Rising in the East

Part of why this took me a little while longer than I would have liked is that I started and finished an Exalted story on the side. It's completed, comes in at around 32,000 words, and features a cameo from a character readers of this quest would recognise.



The longer Winter Jasmine keeps talking and focusing on you, the more chances Parting Sigh has to get that bottle out of Falling Leaf's hands. Jasmine is incredibly dangerous, but Sigh is very good at what she does too. And if you're honest, you want to know the answer to this question very badly. "What happened to Cal?"

Jasmine pauses, surprise crossing her face. Surprise and, disturbingly, vulnerability. "He was never satisfied," she says. Her eyes are a profoundly deep brown, boring into yours, searching for something. "We found a place. Another valley, this one in the far East. A collection of villages, grateful for protection against spirits and marauding fae. A home." Jasmine's voice is wistful now, filled with a pained yearning. You don't let yourself forget her shadow, though. You've seen her work necromancy with it before, and you stay ready to parry some kind of horrible spell.

Behind Jasmine, Leaf is fumbling with the bottle, hands shaking.

"It was also my place," she continues. "I'm the one who devoured the corrupt god who was enslaving those people. I'm the one who made a pact with the village elders, sanctified in Luna's name. Cal agreed to that! He said he was happy just being with me, and being our protector." Her look is abruptly accusatory. "You all like to think of yourself as protectors, you know. Other things vary, but that never does. It was good, though. We were building something together."

"So why did you kill him?" you ask.

Jasmine's grip on her knife becomes white knuckled. "He started second-guessing me in public. Going behind my back, undermining me. I tried to talk to him about it — he wouldn't even admit to the way he was pushing me out. I didn't want to fight him. But he wouldn't stop. And then he started conquering neighbouring peoples whose independence I'd given my word to respect. It broke my heart, but I had to—"

Leaf finally gets the cap off, just as Sigh's hand seizes him by the wrist. The bottle goes flying and smashes on the brickwork underfoot, something thick and dark and horribly like blood seeping out.

Jasmine flies at Sigh, and Sigh has to let go of Leaf to avoid the blow. Leaf screams and throws himself to the ground, hands over his head. You put yourself between Jasmine and Sigh, forcing Jasmine back. "This wasn't my first plan!" she hisses, seeming almost flustered at the quick pivot. "This is going to be such a mess!" Her shadow surges up around her, shrouding her body like a cloak, until she's just a Jasmine-shaped figure of darkness, spider legs stretching out from her body. She raises her knife, and slashes into the shadow wrapped flesh of her palm.

Your wrackstaff whistles through the air, aimed straight for her head. Jasmine catches it in her bleeding hand, stopping the blow with strength enough not to shatter her wrist in the process, despite the explosion of flowers that buffets her. Blood drips down from her hand where it grips the jade, glowing bright red with unwholesome power. Where it lands on the brickwork at your feet, it seeps through fired clay as though it were dry soil. The very air shudders and a cold, wet breeze billows out in all directions, carrying with it the stench of death.

That seems like it's probably going to be bad.

"Sigh, grab him and go!" you shout.

To her credit, Sigh doesn't argue. She bursts into motion, hand outstretched to seize Leaf by the collar of his clerk's robes while he tries to crawl away on hands and knees. Jasmine tries to follow her, but you won't let that happen. You slam the Lunar up against the nearest building foundation, and she struggles viciously against you.

Jasmine gets a hand free, bones seeming to flow out of the way as needed in order to raise her knife. You throw up a forearm to protect your neck from a blow that never comes. That moment's distraction is all Jasmine needs to melt out of your grip: something small and shadowy streaking between your legs to cut off Sigh before she can drag Leaf out into the open with her. Sigh changes course, hampered by an armful of shouting, uncooperative mortal.

The whole time, that chill wind is intensifying, spreading ever outward as it climbs up to a howl, the yellowish underfoot turning pure black with its passage. The gloom of the hidden launch deepens into something alien and hungry, eager to drag in anything within its reach.

You take a flying leap, and the orichalcum head of your staff crashes down right where the shadowy creature gains on Sigh, letting the Fire Aspect easily outpace both of you. The creature rolls to the side and becomes Jasmine again. "Too late!" she says. Sigh is nearly outside, but that's not going to be enough, you realise. Whatever spell Jasmine has used, its clawing, intangible reach spreads out in all directions, much farther than just the launch alone.

You're all out of time — it's carrying you away, all that fetid air rushing back to that central point, dragging you all with it.


The solid ground vanishes away underfoot, and you feel yourself plunging down into sickly-warm river water. You kick back up to the surface, spluttering as you struggle to find purchase on the slimy riverbed. Hauling yourself up onto the bank, you immediately have no idea where you are.

The lighting is a crazed twilight, the sky filled with alien stars. The city is gone, barren riverbank stretching out to the mist-swallowed horizon. Your eyes find Jasmine first. Wreathed in silvery-midnight fire, she looks steadily back at you, looking both tired and irritable, but not particularly surprised. You take a step toward her, but you're distracted by the screams.

Nearly two dozen townspeople — men, women, and children — are scattered around the immediate area, looking even more shocked and frightened than you. "What did you do?" you demand, whirling to face Jasmine again.

Jasmine has already walked the few paces to Falling Leaf, casually offering him her uninjured hand. "What I had to. You're quite plainly immune to any kind of cordial overtures, after all."

"Where are we?" Sigh leaps to her feet, one sword drawn and in guard position between her and Jasmine.

"The Underworld," Jasmine says, calmly. "That spell makes for a handy escape, but it does have an... annoyingly wide radius." She glances around at the townspeople.

You feel a stab of horror at the answer. "They had nothing to do with any of this! How could you just bring them here?"

