Ascensions and Transgressions: the Tales of Keris Dulmeadokht (Exalted game)
- Thread starter Aleph
- Start date
To suggest that Unquestionable Ligier could be wrong about something? The unthinkable temerity of it! That's the last thing Keris is going to do. A much braver Infernal than her would - quite rightly - balk at the thought of burning so many bridges so spectacularly. Of course, a more capable manager would be willing to listen to the concerns of his subordinates in situations like this, but even more so than most third-circles, humility has never been one of Ligier's virtues.
Azrael
Sakura Saber
- Location
- Throne of Heroes
The fact a derangement is a negative mental mutation.
Rathan's Adult Keruby
As seen a few updates ago, Rathan has joined Haneyl as having a full set of his adult keruby. As a result, here they are:
Article: Jeguralkodos, the Tidal Raiders
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Martyred Moon
Maturation of the Wave Charmers
As an orvenkerub grows older, she may begin to feel the call of the deep sea. The depths sing to her, and she sinks down to dark places where light never shines. Down there, her old skin becomes as hard as bone as she grows from their childlike forms in a coral chrysalis. A day, a month, or a year later she bursts forth, and the reborn jeguralkodos swims to the surface.
In form, a jeguralkodos resemble a statue of an adult human carved from ivory or fine stone. Their skin is as hard as rock, they have a pale bloodless beauty, and two bull-like horns sprout from their skulls. Ice forms around them when they exert themselves, and many buff and polish it to a fine sheen. Their incisors are overdeveloped, and as they age they become tusks as sizable as their horns.
When they are young, the justice they knew as orvenkeruby still flows through their watery veins. A young jeguralkodo burns with passion and hatred towards the unfairness of the world he sees around him. They are dashing pirates, vigilantes and revolutionaries. Others attend the collegiate-courts of the mighty in the Sea, winning fame from academia and jurisprudence alike. Each tidal raider longs to build his own vessel, but most sign on with older jeguralkodos and serve in his crew for pay, dreaming of the day they will take their captain's place. Sometimes a young gang will manage to capture a small iceberg or raid the swamplands for lumber, and a new vessel takes form.
However, tidal raiders grow fat and lazy when they gain authority, wealth, and above all love. They put on mass, their horns and tusks grow and their own justice becomes more important to them. The mightiest of the tidal raiders are thrice the height of a young one and weigh several tonnes from their paunches and bulging muscles. Their horns and tusks are as thick as tree trunks, and they paint them with precious metals. The love of others empowers a tidal raider like nothing else, and so the most powerful bear the hearts of many holdasszony. Such princes of the sea must spend most of their time on maintaining their position and attending to their harems because their strength would vanish if their loves abandoned them.
Tidal raiders are fine sailors and fighters and can build vessels from ice, metal, stone or wood. Sorcerers call upon them to crew their vessels and maintain them. Unorthodox sorcerers have realised the use of the eldest jeguralkodos as living siege weapons as with their bulk and strength they can easily break a palisade or smash apart a wall. A jeguralkodos gains limit when he is unwillingly deprived of a personal possession - including people or servants. An elder tidal raider will be driven to vengeful insanity by a rebellion of his underlings. Tidal raiders can enter Creation when the lone survivor of a shipwreck cries out for a saviour and promises their love in payment.
Article: Holdasszony, the Mercurial Artisans
Demon of the First Circle
Progeny of the Martyred Moon
Maturation of the Wave Charmers
As an orvenkerub grows older, he may begin to feel the call of the moon. His crimson light fills his eyes and he falls into a deep sleep. A pearl egg forms around the demon, filled with blood and mercury. A day, a month, or a year later the pearl hatches and the reborn holdasszony crawls forth.
A holdasszony's love and hate are too tumultuous for their body to contain. To keep their love pure a pearly heart forms in their chest to protect it, but this is a temporary thing. To avoid madness, the demon opens their chest and presents their heart to one who can keep it safe. The demon adores one who bears their love. Should the heart be destroyed, the holdasszony has only hate and spite until a new heart regrows. They can always return to their hearts, no matter where they are.
Mercurial artisans are wilful creatures, and prone to cloying jealousy. These demons pity other beings, who cannot choose who to love and cannot reclaim their feelings once given. Those who hold their hearts should remember that the demon may adore them, but love does not oblige obedience. They care more about the health and wellbeing of their beloved - and the safety of their own heart - than any orders they might have been given. A neglected holdasszony turns first clinging, then spiteful, then decides to reclaim their heart. If pushed too far will the demon might shatter it so that they may live without love's distractions when seeking revenge for their abused feelings.
In form, a mercurial artisan looks much like an human adult. Their skin is soft and patterned like seashells, their lips are coral-red, and two thin spiralling horns sprout from their brows. A thin line runs down the centre of their chests, where their chest can open clam-like to reveal their heart. Mortals might mistake them for mortals or spiritkin. The wise, however, recognise them by their mirrored pupils and the mercury which oozes from under their nails and which coats their hair.
