Narrator X: The Stagecoach glides through the weightless void, searching for the way home.

[Whooshing engine noise and folksy guitar music.]

Narrator S: They’re drawing gradually closer to the curved edge of the cosmos, the city-encrusted bedrock shell. 

Narrator M: They are attempting to chart a course in the general direction that Cleo’s lights seemed to be pointing before – though, so far, she hasn’t re-illuminated. 

X: This, combined with a certain amount of unresolved interpersonal tension between certain members of the crew, is making for a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere aboard the Stagecoach.

M: That, and the fact that the ride itself is proving to be a little bumpy. 

X: (Everett) “Whoa. Watch it up there.” 

S: (Cleo) “Sorry! I’m trying!” 

X: Cleo is buckled into the Stagecoach’s upper cockpit, attempting the role of navigator.

M: This is because their actual navigator, Micky, and their backup navigator, Tzila, are both trapped in the sun.

S: Cleo the magical compass girl seemed like the next-best person for the role. 

M: (Micky) “Just stay calm, Cleo.” 

S: To receive live navigation guidance, Cleo’s on the teletheric with Micky right now. Uh – the Merletheric. The Merlophone! 

M: Merlin was hesitant to commit to such a power-drain as a prolonged call, but reluctantly agreed to the necessity. He’s trying his best to sit passively by and just be the phone while this conversation is going on, but he does ask: (Merlin) “Don’t you have the manual, Cleo?” 

S: (Cleo) [nervous whine] “I can’t read that thing while we’re flying!” 

X: Tzila comes in: 

M: (Tzila) “Remember last time we flew up to the Ship? I had to be navigator without even having Micky on the Merlin.”

X: (Everett) “Yeah, and we very nearly crashed in the hangar,” says Everett.

M: (Tzila) “Meaning we didn’t crash. Cleo, it’ll be okay. Just listen to Micky.” 

S: Cleo lets out a big breath and tries to un-hunch her shoulders. Everyone do that now. It’s hard to focus. She has a terrible sick feeling in her stomach, and it’s not just from all the lurching. That feeling has been there ever since the confrontation with Steve. 

X: Steve has remained civil with her, if in a slightly patronizing way, but Dot… Dot still won’t speak to her, will barely even look at her.

M: If Everett and the Biological Man have noticed anything amiss, it’s kind of gotten buried under all the other stuff going on –

S: primarily that wild phone call from Merlin in which he grandly declared with startling confidence that the sun was the control hub of this entire cosmos. 

X: Cleo hadn’t really understood most of what he said, but he sounded very sure of himself.

M: Something about how the whole cosmos was like a machine, like a Foldlight, and the sun was the key to everything, and he just needed a little bit more time to figure out how the controls worked.

S: In the meantime, the most helpful thing the rest of them can do – that is, the few of them that aren’t trapped in the sun – is to determine once and for all where Cleo’s lights are pointing. 

X: The faint odor of alterbud smoke wafts up the hatchway from the main hold, intermingled with brief bursts of laughter from the Biological Man.

M: (Biological Man) [sighing] “I am now feeling vastly more at ease. I was probably getting too in my – his – head, about not using the alterbud, but Merlin’s used it for years!” 

X: (Steve) “This ‘alterbud’ is some kind of mind-altering sustenance?” 

M: (Biological Man) [giggling] “Mm-hmm. Uh, yes it is! Yes it is. I often assisted Merlin with it. Assisted… me? This. So, I think I have a facility for it, or a – what, what is the word – uh, tolerance.”

X: The Stagecoach jostles alarmingly. 

S: (Cleo) “Oh! Was that me?”

X: (Everett) “Uh, no, I’m just skirtin’ around a chunky-lookin’ blob here. Everything’s fine. S’cool.”

M: (Biological Man) “You are piloting expertly, Everett. And I don’t even feel stressed about Cleo’s novice navigational skills anymore! In fact, things might well turn out just fine! We will find the correct Delta, Merlin will rescue the trapped sun friends, and we will all use the Ship to return to our home cosmos, and no one will become dead! Existence is magnificent!” 

