A Taboo Piece (Quest)

[Arthur Morgan]

Arthur woke with a groan, skull feeling like it was being split in two by a goddamn pickaxe. His eyes struggled to focus as a blindingly bright light shone right into his face, bouncing violently off the coarse grains of sand digging into his cheek.

Rolling over onto his side and spitting grit from between his teeth, Arthur’s body shook as he let out a loud, hacking cough, the tremors of his breath scraping like knives across his parched throat. What’s more, the sweat on his body felt practically baked into his sun-scarred skin, relentless heat beating down on him in waves.

Where the hell was he?

He must’ve been drinking again. Likely spent the evening before acting a fool in some saloon, though he didn’t recall anything of the kind. It were probably about time he scraped himself off the ground and found his way back to camp; he could only hope that Miss Grimshaw was merciful in her judgement of his sorry state, though he strongly suspected she wouldn’t be.

The man sat up, stomach lurching and blood roaring in his ears as he did so. His tongue felt heavy and tasted sour in his mouth, like a ball of cotton swollen with blood. Thirst itched at him, that old familiar friend who always seemed to occupy his mind after a night of drinking, the burning desire for cool, crisp water...

Grimacing against the pain pulsing through his head, the former outlaw glanced around with leery eyes. What he found was that he was in someone’s… garden, or something like a garden, though he didn’t see anything growing in it. The place was enclosed at the back of a sleek and silvery-looking house, colossal walls of black stone sealing him in. He had no idea how he’d managed to get himself in here, though it weren’t the first time he’d marvelled at the peculiar ingenuity of his inebriated self.

Arthur’s hands brushed over the neatly raked sand under his knees, disturbing the intricate patterns someone had inexplicably gone to the trouble of shifting the grains into. Wind chimes tinkled from the lofty branches of a tree rising from the garden’s center, the sweet sounds coaxed by a light, playful breeze.

Abruptly, it all came rushing back. A dizzying swirl of memories tore through Arthur’s brain with all the delicacy of a herd of stampeding cattle. The island. The Abyss, and all the killing that’d gone on there. Kopaka. Winding up in an office with that Jack feller, overlooking a mass of dirt and toiling machinery, all of it terminating in a dreadful, ear-splitting BANG—

“Damn!” Arthur hissed, one hand flying up to paw at the back of his head. A couple locks of hair twisted beneath his shaky fingers, not at all the mess of splintered bone and gore he expected, though that would certainly explain his headache. Arthur’s shoulders slumped in relief all the same.

Twisting his body around, Arthur spotted his hat resting a few paces away— damn thing must’ve blown off, and his satchel was right beside it. Shoving himself to his feet, he swayed a little as his vision swam, nearly losing his balance. He had to stand a few minutes, breathing hard through his nose to beat back the nausea, but eventually managed to stumble the few steps needed to retrieve his hat.

Replacing it upon his head, Arthur scooped up his satchel, instantly noticing an odd… weight to it. A furrow of confusion appearing between his brows, Arthur drew the bag open, peering inside.

The first thing he noticed was a pile of money. An unbelievable amount of bills, all rolled up and tucked neatly into a corner of his bag, right next to his folded raptorskin duster, which Arthur was quick to pull out and put on to beat the dreadful heat. Moving the duster jacket around revealed yet another oddity in the bottom of his satchel, a gaudy-looking belt that he promptly shoved aside, and that action revealed a… bridle?

The former outlaw tugged the bridle out, the metal bits clanking noisily together as the reins dangled. He studied it closely, running his fingers along the fine leather it was made from, wondering.

Tucking the bridle back into his satchel (a mystery for another day), Arthur once again surveyed his immediate surroundings. He didn’t spot a gate or anything to get out of the garden, so figured he’d need to scale the wall somehow. Didn’t much like the idea of being caught trespassing. The tree was near enough to the wall, though, so perhaps if he climbed up there, clambered out across a few conveniently placed branches…

This all felt real familiar to Arthur. Much like waking up in some farmer’s barn, absolutely soaked with gin and a trail of befuddled lawmen left in his dust. The ex-outlaw might’ve laughed, if it weren’t for the agonizing pressure squeezing like a vice around his skull.

