Crucible of Cruelty

Forward

'Welcome!' to all of those who are in attendance. 'Hello from the past!' to those of you reading from a future hours, days, or even months beyond the present. This story was born of the stress of the year and the chaotic worldbuilding in this direction and that which we all have a habit of pursuing. It's a composite of recent ideas, patron submissions, and personal musings ironed over into what I hope is a fun ride for reader and author alike. It's a personal challenge to turn around a story—concept, brainstorming, outline, summary, and content—in just a week, with just editing left over. The patrons saw every step before the content (about 12 pages of notes and hodgepodge thoughts) and now here is the fruit of this preparation. I dedicate this story foremost to those who actively helped to shape it. I dedicate it second to the fellow writers in the server.
After the story is complete, I will reveal the planning channels. You are welcome to comb it over, and to my brain for ideas on how to best outline and polish your own stories.
Vess has a long journey ahead of her. Let's begin.

One

There's a rhythm to everything. Sometimes it just takes a good ear to pick it up. The tik tak taky ticky tktktk tak tak tak of shutters opening and closing, sorting cargo by group, then by passenger, was a jazz drum solo that few got to hear. Of those that did hear it, it was at once a sound of wonder, and of monotony. Daily engagement with it made it a mundane sound, but what came sliding down the chutes from the new arrivals often contained things far beyond the mundane. Mundane on other worlds, perhaps, but relative to the world of Axiom Brut, all of it was interesting, especially those things which the shutters swept down into a large bin marked, in flaking red paint and big square letters: To Be Sorted. "Hey, what have we got here? This is a nice box. A nice box. Wrapper like pearls. I could gussy that up into a bow and give it to my girl, don't you think?" "Get your grimy mitts off of that, and wash your hands! A box this luxxy deserves a gentle touch. Besides, do you know what sort of contagions offworlders bring? Open the wrong box and you'll be a sizzling puddle like that!" The whip-crack of a finger-snap echoed in the sorting room, which was about as welcoming and well-kept as the painting on the bin. He had been practicing that finger snap his whole life, and it showed. "Ah! Aiiii.... don't do that. My ears! Always. Why?" "Shut up, I'm trying to open this softlike. Got a knife?" "Kinda question is that? I got claws. How many knives you need? Seriously how did your ancestors survive." "Well, we took rocks and if something came at us we hit it with the rock. This wrench will do, if you want to be a shit about it. Come cut this little tie right here and I can open the box." "Fine. Here." "Thanks. "Oh, even prettier inside. What are those little boxes." "Hmm, oh, you know, I think I know. You, uh, you ever heard of, what'sit? Oh!" Snap! "Right. You ever heard of Phantasia?" "I've heard of a lot of things. So many things that sometimes I forget, refresh me." "You ain't heard of nothing have you. Always shutting your ears like that. Snap of the fingers and you're out. Anyway. Phantasia is great stuff, especially for a movie night or a play or something. Take some and you're there, in it, on stage." "Sounds pretty boring. I like the stuff that makes me punch mailboxes." "That's because when the Verin made you they left out all the grace." "Don't make this about sophont." "You went there first, talking about my ancestors." "Whatever. So it's drugs. A lot. Too much. We're supposed to flag it if it's this much." "Not if they're a Hedonite. The bribe?" "Not if they're a Hedonite, right. The bribe, right. It's still too much even for them. What's that, 20 boxes. These things are full of little capsules. Listen to that rattling. No wonder Jazz pushed it down. Scan of this must've raised every red flag. We can't just look the other way on this one." Jazz was their collective name for the sorting bots. "Well, what if we look the other, other way. How many boxes did you say there are." "20." "Weird, I count 15." "Are you really going to—fucksake. You know Hedon, right? Agora will have you floating cheeks-up in the river while the gulls peck your ass out." "Then we'll give it all to him if he cares. But this is just the cost of doing business, got me? Not like half of nobody even realizes this step is manual. Blame Jazz." "Cost of business?" "Cost of business." "I count 10 boxes." "That seems like a perfectly legal amount. Spot of glue and good as new, back into the sorter with you!"

Two

Some folks just have a way of moving where you tend not to notice them, have you noticed that? They could be wearing clothes animated by every little movement and by a dancing cascade of fibrous optics woven into the fabric. They could have eyes with dancing lights and teeth like gold and pearls. They could be about seven feet tall, with a thick coat of white fur and a waterfall of ever-stirring hair that starts in a crest above their brow and congo-lines its way down their back in a carefully trimmed zig-zag. They could be all those things, and still bear such a grace to their step that you only notice their presence a few minutes after their arrival, and usually with great surprise. How could that person have gotten by me? "That'll be mine," Vess said, leaning down to reach past the man waiting by the cargo dropoff. The man leapt back, blinking. A presence like Vess' wasn't terribly unusual on a world like Axiom Brut, but it usually drew the attention of every eye upon arrival. The was an awful lot of Vess for him to not have noticed her. "How long have you been—" But he was already forgotten. A faceless sophont of an unknown provenance speaking just another odd accent. A native with nothing to him. Vess had other things on her mind. She rattled the box and smiled. "Cost of business, I suppose." she said, pocketing the gift-wrapped box and it's now-legal amount of contents. And then she was gone. The man watched her go, bewitched by his own confusion. It certainly called a lot to question in his life. He had always felt himself to be so observant... 'Observant about what? | Things like that woman. | Which woman? | The one that was here just a moment ago. | Where's she gone now? | I don't... I don't really recall. | Can you describe her? | Well, she was tall. | Was she? | Hmm, perhaps she was short. | A drink sounds nice...'

Three

[12:52 PM] Vess hadn't brought much else. A small bag of essentials was enough. Wardrobes and other goods were best sourced locally, a mindset which Vess certainly had the income to back up. The man had forgotten her, and a dozen others were already scrabbling after the memory of her, but some had to see her in order for her to progress. Namely, the man at the turnstyle who was checking everyone's papers. "Papers in the bot," he grunted, barely having to crane his head to look at her. Gum sloshed around between his fangs. He much more looked the part of a native of Axiom Brut (A Brutan) than she did: coveralls armored with scuffed leathers, a jacket wrapped around his torso that insisted that he had an identity beyond his work, but that he wasn't interested in—or at least, couldn't afford—the Hedonite lifestyle. Vess pressed her chip to the reader. The screen scrolled a list of lies that didn't seem to appease the man. "Alright," he said, rolling the cud of gum from one side of his jaw to the other. He crossed his arms. Vess caught a momentary rattle of a charm bracelet on his wrist before just jacket obscured it. "No go. I know who you are." Vess's eyes devoured him head-to-toe. His skin prickled from the knives her gaze drove into every centimeter of flesh. He shivered, but it all happened so quick that he didn't consciously register it. "And who is that?" She asked. Her smile was warm, playful even. A game? It said. Are we playing 20 questions? Or is this a riddle? "Yeah, you're a Hedonite." The pop-click-smack of his gum syncopated with the constant tap-dance of folks milling in and out and around the terminal, and with the heavy clu-clonk of the turnstyles letting them through one at a time, single file, across a dozen points. "You're a Hedonite, so you're supposed to bribe me, right? So. Bribe me. I wanna eat good tonight. Whacha got?" [1:10 PM] This time her gaze felt a bit more comforting as it ensnared him. She blurred for a moment. He felt like he was catching an anisotropic superimposition of her form—as though every aesthete, appealing aspect of her was suddenly flooding into his vision. Just looking at her was a synesthesiac experience. Again, so quick it was barely there. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. This always tended to happen when he was tired, didn't it? But who wasn't tired on Axioma? Hedonites, because they were hogging the uppers. Speaking of... "Listen, you're pretty. That's almost bribe aplenty. Just gimme that—what's that, gold? Gimme that gold bracelet with the little dancing dragons and we'll call it good, yeah?" He had stopped chewing his gum, but kept one arm crossed over himself as he extended a hand. "Oh, honey," Vess said, taking his hand in both of her own and pouting. A frosty chill snaked down from his hand, his arm began to tremble as the cold reached his soul. "Playing macho is a game best left to bachelors with no kids. It's not for little gatekeepers like yourself. I don't do bribes, but would you like to do a deal with the devil? Tell you what: your bracelet for mine. The handcraft of children is always so precious." His hand twitched, and she felt his claws extending. Her pout deepend. For her kind, that meant a tilt of the head, big eyes, and lips bunched over her fangs. From the way she held his hand, his claws found no purchase. Her claws, however—gilded in a silvery steel—glistened like chrome in the stark lighting as it tapped against his wrist. "N-no bribe," he said, shivering as he tried to pull his hand back. He whimpered as her claws dimpled his flesh, beading the dark fur of his arms with maroon. His fearful eyes sought help, but there was privacy in a crowd, especially for the transgressions of someone who tend to not be noticed. 1:20 PM] Vess' attention was caught by a dapper-dressed man, a human, pacing the top of the stairwell beyond the turnstyle. He was not pacing in the traditional sense—his feet were firmly planted—but in much the antithesis of Vess he could move, pace, and dance with just all the little jerks and fidgets of his body. This was a man who would always have somewhere else he was supposed to be. Even on his deathbed he'd be restless, waiting for this whole dying business to be over cause he's got people to catch up with beyond the turning of the Wheel. Hedonite. His gaze swept over her several times before he was allowed to see her. He did a jittering sort of recoil of surprise that nearly knocked his hat all the way around the back of his head before the flourish of him tipping it to her in greeting—executed as he practically danced down the steps—put it right back where it needed to be. This was the sort of man you might expect to complain about his teeth itching, apropos of nothing. The whirlwind of lanky limbs wiped its brow. He flung imaginary sweat about halfway across the terminal as he flicked his hand out, then launched it through the turnstyle, under the gatekeepers arm, and set it on Vess' hands. His voice was a bit like a cork ricocheting around inside of a tuba. Deep and resonant and his tongue was doing some sort of interpretive dance to make sure that every word had about twice as many letters as it needed. "Bad knows bad, and you're who I've been looking for. Can't believe I missed you, have you been standing there long? I'm Turpin Gyle. You're Vessa, Right? Sokora, come on man, let the pretty lady through, we've been over this."

