Session 63 - Make 'Em Say Unkiu

East of Machanon, the world ends.
At first glance, it is not so dramatic as that. The sky does not shatter. Portals to a dark void do not open up, spitting out multi-jawed nightmares. The winds do not whip into a wild frenzy.
The ocean just stretches out, as far as the eye can see. Once the Meteor has flown for hours past the shoreline, with Saroni not even a suggestion in the distance, there is nothing to see where the sky meets the sea. For a time, there is nothing but the wind and the waves.
Then, those die, and the world ends.
There is a point where the ocean falls still and silent. There is a point where the wind carries not even a whisper. There is a point where there is nothing but stale air and placid water, as far as the eye can see. This is where sailors dare not tread, where sails hang empty, where ships turn to ghosts and memories. Passing through this without magic to bolster one’s winds and a destination in mind is as sure a death sentence as a sword to the neck.
There is only one destination through those dead waters. The Edge of the World.
It is an island that rises above the horizon well before one arrives, a mountainous island draped in hanging vines and climbing trees, buildings that barely remember they are buildings jutting out from the edges, industrial trees overgrown with nature’s gradual vengeance. The buildings are green and gold metal corroded by rust and time, gears gripped by coiling ivy, massive roots pushed through rent steel.
Every fourteen minutes, there is a groan from the ground, a shift in the terrain, and a gout of steam shoots into the air from the top of the tallest building. It is the only sound that comes from the island.
Azdar Chid’s ship rests on the sandy beach, its sails still gusting with the memory of the magic that guided it through the dead air. The Meteor is on the beach as well, the back of the smaller airship in the water to balance its weight, a large boulder separating it from Chid’s ship for defensive purposes, Isa’s training never far from her mind.
We join our brave adventurers as they step foot onto the bright sands for the first time…
**
"Fourteen minutes. Odd." Orrey puts away his watch and glances about. "Where to first?"
Chid and Aurin are on the island, further up the beach, walking with purpose toward the largest of those structures, at the center of the landmass. Aurin is walking and talking normally.
"I'm guessing that way," Orrey says, quickly following those two.
"The steam is the obvious direction," Yves says, "but is it TOO obvious?" He's been muttering to himself along those lines since the island came into view.
"Follow the people who aren't here for the first time, yeah." Bast does one last check on his crossbow, fully assembled and ready for trouble, before setting off along the beach.
Linnet checks the drawstring on her pack of extra provisions, slaps her face a couple of times to wake herself up fully, and pats the Meteor on the hull in a reassuring manner. "We'll be back soon. I think. I hope."
Isa finishes shutting Meteor down, and hops down from the deck to follow. She's not even bothering with discretion for this job; she is wearing the thigh-high armored greaves of a Dragoon, and her gauntlet has been augmented with additional armor all the way up and over her shoulder.
Yves' idea of 'no need for discretion' is his adventuring coat, with its dramatic stitching where he got stabbed in the literal back. Or was it slashed in the back? He's not up to date on the terminology, but he's doing his best to cut a dashing figure while also taking in all the sights, smells, and (lack of) sounds in this place.
(Dashing back inside for one last thing, Linnet finally leaves the ship and sets off after Bast and company, having changed into better shoes. This looks like a hiking boots sort of place; she borrowed Rahel's.)
The interior of the building is a lot like the outside, in that it has clearly seen better days, and those days were hundreds of years ago. Light shines in from holes in the walls, the angle of the sun causing those small holes to throw their light far across the ground. Two walls inside here are utterly destroyed, rubbled over and blocked with precariously-balanced broken beams. Parts of the floor threaten to pitch Orrey into the depths, cracks and holes showing a dangerous lack of stability. There are almost no signs that this was once anything but a crumbling, dilapidated ruin.
"More adventure holes..." Orrey says, half grumbling and half excited to be exploring.
Chid turns to them as they enter. "Behold," he says, spreading his arms out wide, "the Edge of the World. The best source we have for what once came before, a city that once not only lived but thrived, now reduced to this ignoble end. Somewhere within what remains of these walls is the means to uncover the past... and, of course, help our dear friend Aurin."
Aurin rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah," he says. "Sure."
"Help him uncover the past, of course," Linnet interjects brightly. "So, um, are we looking for anything specific in here, or are we just sort of expecting to jump into a hole and see where we land?"
"Not the holes again," Yves says, in the mildest alarm.
"Everyone watch your step, this time," Isa says.
"Here," Chid says, "this way." He beckons the group over toward where the western wall once was, before the western wall became the western obstruction and a much, much larger western pile of debris on the ground. "As you get closer, you should see it."
