Well Calesco is where Keris keeps the Yandere stalker parts of the Adjoran charmset so stable relationships probably aren't to be expected. Really the fact that at least she isn't targeting people with no interest as a psycho stalker or lashing out after breakups puts her in the better possible interpretations of that power.
Ascensions and Transgressions: the Tales of Keris Dulmeadokht (Exalted game)
- Thread starter Aleph
- Start date
Five Calibrations Pass - Late Air 775
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Late Air 775 has Keris finally catch up with her wayward son, and enter negotiations - aggressive and otherwise - with his cryptic captor. I am extremely pleased with how this turned out, and regret not getting too it sooner. I think I can expect great things of this outcome. Great things indeed...
Extras:
Extras:
Aleph: So, how far across is the pit? Can Keris reach the central platform by taking a high-speed run-up and jumping?
EarthScorpion: OK, so this is a huge as fuck weird pantopicon prison, where everything is set up to observe the high value subject in the centre. It's about 50 metres across to the central raised area of the pit, and it rises up with sheer walls over a lake of supercooled fluid that moves with sinister oozing intent.
Aleph: Lovely.
EarthScorpion: Think of it as a more pulp version of where they were keeping Magneto in the old X-Men films.
Aleph: Okay, yeah, I'mma take a run-up and try to jump it. If I fall down and land on the liquid, well, I can run on it and am immune to hazards while moving. Uh. And am wearing armour for the fall damage.
Aleph: ... how, uh. How deep is it to the surface of the lake?
EarthScorpion: Well, I mean, you can always try to run down the overhang walls of the pit rather than jump it.
Aleph: but that's not as dramatic~
EarthScorpion: Then the spire rises about 30 metres above the liquid, and the lip Keris is on is more like 40 metres up.
Aleph: Okay, hmm. So a ten metre drop if I make it all the way is, like, 5B, and my armour will soak that down to 1. The full drop would be 15B, but - hahah! Strigida's bashing soak is +15, so that also soaks down to 1B rolled!
Aleph: So yeah, I'mma try to jump it. My horizontal jump is (Str+Ath)x2, which is 20 yards, but I can get a Racing Vitaris run-up at triple speed.
EarthScorpion: OK, so, hmm. Phys + Ath, Diff 5, for this kind of legendary feat.
Aleph: That'll be 5+5+2 stunt+10 Malfeas ExD=22.
Aleph: /r 22d10s7c10 #LeapAcrossThePit
Bot: Keris rolled 11 <9; 2; 1; 2; 4; 9; 6; 4; 8; 9; 10; 9; 7; 6; 4; 3; 2; 8; 8; 5; 2; 9> #LeapAcrossThePit
...
EarthScorpion: OK, so roll me Per + Performance for your dramatic ho flex, enhance with charms as needed, and roll the activation for Attention-Holding Grace.
Aleph: Hee. Keris really doesn't use threats very often; she's generally very laid back about dynamics and will let people treat her fairly casually. But "you have to talk to my assistant while I'm busy with other matters" after she's just proven she can smash up the city all day is getting on her nerves.
Aleph: 5+5+2 stunt+3 Prince of Hell Style+4 Pay Each Man Back In Kind+5 Kimmy ExSux {demands payment, pay with screams, bottled-up fury}=19 [+5], and the style bonus removes a success from opposing Valour rolls after "obvious displays of vastly greater power", which the rampage probably qualifies as.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I was wondering when we'd see Malek again! The world needs more crotchety old mad scientist ladies.
Ooooh! More progress on helping Lilunu!
Kalathais: "I've got no interest, time, or ability with social bullshit so I'll off load that onto a minion. I'm a genius!"
Keris: "I'm here to speak to a manager not a flunky. Get him before I start tearing this place apart stone by stone."
Kalathais: "Oh no."
Keris: "I'm here to speak to a manager not a flunky. Get him before I start tearing this place apart stone by stone."
Kalathais: "Oh no."
- Location
- Graveyard of Forgotten Thoughts
Strategic actions said:
Given how Szoreny-aspected children can get, I imagine this is going to be a headache and a half. At least it won't end in cardioectomy this time. Hopefully.
Keris babies fighting styles
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, no update just yet I'm afraid (Water 775 is taking a while; it's a busy season), but I do have something for you! Namely: fighting styles! The older generation of kids are probably going to go off adventuring at some point, being who they are, and by the time Keris lets them out of Saata they'll all be pretty well trained in combat through various sources. So let's take a look at the fighting styles they each use!
Kali
Kali is going to be a very aggressive fighter; one who mixes a lot of athletic movement, leaping, jumping and even flying into her combat - her hawk form makes her uniquely suited to diving attacks and flying-kick dynamic entrances from above. While she will occasionally stalk a target and ambush them like the tiger she is, for the most part her instincts tell her to be out in the open as the centre of attention. She's always charging at an enemy or leaping down at them from on high or crushing them in a chokehold before throwing them into a wall; she lights things on fire and smashes up the environment to get improvised clubs and staves that last for a couple of attacks before breaking. People whose livelihoods she's fighting near will probably not appreciate her pronounced tendency for things like "arson" and "property damage" to be collateral side effects of her brawls, but it can't be denied that she's an intimidating and terrifyingly effective warrior.
Ogin
Unlike his sister, Ogin is... well, okay, let's be honest here. He's a little bit evil. Half his attacks are oriented around weakening or crippling you, either as brutalities to terrify your allies or as tactical strikes that he then fades back from while you bleed out or weaken. He's entirely willing to hit-and-run, and indeed prefers that to engaging in a face-to-face fight he'd lose. If you realise how many penalties he's stacking up on you from disabled limbs, hampered mobility, poison, bleeding and wound penalties, he can pursue you even if you try to run - and his possession abilities make him horrifyingly capable of hitting you over and over with different puppets until you start treating anything that comes near you as a threat. Of all Keris's children, he's the one his mother's demon-spear Vipera will - after the mandatory 1lhl blood-price to attune - most happily and indeed eagerly fight with, coiled around his arm as a razor sleeve with him holding it just behind the head like a knife.
Aiko
Aiko is maybe the least synergised of the kids. She'll be taught Five Dragon Style by her mother's tutors, pick up Hellfire Ballet from her father and get Osprey just because she's a weeb who likes katanas, but they're not really all outgrowths of the same general approach to combat like the twins' are. And because of that, she's in some ways the best at code-switching. You can see her visibly shift Style whenever she changes weapon, using Five Dragon Style for measured long-range engagement and defensive, disciplined melee, Osprey when she's being nimble and flowing and taking the offensive, and Hellfire Ballet when her enemy has her beaten on reach or she wants to end a fight quickly (or just decides that more fire is the best way to solve a problem). Between the weeby katana fangirling, the vitriolwands her father will get into at some point and the "demonic Dynastic princess" stuff, she's kind of accidentally ended up maximum edgelady, but we can forgive her this because she didn't really mean to (and because she gets adorably flustered when teased about it).