Four

[1:34 PM] The midtown streets of Axioma Brut's capital city—simply named 'Capital' by the Federation of Free Planets, who owned Axioma Brut—was as lively as they came. Street vendors made a living by 'bits--and-bobs and treats for your gob', as Turpin described it, shortly before chucking hologram gemstones, rukta, at a vendor in trade for a kebab that may or may not have been meat. Vess' eyes scanned, devouring, parsing. Eyes wide, jaw relaxed. Turpin saw a starlet come new to a big city. Maybe the wrong big city, but like the Federation liked to hammer into its populace: work is work. "Great place, great scene. Axioma had jack-all to offer the Feds so, like every other idiot, said the Federation could take its dues from its natural resources. There's thousands of folks flooding in every day, cramming ten to a home like bio-bombs ain't no thing." "Is it all just Feds and Hedon?" she asked. She kept her eyes trained on the rising skyline—the active section of the city was still only about ten-stories deep, but cranes towered far up into the night beyond what eyes could see, roofing the city to make a floor for a new, as it would be ad infinitum until the city or its economy collapsed—one always lead to the other, and seemed an inevitable fact of life in the Federation: if you're not growing, you're dying! "Oh! No. By Dionysus, no. We've got every wedge of the Wheel here, I think, though most are just bad attempts to subvert the planets for themselves. That's why the Feds look the other way for Hedon, you know? Invasive species to keep out invasive species!" He broke into an ad-hoc song. "Ain't no Church, ain't no Pact, ain't no Syndicate to hold us back!" "What about the Sorrows?" She asked. "The what?" He frowned. He had been about to give a second verse. "The House of Sorrows?" [1:48 PM] "Oh! Those old ghouls? They're gone, aren't they?" To demonstrate, he threw a hand out into the night that nearly brained two passerby and sent a cage of exotic birds swirling off down the path. "Fucked off into the wild dark yonder after they triggered the Lacuna. Yeah we got some of them." A blond woman, human, caught the cage. She nudged it, and yet it sashayed back, seeming to dance with her like a drunken lover in the night before returning, enchanted, to its home. Vess looked alarmed. "You do?" "Oh yeah! We got everything, remember? Even a rainbow casts a shadow!" "I'm not sure about tha—" but he cut her off. "Yep we even got some fucking Sorrows. But it's no worries. We tore them out. No more Sorrows. Promise. They aren't subtle, you know? They eat people. Which, I mean, fine, if you wanna eat some one and you got a bioprinter then have-at, but not actual person, you know? Maybe they were fun back a few hundred years ago, but now that all the planets are mixing again.... I dunno, Lacuna drove them feral I guess. Times told of a day we once actually saw them as a worthwhile adversary. Can you believe that shit?" He shouldered through an immigration of Hiserabi, who began to tangle into each other. The blond woman helped to separate them, though they didn't seem to notice her. "Eating people?" Vess exclaimed, catching the eye of the woman in the mirror. She looked familiar. "Yep. They were camped out in an empty warehouse, eating some of ours. Mowed 'em down. I personally watched 'em bobbing like apples in the bay as the catfish came up and, schlorp, sucked 'em down! Serves em' right." "Oh, well that's good," Vess said, letting out a sigh. The story had made her chest rather tight. "Hey listen, I told a friend I'd check in on her as soon as I landed. It'll only be an hour, where can I meet you for the rest of the, ah, orientation?" [1:49 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: [2:02 PM] "Took me a moment to spot you," Vess murmured as Turpin waltzed his way off, alone, into the night. For how out of tune he was, and for how much chaos he left in his wake, she would not have been surprised to learn that he was one of their own. "Had to make sure you were you were allowed to see me. You look like you were mauled by a kitsch catalogue. By Brood's blood, How have you not caught fire yet? Isn't it against some universal law for you to wear anything a shade above charcoal?" "The Director gives you a role, you sell it," Vess said, voice dropping a whole staircase of registers. "Ugh, my throat. That voice. Kill me, Gen." "I'd be honored to do the deed someday, Vess. But we've got a play, first." "What Act are we in?" "With your arrival? First, I think. It's all been exposition. We just got incited. Our safehouse got compromised. Everyone who was inside is dead." "By Cannibalites, I heard. Tragic. But Hedon thinks they've got us served cold on the rocks, at least. Turpin says Hedon got them all, but the fear in his eyes told me a few got away." "Turpin, huh? That a first name or a last? He your boyfriend, now?" "Ugh, hon, please. He can't even get my name right. Kept calling me Vessa." "Mmmm, no. You're no Vessa." "Yes, see, exactly, thank you Gen. So, we've got a mole, then? Who outed us to the Cannibalites?" "You already know who, Vess. Your stalker." "I've spent eight days sleeping in the Wayhall, I haven't had a chance to catch up yet. She's posting about Axioma Brut?" "She's on Axioma Brut." "Shade's tears. Never a dull play. Let's get a bite, I'm famished." [2:05 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: [2:20 PM] It was only after going indoors that they realized that it had been damp outside. Not quite rain but a mist, not quite a mist but the humid respiration of a city so active it was hyperventilating. Out in the street a man distracted passerby with telekinetic juggling, and with the same magic stole wallets from their pockets when they looked away. A skip away from that a bar mitzvah was just getting out and running headlong into the shield ceremony of a Parisan from the pact. So many sophont. Human, Verin, Sazashi, and all of their composite subspecies, Kinds, were on display. Sazashi filled most of the space with fur and fangs and claws, both by volume and by energy, but the human presence pushed back as it tended to do: by climbing over every which thing. Verin were the forest among which they played—not all kinds of Verin were tall, but they tended to bear a certain towering poise all the same. "Wheel's gears, I love coffee," Vess said, pouring back a hot mouthful. She practically felt it steaming from her nose. "Best thing the Aen stole from Eden." "So I've heard. I'll stick to something inhuman, like tea." "That kind of self-loathing isn't healthy, Gen." "Are you sure? It's sort of our thing. We aren't called 'The Happies!'," Gen said, throwing on a cheesy, dimple-dotted smile before relaxing into a genuine one. "So, what, are we killing Ynek?" "Ee-nek'k, Gen. It's pronounced with pleghm, c'mon. And no, she's useful so long as we keep out of her direct gaze. If she spotted the safehouse then it was a matter of time before Hedon did anyway. I'm surprised she did, though. You're very good at directing. I can't imagine her spotting you. She's good to keep alive because she shows her hand more than Hedon does, so we can learn what gave us away." "Solid reasoning," Gen said. "You like her, don't you?" "I did make it a bit obvious, didn't I?" "You havent even read her posts, yet. I wanted to see the catfish eat, too." "You will, later." "Shut up and read." [2:34 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: "So nobody knows where she's at. Are we sure she's not one of ours," Vess said, pausing from a basket of grilled grubs to have a bit of her meat pie. Blogs scrolled through her vision, Gen skimmed a long to keep up with Vess' progress. "Can you try to not sound so horny for her?" "Absolutely not. I have to maintain the role. I'm a Hedonite now, you know? A stiff breeze makes me horny and the rumble of a passing rail makes me—" her quasi-bestial face pulled into a snarl as her glowing green eyes crossed, then rolled up into her head. "That is absolutely not how you look." "You're no fun." "I'm a delight. Are you high?" "When isn't a Hedonite high?" "Uhg. What are you on?" "Swing." "Explains it. Got any Clean Slate." "No, I promised Turpin I'd join up with him at Club Kismet after an hour. We're on a clock, here." "Read." "Am!" "Faster!" "Fine." "It does seem well written. She kinda talks like how you talk. Are you her? Is she one of ours." "If she was me, I wouldn't need to be here. This girl is a wrecking ball and doesn't even know her power. If she was ours, we wouldn't need to be here." "Please, Gen, you're making the seat humid." Vess skated over the passages. This does feel written for me. It's so lovely. She makes this shithole sound like the epicenter of the current world, like a stage. [2:50 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: And it's all just a constant jam, everyone's grinding together like teeth to squeeze every rich morsel out of the meat of life. The sky sings to herself in a day-to-night cycle of spectacle which our ancestors would have cried in wonder over but don't you dare look up because that's how you lose your wallet on the first glance and your dignity on the second. Here as everywhere the heart beats and growth crowds out growth, a rhapsody of bohemian culture belting out its all over the threnody of death, violence, and consumption that it takes to keep the beast alive. "What does bohemian mean?" Gen asked. "Is she even writing in Saza? My translator can't decide on which language to keep to." "Yeah, when she gets going she gets all multilingual and she likes to get a bit archaic and poetic. No way a translator can keep up. This passage is in, uh, Romantic Edenic, I think. This one's in Cyrillic Edenic. This one's in Ral-Mi Saza, this one is in something Verin, old eastern Luean I think." "So what's bohemian, then?" "It's one of your words. It means the same as Californian, and is its predecessor. Very Hedon word, actually, she's adapting to the style of the world quickly." Vess liked seeing how Ynek'k's writing morphed world-to-world, adapting.
"My family hasn't been to Eden in six generations or spoken an Edenic dialect in three. A legacy I plan to upkeep, thanks." "What if the Director sends you to Eden?"
"I'll die before the Director gives me that kind of leading role, Vess. That's you."
"Yeah well, you can be my starlet."
"That a flirt, or a play? I swear you've said that before."
"Depends on which you want. It's been years since I last saw you, I probably did."
"Haven't had a Helyk since you, but let me think about it."
"That stings."
Gen grinned. "Hey, it's the last thing you said to me. Know Sorrow, bitch." :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: I was at a Jazz bar last week. Dark place, lots of smoke. Moody. Perfect. Wouldn’t you know it but a Helyk was up doing a solo set. Took me a while to place what made me uncomfortable. It was the Helyk. If you know much about Helyk, which you do if you follow me, the Helyk akjhe gives them an incredibly nuanced view of the world. They can create moods that any other artist feels dwarfed by. It’s humiliating. I had to really stare at first, to make sure it wasn’t my old pal Vess, in the flesh. I still don’t remember what she looks like, due to her Glamour, but I know that wasn’t her. A Shejlt knows these things. Anyway, this wasn't jazz, not like you know it. I know jazz, it's all about the notes you don't play, and the song this Helyk was playing was making my skin crawl. It was anti-jazz.

"The drummer, he one of ours?"
"Yep. Ynek'k has seen you?"
"Once, in the background of a feed. I didn't know there would be cameras." Vess avoided eye contact as another tray of fried grubs and zucchini slid in front of her. "Wheels' gears, they do bottomless baskets?"
"Sure do. That's why I like this place. I've been here a month and already have a tummy. Glamour doesn't show up on feeds, Vess, she would've seen your mask. Where else did she see you?"
"Well, once mid-play. Third act. She caught me in a costume change after the disaster."
"You're not that sloppy, Vess. You let her!" Gen's jaw feel in surprise, smoke curling from her lips. She took another draw on her cig—the tip sparkled and glimmered and holosmoke curled from it.
"The drummer—" "Kerovak."
"Ker'rovak or Kerovak'k?"
"The first one. My throat can't do that, Vess."
"That's a tongue trill. You can do that."
"You know, I'm almost starting to like you on Swing. No wonder Hedon always wins a culture war."
"Don't get used to it, I'll be back to my dour old self in no time." [3:09 PM] "So, Ker'rovak?"
"He survived the attack. He's alive. He's upset that Ynek's arti—"
"Ynek'k."
"It's physically impossible to do that, Vess. I'd need a throat aug. I'll just call her, uh, Truth. Ugh, how full of her self. TruthIsOutThere? That's her tag? Anyway, he's upset that Truth's article mentioned him so he's keeping a low profile in case Hedon starts digging around the Jazz bars. He's finding up some friends and a place to stay."
"Who else have we got?"
"Orin, muscle. He's a bit wet and he likes to play The Sun. And—"
"Wait, but what's Ker'rovak play? Sorry for cutting you off." "Thanks. He plays Magician, of course, and just about any instrument you put into his hands. He's a card shark too, and will play you like a fiddle with that. Keeps hoping for the card one to matter in one of his plays. And we've got an Ireheart Human playing on Justice. Are you ever going to tell me your mask or what?"
"Let me think about it."
"Bitch!" [3:24 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
These newcomers move like an oil slick. They hug the walls and they slither, with eyes searching and jaws clenched. Their lips roll and strain over their teeth like they're all that's keeping them at bay. You may not believe in Glistering Gabriel or his Cannibalites, but these boogeymen of a new era very much exist, ready to devour planets whole."

"Give me a hit off your cig." Vess said. "Is it nicotine? Oh, Wheel's gears its so good. The swing is wearing off and I feel a bit jittery, this helps cut it. Okay, here's the blog where some Cannibalites arrived. Wow she picked up on them quick."
"This is about a week after their arrival. They raided us the next day, and Hedon raided them a couple nights back. Read on, there's a bit I want your take on."
"Which bit?"
"Here:"
A cobra raises his head from this den of serpents. Empty eyes and a stalking gait. This is their king. He makes my blood run cold. I think he's a Monolith."

