Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hush and go to bed.
Dead Sky: An Exalted Quest
- Thread starter Gargulec
- Start date
- Fantasy
-
- Tags
- exalted (white wolf)
THOUGHT: Emptying the Holds
Gargulec
impact!
- Location
- a garden
The brilliant raptor hit the spectral ship head-on, the mouth of the spell opening up as if to swallow the hostile vessel in one gulp. As far as metaphors went, this one was too far off the mark: scarlet flames swept across the deck and the rigging, for a moment turning the gloom of the Underworld's night into a festival of fire. Ships of the living tended to die slowly, yielding to the sea with rugged defiance; ships of the dead could sail for days with their hulls split open and black, stygian waters filling the hold, before finally giving to the depths. But there was no enduring this fire. Words like "burn" or "incinerate" couldn't do justice to what did to its target, and the word "ashes" gave too much credence to what remained of it. Below the dark surface, tiny red embers refused to gutter out as the flames kept on eating the unfortunate spectre sailors, all the way to the bottom.
The sorceress exhaled, and shook her slender sword above her head, dissipating the green haze wisping around her. Emerlad flecks glinted across the surface of her large eyes, merry in destruction.
"See?" she demanded. "They are no longer gaining on us."
Ceites Wind-Torn, once a high priest of a renegade sea god, and now - long centuries after his brutal parting from the seas of Creation - among the most famous free captains to sail the dead seas of the Underworld, shook his head. Bone fetishes ringing his wide hat clacked one into another, rattling in disappointment.
"And how many more can you burn like that?" he asked, his eight tentacles pulling him across the forecastle's rotten floor, and closer to his passenger, and the source of his misery. "Ten? Twenty?"
"At least," she repeated, stabbing towards the open sky with her sword. "If not more."
"A hundred?" he didn't let his voice raise, or the hook in it show. Still, she stopping bragging suddenly, her eyes driving into him. He shook his head again. "I was wrong to take you on, my dear. You lied to me."
His good hand swept the line of the horizon. How good the living woman's eyes were, he could not tell, but his could see where the bleak waters were already starting to roil, at the edge of sight, as the old sunken armadas were pulled from their abyssal graveyard and brought wailing to the surface, bleak, determined hunger glowing in the emptied pits of their captains' long-lost eyes.
"You said you invoked the wrath of the princes of this realm, and I am always happy to defy them," he said as the ships took form, green and light fires lining the rigging, dead hate playing the role of sails well enough. "But you have gone farther than that. Beyond the pale, beyond the surface."
She opened her mouth to protest, but Celtes, being well-accustomed to her tirades, didn't let her start.
"Had I known I would be evading the navies of the Labyrinth, I would have never let you onboard."
His ship - his ship which was him, because under the Calendar, the rules of physical matter were loose at best, and easily gave to will strong enough - was fast. He built it out of each of his exploits; each plank of the hull a foe outran, each nail holding it together a daring dead, each sail cut from the cloth of Underworld's barren fame. His ship, which was him, was as fast as any in the realm of the dead. But it could not outrun hunger; it could never match the speed of oblivion.
"I will tear the sky open," the woman said, face darkening. "Do you have any idea just how much can I do? I will invoke upon them the kind of fury those waters have never seen, and I will bring down the sky before they reach us, and..."
"Hush," Celtes waved her off. With his good hand, he caressed the edge of his hat, feeling the little bit of history trapped in each fetish rimming it. This one for when he made the fool out of the old prince of Stygia. That for when the rueful new kings of Underworld declared him a scoundrel and promised a treasury of grave goods for his capture. So many deeds; such grand weight. "Boil the seas, if you want, and it won't be enough. You can't outfight the Labyrinth's hate. But I have promised to ferry you safely to Stygia, have I not?"
"You have," she muttered, frowning.
"And I will make good on that."
Once the decision was made, it was almost easy to follow up on it. Maybe in ages past he would have thought it another death, and resisted as fiercely as he would his own destruction. But aeons of stasis wear down even on the most resolute, so maybe it was not dying, but rather something harder, and greater. Change.
