Twilight Mirage 01: The Beloved Dust

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This article is about the episode. For the group of covert agents, see Beloved Dust.

Episode description[edit | edit source]

The Beloved Dust, a group of investigators and operatives with Divine mandate, learns that there is an imminent threat targeting Composure's Coliseum* during a important (and highly populated) ritual. Former excerpt and pilot of the Divine Belgard, ⸢Signet⸣, trades favors religious and mundane. The dilapidating assassin Fourteen Fifteen blends into the audience to see things from a higher ground. And Tender Sky, a highly skilled digital architect, enters the event directly in order to protect it from the inside.

Before anything else, recognize what is at stake.

This week on Friends at the Table: The Beloved Dust

The Living Library of Memorious // VOLUME 778Φ
Composure's Coliseum

In the year 28350AM, in the middle of a boom in historical interest on the part of the Fleet's citizens, the Divine Composure built a this innovative structure that blended virtual mesh space and and material reality. At first, the Coliseum simply offered its audience a place to watch re-enactments of foundational events in the broad history of the Milky Way. But not content with pure replication, Composure's excerpt made these simulations interactive, allowing for outcomes far different than the recorded past. Because of the many possible outcomes, these re-enactments offer the public a chance to consider other possible worlds. Attendees describe the experience as stimulating to both mind and soul, and it is due to their popularity that the events continued long after the death of Composure.

Contents[edit | edit source]

Opening[edit | edit source]

“

[Primary] Dispatch 57A.

Satellite... the moment that a ship breaks through from the long black into the Twilight Mirage is breathtaking. Every new arrival splits the difference between violence and creation. With the Divine Fleet licking its wounds, any unexpected change carries threat, but, as we learned a long time ago, threat carries possibility. So, when the sable curvature of the HSS Mercury's Kiss disturbed the pomegranate blots of Empyrean's false nebula, I knew things were about to get interesting. Which, Satellite, makes my job a whole lot more tolerable.

But as I watched that ship hang in the clouds above the floating city of Séance, looking down on that impossible open-aired metropolis in the stars, I wondered for a moment if it might be okay that my tenure here be boring. That perhaps my desire for more active afternoons should come second to maintaining the long-lasting serenity of the Divine Fleet. But I have seen the projections and the projections don't lie. They don't know how.

A graveyard's architecture can be sublime, yes, and grieving can be joyous. But that doesn't change the fact that Séance is first and foremost a home for the dead.”

Plot[edit | edit source]

In a digital waiting room, Tender Sky receives a call from her commander, Cascara, describing the nature of their mission: they have been sent to infiltrate this week's Mysteries, a popular historical reenactment ritual. The Beloved got a tip that the Earth Cult will interrupt the Mysteries today, in one of three possible ways: By hurting a competitor in this week's mystery, by attempting to assassinate the Cadent or ⸢Blooming⸣, the Excerpt of Empyrean, or by hurting the attendees.

Cascara insists that Tender Sky be one of the competitors in the Mystery, which this week depicts the Divine's escape from Earth and their pursuit by agents of the Orion Conglomerate. After she hangs up, Tender Sky enters the digital space of the Mystery. Her subconscious affects the space, causing the relatively small abstract representations of planets to become much larger, potentially obscuring enemy forces.

The day before the event, ⸢Signet⸣ contacts her proxy at the church, Nideo, requesting access to the box seats where the Cadent and ⸢Blooming⸣ would be sitting. He balks, because the seat is to go a special guest: ⸢Covenant⸣, the Excerpt of Gumption. She persuades him to give her access in exchange for her spending the day purchasing rare ingredients for a special meal for ⸢Covenant⸣.

Fourteen Fifteen join the audience, where they observe that neither ⸢Blooming⸣ or ⸢Covenant⸣ are there, but the Cadent is. They make contact with another agent, described as having a beer gut and a big handlebar mustache. The agent tells Fourteen Fifteen that the Earth Cult agents are coming through engineering.

Cast[edit | edit source]

Other Characters[edit | edit source]

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