Session 108: Bright Glyphs of Older
After months of traveling together, battling unspeakable monstrosities and suffering great personal loss, watching families break apart and lovers be reunited, meeting remarkable people and solving the gravest of problems, our brave adventurers have managed to check another box in the Adventuring Agenda: they all went out to buy drugs with Yves.
Though only Yves bought drugs. The others were just unwitting accomplices.
They also helped bring an end to a hostage situation, rescue a world-renowned technical architect, save the Moonfire Faire, and recruit two new crew members, but those were side benefits.
While the Moonfire Faire would have gladly feted the heroes (and their newest hero was overjoyed at the prospect of accepting), the two loudest voices in the officers' crew are also the most anti-fun according to certain comments left in the Starfall's suggestion box, and so it is that Bast, Isa, Orrey, Linnet, and Yves led Luca and Isara back to the Starfall for the grand tour of their legendary airship.
As soon as they arrived back on board, though, Shula directed the officers to the bridge, and handed the two newcomers over to Rahel for introductions and assignment of quarters.
We join our brave adventurers on the bridge...
**
"We have a situation," Jasper says grimly.
"Not a bad situation," Shula interjects.
"I labeled all the bottles! Carefully!" Yves insists.
"What did we break this time?" Bast inquires with an arched eyebrow.
"...then why does Jasper sound like our lead just dropped out with a week to go and the understudy broke a leg in dance call?" replies Linnet.
"I'd say it's a bad situation," Jasper retorts. "You're the architect. You know what constitutes a bad situation, Brighton."
"It's not load bearing, Jasper."
"That we know of!"
"Do you want me to tell them or not?!"
"You interrupted me!"
"What. Did. We. Break." Bast, temporarily, is the image of patience.
"You made it sound like the ship was falling apart!"
"Report," Isa says curtly.
"It is!"
"Would you two shut up and get your story straight?" their friend interrupts.
At Isa's command, however, they both shut up. Linnet's scolding is well-deserved insult to injury. Jasper cedes the floor to Shula, though his eyebrows write entire paragraphs of profanity.
Yves looks faintly relieved that it has nothing to do with the recreational substances he brought on board. Probably.
Shula closes her eyes. "Something popped off of the smaller sphere inside the ship while you were gone."
"And so there's an opening now, and anyone can just head on in and see what's been locked up in there the whole time we've been on the ship." Jasper wants to spit, but Marina would murder him for spitting on the bridge.
"Which no one has done," Shula says. "The first two people to discover it have been guarding it for the last ten hours."
"Oh," says Yves. "So. Uh. Hm. Well. That's. That's a thing."
"Actors' curiosity isn't fatal, Jasper, or we'd never have made it this far." Linnet pats him on the shoulder, much to his irritation. "How big was the piece that popped off? And what made it detach?"
"Who were the two?" Isa asks.
"Article II, Section III, Item VII-e says I don't have to answer that," Jasper says curtly.
"That's just about the crew. You still have to answer Linnet," Shula says.
"I'll let them tell you instead."
smash cut to
"We were working on the White Key," Owen says, holding it up for Bast's inspection. Unfortunately, Bast is moogle-sized and Owen most certainly is not, so Bast is looking three feet up at the bottom of Owen's hand. "Scientifically."
"We were shoving it in every hole on the ship," Celeste admits.
Bast looks like he has a question, then thinks better of it. (Linnet just snickers.)
Yves nods along as if this makes perfect sense. Science!
"Only one did anything, which was in the ship's console." Owen hands the key back to Celeste. "It turned a light on."
"Which doesn't really tell us anything except something, somewhere, on the ship had changed. So we sent out a search team, and it turned out that a small keyhole appeared on the small sphere when we did that."
"But taking the White Key out made the keyhole disappear," Owen says.
"So we took the Black Key to see if it unlocked anything in the sphere."
"I'm really sorry," Owen says. Celeste might apologize for some things in her life, but nothing at all here.
"Anybody get eaten?" Bast asks offhandedly, looking past Owen at what they've been guarding.
"We didn't think it did," she says, "but then we heard a shout from the stern of the ship, because apparently a panel of the sphere just popped right off."
Owen reluctantly steps aside, and they see behind him.... the keyhole, with the Black Key inside.
"And ever since then they have not let me go in to look around," Celeste growls.
"They don't have that authority," Isa points out.
Linnet facepalms. "Celeste, there's an angry god in the engine that sucked me between dimensions when I poked it. Who the hell knows what's living in the sphere?"
Celeste finds absolutely no danger in that, and clearly would love to explore the interdimensional engine room.
"I mean, it's the sort of thing you have to let someone know about beforehand," Yves says earnestly to Celeste, "so that when you get sucked between dimensions, other people know what happened. Otherwise it's not science, it's just poking at things. Science involves writing down what you're trying."
"They're holding it for all of you instead," Owen says. "Please be careful. We don't have any more keys left."
"Owen, as long as you know where those two keys are, we'll be just fine." Linnet pats his hand comfortingly. "Celeste, hold your horsebirds and make sure we don't explode as soon as we step in, okay? Then you can join us." (Linnet looks to Bast for confirmation.)
"Right. Let's see what sort of candy center this thing has for us." Bast adjusts something on his goggles and takes a step forward.
"Oh, the hole isn't here. Just follow the hall around toward the stern," Celeste says. "You really can't miss it."
smash cut to
When the Theatre of the Untranslatable joined the Starfall, the first thing they did was disguise the exterior of the ship, using their extensive set-building experience to fashion a new silhouette for the ancient vessel.
The remnants of that effort, panels too short and paint too loud, are newly crowded around a particular part of the hallway encircling the smaller sphere inside the ship. A string of colored lights decorates the top. A chair from a Cardian satire, nine feet of cheaply-produced throne, sits at an angle so the person seated can monitor two of the possible three approaches without even turning their head. Their job is made easier by the fact that they do not know how to sit in a chair normally, and have one leg dangling over the armrest as they sit nearly sideways, cradling a book in their lap with one arm, dangling the other down into a porcelain bowl on the floor.
