Bath Imaginable

A Company of Knights are sent by the Frozen Seer into the Boreal Valley, an unfamiliar realm to the North.

The Barbed Knight has broken her oath. She rules illegitimately from atop the Celestial Tower. No one knows why she assassinated the previous ruler, the True Knight, but this revelation cannot go unjudged. Confront the Barbed Knight, talk her down from her tower if you can, or dispense judgement as you see fit.

THE COMPANY
Tarquin, The Ring Knight
Trogdor, The Cosmic Knight
Fae, The Fox Knight
Heron, The Pigeon Knight
Guy, The Mock Knight
Todd, The Fanged Knight

The Company camps on the smooth rocks of a cold riverbed; their steeds drink from crystal clear water. Tarquin, the Ring Knight, fills her wineskin and takes a seat beside the Fox Knight, Fae, staring into the smoldering embers. She begins to speak, but the Fox Knight leans away—shrinks, somehow, and dissolves into a scattering of brittle leaves.

“Here I am,” the Fox Knight smiles, stepping out from behind a distant tree. She tosses an apple jovially before taking a greedy bite.

“How fun,” says Guy, the Mock Knight, “I love a jest.” A tinny, metallic laughter is produced from somewhere deep within its core; the ancient laughter of some long-dead tavern-goers. Dark water splashes at the edges of its tin mug as the Mock Knight lifts it to its painted lips. It spills the tea onto the tiny pebbles between its boots while steam dampens its silkmade face.

“Mmm…” it hums.

Todd, the Fanged Knight, sits across the fire, the dark edges of his face unmoving. The ancient scroll of parchment given to him by the Frozen Seer before their departure now feels heavy in his hands. How will he know when it’s time to read it?

Trogdor, the Cosmic Knight, puts an arm around Heron, the Pigeon Knight, ruffling the feathers of his cloak. He begins to explain the constellations that are slowly dimming on the horizon, but the Pigeon Knight brushes him aside—”I already know the way,” he says, “look.”

As the light of dawn reaches the eastern mountains, the Boreal Valley blooms before them. The river cuts through snowcapped mountain ranges rising toward a great, mist-shrouded lake. To the east, smoke darkens the sky above a wooden village on the horizon before the trees.

“Woodsmoke,” the Pigeon Knight says, “two hecksleagues northeast.”

THE TRAVELLING MUSICIAN
The Company rides through the mist, following the river. They hear distant drumming on the wind, the faint low notes of a singer’s voice. A shape against the pale; sunbeams catching on the metal filigree of his fanciful dress. It’s a travelling musician.

“Spoil the loaf, taint the wine—to starve a friend is most divine!” The singer jaunts, pounding on a drum he wears over his shoulders, “the winged one grows and we are the feast!”

He stops when he sees the Knights. He protests it’s just a song; he forgets where he heard it.

“Keork,” he introduces himself, “and who are the fine Knights I’m honoured to stand with?”

When he learns their names, he begins to drum—”Sing for me!” he shouts.

The Mock Knight lifts its head—a rhythmic clicking precedes ghostly operatic chords—but Keork stops his drumming.

“No, no, no…” He puts his palm to his face. “I want to hear his singing—Heron, the Pigeon Knight.”

The Pigeon Knight’s voice breaks, like the squawking of something doomed, and Keork doubles over laughing. He loves it, and he rewards them with gossip about the Celestial Tower.

“I am travelling from that region,” he says. “I heard that the Barbed Knight killed the True Knight, but the Council and the courtiers have accepted the Barbed Knight’s legitimacy… All but one. The True Knight’s envoy, Wella Gall, left the tower in a vicious anger.”

“Why was the True Knight killed? How could the Council allow it?”

“He refused to help his people,” Keork frowns, “or so they say. He would do nothing but gaze upon the Stars. He said the shortening spring is inevitable, but his people wanted action.”

Keork swiftly departs: “This place is doomed if you ask me,” he sings as he drums to the rhythm of his footsteps.

