Chapter Text
While Jason and Ginnun-Tao gaze deeply at one another, waxing ♠midnight♠ like a couple of schoolyard nemeses making goo-goo eyes from across the lunch room, actual relevant events are transpiring in the narrative. We’ll get back to their romp in the shadows soon enough. For now let’s see what’s going on in the Light.
Now, who to be, who to be, who to- Oh… right. The Dwarf is still blocking the POV from leaving the RV. That’s more than a little inconvenient… all the story’s plot is happening outside, but with the POV still stuck behind the Jester’s Barrier like this, we’re going to be a little restricted in what we’re able to see regarding those so-called ‘relevant events’. In fact, we might end up missing them entirely! And there was some crazy relevant stuff going on out there too! No, we can’t talk like that. We can find a way, alright? We’re just gonna have to get a bit creative with this, is all. Since we don’t have the Point of View to work with, suppose we’ll have to use a Point of Inference instead.
Let’s get into this then. Where were we? Right, Sara had just left the Traveling Emporium to rejoin her team waiting for her outside. After receiving the news regarding the Prince of Life and his bastardization of her late friend’s powers, she’s been left with quite a bit on her plate to think about. We could infer, then, that the events would go a little something like this;
Stepping out of the vehicle, you’re immediately hit with a chill breeze running through your hair, attempting to lead you away from this place. Up above, a clap of thunder rolls like the distant rumblings of a drum as the storm threatens to come crashing down on top of you. It dawns on you upon hearing this that you hadn’t heard any thunder during your meeting inside the motorhome. Not even so much as a muffled strike of lightning made it through those walls. Almost like you were isolated from the world while in there. Odd…
Walking up, you find that everybody’s broken off into their own sub-groups, sprawled out as they sit, trying to make the most out of their brief break. Leah’s hanging around Ragnaa like usual, with her cape still over her shoulders, but their third is sitting back-to-back with Haugrr off on their own. Mary, Frank and Dallra have gathered around, Frank lying flat on his back on the ground with Gretel and George by his side while the two Space players tinker with their respective gadgets. Leaving Esspin on her own, legs crossed and dead ahead from the RV’s cabin door, waiting on your return. She perks up when she sees you exit and you hurry over to the Troll.
“Is everything alright?” She inquires as you approach. “Are the boy’s still inside?”
“Esspin, will you help me kill someone?” You ask, ignoring her initial question. Accordingly, the chatter from the others dies down upon hearing your request.
“Sara?” Esspin looks to you with a shocked concern, surprised by your words.
“The Prince. He’s still alive.” You tell her of what you’ve learned. “And he-… He’s gotten ahold of Greg and Amvinn’s powers. He’s been using them to hunt us down... To find out where we are so he can gore us just as he gored them!” Your hands are in fists now as you shakily try to force a composure, and you feel the rain hit your face as a drizzle picks back up again. “I thought I could let it go. I thought I could honor their memories and keep moving forward, but I can’t. Not with him out there, still drawing breath. Not with him using their spirits like fucking ghouls to torment us.” Beside you, you notice as someone gets up from the ground as you speak. It’s Haugrr.
“Ah, the fuck man?” Ryder quietly exclaims as he rolls back without a support to keep him upright. The Revenant doesn’t pay him much mind, though. He’s looking at you. You can tell. You can alway tell.
“…” He doesn’t say anything. He just watches with the visage of another, haunting you like a phantom with it. Just beyond your reach that you can’t find him, just out of focus enough that you can’t make out the finer details of his face. But he’s there still. Watching from the other side of the threshold. You can’t bear to look back.
“I know we can’t go after him right now. I know how important the mission is, but a time will come when that animal comes looking for his pound of flesh.” You tell your Mage as the dead linger in your peripherals. “Please say that you'll be there when that happens. I need to know you’ll be beside me when he crawls out of whatever pit he's been hiding in. I need to know you’ll be there with me when I put that bastard into the dirt.” As you complete your confession to the holy woman, your breath erratic and short, a dreadful moment comes to pass, with her only looking at you like one would a wounded animal. Pitying a poor thing like you, yet cautious of if you might snap at a wrong move. You feel the concerns of her sadness here come to a conclusion, and your heart pounds as you wait for her answer. Finally, with a quiet and dignified sigh, Esspin rises up from the ground to face you, her already subdued stature soon overtaking your own with ease. She looks you in the eyes and she speaks.
