Session Eight:
Cygnet Horizon

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

The Inordinate Amount sails through the cosmic ocean, deeper into the Shattered Sphere. Your destination is the last known location of the Rock of Bral as revealed to you by the G-NOME before its departure along with the Heroes of Ancorato. The spelljammer is in as good shape as possible following its recent misadventures. Since you’ve left Algail Asteroid, it has been smooth sailing. Leaving Algail was all such a blur, you only have the vaguest recollections of it now. 

You’re nearly two weeks out of Algail when you hear ShannTwo call from the crows next – “ship to the starboard at 10 km!” It took the watchkeeper some effort to determine the distance. The vessel if of prodigious size.

In time, it seems The ship should have seen you , and yet it does not appear to be responding to your presence either in its behaviour or signaled messages.

As you draw nearer, more becomes apparent...

• it appears to be adrift

• There is no discernable activity on deck, there are no shiplamps and none of the rigging is maintained

•  It is a large Ylfen ship of some sort. In its day, it looked as though it could accommodate 50 Battleswans or other spaceborne creatures.

• It is an Ylfen Corral Carrier. In its day, it should have been able to accommodate 50 Battleswans or a similar number of other spaceborne creatures and spelldashers

• This ship dates back to the Nyn-Ylfen Wars.

• The Ylfe retreated from the Inner Grinder more than 20 cycles ago, leaving even the Outer Grinder to the Compact.

• The ship has been adrift for approximately 20 cycles, maybe longer

• Difficult to imagine that the Ylfe would have left a capital ship – even a wreck - behind on purpose

• Most of the damage it has sustained is as a result of drifting – places where it has been hit by stray pieces of Grinder

• 8 decks. Flight tower; space for 50-60 Battle Swans and at least 10 spelldashers (no swans, only a couple spelldashers, stripped down to their hulls); a crew of 220+ 

• Unusual chains seem to be hanging from the rigging

• Some of them end in hooks, and appear to be covered in a thick black, substance

• The ship is the Cygnet Terrace

• Shilynn  indicates that a capital ship of this size would have been the centre of its own local economy. As such, there would have been a small fortune in bullion on board and double the wealth in intelligence (system logs, original star charts and farfarers’ notes – i.e. ship’s Rangers)

• It is at least 10x the size of the Inordinate Amount

• Dozens of chains of various length hang from its masts and elsewhere ; these are not part of the ship’s normal rigging.

• Many of the black chains are barbed, bladed and end in hooks

• If not for being abandoned and decorated with the chains of the damned, the ship appears prepped for the watch.

• There’s a pipe filled with tobacco balanced on a railing

• A flask of Elven Gin hangs on a hook on the foc’sle

• A can leans against a duffle bag filled with clean sails

• Moreover, the ship appears to be utterly untouched by scavengers. For starters, all the brass and fixtures are still in place, tarnished and dull, but not stripped.

• The chains jangle like bones rattling and the hull seems to groan when you finally step on board

• There is a foul breeze as the ship's atmosphere blends with those of your spelldashers

• The air is stale and smells strongly of decay, and something sickly sweet that you cannot identify.

• The deck is splashed with blackened ichor and desiccated piles of offal. As soldiers, you’ve all witnessed such scenes before. However, you are struck by the complete absence of the buzzing of flies. It is one of the most disconcerting things about it.

• You have the sense that something terrible happened here. Not just that it was a warship involved in a genocidal campaign. Something worse.

During your search, you encounter no physical dangers onboard the Cygnet’s Terrace, but none of you leaves psychologically whole. The Cygnet Terrace is an archetypal Ghost Ship. It is not just haunted by the horrors it perpetrated, nor those that befell its crew. It reflects, bends and blends every fear that anyone brings on board and delivers them back unto each of you like some nightmare – at once intimate and familiar; alien and alienating.

None of you intended to end up on your own on board. It just happened. Someone moved up ahead too quickly. Something catches someone’s attention down a side corridor. Where did your companions get to? Did they turn left or right? You only turned away briefly. Didn’t you? They were right here just a moment ago. The darkened passageways shift stretch out at impossible distances, branching, shifting, bending like a wooden gullet. Did they go up this flight of stairs hung with a curtain of chains? Did thy climb down this ladder? Did someone just call me? Is that their speaking I hear up ahead? And so on.

