Session 23 - Let's Take This Show On The Road

Previously, across the Horizon...
Alterna is a task too great.
The Starfall made its first trip back into the ruined capital of an ancient empire, and the dangers were quick and forceful this time.
The ship did not make it anywhere near the train station to search for Orrey's missing father, sister, or sister's friend that is a boy. Instead, a tremendous multi-elemental storm raged, surrounding the city, unleashing absolute hell upon the ship and its passengers.
After Isa led a desperate retreat away from Alterna, Orrey attempted to find out how sturdy the ship was, gauge its well-being, and was answered in person BY the Starfall, or at least some aspect of it.
The first Empress of Alterna, Relis Laurent, appeared before the full group, or at least an image of her. The Empress said that the ship carried Alterna's best hope to right its wrongs and atone for its crimes, and that the empire deserved to fall those hundreds of years ago.
Before much more light could be shed on what this meant, the image flickered out, and so too did Cinnabar, the emerald rabbit butting her head against Isa's leg before fading away.
The group together came to the realization that Alterna would have to wait, and the Starfall would need more hands. With Isa supervising Orrey as he looks for word of his father in Saron, and to supervise Yves's idle hands as he meanders around after Orrey, Bast and Linnet have been left with the task of outfitting an ancient airship filled with unknown secrets and arcane mysteries.
Linnet, fortunately, has a plan.
We join our skeleton crew as they arrive in Caelonde, ready to make good on a promised delivery...
It is early morning on the 24th day of the month of Saroni, a blustery chilly day. Caelonde's airship dock is seldom used, and hardly able to handle a ship of the Starfall's size. Bast put the ship down a bit of a walk out of the town, leaving you both to travel in by foot.
"I promise this will be quick. It really needs to be quick. The administrator may still like me, but if the head of reference sees me set foot in the library I am in so much trouble. You're welcome to wait in the coffee shop or something," Linnet says.
"...should I keep an eye on the ship, then? Or are you expecting trouble?" Bast asks.
Linnet is doing her best to compose her face into "totally at ease," but her wings are still twisting in agitation. "No trouble of the kind you normally run into. Just...ugh, politics. I should've borrowed a spare hat from Yves."
"For politics." Bast's skeptical expression seems to be planning to stay.
"...yes. Shut up." Linnet tries not to blush to the roots of her hair and returns to actively scanning campus for familiar faces. She's attempting to employ the "dart from tree to tree" system used by anyone who doesn't actually know how to be stealthy.
Bast strolls along from tree to hiding tree as Linnet makes her way to wherever she's going.
dart dart trip recover, dart
Caelonde is a city of pink-and-yellow trees, brick buildings, wrought-iron fences, and scarves. The smell of coffee and the scribbling of pens drifts along on the wind. Linnet's geometrically-confused path is taking her closer and closer toward one building in particular, a building with two stone iguions bracketing the stairs, the Central Resource Library that supports the entirety of Bresha University and the rest of the city around it.
Linnet beelines for the back door, then remembers she's not actually staff anymore and makes a u-turn toward the front. It's between classes, so the quad is fairly busy. She tucks her wings close to her back and tries to look like just another student, totally not the one who almost blew up one of the archives.
Bast adjusts course to follow Linnet and follows far enough behind for deniability.
Administrative offices are behind the desk, so there's probably no way to see Senior Librarian Thornwell directly. Linnet sets down her bag on a side table covered with campus events brochures and wrestles out a large brown-paper-wrapped package. She borrows a pen from the desk and scribbles quickly on the front, then draws a more precise scribble in one corner.
"Miss Leveche? Please come in," Thornwell's voice calls.
Linnet freezes.
A door creaks open down the east hallway.
The quaking sylph slumps. "Well, so much for the stealth approach. Bast? You coming?"
"Am I supposed to?" Bast abandons his pretense of idling by himself.
"C'mon, you might as well. Either that or grab a brochure and try to look really interested for a few minutes. Security tends to frown on people just idling in the lobby. They might be troublemakers. Book thieves, anarchists, page dog-earers, that sort of thing."
"Well, we can't have that." He makes a sweeping gesture towards the east hallway, inviting her to lead on.
Linnet makes the Walk of Shame down the east hallway, clutching her package like a shield, and pokes her head into the slightly open door. "Hello, ma'am. I was going to just leave this with one of the clerks as a delivery from External Acquisitions, but I guess I took too long."
