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Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
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imeanforever
wormcan
"No. Not that. When I was that thing, I would rather have been dead. I know you're not asking me to go back permanently, but... ask me again if it turns out that this goal really does depend on me?"
imeanforever
"Okay. It might get dicey too quickly for that, but I'll plan around not having you available."
wormcan
"If there's anything else I can do to help, let me know. Just, not that.
In fact, Bonesaw said she knows where powers come from. Some thing in another dimension, connecting to our brains. She thinks my...problem...might be the passenger forcing its way into our world. If she's right, do you think you could gate to it, and kill my power?"
In fact, Bonesaw said she knows where powers come from. Some thing in another dimension, connecting to our brains. She thinks my...problem...might be the passenger forcing its way into our world. If she's right, do you think you could gate to it, and kill my power?"
imeanforever
"...Maybe. I'll talk to her. I can't usually gate to things, only places, but maybe it's big enough to be a landmark."
wormcan
"Really? I honestly never expected to have a chance at being normal again. If this works..."
(Promise may be in the process of conquering one world, colonizing another, destroying a third, and saving an incomprehensible number, but Noelle is only partly aware of one of those.)
(Promise may be in the process of conquering one world, colonizing another, destroying a third, and saving an incomprehensible number, but Noelle is only partly aware of one of those.)
imeanforever
"Give me time, though, I have a lot on my plate and the sparrowing works okay as a stopgap."
wormcan
"That makes sense, I'm not going to lose control or anything. Let me know if you're ready to try it!"
wormcan
Lots of people! Teacher didn't, as direct assault is very not his thing, which means most of the Taught also didn't. But all the more violent capes were happy to (one does require assurance that they're attacking villains, in which case he'll join and won't hold back). There were plenty of violent capes in the Birdcage, and the people who joined the Fallen recently were selected for being willing to fight for an arbitrary cause. Lots of Kept are in. And if she asks the Panacea clones, they've been hoping for a chance to make a longer-lasting variety of homing mosquito.
imeanforever
Well, if Promise gets the Queen, it's pretty academic whether she's juiced literally any other fairy, isn't it.
Mosquito away, evil clones. Picky violent cape, no fairies other than Promise have been formally classified as villains so he's going to have to be more specific.
Everybody else: strategy meeting.
Promise has to disclose the nature of the Queen, but only in a tactical sense: the Queen can control (all) other fairies the same way Promise can control her own vassals, and has a court set up such that many of the fairies involved will also obey each other. The place will be chock full of sorcerers, probably all better than Promise but working in adverse conditions - can someone whip up a harmonic noisemaker? - excellent; Promise does so love Tinkers - and, less amenable to technical solutions, many of them will also have other magical powers, one to a customer but not especially predictable ahead of time except by example. Probably no heavy-duty Thinkers, but many very conventionally smart individuals.
Also, every single fairy has Promise's Master power. All of them but especially anybody with branches for antlers. It is unlikely that they can brute force names, but they should be assumed to be willing to resort to torture (Promise can forbid her vassals to break thereunder) and force-feeding (that, they just have to defend against conventionally) and it's likely they have thought of darts, which the harmonic noisemaker might or might not break enough to make a difference.
The Queen looks like so. She should be assumed to be very smart, so she may have decoys.
Promise has a secret weapon; she, too, can command fairies, such as the Queen, so the conquest will be handled when someone gets a transponder in range of her.
(Someone is going to figure it out; but after this it will hardly matter, and she can subtly work into their rules-of-engagement enough to prevent any Kept from trying to use it.)
Mosquito away, evil clones. Picky violent cape, no fairies other than Promise have been formally classified as villains so he's going to have to be more specific.
Everybody else: strategy meeting.
Promise has to disclose the nature of the Queen, but only in a tactical sense: the Queen can control (all) other fairies the same way Promise can control her own vassals, and has a court set up such that many of the fairies involved will also obey each other. The place will be chock full of sorcerers, probably all better than Promise but working in adverse conditions - can someone whip up a harmonic noisemaker? - excellent; Promise does so love Tinkers - and, less amenable to technical solutions, many of them will also have other magical powers, one to a customer but not especially predictable ahead of time except by example. Probably no heavy-duty Thinkers, but many very conventionally smart individuals.
Also, every single fairy has Promise's Master power. All of them but especially anybody with branches for antlers. It is unlikely that they can brute force names, but they should be assumed to be willing to resort to torture (Promise can forbid her vassals to break thereunder) and force-feeding (that, they just have to defend against conventionally) and it's likely they have thought of darts, which the harmonic noisemaker might or might not break enough to make a difference.
The Queen looks like so. She should be assumed to be very smart, so she may have decoys.
Promise has a secret weapon; she, too, can command fairies, such as the Queen, so the conquest will be handled when someone gets a transponder in range of her.
