This episode carries content warnings for discussion of a missing person, depiction of a bound and wounded person, and brief depiction of torture.
From the heights of the stilted shrine of Kitankro, the valley of Yellowfield is a soporific refuge from the rest of Sangfielle. Absent are the dustorms, the chimeric creatures, and sharp shapes of bonewashed geology. Instead, the wind blows through and endless field of yellow. Little figures move to and fro, between factory and farmhouse. Even the trains arrive at an easy glide below, predictable and safe. Yes, from the heights of the stilted shrine of Kitankro, the valley of Yellowfield looks quite nice indeed.
This week on Sangfielle: The Candle Factory Pt. 2
The Almanac of the Heartland Rider
Places
Yellowfield: Before the Panic this little valley of yellow flowers was the territory of a petty wizard and the subjects he frightened or beguiled. He called it his Xanthic Demesne, but these days we just call it Yellowfield. In the center of the valley, there's a candle factory, and it is here that the old axiom refers: "All the candle light in Sangfielle was made with just twenty odd hands."
Facts and Figures
High Vicar Regan Alaway (he/him): The de facto leader of Yellowfield, the vicar preaches daily in the Factory's churchfront. A charismatic figure with a bright vision for the future.
Gala (she/her): A young worker at the candle factory, Gala has grown increasingly concerned about the state of Yellowfield and the high vicar. Now, her concern grows to worry as her mother, Galena, has gone missing.
Eyes, Ears, and Mouth: These three Caprak—loyal to the full extent of loyalty to Alaway—are no talk, all action.
Subsolum: When a reporter passing east requested comment from the High Vicar on the distinguished deity worshipped at Yellowfield's only chapel, she was told only this: "My god is of the underneath, you see. The soil and the fertility in it. The deep soil, you understand. The soil that gives us these wonderful flowers."
Bucho (he/him) (mentioned): Whether you first hear of him as "Big Bucho" or "Two Step Bucho," once you meet him, you'll understand that no name does the gallant Shape Knight justice.
Rana (she/her): An lonely devotee of Kaitankro who now lives out her days attending to one of her chosen god's many kite-shrines.
Organizations
The Covenant of Kaitankro: You've seen them, haven't you? The unsettlingly gregarious priests with the strange, chitinous crow masks? Of course you have, with their stilt-legs and their stilt-houses and their collection of stakes and strings and, of course, the kites. I asked one once if it was a pun: Kite and Crow, chitin crow. Something like that. The priestess told me that Kaitankro was a very real god, if a funny one, and that one day, he visited her. Like every morning, she raised each of the town's kites up to the winds in daily worship, and Kaitankro landed on the smallest one—a sight to see, she said, since her god is so large a being. And like a carnivalist, Kaitankro walked down the wire, tips of her talons, until he met the priest at the bottom. There, I was told, they whispered in the priest's ear a single phrase: "Better to live as birds on wires than die as men in the wind." Chaos, it seems, breeds community, too.
The Shape Knights: It took people with clear minds, great ingenuity, and implacable spirit to face down and defeat one of the living trains of Sangfielle. In the time since, they've crafted armor from their slain foe, and with that have come to be experts of all things train. They herd, they breach, they redirect. But they haven't yet killed a second.
Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)
Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Sylvi Clare (@sylvibullet), Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000)
Produced by Ali Acampora and Austin Walker
Music by Jack de Quidt (available on bandcamp)
Text by Austin Walker
Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)
A transcription is available for this episode here.
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