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

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Aleph said:
"I will hit this signpost in just the right way that most of the sign breaks off and the rest is a warscythe"

"I will knife-hand this fencepost to give it a cutting edge and use it as a daiklave"

"I will jam a pole down this guy's throat and use him as a goremaul"

etcetera
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The last of those is quite funny, just for the image of Vali gibbing a dude with a dude on a stick.
 
Aleph said:
"I will hit this signpost in just the right way that most of the sign breaks off and the rest is a warscythe"

"I will knife-hand this fencepost to give it a cutting edge and use it as a daiklave"

"I will jam a pole down this guy's throat and use him as a goremaul"

etcetera
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Jesus Christ that last one is brutal.

I mean, beating a motherfucker with another motherfucker is just standard practice in Exalted, but impaling a motherfucker and using him as a goremaul to beat another motherfucker is just too far.





...3-dot Malfean Stunt.
 
rogthnor said:
This was really informative! I really like the idea of Vali forging weapons mid combat, that sounds really cool!

EDIT: Would you mind answering the same question but for Sasi's souls?
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Sasi's souls are much more classically demonic, and are not as human - and thus human-rounded. Moreover, Sasi isn't a fighter in the same way as Keris, and doesn't define herself as one.

Like, look at Rathan and Zanara. They don't really have fighting in their core theme. But because Keris defines herself as a fighter and Dulmea was an assassin and them as her children, she made sure they learned - even though Rathan isn't very good at it, and Zanara gets in by loopholing martial arts as a form of art and dance (which isn't part of their core theme). If they had been left to develop purely from their themes, those two would not be fighters.

Hence Sasi who isn't a fighter doesn't have the same thing. Kalaska fights like a Realm Battle Princess, with polearm and bow and superheavy glass plate because she's a defensive soul, and La fights like an Immaculate Monk because he's a walking blasphemy and mockery of the Immaculates, but Seresa, for example, basically only has the option to run away from violence, or try to seduce it and then smother it as a shadow in the night.
 
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beep
[2:53 PM] Rook: so we are on part 22
[2:53 PM] Aleph: Hee hee hee~
[2:53 PM] Rook: righto
[2:54 PM] Rook: we open on An Teng, and surprising no one the weather is AAAAAA
[2:54 PM] Rook: we're off to Dragon's Jaw eh
[2:54 PM] Rook: oooohhh
[2:54 PM] Rook: full log of comings and goings
[2:54 PM] Rook: that's useful
[2:55 PM] Aleph: "legally the Realm forbids An Teng from using non-Realm shipping to move goods to ports which aren't satrapies or part of the metropolitan Realm" << actually pretty brutal to competitors
[2:55 PM] Rook: yeah I would think so
[2:55 PM] Rook: <keris> *chef kiss on scroll*
[2:55 PM] Aleph: : P
[2:55 PM] Rook: Keris in a big poofy hat with a black handlebar moustache is too comical an image
[2:55 PM] Aleph: heh
[2:56 PM] Aleph: she is an extremely good cook, I should note
[2:56 PM] Rook: 'divvy up the kids between them' keris pls
[2:56 PM] Rook: lol i bet she is
[2:56 PM] Rook: and Darling Yellow A D J U D I C A T E S
[2:56 PM] Aleph: ADJUDICATE! ADJUDICATE!
[2:56 PM] Aleph: Darling Yellow is not a Dalek, Rook.
[2:57 PM] Rook: can we prove it
[2:57 PM] Rook: are you sure
[2:57 PM] Aleph: yes
[2:57 PM] Rook: :[
[2:57 PM] Rook: tbh I kind of wonder what would have happened if Keris did decide
[2:57 PM] Rook: "I will take these now to shut you up"
[2:57 PM] Aleph: : P
[2:57 PM] Aleph: Keris shows that she's getting quite good at "spirit fashion".
[2:57 PM] Rook: indeed
[2:57 PM] Aleph: which doesn't tend to take "human modesty" into account
[2:58 PM] Aleph: or for that matter "physical sense"
[2:58 PM] Rook: The description made me think of a more effeminate-seeming Swamp Thing
[2:58 PM] Aleph: nah
[2:58 PM] Aleph: more like Poison Ivy
[2:58 PM] Rook: hee
[2:58 PM] Rook: that is also acceptable
[2:58 PM] Aleph: vine leotard
[2:58 PM] Rook: Another thing it reminds of is the Sylvari
[2:58 PM] Rook: https://thrangisthered.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/sylvarimales.jpg
[2:58 PM] Rook: plaaaaaaaaaaaant people
[2:59 PM] Aleph: ... yeah, kind of like that
[2:59 PM] Rook: but all the same
[2:59 PM] Rook: Keris, as The Incredible Magrove Thing says sup to Darlying Yellow
[2:59 PM] Rook: god that would scare the shit out of me
[2:59 PM] Aleph: Hmm?
[2:59 PM] Rook: like here I am just minding my own business and OH HELLO WALKING PLANT LADY THAT I OWE SO MUCH TO(edited)
[2:59 PM] Aleph: she does look mostly human
[2:59 PM] Aleph: Tengese, even
[2:59 PM] Aleph: if you ignore a few details
[2:59 PM] Rook: a few :V
[2:59 PM] Aleph: she's wearing mangroves, not made of them
[2:59 PM] Rook: hee
[3:00 PM] Rook: "would you like to walk" WELP
[3:00 PM] Aleph: Yes
[3:00 PM] Aleph: : D
[3:00 PM] Aleph: Oh, Keris
[3:00 PM] Rook: how do you say no to that
[3:00 PM] Rook: like damn
[3:00 PM] Aleph: this really is just... she doesn't gain anything from this, really
[3:00 PM] Aleph: Darling Yellow is already worshipping her
[3:00 PM] Aleph: this is basically just Keris being happy and wanting to share
[3:00 PM] Aleph: It's her sweet, kind, compassionate side.
[3:00 PM] Rook: ... woah
[3:00 PM] Rook: 11 sux
[3:00 PM] Rook: ye god
[3:00 PM] Aleph: yah
[3:00 PM] Rook: And yeah it's really sweet of her
[3:00 PM] Aleph: Keris just grew the woman new feet.
[3:01 PM] Rook: :D :D
[3:01 PM] Rook: yeah, I really feel for her
[3:01 PM] Aleph: Who?
[3:02 PM] Aleph: Keris, or Darling Yellow?
[3:02 PM] Rook: Darling Yellow
[3:02 PM] Rook: It's such a sweet little moment
[3:02 PM] Aleph: ^_^
[3:02 PM] Rook: and now that the niceness has been deployed
[3:02 PM] Rook: keris asks for information
[3:02 PM] Aleph: "soooo, any big fat targets you've noticed recently?"
[3:02 PM] Rook: #exaltedpcs
[3:02 PM] Aleph: "just asking for a friend"
[3:03 PM] Aleph: "of a friend"
[3:03 PM] Aleph: "out of idle curiosity"
[3:03 PM] Rook: :V
[3:03 PM] Rook: ooohh hello
[3:03 PM] Rook: the Mercy of Hesiesh eh
[3:03 PM] Aleph: : 3
[3:03 PM] Rook: oooooo
[3:03 PM] Rook: shiny
[3:04 PM] Aleph: say things, say things
[3:04 PM] Aleph: conteeeext
[3:04 PM] Rook: it's got SILVER and GEMS and the others have OPIUM and SPICES
[3:04 PM] Aleph: (Hesiesh being the Immaculate Dragon of Fire, if you don't recall)
[3:04 PM] Rook: :D
[3:04 PM] Rook: this is a super big score
[3:04 PM] Aleph: it is indeed
[3:04 PM] Rook: send a message to the homie Gajui Narooj
[3:05 PM] Aleph: oh, narooj
[3:05 PM] Rook: that's a pretty thorough plan from the lintha
[3:05 PM] Aleph: that's not the Lintha
[3:05 PM] Aleph: That's Keris's plan
[3:05 PM] Rook: for, excuse me
[3:05 PM] Rook: not from
[3:05 PM] Rook: >.>
[3:05 PM] Aleph: indeed
[3:05 PM] Rook: keris is pulling out all the stops planning for this one
[3:05 PM] Aleph: then ES is mean and makes me roll : (
[3:05 PM] Rook: hee
[3:05 PM] Aleph: Still a pretty good plan! By mortal standards.
[3:06 PM] Rook: that's not bad sometimes :p
[3:06 PM] Rook: four sux
[3:06 PM] Rook: rip
[3:06 PM] Rook: hmmm
[3:06 PM] Rook: yeah
[3:06 PM] Rook: tbh it's probably a bigger 'fuck you' to the Realm to keep the ships?
[3:06 PM] Aleph: : D
[3:06 PM] Rook: like
[3:06 PM] Rook: severely so
[3:07 PM] Aleph: "Thank you for the armada! Our queen does love ships."
[3:07 PM] Rook: Sasi is right in suggesting- lol - that it would be safer
[3:07 PM] Rook: But it would also be 10 times less provocative
[3:07 PM] Rook: Just for starters
[3:07 PM] Aleph: Quite a lot of the things Daenarys does are very, very Keris-OK
[3:07 PM] Rook: That isn't even getting into how sweet having that stuff'd be
[3:07 PM] Rook: hee
[3:07 PM] Rook: yeah
[3:07 PM] Rook: I can see that
[3:08 PM] Aleph: Mostly Haneyl and Vali, in fact.
[3:08 PM] Aleph: Both of them would love her.
[3:08 PM] Aleph: Dragons, anti-slavery, conquering queen.
[3:08 PM] Rook: heeeeee
[3:08 PM] Rook: meanwhile, Sasi has been working on a little cult thing
[3:08 PM] Aleph: indeed she has
[3:08 PM] Aleph: To hopefully pacify Ululaya
[3:09 PM] Aleph: who is unpredictable at best.
[3:09 PM] Rook: "Basically, you need to be me."
[3:09 PM] Rook: kek
[3:09 PM] Aleph: Yes.
[3:09 PM] Aleph: : D
[3:09 PM] Aleph: It's true, though.
[3:09 PM] Rook: it is!
[3:09 PM] Rook: hmmmmm
[3:09 PM] Rook: hiding under Keris' Amulet eh
[3:09 PM] Aleph: In terms of "getting somewhere at high speed without being stopped or hurt"
[3:09 PM] Aleph: Keris is really damn good.
[3:09 PM] Aleph: she is a very, very good courier
[3:09 PM] Rook: Keris is probably one of if not the best in Creation
[3:10 PM] Aleph: of the vanishingly few things that can intercept her, most if not all will not live to regret it
[3:10 PM] Aleph: of the things that can't intercept her, "meep meep!"
[3:10 PM] Rook: hee
[3:10 PM] Rook: God I don't know what could actually catch her but I know that I hope she never has to deal with something that powerful
[3:10 PM] Aleph: there are a few things
[3:11 PM] Aleph: To name but one; Adorjan.
[3:11 PM] Rook: well, sure :p
[3:11 PM] Aleph: Mercury could do it, too.
[3:11 PM] Aleph: though, uh
[3:11 PM] Aleph: she probably would regret it
[3:11 PM] Rook: lmao
[3:11 PM] Rook: >Keris hugs her. "I won't let you down!" she promises, and pauses as the thought of wearing Sasi like a peronelle brings up several related thoughts along with several more related images.
[3:11 PM] Aleph: She's an E10 Incarnae, but she's not really a combatant.
[3:11 PM] Rook: oh my god keris
[3:11 PM] Aleph: : 3
[3:12 PM] Rook: keris pls
[3:12 PM] Aleph: "we might want to test that it works first. Several times. In depth. You know, just to be totally sure."
[3:12 PM] Rook: pls
[3:12 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:12 PM] Rook: pls
[3:12 PM] Aleph: alas, Sasi feels icky and slimy and yuck
[3:12 PM] Rook: hurrrm
[3:12 PM] Rook: at least she doesn't need basic hooman bean thing like food or water or breath
[3:12 PM] Aleph: indeed
[3:12 PM] Aleph: who needs that crap, eh?
[3:13 PM] Rook: not glorious INFERNAL EXALTED
[3:13 PM] Aleph: well, actually Keris does still need the first two
[3:13 PM] Rook: ssshhhhhhhh
[3:13 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:13 PM] Rook: four hundred miles in a day for a massive junk good lord
[3:14 PM] Aleph: I believe ES based it on tea clippers and multiplied by 1.5 for magic.(edited)
[3:14 PM] Aleph: Real-life clippers were fast.
[3:14 PM] Rook: it's fucking crazy is what it is
[3:14 PM] Aleph: ... of course, Keris can do two thousand miles in a day.
[3:14 PM] Rook: and of course it's nothing to keris
[3:14 PM] Rook: yes
[3:14 PM] Rook: because fucking keris
[3:15 PM] Rook: ... oh dear
[3:15 PM] Aleph: At some point, the Reclamation is going to realise just how ridiculous her strategic range is.
[3:15 PM] Rook: keris comes up on it and hrrrrm
[3:15 PM] Aleph: and she's going to start getting a lot more wide-ranging missions
[3:15 PM] Rook: >Fire Aspeect in heavy armor
[3:15 PM] Rook: HAHAHAHA
[3:15 PM] Aleph: : V
[3:15 PM] Rook: oh man
[3:15 PM] Aleph: Hmm?
[3:15 PM] Aleph: CONTEEEXT
[3:15 PM] Aleph: don't just react!
[3:15 PM] Aleph: quote, then react!
[3:15 PM] Rook: They're only just underway when Keris feels the surge of air and cold and lightning up above. She can hear the Old Realm chanting of someone who speaks with a similar accent to Sasi, and feels that he's weaker than her, but considerably more powerful than any mortal. The creak of the captain's wheel tastes of slightly weaker Wood and plants and flowers, and there's a metallic clinking of an armoured figure beside the captain that burns like a fire, of equal power.

After the chanting, the wind is incredibly strong and consistent. If Keris has to ballpark it, they're breaking even the 400 miles a day speed, since she can hear the singing of the wind gods and they're charming the mast gods and sail gods into not breaking.

