>[ID: 3/10]
ID is your ego, your sense of self, how "together" you are. It is depleted by physical and mental damage, and restored by pride, compliments, healing, drugs, and a good night's sleep. You begin with a maximum of 10 ID: if you drop to 0, something bad happens. In the original quest, ID could be (and often was) spent on rolls to add a +10 modifier.
It's a knock that awakens you, not dawn, because from the looks of it it's noon already. You sit upright and sweep a matted mess of curls out of your face.
Ellery is at the doorflap, busy examining the entirety of your (impeccably clean, white) tent. You cough to get his attention, then are forced to cough again at just how dry your throat is.
Damn. How much talking did you— did he—
Damn.
"Oh," Ellery says. "Hi. Lottie. Uh..."
You pick another curl out of your eye to see him properly. He's little worse for wear, excepting a couple of scratches on his face. He's also speaking softly to you, the same way you speak to a dog before putting it down. You scowl and stifle a wince. "...I was told to tell you that Monty wants to talk. Supposed to be important, you know— official. Also, Maddie…” He reevaluates. "...Madrigal, uh, also wants something. Not sure what: heard it secondhand. But you know how she gets."
You don't, in fact, know how she gets. Your interactions with her have been unpleasant but mercifully brief. "Okay," you say.
You thought this might end things, but Ellery lingers at the entrance. Is he waiting for "thank you"? "Sorry"? "Good thing you lived"? You won't give him the luxury.
"If that's all..." You trail off meaningfully.
"...If you wanted to discuss the events of yesterday, uh, I'll be around."
"Okay."
He leaves. You collapse back onto your cot. There's blood spots, you realize, on your peacoat. Not to mention the boots. You ache everywhere. You— the crown. The Crown. It's not on your head! Where—
?It's somewhere safe.?
Richard sounds slightly different. Like he's coming in at a different angle, or something.
?We ought to talk as well, by the way. There's quite a lot to go over. See if you can't carve out an hour or two out of your busy, busy schedule.?
>[1] Go find Monty. However flimsy the man is, he's still nominally in charge of the Base Camp. Which means his official business is, in fact, official.
>[2] Go find Madrigal. If nothing else, it ought to be more interesting than any other conversation you have today.
>[3] Catch up to Ellery. You need to know what happened, immediately, from an outside perspective.
>[4] Speak to Richard. When are you leaving this hellhole??
>[5] Damn them all. Your head hurts. You need time to yourself. (Regain ID.)
>[6] Write-in.
"Busy schedule?" you say. "I'm not meeting with anybody. I'm never going to see these people ever again, so why bother?"
?Ah.?
"Right?"
?Right, right, yes. Sound reasoning.?
You scrub fruitlessly at the bloodstains, then give up and unbutton the coat altogether. "Okay, then."
Richard twists diffidently in midair. ?I think,? he pursues, ?this should be done in... person.?
It takes a second. "What, in my— why? Is that possible? Normally?"
?It's possible. It was a bit of a fad last year, actually.?
You're not sure what to make of that. "Oh."
?There's a guided meditation process, but we can skip most of the steps. Listen...?
He tells you to sit up, to close your eyes, to count, alternately, up and down. You sigh and mutter and begin to wonder if this is an elaborate exercise in driving you insane. That is, until you plummet through the cot, plunge down an indistinct tunnel, and land in a heap, quivering like a plucked string.
It's cold and musty, though considerably cleaner. You pick yourself off the sparkling marble.
Richard, lounging against the font, is in a better suit. You say so. He arches an eyebrow. "I adjusted a couple of things while I had the chance, since clearly you weren't taking the prerogative. Like the shoes..."
The ellipsis is clearly meaningful. You look down at his shoes. "They're snakeskin," you say. Snakeskin-patterned, at least: the material looks like patent leather.
"Yes! Don't you like it?" He's smiling wolfishly. His teeth are too white and too even. "I presume you get it, though it may be advanced for your little— "
You bite your bottom lip. "They're tacky."
In retrospect, you could have estimated the impact of this (true) statement, but not its magnitude. His face clouds so wholly over you couldn't begin to imagine what it had just looked like.
"You're not going back to the surface," he snarls. "Not for a long time. Maybe not ever."
Well! Your heart is in your throat. Well— he's lying! It wouldn't be the first time. He's just mad you insulted his shoes, so he's trying to scare you. How petulant. How petty.
"Maybe— maybe— you could've, if we had the juice. We do not! We do not, because for twenty years a pile of lizards has been pissing it away! Sixteen crystals. Do you know how much that is?"
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"I think I have to sit down," you murmur. You know this tone of voice, too. You're not going back.
"No-o, of course you don't. Because you're a child! You have no conception of value! Your greatest ambition in life is to make your dead daddy proud! How romantic! How noble!"
You cradle your head. It all seems very distant. You're not going back. "You said you wanted to help me... I found you in a, a, a box, and I told you about... you said you wanted to help. Didn't you want to help?"
"I—" He softens a fraction. "Yes. Well. You have to understand. If the goal is the same, does the motivation matter?"
You scrub furiously at your welling eyes. You're not going back.
"I never lied, you know," he says, as if it improves anything. "At the start, you know."
"Oh."
