>>2748411
Chapter Fifteen: As You Sow

The pale half-light of the broken sun, as small a comfort as it was, has passed. The solar corpse has passed along down its eternal path into the Sea of Mud and the city of Dis is in the grip of night. Green light still warms some towers but in others, and in the urban depths below them, many homes now contain nothing but darkness and the rising chill of the earth. This is a wounded city and just as a dying man loses blood, Dis hemorrhages the lives of those who had already been the weakest and the most vulnerable.

The city’s mutilators sit huddled around a fire, a proper one that throws off sparks and smoke and more warmth than any of the Consortium’s false offerings could muster. You are all so very tired with muscles aching, eyes bleary and throats rubbed raw by smoke inhalation. And yet none of you sleep. Not just yet anyway. You’ll probably have to soon. But for now, you and the redcloaks just lay low and hide, standing vigil over the damned city.

You aren’t in a good state. You forced the Tangle Workshop to give unto you their most precious secret and in doing so, slew a false child of light. There is now more shards within the broken lamp-post than anywhere else in the world. You even managed to find Beatrice again, the tamed witch having escaped from a far greater threat than either of you expected. You have every right to feel triumphant. Happy, even!
Instead you just feel spent.

You’re closer to your goal than you’ve ever been but it seems to you that you’ve only grown older and the weight of the world more crushing. The Thorn nearly killed you. It did kill others. Can you repeat this for even just a few more times?
And more importantly, you have begun to feel that the stakes, already the highest they could have ever been, have impossibly risen further still. With the things you’ve done today, it’s not just the world you risk to lose anymore: it’s also your soul. You won’t regret what you’ve done, the deaths of a few thousand innocents are nothing compared to the survival of the world, of the human race, of the Wheel God and the Sun. This is an end that justifies and forgives any means.
But the end only matters if you reach it. If you fail and the world slips into the dark...you will have been nothing but a monster. A beast of God that killed more than he saved. The last remnants of Man will die cursing your name.

1/2

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>>2748414
You, Beatrice, Alex and all the other redcloaks have sought out refuge to rest and outlast the night. But where have you done so?


>You have returned to your old base where you burnt Abe’s remains. It is safe and secure and surely the Workshop has bigger problems now.

>It would be foolish to return. You are all instead in a room you have seized and secured somewhere in the Mazes.

>It would be foolish to return. You are all instead in a room you have seized and secured somewhere in a tower.

>There’s one place you can be sure to be undisturbed. You have taken shelter in the shadow of the Starfall.

>You have thrown yourself on the mercy of the Paper Bridesmaid for shelter. Just for this night.

>Other (Specify)

>>2748417
>You have thrown yourself on the mercy of the Paper Bridesmaid for shelter. Just for this night.

>>2748417
>There’s one place you can be sure to be undisturbed. You have taken shelter in the shadow of the Starfall.

>>2748422
We have questions we still need her to answer.
>Where did Bridget go
It's a possibility that Orion still thinks she took Maria's shard.
>What will happen if Maria takes UR
>Where is the robed person we met
>Where is the Dreadnought
>What was her part in the Sunfall

>>2748417
>There’s one place you can be sure to be undisturbed. You have taken shelter in the shadow of the Starfall.

Vote called, writing.

Sorry about the delay on this one. It is very cold.

>There’s one place you can be sure to be undisturbed. You have taken shelter in the shadow of the Starfall.

You are all sitting atop a broken slab of concrete at least a dozen feet in diameter and encircled in rubble. The broken bricks and scattered walls prop up another immense broken slab that serves as your roof. You’ve taken refuge in the last place you think anyone will be looking for you, in the very shadow of the Starfall itself. This is a little pocket of air within the scattered rubble that litters the newfound hole in Dis’ wounded heart.

You are taking shelter in the detritus of your greatest work yet, clustered around a roaring fire that your impromptu ceiling hides from view. It’s not comfortable, you have only bare concrete to sleep upon, but it’ll do for the night.
And after that?

Well, that is a question. What should you being tonight?


>You have the right idea. Hide out and rest. You need to get your strength back and so does everyone else.

>They won’t expect you to pursue yet another target right now!

>It may be a futile effort but you should still be bringing light to the people of Dis. Maybe you can light some lamps for those who cannot afford what is left of the green flame. It’ll be dangerous though.

>Other (Specify)

>>2748578
>You have the right idea. Hide out and rest. You need to get your strength back and so does everyone else.

>>2748578
>You have the right idea. Hide out and rest. You need to get your strength back and so does everyone else.

>>2748578
>You have the right idea. Hide out and rest. You need to get your strength back and so does everyone else.

>>2748578
>It may be a futile effort but you should still be bringing light to the people of Dis. Maybe you can light some lamps for those who cannot afford what is left of the green flame. It’ll be dangerous though.

>>2748578
>You have the right idea. Hide out and rest. You need to get your strength back and so does everyone else.

So what do we have left? The boat guys, the imp fellowship, Mary, and the other two sunbros?

>>2748578


>It may be a futile effort but you should still be bringing light to the people of Dis. Maybe you can light some lamps for those who cannot afford what is left of the green flame. It’ll be dangerous though.

>>2748578
LANTERNS

START. COLLECTING. LANTERNS

>>2748578
>It may be a futile effort but you should still be bringing light to the people of Dis. Maybe you can light some lamps for those who cannot afford what is left of the green flame. It’ll be dangerous though.

THEY HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO PRAISE.
WE WILL TEACH THEM.

Vote called, writing.

>>2748696
Pretty sure it's a tie

Half for lighting

half for resting.

>>2748702
You could be right. I didn't know exactly what to make of this fella:
>>2748680

>>2748711
Oh yeah, that's Kevin.
He, uh
He wasn't the same after the starfall.

>>2748711
>>2748718
hey that's pretty mean. We could be runeswording lanterns off the street to use for light and bombs.

>>2748730
That's a good point and regardless of who wins, I will try to work collecting that stuff in as a possible option somewhere.
I just want to clarify if you indeed count as a vote for the lantern-lighting option as that anon was claiming. Because, to me, you didn't appear to be.

Alright, I'm not gonna stall longer for a vote that did not appear to be part of that faction at all. The result stands. Vote called, writing.

>>2748578
>It may be a futile effort but you should still be bringing light to the people of Dis. Maybe you can light some lamps for those who cannot afford what is left of the green flame. It’ll be dangerous though.

>>2748768
Ouro just can't catch a break with these votes desu

>>2748578
>It may be a futile effort but you should still be bringing light to the people of Dis. Maybe you can light some lamps for those who cannot afford what is left of the green flame. It’ll be dangerous though.
I feel like a dick, but I really needed a shower after work. If I had known the quest was stalled with a tie then I would have voted first, my bad

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Sorry to disappoint but when I say a vote is called, that generally means that later votes are not counted.

>You have the right idea. Hide out and rest. You need to get your strength back and so does everyone else.

There’s no point trying to do anything else right now. Both you and your companions are all spent. What more can be done right now? And while you don’t like the idea of leaving so many humans of Dis without light or warmth, you’ve already accepted that you must harden your heart to them. You already killed so many of them with the star after all. What is the worth of trying to help them now?

No, now that you are this close you must keep your goal in mind at all times. Nothing else truly matters.

You cast a look around the fire. The redcloaks are clustered around it on the opposite side of you, having given you all the space you could possibly need. Most of them look uncomfortable but you know for a fact that your current accommodations are still better than a great many people tonight. You’ve already had plenty of experience of sleeping on concrete and if any of them haven’t, they’ll soon learn.
Alex is sitting apart from them with her back turned to you. She’s cleaning a rifle.

Beatrice is even further still, wrapped up in a scavenged blanket and outside the small circle of firelight altogether. She’s lying down and theoretically asleep but you can feel her eyes boring into you.

You doubt anyone will be sleeping well tonight.


>Except you. You’re going to sleep right now because you need it.

>Talk to Alex first. You need to figure out your next target.

>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>Other (Specify)

>>2748827
>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>>2748827
>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>>2748827
>>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>>2748827
>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>>2748827

>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>>2748827
>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

>>2749057
it's cold, snakes must brumate in the winter

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>>2749057
>"I'll do a quick interlude before I write, since anons wanted to see Dis in chaos."
>ONE HOUR LATER

Soon

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Interlude

Dis has always been, in what some might call a paradox or hypocrisy if they were less charitable, insistent upon a stateless state. A tradition that supposedly dates back to during the First War, when Dis was just a collection of fortified communal towers clustered together as a beach-head on a hateful world, but was pursued more militantly after the beginning of the Second Age and the slow formation of the First Dominion of Man. There was a Senate and laws but no state to oppress citizens or to enforce a particular way of life. Instead the city was tied together by a series of powerful privately owned factions from top to bottom, each of which managed enforcement and finance however it pleased, all bound together by the social fiction that none of these giants would ever tread upon the toes of another.
In reality, what it meant was that ‘Dis’ was a collection of corporations and criminals, all who only barely kept each other in check and trampled freely upon the masses whenever it was financially expedient.

The city was no single entity but a collection of communities with the only unifying tradition and civic pride being strongly rooted in the idea they didn’t have one. And now there was not only a major power vacuum, the city had also been grievously wounded, impaled by a spear whose tip was a star. In such times all social fictions must fall away and though it had clung together for three long Ages, the paradox of Dis was finally coming undone.

It had only needed night to fall.

A hundred different skirmishes are being fought over remnants of the Consortium’s green flame or even the suspicion of it. The starfall had disrupted any attempts of pseudoflame rationing and now blood was being spilled on street after street. Consortium branch offices and warehouses were being stormed for stocks of flame they didn’t have and the central tower itself can only close their gates and wait it out. At least one of the executives can be seen leaping from the tower as their shipment empire crumbles.

