17 - The Coffin Rollers
A bright white light crackles sideways through a cataract of wind. You only catch the blush of the light, its blush against the land. The dark epitaphs of The Road, and the hills surrounding, brighten to grey for an instant. Then darkness again.
It is difficult to hear over the howling of the wind in your helmet. But you feel The Blue Lady grasp your left gauntlet, and attend her shout.
“Knight, I heard a voice. “Only for a moment, in a lull after that crackling bolt. “The voice was singing. “Someone waits ahead of us on The Road.”
Another sound like a thunking butcher’s axe comes from your right. You turn your visor.
You see the indistinct outline of your fellow-traveler. R the Killer. He stands partially bent, his Horned Morning Star extended, having just crushed a hurtling tumbleweed.
R jerks his Morning Star loose. He staggers.
“How’s your precious Lady hear anything over this screaming nature? “Maybe she’s sharper these days. Hehe. “Hope she’s right. “This storm’ll chew us dead soon.”
Bent Squall
The bent squall is an apparition of driving jaguar winds, flowing streams of black cloud, and sideways lightning. They are local to one country of The Road of Graves, east of The Meathook Mountains. They kill quicker than blizzards, faster than floods, more swiftly even than some fatal poisons.
You lead your Lady swiftly on, plunging ahead. R the Killer follows.
The shapes which gradually condense through the black cloud-streams - solidifying on both sides of the road - are familiar to your eye. Wagons, large as houses.
You pull your Lady into the windscreen which the nearest wagon offers. As you step under the tall, crooked, leaning shadow of canvas and wood, the howling stops. Your Lady’s cloak relaxes around her shoulders. Beyond the twin lines of wagons along The Road, the clouds of the storm are like cave walls.
Gawpers peek from the canvas wagon flaps. Pale gawpers. Gawpers with too many teeth, too few eyes. One gawper face, all of warts, drags a bent gawper body out of the flaps.
“Friends of Madams. Friends of Misters. Friends of pigs and goats. “A host of friends, we. “The Coffin Rollers, we; for we roll over the coffins of The Road. “Enter our wagons. “Let your eyes be stricken with show.”
You can either accept the gawper’s offer, or decide to press on through the storm.
If you choose to press on, R the Killer will part ways with you. All the wagons will shoot forward in a rush, and you’ll be left in the storm. You’ll discover that there is no other shelter to be had. Eventually, a sideways lightning bolt will strike you dead.
If you stay, the warty Roller will give you a tour.
The Coffin Rollers
The Coffin Rollers are groups of tramps, outcasts, and rejected gawpers, who roam up and down the endless Road of Graves. They earn money by putting on circuses and pageants in every town they visit. At least, that’s what the Rollers say...
The varied vagrants that travel with the caravan come in all shapes and sizes, colors and talents. Some are simple dwarves. Some are mancers. Some are sane.
You know that each caravan has one Master; and also that, to identify themselves, Rollers carry a wooden coin bearing their master’s symbol. When you ask your tour guide, he shows you a piece of birch. It looks as if it has been broken into three pieces, and sewn back together with hair.
As you march down the twin wagon lines, several features attract your eye.
| Legbones Man One gawper sits on the stairs of his house-sized wagon. His upper half is hidden behind the flaps of the entrance. Of his lower body, you see two skinny legs clad in loose red silk. Each leg is crooked acutely, pointing up at the tunnel of clouds. You guess the limbs to be nine feet long. | The Hypnotist A woman with a lumpy, wide, froglike face stares at you from the round window of a wagon. Her eyes spin in their sockets. You feel the hair stand on your neck. | Carousel of Bones The source of the singing which your Lady heard is made clear when you pass a flat-topped wagon. Upon it, there is a carousel of horses shaped from cat bones. A girl the size of a cat spins the carousel with a crank, while singing through the numbers one through twelve to the tune of the calliope. |
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Four tall heavy forms march past you in a perfect line and mechanical pace. Others stand randomly about the caravan, statue-stiff.
What is the purpose of these scores of Wax Golems that you see? Where did these Rollers acquire such an army? Vaguely only do you remember when you followed on The Road with The Rollers. That was lives ago. They were avaricious, and without scruples. Your Lady must have her rest. But, you should leave as soon as the storm passes.
