The Penumbra Podcast

Detective Steel is in a slump, and Maia King might have just the case to bring him out of it. One problem: half the case is going to be figuring out what the case even is, because if Ms. King is to be believed, the culprit would have to be… well, something that doesn’t exist. The stakes are life-or-death here… so hopefully Juno can figure out whose life or death before time runs out.

Juno Steel’s first day back on the job has started well: he’s outnumbered, cornered, and almost certainly going to be killed any second now. Just life as usual in the PI business. This case may be typical, but the solution will prove anything but. The mystery, after all, is one of the strangest Juno has ever encountered: who kidnaps a woman’s cat… just to replace it with an exact copy of the one they’ve stolen?

In an overgrown jungle where monsters roam free lies the Second Citadel, one of humanity’s last strongholds in a hostile, hungry world. The people of the Citadel live their lives on the edge of a knife – knowing that any day a beast might storm their homes, knowing that now and forever the monsters are planning the final assault that will end humanity for good. The only defense against a world that wants them dead are the Knights of the Crown, led by the Second Citadel’s Queen; and she has a very important task for her best knights. A strange cave has been claiming the lives of the people who live nearby… and if the Knights can’t find a way to work together, it will claim their lives, too.

Working for a man as connected as Ramses O’Flaherty means access to places nobody else gets to go… or wants to, as it turns out. Because on this case Ramses is sending Juno into the Fortezza, Hyperion City’s prison for criminal genius, to stop a murder before it can be committed. Who's the victim you ask? Well... Ramses, of course.

Mick Mercury is a walking disaster, and appropriately enough, he's picked a disaster of a case to drop in on. In his attempt to prevent a murder, Juno Steel's added two potential victims: Mick Mercury... and himself.

The Festival of the Three is the most important day of the year in the Second Citadel - or the most important three days. as the case may be. Battles and music and drink run free in Citadel's square, and nearly every knight is in attendance... which leaves very few to guard from the monster's constant threat. Luckily Sir Damien is on guard tonight, standing outside the Queen's chambers with his trusty bow in hand. But Sir Damien is injured, and when a monstrous threat crawls in he may find that it's a very different sort of challenge from what he's used to.

On the second night of the Festival of the Three, Sir Damien the knight will be dueling on Lord Arum the monster’s terms: in a forest of tricks and traps and cunning biological inventions. Sir Damien may have bested Lord Arum in a physical duel, but he certainly isn’t prepared for the sorts of challenges a second meeting with the monster will pose… but to be fair, Lord Arum isn’t prepared, either.

Someone is out to kill Ramses O'Flaherty -- and whoever they are, they should be here. A killer called this home, but it isn't any kind of home Juno's ever seen before. This is a place where the impossible happens, where an ancient heroine walks the streets, where dragons live on every mountaintop... and where nothing is ever as it seems. Welcome to Polaris Park.

Illusions run wild in Polaris Park, whether they be holograms or robotics or secrets and lies. But here's something that's not illusory: Juno and Rita are in danger. Security chief Yasmin Swift, who was supposedly leading the investigation on a killing, is apparently the culprit... and until Juno and Rita find out where, how, and why she did it, every thrill in this theme park may be their last.

On the third morning of the Festival of the Three, Sir Marc knew nothing of Sir Damien’s duels with the Lord of the Swamp. Sir Marc’s problems lay closer to his heart – or brain, as the case may be. Because Sir Marc's condition requires medication, and medication is hard to come by out in the wilds. Luckily, Sir Marc has a medical professional on his side: Rilla, the herbalist of the Second Citadel. But unluckily, medicine in this overgrown world is never easy… and Rilla and Marc will have to think and act quickly if they’re going to keep the urge to save a life from killing them.

“Look for a woman with one ear outside the First Museum of Colonized History in Hyperion City.” That’s what the notice said to Yasmin Swift, both culprit and victim of Juno Steel’s last case. And ever since, Juno has been looking for that woman: for a month straight, while the clock ticks down, while the election creeps ever closer. He needs to find her, and quickly, if he hopes to keep Ramses O’Flaherty kicking, if he hopes to give this city a shot at anything better. Today Juno’s going to find that one-eared gangster, and he’s going to learn something very important about leads along the way: sometimes it’s worth leaving a piranha on the line if it means you might catch a whale.

Late at night in the Museum of Colonized History, just a few short days before the election that will decide the fate of Hyperion City, Juno Steel is watching the Mayor participate in a heist gone horribly, horribly wrong. And typically a heist not going well would be great news for Juno Steel, Private Eye… if only his bust of that heist hadn’t also just gone belly-up. The crooks will escape in half an hour. Juno and Captain Omar Khan of the HCPD are running out of time to stop them, and prevent the trail of bodies they’re leaving behind them from getting any longer. And they just might be able to do it, if nothing else goes wrong. Which is, of course, precisely the cue for something to go very, very wrong indeed.

