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>>2121719

Chapter Ten: Aftermath

You are alone as you walk through the Mazes, dragging your injured body as best you can and hiding your stolen goods wrapped within your cloak. Not quite alone in the literal sense, for the Mazes throng with a constant stream of people in all directions as they always do but alone all the same.
You are bruised and bloody and you have won. A stolen shard of sunlight rests peacefully within your shrouded lamp. The Duke is dead. The Consortium will fall. And yet you cannot stop your thoughts turning to darker things.

The green flame had to be stopped at the source, it was a blasphemy and its destruction was righteous. This cannot be doubted. But how many people in Dis were depending on it because for them there was nothing else? The urban district-blending tunnels of the Mazes are awash with soft green light. What crime have these unfortunates committed, to deserve such deprivation at your hands? Is simply being born in Dis enough of a reason to make any human your enemy and let you wash your hands of the suffering your actions will undoubtedly cause? They are still sons and daughters of light!

But still, even considering this and what may come as the light of Dis dims even further, you know that you would not change anything you have done here. Even if every innocent in this city suffers and dies from a lack of green flame it will not make you doubt your path. Something to regret, yes, but to change? No.
Your feet have been upon this path since you first saw the sun fall and that was thirty years ago. The vast majority of your life has been consumed by this in the same manner that fire eats oil. No matter what happens you will not stop until you have won or until you are dead.

You would like to say that the objective holiness of your cause absolves you of all such ills but at some point this surely comes down more to stubbornness and a refusal to die than it does righteousness. If it had been purely just than you would not have refused the Wax Saint’s offer, would you?

You suppose you could offer some light to these people as the Consortium’s emerald sun fades. That is one of your duties after all, to bear a candle into the darkness. But it is not as it was out in the wasteland, you cannot simply light the lamps of Dis freely. Not even you could light them all and you would be fighting evil every step of the way. And anyone who indulged would be branded an enemy of the city, of their friends and family. How many people can you really ask to stand with you and run the same risks while being so much more fragile and easily snuffed out?
The broken bones inside your chest choose that time to remind you that you too, are more fragile than you would like. Escaping the tower did not come easily. It will take at least a day for all of this to heal and likely more than that.

1/2

>>2121722
You reach the little courtyard and you reach the cramped storeroom within where you had met with Alex and the redcloaks. For some reason you had been expecting them to be there waiting for you. They are not.

You drop your bundle on the ground, the halberds and rifles clattering as they roll across the stone floor. You sit on a crate and lean your back against the wall. Pain lances up your side and down your leg. For now at least, you appear to be alone. There is nothing here but dust.


>Sleep. This seems as safe as anything else and you desperately need the rest.

>Meditate. You can relight your Wick and gain a little respite that way.

>Inspect the loot first.

>If the redcloaks aren’t here then neither should you. You need to leave and find some place truly safe.

>Where are Abe and Beatrice right now? You need to find them before anything else.

>Other (Specify)

>>2121725
>>If the redcloaks aren’t here then neither should you. You need to leave and find some place truly safe.

>>2121725
>Meditate. You can relight your Wick and gain a little respite that way.
They strike me as the type to go celebrate after this sort of thing. Or maybe they're dead.

>>2121725
>Where are Abe and Beatrice right now? You need to find them before anything else.
Glad you're back Ouro!

>>2121725
>>Meditate. You can relight your Wick and gain a little respite that way.

>>2121725
>Meditate. You can relight your Wick and gain a little respite that way.
We might need to fight again soon, we should meditate and heal up before proceeding.

Vote called. Writing.

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As tempting as trying to sleep your injuries off sounds, you barely know this place. You don’t know if you had been seen and noticed upon your descent. You don’t know if you were followed. This room isn’t safe enough, if anywhere in Dis truly is.

But that doesn’t mean you should go without rest, especially as you can once more feel your Flame Internal flicker and run low. You’d best tend to that and succour will follow.

>Wick: 3/10

You gingerly sit in the corner of the room, dust rising around you as you hit the floor behind the crate. Crossing your legs, you balance the long-handled wick across your knees as you do your best to clear your mind of all dark thought. There is only you and the flame. You are the flame.

Time passes as your comprehension sinks inward.


>Roll 1d6. The best of the first 3 rolls shall be used to measure how much Wick Orion regenerates.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2121783

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2121783

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>21217836
Man these rolls.

>>2121783
>>2121798
Um, that was for you

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2121783

>>2121798
Nice save.

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>>2121783
>Leaving the command prompt.

Writing.

>5+1

At least an hour passes as you sit there and let the warmth within you grow. Your only thoughts are of the light as you stoke your Flame Internal back up to approaching full strength. The embers that burn within you now are almost enough to drive the pain away just by themself.

>Wick: 9/10
>Spark: 8/8

But you are not so far gone that you do not wake instantly when you hear the door open, your hand reaching for your staff before you even remember that it is gone. You rise as voices flood the room and people step in, dragging your aching body up and ready to do battle-

It is just Alex and her redcloaks, returning just as you had thought. The drumbeat of your heart slows considerably and you let your arms drop by your side.

“Orion! What are you doing here?”
“What happened to you?”
“Are you alright?”

“I am fine,” you lie. “Just a little weary. I was hoping you would return to this place.”
You inspect them as you speak. There doesn’t seem to have been any drop in their numbers, something you had secretly been dreading. They are dirty and they look exhausted and one of them, a young man with a stature that almost approaches your own, has his left arm wrapped in bandages. But they are safe.

“And what about the Consortium? The enemy?”
Alex steps forward, her mess of dirty orange hair hanging over her eyes in disarray. She looks considerably worse off than when you blessed her at the tower gates.

“What happened to all of you?”

“Just some blackcloaks trying to nick us. Happens all the time. How did it go?”

You raise a hand and the redcloaks quiet down at the sight of the blooded gauntlet. You quash the dark thoughts and doubts you had been having and give them your steadiest gaze.
“The Iron Duke is dead. The Consortium will fall. The green flame is extinguished! The day has been won for the Flame!”
You drop the severed tail of the Duke on the ground before you and though nobody here can know what it truly means, your word is enough.

The small group erupts into cheers and then, after some frantic hushing from Alex, a celebratory hushed hubbub that still has no small amount of whoops and warcries. The redcloaks break what little formation they had and rush forward. You find yourself borne unwillingly into the small crowd as people clap you on the back and thank you.

“No,” you manage to say as you try to regain control of the situation. “None of it would have been possible without all of you! This first victory is not mine but yours! I said this before but now you have proven it with your own actions: You are all truly soldiers of God!”

Amidst the chao, the big man with the bandaged hand and a tattered red badge upon his chest hands you a bottle. You can hear something slosh inside. And with that, you can feel your suddenly raised spirits dwindle just a little.

You do not drink and neither should soldiers of God.

1/2

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>>2121864
>Tell them this. It’s one thing to be happy but if they are to be truly righteous warriors they will need to follow the Lamplighter Creed. It is not some passing fashion, to be cherry picked and ignored as you see fit!

>You will abstain but let them drink as they wish. This is a different land with different rules and these people were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of a stranger and a dead god. Can you really ask more of them?

>Abstain and try to excuse yourself. You do not enjoy parties.

>Other (Specify)

>>2121868
>You will abstain but let them drink as they wish. This is a different land with different rules and these people were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of a stranger and a dead god. Can you really ask more of them?

>do ask they keep themselves sober.

>show off our looted gear.

>>2121868

The alcohol would be better used to light fires anyways.

>Tell them this. It’s one thing to be happy but if they are to be truly righteous warriors they will need to follow the Lamplighter Creed. It is not some passing fashion, to be cherry picked and ignored as you see fit!

>Other (Specify)
Heal the soldiers that are wounded. Following the Lamplighter Creed should be rewarded if this is to be sustainable.

>>2121868
>You will abstain but let them drink as they wish. This is a different land with different rules and these people were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of a stranger and a dead god. Can you really ask more of them?

>>2121868
>Tell them this. It’s one thing to be happy but if they are to be truly righteous warriors they will need to follow the Lamplighter Creed. It is not some passing fashion, to be cherry picked and ignored as you see fit!

>>2121868
>>You will abstain but let them drink as they wish. This is a different land with different rules and these people were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of a stranger and a dead god. Can you really ask more of them?
>But coming chaos will be dangerous to all. Make sure that everyone is accounted for, that the chapel isn't being buried into the ground or something before celebrating. We have done the right thing, but there will be hardships, for us and others.

>>2121918
Supporting. Also do not let anyone get drunk.

Reposting this from previous thread
>Propaganda ideas:
>In big bold letters: THE LIGHT SAVES ALL!
>In smaller text:
>"Those who live in the high towers enjoy the benefits of the light, but who will save the people who live in the dark? The wheel god protects all men under his radiance! Cast down the 7 sinners of Dis as his cause is your cause!"

