"Candela Obscura: Broken Path" (CO2x03) is the final episode of Candela Obscura's second chapter, featuring the Circle of Needle and Thread. Uncertain who is friend or foe, The Circle of Needle and Thread continue their efforts to end a vengeful hunt.
Synopsis[]
Introduction[]
Rummaging through the ruins of the Hallowharbor chapter house, the charred remains we've managed to retrieve have been identified as none other than Lightkeeper Draven Kingsley. His bleed-soaked body suggests an abundance of corruption, and evidence suggests containment was the motivation of our unknown arsonist. Perhaps our investigators successfully vanquished the magical phenomena they pursued. Perhaps they fell victim to the terrible forces beyond the Flare. Regardless, we pay our respects to the Circle of Needle & Thread, wherever they may be. Restricted File #1593: Broken Path.
Episode introduction[]
At the Silverslip Chapter House, Nathaniel Trapp reads an account of the assault on the Circle of Silver Flame. It surmises the invaders were in search of Allison Suarez, a former investigator, and that Duncan Walter and Farrah Morales, two remaining operatives, are now in grave danger. The creatures appeared to be trying to modify the astrolabe, and spoke of "bringing through the Mother".
Each party member describes what happened while they were tracking down what had happened to the Circle of Silver Flame at the Chapter House, arriving to find it ransacked, a tear where the Fourth Pharos was meant to be, and its controlling astrolabe covered in bleed and glitching. Marion Collodi sealed the rift but was gravely wounded, Beatrix Monroe was sent to warn Farrah in The Varnish, and Sean Finnerty was sent to warn Duncan in The Steel. After he did so, Sean started to leave but was shot by Duncan (and realized he was actually one of the creatures) and lost consciousness.
Part I[]
Marion is being tended by Jinnah Basar when he has a premonition that Sean is in danger. They decide Marion and Jean will find Sean while Nathaniel goes to warn Auntie Bee. Jean finds a hidden box holding five necklaces that allow the wearer to use bleed to add an extra gilded die to any roll, artifacts normally frowned on by Candela Obscura, which they take and distribute.
Meanwhile, Auntie Bee is talking to Farrah. Allison Suarez, now hideously transformed, was a childhood friend who brought Farrah into Candela Obscura and warned the circle of impending danger. She now seems to be a target of the invading creatures. Suddenly, a creature bursts through the door, grabbing Farrah, but Bee tips a dresser onto it. A second creature falls through the ceiling on top of Bee, trying to climb inside her as Farrah runs outside. Bee smashes the creature with a sconce, grabs a mirror from the wall, blinds the creature and distracts it by throwing her belt. Just then, Nathaniel's carriage pulls up. He sees Farrah shooting at one of the creatures and joins her, getting seized in its claws. He chokes out, "What do you want?" and to his surprise, it answers: "Revenge," and Nathaniel sees a mental image of a burning creature. Nathaniel pulls out his lighter and as he singes the creature it drops him and retreats.
Meanwhile, Sean lies in darkness, something pulsing at his stomach. He opens his eyes to see his own face looking at him, tending him with black ichor wrapped around his middle. The figure apologizes for shooting him, telling him that it has looked inside his head, but hasn't taken his things. It has brought him somewhere safe, and he is alive because he wants the same thing it does: the figure needs Sean to help it get its mother and seek revenge for killing its sister. It wants to bring its mother here to live among the multitude of its kind already secretly here. They can help each other, if Sean will picture those he wants revenge upon. After some thought, Sean names them: Arthur Duffy (his mother Margaret's former landlord), Dr. Sergei Orlov (the doctor who committed her to the asylum), and more after that. Sean begins having a flashback to the war, and his murder of the children, telling the figure he can give it the names, faces, addresses. As the creature enters his mind, the damage causes Sean to drop again.
Marion and Jean are on their way to Sean. As they travel, Marion senses others like himself and is lost in thought as they arrive. Jean notices the door ajar and two figures on the ground inside that see her look in. She enters first, followed by Marion, and finds two creatures inside, feeding off the spilled blood, mangled versions of Duncan and his wife. Jean shoots, hitting both of them, but two more appear and she throws a quickly improvised Molotov cocktail at them, incinerating them. Marion finishes them off and realizes the blood on the ground is Sean's, while Jean discovers a map of Westwreck on a table, the place she is from. She realizes Duncan was an owler, a person who guides visitors through the minefields of Westwreck. Bee and Nathaniel arrive and after some tension as they establish they are all really themselves, the men realize it is a map of the area they fought in showing the mines there.