Hanilyia
Hanily is a squishy mortal who is not meant to be in combat at all, and should be focusing more on graduating university than on picking fights with random elemental courts and getting into brawls with corrupt gods, young lady. Wait, what do you mean, "throwing dynamite at people"? Which part of "not meant to be getting into fights" was unclear? No, put that repeating crossbow down! Hanily! This is not papa-approved behaviour, dammit! Or Aunty-Keris-tolerated behaviour, for that matter! She's the one who has to pay to repair those student bars!
Kali
Fist of the Daystar Style, also called Solar Hero Style, emulates the celestial fighting prowess of the heroes of the dawn. Honest and straightforward, it makes heavy use of grappling, unarmed strikes and use of the environment to pummel the greatest of monsters into submission with undaunted grace and power. Form weapons for this style are grappling aids, khatars, tiger claws and improvised weapons, and it may be practiced in any armour.
1: +1 to attempts to knock an opponent prone in fair combat.
2: +1 to control a clinch against a prone opponent.
3: +1 damage when crushing a clinched opponent.
1: +1 to attempts to knock an opponent prone in fair combat.
2: +1 to control a clinch against a prone opponent.
3: +1 damage when crushing a clinched opponent.
Tiger Style is an ancient style that emulates the strength and ferocity of great cats, stalking victims before pouncing at the first sign of weakness and using speed and upper body strength to overwhelm even the strongest defence. The style emphasises rushing down prey and dispatching single targets with savage pouncing leaps and swift, lethal attacks. Practitioners use tiger claws, cesti and khatars, as well as raking opponents with bare-handed claw strikes. This style is compatible with light and medium armour.
1: +1 to Move, Dash or Jump distance when closing distance with a single target.
2: +1 to concealment rolls when stalking towards a single target under stealth.
3: +1 damage to successful surprise attacks or attacks on an opponent you have wounded within the last two rounds.
1: +1 to Move, Dash or Jump distance when closing distance with a single target.
2: +1 to concealment rolls when stalking towards a single target under stealth.
3: +1 damage to successful surprise attacks or attacks on an opponent you have wounded within the last two rounds.
Phoenix Style is a polearm style often practiced by exorcists, based on the exotic bird. It focuses on polearms and staves as well as associated unarmed techniques, often leaping to strike down at a foe with flying kicks. Practitioners pierce with superheated spear tips, bring up walls of fire to ward off foes, and rapidly close with a foe with great leaps. This style is compatible with light armour.
1: +1 to horizontal and vertical Jump distance.
2: +1 Accuracy to attacks made from a higher elevation.
3: +1 DV against creatures vulnerable to fire or with wound penalties caused by fire.
1: +1 to horizontal and vertical Jump distance.
2: +1 Accuracy to attacks made from a higher elevation.
3: +1 DV against creatures vulnerable to fire or with wound penalties caused by fire.
Ogin
Argent Witch Style, also known as Faceless Hunter Style, is the result of a grand project to devise a martial art that emulates and resonates with the flexibility and versatility of the Lunar Exalted. Characterised by a focus on a sudden, horrifying assault that leaves crippling wounds followed by retreat in the case of failure, it is a surprising favourite among spirits who enjoy shapeshifting prowess or easy escape into immateriality. Form weapons are knives, sais and brawling aids, as well as armour of -2 mobility or less.
1: +1 to surprise attacks from at least 75% cover or a previously-unseen disguise.
2: +1 to called or crippling attacks intended to limit mobility or disable limbs.
3: +1 success to attempts to disengage that end in at least 75% cover or abandon a disguise in the course of escape.
1: +1 to surprise attacks from at least 75% cover or a previously-unseen disguise.
2: +1 to called or crippling attacks intended to limit mobility or disable limbs.
3: +1 success to attempts to disengage that end in at least 75% cover or abandon a disguise in the course of escape.
Viper Style is based on the adders and other vipers whose venom brings a slow death from blood loss and hemotoxins. It focuses on knives, short swords and unarmed nerve strikes, aiming to cripple a foe through venom or bleeding, and is compatible with light armour. Practitioners learn to strike with spiritual poison, sense life in the darkness as a viper would, and kill with stabs to vital organs.
1: +1 to attacks and called shots intended to deliver venom or induce Bleeding.
2: -1 to Valour pools for opponents suffering Bleeding, wound penalties or Poison effects from your attacks.
3: +1 automatic success to locate a retreating or concealed opponent you have recently wounded.
1: +1 to attacks and called shots intended to deliver venom or induce Bleeding.
2: -1 to Valour pools for opponents suffering Bleeding, wound penalties or Poison effects from your attacks.
3: +1 automatic success to locate a retreating or concealed opponent you have recently wounded.
Dark Messiah Style, sometimes mockingly called Abyssal Hero Style, is a vicious and underhanded style that ruthlessly targets weak points and crushes foes with cruel and agonising holds. Every blow is intended to cripple or inflict distracting pain, and there is an emphasis on performative brutality to inspire fear in any onlookers. Form weapons of this style are cesti, fighting gauntlets, khatars, tiger claws and razor harnesses, and it can be practiced in any armour.
1: +1 to called shots intended to blind, target existing wounds or exploit vulnerabilities.
2: +1 to control clinches against victims suffering a Crippling injury or a -2 wound penalty or greater.
3: +1 Difficulty to opposing Valour rolls for those who have seen the Dark Messiah kill or mortally wound an ally with an unarmed attack or clinch.
1: +1 to called shots intended to blind, target existing wounds or exploit vulnerabilities.
2: +1 to control clinches against victims suffering a Crippling injury or a -2 wound penalty or greater.
3: +1 Difficulty to opposing Valour rolls for those who have seen the Dark Messiah kill or mortally wound an ally with an unarmed attack or clinch.
Aiko
Five Dragon Style is a traditional Realm style heavily used by the Immaculate Order and Dynastic Dragonblooded. Precise blocks and practiced strikes epitomise the discipline and skill behind this style, which draws from the five elements to unite the energy of Fire, the stability of Earth, the movement of Air, the depth of Water and the flexibility of Wood. It treats straight swords, spears and longbows as form weapons and may be practiced in any armour.
1: +1 to attacks in the round after successfully parrying the target.
2: +1 to counterattacks and disarm attempts after a successful parry.
3: +1 DV against opponents using a Style already defeated in the current fight.
1: +1 to attacks in the round after successfully parrying the target.
2: +1 to counterattacks and disarm attempts after a successful parry.
3: +1 DV against opponents using a Style already defeated in the current fight.
Osprey Style is a classic coastal sword style inspired by fish-hunting ospreys. It focuses on the use of both one- and two-handed cutting swords as well as associated unarmed techniques in flowing motions that mimic both surging water and the osprey's swooping dives. Practitioners cut through flesh and leather like talons tearing through scales, and slam an enemy down with a cunning trip before ending them with salt-encrusted steel.