Senior Librarian Jehu Thornwell is seated behind their desk, their lantern flickering on the corner by the inbox, using their thick tail as a backstop as they writes something down in a leather journal. They gestures with their pen to the chair across from their desk, and then returns to their writing.
Linnet sits down warily, glancing at Bast standing outside the office.
Bast slips in with a quiet "Ma'am" and something in the neighborhood of a courteous nod, and leans on the wall by the door.
Thornwell caps their pen and then looks up, as if seeing Linnet for the first time. "How was the auction?"
"Exhilarating. Fruitful! Here." Linnet sets the heavy package on a relatively empty corner of Thornwell's desk. The front reads "Senior Librarian Thornwell, from External Acquisitions," and the corner has a single music note with a tiny sketched wing on either side.
They take a moment to open the package and glance through at the contents, special care and attention placed on Green Study Vol. 1. "Sindarius did love his dramatics," they say, quietly, almost wistfully.
(The contents are, stacked in order of size, Green Study Vol. 1; Padjal's White Magery; A History of the Crystarium; and Architecture of the Alternan Empire, Third Era, still in its moisture-proof bag.)
Thornwell pages through the books. "A remarkable haul, Miss Leveche. How deep into the account did you have to go?"
"Pretty deep, but I hope it was worth it." (Linnet is attempting to do the actual math in her head.)
An eyebrow ridge rises, gleaming yellow eyes then narrowing. Thornwell turns the page back, then skips ahead three, and then returns to the original.
"There's...eight thousand left."
"Remarkable."
"And, um, I poked into the books a little, of course, except the architecture one, I didn't have the archival gloves for it. And I thought...there might be something weird in a couple parts of Green Study? Like, weirder than the rest of it?"
"I am seeing a few of these weirder parts, I believe," Thornwell says. "Tell me what you noticed."
"Some...time anomalies? Like, given how old this book and its subject are supposed to be, there's no reason they should be talking about shipping schedules or holidays that were just a couple of months back. And whichever two different people were in charge of writing about the Crystal really didn't see eye to eye. And their editor was lazy. ...far be it from me to think I know better than the top scholars in the field, of course, but some of this was just weird."
"Linnet," Thornwell says, shifting to the first name, "do you know if these books were tampered with in any capacity?"
"...this one was, yes. I swear on the iguions I had nothing to do with it. Nor did Bast. He's mostly responsible for getting me here in one piece." She flashes her captain a grateful if nervous smile.
"Who did?"
"One of our companions, or his father, under the direction (emphasis) of the possibly-a-crime-syndicate holding his dad hostage. Saronese politics. I think."
Thornwell looks at Linnet, and then opens their journal. "I think you had best explain," they say, uncapping their pen.
"It was made very clear to him that his father's safety depended on his putting messages in these books. Now, I don't think the edits were all his? But at least some of them were. And I'm not currently going to risk a man's safety for the cause of intellectual integrity. Currently. The other half of our motley traveling crew is currently in pursuit of our friend's dad. So hopefully this will all be over relatively quickly. But, I wasn't going to deliver a book you requested specifically without mentioning there was something weird going on inside it." Linnet stares uncomfortably at her shoes. "I think there are some in Padjal's White Magery as well, but to be perfectly honest I got really bored reading that one really quickly."
The Senior Librarian's gaze falls squarely at Bast, and the weight of a thousand years of late fees press into the moogle's shoulders.
Bast, mostly a stranger to library fines and not on speaking terms with paying them with his own money, looks unconcerned.
After a moment, Thornwell re-caps their pen. "How involved are you in all of this, now?" "In the planting of messages, not at all. In helping our friend rescue his family, fairly deeply. ...I think it's been good for me to get out and see the world, actually."
Thornwell rises up from their tail-sit and makes the gradual walk over to the door. After closing it and returning to the desk, they speak again. "The messages in this book are an attempt to kill me."
That gets Bast's attention.
