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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7899486" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 254, Part TwoAnother Kind of ChainNo sooner had she been freed from the Vault of Heresies, the demoness Ashima-Shimtu was tracked down by Nicodemus. He told her she was free to roam his new world unmolested, free from domination. After all, he had her to thank for everything.  Were it not for the Ashima-Shimtu’s offer of the sacrament of apotheosis five centuries ago, the Obscurati would never have been formed; the people of Lanjyr would never have been freed. She was escorted at all times by a pair of ghost councillors who were to ensure that no one accosted her. The only restriction Nicodemus placed on the demoness was that she must under no circumstances travel to Axis Island.So Ashima-Shimtu went to Cherage, thinking to witness the glorious new age in the mastermind’s seat of power. Thus far she thought it seemed closer to the rule of the Demonocracy than the rumoured perfection of the celestial heavens.While Ashima-Shimtu was in chains, she indulged in the idea of abandoning her evil nature and pursuing some form of noble redemption, but the demoness was having second thoughts now that she actually had the option to enjoy malevolence again. Her first taste of freedom in centuries was tempered with the cloying moral imperative of the Obscurati’s new world order, and she was uncertain if she actually had any choice in how to act.She also found herself oddly affected by the propaganda that was present everywhere in Cherage. The Obscurati’s master of propaganda Gardienne du Cherage, had implemented a widespread campaign to teach the people of Danor the proper way to live in the new world, and slogans adorned the streets of Cherage, on posters and in newspapers:“Visit Your Local Library for Detailed Tracts on the Proper Way to Live.”“You Need Only Ask! The New World Will Provide.”“Create Progress! Aid Your Fellow Man.”“Reject Your Greed. Your Community is More Important Than You.”“Know Your Talents. How Can YOU Best Help?”“Is Your Neighbour a Threat to Order? Be Brave! Report Him.”“This is the Best of All Possible Worlds.”Struggling to understand her place in this world, Ashima-Shimtu followed thousands of other confused and yearning souls to the Cherage Rail Enclave. People knew that this was where undesirables went when they were to be carted away to the ‘re-education centres’. So prevalent and affecting was the Ob’s propaganda that many citizens had been filled with despair. Wishing to no longer be a burden on their community, they wanted their government to kill them.The enclave was cast in a dull brown light, as a wayfarer lantern had been added atop the clock-tower. Enclave guards lined the edge of the platform to keep suicidal citizens from flinging themselves onto the line; disconsolate people crowded the streets, pressing forward to board the next train and be disposed of for the greater good: Yerasol veterans who never fitted back in to society following the war; single mothers whose children had died; orphans who had no one to guide them; desperate drug addicts who, perversely, were now helped by anyone they ask to help fund their habits. All of these people saw the ‘inspirational’ propaganda and determined that the way to help their fellow man was to cease to be a drain on society.Ashima-Shimtu, wrapped in a fine robe of red silk, sat on a rooftop beside a withered old tiefling woman who went by the name of Ruby. Ruby shivered from fey pepper dementia. She became dependent on the drug to lift her spirits when the sun disappeared, but a few months ago when Av was shattered in the Gyre she could no longer get glimpses of the Dreaming. Normal life was too mundane for her to tolerate, and so she took ever increasing doses of the pepper, hoping to recapture the high that would never come. Instead, every time she smoked she would hallucinate that she was lashed with chains and pulled in a thousand different directions. This struck a chord in Ashima-Shimtu, and she wished to help the woman, though she did not know how.  For the time being, she kept her close by, while she scrutinised the chaos all around her:Gardienne du Cherage had now come to the enclave, and stood at the top floor of the clock-tower in front of the lantern, shouting at the suicidal masses, trying to undo the psychological damage she had inadvertently wrought. Ashima-Shimtu was fascinated to hear what the tiefling woman would say – these tieflings were an intriguing breed, she thought – so she was somewhat irked to see an invisible figure floating over the heads of the crowd and entering the ground floor of the clock-tower.  It was another tiefling, whom she recognised, and his actions promised to disrupt Gardienne’s big speech…Leon had woken up under a sheet behind some pallets in a disused warehouse in the dockside area of Cherage. He went out onto the street and tried to get his bearings, and figure out where it would be best to head. There were a few people around, but they couldn’t see him – or so he thought. A woman dressed in hoop-skirt, holding a parasol, despite the lack of sun, with a veil over her face and long gloves on her hands, walked right up to him and said, “You’ll find the lantern fuel depot in the clock-tower at the rail enclave.”Taken aback, Leon scrutinised the woman and saw that she was composed of densely packed and intertwined rats! His surprise at this must have been loud enough for others in the telepathic network to register, as Uru replied, “El Extrano formed them into a hivemind and bribed them with cheese. Don’t you remember?”Slightly mollified, Leon decided to follow this tip-off, and thus found himself at the enclave, where he determined to enter the clock-tower and disrupt the fuel lines if he could.It didn’t take him long to figure out how to do so, but the depot was full of guards who might notice what he was up to when the valves started to turn.  