“I care not what might appear on the horizon, my dear. Let the hoards of tomorrow bring forth what devils they hold. Beside you, I will stand true, time and time again. For your enemies are my enemies.” She tells you before placing a gentle finger beneath your chin, tilting your face up and pressing her lips against your own. You close your eyes, and press back.
“Hm.” Mary mutters, beholding the scene. “Never would’ve guessed.”
“Pff. Gay.” Ryder comments, looking up from the ground before letting his head fall back.
After a moment enthralled by the kiss, you and her eventually separate. And even still, you take her by the hands and stare deeply into her eyes once more, lost in the lovely orchid patches. Above, a breeze passes by, the only sounds to accompany you in this intimately public scene. Off a ways, Leah broods besides the Troll next to her, her mind heavy with contemplation as she observes your embrace. She glances at the alien from the side of her eye, looking as if she wants to say something to her, but ultimately keeps quiet, closing back into her thoughts once more.
“Hey, Sara. Not to interrupt…” Dallra calls over to you. “But where is Jason and Creed?”
“Oh, sorry! Almost forgot.” You apologize while wiping the mist from your eyes. “They’re still inside, finishing up on a deal we made with these people. The lady in the hat had a message from one of Jason’s session mates and she had to go looking for it. Her and Creed are in a book now, I think?”
“A book?” Mary perks up again.
“Yeah, apparently it’s bigger on the inside?” You shrug. “I’m not really sure how it works, but she’s looking for the message, and Creed is watching her because Jason thought she was going to plan an attack.”
“Why did he think that?” Dallra inquires, tilting her head to the side.
“Because he’s a psychotic nut-job.” Haugrr answers for you. You furrow your brow at him.
“Bigger on the inside… how curious.” Mary hums to herself, contemplating the finer details behind the concept. “Does three-dimensional space fold differently within the bindings or is it simply a transport to a disconnected subspace? I wonder what it could look like in there…”
Yes, that’s definitely how the events transpiring outside the RV must be going. Who knows if it actually happened, but wasn’t that nice? See, you don’t always need to be in the center of the action to still enjoy the story. You can infer what might’ve happened as if you were there to witness it! Speaking of which, Inference-Mary raises a good point. What does the inside of the Dictionary Juju look like? From what was described, we could probably infer that it’d be something like this;
Okay, you can come out now.
Stepping out of the weirdly cozy late 1800s New York Office the Mage has as her mind palace for some reason, your eyesight is almost immediately overloaded with sensory information, causing you to slam your lids shut, practically flash-banged by your surroundings.
“God! What the hell?!” You exclaim, trying to shield your eyes from the bright light. “What is this place?!”
“Yes, the first time is always a little overstimulating.” You hear the Mage tell you from beyond your blindness. As you try to cope with the overwhelming sensation bombarding your vision, suddenly, your glasses are snatched from your face. Glancing over, you’re barely able to spot Ukulele standing beside you, tinkering around with the lenses of your frames. “Here, this should help.” She says before placing your glasses back on. You wince slightly at the sudden forceful redressing, but quickly realize that the brightness burrowing into your optic nerves is a lot more manageable. Able to see now, you find that you’re at the center of an enormous Library, with what must be tens of upper levels above you. Looking down, you see you’re standing upon a massive marble Sun emblem at the bottom of an enormous spiral.
“Whoa…” You mutter to yourself, beholding the place.
“Welcome to the Domain of Knowledge.” Ukulele gladly greets you, using her cane as a support as she leans to the side, standing before her archive with confidence.
