EarthScorpion: Heh. So Keris has in fact decided that the owl riders will be her daughters. Oh, Keris. You're just acquiring family.
Aleph: She is going to have
so much explaining to do to Sasi.
EarthScorpion: Huh. That means Kuha is now Beloved, since she's now a descendant and she has an intimacy of loyalty to Keris.
Aleph: Keris: *idea strikes* 'Aha! I know! I'll send Sasi an Infallible Messenger when I get back to Creation, so that I can break things to her gently and a bit at a time instead of her seeing the scars and the tongue and everything all at once!'
Keris: *casts Infallible Messenger*
Keris: "... ... ..."
Keris: "..."
Keris: "... ... ... ..."
Keris: 'Shit.'
Calesco: "First of all, you are an idiot."
Calesco: "Second, I'll take the message."
EarthScorpion: See, that was actually deliberate with the way Calesco's charm is made. : D
...
EarthScorpion: Oh, Keris. Doing that to stop Lilunu from being hurt more won you quite a few Calesco points.
EarthScorpion: ... also lost you Echo points.
Aleph: : (
EarthScorpion: Echo revealed that she really is Haneyl's half sister. She covers up things she doesn't want to feel by getting angry.
Aleph: Oh, Echo.
EarthScorpion: At least she can control that - she's choosing to get angry. She really doesn't like being scared. And Echo is terrified of the Csend and scared of her other mother up close, even if she likes quite a bit of her from a long way away. She's clever enough to have put together what the Csend attitude really says about Big Mama.
...
EarthScorpion: So, yeah. Adorjan-mama's presents for her daughters.
EarthScorpion: The knife is basically the subtle knife.
Aleph: Indeed. Örömi Windcutter. Echo can cut her way into places and dreams unless they're higher-Enlightenment than she is.
EarthScorpion: The sash is the mark of a messenger and makes it hard for people to attack Calesco when she's carrying a message, because it's made of Keris tongue and voice and thus scares away people with Ill intent. Basically like that eclipse anima power, except more Adorjani.
Aleph: Ooo, nice.
EarthScorpion: It's not always a sash - Calesco can find that she can make it any obvious red marker she can wear. She might make it as a scarf or even a full red robe made of muscle and tendons and blood. It has to be Obvious, though, for it to have effect.
Aleph: Gotcha. Oh Calesco. You so creepy.
EarthScorpion: Calesco, sigh, might well choose to wear it as a red veil. Echo notes it's good that her little sister is wearing more colour. Oh! She should make it into ribbons and wear it around her wings! Her wings are so pretty!
EarthScorpion: ... oh goddamnit Haneyl. She's going to get in a mood about people who aren't her getting presents. On top of everything else.
EarthScorpion: ... sigh This is why she goes to steal from the snake. Haneyl, you really are Keris' daughter sometimes.
Aleph: Calesco: "If you want a present from a titan like that, you are welcome to stand in the presence of one and ask for it."
Aleph: Echo is probably going to show up near her and sulkily declare that she's helping blow back the fog. And that Calesco is stupid.
Aleph: ... there may be some ranting.
EarthScorpion: Oh, sisterly bonding. It may well be some of the best they have ever got on.
Aleph: Hmm. Speaking of, I should also at least touch on Keris tracking her other two kids back down, and having that talk with Dulmea.
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Well, Haneyl is hiding and will probably need to be lured out. And Rathan got so scared he's taken his moon and hidden it in the ocean so on top of everything else, it's dark in the domain.
Aleph: Oh, Rathan. : (
Aleph: ... heh. Keris is going to search the Marsh for a while, but Echo is smarter, and finds her right away, because she knows where to look and just goes straight to Haneyl's tree.
Aleph: ... and then, sigh, cuts her way into the mini-sanctum inside it so that she can rant. Oh, Haneyl. You're being very dryady and staying inside your tree where it's safe, fused with it and only poking your head out as if the wood is water.
EarthScorpion: Heh. This probably means Keris won't be a Malfeas-centric GSP, since spending too long in Malfeas risks Adorjan showing up.
Aleph: ... heh. Amusingly, her
Gales are fine there, because they don't feel very Adorjani at all, really. No more so than an Adorjani demon. It's only the Exalt that risks attracting attention.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Will she make one a manse mistress to do things there?
Aleph: Yes. Hmm. Can she summon her Gales in the manner of a demon?
EarthScorpion: Keris? Probably in the same way you can summon Adorjan's, yeah, since our ones are all akuma.
Aleph: Cool. That's useful. Hmm. Though this means she'll need to learn that spell to summon only the image of a demon prince if she wants to get Lilunu as a reliable Mentor.
Aleph: ... oh Keris. If that spell works on Lilunu, it means she can give Lilunu glimpses of Creation.
