Niewan gave his life defending the new city-state against invaders from the east. Alone, he held out against a force ten thousand strong, succumbing to his wounds only after reinforcements from the mainland arrived."
Linnet scratches her head, but drops her crystal in the basket.
"Chloe Durai, Astrologian. Born to a pair of Farmers, Durai proved that the Great Crystal saw the best for all its people. Durai’s foresight tragically was not recognized for what it truly was during her lifetime, but in the years to come, her vision saw Alterna through a series of disasters, and she is now remembered as one of the greatest farseers of all time."
Linnet bows her head slightly - to Durai, to Fayth, to the Crystal, who knows? - and wanders into the wrecked shop.
"That is one impressive sentinel," Yves says. "Or particularly unimpressive attackers. But probably the first one!" He steps onward to investigate the gift shop, in hopes of finding something that's survived the test of time well enough to find a place in a nice little niche somewhere back in his room. Maybe Golem would like a souvenir of home?
Bast flips his crystal into the basket from a couple of feet away.
To Bast, the narration says, "Alienne Myste, Elementalist. She followed in Pollendina’s footsteps, not as an architect, but as a commander of immense power. With no wars to fight and no wilds to tame, she instead directed her incredible control over the elements to following Pollendina’s designs, and in her honor the first residential district bears her name, Myste."
"How many Farmers are there in the Empire?" Orrey asks Fayth.
"Roughly four hundred thousand."
"And the total population?" Orrey asks, intrigued by seemingly uninteresting details of mundane life.
"Approximately three-point-three million people."
"How many different Jobs are there?" Orrey asks.
"Over one hundred and twenty."
From six inches above the floor, Linnet sifts through tiny replicas of the Crystal, costume pieces, moldering books, decorative charms of all types, and a remarkable variety of useless crap.
Isa returns her crystal, still dwelling on something.
"Arseid Osler, Divine Knight. The vanguard of the Rinkan Expedition, Arseid personally journeyed deep into the wilds outside of Alterna to find new land for the burgeoning Empire. The sight of her dancing blade rivaled witnessing the works of the Twelve."
Orrey stares at Isa with wide eyes.
Isa laughs. "Fayth?"
"Yes?"
Yves does a tiny bit of sincere applause for Isa's excellent selection.
"Who was Arseid Osler's maternal grandmother?"
"Empress Consort Astrid Arundel."
Yves tilts his head to one side. "Isa, does that make your mother the heir to the empire? Or I suppose that's not quite how it works."
Isa's "hm" has enough satisfaction to fill the Gap.
"There are others with stronger claims," she admits to Yves.
Orrey shrugs. "Sometimes the ones with weaker claims have stronger backers."
Isa nods. "Sometimes."
"Are you people planning shenanigans out there?" Linnet calls, from within a rack of novelty shirts.
"Sure, but I don't know them, so I'm just going to go ahead and believe it's really your mother who's the rightful heir," Yves says cheerfully. "I mean, I've met her, and I can see her running a terrifying empire that invades anyone they want and takes other people's stuff for this 'greater good' thing, pretty easily."
He is then distracted by Linnet's comment. "Wait, are any of those shirts still holding together? Do any of them have that amazing jungle painting on them?"
(from inside, there's a mutter about "can't find the till...")
Orrey joins those in the gift shop and browses the remains, looking for any standout items that aren't completely demolished.
Linnet exits the gift shop holding some surprisingly durable novelty tunics in a variety of sizes, plus a couple pairs of Crystal-shaped earrings. "I think I found something for everybody! Yves, this is as close as I came to the plant painting." Soon, everybody has new shirts, like a proper matching tour group, and Isa, Linnet, and Yves have new earrings.
Bast wanders around looking for any models of the architectural landmarks of Alterna that have survived better than the landmarks themselves.
Whatever Yves may have learned, or had hinted at, or gotten exciting new traumatic thoughts from, in that museum, one thing is for sure: he is immediately putting on the adorable little Imitation Great Crystal earrings. They go well with the little silver skulls that have teeny tiny faux-ruby eyes.
Isa thanks Linnet, then looks at her heavier-than-normal armor, and folds the shirt up for a later time.
The shirt Linnet got for Bast immediately disappears into a pocket.
Orrey throws his tunic on and resettles the pack.
Yves is sufficiently committed to the whole Museum Experience that he takes off his coat, puts on the tunic, puts the coat back on, and attempts to still look simultaneously adventurous/responsible/goth/scientific despite the aesthetic results.
"Right, enough commerce; Orrey, didn't you have an appointment to keep?" Linnet is struggling to untangle a miniature crystal from her braid. The crystal earrings are bright blue and don't go with anything else she's wearing. They're great.
"I don't think they gave us a time limit," Orrey says, still rummaging about.
Linnet shrugs and wanders outside for some fresh air and another look about.
Orrey sighs after not finding anything else and follows Linnet.
