CIARA: "Most of them? We're a pretty tightly knit group, all told. Those three are just the ones I'd expect to react the most severely to your little stunt."
That makes sense, yes. Elder Chosen, who have lived through the turning of ages, tend to grow close. Not necessarily in friendship, sometimes in enmity, but close all the same. It would make sense that Ciara...
THE LOVERS: Hahaha. Ha. Haaaa-
Your brain jolts, the dots finally, belatedly, connecting.
THE LOVERS: Oh yes. You and your thing for power.
"You are an Elder, too."
CIARA: "Didn't they teach you not to ask women their age in the politeness school?"
[ ] There is no such thing as a "politeness school".
[ ] This is not a question about age, but power.
[ ] Apologize for what you did to her.
[ ] If you've snared an Elder, does it mean you are one too?
Actually - you don't vocalize this thought just yet - could that mean that you are of elder Essence as well? You don't suppose a freshly Exalted Chosen would dare to play with beings on the par with those just named by Ciara. Perhaps, then...
THE SORCERER: Yes! This would make sense. You are privy to the secrets of the Celestial Circle, and more than just as an initiate. This kind of power is not only rare and awesome: it takes time and careful study to cultivate. Only the finest and most refined minds manage to stoke the inner furnace of their Essence into this sapphire flame. You need only to look into your heart to find in it the roaring, stellar fire of mature Exalted puissance!
You frown, and try to do as told. It's simple - a familiar exercise, actually. Close your eyes to the material and try to perceive things as they really are, then turn this gaze inwards.
You inhale and feel the illuminating essences of Air and Fire fill your lungs. Their flows, red and blue, curl and wisp across the core of you. Because in your heart, there is no burning planetary flame, but rather a field of stars stretching out far beyond the contours of you. The sign of the Sorcerer gleams brightest of them all, but he is not alone; in your soul you find the twinned constellation of the Guardian; the focused light of the Key, and even the Mask, damaged as it is. You belong in the house of the Forbidden Manse of Ivy, your soul bound to the principle of Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets.
THE SORCERER: Yes, that is who we are. A Chosen of Secrets! And behold our power: see the starscape of elder Sidereal Essence!
But do you see it?
INTEGRITY (NORMAL): CHECK SUCCESS
No. It stings. It's disappointing. But you know those stars, and the path charted through the limits of your own soul, and you know that though it is expanded wide, and encompasses much, it is just a handful a Celestial night. Secrets and light may fill you and imbue with enough power to shift the sky from its bearings and onto a new track, and yet it is still only a promise of the supernova blaze that is the Essence of the eldest servants of Heaven.
THE SORCERER: Fine. You may not be of elder Essence by the usual reckoning, but what do such useless labels matter in the face of your incredible sorcerous might, anyway?
[ ] Share with Ciara that you are apparently a Chosen of Secrets.
[ ] Share with Ciara that while she may be a Lunar Elder, you are a master sorceress.
[ ] Share with Ciara that you happen to find incredible Exalted power deeply attractive.
THE SORCERER: The fact that she remembers as much is promising.
As much as you want to believe him, however, you react once more with this very familiar, crawling sensation of a bone-deep shame. Ciara's voice doesn't rise above its flat and deeply disappointed tone.
CIARA: "In fact, we've scarcely had a conversation in which you did not allude to the fact that unlike me, you wield awesome sorcerous powers, and that I should be more impressed by them."
THE SORCERER: Because she should, if there is any amount of intellect left behind those barbarously thick and fascinatingly rugged brow-ridges of hers!
CIARA: "I have lived for twenty five centuries, seen empire rise, fall, and turn to dust, and never once met a person nearly as insecure as you are."
INTEGRITY (LEGENDARY): CHECK FAILED
That's slanderous and you won't stand for it!
"I'm not insecure, I'm just rightfully proud of my power!"
Ciara bows her head, apparently incapable of responding to such an obvious declaration.
THE LOVERS: You are the textbook definition of "absolutely hopeless".
Why?
THE LOVERS: Look, I could explain it to you, and you still wouldn't get it.
Somehow, that sense of guilt that's spiked in some pit beneath your heart has not gone away in the course of this entire conversation.
[ ] Ask Ciara about those pursuers she's mentioned.
[ ] Ask Ciara about your shared fate.
[ ] Ask Ciara if there is anything to eat - you feel a bit hungry.
[ ] Sulk.
