Beneath a Hundred Ringing Bells [Exalted Shonen Quest]

[Kymme]

Beneath A Hundred Ringing Bells
Exalted adventure in a Magical Battle High-School!

Seven-hundred and sixty years ago the Scarlet Empress, Supreme Lady of the Conjunctions, Shadow of the Dragons, Queen of Queens, the Great and Most Mighty Protector of the Cosmos in its Entirety wielded the Sword of Creation against her enemies and took the throne of the world as her own. Through her rule the warring states of eras past were united into a great empire.

You are a scion of this great lineage - a dragon-prince Exalted with elemental power, poised to take your place as a soldier of the Scarlet Empire and the Dragon-Blooded Host.

Or at least, you will be in seven years.

Fifteen winters have passed since your birth and now, beneath the blossoms of a new spring, you are travelling by carriage to the institution that will give you everything you need to achieve greatness. The House of Bells is the greatest military academy in the Realm and, by extension, the entire universe. Your tutors, the instructors of your primary school, everything in your entire life has led to this moment. You are ready.

But… who are you? And what will you become?​

Hello everyone! I'm Kymme (rhymes with rhyme) and this is my first Quest! I'm a big fan of shonen anime and manga along with manhwa like Burning Effect and God of High School. This Quest stems from my desire to tell a battle shonen story the likes of which I've always dreamed, without being forced to capitulate to the desires of any editor or publisher.

This quest takes place in the Exalted setting, playing pretty close to 3e's presentation while borrowing some flavor from things like Venture and homebrew across the internet.

This story will take place throughout the main character's first year of schooling in the House of Bells, the preliminary military academy on the Blessed Isle in Creation, the setting of the Exalted RPG. I'm going to be running the House of Bells as something more resembling the eccentric high schools of animes like My Hero Academia, Girls Und Panzer, and Shokugeki no Soma (and also RWBY's Beacon Academy but hopefully better). Expect strange teachers, absurd field exercises, magical festivals, and probably a tournament arc at some point.

Don't expect for Orochimaru to show up midway through the first semester, or for a bunch of teenage demigods to battle a world-ending superboss before they've graduated. A lot of high school shonen stops being about the school pretty early, and I don't have any interest in doing that. Expect to see a ton of stuff from the House of Bells. I'm interested in exploring as many facets of a school for Exalted warriors as I can.

So, now that that's out of the way, the meat of the quest!

I'm going to use something resembling a style system, the likes of which have featured in Exalted Quests elsewhere on these forums. Styles describe a broad set of narrative capabilities a character possesses, encapsulating training, upbringing, bases of knowledge, as well as things like magical techniques or martial arts. In Creation everything is a little bit Kung Fu.

The main character's skillset will start the game lacking both breadth and depth, but if the House of Bells is half as good as advertised you'll start expanding your styles and picking up new ones like clockwork.

Now, back to it!

Click to shrink...

Here, on the southern coast of the Blessed Isle, spring brings soft rains. Droplets ring out musically against the roof of your carriage, and their song soothes your nerves.

Why are you nervous? Why shouldn't you be nervous! Your servants don't know anything more about the House of Bells than you do, and what you know is that it's grueling and unforgiving. Waking in the dark and running three miles before sunrise - every day. Students pitted against one another in war games that can result in injuries, deaths, or worse. Battles to the death against men and monsters! Disciplinary action that puts the barbaric Palace of the Tamed Storm to shame!

The rain does little for the sheet of sweat forming on your forehead and under your clothes, or for your grumbling belly and sore back. You spent last night in the mansion home of a Patrician family indebted to your parents. The decor was impressive, but your hosts were smothering. They stuffed you full of plum wine and roast boar and in their attempts to furnish their guest bedchamber with every possible luxury they neglected to make it comfortable. This morning your servants surprised you with a final gift from your great aunt: a fourteen layer kimono, each robe embroidered with patterns reflecting each full year of your life. You know that appearances are everything, and arriving at the House of Bells in such an ostentatious robe will send a clear message about the prosperity of your family and House. The garment is an impressive sight - your servants and hosts certainly attested so - but looking over the stifling folded collars at your swaddled arms, the beauty is difficult to appreciate.

You sit across from your two servants. Plum, your cup-bearer, has kept his saccharine smile pointed at you for hours now, sparing only the occasional glance out either window at the rainy countryside. Bright Chime, your nanny and oldest servant, has her nose buried in a wood-print novel. The title reads "Prince Ji and the Sword of Disaster." You've never seen it before. Perhaps she purchased it on the road?

You're just about to ask when the carriage stops and nearly bucks you from your seat. Have you arrived? A glance out the window reveals… nothing. It's thick forest on both sides of the wide road, and the rain has turned the trees to misty walls of green.

Bright Chime stops reading and gives you a thin smile before craning her neck up and calling to the driver. "Why have we stopped? Is something the matter?"

The gruff voice of Forest of Robins, your entrusted driver, calls back down. "Toppled carriage in the road. I'll see if we can go around."

Plum's wide smile inverts. For a moment he seems almost as nervous as you. "Toppled carriage? Dragons Above, how awful!"

Bright Chime shrugs. "The road must have given way. This damnable rain!" She calls up through the ceiling. "Please be cautious, Forest. We'd hate to be late, today of all days."

"Noted, Chime."

"Are the occupants still there, Forest? We should give them a ride!" You speak without thinking, and earn startled and confused looks from Bright Chime and Plum.

Bright Chime raises her eyebrows. "Exalted one, you know that we mustn't be late."

"I don't care. Forest, if there's anyone there hail them. Does the carriage belong to any Great House?" Truth be told, you're dreading arriving at the House of Bells. Whatever is going on, it'll at least buy you some time.

"If they've got a Mons I can't make it out through all this rain. It's hard to tell, but the carriage isn't abandoned. Hold on down there, we're going to start again." Forest calls to the horses and the carriage is moving again.

Forest lets out a strangled cry and you all practically jump out of your seats. Bright Chime grows pale and inclines her head up. "What's going on?"

"Quiet! There's… there's something there. It's… eating their horses."

Plum covers his mouth with his hands, eyes wide and white. Bright Chime casts a quick glance at you and then stands, bringing her face up to a small gap behind the driver's bench.

"What is it? Can you see it clearly?"

"It's a leopard. A Great Pale Leopard, here in the hills."

Dragons above. You've heard stories about these creatures. Eight-limbed hunting cats, bigger than horses and nearly silent in the thick forests of the southern coast. The pelt of one such animal adorned an entire wall of your Patrician host's dining chamber - a trophy from a hunt many years ago. For one to have come down from the higher forests to the plains is extremely rare. Think. There must be some reason.

Perhaps it was starving, and ventured into the lowlands for easier prey? A few horses harnessed to a toppled carriage would be a perfect remedy for its aching belly. And if the horses prove insufficient, the helpless passengers taking refuge inside would make for a delectable second course.

[Upbringing - Hunting]

"We have to frighten it off." Once again your servants shoot you confused looks, but you continue. "Animals are fearful and stupid creatures. Once it realizes that defending its kill means wasting energy and suffering harm, it will flee."

You interrupt Bright Chime and Plum before they have a chance to caution you. "More time wasted is more time for that monster to go after the people inside that carriage. Chime, my…"

[Weapons Training]

[X] ...bow... Time spent hunting has sharpened your eye, and time in primary school has strengthened your arms and shoulders. You can string your great softwood-and-bamboo yumi in a single, fluid motion and plant a spearpoint arrow through a frog's eye at a hundred feet.

...and my...

[ ] ...straight sword. The double-edged jian, straight and true, is your weapon of choice. You lack true mastery, but it feels natural in your hands and your knowledge of the Six Floating Eagle Postures of Mount Meru lends you a straightforward confidence in battle.

[ ] ...reaper sword. The elegantly curved katana, and the discipline it demands, are your tools of battle. Your earliest blade-tutors instilled you with the tenets of Three Points Fulminating Edge, and under the stern eye of your mother's armsmaster you continued to hone your draw.

[ ] Write-in. If anybody has any ideas for fighting styles or sidearms they'd like to see by all means suggest them.

Bright Chime nods and retrieves your weapons from a chest beneath her bench. You can't parse the emotions on her face. Pride? Fear? She complies all the same.

You stand and address your servants. "Plum, Chime - you both wait here. Forest, we're going to face that monster together. Is your rope dart ready?"

"Always." The carriage shifts and the door opens. Forest stands before you, wide hat shielding her from the rain, rope dart coiled about her arms. "Shall we go spook ourselves a beastie, Exalted one?"

You nod and drop to the wet road. The long hem of your layered kimono begins to soak into the mud and you close the door before Plum and Bright Chime can notice. You begin walking around the front of the carriage, Forest by your side, past the horses and out onto the road. Through the mist and the light rain you can see the high back of the Great Pale Leopard as it devours the dead horses.

The creature is as pale as the clouds and mist, and it seems to dissolve into the sky at the sharp point of its shoulders. The spots across its body are lighter still, near pure white. With four front paws it rolls a horse up to its massive jaws, now slicked with blood and gore. Its long tail, thick and bushy, sways in the air like a treetop in the wind.

This is nothing. You're saving your fear for the House of Bells. That institution will ask more of you than anything in your life ever has. This, though? This eight-legged jungle cat twice the height of a man?

All this situation demands of you is your courage.

[ ] ...Proceed bravely. Make some noise, shout, and loose an arrow or two. If you can spook the thing quickly then you have no other worries. If something goes wrong, you'll still have Forest of Robins' support.

[ ] ...Proceed intelligently. Take cover behind your carriage and take the time to set up a good shot. An arrow to the eye or heart might do more than just frighten the beast off.

 

[Kymme]

Tempering your courage, you move to interpose the toppled carriage between yourself and the Great Pale Leopard. Forest of Robins follows your lead, pushing her hat back on her head to keep her field of view as wide as possible.

You feel ridiculous clad in these soaking clothes, slippers dragging through the sucking mud, quiver and sword haphazardly tucked through your waist-sash. You push those thoughts aside and press on.

The rain obscures everything. The beast hasn't noticed your carriage and the delicious horses bound to it, and vice versa. No one is making any sudden movements.

"I'm going to start lining up a shot. Pull me back after I've fired."

Forest of Robins places a hand on your shoulder. You can feel her callouses through all fourteen layers. "You're sure about this, Exalted one? Straight through the eye isn't a shot your mother could make trivally, disregarding the rain and the mist."

You tilt your head back and meet her gaze. She's close enough to you that her hat shields you from the rain. "It's fortunate, then, that I'm not shooting to kill. Pull me back after I've fired."

You keep your eyes locked to hers until she nods. Appearances are everything, and showing self-doubt in the face of adversity projects weakness. You can do this. You must.

Why?

Because you've dreamt of glory your entire life. In primary school, before the Dragons graced you with your Second Breath, you were hounded by doubts. The path to your shining dream was obscured by the great darkness of chance. Either die after a short and ignominious mortal life, or seize the immortality of the Dragon's Blood which is your birthright and achieve greatness as a member of the Exalted Host.

You are Exalted now, and the road to your shining dream is a straight path through all adversity. What is that dream?