Isa follows Orrey, the Frost-Fair Blade over her shoulder and a bit less trudge in her step.
Bast notices everyone else going off to look for trouble, and follows.
Yves, increasingly tourist-like in appearance as well as mindset, trails along behind the others. The little Great Crystal earrings jingle differently against the silver dangly skulls than the pewter rings that usually go in that place.
**
Castle Atma has hosted the party once before. Beneath the castle is where the brave adventurers located the Starfall itself, hidden away in the mausoleum said to hold the remains of all of the rulers of Alterna. Curiously, Cid Tantalus called it "Laurent's Tomb" when he directed them travel there to acquire said airship, the one carrying The Truth.
This time, they do not have to seek out hidden passages leading down into the mausoleum, for the doors to the throne room are instead wide open.
The Grand Theologian, potentially Lord Engels himself, awaits.
**
Linnet stops outside and peers in around the door, making as little noise as possible.
"Well, this is a surprise. I don't believe we've met during our last visit?" says Bast, in a disarming tone.
The throne room is vast and opulent, laden with riches and finery. It is lit only with candles; hundreds and hundreds of candles, their flames dancing from every corner and cranny.
He sits on a throne of skeletons, structurally sound thanks to the sinews and tendons still binding them together. On his body he wears a cloak of crimson and gold, runic markings lining the hood and capping the long sleeves.
Golden gloves shimmer on his hands, with the left holding a staff of pulsing purple crystal, topped with a winged figure frozen midscream.
“The fated Oracle, returned to Alterna to carry out the Twelve’s divine plan,” he says as he stands. “Truly, we are blessed to have an agent of the gods with us again this day.”
He brings his hood down, revealing a face so gaunt it does not look to be alive, skin stretched so thin and tight across his skull it might as well be fossilized itself, skin the color of ancient parchment.
("Ah," says Yves. "Huh. Hm. Well. That's. Um.")
His pointed chin sports an tattooed arrow of crimson. Around his neck he wears a half-mask of the same red, with two half circles of white cut over the forehead, all lines cutting through the eyes. There is no light shining from his empty eye sockets, and his nose was long ago lost to the ravages of time.
Linnet darts back behind the door and screws her eyes shut. "Tell me I didn't just see that."
"Fated Oracle? What, is there some sort of prophecy guiding everything?" Orrey asks, choking over the first word. Orrey's mind is skipping over the horror and focusing on things affecting himself instead.
"You prattle with prophecy and divine their messages from on high, do you not?" the Grand Theologian says from across the throne room. "It is they who led you here! I hope you do not think that I find Fayth lacking."
Orrey nods. "I know that some of the future can be divined, but not that everything is fated to follow a single path through Time."
"Wellllllll," says Yves, who is doing a great deal of blinking. "Well! Hm. Yes. Well. Huh. That's... Huh."
"I'm sorry - I don't think we caught your name?" Bast is looking pleasantly bland.
"Oh, how rude of me." His words drip down onto the marble floor, just as his throne may have done eons before. "You stand here before the final Grand Theologian of the vast and storied Alternan Empire, who rose to his position in 957 AE once the position found itself vacant."
"You are encouraged to use my title when addressing me, but if you must have some other form of familiarity, I suppose I can allow you to use the name given to me back when I lay trapped inside that infernal crystal, but you will use the proper honorific alongside it."
He fixes sightless eyes on Orrey. "Lord Hades."
(Linnet, hand on the Akadaemia Deck, locks eyes with Isa, the only one not engaging this horror in conversation.)
"I don't think the museum talked much about the skeleton throne part of the job," Yves says, still blinking a bit. "So, uh, Grand Theologian, isn't that... uncomfortable? And maybe a bit sticky? I know things are in poor repair around here, but we could probably find you a decent cushion or something, that just seems like..." He gestures, baffled, at the chair. "...a lot. Ergonomically."
(...Linnet barely stifles a snort at Yves' line of conversation.)
Lord Hades shifts his focus from Orrey to instead perceive Yves.
Yves continues to look like he has encountered something so far beyond his comprehension that all he can really address is the furniture choices. Which, to be fair, are distinctly non-standard.
Isa gives Linnet a rueful shake of the head, and plants the butt of the Frost-Fair Blade on the ground. "I was having a nice moment there, for a while," she laments.
"Oh," Lord Hades says after a moment, bleeding with interest. "You. Viera. You're the Speaker."
("Ah, hell." Linnet enters the hall and puts on her best Menacing Float behind Yves' shoulder.)
"I mean, mostly with the sort of people that can't speak clearly otherwise. Not so much with regular people, Linnet's much better with that," Yves says earnestly. "But--I'm sorry, I don't mean to belabor the point, but I'm really having a hard time with your furniture decisions here. Is there a reason for all the skeletons and... so forth? And the sitting on them? Traditional seat of theologians, and we lost the tradition in the ages since you started this job, something like that?"
