Not human, so don't expect them to act like they are.
Bunraku (Samurai Mecha Quest)
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Original
X. Summer
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
X. Summer
Drop by drop, red stains the grass under Iron Raven's knees.
You open the battered hatch of your bunraku and step out, your legs wobbling underneath you. You fall more than you descend from its chest, your whole body aching. Closer to the ground, the battlefield feels too close, too real. Dead bodies and broken spears litter the flank of the hill beneath the palisade; the stench of death is thick in the air and you gag as you take your first breath of outside air. The white scarves the bandits used as insigna hang from their bodies, billowing in the wind, every last one stained with red. For one moment it looks like a field of lilies. Heavens, how many have died today? How many have you killed?
Your hand touches your side to draw your sword, but finds nothing; you mutter a curse as you remember that your daisho was lost on the battlefield of Autumn, and that you have only your spear. And none of the dead bandits will have a true sword, nor will Shidao and his men - brave soldiers but commoners still.
You walk the distance that separates you from the bandits' leader and he does not react at first, his beaked mask staring at the ground. When you stand within a foot of him, he looks up - glass lenses cover his eyes; even up close you cannot see his features. Half of his chest is drenched in red, and his left arm hangs limply from his shoulder - the man has not long to live.
You extend your arm and open your hand, staring coldly at him. For a moment he simply stares - then you hear a low chuckle and his good hand takes his katana by the blade, holding it out for you hilt-first. You take the sword, examining it - it is a work of excellent craftsmanship, ill-treated by the years; you can see the marks of chipping and hasty reforging along the blade. It glints with a blue-black tinge, not unlike a crow's feathers.
"Where do you come from?" You ask, swinging the blade through the air to test its balance.
"I was born… In the Land of Hundred Rivers," the ronin says haltingly, every breath a struggle. "A servant to Lord Koi, until his… Defeat and my desertion."
"You were a samurai. Summer is within a day's walk. You could have found a new master, retained honor and status. Why?"
The same low chuckle again. "In a world without Heavens, the dragons have no place demanding our service. Ravens feast on dead bodies. This Empire may pretend differently to itself, but it is broken and dead, and so I chose to feast on it. "
You take position behind Iron Raven, who does not react. With his blade you brush his neck, measuring your blow. You feel little pity for the renegade, but you have shed so much blood today; you stall, if only for another sentence.
"Any last words?" You ask. For a second, there is silence, broken only by the pained, ragged breathing of the ronin.
"When the rest of the Mendicant Blades have brought down your toy," he says finally, "tell them you granted me a good death. They will do the same."
You raise the blade.
There is a sound like a knife parting a sheet of silk, and then the gushing of a river in spring.
You pull the beam with all of Harvest's considerable strength, and it moves almost as you wanted it to, if more slowly and heavily. But as soon as you try taking it out of the ruins, something pulls right back. You pull and pull, and the collapsed fort groans, the glow intensifies, and the beam slips back into the wreckage.
Magic. Damnable magic is at fault, that much is obvious. The closer you get to the place where is buried the relic, the more the fort resists you.
"If Harvest was at full strength I could do it," you say to Shidao as he watches you work, "but not with that kind of damage. I only have half strength in one arm, and I'm having trouble getting the legs to support properly."
The man nods, rubbing his short beard with a doubtful look. "We'll have to return and report failure. But with that bandit attack - and our victory over them - our master will be more kindly inclined, I hope."
You nod, and step away from the glowing ruins. They shift behind your back, wood moving against wood and vines creeping up like a spider's web, and you can almost feel them mocking you. But there's nothing to be done about it for now.
That night the soldiers bury seven more of Shidao's men, tend to their wounded, and share a frugal meal with you. In the morning you set out as a group of tired, but victorious warriors; Harvest's towering silhouette brings confidence in their hearts, and they banter among themselves while occasionally throwing awed glances at your walking giant. You quip back at them once or twice, but your heart is not in it, and they sense it; they avoid addressing you directly.
The motley lands around you soon coalesce into a continuous whole of fertile soil, and you soon spot small settlements amidst the watery fields of rice plantations. Peasants stop in their work as you pass, eyes following your bunraku for a moment, until they are reassured that you are not some enemy come to destroy what life they've built here.
On the horizon you see a shape you first mistake for a bird, but soon you realize it is a ship; three masts sport flat horizontal sails, umbrella-like, as it drifts along the winds towards the city. The tales of Summer's magic were not exaggerated, then. Soon you see white walls in the distance, shining under the sun as if they had been freshly painted, and great standards surrounding the city gate, sporting the mon of the city under that of its lord: an eye whose pupil is three stars.
The closer you get to the doors, the more people you see. Merchants with their carriages, farmers taking cattle to the market, soldiers back from patrol, all trickle in steadily through the gate. The sight of your armor draws looks and whispers, and commoners part before you. Thanks to Shidao, you do not have to concern yourself with entrance into the city, as he takes care of formalities at the gate.