Darkness and shadows, dry rot and decay, echoes and despair. And more curious than disconcerting, clustered here and there are gore-crusted chains tipped in hooks and blades and traction cables hanging twisted and limp. None of these were in no way a part of the original design anymore than the dried pools of blood and offal that curdle beneath them. There are few signs of struggle on board, but where there, the struggles seemed titanic. Bulkheads torn apart, rooms ransacked, long scraping gouges down corridors and the length of the inner hull, furniture smashed to make a path for something large and unnatural.

From the hole torn through the top of the doorway, you had to climb down a tangle of chairs and tables frantically piled against them to reach the mess hall. Whatever carved the path you followed in left them strewn about and covered in a dried ichor. As a result, the rest of the room stand cleared, like some diabolical dance hall. The floor is badly chipped everywhere, as though some giant with a weighted augur were had searched throughout, looking for the right place to dig. The kitchen is all stainless-steel countertops, glistening knives and dangling chains. Some of the cupboards are filled with darkened metal cans, labelled in Ylfen to indicate that they contain some sort of preserved foodstuffs. A chair tumbles down from the pile near the doors where you just entered in a heart-stopping clatter. Silence. It is nothing. Loosened when you climbed down. There’s nothing here.  You are back to your investigations when something heavy scrapes across the floor in the mess….

KHALID NOTES

• Why weren’t they following me? Khalid begins to blame himself for having lost his companions

• It is the dread of all leaders… proving inadequate, blaming themselves for those who are lost

• He becomes frantic

• Sense of hope that he can find them crashing up against the sense of failure at having lost them. Only one can triumph.

• None of it is rational

• Basile must be here somewhere. Someone else’s abilities must be able to compensate for Khalid’s shortcomings. But all Khalid can see out of the corner of his eyes are crushed skulls and broken bodies

• The sense of failure escalates… “I’ve lost them… I have nothing with which to build hope…”

• The psychological tension mounts

• Noises, creeks and shudders are magnified, manifesting as a palpable cold

• The chains seem to start swaying, radiating a mocking malice that is stifling… smothering

• Khalid is overcome by his fears

• He has always taken pride in his abilities to make decisions under pressure

• But the combined pressures build no themselves and he’s paralyzed

• Khalid creeps into a corner… he can’t make a decision about what to do… and in being unable to take any action, he just tries to hide from his failure

• He drops to the ground, crawls into a hiding place and tells himself “I can’t be found…” not even by himself

• He is hiding his shame, pulling material onto him to bury himself

Khalid Coming Back

• Khalid hears Luckums’s message cut through the shame

• He realizes that Luckums is under his command

• It gives him something to focus on – the strength of his command will be his strength. Their leadership will be his leadership

• On his way back from abject failure, he looks for a totem to bring with him. He finds an embroidered mousey pouch… it once held someone’s beloved pet. Even in this dark hell, someone once cared for something… this would be the tool with which he rebuilt himself

• Back on the Inordinate Amount he immerses himself in his routine

• He does not enjoy it, but it is better than being alone with his thoughts

• Bring the suck

• He invites Coalman to a game of chess… “How about Hop Board?”

At one point, several security checkpoints had to be passed to reach the area in which you now find yourself. The only portal remaining at the end of line of stacked cells barely clung to its hinges. Here is a room of lockbars and manacles. Noise dampening materials line the walls. Cupboards are overflowing with the expired alchemical mixtures and vile posions. Jars of crystallized cordials, flasks of dried crud, vessels of foul mold. The only thing left undisturbed is the tray laid out neatly with implements for “enhanced interrogations” at the ready.  At first glance, one of them appears still to be covered with fresh blood.  A double-take reveals that your eyes must have been playing tricks on you. The small stature of crouch boxes and manacled chairs attest to the goblinoid nature of the most frequent subjects of this chamber’s foul work. Chains and traction pulleys hang noiselessly form the ceiling. There is no light in this room.

