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Mare Internum: An Exalted Quest

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Interlude: Izumherat 2
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    • SkrmnMrgsm said:
    [X] Explore the ship as a cat. Ships have cats, right?
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    You have several cat forms. They are weak, ineffectual creatures, but they make for good disguises when one wants to infiltrate, as they are almost always welcome and unobtrusive where humans dwell. Making your decision, you swoop down onto the deck as a hawk, only to land softly as a slightly overweight ginger cat. It was once the pet of someone to whom you took a dislike. You killed him too, of course.

    The manifest lists your target as having a berth in the orlop deck, right at the bottom of the ship. Normally you would expect a Dragon-Blood to have her own cabin, but the fleet commodore and the legion dragonlord are on board as well, as well as the ship's captain. Two more officers in the berths are Dragon-Blooded as well. A surfeit of terrestrials. Lovely.

    Guttering lanterns are lit on the deck and a pair of young midshipmen keep the night watch. They pay you no mind, as you expected. You pad downstairs and through the creaking darkness of the ship. Anticipation wells in you. This has taken months of effort to pull off, but soon you will reap the fruits of your long preparation.

    You pick through the prone bodies of sleeping sailors and passengers, holding a breath as you do so. The stink of sweat and fetid water pervades the place. Another cat, greyer and scrawnier, saunters past you, giving you the confused look of a guard who is pretty sure you aren't meant to be here but isn't sure enough to make a fuss about it.

    An irregular sea chest catches your eye. Weathered dark wood and lacquer inlays set it apart from the simple timber chests that line the other bunks. It's also longer. Long enough to hold that ridiculous sword. Yes. This is hers, you can sense it.

    The berth next to it is empty.

    Well, this is irritating. Do you have to start tearing the throats out of these louts to make her show herself? No, no, that won't do. It's not the proper entrance. And besides, there are five other Dragon-Bloods on the ship, including Shadowless Mei. Not favourable odds, even given the terrain advantages.

    Perhaps she is sharing one of the cabins? No, unlikely, you judge. The brig? They would have moved her chest to the captain's cabin. Hmm. You ascend back up onto the deck. Perhaps you can-

    You catch her scent. Your blood quickens.

    Following the wind, you climb the stairs to the forecastle. There she is, right in plain sight. She's sitting cross-legged on top of the bowspirit, right at the front of the ship, above the figurehead. A ridiculously dangerous position to sit in, even for someone who can breathe underwater. She could easily fall and be crushed under the moving ship. A terrible accident indeed...

    You pad towards her, sniffing the air. She's been drinking. Rice wine, and something with palm sugar. She's wearing only britches and chestwrap in the warmth of the summer night, but you see that sword of hers sheathed next to her, along with several empty clay bottles. She has made it too easy. You circle around, readying yourself for your reward, that look of shock as she finally realizes, before the end, that you have caught up to her.

    She turns and looks directly at you. You know you made no noise, how did she do that? No matter, you are just a cat. You give her a curious look that you hope is disarming.

    "Kazudaris has four mousers and none of them are that fat." She turns away from you. "Get it over with."

    Your shock almost immediately gives way to rage. You spent months on this, tracking her letters, researching her mission, following this damn ship, and that's all you get? Get it over with? A command, from this insolent wretch?

    Well, now you don't want to get it over with! She can't tell you what to do. You'll have to draw it out a bit, see if you can provoke a response.

    You change back into your seabird form and flap over her shoulder to land in front of her, facing her. She looks impassively at you, flat black eyes like a concussed seal. You feel a stab of satisfaction that her collection of scars has grown since you last met.

    It would be profoundly unsatisfying for you to just kill her. You have to provoke her, somehow. There has to be rage, fear, awe, something. Otherwise there's no point, is there? You might as well not even be here.

    [ ] How did you know I was coming?
    [ ] Isn't it one of the pillars of the immaculate doctrine that you should resist the Anathema to the best of your abilities?
    [ ] Is this how you seek revenge, by sitting still and waiting to die?
     
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    • The pattern has begun again. the next post will be clumpleplunch updating

    edit: not the next chapter but it still counts
     
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    What Vesper is doing right now is a little beyond the scope of DB investigation Charms that have been published, but not much beyond. With Charms such as Revelation of Associates and Homeward Trail Discovery, they can intuit the identities of the friends of people they have encountered and where they live without ever having met them. Dredged Murmurs Hunch (exclusive to late 2e) let a Dragon-Blooded investigator discover unexpected clues that would solve a mystery by plucking them from the spiritual currents of Creation.

