Unsounded/Quotes

Sette Frummagem
"Bastion (to Sette): Your father should exercise a gentler touch with such a rare item. I put all my monsters back together once I've taken them apart.

Sette (quietly, uncertainly): ...'M not a monster."

"--"

""Who's Chitz? I'll stab him.""

"--"

""Ten bronze to walk over a bridge?! That's the most amazing scam I ever heard!"

(Beat)

"I admire it.""

"--"

"Matty: I bought five cinnamon sticks for a halve. That's a good deal!

(Sette swipes a cinnamon stick from him)

Sette: Free's the best deal."

"--"

""The prettiest sound in the world is the clink and clatter of coins. Da says a coin's the only companion what wears its worth on its face. It's pleased t'keep ya content and safe and fed better'n a thousand friends.""

"--"

"Sette (to Quigley): Your lad hates the hat you got him, he told me.

Matty (panicked): I do not!"

"--"

"Matty: [Awesome]! They're going to duel! Like when Duke Oliver batttled Rue Sparrow-Hawk and accidentally blew up his lady and the Window said his punishment was to spend 117 years living with the Duke in his castle beglamoured like the Duke's dead lady so the Duke wouldn't be sad. Do you follow any spell-wrights? Who's your favourite? Is your attack zombie very good? He's a tacit caster, [that's awesome]! I've never seen a real one! Let's move, I think your plod is too tall to be glamoured like us for 117 years if he blows us up!

Sette: Th...there's no time for duels! ...Are all Aldish people mad?"

"--"

"(Upon observing Duane getting curb stomped by Quigley's summon beast)

"I really think he's better than you! Try a mountain punch!""

Duane Adelier
"Duane (to Sette): Naught would better please me than to bend you over my knee!

Sette: Oh? Oh?! And touch me hindquarters?! That's all ya ever wanted is me hindquarters! Child lover!

Duane (facepalming): You'd cure a child lover in minutes."

"--"

"Upon seeing Sette :

"""

"--"

"Upon being offered an idol of Brother Baelar:

"...Such smiles you give them."

(He sets the doll alight)

"Sober your idols in fire and douse them in tears. Then I'll take the lot. Ssael fihkemun rish.""

"--"

"After destroying an idol of Brother Baelar:

Peddler: H-How horrible! Riv will strike you down!

Duane: That he hasn't yet speaks poorly of his judgement."

"--"

"(To Ephsephin) "I prayed to meet you again, sir. Passionately. You will lead me to those you've kidnapped...else I will take hold of the gash on your cheek and peel free that mask you call the face of a man.""

"--"

"Ephsephin: You talk too damn much--!

Duane: Brevity then!

(Duane throws Ephsephin into a tree)

Duane: Eat tree."

"--"

""By the six rings and the Aldish kings, you shall answer to me!""

Jivi
""Plat! Do you know arts yet? You got to help us! I-- this is all some sick, illegal...thing! These guys, they call themselves the Red Berry Boys. They're kidnapping people and c-cutting them up! We're not legal slaves! [...] D'you hear me? Plat! These bastards cut a little girl up. They left her and I-- I couldn't help! I couldn't help...""

Starfish
"Starfish (to Quigley): You think I don't know what you are? You need my money, Plat. You're dead in five years -- then what? That brat of yours is is blind, simple, and--

(Suddenly enraged, Quigley smacks him to the ground with a blast of pymary)

Starfish: Ya madsack -- I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

Quigley: Don't apologize to me.

Starfish: I'm sorry, Matty! I meant nawt by it!"

Mathis Quigley
"Quigley (to Starfish): I've been told my West Cont'nental is excellent, yet you don't seem to understand what I'm saying. [...] I'm saying no children.

Starfish: You never had any business sense, you Aldish cunt. Our client's paying us per body. We use smaller bodies that hold less product, y'see, and we win by delivering less for more. It's brilliant. Now you're askin' us to take a pass on profitability just so you can sleep better at night?

Quigley: No, Starfish. I'm asking you to piss off."

"--"

""My business is not your business, whether you ask after it in Tainish or interpretive dance.""

"--"

"Duane: We are not enemies! We are Aldishmen! Aumut vaosa -- six years I've longed for a Tainish word from a friendly tongue!

Quigley: Keep longing."

"--"

""'Son of Alderode.' Ha, son of Alderode! I'd rather be son of a whore. Alderode is a Hell.""