((Enlightenment 5 Air-Aspected, did something Keris thinks is sorcery.
Enlightenment 4 Wood Aspected captain.
Enlightenment 4 Fire Aspect in heavy armour.))
[3:15 PM] Rook: ;_;
[3:16 PM] Aleph: smacks Rook repeatedly on the head
[3:16 PM] Aleph: and yes, gorram it
[3:16 PM] Aleph: ¬_¬
[3:16 PM] Rook: this is gonna be a trip :D
[3:16 PM] Rook: ... oh dear
[3:16 PM] Rook: the Lintha aren't making it and Keris has no idea because of bad dice~
[3:16 PM] Aleph: I quote:
"Crap."
[3:16 PM] Rook: snickers
[3:17 PM] Rook: > Keris can see a rocky coastline to her right, and ahead, the last of the setting sun catching the on the white peak of the Imperial Mountain.
[3:17 PM] Rook: how fucking big is that thing
[3:17 PM] Aleph: You can see it from the edge of Creation. It's like a needle through the plane of the world.
[3:17 PM] Aleph: The exact height is sort of...
[3:17 PM] Aleph: wobbles hand
[3:18 PM] Rook: scratches her head
[3:18 PM] Aleph: interesting fact: the atmosphere gets thinner as it gets higher up
[3:18 PM] Aleph: which reduces the opacity
[3:18 PM] Aleph: which means that at a certain distance, the bulk of the mountain has too much air in the way to see it; it's blued out and invisible
[3:18 PM] Aleph: but the top you can still see
[3:18 PM] Aleph: just floating
[3:18 PM] Rook: oh wow
[3:19 PM] Aleph: hundreds of miles above the ground
[3:19 PM] Rook: What's at the top of the mountain peak?
[3:19 PM] Aleph: The shattered ruins of Meru.
[3:19 PM] Aleph: It is a Bad Place.
[3:19 PM] Aleph: Do not go there.
[3:19 PM] Aleph: People in the Outer Threshold confuse it with Yu Shan or think the Empress lives there.
[3:19 PM] Rook: Huh.
[3:19 PM] Aleph: When I say "shattered ruins", incidentally
[3:20 PM] Aleph: I want you to imagine multiple Keris-level Primordial War veterans simultaneously cutting loose and going all-out against an army of Dragonblooded.
[3:20 PM] Rook: ...
[3:21 PM] Aleph: And I want you to imagine what that has done to the intricately channeled and extremely potent essence flows on top of that mountain
[3:21 PM] Rook: That would look something like what happens when you fill a world of Minecraft with TNT, let it boom, and randomly spawn things in there after the fact
[3:21 PM] Rook: That sounds like more than anything it would just be completely broken and pushing on being abstract
[3:22 PM] Aleph: want to see an Air-aspected essence vent that can't be made out with the naked eye but which can can strip a man's flesh from his bones and then reduce his bones to dust in the blink of an eye?
[3:22 PM] Aleph: Look no further than some of the broken manses up on Meru!
[3:22 PM] Rook: aaaaaaa
[3:22 PM] Rook: ok that is terrifying
[3:22 PM] Aleph: the reason it has not been scavenged clean is because it is FUCKING DEADLY RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT MURDER LAND
[3:23 PM] Rook: You'd have to be batshit crazy even by Exalted standards to go there
[3:23 PM] Aleph: It's not so much that everything is gone, it's that the fighting wrecked a bunch of...
[3:23 PM] Aleph: basically, like
[3:23 PM] Aleph: 21st century-intricate technology
[3:23 PM] Aleph: which was channelling bullshit levels of essence
[3:23 PM] Aleph: and so now, understandably, there are horrific hazards everywhere as that no-longer-channelled-or-contained power vents
[3:24 PM] Rook: hmmm
[3:24 PM] Rook: yeah that makes sense
[3:24 PM] Aleph: plus, you know, dormant-but-still-operational defence automata, horrible gribblies that were kept in secure zoos for the amusement of the HFA Solars but have since escaped and bred...
[3:24 PM] Aleph: etc
[3:24 PM] Rook: mmm
[3:24 PM] Aleph: it is not a nice place
[3:24 PM] Rook: noted :D
[3:25 PM] Aleph: yeah, here we are
[3:25 PM] Aleph: ((There are historic tea clippers which could manage four hundred miles a day. With an Exalted captain and sorcery, I added +25% to that.))
[3:25 PM] Rook: heh
[3:25 PM] Aleph: they can manage a whole quarter of Keris's speed!
[3:25 PM] Rook: ... oh man
[3:25 PM] Rook: she's just like
[3:25 PM] Aleph: ... that's legitimately impressive, tbh
[3:25 PM] Rook: <keris> RAMMING SPEED *narwhal impression*
[3:26 PM] Aleph: wince
[3:26 PM] Rook: ha ha ha what the fuck
[3:26 PM] Rook: the fucking DB
[3:26 PM] Rook: ((Pool of 12 - Reaction 4 + Awareness 5 + Vigilant Sentry Style 3. 12 successes ha ha ha so many 10s.))
[3:26 PM] Aleph: fuuuuuuuck that fire aspect so much
[3:26 PM] Aleph: I hate her
[3:26 PM] Rook: bad ASS
[3:26 PM] Aleph: I hate her so much
[3:26 PM] Rook: oh man this just got interesting
[3:26 PM] Aleph: "... only for her to stab down into the deck, trying to anchor herself into the wood and stop her going off the edge. Embers glow in her dark hair as she strains against force on her leg."
[3:26 PM] Aleph: Hate her SO MUCH
[3:27 PM] Rook: ahaha
[3:27 PM] Rook: ahaahhaahahaha
[3:27 PM] Rook: this chick is tough
[3:27 PM] Aleph: it's fine, everything's fine
[3:27 PM] Aleph: continue giving context
[3:27 PM] Aleph: grits teeth
[3:27 PM] Rook: The chain gives first. It doesn't break, no, but the coiled chains slip down past the woman's feet. There's a painful-sounding impact as the tightly grip of the metal rips past her ankle, but she goes rocketing back up onto the deck with a crash from the sudden release of tension.
Growling in displeasure, Keris peels off and dives again, coming round to widen the hole in the bottom of the ship with another violent slash. Let the woman follow her down here if she wants to keep interfering.

((... ahaha. Of course, amusingly, Keris was in her LSD Lintha disguise because she thought she'd be meeting them for this, and she hasn't taken it down yet. So she looks like HIGHBLOOD LINTHA at the moment.))
'Echo,' she calls, feeling malicious. 'Come out and play. I have a ship for you to sink, and maybe some people inside as well!'
[3:27 PM] Rook: Oh Echo~
[3:27 PM] Rook: Echo twists out from behind her, her hair floating loose underwater, and she's twirling her own mimic of the lance around like... well, like ribbons.

... is that what Echo means when she says she likes ribbons? Maybe she'll have to find a second present for her at Calibration, Keris thinks idly. But then there's no more time for thought, because she's moving along the line of the hull and Echo is gleefully stabbing and cutting and hacking at everything in reach.
[3:28 PM] Aleph: wheeee the stabby dance~
[3:28 PM] Rook:
keris and dulmea talk to echo later
YouTube
HeWentToSubway
Adachi - Who wants to talk about murders? (Persona 4 Hiimdaisy)

[3:28 PM] Rook: my god
[3:28 PM] Rook: echo is a little ball of concentrated murder
[3:28 PM] Aleph: yes
[3:28 PM] Rook: Echo is a good girl. She opens wide cuts along the hull, wind-eroded slashes which penetrate deep in, and the green fires of the Demon Realm burn brighter and brighter. It's taking on lots of water now and Keris can hear chanting from the sorcerer up on the deck, from next to the swordswoman and the captain. One - or maybe two - more Echo dashes should split it wide open, but she'll have to be fast.
[3:28 PM] Aleph: yes she really is
[3:28 PM] Rook: fuckin' ay
[3:28 PM] Aleph: "There's a thunderous noise up above as some kind of spell detonates early - apparently she distracted the sorcerer and he lost focus."
[3:29 PM] Aleph: smug
[3:29 PM] Rook: ohhhh man that was close
[3:29 PM] Rook: and she sneakysneaks on
[3:29 PM] Rook: Keris is silence, and she is death. The escort ships have no Dragonblooded on deck to rally them; no peerless Exalted excellence to resist her. They are wheat before the whirling blade, and Echo is a terrible and enthusiastic reaper. First one, then two, then three ships go dark, drifting unmanned on the currents. Keris stays only long enough to drop the anchor on each one before moving on to the next.
[3:29 PM] Rook: F
[3:29 PM] Aleph: "They're confused and at full alert - somehow the swordswoman's shout has woken everyone onboard up in a way Keris has never seen before." << stupid Command charms.
[3:29 PM] Aleph: pouts
[3:29 PM] Aleph: and yes
[3:29 PM] Aleph: Keris is a fleet-killer(edited)
[3:29 PM] Rook: She hears footsteps. Not on the ship. On the water. The Dragonblooded have jumped down onto the surface of the sea and are keeping close together. The two men are only wearing loincloths, but they're holding their daiklaives. A three-coloured bonfire of elemental essence whirls around them, filling the water with ice, steam and chopped-up petals.
oh my god
[3:30 PM] Rook: this is uh
[3:30 PM] Aleph: growls
[3:30 PM] Rook: That's really badass and all
[3:30 PM] Rook: But they're gonna die
[3:30 PM] Rook: And they're gonna die fast
[3:30 PM] Rook: lmao
[3:30 PM] Aleph: say it
[3:30 PM] Aleph: ¬_¬
[3:30 PM] Rook: ...
[3:30 PM] Rook: ((So, first attack. Dicepool, inc -2 penalty for flurry))
((10 dice, then. Hmm. I'll enhance both with 4 Adorjani ExD, since I'm going to have a few actions of regen. 14 dice total.))
((Fire Warden Stance allows the swordswoman to apply her DV, and in addition provides a +(Enlightenment) external penalty / (half Enlightenment) DV bonus against ranged attacks, whichever is better when remaining static like that. This is increased by +1 for the assisting DB. She's also doing Max spend. So DV 12, +5 external penalty - effectively DV 17))
((Wow. Yeah, these aren't getting through, then. 14 di-
... 16 successes. Oh COME ON, dice fairies, that's just taunting me! Seriously? Seriously?!))
(:) D))
((Seven 10s! SEVEN! If you're going give me a literally one-in-a-thousand roll, go the whole damn hog and let me succeed at it!))
[3:30 PM] Aleph: SO! MUCH! HATE!
[3:30 PM] Rook: what the fuck
[3:31 PM] Aleph: FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFffffffffffffffffffffffff-
[3:31 PM] Aleph: DICE FAIRIIIIIEEEEES!
[3:31 PM] Rook: Keris' lead shot is fast, uncannily accurate, and is probably the single best shot she's ever made with a sling.

And that fucking Fire Aspect flicks it out the air with her blade, catching it on her sword and flicking it into the water. That woman, Keris vows, is going to die a painful death. Soon. The next shot is picked up by the fire and simply blasted away. She doesn't even need to move.
[3:31 PM] Aleph: THAT FUCKING FIRE ASPECT! RRRRGH!
[3:31 PM] Rook: i love this chick
[3:31 PM] Rook: cackles
[3:31 PM] Aleph: "That woman, Keris vows, is going to die a painful death."
[3:31 PM] Rook: see I'm just amazed and happy to see someone be like(edited)
[3:31 PM] Rook: 'nah'
[3:31 PM] Rook: 'nah, sorry'
[3:31 PM] Rook: to Keris
[3:31 PM] Aleph: This is only because Keris is staying at range!
[3:32 PM] Rook: even so, yes :p
[3:32 PM] Rook: ... welp
[3:32 PM] Rook: they're out
[3:32 PM] Rook: She can hear the deafening roar of Air essence and taste its lightning crackle. It hurts. And the light from the burning animas of the DBs is suddenly on the move, rising up - and then it rockets away.
Keris blinks in outrage, surfacing in her armour. Did they just... they did! They ran away! The cowards!
[3:32 PM] Rook: bye bye
[3:32 PM] Aleph: And then...
[3:32 PM] Aleph: yes
[3:32 PM] Aleph: THEY FUCKING RAN AWAY
[3:32 PM] Aleph: shakes fist
[3:32 PM] Rook: I bet they show up again later
[3:32 PM] Rook: Because scorp is evil
[3:32 PM] Aleph: (she forgot to use Countermagic)
[3:32 PM] Aleph: (she's too used to stabbing her problems)
[3:33 PM] Rook: lawl
[3:33 PM] Aleph: anyway, continue
[3:33 PM] Aleph: more more more
[3:33 PM] Rook: and that is
-end part 22
(and here we have the reactions properly to the OH GOD, KERIS AND THE BIG SHIP)
[3:33 PM] Aleph: reactions to the attack on the Mercy, first
[3:33 PM] Aleph: because this is the first time Keris really demonstrates how terrifying she is
[3:33 PM] Aleph: as a fleet-killer
[3:33 PM] Rook: ah, yeah, this
[3:34 PM] Rook: ((Physique + Lower of Subterfuge + Melee, Diff 7 to murder all the dudes and dudettes without being seen. Can upgrade to Diff 10 to kill everyone on all the ships not including the one the DBs are moving onto without being seen.))
((5+5+3 Friagem Serpent+1 Style bonus {attacking from surprise}+2 stunt+5 Adorjani ExSux+1wp autosux=16. 8+6=14 sux.))
Keris is silence, and she is death. The escort ships have no Dragonblooded on deck to rally them; no peerless Exalted excellence to resist her. They are wheat before the whirling blade, and Echo is a terrible and enthusiastic reaper. First one, then two, then three ships go dark, drifting unmanned on the currents. Keris stays only long enough to drop the anchor on each one before moving on to the next.
[3:34 PM] Rook: ?
[3:34 PM] Rook: because this is just uh
[3:34 PM] Rook: terrifying
[3:34 PM] Rook: beyond all comprehension
[3:34 PM] Rook: keris is essentiailly a force of nature
[3:34 PM] Aleph: Yes. And wrecking the Baisha in the first place from underwater. The Realm could send a goddamn fleet after her and she could just flit from ship to ship opening up all the hulls.
[3:34 PM] Aleph: Even with Water Aspects on guard, she's so fucking fast and stealthy...
[3:35 PM] Aleph: And she can hit-and-run at night, meeting the fleet when it's still a week out and Countermagicing any speed-boosters they use, circling until they get tired then hitting again...
[3:35 PM] Rook: Yeah, she... I wonder what Keris could really do with a proper long-term, anti-Realm 'fuck your fleet' op.
[3:35 PM] Aleph: she could probably cripple the Realm Navy's force projection to the Southwest, if she really put her mind to it
[3:36 PM] Aleph: Hell, she could probably cripple the Realm Navy, period.
[3:36 PM] Aleph: If she just kept hitting docks, sinking any ship without a shitload of Water Aspects around it and running from any attempt at engaging her by Wyld Hunts...
[3:36 PM] Rook: Does the Realm even have any way of pinning her down?
[3:37 PM] Aleph: No, not really. She'd get Sidereal attention eventually, but she'd be one woman outside Fate in the entire Western ocean.
[3:37 PM] Aleph: The best they could do is lay traps.
[3:37 PM] Rook: The problems with taking out Keris are that like, even if you can find her (half the time you can't), you need to catch her (you can't), and then you need to fight her long enough and hard enough to kill her before she kills you (you can't)
[3:37 PM] Rook: yeah
[3:37 PM] Rook: it'd have to be a trap
[3:37 PM] Aleph: And the problem there is that she's really stealthy and scopes out things before attacking.
[3:38 PM] Aleph: And is unpredictable on top of that, and a coward.
[3:38 PM] Aleph: If it looks at all like a trap, she just won't go for it.
[3:38 PM] Aleph: She'll just go hit a softer, less valuable target.
[3:38 PM] Rook: yeahhhhhh that's the other part
[3:38 PM] Rook: she's so fucking wily
[3:38 PM] Aleph: you literally cannot trap everything
[3:39 PM] Rook: It may not be impossible for them to kill her but it's pretty fucking close
[3:39 PM] Aleph: and if you try, she'll just start disguising herself as a Realm Dragonblood and hitting towns, fermenting rebellion
[3:39 PM] Rook: hee
[3:39 PM] Aleph: I mean, her combination of cowardice and lethality is basically what makes for an elder Exalt.
[3:39 PM] Aleph: Someone like TAW!Ma Ha Suchi, who's still alive because he doesn't take risks that mean he might die, ever.(edited)
[3:40 PM] Rook: hee, yeah
[3:40 PM] Aleph: While all his braver comrades kept taking 90%-in-their-favour odds and eventually hit that 10%.
[3:40 PM] Rook: You don't get to be old without being very fucking careful
[3:41 PM] Aleph: so yeah, the main things holding Keris back from just wiping out entire fleets or armies are her cowardice and caution (because that would shake up the gameboard and she doesn't know what would happen next), and her compassion (because she doesn't like - for instance - hitting an innocent town to send a message that the Realm guarding their docks will be paid for in blood by their satrapies).
[3:41 PM] Aleph: Keris is mostly trying to work around the Realm rather than tackle it head-on.
[3:42 PM] Rook: I wonder what it's going to take to change that
[3:42 PM] Rook: If anything
[3:42 PM] Aleph: She doesn't really want to get into that fight, because it would be huge and take ages and she's pretty sure she'd lose.
[3:42 PM] Aleph: ... and she mostly just wants to be rich and comfortable and happy, anyway.
[3:42 PM] Aleph: so yes, Part 23!
-part 23-
[3:43 PM] Rook: sun is down, there is naval carnage on the water
[3:43 PM] Aleph: A whole fleet disappeared in maybe ten minutes.
[3:43 PM] Aleph: Twenty at most.
[3:43 PM] Rook: yeah :D
[3:43 PM] Rook: BEGIN THE PRAYER TO GREAT MOTHER
[3:43 PM] Rook: >Like a vulture who can swim and has octopus-like hair - so not very much like a vulture at all - Keris picks the wrecked ships clean
[3:43 PM] Rook: topkek
[3:43 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:44 PM] Rook: >Keris is very much left alone as she works. If there are any other ships out here running at night, they keep well away from the mysterious red glow and maybe wake their priests up to pray for salvation from the sea demons - or maybe worse, the Lintha!
[3:44 PM] Rook: 1) lol
[3:45 PM] Rook: 2) god that would look so fucking spooky from a distance
[3:45 PM] Aleph: yes
[3:45 PM] Aleph: yes it really does
[3:45 PM] Rook: ... heh
[3:45 PM] Rook: it occurs to me that one thing that would make a cool manse
[3:45 PM] Rook: is an underwater lake
[3:45 PM] Aleph: : D
[3:45 PM] Rook: as in, a brine ool
[3:45 PM] Rook: brine pool, even
[3:46 PM] Aleph: yes
[3:46 PM] Aleph: hee~
[3:46 PM] Rook: these things are so cool
YouTube
Alim Adam
Underwater Lake

