PBEM Game: Yarnspinners 2 (Running)

[Sedna]

"Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner..."

----------
Marignon, Turn 9

Esclave

"Esclave."

I awoke with a hand on my shoulder. I had been working on cross-referencing a particularly tricky passage from Encyclopedia Illwinter with St. Quantum's Gvide to Bvffing , and must have fallen asleep on my pages where I sat working in the library.

"Esclave."

I turned, and beheld her. Close up, she was... and her voice was the soft glow of sunrise, and... she knew my name!

"Um, yes my lady?"

"I need you to make me a sword."

I hesitated, fearful that my pounding blood had made me mishear. "I fear a blacksmith might serve you better."

She laughed with a twinkling of bells. "I don't need you to forge me one, just put these," she poured five fire rubies from her hand onto my pages, "into this." So saying, she drew a short sword of common design and also balanced that on my books.

I was somewhat flummoxed by this odd request, not least because I had no way to fulfill it.

"Perhaps... my lady, you would be better served approaching the Archbishop Marignon with this request. He has many fine magi who could help you with this, while I, a lowly cleric, have most scant knowledge of magick. What I do know is purely theoretical..."

The golden-haired one paused, but her eyes twinkled. "Everything required is in St. Wordscigam's Compendium. Beyond that, all that is required is a pure heart, a keen eye, and a steady hand."

In the face of such beauty I was not about to deny any admirable trait. "I am at your service, my lady."

"I would be glad to show you how to begin." She moved closer and put a hand on the back of my chair.

"I...I believe I can make it work," I managed, hastily gathering my books and preparing my retreat, "But now, I think, I hear the call for morningsong, so... uh..."

"Then I will see you again tomorrow morning, oh, and Escalve?"

"Yes?"

She reached out with her pure-white sleeve and wiped my cheek with a smile, "You have ink on your face".

Ghost

The smell is overpowering and it has been 2 days since my last proper meal. In the dark, I clutch Aftial's gift tighter and a faint fire glows along its sharp edge, lighting my enclosure. I think back to that last conversation with her:

Father Muszinger is using the lord's rebellion to build his support. In each province he deposes the current lord for not accepting the church's new doctrine, but replaces him with a leader loyal directly to Father Muszinger.

A lurch! For a moment I panic. I calm my heart, and quiet my breath. I am not here. You cannot notice me. We are underway at last.

Spire Woods is the last of the old provinces on Father Muszinger's path of conquest. The prince, Leric, is defying the church's commands. The throne after him passes to his wife, Manthe, and after her to their son, Pagobar, but the fourth in line for the throne is a good man: loyal to me and well liked by the church. With him on the throne, Muszinger will have no grounds to attack.

The servants grunt on the stair. I feel a little sorry for them. If I fail, they will surely be put to death for their involuntary participation.

But removing the top three will not be easy. The royal family is paranoid about assassination. Worse, they cannot stand each other, and are rarely in the same building. If you kill one, the others will tighten security even more.

The door is open now. I can hear the servants being roughly searched and yelled at, for no reason other than that the guards hold swords and the servants do not. But everything is in order, and now I am moving again.

Your only chance is the midwinter feast. They will gather to celebrate together-- but not in some great hall where an assassin might be able to intrude. They will dine together in their private hall with only one set of great doors, nowhere to hide within, and a pack of their most faithful guards outside. Every dish will be sampled for poison, and every servant who enters will be thoroughly searched.

The voices are muffled, but I can hear. The servants leave the room. The royal family drink and eat noisily, bickering with each other. A knife intrudes near my face, and it is time to move. The calf's carcass is sliced from nose to tail and I arise. They fall like leaves, my sword and my arm in perfect harmony. My shield does not come off my back. Now it is quiet. I can have a quick meal before figuring out how to escape.

Esclave

I awoke in the bitterly cold morn. Careful not to disturb her, I incant to the candle, which flickers briefly in the stillness, then goes black. I decide it is not important to see anyway, and return to warm slumber.

In the morning the bed is empty and she is gone, leaving only a note about how she must go out to fight, but that she loves me. To fight! I gesture to start the fireplace and the room explodes into flame.