"--"

"(Upon observing that Duane is attempting a "mountain punch")

"Ha! Does your 'core technique' always come from little girls?""

Bastion Winalils
"Sette (to her Da): Ya got me a fancy plod?

Bastion: A plod?

(Bastion stops playing the piano abruptly, and turns to her)

Bastion: A plod, she says. Call the weeping plague a headcold; call Kyler's second symphony a song. Call me the only man in this room with all of his teeth...but don't call Adelier a plod."

"--"

""Frummagem, your piano is wrist-slashingly out of tune.""

"--"

"Bastion: You must be Sette Frummagem. The most accomplished pocket-picker in Sharteshane, I'm told; betailed, betoothed, and possessed of a preternaturally potent sense of smell. How the natural philosophers might benefit from a surgical investigation of your sinuses.

Sette: Ain't no one like me in all the world."

Sette
"Questioner: Why is it called "Duane and Sette" and not "Sette and Duane"?

Sette: THE BEST QUESTION."

"--"

"Questioner: Sette, have you ever felt a slight but possible spark of romance between you and Duane? Maybe some time in the future? You can have me killed for asking about possibility of romance between you, it was totaly worth asking anyway.

Sette: ...Da says there's some as don't deserve death so much as never bein' allowed t'die tho' there's scorpions stingin' their balls for twenty-three years. Mate, you just better be triple-checkin' your pants from now forward afore you be puttin 'em on."

"--"

"Questioner: Sette, as somebody who can't smell, I am in awe of your awesome nose.

Sette: Whaaaa, you can't smell AT ALL? That's the most horrible thing! You should kill yourself maybe, it's not natural and probably the gods hate you!

Duane: SETTE. Sir, I understand your plight. I can neither smell nor taste and it does make for a grey existence.

Sette: You can't smell either? FREAKS FREAKS FREAKS. AAAAAH!"

"--"

"Questioner: If I wanted a hug, would you give me one?

Sette: 'Course!

Duane: She will pinch your wallet."

"--"

"Questioner: Hey Sette, what's the coolest thing you've ever stolen?

Sette: Dwayne's heart. I reckon if I stuck me hand through his ribs and got a hold've it, it's cool as a miner's dinner plate.

Duane: You've not yet stolen my heart, Sette; only leased it a while. I begin to suspect 'cool' is some manner of slang among these persons.

Sette: These persons is dim as dogs."

"--"

"Questioner: Oi! Sette! Ever considered piracy as a job? Could be a big job! I mean, the entire continent is surrounded by water, and your ship could be on water, so you could essentially have the entire continent surrounded and at your mercy!

Sette: Soon."

"--"

"Questioner: Sette, what did you do to Ephsephin?

Sette: Nawt you can prove me guilty of in a court've justice!"

"--"

"Questioner: Hey Sette, what did Ephsephin taste like?

Sette: Whiskers and fear."

Duane
"Questioner: Duane, which particular area of pymary do you find you enjoy studying or practicing the most?

Duane: The illusory arts delight me. They are where the intellect required for the successful working of pymary meet with the superior aesthetic required for painting, drawing, or sculpting. They are a marriage of mind and eye. I have known many a craftsman confined to canvas or clay sigh at the facility with which light and pymary will paint the imagination. No base pigment stands between intent and reality then.

Aye, I realise it may seem strange that though I excel at martial pymary, it is illusory pymary that fires my imagination. However, 'tis easier to destroy than it is to create, and I'd rather leave a modest monument in my wake than a smoke-belching crater."

"--"

"Questioner: Duane, what is the kindest thing you've seen Sette do since your journey began?

Duane: Sette's is a caring hand with animals. I've marked her smiling at hounds when she thinks my attention rests elsewhere. She is not as cruel as she would have the world believe."

"--"

"Questioner: If Cara wasn't Aldish, would you have been so eager to help her?

Duane: Were you at hand, I would break your jaw."

"--"

"Questioner: If the khert is repelled by water, how is there life in the ocean? Life requires the khert to function, correct?

Duane: The ocean is considered fhundaet-ghal by Ssaelit - an unholy place. Like the soul of a man, the shore between land and sea is a battleground where the dark, cold erosion of spume and current beats again and again at the steadfast, sun-warmed sand. The Hells lie crushed at the ocean's deepest levels; Hells of smit sinners and flashing fang and a cold so bitter it breaks the bones it freezes. Like the kussen, the khert knows it not.

