PBEM Game: Yarnspinners 2 (Running)

[djo]

It's time for Vanheim turn 48!

In which Vethru tells Pherios why.


Pherios

For the first time since he had me hanged, months ago, Vethru comes to visit me. My aunt Tilneia, the Lady of the Tower, had been relaying his messages to me, initially with reluctance, later, with active derision. For all his circuitous arguments and rationalizations, his demands came to the same: I was to resume prophesying, and I was to take to the battlefield against Vanheim's enemies. Under his command. I refused, and I remained imprisoned.

Today he walks into my cell, Quellian Ji on his shoulder. Ji, too, had been bringing his master's messages. And like Tilneia, he wasn't happy about it, but he tended to plead with me rather than try to convince me. I think he just wanted everyone to get along.

My first glance at Vethru since my transformation staggers me. In an instant, he realizes that I'm peering into the spirit realm, and he clouds what I can see. But that single glimpse is terrifying.

Vethru's a patchwork. He's put together out of dozens of distinct body parts, knitted together in a blinding web of necromantic energies. There are hundreds of spirits flitting around him. I can only imagine what they're doing--sensing danger, maintaining his body, standing ready to defend him, whatever. Each one of them is tethered to him by a gossamer tendril. Impressive, but not the scary part. The tendrils are nearly invisible, because they're overshadowed by massive conduits of power running off into dimensions I can't access. Vethru-that-I-see, as powerful as he is, is nothing; he's the finger puppet of something else, much larger, hiding in a universe that I'll never touch. Vethru-that-is-elsewhere could swallow Vanheim.

"How did it come to this?" he asks. "Every one of my seers is touched by you. You, your uncle, the girls, and now, my lizard. I've given you a window into all the realms of life and death, and you, in turn, take my eyes away. How is that fair?"

Tilneia told me that Molly was in hiding, safe. A few days ago, I convinced the spirits of some lizards to stop telling their brother anything useful. "What did you do with Akkulu?" I ask.

"I sent him home."

Good. "Will you let me go, too? I'm not going to help you."

He pulls a chair up to the table and sits across from me. "I don't do this often," he says. "Once every twenty or thirty worlds, maybe. Always in low-tech worlds, funny. The techies and scientists never even consider that there might be something beyond their physical law. But there is. I'm going to tell you the secrets of the universe. Then you'll understand why you have to help me."

He thinks for a moment, almost ignoring me. Even though my transformation left me more powerful than ever before, there's no way I can stand against him now. I have no weapons or armor. I'm weak and half starved. And there's a short chain running from my ankle to a bolt set in the floor. I'm not sure it makes any difference.

"There is something beyond magic," Vethru says. "Something outside the world, that gives it its shape. Determines its rules. Is the rules, in a way."

"And you want to read them?"

"I want to rewrite them. It goes beyond that. These 'rules' are the world. They're the program the universe runs."

I'm lost. Program?

"No, damnit, wrong vocabulary. Think of a clockwork automaton. A toy. Or better yet, one of those clever music boxes with the little silver birds whose wings flap and beaks open and close as they 'sing'."

"Birds," I repeat.

He snorts. "Pay attention, boy! The birds don't matter. It's the clockworks. Ever take one of those apart? Seen the gears, and the toothed cylinder? Those parts tell the birds what to do. Those are the rules made metal."

"You're looking for...the world's gears?"

"Hood's breath, I'm looking for the source code to the universe!" He's exasperated, but it quickly passes. "It'd take months to explain this to you properly. Listen: yes, there are rules, and yes, I intend to rewrite them."

I think that's ghastly, and I tell him so.

Vethru shakes his head with a sad smile. "You don't see it. You've got the past and future in your head, and all of life and death, and your mind is still too small to see it.

"When I know the rules, I can fix things. Plague? Gone. Poverty? I'll tweak society's parameters, and your world takes three big steps toward a liberal democratic economy. I make one small change in your planet's albedo, and the growing season in temperate climates is extended two weeks, increasing crop yields enough to feed a nation of starving people. I can do these things, when I find the right parts of the rules that plug into your world.

"I've been doing this for tens of thousands of years, scouring the dimensions for little fragments of these rules. I estimate I've found between seventeen and nineteen percent of the total. Doesn't sound like much, does it? You can't cast seventeen percent of a spell. Doesn't work. But the source code is vast. Even small pieces have power. If I have the right fragments, in the right world...I can work wonders."

He's not even with me now. He's somewhere lost in memory. His voice grows soft, pleased. "In five worlds, it was enough. I left golden ages behind me. Shining cities, an educated and healthy populace. Can you conceive of a million people? A billion? I've saved that many lives. I've improved ten times as many!" Now his eyes find me again, and they're cold. "That's what you're interfering with. Give me Vanheim, and I'll put them on top of this world. I'll save this whole world from the zealots and monsters. I've almost found when I need, but I need armies to get to it. And I need your help."