1: +1 to maintain balance on unstable ground or with compromised footing.
2: +1 knock enemies prone or compromise their footing.
3: +1 damage against prone or immobile enemies.
1: +1 to maintain balance on unstable ground or with compromised footing.
2: +1 knock enemies prone or compromise their footing.
3: +1 damage against prone or immobile enemies.
Hellfire Ballet Style is a quick and deadly style native to the Southern deserts that uses firewands, flamepieces, handheld crossbows and other one-handed ranged weapons. Practitioniers learn to draw fast and fire faster, ending fights before their opponents can react and often carrying several holstered weapons to avoid the need to reload. Unlike many ranged styles, this style is a hectic dance meant for the middle of the battlefield; best used at close range, it is inapplicable at long or extreme ranges.
1: +1 to Join Battle rolls with an unreadied form weapon.
2: +1 Accuracy if firing at an opponent with lower Initiative.
3: +1 Damage against enemies who have yet to attack.
1: +1 to Join Battle rolls with an unreadied form weapon.
2: +1 Accuracy if firing at an opponent with lower Initiative.
3: +1 Damage against enemies who have yet to attack.
Hanilyia
Hanily is a squishy mortal who is not meant to be in combat at all, and should be focusing more on graduating university than on picking fights with random elemental courts and getting into brawls with corrupt gods, young lady. Wait, what do you mean, "throwing dynamite at people"? Which part of "not meant to be getting into fights" was unclear? No, put that repeating crossbow down! Hanily! This is not papa-approved behaviour, dammit! Or Aunty-Keris-tolerated behaviour, for that matter! She's the one who has to pay to repair those student bars!
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
And the constant astrological blessings her mum sends out of guilt have nothing to do with her improbable success in these insane endeavours?
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She's Cog 5 / Reaction 5.And the constant astrological blessings her mum sends out of guilt have nothing to do with her improbable success in these insane endeavours?
Basically she has super good plans coming in and then can bullshit up a good plan B instantly.
She's kind of rediculous herself.
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
So what about Atiya?
deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
I imagine that depends. If this is on a fair way through time, and she's become High Queen of An Teng, I imagine she uses the rare 'Dragonbloods jumping up and down on your head' style, which gives her a bonus when writing orders for DB squads to solve inconvenient minor problems like Exalts or rebellious nobles, by having a dozen DBs jump up and down on their heads until they stop
- Location
- Graveyard of Forgotten Thoughts
I think we are seeing the effects of Keris's principles at play here. The 3-dot "Look After My Babies" got devoured, so Kali and Ogin have more room to fight without an over-protective infernal preempting them. Atiya and Hanily are still mortals (they have hun and po unlike the twins, if I'm reading the rules correctly), so they fall under the 2-dot "Mortals are Fragile" principle, meaning Keris doesn't really think they can fight effectively.
(I'm guessing for Hanily that'll only last until she works out what she's missing by its complement)
In the previous chapter, we saw Keris reforging her spear, which she likely wouldn't have done if she still had her "My Lance is Also the Best!" principle; so we see that in a way, some of her principles might have been holding her back. On the other hand, losing "My Ship is Even Better than the Best!" could mean she's not putting as much effort into making the best use of the Memory of Baisha as if she had been emotionally invested.
If I recall correctly, it has previously been mentioned that Keris's principles are partitioned between her souls. We saw how Evedelyne took the children for a walk in unknown territory right after "Look After My Babies", which was associated with her, got devoured. Which souls possessed the other devoured principles and how were they affected by the loss? For example, is the new Haneyl differentiated from the old by the absence of "Shashalme (Grateful Trust)", in addition to the excision of the Szoreny parts?
Given how Zanyi needed Keris to deliver the news that Ali's getting remarried, I'd say that isn't happening. Paying so much attention to an area with high infernal activity might attract unwanted attention.
Materials from a dragonblood was used in the fleshcrafting of Atiya to boost her chances of exalting, though she isn't being put through a realm-style education designed to maximize that probability. But if it happens, she'll be able to learn (a demonic variant of) Earth Dragon Style from the Shamsun.
Edit: mistyped Ogin's name
(I'm guessing for Hanily that'll only last until she works out what she's missing by its complement)
In the previous chapter, we saw Keris reforging her spear, which she likely wouldn't have done if she still had her "My Lance is Also the Best!" principle; so we see that in a way, some of her principles might have been holding her back. On the other hand, losing "My Ship is Even Better than the Best!" could mean she's not putting as much effort into making the best use of the Memory of Baisha as if she had been emotionally invested.
If I recall correctly, it has previously been mentioned that Keris's principles are partitioned between her souls. We saw how Evedelyne took the children for a walk in unknown territory right after "Look After My Babies", which was associated with her, got devoured. Which souls possessed the other devoured principles and how were they affected by the loss? For example, is the new Haneyl differentiated from the old by the absence of "Shashalme (Grateful Trust)", in addition to the excision of the Szoreny parts?
And the constant astrological blessings her mum sends out of guilt have nothing to do with her improbable success in these insane endeavours?
Given how Zanyi needed Keris to deliver the news that Ali's getting remarried, I'd say that isn't happening. Paying so much attention to an area with high infernal activity might attract unwanted attention.
Materials from a dragonblood was used in the fleshcrafting of Atiya to boost her chances of exalting, though she isn't being put through a realm-style education designed to maximize that probability. But if it happens, she'll be able to learn (a demonic variant of) Earth Dragon Style from the Shamsun.
Edit: mistyped Ogin's name
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- Location
- Queensland, Australia
... Hanilyia is even more and more making me go 'This girl is just waiting for a Solar Exaltation to be around'. Of course, the issue with that is that there are only 300 of those, halved due to various alterations of said Solar Exaltation, and a lot of those 150 aren't likely to be waiting for a suitable host due to the noticeable damage that is occurring to the Realm hindering their efforts to keep the Solar Exalted down and dead.
Five Calibrations Pass - Early Water 775
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Since it's such a busy season, we've split it in two, so you only get Early Water 775 this week. The census of Keris's inner world's population isn't going too well, she's trying to do some more tutelage, and perhaps most importantly, Calesco is leaving on her journey up to the Scavenger Lands. Which means Keris is suddenly lacking a stand-in for Little River and Cinnamon. This is actually going to complicate matters considerably, because Calesco's liable to be gone for the rest of the year, and may not even make it back in time for Calibration. As such, Keris has decided now is a good time to pull her finger out and actually commit to this "separate identities" thing, because among other things, having the babies go to school while Cinnamon and Little River are still intertwined through them is a... somewhat dangerous prospect, given how little mouths can accidentally let loose giant secrets.