BASILE NOTES

• Basile has always been as confident in the dark as he is with his logic

• But slowly, as his darkvision begins to fail him, so does reason

• Something palpable and alive is pressing it back… something liquid… it sinks into every crevice of doubt

• Basile tries to grapple with his diminishing horizon logically… it pushes back and more of what he could once see is lost

• If you can’t outthink something, then you can’t defeat it

• And that dread pushes in until he can’t see in

• And he is isolated and separated from the world around him for the first time in his life

• Logic would dictate, that if one sense is lost, there are others…

• But this only heightens his fear, makes the world more scary… what are his senses telling him?

• What is that smell? It smells like home, but is not quite right… He feels around, but where am I?... Which way is up? Which way is down?

• What begins as a deliberate attempt to rely on movement, touch and sound ends up trapping him, and the echoes add to the dread

• He reaches out and recoils from the touch of something wet and sticky. He imagines he has reached inside a corpse – a skull shattered in violence

• Basile retreats to the one kernel of his mind that allows to him to think and react at his most visceral level…

• Part intellect and part instinct, he surrenders to the animal that shames his folk with other races’ perceptions… no longer ratfolk… nothing but a scurrying rat. But it is enough to survive… To try to maintain himself, though he is wrapped in wet horror

• And in his lowest moment, Basile finds a light where intellect fails him. In faith

• He remembers St. Aesop’s prayer and it is a true comfort and he meditates on that

• It is a nonlogic based path back to safety… back to dignity…

• Scurrying in the darkness, the message from Luckums connects his logic back to the outside world… it beckons him out of that sphere of doubt and despair

• Basile left a bit of assuredness , but found something more powerful…

• Something… worth investigating

Judging from the smell alone, this deck once housed part of the ship’s complement of battle swans. The individual stalls attest to the great esteem in which the Ylfen cavaliers held their aerial mounts. Most of them are still intact, but towards the centre of the stable, several have been violently torn down. The splintered timber and the great gashes in the creaking bulkheads attest to the desperate melee that must have taken place here. At its centre, a curved and multi-jointed mechanical limb impales the deck at one end and reaches toward the ceiling before being violently severed at the other. Crusted remnants suggest the dark liquids that spewed forth after the sundering. It is as tall as tall as a human and as large around. Outside it is covered with barbs reminiscent of those on the blackened chains found in clusters throughout the vessel and inside it is hollow, curiously ridged, and lined with eye hooks.

LUCKUMS NOTES

• The Horror creeps up slowly

• It starts as a hunger

• It is a sense of being watched… Luckums turns invisible, but the huger grows

• Flesh appears on one of the hooks

• Now’s not the time to eat… people are watching, judging, whispering secrets!

• Hateful eyes are watching. Whispering voices are judging her.

• The merchants who would always think she would steal something… the students who would scoff and sneer at her presence in the wizarding school, the thieves guild where she would be mocked for her interest in the arcane

• Luckums is torn between arcane secrets and the flesh she craves without being seen

• The watching eyes are multiplying then disappearing faster than you can turn to see them…

• The hanging flesh is watching you, with tiny blinking eyes

• The hanging flesh is calling you, with betraying whispering mouths

Luckums's Way Out

• Luckums has faced a life of adversity

• She’s had struggles and defeats, but her time with the squad is marked with success

• … and not just her own. She has been instrumental in the success of others… she mentored Khalid in magic, redeemed and recovered Shilynn, in body and spirit… the goblins are of the Inordinate Amount owe her everything…

• This is not real… and even if it were, it could be overcome… one more struggle… a bit more adversity… to rescue her friends. To redeem herself.

• Luckums succumbs to the hunger. She eats the flesh, eyes and little mouths and all.

• “I do not care anymore what the eyes are seeing… what the mouths are saying… what other minds are thinking…”

• She devours her dread and her dread loses its hold on her

• She send a Message spell out to her crewmates… Its power is in its simplicity. “HOPE. I give you my hope. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!” None of us are… she thinks to herself.

• She burps.