The city of Summer is… Too much for you to take in right now. Before you've realized it you've closed the hatch of your bunraku, its claustrophobic interior a protection against the sounds, the smells, the sights that surround you. You're too tired, too fresh off two bloody battles. You close yourself to the world and look only through Harvest's eyes. The old sergeant looks at you, and you think you see recognition in his eyes, perhaps sympathy. He leads you through the city one step at a time.
Summer smells of fish and rice and cooking wheat flour, it smells of cattle musk and a distant hint of rosewater. It does not smell of filth or manure or decay, of the press of human bodies and its sweat and its bile. This is the first thing that surprises you, but as you follow the smells your eyes rest upon small blue lanterns hanging from roofs at crossroads and emanating a faint smoke. Magic again, then. What divine arrogance is it to dedicate such power to making one's city a lie, to pretend that the stench of life does not exist? You have spent too much time on battlefields - Summer's fragrance is more disturbing than it is pleasant to you.
The city is too ordered as well. There should be sprawling slums outside its pristine walls, a mass of poor commoners building without a care to be closer to wealth and power. The outer districts through which you're walking should be messy, disorganized, houses piling in upon themselves to occupy every square inch of terrain, but instead the streets are wide, brown wooden shacks cleanly divided, every stone building bleached to clean whiteness. The soldiers are too few, but too well-armed; their armors shine with recent polish, the steel of their spears is of high quality. You spot samurai wearing daisho and elegant robes who stop when they do not recognize your bunraku, and you hear Shidao muttering explanations without quite understanding everything. Summer's dialect has a southern accent to it, its delivery is too fast even as the words drag on with extra syllables; you need to focus to actually follow it. Then the samurai move away, never addressing you. For now at least you are a ronin still, disgraced and unworthy of discussion.
Footfall. Hawking merchants. Sizzling dough. Marching soldiers. The rippling sound of string instruments played by street musicians. Then it fades - you move to quiet streets. The sounds become men and women chatting, wooden swords striking each other in a nearby dojo, water running in expensive gardens. A rake on stone. A sword being sheathed. Two old men chatting as they play a game of shogi. Then the sound breaks out again, a mass of people shouting, chatting, moving to and fro, soldiers giving orders, taunts, threats, laughs, street venders pulling rackety carts on the ground to tempt guards with a treat in the boredom of their watch.
You look up from the road and it is there. The Palace of Summer. Its vast central building towers above you, its two wings unfold as if to smother, deep blue and gold pillars stand as testaments of steadfastness and ostentatious wealth. Short, twisting trees spill from the gardens to show the crowd that cannot enter its walls how it is a place of bountiful wealth. Roofs curve and rise like the sea in a storm; you see figures leaning from windows to stare down at you. Blue lanterns drink in stench and smoke out fragrance. Autumn's palace was larger, but this one is more… Polished. Adorned. Its wealth is condensed into a smaller format. The garden wall is monitored by footmen, their spears adorned with blue and gold tassels and their chestplates bearing the mon of the dragon, but beyond this you can see the path of stone and the gates of the palace itself framed by two bunraku.
Rising Tide frames, currently occupied - their facemasks turn to face you the moment you appear at the gate. One bears the semblance of a roaring dragon, the other is a blank slate save for three stars. Blue and white and gold, sword at their side. To have two puppeteers simply stand guard all day is a testament of true power and authority, and you feel a pang of compassion for the two men locked in their cramped hatches for hours on end. Guided by Shidao, you walk along the stone path until one of the two puppets steps forward, the star-faced one.
"Ronin?" asks a woman's voice as the blank face eyes you up and down and sees no standard on you.
"Hopefully not for much longer," you say.
"Ah! You are welcome to enter, ronin, as long as you swear to abide by the laws of hospitality. I will swear in turn to watch over your armor while you are inside."
You bow lightly. "Thank you," you say, and step off the path; you bring Harvest to its knee and exit the hatch, rubbing your aching limbs. You notice that the puppeteer did not address Shidao at all, although the man does not look offended; he is likely used to seeing samurai dismiss him and talk to other of their kind rather than lowly soldiers, even when this samurai is a ronin without a rank. You check that your new daisho is firmly set in your belt, then take a heavy cloth bundle from Harvest's hip, and fall in steps with the sergeant.
There are more talks between soldiers, you take winding paths to avoid the main arteries of movement through the castle; Shidao's men salute him and leave for barrack rooms - it would not be proper for a band of wounded, filthy soldiers to disturb the resident nobles on their way. You come to think that you will not see Summer's lord for now, that you will instead make your report to some officer in some military chamber somewhere in the castle - but no. Before you have time to fully realize it you turn a corner and you are there.