Lord Hades brings a hand down in front of his face, almost as if he is incapable of dealing with the display in front of him.
The air in front of him shimmers with a crimson glyph. "Ah. Diabolos. Cerberus, too. You are an ally, then. The rest of you, well, that remains to be seen."
"And when it is seen, what is to be done?" asks Linnet, crackling slightly.
Yves brightens visibly. "Oh, are you a friend of Diabolos? He did send us here, in a sense, and... Uh, sorry, Orrey, I know this is supposed to be your, um, parole officer meeting? Something like that? Don't mind me, I'll just be... over here..." He makes a vague gesture that indicates somewhere not particularly close to the extremely uncomfortable seating area.
Orrey side-eyes Yves, not happy that he brought up any connection between himself and the horror in front of them.
"The boy is an Oracle, a puppet of the false gods. You," here the staff turns its screaming face to Yves, "are the Speaker. Opposing forces, though perhaps too stupid to have realized it. Or perhaps too forgetful."
Orrey's eyes narrow at the word "stupid".
Yves steeples his fingers awkwardly. "...in the... friendly and respectful opponents who might yet come to a mutual understanding and find a useful compromise that respects the free will of all sapient beings sense of 'opposing forces', right?"
"How much have we forgotten in this world?" Lord Hades says, sweeping the staff out wide. "We forgot Alterna, and the extent of their excess. We forgot what predates Alterna. We forgot what exists outside of Ducorde."
"We forgot who made the gods. We forgot who the gods betrayed. We forgot which of our number joined theirs. We forgot."
("I'm sort of getting the impression Alterna was busy looting what existed outside of, or before, Alterna," Yves says quietly. "The god part I... don't know much about, knowing things about gods has mostly been Orrey's job.")
"Remember the Forgotten," Lord Hades proclaims, as the candles in the throne room burn a bright boiling crimson. "And then cast these pretenders into the fiery abyss, that they will darken this realm no longer."
But within the halls of the Imperial Museum of Alternan History, our brave adventurers have learned a great deal about the Alternan Empire. How it was founded ages ago by the incomparable Relis Laurent, how she scaled the treacherous Gap of Alterna to meet the Twelve themselves before eventually ascending to join them in divinity, though not before establishing an empire that would stand the test of time, one day growing strong enough to place a few dozen of her most treasured belongings into a museum devoted to her memory.
At least one of these treasured belongings appealed so much to Orrey that he attempted to touch it with a pencil, which led to him being placed under a form of house arrest in another realm.
The thought of waiting an eternity for someone to come and decide what to do with the potential thief sent Orrey scrambling for stories, and once he appealed to a higher authority than Alterna itself -- the Twelve, the very gods themselves -- Orrey's captor sent a message to the Grand Theologian of Alterna to verify the geas placed upon an Oracle of the time.
Two-thirds of the way through the Museum, Fayth informed Orrey that the Grand Theologian wished to meet the Oracle at the conclusion of the tour.
It is in the immediate aftermath of this declaration that we join our brave adventurers...
**
"There are two rooms remaining. When you are ready, please proceed," Fayth says.
Orrey plunges ahead, needing no second invitation.
Isa proceeds.
Yves hurries right after Orrey, possibly to see if anything else is going to get poked, anyone else is going to vanish, or anywhere else is going to be hiding inside a wall painting. Museums are so much more interesting than he thought back when they were elementary school trip destinations.
Linnet trails along, keeping a wary eye on Orrey and Yves, and a differently wary eye on Bast.
Bast moves on to the next room with one last glance at the misshapen wreck of the central pedestal, crossbow at the ready.
“An empire is not an Empire without a capital. An Empress is not an Empress without a castle. We would not be a people without a home. While Empress Laurent would not see the completion of her empire’s capital during her time on our plane of existence, soon the city of Alterna would bridge the Gap of the same name, a triumph of engineering that would never be rivaled by any single structure in Ducorde, let alone an entire nation.”
The room itself is in shambles. The center of the chamber has fallen to the Alterna’s destruction, collapsed into the placid sea below. What remains provides a weathered backdrop to the treacherous terrain, even as Fayth’s narration rings out.
Across a gap that looks far more dangerous than it likely is, swirling waters hundreds of feet below, lies the rest of the tour. Around the edges of the room, atop unsteady masonry and before exhibits long ago consigned to the sea, are what remains of points of interest.
"Some items may be temporarily off display," Fayth says without even a hint of emotion.
Yves edges up toward the hole in the floor, and looks down. "...I hope no one objects if Diabolos shows up to help us across this, if need be," he says half under his breath. Because if there's one thing ancient shadowy serpents of bats and lurking appreciate, it's helping their friends mind the gap.
"Fayth, how long did the first Empress reign?" Orrey asks. "In fact, do you have dates for all of the rulers of the Alternan Empire?"
"Empress Laurent ruled for twelve years, and yes."
