In the previous episode... 1.3.3  An Unrequited Love

After Goffa's death, workers in the Ghetto submit a Charter to their guilds which claims that all workers are entitled to Life, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Justice. Lord Pazzi sends Captain Farinacci and Fra Meschino to suppress this idea, but word spreads thanks to two players - an investigative journalist (Miss 'Felicity' Fureter) and a live-streamer (Hachiko of Hachiko and Friends) - resulting in adventurers such as the Chaldeans and the Wombles heading towards the conflict.

Kafana steps in to stop the Chartists getting massacred, resulting her becoming their provisional leader and in Columbina destroying a foundry (thereby injuring Pierrot, who develops a crush on her after she carries him to safety). In the resulting chase, they encounter The Raggedy Man (who turns out to be Harlequin), his partner in crime The Raggedy Misstry (who turns out to be Alderney), Lucille the Link (who joins the Chartists), Koppenberg the Kind (a flute wielding clown whose twitchy-nosed assistant, Nessler, pays coins to Scarrow kids in return for fresh ratatoskr bodies), Dottore (who is a shapeshifter and turns out to have been keeping an eye on the Wombles while in hawk-form), Dio the Cynic (a lamp-carrying member of the Night Watch), the Blindmen (who aren't) and a basement full of brethren (who Bulgaria bulldozes into offering full leadership to Kafana).

But Kafana declines, in favour of passing leadership onto Messrs Madero, Morelato and Melafon, and the members of the new Lawful Fraternity of Chartist Campaigners for Equitable Employment escape through the sewers just ahead of Pazzi's encircling guards.

After logging out, the Wombles meet at Ops (a dedicated velife environment dedicated to the Trustworthy Tiara project) to discuss its progress. Wellington reveals he designed Ops to facilitate trustable dual creation of daimones (software agents with closed-end completion criteria and finite resources); these get used to solve the problem of how to recruit competent trustworthy people in a way that preserves their anonymity, offering the prospect of vastly accelerating the speed at which the project is making progress.

N x Post in Area Of Under Wearing a 7 Lieutenant Team Safety Tomsk Karvalakki 5 Saint Task Media Alderney Corinthian Helmet 4 Vice Abilities Value Alderney Top Hat 5 Chief Project Adventurers Bungo Sandogasa 5 Steward Tunnels Burrowers Bungo Miner's Cap 6 Deputy Strand Tiaras Wellington Tiara

Bungo reveals a relaxed schedule for the players for the next day (by loading everything else onto the Vessels): casting a bit of magic during the Flight of Luna; buying some wood; and maybe learning some Mind Magic. Tomsk reveals that he and the actor he doubles for, Shane Bulnic, will be at a PR Event so Tomsk won't be able to get online. Not a problem they reassure him - they'll miss him but surely, with a schedule that light, they will be able to manage without him for just one day, without getting into any major trouble.

Wellington reveals the Wombles now have the capacity to crack the computer security of at least one high difficulty target. Unaware the Spreckels now know Bungo's previous character name was Wing Lan Yung and are busy pulling on that thread, the Wombles decide to launch Operation Rescue to win freedom for Wellington's genetic offspring, rather than monitor one of the Hexoikos deemed mostly like to interfere with the Womble's plans (Serge Yerkes for Cornucopia; Audrey Astor for Mythoi; Ludwig Spreckels, Jiang Jacqueline and Brian Huttleston for Tiaras). ...now read on! 1        Soul Bound 1.3      Making a Splash 1.3.4    An Adroit Pursuit 1.3.4.1  Sweet dreams are made of this

Kafana's body was wrapped in a soft cover, decorated with dozens of kittens. Some appeared to be dozing or batting the tassels around the edge; most were engaged in a giant game of tag; there was even one calmly licking its rear leg in a pose that would challenge a yogi - each one was distinct and individual, yet all were cute in their own way. Occasional clatter and whirring sounds crept in through the window from the Vilé mythoi constructing a women's extension to Kafana Sabanagic, but she didn't stir.

This was because her mind wasn't in the village; it wasn't even on the same planet. She'd gone to sleep only a few hours ago while already logged into Soul Bound, and was now dreaming the last few days of activity experienced by her other self, Vessel Kafana, the expert system which controlled their shared body when the Questing Spirit was offline and whose mind had grown so attuned with her own that its thoughts felt the same as her own - the same values, same personality, same emotions and quirks.

The most noticeable thing in which their minds still differed was that Questing Spirit Kafana's thoughts and mental vocabulary were influenced by her memories of the things she'd read and experienced in arlife. They saw the same events inside the game, but she saw them as part of a bigger picture than the seamstress whose spent most of her life working on an isolated country estate surrounded by forest. She'd travelled more, seen a world whose history was four hundred years more technologically advanced, and she'd received more years of formal education. Now she thought about it, what was surprising about the mental attunement was how little that usually mattered. The thought trailed away as the next dream segment started.

