Episode Description
The Witch in the Glass; a play in Five Acts
Act 1: Perseverance, or the Sage House
Act 2: Contentment, or the Community at Chorus Island
Act 3: The Single Star, or the View She Sees of Poppies Spread
Act 4: Attention, or the Snow in Summer
Act 5: The Present Day, or the Adversary
Dramatis Personae
| Clementine (Jack de Quidt) | A discarded scion of the empire |
| Gallica (Austin Walker) | A representative of a powerful pact |
| Gur Sevraq (Austin Walker) | A discontinuous prophet |
| Thisbe (Janine Hawkins) | A homesick laboring machine |
| Sovereign Immunity (Art Martinez-Tebbel) | A once infamous revolutionary |
| Kal'Mera Broun (Ali Acampora) | A troubled engineer looking for a way out |
| Jesset City (Austin Walker) | A deft radical compelled by guilt |
| Exeter Leap (Keith Carberry) | A pirate captain in leisure |
| Ver'Million Blue (Sylvi Clare) | A reluctant soldier caught up in it all |
| Corporal Jansen (Austin Walker) | A lost officer in a clandestine group |
| Emaline Eccles (Austin Walker) | A determined engineer in the same |
| Agon Ortlights (Austin Walker) | A pragmatic revolutionary commander |
| Phyrgian (Keith Carberry) | A visiting researcher with intentions |
| The Figure in Bismuth (Andrew Lee Swan) | A loyal member of a witch’s court |
| Perennial | |
Plot
Opening
When Perennial breathes life into her, Clementine washes up on the beach of the Community on Chorus Island with a broken arm. She spends five days trying to set it, cuts up her clothes, and moves into one of the houses. After a few weeks, Clem throws a tantrum, destroying a roof repairing bot and trashing her house, and has to move into a different one. The next house over seems to have been partially replaced by Russian sage; in its basement she finds the exosuit arms of Vessel’s Gold. Perennial greets her, and she moves into Sage House.
Law 1: There is a reason why I am alive.
Clementine brings Perennial dead birds and a dead jellyfish; Perennial begins reminding Clem that with her citizenship revoked, she is no longer a Kesh.
The Pilgrimage of Perseverance
Clem finds a map in one of the houses, a trail leading to Lookout Point. The gate out of the Community is locked; she ends up digging a low ditch underneath to get through. The path goes over a bridge, which is out. She crosses over a thin spar of metal to the other side.
Clementine comes across beasts from the old days of Partizan which normally live in places with low atmosphere unmodified by Autonomy Itself. They have been cybernetically augmented by the Pact of Necessary Venture. She flees and does her best to walk the border between the areas of thin and fuller atmosphere so that they cannot attack her.
At Lookout Point Clementine sees that she is somewhere in the Estatelands, nearly surrounded by ocean, and the path inland towards Nidean territory is blocked by a huge concrete wall. She sits down in defeat and is quickly set upon by the hyena dogs. She (barely) fights back against them as they fall from the promontory, and they leave her to lick their wounds.
Clem finds a mapmaker's kit, and brings it with her back to Sage House. She slowly begins to map out the Community, her path traced on the paper by Perennial's Russian sage.
Law 2: If it is not effort, it is absence.
Clem performs triage on her broken arm, cleans the bottom floor of Sage House, and begins trapping and sacrificing feral cats to Perennial.
1 month since the Red Light fell on Oxbridge
Sovereign Immunity has been doing research in the archives on planets hidden by the Principality, in the hopes of building for the future of Millennium Break. Thisbe asks him what he knows of Collier, and he shares his history as the Farmer.
The Pilgrimage of Contentment
Clem is heading east. As she leaves the gate to the Community, she receives a communication from Gallica, the elect of Present. Gallica offers her a code phrase and a way off the island anytime—Clementine recognizes this would come at the cost of her growing allegiance to Perennial.
Along the path, Clem finds tricycle cars parked at charging stations. She manages to fix up a station and pull a cable to charge a car. She ends up having to drive off-road as she continues on her journey, brute forcing her path until her map flowers and she discards it in anger. Eventually she comes to the wall blocking the way inland; the interior is a labyrinth.
Clem asks Perennial to guide her through the maze. She hears a voice in an area blocked off by rubble, and jerryrigs some machines to get through it. She finds Gur Sevraq there, who is not exactly happy to see her, and brings him back to the Sage House, where he takes residence in an upper floor.
Law 3: I am bound to Gur Sevraq with Russian sage.
2 months since the Red Light fell on Oxbridge
Broun goes with Jesset to one of Leap's coastal bases to ask him for access codes to help them leave Partizan, and for support for their effort to bring Millennium Break off Partizan. He agrees.
Closing
Gur and Clem continue to get into arguments; they try and fail to capture one of the dogs; they finally halfheartedly apologize to each other. The Sage House blooms one night, and Clem begins to take her first steps in asking about faith.
Cast
- Clementine as The Pilgrim (Jack de Quidt)
- Perennial as The Divine (Austin Walker)
- Sovereign Immunity (Art Martinez-Tebbel)
- Exeter Leap (Keith J Carberry)
- Kal'mera Broun (Ali Acampora)
- Thisbe (Janine Hawkins)