Apocynthion Lunakrei Tolvani the Third brings up two grapes from the bowl. He pops one into his mouth, and then balances the other on his thumb, tucked under his curled fingers. With a no-look flick, the grape shoots up into the air and straight into an open panel in the ceiling.
It does not fall back down to earth.
"Oh, good," Yves says, as soon as he has come across this vision. "Everything is under control."
Purple velvet curtains, garish to three of the four present officers (and instantly identifiable to the fourth), hide the bulk of the sphere here from view.
"...what did you do." Linnet is stuck between horror and fascination at the slapdash assembly.
Apoc slips a bookmark in place and then gives Yves one of those grins. (Linnet's greeting is far, far more muted.) "Not the original plan, I assure you, but there is one among this ship's number who must enter every open portal and will not listen to any amount of reason."
"And so you decided to scare Celeste off with the tackiest scenery you could dig up?" Linnet's eyebrow nearly disappears into her hair.
"It's so practical," Yves says. "...does it require constant grapes, or is that incidental?"
"Triscuit doesn't like how velvet feels on his paws," says the ceiling hole.
Linnet pauses. "...oh. Okay, that's practical. Hi, Chmurka."
"Hard to believe the couerl hasn't ejected himself from the cannon at this point," Apoc mutters.
"So you two have been guarding this all day?"
"A fine time to socialize with the rarest member of the crew, and perhaps mend a broken bridge or two," Apoc says heartily.
"I don't trust him and he doesn't trust me. So we're both here," Chmurka says simply.
"That's fair. Anything come out and try to bite either of you?"
"That... seems practical," Yves says, a little more dubiously.
Apoc shrugs. "The Hive brought some equipment when it became clear neither of us were going to leave the other with this portal unattended. No dinner, but snacks were on hand." ("...thank you, by the way.") ("But of course.")
"I commend your restraint." Bast looks around. "What'd you do with the panel?"
Chmurka sticks her head out. "It's behind the curtain on the floor," she says, perfectly at home hanging upside down. "Nothing's come out. We both looked in, but it just looks weird in there."
Isa's brows knit. "Weird how?"
"Rather than asking, let's go look." Linnet is already starting for the portal.
Yves draws a notebook out of his satchel. "Let's go look, and write it down. That way it's science."
Apoc braces his foot on the closest panel to lean the throne back in range of the curtain's string, and pulls it down to unveil the hole in the sphere.
The blue-green sphere is indeed missing one of its previously thought to be impenetrable panels, and there is now a hole large enough to allow almost anyone on the ship entry. (Owen is almost as broad at the shoulder as Bast is tall, and really should not attempt this.) It is not pitch blackness that awaits within, nor everlasting light. Rather, it more resembles an unlit closet, at least from this vantage point; the ship's ambient light, and clearly some amount of... something... within.
A closer examination of the entryway gives more definition, if not clear answers.
Linnet spearheads the close examination, peering in and then thrusting her head through the aperture. "Hello?"
The interior of the Starfall's smaller sphere holds another sphere, yet smaller still. This smaller sphere is made up of a series of metal bars forming an interlocking barrier around a fifteen-foot square, floating in air, with open sides and a pedestal in its center.
The bars themselves are marked with locks; hovering multicolored glyphs that clearly bar anyone from gaining access, though by which means they bar it is left to one's imagination.
No one answers Linnet's call, nor do horrors from the darkest depths of despair take her arm clean off at the elbow.
Instead, her voice has a small echo, and her head feels slightly swimmy when she puts it through.
Yves leans over Linnet's shoulder, and says, "I wonder if there's a sphere inside that sphere too. Or inside the cube. Or the pedestal. Or all of the above. It could be spheres all the way down."
"There has to be a smallest sphere," Isa points out, unfamiliar with the concept of infinity.
Undeterred, Linnet steps the whole way inside the (open) sphere and inspects the glyphs.
Bast steps through after her, paying more attention to the bars for now.
Yves takes notes, like a good scientist who is currently sober and everything.
As soon as one fully enters the sphere, one finds that gravity is different inside, because it no longer points to the bottom of the ship, it points to the bottom of the sphere, and the outer shell of the sphere is always the bottom.
Bast stands on the new ground, his boots by the missing panel, no longer a hole in the wall but instead a hole in the floor by his vantage point.
"Hm." Bast tries a few experimental steps up and down what seemed to be the wall, from outside.
Linnet lifts her feet from the...floor?...and tests floating in this new weird gravity. "Huh." Then she calls out, "It's not dangerous, but gravity's screwy in here." As Orrey remains in his quarters (with Ivy), it falls to Linnet to sketch the glyphs for further study.
Yves puts his notebook away before trying a very careful crawl inside to follow the others. "It's not ethically horrifying yet, at least at first glance, so there's that! Better than the engine already."
Isa sticks her head into the hole, turns her head to the side, and sees Bast's feet. She decides instead to wait just outside.
Inside the sphere, more of the outside rim, the 'floor,' can be seen. As science demands notes, once the notebook returns, the following will be documented:
* The outer edges of the sphere are marked in twelve segments.
* Each segment has a number of starburst shapes emblazoned on its floor, starting with * and moving chronologically until there are twelve starbursts in four rows of three.
* The entry panel is in the fourth segment.
* Each segment has a centrally-located indentation, a place where something is to be inserted.
* Strewn arrhythmically throughout the sphere are twelve glyphs, carved from the same ceramic material that makes up the hull of the Starfall. Each glyph shares the same outline but the surface is painted and designed quite differently.
Once gathered into a central location, those glyphs are as follows, in alphabetical order:
Coiled purple serpent inside of a churning wave.
