Vigilante Game Fourteen: JUNE SHIN’S STORY TIME

Our Chronicler was out for this game, so June Shin recorded the events that took place. Everything that follows is from her perspective and recollection, enjoy!

Okay, so, first things first, we had to have a funeral for Alvin. It was REALLY sad, and Ereden played this song that made it sadder, and then we said some words of remembrance and I might have cried a little. Even Captain Stormhand teared up, so that doesn’t make me a wuss. They didn’t have a funeral for what’s-his-name because he sort of got executed on purpose?

Anyway, we were going to go to the funeral after party (the execution of Jbilly and Merv) when I noticed Bryce was being really emo. We went over cause we were still mad at him for playing a part in our friends dying and wanted to tell him off, but he was so upset at himself it wasn’t even fun. He said that he was going to go on what was basically a suicide mission because, after all of this mess, he was being honorably discharged from the OC. Apparently, OC guys who are honorably discharged can choose to hunt this thing called the Shadow of the Magisterium with some OC prisoners. The Shadow disappeared 130 years ago, and ever since then people have been disappearing. Bryce told us we should come with him to check this issue out, and that it would be useful for us because it could be a way for us to get out of our oaths before we got caught.

That’s right guys, Bryce knew the whole time.

He is apparently a divination hot-shot and ran a magic background check with a ribbon he found on my bed (invasion of privacy, thank you very much). He is ALSO the son of Allspar, who wanted him to start from the bottom and earn his rank (and who is also kind of not the greatest dad…). He hadn’t turned us in because he thought that there was something bigger going on, bigger than Bastion and the OC, and that this mission to hunt the Shadow might help him figure it out. He said we would take some prisoners with us on a ship with a magical rune on it that would teleport us to another dimension. Once we were there, we’d be freed of our oaths.

The gang debated our options. When what's-his-name shot down the bird-person who was carrying the poison, the poison shattered delaying the devastation of Bastion and slowing down Vanderbilt's party. Going into the other dimension would mess with time, so not much time would pass in the “real” world while we scoped things out. Since we didn’t have to worry about immediately intercepting a plague, and since Bryce had never spoken with such conviction before in his life, we decided to take him up on his little honor-mission. The only thing is, according to Bryce, none of the people who went on this mission ever came back.

So, time to meet our new prisoner-friends! We got 4 Bastion types that the OC had taken hostage. CHRIS’ CHARACTER (a warlock following the old gods), JOSH’S CHARACTER (a cleric of death who thinks undead things are morally icky), EZRA’S CHARACTER (a cranky old half-elf warlock) and HOLLIS’ CHARACTER (a half orc barbarian with daddy issues). Immediately, Ezra’s character thought she was all tough and started a fight with some Mage Killers. Our new friends were getting whooped when we barged in and got the OC crew to back off. After things were settled, it was dimension-hopping time.

We got on a rickety old boat which sailed maybe 100 feet away from the OC base before popping into another dimension. When we popped in, our oaths broke. Believe me, that HURT. It was like our beings were being ripped apart like paper, but afterwards, we were free. Once we recovered, we took in our surroundings.

In the dark sky above there were endless stars except for one large, black moon. We were on an ocean of perfectly still, mercury-like waters which were interrupted by these reeds that jut out in clumps, 14 clumps in total. After taking everything in, I told the new prisoner-friends that it was all fine, we weren't with the ocrate, and to prove it I shouted “F*$% THE OCRATE MAGISTERIUM” at the top of my lungs. It felt good. Well, until I started to hear the singing. From some of the reeds, I heard the voice of a Auntie singing this song she would always sing when she was weaving, but no one else heard it. Magic stuff is stupid that way.

After that, it all got weird for a second. Hollis’ character heard his dad talking about how much tougher his brother was than him, and Hilda’s necklace started moving with a mind of its own, trying to pull us and the boat to a point in the ocean where part of it was almost scooped out, like someone pressed a bowl into the water and the water stayed in that shape. When we got closer to the reeds we realized what they really were, soul stamps. Whatever this was, it was serious.