Sean's two new scars cause him to shift one from Survey to Strike, and one from Hide to Focus. He remembers the letter he earlier imagined receiving from his mother, accusing him being a murderer and allowing the horrible things that have happened to his family, and realizes it's time to stop hiding and start concentrating for the first time on what he wants to do. As he returns to consciousness, he sees five chairs around him, holding Sergei Orlov, Arthur Duffy, Dr. Oliver Nero (the head of NoMAD who ordered the killing of the children during the war), Douglas Vanderfeld, and William Clyburn. A shotgun is placed in his hands by the figure bearing his own face. Sean removes his Candela Obscura pin, throwing it down, and we learn that before their former Chapter House was set on fire, Sean secretly removed certain artifacts while telling the others, "They took it all."
Fan art of Sean, by Sabira Langevin.[art 1]
Sean's doppelganger sits cross-legged next to him, as Sean realizes he killed so many of the dog-like creatures, but none of them were what put his mother in the asylum. He turns and blasts Arthur Duffy in the face. Turning to Orlov, the terrified man admits Duffy bribed him to commit Margaret and Sean has him write a note to that effect, telling him if he does, he will walk out of here. As soon as he has it, however, he shoots Orlov as well. Sean introduces the others to each other, shooting Dr. Nero first. Vanderfeld apparently arranged for Sean's brother Tony to be killed in the war when Clyburn's son wanted Tony's fiancée, then had Sean's brother Jimmy court-martialed and executed by firing squad after Jimmy found out what had happened. Given Jimmy's death by firing squad, Sean doesn't shoot Vanderfeld, instead beating him to death with a chair leg. Finally, Sean turns to Clyburn, shoves his baseball into his mouth, and hits it with the chair leg like a bat.
The creature tells Sean he did great. He lights a sconce, and Sean sees they are in the basement of Grayslate Sanitarium. Sitting in the corner is Sean's mother Margaret.
Break[]
- This episode is sponsored by Snag, makers of sustainable, fully size-inclusive clothing including tights.
- How To Play: Candela Obscura
- Original Soundtrack now on digital music platforms; t-shirt available in the US and Canada; dice set, lapel pin, and keychain in all five shops.
Part II[]
There are small vignettes of the characters's past lives: Nate remembers his father's preference for his brother, Bee recalls watching a naval fleet from her little cottage and receiving a letter, Jinnah remembers her mother's funeral and standing up to her father for the first time, Marion remembers going to Aunt Bee and telling her of being on guard duty when Seans's brother Jimmy's body was brought back after he was executed, seeking to capture his soul to keep it for Sean.
Back in the present, Sean sees his mother, bound and gagged like the others. He apologizes for not visiting, then asks the shapeshifting creature if he can remove his mother from the asylum now. The creature tells him it can help with that, but needs one more thing from Sean first. Its mother must come through, but they cannot survive long in this world. The creature needs Sean to go back to his circle, because they have a vessel that its mother could safely live within: Marion. Spenser tells Brennan he has a choice: he can agree, or say no. If he says no, it's a dice roll, 50/50 whether the creature kills and replaces him, or Sean survives by killing the creature. They step away, and return in a few minutes.
The others now see Sean, arriving on horseback, looking beat up. Marion asks him the code word, and he provides it, then tells them this is his two weeks notice. He's done. Sean says the creatures are heading to the Fourth Pharos and they have everything they need to bring the mother through. That's why the creature let him go before killing him. Farrah notices that the map they found is of the way to the Fourth Pharos, and from the letters found with it, it seems as if Duncan had been planning their Circle's escape there. They also find a ring of keys, like vehicle keys, and when they go to the garage, they find a fleet of wheel-less bicycles - aircycles that can float above minefields, apparently provided by Violet Boucher, Jean's former contact at EONS, the Esoteric Order of New Sciences who are apparently working with the owlers. In rear baskets on the aircycles are the mutated chickens Jean found on the train.
