BUTCHERED TONGUE

NIGHT ONE ROLL: Miner: 3 ; Things: 6 Item used: +4 — a blanket Miner: 7 ; Things: 6

Of course, of course the fucking company wouldn’t even give a breath of a mention there could be any sort of things with TEETH that are on this planet. Sure, okay, sure. Maybe we should have expected at least a little bit of it — but who in their right fucking mind establishes a colony for a outdoors resource gathering thing when they know there’s things out there that ant to eat meat?? WE’RE made of meat! Fuckin’— Jupiter’s balls, they can’t honestly believe that was a worthy tradeoff? It’s fucking metal for sentient lives!

The attack on my inhabitant dome — sleeping quarters no less, fuck! — I want to think saved me from at least immediately being eaten. I threw my blanket onto the thing’s head and just fucking ran. I grabbed my rucksack and I ain’t have much but fucking hades it beats being immediately meat.

I need to calm down. I’m going to stop being able to breathe if I don’t. And then I’ll just be a fuckin’ meal platter for it.

Thank fuck they at least didn’t cheap out on the drugs.

NIGHT TWO ROLL: Miner: 2 ; Things: 8 Item used: nothing Things table: 4 — They destroy the homemade explosive

Sweet fuck I almost got chomped tonight. Those things have huge fucking teeth. And there’s more than one of them. Fuck….

It managed to hit me and knock the homemade explosive out of my hand before I could actually use it. I’m bleeding but it’s not too bad yet.

I’m pissed I didn’t get to take out one of those fucking things with the explosive though. Fuck.

NIGHT THREE ROLL Miner: 5 ; Things: 2 Item used: nothing

I avoided them today and I’m glad for it. The fucks on the radio said they weren’t going to be here for another few days.

I hope I can last that long.

Again, fucking thankfully the company didn’t skimp on the drugs.

NIGHT FOUR ROLL Miner: 1 ; Things: 9 Items used: nothing Things table: 4 — They destroy the rucksack

I’m going to lose my fuckign mind here.

They got their teeth far too close to me for comfort. There’s more than just fucking one of them. Like what the actual fuck?? Pack tactics?

Why in the gods names did they ever send us out here? There is no point in mining for this fucking metal if we’re just becoming an all-you-can-eat buffet for these things!

They took out my rucksack. I’m just glad it wasn’t my spine.

NIGHT FIVE ROLL Miner: 2 ; Things: 9 Items used: nothing Things table: 1 — They wound you.

Fucking things primed for an attack. They waited. They knew I was looking for other people. How goddamn intelligent are they? They fucked up my back after they exposed it. They’re not just going for opportunity as it stumbles across them.

They’re hunting.

NIGHT SIX ROLL Miner: 6 ; Things: 10 Item used: +5 — a decoy Miner: 11 ; Things: 10

They might be hunting but I’m not a sitting fucking duck. Stupid things went for a decoy.

I set it up with some of the meat from others I found. They weren’t lucky enough to avoid them. They got turned into meat. Meat and fat and blood.

I’m terrified they’re going to get me.

Thanks again, corpo, for the drugs.

NIGHT SEVEN ROLL Miner: 6 ; Things: 10 Item used: +6 — a pocket knife Miner: 12 ; Things: 10

I’m going to fucking die here.

Those things must have tailed me from touching that meat. They had to have known it was me. Fuck. FUCK.

I got one real good with my pocketknife — right in its milky eye when it tried to stick its head in my hiding spot — but it took off with it still inside. So now I’m down my goddamn knife.

When the fuck is that rescue brigade getting here?! It’s been a lifetime.

NIGHT EIGHT ROLL Miner: 3 ; Things: 12 Item used: nothing Things table: 4 — They destroy an item that you have. (Hiding spot)

They can communicate. The one I stabbed had to have told the others where I was hiding.

A couple came back and I couldn’t do anything but run. They fucking found me. They hadn’t for some long and now they found me.

I’m going to die here.

GAME END ROLL 2 — rescued delayed.

NIGHT NINE ROLL Miner: 5 ; Things: 3 Items used: nothing

The fucking rescue was supposed to be here already! What the fuck!

Did they lie to me like they did when they sent me to this fucking rock?!

Stupid bastards made the radio make so much feedback noise before they started relaying any information. Like they were trying to get me fucking killed! Fuck!

If they don’t come tomorrow I’m loading up on what corpo makes available. If I’m going out I’m going out with Bacchus.

GAME END ROLL 6 — rescue arrives!

I thought I was seeing things when I saw those assholes finally make it to me. The sounds of shots just sounded like those things were scrambling toward me.

If anyone fucking asks me if I’m okay I’m going to bite them myself.

FIRST DRAW: THE PAST: 9 of Diamonds THE PRESENT: 9 of Spades THE PROBLEM: King of Hearts

ATTRIBUTES: GOOD: 3 QUICK: 3 UGLY: 3 GUN: 0

THE PAST — THE WONDERS OF MODERNITY A triumph of science and a wonder of engineering. The new world is here on display. Look at it! It dazzles. THE PRESENT — THE BATTERY Boom, boom, boom! That mighty sound like thunder. There is artillery firing, but on what? THE PROBLEM — THE HERMIT He is a steward of the land. He walked down the same road as you, once, but turned away.

This town was always supposed to be the cradle of ingenuity — if there were anything new coming to anywhere else in the West, it was started here along the great screaming metal and men who knew only how to fight with their tongue than anything else effective.

Words fail, however. And they fail often.

No matter how gilded these men’s tongues were, they were blinded by their own insatiable greed. Perhaps there ain’t much difference between an old outlaw and these new snake-oil men. Big difference only in that at least outlaws are honest about the blood oil-slick against our hands, and have proper dust inside our lungs from our choices.

Nothing like these stuffed-to-burst men in suiting fabric ill-fit to the landscape. They just as soon throw a child to their machine as they would drink water after a hard ride if it meant they was able to get one more dollar inside their heavy pockets.

Yet ingenuity is still what they call it. Gilded shit is still shit.

If these so-called innovators were so above the rest of the town, why’d they not anticipated their so-called ‘lessers’ would have no qualms with piercing them with the same metal and rust that they fed them and their children into? Stupid bastards.

There’s a distant pop of revolvers even before riding into the town limits. The sounds of violence punctuated with the whizzbang of bullets shooting crooked. Ingenuity abandoned for familiar violence. No need to be any good at aiming when your targets are many. Damn those who could get in the way. This was for the people, not the pigs.

