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The Martyr-King's Cup
Category Story Event
Type Story
Data ID 309132

The Martyr-King's Cup is a Sunless Skies Story Event.

Story description[]

"Ambition: The Martyr-King's Cup(drinking_from_the_cup)"

Trigger conditions[]

Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)

Interactions[]

Actions Requirements Effects Notes
Watch Isery's sacrifice
They kneel beside the Cup in a circle of moonlight. Their bald scalp ripples like the sea. Their eyes are bright sharp knives.
    • Genericcharacter icon Isery ≥ 1 [Isery has boarded your engine.]

    • Martyrkingscup icon Ambition: The Martyr-King's Cup = 22 [You must travel to the Storm That Speaks and have a dying quester speak the words that killed him. The Storm That Speaks is reliably found near the Mausoleum, by the corpse of Albion's Sun]

The King of Hours' epitaph
"A human seeing through the eyes of a sun," says the Unseen Queen. "How my father's peers would rage if they knew!"

"The never has come," murmurs Isery, shivering violently. "Oh. I cannot abandon."

Their eyes have turned to stone.

"I could endure the night," they say. "She is nothing and was nothing and will be nothing. Could I—? After all his assurances—? No. I endure. I changed my mind. I endure, and I end."

As they die, Isery slumps over the Cup and whispers words of poison. Faces form in the soul-broth, listening intently. Fortunately, you are too distant to hear.
Watch the Dismal Chamberlain's sacrifice
He kneels beside the Cup in a circle of moonlight. His skin ripples like the sea. His eyes are bright sharp knives.
    • Genericcharacter icon The Dismal Chamberlain ≥ 1 [The Dismal Chamberlain has boarded your engine.]

    • Martyrkingscup icon Ambition: The Martyr-King's Cup = 22 [You must travel to the Storm That Speaks and have a dying quester speak the words that killed him. The Storm That Speaks is reliably found near the Mausoleum, by the corpse of Albion's Sun]

The King of Hours' epitaph
"A human seeing through the eyes of a sun," says the Unseen Queen. "How my father's peers would rage if they knew!"

"The never has come," murmurs the Chamberlain, shivering violently. "Oh. I cannot abandon."

His eyes have turned to stone.

"I could endure the night," he says. "She is nothing and was nothing and will be nothing. Could I—? After all his assurances—? No. I endure. I changed my mind. I endure, and I end."

As he dies, the Chamberlain slumps over the Cup and whispers words of poison. Faces form in the soul-broth, listening intently. Fortunately, you cannot hear.
Step into the Cup
Enter the Golden Day, and live as a knight in an embalmed world.
The Golden Day
You descend into the seething energies of the Martyr-King's Cup. The last thing you see is terrible triumph on the Unseen Queen's face—

—And then you are riding atop your destrier, a sword across your back. The sky above is an endless blazing blue. Your companions ride beside you, laughing, singing. The trees are dripping blossom.

No time to admire the scenery. You have monsters to slay and innocents to save. There is so much to do before nightfall, which is funny, because nightfall will never come. This day will last.

Sometimes, in rare moments of contemplation, you remember a silver smile.

Advanced query needs investigation


What has she done?
Your shouts are swallowed by the roaring void. This wasn't the plan. This doesn't look like immortality.
The Storm That Screams
The Storm is in its death-throes. You had never imagined that lightning could writhe; that thunder could shriek. The clouds are in tatters.

The Queen's face is smiling, shining silver. Her voice cuts through cacophony. "I have killed my father. I have rooted him from his hiding-place in the Cup and finally concluded the moment of his death."

Moonlight is breaking through storm clouds. "I will take the moment of his death, and make it the moment of my rebirth. I will drink the hours from his Golden Day. I will rise from his ashes, and wear his misery as my mantle!"
That's not in the spirit of the agreement
Surely there must be another, more certain way for the Cup to grant you immortality?
A realm preserved in amber
"There is another way. "

The Unseen Queen is wearing the storm clouds like robes. She is crowned in lightning. Her voice is rolling thunder; her eyes, of course, are moonlight.

"My father trapped more in the Cup than his own death. He caught the Golden Day; this was Albion, before the Londoners came. An eternal summer's day, where knights do not age and castles cannot crumble.

"Step into the Cup and all that will be yours. There, you can live forever."
Kill the Queen and usurp her power
In this moment she is radiant, blazing, triumphant. She cannot be touched. But what about in the moonlit world?
The end of a dream
In the Queen's moonlit visions, questers forget who they are. They become perfect knights. No doubt she feels untouchable; none of her poor, addled followers could ever plot against her while they're ensnared

But you are an exception. Over all your adventures, you've built up an immunity to her dreams.

You slip into the dream-world and approach the Unseen Queen. She sits atop her throne, immaculately regal, the Cup in one hand.

You kneel at her feet. When you rise, the Minute to Midnight rises with you, and pins her swiftly through the throat. You catch the Martyr-King's Cup as it falls from her fingers.

Advanced query needs investigation


Join the Queen's quest to destroy the Blue Kingdom
Together, you and her will bring immortality to us all. Or at least, that's the plan. And you've faced worse odds.
The Storm That Schemes
For one last time, under the light of a non-existent moon, you bow before the Unseen Queen. She raises the Cup to her lips, and drinks the timeless remnants of the Golden Day.

You descend to your engine on a moonbeam. You collect the Minute to Midnight (gleaming and dark); the Cloak of the Lion (shimmering, resplendent); you say your final goodbyes to your crew. They scarcely recognise you. Silver light shines between the cracks in your skin.

And you walk back up into the sky. You are already planning your first move in the war against death.

Storm clouds envelop you.
Drink from the Martyr-King's Cup
At last, at long last.
Life unending
The Unseen Queen is just a portrait again. A dozen vengeful bolts of lightning converge; her wooden frame explodes into splinters. Her canvas is devoured by flames.

You kneel beside the Martyr-King's Cup and drink the last remnants of the Golden Day.

For a moment you see the eternity that stretches before you. Endless joy, endless suffering. There will be countless legends about you: the nomadic immortal riding in an ancient engine upon tides of time, slipping between past and future. You become a sunlit hallucination, a ghost story, a cautionary tale, a fervent wish.

You will outlast the Empire; you will outlast the light of law. You will thunder across the skies, imposing your will upon the stars, until the end of time itself.

You return to your engine. This is not your story's end; there will never be an end.


Links[]

Links In[]

Sigil16 [[[qvd:139348(storm_name)]]]

Links Out[]

Template:Navbox story events

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