It can't end this way! Your soul screams its defiance across Creation with the last of your life's energy. It's clearly a last, hopeless call... the Anathema's claws already bit too deep, and hurled what was left of you from an unsurvivable height.


You're not dead. Or, at least, you don't feel like you are. Your body doesn't seem to hurt. It doesn't seem to be there at all. You feel nothing. You see nothing. All that you can perceive is a void. For a timeless, momentary eternity, this is all you are aware of.

A presence breaks this formlessness. A figure is behind you. It would always be behind you, no matter how you were to face. Do you wish to live? It's not a voice: it is simply a foreign thought that you are aware of. Show me. Show me why you should.


You were born to House Peleps, to parents both blessed by the Elemental Dragons. You were a late bloomer, which no one was concerned about: unusually, your father's branch have traditionally awoken late, even into the child's mid-twenties, without any noticeable weakening of the blessing. Indeed, both your elder siblings were past a quarter-century when they were blessed.

Thus, you were still trained and reared as one destined to be Dragon-Blooded. First-rate schooling, accommodations, and combat training were yours, including a certain theoretical training in the mystical arts that would always be beyond you until your ascension.

Of course, all this does come at a cost. With the Empress's vanishing act and the rise of ever more unrest around the edges of the Scarlet Empire, everyone has to play their part. You were deployed to the Lap, one of three Triumvirs who fairly openly kept the satrapy under the Realm's control and on a course that the Scarlet Empire would always appreciate. Too, you were expected to look after House Pelep's interests there. The fact that in another year or so you would awaken certainly didn't hurt. Things would be easier once that happened.

In the meantime, you helped handle things here: you made connections with the locals, you saw to it that Immaculate philosophy was properly respected, you looked after your House's interests, you lined your own pockets ever so slightly, you trained with the soldiers, and generally were a capable and relatively uncorrupt overseer.

Your fellow Triumvirs from other Houses did not like you. You were given as much work and as little reward as they could get away with. You were given demeaning duties. You were a joke, looked down on. Whenever you came into a room too quickly or quietly, whenever you turned around unexpectedly, you found people snickering at you: the Dragon-Blood who wasn't, the nobody.

Anathema sightings in the Lap were on the rise. You were given the duty of investigating and handling it. Like everything else, it was one more sign that the world was in a difficult time, but it hardly meant anything more.

Only this time it did. You and your squad of soldiers cornered the Anathema and a pair of furtive rat-type Beastmen in an outlying region of the Lap. A chase ensued. You lost three of your men in the running battle, pursuing the monsters higher and higher up the mountain-sized statue that made up the Lap.

You personally slew both of the Beastmen. Finally, however, the Anathema had had enough. It showed its true, monstrous form and attacked. You stood firm as the rest of your squad retreated, confident that the Elemental Dragons would see fit to bless you in this, your moment of greatest need.

You failed. They failed. Despite all your faith, all your skill, all your training, you were left forlorn. Now, you have a frozen moment on the edge of death.

You are already wounded beyond any art of humanity, the voice whispers from just behind your ear. You are moments away from death from impact, too. You were hurled from high up the mountainous statue. If you weren't already unconscious from blood loss and shock, you would have had a horrible long fall time to contemplate your doom. Do you wish to live?

"YES!" The first true senstation you have in this place is your no-longer-ruined throat screaming itself raw.

There will be a cost. You will have a new throne to kneel to. You will only be allowed to respond to your now-dead name so long as it is in that service. But you will live. You will be hale. You will be granted... power. Power enough to wreak whatever vengeance you need. Will you accept this, O Doomed One?

You almost laugh. So this, then, is how Anathema are born, is it? Given no choice at all.

Say it!

You fill your lungs and bellow to the endless nothingness: "ANYTHING!"

So be it. Rise, my secret servant.

There is a surge of something, from the core of your being and expanding outward through your soul, through your eyes, through your hair, your legs your armsyourhandsyourlungstoesnailsbones

It's a rancid, terrible thing. It is a gargantuan and poisonous power, fusing with you and pulsing along your veins with black purpose, breaking pieces of you that had always been and would always have been stillborn, reforging you to a weapon antithetical to the very nature of Creation.