    Vesper is, in Exalted game terms, using a specialized Investigation Charm to replay scenes in which she has encountered people from the other person's perspective. That she has lost her own memories of these events is not impeding its functioning. These kinds of psychic detective shenanigans are very much in the established DB Investigation wheelhouse.
     
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    I suppose the takeaway from this is that for all her brain damage, Vesper is a really good detective, even by Dragon-Blood standards
     
    Crumplepunch said:
    What Vesper is doing right now is a little beyond the scope of DB investigation Charms that have been published, but not much beyond. With Charms such as Revelation of Associates and Homeward Trail Discovery, they can intuit the identities of the friends of people they have encountered and where they live without ever having met them. Dredged Murmurs Hunch (exclusive to late 2e) let a Dragon-Blooded investigator discover unexpected clues that will solve a mystery by plucking them from the spiritual currents of Creation.

    Vesper is, in Exalted game terms, using a specialized Investigation Charm to replay scenes in which she has encountered people from the other person's perspective. That she has lost her own memories of these events is not impeding its functioning. These kinds of psychic detective shenanigans are very much in the established DB Investigation wheelhouse.
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    Huh. Well, the more you know. Do you think this is something you might have introduced anyway (due to Vesper's past competences), or would you say it's affected by how we've specialized in Awareness?
     
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    There's also the part where Mei can't breath underwater and would unlikely be heavily drunk. And the 'the legion dragonlord is also on board' part.
     
    Interlude: Izumherat 3
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    • GAWR said:
    [X] Is this how you seek revenge, by sitting still and waiting to die?
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    "Is this how you seek revenge, by sitting still and waiting to die?"

    She doesn't answer. She just stares blankly at you. What temerity! "Have I not earned more? Have you not learned fear? How did you reattach your arm, anyway?"

    "How did you reattach your head?" she retorts, eyes narrowing.

    You hiss in response, the sound coming as a series of clicks from the bird's throat. "I didn't. I grew a new body from my head. I wonder if you can do the same?"

    She falls silent again, though you judge that her expression holds a little more hostility. Good. You decide to try an alternative track.

    "We're not so differ-"

    "Oh, shut the fuck up."

    "What?"

    "You're a centuries-old serial killer with delusions of grandeur. After you spent decades stalking me you can't think of anything better than telling me that we're not so different? Get the fuck out of here."

    You try to smile consdescendingly before remembering you don't have lips or facial muscles right now, so your beak just hangs open a little in an expression indistinguishable from surprise, anticipation, hunger or virtually any other bird expressions. Stupid bird expressions. You fluff up your feathers to make yourself look big instead.

    "Our objectives differ, I admit. But we conduct our business in a similar way. I found you here because my spies in the admiralty tripped over Ragara spies in the admiralty looking for your spies in the admiralty."

    "So what?" her expression is guarded, sullen again, but you sense she is trying to conceal some emotion. Better.

    "So I know that this fleet was ordered to pick up a dignitary from Iora by Admiral Irdal less than a month after one of her bondservants recovered a coded message left in a dead drop by one of your archons." you preen your feathers slowly as you speak. Maybe you should pick up some sort of impressive tropical bird form for this purpose now that you are in the West.

    "I don't give orders to Admiral Irdal."

    "No? But you audited her brother Paral two years ago."

    "And found nothing."

    "And found nothing that you disclosed at the time."

    "You're suggesting that I sent myself on an expedition to the West by blackmailing an admiral? Why would I do such a thing?"

    [ ] You want what is hidden on Hoxiahn.
    [ ] You are investigating the secret Ragara expedition to the island.
    [ ] You are trying to escape.
     
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    • Crumplepunch said:
    "We're not so differ-"

    "Oh, shut the fuck up."

    "What?"

    "You're a centuries-old serial killer with delusions of grandeur. After you spent decades stalking me you can't think of anything better than telling me that we're not so different? Get the fuck out of here."

    You try to smile consdescendingly before remembering you don't have lips or facial muscles right now, so your beak just hangs open a little in an expression indistinguishable from surprise, anticipation, hunger or virtually any other bird expressions. Stupid bird expressions. You fluff up your feathers to make yourself look big instead
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    Incidentally, I love this bit so much. It's just so charmingly hilarious.
     
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