[puffyn]

Oooh, turn 9 already. How time does fly. This time in Yarnspinners 1, it was just me and Karacan and this odd new person named Sedna whose idea of a good post went something like this:

"I believe I've come up with a winning business plan:
Step 1: Prophet
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Rule the world"

YS1: Turn 9

[puffyn]

And on to the good stuff...

---
C'tis, Turn 9

The late summer sun beat down as the lizards crossed the parched plains. Ruli couldn't imagine finer weather for a hike. Many kinds of lizards lived in the kingdom of C'tis – Ash'embe and the others were children of the damp swamps, and clearly unhappy with the dryness of the air – but Ruli was a desert lizard. And the plains were almost desert, this time of year.

Especially with the recent drought. Nothing green, and almost nothing brown, could be seen on the horizon, the only relief being here and there an interesting rock formation. They were walking on an ancient lava bed, Cole said one night at camp. "A very long time ago," the dragon had told them, "the Rim Mount used to glow for miles with molten rock." Ruli thought his use of such archaic units something of an affectation.

"Was... was... was the mountain killed by the frost giants?" asked one of the troops, a timid little fellow whose name Ruli really ought to remember. Clearly he at least had been listening to Laph's yarn.

"No", said Cole. "It was dead long before then. Even mountains grow old and die," he said, almost wistfully. "But we may find something interesting if we pick through its bones."

A few of the little swamp guards swiveled their heads around to look, nervously, at Ruli. Cole had been teasing him like this ever since the incident with the mouse, which for some reason he thought was highly amusing. Everyone else thought it was one more reason to be wary of the weird winter egg.

---

They had paused by a dry riverbed to rest. Ruli wandered off to explore. Smaller than most lizards in his cohort, he'd been pleased to discover he could easily keep up with and outlast these specially trained, elite lizards (except for Ash'embe, who was always running ahead, trying futilely to keep up with Cole). Of course, I'm not carrying a full suit of armor and a falchion like everyone else on this "camping trip", thought Ruli.

He wandered up the river bed, to a place where dead bushes lined the shore. How long has this river been gone? he wondered. A season? A year? A hundred years? Plants decayed quickly when they died, he knew, but it was hard to shake the feeling that these skeletal bushes had been there for aeons. He looked at the shriveled bark on the stubby trunks, the thin brittle tendrils that must have once held leaves, and fed and sheltered small creatures like... mice. There, in a mat of dried grass and twigs, a small nest. He counted three, no, four little mouse skeletons curled up in the nest, huddled desperately against the cold. They had failed; now they were only bones.

It was enough.

Ruli thought back to something Great Grandfather had said, during his brief apprenticeship. Lugal-zagesi was an ancient shriveled lizard who had journeyed to C'tis from somewhere very far away. There were other lizard nests on this world, of course, small enclaves surrounded by warmlings, but Great Grandfather had come from much further away. Lizards lived on thousands of different worlds, scattered across the galaxy, and it was not uncommon for some few to travel far from their home nest, the way Aetonyx had. But Great Grandfather never spoke of his travels, and the young lizards could only guess how he'd gotten all his scars. Rumor had it he had lost his tail four times...

"I really only know about living things," Great-Grandfather had said. "Some people say, when a thing dies, it's gone. But I've seen enough death... as long as there's something left – leaves, a tooth, bones – it's not really dead." When Ruli had asked him to elaborate, he had claimed ignorance, declared his joints were bothering him, and given Ruli a dozen musty books to look through. Most of them were in indecipherable scripts.

But one book... Ruli dredged up the memory. Yes, that was it, arrange them like so, mumble this... He closed his eyes, searching, reached out...


It was the most bizarre thing Ash'embe had seen in his entire life. They were all ready to march, until Cole had suggested that someone really ought to fetch Ruli, and then he'd looked right at Ash'embe. If Ruli were so bloody clever, he'd know not to disappear when we're about to leave, he'd thought to himself. But he wouldn't dream of refusing a request from Cole. Just last night, the dragon had confided in them that there was an outpost of men up ahead, stealing something that was rightfully his, and that they should... how had he put it? "We must be prepared for any eventuality." Ash'embe wished he could get his voice to sound like that.

