Chapter 1: The Backwater Theocracy

Colin Townsend ran a hand through his bristly red hair and turned the beam of his lantern across the cavernous hall. Exploring the Megalith was like stepping into another world. Mosaics of strangely dressed men staggered along the steel walls in uneven rows, and something which was not cloth formed the carpet. The massive metal craft rested on a sharp incline, so while his feet pressed against the slanted floor, he dangled from a rope, looking down into fathomless darkness.

His coworker Giana’s face popped through the hatch far above. “Anything?”

“Nothing yet,” Colin called up. “Let out some more rope.”

“Sorry, Cap. We’re at our limit.”

 Colin bit his lip. “Damn.”

A metallic groan resonated through the tower, and Colin put a hand on the rope. “Wind’s picking up?”

“Ya,” Giana called, “I can see the clouds. Storm’s coming tonight.”

Colin shone his lantern further down the incline and raised an eyebrow. A little ways away, a slab of metal had peeled off and was now precariously balanced between the two walls, forming a sort of bridge. Attached to the center of that bridge was a small white box with a steel handle.

“There’s an elixir down below,” he called. “Are you sure we’re out? Any spare spools up there?”

“Na,” Giana replied. “But the day’s almost finished. We can come back tomorrow.”

The walls groaned again, and the metal slab slipped further down the tower.

“Not an option,” Colin said. “I’m going free.”

“Captain, wait–”

He found a solid hold along the wall.

“It’s too risky!” Giana yelled.

Colin smirked. “For you.” He unhooked himself from the rope. “Look, it can save a life. And it means a bonus for us both. Saints know we need it. You got an old lady to take care of too, ya?”

He felt around until he found a narrow slit in the wall, then wedged his hand into it and  descended onto the bridge. He crawled hand over hand along the metal slab until he reached the center, then unlatched the box and removed a small package. He examined it and found a label in the Ancient Language. Sure enough, these were the glyphs that marked elixirs. What they meant, though, he couldn’t say.

Then the walls groaned, the slab of metal lost its purchase with the walls, and Colin tumbled with it into the darkness.

Up was down, down was up, Colin instinctively reached out for a hold, and then suddenly he slammed into the wall and jerked to a halt.

He looked up and saw what had saved him. The opaque blue crystals jutting out of his left hand had caught against the carpet. He let out a breath. He’d almost forgotten they were there. Everyone had some sort of crystal formation somewhere on their bodies. The city’s ruling church looked down on the crystals, seeing them as “the unclean dross,” but hey, they’d come in handy this time.

“Cap!” Giana cried.

“Easy money,” Colin responded. “I’ve got it.” He slowly put the package in his bag and found another hold, then climbed up and hooked himself back onto the rope.

“Right,” he said with a relieved laugh. “That’s enough excitement for one day.” 

Giana helped him the rest of the way up, into a huge atrium, open to the outside via a massive doorway. Crates of gold and copper wire lined the walls, and the floor was dotted with other hatches that led further down, while ten other megalith surveyors worked to plumb their depths.

Colin strode to the doorway out of the Megalith and took a deep breath of the autumn breeze. There was a sort of rustic charm to the city of Pinella: Far below him, hundreds of white plaster houses nestled together comfortably, with their red and brown tiled roofs scattered among blue-gray streets that zig zagged over and down the set of hills the city was built on. It was very… homely. He might have even liked it if it weren’t for the cathedral at the very base of the Megalith, planted like a flag as if to say “This is mine.”

Colin clapped his hands to get the other workers’ attention. “Right. We’re done for the day.”

The surveyors tied the boxes to a long hempen rope, and slowly lowered them down to the scaffolding below with a basic pulley system. There, other workers took it off and transported it the rest of the way to the ground.

Colin attached his leather harness to another rope and lowered himself down the smooth side of the Megalith, tilted at an angle away from the city. It was a relatively clear day, though off in the distance he could see storm clouds quickly approaching. They’d be here by nightfall, maybe even sooner. 

A boy was waiting for him at the bottom of the scaffolding, dressed in the simple brown-gray robe of a novitiate. “Master Townsend?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“Prelate Cinead wishes to speak with you.”

