[5:30 PM] Aleph: So?
[5:31 PM] Aleph: What session?
[5:31 PM] Rook: Looks like paaaaart 17 I think
[5:31 PM] Aleph: ah yes, that would make sense
[5:31 PM] Aleph: last time was Keris clipping through the world
[5:31 PM] Rook: I'm just imagning Keris like
[5:31 PM] Aleph: and expanding her mini-map
[5:31 PM] Aleph:
Ascensions and Transgressions - the Tales of Keris Dulmeadokht
[5:31 PM] Rook: No-clipping G Mod style
[5:31 PM] Rook: Through the floor
[5:31 PM] Aleph: through the hurricane-wall, actually
[5:31 PM] Rook: heeeeeeee
[5:31 PM] Aleph: Onward, then!
[5:32 PM] Rook: Right right
[5:32 PM] Rook: Keris is awake now
[5:32 PM] Rook: Chrono, get up!
[5:32 PM] Rook: "ow" keris u sit on sasi
[5:32 PM] Rook: inconsiderate
[5:32 PM] Rook: Soul-sickness eh
[5:32 PM] Rook: lmao sasi "can we go back to sleep"
[5:33 PM] Rook: RIP Keris' sleep
[5:33 PM] Aleph: Keris's metaphysical inner ear is protesting loudly at the frankly atrocious treatment she's been putting it through lately
[5:33 PM] Rook: heee
[5:33 PM] Rook: I wonder what Sasi is reading
[5:33 PM] Rook: "are you aware you have mouths" I'm pretty sure she is hon
[5:34 PM] Rook: keris HUNGERS
[5:34 PM] Aleph: "a wave of fang-lined hair descends on the plates"
[5:34 PM] Aleph: excellent line, that
[5:34 PM] Rook: KERIS DEVOUR
[5:34 PM] Rook: indeed
[5:34 PM] Aleph: also lol
[5:34 PM] Aleph: "Srry," Keris mumbles, and shifts off her, overestimating the movement somewhat and continuing it off the edge of the bed. After a brief pause, her hair follows her.
[5:34 PM] Rook: kek
[5:34 PM] Aleph: I'm just imagining that animated
[5:34 PM] Aleph: it's hilarious
[5:34 PM] Rook: yes
[5:35 PM] Rook: "I meant listening" Sasi what the fuck man
[5:35 PM] Aleph: keris
[5:35 PM] Rook: No I imean like
[5:35 PM] Rook: I'm just kind of.... shaking my head that Sasi thought she was gonna do... whatever
[5:35 PM] Rook: In a sort of
[5:35 PM] Rook: "fucking Infernals"
[5:35 PM] Aleph: keris
[5:35 PM] Rook: way
[5:35 PM] Rook: heh
[5:35 PM] Rook: ok
[5:35 PM] Rook: touche
[5:36 PM] Aleph: : P
[5:36 PM] Rook: "ophiadian essence" is that supposed to be ophidian as in... uh
[5:36 PM] Rook: snek-stuff?
[5:36 PM] Rook: I think?
[5:36 PM] Aleph: TED
[5:36 PM] Rook: Oh, okay
[5:36 PM] Rook: Also I just think of him as Ted
[5:36 PM] Rook: Not even TED
[5:36 PM] Rook: Just Ted
[5:37 PM] Rook: And Sasi avoids taking care of herself
[5:37 PM] Rook: I am unsurprised
[5:37 PM] Aleph: he would definitely encourage you thinking of him by a friendly and approachable moniker
[5:37 PM] Rook: heh
[5:37 PM] Rook: It's less that and more flippant and demeaning
[5:37 PM] Rook:
[5:37 PM] Aleph: if you really think that the Shadow of All Things can't use that, you're adorable
[5:38 PM] Rook: The Lintha's demesne eh
[5:38 PM] Rook: and hm, fair
[5:38 PM] Rook: Lmao Sasi's reaction
[5:38 PM] Rook: "Keris how hard did you Keris this time"
[5:38 PM] Rook: Is Keris a verb
[5:38 PM] Aleph: Keris is very good at surprising her
[5:38 PM] Rook: I feel like it should be a verb
[5:38 PM] Aleph: yes
[5:38 PM] Aleph: it has several meanings
[5:38 PM] Rook: hee
[5:38 PM] Rook: >
"It is always wise to venerate the Demon Sea," Sasi agrees. "The consequences of not doing so are..."
