Ten Candles Solo Playthrough: The Steam Train

[radiantfracture]

This one was written with Trait and Moment prompts from jasmine_r_s .

I like things about this setting and this Them; the story did come out really long. As always, the narrative is improvised based on a sketched-in scenario, a few character traits, and the dice rolls.

This is actually the second round I did with these prompts. The first time, with a different character, I think I was trying too hard to make the story come out in a specific way, and it came to a head too early -- which would have worked fine in a group game, but sent me off in a weird direction in the solo game. Not bad, exactly, just sort of meta. So I thought I'd try again -- same prompts, but new character.

I tell this one in the third person, but I think the first person has more impact.

Anyway, enough caveats--

See previous playthrough posts for the game rules.

Content notes: Character death (always); child in peril; choking; gross space plants


The Character
Ghost
Age 17
They/them pronouns
Prematurely grey hair
Virtue: Logical (inference)
Vice: Exaggeration
Moment: I will find hope in … a message from a past self
Brink: [I forget what this was exactly; it involved other people, though, and I never got to use it]

What is Known about the Enemy

They are fecund.

The Setting

Ten days ago, the world went dark. Five days ago, They arrived.

The electricity grid has failed. Electronics are behaving strangely. Any and all transport not reliant on electricity or electronics has been brought into use to move people to safety.

Scene One

Scene One opens on a steam train running along the side of the canyon. The lamps of the train shine ahead along the tracks. The windows are lit up brightly to repel Them. From inside, the journey almost seems normal, if whimsical, except for the absolute darkness around the train.

Up ahead, a small light becomes visible. There are improvised stations with bins of coal set up along the way, each staffed by a few brave volunteers.

This station is particularly precarious: the ground widens here, but mostly on the cliff side of the rails, so the small metal shack seems perched on the edge of that vast darkness.

Ghost is bored and tense. There are no phone chargers on the train. It isn’t as full as they expected. There is no day or night, but most people follow their clocks if they can, and this train left at what used to be midnight. It's also making a lot of stops to pick up and drop off supplies, and most people want the express, even at the end of the world.

It’s supposed to be safer in the city. More generators, more light, more light pollution. Out here you'd see stars, if there were still any stars to see.

The train makes a soothing sound, a regular clacking and groaning that makes the night seem friendlier, at least inside this small enclosure.

Ghost hunkers down and tries to ignore the other people on the train.

[Crisis roll (to avoid socializing): Success]

An old guy tries to catch their eye, but Ghost resolutely reads their one comic book over and over. It is a superhero book about a mouse that turns into a beautiful woman but still self-identifies as a mouse. Ghost liked it better before the new artist took over. They read through all the letters to the editor and all the ads in the back and then start over at the beginning.

The sound of the train changes. It is beginning to slow down. It feels like breathing growing slowly calmer. The train is making its first stop, to drop off messages and supplies and to pick up more coal. Almost no one is entirely clear how much coal a steam train needs to travel two hundred miles.

Ghost heard the speech at the start of the trip. The train will get a checkup, they'll load supplies if there are any, passengers if there are any here in the canyon, refresh the crew. It'll take twenty minutes or so. ghost presses their forehead against the glass. they can't see down into the canyon, but they know, down at the very bottom of all that dark, where the river used to run, is a swamp of Them. Are they plants? Complex algae? Rooted animals? No one seems to know.

Ghost cannot see Them, but They are there, growing.

Thinking this way makes Ghost thirsty. They decide to walk up front and see if the train is taking on water rations.

[Crisis roll: Success]

Ghost gets to the front just as two people in overalls are loading a flat of bottles.

"Can I help?" asks Ghost croakily, in a voice unused to speaking.

"Sure, kid," says one, and Ghost helps load the flats. They are rewarded with a liter bottle of warm spring water for their efforts. They walk back through the train. Someone is outside on the tracks, shouting.

Ghost listens.

[Crisis roll: Success]

A mother is panicking about her child. The child is missing? She's walked off into the dark? People are taking lights, sweeping the tracks, but there's nothing -- rock, dead sagebrush.