[3:46 PM] Aleph: neatly steals idea
[3:46 PM] Rook: ^_^
[3:46 PM] Rook: credit me in the write up for the idea :V
[3:46 PM] Rook: (idc lol, glad to have inspired)
[3:46 PM] Rook: and now we are in kerisland
[3:47 PM] Rook: >She nods happily. It should be safe enough here. A stream begins to fall upwards from a nearby river even as she thinks it, and she watches in puzzlement as it soars higher and higher until it meets the red moon above her. Something flickers down the rising column, and her Sixth Soul enters the lake with a faint splash, jetting himself over to look at the new addition curiously.
[3:47 PM] Rook: god i love kerisland (i'm calling it that now deal)
[3:47 PM] Rook: also omg rathan is so cuTE
[3:47 PM] Aleph: Krisity
[3:47 PM] Rook: SO CUTE
[3:47 PM] Aleph: (because it started as Keris-city)
[3:47 PM] Aleph: and yes, Rathan is ADORBZ
[3:47 PM] Rook: Keris ruffles his hair with a fond smile. "Alright, yours," she agrees. "But thank your big sister for it! She helped me get it!"
"No!"
[3:48 PM] Rook: i laughed so hard
[3:48 PM] Rook: this is so true to life(edited)
[3:48 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:48 PM] Rook: and Keris fades back to the water, then dives back down to the wreeeeeeck
[3:48 PM] Rook: and now we chant
[3:48 PM] Rook: ...
[3:48 PM] Rook: wow okay
[3:48 PM] Rook: ((... well. 7 successes on his 9 dice Travel roll. Apparently the Lintha really want these ships.))
[3:48 PM] Rook: homeboy REALLY wants this
[3:48 PM] Aleph: yup
[3:49 PM] Rook: Lintha Gajui Narooj leans over the side of his vessel. "Ahoy there, sister!" he calls out. "What a catch this is!"
[3:49 PM] Rook: YARRRRRRRR
[3:49 PM] Rook: god what a
[3:49 PM] Rook: uh
[3:49 PM] Aleph: Hmm?
[3:49 PM] Rook: I'm just shaking my head
[3:49 PM] Rook: "Ah ha! Yes! The Dragonblooded are but mongrel cowards compared to the purity of the Lintha," he says blithely. "They would rather sink their own vessels than let them fall in our hands, and so they make raiding them too dear for all but the very best."
[3:49 PM] Rook: "fam i just sank it myself"
[3:50 PM] Rook: "YES WHAT COWARDS ARE THEY"
[3:50 PM] Aleph: And she is the very best.
[3:50 PM] Rook: hee
[3:50 PM] Rook: and the sun is, indeed, rising
[3:50 PM] Aleph: she's been busy
[3:50 PM] Aleph: forgive her for not noticing
[3:51 PM] Rook: I'm not surprised she lost track of time! :p
[3:51 PM] Rook: ... huh
[3:51 PM] Rook: " Lintha are already swarming down the side of their vessels, walking on water using strange wide shoes made of wood[...]"
[3:51 PM] Rook: that's really cool
[3:51 PM] Aleph: ikr
[3:51 PM] Aleph: : D
[3:52 PM] Rook: and Keris finishes tidying up aaaand... rolls a lot better than when she was on her way here
[3:52 PM] Rook: via the fucking ocean floor
[3:52 PM] Aleph: she navigates better when she's loopy and half-dazed
[3:52 PM] Rook: ... huh
[3:53 PM] Aleph: Sleepy but curious, she alters course obediently to see what it is the Sea wants her to see.
... she also spends a slightly embarrassing amount of time giggling at her punnery.
[3:53 PM] Aleph: case in point ¬_¬
[3:53 PM] Rook: :V
[3:53 PM] Rook: but like
[3:53 PM] Rook: The sound of the swirling water shocks Keris. There are great pillars protruding from the bottom of the water, and they sound like jadesteel. She can hear them, too, lying flat on the ground. She went... um, quite a way out, distracted by the current, and she's currently under two hundred yards of water and... and there are pillars here, protruding from the ocean floor. And it sounds like the water goes down much, much deeper around the pillars. It's like... some kind of flooded mineshaft, under hundreds of yards of water
[3:53 PM] Aleph: yyyyup
[3:53 PM] Rook: jadesteel huh
[3:53 PM] Rook: what a curious find
[3:53 PM] Rook: and IN WE GO
[3:53 PM] Rook: is this a drilling platform?
[3:54 PM] Rook: This doesn't seem to be the same, she eventually thinks as she descends. This is three jadesteel pillars sunk deep into the rock, around a central bore hole. She didn't see pillars around the Catalyst. Right? Not that she saw, anyway. It's a lot of jadesteel, too, she thinks as she tries to estimate how deep the hole is, and how long the pillars are. She thinks, from what she can hear of the water movements, the pillars were once tall enough to reach the surface. They're slender, perhaps only as wide as her waist, but that's still a... a lot of jadesteel. And something broke them.

She can hear something very strange down perhaps another two hundred yards down, at the bottom of the borehole. She isn't sure what it is is. It sounds like... it sounds like crystal, but it's singing. She thinks it's singing. The echoes reverberate around so much she doesn't know.
She heads down further, closer, bringing her Lance out just in case it's unfriendly.
It's not singing, she realises as she gets deeper. The crystal is screaming.
[3:54 PM] Rook: aaaaAAAAA
[3:54 PM] Aleph: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[3:55 PM] Rook: The wave of sound hits Keris like a punch to the face. The sheer force of Pyrian essence washes over her. It hurts!

((Pyrian essence, Enlightenment 10+))
((Holy fuck. Is. Is this part of what I think it's part of? Also, how big is it?))
((Keris isn't how big it is, but the light is filling the bottom of the shaft. They didn't unearth it fully, apparently.))
[3:55 PM] Rook: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS THING
[3:55 PM] Aleph: keeeeep reading
[3:55 PM] Rook: "The Three Spheres Cataclysm," Keris mouths, her eyes very wide. Despite her comfort in the water, it feels like her spine has been replaced with ice and her lungs and throat with lead as she instinctively shoots back up the shaft, terrified. Even the thought of trying to put that... that thing inside her Domain is enough to have her exit the mouth of the shaft at speeds she hadn't previously thought herself capable of.
[3:55 PM] Aleph: "She proceeds to spend the next several minutes hiding behind a jade-steel pillar"
[3:56 PM] Aleph: this thing has Keris - Keris - terrified and hiding behind a pillar
[3:56 PM] Aleph: You get what it is now, btw?
[3:57 PM] Rook: ok
[3:57 PM] Rook: So this is actually completely terrifying
[3:57 PM] Rook: uh
[3:57 PM] Rook: I think that I understand mmmaaaaaaaaaybe?
[3:57 PM] Aleph: When the Exalted won the Primordial War, the Whipering Pyre tried to switch sides.
[3:57 PM] Aleph: To obey the new rightful rulers of Creation.
[3:57 PM] Aleph: As she is, above all else, a creature of Hierarchy.
[3:58 PM] Aleph: They refused.
[3:58 PM] Rook: She was a Primordial right?
[3:58 PM] Aleph: Yes. She Who Lives In Her Name.
[3:58 PM] Rook: Yeah
[3:58 PM] Aleph: So she screamed and shattered three of her ten-thousand crystal spheres on Creation.
[3:58 PM] Aleph: What they landed on, nobody knows.
[3:58 PM] Rook: So this is a part of her that got dropped in here?
[3:58 PM] Aleph: Her power wiped those things - cities, countries; perhaps even as much as a continent - out of reality.
[3:58 PM] Aleph: Scourged all memory of them from existence.
[3:59 PM] Rook: Good god.
[3:59 PM] Aleph: She shattered her perfect symmetry in a spiteful act of purest rage; doing as much damage as she could manage before the gates of Hell closed and locked with her on the other side.
[3:59 PM] Rook: So, let me piece this together
[3:59 PM] Aleph: The pieces of those Spheres are still to be found, in places.
[3:59 PM] Rook: They find a shard of this
[3:59 PM] Rook: And this is just a tiny portion of it
[3:59 PM] Aleph: And what you kill with them suffers the same fate.
[4:00 PM] Aleph: Burned out of reality by colourless fire.
[4:00 PM] Aleph: Kill a man, and nobody will remember him.
[4:00 PM] Rook: I am... very, very glad that this was not unearthed entirely.
[4:00 PM] Aleph: Records will alter to not have him in them.
[4:00 PM] Rook: I can't tell if this is leftover from a First Age operation of complete fucking hubris
[4:00 PM] Aleph: His deeds will remain, but without specifics.
[4:00 PM] Rook: Or if this stopped part of the way through
[4:00 PM] Rook: And they tried to double back once they fully realized what was happening
[4:00 PM] Aleph: They'll remember that there was a king who did so and so, but no more. Or maybe a queen?
[4:01 PM] Aleph: Was he old or young when he came to the throne? Who were his parents?
[4:01 PM] Aleph: Did he have children? Was the next king his son?
[4:01 PM] Aleph: all that; gone.
[4:01 PM] Aleph: And no, this is a Shogunate operation.
[4:01 PM] Aleph: They loooooved their jadesteel.
[4:01 PM] Rook: thaaaaaaaaaaat is horrifying beyond words
[4:01 PM] Rook: and I figured
[4:01 PM] Aleph: yes
[4:01 PM] Rook: That was actually my intial thought funny enough
[4:01 PM] Aleph: some people make swords or glaives out of the smaller bits
[4:01 PM] Rook: But I was wondering because of how fucking deep it went
[4:02 PM] Aleph: (Keris considers that to be one of the most terrifying things she's ever fucking heard)
[4:02 PM] Aleph: (what kind of maniac would willingly strap a piece of that to their hip?)
[4:02 PM] Rook: heh
[4:02 PM] Rook: God...
[4:02 PM] Aleph: and yes, she just used essence sight on a piece of Primordial
[4:02 PM] Aleph: so you know what time it is!
[4:03 PM] Rook: ...
[4:03 PM] Rook: is she soul-pregnant again
[4:03 PM] Aleph: No, but she's got Yozi Sickness.
[4:03 PM] Aleph: Like when she spent a week strapped to the bed having vivid horrifying nightmare-hallucinations after essence-pinging Adorjan.
[4:03 PM] Rook: ah
[4:03 PM] Aleph: (which was really, really stupid of her and led to her falling over and taking 3 Agg to the Everywhere)
[4:04 PM] Aleph: continue!
[4:04 PM] Rook: and Keris returns to cuddle the Sasi, and explain
[4:04 PM] Rook: god
[4:04 PM] Rook: poor keris(edited)
[4:04 PM] Aleph: The screaming stays with her, even long after she's passed out of the range where even her hearing can no longer pick it up. It rings in her memory; that terrible screech - like the awful light in the Tomb of Blades - and she imagines the sound rising in volume, flooding out of the pit, echoing through the bottom of the ocean and carrying fish and whales and ships and isles and continents away into nothingness, all as the horrible, horrible scream continues, never stopping, never ceasing, never slowing even for a second...(edited)
[4:04 PM] Rook: ;_;
[4:05 PM] Rook: "It is illegal to attempt to influence me in this way," Sasi mutters almost to herself. "I see."
Keris doesn't register this, because Keris is curled in a ball on her lap whimpering again.
[4:05 PM] Rook: pats Keris
[4:05 PM] Aleph: "... have you ever seen a shattered crystal blade?" Keris asks faintly, still trembling a bit. "Have you ever used one?"
Sasi frowns. "I know Liyin Zheng uses one," she says. "A Slayer."
"Can we never go near him ever?" Keris asks as politely as she can. "At all. Ever."
[4:05 PM] Rook: god she is way out of it
[4:05 PM] Aleph: Keris is not good at using her mental defences
[4:05 PM] Rook: especially not against waifu :V
[4:06 PM] Aleph: No, this is still being terrified out of her wits and Yozi-sick and slightly insane
[4:06 PM] Aleph: Sasi used a Charm to parry the mental influence
[4:06 PM] Rook: sssccch let me lighten the mood with romance jokes
[4:06 PM] Aleph: but Keris never activates her defences against Primordial glory
[4:06 PM] Aleph: It may be why she's better at Pantheon Heresy
[4:06 PM] Rook: more seriously though, yeah
[4:06 PM] Aleph: she throws herself into living the whole Primordial thing.
[4:06 PM] Aleph: Sasi keeps herself at more of a remove.
[4:07 PM] Rook: Keris generally just engages things more fully than Sasi.
[4:07 PM] Rook: Which is... also not hard.
[4:07 PM] Aleph: Heart, rather than mind.
[4:07 PM] Rook: Mmm
[4:07 PM] Rook: Sasi stares at her. "Keris," she asks flatly. "When did you learn to hide entire ships in your soul? How?"
[4:07 PM] Rook: lawl
[4:07 PM] Aleph: : V
[4:07 PM] Rook: #pillowtalkbutit'sabathsomaybeit'sbathtalk
[4:07 PM] Aleph: "There needs to be a sympathy between where it's coming from and where it's going, for me to get it through the Cloud Wall. The altered geomancy is based on the same stuff my Domain is built on, so it works sort of like a door that I can move things through. Still takes ages, but it works."
Sasi is staring at her. Keris smiles proudly. "There were some books and scrolls in the summer house," she adds. "They were really interesting!"
"Well, it's always nice to see you reading more," Sasi says blandly.
[4:07 PM] Rook: :D
[4:08 PM] Rook: "I tried explaining some of it to Dulmea but she didn't really understand. And Haneyl and Rathan weren't really listening to the words, I don't think. Or Echo." Keris sighs. "Still, it- oh! Idea! Sasi, can I give you a massage?"
Sasi looks at her deeply, and narrows her eyes. "Will it involve the experimental use of titanic power which you have not used on me before?" she asks with consummate grace, poise, and totally not suspicion.
"Absolutely not!" Keris protests. "It's not at all experimental. I've used it on loads of other people, and they're all fine."
[4:08 PM] Rook: pls
[4:08 PM] Aleph: Keris: "Salinan theory Salinan theory Salinan theory!"
Sasi: uses Devonian/Silurian initiation, thinks Salina was a crazy nutcase
[4:08 PM] Rook: Sasi must feel Some Type Of Way about this but then again she always does
[4:08 PM] Rook: given that fucking Keris
[4:09 PM] Aleph: : D
[4:09 PM] Aleph: About the massage or the Salinan theory?
[4:09 PM] Rook: yes
[4:09 PM] Rook: Keris bounces happily, calling mentally for Haneyl's attention. 'This is your other mama,' she tells the little girl's strange fiery-woody-hungry presence in her head. 'I'm going to use the gifts you were born from to make her feel good - see if you can sense her when I do, okay?'

