DUSK · the Long Night · Nocturne

PLUM

The Schemer

Always exactly one place behind the leader. Until the last corner.

The shard

A Dusk shard that stayed close to something brighter and worked out early that this was warmer than being bright. Plum has never led a section of the Descent and has finished second more often than anyone.

The front is a draughty place. I prefer it here, at least until the end.
PLUM

How Plum races

Plum finds the leader and sits in the wake. It is genuinely faster there, and it is only faster there — the whole of Plum's advantage is proximity to someone else's race. And the moment that advantage would put Plum into the lead, it cuts out completely.

The signature

Slipstream

Locked one place off the front, gaining from a race being run by somebody else.

What it costs

The gate. Plum's power cannot produce a lead — not a small one, not for one frame. Every Plum win has to be won on ordinary speed, in the open, which is the one thing Plum is not built for.

The tell

Half-lidded, and the eyes track the leader rather than the track. Plum is the only marble on the grid visibly looking at another marble.

Feeds on

runInchicanestaircase

Comes apart in

fork

The voice

Hear Plum

Three soft "heh-heh-heh" syllables stepping down. Not quite a laugh and not quite not one.

In the race mix — E3, 165 Hz, The double

While in the wake, Plum stops sounding and doubles the leader a fifth below instead. Two marbles, one chord.

The record

6thChampionship

25Points

1Starts

1Wins

1Podiums

1stBest

1.0Average

1stLast out

R03 1st of 6 last-gasp steal

In the stands

Divides a stand precisely down the middle, which is more than most marbles manage.

Rivalries

PLUM

Nocturne’s Two Shadows

Both built to finish second. Neither built to lead.

Not yet met on a grid

INK

Nocturne gains from position and never from power, and these two are the doctrine at its most literal. Ink is fastest where nobody is looking and slows as the camera finds it. Plum is fastest one place off the front and is cut off the instant that place would become first. Two different mechanisms with the same ceiling, and they reach it together.

Whichever of them gets to second first, the other is stuck behind it — and neither can do a thing about the marble in front.