In 3e it is not automatically assumed that he knows about the matter, for one thing, which would make informing anyone of it somewhat difficult.
For reference, here's the explanation given in the glossary of the 3e corebook:
Great Curse, the: As they died, the enemies of the gods pronounced a curse against the Chosen. The Great Curse is unknown to all beings—save perhaps Jupiter of the Five Maidens—and though it has dogged the Exalted throughout history, it fell most heavily on the shoulders of the Solar Exalted.
In any event, referring to the Exalted and Exaltations as 'autonomous Divine hunter-killer weapons' is a somewhat outdated view as well, in the context of this quest. As has been reiterated to you multiple times at this point, your assumptions and those of the author and the text do not appear to be in perfect alignment.
I would perhaps gently venture the remark that it would strengthen your case to read up on some of the setting material and give the matter some further thought, and doing so might indeed increase your appreciation of Gaz's admirable work here and in other texts.
One of the nice things about the settings is that it encourages Big Things happening. It can be tempting to say 'well, the Status Quo isn't so easily overthrown right'? But in Exalted, the Status Quo IS on its way out. The times they are achangin', one way or the other. It's just you might have a say in how they do it.
Also In the old material Lyteck was suppost to be more than a little off his rocker from constantly being exposed to the essence of the most powerful beings in existence.
My bad. I quoted that from the wiki because it's been a long, mostly sleepless night/morning for me and fixing mangled copies of Mobile PDF core rulebook is a bit time consuming.
I remember when I was getting into Third Edition and wanted to get a feel for the combat system, I made up a combat-specced Lunar (my favorite type of Exalted by far) using the normal character creation rules, then leafed over to the Antagonists page in the core rulebook and selected an Immaculate Monk which the description says could be a threat to a Celestial Exalt, before rolling out a duel between them.
My theoretical Lunar got stunlocked into oblivion and absolutely fucking demolished three times in a row. Like it wasn't even close.
Now sure, I wasn't the most well-versed in the system and probably still am not, so it's probably not representative of samples, but this was still a Celestial Exalt that picked almost no character creation options that didn't help with combat and still got their shit rocked by an experienced Dragon-Blooded in single combat.
And that's the experience I usually think back to whenever the topic of the power difference between Celestial and Terrestrial Exalted comes up. Celestials are stronger, sure, but one that underestimates Terrestrials is in for a rude shock.
Anyway, to up the mood a bit, this story and the 'make an exalt' thread finally had me buy Exalted 3E, I had 2e in my paper library for a while now, but I figure 'no, I'm never using this, because fuck those mechanics' but this looks a lot better
Same. The Last daughter was my introduction to exalted and I finally payed for some of the books last december when the last daughter ended thinking it would make good hold me over until the sequel dropped.
A really frequent response I've gotten to that group is actually something to the effect of "I feel like I've been in a game with these characters before", which was roughly the feeling I was going for. Are they modelled like a DnD party, or are they broadly inspired by a certain kind of Exalted player character whose actions take on this small, petty quality when viewed from the outside? Which seems more likely to you?
And also, I mean, I know I'm in the minority on this, but I think their actions only have a "small, petty quality" when viewed through a fairly specific lens (that Grace applied liberally)! Consider that adventure from their point of view: a group of rebels from the West, facing the ongoing and escalating exploitation of their homeland(s) by the Realm, band together, devise an incredible new weapon equivalent to building a suitcase nuke in a cave with a box of scraps, cross Creation's largest ocean and infiltrate the extremely hostile heartland of their enemy, and come within a hair's breadth of destroying the main force of their chief foe in port with a single strike, thwarted only by craven betrayal by agents of Heaven itself who prey upon their desire to assist the weak and willingness to trust.