It is their mercury which they use for their acts of magic, for the holdasszony are sculptors, geomancers and architects. With it they can make stone as soft as clay or reshape themselves to assume the form of a horned silver dolphin when they venture out to sea. Given sheets of metal, a mercurial artisan can coax stone to rise up from the surface by painting them with quicksilver in intricate patterns. Each kind of metal give the stone different properties and appearances. Greater projects need more quicksilver and require them to save for days or even months. In their home realm they fill giant shells with what they gather by brushing their hair, and if that proves insufficient they must brave the depths of the Undersea. Many keep close ties with the Isles of Zanara, following the lead of the first of their kind, and decorate themselves with body art and piercings to reshape themselves just as they do the world around them.
These demons are summoned to serve as artisans or lovers, and often one will become the other with an unwise demonologist. When such a demon is summoned, an occultist can ensure that their heart accompanies them - though if another held the organ before the spell, it returns with the demon at the end of their service. Mercurial artisans gain a point of Limit for each day that their heart remains within their own chest. In addition, they also gain a point of Limit should they act against the best interests (as they perceive them) of the one who bears their heart. When a priest or priestess sworn to chastity resides alone in a temple that is slowly falling into decay and curses heaven for the burdens of their oaths, a holdasszony may hear the cry and respond.
Session 135
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So. Part 135 rolls around, and we have a look at how Keris is handling her newfound authority.
So, first and foremost, there's no more obliviousness or pretending on Keris's part that Lilunu isn't in an abused position from the other Unquestionable. She knows her mentor is terrified of Orabilis, she knows she feels powerless and trapped, she knows that Lilunu dares not defy them and now she's made an explicit link to the battered girlfriends of gang-bosses on the streets. Yeah, one of the first things she's going to say to Calesco when she gets back to Creation and has that talk with her is "okay, you were right". Whether Lilunu likes it or not; Keris is going to start making deliberate progress on this front to try and help her. As Oula shows; the difference between Keris loving you and Keris obeying you is a very important one, and there's a pretty wide gulf between the two in places.
Lilunu is, of course, best mentor, and when Keris brings up her worries she makes the notable point that part of the reason for this promotion is that Keris's mission record is hilariously bullshit good and she has literally never failed a mission. Of course, Lilunu also whispered in Ligier's ear in support of Keris getting it - who says she's not a sugar mama, eh? - and proved her worth as an ally back here in Hell. Having the Voice of the Yozis in your corner is no small thing, even if she is mostly a figurehead. And she's so cute with the kids! D'aww.
And then Ligier showed up. Kali's reaction to him was, of course, adorable. She likes suns - whether Creation's or Hell's - and is a hyper-extrovert with basically no functioning fear response, so of course her reaction to a REAL LIVE SUN appearing in front of her is to get SUPER EXCITED and tell Ogin and Mama and Lili that there's a SUN there because they're not as excited as she is so obviously they can't have noticed, because who wouldn't be super-excited about a REAL LIVE SUN?
Ligier appears to have decided that small children who love him are adorable, which was pretty much a given.
And then he basically salvaged all the damage he did himself in the Althing meeting by shunting the damage onto his older cousin and other Deveh-favouring Third Circles (who are now even more of a threat in Keris's eyes than they already were, and whose eventual maiming just got correspondingly worse), and we see some of his plans for Keris and the South West in the future. Including, yes, that Keris has been deliberately positioned there as the subtle finesse-social flower to Deveh's flashy obvious crystal shit, with the explicit intent (on Ligier's part) that Deveh is probably going to get himself killed and will serve as a sacrificed bishop to hurt the Realm's ability to project force, thereby leaving the more valuable knight that is Keris open to claim the bits they can no longer control.
Checkmate.
Naturally, since Keris was in Hell and it's been a while since Iris was born, she had to help Lilunu bleed off another chakra knot. I think it went... well... ish? As well as such things go, anyway. I certainly had fun with the gore and body-horror of her fast-healing her broken arm afterwards. Training time for Heretical Demon Arm Charms is three weeks post-absorption as she sorts out what her arm can do now, so it'll be a session or so before you see what her new trick is. I promise it's a fun one, though. : 3
And then, Aiko. :c
Poor Aiko.
Yeah, it turns out that life as an E2-3 being with Insignificant Embers Intuition (which returns feelings of "pathetic lesser", "dangerous rival" or "terrifying threat" depending on target Enlightenment relative to your own) who sees a lot of demon lords and 3CDs in the course of her mama's work? Not fun. And the Reclamation isn't kind to single mothers, and Sasi is a workaholic. She's trying to raise Aiko like she was raised in the Realm, but without doing any of the horrible things her own mother did to her, except she doesn't have the support system that Dynastic culture has in place to help with it and can't split herself up like Keris can so that at least part of her is always there. And the result is... this. Aiko's never really had friends before, and thinks about them with a sort of hopeful longing, and is obviously taking after her mother in being kind of fucked up.