I wasn’t even a quarter mile from the first right proper building on the skirts of town when an old man waved his dirty hat in dirtier hands at me and Fern, trying to get me to stop. Fern, always a stubborn horse, refused to move further once she saw the waving. Fine.

“What d’you want, Hermit?” There was no courtesy in my voice, the gunpowder grit had worn sympathy out of my tongue. “Can’t you see I got business elsewhere.”

His ruddy face looked grim even as he smiled. If he were a handsome man when he was younger, he certainly wasn’t anymore. A glint of silver or tin showed in his teeth. “You keep going this way an’ you ain’t gonna have none more business, boy.”

“Why should I care what a sack of ol’ bones like you says?”

A sharp, barking laugh. “I almost turned out like you, boy, but I left that life when I were still young enough to have anything else to live with.”

My mouth twitched. Wiry, greying facial hair stabbed into my cheeks from the grim expression. He’d gotten out. He’d gotten out of what I stayed in. The lifestyle — or whatever they fucking sold it as now. The old West way of living that chews you up and spits you out alone and broken. Leaves you to limp into the darkest part you can find yourself to die without dignity or legacy. “You’re assuming a lot about a stranger you ain’t talked to more than a few words, Hermit. You ain’t know a think about me.”

“You all turn out the same way.” He put his disgusting hat back over his white hair. “You all die alone an’ overflowing with regret.”

Another flurry of shots echoed from the town. Rhythmic. An execution.

My shoulder ached with an old injury. “What are you even trying to accomplish, old man?” There was motion in the doorway and the shadows in the windows of the hermit’s home moved as well. “Guess not much a hermit.”

There ain’t no way to describe his smile as anything but malicious, fat and excited that he was able to possess something I would never get. “I said I got out while I had something else to live with, boy.”

White-hot anger flared in me. In ways I ain’t felt in a near-decade. “Y’know I started down this path all ‘cause my daddy just couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut either, old man.” In a smooth, terrible, well-practised movement, I drew my pistol and shot him. “Got shot dead right in front’a his family too.”

The bullet flew more crooked than expected. I’d aimed for one of his wrinkled eyes to get through the yolk of it into his brain and kill him fast. But why should violence go the way you want it to? It hit him clear in his neck. The blood spurted out with force every time his heart pumped. His wife screamed from the porch, their children and grandchildren running hard out of the house. The ground bloomed more and more with blood.

Dark, angry eyes rimmed with red charged toward me. “Don’t turn into your granddaddy, boy, or you’ll die like him too,” I said before I jammed my spurs into Fern.

Whizzbangs from barely taught marksmen flew around me and Fern, and her pained whinge when one grazed her thigh was the only shot they managed to land.

I don’t need anything from ingenuity. That old man needed to die.

I’d rather sleep in a ditch than get soft like a whore’s bed.

The stiff cloth my uniform was made out of was ill-suited to the oppressive heat and dryness of the desert. The starch felt like it was seeping out of the fabric and into my skin. It wasn’t supposed to be this long to travel. The calling for sandstorms had the majority of my brothers in arms uneasy to even start.

But we had to go. The higher-ups said it was critical for our home’s victory that we continued this mission, though they weren’t able to go themselves. They said our home was depending on it.

And now most of my brothers are lost.

Not even dead — just… lost. Their bodies swallowed by the sands. I hope at least some of them were lucky enough to get out, but I am hesitant to even wish for that hope for longer than a second.

I don’t have much in the way of supplies. My canteen can’t have more than a half-day’s worth of water in it, and even that tastes gritty from the encroaching sand. A compass is useless if I don’t know where I’m supposed to be heading, especially with its accompanying map long lost to the storm. A torn blanket, a piece of short metal making a sorry knife, and this journal.

A sorry state of supplies. We should have been allowed better preparations if this was as important as the higher ups were making it out to be to us. I wonder if they knew this was a Hail Mary of a mission, since none of them volunteered their own feet to take it.

FIRST VISION: Rolled 3; 3; 1; 2 At the Eternal Twilight, you arrive at an Antelope’s Carcass, a Scorpion, tough but ruthless, watches you.

I’ve run out of water. The canteen got a lot more sand into its seal than I originally thought. I tried to drink from it and got a mouthful of sludgy wet sand. Cruel.

I wonder if this is punishment from the gods for fighting amongst ourselves… if this is some way that they want to force us to behave. A cruelty for a cruelty.

The night is so cold.

Twilight didn’t seem to leave this place. Cold and sparkling — deep aubergine and Prussian blue, sand and stars glinting like well polished silver buttons. I feel tension sitting underneath my skin. A taut feeling, like my emotions are simmering just under the lid of a pot.

My feet continue to walk. The sweat in my once-shined boots squelching against my feet like my nightmares of the trenches when I was a younger man. I didn’t think I would ever have to feel that place again. I can almost hear the slosh of the muck in that filled those hellish lines as my feet continue to move forward.

The smell of rot hit my nose, and it took me a moment to realise it was not a memory.

How could there be a rotting antelope’s carcass this far out in these cursed sands? Was it another poor victim of the sandstorms’ cruel games? My eyes slide over the carcass that looks far too wet to for how dead the animal is. Its wide, dead eyes stared into mine, its face split.

I saw my friend’s face in the trench — hit dead by the cheap materials we had been given to reinforce the trench wall bursting into shrapnel we couldn’t have anticipated from an artillery shell. He’d been laughing and joking only a few minutes earlier, and in an instant those bright brown eyes were dull and bloody and wide from the surprise of death. I was covered in my friend. I couldn’t patch him back together. What use was I? What use was my fucking training if I couldn’t even do that? We weren’t old enough to see death like that, no grown man should see death like that, but certainly no teenager.

A small, jewel-green scorpion crawled out from inside of the carcass. Filaments of gold threading through its carapace, looping in constellations. It shone so bright in contrast to my dead friend — cutting through what I saw to show just the carcass of the antelope.

I didn’t notice I was sobbing until that first heaving of air.

The scorpion stared at me. I felt its eyes watching, and its tail twitching and ready.

There was no care for the lost life it was standing on. Squared up to me in a display of terrible survivalism. It lived and my friends died.

Wars like this weren’t for the the betterment of citizens, they were for those that didn’t know the rot of trenchfoot, of the slick inside your jacket that you can’t tell if it’s rain or blood or a festering wound finally weeping. They only thought of how to move chess pieces, they didn’t care if their machinations caused young men to expel their own lungs. They wanted glory without sacrificing anything of their own.

ROLLED 3; passed the Trial. Found water.

My eyes didn’t leave the scorpion until I was well past being able to actually see it. A soldier’s truce on no man’s land.