He stands up. "You're smart, and you're a good kid. Think about it. Reach out to all those souls you now see, and ask them if you should give the world a better life."

He leaves, but Ji stays.

He kind of clears his throat, and says, "So, um, OK, sometimes the boss sound like a megalomaniac. You got me there. But it's true! Kid, I've been following him around for about a hundred and twenty years now, and I've seen it. Not one of the really good ones, but I've seen him take real hellholes and turn them into places you wouldn't mind bringing up your kids. He can do it. Just...think about it, OK?"

"And when he leaves," I ask, "Does he give them the knowledge? Or does it all go with him?"

Ji flutters his wings. "Better than letting every Joe in the street have it. Imagine Marignon with that power."

"I'm fairly sure they wouldn't have trapped my fiancee's soul in her reanimated corpse and enslaved her until her second horrible death."

"Sorry, kid," he says. "You know, I been saying that a lot lately, and I don't feel any better than you. But what can I do? It ain't a perfect world. Every choice has a dark side."

"You've got a choice, too," I say. "Tell my father where I am."

"I can't!" he squawks.

"Your choice," I reply. He flies out.

Well. Vethru had one good idea. I lay on my cot, close my eyes, and reach out to ask the spirit surrounding me what they think of tyrants.


Petema

I suppose our conspiracy should have met in the back room of a dark tavern on a stormy night, but my sitting room is very pleasant in the afternoon sun. I served tea and pastries that I bought from a shop down the block. I'm not much of a baker, myself.

Our conspiracy is a small one inside a larger one. The outer one is widespread and growing. The inner is small and will not get any bigger. There's only one way into our circle, and none of us is pregnant.

"I know where Pherios is," I told them. That caused a stir. We all believed he was still alive, and that Vethru had him. But Vethru's people were fanatically loyal. I know every damn jarl and herse in Vanheim, and I couldn't find anyone who knew anything about Pherios in the four months I've been searching for him.

"How?" one of them asked.

"You will not believe me when I tell you. We have a friend on the inside."

They were of course suspicious. "Can you trust him?"

We can trust her, I thought, and I smiled. I told them everything. Fate had tipped her scales toward us, at least for a time. We discussed our options, and when the meeting ended, our plans were set. They would take time to unfold, and there was danger ahead for all of us. But when they did...Vethru thought Pherios was trouble. Hah! He hasn't seen trouble until he's seen us.

[PashaDawg]

The Peaceful Dominion of Tien Chi received a message from the Great Dominion of Marignon. The message declared war!! Was this intentional?

Pasha Tzu

[Sedna]

Pashsa Tzu,

I would like to apologize for the mistaken declaration of war you received. In fact, we wished to declare war upon your UNholy nation*. The scribe responsible has, as always, been burnt to death. An announcement regarding this shall shortly be posted in the public square.

Father Muszinger

*The same correction applies to other declarations of war which may or may not have gone forth this month.

[PashaDawg]

Beware! You've awoken the Sleeping Tien Chi Dragon!

[Sedna]

Muszinger

Muszinger climbed the stair.

At the top, the pulpit where he would give his Carrofactum homily. In his pouch, a sealed letter from Afti-el to be opened at the end of the world, about half an hour from now when the great cathedral bells tolled midnight.

Muszinger was tired as he climbed. Nine years as head of the inquisition, and four of those during this last period of upheaval, which some heretic scribes called the Ascension Wars, reflecting various fools' recent claims to Godhood. The priests of Marignon knew better. God alone conquers. These tribulations were but preparing this drab world for the LORD's triumphant return.

'God', and it was both a prayer and a sigh. The end couldn't come soon enough. Muszinger was not as sure as when he'd started. Not as sure about the righteousness of the inquisition. He had tortured to death his last child only hours before, and good riddance to be done with that messy business. Tired, so tired.

Muszinger reached the pulpit and gazed out into the cavernous cathedral, filled with the Southern Army-- 'My army', thought Muszinger, 'My support through the Archbishop Marignon's grab for power'. They were all in battle garb of course, the knights' golden armor particularly stunning. The candles reflected off every metal weapon and bathed in every red-orange uniform. It looked like the sun itself was squeezed into the stone walls.

Muszinger began to speak.

He told the faithful the oldest story, the only story. Of a creator whose creation went awry, and of a God who came down to fix it. Then it was time for the traditional Carrofactum reading. 'How many times,' he asked himself, 'have you read or heard this passage?'

In the soft light he looked at the beautiful ornaments on the huge leather tome. His fingers turned easily to the passage...