X: (Steve) “Ha ha, I appreciate your optimism, Biological Man. That attitude will get you far in life.”

M: (Biological Man) “Steve, a question for you: have you ever used ‘sustenance’ of a mind-bending nature?”

X: (Steve) “Usually I just ‘bend’ my own mind to produce the effects that I desire, but I think I know what you mean. The minimal level of thought that I’ve had to become accustomed to here in this realm of the Sentinel is somewhat similar to certain states of mind that my students would recreationally pursue, almost, um, like a type of, uh, casual depressant, you might say.” 

M: (Biological Man) “Everett, do you partake in alteration?”

X: (Everett) “Eh, I used to. It kinda pales in comparison once you’ve smoked a moth.” 

M: (Biological Man) “You’ve smoked… moth?”

X: (Everett) “Oh yeah, buncha times. Crazy shit. Very trans…formative. Ah, what can I say, the Mothers know how to party, am I right, Dot?”

Dot looks up from their porthole, which they’ve been staring out of into the void, distractedly. (Dot) “I’ve never seen the Mothers party.”

(Everett) “Oh, I have. It’s nuts. Once you get ’em going they cannot be stopped.” 

S: Distracted by all this chatter, Cleo almost doesn’t notice that she’s dimly glowing again. (Cleo) “My lights! They’re back on!” 

X: Ooh! Various exclamations of relief, excitement, intrigue from aboard the Stagecoach – and within the sun, from those who overhear this on the broadcast.

Everett loves it. (Everett) “Oh, sweet! Thank god – I mean, I never doubted you. Which, uh, which way are they pointing, Cleo?” 

M: Cleo’s faint bioluminescence begins to light up the navigational cockpit as the weird city skyline starts to emerge out of the darkness. Strands of flickering pink hair float weightlessly around her face.

S: (Cleo) “Um… straight ahead? A little to the… Um, which one is starboard again?” 

X: (Everett) “Don’t worry about it. Just left or right.” 

S: (Cleo) “Um, okay, sort of… right? And down a little bit. Like, down relative to the, uh, bottom of the Stagecoach, not down like toward-the-city down.” 

X: (Everett) “Oh. Okay. Oh boy, uh-oh…” 

M: Cleo hits some wrong button and a bunch of weird lights turn red.

S: (Cleo) “Oops! Shit.”

M: She un-presses the button and the lights go off, but three different artificial horizon indicators freeze up. What the hell? 

X: (Everett) “Was that you? Did you just cage all the gyros?”

S: (Cleo) “Uh… yes?”

X: (Everett) “Ah, don’t worry about it, we can’t trust those in zero gravity anyway. It’s cool. I will just, uh, reset those after we land.”

S: (Cleo) [nervous groaning]

M: Micky’s calming voice comes again: (Micky) “Cleo, listen to me. You’ve been doing fine. You only mess up when you start to overthink things. All you need to do right now is help Everett keep steady. Relax. Why don’t we chat about something else for a little bit?” 

S: (Cleo) “Something else? Uh, okay. If you say so.”

X: And, like a doctor making small talk with a patient to distract them from pain, Micky does her best to take Cleo’s mind off of the precariousness of her situation. 

M: (Micky) “So, earlier on the teletheric, I swear I heard Everett mention that you have a sword now?” 

(Merlin) “Ah, I also heard that. I apologize for talking over everyone just then, but the sunular revelations had to take precedence over casual chitchat. I assume you extruded it, Cleo?” 

S: Cleo squirms bashfully, glancing at the sword in question, which is currently strapped to the cockpit wall along with her pupating backpack. (Cleo) “Oh! Yeah. I mean, I… I saw that we had that disc for extruding bladed weapons. When the Sentinel got in, I just kind of panicked.” 

M: (Micky) “But you used a sword? Successfully?” 

S: (Cleo) “Kind of? I chopped a few of its legs off. It was getting everybody in Control one after another. It grabbed Dot, and I… I just acted without thinking.” 