Orrey eagerly advances.
Bast, eyebrows raised, follows rather more slowly.
As they follow Chid, there is a shimmer in the air ahead, to where he is leading. Orrey sees it first, in his excitement to be in front.
"Huh," Yves says, and digs into his satchel to pull out a notebook at last.
The air seems to warp, as if the world is being viewed through a particularly muddy lens.
And then, Orrey first sees it.
The past.
Orrey sucks in a breath, eyes going wide, forgetting even to grab his sketchbook.
A room of shining copper and polished steel, with bookcases lining the walls, automatically-moving ladders that slide between them as if following some ancient instruction.
(Linnet, of course, is immediately spellbound.)
Orrey wanders slowly over to the bookcases, dodging the ladders, and tries to pull out one book that stands out from the rest.
Orrey steps out of the portal's edge, and he is back in the Edge of the World.
Orrey's fingers close on air as he looks around, confused. He turns around and looks back.
"While we can look, while we can breathe their air, while we can smell their steel and sand, while we can hear the industry that created such a place... we cannot truly inhabit it," Chid says, longingly.
"...Orrey, has anyone ever told you that you're lucky to have lived as long as you have?"
"Well, I guess somebody had to try it. Did you see what the book was?" Linnet sighs. "And, yes. Including me, several times."
"These rifts in time, they do not allow us to move freely through them. We can stand there and see everything as it was, but we cannot move about. All of those books, all of that knowledge... just out of reach," Chid continues, peering into the portal himself.
"You and Isa, several times so far. Risk and reward, Bast. Risk is worth the reward." Orrey says. "Most of the time, anyway."
"Until it's not," Isa notes.
"Well, we're here, and we can either stand around staring at things and going 'huh, that's interesting,' or we can do science. And Orrey is more of the active science-doing type! So, Azdar, I take it you're looking for a more stable connection somewhere on the island?"
Yves is taking notes. Mostly on what people are saying, but his left ear twitches slightly as he does so.
"Have you had any luck using Time magic to manipulate the images?" Orrey asks. Orrey wanders back to where he can see the bookcases.
"We have never come here with a Time Mage," Chid says. "Are you a Time Mage?"
Orrey nods. "I'm going to try speeding up what we're seeing. Unless there are strenuous objections from anyone?" Orrey glances innocently at Bast, Isa, Linnet, and Yves.
"Yes, Linnet," Chid says to her, "we need to find a way to pass through, or see if deeper within the Edge of the World there is another portal closer to the libraries. Not everything there is reflected here, so I have cause for optimism..."
Yves shrugs. "I mean, I don't know much about time magic," he says, though his ear twitches again.
"Speeding up a library seems very reasonable. If we see a battle or the active collapse of a building or something, maybe hold off on speeding up that one until we know what we're doing."
Aurin is sticking to himself, following Chid's footsteps but staying clear of the main group.
Bast looks over at Aurin. "So hanging around ancient libraries helps?"
"I feel more stable here," Aurin replies, hands in his pockets.
Orrey casts Haste at the portal.
The portal swallows the spell.
The rubble explodes outward, a particularly large chunk of it barreling forward at Orrey, smaller pieces scattering to all sides.
The piece of rubble stops, and the shadows under it unfurl, chitinous limbs clicking out, two stalks with pulsing orbs on the end searching as two very large claws emerge as well, clacking together.
The portal swallows Orrey.
The Unkiu, the massive crustacean inhabiting a piece of the destroyed city that is now the Edge of the World, scrapes at the ground in frustration, and then turns its attention, and those of its siblings as they emerge, toward the rest of the group.
"Uh," says Yves.
"Hey Bast? Until Orrey gets back, you can yell at me about that in his place, okay?" Linnet sets down her bag and squares her stance.
"Real. Fucking. Rewarding." Bast snarls, jumping back and slamming a bolt into place.
"Fuck," Isa spits, and launches herself up into the air, bringing her spear out as she surveys the field.
"I don't even know if I should be worried about Orrey or not at this point," Yves says, shoving the notebook down into his satchel with one hand while his other hand snaps up to flick an exploratory cascade of lightning toward the crab zone.
The blast of lightning from Yves's gestures rings through the open building, and Isa watches all three of the unkius startle, drawing more into their shells and skittering about. The blue unkiu dashes away from Yves, passing into Orrey's wake as it clicks and clacks its way across the debris-strewn floor into the time portal. As it steps into the field, though nothing happens to the unkiu's body, the debris inside of which it has made its home changes dramatically. Instead of a nondescript piece of petrified, rusted metal, the unkiu resides within a shiny, partially-hollow shell of chrome with sparkling lines of blue energy coursing through its shell, up to a freely-rotating cylinder at the end.
