[Exalted] The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

You're in the middle of mentally rehearsing what you're going to say to your instructor when a familiar stack of books comes around a blind corner, and knocks right into you.

Amiti gives a squeak of alarm as she begins to lose her balance, unable to budge you along the stone floor underfoot despite the speed at which she'd been travelling. You shoot a hand out to grab her by one narrow shoulder, steadying her before she can topple over entirely. For a moment, you're supporting her whole body weight with that one arm, while she struggles to right herself again.

"One day, you're going to run into something worse than me," you tell her, trying to sound stern.

"Oh, hello Ambraea!" Amiti says, peering at you behind her stack of books. "And, don't worry, I already have. I think the book at the top is going to slide off, could you fix it?"

You do as she asks, nudging a particularly tired, battered looking journal back into place. On impulse, you flip the cover open to read the title, written down the page in old fashioned Realm characters:

Being the Journal of Manosque Malachite, Beloved of Sextes Jylis, and an Account of His Travels Through the Underworld and the Courts of Ghost Lords Most Terrible

"This can't be an original," you say, frowning at the book. House Manosque had been stricken from the rolls of the Great Houses and exterminated down to the last more than five hundred years ago.

"Oh, I think it's a copy," Amiti agrees. "Still, it was a nightmare to find, even with Instructor Sai's help. This might contain the only first hand account of soulforging we have in the whole school! It's a frustrating oversight, don't you think?"

You don't actually know what, specifically, soulforging is, but the ways of ghosts and the unspeakable practices they carry out is hardly your area of focus — souls are meant to return to the Cycle of Reincarnation when they die, not linger on in violation of the Perfected Hierarchy, after all. You'd heard it suggested that it may be one of the reasons Dragon-Blooded Essence lacked much of an affinity for the foul magic of the Underworld. "I can't say I'm familiar," you admit.

"Oh! It's fascinating," Amiti says, her wide eyes looking far away. Then she comes back to herself and adds a little self consciously:"... And horrible, of course. But still, very interesting, in an academic sense. I could lend—" she gasps suddenly, a look of panic seizing her small frame. "Very nice talking to you, thank you for your help, I really must be going! Look at the time!"

You watch her hurry off on unknowable Amiti errands. As usual, you're slightly concerned, but... well, surely whatever she's studying isn't going to cause too much trouble. Whatever that strange instructor was telling her.

You continue the climb up to Instructor Bashura's chambers — this is usually the time of day that she was free, and relatively open to entertaining the out-of-lesson questions of students. The main difference between student dorm room levels and where you currently are is that this curving tower hallway has a great deal fewer doors. Instructor's quarters, perhaps obviously, are much more spacious and private than what you and your classmates enjoy.

You find the door with Cynis Bashura's name on the plate, and give it a respectful knock. There's a pause, before a voice calls from the other side: "Come in, then."

You open the door and step inside a room crowded full of the souvenirs of an uncommonly adventurous life.

An eclectic array of artwork and trophies from every Direction adorns the walls; sacred masks and carved bone idols, shields and ceremonial weaponry. A large painting of a city on the slopes of an icy mountain takes up most of one wall, and another is guarded by a startlingly lifelike taxidermied tiger.

Bashura herself sits in a chair that seems to have been fashioned from the skull of a truly massive tyrant lizard, the upper portion tipped up and lined with cushioned leather to serve as a back, the jaw split to make the arms against which the instructor now lounges.

"Ambraea," she says, in the process of filling the bowl of her pipe with tobacco and whatever else it is that Cynises casually smoked in the middle of the day. With one easy motion you've already seen from her numerous times, she uses a finger to light it with a tiny spark of flame. "Why do I feel as though this isn't going to just be about your regular studies?"

You're not sure why she'd have that accurate a read on the situation, but here you are. "Age's hard-won wisdom, ma'am?"

She actually laughs at that, the smoke from her pipe mingling with the thin trickle of smoke from her Aspect markings. "A less generous soul would take that the wrong way," she says, leaning forward in the chair. "Now, pour me a cup of that rice wine, and tell me what it is you need."

You follow her instructions, moving over to the nearby table, where an absurdly opulent rice wine flask sits beside a waiting cup. The porcelain of the flask is glazed in what you recognise as red jade, floral patterns creeping up its surface. You reach for it gingerly, but it seems to be only faintly warm on the outside, for all that the liquor it contains is visibly steaming, magically heated from the inside out by the enchanted jade.

You can't help but think that this is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect a Cynis to have onhand. Sure enough, as you fill the matching cup, you catch a glimpse of her family's chainlink mon at the bottom of the flask. The smell is admittedly delicious. "I was hoping for advice on investigating a partially-submerged cavern," you say. "Which may be magically guarded. As an intellectual exercise, of course."

"Of course," Bashura echoes, tone dry. She accepts the cup gratefully, however. "That overgrown pile of rocks put you up to this?"

That could only mean Diamond-Cut Perfection. Who had, in point of fact, put you up to this. Even as you open your mouth to say something, though, she's speaking again:

"About seventy years ago, I went on a bit of a journey to Lathe, looking for a younger cousin of mine. Things went... a little awry, in the way good travel always does." You follow her gaze as it flicks around the room, seeming to alight on several items in particular — a wickedly hooked sword hanging on one wall stands out, as do a collection of demonic looking idols carved from shining volcano glass. "The point is, I found myself on an island north of the Spine Peninsula. The Meiyu there did a brisk enough trade with the Baihu city states, because of the very pretty sort of stone that they could collect from the seafloor around their island. The island's not there anymore — do you know why?"

