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| The Remnant of Percy Blythe | |
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| Category | Story Event |
| Type | Story |
| Data ID | 289433 |
The Remnant of Percy Blythe is a Sunless Skies Story Event.
Story description[]
"Vision of the Parzifal(Percy)"
Trigger conditions[]
Vision of the Parzifal ≥ 30 ≤ 60,
Interactions[]
| Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes | |||||
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| Investigate the engine room
What happened here?
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The corpses bear bullet wounds. They are unmarred by fungus, decaying in peace. Amongst the rank insignia, you spot a first officer, a chief engineer and a conductor. All died violent deaths. There are far too few to amount to the full crew.
The boiler – a battered, antiquated, wheezing contraption – stands silent, and broken. Strips of iron hang in front of it, as though it had suffered an explosion. Inside, you find fungus amidst the ashes; clumps and clusters of tendrils that sprout from the charcoal. When burnt, the spores would have infected the whole engine.
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| Examine the captain's corpse
Here lies all that remains of Lt Commander Percy Blythe.
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The corpse of the finest officer of his generation hangs from the wall, suspended by chains of pale fronds. His skin is sallow, and there are strands of golden fungus across his cheek, as though a sun sits beneath the skin. His eyes open.
Percy Blythe looks down on you. Blue-fruiting heads speckle his beard like hanging seaweed. Next to him the gramophone crackles out its dreary anthems of years past. His mouth opens too wide as he speaks; his jaw cracks.
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| Listen to Lt Commander Percy Blythe
Somehow, he is alive.
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He groans. His mouth opens impossibly wide, and a cloud of yellow spores emerge. "I am all that's left." An oily liquid begins to drip from his left eye. "I am a Child of the Grave-Garden."
The voice alters, becoming more clipped, more static, like that of the voices on the gramophone. "I am Lt Commander Percy Blythe. I am captain of the Parzifal. My task, my task was to explore the Wilderness, and return home with new discoveries." He groans, as though weeping. "I am all that remains. I want to go home."
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| Ask him what happened here
How did the Parzifal end up in this condition?
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"We met the Children on Hybras. We sought to know each other. Wanted to go to the wood. Wanted to see what was kept from us." Percy is drooling as he speaks.
The gramophone clicks, as yet another patriotic dirge begins to play. Percy Blythe struggles in his bonds, pulling himself up to stand a little straighter. "We made contact on Hybras. The fungus was so bright, so beautiful." His eyes shine gold. "I brought it aboard, God forgive me. I wanted the crew to see. To know." Oil leaks from those hollow eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Some came willing. Others refused to join us. We had to—" He breaks off into silence, staring away into the middle distance.
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| What happened to him?
How can he be alive?
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Self-pity
Percy Blythe launches into a long, meandering, slurred story of children and gardens, of a cruel king who needed but did not love his subjects, despite their love for him, of knowledge denied and growth checked. Of tyranny and freedom, of grief and betrayal and longing.
The music bursts into sudden life. Percy jerks, and fixes you with an infected eye. "I was stupid. I thought we would be welcome here. And we were, we were welcomed. We were loved. The Children, the Verdance, they wanted us." He begins to sob. It is a sad, squelching sound.
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Console him
Something of the man remains.
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You approach gingerly, fishing for a handkerchief in your pocket. Reaching up, you begin to dab at the oily tears that scour the Lt. Commander's face. Beneath the grime, you can see Percy's flesh is remarkably well preserved, save for the vibrant tendrils of golden fungus running beneath the skin. "Thank you," he whispers.
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| Keep your distance
You're not going near his noxious secretions.
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The oily burbling goes on for some time. The Lt. Commander becomes rapidly incoherent. Sometimes he weeps for 'Mother', other times for London. He believes himself disgraced twice-over. Eventually, the embarrassing affair comes to a stop, as Percy Blythe is left blowing clouds of spores from his mouth, his eyes vacant.
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| What does he want now?
Can he even go home?
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Lt Commander Percy Blythe lets out a low moan, and slumps forward. The chains of fungus adjust to accommodate this despair.