Frescoes surround you depicting the glory of Heavens. Lazy clouds stretching over blue skies, flocks of swallows and singing nightingales; on the ceiling and the far wall the darkness of night littered with constellations, and the golden city floating on a cloud. A hundred men and women in kimono sit cross-legged on the floor, all facing the same direction, while a dozen favored servants sit in two rows, facing each other; and across a gulf of space, sitting alone on a raised tatami, is a man forever young, handsome features cast out of alabaster, hair the color of the night sky, kimono of blue and gold, on his head a black, conical hat that inclines backwards as sole testament of his true status. He looks at you as you enter, and you feel a wave of pressure on you, you can hear your heartbeat in your skull, you almost falter. Then he smiles, and Shidao urges you forward; you move through the seated men until you are in the empty space between the two rows of advisors who eye you suspiciously, and Shidao and you kneel.
The dragon-lord of Summer, He-Who-Reads-The-Stars, looks down at you from his raised floor, and his eyes shine inhumanly, stars in a night sky, bright dots in black irisless pupils.
"O musician," he speaks in a voice that has all the singing accents of a chanting priest, "sing the hymns of joy, tell the story of the daughter returned; for do I not today find a lost daughter? Tomoe, Tomoe, in the last days of the old world you played in the imperial gardens, catching butterflies in your hands; your father was happy and your mother was proud. I remember her face as if it were yesterday, I remember her silent and solemn look as she sat alone in the shrine and burned the incense. For what is a good life if not one spent in reverence to Heaven? Tomoe, Tomoe, you are a daughter returned."
The lord turns to Shidao, and you see a shiver pass on the man's arms.
"And you, faithful Shidao, faithful but struggling. I do not see the Heart's glow on you; have you failed me again? Ah, but you bring me sweet Tomoe; a relic lost, a daughter gained, life is not without its trades. And what is this I see in my daughter's hands? A gift, perhaps, salt and rice for an invited guest?"
You take the bundle of cloth and present it forward; one of the favored servants rises and takes it from your hands.
"The salt and rice of war, my lord," you say, voice quivering slightly. "The defeat of your enemies."
The cloth unraveled, Iron Raven's glassy eyes stare at the ceiling, his mouth open in a last unasked question. Perhaps his grey hair and beard were the reason for his mask, a fear to let his men know that he was already too old. Perhaps it was kindness to spare him the decay of age.
Then again, perhaps not.
"Ah, the head of my enemies presented to me by victorious servants. What greater pleasure may there be in this life - save the contemplation of Heaven and the will of Fate? Tell me, then. Tell me the story of your victory, and who was this man whose life so offended me you chose to take his head in my name."
You look at Shidao and he looks back, not daring to speak. As a samurai, it should fall to you to make the report and receive honor and favor for your victory, and it would be a good way to assert your presence in this court. But as a ronin, you are not technically Lord Summer's servant yet, and Shidao thus outranks you; it should fall to him to mitigate the failure of his original mission by explaining the bandit attack. You are not sure Lord Summer cares either way, but the rest of his court will.
[ ]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
[ ]Let Shidao make the report. (Increased reputation among Summer's common soldiers.)
Drop by drop, red stains the grass under Iron Raven's knees.
You open the battered hatch of your bunraku and step out, your legs wobbling underneath you. You fall more than you descend from its chest, your whole body aching. Closer to the ground, the battlefield feels too close, too real. Dead bodies and broken spears litter the flank of the hill beneath the palisade; the stench of death is thick in the air and you gag as you take your first breath of outside air. The white scarves the bandits used as insigna hang from their bodies, billowing in the wind, every last one stained with red. For one moment it looks like a field of lilies. Heavens, how many have died today? How many have you killed?
Your hand touches your side to draw your sword, but finds nothing; you mutter a curse as you remember that your daisho was lost on the battlefield of Autumn, and that you have only your spear. And none of the dead bandits will have a true sword, nor will Shidao and his men - brave soldiers but commoners still.
You walk the distance that separates you from the bandits' leader and he does not react at first, his beaked mask staring at the ground. When you stand within a foot of him, he looks up - glass lenses cover his eyes; even up close you cannot see his features. Half of his chest is drenched in red, and his left arm hangs limply from his shoulder - the man has not long to live.
You extend your arm and open your hand, staring coldly at him. For a moment he simply stares - then you hear a low chuckle and his good hand takes his katana by the blade, holding it out for you hilt-first. You take the sword, examining it - it is a work of excellent craftsmanship, ill-treated by the years; you can see the marks of chipping and hasty reforging along the blade. It glints with a blue-black tinge, not unlike a crow's feathers.
"Where do you come from?" You ask, swinging the blade through the air to test its balance.
"I was born… In the Land of Hundred Rivers," the ronin says haltingly, every breath a struggle. "A servant to Lord Koi, until his… Defeat and my desertion."
"You were a samurai. Summer is within a day's walk. You could have found a new master, retained honor and status. Why?"