"WHAT?" Linnet claps her hands over her mouth before she swears in front of Thornwell. "Senior Librarian, ma'am, point me at 'em and I'll teach them a lesson! Are they...would it, like, kill you just to read them, or are they assassination plans, or what the hell - why the hell - YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT WITH BOOKS YOU - " and again, Linnet physically shuts herself up before she does something stupid. She's levitating in rage, though. "Sindarius was always fond of his ciphers. When we adventured together, he kept his allies informed with similar messages. He favored books like this for transmitting messages; the older the better, for so many people like to come into possession of these books for the status, not the words within. A simple way to communicate to someone within a household, versus the household's head."
"...okay, that makes some sense, but..." The sparks in Linnet's hair die down slightly, but she's still hovering.
"The group responsible for your friend's father's capture has broken that cipher and is attempting to lure the recipient to a specific place. The message here is tailored to me; Sindarius knew I would go get this, and that I would follow the message within." They growl, a slight sound in the back of their throat. "Fortunately, I know him better than they do, and I can tell the difference." "So you're not going, right? Can I go instead and zap them seven ways to next month?"
"No, and no."
Linnet looks mildly disappointed, but she does manage to sit down.
Bast pulls a hand out of his pocket as Linnet touches down on the chair again, looking slightly relieved.
"Linnet. You are a young, bright, promising librarian. The last thing you need to do is get caught up with people like -- like these people." Thornwell opens a drawer in their desk and pulls out a long purple box, a green and yellow ribbon wrapped around it. "You should help your friend rescue his father and then forget about every aspect of this."
Linnet sighs. "With all respect, ma'am, by virtue of my proximity to our friend Orrey - and by virtue of having saved his life, I think twice - I'm kind of already caught up with these people. But, I promise not to beeline directly for them and throw lightning in their faces while screaming at them not to mess with you."
Bast clears his throat. "Anything you can tell us about them might help the next time we run across them."
Thornwell thinks this over.
Bast tries to look like a reasonably impartial and disinterested doorstop, but doesn't succeed.
"If this is the same people from before... they call themselves the Order Yet Undeciphered. They are a decentralized group looking to destabilize most of, if not all, of the people in power in Ducorde. To what end I do not know, and I did not know before Sindarius and I parted ways."
Linnet raises one skeptical eyebrow at the name. "So they've been around a while, then."
The ribbon on the box unties, and Thornwell opens it, withdrawing a very fine jeweled dagger -- a match for the ones you saw in Sindarius's estate. "Again. Remove yourself from their immediate world. I do not want to hear about your passing before me."
"That, I will do my best to prevent." Linnet bows her head.
"Trouble is, they seem to be looking for us," Bast says.
"Then make yourself scarce. You are--"
A knock comes at the door.
Bast takes a step to place himself behind the door when/if it opens.
Linnet composes herself and dampens the sparks around her fists.
The dagger is back in its box, which is back in its drawer, with truly shocking speed for a tonberry, as the door opens. "Jehu, have you seen the intake forms, Cass needs them to--"
To Bast, even through the mottled glass of the Senior Librarian's window, the person on the other side of the door looks like any other librarian. Human, tall, round spectacles, a thin mustache and a pointy beard to try to make up for his weak chin. His jacket probably has elbow patches, and his shoes most certainly do not have laces.
To Linnet, well, she'd recognize Laren Radovid, Head of Reference, anywhere.
The composed smile does not reach Linnet's eyes.
"Leveche," he says icily. "I was unaware your probation had ended."
"Dr. Radovid, sir. Senior Librarian Thornwell summoned me." (Only in from the lobby, but technically true.)
"Did she."
Thornwell clears their throat. "Miss Leveche had just finished a delivery, and I believe she was leaving."
Somewhere behind Dr. Radovid, a female student is attempting to sink into the shadows out of secondhand embarrassment.
Linnet deliberately ignores Radovid as she stands up and shoulders her bag. "Ma'am, thank you for your kind words, and I shall endeavor to put your advice to the best of applications." She glances behind Radovid and recognizes the student in question, signaling for her to wait somewhere outside this hallway. "Sir, if you'll allow me." Radovid is blocking the door, intentionally or no.
Dr. Radovid barely steps to the side to allow Linnet past, barely even acknowledging her further.
Linnet throws the Senior Librarian a quick smile, exits with grace, then practically trips over her own feet in a race to the lobby.
Bast hooks two fingers around the edge of the door and moves it slowly as he steps out from behind it, for maximum squeaking. He puts on the most insolent smile he can manage for Dr. Radovid's benefit and saunters by him without a word.
