Hmm, that sounds interesting. Has your tribute basket at the front desk where you work generated these conflicts of interest, or are you using it to create conflicts of interest within the rest of government? Aha, you're adding to your skill-tree! You're now starting to conduct ideological assassinations as well as physical ones!
Conflict of interest “I have doubts,” said War. He stared across the reservoir watching small waves lap at the edge. “She—” “Xe—” “Shut up told us about what woke her, and she implied strongly that she was doing so as revenge for something. We’re in Castile, someone’s messing with the Accords… this all feels connected. And Death was here in the past, we found that monument. Giving over everyone in that hamlet to the Oathbreaker feels like part of a process to me.” “Well aren’t you just the Christmas fairy bringing sugar plums and joy,” said Famine. Pestilence nudged Scuffles and leaned down to whisper in his ear, “Miriam. You don’t hear so much about her after she had an accident on a double-diamond ski-slope back in the 1940s.” War pretended not to hear Pestilence. “Ezcaray then,” he said. “Ezcaray – do these waves look like they’re getting bigger to you?” “That’s a non-sequitur,” said Famine, but he took two steps back from the bank of the reservoir. Inside, the waves were now breaking over the hippos back, but they appeared to be enjoying it, and Hilda had stopped barking and had pricked up her ears and tail and was looking intently about her. Scuffles felt the other Incarnates reaching out with their extra senses, and tentatively tried to do the same. For a moment he felt no different, and then the world seemed to drop away beneath his feet and he felt ancient echoes of marital discord and petty feuds surge and ebb like a tide. Intention rose and fell like columns of heated water at the bottom of the reservoir and ghosts of people walked in the darkness and the murk, groping about for houses that were disintegrating into sand. The drumbeats of justice vying against conflict-of-interest swirled coldly, rising from distinct points and disappearing over the horizon in the direction that the water had come from. “Three villages,” he said, gasping like someone had thrown icy-cold water over him. He opened his eyes again and discovered that the hippos had decided to leave the reservoir and had, indeed, drenched him in the process. He dripped. “People died here,” said War. “But people die everywhere. What else have you got, boy?” “Drowned,” said Scuffles, finding other people’s memories in his head. He picked through them, startled by how clear some of them where, and how contradictory they were in the details. “Drowned… but deliberately. No warning given, just water. Betrayal, first within the villages, then again from the outside. A… wall of water that blocked out the sun and crashed down like the blacksmith’s hammer on the anvi—” “That’s enough,” said Pestilence. He laid a hand on Scuffles’s shoulder and the memories that were trying to overwhelm him receded. “It’s a reservoir,” he said to the others, keeping his hand on Scuffle’s shoulder. “It’s normal to flood villages and other parts of valleys when they make them.” “Not with the people still living there,” said War. “Oh damn, this is another of the Sleepers, isn’t it?” “Rijbka,” said Famine. “Bolshaya Rijbka, the Swimmer Beneath. There’s tea, there, sis, that Rijbka lives in a vast under-mantle ocean that connects all of these drowned and damned places and swims between them like a guard doggie. QTNA right there, right? That’s gotter be hotter than the parson’s daughter, double-nudge, double-wink, how’s yer father, need your windows cleaned guv’nor?” The waters of the reservoir parted and something started to rise out of it.
2 comments:
Hmm, that sounds interesting. Has your tribute basket at the front desk where you work generated these conflicts of interest, or are you using it to create conflicts of interest within the rest of government? Aha, you're adding to your skill-tree! You're now starting to conduct ideological assassinations as well as physical ones!
Conflict of interest
“I have doubts,” said War. He stared across the reservoir watching small waves lap at the edge. “She—”
“Xe—”
“Shut up told us about what woke her, and she implied strongly that she was doing so as revenge for something. We’re in Castile, someone’s messing with the Accords… this all feels connected. And Death was here in the past, we found that monument. Giving over everyone in that hamlet to the Oathbreaker feels like part of a process to me.”
“Well aren’t you just the Christmas fairy bringing sugar plums and joy,” said Famine.
Pestilence nudged Scuffles and leaned down to whisper in his ear, “Miriam. You don’t hear so much about her after she had an accident on a double-diamond ski-slope back in the 1940s.”
War pretended not to hear Pestilence. “Ezcaray then,” he said. “Ezcaray – do these waves look like they’re getting bigger to you?”
“That’s a non-sequitur,” said Famine, but he took two steps back from the bank of the reservoir. Inside, the waves were now breaking over the hippos back, but they appeared to be enjoying it, and Hilda had stopped barking and had pricked up her ears and tail and was looking intently about her. Scuffles felt the other Incarnates reaching out with their extra senses, and tentatively tried to do the same. For a moment he felt no different, and then the world seemed to drop away beneath his feet and he felt ancient echoes of marital discord and petty feuds surge and ebb like a tide. Intention rose and fell like columns of heated water at the bottom of the reservoir and ghosts of people walked in the darkness and the murk, groping about for houses that were disintegrating into sand. The drumbeats of justice vying against conflict-of-interest swirled coldly, rising from distinct points and disappearing over the horizon in the direction that the water had come from.
“Three villages,” he said, gasping like someone had thrown icy-cold water over him. He opened his eyes again and discovered that the hippos had decided to leave the reservoir and had, indeed, drenched him in the process. He dripped.
“People died here,” said War. “But people die everywhere. What else have you got, boy?”
“Drowned,” said Scuffles, finding other people’s memories in his head. He picked through them, startled by how clear some of them where, and how contradictory they were in the details. “Drowned… but deliberately. No warning given, just water. Betrayal, first within the villages, then again from the outside. A… wall of water that blocked out the sun and crashed down like the blacksmith’s hammer on the anvi—”
“That’s enough,” said Pestilence. He laid a hand on Scuffles’s shoulder and the memories that were trying to overwhelm him receded. “It’s a reservoir,” he said to the others, keeping his hand on Scuffle’s shoulder. “It’s normal to flood villages and other parts of valleys when they make them.”
“Not with the people still living there,” said War. “Oh damn, this is another of the Sleepers, isn’t it?”
“Rijbka,” said Famine. “Bolshaya Rijbka, the Swimmer Beneath. There’s tea, there, sis, that Rijbka lives in a vast under-mantle ocean that connects all of these drowned and damned places and swims between them like a guard doggie. QTNA right there, right? That’s gotter be hotter than the parson’s daughter, double-nudge, double-wink, how’s yer father, need your windows cleaned guv’nor?”
The waters of the reservoir parted and something started to rise out of it.
Greg - hah. Actually I just thought it would be a useful prompt in your ongoing tale :)
I'm growing rather fond of Scuffles. And Famine, of course, remains... well, Famine.
Also enjoying the back and forth between this crew. The hippos are a nice addition :D
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