[Exalted] Until The Last Star Falls - A Sidereal Quest

You hop off the gondola, throwing the boatman his ambrosial payment without glancing back at him. With a shouted thanks, the four armed god sets off back down the quicksilver canals that crisscross Yu-Shan, leaving you alone on the docks as you take stock.

You'd packed the essentials. Food, water, and a long knife sitting at the small of your back in a leather sheath. Chejop had been sincerely regretful about the minimal amount of support he could offer on short notice, but he did provide "discretionary funds", and now twelve silver dinars, several dozen yen strung together, two handfuls of silver halves, quarters and eights, and one jade obol sit at the bottom of your satchel amd in your various pockets, along with a few pieces of jewellery for barter. You also shoved the bolt of magenta silk in there - it's worth a small fortune in Creation, even if you're going to be grumbling about that incompetent prayerwright for the next decade. It's an absurd amount of money for an itinerant wanderer, but it still might not be enough for the journey you're undertaking.

You tug at the collar of your dress as you slip through the bustle of Yu-Shan. You never threw away your old Creation-going clothes, and the minor magics of the wardrobe you'd been gifted for delivering a personal missive between a pair of furniture gods meant that the dark-blue linen dress was still in immaculate condition, though you never got around to letting the collar out. The trousers under it fit just as well, and your old yellow shawl, one of the first things you made in Heaven, is wrapped around your shoulders, secured with a small silver clasp in the shape of a feather.

The massive woollen cloak you have on over your clothes is making you sweat. It'll be a necessity in the North, but in Yu-Shan it feels heavy and smothering. You don't have any way to make it more convenient to carry - it's too big to fit into your pack.

Gods barter and bark out orders to each other, litters carrying Heavenly officials weaving through the crowd as you walk through Yu-Shan. You've heard that mortal artists who have seen Yu-Shan have spent decades trying to capture the wonder of a single moment on a street like this, surrounded by towering mansions and tenements.

You just wish the thoroughfare was less busy. You're warm enough as it is. It's a relief when you slip off into a sideroad, heading towards the Everwinter Sparrow Gate. It's likely to have no one using it. Most people in the Convention of the North use the Gates connected to a few ancient manses the Bureau maintains in the Far North instead when they have to go that far - secure locations, and a deviation from practice made possible by the remoteness of the Direction.

Your prediction is off the mark. There's a small crowd clustered around the freestanding arch of ivory, chased with veins of moonsilver. All of the gods examining the gate are wearing the gold and green bordered robes of the Bureau of Heavenly Affairs' Gate Maintenance Department, and you watch as a celestial lion glances over at you and pads over, his orichalcum body shimmering beneath the sunlight.

"Lady Sidereal, I apologise for the trouble but I must inform you that you cannot transit through this Gate. It is currently inoperable." His agate eyes flick across your face. Probably a recently promoted lion-dog, if he thinks that'll help him remember you, but you can't help lingering on what he said. Not "dangerous", not "quarantined". Inoperable.

Your concern must show on your face, because the lion sits on his haunches and starts to give you a clearly practised speech. "For reasons that are still being investigated, the geomancy of the region the Everwinter Sparrow Gate is located in has been disturbed. This has led to marked instability in the operations of the Gate. Due to the possibility of danger, the Bureau of Heavenly Affairs has elected to declare it closed for the duration of the investigation."

You have a very good idea of what's affecting the geomancy of the region. You thank the lion, and explain you only wanted to follow up on a report about a destiny in Solida, turn on your heel and leave. Once you're out of sight, you hiss through your teeth and close your eyes, reorientating yourself.

The Everwinter Sparrow Gate was the most convenient Gate for your purposes, located near the city of Solida in Creation, and not too well frequented. That last was the most important thing - any Sidereal that doesn't recognise you on sight will still know you're a Sidereal. From there, it'd be a matter of hours before the gossip networks of Yu-Shan catch wind, and either someone realises you're in the field again (bad) or people think there's a rogue, unrecognised Sidereal running around Yu-Shan (even worse).

Strike-the-Heart scared the shit out of you when you first met him, and that wasn't even in his capacity as the chair of the Convention on Rogue Assets. You doubt the years have improved him.

Another Sidereal might have to requisition a Heavenly almanack from a nearby office and spend a few hours reviewing it. You don't.

Your Gate needs to be in the North. It needs to see little traffic. It needs to be beyond the White Sea. Does it? Chejop was clear that while the matter was important, it was not time sensitive on the order of days or even weeks.

The Crimson Falcon Gate opened near the Black Shale Road, northeast of Whitewall. Three weeks on foot to the southern edge of the White Sea, less with a guide who knows the terrain. You can't even recall what task you had been dispatched on that entailed using it, and the details of the place are hazy in your memory, but most traffic into the region from Yu-Shan uses one of the other three Gates more conveniently located.