As the Company approaches Woodsmoke, they see a herd of cows grazing in a field. A small flurry of snow begins, but the cowherd still sleeps lazily in the tree.

As the gates of the ornate wooden palisade surrounding Woodsmoke open, a thunderous rumble startles the horses, save the Cosmic Knight’s boneless steed. The steed braces, its wobbly legs absorbing the reverberations from below.

The Knights turn and watch the herd of cows stampeding away from the village. The cowherd jumps down from the tree; he’s cursing and rubbing his hands against his head.

“Let’s get them,” the Ring Knight suggests.

A frigid breeze blasts across the trail.

“We don’t have time,” someone says, “we need to eat.”

“We could gallop and herd them back toward town at least…” the Ring Knight continues.

“Our horses need rest,” the Cosmic Knight says, his steed now wobbling in the increasing winds.

“Are we not Knights of Gallantry?” The Ring Knight’s voice breaks across the falling snow, but none turn to meet her gaze.

HOSPITALITY AND TRADITION
The Company is welcomed by Woodsmoke’s Ruler, the Reliquary Knight. They watch him feast with his hands, licking grease from his elbows. “Eat, eat,” he keeps saying, “please, it is tradition. We are Knights; we are more deserving than the commoners.”

The Ring Knight pushes away her plate. The rest of her Company eats little as they learn more about the shortening spring and resulting famine. The Mock Knight lifts its spoon up and down with a precise clockwork rhythm, pausing occasionally to comment on the warmth of the hearth behind him, but the food remains uneaten.

The Reliquary Knight continues to eat. Behind him is an ornate wooden box that pulls the candlelight. “I don’t concern myself with the troubles of the Celestial Tower,” the Ruler says. “Not everyone will survive what’s coming, but I will protect and provide for my people as best I can. You should make your pilgrimage to the Celestial Tower, and go.”

THE PILGRIMAGE
The Company rides deep into the mountains, where the air grows colder and thinner with each passing hoofstep.

“Brr…” the Mock Knight vibrates, cinching closed its patchwork cloak.

The Company becomes lost in dark smoke and stumbles through a scorched farm. The heat is coming from below the ground. In the distance is the Ashen Forge, its chemical trails disappearing above the clouds.

The Ruler refuses an audience with the Company but offers them due hospitality. The Forge is running all hours making war machines to prepare for what’s coming.

The Ruler’s courtiers explain the sheriff of the Celestial Tower, Radlef, is gathering a militia to destroy the bat. “It is what is shortening spring, after all—it is self-evident.”

The Company rides with haste now; they become lost in a maze of crags within the mountains. The Ring Knight begins to panic, but the Pigeon Knight knows the way.

As they exit the maze, they see a warning carved into the cliffside: “All Knights Will Feel the Axe.”

As they descend from the mountains toward the coast, they see grounded birds that seem to grovel at the boiling storm clouds overhead.

“It’s the bat!” The Ring Knight cowers at the sky. The Pigeon Knight tightens his grip on the reins of his steed.

“This isn’t right,” he says, surveying the tundra. He locks eyes with an owl, “This isn’t right at all.”

Further along the misty coast, the Company finds a group of commoners—two dozen or more men, women, and children—seated for a formal feast. They ride closer and see bowls of worms writhing in the dirt. A group of musicians sing the very song the Company heard Keork sing weeks earlier: “Spoil the loaf, taint the wine—to starve a friend is most divine.”

When the music stops, the commoners begin to eat. The only sound is the crashing waves and the slurping of wet mouthfuls.

The Pigeon Knight sits to taste the grey, segmented lengths; sweet dirt and actinic metal.

“Good,” the old man next to him nods, picking a worm from his beard and licking it off his thumb, “this feast will keep us safe from the Bat.”

THE PIT AND THE PROPHECY
At the base of a cliff, the Company finds a group of men and women armed with farm tools. They light fires and fan the smoke into a cliffside cave several metres high above the ground.