Pain. It is a pain beyond endurance as every piece of your body, every nerve is slain and reformed. You scream. You don't know how to stop.


You're covered in dust. You're on a rocky surface or... no, at the bottom of something like a bowl. As you swim back to consciousness, you stand. It's a smooth, easy, perfect motion. It's night, and the moon is high and near-full. It casts sharp shadows and dusts the rest of the cool desert with silver light. A tiny rivulet of water, shaken loose by your impact, has formed a little pool, a still circle. You stand over it. The moonlight lets it reflect your face. It's still your face, at least as far as you can see in this poor mirror. The only difference is a thick band of blood curved into a circle and standing out on your forehead: the symbol of the Wretched, those terrible Anathema who cannot stand the gaze of the Unconquered Sun. You try to wipe it off. It remains. Of course it does. That's you. Dust chokes the pool, and the reflection fades.

You look across the desert. You shiver, though the desert chill does not touch you. You have no idea where you're going to go now, where you're going to turn to. The only thing you are sure of is the basic fact of Anathema that has been drilled into you from childhood: the Elemental Dragons shall never visit you. Anathema will never express Dragon Blood.

You bite your lip. Perhaps... perhaps there still may be something for you. You don't know what it will be like, or even what it will be. Nothing quite feels like a home to return to. Nonetheless, you can't just sit here, waiting for a breaking dawn and eventual discovery on someone else's terms.

One foot in front of the other, you glide away from the impact crater you created. You don't look up at the arc someone would have had to take to fall from the Penitent and end up here. Thoughtlessly, your feet take you in a specific direction...

[] ...Back to the guard station at the base of the Lap, where you will doubtless be welcomed back as Triumir Peleps.
[] ...Towards a mostly-forgotten cemetary, one rumored to be a dangerous place, where an unknown figure waits.


The conceit of this quest should be relatively clear to anyone familiar with the setting of Exalted: you were going to be a Terrestrial, but you died first. Welcome, Abyssal.

This will run on an essentially narrative system. What sort of Charms (or dots of attributes and abilities, or sorcery or necromancy, etc) you know will conform reasonably well to an idealized Exalted game that runs like the fluff and fiction/art suggest and takes what I think is the best pieces of all editions.

Have fun with Resonance.

[X] ...Back to the guard station at the base of the Lap, where you will doubtless be welcomed back as Triumvir Peleps.

The Lap is so magnificent a structure that it barely feels artificial. You can't make out the entire thing in the dark, of course, but you lived here long enough to know the shape. The mountain, or structure, or whatever you want to call it, is a statue of a seated figure, so huge that the top of the figure's head is nearly eight kilometers from ground level, and faces north-east. The statue's lap, then, is an elevated and large expanse that can safely sit its eponymous city. It is well situated to catch water-rich clouds that float in off the Inland Sea and encourage them to rain out as they flow around its bulk. This is the source of the Lap's fertile fields, and what makes it the breadbasket of the entire South.

Naturally, this is why the Realm wouldn't give up on the Lap for anything. It's the lynchpin of an entire Direction, and everyone sensible sees its value. It's only too bad that one of its three leaders is now an Anathema. You swallow a hysterical giggle. It's a long walk to the guard post for the way back up. There's three ramps drilled through the rock to allow travel into and out of the Lap itself, and you--or your past self, whichever--fell from the statue's right arm. You circle counter-clockwise aiming for the eastleg tunnel.

Half-formed ideas about how to defend yourself evaporate as you realize that you really will have some period of grace in terms of trying to hide your nature while you figure out your next move. After all, if someone suspected an Anathema, where would they turn? If someone felt a need to try to organize a Wyld Hunt here, where would they go? If someone needed to rally the Realm forces or local sepoys to provide support while hunting some dangerous figure, where would they head first?

Why, to Triumvir Peleps' office, of course!

