Post by andycd on Dec 3, 2021 8:59:55 GMT
The Amaranthine Finale, 2+ Years Ago
As his mech fell, Jack wasted no time, scuttling back out of his box in the stands silently as the roar of the crowd drowned out all other noise, even from his massive frame. Brushing past some attendants, he began merely walking swiftly, but after a few steps he broke into a dead run, tentacles slapping the ground to propel himself forward like a cthulhoid-gorilla. He scrambled down stairways and ramps, shoving elves and satyrs out of his way, sometimes hurling people several meters as he continued to accelerate his escape.
Jack managed to see the sunlight shining through the main exit to the arena ahead of him before manacles sprung up around each of his tentacles. Chains stretched from each on straight behind him, and as they began to pull taut, holding him firmly in place, he cast a few eyes behind him to see Queen Sarastra Aestrumm, the celestial Queen of Night & Magic, casually wrapping the lengths of chain around her fist and forearm like twine. Her impossibly regal countenance never faltered from its placid, superior demeanour as she spoke to him.
"Well, well, Jack. You thought to play me for a fool for once, and you did well, for a machine. But you cannot compete with royalty. Titania has taken this round, but I have my consolation prize at least." Sarastra tugged slightly on the chain and Jack found himself flung backwards towards her with incredible strength. Looking up at her, his tentacles thrashed on the ground as he screamed a deafening bellow that shook the ground around them. At any other time the noise would have been heard for miles, but amongst the raucousness of the crowd in the arena, his cries of frustration reached no one. Dust fell down from the ceiling, though it did not dare touch Sarastra's royal personage, and instead drifted around her. Jack ground his teeth and spat a wad of cogs and gears to the floor at her feet, and then, suddenly, smiled pleasantly, turning all his eyes towards her.
The conversation was short, and absolute. Sarastra began to stride down the hall, no one daring to be in her way, Jack trailing behind, half-dragged by the chains dangling loosely from her seemingly frail wrist.
After the Queen and her fool had been gone for several minutes, on the ground, a small collection of gears and cogs, smeared on the ground from Jack's defiant spittle, slowly began to move, gear locking into metal pin locking into cog, and in a minute or two a very small, 2-inch high, mechanical figure stood up, adjusting what served as a knee and giving it a few test bends. The figure looked about quickly, and then fled into the shadowy recesses of the corridor, disappearing from sight.
An elderly elven woman walking with a stick tottered into the gap between two tents outside the main finale arena. A few moments later, a cloak-shrouded figure emerged, hood covering their face. Straightening their back and smoothing down their clothes, the figure proceeded to walk briskly, tossing aside a small walking stick they had for some reason.
'That didn't go to plan at all,' Langston thought with a sigh. 'The cannons were so good, but this blasted mote is just too damn unstable.'
He vaulted over a small fence and then vanished, reappearing nearly 500ft further down the slope to nearly the edge of the festivities and close to the large portals directing everyone to their plane of residence.
"What's the point of power you can't use?" he muttered to himself, breaking into a brisk jog. There was no way he was going to let the River King find him today, not with Ulorian's temper. He kept a sharp eye out over his shoulder for any blue-liveried guards searching the city.
He reached the queue at last, a long trail of elves, satyrs, dwarves, djinn and more waiting to be sent home. A large roaring portal ahead was being dialed to different locations one after the other by a group of eladrin mages. A few minutes and he would be on his way. He let out a sigh of relief, which was of course when an electric, ephemeral hand clapped down on his shoulder.
"Don't think I'm going to face the River King alone, Farstep," Ceres said just behind him. He looked ahead at the portal shifting to another location for the next group with longing, and then turned to face her half-fey, half-elemental form with a sheepish grin.
"That doesn't sound like a great time for either of us, Ceres. Neither of us have to go back," he suggested.
She laughed, a buzzing, crackling sound. "Maybe for you, mortal, but I have a few more millennia left in me and I can't avoid him forever. Come now. Let's get this over with."
Langston laughed as well, heartily and then stopped. "You forgot something though, I'm afraid," he said, grinning widely and spread his arms apart. "My name is Langston Farstep! Farstep by name and -" he stepped backwards and vanished, reappearing at the dais where the portal stood, a group just about to step in. "Farstep by nature!" he yelled down to her, across the crowd, and then leapt backwards through the portal, both middle fingers extended.
Ceres screamed as the portal completed its transport and then changed to the next location. Somewhere in the multiverse, anywhere in the multiverse, Langston had just escaped again.
And very, very fortunately, neither of them had noticed the small metal hand that had gripped the bottom of Langston’s cloak, vanishing with him through the portal.