The Knights approach. They see a man with a bow leading the others; he says his name is Radlef. The group knows the bat is in the cave; they intend to smoke it out.

“Wouldn’t it be more strategic to fight the Bat within the cave?” The Fanged Knight suggests.

“If you brave Knights are willing to go in there, perhaps,” Radlef says. “I won’t stand in the way of your Glory.”

The Fanged Knight lifts the ancient scroll from his pocket and reads it for the first time. His face goes pale: it tells of the Pigeon Knight’s demise, in a cave. The Pigeon Knight looks at his feet; he looks at the cave.

“So be it,” he says, “the sky is for the feathered.”

As the Company dismounts and climbs into the cave, the Ring Knight stands in the entrance and draws a circle with white chalk. “This will keep the Bat from escaping,” she tells the others.

Inside the cave is a shallow pool, surrounded by stinking guano; a massive bat cowers in the dark reaches of the cave, shielding its face from the Company’s torchlights.

“Kill it!”

The Knights crash against it, breaking its wings and hacking it to pieces. The Bat tries to escape, but the Ring Knight presses her mace into the rock and the chalk begins to glow—the Bat turns back, blocked by the high-pitch screech of nails against stone.

The bat thrashes its torn wings to fight off the Company, but they pin it down and swiftly decapitate it. They leave the cave, holding the severed bat head high. The militia sings their praises.

The Pigeon Knight breathes a sigh of relief.

Radlef and his militia travel with the Company back to the Celestial Tower to meet with the Barbed Knight. They ride through an orchard when the tower comes into view: a dizzying stone tower with metallic battlements and a golden dome at the top.

Someone screams in pain. The Company rides ahead; Radlef follows close behind them. There’s a wounded Knight on the ground—the Tankard Knight—his arm is severed.

“Godrick,” Radlef gasps, “who did this to you?”

“It was Wella Gall,” the wounded knight proclaims, “she says she will destroy us all… But why did she spare me?”

“She wants us to know,” The Cosmic Knight spits.

THE BARBED COURT
Before they’re allowed to meet with the Barbed Knight, the Company must spill their blood upon individual scrolls of parchment. The Ruler’s envoys roll each one carefully and seal them with a length of coloured ribbon.

As each member of the company cuts their hand, the Mock Knight looks down at its padded mitts. It slowly steps away; the clockwork ticking within it begins to hasten.

“Something wrong?” One of the envoys asks.

“I just need my dagger…” the Mock Knight says, reaching its hand into the saddlebag dripping with the bat’s brains and blood, “Oh never mind, here it is.”

It pats its blood-soaked cotton hand on the parchment and quickly turns away, mimicking a tinny, copper whistle.

A mechanical lift brings the Company to the top of the Celestial Tower, where strange machinery made of metal and mirrors casts light onto flat discs of glass, leaving impressions of the stars.

The Barbed Knight sits at a desk twirling an arrow with a needle-like point.

“I know why you’re here,” she says apathetically, “you’ve come to judge me. Fine, ask your questions. Make your verdict.”

She admits she killed the True Knight and stole his holding from him, but he refused to act. “He insisted the shortening spring was due to the movement of the so-called Living Stars…”

“And you believe it was the bat?”

“Why not? My predecessor believed it was these panes of glass—” she says, kicking a stack of stained glass depicting the movement of stars—”why is it so absurd to claim it is the bat?”

The Company is quiet.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” the Barbed Knight says, looking out from her tower upon the commoners celebrating in the taverns and in the streets below, “if they are doomed, let them die fighting. Happy.”

“I say we demand her help with the Axebearer,” the Ring Knight suggests, “she created this whole situation. That seems just.”

“That has nothing to do with why we’re here,” the Fanged Knight says, “our duty is to pass judgement on her. She killed the True Knight without honour. What do we do about that?”

“Death,” the Company announces. “Trial by combat.”

“Fine,” the Barbed Knight stands, “and who is your champion for this duel?”

