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

You navigate the cramped tower room, curving rows of books rising from floor to ceiling, lining the walls and forming narrow aisles to work your way through. Enchanted lamps provide a soft glow unlikely to strain eyes or damage pages. The air is filled with the earthy scent of aged paper and parchment. In short, you can't help but feel this is the sort of place that Amiti spends much of her spare time.

Finding the column you're looking for, you push the ladder anchored to the shelves along their length and make the climb to the volume you've come here for. Mnemon Lyria's translation of A Bestiary of Mountain, Sky, Field, Flame, and Sea is a weighty book, this particular copy bound in worn leather. You stick it under one arm and climb down the ladder — a low, almost imperceptible hiss from Verdigris is the first warning you get of there being anything wrong.

When you still have one foot left on the ladder, a hand lashes out, quick as lightning, and snatches up the book, its owner darting back before you can reach for her. You fix the girl in question a hard look. "Simendor Deiza. Wasting your time with childish pranks now, I see."

She actually has the audacity to laugh, ticking a strand of iridescent hair behind one ear, as if to get a better look at the book she's taken from you. "Studying elementals!" she says. "A little more steady and reliable than demons, but without quite so much bite. That seems like it suits you."

You narrow your eyes, taking a step closer to her. "You don't know me, Simendor."

"And you seem quite happy keeping it that way, don't you?" Deiza says, immovable in the face of your approach.

Why in the name of the Dragons shouldn't you be? "You make enemies for little purpose. Give me the book."

"Well," says Deiza, "if you'll hold on a moment—" She flinches back as Verdigris lunges forward from your shoulder, striking in the blink of an eye. Deiza herself is unharmed, however — the snake has seized the book from the other girl's hand, and holds it out to you.

You accept the book, both dry and undamaged by the bronze serpent's mouth. "Elementals have enough bite for my purposes, it would seem," you say, firmly tucking the book under your arm and brushing past her.

Unseen by you, as you leave the room, Deiza leans back against a bookshelf, letting out a short, huffy sigh. "And here I was just wanting to talk," she says.

---

"I'm glad we left when we did — I certainly don't want to still be out here after dark," you say, looking up at the smothering fog overhead.

"No arguments here," says Sola.

You're standing on the shoreline, looking down at a small, sheltered cove. It's too filled with rocks, and the rocky shore too steep, for it to be any use as a place to moor a boat, but it does have a sea cave. "It's going to be a bit of a climb up and down," you note, looking into the dark, choppy waters below. Just barely visible above the water line, the dark expanse of the cave yawns on the far side.

Maia considers this, looking down at the near 90-degree cliff face, rough granite plunging down several metres above the water. "It shouldn't be a problem," she decides. Despite her words, she's bouncing up and down slightly on the balls of her feet in an expression of nervous energy. She hasn't made any effort to remove her clothes or even her shoes ahead of what she's planning on doing.

"Don't actually go inside on your own," Sola cautions. "We're not actually going to be able to back you up without some preparation."

"I'll be fine!" Maia says. Then, before anyone can talk her out of it, she leaps off the edge of the small cliff, twisting in midair to make a flawless three-point landing on top of the water below. She straightens up, standing on the sea as easily as she had on land — even the rough surf seems to calm beneath her, so as not to disturb her passage, or spray up into her face unduly. "See?" she calls, already walking toward the cave.

As you and Sola watch, Maia bends down to peer into the space between the cave mouth and the water, frowning. "I can't see anything like this," she says. "Give me a moment."

"What are you going to do?" you call.

"I'm going to take a better look!" With that, she straightens, and then sinks smoothly down into the water. She's gone from sight almost immediately.

"I hope this crab of yours helps," Sola says. "I don't fancy going into that without some kind of protection. And if we wait too long, we'll be looking at ways to deal with the freezing water as well as trying to breathe in it."

"Does the cold actually bother you?" you ask Sola, eyes still fixed on the water. She's an Air Aspect, after all.

"It does when I'm in the water," she says.

"It will work." You sound confident, and you force yourself to feel confident as well. Verdigris tightens a little around your neck, but not enough to choke — like she's trying to pass as a scaly collar.

"I've been researching hungry ghosts and other tomb guardians," Sola says. In contrast to you, she's looking up into the slate grey sky, which is very nearly the same colour as the clammy mist lingering around the cove. Like she thinks Maia going into the water is a pot, and it will boil faster if she's not looking right at it.

"Good," you say.

To your relief, Maia chooses this moment to reemerge, popping back up out of the water like a cork to grab directly onto the cliff face. "I think it makes a turn a ways in!" she says, already scrambling back up the rough stone with practiced agility. "We should try to bring a light, I think! I have a bad feeling about that place."

"Seems a little obvious, but it's good to think about," you say.

Despite your earlier worries, Maia free climbs her way back up to the top of the cliff without evident difficulty, as dry now as before she went into the water. As she sits down on a nearby rock to catch her breath, you find yourself wondering who taught her to scale a sheer surface like that. "Do you still have time?" she asks you. "It took longer to get out here than we expected."

"We should," you say. Kneeling down on the granite underfoot, you find a relatively flat looking spot, and proceed to run your hand over it slowly. Wherever your hand touches, the rough stone smooths out, as if you're working clay. Taking her cue, Sola fishes around in her bag for a piece of chalk, then kneels down beside you, and begins to painstakingly draw the circle you're going to need. The outer perimeter comes first. "Which way is North?" Sola asks, as she begins to work on the interior.