>Alternatively or next page:
>"Who broke the sun and ended the Golden Age of the Second Men? Where no one starved and lived in the street, where honest men didn't have to sell their families to pay off debt? Where minds of the world could think and live freely without repurcussion? It was the EARTH GODS. It was they who corrupted the innocent into witches and forced the Wheel God to enact retribution. In the end, it was they who prevented a new era of humanity to rise and for the violence to cease. The 7 sinners of Dis broke the Wheel God, but for what purpose? Dis is now trapped under the unrelenting dark and its citizens, humans and witches alike are slaves to the whims of the 7. NO LONGER. Even to those who have commited the most vile of sins, to even if one's heart wishes for things to change but cannot go back, KNOW THAT THERE IS NO GREATER SHOW OF FAITH THAN TO RETURN TO THE EMBRACE OF THE LORD. Rise up people of Dis and let the light be for all of humanity."

>>2121989
>>2121918
>>2121876
Yeah I like this.

Orion tells them he will abstain as it is the Lamplighter way. But they are not Lamplighters, and they may do as they wish. But try and temper it down.

This may lead some to abstain as well, to more closely follow Orion. But they would be doing it of their own choice.

Calling the vote.

>You will abstain but let them drink as they wish. This is a different land with different rules and these people were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of a stranger and a dead god. Can you really ask more of them?

You push the bottle away as politely as you are able.
“Thank you for the offer but I don’t drink. At all. It is against my oath as a Lamplighter.”
You see faces beginning to fall and revelry quiet so you speak again to reassure them.
“All of you may, I’ll not dream of denying you that. Just try to stay sober, alright?”
The mood is swiftly restored, the bottle being passed to the redcloak on your right instead.

You had considered trying to hold them to the same creed as you for a moment there. But you are in a very different world now than the one you are used to living in and not all rules are sacrosanct. These people are willing to put their lives on the line for your cause. How could you ask anything further of them?
They are not Lamplighters but volunteers and it would do you well to remember that. Still, you can hope that some might see your example and choose to abstain in the future. It’ll be their choice.

One of the redcloaks starts a song with lyrics you cannot follow. The others join in and you take the opportunity to sit back down on the crate and oversee the celebration. As sinful as excess might be, there’s something here that softens your heart. A reminder, perhaps, of brotherhood in an age now long gone. The worries about the consequences of the Consortium’s fall that so haunted you during your passage here doesn’t seem to have occurred to them at all or if it does, they do not care.

Perhaps they have the right idea.

“You look glum.”

You look up to see Alex, the scraggly youth having excused herself from the circle and is now standing beside you.

“Do I? I don’t feel it.”

“You’re not drinking though.”

“Of course. And you?”

“...Ah, me neither. Still, it all went well right? Where are the others?”

“Beatrice was injured. Abe is escorting her to the Workshop to negotiate for her well-being.”
You neglect to mention that Beatrice had been on the brink of death. That she may be dead even now as you speak and the redcloaks sing. Thinking of that will do no good, what will come will come and you cannot change it.
“How went your mission?”

“Fine. Fine.”
Despite her words, she looks a little unsettled.
“I killed someone today.’

It takes you a moment to understand why that would be worth remarking upon.
“And you hadn’t before?”

“No! Why would I have?”

“I had thought with you and your friends here…”

“No. Sure, we’d messed things up before. We had to. People were treating us and the Temple like shit and someone had to get angry about it. But we just set some fires, broke some windows. Roughed a few people up, even.”

You stay silent.

1/2

>>2122221
“I mean, we couldn’t have killed anyone. If we did people would go and hurt other people who kept the faith. They act like we’re all the same as one another, that one of us can be punished for the crimes of all of us.”

“And yet you all still kept doing it.”

She gives you a sharp look.
“Of course. This city wants to crush our whole people. What’s a few bricks in windows compared to that? Some fights you just gotta fight. But that doesn’t mean i liked it when I saw my friends get harrassed for stuff me or the boys did.”
She looks at the wall for a few seconds.
“So I pushed the first one off.”

“Pardon?”

“We were at the pipe and this one came running straight down the sky-rail like an idiot and I just pushed him off. And after that your man gave me his gun and well...I’d never done it before. It was strange. Everyone else seems to do it so easily.”

“If you are true of purpose, no amount of mortal flesh and blood should ever hope to tip the scale.”

“I’m not doubting! It was just a shock, that’s all.”

“They don’t seem to be.”
You gesture at the other redcloaks.

“I noticed. I was totally ready to kill witches or imps or something like that. But they were just people.”

“It’ll come to you eventually. War is our birthright, it is the gift that the Wheel God passed down to us when were born from the Sea. Just remember what you are fighting for and close your mind to the fate of the misguided.”

“You make it sound so easy. Is killing people really that easy for you?”

Easy? No, that doesn’t describe it. Someone who could snuff out human life without even sparing it a second thought would be a monster and probably not human at all. That’s the way Beatrice kills. You are better than that.
“No. But I do it all the same because there is a need. Listen, Alex. I do not judge you for your misgivings and I am honored you chose to confide in me about them. It is natural to feel this way.”

“But if I actually mess anything up you will, right?”

“I would not have put it so bluntly but yes. This isn’t an easy job.”

“Hey, I’m not quitting!”

“I didn’t say you were. I have faith in you. I trust that when it comes down to it, you will act righteously. Know this and go in grace.”

“Thank you.”
She goes to leave, to head back to her brethren but something makes her falter.
“So...now what? What happens next?”


>”We need to find a proper headquarters.”

>”I will need to find my companions.”

>”Outfitting you all properly.” Show her the halberds.

>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.

>”I find my next target. It will have to be subtler this time, we cannot afford another frontal assault.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2122228
>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.

>>2122228
>>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.
>”Outfitting you all properly.” Show her the halberds.

>>2122228
>”We need to find a proper headquarters.”
>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.
We need to do all of these things. I don't really wanna hand out halberds like candy while everyone is drinking though.

>>2122228
>”Outfitting you all properly.” Show her the halberds.
>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.

>>2122228

>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.

>”Outfitting you all properly.” Show her the halberds.

>”We need to find a proper headquarters.”

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Sorry guys, feeling really drained. I'll be back later tonight to do some more updates.

>>2122228
>War is our birthright, it is the gift that the Wheel God passed down to us when were born from the Sea.
Can you elaborate on this Ouro?

>>2122543
It's all good. Thanks for running!

>>2122554
Sure. Humanity is, in Orion's eyes, an extension of the war between the Wayward Flame and the Old Powers. It is the reason they exist. And more specifically, Third Men were born with desperate survival and fighting in mind.

>>2122543
When is orion going to give bea her cummies?

>>2122228
>>”Outfitting you all properly.” Show her the halberds.
>>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.
>I was told that others like me were coming. Perhaps it is time to start searching for them.
get these done before looking for beatrice and abe. We need a secure network to hide them.

How many other shardholders are there that are lamplighters?

>>2122724
I feel like I remember that prophetic lady saying there were two or three others. I'm thinking 2.

>>2122724
>>2122841
6 alledgedly

>>2122228
>"We must set up a spy network."
>"Our priority is to spy on the Tangle."

It's pretty funny how Orion's dialect has changed since the first thread. He used to talk like a noir detective.

I want to check out the tail. It used to be able to curl around stuff, and now it's a flexible staff. Is there a way of activating the prehensibility?

>>2123097
Ouro said no to that already. We don't have the witchcraft/inner workings that allowed that.

>>2123097
You can blame over a year of not doing the quest for that.

>>2123117
>Ouro said no to that already. We don't have the witchcraft/inner workings that allowed that.
Where did he say that?
Can we get it re-enchanted or add machinery or something?

>>2123227
I think it had already changed by the second or third thread.

The tail is just moderately flexible right now. The stuff that made it prehensile (aka the body attached to it) is gone.
You could probably rig something up to take control of its systems again but it's Second Age technology in the first place.

>>2122228
Should we play this like a terrorist cell or like a conqueror? Set up walls, boundaries, lights that enemies can't get through, or try to hide among the rest, setting off random lamps?

The green fire shortage might be good for us, Dis will have to confiscate a shard from one of the Sinners in order to make more fire.

>>2123626
Either way, we need to crush the imps first. Witches can't casually walk up to a lamp, and it would buy all the lamps valuable time.

Without a stable organization, people also won't sell their bodies and betray us.

>>2123626
Any conventional defence we can put up will be crushed. Hiding is the only way.

>>2123631
Witches can go near lamps, even if it's too bright for them. Imps in bodies can too.

>>2123638
Would defenses be crushed more easily than we could be tracked down?

What's the best tracker among the Shadowspawn?

>>2123665
Anon, we're speaking of the resources of a whole giant city. A thousand guys with rifles will just smear us on the ground, and Dis has many such thousands.

>>2123626
The chance of the majority of the population being sympathetic, especially considering the isolationist nature of the city and the grim fact that life is more comfortable in the city (due to there not being adventuring witches and their various creations fucking about and establishing fiefdoms if not destroying places outright).

