Spirits in the Material World

[Brian]

Din nods, taking something from the pack and putting it in his mouth.  He grimaces, but offers some to Bjorn as well, before following the guard.

The guard nods wordlessly, marching quickly through the corridors.  Light spills in from outside, numerous shutters left open to allow the illumination within.  Outside, from this height, Bjorn glimpses distant mountains, a smudge of forest, a blue smudge that may be water, simply unable to reflect sunlight that isn't there....

Shortly, the bridge is reached.  The corridors all run to one end of the ship or another, and the bridge is nearly at the very prow, though set low enough to offer a commanding view below.  Windows stretch from just above Bjorn's head to curve away below, vanishing below the grating that makes up the floor.

The Captain has a seat in the center, surrounded by speaking tubes and instrumentation.  Eight other seats probably represent command posts for various stations, each hosting a technician in uniform who is intently studying the gauges and dials there.  The techs occasionally whisper a command through their own speaking tubes, or adjust the dials slightly.  Two other seats without the benefit of a console are near the Captains, one of which is holding the colonel and another of which is holding the anabarist.

Directly ahead is a large magnifying lens -- probably a meter across -- currently focused on a mirror that's relaying an image from ... somewhere.  It looks like a forest, with a plume of red smoke.  "Greetings," the captain says, eyes fixed on the column.  "Master Bjorn, I'm sorry if your rest was disturbed; do you know the importance of this signal?"

[Bjorn]

Still chewing on... whatever it was Din gave him, Bjorn looks at Din quickly.

[Brian]

Din squints.  "I believe the Church men use that as a signal," he says slowly.  "But that eye shows something far away.  I do not know what it means; I know nothing that burns with red smoke."

The thing that Din handed Bjorn was some sort of anise-tasting root.  Something of a bitter aftertaste, and a slight headrush, too.

"Aye, I guessed it might be that," Captain Vega murmurs, running fingers through his beard.  "The question is involvement.  Is this territory where your friends live?"

"The trees?" Din replies, almost laughing.  "We live in the plains.  The trees all belong to the Churchmen, now."

[Bjorn]

Bjorn rubs his jaw thoughtfully.  "If you could take us a bit closer, Captain, and let us see a little more, I'd be quite appreciative," he says, slowly.  "While I understand you have a rightful desire to be circumspect, I have a bit of a concern that the Church might be choosing to steal a march and start their invasion before the time they promised is up.  If we could see any more, check for any sign of armies or the like, it wouldn't be something to pass up lightly."

[Brian]

"We'll get nothing from here," Captain Vega says with a shake of his head.

The colonel grimaces.  "Let's get a closer look, Captain.  As you see fit."

"Very well."  He reaches for his speaking tubes and barks out a long string of orders into various of them:  "Raise anchor!"  "Brace for movement."  "Steady rise."  "Prepare thrusters for one quarter brisance."

Then he nods to one of the men at the controls.  "Helm, I want you to follow the orders from observation."  Now the sounds of the ship at work begin to echo about; the giant anchor chains slowly winching up.  "Observation, try and keep us hidden in the clouds -- we're going up, but I'm happiest keeping well shy of the Shroud.  Weapons -- I want you to be prepared, but not obviously; stop armament rotation and give me a standard canon ready to bring to bear on either side, with a charged brisance projector topside where it can't be seen."

"Understood," the crew replies from their stations, eyes fixed on their controls.  At that, the bridge explodes into activity, everyone focused on their dials and speaking tubes, and dozens or orders are relayed from the consoles to the rest of the ship.

As the Stareflare begins to drift upwards, Captain Vega says, "Most interesting day I've seen in the last three years, I can tell you that much."

[Bjorn]

"I imagine," Bjorn replies politely, "that whatever novelty the Shroud had to offer you grew thin after the first year or so."[/list]

[Brian]

The anabarist snorts at that.  The Captain nods, offering, "I'd really rather get fresh supplies first, but if these people mean to do away with those who we would trade with, well....  Best act responsibly."

"On the other hand," Hugo muses, "this could be a vulnerability of the churchmen of some sort -- perhaps a distress signal, not a call to battle."

"Then I'm curious to see what they're frightened of," Captain Vega counters.

After that, silence rules the bridge for a period of time, the only noticable changes being the ship's movement, and the location of the magnifying lens -- which switches to various mirrors, all of them showing startlingly clear views of the grasslands below.  As for movement, the most of it is up, initially, until the helm heads into a cloud bank at observation's direction.

This causes the optics to become muddled and harder to see, but doesn't eliminate them entirely.  Some more time passes, before the clouds begin to clear, and the magnifying lens flips around, reflecting off (now) a series of mirrors before showing a thin woods, not quite a forest.

