Starforged Session Report
The Monks of Brink groan continuously. In my first days here I observed how they produce such deep, resonant vibrations. They spend a full minute to inhale before they harden their guts and purse their lips in unison. The resultant rattle of their chests and throats issues and rebounds throughout the high and lonely halls of dying Brink. As twelve begin, another twelve are halfway to expelling the last of their air, while another dozen suck in as deeply as they can in preparation to continue the impassive drone. This, the unremittant background to my confinement. If the Leviathan is indeed to come, their groans shall echo resolutely even as we churn in its great belly. I have seen it.
I came to them in a fever. They told me none others from the skiff survived. It was only me. No matter the goodwill evaporated in the wake of portentful dreaming, I am grateful to these men and women, even indebted, for returning to me my health.
They treated me with grace, more so than I expected to hide behind their dour and solemn front. A monk was at my side for every hour of the day. He or she would feed me pease porridge and thin warmed beer in minute spoonfuls, and soothe me with a cool flannel while I rolled, thrashed, or gabbled in my fitful sleep. In retrospect I realise there was always a pad and quill at hand. Early on they had spied the brand of Ikpong on my left scapula, and I surmise Rufus the elder must have heard the tinge of prophecy in my fevered tones.
My treatment is no less gracious now, confined as I am. I have the same ration as any other inhabitant of the station; indeed, many now fast in preparation for their final reckoning, and so I eat even more than my fair share. Every hour, a girl no older than 15 comes to my cell and asks if I require anything. I say no and thank her for her courtesy. She asks,
'Any more dreams?'
'No, madam.'
'I have brought tincture.'
'Thank you, madam.'
She leaves, and I pour the dose of ferric liquid into my commode. With dreams like these, I must not sleep. If she had them, she too would understand.
Somewhere on Brink, a bell tolls. I speak to the girl.
'It approaches.' She passes through a bowl of mash, feigning to be deaf.
But there is fear in her eyes. She is new to the order, surely she hopes to live longer than this. Fifteen men clatter past us, hefting swords, harpoons, even an arquebus. I tap on the bars.
'Sister, what is your name? Kimora is mine.'
'Will you have tincture, Dreamer? Please, answer quick. I've got to report to the chaplain.'
I ignore her request. A distant crack, hiss -- shelling begins.
'May I tell you something, sister? I am scared.'
She is distracted by the crescendo of battle-readiness. No doubt her first taste of war. But at this, she regards me with focus.
I grip the bars of my cell. 'Are you?'
She looks at me for several seconds. Then she pulls the stopper from the bottle and swallows a half-dram of the tincture. 'My name is Helma, and fear overcomes me.' Her hands shake, upsetting the empty bowl. I grasp her wrist.
'I can pilot a skiff, helma. Open this cell, and we can leave this place. Save yourself!'
'Did you not see your death on Brink? The Leviathan comes. Just as you dreamed.'
'Every man dreams of death. I dream of it every night. By different hands, in different places. It means nothing to me, and neither should it to you. These monks will die for nothing. If we do not escape, there will be no one to mourn them. It is the least we can do. It is the least we can do!' Finishing my breath, my knuckles turn white on the bars as I shake them. The groan has amplified, vibrating the ground minutely. A muted thump, crack, hiss issues every thirty seconds or so.
'Free me. Escape with me.'
She tries to pull her hand away. I will her to look at me, to meet my gaze, to confirm her own urge to live by affirming mine.
Compel +heart: weak hit. Helma makes a request.
At last she meets my eye, and I see the fear in it. She sees my own, and I see something turn. She has made her mind up.
'I will free you. But you must swear me an oath.'
'What is it? I promise, whatever the request, I will accept.'
Oracle: Break Quest, Foreboding Liquid.
'There is something in the vault. A bottle of clear water. I have heard it speak. I think it is a genie. I won't leave without it.'
'You want it? I will help you. Of course I will, if you would just open this cell.'
She raises up to her full height. Before, Helma had stayed stooped to the passing-slot at the floor, but I realise now that she towers. She snaps a leather cord from around her neck and tosses something through the bars with a plink.
'Kimora Dreamer, swear to me now that you will recover the genie and divine its purpose. The coin I threw to you was minted from Ikpong, the Ark that bore your Apostle. Swear on it, and I will help you to escape.'
Swear an Iron Vow: 'Recover and Speak with the Genie of Brink Vault'. Weak hit; +1 momentum and envision what to do to find a path forward.
Bottles that speak, dreams of prophecy, and unbreakable oaths. I am almost sunken with weariness. The supernal has never been good to me. I yearn for the mundane.
'Helma of Brink, I swear it.' Biting down, I hear a crack, and spit a white chip. This oath has already taken a piece of me. I pray it will not take more.
Emergency lighting came on in the conduit. Usually secondary to main generator failure. Neither of us know exactly why. Groping along the cables in semigravity, I wonder if i could not have escaped without this gangly orphan unlocking the cell for me, and thus avoided crawling deeper into the station, away from the skiff that might bear me away to safety.