That gets a response from Dr. Radovid, a barely restrained glare at the absolute cheek of this... this youth, and then the door is very loud behind him.
"Defend me from tornadoes and rabid abusers of petty power. Nellie! Is Jasper around? I sent him a message, but you know how bad he is at responding to things. Also, thank you for covering my escape from Radovid the Rabid. Sheesh."
Nellie gives Linnet the most sympathetic smile she has. She's someone Linnet has had a class or two with, and has always seemed personable, but the overall circles never quite matched up, save for the center of that diagram, Jasper Samson. "I think I saw him heading out of the theater like half an hour ago with two of those big vertical wheelie carts?" She tries to approximate them with her hands.
"Hm, I haven't heard anything crash, that's odd. Any idea which way out of the theater?"
"East, I think," she says, which is the direction of the Starfall.
"Thank you! And if Radovid asks you anything, I was just leaving. C'mon, Bast." Linnet winks at Nellie, departs the library at a casual walk, and then breaks into a run as soon as she's outside.
Bast has given up on trying to figure out Linnet's maneuvers, and is mostly just trying to keep her in sight.
Linnet is two steps away from the door when it feels a little too warm in here.
...which is made easier when the sylph skids to a halt and turns around very slowly.
It's warm in here. Too warm. Too warm. Increasingly too warm. Increasingly too warm. Increasingly too--
Bast blinks at Linnet in confusion, but stops along with her.
When fire has nowhere to go, it just rages. When fire has nowhere to escape, it lashes out. When fire has nowhere to go, it lashes out. It's just like before, with the books at the edges, the books filling the shelves, so much food for the fire. It was just one spell, it shouldn't lash out like this, it shouldn't ever lose control like this, it shouldn't flare up like this. Linnet is standing in the middle of a fire that has burst out of its bubble, and there is nothing left to burn.
Pull the winds in, wind only feeds a fire. Linnet manages to retract all of her ambient breezes, and ice crystals ring her fists. That's as far as anything helpful goes, though, because she's standing stock-still and squeezing her eyes shut.
The flames lunge in, hungry for the wind, eager to grasp it, to inhale it, to breathe it, to feed on it.
Stifling all sound but a little whimper of a scream, Linnet slams into the nearest wall and shrinks down against the floor. it can't hurt you if it can't get to you
"What is it?" Bast crouches nearby, looking alarmed.
Frost begins to rime Linnet's braid and her still-closed eyelashes. There's still almost no sound from her. She's just huddled against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible, absolutely refusing to open her eyes. no breeze, no breeze, no breeze, don't breeze, don't even breathe There are two hands on her shoulders, shaking her firmly. "Can you hear me? What's going on?" Bast looks around for anyone who might have a better idea of what to do here.
As soon as Bast's hands touch Linnet -- landing on bitter-cold skin -- it's over.
The heat is gone, like it was never there, save the little sparking embers she can see when she opens her eyes, floating up from around her and dissipating into the air.
Embers that Bast can also see.
She blinks open slightly stiffened lashes and sees a very worried moogle in her face. "Bast? The hell? Why...wait. Where is everyone?" Then she glances past his shoulder to see a few people staring and several more pretending they totally weren't staring. "Shit. Right. Let's get out of here." To a security guard who starts to approach, "It's fine, I'm fine! Finals-induced panic attack. Nothing to worry about."
Bast recoils slightly at the embers, their trip into Alterna all too fresh on his mind - but turns back to Linnet when they fizzle out with no apparent murderous intent. "...right."
She pries herself up from the floor, dusts off her pants, glances up at the floating embers, shakes her head, and resumes her exit. ('Finals-induced panic attack' does not take into account that it's several weeks before finals. She's hoping nobody noticed.) "...let's hit the coffee shop on the way back, I think I need something stronger than cinnamon rolls."
***
About ninety minutes later, with a break for cinnamon rolls and some haggling for hard liquor that goes nowhere, Linnet and Bast return to the Starfall.
Which looks... different?
And not just because there are about twenty people clambering all over it.
As they approach, a moogle with a long pink ribbon hooked up on the railing far above her runs along the edge of one of the spheres, carrying a string of lights after her.
"...just what did you tell them about this?"