"I would love to hear all about them!" Orrey says, sketching a quick timeline in a notebook.
"No," comes the equally emotionless response.
Orrey raises an eyebrow. "Restricted information? Or just outside your purview?"
(Linnet searches the room for anything that would make a stable walkway across the gap. For the rest of the party.)
"It's a long list between Laurent and Huw. We'd be here all day." Isa points out.
Bast walks along the ragged edge of the floor with a frown, looking for a spot to rig up a crossing that isn't likely to crumble into the sea.
"The Gap of Alterna," says Fayth instead, "refers to the geological formation atop which our city is built. A perilous series of rapids and rocky terrain make this region uniquely inhospitable to travelers, let alone any permanent residents. However, the Empress knew immediately that there was no other home for her people than here, the site of her visitation with the gods themselves. The Empress attracted the realm's most brilliant minds to her, and the architect Pollendina would soon prove his worth to the empire."
Isa tries something. "How many Architects dwell in the Empire currently?"
Yves does some very thoughtful staring at the hole in the floor. The walls. The ceiling. The hole again. He is making little interested noises at the back of his throat, a hand resting on his messenger bag.
"At any time there are roughly three hundred Architects throughout Alterna," Fayth replies, "all learning from Pollendina's legacy."
"How many White Mages?" Isa continues.
"Between three thousand eight hundred and four thousand three hundred," Fayth says.
"How many Gunbreakers?"
"Three."
Apparently satisfied with the sturdiness of half a display case lying covered in some rubble, Bast starts kicking at the fragmented pieces still clinging to an intact side board.
"Alright that was actually a surprise," Isa mutters.
Linnet grabs the board Bast found, probably dislodging centuries of historically significant dust, and maneuvers it over the gap. "Right, no falling into the sea this time, everyone."
Fayth's voice sounds just above Bast's head as he steps within the observation zone for an exhibit that no longer exists. "The initial design for Alterna saw a city of tiers climbing the mountains, with a path leading ever higher to the Empress's castle. However, Pollendina elected not to use this concept when the Great Crystal's importance was truly realized, and instead made use of the peerless magic bestowed upon Alterna by the Twelve to create the final design that you see in these original blueprints carefully maintained for over nine hundred years." There are no blueprints. There are, instead, a lot of holes in the floor.
Yves looks up from his thoughtful staring as the board crosses his view. "...oh! Right. That. I suppose that would be much simpler that... I mean, yes, of course, bridges, those are a normal sort of thing which make a great deal of sense and which we should, of course, try to use before anything requiring, say, asking some mysterious friends to change the direction of gravity or cover things in vines or, you know what, never mind. It looks like a good board. Great. Bridge-board. All for it." One of his lop-ears twitches.
After helping Linnet maneuver the board into position, Bast looks up. "Are copies of the blueprints available elsewhere for closer study?"
"Hm. I wonder if the design of Cardia was based on that initial concept. We don't put the King at the top, of course." Isa gauges the width of the hole.
"Very good! The original concept for Alterna would later be used when Alternan explorers founded the vassal state of Cardia."
Yves mouths vassal state to himself, and keeps a carefully steady expression while, uh, contemplating the bridge. That's right.
"Aha," Isa says, with a note of pride. "Good to know."
"The final concept," says Fayth by Orrey and Isa, "became the multi-sector design that you see here. The vast 'floating city' all extends out from this central hub, one of only two sectors connected directly to the ground and not just another sector."
There is nothing about the current Alterna that would call to mind the phrase 'floating city.' If what Fayth is saying is true, the original Alterna must have been many times larger than the surviving ruin.
After a pause, "Fayth?" Linnet speaks up with a question for the first time in a while. "Why did you say that sylphs increase your language acquisition? Are sylphs specially connected to Alterna somehow, or to the Crystal, or are we just that unusual?"
"For more information on sylphs and the Great Crystal, please seek out Professor Hesiod at Brasge University," Fayth says to Linnet.
"...noted." Linnet gives the ceiling an annoyed glance and floats over the gap.
Orrey rifles through his pack of gear and pulls out a rope and a grappling hook that Celeste showed him how to use. A quick flip of the rope, a twist of the wrist, and repeating 5 more times after 4 failures to catch the hook on anything solid, he swings across the gap. Looking back, he wonders why he bothered when he could've likely made it just by jumping, but at least he's used some of the gear!
Yves puts a foot on the bridge-board very cautiously indeed, and checks its sturdiness.
Isa makes a running broad jump over the hole, and claps Orrey on the shoulder. "Nice."
Orrey smiles at the praise. "Can't all be Dragoons bouncing all over the battlefield."
"Oh, good point. Fayth, how many Dragoons does the Empire field?"
"One thousand Dragoons exist within Alterna," Fayth says.
Bast, after checking that everyone is across safely, strolls across the gap as if the board were the middle of a level street.
Orrey glances at Isa. "How many does Cardia field these days?"