"...well that explains a lot," Yves mutters, shaking both his hands as if trying to get water off.
All of the blue energy pulses, and then starts flashing rapidly.
And then the turret fires at Yves.
The bright blue beam of light lances through Yves, the sheer cold locking the viera mage in place.
Yves shouts something deeply obscene about the crabs' use of mushrooms.
"Hey! Pick on someone your own age!" Linnet gives a gentle underhand toss toward Yves' ankles, the spell smelling of warm cinnamon sugar. It doesn't free him completely, but maybe it helps?
Bast looks down at the grenade he has snatched off his belt, at the turreted crab, and stuffs it in one of his many pockets. The rattle of crossbow bolts against rubble and strange flesh isn't loud enough to startle the crabs, but serves its purpose.
The red and green unkius are still scrambling from the blast of lightning, each retreating into the same corner of the room, clawing and scratching at each other until the red unkiu establishes dominance and the green one scatters away. A moment later, the red shell whirs to life, another pocket of misplaced time in that corner. Three beams of fiery energy spray out, catching everyone but Yves in their path.
The green unkiu scrambles about, finding nowhere to hide, but its bravery is returning as it scrabbles past Azdar and Aurin.
Orrey blips into existence.
Orrey desperately casts Accelerate on Isa, giving her the chance to attack ONE LAST TIME!
Isa is buffeted by flame, which neatly answers the question of where she should make her landing. Trailing smoke, she descends point-first onto the red shell.
Yves continues to enumerate a truly unique series of interactions between the ancestors of the unkius and various toxic forms of fungus, but amidst that he claps his hands together, as if catching a tiny creature between them, and then flings out a single colorless mote towards the blue unkiu that has him currently locked in place. The mote looks to waft lazily toward its target, drifting back and forth as it goes... and yet somehow it arrives at its destination just as quickly as any crackling bolt of lightning he's ever shot out.
The reappearing Time Mage has everyone's attention, giant enemy crabs included.
"Orrey, nice to see you, but can you please blip back out of here before you get yourself incinerated?" yells Linnet.
Orrey is overwhelmed with the chaos of the battle and resorts to his reflex response, casting Haste on Isa in a flash of flying purple and green watch faces.
Yves waves to Orrey, with a call of "Hey look what I finally--wait, are you actually here?"
"WHAT IS HAPPENING?!" Orrey shouts.
Isa feels the now-familiar quickening of a Time Mage in her corner, and bursts into action. Her spear takes on a golden glow as it darts out, the light connecting her to the red shell as she knocks another crack into it. Her burns fade slightly as she backs off and launches herself into the air again, the light still clinging to her as she prepares to come down again.
The blue unkiu, sensing its meal has returned, thunders forward, its shell-turret reverting to a chunk of corroded steel as it exits the time portal, slamming its claw down at Yves as it barrels past the recently-unfrozen mage.
Yves had just started to trail off on the profanity. But at losing an earring (and a fair amount of blood from one ear) to an unkiu claw, that starts right up again.
"The heck with the sweet stuff, we're getting into melted butter territory here!" And Linnet's latest splash of a healing spell, oddly, comes down in a rain of light gold sparkles and does smell a bit like garlicky butter.
Bast's contribution to the cacophony is a mostly-undervoiced string of curses as he beats out the flames on his clothes and fur. Next up - testing if the string on his crossbow is still intact, to return the favor.
The new holes in the crabs and one or two in the walls behind them seem like a good result, but proper testing protocol requires repetition.
The red and green unkius crash forward, all converging on Orrey in a desperate, greedy attempt to eat the Time Mage now that he is back in their midst. The green unkiu's claw sweeps down, slamming into Orrey so hard the human blips out of existence again, the echo of his cry left behind.
Isa lands on the red shell with the force of a falling building, a glowing golden streak from above. The shell shatters into countless shards, the pieces hanging suspended in a dome shape for just a second as they balance on the front of the shock wave she generates. Before the last piece has tinkled to the ground she is off again, leaping back in a shallow arc that bends more horizontal than vertical. She lands in the very spot Orrey has just vacated, but before the time crabs can react she is spinning around with her spear flung wide, chopping and chipping chitin that is too slow to make way.