Fan art of Jean discovering the chickens, by Elaine Tipping.[art 2]
Suddenly there is a knock at the door and a female voice calls for Duncan. Jean recognizes Violet's voice and peeks through a window, seeing Violet and five other EONS members including her former friend Dr. Stephen Kabach holding a gun behind his back. While they're trying to figure out what to do, the door bursts open and an angry, armed Violet storms in. The circle quickly opens the garage door and roars out on the aircycles, but Sean grabs Stephen on the way out. The EONS members chase after them in their cars and a motorbike, shooting as they go. Auntie Bee guides them through various shortcuts she knows to get across the river into Westwreck. The motorbike catches up to Jean, firing, but she evades, and they successfully reach and cross the river first.
As they reach the plains of Westwreck, they begin feeling bumps from underneath and realize something purple is following and tracking them underground, bumping them periodically. Sean throws the vial containing Johnny, the baby androphage sandworm they collected in their first adventure and the creature catches it in its mouth, sending the pursuing motorbike sailing as it does. However, there are still more of the sandworms chasing them. They realize that's why there are chickens on the bikes-- to distract the worms. Marion releases his and a worm immediately eats it, then explodes. Sean fires at one of the cars, sending it spinning out and the others into the dust cloud they kicked up. Marion reaches out magickally and destroys one of the engines, but collides with the disabled car, falling from his bike and taking damage. Jean leaps to his aid, abandoning her aircycle which is seized by an EONS member, but the other party members circle back, Sean shoots Violet, and they are able to retrieve all their members but are down to four aircycles among the six of them, including Farrah. Violet is able to catch up to them and clip Jean's aircycle, sending her flying. As she does, Jean sees Violet is carrying bottles of adjuvant inside her jacket.
Jean and Violet are alone on the sandy minefield. Jean tries to reassure her, but Violet accuses her of betraying them. Jean's father was so happy when Violet told him Jean wasn't coming to see him anymore. Violet rolls onto and then off a mine, setting it off, and as Jean tries to run, she is hit by an explosion, taking massive body damage and being knocked unconscious. Both Farrah and Violet are vaporized. Seeing this, the others circle back and pick Jean up, but Sean takes brain damage and is downed as well.
The three still conscious reach a cenote just past the minefield, and Nate is able to wake Sean while Marion wakes Jean. Jean is distraught, saying she killed Violet, and she killed her mother. Bee suggests maybe they should turn back to let Candela know what they've learned, but Nate counters that this is their best chance to stop the creatures. Jean finds a vial of the adjuvant on the semi-conscious Dr Kabach, the EONS-developed serum that mitigates bleed in humans.
They jump into the cool, clear waters of the cenote, all clearing one brain mark. Marion confronts Sean, asking if they're giving up or continuing, and Sean warns him that Candela will use them and exploit them. Marion is worth more. Marion shares the existence of the other children like him he sensed out there, and that when this is over they need to help them.
Following their map, they reach an underwater tunnel which Sean dives into, rolling privately for his success. Nate follows, joined by all but Auntie Bee, who hangs back remembering how her husband drowned aboard a ship at the beginning of the war. Eventually, they all make it although some take some damage from near-drowning, finding themselves in an obsidian black but dry location looking through a doorway. Jean patches up Marion, who kisses her on the lips, twice, flustering but delighting her. Bee remembers that the Fourth Pharos is a place outside standard space and time, and this reminds her of an ancient tomb she once stumbled upon. Jean realizes the whole place is magickal and that through the door is the safest place they could be, inside the Flare. She steps inside.
Jean sees a long, twisted, corkscrewing hallway lined with doors labeled with the locations of Candela chapter houses throughout the Fairelands. The door labeled "Silverslip" is off its hinges, flickering with bleed, and there are signs creatures have come through it in the past. At the end is a door labeled "Vault", where they remember Allison has been contained. Jean hands Nate a syringe of adjuvant, just in case, and Nate takes a photo of all of them together as they ride an elevator downward. At the bottom, before entering the vault they pass around Nate's flask and all drink.