CIARA: "A bunch of weird ghosts. They don't taste like anything I've met before, but then again, I don't think dead things terribly interesting in the first place."
She puts a chunky log of blackened wood into the firepit; flames crawl slowly into the old bark.
CIARA: "They want you, apparently. Alive."
A few images flash before your eyes: red stars pinned to a slowly fading ashen sky. A city of bleak geometries, balanced atop of the end of all things. A stern voice guiding you towards an impossible mass of rusted gears, the roar of their turning drowning out all thought.
"Why would they?"
CIARA: "Never bothered to to ask them, and you weren't forthcoming about it either. But must be something really important if they keep coming back all the time. You kill them one day, and they are back at sunset, a month hence. Gets really tiresome after a while. They were actually the first thing you asked me to help you with, back when I thought you just annoying, and not a traitorous bitch with the heart of a two-bit harlot."
There is shockingly little venom in the insult. She throws it out casually, more tired than angry. Your heart skips a beat for such dismissals.
THE SORCERER: Spirits of the Underworld, also known to the lay and uneducated as "ghosts", do not perish when destroyed by mortal means. Only potent techniques of the Chosen are capable of destroying them for good and preventing their reconstitution. Perhaps this brute is, for all of her apparent power, uneducated on that matter.
CIARA: "Anyway, since you want me to beat them up again, I'm going to go out and take some time to prepare. Got any last questions?"
[ ] Was the woman with a sky-torn knife one of those pursuers?
[ ] Is she sure she can handle those pursuers alone?
[ ] Have you, by any chance, mentioned anything about the Underworld to her during your travels?
[ ] Is there anything for dinner?
CIARA: "Her? No. Warm flesh and warm blood. Judging by the amount of starmetal on her, one of yours. Pretty eyes, really."
THE SORCERER: That slut!
CIARA: "All those violet stars in them. And violent, too, I'd imagine. She had sharp moves."
"By one of mine you mean-"
CIARA: "Another Sidereal, yeah. The fact that your colleagues wanted you dead was the second thing you asked me to help you with."
"Then why didn't you?"
CIARA: "You forbade me from leaving my post at the door, and ordered me to kill anyone trying to get inside. Not a word about preventing people from leaving."
You chew on your lip.
THE CAPTAIN: This sort of literalism can mean only one thing, ma'am. This Lunar can't be trusted.
THE LOVER: What gives?
"So you just let her go?"
CIARA: "She asked me if she had to fight me."
"And you said no?"
CIARA: "No reason to say yes. See you later. Please don't do anything unusually stupid."
Before you can say anything, she turns on her soles and storms out into the grey day, leaving you alone under the pile of her furs. You try to pick your memory for a reason why the Bureau of Destiny would want you dead, but unfortunately all you fish out is garbage and a vague sense of guilt over missing important paperwork.
THE GAUNTLET: It had to be something dramatic to invoke this kind of a sanction. A fatal choice. It's vital that you remember.
THOUGHT UNLOCKED: Employee Termination Notice.
But for the time being, you don't. You are alone, warm, and a bit hungry.
[ ] Try to rest.
[ ] Try to get up and look around.
[ ] Daydream about sorcery.
With Ciara gone, it's not hard to let your mind wander, and your consciousness slip under the warmth and thick air of the cabin. Outside, wind screams; inside, the exhaustion of Hell knows how many days finally catches up to to you. That, and the pain of your cracked ribs.
FORTITUDE (NORMAL):
CHECK SUCCESS
But pain can be ignored, or at least you're surprisingly good at doing just that. Easily, you slide away from wakefulness and into shallow, fleeting dreams. They are a choppy flurry of images and sounds, colors melding words in a synesthetic rush that you can't describe or process. But there is some respite to be found in having your mind bounce off sensations, in having thoughts dissolve into meaningless song and light.
You wake up some time later, to find Ciara still gone. The log she threw into the fire pit has since turned into a charred pile of embers, glowing dim orange. The cold is seeping its way back into the cabin. But your chest hurts less now - you can breathe freely without pain lancing through you. Little miracles of an Exalted physiology, making the trials and tribulations of the Work so much easier to shoulder. Also, you are quite hungry.
[ ] Get up and investigate the cabin more closely.
[ ] The luggage! Those are probably your things. Dig through them.
[ ] Leave the cabin and go on a walk.