Gen stole her cig back and took a puff. A couple booths away a group of Gearheart Humans were frantically constructing hologram machinery and arguing over blueprints. Vess counted three languages.
"Monolith. That mean what I think it means?" Gen asked.
Vess rolled around a few translations in her head. "A demigod, yeah." "Like you?"
"In his own way. One is rarely like the other if you know how to look."
"Fuck. Well, this one came with a picture. Look for yourself."
He looked like his skin was two sizes too small for his body, and like his skeletal structure had been smudged, elongated vertically. Bleakheart Human, Vess figured, with several mutations already.
"Fuck."
"Friend of ours?"
"Naag Kumo. He's on the rise within the Cannibalites. Four down the chain from Gabriel himself, by my guess. So, strong, but not so strong as to be indispensable." [3:34 PM] "Suppose the Director knew Naag would be on Axioma Brut?" Gen asked.
"Can anyone know what the Director knows?"
"Damn, it'd sure tell us who we are, if we knew if he knew."
"I was thinking that, too. If the Director knew, and Naag is four down from the top, then by rules of a good foil we must be four down from the top, too."
"You might be. Not me. You're directing me so that'd put me five down, which is still a lot higher than I expected, or, really, want."
"You have a Glamourous Mask and you think you're not high up?"
"Mine isn't like yours, so I guess I had myself deluded. So we're assuming the Director expected this?"
"Good bet." "There's another play here. Someone let Naag in. Hedon should've smelled him at the gate. We got someone working in customs?"
"Cormand. He's the Ireheart Human playing Justice."
"He also playing Hedon?"
"He and Orin."
"Is Cormand lifting in case we need anything?"
"Yep again."
"Excellent. He's a mole. He let Naag through, so he also told Naag where the safehouse was. Naag survived the Hedon raid, otherwise Turpin would've mentioned killing a monolith. Hopefully he's the only one who survived. Position Orin near Cormand. Frame Cormand for the thefts, that way when Hedon puts out an all-points-bulletin on Cormand Orin can be the one to bring him in."
"Okay. Got it. Great to have you back, Vess."
"Mmnnn... it's been almost an hour. I gotta go before Turpin suspects anything.
"Where to, again?"
"Club Kismet."
"Right, follow the main walk for another ten minutes. Can't miss it. Looks a bit like you."
"Great, see you in an hour." [3:51 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
Vess didn't allow herself to be seen as she left the diner. She looked back to see Gen searching the crowd for her. Her eyes even nearly focused on Vess a couple times.
Halfway to Club Kismet, Vess slipped down an alley into what must have once been a restroom, though there was only a reeking hole in the floor to rest over, and not very much room. She closed it behind her, and barred the door with the complementary piece of rebar on a chain.
She listened closely, more with her spirit than her ears.
Don't look in the mirror.
"I need to breathe," Vess said, drawing a deep and trembling breath. She turned her face towards the mirror, but her eyes blurred and she felt a tension trying to turn her head away.
Don't look in the mirror.
"I. Need. To. Breathe." Vess hissed.
DON'T—
She saw it, saw through her Glamour. She reached up and wrenched the Mask from her face, and felt cool air rushing over her features.
<Vessel. Put me back on.>
"Just let me breathe for a moment," Vess said, setting the Mask by the sink as she turned on the tap and began to splash water on her face. The course of action was self-evident on her, and the weight of all the new knowledge pressed down upon her shoulders. "Fuck. Two antagonists."
Exhaling, she rest back against the stone wall and took a drag on the cig she'd stolen from gen. Warm vapor filled her lungs and curled from her lips.
<Vessel>
"Shut up. Can't do two. A story cannot have two antagonists unless they are the henchmen of a greater antagony. But these antagonists antagonize each other, and of the two, I am more Naag's antagonist than of the Hedonite Marquis. That means Naag has two antagonists as well, but he doesn't understand the Wheel. I can use this."
<Vessel!> [4:03 PM] She closed her eyes, meditating as only a Monolith could. Memories sprang up around her, building a set as detailed and vivid as any she'd ever walked. Webs of interwoven stories, dappled with the dewdrops of their actors sliding among the threads and the flies caught upon, sprawled out before her.
"Everything has its pattern," she prayed. "There's chaos in the intersections but every story will resolve if given the chance. You are an actor, what is the story you wish to see complete, what is the role you can play to make this happen?"
A shuddering breath.
"If I take Naag as antagonist, I can resolve the Hedonite Marquis by riding the resolution from Naag. This requires an event closely tied to both, but which neither sees coming."
<There is no play without your Mask, Vessel.>
"I own you, Mask," She growled.
Someone thudded at the door. "You almost done? My teeth are floating out here." Somebody, nobody, they could wait. Vess called upon her stress to put on a sobbing voice.
"There's just blood and shit everywhere," she cried. "P-please leave me alone!"
"Cheese and crust, you're on your own."
Once the stranger made good on his word, she returned to meditation. She chased the cobwebs, up and down threads until a plan formed in her mind. Tears ran down her face, leaving glittering streaks in her fur. Naag was a violent creature, and her tale with him would have violent ends. This was going to hurt. This was going to hurt a lot.
She took a breath as the plan resolved, and opened her eyes. She took a rare look at herself—the tear-matted fur, the scars which resisted regeneration, the stress, the pain, the Sorrow.
She wondered if Gen was much the same under her Mask. An actor could never know. Masks never came off except in private, and even then only for hygiene.
Her reflection put the mask on. She scrutinized it until she saw only perfection and beauty, until the spinning wheels on the cheeks faded. Until all she saw was herself, but perfect. [4:04 PM] <Act 2.> "Act 2." Act 2. "Act 2."
She felt alone once more, but knew she was not. [4:12 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><>< Act Two ><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: [4:30 PM] If Turpin wags his jaw any more it's liable to snap clean off.
Club Kismet was every bit the reality of the illusion and Glamour Vess was projecting. The throb of the base made her toes curl. It was a glottal chant which spoke the the bestial, innermost depths of the soul. Perhaps she was just a bit too proud of her Kind, but she sensed it was the work of a fellow Helyk Sazashi—how could it not be? It resonated in such a primal way. She wanted to just give herself over to the craftsmanship of it, to fall into its trance and see where it took her.
But she could not. She could not. For two reasons, she could not.
The first was that she was in a play, and an actress in a play never put on more than needed to convey the role. This meant she could not partake in experiencing any lies or drugs that didn't help her to achieve her goals. Vess did not need to become an acolyte to Hedon's rhythm; she did not need to pass off as one of it's Marquis. She only had to pass for some tangentially interested party: a starlet who has recently become enchanted with the Hedonist way and not yet realized how far into the trap she's fallen.
The second was that whichever Helyk was behind the beat was, themself, a Hedonist. A Hedonist saw the world only ever as absurd chaos—a view antithetical to her, who saw the universe as a fractally unwinding formula counting down to entropy. Hedonists enforce chaos because their is no order. Sorrows enforce chaos because they're desperately trying to prove the order for others to see and help change. Hedonites and Sorrows could claim a million different reasons to be at war, but that was the real underlying reason, in her eyes.
She listened to the throb and her heart broke a bit. Helyk wove through society, taking their part in any war on the front of its culture. This musical sounded like a beautiful fool... [4:40 PM] "Yeah, it's pretty great," Turpin said, droning on as Vess returned from her reverie to find herself sitting next to an annoying fool instead. "Anything you want, I can get you. From the Baycrofts to the Hay Loft, city to the wastes, I got you! Oh by the way the Baycrofts is the area down on the waterfront, named for the family which—"
"—Which bankrolled the development of the waterfront and catfish hatchery, I know," Vess said, fighting a yawn. I better get some swing, I'm getting a bit boring for this crowd. Pep it up! She turned to him and smiled, "I mean, I read the manual on the way here. Was that a Hedon job?" She knew damn well it was. Vess had absorbed as much as she could during her sleep on the flight to Axioma Brut. In a quasi-dream state she had binged shows and local history at top speed, sometimes multiple streams at once, for times nearing 20 hours a day. She couldn't recall any part of them in particular, they just bubbled up during conversation, like something she had watched as a child.
She really did wonder how many of her childhood memories were real at this point. How much of it is just the play, now? How many people have I been?
All parsed with the acceptance of watching a fly buzz past. It was not a crises for her, not anymore, it was just self-assessment as she took stock of what plays she was in, and how many plays deep she was.
"Oh goodness!" She said, pulling the role on a bit more snug as she gave a blissful smile. "I'm so sorry, Turpin, I've been a bore. Have you got a bit more swing for a lady?"
Deep down inside of her heart, something screamed. It was allowed a moment to creep out, at least, as the throbbing paused on just the right beat to her to hear the door getting kicked open.
"Oh this must be the thief they caught," Turpin said, offering her a tablet of Swing. They looked like glass eyes. She got lost in it for a moment, then took it. or: :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
Swing wasn't even all that interesting. It was like Phantasia's pathetic alternative. It was one of those perfect little party favors that made you more relaxed without making you disassociate. You wouldn't get up to anything you wouldn't normally, but you'd find all of it rather delightful as you did it. In clubs like these, idiots like Turpin gave girls like Vess tabs like these because they thought it made them more charming.
In the case of Swing, it just made it feel all the more delightful to say no and hit him with a bottle.
Vess wasn't quite at that stage yet, but she was measuring bottles up, organizing them by heft first, and aesthetic second. There would be something pretty satisfying about taking a swing at him with that heavy green one.
The bottle changed from bystander to victim as the bottle hit someone else's head instead. Not Turpin's, unfortunately, but once she pieced together who it was, she gave a charmed laugh. Act 2 was shaping up nicely—it was Cormand.
A muscular, tanned, Sauthei Verin held Cormand's head against the bar between Turpin and Vess.
"Orin?" Vess asked, looking at the Sauthei. He beamed at her, like a sun. "Pleasure to meet you, miss...."
"Vess!" She grinned. It always felt good to fall into a play with a fellow actor, to be in on the joke that nobody else could hear. "And this must be—"
"Cormand!" Orin said, chuckling as he gripped Cormand by the collar and slammed his head on the bar. "Damned, dirty, double-crossing little Cormand."
"Cormand!" Vess cried in delight. "Did you know that your name is derivative of the name of a bird from Eden? Cormorant. And little birds who don't sing songs aren't very loved, these days."
He stared, wild-eyed into her gaze, entranced. The traitorous Sorrow realized the play at that moment, that he was going to die, and be began to scream. [5:10 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
Monoliths recognize Monoliths. Take that as a universal rule. Of course, it's a rule with an exception—only one exception: The Masks. Well, some Masks. It took being a part of many plays and being used by many Actors to develop these kinds of abilities. The Mask had to learn to be, first. To exert a will.
Vess' mask did not allow other Monoliths to see her.
In general, this was inconsequential. A city like this one had thousands of Monoliths. They weren't special these days like they had been generations ago. Turns out that achieving your deeper karmic self gets easier with more education and social welfare. It also turns out that transcending might be great for you, but it doesn't make the rest of the world any less of a march towards entropy.
Monoliths were pretty common. Being able to hide it wasn't particularly useful. Unless, of course, someone wanted to pass as mundane among Monoliths. Then, it was extremely useful.