I thought it was another cruel trick of my eyes when I saw the spritz of grasses and the water. Gods, I was so thirsty. Carefully, my raw throat managed to whisper out a ‘thank you’ to whoever had allowed me to come across this water. My canteen carefully washed and refilled, water cupped in my cracked hands and held to my lips. I drank and I thanked the gods again.

Though I wished I could stay, I knew I had to keep walking.

SECOND VISION: Rolled 1; 1, 1, 3 In the Cold Night, you find The Jackal, cunning but opportunistic, climbing a Dead Tree

The night changed the oppressive heat of the desert to a bone chilled cold. It scared me. I remember the cold and the wet, I could feel it still sticking to my skin even though it was only a memory now. I wrapped the torn blanket tighter around my shoulders.

The gnarled dead tree stood solitary in the mass of flat sand. Bleached white as washed bones. It didn’t seem a place to rest, at least not to me.

Glinting eyes of a fire orange and coal jackal peering down from one of the natural resting spaces in the juts didn’t startle me as much as I expected. It looked unnatural just like the scorpion. My heart is being weighed in their eyes.

It wasn’t forcing the deadwood into a shape of its fancy, it was taking the situation it was given and making it work for it.

The coal colour of its fur spitting out from where I could see it nestled in the tree forced the memory of the soot and screaming machinery. It turned everything dead and grey in its path. Before this war, when I was just a young boy, I thought metal was always cold. It didn’t make sense that metal could be hot and screaming if it wasn’t the molten glow from the blacksmith.

Men and metal don’t mix.

But, I guess, we can only work with the situation we have. Our brothers can’t be lost for nothing, we can end with fewer limbs lost if we can find the right way to do it.

ROLLED 4; passed the Trial. Stars show the way.

Rhythmic blinking of the constellations above me caught my tired eyes — they were dragging my mind to follow them. This must be the way I need to be going. I must follow them.

THIRD VISION: Rolled 2; 4, 4, 4 At the Bright Sunrise, you see two Gerbils, nimble but weak, fighting amidst the a Dry River.

The light hurt my eyes. It was so unrelentingly bright, my eyes felt scorched inside their sockets. The pain stuttered my focus. I tripped into the desiccated river before I ever saw it.

Two small, enraged rodents were fighting each other. Screaming at one another and trying to rend blood from the other.

I felt white-hot anger — hotter than the baking sun and the piercing spit of the sand. Violence seeped to the marrow of my bones. Don’t they know they’re on the same side? Shouldn’t they want to work together to survive in this forsaken place? Why don’t they understand they’ll both die killing each other and the vulture will eat them both the same?

My hand shot out and grabbed one of the screeching things. Enraged and disgusted, they both were going to be ending their fighting, and I’m making them have the same result.

And for that, I am ashamed.

ROLLED 2; failed the Trial; wounds started to fester.

My steps faltered when I was able to pick myself back up from where I’d collapsed. I felt the tear of my skin inside my boots and I knew without checking that my lower legs were festering. The telltale burn was all I needed as a reminder of the fear I’d felt when the murky water in the trench had managed to seep through cheap cardboard soles and cloth and the mix of death and living mess seeped into the bleeding punctures on my legs. Infection wasn’t a gamble of ‘if’, it was one of ‘when’.

I’m not ashamed to say that I wept.

Wet, keening sobs were forced out of my body when I came upon the Horizon’s Monolith and collapsed in front of the slick obsidian. Figures glinted inside of the monolith, and my bloodshot eyes could not look away from them. I couldn’t even force myself to blink as sand whipped into my pained eyes. I could feel the figures inside the obsidian talking but I couldn’t hear them.

I could feel my heart rend from my chest to be weighed, even though it stayed beating fast and heavy inside my ribs.

Was I enough, in the end?

PASSED 2/3 TRIALS: You wake up in your world, having been rescued with a renewed conviction. Describe what you seek to teach people

I startle awake, a guttural scream ripping out of me. In an instant my thrashing body is held down by my brothers, and their familiar voices help me to calm.

Seeing their mottled faces, young men with the weight of horrors they never should have had to shoulder etched into their skin, I scrambled my hands to touch them. They held my hands, they rested their hands on my body where they could reach, giving that reassuring pressure as I clung to them like they were going to disintegrate if I lessened my grip even an ounce.

The fear that grips my heart from those machines will not leave me. I can’t let more be fed to them. I hope my cowardice manages to stop another from being consumed.

RECORDING START, NIGHT ONE

I dunno how I managed to escape those things — but I did. I did and no one else did. A few hours last night, sure, but it’s been- it’ll been nearly a day for me, I think. I got some supplies, I’m fast I’m resourceful, I’m just straight fucking lucky I don’t know.

Not that fuckin’ lucky if I’m here making this recording though, eh? [tight, breathy laughing] Nah, I ain’t that fuckin’ lucky.

[rustling, presumably of the subject moving in their hiding place] I shouldn’t stay here any longer. I gotta find a different spot.

[light footsteps can be heard along with shaking breath from the subject.]

NIGHT ONE ROLL: Miner: 5 ; Things: 7 Item used: +3 — hiding place in vents Miner: 8 ; Things: 7

[chittering noises can be heard lightly in the background noises of the recording.]

Fuck! [clanging of metal sounds as subject crawls into one of the many vent openings found in through the station. see footnote 1.] Jupiter, please, please, please… [screeching sounds close to the subject, loud enough the microphone hits its limit and distorts on the recording. The subject lets out a small whimper, and there’s a sound of them pressing their hand over their mouth.]

[sounds of small droplets hitting the ventilation metal can be heard between the distant screeching and gurgling]

God, please, Jupiter, please.

RECORDING END, NIGHT ONE

Footnote 1: Evidence of their path is included with picture support through archive eight-point-six.

RECORDING START, NIGHT TWO

I don’t got [sic] nothing left for dignity, eh. I guess the stars aren’t gonna care if I’m coming to them covered in piss but I care. What kind of fucking adult am I? Pissed myself from fear and couldn’t even make my damn self move from where I was hiding.

[a clang can be heard down one of the halls shortly followed by a second clang. One larger, wet ‘splat’ is heard before it lessens to smaller consistent dripping. See footnote 2.]

Oh, god. [retching] Why’s that smell fermented. What the fuck are these things doing to us?

NIGHT TWO ROLL: Miner: 3 ; Things: 11 Item used: nothing Things table: 4 — they destroy the homemade explosive.

For the love of fuck please let it go off! Fuck! [frantic breathing] Explode, please, kill the fucking thing, get it right in it’s throat please, please, please.

