MC:Afaultisaweakness,adefect,afracture.
Faultsdivide,tear,andconsume.
HereinthecityofChester'schasm,westruggletomaintainthatprecariousbalance
overtheprecipiceintheearth,inourlives,andinourhearts.
Thisstoryisabout14eagerswithfaultsoftheirown.
Crispin:Thefaultbetweenmyfaithandfreedom.
Saline:Thefaultbetweenmyfamilyandidentity.
Burt:Thefaultbetweenmychoiceandmyobligation.
Michael:Thefaultbetweenmylifeanddeath.
MC:Asthesefracturesgrow,westandattheedgeandaskwhatmustwesacrificetostate
thevoid'sendlesshunger.
Isitpossiblethattheanswerlieswithinallourfaults?
MC: Hello and welcome to All Our Faults, a Monster Hearts 2 actual play podcast.
I am Mr. Swinter, the MC for this here series.
This is part 2 of our Faulty Flashpoint Prologues, within which we learn of Saline and the recent
events that are making this school year an absolute nightmare.
I will save my shout-outs, thank yous, and support information for the end of the show.
Please enjoy.
MC: This will have occurred over kind of a spring break as the power shifts from the Unseelie Court
toward the Seelie court, with the rise of new life and warmth in summer.
Looms in the distance, figuratively speaking, and winters power is waning.
This particular year in the mortal realm, it has been unusually cold and snowy.
Lots of snowfall, lots of ice.
The cascade has frozen several times.
These hanging icicles giving the open cavern this toothy grin, kind of look.
As the waterfall is held in place, frozen in time, quite literally.
Your father and you are out and about.
What are you doing?
What do you do with your fairy dad?
Abby (Out of Character OOC) : Well, that's a wonderful question.
What do I do with my fairy dad?
I think we get along really well, so I think that spending time with him isn't, you know,
he's not doing it just out of obligation like we do actually having a pretty good relationship.
He likes to walk a lot.
Well, when he was at, whatever the equivalent of his palace would be, take walks in like
the gardens or things like that, but also kind of exploring just the nature of the
fairy realm because while I've spent quite a bit of time there, it never really gets old
to me.
I think this particular time, we'd maybe be sitting in a garden type area or a more well-kept
forest and we're just kind of sitting together and talking and I am sketching some tattoo
ideas I have.
In particular, some tattoo ideas to finish my fairy star.
MC: Your father, Unseelie King Mercury is standing nearby, gazing out over this frozen garden,
statues carved out of the clearest and most beautiful ice anyone had ever seen.
Brush and bushes and flowers and hues of sea greens and blue violet and turquoise and
all manner of glacial colors.
In the distance you can just make out peaking over the top of the garden wall the spires.
And, battlements of what is essentially a nice castle.
If Elsa, the ice queen had designed it, it sparkles with fresh frost though it seems almost
marbled with shadow and dark hues.
He regards it for a time, quietly taking in this peaceful time with you.
Eventually he turns and curiously peaks at your sketching.
Mercury (MC): "What do you make there, daughter?"
Saline (Abby): As I realize he's kind of leaving over my shoulder or kind of slandering the book closed,
which is not a normal thing.
I usually show him my sketches and things like that.
"Oh, uh, nothing, just an idea I had."
Mercury: "An idea?
And you wish this idea to be private?"
Saline: "I know it's not finished yet.
I'd like to have a finished mark like true Fae.
I think I could make that happen with something in the mortal realm tattoos and I've been working
on a design for my own."
MC: He thinks for a moment before setting down on the bench next to you.
Mercury: "My sweet daughter. I take it and you do not feel complete, that you feel less than your brethren."
Saline: "I am not fully of the Fae realm, but I'm not fully of the mortal realm either."
Mercury: "It's a hard place to be.
It is something that I wanted to talk to you about.
You have been living with your mother in the mortal realm for a majority of the year
and this is a problem, not because I wish to keep you from your mother.
That is not my intent.
The problem is the longer that you spend on one side of the veil or the other, you begin
to lose that which the other side gives you.
Your star is not complete because you have not spent sufficient time in the place of your
birth.
So I propose that you come live with me to be a proper princess of the court, to be presented
as such, to be treated as such so that the magic and power of this place can seep into you
and make you whole."
Saline: "But what about my life in the mortal realm?"
Mercury: "You can visit.
However, the longer you spend away from here, that mark, the simplest to exist."
Saline: "I feel that you're asking too much of me.
This isn't, it's not an easy decision to make.
I love it here, but I do have a life in the mortal realm.
I have school."
Mercury: "You would have school here in a way you'd have tutors and you would learn things that no mortal
would ever come to know."
Saline: "It's different.
I've never considered spending my life here."
Mercury: "Perhaps you should.
Clearly there is a yearning, a peace missing that you feel."