Obviously, the twins and Atiya are handling the announcement that their living spaces and interaction time are getting cut in half with their customary stoicism and grace, which is just... fantastic.
We've not had any more sorcerers awaken yet, but Keris's efforts to tutor and nurture her baby school properly are paying off as people move up the ladder. As of Crowning Water 775, the Kerisian School roster looks like this:
Obviously, the twins and Atiya are handling the announcement that their living spaces and interaction time are getting cut in half with their customary stoicism and grace, which is just... fantastic.
We've not had any more sorcerers awaken yet, but Keris's efforts to tutor and nurture her baby school properly are paying off as people move up the ladder. As of Crowning Water 775, the Kerisian School roster looks like this:
Masters: Keris Maryam Dulmeadokht, Oula Montressa
Adepts: Rathan Waisikir, Hermione Matahan, Haneyl Azhgardana
Aspirants:Eko*, Calesco, Vali, Yuu, Ellyssivera
Disciples: Anyuu
Initiates: Rounen, Rala, Kuha
Students: Zanara, Seresa, Saji, Scarlet Blossom, Siyma an-Reswah, technically Aiko and Hanily
(Reminder of what the different ranks mean here.)
* Not officially participating in School activities on account of determined sulking.
Adepts: Rathan Waisikir, Hermione Matahan, Haneyl Azhgardana
Aspirants:
Disciples: Anyuu
Initiates: Rounen, Rala, Kuha
Students: Zanara, Seresa, Saji, Scarlet Blossom, Siyma an-Reswah, technically Aiko and Hanily
(Reminder of what the different ranks mean here.)
* Not officially participating in School activities on account of determined sulking.
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- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I really love the moments when Keris is mothering her youngest kids, so between the Gull remembrance and the utter betrayal at the end I really liked this chapter. It's very cute.
- Location
- Graveyard of Forgotten Thoughts
I feel for the kids. Having your existing relationships upended like that is always hard. I also suspect Keris is rather underestimating how long it will take for Atiya to come to terms with the new arrangements; remember long Kerisa waited for her parents to come back? Now, while Gull might not be able to give any advice on raising children, Yamal has had two sets of children before Kali, and seems like the kind of guy who would want to be involved in his daughter's upbringing.
I anticipate that in ten years time, people will notice that Cinnamon's brilliant but shy son is surprisingly close to Little River's regal but reticent daughter, and rumours will flow.
Speaking of upheavals in the family, I can see why Keris timed the mission to give Calesco an excuse to sit out the wedding, since it would go against Calesco's nature to restrain herself from blurting out the truth. The affair will be strained enough for the half of the family who remember Zanyira without upsetting the mortals over something they won't be able to remember.
Now, onto my customary weird (mis)interpretations:
Is the part about reflections and ideals a mathematical joke, where each layer of reflection is a ring, and (n-1)th layer is a quotient ring of the nth layer, with possible ways to write the text being congruent to each other modulo the right ideal?
Why is Eko's name struck out in the Kerisian School Membership roster? The obvious reading is that Eko's studying from the School, but in secret. That is certainly in character for Eko.
Alternatively, it could mean that Eko's joined a different School of sorcery. She might have naturally gravitated towards the Ediacaran school, being an echo of Titans (the Silent Wind in her Joyful Wind form and the River of All Torments in her planned River of Blood and Razors form). Furthermore, the concept of taking roles resonates with the Ellogean theme Eko grafted onto herself.
And thirdly, it could mean that she is no longer an Aspirant because she has already initiated into sorcery. Possible stations:
I anticipate that in ten years time, people will notice that Cinnamon's brilliant but shy son is surprisingly close to Little River's regal but reticent daughter, and rumours will flow.
Speaking of upheavals in the family, I can see why Keris timed the mission to give Calesco an excuse to sit out the wedding, since it would go against Calesco's nature to restrain herself from blurting out the truth. The affair will be strained enough for the half of the family who remember Zanyira without upsetting the mortals over something they won't be able to remember.
Now, onto my customary weird (mis)interpretations:
Is the part about reflections and ideals a mathematical joke, where each layer of reflection is a ring, and (n-1)th layer is a quotient ring of the nth layer, with possible ways to write the text being congruent to each other modulo the right ideal?
Why is Eko's name struck out in the Kerisian School Membership roster? The obvious reading is that Eko's studying from the School, but in secret. That is certainly in character for Eko.
Alternatively, it could mean that Eko's joined a different School of sorcery. She might have naturally gravitated towards the Ediacaran school, being an echo of Titans (the Silent Wind in her Joyful Wind form and the River of All Torments in her planned River of Blood and Razors form). Furthermore, the concept of taking roles resonates with the Ellogean theme Eko grafted onto herself.
And thirdly, it could mean that she is no longer an Aspirant because she has already initiated into sorcery. Possible stations:
- Humility - breakfast with the Contrary One
- Tutelage - Keris, Asarin, or maybe even through the Salinian Working
- Journey - journey to Asarin's kingdom to obtain payment for Atiya's fleshcrafting
- Fear - worked out a way to make sound so that she is not completely helpless against her Big Sis
- Sacrifice - Eko sacrificed the integrity of her body so that she may have better control over her own mind
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sorry to let you down, but it's actually because she's sulking and refusing to attend any more lessons while she's mad at Keris and has rudely and violently rejected any and all olive branches and attempts at indirect tutelage in the Kerisian School with angry rants about being grounded.
For someone with as limited of an attention span and memory as Eko, she's sure amazing at holding grudges.
Are we sure she hasn't slipped a sip of that Kimberian brew when Rathan wasn't looking?
The last time she held a long term grudge, she literally aged into a teenager, so Eko might be a young adult the next time we see her.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Eko is already a young adult, as are Rathan and Haneyl and Calesco. And Vali, now. They all code as being in that just-past-adolescence 18-25ish range - Zanara is the only one who's still quite clearly a teenager.
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Five Calibrations Pass - Late Water 775
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Here we are with a more forward-focused, demonically themed chapter in Late Water 775! And in this one I actually have a fair amount to talk about, so let's break it up by topic.
Operation Ribbon
Aiko and Prita are, unfortunately, showing their age. Their actual age, not their mental age. Which is to say, Aiko is six, and Prita is four. But Prita is a szel who can see bindings of love as, just, like, a thing that's as obvious about the world as colour or movement, and so she saw that Aunty Keris and Aiko's Mother loved each other and just took it as a fact about the world. And the thing is, people don't actually often talk about blatantly obvious things that are part of day to day life. Not many people who know Keris point their finger at her and go "YOUR EYES ARE GREY" in shock and amazement.
So it actually took Prita a while to just casually mention the doki-doki feelings between Maker-Eko's mama and Aiko's mama in passing. Which might have led Aiko to accidentally set fire to some curtains when she exhaled flame in stunned shock.
