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Ascensions and Transgressions: the Tales of Keris Dulmeadokht (Exalted game)

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Finally read the flashback, I wanted to make sure i was in a good headspace for it, and I'm confused as to why Gull and Kit stayed together after Chen died. I thought leaving Gull was part of Liho's demands?

EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention but I love how you handled the fae here. The blue star really felt like they believed in the story they are telling and that's a take I've never seen before. I always thought of Fae stories ad only really skin deep. That they were playing pretend and that there inner monologue reflected that. But here we see someone who truly believes. Who's not playing pretend, but instead asserting a new truth.
 
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rogthnor said:
Finally read the flashback, I wanted to make sure i was in a good headspace for it, and I'm confused as to why Gull and Kit stayed together after Chen died. I thought leaving Gull was part of Liho's demands?
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So, there are a number of explanations for that.
  • Gull and Liho had been growing apart for a while due to Kit's influence, as mentioned in No Love Without Pain. She was honestly in love with Kit and didn't want to leave.
  • It was an offer, not a demand, and Gull wasn't that much happier about Liho's betrayal than Kit was. Not to mention she really didn't want to keep doing the kind of shit she'd been doing before.
  • Being Rat and Kit's teacher had actually really meant something to Gull. It made her feel better about herself, while Liho always told her what to do, and she was thinking about trying to branch out.
  • Gull was more than a little bit scared of Kit Firewander, and didn't want to make her angry by "betraying" her and leaving after seeing how furious she was at Liho and Bel and how an angry Kit had worked out for Chen.
Which one was it? Well, that's the question, isn't it. Honestly, it was probably a mix of all four - and I will leave the balance between them and the relative proportional contribution of each one up to you to make your own judgements about. Because I'm nice like that. :3
 
Hmm... all the parallels don't speak well of how certain relationships are going to end up. Mostly because she seems to have given up on actually changing to a large degree. Her arguments with Calesco come to mind, and other ones as well, about trying to be a better mother and then getting distracted. To be fair, its by Exalted level stuff most of the time, but still...

Also huggle the Aiko. Poor girl. Ogin is worrying cause he's too level headed honestly, but Aiko seems like she'll be the winner for most trauma of all of Keris' kids (she's all but adopted at this point sadly). There's also the question of how much Kali might be noticing really, but... *Shrug*

And then there's the Keruby. *Looks at how they parallel different stages of Keris' growth* *Looks at how they actually grow and get stronger* *Looks at Keris where she is now* That could be useful. Or terrifying. Probably both.
 
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So does anyone else suspect that the new egg in Keris's domain is going to hatch out either Lilunu herself, or something very closely connected to her?

I mean, it's not quite right for it to be Iris for a few reasons. For one, she's already come out, and it wasn't through the egg, but from the ink around it --- and if anything, she reverses the trends of Keris's souls, being born externally and only internalizing herself after growing up a bit, which would fit with the egg being something else born external, and due to be internalized after a period of development. For another, and one that's telling, Iris doesn't have her own essence flavor like, say, Zanara or Eko do. Instead, her essence tastes exactly like Keris. In much the same way that Lilunu's souls have the essence of their yozi-progenitor, rather than her own, in fact. Or perhaps in the same way that Keris's painting is entangled with her person. (Assuming both of these things aren't one and the same)

Which segues into the next point: It feels like this would make the creation of Iris into a fitting follow up to and reversal of Keris and Lilunu's earlier collaboration. Last time, Keris gave her flesh to Lilunu to make a paint and canvas for that painting and animate it. This time, It's Lilunu who put a portion of herself, those chakra knots, into Keris to make the tattoo that is Iris and the charms that have become part of Keris as a result. And it occurs to me that the equivalent to the painting in third circle demon terms... is their colocation and ability to be in multiple places at once.

It would also be a neat parallel in that in Lilunu was first born in Malfeas an artificial emerald womb, through materials and artifice of Liger, and now she might be reborn into another world in another kind of artificial womb, this one an opal egg in the materials and art of Zanara. Would this make Lilunu an isekai protagonist? :::-V

So yeah, I suspect that in making Iris and continuing to grant Keris her chakra knots, Zanara and Lilunu are turning Keris into a living equivalent to the painting and so that will either give Lilunu a means to exist within Krisity, or something very close to that.

It's fitting if that's the case I think: Keris did promise to bring Lilunu Creation through examples of it's artwork and her own art based on what she experienced through her eyes, so what better way for a first visit to Creation then via the work of the Art and the Artist to let her literally experience it through Keris's eyes?
 
rogthnor said:
EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention but I love how you handled the fae here. The blue star really felt like they believed in the story they are telling and that's a take I've never seen before. I always thought of Fae stories ad only really skin deep. That they were playing pretend and that there inner monologue reflected that. But here we see someone who truly believes. Who's not playing pretend, but instead asserting a new truth.
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Yeah, I've honestly tended to find that pretty trite and some of the reason people don't take Fae adversaries seriously. If they don't believe in themselves and they don't take their roles seriously, how can players be expected to take them seriously?
 
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Secrets Revealed - Chapter 12
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    • Coming up on the end of the arc now - back to Hell we go in Chapter 12 of Secrets Revealed! In which Keris discovers how Lilunu has taken her injuries (spoiler alert: not well), suffers through some Rathan-enforced recovery time, has some Explaining to do about exactly why she's down nine limbs and her dignity, and makes a Decision.

    Extras!
    Aleph: Hee. Angry Kimmy Lilunu was great : 3
    EarthScorpion: I thought you might like another look at Lilunu, with one of the Yozis that ends to come out less with her.
    Aleph: And Kimmy in her "angry" state. :D
    EarthScorpion: Also, hee. It's funny when Keris sees the family relationship between Lilunu, Aiko, and Haneyl.

    ...

    <Talking to Sasi>
    "There are two ways to maintain power," she says clinically, and somehow Keris knows that Aiko has heard similar lectures. "Firstly, have such overwhelming power or force of personality that no one can conceive of a rebellion that succeeds. Few will be tried, and the few that are tried will be despairing. This can be done with the Realm to the peasants of the Blessed Isle, but not among the houses."