From overhead, the trees provide surprisingly little cover.  The mirror seems to be fixed on a largish group of men in cloaks, with no shirts.  They have reddish, almost brown skin -- if it weren't for the sweeping cloaks, they might blend into the clay and fallen leaves below them.  There's a man in normal clothes with them, along with a stumbling priest.

"This lot," observation announces, unasked, "seems to be separate from those going towards the smoke signal."

"Interesting," Captain Vega muses, rubbing his chin through his beard.  "And ... are these thralls, then?  Pushed through Gateways?"

"They're as uniform as those convicts that the King's father sent to Hathoway," Hugo says after a moment, squinting.

"What do you make of it?" the Captain asks Bjorn and Din.

[Bjorn]

"Almost nothing," Bjorn admits candidly.  "Nor do I think we'll be able to figure out much more from here, unless something should happen.  Getting closer might be a poor risk."

[Brian]

The ship is brought to a halt, theoretically hidden in a passing cloud.  Vega makes a hand-gesture, and observation swings the mirror/lens array around.

Shortly, a number of churchmen and Templars (unarmored, but left in the batting worn beneath their plate) are picked out, making their way towards the smoke.  At the source of the signal, a lone, anxious looking priest awaits, and nearby a number of horses are tied to a tree.

"Wait," Captain Vega says, shaking his head.  "That's not right.  Those men lost their armor, eh?  Where did it go?"

"Sir," observation replies.  "I ... think I have it."  The view swings around again, now showing a heap of armor peeking out from the edge of a leafy tree branch, near the amassed thralls.  In the center of their crowd, one of them appears to be in conversation with....  And then it clicks for Bjorn.

One of those 'thralls' is Tom.  The man in plain clothes is Phil.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn considers for a moment.  "Captain," he says eventually, "do you think it would be possible to pick up the group of thralls?"

[Brian]

Captain Vega blinks, looking at Bjorn askance.  "Seems it'd be difficult," he says.  "I suppose we could level enough of the forest to get the ladder in place, but there's no question about it -- no way to do it subtly."  Observation begins scanning around for reasonably level areas without too much tree cover.  "Friends of yours?"

Din looks to Bjorn at this question, and says nothing.

The colonel taps his fingertips together.  "We'd be taking a substantial departure from our assigned mission," he warns.  "I'm not unwilling, however.  I'd simply like something in exchange for the obvious risk of revealing our presence to the church.  Namely, assurance that we could navigate back to Anabara with your assistance."

[Bjorn]

Bjorn nods at that.  "A reasonable request," he replies, "especially as there is little point in collecting them if we can't make it back to Anabara.  And so, if you'll pardon me...."

With no further ado, he concentrates, reaching out for a spirit of the void.

[Brian]

"Oh, my," Hugo murmurs, as space dimples.  None of the other crew seem to see the effect, but take it at face value that if their anabarist can, it must be real.

In the meantime, the same void spirit that Bjorn spoke to last time reappears as summoned.  "As I am summoned, I arrive," the spirit says the same chiming, breathy voice.  "From beyond the shroud, I am called.  We know you, shaman.  Do you wish to bargain again?"

One of the men at the stations, the one controlling the mirror/lens arrangement, Bjorn thinks, says, "The men are moving; some of them have horses.  Not sure where they're headed yet -- looks coreward."

[Bjorn]

"I would, O spirit of the void," Bjorn replies in Japanese -- just in case this conversation should get sticky.  No point worrying the crew.  "This thing that I have received from you I would move, to take it to the sphere that men call Anabara, but our foes lie between us and the Gates.  Should you consent to aid us, I would have this thing again pass through the Shroud, and then from there into Anabara.  This is no minor favour that I ask, I know.  What might I offer you, O spirit, that you would lend us your might?"

As he starts the bargaining, though, his mind also reaches out.  The anchors are... strange here, reaching out not through what he is beginning to be able to see as the Fire Dream, but out of it, to be lost in the Dream of the real world.  In the real world, following the anchors to their source to tie them into the dream that is his awareness is a trivial task.  Here, though, it is all he can do to chase a single anchor, following it as its thread winds from the Fire Dream through to the real Dream, only to wind back and return in a different place.  There is a bit of an irony in the fact that it was easier to do in the Earth Dream, where he had no idea what it was he was doing.  

But he does succeed, and touching Philip's mind, he whispers, You probably want to stay in place for a few minutes.

OOC: 15 CP of Influence gives me a one-person-at-a-time Dream Voice (5 CP any one mind, +10 CP no LOS needed).

[Brian]

The void spirit shimmers for a moment, simply hanging in the air.  When it does speak, the crew starts, turning to look for the source of the voice.  "Passage through the void disrupts our harmony," it murmurs.  "Our contemplations of Sun and Luna become disrupted.  However, we are grateful to you for your assistance, and will agree to do this thing -- in exchange for your sight while within our realm.  Your perceptions will be added to our own, and perhaps repair the damage done to our contemplation.  Is this bargain agreeable?"