After much consideration and boot-poking of the board, Yves shakes his head. "It's a good board," he says to Linnet, "but it's just... physical! I don't know how people trust completely physical things." On which note he calls up a glossy steel orb, and walks away to pop it onto a wall. Yves then walks along the wall over to the other side of the room. As one does.
"Fifty-eight companies," Isa responds instantly and reflexively, "for a total of ten thousand, eight hundred Dragoons. That includes House regiments, of course."
"You'll leave historically significant boot prints all over the exhibit. Stop that," Linnet chides Yves, none too seriously.
"It's not a historically significant wall at this point," Yves objects, standing at ninety degrees to the rest of the room. Even his dangly earrings dangle toward the wall. "I'm not touching a relic of the empress or anything!" He's not looking at Orrey while saying this or anything.
Orrey frowns at Yves and mutters, "I only touched it with an eraser..."
Linnet does some quick mental math. "So there's a hundred and eighty-six-and-a-bit dragoons per company? Or are some of them just not full?'
"And it turned out fine," Yves says soothingly to Orrey, "so, like the boot prints, it's all good." He walks through the next doorway--and promptly falls onto the floor, as he moves out of the scope of the orb. "...ow."
Orrey shakes off the remnant shudder from thinking about eternity in a hole and moves on to the next room.
"It varies by company," Isa says. "The Southern Fleet can drop up to three hundred spears on a target at a go, but most of the house fleets usually sit at a few dozen."
“Listen to what some of Alterna’s greatest minds have had to say about Empress Relis Laurent, and reckon with her legacy in this, our final stop on the tour of the Imperial Museum of Alternan History.”
The sixth and final room of the tour has fared much better than the fifth. A stable floor supports multiple walls guiding the visitor through a path lined with portraits stretched from floor to ceiling, though many of the paintings themselves have been destroyed through centuries of neglect.
"Do you have all of that memorized, Isa?" Orrey asks, impressed at the warehouse of military knowledge.
"Right up until I got on a train with you all, I was at the military academy," Isa points out.
Yves gathers himself from a lightly bruised heap on the floor, and gets himself dusted off. Jewelry untangled. Satchel resettled in place. "Right," he says, with all the dignity he can muster, "look at all this... history."
"Right, right, and every student there also has all of that memorized?" Orrey asks.
"The ones who want to pass Logistics do," Isa says, her helmed regard sweeping across the portraiture.
Orrey walks over to the first painting. Or what's left of it.
Only half of the painting remains, showing a white human woman with red hair laced with white, though her expression lies hidden behind the tattered remnants of canvas. Words written on the wall to its right remain. “It is with heavy heart and deep humility that I come before you all to say that Empress Laurent has ascended to join the Twelve high above us all. May we all continue on in her name and mold Alterna into the bastion she would have made it with her own hands.” Empress Kreia, 12-34
"Pretty sure we could get the rest of this from a book somewhere." Linnet scans the room without much interest.
One painting lurches (figuratively, let it be said) into Linnet's line of sight to prove her wrong.
"Gyah! Okay, okay." Linnet finishes shuddering and takes a look at it, properly.
“Empress Laurent established a course of action that all future Emperors and Empresses would follow. Without her, it is safe to say that none of this ever would have been possible.”
The white human woman in the painting is calm and serene, with long braids trailing down on either side of her face. Her body is wrapped in a one-shoulder yellow dress, with an ornate cape draped over her shoulders. Linnet has seen her face before. Linnet has seen her multiple faces before.
Asura, Queen of the Eidolons, 616
Orrey is taking as many notes as possible, including sketches of whatever is left on the paintings.
"Fayth? Why is Asura here?" wonders Linnet.
“I can still feel her presence, even now, when I walk the streets of this magnificent city. I see her hand in the spires. I hear her voice in our song. I must believe we have made her proud. I carry that wish in my heart.” Angerrial Fein, 73. Fein was the last citizen of Alterna who knew the Empress personally at the time of his passing. No trace of this painting remains.
"Asura, Queen of the Eidolons, is a valued ally of the Alternan Empire," Fayth says.
"...I see." Linnet wanders further along, lost in thought.
"Where do the Eidolons live?" Orrey asks.
"I do not have that information available," Fayth responds.
Bast, not having a particular stake in anything here, wanders up to a random painting that catches his eye.
“A true champion of the people. She brought order to chaos and structure to madness. Without Empress Laurent, humanity would have died out in Ducorde generations ago.” Mazin Uriah, Scholar, 515.
The little of this painting that survived shows a brown-skinned man with thinning hair and gray eyes.
"Valued..." Yves rubs behind one ear, staring at the painting of Asura. "Valuable. Hm. Yes. I suppose that does make sense. Not how I would usually define 'ally', but I suppose that's how empires work."
“The world is poorer for her absence, and the Twelve richer for her presence.” Karl Engels, Forty-Seventh Grand Theologian, 946.