The Hedonite Marquis of Axioma Brut was a Monolith. In terms of sensing other Monoliths, Axioma Brut lit up the block while Vess lit about across the street. His presence bad been buzzing in her molars as far away as the diner. What had made him transcend, the deeper knowledge he had tapped into, was clearly a two-pronged effort of both indulgent and violent knowledge. Vess only had to look at him to know that.
Sorrows and Hedonites really are just two sides of the same coin, aren't we? You think like a Cannibalite, you just don't know it. [5:27 PM] "Who is this," Agora of the Pearls snarled. He was a Parisan Sazashi, with trim, creamy soft fur that caught the light at its crests and rumples to become a gleaming gold. His mane shimmered and glimmered with pearlescent light beamed from an exposed cybermantle spine. His raspberry red suit cut with grace, but by a glance at the material, and the way it drew taut over muscles that could not be natural, Vess knew he could take a hail of bullets.
His voice was the throaty groan of an ox. A lifetime of drugs, but his lungs were strong enough to kickstart a hurricane. If anything ever collected on his lungs he might need only roar and he could cough the soot clean out.
Agora was everything a Hedonite Marquis needed to be.
"Is this the thief?" Agora asked, fixing Cormand with a mechanized gaze. The cyber eyes shimmered with a glittering golden fluid; a bead dripped down his cheek and soaked into his fur. No stain.
"Oh! Do you suppose he's the one who stole my Phantasia?"
Agora's gaze turned on her, and she saw at it's core two molten lights burning like the last embers of a setting sun.
I can do that, too. It's not that impressive. She was usually doing it to some degree when she looked into people's eyes.
His eyes bored into her, but the Mask only gave reflections a thousand lied lifetimes, and told him he saw nothing. He believed it. He smiled a smile that reminded her of hell breaking open as his gaze returned to Cormand.
"Did you steel this woman's... what did you call it?"
"Phantasia. It's wonderful stuff, really."
"Oh is it, well, why don't you give it back, Mr—what's your name?"
"His name is Cormand, sir," Orin said, arm swelling as he hoisted Cormand up to offer the collar of the human's jumpsuit to Agora. Agora took it, his arm didn't even waver, barely seemed to flex.
"Let him speak for himself, Orin. Thank you. What is your name, Mr:"
"Mr. Cormand G-Gyles," Cormand said, stammering over the last name. [5:42 PM] Agora glanced at Turpin Gyles, who was sitting right next to him. Turpin threw his hands up. In classic Turpin fashion he nearly threw his feet up as well. And a smile to go with it. He was a bit too deep into the Swing, and a bit too delighted by a dangerous situation.
"You didn't tell me that you had a brother, Mr. Gyles. Come to think of it, I do see a resemblance."
"What, how could you? He's an Ireheart, I'm a Gearheart. My whole family is Gearhearts. You went to my cousin's baptismal naming. You baptized him! You've seen my family, Agora."
"I don't know a whole lot about Human genetics," Agora admitted. "But you two look alike, and you certainly both like to waste my time in as many ways as possible.
Orin and Vess shared an embarrassed glance at each other and had to avoid the urge to laugh. Cormand had made the classic blunder of bluffing on a name without knowing whether the name was any good. Agora was, of course, a violent sort of man, and an excuse to get rid of the two together might be just a bit too rich.
Vess fanning the flames with a little bit of her magic wasn't helping, to be fair.
Turpin's face was slowly pushed down against the bar as Agora leaned into him. He wound up pinned under Agora's peck as the Parisan held onto the bar's glowing edge and pressed his nose into Turpin's.
"And if I find out that this goes any deeper than the two of you, I'll baptize your cousin again, this time until the bubbles stop."
"You're going to let me live?" Turpin said.
"No," Agora said. He snorted like a bull, and a gold dust washed over Turpin's face. He went slack. "I just wanted you to know that before I sent you straight to hell."
Agora stood, hoisting Cormand.
"Cormand. Where did you hide this nice woman's drugs?"
"Locker 32 in the terminal. I hid it all in there. I'm sorry sir, I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again."
"I know," Agora said, slamming Cormand's head down. He went slack. [6:02 PM] "Orin, can you—"
"Finish them off? Sure thing, sir! I like watching all the catfish—"
"So do I, Orin. Get to it."
Orin, smiling his warm, charming smile, lifted two two lanky men and carried them into the back. There had been plenty of bystanders, but they did nothing more than smile and titter once the tension was gone. What they had seen was likely legal, they figured. They even clapped and laughed as Agora swept his arm in their direction, sending constellations of rukta gemstones hurling into their accounts.
"Drinks, on the house," Agora said, and in the same motion as turning around he claimed Turpin's seat next to Vess.
"He told you he was your guide, didn't he?" Agora asked. Vess nodded. Agora shook his head. "He's a man who wanders a bit to close to the bounds of Consenti. Do you know what that is?"
She juggled whether he was asking because she thought he was dumb, or because he was testing if she was a hedonist or a Hedonite. The difference between the two was a matter of resident versus tourist. Did you spend a weekend strung out on such a cornucopia of chemicals that you found yourself whispering a poem of their titles into the curves of your company? that's hedonism. A Hedonite considers that to be the long-term standard. For them, indulgence was a ritual towards enlightenment.
That meant knowing your limit. That meant having a language for it. Consenti was the inter-Hedonite tongue of consent, a language with only singular interpretations and complex phrasing. It was spoken a bit like a demon telling riddles in legalese.
Vess could speak it, but it was dangerous for her to do so. She had to embrace more of Hedonism to speak it.
"Only in definition, I came here to learn words beyond the first layer." This was why it helped to pretend to be mundane. A Monolith did nothing casually, he wouldn't've believed her to be a Monolith only now taking interest in Hedon. He would have seen through her in a heartbeat. [6:17 PM] "That might be more than Turpin understood. Always got the sense that he wasn't one of us. Never quite seemed to grasp the mindset it takes to speak proper Consenti. He grew up around Hedon, too, cousin of a friend's brother-in-law, you see. He should've grasped this stuff. But he's always lying, and his deals are never airtight, and there's always family members of his showing up uninvited and pretending they're with us—he's trying to run his own racket. It's a shame, too, his uncle did me real good once, might even be one of my Counts at this rate."
"Oh, you haven't picked your Counts yet?" Esquire, Baron, Count, Marquis, Duke, Prince, Lady Desire herself, the Hedonite hierarchy of who owned how much and what say they had over who.
Agora shook his head. "No, I'll be throwing the gala next month. It's going to be quite the show."
"A show? What plays have you got planned?"
"Plays? That's a bit old-fashioned, isn't it. Classy, though, and we Parisan do have a long history with the theatre, you knot." He was looking at her, but he wasn't talking to her. By the distant gaze in his eyes she realized he had started talking to himself, and she let the Wheel turn for a moment on its own as the dewdrop skittered down the cobweb. "We brought a level of complexity and melancholy to the theater, of glories veiled as tragedies. Ah, but I can't expect to find something of that caliber here."
"Perhaps I could help with that," she said, on cue. "I'm an actress, myself, and a playwright. I've always been fond of our history, you know? Of us Sazashi. I dearly wish to go home someday, to Jhoutai, but I've lived in the Federation my whole life, and the Pact doesn't like us very much. That's why I was so charmed by the Apple of Hedonism. It's really opened up the stars for me, and made life so much more wonderful." 6:29 PM] Agora smiled with the warm of affection of pride in another. "Then I hope someday you get to visit the homeland. Even for those of us who swore off the Pact, it does have an allure that can be felt in the bones, doesn't it?"
Vess nodded, and drank from her glass in lieu of speech. There was a bit of blood on the glowing bartop. Cormand's. He'd be dead by now. Turpin, as well. The play was going nicely. The Swing was making her crave some Phantasia. Not yet.
"Here," he continued, gesturing an obscene amount of rukta into her account. "A grant. For your play. Think you can do a month?" "Oh why thank you!" She said, breath catching in excitement. How delightful, said the Swing, and she quite agreed. Her Mask did as well, and with the throb of the club chanting CONSUME into her ear, she was driven to have another celebratory swig of the drink. "I could do a night if you needed, but with a month it'll actually be good! Absolutely. I'll do my part to make it a gala for the ages. Thank you so much!"
She heard the upcoming pickup line and tangled the web, sending the dewdrop down another path as she cut him off before the thought could even reach his lips.
"Oh I so wish I had the bottle of wine I'd brought with me. It would be incredible to toast this with. Cormand took it as well."
"What is it?" Agora asked, taking the bait. A chained combo of giving moods only made one more giving, not less, so long as the promise of payoff was ratcheted up a little more each time. He had made her happy enough to drink more with the first favor, if another, smaller one meant sharing an intimate bottle of wine with her, well, that was hardly anything, was it?
"Why, it's Champs-Élysées!" [6:43 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
"What's Champs El Sees?" "Gen. Fucksake." "It's a game at this point. You're cute when you're mad." "I'm cute all the time. It's the Glamour." "I don't mean your face. I mean your voice. The Glamour doesn't hide that from me." "Well, technically—" "NoooOOOOOoooo!" "Did you just howl? That's so adorable." "See?" "Fuck!" "Hah! So, what's Chomps Lez Yes? Is that one of Gabriel's brews."
Their shoes clattered against the pavement as they meandered to one of the less populated bits of the city. Sometimes they could extend an arm entirely for a second without hitting someone. The night smelled like sex and violence. And urine. And alcohol.
"Yeah, it's one of his wines." "I still can't believe that a vine... yard... man. Vinyard man?" "Vintner." "Thanks. I still can't comprehend how a vintner made the Cannibalites." "Same way an actors' guild made an intergalactic shadow cabal called the Clade of Operant Drama: there's a lot more to it. Gabriel used to torture souls in the High Crucible back on Eden, back when he was an Angel in the Church of the Somnolent."
"Crucible?"
"It's a private hell. Souls go in. Souls get tormented until they rot. The rancid souls drip out of the Crucible. They use the rancid souls, Glisterwax, to make Glisterwine. You drink Glisterwine and you become a Cannibalite."
"How do you know all this shit, Vess. It's alarming stuff to know."
"How many plays have you had since our last, Gen?"
"Four? And five more bit parts. Only three had a concerted play behind them, the rest were just improvs to shift the balance a bit."
"Right. I've been on twenty and I'm pretty sure I'm five deep right now. You pick up a lot of this stuff when you're this deep into a play."
"Sorrow's tears..." Gen said, voice following so low that Vess sensed pity. "Don't you ever get to rest?" [6:54 PM] Vess considered. She had spent the last eight days in quasi-sleep with one 3-hour block of sleep and two half-hours spread through the day. She hadn't slept since her arrival. She hadn't slept for three days since before her departure.
"No, not really," Vess said. "Fork in the road, which way do we turn?"
Gen's shoulder fell, then rattled back up to square. "Down Armands towards the Baycrofts. So why the hell are you suggesting drinking Champs-Élysées with Agora? He sounds as bad as Turpin, just hunkier about it. He looks like he gets sexual gratification from tying rebar into bowties."
"Hah! Probably. And I'm not going to drink it with him. I just want to get him interested in it. Winding up to get him to drink it on his own. That man's coiled up as tight as a spring, and he's ready for someone to try and turn on him especially anyone related to Turpin, whose uncle might be about to become a count."
"Ah, so you're going to make Agora tear his own empire to shreds? Turn left."
"Yes. Watch your head."
"Incredible. Take the stairs there. We're here." [7:08 PM] “Is this Kor’rvak?” Vess asked as they approached the two men: a handsome Helyk and a mousy Human.
“Yep," said Gen, before addressing Ker'rovak. "This the guy?"
"Yep, Domic," said Ker'rovak, before addressing Domic. "This the place?"
"Yep, Turk's Works. Hey, listen, can we hurry this up? Sun's coming up soon and I don't wanna discorporate, you know?"
"Why, bioweapon got you?" Gen asked. "Give you a sun allergy? Sathiidism? Do you explode into pus and confetti?"