'How much further?'
'I don't know.'
'How?'
'I have never been to the vault, only smelled it, and I've never taken the conduits.'
'Smelled?'
'It smells of toast, or honey. We must go deeper until I can smell it.'
'Child.' I cannot mask my exasperation.
'Do not chide me. You swore an oath.'
I let her crawl ahead, digging out the Ikpong coin as she does so. Better to trust blind fate than a child sniffing like a dog.
'Gate-maker, open the way.' I let the coin hang in a pocket of ungravity.
Secure an Advantage +iron (devotant): Strong hit. +3 momentum, +1 on next move.
It twirls, then drifts leftward. Following it, I feel a coolness brush my cheek. There is a draft pulling at the coin. As it drifts out of the pocket, it lands flat in my outstretched palm, the crest of the Apostle faced up. The draft whiffs of browned butter, or cinnamon. I give thanks to my forebear.
Gather Information +wits +1: weak hit.
'Helma! This way. The smell.'
'Hush! The walls are thin.'
She pulls herself over and sniffs intently, then nods.
'See? I told you. Follow me.'
'Why should I follow you, child? You have never been to the place you seek. It was I that found the trail. We have even chances of finding it.'
'It's this way.'
'Wouldn't it be this way--'
'Hush!'
I hush. Her face is suddenly white and her eyes glare wide. The smell is indeed stronger this way, but so, I realise, is the groan. Below, through chinks in the cladding, there is a plastone hall. Eleven monks sway and groan, seated on the floor with their swords in their laps. A brother swings a club enrobed in quilt, and a wagon-wheel gong of beaten copper shivers, ripples from the blow.
'now!'
We swarm along the conduit, hoping the peal of the gong will mask our traversal.
Face Danger +shadow: miss. Pay the Price: Engagement with the Monks of Brink
I think I am falling.
Wailing alloy cuts the mouldered roofing. Beneath the fallen gantry, a monk's neck is wide open, the flow of his lifewater already slowing to a bubble. The rest have leapt up, testing their sword-grips, a circle of death about the fraying hang of cable that Helma and I clutch to. She is saying something in a pleading tone, searching among them with her face, but they are wearing masks, and there is nothing for the pleas to land upon.
They step forth.
Enter the Fray +wits: Strong Hit. +2 momentum, in control. Gain Ground +edge: Reset momentum for a strong hit with a match. Mark progress, +1 momentum, +1 on next move. For the match, I choose to gain 1 extra box of progress for a total of 3.
Clutching the dead monk's sword in my teeth, I strive up the cable arm over arm, Helma just in front of me. I taste iron in my mouth, and realise some of the dead fellow's blood is on the scabbard.
'Pull it down!'
The monks are yanking down at the cable. I fear the rest of the ceiling will come down with it.
'Do not!' I plead.
Gain Ground +heart +1: Weak hit. The gongman sees sense and shouts them back, but one, a small sister with a dirk, scurries up the cable after us before Helma can pull it up.
'Under battle-moons, Betrayers dance.' She hisses. A hand shoots out to grip Helma by the scalp. She wants to cut her throat.
Strike +iron: Strong hit. Mark progress twice.
She chokes on blood, then thuds to the floor. Helma gasps and holds her hands around her own intact gullet. She stares at the blooded sword in my hand before I shout her on and slash the suspended cable away.
Take decisive action: Strong hit with a match. +1 momentum. Oracle for the match: Pillaged Atmosphere.
As we escape, a titanic blow judders the entire station. The monks, I surmise, are diverted to a more pressing fight, and give no further chase.
We crawl for a furlong before we find the vault. The smell sits like a mist on the air.
Stacked upright with bound corpses. Bygone monks of Brink here interned, wrapped in their cloaks of night, swords and arquebuses clutched to their chests. Eaves of petrified wood sporadicate the long hall. A frosted skylight imbues soft grey light from a source I cannot discern. In the centre, unobstructed by mummies or paraphernalia of death, a great tun of red coals, where briquettes of spices smoke and sputter continuously.
Mark Progress: 'Recover and Speak with the Genie of Brink Vault'. Two boxes.
'Where is it?' I hiss.
She busies herself, poking amongst the black effigies for the shape or gleam of a bottle. She does not look at me.
'I did not take you for a murderer.'
'A murderer?'
'I thought you were a holy man.'
I clean the blade on a scrap of raiment. 'I am no murderer. I have killed only a few times, and always in self defense.' I glance. 'But "holy man", also, is perhaps too strong'.
Crash. A skeleton tips over, releasing dust. Helma, coughing, says quietly: 'I knew her.'
A long pause. Neither of us are searching anymore.
'I am sorry. She would have killed you, and then she would have died fighting the beast. Senseless loss.'
'Maybe. You think I should thank you?'
'No. But you could forgive me.'