The woman insists. The train can't leave without her daughter.

“You can stay on at the station,” the engineer says, pulling at her stiff new striped cap. Her engineer’s instruction manual is peeking out of her chest pocket. “But we can't stop the train.”

The mother runs to the front of the train and throws herself down on the tracks.

She is shouting that her child has been taken by Them. But They stay in the riverbeds and the canyon bottoms, fouling everything, putting out weird tubers and dark wet leafy masses like rotting seaweed and tendrils of mucky creepers that, crushed, release noxious vapours. They don't get up and walk around and take children.

Several people are trying to talk the woman off the tracks. Ghost creeps up curiously, listening from a distance, trying to remain unnoticed.

[Crisis roll: fail (Ghost is spotted)]

The woman points at Ghost. "You saw her! You know she was here! Tell them!"

Did they? All eyes are on them. "Yes,” they say, "I think I did see her. Was she wearing, um, something bright?"

"yes, bright red overalls! You know They don’t like bright colours." Which is unverified rumour.

"Yes, I did see her," says Ghost confidently, feeling sick to their stomach. "I definitely saw her. She smiled at me.”

The woman begins to sob uncontrollably. The engineer gives Ghost an exasperated look. Ghost shrugs, as if to say what was I to do?

One of the reason Ghost doesn't like to talk is that when they do talk, unpredictable things happen. Words come out of their mouth they hadn’t expected to say. They begin to back away, hoping to duck out before it gets any worse.

[crisis roll: fail (Ghost is stuck with these people)]

[Burn trait "Exaggeration" to re-roll]

[Success!]

[Now Ghost must exaggerate to win in this scene.]

"She was singing," Ghost backs away, "something pretty. Claire de Lune, I think? She said she was going to pick berries." Ghost’s voice fades out as people begin to search again, alongside the tracks, in the dead brush. They glance over the edge of the canyon, shudder, search in more congenial places.

Ghost looks around for someone to bum a cigarette from.

[Crisis roll: success]

They find a woman smoking behind the station, seemingly unbothered by the cliff and the darkness behind her.

"Can I have one of those?"

[Crisis roll: Fail – scene ends]

"What are you, twelve?" asks the woman. "Go away."

"I'm thirty-two," says Ghost, pointing to their grey hair. "I just look young for my age."

"Piss off."

Truths

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. In the riverbed, They are beginning to bud.
3. There is love in the world yet.
4. The child will be found.
5. More will be lost.
6. They are lifting the mother from the tracks. She is going limp in resistance, but they will drag her off eventually.
7. Through the earth, They can feel the motion of the train.
8. There is someone on board who can help Ghost.
9. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Two

The train is pulling away. The heavy breathing of the engine begins again, a sick panting. It doesn’t sound right. Ghost sits up straight in their seat.

The train chokes, groans, shudders, stops, just a few hundred meters from the station.

This is a show train, after all, meant for a historical recreation park, not long-haul travel. It has overheated, or something like that. it needs water, someone is shouting. Ghost fingers the cap of the bottle in their pocket.

Two of the crew go stomping by with big plastic water tanks back towards the station.

One looks at Ghost as he passes. "Hey kid, you still got that water?" he asks.

[Crisis roll: success]

“I drank it already,” says Ghost. “I can give you the bottle if you want,” they add in a moment of inspiration, though of course they can't.

“Never mind,” he says, and trudges on.

Ghost makes their way up to the front again. The engineer is reading her manual furiously. "Can I get off again?" Ghost asks. "I have to pee."

"Make it fast," says the engineer without looking up. "When we leave, we're leaving."

Ghost scouts for a good place to pee and look for berries.

[Crisis roll: Success]

A little way off the track there's an alcove in the rock, almost like a room with stone walls and a roof of darkness, if the room were furnished with dead sagebrush and thorn bushes. Ghost crouches to pee, carefully separating their feet, and examines the brush.

It is hard to remember, since it is always cold under the lightless sky, but it's August, the lavish finale of summer. it should be hot as hell and dry. It is dry. There should be fat blackberries on brambles everywhere. Ghost turns the branches with their hands, searching for berries. They hear a soft sound.

