Torment: Tides of Numenera Update #35: Extended Stretch Goal Deadline, First Novella Released

The latest post-funding update for Torment: Tides of Numenera informs us of the extensions of the deadline for the Gullet area stretch goal to October 31st, and of the release of the first novella for the title, written by design lead Adam heine. Here’s a snippet from the novella:

Luthiya gripped the ragged edge of the rock, her heart beating thrice as fast as it should’ve been. A wide river of magma coursed fifteen meters below them, and within it or were they above it? floated a dozen or so humanoid shapes. They were golden and ethereal, like wisps of flame, though there was nothing to burn. In another place and time, they might’ve been beautiful, but Luthiya couldn’t see past the fire. Fire meant destruction. Death. The Tabaht.

“What are they?” she breathed. And why is Ama excited about these . . . things?

“Fire wights,” Ama said.

“Wights?!” Luthiya hugged herself tightly, remembering old Shue ghost stories in which the dead returned from Abaddon to feed on the living.

Ama touched Luthiya’s arm. “Hush, child. I’m not ready for them to know we’re here. Fire wights is a misnomer, based on how the Ossiphagans saw them. These creatures are very much alive.”

“Which brings us back to the question,” Luthiya said, more quietly.”What are they?”

Ama sighed, as though Luthiya should already know. “Old, of course. Probably not of this world at all. They’re extremely intelligent, if somewhat difficult to communicate with. I wonder if the thermebus would be useful in . . .”

Ama continued talking to herself, and Luthiya ground her teeth. The nano often did this: babbling to herself as though Luthiya weren’t there or couldn’t understand what she was saying. Normally, Luthiya would let her run on she’d learned a lot of useful things that way but there were more important things right now. “Are they dangerous, Ama?”

“What?” Ama looked at her and blinked, obviously having forgotten Luthiya was there. “Oh, no, child. They are not fire any more than they are undead. They aren’t even hot, though they can become so. They communicate through a form of temperature variation. One could spend another three or four lifetimes trying to under ”

“Ama,” Luthiya said as politely as she could behind clamped teeth. “Why are they exciting?”

Her face lit up as she said, “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“There’s something important about this place, Thiya. I feel it, and it has something to do with the wights.” There was a spark in her eyes Luthiya had never seen before. Joy . . . but scarier. “I think we can help them.”

“Help them?” The nano was always strange, but this was beyond that. It was one thing to spend hours staring at some metal orb that hung by its own power, but Ama seemed unusually detached from reality at the moment. “We’re having enough trouble helping our ”

“Look!”

ma pointed as some of the wights came together in a circle. Flamelike coils stretched forward from their bodies. Arms, Luthiya thought. The wights plunged their arms into the magma, then the circle began to spin. The magma spun with them, as though the wights were stirring it.

As Luthiya watched, the magma changed color from red, to orange, to gold. The wights rose into the air and a tower of golden magma rose out of the river with them. She gasped. How is that even possible?

The magma continued to rise. Some of the wights remained at the base, coaxing more magma into the tower, while others guided it toward the cavernous ceiling. Finally they reached the roof where a smaller circle of wights had formed and was molding the magma into the ceiling itself.

Luthiya wasn’t sure when it changed, but the magma became a shimmering black, a pillar of twisted glass that hadn”t been there before. “Like the chantry,” she said in awe.

“And the bridges,” said Ama, smiling down at her. “Think what we could do with their help. We could rebuild this city.”