Special threats deserve special measures, and Queen Mira of the Second Citadel is a master of special measures. Enter Sir Caroline: a free radical knight, one of the Queen’s most capable and least trustworthy, and most likely the only hope the Second Citadel has of surviving the scourge of manipulative monsters that has plagued them for months. Sir Caroline, newly-appointed Investigator-General of the Second Citadel, must assemble a team and head north, to the source from which these monsters flow. But they must be careful, because the village through which they’re passing has been struck by a terrible curse… and strange things lurk near the waters through which they must pass.

The story goes that two hundred years ago, when the War was at its most brutal, Erin Marshall D’Arc made the most important discovery in Martian history… and never shared it with anyone. An election always makes itself about the present, and so Juno Steel never expected that this case would bring him two centuries into the past. Yet here he is, on the trail of Mayor Pilot Pereyra, with a Private Eye at his side and hundreds of years of history to dig through. Down here in the Free Domers’ ruins lie traps and treasure, if the tales are true… and if Juno wants to survive he’ll have to solve two mysteries simultaneously: one about the present… and one about a family more than a century dead.

This case was supposed to be simple. Go into the Old Subway system, figure out what Mayor Pereyra is trying to get, stop them from getting it, then go home to a parade and a new world order. But now three days have passed, and the election looms, and still Juno, Alessandra, the Piranha, and Pilot Pereyra are down here, waiting for something in the distance. It seemed like it was going to be simple. But in this line of work, when you’re dealing with mysteries of the present, past, and future… nothing is ever as it seems.

If you had asked Erin Marshall D’Arc, the Free Dome was supposed to be for everyone. Anyone who wanted a home away from the War, she said, could have it. If you had asked Marshall Erin D’Arc, the Free Dome was only for the best of the best. Only those who could create paradise, he said, could have it. If you ask Mayor Pilot Pereyra, the Free Dome belongs to the highest bidder. Whoever finds it, they say, owns it – and they can do with it as they please. And if you ask Juno Steel, Private Eye, drained of blood and confidence? You can keep your lousy Dome. Because something about this place doesn’t sit right with Detective Steel… and he’s rapidly running out of time to figure out what it is before Pilot decides they’re done with him.

When, “Clash!” the iron thundered, lo, “Have at thee!” the reply; and ‘neath the leaves, the forest’s eaves, she heard their battle-cry.

I do suggest you reconsider this particular destination, Traveler. Most places on Mars are dangerous, but the desert holds threats no human can survive. Radiation beats down from above, subterranean predators rumble below, and before you lies nothing but sand and heat and time. And behind you… do you see that growing shadow in the distance, Traveler? It is always there. And depending on how you play your cards it may be your only way out… or the most dire threat of all.

People bury a great deal beneath these Martian sands: bodies and secrets and even entire cities. But some things refuse to stay buried long – like the past. Those we thought lost, hoped lost, but never gone for good. Buddy Aurinko is learning that lesson the hard way. Her buried past has a face and a name, and though all Buddy wants is to forget, her past does not seem content to be forgotten.

Deep in the Swamp of Titan's Blooms stands a towering plant with no equal in the Second Citadel. It is in parts tree, fern, beanstalk, and a single gigantic flower -- and it is the Keep from which Lord Arum watches over his Swamp. No human has ever seen the labyrinthine interior of this Keep until today. When Rilla awakens in the Keep she will come face-to-face with things she'd never dreamed she'd see, magical artifacts and creatures and mysteries that tie deep into the workings of the very universe... but unless she can find a way to escape, she may be the only human to ever learn of them.

Subject: the Keep of Titan's Blooms. Symptoms: spreading petrification; irritability; musical inclinations. Suggested treatment: cooperation with its master, Lord Arum, a creature who would scoff at the idea of tracking symptoms in the first place, a lizard whose scaly mind is ever-absorbed in suspicion, self-preservation, and ego. Side effects may include: sleep loss; injury; frustration; entombment; and then... Keep it together, Rilla. This is a medical record, not your diary.

What's more knightly than rescuing a Damsel? Doing it better than all the other knights, of course... especially if those other knights are really, really annoying. Sir Marc and Sir Damien do not like each other at all. Each is extremely important to the other's favorite person, and neither understands it in the least. So when a glade of beautiful forest-women offers to watch these men manhandle one another in manly competition, how can they say no? Saving ladies, being swooned over by ladies, flexing your muscles at ladies... isn't that what the knight life is all about? So enjoy the moment, boys, and don't be like Talfryn, sitting on the sidelines and watching those nymphs very closely. Don't question that strange sound you hear, or those markings in the grass, or the way those nymphs are watching, abuzz with anticipation of... what?

Today we journey within. Within the sands of Mars, to the clinic of Hanataba; within the Theia Spectrum and its labyrinthine connections; within the mind; within the past itself. Try to throw away the past if you like, Juno Steel, but it lies within. And you can't lose your past without losing yourself... can you, little monster?