[ ] To be the greatest warrior in the Exalted Host. Unending shall be your victories and forever shall they be remembered. You will be a poet and sage and scholar with an unerring blade and an immaculate bow. Your enemies, and you shall make enemies, will be humbled by your skills. For this reason do you go to the House of Bells. [Passion for Battle]

[ ] To be the Founder of a new Great House. With dedicated service to the Realm and its eternal Scarlet Empress you will be Twice Exalted. Your name will be carved into history as synonymous with glory and reach, the equal of Ragara or Mnemon or new V'neef. For this reason do you go to the House of Bells. [Passion for Legacy]

[ ] To be a peerless general of the Realm Legions. You shall conquer armies and bend nations to the will of the Empire, and you will line the walls of your fortress-palace with trophies taken from every corner of Creation. To your soldiers you will be as Mela Reborn, a dragon-god of war in mortal flesh. For this reason do you go to the House of Bells. [Passion for Command]

[ ] To take control of your House. You are young now but one day you will be an honored Matriarch, wise and knowledgeable. Every household, every component family, every territory and Satrapy and scion. They'll all be yours to control and yours to command. For this reason do you go to the House of Bells. [Passion for Power]

[ ] To avenge your family. Your youth was marked with conflict and fear as your household suffered persecution at the hands of their own House and the other Houses of the Blessed Isle. With fury in your heart you will seize the teachings of this institution and become an instrument of revenge on those who have wronged you so. For this reason do you go to the House of Bells. [Passion for Vengeance]

The mud sucks at your feet as you square your stance. The Great Pale Leopard looms over you now, some twenty feet distant, still tearing apart one of the dead horses. With arms out straight you knock an arrow and slide your body into proper form, thumb at the corner of your mouth. You trace the movements of the monster's jaws, the way it bobs its head down to bite, the way its paws move the horse's body this way and that.

You focus, drawing in a quiet breath, correcting for the wind and the rain. Your sleeves are cumbersome and the water soaked into your kimonos weighs you down, but you are unbending. There is a moment, a single flash of black-pink flesh as the leopard-beast opens its mouth and you exhale. There is no tension in the moment. For you it has always been this way. Your breath is the surmounting of a mountain, the completion of a sculpture, the final flourish of a poem. There is no effort in release.

You watch your arrow fly.

"Someone please help us!"

The shout from within the carriage is deafening. The quiet susurrus of the falling rain is broken in an instant, and the monster lifts its head. Your arrow slips into the fur and flesh of its thick neck and is gone. Its eyes, blue and suddenly sharpened with pain, fill with your image. It sees you.

Forest of Robins' rope dart wraps around your waist and she pulls you behind the toppled carriage. The sucking mud keeps a hold of your sandals and you arrive at your driver's side barefoot. A paw the size of a torso fills the space behind you and splashes you and Forest both with flecks of mud and rocks.

One of the occupants of the toppled carriage continues their desperate and infuriating shouting. "I can hear you out there! Help!"

The Great Pale Leopard stalks around the carriage in a graceful motion, silent and ephemeral in the rain. Its eyes flash and its lips draw back in a hiss like a waterfall. Its body seems to stretch and compress as it moves, sharp shoulders sliding beneath spotted fur.

You knock and draw another arrow, naked feet sliding in the dirt. Your hand is at your cheek. The arrow flies and the monster pounces. Your eyes cannot follow the arrow because Forest of Robins lifts you into her arms and leaps away a hairsbreadth before the leopard-beast's paws can catch you.

The two of you strike the ground sidelong and slide. The leopard slides too, a whole chunk of the road giving way beneath its great weight. The monster's miscalculation buys you a few moments of time.

Forest of Robins rises first and lifts you to your feet before you can refuse her. "We need to get back to your carriage, Exalted one. This beastie is too much for us."

"No." You do your best to keep a petulant tone from entering your rebuttal, but you're rattled. This monster is beyond your power to kill, and to wound it now will require more than mortal ability.

Fortunate, then, that the Blood of the Dragons runs like liquid divinity in your veins. You are Exalted, a Prince of the Earth, and yours is the magic of Creation. You are empowered by one of the Five Elements. Air, Wood, Fire, Water, or Earth. Young as you are, your elemental power is raw and difficult to contain, gathering forth in a Manifestation that is potent but taxing on your body. The Dragons saw fit to bless you with a Manifestation that is especially useful in combat.

What shape does yours take?

[ ] You can lighten your limbs and increase your physical speed eightfold, allowing you to strike with your sword so fast as to be imperceptible or fire one arrow and then fire eleven more before the first strikes its target. [Air Aspect]

[ ] You have a stormcloud inside you, and when you call upon its power you can release shocks of lightning or shroud your weapons in electricity. [Air Aspect]

[ ] Your blood congeals into venomous sap that drips from your fingers. Your touch inflicts your foes with paralysis and you can suffuse your arrows with the same noxious power. Most plant-based toxins will have no effect on you. [Wood Aspect]

[ ] Your body is like a fresh green sapling, able to stretch and flex in impossible ways. Your flexibility is such that you can bend around blows and extend the reach of your body. [Wood Aspect]

[ ] Your burning soul sparks your breath, letting you release great gouts of flame from your mouth and nose. This natural expression of your power also allows you to inhale flames and smoke harmlessly. [Fire Aspect]

[ ] You can conjure a corona of explosive flame that trails behind your arrows or sword, lending them incredible speed and power for singularly awesome attacks. [Fire Aspect]

[ ] You can pull water from your heart and fashion it into the shape of extra limbs which you can use to attack and defend yourself instinctively. [Water Aspect]

[ ] You can control water in the air around you, manipulating fog and mist to befuddle your enemies and hide your own presence. You can even form the mist into your own image. [Water Aspect]

[ ] You can plant your feet and harden yourself into an unmoving bastion. Weapons will glance off of you and not even an avalanche can move you, provided your stance is stable. [Earth Aspect]

[ ] You can stomp your feet to create a shockwave through the earth strong enough to overturn wagons or large monsters, and send dozens of people sprawling. [Earth Aspect]

Passions and Manifestations are the first examples of me injecting my shonen bullshit into this quest.

Passions represent your character's greatest ambition - one of the driving forces behind your actions in this quest. Think of them as the main character's Defining Intimacy. They're my way of including the kind of bombastic motivations that shonen characters often bring to their stories, but hopefully given something of a Realm flare. If anybody has any particular suggestions for motivations, for our main character or for others, please let me know! I'm taking all the suggestions I can get.

Manifestations are those character-specific superpowers you see in a lot of battle shonen. Your Quirks, your Semblances, your Nen abilities, etc. They're a bespoke part of the setting as I envision it. Each young Dragon-Blooded has some particular facet of elemental power that shows up first and strongest, and from that first ability comes the rest of their power, in external expressions or internal embodiments. Manifestations are costly, and their usage almost always creates hazardous Anima Flux around the user.

Whatever Manifestation you choose, there'll probably be a vote at some point to give it a catchy and fun name.

Click to shrink...

 

[Kymme]

The Great Pale Leopard pulls itself back onto the road, eight paws raking the earth. It centers its vision on you and begins to gather its haunches, ready to pounce.

Forest of Robins flicks her rope dart back into her hand, untangling you from its cord. She sets it to whistle about her in a blurring wheel, quick enough to buffet her hat. "What's your plan?"

"You pull its tail. I'll strike once it's distracted."

"How in the brass hell am I supposed to get behind it?"

"Don't bother." You draw six thin arrows, nocking one and holding the rest in your curled fingers. "I'll turn it around." You charge forward and the monster pounces, bounding towards you with mist-breaking speed.

The expanding wall of your soul washes out from you in an invisible aura - your Anima. A dozen tiny gusts of wind gather from all directions and open the air between you and the charging cat. You feel a oneness with the air, tranquil but always in motion, unseen but constant. There is no effort in your strides but they carry you faster than any surplus of limbs ever could. You are lancing into the great cat's grasp, road and sky and forest blurring into an envelope of air. The leopard's claws close on where you are not, shredding seven years of your life where they float, embroidered silks buoyed by the wind of your passing.

You appear behind the leopard, arriving before even the sharpest animal eye could realize. Three arrows have already struck the beast - one in each of its frontmost forepaws, and another in its belly, beneath the fur and flesh. Three more sink into its unprotected flank as you cease your striding and drive your toes into the mud. Momentum carries you in a drifting arc across the road, a rooster-tail spray of water in your wake. Your hand flashes to your quiver and returns with six more arrows which disappear one by one, surrendered to the air and to their inevitable target.

Magic cascades around you in a cyclone of blue smoke like a fleck of Mela's own breath. You are shrouded, safe inside the claws of the dragon that is your soul made manifest. You nock and draw another arrow as your momentum begins to die.

The leopard shrieks in beastial fury, stopping its charge and swinging its hips to the side. Its gaze recaptures you. It has forgotten Forest of Robins. Thank the Dragons. It hisses again and yowls, teeth flashing in its black mouth. It stalks forward tentatively, feeling the aura of power around you in the air.

Your arms are beginning to shake, and you can feel the muscles in your legs filling with pain. The domina at your primary school cautioned you against this, from the moment your Aspect was made manifest in your Second Breath. Too much essence channeled too quickly will drain you, and a body Exalted is still a body of flesh and blood ill-suited to raw elemental power. Gasping, you ignore the darkness at the edges of your vision and keep your gaze fixed on the leopard. Just a few more moments. It's going to charge again. It must.

It isn't charging. The fingers of your draw hand ache, and the hemp wears against your calluses. You're heavy again. Heavier than you've ever been as long as you can remember - stupid long sleeves soaked with water and mud.

The leopard takes another stride, tentative. Stupid beast. Your Manifestation has ended and the celerity it provides is slipping away with every passing second. Damn stupid beast! You're going to miss. You're going to have to relax your bow arm and then everything will go to waste. This monster is going to kill you and Forest of Robins and Bright Chime and Plum and everyone in the fallen carriage, all because it's hesitating now. You grit your teeth and curl your toes, frustration eroding your focus. No! You won't die here! Forest of Robins has her move to make. You have to get a signal to her.

"What are you waiting for, you mangled mongrel cat? Do your paws ache where I've impaled them? Has the iron buried in your belly quenched your appetite? Do my arrows irritate you? I'll kill you, you stupid creature! I'll kill you!"

The leopard's ears fold back along its head and it hisses at you. Its leftmost forepaw rises in another step and then the whole creature bristles. Its back arches, its shoulders tense, and all the long fur across its body stands on end. Between its legs you see Forest of Robins, rope extended from her hand and wrapped snake-like around the leopard's tail. She pulls with all her strength and the leopard turns its head from you to hiss at her.

There is no effort in the release of your arrow. It flies true atop a monument of work. Yours, first and foremost. The work of Forest of Robins, without whom you would have been torn to pieces twice already. The tireless toil of your instructors. The good thinking of your parents, who saw to it that you learned the art of bow hunting at a young age. The labor of your household's bowyer and fletcher, who fashioned you the finest tools their skills allowed.

Your arrow takes the leopard's right eye, and in its place blooms a spout of blood and pain. The leopard shrieks and bats at his face with one of its paws and then bounds away, suddenly struck by fearful instinct. Forest of Robins untethers herself from the beast before it carries her away.

It is done.

Tension refuses to leave your legs and so you sag atop them, back hunched, and take deep breaths. At some point the rain stops, and you look up to see Forest of Robins standing over you, holding her hat over your head.

"Your plan worked, Exalted one. Are you alright?"

You laugh with manic glee. Every bit of tension inside your body boils up through your lips until your laughter gives way to retching, and you lean on Forest for support. She folds an arm under your chest and stands resolute. She speaks no further words of concern. Her propriety is appreciated.

Once you've collected enough of yourself you respond. "I'm perfectly alright, Forest of Robins. We should see to the passengers of the other carriage and then be on our way. Check our horses, if you would."

She nods and turns back to the carriage, but not before leaving her hat resting securely on your head.

You move to the fallen carriage, taking a moment to observe the identifying Mons adorning the rear door. You have to tilt your head sideways before you recognize it. House Nellens. You've never met anyone from House Nellens, but the word in primary school was that the Dragons of the Blood Resurgent are plagued by notorious bad luck.