• Back on board the Inordinate Amount, Luckums reflects on the larger meaning of the Nyn’Ylfen Wars… a battle beyond morality… where ends justified any means… a struggle between Order and Chaos to bring about an end to all distinctions between Good and Evil.

Now this is a weapon. A tool for bringing order forth from chaos. For that matter, a monument to just that. Organization and the hubris of logistics. From this vantage point, the length of the ship’s take off and landing strips stretch before you. This was a vessel of war the likes of which you have never imagined. It was not just a transport, but also a staging ground and the central feature of a larger Battle Group. On the Bridge, the Captain’s log attests to the countless campaigns it witnessed. Strangely, the last entry was made yesterday – though that is impossible. Regardless, even until that point, the log is utterly and completely routine, written with a clinical distance that belies the horrors of war. Somehow the account makes even breathtakingly large engagements seem mundane. But you are soldiers and warriors. You know what these tallies represent.

SHROKTATH NOTES

• Shroktath looks at the tallies of the dead

• Shroktath has killed a lot of beings, and not always nicely (rage, jealousy, greed)

• There’s been a variety of motives, and he’s haunted by those – the numbers of the dead in the past

• He has always feared giving way to his impulses/weaknesses and turning on his friends – hunting and killing them

• To become the monster or fiend he fears he might be

• Shroktath is a warrior

• He runs to the engagement and solves the crisis with steel and fury

• But the fear here is an engagement out of reach

• It cannot be pummelled or grappled or overwhelmed with strength

• These feelings, these revelations are a contest for which Shroktath is unprepared

• He was defeated before he even began to play

• But he knows in the heart of his steel that a warrior cannot defeat every enemy

• For a true warrior to face death you have to have already died. You have to accept that somtimes you won’t win

• This place does not have the power over him that it believes it does.

• When he realizes that, he is flooded with a tremendous sense of relief

• It is a reminder that he is imperfect – that the desire to be noble, the secret desire to be a paladin – is imperfect.

• But if he strives to die for a reason, to die for others, then he need not concern himself with nobility, for he is already there

• This place is not death. It’s just an empty shell.

• There are no demons here but those that we ourselves bring

• Shroktath fills it with laughter

It’s been a few days since you encountered the Cygnet Terrace, and a dark shadow continues to hang over the crew. You awaken in your darkened cabin with a goblin standing over you. You are exhausted, and the faint memory of a nightmare hung with chains that you otherwise you can’t remember troubles your mind.  Somewhere you can hear a slow wet drip.

Dakota asks, “Would you rather I let you sleep or tell you that Shilynn wants you in the Bridge?" On the Bridge, Shilynn advises you that there is another ship, badly damaged and adrift, below, off the starboard bow. By the time you are about 1 km away, there's no mistaking. It's the Inordinate Amount.

The mast and yard-arm are hung with black barbed chains.

Shilynn adds, "Oh, and before I forget, we passed a field of some sort of arcane radiation that I might not have noticed had it not been for my Clockwork senses... It seems more important now."

• The Sub Deck spelldasher was crashed midships and hangs out of the wall in the Galley Deck

• The passageways seem darker. More cramped. It’s difficult to breathe.

• Did you hear scraping? Unwelcome memories of the Cygnet Terrace come racing back at you down a long corridor of clattering pipes stretching to a vanishing point.

• Something smashed its way clean through the top deck from the Galley deck. Something with large metallic legs.

• The Top Deck spelldasher is shattered in its moorings.

• There is a similar hole between Galley Deck and Uncle Deck. The doorway to the aft storage room on Uncle Deck is also torn open.

• The aft storage room on Uncle deck is demolished.

• Inside the forward Cabins on the Main Deck, eight flayed goblin skins are neatly folded into piles, with sleeved hands lain inside out on top of them like gloves. There is not a drop of blood anywhere.

• The Sub Deck is chipped like the floor of the mess hall, as though something large moved down here

• At the end of the Sub Deck, an ogre’s head and shoulders dangles from the end of a chain behind the ship. Stripped of skin, a great gaff impales both its sockets, in one eye and out the other

On the Bridge

• The door is ripped off of its hinges

• Bodies of Alexsis and Connor are barely recognizable. They’ve been ripped apart with chains

• The Helm is scored and scorched from the centre of the seat, as if something was placed on it and it burst outward.