So then he'd asked around, and little Zu, who Ash'embe privately thought shouldn't be there, too weak, always asking questions – just like another annoying lizard, come to think of it – had piped up that he'd watched the winter-egg go up the dry river bed. As usual, this made no sense: if there'd been water in it, of course, Ash'embe would gladly have gone to the water's edge, anything to be damp again. But who cares about a dry river? Nothing there but a bunch of rocks.

And then he'd seen the mouse. It was dancing, its skull bobbling on its bony limbs, its tail bones swaying despite the complete lack of breeze. A tiny little voice in Ash'embe's head admired the artistry, the way the joints fit together, the way Ruli was keeping it under control. The loud voice in Ash'embe's throat said, "What the scale-leaver's-feather do you think you're doing?"

The winter-egg startled, broke concentration, and the mouse fell to the ground, just a bunch of bones again. "We're leaving," said Ash'embe, as icily as he could manage in the thirty-degree heat, and strode off while the winter-egg sputtered something behind him. We're late, and Cole's going to be upset, thought Ash'embe, because Ruli was playing with a dead mouse. No wonder the guy gave him the creeps.

---

They reached the foothills an hour before dark. Cole had refrained from darting ahead, though it pained him to be so close and not swoop in; but it wouldn't do to let them know he was coming. He forced himself to trudge at the slow speed of the small lizards. They mean well, he thought. But what I wouldn't give to have Dagda or Alagon along... At least young Arruli was shaping up nicely. Cole was pleased that he had figured out how to work with skeletons without the aid of a mentor. He would have to arrange for some better lessons, to see what the hatchling was capable of. After they dispensed with the current interlopers, of course.

He could almost smell it, from here. The sound of hammers and carts and other man-noise came to him, and he signaled to Ash'embe to move his troops into position. The miners were completely surprised by the attack, though they fought back bravely, with their picks and shovels and a few swords. Cole noted with some sadness that the little questioning lizard, Zu, had gotten disoriented in battle, run straight toward the men, and been stabbed through. Ruli, who had looked a little shocked at the sudden onset of violence, was the only group healer, and rushed up to Zu's body. Then Cole flew out from where he'd been hiding, drew his wings out to their full length, and breathed fire onto the closest group of warmlings. They made pleasant crackling noises as they burnt up. He breathed on another group, and smiled thinly at the growing terror in their eyes. That's what you get for disturbing dragon hordes. The Rim Mountain stash of volcano-gold had always been one of his favorites.

The battle was over quickly; the warmling miners were no match for swamp guards, even if they were only children, nor the enraged fire of a dragon with a cause. Cole noticed with some interest that what finally got the men to turn and run was not so much that they were being cut down by Ash'embe's forces, but that the corpse of the small lizard Zu, the only lizard to fall, had gotten up, and was marching toward their lines with a purposeful stride he'd never had in life. Ruli's eyes blazed as he watched the dead lizard march down his murderers.

That went well, thought Cole. There was a cave in the next mountain range over, where an elderly dragon had lived long ago, fondly carving his gem garden until the chasm walls gleamed with a thousand glittering roses. The old dragon had long since disappeared, and nobody else had dared move in so close to Cole's dominion. Perhaps it would be time to pay the mountains a visit. Cole was very fond of roses.

[PashaDawg]

Wow! Time does fly. Well, I finally took the time to write my yarn for Turn 6. I guess I better get cracking on Turn 9 tomorrow!

[djo]

Here it is, another long one: Vanheim turn 9:


In which Pherios writes home, and Quellian Ji speaks up.


Vethru

"Is this report accurate?" asks Rilia. She's one of the sharper minds on the Konella Koreia in the area of foreign policy. They don't listen to her much. Apparently one of her ancestors pissed off one of their ancestors.

"As far as I can tell," I say. The diplomats we sent to Man were old school. Very loyal, very trustworthy. And certainly lacking the imagination to come up with what she's just read.

"Wow. What are we going to do?"

"Figure out what this Selena is. Stupid, psycho, or just very, very green."

"Some of the Jarls will want you to take back Stone Grave Mountain."

"Back?" I say.

She smiles. "In a historical sense."

I snort. They have no idea of what historical really means. Historical doesn't mean, my grandfather lived here. It doesn't even mean, my great-great-grandfather's ancestors lived here. Because after a few thousand years, anyone, everyone can say that. People are like water; you can try to dam them up, but they're going to burst out and wash over everything until you can't tell the difference between rivers, lakes, and streams. My land, my ***.