They stand up quickly and look for the source.

[Crisis roll: fail]

They see nothing. they hear more shouts from the train.

Truths

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. They are blossoming.
3. There is a storm coming.
4. Ghost can smell something sweet on the air – not the tang of urine or the stink of coal, but something else.
5. It smells like memory.
6. Someone is watching for Ghost to return.
7. Ghost has dropped their comic book.
8. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Three

Ghost steps out into the open. A small child is observing them. They are wearing red overalls.

"Hey, " says Ghost, "your mom is looking for you. where the hell have you been?" There’s a scuttling behind them. They turn and look, shining the flashlight.

A small mouse, silvery in the light, is rolling a blackberry, shrivelled but still juicy, along the edge of the rock wall.

"Sneaky," says Ghost. They look at the child. "You can tell what to eat by what the animals eat," they hear themselves say. "These berries are safe." They dig around until they find one or two not entirely withered berries. "Here, eat these." The child takes them and obediently puts them in her mouth. Ghost licks the juice from their own fingers. It is almost too sweet.

There's as smell on the air, a different sweetness, almost chemical, not unpleasant. "You smell that?" Ghost asks the child. She nods. "What do you think it is?"

"More berries."

Ghost nods back. "Makes sense. we should get you back to your mom."

"I want to pick berries first." The child looks stubborn.

Ghost has an eerie feeling, as of a prophecy coming true. "Okay, but just for a minute."

The two of them search the bushes along the rails. Once they start looking, there are a surprising number of berries, enough to fill one hand at least, in a small heap.

Coal smoke fills Ghost’s nostrils and covers the sweet smell.

[Crisis roll: fail]

The train begins to pull away. "Shit." Ghost grabs the child's hand. They run. The train is not moving fast.

Ghost waves wildly.

The engineer shakes her head. “Can’t stop now! Might not get going again!” She shouts. She points back towards the station, but what she says is lost in the sound of the train.

"Shit." Then Ghost cheers up. "Well, never mind," they say, "your mom's at the station anyway. It's just around the corner." The sounds of the train chug away in the night.

But the child won’t go. "What is it?" says Ghost, feeling uneasy.

"My shoe's untied."

Ghost kneels down and ties it, flashlight in their teeth. "It's so dark,” they complain. Then they pause. "It's really dark." They stand up, feeling cold in a new way. They swallow hard. "Okay, let’s walk aback to the station." They take the child’s hand.

“Your hand is clammy,” the child complains.

The two of them round the corner. They see why the dark has become so much darker; the lights in the station have all gone out. A small ember glows in the otherwise complete dark: a still-burning cigarette.

From somewhere unseen, strangely muffled: shouting, screaming.

Ghost’s small flashlight beam tracks over the ground from the cigarette butt to the edge of something dark and shining. They step a little closer. Something dark and wet is covering the station walls. They direct the beam higher. The whole station has been swallowed by some dark wet mass.

The wet walls are already starting to dry, to solidify, to turn into some crackling substance like the husk of a seed pod.

Ghost, frozen in body, feels the rational part of their mind click on, building inferences. Something about Them has changed. It is known that They hate light; They have always shunned it before, coiling in the valleys, soaking up all the water. The light desiccates Their – flesh?

They have always seemed like plants, slow and relentless and – without purpose other than growth.

But a plant can grow towards or away from something, can shun or engulf something it – fears?

So then, They seem to have – decided? – to sacrifice this – pod? – to put out the station’s light.

More screaming, but the words are unclear. The dry walls of the pod rattle with blows from inside.

"Is my mom in there?" asks the child quietly.

"Yes," says Ghost. "So we'll have to get her out." They look around for inspiration.

[Crisis roll: fail]

Nothing occurs to them.

Truths

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. There is still time to act heroically.
3. The people inside can be saved.
4. Now They have bloomed.
5. If you crush Them, they give off poison gases.
6. After flowering comes fruition.
7. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Four

"What do we do?" Asks the child.

"Well, you try to stay back," says Ghost, “and I...” Their eye falls on that half-cigarette.