With the curious attention of her Seventh Soul behind her fingers, she turns her full attention to giving Sasi the best massage she can possibly manage; roots sinking into pale skin and teasing tension out of muscles from the inside, coaxing away bad humours and tickling pleasure-points.

Despite the fact she's enjoying it, she doesn't seem to be entirely comfortable with it. Keris can barely hear it in the way she inhales whenever she pokes a root into her.
keriiiiiis
[4:09 PM] Aleph: Well, they're different feelings
[4:09 PM] Rook: god that must be a hell of a massage
[4:09 PM] Aleph: yes
[4:09 PM] Aleph: yes it really, really is
[4:09 PM] Aleph: better than any mortal can do
[4:09 PM] Rook: sasi is a very lucky girl
[4:09 PM] Aleph: but she doesn't trust Keris not to misuse it
[4:09 PM] Aleph: so she's scared
[4:10 PM] Aleph: (she will eventually be won over to them by DECADANCE)
[4:10 PM] Aleph: (and SUPER-MASSAGES)
[4:10 PM] Rook: lol
[4:10 PM] Rook: :p
[4:10 PM] Rook: and now they go and slep
[4:10 PM] Rook: serious discussion for later
[4:10 PM] Aleph: "I'll need to think about this," Sasi says carefully. "And what we can do with them."
"Put them a very, very long way from anywhere?" Keris asks hopefully. "And never go near them again?"
[4:10 PM] Aleph: : (
[4:10 PM] Rook: poor keris :<
[4:10 PM] Aleph: it really freaked her out
[4:10 PM] Rook: Keris's dreams aren't pleasant. At first they're nice - she drifts around her Domain for a while, admiring her new boats and securing the gems and silver in several different vaults.

Then the screaming starts to come back. It's faint at first. She almost thinks it's a trick of her hearing.

But it gets louder. And louder. The Domain around her starts to fray, as she falls out of meditation and into a nightmare. She sees the new lands around her Domain dry up and turn to crystal even as the Cloud Wall swallows them like she'd never pushed it back. She sees her city begin to disintegrate, calcifying into greyish crystal and crumbling to nothing.

She sees Haneyl and Rathan crying and screaming as the shriek blots out their voices, their figures, their existence. She sees Echo try to flee, only to fall apart under the unstoppable assault of the sound.

She sees Dulmea panicking, as terrified as she was after Keris ran with the Silent Wind, before she's gone.

And then Keris is alone. She's alone in an empty space and there's nothing and noone there and there never was and it's just her and the screaming and it won't stop and she can feel it start to unmake her...

Keris wrenches awake with a scream of her own, caught in her throat in petrified silence. At first she's paralysed with terror, and then movement returns and she jackknifes up so fast that she breaks the coat of ice that's formed across the surface of the bath from her dreaming distress.
[4:10 PM] Rook: .___.
[4:10 PM] Aleph: Keris has a Principle towards the Whispering Pyre of "Phobia". This is why.
[4:11 PM] Rook: Yeah no I uh
[4:11 PM] Rook: I don't blame her one second
[4:11 PM] Aleph: she's actually more affected than most
[4:11 PM] Aleph: that scream isn't audible to mortals
[4:11 PM] Aleph: but Keris can hear the immaterial and her essence sensing is primarily hearing-based
[4:11 PM] Aleph: and her sense of hearing is way beyond superhuman
[4:11 PM] Rook: the sheer agonizing pain she must have been in is beyond comprehension
[4:11 PM] Aleph: No, it's not that it's pain.
[4:12 PM] Aleph: It's that... A Solar with a Shattered Crystal blade wouldn't sense anything odd about it, really. Unless they dug into it with essence-detection.
[4:12 PM] Aleph: But Keris can passively hear the echo trapped in it.
[4:12 PM] Rook: I meant psychological pain, not so much physical
[4:12 PM] Aleph: Which is literally the echo of the Whispering Pyre's scream when she launched the Spheres.
[4:12 PM] Aleph: what she is hearing there
[4:13 PM] Aleph: it is literally the unfaded echoes of a Primordial trying to destroy Creation.
[4:13 PM] Rook: Yeah.
[4:13 PM] Rook: It's... yeah.
[4:13 PM] Aleph: And Keris hears it passively whenever she's near a piece of Shattered Crystal and can't turn off the Charms that let her do so.
[4:14 PM] Aleph: "Keris wrenches awake with a scream of her own, caught in her throat in petrified silence. At first she's paralysed with terror, and then movement returns and she jackknifes up so fast that she breaks the coat of ice that's formed across the surface of the bath from her dreaming distress.
... actually, 'coat' is understating it. Some of the shattered chunks from near the edges are almost an inch thick."
[4:14 PM] Rook: Yeah, it's... 'rough' to put it extremely fucking mildly.
[4:14 PM] Rook: also yes
[4:14 PM] Rook: #infernals
[4:14 PM] Rook: at least Dulmeamama is comforting and will reassure Keris
[4:14 PM] Rook: mostly
[4:14 PM] Aleph: indeed
[4:14 PM] Rook: "I am pleased you are realising the danger of going too close to the All-Makers," Dulmea says, with a hint of acid, and she pauses. "Echo also says that it's too loud."
[4:14 PM] Rook: lmao
 
Another possible way to get an underwater lake in Exalted would be a spot on the ocean floor where there's a bit too much Earth/Wood Essence and the water is literally heavier than it should be.

Also, pockets of Air Essence with miniature ecosystems inside them.

For a less pleasant location, a Shadowland that consists of a large anoxic zone where the River of Drowning comes unpleasantly close to the border of the Underworld.

You could have an underwater current that happens to be a Mercury demesne, which would be a neat place to put a Sidereal outpost.

Or an upwelling of Kimberian Essence where you have to sail for at least two and a half days, until you see the skies of Malfeas beneath you. Then, at either dawn or dusk, when half of the green sun beneath the waves meets half of the yellow sun above them, you flip the boat over and sail at least another two and a half days to reach the Demon City. Sail out of Malfeas until you see blue skies or Creation's stars beneath you, and you can reverse the process.

On a different topic, assuming Keris can suppress her Phobia for long enough, she might be able to use that chunk of Pyrian crystal to lure Deveh out where she can kill him. Assuming the Unquestionables decide he's running an unacceptable risk of blowing the existence of Infernals wide open and needs to be eliminated, anyway. I'm assuming here that Internals haven't been trying to kill each other of their own volition yet as opposed to doing so on an Unquestionable's orders.
 
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The Sandman said:
Another possible way to get an underwater lake in Exalted would be a spot on the ocean floor where there's a bit too much Earth/Wood Essence and the water is literally heavier than it should be.

Also, pockets of Air Essence with miniature ecosystems inside them.

For a less pleasant location, a Shadowland that consists of a large anoxic zone where the River of Drowning comes unpleasantly close to the border of the Underworld.

You could have an underwater current that happens to be a Mercury demesne, which would be a neat place to put a Sidereal outpost.

Or an upwelling of Kimberian Essence where you have to sail for at least two and a half days, until you see the skies of Malfeas beneath you. Then, at either dawn or dusk, when half of the green sun beneath the waves meets half of the yellow sun above them, you flip the boat over and sail at least another two and a half days to reach the Demon City. Sail out of Malfeas until you see blue skies or Creation's stars beneath you, and you can reverse the process.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The first one was my initial thought for how to do it, yeah. Also I just like applying neato geographic things to Exalted and seeing how they work out. ^_^;
 
... it's an underwater lake; a pool of ultra-dense water on the seabed. The chemistry of how the real one works aside; I can't really see it as anything but a water demesne.

(Keris no don't give birth to a living manse there. Which you've given Network Node not out of any strategic plan to funnel power to a larger manse but rather, sigh, so that it won't be lonely and will have siblings to talk to.)
 
Aleph said:
... it's an underwater lake; a pool of ultra-dense water on the seabed. The chemistry of how the real one works aside; I can't really see it as anything but a water demesne.

(Keris no don't give birth to a living manse there. Which you've given Network Node not out of any strategic plan to funnel power to a larger manse but rather, sigh, so that it won't be lonely and will have siblings to talk to.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You're using the Kimberian Manse-Child homebrew? I thought Earthscorpion scrapped that for being terribly thought-out.
 
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mmmmmmoar bleg
T-T-T-TRIPLE BLEG
[2:52 PM] Aleph: 24, then!
[2:52 PM] Aleph: "Ill and feverish, Keris wonders why she always goes and pokes her nose into things. She must be ill to be having these kinds of thoughts."
[2:52 PM] Aleph: oh, Keris
[2:52 PM] Rook: o keris
[2:53 PM] Rook: u so keris
[2:53 PM] Rook: "i need some downtime even though i've been having lots of downtime"
[2:53 PM] Rook: "yep sounds good"
[2:53 PM] Rook: keris kerises kerisingly
[2:53 PM] Rook: when in doubt ask the Sasi for answers!
[2:54 PM] Rook: hm
[2:54 PM] Rook: family craft eh
[2:54 PM] Rook: so Keris has to learn something that's usually pased down only to family
[2:54 PM] Rook: aaaaah
[2:54 PM] Rook: >Sadly, despite Keris's normally exceptional hearing, she suffers a brief but tragic bout of spontaneous deafness as she hops out of the window and heads out into the city, and thus misses whatever it was that Sasi was saying in a rather sharp tone of voice. Somewhere, in a city like Steel Lotus, there will be a place that sells tools for working soft metal. High-quality ones. Keris sets out to find them.
[2:54 PM] Rook: that's gotta hurt
[2:54 PM] Aleph: Hmm?
[2:54 PM] Rook: the ears
[2:54 PM] Rook: also "Touring the city by its streets rather than its rooftops or waterways is almost unfamiliar, but Keris mingles through the throngs, avoiding the louder areas and occasionally plugging her ears against the bustle of the crowd." this makes me giggle
[2:55 PM] Aleph: wait, hurt how?
[2:55 PM] Rook: "brief but spontaneous deafness"
[2:55 PM] Aleph: ...
[2:55 PM] Rook: as in "ow my ears"
[2:55 PM] Aleph: uh
[2:55 PM] Aleph: that was, um
[2:55 PM] Aleph: "and thus misses whatever it was that Sasi was saying in a rather sharp tone of voice"
[2:55 PM] Aleph: the kind of deafness where you put quotation marks around the word
[2:55 PM] Rook: ... oh :D
[2:56 PM] Aleph: that is; "oh, I do apologise, I appear to have gone temporarily deaf just as you told me not to do the thing"(edited)
[2:56 PM] Rook: See I was like "keris pls"
[2:56 PM] Rook: but that's a "KERIS PLS"
[2:56 PM] Rook: for entirely different reasons
[2:56 PM] Aleph: : P
[2:57 PM] Rook: "fried squid with mango chutney and bread" mmmgggggggggggn
[2:57 PM] Rook: now i'm hungry again
[2:57 PM] Rook: that sounds so good
[2:57 PM] Rook: >Slipping into the workshop, she melds against a wall for a while, scoping out the tools on offer. The best ones, she reasons, will probably be the ones being used by the best smiths. Who will probably be the older, more experienced smiths, or the ones making the prettiest pieces, or both.
[2:57 PM] Rook: lol
[2:58 PM] Rook: keris reaches to steal aaaaaand
[2:58 PM] Rook: ((... should I even bother rolling?))
((WHO KNOWS IF YOU CAN BEAT 1 SUCCESS?))
((Actually, if they count as "obviously displayed valuables", Light-Fingered Larcenist reduces the Difficulty by 1. : 3
Reaction+Subterfuge=5+5+3 Style+2 Coadj+2 stunt=17. 10 sux lawl.))
[2:58 PM] Rook: SURPRISE
[2:58 PM] Rook: SHE MAKES IT
[2:58 PM] Rook: I'M SO SHOCKED THE THIEF CAN STEAL
[2:58 PM] Aleph: : P
[2:58 PM] Rook: lmfao and she steals someone's lunch too
[2:59 PM] Rook: >The next couple of days are an educational adventure. Keris confirms, for example, that her root-hair is not able to reshape things that have never been alive, such as silver, and that trying to do so tastes horrible. She also discovers that using tiny chittering tooth-lined hairs to eat away bits of silver while she's doing detailed work is possible, and even tastes nice, but will give her toothache in her hair; an experience she is determined not to repeat.
[2:59 PM] Rook: that is
[2:59 PM] Rook: a very Keris way of doing thingss
[2:59 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:00 PM] Rook: >"I ate some while I was carving it," Keris explains. "Silver is tasty! But it gave me toothache." She pauses. "Hairache? Hairtoothache? Somethingache."
[3:00 PM] Rook: kek
[3:01 PM] Rook: hmhmhm
[3:02 PM] Rook: keris goes a'huntin' and they're a little skeptical
[3:02 PM] Rook: >"Then we shall begin your test period," he says. "We'll just need to get the paperwork in order..."
[3:02 PM] Rook: THE TRUE ENEMY OF KERIS
[3:02 PM] Rook: BUREAUCRACY
[3:02 PM] Aleph: Keris: hisses like a vampire
[3:02 PM] Aleph: Keris: recoils
[3:03 PM] Rook: >Sasi sighs. "Oh, Keris," she says. "Sometimes I feel you're the most honest thief around. You go in and apply as a student, rather than just dominate the owning family and take whatever teacher you felt like."
[3:03 PM] Rook: this made me snicker hard
[3:03 PM] Aleph: : 3
[3:05 PM] Rook: god these two are so cute
[3:05 PM] Rook: it always gets me
[3:05 PM] Aleph: Hmm?
[3:05 PM] Rook: Keris's eyes sparkle. "I'll do it if you use your..." she waves her hands, "... mind hand thingies to turn the dust into opals I can use," she replies instantly. "Oh, and actually, I promised Haneyl a little while ago that I'd get her some emeralds. If I found some lesser gems in the market that were about right, could you turn them nice and emeraldy?"
just little things like...
[3:05 PM] Rook: It really sells that these two love each other so much and are so comfortable
[3:05 PM] Rook: idk
[3:05 PM] Aleph: ^_^
[3:05 PM] Rook: There's very much a sense of history and comfort just in the way they talk
[3:06 PM] Rook: And I like that
[3:06 PM] Aleph: it's basically "oh, if I go pop out to the market and get some eggs, could you make those cupcakes with the vanilla?"
[3:06 PM] Aleph: but with precious gemstones
[3:06 PM] Aleph: domestic, is I think the word you're looking for
[3:06 PM] Rook: hm(edited)
[3:06 PM] Rook: yeah
[3:07 PM] Rook: I think so
[3:07 PM] Rook: discord pls stahp forbidding me my edits ;_;
[3:07 PM] Rook: ok there we go it went through(edited)
[3:07 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:07 PM] Rook: keris gets herself edumucated bout silversmithing
[3:07 PM] Rook: "She is unfairly good" welcome to exalted
[3:08 PM] Aleph: "Despite her previous beliefs, eating away at the metal with your teeth hair is not a core part of silversmithing."
[3:08 PM] Aleph: shocking
[3:08 PM] Rook: scandalous
[3:09 PM] Rook: and keris skips school to go into the highlands and visits the big leagues
[3:09 PM] Rook: and now: the mine
[3:10 PM] Rook: ((5+4+2 stunt+2 Amuletstealth+9 Adorjani ExD=22. 6... 6 successes? Six? Wtf? Argh! So close to disaster!))
eeeesh
[3:10 PM] Rook: so close to that going bad
[3:10 PM] Aleph: >_<
[3:10 PM] Rook: fucking Keris
[3:11 PM] Rook: When she moves, having stolen all the opal dust there is to offer, it's from the top down; her anima filling the tunnels with light. As fast as she's moving, the miners die without ever realising what the source of the red radiance is. The gods; young and inexperienced, are left with terrible wounds that bleed red gusts that they cannot staunch or stop. By the time Keris reaches the bottom of the mine, everything else in it is dead.