Arthur moved over to the tree, bracing one boot against the bark. Kicking off from the sand underfoot, he was able to grab ahold of one low branch and hoist himself upward, muscles straining and a small grunt escaping him. With even more huffing and puffing, Arthur clambered through the branches to bring himself closer to the wall, moving until he was able to balance on it with one knee, his other leg stretched out and braced atop a wobbly tree limb. His arms were securely fastened onto a pair of branches, allowing him to just barely lean forward a bit to see what was on the other side of the wall.

Sucking in a deep breath, Arthur peered over and, upon not spotting much to land on aside from a few square-shaped shrubs, decided to go ahead and hop over. With a mighty shove off the tree, his body slid over to the opposite side of the wall, hands catching on the ledge at the last moment to keep him from dropping too quickly and gaining a fracture for his troubles. After a moment of dangling, judging the precarious distance between his feet and solid earth, Arthur loosened his grip and dropped, boots hitting the ground with two distinct thumps.

Straightening up, Arthur took a gander at his surroundings. Now that he was out of the sand garden, he was treated to the sight of even more houses, all sharp angles and gleaming metallic accents organized in a nearly perfect grid that seemed to stretch on for days. As he took a step forward, Arthur noted that the street under his boots was paved, clear of trash and clogged sewer drains. And when he looked up at the sky, it was open and blue, not a single cloud visible for miles around, though a pale sheen of mist hung in the air.

It was like some kind of city, but not at all like the ones he’d seen before. This one was far more… clean. Open. Shiny. Very different from the smog-layered streets of Saint Denis, no factory smoke or the raw stink of sewage shadowing his every step.

“Huh,” Arthur said. This… weren’t all that bad, actually. He’d almost expected to find himself back on Kraw, but this must’ve been another one of those worlds Dell mentioned.

Well. The best way to find out was to go ask somebody, Arthur supposed. The thought of the note left by Kopaka in his journal itched at him; he wondered if he was anywhere near this Opealon place, and if so, how best to go about finding his friend.

The former outlaw glanced up and down the street. A few people walked by, but they didn't seem to be doing anything except stare at him like a bunch of bug-eyed cattle, skittish from his very presence.

Now, where to start…?

Quest: A Taboo Piece
Post Word Count: 1,303 words
Quest Word Count: 1,303/10,000

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Arthur strode down the street, duster coat flapping behind him in the breeze. He’d been meandering along for a while now, and still didn't know where he was going or what he was supposed to do next, but then again, he hadn’t expected to.

More people passing him by on the street seemed to be staring at him, though, and that made him cautious. A few times he’d ducked into the shadows of a couple suburban homes and their neatly-trimmed hedges whenever someone threatened to pass too close on the sidewalk, especially if whoever was walkin’ by seemed official.

Normally, he wouldn’t give a lick about what any of these perfect strangers thought of him. But the former outlaw didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention— he felt like a genuine fish out of water in comparison to these folks, who all seemed to be smartly-dressed and outfitted with chattering devices and glowing screens.

It played out clear as day in his mind— that someone might see him, a scruffy and dirty wanderer, as a threat in a place like this. Call the authorities, probably get him locked up somewhere. He'd need to watch his step around these parts.

And then he kept seeing these… flying machines whirling past him on the street, some of the little pill-shaped buggies even whizzing through the sky high above his head. They were like… like metal wagons without wheels or an apparent need to obey gravity. What’s more, there seemed to be people comfortably seated inside them, sometimes whole families it looked like, though Arthur couldn’t even begin to imagine the appeal of it all. He ducked reflexively each time one flew by, the air around him tousled by sharp gusts of artificial-smelling wind.

His walking had also revealed more of the city. The buildings only seemed to grow taller as he walked along, exiting what seemed to be a more suburban area to find himself gazing up at great big hulking monoliths of metal stretching up and up and up into the sky, the sunlight reflected in their shimmering plate-glass windows. Tall windmill-like buildings appeared to crop up at every turn in the road, their sails rotating like clockwork from the steadily blowing breeze, and quite a few massive bridges arched over the city streets, oddly quiet trains shooting across them with hardly a stirring of the wind.

Crossing over a footbridge, Arthur swore he could smell a faint tinge of saltwater on the air, maybe even hear the faint cries of seabirds, though that might’ve just been his imagination.

Or, well, Arthur thought it was his imagination, right until he discovered that the bridge wasn’t going over a river or gorge as he’d assumed it would be, but a gaping ravine that plunged straight down into utter nothingness.