Now, in reality, Keris and Sasi were once very affectionate in front of Aiko, but that was back when she was too young to really remember it now. And then they tried their triad thing with Keris and Testolagh sleeping together and agreed to keep it on the down-low so as not to give Aiko false hope if it didn't work out, because nobody wanted her to get all starry-eyed about Aunty Keris and Daddy maybe falling in love and then explain to her that it wasn't happening. And on the rare occasions nowadays that Keris and Sasi are together when Aiko is also present, they try to keep things fairly low-key because they tend to go from 0 to 60 pretty fast when they allow themselves any PDA at all, and they don't want to traumatise the poor girl.
But as far as Aiko and Prita understand it... well, to their minds, the fact that no one else who isn't a szel knows about these feelings clearly means that either it is a secret for some deep dark reason which is beyond their ken (in which case they need to know what that dark secret is so they can help keep it from anyone who's not meant to know), or neither Keris nor Sasi know the other loves each other (in which case it is basically a moral obligation for two sensible little girls to get those two dummies to realise their feelings).
The first objective of their grand plan known as Operation Ribbon is to work out which of these two it is so as not to embarrass themselves by acting on the wrong one, although frankly at this point both of them strongly suspect that it's the latter, and indeed that it is quite possible the adults are so silly they don't even realise their own feelings, let alone each other's.
But that's okay. After all, they're busy being adults. They have other things to think about, because Prita's dedicated research has revealed that even szels when they grow up don't care so much about ROMANCE and in fact seem to be very embarassed by the whole thing, which is perplexing and confusing and vaguely offensive on a number of levels. But if that happens, Prita and Aiko only have so much time themselves to get them to understand what's going on or they'll grow up before Sasi and Keris are open about their feelings and who knows what'll happen then. After all, they'll be big girls soon. It's only a few more years before they're really old. Like... 10!
So they have to work fast. And Aiko is even willing to make the GREAT SACRIFICE of being officially related to Hanily if it means that Aunty Keris and Mother can be happy together, though it must be said that getting the twins as official siblings (and Eko and Haneyl in the bargin) will help mitigate the burden of kinship to Hanily who really is letting the whole family down by being so URGH.
With a plan this good, nothing can possibly go wrong.
Hanily
Oooon the subject of adorable genius children, yeeeaaahhhh. Miiiight have dropped the ball on this one.
So basically Hanily's gone fucking feral.
But, let's back up a moment and look at why.
In short, Keris has been paying less attention to parenting Hanily on the grounds that Ali is there to parent her, and sort of forgotten that:
Well, the basic problem is that Ali has mostly moved down into Hilthr's village, but Hanily actually doesn't really need a roof over her head in her current situation. She finds village life dull and boring, and the demonic tutors Keris summoned for her so she didn't have to share Aiko's stay in Ahangar House. Thus, whenever she gets bored of chores or frustrated with Hilthr or just regular ADHD restless, she skips out - leaving a note if Ali is lucky - and heads up to the house to stay there and learn from her tutors and hang out with Xasan and so on. And about half the time she'll make it there, and spend a week or so there until Ali gets worried enough to come get her or she hits a roadblock in her lessons and decides to go out exploring and finish her worksheets later or whatever.
The other half of the time - or when she leaves Ahangar House - she runs into a group of the feral keruby native to the valley. And I do mean "feral" there, in the sense that they're not truly "wild" like the sziroms you'd find deep in the middle of the Swamp, they've been exposed to humans and socialised somewhat but not fully "domesticated". So Hanily will run into a group of them, and as we've seen from this chapter the valley keruby essentially treat her as halfway between an honorary szel (or maybe a hypothesised-mostly-by-szels "High-Queen-aspected kerub") and a miniature Keris, so she'll just... go along with them.
And as long as she's with a group of keruby, she's actually basically fine, in the sense of getting her basic needs met. Oh, it's not a good thing, but their presence means that all the usual things that force kids like Hanily to go back home after getting bored and running away from home for the afternoon - getting hungry, not having any shelter when it starts to rain, clothes getting torn or dirty, not having anywhere to sleep - are all solved problems she can deal with by trading favours with keruby. There is nothing she actually needs her home for, besides human contact. And with kerub friends, she doesn't feel like human contact is something she needs.
So she's been sleeping in szirom-hides and kerub-dens, not because of any trauma or anything but just because home is boring and she's perfectly capable of getting her food and shelter needs met by way of hunter-gathering up on the hills and puppy-piles with the keruby. This means she's skipping certain bits of the tutoring she's meant to be getting, but she's making up for it by getting a highly specialised and bizarrely broad and spotty education from her friends, of the "can sing the magic ditty that calls water elementals out of their riverbed home under the waterfall, but can't talk to normal children her own age" variety.
... Hilda. She's basically becoming Hilda.
Now, yes, this has given her even more of a player character's background, though she's not actually a Generic Protagonist because she is, bluntly, too weird at this point to be a Main Character (Hilda excepted). Rather, she's the secondary character who's the strange Occulty member of the team and whose frankly weird-ass backstory is revealed in bits and pieces. Like how she knows a bizarre range of stuff about topics that make no logical sense for her to have any experience with. Or apparently was so feral as a child that she only spent about one or two nights a week in her house, and lived with hill spirits and little valley gods for much of the rest of the time. Or just... knows how to beckon demons? For some reason?
Basically, if the plot needs some distressing bit of occult knowledge or some bizarre familiarity with gods and spirits and demons or random near-fluency in Old Realm or weird survival mojo that only someone who's been sleeping in trees in the wilderness since they were eight could pull off or someone to know these giant monstrous elemental plant-werewolf-things personally and be childhood friends with them what the fuck, Hanily is the member of the Hero's Nakama who steps forward, possibly to the point of being a running gag where everyone turns to her when something weird happens and she acts offended that they expect her to be able to solve it, then solves it and is like "okay, but you still shouldn't assume". Even her weirdness is weird, in the sense that she's near-fluent in Old Realm, the ancient language of priests and magicians with which they entreat spirits and command demons, but she doesn't know the formal lingo for it, she knows things like how to say "I like my fish cooked with lemongrass" or "gimme back my knife you little £%$&!".