Saline: "Yes, but that wouldn't, maybe the part of me that yearns for the fake connection would
go away, but then I would just be missing the peace of me that's mortal, which is greater.
I don't know how to answer that question."
Mercury: "I admit I'm disappointed.
I thought you'd be excited."
Saline: "I don't mean to reject your offer.
That's not what I'm doing.
I just, I need to think.
I need to talk to mom."
Mercury: "You can talk to her after you've made the decision."
Saline: "I don't want to make this decision without her knowing first."
Mercury: "Then perhaps we should lengthen your stay here until you have been given time, sufficient
time to consider this."
Saline: "I have school in the mortal realm.
I have a deadline.
I need to be back.
I have a life there that I'm at this moment not ready to give up."
Mercury: "And so you would give up this life by default."
Saline: "Are those really my choices?
I can only have one?"
Mercury: "That is the way of it."
Saline: "I just don't think that's very fair to put me in this position."
Mercury: "It is not fair.
And it is what life has given you.
I am offering a chance for you to seize your power and to become something greater than
the billions of humans that live and survive and die on the other side.
With no true purpose.
I am giving it.
I am offering a purpose.
And you would shun that out of hand."
Saline: "Maybe I have a purpose in the mortal realm.
I thought you liked humans."
Mercury: "I liked a human.
And even that was tumultuous.
Besides it was the human that left."
Saline: "It is not my fault that mom left.
I can't help that I am both Fae and human.
And you are asking me to make a choice.
All of a sudden, something you have never asked of me before."
Mercury: "And now I know why.
Why my hesitation.
I feared this would be your reaction."
Saline: "You feared that I wouldn't know what to do.
Your acting is if I've told you no."
Mercury: "Have you not?"
Saline: "No, that's not what I've done.
I've said I need time to think.
Because it's not a decision that I can make all of a sudden to give up one entire part
of my life that as you said the majority of my life."
Mercury: "Then you shall remain here until you've had the time."
Saline: "You can't keep me here."
Mercury: "I can."
Saline: "You would really do that to me?
Hold me here against my will."
Mercury: "If that is what is best for you, yes."
Saline: "Maybe it was a mistake for me to come back at all."
MC: Before he can respond in similar anger and dismay, there is the distant blast of a warhorn.
There in the distance above the battlements, the pristine shimmering facade of the castle explodes as a large object, probably a boulder, crashes into its face. Mercury spins and stares at the damage, trying to get a sense of what has just happened.
There is a responding call of a re-verberating low-baritone blast of a horn or trumpet to signify
the conflict's start.
And just over the breeze you can hear the shouts and clashing of weapons of tooth and claw, of carnage as it erupts around the castle.
One of the royal guards rushes in and whispers into the king's ear. He spins.
Mercury: "You must leave now!"
Saline: "What? Why? I'm not... What's going on?"
He snatches you up and just takes off, running through the gardens.
As you run several of the royal guards kind of fall into flanking positions around the
king as you race away from the gardens and into the surrounding wood Mercury: "We are under attack."
Saline: "From who?
Who would attack you?"
Mercury: "Never mind.
The true danger is not who is at the castle, but who will be here soon."
MC: He's dragging you along.
Pulling you through the woods, dodging trees.
Saline: I will not fight him trying to get away or anything.
I'll do my very best to keep up with him again, stumbling, but for the most part, keeping
up with him, but still trying to figure out what's happening and what this means for
him.
MC: Give me a run away.
Abby (OOC): That's volatile, right?
MC: Yes, it is.
Abby (OOC): 12.
MC: You catch your feet quick and run alongside your father and his guard as swiftly as you can.
In the distance, you hear the brain of horse-like creatures that exist in the Fae.
Unicorns perhaps, or maybe Nightmares.
Glancing over your shoulder, you can see dark riders interspersed through the trees.
You can hear the hooves digging and pounding into the dirt and the snow as they ride hard.
There's a loud howl from a wolf-like creature.
It's howl is ethereal and scratches at your psyche.
And it is answered in kind by multiple others along the flanks of your group.
You are being hunted.
Saline: Is my father holding my meat by the arm?
Did he grab my hand?
To pull me along?
MC: Initially, he pulled you up by your arm, but since you're keeping your own, probably your hand.
Saline: Once the howling starts...I mean all of this is unfamiliar for me.
I've spent time in the Fae, but something like this has never happened.
The war horns, I've never heard them before, things like that.
But then in addition to that, the howling that is so just eerie and there in my mind, I
just like to grip as tight as I can onto my father's hand and just kind of give him a fearful look,
but I will not slow down at all.
I will keep pace with him.
But it's starting to scare me.
MC: The riders begin to close in, gaining ground quickly.
There is a thwack as an arrow, jagged and barbed, digs itself into a tree near your head.