It takes the rest of the day for you to reach the Crimson Falcon Gate. Yu-Shan's size was dizzying when you were younger; now, it's just frustrating. But there's something else too.

This is the first time you've left your district in these last eighteen years. You hadn't needed to, or wanted to. But it feels... liberating. Like you've been released from a prison. The faint ache in your legs, the sensation of unfamiliar cobblestones beneath your feet, even the sweltering heat of your cloak - all of it feels almost new to you.

The Crimson Falcon Gate is carved of brilliant red stone in the shape of a garda bird, wings framing what seems like empty air, but which you can feel is occupied by something. Two celestial lions glance up at you and stand to greet you from their feline rests. You make up an excuse, and flash the false documents Kejak handed you. After a quick glance over, they nod, and part to let you through the Gate. As they do, the wind picks up.

Yellow sparks of stardust describe the outline of endless roads, and the air is thick with the smell of salt, the omen on an ocean voyage.

Mercury has taken the lead in the Games of Divinity, and Yu Shan celebrates. You walk through the Gate, and pray that your Maiden's victory is a good omen.


Your first breath of Creation's air in two decades is in a glade straight from some picturesque painting, on an island in the middle of a river. You speak to the celestial lion guarding this side for a few moments - long enough to get the lay of the land. You're 200 miles northwest of Whitewall, you can leave the island by way of a wicker boat kept for use by Sidereals (returned back by a local god for a pittance of prayer), and the best and closest port for travelling past the White Sea would be Stabor. It requires a trek through the Groaning Mountains, but there are a number of valleys and mountain paths you could take.

Judging by the way the celestial lion seems to preen as he recommends one particular family that makes a living as guides and guards through the region, he's left his post behind to frolic amongst the mortals a few times. Not that you're complaining - you wouldn't want to be forced to stay on an island for several centuries either. And frankly, you appreciate the directions.

In token of your gratitude, you only barter with his many-times great grandchildren in the trading town of Trop for half an hour before you agree to hand over one of your silver dinars for a guide - supplies included. Stabor, the wiry old guide tells you the next day is two weeks and a few day's travel away, if the weather is good. Less, if you're an experienced traveller.

It is also an old and distinguished town, founded almost at the same time as the Realm, in a natural cove carved into the cliffs facing the White Sea. Your guide dances around it, but you're almost certain its present prosperity as trading town has its roots in raiding and reaving in those difficult days immediately after the Contagion, cutting down towns that might have prospered in Stabor's place in their infancy.

"Travel much?" Your guide asks as the two of you head to the guest hut of the small shepherding village you arrived at. "When you showed up asking for a guide, and paid in good silver, I thought you might be some young lady from a well to do family, maybe fleeing a marriage." He laughs, shaking his head at his own sense of romanticism, and your lips twitch. You'd decided to use the Pillar to weave a destiny for yourself - a traveller who pays well and can be trusted, but the guide must have taken your accent, shaped by centuries of Old Realm in Yu-Shan, as the sign of a courtly upbringing.

It flatters the part of you that's still a tailor's daughter, and you answer him truthfully. "All over Creation. That's why I know it's important to have a good guide." He laughs at your blatant flattery, rubbing at his greying whiskers, but he looks at you with a nod of approval, and you while a few hours away with stories of distant lands, and listening to his own tales - more local, but told well and with clear relish. This man enjoyed the road for its own sake, able to recall even the small villages he had seen and travelled through with razor sharp clarity.

His joy becomes dimmer as you approach Stabor. News travels slowly past the mountains, but it lingers in these small mountain hamlets, passed along by roving shepherds with their hardy mountain-going sheep, and - increasingly prominent as you come closer to Stabor - travellers in armour, with grim faces and long knives, at least a few of whom your guide recognises as being from Stabor.

Old pirate families, the reavers who once won Stabor its place, had returned from exile. Now the town was occupied, the tunnels that opened into the White Sea now chained shut, passage barred for all but those belonging to the families.

"I can take you elsewhere. Free of charge, for all the stories you told me." Your guide says the night before you reach Stabor, nestled in the house of the village chief. "I don't know what you're looking for, but there are other ports on the sea." He's wholly sincere, hands clasped around his clay mug of wine. He'd probably pay for all the supplies you need out of his own pocket too.

You smile at him. "Thank you, but I have a cousin in Stabor. We haven't spoken in years, but I know he'll help. I have some news about the family he'll want to hear." You feel no guilt about the lie. He looks at you, remembering the silver you paid in, your neatly stitched dress, and the thick, heavy cloak you wear, and he nods along. You've no idea what story he's told himself of who you are, but he's assured himself that he won't be leaving you to the wolves when he comes back from Stabor.

Only Stabor's outskirts are visible from the high mountain paths you descend - the outlying farms you'd expect of any prosperous merchant port, with houses of wooden frames and cloth clustered around sloping paths that sink deep into the cliffside. Beyond that is the White Sea. In the distance, you can see glaciers gliding across the water like vast and monstrous predators.