She's also been acting as a Priestess of Keris, which is to say, resolving disputes and mediating between them and being the person they drag everyone in front of when there's a disagreement that can't just be resolved by yelling at one another and scuffling. This is actually something Xasan has also been doing - and indeed quite enjoying, because it's roughly what he did as one of the shah's kalantars. Like, it's genuinely giving him a bit of an ego boost to have these strange little godlings come in front of him and ask him to make judgements and set policy, and respecting and obeying his decisions. And one of the ways in which he is exploiting this is that if you want him to judge a case for you, he makes you pay for it by helping herd his sheep or dredge the Ahangar dams of the river or rebuild drystone walls or scrub the yard or tend to the gardens or whatnot. This has two effects:
I will admit, I am not 100% sure on how to fix this. Keris doesn't want to ban her from spending time up on the hills in kerub-dens entirely, because, like... she's fairly safe there as long as they remember she's a squishy human and don't treat her too much like a szel, and she genuinely is learning a lot there and getting very protagonisty. But she does need, and deserve, more structure in her life. Keris will probably try to get her on a rotating pattern of a week with her father, a week at Ahangar House, a week with her friends, another week at Ahangar, then back to her father, etc. And she'll probably calm down a fair bit once I enroll her in a Saatan university-school when she hits 10 or 11, which will help matters enormously just by putting her closer to Keris and her cousins. But yeah, there's still definitely going to be what you might call a Hilda/Star vs the Forces of Evil plotline of "weird undersocialised feral occult girl learns how to people" whenever it happens.
Xiana's case
So yeah, legal shit is going down. I'll do an infopost about Kerisian (and particularly keruby) Litigation later, but for now let's just look at the specific details of this case in particular:
Zen Daiwye Legal Drama: The Origins of Rat's Law!
Persons involved:
The Arguments:
Keris's Ruling:
The Consequences:
Operation Ribbon
Aiko and Prita are, unfortunately, showing their age. Their actual age, not their mental age. Which is to say, Aiko is six, and Prita is four. But Prita is a szel who can see bindings of love as, just, like, a thing that's as obvious about the world as colour or movement, and so she saw that Aunty Keris and Aiko's Mother loved each other and just took it as a fact about the world. And the thing is, people don't actually often talk about blatantly obvious things that are part of day to day life. Not many people who know Keris point their finger at her and go "YOUR EYES ARE GREY" in shock and amazement.
So it actually took Prita a while to just casually mention the doki-doki feelings between Maker-Eko's mama and Aiko's mama in passing. Which might have led Aiko to accidentally set fire to some curtains when she exhaled flame in stunned shock.
Now, in reality, Keris and Sasi were once very affectionate in front of Aiko, but that was back when she was too young to really remember it now. And then they tried their triad thing with Keris and Testolagh sleeping together and agreed to keep it on the down-low so as not to give Aiko false hope if it didn't work out, because nobody wanted her to get all starry-eyed about Aunty Keris and Daddy maybe falling in love and then explain to her that it wasn't happening. And on the rare occasions nowadays that Keris and Sasi are together when Aiko is also present, they try to keep things fairly low-key because they tend to go from 0 to 60 pretty fast when they allow themselves any PDA at all, and they don't want to traumatise the poor girl.
But as far as Aiko and Prita understand it... well, to their minds, the fact that no one else who isn't a szel knows about these feelings clearly means that either it is a secret for some deep dark reason which is beyond their ken (in which case they need to know what that dark secret is so they can help keep it from anyone who's not meant to know), or neither Keris nor Sasi know the other loves each other (in which case it is basically a moral obligation for two sensible little girls to get those two dummies to realise their feelings).
The first objective of their grand plan known as Operation Ribbon is to work out which of these two it is so as not to embarrass themselves by acting on the wrong one, although frankly at this point both of them strongly suspect that it's the latter, and indeed that it is quite possible the adults are so silly they don't even realise their own feelings, let alone each other's.
But that's okay. After all, they're busy being adults. They have other things to think about, because Prita's dedicated research has revealed that even szels when they grow up don't care so much about ROMANCE and in fact seem to be very embarassed by the whole thing, which is perplexing and confusing and vaguely offensive on a number of levels. But if that happens, Prita and Aiko only have so much time themselves to get them to understand what's going on or they'll grow up before Sasi and Keris are open about their feelings and who knows what'll happen then. After all, they'll be big girls soon. It's only a few more years before they're really old. Like... 10!
So they have to work fast. And Aiko is even willing to make the GREAT SACRIFICE of being officially related to Hanily if it means that Aunty Keris and Mother can be happy together, though it must be said that getting the twins as official siblings (and Eko and Haneyl in the bargin) will help mitigate the burden of kinship to Hanily who really is letting the whole family down by being so URGH.
With a plan this good, nothing can possibly go wrong.
Hanily
Oooon the subject of adorable genius children, yeeeaaahhhh. Miiiight have dropped the ball on this one.
So basically Hanily's gone fucking feral.
But, let's back up a moment and look at why.
In short, Keris has been paying less attention to parenting Hanily on the grounds that Ali is there to parent her, and sort of forgotten that:
- Ali has a new wife-to-be who Hanily does not like,
- Hanily has lots and lots of kerub friends in the valley, and most importantly
- the assumption that she'll be fine because Ali is there to parent her sort of depends on Ali being able to parent a Cognition 5, Reaction 5, high-Willpower, high-Occult little girl who has been learning fair amounts of Survival from her kerub friends and the Harborite ladies up on the valley slopes and whose idea of reasonable precautions against risk lean more towards her aunt's example than her father's.
Well, the basic problem is that Ali has mostly moved down into Hilthr's village, but Hanily actually doesn't really need a roof over her head in her current situation. She finds village life dull and boring, and the demonic tutors Keris summoned for her so she didn't have to share Aiko's stay in Ahangar House. Thus, whenever she gets bored of chores or frustrated with Hilthr or just regular ADHD restless, she skips out - leaving a note if Ali is lucky - and heads up to the house to stay there and learn from her tutors and hang out with Xasan and so on. And about half the time she'll make it there, and spend a week or so there until Ali gets worried enough to come get her or she hits a roadblock in her lessons and decides to go out exploring and finish her worksheets later or whatever.
The other half of the time - or when she leaves Ahangar House - she runs into a group of the feral keruby native to the valley. And I do mean "feral" there, in the sense that they're not truly "wild" like the sziroms you'd find deep in the middle of the Swamp, they've been exposed to humans and socialised somewhat but not fully "domesticated". So Hanily will run into a group of them, and as we've seen from this chapter the valley keruby essentially treat her as halfway between an honorary szel (or maybe a hypothesised-mostly-by-szels "High-Queen-aspected kerub") and a miniature Keris, so she'll just... go along with them.
And as long as she's with a group of keruby, she's actually basically fine, in the sense of getting her basic needs met. Oh, it's not a good thing, but their presence means that all the usual things that force kids like Hanily to go back home after getting bored and running away from home for the afternoon - getting hungry, not having any shelter when it starts to rain, clothes getting torn or dirty, not having anywhere to sleep - are all solved problems she can deal with by trading favours with keruby. There is nothing she actually needs her home for, besides human contact. And with kerub friends, she doesn't feel like human contact is something she needs.
So she's been sleeping in szirom-hides and kerub-dens, not because of any trauma or anything but just because home is boring and she's perfectly capable of getting her food and shelter needs met by way of hunter-gathering up on the hills and puppy-piles with the keruby. This means she's skipping certain bits of the tutoring she's meant to be getting, but she's making up for it by getting a highly specialised and bizarrely broad and spotty education from her friends, of the "can sing the magic ditty that calls water elementals out of their riverbed home under the waterfall, but can't talk to normal children her own age" variety.