Only the lower third of this painting remains visible, showing a crimson cloak heavy with medals and jewels.
Linnet is doing her stare-into-the-air-while-doing-math thing again. "So if those numbers are the dates when people were quoted and/or memorialized here, Asura was placed here three hundred and some years before...everything. And yet Fayth still uses 'is' to refer to her."
Yves looks faintly suspicious of the whole notion of doing math with history. That's not how math works.
"When did the Empire and the Eidolons form their alliance?" Isa asks.
"The, uh, Event didn't happen till 957. So maybe Fayth is stuck sometime before that." Orrey says.
“We must all strive to uphold her ideals and her desires. As Alternans, and as her people.” Ivy Lenore, official biographer of Empress Laurent, 121.
The frame exists, and the backdrop shows a simple sitting room. It is only the figure themselves in the painting that has been burned away.
"And they quote figures until 946, which gives us a pretty narrow window. That helps." With what? Don't ask. Linnet's not there yet. "Fayth, is Engels the current Grand Theologian?"
"108 AE marked the Alternan alliance with the Eidolons," Fayth says. "Yes, Engels is the current Grand Theologian."
"What is today's date, anyway? I lose track all the time." (No answer.)
"108..." Isa pauses. "Who was the Emperor at that time?"
"Emperor Arundel."
“Relis Laurent is an inspiration to us all, and it is only by following the path she carved that the Empire will forever rule.” Empress Huw, 955-current
This last statement has no painting to go with it; just a gap in the floor, and the sea far, far below.
"Well fuck me," Isa says, not intending to be heard.
"Not right now." Linnet floats over the next gap and peers ahead.
Yves walks from painting to painting, staring at many defaced spaces where faces presumably once were, and chewing on his lower lip.
The chaotic wreckage in next room can only mean one thing -- a gift shop, albeit one that briefly turned ninety degrees to the left, judging from the utter destruction strewn about the floor.
Before that, though, there is a pedestal with an empty basket on top, matching the one the "crystals" originally came from.
"Is this where we find out?" Orrey asks.
"Please return your crystals one by one," says Fayth.
Orrey places his crystal carefully in the basket.
Yves is immediately distracted from any deep or worrisome thoughts by the reminder of interactive novelty. He beelines for the basket, and ends up standing directly behind Orrey, as if a queue is about to break out.
Fayth speaks as Orrey's crystal returns to the basket. "Rean Wissenland, Engineer. One of the most brilliant minds of his era, Wissenland personally devised numerous enhancements to Alternan society, most notably in the Floating Aqueduct and the Palamecia, named for his partner, the sixth ruler of Alterna."
Isa takes her time, looking around at the detritus.
Linnet nudges Yves and floats patiently behind him, trying not to step on anything and break it further.
Yves pops his crystal in next, and then bounces on his heels. "What's mine?"
Orrey turns towards Yves as he steps aside, grinning. "So neat!"
To Yves, Fayth recounts, "Jakob Niewan, Sentinel. Granted his post by the first Arithmagician of Machanon, Niewan gave his life defending the new city-state against invaders from the east. Alone, he held out against a force ten thousand strong, succumbing to his wounds only after reinforcements from the mainland arrived."
Linnet scratches her head, but drops her crystal in the basket.
"Chloe Durai, Astrologian. Born to a pair of Farmers, Durai proved that the Great Crystal saw the best for all its people. Durai’s foresight tragically was not recognized for what it truly was during her lifetime, but in the years to come, her vision saw Alterna through a series of disasters, and she is now remembered as one of the greatest farseers of all time."
Linnet bows her head slightly - to Durai, to Fayth, to the Crystal, who knows? - and wanders into the wrecked shop.
"That is one impressive sentinel," Yves says. "Or particularly unimpressive attackers. But probably the first one!" He steps onward to investigate the gift shop, in hopes of finding something that's survived the test of time well enough to find a place in a nice little niche somewhere back in his room. Maybe Golem would like a souvenir of home?
Bast flips his crystal into the basket from a couple of feet away.
To Bast, the narration says, "Alienne Myste, Elementalist. She followed in Pollendina’s footsteps, not as an architect, but as a commander of immense power. With no wars to fight and no wilds to tame, she instead directed her incredible control over the elements to following Pollendina’s designs, and in her honor the first residential district bears her name, Myste."
"How many Farmers are there in the Empire?" Orrey asks Fayth.
"Roughly four hundred thousand."
"And the total population?" Orrey asks, intrigued by seemingly uninteresting details of mundane life.
"Approximately three-point-three million people."
"How many different Jobs are there?" Orrey asks.
"Over one hundred and twenty."
From six inches above the floor, Linnet sifts through tiny replicas of the Crystal, costume pieces, moldering books, decorative charms of all types, and a remarkable variety of useless crap.
Isa returns her crystal, still dwelling on something.