"Oh, relax," Jasmine says. When he doesn't take her hand, she simply seizes Leaf by the wrist and pulls him to his feet. "This is a safe enough region, as the Underworld goes, between the Immaculates in Greyfalls and myself. And they'll have two Exalts escorting them back, won't they?"

"We don't even know where 'back' is!" you say.

"Due north of here," Jasmine says. "Quaint little shadowland. Get these people up and moving, and you can all be out before nightfall. I don't want to hurt any of these people, Aster. I just need to get you out of my hair."

"You're crazy," Sigh says, eyes wide above her mask.

Jasmine's eyes narrow at this. "I'm not," she says, voice firm. "Believe me."

"Do you think we're just going to let you walk off with him?" you say, cutting in.

"Yes," says Jasmine. "These people are your responsibility. You need to get them to safety. I haven't known you as an individual for so very long, but I believe I have enough of your measure to say that. You'll start a fight with a centuries old necromancer in the middle of the Underworld if you think you have cause, but not at their expense. Abandoning the helpless wouldn't precisely be living up to the example of the Immaculate Dragon, Sextes Jylis, would it?"

The bitter note in her voice as she flings your religion back into your face does nothing to make you feel less incensed. That surge of sunfire in your chest feels like it's in the middle of tearing you in two. You don't say anything to that — you can't think of anything to say to that. Instead, you just glower.

"That's what I thought," Jasmine says, not meeting your gaze. "Argent should be finished with his task by now, and I should speak with him. Come, Leaf."

But as she tugs at the clerk's shoulder, he jerks out of her grasp, stumbling a few steps away. Instantly, you put yourself between the two of them. "What was in that bottle?" Leaf demands. "You just told me to drink it if we got trapped! It looked like blood."

"It was," Jasmine admits. "Mine, specifically. Thinned with some herbs to make it keep and go down more easily."

"Why?" Leaf takes a horrified step back from her.

"It would have turned you into something small enough for me to carry to safety less conspicuously than a man," Jasmine says. "A mouse. I would have turned you back afterward."

Leaf's legs give out again, and he spends a moment on his knees, his eyes flicking from Jasmine to the Underworld around him. "I'm... I'm not going anywhere with you!" Leaf says, voice shaking. "This isn't what I thought... you're a monster!" Surprisingly, Jasmine flinches a little at the last word. She doesn't try to intervene as Leaf scrambles over to Parting Sigh, tugging at her pant leg. "Please, honoured Dragon-Blood, I was wrong to accept payment from this Anathema witch! I throw myself upon your mercy!"

You can practically feel Sigh scowl beneath her mask. "Oh, get up."

"No one is ever grateful," Jasmine whispers. Then she turns on her heel and stomps over to the two jaguarfolk. One is up and walking, albeit with a limp. He looks at Jasmine warily, supporting his barely conscious partner on one shoulder. "And what about you?" she asks.

"Can you heal her?" the jaguarman asks.

"Yes," Jasmine says without a moment's hesitation. "I don't abandon my allies until they abandon me." Still on the ground, Leaf cringes away from her. Then you have to watch the three of them vanish into the mist.

You watch the place where they'd been visible for a moment or two. Then you let out a frustrated cry and kick at a small, white rock at your feet, sending it spinning off into the water. It's only as it soars up into the air that you realise it's not a rock at all — it's a miniature human skull, too small to have come from even an infant. All the rocks along the shorelines are skulls in fact, staring up at you all through vacant eyes where they're half buried in the dirt.

With a faint shudder, you turn back to Sigh, Leaf, and the other mortals. You're not sure what you're going to say to them — something reassuring, you hope — but as your gaze sweeps over the crowd, they all shrink back in fear. They've gathered behind Sigh, as if she alone can shelter them from the terrors of this situation. She's outlined in a red-orange ember glow, her eyes and the tips of her hair smouldering brightly in the Underworld's gloom. It's obvious to all of them what she is: A Dragon-Blooded hero, someone to turn to in a crisis.

The golden mark on your brow makes it equally obvious what you are. They're nearly as afraid of you as they had been of Jasmine. Dragons, this day keeps getting better!

"Well, we've got him," Sigh says, nudging Leaf with a foot. He still hasn't gotten up. "What now?"

You stop yourself from stepping any closer to her — you might spook some of the townspeople. "What do you mean? We have to get them all to safety."

"Would we..." Sigh trails off at the expression on your face, and casts a guilty look down at a little girl who stares up at her with terrified eyes. "Right, then," Sigh mutters. "We're taking them all with us." Sigh sheathes her sword in a resigned sort of way.

"You're not really going to follow directions from that Anathema, are you?" a man asks, forgetting himself in his panic. Sigh at least lacks the bearing of a Dynast, or you doubt he would have done so.

"Good question," Sigh admits. She looks back to you. "Think that Ogre of yours is sending us off in the wrong direction?"

"No," you say. It's automatic — despite how angry you are with Jasmine, you experience a powerful certainty that she hasn't lied to you yet in either of your encounters with her. Just as she didn't kill Leaf to prevent him from revealing her secrets, if she told you that you can get out by heading north, then you probably can.

Now you just have to manage it while everyone here aside from Sigh thinks you're a monster.

Article:

You and Parting Sigh have the unenviable task of escorting a group of mortals a short distance through the Underworld. Even if this is a relatively safe stretch of it, this will be dangerous for all of them, and the two of you can only be in so many places at once. Staying close at hand will make it easier for you to keep the mortals safe, but terrorising them with your presence might only make things worse.

What do you do?

[ ] Stay close, and hope that they all understand you're only trying to help
[ ] Range a little ahead of the group, but stay within sight of them
[ ] Forge ahead to the shadowland Jasmine has pointed to to make sure that it's safe