The string sails across to the other, smaller sphere, into the hands of a sylph who loops it around a piece of canvas stretched across the gap between the two spheres. "Got it!"
A stocky, kilted earth sylph cups his hands over his mouth, and even though he's facing away, his voice rings their ears. "Tighten up around the support beams! This thing can fly and anything we build has to hold up to that!"
"Oh, enough." Linnet grins, all apparent traces of whatever happened in the library gone. "JASPER! You big lunk, what's it going to take for you to answer a message?"
The silhouette of the Starfall is completely different now, the spheres starting to vanish inside the suggestion of a large, curved hull, twinkling lights now being wrapped in semi-translucent silk as a team of nearly-identical women are wheeled across the length of the ship with welding torches and glue guns.
"Linnet!" Jasper Samson crushes Linnet in a hug, and then gestures to the ship. "Behold, our newest stage!"
"Forgotten's balls", Bast mutters to himself.
"Oof, I needed that." Linnet kisses Jasper on one hairy cheek and gazes up at the set. "Thank you for reminding them this isn't a shim-and-a-prayer sort of job."
On the deck, Shula Brighton waves to Linnet, and then returns to dangling over the railing, dropping little sparks of fiery light down the side, letting the motes sear just a little bit of weathering along the wood to make it look like it's been there for longer than two minutes now.
"Any chance you could get them together to introduce them to the captain?"
"I could try, but we've probably got people all over this thing now. It's a hell of a set you've got us building!"
"...assuming he still wants to be captain, that is?" Linnet glances back at Bast, not letting him slink away from this one.
"Is that a mutiny I hear?" Bast looks back with an expression midway between croggled and supercilious.
"Not in the slightest. By the way, Jas, did someone get my message about the costume?"
"The idea!" A ponytail dashes in, chasing a willowy human woman with a smile a country wide. "The idea is a ship restored three times, rising from a sailing ship that crossed the central sea, then after meeting its first end with a broadside from a pirate ship -- pirate ship! -- it was repurposed into a steamboat casino!"
"Fortunately, Rahel," Jasper says with a grin, "someone forgot the nineteen cans of red paint you bought."
In Saron, over a drink, Isa off-handedly says "Don't worry, Yves. Bast is with her. I'm sure they're taking good care of your love."
"Dammit, now we're gonna have to go back for them." Linnet grabs Rahel in a flying tacklehug. "Good to see you, you crazy wonderful people. All of you. Jas, please, give 'em the Samson Shout and get 'em down here to meet the boss."
"I know exactly what you did with those cans of paint and believe you me, revenge is a dish best served on the widest possible canvas." Undeterred, Rahel continues. "Once it -- oof, hey, missed you! -- found a new captain, though, it became the newest battleship in the Fleet of the Kupo Captain!" Jasper unleashes an ear-splitting whistle, and then a tricorner hat comes whipping down from the deck. He snatches it out of the air, brandishes it like a holy relic, and then bows. "For you, Captain Bast of the Starfall," he says, "the Theater of the Untranslatable offers our words, our wits, our backs, and our brains, plus the most important prop of all -- the hat." He pokes a finger through the top of it -- a perfect spot for a pompom.
One by one, the troupe assembles, sailing in on ropes and trotting in from Forgotten knows where.
A navy-blue coat with half a dozen epaulettes also emerges.
Perfectly moogle-sized.
"Bast, I'd like you to meet the Theater of the Untranslatable. Cast, this is your captain. When he says jump, you do not say "what's my motivation?""
"We already know our motivation," comes a new voice, one that Linnet does not recognize.
"Man, only a few weeks away and already my jokes are stale?"
A sylph steps to the center of the line, flourishing his right arm in front of his chest, a winning smile spreading across his lips. His crystalline-blue skin catches the late morning sun beautifully, his short silver hair dangling just a little in front of his eyes.
Bast takes the hat gingerly, as if still having second thoughts - then, with a deep breath, flips it over in his hands and puts it on, green pom taking a couple of tries to get through the hole. He raises a hand to stop the advancing crewman with the coat. "Welcome to the Starfall, then. Backs and brains and hat and all. I take it you all know Linnet already?"
"Apocynthion Lunakrei Tolvani -- the Third," he adds for effect, dipping into a bow. "We pledge our lives to our captain and our ship, at least until the third act, when due to shortages we will be switching to the role of dastardly villains with the appropriate costume change."