Circling above them is a massive astrolabe. Within the vault are rows of glass-lined cages filled with living, once-human beings, former Candela operatives. Nathaniel feels he must at least try to find Allison, so accompanied by Bee, he sets off. Meanwhile, Jean takes damage from trying to sense more of the nature of the area, taking a scar which Marion tells her only makes her more herself. Eventually, Nathaniel finds Allison, much changed, incoherent, and angry. However, behind them, a figure with Nate's father's face slips through the bars of a cage, then greets them, shifting to wear Sean's face before attempting to stab both Nate and Allison. Nathaniel uses his Prestige ability to teleport away, but Allison is pierced. Nathaniel injects himself with some of the adjuvant, healing his bleed marks, pulls his revolver and fires at the creature. Clutching its dripping wound, it cries, "She's coming, and you can't stop her!" Telling Bee to run, he continues shooting, but Bee grabs the fallen syringe and injects Allison, healing her somewhat.
Just then, there is an explosion. Although Sean looks shocked, he himself actually set the explosives that bring the astrolabe to a halt. The creature looks up, saying, "She's here!" as the astrolabe stops and a huge rift forms. Gigantic hands part the edges and the mother peers through approvingly as Sean begins hunting the party. As Nate's bullets take it down, the smaller creature tells them "she" will take her revenge on everybody. Multiple creatures pour through the rift and they can hear Sean's voice, singing. Marion calls out to Nathaniel as a massive hand reaches through the rift and lifts the creature Nate killed, healing it. Nate throws a lit stick of dynamite, causing Mother to stumble as she tries to crawl through the rift, drawing her attention. Marion realizes he's been pulled toward Mother his entire life, and that this was the entity that took part of his soul in his childhood.
Sean sees Marion and Jean, knowing that Marion is the vessel. Jean realizes that Sean is no longer Sean, and they both fire at one another but miss. Sean disappears into the shadows.
Marion asks Mother why she left part of his soul, and she replies that he lived-- most die, and she needed a vessel. Using his ability to automatically succeed in an action once, at the cost of a scar, Marion tears a rift into the past. He confronts his seven-year-old self, tearing his soul from the child's body before Mother can get it. Holding his soul in his hands Marion realizes it was himself who ripped it from his childhood self. As he releases his soul to float upwards, Mother screams, realizing there is no empty vessel and the Flare is sizzling her flesh. The soul floats downward, back into Marion, giving him his third scar as he lies unconscious.
While Mother is thrashing in search of a vessel, believing Marion is dead, Jean inspects the rift. Bee confronts Sean, telling him to focus his rage on her. Ignoring her pleas to give her a final look at her boy, he hits at her with his rifle butt but she stabs his neck. Bee falls unconscious, and as the life leaves Sean he feels only happiness, catching a vision of his mother holding a baseball and the note saying her insanity diagnosis holding her in the Asylum was wrong.
Mother is still thrashing, pulling the thread of her soul from the unconscious Bee. Jean stitches at the open rift, trying to close it before Mother can complete her task. With Marion's support she begins to close the rift. Mother feels it and drops the thread to Bee's soul, trying to reopen the passageway. Remembering the thread that in her childhood connected through her from Marion, Jean continues stitching, sealing the rift and cutting off Mother from this world but at the cost of her life. As she falls, Marion realizes he's spent his life with his soul tethered elsewhere. Holding Jean's body, Marion places his soul gently into her chest, giving her a vision of the life they could have had together and a starburst scar like his own upon her chest.
Days later, Bee has found the note Sean left wrapped around his baseball and given it to Nathaniel, who with it is able to have Margaret released from the Asylum. Margaret has the baseball. Bee tells her there's a boy that needs her: Lucas Suarez. At Lucas's request, Bee pledges to work toward restoring his mother. Nathaniel's father, watching this, squeezes Nate's shoulder approvingly before walking away.
In a garden filled with starry night petunias, Jean kneels in Marion's garden looking at the sky at dusk. She takes a cutting for her own garden. A thread weaves from the flower, unseen, going into her, and she feels Marion with her one last time. The thread is now living in her.
