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Quarter

written by Lendren Starfall

Being an account of an extraordinary day, seen from four viewpoints,
none of them the whole truth.
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Part III: Courage
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Cast

Sir Kevvlen Ellessen, Knight of Dawn
Troubadour Chelle Lightsoigne
Page Tenny, of the Armies of Light
Dame Aellen La'Saet, Scion of Eternity

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SCENE CelestStreets: An intersection of several streets in New Celest occupies
the whole of the stage, with buildings blocking the corners. Everywhere,
festive streamers hang, adding a splash of color and merriment to the city,
though in places the streamers hang half-askew, suggesting that the festivities
have been underway for some time already. The streets are mostly clean, though
a few bits of trash and some empty bottles speak of yesterday's celebrations.
Somewhere in the distance, a few musicians can be heard in halting rehearsal of
dances, both stately and rollicking tunes, punctuated by seagull cries, mewling
kittens, and the sounds of the city, though those sounds are mostly stilled in
slumber. The tang of the sea fills the air.

EFFECT S3dawn (6): The curtain rises on a bright clear dawn, shining on the
streets of New Celest. Salt tangs the air and the cries of seagulls can be
heard, but the city is mostly silent in slumber, unusually so. The normal
cleanliness of the streets is besmirched with the signs of last night's
celebrations.

ROLE Kevvlen (M): Sir Kevvlen Ellessen, Knight of Dawn

COSTUME KevvlenCostume (Kevvlen): He is a towering igasho and has unkempt
grayish fur, ruffled and in places matted with clumps of food. It's clear that
he usually takes better care of himself from the sheen and neat trim of his fur,
far tidier than the usual shagginess of his kind, but his bloodshot, sunken eyes
and the pained expression of a headache corroborate the suggestion of a rough
night. His armor is decorated with several shining ribbons and insignia of
rank, but his helmet hangs from his belt. He is wearing shining field plate of
gold, a brooch of the shining dawn, and a captain's insignia brooch.

Kevvlen: ENTER strides down the street in a crisp march, interrupted by a
half-stumble as he rubs his bloodshot eyes and picks something out of his fur.

EFFECT S3Q1 (0) In the distance, a rehearsing group of musicians playing a
sprightly tune in halting stops and starts hits a very sour note, then grinds to
a halt.

Kevvlen: picks up a broken bottle, muttering sourly. He looks around as if
expecting to find a street-cleaner to hand it to, and on finding none, mumbles
and sets the broken glass back where he found it.

ROLE Chelle (F): Troubadour Chelle Lightsoigne

COSTUME ChelleCostume (Chelle): She is a noble merian and seems in constant
motion, her amber eyes twinkling with merriment. Her figure is lissome and
slender, not graced with many curves but pleasingly proportioned nonetheless,
with a youthful air about her. Her scales tend towards the greener end of the
range, particularly on her face and head. Unusually long and skinny fingers tap
with incessant nervous energy. She is wearing blush robes decorated with
carnations, a sunny yellow hat, and a twilight blue rose.

Chelle: ENTER skips into the intersection and stops short, grinning brightly at
Kevvlen and waving cheerfully.

Chelle, to Kevvlen: Gracious good morning to you, Knight of Dawn! And how
finds you this dawn?

Kevvlen: grimaces at Chelle's chipper tone, rubbing his head, and glares at
her.

Chelle: (entirely unperturbed) Ah, just so! For my part, I'm quite well, and
looking forward to today's activities. I've been practicing my dancing all
month! Pray tell, good sir Knight, have you a partner for the dance?

Kevvlen: (in a gravelly voice) I will be on patrol.

Chelle: (waving her hand dismissively) You're on patrol now, and you'll be on
patrol then? What good is being a commander if you can't command someone else
to do this stuff some of the time?

Kevvlen: (sourly) I'm not a commander anymore, I was promoted to captain after
our victory in the Blasted Land last year.

Chelle: (with a merry giggle) Congratulations! I can see why this would
preclude you from joining in the celebrations.

Kevvlen: (resignedly) Someone needs to protect the city during all this culture
claptrap.

ROLE Tenny (M): Page Tenny, of the Armies of Light

COSTUME TennyCostume (Tenny): He is a glistening mugwump and has the ungainly
awkwardness of untrained youth about him. His armor is ill-fitting and loose,
giving his movements a clumsiness that might ease when he grows into his
clothes. A sprinkling of deep reddish dots on his face and arms look like
freckles, especially against the faint, pale green of his moist skin. He is
wearing cranberry leather leggings, a cranberry leather skullcap, a leather
breastplate of deep vermillion, and crimsom leather bracers.

Tenny: ENTER enters in an ungainly tumble, scratching nervously at a fold of
his glistening skin, and salutes nervously to Kevvlen.