X: There is, at this, a slight pause on the other end of the line. We can tell you that Micky is covering her mouth to suppress a smile while exchanging a glance with Tzila, also there with her on the sun.

M: (Micky) “That’s pretty cool. Do you, uh, have a lot of experience with swords?” 

S: (Cleo) “Um… yeah. Sort of.” 

M: (Micky) “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Why are you embarrassed?”

X: Cleo hesitates, watching the empty city loom larger and larger into view. 

S: (Cleo) “Uh, it isn’t really considered something to be proud of in my family. Guilemoths just don’t do things like this, you know? We’re a peaceful barony. We make friends, not enemies. That’s how we stay safe.” 

M: (Micky) “So then, how did you learn it in the first place?” 

S: (Cleo) “My Granny Elodea. When I was growing up, whenever there was a lot of family drama going on, sometimes I would get kind of… stressed? Or angry, I guess? Like, I would have all these bad, mean feelings that weren’t nice, and I would go off to Granny’s garden to try to feel better. And one day she just put a practice sword in my hand and taught me some drills… and it helped. A lot. I’ve never been in a real fight, or even a tournament, but whenever I needed to blow off steam, I would go practice. I practiced a lot, I guess.” 

M: (Micky) “How did your grandma learn?” 

S: (Cleo) “She fought in the Unification Wars. I’m just so used to not talking about it. I was taught to downplay it and forget it, not celebrate it.” 

X: She cracks a tiny smile.

S: (Cleo) “I always secretly thought it was kind of awesome, though. The family tried to forbid her from going. They didn’t want Ebonreef involved in any direct confrontations. But she went anyway. And she helped take down one of the Dark Barons!” 

M: (Merlin) “What a history! I’ve been meaning to make a greater study of Baronial conflicts–”

(Micky) “Shhh, Merlin! Wait, hang on.” 

X: Micky is getting more invested in the story than she meant to. 

M: (Micky) “What was your grandma’s name again?” 

S: (Micky) “Elodea. Oh, but she used a different name when she went off to war, to keep the Guilemoth reputation peaceful. Um, I think it was… ‘the Violet Fury.’ Sooo extra, right?” 

M: (Micky) “What?! Your grandma was the Violet Fury?! No way!” 

S: (Cleo) [laughing] “Oh, you’ve heard of her! That’s funny.” 

M: (Micky) “Heard of her?! She survived a one-on-one duel with Willy fucking Swinzy! She’s a legend!” 

S: (Cleo) [laughing] “I guess she WAS pretty famous to some people. But not back at home. She hung up the sword and never talked about it again… except when she was training me.”

M: (Micky) “That is insane.”

S: (Cleo) “Anyway, um. We must be getting pretty close. My lights are pointing directly down there. I think we might have to, like, land soon?” 

X: (Everett) “Uh, yeah. It’s probably time to focus up,” Everett calls up from the piloting cockpit. “And I hate to tell you this, but uh… landing is the hard part.” 

S: And yes, indeed it is.

M: And rather than narrate at length about how it goes, we’d rather just let you make your own conclusions based on the following medley of impressions. 

X: Ready? Let’s land the Stagecoach. Here goes nothin’.

[A brief, chaotic montage of roaring engines, beeping alarms, frantic crosstalk, and screaming.]

X: (Everett) “That actually wasn’t my worst landing. Second-worst.”

(Steve) “That was thrilling! I love this stage-coach.”

M: (Biological Man) “My head is spinning.” 

S: (Cleo) “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.” 

X: Everett is taking stock of the situation, and she shakes her head. (Everett) “Nah, actually, all things considered, it’s okay. This time we actually have landing gear.” 

S: (Cleo) “Oh! Uh, good! Well… we’re not as close as I hoped. Looks like we still might have to walk a little ways.” 

X: (Everett) “But why walk when you can ride?”

M: Everett hefts Ol’ Smoker’s case by the handle and depresses the activation trigger.

[Mechanical clanking and squealing.]

X: (Everett) “Lead the way, princess.”

[Hoss hooves clip-clopping continuously.]