Obviously we don't think of them in those terms, we don't want them to succeed at killing everyone in Bittern, we get Grace's perspective on how little good and how much harm their actions will actually do. But they're not, like, a feckless beer-and-pretzels party out to raid a dungeon for loot. They're absolutely doing Exalted things in an Exalted way on an Exalted scale. They just look like assholes because a) we're opposed to them, b) they are assholes in several ways, as you might expect from people with a lot of personal power who find most of the world against them, and c) our narration from them is filtered through a woman who is in the process of deceiving them to lead them to a premeditated ambush to kill them all, who has to keep reminding herself why it's necessary to kill them quickly and thoroughly, and seizing upon every failing and unlikable trait she can find to keep her resolve strong.
You will owe more for the favours you're calling in than you anticipated, in a way you will dislike: 27
Your diversion of Bureau resources will cause some of your colleagues problems: 12
You will create a serious misunderstanding with Ambraea's Hearthmates, in a way that will cause problems later: 9
As soon as you're sure that the Anathema has fled, you find yourself acting without conscious decision. You turn to rush to Ambraea's side, but find your way blocked by the enormous sorcerously-summoned hound. It stalks forward and growls low in its throat, taller at the shoulder than the top of your head. You're beyond sick of being menaced by magical dogs today, but you don't try to go any closer.
L'nessa has already leapt off its back to kneel by Ambraea's side, heedless of the blood utterly ruining her beautiful dress. "Ambraea? Ambraea, can you hear me?" She gently rolls Ambraea over onto her back. Now that things have calmed down, you can tell that Ambraea's injuries are particularly ghastly — deep rents and claw marks all over her body, the wounds already having taken on an unhealthy, infected cast. The knife is still in her shoulder.
Ambraea's eyes are unfocused, exhaustion having landed on her like a smothering weight. "L'nessa," she manages to croak.
L'nessa lets out a fractional sigh of relief, but even now she's trying to see to Ambraea's injuries. "Don't try to speak — I absolutely forbid you to die on my wedding night, you melodramatic bitch."
Against her advice, Ambraea tries to make some response to that. Instead, she only coughs a spray of blood all over L'nessa's skirts, the violent action seeming to expend her last energy reserves. More blood trickles from her eyes like tears. At the sight of it, a sense of cold unreality begins to fill you.
L'nessa barely lets herself flinch. She efficiently tears off a priceless strip from one of the unbloodied layers of her wedding gown, and begins to bandage the worst of Ambraea's wounds. An autumnal scent fills the air as Wood Essence, unseen, is poured into the task. L'nessa doesn't look up, but her words are unmistakably for you: "Who are you?"
This belatedly jars you back to life. "I'm here to help," you say, holding up your empty hands placatingly, filling your voice with a calm you don't entirely feel. You avoid looking at Ambraea directly, trying to stave off the mounting panic. You've seen Exalts hurt this badly before, but somehow seeing Ambraea like this is uniquely disturbing. She'd always seemed invincible to you when you were younger. You know better now, theoretically, and yet... "I'm the one who sent you the note," you add.
L'nessa's gaze flicks up to you in surprise for a moment, but her expression quickly turns to unproductive anger. "You knew this was going to happen, and you still just stood by and let it?"
That's both monstrously unfair and also not very different from the internal recriminations that are already beginning to play along the back of your mind. "I didn't know exactly what was going to happen. Just... the gist." The memory of this moment that you'd glimpsed across the Gyre of Aeons had been a rush of confused images and emotions, just barely enough to take decisive action based on. L'nessa had received the first message, telling her that Ambraea was going to be hurt and that she needed medical attention. That you could send L'nessa a message using Superior-Entreating Memorial Style at all was only due to your position as a member of her personal staff, as much as she clearly doesn't recognise you without your resplendent destiny.
"The gist?" L'nessa demands.
To both your surprise, Amiti interjects. You'd almost forgotten she was there at all, after she'd slipped down off the hound behind L'nessa. "Dragons, L'nessa! She's a Sidereal, they work for Heaven, she was probably just here for the Anathema!" She reveals one of the great secrets of the Second Age with truly remarkable disinterest, utterly flummoxing you. Before you can properly react, Amiti casts a hot, tearful look between you and L'nessa that stops you short, the closest to anger you've ever seen from her. There's a tremulous, fragile note in her voice that makes her real feelings clear: "Please stop arguing and help Ambraea!"
