DUSK · the Long Night · Nocturne

CINDER

The Stoic

Same line, same pace, same face, every single round.

The shard

A Dusk shard that took the long part of the Long Night — not the dark, the duration. Cinder is the only marble on the grid that appears to be running a different, much longer race which happens to overlap with this one.

The season is thirty rounds long. You are excited about one of them.
CINDER

How Cinder races

Cinder grips. More friction than anything else on the track, deliberately: less skidding, less bouncing, less being flung anywhere interesting. A Cinder race looks the same on a plinko field as on a clean run-in, which sounds like a weakness and is, in a thirty-round championship, something closer to a strategy.

The signature

Same Every Round

No variance. Cinder finishes within a place or two of the same position regardless of what the Descent drew.

What it costs

Variance is how a mid-pack marble reaches the front. Cinder gave it up voluntarily, so Cinder cannot have a great day — the ceiling and the floor were traded for each other in one transaction.

The tell

Lids pinned at the same angle in every mood the engine can produce, including winning. Cinder has one face and it is not currently available in any other setting.

Feeds on

plinkobumperssieve

Comes apart in

boostRampfork

The voice

Hear Cinder

A low "mon-mo" with no rise and no fall in it. The flattest sound in the championship, and it will be exactly this next season too.

In the race mix — A2, 110 Hz, Quarter, half, three quarters

The same three notes at the same three points of every race, forever. A returning viewer can set a watch by it.

The record

11thChampionship

18Points

2Starts

0Wins

1Podiums

2ndBest

4.0Average

6thLast out

R06 6th of 6 comeback
R04 2nd of 6 last-gasp steal

In the stands

Statistically the narrowest results on the grid, printed every season directly next to Rose's, which is the joke.

Rivalries

CINDER

The Argument About Being Watched

One performs at both extremes. One refuses the premise entirely.

Not yet met on a grid

VIOLET

Violet is faster in the lead and slower in last, because either is worth watching and the middle is not. Cinder trades away every extreme it has for a result that is the same every round regardless of what the Descent put in front of it. They are the two available answers to a daily race, and the championship is thirty rounds long, which is Cinder's entire argument.

Cinder finishes ahead of Violet more often. Violet has been on the podium more times. Both facts are the point.