You see the oil lamps of the guards before they can see you, of course. You compose yourself as well as you can as you approach them. Finally, a guard looks up as you approach. "Who goes there?" she challenges you, hand dropping to the truncheon at her waist, while the other four on duty stiffen up but don't get up just yet. You don't say anything, just approach close enough for her to make out your face. You have to hope that the brand on your forehead has faded. Apparently, it has, as she squints at you and then suddenly scrambles to manage a salute. "Triumvir Peleps!"

Behind her, the other four suddenly burst into action to hide the evidence of their card game. You allow them the chance to be discreet that way. "At ease," you tell her.

"I didn't--we didn't know you were out."

"I was chasing an Anathema during the afternoon. Cornered him in the Arm Forest."

"Did you... win? Where are your entourage?" She's still mentally adjusting to your presence.

"I was hurled from the Arm Forest, you fool!" You let slip a little rage, just to keep her unbalanced. Dynastic arrogance is easy enough to generate, after a quite literal lifetime of being ready to be treated as one. "It was only because I was Chosen that I'm still here."

"Ah! I'm sorry, Triumvir. You do look a little pale. Okay, boys, let the Triumvir through."

The tunnel is long, dark, and would be an unpleasant walk if your body wasn't newly strong and resilient. You come out at the other end and it's still a little before dawn, but you can start to see the sun's light begin to peek above the east horizon.

In the pre-dawn light, you can see all the familiar structures of the Lap around you: the orchards of the Verdant Triangle in the hollow of the statue's robes, the Immaculate Temple (which is very easy to spot thanks to its Essence lighting, which your house doesn't have, the dastards), the king's palace (the fool makes a handy fall guy for any policies that the Triumvirate doesn't want to take responsibility for), the houses of the well-to-do (including the Peleps house), and all the other familiar locations spread out across the place.

It's not home. It was never a home to begin with, but now more than ever it's just a place to live. You're in the district where most of the unpleasant industries are located, from forges and smithies to the incredibly foul-smelling tanneries. You start walking back towards your house.

You mentally consult your own thoughts. You had thought that Anathema, as those possessed by dark forces, would get some sort of... marching orders. The enemies of all that is good and right in the world have left you at something of loose ends for the moment, and it at least feels as if your thoughts are still your own. You don't feel any particular urge to go on a violent rampage or tear down the Immaculate Temple. Well, maybe the Immaculate Temple would benefit from it: it could be a dangerous place for you later and it might actually wake Avalanche Fury Roiling up enough to do something, the fool. The chief monk has much more value in listening to people and making them feel better for having been listened to than in doing anything about it.

At the door to the Peleps house there's a different guard. You never can remember his name. Some unpronounceable Eastern thing. He nods to you as you approach, recognizing you and not bothering to challenge you. Why would he? Even if he didn't know you, you're already here, and nothing ever happens in the Lap.

Opening the door into your foyer, a figure jerks awake from one of the couches. A middle-aged woman with the whip-thin nature of a dour teacher sits up. "_____!" she says. You recognize your given name, but some merciful instinct wipes it from your conscious mind.

You groan, and hold up a hand. "Please, Taara, people can hear. In public, please call me 'Triumvir' or--

[] --Lady Peleps."
[] --Lord Peleps."

"Of course, sorry, Triumvir." Taara doesn't seem chastened. That's unsurprising. She was your nanny growing up, and just sort of kept the role until it turned into general maidservant. To some extent, you're still six years old to her.

She considers you. "You must have been fighting," she observes, seeing your ripped and dirtied clothing.

"We found and fought an Anathema. The chase took much of the day. We had some deaths. I'm... going to have to do more to follow-up on that."

She nods, circling behind you to begin to pick at your hair. "I believe it. I'm going to have to get you cleaned up before you're ready for anything today. You get in the bath; I'll have one of the others draw water for you while I lay out a new outfit for you."

"I think I need you to cancel my appointments for today," you tell the servant. "I--"

"No, Triumvir," she replies. "Bath first. Then the rest of what you need to do today."


A bath helps you feel... composed. It doesn't make you feel any better, not really. Being a naked Anathema deep in a Realm satrapy is not actually particularly calming.