"You could've been a god, Charlie. If the Crown were full. The sheer concentrated power of it, I mean— it'd melt you from the inside out. You'd peel open."
You sob shakily.
"In a good way! A good way. I mean, what would you possibly want to keep?"
You sob harder.
He's beginning to sound uncomfortable. "Look, we can... we have the Crown. We can still recharge the whole thing... Godhood's on the table, Charlie, it's just further away. Hasn't it been three years already? You could stand another two, or three, or—"
He doesn't understand! Your despair curdles. (Has the light from outside dimmed?) He has never understood! You sniffle furiously and clamber to your feet. "I don't WANT to be a god!" you holler. "I want to LEAVE! I want to be the GOD DAMNED QUEEN!"
Richard stares. And then he says: "Well, Charlotte, beggars can't be choosy."
React with:
>[1] Blinding fury. Your future is coming around your ears, and the person tearing it down is in front of you. Smirking slightly.
>[2] Frantic denial. He's wrong. He's not just wrong, he's utterly mistaken. You would've *known* if your family's crown were apotheotic. And he hasn't proved anything! He's just saying things! He has to prove it!
>[3] Shellshocked nothing.
>[4] Write-in.
Richard's not smirking, exactly, but the air of satisfaction about him is almost the same. It's like he thinks he's done a good job— or has at least pacified you.
He's lying!
Well, of course. He can't possibly expect you to believe some cockamamie story about ancient artifacts and godhood and whatnot. Those are in books, not in real life, as he's taken great pains to remind you. Meaning it's all made up to... scare you, or manipulate you, or all those other things he likes to do so much. "Okay, then," you challenge (with only a fraction of shakiness), "If my crown is so powerful, why aren't there a hundred gods running around? Why isn't everything just a smoldering crater? Why—"
Richard trails a hand in the water behind him. "Do you want the story, or the answer?"
You freeze. You didn't expect to get this far.
"Let's go with both, then.
“Once upon a time, there was a king, and the king ordered his sixteen fleetest soldiers to bring him the sixteen purest crystals in all the land. And they did. And he ordered the crystals to be made into a crown by the finest goldsmith in all the land, and they were. And he ordered law to be woven into its prongs by the finest skientists in all the land, and it was.
“And he put the crown on, and the fabric of reality was bent and warped to his will. The king brought absolute order to the land. And all was well."
Your legs are beginning to ache, but there's nowhere to sit. "What, that's it?"
"You're always so impatient, Charlie." He pauses. "And then the waters of chaos rose up around the king, and swept the crown off his head, and drowned him. And he, and it, were lost forever."
You sit on the font anyways, at a decorous distance from Richard. "Was that supposed to answer any of those questions?"
"Not really."
You trace circles in the water, which tingles under your fingertips. "Then..."
"There's only ever been one owner, and he died, and his empire was swallowed up by the ocean. Anyone who discovered it down here was too weak to survive it."
He sees the next question on your lips. "Not you."
You have to admit it, this is more elaborate than you thought. But there's still a big gaping hole in the story. "You've never said— you keep saying 'law'. Like that means something."
A flicker of confusion. "...We've discussed this, Charlie. More than once."
Aha. This you can safely confirm as a lie, because you have not discussed this at all.
"Four kinds of reality? Defined by the malleability of the Law? What, are those words too long for you? Went in one ear and out the other, again?"
"No—" but now that he says it, it does sound vaguely familiar. The lectures you didn't listen to, maybe. "Well, I didn't think it would matter."
He stands abruptly, back to you. "Everything I say matters."
"Your shoes?"
This was, potentially, the wrong course of action. Richard's jaw tenses. "I think," he says, "since you won't listen, I'll have to demonstrate." He pivots. His snakeskin shoes squeak on the marble. A ring of keys clacks in his hand.
(You wonder how they all fit in his pocket. It's an extraordinarily crowded ring of keys, with each key so flush to the next you're not sure how they're usable in a door.)
"What are these?" he says.
You try to think your way around this trick question before giving up. "Keys?"
"Yes. But why are these?"
You squint. They are, to all appearances, normal keys. "Because someone... made them?"
"Wrong!" he hisses. "There are two Laws dictating its existence, and one dictating its value. The first is the universe, and it says 'KEYS MAY BE'. The second is the key, and it says 'I AM A KEY.' And thus these keys exist. The third is you, and it says "THAT IS A KEY". And thus you know."
You watch in bewilderment as he selects a key and draws it out through the ring. "But you are in the third kind of reality. Laws can be broken."
He thrums open air with an outstretched hand. He thrums strings that gleam rosily in the sunlight— but there are no strings there. It's open air. He seizes on no string with one hand, and wields the key with the other. "What is this," he asks.
"A key?"
He violently wrenches no string. There is an absence of a snap.
Richard holds something small and metal in his hand. You've seen it before. You've seen many of them before. You knew what it was.
"What is this?"
But you don't have an answer.
>[1] Demand he put it back, now. Whatever 'it' is. And however that works.
>[2] Sorry, why does he know this?
>[3] Can *you* do that??
>[4] Has he done this to you before???
>[5] Flip out.
>[6] Write-in.
permitted for a proper lady. As we all know, of course. You wouldn't blame her for it, would you?
What is Richard holding at the end of the chapter?
