Ms0 9

Peter|GM: AN UNKNOWN LOCATION, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN,
Peter|GM: An unmarked Imperial corvette cuts its engines. It cannot weigh anchor, here. Its crew is minimal and it flies an ordinary flag of trade.
Peter|GM: Only a glimpse at the cargo bay inside would reveal the nature of the voyage: All storage, all gun-housing, all cargo machinery and every berth has been shorn away to contain a sealing chamber, triple-warded and sextuple-hexed, in which the spirit is sealed.
Peter|GM: A magical barrier separates that being from the Empress.
Peter|GM: She is attending to this personally.
Peter|GM: "You are thinking," she says. "You will be able to escape." She wipes sweat off her brow and a pained look off her face.
Peter|GM: "You will not be capable of doing that."
Pica-Y-Mata sits in the chamber, cross-legged and hands behind his back. His gaze follows the Empress. She's right. The point where struggle would have mattered is past. Right now, there's only patient, seething anger.
Peter|GM: She runs a hand over the ward. It lights up with white fire as her hand draws near, threatening to burn her to a crisp. She looks through it, at the silent spirit.
Peter|GM: "Is it a cliché to say that I think we have an amusing amount in common? It cannot be coincidence."
Pica-Y-Mata: "We're both predators, but we cannot both be at the apex. I may not be able to escape." His scorpion-tail flicks, the stinger repositioning to point at the ward. "But I'm sure I'll merely outlast the mechanism that binds me."
Pica-Y-Mata: "Something along those lines?"
Peter|GM: "Is it the nature of a predator to outlast? I have studied you, I have studied what you are at length." She glares, at the tail, at the tail's owner. "Those who know your kind are tremendously unhelpful. But there was, in time, enough. The If-ys cannot be weighed down - they need only abandon themselves, and they are free."
Peter|GM: "But you are proud," she says, filling herself with gloating triumph.
Peter|GM: "You will be trapped, the predator of the almost apex, forever."
Pica-Y-Mata: "Forever?"
Peter|GM: "Long enough." She gestures to one of the few crewmembers. He throws a switch.
Peter|GM: He is very surprised when the first charge blows a hole through the cargo bay.
Peter|GM: Water begins pouring in.
Pica-Y-Mata: "That's fair."
Peter|GM: "I am fair," she says. "In most things."
Peter|GM: The crew panic. Racing about. Running to lifeboats, turning to the Empress, calling to her in alarmed words.
Peter|GM: From her coat, she produces her grimoire. She fans the pages, and speaks: "Rossa Oon" , the magic words, and she steps through a vast, vast distance -
Peter|GM: And the ocean swallows up the scorpion-spirit.
Peter|GM: They say that…
Peter|GM: …
Peter|GM: They say that there is a light at the bottom of the ocean.
Peter|GM: THE LIGHT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN.
Pica-Y-Mata does nothing, for now. There's nothing to do but watch. Nothing to do but count transgressions and each grain of sand in the hourglass. Each moment of wasted time to seek recompense for, if he emerges again.
Peter|GM: The tide of silt, the underground sand-currents that define and redefine the flow of the ocean, shape and reshape the way the watery grave of Pica-Y-Mata sits.
Peter|GM: Once, there was a whale-fall - a great carcass, dropping from far above, a harvest festival for scavengers and algae and corals.
Peter|GM: It was very, very exciting.
Pica-Y-Mata iterates through myriad forms throughout his imprisonment, each time seeking a way to escape. A gaseous being. A donkey-headed turtle. A thousand spiders, moving as one. This persists, for a time, at least. A short time, relative to the period of malaise and resignation that lasts far longer than that initial flurry.
Pica-Y-Mata: That constant feeling in the back of his head. Or lack thereof. There's light at the bottom of the ocean, but it's gone from his heart now, extinguished.
Peter|GM: Even the greatest canyon one day will be filled. The flow of sand and sea eventually brings the abyss closer and closer and closer until -
Peter|GM: A steel coffin falls and falls and falls, drifting from far, far above.
Peter|GM: It smashes into one of the holds of the wards, and the rusted corvette gives way.
Peter|GM: The shell of crimson flame flickers and vanishes and dissipates.
Peter|GM: They say that a miracle is…
Peter|GM: …Heh, who cares?
Pica-Y-Mata doesn't. Or won't. Not for even longer, at least.
Pica-Y-Mata: Eventually, though, the long forgotten flame of a transgression ages ago rekindles itself.
Peter|GM: …
Peter|GM: THE DECK OF A FISHING BOAT THAT HAS CAUGHT A VERY STRANGE FISH,
Peter|GM: Pica-Y-Mata, netted.
Peter|GM: A human peers over him.
Peter|GM: "Are you alive?"
Peter|GM: "Are you a god?"
Pica-Y-Mata: "Yes." He answers only once, and doesn't specify which.
Peter|GM: He pauses. He hesitates. "…We'll drop you off at Leviathan, if that's alright by you."
Pica-Y-Mata: "That name is unfamiliar to me."
Pica-Y-Mata: "Does the Empress yet live?"
Peter|GM: "Do the Hundred come numbered?" He says, reflexively, like it were a rote punchline, and then he catches himself and -
Peter|GM: "Yeah, yeah, she's… she's alive for sure."
Pica-Y-Mata: "The what?"
Peter|GM: "The Hundred. Like, the beastmen. Soldier-types."
Peter|GM: "I mean, not anymore, but… but stories."
Pica-Y-Mata hooks his tail through the fabric of the fisherman's shirt, just near the neck, and yanks it down to bring him eye-level and hiss in his face: "Do I -look- like I've heard any stories for the last few - "
Pica-Y-Mata: " - however long it's been?!"
Peter|GM: He blanches thoroughly, the other fishermen on deck cowering away, and - slowly, carefully responds -
Pica-Y-Mata: "All that matters is that the pleasure of finding her and taking back what she owes me is within reach." His pupils dilate, and tendrils on his back sprout, soon stretching out into wings.
Peter|GM: "We will get you to a port,"
Peter|GM: "And find you a historian-"
Pica-Y-Mata retracts his tail, wings, any other appendages, and pulls back. "My thanks."
Peter|GM: He drops.
Peter|GM: The rest of the voyage is very…
Peter|GM: polite.

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