One or two of the king's guard screeching pain as they are dropped by other projectiles.
The lead guard shouts back that they should get the king to safety.
Mercury: "No, we must reach the portal."
Saline: "Does that put you in danger?"
Mercury: "That matter is not."
MC: And he nearly like wrenches you in a sharp direction away from some more of the arrows that fly
past.
You see the pit ahead.
It is marked by this mound of stones and frost-covered moss.
He pulls you along to it.
Mercury: "You must return.
Return to the mortal realm and do not come back.
Not until I say it is safe."
Saline: "What will happen to you?!"
Mercury: "I will get to safety.
I promise that I will live this day, but you must also."
Saline: I will kind of glance around and then just kind of latch myself onto him in a hug for
a couple seconds before pulling away and bounding towards the portal.
MC: Okay, so you rush toward the giant hole in the ground.
That has been, at least on this side, built up enough that you don't just like dive in.
You essentially walk this winding staircase that will deposit you in the cavern beneath
the Cascade.
As you mount the stairs down, your father raises his hand in a gesture of adoring goodbye.
His features, marshalled and collected, then he's pulled away by his guard.
Even as you get halfway down the stairs, you hear that brain and clapping reach the edge
of the portal.
Hunt Leader (MC): "After the offspring! Kokahir.
This is your hunt."
MC: And you hear that chilling screeching howl again,
Then quick pad falls on the stairs as this dire wolf, this creature of myth and legend
bounds down the stairs toward you.
Saline: How close is it to me?
MC: It's at the top where is your nearing the bottom, but it's coming quick.
Abby (OOC): Okay, I feel pretty trapped right now, so I'd like to give myself the condition trapped,
which means I get a plus one for lash out physically.
So I do that preemptively, in case that thing catches up.
MC: Ooh, okay.
Abby (OOC): Because I have a move that I can, I have a move called cornered rat.
MC: I love that.
All right, so you reach the bottom.
And as you step through the invisible curtain that separates the Fae Realm from the mortal
world, your world seems to kind of tilt and flip and you scramble up onto the cave floor,
which is not easy because it is icy.
Above you, you can see the icicles and frozen water hanging in sheets.
And beyond that, the night sky of the mortal world.
Give me a run away.
Abby (OOC): Let's see if I can do just as well this time.
11.
I'm really well and I'm good at this.
I have a...this is my best stat.
MC: You know these caverns well.
You've used them to traverse the worlds so many times.
It's become muscle memory almost.
This time you choose a different path, one that is narrower and harder to navigate if you
don't know what you're doing.
Even as you take off down the tunnel, the beast leaps through the curtain and scrambles
up its claws and paws the size of men's faces, grip into the ice and pull itself up and out.
It turns its head, its eyes, this ghostly blue flame peering from side to side, looking
down each tunnel in turn before locking onto you as you slip into the tunnel.
It snarls and leaps after you but is unable to grab you as you slip around some rocks and
shuffle deeper into the narrow path.
Saline: Yeah, I'm going to be going as fast as possible, still with like my sketchbook clutched in my
hand.
I do think as I'm going I'll keep glancing back to see this thing that's now after me but
I also have, I'm just trying to get away and get home.
MC: Sure.
This path takes a little bit longer than the quickest route would and it deposits you on
the top of the falls or close to anyway.
There is a bridge that spans the top of the waterfall allowing for tourists and nature
lovers alike to essentially perch on top of the waterfall and watch it and look down
into the Cascade.
You find yourself up there.
Saline: Can I still hear the creature?
MC: You can.
Saline: Okay.
Abby (OOC): How do I communicate with my dad from the mortal realm?
MC: Oh, good question.
Saline: I kind of like
the idea that maybe I have maybe like a pendant or something that's kind of imbued with
Fae magic, but maybe he has like a matching like a ring or something where he can communicate
with me that way.
I don't think we can have like super long conversations on it, but we can use it to send
quick messages and he uses it a lot to check up on me usually just during the normal year.
MC: It's like, what? He's not on your family cell phone plans?
Abby: Yeah, they don't cover the fay rom unfortunately.
They should really get on that.
MC: I was thinking like maybe the way to pass messages was through the water--reflective surfaces
like water, ice or a mirror, yeah.
Saline: So in that case, I think I probably have a little handheld mirror and that's just how
it presents itself, but because of magic and stuff and the veil between the worlds, it is
a compact mirror in the mortal realm so that I'm not just carrying around this freaking
handheld mirror because that's not as convenient.
And I think there's a gift from my father and it's very ornate, it's very, I mean, she's
a half-Fae princess after all, so
I'm going to hide first or I'm going to try and hide.
I don't really want to get caught by this thing.
It's also a long way back to my house, I think.
I live in the mall, so I know it's going to be a hot minute to get back there and I'm
on foot most likely.