There are people speaking inside the carriage. Their voices are too quiet to carry intelligibly, but you can identify three speakers. You hoist yourself up onto the top (actually left side) of the carriage and slap your bare foot against the door three times.

"The leopard is gone. You're free to come out."

You step back a moment before the door bursts open and a terrified young man pulls himself out into the rain. He hurls himself at your feet and showers you with thanks. Curious.

You help the sobbing man to his feet and the two of you hoist the remaining passengers outside and then help them down to the road. There are three more in total: a spry old man with grey-green hair, a younger woman wearing a thick full body wrap, and another young man, the Nellens scion himself. You wouldn't take him for a Dynast, but that's common with House Nellens. He's tall and wiry, with a shock of straight red hair. He wears ruby-cut spectacles and a long dark kimono with red stitching.

His three servants all shower you with praise and thanks, but the Nellens boy is stone silent up until he shoulders past them and bows to you, deep enough that you can see the back of his head. When he straightens he extends his hand to you, palm up. "My name is Nellens Eresa, son of Nellens Ikona, and I am forever in your debt. Might I know your name, to better thank you for saving my life and the lives of my servants?"

[ ] Write-in. It's time to find out our main character's name! This won't be a typical vote - rather, I'd like for everyone to make suggestions and I'll pick the one that I like the most.

Also, what is your gender?

[ ] You are a woman.
[ ] You are (unfortunately, considering your ambitions) a man.

Equally important to our main character's given name is their House name! Each of the Great Houses of the Realm is an institution in and of themselves, with a unique culture, history, and territory across the Blessed Isle and the Threshold beyond.

[ ] House Ledaal. Your entire life has been spent learning the story of your House's Founder. Pious and noble Ledaal discovered the horrific dealings of her parents and exposed their crimes to the Scarlet Empress. When her parents fled their just fate Ledaal pursued them at the head of a great Wyld Hunt. For her heroism the Scarlet Empress awarded Ledaal with her family's holdings and a Great House of her own. From this story the scions of your House learn the importance of piety and adherence to the Immaculate Texts. You learned something else.

You need not remain shackled to Ledaal. Dedication to your family means nothing to your ambitions. Through dedication and passion to the laws, the Immaculate Texts, and the Empress you will be made a Founder. Who knows, you might even receive some of House Ledaal's holdings as well.

Your upbringing in House Ledaal grants you knowledge of the political Steward of Purity Beyond Reproach Style, the academic Perfect Woman of Letters Style, and the occult Dragon-Fearing Scion Style.

[ ] House Peleps. Yours is a legacy of romance and glory across the Threshold. Peleps produces the best admirals, the fairest judges, the greatest adventurers. Their heroic and romantic reputation is carefully cultivated, and every failure trimmed from the House like an errant branch of a bonsai. Surrounded by such greatness it is only natural that you've yearned for a spark of your own, and you've seized on it.

Like Peleps before you, you will achieve immortality by making yourself indispensable to the Empress. Perhaps you will venture West and find power, or bend the Inner Sea to your will until all must sit up and take notice.

Your upbringing in House Peleps grants you the naval Hundred-Shores Voyager Style, the political Student of Triumphs New and Old Style, and the military Mother of Fleets Style.

[ ] House Ragara. Your House is the coinpurse of the Scarlet Empire. The success of every venture, every new idea, every battle, rests on the flow of coins your House, nicknamed 'The Imperial Bank,' controls. This control has given you a privileged life, greater in luxuries than the lives of your Dynastic peers. You are heading to the House of Bells to be a soldier, but yours will be a march paved in jade, not blood.

Money is how you will become a House Founder. You will earn yourself a high imperial commission, and use your Legion to catapult yourself to incredible heights of financial power.

Your upbringing in House Ragara grants you the political Smiling Siaka Style, the financial Golden-Eyed Appraiser Style, and the intellectual Wise Bird Knows the Winds Style.

[ ] House Sesus. Yours is a reputation slicked in blood. Across the Blessed Isle Sesus is known as a House of thugs and spymasters, a place where the strong devour the weak and cutthroat tactics win engagement after battle after war. Sesus is a political powerhouse, driven by their strong blood, their extensive military, and the huge earnings of their varied Satrapies. You have learned the importance of force all your life and here at the House of Bells you will put your knowledge to use.

Your cunning will guide you to your destiny. You know how to play every angle and plan for every variable. Not to mention the purity of your blood. Who knows, if your blood gives rise to enough powerful offspring the Empress might be forced to give you a House of your very own.

Your upbringing in House Sesus grants you the espionage-based Hundred Prying Eyes Style, the military Sword-Hounded General-Queen Style, and the aesthetic Burning Heart Muse Style.

[ ] House Tepet. You were born into the first and oldest of the Great Houses. Tepet was a rival of the Empress who she took as consort and elevated to Founder, and you are familiar with every piece of his legacy. Your family cultivates strong ties to ancient traditions, among them the Earth and Heaven Harmonious Orthodox lineage of the Immaculate Faith. It is through these traditions that you first learned of the path to greatness, and it is through these traditions that you will seize immortality.

There is no need for underhanded trickery when pure heroism and piety will suffice. You will harken back to a prior time, when the Empire was new, and your example will usher in such a glorious return to form that the Empress will have no choice but to recognize you.

Your upbringing in House Tepet grants you the occult Child of Earth and Heaven Style, the academic Winds of Ancient Understanding Style, and the martial Sword-Law Adherent Style.

 

[Kymme]

Name: Sesus Rineera, First Year Student of the House of Bells
Age: 15
Aspect: Air

Manifestation: Rineera can harness the swift power of wind and lighten her limbs. Her physical speed increases eightfold, letting her perform imperceptibly-fast draw-slashes or fire one arrow and eleven more before the first strikes its target. Usage of her Manifestation is physically and spiritually exhausting, and the aura of elemental power that gathers around her during its use is harmful to fragile things like wooden furniture, mortals, and animals.

Styles:
Clever Hunter-Prince Style: Rineera is familiar with the principles of hunting. She knows how to ride horses, how to follow hounds, how to track prey and read the landscape to find her quarry. She is familiar with the common behaviors of many animals on the Blessed Isle, and can identify many from sight or spoor. She can draw silently and fire accurately and practices proper maintenance of her hunting tools.

Rineera achieved some notoriety at her primary school for her skill with a bow, and this reputation might precede her at the House of Bells.

Greater mastery of this Style yet eludes her.

Three Points Fulminating Edge: Rineera fights with a curved katana in the traditional draw-slash style of her sword-tutor. Her discipline is just as much a weapon as her sword, helping her remain focused in the face of adversity.

Greater mastery of this Style yet eludes her.

Hundred Prying Eyes Style: Rineera understands the principles of espionage. She knows how to recognize lies and predict behaviors. She can avoid ambush and anticipate conflict. The names, faces, and allegiances of the major players in House Sesus and the other Great Houses are familiar to her.

Greater mastery of this Style yet eludes her.

Sword-Hounded General-Queen Style: Rineera has internalized the teachings of her family. She already knows the basics of formations and command structures used in the Realm. She is familiar with methods of spycraft and assassination, and knows the value of shrewdness in a leader. She knows how to dispatch someone quickly, though she's not yet killed.

Clearly, greater mastery of this Style yet eludes her.

Burning Muse Style: Rineera has an instinct for beauty in the written form. She is skilled in calligraphy and has a cultivated poetic talent. She has a wide vocabulary. She knows how to draw and paint.

Greater mastery of this Style yet eludes her.

 

[Kymme]

"Sesus Rineera," you say, dropping your eyes to his hand.

Eresa grins sheepishly and runs his hand through his hair. "Thank you, Sesus Rineera," he says, meeting your gaze as best he can.

"Where are you headed, Nellens Eresa?"

Through his lenses you see the corners of his eyes wrinkle. "To the House of Bells." Then, after a moment: "I've been accepted, and I'll be starting my first year there."

"Fascinating." You're only partly lying. This man doesn't look your age - he's much taller than you, and the stubble and angular lines of his face suggest a distant puberty. Perhaps six years ago? Why would someone on the cusp of their third decade lie about being a first year? "Nellens Eresa, would you like to continue this conversation once we're underway?"

His confusion is easy to read. "What do you mean?"

"It's simple," you say, gesturing for Forest of Robins and the rest of Eresa's servants to gather around. "Your horses are dead. I won't have a fellow Dynast walking to the House of Bells on my watch. Your servants will load your things into my carriage and we'll travel to the academy together."

When you mention his horses Eresa grows pale. Up until now he's avoided so much as looking at where their bodies lay, but since you've brought it up he has no choice but to acknowledge it.

You note this and begin coordinating his servants. Eresa stands beside you looking important and cleaning his lenses with the focused intensity of someone trying desperately to distract themselves. At some point you realize that you're still wearing Forest of Robin's hat and call her over. Dragons, what an impression you've made. Rain-soaked and mud-caked, robe in tatters, crowned by a damn paddy hat. No one must ever know.

"I believe this is yours," you say, businesslike, handing the hat back to her. "I… appreciate you lending it to me."

"You're sure you don't want to keep it?" She replies, brow raised. "It was doing an excellent job keeping the rain off of your nice robes."

You wince. "The rain is… thinning. We'll be underway soon."

Eresa's trio work quickly to transport everything that can fit to the rear compartment of your carriage. What a motley he has! Blue clay ceramics from the Northern Threshold, about a dozen different plumed hats on simple paper-mache stands, a set of iron nunchaku, long metal tongs and files, a leather satchel filled with paper-bound chap books, and more. A cursory glance reveals a few titles: Equestrian Breeds of the Marukani, Tepet Won-Fei's Treatise on the Knights of Medo, Pasiap and the Dragon-Horse. Many of his possessions cannot fit, and as such are left behind.

Once you're underway you and Eresa sit opposite one another, each flanked by two servants. Eresa's third servant, his driver, sits up on the bench with Forest of Robins. You can hear them murmur occasionally to one another over the soft sounds of the horses and the road. Through the windows the forest falls away with the thinning rain, and you can begin to see the smooth rolling hills so common to Arjuf Prefecture.

You have a chance to collect yourself and you take it, letting all of the tension built up by the past hour or so dissipate in a long shuddering sigh.

You open your eyes slowly, observing Nellens Eresa thoroughly. Out of the rain his red hair seems a bit brighter.

"How long have you been on the road, Nellens Eresa?" You incline your head to the side slightly, projecting innocence. Courtly arts don't come as easily to you as they do some Dynasts, but you doubt your fellow student will be very hard to crack.

Eresa leans forward, letting out his own great whooping sigh. "About three weeks, I'd say."

"Did you come south from Juche?" You ask, certain of the answer. Juche Prefecture is the seat of House Nellens, and any Dynastic scion important enough to attend the House of Bells would have to come from there.

"No, Kissed-With-Jade. Had an apprenticeship there." Eresa sighs again and glances out the window at the countryside.

Internally you are a swirl of questions. Apprenticeship? You know House Nellens are glorified Patricians, but he's speaking like a peasant boy ready for a life spent shoeing horses or grinding rice!

Outwardly you tilt your head the other way, looking curious. "You were an apprentice?"

"Yup," Eresa says, slapping his hands on his knees and leaning forward. "Patrician family - horse breeders. They brought me on as a groom. I was studying to join their profession. It was a whole thing." He waves his hand side to side. "All ancient history now, though. My House wants something else from me, and so here I am."

"What changed?" You ask, bracing yourself. It's not impossible, but to think...

"The Second Breath," he says with the tone one uses to describe a small disaster. "Tore up the stables, spooked the horses. Damn near killed my boss, too!" He laughs, perhaps to hide the unpleasantness of the memory.