"... ill-advised," Dulmea completes.
[5:38 PM] Rook: worst sea
[5:39 PM] Rook: wooooooooooooorst sea
[5:39 PM] Aleph: for instance: "to keris an encampment" means "to murder everyone in it as well as stealing all the valuables and possibly setting it on fire on the way out"
[5:39 PM] Rook: hee
[5:39 PM] Aleph: excuse you
[5:39 PM] Aleph: she is BEST SEA if you know what's good for you
[5:39 PM] Aleph: (ps: not being drowned in infinitely hateful acid is good for you)
[5:39 PM] Rook: Alternatively, you can not interact with Kimbery whatsoever so you don't even have to deal with that
[5:40 PM] Rook: and keris and sasi continue to talk
[5:40 PM] Rook: hm
[5:40 PM] Rook: building a manse eh?
[5:40 PM] Rook: sounds tricky
[5:40 PM] Aleph: it would be
[5:41 PM] Rook: >ink-wash Tengese paintings
[5:41 PM] Rook: omg I love ink-wash paintings IRL
[5:41 PM] Aleph: : P
[5:41 PM] Aleph: this one would probably creep you out a bit
[5:41 PM] Rook: "a slightly scary masterpiece" lel
[5:41 PM] Aleph: Kimmy's Excellency explicitly allows "vile and disturbing art"
[5:42 PM] Rook: ...well, now
[5:42 PM] Rook: 12 sux
[5:42 PM] Rook: Also yeah I'm imagining like, Goya and Junji Ito thrown in a blender
[5:42 PM] Aleph: And Keris learns about the Lintha the way she learns best.
[5:42 PM] Aleph: Which is to say vivid and maddening hallucinations being crammed into her head by a crippled and violently insane world-titan.
[5:43 PM] Rook: Hee.
[5:43 PM] Aleph: (she's a problem student)
[5:43 PM] Rook: Honestly, it looks like so much fun to be able to write out how you do things like this.
[5:43 PM] Rook: It gets more fun the better you are as a writer, I'd guess
[5:43 PM] Aleph: things like what?
[5:43 PM] Rook: Like fluffing things extensively
[5:44 PM] Rook: And taking, hm, more firm control of exactly what goes on like here:
[5:44 PM] Rook: For a short while, nothing happens. No shapes burning in the water, no currents, no whispered words or demon appearing to tell her what she wants to know. Keris sighs a little cloud of bubbles. Maybe the picture wasn't good enou-
The memories hit like a tidal wave. And much like a tidal wave, there are so many of them that Keris can barely make out anything but the most basic details. They're... they're not her memories. She's not sure whose they are, in fact; they seem to be drawn randomly from a hundred different time periods in Creation's history. She remembers...
she remembers the age of glory, when the lintha sailed proud-beloved-regal and ruled the seas in their mother's name
she remembers horror-calamity-defeat cast down and destroyed by cruel golden blades
she remembers sin and the curse of blood, base cannibalism and banishment to the sargasso sea
she remembers lintha ng oroo and bluehaven, the unbreachable stronghold of the lintha
she remembers kan pol and the utz semivir, dukantha and the great mother's chosen
She remembers a lot of things. Most of them she forgets again as soon as she registers them; water through her fingers in the tidal roar. But some things remain. A basic understanding of the Lintha; a rough feel for their society. A chilling realisation of how narrow an edge she must have been balanced on when Narooj caught her hair-tendrils tasting his flesh.