• Bodies of Connor, Luckums, and Coalman in the Bridge. It looks like Coalman was attacked from behind.

• A flayed ogre skin flaps in the breeze hung from the mainmast

• The Bridge was breached from the pipe walls as well as the door

• Scaz II is hiding under Luckums’s bunk. All attempts at communication fail. She simply cannot be understood.

• There is scavenge on board from another Inordinate Amount, including an extra spelldasher.

• One of the masts has been shattered and is leaning on the other precariously

• Both spelldashers are missing.

• Ballistas on Top Deck are turned inwards, as were the cannons. The cannons were fired at something no board. One of them breeched the hull.

• Log Book – written in ShannTwo’s poetry journal (This is on the desk in Khalid’s berth)

  • DO NOT READ! I’M WARNING YOU! On the cover. There’s a piece of paper stuck on the cover with blood. “IGNORE – IF YOU ARE ALIVE, READ THE LAST TWO PAGES… BUT ONLY THE LAST TWO. READ ANYTHING ELSE AND I WILL KILL YOU!” The same thing keeps happening over and over. I’ve had nightmares for days after that damn Ylfen ship. I should have told someone. In them, I kept doing the same thing. I’m always being hunted on the Inordinate Amount. I don’t think they’re dreams. I think they are memories. If you find this, this has all happened before. I now its crazy. But I think has something to do with that thing that Connor stole from Asteroid B to give to ShannOne! What an Idiot!”

• The room has not been breached.

• Connor’s body alone and undisturbed. He died of blood loss… if they don’t find ShannTwo’s log book in Khalid’s berth, Connor has it here with him.

Puzzle Box Blaine: It takes a moment to recognize the creature standing before you as Blaine. A metallic cap is unfolded on his head, burrowed into his skull and covering his eyes where his skin has been peeled back. His mouth is contorted in a rictus grin. Writhing chains, elongated scalpels, sharpened scrapers, bones saws and other instruments emerge from his forearm and the backs of his hands, like some twisted caricature of a Zularean Army Knife.

Kyton Goblins: Wickedly barbed chains adorn a lean figure, although gaps in the binding reveal the bodies of two goblins, flayed and woven together using strips over their own flesh and bound tightly with rusted wire.

Kyton Interlocutor: At the core of this multi-limbed monstrosity of claws and blades struggles a glistening mass of veins, organs and tested flesh. Cobbled together from ships’ pipes, scavenge and blacksmith supplies, the real horror of this abomination is the combined ogre and goblin flesh at its core, and the pieces of Clockwork Shilynn used to hold it all together.

Whatever magical forces are at play between the Helm and the Time Crystal, it is not clear that they were ever meant to meet. A humming begins low and grows louder. The glow deepens. A critical mass of energy is growing, but needs time to take effect. The doors of the chamber give way.

You awaken in your darkened cabin with a goblin standing over you. You are exhausted, and the faint memory of a nightmare you can’t remember troubles your mind.  It was filled with the rattling of chains and slow wet drips, but otherwise, try as you might, you can’t remember what it was about. “Would you rather I let you sleep or tell you that Shilynn wants you in the Bridge?”

I died fighting to protect my friends. It seems weird to write that. I guess I should say, Luckums told me I died doing my best to protect my friends.

Hieronious’ holy areshole this is going to be a weird one. Let’s start at the beginning, which I remember best. It’s gonna get a bit sketchy as we get closer to the end.

Okay, so we’d been sailing out from Brail's for a couple of weeks. We thought we had a pretty good bead on the Rock of Brahl, which gets us closer to the steelstone stuff and Jennifer. Which is good. It’s good to be shooting for something. 