"No you idiot," he said, hushing her with a wave of his hand. "I'm a ghost. I'm dead. Half this fucking colony is dead and doesn't know any better. Not you newbies, you're fine. Look at you, all beautiful and alive. Don't waste it."
Vess and Gen glanced at Ker'rovak. Ker'rovak's gaze assured them that Domic was delusional. Domic clearly came from the undercity. On top of being a disjointed, alarming place to live, undercities were prone to all sorts of gas leaks. It was easy to get a baked brain living down there if the city was badly kept, and the Federation didn't keep great cities. That was why the job promised to pay well, at least before all the work rights fees.
They followed at Ker'rovak's lead. "Ah, fair," Vess said. "Let's get a move on, then. This place is awfully empty, I'm surprised."
"Oh, dame" Domic said. "If you think it's empty now then you've never visited an undercity. Prepare yourself for the existential crisis of the yawning void of a labyrinth of rooms that only make sense to a broken mind." "That sounds a bit exciting, actually," Ker'rovak said. "Did a Helyk design it?"
"A what?" Domic's face screwed up in annoyance. Why was everyone asking him all these questions?
Ker'rovak gestured to himself. "A 'me'."
"How the hell am I supposed to know? Doesn't it go back to your homeworld? It was probably the Aen."
"Ah, figures. They do excel at sucking the fun out of everything, including mega structures."
"So, Turk's our way in?" Vess said.
"Turk's our way in," Domic agreed. [7:23 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
"You're late, I hate lateness. These the folks?" Turk asked. Turk was a Khirmagne Sazashi. Of all the Sazashi that had been made, there was a gradient between being bestial, and sharing features with their Verin ancestry. Khirmagne were a bit far left of center in the direction of being bestial, especially in their mannerisms. Vess knew it was more custom ritual than physiology—like most sophont Kinds, they'd learned to embrace their stereotypes to a degree, to live in the comfort that they could at least find a cameraderie in each other and in the familiar interplay of Sazashi kinds. It was very Pact thinking, but it was a part of Sazashi history as a whole.
"Yep," Domic said. "They wanna use your basement entrance into the undercity and come and go as they please, with your protection.
Ker'rovak had orchestrated this. He'd done a good job of it, too. Vess enjoyed working with other Helyk.
"Out of the goodness of my heart? I hate charity."
"I bet you love money, though" Vess said, rattling a fistful of glimmering rukta.
"I sure don't hate it," He said, seeming to notice her for the first time. "Hi. I'm Tur'rdek. Nickname's Turk. You call me Tur'rd, I'll flush ya into the bay. You make a flush joke, I'll leave you in the dumps. You make a dumps joke, I'll wipe you out. You make a good wipes joke and I'll buy ya a beer."
"God's snot, he's never said that many words at once," Domic remarked, brows shooting up under his cap.
"That's cause the only way I'd want you in my mouth is to use you as a toothpick, you little twig."
"Oh God, Is it fucked up that I hope you're making a dirty joke about her and a cannibalistic one about me?" Domic asked, grimacing. Turk howled with laughter.
"Throw in a little extra and I'll put on something nice for you," Turk said, leaning on the counter and grinning wide. [7:29 PM] "Are you... soliciting me?" Vess asked.
"What, you thought I was flirting? Nothing for free, anything for money."
"The only thing I want in my hands are one of your guns."
Turk's expression nosedived into a scowl. He straightened and crossed his arms. "Right, we have a few," he said, dipping his chin to refer to the wall of firearms splayed across the entire store behind him.
"Let's see, what's best for killing a snake..." [7:42 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
"I'm so sorry, he's not usually like that," Domic said, leading the way though the black, rectangular, featureless hallway of the undercity. His sallow face was pink with shame. "Usually he just grunts and throws something at me whenever I come through, and now and then I'll run a package across the undercity for him. He's the one who helped me realize I'm dead. He's like a... a weird uncle."
"Well, what family is complete without a dirty uncle?" Gen asked, helpfully. They shared a glance, a glance that said conman, then all blinked as they realized Orin was with them. Gen smiled. "Hey Orin, didn't see you trailing there."
"Hello Ingénue." Her smile faltered. "Sorry. Gen. Hello Gen, how are you?" It came back with a dip of her chin.
"It's fine," Vess said. "He's a flirt, and the Federation makes capitalists of all its folks. He doesn't know how to disentangle the two anymore. He likes us. And he does care about you, Domic, he's just got slapped around as a kid."
"Hey, call that elevator. Yeah. Low as it does." Domic called ahead to Vess as her long strides took her towards the front. "She always like this?" He asked Gen. Gen smiled wrapped an arm around Domic. Domic was shorter than her, and she was the same height as Orin. "No, sometimes she kills people instead."
"Hah. Well. I ain't too afraid of Sazashi claws, on account of already being dead. The real killer in this city is greed." 7:55 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: They made their way towards the bottom of the elevator with great effort. The gravity plating got a bit finicky about halfway down, so they had to open the doors, reach out of the cab, tether the backup chain to the gearbox, and spin the gearbox to get lower it the rest of the way. A bike had long been installed into the elevator for this purpose, complements of the city repair budget.
Ker'rovak volunteered to handle the bike. Drumming had given him calves as big and as hard as coconuts. Domic held onto the armrail of the elevator as it lurched down in what was, to him, record time. "Christ, man, you could kick someone's head clean off with those legs."
"I know," Ker'rovak said, tone flat. He left it at that, giving everyone plenty of space to consider the real possibility that he had. A few rukta floated in hands and a few eyes traded glances before Ker'rovak said "Sig V, Ciudad Uno, three jobs ago. Had a barfight with a Chea Verin. I was wearing a miner's plate, cause my play had me in the mines. Got a little enthusiastic and kicked his head so hard that it bounced around between the ceiling fans like an arcade machine."
Gen and howled in anguish as Orin and Vess hissed with victory, claiming their winnings of the bet. Domic looked lost. He didn't know the game.
"You know people," Orin remarked with a high five. "You know muscles," Vess said, grinning "You know me!" "You don't know me." "I know!" [8:21 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Orin's muscles flexed as he opened the outer shutter of the elevator, allowing a small flood of chilly water and oily pollywogs to rush in around their shoes. Nobody had worn anything that didn't double for the situation.
They soon learned to ignore the inevitable squelch of polywogs bursting like ripe cherries underfoot as they walked through the shallow waters. Handcrabs skittered away from the lantern hovering over the party, pale forms lurching off in search of shadows. Their side-to-side leaps forward would be comical if their namesake didn't so capture the way that it looked like a legion of severed hands flapping in fear.
"I'll grab an engine to put on the utility elevator," Domic promised. "I don't usually come down this way, but the access elevator is about two feet wide so wouldn't exactly fit us all. Over here is the apartment."
"I don't like the Church but I do miss human architecture," Gen sighed. "This is so depressing."
"It's not that bad," Ker'rovak said. "I could design worse." He meant it, too. It was important to him. Vess remembered Ynek'k's anti-Jazz comment. It fit. Ker'rovak didn't even walk with rhythm. He shambled, but the shamble itself dizzied her if she stared and tried to anticipate the next step. She wouldn't want to fight him, she doubted she could touch him.
She wondered if he was a Monolith.
"Why do Sazashi build so far down?" Gen complained, dodging a torrent of bubblegum pink fluid raining down from a roof out of sight. Vess heard bugs bristling in the dark. Domic lit a flare and dipped his chin at her. "Nah, nothing to worry about," he said.
"Sazashi cities had to deal with Jhoutaioan life." Vess explained. "Life on Jhoutai is teeming. It's hard to extend the walls into the growth, so you build up, and down. Infrastructure below, people above."
"People below, too," Gen offered.
"Just ghosts and shadows." Domic. "We're here." [8:36 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: The vents of the apartment rumbled as heat poured into the frosted over quarters. These apartments were meant for rotations of undercity workers to inhabit for weeks at a time, and for them to be left untouched for years. They were kept below zero, to keep out bugs and drifters. Ghosts and shadows wouldn't bother nobody, though.
Domic had left a community lounge, the locker room, and the kitchen thawed. He had been sleeping on the couch in the community room. "Did you find this place?" Gen asked.
"What? No. It's my place." He look offended that she was accusing him of squatting. "I'm dead but I ain't useless. We worked hard for this place and I'm not letting my family down by abandoning the job. I'm fixing that pink leak this week, and tomorrow draining the lower elevator landing, I just can't do nothing until they overturn my erroneous fine so that I can get pump access again."
Gen glanced at Vess, frowning. Vess agreed. The fine was no-doubt city bureaucracy whose only purpose was to see how much they could drain out of the boy before he just faded into the tunnels one day and was forgotten entirely. Truly a ghost.
"Where's everyone else?" Gen asked.
"Hm? Dead. Of course. Same power surge that killed me. They moved on. I stayed back to maintain the place. Keep the family legacy going a bit, you know? Big city, lotta promise, maybe a ghost like me can buy a golem, live in that, work my way up, buy a real body, meet a girl, have some kids, run a bar, you know?"
Vess did him the honor of not looking in his direction as his voice cracked. Folks in the Federation didn't like to be seen crying. Chin up until nobody can see your face.
"I'll uh," he coughed, sniffling. "You get comfy. I'll make us something to eat." [8:58 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Vess reasoned that Domic was in his mid-to-late late twenties. Still a youth by any means, but his emotional development was more towards the mid-pubescent range. It had been years since Domic's family had died, so likely years since this room had been opened. This room that she had chosen at random from all the rest.
The letter sitting upon the box upon the dresser was clearly addressed to her. It was still warm, too, so warm that it steamed in the still-frigid bedroom.
Azeshejlt-Avessian Manir'ri Tel Ionel Tor NouBordeaux Drat'n Gino the envelope read at first, but as she scrutinized the letters, the only evidence that she still existed, ink seemed to slosh around on the face of the envelop, and instead simply read Vessel
She opened the envelop with a level of care. It was well made. The paper was so dense it could be counted as a cloth, and its seams were even sewn and heat-pressed rather than glued. She had to break a purple wax seal to open it. The seal bore the image of a tentacled skull, tentacles shaped a bit like a biohazard symbol and a bit like a spider against the backdrop of a hexagonal spiderweb. Know Sorrow.
She opened it, and found a card within. On the front of the card, embossed as though by hand, was an order.
For Act 3 The most direct order she had received since joining the actors. Her hands were trembling. Most orders came passed down from someone who heard it from someone else, and usually wanted her to either pass it along, or to take on the play.
Cards came straight from the Director. At least that's what everyone said. That's what she said. That's what you say, in the Sorrows.
Her trembling nearly flicked the card from her hand as she set it down and regarded the box. [9:14 PM] It was made of a soft, pearly white metal. It looked as fragile as chrome foil, but when she touched it she sensed an immense weight to it. It did not budge, nor did it even creak. Out of curiosity she tried to push it, certain that at least the dresser would move, but even that seemed fixed in place on legs that looked like mere aluminum tubing.
She could do only one thing: open the box. It opened in a sort of floral pattern, with the front and top folding up together, and the sides folding outwards to frame the contents: a white mask in a bed of purple velvet.
A gasp of fear rattled from her lips. She wasn't sure why. Something about the mask unnerved her. It unnerved her in the way that a certain order to all things unnerved her. It was on a dresser well under her towering height, but it seemed to cast a glow that, no matter how soft, eclipsed her, consuming more than half the room.
