Ironbird prophet I (Voice of the Ironbird)
Day and night, night and day, the ironbird sings a wheeling song of worlds to come. Vast worlds, past worlds, shattered worlds. Iria is only the latest in the sequence. It is time to move on.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
The ironbird has been busy while you sleep. It wishes you to know that its launch site is near completion, but it will need your help ensuring its security.
(A high-risk challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 30% chance of success.)
[You need Resolve 10 (you have 12)]
Whenever you look into the ironbird’s quizzical eyes, you are assailed by intoxicating visions.
The ironbird’s starship, constructed half of ice itself, is near completion. However, the ironbird wakes you in the night with a plaint of gears: scavengers are attempting to make off with key components.
(A high-risk challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 20% chance of success.)
[You need Ice 20 (you have 29); You need Force 10 (you have 11)]
EJ: Let’s see some intoxicating visions, then:
The ironbird remembers many cities before Iria. It’s not clear whether some of them, built from quantum foam, or balanced between inspiraling neutron stars, or hidden in the hearts of red giants, are cities past or cities future. But one thing is constant, no matter what manner of people live there, or what kinds of starships needle between them and the other far-homes in the void’s dark. All of them are feasts for the winterborn.
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 38).
The ironbird has been busy while you sleep. It wishes you to know that its launch site is near completion, but it will need your help ensuring its security.
–
The launch site isn’t difficult to find, not with the ironbird leading the way. It is hung about with the icicle-bells of the unfortunates who got in the way. There’s a madcap festive aesthetic to the way the corpses have been arranged: tasteful clusters of figures in blue or silver-violet, the occasional cascade of autumn-colored jewels.
You are unable to overcome your distaste, even for the ironbird’s sake. The ironbird croons its sympathy and leads you out of the corpse-maze.
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 12 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: And again:
Success!
The ironbird—or, disturbing thought, other confederates besides yourself—has been busy. A maze of ice and dark corners guards the launch site, and the maze is additionally festooned with the dead. The placement of the corpses recalls star-maps you have seen in times past, and you wonder what the ironbird’s first destination will be.
The ironbird lets you know that it requires another constellation of corpses before its preparations may be regarded as complete. At least corpses are plentiful in Iria, and one more person carrying them off isn’t an unusual sight. There’s a certain wicked amusement to be had in the endeavor. Besides, it’s not as if the dead have any more use for their bodies.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Ice (new total 30).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 26).
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 39).
You’ve gained 1 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 44).
EJ: Before we get too far into the endgame, let’s take a quick break to see some other things that we couldn’t see last playthrough:
A dusty parlor
The shipshard mirror has an honest streak at times. What will it show you today?
Playing this option will get you 10x Dubious Omen.
All the mirror shows you is a catastrophe’s worth of snow, ice winds and winter eyes, everywhere, everywhere snow.
Just before you look away from the unreflection, you glimpse a figure in a black-and-gold coat. But when you look again, it is gone.
You’ve gained 10 x Dubious Omen (new total 60).
Mysterious corpses
People frozen dead in a dreary alley don’t even catch your notice anymore. Except these are different.
You sense that the frozen-marionette corpses, however macabre, aren’t the full story. Their ghastly pallor suggests that they’ve been exsanguinated.
A cursory examination confirms your suspicion. But blood doesn’t simply vanish, and there are no predator-marks on the corpses. You follow the hound-call of the snow and wind to what used to be a mural celebrating the fortunes of health and harvest.
Splashed across the mural are words of frozen blood: words of cavernous despair and crumpled death and cries unanswered in the dark. It takes you a moment to recognize the work of an oracular cannon. Someone has recovered it—and someone is making use of it. Possibly even right now.
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 56).
Fossils in reverse
A wall in what used to be the archivists’ district contains fossils. More accurately, what used to be a wall. The structure has been eaten away by whorls and ripples of ice, not unlike the process by which petrified wood is formed. The fossils are clearly visible, if distorted.
The ironbird’s mien is, of all things, famished. You wonder if one of those fossils would sate it.
Playing this option will get you 20x Fleeting Merriment.
The results are comical. Oh, the ironbird helps you chip free one of the fossils readily enough. The thing looks like what you’d get if you crossed a gene scanner with a trilobite suffering indigestion. Your attempts to encourage the ironbird to accept this snack only seem to confuse it, however.
You’ve gained 20 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 65).
Resolve has increased to 13!
EJ: Okay, back to plot progression:
Ironbird prophet I (Voice of the Ironbird)
The ironbird’s starship, constructed half of ice itself, is near completion. However, the ironbird wakes you in the night with a plaint of gears: scavengers are attempting to make off with key components.