"When? How long ago did it happen, I mean." You're already dreading the answer.

Eresa studies the ceiling, trying to remember the date like it's somehow not the singular most important moment of his entire life. "Three… maybe three months ago? About a season."

You've been Exalted for four years. Eleven was an auspicious age. It is the typical time for Dynasts. The Dragons prefer to make their will known early - that's what you've heard. To think you're sitting across from someone to whom the Second Breath is a recent experience, someone older than you, is unthinkable. It's impossible.

You smile sweetly at Eresa. "Forgive me for asking, but how old are you?"

Eresa shrugs. "Eighteen. I'll be nineteen at the end of Earth Season."

Dragons Above. You nod to Eresa and then lean back against the cushions of your seat. You don't ask him any more questions.

---

Mercifully, the noonday sun breaks free from the clouds and soon enough a call comes up from your two drivers. They've spotted the House of Bells' Wood Gate and the wall itself.

Suddenly you are overcome with apprehension. The leopard served only to waylay you. It could not keep you from this terrible, glorious place. Ahead of you lies a great crucible. The stories leap back into the forefront of your mind - the post in the center of the parade grounds where unruly cadets are whipped until their backs are bloody tatters, students reenacting bloody battles with catapults and ballistae, the million horrors that spill forth in tides of rumor and hearsay.

It's almost reassuring when you look up and Eresa and see the nervous sweat beading on his forehead. He takes off his lenses and cleans them, eager to distract himself, and the wall of the House of Bells comes into view through the narrow carriage windows.

The House of Bells rings its territory with a short stone wall, waist high and marked at regular intervals by small covered stands where hand-sized brass bells hang. The gate is simply a gap in the wall wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side, but you've heard the stories. In the early days of the Empress' conquest it was well known that any army who entered the grounds of the House of Bells would be destroyed. As humble as it seems, this wall marks the borders of the most well-defended school in Creation.

The carriage stops for a moment and then proceeds past the wall on a road of rapidly drying mud. The Wood Gate, and the road that passes through it, are the humblest of the Five Gates that ring the outermost wall of the House of Bells. First Year cadets are expected to enter the House of Bells through the Wood Gate, which might have created something of a bottleneck if you hadn't been waylaid by a giant eight-legged cat. Now the road ahead is empty and your carriage passes through the grounds quietly.

At some point you begin to hear the dim murmur of people and horses and cast your gaze back out the carriage windows. Ahead, crowning a small round hill, is a many-layered lodge of white stone with dozens of green roofs. The hill is surrounded by small fields and rice paddies. Where the paddies meet the edges of the hill a proud village sits, white walls glinting in the sun.

There are villages in the House of Bells? You shake your confusion from your mind and trace up the switch-backing road that leads to the lodge's entrance. Dozens and dozens of carriages sit along that road, horses grazing idly at the grasses that grow up from the hillside. You can see people moving in a long train up the road, small and bedecked in finery. The other students. Your peers.

You look down at yourself. You're wearing the seven remaining layers of your kimono. The new outermost layer is white, thin and still damp enough that the red of the layer below glows through. The stitching depicts the events of your seventh year of life. A sanxian recital. A reading of your first original poem. Your first successful hunting excursion. You shot a sika deer through the heart, much to the acclaim of your father and servants. These events, which you can scarcely remember, will be the first impression the House of Bells and all of your peers get. A sanxian, a dead deer, and the lovingly stitched text of a poem you wrote when you were seven.

You lost your slippers in the mud. You're going to have to borrow Plum's sandals.

---

Word passes down the line of parked carriages that the cadets (the House's word for students) are to make their way to the lodge's main chamber.

You've no real need to say your goodbyes. Plum and Bright Chime and Forest of Robins can't stay with you in the House of Bells, but they'll certainly be staying the night as they help you unpack your things. Eresa's servants are nervous but he reassures them that they've got nothing to worry about.

You and Eresa make your way up the road, joining the tide of cadets. You attract a few looks, of confusion or scorn, and steel yourself. You will one day achieve greatness of which your peers can scarcely dream - a bad first impression is nothing. In fact, your unassuming, haphazard motley might be a boon. The House of Bells will be cutthroat, and an advantage like being underestimated can be potent if wielded properly.

Savoring this understanding you file in and join the gathering crowd inside the lodge's main hall. The decor seems appropriate for a hunting lodge. The monuments of past hunts glare down at you from the walls. Tigers and bears and siaka and great birds and, opposite the main entrance, the hulking upper body of a Tyrant Lizard - an upright beast with a maw that could swallow a horse whole - hangs like a monument to the power of the Dragon-Blooded Host. You see other cadets craning their necks, enamored by the trophies of hunts past, and you can't help but be a little underwhelmed. Why wouldn't you be? Your mother has a Tyrant Lizard skull mounted over her meeting chambers, and your father's hunting lodge holds two complete skeletons, posed in such a way that they look locked in combat.

Glancing to your left you notice Eresa, less awed or underwhelmed and more… confused. He's not looking up at the trophies, but rather at the great staircase that leads up to a mezzanine beneath the Tyrant Lizard.

"Is something the matter?" You ask him quietly.

"This isn't the House of Bells," he says, tense. "This can't be. There's no barracks, no mess hall, no dormitories or training ground. No bells. Doesn't it seem strange to you?"

He's right, you realize. This is an impressive building, but it's a far cry from what you've heard about the House of Bells. Where's the pillory? The post where unruly cadets are disciplined? You add your gaze to his, looking around the room for some sort of answer.

You find it in the form of a woman who steps into view from beneath the shadow of the Tyrant Lizard, looking out over the sea of young Dynasts from the high mezzanine. She is tall and willowy, wearing a breastplate with the image of a swirling triskelion - the aniconic representation of Mela the Immaculate Dragon of Air. From this woman's curling sky-blue-and-ivory hair which tosses about her like a pennant in the wind you know her Aspect - air, same as you. Her jet-dark eyes scan the cadets coldly before dimming. There is suddenly a smell of ozone and the swirls of her hair begin to rise like a thunderhead. When she speaks all lesser sounds drain away, leaving only her voice.

"Welcome, First Year cadets, to the House of Bells. My name is Peleps Mistral, Chozei of the First Year class of cadets. I applaud you all - you have been accepted into the finest military institution in Creation. By the time you have passed through the final gate of this academy you will be among the finest warriors, officers, and soldiers the world over. May each of the Immaculate Dragons in turn smile upon you." She coughs into her hand, in part to clear her throat and in part for dramatic effect. "I'm not one for prayers, though, so I'll leave that task to our chaplain. You'll meet her later today, hopefully."

"As I'm sure some of you have guessed," she says, her eyes centering on you and Eresa, "you have yet to arrive at your final destination. This is the Vernal Sanctum of Heron the Tenth, a fortress-lodge erected in the Shogunate and incorporated into the House of Bells' grounds about ten centuries ago. This will be the staging ground for today's examination."

Chozei Peleps Mistral's words set off a wave of murmurs within the assembled students. She grins and continues her explanation with glee in her voice. "The House of Bells main campus is located about ten miles from here, straight west as the raiton flies. There are no proper roads connecting the campus to the Sanctum, only concealed footpaths and game trails. No matter, though - follow the sun and you're sure to find your way there. At sundown I and my instructors will begin sorting you into your five-person Fangs, with whom you'll be spending your seven years at our institution. Don't delay - a late arrival on your first day at the House of Bells makes for a very poor first impression."

You look over your shoulder, back at the front doors to the lodge. A few cadets are already trying to get a head start, but the doors are closed and several red-garbed soldiers stand at attention in front of them.

The Chozei grins from ear to ear. "And one final note: this is as far into the grounds as visitors are allowed. Your servants will not be accompanying you to the campus, and no staff from the House of Bells will transport your belongings for you. In fact, they're under strict instructions to depart from the House of Bells' grounds before nightfall, else they will be considered intruders. There are no belongings prohibited by the House of Bells. You're welcome to bring along as many of your possessions as you wish. Provided you can carry them, of course."

Her essence washes out from her hair and across the room, quieting the voices of the shocked and panicked cadets around you. "You are dismissed."

The doors open and the sea of cadets is suddenly washing outwards, across the Sanctum's main yard and towards the road. Everyone is making a beeline for their carriages, their wagons, their possessions. You are, too. By the look of the sky you have about five hours until nightfall.

Think. You can't bring everything with you. Too much and you won't make it in time. You can't afford to take anything extraneous. That said, you have possessions that are important to you, and tools without which you'll be as good as naked. You've got to think carefully and make the best use you can with what you have.

Picking out Rineera's Equipment:

Rineera has got to make it to the campus before time runs out! Here we'll vote on the things she ought to grab before leaving the Sanctum and striking out for the House of Bells. You are not limited to voting for just one item - you can cast votes for as many items as you want. Be careful, though, too many things and Rineera runs the risk of being late on her first day! It's also possible to vote for nothing. An unencumbered Rineera with her speed-based Manifestation and her Clever Hunter-Prince Style will make it to the House of Bells pretty damn quick, which might impress her instructors enough to cancel out her lack of other equipment.

Rin makes sure to get...

[ ] ...her yumi bow and quiver. They've served her well all her life and they'll be invaluable tools in the House of Bells. Also, they're something of a calling card for Rineera. People might recognize her for her bow.

[ ] ...her katana. She's effective with it, and having a real weapon all her own will set her apart from other cadets. Also, it's a beautiful sword, and might have some serious trading potential.

[ ] …her other clothes, stuffed haphazardly into a bag and tossed over her shoulder. This way Rin might have something more than her ruined kimonos and borrowed sandals when she makes it to the House of Bells.

[ ] ...her vellum-bound copy of The Thousand Actions of the Upright Soldier, the pinnacle military textbook in the Realm. This book will be an invaluable tool for composing strategies, not to mention impress her instructors to boot. Plus, it's a gift from her grandmother.

[ ] ...her calligraphy set, gathered in a small cherry wood case. Rin is a skilled calligrapher and having her own set of ink, pens, and brushes will be invaluable during written classes.

[ ] ...her set of hunting knives. Gifted to her by her father, this set of knives is beautiful and has everything Rin needs to clean and prepare kills. In field exercises or other situations where cadets are expected to feed themselves, these tools will prove useful.

[ ] Write-in. For any ideas anyone has about other items Rineera might have received from her Family, or personal mementos.

 

[Kymme]

The onrushing tide of cadets disperses some once they hit the main road. You see the crowd turn, pelting down the road through the parked horses and carriages. A few dozen brave cadets run straight for the edge of the road and leap down to the switchback below. Taking shortcuts like that is clever. They won't get caught up as easily in the shouting crowd. You take a moment to consider and then pass the idea out of your mind. They're welcome to keep their bravery and their risks - you'll stick with tactics.

The tide is thinning and you race to the front, never slowing for a moment. You pass carriage after carriage where fussy, panicked Dynasts shout orders at equally panicked servants, getting loaded head to toe with satchels and cases and packs. You leap over a pile of odds and ends where one cadet has all but torn their carriage inside out, desperately searching for something they cannot be without.

You withhold your judgement - in a few minutes you'll probably be joining them.

At some point Eresa catches up with you. You hadn't noticed his absence. He pulls you out of the path of a horse, raging down the center of the road - a ferocious Cathak scion on its back, looking girded for battle. Full lamellar, helmet and all. Great broad-headed glaive bouncing on his back. Dragons Above, how could he have put that on so quickly?

"Damn bastard," Nellens Eresa hisses, curling his hands into fists. "The Chozei said it herself: there's no roads from here to the House of Bells. He takes that horse through the forest and it's as good as dead. He's going to kill that poor animal, and for what?" Eresa takes off his ruby-cut lenses and pinches his brow, trying to steady himself.