R the Killer’s voice breaks your contemplation.
“Where’s our guide vanished to? “Cursed bones. That hypnotist woman distracted me. “And look at them, the freakish gawpers. “They’re cutting us off.”
The Coffin Rollers have indeed formed a deformed wall behind you, and more gather ahead.
You’ll need to fight through at least the two closest rollers: two furred men with glass-embedded staves. They hit like battering rams, but their attacks are slow. Let R handle one with his Morning Star. Keep out of the other’s range, and bleed him down with your Polished Steel.
By the time you’ve killed the hirsute brothers only one route remains; a wagon the size of a building, with the flaps drawn wide.
Silk Maze
You enter the largest wagon in the caravan (on the inside, anyway.) Silks abound, hanging from a ceiling hidden high in blackness, down to the creaking floor. The silks are muted colors: Cream, Mauve, Artichoke, Top-of-straw-hat, Old-dog-mouth. The wagon smells very, very faintly decayed, as if one mouse’s death had been provision for the vast space.
There is one long, loud, descending hiss as you plumb the first curtain. All the silks flutter. You feel your Lady’s arm grasp at your armor. R growls and slashes a curtain. The sound is not repeated, though somewhere deeper in the forest of curtains, you hear hushed voices.
A cry from outside reminds you that you are prey.
Each time you pass through one of the Silk Maze’s curtains, it takes you to a random room in the maze. Most rooms are empty. R will grab any more-colorful clothing, but don’t let him spend long looting. The Rollers are still hunting.
Each room you enter has a twenty percent chance of being occupied by at least two Coffin Rollers. There is an additional five percent chance you stumble into a Wax Golem.
After exploring the maze for some time you will enter a silken room of eight sides, eight exits. One of the Wax Golems waits within. You and R will have to take it out. Your style complements R’s own, though that is not a comforting thought.
While you fight this golem, the room is filled with screaming. It is not until broken chunks of yellow wax litter the floor that you will have the opportunity of identifying the source.
Bonnie and Butter
Two small, round, red-haired girls sit on a purple ottoman, between two carved wooden totems, in the middle of the room. They are twins, identical from the pitch of their screams to their skin’s afterbirth-translucence. They seem to be about twelve years of age.
Many seconds after the golem is slain, the twins stop screaming. Their mouths remain open for a moment, heaving in unison. Every breath seems to jiggle through their entire bodies - as if, despite their size, each inhalation whirled in them like a hurricane.
When Bonnie and Butter speak it is in turns. Their voices are so similar that it is like hearing one person.
“These three are dressed too oddly for Rollers.” “They’re dressed too oddly for guests too.” “Guests too.” “Guests too what?” “I mean they’re dressed too oddly for guests too.” “That’s what I said, except I didn’t say too twice because it’s a bit much.” “Why does it matter how many times I say too?” “Because it’s common, stupid.”
You keep your Polished Steel between these two girls and your Lady. The weapon gleams. It reflects the candle burning atop one of the totems. It reflects the four eyes of the twins, two sets, two eyes on either side of the blade, so similar that they appear mirrored.
Bonnie and Butter seem to pay the weapon no mind. Their reflected and their physical eyes dart between the eight silken exits.
“Sometimes we smuggle.” “Not us personally.” “I didn’t say us personally, I meant the Rollers smuggle for The House of Maze.” “We hate mazes.” “Hate them a lot.” “Especially this maze.” “Yes, because Patchwork lives in this maze.” “But mainly because it’s hard to get out of, and we don’t like things that are hard to get out of, we like things that are hard to get into.” “Like clothes and locked boxes.” “But we can’t get into this room.” “Because we’re already inside of the maze.” “And you can’t get in something when you’re already there.” “And that is why we hate mazes.”
R the Killer snarls.
“Cut the babble. Tinman; I hear clunking feet. “That Man Made of Titanium we saw; he’s coming. “My Morning Star won’t break him. “Let’s kill these girls and go.”
You can either stop R’s descending blow, pulling him along with your Lady as you exit the octagonal room, or let The Killer kill the twins. If you spare the twins, their voices give hysterical chase through the silk.