With a jerk of a hand, he plucked the first great deed from the fabric of his soul, and threw the fetish down into the sea. Whatever it was, he could no longer remember; only regret remained, shockingly sweet. His fingers closed around the next little piece of bone.
"What are you doing?" the woman demanded to know.
"Emptying the holds," he said, throwing his greatness away one memory at a time, so it may no longer weigh down on him, and they may outrun the void. His ship was - he was - among the fastest in the Underworld. But all the history it carried slowed it down, and in the chase the hunger of neverborn gods gave, he could not afford to keep it. Now, he offered it, piece by piece, the very foes hungering for his charge. So why not let them have it, piecemeal?
To the pursuers, the waves carried shreds and dregs of Celtes and his ship, and being of nothing, but hunger, they slowed down to fish them out of the sea, and gorged on them, and lost their drive to hunt. For each hostile ship, he had a deed to give up. For each enemy driven to hunt him down, he gave up a part of himself, until so little remained of him as to slip through any closing hand, so light on the water that even oblivion could not catch up to it.
By the time the dead armadas vanished behind the horizon, all that remained of Celtes, and his his ship, was the knowledge he had promised to outrun the hunger no one else ever dared to challenge, and made good on his word. They made it to the harbor of some dreary city called Stygia not long ago, and ghosts of all ages hailed him as if he was some kind of a hero, or a rogue. Faces that were familiar greeted him, and all he could offer to them was a sad admission of loss.
"I liked that trick, actually," his passenger said, before they parted. "I can work with it."
[ ] Do not swap your thoughts.
[ ] Swap thoughts.
-[ ] Which?
THIS IS AN IMPACTFUL VOTE
The sorceress exhaled, and shook her slender sword above her head, dissipating the green haze wisping around her. Emerlad flecks glinted across the surface of her large eyes, merry in destruction.
"See?" she demanded. "They are no longer gaining on us."
Ceites Wind-Torn, once a high priest of a renegade sea god, and now - long centuries after his brutal parting from the seas of Creation - among the most famous free captains to sail the dead seas of the Underworld, shook his head. Bone fetishes ringing his wide hat clacked one into another, rattling in disappointment.
"And how many more can you burn like that?" he asked, his eight tentacles pulling him across the forecastle's rotten floor, and closer to his passenger, and the source of his misery. "Ten? Twenty?"
"At least," she repeated, stabbing towards the open sky with her sword. "If not more."
"A hundred?" he didn't let his voice raise, or the hook in it show. Still, she stopping bragging suddenly, her eyes driving into him. He shook his head again. "I was wrong to take you on, my dear. You lied to me."
His good hand swept the line of the horizon. How good the living woman's eyes were, he could not tell, but his could see where the bleak waters were already starting to roil, at the edge of sight, as the old sunken armadas were pulled from their abyssal graveyard and brought wailing to the surface, bleak, determined hunger glowing in the emptied pits of their captains' long-lost eyes.
"You said you invoked the wrath of the princes of this realm, and I am always happy to defy them," he said as the ships took form, green and light fires lining the rigging, dead hate playing the role of sails well enough. "But you have gone farther than that. Beyond the pale, beyond the surface."
She opened her mouth to protest, but Celtes, being well-accustomed to her tirades, didn't let her start.
"Had I known I would be evading the navies of the Labyrinth, I would have never let you onboard."
His ship - his ship which was him, because under the Calendar, the rules of physical matter were loose at best, and easily gave to will strong enough - was fast. He built it out of each of his exploits; each plank of the hull a foe outran, each nail holding it together a daring dead, each sail cut from the cloth of Underworld's barren fame. His ship, which was him, was as fast as any in the realm of the dead. But it could not outrun hunger; it could never match the speed of oblivion.
"I will tear the sky open," the woman said, face darkening. "Do you have any idea just how much can I do? I will invoke upon them the kind of fury those waters have never seen, and I will bring down the sky before they reach us, and..."