Hopefully Keris can help her... but if this is how Sasi's beloved Aiko feels, how much worse must it be for Kalaska?
Lilunu is, of course, best mentor, and when Keris brings up her worries she makes the notable point that part of the reason for this promotion is that Keris's mission record is hilariously bullshit good and she has literally never failed a mission. Of course, Lilunu also whispered in Ligier's ear in support of Keris getting it - who says she's not a sugar mama, eh? - and proved her worth as an ally back here in Hell. Having the Voice of the Yozis in your corner is no small thing, even if she is mostly a figurehead. And she's so cute with the kids! D'aww.
And then Ligier showed up. Kali's reaction to him was, of course, adorable. She likes suns - whether Creation's or Hell's - and is a hyper-extrovert with basically no functioning fear response, so of course her reaction to a REAL LIVE SUN appearing in front of her is to get SUPER EXCITED and tell Ogin and Mama and Lili that there's a SUN there because they're not as excited as she is so obviously they can't have noticed, because who wouldn't be super-excited about a REAL LIVE SUN?
Ligier appears to have decided that small children who love him are adorable, which was pretty much a given.
And then he basically salvaged all the damage he did himself in the Althing meeting by shunting the damage onto his older cousin and other Deveh-favouring Third Circles (who are now even more of a threat in Keris's eyes than they already were, and whose eventual maiming just got correspondingly worse), and we see some of his plans for Keris and the South West in the future. Including, yes, that Keris has been deliberately positioned there as the subtle finesse-social flower to Deveh's flashy obvious crystal shit, with the explicit intent (on Ligier's part) that Deveh is probably going to get himself killed and will serve as a sacrificed bishop to hurt the Realm's ability to project force, thereby leaving the more valuable knight that is Keris open to claim the bits they can no longer control.
Checkmate.
Naturally, since Keris was in Hell and it's been a while since Iris was born, she had to help Lilunu bleed off another chakra knot. I think it went... well... ish? As well as such things go, anyway. I certainly had fun with the gore and body-horror of her fast-healing her broken arm afterwards. Training time for Heretical Demon Arm Charms is three weeks post-absorption as she sorts out what her arm can do now, so it'll be a session or so before you see what her new trick is. I promise it's a fun one, though. : 3
And then, Aiko. :c
Poor Aiko.
Yeah, it turns out that life as an E2-3 being with Insignificant Embers Intuition (which returns feelings of "pathetic lesser", "dangerous rival" or "terrifying threat" depending on target Enlightenment relative to your own) who sees a lot of demon lords and 3CDs in the course of her mama's work? Not fun. And the Reclamation isn't kind to single mothers, and Sasi is a workaholic. She's trying to raise Aiko like she was raised in the Realm, but without doing any of the horrible things her own mother did to her, except she doesn't have the support system that Dynastic culture has in place to help with it and can't split herself up like Keris can so that at least part of her is always there. And the result is... this. Aiko's never really had friends before, and thinks about them with a sort of hopeful longing, and is obviously taking after her mother in being kind of fucked up.
Hopefully Keris can help her... but if this is how Sasi's beloved Aiko feels, how much worse must it be for Kalaska?
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
That part at the end with Aiko... Oof. It makes a disturbing amount of sense that Sasi's child would end up with some of the same fear and stress that she has. It's a very good thing Sasi has Keris around to unfuck her life or things would be really bleak for her and Aiko.
Also interesting that Lilunu went Kimberrian briefly in response to Haneyl's crush on Ligier. I can't help but wonder if Haneyl is going to cause trouble at some point with her ravenous sex drive.
And we'll finally see Echo's matured Keruby soon, that sounds like fun.
Also interesting that Lilunu went Kimberrian briefly in response to Haneyl's crush on Ligier. I can't help but wonder if Haneyl is going to cause trouble at some point with her ravenous sex drive.
And we'll finally see Echo's matured Keruby soon, that sounds like fun.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
The Aiko conversation made me wonder what Testolagh is up to, actually, and after a moment of thought concluded that he's really being dealt a shit hand. From his perspective recent events regarding his wife probably go something like this:
And of course, unbeknownst to him Aiko is confiding to Keris that she's incredibly lonely and frightened and her father is so distant he might as well not exist, and instead of picking her up and marching her across the Conventicle to see him Keris is just arranging for Aiko's entire emotional support network to shortly consist of her and her descendants. A cynical perspective might say that grand theft daughter is underway.