“You’d never kill us anyway.” “Maybe they could once.” “I mean never forever.” “Patchwork would bring us back.” “He’d bring us back and make us shine his buttons and polish his nails.” “He is the first master of dying.” “The Thin Man.” “Patchwork.” “Thinman. Patchwork. Thinman. Patchwork! Thinman! PATCHWORK!”
The Maze of Silk feels endless. Gawpers, chasing endlessly. Your poor Blue Lady running, gasping, fatigued. R’s curses.
You do not know how many minutes, hours, days go by. There is no food or water, but your stomach never rumbles, your tongue is never parched. Only your lungs burn, and your skin under your armor is damp in a ceaseless sudation.
Beyond the same rooms with bright clothes and stacked furnishing, or the rooms stocked with Waiting Coffin Rollers and Wax Golems, a few of the silken spaces you may enter are noteworthy.
| Beetroot Picklery Two hundred gnarled roots float in an obfuscating green fluid, upon three long racks of metal shelves. It is hard to tell, but it seems as if the roots turn inside their jars, following you as you pass. | Shaggy Franklin A black goat with long, tangled hair paces in wide circles in this room. If you search in its pelt, you can find a nugget of Speech Cheese. |
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| Theater A small box of a room, with the silks hanging so close to each other that your pauldrons rub against your Lady and R’s shoulders. On one side, there is a stage for puppets. | The Dwarf Compressor A hole in the shape of a normal-sized man opens on one side of the copper machine - the shape is the same on the other side, but squashed to two feet tall. |
After plunging through curtains for what seems like eternity, you enter a special room.
Room Three One Seven
A curtain of shining black beads obscures half of this room. Something breathes on the other side. The breathing is polytonal, as if from several somethings. But the sounds all come from a point too small for more than one creature.
At the first breath, you see a curtain rustle on your left.
Another breath. Another curtain flutters. As the breathing continues, all around the silken hangings writhe. Like feet under a gibbet. Even the shining beads dance, clattering.
Behind the beads you hear a creak. Something rises from a chair as old as Time.
A howl of foes explodes through the dancing silk curtain. Your hand is on the hilt of your Polished Steel Longsword in a fraction of a blink. The blade shines free.
The gawpers pour from all sides, with not one congruity among them. One is taller than the golems, twelve feet at least, but hunched into such a U of spine that he skitters like a caterpillar on his palms and feet. He scuttles at your Lady; your blade unseams his face. Another rises in the hunchback’s place, a Big Brother. He is about your height, twice your weight, shaved, and with muscles so striated that his skin seems covered in veiny cobwebs.
Your Lady shouts as the mass closes in. She steps backward toward the black curtain. She stops. From the other side, you both hear the breathing swell nearer.
There is no escape from The Coffin Rollers. Your best option is to slay a few. You can kill either a large number of the frailer ones, or fell a few of the strong. The Strongman himself is too hardy for your blade to cut him before they take you, but it might be a good idea to kill the toad-woman-hypnotist, or the dung beetle man. Both will make later battles more difficult.
Swinging, blocking, you nevertheless are buried under a gropeage of mutant tissue. Something warm, wet, and crimson slides over your eye, beneath your helmet. Your body burns with a thousand bruises.
The Coffin Rollers drag you from The Silk Maze. Your metal shoes leave gouging trails in the boards. As your fog clears, you wheel your visor from side to side. You do not see your Lady. They have taken her.
You are pulled by two ruddy men with manacle fingers down the long rows of wagons. Your armor scrapes on The Road’s epitaph stones. Your left poleyn mars one stone, so that ‘Janus: 1919 to -’ is left without his death date.
The crowd drags you for exactly five-hundred paces. On the stoop of the wagon at which they reach a halt, you meet another of their unusual tribe.
The Contortionist
The man on the wooden steps sits with his elbows and knees all in a knot before him. You can’t tell which are elbows, which are knees; there seem to be more than four joints total. Through this appendicular seal of Melchizedek, a head of snowy hair and beard peeks. It smiles with a mouth of white teeth.
“Brothers and sisters, beasts and slaves; what a test you’ve brought me. “Oh! But he is just precious. “I’ve never wrapped around a body like him before. Bones, covered in flesh, covered in tin. What an onion. “Come in, won’t you? “I have drinks that will relax your nerves.”
