The Last Daughter; Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

The Isle of Voices

Calibration, Realm Year 763,
Two days before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress,
One hour before the Jade Prison is broken,
The point of no return.

"Do these over again." You kick at the sloppy characters drawn on the paving stones, a thread of Earth throwing the chalk up into a diffuse cloud.

"I just finished that!" the girl says, half rising.

You loom over her, eyes narrowed. "What was that, Sacrifice?"

The girl freezes in place like a rabbit, the shifting cloud of her hair turning grey and stormy. "Nothing, Lady Ambraea!" she says. "So sorry, Lady Ambraea!"

She scrambles to do the work over, as you'd instructed.

It really is for their own good — the sacrifice was getting sloppy, and you feel that you owe it to Sola to look after her younger cousins while she isn't present to do it herself.This latest batch of first years are practically infants, of course — it just keeps getting worse the older you get.

You stand outside under a moonless sky, your breath fogging in the winter's chill. It's almost eerily calm, the fog having retreated ominously to reveal the sky overheard, the stars wandering strangely. The air feels strange and thin, the magic that the Isle of Voices is steeped in particularly close to the surface. When you listen too closely to the wind, you can almost start to hear it whisper back.

Very nearly the entire school is out tonight, even more exhaustingly busy than you are on most Calibrations. Hundreds of years ago, long before the Heptagram was built, a great working had been laid down on the little archipelago, rendering it impossible to navigate to or from through ordinary means, warding it in storms and walls of smothering fog. For the protection of the school that had been here at the time, of course. More importantly, though, so that if anything goes terribly wrong — if, as has happened many times before, a school full of young Exalted sorcerers manages to destroy itself — it's contained here, sparing the mainland of the Blessed Isle and the people of the larger Realm.

Such a great working can maintain itself for a very long time, but if left to its own devices, it might go sour over the years, breaking down or worse. Accordingly, every seven years on Calibration, rituals are conducted to maintain the effects and keep them from going awry. You're only glad that this task falls so late in your time at the Heptagram; the first years are being set to relatively unskilled work in preparing the mundane space of the ritual site, but they're still being worked harder than they likely ever have been in their sheltered, Dynastic childhoods. You have the advantage of some worldly perspective on such things, by now -- you have, of course, worked hard for the progress you've made.

The site is a carefully maintained, eight-sided clearing in the forests near the school, a representation of the islands themselves set into the paving stones. This isn't the centre of the original working, but that site is dangerous enough that using it directly is poorly advised.

The entire school, instructors and students combined, make up less than sixty individuals. Especially since your trip to the Imperial Court over the summer, there are times where exactly how small a world the Heptagram is becomes very obvious to you, in a way that's almost claustrophobic. There's a part of you that is increasingly eager to be gone, to start the life that's waiting for you beyond this island. Patience is, of course, a virtue of your Aspect, but you've been patient for more than five years now..

Your task, for the moment, is supervising the younger students in their work. You and the other older students will have to exert yourselves more in the active portions of the ritual, but for now, you're being kept comparatively fresh and rested. You frown censoriously at the next boy in your section of the outer ritual circle. "You haven't started." You say, noticing the complete lack of stone on the stone in front of him.

He glares up at you — an Earth Aspect from House Mnemon, who has been struggling every time you've noticed him. The kind of student who is the reason why no one bothers to remember the first years' names. "It's not there!" he says, gesturing up at the sky overhead.

"What isn't?" you ask, not particularly liking his tone.

"The Mask!" he says. "The book says to adjust based on the position of the Mask, but I've been looking for half an hour, and it isn't there at all!"

You glance up at the sky, glancing over the stars. Strange Celestial phenomena are common during Calibration, but an entire constellation disappearing completely would be highly unusual. "If you can't find it, you'll have to make do," you tell him. "This isn't your primary school, Sacrifice. You have to keep up or the instructors will just watch you fail." You leave him scrambling to find alternate instructions in his book, and continue on your way.

You spot Sola leaning against a tree, an already crumpled letter in her hands. Near her, perched on a small tree stump, Amiti is reading what looks suspiciously like a novel, in full sight of everyone else at work.

"You know, you could at least pretend to be busy," you tell Amiti.

Amiti has the gall to smile up at you. "Well," she says, "we wouldn't want that — someone might worry about me contaminating the purity of the ritual with Underworld Essence. Since that's all I can channel. The domine was very clear about this being a concern!"

"I'm sure he was," you say, tone dry. You glance to Sola, a question in your expression. She isn't a necromancer, and yet here she is, not visibly helping either.

Sola heaves in a deep breath, then lets it out. She folds the paper hastily, then returns it to the pouch on her school belt. "Later," she says, pushing off from the tree.

"As you wish, then," you say, frowning a little. She looks even more subdued than when she'd been left behind while her family legions went North. Subdued and... You don't think you'd have noticed it if you didn't know her very well already, but something about the set of her shoulders, the way her off hand rests on Storm's Eye's pommel, speaks of anger to you. Still, you don't have much time to waste considering her, as much as it gnaws at you.

Year 6: Calibration

You move back to the group of sacrifices you're supervising, when you find yourself intercepted by none other than instructor Nellens Ovo, his expression as frustrated as ever. "Ambraea," he says, "good."

