The Final Voyage: Finale

The Flame at the Heart of Parabola

You have a promise to keep.
Watchful +7777; Shadowy +7777; Dangerous +7777; Persuasive +7777; A Scholar of the Correspondence +77; Magnanimous +77; Luck +777;

The Fifth's Tales may Exalt the Suns

The Bazaar, now cognizant again, takes a moment to rediscover where it is. When it sees that it is before the Sun, you can almost see its spirit whither and die. The Sun needs not ask its subject to start; its mere presence compels it to.

First, comes the message. A repeat of the Sun's request, a tale of love, a declaration to another star. You have to close your eyes to not grow blind from the Sun's anticipation of the answer, as the Bazaar hesitates to do its final duty. When it comes, you do not need to know the Correspondence to feel the rejection in the air. You do not need to know be a Curator to feel the air grow colder, and to notice the light grow dimmer. You do not need to be a genius to know that something terrible is about to happen.

As soon as it finishes its delivery, the Bazaar's skin starts glowing - each Sigil, each love story, being sent to the Sun in an attempt to soften the blow. Stories of love and of loss, of survival and of fire, of rebirth and of faith. Each of the thousands upon thousands of stories collected from humanity: From Uruk. From Amarna. From Chichen Itza. From Karakorum. From London. From Paris. From Berlin. All in a vain, hopeless attempt to save the sun from its own grief.

It will not be enough. It was never going to be.

Tell it your own Love Story.
Not a love of a person, or a love of a city. Not the love for learning, or the love of changing. No, this is a story of one man's love - for life, for the future, and the myriad joys that it brings.

Your Watchful quality gives you a 100% chance of success.
Your Shadowy quality gives you a 100% chance of success.
Your Dangerous quality gives you a 100% chance of success.
Your Persuasive quality gives you a 100% chance of success.
Your A Scholar of the Correspondence quality gives you a 100% chance of success.
Your Magnanimous quality gives you a 100% chance of success.
A matter of luck: A sure thing. Or is it?

(Not yet enough.)

In this moment, you feel the Sun's pain more keenly than anyone else. It is blinding, excruciating, all-encompassing. Like drowning in the muck. Like a cut that leaves you just alive enough to understand you are dying. Like an infection whose pain rises through your chest and into every fiber of your being. A pain so deep and sharp that nothing else seems real. That you disregard everything else that ever could be, for you can only focus on the pain. Damn anyone who does not understand you. Damn anyone who would not give you mercy. Damn the universe that would allow you to feel such raw agony. If this is your life, then you would rather be nothing at all.

In the face of such a pain, how could any story matter?

The entire universe holds its breath.

A Reckoning, No Longer Postponed

The Sun's grief sends shockwaves that nearly topple you. It pulses, growing colder and colder with each passing second. You know what comes next: The Final Conflagration. The singular moment where the Sun's emotions all explode outward, before it shrinks into complete nothingness. There will be nothing left of the Sun (And yet you must endure.) There will be nothing left of the Bazaar (The final curtain calls your name.) There will be nothing left of its throne. (Achieve the ending you so desperately yearned for.)

You are about to witness the death of a god.

And your own.

(Take the final step.)

Exalt the Sun.
(You are the storyteller. You decide how this story ends.)
You unlocked this with Impossible! (you have 1 in all)

Accept your fate
(No.)

The Third Storyteller

The heat of the Sun quickly dissipates, and you know what is coming next. The Final Conflagration approaches you once again, and now you understand how deeply futile your efforts were. What the sun feels isn't grief, it isn't melancholy and it isn't simply pain. What it feels is emptiness. What it feels is a cold void where its heart used to be. No story of Love could have ever saved the Sun, because rejection was never going to be what killed it.

And that simple fact snaps something in you.

"How dare you."

How dare it wallow in its misery. How dare it ignore everything but its pain. How dare it let this be what ends its life. How dare it be so selfish. How dare.

The Neath is place of darkness and misery and fear, and yet, there its abandoned daughter shone life. There, its abandoned son cultivated a community. There, those unloved by its Laws found joy. They have found beauty and happiness and art and history and love in infinite possible ways. In the Neath, there is Life. There is hope. There is beauty.

There is so much -- so much -- out there to live for. So how dare. How dare it give up on life. How dare it give up on everything. It is no different from the White or the Azure.

How dare it call itself the King of Life when all that it brings is death?

You have struck a chord.

A Red Star

The sun's heat increases once again, past its original point, and the once cold graying star now burns red. It is massive, more impossibly massive than anything else you have ever seen. You are but a tiny, meaningless speck of dust in front of a creature so powerful. Whatever emptiness grew in its heart, it has been replaced by fury.

Fury entirely pointed at you.

Scream. Scream until your voice is hoarse.
Scream until it knows all of its sins. Scream until words lose meaning. Scream at the universe that allows a creature such as this to hold dominion. Scream until you can scream no more. And then keep screaming.