[An explosion sounds in the near distance of the subject. Screams are heard from the creatures. See footnote 3.]

Un jour je serai de retour- [indecipherable slurred repetitions for remainder of night’s recording]

RECORDING END, NIGHT TWO

Footnote 2: there was evidence collected from the hallway the subject is assumed to be walking down at the point in recording. There were two deep impact marks in the crust of the walls. Both the impact marks and surrounding areas were found to be covered in gore of no discernable subject. Some appeared partially digested, which is congruent with evidence found from disgorgement in similar attacks.

Footnote 3: the subject had built a crude explosive, likely as a potential defence, which they threw down the hallway the disgorgement appeared to come from. There was evidence of non-fatal damage to a creature; flesh and fat samples were recovered.

RECORDING START, NIGHT THREE

They’re not coming are they? [see footnote 4.] Why would they ever put out their necks? Why wouldn’t they? What in the goddamning fuck would they ever think of other than the minerals for their overpriced pieces of junk? [laughing] Fucking assholes killed our lives and sold us a dream.

[a pause. Clacking of teeth sounding like the subject was moving their jaw side-to-side is faintly heard.]

What is even the fucking reason for this? Stupid bastards.

NIGHT THREE ROLL: Miner: 3 ; Things: 2 Item used: nothing

[Growling and chittering noises overtake the audio. No other discernible noise features can be picked out of the recording. Recording continues with silence from the subject for the rest of the night hours. See footnote 5.]

RECORDING END, NIGHT THREE

Footnote 4: subject was unaware another worker was able to broadcast an SOS. Subject never attempted to put out an SOS signal themselves at any point.

Footnote 5: access isolated preserved recordings of the vocalisations the subject caught of the creatures through the audio archive attached to archive 8.6

RECORDING START, NIGHT FOUR

I’m so cold. [laughs] I better not wind up freezing to death after everything else I’ve done. What a goddamned way to go though. [rustlings of fabrics, likely from the subject rubbing their hands against their sleeves to produce heat.]

Maybe there’s a blanket in this pack. If there ain’t I’m fuckin’ ditching it.

[Presumably the subject is speaking to their rucksack. No other subject is in their company at that moment] Please have something warm in you.

NIGHT FOUR ROLL: Miner: 4 ; Things: 4 Item used: +2 — rucksack Miner: 6 ; Things: 4

[A spitting growl-screech sounds dangerously close to the subject. The subject screams]

Fuck! [ripping fabric is heard after around a half-second. See footnote 6.]

[Snarling is heard growing more distant while the sound of the subject’s boots hitting the station’s flooring grows more prominent in the recording.]

RECORDING END, NIGHT FOUR

Footnote 6: The subject’s company-issued rucksack was found ripped past the point of repairability. A broken tooth sample was found and catalogued, in addition to a potential ability to reconstitute a saliva sample. Bloody bootprints led away from where the rucksack was found, indicating the direction the subject ran.

RECORDING START, NIGHT FIVE

At least I got a blanket out of that fucking pack. No goddamn food now though…

[subject is quiet for several hours. Traces of whimpering may be heard by some listeners]

NIGHT FIVE ROLL: Miner: 2 ; Things: 9 Item used: nothing Things table: 1 — they wound you

[silence on the recording is broken by the subject screaming.See footnote 7.]

[Several minutes of only bootfalls and ragged breathing sound before the subject tears their company-issued emergency blanket.]

I’m going to fucking die here.

[subject continues repeating sentence until they are only making whimpers.]

RECORDING END, NIGHT FIVE

Footnote 7: refer to mapped path of subject. The subject was struck by one of the creatures, and wounded to some level of severity that facilitated the need to tear the company-issued emergency blanket into a wound care device.

RECORDING START, NIGHT SIX

[recording begins with heavy breathing from the subject. Breathing seems intentionally limited or controlled]

I shouldn’t’ve taken this job. I shouldn’t— I should have taken on the fuckin’ potatoes or wheat or whatever the sweet fuck Eydie [see footnote 8] said she was wanting for us. The money’s not worth it. The money’s not worth it at all.

[a small clicking noise. Congruent with clawed scratchmarks found on the floor tiles in the same area the subject was tracked to be at the time.]

[chittering]

[subject is silent for several hours]

NIGHT SIX ROLL: Miner: 3 ; Things: 11 Item used: nothing Things table: 3 — they destroy the blanket

My arm is stuck. [audible swallow] It’s stuck on the fucking panes.

[low chittering, mixed with growls can be heard]

I’m fucking stuck. [shaky breathing from the subject] I think it can smell the blood. I have to leave the bandage. I have to.

[see footnote 9]

RECORDING END, NIGHT SIX

Footnote 8: In subject’s file, there is a next of kin listed as one “Eydie Driscoll”. There is no defined official relation.

Footnote 9: Torn remains of company-issued emergency blanket soaked with subject’s blood (along with traces of other fluid presumably also from the subject) were found stuck into a slight imperfection in the station’s walls. There were also pieces found torn more severely on the floor tiles, with the addition of saliva from the creatures darkening the fabric.

RECORDING START, NIGHT SEVEN

[Audio is filled with alarms blaring. See footnote 10.]

I’m sorry, Eydie, I’m so sorry. I should have stayed with you. I never should have left. [subject’s voice cracks, likely crying] Why did I have to leave. So stupid, I’ve always been so stupid.

[Alarm intensity lessens by roughly half. In line with alarm protocols after quarter-day long continuous ringing.]

Maybe I did this to us, Eydie. Maybe this is the punishment they told us we’d get? I hope if it is, I can take it for both of us. I don’t want you to hurt. Never, ever again.

NIGHT SEVEN ROLL: Miner: 1 ; Things: 6 Item used: +6 — pocket knife Miner: 7 ; Things: 6

[Subject hisses] Follow the red hands you fuckin’ bastards. [see footnote 11]

[remaining audio of night is subject’s uneven breathing.]

RECORDING END, NIGHT SEVEN

Footnote 10: There were no structural or electrical deficiencies that caused the warning alarm systems to be triggered. It is likely that the subject hit an emergency switch at some point through their wandering of the station. It isn’t clear from inspecting any of the alarm switches that are along the subject’s known routes through the station which one was triggered.

Footnote 11: Subject used an unauthorised pocket-sized blade to cause previous hand wounds the subject had sustained to bleed, and marked the walls in the direction opposite to where the subject walked with the blood. Presumably, the creatures followed the blood.

