Changeling the Lost - Equinox Road.pdf - Changeling - The lost - RPG

he road was long , through maze and moor ,

To gates of glass , all too secure ,

Through which we see the damning sights

Of true Arcadian allure .

Our swords are stained with blood of knights ,

Our garments torn by darkling frights ,

Our faces stained by love and hate ,

Yet we have gained these final heights .

We stand as one , our shoulders straight ,

So proud that we have bested Fate .

And yet the tests have just begun ,

For we must try the looming gate .

We’re at road ’s end , the race is run ,

And all our hopes may come undone

As we stand at Faerie ’s door

A thousand miles from mortal sun .

— carved on the gatepost of the Kaleidoscopic Portal

This book includes :

• Discussion of storytelling a

Changeling endgame, from epic

powers to epic threats

• Rules for travel to Faerie, with

many challenges and a sample

story framework

• The True Fae in their full

glory, including a mini-game for

roleplaying their singular

Arcadian existence

• New entitlements, Wyrd evolution,

and more

For use with the

World of Darkness Rulebook

52799

9 781588 467171

PRINTED IN CHINA

www.worldofdarkness.com

978-1-58846-717-1 WW70203 $27.99 US

By Matthew McFarland , John Newman , Alex Scokel ,

Malcolm Sheppard , John Snead and Chuck Wendig

Prologue : The Icicle Melts

“Any new movies?”

He’s asked this question at least seven times this after-

noon. I’m not sure how his son would respond. Tom’s got a

temper, but he also loves his father. I’ve responded patiently

to the irst six queries. I guess there’s no reason for this to

be any different.

“No, Pop. No mail today. We’ll probably get more

Tuesday.”

“OK. Could I lay down, then?”

It’s only ten in the morning. He’s been up for about

three hours. But again, I don’t know what his son would say,

so I hook up the hydraulic lift, get him out of his recliner,

swing him around and lower him onto the bed. Before he

drifts off, he asks me if any new movies are in. This time, I

ignore it.

He doesn’t dream the way younger people do. His dreams

are like drowning. Some part of his mind knows that it’s dy-

ing, and it wants to live. I see pieces of his life — Germany

while he coached soccer. Korea during the war. Languages he

never really spoke. People he’d love to see again. His irst wife.

His second wife. His third wife, and thus his son’s mother.

She’s out today, and that’s why I’m here.

His son should be here, but he’s gone away, and I’m

here because I made a promise. I always keep my promises.

The stone in my pocket grows warm, and my heart

quickens. I run to the living room and stand in front of the

bay windows — this works better in full sunlight. I pull the

stone out and look through the hole in the center, and I see

something I never expected to see again.

Faerie.

The water ends. We walk up out of the stinking mud

and brush the leeches away. We do it absent-mindedly,

without really looking. We’re captivated by what’s in front

of us.

I pull out the stone. Jake’s going to want to see this.

Faerie.

• • •

I stand in the sunlight, staring into the stone for a

while. A “while” — huh. Time’s irrelevant in Faerie, so if

you’re looking at Faerie from Earth, whose clock are you on?

I don’t bother trying to igure that out. I just wish I could be

there with my friend.

His father calls out from the bedroom, and I hope he

doesn’t need to use the toilet. That’s an adventure. I pull

myself away from the window, and the stone goes cold

again. I walk to the bedroom door and peek in.

“Yea h? ”

“What time is it?”

He obsesses over the time. Well, everything, really. It’s

called “perseveration.”

“It’s about ten in the morning, Pop.”

“Why am I still in bed?” He looks around. He probably

can’t see me, so I step into the room.

“Because you wanted to go down for a nap. You already

had breakfast and all.” I look around helplessly. The room

is dim. The furnishings are recent, because they just moved

here. He probably has no good idea where he is. I know he

doesn’t know his address, maybe not even the city. I think

back to an eternity in darkness, trapped on the other side of

a mirror, and I feel my disguise start to slip. I catch it, and

run a hand over my face to make myself look like my friend

again. “You want a movie on or something?”

He thinks about this. “No, I’ll watch Hallmark for a

while.”

I turn on the TV and hunt around for a while until

I ind the channel. He’s crying before I leave the room. It

doesn’t take much. Just a face that reminds him of some-

thing he once cared about, something he could probably

talk about in detail if I asked him.

But I don’t ask him. I might miss some important detail

that would let him catch on to my disguise. I don’t want

him to catch on. If he caught on, I’d have to blame the Al-

zheimer’s when he started saying that I’m not really his son,

and the thought of that lie makes me sick.

• • •

“I don’t know where his place is.” The others are look-

ing at me like I’m a total idiot.

“Well,” says Starla, “how are we supposed to dig out

that buried guy if you don’t know where he’s buried?”

• • •

We’re slogging through a swamp. Most of the Hedge

has Thorns that bite at you, but this portion is waist-deep

water. We thought we’d caught a break from the pricking

Brambles, and then the leeches grabbed us. We tried brush-

ing them off, but more always come. It’s a tithe to being off

the path, I think, but there’s no way around that.

Our leader has some military experience. He charted

our course. He makes me walk a few paces away, but still

within eyesight, because I freeze the water around me into

slush. We don’t know if hypothermia is a possibility here,

but better not chance it.

I think about my dad. I wonder if he’s noticed the dif-

ference. Probably not. He doesn’t know much anymore. I

hold up my hand, watching the mucky water sluice off the

ice. There’s a leech on the back of my arm, and the ice

around it is melting.