The same low chuckle again. "In a world without Heavens, the dragons have no place demanding our service. Ravens feast on dead bodies. This Empire may pretend differently to itself, but it is broken and dead, and so I chose to feast on it. "
You take position behind Iron Raven, who does not react. With his blade you brush his neck, measuring your blow. You feel little pity for the renegade, but you have shed so much blood today; you stall, if only for another sentence.
"Any last words?" You ask. For a second, there is silence, broken only by the pained, ragged breathing of the ronin.
"When the rest of the Mendicant Blades have brought down your toy," he says finally, "tell them you granted me a good death. They will do the same."
You raise the blade.
There is a sound like a knife parting a sheet of silk, and then the gushing of a river in spring.
***
You pull the beam with all of Harvest's considerable strength, and it moves almost as you wanted it to, if more slowly and heavily. But as soon as you try taking it out of the ruins, something pulls right back. You pull and pull, and the collapsed fort groans, the glow intensifies, and the beam slips back into the wreckage.
Magic. Damnable magic is at fault, that much is obvious. The closer you get to the place where is buried the relic, the more the fort resists you.
"If Harvest was at full strength I could do it," you say to Shidao as he watches you work, "but not with that kind of damage. I only have half strength in one arm, and I'm having trouble getting the legs to support properly."
The man nods, rubbing his short beard with a doubtful look. "We'll have to return and report failure. But with that bandit attack - and our victory over them - our master will be more kindly inclined, I hope."
You nod, and step away from the glowing ruins. They shift behind your back, wood moving against wood and vines creeping up like a spider's web, and you can almost feel them mocking you. But there's nothing to be done about it for now.
That night the soldiers bury seven more of Shidao's men, tend to their wounded, and share a frugal meal with you. In the morning you set out as a group of tired, but victorious warriors; Harvest's towering silhouette brings confidence in their hearts, and they banter among themselves while occasionally throwing awed glances at your walking giant. You quip back at them once or twice, but your heart is not in it, and they sense it; they avoid addressing you directly.
The motley lands around you soon coalesce into a continuous whole of fertile soil, and you soon spot small settlements amidst the watery fields of rice plantations. Peasants stop in their work as you pass, eyes following your bunraku for a moment, until they are reassured that you are not some enemy come to destroy what life they've built here.
On the horizon you see a shape you first mistake for a bird, but soon you realize it is a ship; three masts sport flat horizontal sails, umbrella-like, as it drifts along the winds towards the city. The tales of Summer's magic were not exaggerated, then. Soon you see white walls in the distance, shining under the sun as if they had been freshly painted, and great standards surrounding the city gate, sporting the mon of the city under that of its lord: an eye whose pupil is three stars.
The closer you get to the doors, the more people you see. Merchants with their carriages, farmers taking cattle to the market, soldiers back from patrol, all trickle in steadily through the gate. The sight of your armor draws looks and whispers, and commoners part before you. Thanks to Shidao, you do not have to concern yourself with entrance into the city, as he takes care of formalities at the gate.
The city of Summer is… Too much for you to take in right now. Before you've realized it you've closed the hatch of your bunraku, its claustrophobic interior a protection against the sounds, the smells, the sights that surround you. You're too tired, too fresh off two bloody battles. You close yourself to the world and look only through Harvest's eyes. The old sergeant looks at you, and you think you see recognition in his eyes, perhaps sympathy. He leads you through the city one step at a time.
Summer smells of fish and rice and cooking wheat flour, it smells of cattle musk and a distant hint of rosewater. It does not smell of filth or manure or decay, of the press of human bodies and its sweat and its bile. This is the first thing that surprises you, but as you follow the smells your eyes rest upon small blue lanterns hanging from roofs at crossroads and emanating a faint smoke. Magic again, then. What divine arrogance is it to dedicate such power to making one's city a lie, to pretend that the stench of life does not exist? You have spent too much time on battlefields - Summer's fragrance is more disturbing than it is pleasant to you.
The city is too ordered as well. There should be sprawling slums outside its pristine walls, a mass of poor commoners building without a care to be closer to wealth and power. The outer districts through which you're walking should be messy, disorganized, houses piling in upon themselves to occupy every square inch of terrain, but instead the streets are wide, brown wooden shacks cleanly divided, every stone building bleached to clean whiteness. The soldiers are too few, but too well-armed; their armors shine with recent polish, the steel of their spears is of high quality. You spot samurai wearing daisho and elegant robes who stop when they do not recognize your bunraku, and you hear Shidao muttering explanations without quite understanding everything. Summer's dialect has a southern accent to it, its delivery is too fast even as the words drag on with extra syllables; you need to focus to actually follow it. Then the samurai move away, never addressing you. For now at least you are a ronin still, disgraced and unworthy of discussion.