You make a note of this and place a hand on Eresa's shoulder. "Put it out of your mind. Your chief concern ought to be getting to the House of Bells before nightfall." He's got to get moving. After all, you can't retrieve your possessions while Eresa's are in the way.

Eresa nods and places his lenses back his face, but he's silent the rest of the way down the hill. This matter isn't finished. You roll your eyes and put on an extra bit of speed for the final stretch to your carriage.

The lowest section of the hill is sparse of cadets but packed with carriages. You spot yours, red wood with the painted mons of House Sesus, beleaguered horses and weary driver. Forest of Robins spots you and calls down and by the time you arrive you're already surrounded by your servants and Eresa's.

Plum clasps his hands together and leans at the waist, confused. "What's going on? There's such great commotion. Should we start unloading your things, Exalted one?"

You flick your hand, trying to avoid snapping at any of your faithful servants. Panic is the enemy. "No need, Plum. This isn't the House of Bells." A gasp goes up from the assembled servants. "We cadets have been tasked with reaching the true House of Bells by nightfall, carrying whatever possessions we can on our backs. Plum, I need you to fetch me my bow and my sword. Bright Chime, you help Nellens' servants to retrieve whatever their master wishes."

You indicate Eresa with a tilt of your head. He looks at you confused for a moment and then turns to the servants. "I'll need my nunchaku and my journals, my day clothes, and… Well, I'll come with you and make sure you don't miss anything." He readjusts his lenses and follows Bright Chime and his servants to the rear compartment of your carriage. Once he's out of sight the panic sets in.

A tide of indignance and apprehension washes over you. What are these instructors thinking?! After you've travelled all this way, nearly halfway around the entire Blessed Isle, and now they expect you to break trail for ten miles. There's no hot meal to await you. No warm bath. No comfortable bed. No time to rest or relax. If you're lucky you'll have a handful of hours to sleep before some brute shakes you awake to start exercising before the sun rises. Your first 'day' at the House of Bells.

You take a shuddering breath and wrap your arms over your chest. You can hear cadets running past you, shouting and yelling and whooping. Will some of them give up and return home with their servants and carriages? How many of the peers you saw today will be here tomorrow, when the sun rises on this harsh and barbaric school? The weight, which you've done your best to hold up, is starting to crush you. You need to… to…

"Exalted one, I have your weapons." Plum says, beaming.

You need to focus. You thank Plum and take your bow, quiver, and sword. You are going to the House of Bells. You have a little less than five hours. Your destination is ten miles westward. This is not beyond your capabilities. This is not beyond your dream. One day your name will stand among the greatest in the isle, and carriages bearing your mons will transport First Year cadets bearing your name to this academy. You will surpass this challenge. The House of Bells has made its first demand. It asks for your focus.

The sash of your kimono serves as an ample harness for your sword and quiver, with your bow thrust through and bound tight for good measure. Beside you Eresa pulls a longer red jacket over his robe and tucks his nunchaku into an interior pocket. His two servants finish stuffing a pack full of books and tools and pass it to him with reverence.

Your servants will be back soon, and they'll need more instruction. What do you need? You can't afford to take anything too large. The wardrobe chests are out. Far too heavy. It's foolish to stake bets on whether the House of Bells provides its cadets with clothes, but they've left you with no other options. What, among your possessions, is absolutely essential?

"I'd like you to fetch my calligraphy set and my knife-roll. I've got an embroidered Cheraki satchel - put them in there." You send Plum off and take another moment to consider your options.

A commotion behind you catches your attention. Only a few stragglers haven't yet reached their carriages, but the road is beginning to fill again. Emerging from the crowd like a thunderbolt comes a cadet with long black hair braided into an elaborate coil. She sprints past on stilts of living bamboo, trailing thin leaves and sickly-sweet pollen. A half dozen more cadets sprint past before you recollect your thoughts.

Your hunting knives have been a boon to you in the past, and the wide chopping knife among them will keep your sword clean as you carve your way to the House of Bells. A plan begins to formulate in your mind. Head dead west and look for where a game trail empties out onto the rice paddies. Animals need to drink and the paddies, fat and full with spring rainwater, are the perfect place. There's bound to be a trail and once you've found it you can follow it west. There are clearings and open fields in the House's grounds, and you can cut a western path through those wherever you find them.

Plum and Bright Chime return with the tools you requested, tucked neatly into a satchel, when tightly worn, sits comfortably in the small of your back. You glance down at your feet, clad in Plum's leather sandals. You flex your toes and watch the pliable material bend and move. A deep breath through your nose steadies you, bringing with it a sliver of that feeling of oneness with the air. Mela willing, you'll arrive at the House of Bells before nightfall.

"Thank you," you say, addressing your servants. "You've done well for me. I'll make sure to praise you in my first letter home."

Plum blushes and beams. Bright Chime graces you with the slightest smile and nods her head. Forest of Robins, from up on her driver's bench, calls to you. "I know you'll make us proud, Exalted one. May the Dragons guide you."

They've done all that they can for you now. The House of Bells asks that you leave them behind.

"We'll see each other there, right?" You say to Eresa, stepping up beside him.

He turns to you and nods. "Yeah. Thanks for everything you've done for me. I'll have to pay you back somehow."

You smile. "I suppose you will. You've got a plan, I'm sure."

"Sure do. Find a path, follow it, and hopefully not run into another giant monster." He says, unfolding his arms and turning his eyes up the road. "Can't count on a dashing young lady to save me this time, so I guess I'll just pick a Dragon and pray."

Eresa takes the first opening he sees, setting off in a dead sprint just as another pack of cadets pass. You wait a bit longer, taking stock of as many people as you can. These young Dynasts will be your peers and your rivals, and knowing what you're up against this early on will surely help.

Across the road you spot a dark-skinned Ragara girl with a veil of black lace over her eyes lift an entire wooden trunk onto her shoulders and set off in a slow, stomping march. Overhead a young woman leaps from the switchback above and soars out across the fields, propelled by a blast of fire from her feet. A young man in the colors of House V'neef charges past, carrying a sword nearly as big as he is over one shoulder.

You start running.

The first bottleneck you encounter are the tightly packed buildings of the village. The citizens themselves have abandoned the streets, but the onrush of cadets has filled the narrow cart-roads to the absolute brim. Many cadets, following the main road, have spilled out onto the fields south of the Sanctum. Many others try to weave through the village to the fields on the west side, closest to the House of Bells. You spot a few cadets climbing or leaping onto rooftops in order to escape the crowd, Animas igniting around them as they invoke their Manifestations.
You consider joining them. No use. You've only had a few hours to recover your Essence, and another usage of your Manifestation would exhaust you. You slow down and let the push of the crowd carry you forward.

As you reach the village's edge you spy cadets peeling themselves from the pack, taking off in dead sprints towards the rice paddies.

You restrain yourself and soon you're running beside two other students along one of the high dirt berms between two glittering rice fields. The fields are arranged haphazardly and the pathways between them are a maze-like tangle, punctuated by the occasional wooden bridge. In the field to your left you spot a cadet running in a straight line through the rice-field, feet kicking off of the surface of the water. Some Dynasts get all the luck.

Scattered around the paddies are small boats filled with peasant children watching the spectacle of the Dragon-Blooded cadets running westward. It's difficult to appreciate from your perspective, with the pressure to excel bearing down on you, but you imagine these events must be unto a holiday for the local youth. The powers of the Exalted Host are a glorious and awe-inspiring thing to witness first hand, even when wielded by teenagers.

You turn and find yourself on a raised path that leads straight into the treeline at the edge of the rice paddies. You glance left and right, looking for a place where sparse undergrowth indicates the beginning of a game trail. All around, at the edge of the forest, cadets whose reckless sprinting won them an early lead now languish, exhausted and disheartened.

You spot the gateway to a trail and make a beeline for it. Your sandaled feet bite into the turf and the forest swallows you up. The sun vanishes above you, breaking apart into a thousand flitting beams that dapple the forest floor and shine off of the leaves and branches of the trail.

West. Ten miles. Forty minutes have elapsed since this test began. You have little over four hours to brave this forest and arrive at the main campus. You can do this.

---

This update was getting a bit long so I decided to break it up into two sections. I'll have the next one up, with a proper vote, up sometime on the first. Thank you all for reading, and I hope you're excited for Rineera's arrival at the House of Bells! I know I am.

 

[Kymme]

The forest towers around you. Climbing vines, nourished by the spring rains, paint the dark trunks in bright splashes of green. The forest here seems to grow wild and untended, and occasionally you come to a fallen tree and must clamber over it. All around you come the echoing sounds of the other cadets - tearing the forest apart in their haste.

You press on, alert for any sign of danger. The House of Bells might curate their woods, but considering the vastness of the grounds you doubt it. Your eyes flick along the path of a sunbeam and sure enough you spot a fat boa, basking in the light on the flat length of a fallen tree. You move past the snake and redouble your efforts. Where there are snakes there are snake hunters - great birds, crocodilians, and noxious cobras.

Your game trail veers sharply off course and you stop for a moment to collect yourself. What options do you have? Follow the trail and pray it brings you closer rather than farther from your destination, or carve your own trail dead west. That would of course require you to orient yourself exactly west. Clouds overhead obscure the sun's position.

You hear a noise overhead, like a whooping shout, and squint upward. There's someone up there, moving quickly. Someone running along the treetops, so fast that their long sleeves whip behind them like banners. They pass over you with a single leaping stride, fast enough to tear leaves from branches. The flurry of green races down towards you, and you seize on a plan.

They're a cadet - you recognize their long sleeves, bright orange and patterned with blue stripes, from the grand hall of the Sanctum. They're heading west. So high above the trees they must easily be able to see the horizon and the position of the sun. If you can follow them through the forest you'll make it to the House of Bells in no time.

Their speed poses a complication. Even following the cascade of leaves and petals that they knock down, you'll scarcely be able to keep pace with them through the pathless wood ahead of you. The thick tangle of undergrowth is far too thick for you to hack through with your sword. Luckily you came prepared.

You pull your kniferoll from the pack on your back and unspool it into the air. The hilt of each blade flashes in the air, sheathed in a pocket along the roll's length. At its farthest end sits your long backknife, pristine and sharp, too large to tuck neatly into the roll. It spins in the air like a spindle with no thread. With a swift lug you coil the roll back into your left hand and pluck your knife from the air with your right. You place the roll back in your pack and brace your stance, turning slightly and holding your knife across your body, level with your hip. The draw-stance of Three Points Fulminating Edge.

You draw your knife up from your hip and lunge forward, bringing it down with all the weight of your body. You carve cleanly through a half-dozen cloying branches. You return to your stance, dash ahead, and slash again. With every stride and every slash your pace increases until you're darting through the forest as quick as your legs will carry you, hacking apart every branch or hanging vine that blocks your path. You charge over fallen leaves disturbed by the cadet up in the trees, and you keep sight of the flurry they leave in their wake for as long as you can.

Only when the forest parts before you and you stagger out into an open hillside does the trail run cold. You sigh and wipe the sweat from your brow. At least now you'll have a clear view of the sun.

Or at least, you assumed so. It seems that the cloud cover has grown thicker here, and you can scarcely judge the angle of the sun or its exact position in the sky. You still have time, though. The hillside juts out from the surrounding forest like a monk's tonsured head.

You scramble up the hillside, hoping that you might arrive soon enough to catch sight of the treetop-runner cadet.

Behind you a branch snaps.

You do not turn and look. Discipline and experience temper your reaction. You mustn't run, mustn't make any sudden movements. If a beast of the forest is hunting you your best course of action is to make it to the top of this hill, out of its sight, and prepare yourself. Careful not to let on that you've noticed, you scramble the rest of the way up the hill.