So definitely an insurgency. Agreements will have to be struck up with anybody who isn't in favor; whatever passes for an opposition in the city. The city, we've seen, is hardly united in politics, or even wary of those who should be hated enemies like the cult of the wheel god. This tolerance should be exploited, and once allies have been found in the disgruntled sections of the population, moves can be made towards the second ringers, people with legitimate power but with no special loyalty to the establishment. A promise of spoils that would definitely put them higher than they are at present should be motivating.

The ideal time to begin would be immediately in the aftermath of this mess. An unprecedented attack that has caused extreme damage has occurred, and I'd count on plenty of people being spooked. What's to be seen is if this moves the outlier camps towards the establishment or further away.

>>2123672
Another thought is that, if it becomes known that a section of the cult was directly involved in this disaster, the powers that be may initiate a crackdown. Depending on how they do this, the same effect of either moving towards or away could happen. A fierce enough crackdown after all could destroy the will of opposition groups to do anything but grovel, or it could inspire them to turn violent and form their own underground, depending on the attitudes of their leadership.

The leadership aspect is important, as we've seen the bishop of the wheel god cult is unwilling to support violent action.

So to summarize the best thing to do on that front is to find out exactly who has a problem with who, since even though as is our resources for infiltrating and eliminating singular targets is...sufficient, any action that requires a large amount of force is out of the picture. Even a small insurgency can concentrate fighters and overwhelm a single target; we don't have that, though. We have a tiny mob of anarchists whose practical use is limited to small scale sabotage and mischief making.

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>>2123672
>>2123675
Nice effort posts anon. Here is something to consider though: terrorism is always devoid from the masses. I don't know how much the authorities got out of investigating our work, but it is possible that the general public now are aware that cultists of the Wheel God did this. If so, then it will already be very hard for us to operate as insurgencies as asymetrical warfare relies on public support for information and secrecy. This is worse case scenario as we might never be able to afford to not look behind us everyday in case of rats and such. We need to think of potential ideas as how to counter such an event.

On the other hand we have to take into account the level of escalation our destruction of the flame has wrought. The ensuing chaos might exacerbate social and economic tensions that are already inherent in Dis (i.e needing to sell your family for a new body sort of crap); it might be so bad that it makes it much harder for us to organize and get stuff done or it might provide us the perfect conditions to turn the populace against the 7.

>>2123672
Same guy here, I missed typing out in the first part that due to the stated reasons, the majority will be AGAINST us. Thusly as the post below said, public support would be nigh absent.

>>2123682
To be frank, rats would always be a problem no matter what we did.The only real way to minimize damage from that IMO is to never stay in one place, in a place where authority forces cannot move around easily. The human police forces for example would have difficulty moving around in a place like, say, the mazes, without alerting people to their presence and thus being relatively easy to avoid.

The problem then comes from imps who are not only suited for infiltration, but who can by themselves wipe out a disproportionately large amount of people. I don't know how I'd deal with something like that other than by aligning ourselves with some opposition that could act as the greater threat; the cover, if you will.

The simplest way to do that would be to avoid taking credit; once we find a stronger friend, we let them take credit for fucking over the flameworks instead. Whether this works or not is sketchy, though, depending on how solid reports of Happy Sun Club's involvement are.

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I am properly awake once more. Vote called, writing.

>>2123672
>The chance of the majority of the population being sympathetic
They don't need to be sympathetic, they need the Sun or something similar in order to keep living.
However if we want to be seen as the good guys, we can try blaming the witches for destroying the Viridian Flame Works. They and their cattle are the ones who benefit from the lack of green fire. Also it seems that the Sinners' guilt is not widely known.

>>2123665
I said casually. Witches need to focus on some witchsigns to even stand getting close. Hence we crush the Imps, the most able and numerous force for taking down lamps.

>Share with her your concern about the end of the green flame and discuss measures that you might take against it.
>”Outfitting you all properly.” Show her the halberds.
>”We need to find a proper headquarters.”
>Speak of other concerns.

“Problems. That’s what happens next. Your fellows might not realise it yet but this victory might have brought us only more trouble.”

“But we won! I mean, you won.”

“The Consortium still lives, even as it chokes. It will have a long reach before it finally dies. And what of the rest of the city? We need to find proper headquarters, some place we can trust. No more camping in storerooms and work-homes.”

Alex balls her fists.
“I’m sure once word spreads there’ll be plenty more willing to join-”

“That’s not the issue.”
No amount of faithful on your side will save you should the masters of Dis root you out and find you. This is not a battle that can be won through strength of arms. It never was. If anything, the more people on your side the more chances they have to find you. So as gripping as the fantasy of coming to this city as a sort of conqueror is, of marking your domain with lit lamps and true flame and uniting the masses beneath your standard is...it must remain that, a fantasy.
“We will need something we can fortify and hide and most importantly, own. I will not tolerate sharing it with anyone else, it has to be somewhere that only we have claim to.”

Alex shakes her head.
“You’re asking a lot. Do you think anyone down here in this part of the Mazes owns anything?”

“Your homes, surely-”

“You really do come from a long way away. Every single street and building here is owned alright but it’s not by anyone who lives down here.”

Ah, now she is speaking of things you understand.
“So these places are all fiefdoms that belong to lords? And who do they owe fealty to? I didn’t think this city had a ruler.”

“No, no, you’re still not getting it. There’s no lords like that. That’s barbarian stuff. Oh, sorry. Every single piece of the Mazes, of all of Dis really, are traded and bought and sold around all the time. But not by anyone down here oh no, it’s all done by people good enough to live up in the towers-”

“Wait,” you say, interrupting her. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Right. There’s no inheritance stuff or dynasties or whatever you people have, not officially anyway.”
Her words take a more bitter tinge as she speaks those last words.
1/3

>>2123712
“Everyone knows that there might as well be though, anyone born to someone up in the silver towers or whatnot might as well not be walking on the same streets as us. But alright, nothing’s owned by lords or kings or nothing. There’s no bigwig in the middle that hands this stuff out or whatever. It’s just all owned by people. Say you’re some rich toff that lives up in the top floors of some fancy tower, you might have never set foot down here at all in your life. But your daddy left you a lot of paper that says you own, I dunno, the east-down bit of Lower Winking and all of the Septic District and three streets in somewhere, I don’t care. And these all make you money because a lot of people live there and have lived there for centuries and they’ve always been paying whoever owns that piece of paper for the right to live there.”

“You are talking about a deed. I know what those are.”

“Yeah but I don’t respect them.”

“So how is this different from owing fealty to a lord?”

“Because these are bought and sold much more. I hear, that when you get up high enough in the towers, they don’t trade or buy things with money like regular people. Instead they say ‘oh mate I’ll give you 10% of the profits from this for the next year if you give me a share in so-and-so for the next five and the ownership of this street’. I don’t really know how it works. But basically they’re too big for money so they trade potentials instead. And the streets they own are part of that, you see?”

“No.”

“If you own a street, it’s just a stream of this amount of money per month from everyone who lives in it, that’s what it really is. And you can divide that potential money into as many pieces as you want and sell it just like you can trade the potentials of your company or of your servants or whatever else makes you potential money. And the way I heard it told to me once is that streets and other people’s home have something that was called...uh, something like a constant value? I don’t really remember the details. They’re safe. So ownership of stuff down here is used by those up there like you or I would use coins. They’re the basic currency.”
She scratches at her arms, clearly uneasy at explaining something even she doesn’t fully understand.
2/3

>>2123714
“So if you want to buy a room, like really buy it, you have to find whoever owns it and get the ownership off them. Only they probably just don’t own it, they’re probably also dividing the money it makes with a bunch of other people and it’s got to be sorted with them first. And also since it’s used in exchange for all the other things they buy and sell, it’s got worth tied up in all that right? It’s not just a room, it’s also some small percentage of a trading venture or a market and it has an exchange value entirely separate from what it is as an actual thing that exists! So that means they’re worth a lot of money to these sort of people, even if they’d be worth a lot less to us. You just want to buy a room but the person who owns it would be letting go of a lot more than that so they’d charge way more than just what you’d get for a stone box with a door in it.”

You’re still trying to get your head wrapped around all of this. You know what money is. It’s something you give for goods or services, something you paid to your lord or to the Church. And the Church owned a lot but it didn’t sell it.At least, not like that.
You think back to what you saw in the Consortium and what else you have seen in the city. Dis had apparently moved beyond the simple basic money you knew of and had transformed it, through a process of bizarre alchemy, into something complex and strange. You still don’t even really understand what a ‘company’ is.
“We can rent one if we must.”

“That’s what everyone does. But what’d you say you needed again? Because it won’t be safe and it won’t be yours. What if they decide to do something else with it? Or sell it to someone who wants to use it to store objects and not people?”

“What about this? This place we are in right now? Who owns this?”

Alex shrugs.
“I don’t know. Certainly not us. We’re actually doing some sort of weird theft by using it.”