I think I can drive, but I think that like essentially my mom drops me off so I can go to
the Fae Realm, you know, the custody exchange.
That sort of thing.
Instead of a parking lot, it's a portal between realms, you know?
Saline: So I think I'd like to find a place to hide and as soon as I do, I'd like to open up the
mirror to try and send a message to my father to let him know that I am out and something
is here that's hunting me.
MC: Is it a specific mirror that he uses?
Saline: I would assume that he has a similar type of mirror that he keeps on him so he can talk
with me.
That doesn't mean he's going to respond, he may be a little busy right now running for his
life.
MC: It's got an answer in a machine, functionality, so you can just like leave a message, leave a message
after the glint.
Abby: Oh my goodness.
It could be more that like you do have to be paying attention.
I think there's probably a hanging sound of kind of like glass reverberating when a
message is coming through.
And you have a few seconds to probably open it up and catch that message.
And if you miss it, you kind of miss it.
I also think it'd be interesting if the like reverberation is not like humans can't hear
it, only say can.
MC: So do you want to tell me these mirrors have airplane mode?
Abby: Can we go back to the pendant idea?
I don't like this anymore:
MC: What do you mean?
I'm having so much fun with it.
Abby: Yeah, I know.
MC: So you pull out this mirror.
The mirror swirls and the images in the mirror look like moving water, flowing into itself
with these tendrils of shadow.
Nothing immediately solidifies.
Saline: I'll speak into it and say in the mortal realm, something is hunting me, but I won't do
more than that.
MC: As you finish your message and fold up the mirror, scratching and clawing sounds, begin to emanate
up out of the cascade. Braving a look from your hiding place, you see the creature struggling
to gain purchase on the frozen river above the cascade as it is pulling itself out of the
cavern.
Eventually, it rights itself growing large and imposing even from your high vantage point.
You can see the sweep of its blue flamed eyes.
Its nose sniffing the air, trying to catch your scent.
It's out another one of those screeching howls.
Sounds like so many nails on ice before it bounds off into the woods.
Saline: I'm gonna pull out my phone, my mortal phone and call my mom to come pick me up.
MC: Your mother, Jessamine, answers.
Jessamine: "Darling, are you alright?"
Saline: "I had to come back early.
Can you come pick me up?
I need you to...I just...I'm back and I need...I need to..."
Jessamine: "Of course.
What did your father get you into?"
Saline: "I don't know."
Jessamine: "You weren't supposed to be back for another couple days."
Saline: "It's not his fault, I think."
Jessamine: "Ah, seriously doubt that.
I'm on my way."
Saline: "Okay, let me know when you get here.
I'm kind of hiding right now."
Jessamine: "Hiding?
Hiding from what?"
Saline: "I don't know."
Jessamine: "What do you mean you don't know?"
Saline: "Something followed me out of the portal.
It's one of the things that were after dad.
I don't really know what's going on."
Jessamine: "If I could, I would kill that man, putting you in danger.
I'm on my way."
Saline: "It's not his fault."
Jessamine: "Stay safe, I'll be there in 15 minutes."
Saline: "Okay, I'll see you soon."
Jessamine: "Meet me at the usual place if you can."
Saline: "I'll try."
MC: You will make it to one of the parking lots that acts as one of the starting points
for many of the hiking trails.
Your mom is there in her minivan.
Jessamine: "Come on, baby, get in."
Saline: I'm definitely looking behind my shoulder constantly as I sprint into the car.
I don't know what I usually bring with me to the Fae Realm.
But I imagine I at least usually have a bag of some sort.
If it least, just a backpack. I do not have that this time.
Literally all I have is the mirror, my phone, and my sketchbook.
Jessamine: "Where are your things?"
Saline: "They're back at the court."
Jessamine: "You know what, we're going to have to talk about this when we get back home."
MC: and she will peel the minivan out.
In your side view mirror, searching the tree line, you can see a pair of flaming blue eyes
looming just inside before you speed away from danger and that's where we'll end that.
MC: Thank you for listening and we truly hope you enjoyed this episode of All Our Fults.
Thank you to the Tabletop Talespinners Network for giving this show a home.
Thank you to Emma Kocar who provided the rough edits to this episode.
A shout out to my cast.
This episode starred Abby Marie Carter, who can be found on Instagram @Abby_Marie_Carter.
I can be found @gmistresswinter on X, Blue Sky, and Instagram.
A special thank you from the cast and I to our partners and significant others.
We truly appreciate your support and for letting us disappear for hours on end to create
this amazing content.
If you would like to support the show, you can navigate to the Tabletop Talespinners Network
Link Tree in the show notes.
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Also, spread the word of this fabulous new show.
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Have a friend to take along on the journey with us.
Until next time, keep your hearts safe and know that you are appreciated.
MC: This has been a tale from the Tabletop Talespinners Network.