“Whoa,” Arthur said, staggering a little against a nearby handrail and ignoring the odd looks that perfectly natural reaction garnered him. He peered over the edge with wide eyes, one hand reaching up to grip his hat when a particularly sharp breeze threatened to tear it off his head.

The city… was built on a giant floating rock. Like an island suspended in the sky, deep veins of silvery metal running along the craggy underside and seemingly buoyed by the clouds swirling in a fine gossamer mist around it. A flock of gulls even fluttered at the lowest point of the island, circling around the pointed tip.

“What in the hell…” Arthur breathed. Really, he wasn’t sure why he was even surprised anymore by all the peculiar things this strange new universe had in store—

"Hello."

Arthur startled a bit, turning to face the person who’d managed to get the drop on him in his stupor. Standing behind him was a young woman with brown hair, probably half his age and dressed in a smart business suit. In one hand was one of those little chattering devices he’d seen quite a few passerby holding and talking into, and in the other was a briefcase.

"Hello," he replied, uncertain of what to say. He looked around at the bridge and the streets it connected to, shifty-eyed. “... can I help you, ma’am?”

Quest: A Taboo Piece
Post Word Count: 700 Words
Quest Word Count: 2,003/10,000

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Even after being direct and asking her what she wanted, the well-dressed woman just stared at him for a moment, her eyes slowly drifting down his form to take in his bedraggled appearance. Clearly assessing him from head to foot, or so it seemed to Arthur.

The outlaw couldn’t help but shift uneasily at this. His shoulders came up around his ears like he was walking through snowy Ambarino without a coat on, even as the sun felt like it was burning a hole between his shoulder blades, the grit caught in his clothing and the sand under his fingernails a persistent, aching itch.

He needed space to breathe, space to be. A wide open sky and an endless prairie bright with flowering sage and windswept grass, not a floating island with gravity crushing down all around him. He didn’t belong there, and it was clear that the people ‘round those parts didn’t care much for him, neither. And yet there he stood, dumb and shifty-eyed in the middle of a glittering, paved street, an abomination of heat and dirt and brown leathers stood next to a woman made of cool, crisp clothing and prim poise…

“Yes, I believe you can help me,” said the woman, her matter-of-fact tone tearing Arthur away from his dire thoughts. Her gaze flicked up to his face, vibrant green eyes a startling contrast to her golden skin. It was only when she brushed a strand of dark brown hair behind her ears, a quick and perfunctory gesture, that Arthur noticed they were distinctly pointy in appearance. “Your name is… Arthur Morgan, correct?”

Arthur’s expression sharpened, attention narrowing to examine the pointy-eared woman’s hands, her sides, her clothes. Searching for any kind of weapons she might’ve had on her. The quick inspection was over and done with inside a breath’s span, but that didn’t bring the outlaw much comfort; judging by that little smirk on her face, he wouldn’t doubt that this lady had something else hidden up her sleeve. Folks always did, when they wanted something from him. Best to be cautious.

Eventually, he relented a tad in his suspicion— leaning back on his heels to give her a wider berth out of respect, to all outward appearances, when in truth Arthur just wanted to put some distance between them… between himself and this whole conversation, to be honest. This woman knowing him by name couldn’t bode well.

“That’s me,” he replied at length. Still giving her a wary stare. “Who’s asking?”

The woman straightened. Still smiling, she extended one meticulously manicured hand for him to shake. After a lengthy pause, Arthur took it.

“Oh, good! Good. I’d worried that it might not be you, but really, who else could you be? Your face is plastered practically all over the net, and believe me… it’s a hard face to miss,” her smile widened, a row of perfect pearly whites glittering at him. Arthur tried not to stare. “Now, Mr. Morgan. My name is Veronica Ares. I’m here to extend an offer to you on behalf of my employer—”

Ah, there it was.

“Not interested,” said Arthur, firmly cutting across the stream of words trickling out of her mouth. The man turned with a flap of his duster, intent on walking away. He wasn’t getting involved in this particular brand of horseshit again, no sirree.