- Sasimana fails to show up for Calibration when she was expected to. Typically this is likely a sign that either an Infernal is dead, or treasonous and soon to be on Hell's hit list, and he knows Sasi isn't the type to betray the Yozis. As I'm pretty sure he's in love with her, this does bad things to his emotional state.
- At the big meeting with the Unquestionable where everyone brags, Deveh is smug as anything and is promptly given (half of) Sasi's job. Either Sasi is unmentioned (since she hasn't reported in) or it's announced in her absence that they're sending her to infiltrate the Realm, which is either "she's probably dead" or "she's losing everything she's worked for and being sent into extreme danger" to Testolagh. But either way, he's not in a position to do anything about it.
- When Sasi does show up, he's still around since Calibration isn't over, but the first he hears about it is probably some Hellish friend/contact informing him that she and Keris eventually were seen engaging in some serious debauchery, starring Lelabet. This will of course both produce very complex emotions and also prompt him to stick around in Hell because he wants to talk to Sasimana.
- Either he is one of Sasi's "people to see, contacts to set up" that she mentioned, in which case they probably just had a very emotional conversation offscreen possibly involving items like "I thought you were dead, why didn't you come right to me instead of going to a drug fueled orgy" or "why are you sending our daughter to go live with your lover instead of me, I have a giant army to protect her with and would love to get to know her"... or he is not one of those people/contacts, which is probably much worse. Presumably in that case he is looking for her, though.
And of course, unbeknownst to him Aiko is confiding to Keris that she's incredibly lonely and frightened and her father is so distant he might as well not exist, and instead of picking her up and marching her across the Conventicle to see him Keris is just arranging for Aiko's entire emotional support network to shortly consist of her and her descendants. A cynical perspective might say that grand theft daughter is underway.
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- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Point to remember here - one of the things Testolagh complained about was that he can't leave the owlrider tribes for very long at all, or they start squabbling and fighting again in his absence. His visits to Hell are as short as possible - fifteen days; with only the minimum amount of time spent over Calibration to make an appearance before hurrying back. Keris and Sasi's debriefing where they got their promotions (well, Keris's promotion and Sasi's "promotion") were post-Calibration, on the 1st Rising Air. By the time Sasi knew she had to leave Aiko with someone else, there's a good chance Testolagh was already on his way back to the Northeast.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Eh... Testolagh choosing to leave Hell after the minimum amount of time would require that either he didn't hear before the end of Calibration that Sasimana and Keris eventually showed up (which is possible, but implies that he has very few friends/people interested in becoming his friends in Hell, or that the fact he cares about Sasi isn't widely known) or that even after hearing, he considers the situation with the tribes so volatile that the difference between fifteen days and something like twenty is more important to him than seeing his wife after a death scare (even assuming that he hadn't seen Deveh be promoted into her slot before her arrival, which is no guarantee; the politics seem to mean that all the Unquestionable knew the result of that post-Calibration report before Keris and Sasi gave it). After years of having identified the problem of inter-tribe conflict and openly asserting his authority with all the social prowess of an Exalted leader.
It would speak very poorly of him one way or another for that to be the case; either he's comprehensively failed to secure capable allies/patrons in Hell, he's such a poor leader that those he's led for years won't keep peace among themselves for mere weeks (implying that they neither respect nor fear him when he isn't right there), or he doesn't actually care much about giving Sasimana support. I could buy any of these if they're sold in the story at a later point, but I had thought better of him than that.
It would speak very poorly of him one way or another for that to be the case; either he's comprehensively failed to secure capable allies/patrons in Hell, he's such a poor leader that those he's led for years won't keep peace among themselves for mere weeks (implying that they neither respect nor fear him when he isn't right there), or he doesn't actually care much about giving Sasimana support. I could buy any of these if they're sold in the story at a later point, but I had thought better of him than that.
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An alternative answer would be Devah and his allies having a plot in place for Testolagh to cut him off from supporting Sasi.
"You've got one season to kill X/ shatter city Y" etc.
"You've got one season to kill X/ shatter city Y" etc.
Uh. Yes. This is established.
Testolagh's great flaw is his pride, and his inability to hold his tongue is why he wound up with such a mission in the far North East. If Keris is in with Lilunu who got her favourite a super-cushy Directorate position in the Anarchy then Testolagh is the precise opposite - he annoys powerful people, refuses to bow to politics, and has no time for mouthing platitudes or flattering something he thinks is wrong (both strategically and morally).
He serves the Unquestionable as their warrior because he swore to do so - but he only does so because he follows his oaths, not because he believes in their goals. And it's not exactly hard to read that he doesn't like Hell and would rather go to the cold North East than linger there any longer than he has to.