Not ideal circumstances, you will admit.

“And all of Dis is owned like this?”

“Everything worth owning. Even the Wallmites got bought out years ago. I hear there are some bits down in the Undertowns that are only theoretically owned and you can come and go as you please but it’s real bad down there. You’d hate it. Same for the Tombs. Buying space in a tower costs even more, even if it’s a pile of junk like the Folly. You can’t just set up a headquarters wherever you like because everything is Dis and everything in Dis has been owned for a very long time.”

“And how much would it cost to buy a small building down here in the Mazes somewhere? To truly own.”
You would like to have your headquarters in a Maze district, it would be impossible for the authorities to approach you without causing a commotion.

“More money than any of us will ever see.”


3/4

>>2123716
>”Tell me more about these Undertowns then.”

>”We may need to find a patron of some sort. For both this and other reasons.”

>”I don’t know about that.” Show her the emeralds you liberated from the Consortium.

>”I do not recognise the ownership of these people. We can take what space we want and secure it as we please.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2123717
>”Tell me more about these Undertowns then.”
>”I do not recognise the ownership of these people. We can take what space we want and secure it as we please.”

>>2123717
>”I don’t know about that.” Show her the emeralds you liberated from the Consortium.

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I'll leave this vote open while I sleep. See you in the morning!

>>2123717
>Just rent a place, it's less noticable than outright buying a place or squatting.

>>2123731
Adding
>Find a fence for the emeralds.

>>2123717
>>”Tell me more about these Undertowns then.”
>>”I don’t know about that.” Show her the emeralds you liberated from the Consortium.
>Just rent a place, it's less noticable than outright buying a place or squatting.

The rented place will be for shuffling papers and talking, easy to move out if things get dicey. Beatrice and Alex can handle the fastalking crap.

The place in the Undertown will be boarded up as best as possible to hide the improvised cement we'll mix or rock we're melting to plug up the holes, and used to store weapons and train people. If it's dangerous, all the more reason to have the armed people here.

>inb4 sitcom Lamplighter
>inb4 Orion tries to hide insurgents and a Lamppost from his landlord

>>2123717
>Just rent a place, it's less noticable than outright buying a place or squatting.
>Show her the emeralds you liberated from the Consortium.

>>2123717
>”I don’t know about that.” Show her the emeralds you liberated from the Consortium.
>Just rent a place, it's less noticable than outright buying a place or squatting.

Updates resume in an hour!

>>2124122
Sonic_tapping_foot.gif

>>2123688
>The problem then comes from imps who are not only suited for infiltration
I completely agree, which is why the large 'body rent' industry and their shard should be our next primary target.

This removes the threat of infiltrators and works to further polarise the dark elements from the human population.

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>”I don’t know about that.” Show her the emeralds you liberated from the Consortium.

“More money than either of us ever have? I’m not sure about that.”
You unroll the bundle behind the crate, letting loose the tattered and bloodstained cloak. Their contents rattle as they hit the stone.

“That’s a lot of spears!”

“They’re not spears but they’re also not important right now. Here.”
You dig up the small fistful of emeralds that you stole from the Iron Duke’s decorated office.
“How much money are these worth?”

“Where did you get those?”
Alex is having trouble keeping her voice down.

“I don’t think they’re glass, he didn’t seem the type. I don’t fully understand the land trading but how much are a few rooms worth? More or less than this?”

“I...I don’t know. I never thought about actually buying any of them! I mean, shit. This is probably enough. More than enough.”
She stares at the gemstones for a few more seconds before she wakes herself up.
“You can’t just dump these on someone’s doorstep, you know that?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s too suspicious, isn’t it? Nobody pays in stuff like this unless it’s stolen, the people who can afford this stuff legits have lots of regular money too. You’d need a middleman to move it.”

“A middleman?”
You’d never associated much outside your Watchtower back before the sun fell but you had certainly spoken to some colourful people in the surrounding town. A dimly-recollected term now pushes to the forefront of your memories. It carries with it, through osmosis and association with those times, a scattering of memories of someone you’ll never name again.
“You mean a fence.”

“What’s a fence?”

“Aren’t you a thief? A fence is someone who buys stolen goods and resells them.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a middlemen. Why do you call them fences?”

You have no idea why they’re called that.
“It’s unimportant what you call them. You must know some, right? Can you find one that can buy these at a good enough rate to still get us the money we need?”

She looks direly uncertain.
“Half the middlemen I know would probably try to stab you and take ‘em the moment you showed them this, they’re all smalltime. You’d need a really fancy one to afford this I think. I guess I could ask around later?”

“Keep it secret but thank you.”

“So what’s all this other stuff?”

“I was hoping you’d know. Here, what do you make of this?”
You show her the map you found in the secret room, the ancient-looking design with a red path traced through it. You have some nascent ideas on what it could mean but none that are supported. If it is some sort of famous Dis landmark, Alex might know of it.

“No idea what that is, sorry.”

“Right. And this?”
You show the thick scale now, pitted with age and singed black on one side.
“Do you have any idea what kind of beast this could come from?”

1/2

>>2124338
“A really big snake? Well, probably not. Don’t know any creature like that either. Maybe one of the things that live up in the high rails, I hear they’ve got all sorts there.”

“It can’t be from an imp, I know that for certain or else it would have evaporated by now. I was thinking some sort of goblin perhaps but that didn’t make any sense considering where I found it. It doesn’t match any creature I know of, at least, not the ones with defined forms.”

“It could be bred, I suppose. Out from the Workshop.”

“The Tangle Workshop? I thought they were healers?”

“Yes but they do other stuff. They make all sorts of weird creatures and sell them to rich people. Don’t know how they do it.”
You think back to when you first arrived in Dis, at the absurd creatures you had seen pulling carriages along the sky-rails.

“How do they do that?”

“I dunno. How can they put someone’s arm back on? None of it makes any sense to me. But they all look pretty ugly, as far as I’ve heard, so that could be from one of them.”

That still doesn’t answer why the Duke had it secreted away though it does raise further questions about the Tangle Workshop. You’d already suspected that they had a shard but you are unable to see if this ties into that or not. It certainly matches no holy or unholy power you’ve ever known of.
“What of this then?”
You show her the pendant, the little wheel-sign carved in steel.

“Oh, I know that! Did you take that from the Temple?”

“What is it?”
You have a pretty good idea already but it would be good to get confirmation.

“It’s the Wheel God, what else? You wear it to show everyone how pious and devoted you are. Hard to find a metal one these days though, people don’t make them for us anymore. Did you really find this in the same place as the rest.”

“Yes. But that conversation is something I think I will have to have with your elder in time.”
You pocket all three trinkets.
“But what do you think of the halberds? Do you know how to use one?”

“It’s pretty easy right? You just point the sharp end at people.”

“There’s more but that’s the basic gist, yes. Take one.”

“What?”

“It’s for you. For you and the rest of your men. There are rifles too but I won’t distribute those en-masse until we’ve had more time to train you all.”

“Some….some of these are probably worth a lot of money. They smell like it.”

“Good. Nothing is worth as much as survival.”

“Should I tell the others about this right now? Uh. I mean. Thank you.”


>Might as well. You need to address them all again anyway.

>Not yet. You’d rather wait until everything has settled down further. You have more to talk about, besides.

>”I am leaving all of them to you to distribute as you see fit. I have business elsewhere.” It’s time to get your companions back.

>Other (Specify)

>>2124345
>>Not yet. You’d rather wait until everything has settled down further. You have more to talk about, besides.
>Lets wait until they are sober, yes?

>>2124345
>Not yet. You’d rather wait until everything has settled down further. You have more to talk about, besides.

>>2124345
>>2124354
Seconding

>>2124345
>Not yet. You’d rather wait until everything has settled down further. You have more to talk about, besides.

>>2124345
>”I am leaving all of them to you to distribute as you see fit. I have business elsewhere.” It’s time to get your companions back.

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Blegh. As you may have noticed from how long it took to update that first post, I'm currently feeling like shit. I think I'm calling the day off.
Sorry.

>>2124345
>>Not yet. You’d rather wait until everything has settled down further. You have more to talk about, besides.
How the mazes will be bathed in darkness and hundreds (low ball) will prolly die.

>>2124408
Can witches do shit with blood? Track us or something. I feel like that is something we should know being a witch-hunter and all. I just want to know if we made a mistake by putting a bloody handprint on the window.

>>2124408

Fuck. I'll never get to be part of an Ouro quest at this rate.

Hope you feel better, friendo.

>>2124599
Witch-sign can do stuff with blood, as seen in Thread 2, but it tends more towards manipulating/moving it. They can't sniff it out like hounds.

>>2124625
One day, anon, one day. Not today though, a huge wave of fatigue hit me not long after I woke up.

>>2124642
Man, what's wrong with you

>>2124771
He's a snake. It's winter.

>>2124771
It's like chronic fatigue or something

>>2124642
Aww, get better soon Ouro, from one dying QM to another.

