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| The Bandstand | |
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| Category | Story Event |
| Type | Story |
| Data ID | 290566 |
The Bandstand is a Sunless Skies Story Event.
Story description[]
"The journey to the bandstand is bleak and exposed. The well waits on either side. If you look down, you imagine movement in its caliginous depths. A temptation wells in you to fling yourself from the ice and into the abysm. You avert your eyes, swiftly. Well of the Wolf(Bandstand)"
Trigger conditions[]
Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)
Interactions[]
| Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes |
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| Watch a well-song
The devils struggle out in their wasted finery; out into the teeth of the wind. In a trudging line, they make their way to the bandstand.
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Reunion
The devils mount the bandstand and begin to sing. Their lips are motionless, their mouths hanging slackly open. Buzzing plainsong pours from their throats. The notes are scattered across the scale, creating only a tenuous harmony.
Slowly, they begin to shuffle in what might be a dance. Its movements are performed only with the feet. Are they drawing an alphabet? Hieroglyphs? The well's wail drowns them out, but they persist. After some time, the well begins to waver. The wind slackens. Slowly, over the course of another hour, the well returns to quiescence. The devils, wearied, go back to their caves.
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| Scrutinise the devils' dance for a lost sigil
Their song, their shuffling dance, quiets the well. What marks do their feet trace?
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Shuffling movements
The ornate dance of move and counter move is hard to follow. But this dancer stepped out of line – perhaps performing some kind of grace note. Their feet are easier to see – you can trace the sigil in their steps.
 The Conquest of an All-Too-Familiar Rival
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| Investigate the bandstand
The bandstand is deserted; the well (relatively) quiet.
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Waiting
The bandstand is made from cast iron, modestly curliqued, and pitted by the harsh weather. You find the manufacturer's mark and date: the components were wrought in the Promised Days, just after London arrived in the heavens.
While inspecting it, you feel the weight of the numberless fathoms below you. They pull at you. Perhaps, as a child, you dropped a stone down a less terrible well. Perhaps you listened for the sound of it striking the bottom. Now, you imagine yourself as that stone: falling and falling.
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| Decipher some of the dance-alphabet of the devils
Fortunately, you had the presence of mind to take sketches of the steps the devils performed during their last service.
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Serpentine semiotics
Returning to your engine, you spread your sketches across your bunk and instruct your crew that you are not to be disturbed.
You have learned a great deal in your travels. You are sure the patterns of the devils' dance are a crude form of the Correspondence. The hymn itself, you think, is only inflection. By morning, you have assembled enough of a foundation to decipher the Devil's next service.
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| Listen to the first hymn
The devils gather at the bandstand. You watch closely as they begin to shuffle. Your fragmentary knowledge of the dance-alphabet may be able to discern some meaning.
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The Hymn of Names
It is hard to see where a sigil begins and ends. Worse, their true meaning is hidden in the relationships between them. You are certain the rite is a lament, but struggle to identify who for, until you realise the congregation is using many names for one individual.
You decipher them as best you can. The Singular Choir? No – the Choir-in-One. The Many-Mouthed. The Master of— no. The King of Celebrants? No, the King of Carols. These are the names of the thing in the Well.
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Game note: If you bring additional devils to join the choir, the congregation may be able to perform new hymns.
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| Listen to the second hymn
Their numbers have increased, and the devils can construct the more complex harmonies of another hymn. The wind shrieks. The devils dance. You watch.
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The Hymn of Dissent
This time, you suspect that the hymn's plainsong denotes a time long ago: that this hymn concerns a beginning. The dance recounts a tale of the Many-Mouthed. He... rebelled? No, too severe – campaigned, perhaps, or protested – against (and the sigils are ambiguous here) 'the Golden Rule'? You suspect that's not right.
The King of Carols 'objected through the withdrawal of his voice'. Because of this, 'the eyes were angry'. This is difficult. The well stills. The hymn stops. The dance ends.
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| Listen to the third hymn
As their numbers grow, the congregation becomes capable of ever-more sophisticated hymns. The winds rip at the devils. Their feet scuffle out sigils on the wooden boards.
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The Hanging Hymn
This hymn is a hymn of suffering. The harmonies indicate a penultimate period; a period of punishment. The Choir-in-One (who was, you are now certain, an ur-devil) was – elaborated? Stretched? Hung? – above the well, from the spur of ice on which the bandstand now rests. The stars 'made a message of him,' (this part is unusually clear).
In defiance, he gave away his voices, bestowing 'all but one of them upon his—' The next part might be 'creations' or 'aberrations' or 'amalgamies'. Apparently, this was not well received by 'those who judged'.
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| Listen to the fourth and final hymn
The choir has grown enough to attempt its most sacred hymn. The harmonies are labyrinthine; the steps convoluted. Today, the well's howl is frenzied.
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The Hymn of the Martyr
The hymn is an ending-hymn. The Many-Mouthed was judged by the Regents in Gold, and cast into the well. His voices, all but the one he kept, 'were scattered to the hives'. His followers – 'the horned and brazen' – grieved, then raged, then rebelled. The Chain was broken.
The fate of the uprising is unstated, but the sigils are melancholy. There is reference to an exodus, to 'a time of serpents'. By the time the well is soothed, the devils are drained. They lean on each other as they stagger away. Has anyone else witnessed this, you wonder? Their holy of holies?
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| Leave the bandstand
The pitch-ice is creaking. You hurry back to the relative security of the shelf.
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The Well of the Wolf
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Links[]
Links In[]
The Well of the Wolf, The Conquest of an All-Too-Familiar Rival
Links Out[]
The Well of the Wolf, The Conquest of an All-Too-Familiar Rival
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