Testolagh is "what happens to you when you don't play the Hell politics game and can't keep your mouth shut and let your allies handle things for you". He's a man who should have been a Solar, if he hadn't failed because he was too proud and too certain to consider that he might be wrong. And pretty much all my Infernals keep on repeating, in small ways and greater ways, the same fundamental character flaws that led to them becoming Infernals in the first place. Orange Blossom alienates Keris because her avarice and greed always overcomes her sense of reason. Naan is slothful and never cares enough to object to orders he's given so he's a blunt hammer in Unquestionable hands. Keris is a coward and a petty, spiteful bitch when the chips are down. Sasi always does things to excess; sex, work, drugs, faith in the Yozis. And Testolagh is too stiff-necked, prideful, and unwilling to bend to circumstances even when it would be wiser to do so.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Is Isidoros in your Reclamation? It seems Testolagh would be drawn to his charms.
I'm not so sure- one of my planned characters is an Isidoros/Malfeas primary, and Isidoros tends towards a very... impulsive sort of character in a way Testolagh isn't quite. I'd more pick Naan out of Keris' peers as one to go into Isidoros.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It is possible to separate out a Yozi's Charms/personality traits, and I figured Testolagh would hew close to the physical 'so fucking strong that his pride is backed by power' side.
Yeah, true- but the impulsive bits *are* pretty low in the Charm tree on the other hand. It's hard to tell.
Pretty much. The entire "mind" tree of Isidoros is an immediate no-go for Testolagh, because the thing about Conviction 4, Temperance 4 is that "being ruled by your desires" just isn't a thing that happens with you. And is in fact a core part of his pride, because people who flit around dominated by their passions are weak in his eyes.
(yes, Keris currently doesn't have the full story of how Sasi and Testolagh met up - least of all wound up in a relationship - but from what she can discern so far, it's very much a case of opposites attracting.)
That leaves the body tree, and that's... meh. Like, nothing's particularly anathema to him there, but when he already has grabbed Malfeas with both arms a bunch of the charmtech there is redundant, and he also has Kimbery for being fighty-fight. And Oramus's body stuff with its oaths is also a much more natural fit to him. So he might have dipped into Isidoros, but that's what I'd call a utility dip, rather than a core character concept dip.
And yes, you're totally right when you pin Naan as being Isidoros-inclined. He's mainlining Isidoros and Metagaos, or to put it another way, he's a black hole with teeth.
- Location
- A nondescript grave
Prediction for the new arm charm maybe a yozi essence reactor? It takes raw yozi , ambient or kerises slightly adjodran essesnse and converts it to another essence type, maybe for aiding casting sorcerey?
- Location
- my house
Huh, didn't realize he'd gone Kimbery, not something I would have thought off. What drew him to her stuff?
I imagine her stuff revolving around Beloved characters rather than Reviled at a wild guess.
How many heroes never betray their precious people and never forgive people who hurt them?
Quite a lot.
I like that Aiko is becoming more of a character in her own right and less of a prop. She has her own personality and justifications beyond being a small child. It makes a good contrast to Kali and Ogin who are still not as complex and Atiya who is still in the adorable lump stage. You've done a good job of differentiating children of different ages.
If Testolagh comes to work for Keris, it will be interesting to see him react to Aiko's loneliness and view of him. Keris may be petty at times, but there's no way that she wouldn't tell him about it so he could help Aiko. Actually, I'm looking forward to Testolagh in the Anarchy period. He makes a good straight man for Keris.
Oh Lilunu. At least Keris knows now that you need help.
If Testolagh comes to work for Keris, it will be interesting to see him react to Aiko's loneliness and view of him. Keris may be petty at times, but there's no way that she wouldn't tell him about it so he could help Aiko. Actually, I'm looking forward to Testolagh in the Anarchy period. He makes a good straight man for Keris.
Oh Lilunu. At least Keris knows now that you need help.
Session 136
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Soooo.
Part 136.
Lots to unpack.
Oh. And then we have a little surprise at the end.
But apart from saying that I totally called it ahead of time, I'll let you all react to that one on your own. : 3
Part 136.
Lots to unpack.
Starting us off; Keris, you're such a nerd, how is this literally the first time you've ever hosted a visitor of, like, any importance in your townhouse? I mean, besides Naan. Who doesn't count. And that was more a brief visit anyway. I had fun with this, and I quite like how I set up the scene. There's... really no point whatsoever in even trying to match Asarin for sheer ridiculous EXTRA, so intimate and exclusive was the way to go. Kali continues to adore suns of all varieties, though she's markedly less enthusiastic about E6 ones compared to E10 ones. Ah well. Asarin may yet win her over completely, if she ascends. And Lilunu takes the opportunity to show that when healthy and not screwed up by chakra knots she is in fact a woman Not To Be Fucked With, who can cow two demon lords to silence and at least affect Keris with a single word in a calm speaking voice. Precisely and finely enough that Ogin, who was literally on her lap, and Kali, on the shoulder of one of the targets, were barely affected by it. Without consciously noticing she was doing it.