“So let me get this straight,” Langston drawled, head resting in his hand as he tried to decipher the mess of drawings, diagrams and doodles before him. “You’re a fragment of Jack. Someone else who tried and failed to benefit from these games. That much I get. You’re an engineer by trade when you’re not being a jester. And you think there’s any reason at all why I would keep you around, do you?”
The tiny figure looked around briefly at the scorch marks on a nearby tree where it had narrowly avoided incineration by Langston upon its discovery. Focusing, metal arms made a series of complex lines and indents in the dirt, rendering a remarkably intricate diagram of the inside of a lock. It then wrote beside it, “A jar is just a thing that is not a door. A closed door you cannot open is just a fancy wall. I can turn all doors from walls to jars.”
“Oh, a portable lockpick?” Langston chuckled. “Ok then, that just might work out.” He held out a hand for the figure to step onto. “Welcome aboard, Jack.”
“Testing. Testing. Hello World.”
“Whaddayaknow, you’ve got a voice again. I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing, Jack.”
“Historically, only bad things have happened when I’ve opened my mouth, but let’s see if we can change that trend, Langston. For example, did you know you’ve been holding that soul mote all wrong? You’re likely to blow something up, holding it like that...”
The fire crackled and wavered in the eerie breeze, wafting raw chaos past the pair as they sat on a small chuck of earth slowly drifting through the realm of Limbo. Jack was now two feet high, assembling extra functions and gadgets as needed over the previous few months, but now he was curled in tight, focusing his three eyes squarely on Langston as the conman finished his tale.
“And so that’s it, Jack. The greatest score in the multiverse. The Anchor of Sigil, the single weak point of the Lady of Pain, just sitting there. But I don’t know if even this soul device can do anything to it. That’s what I’m after next - a book on planar mechanics. THE book really.”
Jack uncurled slowly, processing information for a few long moments. It was endlessly irritating to be so limited in his capacities, both physical and mental, in this tiny form. He was a fragment missing the whole, and he knew the rest of him would have grasped this much faster. Finally, a shudder ran down the tiny modron’s spine.
“Langston, you terrify me. I am terrified. Terror is all I know right now.”
“What?” Langston tipped his hat up to get a better look at his shaking metal friend. “Don’t tell me that’s too rich a score for your blood? Oil? Whatever?”
“You cannot possibly be this fortunate over and over again. It’s terrifying.”
“I’m a lucky guy Jack, but what are you talking about?”
“You’re talking to a vestige of an engineer who has worked on multi-planar engines for centuries. This Anchor is clearly some form of massive multi-planar stabilisation device, to keep Sigil stable and spinning even though it sits outside of the normal planar structure.” Jack’s voice began to accelerate. “I always wondered how she did it, but threading a hook through the three core planes and using that as a tether - just brilliant work, and she used a god to do it as a cover? Breathtaking cunning.”
“Wait, do you know how it works?”
“Not only do I know how it works, Langston, but I think I can figure out how to build a machine to control it. I’ll need my full body to do it though. I’m not about to attempt this on only a fraction of my faculties.”
“Well that’s convenient.”
“Do you know what’s even more convenient, Langston? I didn’t know what this was before, but I’ve been next to Sarastra for enough centuries to hear this Anchor mentioned - did you know that the Fey Ascendant is one of the only people in the multiverse entrusted with any knowledge about this whatsoever? My jailor also happens to be the only information leak you need to plug.”
“.... Beshaba’s breath, Jack. I might just be the luckiest man alive.”
“I know, right?”
“We’ll need to plan this out.”
“Obviously. You don’t rob an archfey on a whim, Langston. Not even I’m that wild.”
“This could take years.”
“Well, you are mortal, but apart from that I think we’ve got the time.”
“Hey,” Langston stopped, eyes snapping back from the middle distance to Jack’s face. “Do you really want to see this through? What’s in it for you?”
“You’re talking about what could I possibly want to extort from the most powerful being in the multiverse? Well there was this one pumpkin soup I’m *dying* to get the recipe for…”
“Jack…”
“I want out, Langston. Out of prison, out of Mechanus, out of Law and Chaos. I want to be me, whole and free. And becoming some deific being that means nobody will screw with me ever again? Sounds like out to me.”
Langston nodded, and raised his wineskin in a toast. “Here’s to God-like Power! And committing the greatest crime in the history of history!”
“Oh hey, Langston, you know that weird continent thing - Kantas?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“If my calculations are correct, there’s a reasonable chance that our machine might crack Kantas like an egg.”
“Will that get in our way?”
“Nope. Whole countries may be torn apart by planar destabilisation, but we won’t be impacted.”
“So is there a particular problem?”
“Not really. Given that few people even understand that the continent exists, I think we’re good. It’s just neat, you know?”
