Juniper finds Uther.
Synopsis[]
In a room with an octopus, Juniper observes that he's lost air and still magic, and the party observe that some entads have stopped working. This is expected: the lower you go, the more magical things get; so ascending the stairs means things get less magical and so their magic will stop working.
They ascend to the first landing: Juniper loses gem and fire magic, and Bethel loses inviolability. The landing is a semi-aquatic place filled with octopus people -- people made of five to ten octopuses.
At the wet market, Juniper trades a hot dog for a babble fish from an Anglish-speaking octopus, and finds Uther and his wife passed through the market five times.
Past the landing, the party go through a door with Celtic knotwork, against the RDP, as the map says that's the way forward (and Fenn agrees it's not too bad). They find Uther trapped at the bottom of a goop pit, in a bobbler -- an artifact projecting a sphere of stopped time.
They free him, and Uther keeps ascending the stairs, with the party following. Uther insists he won't go back to Aerb, as it isn't real, but the Earth at the top of the stairs is. Eventually, the party are able to convince him to stop to talk.
Featured characters[]
- Juniper Smith
- Bethel
- Amaryllis Penndraig
- Grakhuil Leadbraids
- Fenn Greenglass
- Raven Masters
- White Toad
- Uther Penndraig
- Zona Delzora (mentioned, as Uther's wife)
Notes[]
- That Zona had mechanical legs was first mentioned in Bond Girl.
- Some of the protocols Uther mentions first came up in Full House. Face protocol is for dealing with enemies that can imitate people, and was used in The Road. Puppet protocol is for dealing with enemies that can take over bodies, and was used in The Critical Path. Lotus protocol never came up in canon, but appeared in apocrypha for The Veil of the World: it was for dealing with enemies that could falsify what you sensed, such as illusionists.