Dozens of angry mobs pushed through tower, Maze and Undertown alike with just one target in mind. Sun Temples were seized and anyone still foolish to be found within are given public executions at the hands of the mob. From there, they disperse into crowds of violence and looting as the homes and businesses of any even suspected of solar allegiance are torn to pieces. Old grudges and petty spites are acted out in gory detail under the guise of seeking justice against the enemies of Dis.

1/5

>>2749210
And whether they were inspired by the Starfall or more likely, in response to the city’s reaction to it, more and more now wear the red. Angry youth and the survivors of broken congregations strike out at a city that has condemned them. By sheer coincidence of course, this seems to mostly manifest as looting and vandalism. Most of the redcloak bands are too small and scattered to fight the mobs openly but in one particularly bloody case, a mob converging on a Sun Temple in the 48th floor of Rueford Tower are met in force by a militia of red-masked faithful eager to pay violence unto violence. The walls were painted red.
And for those without a mob to protect them from the justice of the Sun? Well, many a smalltime witch was found disemboweled on the streets all over Dis.

And as the seams were being ripped open, more and more entirely unrelated groups saw their chance to seize whatever they wished. When the body is a corpse, it is every cell for themselves.

Several hostile corporate takeovers were orchestrated that night, taking advantage of security forces preoccupied with rioting citizens. And following in their wake were a dozen mobs and riots that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the realization that they could simply take what they wanted and kill whomever they hated. Of all of Dis’ private police forces, many took refuge and pulled their presences from the streets entirely. Their owners needed them to protect them and their holdings, not the slums they lorded over.
The Blackcloaks still persisted as best they could, protecting the remaining greenflame lamps from those seeking to steal its flame and those just needing to strike out at a symbol of the forces that had dropped the star. But not even they could do anything but fall back hopelessly in the face of gangs of witches and imps emerging out of nowhere with chains and saws. Dozens of Dis’ lamp posts, having stood since the very beginning of Man, were pulled free from their moorings and hacked to pieces.

And these gangs were not the only ones. Dis had long harboured groups with grievance against the system and in this chaos, they were seizing their chance. Down in Undertown, a textile factory had lynched executives hanging from broken windows as Dis’ long-suppressed labour unions and communist revolutionaries took direct action against factory owners and bosses. For many of them, their symbol had long been a noose and they were glad to finally put it to practical use.
In one of Dis’ finest silver towers, terrified nobles and landowners hid in closets or jumped from windows as the mercenary company hired to police their estates decided that they’d rather live here instead. And to their horror, not even their panic rooms and vaults were safe as that only left them locked in with their own servants, many of whom were more than happy to sell out their masters to the renegade guardsmen.

2/5

>>2749217
In the Mazes, an entire neighborhood finds soldiers marching through and dragging people from their homes. The owner of the next street over had long wished to acquire this property for himself and with this street’s slumlord poisoned by his own maid, the law belonged to he who could afford the most swords.

More streets have people hiding in their homes as men and women march up down ringing heavy bells, a dozen different militant cults to different facets of the Old Powers enacting forceful conversions and brief but bloody scuffles whenever they collided with one another along a street corner.

One of the larger members of the Tangle Workshop’s swarm of fumus, the mutant predators that live in the upper smog, descends and hollows out the top of a smaller tower. It eats scores of people before oppressing the rest of those trapped in the upper floors, flickers of once-human intellect demanding that they pay it tribute in food, treasure and women.

And deep down in the depths of Undertowns, the Sable Imp Fellowships large collection of debtor’s prisons, slave pits and human farms are under assault from a dozen different mobs. Some of them are religiously motivated by either side, some are yet more revolutionaries but most are just people who know when someone’s boot has been at their throat for their entire life.

And the imps themselves are everywhere. The system set up by the Fellowship, that of contracts and working for pay, of lending human bodies for possession on contract and returning them unharmed once they’re done, has had more than its fair share of critics from the children of the earth themselves. And now, with all possible forces of law concerned elsewhere, plenty of dissident imps were prowling the streets in search of those desperate enough to sell their flesh either for them or to them and beyond that, just good wholesome slaughter. These are but a minority of the imps in Dis however. Many more have risen into the city simply to kill and do as they please, same as the humans.
Many mobs and riots have imps in their midst and most never even know it.

A redcloak militia liberate a debtor’s prison only to find that this one contained nothing but living dead who had failed to work off their revival debts to the S.I.F. The prisoners are burned alive instead.

The Black Iron Docks were overrun quickly, the masses of people making their homes on the very outskirts of the Sea upon derelict boats and abandoned docks were now more than happy to try and take the cushy office buildings and factories for themselves. Only the central offices remain safe, all remaining security pulled back to encircle it.

Golems stalk all through the city, apparently searching for something unknown. They walked through crowds and mobs in the same way a man might wade through water, leaving pulped flesh in their wake.

3/5

>>2749222
A small Undertown burrough comes under the brief rule of a local gang using the chaos to do whatever they pleased with the area. The citizens hide as best they can, emerging only at the unexpected sound of gunshots. The street is now full of corpses and the only upright man left is the gunslinger, a tall and ragged man with a hidden face. He doesn’t speak but for the duration of this bloody and chaotic night, this neighbourhood is under his protection.

The Senate Hall is stormed and the remnants of the Magistrates and the guards cannot keep the crowds out. But while the guardhouses and the magisterium falls, the sealed dome itself cannot be breached by any mob. The people of Dis can only pound on the massive Senate door in vain.
Inside, Epitaph passes a law redefining the exact legal meaning of ‘littering’.

And all along the great wall of Dis, the Wallmites are overrun by the Tombsfolk attempting to gain entry into the city in whose shadow they have lived crushing and wretched lives for so long. For those that succeed, they find themselves in a city that is currently no better than the wasteland outside.

But through the bedlam of the night, some parts of the city remain surprisingly untouched.
The Paper Bridesmaid simply opens its doors wide to the mobs and, upon order of the Madame herself, decrees that the entry free has been reduced to nothing this night only. Protestors and would-be looters are pushed through the grand doors and then politely but firmly taken by the hand and redirected to any amount of hedonistic diversions. The gladiatorial blood-pits on the higher floors in particular, get a good workout. To the Bridesmaid regulars, that most jaded elite, this catastrophe is all just another diversion.
And for those agitators who can’t be charmed or mollified well...nobody knows. They must have just left, right? Certainly nobody remembers seeing them leave but they must have. And with all the noise, nobody can hear the slithering in the walls.

The husk of the Thorn is left untouched as well, its entrances sealed over with thickets of thorn and bramble. The fumii have been called and they lurk on nearby streets and towers as most effective deterrents. A rioter only has to a see a sky-spider bite a man in half once before they change their priorities.

And while its outer holdings might be getting sacked, the Sable Imp Fellowship itself stands unharmed. The Barrow Burroughs outskirts are protected by the Last Guild and the Fellowship’s central offices built around the Deep Earth Mine are crowded with imps. Nobody dares.

4/5

>>2749227
Dinu’s Bones, rooted deep in Undertown, are also an oasis of calm within the urban storm. But it is not through any show of force or attempts at appeasement...no, the witch ruling over it would not bother with either. But the bones themselves demand respect and any with the courage to cross past them would then have it challenged by the frozen earth within. There are some places that cannot be touched by mortal hands.

And of course, though a few of them had been compromised, the silver towers that house Dis’ elite are mostly untouched. This all will pass and the toll will be mostly paid by the less fortunate. And wasn’t it good, some of them joked, to have a purge of the lower classes every now and then?
When the broken sun rises once more and casts the world into twilight, the riots will die down and they will re-assume control. Dis is dead but it has been so for a very long time and properly supplied, the maggots can rule a corpse for eternity.

>>2749217
wait what? they're attacking the lamposts BECAUSE we didn't light them?

This was.....a miscalculation.

>>2749217
Would anything have changed if we lit some lamps?

>>2749241
Yes. We would be fighting the Golemist almost immediately.

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>>2749246
Oh, good thing we didn't then

Vote called, writing.

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>Lynched executives
>landowners and nobility killed and butchered
>disemboweled witches
>red guard militias
>chaos
>CHAOS
HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG

Objectives:
Find imprisoned lamplighter
Find gunslinger lamplighter
Head to docks and find Shard there
Hit the Fellowship
Hit Dinu's Bones
Hit the Bridesmaid
Play revolution game and rally red guards???
Light lamps???

Let's think of a gameplan.

>>2749467
We don't know enough about the other sunbros. I'd seek them out last, provided we don't run into them first. I'd say:

>Hit the boat guys
>Hit the imp fellowship
>Hit up Dinu's bone zone
>Seek the sunbros if we haven't run into them yet
>Get a boat and get in the sun
>Do what we set out to do

Sorry about the huge delay on this one guys, I got tired and dozed off.

>>2749531
We might want to get more help with the Fellowship. Like that place is locked down TIGHT. I say hit the sunbros before we go to imp fellowship.
>>2749535
U lazy snek. I'll tread on u.

>>2749531
The golemist is actively looking for us right now. It'd be best to get rid of her first. Maybe the bridesmaid could help us find her weakness?

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I'm back.

>Talk to Beatrice first. There’s still much of her encounter with the Golemist you don’t know about.

You leave your belongings by the fire and walk over to speak with the witch, since you know very well that she’s still awake. And you need to speak with her before you sleep because there’s still a lot about her own encounter that you don’t yet know about. But what little she’s already told you only confirms that this ‘Maria’ is going to be a very dangerous foe.
And yet she is one that you inevitably must face.

You sit down beside her, ignoring how she turns away and pretends to be asleep.
“Beatrice.”

“...What?”

“I couldn’t help but notice that you’re still awake.”

“Yeah. Having a little trouble sleeping for some dumb reason.”
She turns to face you, her pinched gray face poking out from beneath the blanket.
“I’m still pissed about talking to Maria.”

“What about it?”
For once your voice is in a similar state to hers. The Thorn had not been kind to it.

“Just the argument, I guess! It was really frustrating. I know she’s wrong but she seemed to just deflect everything I said! I couldn’t get anything to stick except for making myself look like a fool.”

