Episode CXCVI - No Hiding Place

"So what do we do now?" Gulliver asked in the silence of the library as he stared around at his companions.  Less than an hour had passed since the Stoneskin siege of the Colony had ended and the vast majority of the angry Colonists had returned to their homes.  There was a palpable sense of relief but also - Gulliver was sure he wasn't the only one feeling it - of anti-climax.

"Research!" declared the Former Baron with confidence and enthusiasm.  "Lots and lots of research!"

"Oh," Gulliver replied gloomily, "wonderful."

"I don't suppose there's anything else for it," Siren observed, "after all, we really don't know very much about these ancients at all."

"We know a little more than I let on, Siren, my dear."

All eyes turned to the old Philosopher.

"What d'you mean?" asked Gulliver.

"I mean that, whilst much of their history, motives and abilities do remain a mystery, we've actually encountered remnants of their civilisation on a number of occasions.  That, surely, must be useful."

"I think I've even spoken with," Ellis admitted.

"What? How?" asked Sarah, who was doing a remarkable job of pretending everything was normal between them all now.

"Back when we were on the Absolution, sailing through the underground canal.  Remember the lake with all the weird Christmas stuff happening?  Part of those dreams had me speaking to someone who claimed to be behind it all, someone kind of alien.  Gulliver was there too, but he seemed particularly interested in Annabella and I.  He said we were... keys, I think."

"Yes," Annabella agreed, "I remember that.  I... screamed him away."

"Ah, well, I guess that all makes sense," the Former Baron mused, "I'm not surprised that you too caught their interest during that whole Lakhma affair.  If they really are trapped between realities, then human constructs created specifically to tear through the veil between worlds would be exactly what they would want."

Ellis looked away for a second and Gulliver supposed that he didn't enjoy being reminded that he was, in some sense, not a real human being.  Personally, however, Gulliver thought he should just get over it.  It's not like anyone was ever really that authentic anyway.

"Do you think they might be able to use us, then?" Annabella asked.

"It's possible.  Clearly they wanted to communicate with you at the very least."

"I think they had a city there too, under the lake," Ellis added.

"Yes," said the Former Baron, rubbing his chin in thought, "they have lots of little remnants all over the place.  Do you remember the spectres of Whispercove?  I'm convinced that they are not ghosts at all, but Ancients who are trapped just a little closer to this reality than any other, and the Stonerib shoals were almost certainly their work."

"And the obelisks?  Do you think that they built those, too?"

"No, the obelisks are much younger, but I suspect they may have used some of the ancients' technology.  Ah, but there is so much we do not know.  I need more information and that is why we must, must, must do some research!"

"So, do you need more books then?" asked Siren.

"Books!  Books!? Goodness me, no.  I've read all the books on the topic that I can cope with.  If I haven't read everything ever written about the ancients in these last few months, then I've at least read everything that's worth reading.  No, no, no!  What we need to do is some actual, physical research.  We need to visit some of these remnants and find out from the primary sources, so to speak."

"We should also speak to Shadowsmoke,"  Frostfire said, lifting his head from where it had been resting against his cliff-like chest, making him look, for all the world, like he had been asleep.  Gulliver had almost forgotten he was even there.

"The shaman?" Sarah asked, and there was something in her tone that made Gulliver think that she knew him somehow.

"The same.  He's the wisest shaman in Ashvault.  He would know the legends of Those-Who-Came-Before."

"Well then, we'll have to add Ashvault to the list," the Former Baron continued.  "Indeed, it seems to me that the best thing we could do is split up and spread out.  That way we can cover as much ground as quickly as possible, for I fear we may be running out of time, especially once the Ancients realise that we're onto them."

"But are we really?" Sarah asked.  "If we know so little about them, how do we really know what they are up to, how they intend to go about it and when they plan to do it?"

"We don't!" replied the Former Baron with a laugh, "and that's half the fun, really.  Besides, they might not know that and even knowing that a plot exists is some progress."

"If you say so," Gulliver muttered.

"I do say so, Gulliver, my lad.  Anyway, if we're in agreement about my research plans, then all that remains is for us to decide who is going where."

"I'll put some tea on, then," Annabella said and Gulliver sighed.  She was quite right.  This was going to be a long day.

Gulliver stretched and yawned as he stepped into his room, the same one he had once shared with Ellis in the Grand Chateaut Von Spektr, and kicked his boots off in a few careless flicks of his feet.  Next, his jacket came off, then his shirt and then he began to unbuckle his belt, all the while staggering slowly (and often blindly) towards his bed.  When the moment came that his shins grazed the bed frame, however, he swivelled (almost gracefully) and then dropped onto the mattress, before falling backwards to spread-eagle across his quilt.  He lay there in exhausted silence for a few minutes, not caring about his undignified state of déshabillé, staring at the ceiling with blurred vision and seeing, not the lines and whorls of the painted beams, nor the stained whitewash, nor even the haze of his vision, but all the horrors that he had experienced in the last two years and all those he anticipated to come.

Why did it 'ave to be there? he asked aloud once the silence became too oppressive even for him.  Why ever did it 'ave to be there!?

He thought back to the conversation in the library, and the moment when the Former Baron made his final summation as to where the various parties should head in the hopes of getting some more answers.

They had already been at the table for hours at that point, debating the various suggestions made and checking and re-checking the various books the Former Baron had brought out discussing the various ruins and technologies left behind by the Ancients.  Everyone had been getting tired, but there was a gradual sense of consensus forming, which the Former Baron finally point into words.  He had glanced around the table at which they all sat, past the piles of books and the maps in various stages of rolling, folding and overlapping, and nodded.  "I think we're all in agreement," he had said and, though Gulliver had wanted to shake his head vigorously, he had not.  Perhaps he had been too scared, or perhaps he knew there was no point in arguing.  The only thing he was sure of is that he regretted it bitterly now.

"So, Sarah and Frostfire will, of course, head to Ashvault to speak to this shaman, Shadowsmoke.”  That had been a given from the very start.  There had been almost no debate about that at all.

“Siren, Ellis and Annabella, you should head to Noondeep to check out the ruins there.”  Noondeep, a district of the equatorial canyon plains, was famous for its entrance to a complex and largely unexplored Ancient city.  Some of the reports from those who had attempted, in vain, to catalogue and map it were very intriguing indeed, especially those which spoke of various gate-like structures.  It was those in particular that the Former Baron wanted the party to investigate.

“Which means that Gulliver and I will head to Coldsolace."  Coldsolace, the district which held Coldsolace Keep, the fortress of the Liches.  Several fragmentary reports from the few people to have (briefly) survived their torments suggested that the undead monsters may have some connection to the Ancients.  It seemed tenuous, but the Former Baron had not let it go and Gulliver, it seemed, was the perfect companion for such a quest.

“Because you’re the very opposite of your brother,” the old Philosopher had explained, earlier in the evening, when Gulliver had asked why on earth he should even consider going, “and that convinces me that you have the stuff to stand up to the Liches coercion.”

“But ‘Arker never was ‘coerced’, just ‘is crew,” Gulliver had complained.

“Oh, a trifling little detail, Gulliver, my lad.  You’ll be perfect.”

Somehow the opportunity to argue the point a second time never came up and, when it came to the final decision, Gulliver found that he accepted it with a growing sense of immutable doom.

“Why did it 'ave to be there?” Gulliver moaned once more before closing his eyes.  It was a token gesture really.  There was no way he was going to get any sleep.

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