Footfall. Hawking merchants. Sizzling dough. Marching soldiers. The rippling sound of string instruments played by street musicians. Then it fades - you move to quiet streets. The sounds become men and women chatting, wooden swords striking each other in a nearby dojo, water running in expensive gardens. A rake on stone. A sword being sheathed. Two old men chatting as they play a game of shogi. Then the sound breaks out again, a mass of people shouting, chatting, moving to and fro, soldiers giving orders, taunts, threats, laughs, street venders pulling rackety carts on the ground to tempt guards with a treat in the boredom of their watch.
You look up from the road and it is there. The Palace of Summer. Its vast central building towers above you, its two wings unfold as if to smother, deep blue and gold pillars stand as testaments of steadfastness and ostentatious wealth. Short, twisting trees spill from the gardens to show the crowd that cannot enter its walls how it is a place of bountiful wealth. Roofs curve and rise like the sea in a storm; you see figures leaning from windows to stare down at you. Blue lanterns drink in stench and smoke out fragrance. Autumn's palace was larger, but this one is more… Polished. Adorned. Its wealth is condensed into a smaller format. The garden wall is monitored by footmen, their spears adorned with blue and gold tassels and their chestplates bearing the mon of the dragon, but beyond this you can see the path of stone and the gates of the palace itself framed by two bunraku.
Rising Tide frames, currently occupied - their facemasks turn to face you the moment you appear at the gate. One bears the semblance of a roaring dragon, the other is a blank slate save for three stars. Blue and white and gold, sword at their side. To have two puppeteers simply stand guard all day is a testament of true power and authority, and you feel a pang of compassion for the two men locked in their cramped hatches for hours on end. Guided by Shidao, you walk along the stone path until one of the two puppets steps forward, the star-faced one.
"Ronin?" asks a woman's voice as the blank face eyes you up and down and sees no standard on you.
"Hopefully not for much longer," you say.
"Ah! You are welcome to enter, ronin, as long as you swear to abide by the laws of hospitality. I will swear in turn to watch over your armor while you are inside."
You bow lightly. "Thank you," you say, and step off the path; you bring Harvest to its knee and exit the hatch, rubbing your aching limbs. You notice that the puppeteer did not address Shidao at all, although the man does not look offended; he is likely used to seeing samurai dismiss him and talk to other of their kind rather than lowly soldiers, even when this samurai is a ronin without a rank. You check that your new daisho is firmly set in your belt, then take a heavy cloth bundle from Harvest's hip, and fall in steps with the sergeant.
There are more talks between soldiers, you take winding paths to avoid the main arteries of movement through the castle; Shidao's men salute him and leave for barrack rooms - it would not be proper for a band of wounded, filthy soldiers to disturb the resident nobles on their way. You come to think that you will not see Summer's lord for now, that you will instead make your report to some officer in some military chamber somewhere in the castle - but no. Before you have time to fully realize it you turn a corner and you are there.
Frescoes surround you depicting the glory of Heavens. Lazy clouds stretching over blue skies, flocks of swallows and singing nightingales; on the ceiling and the far wall the darkness of night littered with constellations, and the golden city floating on a cloud. A hundred men and women in kimono sit cross-legged on the floor, all facing the same direction, while a dozen favored servants sit in two rows, facing each other; and across a gulf of space, sitting alone on a raised tatami, is a man forever young, handsome features cast out of alabaster, hair the color of the night sky, kimono of blue and gold, on his head a black, conical hat that inclines backwards as sole testament of his true status. He looks at you as you enter, and you feel a wave of pressure on you, you can hear your heartbeat in your skull, you almost falter. Then he smiles, and Shidao urges you forward; you move through the seated men until you are in the empty space between the two rows of advisors who eye you suspiciously, and Shidao and you kneel.
The dragon-lord of Summer, He-Who-Reads-The-Stars, looks down at you from his raised floor, and his eyes shine inhumanly, stars in a night sky, bright dots in black irisless pupils.
"O musician," he speaks in a voice that has all the singing accents of a chanting priest, "sing the hymns of joy, tell the story of the daughter returned; for do I not today find a lost daughter? Tomoe, Tomoe, in the last days of the old world you played in the imperial gardens, catching butterflies in your hands; your father was happy and your mother was proud. I remember her face as if it were yesterday, I remember her silent and solemn look as she sat alone in the shrine and burned the incense. For what is a good life if not one spent in reverence to Heaven? Tomoe, Tomoe, you are a daughter returned."
The lord turns to Shidao, and you see a shiver pass on the man's arms.
"And you, faithful Shidao, faithful but struggling. I do not see the Heart's glow on you; have you failed me again? Ah, but you bring me sweet Tomoe; a relic lost, a daughter gained, life is not without its trades. And what is this I see in my daughter's hands? A gift, perhaps, salt and rice for an invited guest?"
You take the bundle of cloth and present it forward; one of the favored servants rises and takes it from your hands.
"The salt and rice of war, my lord," you say, voice quivering slightly. "The defeat of your enemies."