Reluctantly, you dig yourself under the warmth of pelts and blankets. Immediately, you are assaulted by cold - in no small part because you are wearing only a formerly white shirt, currently crusted over with enough blood, sweat, and assorted dirt to resemble nothing but a dishrag for torture implements. But there! Piled in the corner, several bags, filled to the point of bursting. Clearly, it's where you will find reprieve from the elements.
You rush towards them, trying to remember which of those bags were yours, and which were Ciara's - unfortunately, it is not a memory that you can find anywhere within your head.
THE CAPTAIN: Equipment of subordinates should be freely accessible to the superiors anyway, ma'am.
THE SORCERER: And besides, wouldn't you be able to immediately tell the meagre possessions of a barbarian from your personal luggage? If you find scones and cowrie shells, you will know they are hers.
THE LOVERS: He just wants you to dig through the laundry of a woman you're secretly lusting after. Which, given he is just a part of you, is what you secretly want, don't you?
You pause, then resolve to make sure to avoid any kind of laundry that may be locatable within the pile of bags. Then, trusting your instinct to guide you to your things, you begin to sort through the luggage.
The first bag is filled with clothes, and considering that you fit into them, and that they are mostly expensive and decidedly not weather-resistant fabrics like silk, you conclude they belong to you. You change quickly, finding yourself a fresh, tea-green shirt with a delicate silver trim, and a matching long skirt. Finally, you throw a somewhat tattered and frustratingly dirtied cream cape over your shoulders, letting the hood fall back. And then, of course, your fingers reach unprompted for a small silver-and-jade pin to hold it together. It used to be an outfit you liked well, you realize, back in easier days. It still doesn't really keep you all that warm, but it does make you feel much better.
At the bottom of the bag, underneath all the clothes, you also find a silver mirror, and a panelled wooden box without any obvious lock. You give it a tentative shake, and are rewarded with a rattle inside. You set both of those things aside, and dig through the remaining bags.
The next one is filled to the point of bursting with notes. You recognize your scrollwork, and figure it must be something sorcerous, but getting even a general idea of what would require sitting down for a long while and trying to make sense of the chaos of hand-scrawled notes, scrolls written over many times, and books where margin notes eat well into the text proper.
The third bag is the smallest - but also the heaviest. Once you open it, you quickly find out why. Inside, there is another mirror, this one cut from a glossy black metal that's freezing to touch. Even glancing at it makes you feel a pressure mount in your temples.
OCCULT (NORMAL): CHECK FAILED.
Soulsteel, you are pretty sure. But what it is doing among your possessions, or what is its exact purpose, you have no idea. Still, it gives you the creeps.
Besides the soulsteel mirror, you find a bag of salt, and a small leather-bound notebook that is far better organized than the rest of your notes, and unfortunately also written in a cipher you are sure you used to know. Finally, beneath all that, there is one thing. As you pick it up, you realize that it is where most of the bag's weight comes from, even though it appears to be little more than a fist-sized frame of a silvery metal with nothing inside: literally. There is black void contained within it; you consider prodding it with your finger, but don't come to an immediate decision.
THE CAPTAIN: Your subordinate has to be really strong to carry all those things for you.
You survey your scattered possessions, asking yourself if it was really Ciara who had to lug it on her back.
THE SORCERER: It's what those broad, muscular shoulders were meant for. That, and rampant violence.
You nod to yourself, and consider what to investigate more closely.
[ ] The silver mirror - remind yourself how do you look.
[ ] The wooden box.
[ ] The bag full of notes - try to skim through them quickly and make sense out of them.
[ ] The soulsteel mirror.
[ ] The coded notebook.
[ ] The captive void.
EACH VOTER CAN PICK ONE. THE FIRST THREE UNIQUE CHOICES WILL BE INVESTIGATED.
You set apart notes and puzzle-boxes; there will be time to review them all later, in greater detail.
First, you pick the more ordinary mirror. Although small, it is evidently well-made, silvered glass reflecting the underside of the shack's ceiling with ideal clarity, set into an discreetly ornamental, brushed steel frame. Although the luxury is purposefully understated, you have no doubt it is an expensive little trinket, and a far cry from the clouded plates of bronze used across most of Creation. Your fingers easily find their grip in the grooves of the frame; the design under them them is cool, in both meanings of the word. Idly, you flip it in your hand to inspect the reverse side. You don't expect to find much there - but to your surprise, there is something there: a line of writing, in elegant Old Realm, reading: "to my best student, to aid her with perspective".
Again with that indistinct shame! You quickly turn the mirror back over and bring it up to your face.
