Friends at the Table

A letter from Grey Gloaming, Exile of the Rapid Evening and Operations Chief of the Brink, delivered to Keen Forester Gloaming by secure courier. Dad, I don't know if you remember this, but when I was just a little girl, just after you first took me Off Cycle, we got into a big fight about Crystal Palace. I didn't understand how a thing like that could exist--it didn't make sense to me--mostly bec...

Once, floating in the sunset-hued safety of the Twilight Mirage, the Divine Fleet hummed and pulsed, its ships bright beacons of culture and technology in an age when both were under threat. All through the fleet, organic and synthetic citizens worked side by side to protect a utopia that the universe thought impossible. But today, in the wake of Independence, and Volition, and the Miracle, and Ou...

Crystal Palace, in all its endless worker-bee wonder, clacks and whirs its way across space, and now, as it nears the destabilizing stain of the Twilight Mirage, time as well. Even now, in transport, it is thinking, predicting, prophesying: Its pulleys spinning with magnetic unison, decks of hole-punched cards flipping through its designators, a pleasant coughing of gears and pinions. This is how...

In the year after the Miracle, wonder and surprise appeared all throughout the daily life of the residents of the Quire System. Unfortunately, the composition of the system's political structures moved at a much more sluggish pace. Diplomatic gridlock and (well-grounded) fear of conflict leashed even the most aggressive states. The result was the vexing sense that the system had calcified in an im...

At the heart of many capital ships, there is a great flow of heat and energy. Yet the core of of the Restitution of All Things is the coolest place on the vessel: the Center Centra Diplomatic Retreat, a snow covered nature preserve, with lake and lodge and firepit. And right now, inside of the old wooden building aside the icy water, Our Profit, Final Hegemon of Earth, is making her case: the Twil...

For the hundreds of days after the Miracle of the Mirage, the sky above the planet Moonlock was filled only with dust and color. While the occasional landed by and the odd satellite or station came briefly into view, the world was not--like many others in the system--a harbor for fleets or a rest stop for caravans. Perhaps, those on Moonlock thought, it was the planet's frightening proximity to Vo...

CW: This episode contains death and gun violence On one end of the Quire system, eminating from The Restiution of All Things, is the Profit's Star, an overawing beam of scalding light aimed at the distant eye of Crystal Palace, machine sage. But here, inside of the Mirage, the light shines on a free-floating, living sea. Driven by reckless commitment to success, Gig Kephart throws himself into ove...

On paper, the Notion's mission to protect the Wandering Sea from the cruel talons of Advent is going well: They've secured the massive, mysterious cube that contains what they need to free the sea. They've reunited, having secured Echo Reverie from the dock at the city of Perigiean. Gig Kephart has recovered from a major injury more ready than ever to jump into danger. And they're heading into spa...

In the year that followed the Miracle, the Brighton Lineage leveraged their skill as diplomats (and their resort-quality holdings) to gain favor with factions throughout the Mirage. So succesful were they that they became the de jure rulers of the Rogue Wave, supported not by a fleet of their own, but through a collection of treaties to the military powers of the Quire system. But with the arrival...

CW: This episode contains discussion of suicidal ideation. A single family remembers the Divine Pleroma , now. Neither Phive Amala nor her daughter, Aete, lived when Pleroma, a being of wholeness and breadth, still blessed the fleet with their wisdom and perspective. But every evening, just before bed, Phive Amala and her daughter, Aete, work through Pleroma's volume of the Assemblage two lines at...

The deserts of Altar are dotted with tombs, and each takes a shape all its own. Some are cathedrals, others monuments. One, a hanging garden. But in the base of a crater atop a volcanic peak, there is a Vault. And inside, is Anticipation... or what is left of Her. After months of study and research, an effort led by the Waking Cadent and Shoghig Salon's Temple of the Lost has learned how to open t...

It is one day after the Second Miracle and the arrival of Our Profit, the so-called final hegemon of the New Earth Hegemony. Lit by the massive, false star projected by the Restitution of All Things, Our Profit's flagship, the Twilight Mirage hangs, shocked and quiet. But not for everyone. Resting and recovering in the apparent safety of the World Without End, a sudden wave of energy passes over t...

Despite the faux-mornings and would-be-nights, the sun never rises or sets over the Quire system. Yet today, in the moments between light and darkness, the air hangs too quiet, the way it only does at dawn and dusk. As Fourteen Fifteen guards the scientist and artist Wind's Poem in a well-barricaded hotel room, Tender Sky goes to convince her ex, Open Metal, not to kill the Notion's Ward. Meanwhil...