The red shell shatters atop its unkiu, revealing the rest of the unkiu's body, the soft flesh under the shell that relied on the Edge of the World's remains for protection.
"I have no idea if that's bad or not anymore," Yves mutters, staring at the place where Orrey most recently existed. Then he decides it's probably not bad, what with Isa creating something of a unkiu puree in the area. He snaps out a precise pattern in the air. These creatures seem like perhaps they'd be more appealing if roasted. Rapidly. Flames billow out from his gestures, and stream adeptly away to seek anything that could use a roasting, in this viera's opinion.
The blue unkiu lunges at Isa, claw coming down.
Isa throws her arm up, catching the claw across her stylishly asymmetric pauldron and deflecting it with practiced ease.
As nobody appears to be in imminent danger of bleeding out, freezing to death, or being crushed by time crabs, Linnet hurls a snowball into the air and punches it in all the crabs' general direction. The blue one doesn't flinch, but green and red appear rather annoyed.
Bast has apparently given up on finding cover and is just trying to fire as quickly as possible, snatching bolts one after another from a bundle he's holding in his teeth. The blue crab takes a bolt in the leg, the green sprays shards of chitin from a joint in its carapace, and the bolt aimed for the the unprotected flesh of the red crab punches clean through and clatters wetly on the rubble behind it.
All three unkius drop... and do not stir.
Yves shakes his hands vigorously. "...I'm out of practice with fire," he admits. "Do you think those are edible?"
Azdar Chid rises from his hiding place by the door, clearly unsure if he should be applauding or not. Aurin looks clearly impressed.
Linnet immediately scans everyone for damage, including the two who wisely ducked for cover before the wild rumpus started. "Probably not raw, at least. If you're going to try it, please boil the water. Looks like you're all going to live, though Orrey may need some patching up whenever the hell we find him again."
"Linnet-" Bast says as he raises his crossbow and tucks away the leftover bolts "-have I mentioned recently that I'm really glad you've decided we're worth keeping alive?" He glances back towards the door. "The Edge of the World Sanatorium is open for business again."
"All in a day's work, Cap'n." Linnet salutes, chuckling.
Isa looks around. "If we grab Orrey the next time he appears, think he'll stay put, or drag us with him?"
"Of course I wouldn't eat it raw," Yves says indignantly. "That's... well I'm not sure if it's technically seafood, but it looks like seafood, and the parasites those can carry! I was just thinking that if it's edible, it could be a decent bisque." He turns a full circle. "So, any idea where... or when... Orrey is right now? I've mostly stopped trying to understand what he's up to with time magic, but this is a new..." He thinks for a moment. "...high."
"A new sideways."
"It's a new something," Yves says.
"If we boil the hell out of them and I can dig out the right herbs, we should have a pretty tasty dinner. We don't have to stop now, of course, but maybe later tonight," Linnet says.
"...it would appear that the creatures that live here have adapted to the nature of this place," Chid says, wiping his brow. "I would caution your young friend, whenever he is, against using his magic unrestrained."
"We caution him all the time," Isa says. "You can see how well it's working."
"He's sort of excitingly not-died like four or five times by now, that I can think of," Yves says. "It seems to work for him, though, so who am I to judge?"
"You're part of the crew that has to back him up. Judge away."
The light shining through those holes in the wall is briefly blotted out, as if something just passed overhead.
Bast glances up. "Dinner guests already?"
"Orrey and restraint go together like crabs and nutmeg. But we can find uses for the nutmeg elsewhere."
Aurin ducks his head out of the door, peering up into the sky. "Who is that?"
Yves frowns at the tone of the question, as well as its content, and has his unfrozen legs take him over there for a look.
Isa returns to her more obviously alert stance. "Who, or what?"
(Linnet is harvesting crab and decides to let someone else handle the curiosity this time.)
"A what, technically," Aurin says, as Yves joins him in the doorway. "But who's on it?"
Yves stares up at the underside of the Seventh Dawn as it passes overhead.
Now Linnet does look up, and smacks herself in the forehead with a (thankfully empty) crab shell.
"...ah," says Yves. "Isa? Guess which old friends are here for a visit!"
"Okay, someone else is on 'telling an Alyon sibling another Alyon sibling is missing' duty this time."
"Actual old friends or ironic old friends?" Isa calls back.
"Ironic old friends," Yves calls back. "It's the Seventh Dawn."
Isa sighs. "Shit."
"And we are not returning the favor and inviting them to dinner. For one thing, three crabs are not going to feed that entire ship." (Linnet returns to harvesting crabs.)
