Damwise looked through the deck and discussed a few options with Silva. They'd agreed that the Empress should be the first card, then the Tower because they wanted to enter a tower, and Damwise was making a case for the Devil as a third, because of the ruby that had opened above the exit and because the castle occupied a space outside of the normal game, just as the god Acarus had been killed and trapped outside the normal order of the world. It was a sensible argument, and wrong.

His answer was an exercise in storytelling, and I could have told any number of alternative stories by selectively using the data at hand that would have been equal to his. But he was the one with a pair of hands, and he was the one setting out the first card, and Lawlimi was only watching. They didn't know any better. What would happen when they gave the wrong answer?

Perhaps nothing, though that was unlikely given the nature of Challenges in general. Sashimibandit's assumption that the statues would come alive to slaughter the party was not out of the question. It could be anything—a curse, an XP penalty, or a psychic assault. Bemoi was known for obliterating the minds of those who failed or refused her.

The second card was in place, and a third in hand.

"Stop."

Damwise gingerly replaced the last card on the deck. Silva stepped away from the altar and drew her flamberge. Sashimibandit ducked out of the chamber entirely, and Lawlimi looked confused.

"You're about to place the wrong card," I said.

"Who's talking?" Silva demanded.

"Apologies, my name is Hollen."

"You're not Hollen. You have his voice, but no one answered when I tried to ask Hollen a question before. Show yourself!"

"I'm afraid I cannot, for I have no corporeal existence. I am a bit of an anomaly, actually. And I apologize for not responding to your earlier query, but I had no answer. I do not know who made this place, or why, or what's in it because it exists outside of my … the universe."

"It's a trap!" Sashimibandit yelled from beyond the outer arch.

"Forgive me, spirit," Damwise said, "but how do we know you are not a part of this place and its defenses? The denizens of this fortress have proved unwelcoming so far."

"Well, I can answer any question you would expect Hollen could answer, but that wouldn't prove anything but that I have access to Mythopedia. Please allow me to explain the order of the cards and you can decide if I am correct, or if I am deceiving you."

I took them step by step through my analysis of the statues, how many markers were present for each of the Twelve, and Damwise went about confirming my observations. As a player, he was deeply invested in the mythos of Mythopoeia, and it was clear he had been won over. Silva was less enthusiastic.

"That doesn't explain what you are, or why you're here."

"It's because of me," Lawlimi said. The strain of his injury was plainly weighing on him, he looked ghastly. "Hollen, this Hollen, has been following me around ever since I got ganked by an NPC in Aegis and sent to Fallow. He's the one I've been talking to." He drew in a sharp breath, and his stump was shaking slightly. "I think all of this is my fault, but I don't know-how. Something went wrong with my upload. I'm a Resident Player, a fish, and weird crap keeps happening around me. I'm sorry you are all a part of this now. It's not fair to you."

"Fuck a duck," Silva muttered. "I'd stab you, but it wouldn't help. Damwise, do whatever you think is right. I'm over my head in this kind of Challenge. I was elected to lead, not to read."

"As you wish, Lady Ravenwolf." He returned to the altar, picked out the two cards he had already played, and searched for Temperance in the deck.

"Hollen," he asked, "what do you think about the order?"

I was ambivalent. If we conceived of our choices as being between the build paths the cards could be used to generate, there were twenty potential combinations of Direction, Element, and Hue to think about. But it appeared that we were selecting cards as themselves, not making decisions about their potential affinities, and focusing only on the cards allowed six possible outcomes (ETeTo—EToTe—ToETe—ToTeE—TeToE—TeETo). We simply could not know what kind of story we were telling, any card position was open to interpretation, so it was tempting to simply order them in terms of their symbolic prevalence in the room. Empress, Temperance, and Tower. If that had been a draw during character creation, it would have resulted in something like this:

Mystery Puzzle — ????

South — Fire — (Yellow/Brown/Ultraviolet/Blue)

The player would have to select a color from the Tower bifurcation. That arrangement assumed a developmental order, Mortal to Celestial. However, we could alternatively link the most prominent clues to the most powerful spheres, generating a reverse order: Tower, Temperance, then Empress.

Mystery Character — ????

(North/West) — Fire — (Ultraviolet/Matte Black)

Rather than presume an answer, I explained the quandary in full and had a lengthy discussion with Damwise about the nature of affinities and the signs of the affinities the castle had displayed thus far. Why didn't any of our card selections represent metal as an element option, for example, even when the complex itself and these statues were made entirely of brass and iron and steel?

"How is any of this helping?" Silva complained. "I'm glad you two are insta-friends, but it sounds like you aren't getting anywhere."