The voice in your head--which you note has gone quiet after that first offer--was not lying about being hale. Even in little things like this, you find you're faster, more graceful, more assured. Just how much more is hard to gauge in a bathtub like this, but trying to test out your powers by showing off in the street seems like a good way to be caught, so you hold back.

You clean up and slip on a robe before Taara returns. She lays out a new outfit on a dressing screen, but comes to work on your hair before you put it on. That's probably for the best. You're not sure you want to put on the chosen outfit. You consider its elegant blue silk with an unfamiliar sort of unsettled flutter in your stomach.

Taara methodically dries your hair and starts putting it up as you relax in a chair. "You know, this reminds me of when you were a child. Rambunctious little beast, you were. Fell into more than a few mud puddles when we needed you clean and presentable." She doesn't smile when reminiscing.

"I'm not a child, Taara," you remind her. "I'm among the Chosen."

"Still falling in the dirt and making a mess for me," she grouses. There's no heat to it. Taara isn't actually upset; she just has never smiled or expressed any happiness at any point in your entire life.

Finally, she pronounces herself satisfied with your hair, and steps back. You consider again the outfit she's put out for you. "Not this, Taara," you say.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Men died under my command, at the hands of an Anathema, and I did not avenge them." The lie comes easily to your lips. "Until I do, I can only dress in mourning clothes." Taara considers this, but after a moment she simply shrugs and takes it back. Servants have more power than may be immediately obvious, but direct commands are direct commands. Besides, it's hardly the strangest foible a prince of the earth could develop. Your aunt Peleps Oolith still only eats while facing due north-west, for no reason she is willing to explain.

A few minutes later, you're in gray, shapeless clothes, suitable for a funeral of someone of lesser station to your own. For some reason, this just feels better than general finery.

"One more thing before we do anything else, Triumvir," Taara adds as you smooth out a fold in the outfit. "Come with me." She leads the way.

Intrigued, you allow her the mystery, and follow. She leads you into the servants' quarters, and here stops in front of what looks like a broom closet. "From your parents," she says, opening a much more elaborate lock than any broom should warrant with a key that she wore on a necklace inside her bodice. "They knew they couldn't be here on the day you were Chosen, so before your public debut, they wanted you to have a private gift. It wouldn't do for a member of House Peleps, blessed by the Dragons, to go out without some recognition of status."

The door swings open. The shine of green jade, the magical material worked into a weapon, takes your breath away. It beckons from within. Your parents clearly put some thought into this. It's something meant to compliment the focus of your training. Like many of the weapons of the Dragon-Blooded, it's something with a name and history to it. It's no world-shaking wonder, but it is something that has been with your House for generations.

[] A dire lance
The weapon known as Unyielding Mast, this lance was famously held by Peleps Hento during an expedition to the Caul, where it was used as a mast to ride out a hurricane that had taken down the ship's actual wooden masts before being turned on the Lintha.
[] A skycutter
The giant boomerang Blizzard's Scourge was held by three different Dragon-Bloods over the course of a brutal northern winter campaign, savaging a huge raiding force of Fair Folk in the hands of each, and forever staying free from Fae touch as each wielder fell in turn.
[] A pair of god-kicking boots
These are high-heeled, elegant boots, worn by Mountain Glory, a wandering magistrate who ferreted out and destroyed a demon-worshipping cult in Greyfalls two centuries ago. Mountain Glory shattered several potent demons by pairing these with Water Dragon Style.

You grasp the weapon. With a breath and a moment's thought, it's yours. It will take a short time for it to truly move as a part of you and be useful as a weapon... say, half an hour or so. Even now, though, it recognizes that it is touched by... by someone worthy of wielding it, somehow. Part of your mind rejects that even as you smoothly straighten, unbent by the weight of an unwilling magical artifact weapon.

"Empress's Grace." Taara still doesn't quite smile, though she radiates approval. "You truly have been Chosen, _____." She considers you, running her eyes up and down your still-familiar form. "Which Dragon was it, Triumvir?"