Dark brown rock turbine.
Devil’s wings of darkest black.
Dragon’s head flanked by wings.
Empty gray husk pulsing crimson.
Four feathered green wings in a spiral.
Four swords forming a cross.
Red demon’s head with dual horns.
Shimmering pink and blue ribbon.
Shining white castle wall.
Snowflake wrapped in a blue cloak.
White beard gradating into a yellow bolt.
"Hm. Okay, someone more systematic than me should decide how we're trying these out. And Yves, do you have a roster of everyone you have in your, uh, quarters?" Linnet's staring at the spiral of wings.
Yves digs into his satchel, and pulls out another notebook. "Of course! I've been doing interviews about habitat preference again lately, but I haven't started cross-indexing the responses yet."
"Mind listing them out for those of us who may have lost track?"
Bast runs his thumb over the beard glyph, then sets it back down, looking over at Linnet. "Figure this is theological, or something to do with our guests?"
"The latter. I see at least Diabolos, Midgardsormr, and Golem among that lot...and most likely Cinnabun and Guan Yu."
"I don't see Fenrir or Cerberus," Yves says, tilting his head to the side, "or at least I don't think I do, but--that one might be Alexander, do you think?"
"Well, we clearly don't have everyone to match this lot, and even if we did, what order do they go in?" Linnet pokes one of the circles in the wall.
"Or more importantly," Yves says, "is this really the sort of ship where we would want to start shoving people into symbolically appropriate circles? Just, uh, you know, given how the engine seems to work and all."
"Oh, I assumed we were shoving the glyphs, not the people."
"Ah...shit." Bast bites his lip at the mention of Alexander, and shuts up.
"Yves, do you want to ask Diabolos about this? Or maybe Principia?"
"I can go ask Principia," Yves says promptly. "And shoving glyphs is a lot less morally suspect, so that's all good!"
"See if you can get whoever's on KP to send up some dinner? Grapes are not a proper dinner."
"That too," Yves calls back, as he hurries away. Which means going by the kitchen first, since once he's talking to Principia, he's not gonna remember such things as food.
"Isa, can you go see if Celeste wants in on this? Not the whole ship, though."
"You know I'm going to step around the corner and she's going to pretend she hasn't been eavesdropping," Isa says.
"Well, tell her to stop pretending and get in here," replies Linnet nonchalantly.
Isa chuckles. "Right," she says, and steps around the corner.
Celeste is at the far end of the hallway, as if she's been down there the entire time, and definitely didn't just hurry back to look innocent.
Linnet thinks out loud. "Principia's books mentioned six elemental forces, which were a separate category from your standard guardian force...so if we assume they probably have something to do with this, then we don't necessarily slot in every other force we've met."
Isa raises an eyebrow at Celeste. "Catch your breath and then c'mon. It's esoteric shit and you'll be more use than I."
A very ladylike "hell yes" answers that, and Celeste beats Isa back to the hole in the sphere, breath be damned.
"Watch your feet, Celeste, gravity's weird here. Welcome to...a thing." Linnet waves without looking up from the pile of glyphs.
"The elemental forces Principia mentioned were Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Garuda, Titan, and Leviathan." Linnet shudders a little at the names. "So if we match these up here, and this pile over here..."
"In the order we laid them out, then, here's my guess." Linnet takes a deep breath. "Leviathan, Titan, Diabolos, Midgardsormr, Cinnabar, Garuda, don't know, Ifrit, don't know, Alexander, Shiva, and Ramuh."
"What I still have no idea of is what order we put them in, and if doing anything with the ones we haven't met yet - heavens forfend - will accomplish anything."
"...and what putting everyone where they belong will even do..." Bast mutters quietly, finally breaking his silence.
"Nice work on the names, though. If Yves or Principia don't have any ideas on the order either...suppose we might just have to try some and see what happens."
"End the world, free Asura, explode the ship, release a rainbow that leads all the way back to Alterna? No clue. Time to do science to it?"
Bast takes a small step back from the science, giving Linnet room to work.
"Um. I'd really rather consult Principia on this, but I think Yves got distracted when wandering by the kitchen. Or into his quarters. Or when pretty much anybody talked to him. He's good at that."
"Anyway, here's hoping this doesn't explode." Linnet picks up the gray glyph with the red light and pronounces, "Cinnabun, wherever you are, I apologize if this does something horrible."
She slots it into the one-star slot.
Nothing happens.
"Well, that's probably good." She removes the glyph and holds it up, pondering. "Cinnabar? You don't happen to be around anywhere, do you?"
As if summoned, Yves wanders back into view of the throne, Principia with him. He breaks off from a discussion of water locks and mechanical pump systems to hold Principia up toward the panel. "--right, here we are, you can see exactly what I wasn't describing properly before."
"Can't brute-force this one, it probably does something awful to them if you try too many times. Hurricanes. Well, maybe it goes above the door, because he was the first one to bond with us? Sort of?" Linnet slides the glyph into the fourth slot, tiptoeing to reach.
"Oh! A glyph puzzle! These vexed many a legendary hero. It is said that many heroes of ages past invoked Alexander for aid, that his Gordian Blade would cut through their trials, but Alexander helps those who help themselves." Principia rustles their pages in excitement.
"Lin, it's this kind of emotional lack-of-logic that drives Jasper batty," Linnet scolds herself under her breath while adjusting the glyph.
Yves nods in satisfaction. "Do you think it has anything to do with what we've done," he asks Linnet, "or is more, I don't know, ancient? Having to do with something that was true when the ship was made, not the order we got around to meeting people or fighting them or making them habitats or what not."
Nothing happens when the empty gray husk pulsing crimson glyph goes into the fourth slot.
Bast raises an eyebrow at Principia, rolling the castle glyph back and forth a couple of times before trying it in the first slot. (Nothing happens.)