L'nessa is nearly as taken aback as you, but fortunately she takes the instructions to heart, and focuses on tending to Ambraea. As much as Amiti's explanation of your presence is obviously not sufficient, her heartfelt plea clearly reminds L'nessa of what her real priorities are. Outside, the sky changes again. Gigantic insectoid limbs break through the clouds, churning against the storm wind howling outside with obvious effort. Evidently, Sola is free to reverse the calamitous weather.
"What did she do to Ambraea?" Amiti asks you.
It takes you a second to realise that she must mean the Anathema. Looking from Amiti back down to Ambraea, you're struck by yet another memory that isn't properly your own: Stumbling through Southern scrubland outside the Lap, your mind fogged, your vision blurring, making your way toward a gate to Heaven that you'll never quite reach. Your hand raises to your neck, to the place that Bitter Cherry had pricked Wayward Prayer decades ago. The wound on your arm throbs faintly, as if in sympathy. "The Face-Stealer is a master of Rat Style. It's a martial art that uses disease as a weapon."
"If she's sick, it's not anything I've seen before," L'nessa says. Her hands are much steadier than her expression. She holds up the knife that she's removed from Ambraea's shoulder — it's an oddly familiar style of dagger with a strange design to the handle. L'nessa twists something on the pommel, and a poison reservoir falls out into her hand. "And then there's this..."
L'nessa raises the reservoir to her mouth. You recognise what she's preparing to do, a technique common among Dragon-Blooded healers to put a poison on the tongue in order to identify it. Usually, it's perfectly safe, internal Fire scouring away the toxins before they can affect the healer. Before she can carry it out though, a hand snatches L'nessa's wrist and jerks the reservoir away.
"Do not put that in your mouth," Maia orders. There's a horrible blankness to her expression as she looks past the glass reservoir in her hand, staring down at Ambraea. The remaining liquid inside is dark and oily against the walls of the resevoir.
"Don't do that, Maia, I thought you were the Anathema!" L'nessa says reproachfully. "What is it?"
"It's an infernal toxin derived from the venom of the Sage of Perfidious Trails," Maia says, sparing a glance at the clear, oily substance in the glass reservoir. "You can't purge it with ordinary magic."
"What does it do, and how do I cure it then?" L'nessa demands, barely pausing over this particularly ominous and suspect knowledge. How on Creation had she identified something like that at a glance?
"Delirium, hemorrhaging from the eyes and mouth, paralysis," Maia says, slowly sinking to her knees by Ambraea, opposite L'nessa. "It pollutes the Essence channels. It can kill Exalts, and the ones it doesn't, it... It cripples." Her calm is definitely beginning to waver by the last, her features putting you in mind of a dam on the verge of breaking.
"Combined with whatever foul infection the rat woman bestowed on her. Wonderful," L'nessa says, looking particularly grim. "What can I do for her, Maia?"
"Sava wasn't carrying an antidote," Maia says, cryptically but with a genuine tremor in her voice.
"Why would Peleps Sava—" L'nessa lets it go with effort, frowning deeply. "One of these days, Maia, we are going to have an uncomfortable conversation. Can I cure it?"
"You can try," Maia says, very quietly. She reaches out a trembling hand to smooth a strand of hair out of Ambraea's face, not daring to get in L'nessa's way more than that. Ambraea's eyes flutter open briefly, taking Maia in.
L'nessa nods, closes her eyes, takes in a deep breath. Then her hand lashes out, striking Ambraea's pressure points in sequence hard enough to draw a pained gasp from Ambraea, pale green light blooming around her as she struggles to expel the toxin from Ambraea's body, or at least to halt its progress.