Aleph: Keris: "I can show you the world~ Shining shimmering splendiiiiiid~"
EarthScorpion: Summoning the image of a demon is probably one circle lower than summoning it
Aleph: ...
interesting. Lilunu's souls, I wonder.
EarthScorpion: I want DBs consorting with the image of a 2CD, and Raksi to negotiate with Third Circles that way.
...
EarthScorpion: Echo points out that
she can talk to everyone like in Echoese, not just people who know Old Realm. Clearly Keris is just
stupid because even a szelkerub can talk
properly like this.
EarthScorpion: Calesco: "Goodness. You're really putting effort into holding this grudge for several scenes."
Aleph: Oh, Echo.
EarthScorpion: Echo shows that she wrote it on the ribbons on her wrist, so she wouldn't forget
no matter what.
Calesco: "Won't it come out next time you wash?"
Calesco: "..."
Calesco: "... how do you wash? Do you wash?"
Aleph: ... sigh. I suspect she may wash in the dust-rivers of the Ruin.
Aleph: Which do actually do a pretty good job of it - they're so fine that they basically act like a dry liquid, and have an effect similar to how you can polish metal with sand.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Echo dust bathes. Rathan... uh, has a little boy's attitude to it, but swims a lot so it tends to work out okay. Haneyl has... sigh, invented pitcher plants that boil their prey alive, so just makes the pitcher plant not heat the water up so much when she wants to have a bath. And Calesco... hmm. Does she not care about her personal appearance and so lets herself get filthy, or does she just lie that she's not dirty and thus doesn't get dirty?
EarthScorpion: Oh, and of course, Dulmea has a grand fancy bath she made for herself, which sometimes she forces any of the children to wash in if she feels they're not clean enough.
Aleph: Calesco... the latter, I think. Sigh. Effortless beauty, as befits the predator trap/seductress she'll grow up into. When the lie gets dirty she just renews it, and her real body basically
can't get dirty because it's so tied to painful purity that things just sort of slough off it. She can't mask it with dirt or grime, only her lies.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. Rathan, when he gets dirty manages to just look roguishly handsome and when he gets sweaty it's an attractive manly thing.
Aleph: dammit rathan
EarthScorpion: Oh, Haneyl. Here's a point where Keris' Sasi-admiration clashes with Haneyl's base nature. Because Haneyl is at heart a thing of muddy swamps and blood, but by choice and preference she likes being clean. Even if that means she's had to invent platform shoes for walking in mud, or just has servants carry her.
...
Aleph: Hmm. Actually, hah. Keris can probably have a session of making things right with her souls and tie that into raising her Id. Yeah, heh. It's on her way back across Cecelyne, which means that a) she has a while to track down Rathan and Haneyl and talk to Dulmea about Adorjan's attentions, and b) her shiny new ship will be in her soul, which means the po will make rumblings towards it, which will spark Keris (after Dulmea warns her that it's been restless) to sail it out to the edge of the Domain and have a confrontation wherein they come to peace over it.
Aleph: ... sigh. This is going to basically end in bribery. Keris mollifies it by going "okay, I'll pass a decree, and have the Empire pay tribute to you to indulge my whims. In return, you be less grabby about letting me borrow things, and I keep the ship because I can use it better. Deal?"
Aleph: And then she returns and lays down the Festivals of the Serpent King.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. It's also restless because she's 'frustrated'.
...
EarthScorpion: Hmm. I've been thinking about the owlrider procedure.
EarthScorpion: I'm not sure it's really thaum-doable by mortals - it's a bit too radical. Like, I can totally see thaum to get a single mutation, but this is a total restructuring.
Aleph: Yes, that's why Testolagh is going to use demon alchemists until Keris can make an Artifact that does it automatically.
EarthScorpion: So maybe what Keris should do here is make enough doses for her new race here, and take them back.
Aleph: Hmm. Or that, yes.
EarthScorpion: After all, she has much better tools here.
Aleph: Possibly both, then. She'll prepare an upfront bunch, and also give him the ritual.
EarthScorpion: This would replace the last phase with a mass production phase where she gets some biiiiiiig cauldron and starts making it in larger amounts, heh.
...
Aleph: So Keris has given Lilunu a TRANSCENDENT WONDER OF THE HIGH FIRST AGE as a present.
Aleph: Specifically, a set of what are essentially multiple-use multi-sensory luxury Artifact 1 bath bombs.
Aleph: For when your bathing experience needs to be absolutely exquisite to every sense you possess and some you didn't realise you had.
Aleph: (You do not even want to know how many exotic ingredients went into them.)
Aleph: (It would make most crafters in the Age of Sorrows
cry.)
Shyft: Pff
Shyft: Are they consumable, Aleph? Or reusable?
Aleph: Multiple-use but consumable. That is, they don't last forever, but there's a box of them and you get multiple baths out of each one.