At the peak of the hill stands a fort of wooden logs, its high walls surrounded on all sides by tangles of logs and scaffolding and nets built over shallow troughs of water. An obstacle course the size of a small village. Through the structures you can see an open patch of dirt on the course's opposite side, and from there a road that plunges out of sight.

Sight of the road fills your mind with a simple hope - hope of success, in this first trial - that all but numbs you to the shaking under your feet. You leap aside just as the ground geysers upwards and go sprawling across the rough grass of the hilltop. You pull yourself up into a crouching position and peer through the dust. Your mind is racing. Is this hill trapped? Are there burrowing monsters?

The dust clears and you spot a cadet pulling himself up out of the ground, clumps of dirt lifting off of his embroidered silver jacket and orbiting him menacingly. From over the lip of the hill a second cadet leaps into view, a young woman with a long staff. Both cadets square off against you, sneering.

"Sesus Rineera!" The boy shouts your name, cracking his knuckles. "In that ratty getup I almost didn't recognize you. Do you remember me?"

Of course you remember him. He's…

[ ] ...Sesus Khem Po Fan, your cousin. Born a few months after you in an adjacent household he spent most of his life being compared to you, often unfavorably. You've only met him a half dozen times in your life, at Sesus galas which pitted you against one another as tools of your parent's vanity.

[ ] ...V'neef Hangbu, your old primary school rival. You humbled him time and time again with your archery skills over the years. He was actually expelled from your school post-Exaltation, when his audacious attempts to overshadow you wound up getting a fellow student injured.

[ ] ...Mnemon Tehou, you old primary school punching bag. Once, they held all of the power in your primary school - first in class to Exalt. After you took your Second Breath the tables were turned, and you quickly devoted your time and effort to crushing them in every field, from history lessons to calligraphy training. He was the kindling on which you stoked your Burning Muse Style.

 

[Kymme]

You cringe internally, but also with your face. Of all the horrid specters of your past, his is the one that confronts you first. You expected some sort of roadblock to head you off, but not him! And his friend - you don't recognize her, but she's holding her staff with the posture of a trained fighter. They both have red hair and pale skin, the Empress' own complexion. Perhaps they're both Mnemon scions? What is your plan? You've got to proceed with caution - if you drop your knife and go for your bow or your sword they'll pounce.

"Mnemon Tehou," you say, turning your grimace into a wry smile. "How's your handwriting?"

Tehou's eye twitches. First blood is yours. "I'm not here to exchange pleasantries, Sesus." He spits the word. His fists tighten. "You're going to suffer an 'accident' en route to the House of Bells. Not career-ending, of course, but enough that you'll limp into campus well after sundown," he says, eyes shining with anticipation. "Dressed as you are, I'd be doing you a favor! C'mon, you don't want the instructors to see you like that in broad daylight, do you?"

"You know it's too late for that, Tehou." The young woman says, tossing a lock of hair over her shoulder. "The Chuzei's seen her already, along with everyone else. Dragons, it's so funny!" She looks down her nose at you, gleeful. "You think you're such a bigshot, but you're so obviously pathetic! What even happened to you? Did you slip and fall in the mud or something?"

You feel an indignant flame of your own rising in your chest. Do you tell them of your battle against the leopard? No, they've no real reason to believe you. Besides, they're hardly worth the breath. That tree-running cadet is long gone, but now you've got a road to follow. It seems to curl down from the west slope of the hill - separated from you by this tangled wooden obstacle course.

"Why the silence, Sesus? You've always been so eloquent, and now you've got nothing to say? Where's that famous wit of yours?" Tehou takes a step forward and braces himself, sandals sliding powerfully into place on the bare dirt. His hands are spread wide, fingers twisted inwards like claws.

It's some kind of… Tiger stance? You readjust the grip on your knife, keeping your posture relaxed. Tehou's never been your equal in combat, and a few months apart certainly won't have changed that. You've much less of a handle on his cousin, though.

"Bold, Tehou, to assume a pitiful man is deserving of my wit. Where does chaff like you get off thinking you're worthy of the sword rather than the sickle?" You sigh mockingly. "Ah, but you did always have such trouble with those High Realm characters. I assume your cousin has been teaching you to read? Miss, you've certainly got your work cut out for you."

Tehou's cousin suppresses a snort, and Tehou's will snaps. He bounds forward into the earth, silver jacket trailing him like the tail of a submerging whale. Tehou's been Exalted for a whole year longer than you, and in that time he's learned to harness his Manifestation - he can part loose earth like water and swim through it as fast as any fish.

He leaps from the earth in another explosion of dirt, throwing a wide kick into your raised guard. You stagger and he leaps back into the ground, disappearing from sight. Behind you is the obstacle course, all troughs of water and wooden scaffolding. Before you are two Dragon-Blooded, scions of House Mnemon. The sun hasn't yet set, but the clouds obscure its exact position. You've got three hours, at most.

What do you do?

[ ] Fight them. You far exceed Mnemon Tehou in skill of battle, and even if his cousin has some skill you're the only one here with real weapons. A battle will leave them both thoroughly trounced, and you thoroughly exhausted.

• You cement your reputation as a badass among the First-Year cadets.
• You'll probably arrive at the House of Bells later than most other cadets. The instructors probably won't be as impressed as your fellow students. You'll be placed in a lower bracket within your class.

[ ] Run. Are they really worth it? Tehou is just some chump you made cry a few times, and whoever his cousin is, she probably can't beat you in a foot-race. Your objective here is to get to the House of Bells, not defeat some Primary School rival.

• You'll get to the House of Bells early. This will surely impress the instructors, and earn you at least some status among the people who will be your teachers. You'll be placed in a higher bracket in your class.
• Tehou will tell everyone you backed down from a fight with him. Your first impression among the First-Year cadets will be as a coward.

 

[Kymme]

They cannot catch you. You will not let them.

Mnemon Tehou bursts from the ground two paces to your left and launches a flashing kick. You step backwards, closer to the obstacle course, and let his kick swing past you.

Tehou doesn't so much land as dive, seamlessly disappearing back into the ground. Such mastery! How can he use his Manifestation for so long without exhausting himself?

No matter - you're running. Your first few strides are great kicks, propelling you backwards while keeping Tehou's cousin clearly in view. Then the ground bulges under you. Tehou can't help himself. He bursts from the ground and you extend your leg into his chest, adding his rising momentum to your own in a twisting leap. You hit the ground running and dash into the tangled course with Tehou and his cousin biting at your heels.

Wooden walls and ladders and rope nets and spinning logs assail you, and you breeze through each in turn with steady poise. Tehou's cousin runs below you, leaving icy footprints in the shallow troughs of water. Though you hurl yourself over each obstacle with ease the gap between you closes bit by bit. In the space of a few seconds she's running directly beneath you on a path cutting straight through the course. At this rate she'll be waiting for you on the other side.

You need more speed, and your Manifestation is more than happy to provide. The wood around you whistles as your soul inhales and then exhales into the whirling blue smoke of your Anima. You take twenty-and-five strides in the space of a breath and drop from the obstacle course onto the road. To your pursuers it must look as though you've vanished, with nought but a pale blue contrail of charged air to mark your winding path.
Your feet strike the road and you run as fast as your legs can carry you. The hill and the obstacle course vanish behind you shortly before your Manifestation runs out and your pace slows.

The exhaustion sets in as weight. The finely-woven cotton of your robes had dried somewhat in the long carriage-ride, but a run through a wet, rain-slicked forest has filled them with twigs and leaves and heavy, heavy water. Your pace slows until you stop and double over, hands on your thighs.

Your long knife is gone. You blink a few times, scanning your empty hands. You must have let go of it at some point on the obstacle course. Damn! You curse yourself and stand up straight, fists balled at your sides. There's no use going back for it - you'd be wasting time and risking a fight with Tehou and his cousin.

You close your eyes and think for a moment when the sun emerges from the clouds. It hovers proudly over the western horizon, near but still resplendent with early evening light. You've still got time. Its light begins to warm your clothes and you feel the weight begin to lift. Onwards.

-----

The road winds inexorably west and soon the forests around fall away into gentle hills and plains with long grasses. A few small towers and wooden forts dot the land, but they are nothing to the House of Bells. It rises high above the plains in a great edifice of stone, wide enough to swallow up the entire western horizon. Its minarets and belfrys carve the sky like a mountain range, and even at this distance you can hear the ringing.

You remember the stories.

It is said that, in the time before the Scarlet Dynasty, the House of Bells was a great fortress of the lords of Arjuf - the triumphator Herons. Each Heron cast a massive bronze bell to mark their rule, carved with depictions of their greatest deeds. These bells hung in the twenty highest towers of this palace, in which the Herons of Arjuf kept their summer courts. When Rawar, the Empress' husband, succeeded his cousin Heron XX, he declined to have a bell cast in his honor. Instead, he declared that the old winter palace be made an academy where the youth of the Scarlet Dynasty might be trained to be great warriors.

The Bells of the Twenty Herons still hang in their belfrys, and scattered across the palace in myriad towers hangs a bell for every graduate.

One day a bell adorned with your name will hang alongside them, and every time word of one of your great deeds reaches this House of Bells each and every cadet will hear its ringing. When you are made the Founder of your own Great House, it will ring with every glorious deed of your lineage. One day your bell will ring.

You set off on the final dash to the House's gates.

-----

Entering the House of Bells feels like stepping into the den of a great monster. All around are the signs of vicious intention, a million places where defenders could hide to lash out in ambush or leave deadly traps. You find yourself somewhat on edge, which is only compounded once you exit the shadow of the gatehouse into the palace's open bailey.

You find yourself in a tiny yard pinched between three towering buildings, alone save for a single individual. A man in a dark green coat sits behind a small table, hands folded neatly over a long scroll. His black hair is pulled back into a tight topknot. He smiles slightly at you, but only with his mouth. His dark eyes are impassive.

"Hello, cadet."

"Um, hello." You say, readjusting your sash. "Are you… the person who is supposed to receive me?"

"Not you specifically, but yes." The man nods his head and opens his book. You can read the tight calligraphy from this distance - it's a list of names. "I'm here to receive all of the cadets and log their arrivals. Your name, cadet?"

His brusqueness irritates you, but you know better than to respond in kind. This man is clearly some employee of the House of Bells, and it's your duty to be on your best behavior. "My name is Sesus Rineera, sir. Daughter of…"

I hope everybody is ready, because it's time to… PICK…. YOUR… MOM!

I'll post two options here and leave an option for a write-in. Your pick of Rin's mom will effect the story both in terms of her upbringing and also the immediate political situation surrounding Rineera's attending of the House of Bells.

[ ] Sesus Karin is among the greatest huntresses on the Blessed Isle. Her reputation is fearsome and terrible, for her greatest prey are the Anathema who fuel their dark magics with stolen moonlight. Your mother has served on more Wyld Hunts than you could possibly guess and killed at least five Anathema. She is a warrior of great renown and a woman thoroughly unknown to you. You've met her in person twice - when she gave birth to you (which you don't remember), and when you were accepted into the House of Bells (which you'll never forget).

[ ] Sesus Yoneera is a spymaster socialite extraordinaire. From her palatial estate in Chanos she controls a network of informants across the Blessed Isle and coordinates operations between several satrapies your family owns in all but name. She doesn't often make time for you, but when she does she is kind and accommodating. You've not told her of your ambitions to found a Great House for yourself, but you get the feeling she knows. Your mother is well regarded by other Houses, and has friends across the Blessed Isle. Chances are some of her friends are aunts, uncles, mothers, or fathers to some of your peers.

Click to shrink...