We came across an abandoned ship, strange in any number of ways. First - fucking huge. Easy ten times our ship. Some hulk from the Ninylvin wars, Shilyn says. A battle carrier. Except those wars ended twenty years ago, and as we investigate (bad idea? More on that later) we figure out this thing’s only been abandoned for maybe a day? A little more? It’s certainly in great shape for a massive ship that should have been smashing into everything for the past twenty years. As we go to scout it out, we see some crazy, strange shit. Weird gashes in the hull. Huge hooked chains hanging perfectly still from all parts of the ship. All with some sort of black goop like a rotting husk of gujamellon that had dripped down onto whatever part of the ship lay beneath them. Every one of the chains hanging spooky still. A shiver ran down my spine as we stopped scouting and approached the landing area.

This part starts to get fuzzy. We got split up. Which is weird. We were trying hard to stick together, but I just remembered all of a sudden I was on my own. And I’d somehow found my way to the bridge. I remember I was sure of that. I remember too that I was fighting a great fear, but I can’t remember what brought it on. I was wrestling with the demon of death - the deaths I’d caused, the deaths I might, the fear I held that I might one day turn on my friends in a rage or under a spell and kill them too. That I didn’t measure up to them, let alone the standards of my church. I felt defeated. 

But then I realized - you are always defeated. There is always failure - a fight you lose, death. It waits for us all, but as a warrior I KNOW this. Still, you fight. You fight for your friends. You don’t always win. You fight to do right. You don’t always win. You fight for your life. One time (more? Weird) you won’t win. And just like that, the dark hold this place seemed to have on me was gone. More than that, I was filled with a great sense of relief, almost rebirth. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. I KNEW it. Freed from so many of my fears, I let loose with a laugh from the bottom of my soul, and I remember it’s echo bouncing through the ship.

I don’t remember how, but we made it back to the Inordinate Amount. You you could tell we had all been deeply affected by that damned ghost ship. Poor Khalid - I could sense it had messed him up especially. Something was off with Basile too, but we weren't exactly talking about it.

From then on I really don’t remember anything except what I’ve been told. We kept encountering other versions of our ship - always in a horrifying state of destruction, though each in their own unique way. Then our Inordinate Amount began to go through the same strange death throes as the others. Some devilish combination of the ship and handy life warped into monsters - bits of piping, goopy bits of our goblin crew, and hooked chains swinging from these awful creations, tearing our crew mates, and ship, to pieces. Luckums said I did not hesitate. That it was the best she’d ever seen me fight but that I was badly overmatched. Still, she said, I managed to buy my mates some time. Which is exactly what I should have done.

She said one more thing. That I died laughing, and again, a broad, deep belly laugh. Which matches the only thing I remember about that fight, which isn't a memory at all. It's more like the memory of a feeling. I remember feeling a pure sense of purpose. Peace. Almost joy.

I died? Yet here I am, back on the Inordinate Amount, finding a few minutes to jot this down. So strange. And I reckon we ain’t done with the weird chain monster goop shit either. We gotta figure this stuff out, and right quick.

[…]

Sularday Eoweek Verisa, 49AI

Shroktath and Khalid wanted to go somewhere.  It was something that the old Gnome and Luckums though was important.  Whatever.  At least they were still feeding us.  My new clothes were awesome.  Also, I was happy that my wounds were healed after our crash on Asteroid Bee. I guess we left Algail behind, whatever.  I am not happy that Connor keeps following me around like a puppy. Killing him would be less fun than killing a puppy, really.

After we saw that gigantic corral-carrier called the “Signet Terrace” and they went over and back, things got weird.  The four of them seemed so different.  They got together in the common room, all alone and quiet, and sat and talked.

Shroktath:  What happened to you after we went over to that ship?

Khalid:  Well, after Luckums and I landed our spell dasher and met up with you and Basile, I thought the four of us were heading to the helm together.  I can’t recall how we got separated.  The chains and twisted horror made it hard to move around without distraction.  I was frantic to find you.  You were my responsibility, my squad, my friends and you were gone.  We were supposed to stay together and suddenly we were separated.  A squad of four separated is the kind of thing that happens in training and the instructors yell at you for carelessness.  This is not what happens to sergeants.  The mess hall was a jumble of vile horror, random debris and no light.  One moment I would see one of you and my heart would lift and then it was just a shadow; just something out of reach.  I would diminish inside.  Over and over again.  My heart was pounding so hard I thought my head would burst.  I could not breathe.  The room began to spin like when we started to build the spell dashers before the Battle of Algail but way, way worst.  So, I just sat down.  It felt safer.  I crawled under a table and that was darker, smaller and safer.  I pulled debris on top of me and made a cocoon of garbage.  That was safer still.  I heard myself say, “Now I can’t be found”…and that was alright.