They scoop it up. It has a trace of red lipstick on it. They take a drag to make the cherry glow. "Fire might help," they say. "I'm, uh, a fire expert. Gather some... some dry grass. Aren’t they always saying that a dropped cigarette can start a forest fire? I fucking hope so. I mean, I freaking hope so. Bring me handfuls of dry grass. Not branches, soft stuff."

[Crisis roll: fail]

"I can't find anything!" Cries the child.

"No, me neither," says Ghost helplessly.

There is a wet resounding thump as of something massive dropped to the ground, a huge wet mattress or sandbag.

Ghost shines their flashlight towards the cliff. A few meters further on from the station, a second vast wet lump has appeared. The dust is still settling around it. A thick oozing cord stretches back down into the canyon. The mass doesn’t move any further, just sits there and exudes dark liquid and that sweet smell.

"Great." says Ghost. "Okay, I have an idea."

Truths

1. These things are true: the world is dark.
2. A flame will be lit.
3. They will burn.
4. Hope is coming.
5. They are putting forth fruit.
6. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Five

"Okay, I need you to be brave," says Ghost. "Take this flashlight. You remember where I was, um, peeing?" The child nods. "Run back and look in that area. I dropped a comic book there. That's paper. it should burn."

Ghost is left alone in utter darkness, except for the end of a cigarette. They open their wallet. There are a few bits of paper there.

Ghost feels along the ground until their hand touches the rail, still a little warmer than the ambient air. They scratch a space beside it and pile up the shreds of paper. They hold the cigarette end near the bits of paper, old receipts and cards from social workers and college recruiters.

[Attempt to invoke moment: “I will find hope in a message from a past self.” If this succeeds, I’ll gain an extra die, the hope die, to roll with.]

[Crisis roll to start fire and play out Moment: Success!]

The papers catch. Ghost adds more scraps.

The child comes running breathlessly with the book.

"Don’t step on the fire!” Commands Ghost. The child stops short. “Tear out the pages and hand them to me one by one."

All these long minutes, the shouting goes on from within the dark, now withering, shape of Them, the bulb or whatever it is; sometimes words, but Ghost can't make them out. "We’re coming!" Ghost shouts back, absurdly. "We're going to burn this sucker out."

The comic book pages catch; Ghost drops in bits of dry stick and these begin to catch too. "Look at that,” they say proudly.

Looking around, they see how tiny their fire is against the vast darkness, the horrible gleaming shape. "How the f-- frick -- do I get this fire to that plant?" Ghost asks themself. "This is—” they look at the child. “Add some more paper,” they command. “Be careful.” She kneels down and does so, with absolute focus.

Ghost takes the last piece of paper from their wallet, frowns. "Give me the flashlight."

The paper is a receipt from the miserable buffet with the terrible manager where they worked for three weeks last summer. On the back of the blank receipt, Ghost's past self has scrawled YOU ARE TOO GOOD FOR THIS SHIT.

Ghost grins. They kiss the paper and add it to the fire.

They peel off their t-shirt. "Okay, take some of this water and pour it on your shirt and then pull your shirt up over your face like a mask. I'm going to rush this thing with the fire.” They think. "You stay here by this fire and you keep adding sticks to it, okay? You keep the fire going as long as you can, no matter what happens. Unless, uh, a big plant comes after you. Then you run away." Ghost rubs their forehead. "F—frick it. I have no idea what you should do. Do your best." The child nods.

Ghost ties the shirt into a knot. They soak their undershirt with some of the water and the kid's undershirt with some of the rest. They drink a swallow and give the rest to the child.

"Okay, I guess I'm doing this,” they say. They scoop fire into the t-shirt, waiting for the cotton to catch. When it does, they pick up the smouldering bundle and carry it towards the huge mass of plant matter.

[Crisis roll: success!]

With very little sense of what they might be doing, they thrust the burning shirt against the crackling side of Them.

There is a sizzle and a terrible smell. Ghost’s eyes water. They begin to choke. They shove the fiery bundle into the side of the thing and fall back.

[Crisis roll: success!]