Sashimibandit had wandered into the statuary, lulled into a sense of security by the circumlocutions of two scholars.

"We have meandered somewhat in our discourse," Damwise said, "but I believe Hollen and I have settled on the best option. The Tower, then Temperance, and then the Empress."

During our conversation, Lawlimi had picked out the cards he remembered from his own initiation into the game world.

Justice ... A goddess garbed in leaves and striped like a tiger, blood vivid at the corner of her mouth. Sing levels a rib bone on one fingertip, a playful gesture. This was not the justice of a magistrate; it was nature's means of establishing balance in an ecosystem.

Hierophant ... A huge man wearing a stained apron and wielding an empty mug as if it was a scepter of office. One of the most powerful figures in the cosmos and yet he has been denied a name. The shelves behind him are filled with glass bottles all flooded with dust. Hush, a title rather than a name, he has many of those, is like Sing in that he represents the natural procession, from life to death and back again.

The Fool ... An initiate, a talented student rejected by society or otherwise living apart from norms. Here a reptilian Therian, shunned by mankind.

Wheel of Fortune ... The bifurcation. The Wheel can take many forms, but it always leads to an upheaval that may end in good or ill. Mog brings war, but also revolution and a strengthening of those that remain when the fighting is done. Acarus is both the all-devouring and all flowering god, the worm that was cut but continued to grow.

A player's cards can tell their story, but so do the choices they make as they play. Lawlimi set the cards down in a small stack on the altar, then spread them in a single smooth motion.

"What are you doing?" It was already done as I put myself in his ear. The others didn't notice anything had happened, and for the space of seconds (3 of them), nothing did.

White light flooded the chamber, and the statues were no longer made of brass, but gold. It was not a visual trick; I watched their elemental compositions realign.

"The fuck?" Silva brandished her weapon, saw Lawlimi at the altar, and charged him.

Sashimibandit sprinted for the entrance to escape the room before whatever bad thing was going to happen happened. Damwise looked befuddled.

My friend didn't resist being tackled by the scarlet barbarian, she grabbed him around his neck and threw him down from the altar. If she had been trying to hurt him, his head would have cracked open on the floor, but she was getting him clear.

>>

(Grapple (Takedown) Successful)

>>

The cards and the deck looked untouched, all neatly back in place. I hadn't seen it happen because it hadn't happened, strictly speaking. When the lights bloomed, the deck was reset in its starting position. There had been no transition. The ruby above the exit watched them sleepily, and the door opened with the sound of a tinkling bell, revealing a hollow silo and a ladder leading up.

"Is it a trap?" Sashimibandit shouted his question from the other end of the nave.

"Huh," Silva said, unequipping her sword and helping Lawlimi back to his feet.

"Did you do something?" she asked. The assumption was obvious that he had played the cards, but she hadn't seen him do it and nothing remained on the altar to give him away.

"It felt right," Lawlimi was still in bad shape, but had stopped shaking for the time being. "It should have been hard for me to find my cards like this," he gestured with his one good hand, "but they made it easy. The deck made it easy. I flipped it over and they were there in order. My cards from the start of the game. It just felt right."

"You laid them out?"

"I did."

"You could have screwed us."

Lawlimi shrugged.

Silva's face flushed with heat. "This place is serious. It's not like the rest of the game. If you act again without discussing it with me first... I'm going to kill you."

Damwise came between them. "My lady, there's no need for threats. The puzzle is solved, and we are through. We should be celebrating."

Silva looked directly over the dwarf's head. Lawlimi nodded, and she took it for acceptance.

>>

Challenge Completed — The Statuary

You have discovered the key card combination to reach the Command Tower.

The Tower — Temperance — The Empress

What does this combination signify for the future? The tower warns us of the destruction of old institutions, or perhaps commands us to destroy them. What to make of Temperance, that there should be wisdom in how you choose to deal with the past? Does the Empress lie waiting for you at the end of all things?

(Lawlimi gains 210 XP)

(Silva Gains 200 XP)

(Damwise gains 210 XP)

(Sashimibandit gains 200 XP)

(Sashimibandit has enough experience to advance in level)

(Lawlimi has enough experience to advance in level)

>>

"That was the combination I suggested," I said. It was not the one Lawlimi had used to open the door. This was an unfinished instance, perhaps there were bugs.

"Whatever." Silva dismissed the prompt. "Let's keep going."

The silo was an empty shaft large enough for a dragon to dive down, though not to spread its wings fully and fly. The ladder was fit for human proportions, and it ascended hundreds of rungs to meet a large hatch in a rounded ceiling.