“Great. Thanks, Jack.”
"Anytime, Langston."
As his mech fell, Jack wasted no time, scuttling back out of his box in the stands silently as the roar of the crowd drowned out all other noise, even from his massive frame. Brushing past some attendants, he began merely walking swiftly, but after a few steps he broke into a dead run, tentacles slapping the ground to propel himself forward like a cthulhoid-gorilla. He scrambled down stairways and ramps, shoving elves and satyrs out of his way, sometimes hurling people several meters as he continued to accelerate his escape.
Jack managed to see the sunlight shining through the main exit to the arena ahead of him before manacles sprung up around each of his tentacles. Chains stretched from each on straight behind him, and as they began to pull taut, holding him firmly in place, he cast a few eyes behind him to see Queen Sarastra Aestrumm, the celestial Queen of Night & Magic, casually wrapping the lengths of chain around her fist and forearm like twine. Her impossibly regal countenance never faltered from its placid, superior demeanour as she spoke to him.
"Well, well, Jack. You thought to play me for a fool for once, and you did well, for a machine. But you cannot compete with royalty. Titania has taken this round, but I have my consolation prize at least." Sarastra tugged slightly on the chain and Jack found himself flung backwards towards her with incredible strength. Looking up at her, his tentacles thrashed on the ground as he screamed a deafening bellow that shook the ground around them. At any other time the noise would have been heard for miles, but amongst the raucousness of the crowd in the arena, his cries of frustration reached no one. Dust fell down from the ceiling, though it did not dare touch Sarastra's royal personage, and instead drifted around her. Jack ground his teeth and spat a wad of cogs and gears to the floor at her feet, and then, suddenly, smiled pleasantly, turning all his eyes towards her.
The conversation was short, and absolute. Sarastra began to stride down the hall, no one daring to be in her way, Jack trailing behind, half-dragged by the chains dangling loosely from her seemingly frail wrist.
After the Queen and her fool had been gone for several minutes, on the ground, a small collection of gears and cogs, smeared on the ground from Jack's defiant spittle, slowly began to move, gear locking into metal pin locking into cog, and in a minute or two a very small, 2-inch high, mechanical figure stood up, adjusting what served as a knee and giving it a few test bends. The figure looked about quickly, and then fled into the shadowy recesses of the corridor, disappearing from sight.
An elderly elven woman walking with a stick tottered into the gap between two tents outside the main finale arena. A few moments later, a cloak-shrouded figure emerged, hood covering their face. Straightening their back and smoothing down their clothes, the figure proceeded to walk briskly, tossing aside a small walking stick they had for some reason.
'That didn't go to plan at all,' Langston thought with a sigh. 'The cannons were so good, but this blasted mote is just too damn unstable.'
He vaulted over a small fence and then vanished, reappearing nearly 500ft further down the slope to nearly the edge of the festivities and close to the large portals directing everyone to their plane of residence.
"What's the point of power you can't use?" he muttered to himself, breaking into a brisk jog. There was no way he was going to let the River King find him today, not with Ulorian's temper. He kept a sharp eye out over his shoulder for any blue-liveried guards searching the city.
He reached the queue at last, a long trail of elves, satyrs, dwarves, djinn and more waiting to be sent home. A large roaring portal ahead was being dialed to different locations one after the other by a group of eladrin mages. A few minutes and he would be on his way. He let out a sigh of relief, which was of course when an electric, ephemeral hand clapped down on his shoulder.
"Don't think I'm going to face the River King alone, Farstep," Ceres said just behind him. He looked ahead at the portal shifting to another location for the next group with longing, and then turned to face her half-fey, half-elemental form with a sheepish grin.
"That doesn't sound like a great time for either of us, Ceres. Neither of us have to go back," he suggested.
She laughed, a buzzing, crackling sound. "Maybe for you, mortal, but I have a few more millennia left in me and I can't avoid him forever. Come now. Let's get this over with."
Langston laughed as well, heartily and then stopped. "You forgot something though, I'm afraid," he said, grinning widely and spread his arms apart. "My name is Langston Farstep! Farstep by name and -" he stepped backwards and vanished, reappearing at the dais where the portal stood, a group just about to step in. "Farstep by nature!" he yelled down to her, across the crowd, and then leapt backwards through the portal, both middle fingers extended.
Ceres screamed as the portal completed its transport and then changed to the next location. Somewhere in the multiverse, anywhere in the multiverse, Langston had just escaped again.
And very, very fortunately, neither of them had noticed the small metal hand that had gripped the bottom of Langston’s cloak, vanishing with him through the portal.
