The Madness of Chartrulean · Packhowl Media

Conduits for Madness | S1.E03

September 22, 2022·38 min·3 clips

A teenage soldier confronts military leaders who abandoned them in battle and demands accountability in front of the king.

Back Alley no longer shelters him. Chartrullian walks through a market that used to carry color, pattern, sound, and Idrikan memory. Now it has propaganda on the walls, guards in the streets, and watchmen close enough to make every glance feel noticed. Polite society is no longer somewhere else. A shop owner works at the political residue in slow strokes, and one nod lands with too much recognition. The city feels changed in the body, not just in rumor. Somewhere else, another rupture opens. The ships have learned sentience, and no one designed it that way. Chartrullian wants impossible access to what they are feeling. Concern turns into blame turned inward. The companion beside him says the practical thing out loud: the Paladins want him close, but his temper keeps pushing them back. Sleep is offered. He refuses it and chooses reflection, circling his own damage with the pride of someone still guarding the sore place. Morning brings pressure into public view. Chartrullian hides among columns as the crowd arrives, and the party from the night before becomes another kind of exposure. Trust starts to fray. Someone insists they are not lying, only choosing what not to say, which sounds too close to the manners of their enemies. Dry banter breaks the ceremony for a moment. Then identity, spies at the exits, and a compromising position make embarrassment political. By the end, the Paladins face the crowd as punished beings. They are not asking for redemption. They are offering others one last chance before being left behind.

As heard by us

A vivid market setting and sharp political tension frame a story about sentient ships, loyalty, and a hard-won future.

Conduits for Madness drops Chartrullian into a Back Alley market that no longer feels neutral. The colors, patterns, sounds, and smells are still strong, but the place is under pressure now: activists scrape propaganda from shopfronts, capital guards are harder to miss, and the…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want political strife, faceless watchmen, and dry hostility in one feed slot.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Madness of Chartrulean