The Chemical Show
This wagon is opposite of The Maze. On the outside, the ‘Chemical Show’ sign above the canvas flaps appeares subatomic against the towering, crooked, shadow-casting mass of the giant wagon.
Within the wagon is a modestly-sized space, not much bigger than the bed of a regular wagon. Two long beams, lousy with nails, span the ceiling. A dozen wired skeletons are stacked across the beams. Smaller sets hang from the nails – beaver bones, civets, one yellow skeleton of a bandicoot.
A steel vat bubbles against the far wall. It fills the room with a daffodil musk; it is full of hot, scented wax. There are also an assortment of skins, jars, bowls, and beakers, which rattles like a percussion section as you are shoved into a hard maple chair.
Your hands and legs are bound to the chair. You can see your Steel, and your Pinecone Crest Shield, but they are set away from you, beside the wagon flaps.
You must escape these leather binds. You must find your Blue Lady and flee. Your Lady - will they hypnotize her? Will they take her hair. Or age her into a harridan? She would bear it, in her nobility; you couldn’t. Will they lay her at the foot of their master? Surely it was he who you heard, breathing behind that curtain of black beads.
A piece of paper catches your eye. It is partially buried under the corner of the wagon’s catskin rug. It looks like a poem - you can only see the last stanza.
“The frame breaks loose from the stifling spruce, “To the clack of timber chimes, “And the delicate moon like a silver balloon, “Will smile in its own good time. “With the speed of the unburdened bones, he leaps, “That bard with skeleton free, “And the plummeting jumps descend rolling lumps, “From the hills to the crested sea.”
While you remain fixed in the chair, The Contortionist unravels a few links in his limbs. His arcing limps draw down from the top shelf a bottle of glazed fir needles, a pouch of knuckle dust, and two slivers of moose antler. He sets them on a tiny, stone-topped workspace, beside the bubbling vat.
By following the actions of the contortionist, you can learn the recipe for Violet Jelly.
Violet Jelly An alchemical unguent, a staple among mancers. Melts tissue, but leaves bones intact.
Thudding footsteps herald the entrance of another into the wagon. A moment later, you watch The Strongman squeeze inside. Wrapped in his spiderwebbed arms, he holds R, the squirming Killer. The latter is swiftly lashed to a chair beside your own.
“You putrescent, miasmal, buckled and skewgrown gawpers. “Undo these straps so I can show your brains the open air. I’ll puncture your fat skulls. “Ah. So they’ve captured you too, cup knight? “Hey! Tangled man, don’t touch that! Don’t touch my Star.”
While you can reach neither your own Polished Steel, nor any other sharp tool, your armor plates themselves can cut. The elbow couters are rusted to a sawtoothed edge.
Trying to cut your own bonds produces nothing but squealing and scraping. This will draw The Contortionist’s twisting eye. It is best to let him see your failure in this case; otherwise, he summons additional Rollers as guards. He’ll watch you struggle for a moment, then chuckle along his tangled limbs. He’ll return to his alchemy.
There is no way to free yourself. But, by twisting your elbow, you can rub the sharp armor again R the Killer’s restraints.
Once the Contortionist finishes composing his Violet Jelly, he starts upon another brew. A metal-melting acid. As he pulls bottles and jars his head spins like an owl’s. You sit back, just in time. The Contortionist stares at R.
“Your fingers are lovely. “Your beauty is… very unusual. “Would you like to be a golem? “No? I could do you right now? Don’t need rusting agent for you. “But, best not to get my tasks tangled. The knight first.”
From a distant part of the caravan you hear that sickly calliope, the song of the bone carousel. Something is beginning.
A moment later, the mismatched voices of many Coffin Rollers strike up words to the song.
“On the winding roadway went a stomping, dancing show. “All their feet upon the stones did wake the dead below. “Grouching dead; they spit and cursed and clutched their grave goods tight. “When Rollers roll across the road they do stir up a fright! “In the coffins, beneath the Rollers. “In the coffins, below. “In the coffins, beneath the rollers, “We find gemstones and good bones. “Lovely, grouchy dead ones, “Soon we’ll have you clean. “In the black coffins, beneath the Rollers, “There’s an army for our queen.”