“So let me get this straight,” Langston drawled, head resting in his hand as he tried to decipher the mess of drawings, diagrams and doodles before him. “You’re a fragment of Jack. Someone else who tried and failed to benefit from these games. That much I get. You’re an engineer by trade when you’re not being a jester. And you think there’s any reason at all why I would keep you around, do you?”
The tiny figure looked around briefly at the scorch marks on a nearby tree where it had narrowly avoided incineration by Langston upon its discovery. Focusing, metal arms made a series of complex lines and indents in the dirt, rendering a remarkably intricate diagram of the inside of a lock. It then wrote beside it, “A jar is just a thing that is not a door. A closed door you cannot open is just a fancy wall. I can turn all doors from walls to jars.”
“Oh, a portable lockpick?” Langston chuckled. “Ok then, that just might work out.” He held out a hand for the figure to step onto. “Welcome aboard, Jack.”
“Testing. Testing. Hello World.”
“Whaddayaknow, you’ve got a voice again. I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing, Jack.”
“Historically, only bad things have happened when I’ve opened my mouth, but let’s see if we can change that trend, Langston. For example, did you know you’ve been holding that soul mote all wrong? You’re likely to blow something up, holding it like that...”
The fire crackled and wavered in the eerie breeze, wafting raw chaos past the pair as they sat on a small chuck of earth slowly drifting through the realm of Limbo. Jack was now two feet high, assembling extra functions and gadgets as needed over the previous few months, but now he was curled in tight, focusing his three eyes squarely on Langston as the conman finished his tale.
“And so that’s it, Jack. The greatest score in the multiverse. The Anchor of Sigil, the single weak point of the Lady of Pain, just sitting there. But I don’t know if even this soul device can do anything to it. That’s what I’m after next - a book on planar mechanics. THE book really.”
Jack uncurled slowly, processing information for a few long moments. It was endlessly irritating to be so limited in his capacities, both physical and mental, in this tiny form. He was a fragment missing the whole, and he knew the rest of him would have grasped this much faster. Finally, a shudder ran down the tiny modron’s spine.
“Langston, you terrify me. I am terrified. Terror is all I know right now.”
“What?” Langston tipped his hat up to get a better look at his shaking metal friend. “Don’t tell me that’s too rich a score for your blood? Oil? Whatever?”
“You cannot possibly be this fortunate over and over again. It’s terrifying.”
“I’m a lucky guy Jack, but what are you talking about?”
“You’re talking to a vestige of an engineer who has worked on multi-planar engines for centuries. This Anchor is clearly some form of massive multi-planar stabilisation device, to keep Sigil stable and spinning even though it sits outside of the normal planar structure.” Jack’s voice began to accelerate. “I always wondered how she did it, but threading a hook through the three core planes and using that as a tether - just brilliant work, and she used a god to do it as a cover? Breathtaking cunning.”
“Wait, do you know how it works?”
“Not only do I know how it works, Langston, but I think I can figure out how to build a machine to control it. I’ll need my full body to do it though. I’m not about to attempt this on only a fraction of my faculties.”
“Well that’s convenient.”
“Do you know what’s even more convenient, Langston? I didn’t know what this was before, but I’ve been next to Sarastra for enough centuries to hear this Anchor mentioned - did you know that the Fey Ascendant is one of the only people in the multiverse entrusted with any knowledge about this whatsoever? My jailor also happens to be the only information leak you need to plug.”
“.... Beshaba’s breath, Jack. I might just be the luckiest man alive.”
“I know, right?”
“We’ll need to plan this out.”
“Obviously. You don’t rob an archfey on a whim, Langston. Not even I’m that wild.”
“This could take years.”
“Well, you are mortal, but apart from that I think we’ve got the time.”
“Hey,” Langston stopped, eyes snapping back from the middle distance to Jack’s face. “Do you really want to see this through? What’s in it for you?”
“You’re talking about what could I possibly want to extort from the most powerful being in the multiverse? Well there was this one pumpkin soup I’m *dying* to get the recipe for…”
“Jack…”
“I want out, Langston. Out of prison, out of Mechanus, out of Law and Chaos. I want to be me, whole and free. And becoming some deific being that means nobody will screw with me ever again? Sounds like out to me.”
Langston nodded, and raised his wineskin in a toast. “Here’s to God-like Power! And committing the greatest crime in the history of history!”
“Oh hey, Langston, you know that weird continent thing - Kantas?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“If my calculations are correct, there’s a reasonable chance that our machine might crack Kantas like an egg.”
“Will that get in our way?”
“Nope. Whole countries may be torn apart by planar destabilisation, but we won’t be impacted.”
“So is there a particular problem?”
“Not really. Given that few people even understand that the continent exists, I think we’re good. It’s just neat, you know?”
“Great. Thanks, Jack.”
"Anytime, Langston."