    "But second, ensure that those who are not on top see a future in things as they are. A chance to rise that will be thrown away if you lose imperial favour; a position given to you that you can lose if you do not obey. Even, for the peasants, the fact that your loved ones will suffer if you do not pay your taxes. And in the case of the Houses, there is the Deliberative to play for, a source of power that could stand against the Throne. And the Third Scarlet discovered that when the Houses are united, the Imperial Throne is unsteady indeed."
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    Aleph: Oh Sasi
    Aleph: Surprise! What you thought was an adorable sexy reunion has actually been double-booked with HEY REMEMBER HOW YOUR GIRLFRIEND FALLS UNDER THAT FIRST METHOD
    Aleph: SHE LITERALLY CAN'T IMAGINE THE REALM FALLING, AND YOU'RE GIVING HER ANXIETY BY TALKING ABOUT IT
    Aleph: *hammers another wedge of Keris-fragility into Sasi's brain*
    Aleph: (Sasi can probably read that Keris Is Not Comfortable talking about the Realm falling, and will do everything in her power to distract, deflect and redirect away from the topic.)
    Aleph: (And to avoid addressing the fact - and it is a fact - that not only can she literally not imagine a world without the Realm, but also that the idea actually kind of terrifies her, because she has anxiety about the board changing so radically and all her work and knowledge being invalidated.)
    Aleph: (Somewhat ironically, Keris isn't much of a fan of big shakeups and changes.)
    Aleph: Heh. And she believes the Realm can just send an army to kill whoever's cutting their roots.
    Aleph: Because Sasi can explain it as much as she likes, but in Keris's mind, the Realm's functional military stamina is infinite. They can always send another army. They don't have armies out everywhere constantly because something something reasons she doesn't understand but vaguely knows are a thing. But if any satrapies just flip them the bird, of course they can just send a legion to crush it. That's why you have to not let them notice you pulling things out from under them, right? And make them think the places you've subverted are still loyal, etcetera.
    EarthScorpion: Hee. While Sasi, as "the person who effectively ran her husband's satrapy", is intimately familiar with the limits of the Realm's military projection. Hell, she was responsible for a satrapal auxillary formation in her husband's name.
    Sasi: "I won't be getting help for this issue, so I'll need to handle it myself with the limits of local forces."​
    Sasi: "Darling, please stop with the demonology and just help me with this. I'm only human."​
    Aleph: Hee. To Keris, the Realm is a huge gang boss who'll pummel anyone he notices trying to leave his gang, and who's too big to beat in a fight. Yeah, you can steal his food, but when he gets hungry he'll just punch someone and take theirs. How can you stop him doing that? Therefore, the only way to beat him is to not let him notice you're taking his stuff.
    EarthScorpion: Oh Keris. Haneyl is just plain better at that kind of thinking than her.
    EarthScorpion: Rathan too, I think. Rathan would model it as you only have so many loyal subordinates you can send to Do Stuff.
    Aleph: Yes.
    EarthScorpion: Because Keris was never actually the gang leader, while Rathan was.
    EarthScorpion: ... Oula too, actually.
    Aleph: Hah! Yes, she did start out as one of his generals, yes. That is to say, a Sea gang boss.
    Aleph: Amusingly, it's actually Haneyl's Principle causing part of the problem. Keris's Possessiveness is slanting her towards thinking that Realm will never just let a satrapy go - that even if House Sinasana all got wiped out, they'd refuse to lose Saata as a Realm territory instead of just writing it off as a loss that would cost more than it's worth to reclaim.
    Aleph: Haneyl can understand that sometimes you have to cut your losses when that's happening in a hundred different places and you only have so many armies, but Keris isn't good at the big picture. She can vaguely conceive of the full might of the Realm, but not of the sheer size of Creation it's spread thin over - so she assumes it's all theoretically available to be concentrated on her relatively small area.

    ...

    <Second talk with Lilunu>
    Aleph: Oh Keris
    Aleph: She's someone whose base instinct is always flight, and who's learned fight as a supplementary reflex when she thinks she can win.
    Aleph: It's delightfully entertaining putting her in positions where she can neither run away from her problems nor stab them in the face.
    EarthScorpion: Are you stunt-learning Darkling Grace Complete... which, heh, is Calesco in your case.
    Aleph: Yes. :V
    EarthScorpion: So what are you darkling grace complete-stunt-learning-doing?
    Aleph: In what sense? I mean, yes, Keris's own orchestra joins in over the course of the performance and takes on the full load of giving hologram images of baby-Keris becoming chibi-Kit becoming Kit Firewander, etc, in a montage of her life all done noir style.
    Aleph: This is basically just telling them (both) the full story, from her time in Baisha bringing mice and snakes home to her Exaltation in the cell and arrival in Malfeas.
    EarthScorpion: Yeah, so do that. Probably for Keris, it's more important that you're giving the charm to Calesco.
    Aleph: ... god, it's actually really appropriate. Shadows that tell a painful truth. : 3
    Aleph: Oh Keris. The funny thing is, to the shallow eye, this story makes her look even more Loyalist. Killing Rat was The Right Thing To Do, for Hell. She loved him, but he was The Enemy, so she stuck to the mission and did her job. Though Sasi probably knows enough to guess that it was far more the emotion than the mission that prompted that.
    EarthScorpion: Yes.
    EarthScorpion: Just to check, there's no intention of things getting intimate here - it's purely chaste naked hugging?
    Aleph: Indeed. Too many tears for anything sexy.
    EarthScorpion: Yeah, just thought I'd check given Keris's head position (lying on/smothered in Lilunu's chest).
    Aleph: Also I'm not sure how long that song lasted, but I'd be shocked if it was less than an hour so between essence expenditure, emotional exhaustion and playing for 1-2 hours solid, Keris is probably on the verge of passing out again.
    EarthScorpion: Yes, heh.
    EarthScorpion: Hmm. On purely emotional grounds, while Lilunu isn't planning to sleep with Keris, it could easily happen between them in the spur of the moment because Keris gives her all kinds of emotional closeness and support she doesn't get from others, and as Keris nourishes and supporters Hermione, she's creating a kind of envious feeling towards having that kind of relationship with someone.
    Aleph: ... lol
    Aleph: I, uh
    Aleph: Had not put enough thought into the consequences of empowering Hermione. ^_^'
    Aleph: ... man, actually. If Lilunu got her hands on Liho, after that...
    EarthScorpion: lol
    Aleph: Huh. Heh. Amusingly, Liho is basically the only person with a major role in Keris's awful life who she hasn't killed, forgiven, said her goodbyes to or some combination thereof.
    Aleph: Kasseni, Rat, Chen, Calley, Gull, Maryam... Keris is very frustrating from a protective mother's point of view. She keeps resolving things herself before anyone can do any protecting.
    EarthScorpion: Orange Blossom: "I don't have a major role. There's no need to resolve anything with me!"
    Aleph: Lol
    Aleph: ... heh. The other thing about this, of course, is that Lilunu has now had a really good, ground-level look at what life in Creation is really like. And thus probably now considers Keris her trusted source on how Creation really is, rather than the lies and misinformation she gets from (coughcough) other sources.
    EarthScorpion: Well, it might actually make her more loyalist in some ways, as she's just had one of the worst lives shown to her as "how people actually live".
    Aleph: True that.
    Aleph: oh keris
    Aleph: She was terrified they were going to stop loving her. Instead, Lilunu is just much more protective and also honestly somewhat in awe of how Keris can still function as a person.
    Aleph: ... heh. Though we've seen less of Sasi's reaction to Keris-fragility and also Keris-poverty and the class gap stuff they always kind of talk around.
    EarthScorpion: Well, yes. This is Sasi. She's probably forcing down any worries she has behind her mask
    Aleph: We should have that in a lull during the investiture while Keris is waiting to come out and be presented to everyone.

    ...

    <Sasi-reactions>
    Aleph: Heh. Cute difference.
    Aleph: Sasi says "when the Chrysalis remade you".
    Aleph: But Keris always, always says "when Dulmea came".
    Aleph: To her, that was when she got reborn. The Chrysalis was just Dulmea's first gift to her; an adoption in quite literal flesh and blood. An extension of her demon-mother.
    EarthScorpion: Yes, heh.

    ...

    <FASHION>
    EarthScorpion: Anyway, you can have ultimate costume porn here because Keris has been given full access to Lilunu's wardrobes for her outfit for her investiture. :p
    Aleph: YESSSSS
    EarthScorpion: Also, her jewellery collection and her perfumery and her body paints and everything else.
    Aleph: Oh man. Okay, hmm. This is gonna take a while. I need to think about this.
    EarthScorpion: Yeet
    EarthScorpion: God this is like an evil demon version of the Star Wars "they've won, now they get medals" thing. :p
    Aleph: :V
    EarthScorpion: (It is one of the benefits of being Mistress of Ceremonies that Sasi is going to be intensely jealous of when she finds out that Keris has it as part of her role. Access to Lilunu's wardrobes and her tailors is a mighty privilege.)

    ...

