"A travelling circus has settled here, too afraid to go further and too afraid to turn back. Its clanking, gaudy locomotive scavenges such audiences as it can from nearby homesteads and delivers them for an evening of shabby desperate big-top magic."[1]
Polmear & Plenty's Inconceivable Circus, perhaps the successor to Mrs Plenty's Carnival in Fallen London, has become unfortunately stranded in the Reach. To compound on its worries, a nearby giant obelisk causes those from the circus to feel that they are needed within.[2]
Ah, eldritch objects.
"The Greatest Show!"[]
"Bored-looking circus folk man rotting booths and the clowns' painted-on smiles are no match for the deep-set misery behind the greasepaint. Even the calliope music, playing on a run-down piano, is more 'grimly resolute' than cheery."[3]
The circus is in very poor condition.[4] Each of the performers is facing their own problems:[5]
- If it weren't for the fact that there are horrifying sky-beasts all over the place, the Humiliated Magician's equipment would have been fixed.[6]
- The Bereaved Acrobat is missing his twin and acrobatic partner, who has run away... somewhere.[7]
- The Pensive Clown's acts rely on his ducks, who are dressed up in costumes. Unfortunately, the ducks' costumes were destroyed, and the Clown needs new ones.[8]
- The Headstrong Strongwoman is ripped enough to lift anything the audience brings to her. But the audience isn't bringing anything heavy![9]
- "The less said about the lion tamer, the better. He should recover."[10]
The Obelisk[]
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"The obelisk is marked with the words of the emissaries – of meeting, of peace. One, close to the point, ignites in searing light: 'A Commingling of Radiances'".[11]
Brightness in harmony, not competition. Polyphony. Consonance. Symbiosis.
The obelisk was erected by the Garden-King's fungal servants and a messenger "emblazoned with the sign of two overlapping suns" as a form of alliance between their masters. It details the long forgotten promise and concord between both Judgements.[12]