Well, the boy-knights have definitely learned one thing about nymphs: nymphs LOVE Sport. And at first, the boys loved Sport too... until it became clear that this was less throw-the-ball-around-with-your-friends-and-rivals and more blood sport. Twists and turns wait behind every rule of this violent game, and one such twist is just in the distance... where the sound of great wooden wheels signals the arrival of the Nymphs' long-awaited Damsel.

"You did it in one day. One choice. When you let him in, when you let the hero rob us blind without taking a thing." That's how Sarah Steel justified the murder of Benzaiten Steel, twenty-one years ago. But the day she was referring to was even older: fifteen years before that. A motive a long, long time in the making. But what does that mean? How could one four-year-old child ruin three lives? Juno remembers. But what he remembers... can't be right. It can't be. It can't be.

He tunes the radio, sorts through static for answers. Only questions, clean and clear: can one child really ruin the lives of his entire family? A ghost-sound, like a voice; then, gone. Why did he have to stay with her? Who was that at the door, all those years ago? Did his life, her life, Juno's life... did they all have to end this way? No port in the static storm. But then, distant, a sound. He's found it, he thinks; tunes closer, and closer, feels the rush of answers, the relief of a mystery solved. It comes closer, a banging sound, like footsteps, echoing... and then he's found it. And he wishes he hadn't. Here comes Turbo. The Man of the Future.

Where is everybody? That's the question that dogs Juno Steel now. He has bigger things to handle, he knows. Loose ends to tie up, old betrayals to pay back, and a mysterious mayor to reckon with. But even while city-sized mysteries weigh him down, the one that concerns him most is much closer to home... and while he tries to solve his disappearing act, all he has to keep him company is the tale of another disappearance, thirty years in the past.

Down in the sewers, home seems like a distant memory. It's even more distant for Detective Steel now, because even aboveground home doesn't feel like home anymore. Hyperion City has changed. Even its sewers have changed, and the things that crawl in those sewers. And at the bottom of it all is Ramses Takano, or should we say Jack O'Flaherty, or should we say any number of names that once belonged to this incredible disappearing and reappearing man. Blink and his face has changed. Blink and your city has changed. Blink and your home has changed -- and once a thing like that has left you, can you ever find it again?

Two paths wind beneath Judge Helicoid's monstrous courtroom: two paths containing different players in this game, different tricks and traps and treacheries. All they share is this: A destination. Fort Terminus, the prison at the end of the world.

Far, far to the north of the Second Citadel lies the Terminus, a sacred or magical ocean (depending on who you ask), a place of power where world-changing things happen... and where monsters bicker for order and entertainment. Sir Caroline and Rilla are deep in monster country, now: deep enough that the human tales of this land are fuzzy and indistinct. They've wandered into the land of beasts... and soon they'll find that the rules are a little different here.

Legends say that far north of the Second Citadel, close to the Northern edge of the world itself, lives the Spiral Sage. They say he is a powerful being, a sacred warrior for human good who controls time and the wilderness itself. They say he is a great hero. And he'd better be, because the number of creatures who need saving keeps on rising. First Lord Arum, then Rilla and Sir Caroline, and then... well, you'll just have to hear for yourself.

Ramses O'Flaherty has been a busy man in recent days. A brand new way of life doesn't build itself, after all -- and before you can ever build it, you'll have to tear down the old life getting in everyone's way. As Juno and Rita come up from the sewers they can see, immediately, that Ramses has succeeded in the latter goal. Oldtown is gone. It's never coming back. And in its place stands Newtown, a shining city on a hill, a paradise of Ramses's own design. The only questions, then, are these: what is paradise? And what must one do before they allow one through its gates?

Give up control. That's what the thing that looks like Mick says to do. And in a year like the one Juno Steel has had, with the past, present, and city of the future all out to get him... why not? In a world where control can be torn from you so easily, so constantly... why not just give in, let that thing plug you in to its monstrous chip, and give everything you have away to it? So why not, Juno? Why not give up control to the Theia Soul?

The creatures which thrive at the end of the world are enough to make even the bravest knight's skin crawl. Massive slugs of sentient slime and nightmare-guards to a fortress beneath a sea where nothing survives walk the halls that lead to Fort Terminus, and passing them will be no small feat. Yet our heroes trudge on. On separate paths they draw closer and closer to the heart of this palace of horrors now, and if one thing scares them most, it's this: whatever lies within that terrible place terrifies the beasts outside it, too.

Welcome home, Juno Steel.

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Two giants bearing broken swords Stood by a river’s bend Whose water fell straight down to Hell: They battled at World’s End.

Old Silver-Eyes stopped dead and spoke: “But this cannot be true; For I know nothing of my past Save this, our endless duel.”

So to the West, the lifeless West, The troubadour did trot; Through boughs of burning red and gold ‘Twas solitude she sought.

The Cliffside yawned behind them, yet No mercy did they lend. For even where no life would dare, they battled at World’s End.

And so they fell straight down to Hell, And battled ‘til the end.