The icicle melts. Dad’s the same way. His mind is go-

ing away, slowly but surely. He’s losing the ability to know

where and when he is. I sympathize, Pop, I really do.

“Thought you knew every inch of that place,” mumbles

Beg. Our leader doesn’t say a word, but I know he’s pissed.

“I do. If we were there, I could tell you exactly where

we need to go. But as I’ve said, I didn’t escape through the

ice-maze. I escaped by…”

How did I escape?

I look at my hand again. My ingers are melting a little.

It’s not painful. It never is. It always feels familiar; imperma-

nent…That’s how I must have done it.

“Melting,” says the leader. He’s already walking toward

me. I back up. I can see heat shimmers rising off him.

“Silas, no…”

“You melted,” he rumbles. He’s a skinny guy, but here

he’s more dragon than man. His eyes glow and his voice

always has thunder behind it, and his footprints are a dino-

saur’s. “You melted and you ran off, back into the Hedge.”

His gaze moves away from me and back toward the swamp.

“And then you froze again, somehow.”

“Met up with another Snowblood, I guess,” says Beg.

“Or found a cold snap in the Hedge. Or went through Si-

beria. Who fucking knows?” The Ogre looks over at me. I

know he wouldn’t eat me, not back on Earth, but here…

here he’s not that great, big, beer-swilling, football-loving

brawler. Here he’s just hunger.

Here, I’m just ice. So I don’t get scared. “I melted so I

could get out,” I say. I let my index inger soften a little and

turn my hand upside down. “I melted so I’d forget what I

was. I let everything go, and just lowed away as water.”

“Downhill,” Silas chuckles. He points to the west, or at

least, toward what looks like the setting sun. “That way. See

how the ground slopes up?”

As if in response, a cold breeze hits us. The others see

that as conirmation. I see it as a warning — He knows

we’re coming.

on for a few more years, growing steadily more out of touch

with what’s around him. On a good day, he remembers his

granddaughter’s name. On a good day, he can follow a new

movie and remember it by name later. But good days are

getting few and far between. He’s slipping away.

It’s hard for anyone to watch that. It’s harder for one

of us, because we know about hopelessness. We remember

what it’s like to be trapped someplace where the possibility

of escape doesn’t exist. At least, until something changes.

Something changes. Ha. To escape Arcadia, you

have to change. You have to let it into you. My skin be-

came smooth, polished glass. My name faded away, turned

backwards, and disappeared like a relection when the light

goes out. I had to become a mirror image before I could get

loose.

I’ve got this sneaking feeling, though, that to get back

in to Arcadia, you’ve got to change even more.

I agreed to the promise, though. I even swore on it.

We made a pledge, my friend and I, and I went with him

the next day to meet his parents so that I could fool them.

After a few hours, he left and I replaced him, and I had

dinner with his folks. I helped his father to bed, talked with

his mother about school and life in general. I stayed dis-

tant, and when his mother asked why, I told her I was tired.

She’ll be the hard one to fool if I have to keep this up for

too long.

The stone gets warm again. The sunlight’s gone, but I

can still see if I squint.

• • •

I peer through the stone to give Jake a look. It’s a fro-

zen wasteland out here, just like I remember. Actually, it’s

not quite like I remember. The place has really gone to Hell

since I left. The ice sculptures have gone wild, merging with

the snow, until they’re more abstract art than detailed stat-

ues. The footpaths are gone. I always kept them clear. But

the slope of the ground is unmistakable. I just wonder how

I stayed melted long enough to get loose.

“OK, we’re here,” says Silas. “Now, where’s the body?”

“He’s not dead,” I remind him. I’m made of ice, but Si-

las is the unfeeling one. And the guy we’re trying to ind…

he’s important to me.

“Fine. Where is he , then?” Silas’ feet are melting into

the snow. His ire isn’t primal like an Elemental’s would be.

His lame doesn’t illuminate or burn. His is the Dragon’s

Fire, and it’s more about power and majesty than literal ire.

But that’s the thing about the Hedge — sometimes a meta-

phor runs out of space. Sometimes the symbols crowd in on

each other.

And that’s why I don’t stand too close to Silas. I don’t

want to melt, because I’m afraid of what that might mean.

“This way, I think.”

“You think ?” Starla’s pissed. Her ears are lattened and

she’s snifing the air. I can’t imagine it smells like much of

anything.

• • •

“If I don’t come back,” he said, “I want to ask you a big

favor.”

“OK,” I said then. I knew what he wanted.

“I don’t want my Dad thinking he outlived me.”

I remember getting choked up at that point. My fam-

ily’s dead. My fetch fucking killed them all, burned down

the house and murdered my uncle, my parents and my sis-

ter. My friend, though, his fetch was kind of a wuss. I don’t

mean that he was weak because he didn’t kill, but he was

just…weak. He lived in my friend’s life as best he could, and

when he escaped from Faerie, he caught his fetch waiting

for a bus and beat his head in with a snow shovel.

There’s a reason he’s going back, and I’m staying here.

He’s driven. He’s harsh as Arcadian Winter. I’m…whatever

I need to be. I’m like his fetch more than anything, I guess.

But he wanted me to be him for as long as it took. His

father is sick, but he’s not dying tomorrow or anything. He

might die of a stroke soon, sure, but it’s more likely he’ll hold

Changeling the Lost - Equinox Road.pdf

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