"Sir?" you ask.

"You can actually carry heavy objects, and you're not so inept that you'll break them," he says, an uncharacteristically charitable description of anyone, from him. Not for the first time, you consider if Ovo would even have a place in the larger Dynasty beyond this small, strange school. The failings of his house aside, he's unforgivingly abrasive, even for a sorcerer. Anywhere else it would land him in serious trouble, sooner or later. You're barely even offended by this point, your resentment dulled by long exposure.

"Thank you sir," you say, "I do try."

Ovo gives you an unimpressed sort of glower, but continues: "The ritual ceramic rod we are using has a crack in it — there is an adequate substitute in the storage room on the fifth floor of the fourth tower. I trust that you can retrieve it?"

"That should be within my capabilities," you say. Then you can't help but add: "Or within the capabilities of many of the sacrifices."

Ovo's eyes narrow in obvious annoyance. "I am not putting a younger student into that room," he says. "These are dangerous artifacts, to say nothing of that caged demon. It's harmless enough, but a terrible influence on anyone who starts talking to it too long. I take it that you know how to access the place?"

"I do, sir," you say, pointedly not sighing. You feel Verdigris coil reassuringly around your arm.

"Don't sulk, it's unbecoming in a grown woman," he says. "Don't worry, you won't be going alone. Moving it is a two person job, to be safe."

You don't entirely like the way he says that. When you see who he's referring to, you understand why.

Article:

You are going up to the same storage room that you first stumbled onto during your first year, in the company of someone you've had serious difficulties with in the past.

This will go very wrong in a way that no one could have reasonably predicted. Whichever enemy you choose, current or former, will be genuinely useful to the situation you'll find yourself in in some ways, but a liability in others. This choice will have significance for the entire coming year 6 arc, rather than simply this immediate situation. Who is Ambraea sent up to the supply room with?

[ ] Hylo

- Hylo's theoretical knowledge and expertise will become immediately useful
- The artifact lenses that Hylo wears will provide an unexpected advantage
- His desire to show up Ambraea will cause problems for them both

Spoiler: Cathak Garel Hylo

Fire Aspect Dragon-Blood

Hylo's obvious intelligence is undercut by his inability not to make sure everyone around him knows it. He remains one of the best prospects in his year, with a near encyclopedic knowledge of spirits and their attributes as well as conventional battlefield tactics. He is nowhere near Ambraea's equal in martial combat, but this is perhaps best for everyone — Hylo very obviously still nurses a quiet grudge over the events of the previous year.

Sorcery:
Initiation level: Emerald Circle
Initiation: Student of the Heptagram
Shaping rituals: Sevenfold Art Evocation (precisely memorised mudras and equations to open the mind)
Spells: Virtuous Guardian of Flame (control spell), Flight of the Burning Raptor, Demon of the First Circle

[ ] Idelle

- Idelle's special combat skills will be immediately useful
- The bespoke sensory abilities afforded to Idelle by her strange set of artifact earrings will provide crucial advanced warning
- Idelle's mistrust for Ambraea will come back to bite her

Spoiler: Ledaal Anay Idelle

Fire Aspect Dragon-Blood

The youngest daughter of the famed shikari Ledaal Anay, the Heptagram was Idelle's second choice after the Cloister of Wisdom. She has taken advantage of the opportunities the sorcery school provides to shape herself into a capable, if barely tested, martial exorcist, wielding martial arts that can burn through ghosts, demons, and other creatures of darkness. Her sorcerous talents are more middling, but she is capable at tracking and circumventing obstacles. She is a fearless, stalwart, and honest ally, but she has good reason to mistrust Ambraea in particular.

Sorcery:
Initiation level: Emerald Circle
Initiation: Soul-Perfecting Elixir
Shaping rituals: Ascetic Perfection (abstaining from earthly indulgences to cultivate sorcerous power within her body)
Spells: The Ravenous Fire (control spell), Dragon of Smoke and Flame, Unbreakable Bones of Stone

[ ] Deizil

- Deizil's sorcerous talents and knowledge of strange and unusual spirits will be immediately useful
- There is a special quality about Deizil that will provide a surprising advantage
- He never can stop himself from running his mouth when he shouldn't

Spoiler: Simendor Deizil

Earth Aspect Dragon-Blood

In your sixth year, it is now increasingly difficult for even his most ardent detractors to deny that Simendor Deizil is a true sorcerous prodigy. He has used his head start on the rest of your year to delve deeply into everything the Heptagram has to offer, and has already accomplished more than many do in their full seven years. A young sorcerer-prince of Chalan's infamous ruling cadet house, Deizil's somewhat foreign manners and sensibilities have left him ill prepared for a social environment where almost all of his peers think of him as a social inferior. Wielding the secret sorcerous practices of his family, he is not quite Ambraea's equal in combat, but he has proved himself to be a capable if unpredictable ally in the past, when it suits him.

Sorcery:
Initiation level: Emerald Circle
Initiation: Simendor Sorcery
Shaping rituals: Unbroken Spirit (drawing sorcerous power from opposition and social friction in emulation of rogue gods of the Burning Sands)
Spells: Flying Guillotine (control spell), Demon of the First Circle, Invulnerable Skin of Bronze,Thunder Wolf Howl, Corrupted Words