“N-not interested?” Veronica stuttered from behind him, but Arthur didn’t pay her much mind. Instead, his eyes roved around with a special kind of restlessness only the truly annoyed can manage, eventually landing on one of the most distant parts of the gigantic floating island the bridge he was standing upon connected to. Various enormously tall buildings glittered back at him, high-speed trains tearing across the city landscape to reach it. Seemed like a hub of some kind. He’d go there, hopefully get the hell away from any more shady folks with shady offers about shady islands of death…

He’d only managed to take a single step in that direction when he felt a weight on his arm, holding him back. Whipping his head around, he made eye contact with the elvish woman, taking in her desperate expression.

“Please,” she breathed through clenched teeth, eyes wide. “You’re like, the only guy who can help me. I’ve been asking dozens of travelers, strangers, vagrants. No one else will do it! Please.”

Frowning, Arthur looked down, saw that Veronica had her fingers clasped around his elbow in a surprisingly firm grip, and let out a deep, world-weary sigh.

“Listen, lady,” he began, taking great pains to gently extricate himself from her hold. “I ain’t interested. I got what I wanted from that island. I got the money and I sure as hell got my fill of death. There ain’t a single goddamn thing in this world you could offer that’d convince me to go back or take part in anything even remotely similar, so let go.”

Arthur tore his arm free, hissing as Veronica’s surprisingly sharp nails dug into his arm one final time before releasing him. He backed away, seriously considering throwing himself over the side of the bridge. Maybe plummeting to his death would be preferable to enduring another sales pitch.

But the elvish woman respected his wishes. Backed off a couple feet, hands held at her sides like she was trying not to spook a prize stallion that still needed taming. Her expression, though, remained as wildly despairing as before, eyes glistening with tears and the rest of her face pulled into a truly wretched, truly hopeless look. Like he was her last hope, the only beacon of light shining from across an otherwise sunless sea.

It would’ve been enough to tug at Arthur’s heartstrings if he were a better man. Might’ve even convinced him to stop and listen awhile, hear her out. Thankfully, Arthur was not a better man.

With a courteous tip of his hat, the outlaw turned and began to saunter away, though mayhaps it was less of a saunter and more like a mutt fleeing with his tail wrapped between his legs…

“W-wait!” the woman exclaimed, and perhaps knowing that this wouldn’t have been enough to urge him to stop on its own, added: “You can’t go around looking like that, the authorities will snatch you off the street! If you help me, I can help you.”

Now that got Arthur’s attention. He turned around, eyes narrowed and his entire demeanor reeking of hesitation, but his face seemed a bit more… open. Willing to listen.

“Alright,” he bit out, voice clipped. “What is it? What is so awful that you can’t get a single other soul to help you, huh? You need me to kill a man? Rob somebody? Both?”

Veronica’s eyes widened ‘til they were about the size of dinner plates. The dark-haired elf shook her head vigorously, tucking her briefcase closer to her body, almost as if it would serve as a barrier between herself and the judgemental stares of any wandering passerby.

“No! No, none of that! Don’t speak so loudly, oh my god,” she exclaimed, shushing him and glancing wildly around. “No, it’s… I can’t talk about it here. It’s…. my god, I can’t even say it.”

Arthur, despite himself, felt mighty curious about whatever she might be referring to. He played it off with a shake of his head, though, lips pulling back in a slight sneer. “Don’t hurt yourself. I ain’t gonna try to drag it out of you. In fact, I can step away right now…”

The woman raised a hand, apparently begging for silence and, perhaps, a bit of time to collect herself. She seemed excessively anxious about something or other. It made Arthur wonder just how bad it must be, this apparently insurmountable task she wanted to ask of him.

Finally, Veronica swallowed hard, nodding resolutely to herself. Her eyes met his, brimming with determination. Arthur was almost impressed, but he was mostly irritated.

“My employer… is a very eccentric man,” Veronica began, wringing her hands together. “I cannot tell you his name, for fear that someone might overhear, but rest assured that he does exist and would be willing to pay anything, anything for what I am about to request. You must understand that. Do you?”

Lips twitching with amusement, Arthur nodded. At this, the woman breathed a sigh of relief, and— moved closer, leaning much too far into his space. Before the outlaw could pull away, though, she began speaking. In a voice so quiet that he could barely discern one word from the next, Veronica spoke, her tone urging him to secrecy. And so Arthur stayed put, patiently listening.