Who knows what'll happen if Keris keeps her health up? Heh heh heh heh~
Deveh is a big huge bitch, but of course we knew that already. And we also get to see some more of Keris's pettiness in an interesting not-exactly-new-but-more-obvious-than-usual way. Deveh is a rapturous true believer who is blissful when talking about his faith, and it pisses her off on a level even beyond all the usual stuff that pisses her off about him. She doesn't even want to just kill him now; she wants to ruin his beliefs and shatter his certainty and smear all his perfect pure crystalline waifu thoughts with muck and grit and dirty real-world shit so that she can see that smug pretentious self-righteousness and contentment break. Then kill him. Honestly, it's partly because he's pressing a lot of buttons from her time on the streets when she had to rely on soup kitchens. Chibi-Kit was a spiteful, bitter, envious little thing, and the preachers who had True Faith and were happy and content and at peace with themselves and secure in their religion were the ones she absolutely hated the most, because they were the ones who had something that made them happy even when their living conditions were almost as shit as hers, and whatever it was that they had; she didn't have it.
In a lot of ways - holding to her trait of being a villain archetype - back then chibi!Kit was the antagonist in a Christian morality tale who hates the protagonist for believing and having faith in God, and who wants to attack his religion and make him doubt and lead him into despair and misery and sin just to ruin the happiness that his belief gives him. She loathed that the devout Immaculate soup-kitchen volunteers had their faith which made them happy and she didn't have anything like that and how dare they be happy with a life like hers when she wasn't and couldn't be. And every time they were like "just accept the will of the Dragons into your life and you too can be happy and reincarnate into a better existence", she would:
Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. This bitter little cycle is in large part why Keris absorbed a lot more Immaculate axioms than she realises. She thinks that because it didn't work and she wound up deciding it was all a pile of shit and she hates them, that she therefore didn't internalise any of it (she is wrong in this). And it also explains a lot about her attitude towards the big gods. Chibi-Kit was the kind of atheist who didn't go "they don't exist" but was instead more like "the big ones have never helped me, I hate them". The small ones were okay - chibi!Kit had Occult 3 where "pleading to the little gods" was concerned, so she knew some of them. They made bargains with her, granted her favours when she'd stolen enough to give them stuff - but that was a bargain. They were like the mercenary guards - bigger and more powerful than her, but if she could offer them something they wanted, they could make a deal and they'd throw her a bone or let her off the hook. The big gods, she couldn't offer them anything and so she was worthless to them and they ignored her. Like Bags - nobles. So those, she hated. And then the Immaculates would come along and tell her not to worship the little gods, and that didn't help at all given that a little god's blessing was sometimes the only hope Keris had and could be the difference between life and death.
(Also, Chibi-Kit's reaction when she found out about Fate and the Maidens of Destiny and how her town's destruction and her entire life was all part of a plan some high-and-mighty god made and the Maidens of Journeys and Battles and Endings chose to have Baisha raided and burned to the ground and Keris shipped all the way to Nexus to be a slave... well, let's use understatement and say that it was less than positive.)
Honestly, in a lot of ways she hasn't even really changed much from this. Oh, she's calmed down a lot. But you can see the signs still there in her. She's just expanded her lists of "the gods who are basically okay and who hate me" and "the gods I utterly hate", rather than really changing her mind. She's not even very comfortable about Sasi's faith, and the Unquestionable - or at least her patrons among them - fall broadly into the "okay ones" category.
Anyway. Moving on from Deveh, I decided to show off the dragon to Sasi with hilarious results, and then...
AND THEN
Oh man, you know, if I were giving titles to chapters; this one would be called "The Koku (Finally) Drops". Yes, Keris finally learns that she has in fact been bedding the granddaughter of the Fourth fucking Scarlet for the past, uh... two years-ish? Oh Keris. For someone who is startlingly quick-witted and impressively smart in the lab, you're honestly, uh... kind of dense sometimes. This is a recurring point - it took her an embarrassingly long time to realise Sasi was genuinely flirting with her back when they first got together. There was another point - I can't remember if it's in the published stuff or not - where Sasi flirtaciously asked Keris to "draw her like one of [Keris's] Nexan girls", and Keris cheerfully responded that she didn't do any painting back when she lived in Nexus, and then did a beautiful formal portrait piece of her. While, I can only assume, Sasi internally facepalmed and went 'dragons dammit why am I in love with this ridiculous moron of a girl'. And of course it also took her until literally meeting the hungry ghost and seeing the rope to consider the possibility that maybe her parents were not, in fact, alive and waiting for her.
She really is very astute in most things! Just... occasionally some big obvious conclusion will soar high over her head with a faint flapping sound, and she'll completely miss it because of preconceived notions or ignorance. And this is one of the most hilarious pay-offs of that trait yet. I was giggling all the way through.