RECORDING START, NIGHT EIGHT

How in the sweet mother of fuck has it been a week. A whole goddamned week and I ain’t seen no one. No people, no people. [the subject’s breathing is uneven and shaky] I’m so goddamned cold, Eydie. I miss you. I miss your horrible cooking [quiet laughing] I’d eat anything with cheese and catsup if you was [sic] givin’ it too me, I swear.

NIGHT EIGHT ROLL: Miner: 1 ; Things: 2 Item used: +5 — a decoy Miner: 6 ; Things: 2

[sounds of metal screeching overtake the recording audio]

No, no, no, no. [subject exhales long and shaky] Fuck off, fuck off. Not here, don’t look here. [see footnote 12]

[Breathing sounds from a creature overwhelm the recording]

[A sharp, unauthorised mechanical screeching noise sounds in the distance. The creature’s breathing turns sharply away from recording device. Its howling steadily quiets as it leaves the vicinity.]

[barely audible] Go get fucked, asshole.

RECORDING END, NIGHT EIGHT

Footnote 12: Subject was somehow able to get behind the wall tiles of the station. While this should not have been possible, it is a point of interest that the creatures were able to bend the metal with evident ease. Bent tiles recovered from the station are catalogued in archive 8.6

GAME END ROLL: 5 ; rescued!

RECORDING START, DAY NINE

[weapons discharge. Subject jostles recording device and lets out a short yell before quieting]

CM: [muffled to the subject’s recording device] Anyone in the area?

I’m here.

CM: [still muffled, to other rescue officers] Set up a perimeter. Hopefully there’s at least one soul we can find, but if we can’t make a safe area then it’s all for dust.

[affirmatives from several other rescue officers]

I’m here! [subject pushes the metal tiling they were hidden behind, causing scraping on the floor] Please help me.

[louder scraping. After the tile is removed, it’s thrown onto the station’s floor with a sharp clang]

CM: [close to the recording device] I got you, buddy. I got you.

Thank you, thank you. [subject sobbing] Fuck, thank you. [continued sobbing] Eydie, I— fuck.

CM: Easy, buddy, we gotta get you up in med bay ASAP. Your feet still work?

Please take me away from here, Please take me back to Eydie.

The King: (8 of diamonds) A prophesied demi-god Goal of the conspiracy: (Queen of hearts) eradicate loyalty to the king

The King is prophesied to be a demi-god, half-seeded from the god of the sun. There’s a conspiracy brewing to eradicate loyalty to the king — people whispering he’s no sun god’s son.

The Jester is a rather rude man. The sharp smile combined with a foxed face makes even the kind words he says, however infrequent, sound rude and disingenuous.

FIRST PETITIONER: 3 of Clubs A merchant asking for a permit to sell wine; unaware of the conspiracy

I could hear the merchant approach before he rounded the corner to walk through the archways of the hearing hall. He was already fat and jingled with the coins in his coin purses. His strides were clipped and unconfident, and the etching of uncertainty showed in the flush of his face. This wasn’t anything I hadn’t watched happen before. People are funny when in the presence of others they think are above them.

Watching his flushed face as he spoke to the court of the god-king — I didn’t realise anyone could costume themselves to look like they had berries smeared across their nose and cheeks so thoroughly without ever touching the fruit — it seemed just pedestrian petitioning for a permit. The maroon of his clothes stitched in greens and yellows didn’t look familiar, and there was no other families in the area with royal ambitions that had that particular stitching colouring that I could recall. And I would be able to, if there were.

After the rambling, disorganised, and frankly extraneous request was ended with the merchant’s voice petering out, my god-king looked to me and gave me a nod. The beginning bell of my performance.

In a fluid motion, I got to my feet and removed the heavy winter weight cloak I’d left sat beside me. Fashioning it around me in a crude approximation of the size of the merchant, I bound to the court’s floor making deliberate movements to the bells on my wrists with my footfalls. Jingle your coin at me, and I will jingle back. It means nothing to me.

A wide arc of my arms out hold them as far apart as I was able, punctuating the movement with a flick of my wrists to make the bells tink. “Oh dear, glorious, illustrious, golden god-king of whichever other descriptors my father of name Orszak before me told me to call you to flatter you.”

Small stifled chuckles rippled through a few of the court attendants.

“I wish to request permission to drink my wine-wares inside of the city walls for coin!” An over exaggerated sway as I stood, “pardon me, I want to sell the wine I am unable to drink myself to the fair peoples of your inner city.” I jingled my wrist-bells again, tugged at the lapels of my overcoat. “We produce it ourselves; Orszak family name is proud. My father was the businessman, I’m merely inheriting his routes.”

Glancing over to the Merchant, his large grey eyes were fixed to the floor.

I postured my hands out, palms up but not supplicating like a beggar, my back kept farm-straight. “My father and elder brother, Tomasz Orszak, were only recently unfound through their route. An injured and scared ass only what we’ve found so far.” My nod was slow, and could easily be mistaken for a theatrical over-exaggerated motion, but my unwavering eye contact with the god-king let him know my personal answer. “I am the second-son and thought always my future was in the fields.”

The second eldest Orszak merchant rubbed a wrist, one of his meaty hands covering over the pulse point and lightly wiping the crooked and dirt-marred thumb of his rubbing his skin. Nerves from a fish out of water. Or a farmer without a field, I guess.

The god-king raised one of his slender, gilded hands. I straightened and stood as motionless as I was able. The courtiers sounded like they were holding their breath.

“You are approved for you and your foodwares to be sold inside the inner city,” the god-king’s voice was smooth and tinny, “I ask for your family to write a formal request with your situation, in addition to sending one of your ilk to acquire the permit.”

The merchant visibly sagged in relief — all the tension pulling his spine tight leaving in an instant. He thanked the god-king in a thick and clumsy country term, and left quickly.

I knew the look in the god-king’s eyes was saying to me that I was took harsh in my initial portrayal. That’s fine. He’s allowed to be wrong about things as interpretive as art. Though that certainly wouldn’t be an opinion I’d ever let taste oxygen.

SECOND PETITIONER: 9 of Diamonds A doctor needs subjects for research ; a neutral party in the conspiracy

Doctors always had a particular stench that seemed to follow them. Maybe death, but more likely just a miasma of sickness. This one was different from the rest. They stood rod-straight, but their shoulders rounded forward to create an odd gathering of fabric draping over their chest cavity. When told to remove any of their garb, they refused. A curiously higher-than-expected voice carried muffled from the beak-mask of the doctor. I decided not to include that peculiarity in my performance.

Not being able to see the doctor’s face made my job more challenging, but when the god-king gave his nod, I had no choice but to perform.