You hesitate. If there's anyone in the Lap whom you could trust with your secret, anyone who would still be on your side, it has to be the woman who basically raised you, and who has stood with you throughout your life. She could be helpful. Tremendously helpful, as far as providing excuses, planning to avoid issues, and otherwise avoiding being found out by the world at large. The downside is you can't be completely, 100% sure that she'd never turn you in, and... she's only mortal. You're realizing that's a weakness in itself, if an investigation were to come rooting around headed by full-fledged Dragon Blood Immaculates.

[] Confide in Taara, bring her aboard.
[] Tell no-one what you are.

[] --Lord Peleps."
[] A skycutter
[] Tell no-one what you are.
Number of people who voted for kung fu in high heels: zero


"It was Mela, the Immaculate Dragon of Air," you tell Taara, after a moment's thought too tiny for her to notice, not even with how well she knows you. Taara nods. It's only slightly unexpected; it's your mother's aspect. A few little bets are going to be settled once this gets heliographed back to the Blessed Isle, including Taara having to pay out: she had bet on you being a water aspect like your father. You're not supposed to know any of that, though, so you don't say anything.

You picked air not only because it's your mother's aspect, but out of a thought that it might be the easiest to manage for you. You're apparently going pale, which could just be the mark of Mela, after all. So long as you don't ever let your Anathema sigil show or have to show too much air power, you might be able to get away with this. If you study Air Dragon Style, you may even be able to minimize the latter danger. That's far off, however: few among the Dragon-Blood host can master the Five Glorious Dragon Styles without years of preparation.

Taara interrupts your musings. "Shall we go out to the practice yard, Lord Peleps? I'm sure you want to get the feel of your parents' gift." You nod. She smooths out her apron and leads the way.

Blizzard's Scourge sparkles as it is touched by morning sunlight. You hesitate slightly yourself, but don't seem to feel any horrible reaction to the sunlight. You heft the skycutter, getting a feel for it now that you have a little space to do so. The magical material feels right in your hand. Not perfect, somehow, but it's good enough.

When you were in school, as your gradually-Exalting compatriots were learning archery, you were allowed to train instead with throwing weapons, which you'd shown a talent for: javelin, chakram, bola, knife... you'd developed some real power in your throwing arm.

That's how you slew those beastmen yesterday.

The 'practice yard' is just the Peleps House back yard. Drape it with finery and it's a place for open-air celebration, set up targets and it's a practice yard. Practicality. As Taara arranges things, a desert hawk settles on one of the trees for a moment.

Once the practice range is arranged, you take a ready stance aiming at a much-patched, roughly-humanoid dummy a good distance from you. You can feel Essence surging within you--your training has prepared you for what that would be. As you had been told, the command here is essentially instinctive: you know what you can do and how to do it. One thing your Dragon-Blooded instructors didn't say--or maybe it's different for Anathema--is that you sense a certain trouble in restoring your Essence. Any 'stamina' you use won't be naturally replaced.

Not naturally. You spare a glance at Taara's neck, hidden behind a high, frilled collar. Drinking the lifeblood of--

You chop that thought off, hard. Without exhausting yourself, you hurl the magnificent green boomerang. The grass and the boughs of the trees that make up the yard's privacy screens rustle in the wind of its passing. The hawk takes flight and doesn't return. The skycutter passes very gently past the dummy's left ear, without ever touching it.

Taara stands primly where she is, waiting, as the skycutter reverses its direction with startling abruptness and comes back towards your hand. On its return, it clips the dummy's head from the right side, neatly decapitating it. As you catch it, she nods once, firmly. That's all the more approbation you'll get.

You hurl Blizzard's Scourge a few more times, listening as Taara goes through the day's agenda.

Most of it is status updates: more talons of Realm forces (especially any with Dragon-Bloods, sorcerers, or skilled thaumaturges attached) are getting called back to the Blessed Isle, and 'local forces' are called upon to fill the gap. There's more reports of raids on caravans, those on the way to Paragon in the east or Gem in the south-west or other places across the fan between them, equally. Nothing too outrageous yet, just more than it would have been ten years ago. You and the other Triumvirs are going to have to consider hiring mercenaries to supplement the local sepoys, the Lap's native military force.