The entire scene has taken on an increasingly surreal quality — you feel as though you're watching it from a great distance, the myriad aches and pains of your body as far away as the emotions churning in your heart. You hear yourself say: "I can help her."
"If you can help her, then help her!" L'nessa says, fresh anger in her voice.
"Not me directly," you say, "I have—"
You break off as Sola bursts up from the stairs below. She has one arm cradled against her chest, and still holds a bloody sword in her other hand. When she sees Ambraea, she stops short as if she's just collided with a wall. "No," she says, as if she might simply reject the situation. Perhaps sensing what's going to come next, Maia springs up to her feet, rushing to her. "No," Sola says again, looking around wildly. "Where is it? Is it dead? Is she—"
"She's still alive!" Maia says, catching Sola by both arms before she can do anything, disturb L'nessa at her work or rush out of the tower in search of Cherry.
"The Anathema flew away. L'nessa is doing everything she can!" Amiti adds, hovering nearby. Her own frantic air is seemingly held momentarily at bay for Sola's sake.
For a moment, Sola looks as though she might break free from Maia. Instead, she forces herself to relax just a hair, subtly leaning into Maia's grip, letting the smaller woman support her for just a moment. Then Sola masters herself, straightening up, her grip on the daiklave less white-knuckled than before. She nods once, before her eyes flick to you, confusion and accusation warring across her features.
"I've sent for help," you say. "I can take her to someone who can help."
"Take her where?" L'nessa asks, struggling to bind yet another wound.
A paper flutters out of your sleeve. You snatch it up, unfolding it. It says in neat High Realm calligraphy:
Grace:
I am in my office at present, and will be happy to do what I can for the girl if you can get her here in good time.
We'll consider it a personal favour.
Best of luck,
Iselsi Dogara
You don't miss the significance of a man like Dogara stressing that this is a favour, and an open-ended one at that. But you'd known what he was like when you'd sent him the note to begin with.
You look back to L'nessa. "Heaven," you tell her. There's a moment of silence, then they all start asking you questions at once. Renewed demands to explain who you are, why they should trust you, if you're really serious, what your interest is in Ambraea's health. Numbed and overwhelmed as you still are, you're not at your best in responding.
You take in a deep breath, ready to shout over all of them, to say what, exactly, you're not sure. Fortunately, you're spared from such a loud display of emotional honesty:
With the mechanical mantis arms having retracted back fully inside the tower and locked into place, the bay doors begin slowly to close behind you, have been closing for more than a minute already, barely noticed. As they cross the halfway point, a figure materialises out of thin air and sails into the tower trailing yellow motes of stardust. It's a woman held impossibly aloft by her grip on the slender leg of a tawny mospid, her features southern, her bearing obscurely disreputable. She lets go of the lizard-bird in order to land nearly on the floor near to you.
She's dressed in perfectly decent clothing, the sort of dress one might expect for the daughter of a particularly affluent peasant family in the western Blessed Isle, aniconic patterns embroidered at the hems and sleeves. It's highly incongruous — not only with the blood splattered over its blue-dyed front, or with the red jade direlash hanging from the sash around her waist, but seemingly with her entire presence. You've never seen Stinging Nettle, Chosen of Mercury wearing anything remotely nice without having the faintly absurd thought that she must have stolen it from someone more respectable.
Nettle tosses you something between a wave and a salute, her eyes scanning you for injuries despite her insolent smile. "Grace. How do you get yourself—" Her eyes go wide, and she leans back out of the path of Sola's daiklave, the weapon passing scarcely above her nose. She rolls aside from Sola's followup downstroke, popping back up to her feet a short distance away. "Fucking— Wereth's eyes, Grace, you didn't warn them?"
"I was getting to it!" You say, voice taking on an undignified shrill quality.
Nettle twitches aside from yet another sword stroke. "Yeah, sure, my fault for being early. Hey, would it make you feel better if I just let you cut me?" She directs this last to Sola, a wryly harried expression on her face. This gives Sola a split second's confused pause, long enough that you take the chance to put yourself between the two of them, arms spread wide to block her from Nettle.