"Arseid Osler, Divine Knight. The vanguard of the Rinkan Expedition, Arseid personally journeyed deep into the wilds outside of Alterna to find new land for the burgeoning Empire. The sight of her dancing blade rivaled witnessing the works of the Twelve."
Orrey stares at Isa with wide eyes.
Isa laughs. "Fayth?"
"Yes?"
Yves does a tiny bit of sincere applause for Isa's excellent selection.
"Who was Arseid Osler's maternal grandmother?"
"Empress Consort Astrid Arundel."
Yves tilts his head to one side. "Isa, does that make your mother the heir to the empire? Or I suppose that's not quite how it works."
Isa's "hm" has enough satisfaction to fill the Gap.
"There are others with stronger claims," she admits to Yves.
Orrey shrugs. "Sometimes the ones with weaker claims have stronger backers."
Isa nods. "Sometimes."
"Are you people planning shenanigans out there?" Linnet calls, from within a rack of novelty shirts.
"Sure, but I don't know them, so I'm just going to go ahead and believe it's really your mother who's the rightful heir," Yves says cheerfully. "I mean, I've met her, and I can see her running a terrifying empire that invades anyone they want and takes other people's stuff for this 'greater good' thing, pretty easily."
He is then distracted by Linnet's comment. "Wait, are any of those shirts still holding together? Do any of them have that amazing jungle painting on them?"
(from inside, there's a mutter about "can't find the till...")
Orrey joins those in the gift shop and browses the remains, looking for any standout items that aren't completely demolished.
Linnet exits the gift shop holding some surprisingly durable novelty tunics in a variety of sizes, plus a couple pairs of Crystal-shaped earrings. "I think I found something for everybody! Yves, this is as close as I came to the plant painting." Soon, everybody has new shirts, like a proper matching tour group, and Isa, Linnet, and Yves have new earrings.
Bast wanders around looking for any models of the architectural landmarks of Alterna that have survived better than the landmarks themselves.
Whatever Yves may have learned, or had hinted at, or gotten exciting new traumatic thoughts from, in that museum, one thing is for sure: he is immediately putting on the adorable little Imitation Great Crystal earrings. They go well with the little silver skulls that have teeny tiny faux-ruby eyes.
Isa thanks Linnet, then looks at her heavier-than-normal armor, and folds the shirt up for a later time.
The shirt Linnet got for Bast immediately disappears into a pocket.
Orrey throws his tunic on and resettles the pack.
Yves is sufficiently committed to the whole Museum Experience that he takes off his coat, puts on the tunic, puts the coat back on, and attempts to still look simultaneously adventurous/responsible/goth/scientific despite the aesthetic results.
"Right, enough commerce; Orrey, didn't you have an appointment to keep?" Linnet is struggling to untangle a miniature crystal from her braid. The crystal earrings are bright blue and don't go with anything else she's wearing. They're great.
"I don't think they gave us a time limit," Orrey says, still rummaging about.
Linnet shrugs and wanders outside for some fresh air and another look about.
Orrey sighs after not finding anything else and follows Linnet.
Isa follows Orrey, the Frost-Fair Blade over her shoulder and a bit less trudge in her step.
Bast notices everyone else going off to look for trouble, and follows.
Yves, increasingly tourist-like in appearance as well as mindset, trails along behind the others. The little Great Crystal earrings jingle differently against the silver dangly skulls than the pewter rings that usually go in that place.
**
Castle Atma has hosted the party once before. Beneath the castle is where the brave adventurers located the Starfall itself, hidden away in the mausoleum said to hold the remains of all of the rulers of Alterna. Curiously, Cid Tantalus called it "Laurent's Tomb" when he directed them travel there to acquire said airship, the one carrying The Truth.
This time, they do not have to seek out hidden passages leading down into the mausoleum, for the doors to the throne room are instead wide open.
The Grand Theologian, potentially Lord Engels himself, awaits.
**
Linnet stops outside and peers in around the door, making as little noise as possible.
"Well, this is a surprise. I don't believe we've met during our last visit?" says Bast, in a disarming tone.
The throne room is vast and opulent, laden with riches and finery. It is lit only with candles; hundreds and hundreds of candles, their flames dancing from every corner and cranny.
He sits on a throne of skeletons, structurally sound thanks to the sinews and tendons still binding them together. On his body he wears a cloak of crimson and gold, runic markings lining the hood and capping the long sleeves.
Golden gloves shimmer on his hands, with the left holding a staff of pulsing purple crystal, topped with a winged figure frozen midscream.
“The fated Oracle, returned to Alterna to carry out the Twelve’s divine plan,” he says as he stands. “Truly, we are blessed to have an agent of the gods with us again this day.”
He brings his hood down, revealing a face so gaunt it does not look to be alive, skin stretched so thin and tight across his skull it might as well be fossilized itself, skin the color of ancient parchment.
("Ah," says Yves. "Huh. Hm. Well. That's. Um.")