... Hilda. She's basically becoming Hilda.
Now, yes, this has given her even more of a player character's background, though she's not actually a Generic Protagonist because she is, bluntly, too weird at this point to be a Main Character (Hilda excepted). Rather, she's the secondary character who's the strange Occulty member of the team and whose frankly weird-ass backstory is revealed in bits and pieces. Like how she knows a bizarre range of stuff about topics that make no logical sense for her to have any experience with. Or apparently was so feral as a child that she only spent about one or two nights a week in her house, and lived with hill spirits and little valley gods for much of the rest of the time. Or just... knows how to beckon demons? For some reason?
Basically, if the plot needs some distressing bit of occult knowledge or some bizarre familiarity with gods and spirits and demons or random near-fluency in Old Realm or weird survival mojo that only someone who's been sleeping in trees in the wilderness since they were eight could pull off or someone to know these giant monstrous elemental plant-werewolf-things personally and be childhood friends with them what the fuck, Hanily is the member of the Hero's Nakama who steps forward, possibly to the point of being a running gag where everyone turns to her when something weird happens and she acts offended that they expect her to be able to solve it, then solves it and is like "okay, but you still shouldn't assume". Even her weirdness is weird, in the sense that she's near-fluent in Old Realm, the ancient language of priests and magicians with which they entreat spirits and command demons, but she doesn't know the formal lingo for it, she knows things like how to say "I like my fish cooked with lemongrass" or "gimme back my knife you little £%$&!".
She's also been acting as a Priestess of Keris, which is to say, resolving disputes and mediating between them and being the person they drag everyone in front of when there's a disagreement that can't just be resolved by yelling at one another and scuffling. This is actually something Xasan has also been doing - and indeed quite enjoying, because it's roughly what he did as one of the shah's kalantars. Like, it's genuinely giving him a bit of an ego boost to have these strange little godlings come in front of him and ask him to make judgements and set policy, and respecting and obeying his decisions. And one of the ways in which he is exploiting this is that if you want him to judge a case for you, he makes you pay for it by helping herd his sheep or dredge the Ahangar dams of the river or rebuild drystone walls or scrub the yard or tend to the gardens or whatnot. This has two effects:
- A lot of the minor complaints or arguments that aren't worth doing an afternoon or two of labour for him get resolved between the keruby involved instead, and therefore he doesn't get bothered by petty stuff, and
- Eight to ten hours spent in each other's company doing something like chasing feral bobkats away from the lambs does a surprising amount of good in making the two keruby involved in a case get to know each other, lose the aminosity and be much more agreeable by the time Xasan gets around to judging whatever they're calling on him to resolve.
I will admit, I am not 100% sure on how to fix this. Keris doesn't want to ban her from spending time up on the hills in kerub-dens entirely, because, like... she's fairly safe there as long as they remember she's a squishy human and don't treat her too much like a szel, and she genuinely is learning a lot there and getting very protagonisty. But she does need, and deserve, more structure in her life. Keris will probably try to get her on a rotating pattern of a week with her father, a week at Ahangar House, a week with her friends, another week at Ahangar, then back to her father, etc. And she'll probably calm down a fair bit once I enroll her in a Saatan university-school when she hits 10 or 11, which will help matters enormously just by putting her closer to Keris and her cousins. But yeah, there's still definitely going to be what you might call a Hilda/Star vs the Forces of Evil plotline of "weird undersocialised feral occult girl learns how to people" whenever it happens.
Xiana's case
So yeah, legal shit is going down. I'll do an infopost about Kerisian (and particularly keruby) Litigation later, but for now let's just look at the specific details of this case in particular:
Zen Daiwye Legal Drama: The Origins of Rat's Law!
Persons involved:
- The defendant, Lord Alam (m), tidal raider underling of Count Mele ennobled for valour in battle and awarded a captaincy in Mele's fleet. Has an existing artisan partner, Joff (m). Caused the problem.
- The subject, Dirim (m), newly-matured mercurial artisan of Zen Daiwye, adopted by childless mortal couple Amaya (f) and Nahid (f). Heart is currently in Alam's possession. Is the problem.
- The plaintiff, Xiana (f) (pronounced she-ana), newly-matured cruel magistrate formerly of the Zen Daiwye farm mez-hives with trade-ties to the Glass Temple. Instigated the case subsequent to a Dulmean ruling against her.
The subject, Dirim, matured into a mercurial artisan through a crush on his childhood friend Xiana. Though upset at his absence after the first night passed without his hatching, she concluded that his love was her Happening and diligently worked to prepare an extravagant gift for him before the month's end. However, Lord Alam heard of this situation during negotiations with the keruby of the Glass Temple and arranged for Xiana to be held up haggling there on the night of Dirim's hatching, allowing him to claim the newborn artisan's heart without a fight before she could return.
Heartbroken at her Happening being ruined, Xiana immediately matured into a cruel magistrate and engaged in a brief and violent attempt to wrest Dirim's heart from Lord Alam, but was prevented from doing so by his superior skill and members of his crew. Enraged, she sought a ruling at the Glass Temple, which declined to hear her case, and at Dulmea's court, which declared that as Dirim is happily in love with Alam, no wrong has been committed.
(Amaya and Nahid are deeply unhappy with the situation overall, but are slightly less unhappy about Dirim being with Xiana since she at least won't be leaving Zen Daiwye with him. They adopted an orven and were very underprepared for the realities of what orven maturation meant or how artisans worked or really what they were getting into in general, which is something Keris is probably going to try to rectify by writing the first draft of the Scroll of Keruby in her downtime on the Street during Earth.)
The Arguments:
Xiana is now seeking for this ruling to be overturned on the behalf of Dirim's mothers, whose home Alam would be taking him from, as well as the deep-seated conviction that Alam has done something wrong by stealing his heart before he could choose who to give it to. She is supporting her case through the Calescoid precedent that any act deliberately taken for the sole or major purpose of denying a known Happening and causing a magistrate maturation is illegal under Meadows law (Vela's First Axiom).
Alam contests the latter claim entirely, saying that his aim was not in any way related to Xiana, but instead purely based on Dirim's need for an experienced partner with proven ability to care for him - citing that he has previously managed to balance two artisan partners with no outbreaks of violence between them - and that Meadows law does not apply to Creation, where the purported infraction took place and which all parties are full-time residents of. He also argues that Xiana's case has already been rejected by one court and given a ruling against her by another - the Queen Regent's, no less - and that her continued attempts to steal his husband constitute harassment.