    <Investiture as Mistress of Ceremonies>
    Aleph: Hee. I did really love Lilunu being like... "Smile for the nice people, my darling. And btw I'm going to work you like a dog in this new role."
    Aleph: Oh Sasi. She's going to have to get used to walking in on Keris shouting at demons with an Unquestionable reverb to her voice, ordering massive blocks of Cecelynite marble to be quarried from this one particular demesne out in the Desert, or insisting that the pipers for the second chorus are substandard and must all be replaced or retrained.
    EarthScorpion: I haven't statted up her tongue piercing, but it is an artefact.
    Aleph: Mwaa haa. Hmm. I have some ideas, depending on the rating.
    EarthScorpion: It's probably not too high, but in the 1-3 ballpark depending on how evocative the idea is.
    Aleph: Mmm. Cool. Certainly as a minor power it allows her to make her Backgrounds related to being Mistress of Ceremonies Obvious - that's the reverb effect.
    Aleph: She's just basically making it Obvious to everyone who hears her use that effect that she's Mistress of Ceremonies for the Conventicle Malfeasant, and speaks with her direct authority in matters pertaining to that role.
    Aleph: But that's barely an artifact power. I'll have a think on concepts and implementation.
    Aleph: ("Mama, you sound like Lili!", Kali helpfully contributes).
    EarthScorpion: Kali likes kissing mama and tasting Lili, because it makes mama taste like a tiger.
    Aleph: Keris: *blinks*
    Keris: "... that makes sense, sweetie. Because Lili is a tiger sometimes, right?"​
    EarthScorpion: Of course, for Lilunu, it's a minor act of rebellion to acquire Keris and give her that much authority.
    Aleph: Yes it is~ : 3
    Aleph: Hee. Remember just after Yelm and Shan died, when Keris was like "hey, if you want me to drag whoever put that plague in your gardens in front of you by their hair, maybe minus a limb or two, I am totes loyal to you first and foremost and entirely willing to enforce your will in such a way", and Lilunu lowkey panicked and changed the subject?
    Aleph: This isn't quite owning that kind of command, but it's a step towards it. Especially since Keris can now entirely legally start coming down like a hammer on non-Unquestionable who mess with Lilunu on the justification of them interfering in the business of the Althing.
    EarthScorpion: And honestly there's a little bit of Lilunu that's getting off on telling Keris she'll work her like a dog and ordering her to dance for the crowd.
    Aleph: Oh?
    Aleph: Divisa is having a very good day, it seems.
    EarthScorpion: She was made in the image of Ruvelia, remember? And even though she was a failure for what Ligier wanted as a total recreation of her, it's like she was made with the same mould in places
    Aleph: Hah. So she has latent top energies, is what you're telling me here.
    EarthScorpion: Yes. Basically, yes.
    EarthScorpion: I'm not saying that Ruvelia and Ligier constantly fought to be top and Ligier has memories of her which are barely more accurate than Keris's of Rat, but...
    Aleph: Hahaha. Oh Lilunu.
    Aleph: In Keris she has found that most dangerous of things; a skilled and entirely willing subordinate who is perfectly ready to kill on her word and is (even if not many people know it yet) loyal to her above anyone else in Hell.
    Aleph: Moreover; one who has the fantastically dangerous combination of being genuinely loyal, independently minded and willing to bend or disobey Lilunu's own orders in her best interests.
    Aleph: Lilunu can't say "break my chains", but with Keris working for her she doesn't need to. :V

    ...

    Aleph: Heh. So what do you reckon the approximate chances are of Keris sending Ney a giddy happy mildly-gloating dream about this coronation (with minor censorship of things like Lilunu's identifying details) to both brag and squee about her cool new (safe, non-threatening-to-Creation) arty position?
    Aleph: And also, obviously, to show off the ridiculous amount of bling she's got on.
    Aleph: God, she'll have to spend almost the entire dream budget on the bling.
    Aleph: Everything else comes pre-censored because it's just shadows and line-drawings around the centre of the show.
    Aleph: (Ney will naturally be a dick and leap out of the audience to dip-kiss her in congratulations and also mess up her hair and steal three of her rings.)
    EarthScorpion: lol
    Aleph: Keris: "Get back in the audience and applaud me, you ass!"
    Aleph: Hee. Man, that's going to be so weird for newbie Infernals who've got the basics from their coadjutors but not much more to get used to.
    Aleph: The Mistress of Ceremonies; Unquestionable Lilunu's left hand in the Althing celebrations... is a Scourge. Not a Malefactor-priestess, not a silver-tongued Fiend. A stealthy killer sworn to the Silent Wind. And not just a weird one who's ignoring her caste role, but one whose reputation as an assassin-saboteur is genuinely kind of intimidating to look at, and includes things like "one of Thorns' most experienced deathknights during her first ever mission", "a major Lookshyian operation with a full Wyld Hunt's worth of Dragonblooded in an entrenched fortress" and "the capital of a five-year-experienced Solar empire".
    Aleph: Seen through the eyes of a stranger, she's scary as hell.

    ...

    Aleph: ... also, out of interest, what exactly are my new Backgrounds?
    Aleph: Because I'm guessing I have Backing, Influence and a boosted Infamy. And probably an upgraded Mentor to 5.
    EarthScorpion: Yeah, so that definitely puts her up to Infamy 4, and would be 5 if she could be guaranteed to actually not slack off. But she will.
    Aleph: I'm not even going to try to dispute that. :p
    EarthScorpion: I don't think Lilunu is quite Mentor 5, but not because she doesn't want to be - she just doesn't have the capacity to provide Mentor 5 services. Infamy covers Hellish Influence.
    Aleph: Fair enough.
    EarthScorpion: And yeah, Backing 4 (Conventicle Malfeasant).
    Aleph: Mwaa haa. : 3
    EarthScorpion: Plus, whatever that tongue piercing does.
    Aleph: Which I am thinking on, believe me.
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    • Her regrown nails are silver. She's not sure what to think about that. But... well, nail polish is cheap to make, and if need be she can just paint her ring and little finger silver to match the rest. Right?
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    Not gonna lie, that would aggravate my OCD enough that I would be considering the merits of chopping off the other two fingers and regrowing them so they match.
     
    ... I get the feeling this is going to end in everything being on fire. Including the fire.

    I just get the feeling for some reason that I can't point at that Lilinu is missing just enough in her demon-culture mind that everything's tilting a bit. Right over a cliff.

    Or it might be Keris' euphoria-high at still being loved. Or that desperate need for it that's being filled and sounding like she wants a lot more.

    Or all of the above.

    I still remember Sasi's issues as well, mainly her small, neglected soul and Keris' feelings on that and what that also means for Sasi and now Sasi's feelings on the matter and how Keris has been more of a mother for Aiko this past year cause Sasi couldn't be.

    I do kinda wonder if an Infernal getting inducted into a Priestess of Serenity might mean anything, but it probably won't. If only because there's so many of them all over Creation and Serenity is stuck in the Games. I think she's one of the most stuck too? Not that that means a lot with how good of a trap it is.
     
    Posted more or less wholesale from the discord:

    Phoenixian

    On a minor note, I find it interesting that the wyld shaping charm doesn't seem to be in Keris's sheet. (yet?)

    Feels indicative in its own way of her either just not having a proper grasp on it or something screwy being up.(edited)

    Tamahori

    I think it's because she's not got it as an 'active' charm yet, it's more she has it and fired it by reflex, and one of these days she'll work out how to use it because it's Keris and as we saw in the latest chapter, her consciously picking up Charms is really not in her core skill set.


    Shyft

    it is an interesting character point, and I wonder how much of it is Aleph as a player herself as well

    Tamahori

    I have no idea.

    Shyft

    but it's likely a confluence of factors- the primary one being that Infernals are... basically loading soul-programs into themselves from their patron yozis, not literaly in a comp-science sense, but Green Sun Nimbus Flare isn't "The Infernal acts like the Green Sun', it's pretty explicit that they're learning the Exact Same Charm as Malfeas himself has to achieve the same effect.