There is a little pop in the fabric of time and space, and Orrey crashes into the current day, landing in a tumble that he at least stops before crashing into a wall.
"Probably just one person should grab him, to figure out who has the most temporal gravity," Yves says.
"Oh hey, Orrey. You're just in time." Bast doesn't bother to ease up on the sarcasm much.
"Ignore him. Welcome back, hon. We're going to take these things we just blasted to bits and eat them with butter."
Isa decides it's worth the risk, and steps over to grab Orrey's arm. If she gets sucked sidewhen, at least she can try to stab time.
Isa is not launched through time and space on her own reckless adventure. Mostly, Orrey just winces as she hauls him up.
"And Linnet says we're not sharing with Cassiat," Bast adds.
"It's fine, I'm not hungry."
"Just try to stick with us for a while," Isa says. "Still feeling that last claw?"
That was not Orrey's voice.
The crab shell meets Linnet's forehead, again.
Cassiat Alyon folds her arms in front of her, scowling down at Orrey. Her dyed hair is a mix of red and purple now, braided and long over her shoulder, reaching almost to her elbow. Her arms show a great deal more definition than they did when Isa was trying to train her aboard the Starfall, and she carries a red and black bow over her shoulder, with a matching spear strapped to her back. She looks at Bast, then Linnet, then Isa, then Yves. "I remember you," she says.
Yves rolls his eyes. "Yes, you gave us a ride, and then ditched to join a cult, I know."
She sighs, shoulders sagging just for a moment. "I was a lot dumber then. We don't need to litigate the past for as long as I'm here."
Bast glances over the new face on the scene, judging the potential for immediate threat. "Looks like you've been well. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Bast, you and your big mouth. Hi, Cass. What I said was 'I'm not feeding the entire Seventh Dawn on three crabs.'" Linnet greets Orrey's sister with a self-deprecating smile. "Love what you've done with your hair. And wow you've been working out! By the way, don't go poking any rocks too hard. They might be crabs."
"The Seventh Dawn?"
Cassiat looks around. "Wait, what-- oh, fucking hell."
"And here I thought you might have picked up a Dragoon crystal somewhere to show up so quickly. Not with them anymore, then?"
"...that's not your ride?" Yves asks. "Huh. Well, that means our problem has a lot less potential for causing uncomfortable messages to your parents, so there's that."
"Ah. Well, you're welcome to stick with us as long as you want to, and I assume we're not staying here. Anyone have an eye on a better place to hole up and compare notes?" Bast asks.
"Fuck. Shut up." She holds a hand up. Cassiat jogs to the doorway, leans out, and then yanks her head back in. "Fuck. Okay. Are you leaving, or are you going deeper in?"
"Depends. Don't suppose you know what their business here is?"
"Yes! Of course I know their business here! I'm on that fucking ship!" Cassiat shouts, suddenly losing her cool. "I thought you would go further back, Orrey! This is when you are?"
Orrey looks up at his sister. “How old are you?”
Yves blinks. "...okay, and here I thought you had just matured really fast."
"If she's your older sister now, I have some tips," Isa offers with a charmless smile.
“I think I’m way behind you right now.” Orrey says.
Bast responds to Yves with a small shrug.
"I'm twenty-one, and I've been looking for you for five years," Cassiat says.
Orrey nods slowly and starts talking to himself. “Why am I so ok with is? Am I ok with this? Maybe I’m having some sort of mental break.” Orrey nods more in agreement with himself.
"It's the last one you'll ever have," Cassiat says darkly.
"It's about as weird as things usually get around you," Yves tells Orrey, in what is probably meant to be a comforting tone.
"Because when you went to the Edge of the World, Orrey, you never came back," Cassiat tells her brother.
Looking at his sister, Orrey asks “Are you here from the future to warn us of some sort of impending doom? Yes. Yes you are. I’ll take whatever advice you’ve got to offer, Cass.” Orrey says earnestly.
"Good. You're not going to like it," she says flatly.
“So nothing new.” Orrey says flatly.
"You have to fight me, Orrey," Cassiat says. "You have to abandon me, or you'll die. I'm sorry."
"...does it have to be right this minute? Can I at least heal him up first?"
Orrey points up to the ship. “That ‘you’?” Orrey smiles at Linnet in thanks.
"That's a rather specific solution for 'disappeared and never came back'. How's that going to help, again?" Bast asks.
"Yes. That me. Good-bye, Orrey. Find a way to fix it. I won't give up on you that easily." Cassiat gives him a sympathetic look far older than her years, and then was never there.
END SESSION