They were aware of the conspiracy for treason — I could tell that much — but it seemed they weren’t swayed to either way. Doctors were hard to convince into the kingdom, and seldom lasted very long. I wasn’t about to dissuade this one from continuing.

I stood as tall as I was able, jutting my chest out instead of caving it in like the doctor was. There must be a reason they’re keeping that posture, and I was not going to draw attention to it with my performance. “”Regardless of any situations that arrive,” I tried my best approximation of their accent, eating my Rs and pushing the sides of my tongue to my teeth, “matters of the body still need to be investigated.”

Arching my arms to hold my palms up to the gilded ceiling, a position of higher pleading. “These subjects of research will help future generations of the sun-god’s kingdom.”

Eye contact. Slow nod.

Approval.

THIRD PETITIONER: 3 of Diamonds A merchant asking for a permit ; neutral party to the conspiracy.

Immediately, I didn’t like how this merchant walked into the court. He looked too at-ease and comfortable.

His ashy straw-coloured hair laid in a thick plait twisted around itself and pinned against the back of his neck. Impossibly intricate embroidery made the previously soft felt-fabric stiff and likely itchy. Stabbing storm-silver in jagged patterns through the cobalt sky of his coats. A brilliant red waist-apron secured with a thick blue cord weighted at the ends with metalcrafts spilled down his lap like a bloody waterfall.

The nod.

“God-King,” I tried to force my voice to have the same tenor as the petitioner, “even as I stand here asking for permits to continue growing my hoard of silver, I speak to you as one powerful man to another.” I glanced to the merchant, his dark eyes glowering at me from where he stood. “Do you not deign to meet me on the same level? Truly it isn’t so far down?”

A murmur of light shock and gossip rustled through the rest of the court.

“These goods are merely the work of others, but I know I’m among compatriots when it comes to building things off others.” The merchants face was flushing in anger. I locked eyes with the god-king, and lolled my head side to side in a ‘no’ while speaking, “There’s few differences, yes?”

Denial of the petition. The merchant spat at me when he left. I’d fear I’ve made more enemies than allies in my time here but I don’t particularly care either way. When the god-king dies, I’ll still be alive.

FIFTH PETITIONER: 4 of Hearts A famous musician hoping to be commissioned ; loyal to the king.

If the clang of brass and the hollow noises sounding when she rounded a corner too closely weren’t enough of a tip-off, then her poufed hat with feathers and filigree certainly took out the guesswork.

She hoped to be commissioned for at least one ballad extolling the virtues and benefits of the god-king and his kingdom. From the rolling of her silver ring, however, I believe she was hoping to be taken on as a resident artist. Those kinds of silver rings were made by hand only for those who you loved.

Nod. Expectations or my performance.

I took a supplicants posture. “Would you not want someone so deeply in love to write and sing about the beauty inside the fair kingdom of the god-king?” A jingle of my wrist-bells and I dramatically gripped my abdomen. “For one to give you and your subjects the love I have felt inside my heart and soon to grow in my belly?”

Wide-faced fear and surprise jolted through on the musician’s face, her lips sticking out just a bit as she ground her teeth to try and keep the expression from pulling any noises from her throat.

Eye contact to the god-king. “Merely exchange my talents to the god-king in return to consistent work and stable housestays for me and mine.” I nod to him.

The musician glossy eyes nearly overflowed when the god-king said she will be held for contract, and her own may also live in one of the sites in the inner city.

FIRST JOKER DRAWN

My words were quick and plain. “There’s a conspiracy whispered through the inner city and the fields outside it.” I stood straight, shoulders far more relaxed than I felt. There was far more than whispers snaking their way through the ears of the god-king’s spheres of influence. Even the more loyal subjects of his were wavering in their faiths.

I’m not wholly surprised.

The god-king has been taking less and less interest in the common subject — preferring to dote on emissaries from surrounding kingdoms, boldly to the detriment of the people that keep him safe.

“If there’s more than a whisper, then that’s when we will simply order them buried,” the god-king’s voice disgusts me for the first time. It sounds greased from the pheasant poached in butter he’d eaten with the jewel-dripping emissaries from the southwestern country lining the border.

I nodded. I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“Leave if there’s nothing interesting to come out of you, then.”

I did as I was told.

SIXTH PETITIONER: 10 of Spades A diplomat attempting to establish a new trade agreement ; part of the conspiracy

The diplomats were certainly a sight to behold.

The main speaker out of the pair of them was tall and glinting with the sheer amount of filigree inlaid to the layers of cloth draped so delicatly in dizzying amounts. I couldn’t make sense of when a swath of fabric ended and another started, or if they were just metres-long sheets of finery folded in meticulous ways. Her hair hung heavy over her back near-below her shoulderblades, with the ends of it somehow tied and pinned under so the shown length was only half the true amount. It was covered with constellations of filigree pins inlaid with precious stones.

Her companion was a man in similar stature to her. His foxed face reminded me of my own, though his eyes were rimmed with a purposeful soot, and his mouth was less scarred from teeth. The same dizzying swaths of fabric made up his clothing, though his seemed less imbued with threaded metal since it didn’t glimmer the same way as the speaker’s did. There was a heavy overcoat of fabric placed over his shoulders, splitting somewhere under his long hair from the single pane down his back, to two tails down either side of his neck. The leather belt holding it tight to his waist almost looked out of place, but it clinked and glittered with chatelaines full of golden curiosities.

“A new trade agreement needs to be worked out,” the Speaker’s voice was clear and decisive. “Your kingdom is left wanting.”

The god-king sat with glazed over eyes — bored before any conversation had ever started. This was exactly why the conspiracy has been able to grow like wildfire. Apathy was oxygen to its fire.

I watched the man, beautiful and glinting, move his rough hands over to an empty spot on his belt. Probably habit from having a sword or other weapon hung there for longer than it rested elsewhere. “I implore you to listen to the Speaker,” is voice held less presence than the Speaker’s, but it was oaky and I wanted to hear more.

A moment of pause before the god-king waved his hand dismissively and turned to me. “Perform. Now.” His eyes slid off me as soon as the word was spat out.

I ground my teeth. I didn’t expect to be treated as even partly an equal, but I never would have though the king I served to the detriment of my life milestones to not even look at me as he spat commands.

Rising from my seat — downgraded severely from my previous spot near the court’s seats, to a threadbare pillow on the chilled floor with the petitioners — I exhaled and dropped my shoulders. Trying to relax my jaw and prevent soreness from grinding my teeth. I stood straight and unwavering, feet squared and arms bent lightly out at the elbows with my palms down. I can feel the metal in my over-cloak bite me in the ribs.