“Why do you care what she thinks of you?”

“I don’t even know! But it was just...urgh! I know I was right. She just tricked me, is all. I felt like I didn’t have the proper vocabulary to even speak what I was trying to say to her. Just really frustrating.”

“And is that all?”

“Yeah. If you spoke to her you’d understand.”

“When she and I must meet, I don’t intend to speak.”

“And I don’t reckon she’ll try to talk to you either. And that’s a bit of a problem honestly. I only survived because she was fucking playing nice, alright? Because she wants UR. We can’t fight her. It doesn’t seem possible.”
Beatrice tells you of her other feats that she saw the witch perform. The air, the movement-sign, the golems, the Shade-that-wasn’t.
“We had a word fight and I still didn’t come out of it right. What will we even do if she just decides to kill us? She has a fucking shard!”


>”Have faith. That is what separates you from her.”

>”We might be able to use this witch-sign to lure her into a trap.”

>”Is it possible we could trade UR for her shard?”

>”I doubt there’s any way to get her shard save the hard way. The power of the lamp should be more than a match for her.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2749678
>The iron Duke seemed insurmountable too, and you punched him so hard you crippled him Beatrice. You're far smarter than you give yourself credit for. We'll figure out something, even if it me just collecting the other shards and using them on her.
>I am glad you are alright.

>>2749467
It's funny that the guys we most need to defeat were completely untouched by the chaos.

>>2749678
>”Have faith. That is what separates you from her.”
>”We might be able to use this witch-sign to lure her into a trap.”

>>2749678
>”Have faith. That is what separates you from her.”
>"There should be two more Lamplighters in the city. Maria will probably monitor every sinner who still has a shard to try and catch us, but if we look for the Lamplighters instead, we will have powerful allies against her."

I think we should spend the day lighting lamps anons.
I don't think that would lead to immediately being found by the Golemist. Lighting a lamp is a quick thing.
Well, unless she has a golem watching every lamp, which I wouldn't put above her.

>>2749724
Have a red cloak check a lamp first? Golems are not subtle.

>>2749699
I am sure if we hitted them earlier before they were able to consolidate since the starfall we would've had an easier time.

>>2749678
>”Have faith. That is what separates you from her.”
>"Whatever her reasoning it does not excuse the excess brutality of her Earthen ilk. When we kill, it is always for justice".
>"There should be two more Lamplighters in the city. Maria will probably monitor every sinner who still has a shard to try and catch us, but if we look for the Lamplighters instead, we will have powerful allies against her."
>"I am glad you are alright.

>>2749724
We can scout things out before heading straight up there.

Vote called, writing.

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>”Have faith. That is what separates you from her.”

That’s not an easy question to answer. In truth, you don’t have much of a good idea on how you’re going to defeat Maria. You never do with any of them. You plan a little but mostly these days, you just act and react. Your body has always moved faster than your mind.

“You just need to have faith Beatrice. I know you do. That is what separates you from her.”

“Is it? I mean, she’s also beautiful and smart and tall and extremely powerful. They’re pretty important qualities too, probably more so than lack of faith.”

“I mean it. The Duke seemed impossible too, didn’t he? But he wasn’t and it was because of you. I’m glad you’re alright.”

Beatrice sniffs.
“I guess so. She’s going to be hunting for us though. She knows our other targets, she’s going to try and ambush no matter where we go.”

“The remaining Sinners are not the only source of light left in the world. There are still two brothers of light that we must find. She doesn’t know about them, they are beyond her. And once we get their help we should be able to fight her.”

“And she’s not right.”

“Of course not. Words are just that. No reasoning can excuse what her kind do.”

“Her kind? You mean like...me?”
She pops her head out from beneath the blanket. Her eyes are rimmed with bruises.
“What have I done, Orion?”

“You know what I meant.”

“I do. But sometimes I’m not sure you really get it, Orion. I’m a witch. So I’m a bad person.”

“Yes. I have punished you plenty for that and will do so again.”

“That’s not the point. But say this all somehow works. And say…,” her voice catches for a moment. “Say somehow doing all this also makes me human again. Who else would reignite me, if not God right?”

You frown,
“You shouldn’t be doing this for a rewa-”

“I’m not! I’m doing it because it’s the right fucking thing to do! But I mean...if I did turn human again, would I be a good person?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“You see things so absolutely, Orion. To you I’m a witch and that’s what I am in a core way but you know...I also have a me that exists independent of whatever god’s bitch I am. Beatrice is still Beatrice regardless of species. So if I’m still the same me I was back then, how can changing what I am change anything? Wouldn’t I still be the same person?”

“This is something Maria told you, isn’t it?”

She shrugs.
“Maybe. And it’s not something that’ll leave my mind easy. Because here’s another thing. I’m a witch obviously. And me eating gunpowder doesn’t actually change anything about that except for making me sick. So what’s the difference between me and the Beatrice who still eats dirt, feels great and is strong enough to do anything she wants? I’d still be a witch and I’d still be Beatrice. It’s not like I’d be your enemy or something.”

1/2

>>2749800
>”But you would be.”

>”The difference is that right now, you’re trying.”

>”What do you want me to say? Do you want to be that?”

>”You’ll never erase that mistake but if you think you’re still the same person you were back then, you’ve just made another.”

>"This isn't worth thinking about."

>Strike her.

>Other (Specify)

>>2749805
>”You’ll never erase that mistake but if you think you’re still the same person you were back then, you’ve just made another.”

>>2749805
>>”You’ll never erase that mistake but if you think you’re still the same person you were back then, you’ve just made another.”
>You're trying.You might fail a hundred hundred times, but as long as you try, you've earned my respect. Eating dirt would lose it entirely. If you wish to stop eating gunpowder so you can feel better and stop hurting that's fine. I don't like my companions getting hurt just to keep up.
>Remember what I told when you told me your tale back then. You may not have been the best person, and you became a witch for reason I truly do not understand, but as long as I have known you, you've been the best witch I've ever known. Even if you have amongst the foulest of mouths.

>>2749805
>”You’ll never erase that mistake but if you think you’re still the same person you were back then, you’ve just made another.”
>Earth is not a piece of bread to be eaten and forgotten. It is filled with the power of the Old Gods, and eating it makes you their tool.
>Maria can think whatever she wants. Conceited people are easily manipulated if you can convince them something was their own idea. She's a plaything of the Old Powers, and you're not.

Ouro, a question: can Beatrice shoot normal ammo without using her power?

>>2749839
>You may not have been the best person, and you became a witch for reason I truly do not understand

Implying that someone who becomes a witch "because the other girls are mean to me and I wanna wear pants like a man" is a person

>>2749860
Support

>>2749860
>Ouro, a question: can Beatrice shoot normal ammo without using her power?

Yes. She's full of Flame essence so she can ignite things normally in all but the earthiest of situations. Similar to a Flame Artist that way.

>>2749870
And if she stops eating gunpowder?

>>2749860
This.
>"It wouldn't automatically make you a good person, but it wouldn't make you a tool."

>>2749876
If she got the gunpowder out of her system and didn't take earth, she would have a lower ignition capability than an ordinary human. She is a creature of darkness after all. The gun would be dead in her hands, matches would not light and oil would not burn.

I want our rune plate back. We need to beat up a blackcloak and take his shit.

Vote called, writing.

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>”You’ll never erase that mistake but if you think you’re still the same person you were back then, you’ve just made another.”

You shake your head.
“You’ll never erase that mistake but if you think you’re still the same person you were back then, you’ve just made another. Soil is not something you can just eat and then forget. It is filled with the power of the dead gods and it makes you their tool. You would not be the same. And this ‘Maria’ can think whatever she wants. She might be smart but you already fooled her once. Conceited people can always have their heads twisted no matter their intellect. She’s just a tool of the Old Powers and you’re not.”

“Huh. I was half expecting you to pull my hair again or some shit.”


“Why would I do that?”

“You’re kind of an asshole, Orion. Sorry if you’re just learning this now.”
She rolls over.
“But thanks. I still don’t think you really get it but I guess you’d have to be a witch to know.”

“Something I’ll gladly never learn then.”

“Yeah maybe. Say...what does being a human feel like anyway?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s not like I really remember. I’ve been a witch for nearly thrice the amount of time as I’ve been human. It probably feels different right? Warm or something”

“I wouldn’t know. Don’t you feel warm as you are now?”

“Yeah. It’s a bad warmth though. It’s a warmth that fucking sucks. How would you describe being human?”

You strain to think for a moment.
“I don’t even begin to know how to answer that. I’ve never been anything else. But if you want my opinion on my life right now, it’s...being human is a lot of hard work.”

“Fuck,” Beatrice says. “So’s being me. But I guess we don’t do it because it’s fun. I’m still not convinced you’ve ever had fun in your whole life.”

You wait a few minutes for her to say something else but she seems to have genuinely fell into a slumber now. You leave her to her sleep.

She’s also not alone. More than a few redcloaks have finally nodded off though the one you want to talk to is still exactly as you left her.
“Alex.”

“Boss.”

“You’ll need some sleep soon.”

“Same to you,” she says. Out of all the redcloaks she’s likely the only one who understands just how mortal you truly are. ‘I’ve got first watch so go rest. Tomorrow’s going to be busy.”

“And why is that?”

She pauses.
“Don’t really know yet. But I’m sure it’ll be. What are we going to do tomorrow anyway?”

“Firstly? Well I imagine we’ll…”


>...rescue the brother of light that the Bridesmaid told us about.”

>...start lighting some lamps. This city’s not going well and we need to help as many humans as we can.”

>...lay low for a few more days. Let everything truly settle before we make our next big move.”

>...visit the Bridesmaid. She owes me now.”

>...take the fight to another Sinner!.”

>Other (specify)

>>2750010
>>...start lighting some lamps. This city’s not going well and we need to help as many humans as we can.”
If were going to find that third lamplighter, thisll be the way to do it. And hey, he can snipe the golemist like a big damn hero if we happen to aggro her

>>2750010
>...start lighting some lamps. This city’s not going well and we need to help as many humans as we can.”
Lets help some people! After all, compassion is a rarity in the fever pitch of battle, and we've spent so much time fighting...