But of course, Keris can't just let something like that go without dropping one of her own bombs, and so responds with TWO DEMON LORDS, WHOO! Yeah, okay, everyone who guessed that Eko's new keruby maturation wasn't Eko's new keruby maturation, win a prize. That dream back in Part 129, at the new moon? That was Evedelyl taking form from how she was feeling happy and loved at the time (due to Sasi and also her three babies), but also missing her closeness with Dulmea and grieving a little over Maryam. More on Evedelyl when I get around to her writeup, but feel free to speculate in the meantime! And Sirelmiya formed on the spot out of furious protection for Sasi - and yes, as you may not, she's shifted a little since I first mentioned her in this thread. She's now Keris's TLA-Principles soul - not TLA itself, which is Calesco's, but she holds all the Principles formed from it (which at the moment is just Sasi). Through her influence, Calesco can actually fall out of love with people, which is going to lead to her being much happier in the future, even if - as we see later - she can only generally do it by falling in love with someone else. @EarthScorpion can talk a bit about Calesco's relationship with... relationships. It is hilarious, and he can put it better than I.
Sirelmiya also gives Sasi the birthing-caul of a demon lord, which... well, the thing about cauls is that they have a lot of power symbolically associated with witchcraft and black magic and the like. And Sasi's sorcery does have strong themes of "Yozi priestess" in her paradigm for casting it. So she may well wind up consuming some of it to "steal" the power to make demons from Keris, as stunted training time to get that last little bit of the Charm working. We may yet see Kalaska soon! And will certainly get to see what Sasi spends her special one-off "first ever demon made by a newborn titan" symbolic ingredient on, if her paradigm makes such a thing relevant (which it may not).
Who knows what'll happen if Keris keeps her health up? Heh heh heh heh~
Deveh is a big huge bitch, but of course we knew that already. And we also get to see some more of Keris's pettiness in an interesting not-exactly-new-but-more-obvious-than-usual way. Deveh is a rapturous true believer who is blissful when talking about his faith, and it pisses her off on a level even beyond all the usual stuff that pisses her off about him. She doesn't even want to just kill him now; she wants to ruin his beliefs and shatter his certainty and smear all his perfect pure crystalline waifu thoughts with muck and grit and dirty real-world shit so that she can see that smug pretentious self-righteousness and contentment break. Then kill him. Honestly, it's partly because he's pressing a lot of buttons from her time on the streets when she had to rely on soup kitchens. Chibi-Kit was a spiteful, bitter, envious little thing, and the preachers who had True Faith and were happy and content and at peace with themselves and secure in their religion were the ones she absolutely hated the most, because they were the ones who had something that made them happy even when their living conditions were almost as shit as hers, and whatever it was that they had; she didn't have it.
In a lot of ways - holding to her trait of being a villain archetype - back then chibi!Kit was the antagonist in a Christian morality tale who hates the protagonist for believing and having faith in God, and who wants to attack his religion and make him doubt and lead him into despair and misery and sin just to ruin the happiness that his belief gives him. She loathed that the devout Immaculate soup-kitchen volunteers had their faith which made them happy and she didn't have anything like that and how dare they be happy with a life like hers when she wasn't and couldn't be. And every time they were like "just accept the will of the Dragons into your life and you too can be happy and reincarnate into a better existence", she would:
a) nod and pretend to believe and respect whatever she had to in order to get the food they were handing out,
b) immediately scoff at them scornfully and act like she thought they were bogus once out of sight,
c) try really hard to follow their advice when she was alone and nobody could see her caving and clinging to the hope that maybe this could make her happy and give her what they had,
d) fail, and hate them even more for it.
b) immediately scoff at them scornfully and act like she thought they were bogus once out of sight,
c) try really hard to follow their advice when she was alone and nobody could see her caving and clinging to the hope that maybe this could make her happy and give her what they had,
d) fail, and hate them even more for it.
Rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. This bitter little cycle is in large part why Keris absorbed a lot more Immaculate axioms than she realises. She thinks that because it didn't work and she wound up deciding it was all a pile of shit and she hates them, that she therefore didn't internalise any of it (she is wrong in this). And it also explains a lot about her attitude towards the big gods. Chibi-Kit was the kind of atheist who didn't go "they don't exist" but was instead more like "the big ones have never helped me, I hate them". The small ones were okay - chibi!Kit had Occult 3 where "pleading to the little gods" was concerned, so she knew some of them. They made bargains with her, granted her favours when she'd stolen enough to give them stuff - but that was a bargain. They were like the mercenary guards - bigger and more powerful than her, but if she could offer them something they wanted, they could make a deal and they'd throw her a bone or let her off the hook. The big gods, she couldn't offer them anything and so she was worthless to them and they ignored her. Like Bags - nobles. So those, she hated. And then the Immaculates would come along and tell her not to worship the little gods, and that didn't help at all given that a little god's blessing was sometimes the only hope Keris had and could be the difference between life and death.