Shyft: yeah, that'd make 2nd agers cry
Aleph: Yes. Yes it would. Especially since they have, like, multiple rare ingredients from the four corners of Creation going into them, in a way that's only possible with a Creation-wide infrastructure.
Aleph: If Keris actually understood the level of civilisation needed to mass-produce these things, she would be green with envy.
...
EarthScorpion: 5xp, Eloquence in Unspoken Words given free as a basically-end-of-arc reward.
Aleph: Yaaay~
Aleph: And Keris has a cunning solution for her lack of sailing knowhow!
Aleph: Actually Keris has two cunning solutions for this. The first being "brute force it with magic", because Keris is teriblu, and the second being "hang on, wasn't Yelm learning about vehicles?" because Keris is
teriblu.
Aleph: (Yelm, showing
uncanny foresight, will pretty much take one look and go "hell no I can't sail that thing". But she will probably take the kids back with her.)
EarthScorpion: ... she could just spend some xp on it, you know. : p
Aleph: Yes, I intend to once I get some training time and tutelage.
Aleph: Speaking of which! Other purchases! Can I now add Hungry Devil-Weed Growth to my character sheet?
EarthScorpion: She can certainly learn it in the time when she's preparing provisions and setting up the gardens.
Aleph: I already spent the xp for it a couple of sessions ago, it's just been a matter of training time.
Aleph: And I am also spending 9mxp to raise Keris to the
lofty heights of
Cognition 3.
EarthScorpion: Yes. she's certainly been doing a lot of thinkin'.
...
EarthScorpion: Oh, Keris. Her most truly effective schmoozing of an Unquestionable has been basically accidental and mostly caused by her and Lilunu nerding out about art.
Aleph: : D
Aleph: Also getting mutually maimed by a Primordial.
EarthScorpion: Sigh. When she can summon her souls, they'll probably go and love-bomb Lilunu between them and give her lots of hugs.
Aleph: Also lots and lots of art.
EarthScorpion: (Then Lilunu and Calesco go into a back room and Lilunu emerges dabbing at her eyes having had a cry and Calesco refuses to talk about what they talked about.)
Aleph: <3
EarthScorpion: ... oh, Calesco, you're a bit of a masochist. And you encourage that in Keris. If she's taking pain rather than other people, you reward her with love.
EarthScorpion: And suddenly we've found one of the clash points between Echo and Calesco. Echo hates it when Keris gets hurt or makes herself suffer for the sake of others.
Aleph: Oh, Echo. : (
EarthScorpion: She's the Joyful Wind, and thus gets angry when Keris makes herself deliberately not-joyful. Also, she likes mama's voice and she really likes the bits when she gets to talk herself, so giving up talking is alien to her.
Aleph: Hmm. Well, she probably won't see any problems with doing it for, like, one scene. To pass information to Sasi without people overhearing, etc. And may in fact find that amusing, because people are
silly and Keris is talking to Sasi right there and they're not noticing, hee~
EarthScorpion: Oh, choosing not to talk for a little bit, she finds that amusing. But losing the capacity to talk pushes her buttons.
...
Aleph: Heh. So, heh, her souls have been doing their own month-long downtime projects:
DULMEA: ??? (currently unknown)
ECHO: Spending successes on clinging to her "anger at Keris" Principle. Dammit Echo, you could be doing nearly anything and you do this?
RATHAN: Building an elite honour guard of soldiers to protect him.
HANEYL: Hiding in her tree and plotting to steal from the po.
CALESCO: Delivering a message to Sasi, also plotting to steal from the po.
EarthScorpion: Oh, and Calesco has full tar-cherubs now
Aleph: Yay!
EarthScorpion: ... huh. Calesco and Haneyl may also encounter the first fog-cherubs
EarthScorpion: (they're almost certainly ex-szelkeruby)
EarthScorpion: (they may try to pounce them)
EarthScorpion: (it will end painfully)
Aleph: Fog-cherub: *screeches, jumps at them*
Aleph: Calesco: *elbows it in the teeth*
Aleph: It will end in a scuffle as Calesco goes "don't set it on fire you'll give us away!"
EarthScorpion: ... goddamnit Calesco, stop hitting people in the groin
EarthScorpion: Calesco: "I'm just punching or kicking them in the Valour."
EarthScorpion: Oh dear. It is possible that some of what Dulmea is doing is working with Echo to stay angry.
Aleph: Oh, Dulmea.
Aleph: ... huh.
Aleph: "Because Mama
scares people, Echo gestures meanly."
Aleph: ... which one is she referring to there? Both? Probably both.
EarthScorpion: BOTH OF THEM. But Keris here, because she usually refers to Adorjan as Other Mama or Big Mama.
...
Aleph: Heh. Does Calesco disappear for ten days whenever she carries a dream across the Desert?