Then she starts back up. Every mine support is slashed through. Every body is inhaled. Green fire eats away at beams and pillars, Echo scores deep gashes in the walls and ceilings. Keris can hear the rumbling sounds of collapsing stone begin behind her, but she's faster than the wave of destruction, and shoots out of the shaft just in time for her aura to highlight the massive cloud of dust that fountains up out of it as the last of the tunnels and shaft fall in. The column of smoke rises into the night sky; lit by an eerie crimson radiance from within.
[3:11 PM] Aleph: Hee
[3:11 PM] Aleph: "An inhumanly astute observer would see that her eyes are closed. The miners aren't the ones she's worried about. The gods are."
[3:11 PM] Rook: fucking Terrifying
[3:11 PM] Rook: like
[3:11 PM] Aleph: Yes.
[3:11 PM] Rook: "and then everything FUCKING DIED"
[3:11 PM] Rook: >If Keris was the sort to dramatically pose in front of a collapsing mine, her pose would have been ruined when she got absolutely covered in dust from the shaft.
[3:11 PM] Rook: tfw Keris can JoJo pose, spine-bending and all
[3:11 PM] Aleph: "By the time Keris reaches the bottom of the mine, everything else in it is dead."
[3:12 PM] Rook: does Keris JoJo pose ever
[3:12 PM] Aleph: ...
[3:12 PM] Aleph: no comment
[3:12 PM] Aleph: ; )
[3:12 PM] Rook: :[
[3:12 PM] Rook: :p
[3:12 PM] Aleph: more KeriSasi cuteness
[3:12 PM] Rook: heeeeeeeee cute nerds
[3:13 PM] Aleph: they are basically being RP nerds, yes
[3:13 PM] Rook: >Sasi pouts. "Then she can hurry up and get out of here," she grouches. "She's welcome to it if she'll take the weight off my spine and stop kicking me."
[3:13 PM] Rook: noooo
[3:13 PM] Rook: not the pouts
[3:13 PM] Rook: keris cannot whistand the pouts
[3:14 PM] Aleph: they are poutent indeed
[3:14 PM] Rook: they're so CUTE
[3:14 PM] Rook: ...
[3:14 PM] Rook: narrows eyes
[3:14 PM] Aleph: : V
[3:14 PM] Rook: bad aleph!
[3:14 PM] Rook: spritzes
[3:14 PM] Aleph: : (
[3:14 PM] Rook: aaand that's part the 24
[3:14 PM] Rook: not shown: kinky infernal sex after music
[3:14 PM] Aleph: Okay, I will demand 25
[3:14 PM] Rook: indeed
[3:14 PM] Aleph: because SHADOWLAAAAAND
[3:14 PM] Rook: and i shall provide
[3:14 PM] Rook: now: PART THE 25
[3:15 PM] Rook: oho
[3:15 PM] Rook: time's passed
[3:15 PM] Rook: it has been a full season since she got here huh
[3:15 PM] Rook: >... okay, not the heat. Keris is pretty sure nothing could get used to the heat here, except the probably-designed-for-it natives. Maybe they're all part fire elemental. She wouldn't be surprised.
[3:15 PM] Rook: fun fact
[3:15 PM] Rook: a regular joke in the UP of Michigan is that everyone there has a slight layer of permafrost under their skin
[3:16 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:16 PM] Rook: >
She's vaguely tempted to idly mention a few of the scandalous secrets she knows about them, having been in the same house for three months with a sense of hearing that goes past "superhuman" into outright supernatural. Then again, that would probably annoy Sasi. She'd have to hire new servants. And the new ones would just gossip even more obviously. Sigh.
[3:16 PM] Rook: reminder that being her roommate would be
[3:16 PM] Rook: uh
[3:16 PM] Rook: An Experience
[3:16 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:17 PM] Aleph: If you live within a block of Keris, she probably knows most of your secrets.
[3:17 PM] Aleph: Not even from effort
[3:17 PM] Rook: ggggod that would be
[3:17 PM] Aleph: just from overhearing things while coming in and out of her house
[3:17 PM] Rook: I could not live around Keris
[3:17 PM] Rook: >.>
[3:17 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:18 PM] Rook: meanwhile Dulmea holding it down
[3:18 PM] Rook: "hey maybe do your fucking job"
[3:18 PM] Rook: Sasi purses her lips. "It is nothing, Keris," she says, sounding distracted. And then she reconsiders. "Well, perhaps it is something. Something beyond," she glowers at her stomach, "this little pest kicking me, at least. [...] " sasi
[3:18 PM] Rook: pls
[3:18 PM] Aleph: Dulmea is either a very good Coadjutor or a very bad one, depending on which view of the Coadjutor you consider.
[3:19 PM] Aleph: on the one hand, she keeps Keris more or less loyal to the Reclamation and on-task in her missions, as well as functioning as the superego and sense of caution that Keris, frankly, lacks
[3:19 PM] Aleph: on the other hand, insofar as "keeping Keris from growing too strong" goes, she's kind of epicfailing
[3:19 PM] Aleph: Keris is dragging her up rather than the other way around.
[3:20 PM] Rook: yyyeaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
[3:20 PM] Rook: well
[3:20 PM] Rook: that's the Yozis' problem not hers :V
[3:20 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:20 PM] Aleph: The Unquestionable's
[3:20 PM] Rook: mmm
[3:20 PM] Rook: also lol
[3:20 PM] Rook: >"I'm doing well," she replies. "I've more or less learned everything the Green Snake workshop has to teach me, and I'm planning to make a gift for the Shashalme to thank them for their generosity."
[3:20 PM] Rook: and also to avoid their wrath
[3:20 PM] Rook: that too
[3:21 PM] Aleph: nah, it's totally fine with giving you a bunch of things without you giving things back
[3:21 PM] Aleph: that means the parasitic gratitude keeps growing until you become theirs
[3:21 PM] Aleph: (technically, Keris could terminate that gratitude Principle with FLG whenever she liked)
[3:21 PM] Aleph: (but that might actually draw its wrath)
[3:21 PM] Rook: hee
[3:21 PM] Rook: that's gonna have to snap eventually
[3:22 PM] Rook: and Sasi raises Buk Moi
[3:22 PM] Rook: ....
[3:22 PM] Rook: >"[...]Actually, what happens if I make a Kimberian lake on a shadowland?"
[3:22 PM] Rook: that
[3:22 PM] Rook: that is a
[3:22 PM] Rook: that is a question of some sort
[3:22 PM] Aleph: : 3
[3:22 PM] Rook: that is indeed a question
[3:22 PM] Rook: hm
[3:22 PM] Aleph: oh man
[3:22 PM] Aleph: hee~
[3:23 PM] Rook: sasi has some idea but like
[3:23 PM] Rook: i'm expecting this to blow up
[3:23 PM] Rook: and blow up biiiiiiiiig
[3:23 PM] Aleph: waits eagerly
[3:23 PM] Aleph: Oh yeah, heh
[3:23 PM] Aleph: "I simply haven't had time to devise the proper rituals, and I found my classic summoning cannot reach your soul world."
[3:23 PM] Aleph: paradigms~
[3:23 PM] Rook: Aaaaaaa
[3:24 PM] Aleph: Sasi is Devonian, she can't just do things by "feeling". She needs the maths.
[3:24 PM] Aleph: in-universe, that is
[3:24 PM] Rook: mmm
[3:24 PM] Aleph: THIS NEXT BIT THO
[3:24 PM] Rook: >Keris does so, and finds that it's a collection of little stoppered clay jars. She checks the labels. They're names of colours. Lots and lots of colours. Keris quickly counts and there's... there's twelve by twelve different colours! That's over a hundred!
[3:24 PM] Rook: eeeee
[3:25 PM] Rook: and then romantiiiic
[3:25 PM] Rook: also
[3:25 PM] Rook: >The next morning dawns hot and sticky.
[3:25 PM] Rook: just like last night AYYYY
[3:25 PM] Aleph: waggles eyebrows
[3:25 PM] Aleph: but yes
[3:25 PM] Aleph: that was just
[3:25 PM] Aleph: eeeeee~
[3:25 PM] Aleph: SUPER ADORBZ
[3:26 PM] Aleph: I literally don't think anyone since Rat has ever given Keris a gift so personal and thoughtful.
[3:26 PM] Aleph: Possibly not even him.
[3:26 PM] Rook: :D
[3:26 PM] Rook: so cute i can't even
[3:26 PM] Rook: omg
[3:26 PM] Rook: one sec tho need water
[3:26 PM] Aleph: and yes, now to...
[3:26 PM] Aleph:
[3:31 PM] Aleph: .... ?
[3:31 PM] Aleph: um
[3:32 PM] Rook: yes
[3:32 PM] Rook: this is exactly what it looks like
[3:32 PM] Rook: i just had to share for the sheer what the fuck
[3:32 PM] Rook: ANYWAY
[3:33 PM] Rook: probably entirely inappropriate but what i'm listening to atm
YouTube
Cory Weeds and The Jeff Hamilton Trio - Topic
Robbin's Nest

[3:33 PM] Aleph: SHADOWLAAAAAAND~
[3:33 PM] Rook: And we're off!
[3:33 PM] Rook: it's cooler, the sky is leaden, everything is FUCKING DEAD
[3:34 PM] Rook: >Oh, and at night they're in the underworld and in the day they're in Creation! Yes, she remembers that. If you go into one during the day and then leave at night, you'll be in the land of the Dead instead of the land of the living.
[3:34 PM] Rook: Can I just say that I really like this
[3:34 PM] Rook: It's really, really simple, but really, really evocative
[3:34 PM] Aleph: "...
"... oh, she realises. Shit."
[3:34 PM] Rook: YUP
[3:34 PM] Aleph: KERIS
[3:34 PM] Rook: HAHAHAHAHA
[3:34 PM] Aleph: Simple but evocative?
[3:34 PM] Rook: WELCOME TO THE BONE ZONE
[3:34 PM] Aleph: That's canon for how shadowlands work
[3:34 PM] Aleph: or do you mean how Keris doesn't know much about them?
[3:34 PM] Rook: I haven't read up on it in canon
[3:34 PM] Rook: I mean the shadowlands
[3:34 PM] Aleph: yeah, s'pretty sweet
[3:34 PM] Rook: I really like it :3
[3:35 PM] Rook: yessss
[3:35 PM] Rook: Dulmea is JUST as confused
[3:35 PM] Rook: lmao
[3:35 PM] Aleph: Echo nods, and agrees that Keris totally did and she should watch where she's going more.
'Hush, you,' Keris thinks at her, and then realises the stupidity of this statement.
[3:35 PM] Rook: :D
[3:35 PM] Aleph: ¬_¬
[3:35 PM] Rook: It's not very large, really, Keris realises after some swimming. It's only perhaps a mile wide, and doesn't even cover all the ruins of Buk Moi and its surrounding settlements. It's mostly the docks and the merchant palaces which seem to be affected.

Buk Moi itself is almost silent by the standards of cities this size, though. Keris can hear only a thousand human voices. By her guess, there used to be maybe ten thousand inhabitants.