It's only when she hears the distant clanging of the fishing fleet that she begins to recede from the thought-foam. That's... weird. It's late evening; the night fleet should already have left, why is she... oh. Keris cracks an eye open, and... yup. They're not going out. They're coming back in. She must have lost track of time. It's morning.
Though physically rested, Keris is still walking in a not-entirely-straight line as she makes her way back up to Sasi's house for breakfast, blinking owlishly at the too-bright morning sun.
[5:44 PM] Rook: All of this?
[5:44 PM] Rook: Most games would have a GM do something like that and write most of it out.
[5:44 PM] Rook: It definitely demands a degree of self-confidence more than what most RPGs already do and it looks really fun.
[5:44 PM] Aleph: Heh. Well, I know what's in the sourcebooks on the Lintha, so...
[5:44 PM] Rook: Hee.
[5:45 PM] Aleph: also y no italics for MAD PRIMORDIAL VISION MEMORY
[5:45 PM] Aleph: : P
[5:45 PM] Rook: Discord formatting :<
[5:45 PM] Rook: "and then keris used her hair as a brush" lel
[5:46 PM] Rook: Haaaaaaaaaaaaneyl.
[5:46 PM] Rook: Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaneyl.
[5:46 PM] Aleph: ??
[5:46 PM] Aleph: : D
[5:46 PM] Aleph: She has a name!
[5:47 PM] Aleph: "I don't understand," Sasi says, rubbing her eyes. "It's too morning for this."
[5:47 PM] Rook: Haaaaaaaneyl~
[5:47 PM] Rook: lel
[5:47 PM] Rook: It's too morning in the early for this.
[5:47 PM] Rook:
[5:47 PM] Aleph: She's lying there. It's basically midday.
"Is not," Keris tells her. "It's basically noon." << yeah, this is one of those minor things I scattered here and there which you might pick up on if you pay close attention, but which probably won't leap out at you
[5:48 PM] Aleph: Keris's brain-mouth filter basically disappears when she's loopy or high
[5:48 PM] Rook: I noticed, yeah.
[5:48 PM] Aleph: She gets very literal and very, hmm... blunt. In the sense that implication and rhetoric pass right over her head.
[5:48 PM] Aleph: (this is not hard)
[5:48 PM] Rook: heh
[5:48 PM] Aleph: (lots of things pass over Keris's head)
[5:48 PM] Aleph: (she is very short)
[5:48 PM] Rook: also
Sasi
[5:48 PM] Rook: Sasi needs all the hugs
[5:48 PM] Aleph: : (
[5:49 PM] Aleph: That's okay!
[5:49 PM] Aleph: Keris has eight arms to give them!
[5:49 PM] Rook: Not being able to cry...
[5:49 PM] Rook: God...
[5:50 PM] Rook: Oh, wow, Sasi was actually of a pretty decent age before she Exalted, huh.
[5:50 PM] Aleph: Yup!
[5:50 PM] Aleph: she is old enough to be Keris's mother.
[5:50 PM] Aleph: Literally. Her eldest is Keris's age.
[5:50 PM] Aleph: possibly older.
[5:51 PM] Rook: ...oh Keris what are you doing now
[5:51 PM] Rook: nothing good ever happens when you speak in Old Realm
[5:51 PM] Aleph: I'm not saying Devil Wears Prada AU with Sasimana Priestly and Keris Sachs, but that's totally what I'm saying.
[5:51 PM] Rook: kek
[5:51 PM] Aleph: (the age gap is about the same)
[5:51 PM] Rook: "KERIS WHAT DID YOU DO"
[5:52 PM] Rook: That was... possible stupid of her but mostly that seemed really sweet. end part 17(edited)
[5:52 PM] Aleph:
[5:52 PM] Aleph: Keep going!
[5:52 PM] Rook: "Mmm."
[5:52 PM] Rook: "Several miles."