"But the LORD did not leave us alone, nor did He foresake His people. For even as He ascended into the clouds He spoke one final time unto mortal ears and his command was seared upon their hearts and written on their minds: 'Keep though, the month of my coming sacred, and when you have remembered me two thousand times, there suddenly I shall be among you again.' "

And now Muszinger was reciting completely by heart:


I am the Alpha, the Iota, the Omega

I am the deathless roar of the pounding surf...

I am the still, small voice in the wilderness...

I am every new born infant's cry-- every last death rattle.

I am the Alone. One before numbers had meaning...

I am the indwelling soul of everyone...

I am beyond the other side of everything.

I am Faithful, and Pure and Holy.


Muszinger's voice trembled in awe as he finished the chant. Did he hear another voice taking us his words? Was that God, here now in the room, speaking alongside him? Muszinger's hand seemed to be glowing and slightly translucent, and it shook slightly as he closed the great book one last time.

"Tonight, we celebrate Carrofactum as we have celebrated it for two thousand years since the LORD's coming. Tonight the length of the world is measured in minutes and we shall all be lifted up, far beyond the sky. In the the twinkling of an eye we shall all be brought home, and the LORD will walk among us again, and wipe away every tear from our eye."

Muszinger paused. He felt some great magic rushing through the room. For a moment he thought... but, no... it was too soon. And Muszinger remembered that in the depths of the old broken tower Polgrave was struggling to bring a great magical being into the world: Catharsis, the spirit of cleansing fire. Afti-el had approved the project, but Muszinger was not easy. What need was there to bring some great warrior spirit into a world so much on the brink?

Turning back to the crowd, Muszinger spoke of the dead, the martyrs and saints who had sustained the Church through all the long dark years.

"Soon, very soon, we shall be reunited with them. What will that be like? To sit at the LORD's table with the greatest heroes of a forgotten age?"

A bell tolled

Suddenly it was all too much. This was it, the end.

A bell tolled.

Muszinger ripped open the letter in his pouch. What instructions did the LORD's right-hand servant have for him? Confused, Muszinger saw they were the attack plans he had laid out for fighting Marignon's enemies.

A bell tolled.

But, by the grace of God, an uneasy truce had been maintained for the last final months of the world, so... so...

A bell tolled.

Here was a note from Afti-el. But his hands were trembling too hard.

A bell tolled.

'You are immediately to implement the enclosed attack plans.'

A bell tolled.

That was it. That was all. No word about the end of the world. No news about the LORD's return.

A bell tolled.

The crowd was growing frantic now, hanging on each reverberation.

A bell tolled.

These were long range plans, for a war of many months at least. A hard strike against Man and C'tis, the two most dangerous. Force them to defend their turf for a few months.

A bell tolled.

And then... pull back and fight hard for every piece of land. The overwhelming numbers would force the defenders of Marignon back, and back further, scorching and burning the lands they had spent so long gaining, but always delaying the advance, protecting the great cathedral at Marignon.

A bell tolled.

It was not a plan to win. Only a plan to delay. Only a plan to hold off foes until this moment.

A bell tolled.

Maybe, it was all some mistake. But Muszinger knew that Afti-el did not make such mistakes.

A bell tolled.




Later, as he marched east, at the head of a fey army beyond hope and faith, he looked back to the broken tower and saw it shimmering in a sickly green light.

[djo]

Vanheim turn 51: not too many more to go!

In which Pherios's dinner is interrupted, and Vethru regards the rubble.


Pherios

Finally, a guard pushes my dinner through the slot at the bottom of my cell door. I don't see it, I hear it. I've been in a dark dungeon for a couple months now, deep underground.

"Do you know why you're being fed so late?" the guard asks. This is strange. Vethru's guards don't talk to me.

I clear my throat and rasp, "No." My throat works as well as it's ever going to, but I still sound like a strangled warthog.

"Because it begins now," he says, and he leaves, ignoring my questions trailing him down the long, empty hall.

I have no idea what that means. I tear hungrily into my bread, the only food I've had down here. It's left me weak, very weak. At least I don't have to fight the rats for it. They're scared of me.

Then my tooth hits something hard, and the universe accelerates.

It's a single gem, clear as mountain air, infused with power.

Somebody's got a plan. And they've just told me the only thing I need to know.

It begins now.

I don't waste time. I summon an air elemental, and I'm so drained I nearly pass out. And it's only a small one. But it blows down the cell door, and the one at the end of the hall.

I stagger after it, and in the guardroom one flight up, I stun a handful of guards with thunder. One of them comes for me, sword swinging. I block it with my left arm. I don't feel the cut. Then I touch him, and he crumbles to dust.

That's never happened before, but I don't have time to ponder it. The alarm has been sounded, but not by the men fighting my air elemental. It's coming from somewhere above me.