There wasn’t much he could do about the noise, but he plastered the illusion of an unmoving valve over the real one while he gingerly turned it (all the while wondering why they hadn’t thought to do it this way before).Just as he was tightening the valve, there was a sudden noise behind him, and he cried out, as hooks imbedded in his flesh. Instinctively, he tried to teleport, but could not, and so found himself yanked bodily out of the depot, over the heads of the crowd and dashed onto the rail-line where he was pinned to ominously vibrating tracks.Above him, chains writhing all around her, hovered the demoness, Ashima-Shimtu.Despite his pain and fear, Leon studied Ashima-Shimtu for hivemind possession, and could see no sign of it. Before she could strike again, he cried out a reminder that it was he who had freed her from her prison and allowed her to go on her way.“A train approaches,” said Ashima-Shimtu, “Time is short.   Why do you disrupt the workings of the Obscurati?”Human geopolitics must not have been her strong point.  Before Leon could reply, Gardienne du Cherage gave the order for her troops to open fire on whatever the demoness had pinned. The bystanders could not see him, but could clearly see that the demoness was focused on something, and her writhing chains told them exactly where he was. Immediately, Ashima-Shimtu hissed at them like a wild cat and flailed her chains in their direction, catching a couple with blows sound enough to floor them. Gardienne du Cherage belayed her order and the demoness turned back to Leon.Leon used all his wiles and powers of persuasion to convince Ashima-Shimtu that all of her doubts and fears were due to this flawed, sunless world, which was not a world in which she could experiment with free will, and the power not to do evil.  He and his friends – who had parleyed with her in the past and freed her from the vault – were now trying to fix what the Ob had done.  Whatever Nicodemus might have told her, this was a mistake, one which he had no right to make and even less right to fix. (As he spoke, the rail lines began to thrum all the more urgently…)Ashima-Shimtu nodded.  “What the mortal says is right, Ashima-Shimtu sees that now, and for that she ought to free him and let these factions settle their affairs for themselves. Indeed, she would do so, were it not for the fact that she knows the man who speaks these words is a LIAR!” She pulled herself close and spat that word into Leon’s face, inspecting it for signs of the word she had carved into it many years ago. “Ashima-Shimtu will let the train do its worst.”At that moment, Quratulain spoke telepathically to Leon: “Leon, if you are able, I need your help.” She began to fill him in on the precarious situation in Alais Primos, blissfully unaware of his equally dire predicament. Meanwhile, Ashima-Shimtu sniffed the air about him, as if searching for the source of this voice, which she could apparently hear. She seemed perplexed, suddenly full of doubt.  As Quratulain finished her explanation, the demoness said, “The prisoner of ages recognises her cellmate. She desires to speak with her. The liar must bring her here now.”Leon was desperately trying to focus on two conversations at once, all the while conscious of the growing vibrations in the tracks beneath him.  He told Ashima-Shimtu he would do what he could, but quickly let Quratulain know that he did not have a quick fix for her.  He could not think of a magical solution to her problem, or figure out how to get there without becoming subject to the same effect.  But he passed on Ashima-Shimtu’s message, that she wished to speak with Quratulain. Quratulain understood why at once (although she did not know that her sundered self had chosen to bond with the demoness, her feelings here on Lanjyr were very much in lockstep). But she had been dragged out of her duplicant shell by the Ob’s lantern, and could not swap with Leon, even if she wished to.All of a sudden, a powerful blast of lightning struck the bell from above, smashing the lantern to pieces. Before reaching out to Leon, Quratulain had only half-heartedly made an appeal to the powerful father of her unborn child, never imagining he would hear her, let alone respond.  But now he had! The Father of Thunder had reached across the sea and struck the bell from above. The purple light winked out. Suddenly, Quratulain and Aulus Atticus – and all the souls in the area around the final lamp – were snapped back into their bodies; in Quratulain’s case, her duplicant.Sounds of sobbing echoed through the streets all around her, as the people of Alais Primos were freed from the hivemind and unified by their shared out-of-body experience.Quratulain didn't care about any of that.  She told Leon what had happened and they agreed to switch – for him to come to Alais Primos and for her to go to Cherage and speak with Ashima-Shimtu.</blockquote>

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