I do have a couple of lore questions because I love worldbuilding though. Like what did First Men look like? And what would happen if someone drank directly from the Mud Sea? Can the different races of Man interbreed?

>>2124980
First Men were the physically largest of all the generations of humanity but the best word I can use to describe their general physique is 'square'. Their heads were wide and kinda flat at the top, their chests were so broad and their arms so thick that overall their bodies were almost as wide as they were tall. They were brown-skinned, had stumpy fingers and hands and when alive, they were generally constantly lit from within by their Flame Internal.
Their architecture tended towards the cyclopean and the monolithic. The towers of Dis are mostly imitators of this, since most of the large First Age structures in the city itself have since fallen or been stripped for materials.

The Sea of Mud is impregnated with the Wayward Flame's scattered essence and would not empower a witch. It wouldn't empower Beatrice either. It is the closest thing to the primordial ooze of all humanity and drinking it would make you fairly ill.

Yes they can and during the mingling of the ages, frequently did. A pairing between First Men and Second Men only births Second Men as children however and the union between Second and Third only results in Third offspring.

>>2124345
>Might as well. You need to address them all again anyway.
>Address the green fire shortage. How could it be used to your benefit? How could you keep poor people alive?
>Start building an intelligence network.
>Send someone to check on Abe and Bea.

>>2125126
Has anyone ever tried sailing across the Sea of Mud, or have boats never really been built?

>>2125217
Boats have been built but only in the Second Age because the Sea was very hot. It's an accepted fact that there's nothing out there though, the Sea expands in every direction along a flat plain until it hits the walls of Without.

>>2125280
>walls of Without
...Go on

Surely our plant must be round though, otherwise how would the satellites stay in orbit.

>>2125364
It could be like Arda in Tolkien's work, round but not round in the same sense Earth is.

Even though Arda kind of is Earth, but that's not important.

>>2125364
Without is the name for what is outside the world. The Wayward Flame is originally from there, and according to Beatrice, originally scaled the walls to answer the pleas of the moon.

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>>2125364
>how would the satellites stay in orbit.
>orbit

We should probably start getting to know our fanatics.

Since it looks like this thread is going to be about administration, and you, Ouro, don't seem enthused about that, can we set up a bunch of goals and put Orion on autopilot while we play as Beatrice or Abe?

>>2125840
I'm OK with this

>>2125840
POV switches are the worst though. In this case it'd ruin the suspense we feel as Orion not knowing about his two companions

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Sorry guys, still feeling dead. I think this thread is more or less a bust. I'd appreciate it if someone could archive it and I'll make another thread in three or four days time.

>>2126436
Thanks for running Ouro! Rest well and take more time to relax if you need to

>>2126436

Get the rest you need, man. This quest literally doesn't progress without you, no need to push yourself, we can wait as long as you need.

>>2126436
I don't think you'll need a new thread, I bet we can last that long.

>>2126327
>ruin the suspense
I don't know, I think there'd be enough suspense as Abe tries to figure out how much the Tangle knows, tries to intercept knowledge, tries to get Beatrice healed and get them both out alive. Abe isn't that awesome, it's going to be a tough job for him. Ouro can also put in strategically-timed cutaways back to Orion to heighten suspense. Maybe do contested effort rolls again.

Update in about 30 minutes.

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>Not yet. You’d rather wait until everything has settled down further. You have more to talk about, besides.

You shake your head.
“Leave them to their fun. I don’t want anyone carrying these around until we have somewhere secure to call our own. I have more to speak with you about besides.”

“What is it?”

“The Consortium will never be able to make the green flame again. All they have left are the stocks of whatever they already made and this city would devour that in a day.”
You don’t know that for sure but it had definitely seemed that way, that even the Viridian Consortium operating at full speed was only barely keeping up with the demands of Dis.

“That stuff is blasphemy isn’t it? You said so.”

“Yes. It is a perversion. But what did you see lighting the streets outside?”

It only takes her a moment to understand but when she does she goes a little more solemn.
“But we can give them real fire now! You can light the lamps! That’s what you’re here to do!”

That was never why you came here. Your first priority will always be your mission and if that requires the destruction of Dis, so be it. You are not here to save the masses within it. But something about the earnest look on Alex’s face makes you hesitate to confirm that openly.
“It won’t be that easy. Weren’t you just talking about remaining hidden? I cannot light lamps as I please, nor can I ignite every torch. The Mazes will fall into darkness.”

“But…”
Alex looks torn.
“But we need that. People will die!”

“I know. Keep your voice down.”

“What about the Sun Temple? Can’t ...No.”
She runs her hands through her hair.
“I thought this was a good thing! How can it be righteous if it hurts people with nothing to do with it?”


>Your first priority should be redirecting the coming anger of the people. Let them know who is really to blame for the darkness here.

>Your first priority should be ensuring the survival of as many humans as possible. It will be risky but you might be able to hand out fire and even light some central lamp-posts down below deep within the Mazes.

>Your first priority should be using this to recruit more into the faith, even if it isn’t into the redcloaks specifically. Grant the Sun Temple flame and people will come to them and in the frigid dark, they will know the holiness of light.

>Your first priority is remaining hidden, above all else. Don’t do anything. You’ve already spoken to Alex before about how sometimes it is best to let those without faith die.

>Other (Specify)

>>2134121
>Your first priority is remaining hidden, above all else. Don’t do anything. You’ve already spoken to Alex before about how sometimes it is best to let those without faith die.
On one hand, there are innocent people here, but on the other hand Dis deserves to be sunk beneath the waves.

Are there waves on the Sea of Mud?

>>2134121
>>Your first priority should be using this to recruit more into the faith, even if it isn’t into the redcloaks specifically. Grant the Sun Temple flame and people will come to them and in the frigid dark, they will know the holiness of light.

>>2134139
>Are there waves on the Sea of Mud?

Not typically.

>>2134152
Dis deserves to sink beneath the placid muck then.

>>2134121
Damn, this is a really tough choice.

Maze Lamplighting sounds like bunkering up, but it will keep the most people alive.

Faith and Anger are recruitment tools, one for organization, one for chaos.

Remaining hidden is the least risk to us.

>Your first priority should be redirecting the coming anger of the people. Let them know who is really to blame for the darkness here.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.

>>2134183
Remember it's only a priority though, hiding doesn't mean we won't get to recruit a few lads or spread a few rumours

>>2134202
Sure, but as I see it, our priority is either gaining power or making the Sinners lose power. Gaining power is through Faith or Maze, by keeping people alive, making them devoted.

Attacking, though? That's done through angry mobs. (Which might otherwise be directed at us.)

>>2134121
>Your first priority should be ensuring the survival of as many humans as possible. It will be risky but you might be able to hand out fire and even light some central lamp-posts down below deep within the Mazes.
We're not here to win a popularity contest and the states propaganda will overwhelm anything we could make. Our actions will speak for themselves.

>>2134121
>Your first priority should be redirecting the coming anger of the people. Let them know who is really to blame for the darkness here.
Hopefully this will later bring them to us

>>2134121
<Your first priority should be redirecting the coming anger of the people. Let them know who is really to blame for the darkness here.
Dis will burn

Vote called. Writing.

>Your first priority should be redirecting the coming anger of the people. Let them know who is really to blame for the darkness here.

“People will die and we won’t be able to stop it. If not from the lack of light and warmth, then from what will come to haunt the darkness after.”

“Some of them might deserve it,” Alex says bitterly. “The people down here all had the chance to help us and they spat on us and the Temple instead. But that doesn’t make this right. What can we do?”

“We can let them know just whose fault this is. What made them all so dependent on the false flame in the first place? What chased out the light? What made laws against it? We can help some. The rulers of Dis can help none. We just need to let them know that.”

“And if the witches and their servants move in, we can use that too! Everyone knows that the witches control the Senate and the companies, it’s just not safe to say it.”

“Yes, you get the idea. The sinners are going to try their best to blame us for the coming dark. We will never truly convince any of the elite that live in the high towers, they all benefit too much from how Dis is now. We need to fight them for the hearts and minds of the Mazes and we need to get in ahead of them.”

“But whoever speaks most speaks loudest and they have a lot more mouths than we do. Everything we have, there’ll be three voices shouting us down.”

You think on this for a moment.
“Alex, back in my homeland, before the sun fell, one of the duties of a Lamplighter was to help suppress blasphemy and heretical ideas. I never did it personally but I learned a few tricks all the same. And one of things I was always told was to never let yourself engage it publically. Condemn it broadly as much as you can and root it out whenever possible but never actually address its points in a public sphere because no matter how excellently you may refute them, all you are really doing is giving those ideas a chance to take root in open minds that might otherwise have never encountered those ideas in the first place. Hopefully, one of the sinners may make that very mistake.”

It’s now Alex’s turn to be perplexed.
“I don’t think I get it.”