The cloth unraveled, Iron Raven's glassy eyes stare at the ceiling, his mouth open in a last unasked question. Perhaps his grey hair and beard were the reason for his mask, a fear to let his men know that he was already too old. Perhaps it was kindness to spare him the decay of age.
Then again, perhaps not.
"Ah, the head of my enemies presented to me by victorious servants. What greater pleasure may there be in this life - save the contemplation of Heaven and the will of Fate? Tell me, then. Tell me the story of your victory, and who was this man whose life so offended me you chose to take his head in my name."
You look at Shidao and he looks back, not daring to speak. As a samurai, it should fall to you to make the report and receive honor and favor for your victory, and it would be a good way to assert your presence in this court. But as a ronin, you are not technically Lord Summer's servant yet, and Shidao thus outranks you; it should fall to him to mitigate the failure of his original mission by explaining the bandit attack. You are not sure Lord Summer cares either way, but the rest of his court will.
[ ]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
[ ]Let Shidao make the report. (Increased reputation among Summer's common soldiers.)
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notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[x]Let Shidao make the report. (Increased reputation among Summer's common soldiers.)
Don't want to leave the man out to dry.
Don't want to leave the man out to dry.
LinkOnScepter
The One who Strangles Concepts to death
- Location
- Interwebs
[x]Let Shidao make the report. (Increased reputation among Summer's common soldiers.)
- Location
- va
[x]Let Shidao make the report. (Increased reputation among Summer's common soldiers.)
Genon
Baron Awesomesauce the Magnificent
- Location
- Neptune
[X]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
As much as I want to let Shidao make the report, our lord is notoriously insane. This "refined" act he's doing may suggest wisdom and benevolence of a sort, but I'm 100% sure that this Dragon god's bad side is not a place we want to be. We need to shore up our reputation with him as fast as we can. The sooner he begins to value us, the sooner he won't just have us tortured to death for the slightest mistake. Hell, he might kill us right now for not getting the relic, and I'd rather minimize our chances by sticking to the conventions he so values.
As much as I want to let Shidao make the report, our lord is notoriously insane. This "refined" act he's doing may suggest wisdom and benevolence of a sort, but I'm 100% sure that this Dragon god's bad side is not a place we want to be. We need to shore up our reputation with him as fast as we can. The sooner he begins to value us, the sooner he won't just have us tortured to death for the slightest mistake. Hell, he might kill us right now for not getting the relic, and I'd rather minimize our chances by sticking to the conventions he so values.
Acatalepsy
Firewall Proxy
- Location
- The Diamond Age
[X]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
First, I think that our new overlord is going to be...unreliable. That means we need more friends in the nobility. The common soldier will respect us for who we are and what we are capable of. But here, now, we need to assert ourselves and show that we are more than some defeated ronin who has dragged herself before a dragon for lack of anything better to do (even if that is, basically, what we are).
Second, Shidao failed. We don't need to sugarcoat it. Maybe it's not his fault, maybe he doesn't deserved to be upstaged. But that doesn't matter; what matters is that he failed. Also, we saved him from probable destruction, so if nothing else he and his men owe us this chance to improve our standing.
First, I think that our new overlord is going to be...unreliable. That means we need more friends in the nobility. The common soldier will respect us for who we are and what we are capable of. But here, now, we need to assert ourselves and show that we are more than some defeated ronin who has dragged herself before a dragon for lack of anything better to do (even if that is, basically, what we are).
Second, Shidao failed. We don't need to sugarcoat it. Maybe it's not his fault, maybe he doesn't deserved to be upstaged. But that doesn't matter; what matters is that he failed. Also, we saved him from probable destruction, so if nothing else he and his men owe us this chance to improve our standing.
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DeepWaters
No one will be the wiser.
- Location
- Land of Spiders and Shipping Charts
[x]Let Shidao make the report. (Increased reputation among Summer's common soldiers.)
For the record: not playing along with the political games of the nobility means you're more likely to get shafted in the arena of politics, not less. That said, we've already proven ourselves more interested in honor than favor, and I like the narrative of the Emperor's own blood being an icon for commoners-- even discounting that the general who has the hearts of her soldiers is far more dangerous than the general who is the darling of the nobility.
For the record: not playing along with the political games of the nobility means you're more likely to get shafted in the arena of politics, not less. That said, we've already proven ourselves more interested in honor than favor, and I like the narrative of the Emperor's own blood being an icon for commoners-- even discounting that the general who has the hearts of her soldiers is far more dangerous than the general who is the darling of the nobility.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Well, actually that depends on the structure. In, say, the stereotypical feudal structure, having the backing of the nobility is how you *get* the soldiers in the first place.
However, this is some sort of Dragon-ocracy, so it's hard to tell where the power lies...I mean, besides the obvious, "in the dragon" statement.
DeepWaters
No one will be the wiser.