You’re confounded by how much larger the starship has grown. You can’t help but think this is what a fungal vessel would look like if you swapped out all the fungus for moistly glistening ice.
The problem isn’t the ice. It’s that there are too many scavengers. You ambush some of them on the way in, and the smashed corpses satisfy you on a fundamental level, but a particularly well-organized group of them makes off with a vital engine component before you can stop them.
Rather than chiding you, the ironbird calls sweet reassurances to you. If not this night, another. And in the meantime, at least there are more corpses.
Force is increasing…
Force 11 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: Well, I was TRYING for plot progression, anyway. Let’s try again.
Success!
The ironbird leads you through non-Euclidean passages to the starship’s control center. Your heartbeat does not quicken at the persistent unctuous dripping, the crackle-sizzle-hiss of gunfights taking place not far away, the occasional arrhythmic thump.
The control center is half-encased in ice, like a tomb of starward aspirations, but one of the control panels is accessible by a depression in the ice. The depression is precisely the size and shape of your hand. It’s obvious what you’re meant to do.
A concussion of death-words and dread-words and doom-words bells outward from the control center, with the ironbird’s high, triumphant shriek as counterpoint. You stagger to your knees. It takes a long time for the commotion to dim to a bearable murmur.
When you venture out, you discover that all the intruders have been hammered dead, with blood-verses frozen to the walls behind them. So this is the power of the oracular cannon. You can only guess as to how the ironbird obtained it.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You now have 1 x Ironbird Prophet.
You’ve gained 3 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 41).
Ironbird prophet II
Only a few preparations remain before the ironbird can embark on its longed-for journey. Lately it looks at you with darkly affectionate eyes.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
It’s a quiet night when the ironbird calls to you. You’re watching the sky with its scarves of cirrus from a tower-garden, and the wind is pushing along eddies and fingerprint-whorls of snow in the footpaths below. The ironbird is looking neither up nor down, but into a window scarred over with cracks. If it weren’t for the tenacious grip of the frost, the whole thing would have fallen out by now.
As you suspected, you were able to put off inquiries about the ironbird for only so long. You don’t know which faction this Coiled Inquisitor represents, but you had better do something about her.
(A very chancy challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 50% chance of success.)
[You need Ice 20 (you have 32); You need Finesse 10 (you have 14); You need Voice of the Ironbird 1 (you have 1)]
EJ: That second storylet is optional and I assume you only get it if you put off the Lecturer instead of murdering him, so let’s check it out:
The ironbird makes sure you [sic] to keep out of sight when the Inquisitor corners you, but it’s a little late to hide your association with the creature. The Inquisitor wears a necklace of snakes that hiss and sway, fixing you with their glares. They don’t even seem fazed by the chill.
Despite your attempts to pass off the ironbird as a harmless pet, the Inquisitor’s questions become increasingly pointed, her snakes increasingly agitated. The result is an impasse. “You’re being watched,” she promises you before she departs. You’ll have to be more careful in the future.
Finesse is increasing…
Finesse 14 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.) Onward
EJ: Whoops, let’s try that again:
Success!
The Inquisitor is determined to harrow the truth from you, but it doesn’t take you long to figure out that she is constantly being distracted by the whispered suggestions of the snakes she wears as a necklace. Picturesque as the spectacle is, you can’t fathom why anyone thinks interrogation by committee is a good idea.
With a little wit, you insinuate that the ironbird is nothing more than an elaborate toy and that the Inquisitor’s masters are wasting her time with this. Moreover, she accidentally lets slip a few morsels about the Circle’s plans for capturing the oracular cannon. All in all, not a bad hour’s work.
Finesse has increased to 15!
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Brittle Rumor (new total 61).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird Prophet (new total 2).
*EJ: So this offers a somewhat less violent way to progress from II to III, but we already had to do some murders to get from I to II, so I’m not sure how much that helps.*I
Ironbird prophet III
It’s time to fly.
Note: Choosing the final branch will end the game, after which your character will be destroyed and you may, if you wish, create another.
Your preparations are not entirely complete. The ironbird informs you that certain rituals must cleanse the starways so that winter may travel freely from Iria to the next nesting ground.
(A tough challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 40% chance of success.)
[You need Ice 20 (you have 32); You need Resolve 11 (you have 14)]
The ironbird’s temperament is painstaking. You see a faster way to achieve the bloody ritual it envisions.
Playing this will give you 7x Ice, 7x Dubious Omen and 7x Memory of Far-Flung Stars.