"Hush," Celtes waved her off. With his good hand, he caressed the edge of his hat, feeling the little bit of history trapped in each fetish rimming it. This one for when he made the fool out of the old prince of Stygia. That for when the rueful new kings of Underworld declared him a scoundrel and promised a treasury of grave goods for his capture. So many deeds; such grand weight. "Boil the seas, if you want, and it won't be enough. You can't outfight the Labyrinth's hate. But I have promised to ferry you safely to Stygia, have I not?"
"You have," she muttered, frowning.
"And I will make good on that."
Once the decision was made, it was almost easy to follow up on it. Maybe in ages past he would have thought it another death, and resisted as fiercely as he would his own destruction. But aeons of stasis wear down even on the most resolute, so maybe it was not dying, but rather something harder, and greater. Change.
With a jerk of a hand, he plucked the first great deed from the fabric of his soul, and threw the fetish down into the sea. Whatever it was, he could no longer remember; only regret remained, shockingly sweet. His fingers closed around the next little piece of bone.
"What are you doing?" the woman demanded to know.
"Emptying the holds," he said, throwing his greatness away one memory at a time, so it may no longer weigh down on him, and they may outrun the void. His ship was - he was - among the fastest in the Underworld. But all the history it carried slowed it down, and in the chase the hunger of neverborn gods gave, he could not afford to keep it. Now, he offered it, piece by piece, the very foes hungering for his charge. So why not let them have it, piecemeal?
To the pursuers, the waves carried shreds and dregs of Celtes and his ship, and being of nothing, but hunger, they slowed down to fish them out of the sea, and gorged on them, and lost their drive to hunt. For each hostile ship, he had a deed to give up. For each enemy driven to hunt him down, he gave up a part of himself, until so little remained of him as to slip through any closing hand, so light on the water that even oblivion could not catch up to it.
By the time the dead armadas vanished behind the horizon, all that remained of Celtes, and his his ship, was the knowledge he had promised to outrun the hunger no one else ever dared to challenge, and made good on his word. They made it to the harbor of some dreary city called Stygia not long ago, and ghosts of all ages hailed him as if he was some kind of a hero, or a rogue. Faces that were familiar greeted him, and all he could offer to them was a sad admission of loss.
"I liked that trick, actually," his passenger said, before they parted. "I can work with it."
Peaks and Valleys (Complete)
You have taken so many shortcuts on your path to power that it is frankly surprising you have not gotten yourself killed on it just yet, though not for the lack of trying. On the other hand, the fact that your absurdly unwise strategies in the pursuit of cosmic power and sorcerous supremacy have actually borne out results attests either to an Incarna-offending luck, or once-in-a-generation type of talent. Take your pick, and your power trip.
Occult +2 (An actual prodigy)
Navigate +1 (Chased through the sky)
Integrity -1 (Learned all the wrong lessons)
Special: Your sorcery is more powerful and less predictable than it would otherwise be.
Emptying the Holds (Complete)
During your travels across the Underworld (which you do not remember), you have learned that the soul is really just an ablative armor for the will inside. You have applied this lesson in order to blunt a mortal blow, so that it only killed most of you, and not all of you. In fact, you managed to redirected the strike away from the parts that you thought were the most important, even as you sacrificed everything else. The downside is that your memories are probably mostly, irrevocably gone. The upside is that this neat trick may come in handy again.
Medicine: -1 (Not how bodies are supposed to work)
Fortitude +2 (Not how bodies work)
Special: You may sacrifice parts of your soul to survive physical trauma.
Those Violet Sorrows
You are on a first-name basis with your Death, or at least it feels that way. She also calls you a "sister", and you find it difficult not to see her with the kind of sympathy usually restricted only to the closest kin. This is unfortunate because, unless she was particularly dishonest with you, she is nothing but a metaphor, which means that your kindness is wasted on her. Still, there may be some use in trying to find out how, exactly, you two became so very familiar, and familial.