EarthScorpion: Hmm. Only if you choose to do it that way, as a fluff thing. She can just shoot messages at people. At least once she gets a way of doing that.
Aleph: Hmm. Yeah. But this one I think she did, because she was delivering it in person.
EarthScorpion: Oh, Calesco. Isn't it funny that the Adorjani souls are the ones who've found ways to slip out of her?
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: *JEALOUS*
Aleph: Keris: "Wait, what?"
Keris: "You crossed the- how? What? How?"
Calesco: "I flew over the Cloud Wall."
Keris: "You what."
Calesco: "I flew over it. If you keep going high enough, it gets so dark that you can't see anything, and then you see stars and silver sands far below."
Keris: "..."
Keris: "I am pretty sure that's cheating."
Calesco: "Look, just because you never thought of it..."
...
Aleph: Sigh. That pink-and-white anyaglo Keris uses as her favoured steed has... hah! She's totally used her time with Keris (and Rounen) to learn how to "speak", by watching the Paricehet and going "hey, I can do that with ribbons!" and developing the ability to shape ribbons into words.
Aleph: That is to say, she has subtitles, if she needs them.
EarthScorpion: Heh. Not one of Keris' little girls is pink-obsessed
Aleph: Echo is
on average pink-obsessed. That is to say, she loves red and she loves white and occasionally they get mixed up and come out pink.
EarthScorpion: ... actually, the pinkest one is Rathan
Aleph: Yes, I was going to say. He quite likes his rosy pinkish hues.
EarthScorpion: It is, he argues, a manly colour. Like blood.
EarthScorpion: It would have been very easy for Calesco to take the form of being Rat's daughter, you realise
Aleph: Yes. But she chose Ogi for the form of her lie-appearance, because Ogi was far weaker than Keris, and had no defence against the way she hurt her. And she hurt Rat in an attempt at sparing him greater pain, but she hurt Ogi because she didn't care enough to see what she was doing to her.
EarthScorpion: Yes, but the thing I was about to say is that it would have made her
even more goth.
Aleph: Hah. Yes. Yes it would.
...
Aleph: ... wait
Aleph: Ahahahaha
Aleph: "The tea is
awful. Not only is it watery and weak, but the honey is bitter. And she can taste it."
Aleph: Calescoooooo
Aleph: You realise what she's going to do, right?
EarthScorpion: Always try to get Haneyl to make the tea?
Aleph: No. She's going to invent coffee from first principles. Black beans growing amidst the tarpits.
EarthScorpion: Yes, but she's still going to be bad at preparing it. Calesco is bad at cooking.
Aleph: Well yes. But come on, she's totally going to come up with a drink where the bitterness is the
point. And which her honey goes really well with.
Aleph: Dulmea: *vague disapproval*
Aleph: Haneyl: *immediately steals*
EarthScorpion: Haneyl: *improves*
Aleph: And thus did Haneyl invent the mocha. The mocha bean, in fact.
Aleph: Keris: "... hang on, but..."
Haneyl: "I crossbred a coffee bean and a chocolate bean. Obviously."
Keris: "... I don't think it works like that."
Haneyl: "Well it did!"
...
Aleph: Well~
Aleph: The good news is, she
finally has her refurbished ship!
Raum: yays
Aleph: ... the intentionally bad news is that the Unquestionable have decided they don't
entirely trust an erratic and horrifically lethal Exalt unsupervised with one of the most powerful ships in Creation as a mobile powerbase.
Raum: not yays
Aleph: So they have
generously decided to consecrate it as a temple to the All-Makers and have a priest of Cecelyne in residence, to oversee the worship of any demons she summons to crew it and to make sure it stays out of the hands of the traitor gods and the vile Dead.
Aleph: That is to say, unofficially, Keris has a priest of Cecelyne onboard to keep an eye on her.
Raum: Well then.
Raum: That sounds like a fun plot point.
Raum: Now they can proselytize to the prayer batteries from the safe of the Mobile Oppression Palace.
Aleph: Oh yeah. Very much so. It's going to be one of the three "minibosses" of her ship.
Aleph: In the sense that if you were a heroic young DB circle attacking the demon pirate empress's flagship, there would be three miniboss fights and then the Demon Empress herself.
Aleph: So there's going to be the Helmsman, the First Mate and the Priest.
Aleph: ... it will also occasionally come up from the shrine and execute one of her crew for breaking the laws of the Endless Desert.
Raum: yays
Raum: Nothing like arbitrary, sometimes nonsensical executions at random times for morale.
Aleph: Keris: "... you couldn't have waited until after he'd finished loading the ship?"
Priest: "No."
Keris: "Well I hope you're going to finish doing his job for hi-"
Priest: *has already turned and left*
Keris: "... really hate that thing." ¬_¬