Your guide's final act is to gallantly escort you through outskirts as swaggering mercenaries with harsh accents make their rounds, taking you to an inn above ground that serves travellers that come by land. He speaks with the innkeeps for a few moments - a pair of plump, jovial men, so archetypical of the type you could believe they were actors playing the part - before leaving for the home his family keeps on the outskirts. His last words to you are a prayer.

"May Mercury, mother of roads and guard of travellers, watch over you."

It steals a smile from you, and the words ring in your head as you steal a few hours sleep in the room you paid for.

You're gone before the morning, scaling the cliffs that face out to the White Sea to enter Stabor proper through one of the tunnels that leer out across the water. There are no guards here. After all, it'd be an insane idea for anyone to scale these slick and craggy cliffs even if it was the middle of the day. In the hours after midnight, when you have to climb through the dim light of the moon, jumping from crag to outcropping, finding finger and footholds by feel alone?

Well, you'll have some bruises on your elbows and knees tomorrow. You're out of practice, your essence slow and sluggish, your body stiff. You'll have to get back into the swing of things soon, you think to yourself as you slip into Stabor to take the lay of the land.

The old families - the Bloody Sea Alliance, they call themselves now - have set themselves up in their old townhouses within the labyrinthine caverns that form the town of Stabor proper. Pirates of their clans are bolstered by mercenaries hired from all across the southern shores of the White Sea, malcontents (or, from another perspective, loyal partisans) from Stabor supporting them. Why would anyone support such miscreants?

The answer did not surprise you.

Any person in Stabor that owned a ship or a farm had the privilege of voting on motions put before the Sea Court, Stabor's forum. One vote for a propertied person, and only one, regardless of if he owned a vast trading fleet, or a simple fishing skiff. The families that had argued - and fought - against this law had been exiled, more for resisting the winds of change than their refusal to give up the raiding that had made them prominent. Now, the scions of old families that had let it pass, and new families who have acquired massive farms and numerous ships in the time since, want a return to the old days, when they controlled the course of Stabor's future alone.

The powerful are humbled, and the weak make themselves strong, and look askance at the safeguards that let them grow so rich. You've been involved in making such things happen, and in making sure they don't.

Kine Redha, the man who leads the Alliance, has almost a full talon of former Realm legionnaires guarding the Sea Court now. Tepet deserters, the old salts grumble, cowards who ran from Futile Blood with their tails between their legs to slave for tyrants here. Eckha and Erida are either his lieutenants or his peers, you're not sure. But they are the children of the seal-goddess White-Starred Fang, driven out with the families who worshipped her. They spend much of their time breaking the shrines and scattering the offerings made to the Court of Delving Stone, earth elementals who first carved Stabor's tunnels, and later came to the people's aid in forcing out the families that would form the Alliance.

You swill your beer around in your mug as you review the facts one more time. It's taken you much of the night to collect everything you can, plumbing the depths of the most out of the way bars, where even the Alliance's mercenary guards are wary of going, lest they be dragged down by patriotic townsmen and left to bleed out in one of the winding tunnels.

It could be months before the Alliance is confident enough in their control to let ships cross the White Sea. Likely sooner, if only because the local merchants helping pay their soldiers wanted things to return to normal, which they almost certainly did.

Breaking the Alliance's hold won't necessarily make it faster for ships to head out. It'll be chaos. But - in this moment, you can be honest. You know what it feels like to bow to soldiers, to keep your eyes downcast when arrogant men strut around like kings because someone paid them to swing a sword in a city that doesn't belong to them. If fate demands it, you can grit your teeth. You're not a child anymore.

Fate doesn't demand it today, though.

"Penny for your thoughts?" The innkeeper glances at you as he wipes off his counter, his apron immaculate despite a lifetime of dealing with food and drink. He looks curious, and a little concerned. "Seemed like you were trying to see the future in your beer, there."

You laugh, and savour the bitter sting as you take a sip. They don't make beer like this in Heaven. Their standards are too high. "Something like that."

You are going to take apart the Bloody Seas Alliance in the course of a month. But how will you do it?


This vote will define the remaining core of our protagonist's skillset. The top two Constellations will win.

[ ] You're going to butcher every mercenary that crosses your path, and show the people what a real threat looks like.


[ ] You're going to take the fight to the head. Kill the officers, kill the legionnaires. As keen and precise as a needle.


[ ] You're going to have an audience with the goddess, and make clear how poor an idea it is to interfere with Heaven's business.


[ ] You're going to make some new friends. And then see how they feel about killing each other for you.


[ ] You're going to bribe, beseech and bargain the Court of Delving Stone,and get them to act for Stabor's freedom once more.


[ ] You're going to dust off your old skills with prophecy, and spread omens and curses throughout the city, promising doom to the Alliance and hope to the people.