"Oh, I assume I'm completely wrong, but worth trying. Hi, Yves, hi, Principia. Vexing indeed."
"Well, the glyphs definitely seem reminiscent of particular Espers," Principia says. "I would be quite shocked if you had encountered all of these so far, but I am certain at least one of these is currently resting in your room, Yves."
"We won't be able to do anything now if we need to bring them all in here in person," Yves says, examining the slots and the symbols. "But you're right, that over there really must be Diabolos, isn't it? No one else does quite the same sort of wings."
Bast stares at the white glyph briefly, then shrugs and returns it to the lineup. "Well, that's about the extent of my ideas. Yves, any notion of how they might be sequenced? Besides alphabetical."
"Musical!" Isa calls into the sphere, helpful as always.
"Comical." Bast shoots back, deadpan.
Linnet puts the six elemental glyphs in a line on the floor, in the order mentioned in Principia's book - demon, snowflake, lightning, feathers, rock, serpent. "Tragicomical-historical-pastoral," she adds. "Anyone have a serious suggestion?"
"Alphabetical seems unlikely," Yves admits. "But there are so many ways to quantify almost anything! Like, look at a table of elements, and now you end up mapping atomic weight against electron shells differently."
"What's an electron shell? No, don't tell me now, let's focus. Principia, if we've figured out who they are - we think - do you have any idea what the number of stars means?"
"Likely just a sequence, showing that there is a definite First and a definite Twelfth," Principia says confidently. "Interesting that they are stars, don't you think?"
"...do they have any relation to the Twelve? Orrey would know, dammit."
"...order of binding, maybe?" suggests Bast.
"I would think that unlikely, especially if Diabolos is listed among this number," Principia says.
Bast gives Principia a curious look. "Was Diabolos never bound? I thought they all were, before they began coming back."
"Oh, Diabolos most certainly was," Principia says. "I was merely referring to this puzzle. It would be, pardon the term, diabolical to mix both god and Esper in a puzzle like this, especially if this dates back to Alterna itself, as your ship does."
"If it's not about gods," Yves says, "then it must be about..." He stares at the stars for a long moment. "Nope, no idea. But I'll keep thinking about it."
"...something with constellations? Are they all in the same constellation, or each from a different one, or am I completely off base?"
"And is there any order to the constellations themselves?" Bast looks to the scholars of the party.
Linnet stops very suddenly, puts the glyph in her hand down, and swears very loudly. Then, she carefully navigates to the door, puts her feet back on the floor, and bolts for the storeroom.
Celeste blinks after Linnet, and then returns to cooing over the fascinating glyphs.
Isa watches Linnet go, then sticks her head into the sphere. "Everything alright in there?"
Linnet returns four minutes later, which really isn't enough time to get anywhere on this ship, carrying the Akademia Deck.
"Inspiration!" Principia says happily.
"Huh," says Yves. "Should I have picked up pastries while I was around the kitchen? I didn't think we needed snacks already..."
Linnet climbs inside the ship again, lays out the cards in order on the floor - wall - surface, and stares intently at them.
"The Ewer, The Remedy, The Might, The Deep, The Spire, The Bole, The Balance, The Arrow, The Spear, The Sinner, The Saint, The Ruin." Linnet taps each card as she says its name. "The hell..."
"Rude to call Diabolos a sinner," Yves notes, though apparently he's making an assumption already that the symbolism matches up that way.
Linnet hops to her feet, grabs the glyph with the purple serpent, and slots it into the one-star slot.
One of the glyphs on the center goes away.
"OKAY! Hold on, give me about five more minutes and I'll have this."
"Well damn." Bast, while approving, seems to have firmly decided that the best way to help is to stay out of the way of the librarian sylph with an Idea.
Linnet gathers up an armful of glyphs and tries them in the following order: serpent, husk, swords, dragon, beard, turbine, horns, feathers, snowflake, wings, ribbon, wall.
(correct, incorrect, correct, incorrect, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect)
"Fair." Linnet takes the incorrect glyphs and lays them out by the cards.
Yves takes notes as Linnet works out the glyphs, showing his written commentary to Principia as he goes.
"Who do we think these are?" Celeste says, crouching down by Linnet, her trapped dagger dangling down close to the curving ground.
"Cinnabar, Midgardsormr, Diabolos, I don't know, and Alexander."
"This is Cinnabar?" Celeste picks up the empty gray husk pulsing crimson. "You said Cinnabar was cute. This is creepy and weird."
"Atomos, maybe?" Yves suggests. "That's not cute at all."
"We have a Saint, a Sinner, the Deep, the Remedy, and the Ruin among these."
The ribbon glyph goes in the second slot. (correct)
The winged glyph goes in the fourth slot. (correct)
Bast looks at the glyph Celeste picked up, lips curling in a sudden grimace of distaste. "Was the Parasite one of them?"
Principia hisses at even the mention of Azi Dahaka.
In the remaining slots, in order: the dragon, the wall, and the pulsing red husk. (incorrect, correct, incorrect)
"Oops." Linnet switches the last two.
The final glyph breaks.
Gravity switches into the other direction, but slowly, gently lowering everyone present into the center of the sphere.
Isa braces her hands against the side of the hole as her braid tries to find the center. "Whoa!"
Linnet lands with an abrupt thump. "What the breezes was that?"
Yves waves his hands about. "Unperplexed!"
Bast, fresh off a somewhat awkward landing, gives Yves a skeptical look.
There is a central console here. As they all land, the console retracts into the ground, and then images flash into existence, hovering in the air, purple and green, glyphs shifting into words and pictograms, before settling into three options.
* Research * Reset * Relay
"Leviathan, someone, someone, Diabolos, Ramuh, Titan, Ifrit, Garuda, Shiva, Atomos, Alexander, Midgardsormr." Linnet spins around, evaluating everything, before coming to a stop before where the console was. "Well, anyone have any more bright ideas?"