Lawlimi couldn't climb, so Silva hitched him via a hemp rope, and he followed under her in a sort of reverse rappelling motion. Her strength was high enough that he wasn't a significant burden, and they were the first to reach the hatch. A series of levers and switches resided in a recess along with another ruby eye. It flickered in Silva's direction, and the entire dome began to turn with a din of grinding metal and protesting gears. A blast of cool air entered the silo, whipping back Silva's hair, as the dome broke its seal and lifted.

"Looks like we're welcome," Silva said, and climbed over the lip of the hatch, towing Lawlimi.

The Seat of Command was a pentagon with the silo at its center. It looked like the hermitage of a giant artificer. The chairs and tables were at Silva's eye level, along with dozens of machines and mechanisms of admirable ingenuity, devices for communication and enhancing the sensorium of the user. A window ran the circumference of the tower, too high to view comfortably, but there were a few stools for mortals to see the rest of the complex. The most striking feature of the room, however, was an emerald vat and the massive amethyst rising out of the floor beside it.

Lawlimi tried to untie himself until Silva took pity and did it for him. He went to the vat, drawn by the woman floating in a pale green gel. She was Lawlimi's height, with black hair and canted green eyes. Whoever had put her, or grown her, in the vat had not expended a lot of energy on her attire. She was clad in strips of white cloth, banded from shoulders to ankles, and so about half-dressed at best. The band around her significant bust would only function for decency's sake with a liberal application of fantasy physics.

>>

Lili Maw — ????

West — Fire — Matte Black

>>

She was my affinity prediction exactly. How satisfying.

"Close your mouth already," Silva said, and Lawlimi snapped out of an engrossing ogle. "Come look at this crystal."

It was a massive, pulsing amethyst, at least a third of which was buried in the tower superstructure. The inside thrummed with channels of carmine and black aura in a complex network that I recognized as a visual representation of a mind. This was the AI behind the red eyes.

"You got any prompts?" Silva asked.

"Nothing." Lawlimi moved to touch the crystal brain, then hesitated.

"Good boy," Silva said, and touched it herself.

Her body went rigid.

"Child of the Maker, long have I awaited you." The mouth was Silva's, but the words and their modulation belonged to something else. A chorus of voices, low-quality overlays that suggested a programmer had started blending a composite but never finished smoothing the edges.

"Uh ... hey," Lawlimi said. "Is Silva okay?"

"Perfectly, she is aware of everything that happens here. She will soon regain control."

"Can you get us out of this region? Silva and the others really need to log out."

"Simplicity. You must pilot the ship Eternity to return to Mythopoeia."

"A flying ship? Will marvels never cease?" Damwise and Sashimibandit were climbing out of the hatch, and they came directly to the crystal.

"How do we fly the ship?" Lawlimi asked. "Where is it?"

"Eternity is here, where the Maker laid it to rest. To fly it you must awaken the pilot, Captain Maw. She rests beside me."

Sashimibandit whistled. "Hot Fifth Element get-up. That's so old school."

Lawlimi cast him an annoyed glance. "Can you let Silva go and offer us the quest? We need to talk about this as a group."

Instead of answering, the entity released Silva and she pulled back her hand as if it had been scalded. Her face was tight, and her eyes flashed with anger.

"Fucking poltergeist took over my body. Its Ego was way higher than mine."

"An ancient daemon," Damwise said. "We will have to be cautious in dealing with it."

>>

The Ship Called Eternity — Celestial 1

This is a multi-part quest. A mysterious being has offered you a way out of this strange demi-plane. Awaken the sleeping pilot by seeking out the Herald's Kiss in the dungeon levels of the castle and activating the Unbound Engine. Once the Kiss is added to Maw's suspension solution, she will be able to pilot Eternity. The dungeons are home to numerous rogue machines and eldritch creatures that have never been seen in Mythopoeia before, and if you lose your life, your spirit will not travel to Fallow to be reborn. Be wary.

Reward — Escape from the demi-plane. 9000 XP

>>

"Jesus Christ," Sashimibandit said. "I was right. If we die down here, we're trapped in our skulls"

"You can't be sure about that," Silva said, but she didn't sound confident herself.

"So, what do you think," Lawlimi was cradling his forearm. "Do we try this? It's a celestial quest, so I would mostly be a tourist."

"Nay, humble hero. Already you have brought us through one Challenge and were instrumental in a battle far beyond your skill. I, for one, will be glad to have you with us."

"I'm tempted to smash this crystal, but this place is handing us an out. It doesn't matter how crazy it is. We have to do it, all of us."

"Shit." Sashimibandit agreed.