(Someone is going to figure it out; but after this it will hardly matter, and she can subtly work into their rules-of-engagement enough to prevent any Kept from trying to use it.)
wormcan
The picky cape doesn't join; innocent vassals who aren't related to targets aren't people he wants to paste.
Transponders are easy to come by; detection might be the main problem. If sorcery can't do teleportation there are plenty of sensory powers that can be used to check for people leaving. If it can then the Queen is definitely getting away.
Transponders are easy to come by; detection might be the main problem. If sorcery can't do teleportation there are plenty of sensory powers that can be used to check for people leaving. If it can then the Queen is definitely getting away.
imeanforever
Sorcery can't. Some fairies can, but not with passengers, and the Queen isn't one of them; there are gates, but the harmonic noisemaker should prevent those from being made in the first place, let alone settling promptly; if there is already a mortal-world bolthole...
Can I have access to that door setup? Promise asks her Cauldron vassals.
Can I have access to that door setup? Promise asks her Cauldron vassals.
wormcan
Cauldron agrees. Their real reason for having no objection at all is that she could already get anywhere she wanted with gates and this just means they know more about what she's doing when in a hurry.
imeanforever
Yeah, that's fine.
If there is already a mortal-world bolthole then Promise can get them there, too.
If there is already a mortal-world bolthole then Promise can get them there, too.
wormcan
The Kept are all ready to go, those who are worried about vassalization via dart having already quit. They insist on earpieces for revoking orders if necessary, for anyone whose powers wouldn't instantly fry them.
imeanforever
That is entirely doable! Promise will hang back very far away repeatedly chanting "I rescind others' orders" until somebody signals her to aim something different at the Queen.
wormcan
A few capes do have powers that would instantly fry them, but these also tend to be the capes who are toughest against general Earth Bet threats and are correspondingly foolhardy. Nobody who was already volunteered becomes less so.
The Kept, appropriately equipped, surround Queenscourt with capes who can sense invisible things one way or another and send in the few undetectable capes followed by the front line ones. Some tinker creations, from topiary golems to Bonesaw's varyingly visible pegasus skeletons, join the attack and take advantage of their inability to be vassals.
The Kept, appropriately equipped, surround Queenscourt with capes who can sense invisible things one way or another and send in the few undetectable capes followed by the front line ones. Some tinker creations, from topiary golems to Bonesaw's varyingly visible pegasus skeletons, join the attack and take advantage of their inability to be vassals.
imeanforever
The court fights back!
...The court is REALLY wrong-footed by sorcery mysteriously not working. The fuck.
The Queen's best sorcerer figures out why it isn't working and aims someone at the noisemaker, but it is well-protected.
Go, Kept, go!
...The court is REALLY wrong-footed by sorcery mysteriously not working. The fuck.
The Queen's best sorcerer figures out why it isn't working and aims someone at the noisemaker, but it is well-protected.
Go, Kept, go!
wormcan
Kept go.
Fairies get incapacitated in a wider variety of ways than is normal for a cape fight, from "bound in animate inanimate material" up through "dissolved." Some of the smarter Kept with a theory to test force food down fairies' throats and give them orders, but Promise has managed to sneak prohibitions on that into the rules of engagement. The orders come out unenforced, and if any Kept who try it tell others they'll be reporting that it doesn't work on fairies after all.
A few Kept do get darted. Sometimes it even works. Very rarely does the darter get past any orders other than the first one, let alone rescinding Promise's orders, so her repetition restores them to normal.
Predictably, the first time someone tells her they've got the Queen it turns out to be a decoy.
Fairies get incapacitated in a wider variety of ways than is normal for a cape fight, from "bound in animate inanimate material" up through "dissolved." Some of the smarter Kept with a theory to test force food down fairies' throats and give them orders, but Promise has managed to sneak prohibitions on that into the rules of engagement. The orders come out unenforced, and if any Kept who try it tell others they'll be reporting that it doesn't work on fairies after all.
A few Kept do get darted. Sometimes it even works. Very rarely does the darter get past any orders other than the first one, let alone rescinding Promise's orders, so her repetition restores them to normal.
Predictably, the first time someone tells her they've got the Queen it turns out to be a decoy.
imeanforever
That's predictable. Promise does not have the decoy's name. Maybe the mosquitoes got her? May as well try. The decoy Queens have to be obeyed by default to work as decoys so this one gets the same order as the Queen herself would - namely "cooperate with this coup". The decoy starts helping. It slows down some of the lower-ranked Queenscourt. Promise resumes rescinding others' orders.
wormcan
Cooperation presumably includes information. She doesn't know exactly where the real Queen is, but can at least offer a direction. The successful group of Kept starts tracking down the real one, and before long they've got another attempt.