>>2750010
>...rescue the brother of light that the Bridesmaid told us about.”

Worth looking into at least.

>>2750010
>...start lighting some lamps. This city’s not going well and we need to help as many humans as we can.”
Considering how powerful the Imp fellowship is, we need to start having humanity gain some power over the city before we decide to storm the fellowship.

>>2750010
>>...start lighting some lamps. This city’s not going well and we need to help as many humans as we can.”

>>2750030
Nah, let's meet up with the other dude first. Then 2 Lamplighters can ride to the rescue!

Or since Mary doesn't know about him, he can act as a decoy us to draw off their forces.

Vote called, writing.

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>...start lighting some lamps. This city’s not going well and we need to help as many humans as we can.”

“Firstly? Well I imagine we’ll start lighting some lamps. We need to help as many humans as we can.”

“I can see that,” Alex says. “It doesn’t sound like things are going well out there. And..”
Her breath catches.

“What is it?”

“These aren’t all the people in my life, you know. It must be different for you because you just came here but there’s plenty of people I know who are...out there. And I can’t help but think about what might be happening to them.”

“There’s nothing we can do about them except pray.”

“I know. But I’m not sure if God can do much with my prayers right now. We need to help Him before He can help us.”

“Exactly. And that’s what lighting these lamps will be. With the Wheel gone, there has to someone to step in and help the people.”

“The people we just dropped a star on?”

You sigh.
“Yes.”

Alex looks at you askance.
“Does doing this help us towards the mission? To God? Or is it just to make you feel better?”

“It is also part of our mission to help our fellow Man.”

“Is it? I wasn’t aware.”

You stare at her but for the life of you, you can’t detect any sarcasm in either her voice or her face. She means it then. She legitimately wasn’t aware that that was ever a goal of yours. And indeed, the Starfall must have cemented that idea. And what really, is the difference between the innocent humans you aim to save tomorrow and the innocent humans you condemned to death? That they were living in the wrong place?
But more than that, just the sheer idea that one of the core tenets of what being a Lamplighter is all about had apparently passed Alex by is a horrific one. Horrific because all she learned of lamplighting she learned from watching you.
This isn’t fair. You’re on a mission to save the Sun and preserve humanity. That was it. You never asked to be a leader or a mentor or a role model. You shouldn’t be expected to be good at that. And yet here you are, facing the closest person you’ve ever had to a student and she knows nothing of Lamplighters save the gun and the sword.
“There are other reasons,” you say, your voice now a croak. “The lamplighting is also a signal. It will draw the last brother of light to us. Then we can rescue the other.”

“Oh, now I understand.”

“Alex. There’s more to being a Lamplighter than just killing and burning things. What’s wrong with helping people where we can?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But isn’t all the city our enemy? And that’s how being a Lamplighter is, right? It took me a while but I think I get it now. It’s about saving humanity. It’s not about saving humans.”

1/2

>>2750112
Somehow you feel more tired than ever before. You hadn’t really known what you were doing when you first took in the redcloaks and you still don’t now. But you also don’t know what you can say about it without sounding like a hypocrite. It is an uncomfortable feeling, to see something you yourself set in motion.
The plan is in place. The redcloaks will know what they’ll be doing first in the morrow. You suppose that this is all you can do.


>Get some sleep. You’ll need plenty of it.

>No, you need to make more plans. You’ve got plenty of stuff to do tomorrow and barely the time to do it in!

>Try to tell Alex about what Lamplighters did when you were but a boy. She’s clearly gotten the wrong idea from you.

>Other (Specify)

>>2750116
>Try to tell Alex about what Lamplighters did when you were but a boy. She’s clearly gotten the wrong idea from you.

>>2750116
>>2750116
>>Try to tell Alex about what Lamplighters did when you were but a boy. She’s clearly gotten the wrong idea from you.
From the start, witchfinders were already considered the least traditional. Orion's primary purpose was not to do Lamplighter things.

>>2750116
>Try to tell Alex about what Lamplighters did when you were but a boy. She’s clearly gotten the wrong idea from you

>>2750116
How does one become a flame artist anyway? Can we teach her?

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>>2750174
Yes, if you had a lot of time.

Anyway guys I know this day has been pretty flaccid but it's gonna remain so, since I've got a bit of a headache. I'll continue this thread tomorrow when I wake up.
Vote will remain open until then.

>>2750177
How did the whole "flake snake" thing begin? Why a snake?

>>2750184
It started when I was QMing Snakecatcher, during which I drew a lot of poor quality tegaki snakes. Someone then drew that picture as a sort of QMsona (since I had been posting pics of a Flake chocolate bar when I was announcing flakes) and I started to use it to announce my departures.

I have received more fanart of my QMsona than of any actual character.

>>2750188
That's pretty funny.

>>2750116
>Try to tell Alex about what Lamplighters did when you were but a boy. She’s clearly gotten the wrong idea from you.

>>2749860
>>Earth is not a piece of bread to be eaten and forgotten. It is filled with the power of the Old Gods, and eating it makes you their tool.
Is this true, or is it just true for tiny-minded Third Men?

>>2749886
>If she got the gunpowder out of her system and didn't take earth, she would have a lower ignition capability than an ordinary human. She is a creature of darkness after all. The gun would be dead in her hands, matches would not light and oil would not burn.
Could she hold Earth and Fire in her at the same time?

>>2750231
I don't hink her wielding Flame while filled with Earth would have any effect other than the flame fizzling out, or her flesh melting as wax.

>>2750238
>>2750231
Guys, earth + flame = plant, according to last thread, meaning she will become a plant girl obviously.

Turns out I had more left in me. I'm going to sleep for real now.

>Try to tell Alex about what Lamplighters did when you were but a boy. She’s clearly gotten the wrong idea from you.

No, you’re not going to just let this slide. You might be in dire need of sleep but surely you can try to settle at least this before you lose yourself. You can at least correct your own wrong impressions.
“Alex,” you say. “I fear I might have given you the wrong idea about what Lamplighters do.”

“Is that possible?,” she asks. “If you might be the only one left than you’re the one who chooses what is and isn’t a Lamplighter.”

Is that true? It’s not something you want to think about regardless but the idea that someday in the hopeful future, when the sun shines and the Fourth Men look back on their past...the only thing to represent the Lamplighters to many of them will be you. That doesn’t feel right. How can you be expected to embody everything that was good and righteous about the entire order and their history dating back to the Second Age. Come to think of it, that’s another thing you never intended to be and yet apparently, be it you must. Who else will preserve their legacy if not you?
It occurs to you that you’ve never really even thought about a legacy before. Even as you quested to take back the future that was stolen from you, you never actually thought about what you would do if you succeeded.
“I’m not the be all and end all of my people. Or at least, I didn’t used to be. We were split into four orders, each one dedicated to a different means of combating the enemy. But we didn’t just fight, especially not when I was but a boy. That was peacetime. It was supposed to be the end. I was born into the generation that was supposed to grow up amidst the final peace. But that life was stolen from me.”

“Are we still talking about helping people?”

“What?”

“Nothing! Just that the topic changed. You started talking less about Lamplighters and more about you.”

Ah, how close old anger still lingered beneath the surface.
“It’s fine. It’s good to remember that. I am old Alex and I have spent my whole life fighting. Spent my whole life dying. And that’s not what it was meant to be. I was supposed to grow old without ever having known real battle in an Age that wouldn’t need Lamplighters. Maybe I would have quit the order in good conscience, settled down, had children. Grandchildren. But the people of this city stole that life from me and everyone else and now I’ve gone and gotten old without ever knowing peace. And it’s the same for you! You weren’t supposed to live your whole life without ever feeling sunlight. You don’t deserve this. None of us do. And even if we win, none of us will ever reclaim the years the Sinners stole from us.”
You don’t like to think about this, you really don’t. You try not to. Because when you do you just can’t stop.

1/2

>>2750248
Alex is staring at you, looking a little stunned.
“Are you ...are you alright?”

“I’m just tired. Got caught in old memories. Give an old man that privilege. My point is Alex, back when I was a boy a lot of a Lamplighter’s duties was about helping people. It’s even what the name means. Our greatest duty is to keep the lamps lit during the night. Everything else about us, our magic, our fighting, grew from that. We bring light to darkness and protect people when we can.”

“And is that what we’ve been doing?”
Alex still looks unnerved at your recent lapse.

“No,”you admit. “To you I will be honest. I have not lived up to many of my former duties. I have forsaken my task as custodian of Man time and time again. I have...killed more people than I think I have saved. I’m actually not a very good representation of what make Lamplighters worthy of the respect you people have.”
You’ve always done your best not to dwell on the past. It changes nothing and only weakens a man. But you are tired and once your memories have their grip on you, it’s hard to shake them off. And you haven’t felt mired in them like this since that night you and Beatrice and Abraham had taken shelter and shared stories.
What would your brothers, long-dead by your own foolishness, think of you now? You’re just a foolish cenobite, unskilled in magic and quick to violence. More ready to kill men than you are to kill monsters. Would they be happy knowing that everything they were might only be remembered through you? A man sitting upon the mass grave of thousands? A man, who just like Beatrice, has now spent more of his life in shadow than he has in sunlight?

You are disturbed from your reverie by Alex hesitantly laying a hand upon your shoulder.
“Well I dunno about any of that but I’ve always thought you were amazing.”

You don’t know what you were expecting but it wasn’t that. It slips past your guard and before you can stop yourself, you give her the faintest of smiles. It’s an unfamiliar motion.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn't have said any of that.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “Can you tell me more?”

