The Winter Quests (short story)

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The Winter Quests was a novel in the The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids series, cowritten by Aristide Twain and Lupan Evezan. It served as the series' 2021 winter special.

As was customary for such a special, many characters and settings from previous installments of the series were thrown together into a Yuletide plot. This included a prominent supporting role for Jenny Everywhere.

Contents

Plot

Chapter 1

Although it's late December, Juliet-178 and Pythagoras-858 are called by the Supreme Quaestor to his office on the top floor of the C.I.I. Headquarters, where the Quaestor wordlessly hands Pythagoras a piece of paper describing an assigment, prompting him to whisk Juliet off to his Fog Ship and from there to a snowy forest in Finland. As they traipse through the snow, eventually making their way to a clearing with a stone in the centre, Pythe explains to Juliet that they are set to meet a goddess of the Norse pantheon to discuss a bargain between her and the Crew, to acquire an item which she is auctioning off and which the Crew are quite anxious that some of its enemies (like the Collective of the Retconning Crocodiles) not get their hands on. Juliet is needed because it is likely the goddess will send the Cupids on a mythical quest to prove their worth. Pythe eventually realises that the stone he's been sitting on is in fact a Rune Stone.

Chapter 2

CS-NA, or “Cesse”, a ship-building robot whom the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids took in a long time ago, reflects on the patterns of the lives of the Clockwork Cherubs and events in the Cupid Homeworld. He notes a trend of the Cupids' adventures having gotten higher-scale and more dangerous over the last few years. Fearing that this will impact their holidays despite Celebration-665's best efforts, he resolves to “Save Christmas” as thanks for how kind the Cupids have always been to him.

Chapter 3

After examining the Rune Stone, Pythe presses a hand onto the stone in an area that seems to be meant for the purpose. This activates the stone's magic, and it quickly explodes into a bank of magical fog with the goddess at the centre of it. Pythe begins talking to her deferentially, but soon Juliet-178 cannot stop herself from involving herself in the conversation, which takes a livelier turn. The goddess, at any rate, explains that she is considering the Crew's proposition, but does indeed want Pythe and Juliet to prove themselves by going on a quest to “slay a certain wyrm and recover a certain 'serpent'”. Juliet is overjoyed.

Chapter 4

CS-NA, having determined that he needs to go out into the Multiverse to get a real sense of what Christmas is all about so as to be in a position to set up the best Christmas ever for the Cupids, visits the Celestial Foam Network to ask Doctor Sigma for the use of a Fog Ship. Sigma, whom Cesse finds in the process of repairing Rosen-035's Dimensional Monocle, gives him a personal dematerialisation circuit that can be plugged directly into his own systems, with no need of a ship. Setting random coordinates, CS-NA leaves on his adventure.

Chapter 5

After the goddess leaves them in a flash of light, Pythagoras-858 and Juliet-178 decide to get themselves lost further into the woods, until the magic of the old trees leads them out of the mundane Finnish woods and into “the Forest”. Once there, they find their way to a clearing with a small waterfall tumbling off a large stone. Guessing that there must be a secret cavern behind the waterfall, Juliet hops in, only to find that while she was right, the cavern in question is not the “secret gateway into the World Below” that they're looking for, but rather the burrow of a Scandinavian Troll.

Chapter 6

CS-NA ends up at the Interdimensional Soda Jerkery, where he orders a root-beer float from the soda jerk without much idea of how a being like himself might consume it. He bumps into an uncharacteristically depressed Alistair Neezley. With CS-NA getting it across that he's looking for ways to learn more about Christmas, the two head back to the Tavern together in Neezley's Void Ship, as Neelzey knows the staff are setting up the Tavern's annual party. On the way, when Neezley explains that he's feeling down because he has come to realise that his acquaintances at the Interdimensional Tavern don't like him and find his tall tales annoying, CS-NA decides to let him tell him one of his stories without interruption, which successfully cheers him up. Neezley also suggests that CS-NA start tapping Morse code as a way to communicate more precisely than with his visual holograms. At the Tavern, Tpxszum and SERIAL CODE 000000234 reassure Neelzey that they do like him, and, indeed, have a Christmas gift picked out for him. Looking back over these events, CS-NA, as he moves on to the next random destination, decides that this has taught him about one key “element of holiday joy”: kindness.

Worldbuilding

Jenny

to be written

Universes

Other

Continuity

Behind the scenes

Read online

This story is available online on the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids website.