Remove ads

A Vision in Bronze; A Sidereal quest

Reader mode
[X] "Wood Sparrow", a sentry

A sentry would probably spend the most time out of the house and away from people who might be dangerous to her, as well as having an excuse to carry weaponry. Plus, if she needs to temporarily ditch her role and go engage in skulduggery, a sentry walking the beat out on the walls seems less likely to be missed than the other two. Just seems like the best cover.
 
[x] "Wood Sparrow", a sentry

If there's any reinforcements coming, the sentry would be the one to fail to spot them.
 
[X] "Cold Rain", V'neef's head of housekeeping

This sounds like it will be a fun messy indoor battle with lots of awkward witnesses and reinforcements.
 
[X] "Cold Rain", V'neef's head of housekeeping

Because that's what Grace could have become if she had remained a mortal.
Take revenge for all the servant's who are not (officially) slaves Grace!

Gazetteer said:
L'nessa gives a light, amused sigh, and stops talking, letting you get back to work.

You wish your house spirit were here to take notes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The irony being that it's Grace who must learn from L'nessa to shut up and let her servant work.
How long it take her to grow into her new identy fully? This whole mission must feel to her like going back to your childhood home for christmas.
You're feel like you are regressing into an old personality but it's not completely unpleasant.

Also I am so glad that getting Maia to help us meant getting Amiti as well! Be it a formal wedding or an autopsy I feel any situation is improved by her presence.
 
Taking stock of the timeline:
Gazetteer said:
Field assignment: The Sidershores, the thirteenth to the twentieth days of the month of Ascending Water, Realm Year Realm 770 (local reckoning)
...
You arrive days ahead of time, on a ship flying Cynis colours.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Gazetteer said:
"She's been dead for well over a week, two at most." Next, she points at Cold Rain. "Maybe five days? And the man at least a day, but not much more — not as putrefied as the others, but the stiffness has passed. No bloating on any of them because they're carved open like that."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Okay, so Cherry killed Wood Sparrow before we arrived, Cold Rain right around the start of the gala, and Five Gardens (we think) when he propositioned a bit over a day ago. We met the real Cold Rain once, on camera (possibly more times that weren't narrated).

I note that when we investigated the sky mantis tower door, we caught sight of a guard uniform around the corner. I assumed that was Wood Sparrow, but it might very possibly have been Five Gardens, and his form may have given Cherry access she wanted to advance her plans.

Randino Treviani said:
Wood sparrow to was the one to talk of serving them most of her life when she is supposed to be young and the anathema's first victim on the island was a sentry, and Mama Cold Rain bothered to take gardens aside for a scolding about the way he was propositioning pearl, which does not seem like something bitter Cherry would make time for were Cold Rain her primary host.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They're all Cherry (unless some of them are in fact another Lunar accomplice). I don't know the ins and outs of how Lunar body-splitting magic interacts with their shapeshifting, but we can be very confident that she's taken all their forms. She can at least switch between them at her convenience. It's possible her duplicates can each shapeshift accordingly as well, or maybe she makes duplicates to wear the forms she's not currently using and then reabsorbs and swaps them around when she needs to. I don't think there's any issue of "primary" or other "hosts", there's just whichever face the "real" Cherry who has full access to her charms and powerset is currently wearing, and which faces are on less capable offshoots for now.

Using the opportunity of a free guard behaving badly towards a slave girl to take him aside and eat his heart actually sounds completely consistent with how Cherry seems to think. It's plausibly a thing that would genuinely piss her off, and a good excuse to seize a valuable opportunity.

Gazetteer said:
If I were to take a look through the papers that came on the ship that brought you, would I even find a proper bill of sale?" Maia asks, not relenting an inch.
...
"As if anyone would give a supposedly high-value slave as a wedding present to a matriarch's daughter without a paper trail to go with her. To brag about the expense of your training, if nothing else," Maia says.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is why I voted for impeccable credentials, but no...

Batatos said:
The irony being that it's Grace who must learn from L'nessa to shut up and let her servant work.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think what Grace wants is for House to be a better student of how to communicate "shut up and let me work" gracefully. Look how well Pearl manages!

Randino Treviani said:
There was an agreement doing the last meeting we witnessed that their next meeting would see Sai explain what was going on, provided Amiti still remembered Sai at that time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes. Specifically, Amiti notes that arcane fate just straight up isn't working on her - not only does she remember Sai when she sees her, but she remembers her in between and is able to talk about her to others (who have no idea who she's talking about). Although her soul wound may have healed enough in the meantime to lose this semi-immunity, it might not, in which case Amiti would know a lot we don't expect.

Gazetteer said:
Amiti looks around for a bookmark, one hand in between the pages of her book to mark her place in the meantime. "Everytime you show up, before I say hello, you have this look like you're trying to not get your hopes up. And everyone else who's met you or who I've told about you forgets and treats me like I'm making up nonsense, which is very vexing! I tried writing about it in a letter to my sister once. Her reply said it arrived half-burned."
...
"Tell you what — if you know who I am the next time we see each other, I'll tell you all kinds of things," Sai says.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Gazetteer said:
Amiti is giving you a surprised, thoughtful look that seems to have knocked her out of her panic. Her gaze is lingering very intently on your eyes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
To me this reads as Amiti at least recognizing that Grace is the same sort of thing as Sai (who she may not remember clearly), and at most realizing that Grace is a Sidereal and knowing exactly what that means. (Which is going to be very, very funny if it turns out Amiti is the only one with object permanence for Grace while she's doffed her resplendent destiny. How many goes of Amiti having to explain this mysterious person no one else can remember to Maia, Ambraea, et al before they come to the obvious conclusion: Grace is some kind of ghost?)

