Open Broadcast, just after Jaunt beginning.

[protect_and_serve]

As many of us suspected, we have returned to Purgatory.

That land, just visible across the river beneath the clouds of ash?

That is Hell.

Whatever your Caerdicci poets may say on the matter, no mortal soul we know of has ever returned from Hell.

It would be wise not to test the limits of the Arcana's powers in such a way.

Be wary.

Comments

[failgoyle]

[Look, is anyone even surprised this revelation has made Jules start screaming his head off?

...he's actually started screaming out in the real world too, wherever he is in Purgatory.]

[awitchdidit]

I wasn't thinking about following Dante's path until you said it, but I suppose now that I'm back to Traveling I can make myself play the responsible adult instead.

And anyway, he started in Hell and worked his way up to this point. Going backwards isn't something I like to do in general.

[protect_and_serve]

I haven't read his travelogue.

[protect_and_serve]

After I say that, you do something to call attention to yourself?

[awitchdidit]

From one boring perspective, it's just petty political commentary. As a poem about a mortal's idealization of the infernal and divine, however, it's quite beautiful. I believe the heroine of the piece was a Traveler for some time.

[protect_and_serve]

I wonder, then, if this is her world.

D'Angelines have written an overabundance of such poetry, but I suppose our reasons, if not the resulting verse, are excusable.

Although Joscelin was there for the time Jules mooned the network, I think

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh man, right, you missed most of Jules, didn't you? He's basically always like that.

[breakaleginhalf]

I dunno what you expected, mate. It's kind of his raison d'être.

[come on]

I got him.

[protect_and_serve]

Thank you.

Re: Although Joscelin was there for the time Jules mooned the network, I think

[protect_and_serve]

Why has no-one done anything about it?

[awitchdidit]

Threatening him just makes it worse and killing him would make it exponentially worse.

[fruitknife]

Weirdest goddamn bartering system I've ever seen, and that includes the cheese.

[protect_and_serve]

Teaching him.

[protect_and_serve]

I don't recall the cheese.

[fruitknife]

That was Mars. And it meant people's food was bein' held hostage.

[This is less upsetting than the cheese. The cheese was just bullshit. But it's weirder.]

[thornsofmalkav]

I dunno if it'll help or not, but I'm half-infiltrating this one?

We're at this big tent city which is, like, one whole marketplace. There's a big old fire pit at the top that people are throwing dangerous magic shit into.

Also, it looks like I'm a Peregrine here. I'm super not surprised. A bunch of us just got here from Melasurei.

[thornsofmalkav]

You were an outlaw for that one, Joscelin. But you forgot it because Moebius.

[protect_and_serve]

I was present, but I don't remember it.

[protect_and_serve]

Ah. Mars.

It's still strange to me to think of it as a world, and not merely a star.

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh yeah, I bet.

At least in my time, though, it's a pretty barren world. No colonies yet.

[protect_and_serve]

The Peregrines.

Thorne, did Leonardo's - his gambit. Did it work?

[fruitknife]

[Memory bullshit, then. Shinji wasn't planning to ask, and he's still not.]

This is weirder, but less bullshit.

[protect_and_serve]

Jules.

Do you wish to learn to defend yourself? Or, at least - control yourself?

[protect_and_serve]

Among the half-damned of this place, you'll find plenty of that.

[protect_and_serve]

A thousand years and more. You'd think that was time enough for such marvels. Refined steel, caulked tight enough to hold in air like a balloon. Greek fire and pitch, refined to power an engine of turbines and pistons... electricity, to power the computer and radio used for navigation?

I haven't the faintest idea how electricity, computers, or radios work, so I suppose they're the marvels that would take the longest. But I do wonder, if I set the problem before the scholars and engineers of Siovale, if knowing it could be done might shave centuries off the time.