You must work fast. If you don’t, your Lady will perish.
When The Contortionist spins his ancient head to the alchemy table once more, twist your elbow into position. Shift your shoulder forward and backward to rub your elbow over the strap binding R’s left wrist to the chair. The leather will start fraying, and R will strain against his bond - until, with a sound like the violent separation of muscle, the killer tears his hand free.
Eleven Strokes with The Old Man Below
With three plucks R tugs free his three other binds. The Contortionist spins, screams, leaps at R. R rises, and grabs the tangled mass. He flings the roller like a snake. He fetches his Horned Star. Bunched limbs smack the hot vat. Wax spills, the gawper burns. R closes in. Raises Star. Bludgeons. Kills.
R the Killer stops striking Contortionist as soon as the latter stops moving. By then the former ball of long limbs is an indistinct mass of pulpy tissue, like a twine ball soaked in mud.
With the immediate enemy slain, R scans the room. From one of the hanging nails he retrieves a sharpened cat skeleton. He uses this to cut your binding. You quickly gather your Steel and Pinecone Crest Shield.
Outside the wagon you’ll have to fight two rollers who were standing nearby. These are Whistle and Spur, and their kicks break bones, even through armor. R can take one of them. Focus on either Whistle or Spur. Block a few kicks with your shield. Eventually, your foe will shatter a toe bone. From there, your wet Steel will make quick pieces of your hopping foe.
Don’t spend long slaying these two. You can already hear the hooting of reinforcements. Kill fast, and run.
After breaking line of sight with the gawpers, you and R scramble up the steps of a covered wagon. The flap slides shut behind you. The wagon appears to belong to the Rollers’ hairdresser. Various scissors and scalpels and razors gleam under the light of a swaying lamp, atop a moldy velvet table.
You hear the rumble of the approaching gawps. You hold your breath. Heavy footsteps rattle the blades on the table.
A moment later their rabble dwindles.
From the wagon’s opposite side, a horse’s nicker sounds. In a whisper R suggests you steal a pair of steeds and leave.
Leave? Leave your Lady to these Rollers? You won’t. But can you fight them without this Killer? Appeal to his vengeance. He has that temper. He’ll want their master dead.
As you creep along the outer side of the wagon line, R whispers.
“The Master of these gawpers; what is he? “My bet’s an alienated homunculus. “Hardy killing. “MY Star won’t puncture incorporeals. It’s better for killing gawpers. “And your sword too is only mortally sharp. “Got any aces? Any-”
R’s whispers are cut short by a hiss like air through the nose of a bison. You both glance sharply back along the line.
A lantern light blossoms over the epitaphs between two wagons.
R grabs your pauldron and pulls you into the nearby bush. You try to step quietly, but the branches scrape against your armor.
As you huddle under the yellowing leaves of the foliage, the shadow slides into view. A moment later, you see the gawper. This one is a horrorshow. Half man, half gila-monster, half-a-ton heavy. Its footsteps shake the earth as it waddles into your vision.
The gawper stops. It raises its head like a boulder on a treadwheel crane. It points its slitted nose to the stars. Its nose wriggles.
The monster hisses, then lowers it flat head and thunders on down the line.
Though time is against you, you stop in the brush for a moment while waiting for the monster to gain some distance. You take stock with R of your magical gear.
| Sorrowful Father Mask Though it has served you on occasion before, you doubt that this magical disguise will grant any advantage against the Rollers. | Silver Ring R carries this masterfully lambent ring. He assures you it won’t help in this battle. He does not expand upon its qualities. |
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| Jugflower You find this pressed, pitcher-shaped flower blossom in a roll of leather, in the bottom of your pack. You quickly rewrap it; when exposed to air, a plucked Jugflower instantly starts to disintegrate. As it disintegrates, a piercing ring fills the ears of anyone nearby, deafening them. | Pure Wheat You only have three crackers of this revitalizing bread. You were saving them for your Lady. Now, you chew a piece, and grudgingly pass one to R. The weariness in your arms, the soreness from your rough handling, disappears. |
Don’t bother returning to The Silk Maze or The Chemical Show. You won’t find your Lady in either of those wagons. As you sneak along the caravan, keep your eye out for a wagon with a semitranslucent, glass-like cover. You’ll know you’re close when you see three wagons in a row loaded with buckets of varicolored lead paint.