"Meet our new lead," Jasper says under his voice. "Rahel found him, and now everything's a love story or a tragedy or a tragic love story."
"Good thing we haven't budgeted for costume changes yet, then." Bast doesn't look particularly impressed.
"Shortages, hell, you'd be bored out of your skulls if you weren't in the big battle. Linnet Leveche. Charmed." Linnet sizes him up openly. "Rahel, really, two shows as our leading gentleman and you're already recruiting your replacement? I'm almost wounded." She winks.
"Ahh, he's fun," Shula says, draping an arm around both Jasper and Linnet. "And yes, Captain, we all know Linnet, much as she might like to pretend otherwise!"
Rahel just beams, then offers Apocynthion her hand and they break into a very ornate, rehearsed dance, a flute and violin appearing from within the rest as if by magic.
"And yes, Bast, I can vouch for all the rest of these folk. Meet the cast, and about half the crew, of Cavaliers of Caerwyn. The spring show is over, their final grades are in, so they're pretty much killing time until fall rehearsals start. They're used to working as a team, they're really pretty good about not tripping over each other's feet, and they do quick and fast work at whatever you set them to. Plus, they can sing."
"Any of you work a ship before?" Bast asks.
"Rahel and I were the leading pair; we were a bit short on young males who could actually dance. So she got to prance around leading pirates on daring raids and I got to simper in the background, at least until the third act. And I mean, they've all worked a stage ship." Linnet glances at Shula and Jasper for a little bit of backup here, please. "Jasper's our stage manager, Shula does our lighting, and Rahel, well, you couldn't keep Rahel off the stage with a shepherd's hook."
"Linnet said you all needed help, we need the practice, and we'd never turn down a friend!" Jasper says. "Ship duties! Bjrn apprenticed on a trading ship last summer. Akil's been a ship's carpenter before. One of the Hive has a mother who runs an airship line."
("The Hive are the six nigh-identical women you saw earlier with the welding guns," Linnet explains. "They have names, but they're so rarely apart that we find it easier to just refer to them en masse.")
All six laugh in unison at something Apocynthion says.
("And besides, all their names are flowers and we keep forgetting which is which.")
"I've flown my own ship," Apocynthion says, disentangling himself from the dance and joining the conversation. "I can't promise to be the best sailor you've ever seen, but I promise to keep my head out of the clouds and on the task at hand."
"Where did she find you?" Linnet murmurs, not really expecting an answer.
"On a star-crossed night," he starts, until Rahel playfully shoves him, giggling.
Bast nods. "Sounds like a good start. I'm not expecting anything too fancy to start with - get to know the ship and how she handles, the speed and the build are different from what you might be used to. Linnet, you and Apo...cynthion are in charge of sorting out who's best fit for what work aboard, and who needs some time with Bjrn or Akil first. How much time do you need here before we can fly?"
"Apoc to my friends," Apocynthion says with a grin, and then he cedes the floor to Jasper.
"Poor wand'ring one, though you have surely strayed / Take heart in grace, thy steps retrace..." Linnet dances through the party as she sings, but then hears Bast being Serious Captain and resumes her position beside him.
"We can be in the air in two hours if you don't go too fast while we make sure the nails all hold. And this way," Jasper adds, "Anyone who knows what this ship used to look like? They'll have no idea this is it."
"There is that," Linnet agrees.
"And if you don't like how it looks? We do it all again!" he says, the grin on his face making it clear he relishes the idea of leading another construction job.
"Best make sure everything holds before we fly. A few extra hours won't make that much difference, and it's ever so much harder to pick up things that fall off in flight."
"Don't worry, we packed plenty of extras. Just not any of the red paint."
"Just make sure the theme song waits until we're well on our way. He's not really used to actors." Bast and the crew have seen Linnet focused, Linnet plucky and optimistic, Linnet distracted, but they've never seen Linnet quite so...in her element. No pun intended. "C'mon, you three. Earth, Wind and Fire have some stories to pry out of Rahel, it seems."
"Shards have mercy", Bast mutters to himself again. Then, to the crew: "Looks you all have this part in hand. Carry on; we leave in three hours." He climbs up the side of the ship and finds a good spot to supervise.
And with that... End Session 23.