"What is your name?" She asked, fighting teeth chattering. She felt the heat from the vent blowing at her back. She wasn't that cold anymore. The chattering wasn't that.
Nothing.
"What's your name?" She hissed, leaning in and baring her fangs at it. Her Mask repelled her away from it. It didn't want to be any closer to the other Mask than it had to. No.
"I said: What's. Your—" she snarled, bracing her feet against the ground and throwing her weight at it. She was reminded of Agora pinning Turpin at the bar.
Her vision flashed as though she had been struck upside the head as Her mask drove her back, heels scraping over half the concrete before her legs went out beneath her and she crashed against the wall hard enough for her spine to crackle. <NO>
She blinked up at the dresser. The box wax closed, the card lay propped against it. For Act 3 She decided to go help with dinner. She had a feeling nobody else would see the Mask, let alone be able to pick it up ahead of time. [9:36 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: "What's the play," Gen asked over dinner, which was a big steaming loaf of from-the-kit larva loaf garnished with some half-remembered family recipe of jellied olives mixed with chopped carrots and peppers. Very Sazashi. Vess loved it, it could not have tasted buggier even if the wings had still been flapping.
Gen was less enthused, and had supplemented dinner with a tab of Swing so that she could at least try to extract some delight from it. Given her expression it was an uphill battle.
"Not enough of us to go around for a grand orchestration so we're going to have to do a waking incept and pull his lynchpin instead. I've already found the lynchpin with his worry that his subordinates will turn on him."
"Standard," Gen scoffed. "Boring."
"There's plenty of other things to handle. I'm glad it's a straight play in that regard. Normal troupe is over twenty and we've got four. That means leveraging local actors. Have you found any."
"Yeah I kept eyes since I figured we'd need them. There's a few troupes. None Sorrows but a couple are ripe for it. Am I getting playwright."
"You're good at it," Vess said. They smiled.
"But you're the director and she's the ingén—" Ker'rovak began. Orin thumped him on the shoulder.
"That's not her role in this play, Ker'rovak," Vess continued, salvaging Gen's faltering smile. "I'll play the ingénue to Agora, prime him for the incept. Ker'rovak you're going to conduct the music for the play—" "I have no objections to this plan and am wholeheartedly onboard with the concept—" "Thanks, good. Orin, I need you putting a bead on Naag and helping to wipe out any Cannibalites they missed. We need Agora to put you on security detail so you can relax things for us."
"How are we handling Naag."
"We'll have to kill him. Probably together." [9:55 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Rising actions made Vess' stomach hurt. She had disliked the unknown as a Mundane, and found it unbearable as a Monolith. With the lurking glow of the White Mask burning like an umbra around her mind at all times, this rising action was particularly miasmic to her.
Sparse quasi-dates with Agora, usually under the guise of discussing the play or asking for this resource or that—tokens to further indebt his favor with her by indebting unspoken fantasies to him—were not distraction enough for her, so she sidelined Ynek'k's blog during their dates, reading old pieces as much as new. It was a bit like being out with Ynek'k to read her reviews of the local restaurants while experiencing them herself. It had taken some work to talk Agora into only meeting at Kismet, but he seemed so much charmed by her for it.
His flirting barely registered most of the time. It might've worked on anyone who was already attracted to strength, power, wealth, and the rest of the synonyms. She was ambivalent towards those. She enjoyed a partner with them, she didn't enjoy a partner for them.
He could sense that she wasn't won over. That made her more fun. He was quite charmed by the challenge, and though he was certain he'd be bored of her as soon as he got her, that didn't make the chase any less charming. He thought he was being quite the player, but he didn't know his costar well enough. He didn't know that he'd already fallen in love, yet. He'd find that out on the night of the play.
More bodies for the catfish in the bay today. Hedonites, this time. The Baycrofts really screwed up with that hatchery. How long do you suppose it is until catfish get into the undercity. I've heard some of the workers have to swim through sections to get around. Imagine sections going dark when nobody can brave past the catfish to tend to the generators." [10:09 PM] "Have you got any more Phantasia?" Agora asked. "It feels wonderful. I feel like I'm telling such a good story right now, because I'm immersed in it through the Phantasia. This stuff is like Swing's beefy older sibling. No wonder you like it. Doesn't feel addictive, either. Is it?"
"The ritual is, the drug isn't."
"Yeah, well, when isn't that true? That's good though. I'll have to get it imported. Have you got anymore?"
"I do, but some is for the actors, and I want you to have some to ride you through the play, as well. It's how my writing is meant to be experienced."
"I like that. That sounds exciting. Do actors normally take Phantasia with And the wine, as well?"
"Did you find it?" "I did. Should we open it?" "Of course not! I want you to drink it before the play!" "Can't we drink it together?" "No! I have to be on stage, Agora! It's an audience drink. If I take it before I go on stage it will give me a bad trip. It's not good for someone who is trying to follow a role." "Bad trip? That sounds dangerous." "Dangerous? To you?" He bellowed in laughter.
His debt was the unspoken agreement to drink it. Hers was in the compliment to his strength. His debt had consequence, and would be paid long before his dewdrop could reach the part of the thread where it intersected with hers in such a way that he felt her debt had come due.
Her skin crawled. She hated acting like bait [10:32 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: "Walk faster, Naag is following us."
Vess hadn't seen Orin arrive, but she had been very conscious of everyone else filtering out. She had, of course, sensed Naag Kumo following behind her. He was a Monolith. She hadn't turned her head, but she did instead check her bag and act as though she'd seen something that made her want to get home sooner. Her footsteps had started to move faster, Naag's had not, but they sounded just as close now as before.
She had heard a growling chuckle as she picked up speed. A wet, lazy snarl. A hungry sound.
"How does he see us." Orin asked. The question was void of inflection and curiosity. She took a mental note, and watched him from the corner of her eye, his attention was on where to turn next. He was distracted by the search. She let out a shuddering breath. "If you know how a Glamour works, you learn to look around the Glamour instead of at it, to see the patterns that tell your a Glamour is there. If he keeps staring at us he may actually spot us eventually."
"You can do that?"
"I can't," Vess said. "Not reliably. I've just met a few individuals who could. Children are pretty good at it, because they're still seeing everything for the first time and get a more raw view. Most animals, because subtext is lost on them. Luea Verin, because their vision is so sensitive that eventually they'll notice that their vision blurs over whenever they look directly at a Glamour."
"Nice," Orin said. "You're anxious, though. You played this scene right into its third, we're about to get attacked."
"Anxious? I counted on it."
They both leapt to the different side of the alley Naag snarled. His presence extended down the alley, unseen but not unfelt as it cracked concrete and shredded a trashcan."
"Kinetics!" Orin announced.
"A given!" Vess called back. [11:00 PM] The gun was in her bag, but firing it up here would draw heat from all directions. Fed cops might not bother with the groundside, but they'd still come down for a loud enough gunshot. Especially this close to the Baycrofts.
"How's your magic?" Vess asked, running down the alleyway with him and breaking out into a derelict tenement park between looming, vacant tenements. Nobody was allowed to move into this part of the city until enough people inhabited the undercity, but nobody wanted to because the local outlets had picked up Ynek'ks blog, spun it into the easy speak—the Ubiq language, and stirred up all sorts of fears about catfish. No doubt her new one would have the Feds hunting for her.
"If you need a strong gust of wind or a dancing pool of water, I'm your guy!"
"How strong?"
"An umbrella might be in danger of turning out?"
"I just need as much dust in the air as possible. Gust the alley the moment I'm in it."
"...alright, ready."
Naag's footsteps were halfway down the way by then, and he was hissing like a serpent. His head was low, too low for a body that towered even by Vess' standards.
She turned heel and ran into the alleyway as a great gust kicked up at her back. Dust of a million feet tracked up from below and rained down from above kicked up in a clattering wave of detritus and filth, filling the air.
His gaze was the sunset of a violent, thrashing star of boiling blood setting down over the broken spine of a mountain.
I can do that, too. It's not that impressive.
Her gaze was a pulsar, burning with colors beyond comprehension, vaporizing all before it to reveal the truth. As it caught his gaze it collapsed into a black hole, pulling him in to the brilliant halo of burning green iris.
His spell came out erratic as he staggered in surprise at the realization that she was a Monolith. She saw the spiderweb his kinetic vectors traced in the dust, and, with shift of her body, wove her own where they might intersect her or Orin. [11:15 PM] Naag was low to the ground, like a serpent. His long body and shaggy hair was splayed, and had too many joints to it. Too many limbs, too, by what she was able to catch in that heartbeat. He was suspended in a kinetic web of his own weave, and when her kinetics overlapped his, they both shattered like glass, sending shards and ripples in every which direction.
Cuts traced over her body. Some hurt. She wouldn't be sure of the damage until after the fight was over, but seeing chunks of concrete shatter from the walls around her gave her an idea of what might have happened had she not blocked his spell.
He fell as his web gave out, but her own hoisted her up over him, entirely upside-down and perpendicular. She reached a hand up towards the earth, towards his pained, fearful, startled face. His gawped as her fingertips caressed his cheek with all the intimate warmth of true love, and he looked into her eyes. Like bottle of wine swayed one way and then the other, the contents of Vess's soul sloshed up her arm and to her palm, here it touched his vein-webbed cheek. Her entire essence spoke into his mind, with a volume that cracked the concrete beneath his head, 5 words:
Your suffering is your doing.
He convulsed with anguish, an abundance of hands all curling into the fetal position as his body did much the same. She had read his deepest fear and played it back at such volume that he was re-experiencing every failure of his life as though a fresh wound torn open with hatchets and hot iron.
She landed, stumbled, and skidded. She looked back to see if Orin was alright. She hadn't perfectly been able to counter Naag's spell—he was a far better caster than her—but Orin wasn't unable to get back to his feet with relative ease. He'd miss one of his beautiful horns—sheared off by the cast.
That might not work a second time. The element of surprise had diminishing returns.
"Run home! This won't hold him!" She called back. Already Naag was screaming. Changing. [11:44 PM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: "Sorrow's tears, Vess, are you alright?" Gen shook as Vess stumbled in and fell into her arms, knocking her back into a chair, which slid into the card table, which upended the whole game of Hand of Fate that she, Ker'rovak, and Domic were playing. It was a good gateway game to bring the boy into the Sorrows. He still only had a vague idea of what they were, but he liked the familial feeling to the group.
"Christ! That's a lot of blood." Domic stood up, poised to act, but unsure what to do. He rattled for a moment, then ran out of the room. "First aid kit!"
"I'll be fine," Vess said, rolling onto the floor and taking some heaving breaths. "It's all topical. Well, I lost a fingertip so that's unfortunate, but I can hit up a bioparlor tomorrow and have a new one grown before Agora notices."
Tears pooled in Gen's eyes. "Vess, it shouldn't be this way." Vess let out a sigh. There's no other way it can be, Gen. This is the play.