"She's here to help, she's not the Anathema!" You say. "I sent for her!" For a moment, you're worried that this isn't going to be enough to stop Sola, given that she still has no idea who you are. You take advantage of the lull: "Do you want Ambraea to die?" Some genuine pain breaks through your voice as you say this, and the force of it brings Sola to a stop.
With no one trying to murder her currently, Nettle takes the opportunity to step back from Sola, scanning the rest of the group. Nettle is above average height, wiry and sharp-featured with warm brown skin and piercing yellow eyes. There's recognition as she looks at Ambraea and at some of her Hearthmates — she's met them before, in an incident involving another set of Anathema. You hadn't been sure she'd be able to get here in time, for all that you'd known she was still working on an assignment along the Great Coast Road. Mercury's gifts are powerful, but sometimes fickle. She sees Ambraea on the ground soon enough, and grimaces. "Shit, okay, so it's like that."
"She's dying. I need to get her to someone who can help," you say.
Nettle nods, frowning. "So you need me to bring her... where? Eagle's Launch?"
"Yu-Shan. The Violet Bier," you say.
"Oh, blood of my fucking ancestors, Grace, you're not taking her to that prick, are you?" Nettle asks, pained.
"She's dying!" You repeat, giving Nettle the kind of genuinely pleading look that would usually feel beneath your dignity.
Nettle holds your gaze briefly before looking away, uncomfortable. "Yeah, don't worry about it," she says. She turns her attention back to the other Dragon-Blooded, who have been watching this exchange with varying degrees of confusion and uncertainty.
Maia has put herself between you and Ambraea, giving you a hard look. "Do you really think we're going to just trust you with her? No questions asked?" Maia is holding herself together better than Sola or Amiti, clearly adept at suppressing her feelings at need. But there's a dangerous coldness to her voice, to the hard way she's looking at you.
You choose your words carefully, although what you really want is to scream at her that there's no time for this. "You said it yourself — the poison can kill or cripple an Exalt on its own, and that's not all that's wrong with her. We can help her, what other choice do you have? Just watching it burn through her?" There's a commotion down below, the guards having presumably secured the rest of the manse, and now making their way into the tower. There's no time.
Sola moves to stand beside Maia. "Why?" she asks.
"Because she put herself between me and a Lunar Anathema tonight!" you say. "Because I don't want her to die anymore than you do! Because I promised my mother I'd watch out for her!"
That last, having slipped out unintentionally, would certainly have led to more questions, but fortunately, Ambraea speaks again. "... Maia." The voice is weak and bleary, but you all turn to look at Ambraea. She's still laying on the ground, barely conscious, looking in your general direction as if she can't quite make the two of you out.
"I told you not to speak," L'nessa tells Ambraea, the strain starting to pierce through her focused calm. Following a slight jerk of L'nessa's head, the massive hound moves out of the way, and sits on the floor. Beside her, Amiti is kneeling on the blood-stained floor, tears flowing down her face and freezing on her pallid cheeks.
Ambraea takes in a deep breath, is interrupted by another horrible, gurgling cough. She fights to continue through a mouthful of blood. "Can... trust her," she manages.
Despite everything, the readiness with which she says it sends an unexpected knife through your heart. How can she say that after seven years? How can she just be dropping this all on you now? You'd been resigned to the way things were, before this.
Maia steals a look back at Ambraea, locked up with indecision.
"I don't think I can do this. I can't save her," L'nessa says, struggling to keep herself together, to keep trying to suffuse Ambraea's body with Wood Essence and work the poison out of her system.
"If they can help her, just let them take her!" Amiti says, an arm flailing in your direction. "She's too young to even leave a ghost, probably!"
Slowly, Sola kneels down beside Ambraea, looking at her, utterly bereft. "I can't watch her die like this," she says, visibly deflating. "I can't lose her like this. Not again."