“You were right before. We will never have enough people to speak these truths to all and there will be too many voices decrying us. Their slander of us will be the public truth. But if we can bait someone into publically refuting what we claim, they will be showing our claims to all of Dis and thousands of people who would never hear us otherwise will. And there will be some sympathisers among that crowd.”

“I think I get it. That seems dishonest.”

“The truth can never be dishonest.”


>It is time to address the redcloaks.

>Send Alex off to scout out an appropriate middleman.

>There is more you need to speak of first. You still have many more questions! (Specify)

>Other (Specify)

>>2134357
>>There is more you need to speak of first. You still have many more questions! (Specify)
Ask her about the names and weapons we encountered in the office.

>>2134357
>witches control the Senate
They're too dangerous to leave alive.

>>2134357
>>It is time to address the redcloaks.
I'd like to get started on our intelligence network, get to know our people, see if they have any skills we can use, flesh out NPCs.

>>2134378
Didn't we do this already?

I'll be taking a nap for a few hours here by the way, leaving this vote open.

>>2134357
>It is time to address the redcloaks.

>>2134357
>It is time to address the redcloaks.

>>2134357
>It is time to address the redcloaks.

>>2134357
>It is time to address the redcloaks.
Also we need to recruit more close advisors besides Alex.

>>2134357
>It is time to address the redcloaks.
We shouldn't touch the flame church until it's time to play PR.

We really should hit the Imps, though. More people are gonna sell their bodies if it guarantees protection from the Dark.

>>2135952
>We really should hit the Imps, though. More people are gonna sell their bodies if it guarantees protection from the Dark.
You're right, it does make sense that Imps would be able to shield their hosts from the cold. However, Ouro's been dropping hints that frontal assaults are a bad idea.

I'd like us to head to the Sable Imp Fellowship at the head of an angry mob, accusing them of destroying the Viridian Consortium, demanding their sunshard for clemency, but that's got so many points of failure. It's a hole in the ground, imps are magically powerful, pitchfork mobs are vulnerable to blood spears, they can just blame Orion right back, and the riot police will be on their side.

So, how would you want to go about destroying the SIF?

>>2135966
What info do we even have on the SIF? I suggest we do some recon first

Oof, I'm properly awake again. Vote called and writing. Sorry for fading in and out on this thread so many times.

>>2135968
What do we know about the SIF?
IC:
Have fingers in everything, became successful after the sun fell, the sun was bad for them.
They live in the Undertowns, excavate soil, clay, imps, and sometimes more mysterious things from dirt mines.
They host imps, hire bodies, hold, possess and tame prisoners and debtors, sell Tamed as servants.
>“They make the imps sign a contract beforehand so if they skip town with the body or damage it or refuse to give it up they have to pay a fee. Theoretically everyone gets their own soul back after the lease is over.”
We have no idea why the SIF might have been chosen to kill the Sun.


They can raise the dead. We have no idea how. If the dead are creatures of the dark, they're the mellowest Orion has ever seen. It was recommended we ask a witch how it works.
>“Old Boniface, here? Nah but I can see why you’d think he’s sick. He’s just dead.”
>The rotting man waves.
>“Yeah, passed in his sleep a year or so ago apparently, way before we knew ‘im. Got an extension from one of those witchy types working for S.I.F down deep down and got back up.”
>“Sold me house and my wife to pay for it,” the corpse says. But I still couldn’t afford it so now I’m out here with the rest of the lads. They’ve retracted my license too so if I go back down I’d probably get buried by the Guildsmen.”


Here's something interesting. We might have another ally against the SIF, assuming they're the ones hinted at here.
>This was the Barrow Burroughs, a district of Undertown, a great hole of soft soil that sinks down into the darkness out of sight. It is the traditional territory of the Last Guild , the gravemen and gravewomen who are more cultists than craftsmen. They paid worship to the Old Powers and so would give a witch shelter but it was not them who he had come to see.
>The Guild were collectors and sealers of corpses, intent for reasons unknown for every corpse in Dis to be locked away in their perpetual crypts. But they do not hold sole dominion over the Burroughs, just the upper reaches of it. The Inspector’s business was with he who ruled the very bottom depths and was, in fact, the Last Guild’s most mortal enemy.

>It is time to address the redcloaks.

“If it gets people talking about us I reckon it’s probably good,” Alex says. “But uh, should we start stockpiling any of the Consortium fire we can get now?”

“Why?”

“Well we’ll need some too won’t we? If you’re serious about setting up down here in some Maze district, that is.”

“I will never use that blasphemy. We will have plenty of true flame to spare.”

“Right.”
Sounding a little chastised, Alex backs up as you rise.
“We’ll be keeping all the windows closed and stuffed up then? People will see us from a mile off…”

The ten other redcloaks stop talking among themselves as they see you stand and walk towards them. They go to stand, some with the unsteadiness of drink, but you wave them all back down.
“Sit. I’m not here to have you stand on my behalf. It’d get tiresome.”

They make the room for you and Alex as you sit beside them, the now empty bottle sitting to the side of the ring. They are mostly men, you note, with just one other woman besides Alex. Or at least as far as you can see anyhow. You’ve made that mistake before. They all wear a tattered red cloth in some form or another, whether it be as a badge or an armband or as a scarf as Alex does.
Their eyes follow yours, shining with newfound zeal and victory.

“You all know who I am,” you say. “But while I’ve asked you to fight for me on such short notice, I’ve never really talked to any of you save Alexandra. I would know your names and faces before I leave today.”

“Is the Duke really dead?”
The asker is a thin man with a pinched and narrow face, his brown hair short and plastered close against his skull. He wears a red neckerchief knotted around his chest. The others look at him scandalously for daring to question you even a little.

“He is. And with him gone, the Consortium will not last. They cannot make the false flame without him.”

“Good,” he says savagely. “I hope it hurt. My dad used to work as a head supervisor in the Firecrafting Works until His Disgrace found out what we believed in. Kicked him and us out and he fucking died down here. My name’s Odrian and it’s about time you showed up.”

“You’ve been waiting?”

“We know about Lamplighters,” the big man with the bandaged hands and the makeshift badge who offered you the bottle beforehand says. “Not those crow-garbed phonies we have here, the proper ones out in the outlands where you come from. My grandparents came from your people back before the sun fell and they made sure to raise my dad and I right, even here. Told us all about your kind and your powers.”

Now that gets you attention.
“Are there many of us in these walls?”

1/3

>>2136018
“More than you think. They can’t actually keep us out you know, you can walk across the Tombs if you’re desperate enough and the walls are all holed through with streets. But you wouldn’t know it to look it because most of those that come here either serve the earth or give up the faith and have kids who say their parents were born here. You either blend in or you keep to the old faith and tell you what, that last one gets kids spitting on you in the streets. I’m Eustace and I do some work for the claymakers every now and then. Just tell me if you ever need anything about that.”

“I don’t have any fancy family words,” the other woman says, heavily cloaked with a jagged and ugly scar running down her left cheek, just barely hidden by limp black hair. “But the Temple took me in when I was guttercrawling and I’ll fight for that. I see anyone say shit about them and I’ll give ‘em a face full of glass. Name’s Enda.”

“It didn’t used to be this bad,” another says, a young man with curly red hair and the name of Linus. “Don’t think anyone ever respected us but now? I’m just sick of it. You know they call us corpse worshippers now? They’re just so bloody happy about it.”

“My name’s Peter.”
A short man with a zealous shine in his eyes.
“I don’t have any story or whatever, my family’s all good. I work as a locksmith. Didn’t even do anything with the rest of these blokes before the last few days. But I always knew that judgement was going to be coming sooner or later. The city is flooded in sin and it’s about time someone started drowning.”
Peter, you decide, is a man to be somewhat wary of but commendable all the same.

“I’ve got no long-term history with the Sun Temple,” a man with a wide smile, a carefree look and a significantly more eloquent voice than the rest of the redcloaks. He wears a thick red armband proudly. “Most of the faithful come from families with it because new converts are hard to find. That said, I am one. I’m Clement and I’m not really from around here. I used to be a clerk up in High Fawlsy Tower but I got down on my luck. I heard the Elder speak not long after I had to move down here and it just made sense. My life before was well-kept but empty of meaning, it was like I had been living every day in a daze before I heard the word of the Wheel God!”

“Walstan here,” a somewhat plump man with weathered skin and knobbly scar-crossed hands. “Me and mine used to be dirt farmers down in the Undertowns back before we got our debt sold to imps.” He rolls up a sleeve and shows you, long burned into the flesh of his forearm, a brand in the shape of a circle with the letters S.I.F burned into it.
2/3

>>2136019
“They made all of us except me into animals and I had to fake it for a few days before I could run.”

“My name is Edmund and I just really hate witches. All witches.”
Edmund is a very twitchy young man with sandy blonde hair and a skin that is a darker gray than most. He is also, as you observe over time, the redcloak who spends the most time crowded around you and the light.
“”It’s real disgusting, the way they set themselves up over real people. I hate it.”