"Sesus…" He says, flipping through the pages of his book. "Sesus. How many cadets are we getting from Sesus this year…" He turns one more page and nods to himself. "Ah, twenty. Rineera..."

You blink. Twenty? Sesus is sending twenty of its scions to the House of Bells this year. Is that typical? Yours is the one of only three Great Houses which maintains its own legions, so it is to be expected that Sesus would wish to educate as many of its scions here as it can. Who could they be? You couldn't count the number of similarly-aged cousins you've met with a dozen hands, but you can only count the cousins you remember on one. Sesus has more than a hundred families across the Blessed Isle and the Threshold. You are but a single heir.

Suddenly you feel quite small.

The man in green coughs into his hand and cuts your existential crisis short. "Rineera." He lifts a sharp-pointed pen in one hand and quickly crosses out your name with a flourish. "You've passed your first examination." He turns his attention to a stack of papers beside his book. "And with flying colors, I might add."

Thank the Dragons. "It is nothing," you say, doing your best to appear humble. "I was guided by the wisdom of Mela."

"Sure you were. Let's see…" He pulls a blank leaf of parchment closer and writes the four High Realm characters of your name. "Looks like you'll be first in Second Scale, Fang Four."

"Pardon?" You ask. He's using legion designations for some reason. "I'm not quite sure what you mean."

The man in green closes his eyes for a moment and steeples his hands. "When an eighty-man talon forms up, Second Scale is the second from the back, and Fang Four stands to the right of Fang Three."

You know that. "I know that. Is this some sort of class placement?" You're trying to maintain your facade of politeness, but anger is starting to creep into your tone. Who even is this man?

"Yes. We sort cadets into Fangs and Scales to keep everything aligned. You've arrived before most of the cadets, which means you'll be given a higher position in the talon."

Second Scale, Fang Four… that means that the preceding three Fangs must already be filled. So… "I'm the sixteenth to arrive, then."

The man in green nods, and, seeing the surprise and alarm in your eyes, smiles. "Sure are. Number fifteen got here about an hour ago."

Your Manifestation grants you incredible speed. You made sure to carry only the base essentials. You blazed a trail through the forests, where other cadets would have been lost. You didn't expect to be first, of course. You had no doubt that there would be First Years with speed-granting Manifestations or pathfinding skills that eclipse your own. To think that you would be beaten out by fifteen of your peers, and by such a wide margin.

You need to grow stronger.

"I… I see." You fold your arms. "Where do I go from here?"

"Nowhere, yet. Once four more cadets have arrived and the Fourth Fang is filled you'll be assigned your servant and taken to your chambers in the First Year barracks." He gestures with his pen to the building behind him. "Until then you'll need to wait here."

You sigh and find a wall to lean on. The next four cadets will be the rest of your Fang. In all likelihood you'll be stuck with them for the rest of your time here at the House. You face the gate and brace yourself for whatever will come next.

-----

You wait for all of five or so minutes before Nellens Eresa bursts into the bailey riding the largest deer you've ever seen. His ruby-cut lenses are bent on his nose and his red hair is filled with twigs and leaves.

The man in green stands, eyes wide, as Eresa coaxes the deer to a stop and slides off of its back. Once his feet are firmly on the ground Eresa readjusts the straps of his massive backpack and gives the deer a reassuring pat on the neck. It chuffs at him and then sprints out of the bailey and back into the plains.

"Eresa!" You call, confused and surprised and somewhat alarmed. "What in Creation is going on?"

Eresa turns to see you and smiles. "Oh, Sesus Rineera! I'm glad to see that you've made it!"

"Forget that, you can tame deer? Since when?"

"Since the Second Breath, I guess." He looks at his hands, as though the magic of his blood is somehow contained within them. "It's my Manifestation. They say the Dragon of Wood, Sextes Jylis, was beloved by all the gentle animals of the world. I've got something like that."

You blink a few times. Putting it together - Eresa is the seventeenth cadet to arrive at the House of Bells, a Wood Aspect, who can befriend animals. You're going to be stuck with this overgrown Nellens boy for the next seven years. You sigh internally and then return Eresa's smile. "That's a fascinating ability. It's fortunate you were able to utilize it to arrive here well ahead of the sunset."

Eresa walks over to the man in green and checks in. You hear whispers above you and so you cast your gaze upwards, to the fourth floor windows of the First Year barracks. The shutters are wide open, and posed around the sill are several cadets who've fixed you and Eresa in their gazes.

The cadet with the long-sleeved orange robe sits with their legs kicked over the sill. They smile down at you cat-like, amused by something. The bluish tinge of their skin marks them as Air Aspected, same as you. Beside them sits a tall cadet, a girl with a straight bob of white hair and a stern, pointed face. Her eyes glimmer in the evening light, betraying her interest. Behind them are three others who watch you with less amusement. The girl with the living bamboo stilts is there, leaning against the window's frame, looking bored. Another girl with wavy violet hair glares down at Eresa, arms folded in an expression of distaste. Just behind them is another boy, with crimson-tipped hair and wide burning eyes. You meet his gaze for a moment and when he turns away you recognize him - your cousin Khem Po Fan. So aloof.

Eresa finishes checking in and walks over to you. He sets down his pack and leans against the wall beside you. "So, we're waiting for three more cadets to complete our Fang." He sighs and sags against the wall, releasing some of his tension. "According to Instructor Six Feathers there are one hundred and forty registered First Years. He says we should be seeing them pour in over the course of the next few hours."

And sure enough, they will. Among them, though, are the three cadets who will fill out your Fang. It's time to vote on who they'll be! It'll be a Plan Vote, where everyone gets three choices. And, of course, write-ins are welcome!

[ ] A haunted-looking Leedal scion with a giant axe.
[ ] A jaunty Tepet with a lute and a ferocious temper.
[ ] A flowery Cynis with hook swords and a heart of gold.
[ ] A Cathak scion in full military regalia (minus one horse).
[ ] A Peleps gourmand who brought their entire kitchen and pantry.
[ ] Literally Mnemon Tehou, furious that you ran off.
[ ] A sharp-eyed V'neef with a long spear and not a hair out of place.
[ ] A kind-hearted Ragara with moxie and empty pockets.
[ ] Write-in.

Click to shrink...

 

[Kymme]

You wait with Eresa. Shadows creep higher up the walls of the bailey as the sun sinks lower and lower in the West. The rain and clouds have abated and blue fills the gap of sky overhead.

The House of Bells is ringing.

It is a gentle sound at first, echoing in the gaps between the long stone buildings, but soon the cacophony crests like a wave and the air is filled with sound heavy enough to feel. It hums inside your chest like a second pulse, presses against your ears and eyes like warm, soft water.

The ringing dies down, carrying on in echoing cascades for almost a minute. Beside you Eresa whistles, impressed. "Y'think that happens every night? Seems like overkill to me."

A part of you wants to agree. In primary school an evening chime signaled the end of free hours and called the students to dinner. If this is the House of Bells' version of that practice, then it certainly puts your previous institution to shame. Perhaps the sheer magnitude of the call serves a purpose all its own, reaching out across the entire campus and keeping everyone on the same schedule. Today, it'll serve as a powerful indicator to the cadets currently pushing through the forests and swamps and plains - that the House of Bells is here, and it's waiting for them. All it asks is their haste.

You cast a glance over at 'Six Feathers,' the instructor who received you so rudely. He's not a particularly assuming figure. The topknot and the cut of his cloak make him seem somewhat antiquated, and his long bare wrists and sharp, open neckline accentuate his willowy form. The way he purses his lips to a point while he reads completes his birdlike air. His impassive eyes flick towards you and you turn your attention elsewhere.

Eresa is sitting now, legs folded and back against the barracks wall. His pack drapes around him, partially disassembled as he rummages through it. He fishes out a book and lays it in his lap. Pasiap and the Dragon-Horse. Eresa traces his hand up a horsehair bookmark and splits the book open. You crane your head over, touching your chin to your shoulder to peek at the writing. The prose is simple, vaguely historical accounts of the early Shogunate. You spot Pasiap's name - the book treats him as a character, but doesn't ascribe him any great mystical significance. You'd think he was just another Dragon-Blooded, wise and strong and brave, instead of a transcendent elemental bodhisattva. It's…

Now, I know this is a combat academy and all, but religion is important to Dragon-Blooded! Or, at least, it's somewhat important. We know Rineera looks to the Dragons for guidance, but how devout is she?

[ ] ...fascinating. You imagine any really devout Immaculate would click their tongue in disapproval of this 'interpretation' of Pasiap, but you don't really care. It's not really The Five Dragons you care about - it's the living godhood of the Dragon-Blooded, which they've held since time immemorial and the Age of the Anathema. The Immaculate Dragons, splendid as they are, were just Dragon-Blooded like you. This book's portrayal is a fascinating departure.

[ ] ...insulting. Pasiap, Mela, Hesiesh, Daana'd, and Sextes Jylis weren't historical figures - they were living incarnations of the Elemental Dragons, gods in physical form that every Dragon-Blooded should seek to emulate. It is their existence and eminence that lends the Dragon-Blooded Host their power and their station. It is through their Perfected Hierarchy that the Exalted can achieve their heights of glory. This book's portrayal is an insulting sacrilege.

Click to shrink...

You're about to say something to Eresa when you hear the shouting. Someone is charging up the earthen causeway to the gates. They blast into sight with a triumphant cry and you recognize them - they're the fully-armored Cathak child who nearly trampled you with their horse. They've arrived, horseless, but still just as fully armored as before. The Cathak mons shines on the long rectangular flag affixed to his back, and metal plates curling from their helmet form the High Realm character for comet. Tongues of fire lick out from mesh-covered eyeholes.

"Yes! Haha!" The young man's manic laugh continues as he unstraps his helmet and rests it in the crook of his arm. Beneath his ominous buglike helm the Cathak boy is wide-eyed and sharp-toothed, blond hair streaked with black. He shakes what seems like an entire chimney's worth of soot from his helmet, laughter never ceasing.

The young man turns with his entire chest, scanning the courtyard. He stomps over to Six Feathers and slams his free hand down on the table. "Cadet Cathak Furian, reporting!"

Six Feathers sets down his book and cracks open the ledger-tome. "Cathak? You're cadet number eighteen." The instructor gives Furian the same instructions he gave you, and the bright-eyed young man accepts each and every one with a nod and an emphatic 'yes sir!' Once the instructor is finished Furian steps back and bows to him, before turning on his heel and walking straight up to you.

Furian offers you a plunging bow, deep enough that his polearm and the flagpole mounted on his back scrape against the wall over your head. "Hello! I've been informed that we have been assigned to the same unit! As your Fangmate it is only proper that I apologize to you for…" He pauses for a moment, maintaining his stiff bow. "...nearly trampling you with my horse. I am terribly sorry." His animated and even voice nearly masks his imposing Daoshin accent, all rolled rs and hissing fs. From the way he talks you'd figure that he's hiding the battle-worn body of a lifelong legionnaire under that armor.

...is that red jade? You quirk an eyebrow and quickly survey his armor. His torso is enclosed by a boxlike cuirass of lamellar plates bound together with thick black cording. Magic radiates from the suit, balmy against your skin. The last bits of moisture clinging to your robes quickly evaporates. Battle armor like this isn't terribly unexpected - Cathak is a military House just like yours, and it would be totally remiss to not give its scions every tool they need to succeed, but to fully enclose one of their untested youths in a legion commission's worth of fire-in-stone is irresponsible. Either Cathak is swimming in artifacts, or -

Furian coughs into his hand, politely imploring you to say something. His poise is admirable, but he's beginning to strain against the weight of his armor. A thought comes to you: this young man is the eighteenth cadet to arrive, out of one hundred and forty First Years. He lost his horse, at some point, and on foot managed to haul himself and his entire panoply to the House of Bells at least two hours before sunset. He's far from untested.