"Let's hit the research button!" Yves suggests, fingers twitching a bit.
"Okay, okay." Linnet laughs and cedes the floor.
Though only Yves bought drugs. The others were just unwitting accomplices.
They also helped bring an end to a hostage situation, rescue a world-renowned technical architect, save the Moonfire Faire, and recruit two new crew members, but those were side benefits.
While the Moonfire Faire would have gladly feted the heroes (and their newest hero was overjoyed at the prospect of accepting), the two loudest voices in the officers' crew are also the most anti-fun according to certain comments left in the Starfall's suggestion box, and so it is that Bast, Isa, Orrey, Linnet, and Yves led Luca and Isara back to the Starfall for the grand tour of their legendary airship.
As soon as they arrived back on board, though, Shula directed the officers to the bridge, and handed the two newcomers over to Rahel for introductions and assignment of quarters.
We join our brave adventurers on the bridge...
**
"We have a situation," Jasper says grimly.
"Not a bad situation," Shula interjects.
"I labeled all the bottles! Carefully!" Yves insists.
"What did we break this time?" Bast inquires with an arched eyebrow.
"...then why does Jasper sound like our lead just dropped out with a week to go and the understudy broke a leg in dance call?" replies Linnet.
"I'd say it's a bad situation," Jasper retorts. "You're the architect. You know what constitutes a bad situation, Brighton."
"It's not load bearing, Jasper."
"That we know of!"
"Do you want me to tell them or not?!"
"You interrupted me!"
"What. Did. We. Break." Bast, temporarily, is the image of patience.
"You made it sound like the ship was falling apart!"
"Report," Isa says curtly.
"It is!"
"Would you two shut up and get your story straight?" their friend interrupts.
At Isa's command, however, they both shut up. Linnet's scolding is well-deserved insult to injury. Jasper cedes the floor to Shula, though his eyebrows write entire paragraphs of profanity.
Yves looks faintly relieved that it has nothing to do with the recreational substances he brought on board. Probably.
Shula closes her eyes. "Something popped off of the smaller sphere inside the ship while you were gone."
"And so there's an opening now, and anyone can just head on in and see what's been locked up in there the whole time we've been on the ship." Jasper wants to spit, but Marina would murder him for spitting on the bridge.
"Which no one has done," Shula says. "The first two people to discover it have been guarding it for the last ten hours."
"Oh," says Yves. "So. Uh. Hm. Well. That's. That's a thing."
"Actors' curiosity isn't fatal, Jasper, or we'd never have made it this far." Linnet pats him on the shoulder, much to his irritation. "How big was the piece that popped off? And what made it detach?"
"Who were the two?" Isa asks.
"Article II, Section III, Item VII-e says I don't have to answer that," Jasper says curtly.
"That's just about the crew. You still have to answer Linnet," Shula says.
"I'll let them tell you instead."
smash cut to
"We were working on the White Key," Owen says, holding it up for Bast's inspection. Unfortunately, Bast is moogle-sized and Owen most certainly is not, so Bast is looking three feet up at the bottom of Owen's hand. "Scientifically."
"We were shoving it in every hole on the ship," Celeste admits.
Bast looks like he has a question, then thinks better of it. (Linnet just snickers.)
Yves nods along as if this makes perfect sense. Science!
"Only one did anything, which was in the ship's console." Owen hands the key back to Celeste. "It turned a light on."
"Which doesn't really tell us anything except something, somewhere, on the ship had changed. So we sent out a search team, and it turned out that a small keyhole appeared on the small sphere when we did that."
"But taking the White Key out made the keyhole disappear," Owen says.
"So we took the Black Key to see if it unlocked anything in the sphere."
"I'm really sorry," Owen says. Celeste might apologize for some things in her life, but nothing at all here.
"Anybody get eaten?" Bast asks offhandedly, looking past Owen at what they've been guarding.
"We didn't think it did," she says, "but then we heard a shout from the stern of the ship, because apparently a panel of the sphere just popped right off."
Owen reluctantly steps aside, and they see behind him.... the keyhole, with the Black Key inside.
"And ever since then they have not let me go in to look around," Celeste growls.
"They don't have that authority," Isa points out.
Linnet facepalms. "Celeste, there's an angry god in the engine that sucked me between dimensions when I poked it. Who the hell knows what's living in the sphere?"
Celeste finds absolutely no danger in that, and clearly would love to explore the interdimensional engine room.
"I mean, it's the sort of thing you have to let someone know about beforehand," Yves says earnestly to Celeste, "so that when you get sucked between dimensions, other people know what happened. Otherwise it's not science, it's just poking at things. Science involves writing down what you're trying."
"They're holding it for all of you instead," Owen says. "Please be careful. We don't have any more keys left."
"Owen, as long as you know where those two keys are, we'll be just fine." Linnet pats his hand comfortingly. "Celeste, hold your horsebirds and make sure we don't explode as soon as we step in, okay? Then you can join us." (Linnet looks to Bast for confirmation.)
"Right. Let's see what sort of candy center this thing has for us." Bast adjusts something on his goggles and takes a step forward.
"Oh, the hole isn't here. Just follow the hall around toward the stern," Celeste says. "You really can't miss it."
smash cut to
When the Theatre of the Untranslatable joined the Starfall, the first thing they did was disguise the exterior of the ship, using their extensive set-building experience to fashion a new silhouette for the ancient vessel.
The remnants of that effort, panels too short and paint too loud, are newly crowded around a particular part of the hallway encircling the smaller sphere inside the ship. A string of colored lights decorates the top. A chair from a Cardian satire, nine feet of cheaply-produced throne, sits at an angle so the person seated can monitor two of the possible three approaches without even turning their head. Their job is made easier by the fact that they do not know how to sit in a chair normally, and have one leg dangling over the armrest as they sit nearly sideways, cradling a book in their lap with one arm, dangling the other down into a porcelain bowl on the floor.