As the axiom Ache strikes from above, the Notion joins Acre-7 in trying to end the conflict so Quire can perform a second miracle. Gig Kephart, desperate for some additional help, makes a decision that results in painful consequences. Echo Reverie makes a move, at last, on a dangerous foe, and the planet Quire leaves its mark on them, while Signet is caught between her past and present loyalties....

With the prophesied "Dark Day" less than 24 hours away, the Notion continue their plan to intercede and stop the murder of Wind's Poem, one of the event's potential catalysts. Grand Magnificent and Fourteen Fifteen look for loopholes (legal and otherwise) that will give them access to the Compel Project blueprint. And while Tender Sky tries to convince their mark to come under the group's protecti...

Across the threshold into the Vale's deepest fog, The Notion is finally sets their sights on their target, Acre-7, as well as the axiom Ache, who brings with it visions of their deepest regrets. As Ache tears through the earth in the distance, the group travels with two uneasy companions, Saint Wynter and Advent agent Gigas, towards Acre-7 to get answers and offer support before focusing on the co...

Determined to prevent two murders predicted by Crystal Palace, the Notion heads to one of Skein's allocologies, a floating, all-in-one corporate campus. Their plan? Infiltrate the lab of Wind's Poem, one of the potential victims, by pretending to be the inventors of a solid-milk-based art startup. While Tender and Poem talk about passion projects, Fourteen Fifteen and Grand Magnificent try to loca...

After careful planning, the Notion covertly breaches the outer perimeter of the Vale, bypassing the dronefield of Saint Wynter... only to have a bumbling team of Advent Group agents set the alarm off. After retreating, the group find its bearings and begins to moves through the o v ergrown city, a strange echo of an alternate Quire. The group meets a stranger in need, but before he can be fully ai...

As half of the Notion explores the jungle valleys of Skein, the others descend to Terncage, the planet's largest metropolis. A pair of old allies tells the group that a mysterious calamity called "Dark Day" is nearing, and that the Rapid Evening's oracular Crystal Palace has predicted that it will follow a pair of strange murders. The predicted victims are Wind's Poem--the artist and researcher re...

Deep in the jungles and mountains of the planet of Skein, far from the NEH metropolises, scientists from across cultures have come together to form Ternion Research. Their chief object of study is the Wound, a massive gash in the planet's surface that comes to its deepest point in a place called the Vale, which may be home to the consciousness of the world-being Quire. The three subgroups of Terni...

With their missions on Gift-3 behind them, the Notion is made to consider what went right, what went wrong, and what they can do to make sure things go better next time. Tender investigates the experimental NEH technology in her Angler unit. Even meets up with an old friend for a quiet dinner together, while Signet finds her own company to celebrate the anniversary of the Miracle with. Gig makes g...

Deep within the endless Q-Glass storm of Gift-3, the Notion investigate and converse with the residents of the Axiomatic town of Polyphony. While Even Gardner trades ship tips with the smuggler Tannoy Kajj and Echo Reverie confronts their feelings about a supposedly perfect place, Signet speaks goes right to the source: Polyphony themself. The question is, if the inhabitants of this quaint town ne...

Deep in the scrapyards of Gift-3, a bubbling ocean of glass is battered by an massive, endless lightning storm. And beyond the sheets of rain, lies Barricade, the axiom that Notion members Signet, Echo, and Even must deal with on order of Kitcha Kanna, their dubious taskmaster and the Chief Expeditionary of Advent's technology division in the Mirage. They prepare their minds, ready their Anglers,...

Aboard the floating airship of Big Garage, the Notion come face to face with an old ally, the award winning bounty hunter Waltz Tango (Cache). As Fourteen Fifteen scraps with Waltz and Grand Magnificent squares off against a monsterous foe, Tender, Gig, and Yam attempt to secure a pathway forward for the crew. Unfortunately, these are not the only obstacles between them and the perpetual motion en...

After returning from their meeting with Advent and the Concretetown Particulars, the Notion discusses the complexity of the situation over dinner. When a new offer is made, the group prepares for their largest operation yet: The piercing of a powerful storm and a confrontation against an Axiomatic foe. Even digs for information, Signet reaches out for Divine aid, and Echo returns a gift. This week...