    Tamahori

    I mean it's explicit that learning a charm for Infernals is very much 'letting this part of one of the yozi into myself' and changes how they think and see the world. Its even more visible to Keris because it will have effects on her inner world and one or more of her children. So it's possible that she doesn't like the idea of letting herself change like that, so only 'learns a charm' when she really has to, because the changes are irreversible. This may an unconscious choice she's made.

    Shyft

    right, and that's a big part of the 'game' of infernals, where you 'play' your power set or play against it

    Tamahori

    Keris can be intensely independent at times, so the kind of lowering her guard to let part of an alien mindset into herself and affect her children, does not come easy at all.


    Shyft

    so an important question is to ask how a hypothetical Not-Infernal Keris would learn charms, and based on what I know, keris's whole upbringing and mental model would not put her in an... academic frame of mind? She'd hew more to the classic wuxia trope of learning a technique through adversity- the best example of this I can say is Tai Lung, actually- if you ever watched him, that's basically how most Exalted ought learn new techniques


    Tamahori

    How Sasi learns them would be an interesting reference, because she's almost opposite to Keris in this sense. She hates to Seat Of The Pants things.

    BungieONI

    From looking at her my thought is that she learns things like Deebs learn things- in a cultural sense

    Shyft

    well, Sasi's thing is that she's Cecelyne , so while not as 'OCD hierarchical' as say Swillin- Bungie has the right of it; Sasi has the culture of DBs to fall back on- so she likely thinks in terms of tutors or records, and established Methods of Training. 'Charms as Science' or 'charms as Kung Fu', in the sense that it's 'Mastery of Skill'. DBs aren't benders, after all, they're Ability Exalted who are organized around elemental lines and associations

    BungieONI

    fits her Sorcerous paradigm as well

    Shyft

    and as per 2e, they're really not... Bluntly, the charms they have aren't the only charms they've ever had or could ever had
    it's one of the DB notes that I think got sadly underplayed, that you can see in their charmset how it moved from 'Soldier' to 'Decadent Noble'
    and how the line between the two is fuzzy at times.

    in a lot of ways Keris doesn't see her own non-artistry abilities as skills. Ithink she sees things more as Talents or Quirks. Oh she knows things, like how to pick locks and finesse wards and all that, but she doesn't sit there and count her [Ability 4] the same way Sasi or Inks would. I've likely gone on about this before, but generally speaking each dot in a trait is effectively an Order of Magnitude.

    so if you're like Trait 4 in something, you're the Local Master, and people know Of You by reputation. If you're Trait 5, other masters know of you in other nation-states.
    Like, Keris has a very poorly developed... there's a phrase for this. Theory of Mind! Her Theory of Mind is lopsided. Highly developed in a lot of niche ways but not comprehensively or evenly. So she forgets to think of herself as 'master' in a Classical Civilization/Culture. I.E. A Realm one. She does qualify for the status several times over.

    Contrast with Inks, who knows that she is among the Most Beautiful, Most Intelligent, Most Perceptive in all of Gem- who knows she is the best at Craft, Medicine, Bureuacracy and a handful of other virtuouso talents. And she thinks of things in terms of not just 'I am This Good' but 'I am this good about a discipline. Her Medicine 5 isn't just 'I surgery good'; it's 'I know the best surgeons in Gem too.

    I don't think Keris thinks in quite the same way- even if she Can and Has.


    so Sasi learns Charms likely by feeling her own Essence, noting the patterns and reinforcing them. Repetition, Observation, Practice. It's muscle-memory for the soul, which is more tangible for creation-folks anyway, especially Essence-wielders. Thinking about it, my impression of Sasi is that she's... more likely to learn by meditation or similar, she has to quiet herself to gain sufficient self-awareness and put herself in the right learning mindset.

    Keris by contrast is this constant roiling bubble of improvised techniques and demon-enhanced metaphysiology that's happily finding new idiosyncratic patterns to fall into and go 'Hey that's interesting' and she eventually formalizes these productive habits into consistent Charms.
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    Secrets Revealed - Chapter 13 & Epilogue
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    • So. Here we are again. Chapter 13 and the Epilogue mark the end of Secrets Revealed. And the start of our hiatus, alas. I'm not sure when we'll resume, but it'll probably be a while. That doesn't mean there'll be no content at all, though! Just much reduced output as we dedicate writing time to other projects.

    So, first of all, hahaha! Yes, Zanyira was planned to be a Chosen of Secrets all along! This is actually what I worked out waaaaaay back in chapter 16 of A Very Saatan Coup; ES said that the ink was the same colour as Zanyi's eyes and I went "... wait a second" (I removed this from the published chapter so that nobody else would guess, heheh). I've basically been working towards this collaboratively with him ever since - and note that despite being a baby-Sid, Zanyira is now legitimately probably one of the most knowledgeable people outside of Hell about the Infernal Exalted. Hell, between some of the forbidden knowledge Keris has let slip around or to her and the added context she has from Past Life memories, she probably knows more about them than many actual Infernals.

    On that note - and from that note, heheh - I think @EarthScorpion is using an experimental version of Sidereals that he suggested in the Discord:
    So, I just had a thought for an interesting Sidereal rework that might fix a lot of their role problems while keeping their institutional nature. Pull their lifespan way down - to maybe only mortal level. But push their past life memory retention way, way up. To, like, nearly Dragon-Kings level. Basically, Sidereals aren't heirs to an ancient power. They're much more directly continuations of their past life. They're not exactly the same person, but they do have most of their memories. In a sense, the latest life is almost just another particularly durable resplendent destiny worn by them. They're like Dr Who levels of different person to their last life. And it means that there kind of isn't a hierarchy of seniority among them. All of them will be reborn in a hundred years - all of them have scattered memories (fading with time) that go all the way back to the start. And that would allow you to maybe even have something more like Alchemical charms for Sidereals, except your Charm load-out is your James Bond requisitions for this mission.

    One core problem of the line is and has always been that Sidereals are meant to be the ancient mentors and wise sages who show up and assist other people's plots, but the expectations of the Sidereal lifespan means they wind up XP bloated and fat by the idea that they're expected to live for thousands of years. Which means they're not just mentors - they have a problem of having to be calibrated so they can't just solve every problem on their own because age = personal power in Exalted (which is a separate problem I'd like to murder with an axe). But if they're set up so they get their character sheets periodically reset by Dr Who regenerating, it completely shuts off the Sidereal elder problem, while also allowing them to have old knowledge and in a sense be the person they were for ancient events.

    The Gold Faction would consequentially be the ones who looked back on the costs of their actions in Ages past and thought "this wasn't worth it" in their current incarnations - sort of. You've got a lot of flexibility there, because each Sidereal has a childhood of their own (often being a somewhat weird child) before they remember who they are - and there's entirely a chance that they'll look at their new memories with disgust and go "No, that's not me". And they have their own new skillset - they're played by a new actor, so to speak. (Yes, this is literally "James Bond changes actors periodically". And that means a joking Pierce Brosnan can become a serious Daniel Craig in their next life).
    Click to expand...
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    You can probably see how this has manifested in Zanyi. She's still Zanyira, but she remembers being other people. A lot of other people. And, yes, she may need to go kick someone out of her house up in Heaven. We'll see her again, I assume - Keris may even think to ask her about Yamal, and Rosseah.

    (You can also assume that one of the first things she did after Exalting in that workroom - which was ground zero, hence why everything changed to be green - was send out her little spider assistant to get the records of Keris of Baisha's Fate up to when she dropped off the Loom. She got more or less the same answers Lilunu and Sasi did; albeit in far less eloquent format).

    ...