S: Following Cleo– 

X: wearing her Princess Shiny backpack, which is bulging at the seams with disturbing yellow fluff– 

S: the small away team rides their freshly-charged bocular hosses through a new area of the city, far from the comparatively familiar territory they were mapping. 

M: There are so few of them now that they each can enjoy the luxury of their very own personal hoss – except for Steve, who, as before, opts to bound along froggily– 

S: majestically, some might say–

M: on foot.

X: You know this terrain well by now: the feel, the vibe, the abandoned Mines-of-Moria-esque dark sprawl of the city.

S: Spooky.

M: Atmospheric.

X: Incomprehensible. 

S: As the crew ride between dark geometric city-ish forms, they perceive nothing of unusual distinction, nothing any more or less bizarre than anything they’ve seen elsewhere in their dark urban explorations.

M: The Escher-maze continues feverishly, endlessly, Dyson-spherically. What even WAS this place?

X: (Steve) “It MUST have been a city, it simply must have been! Nothing else makes any sense at all to me. There must have been people of some kind.” 

S: Everett looks up from the little can of oil she’s glugging into a port on Ol’ Smoker’s back, and peers around at the shadowy sprawl. 

X: (Everett) “What do you think they were like? Not very interested in comfort or interior decorating trends or civic art, though, whoever they were.” 

(Steve) “This could have BEEN comfort to them. Maybe this was lavish.” 

M: (Biological Man) “And,” the Biological Man supposes, “perhaps, just as Steve has senses that we lack, the occupants of this place may have had even more remarkable faculties that would attune them to elements in this place far beyond our perception.”

X: Everett squints at a passing pillar, trying to glean some extrasensory insight. Alas, none reveals itself. (Everett) “What, like maybe this place is actually all decked out in tons of sweet ultraviolet paint or something that we just can’t see?”

M: (Steve) “Perhaps. But I moreso mean that totally different consciousnesses comprehend things in totally different ways. What you experience of this city may, figuratively or literally, not be what the occupants of this place experienced.”

X: (Everett) “Maybe. Or maybe they were way more like us than we know, and maybe they hated this dark uncomfortable city so much that they all left. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna live here. I currently DON’T like living here. I’m trying to move.”

S: While Steve is thus occupied, Cleo glances furtively back over her shoulder at Dot. 

X: Dot has got their classic humongous black hat back again, retrieved from the Ship, and they are riding along somberly on their hoss, looking like some kind of gothic lone rider from myth or legend– 

M: with the effect only slightly spoiled by the heart-shaped glasses. Or improved, depending on your point of view.

X: They see Cleo looking and they immediately avert their eyes, jaw set in a grim line. 

S: Cleo steels herself, then pulls back on the motorcycle-like handlebars to guide her hoss alongside Dot’s. (Cleo) “Hey, Dot. Um…” 

X: The only response is sullen silence. 

S: (Cleo) “Sooo… you’re obviously mad at me.” 

X: (Dot) “I don’t get mad.” 

S: (Cleo) “Oh, come on. Yes you do. That cat’s already out of the backpack. I know feelings are a sensitive topic for you, but like, things have gotten all weird between us because of feelings, so I’m sorry, but in order to address it, we have to talk about feelings.” 

X: (Dot) “No, things have gotten ‘all weird between us’ because you’ve been lying to me.”

S: (Cleo) “I have not!” 

X: Dot looks directly at her with those almost-black eyes. (Dot) “I can tell.” 

S: (Cleo) “I… Look. My family doesn’t give a shit if I get married or not. I’m a genetic dead end. Or I… thought I was. Anyway, what does it matter? Our relationship isn’t even like that. Can you imagine? Me convincing you to come home with me as my… betrothed or something? That would be so crazy!” 

X: Silence. 

S: (Cleo) “…Wouldn’t it?” 

X: (Dot) “Cleo, I don’t feel like talking. Let’s just get where we’re going, please.”

S: Cleo sighs in frustration, but she spurs her hoss forward. 

M: Steve is starting to maneuver back this direction, and anyway, her lights are reaching a new level of brightness. 