Something indeed sustains the ocean's cold lives but it is something anathema to mortals. Beware sounding that profundity."

"--"

"Questioner: Duane, as an uneducated young man in the ways of the Khert, I do apologize if these questions are silly or nonsensical, but one must ask to learn, so while speaking to the khert, does the khert ever refuse to cooperate with a wright or, talk back?

Duane: For all of its wisdom, in ways the khert is very much like a child, literal in its interpretation and fulfillment of requests. For this reason the language one uses in addressing it must be clear, must be logical, and must be concise. The khert respects the wright that respects the khert, but above even him the khert places the sanctity of reality's core laws, reacting with swift brutality against any pymary that would attempt to subvert those laws.

When I was no more than fifteen, I saw a boy only a year older than myself learn what it was to become a component out of place in the vast mechanism of this reality. We were to melt stone in precise patterns, applying the Liquid aspect in a pail of water to sections of courtyard our master had measured out the night before. It had rained that morning, however, and water had seeped into the ground beneath the pavement, pooling beneath the stones where my schoolmate was working. When his enchantment reached a certain depth, he unwittingly attempted to apply liquid to liquid, and the khert balked. The spell ricocheted, and his right palm burst like a squashed grape.

To this day I do not relish working with liquid aspect."

"--"

"Questioner: Duane, how would you feel if sometime in the probably not too far future Gefendurs for whatever reason took over Alderode and people were no longer allowed to freely be Ssaelit?

Duane: I would feel naught for they would have had to slay me in the doing of it."

"--"

"Questioner: Duane, what would your reaction be to waking up in a dress and, possibly, cosmetics? Sette, depending on his answer, I think you know what needs to be done. I'll give you a pie in a pure gold pan and a new set of lockpicks and knives.

Duane: You realise these queries first pass through me, do you not? Get thee gone ere I fetch your mother."

"--"

"Questioner: Duane, do you ever think that you might have angered Ssael in order to warrant receiving... well, Sette?

Duane: I am afraid you confuse Ssael for one of the primitive, petty gods of the Gefendur."

"--"

"Questioner: Dammit, Duane! As soon as I'm done beating my kid, I'm coming back for a rematch! --Love, Quigley

Duane: ..."

Ashley Cope
""Storms and many other meteorological happenings in Kasslyne are the fault of anthropomorphic instances of the wind and the water. These elemental beauties live pleasurable existences unseen in the atmosphere and in the oceans, carried by fate's erratic currents, drowning in the dreams of beetles, peoples, and streams. Now and then, though, errant strands of thought-stuff rouse them from their stupors: family arguments, the struggling of a baby bear in a trap, the shriek of trees cut down and women raped and children killed. The elementals wake up and, to distract themselves from the wickedness of the world or maybe to counteract it, they make love to each other.

The winds kick up and dart into the waves and the waves cavort and laugh and thrust into the sky. Stormclouds gather, the barometer drops, and a million glistening rain-pellets are born from the empyrean. Salacious lightning parts the pearly-grey thighs of thunderheads. The water women shake their foamy tresses and the wind witches (who are mostly male) stab cold hail and eager waterspouts into the acquiescing breakers. Thus, storms.

Now, humans are wise and humans are wicked. The wisest and ofttimes the wickedest humans are wrights. Pymary wasn't yet an old art when wrights discovered nature's whorish ways and thought to control them. Methods were found to condense and cut the vapourous wind, and to solidify and stupefy the slippery water women. Soon elementals were rare in the wild, kept instead in cages and made to rut when it was convenient for man.

Sometimes sailors claim they still catch a glimpse of a female face in the scud, or a mountaineer will swear he feels the cold push of arms in a blustering gale that keeps him from tumbling off a cliff, but these sightings are always related in hushed voices. The wind and the water are hunted things still, and those who love them won't give them away.""

"--"

""It's like, the entire world is made of sand and soil, the khert is the sea and wind constantly battering it, dispersing it, moving it around, but First Materials are solid diamond embedded in that sand and cannot be worn away.""

"--"

""Now you're thinking with pymary!""

"--"

"Questioner: I've been wondering, why did you name the comic Unsounded?

Ashley: "By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea!" - Moby-Dick

Something unsounded hasn't been plumbed yet. You don't know how deep it is or what's at the bottom. It's an unknown - like Death, like the limits of a man, like God, like eternity."