Kevvlen: (returning the salute hastily) Yes, what is it?

Tenny, to Kevvlen: (in a cracking voice) Begging your pardon, sir, but Dame
Aellen bid me tell you that a nekotai was sighted leaving the city via the
rooftops. We don't know how long she'd been in the city but we think she was
only spying.

Kevvlen: Who was it?

Tenny: We don't know, sir. She wore a mask of High Wisdom Jesslana.

Kevvlen: (rubbing at his eyes in exasperation) How do we know she was a nekotai
then?

Tenny: Well, sir, we were told she was wearing nekai.

Chelle: giggles, holding her hand to cover her mouth.

Kevvlen: Of course she was. Told by whom?

Tenny: We received word from the High Wisdom herself, actually. Apparently
with most of our guards sleeping off the party, none of ours noticed.

Kevvlen: (groaning) Well, what does it matter if some nekotai spied on us
today. Let them wonder why our streamers are one color and not another, for all
I care.

Tenny: (backing away) Yes, sir, only Dame Aellen insisted I tell you, sir.

Tenny: turns to leave the way he came.

Kevvlen, to Tenny: Wait, boy!

Tenny: (stopping short and turning, his face blanching) Yes sir?

Kevvlen: (gesturing to the broken bottle) Pick that up! You don't want to
leave the city looking like this, do you?

Tenny: (almost stumbling in his haste to pick up the trash) Yes sir! I mean,
no sir!

Chelle: breaks into a full-out laugh.

Kevvlen, to Tenny: (grimacing at Chelle) Dismissed.

Tenny: EXIT salutes briskly and then hurries off, picking up some more trash on
the way out.

EFFECT S3clouds (6): The slanting rays of sunshine begin to weaken as clouds
roll in, thin wisps at first, though in the distance, rumbling thunderheads are
quickly approaching.

Kevvlen, to Chelle: (turning to her) Don't you have anything to be doing? The
festival is due to begin again at noon, shouldn't you be hanging streamers or
writing poems or something?

Chelle: (brightly) Nope, I have nothing particular to do, I might as well keep
you company!

Kevvlen: attempts, unsuccessfully, to stifle a groan.

Chelle: (apparently oblivious) I already hid the clues for the treasure hunt,
and while it might be nice for the choir to rehearse some more, most of them
hold their liquor about as well as... well, as you do, meaning no disrespect, so
they're in no condition to sing.

Kevvlen: Perhaps you should use some of all that free time cleaning up the
streets of all this...

Kevvlen: trails off, looking troubled, his posture stiffening and entering a
more alert pose.

Chelle: (frowning) What's wrong?

Kevvlen: The Taint is marching. Not sure where yet.

Chelle: (with a loud exasperated exhalation) Not today! They'll ruin my dance,
and the treasure hunt, and the whole rest of the culture festival!

Kevvlen: (ignoring Chelle) A large force just arrived on Celestia. I must
rally those forces we can muster.

Kevvlen: EXIT strides off briskly, his hangover for the moment forgotten in his
strengthened sense of purpose.

Chelle: (petulantly) Couldn't they just have waited one more day?

Chelle: EXIT SILENT

SCENE CelestWarRoom: A spartan and functional barracks fills much of the stage,
with an area cleared aside in one corner with a table on which lie several maps,
some rolled up and others spread out. The bunks are unoccupied, and a bit messy
with empty bottles and discarded hats and streamers cast here and there. Rain
pounds against a window in an incessant drumbeat.

EFFECT S3noon (6): A brief break in the clouds shows the sun directly overhead,
the light gloriously illuminating the sky as it briefly enfolds the city, before
the clouds close over it once more as the curtain falls. When it rises again a
minute later, a barracks is revealed behind it, unoccupied and messy with the
remnants of last night's festivities.

Kevvlen: ENTER hurries into the barracks and crosses to a table in the corner,
rolling out one of the maps and examining it worriedly.

ROLE Aellen (F): Dame Aellen La'Saet, Scion of Eternity

COSTUME AellenCostume (Aellen): She is an ordinary human demigod and shows her
years in wrinkles around her keen, narrow ice-blue eyes and a severity in her
expression. However, the sense of coldness is mitigated somewhat by the
maternal plumpness that her age has also brought to her frame, rounding out her
curves enough to make her seem unthreatening. Wispy white hair spills over her
shoulders, as straight as purpose and as shining as justice. She is wearing
golden vestment robes with a samite overcoat.

Aellen: ENTER follows Kevvlen in, her gnarled hands gripping tightly around her
gold-shod staff.

Kevvlen: Even if I muster every man and woman capable of fighting, it will be
too few to stop them.

Aellen: Stop them from doing what, though? We don't know what they're even
trying to do.