S: At the head of the hoss train, she shields her eyes against the sunlight and peers up above the city skyline. 

X: There – almost invisible against the darkness of the environment – a column of slow-moving fold blobs, spiraling lazily down from the sky, disappearing behind the buildings. 

S: Cleo trots forward, guiding her hoss down a long pitch-black alley, her bioluminescence blazing brighter every step of the way. She feels a warm sensation on the entire forward-facing side of her body as lights glow through the fabric of her clothing and gather in her hair.

M: There, before her, a clearing in the city, with a familiar design of eldritch importance. 

S: She suspected what they would find long before they arrived, but still, staring at that vast bottomless pit like so many others they’ve found, Cleo feels a deep blooming certainty that fills her entire body and overflows through her twinkling lights. She turns back to the others, calling to them down the alley. (Cleo) “We’re here. This is the way home.” 

X: Everett is approaching warily, astride Ol’ Smoker. (Everett) “Don’t get any closer, Cleo. Remember what happened to Hambing? And he wasn’t even glowing.” 

M: (Biological Man) “Though, that was a Fount,” the Biological Man reminds them. “It seems that the fresh, newly-arrived fold is far more tearror-prone, whereas fold that has already acclimated to this cosmos is quite tolerant of light.”

S: Cleo eyes the blobs of fold drifting downward. (Cleo) “Yeah, all the same, I’d rather not risk it.” 

X: The group and their hosses gather, taking in the ominous view from a safe distance. Everett brings Ol’ Smoker to a standstill. [Hoofbeats cease.] (Everett) “I don’t know what I was expecting. Now what?”

M: (Biological Man) “We wait. Merlin thinks that he can use the sun to…”

X: The Biological Man pauses.

M: (Biological Man) “You know, I’m not exactly sure what. But he does believe that we can use the sun to our advantage.” 

X: (Steve) “Perhaps…” 

S: Steve is gazing at the abyssal aperture with strange stillness. 

X: (Steve) “Regardless, our path leads there, and all the challenges we have faced thus far are nothing compared to what awaits us next. Traveling between cosmoses is no simple thing. I got here because I was able to achieve perfect clarity of mind and cohesion of self. You got here because you had a Fold master who was able to shield all of you from the obliteration of the passage – at the cost of his own life, of course.” 

S: Dot gazes ahead hollowly. Cleo hunches her shoulders. 

X: The Biological Man looks hopeful.

M: (Biological Man) “Surely there’s a way to achieve this without loss of life.” 

X: (Steve) “If there is, the Granddaughter and I will find it. As a man of science, I know this is hard to hear, but the solution to this problem is out of your hands. It can only be found through arcane mastery of the Fold–” 

S: He bobbles his headsack at Dot. 

X: (Steve) “–which I will do everything in my power to help the Granddaughter achieve.” 

M: (Biological Man) “Thank you, Steve.” The Biological Man nods. “We’re fortunate to have you.” 

S: Everett gives Ol’ Smoker’s flank an affectionate pat. 

X: (Everett) “If all this works, you are coming home with us, I guess, Steve?” 

(Steve) “If you’ll have me. I don’t know the way back to MY cosmos. And, to be honest… my homecoming would not be a happy one.” 

S: Dot peers at Steve, a questioning look on their face. 

X: (Dot) “Why not?”

M: Steve sighs heavily.

X: (Steve) “Ah, I suppose now is as good a time as any. There… there is something that I must tell you.” And he turns from the pit to regard the gathered crew gravely, with seriousness. “When I traveled here, it was not by choice. I am an exile.”

[Pensive, unsettling music.]

(Steve) “Though I had many students, my theories about the megacosmos were not well received by the establishment. My entire school of thought was deemed not just false, but heretical and dangerous. I was held prisoner, along with all of those who followed my teachings, and we were all sentenced to the most severe punishment my home cosmos has ever devised. It is a punishment reserved for the worst crimes. It is more than an execution. It is an un-making.