“My employer is an eccentric man, Mr. Morgan,” she said, again, and sighed. “He has many interests, a great many of them perfectly acceptable to the technologically superior society we live in. And yet, he has these…other... dalliances, obsessions, really, that he refuses to let go of. I tell you, Mr. Morgan, I have tried to convince him to abandon this fixation of his, but no matter how hard I try, no matter whatever legal repercussions he might face… he is still, simply put, positively fucking bonkers about it. That obsession is… the world below.”

When it seemed that no further words were forthcoming from her lips, Arthur frowned. “The world below?” he glanced over the side of the bridge, askance. “The ocean?”

“Ssssh!” Veronica hissed, smacking a hand over his mouth, something that Arthur tolerated because he really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. After casting a quick glance around, she slowly removed it. Her eyes met his, practically boggling out of her skull in her terror. “Yes, the waters. The wretched people, the docks, the pirates, the bloody fish. He loves it all.” The elvish woman shuddered. Actually shuddered. “I won’t pretend to understand it, not even to stroke his massive ego, but if I want to get paid… I have to do it.”

“Do what?” the outlaw asked, still rather puzzled.

She cast him a sharp look. “That… I can’t tell you. At least, not yet. You’ll need to meet with him in person to learn anything else. We have to know that you’ll take the job first, you understand.”

Arthur’s brain chewed on this for a moment, brows furrowing in deep thought. He didn’t like the idea of traveling to a secondary location none— that was when they got you, most times, all their friends lying in wait with knives and guns aplenty at their disposal. But, then again, this woman didn’t seem the criminal type. At least, not in the way he was accustomed to.

“... right,” said Arthur. “And what can you do for me? Like I said, I’ve got money.”

“Anything,” Veronica replied quickly, latching onto his interest like a shark catching a whiff of blood in the water. “Just name it.”

The man hesitated, wetting his lips as he prepared to speak. He grimaced as a few grains of sand scraped over his back molars, reminding him of his unconventional awakening in this place, in that strange little garden filled with nothing but sand and a dead tree. What could he ask for?

There wasn’t much he needed, not anymore. Not money, not a doctor, and certainly not anything this lady imagined he might demand of her employer. He felt… adrift, really. What is a man, without desire? Without purpose? Why, he’s not much better than a damned ghost, ain’t he? Ain’t he?

But then... Arthur thought of the island. Thought of Kopaka, towering over his dying body in all his icy fury. Thought of the scribbling of text in his journal, a message written in a deliberate, yet clearly uncertain hand: OPEALON. I WILL BE AT ICE.

“I need to find somebody. Well, a place. Y’all... can help with that?”

Veronica smiled.

Quest: A Taboo Piece
Post Word Count: 1,980 Words
Quest Word Count: 3,983/10,000

 

[Kopaka]

"This is the PFS Verdant requesting permission to ascend, corridor twelve at nadir two zero zero niner." Caprico called into the radio set. The bridge of the fishing ship was bustling with the ship's officers as they prepared to put in to port at Paradise city's aerial docks. All around them, fishing ships of all shapes, sizes and vintages were being raised and lowered to the earthmote high overhead by pulsating tractor beams.

They cascaded, like so many ladders of Jacob, down from large projector platforms that stretched over the edges of the hovering islands. Kopaka stood on the bridge of the heavy, metal ship with his arms crossed and looked straight up at his destination. Paradise City was not likely to be a kind place to him, regardless of whatever fleeting prestige he had managed to gain from the previous year's death matches. It mattered not; the foul corruption of Darkseid's touch would reveal itself to him, and he would snuff it out.

Whether or not he had the assistance of others was entirely their prerogative.

There came a sudden, pervasive vibration as a shaft of light lanced down onto their ship. The ocean became fuzzy with harmonic resonance. The Verdant's hull was plucked, dripping with ocean water from the waves of Opealon like a child's bath toy. Apparently, however, it wasn't a perfect system. Kopaka took a single step back on the deck as the ship groaned and tilted upwards.

"Uh corridor twelve, we need more lift aft. Starting to tip here." Caprico barked into the radio set. A garbled, electronic reply crackled over the receiver and the rear end of the ship was hoisted level.

Needless decadence. Would it be so hard for the skylanders to simply descend to the waves and retrieve their catches? No. No this is part of the spectacle. An attempt to awe me in to supplication of their power and grandeur.