[5:52 PM] Rook: lol
[5:52 PM] Aleph: : P
[5:52 PM] Aleph: Keris: "Yeah, this is totally normal, why are you asking?"
[5:53 PM] Aleph: "She hasn't broken any cups yet," Keris offers.
[5:53 PM] Aleph: : V
[5:53 PM] Aleph: yes, keris
[5:53 PM] Aleph: this is clearly the most important and relevant information
[5:53 PM] Rook: "Instinct, luck and not knowing I can't," Keris says firmly.
[5:53 PM] Rook: keris.txt
[5:53 PM] Rook: ((Oh, Sasi. Vice: Explorer.
Keris: "Yep! We've certainly explored vices together!"))
[5:53 PM] Rook: hearty kek
[5:54 PM] Rook: positive reinforcement is a wonderful tool
[5:54 PM] Aleph: : P
[5:55 PM] Rook: "they curve outward dear" Keris' adventures in writing
[5:55 PM] Aleph: it's hard to remember all the squiggly symbols!
[5:56 PM] Rook: Hahaha rip Keris' dice
[5:56 PM] Aleph: such unfair
[5:57 PM] Rook: FIRISUTU
[5:57 PM] Rook: MY BOI
[5:57 PM] Rook: I'VE MISSED YOU
[5:57 PM] Aleph: he has become THE RICHEST OF ALL THE MAVAROSKA
[5:57 PM] Aleph: his junk-body is literally built out of precious metals and gems
[5:57 PM] Rook: Oooohhh, interesting.
[5:57 PM] Rook: Sasi summoning a 2CD.
[5:58 PM] Aleph: indeed
[5:58 PM] Rook: RIP young priest boy-dude
[5:59 PM] Aleph: Lest we forget that Keris is, in fact, a demonic murderous assassin.
[5:59 PM] Aleph: and a villain
[5:59 PM] Rook: Oh, yeah, Keris is crazy and a horrible person.
[5:59 PM] Rook: I mean she's sweet and loving to her girlfriend and a nurturing mother
[5:59 PM] Rook: But she's still batshit crazy and psychotic
[5:59 PM] Aleph: ... I dunno about horrible. Bad, yes, but to your average Joe on the street she's not bad.
[6:00 PM] Aleph: Her villainy revolves more around being amoral than immoral, I'd say.
[6:00 PM] Rook: I would agree with that.
[6:00 PM] Aleph: She wouldn't kill priests for the lulz, but since Sasi needs it...
[6:01 PM] Rook: But she's also murdered countless innocent people for "my boss/girlfriend wanted it".
[6:01 PM] Aleph: Untrue!
[6:01 PM] Aleph: Calesco can recount them in incredible detail
[6:01 PM] Rook: lel
[6:01 PM] Rook: Keris getting the TACTICAL COUNTER-FLIRT
[6:02 PM] Rook: Pretty room
[6:02 PM] Aleph: (also it must be said that "wiping out villages" is less shocking in Exalted, where villages die all the time to everything from plague to armies to elemental action)
[6:03 PM] Rook: mmm
[6:03 PM] Aleph: hee
[6:03 PM] Aleph: watch closely now
[6:03 PM] Aleph: : 3
[6:03 PM] Rook: ENTER, DEMON(edited)
[6:05 PM] Rook: Sasi gets what Sasi wants.
[6:05 PM] Rook: F priest
[6:05 PM] Aleph: F?
[6:05 PM] Rook: As in, "press F to pay respects"
[6:05 PM] Aleph: heh
[6:05 PM] Rook: "I only counted three" "so did he" lawl
[6:06 PM] Rook: Sasi you sly dog
[6:06 PM] Aleph: : D
[6:06 PM] Aleph: you may not have noticed, but Sasi is actually quite good at what she does
[6:06 PM] Rook: Mmmhm.
[6:06 PM] Rook: Annnnnd HERE WE GO
[6:07 PM] Rook: SAY HI TO THE KIDS
[6:07 PM] Aleph: HI KIDS!