THE LOVERS: This should be illuminating.
You don't get what she is on about. Then, you see your reflection.
THE LOVERS: Yeah.
You look like death. Skin like rice paper, pulled too taut over the landscape of your skull. Pointed cheekbones rising with the elegance of forlorn crags tower over the sunken pits of those cheeks themselves. A polite way of describing it would run somewhere along the lines of "taking the idea of pronounced features" to the limit. Take, for example, your eyes - eyes that you are sure someone had once called "those beautiful emerald lights". Now, they rest surrounded by dirty grey of months of exhaustion, their green fetid, well-matched to your general waterlogged corpse-blue pallor. And the hair! Well, you've certainly grown them long. It's just a shame that you struggle to figure out what their exact shade was.
THE LOVERS: I don't think that this is what the phrase "dirty blonde" was supposed to mean, and yet here we are.
The creeping feeling you experience spreading through the back of your head is hard to properly describe, being set somewhere between wounded pride, tarnished vanity, and quiet resignation. Unprompted, your mind finds some of its old tracks, finally arriving at the conclusion that you should have tossed this damn thing away long time ago and not bothered. In spite of this revelation, you set it back again at the bottom of the bag, careful not to get a stray glance at the sorry state of you.
THE GAUNTLET: No worthwhile work can be accomplished without cost. What you pay and what you achieve is reflected in each other.
This is somewhat reassuring, but still not enough to rid you of that queasiness.
THE CAPTAIN: Ma'am, do you remember when you last ate?
You pause, and you chew on your lip. Now that he mentions that, you do feel kind of hungry.
THE CAPTIAN: Or bathed?
He knows you don't remember anything. This is not a fair question. Still, it lodges itself in the underside of your psyche, like a particularly ugly splinter.
THOUGHT UNLOCKED: Material Conditions for Continuous Operation
You pick up the soulsteel mirror next, reasoning that nothing you see in it can be any worse than what the silver one reflected. For the most part, however, it reflects nothing. Soulsteel is a dull metal, and the only thing you see in it, at first, is the slow ripple of tormented souls locked in in the lattice of it, their distorted, mute screams passing through the black surface like waves across a still lake. How did it even end up in your possession?
Ultimately, however, there is very little about it that you can tell at a glance: just a pane of soulsteel set into gilt bronze in an oblong, oval shape, equipped with a handle ornamented with serpentine motifs. It's ferociously cold to touch, sucking out the heat from your hands almost instantly; as you breathe near it, water condenses across its surface.
OCCULT (VERY DIFFICULT):
CHECK SUCCESS
The realization comes in a flash, and, at first, is more tactile than cerebral. A chain-link motif runs across the upper arc of the mirror, terminating in a pair of tiny shackles closed across the edges of the soulsteel surface. You run your fingers across them a few times, thinking about the sheer cruelty of soulsteel, of the way it turns the already miserable existance of ghosts into an even worse prison, and how the mighty of the world abuse it.
THE CROW: Including you.
Including you, yes. Mirrors like those are nothing but traps into which very potent ghosts can be lured into and locked, forcing them to exist in a tiny oubliette and bound to the service of the owner of the mirror. And considering what you did to Ciara, you don't really think it beyond you to have someone else trapped for your use like that. The weight of the mirror clearly means it is possessed and full - and it would probably take only a breath of your Essence to check on its inhabitant. Still, the notion has an unpleasant edge and you are not sure if you like it at all. This is a cruel tool.
THE GAUNTELT: This a tool.
[ ] Try to check on whatever is trapped within the mirror.
[ ] Leave it be for now.
You just can't pass this by, can you? You look into the dull surface of the mirror for a moment, weighing the risks and opportunities presented by this curious artifact.
THE SORCERER: Whatever you have locked inside, you have done so for a reason, and this reason was for it to serve a more powerful being, which is you. You have nothing to fear, and much to gain.
Yeah. Exactly. Before hesitation can lure you to weakness, you pour a mote of your Essence into the hungry vessel of the mirror. The results are immediate: one last ripple goes through its pane. When it's gone, the soulsteel is perfectly smooth; a milky sheen covers it for a second, before too being drawn back as if by an invisible whirlpool, collapsing into a single point of cold brightness.
???: "RELEASE ME."
INTEGRITY (DIFFICULT):
CHECK FAILED.