But, this land of iniquity and spectacle was his destination, regardless. The Verdant was pulled up past a thin layer of clouds, and into the docking ring of the tractor beam. It was a large, annular, black metal structure with jutting, fluted projector nodules at regular intervals around the rim. The dock workers, dressed in fine, clean uniforms of flashing neon and denim servitude made quick work of securing the fishing ship into her docking clamps. At long last, the tractor field was deactivated, and the ship's bulk settled at its new altitude was a soft, metallic rumble.

A patter of footsteps behind Kopaka prompted the Toa to turn around. His blue optics focused on the ship's greenhorn; the one who had identified himself as Jackson.

"Well Kopaka, here we are! The promised city of Paradise!" the freckled youth beamed. He made a grand, sweeping gesture with his hand, as if the gleaming skyline was his to introduce. From an objective standpoint, Kopaka could appreciate that the architecture of the city was of high quality. Well ordered parkways, lined with perfectly groomed trees and blossoming gardens girdled a veritable bird's nest of monorail tracks, elevators and glassy walkways. Sunlight glinted off of zooming sky cars and cargo flyers as the weaved in between the sweeping, curvilinear sky scrapers.

"Your assistance is noted. Be safe." the biomech replied with a flat buzz. With that, he marched towards the extended, plate metal gangplank and disembarked the ship. Jackson watched the white-plated warrior android leave with a flabbergasted smile on his face. If he hadn't snapped so many pictures of the Toa while the thing had been deactivated, no one would ever believe him.

It didn't take long for Kopaka to be noticed. Not only was he nearly a ten foot tall cybernetic knight, but his modicum of fame was apparently magnified among these densely populated streets.

"Kopaka!"

"Yo, Sauce Robot!"

"Hey it's that ice dude from last year!"

"Sauce robot...Sauce robot!"

The Sauce Robot payed them no heed. There vapid mewlings were like so much birdsong in the distance. It carried no more meaning to the hunting Toa than the whispering wind or trickle of the waters. Perhaps, then, even less. The lenses of the Kanohi Akaku whirred and clicked in regular intervals. The crowd of bodies dissolved into a crowd of ghostly flesh and bone. Conduits beneath the sidewalk were identified. The structures of the elevated paths were analyzed.

None of it seemed 'corrupted', per se. At least not in any way that Kopaka could identify as objectively antithetical to the nature of this World. The words of the Arbiter, however, were not to be disregarded. If the shadow of Darkseid did not walk among the people, then, where must the Toa of Ice search.

Shadow.

Walking.

Kopaka paused beneath the umbra of a large, parked truck and wobbled slightly. A surge of memory activity overrode his processors in a dizzying whirl of half remembered impressions. Red and orange. Heat and flame...the sounds of a distant beach and gibbering birds. Kopaka could hear a voice he could not place. It was old and wizened.

It is the nature of shadow to hide. Where Toa walk, you take the light with you, and so the darkness is scattered away. The only way for a torchbearer to catch the shadows is to leave the light behind.

Is that what I must do Turaga? Violate my own duty, simply to fulfill another? I cannot accept such foolish compromise.

Perhaps you cannot, Kopaka. But you serve the will of Mata Nui. Of the Tohunga. At what point does your pursuit of honor become self-serving, hm?

Kopaka's right hand curled into a tight fist. The metallic joints creaked in protest as a thin skein of ice crawled down his arm as anger built up inside. What good could possibly come of causing strife amidst this formulaic utopia?

Shall I lay ruin to these glass edifices? Slay the good people who walk these streets? For what? To draw out some imagined beast that I might slay?

Kopaka released the tension in his hand, and shook the flecks of ice onto the ground.

No. It is senseless. These visions taunt me with riddles. I must not be tempted by haste.

Kopaka continued with his wanderings of the clean-swept streets, and maintained his icy vigil. Omens and lingering solutions wove their way across his mind as he glided amongst the gawking populace. This...Turaga from his vision. What exactly was the inference of leaving the light behind? If a Toa walks with the light, must he become something other than Toa? The elemental android could scarcely begin to ponder what such a being would even look like. Frankly, it made him nervous.

What is a Toa? To seek the darkness, must I become something less?

Or something more?

The sun began to dip below the precipice of the flying island. Powerful washes of red and pink ignited the mirror towers in iridescent splendor, and arcing clouds carried these balmy pigments far into the gathering violet of the evening.

Well, if nothing else, perhaps a monster would show up at night.