Embassy +1 (I see Death as people)
12 hours.
Most Deceitful Star
The Crow represents the end of illusions and dreams. It is inevitability and the recognition thereof. Among all the stars that could shine on you, this constellation in particular casts a light of bare truth and unquestionable honesty. You are not on the best terms with the Crow, and are in fact convinced that he is full of shit and trying to lie to you. Setting aside the concerning tendency to anthropomorphize and hold conversations with celestial bodies, there is an interesting question to be asked about your frustrations with concepts such as "impossibility," and "recognition of one's limits".
Occult +1 ('Impossible' is just a word)
Presence -1 (Somewhat unreasonable)
12 hours.
Trouble at the House of Serenity
Your relationship with the House of Serenity, also known as the Cerulean Lute of Harmony, can best be described as somewhat vexed. You have received the blessings of Venus wrong. Your desire exists under the sign of Jupiter. When it comes to love, your stars take on an Abyssal aspect. You are rapidly running out of ideas for good metaphors for all of your many psycho-sexual hang-ups. Seek help.
Integrity -1 (Thoroughly compromised)
Occult +1 (Rampant sublimation)
24 hours.
Employee Termination Notice
The Heaven wants you dead, which is in no ways a metaphor or an exaggeration. An agent of the Violet Bier of Sorrows has been dispatched to eliminate you, despite you being another member of the Bureau of Destiny. This degree of official sanction is seldom heard of, and usually reserved only for major threats to the fabric of destiny, the interests of Heaven, and goodness of Creation as a whole. It's probably a good thing to try to figure out why.
Presence -1 (Self-conscious)
Awareness +1 (Justifiably paranoid)
8 hours.
Material Conditions for Continuous Operation
The Chosen are known for their resilience to hardships and ability to go on in conditions that would leave a mortal dead. You choose to exploit this to avoid eating, bathing, sleeping properly, or doing any other thing which is usually required for a body to keep on going and for a person to be considered human and not a mobile disaster zone. This glaring and repeated neglect of the basics of self-care may not be only down to your present circumstances, but it may actually indicate some deeper problem.
Integrity -1 (Self-careless)
Embassy -1 (Wallowing)
Presence -1 (Have you seen yourself in the mirror?)
8 hours.
Death Be Not Proud
You have dealings with the Neverborn, the monstrous entities who are dead, and yet impossibly alive. Furthermore, you can hear their whispers, and actually feel a degree of empathy for them. This is all extremely concerning.
Integrity +1 (Sublime emptiness)
You are currently thinking of Peaks and Valleys (Complete) and Emptying the Holds (Complete). You can swap out your thoughts when you sleep.
You have taken so many shortcuts on your path to power that it is frankly surprising you have not gotten yourself killed on it just yet, though not for the lack of trying. On the other hand, the fact that your absurdly unwise strategies in the pursuit of cosmic power and sorcerous supremacy have actually borne out results attests either to an Incarna-offending luck, or once-in-a-generation type of talent. Take your pick, and your power trip.
Occult +2 (An actual prodigy)
Navigate +1 (Chased through the sky)
Integrity -1 (Learned all the wrong lessons)
Special: Your sorcery is more powerful and less predictable than it would otherwise be.
Emptying the Holds (Complete)
During your travels across the Underworld (which you do not remember), you have learned that the soul is really just an ablative armor for the will inside. You have applied this lesson in order to blunt a mortal blow, so that it only killed most of you, and not all of you. In fact, you managed to redirected the strike away from the parts that you thought were the most important, even as you sacrificed everything else. The downside is that your memories are probably mostly, irrevocably gone. The upside is that this neat trick may come in handy again.
Medicine: -1 (Not how bodies are supposed to work)
Fortitude +2 (Not how bodies work)
Special: You may sacrifice parts of your soul to survive physical trauma.