...Actually, double checking, there is a scene the year after Grace exalted where Maia asks about Ambraea's new handmaiden and is puzzled that she half-remembers the old one but neither of them go anywhere with it. Amiti is present, but doesn't comment. So it's even possible Amiti does remember Grace - to the extent she ever knew who Peony was, which is probably barely at all.

As to the vote...

[x] "Five Gardens", a humble footman
[x] "Wood Sparrow", a sentry

I think Wood Sparrow would be a neat bookend on Cherry's first victim, but Five Gardens might be the most acutely relevant to what seems to be the main thrust of her plan here.
 
Bitter Cherry is probably using Ant-and-Starfish Trick to create her duplicates. The duplicates have all of her memories and skills but none of her charms or shapeshifting powers. The duplicates are fully separate and independent, so she doesn't know what they're doing or what they know. She can reabsorb duplicates to gain their memories, but the memories are lost if a duplicate dies before she can absorb it.
 
The real question is where are the people she's portraying supposed to be and what does that put her in range of? I'm not sure about Garden's but Cold Rain would be in smack in the middle of the wedding celebration. Surrounded on all sides by dragon bloods. Not a place bitter Cherry would want to be when things kick off.

Wood sparrow, as a sentry, would be easy to place to kill other sentries and let vengeful Peleps onto the island to serve as a distraction. This let's her complicate the situation, and possibly implicate her prior target in current events, and possibly gives her a convenient way off the island that doesn't involve a long swim or flight in winter weather.
 
Last edited:
Randino Treviani said:
The real question is where are the people she's portraying supposed to be and what does that put her in range of? I'm not sure about Garden's but Cold Rain would be in smack in the middle of the wedding celebration. Surrounded on all sides by dragon bloods. Not a place bitter Cherry would want to be when things kick off.

Wood sparrow, as a sentry, would be easy to place to kill other sentries and let vengeful Peleps onto the island to serve as a distraction. This let's her complicate the situation, and possibly implicate her prior target in current events, and possibly gives her a convenient way off the island that doesn't involve a long swim or flight in winter weather.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'd say they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

As Cold Rain, she would have a lot of control over the other servants, giving her more control of what is going on during the gala. As a downside, she'd be watched closely and wouldn't be able to slip away easily.

As Five Gardens, she would be serving the guests food and drink, giving her many opportunities to quietly poison or assassinate the guests. While a duplicate could do this, having her charms would make it easier to get away with it. As a downside, Five Gardens is going to be watched even more closely than Cold Rain, being right in the middle of the event.

You've already listed advantages Wood Sparrow has, but being so far away from the action has disadvantages too. Her duplicates have less freedom to act without any powers and they would probably not survive being found out. If Bitter Cherry is caught in the middle of the gala, she has a better chance of slipping away while letting her duplicates continue their work.
 
Remove ads
Year 1, Arc 3, vote 03
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Feb 22, 2025 at 5:06 PM, finished with 46 posts and 37 votes.
    Click to expand...
     
  • Voting
    • I caught up!! major kudos and appreciation for two enthralling and emotional quests that fully immersed me in a setting I had barely any knowledge of. I loved what we saw of sidereal exalted in the last daughter, and I'm having a blast following grace so far!

    I do wish we could have gotten a closer look at demons and diamond cut perfection in the previous quest but alas, I was years late to most of that. the myriad entities of heaven are definitely making up in that regard!
     
    skycut said:
    I do wish we could have gotten a closer look at demons and diamond cut perfection in the previous quest but alas, I was years late to most of that. the myriad entities of heaven are definitely making up in that regard!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    One of the more significant unrealised branches of TLD was definitely that Ambraea could have like, initiated into sorcery through a pact with Yoxien and like, had him as a mentor for the whole quest.

    Not as big as the Aspect/dad vote in the first update, though, which shaped a lot of her personality and circumstances. I like what I did with Nazat and her being an Earth Aspect a lot, but like, that Fire Aspect one in particular would have been really different in places:

    Gazetteer said:
    [ ] Fire Aspect: Your father is a foreign outcaste who was briefly the talk of the Dynasty. Now, you sometimes think you're the only one who even remembers his name.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I think that the readers of this quest in particular can maybe surmise where I was going with that potential hook better than the voters of The Last Daughter could have, at the time.
     
    The biggest, TLD quest defining choices we're aspect/parentage, roommate & friendships vote, Initiation part 2, Aspiration and Romantic options.

    In particular, of the closer of these votes, Solar nearly replacing L'nessa as roommate or Maia as original love interest is particularly interesting, though the real game changer would have been if snake witch has lost to sword towering over stone. Ambraea wwould have been a lot more presadi which would have impacted several choices, possibly even opening up the possibility of suitors from the distant continent, and heightening tensions with the immaculate faith.

    Honestly, a part of me is hoping Deizel eventually appears in quest, preferably in the same room as Yula. That would be prime entertainment, not Grace isn't supplying that every time she occupies the same room as an TLD character.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    I think that the readers of this quest in particular can maybe surmise where I was going with that potential hook better than the voters of The Last Daughter could have, at the time.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    [Pretend I posted the disintegrating screaming emoji here, that's how distraught I am at not getting to play a Star-Blessed]

    Would the Sai storyline had been more tightly connected to Ambraea's father subplot in that case or would it have still gotten the shape it ended up having? [or rather, that it didn't end up having considering we also studiously avoided it at every turn lmao]
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top