    Buuuuut that's the epilogue. Backing up for a moment, let's look at the last chapter! We have Kyrie; last of the Tier 2 kerub maturations, so @EarthScorpion can post those now, and then ES's evil trick in the dream with Haneyl's puppet-body. He is cruel and mean and horrible; we can all agree on this. Then the fight with Sasi over Kalaska that's been a long time in coming - and we again see that Keris's best and most vicious social attacks do have a strong tendency to be Adorjani in nature.

    Divisa... oooph. It was my idea to include her, because it's been a while since we saw a new Lilunu soul and because of how good a day she was having through Lilunu's latent top energies surfacing, but... man, it was worse than I was expecting. And I made some pretty poor rolls, too. Bleh. Well, we may see her again after the hiatus - Keris will certainly go back to dance for her whenever she's in Hell. We'll see how much that helps, I guess.

    The twins... hee hee hee. Yes! The reveal! Ogin has legendary Awareness - and that means one of his Charms is that he can be aware of others' Awareness. It doesn't translate well into our terms - it's not literally colour and it doesn't tint or block his normal vision - but he can detect, in stealth-game format, things like lines of sight and range of hearing. When he's older, he'll even be able to distinguish peripheral vision and background awareness from active attention and focus. This means, obviously, that Keris is a giant hearing bubble; allowing him to easily and instantly pick the real one out of the Gales even before essence-sensing comes into play, and also warning him whenever she's near.

    He has used this to great success to adapt to Keris's disciplinary measures by way of only being a complete brat when she's not around, then denying all knowledge of and responsibility for any mischief. Because he is teriblu.

    We also see the mechanics behind Kali's shapeshifting, which I'll admit I've been really eager to show off. She's very much a Solar/Fire child, and so Lunar-style "fluid flesh" shapeshifting just felt wrong for her. It took a while until I came up with this as a thematically appropriate alternative - Kali doesn't change shape so much as discard-and-draw. She has three templates floating in her essence-core, and when she discards a shape she converts it to golden dust and burns it up, then pushes out more dust and flash-fires it into one of her other templates like pottery. It's not quite as directly applicable to anything as Ogin's trick, but it's a neat little in-universe element that I'm honestly really proud of (and which will have some knock-on effects when she gets older and develops that Charm to full functionality).

    New Iris charms! Yeah, not much to talk about here - you'll see them when I add them to the sheet (one has yet to be properly written). I was very amused at Keris getting... it's not quite a Form charm, but it's the kind of thing that would be a Form charm if it wasn't a huge nerf for it to stop her using her Shintais. And then realising that oh, no, her Iris Charms are Heresy that have a base training time of weeks. Which meant she was stuck with it for forty screams or so until she worked out how to turn it on and off properly.

    (I maybe enjoy tormenting Keris a little too much, hee hee.)

    And finally the meeting of Kalaska and the making up with Sasi. Yeah, sorry, you're not going to get Keris's early days with Kalaska onscreen - but be honest, you've seen her charm Calesco and Hermione and Seresa. You know how she does things, you can guess how it'll go. I am glad that I made up with Sasi before the timeskip - I would've felt bad going into the hiatus with that left unresolved - and this has very notably been something that... kind of shows Keris just how damaged Sasi is, really. Perhaps coming off the acknowledgement of Gull, and how damaged she was.

    Sad times. : (

    Now, time for a fun game before the extras! See if you can tally up all the Secrets that were Revealed this arc! If anyone gets them all, they win a special, secret prize! Specifically; I may fill the hiatus with some 1k drabbles of Keris's work as Mistress of Ceremonies over the course of the five-year timeskip. Any particularly good effort-posts, contributions, etc can suggest a prompt for a chapter - be it "a meeting with Kuara" or "story time with Kalaska", and I'll add those to the hat I draw from to write the drabbles.

    Extras! Spoilers within; still read the chapter and epilogue first. Srsly.
    Aleph: Hee. I do enjoy the amusing thread of "hungover Keris is extremely bad at identifying what a randomly selected limb is".
    Aleph: Is it an arm? A leg? A hair tendril? A horrifying branch of mercury-blood extruded from her spinal column?
    Aleph: She has no idea! Ask her in a patient voice and then wait five minutes or so for her to blearily examine it as she tries to decide.
    Aleph: I'm not sure why this joke never gets old.
    Aleph: Possibly because it involves Keris-suffering as a result of her poor choices, which is always fine entertainment.

    ...