A Candle

The sun is so much more massive than you. It could, with a single thought, annihilate you outright. Something makes it hesitate. So you keep screaming.

You scream of its sins. You scream of its failures. You scream of all the pain it has caused. You scream at the laws of the Judgements. You scream until your entire body is burning - not with the Sun's heat, but with the Correspondence that rises through your throat. You scream until there is blood in your mouth. You scream until your vocal chords beg for mercy. You scream until they ignite entirely. You scream until you are little more than a candle's flame atop the Bazaar's tallest spire. And when you can make no more sound, you scream with your mind.

You scream at injustices. You scream at pain. You scream at misery. You scream at the Judgements. You scream at the universe that allows these things to exist. You scream, impotently, until there is nothing left to scream.

And then you keep screaming.

The Final Conflagration

A candle's flame

You want to live. You have worked so hard for this. You have toiled, and tumbled, and sacrificed so much to bring about a happy ending. You want to experience love. You want to experience happiness. You want to experience the myriad joys of the future.

You want to live. You want the Bazaar to live. You want the Neath to live. You want the Creditor and the Moon and Storm and Stone and Salt and everyone who helped you to live. You want the Masters to live. You want everyone on the surface to live. You want the Sun to live. You want everyone to live; so you can all experience joy; so you can all break the cycle of misery and violence and suffering of this universe.

You want to live. And you want everyone to live in a universe where happiness and kindness are afforded to everyone.

But you don't live in that universe.

So you do the only thing you can:
You keep screaming.

Defiance

You are merely a flickering flame. You burn, but your wick fades. It fades with each scream. It fades with each moment. It fades. It fades.

What you are.
What you were.
What you shall forever be.

(There is nothing left of you.) Except for the one thing you wish the most.

no law has been enacted

no place without kindness shall be without kindness

You have brought about the Liberation of Night.

Life

Your wick does not end. Your body does not burn. Your mouth does not fill with blood. You are still here. Alive.

Gaze upon the Sun.

Acceptance

When you open your eyes, you see that you are still here. You are still atop the Bazaar's tallest spire, and you still gaze upon the Sun's blazing throne.

Your silence asks a million questions. For a long time, there is nothing but you and a Judgement.

This is a Judgement that prided itself on what it was. This was a Judgement that prided itself on what it did. A scientist who created marvels away from the eyes of the other Judgements. A creator of a tiny slice of a universe that adhered to a knowable consistency. Like a teacher with a tutor, every time that humanity managed to decode one of its laws, its heart would swell with glee.

It told itself that it was different from the likes of the Azure, with its unfeeling Laws designed to consume souls voraciously with no effort to itself, that it was different from the White and its ruthless adherence to the Law, that it was different from the vanity of the King of Hours, that it was different from the cruelty Garden-King, that it was different from the hypocritical Sables.

It told itself that it was different.

It told itself that its tryst with the Bazaar was a kindness. That keeping the Mountain of Light and the Creditor in the Neath would protect them from the other Judgements. That disallowing other creatures would lead them to places better suited to their ways of life.

But not once did it consider the fact that it was simply thinking of all the lives under its throne as extensions of itself.

That its daughter had created life. That its systems had allowed for growth. That its laws were comprehensible. That its light created from its throne could create a world full of joy and love.

It told itself that it was different. That is why it called itself the King of Life.

And so it will allow you to live, because allowing you to die would be proving you right.

You have done the impossible.
You have exalted the Sun.

Departure

The Bazaar exudes a sigh of relief, the Sun acknowledges you no further. Both of them will live. You will live.

And with your life, you take to the skies, carried by solar winds, back to your world. It will be much longer than seven days and nights for you to arrive. But you will live.

Return home
To the Neath, to the Seventh City, to Berlin.

Deep, Dark and Marvellous

It takes you too long to arrive back on Earth. Too long to land properly. Too long to rest your weary wings. Too long to find passage through the Cumaean Canal. Too long for each waterlock to bring you deeper and deeper. Too long for the ship you are in to arrive into port. You expect to arrive without fanfare. No one should be expecting you.

Even with your anticipation, each step you take is agony on your weary body. Leaving the ship takes much longer than the Captain finds polite. When you step into the familiar port, you take a deep breath of the Neathy air. You hadn't realized how much you missed it.

You take only a few steps before you feel something bump against you. When you open your eyes, you see that it is your Companion, hugging you for dear life. Behind them, you see the Banded Sleuth, only moments behind to wrap his arms around you. Behind his shoulder, you can see Glim, you can see the Duchess, you can see the Viscountess, you can see the Naturalist and the Boatman, you can see Jenny and His Amused Lordship. More and more people arrive by the moment. More than you can count. More than you can notice. More than you can remember.