“I implore you to listen to the Speaker,” I repeated the man’s lovely oaky words in my own thistled voice. A deep, measured breath shook its way out of my throat. I repeated the Speaker’s words with as much clarity as I could lend my own voice. “Your kingdom is left wanting.”

SECOND JOKER The conspiracy is successful ; game finish.

I threw knife.

(setup)

THE GUARDIAN: What does the Guardian look like? Tall and solid, marble-skinned and matching the former glory the sanctuary’s walls used to hold. Hair hangs long, straight, and thick, in a bronze gloss. They shimmer gilded and gold on their eyelashes and fingernails. The finery of their appearance is at odds with their stature and strength. Even their teeth were beautiful and sharp — set in their mouth in mother-of-pearl.

What abilities do they have? Once, they were able to blend into both the inner and outer walls of the sanctuary, the carved and polished stonework feeling as an extension of themself. Standing still as an unloving statue to hide is something they’re still able to do. The strength and weight of their strikes is one of few things that hasn’t left them.

How long have they been a guardian? They’ve been a guardian for many hundreds of years. They were the youngest of their quarry, but they are the only one left standing. The peoples who had invoked their help have been dead longer than they can measure. Sometimes they wonder if there’s even any of them left alive — all returned to quarry rather than simply moved on.

How did they come to be the only guardian? Treasure hunters have tried over and over to raid the Sanctuary. They were horrible humans, with teeth with grimaces of smiles and eyes glinting green like creeping vines. They wanted to take everything out of the Sanctuary, take it piece by piece like the ivy that’s been trying for decades to worm its way into any cracks in the Guardians’ legs.

The vines were insistent on returning everything to quarry. They didn’t seem to care whether a place was still in need of guarding or not. Only that it was returned to quarry under the heat of their living fingers.

THE SANCTUARY: What does The Sanctuary look like? It used to be a grand temple of marble and gold, with lovingly carved and placed jade and obsidian effigies of the people’s gods and loved ones. Those who had already returned to quarry. Gilded, wide-mouthed dishes used to hold herbs and oil. Mother-of-pearl plates had been set in the hundreds along small alcoves with tiny offerings to the quarries. Bronze sconces would hold up weaving long ago, but the textiles had rotted away over many years.

The vines now wormed their ways through any cracks they could find in the Sanctuary. Seeking more purchase to break the items and return them to quarry. Sometimes they bloom, and it is beautiful.

Where is it located? The Sanctuary sits in a previously cleared but now mostly reclaimed by medium brush and scrubs site with a cradle of tall, old trees surrounding it. There are old paths with the occasional stone still set into the earth that show the ghosts of the footpaths that used to travel from the Sanctuary into a nearby village that had existed hundreds of years prior.

Does any other life exist there? Nothing more than vegetation and small animals. Occasionally there are medium sized mammals, or large lizards that wander through, but nothing stays for very long to keep the Guardian much company.

What is there that needs to be guarded? What little that remains of the sacred items that had been lovingly placed inside the body of the Sanctuary, and hadn’t yet returned to quarry.

(play)

DIAMONDS. Rolled 5. Something you thought lost.

Wandering the traces of the edge of the home that the Guardian had been created to guard with their siblings — thought it had been a long time past when their marble siblings had returned to quarry — they ran off of memory and duty. What else would they have? What other purpose could they ever serve?

There’s a tiny glint in the clover covering the ground leading to the Sanctuary, no bigger than a snake’s eye. The Guardian’s footsteps were heavy in their purposeful stride. Their gilded fingers dipped in soot delicately lifted the sliver of bronze out from the catch of clover leaves.

Pain bloomed across the Guardian’s expression. How long ago had they last seen the delicately hammered curves of a dragon casting bronze? Those lizards didn’t exist anymore, they had all returned to quarry a century back. The Guardian’s fingers traced the feathers that lined the back and tail of the effigy of a dragon-lizard.

They turned their face to the tallest column still standing in the Sanctuary. “How long ago was that artisan here?” Their voice held the quiet clinks and knocks of tumbling stones, “I feel I could still find them if I tried… but I fear they’ve returned to quarry as everyone else I love has.” They cradled the dragon-lizard, gently rubbing their cold fingers along the snout, the back of the neck, and down the back — petting the animal as if it could enjoy the action. “I don’t understand why you have come back now,” they spoke quiet to the bronze, “Don’t you know that everyone else has returned to quarry? Don’t you know I’m all that’s left?”

Sorrow welled in the chest of the Guardian. They were unable to weep physically, but the bone-chill sadness settled inside them nonetheless. They sat on a pedestal stand, staring and petting the bronze. “I wish I wasn’t so selfish to want to wish you were still here, or that I wouldn’t have to be the last.”

CLUBS. Rolled 1. Years passed.

It was a turn of every season before the Guardian stirred from their pedestal seat, and broke their mourning. The small dragon-lizard had become gleaming and gorgeous on its snout and neck — loved gently to golden. The sweet spring-flower scented breeze rose the sense of duty from the Guardian; stirred from their quiet sorrow.

Deft fingers tied the dragon-lizard effigy into their own bronze hair. When it is finally their time to return to quarry, they will return to it with the loved-to-gleaming dragon-lizard.

Vines had crept farther into the Sanctuary, taking advantage of the Guardian’s year of inaction and trying to tear down the beautiful remnants and return them to quarry. The Guardian set about to remove their influence. At least for one more turn of the wheel.

SPADES. Rolled 4. Something is threatening the Sanctuary, and you must confront it.

There are terrible clanging screams from past-molten iron heated and transformed into something cruel and killing — steel.

The Guardian could hear their death screams, a cruel fate for an ore to be burned and poured and burned and contorted into a shape only to find blood and death while never being allowed to return to quarry yourself. To have the weight of rot and flesh seep into their essence with no way to find peace. Contorted into something irredeemable.

These people already looked evil and cruel to the Guardian. Why would they torture ore like that? The thought made the guardian bare their mother-of-pearl teeth. What disgusting actions were they also capable of if they would do that to simple ore?

Bodies glinted in the early morning sun, their terrible flesh adorned with screaming ore as well. Horrible, ornate designs looping in interlocking vine patterns were brazen across their swollen chests. Their terrible gold eyes held red-hot fear when the Guardian bared their teeth and struck them.

The maroon splash of them felt dirty and unnatural. This wasn’t anyone returning to quarry. This was something coming to rot. An uneasy, sour feeling in the Guardian’s stomach told them that these were just the first of legions. Those who had so lovingly raised them and their siblings from the quarry weren’t coming back. There were only going to be these terrible rotting men.

