Sangfielle 15: The Candle Factory Pt. 2

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Episode description[edit | edit source]

From the heights of the stilted shrine of Kaitankro, the valley of Yellowfield is a soporific refuge from the rest of Sangfielle. Absent are the dust storms, the chimeric creatures, and sharp shapes of bonewashed geology. Instead, the wind blows through an endless field of yellow. Little figures move to and fro, between factory and farmhouse. Even the trains arrive at an easy glide below, predictable and safe. Yes, from the heights of the stilted shrine of Kaitankro, the valley of Yellowfield looks quite nice indeed.

This week on Sangfielle: The Candle Factory Pt. 2

Almanac of the Heartland Rider[edit | edit source]

Places[edit | edit source]

Yellowfield: Before the Panic this little valley of yellow flowers was the territory of a petty wizard and the subjects he frightened or beguiled. He called it his Xanthic Demesne, but these days we just call it Yellowfield. In the center of the valley, there’s a candle factory, and it is here that the old axiom refers: “All the candle light in Sangfielle was made with just twenty odd hands.”

Facts and Figures[edit | edit source]

High Vicar Regan Alaway (he/him): The de facto leader of Yellowfield, the vicar preaches daily in the Factory's churchfront. A charismatic figure with a bright vision for the future.
Gala (she/her): A young worker at the candle factory, Gala has grown increasingly concerned about the state of Yellowfield and the high vicar. Now, her concern grows to worry as her mother, Galena, has gone missing.
Eyes, Ears, and Mouth: These three Caprak—loyal to the full extent of loyalty to Alaway—are no talk, all action.
Subsolum: When a reporter passing east requested comment from the High Vicar on the distinguished deity worshipped at Yellowfield's only chapel, she was told only this: “My god is of the underneath, you see. The soil and the fertility in it. The deep soil, you understand. The soil that gives us these wonderful flowers.”   
Bucho (he/him) (mentioned): Whether you first hear of him as “Big Bucho” or “Two Step Bucho,” once you meet him, you’ll understand that no name does the gallant Shape Knight justice.
Rana (she/her): An lonely devotee of Kaitankro who now lives out her days attending to one of her chosen god’s many kite-shrines.

Organizations[edit | edit source]

The Covenant of Kaitankro: You’ve seen them, haven’t you? The unsettlingly gregarious priests with the strange, chitinous crow masks? Of course you have, with their stilt-legs and their stilt-houses and their collection of stakes and strings and, of course, the kites. I asked one once if it was a pun: Kite and Crow, chitin crow. Something like that. The priestess told me that Kaitankro was a very real god, if a funny one, and that one day, he visited her. Like every morning, she raised each of the town’s kites up to the winds in daily worship, and Kaitankro landed on the smallest one—a sight to see, she said, since her god is so large a being. And like a carnivalist, Kaitankro walked down the wire, tips of her talons, until he met the priest at the bottom. There, I was told, they whispered in the priest’s ear a single phrase: “Better to live as birds on wires than die as men in the wind.” Chaos, it seems, breeds community, too.
The Shape Knights: It took people with clear minds, great ingenuity, and implacable spirit to face down and defeat one of the living trains of Sangfielle. In the time since, they’ve crafted armor from their slain foe, and with that have come to be experts of all things train. They herd, they breach, they redirect. But they haven’t yet killed a second.

Contents[edit | edit source]

Plot[edit | edit source]

The party comes up on Yellowfield and sees a train being loaded up (presumably with candles) from the back of the Yellowfield Candle Company. They walk into town and look about inside the Church of Subsolum, where Virtue takes an icon of Subsolum. As the party is realizing that the church seems a bit off, Gala, a townsperson concerned for their safety as visitors, waves them over. She quickly leads the party to her home where she converses with them. She asks if they're associates of Bucho, whose safety she believes is at risk due to High Vicar Regan Alaway.

When asked about the state of Yellowfield, Gala says that recently the vicar has eschewed his duties as a leader, strange things happen in the factory, and her mother has been missing for a week after having a question for the vicar after dinner. For months, the vicar's countenance has been sharper and his sermons shorter. Gala asks the party to find her mother and gives them a key to the factory's supply room.

When Es observes Gala, there is both Gala's own aura of genuine worry and upset as well as flashes of another aura around hers. Chine determines that the vicar is the apex predator in the area, even in this room despite its separation from the factory. The candles in Yellowfield have a sweet, earthy scent that differs from that of the flowers. The vicar, who is sitting in the factory, senses threat and probes for an opening.

Big Eyes passes by outside, and the party follows him to the South Field where he is re-stuffing a scarecrow in a red plaid shirt, and refueling what is revealed to be Bucho's armor within. When Eyes leaves, Chine knocks on the helmet of the armor, which is pulsing with energy, and it opens to reveal Bucho. His eyes are tired, and his skin is sickly yellowish and increasingly waxy. He makes eye contact but cannot respond. In the furnace of his armor is a ball of black/grey and yellow/amber coal-like material, which Big Eyes placed there.

The party takes Bucho down and Marn attempts to heal him with assistance from Chine's white flower oranges. When he recovers enough to talk, Bucho says he thinks the Vicar is a vampire, and has been the person in charge of Yellowfield throughout the many cycles of power. Bucho had been able to tell something was wrong while passing through Yellowfield on a train, so he stopped and poked about, sensing something wrong underground — with unfortunate consequences. He does not know anything about an egg sac but has heard about a "battery", a strange fuel source from cursed places. He also mentions that the candles are made from something new — not canola, but an animal product, possibly the same as what was in his armor; and (regarding Eyes, Ears, and Mouth) that he's "not sure that there are three of them". The party drags Bucho twenty yards from the train tracks, which he feels is a distance he could move when necessary, and leaves him there with a tarp, some water and some fish jerky, hidden by the flowers.

Cast[edit | edit source]

Other Characters[edit | edit source]

Locations[edit | edit source]

Footnotes[edit | edit source]

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