    EarthScorpion: You want to do the inner world stuff with Haneyl?
    Aleph: Ooo, yes. Hee hee.
    Aleph: We did say she could spend dream-building successes on creating a single puppet for one of her souls, right? This is just IC not-being-sure.
    EarthScorpion: Mmm. I'm not sure if Haneyl should really be able to do that when she's still respawning, but... eh. I don't think it matters.
    Aleph: It's in aid of cuteness, ES
    Aleph: cuteness
    EarthScorpion: Hmm. Reaction + Occult, Diff 5 to manage this thing she's never done before.
    Aleph: ... lol. Given that it's souls and, if not architecture, then at least construction of dreamscapes, is Temple-as-Body Style valid for this?
    EarthScorpion: Ha, yes.
    Aleph: ((5+5+3 Temple-as-Body+2 stunt=15. 9 sux.))
    Aleph: ... sigh. Haneyl is basically remote-operating this body. She can talk through it, but the controls are unintuitive and she's probably got dream-lag. She is probably going to make it flail a bit and punch Keris in the jaw by accident as she gets used to what the metaphorical joysticks do.
    <WHOOPS>
    EarthScorpion: :V
    Aleph: ...
    Aleph: h8 u
    Aleph: Hmm. Can Keris, like, flesh-sculpt her down in the dream? No, sigh. Probably not.
    Aleph: i want you to know you are very mean for encouraging me to do this at this specific time >:c
    Aleph: poor haneyl :(
    Aleph: this was not the happy meeting with her mama that she was promised
    Aleph: Keris will need to give her lots of hugs after she's, uh, snapped out of Calesco mode.
    Aleph: Also wow, I am... so glad this is happening in the dream. Because if Kalaska could hear some of what Sasi is saying in here, it would break her heart.
    EarthScorpion: How was zat?
    Aleph: u r a meenee
    Aleph: It was good. ^_^
    Aleph: And hee. It's rare that Keris and Sasi have fights. This was very satisfying.
    EarthScorpion: I kind of thought about how to get Sasi into a state where she actually wouldn't be operating at 100%.
    Aleph: Yeah. That worked really well, honestly.
    Aleph: And, heh. While it was accidental, Sasi will probably assume Keris set it up like that deliberately. Because... well, it does kind of fit her modus operandi.
    Aleph: oh keris
    Aleph: you just took on a whole new workload, and then impulsively adopted a high-maintenance autistic child from an abusive household the morning after
    Aleph: you are
    Aleph: really not good at forward planning, in a lot of ways
    EarthScorpion: she is awful at it
    Aleph: :p
    EarthScorpion: high-maintenance, autistic, and with a communications disorder :(
    Aleph: god
    Aleph: this is going to be hell
    Aleph: ... oh phoenixian
    Aleph: "More seriously, I can see one of Sasi's souls showing up and Keris having words with them." :V
    EarthScorpion: ikr
    Aleph: It's so fun watching them~
    <Phoenixian, in #reactions: "(... or Kalaska, but I feel like she would be met with glee, glomping, and mothering rather than pouting.)">
    Aleph: oh my god it's actually getting better
    Aleph: remind me to quote this back to him :V
    Aleph: *cackling*
    EarthScorpion: Oh Keris. Drunk Sasi has a significant power exchange difference with her. It's one of the complexities of their relationship, because Keris never gets more drunk than a little bit thanks to Szoreny.
    Aleph: Yup. Poor Sasi. She's used to, in general, for the most part, having a social edge over Keris day-to-day.
    Aleph: she doesn't like being reminded that when Keris pulls out the stops and brings TLA into play, she can hammer clean through Sasi's defences as though they weren't there.
    Aleph: And quite apart from the effects of whatever social influence Keris throws at her when she does that, it always leaves Sasi with the vague feeling that Keris is humouring her in their day-to-day dynamic where Sasi's the more socially composed one who can make Keris blush and squeak.
    EarthScorpion: Well, if Sasi has reason to use her social defences, she can say "No".
    Aleph: Well, yes. But Keris can do that too, if she really wants to.
    EarthScorpion: Poor Kalaska. Poor Sasi, too, because Kalaska is so much of what modern-day Sasi hates about herself. Oh, certainly, her vice and self-indulgence holds her back far more than she believes. But she enjoys that bit. And likewise, the control freak side isn't healthy and often hurts her, but she conceptualises it as her defence against things going wrong
    Aleph: :(
    Aleph: Hmm. So, at an OOC level, how, hmm. Obviously "Helping Kalaska" will be a major, major undertaking.
    Aleph: But how much will her probably-inevitable declaration that Keris is also her mother... not so much make it easier as shift her towards the Progeny-soul type of demon? I assume she won't be able to get all the way there because she's not starting that way, but will it make her better at learning and growing than, say, Seresa or La?
    EarthScorpion: Hmm. I... think you'd really need a corresponding change from Sasi's end to really get those benefits.
    Aleph: Hmm. Gotcha. We're doing this in Hard Mode, then. More so than Hermione, probably, because Kalaska's had longer to calcify like this.
    EarthScorpion: Like, remember, you have been seeing movement with Seresa.
    Aleph: Yes. Though, god, it amuses me far too much that one of her first non-theme-linked opinions is sulkiness over sorcery. :V
    EarthScorpion: Hey, no one said that going off theme had to be high and noble.
    Aleph: :p
    EarthScorpion: And Kalaska does already like foxes.
    Aleph: Yes, hee. God, Keris is absolutely going to see if she can breed her a variety of kat.
    Kalaska: "!!!"​
    Kalaska: "They Are Adorable."​
    Keris: "... did you just make that a law?"​
    Kalaska: [Yes.]​
    Keris: "... well you're not wrong. They are adorable."​
    EarthScorpion: She is going to be very hard work for Keris and her family of extroverts, though.
    Aleph: Yup. Well, hmm. Rathan will be able to help, and so will Nara. Possibly maybe Vali. He's too extroverted, but he's shown with Ogin he can be gentle. Depents if Keris can phrase Kalaska's frailty and the rules she follows to him the right way.
    Aleph: And, huh. Calesco too, to some extent. She won't be nearly as good at helping as Rathan and Nara, who can read her, but she'll want to help, and she's also an introvert.
    EarthScorpion: Rathan will slack off, get frustrated with being used as childcare, and want to go out with his girlfriend. Like, yes, he's good with people, but he's also lazy and not just a solution to problems :p
    Aleph: Oh, sure, he's not a permanent solution. But for socialising her in small doses, he'll be great at spending the odd hour reading with her every week or so. I'm not assuming anyone can take her off Keris's hands and do it for her, I'm just thinking of who can contribute without making her upset.
    Aleph: It'd be best to keep Eko away from her. Haneyl... ehhhh, very extroverted but she does have that existing connection. Vali is a coin toss, if he understands then he can occasionally talk to her, if he doesn't then he'd best be kept away. Rathan is great in small doses, Nara is probably going to be very useful, Calesco will be decent in small doses. Kali is a definite flat no. Ogin is a maybe. Aiko... uh...
    Aleph: *bites lip*
    Aleph: ... in personality, they might well get along. But there's a big "if" floating over that with regards to how Kalaska feels about Sasi's more favoured daughter.
    EarthScorpion: Well, hmm. Things will be mixed up by how Sasi is scared for Aiko and how others will treat her because she's not human.
    Aleph: Yeah. Something to work out when it comes up. Or, uh. Over the timeskip, I suppose.
    EarthScorpion: Also, heh. Aiko is at least a loving girl who cares and worries about people, so she'll try to help.
    EarthScorpion: ... and Ogin will like reading with her
    Aleph: Yes, heh. Ogin likes knowing what the rules are too.
    EarthScorpion: She might, hmm. Are you planning to keep her in Saata, or in Keriskanda?
    Aleph: Keriskanda, at least initially. Safe, secret, hidden away from the world.
    EarthScorpion: Well, at the very least you can give her her own space, maybe by the hot springs at the head of the valley.
    Aleph: Yes. Hmm. Possibly... hmm. Urgh, I dunno if I can spare another 2 to 3-dot artifact, but if I can find one, maybe an externalised sanctum for her.
    Aleph: ... which would also be her Anchor. Yeah, gonna need one anyway, so I might as well make it a nice personal space she can control and spread out in.
    EarthScorpion: Or just a 1 dot Sanctum-house
    Aleph: Maybe, but I don't want her stuck somewhere smaller than she was before. At minimum I'd want something the size of Sasi's domain that she has all to herself - and she's a demon lord, so I'll need a 2-dot artifact to anchor her anyway. I'll see if I can find a nice 2-dot Cecelynite artifact I can pick up with Infamy or get as a gift.
    EarthScorpion: Well, I mean, a Sanctum house plus a regular anchor would give her a place which was all hers, and then freedom of movement
    Aleph: True. Hee. Maybe one of those Seal of Cecelyne stamps from Manual: Infernals.
    EarthScorpion: Oh yeah, no, that artefact is bad even in the normal system and just broken with Enlightenment.
    Aleph: True. But a 1-2 dot equivalent that's basically some form of "Cecelynite legal tool" would fit her tastes well, and give her a little House of Law.

    ...

    Aleph: Hee.
    She's not like the other keruby Keris has spoken much to, and she can't quite pin down.

    "It is the servility," Dulmea says in Keris's head. "She is acting much more like a serf - a well-off serf with a powerful master, yes, but a serf. Even the more obedient of your demons - like your Rounen - have an anarchic edge to them."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Aleph: :D
    EarthScorpion: Yes, I thought you'd like that line. Even rule-abiding Kerisland keruby have a distinct edge of considering anyone who's their boss to be of firm need of guidance and of rules to be more like polite guidelines
    Aleph: lawl
    Aleph: It's their upbringing as child-keruby that does it. A Krisity-native kerub's formative years are spent as feral gang-children in a world made for their entertainment. It gives them all something of an independent streak.
    EarthScorpion: Or, in Rounen's case, of being Keris's number one lackey and being shown around Creation.
    Aleph: Yes. :p
    EarthScorpion: But yeah, those four keruby are the only ones who've had the Malfean serf experience and never known Kerisland.
    Aleph: :(
    EarthScorpion: (Ney's one, amusingly, has been closest to the Rounen experience.)
    Aleph: Keris did make them that way deliberately, so as not to let on about her inner world or what its dynamics are. But she's still probably going to feel a bit guilty about that when she stops to think about it, and console herself with the thought that at least they got Lilunu as a master.
    EarthScorpion: Yes. The funny thing is despite all that, to Keris they look very serf-like, but to Lilunu, they look very Keris-like.
    EarthScorpion: There's one who's loving and cares so much for her souls.
    EarthScorpion: There's one who works hard to reduce her suffering.
    EarthScorpion: There's a dramatic showy extra one...
    EarthScorpion: And sooner or later, there's going to be a clever, stabby one.
    Aleph: :D
    Aleph: Sigh. Zanara's probably already given her a freshly made clay-kerub.
    Aleph: Keris will probably finish off the set with a fem (and ask it if it wants to stay with her so that Vali doesn't complain).

    ...