"Where's Orin?" Ker'rovak asked, already checking his pistol. "Here," Orin said from the couch. "I came in just behind her." "Oh. I didn't see you there. I thought Domic had laid down on the—" "I'm in the lockers!" Domic yelled back. "I said I'm getting—" "Are you okay, Orin?" Ker'rovak asked. "The blow to my pride was much greater than any injury. Check Vess, she's the one Naag chased after once he mutated." [11:46 PM] "Mutated?" Domic said, pausing just as he entered the room. His eyes flickered over to the front door, judging if it could take the force of an angry mutant. "He didn't follow us. I lost him. Sun was coming up anyway." Vess. "He doesn't like the sun?" "Not anymore. He's more abomination than man at this point." "Is he an abomination, or a mutant?" "Mutants are bio. Abominations are magic. Abominations have mutation. Ugh, blame the linguistic limits of you only speaking Ubiq."
"Small words, Vess." Gen said aside, in another tongue. "I cannot speak anything but small words in this language, Gen! It is a language of small ideas. It's as bad as Consenti." Gen shivered, and settled on the floor next to Vess to hold her hand. "You sure you're alright?" "Some ice for my stubby finger would be nice." [12:08 AM] Ademal, The Narrator: Just a week until the gala, folks. Capital is wound up tight. Can't you feel it? The Governor has put on curvews. The catfish are getting too fat to swim. There's dominoes falling, and I can guarantee nobody knows with certainty who has killed who. Hedon is a powder keg, and the Governor is ready to crack down.
"How many other Cannibalites were there," Vess asked Orin. He was admiring his new horncap in a hand-mirror—a golden replica of what he had lost. It stood out, striking, on the branching, woodlike horn. He avoided locking eyes with himself.
"Four." Orin said. "Dead now. They abandoned Naag Kumo—probably afraid Naag would eat them, which was a reasonable stance, considering there were six, but he ate two."
"Now when you say ate," Domic said.
"I mean ate them," Orin repeated in Ubiq, so that Domic's translator couldn't mince up the meanings of his words.
"Oh. Okay. No. Excuse me. But what the fuck? Why do they eat people?" "For chaos," Ker'rovak said. "Not just chaos where they are but chaos within their own minds. To eat is to become a predator, to prime the mind for each deeper monstrosity. It's their rite of passage, their proof of zeal. And if they drink enough wine they'll become an abomination, an infestation. The form they bear will then match the predator they've trained their mind to be, and they will become a terror to behold."
Domic stared blankly. Vess read an entire conversation played out over his face, and jumped to its conclusion. "This is Ethnis, Domic, I'm sorry. You hear it on the news, in history books, and in stories, but its never near you until it is. You are not a part of the Wheel, you're a notch on it, we all are. Our threads intersect, and when one is tugged all feel it."
"Nope. I'm dead. The world is terrible but it's not spider-demon-monster cannibals terrible. I'm just dead and the demons are finally starting to find me. This is fine. This is just how it goes."
"Domic..." Gen said.
"Dead." Domic said, firmly. [12:39 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: "What aren't you telling us about Naag?"
Gen cornered Vess in the showers. Smart tactic. Nudity is vulnerable. To most. Sloppy, but admirable. You're learning. I wonder if you realize how close you're getting to transcendence?
Vess had pieced out by now that Ker'rovak and Orin were Monoliths. It had taken her a while to notice. She wasn't sure if they were stronger than her, or weaker—it was hard to measure strength between monoliths, on a spectrum where concepts like strength and superiority became meaningless—but she took comfort in knowing that yes, this was where they were all supposed to be, that the threads had all aligned to position them against Naag Kumo.
And now here you are, practically reading my mind, and edging this much closer to reading your own, becoming your truest self.
Gen made a little half-stumble back into herself as she caught Vess' eye, and the conversation happened unspoken on a level just below the conscience, at least for Gen, for now.
"You saw something that night, that you're not telling us? You've been spending more and more time inside your own head as the gala gets closer. What are you afraid of? I know you. You have faith in your plays. I've never seen you tense over a final act like this. What's going to happen?"
I know you.
Oh, this is love, isn't it. I fell right for it. The oldest play in the book. You saw me, and I saw you, and wherever that takes us from here, it's love. I'll never be able to lie to you again.
Vess put her hands on Gen's shoulders and smiled at her.
"I am afraid for you, Gen. I've never cared about anyone this much during a play. Fellow actors, to me, have always been here the same as I have: with full knowledge that any play might be my last, that the threads will intersect and I will be the fly instead of the dewdrop. We have always known that we may sacrificed for the Great Drama." [12:52 AM] Gen listened, transfixed, as her eyes locked with Vess'.
"But you, Gen, I do not want you to be a sacrifice to the Great Drama. And that is what I've read of you, Gen. That's where our threads align. Tomorrow, you are supposed to die. But I am not going to allow that. I will grab the spokes of the Wheel with my bare. fucking. hands if I have to, I will turn them to change your fate."
Gen's eyes were blue pools of ocean waves rolling without ever hitting a shore. Vess' were a forest growing downwards into a sea.
"Do you see, Gen?"
Gen nodded, tears beading in her eyes.
"I direct you, Gen: Forget this, until you look him in the eyes. Forget all of this and play your part, and this won't be your last play. Your card is Judgement."
"I love you, Gen." "I love you, Vess."
They kissed. Gen had to lean high. Vess had to lean low.
"Was there something you wanted to ask me?" Vess asked in a whisper. "N-no, sorry, I forgot. It must have been important. But I've forgotten. Oh, do you know how to convince Domic he's human? I'm worried for him. At this rate, if he dies he really will become a ghost. I had a friend turned into a ghost once and it was incredibly distressing for us and his family. I don't like his odds, but I'd like him to maybe die knowing that he briefly lived."
"I can do that," Vess said, because she already had. [12:58 AM] [updated post] [1:25 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: I can see why the Marquis wanted to wait a month for this. Tonight is your big night. The flowers growing up the sky scrapers are in in full bloom. Every evening, after dusk, they open wide open with these fluttering petals that have all the coloring and patterning of butterfly wings glowing in the night. It's incredible. I know you're here. Sometimes I can almost taste your signature. Who is it going to be, tonight? Is it going to be the Governor? Are you going to burn down the stage? Is it the Marquis? Is it me?
"So, what is the, uh, what did you call it? The proof of zeal? For you guys? You're Sorrows, they're Sorrows. So do I gotta... uh, eat someone? To join you guys. Is that real? Do you all eat people? Like, I guess, sure, I've tried a vat-born me's-burger before, and, I guess, in your line of work people die, so it's not as big a deal if you eat someone. I'd have to randomly whack someone or sneak into a morgue and that's so much effort it just gets weird—"
"Wheel's gears! Shut up, Domic," Gen said, laughing. "We are not Cannibalites. We're Actors. We are the Clade of Operant Drama. We are so much harder to get into.
Domic's smile plummeted and his brows stiched together. "Harder? How the hell can you be harder than eating someone? What've I got to—"
"You've got to tell a story we have not heard," Ker'rovak interrupted. He exhaled smoke from the old fash' cig he was sharing with Turk. Turk had been following them on their outings more and more whenever they rehearsed in the park. Gen wasn't sure what Turk saw or heard when they all spoke, but he never seemed to pay much mind to their conversation when they talked. Vess saw Ker'rovak's play—a love lost and revenge arc. A shame, Turk's rough spots had ironed out around them, thanks to Ker'rovak's artful nagging skills. Vess liked him, but she might not survive gripping the Wheel more than once. [1:47 AM] "You must make us life a life we have never lived," Ker'rovak continued. His timing really was perfect. Every time he spoke it shocked them from collective reverie. This second strike broke the spell his first had put in place.
"A life you've never—listen, pal, I didn't even get to live the one life, alright? I'm dead. How the fuck am I supposed to give you an extra life if I never even had the first?"
Ker'rovak glanced at Vess. She tipped her chin so signal that she heard it too. Orin took a deep breath. If Ker'rovak's every note was off-beat then her every note was on, and just because she couldn't play music didn't mean she couldn't keep time. She nodded. it was time.
"Domic," she said. He looked at her, startled by the clarity of her voice. Their eyes locked. Hazel succumbed without resistance to an emerald supernova. "Has it ever occurred to you that living isn't something you do with just your body?"
"W-what," he stammered as she released him. A bit of light gleamed in his dull eyes, as though he was looking, rather than just seeing, for the first time. "Why are you wearing... no I saw them! They were there for a second? Why were you wearing Masks?"
It was in that moment that Domic was bisected, brow to hip, by the twang of Naag Kumo's last kinetic thread falling into place—draping down over him. His constituent parts were grabbed, crushed, and tugged into the elongated maw of Naag Kumo, who now slithered and skittered out from the park's stormdrain.
"I will devour this world until it is nothing but blood and shit." The maw rumbled at them as it propelled itself forward on too many limbs and too few thoughts. "Consumption and rot are the final order. Why do you prolong the suffering?" [2:18 AM] The gaps in Vess' memory were worsening. For example: she could not remember her return to the apartment. She was crying. She was afraid for Gen? Why? Because Gen was currently running across town with Orin and Ker'rovak to start the play. She wasn't needed until the end, they had pre-ordained that.
When?
*How many plays deep am I?" "How many plays deep am I?"
She was looking into the mirror. She was looking into her own eyes. As green as the first breath of life, and the last.
What is the next act? "What is the next act?"
<No. What is the next act?> "Act 3," she said, finally able to see the Mask. She pulled it off and set it aside, sprinkling her face with cold water, washing away the tears and tracing the scars. Turk hadn't survived, but he wasn't supposed to. Ker'rovak was about to play his heart out, because only a truly heartfelt performance could weaken Naag.
She carried her Mask to her room. The White Case was there. It was open. She lay her Mask next to it, so gentle that it didn't even tap on impact with the metal top of the dresser. She reached down to embrace the White Mask, cradling it like a forgotten lover. If it was not already, it soon would be.
She carried it to the bathroom, stared into the mirror until she could hear herself think, and pressed it to her face.
The was a customary headrush when putting on a Mask. A syncing period as the mind staggered under the weight of sudden company, and, like a thousand wind vanes grinding, the mind lines up with the incoming winds.
With the White Mask, Vess felt no wind. She barely felt a breeze. It took a long few minutes of meditation before she noticed the whisper in her ear. When she recognized it, a shiver ran down her spine. It was whispering directly into her soul, she knew, planting seeds which could take her entire lifetime to come to bloom. She wondered if this was the first time. I know you're here. Your signature. Tonight is your night. The flowers are in in full bloom. [2:23 AM] "What is your name?" It told her "I see." And then she forgot. Forgot the name, but not the certainty that came from hearing it. She understood. Its name was a powerful thing, and if she remembered it then others might learn it as well. It would have to suffice that she trust in herself, trust in the certainty of a few moments past, even if that certainly, too, may be fabrication. The play spoke to an authority to be respected on merit and intent. It had told her a story she had not heard. That was enough.
She stared into the mirror, but the Mask never faded. She felt it become her, but her eyes were wide open. She saw the play. [2:44 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Goodness! The theater is packed floor to ceiling. The best seats, are, of course, those which are actually aligned with planetary gravity. Sure, there's a novelty to having your seats suspended on gravity plates on the walls and roof of the theater, but the stage is still on relative ground, and you either get a hell of a crick in your neck trying to follow it, or you put on viewing goggles to view it rightside-up—at which point you might as well have watched the damn thing sitting on your couch with one hand down your underwear and the other buried in the most trusty box of snacks you own.