As for me, the only use I have for real estate is to sell it. I mean, who wants to deal with tenants, anyway?

I suppose I should be tolerant; until I arrived, the Vans believed they had the monopoly on long memories. "Has she taken Copos?"

"Not as far as we know. Is it important to us?" she asks.

She's smooth. She manages to ask me, indirectly, just what are you after, while hiding it in a reasonable question about foreign policy. No wonder she's a diplomat.

"Let's keep her off balance," I say. "Let's be nice. She threatens war, so we'll send her gifts. Find her some nice jewelry, and a couple of paintings. And throw in one of those sapphires we've been mining. She'll like that."

"Right away," Rilia says. "And why don't we send a higher ranking party? Old Emeikos says he won't go back to Man anyway."

"Good idea. Let's send a woman. Do we have anyone from Alteion with some tact?"

"How about Mirima? She's awfully hard not to like, and she's pretty shrewd."

"OK. Put a couple Valkyries in her guard, too. And make sure a description of Selena gets to Pherios and his crew. She's going to be in our future, one way or another."

After Rilia leaves, I talk to Ji.

"Your sources know where this 'Ralph' is?"

"I can put a letter on his desk, boss."

"Good." I get out some paper and a quill.

Ji asks, "Is she right? Does she have blessed, invisible wardens? Because I swear, I can't find the Vans when they're on maneuvers, and if the wardens are anything like that, we're in trouble!"

"No. She's overconfident. She has wardens, but the Vans are better. They're quieter than wardens out in the field, and in friendly territory, they're impossibly good." I think a minute. Could she be that uninformed? Maybe she is just inexperienced. I finish my note to Ralph with that in mind. "It'd be an unpleasant war. No front lines. Guerilla attacks everywhere."

"Ick," says Ji. "With our upstanding, straight-arrow Vans? We are in trouble."

"Not at all," I say. "I've been reading their history. You'd be surprised what they've done in the past. And the others, you've seen them. No, dirty war suits us. You'll see. Operation Maros Gallupeidi kicks off next month."

"Maros Galliwhatia? What's that mean?"

I smile. " 'You have something I want.' "


Pherios


We separated. She stepped back, and I slowly let go of her hands. "Be careful," I said.

"I will," she replied. "Don't worry. I'll see you in a couple days."

After the door closed, and my heart slowed, I sat down to write.



Dear Mom,

Think you very much for the package. Winter has arrived, and the socks and scarf are already keeping me warmer. The cookies arrived in good shape. Sometimes I'm so busy they are all I have time to eat!

I'm sorry I haven't written sooner, but sometimes it seems that even though I'm very busy, there is nothing interesting to say. But this time I have news. I've met someone. Her name is Galameteia of Lunetellerion. I think you know her mother, Thumesteia. I first met Galameteia last month...



She stood up when I walked in. It was her. It was obviously her--I had only seen her once, from a distance, but I would recognize her anywhere. She stood right before me, in the little turret where I study, and the only thing I could say was, "Oh!"

"Pherios of Alteion?" she asked. The uncertainty felt out of place in her voice. She was a beautiful Valkyrie, proud, poised.

"You're here! I've been looking for you."

"Me? But I've been looking for you. Of course--you're a seer. But...if you're a seer, why are you surprised to see me?"

It wouldn't be the last time her quick intellect would trip me up. "Because...because...well, how did you know where to find me?" I asked her.

"Vethru sent me. I'm Galameteia of Lunetellerion, of Vethru's Black Wings."

Then she explained. Recently, whenever she painted, her mind was filled with images that she was compelled to put on canvas. Strange, alien images that she couldn't believe came from within her. At first, she put up with it, even welcomed it.

"I thought I was becoming inspired," Galameteia said. "Artists are supposed to have a unique vision, aren't they?"

But the visions invaded her dreams, and then her waking hours. She found the only way to banish them was to capture them in oil. So she did, flying with the army by night, painting by day. It was working, until one day, when hearing about the battle at Namor, she realized that she had already painted it.

"I couldn't believe it! I thought I had painted something abstract, a fantastic landscape, you know? But when I looked at it again, I knew. It was there, and I painted it weeks beforehand. Everything. I saw the battle, our victory, and the strange desert the Prophet discovered. I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep for three days, until I told my lieutenant. She brought me to Vethru. And he sent me to you."