    Aleph: oh zanara
    He was boasting about ideas that we all - not just me-us, but my brothers and sisters too - have have already tested out and improved.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Aleph: :D
    Zanara: "He hasn't even worked out demon horses, mama."​
    Keris: "... you haven't either. Have you?"​
    Zanara: *smiles* "That's a seeeecreeeet~"​
    EarthScorpion: zana is the brattiest spoilt young lady
    <cheating at Gateway>
    Aleph: ZANARA
    Aleph: ... dammit.
    Aleph: Zanara knows how to speak to Keris's "Kit" side. She's probably going to make her laugh again.
    Aleph: Heh. Lilunu knows why Keris isn't always helpful with this kind of discipline now. :p

    ...

    <in #reactions>
    Aleph: Z A N A R A
    Aleph: ¬_¬
    magi163: I'd ask if zanara was being a little shit again, but that's just their natural state
    Aleph: They card-sharked a demon princess.
    magi163: ... so like keris when she went gambling?
    Aleph: A different one to the one Keris card-sharked, but yes.
    magi163: Like mother like children I suppose?
    Aleph: Actually they card-sharked - well, Gateway-sharked - a demon princess and multiple demon lords
    for, uh.
    Aleph: a lot
    Aleph: at least temporarily
    magi163: Oh they definitely learned that from their mother then.
    Aleph: Sadly, Lilunu caught them at it and ordered the game wound back several rounds.
    Aleph: ... or possibly "thankfully", because I don't think I want to know what Zanara in charge of several cities looks like.
    magi163: Wait, Lilunu caught someone cheating?
    Aleph: She spotted how Zanara was cheating.
    magi163: I thought she was about as capable at that as a rock?
    Aleph: Zanara was doing it via art.
    magi163: oh. yeah, that'll do it.
    <explanations of how>
    magi163: lol, that's playing dirty
    magi163: well, even dirtier than I was expecting
    Aleph: It's not quite UMI cheating.
    Aleph: More like when someone tells you to "pick a card" while splaying the deck so that the one they want you to pick is a) in the middle of the spread and b) protruding just slightly out from the others, so you're inclined to pick it,
    Aleph: The art Zanara used on the tiles made some of them prettier - which meant she knew which tiles her opponents were going to focus on, and had a rough idea of how they were going to use them.
    Aleph: ... also, bluntly, Lilunu knows Keris.
    Aleph: When she walked past the gambling tables and saw Zanara sitting on enough winnings to do away with the need for a chair, "oh goddammit she's cheating, isn't she" was basically the second thought that went through her head.
    Aleph: And the first was "that's remarkably good arrangement of her chips to form a stable structure that looks pretty and is tall enough to sit on; as expected of- wait a minute."
    magi163: Lol, she's bad at card sharking, but not dumb I suppose.

    ...

    EarthScorpion: OK, you can if you want have Lilunu dress up Keris in a way that's a mild reprimand and which asserts her dominance over her, before she takes her to see Divisa.
    Aleph: <does so>
    Aleph: Lilunu has an almost Kerisian sense of ironic humour at times. :p
    EarthScorpion: Oh my god Lilunu did you dress Keris up as a slutty schoolgirl?
    Aleph: no!
    Aleph: ... yes,
    Aleph: Well, not slutty. Or not just slutty. But yes, she basically went "well, if you're so set on learning your place (both in the "I want to do a good job" and the "I want to test your patience" senses), I'll dress you for the occasion!" while smirking.
    Aleph: And then deliberately dressed her up as a whiny Realm finishing-school student.
    Aleph: If Sasi weren't mad at Keris and was filled in on Lilunu's reasoning, she'd take one look and choke with laughter.
    Aleph: Heh. And now we find out whether Divisa can speak Old Realm, and just prefers High Realm, or if this is going to be an awkward meeting :p
    Aleph: Huh. I'd forgotten that Divisa would be the fairest of all Lilunu's souls if not for her deformation. She is to other dragons what elves are to men.

    ...

    Aleph: ... wow. Child of the Infinite raises her Parry DV to 10.
    EarthScorpion: Defence + 6 is +6 to the PDV calculation.
    EarthScorpion: so +3 to PDV, basically
    Aleph: Yes, 5+5+3 Style (Wild Alleycat in this case)+6=19/2.
    EarthScorpion: I don't think shields are in form for Wild Alleycat.
    Aleph: Oh damn, true. DV 8, then.
    EarthScorpion: Incidentally, Lilunu tossed an easy Frieza Death Beam at her, so it's only 2 attack successes.

    ...

    <Sasi arrives with Kalaska>
    Aleph: ... out of interest, lol, is this before or after Keris has managed to get her arm under control and arm-shaped again? :p
    EarthScorpion: Your choice.
    Aleph: lol let's go with before :V
    <EMOTIONS>
    Aleph: ... man.
    Aleph: Keris is behaving... yeah, you know what? Keris is behaving like a mercurial artisan here.
    Aleph: She loves Sasi, and Sasi's put her into the role of "my protector", and Keris is acting it out in full and leaning into it hard.
    Aleph: It's just that she's interpreted it differently to how Sasi meant it. She's doing what she sees as protecting Sasi, not what Sasi sees it as.
    EarthScorpion: Meanwhile, uh, Sasi just got 5 successes on her Principle towards Keris roll.
    Aleph: hahaha
    Aleph: lol
    Aleph: oh sasi
    Aleph: She may be scared that Keris may hurt her someday, but she at least knows Keris will never, ever mean to. Or rather, she'll never willingly betray Sasi. Any hurt she causes will be because, in whatever often-bewildering logic goes through her head, she thinks it will help Sasi.
    Aleph: That's not exactly a perfect blanket of comfort that reassures her she never needs to worry, but it's something.
    Aleph: To put it another way, she may doubt Keris's judgement, but never her intentions.
    Aleph: Also lol, I bet overwork is something Sasi is used to spotting the signs of. :p
    Aleph: (She is aware of her girlfriend's flaws.)

    ...

    <Epilogue, with Keris-whining about paperwork>
    Aleph: ... not only am I enjoying the hell out of this for its own sake
    Aleph: I'm also giggling at how everyone's going to be treating this as a fluffy light epilogue before the hiatus, and then the twist is going to cut them all off at the knees.
    EarthScorpion: IKR
    Aleph: ... oh god, yeah.
    Aleph: with Zanyi "not around anymore", Keris is Hany's main female parent-figure, and thus primary defence / board of appeals against her dad's directives.
    EarthScorpion: Yeeeeeep.
    EarthScorpion: Heh. Also, given how she looks, quite a lot of people will assume she's Cinnamon's eldest daughter. She looks more like Keris than her own children do.
    Aleph: Oh wow, yeah. Awkward. :S
    Aleph: Heh. God, she is absolutely the vodka aunt who shows up and lets you skive off chores and then cheerfully tosses you to the wolves when your parents find out.
    Aleph: She wasn't meant to repeat Hany's complaints verbatim! That's cheating!

    ...

    Aleph: ... god, this is her workroom. This is literally where it happened. The very spot.
    Aleph: No wonder it shifted everything green-hued. The growth around the estate was just the outer effects; this was ground zero.
    EarthScorpion: Yes.
    EarthScorpion: And Ali is more self-confident because his memories have been tweaked so he doesn't remember the years of worry about a sick wife.
    Aleph: :(
    Aleph: > It's a breach of protocol to give you this much, but I know my cousin. If you don't get this, you're going to start asking questions. Violently.
    Aleph: i mean
    Aleph: she's not wrong
    EarthScorpion: nnnope
    Aleph: And how long have you had that letter written up, you wicked thing?
    EarthScorpion: I wrote it when you called for a pause today.
    Aleph: Hee.
    Aleph: o u
    Aleph: God, she is such a good Chosen of Secrets.
    Aleph: She knows more about the Infernal Exalted than any non-Hellsworn person alive, probably. Hell, with the combination of what restricted stuff she's picked up from Keris and the context her memories give her, she knows more about them than most Infernals do, probably. If she's one of your new-model Sidereals, she may even remember Yamal.

