Episode description[edit | edit source]
The Witch in the Glass; a play in Five Acts[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
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
Contents[edit | edit source]
Opening[edit | edit source]
“
Austin: Clementine, when Perennial breathes life back into your body, what is it that you see?
Jack: I think the sky. And… and a skein of birds, somewhere up in the sky, heading in some direction. And as I tilt my head backwards, I can see, like, a scrubby beach, leading up to a treeline.
Gur Sevraq: I keep asking her how she arrived here, and she keeps wondering if it’s because I doubt her. She does not understand that it is because I doubt myself.
Austin: Do you follow that beach towards the trees?
Jack: I think I get up and, um... realize pretty quickly that my arm is broken. And so—holding my arm against me—I sort of make it– I scramble up the– It’s like a wet sand dune, like a low, wet sand dune, up towards the treeline.
Gur Sevraq: There are times here where I feel as myself. When I counsel, when I look out on the beauty of this island, and sense the touch of the Prophet on it. But sometimes hours pass, and I lose myself—and time, too.
Austin: I think you see something that maybe gives you a bit of hope. You see a structure in front of you. It’s a sort of pale yellow building, um, with a parapet, kind of blue-ish, with a lot of windows and... sort of a cramped, circular balcony running alongside each of its rising floors. And… and I think you get hope for a moment. There could be people here. Um...
Jack: [decisively] Oh, definitely. Do I have any idea where I am?
Austin: I don’t think you’ve ever been here before—but you recognize that the style of architecture is Kesh, though.
Gur Sevraq: I do not even know if this new existence of mine is reprieve or punishment. Am I being told to continue my work, or that I was foolish to pursue it to begin with? Perennial, why won’t you speak to me?
Jack: So like, up through the trees, you know, pine needles on my face, um, out through the treeline, up towards this pale blue, like, mid-sized mansion.
Gur Sevraq: What I do know is that you are now present on Partizan in a way that you had never been in my life, and that you have brought us together in the shadow of our enemies—and it is so like you, Perennial, to counter shade with shade, as we sit here in the dark, under your tower.”
Plot[edit | edit source]
Chorus Island[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
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.
Chorus Island[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
- 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)