Yellowrock Way
The flap of this wagon reveals an impossibly-long corridor with a glass roof. It stretches and shrinks into a distant pinhole.
The moment you step inside you know that the Master is near. You hear those many-chorded inhalations and exhalations.
As you walk along the starlit span of yellow stone, the breathing swells in volume. It seems that you should see this breather by now, for the way lies entirely open ahead.
Then, in the endless glass hall, you blink… and stand before the master.
Patchwork
The black-clad, lank, pale figure before you seems more stitches than skin. His body is a network of different flesh. His eyes gleam with the madness of a thousand personalities.
The Strongman Roller stands before this master, striated arms crossed. The strangled-and-resurrected twins flank him. Your Lady - sleeping, hypnotized - sways behind.
If you open your dried Jugflower and let it dissolve during the battle, you’ll have a much easier time beating Patchwork. He attacks in choral screams.
If you don’t use the flower or already spent its power, draw your Polished Steel Longsword, raise your Pinecone Crest shield, and brace yourself. You’re in for a fight.
The fight begins with The Strongman’s charging you. Step sideways and let R draw the veiny man’s wrath. You yourself should turn your attention to the undead twins. Patchwork will scream, which not only staggers you, but places the twins’ un-living bodies under his control. You’ll have to block or dodge their biting teeth and fingernails. Don’t let them both close in on you at once; they’ll grapple you to the ground and pry your plates off with their deadly strangle. Try to focus one down at a time. Your Steel *will* wear away at their deathless flesh.
With the second deaths of Bonnie and Butter, the battle enters its second stage.
Patchwork will leap away, hurtling a hundred paces down the endless hall. You’ll see the man with the stitched flesh of many people pull a two-foot-long ceramic smoke pipe from the front of his coat. He stuffs it with a bale of smoking weed, lights, breathes in, and exhales. That exhaled cloud does not spread into the endless hall. It immediately sinks into and around patchwork. It forms a veil. The smoke ripples, and in a moment you see not the disfigured man of skins, but a shiny, black, elfin, necromancer-god.
Patchwork appears as an idealization of The Thin Man himself.
Leave R to his continued struggle against The Strongman. Start running. You’ll want to close as much distance as possible while Patchwork transforms.
Patchwork is a master of fume necromancy, in which he waves the pipe through long arcs. He’ll chop through these streaks with the flat of his hand, creating distinct wedges of vapor. Meanwhile, his many voices each release distinct staccato laughs. They form a disjointed symphony. At each laugh, one of the waveblades of smoke flies forth. You can block them with your Pinecone Crest Shield, but they will burn your arm through the wood. Don’t let them strike your armor; you’ll be cooked. It’s better to cut them apart as they come, but you have to get the timing right.
When you finally reach Patchwork, cleave.
Patchwork’s smoky veil evaporates. He sucks in all his breath. The air vanishes from the hall; you gasp and choke. Patchwork swells, and his stitches stretch and split.
This is the last stage, and the hardest. Patchwork’s skin is like the leather of a stone in his swollen state. You can’t cut or puncture any part of him. Your only advantage is in speed. Duck or sidestep his complacent punches. Do not try to parry. A single grazing hit will shatter your skeleton.
For every three swings patchwork will kick out with his left foot. This attack is faster and hard to dodge. It’s also your only chance of victory. You will notice one loose seam in the bottom of his soleless boot, streaming a cigarette-wisp of smoke.
Wait for a few kicks to learn his timing. Then, with a perfect strike, plunge your sword into the bottom of patchwork’s raised foot, and rip your Steel free.
Patchwork screams in a thousand tongues. He descends like a burning blimp. Writhing, deflating on the ground, flapping as his smoke streams from his discharging body-balloon; his voices vanish, one by one.
The corridor compresses. As if gravity yanks the ends toward you from some great height. It is a normal-sized, glass-roofed wagon bed.
You find yourself standing between R the Killer and your Blue Lady. The Strongman is dead. Your Lady is awake, and alive.
You have never emerged victorious from so terrible a fight with death.
You hope you never shall again.