    ...

    EarthScorpion: So, how was that? Both the session/s and the season.
    Aleph: Eeeeeee!
    Aleph: Eeeeeeeeeeeee!
    Aleph: That was amazing~
    Aleph: God, that ending
    Aleph: That letter.
    Aleph: Hnngh~
    Aleph: They're going to go ballistic at us, haha. :V
    EarthScorpion: It's going to be h i l a r i o u s
    EarthScorpion: when they realise that the entire arc was named for that.
    Aleph: :V

    ...

    EarthScorpion: Oh Sasi
    Aleph: Heh. Yes. I am glad we got them back together before the hiatus.
    EarthScorpion: I think this might be the first time Keris has really had her girlfriend's damage rubbed in her face like that. I'd have felt bad, leaving them at odds.
    EarthScorpion: And maybe it's all linked into her realisation that Gull was damaged too
    Aleph: :(
    EarthScorpion: And yes, the Seresa-Kalaska interactions in Sasi make one of her major crash-states. The ones where she tries to drown her fear and her worries and her anxiety in her appetites.
    Aleph: yeah, geez, wow
    Aleph: I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't expect it to be that bad.
    Aleph: Her feelings about Kalaska, I mean. Yow. Lotta self-loathing there. :(
    EarthScorpion: She did try, early on, after seeing how well things were working with Keris.
    Aleph: But she's not a savant like Keris is. Pr maybe she's just not broken in the same ways. :(
    EarthScorpion: But Kalaska rubs so much of what she... holds in contempt about herself, so much of what she tries to overcome about herself and can't. And Sasi isn't good at facing things head on. She doesn't like confrontation.
    Aleph: :(
    EarthScorpion: And Seresa tells her she needs to just relax and be happy and enjoy herself.
    Aleph: So that's... let's take a tally...
    • Her Progeny Six.
    • The twins and Atiya.
    • Hany and arguably Piu, though she's more a ward than a proper daughteru.
    • Aiko and Kalaska.
    • Hermione and Iris.
    Aleph: Fifteen kids.
    Aleph: She has three children for every five years she's been alive.
    EarthScorpion: Of course, from Keris's PoV, Sasi's appetites/want for things to be soft and kind, and her anxieties and worries and fear, are what make her tolerable. She wouldn't say that to Sasi, but Keris wouldn't be with her if didn't have those two.
    Aleph: Yes. She might well say it to Kalaska, though. Or at the very least, talk to Kalaska about Pekhijira, and how her version of Kalaska is one of her oldest and most central pair of souls.
    Aleph: That might comfort her, a little. Worth a shot, at least.
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  • Threadmarks
    • Very cool two chapters. I did in fact groan a bit when I realised why the arc bears that name. :V

    I was kind of surprised that the impact of the eaten Shashalme principle wasnt addressed before the timeskip. They are pretty top tier in terms of power and they have dug a lot of roots into Keris before Chir happened, so I expected some nice drama there.
    Was that just postponed or will you two use this as an excuse to drop them from the story? Keris does have plenty of other stuff to do now whenever she is in hell, so the character is less useful than they once were.
     
    So Kali is a shapeshifting Phoenix/Kirin/SomethingSomethingFire-Sun-HumanThing.

    Also Ogin's a little shit.

    Aiko's a good girl. For now at least, I'm wondering about her teenage years, but mama Keris might snip that in the bud pretty well.

    Also, expecting Devah to last five years without the Realm dropping on his head? Unless he's actually just that much of a footnote at this point and Keris has everything battened down enough that the Realm won't notice her and her's.
    EarthScorpion: when they realise that the entire arc was named for that.
    Aleph: :V
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    ... *Throws both of you out the airlock*
     
    ShadowAngelBeta said:
    Also, expecting Devah to last five years without the Realm dropping on his head? Unless he's actually just that much of a footnote at this point and Keris has everything battened down enough that the Realm won't notice her and her's.
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    Personally, It's been pretty clear that Liger has been planning with Keris for Deveh to take the fall, he's all but outright said as much, and I think that the plan will be to repeat the disaster with the Bull of the North to help give the Realm that last little push into falling. So the next five years will be spent building up An Teng into something that the Realm will break its might upon, and just obvious enough that they'll catch it as it peaks. (Though perhaps they'll help that "finding out" bit along.) And then Keris, looking pretty and innocent, can mop up the remains and use the Lower South-West to rebuild the Unquestionable's bastion in the aftermath.

    So I suspect that the war between the Realm and Deveh --- either in its beginning or in media res --- and the final stroke in the ploy to incite the fall of the Realm will be what we open back up to when the Hiatus ends.

    On which note, I can't help but imagine that scene from Halo 2, with Keris and Deveh as Tartarus and the Arbiter, respectively.
    Deveh: The Reclamation will have your head for this betrayal!
    Keris: Fool, the Unquestionable ordered it.

    And Keris, swept up in the resolution to envious heart, explains just enough for Deveh to see how utterly his faith has betrayed him.
     
    So, lots to unpack here but im not ready so instead.

    What was the wing arm charm?
    Do Sidereals normally have such strong past lives, or is that a change for this game?

    Also, it always strikes me as weird that Keris doesn't visit Ligier while in hell. He was her original patron and they've never had anything but good interactions
     
    rogthnor said:
    Also, it always strikes me as weird that Keris doesn't visit Ligier while in hell. He was her original patron and they've never had anything but good interactions
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    Keris is literally banned from even setting foot anywhere on his entire layer, and has been ever since he found out the Silent Wind has an Interest in her.
     
    Open question (for @EarthScorpion too): what do people think the major themes of Kerisgame are? If you were going to elevator pitch it to someone, what would you describe as the focus(es) of the stories it tackles and the things it explores? As examples, I will start things off with these three:
    • Family
    • Lies & Deception
    • Growing Up/Gaining Responsibilities
     
    Aleph said:
    Open question (for @EarthScorpion too): what do people think the major themes of Kerisgame are? If you were going to elevator pitch it to someone, what would you describe as the focus(es) of the stories it tackles and the things it explores? As examples, I will start things off with these three:
    • Family
    • Lies & Deception
    • Growing Up/Gaining Responsibilities
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It's about family, and the drive to gather power, and making a place where people can grow. and become better than what they were, but with a frequently amoral protagonist.
     
    Kerisgame is a story about a traumatized superpowered assassin finding love, causing disaster everywhere she goes, building a family for herself, starting demon cults, and desperately pretending she knows what she's doing. Sometimes, she's even right.
     
    Another major theme I've noticed is coping with trauma and loss. That's a pretty big part of Keris' character arc, and we can see how she deals with trauma through her souls and the way that she made them her children because of her longing for family, especially with how she subconsciously named them after the loved ones that had been torn from her life. What makes me see it as a significant theme rather than just part of her character development is how this is contrasted pretty sharply with Sasi's treatment of Kalaska and her own coping strategies. It also came through very clearly in Keris' relationship with Mariam, and the wounds that left on her psyche- which, again, is contrasted with her relationship with Kerisa and her decision to very literally become a mother to her. This latest arc ripped open her old scars, and we got to see how Keris had repressed so much of her life that had been a source of pain- and it left her body torn and broken to match. We see it in other places too- with Lilunu and the plight of her souls, for example. And we see it in the hints that Ligier made Lilunu as a replacement for Ruvelia, and of course in the Yozis themselves and how they've made Malfeas a Hell as they still lash out in pain from the cruelties inflicted on them by the Exalted Host so long ago.
     
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