"Behind Maia," you say. You can feel the faint tug of the Pole of Earth if you concentrate, now that your mind has been properly opened to such things. It's not as convenient or as accurate as a proper five-needled compass, but it works at this distance, knowing enough about the local geography. Sola nods before carrying on.

When the two of you stand and take a step back the better part of an hour later, you have a basic elemental summoning circle, straight out of an instructional text. You reach into your own bag, drawing out the stone you've been saving for this — a small, cut amethyst. Running your fingers over the facets one last time, you lean over the circle again, and place the gem into its dead centre. At your urging, the amethyst sinks into the stone with some resistance, until it's finally fully entombed, not a trace of purple crystal left. You take a moment to whisper a word or two to Diamond-Cut Perfection. Although the dragon is probably aware of all this, they don't directly say anything. You nonetheless feel a rush of sorcerous Essence well up from the act, enfusing you and your summoning circle. It's time to get to work.

"I'll bring you some food later," Maia says whispering to avoid breaking your concentration. Having stayed this long to watch the initial work, now she's clearly making to head back in the direction of the school. L'nessa has already promised you all that she'll share her notes for the lecture on magical fertility you're all missing, which Sola seems to feel particularly guilty about skipping out on. Maia hesitates, shoots Sola a questioning look, clearly asking if she's coming, too. Sola shakes her head, unsheathes her sword, and kneels on the stone with the naked blade across her lap, eyes closed in meditation.

You'd told them that Verdigris would be enough protection at this hour even with your attention focused on the ritual, but evidently Sola disagrees.

Slowly, starting on the northern side, you begin to walk clockwise around the circle, speaking an incantation as you go that describes the creature you're calling up, a thing of tidal pools and seabeds, a builder of temporary wonders whose work is never truly complete, each footfall timed with a word, each breath carefully measured, making yourself a conduit for the power coursing up out of the ground.

When you've finally completed five hundred full circuits, you continue onward until you reach the circle's easternmost face, allowing you to look out toward the West, and the far-distant Pole of Water. The power you've gathered and concentrated here begins to pull in the elemental power around it, drawing on Dragon Lines of water from deep beneath the sea, drawing in the fog from all directions, and the spray from the waves below. Streamers of water droplets coalesce within the circle, shapeless at first. The water gives way before your focused will, however, condensing first into a vague shape. Then into a bright blue carapace, eight spindly legs and four more ending in claws, blank, staring eyes on stalks. For just a moment, the spell wavers, and you half worry that it's going to fail. But you grit your teeth and force the last of the spirit's Essence to stabilise.

For a few long seconds, you're left staring at a crab so big that it stands as high as your waist, and it's left staring up at you. Then you speak again: "Watermason: Do you understand me?"

Its mouthparts move speculatively, before it whispers, in a distinctly feminine voice, for some reason speaking Low Realm: "... Aye, mistress." There's precious little glimmer of intelligence in its crustacean eyes, but you hadn't expected there to be — a relatively minor elemental, newly created, barely more than a function and a nature bundled up with some elemental power. More humanlike intelligence could come later, you know, if it manages to develop an identity of its own. That, however, is a concern for later.

The watermason spots Sola, who has opened her eyes to look at it. Seeing her sword, the crab raises its claws at her in a threatening posture. "No," you say, voice sharp. The claws immediately go down. "You are not to attack anyone without prior permission from me. Is that understood?"

The crab actually dips what you might absurdly interpret as a curtsy. "Aye, mistress," it says again. Although it still looks at Sola with some degree of suspicion.

You point down at the water. "You see this cove? Good. I want you to go into this cove — not into the cave. You are to hide underwater in this cove and not come out unless I give you other orders. Am I understood?"

There is a fractional delay, before the crab intones "Aye, mistress" again, and begins to skuttle down toward the cove. You and Sola watch it sink beneath the water with a sort of weary satisfaction.

"Wow, it's bigger than I thought it would be." Both you and Sola jump at Maia's voice, turning to glare at her. Maia cringes. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't want to startle the elemental, so I... was quiet."

"Quiet, she calls it," Sola complains. "You were dead silent. Is that food?"

"Oh, yes, it is!" Maia holds out the basket she's been carrying toward the two of you. "Since we're all done for today... I suppose you'll be eating it on the way back, though."

You look at the two servings of rice and meat she's brought you, and instantly, you realise how ravenous and exhausted you are. In that instant, Maia resembles a small, mousey sort of goddess. "You're forgiven," you tell her, snatching up your bowl with all the poise you can muster. A proper, general purpose summoning is much harder than calling up a host of bronze serpents, it turns out — the benefit of having a specific spell for the latter.

Maia flashes you a smile, and then moves to efficiently clear away the chalk summoning circle before you leave.

"It's probably too late in the day to practice with the crab just yet," Sola says, after carefully swallowing a mouthful of rice. "But, we should figure that out at least once, before we go in for real."

"Agreed," you say. The plain food is deliciously bland, just then. "Let's just get in before the sun starts to go down."

Article:

When it is finally time to attempt the delve Ambraea, Sola, and Maia are going to undertake, there will be challenges that Ambraea cannot anticipate. What sort of trial does Ambraea, personally, face?

[ ] A test of her knowledge

[ ] A test of her might

[ ] A test of her bonds to others