Featured characters[]
Circle of Needle and Thread[]
Returning[]
- Farrah Morales, a Candela operative in the Circle of Silver Flame
- Lucas Suarez, Allison's son
- Violet Boucher, former mentor to Jean, member of EONS
New[]
- Allison Suarez, Lucas's mother, a former investigator who once saved Nathaniel
- Arthur Duffy, Margaret Finnerty's former landlord
- Douglas Vanderfeld, arranged for Sean's brothers' deaths
- Dr. Oliver Nero, head of NoMAD, ordered the wartime killing of children
- Sergei Orlov, Margaret Finnerty's doctor in Grayslate Sanitarium
- Dr. Stephen Kabach, friend of Jean's, member of EONS
- William Clyburn
Mentioned[]
- Anthony Finnerty, Sean's deceased brother
- Dr Avery Choi, former friend of Jean's, member of EONS
- Dolores Finch, former lightkeeper of the Circle of Silver Flame
- Draven Kingsley, the circle's former lightkeeper
- Duncan Walter, a Candela operative in the Circle of Silver Flame
- Jimmy Finnerty, Sean's deceased brother
- Margaret Mary Finnerty ("Peggy"), Sean's mother
Quotations[]
- The creature: I can give you what you want. You have to let me in, though. You have to let me in deep.
- Sean: They're going to keep sending me down those holes, through those woods. All those years everybody calling me a soldier. I murdered those kids. That's what I was. I was a murderer. And when I got back, everybody called me a good man. Told me to suck it up, smile, keep walking. We'll get Mom one day, there's just one more hole we need you to go down, one more jump we need you to make, one more gun we need you to shoot. Maybe if I really want to be a soldier, I need them to call me a murderer.
- Aunt Bee: (to Farrah) Have you always been a cop?
Farrah: Yeah. I mean, not always. I had a childhood. - Sean: You know, we all do monstrous things from time to time. It's funny, you know, when I tried to be a hero, that's when I was really a monster. I never went to college or nothing, but maybe if I try to be a monster, I'll be a hero.
- Sean: Gentlemen, I think you all can see where the evening is headed. Now this is unfortunate, because you're all going to die in a room with strangers.
- Sean: This is my lucky baseball. Bottom of the ninth, it's the South Soffit Sidewinders versus the Red Lamp Raiders. I'm six years old, screaming bloody murder at my brothers. They gotta let me play or I'm gonna tell Ma. We're one run down. Tony's on third base, and it's my turn to go to bat. I'm six years old, these kids are 10, 11, 12. Jimmy grabs my by the shoulders and he says, "Don't you swing! You better not swing! All we need is you to get to first." Six years old, my strike zone is this big. It's good advice, except Danny Minnisalli's pitching. So (whoosh) strike one. I'm shaking. (whoosh) Strike two. I look up. Tony's on third base. He's looking right at me. He just shakes his head up and down. When he believed in me, there was nothing I couldn't do. Ball came flying, and pow! Straight in the storm drain. We played in the street, so that's a home run. He put me up on his shoulders. Jimmy was down in that storm drain and Tony goes, "What are you doing down there?" And he says, "I got to get the ball. It's the only home run this shrimp's ever gonna hit." They were good guys, and I don't think the people who killed them ever knew that.
- Marion: I thought I would be there when [Jimmy's] soul would leave and I wanted to catch it and put it inside of me. I wanted to take it from him. I don't want to be an empty vessel.
- Travis: (to Brennan) You failed the roll?!
Brennan: What makes you think I made the roll? - Spenser: That soul in your hand spins. [Mother] looks confused, scared. But that is your fourth scar.
Luis: Or it's my first scar. - Sean: I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I can feel the life going out of me, going out of my neck. I kept my end of the deal.
- Sean: (to his mother's image) I know you wanted me to come home. But the truth is, I'm not that different from Tony and Jimmy. What happened out there, I don't think I could ever come home. [...] I don't know how to be around things that are soft and growing any more. I'm not a gardener, and the world doesn't need me. It's better for me to go away. I hope things stay green and growing for you.
- Margaret: I can see you now, running in the field, playing soldier.
Sean: No. No, Ma. I don't want to play soldier no more. - Nathaniel: Lucas, one day you will learn the full story of your mother. It's a difficult one to tell, but I can tell you this. In the meantime, it's up to you to write your own story. Me and Auntie Bee will be there to help every step of the way.
Trivia[]
- At the conclusion of the episode, there was an announcement card for the third chapter of Candela Obscura, featuring the Circle of Tide & Bone, to begin 30 November 2023.
References[]
Art:
- ↑ Fan art of Sean, by Sabira Langevin (source). Used with permission.
- ↑ Fan art of Jean discovering the chickens, by Elaine Tipping (source). Used with permission.
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