And Keris can hear the hollow, whispering Dead. They hide in the buildings. Away from the light. They're in the river and they're in dark spaces and some are hiding in the cracks in the earth. They hunger.
[3:35 PM] Rook: [menacing]
[3:35 PM] Aleph: those poor, doomed bastards
[3:35 PM] Aleph: seriously, I mean
[3:35 PM] Aleph: this is very menacing and all for a mortal hero(edited)
[3:36 PM] Aleph: But Keris just walked into the shadowland.
[3:36 PM] Rook: indeed
[3:36 PM] Rook: >
She gulps. Okay. Okay. It's smaller than she'd feared, but still imposing. If she invokes the waters of the Great Mother... perhaps seven or eight times, she can cover the entire thing. Unfortunately, that would flood most of the docks, collapse walls and buildings, turn streets into marshy bogs and generally render the city uninhabitable.
[3:36 PM] Aleph: that's a level of overkill that goes beyond hilarious into just being a little sad.
[3:36 PM] Rook: turn this bitch into NEW LONDO
[3:36 PM] Rook: >
Or, Echo suggests extravagantly, she could run around the shadowland at night and kill eeeeeeverything with Echo's help and that would be lots of fun!
"Mother," Haneyl says curiously, "I wonder if plants can grow in dead things which are still moving around? Why do they still walk around?"
[3:36 PM] Aleph: It's like an elaborate Iron Age ambush with spears and bowmen and trained dogs being set up
[3:37 PM] Rook: [laugh track]
[3:37 PM] Aleph: and then a tank drives into it
[3:37 PM] Rook: lol
[3:37 PM] Rook: yes
[3:38 PM] Aleph: Oh yeah, actually
[3:38 PM] Aleph: ((Valour 3; 1 sux.))
Keris shakes her head. "I don't want to risk getting caught by... I mean, it would waste time that I need to talk to Sasi and stuff, and..."
She can almost see Echo in front of her, nodding in understanding and then tucking her hands into her armpits and walking around miming the clucking strides of a chicken. It's fine that Keris wants to cluck in a tree and go clucking to Sasi to advice, she seems to say. That's a totally clucking choice for her to make, and nobody would cluck her as a coward for making it.
"I wouldn't be afraid," Haneyl adds, supporting her sister. "I would go out there and set all the dead things on fire, and then put them out and grow things in them so they could be useful and feed pretty plants. That's what I would do."
[3:38 PM] Aleph: If you look at what's happening here?
[3:39 PM] Rook: it's curious
[3:39 PM] Aleph: Keris's impulsive side and her sense of greed and avarice are ganging up on her and provoking her Valour.
[3:39 PM] Aleph: That is to say; that behaviour on Echo and Haneyl's parts was sparked by, and is an expression of, her Valour roll succeeding.
[3:40 PM] Aleph: This is similar to how when a Yozi is conflicted between two viewpoints, it's represented by two (or more) of their Third Circles literally going to war.
[3:40 PM] Rook: ... heh.
[3:40 PM] Rook: :D
[3:40 PM] Rook: cool
[3:40 PM] Aleph: Except to see more of this when Keris is conflicted or torn.
[3:40 PM] Rook: (also worrying (FOR OTHER PEOPLE))
[3:40 PM] Rook: anddddd Keris decides to art before getting her murder on
[3:41 PM] Rook: she can afford to be casual because like
[3:41 PM] Rook: What the heck is going to mess with her?
[3:41 PM] Aleph: well, quite a lot of things might
[3:41 PM] Rook: ok well
[3:41 PM] Aleph: admittedly none would survive it
[3:41 PM] Rook: what's going to survive it
[3:41 PM] Rook: yes(edited)
[3:41 PM] Aleph: well
[3:41 PM] Aleph: uh
[3:41 PM] Aleph: re-survive?
[3:41 PM] Aleph: hmm
[3:41 PM] Rook: these are the questions that need answering :thinking:
[3:41 PM] Aleph: there really needs to be better vocabulary for killing dead things
[3:41 PM] Rook: Is it killing?
[3:42 PM] Rook: Re-killing?
[3:42 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:42 PM] Rook: Un...undeading?
[3:42 PM] Rook: w/e
[3:42 PM] Rook: whatever did this didn't touch the warehouse and outer bits of town eh
[3:42 PM] Rook: ... could it be an Abyssal?
[3:42 PM] Aleph: "... in fact, she thinks, since they went to so much trouble to leave the warehouses intact, and since she's probably going to end up destroying the city anyway, really, it behooves her to go and liberate the contents of the warehouses to ensure that they aren't used for evil by the rotting hands of the Dead.
Firmly convinced of the moral righteousness of her cause, Keris ambles on over to the warehouses and enters via the roof, mentally directing Dulmea's chell-drones to clean out a vault in preparation for everything she's about to add to her hoard."
[3:42 PM] Aleph: sigh
[3:42 PM] Rook: lol
[3:43 PM] Rook: Also fuck there should like, totally be a thing that Abyssals going full ham can like
[3:43 PM] Rook: http://static.gosunoob.com/img/1/2016/04/dark-souls-3-guides-1024x646.jpg
[3:43 PM] Rook: BLEEDING ECLIPSED SUN
[3:43 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:44 PM] Rook: and Keris SETS THIS BITCH ON FFFIIIIIRE
[3:44 PM] Aleph: Keris hums happily, with the innocent expression of one doing work that is Righteous, Just and Good, as she locates one building in particular that seems to have several Dead things lurking within it.
It would be very unsporting, she thinks, to start fighting now. After all, she has an enormous advantage. They're forced to hide inside, whereas she can go out in the light of day. The noble, honourable thing to do would be to wait until nightfall and face them fairly, or go inside and meet them on their own turf.
Since Keris is not at all noble, honourable or fair, she raps the wall smartly with the butt of her spear, listens carefully for where the supporting columns are, and then carves clean through them from outside the building with beautiful arcing butterfly cuts that slice through the thin walls like paper.
[3:44 PM] Aleph: I love writing Keris.
[3:44 PM] Aleph: I really do.
[3:44 PM] Aleph: Especially when she's like this.
[3:45 PM] Rook: :D
[3:45 PM] Rook: yes
[3:45 PM] Aleph: The building comes crashing down; the walls folding inwards and the roof breaking apart into chunks as it hits the rubble. Keris waits for the smoke to clear, then delicately jumps onto an unstable pile of bricks, turns a cartwheel, hops over a piece of roof and brings her spear down clean through a foot of fractured stone and a rotting hipbone.
Spreading her hair in a great curtain behind her to cast a small patch of shade, she digs in what her ears tell her is roughly the right area until she finds a sluggishly bleeding, partially skinless face.
"Hello!" she says cheerfully. A ghost rises out of the wreckage to her left, and a hair tendril decapitates it without Keris looking away. It vanishes with a warbling scream. "I have some questions to ask you. You're going to answer them. Understand?"
[3:45 PM] Aleph: Keris can be very creepy sometimes.
[3:46 PM] Rook: tbh who wouldn't be after becoming what she has
[3:46 PM] Aleph: wait, no
[3:46 PM] Aleph: not creepy
[3:46 PM] Aleph: scary
[3:46 PM] Aleph: yes, that's the one
[3:46 PM] Aleph: scary as shit
[3:46 PM] Rook: both are accurate
[3:46 PM] Aleph: (the worst part is the cheerfulness)
[3:46 PM] Rook: heh
[3:46 PM] Rook: >"I..." the thing lets out a rattle. It's speaking Firetongue. "I... can't remember where I was born. The singing from Te Frei. Down deep. Down into the Rivers. Swimming to Te Frei. Listening to her words. She teaches. She knows the truth. They speak through her. She does what they will. We do what she wills. Out into the burning light. Wrapped in bodies of meat and iron. Hide from the sun! The sun! He hates us! Hide from the moon! She hates us, fogs our minds! Crawling in stagnant waters. Crawling over walls. Find the rich men. Ask the rich men the questions. Kill them so they tell the truth. Make them. Take them to the rivers and cast them in. Take their bodies." It lets out a wet chuckle. "Find the crown. Someone here knew. We had to look for them. Kill them. Make them tell the truth."
[3:46 PM] Rook: welp
[3:46 PM] Aleph: (... well no, the worst part is the way she's killing everyone)
[3:46 PM] Aleph: (but the cheerfulness doesn't help)
[3:47 PM] Rook: so, hm
[3:47 PM] Rook: what's Te Frei
[3:47 PM] Rook: my intial thought is it was that fragment deep in the ocean
[3:47 PM] Aleph: keep reading to find out~
[3:47 PM] Rook: but that doesn't seem right
[3:47 PM] Aleph: 26~
[3:47 PM] Rook: uwaaaa fine
[3:47 PM] Rook: >
"The crown. Any crown. If a newborn knew, we told her. She was sent by Her. From Te Frei. A Dead city. Deep. Deep down. In the Labyrinth. Her domain. Yes."
[3:47 PM] Rook: >Labyrinth
[3:48 PM] Rook: aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA
[3:48 PM] Aleph: no, no, no
[3:48 PM] Aleph: stop
[3:48 PM] Rook: stops
[3:48 PM] Rook: >So. So. A Dead Exalt. And something else, from the way it had been saying 'Her'. Something like... like the Mask of Winters had been to Rat; something ancient and Dead and powerful, down in a city in the Labyrinth called Te Frei. Something with interests in An Teng.
[3:48 PM] Aleph: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/7050310/ read
[3:48 PM] Rook: ALSO AAAAAAAAAAA
[3:48 PM] Rook: ALSO READING WHILE GOING AAAAAAAAAAAA
[3:48 PM] Aleph: then you may continue screaming
[3:48 PM] Rook: takes deep breath
[3:48 PM] Aleph: Ah!
[3:49 PM] Aleph: No screaming until you've read which Deathlord
[3:49 PM] Rook: >The Seer Mourned in Ashen Veils and Crimson Draperies (Mourning Seer), the Voice of the Neverborn, the Whisperer in Dead Cities
[3:49 PM] Rook: oh i know this one
[3:49 PM] Rook: i read the write up in the doc
[3:49 PM] Aleph: Yes.
[3:49 PM] Rook: clears throat
[3:49 PM] Rook: takes drink of water
[3:49 PM] Rook: smacks lips
[3:49 PM] Aleph: The Pale Apple Necronomicon
[3:49 PM] Rook: ok here we go
[3:49 PM] Rook: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA(edited)
[3:49 PM] Aleph: : P
[3:50 PM] Rook: goddddddddd
[3:50 PM] Rook: fucking hell
[3:50 PM] Aleph: yah
[3:50 PM] Rook: sasi really does need to know right now
[3:50 PM] Rook: end part the 25
[3:50 PM] Rook: (yes part 26 in a moment :p)
[3:50 PM] Rook: also
[3:50 PM] Rook: >Broken!Deathlord!Kiri
[3:50 PM] Rook: i assume you used another character as a reference point
[3:51 PM] Rook: that being 'Kiri'?
[3:51 PM] Aleph: yah
[3:51 PM] Rook: who dat
[3:51 PM] Aleph: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/7196680/
[3:51 PM] Rook: oooh
[3:51 PM] Aleph: Sasi is actually an outlier Type-S.
[3:51 PM] Aleph: And Keris is a Type-E.
[3:52 PM] Rook: lol
[3:52 PM] Rook: so
[3:52 PM] Rook: just as i finished
[3:52 PM] Rook:
YouTube
videmaxni5
Cowboy Bebop OST 1 - Bad Dog No Biscuits

[3:52 PM] Rook: this came on from my playlist
[3:52 PM] Rook: screaming horns
[3:53 PM] Aleph: "Creation has not been afflicted by the Seer's actions, but in the Southern Underworld she is greatly feared. Her words echo in the minds of ghosts, filling them with compassion and sorrow for the Neverborn. She transcribes runes which represent the suffering of the dead titans with such clarity that those who look at them are blasted with understanding. Nephwracks who memorise her glyphs wield strange and abhorrent powers and become twisted into freakish hecatonchires. Entire domains have fallen into the Labyrinth because of one masterfully crafted letter she sent to the lord. She destroys soulsteel foundries - for she loathes such sources of pain - and kindly explains to any she sees that such an abomination of eternal suffering cannot be tolerated. Those who do not listen find that her spiders' venoms are painless but quite incapacitating. Soon their hearts swell with compassionate guilt, once she has finished lecturing."
[3:53 PM] Rook: mirrors >mfw fucking deathlord pretty well(edited)
[3:53 PM] Rook: yeahhhh that is
[3:53 PM] Rook: uh
[3:53 PM] Aleph: tfw you feel the slightest pinch of a spiderbite
[3:53 PM] Rook: horrifying to put it mildly
[3:53 PM] Aleph: and your body locks up
[3:54 PM] Aleph: and you're still fully aware, you can see and hear, but your skin is numb and your limbs won't follow you commands and your tongue is dead and slack in your mouth
[3:54 PM] Rook: @_@
[3:54 PM] Aleph: and the Mourning Seer crouches down beside you, her empty eye sockets wide and earnest, a hopeful smile on her face
[3:55 PM] Aleph: and begins to tell you about the suffering of the worlds above and below.
[3:55 PM] Rook: ... that kind of reminds me of Coraline actually
[3:55 PM] Rook: and the Other Mother
[3:55 PM] Aleph: Nah. That's the worst part. She's a high-Compassion Deathlord.
[3:55 PM] Aleph: She really means well.
[3:55 PM] Rook: I think that's why she's so terrifying
[3:56 PM] Aleph: Yes.
[3:56 PM] Rook: She genuinely is trying to help as she sees it
[3:56 PM] Aleph: We put a lot of work into her.
[3:56 PM] Aleph: IN RETROSPECT
[3:56 PM] Aleph: THIS WAS A MISTAKE ON MY PART
[3:56 PM] Aleph: okay Part 26 now~
[4:00 PM] Rook: houro until sunset, aaaaand timei to haul ass
[4:01 PM] Rook: DULMEA HAND ME MY MAPS
[4:01 PM] Rook: >She eventually finds it on a Deliberative Map, on an island which... uh, doesn't exist on the Shogunate maps. It's North of here, on the hook of the South West coast closest to the Blessed Isles, in the mountain range. Or, rather, the island was part of the mountain range extending into the water or something... look, it marks it as being an mountainous place and Keris isn't great with maps. When she cross-compares it with her modern maps, she can't see any major cities near it - nothing like the Lap or Chiaroscuro. Was the island destroyed, or was the channel filled in? Given it's not on the Shogunate maps, though, that suggests something dramatic happened to it.
((In L-Water 13-Air - about 1000 miles from An Teng, all in all. Which is about the same distance it is from London to Southern Spain.))
[4:01 PM] Rook: Huh
[4:01 PM] Aleph: Just to emphasise this
[4:01 PM] Rook: Also hee my family is from southern spain
[4:01 PM] Aleph: I'm pretty sure that something happened in the Usurpation
[4:02 PM] Aleph: that dropped the entire island into the Labyrinth
[4:02 PM] Rook: fucking hell
[4:02 PM] Aleph: Yes.
[4:02 PM] Aleph: Quite.
[4:02 PM] Rook: and big ol' letter to Sasi
[4:03 PM] Rook: >
Keris worries a lock of hair between her teeth. "I'm going to stay in the shadowland until nightfall. Go a bit deeper, find some Dead things that are more than cannon fodder and maybe get a name for whatever it is that's doing this. I should be fine. Anything I can't kill I can outrun, and anything I can't outrun I can hide from."

