[HQ Ignorance] Scene 117: The Cycle of Lei Tabor

[Nicolas Hughes]

{OOC: Lev, I think diving into a chaos demon and gutting it should trigger another crisis of illumination for Aalmon. I would like to handle it similarly to last time - let the story drive it more than the dice - if you are OK with that. I think the Fourth will be crucial to which way this goes, he will almost certainly be the only one for a thousand miles who can recognise and understand the signs of what is happening}

> 
> General Ho Ki looks unmoving at the horseless courier. The silence of
> chirping crickets implies an answer; that nothing ever changes in these
> semi-arid with the dry loose soil and eroded layers.

After endless travelling, after diving headlong into chaos and destruction, the stillness and unchangeability seemed wrong to the wounded courier. It disturbed him and unsettled him  . He realised that simply by doing nothing it left his stomach cramped and that there was a tense buzz building up somewhere in his head. Out here on the plains he suddenly felt constrained and claustrophobic.

> 
> (Example of your location
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Toadstool_Geologic_Park.jpg )
> 
> The General wheels on his horse and others beckon the courier and the
> diminutive darkman to follow. Travel through this region is rough and
> unpleasant, and the courier gives a considered opinion that this is
> possibly the worst travelling country that he has encountered - with
> perhaps the exception of Dilis Swamp. 
> 

As Aalmon limped along behind the General he started to get a strange feeling of being watched. He did not have the itch in his nose of impending trouble yet still it was there, the feeling that someone was watching over his shoulder. 

Turning to speak with the Fourth he saw it for a moment out of the corner of his eye, the smiling face of the Goddess looking down from the sky on him. He span round to look directly at Her, just a big hunk of rock after all. Yet still the feeling of being watched would not go away. As they walked on he tried squinting, then glancing backwards and forwards to catch Her out - every so often he would almost think he had seen Her face then he would look properly and see just a big ball of dead rock.

He felt in his satchel for something to nervously fiddle with, a chess piece came to hand. As the familiar shape turned over in his fingers a strange thought came to him, before Seguarine he had not seen everyone as a pawn in a game, he had not seen himself as a pawn in a greater game. Somehow as if through some distorting mirror he remembered seeing the chess pieces as people, rather than people as chess pieces. He dropped the chess piece back into its satin sack and drew his hand out as if it had been bitten, he idly sucked at his fingers and nervously glanced at them - half expecting to see burn or bite marks.


> It is not until nightfall of the second day that the party eventually
> makes it to a small village of crude huts, load roosters, lazy dogs and
> a handful of people who miserably scratch out an existence.
> 
> The member of the General's force who originally spoke up has since
> introduced himself to Aalmon and The Fourth; Komzet. He speaks again to
> the two strangers with the most remarkable story. He has just returned
> from the hut where his female friend lives with her family, and by great
> coincidence the Yao Fune cultist uncle, Pyotr, is present. He has
> informed the family that strangers from across the Wastes have come to
> see members of the Yao Fune cult and the family insists that you attend
> for dinner.
> 
> General Ho Ki's forces seem to be settling in and the general is talking
> to what appears to be village headmen. The conversation is strong,
> animated but seemingly neutral at worst. Ho Ki is continuing his line
> that the despots of Lei Tabor need to be overthrown and the headmen are
> discussing the viability of alternative rulers, the possibility of them
> becoming corrupt and the ruthlessness of the current rulers.
> 
> Aalmon and The Fourth enter the small house owned by Petelinji, an older
> farmer, his wife, his two sons, his daughter, their elderly grandmother,
> their second son's wife, her two toddlers, and the visiting uncle. All
> are enjoying what appears to be a vegetable stew... They serve The
> Fourth and Aalmon first. Pyotr smiles and says.. "You must be tired and
> hungry after such a long journey.."
> 

With a last nervous glance up at the sky the former soldier ducked his head to enter the small abode. He tries to look at each of his hosts out of the corner of his eye, then when he realises that he can hardly make them out that way he stares hard at each of them in turn. Either way he is not satisfied, as if his eyes are not enough and there is some other way of seeing that he can half-remember.

After a long pause while he stares hard at a hoe before eventually deciding that it is a hoe he answers "A long and winding road." He pauses so long that it seems that he will say no more then continues as if nothing had happened "It is a long time and a great distance since the ghost of the father of all of us told me to seek out Yao Fune, if the reward was any less than saving the world from the return of the Devil we would have given up long since and allowed adversity to overcome us." He stopped and stared at the blank forehead between Pyotr's eyes, a slight frown of puzzlement on his face.

Nic