“This place is… craazy…” You note as you continue to look around, having a hard time conceptualizing what could possibly fill so many books. Glancing down the numerous corridors surrounding you between the massive bookshelves, you don’t see an end in sight to it all. The place is in a circular layout, with you appearing to be at the very center of it all, and what look to be sixteen different routes you can go down, one for each ray of Light on the floor’s Sun emblem.
“Quite so. Now come along, friend. For my partner’s sake, we’ve a schedule to keep.” The Mage informs you as she turns on her heel, strolling towards the north most hallway. You linger behind a bit, taking in the atmosphere of the place a little longer before hurrying after her.
“Hey, what was that you were writing on my glasses just now?” You ask once you catch up with the Mage.
“It’s a Refraction Sigil.” She glances back at you as you enter into the city block-wide corridor between bookshelves. “It takes in information in its rawest form and bends it in a manner that becomes more easily understood. The Juju’s interior tends to be a bit too much to comprehend for a person’s first trip inside, so the spell should help you adjust during your time here.”
“So it’s translating what I see for me.” You surmise, still taking a look around. Up close now, you finally can appreciate how massive the shelves are in this place, with two additional mezzanines on the first floor alone. There are actually a few people moving around on the upper balconies that you notice as well. You feel as if you were a mouse in a giant’s study, like some sort of French folklore protagonist. “Does that mean this place isn’t actually an enormous library like the way it looks?”
“If that’s what you understand it to be, then it is.” She explains while taking a left at the first corner you reach. “Many experience the physical environment here differently. It depends on the individual and, if you’d pardon the on-the-nose saying, their point of view to decide the form it takes.”
“Hold up, I thought you said you were the only one who had access to this place.” You note, rounding the corner after her.
“To the Juju, yes. To the Domain of Knowledge, no.” She distinguishes the difference. “Take a look around you. You see others walking about, yes? Those aren’t projections you’d see in a mindscape. They’re real people, just like you and I, all consulting the greater sum of knowledge for an inquiry of their own.” You glance back up at the people on the upper balconies around you as they go about their business, all dressed in Orange robes.
“They’re…?” You prompt her to go on, not quite sure if you’re following her correctly.
“All Mages of Light, yes.” She confirms your hunch. “A little known fact about Mages; given a close enough contact with one another, we like to talk. Keep in touch, exchange notes, see what the other has gathered on their journey. And none other like to talk quite as much as the Mages of Light do. We Mages of the Light-bound communicate through our Knowledge. We experience it differently than the others in our domain typically do. To us, it’s almost like a vast network of information that connects every one of us together, the way a Sun connects its surrounding planets to a distinct solar system, providing light enough to see one another. In a simpler way to put it, though, the Domain is the source of all knowledge, and we Mages just so happened to find ourselves at the source by coincidence. Akin to the thirsty beasts of the savanna all gathering at the same watering hole, or perhaps even like moths attracted to a single flame. Now, not every one of us has a physical manifestation of this connection like I do, mind you. Some meditate to speak with others Mages. Some experience this connection as a voice present within their head. Lucas was able to astral project into the Domain of Knowledge, while I’ve devised a doorway through the culmination of everything I know within my Juju. Whichever the case may be, the result is the same. Gossip between the likeminded.”
“That sounds like a lot to take in.” You comment, impressed by the grander of it all yet simultaneously getting a headache at the concept of being hooked up to something this big. Even for you, this seems like a bit much.
“If you think that’s bad, you should see the Seers of Light. At least we get to legislate the information we possess to a degree, but those poor suckers get the info funneled directly into their brains without so much as a say-so. Once they get to a certain level of power as a God Tier, it’s like a non-stop barrage of knowledge until they’re driven mad.”
“Hmm…” You hum at the bleak concept.
“Right this way.” She prompts you to follow as she struts up a stairway built into the bookshelf, leading to the above mezzanine. As you ascend the steps, you glance over at the books to your immediate right, noticing that most of the bindings facing you are a glowing orange, however some are dimmed, appearing almost blacked out in their place on the shelf.
“Hey, what’s with the dark tomes on the bookcases?” You ask Ukulele as the two of you take a bridge at the end of the isle you’re on to the other side of the corridor.