Keris's Ruling:
Keris's response is to establish as Imperial Precedent the formalisation of Rat's Law, which in simple terms states that in contested cases regarding disputes over the rightful holder of an artisan's heart, wherein the artisan in question cannot make a fair or unbiased choice, and especially in the case of newly-matured artisans who have no prior experience of separating their feelings from their rational self-interest, then for the protection and well-being of artisan wellbeing, greater weight is given to parties with pre-existing positive ties to the artisan of friendship and care, and to parties who lack existing partners, be they artisan or otherwise. With both factors absent from Lord Alam and present in Xiana, she bestows Dirim's heart upon his friend and ennobles Xiana as a Zen Daiwye Baroness, charging her to uphold this law among the Zen Daiwye kerub population.
The Consequences:
Alam concludes grimly that Mele will strip him of his lordship for getting this precedent set (correct) and that he'll be fucking lynched by the tidal raider community if he goes back to the Sea (also true). After a rapid trip back to the fleet to grab Joff and get him out of potential reprisal range before the news spreads, he intends to turn to Oula for sanctuary, who will probably gleefully recruit him as an assistant and put him to work helping her occult research - a task that tidal raiders are actually very good with, being as much academics as pirates. He is probably not getting his title back unless he does a great deal to show that he has changed, though.
Xiana gets her husbando, and is also going to become an instant smash hit among orvens Sea-wide, probably causing more than a few of them to mature due to long-distance crushes. Since she does not have a tidal raider's driving need to be loved in order to power up, she'll probably gently turn down any who offer their hearts to her and stay true to her dear Dirim. She'll also be in the position of being the one to go to the Sea courts with the precedent of Rat's Law in hand, there to fight them over the wording and edge cases as a high-powered goth girl activist studying Ivy League Law with the intent to be a detective instead of a highly-paid lawyer or academic bro. It remains to be seen how well she will do there.
Finally, Keris basically just won't pay the matter a second thought except to maybe reference it in the Scroll of Keruby she'll be writing as a Guide On How To Feed And Care For Keruby And Also Manage Them Without Dying (which includes, among other things, quiet tips like "don't fuck artisans unless you're immune to mercury poisoning" and a fifteen-page chapter entitled "Why An Artisan In Love With You Isn't As Good As It Sounds").
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- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Everything about Operation Ribbon is hilarious and adorable. I can't wait to see how Aiko reacts to learning that not only are Sasi and Keris already a couple, but that Aiko and Prita are the only ones who didn't know.
On Hanily, I suspect a lot of this also stems from the whole mess with Zanyi. It was mentioned that Hanily has some subconscious resentment towards Hilthr thanks to probably having some subconscious memories of Zanyi still. I wouldn't be surprised if that's helping to drive her out of the house; everything about village life just feels wrong nowadays, and she doesn't know why but she does know being around her dad and soon-to-be stepmom makes it worse. So she avoids them as much as possible and spends as little time in the village as she can. Add on to that the fact that Ali no longer has Zanyi around to help him keep up with his daughter (which he doesn't even realize is an issue, since as far as he can remember it's been just him and Hanily her whole life) and it's no wonder things have deteriorated like this.
On Hanily, I suspect a lot of this also stems from the whole mess with Zanyi. It was mentioned that Hanily has some subconscious resentment towards Hilthr thanks to probably having some subconscious memories of Zanyi still. I wouldn't be surprised if that's helping to drive her out of the house; everything about village life just feels wrong nowadays, and she doesn't know why but she does know being around her dad and soon-to-be stepmom makes it worse. So she avoids them as much as possible and spends as little time in the village as she can. Add on to that the fact that Ali no longer has Zanyi around to help him keep up with his daughter (which he doesn't even realize is an issue, since as far as he can remember it's been just him and Hanily her whole life) and it's no wonder things have deteriorated like this.
It's not too surprising that Aiko is on the same wavelength as her mother in regards to relationships, but it is hilarious.
If you're getting taxed on it, does it still count as smuggling?
Hanily: *Immediately tries to exploit time delays between Malfeas and Creation*
Keris: "It doesn't work like that."
Hanily: "But why though?"
Keris: "Because sane people don't let time travel shenanigans like that into their world building."
Hanily: "What?"
Keris: "What?"
Bullshit.
Luna: "It sounds like someone could use some advice for handling your Could-Have-Been-But-Never-Were-Selves. Come, come, come, let Aunty and/or Uncle Luna tell you all about how to handle them."
- Location
- Graveyard of Forgotten Thoughts
They say that it takes a village to raise a child. In Hanily's case, the village is too awed to participate. In hanging out with the kerubies, Hanily reinforces the impression that she, close kin to the gods, operates in a spiritual realm far removed from that of mere mortals. That leaves just Ali and Xasan, who as @Don Alverzo points out, don't realize they need to work harder to make up for a missing pair of hands.
O Kerishyra, do you not remember Zanilyia's last? How she, shrugging aside Heaven's laws, wrote to you in secret-tinted ink, "...and you're going to have to be a mother to your niece as well."
What is the use of having twenty eyes if you lose your sight doing it? Why are all of poor Eko's siblings like that? Since when did Vali engage in concubinage, anyways?
This seems to be too strident for Eko's grudge to be over Keris repeatedly missing Eko's Calibration time. Perhaps this is a hint that she spent her year doing something for the benefit of her greater self? If we take Zanara's statement that Eko spent the whole year with Asarin as true, what might they have been working towards?
Sorcery would have been one of the possible undertakings, but @Aleph has said that Eko has not been initiated into sorcery and hasn't transferred into Asarin's school of magic. Eko might have needed her Ellogean demon lord friend to help with managing the side effects of her heretical graft, and it would have explained her caginess about the reason for her absence; however, that doesn't seem to fit her reaction here. A third possibility is that Eko was helping Asarin with her ascension; a demon princess would be a powerful ally, and the project would need to remain secret due to Eko using forbidden knowledge here.
O Kerishyra, do you not remember Zanilyia's last? How she, shrugging aside Heaven's laws, wrote to you in secret-tinted ink, "...and you're going to have to be a mother to your niece as well."
Zanara said:
What is the use of having twenty eyes if you lose your sight doing it? Why are all of poor Eko's siblings like that? Since when did Vali engage in concubinage, anyways?
This seems to be too strident for Eko's grudge to be over Keris repeatedly missing Eko's Calibration time. Perhaps this is a hint that she spent her year doing something for the benefit of her greater self? If we take Zanara's statement that Eko spent the whole year with Asarin as true, what might they have been working towards?
Sorcery would have been one of the possible undertakings, but @Aleph has said that Eko has not been initiated into sorcery and hasn't transferred into Asarin's school of magic. Eko might have needed her Ellogean demon lord friend to help with managing the side effects of her heretical graft, and it would have explained her caginess about the reason for her absence; however, that doesn't seem to fit her reaction here. A third possibility is that Eko was helping Asarin with her ascension; a demon princess would be a powerful ally, and the project would need to remain secret due to Eko using forbidden knowledge here.