Kevvlen: The Heresiarch is performing some blasphemous rite, but it is
unfamiliar.

Aellen: Can we rouse more of the armies?

Kevllen: I told you that letting them attend this festival was a bad idea.
Most of them couldn't be awoken by a fanfare of trumpets from every Cantor we
have. That is, if half the Cantors weren't in the same stupor.

Aellen: (pacing irritatedly) There must be something we can do. We must find
out what they're up to; we can't counter it without understanding it. We'll
send to the forestfolk, see if they know anything.

Kevvlen: (dubiously) Why should they know anything that is of use and can be
trusted?

Aellen: (brusquely) We needed them to tell us of the nekotai spy in our midst
this morning. They, at least, aren't all hung over. I will see to it, captain,
there's no time to argue. Marshall those you can rouse.

Kevvlen: EXIT SILENT

Aellen: EXIT SILENT

SCENE Celestia: The air is full of light on these sandy plains, so much that it
seems even motes of dust are iridescent as if they were gemstones too small to
be seen hanging in the air. All around, the haunts of the Supernals gleam in
their overweening effulgence, almost blinding.

Chelle: ENTER SILENT

Tenny: ENTER SILENT

EFFECT S3thunderstorm (6): A crack of thunder rattles the windowpanes, and as
the captain and dame stride off purposefully, the curtain falls, leaving the
stage full of the sounds of the storm for a few minutes. When it rises, the
sands of Celestia fill the stage, the Supernals at one end huddled together
behind a small force of defenders, Tenny and Chelle amongst them. In the
distance, a shimmering orb of oily brown energy slowly rolls forward, flanked by
Magnagoran armies far too many in number.

Chelle, to Tenny: (with a nervous laugh that fails to conceal her fear) Where
is Kevvlen, and the Paladins? And Dame Aellen? Where is everyone else?

Tenny: (staring out at the oncoming armies): I don't know. We're to hold as
long as we can, that's the only order I was given.

Chelle: Surely they can't have left us to die alone. What cowardice is this?

EFFECT S3Q2 (0): One of the Celestians is yanked from the group by a jagged
chain, and vanishes. A wet gurgle is heard, and a spray of blood, and then
silence.

Tenny: (staring in terror, his knuckles white around his claymore) They must
have a plan. There must be a plan.

Chelle: You're right, they must be working on something. We must stay brave.

Tenny: EXIT SILENT

Chelle: EXIT SILENT

SCENE CelestWarRoom

EFFECT S3Q3 (6): As a flash of lightning reveals the approach of the Demon
Lords, encased in tainted energies, the curtain drops and very quickly rises to
reveal the empty barracks again.

Kevvlen: ENTER steps in hurriedly, leading a small group of a half-dozen
combatants, some of them bleary with hangover, still strapping on weapons and
preparing spells.

Aellen: ENTER hurries in and crosses quickly to Kevvlen.

Kevvlen, to Aellen: This is all I could find. We're ready to join the others
in Celestia immediately.

Aellen: No, captain, you will do no such thing.

Kevvlen: (taken aback) But they're getting slaughtered up there. At last
report there's only six people left, and four of those are novices or
non-combatants.

Aellen: And they must continue to fight knowing they will lose, they will die;
but we cannot go to their aid.

Kevvlen: By all that is holy, whyever not?

Aellen: I have learned several interesting things from the High Wisdom this
day. Magnagora moves to capture one of the Supernals, probably Japhiel, to
bring him back to Nil to be tainted.

Kevvlen: (gasping in consternation) We must stop them immediately!

Aellen: You will heed me, captain. In doing so, they perform a rite which
draws upon the power of the Domoth of Death, which they recently captured, to
protect the Demon Lords while they are present on Celestia. But their rite has
opened a door which may be passed in both directions.

Kevvlen: (scratching thoughtfully at a matted clump of fur) A door?

Aellen: The Serens have been monitoring these rites and the High Wisdom showed
me how they work. While Magnagora's forces are busy on Celestia, we can capture
the Domoth of Death, only a small force will be required. You and I and these
here should do.

Kevvlen: And we can stop them killing our people and taking Japhiel?

Aellen: No, we can't save them, there isn't time. This will only work if
Magnagora is too distracted by their victory; nothing blinds them so much as the
illusion of crushing their enemies. Our people must go bravely to their
slaughter, giving no sign that they are a distraction.

Kevvlen: What good will it be to capture Death, then?

Aellen: Once they capture Japhiel, if we hold the domoth of Death, we can turn
their trap against them. Japhiel will be lost, but the Demon Lords will fall,
be thrown down.

Kevvlen: All we need to do is capture the domoth then?

Aellen: That, and to use its energies in a way I have learned. But the
fighting on Celestia must last long enough. Instruct those there that they must
fight as long as possible. Tell them what is expected of them.