"You're back." both of your spouses speak in unison, "I am." you smile, clutching them close to you.

And as you finally feel the full weight of your task drop from your shoulders, you collapse.

You need a goddamn nap.

You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. You have kept a promise. Welcome home.

Respite

You are so exhausted, you find your consciousness drawn to Parabola immediately. Your body, in the waking world, is likely being taken care by your loved ones. But here, in Parabola, now that you know you are safe, you can't help but ask yourself a question.

Something happened up there, while you were burning, and you can't help but want to find out what.

To the Adulterine Castle
Parabola opens the way easily back to your base-camp, and from there it is only a hop away.

The Liberation of Night

You do not find the Anchoress sitting on a couch, cradling the black cat. When you arrive, she does not let go, and the creature does not approach. "Let me be the first to congratulate you." It grins as if it already expected you.

"You burned; you burned so brightly, so stubbornly, so beautifully." it gazes past you, "You brought yourself to oblivion; and in doing so, your fervent desire enacted a law upon the entire universe."

"You may think that all the universe's evils are due to the Judgements. You wouldn't even be wrong." it smiles, "But the lack of kindness in the High Wilderness was not a law enacted by the Judgements; they simply did not deign to create it."

It then opens its eyes again. "But now? Now kindness is the Law, a Law that the Judgements actively have to fight against."

"This is why I birthed the Flame. It has changed since, but this is what the Liberation of Night was always supposed to be: A fundamental changing of what the universe is."

The Anchoress does not smile. "Well done."

Nothing seems to have changed.
But the day has finally come where it truly did.

One Last Step

When you awake, your body is still extremely sore. You are in your Sanguine Chateau, upon your old bed. The Banded Sleuth has made you breakfast and brewed your favorite tea. Your Companion has prepared as many remedies as it could to soothe your aches and restore your strength. You spend several days recovering as best you can; no intrigues, no duties, no paperwork. Just rest.

When you are finally back to full strength, you learn what has changed in your absence. Elections will be held soon for Berlin's new government; several people are already campaigning for local positions. Furnace has already prepared the new trade deals with the city, but waits on the new government before they be signed. The Calendar Council is having internal discussions about what its next goal is - are they even needed anymore? (Most of them agree, the answer is yes.) The ceasefire between the Cats and the Fingerkings has ended, but some talks of longer-term peace are brewing under the surface (Most are dismissed. Most.) The cults of Storm continue, though few urchins feel forced into them for community.

The Khanate returns to their isolationism, and the Elder Continent shores up their defenses now that the Seventh City is physically closer. The flukes have found a way to rebury the Regret-Beyond-Death (they will not forgive you anytime soon), and the Rubbery Men have already started Berlin's own Helicon House. Flute Street has finally opened to everyone, and the Starved Men have reshaped parts of the city to better suit their needs, though they have made sure that no one else would be harmed in the process.

Some talks already happen of renaming the city, though most are drowned by the elections themselves. Bohemians create new art, inspired by the view of a city without the Bazaar. Devils attempt to gain a foothold in the new city, but find little (immediate) success. A second port is being built to aid in trade with the Hinterlands, and an extension of the GHR is being contemplated by the board (they ask you to be present, but at least for the moment, you politely refuse).

The Great Game creates new intrigues within the city, the Church accepts new faiths (forcibly, the less charitable would say), a new system of Law Enforcement is being slowly created, focused primarily on community policing and rehabilitation, Criminal enterprises, without the Bazaar's iron grip on trade, find themselves able to turn into legitimate businesses, mostly.

And one evening, you find Glim sitting with their legs dangling from one of the holes left behind by the Bazaar's spires. They hail you when you approach, and when you sit next to them, they smile as you slowly start to pet them again. "So much is changing so quickly. It already feels like a new city entirely."

Then, they turn to you with a grin. "So, what should I call you now?" they tilt their head, "Or are you telling me you forgot what you promised?"

You did not.

Take on a new name

And enjoy Berlin's new beginning.

All is well

You were born an unloved second child. You broke every rule finding your freedom. You were exiled to the Neath. You climbed from nothing to the highest possible point. You broke the chain, and made yourself a Curator.

Your human skin never suited you, but neither did Curator ideals; they said it was your attachment to your old way of thinking that prevented you from growing as menacing as other Curators, but it was you clinging to your true self that allowed you to burn beyond anything else in the Wilderness.

You are a confluence of two worlds. Born Daniel Ashworth, turned into Mr. Society.

Perhaps simplicity is the best option.

You have saved the Seventh City, Exalted the Sun, and changed the face of the Universe forever. You have not just completed your Destiny; bur transcended it.

Thank you for playing, delicious friend.

Your name is Mr. Ashworth.
But your tale does not end here.
After all, you still have one more promise to keep.
A reckoning to indefinitely postpone.