His pointed chin sports an tattooed arrow of crimson. Around his neck he wears a half-mask of the same red, with two half circles of white cut over the forehead, all lines cutting through the eyes. There is no light shining from his empty eye sockets, and his nose was long ago lost to the ravages of time.
Linnet darts back behind the door and screws her eyes shut. "Tell me I didn't just see that."
"Fated Oracle? What, is there some sort of prophecy guiding everything?" Orrey asks, choking over the first word. Orrey's mind is skipping over the horror and focusing on things affecting himself instead.
"You prattle with prophecy and divine their messages from on high, do you not?" the Grand Theologian says from across the throne room. "It is they who led you here! I hope you do not think that I find Fayth lacking."
Orrey nods. "I know that some of the future can be divined, but not that everything is fated to follow a single path through Time."
"Wellllllll," says Yves, who is doing a great deal of blinking. "Well! Hm. Yes. Well. Huh. That's... Huh."
"I'm sorry - I don't think we caught your name?" Bast is looking pleasantly bland.
"Oh, how rude of me." His words drip down onto the marble floor, just as his throne may have done eons before. "You stand here before the final Grand Theologian of the vast and storied Alternan Empire, who rose to his position in 957 AE once the position found itself vacant."
"You are encouraged to use my title when addressing me, but if you must have some other form of familiarity, I suppose I can allow you to use the name given to me back when I lay trapped inside that infernal crystal, but you will use the proper honorific alongside it."
He fixes sightless eyes on Orrey. "Lord Hades."
(Linnet, hand on the Akadaemia Deck, locks eyes with Isa, the only one not engaging this horror in conversation.)
"I don't think the museum talked much about the skeleton throne part of the job," Yves says, still blinking a bit. "So, uh, Grand Theologian, isn't that... uncomfortable? And maybe a bit sticky? I know things are in poor repair around here, but we could probably find you a decent cushion or something, that just seems like..." He gestures, baffled, at the chair. "...a lot. Ergonomically."
(...Linnet barely stifles a snort at Yves' line of conversation.)
Lord Hades shifts his focus from Orrey to instead perceive Yves.
Yves continues to look like he has encountered something so far beyond his comprehension that all he can really address is the furniture choices. Which, to be fair, are distinctly non-standard.
Isa gives Linnet a rueful shake of the head, and plants the butt of the Frost-Fair Blade on the ground. "I was having a nice moment there, for a while," she laments.
"Oh," Lord Hades says after a moment, bleeding with interest. "You. Viera. You're the Speaker."
("Ah, hell." Linnet enters the hall and puts on her best Menacing Float behind Yves' shoulder.)
"I mean, mostly with the sort of people that can't speak clearly otherwise. Not so much with regular people, Linnet's much better with that," Yves says earnestly. "But--I'm sorry, I don't mean to belabor the point, but I'm really having a hard time with your furniture decisions here. Is there a reason for all the skeletons and... so forth? And the sitting on them? Traditional seat of theologians, and we lost the tradition in the ages since you started this job, something like that?"
Lord Hades brings a hand down in front of his face, almost as if he is incapable of dealing with the display in front of him.
The air in front of him shimmers with a crimson glyph. "Ah. Diabolos. Cerberus, too. You are an ally, then. The rest of you, well, that remains to be seen."
"And when it is seen, what is to be done?" asks Linnet, crackling slightly.
Yves brightens visibly. "Oh, are you a friend of Diabolos? He did send us here, in a sense, and... Uh, sorry, Orrey, I know this is supposed to be your, um, parole officer meeting? Something like that? Don't mind me, I'll just be... over here..." He makes a vague gesture that indicates somewhere not particularly close to the extremely uncomfortable seating area.
Orrey side-eyes Yves, not happy that he brought up any connection between himself and the horror in front of them.
"The boy is an Oracle, a puppet of the false gods. You," here the staff turns its screaming face to Yves, "are the Speaker. Opposing forces, though perhaps too stupid to have realized it. Or perhaps too forgetful."
Orrey's eyes narrow at the word "stupid".
Yves steeples his fingers awkwardly. "...in the... friendly and respectful opponents who might yet come to a mutual understanding and find a useful compromise that respects the free will of all sapient beings sense of 'opposing forces', right?"
"How much have we forgotten in this world?" Lord Hades says, sweeping the staff out wide. "We forgot Alterna, and the extent of their excess. We forgot what predates Alterna. We forgot what exists outside of Ducorde."
"We forgot who made the gods. We forgot who the gods betrayed. We forgot which of our number joined theirs. We forgot."
("I'm sort of getting the impression Alterna was busy looting what existed outside of, or before, Alterna," Yves says quietly. "The god part I... don't know much about, knowing things about gods has mostly been Orrey's job.")
"Remember the Forgotten," Lord Hades proclaims, as the candles in the throne room burn a bright boiling crimson. "And then cast these pretenders into the fiery abyss, that they will darken this realm no longer."
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