Tiredness forgotten, you spend the next hour in earnest discussion with well...you suppose you can call her your disciple. The conversation itself is surprisingly trite. No grand Lamplighter secrets, no Witchfinder lore, no fire magic. Just the everyday superficial stuff of memory that you had never seen fit to tell. Of old friends, of minor nuisances, of boring classes and exhilarating witch-hunts. In short, of the mundanity in the short life you were allowed to lead before the sun fell. They’re not tales that would ever find their way into any Lamplighter legend but to someone like Alex, having never known neither sun nor peace, they are just as fantastical.
And when you do finally find sleep, you do so with the sensation that the weight of the world has lessened, at least for a moment.

Aww, that last part was sweet

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Ten hours later…

“How much longer?,” Beatrice cries, pointing her pistol at the cowering crowd as she covers the left side of the bridge.

“Just a moment...just a moment...just...a..there!”
You pull your long-handelled wick free from where it had been caught in the lamp. It comes free with a streak of flame as the old central lamp-post, half embedded in a wall as the urban canopy of Dis had grown up around it, flares to glorious light!

Wick: 7/10
Spark: 8/8

Another sphere of divine light blossoms through Dis, a better imitation of old sunlight than the broken sun overhead. It is the third you have left in your wake now as you and your companions have travelled from lamp to lamp as quickly as you can. Some may be extinguished but not all. Let the humans of Dis, having just survived a night of darkness, cold and chaos, see which god truly cares for them.
If just one burning lamp-post remains standing during the next night, a community of people sheltered under its warming and protective light, this will all have been worth it.

“Blackcloaks!”
That’s Alex shouting, the former street thief pointing up at a squat tower that one end of the bridge connects to by way of two other stone streets suspended in the air. There are figures in black cloaks and runeplate hurrying down the side of it, climbing down an exterior staircase that creeps down the side of the tower and towards street-level. Or at least, the level of this street anyway. There’s a lot of them, at least a dozen!


>”Take aim and start firing!” You had been hoping to cut back on rifle usage while in the middle of a crowd but if it has to be done, it has to be done.

>They’re far enough away still. If you all just run now they’ll never catch you. Onto the next lamp post!

>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.

>Other (Specify)

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Vote will remain open until I wake up in the morning.

>>2750231
>Could she hold Earth and Fire in her at the same time?

Theoretically.

>>2750254
>>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.

Enough force and they might retreat. I don't want them destroying the lamp as soon as we leave.

>>2750254
>They’re far enough away still. If you all just run now they’ll never catch you. Onto the next lamp post!

>>2750254
>>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.
And lanterns. Comeon, just give alex the supersword and-oh dear she accidentally loped off her own hand

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>>2750255
All that mixing of fire and darkness has always turned out so well.

>>2750254
>>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.

>>2750254

>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.

>>2750254
>>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.
Gotta defend the lamps
>>Other (Specify)
Ask them why the fuck they're even doing this, the Consortium is doomed and eventually they'll run out of money to buy their loyalty.

>>2750255
If we try this I feel like we'll either become superpowered or we'll just explode.

>>2750254
Supporting >>2750309

>>2750309
Or Bea could become a plant

>>2750316
>flashbacks to snakecatcher

>>2750309
Supporting this

>>2750255
Could she hold earth, wind, and fire?

>>2750610
Holding wind for too long is bad for your intenstinal health.

>>2750309
+1

>>2750254
>>They’re far enough away still. If you all just run now they’ll never catch you. Onto the next lamp post!

>>2750255
>>Could she hold Earth and Fire in her at the same time?
>Theoretically
New objective!

>>2750254
>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.
We almost died because we didn't have a damn breastplate.

I'm awake. Vote called, thread resumes in an hour.

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>”Pull back! But not too fast.” Maybe you can try to catch a few of the more overzealous ones. You’ve been needing some better equipment.

You give the approaching impostors a quick glare. Why are they still doing this? Haven’t they realised that Dis has so much bigger problems now? Who would even be paying them still?
“Pull back! But not too fast.”
You don’t want to fight them right now, it’s not something you can afford. But if you frame it the right way, this is also an opportunity. You need armour. They have armour. You’ll put that runeplate to better use if you can just find a way to ambush one of them.

Beatrice just sighs as lowers her pistol. It’s not her old one, she lost that to Maria. She’s using the Second Age gun from the Duke’s collection.
“Doesn’t feel the same.”

“Out!,” Alex calls to the other redcloaks. “Back along the way we planned!”

You stand your ground by the lamp-post as the redcloaks filter past you. None of you are running just yet. You’ve got to make it easier for one of them to catch up to you. You give the blazing lamp-post a pat and then, with one last look back at your pursuers, you turn your back and begin to walk away.

You, your companions and the redcloaks fill the street as you march, wearing the red openly and with rifles unslung and ready. The people in the bridge-street before you scatter out of your way. After last night, a lot of citizens know better than to court trouble.
The bridge ends in an intersection that takes place in the middle of a hollowed-out floor in the tower it passes through. Eight bridges meet and intersect here in a chaotic jumble of streets and walkways. Those parts not taken up by bridges and streets have been ruthlessly colonised with small clusters of slums clinging to the tower’s internal walls. Off to the side, just past them, are the stairs leading down to the central stairwell of the tower itself.

“Here’s the plan,” you say. “We lure one of them away. We ambush him. We take his stuff. Understood?”
Just think, if you’d still had a good breastplate you wouldn’t have almost died back in the Thorn.

“I could just shoot one of the bitches if you want,” Beatrice says. “No need for any of us to get close. I’ll pick them off and they’ll leave the armoured corpses behind. If any of them want to retrieve them, well, I’ll shoot them too.”
She’s right, that’d be easier. And unlike the massed rifles of the redcloaks, you trust Beatrice to fire down a crowded street without too many casualties.

“But that would give you a set of armour with a big hole in it,” Alex points out. “That’s not as good.”

Hrm. That’s also correct.


>Set up an ambush as originally planned.

>Go with Beatrice’s plan.

>You aren’t willing to open fire in such a crowded place but they don’t know that. Confront them openly and make an offer they can’t refuse.

>Other (Specify)

>>2751626
>>You aren’t willing to open fire in such a crowded place but they don’t know that. Confront them openly and make an offer they can’t refuse.

>>2751626

>Set up an ambush as originally planned.

>>2751626
>>Set up an ambush as originally planned.

Is it possible that the Sun Shards have more function or purpose than simply being a powerful source of Wick? Might they store information or circuitry, or perhaps have long-forgotten knowledge or runes inscribed on them?

>>2751626
>Set up an ambush as originally planned.
Organise in a way that leaves the crowd out of the line of fire

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Interlude

Xavier prostrated himself as low as he was able, kneeling facedown in the freezing soil. He was shivering near-constantly He had crawled up through the entire length of Dinu’s holy bones, raising his eyes from the frozen ground only to behold the sacred ribs stretching over him as high as any tower. And in doing so, he had crawled past the corpses of those that couldn’t endure the cold. Those less favoured by the Old Powers.

But Xavier had survived. He had spent days on his hands and knees, days in the dirt, days in the cold but he had endured. And now he was here, prostrating himself beneath the upper tip of Dinu’s spine. The skull was ahead of him, sealed off by a wall of dirt. And set into that wall was a throne and seated upon it was the subject of Xavier’s tortuous pilgrimage.

Xavier clasped his shaking hands in prayer.
“Hail Maria, full of grace, the Powers are with you,
Blessed are-”

“That’s enough,” spake the object of his devotion. And though it was surely just Xavier’s imagination, it seemed as if the witch-chill doubled in intensity, sapping the very life from him. But why would she do that?
“You have journeyed far, pilgrim. I suppose I can listen to you and indulge the last few minutes of your life.”
If Xavier didn’t know better he would have sworn that Lady Maria, Mother of Witches and closest thing the dead gods of Earth have to a mortal voice...was distracted.

“I-I seek a boon-”

“Is it possible I’ve grown overconfident? I was so sure that I had her cowed that she actually surprised me. Me! Can it be that I’ve grown accustomed to the grovelling?”

“M-mmar-”

“Oh yes, you’re still here. Good. Stand up if you can. Hmm, it would appear you can’t. I’m afraid you’ve wasted both your time and your life. So tell me troglodyte, you clearly respect the true gods, why aren’t you a witch?”

Xavier died.

Vote called, writing.

>>2751722
… What a bitch. I will enjoy burning her to ashes.

>Set up an ambush as originally planned.

“We’ll stick to the plan. We only need to get one, there’s no point starting with a fight with all of them. It’s not what we’re here for.”

Under your direction, the redcloaks quickly jump the edge of the bridge and land on another part of the twisted intersection a few feet below. You follow them and with few more of such leaps, find yourself bustling through the narrow ledges of the vertical slums. You point towards the hole in the wall leading back down to the tower’s central stairwell.
“We’ll do it there!”

There’s no point in hiding. You all stand out and everyone’s seen you. They’ll know where to point the Blackcloaks. But in a sense, that’s just what you want. You only need one.

>Roll 1d6 for Orion’s attempted ambush. The first 3 shall be used for different parts of planning it out.

>>2751684
I don't know about circuitry consider they're pure flame/pieces of a dead god but we might be able to figure out new ways to harness the sun shards if Orion experimented a little. I don't think that is advisable though, for a number of reasons. First off, the shards are really, REALLY damn dangerous and we could potentially cause a major disastor, not to mention they may be more fragile then we might think. Plus, Orion is a faithful paladin and zealous follower of the Flame and essentially "playing" with his God's holy nulcear corpse feels pretty heretical. Remember their sacred shards in need of protection, not just cool items.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2751768

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2751768

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2751768

>>2751777
of course right at the end.

i wonder how good those Blackcloak water guns are against golems.

>6, 5, 1

So a 6 for planning out and getting into position, a 5 for separating one and a 1 for actual execution. Writing.

>>2751791
>1 for actual execution
i have no words

>>2751799
Hopefully the success previous means everything goes well except we ruin the breastplate or something, or dude runs away, or he's a champion of the dark somehow and now it's a much harder fight.

>>2751722
>So tell me troglodyte, you clearly respect the true gods, why aren’t you a witch?
She's not wrong.