Apocynthion Lunakrei Tolvani the Third brings up two grapes from the bowl. He pops one into his mouth, and then balances the other on his thumb, tucked under his curled fingers. With a no-look flick, the grape shoots up into the air and straight into an open panel in the ceiling.
It does not fall back down to earth.
"Oh, good," Yves says, as soon as he has come across this vision. "Everything is under control."
Purple velvet curtains, garish to three of the four present officers (and instantly identifiable to the fourth), hide the bulk of the sphere here from view.
"...what did you do." Linnet is stuck between horror and fascination at the slapdash assembly.
Apoc slips a bookmark in place and then gives Yves one of those grins. (Linnet's greeting is far, far more muted.) "Not the original plan, I assure you, but there is one among this ship's number who must enter every open portal and will not listen to any amount of reason."
"And so you decided to scare Celeste off with the tackiest scenery you could dig up?" Linnet's eyebrow nearly disappears into her hair.
"It's so practical," Yves says. "...does it require constant grapes, or is that incidental?"
"Triscuit doesn't like how velvet feels on his paws," says the ceiling hole.
Linnet pauses. "...oh. Okay, that's practical. Hi, Chmurka."
"Hard to believe the couerl hasn't ejected himself from the cannon at this point," Apoc mutters.
"So you two have been guarding this all day?"
"A fine time to socialize with the rarest member of the crew, and perhaps mend a broken bridge or two," Apoc says heartily.
"I don't trust him and he doesn't trust me. So we're both here," Chmurka says simply.
"That's fair. Anything come out and try to bite either of you?"
"That... seems practical," Yves says, a little more dubiously.
Apoc shrugs. "The Hive brought some equipment when it became clear neither of us were going to leave the other with this portal unattended. No dinner, but snacks were on hand." ("...thank you, by the way.") ("But of course.")
"I commend your restraint." Bast looks around. "What'd you do with the panel?"
Chmurka sticks her head out. "It's behind the curtain on the floor," she says, perfectly at home hanging upside down. "Nothing's come out. We both looked in, but it just looks weird in there."
Isa's brows knit. "Weird how?"
"Rather than asking, let's go look." Linnet is already starting for the portal.
Yves draws a notebook out of his satchel. "Let's go look, and write it down. That way it's science."
Apoc braces his foot on the closest panel to lean the throne back in range of the curtain's string, and pulls it down to unveil the hole in the sphere.
The blue-green sphere is indeed missing one of its previously thought to be impenetrable panels, and there is now a hole large enough to allow almost anyone on the ship entry. (Owen is almost as broad at the shoulder as Bast is tall, and really should not attempt this.) It is not pitch blackness that awaits within, nor everlasting light. Rather, it more resembles an unlit closet, at least from this vantage point; the ship's ambient light, and clearly some amount of... something... within.
A closer examination of the entryway gives more definition, if not clear answers.
Linnet spearheads the close examination, peering in and then thrusting her head through the aperture. "Hello?"
The interior of the Starfall's smaller sphere holds another sphere, yet smaller still. This smaller sphere is made up of a series of metal bars forming an interlocking barrier around a fifteen-foot square, floating in air, with open sides and a pedestal in its center.
The bars themselves are marked with locks; hovering multicolored glyphs that clearly bar anyone from gaining access, though by which means they bar it is left to one's imagination.
No one answers Linnet's call, nor do horrors from the darkest depths of despair take her arm clean off at the elbow.
Instead, her voice has a small echo, and her head feels slightly swimmy when she puts it through.
Yves leans over Linnet's shoulder, and says, "I wonder if there's a sphere inside that sphere too. Or inside the cube. Or the pedestal. Or all of the above. It could be spheres all the way down."
"There has to be a smallest sphere," Isa points out, unfamiliar with the concept of infinity.
Undeterred, Linnet steps the whole way inside the (open) sphere and inspects the glyphs.
Bast steps through after her, paying more attention to the bars for now.
Yves takes notes, like a good scientist who is currently sober and everything.
As soon as one fully enters the sphere, one finds that gravity is different inside, because it no longer points to the bottom of the ship, it points to the bottom of the sphere, and the outer shell of the sphere is always the bottom.
Bast stands on the new ground, his boots by the missing panel, no longer a hole in the wall but instead a hole in the floor by his vantage point.
"Hm." Bast tries a few experimental steps up and down what seemed to be the wall, from outside.
Linnet lifts her feet from the...floor?...and tests floating in this new weird gravity. "Huh." Then she calls out, "It's not dangerous, but gravity's screwy in here." As Orrey remains in his quarters (with Ivy), it falls to Linnet to sketch the glyphs for further study.
Yves puts his notebook away before trying a very careful crawl inside to follow the others. "It's not ethically horrifying yet, at least at first glance, so there's that! Better than the engine already."
Isa sticks her head into the hole, turns her head to the side, and sees Bast's feet. She decides instead to wait just outside.
Inside the sphere, more of the outside rim, the 'floor,' can be seen. As science demands notes, once the notebook returns, the following will be documented:
* The outer edges of the sphere are marked in twelve segments.
* Each segment has a number of starburst shapes emblazoned on its floor, starting with * and moving chronologically until there are twelve starbursts in four rows of three.
* The entry panel is in the fourth segment.
* Each segment has a centrally-located indentation, a place where something is to be inserted.
* Strewn arrhythmically throughout the sphere are twelve glyphs, carved from the same ceramic material that makes up the hull of the Starfall. Each glyph shares the same outline but the surface is painted and designed quite differently.
Once gathered into a central location, those glyphs are as follows, in alphabetical order:
Coiled purple serpent inside of a churning wave.
Dark brown rock turbine.
Devil’s wings of darkest black.
Dragon’s head flanked by wings.
Empty gray husk pulsing crimson.
Four feathered green wings in a spiral.
Four swords forming a cross.