Shroktath put his hand on Khalid’s shoulder and it looked like Khalid was crying.  Usually that is really cool to watch but this made me feel itchy inside.  Basile was staring at the floor but seemed like he did not know it was the floor.  That also made me feel weird.

Luckums:  But Khalid you answered my message when I called.  I said, “I am over here” and you said in a normal voice, “I am on my way”.  It was as normal as if I had asked you to pass the salt at supper.

Khalid:  When I heard your voice, it lit a light in my mind like a tinder twig.  I was a moth moving to the light.  Instinct.  Squad member…must go to my squad member.  No list of tasks.  No thinking three steps ahead.  No plan for tomorrow.  Squad member…walk to squad member.  So I stood up and stumbled through the dark.  As I walked and stumbled and wandered around, I noticed this.

Khalid’s hands were shaking but he had been holding a small leather pouch with some kind of druid-elf pattern on it.  Kind of pretty but I don’t want it.  I don't want anything from that big ship.

Khalid:  I saw this under a table and so I picked it up.  It smelled of something kind and living which was strange in that room of pain and evil.  Someone on that crew cared for some small creature, like a mouse.  It loved something and cared for it.  It was love and joy.  It was an idea I held in front of me for perhaps ten minutes but could not connect to anything else.  Then I remembered that you had taught me to command light itself into existence.   That helped.

Khalid went silent again and he looked at the pouch for a while but his hands were still shaking.  Everyone was quiet.

Khalid:  Seeing you three together before our spell dashers blew away everything in my mind like leaves.  It was one step at a time after that.  Like turning over playing cards one at a time.  Get on the spell dashers.  Flip the card over.  Fly the spell dashers back to the Inordinate Amount.  Flip the card over.  Get out of the spelldashers.  Flip.  Get a report from Coalman.  Flip.  Order the goblins to their duties.  Flip.  Get everyone fed.  Flip.  There was a million things to do but four months on this ship made it all instinct.  Next task.  Next task.  Next task. Flip. Flip. Flip.  Embrace the suck.  Next task.  Exhaustion.  Push that down.  Next task.  Shroktath taking on some of my tasks.  OK.  Next task.  Flip.  Next task.  Flip.  Time to sleep.  Yes, that is also a duty I have to complete.  Next task.  Get ready for tomorrow’s tasks.

More Inordinate Amounts all twisted with chains and hooks and bile.  We cannot let that persist.  The universe does not need this stain to spread.  Decisions.  Sure, let’s make a decision.  Board the ship covered in chains.  That seems to make sense.  Flip.  Next task.  Search the ship.  Remains of something torn apart.  Flip.  I think I can identify them.  Duplicates of our crew torn into pieces.  Flip.  Let’s go back to our ship.  Flip.  Let’s try to find the wound in wildspace. Flip.  Another twisted copy of our ship.  Flip.  Let’s board that ship.  Flip.  Battle.  I can do battle.  Monster made of parts of my crew and black chains.  Flip.  I can destroy that.  Flip.  Luckums thinks the red crystal from Asteroid B is the cause.  I can destroy that.  Flip.  No, that does not work.  Flip.  My squad is in the helm trying to solve the problem.  I will guard the door until they solve it or die.  Flip.  Shannon is torn apart by chains.  Flip.  Some version of Blaine is under the control of a puzzle box.  I can destroy that.  Flip.  These monsters just killed Shroktath.  Flip.  I destroy two of them with the cleansing fire of my blunderbuss Qabda.  Flip.  More of them remain and I have my pistol in my hand.  Flip.  It is a good day to die.  Perhaps death will silence the sound of flipping cards in the back of my head.

Khalid:  The last thing I remember is waking up and Dakota saying, “Would you rather I let you sleep?”

His hands were still shaking.

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