Table of Contents
Content Warnings
Swearing, references to violence.
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Day #4
"What the hell are you doing?" Myra asked, watching the stranger across the viewing room saw a hunk of sheen metal off the end of a telescope. The telescope was large, stretching up to the domed ceiling above. This person was large, too.
As she whipped around to look at Myra over her shoulder, she caught a wisp of something black and smoky, flicking off the side of her face. Her features were hard and weathered, her sneer sharp. She tried to rip a lever from the telescope off of it and, upon discovering she didn't have the strength to do such a thing, grunted in frustration and continued to saw.
"Collecting this telescope," she said gruffly. The air was full with an awful screeching of metal on metal. Myra winced.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," she replied, and crossed the room to look closer.
She'd almost missed the observatory. It was half built into the ground, presumably after people started to realise that spending long stretches of time in high places was... risky. After that, but before anyone understood that studying the eclipse was useless. Science couldn't fix this. Only the pyres could, now.
It was neat. There was a fine layer of dust slumbering on books that curved along the circular walls of the observatory, stood proudly on shelves built directly into the structure itself, right back when it was built. Tall, narrow posters adorned the walls, looming down at them—some, constellations, others, great scientists of Anathoria's past—still more were crap inspirational quotes. 'The future is the past before long. It is an honour to spend our present observing it.' 'The future will tell our observa-story!'
Nerd shit.
"Stay back!" the stranger hissed, and for a moment her brown eyes flashed a terrible black—sclerae and all. She stumbled back, pressing a gloved hand to her head. "Should've killed you. Would've killed you, by now."
Myra's eyebrows shot up her forehead.
"Um."
"Could gut you. Gut you like a fish."
They furrowed.
"No, you couldn't," she said with all the confidence in the world. "Fish can't gut anything, they don't have hands. What's wrong with you?"
The stranger stared at her for a moment. Something like clarity crossed her face. And then she was turning back to the telescope, and back to sawing.
"Won't kill you," she muttered. "Not yet. Not yet."
She shoved a chunk of glass into Myra's hand. It drew blood.
"My sister is a scientist. A brilliant one. She works here, somewhere... Once I find her, we'll rebuild the telescope. Study that damned hole in the sky. Take this."
As she side-stepped a tube arcing toward her head, Myra took a closer look at the observatory. It was so still. So lifeless. Like whoever had been here had just up and left one day. Like they'd never come back.
"... Right. I'm going hunting. Come with me."
The stranger blinked, and brushed a stray lock of black hair away from her face. She looked hesitantly toward the telescope.
"This is a good plan. I don't even know who you are. I don't care. This is a great plan—who are you?"
"I'm Myra. I'm going hunting. Come with me."
A moment of silence.
"Fine. Starve in here, for all I care. I'll be back."
The stranger came with her, in the end.
***
"My sister was a scientist."
Myra grunted around the bird leg in her mouth. Oh, so they were talking now.
The stranger stared into the crackling fire they'd managed to muster in the cave they were stowed away in.
"She is a scientist, I mean. We used to do jobs together. You understand," she said, and gestured at Myra's—everything. There was weeks-old blood on her boots, and her dark brown robes were already ragged. So, fairs.
Another grunt.
"She got soft. Weak. Wanted to save Anathoria when it all went to shit. Gods know where she is, now."
Myra wanted to mention that, but twenty minutes ago, she was convinced her sister was somewhere in that makeshift observatory. That she'd wanted to save Anathoria too. A rare moment of self-awareness held her tongue.
"This bird's pretty good, huh," Myra said, tossing the other leg to the stranger. She caught it out of the air without moving her gaze from the flames.
"I've killed with less."
Myra hummed. "Is that so."
"Once, off the coast of St. Thorinn's, I killed a Southern noble with nothing but a toothpick," she said. Her eyes turned wistful for a moment.
"You told me that before telling me your name," Myra replied simply, before sucking the last of the meat off the bone.
"Emberon."
For the first time in the conversation, Myra looked away from her boots. Emberon was staring straight at her. Her left pupil was leaking into the whites of her eye.
"Remember that," she said, as light from the fire danced across the severe lines of her face. "... Please. I can't do it for myself."
Myra nodded, and turned her gaze back to her boots.
"Tell me more about your sister."
"Wasn't there when I killed that guy with the toothpick."
"Right."
"And she was always wearing this necklace with an acorn at the end... Back when I was small, and still did Arcane Arts at school, we did preservation spells, and I—I. Well, I can't really remember it, but... She was always wearing it around her neck."
"Oh," said Myra softly, and looked into the fire. "D'you think you'll see her again, then?"
Emberon scoffed. "Of course I will. My sister's a force to be reckoned with."
"Right."
Crackling. Heat. Myra sucked in a breath, and blinked real slow.
"... Good luck," she said, as she tossed the bone into the flames.
"Thank you," came the reply. "But I won't need it."
Journal #4
Bit too tired to write tonight, I think.
Game Stuff
Draw: 4 of Hearts (♥). A proud person.
Attribute: Steel
Roll(s): 2, 7, 10
Outcome: Success. You learn who she is and her story.
Oracle results for character and place generation
Name: 3. Emberon.
Background: 20. Bandit.
Descriptor: 26. Wretched.
Place: 87. Observatory.
Other Entries
First entry: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-...
Previous entry: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-myra-3
Next entry: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-myra-5
Pilgrim Stats
Pilgrim name: Myra
Pronouns: she/her
| Steel | Wisdom | Edge | Cunning |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Soul Meter: 9
Check out Pyres of a Cursed Kingdom by Miracle M (if you're cool. what do you mean 'peer pressure'?):
https://miraclem.itch.io/pyres
I explain some of Pyres here: https://realitysoup.net/pyres-...
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