L'nessa nods tightly, a whirl of autumn leaves drifting around her. "Either we do as Ambraea says and trust our 'friend' here, or I beg Cynis Wisel for help and hope that she can do more than I can before it's too late."
Maia looks at her four Hearthmates, seeing that they've seemingly made their decision. She grits her teeth, and relents. "Fine, then. I'm coming too."
"Sorry, can't take that many," Nettle says, lying with guiltless ease. Her mospid, who had flown off somewhere for the bulk of this conversation, flutters down to perch back on her shoulder. Seeing that a consensus has been reached and unwilling to wait for the situation to grow anymore complex, she raises a hand and sketches a sign in the air in glittering yellow stardust. You almost feel the power behind it, fate reweaving itself to seamlessly perform one of the most powerful feats Mercury entrusts to her Chosen: The capacity to decide not to go on a journey at all, but to still arrive where you need to go.
Nettle's Caste Mark flares on her brow, swelling out into a halo of feathers behind her head, a flock of mospids circling around her in goldenrod-hued light, carrying the scent of spices with them. Outside the tower, large enough that the entire island with access to a window could not possibly fail to see it, the sign of Mercury shines into being in the night sky. Motes of yellow stardust begin to gather around you and Ambraea.
"If you don't bring her back, I will find and kill you," Erona Maia says, glaring at you. She says it like it's a statement of fact. You believe her at least as far as her intent goes.
You nod to them all. "I wi—"
With a sensation of inexplicable forward motion you, Nettle, her mospid, and Ambraea vanish in a flash of light, departing the Sideshores, the Realm, and Creation entirely in an instant. You close your eyes against the uncomfortable hurtling feeling. When you open them again, you're somewhere entirely different.
End of Arc 3
Article:
You will reappear in the Violet Bier of Sorrows, the grim headquarters of the Division of Endings. As is ever the case when the Great Sign of Mercury is invoked, your arrival will not be subtle or discreet, and will certainly be the subject of considerable gossip throughout the Bureau of Destiny.
What circumstances do you emerge in, heralded by Mercury's sign in Yu-Shan's sky, dressed in bloodied Creation garb and with a critically-injured Dragon-Blood Dynast in tow? You didn't specify a particular place within the Violet Bier for Nettle to take you, and so she has chosen the first memorable place within it to come to mind.
Where do you appear?
[ ] A secluded memorial garden, where you interrupt a meeting you should not be present for
[ ] The crypt of a forgotten abstract concept, where you badly scare someone very important
[ ] A crowded rooftop terrace, where you cause a very memorable and noisy scene
Well shit, the guy who caught it is an Iselsi, which probably means he's going to force Grace to do something to further the Vendetta, especially since Maia backed down.
Because the big thing we've learned in this story so far is that you can't get away from your roots, for good or for ill. And there is serious social engineering involved in the Vendetta, that begins pretty much from birth (Which is why it was an open question whether Maia would actually slaughter her closest friends and confidants if it was demanded by her House, because it's so good that it can compete with a bond of that strength)
The Vendetta Hunh.
Chepok will be displeased, because I figure the Realm will not handle losing it's Great Houses well at all, and that probably means he's Golden and Grace already was too close to them in general.
Damn, with how high stress this update had everyone in, I am afraid to see what the misunderstanding vote would have looked like. Genuinely the fragility in everyone was really palpable and upsetting to watch, it would have been real hurtful to see it all break... even if we end up owing a debt to the shadiest man in heaven that we aren't currently being personally mentored by
[X] The crypt of a forgotten abstract concept, where you badly scare someone very important
[X] A crowded rooftop terrace, where you cause a very memorable and noisy scene.
Make it a big public embarrassment! Believe it or not I consider this counterplay to the Iselei thing- he can't act on the vendetta without potentially pissing off half the sidereals if like all of Heaven will be gossiiikgnabout this incident for years to come.