CLUBS. Rolled 4. Years passed.

The Guardian’s joints felt gritty and heavy. It hadn’t been an expected primary duty of theirs or their siblings to have to fight so often. They were grinding their own limbs down to sand, returning themselves to quarry in each horrible rotting movement.

The glinting, rotting men never stopped coming. Just as the Guardian feared, they were coming with more frequency. Not a single whisper through the four full turns of the seasonal wheel of the peoples that had built the Sanctuary the Guardian dutifully protected.

When they look at the mother-of-pearl plates with their ancient offerings, they only saw the rot left in them. It hurt them to look at rot too long, and the vines creeped ever closer to taking the offerings leftover for themselves.

Gore and rot and dying metal stained surrounding areas of the Sanctuary, the beautiful calm of quarried stones to the grass and clover drowned by the bones and offal left stinking inside the tortured ore.

Golden fingernails seemed permanently tarnished from the violence they were forced to enact to protect the Sanctuary. Terrible men came in more frequency. Thankfully still sparse, but ever-increasing.

The Guardian grew steadily tired.

DIAMONDS. Rolled 10. You found something of tremendous value.

The glimmer of stones and metal are nothing significant or unknown to the Guardian. They’ve been surrounded by the comforting glittering of precious metals for centuries. It wasn’t a significant event to see the glittering catch their eye.

But they hadn’t seen lapis lazuli in decades.

The shocking blue and lightning strike gold through it made the Guardian’s large hands stutter their sweeping. Made them pause. Delicately removing the mother-of-pearl offering dishes from their alcoves — gentle to not disturb their meagre remaining offerings with hands that had seen more violence than love in the past decade — and placing them to an already swept clear pedestal, the Guardian ripped the vines trying to claim yet another part of the Sanctuary out of the way.

Underneath the marble that had since returned to quarry from the vines, were tiles imbued near-solid with lapis lazuli. The lapis continued underneath the still-intact marble tiles beside the ones already quarried.

A wail ripped out of the Guardian’s throat. It was followed by sobs wracking their giant body, heaving and heavy cracking against the marble of the floor and the green blood of the vines crushed under their body.

The men wouldn’t stop coming for the lapis lazuli. They would continue to come for it. The burden of duty, for the first time, weighed heavy on the Guardian’s neck. Rot would overtake the quarry until they ground themself into sand, and the rotting men would come again anyway.

HEARTS. Rolled 8. A memory recalled. Fondest memory.

The Guardian sat inside the atrium of the Sanctuary, still and stopped atop a pedestal. The glimmering sea-blue of lapis lazuli blinking through the partially tiled walls surrounding them. A small peaceful smile crooked up the corners of their mouth as they pet the worn spot on their bronze dragon-lizard effigy. The movement was natural and comforting.

What was near a thousand years ago, but felt like only a few seasons to the Guardian, they had a flesh and stone dragon-lizard they would pet the snout of. Its feathers were bright purple-red like ancient rubies, but soft under Sentinel fingers.

The particular dragon-lizard the Guardian held so lovingly in their mind was spry and sharp-eyed. Its eyes were the same vibrant blue of the lapis surrounding the Guardian now, but where the Sanctuary was now quiet and stinking, the dragon-lizard was a chirruping chatting presence. Never shy to give the younger Guardian trouble when they paused in petting its head.

A little hum pulled out of the chest of the Guardian. They still wonder if they had pet the little dragon-lizard as much as it seemed to want, if its snout would have glittered in the same loved gold.

It was a small, well-loved memory the Guardian would refuse to ever return to quarry. No matter the cost of keeping it.

JOKER. Rolled 3. An Ending.

The Guardian’s joints feel ground to powder-fine sand. Ache isn’t something they ever thought would be a body experience they would become well acquainted with, but it sits with them for each hour of the sun, and every minute of the moon. But they cannot return to quarry. They refuse to return to quarry and leave the Sanctuary to the mercy of the rotting men. They needed to keep the lapis lazuli safe.

Their marble limbs, long-since stained with years of protecting the precious Sanctuary, creaked when they unfolded themselves from their rest on the atrium pedestal. There was a disturbance in the clover outside the entrance to the Sanctuary, they could feel the change.

A figure, as tall and broad as the Guardian themself, paused for a moment on the vine-broken stone path. His shoulders square and torso wide and solid.

Seeing the figure enter the Sanctuary, the Guardian bared their teeth. “Protected,” they managed to grind out of their gravel-filled throat, the language of rotting men feeling like tar inside it. They couldn’t force themselves to stand from their seat in the atrium.

“I’m sorry I took so long to return, my old friend,” the figure spoke in a deep rolled accent, the old language the Guardian thought lost to the quarry soothing to their ancient mind.

Gold rimmed eyes snapped to the face of the figure. His wide, flat face had a bowed mouth, and his cheeks were painted with yellow ochre in rays tracking under his eye sockets and crossing over a thick-bridged nose. The lapis lazuli of his eyes sharp and friendly. Purple-red ruby feathers hung down from the figure’s temples, tucked behind his ears, and spilled glistening over bronze-gold shoulders, and mingled through thick plum black hair.

The Guardian felt relief at first cold, then white hot go through them. Their clumsy fingers reaching up to pet the bronze effigy still tried into their hair.

“You can rest now, my old friend.” The dragon-lizard walked to the pedestal. He pet the Guardian’s face with his thick plum-coloured fingers. “I thank you for protecting our home.” He brushed the bronze threads away from the Guardian’s marble face. He pressed a light kiss to their forehead as their eyes slid closed. “I thank you.”

The Old Guardian’s hands folded neatly into their lap, clasped lightly together with their palms up. Their back straightened to an angle it hadn’t set in for years. Legs hanging relaxed over the lip of the atrium pedestal, feet crossed neatly at the ankle and lightly pointed down.

They relaxed as they returned to quarry.

                                          END!

The dragon-lizards were kept in the lapis lazuli. The older than a certain age dragon-lizards hid the young when the “rotting men” were starting their reign of terror, and they realised they weren’t going to be able to fight them without losing everything.

They set up the lapis lazuli and hid it between slabs of marble tile, and brought up as many of the Guardians as they were able to manage as their last Hail Mary for survival. There wasn’t any guarantee that they would be able to ever return and release the other dragon-lizards, but they hoped that the Guardians would be able to keep them safe, even without knowing what they were protecting.

The older dragon-lizards learned how to take advantage of the rotting men’s forms and, after a thousand years, were able to gain safety and return to retrieve their young and build their communities again.