One last pause. The cherub is vibrating in place, obviously eager to go; its memory starting to strain.

"I love you," Keris finishes, and lets it go.
[4:03 PM] Rook: that is fucking somber
[4:03 PM] Aleph: She honestly is way overlevelled for this environment.
[4:03 PM] Aleph: But she doesn't know that.
[4:03 PM] Rook: yeah
[4:04 PM] Aleph: One thing we've realised is that Keris is actually sort of a coward.
[4:04 PM] Rook: I'm not worried but like, Keris has every reason to think she is courting death with this
[4:04 PM] Rook: heh
[4:04 PM] Rook: in a way
[4:04 PM] Rook: meanwhile Echo is like YAAAAAAAASS LET'S GO
[4:05 PM] Aleph: "With pangs of supernatural hunger lancing through their bellies, a bone-porcelain knife nailing their hand or leg to the floor and a smiling, terrifying face asking them eerily cheerful questions and promising them freedom from pain and hunger if they answer truthfully, most of them are all-too-willing to spill everything they know."
[4:05 PM] Aleph: : V
[4:05 PM] Aleph: scary keris~
[4:05 PM] Rook: lol
[4:05 PM] Aleph: Mendaciloquent Maverick gives a bonus for lying with something they want to believe.
[4:05 PM] Rook: poor zombles
[4:05 PM] Aleph: Like "I'll let you go if you just tell me this~"
[4:05 PM] Aleph: also lol
[4:06 PM] Aleph: Haneyl seeds can cause hunger penalties
[4:06 PM] Aleph: most physical dead have "Eat" at 5 dots.
[4:06 PM] Aleph: : V
[4:06 PM] Rook: lol
[4:16 PM] Aleph: "balancing force of wickedness"
[4:16 PM] Aleph: : 3
[4:17 PM] Aleph: Keris is an evil demonic servant of the powers of Hell
[4:17 PM] Aleph: but here, she has something just as bad to pit herself against~
[4:17 PM] Aleph: also lol
[4:17 PM] Aleph: It's some kind of hulking giant made from iron bones from a river dragon, with human heads attached to its skull. It's incredibly tough and strong and there's a wicked intelligence in its many eyes.
Keris systematically cuts it apart, blinds it, poisons it, and leaves it a stinking dead pile of iron and rotting flesh.
[4:17 PM] Rook: :D
[4:17 PM] Aleph: sad harmonica noises
[4:17 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:17 PM] Rook: the womp womp womp is typically a trombone actually :V
[4:18 PM] Aleph: sad trombone noises
[4:18 PM] Rook: oh yay another sasi letter
[4:18 PM] Aleph: ... they're more like answerphone messages, you know
[4:18 PM] Rook: ssscccch i'll call em letters
[4:18 PM] Aleph: also
[4:18 PM] Aleph: hang on a moment
[4:18 PM] Rook: hm?
[4:18 PM] Aleph: because, like(edited)
[4:19 PM] Aleph: Keris watches as the cherub flickers, forms, and... shatters. The shrine feels hot and uncomfortable on her back, and there's a crystalline whine from it. "... gah!" she says intelligently. "What? How? Aaahhh! No! Work! No! Bad Shrine! Bad!" She stuffs it back into her Domain and looks around wildly. That... that seemed uncomfortably like countermagic. "Who did that?" she yells. "Come out where I can stab you!"
Keris vaguely remembers that... uh, it draws off ambient Essence. Keris is pumping out Yozi essence and everything else around her is Dead.
It... probably doesn't like that.
"... oh," she realises. "Damn." She examines it with a critical eye, hoping she hasn't broken it permanently. Well... well damn. That means she can't talk to Sasi until morning.
[4:19 PM] Aleph: I feel like this deserves comment
[4:19 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:19 PM] Rook: literally just about to actually
[4:19 PM] Aleph: "Who did that?" she yells. "Come out where I can stab you!"
[4:19 PM] Rook: keris' eloquence knows no bounds
[4:19 PM] Rook: like a thingie that doesn't have bounds
[4:19 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:19 PM] Rook: >Keris vaguely remembers that... uh, it draws off ambient Essence. Keris is pumping out Yozi essence and everything else around her is Dead.

It... probably doesn't like that.
[4:19 PM] Rook: GEE YOU THINK(edited)
[4:19 PM] Aleph: but yes, Sasi message
[4:20 PM] Aleph: "Take care, dear heart. Come back to me alive."
"I will," Keris whispers to the little fox as it vanishes. "I wish I could tell you that now."
[4:20 PM] Aleph: these two omfg
[4:20 PM] Rook: :DDDD
[4:20 PM] Rook: >Qirmiziyy al-Jazzar
[4:21 PM] Rook: say that five times fast
[4:21 PM] Aleph: Done.
[4:21 PM] Aleph: Kwerm-izzy al jazz-arr
[4:21 PM] Rook: lol
[4:21 PM] Aleph: not that hard to pronounce, really
[4:21 PM] Rook: not particularly, no, but it probably is for most people who are going to read this
[4:22 PM] Rook: and i wasn't sure for you given you're an englishwoman
[4:22 PM] Rook: :p
[4:22 PM] Aleph: I'd be interested to know where ES got it, actually.
[4:22 PM] Aleph: Maybe an online name generator?
[4:22 PM] Aleph: shrug
[4:22 PM] Rook: no idea
[4:22 PM] Rook: tbh my fusha (proper arabic) is just like, awful
[4:22 PM] Aleph: well no, but he'll presumably see this when you post it
[4:22 PM] Aleph: (HI FUTURE ES!)
[4:22 PM] Rook: (HI FUTURE ES HOW ARE YOU )
[4:22 PM] Aleph: : P
[4:23 PM] Rook: >"I will," Keris whispers to the little fox as it vanishes. "I wish I could tell you that now." She stands and stretches. "Still, I can make a start on your work while I wait to. Golden cleavers. Hmm. I think I remember those. Dulmea, wasn't that where the thing with the huge snake skeleton instead of legs was?"
[4:23 PM] Rook: so
[4:23 PM] Rook: for some reason
[4:23 PM] Rook: i read 'cleavers' as 'retrievers'
[4:23 PM] Rook: and was like WAIT WHAT IS THERE DOGGO
[4:23 PM] Aleph: "... huh. I really hope that snake-thing wasn't him. That would be kind of awkward, if I'd already stabbed our best witness in the face and set him on fire."
[4:23 PM] Rook: :D
[4:23 PM] Rook: >"Maybe this is Rathan's fault," Haneyl says artlessly.
"Stop picking on your brother," Keris scolds absently as she covers ground towards the waterfront.
[4:24 PM] Rook: so very familial
[4:24 PM] Aleph: dammit haneyl
[4:24 PM] Rook: oooh she found the ledgers
[4:25 PM] Rook: oh hello
[4:25 PM] Rook: >She gets lucky, and finds the ledgers fairly quickly. They've already been rummaged through, but with Dulmea's help she finds that while the recent purchases have been all removed, there's a second on 'payments and gratuities' - that is, bribes - which hasn't. There's been payment to a member of House Ledaal living in Adorned With Wisdom as a Sapphire, in the Middle Lands - Ledaal Norono. Quite large bribes, too - and bribes of jade and the gift of a daiklave? And Sapphire is a teaching city, full of students and it's one of the big places that knows a lot about Tengese culture and history.
[4:25 PM] Rook: interesting~
[4:25 PM] Rook: end PART THE TWENTY SIX
[...]
[4:27 PM] Aleph: Excluding the contents of Keris's soul
[4:27 PM] Aleph: and Sasi, who is basically a co-protagonist
[4:27 PM] Aleph: Who is your favourite secondary character thus far?
[4:27 PM] Rook: dulmea
[4:27 PM] Rook: no question
[4:28 PM] Aleph: ...
[4:28 PM] Aleph: reread the question
[4:28 PM] Rook: ...
[4:28 PM] Rook: oh
[4:28 PM] Rook: oh :D
[4:28 PM] Rook: my bad
[4:28 PM] Rook: hm
[4:28 PM] Aleph: eyeroll
[4:28 PM] Rook: sorryyyyyyyyyyy i read it like
[4:28 PM] Aleph: though do feel free to explain why Dulmea, too
[4:28 PM] Rook: "ok don't include her soul babbies" and my mind skipped over the "literally lives in soul"
[4:28 PM] Rook: bit
[4:28 PM] Rook: what i would say is probably...mmm
[4:29 PM] Rook: I think Darling Yellow
[4:29 PM] Aleph: Hee
[4:29 PM] Aleph: do explain both choices~
[4:29 PM] Rook: for her... mostly because I kind of view her as like...
[4:29 PM] Rook: well what I'll say is that An Teng is very much a character in its own right
[4:29 PM] Aleph: Heh. Yes.
[4:30 PM] Rook: because of the way you two - mostly Scorp though? this isn't a knock on you, you just don't set the scene as much - drench things in An Teng
[4:30 PM] Rook: it's hard not to really have things sink in like that
[4:30 PM] Rook: But I feel like Darling Yellow is one of my... mm how to put it
[4:30 PM] Rook: An Teng has as many faces as there are leaves on a tree and near every time we meet new Tengese characters I feel like things are more completely fleshed out
[4:30 PM] Rook: Like we're seeing another side, like the world is always that much bigger and more complete - and especially An Teng
[4:31 PM] Rook: And Darling Yellow just happens to be my favorite single lens of An Teng that I've seen so far.
[4:31 PM] Aleph: hee
[4:31 PM] Rook: As for Dulmea, it's because her relationship to Keris is just so interesting.
[4:32 PM] Rook: It's almost ridiculous that they ended up like how they did but they're like this, they're so tight with each other, and that surrogate mother dynamic is very interesting and powerful because Keris is, well
[4:32 PM] Rook: she's a GSP
[4:32 PM] Rook: and having someone who can just give her a look and have her wither is pretty humanizing
[4:32 PM] Aleph: ikr
[4:32 PM] Aleph: it's great
[4:32 PM] Rook: yeah
[4:32 PM] Rook: not to mention she's just really cool in her own right
[4:32 PM] Aleph: yessss
[4:33 PM] Aleph: calm maternal proper refined assassin
[4:33 PM] Aleph: she would probably speak with a British accent if Kerisgame was an anime
[4:33 PM] Rook: tbh she totally does in my head
[4:34 PM] Aleph: polls ES for his thoughts
 
Was going through Deviantart earlier when I came across this, now obviously the hair isn't right and don't ask me about the cat head but otherwise it fits my mental image of Rathan shockingly well.

Credit goes to Saint-Max.
 
I personally always imagined Rathan as something more along the lines of an Evil Steven Universe. The idea of a charismatic young man who is empowered by his Mother and guarded by an elite team of attractive soldiers seems like it resonates with both Steven and Rathan. Unfortunately the idea of an Evil Steven Universe does not appear to have much appeal to the fandom and I cannot provide any examples.
 
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Dulmea, the Endless Melody, the Once-Serf Queen
  • Media
    • Oh my, it looks like by doing Eko first we missed out a soul! Let's rectify that, shall we?

    (And yes, @ManusDomine, at some point I will do a full bio writeup for Pekhijira. But probably not next.)

    Dulmea, the Endless Melody, the Once-Serf Queen
    Fourth Soul of Keris
    Current Urge: Ruin the Dynasts who profit from An Teng.
    Statement: The eye of the storm; calm at the heart of chaos.
    In all of Krisity, there is but one living thing foreign to the infant realm; whose genesis springs from a source outside it and who remembers a time before it came to be. Yet paradoxically, this alien immigrant forms the very core of the nascent Tiger Empire; more integral to it perhaps than any other.

    This is Dulmea, the Endless Melody; who is called mother, coadjutor and queen, and bears the rank of serf no longer.

    Though she has no form of her own - for she is the music itself, and not the musician - Dulmea's bodies are potentially without number. The chell of her Domain are extensions of herself, carrying her music and a fragment of her attention wherever they mindlessly roam. When she wishes a body, she wraps a chell in music and they become one of her Chords; an avatar of her will and a fragment of the whole. Such lesser parts of her self look much like she did in her previous existence; beautiful women with long prehensile hair that gleams with oil-slick bioluminescence. There is a plumpness to their build that suggests a maternal air, and the many-jointed candlewick fingers of an angyalka have been replaced by jellyfish tendrils that hold innumerable poisons. Foolish are those who mistake the Chord for its composer, though, and forget that the demon lord is the tune that flows from the harp and not the body holding it.

    Strife and squabbles calm when Dulmea is near, forced outside the range of her music to form a boiling ring of discord and disharmony around it. Her calm council is sometimes heard by those far from her, if they argue near a weaver, musician or expecting mother whose hands are stained with blood. She is known to have influence over the movements of jellyfish, strung wire and the unborn, and invoking her name can summon or cease such motions.

    The Endless Melody is calm, regal and cultured, not given to hasty action or reckless force - though teacups crack and embroidered garments tear when a momentary anger overcomes her. She enjoys beautiful things, most especially the music she never ceases to play, and her exacting standards look poorly on crudeness or uncouth behaviour. As Queen of the City and Keris's right hand in the Empire, she judges disputes between the nobility and resolves the wars of the monarchs when they rage too fiercely. Though she feels no small professional pride in this work, it is in teaching the arts of music, assassination and the preparation of tea to those she deems worthy that she finds the greatest intellectual pleasure. Rash or crude action in her presence will often garner a punishing chord of pain or death, but she has been known to grant boons to those who know their place and present a reasoned case for her consideration, especially if they can demonstrate a mastery of tea ceremony or the other formal rituals whose aesthetics she finds pleasing.

    In her first life as an angyalka, Dulmea was an assassin, and this is a skill she has not let slide. She is a grandmaster of subtle killing, able to send a needle into a target's throat with the barest twitch of her hair or poison a victim without leaving the faintest trace of her presence. Venoms coat her hair and saturate her fingers, and she is knowledgeable in the making and use of many toxic substances. However, she was no common assassin but a housemistress of lesser killers, and she has carried forward the skills that served her in such a role. Though she has no special power to command troops or reshape a kingdom in her image, Dulmea's attentions can set the wheels and gears of a society spinning as she desires. Should she favour a polity with her melodic blessing, all things run as is proper and the people know their place. Should she lay upon them a discordant curse, lesser men rebel against their stations and the smooth flow of bureaucracy is plagued by corruption and impropriety.