(Also, Chibi-Kit's reaction when she found out about Fate and the Maidens of Destiny and how her town's destruction and her entire life was all part of a plan some high-and-mighty god made and the Maidens of Journeys and Battles and Endings chose to have Baisha raided and burned to the ground and Keris shipped all the way to Nexus to be a slave... well, let's use understatement and say that it was less than positive.)
Honestly, in a lot of ways she hasn't even really changed much from this. Oh, she's calmed down a lot. But you can see the signs still there in her. She's just expanded her lists of "the gods who are basically okay and who hate me" and "the gods I utterly hate", rather than really changing her mind. She's not even very comfortable about Sasi's faith, and the Unquestionable - or at least her patrons among them - fall broadly into the "okay ones" category.
Anyway. Moving on from Deveh, I decided to show off the dragon to Sasi with hilarious results, and then...
AND THEN
Oh man, you know, if I were giving titles to chapters; this one would be called "The Koku (Finally) Drops". Yes, Keris finally learns that she has in fact been bedding the granddaughter of the Fourth fucking Scarlet for the past, uh... two years-ish? Oh Keris. For someone who is startlingly quick-witted and impressively smart in the lab, you're honestly, uh... kind of dense sometimes. This is a recurring point - it took her an embarrassingly long time to realise Sasi was genuinely flirting with her back when they first got together. There was another point - I can't remember if it's in the published stuff or not - where Sasi flirtaciously asked Keris to "draw her like one of [Keris's] Nexan girls", and Keris cheerfully responded that she didn't do any painting back when she lived in Nexus, and then did a beautiful formal portrait piece of her. While, I can only assume, Sasi internally facepalmed and went 'dragons dammit why am I in love with this ridiculous moron of a girl'. And of course it also took her until literally meeting the hungry ghost and seeing the rope to consider the possibility that maybe her parents were not, in fact, alive and waiting for her.
She really is very astute in most things! Just... occasionally some big obvious conclusion will soar high over her head with a faint flapping sound, and she'll completely miss it because of preconceived notions or ignorance. And this is one of the most hilarious pay-offs of that trait yet. I was giggling all the way through.
But of course, Keris can't just let something like that go without dropping one of her own bombs, and so responds with TWO DEMON LORDS, WHOO! Yeah, okay, everyone who guessed that Eko's new keruby maturation wasn't Eko's new keruby maturation, win a prize. That dream back in Part 129, at the new moon? That was Evedelyl taking form from how she was feeling happy and loved at the time (due to Sasi and also her three babies), but also missing her closeness with Dulmea and grieving a little over Maryam. More on Evedelyl when I get around to her writeup, but feel free to speculate in the meantime! And Sirelmiya formed on the spot out of furious protection for Sasi - and yes, as you may not, she's shifted a little since I first mentioned her in this thread. She's now Keris's TLA-Principles soul - not TLA itself, which is Calesco's, but she holds all the Principles formed from it (which at the moment is just Sasi). Through her influence, Calesco can actually fall out of love with people, which is going to lead to her being much happier in the future, even if - as we see later - she can only generally do it by falling in love with someone else. @EarthScorpion can talk a bit about Calesco's relationship with... relationships. It is hilarious, and he can put it better than I.
Sirelmiya also gives Sasi the birthing-caul of a demon lord, which... well, the thing about cauls is that they have a lot of power symbolically associated with witchcraft and black magic and the like. And Sasi's sorcery does have strong themes of "Yozi priestess" in her paradigm for casting it. So she may well wind up consuming some of it to "steal" the power to make demons from Keris, as stunted training time to get that last little bit of the Charm working. We may yet see Kalaska soon! And will certainly get to see what Sasi spends her special one-off "first ever demon made by a newborn titan" symbolic ingredient on, if her paradigm makes such a thing relevant (which it may not).
Oh. And then we have a little surprise at the end.
But apart from saying that I totally called it ahead of time, I'll let you all react to that one on your own. : 3
It was great to see more Asarin, especially with her in a social situation that she's not used to. It bodes well for the scenes with her in Creation. Also, another demon charmed by adorable babies.
"She has discovered the word 'no'. It is a dark omen for the future." is a great line.
It's nice to meet new souls, and I'm glad that this redistribution will make it easier for Calesco to be happier.
Hurray for more Hermione! I think it would be interesting to see her interact with Calesco, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much information Zany is going to get out of her.
"She has discovered the word 'no'. It is a dark omen for the future." is a great line.
It's nice to meet new souls, and I'm glad that this redistribution will make it easier for Calesco to be happier.
Hurray for more Hermione! I think it would be interesting to see her interact with Calesco, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much information Zany is going to get out of her.