“This is your home, your holding,” the Company agrees, “you choose which one of us you will face.”

The Barbed Knight giggles; she inspects the group, making eye contact with each one while pressing the thin metal tip of her arrow against her lower lip.

“You,” she says, pointing with the arrow, “the Pigeon Knight, to the Dueling Cave.”

The Company gasps.

THE DUEL
Deep below the tower is a stone pillar overlooking a chasm of darkness. The Ring Knight places a ring on the Pigeon Knight’s finger before the fight, closes his hand into a fist, and covers it with hers. “You have my Clarity,” she tells him. The Pigeon Knight’s hand shakes as he secures his plates.

The Company watches from an amphitheater overlooking the cave. The Barbed Knight restrings her bow. A servant brings one of the scrolls soaked with the Company’s blood—the blue one, the Pigeon Knight’s. She unrolls it and dips her arrow into the parchment; the blood on the page is absorbed into the tip of her arrow, and the parchment is cast aside. She kisses the arrow, whispers to it: “Go home.”

Before the duel begins, the knights exchange a solemn nod.

The Pigeon Knight commits to a killing blow, throwing himself toward the Barbed Knight and swinging his polearm powerfully toward her head. The Barbed Knight ducks, sliding beneath the blade and stabilizing herself on one knee. She releases the arrow from below into the Pigeon Knight—under his arm outstretched like a feathered wing and straight into his heart. It’s a mortal wound.

“The Celestial Tower is mine,” the Barbed Knight says, not looking at the Pigeon Knight’s face as she pulls the arrow from between his ribs.

The Ring Knight stands over the body, watching his final rapid breaths, his fist still clenched around the ring she had loaned to him.

THE AXEBEARER
The Company has lost a Brother. They have no business in the Boreal Valley, save their oath. Seek the Myths.

The proper rites are performed; then they join Radlef and his militia. They hunt for the Axebearer, Wella Gall.

“I feel nothing,” the Mock Knight finally admits as they ride without their guide for the first time.

They ride west, into the mountains across the valley floor. In hushed whispers, they hear the militia suggest the Knights should lay down their lives to appease the Axebearer. They’re terrified.

They follow the path of fallen trees until they find the massive, musclebound Lady, Wella Gall. She stands atop a cliff, felling trees in singular strikes.

“Knights!” Wella Gall announces, “As tools of humble lumberjack they split the log and stone, this one is made to cleave the knights and castles that they own!”

She strikes the earth, sending a great shockwave across the forest. The horses begin to panic, save the Cosmic Knight’s boneless steed. It absorbs the shockwaves as the Cosmic Knight stares up to the evening, twilight sky—the first few stars have started to appear—and the Cosmic Knight is gone, leaving only a glowing pebble and his cowering horse.

The remaining Company regains control of their horses. They charge at Wella Gall and crash upon her like a terrible metallic wave, pinning her axe to the ground to prevent her second strike. She lashes at them violently, breaking the face of the Mock Knight and sending shattered porcelain and shredded silk into the air.

The Fanged Knight grabs her and sinks his teeth into her throat. Before she succumbs to his bite and falls into a primordially-dark sleep, she offers him the axe—”Do the honourable thing,” she begs.

The Fanged Knight takes the axe.

The Mock Knight reflexively covers its face, but then it sees Wella Gall bleeding, dying. Tiny gears whirr where its eyes were painted on the silk. It lifts some cotton stuffing from its neck hole and uses it to staunch the bleeding from Wella Gall’s bitten neck.

The Fox Knight, the Ring Knight, and the Mock Knight look up toward their Brother; the Fanged Knight grips the axe, blood dripping from his mouth. He stands over them.

AFTERMATH
The Company brings Wella Gall back to the Celestial Tower to be judged by the Ruler. The Barbed Knight is proven just through trial by combat. The Cosmic Knight is never seen again.

Under moonlight, after countless sleepless nights, the Fanged Knight is sharpening the Axe. He hums to himself, “…all Knights will feel the axe.”