Echo Bazaar/Quotes

Fallen London

The Flit

Rob the Bazaar
Now, that is just the height of foolishness. Everyone knows that it is impossible to steal from the glittering black spires of the Bazaar.
They know nothing.
The vigilant Constables and numberless neddy men. The endless flocks of wheeling bats. The smooth towers carved with symbols that make your eyes bleed and hair smoulder. Do these things mean nothing to you?

Mrs Plenty's Most Distracting Carnival

"Pay for tickets to the carnival? Oh ho! How droll you are. The very idea!"

Places of Menace

A slow boat passing a dark beach on a silent river

[Dying feels] like going to sleep. If going to sleep really hurt.

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A moment of pettiness
The Boatman hisses as he topples his king with a bony knuckle. "Enjoy it while it lasts," he growls. "You're all of you mine in the end."

Characters

The Duchess

"In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, always look to love. Always."

The Relickers

The Shivering Relicker: Don't let [the Night-Whisper] near the Co... the language of Xanadu. Keep it away from the Bazaar spires, and the ruins of previous cities. Altogether too dangerous to take it there. It will talk back. You understand? It will talk back.

Ambitions

Light Fingers

You've moved to a new area: A small, velvet lined box. You can't see anything. You have just enough space to twist onto your belly or your back. Oh dear God. Oh dear God.

Stories

Recalling A Dream of Other Places

A dream of a vineyard
"There was kind of a sun...and the light that flooded the vineyard was thick as honey and red as port wine. We waited for the sun to speak, but it only watched us in sorrow. I knew then that it was waiting for us. As I woke, I thought that its light lingered somehow in my eyes..."

On the Velocipede Squad

Someone has been robbing drunks. Actually, someone is always robbing drunks. But the last drunk was the Chief Constable's aunt.

Recurring Dreams

Recurring Dreams: The Fire Sermon

You dream that you're flinging books happily on to the Stolen River, the one they used to call the Thames. The river is on fire! Flames leap higher than the houses on either side. Every time you throw another book on, there is a flare of coloured light, like a firework, and a puff of sweet-scented smoke. You look down and realise with horror that you've run out of books: you are flinging your clothes on to the fire. When your clothes are gone, you begin peeling off skin and throwing that. You wake before it goes very much further.

Recurring Dreams: Death By Water

A dream about your home
Back on the surface! How charming! The moon is rising outside your window! And all your dear familiar things around you. Warm firelight. Birdsong outside. It's been so long since you've heard birdsong.
But the view outside your window isn't right
The moon shines on a flooded desert. The waters lap around the wreck of a dirigible. The night breeze that flows through the open window is cold and salt and sad. Your stomach growls.
You begin to gather your things
It'll be a long journey, but someone has to do it. If you don't get up there, who else will arrange matters properly? You heft your luggage and leave a note on the table: GONE NORTH.

Recurring Dreams: What the Thunder Said

The eye of the storm
Your mind's eye turns northeast, away from the sun. Dark clouds begin to mass on the horizon. They gather around you, blotting out the sunlight and the sea. All you can see now is soft, heavy grey mist. It enfolds you and envelops your consciousness. Thunder rolls. 'You wish to see through my eyes?' it says. 'So be it.'
You blink. You're back on the cliff. The storm clouds are gone, but your vision is... altered. The trees have a cast to them, as if their light is being refracted through a new prism in your eye. The air is heavy with the sickly foreboding that comes before a rainstorm.

--

I will dive into the water!
I will swim in the eye of the storm and reach the heart of the sea!
I leap! I fly!
I plunge into the black water. I slice through the onyx depths, describing a parabola. As I swim, the dark fills my eyes and I see through it, into the heart of the storm.

--

I have reached the thunder!
I am one with it. I rejoice.
The thunder loves me
I love the thunder. The thunder tells stories to those it loves. The thunder tells me of the correspondence between lover and loved and invites me into its heart. I see with the thunder's eyes. I demand to be loved!

--

I bid the wind speak
I laugh with delight to find it gusting here! I open my arms, and I welcome the wind! I ask it what news and it screams in my face! I roar back, my voice blending with the wind's, exultant!

--

Ask a question
Why are you here? You turn to one of the hooded figures and ask your question. You cannot see the face under the hood. Something red gleams in the shadow. 'It's just a dream,' says a voice. 'You made me up.'

Dreaming Strange Dreams: A Game Of Chess

You can go anywhere. You use secret passages to enter the rooms of your enemies, vulnerable in their sleep. You climb dark staircases and cross vast, silent halls. [...] You can do anything. Anything except scrub this gore from your hands.

Seeking Mr Eaten's Name

A voice heard in a dream
"No, you damnable beast, I will not! A man's got to draw the line somewhere, and I won't, you hear me? I won't!" Then there is a scream and a silence broken only by the laughter of a hat.

Clay Man Stories

"IN POLYTHREME THE BED I SLEPT ON WAS A SLAVE. THE ROOM WHERE I SLEPT WAS HACKED FROM SCREAMING STONE. THE WATER I DRANK BEGGED ME TO STOP. THEY PAID ME IN COIN THAT PLOTTED MY DOWNFALL. THE MEMORIES ARE TROUBLING. THIS PLACE IS BETTER."

--

"I TIRE OF CARRYING BOXES."

Flavour Text

Enough of these, and you'll know the secrets of earth and sea.
--Map Scrap

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Mysteries are fire. Truth burns.
--Searing Enigma

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Whose soul was this? A queen? A genius? A prophet? It's like looking into the face of the sun.
--Coruscating Soul

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A really good look at that which men should never learn.

--Semiotic Monocle

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Even you have a hard time taking yourself seriously in this extraordinary creation.
--Ridiculous Hat

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You can't go wrong with an iron hat. Except that you look ridiculous. That's a problem, certainly.
--Iron Hat

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Like wearing a live wolf.
--Insatiable Glove

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What were you doing again?
--Bottled Oblivion

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"We shall complete you! You will delight in wearing us!"
--Moderately Co-operative Clothes Colony

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"...what I had to go through to create this..."
--Iron Republic Journal

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You never, ever want to put this hat on your head.
--Unfinished Hat

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What could mark a soul?
--Stain on your soul

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Were your eyes always such a dark grey? Did you hear what the Thunder said?

--Stormy-Eyed

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You have observed, stolen, followed, decrypted and occasionally murdered.
--a fine piece in the Game

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You stole that which cannot be stolen.
--Master Thief

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Why? In God's name, why? Stop now. Before it's too late.
--Seeking Mr Eaten's Name

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What...what did that place do to you?
--Changed By the Iron Republic

Miscellaneous

The Starveling Cat has moved into your lodgings. May God have mercy on our souls.
--Message displayed when obtaining the Starveling Cat from another player

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Something terrible has happened. Perhaps a server has caught fire, or a database flared and guttered like a dying star.
--Standard Error Message