My elemental occupies the guards, and I head upstairs alone. I meet three men coming down. Damn. I forgot to pick up a sword off the man I killed below. They didn't forget theirs. They descend incautiously, attacking.

I cast another unfamiliar spell, and bolts of dark energy take out the first two. I stumble on the stairs, my legs weakened with fatigue. As a result, the third man's blow doesn't land with full force. But it still bites deeply into my right shoulder.

I scramble for a sword, find one, and swing it against his. It rides down his blade and jumps the hilt. Its tip grazes his chest, drawing a red line of blood. His eyes widen. He howls. He triples the ferocity of his blows, attacking in a berserk fury. I parry a few thrusts, but it's only a moment before his sword is stuck in my left side.

It's a curious sensation. There's no pain. No blood, really, not as much as there should be. It's just...inconvenient. Clumsy.

I touch him, and he crumbles to ash. I pull the sword out, and things start to go bad. My guts shift unpleasantly. I think I'm in trouble. I don't understand what, exactly, keeps me going anymore, but it's failing.

I drag myself up two flights of stairs and through an empty guardroom. One of the doors leads me outside, to chaos--shouting, howling, the clash of arms. I try to make sense of it. It's night, and dark forms run across the courtyard to a tower on the opposite wall. Most of the noise is up on walls, I think. I see flashes from silver-polished scale armor reflecting moonlight.

Then I'm knocked over by something low and fast-moving. An instant later, its teeth are in my leg. A second wolf takes the opposite arm, and a third jumps on my chest, snapping at my throat. I see two more fast approaching. I don't have the strength to fight them off.

Then someone, a woman's voice, shouts, "There he is!"

The wolf sinks its teeth into my throat.

I almost laugh. But then I remember how long it took to heal last time, so I struggle to free my arm, to touch him and wither him. But they're stronger than I am.

Suddenly, the air around me is filled with reflections. Scale armor jangles, a spear strikes, and another. The wolves die with great gobs of my flesh in their mouths. Many hands pull their bodies away, prying their jaws from my body.

The courtyard is quiet again. The lead Valkyrie jerks her spear out of a wolf's gut, its intestines coming with it. She drops her weapon, and she kneels and lifts my head in her hands. "My poor baby," she says. "Are you alive? Pherios?"

I look up at the dozen of them, and I recognize them all. Petema, Aunt Sennei, Mirima, Irulia--they're all here. House Alteion's Valkyries. Galameteia's mother, Thumestia of Lunetellerion, is there, too, and behind them all, with them yet standing apart, I see a lonely figure with a slightly crooked neck.

My eyes return to the beautiful warrior woman who rescued me. "Thanks, Mom," I manage to croak before I black out.


Vethru

The pile of rubble is impressively high. Usually when buildings fall down, it doesn't amount to much. Buildings are mostly empty space. The Lady's tower was solid. The pile of stones rises almost two stories high, and they're stained black by the still billowing smoke pouring out of the basements where the forges are still burning.

"Wow," says Quellian Ji. "She went and did it. First Pherios, then this. A real bad night, huh, boss?"

Ji can be so naive sometimes. Once is chance, twice, coincidence--but I sensed the third was already on its way: enemy action.

On cue, Hallixene rides up. Ji starts--he doesn't have the magical talent to pierce Hallixene's glamour. "My Lord!" he cries. "They've left! They're all gone!"

I'd sent him to find Anteirios and Petema. Damn.

"All who?" asks Ji.

"All of House Alteion! And others, too!"

"Who?" I ask.

"Lunetellerion, most of Zinos. At least part of House Pellena. I dared not seek further without bringing you the news. I have ordered the city to be searched."

"Any news from the army?" And Belletennares.

"No, sire."

Well. House Alteion hit the trifecta last night. No surprise, really. The locks on Pherios's cell weren't for show, and Anteirios pitched a fit when I sent the lizard ambassador home without speaking to him. He ranted about Vanheim's honoring its treaties. I knew I was pissing them off. But the Lady...I had hopes. I liked her. I thought we were simpatico.

It's the same old story. God comes to world, god begins to raise up downtrodden nation, god meets nice not-alive girl, and then it ends in heartbreak. Nation rejects god, girl runs back to her family, and god is left to fight fanatically religious neighbors all by himself. It's so clichéd, it should be on network TV.

No matter. She took her gnomes with her, but all of our new forces were loyal to me: spectral mages, necromancers, and the dragon-men. And what was House Alteion going to do? All their forces were in the north. They'd have no choice but to fight when Marignon comes over the border. They might betray me, but they'd never let Vanheim fall.

It wasn't exactly the plan, but it'd do. I only needed a little more time. The prize was close.

[The Panther]

I posted Yarn 48 on the Yarn site. It is not being repeated here because of the embedded images.