Relationship: Helma, orphan of Brink Station, Sector V. Rank: formidable. First Look: afraid. Revealed Aspect: powerful. Goal: refute a falsehood. Marked 1 progress for swearing a vow. Marked 1 more for acting in her defense.
'There.' She gestures to a casket at the far wall. It is in the shape of an oblong skull, the keyhole set amid its opened jaw. 'This must be it.'
'Let me see.'
Gather Information +wits: + 1 momentum. The box is not only locked, but trapped.
Holding my ear close, I cup the other to muffle the incessant drone, thrash, and thump of the monks at their battle-stations. There: tink, tink. A spring under tension.
'Have you a key, Helma? I believe that mandible will crush a hand that picks at the lock too clumsily.'
'Of course I don't.' She rankles, as if I have insulted her.
'Very well.' I rip a mace from the dusty hands of a skeletonized monk.
Face Danger +iron: Strong hit with a match. +1 momentum and something is up with this mace. Oracle for the mace: Find Peace.
The casket flies open, its wound spring launching across the room with a twang. In the debris, a clear potbellied bottle sits unharmed. She snatches it up, holds it to the light, then quickly stows in her jacket.
The mace feels alive in my hand, responsive, more like a greenwood staff than a lump of cold alloy. I thumb away the dust on the haft. It reads: Find Peace.
I toss the sword to Helma. 'Keep that to hand.'
Mark Progress: 'Recover and Speak with the Genie of Brink Vault'. Two boxes.
The battle rages. Three more quakes have torn into Brink, each causing the lights to flicker, cables and fixtures to fall loose, and the drone of the monks and the crack-hiss of the shells to grow ever more frenetic. We do not bother to hide ourselves, only to keep our gaze lowered and hurry onward as the sword-monks run here and there, attending to urgent matters of defense and repair all about the station. As we approached the hangar, I saw a great eye the size of a comet rush past, like the reflection of the sun, swept along in a great current. Blisters of pink fire proliferate the space-scape.
We see a craft.
'A good skiff there, Dreamer. Almost all Disciple parts, only a small moss growth. Will the shelling be a problem?'
'Certainly. But I am more worried about how to board it unseen.'
Helma gestures around. The hangar is nearly empty. 'This isn't where the fight is, and nobody plans on leaving.'
We climb aboard unobstructed. She did not lie: It is a fair ship. Her name is Eustica. I mutter a quick prayer before I boot the engines. 'Ikpong, guard my way.'
Secure an Advantage +iron (devotant): Strong hit. +3 momentum, +1 on the next roll.
Helma is clammy, white as a sheet, pasted by false gravity into the copilot's seat as the impeller yanks us to flight.
In an instant, we are bolting through the void. Shells burst all around. Now, in its entirety, I see it, and remember it. In my dream, it gave me its name: Duniac. Dozens of pallid fins, immolated by the spotlights, cut the darkness. Its wide mouth a black arc, swallowing missiles. A hundred glimmering graphene tapes string from its gargantuan spotted hide, and as it rolls, they snap and coil like trampled snakes, or if they hold fast, they rip the harpoon-turrets away from station walls, red glassy mists abloom as their inner chambers decompress.
Just as I dreamed. I max out the impeller.
Both our stomachs churn as the skiff lurches between shellbursts.
Face Danger +Edge +1: Weak hit. Withstand Damage: -2 Integrity. Strong Hit.
A ripple of concussion strikes the back of Eustica. We leave a trail of mangled plating, but the pressure wave bears us far enough from the battle that we can count ourselves safe. We fly on for an hour before powering down.
Mark Progress: 'Recover and Speak with the Genie of Brink Vault'. 2 boxes.
For the first time in a week, silence. I show Helma how to dial in the coordinates of Elysium. As the eidolon drive spools, I leave her at the viewing bay to contemplate the stars.
Set a Course: weak hit. -2 Supply.
The ship cuts through subspace, and I at last give in to sleep.
Seer: oracle roll, Isolated/Art.
I am on a mountain. Tortured strata of blue granite. Kilometres below, a fissured plain. Thunder sings to me. The summit looms, or I am climbing to it. Atop the peak, a statue. Blue salt. The figure clutches a lock and chain.
Ikpong?
I am shaken awake.
'A dream?'
I do not answer her. 'Why did you wake me?'
'We are nearly at Elysium. You must speak to it. Before we land.'
It is a crystal bottle. Fine inspection shows that the frosting upon it is actually miniscule engraving. Apostolaic script.
'This is a fine relic, very fine. You could buy the beginnings of a new life with this. But a genie…? Aren't you too old to be--'
'Your oath,' she murmurs. Her face is a rictus of fascination.
'Very well.' I place the bottle on the ground and stare at it. No matter the futility of the effort. If I can demonstrate my good faith, she will release me of my oath.
Fulfill your Vow: 'Recover and Speak with the Genie of Brink Vault'. Strong Hit. 2 ticks on the Quests legacy track.
Slowly, the bottle begins to glow.
End a Session. Develop Relationship: Helma. 1 progress.