Twilight Mirage 02: The Last Divine

The Last Divine
Episode information
Episode	02
Release Date	July 7, 2017
Length	106 min
Meta
Cast	Austin Walker Ali Acampora Janine Hawkins Jack de Quidt
Game	The Veil
Score	The Twilight Mirage
Episode guide
Previous	"The Beloved Dust"
Previous	"The Beloved Dust"
Next	"The Planet of Quire"
Next	"The Planet of Quire"
Links
Episode Page	friendsatthetable.net
Transcript	Google Docs

Episode description

After receiving word that the city-ship of Seance would come under attack, the Beloved Dust move to intercept the threat. Fourteen Fifteen (Jack de Quidt) tracks their quarry into the mechanical guts of a giant coliseum, while above, ⸢Signet⸣ (Janine Hawkins) protects the human leader of the Divine Fleet’s faith. And deep inside “the Mysteries,” an interactive historical simulation, Tender Sky (Alicia Acampora) confronts a would-be killer.

No more time for games

This week on Friends at the Table: The Last Divine

The Living Library of Memorious // VOLUME 277χ:
VESSELS: CITY-SHIPS: DIVINE FLEET: Seance

With 10 sides—eight long, horizontal slats and two octagonal cap-sides—this vessel has the largest usable surface area of any in the fleet, and houses nearly one third of the fleet’s population—second in residents only to The By and By. Yet it is also the youngest city-ship in the fleet. For over 29,000 years, (and due to their own beliefs about the value of free-flight), the devotees of Empyrean had no interest in maintaining a ship of their own. After the tenth death, though, the sect saw a necessity: Not only must the refugees of the other divines find perch, but the material remains of the fallen Divines could not be left to float in the dark, alone. Today, Seance is divided into over two hundred districts, each of which features one or more elements built from the remains of the holy departed.

Contents

Opening

“

[Primary] Dispatch 57B.

How familiar are you with the fleet's Assemblage, Satellite?

When I came on to this position, I'd read the normal allotment of their holy texts. The Orbit's Alignment? Yeah. The key sections of Amalgam? Of course. A few of The Letters to the Cadent in Doubt, maybe. A couple, at least. But in the last couple of months, I've had a lot of time on my hands, Satellite. And I've gone digging deep into the Assemblage.

There's this small book of songs in there. A little thing, it's just called Lyrics and Accompaniment. I've read it, I've sung it, front to back, a dozen times now, it's... I'd never thought about it, Satellite, but there was a time before the Fleet was at its full size of three hundred Divines, and each new one that joined the orbit, it got a hymn, three hundred hymns. And then, when they started dying, well, it took a couple of dozen, but sooner than later, each dead Divine got one too. And I've got the page open right here in front of me, Satellite, and it's still at 598. It's still at 598, and that's wrong. That's wrong, because today, I sat in this box, and I watched a Divine die.”

Plot

The agent Fourteen Fifteen is meeting with hands off a box of donuts and a drink, which contain their gun and a Seance key card. They find the way into engineering via a station map, but are followed in by someone dressed like an engineer.

Signet meets with the Cadent in her viewing box, who is confident the Beloved Dust and her guards will keep her and the other excerpts safe. At the same time that Tender notices a false OriCon fleet attacking the racers, Signet realizes one of the Cadent's guards is communicating to the outside, and a likely assassin.

Fourteen tries to talk to a foreman and learn if anything suspicious has happened lately, but he's suspicious of Fourteen instead, and tells them to leave. They successfully sneak further in, and find a manifest on a console that indicates there's an extra worker here today. The extra person is a robot welding through something, who Fourteen threatens with their pistol.

Tender attempts to get the false fleet to focus on her by pulling back from the race, at the risk of taking a hit.

Assassins are about to enter the viewing box. Signet takes the Cadent's hand and smashes the window with her kinetic sash. The guard Chiron acts to defend the Cadent. Signet calls her flight suit the Mariposa through the ceiling to distract the assassins from Chiron while she and the Cadent escape through the window. Chiron is shot in the legs.

Tender pulls herself and her assailant into a new digital space, a city. The operative threatens her with a gun and laser sword, and she makes fun of him for dual-wielding before he shoots her.

Fourteen threatens to shoot the robot if they don't stop, but it ignores them and cuts through one of three cables in the room. They are interrupted by Mother's Story, who has been following them, and now shoots them. While the other two continue cutting the cables, Fourteen crawls out of the room and breaks a pipe full of hot Mirage gas, forcing Mother's Story to retreat and killing the robot before it can cut the third cable.

Signet calls the Mariposa down and sends the Cadent away inside it. Gumption seals the hole in the ceiling it originally made; people are starting to notice the disturbance. Signet jumps back to the box and breaks the door with her kinetic sash. The assassins try to shoot her, but inexplicably a toasted bean seller from the stands who's coming to warn the Cadent careens into them. The bean seller hides in a side room while Signet gets Chiron out safe.

Tender's assailant, Morning's Observation, rushes at her, and she alters the ground to trap him despite the strain of acting without her cyberbrain. Tender pins him and he capitulates immediately, but it's already too late. Gumption's severed arm crashes through the Coliseum; he is under heavy attack from several ships, and attempting to repair other Mirage ships at the cost of his own safety. Tender and Morning's Observation wake up in the lobby. Empyrean in the distance is fighting off the enemy forces.

Signet calls Nideo, who directs her to a secret facility for the Cadent and Chiron to hide in. The foreman finds Fourteen and helps them out of engineering. Tender takes Morning's Observation back in handcuffs. Signet connects to Covenant's comms; unlike Signet, she is refusing to leave her Divine. There is a loud sound from Gumption, and then a following explosion of white clouds from Empyrean. The enemy ships retreat. Empyrean returns and kneels at Gumption's corpse.

Cast

• Austin Walker (GM)
• Ali Acampora (Tender Sky)
• Janine Hawkins (⸢Signet⸣)
• Jack de Quidt (Fourteen Fifteen)

Other Characters

• The Cadent
• Unnamed guard
• Chiron
• Unnamed foreman
• Linklater (robot)
• Morning's Observation
• Mother's Story
• Unnamed toasted bean seller
• Empyrean
• Gumption
• ⸢Blooming⸣
• ⸢Covenant⸣