>>2751799
Same as with Bea falling from the window, it goes so well until we just mess up horribly

>>2751828
keep in mind the gods do not whisper to everyone.

>>2751831
He's in Dis though, he could have just paid an Imp or a Witch to teach him a sign.

>>2751839
That assumes he has money.

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>6, 5, 1

As you descend the stairs, you find themselves on a deserted landing. Looks like everyone smelled trouble and cleared off. From here, the downward stairs split into two that extend down to two different landings for the floor below. The upward stairs spiral up between the two of them in a complex array that has clearly been rebuilt several times over the decades.
And most importantly, there’s an ajar door set into the wall just before any of them.

“They’ll expect us to take one of the sets of stairs going down. This is this tower’s upmost connection so there’s nothing up we’d want but they still might send some scouts that way anyway to try and find us. So instead…”
You kick the door open, exposing a very narrow closet filled with ruined stonework and old pickaxes, shovels and other such tools.
“We’ll come out from behind them from here!”

“Can we actually fit in that?”
Beatrice doesn’t look like she relishes the proposition.

“No. Some of you will have to actually go the way they’re expecting in order to lure them downwards. I will stay up here and either emerge behind them to take one or...ideally they leave a lone sentry behind to watch their back. That’s the best scenario.”
You motion to Beatrice and roughly half the redcloaks.
“You take the upward stairs instead. From there, you can rush into position to fire at this landing if I give a yell. I won’t be in any danger.”

It takes less than a minute for everyone to get into position, you squeezed into the tight little architectural supply room with your eye jammed to the crack, Alex and some of the redcloaks lingering on the landing of the floor below and Beatrice and the other redcloaks hidden upstairs.
You hear and, through the slightly open door, see the Blackcloaks hurry past as they see Alex down below. And just as you had hoped, one lingers behind with a suspicious gaze cast towards your door. He draws his sword and approaches, pulling the door open!

You punch him in the helmet with your own remaining gauntlet, rattling his head around and grabbing hold of him. You just have to drag him inside before he yells and nobody will kn-

He yells. Lacking anything better to do, you yell as well. Hopefully Beatrice arrives before the Blackcloaks do.

He pulls away from you and you advance, grabbing hold of his swordarm and doing your best to twist it to the ground. You can’t afford to just kill him yourself, not easily anyway. You need that runeplate in the best possible condition! So that means no impaling him upon your runesword unless you really have to. And if the Blackcloaks arrive and he’s still alive, he could have some value as a hostage.

1/2

>>2751883
And then, with his sword clattering to the ground thanks to you, the Blackcloak simply squares up a shoulder and tackles you. The weight of his armour hits you hard, sending you reeling and stumbling back until you run up against the railing.
Before you can react, a metal-sheathed fist is driven deep into your gut and you have no choice but to buckle.

Damn! You reach for your runesword but he’s gotten there fast, his gauntlet reaching down to try and pull your own sword free! He grabs hold of it first but you grab hold of him and for a moment the two of you are frozen in a mad scramble over the hilt of the deadly blade.

But he’s winning.


>Try to best him to the draw anyway.

>You’re back is to the railing. Use it! Try to flip him over and down to the landing below.

>Unleash a Flame Rite or Benediction.

>Just hold him in place and hope that your reinforcements arrive before his.

>Other (Specify)

>>2751888
>>You’re back is to the railing. Use it! Try to flip him over and down to the landing below.

>>2751888
>grab him by the neck/face and burn him with your palm

>>2751888
If he's reaching down for the sword then he's vulnerable to a knee to the gut or groin right?

>>2751888

>Unleash a Flame Rite or Benediction.
Can't we just burn his legs off? We never lost any runeplate there, right?

>>2751914
Do we still have leg armor? Either way, just going for his face seems more efficient

>>2751914
You do still have leg armour.

>>2751901
Yes. Except for the fact that he is in full plate.

>>2751916
>>2751922
A helmet is more useful, and the others are more likely to shoot blackcloaks in the head than in the legs.

If things have gone REALLY bad, we could just kill them all and use whatever's leftover to cobble up full sets for a couple redcloaks too.

>>2751900
This

>>2751914
I'd go with this, we can cook him inside his armor.

>>2751888
>Unleash a Flame Rite or Benediction.

If it's runeplate then it's fireproof right?

>>2751956
which in this case means ONLY the things inside get melted!

there's a reason people didn't go out into the desert in shiny fullplate

>>2751973
I would assume if it's fireproof then it would protect the wearer from fire

>>2751974
2 things:

1, no. Fireproof does not mean that it stops the heat from being transmitted. It takes foamy insulation to do that, not conductive armor. It would ablate the initial blaze, but you can still cook something without direct contact.

2, why would they ever bother? Lamplighters have Friend of the Flame.

Vote called, writing.

I know the vote is already called, but we should've used ignite weapon. It's cheap and would've prevented the blackcloak from using the sword.

>>2752103
Frankly, I'm surprised Orion hasn't just started engaging in mass-scale arson yet. Set himself alight and go burn huge chunks of the city down.

Oh look, just like that I'm on a list. hi, ASIO.

>>2752103
FUCK

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>>2752103
....sun damn it

>>2752103
whoops

Whoops, this took way too long. Sorry. I don’t even know why.

>Immolate

You don’t have the time for this! The runeplate should be fireproof but the man inside? You doubt it. You let him pull the sword free but in the process, using the railing at your back to brace yourself, you grab hold of your wick and slam it into the spot where his helmet and breastplate join.

>Wick: 3/10
>Spark: 8/8

You didn’t want to do this, having been aiming to save as much of your Wick as possible for further lamp-posts. But for the sake of getting this disaster averted as quickly as possible, you’ll do more than that. The Immolate pours over the runeplate harmlessly, seeping into cracks and gaps and of course, while the armour might be fireproof, it has nothing to stop the heat.
He doesn’t scream or at least, not for long. The liquid flame gets into his helmet much too quickly for that.

The curious thing about old runeplate, it was never designed to be fighting flame. That wasn’t the point of them. But with this one, at least you’ll return it to its original use.

You grab the smoking corpse, intending to drag it back into the closet but you are stopped by a shout.

“Orion!”
You’d recognise that cracked and broken voice anywhere! Beatrice and the redcloaks with her are running down the stairs, her pistol pointed past you and at-
Oh.
The other Blackcloak left behind to check the slums outside. The one you didn’t know about.

Beatrice shoots him down but even the sound of the gunfire is enough to send the Blackloaks in the landing below scrambling back up the staircase towards you! You’d been hoping to avoid the fight but it looks as if it might now be unavoidable.

The Blackcloak leading the charge up the stairs gets shot almost immediately, a searing bullet perforating his helmet.
“Nice shot!”

“It wasn’t us!”

What?
You look up and realise that of course, Beatrice and her redcloaks aren’t even in a remotely good position to have opened fire on the Blackcloaks a full floor below them in the labyrinthine stairwell.

The shots continue in absurdly quick succession, ten more quickly dropping each and every Blackcloak, even the ones who turned and ran. It was as if their runeplate was paper. What few people left on the stairs are running and screaming.
All save one.

A silence seems to fall as a figure that had been lost in the crowd behind the Blackcloaks slowly climbs the stairs. People were still screaming and it actually hadn’t gotten any quieter but all the same, it has the feeling of silence.
1/2

>>2752278
The man, or at least what you assume to be a man, is completely obscured. His basic figure seems to be almost more scarecrow than human, thin, tall and ragged but other than it is impossible to tell. Ragged clothes and torn bandages cover up every inch of possible skin, from the poncho across his chest to the scarf knotted around his face to the broad-brimmed white hat cast over his head. Clutched loosely in his gloved hands were two silver revolvers, both of which he appears to be reloading as he lazily walks up the stairs past the armoured corpses. He slams both back home in twin holsters hanging from the ammo belt around his tattered waist.

He almost doesn’t look real, a dusty and archetypal image out of a storybook than anything that should be in the world before you. And when he reaches the landing he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t hail you or offer any greeting. He just...stands there.

‘This asshole is jacking my look,” you hear Beatrice mutter as she and the rest of the redcloaks form up behind you.

Unsure on what to say but harbouring a certain exciting suspicion about how any man could use a gun, you raise your hand in greeting.
“Thank you! And...hello. Can I have your name?”

Silence.

You sigh.
“Look, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea about what you are. You came up here for the lanterns, didn’t you. And that’s good, they were intended to draw something like out out. A fellow...brother of light?”
For some reason the gunslinger’s silence puts you off. It’s so encompassing that to talk in the face of it at all is awkward.

“I have...a shard.”
The man’s voice is harsh, the kind of voice that comes from the back of your throat and almost always as an affectation. But despite that horrific tone, it also never wavers from it. The pitch and tone of every word is identical to the last.
“A piece of fallen sun flame.”

“Good! Then you are what I expected. Listen, I am collecting as many as I can find. Together we can-”
You take a step forward as you talk and then immediately stop as the poncho is swept aside to reveal the holsters once more, bandaged fingers brushing up against a pistol handle.

“I saw the star. Was it your doing?”


>Answer truthfully.

>Lie.

>”Must we talk out here? We should go somewhere safer.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2751722
Actually pretty funny.

>>2752280
"If it was?"
Don't give him a solid answer. Immolate at the ready.

>>2751839
>>2751841
He could pay with his body.

>>2752280
>What do you know of Witches?
>Yes I did it, because The mother of them all was there I hoped I could end her once and for all.

>>2752299
That's just sounds like an excuse. An excuse he is unlikely to accept if he's a hardass.I think just keeping it vague to confirm his intentions with >>2752292 is a better idea.

>>2752280
>>2752299
This. Frontload our statement with reasons.

If things turn violent, remember that fire won't be enough.

>>2752280
>If you intend to judge me, can this wait until the Mother of Witches is dead?

Fuck it, how would he know of our involvement with the star?
Say it was God's Judgement. We ARE the arbitrator of his word so technically it's not lying.