You realize you must release whatever it is immediately. Without delay, you grab the mirror and smash it with full force of your feeble arms against a pillar holding up the ceiling. Frustratingly, this does precisely nothing, other than drive the mirror half-way into the old wood. This won't do. You step back and check the cabin for something that will allow you to accomplish the task. There. The ritual sword! This will do. You pick it up and step towards the mirror, raising the blackened blade above your head in preparation for a wild, overhead swing. Your arms begin to arc down, already giddy at the idea of...
A hand the size of a dinner-plate closes around your wrists, stopping them in their track.
CIARA: "What the fuck."
"Release me this instant! The prisoner must be set free!"
The old Lunar doesn't loosen its grasp on your arms even slightly. Instead, she pries the sword from your hand, gently enough to not leave you with any broken fingers, and then reaches for the mirror. You realize you could probably order her to release its prisoner: surely her brutish strength would be better suited for that than...
CIARA: "Oh, hell no."
Ciara yanks the mirror free from where you thrust it, then chucks it outside through the still-open door. Soulsteel bangs against rocks. For a split-second your soul lifts at the idea that maybe this will break this awful trap, and then nothing happens, and you sag. Also notice that your head is filled with screaming.
THE CAPTAIN: Ma'am! My lady! Stop! Stop! You must stop!
THE LOVERS: You dumb bitch, do you have any idea, any idea at all what this-
THE GAUNTLET: No! Not like this!
THE SORCERER: OUR WILL SHALL NEVER BE BOUND!
Ciara holds you in place for a moment longer, squinting. Then, with an extremely tired sigh, she lets you slide down to the floor. She opens her mouth to speak, then shuts in on whatever it was she was about to say. She looks disappointed.
[ ] "I had this situation under control."
[ ] "Weren't you supposed to be away, preparing for battle?"
[ ] "Do you have any idea what you just threw away?"
[ ] "Thank you."
CIARA: "One day, I will eat your heart raw, and all the spirits of the land shall thank me for making Creation a safer place to live."
As is usual, she delivers the insult (the threat?) entirely without heat; there is something strikingly rote about it.
THE LOVERS: Curious. She doesn't even care enough about you to swear at you with heart.
You look at Ciara like a puppy caught with its snout half-way into a very delicious chocolate cake which, undoubtedly, would lead to your demise if eaten. She looks at you like she needs a drink. With another, heavy exhale, she turns away and leaves, closing the door behind her. You spend some time sitting on the ground and consider the events that have conspired to bring you to this point.
THE SORCERER: Absolutely unforgivably unbelievable. You offered her the highest honor of acknowledging her help, and what does she do in return? The brusqueness of those savages, their moral destitution - it has be seen to be believed!
You shake your head, a gesture somewhere between agreeing and disagreeing with him. The rest of you feels vaguely ill.
THE GAUNTLET: It's clear that whatever remains in that mirror is extremely dangerous. You must never call upon it unless there is no other option left. But there will also be a time when it will become necessary.
That, also, makes sense. You spend some more time on the floor, sulking and brooding.
THE CAPTAIN: Review of your equipment, ma'am.
Ah. Right. Those things. You rub your temples, trying to rid yourself of the headache that settled in your skull, and when that proves completely pointless, you move onto the last of the items you wanted to investigate. More carefully this time, you promise no one in particular.
The frame holding the void is metal; even in the low light of the dying fireplace, you can see opalescent reflections along the edges of it. Starmetal, you recognize immediately. Bones of fallen gods, and reminders of old skies; the stuff of Heavens. It's small enough to rest securely in the palm of your hand, and so light you barely feel its touch.
As for the void inside, you find it hard to describe. It is as if someone had cut out a whole through the weave of reality and opened it up into some kind of black, featureless backdrop behind it. It hurts to look at simply because - as you quickly realize - your mind can't deal with its dimensions. You realize with absolute certainty of having long since known this that this thing not only shouldn't exist, but also doesn't, exactly, exist. At least not in terms available to Creation.
OCCULT (VERY DIFFICULT):
CHECK FAILED.
Your headache intensifies. Part of it is this impossible spatiality, and part of it is knowing that you know what this is. It's at the tip of your tongue, right beneath the surface of your thoughts, and yet the more you try to focus on it, the quicker it eludes you. Memories hold shape one moment, then fall between your fingers another.
[ ] Leave it aside for the time being. Be safe.
[ ] Find something to prod at the void and see what happens.
[ ] Stick a hand inside - this should jolt your memory.