- Location
- Land of Spiders and Shipping Charts
True. We don't really know how things work here at all, politics-wise. Though, if you're popular enough, it doesn't matter how legitimate you are in the traditional social structure, and someone who has the blood of the Emperor is quite legitimate already.
That said, I was only pointing that out for the benefit of anyone who thinks picking the soldier option automatically means we won't have to play the political game. I'm making this decision solely on the basis of what kind of character Princess Tomoe is (at this point) and what kind of character I'd like her to be, nothing else. I get the feeling that's what this entire part's for, anyway; it doesn't seem like any truly wrong choices have been offered to us so far.
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Interlude: The Question of Empire
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interlude: The Question of Empire
Emperor Saga was already an old man by the time of Heaven's fall, but he was a leader of strong will who had earned the respect of his generals and the love of the common people. Healthy, he could have reigned for perhaps another decade, but with great foresight he had already begun to progressively phase power into the hands of his eldest daughter Famiko. If he had lived - if either had lived - the Empire would perhaps have managed to maintain stability in the face of disaster.
Alas, with the fall of Heaven came the Rain of Dead Stars. Fragments of the golden city fell burning through the skies of the Empire, and wherever they struck ground they raised fire and deadly smoke. One of these fragments hit the Imperial Palace, killing Emperor Saga, his daughter and heir, and a significant number of their most respected advisors. In theory, the crown should have followed the succession line to the son of Famiko, then a young and inexperienced man; fearing weak leadership in a situation of crisis, a cadre of samurai lords instead argued that because Famiko had died at the same time as her father, she had never reigned, and so could not pass on the crown, which ought to go to Saga's second child, his son Yahiko. Famiko's heir seemed at first fine with this arrangement, with little thirst for power, and so Yahiko took the throne. But in the months that followed, as the Heavenly Dragons descended upon the Empire and claimed lordship in several domains, the Genealogist of Heaven known as She-Who-Follows-The-Blood declared that this was an outrageous breach of ancient succession laws. She convinced Famiko's son to stand up and declare himself emperor, while she declared herself his regent. Soon, the Empire was split in two in the first Throne War.
Although Famiko's son was defeated and Yahiko confirmed himself as the true Emperor, the war had devastating consequences. Samurai lords ceased to see the dragons with wary hope that they might save the Empire from dissolution, and instead mistrusted them as greedy spirits desiring power as much as any of them. The question of whether the will of Heaven or the law of the Empire should dictate who would rule came to the fore for the first time, when they had always been considered synonymous before. And beyond this, various offsprings of the Imperial Line began to see the succession rules once considered ironclad as mere suggestions which could be bent or twisted if it served the good of the Empire. When Yahiko died in battle fighting the oni, this simmering cauldron of distrust imploded in the second Throne War, in which three claimants to the throne gathered thousands of samurai under their banner and went to war - the first time bunraku would be used against each other rather than against the Spirits of Ill Intent they had been designed to fight.
The Second Throne War lasted five years, and by the time it ended the succession line of the Imperial Throne had become a broken, blurred mess. Imperial descendants had married and divorced several times, begotten various bastards, had died and mysteriously reappeared, until there seemed to be no claimant to the throne who elicited more than a disbelieving scoff from samurai lords. The daimyo themselves had lost much in the wars and weakened themselves against hostile spirits, and so they shunned the question of who should rule the Empire, leaving it as a concern for scholars while they focused on their own domains. In this way, the Second Throne War led directly to the formation of the modern Empire, an Empire in name only divided between solitary enclaves which trust no outsider and rarely unite for any length of the time.
This is not to say that the claims over the Imperial Throne have ceased, not in the least. Many are those who seek in the title a form of legitimacy and a way to draw more soldiers and resources to their side. Small lords and even bandits have been numerous to call themselves the unknown son or daughter of a previous claimant, coming back now to claim their birthright. Only five claimants, however, hold any significant power and influence - and their disparate nature is a testament to the chaos that has befallen the Imperial Line, for only two of them are even human: one is the great-niece of Emperor Saga by his second sibling and one is a young warrior claiming to be the great-great-grandson of the Emperor and his last direct descendant, with very little to prove his origins. The other three are: a northern ghost who claims to be Saga's mother, the previous Empress, who has risen from the dead to fix the kingdom her son has allowed to fall so low; a Heavenly Dragon who has declared that since the Emperors only ruled as custodians of the land in the name of Heaven, it was in Heaven's right to claim that land and title back; and an oni lord whose claim to the title is that anyone who disagrees can come say it to their face.
As far as most daimyo are concerned, the question is irrelevant. The matter of who can sit on the Imperial Throne is a matter to be decided on cool heads, once the Empire is united again and war has ceased. This is to say - and almost all of them acknowlege this privately - that it is never to be, and that the Empire is doomed to never again be a single united kingdom, but merely an ideal tinted with nostalgia. Few are those who even imagine an end to war, and many are those who dread the idea of losing the independence of their little enclave.