>>2752280
>”Must we talk out here? We should go somewhere safer.”
> "If you are going to judge me, it will have to wait for the Sun God's judgement first. For which we will first have to bring him back."

>>2752292
I am NOT going to shoot first at the only other Lamplighter.

We've made darker deals than talking to him first.

Y'know,

maybe the star wasn't such a good idea?

>>2752342
Personally, it would only have been worth it if we were able to take out the Golemist. It's also pretty in character for all the perpetrators involved.

If we wanted to be good people about this whole thing, then I would go as far back as the first Sinner and target the Imps first.

>>2752280
>"If it was?"

So I'm guessing gunbro is jerky under all those bandages since he didn't have a lamppost on hand to catch the shard.

>>2752342
The city has AWAKEN. Those loyal to the flame and the welfare of humanity has risen up to destroy their Earthen masters. Shit would've went nuts as we hunted the sinners one by one as well.

>>2752341
Flame can't harm him silly. That immolate WILL burn the bullets he fires at us tho.

>>2752342
No fucking shit.

As far as I can see, at best Orion deserves to be executed AFTER rekindling the Sun, and Bea AFTER she becomes human again.

If anything, she's already as damned as can be for being a Witch, but we did something horrific while being human.

I honestly don't see it being excusable unless Orion is willing to be judged by others as to its necessity. Who knows, maybe they'll be happy enough to have the Sun back to NOT execute him.

>>2752358
Well technically our Wax saint has said that everything we do is innocent soooo...

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>>2752355
>That immolate WILL burn the bullets he fires at us tho.

>>2752358
Frankly Orion would fall on his sword happily after all this is done.

Vote called, writing.

>>2752367
It worked with the witch sign cannon thingy.

>>2752364
You're one of the people who voted to feed the girl to the creatures of the Earth, aren't you.

>>2752377
Nah. I did vote to kill her and I did vote to drop the star tho.

>>2752342
Meh.

>>2752355
>That immolate WILL burn the bullets he fires at us tho

I don't think that's how it works.

>>2752382
As soon as he draws, flamethrower that shit. He'll miss or get his bullets burned up. I'd rather not make excuses for hard-ass over here, but it's too late nao.

>>2752392
>his bullets burned up

See, I'm not sure if I agree with that conclusion.

>>2752396
Holy flame > some bullets

>>2752411
but does holy flame > holy bullets?
does ignite self > ignite weapon + boolet??

>Answer truthfully.

Ah, you hadn’t anticipated this. You should have though. Of course it would be controversial. For some reason, you hadn’t really thought of that. Still, you’ll give a good accounting of yourself.

“And if it was? Do you know the calibre of foes I’ve been fighting? The mother of all witches is one of them and she was trapped there. It was worth it to end her and all the others once and for all.”

“And did it? Did it kill her?”

“Well-”

“A true champion of light must be a shield as well as a scourge. You are unworthy to wield the solar flame.”
A gloved hand runs along the brim of his white hat, an idle gesture only interesting due to the total lack of them the stranger had made up to this point.

“That’s not the point! The fate of the world was at stake! When that’s on the line, principle is nothing.”

“When there’s nothing else, principle is everything. I heard the star’s duet, I knew that someone had called it. You are a butcher in the guise of a shepherd and you meddled in affairs beyond your understanding.”
His voice doesn’t change.
“What do you want from me?”

“Your shard. We need all we can. Whatever of you think of the Starfall, surely this is something we can agree on.”

“Would you take it from me?”

“What?”

“If I said no. And I will say no. Will you kill me and take it?”

“I’d rather no-”

“”Then hand me that burden you carry. It deserves a worthier bearer.”

“No. I can’t do that!”

“Then we must part ways. I will not give up mine for the likes of you.”

“But we need it! God needs it!”

That seems to stop the stranger for a moment. But when next he speaks, his voice is still as harsh as ever.
“They say that there’s only one true way to judge a man. But it’s a way that doesn’t let them get back up again if they aren’t true.”
A hand vanishes beneath the poncho and then returns holding a dirty gold locket. He cracks it open and shakes out a folded scrap of parchment. It lands on the floor in front of him.
“This has the location of my shard. And in a way of speaking, you are free to take it.”

You take another step forward towards it but stop as the stranger takes a step back and once again sweeps his poncho to the side. His wrapped hands remain at his side, lingering by his belt. And after that single step, he doesn’t step away from the folded scrap by his feet. The message is clear.

“If you really need it right now,” he rasps. “You’ll stand and be judged. And one of us will die. And whomever will die, will deserve to.”

You’re almost at a loss for words.
“This just seems unnecessary.”

“You’re free to walk away.”


>Back down. You’ll meet this idiot later on, you’re sure of it. You don’t need this now.

>”I don’t have a gun. Doesn’t seem fair.”

>Step up. You’ll do whatever you have to do for your cause.


>”...Shoot him.”

>Other (Specify)

>>2752411
dude. Incendiary rounds are literally bullets on fire. Guess what, they still hit their target as well as any other bullet.

Fire does not have the time to burn a bullet's mass completely, a mass that is solid metal, and is flying so fast that the wind around it protects it from flames.

Also, holy bullet>holy flame

>>2752411
A) I'm pretty sure they're flame amped bullets, like Beatrice's.
B) I don't know if an immolate can even disintegrate regular bullets that fast. At least not without the lamppost.

>>2752427
>Tell Alex that if he should fall, to follow him. If nothing else, he IS a better example of a lamplighter than Orion.
>Apologize to Beatrice. She mostly stands here with our word, but it's that very word being questioned. We can't help her if we fall here.
>Step up. You’ll do whatever you have to do for your cause.

>>2752427
>>Back down. You’ll meet this idiot later on, you’re sure of it. You don’t need this now.

>> Offer to submit yourself to judgement AFTER the Sun is returned. Ask if he can even bear to hold the flame.

> Prove that we CAN bear the Flame, by unveiling the Lamppost. Last man standing gets it.

Like he said, it's not about who is the better killer. Let us be judged by God.

>>2752427
>"Are you strong enough to keep them?"
>Hand over half the sun shards. He's right.

>>2752438
>> Prove that we CAN bear the Flame, by unveiling the Lamppost. Last man standing gets it.
>Like he said, it's not about who is the better killer. Let us be judged by God.

Tell everyone else to leave first.

This guy doesn't know we can tank solar radiance.

>>2752427
.....bah, wait.

Change >>2752435 to
>Tell Alex that if he should fall, to follow him. If nothing else, he IS a better example of a lamplighter than Orion.
>Apologize to Beatrice. She mostly stands here with our word, but it's that very word being questioned. We can't help her if we fall here.
>Let everyone leave and unveil the lamp. Pass the lamp directly to him, if he can handle it.

>>2752441
>>2752427
If this wasn't clear, I'm voting to dupe him into a judgement-by-god faceoff with our lamppost. Since, well hey, we're in the right.

>>2752427
>Step up. You’ll do whatever you have to do for your cause.

Those who kill should be prepared to die. I wonder if this is a bluff.

>>2752438
>>2752427

To be clear, I'm saying we should refuse to fight him. But we can't let him leave with the Shard anyways.

We aren't a casual killer, and we didn't drop the star without awareness of our guilt as a man.

But it was a risk we deemed worth taking, and damn it, it DID work to a degree. The Witch wasn't the *only* thief after all, and in the wake of the star we managed to gain many imprisoned shards.

We won't take his by force, but we will refute his accusation of our right to carry it by proving that we can bear the burden of the flame.

If he wants our shards, he must prove himself to be at least our equal in that matter.

Otherwise, he can come to us when his is the last shard, and we will resurrect the Sun, and THEN we will be judged by men - after we have upheld our obligations to our God, and to Mankind who needs Him.

>>2752443
>>Let everyone leave and unveil the lamp. Pass the lamp directly to him, if he can handle it.

Nah man, we don't want to accidentally kill him. We NEED another Lamplighter so very badly.

>>2752445
I think so too, but something seems wrong about the presentation. Like unintended consequences will happen if we walk forward without weapons and no intent to fight.

>>2752443
Supporting

>>2752448
That's the point.

We know he can't handle it, because he can only have accrued as much as his shard's worth of strength.

>>2752427
>Step up. You’ll do whatever you have to do for your cause.
>Alex if I fall, follow him. He’ll need your help in this place.
>Beatrice, I’d say something but you’d ignore it anyways.

>>2752453
Yeah, but we can't kill one of the last few lamplighters just because he is critical of us.

Not unless he forces us to.

Remember, we can still just walk away.

>>2752458
Technically speaking, it won't kill him. Holding the lampost without the upgrade will only burn your soul a LITTLE bit.

You know guys, we do happen to be a neophyte most of whom's technique is self taught. We have no idea how old this guy, and moreover, how good he is with fire.

>>2752458
We could, but I think he's testing us at least a little bit enough that walking away isn't a good idea.
It's not a sin to shoot a sinner in the back. At the same time, we have lots of allies here, he doesn't. So he's being kinda obvious about his options because he's a... disgustingly straightforward good guy.

>>2752427
> Offer to let him hold the lamppost with you

> Whoever lets go first gives up their shards and helps the other.

>>2752461
Who knows, he's pretty confident. Maybe he took the upgrade earlier than we did. Maybe he's got like a Wax Saint spark or two under all those bandages.

>>2752466
That's super the best idea. Nobody has to die, and we get an ally one way or another even if we have to cede "command." We'll have to be pretty convincing though...

Seconding.

>>2752467
Good. Let him have the lampost then, seriously.

If nothing else, better to have it on the rearguard.

>>2752466
>>2752427
This is what I wanted to get at, lol.

Definitely this.

>>2752466
IN FACT make a show of revealing our burned hands, because we're damaged enough by now that it wouldn't seem we're anywhere near invulnerable. That's way more convincing than just talking him into it.

>>2752427
Who are you to say who is unworthy?
Unveil the lamp, show that we are not harmed by it, because we've been chosen.