[This branch is now free to play]
The ironbird has derived all the sustenance it cares to from the final antics of this city. It’s time to move on—and it wishes you to accompany it.
Note: Playing this card will end the game. This deletes your character and gives you the opportunity to create a new one, if you like.
[You need Ice 25 (you have 32); You need 10 x Dubious Omen (you have 56); You need 10 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (you have 41)]
EJ: Our stats are high enough that we could just see the grand finale now, but this LP is about showing off as much content as possible, so let’s see that ritual:
The ritual is complex in the way of fractal operas and clockwork wars. For all your determination to keep its shape in your head as you anoint the necessary vertices with acts of canny violence, the pattern proves too much. The ironbird is singing in your head now, and while you appreciate the company, it’s disrupting your concentration.
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 14 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: … and now let’s see the ritual again, successfully this time:
The architecture of atrocities
You see the architecture of atrocities the ironbird requires before it is ready to leave its hatching ground behind. Carrying them out is merely a matter of persistence. As you work, you are struck by visions of supernovae attenuated to faded dust, black holes evaporating into silence, the universe cooling by slow fractions until nothing is left but a winter supreme.
Resolve has increased to 15!
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Ice (new total 33).
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 57).
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 42).
EJ: And we can also see that former Nex-locked option:
The ironbird’s temperament is painstaking. You see a faster way to achieve the bloody ritual it envisions.
Playing this will give you 7x Ice, 7x Dubious Omen and 7x Memory of Far-Flung Stars.
Iria has a well-deserved reputation for gaiety. All you have to do is come up with a pretext for a celebration. A thin one, at that. You drop a few words into the ears of well-connected people, then wait.
The celebration is remarkable for the streamers of black silk, and the flowers of black chiffon and lunar crystal, and the shadow-puppets gyrating against the smoky light of the lanterns. But you have been busy with your own preparations, and when they flower, they flower red.
Red isn’t one of winter’s colors, you muse afterwards, but there’s something to be said for the aesthetic statement made by polarities.
The ironbird, needless to say, finds your solution satisfactory.
You’ve gained 7 x Ice (new total 40).
You’ve gained 7 x Dubious Omen (new total 64).
You’ve gained 7 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 49).
Resolve is increasing…
EJ: All right, now let’s see the ending:
Iria is a patchwork of fire and ice and brimming shadow by the time you make it to the ironbird’s starship. It is cold inside, cold like the black spaces between stars, cold like the silent mass where your heart used to be.
The ironbird awaits you. It has sunk into the deck of the control center. Icicle-studded wires connect it to every conceivable surface, and blue-violet lights run along the wires like steady insects. Careful not to upset any of the wires, you make your way to your seat beside it. It lifts its head and whistles, with a timbre between iron and glass, at your approach.
The starship’s sensors apprise you of a clamor outside: blood, fire, the usual percussion. But it’s too late for them to stop you.
With a crystalline cry, the starship lofts. The wind of its passage is cold and keen, and leaves of Iria nothing but a husk, with figures splintered into ice-mirror visions. Wires cut into your skin as you, too, are joined to the starship. The next city is far away, but not far enough, and in the meantime the ironbird is already brooding its single egg to restart the cycle with another winterstrike.
You’ve gained 1 x Winterstrike: The Prophet (new total 2).
You’ve gained 4 x Endings: Gloom (new total 8).
EJ: So as you can see (and I’ll admit I suspected this would be the case), the ending you get from the “moderate” option is really not different from what you get from the “ride-or-die for the ironbird” option other than not making you commit violence against named(?) characters, and you’re wreaking so much destruction anyway that I’m not sure that really helps. It’s the squeamish option for those who like to be at a remove from the consequences of their actions, I suppose. (I can also confirm that the Ironbird Prophet ending seems to be more or less the same no matter what faction you pick, it’s just Ironbird Destroyer that changes.)
With the nature of the ironbird being what it is, it makes sense that there are really only two possible outcomes here, with attempts at reaching some sort of middle ground being fruitless, but it is a little frustrating that it gives the appearance of offering three options when there are really only two. But working with the structure of StoryNexus seems not to have come easily to Lee, and it’s easy to critique but I’m not sure how much better I would do. It’s different in a lot of ways from other IF authoring systems.
Anyway, reading back over this transcript I realized we actually had two new story qualities that I should have captured descriptions for, the other being Teller of Unpleasant Truths, but here’s the one I did get:
Voice of the Ironbird: The creature’s influence over your thoughts is only natural.
We do still have about five days before SN shuts down, so, a poll:
- Circle of Bullets
- Ocular Guard
- Scarf and Feather Society