Emperor Saga was already an old man by the time of Heaven's fall, but he was a leader of strong will who had earned the respect of his generals and the love of the common people. Healthy, he could have reigned for perhaps another decade, but with great foresight he had already begun to progressively phase power into the hands of his eldest daughter Famiko. If he had lived - if either had lived - the Empire would perhaps have managed to maintain stability in the face of disaster.
Alas, with the fall of Heaven came the Rain of Dead Stars. Fragments of the golden city fell burning through the skies of the Empire, and wherever they struck ground they raised fire and deadly smoke. One of these fragments hit the Imperial Palace, killing Emperor Saga, his daughter and heir, and a significant number of their most respected advisors. In theory, the crown should have followed the succession line to the son of Famiko, then a young and inexperienced man; fearing weak leadership in a situation of crisis, a cadre of samurai lords instead argued that because Famiko had died at the same time as her father, she had never reigned, and so could not pass on the crown, which ought to go to Saga's second child, his son Yahiko. Famiko's heir seemed at first fine with this arrangement, with little thirst for power, and so Yahiko took the throne. But in the months that followed, as the Heavenly Dragons descended upon the Empire and claimed lordship in several domains, the Genealogist of Heaven known as She-Who-Follows-The-Blood declared that this was an outrageous breach of ancient succession laws. She convinced Famiko's son to stand up and declare himself emperor, while she declared herself his regent. Soon, the Empire was split in two in the first Throne War.
Although Famiko's son was defeated and Yahiko confirmed himself as the true Emperor, the war had devastating consequences. Samurai lords ceased to see the dragons with wary hope that they might save the Empire from dissolution, and instead mistrusted them as greedy spirits desiring power as much as any of them. The question of whether the will of Heaven or the law of the Empire should dictate who would rule came to the fore for the first time, when they had always been considered synonymous before. And beyond this, various offsprings of the Imperial Line began to see the succession rules once considered ironclad as mere suggestions which could be bent or twisted if it served the good of the Empire. When Yahiko died in battle fighting the oni, this simmering cauldron of distrust imploded in the second Throne War, in which three claimants to the throne gathered thousands of samurai under their banner and went to war - the first time bunraku would be used against each other rather than against the Spirits of Ill Intent they had been designed to fight.
The Second Throne War lasted five years, and by the time it ended the succession line of the Imperial Throne had become a broken, blurred mess. Imperial descendants had married and divorced several times, begotten various bastards, had died and mysteriously reappeared, until there seemed to be no claimant to the throne who elicited more than a disbelieving scoff from samurai lords. The daimyo themselves had lost much in the wars and weakened themselves against hostile spirits, and so they shunned the question of who should rule the Empire, leaving it as a concern for scholars while they focused on their own domains. In this way, the Second Throne War led directly to the formation of the modern Empire, an Empire in name only divided between solitary enclaves which trust no outsider and rarely unite for any length of the time.
This is not to say that the claims over the Imperial Throne have ceased, not in the least. Many are those who seek in the title a form of legitimacy and a way to draw more soldiers and resources to their side. Small lords and even bandits have been numerous to call themselves the unknown son or daughter of a previous claimant, coming back now to claim their birthright. Only five claimants, however, hold any significant power and influence - and their disparate nature is a testament to the chaos that has befallen the Imperial Line, for only two of them are even human: one is the great-niece of Emperor Saga by his second sibling and one is a young warrior claiming to be the great-great-grandson of the Emperor and his last direct descendant, with very little to prove his origins. The other three are: a northern ghost who claims to be Saga's mother, the previous Empress, who has risen from the dead to fix the kingdom her son has allowed to fall so low; a Heavenly Dragon who has declared that since the Emperors only ruled as custodians of the land in the name of Heaven, it was in Heaven's right to claim that land and title back; and an oni lord whose claim to the title is that anyone who disagrees can come say it to their face.
As far as most daimyo are concerned, the question is irrelevant. The matter of who can sit on the Imperial Throne is a matter to be decided on cool heads, once the Empire is united again and war has ceased. This is to say - and almost all of them acknowlege this privately - that it is never to be, and that the Empire is doomed to never again be a single united kingdom, but merely an ideal tinted with nostalgia. Few are those who even imagine an end to war, and many are those who dread the idea of losing the independence of their little enclave.
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SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
[X]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
Acatalepsy
Firewall Proxy
- Location
- The Diamond Age
Translation: you have your work cut out for you, bub.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Who Knows
I love our crazy dragon lord, I hope to serve and honor for as long as we manage to survive lol.
Not too sure which option is better, but I'll go for this one.
[X]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
Not too sure which option is better, but I'll go for this one.
[X]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
[X]Make the report yourself. (Increased reputation among Summer's nobles.)
Well, Mr Dragon did ask to hear about our victory, not about an explanation of Shidao's failure.
Well, Mr Dragon did ask to hear about our victory, not about an explanation of Shidao's failure.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