“Those would be the things I don’t know.” She promptly explains.
“Isn’t your whole thing to know things, though?” You probe further, confused by the discrepancy in her Knower of Knowledge Title.
“Certainly. I know a great many things, sir, however there are still gaps in my knowledge regarding particular fields. I’m not omniscient.” She elaborates on her intellectual standings. “If ever I need to learn something, though, I simply need consult my fellow Mage here and strike up a trade with them. Once done, I’d then exchange something known of mine for the inquiry I was searching for, thus filling in that pocket of ignorance for me.”
“Huh. Does that mean you forget a piece of information if you trade it away?” You ask her, taking another bridge to the next corridor ahead of you. “Is that why some of the books here are blacked out? Because you traded them for something else?”
“No. Do you forget something every time you tell it to someone else?” She asks back like your question was a dumb one.
“No, but if that’s the case, why don’t you just exchange everything you all already know with one another? Wouldn’t that complete everyone’s collection of knowledge here?” You suggest to her, figuring all the Mages of Light would collectively know just about everything together if they pooled their resources.
“Besides the fact that the average mortal mind would malfunction upon receiving the entire known knowledge of the universe, we use information as goods for trade.” She explains, leading you up another staircase to the second mezzanine on the first level. “Free and total access to all information would destroy the ecosystem we’ve established between Mages, it’d be a nightmare. There’s also the added fact that information doesn’t last forever. Just as a physical book weathers with age, our sum-total knowledge gets smaller and smaller if we do not expand it. You out of everyone should know how easily a memory can fade.” She glances back while strutting along the wooden balcony you’re on. “Not only that, knowledge can be privatized, stolen, even diluted or destroyed outright. I can’t tell you how many tomes on these shelves Ginnun has accidentally destroyed when we’re searching through the ether for hidden information. But the added payoff is that he brings in new info consistently, so I can’t be too mad at the lug.”
“What’s the deal with that guy, anyway? He seems… off.” You say, recalling the ominous feeling you got from him back in the RV.
“He can be standoffish, yes.” She agrees with a begrudging tilt of her head. “But I ask you not to judge too harshly, sir. He’s had a hard life, that boy.”
“I guess you kinda have to, if you end up in the Arena.” You agree, knowing you’re probably not one to talk, given your own history.
“You should have seen him in his youth. So spry and thirsty for knowledge.” Ukulele reminisces, having quite a few good things to say about her partner. “Back then he was Ginnun-Gamma of Clan Gamma, the Dwarf’s scientifically inclined bloodline. He was in his element there, neck-deep in research and study. It wasn’t until… well, it’s not my story to tell. I’ll only say that there was an incident that took place which changed a lot for him. What should have only been a simple disagreement between scholars, but the deceitful whoresons he called peers back then took things too far. Stabbed the poor boy in the back when he wanted nothing more than to let bygones be bygones. Made him a pariah to his people and an outcast to his Clan.”
“Is that why you said he was from Clan Tao?” You ask, remembering how she first introduced the Jester.
“You’d be correct in that assessment. Tao was the only tribe that would take him after everything happened.” She nods, clearly upset by the memories. “While they treated him like Kin there, the Tao bloodline were a ritualistic and superstitious branch of his species. They relied on the occult worship of primordial forces in order to expand their regions, praying to dark gods to grant them prosperity in their endeavors, and curse misfortune upon their enemies. Can you imagine that? Gin was a scientist before his betrayal, an astrophysicist. He was brought up with facts and evidence as cornerstones of his childhood. And then, to have to set that all aside for hoodoo nonsense in order to survive. I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been.” It’s subtle, but you notice a change in the Mage’s stride. Her confident swagger that much less so. “He’s still kept that same curiosity he had growing up, and I admire that greatly about him, but it’s subdued. His Light has dimmed. And that makes me very, very sad, I’d say.”
“…” Historically, you haven’t been the best in regards to comforting others in distress, so you elect to stay quiet in the Mage’s recountings over her friend’s grief. It seems that all that really needed to be said on the matter has already been done so long before you arrived.
