Episode description
This episode carries content warnings for discussion of blood loss and medical coercion.
The crew of the Blue Channel find themselves at a crossroad. After helping to return the Cause to its feet after a period of over-extension, they discovered that they had been misled by their commander, Gucci Garantine. Now, they have a new mission: Travel to the city of Baseline, a testbed for the Frontier Syndicate, and support a growing rebellion there. But there is another option: Pursue their own ends, root out corruption in Violet Cove, care for one of their own, and (hopefully) send a message to the Cause’s leadership…
This week on PALISADE: Upon Our Grace
I don't wanna talk if you're not gonna talk to me nice / Talk to me nice / Talk to me nice
Dossier
Organizations
Violet Cove: The Dim Liturgy claim to have seen the Divine Devotion's arrival coming in their sacred text: A battered and corrupted backup of Crystal Palace's final predictions for the future. Now the two cults work together to oust the Bilats... and perhaps to do more intriguing things, as well. The Devotees: A church from the Twilight Mirage that is committed to the worship of the divine Devotion, which they sometimes refer to as Fervor. Common practices include the regular checking of one’s pulse and multi-day group picnic outings. People
Lucent Reflection (she/they): Cantor of the Convex Wing of the Dim Liturgy’s primary monastery, where she aids in the study of trends, moods, and atmospherics in Glass Archive’s remnants, Sea Crepuscule (he/him): Master of the Concave Wing of the Dim Liturgy’s primary monastery, where he leads the search for specific details and predictions from the Glass Archive’s remnants. Marlon Styx (he/him): Undercover BIS agent assigned to infiltrate Violet Cove. Has become enamored with the Dim Liturgy’s holy text. Places
Isle of the Broken Key: Home of the Dim Liturgy since its obscure creation thousands of years ago. Now serves as base for the entire Violet Cove unit of the Cause, including the Devotees and (most recently) additional support teams from the Twilight Mirage. Divines
Asepsis (it/its): The final living remnants of a Divine who pursues its particular vision of purity at the cost of everything else. Kept, studied, and utilized by Captain Kalvin Brnine. The Reflecting Pool, f.k.a the Divine Past, f.k.a. Crystal Palace (it/its): In the era before the founding of the Divine Principality, Crystal Palace served as the supreme oracle engine of the Rapid Evening and the Principality of Kesh. At the end of that era, it lost its ability to predict the future, but continued as a vast archive of the past, and became canonized as the Divine Past (which now serves as the Reflecting Pool, center of the Witch in Glass’ kingdom). The final record of its predictions into the future are stored on Palisade, under protection (and study) of the Dim Liturgy and Violet Cove.
Contents
Opening
“
Connadine. Beyond my regular assessment, I have enclosed a relevant excerpt from the remaining verses of the Glass Archive. I know you do not grant these passages great consequence, so instead I will ask you to honor the process by which they are received. They are given Convex scrutiny, and Concave perspective. Reject the ritual, doubt the augurous capacity of the text if you must, but recognize in our exegesis a familiar mode of discerning truth and apprehending the world.
They arrive with baskets laden and full
Of mealworms and oranges and bread-colored rule.
Guests knocking at the wrong door without invitations,
Celebrations underway, puppeteered prostrations.
Their hands are not hands, their eyes lips and tongues,
And their hair isn’t hair, and it’s not air in their lungs.
Their guns, fuses lit, aimed at veiled targets.
A bargain-priced massacre, broken bottles in the garden.
A list of casualties. The alphabet. Disease.
Used seed, a patron, a bird without wings.
Fourteen initiates, fifteen priests,
Two dozen unfilled pies, the name of the beast.
Then indiscernible scratches marked out in brackets.
In the margins there’s illumination: a smiling yellow jacket,
A little flower with a face, and a shield and a mace,
Like a cavalry unit charging, like a knife clad in lace—
Like a messenger whose message is carried on their
“Face the wall.” The words continue, “face the wall and wait.”
Then fire drawn in ribbons and floods atop the cliff.
The quaking is in the flesh, but the blood is in the grip.
The pane is shattered, but the words continue, falling off the glass and into my hand. The blood is in the grip. The blood is in the grip. The words continue. The blood is in the grip.”
Plot
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Cast
- Austin Walker (GM)
- Ali Acampora (Kalvin Brnine)
- Andrew Lee Swan (The Figure in Bismuth)
- Janine Hawkins (Thisbe)
- Sylvia Bullet (Coriolis Sunset)
- Keith J. Carberry (Phrygian)