Colin sighed. “Ah, right, the report…”

He walked through the great oak doors of the cathedral. The sanctuary was lit by three chandeliers, since at this time of day, the Megalith eclipsed what sunlight might have illuminated the basilica. Lining the walls were stained glass windows, now dim, depicting events in the Church’s mythology. At the far end of the cathedral, sitting in a pew in front of a rose window, was the Prelate, an old man with a cloth bandage over one eye, in flowing white and gold robes. On the center of his robe was the Solquinta, a sun-like icon with five rays fanned downwards. Colin had long grown sick of seeing it everywhere– many people carried it around their necks, icons of it littered every home, and even the basilica itself had been built to look like one.

He cleared his throat and bowed. “Your Grace, I want to begin by apologizing. I know we haven’t gotten much these past few weeks, but I have excellent news for you today. We’ve found an elixir.”

“Yes,” said the Prelate, in the painfully uncultured Pinellan accent. “I… Well, you see… that’s not quite what I was going to talk about.”

Colin raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Won’t you sit down?”

Colin hesitantly complied.

The Prelate smiled. “Good work on the elixir, by the way. You and your crew are truly the miracle workers of the modern age. Just think of it–”

“Your Grace, you’re not telling me something.”

The Prelate adjusted his eye patch and sighed. “The inquisitors have submitted their report.”

“Oh. Them.”

“They identified your dross as one of pride, and found that its significant growth can be directly attributed to your work on the Megalith. I’m sure they’ve talked about it with you before, but there hasn’t been much progress, and…”

Colin blinked. “Sir… are you dismissing me?”

The Prelate mutely nodded. 

Colin let out a shaky breath. “I… I see. Is that all, sir?”

“Yes,” said the Prelate. “I felt that you should hear it from me. Once the paperwork has been completed, you will receive further instructions. By His will.”

Colin bowed his head, quivering. “With His power.”

Colin stormed out of the cathedral and warmed the cool air with the heat of his frustration. He should have expected something like this from a city of bumpkins.

“What did they do?” came a voice right next to him.

Colin jumped in surprise. The young woman raised her hands and smiled at him. “It’s just me. I heard something happened and wanted to see for myself.”

Colin sighed. She’d been a frequent visitor of his for the past couple weeks. They’d bumped into each other one day, she apologized profusely, and insisted on being friends afterwards. He might've found her annoying if she wasn’t so cute. Her beauty increased tenfold because she seemed entirely unaware of it, and there was something about her that was different from the other girls he knew. Perhaps it was because she didn’t have that awful backwater Pinellan accent. Perhaps it was because she seemed to wash her clothes much more often than most. She always wore a pomegranate red pinafore over a clean white chemise, with a purple wool hat (she said her ears got cold easily). In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen so much as a speck of dirt on her clothing.

“So?” she asked. “What did they do?”

“What do you think? I should’ve known they’d come for me eventually.”

She shook her head. “These fanatics…”

Colin shrugged. “Look, it makes sense. Small people need a big god. It’s probably Pinella’s isolation that did it. Maybe they feel like they need more protection from the monsters than just walls and ballistas.”

“That doesn’t excuse them giving everything up to the Church! And this place had so much potential!”

“What do you mean?”

“When the Megalith was discovered two hundred years ago, people from all over came to have a piece. Luminess, Tarekos, Sero, Agikirk… A brand new country… This place could have been a fresh start. But the Church gobbled it up like it does everything.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” Colin picked up the pace and stepped out into the cathedral square, a large piazza with a Solquinta mosaic in the center. 

“Look at the monastery’s gardener,” said the girl. “He used to be an affluent merchant, and do you know what happened to him? He could either leave the city and almost certainly die in the deepest, darkest forest in the world or renounce his wealth and live off of the church’s generosity. Some choice!”

Colin grimaced. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Colin, you’re already thinking this. I’m just saying it out loud.”

“Oi, Colin!” someone shouted.

He turned around and saw two men amidst the cathedral square throng, the one as tall as the other was fat. Colin snorted. “Cassio! Rosso! Never thought I’d see you two come within spitting distance of a church.”

Cassio stretched his gangly limbs. “We go where Lady Fortune takes us, and right now fortune takes us to a lady.”

Rosso nodded. “We could use your help wooing. She’s in a pack of three. But three of us, three of them… the math speaks for itself.”

