Clockmaker

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======Session 10======

This session was played on 30/08/2025. [[pc:clark_dubois|Clark]], [[pc:gaia_dynko|Gaia]] and [[pc:maelle_kurimoto|Maelle]] explore the same timeline in which [[npc:Ariyadna]] killed three rigasian convicts, and find her to be surprisingly helpful.

======Plot======

Clark, Gaia and Maelle come back to consciousness in the middle of an african plain, right where [[session:9|Session 9]] ended. As they come to their senses they find the recently deceased rigasian convicts.

As Clark and Maelle search the dead people's backpacks, Gaia decides to build a shallow grave for them, but the combination of the events of the previous session and the mangled corpse of [[pc:Steve]] are too much to bear and she ends in tears and pulled into the world comfiest hugpile that is 90% giant wolf.

Emotionally exhausted, they decide to have lunch using some of the rations that they found and ponder where they are and where they can go; they decide to follow the notes left by [[pc:zoe_curie|Zoé]], but are spooked by some kind of portal phenomenon that gives Maelle a headache and produces strange visual effects in reflections.

Following Zoé's notes they find a military patrol in the road, that seem to be confused by them (they *look* like those new pale people that they were warned about but they come with one of the anagusi giant wolves). They manage to communicate a bit with charades and four of the soldiers escort them to a fortification in a hill where a lot of the locals have taken refuge.

As Maelle and Gaia go around the fort trying to learn stuff, and in particular bothering people to teach them a bit of their language, Clark goes to clean up in a small river and finds that his massive usage of his gift during the previous day has changed him to the point that his face looks quite femenine now. He manages to avoid having a panic attack by mostly repressing and rationalizing some of the stuff he learned from [[npc:Riung]] and Amanda.

During the night, Maelle is again woken up by another headache, then they hear terrified screams coming from the moat. Checking the outside they discover a pale shape emerging from the moon's reflection that screams in pain and fear. Gaia tries to shoot it, to Maelle's consternation, but the shoot has no effect.

Maelle goes down and tries to help whatever the pale shape is, and Gaia decides to don the glove and look, discovering this is an anagusi woman, probably trapped sideways on time by the portal event caused by the rigasian counterattack. Amanda believes there's no helping her and that the best that can be done is to dispense a quick death.

The night is saved (supposedly?) by the arrival of Ariyadna, who grabs the anagusi woman with her bare hands and twists her back to her right place in time, causing Maelle (who is still feeling the full effects of her emotions for the first time in decades) to devolve in a full-blown gay panic.

When discussing the arrival of Ariyadna and what she can mean for the general situation, the conversation drifts for a bit  and a still emotionally volatile Maelle confesses that she is an [[thing:aberration]], to the confusion of Clark and Gaia whose only concept of an aberration is the things from the zones. Derek, though, believes that the longing for skewed reality is something that the anagusi call "being eternity-touched" and is basically something shared by all of them, since they haven't resided in regular timelines for a long time.

The idea of skewed timelines becoming dominant  is quite scary for Clark and Gaia, since their only point of reference is the [[place:nuskom#zone|Nuskom Zone]]. Gaia in particular goes to sleep angry.
======Cast======

* [[pc:Clark Dubois]]
  * [[pc:Gaia Dynko]]
  * [[pc:Maelle Kurimoto]]
  * [[npc:Ariyadna]]
  * [[npc:Amanda]]
  * [[npc:Derek]]
  * Patrol Leader
  * Patrol Soldiers
  * Fort Wardens
  * Fort Refugees
  * Time-Trapped Anagusi Woman

======Quotes======

* //As Maelle wakes up, she notices that she is indeed "in that zone mood".  She can feel the thrumming of the universe. The sound is in the edge of her perception, she can almost hear it.//
  * //Also there's a fucking giant wolf standing over her licking her face.//

* **Clark**: Oh, right; yesterday happened.

* **Derek**: Ree-gasia slaves then? Caught in the conflagration against their will?
  * **Gaia**: What's Chinflagration?
  * **Amanda**: They mean a big explosion.

* //Gaia end sittig with Maelle and Giant Wolf. Also Amanda, who looks a bit scared for Gaia. She ends exhausting her tears in the giant wolf hugpile.//

* **Clark**: (having discovered that some army rations have cheap canned fruit) Damn, we are gonna eat like kings.