You walk for a time more after Ukulele’s tales, passing a few Mages on the balcony you’re on as you go, getting a look at them up close. Most alien in appearance, with one or two humans mixed in as well. They’d greet your guide by name before continuing on, and while courteous, they did give you a strange look as they passed, clearly put off by your presence within what must’ve been a private sanctum to them up until the moment you entered. Finally, you reach a small gap within the bookcase’s endless tomeage, leading to a side passage built into the shelf itself.
“Here we are.” Ukulele informs you, entering into the bookside alleyway. You follow after, walking into what looks to be a small office space filled with scrolls and documents. “It’ll just be a moment to find what we need.”
“What is this place?” You ask her as she sifts through the shelves and filing walls in the room.
“My work station. It’s where we file away the records for all the messages we deliver.” She informs you, bouncing from cabinet to cabinet.
“So I guess Boss was wrong about you trying to ambush us, yeah?” You ask, already well aware your presence here wasn’t needed.
“No, but if I did, he certainly would’ve screwed himself by sending you in here with me.” She tells you while picking up a scroll and reading through it quickly. “You’ve got no way to leave this place without me. If I left before you could re-merge with my cognition, you’d be trapped here.”
“Hm.” You hum, not sure how to take that information.
“On a related note, Creed. A word of advice, free of charge; I’d be more cautious in the future about trusting strangers.” She tells you, checking the drawers of the desk in the room. “A Heir’s Boon is quite the treasure in the Arena’s games. It provides an extra layer of protection to its holder, essentially allowing them to Inherit your Aspect’s favor for their own. Once more people figure out how the power system operates here, you might find a few headhunters at your doorstep, looking to collect that protection for themselves.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” You nod to yourself, a bit disconcerted by the concept that you could be considered big-game in the Arena.
“Ah, there you are, you tricky little footnote.” The Mage says to herself as she pulls a document from the center drawer at her desk. “O-kay, Message No. 2 commissioned by a Lucas D. Helmstetter. Hmm.” She pauses a moment, reading over the contents of the parchment. “Alright, it appears the message Lucas had requested be delivered was a brief excerpt from human novelist; Rudyard Kipling’s The Second Jungle Book.”
“That it? Just a page out of a book?” You ask, expecting something a little more substantial from this task.
“It appears so.” Ukulele answers, nonchalantly. “It was to be delivered to a Mr Johnson within the Arena via a third-party system.”
“Is there a first name attached to that?” You further inquire, grasping at straws for something to bring back to the Boss.
“Unfortunately not.” She shakes her head. “Due to the clandestine nature in which the message was requested to be delivered in, we never made physical contact with the Mr Johnson in question. In fact, Gin and I didn’t really have all that much to do with this delivery at all. The instructions were to leave a copy of the book the message was from open to the page he wanted delivered in a church on Logaw. Beyond this, a Greg Czereno was supposed to find it there and make the rest of the delivery himself.”
“Alright.” You huff, remembering Boss’s reason for sending you in here in the first place. ”How do I know if this is the actual message this Lucas guy sent?”
“How would you have known, regardless?” She asks back at you. You don’t have an answer.
“Fair enough.” You sigh with a shrug. “Damn.” You clack your teeth, frustrated at the nothing-burger this turned out to be.
“On behalf of UnG Enterprises, I apologize that we could’t be more helpful in your inquiry, sir.” She formally informs you in the tone of a telemarketer.
“Ah, don’t sweat it.” You wave off her apology. “This was a shot in the dark, anyway.”
“Shall we return to the exit now?” She asks, politely gesturing to the door with her cane, respectfully allowing you your space on the off-chance that failing your side quest left you agitated.
“Right behind you.” You answer with a sigh, beginning to make your way back.
Yep! You’re fairly confident that that’s how the situation within the Juju would’ve gone down. At least, like… 90% sure. That’s about as sure as you need to be, isn’t it? Man, inferring things can sure be fun sometimes. Where were we, though? Right! The POV is still trapped within the RV. Let’s work our way through the Jester’s discussion and see if we can’t set it free, shall we?