Those Violet Sorrows
You are on a first-name basis with your Death, or at least it feels that way. She also calls you a "sister", and you find it difficult not to see her with the kind of sympathy usually restricted only to the closest kin. This is unfortunate because, unless she was particularly dishonest with you, she is nothing but a metaphor, which means that your kindness is wasted on her. Still, there may be some use in trying to find out how, exactly, you two became so very familiar, and familial.
Embassy +1 (I see Death as people)
12 hours.
Most Deceitful Star
The Crow represents the end of illusions and dreams. It is inevitability and the recognition thereof. Among all the stars that could shine on you, this constellation in particular casts a light of bare truth and unquestionable honesty. You are not on the best terms with the Crow, and are in fact convinced that he is full of shit and trying to lie to you. Setting aside the concerning tendency to anthropomorphize and hold conversations with celestial bodies, there is an interesting question to be asked about your frustrations with concepts such as "impossibility," and "recognition of one's limits".
Occult +1 ('Impossible' is just a word)
Presence -1 (Somewhat unreasonable)
12 hours.
Trouble at the House of Serenity
Your relationship with the House of Serenity, also known as the Cerulean Lute of Harmony, can best be described as somewhat vexed. You have received the blessings of Venus wrong. Your desire exists under the sign of Jupiter. When it comes to love, your stars take on an Abyssal aspect. You are rapidly running out of ideas for good metaphors for all of your many psycho-sexual hang-ups. Seek help.
Integrity -1 (Thoroughly compromised)
Occult +1 (Rampant sublimation)
24 hours.
Employee Termination Notice
The Heaven wants you dead, which is in no ways a metaphor or an exaggeration. An agent of the Violet Bier of Sorrows has been dispatched to eliminate you, despite you being another member of the Bureau of Destiny. This degree of official sanction is seldom heard of, and usually reserved only for major threats to the fabric of destiny, the interests of Heaven, and goodness of Creation as a whole. It's probably a good thing to try to figure out why.
Presence -1 (Self-conscious)
Awareness +1 (Justifiably paranoid)
8 hours.
Material Conditions for Continuous Operation
The Chosen are known for their resilience to hardships and ability to go on in conditions that would leave a mortal dead. You choose to exploit this to avoid eating, bathing, sleeping properly, or doing any other thing which is usually required for a body to keep on going and for a person to be considered human and not a mobile disaster zone. This glaring and repeated neglect of the basics of self-care may not be only down to your present circumstances, but it may actually indicate some deeper problem.
Integrity -1 (Self-careless)
Embassy -1 (Wallowing)
Presence -1 (Have you seen yourself in the mirror?)
8 hours.
Death Be Not Proud
You have dealings with the Neverborn, the monstrous entities who are dead, and yet impossibly alive. Furthermore, you can hear their whispers, and actually feel a degree of empathy for them. This is all extremely concerning.
Integrity +1 (Sublime emptiness)
You are currently thinking of Peaks and Valleys (Complete) and Emptying the Holds (Complete). You can swap out your thoughts when you sleep.
[ ] Do not swap your thoughts.
[ ] Swap thoughts.
-[ ] Which?
THIS IS AN IMPACTFUL VOTE
[X] Swap thoughts.
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
The Bureau choosing to slay one of their own is something that I can only see happening to prevent an event on the level of the Balorean Crusade, so remembering their reasoning is crucially important, doubly so if it pertains to the Work, which would give us and Bird Bones much needed insight into it's nature.
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Trouble at the House of Serenity
We have made excellent inroads recently into what our relationship with Ciara currently is, we should capitalize on this by digging into the why of it.
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
The Bureau choosing to slay one of their own is something that I can only see happening to prevent an event on the level of the Balorean Crusade, so remembering their reasoning is crucially important, doubly so if it pertains to the Work, which would give us and Bird Bones much needed insight into it's nature.
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Trouble at the House of Serenity
We have made excellent inroads recently into what our relationship with Ciara currently is, we should capitalize on this by digging into the why of it.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
[X] Swap thoughts.
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
also on board for "fuck bonuses I want info"
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
also on board for "fuck bonuses I want info"
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, otherwise we'd be entirely dead instead of mostly dead.