“I work in the Temple as an aide,” a man wearing a torn red sash says. His name is Kilian. “Mostly as a kind of guard since you get people who come in trying to mess with the ceremony or rough believers up. Mostly drunk. Or at least, I guess I used to work there. Been disowned ‘cause of all this. I bet they’d all be real happy to see me again anyhow. But don’t worry, I’m in this for the long haul.”

“Dominic,” the last man introduces himself to you. He’s broad and thickly built and, aside from his red badge, also wears a wooden sun-pendant proudly from his neck. “It just doesn’t feel right to sit back and do nothing while all this happens, even if the Elder says so. Seen too many friends get treated like they aren’t shit. Just say the word and I’ll crack some skulls.”

“And there’s also me,” Alex says. “Alex, petty thief, orphan, other stuff. I didn’t go through half the awful stuff some of these guys went through so I guess I’m just real pissed at how screwed up everything is. So many people act like it’s normal but it isn’t! It shouldn’t!”

“And you are the leader here?”
You’re still trying to process all these names.

“Kind of. I mean, I am now.”

“We don’t have a leader really,” Clement adds. “Not officially.”

“I don’t know if I like any of this sorta government stuff,” Odrian says. “We don’t need a leader.”

“Well I’m the one who found Orion and organised the rest of you and even before then, we wouldn’t have broke nearly as much stuff if you didn’t have me around!”
Alex jams her thumb into her chest.
“I’m basically the leader really. Anyway, don’t get too drunk here ladies, there’s still a long way to go! We’re going to have to get a base and sell some loot and train some weapons! I’m also going to need you to do some talking with your friends and friends of friends and anyone else you might know if you can get away with it. Details later. We’re not just stealing or setting fires anymore. God needs us.”


>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.

>It’s time to go track down a suitable middleman.

>Say something else to the redcloaks (Specify)

>Ask them all a question (Specify)

>Show them the lamp-post just briefly. Let them see tangible proof of what you fight for.

>Other (Specify)

>>2136021
>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.
>Show them the lamp-post just briefly. Let them see tangible proof of what you fight for.

>>2136021
>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.
We need to go track down Bea and Abe. Ask if anyone knows where the nearest tangle workshop to the consortium would be as well as where they would take a more unique patient.

>>2136021
>>You can let Alex organise them from here (till further notice). That’s her job for now.
>>It’s time to go track down a suitable middleman.

>>2136021
>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.
>Get to work on finding Bea and Abe
>Don't show the lamp-post. Any of them could be a mole or turn coat later.

>>2136018
>“He is. And with him gone, the Consortium will not last. They cannot make the false flame without him.”
If they need Flame Artists to make the false fire, we might be able to get ahead of the game and turn or provide the next candidate, steal the shard they'll provide.

>“Me and mine used to be dirt farmers down in the Undertowns
Dirt farmers? How do you grow dirt?

>"What can you all tell me about the Tangle?"
>The person who knows the most is to investigate, get info on Bea and Abe. Keep that info away from everyone else. In case someone's not trustworthy, we don't want the Tangle knowing that they have two of ours.
>Talk to Walstan. He's got the info on the SIF we need.

By the way, we really need info on the investigation. I'm going nuts here, trying to figure out how exposed we're allowed to be, how much they know about the Shardbearer, how much they know about the Consortium Destroyers.

I'll be going to sleep soon so this vote will remain open until I wake.

>>2136057
Good night.

>>2136021
>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.

Best to leave local matters requiring subtlety to a local.

>>2136032
Dirt farming tends to just refer to growing crops. In dirt.

The problem with going after the imps this early, as I see it, is that the typical person just isn't ready to take them on. Even relatively garden variety imps give us trouble if there's more than one of them when we don't have wick, after all, and we're definitely the most hardcore of this band of alley detritus.

I agree that the best thing to do would be to get a feel for how the SIF works and what the general mood concerning them is. For example, judging from what Walstan said, I doubt that they're popular considering with the poor considering they can do what they like with you if they buy your debt, and if I were to guess, this whole "let your soul have your body back" thing never really happens and they just have an imp impersonate you and get the body back into debt again.

>>2136021
>>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.
>Ask them all a question (Specify)
How many of them have ever tried to light their wick? Do they know where Wick might be?

>>2136338
Supporting this.

Let's guage the strength of their internal flames.

>>2136283
Besides the SIF, who are the other sun shard holders again?

>>2136479
These are my guesses.
1. The Chemist.
2. Spinnae at the Tangle.
3. Sable Imp Fellowship
4. Iron Duke, Marcel
5. Agatha, at the Senate. (I suspect this is Snake Eyes, the Inspector-General's boss.)
6. The Golemist
7. The person in charge of making the ship that got them to the Sun. They made the millipede trains, the spider locomotives. (This is a guess. Especially considering the Tangle likes making beasts.)

Extra names: Maria, Rene

Updates will resume in an hour.

>You can let Alex organise them from here. That’s her job for now.
>Inquire about S.I.F

I’ll let you handle all the tasks I spoke to you about,” you tell Alex. “I’ll leave local matters to a local.”

“Right. So that was middleman, land and spreading the word right? The rest of the stuff can wait for after those.”

“What’s this about land?”

“I’ll tell you later, Clement,” Alex says.

The smiling man shrugs.
“It’s just that if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, I may know some people in that business. Or at least, I know their clerks and secretaries. They might still be fond of me.”

“Ah, that will be useful.”
Alex concentrates for a moment.
“Do you also know where we might find a middleman to wash a handful of emeralds?”

“...No.”

“Damn. Well that’s the first step, I’ll ask you to help me once we get the money settled.”

“What was that about emeralds?”

“I still have a few more questions,” you say, interjecting before the conversation can run away from you entirely. “Many of them actually. But the most important seems to be the S.I.F. I’ve never seen a grander blasphemy than what I understand of them.”

Much of the group hesitates at this and you spot the glances going back and forth towards Walstan. He just shrugs.
“It’s okay, I won’t mind. What do you need to know?”

“Thank you. Firstly, where are they located?”

“I never went there but everyone knows it’s down in the Barrow Burroughs. That’s where they dig.”

“And what they do exactly?”

“Make money. As far as I understand it, they dig up imps who are all stuck down in the earth and they buy bodies off people for them to possess. Most of the imps have to be indentured to them to pay off their dig-up fees so the Fellowship contracts them off to other people and makes more money. They buy criminals and debtors and…”
He sucks in his breath.
“They sell beasts. Very popular trade I hear, ‘specially since proper animals are hard to find these days.”

This is clearly a much sorer subject than he had claimed it was but neither do you want to point that our or diminish his pride.
“What about the dead? I met a dead man who said the Fellowship brought him back.”

The redcloaks grimace at your mention of this, several of them making signs. Eustace mutters something about ‘unholies’ under his breath.

“Don’t know how they do them,” Walstan says. “Don’t think anyone does, people talk about it all the time. Costs a lot too.”

“The one I spoke to said that he sold everything to pay for it and still needed more yes. He’s an immortal beggar now.”

You see comprehension dawn in Alex’s eyes.
“You’ve spoken to those windbags up in the market on Folly 75th?”

1/2

>>2137141
Walstan ignores her and nods.
“Sounds about right. The Fellowship loves debt trading. They’ll sell anything to anyone and it won’t matter if you can’t afford it. It’s okay, they’ll tell you. They find other ways to make sure you pay them back. I...I don’t feel like talking about this anymore.”

“Of course.”
You turn back to the rest of the group.
“So they’re not popular with the people then, are they?”

“You’d be surprised,” Alex says. “Imps are worth a lot and a lot of people act like debtors and crooks deserve anything that can be done to them. Even the people down here, who’d be in their same situation if things had gone just a little worse for them!”

“I understand. I’ll leave the rest of this to you then.”

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You sit uneasily, still dressed in smoke-stained and bloodflecked clothes with your cudgel a familiar and comforting weight in your coat pocket. They found it but they let you carry it it. All in all, quite generous of the Workshop!
Your hands are bandaged up nice and professionally and the ointment they spread on them before placing them makes you almost feel like you aren’t burned at all. Doesn’t do anything for the lingering twisting pain in your side however, the legacy of where that gargoyle bit you. They filled in the stone with flesh somehow when you first arrived in Dis, using processes you know not while you slept unconscious. But the pain remains. You haven’t told anyone about it yet, you wouldn’t want them to worry over something so unimportant.

Beatrice lies in the bed that you are sitting next to, asleep and dreadfully vulnerable. The sheets are stained red but she herself has paled dreadfully, her skin a shade of grey so pale that it is almost white. Only corpses are that pale but you know she still breathes, her chest rising up and down with a steady rhythm beneath the sheets.
Nobody else is here, the two of you were given this room to yourselves as part of Beatrice’s payment for being a medical impossibility. The room is nice enough, though it doesn’t have a window. The walls, floor and ceiling are the smooth and seamless wood that you’ve come to expect from a branch office of the Tangle Workshop.