Red demon’s head with dual horns.
Shimmering pink and blue ribbon.
Shining white castle wall.
Snowflake wrapped in a blue cloak.
White beard gradating into a yellow bolt.
"Hm. Okay, someone more systematic than me should decide how we're trying these out. And Yves, do you have a roster of everyone you have in your, uh, quarters?" Linnet's staring at the spiral of wings.
Yves digs into his satchel, and pulls out another notebook. "Of course! I've been doing interviews about habitat preference again lately, but I haven't started cross-indexing the responses yet."
"Mind listing them out for those of us who may have lost track?"
Bast runs his thumb over the beard glyph, then sets it back down, looking over at Linnet. "Figure this is theological, or something to do with our guests?"
"The latter. I see at least Diabolos, Midgardsormr, and Golem among that lot...and most likely Cinnabun and Guan Yu."
"I don't see Fenrir or Cerberus," Yves says, tilting his head to the side, "or at least I don't think I do, but--that one might be Alexander, do you think?"
"Well, we clearly don't have everyone to match this lot, and even if we did, what order do they go in?" Linnet pokes one of the circles in the wall.
"Or more importantly," Yves says, "is this really the sort of ship where we would want to start shoving people into symbolically appropriate circles? Just, uh, you know, given how the engine seems to work and all."
"Oh, I assumed we were shoving the glyphs, not the people."
"Ah...shit." Bast bites his lip at the mention of Alexander, and shuts up.
"Yves, do you want to ask Diabolos about this? Or maybe Principia?"
"I can go ask Principia," Yves says promptly. "And shoving glyphs is a lot less morally suspect, so that's all good!"
"See if you can get whoever's on KP to send up some dinner? Grapes are not a proper dinner."
"That too," Yves calls back, as he hurries away. Which means going by the kitchen first, since once he's talking to Principia, he's not gonna remember such things as food.
"Isa, can you go see if Celeste wants in on this? Not the whole ship, though."
"You know I'm going to step around the corner and she's going to pretend she hasn't been eavesdropping," Isa says.
"Well, tell her to stop pretending and get in here," replies Linnet nonchalantly.
Isa chuckles. "Right," she says, and steps around the corner.
Celeste is at the far end of the hallway, as if she's been down there the entire time, and definitely didn't just hurry back to look innocent.
Linnet thinks out loud. "Principia's books mentioned six elemental forces, which were a separate category from your standard guardian force...so if we assume they probably have something to do with this, then we don't necessarily slot in every other force we've met."
Isa raises an eyebrow at Celeste. "Catch your breath and then c'mon. It's esoteric shit and you'll be more use than I."
A very ladylike "hell yes" answers that, and Celeste beats Isa back to the hole in the sphere, breath be damned.
"Watch your feet, Celeste, gravity's weird here. Welcome to...a thing." Linnet waves without looking up from the pile of glyphs.
"The elemental forces Principia mentioned were Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Garuda, Titan, and Leviathan." Linnet shudders a little at the names. "So if we match these up here, and this pile over here..."
"In the order we laid them out, then, here's my guess." Linnet takes a deep breath. "Leviathan, Titan, Diabolos, Midgardsormr, Cinnabar, Garuda, don't know, Ifrit, don't know, Alexander, Shiva, and Ramuh."
"What I still have no idea of is what order we put them in, and if doing anything with the ones we haven't met yet - heavens forfend - will accomplish anything."
"...and what putting everyone where they belong will even do..." Bast mutters quietly, finally breaking his silence.
"Nice work on the names, though. If Yves or Principia don't have any ideas on the order either...suppose we might just have to try some and see what happens."
"End the world, free Asura, explode the ship, release a rainbow that leads all the way back to Alterna? No clue. Time to do science to it?"
Bast takes a small step back from the science, giving Linnet room to work.
"Um. I'd really rather consult Principia on this, but I think Yves got distracted when wandering by the kitchen. Or into his quarters. Or when pretty much anybody talked to him. He's good at that."
"Anyway, here's hoping this doesn't explode." Linnet picks up the gray glyph with the red light and pronounces, "Cinnabun, wherever you are, I apologize if this does something horrible."
She slots it into the one-star slot.
Nothing happens.
"Well, that's probably good." She removes the glyph and holds it up, pondering. "Cinnabar? You don't happen to be around anywhere, do you?"
As if summoned, Yves wanders back into view of the throne, Principia with him. He breaks off from a discussion of water locks and mechanical pump systems to hold Principia up toward the panel. "--right, here we are, you can see exactly what I wasn't describing properly before."
"Can't brute-force this one, it probably does something awful to them if you try too many times. Hurricanes. Well, maybe it goes above the door, because he was the first one to bond with us? Sort of?" Linnet slides the glyph into the fourth slot, tiptoeing to reach.
"Oh! A glyph puzzle! These vexed many a legendary hero. It is said that many heroes of ages past invoked Alexander for aid, that his Gordian Blade would cut through their trials, but Alexander helps those who help themselves." Principia rustles their pages in excitement.
"Lin, it's this kind of emotional lack-of-logic that drives Jasper batty," Linnet scolds herself under her breath while adjusting the glyph.
Yves nods in satisfaction. "Do you think it has anything to do with what we've done," he asks Linnet, "or is more, I don't know, ancient? Having to do with something that was true when the ship was made, not the order we got around to meeting people or fighting them or making them habitats or what not."
Nothing happens when the empty gray husk pulsing crimson glyph goes into the fourth slot.
Bast raises an eyebrow at Principia, rolling the castle glyph back and forth a couple of times before trying it in the first slot. (Nothing happens.)
"Oh, I assume I'm completely wrong, but worth trying. Hi, Yves, hi, Principia. Vexing indeed."
"Well, the glyphs definitely seem reminiscent of particular Espers," Principia says. "I would be quite shocked if you had encountered all of these so far, but I am certain at least one of these is currently resting in your room, Yves."