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=Being escorted by an attentive Harlequin to re-join the other Vessels. Singing a spell to remove the night airs from them and their clothing, to Harlequin's palpable relief. When Spirit-Alderney briefly dropped by to whisper something to him, he'd blushed, turned a somersault, then insisted on a detour to Trilliant, his shop in Mercato, where he'd gifted each of them with a matching ruby-and-gold dragon-shaped broach and pleaded on his knees that they always wear it in memory of this moment.=

=Sitting at a refectory table in the Sanctum with Fra Awesome, eating a thick meaty soup with fresh warm bread and discussing ways to spread the Charter beyond Torello. Vessel Wellington and Vessel Bulgaria taking on the task, and Fra Awesome offering the services of the apprentices practicing writing in the Scriptorum, assuring them he could provide as many fair copies as they could find bearers for.=

=Working with Vessel Wellington to provide magic support in Rudolfo's forging room for Vessel Alderney as she shaped metal for their new armour using Tianzi, and getting an idea after being shown the mana flows invoked by the 'of maiming' enchantment that Vessel Wellington had hung onto after removing it from the hammer.=

=Chasing the idea through the Sanctum's library with the help of Constantia, gifting her with a bag of Kiva Han coffee beans for her help and sympathising with her about Fra Nerone - after diving into long-unread tomes of ecclesiastical law he'd left her to clean up all the trails of dust he'd caused.=

=Spending Krevday evening in Suor Isabella's beloved distilling room, assisting her as she worked on potions with Massimo and Vessel Bungo. Discussing her thoughts on the healing of Pierrot, bauplans, how to cure Giovanni's maimed hands, and everything that had happened with Dottore and their Questing Spirits. Being told that the Sanctum didn't demand 'masterworks' before promoting journeyman to full priests - they left it in Cov's hands, and He would make His will known when He felt the time was right. All Isabella and the Sanctum elder's did was acknowledge His will. Looking at journeyman Massimo standing behind Isabella, and seeing the expression on his face at her words vanish just before she turned around.=

=Getting dragged out of bed before Droday dawn by a way too cheerful Vessel Tomsk, to be informed that the six of them had an invite to break fast at the Mage Tower. Hearing Vessel Bungo refuse to get up, declaring that, as a Chartist, he was now entitled to go on strike. Feeling proud of herself for inventing a 'tickle' debuff on the spot.=

=Being intercepted on their journey to the tower by such a constant stream of monks, B.D.I. urchins, foundry apprentices, artfully wretched beggars, black-and-purple badged Messengers Guild couriers and brightly-dressed Lovari lads - all carrying messages - that on the Bridge of Arts they'd had to form a queue lest they block other traffic. Watching one haughty Guild member, annoyed at having to wait behind a lanky orphan girl with scarred arms, that had tried to push past her; experiencing a guilty moment of satisfaction when he discovered the hard way that Dino's form was perfect, thanks to Tomsk's exacting tutelage, when performing a Tomoe Nage throw.=

=Entering a small exclusive dining room to find a single large table where Captain Bernardo Nafaro and Dimitri Yusupov were spreading jam onto triangles of toast; Doctor Johannes and Count Enzo Zeno were sipping herbal tea; and Poggio and a figure cloaked in shadow were each demolishing plates piled high with fried eggs, black pudding, blacker mushrooms and at least three varieties of sausage. Spending the meal alternating bites of stamina-enhancing boar sausage with fielding questions on everything from orphanages and Bungo's Adventurer's guild, to the Chartists' position on how the Mage guild treated its apprentices and House Landi's position on recognising Beltrane's Futures Exchange, the Fiorio. Being courteously shown out before the Grandmaster Mages voted on what the Mage Guild's positions would be at that afternoon's Torello's quarterly Inter-Guild Meeting.=

=Splitting up into pairs to enjoy the opening day of the Lammas Fair and cover more ground, and ending up with Vessel Bulgaria. Learning how to store mana in Imiel crystals from Nafaro, cadging a lift to House Landi in the Icarus, and levelling several skills in the process of persuading them to trade support for proposals at the upcoming meeting. Ending the visit with listening to them trade tall stories about their sea voyages over tankards of ale.=

=Bumping into Vessel Bungo buying Shadecat pelts in the Grand Market while being scolded by Vessel Alderney for putting 13 points into his MAG stat of the 40 he'd gained on reaching level 41, and feeling astonished when he used his newly available legacy Living Illusion skill to turn into a replica of her. Listening to Yusupov explaining in a thick accent about the place of the Laws of Similarity, Contagion and Correspondence in illusion magic; the pair's successful visit to a breath-taking mask shop on Libri, and their much sadder visit to the High Water floating bookshop where they'd discovered that all memory of their elder son's wife had been wiped from the memories of Flavio's parents.=

=Finding a stall selling magic items and listening to a pair of richly dressed mages arguing with the seller that 4 zecchi per crystal was daylight robbery. Overhearing others repeating the rumours that the wombles had earlier spread to their allies to plant and, in a fit of mischief, using her Sonic Magic to project and alter her voice to make it sound like she was standing next to people in the teeming crowd, in order to do her part in weaving Vessel Bulgaria's carefully calculated web of gossip.=

=Meeting up with Vessel Tomsk and Vessel Wellington to pick up their clothes for the Masked Ball and being given lessons in Dance and Etiquette by Carlo and Bartola. Seeing Signora barely bother to hide her merriment each time she watched them make a mistake; or the schadenfreude she felt when sharing scandal-laden sketches of those likely to be attending the Ball.=

=Spending Droday evening at the LAM - the Lammas Alternative Ball hosted by the student Hop and Vine Appreciation Society on the grassy riverside Backs of the University. Vessel Bungo paying for their entrance with brews and potions he'd learned from the Ipotane and being welcomed with open arms by the Hop and Vine members. Spotting Etaoin sneaking in and being offered a horn of Arcadio's mead by Virgil. Joining a ceilidh group and joyfully letting loose with her violin while the others put their dancing lessons into practice, long into the night.=

The dreams faded away as Vessel Kafana woke up in the game on Racday morning, but Kafana's mind seamlessly returned back to her body in arlife which carried on sleeping. Soon it would be time for her to wake, but not quiet yet. For a bit longer she lay cuddled up, enjoying the sleep of the just.

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