The dry mass is catching, curling, peeling back! A sliver opens, a thread of light.

The gap opens. More of the mass catches. Ghost sees faces, hands, clawing, pushing. The people inside have been working from within, attacking the mass with light and flame.

The stationmaster claws his way out, looking dazed.

The stores manager kicks her way through. She immediately lights another cigarette from her flaming newspaper torch. Then the child's mother appears. She cries out when she sees her child and stumbles to embrace her, kicking over Ghost’s tiny fire.

"Oh, I guess you guys were okay then," mumbles Ghost.

With grim faces, the adults attack the great dark bulb around the station. It doesn't seem to defend itself, just thins and withers. Sheets of the stuff still cling to the station’s walls. The roof is bowed by the weight of the thing.

Dark tendrils, slow but determined, are sliding up the back wall of the station.

"This is no good," says the station master finally. "Another one of those pods could sprout up at any time.”

“And we have no way to communicate up the line,” the stores manager says. “We'll have to walk up to the next station."

"What about those things?" the mother points to the second bulbous dark shape.

The stationmaster swallows. "We'll stay close to the wall."

[Crisis roll to salvage stuff from the station: fail]

Already the wet matter is trying to close again over the station. The reek is terrible.

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. They hate light and will try to smother it with Their sheer mass.
3. But They are also depleted by it.
4. It is a long walk to the next station.
5. And Ghost is alive.
   

Scene Six

The little group begins to walk along the train tracks, shining their flashlights along the edge. They see another of the great wet masses, then another.

“If we find a good spot, we could try climbing to higher ground," says the station master, squinting upwards.

"There's nothing up but mountains,” points out the stores manager, lighting her third cigarette of the march.

"Can I have one?" asks Ghost. The manager looks them over. "Sure, kid," she says, and lights it for Ghost.

They walk for about half an hour, speaking in low voices as though trying to remain unheard by Them. The sweet smell is overwhelming.

Then, as they round another bend, they see a massive bulb lying right across the track.

[Crisis roll: to get past]

"If we light the dry brush," says Ghost, "We can get by."

"If we light the dry brush, we could cause a wildfire." points out the stores manager.

"You're smoking," points out the child.

“A wildfire might do some damage to Them,” muses the stationmaster.

“You want to start a wildfire in a water shortage?”

"Do you have a better plan?" asks Ghost.

They light the brush on fire.

[Crisis roll: fail]

It won’t catch. Bits light and wither, but they can't get it all to light.

[Burn trait “logical” to re-roll: Success!]

"Add tinder, " says Ghost logically. "use paper or other dry things." They look at the old-fashioned steel lighter in the stores manager’s hand. "Or lighter fluid."

Together, they pry open the lighter with a camping knife and pour the lighter fluid onto a pile of brush.

It catches and burns madly. The bulb withers to crackling paper all along the fire side.

The group edges past the ruin of Them. They walk on past smouldering brush. Fat sparks fly up and arc over the track. Some land on the edge of the canyon and continue to glow.

"Should we try to put that out?" asks Ghost.

"With what?" asks the stationmaster. "We made our choice."

The air begins to get smoky.

"Oh god, the tunnel," says the stationmaster. “I forgot about the tunnel.” The grey arch is completely dark, as though it were only painted on.

"Never mind, it’s just more darkness." says the mother. She sets her daughter down and takes her hand. "We’ll run through, like a game."

The stationmaster walks up the mouth of the tunnel and shines the light in. They can all see the wet glimmer of one of Their bulbs blocking the tunnel.

"Great," says Ghost.

"Okay, fine," says the stores manager wearily. "Cover our faces, wave our torches, force our way through."

"On three," says the stationmaster.

From inside the tunnel there is a loud wet pop, like a giant water balloon breaking.

Ghost startles backwards and falls into a tangle of thorny bushes. Their flashlight rolls away.

They scramble after it. The flashlight rolls along the smooth metal of the track as though it, too, wants to flee.

[Crisis roll: success]

About twenty feet back, Ghost grabs the flashlight and turns, shining the beam towards the tunnel.