[6:07 PM] Aleph: CHIBI-HANEYL HAS MADE MAMA A CROWN
[6:07 PM] Rook: >
"It's beautiful, Keris," Sasi says sounding awkward and unconvincing in her earnestness. She laughs, a crystal chiming bell down here in the clash of primordial energies. "Look at us, exposing our souls to one another." She steps in and embraces Keris. "We're both so beautiful," she says, blinking heavily like she's trying not to cry. "Look at this power. Look at what we're becoming. Is... is this what we really are, and we just pretend to be mortal most of the time?"
[6:07 PM] Aleph: OUT OF FIRE
[6:07 PM] Aleph: AND FLOWERS
[6:07 PM] Rook: >"We have to," Keris says sadly. "Not even because of the Realm or the Immaculates." She hugs Sasi back, and sees a the largest lurking silver shadow in her cyclone-sea coil lovingly around Sasi's anima-dragon. "The world can't hold us like this. It's too fragile, too... thin." She stands on tiptoe to rest her forehead against Sasi's bowed one, her own eyes growing wet in sympathy. "If we showed what we really are to the world, we'd destroy it. I'd erode it and drown it and consume it. You'd crumble it to sand and cast it into shadow and freeze it in crystal."
[6:07 PM] Rook: And this is why Infernals are the shit.
[6:07 PM] Aleph: in fairness, that applies just as much to Solars.
[6:08 PM] Rook: Mm, true
[6:08 PM] Aleph: and honestly, I prefer
[6:08 PM] Aleph: "Mortals would break under the weight of our glory."
[6:08 PM] Rook: heh
[6:08 PM] Rook: yeah
[6:08 PM] Aleph: which was a really good line, I feel
[6:09 PM] Rook: It was.
[6:09 PM] Rook: >She chews a lock of hair as the rest of it coils and lashes lazily, Echo flitting around in it. "That's where they went wrong, I think. If I can stay connected to people; the little mortals I affect, then maybe I can be... be a Greater One and still be a person." She ducks her head to shoot a meaningful look at Sasi's swollen abdomen. "Maybe you can too."
[6:09 PM] Rook: Aaaaand this is why I adore Keris.
[6:09 PM] Aleph: "((Unenlightened mortals are literally as attractive as rocks. Boring, non-magical rocks, not shiny magical rocks.))" << Sasi's job kind of sucks, honestly.
[6:09 PM] Rook: "It's a productive evening."
[6:09 PM] Rook: hee
[6:10 PM] Rook: brb
[6:10 PM] Aleph: yeah, sure
[6:11 PM] Aleph: but yeah, Sasi's job involves a great deal of seducing and sleeping with people who are incredibly slow and stupid compared to her, and who she finds as attractive as rocks. Boring, non-magical, non-valuable rocks.
[6:14 PM] Rook: right-right
[6:14 PM] Rook: back
[6:14 PM] Aleph: you adore Keris, huh?
[6:14 PM] Aleph: she would be very happy to hear that!
[6:15 PM] Aleph: she likes being adored <3
[6:15 PM] Rook: heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
[6:15 PM] Rook: Fast-forward a few days to Linthaaaaaa
[6:15 PM] Rook: Oh, man, DROPPIN KNOWLEDGE
[6:16 PM] Aleph: Keris is very good at lying with the truth. : D
[6:16 PM] Aleph: some days I almost wish I'd spared Rat, because the two of them hustling people would have been enormous fun to play
[6:16 PM] Rook: hee
[6:16 PM] Rook: 12 suuuuuuuuuux
[6:17 PM] Rook: >And if, having met Haneyl and gained a better understanding of her nature since her last meeting with the Lintha, she happens to slip a little grey seed of loyalty into Lintha Gajui Narooj's heart... well, nobody need know that but her, right? He certainly notices nothing.
[6:17 PM] Rook: oh dear! (also part 18)(edited)