"Annnd.... there he is. Sorrow's Tears. He's bigger than I remember. I'm glad he and Vess didn't... you know, she's a big tough girl but I don't think that guy comes with a setting that's below meat tenderizer. Ker'rovak. Look at this guy."
"He has transcended into grace in much the same way a man drowned in the sea has become aquatic. It's all around him, but it's gotten into him in all the wrong ways, and soon it will kill him. Why do you pronounce my name correctly and while purposefully botching so many other names?"
"Because I respect you."
He stared. She stared. She laughed. "Oh, I should have guessed, with you. Nothing but discordant notes, from Kerowac."
He laughed and wiped a tear from his eyes.
"I'm going to miss Turk," he said. "He was a fucking disaster." "I know."
"Okay, get in the pit. Remember to let them play themselves at first. Ease the discord in. He's got to be peaking in the third act. Orin?"
"Present." "Well you shouldn't be. Where's your gun?" "Left waist." "Remember the story Vess told about the bar?" "Yeah." "Agora grabbed Turpin and held Cormand first with his—" "Left hand, got it," Orin said, puling his jacket off to reverse his shoulder harness.
"Places!" Gen said, breaking off to deal with the local actors—the harder group to wrangle. [3:00 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: "Drink, sir?" Orin offered upon being lifted up into Agora's booth. It was a floating platform in the center of the room. The best seat in the house. He, of course, could not be seen arriving to his own dedication play alone, and in lieu of the company he truly craved, he'd filled the void with a veritable harem of beauty, a spectrum of burly to waifish with not a single configuration of limb or hue of identity repeated.
"Is this the—" "The Champs-Élysées, yes. Courtesy of Cormand, courtesy of Vess." A two pronged reminder. One to jab the beast, the other to focus his desires.
"You're a wonderful bodyguard, Orin," Agora said, taking the bottle and Orin's hand is his massive mitt. He patted it. "I understand that Vess cannot be here, but a gentleman does not experience a good vintage alone. It is an intimate affair between the drinker and the vintner, but it takes discourse to truly explore the feeling. Would you like to have the first glass with me?"
"I would quite like that, Sir," Orin said, reaching for the glasses as Agora sank the corkscrew into the cork. [3:20 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Given a long enough timescale, any system will reach it's most mutual point. Dirt settles. Gravel mixes. Dew slides along the threads of least resistance.
Vess again encountered Naag Kumo at the most logical point: at the bottom of the elevator shaft, where the handcrabs congregated. In the time it had taken her to swap masks, Naag had found a way to track her scent, and crawled down the shaft.
What aren't you telling us about Naag? She raised the gun and fired at Naag, picking holes through the heaving corpulence of a mass ever in blossom. His spine had long ago stretched beyond any reasonable length, turning his body serpentine. His smile ran along its entire length, so that the slithering of his body was always marked by the clattering of his teeth. His limbs withdrew and extended into his body as needed, planting here or there to help guide him along. But he was not running. Nor did he fly, though he appeared to, drawn to-and-fro across the kinetic web woven by his will.
His gaze, now with more eyes than she could count, fixed on her. His was lasers red in the night, the baleful hate of prey staring down the barrel of the gun. Her gaze grew into his unopposed. Hurt me, his gaze said, she obliged, and continued firing at him while mouthing the words he loathed, he loved: "Your suffering is your doing."
The beast had to be destroyed at its highest point by the hero at their lowest. Every story demanded that.
She ran as the bullet holes blossomed with fresh growth, as Naag prayed mantras of filth and violence upon this world in protest. "I will know the names of your family, and I shall find them and turn them to shit."
What aren't you telling us about Naag?
Screaming and weeping, Naag chased after her. From the depths of his rancid soul sprang glisterwax tears. They spilled from his eyes like blood.
"I am going to swallow your soul." 3:32 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Orin was struggling, a bit, with the effects of the wine. Any sacrament of the Cannibalites was bound to have some awful effects. but even he was struggling to reign in his racing mind. All he had to do was stand still for the rest of the play. Stand still.
Agora was faring worse off. He was three glasses deep, and had gone through a shaker of Phantasia and too much Swing as well. His knee was bouncing as he watched the play. In it, the protagonist has gone to great lengths to secure his greedy uncles lands, but what he had done to get there was coming back to haunt him before he could secure his final factory.
The Swing told him this play was delightful. The Phantasia put him in the shoes of the protagonist. The wine was liquid paranoia. The music was making his heartbeat feel erratic. He kept still. He couldn't panic. He realized that he was in the snake pit. That something could go wrong any moment. He was going to announce his choices for Counts after the play. Was he making the wrong choice?
He checked the time. Close to the end of the second act. The third act was about to start. By Desire's Heart... he was ready for the night to be over. He just wanted to see Vess, to tell her how much he loved her play, to celebrate his empire between her thighs.
The wine told he he couldn't have any of that if they turned on him.
His eyes wove side to side, watching for potential enemies. His eye caught a gleam inside Orin's jacket. His gun. Of course. Good to remember. [3:42 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: All the actors were ready for the big reveal, but their anxiety was palpable. Gen had not told them what it was, except that there was going to be a prop delivered through the theater's undercroft. They had correctly guessed that it was the prop representing the protagonists failings, but had yet to see it.
"Suppose she got something made over at a bio-shop?"
Gen left them to their wonderings. The play had momentum, she could step away unnoticed for now. The actors were moving as though in a trance. So was she. She descended the stairs into the cavernous undercroft and waited.
She heard gunshots, screams, chanting. It was approaching fast. [3:56 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Vess' dance with Naag had gone on for a lifetime. Her every step was in sync, her every bullet landed exactly where it needed. She could do nothing to hurt it, not without the help of the rest, She needed a way in and a way out, and only now were all the pieces exactly where they needed to be.
Orin, in the VIP booth, standing by Agora. There was a natural fidgeting sway to his hips that drew Agora's gaze to and fro between his potential Counts like a metronome. Agora wondered if Orin was watching them in particular, worried about them, or if it was all his imagination. The Swing made him feel delighted by the puzzle.
Ker'rovak was conducting his heart out in the orchestral pit, sowing an aura of such discord that even Naag would fall out of step due to it.
Domic and Turk were dead. And there was Gen. Ingénue. She hated the name because she hated the role. It was a part of her character. If it weren't, they never would have been in this position, and the drama would go unappeased, and the wrong chaos would result. She was in the undercroft, facing one of the many entrances to the undercity, waiting.
In another world, Vess' footsteps would have been perfectly perfect. Gen would have run in and tried to help. Naag would eat Gen. Naag would eat Vess. Naag would have grown and grown until the surface of the world was just viscera and torment. Naag's, a shattered monolith, had become a crucible.
In this world, Vess reached into a memory. She reached into the memory of Ker'rovak's anti-Jazz steps. She absorbed his being and methodology by proxy. She took the wrong step, on purpose.
Gen's eyes went as wide as her scream as Naag wove around Vess like a web, as his mouth zippered shut around her, leaving a leg and her tail severed in its wake. [4:20 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
There was a brief moment—after Naag had swallowed Vess' body and before he made good on his promise to swallow her soul—that Vess heard Ker'rovac's orchestra thundering down through the roof of the undercroft.
In it, she heard the slow tick of a great Wheel turning, and just enough chaos that, for one blissful moment, one tick was slightly out of tune with the rest, and all the threads aligned as Vess had ensured.
She found her soul falling into a deep, inky darkness. The belly in which Naag kept the soils of the consumed.
:BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
A realm of agony. She could feel some of the pain of her physical body, in a distant sort of way. She felt teeth biting and acid sloshing. But that was a mere backdrop against the torment of the mind.
Memories paint a landscape in shifting swaths. A squall of rain becomes maggots coring through her. She's cornered by her mother and beaten with a spoon until her arm breaks. Her brother, ashamed of her, saves her, but decays into mold before her eyes.
Naag was sifting through her memories so painfully fast that her heart kept missing a beat. She knew she had mere minutes before the physical damage to her body was irredeemable. Brain death at the hands of this torment seemed more likely.
She stumbles and falls from a cliff, and as she falls it morphs to stairs. She bounces down them, sees her mother at the top, feels her bones breaking. She's a child. Naag's tricked her down into her childhood memories by way of exploiting her fear of falling. He's close to her true self.
How long did she have? Seconds? She needed to buy Gen minutes. She had to slow his progress through her soul, to stop him from corrupting memories as quick as he found them. He was already beginning to remember names, to home in in her memories of where they lived. [4:35 AM] The panic of the realm started to sink into her soul, flooding her with doubt. What if this failed? What if Naag ate all of her memories, and went after the people she remembered. He grew more powerful with every bite. He could do it. He could.
She wove a fresh play and fell into it even as she wrote it. I have no siblings. I've always wanted them, but there presence here is just a play. I am alone in this universe. I will die to drugs like it's a family tradition. In fact, I'm high right now. Naag cannot trust my memories. He's finding conflicting flavors. He's finding chaos. He's finding chaos.
She destroyed before he could eat. She kissed the memory of her kindest brothers face and then wiped it smooth, and Naag roared in fury. She bid farewell to her parents and, sobbing, apologized for failing them as they turned to sand and Naag clutched at them.
She turned instead to memories of people Naag had already taken.
"Holy shit, Vess, he got you, too?" "Domic? How has he not destroyed you?" "I can't die. You were right. I can't die. He doesn't get to find me. He doesn't get to kill me. I refuse. I've been alive from the start. You kept trying to tell me that, and I wouldn't listen, but what's living but experiencing? I'm still experiencing. I'm not going to step experiencing. I'm not gonna die." "Turk here?" "Yeah but he's done for. He's just waiting until the storm has passed. He's waiting here with me. You can, too. Just wait here with me for a minute. Naag can't find you. I won't let him.
Vess knew too much about the way things worked for her to pull off that trick. It was a trick that required a particular sort of stubborn naiveté. [4:52 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
Gen's eyes were blue pools of ocean waves rolling without ever hitting a shore. Naag's were a wildfire faltering under the rain of her presence. He balked as he witnessed her Transcendence, as she remembered what Vess had helped her to forget.
She was Judgement, and that was her role. The chariot may have driven this tale but it was her job to bring it to its end.
"You have no power," she said. Naag withdrew upon itself as chunks of meat sloughed from its body. t coiled its serpentine length up like the thorax of a spider as its numerous limbed completed the arachnic illusion. She shook her head as it lashed out at her, and before its hands could teem and swarm her they two fell to bits and shards. "You are nothing."
It was skittering and shuffling away from her now, growling and squealing. It's cries rasped, it was unable to form any sort of sound with Ker'rovac's orchestra climbing towards the great dramatic crescendo.
Gen circled it, guiding it onto the stage elevator which went from the undercroft all the way up to the main stage. It was small enough to fit on there, but only just.
"Your story is not new," she said, as Naag lay, laboring to breath, limbs all collapsed over each other. Her fingers pushed easily through the red meat of it's head. She cored into its brain, gripped his skul, and pulled it free of its moorings. Underneath all that, barely misshapen, was the skull of the man Naag had once been. Long ago before years of drinking Gabriel's wine and consuming souls had destroyed him.
The skull fractured like a spiderweb, and turned to dust.
With the withering spirit gone, the meat was just meat. It took more effort to extricate the trembling, weeping Vess from the carcass, but Gen was able to do so, and to prop Vess up against the corpse before stepping off and pressing the button to raise the elevator into the theater. [5:01 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows:
"What the fuck is going on?" Agora growled as the actors all suddenly leapt away from the center of the stage. The trapdoor floor had opened, and he could hear the whirr of the elevator coming up from the undercroft. He might have thought that it was part of the show, if not for the way the actors broke character in surprise and fright.
His blood ran cold as a monstrous corpse came into view, eliciting more than a few screams, and drumming up ripples of confused conversation. Ker'rovak barely had to play now, the chaos was edging just below the surface.
"Vess?" Agora bellowed, leaping to his feet. Yes, that was her! By the Wheel, what had they done to her? His Vess, his beautiful Vess, ruined.
"Who did this to you, Vess?"
With sucking breaths and one good eye she looked up at him. Gold beheld emerald, and felt dwarfed as she spoke.
"You."
Fueled by Phantasia, and by Cannibalite wine, his greatest fears came to pass. He was like the protagonist! The betrayal of the cousins was like the betrayal of his counts. They had made a bioweapon, a bioweapon, likely to kill him, and Vess had gotten tied up in all his nonsense.
"It was you, wasn't it?" Agora roared. Every lighting fixture in the theater rattled with his fury as he twisted, yanked Orin's gun from its holster, turned, and reduced someone's skull to chunks. It did not matter who. His gun went off many more times that night. [5:28 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Vess was in a sordid state, but it was nothing that any of them couldn't handle. In the chaos which ensued it was easy for them to escape. Orin knew the security like the back of his hand, Ker'rovak carried Vess. Gen directed the chaos.
One did not go far in the acting trade with a fragile body. How many body parts had they replaced? How many selves had they become? The couldn't even say if that hadn't once been in each other's positions, at some point. Memory became as malleable as costumes, when an actor could tell stories that would fool even themselves?
Within a few days they had spend a small fortune at the bio-shops all around town, replacing what had been severed, broken, lacerated, or melted. They were all just patchworks of clonemeat at this point, and that was fine. When they wore the Mask they could be anyone they wanted, they could preordain how many plays deep they went.
Vess lay sprawled on the couch, reviewing their notes. Ker'rovak was drumming arhythmically on a cup with some spoons. Gen lay against her playing with her hair. Orin was trying on different smiles.
"I've got to say, Gen, I see now why you like to usually play the Ingénue. It was a stroke of genius to base your character around hating your name so that, in my love, I'd be driven to take the role for myself. You were right, Agora totally had a type, and we just went nuts over me. That was fun, thank you for the experience. I never want to do it again."
Gen laughed, and smacked Vess. "Bitch! Well, if we're giving compliments, since you're fishing for them, it was fun to watch you stroke your own ego by posting online as a conspiracy theorist to get the city all worked up and give the Hedonists the location of Cannibalites. Try to sacrifice less of our own next time though, maybe?"
Vess nodded slowly. "That reminds me." She sat up. "One last part of the order to complete." [5:38 AM] :BannerSorrows: <><><><><><><><><><><><><> :BannerSorrows: Without even needing to look into a mirror. Vess removed the White Mask and placed it back into its box. With it gone, her shoulders fell, and a great emptiness filled her heart. The difference between the White Mask, and being without it, felt like the difference between being Monolithic and being Mundane.
She felt uncertainty. It was a cold feeling. It humbled her, to not know something, to not be certain what she had just experienced. She wasn't even sure if the reality she had left in the room behind her was the same one she would return to. Had they really been discussing, out loud, the meta of their journey? Or had that been inferred to her by the mask?
She brushed her fingers over the box. She knew better to ask it questions. She would get no answers.
She groaned in pain, and took some solace in the healing injuries. As painful as they were, they promised some kind of concreteness to her journey, a suggestion that the memories of the events that had occurred were not planted there by the White Mask.
She limped out of the room, closed the door behind her, and hung her head. She drew a deep breath, and exhaled, watching as it formed into crystalline ice vapor. The fridge unit was cooling the complex down again, ensuring that no mold or insect life could find worthwhile purchase in it. The four of them were leaving.
Certainty was already returning to her. She was certain that if she went back into that room, she would find the White Mask was gone. She was certain that the play was complete. She knew they had another play to attend to in a couple years, but for now they could go somewhere nice.
She had always wanted to see Jhoutai. Perhaps that was the place to start.

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