"It was conquered by its neighbours?" you guess. From you historical education, such was often the fate of small nations with valuables to offer, but not enough other resources or bodies to defend them. And not all of them were lucky enough to be taken into the protective embrace of the Realm, where the violence of the conquest could at least be followed up by relative safety and prosperity.

Bashura takes a drink, her eyes far away. "No," she says. "The island isn't there anymore. It's not deserted or conquered. Those pretty stones turned out to have been scales shed by a very strange variety of elemental, one that had been sleeping quietly beneath the island for generations — some variety of giant, earthen komodo dragon. When it woke up and discovered that they were no longer where it had left them, it was quite unreasonably displeased. I was on the far side of the island, asleep when this happened, and had enough time to grab the boy I'd spent the night with and the nearest ship captain I could find, and get them both off shore ahead of the whole thing crumbling into the sea. The water flooding into the caverns beneath that island sucked everything down — it was over in minutes." Her mouth curves down in distaste. "I hope that lizard couldn't breathe underwater anymore than the people could, but I wouldn't count on it."

She takes in a mouthful of smoke as she returns her gaze to you. The look is momentarily a little uncomfortably intense and searching — Fire Aspects can have that effect. "Earth elementals like to call themselves calm, patient, staid compared to the other elements. That's true, broadly, up to a point. In my experience, they're also grasping, arrogant, entitled. An Earth elemental denied what it thinks it is owed by right can be profoundly dangerous, and profoundly selfish."

A large part of you wants to bristle at this — Earth is your own element, after all, and you can't help but resent this characterisation of the living embodiments of it. On your shoulder, Verdigris rears up to glare at Bashura, tail wrapping lightly around your neck in suppressed agitation. You vaguely wonder if she's taking the comment even more personally than you are, being an Earth elemental herself. "I understand, Instructor Bashura," you manage. You can accept this warning at face value, at least, although you don't think Perfection is liable to outright sink the island anytime soon. They've been quite straightforward with you, so far. Annoying, but straight forward. "Thank you for your advice on this matter."

Bashura laughs again — you wish she'd stop doing that. "As unasked for as it was," she says. "Fine, then. Your cave problems." She sets her cup down on the bony arm of her chair, and leans forward, eyes fixed on Verdigris. "'A Bestiary of Mountain, Sky, Field, Flame, and Sea, she says.

You blink slowly, your hand reaching up to stroke Verdigris's head, as you don't think she likes the attention from Bashura. "I'm sorry, ma'am?"

"Originally by Arjuf Caril," she says. "The last section is the one relevant to your needs. You'll want the updated version by Mnemon Lyria. Iselsi Ozra's earlier translation is not really worth the paper it's printed on."

"A.. book?" you guess. "About elemental varieties?"

"No points for stating the obvious, Ambraea," Bashura says. "You've shown an aptitude already — it's time to branch out. There are several creatures in that text that could address the first part of your problem. I do not need to know the specifics of what you're doing... so long as you provide me a report on your choice, the logic behind it, and how you might improve your summoning technique in the future. This should be within the means of any second year student who has already initiated into the Emerald Circle. Or, I suppose you could just try holding your breath."

This last is not entirely a joke — you're an Earth Aspect, after all, and such things are well within the grasp of many Dragon-Blooded — but you know there's a correct answer to this. "I have not perfected my breathing techniques to that degree, ma'am," you say, heart sinking at the thought of how she had not given a length that the report has to be. It's an ominous sign, when you're expected to suss out that sort of detail yourself.

Still, perhaps this is what you should have expected, coming to an instructor with this sort of problem: Homework. It's not as though making a more serious study of elemental summoning is going to hurt your education. It's probably going to be a genuine pain to find that book, however.

Article:

Ambraea has been pushed toward researching an obscure text full of elementals, for the purposes of summoning something useful for getting you and others into a sea cave. It will hopefully also prove useful in overcoming the dangers further into the cave itself. The elemental needing to operate and be helpful within relatively tight confines rules out several varieties of water elemental that are otherwise popular to summon.

What will Ambraea settle on?

[ ] A crystalline eel
Nearly invisible underwater, crystalline eels are glass eels the length of a woman's arms outstretched. Possessing of a nervous, paranoid disposition, they are nonetheless employed by underwater spirits to carry messages and make deliveries due to their great speed, elusiveness in the water, and uncanny capability to carry many things without any visible limbs to do so. One should be able to haul both you and Sola through the cavern quickly enough, and also hold any interesting items you find for you. Easily spooked in tense situations.

[ ] A watermason
Watermasons are very large, blue-shelled crabs boasting an extra set of claws. They get their names from their tendency to build vast edifices and buildings out of air bubbles. They are sometimes employed by other underwater spirits to construct surreal palaces and temples, but they are better known for their habit of 'rescuing' drowning sailors in order to press gang them into serving as their assistants. It is your hope that you can task one with creating a breathable path through the cavern. They are highly cantankerous while working.

[ ] An undertow
Undertows are invisible and nearly intangible, made from pure, shapeless water. They are famous primarily for possessing the twin talents of hoarding secrets and drowning people. It is your hope that, with careful instruction, the latter talent can be used to not drown people. They are famously shy and easily distractible.