"We won't be able to do anything now if we need to bring them all in here in person," Yves says, examining the slots and the symbols. "But you're right, that over there really must be Diabolos, isn't it? No one else does quite the same sort of wings."
Bast stares at the white glyph briefly, then shrugs and returns it to the lineup. "Well, that's about the extent of my ideas. Yves, any notion of how they might be sequenced? Besides alphabetical."
"Musical!" Isa calls into the sphere, helpful as always.
"Comical." Bast shoots back, deadpan.
Linnet puts the six elemental glyphs in a line on the floor, in the order mentioned in Principia's book - demon, snowflake, lightning, feathers, rock, serpent. "Tragicomical-historical-pastoral," she adds. "Anyone have a serious suggestion?"
"Alphabetical seems unlikely," Yves admits. "But there are so many ways to quantify almost anything! Like, look at a table of elements, and now you end up mapping atomic weight against electron shells differently."
"What's an electron shell? No, don't tell me now, let's focus. Principia, if we've figured out who they are - we think - do you have any idea what the number of stars means?"
"Likely just a sequence, showing that there is a definite First and a definite Twelfth," Principia says confidently. "Interesting that they are stars, don't you think?"
"...do they have any relation to the Twelve? Orrey would know, dammit."
"...order of binding, maybe?" suggests Bast.
"I would think that unlikely, especially if Diabolos is listed among this number," Principia says.
Bast gives Principia a curious look. "Was Diabolos never bound? I thought they all were, before they began coming back."
"Oh, Diabolos most certainly was," Principia says. "I was merely referring to this puzzle. It would be, pardon the term, diabolical to mix both god and Esper in a puzzle like this, especially if this dates back to Alterna itself, as your ship does."
"If it's not about gods," Yves says, "then it must be about..." He stares at the stars for a long moment. "Nope, no idea. But I'll keep thinking about it."
"...something with constellations? Are they all in the same constellation, or each from a different one, or am I completely off base?"
"And is there any order to the constellations themselves?" Bast looks to the scholars of the party.
Linnet stops very suddenly, puts the glyph in her hand down, and swears very loudly. Then, she carefully navigates to the door, puts her feet back on the floor, and bolts for the storeroom.
Celeste blinks after Linnet, and then returns to cooing over the fascinating glyphs.
Isa watches Linnet go, then sticks her head into the sphere. "Everything alright in there?"
Linnet returns four minutes later, which really isn't enough time to get anywhere on this ship, carrying the Akademia Deck.
"Inspiration!" Principia says happily.
"Huh," says Yves. "Should I have picked up pastries while I was around the kitchen? I didn't think we needed snacks already..."
Linnet climbs inside the ship again, lays out the cards in order on the floor - wall - surface, and stares intently at them.
"The Ewer, The Remedy, The Might, The Deep, The Spire, The Bole, The Balance, The Arrow, The Spear, The Sinner, The Saint, The Ruin." Linnet taps each card as she says its name. "The hell..."
"Rude to call Diabolos a sinner," Yves notes, though apparently he's making an assumption already that the symbolism matches up that way.
Linnet hops to her feet, grabs the glyph with the purple serpent, and slots it into the one-star slot.
One of the glyphs on the center goes away.
"OKAY! Hold on, give me about five more minutes and I'll have this."
"Well damn." Bast, while approving, seems to have firmly decided that the best way to help is to stay out of the way of the librarian sylph with an Idea.
Linnet gathers up an armful of glyphs and tries them in the following order: serpent, husk, swords, dragon, beard, turbine, horns, feathers, snowflake, wings, ribbon, wall.
(correct, incorrect, correct, incorrect, correct, correct, correct, correct, correct, incorrect, incorrect, incorrect)
"Fair." Linnet takes the incorrect glyphs and lays them out by the cards.
Yves takes notes as Linnet works out the glyphs, showing his written commentary to Principia as he goes.
"Who do we think these are?" Celeste says, crouching down by Linnet, her trapped dagger dangling down close to the curving ground.
"Cinnabar, Midgardsormr, Diabolos, I don't know, and Alexander."
"This is Cinnabar?" Celeste picks up the empty gray husk pulsing crimson. "You said Cinnabar was cute. This is creepy and weird."
"Atomos, maybe?" Yves suggests. "That's not cute at all."
"We have a Saint, a Sinner, the Deep, the Remedy, and the Ruin among these."
The ribbon glyph goes in the second slot. (correct)
The winged glyph goes in the fourth slot. (correct)
Bast looks at the glyph Celeste picked up, lips curling in a sudden grimace of distaste. "Was the Parasite one of them?"
Principia hisses at even the mention of Azi Dahaka.
In the remaining slots, in order: the dragon, the wall, and the pulsing red husk. (incorrect, correct, incorrect)
"Oops." Linnet switches the last two.
The final glyph breaks.
Gravity switches into the other direction, but slowly, gently lowering everyone present into the center of the sphere.
Isa braces her hands against the side of the hole as her braid tries to find the center. "Whoa!"
Linnet lands with an abrupt thump. "What the breezes was that?"
Yves waves his hands about. "Unperplexed!"
Bast, fresh off a somewhat awkward landing, gives Yves a skeptical look.
There is a central console here. As they all land, the console retracts into the ground, and then images flash into existence, hovering in the air, purple and green, glyphs shifting into words and pictograms, before settling into three options.
* Research * Reset * Relay
"Leviathan, someone, someone, Diabolos, Ramuh, Titan, Ifrit, Garuda, Shiva, Atomos, Alexander, Midgardsormr." Linnet spins around, evaluating everything, before coming to a stop before where the console was. "Well, anyone have any more bright ideas?"
"Let's hit the research button!" Yves suggests, fingers twitching a bit.
"Okay, okay." Linnet laughs and cedes the floor.
Comments