>>2752477
Uh. What?

I just want him to not only see that he can't bear the flame, but that we can.

>>2752477
That might accidentally actually kill mr gunslinger

>>2752480
Oh? No fooling him? Well, okay fine.

>>2752483
Yup. I like Mr. Gunslinger, he seems a hero type. Heroes don't give up until they're dead.

Vote called, writing. I really like the lamp post idea by the way. A little peeved that I didn't think of it myself!

>>2752501
It seemed the simplest solution.

Also we DID just get Friend of the Flame, so . . .

And if this dude is able to handle it, then fine. He can be the shield. We'll be the sword.

But much as our hands can attest, the Flame burns the Faithful sometimes even as it does the Dark. Having the strength to bear that burning is both an individual task and, occasionally, something demanded of mankind as a whole.

>>2752511
>But much as our hands can attest, the Flame burns the Faithful sometimes even as it does the Dark. Having the strength to bear that burning is both an individual task and, occasionally, something demanded of mankind as a whole.
Nice.

>>2752478
We haven't been chosen, so much as we've been willing to burn ourselves as much as needed, as much as we are to burn aught else.

Honestly, if he could take this burden from us that would be so . . . nice.

But if he can't, then we'll have to continue bear it. The scouring of the flame as much as the guilt for failing to save more of humanity than we could.

He's welcome to walk, or run, away with his shard. For now. We'll need it when we have the rest, and there will be no reason for him to withhold it. Or fuck at that point we'll give them to him. Won't really matter by then.

But we would greatly appreciate his help so that in the future we HAVE options other than dropping stars or sacrificing innocents.

Because the only thing we can't do is fail to bring the Sun back.

>>2752501
Afterwards when we show him that only we can bear the Flame now, can we ask him to come along to kill us if it looks like a Witch is going to force the name of the Father of the Earth Gods from us?

Like.

We will probably explode ourselves first or something, but just in case we're in a position where we can't even do that then we're going to need a sniper.

And we'd rather save Bea having to do that, if possible.

>>2752447
>We aren't a casual killer, and we didn't drop the star without awareness of our guilt as a man.
I think most anons actually are all that.

This is a bit late, but:

> quickly dropping each and every Blackcloak, even the ones who turned and ran

We can turn his rhetoric around a bit and point out he's not above unnecessary killing himself. On a smaller scale, but actually even more unncecessary.

>>2752579
We are also out here lighting lamps like we're supposed to.

>Unveil the lamp-post.

You don’t step forward but you don’t step back either. You face the stranger head-on.
“I’ll do whatever I can for my cause. I just need to know why.”

“If you’re right, you should have no issue killing me. The ends justify all means. I would be wrong and deserving of death. And if I’m right, you are also deserving. No matter which of us are correct, the only answer is the other’s death.”

“Seems a waste.”

“Words say whatever they want. It’s a man’s steel that speaks true.”

“And you’re willing to risk your life for this nonsense?”

“Well...I think I’ll win. Never met a man faster on the draw.”
His hands stay fixed to his belt.

And just like that, something dawns on you. Things begin to make a little more sense.
“Now I see. You want to kill me, don’t you? What I’ve done has gotten you real mad, hasn’t it? You just can’t wait to shoot me down and take my duty. But your principles won’t let you do it. You can’t shoot an unarmed man. You’re trying to bait me into giving you an easy conscience when you gun me down.”

“If you would take what is mine, then try and be judged. Do it or walk away.”

In the tense silence that follows, you can hear Beatrice mutter something darkly.
“I can’t believe there are two Orions in the world.”
Neither of you favour it with a response.

Still not taking a step in either direction, you unsling the lamp-post from your back and let its covered head strike the ground.
“You know what this is.”

“Yes.”

“It is exactly what it is.”
You take off your remaining gauntlet, letting it fall to floor to reveal your blackened hand.
“And let me tell you, you have no idea what price it asks. If you’re so eager to invite judgement, let’s get it straight from the source.”
You hold it up and let it bridge the space between you.
“Beatrice, get everyone clear!”

“Are you insane?”

“I’ve got nothing I can tell you that I’m sure you’ll listen to. And Alex...whatever happens here, don’t get too hung up on it. What matters is the goal.”
Nothing will probably happen to you. The flames of the sun have recognised you at least a little by now. The power is yours. You let the covered lamp-post stand between you.
“So how about we leave this matter to God? It seems practical that whoever best stands this be the one to carry it.”

The stranger doesn’t say anything but he raises his hand an inch away from his pistols and steps forward at the same time you do.
“Are you really going to commit?”

“I don’t bluff.”
Knowing that everyone else is clear, you unveil the lamp. Blazing light and a suffocating heat fill the stairwell instantly as you pull the cover free, the force of which sends the balanced lamp-post toppling to the ground!

1/2

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>>2752596
You catch it with one hand but at the same time, the gunslinger does as well. Your charred palm lines up against his tattered glove as the two of you lift it back up synchronously. You don’t flinch away from the burning metal and to the stranger’s credit, neither does he.

“You’re free to think whatever you want of the star,” you grunt as the heat flows past the two of you. “Though I have no damn idea how you ‘heard’ it anyway. But if you think I’ve been negligent in my duty, just look to these hands. And if you think you can bear it, have it! Take it all! But it’s something that needs more than principle to carry.”

And yet the stranger’s grip doesn’t change. He doesn’t even flinch as the heat flows out past you both in visible waves.
“You presume.”

A tense minute passes as sweat drips down your face. As far as you can tell, the stranger isn’t sweating at all. Or...having any sort of reaction to the flame of God Himself. You know why you can stand the heat. It is a prize you tore free when you deprived the Surrexerunt of its heart. But what does this man have? What force can make him endure this just as easily as you?

And then, just as it seems purely unbelievable, the gunslinger lets go. He gives the lamp-post back to you but to be honest, you’re not even sure why. He isn’t burned. His covered hands aren’t even shaking. He tilts his white hat back a moment and you see that the knotted scarf goes all the way up around his head save for darkened slit about his eyes. And as you meet his gaze, for just a moment, you see a glint of light like an exploding star.

“I surrender,” he says. “Keep your shards and I’ll keep mine. But when the time is right, we’ll have each other’s backs and more besides. I’ll not inconvenience you further.”

“Let me guess: But until that ‘right time’ you won’t give up wherever you have your shard?”

“Naturally.”
He picks up the scrap of parchment. The lamp-post has long since burned it into indiciperhability.

“So why did you let go?”

“There are other people in this tower. If we kept that up any longer, they’d all be cooking in their homes. So I’ll let you have it for now and me and you will have no issue. But in exchange for that there’s something I’m wanting from you.”

“What is it?”

“The terminal.”

“What? What’s a terminal?”


“Whatever you used to call that star. I want it. It shouldn’t be of much use to you anymore.”

“Then why do you want it?”

“Some things are best left untouched.”


>Agree. You don’t plan on using the Starbreaker again.

>Disagree. You might not have a use for it but you’re not going to just hand it over to a stranger.

>Other (Specify)

>>2752597
>Agree. You don’t plan on using the Starbreaker again.

>Other (Specify)

What if we just agreed to smash it to pieces and burn it? If not, then maybe he can share why he wouldn't want that.

>>2752597
>Agree. You don’t plan on using the Starbreaker again.

>>2752603
I don't think it's a good idea to destroy what could possibly be the only thing keeping the stars alive, or functioning, or who knows.

Also shoutout to Tanq, QM of Panzer Commander for that fanart!

>>2752597
>Agree. You don’t plan on using the Starbreaker again.

I think it's time for Orion to have an inner crisis.

>>2752597
>"Then let's be rid of it entirely."

It's done its part. However righteous our actions, it's best that they never be repeated.

>>2752597
>Agree. You don’t plan on using the Starbreaker again.

> Tell him that it doesn't have to be this way. We aren't so arrogant as to not listen to counsel, and god knows that the Flamecloaks could use someone who could teach them about the joys of being a lamplighter instead of simply the duty.

> It's foolish for him to work separate from us, doubly so if he really does believe it's because we lack the principles he holds.

Honestly, the fact that he stopped because of the people in the tower is a point for him to carry the shards.

But if he isn't willing to carry it into the enemies stronghold, if he isn't willing to use it to burn his enemies even if it means that it will burn the innocent, then he doesn't have the resolve to save the world.

>>2752597
>Agree. You don’t plan on using the Starbreaker again.

> But I have a condition of my own. You have to help save our other brother.

> Then we will be three, and we can put such a thing to a vote.

>>2752597
Also, is the Sun shard actually inside this motherfucker?

File: I AM THE SUN.jpg (297 KB, 1600x1200)

297 KB JPG

>>2752624
>>2752597
Is he a fukken Sun Witch?

>>2752624
Big if true

>Sun explodes
>A shard falls right by you
>You have no proper container
>Yet it must be preserved
>So you fucking eat it

The absolute madman

>>2752624
It would explain his fuckoff huge bullets. HE might have enough pow to shoot down golems.

>>2752632
>>2752637

Or maybe he's a Sunborg, and he's a robot under those clothes that was given sentience when the shard was shoved into him, which is why he's so unreasonably idealistic and can "feel" the other machines.

Like a Not-Crap Wax Saint.

>>2752643
Or maybe he's just a proper Flame Artist, as opposed to Orion's shitty half-education.

>>2752645
Then why is he all bandaged up yo.

We should give him a benediction. Help a bro out a bit. Since he's hurt.

Also

> Tonight, Bea dreams of a Dis light by the Sun, and filled with different versions of Orion.

> They all ask her if she's a Witch.

>>2752649
God, what a fucking nightmare for Bea.

>>2752597
>Disagree. You can still call stars from afar and slowly bring them over. It might be your only chance to kill the snake.
>Also, if he tries to leave stop him and tell him what information you have about the other sinners and shard locations in case anything happens to you.

>>2752649
Why are you like this. It's too believable.

Fuck.

I'm going to have that nightmare now.