"Home." He slurs, like a man drunk demanding another drink. "On Hybras. Mother spored us there. She set out her children across the stars to learn. The Traitor's Wood. We were forbidden from entering there, but now its king is dead. But this craft failed before we could arrive..." The body jerks, as though shocked. Percy's face rises to face you. "London," he rasps. "London.
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| Can the Parzifal still fly?
The answer is almost certainly no, but there's no harm in asking.
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"No," the Lt Commander hisses, his eyes rolling in his head. "Sabotage. Mutiny. Ignorance. No fuel. The Children too greedy, spread too fast. Like fire. The engine is broken. The crew all gone. I am alone." His head lolls as though his neck were broken.
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| Decide his fate
This cannot continue.
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Lt Commander Percy Blythe, decorated hero of London's forces, first captain through the Avid Horizon, gazes at you, slack-jawed and unseeing.
"Please," he rasps. "Take me home. Or finish this." He twitches, "We just wanted to know what was kept from us in Traitor's Wood. Why did our king not love his children?"
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Game note: This will bring the story of the Parzifal to a conclusion.
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| Burn it all down
No one need ever know what happened here. It might be mercy.
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The remnant of Percy Blythe does not appear to register your response. His head bobs with the tilting of the engine. You back away from the door, and quickly away through the rotting carriages of the Parzifal.
Your crew do not need telling twice. With torches and pistols, you roam the fruiting carriages, igniting plump walls of fungus wherever you find them. You work from back to front, until the locomotive blazes like fireworks at the Proms. Soon, the engine will be little more than a smouldering husk. And somewhere in the conflagration burns Percy Blythe, but not for long. You flee the smoking wreck of the Parzifal, having purged it of its infection.
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| Take Percy Blythe to Hybras
Return him to 'Mother'.
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The remnant of Percy Blythe does not appear to register your response. His head bobs with the tilting of the locomotive. You begin cutting the body down. It is a task only made more difficult by the discovery that most of the far wall is, in fact, a rubbery sort of mushroom, whose weak yellow flesh is entirely embedded in Blythe's back.
You are forced to cut down a whole section of the wall, exposing the metal shell of the Parzifal, and carry Blythe out upon it. On board your engine, he mutters and twitches, as though diminished by the separation. You leave the Parzifal drifting alone in the sky.
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| Return Percy Blythe to London
Bring him home.
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Mercy?
The remnant of Percy Blythe does not appear to register your response. His head bobs with the tilting of the engine. You cup his head gently, to avoid plunging your hand through the soft, rotten flesh of his neck. The chains of fungus quiver as you set to freeing him.
His hand reaches for yours, and his gold-flecked eyes meet yours. "An end. Please," he rasps. "London... I want... remember as I was."
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Grant him an end
Bring home his corpse
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A small spatter of red and a longer drip of black follows. The corpse sinks to the floor, as though abandoned by the fungus. His body has left a deep impression in the yellow mushroom that covers the wall.
You bear the fallen captain of the Parzifal back to your engine, where his corpse is covered with an old flag. His last voyage is almost at an end.
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| Spare him
Bring him home alive. Perhaps he might yet be saved.
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The light leaves his eyes, and his head lolls back. He speaks not another word to you, as you untangle him from the frondulent chains that bind him.
Eventually, and after some deft work with a hacksaw to free him from the spongy flesh at his back, Lt. Commander Percy Blythe is free. You guide him, clinging and ruined, through the sporing carriages and to the safety of your engine.
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| Take Percy Blythe to Traitor's Wood
Let him complete his last mission.
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The remnant of Percy Blythe does not appear to register your response. His head bobs with the tilting of the locomotive. You begin cutting the body down. It is a task only made more difficult by the discovery that most of the far wall is, in fact, a rubbery sort of mushroom, whose weak yellow flesh is entirely embedded in Blythe's back.
You are forced to cut down a whole section of the wall, exposing the metal shell of the Parzifal, and carry Blythe out upon it. On board your engine, he mutters and twitches, as though diminished by the separation. You leave the Parzifal drifting alone in the sky.
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