You match his bow, hands on the front of your thighs. "I accept your apology, Cathak Furian." Straightening, you introduce yourself. "It pleases me to meet you officially. My name is Sesus Rineera."

Furian lugs himself upright, crossing his arms over his chest. He beams and you take a better look at his face. Furian is the picture of a boyish youth, from his thick black eyebrows to his rosy cheeks and wide smile, filled with childish delight. He reminds you of your male classmates in the first years of Primary School, before the looming spectre of Exaltation turned them to viciousness and pride. A smile creeps across your lips as you cast your memories back to those days.

You make small talk with Furian for a while.

---------

The nineteenth arrival strides through the House of Bells' open gates flanked by two giant, blue-grey bubbles. He's clad in a thin tunic over a high-belted skirt that girds his loins, leaving his long, athletic legs exposed. His clothing is simple in design but incredibly vibrant in color, deep blues and blacks accented with bright white stitching. The straight black hair that drapes down his back like sways with every step as he crosses the yard to Instructor Six Feathers. The boy introduces himself as Peleps Sesshuo. His accent is Radimeli, smooth and relaxed, the kind of accent an actor might use to distinguish a 'dashing swashbuckler' from a 'murderous pirate.'

Sesshuo's… entire deal isn't the kind of thing that gets you swooning, but you can tell by the way Cathak Furian's gauntleted fingers drum on his helmet that it's having some effect. His ruddy complexion might hide the red rising in his face, but he can't do anything to hide that nervous warmth. Before they learn any of Hesiesh's temperance, Fire Aspects are pretty much open books.

Sesshuo doesn't introduce himself immediately. Once he's done checking in with the Instructor he finds a clear patch of the bailey. His two bubbles float along with him like well-trained dogs, and he coaxes them closer to the ground. He dismisses them with a 'pop' and in their places sit two stacks of boxes and… pots and pans? Looking closer you see what looks like the contents of an entire household's kitchen and larder gathered into two neat piles.

You watch, bewildered, as Sesshuo fastidiously picks through his equipment. The audacity of bringing along this much gear, and the apparent ease with which he did so, has you reeling. Can he afford to be so impractical? Where are his weapons, his other equipment? You've heard countless stories of the brutality of the House of Bells, but you've never heard of them starving cadets.

Having completed his once-over, Sesshuo stands up and holds his hands out to his two piles of supplies. The blue-gray bubbles reappear, enveloping the supplies before rising into the air. Sesshuo rubs his hands together, clearly pleased with himself, and then turns and regards Eresa, Furian, and you with a handsome smile. Furian averts his eyes, turning away and holding one of his red gauntlets over his face like a horse-blinder.

"Something the matter, Furian?" You say, mock-innocent.

"Oh, nothing!" Furian's grin never wavers, but his eyes are pleading. "Feeling a little hot all the sudden, you know?"

"You Cathaks are prone to burning up, aren't you?" You say, putting a hand on Furian's shoulder and pulling yourself past him. "What's that old saying about our Houses? Cathak is the fire…" You turn your back to him and make your way to Sesshuo. "And Sesus is the smoke."

You drift across the bailey towards Sesshuo, who sees you coming and meets you halfway. His eyes flick down to your robes and peasant sandals and the smug look he gives you fills your mouth with cotton. It's every bit of dismissive, slightly-amused scorn you dreaded when you stepped out of your carriage with Eresa at the hunting lodge. It's the condescension of a superior approached by an inferior.

You gulp it down and look him in the eye.

"My name is Sesus Rineera, and it looks like we're going to be Fangmates here." All his gaze demands is your composure. "You're Peleps Sesshuo. I'm pleased to meet you."

"Well met, Sesus Rineera." Sesshuo says, accent dragging out the long vowel of your name.

The two of you blink at each other, the silence after your initial greeting growing longer and longer.

"What's your favorite dish?" Sesshuo asks.

"Pardon?"

"Your favorite dish." His eyes glint with curious light. "You're from Chanos, I'm sure. Up there they've got a thousand different salmon dishes. Are you fond of lox? I've heard they're often served on flatbread in those cold northern ports. Or is beef more to your liking? I've heard that the fresh steaks they cook in Juche are to die for. In the Imperial City there is a breed of tamed boar called six-tusks. They say the rib-meat, smoked for a day and a night, melts from breath alone. In Voice-of-the-Tides Prefecture--"

Sesshuo continues to extoll the delicacies of the Blessed Isle. Head-cheese rendered from the skulls of ox-dragons, soft snakemeat from lake-encircling pythons, seasoned lotus-seeds grown on holy lakes. He paces around you, and his bubbles follow in his wake. You spot your reflection in one of the opaque bubbles, and you don't like what you see. Black hair mussed, face haggard, robes stained by dried mud and sweat. Outermost robe stitched with the characters of a child's first attempt at a poem. An embarrassment.

"--incredibly delicious. Or-" Sesshuo flicks his eyes down to your robe and grins wryly. "-is deer more to your liking?"

He's talking about your robe. Of course he is. He's testing your composure. Taking the measure of your will.

He won't find you wanting.

You laugh. "I've had many wonderful meals in my life, Peleps Sesshuo, but my favorites have always been the ones I hunted myself." You readjust your bow and quiver.

Sesshuo smiles. You think you passed his test, whatever it was.

You introduce Sesshuo to Eresa and Furian. The boys seem to defer to you somewhat - either picking up on the dynamic between yourself and Eresa or simply deferring to you because of your natural womanly authority. You don't really care which.

And then the ground begins to rumble and the twentieth cadet arrives.

She walks straight in, stiff-legged and blank-faced. Her dark skin and hair contrasts with the long white tabard and robe she wears, adorned on the front with the blue mons of House Ledaal. Her eyes are dark, nearly black, but flash with streaks of white like light catching on the facets of a jewel. She props a massive double-bitted axe across her shoulders like a porter's yoke and carries a small satchel loosely in her right hand.

She steps into the bailey and immediately turns to face Instructor Six Feathers. "Brace yourself."

The Ledaal girl takes a half step to the left just as nearly twenty young Dragon-Blooded burst into the bailey, pushing and shoving, each ablaze with the fires of Essence. The conflux of power creates a multicolored explosion that washes through the air and breaks against the stone walls like water against cliffs. You've seen worse in primary school. The explosion washes over you harmlessly, for the anima of a Dragon cannot harm their kin.

You do take a step towards your 'Fangmates,' making to usher them away from the pack of rampaging cadets. Even now cadets twenty-one through forty-five are still fighting one another, jostling for position or making claims about who arrived before whom.

Then Instructor Six Feathers stands and raises his hands towards the crowd. "Children," he intones, each syllable crashing from his lips like a dragon's roar, "arrange yourselves in an orderly fashion." Twinning antlers of green essence spin from his brow and light flashes in the palm of his outstretched hands. The ground shudders and suddenly the thin and yellow grass of the yard rises in great green coils. The jostling cadets are seized by their ankles and dragged across the bailey, deposited in five neat rows of five.

Six Feather's eyes, bright green with reptilian slits, rotate to look at the Ledaal girl. "You. Get over here." He swings his left hand around and the cloying once-grass pulls her along the ground up to his table. Then the light dissipates, the antlers uncoil, and the grass returns to normal. The atmosphere of the bailey, charged with verdant essence, begins to relax.

You let out your breath with a sigh. Such power! You can scarcely imagine what other feats of manipulation a full-blown Instructor might be capable of, when roused to action.

The cadets, manhandled as they were, remain silent and orderly, casting glances sidelong at the other cadets in their rows.

"Well, looks like this place filled up quickly!" Cathak Furian beams across the crowd.

"I suppose so," Eresa says, arms folded. "I didn't really expect to beat the bottleneck, you know? It's strange."

"Nonsense!" Sesshuo steps between them, casting his arms about Eresa and Furian's shoulders. "You arrived before Furian and I, didn't you? Don't downplay your achievement."

Eresa acquiesces with a shrug.
You turn to face the approaching Ledaal cadet, offering her a short bow which she returns. "You're Sesus Rineera, aren't you?" She asks flatly.

"I am she." She knows you? You certainly don't know her. Eyes like her's cannot be forgotten easily. "I hadn't expected my reputation to precede me."

"My cousin, Ledaal Torein Minel, was a classmate of yours. He's attending the Cloister of Wisdom, but he informed me with certainty that you'd be here."

"Ah, I see." Minel? That burly know-it-all? You remember him as a vague collection of trivia about the history of the Immaculate Order, all proper grammar and honorifics and awkward references to his favorite passages of the Texts. You recall the particular fondness he held for the story of the Empress and the Mouth of Peace, of their meeting in the Garden of Eyes and how the Empress only bowed once in her life and bluh bluh bluh.

This is his cousin? They look nothing alike. Minel was pale as chalk, with white eyes and hair. He was tall and broad-chested, while this Ledaal girl is shorter than you.

She extends her hand in a much more informal greeting, still flat-voiced and stiff. "I am Ledaal Adrienne Kashel. It's good to meet you."

You take her hand and shake it. Her skin is smooth like polished marble. "I'm glad to have you as a Fangmate, Ledaal Kashel." You say, projecting your best aura of authority and confidence.

-----

You and your motley Fang are guided by Instructor Six Feathers to head into the First Year barracks building - a sweeping four-storied hall opening on an internal courtyard nearly twice the size of the bailey you'd previously occupied. Your Fang is introduced to your assigned servant: a young Wan woman named Rime Creek. She shows the five of you to your chambers, and what you see leaves you all aghast.

In Primary School you'd had an entire room of yourself, large enough to fit a comfortable bed and all the necessary accommodations of a growing Dynastic youth. The yawning, doorless portal you and your four Fangmates are confronted with opens to reveal a small chamber with five high shelves, one for each of you. A small cot is tucked into one corner, and one wall is dominated by a large wash basin with an internal drain, along with several pegs from which five tin buckets hang. On the bottom of each shelf sits a legionnaire's kit, and legionnaire's fatigues and armor sit on small racks on the middle shelves. Another doorless portal punctuates the far wall, and the room on the other side contains five cots: four stacked in bunks and one free-standing bed, under a shuttered window.

Sesshuo breaks the stunned silence. "I call one of the top bunks!" He sweeps past you all, picking a shelf at random and coaxing his bubbles to drop their cargo there, and leaps up into one of the bunks.

Of course a Peleps would try to seem adventurous.

"There must be some kind of mistake." You step forward, looking around the accommodations. There are no doors. Why are there no doors?

Cathak Furian steps forward cautiously. "These are definitely barracks. They're very similar to the Myion-style they use back home! How fascinating!"

Eresa totally deflates. "I'll take the other top bunk." He steps around Furian and carefully places his pack down on one of the free shelves.

One by one your companions settle in, with Rime Creek patiently answering their questions. You are left alone with your thoughts, taking in these sparse accommodations. Your stomach grumbles and your body is heavy and sluggish. You find the last empty shelf and place your things down on its second shelf. You look down at your clothes and wonder if you ought to throw on a legionnaire dressing-gown right now and consign these useless silks to sitting on a shelf for seven years, but those thoughts drip like water from your mind.

Your Fangmates left you the cot by the window. You sit down, back facing the shutters, and close your eyes.

Rineera is probably going to pass out from exhaustion at some point. At some point later tonight, once all the First Year cadets are accounted for, a meal will be served in the courtyard to everyone. During that time, which of her Fangmates will Rin speak with?

[ ] Nellens Eresa.
[ ] Cathak Furian.
[ ] Peleps Sesshuo.
[ ] Ledaal Kashel.

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