You file all this away, but don't bother processing it too much: you were a competent bureaucrat as a mortal. As you are now, you can be a great administrator if you want to be. It's not your focus.

The biggest things is Taara sharing that you were invited to Triumvir Cathak Anira's function this evening. This brings you up short. Blizzard's Scourge lands in your palm without conscious thought as you look down, frowning. Anira isn't a terrible host, exactly. The larger problem is that you've already told enough people for word to start to spread, and "a new Dragon-Blood" is going to be hard to upstage, even if you're not trying to.

The function in question is, in theory, to welcome the newest people to turn 43. This is an important age in the Lap: the locals are freed from indentured servitude at that age, after thirty years of work and six different five-year evaluations. It's not much, but it keeps them in line and gives them pride compared to the serfs and outright slaves of other domains throughout Creation. Every two or three months, one of the Triumvirs or some other Laplander fixture (the monarchy, the Immaculates, the Jade Sickle Academy that's a college somehow dedicated entirely to agriculture) will throw an event to celebrate the top few percent of new 43 year olds, now freed. Those top few percent, of course, being mainly those shepherded by family connections with a smattering of the genuinely talented included, but that's just life.

Really, in practice it's to give your counterpart a chance to be seen as generous and otherwise generally laudable while getting schmoozed behind the scenes.

And here you are, going to ruin it all by stealing the limelight. It was still, at least in theory, expected, but you have been granted the grace of Mela at just the right time for it to be the talk of the Lap, and Anira can hardly be publicly snide about a new member of the Host of the Dragon-Blooded. Even not going would be the sort of thing where all eyes and talk would be on why you weren't there. One way or another, she's not going to easily forgive you. That's going to make things harder until she does.

The way the Lap government works is very simple: the king is a supreme monarch. When the three Triumvirs from the Realm all agree on things, they present them to the king just like any other adviser. Then the king signs them. Technically, there's no formal reason he must, but in practice you might let the king pick his own color of socks on a holiday if he's a sufficiently pliable figure the rest of the time. He realizes how this works. Triumvir Peleps (you), Triumvir Cathak (the one throwing the event tonight), and Triumvir Ragara (the most senior and deeply unpleasant of you three) all have to agree on things, which in practice means a certain amount of favor-trading and agreeing to take on certain responsibilities, because actual gridlock doesn't benefit anyone. Realm forces in the area only act on the word of the united Golden Triumvirate, as they have been told to. You, as the youngest and newest and until recently only non-Exalt of the Triumvirate, just had to grit your teeth and take on an annoying amount of work to get some concessions of your own.

"Of course I will be there," you tell Taara. "Please pass word to both Triumvir Cathak Anira and Triumvir Ragara Ptheno." Ptheno would be even more of a pain than he normally is if he thought you were slighting him by not letting him know your movements.

She heads off to handle things, and you... you happen to walk past a mirror as you come back inside, one in a foyer for people to quickly judge their appearance as they come in from whatever trip they took to come here.

It's lucky you're alone, as you have a sudden and stark reminder that some force chose you to be an Anathema. Your eyes are arrested not by your own visage but by bloody words that form on the surface of the mirror.

You were expected last night.

As soon as you comprehend the words, they lose cohesion and turn into streaks of blood that roll down the mirror. They disappear as they reach the base of it, thankfully not staining the floor. You're already in enough trouble without outright necromancy fouling up lands ruled by the Immaculate Philosophy.

It's a necromantic spell you had heard of, however. It's one that allows two-way communication. If you wanted to, you could smear your own blood on the mirror and write a response. You're even pretty sure it would clean itself up.

No immediate thoughts for what the response should be cross your mind, just the calculus of... communicating back at all. Whatever force it was that gave you the power of the Wretched Anathema, it did demand you swear allegiance, and presumably it has some method of enforcing that. After all, you've never heard of a good Anathema, and the voice in your head and now your mirror clearly spent some considerable resource in empowering you.

You certainly aren't free.

[] Write a response.
- [] What?
[] You do not respond to dark forces.