Then, this crazy jellyfish thing floated down from the dark moon. It was huge, and it looked like it had galaxies inside of it. Me and most of the group tried to hide, but Ezra’s character started this thing down. When it got close, it asked her if she was there to see the specimens, if The Master had sent her. She stared that thing dead in the … eye? and said “Yep”.

(Insert nat 20 here)

The jellyfish brought us to the scooped-out place in the center and the rest of us came out of hiding. Then it showed us some messed up shit. The “Specimens”. Hundreds of naked, sort of dead but very preserved, replicant people. A whole army of clones. Bryce recognized someone that had been honorably discharged from the OC and we realized that this was why they never came back. They were killed here and cloned. Josh’s character asked the Jellyfish if we could have a sample to take back to the master, and apparently this nasty fish had something like this in mind.

The jelly-thing brought out an inactive clone of the Crown Prince. It said that they hoped the Master wouldn’t be mad, but they made the Prince clone without being ordered to. They found multiple organic samples of the Prince on the Master’s person last time he visited and it was enough to organically produce the fake-Prince.

That’s when things sort of fell together. You know who had gone missing 130 years ago? Justinian. You know who would have multiple “samples” of the Prince on hand? Malek. He had been dating the Prince for years. You know that informant the OC had within Bastion, the one we were going to meet originally? You know who got half of our party out of the temple of time and started us on this spy mission?

It was all the same person. Malek was Justinian. Malek was behind all of this. Malek was playing all of us.

Once we realized this, we knew we really needed to book it. We couldn’t keep this jellyfish fooled forever. Ezra’s character somehow talked the fish into giving us the soul stamp for the Prince, and with that and his clone in toe we got back on the boat and tried to head out. The only thing it, we didn’t know HOW to leave, and it would be REALLY awkward to ask. We literally row this boat around in circles before the Jellyfish checked in on us.

We kept rolling really, really well and told the Jellyfish that we needed some assistance out due to the crew’s incompetence. I took the fall here and tangled myself up in some rope. The fish obliged, wrapping its tendrils around our boat and lifting us up and towards the black moon. There, other jellies hung upside down like bats. The fish told usd they were called The Vallet and that they were a hive-mind of ancient badasses. Then he told us it was probably a good time to cast our protective spells.

Stupid magic.

As we approached the black moon, we saw a rune carved into it that allowed us to escape, but it was painful. We all felt like our bodies were being crushed, and after that we finally appeared at the bottom of an ocean. Desperate, we struggled up to the surface dragging the fake-prince with us. We were back in the same spot that we had set out from the OC not long ago. Our dimension. Our home.

We swam a bit up the coast before heading onto land so that we would avoid being seen by the OC. Once ashore, we wrapped the fake-prince in a bedroll and called our good friends in Brutal AF and (Blood something?) to tell them what we knew. We had to get back to Bastion, but we would need to be careful. Malek knew we would be headed to Bastion, and we planned to meet him there. If he found out that we knew about his secret army, who knows what we would do.

            Once we were home, AF told us we could stay in their hideout until we straightened things out. Maybe Bryce could convince his father that Justinian was screwing them over by killing and stealing their members. Maybe the OC and Bastion could join forces against this man who seemed to have everyone played, even us. After all, it was him that lead to us being sent us on this spy mission. What did he want us to find? What did he want us to know?  

Now that I think about it, in that bizzaro-dimension there were 14 groups of reeds, and there are 14 large cities remaining today. Huh. I wonder if that could be a thing…

-- Arlyn LaBelle is a poet, flash fiction writer and legal assistant living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared multiple times in the Badgerdog summer anthologies as well as The Blue Hour, LAROLA, JONAH Magazine, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz, Grey Sparrow Press, Cease, Cows and The Southern Poetry Review.