My cosmos contains just one Delta-point like this pit, like your Delta. We call it the Nadiral Basin. It is the deepest part of our world. It is an exit toward which all of our cosmos’s Fold swirls, after it rains down from the black celestial clouds, after it tumbles down our mountainsides. The Nadiral Basin is like a giant whirlpool. Into this my students and I were cast, as spectators surrounded us in the great amphitheater, celebrating. I remember my students’ screams, their pleading, as clear as if it were yesterday. Even if our executioners had somehow changed their minds, there was no escape. We had already passed the point of no return by being cast into the Basin. Once you begin that journey, you cannot come back from it.

For most, to enter the Basin means obliteration. But my students and I had an advantage – we knew that what lay at the nadir of our cosmos was not a dead end, but a doorway. The Fold’s impressionable nature could be our demise or our salvation, and the difference lay solely within ourselves.” 

S: Steve gazes at the gathered group. 

X: (Steve) “As you know, only three of us survived the crossing. Or perhaps the others survived, but were conveyed to cosmoses unknown. I do not fully understand how the Fold chooses to carry the fragments of our consciousness where it does, whether to keep us whole or dissolve us into pieces. But I do know that WE have something to do with it. The Fold can hear our innermost thoughts, even when we cannot hear them ourselves. All of this is to say – entering a portal like this is not something to be taken lightly. Finding this location, as we have now, is only the first step. What comes next… is far more difficult.” 

M: As if wracked by the drama and sheer tragedy of it all, the sun brightens in one of its semi-regular surges, and a tremor shivers through the cosmos. 

X: Overhead, the blob belt visibly accelerates, orbiting the sun with speed, and the column of fold drifting downward into the nearby pit rushes, gushing into the chasm, a forceful torrent. 

S: Pieces of the city crumble away, disintegrating into void-like powder and reconstituting back into Fold as it all drifts down into the bottomless hole. 

M: And then the sun dims again, and the rushing cascade of fold slows, and once again decelerates to a slow, listless descent into the yawning dark. 

X: (Steve) “This cosmos is dying.” 

S: Steve lays a limb on a dark wall, tracing a new crack formed by the recent tremor. 

X: (Steve) “Even at the time I arrived, I could sense this place was in its last days. Now you are here. I don’t know how much time we have left. Even if we wanted to stay here, there will soon be no ‘here’ to accommodate us. As cosmoses arise from nothing, they may also collapse back in on themselves. It is a beautiful cycle, but not one that we can survive, not as we are.” 

S: Dot’s eyes are locked on that yawning pit. They look haunted, a million miles away. 

X: (Dot) “So we have to fly the Ship down there. And if we have to fly the Ship, that means using the Foldlight.”

M: Everyone exchanges tense glances at this, knowing full well what the Foldlight also means.

S: Steve collects himself, perceptual head-bubble fixed on the slowly descending lava-lamp-like column of globules drifting down into the pit. 

X: (Steve) “And once again the Fold is barely flowing. Any escape attempt would be helped, of course, by a more healthy and constant current, a medium by which to manifest our desires.” The Biological Man perks up. 

M: (Biological Man) “A Mediun?”

X: (Steve) “No, a medi-UM.” 

S: Everett leans against Ol’ Smoker thoughtfully, chewing a curl of jerky.

X: (Everett) “Well, those sun flares get the Fold flowing, just not for very long. If we could… turn on the water, on purpose, at the right time – or turn it on a lot, or even LEAVE it on – then maybe we’d be talking.” 

S: The Biological Man squints up at the sun, and Cleo, Dot, and Everett follow his gaze. 

M: (Biological Man) “Thankfully, we’ve got people on the inside who might know what to do.”

X: He dials in his teletheric.

M: (Biological Man) “Ground to Merlin. Come in, Merlin, come in.” 

(Merlin) “Receiving you, Biological Man. Go ahead.”

(Biological Man) “If this cosmos is a Foldlight, would you say it’s in a sort of sleep mode right now?”

(Merlin) “Yes, exactly! See, the Biological Man gets it!” 

(Biological Man) “In that case, Merlin… what do you think it would take to wake it up?”