The... Ellomyrians... Ellomyrans? Ellomyrites? The locals. They’ve started building some walls around the village. There’s a lot of work to do, but if they keep it up, we might all live through this. A lady calling herself Dora is working on some ballistae. Master woodcutter, they say. Nice lady. Very enthusiastic about beating back the margr. She has several people assisting her, including a man in a fancy white helmet. Looks like an artifact.
“Detonations.” I surprise myself by saying that out loud.
Dora glances up from her work for a moment. “Excuse me?”
“Do you have any detonation cyphers laying around? Or some other numenera that could be turned into some? If you can attach them to the tips of the bolts, you can take out a lot more margr.”
At this, the helmeted man chimes in. “That sounds like a good idea. I’ve got a detonation, but we’re going to need a lot more than that.”
“Nieten might know more about that, you should talk to her. She’s the best hope our village has.”
“You know your way around the numenera?” Helmet says, gesturing toward me.
“Jenny, be quiet,” I say to the discourteous mechanical bird perched on my shoulder. I turn my head back to the helmeted figure. “Something like that, yeah. You?”
“Not well enough to get this cursed thing off my head, but yes, generally, yes.”
“Mind if I take a look at it?”
He frowns. Without waiting for an answer, I walk up to him and reach out to tap on the helmet. He pulls away.
“Please don’t touch it, it won’t work.”
“Fine, then, Sir Helmet.”
“My name is not Sir Helmet, my name is Coldane.”
“What does your helmet do?” I say, not bothering to introduce myself.
“It... It shows me images. It beeps. It talks to me.”
“It talks to you?” Funny. He has a voice in his head, too.
“It has some sort of connection to the datasphere, I suppose. Tells me to do things. Answers my questions, sometimes.”
Colade winces. “Please don’t do that.”
I grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “Where is Veska? Ask your helmet! Ask it about Veska.”
“Don’t ask me,”, I say in frustration, tapping on his helmet.
“Fine! Stop touching it.” He whispers something barely audible, and begins quivering. Moments later, he looks up at me. “The Trilling Shard.”
What? What is that supposed to mean?
Coldane is not my character, he is from @coldanefindsellomyr
Check out Numenera 2 on Kickstarter, and Discover your Destiny: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/numenera-2-discovery-and-destiny