Kevvlen: Tell them that they have no hope of rescue?

Aellen: Tell them their deaths will be sung for centuries as the first step in
the overthrow of the Taint. Then we must away to the domoths immediately.

Kevvlen: EXIT SILENT

Aellen: EXIT SILENT

SCENE Celestia

Chelle: ENTER SILENT

Tenny: ENTER SILENT

EFFECT S3nightfall (6): The rain has settled into a steady, soaking downpour as
the sun sinks behind the horizon, the light fading as if washed away by the
torrents of rainwater. The curtain falls, leaving only the song of the rain for
a minute. When it rises, the sands of Celestia are besmirched by blood and many
strewn corpses, the armies of Magnagora filling the stage on all sides.

Chelle: stands back to back with Tenny amongst a pile of bodies.

Tenny, to Chelle: (panic in his voice) It's just us now. I think we've held
them long enough. I can't defend you any longer.

Chelle: No, we have to keep fighting, stretch this out as long as possible.
They said...

Tenny: We can't add more than a few more seconds now.

EFFECT S3Q4 (0): A nearby voice shouts a cry for surrender, exultant with
triumph and malice.

Chelle: (after taking a deep breath) No, you're right, we should surrender.

Tenny: Surrender? They will offer us no mercy, no quarter.

Chelle: You're right. But we can stall them longer arguing over terms of
surrender than we can fighting, now.

Tenny: What terms? We cannot offer any but unconditional surrender and they
know it.

Chelle; (squaring her shoulders) They might take some pleasure in the act of
contrition. Leave this to me.

Chelle: (moving forward, her eyes fixed on the advancing sphere of tainted
energies, now terrifyingly near to Japhiel) We will surrender, if you might
offer us assurances that we might be permitted to... to join the Engine!

Tenny: (aghast) We what?

Chelle, to Tenny: (over her shoulder) Shhh, just play along.

Tenny: Oh... oh, of course! The strength of might you have shown is most
impressive! We wish to be part of it instead of ground under it!

Chelle, to Tenny: (glancing back at him in surprise) That was good, where'd
you come up with that?

Tenny, to Chelle: (blushing) It's just something they said once, fed back to
them.

Chelle, to Tenny: Good thinking, seems to be working, keep it up.

Tenny, to Chelle: You know they're still going to slaughter us, probably
torture us first.

Chelle, to Tenny: Oh, of course. They'll be so pleased with themselves for
stringing us along so patiently and betraying us at the end. It'll consume gobs
of their time.

Tenny, to Chelle: (with a wolfish grin that belies his teenage awkwardness) I
like the way you think.

Chelle: EXIT SILENT

Tenny: EXIT SILENT

SCENE CelestStreets

EFFECT S3cloudbreak (6): As the negotiations for surrender drag on, the clouds
begin to break, the rain fading into the distance as Japhiel is spirited away.
The curtain falls silently, and rises on the streets of Celest, silent except
for a few calls of seagulls in the distance.

Aellen: ENTER leads Kevvlen and his ragtag force, worn and wearied, along the
streets.

Kevvlen: ENTER SILENT

Kevvlen: (holding the beheaded corpse of Tenny in his arms) Wait, before we do
this, a moment to honor the bravery of those who fell to make this possible.

Aellen: frowns impatiently for only a moment, then softens and nods, bowing her
head.

Kevvlen: None shall forget the courage of those who fought today, knowing they
could not hope to survive, knowing they faced pain, torture, death, and no
chance of victory, so that we could achieve something greater, something nobler.

Aellen: mumbles a quiet prayer.

Kevvlen: Page Tenny, of the Armies of Light, you shall be interred in the hall
of heroes, and accorded the honors due you. Hail the noble Paladins, warriors
of the light!

Aellen: And honors to the other fallen, priests and mages, monks and bards, who
gave their blood to purchase hope for the rest of us. Now, let us act on that
hope.

Kevvlen: (glancing to the east) Enjoy your jubilation while it lasts,
taintlings. Soon you shall learn the truth behind your victory.

Aellen: EXIT clutches a twisted crown in her hands as she strides purposefully
off, twisting energies rising from the crown to distort the darkened sky, making
the stars twinkle brighter as the air ripples.

Kevvlen: EXIT SILENT

PAUSE

EFFECT Interlude1 (12): A haunting melody is heard from backstage, a violin
played soft and slow in a simple, somber melody. Each note fades in slowly, is
held for several seconds, and cuts off abruptly, giving the tune the curious
property of sounding as if it were being played backwards.

PAUSE

EFFECT Interlude2 (12): The violin's plaintive melody builds slowly in
intensity, then ends abruptly, hanging in the air on an unresolved interval.

PAUSE

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to be continued...
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