Session 62.1 - The God-Clock Is Ticking

As the party settles down for the night, a faint nod from Bast draws Isa off. It is officially Late according to the temple clock and the streets are oddly still, Mechon's citizens having turned in at the appointed hour. Bast finds a wall to lean on and takes a moment to gather his thoughts before opening with "Have you heard anything about this place before? The Edge of the World?"
Isa shakes her head. "Not even a little bit. It sounds...esoteric."
Bast nods at Isa's word choice. "Yeah. Magic that works the way you expect, in a fight or in an engine, I can live with. This - isn't that, from what we've heard. Any accounts of this sort of...holes in time that you know about?"
"I have to be frank," Isa says, "my education in magic is almost completely focused on the battlefield. Black magic explodes, white magic puts you back together. So...this is going to get weird, isn't it."
Orrey pops out of a time loop and shouts “NO!!! Don’t go that way!!!” And then he vanishes.
Bast, after initially jerking to full alert, peers back at the rest of the group and sees Orrey settling down for the night.
"Really weird. Alterna-fucking-weird. Something's not right with this town."
Isa blinks a few times, convinces herself she didn't see that, and turns back to Bast. "Really? Reminds me of the city," (which to her always means the Cardian capital) "but who knows what's going on out on the fringes."
"Life." Bast sounds downright grim. "However it can. Be interesting to see what that means in a place where time doesn't work right."
"Something I've been wondering about. Your dragoon training - was that mostly combat? Or were they making officers there? Not sure what being an Osler gets you."
"Ah. Being an Osler got me in, and...that's about it. The Academy trains officers, but that goes all the way down to squad leadership so there's enough combat training to go around. Plenty of people go for rear echelon studies; logistics and organization and such. A lot of air fleet officers. Most of the nobility return to their house forces, others sign on with a house or one of the chasseur regiments."
"Was that where you figured you were headed? Service with another house, or maybe your own?"
Isa nods. "Home. Right now the house fleets are under my uncle Elias, and since Myrta will inherit leadership of the house, the fleets would normally go to me."
Bast considers this. "That still the plan, if the politics settle down?"
Isa considers this as well. "You know, I honestly don't know. I'd hope so. But unless something happens it won't be for years."
"Who knows which way the winds will blow," Bast agrees, omitting his habitual if a fart from Itami won't help things along coda. "I was mostly curious about your habit of...being ready to be in charge, I suppose. Military's often a good guess for that, but after meeting your mother I'm not so sure."
"The Academy teaches command, which is...well, it's not leadership." She looks thoughtful. "I'm used to knowing my place, and having everyone around me know the same. You give an order and it gets followed because everyone knows that's what happens. You get an order and you follow it for the same reason. It keeps an army running smoothly when you have thousands of people to aim in a single direction. It's been...tricky, here. My mother's a leader. She doesn't care if you want to do what you're told or not, you're going to do it. My sister's the same way. I don't think that's me."
"Pff-hah." Bast suppresses outright laughter, but the mirth is there under the surface. "Where does making people want to do what you tell them fall in the nomenclature?"
Isa shrugs. "It's never come up."
That does get a laugh. "Well, shit. And here I thought I'd ask for advice on that part."
Isa chuckles. "Yeah, sorry. I can yell at people all you want, but if you're looking for tips on inspiration, I don't know."
"I figure it's something you improvise along the way." Bast's still looking amused. "But no, not quite that ambitious. It's just...I don't get why most of our crew is along for the ride. And without that, I don't know what I can do with them. Orrey would probably stick his head in a meatgrinder if it looked interesting enough. Yves is looking for ways to...be a better..." He has to get the laughter under control again. "...but the actors? I could see probably pays better than acting filling out a merchant crew, but you'd think Diabolos would make for a lot of second thoughts. And yet no one's deserted, or even complained. I don't get it." He looks perturbed by a sudden thought. "Is it Linnet that's holding this crew together?"
"Never underestimate the power of a well-timed muffin," Isa says drily. "Look, it's no secret that actors are not my first choice of crew. Or my second. Let's say ninth. But they're used to working together, and they can generally be told what to do. We're working on filling the key roles with more..." she chooses her adjective carefully, "professional crew. If we can keep that up, we won't be in too much of a pinch when they finally get bored and wander off. There are even a few who might stick around."
Bast nods. "It's not that I don't like things being smoother than expected. But..." His fingers flex, as if reaching for a metaphor. "It's like building something with materials you don't know; you wouldn't expect everything to work out. Things I build, I want to know two things above all else - how it's likely to fail, and how badly it's likely to fail. Don't have that here."
Isa nods, sympathetically. "It's bad enough we don't know what we're up against, we also don't know what we have to work with."
"Diabolos counts for a lot, there. It's not knowing why that gets me. And speaking of not knowing what we're up against..." There's a long pause ending in a sigh. "I might need you to be more ready to take over for me than usual, this time."
This raises one of Isa's eyebrows. "Expecting trouble?" she asks, then revises, "unusual trouble?"
"Remember Ingrid?"
Isa thinks. "Vaguely."
"She had a vision - giant clock wrapped in chains, getting close to - two o'clock? I had one too, before I met you all; I think I mentioned it before. The clock shattering on the stroke of twelve. That clock." He tilts his head in the direction of the temple without looking at it.
"Apparently I needed a reminder, because I saw the chains again. In the middle of the day, when we were going to Tellah's. Between that and whatever weirdness Orrey's seeing - well. Can't shake the feeling that Mechon's got something special set aside for me. Gonna be interesting to find out."
"Well," Isa says, "shit."
Bast nods slowly, looking across the street. A few breaths later, he unpeels from the wall and leads the way back.