There is a torch lying burning across the rails.

There is no one else in sight.

The tunnel is utterly black.

Ghost gets up slowly and moves very very slowly towards the torch, shining their flashlight forward. Nothing seems to pierce the darkness of the tunnel. There is no reflection from Them; there is just the darkness, so thick and cold as to seem almost a new kind of matter.

"Hey guys?" Ghost calls. "Guys? Are you – stuck in there?"

Ghost hears faint, tinny voices, very far away and rushing farther.

"Run," they twitter. "Run."

But where would Ghost run? back towards more of Them? Forward into darkness? Then they look up.

Up. Over the tunnel. Up the side of the mountain.

Ghost puts the flashlight into their pocket to save the battery, and picks up the burning torch. They walk up and down the track, looking for a way up.

Ghost glances anxiously back at the tunnel. The darkness has… expanded? The impenetrable dark eats away at the mouth of the concrete tunnel.

There's no way Ghost can climb with this burning brand in one hand. They balance the torch against the rock wall, break off a twig, and grip the end of the burning bit in their teeth like a cigarette. Then they begin to scramble up the rock wall of the canyon.

[Crisis roll: fail]

[I'd like to use my brink to re-roll, but it’s a social one - not sure how to do it alone]

Ghost slides back down the rock.

Truths

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. They are seeding the world with darkness.
3. The fire is spreading.
4. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Seven

Ghost tries another spot on the wall.

[Crisis roll: fail]

Ghost slides back down and accidentally swallows the fragment of burning stick.

They choke, gasping and flailing, clawing at their throat.

Truths

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. The fire and the darkness are at war.
3. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Eight

After what seems like an eternity of terrified choking, Ghost retches up the stick. Their whole windpipe and throat feel seared, and they have no water to quench the pain.

Their throat feels like it’s swelling. All they can think of is something about sucking a stone if you’re thirsty in the wilderness. The put a sharp dry pebble into their mouth. It sticks to their lip.

Darkness blooms from the mouth of the tunnel. All around the archway, new tendrils of absolute night begin to curl out. The sweet and the foul smells mingle in a maddening perfume.

Ghost thinks. Up seems impassable. Back there are more of Them, and more blossomings of darkness. Forward is blocked. That leaves –

Down?

Maybe down.

If they can climb down -- holding the torch -- and crawl – shuddering -- over the stem that anchors Them into the tunnel -- Ghost might be able to make it past. They’d only have to touch the stem for a moment. They can use their light to hurt it.

[Crisis roll to crawl down: fail]

Taking the torch in hand again, they begin to crawl carefully down the side of the canyon, working their way towards the cord of the darkness bloom.

Their feet slip and scrabble in the loose gravel. They grab with their free hand, try to press their body against the ground. They begin to slide.

Truths

1. These things are true. The world is dark.
2. And Ghost is alive.

Scene Nine

Ghost slides down the canyon wall, picking up speed.

They lift the torch and try to ram the end into the earth to stop themselves.

[Crisis roll: fail]

Ghost succeeds only in flipping over, and suddenly they are falling backwards through empty space.

Truths

1. And Ghost is alive.

Scene 10

As they fall, Ghost sees light, more light than they've seen in a long time, as though the cities were lit up again, the electrical grid glowing it sprawling welcome; but it’s the wildfires, glittering golden all across the dry chaparral, shining up through columns of smoke.

The whole canyon is burning.

And somewhere, out in those dangerous lights, one more light is moving, a small steam locomotive. Ghost’s eyes scan for it, searching one light after another.

[Crisis roll (landing): fail]

Then Ghost's body plummets into the infinitely soft mass of the blooming darkness, and is consumed.

These things are true: the world is dark.

Recorded statement

Hey, mom. Hey, dad. It’s Ghost. I’m sorry I took off.

With everything that’s happened, I don’t know when I’ll see you again.

I’m sorry if it makes you sad, but you’ll have lots of other things to think about now.

I’m taking the train into the city. Things will be better there. It’s where I would have gone anyway.

Anyway, I’m okay. Don’t look for me. I’ll be fine on my own.


{rf}