A dubious blessing.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
[X] Swap thoughts.
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Swap thoughts.
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
- Pronouns
- Ze/Hir
[X] Swap thoughts.
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
-[X] Swap Peaks and Valleys for Employee Termination Notice
-[X] Swap Emptying the Holds for Most Deceitful Star
EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 42
Gargulec
impact!
- Location
- a garden
You dream of mountains when you sleep, which is how you know that you sleep well. Those lofty peaks - some day, you will return to them, and you will walk along a snaking ridge stretched like a curtain between sharp peaks, watching in quiet awe the slow roil of morning mists flowing down towards the valley. Some day, you will return to them and...
CIARA: "Wake the fuck up."
GAUNTLET: Dreams are useless when reality is at stake. Wake the fuck up.
The Lunar crouches over you, the long strings of her hair almost brushing against the surface of your face. The fire is dead; the air bitterly cold. Even under your layer of blankets and furs, you shiver. It is not a welcome start to a day.
CIARA: "I tracked down your colleague."
You react in a weird way - it is one of those bone-deep reflexes that have remained in you even as you flensed memories from your soul. Your head jolts up, trying to get a glimpse of Ciara's hands, to see if there is - the name is gone from your mind, leaving behind an empty wound, as if a teeth torn out of its socket - blood on them. But they are clean. You feel relief.
CIARA: "She walked straight into a rock face, way down in the valley. It's where her trail ends."
OCCULT (NORMAL):
CHECK SUCCESS
"An elemental court," you say before the rest of you has the time to consider the information. Some things, you just know. "Kobolds. Maybe rockwyrms. Probably not oreads, it would be closer to the peak..."
THE SORCERER: It is a shame. Oreads, being weak of will and bountiful of allure, would yield easily to the powers at your disposal.
You imagine oreads yielding easily to the powers at your disposal. You swallow. Ciara taps her foot impatiently.
"...unless, of course, it is a sanctuary of the local valley god."
CIARA: "Yeah, I figured as much. Tell me something I don't know."
Again, you hear yourself speaking before your sleep-deprived mind gets a third through looking for a sufficiently interesting fact to share with Ciara.
"Whatever spirits dwell inside, it is likely they are guarding a gate to Heaven."
Ciara frowns. She lifts herself up and ambles towards the door, kicking it open. Freezing wind blows inside as she stuffs tobacco into her pipe and lights it; you try to keep your teeth from clattering, mostly in vain.
CIARA: "I was about to ask why can't I smell her anywhere in Creation."
THE SORCERER: Because, being a simple animal, she possesses only the basest senses, which, even when honed through the muscular apparatus of her Essence cannot properly encompass the whole of-
The Lunar turns your back to you; you imagine the play of muscles on her mighty back; you glimpse the predatory outline of her profile, and the confident way she holds her pipe like she would hold a-
THE CAPTAIN: Eyes on the road, ma'am.
CIARA: "Before we take this conversation any further, I need to have some clarity here. You are about to tell me that we need to follow her into Yu-Shan?"
[ ] Yes.
[ ] No.
[ ] You have just suggested it first, it's your idea.
CIARA: "Wake the fuck up."
GAUNTLET: Dreams are useless when reality is at stake. Wake the fuck up.
The Lunar crouches over you, the long strings of her hair almost brushing against the surface of your face. The fire is dead; the air bitterly cold. Even under your layer of blankets and furs, you shiver. It is not a welcome start to a day.
CIARA: "I tracked down your colleague."
You react in a weird way - it is one of those bone-deep reflexes that have remained in you even as you flensed memories from your soul. Your head jolts up, trying to get a glimpse of Ciara's hands, to see if there is - the name is gone from your mind, leaving behind an empty wound, as if a teeth torn out of its socket - blood on them. But they are clean. You feel relief.
CIARA: "She walked straight into a rock face, way down in the valley. It's where her trail ends."
