PALISADE 14: Upon Our Grace Pt. 1

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Episode description[edit | edit source]

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 [Note 1]

Dossier[edit | edit source]

Organizations[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

Opening[edit | edit source]

“

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[edit | edit source]

The crew of the Blue Channel head to the Isle of the Broken Key to investigate Violet Cove, under the guise of assisting with the Tide of Embarkation festival. They have two aims in mind: to loosen the Authority's hold on the faction, and to find an alternate source of magic for the Figure in Bismuth. They arrive at the Dim Liturgy's primary monastery, but do not notice a blip on the ship's radar indicating that another cloaked carrier class vessel has also entered the area.

The team splits up, with Brnine, Phrygian and Cori going to the monastery's Concave Wing, and Thisbe and Figure heading to the Glass Archive. Brnine is carrying an Asepsis drone and looking for a place to plug Asepsis into Violet Cove's mainframe, so that Asepsis can determine whether Violet Cove is compromised. Thisbe is looking for information about magic she could access to help Figure, and Figure is following her.

Concave Wing[edit | edit source]

The Concave Wing turns out to be closed, with a sign indicating that entry is not permitted until day 5 of the festival. Past the glass door to the wing, the team sees "Em" scurrying around in a suspicious manner. Brnine, Phrygian, and Cori follow him. Cori's attention is caught by a piece of glass shaped like the eye of Devotion and she goes to have a closer look at it, so she is not present when Brnine and Phrygian are caught by the master of the Concave, Sea Crepuscule.

Glass Archive[edit | edit source]

The Glass Archive is open for festival goers to walk through. As Thisbe and Figure walk through its halls, Figure realizes that the archive is a scale model replica of Crystal Palace. Thisbe refers to the archive's index, but Figure gets a strange and somewhat foreboding feeling like something is pulling them towards the archive's "special collection". Figure relays this to Thisbe, and the two of them head for the special collection.

Cast[edit | edit source]

Other Characters[edit | edit source]

Notes[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Lyrics from the song Be Nice 2 Me by Bladee
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