Before she passed out, Beatrice gave you a sign to hold up to anyone who wanted to come in and study her. It’s a little blood-splattered notepad and written on it, in precise and elegant handwriting, is:

FUCK OFF, SHE’S SLEEPING. COME BACK LATER.

So far, it had worked.

Your name is Abraham but most people just call you Abe. Your second name is best left forgotten, like all else who held it. It’s been a long, long day for you and it doesn’t seem to be over just yet.


>Perhaps you can sleep a little yourself.

>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.

>Beatrice is asleep. Perhaps you can tell someone about the lingering pain and find something to relieve it before she wakes.

>Examine Beatrice and make sure she’s alright.

>Other (Specify)

>>2137177

>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.

>>2137177
>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.

>>2137177
>>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.
no other option would make sense in-character desu

>>2137177
>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.

Vote called. Writing.

I kind of forgot about how Abe was already treated here. I wonder what kind of sketchy shit they actually did to him. Surely there are consequences for being healed by earth magic type shit

>>2137177
>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.

File: abe.jpg (54 KB, 256x256)

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>Stand guard for as long as it takes. Orion entrusted this to you.

No, you’re not going to be weak this time. You don’t need to ask anyone else for help with the pain in your side and you don’t need to even burden anyone else with the worry of knowing about it. If they did...they’d probably ask you to take a rest or give you some condescending words about needing to take care of yourself first. They wouldn’t understand.

Orion entrusted this task to you and Beatrice is depending on you. You won’t swerve from this. You will stand guard for as long as it takes. After all she’s done, you need to protect her from the people you’ve brought her to heal her.
It hadn’t been difficult to get her admitted. She was a ‘unique specimen’ and the way that they had said it had discomforted you greatly. There’s something about the Workshop you can’t just bring yourself to trust, even after they saved your life. But if they can save Beatrice then you’ll do whatever you can for them, shady bastards or not.

Now that she is asleep and her usual attitude and stance are vanished, you can’t help but notice how small and helpless she looks. She is so very slight and frail, something that can be easily forgotten when faced with the force of her personality. It’d be hard for someone to believe that you had once been incited into a public row with a woman as small as she, provided that that hypothetical someone never met her while she was awake.
She’s crude and foul-mouthed and kills easier than anyone else you’ve ever known. Her face is bruised and swollen even in the best of times and she’s about as likely to accidentally vomit something on you as she is to shake your hand.

She is, in her own way, the most beautiful woman you think you’ve ever met. If she had never awakened you, you would still be in Enoch. You’d still be sleepwalking your way through life, dreaming the coward’s dreams.
She knows this. You made your intentions known to her that night in the rain and while she wasn’t entirely dismissive, neither was she at all receptive. It’ll never be.

You’re content to just let yourself be useful. Orion and Beatrice are both bigger people than you. They’re the kind of heroes who will have stories told about them one day. You certainly don’t deserve that.

There is a knock at the door and you sit up straighter, holding the sign at the ready. But it is just the attending nurse, a tall and elegant woman with a figure that she isn’t afraid to show just a little. You don’t think Orion would appreciate it but you are merely mortal, after all. She’s holding a tray with three cylindrical bottles on it.
“Just more tonic,” she whispers. “For when she wakes, it’ll help her feel better.”

1/2

>>2137313
You know it will, she loves the stuff and you can understand why. You don’t know what goes into the Workshop’s ubiquitous remedy but it soothes all pain, even that of the fire in her blood. You give the nurse a nod as she leaves.

The two of you are alone again.

Several minutes later, the pain of the gargoyle’s bite returns and you nearly topple from your chair as your newly fleshed side cramps up in agony. You don’t cry out. You have been through far worse than this and you would never dream of waking Beatrice over something so trivial.
Whatever they did to you to free you from the encroaching stone...it wasn’t enough. The pain is still there and it is getting worse.

Your eyes drift over to the three bottles sitting on the tray by the side of the bed. Surely two bottles would be enough for her. She wouldn’t miss one if she never knew she was given three..and you are in desperate need of some relief.


>Drink the tonic. What is good for you is also good for her, as it lets you stay on your duty.

>Leave it all for her. What would Orion think of this?

>Other (Specify)

>>2137315
>Leave it all for her. What would Orion think of this?
He's literally being slowly burned alive every time he uses the lamp post, surely we can withstand this much. There must be a catch to the tangle's treatments

>>2137315
>Put one bottle in your pocket but don't drink it
I don't trust that thing one bit
Would also suggest half-emptying the second bottle to limit the amount bea intakes

>>2137315
>Leave it all for her. What would Orion think of this?
If anything ask for your own, Bea is gonna need all she can get

>Leave it all for her. What would Orion think of this?
>Creep on Beatrice while she sleeps to distract you

"What would Orion do?"
Probably smack her on the back of the head and tell her that pain is weakness leaving the body

It is noon again and very hot, I will be sleeping for an hour or so. Not as long as I was last time, I promise.

Vote called. Writing.

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>Leave it all for her. What would Orion think of this?

What are you thinking? Your own suffering is unimportant, deserved even in some way. You won’t let it distract you from helping the others. They’ll save the world one day after all. What can you do about except follow?
You leave the little bottles untouched.

At least fifteen more minutes pass before the door opens once more, this time without a knock. The white-cloaked doctor who walks in is one you’ve never seen before, tall and blonde and bearing a small jeweled pin in the shape of a thorny branch upon his lapel. His face is frozen into a steady expression of vague interest and nothing more. He spots you and the sign and if the sign is of any import to him, he doesn’t show it.
“Good evening. I’m Dr Surrex, assistant to the Head Doctor.”
He speaks those words as if they’re meant to mean something to you. You do your best to look impressed.

“Can I help you? She’s still sleeping.”

“We would like to relocate her away from this branch office and to the Thorn directly for observation and treatment.”

“She’s that special, huh?”

“I won’t lie to you and you clearly have her best interests in mind.”
You can’t tell if he’s mocking you or not.
“We do want better observation, yes. Witch subjects are always at a premium and there has never been any witch like her. We didn’t even know it was possible. But it is for her sake as well. She has taken well for the preliminary treatments here but she still has sustained breakdown of tissue in...well, everywhere. All we can do with the treatments here available at the branch is to postpone her death. But with the facilities of the Thorn, we are much more likely to get her back on her feet.”

You think this over. The Thorn must be that tower you saw when you first rode the sky-rail over Dis, that twisted spire of living wood and the grand headquarters of the Tangle Workshop. It is where they are strongest and even if they aren’t involved with the sun like Orion suspects, you don’t think they’re at all trustworthy. If you let Beatrice go there, she will be truly within the belly of the beast.


>Agree but only if you can accompany her and after making sure you will both be free to leave.

>They can ship the required things out from the Thorn to here if they want it that badly. She’s not moving.

>Wake Beatrice up early and ask her.

>Inquire about your own pains while he’s here. The gargoyle bite they were supposed to have treated hasn’t faded, damn it!

>Ask about the tonics. It would be wise to uncover whatever you can.

>Other (Specify)

>>2137755
>>Agree but only if you can accompany her and after making sure you will both be free to leave.
>Ask about the tonics. It would be wise to uncover whatever you can.

>>2137755
>Agree but only if you can accompany her and after making sure you will both be free to leave.
>Inquire about your own pains while he’s here. The gargoyle bite they were supposed to have treated hasn’t faded, damn it!
>Ask about the tonics. It would be wise to uncover whatever you can.

>>2137853
Seconding

>>2137853
>>2137870
Guys you really should not reveal that wound. Makes our lie clear to the people we dropped into.

>>2137889
...how?

>>2137935
We were a relief force for the flame works. Why the FUCK would we have a gargoyle wound? Additionally admitting we were treated here before in a very different area?

>>2137947
We never even had a cover story like that, they didn't really ask many questions

>Agree but only if you can accompany her and after making sure you will both be free to leave.
>Inquire about your own pains while he’s here. The gargoyle bite they were supposed to have treated hasn’t faded, damn it!
Abe and Bea will not be able to escape on their own. They stand out too much.

>>2137755
>Agree but only if you can accompany her and after making sure you will both be free to leave.
>Inquire about your own pains while he’s here. The gargoyle bite they were supposed to have treated hasn’t faded, damn it!

>>2137947
We're already fucked. We're going into their stronghold, we're unique, we arrived in suspicious circumstances.

I think they're hiding us from the authorities since they want to keep Bea.

Sorry, I fell asleep. I'll be back later tonight to do some more updates and we'll finish this thread off tomorrow.

Blegh. I guess not. This is the end of the thread. Sorry about this whole thread by the way, it never quite really got anywhere because of how often I had to stop and start. It'll be better next time.

We might have another thread before Christmas! Check the twitter closer to the release date, etc etc etc.

>>2139098
Jesus dude. Are you gonna be okay?

>>2139098
>>2139098
If you're feeling that bad, it might be better to call it off til the next year. Don't burn yourself out, we can handle the wait.