“Sorry… I’m not really in the mood right now.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

Colin bit his lip. “...They’re letting me go.”

Cassio raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Rosso threw his hands in the air. “They can’t do that!”

“They did.”

“Well, all the more reason to join us!” Rosso exclaimed. “Nothing to improve your spirits like wooing and winning a girl!”

“Not today.”

Rosso frowned. “Boo. We’re still on for tomorrow though?”

Colin gave a slight smile. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

He continued down the winding streets, and as the smell of fresh bread wafted to them, he looked at the brownstone bakery. “You know the one who could’ve dealt with the monsters…”

The girl cocked her head. “Lucas Hilith?”

“Exactly. The man’s a legend. Lucas the Battleaxe, they called him. But they made him a baker. All because of this insane obsession with the dross.” Colin imitated the droning voice of his childhood teacher. “‘Humanity, seeking power, reached to the stars, and the stars answered. The dross feeds on our greatest weakness. The crystals grow as we give into it. And if we let it consume us, it will.’”

The girl laughed. Colin smiled at the encouragement. “The last time someone was consumed was how long ago? Outside of anyone’s living memory? Now isn’t that convenient.”

The girl shushed him. “Quiet. Don’t let him hear you.”

Colin fell silent as he passed an inquisitor. The man was dressed almost entirely in black, save for the gold eye embroidered on his surcoat and the ceremonial metal collar he had around his neck. His black hair was cropped short, and a veil, tucked neatly into the collar, covered the left half of his bony face. A gust of wind blew the veil aside, and Colin saw the glint of crystal underneath before the inquisitor hurriedly replaced his covering. Colin frowned. Many of the leaders of the Church had even larger formations than the rest of the population, and it seemed the best they could do was hide it. Even the prelate was blind in one eye because the crystals had covered it. If the Church’s purpose was really to prevent the growth of the dross, they didn’t seem to be very effective.

They entered the soap-maker’s house where Colin lived, mounted the stairs, and entered his room. It was a modest affair, with a bed on one side, a sack of belongings on another, and odds and ends scattered everywhere else. This room used to be a storage space, and it wasn’t much, but it was all he could afford with the pay he was given. He slumped, the tension causing the back of his shirt to rip from top to bottom. 

“Damn it,” Colin said.

“It’s fine,” said the girl. “You’re not exactly hard to look at.”

Colin smirked. He wasn’t and he knew it. 

He tried to lie down on his bed as he contemplated his options, but his head scraped against the wall, so he sat on it instead, rubbing his head. 

“So,” the girl said. “You’re just going to let them make you a baker? Or another gardener?”

“Look, what else is there to do?”

“Fight!”

“What?”

“Stop holding back. Give them a piece of your mind! Let everyone know what they’re doing!”

“I don’t know…”

She took his hand and sighed. “All right. There’s no shame in being scared.”

Colin detected a note of condescension in her voice. “Scared? Who’s scared?”

“No, I mean, it makes sense… you’re not anyone important to them– what could you do anyway?”

Colin stood up, nearly striking his head on the rafters. “You want me to fight? I’ll fight. I’ll go right now!”

The girl grinned. “That’s the Colin I know!”

There was a knock at the door, and Colin stooped low to open it as the floorboards underneath him groaned.

A novitiate stood in the entryway, with a line of gems arcing from his right eye under his cheek bone and ending just under his ear. He was holding a scroll, which he nearly dropped as Colin opened the door.

“M-master Townsend? I… I have the instructions for your…” The boy faltered as he looked up at Colin’s towering form.

“I don’t belong to your lords anymore,” Colin growled. “I am unshackled.”

The boy dropped the scroll. Colin took it with his thumb and index finger, and tore it in two as the boy ran off. Colin pictured the look of fury that would cross the Prelate’s face. He didn’t need Pinella. Pinella needed him. And they’d see what a mistake they’d made by tangling with him. Colin was finally free.

-  -  -

The front wall of a certain soap-maker’s house collapsed with a crash as a naked humanoid figure, half-covered in blue crystals, stumbled into the street, as large as the houses that surrounded it. Thunder rumbled in the distance as it turned towards the cathedral, and its rocklike beak opened.

“Free… I’m free…”

This pleased the Lady in Scarlet.