    A melody needs both conductor and chorus. The Once-Serf Queen has both. Her power within the City that forms Krisity's heart is absolute, binding even Keris's child-souls to obey her commands. Her influence flows out from the Tower Melodious at the City's centre; a great needle a dozen storeys high with mirror-bright walls and fluted windows. Three huge soundboards rise up around it; linked to the Tower itself by great harpstring-wires anchored on the Tower's three curving necks. Each vast harp of the Tower is named, and each plays a different tune. Collectively they blend together in a three-part melody, and the horns and flutes that decorate their surfaces add windsong to the orchestra. From the Tower, Dulmea commands her chorus of chell - mindless dancing beings whose humanoid bodies are fused to instruments that they use to accompany her. It is whispered fearfully among citizens that to play as part of the Melody will garner her attention - and that unless one is skilled or powerful enough to make her music a duet, the unfortunate musician will find themselves transformed into a chell and lost to it.

    Dulmea is a coadjutor, and so her attention is usually set to her divine task - to aid Keris and urge her to follow the orders of the Reclamation. She has accepted the young Scourge as her daughter, and expects from her every bit as much as was demanded from her angyalkan students - if not more, for Dulmea has ever felt a sense of elitist rivalry towards others of her kind. Of her own accord she has begun to train Keris's children, reasoning that if she is to be a grandmother then she shall arm her descendants with her knowledge. It is with affection and pride but distant concern that she considers Keris's actions in Creation, and she well understands her role as the caution, temperance and superego that her adoptive daughter often seems to lack.

    However, Keris has grown under her guiding hand, and Dulmea finds it possible now to turn her thoughts and efforts to other ends. She desires neatness and order in her domain - though never stagnancy, for she is as much the storm as the eye at its heart, and her calm can only exist amidst chaos. If she could shape the world as she saw fit, her lands would be a harmonious place where none would try to rise above their station and music filled the air, while those of her rivals around her would fall into turbulent conflict and anarchy. She would see the subtle arts prized above such crude measures as brute force, make murderers of those close to lords who lack wisdom and have mothers pass the skills of elegance, patience and precision down to their daughters.

    Such power is not yet hers to grasp, but she has taken steps to see her vision realised. Few know of the six separate sects of secret police she has set up in competition with one another, to watch the lands of her grandchildren and report back to her on their actions. None but her know of the uses she has put this knowledge to - such as more than one childish war outside the City sparked by whispers or sabotage from a Chord of her Melody. Despite her ambitious machinations, however, some part of Dulmea is still a First Circle serf, cowering in terror from the souls of the Yozis and fearing her new station in life with a dread that refuses to die. Thus far she has kept this anxiety secret from all but a few - but it gnaws at her when her Greater Self thinks to stand among titans, and the minor chords amidst her melody might be heard by the perceptive.

    Alone of Keris's souls save for her rival-monarch Pekhijira, Dulmea is bound to Krisity and cannot leave its confines. Were a means devised to summon her, however, she could do many things for a sorcerer with the wit and will to do so. An assassin and musician par excellence, she excels in the subtle killing arts and looks kindly on those who wish only to hear her play, but she is perhaps best put to use as a teacher of others. Under her guidance, a student can master the four arts of the needle and garrotte, as well as innumerable poisons both lethal and merciful. She might set a city-state to order and enforce proper behaviour on all its citizens - though her nature is such that to do so will surely cause chaos and instability around its borders. Some might also summon Dulmea as a supernaturally gifted midwife - a lesser-known skill of hers that very few are privy to - but while this is within her power it will gain her ire, as childbirth discomforts her and she detests being made a witness to it. She gains Limit whenever she is forced to ignore chaos where there should be order, or order where there should be chaos.

    Notes:
    Unlike Keris's child-souls, Dulmea undergoes no change at Calibration. Why would she? There is nothing human to her, and never was. Some may whisper that for five days a single chell becomes a mirror of the angyalka she was before Lilunu, and spends them weeping - but they are only rumours. Heed them not.

    Dulmea is associated with harps, wires, orchestras, poison, needles, assassins, weavers, teacups and tea ceremonies, formal rituals, proper standards, civil law, divisions, shattered mirrors, motherhood, pregnancy, infants and young children, caution, temperance, long prehensile hair, oilslick colours, bioluminescence, jellyfish, willow trees, the angyalkae and the amphelisiae. Her symbol is the four-stranded harp; a stylised pedal harp with four slanted strings.

    As grandmother to Keris's children, Dulmea sees them from a more objective viewpoint than their adoring mother. Eko is a troublemaker in her eyes, who overwhelms lingering fear of the Silent Wind with frequent annoyance at her disobedience. Rathan is far better-behaved, and Dulmea is fond of his charm, if not a little exasperated at his newfound adolescent interests. Despite her pride in Haneyl's aspirations to high culture, the young princess worries her when Dulmea thinks on her hunger and ambition, which may someday be turned on her fellow souls in more than play. To Calesco she is understanding of her nature as a critic, but the two often clash over the cruelties of Hell, which Dulmea knows cannot be opposed. Vali, on the other hand, confuses and relieves her in equal measure - for he has power but little ambition, being a mostly reactive soul whose destructive force the City is largely spared. Though Dulmea has yet to truly forgive Keris for putting her through the ordeal of pregnancy, she finds herself unexpectedly taken with little Zanara. Her lowest opinion is saved for the soul who is her peer - Serpent-King Pekhijira, whom she disdains for its reliance on brute force and its opposition to her temperate influence.
     
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    • Their respective positions as king and queen make me think that another source of autonomously-spawned demons in Krisity should be at the border where Dulmea's ordered melody fades into the chaotic winds of Pekhijira.
     
    The Sandman said:
    Their respective positions as king and queen make me think that another source of autonomously-spawned demons in Krisity should be at the border where Dulmea's ordered melody fades into the chaotic winds of Pekhijira.
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    Well, there isn't really such a border - between the City and the Cloud-Wall are the lands of Keris's children; wild and passionate but not untameable or savage. Much like how Keris unconsciously separates Rathan and Calesco (and Haneyl and Vali, and Echo and Zanara) so that they don't share a border, she made sure that Dulmea and Pekhijira don't have any point where they come directly into contact with one another, because if there was such a place the result would almost certainly be war.
     
    Aleph said:
    Well, there isn't really such a border - between the City and the Cloud-Wall are the lands of Keris's children; wild and passionate but not untameable or savage. Much like how Keris unconsciously separates Rathan and Calesco (and Haneyl and Vali, and Echo and Zanara) so that they don't share a border, she made sure that Dulmea and Pekhijira don't have any point where they come directly into contact with one another, because if there was such a place the result would almost certainly be war.
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    Vali: "It's so unfair!"

    Haneyl: "I know, right? If we had a border, we could fight any time we wanted. We could make the entire border a battlezone."

    Vali: "Lightning so bright the sky is more intense than the moon. Mountains growing ever upwards. Metal growing tougher and tougher the more the war goes on. An endless war of liberation and freedom."

    Haneyl: "Fires sweeping across the land, burning everything in their path. Plants tearing stone and metal to pieces. And then comes the dieback - only to return for even more strength. Eternal conquest and pillaging of raw materials."

    *both sigh happily*

    Haneyl: "Mama is so mean sometimes."

    Vali: "That'd be way more fun. Eko just runs away when the going gets hard for her when you power up enough, while Rathan bursts into tears when you try to get a proper brawl going."

    Haneyl: "I know! And Calesco gets all uppity about a small war for amusement and I can't declare war on Zanara! They're my cute little usually-a-sister! It's not fair on them!"
     
    Zanara can probably be bribed for military access to Rathan, though.

    Also, I thought there were periods where the cloud wall comes closer to the central city?

    Hmm, now I wonder if Keris wanting to flat-out shut down a war between two of her children would manifest as a link between Dulmea and Pekhijira along one of the spoke-borders of the mandala that is Krisity. Which itself would have violent results, of course, but would seal off direct access between the warring sextants until Dulmea and Pekhijira's mutual repulsion forces them back to the City and Cloudlands.

    I wonder if that would give Keris' incarnate hun in a hypothetical posthumous survival plan for Krisity a landscape-body of a comet wandering through the realm, with her relative distance from the City and the Cloudlands determined by whether she's listening more to her superego or id at the time?
     
    The Sandman said:
    I wonder if that would give Keris' incarnate hun in a hypothetical posthumous survival plan for Krisity a landscape-body of a comet wandering through the realm, with her relative distance from the City and the Cloudlands determined by whether she's listening more to her superego or id at the time?
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    Well, in such a state her hun wouldn't be synonymous with the mind of the Greater Keris anymore - instead; Keris, Pekhijira and Dulmea would almost be a blasphemous fetich-triumvirate (ego, id, superego; as you say) ruling over the other Third Circles - both her children and her companions (that is to say, the ones who form later and are more classical in their manifestation, without the nature as Keris's children or the human sides - and who are mostly based on attachments to specific relationships with things or people or groups rather than ideals that Keris holds in and of themselves).

    So, hmm. It would be, like...

    Prime Souls
    Keris, Pekhijira, Dulmea

    Progeny Souls
    Eko, Rathan, Haneyl, Calesco, Vali, Zanara

    Psyche Souls
    [REDACTED], Evedelyl, Sirelmiya, Okapalmotis, etc...
    Ego-Keris probably wouldn't manifest as a comet - that's Zanaran thematics. But yes, she would probably be mobile, influenced by the other souls to an unusual degree for a quasi-fetich and would likely move around the Empire depending on what she was feeling and who was influencing her most. I already know what her thematic "statement" would be - "small things can rise to become great". She would, after all, represent the mortal street rat that had become something very much like a newborn adolescent Primordial. So she'd probably go around finding weak beings with potential and sending them on transformative journeys that end with them changing the world... basically, I'm not saying that 3CD-Ego-Keris would have been in the crowd that watched Steve Rogers get shot full of super-soldier serum, but she probably at least bumped into him on the street once and gave him a smile.

    (She's fond of the Exalted, but fonder still of those mortals who make their mark without such unsurpassed power, and she can slip out into Creation when an orphan rises from poverty to claim the highest power in the land or change the face of Creation.)

    (Yes, this does mean that in the fusion with Harry Potter where Harry gets his green eyes from his grandmother, his great-grandmother probably got drawn out of Krisity by Voldemort at some point.)
     
    Aleph said:
    her companions (that is to say, the ones who form later and are more classical in their manifestation, without the nature as Keris's children or the human sides - and who are mostly based on attachments to specific relationships with things or people or groups rather than ideals that Keris holds in and of themselves).

    Psyche Souls
    [REDACTED], Evedelyl, Sirelmiya, Okapalmotis, etc...
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    Oh? Were those elaborated on before?
     
    Prime, Progeny and Psyche souls
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    • Gnarker said:
    Oh? Were those elaborated on before?
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    I've mentioned the phenomenon before. Basically, Keris's soul hierarchy is a bit complex. Her souls are split into two - well, three - groups. Barring the three Prime souls that represent her - the id/ego/superego fetich-triumvirate of Pekhijira, Keris and Dulmea - there are her children, and her connections. Mechanically speaking, there's no real difference between these, save that her children are preexisting charm-linked Pantheon souls while her connections are formed purely of Titanic Heart Overweening. From the point of view of the mechanics, they're all Second (or later on, Third) Circle Demons.

    But Kerisgame does have an aspect of PQ-esque "paradigm" to it at times. And so in-universe, while Keris's Progeny and Psyche souls are the same order of being; they are quantifiably and measurably different types of being (though still both demons of the Nth Circle). Her Psyche souls are far more like Sasi's - they are not her children, are not psychologically humanised in the same way and indeed are rarely human at all - none of the ones I have planned possess particularly human or even necessarily humanoid forms, while all of her Progeny souls could pass as demonblooded with a little effort. Rather than representing Ideals from her list of Principles, they uniformly stand for her Relationships, and in general they are less core to her personality. As a result, they tend to be slightly less potent than her Progeny souls in raw stopping power, and do not rule entire Directions of Krisity.

    I will share one of them, since it should be fairly obvious by now what Keris's strongest relationship is - Sirelmiya is likely to be Keris's Thirteenth Soul, and is a manifestation of her love for Sasi. She's a great sphinx the size of an elephant, with the head of a beautiful Realm woman, the front legs and wings of a pale eagle and the hindquarters of a white lioness. She spends most of her time in a temple of white stone dedicated to her Lady which she maintains with exquisite care, and despite her fearsome appearance is fairly even-tempered and cordial (at least as long as you treat her temple with respect and give no insult towards Sasimana). She and Dulmea are known to be on good terms, and Sasi would get along with her extremely well (which is sort of the point).
    To repeat the group-sorting in the threadmarked post:

    Prime Souls
    Keris (Ego), Pekhijira (Id), Dulmea (Superego)

    Progeny Souls
    Eko (Joy), Rathan (Payback), Haneyl (Greed), Calesco (Compassion), Vali (Freedom), Zanara (Art)

    Psyche Souls
    [REDACTED] (???), Evedelyl (???), Sirelmiya (Sasi), [REDACTED] (???), etc.
     
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  • Media
    • Aleph said:
    I've mentioned the phenomenon before. Basically, Keris's soul hierarchy is a bit complex. Her souls are split into two - well, three - groups. Barring the three Prime souls that represent her - the id/ego/superego fetich-triumvirate of Pekhijira, Keris and Dulmea - there are her children, and her connections. Mechanically speaking, there's no real difference between these, save that her children are preexisting charm-linked Pantheon souls while her connections are formed purely of Titanic Heart Overweening. From the point of view of the mechanics, they're all Second (or later on, Third) Circle Demons.

    But Kerisgame does have an aspect of PQ-esque "paradigm" to it at times. And so in-universe, while Keris's Progeny and Psyche souls are the same order of being; they are quantifiably and measurably different types of being (though still both demons of the Nth Circle). Her Psyche souls are far more like Sasi's - they are not her children, are not psychologically humanised in the same way and indeed are rarely human at all - none of the ones I have planned possess particularly human or even necessarily humanoid forms, while all of her Progeny souls could pass as demonblooded with a little effort. Rather than representing Ideals from her list of Principles, they uniformly stand for her Relationships, and in general they are less core to her personality. As a result, they tend to be slightly less potent than her Progeny souls in raw stopping power, and do not rule entire Directions of Krisity.

    I will share one of them, since it should be fairly obvious by now what Keris's strongest relationship is - Sirelmiya is likely to be Keris's Thirteenth Soul, and is a manifestation of her love for Sasi. She's a great sphinx the size of an elephant, with the head of a beautiful Realm woman, the front legs and wings of a pale eagle and the hindquarters of a white lioness. She spends most of her time in a temple of white stone dedicated to her Lady which she maintains with exquisite care, and despite her fearsome appearance is fairly even-tempered and cordial (at least as long as you treat her temple with respect and give no insult towards Sasimana). She and Dulmea are known to be on good terms, and Sasi would get along with her extremely well (which is sort of the point).
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    How is the relationship between her psyche souls and progeny souls effected by the type of relationship the psyche soul represents. If she has one that represents a powerful fear of someone do her progeny souls fear it as well? Could such a powerful emotion create a psyche souls which is stronger in its field of expertise then any progency soul? Does her relationship to Dulmea (mom) have some paternal authority over them?
     
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