So I tried to help her understand what she was seeing, and how to live with it. I told her how I saw omens in the sky since I was young. How confusing I found them, until I learned to study them. "It's been getting worse for me, too. The omens used to come mostly when I looked for them. Now they arrive without warning, while I sleep, while I walk. " I told her that the anxiety ebbed once you understood what you saw. "The vision isn't what you're looking at. It's the impression it makes in your mind. The raven is just a raven, even if I see it flying with seagulls, until something in my mind says, 'Three huskarls will die in battle today.' That's when it becomes an omen. And that's when the vision leaves me alone."

"But then you're left with the knowledge..." she said. I nodded. She understood. Which was worse, frightening images, or dreadful certainty?

I told her why I had been looking for her. "I've seen danger following you. You're out searching for something, and darkness pursues you. You've got to be careful. What are you doing with the army, exactly?"

"I can't tell you," she said. "I'm sorry. Vethru's orders."

She showed me her paintings. I didn't see much information in them, but I didn't expect to. The prophecy would be in her mind. The birds are just birds.

As art, however, they were striking. I had never seen such vivid chaos on the canvas. The colors of one of them reminded me of a storm-tossed sunset. The shapes of another evoked the spring icepack breaking against the rocks in the coves of the gorge.

We reached a swirl of uneven purple that could have been an earthquake seen by moonlight, when her eyes widened, and she gasped. "Wing and spear!"

"What is it?" I suddenly saw the lonely egret soaring before the storm again.

"You," she whispered. "It's you."

From that time, we became hard to separate, each of us fearing for the other's life. It was a strange, awkward relationship at first. Over time, though, we found the company of someone else who understood bound us together more than our fears. Our visions began to trouble us less, and the information we gave to Vethru improved. My uncle said that not a single Van has died in the war.

But her job is dangerous; she flies into the night on missions she can't tell me about. I stay and wait, like tonight. Trying to write to my mother.

I didn't want to burden her with my fears. I didn't think she'd understand, but she would want to try, and it's hard to talk about. So instead I wrote a little more about how I met Galameteia because we both work for Vethru. I wrote that I often see Galameteia when we are both in the city. I told my mother that I like Galameteia very much, and it made me happy, because it was important, and it was true, and I could share it with her. The rest, I left out. I closed the letter by promising to write again soon, and I sealed it and set it aside.

I opened a window to get a better look at the sky. As much as it pained me, I couldn't stop looking for omens. There was a gull sitting on the ledge. I realized it had been there a few minutes. It hadn't flown away when I opened the window. I waited for another moment, then I said, "Well, do you want to come in?"

"I thought you'd never ask," the bird said, and it hopped into my room and fluttered nearer to the fire. "Was that a guess, or did you figure it out?"

"A little of both," I said. "I've seen you before. And not just with Vethru. I saw you in a dream. "

I swore the bird shuddered. "Yeah, that was me, but I didn't write the script. Quellian Ji, at your service," he said, and he gave me a little bird bow. "Hey, kid, I hate to drop in and run off, but I wasn't planning to have this conversation tonight. I was just checking in on your Valkyrie. The boss wanted to make sure she got out on time tonight. "

"You know where she's going?"

"Yeah, I'm going, too. No, I can't tell you where, and boss says, stop asking. He'll tell you in time." Ji looked uncomfortable. "Uh, while I'm here...if you've got a second..."

"What is it?"

The gull's voice softened. "Do you see anything ahead for us? In the next few days? Just between you and me."

I was going to say nothing, but a sudden swirl of wind drew my gaze to the window. It hit me then, hard--it dropped like a stone into my stomach. I swallowed.

"Kid? Are you all right? What do you see?"

"Falling leaves," I said.

[Alneyan]

My own yarn for turn 9 is in... and I am on time for once! Erh... well, I am so late I am one full yarn behind, but don't break the news to me. And I am still not happy with my yarn for turn 9.

On another note, I will be away for two weeks starting soon, so don't expect any yarn from me for a while. I may be able to get my yarn for turn 12 before leaving, but I won't make any promises, given my record of being late, and later still.

[Sedna]

(The obligatory "Turn??" post)