OCCULT (NORMAL):
CHECK SUCCESS
"An elemental court," you say before the rest of you has the time to consider the information. Some things, you just know. "Kobolds. Maybe rockwyrms. Probably not oreads, it would be closer to the peak..."
THE SORCERER: It is a shame. Oreads, being weak of will and bountiful of allure, would yield easily to the powers at your disposal.
You imagine oreads yielding easily to the powers at your disposal. You swallow. Ciara taps her foot impatiently.
"...unless, of course, it is a sanctuary of the local valley god."
CIARA: "Yeah, I figured as much. Tell me something I don't know."
Again, you hear yourself speaking before your sleep-deprived mind gets a third through looking for a sufficiently interesting fact to share with Ciara.
"Whatever spirits dwell inside, it is likely they are guarding a gate to Heaven."
Ciara frowns. She lifts herself up and ambles towards the door, kicking it open. Freezing wind blows inside as she stuffs tobacco into her pipe and lights it; you try to keep your teeth from clattering, mostly in vain.
CIARA: "I was about to ask why can't I smell her anywhere in Creation."
THE SORCERER: Because, being a simple animal, she possesses only the basest senses, which, even when honed through the muscular apparatus of her Essence cannot properly encompass the whole of-
The Lunar turns your back to you; you imagine the play of muscles on her mighty back; you glimpse the predatory outline of her profile, and the confident way she holds her pipe like she would hold a-
THE CAPTAIN: Eyes on the road, ma'am.
CIARA: "Before we take this conversation any further, I need to have some clarity here. You are about to tell me that we need to follow her into Yu-Shan?"
[ ] Yes.
[ ] No.
[ ] You have just suggested it first, it's your idea.
- Location
- an unseen void
- Pronouns
- Any
[X] You have just suggested it first, it's your idea.
EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 43
Gargulec
impact!
- Location
- a garden
Ciara sends in a smoke ring towards the overcast sky. Once. Twice. Thrice. Through her extending silence, you ruminate on what you have just said. It is not very pleasant.
CIARA: "You've managed to get your star-specked colleagues to try to off you."
She sounds defeated, or at least deflated.
CIARA: "Which is no mean feat, considering how infamously cliquish your lot is."
A few specks of ash fly off the tip of her hand; she throws them to the snow-strewn gravel outside.
CIARA: "And I am pretty sure that some of your bosses still remember me from that night when they decided to tear the sun from the sky. Speaking poetically."
LORE (NORMAL):
CHECK SUCCESS
THE GAUNTLET: She means the Solar Purge. The necessary decrease of Creation's greatness, so that it was allowed to endure.
THE SORCERER: She means the Usurpation. The terrible crime of robbing us all of a brighter future.
EMBASSY (DIFFICULT):
CHECK SUCCESS
THE LOVERS: Can you hear it in her voice? More than a millenium has passed, and she still has not forgiven you.
Me?
THE LOVERS: Any of you, you idiot.
CIARA: "As much as I'd like to tear some of their hearts out and offer them to gods long dead and forgotten, I don't really fancy the idea of a rematch with the likes of Kejak. That shrivelled prick's still alive, isn't he?"
She knocks the pipe against the doorframe to dislodge the last of the ash, then returns inside. Her spear bends towards her outstretched arm, twisting itself into a series of ornate bracelets clinking along the length of her arm.
CIARA: "But the more I think about it, the less I can imagine anything else left for us to try. So good job, Bird Bones. You are right."
THE LOVERS: Don't take it the wrong way.
THE SORCERER: Shut up. Of course we're right.
You smile. Of course you're right. Ciara's idea was excellent. The Lunar tugs at her collar, trying to slip a finger under the starmetal weave. The device responds in kind, contorting ever so slightly, sinewy, snakelike.
CIARA: "We are going on a trip to Heaven. And probably to die."
[ ] Heaven is not that bad.
[ ] The Fivefold Fellowship is not that bad.
[ ] I'm sorry I've dragged you into this.
[ ] I don't want to die.
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- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] I'm sorry I've dragged you into this.