* **Gaia**: Derek says thanks.
  * **Derek**: Have you granted me a name, little speaker? I never had a speaker name; I will bear this one with pride.
  * **Clark**: So his name is Derek?
  * **Gaia**: It is now.
  * **Maelle**: I would've named them something like Wallace.
  * **Gaia**: Too late.

* //Maelle attempts several times to find someone who will play charades with her to build a starting vocabulary of whatever these people actually speak, but most are already kinda jumpy and a lot walk away without making eye contact. In the end Maelle manages to start playing charades with one of the soldiers, who came to see what the fuck was happening.//
  * //Gaia has a more chaotic time because people tend to see her as "borderline kid trying to play" instead of "grown-ass woman with a sword".  People taking her less seriously is both positive and negative. In the end she plays charades with a bunch of younger kids.//

* //Clark stops and takes a moment to breath deeply. He's thinking about what this means for his future, he's thinking of the words of Riung, he's thinking of the words of Giant Amanda, and he's thinking that this will not stop, that there's nothing that he can do, and that the best way forward is to not think a lot about the consequences, and to learn enough about the power to maybe be able to go back.//

* //As you look, something pale comes out of the reflection, looks up at the gathered people, and screams.//
  * **Maelle**: Is it alright? Maybe it's in pain---
  * **Gaia**: Can I shoot it?
  * **Clark**: Yep, I'm shooting too.
  * **Maelle**: W-what the hell are you doing? It's not attacking!

* //Gaia puts on the glove. The entirety of the fort becomes AMANDA; the moon in the sky is one of her eyes, and the reflection in the moat is the other.  And between them, you see the pale shape; it's no longer a weird pale shape, it's an anagusi woman writhing in pain, twisted in time, trying to get out to get back to reality.//

* **AMANDA**: OH, LITTLE ONE, THAT ONE IS BEYOND ANY OF YOUR FRIEND'S CAPACITY TO HELP. SHE HAS BEEN CAUGHT IN THE TWISTS OF SPACE AND TIME WHEN THE RIFT WAS FORCED CLOSE. A MERCIFUL DEATH MIGHT BE THE BEST YOU CAN OFFER HER.

* **Ariyadna**: Okay, what the fuck happened here? Is that an anagusi twisted in time? Holy shit, what are the guys on your side of the sky doing?

* //Ariyadna stands for a moment in front of the screaming anagusi woman, then leaps in a very weird way that makes absolutely no sense; it's as if she jumped sideways on time. Then she grabs the screaming woman, and twists.//
  * //Then you all hear the sound. You feel like the entirety of the world sudders, and then there's no more aberration screaming, just a woman holding another shivering woman.//

* **Ariyadna**: That stings like a whore with two jaws!
  * **Maelle**: …what?
  * **Ariyadna**: You know, two jaws. One in each pair of lips.

* **Maelle**: (in the middle of the biggest gay panic) um… sorry but could you please carry the body? I'm really weak.
  * //Ariyadna holds out a hand and the body floats out of Maelle's hands.//

* **Clark**: Derek, what's your story? How did you end meeting us?
  * **Derek**: My litter was spawned in preparation for defending Kesizma from the Ree-gasia.  We grew and trained and prepared for that; but no training would prepare us for what the Ree-gasia actually are.

* **Derek**: (interrupting Maelle's attempt to explain how she is an aberration) Ah, she is the only one of you touched by eternity.
  * **Maelle**: Wait, what?
  * **Derek**: for millenia anagusi have lived in their caves, away from regular worlds. This has left in them a mark: the have a longing for the freedom of time beyond time and space beyond space.

* **Derek**: Anagusi do not live in regular timelines; they abandoned most of them long ago. But they took bits of firmament and folded them into caves, then formed those caves into caravans that they call constellations, and travel between actual timelines where they meet with others.

* **Gaia**: Zwosta will be covered by the zone too?
  * **Derek**: Home always changes, but it is still home.

======Trivia======

[[pc:Rose]]? What Rose?

Clark and Gaia are non-discriminating enough to find rigasian army rations quite palatable.

Clark is confirmed to be a magical trans girl. Still cis, though.

Also confirmed that people are still using radium in the rigasian timeline to make glass that glows green in the dark.

According to Derek, a gifted might be able to strengthen their gift or a non-gifted might be able to be granted a gift by petitioning [[place:Umichoo]] for it, but the price will be steep.

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