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Dead Sky: An Exalted Quest

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Gargulec said:
You will scour the sky looking for answers, and when you find them, you will discarded them.
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*discard
Gargulec said:
But you will not win, and one day, there will come a failure that is too much too shoulder, and you will stop.
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*to shoulder
Gargulec said:
In her left hand, there is what appears to be a man's leg, a dark metal greaves still tied to it. They are badly dented.
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*greave
*It is badly dented.

Some fun character development and teasers here.
 
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EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 34
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    • The Lunar takes a long time to answer; as you watch her slowly chew on the ectoplasmic flesh, you can feel months passing. But, finally, she swallows.

    CIARA: "For now."

    Then, she burps.

    CIARA: "They really weren't kidding when they said they'll just keep coming back stronger."

    She looks down at the spear piercing her; you look at the spear piercing her. Boredly, she snaps it in half, and yanks it out of her body; her flesh barely bleeds as she does, and you watch it close the wound almost immediately. Idly, you feel a pang of shame that more skin did not show.

    THE LOVERS: To you? Why would she ever?

    She gives her ruined clothing a rueful look then waves her shoulder. A silver shimmer ripples across her frame, and restores her ragged furs to their previous state of disrepair, minus the blood.

    CIARA: "Too bad that their stronger is still my dogshit."

    She grins as she says that. You like how her fangs show. You also feel very nauseous right now, probably on account of being recently possessed.

    Ciara picks up the leg, and continues to gnaw on it, staring at you at all time, as if to challenge you to say something about it.

    [ ] Say something about it.
    [ ] Ask her if she found your mirror, the one she tossed out earlier.
    [ ] Ask her more about the Pursuers.
    [ ] Mention you were briefly possessed, probably by the Neverborn.
     
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    • EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 35
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    • "Did their necromancer not trouble you without my presence to assist?"

    You ask this question without really thing, feeling it dredge up some part of your- well, to call it memory would be inaccurate. It is more a particular neural pathway that's been furrowed in very deep by your constant refusal to stop thinking about it. The Pursuers have a necromancer among them. A tall wight with antlered head, grave-gold trinkets adorning the twisting bone. You have confronted her before, and you have humiliated her before. To you, she is weak. But Ciara, being unen-

    CIARA: "I ripped her head off before she got the third syllable of her incantation off. Popped like a cherry."

    She makes a suggestive gesture with her muscular arms. Your brain briefly stutters. Then you realize that this means...

    "So you didn't need me to deal with her?"

    Ciara sighs, an extended and mildly pained sound.

    CIARA: "The last time I just thought it'd make you feel better if you had something to do before I killed all of them. Would keep you occupied."

    THE SORCERER: This lying barbarian is trying to to make you doubt your power. Do not listen to her! Even a piddling necromancer wouldn't have her head torn off like that! Surely it was a trick, surely...

    THE LOVERS: Shut up.

    You concur.

    With a nasty crunch, Ciara bites into the Pursuer's bone, and starts to - loudly - suck on the ectoplasmic marrow inside.

    [ ] Say something about it.
    [ ] Ask her if she found your mirror, the one she tossed out earlier.
    [ ] Mention you were briefly possessed, probably by the Neverborn.
     
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    • [ ] Mention you were briefly possessed, probably by the Neverborn.
    I got the last one so I aint gonna vote again but I really wanna do this
     
    EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 36
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    • "I think I was briefly possessed."

    Ciara's mouth stops moving. She raises an eyebrow. You blush.

    "While you were fighting."

    The Lunar nods her head, waiting for you to go on. Her eyes seem, briefly, rather weary.

    "By the Neverborn," you finish and then, for a good measure, repeat. "I think."

    She nods again. She says nothing. She finishes her meal, then opens the door again, and gives the remains of the leg a good toss; they vanish into the dark outside. She wipes her mouth with the palm of her hand, and shuffles over to the fire, to inspect it. You wait for her to say anything.

    CIARA: "I don't think anyone else will trouble us during this night. We should leave come morning, though. I hope you have some idea where to go next."

    She drops down to the beaten soil floor, and leans in towards the fire to warm herself up a bit.

    [ ] Insist on talking about the fact of your possession.
    [ ] Try to figure out where to go next.
     
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    • EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 37
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    • thelordofmango said:
    [X] Try to figure out where to go next.
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    The question on where you should direct yourself to next is made mildly more problematic by your near-complete absence of memories, lack of knowledge of what the Work even is-

    THE GAUNTELT: That which must not be abandoned.

    -aside from how it is that which must not be abandoned. In fact, as you sit down by the fire and try to come up with some kind of a plan - any kind of a plan - your mind keeps coming up empty. It's a gross feeling, a nauseating sense of weakness that spreads through your tired body like a haze, threatening to soon engulf you whole.

    "I have no idea where to go next," you admit to Ciara, a tinge of defeat in your voice.

    The Lunar shakes her head, her knotted hair swaying gently in the fire's smoke.

    CIARA: "Oh, you're not getting off the hook so easily. Figure that out, miss 'Jupter-Smart'."

    "Am I really?"

    THE SORCERER: Obviously.

    CIARA: "Obviously not."

    THE LOVERS: She's got the right idea.

    THE SORCERER: Stop taking her side, you two-bit harlot.

    THE LOVERS: Yours I wouldn't take for all the jade in the world, sorcerer boy.

    Your press your fists to your eyes as the stars in your heart go on their never-ending bickering. You wish those two would stop. You wish for a moment Creation would bring a pause to trying to mock, posses, and kill you. Ciara keeps her palms to the fire. You feel increasingly lost.

    "Why don't come up with an idea instead?" you whine in her direction. "Give us some input! You must be-"

    CIARA: "You are the brains of the operation, don't you ever forget this."

    Her tone is as even as a calm sea, which only makes the oil-slick spill of venom across its surface all the more visible.

    "Must you be this petulant?" you ask, petulantly.

    Ciara clasps her hands together; the sound is of a pair of boulders crashing together. Your imagination skips to what those hands could-

    CIARA: "Listen to me," she says, the practiced slow pronunciation of someone mid-way to a berserk fit of rage. "No longer than a day ago, I was sitting guard outside of that ramshackle observatory and listening to your colleague try to kill you. This-" she points at the collar clasped around her neck, her long nail barely touched the metal "-would maybe, possibly killed me if she had managed to. Or maybe I would be forced to play a sentinel to your corpse until the stars themselves go out and the moon shines its last."

    You realize - for once, without the input of your fractured spirit - that you really shouldn't interrupt her here.

    EMBASSY (DIFFICULT):
    1 6
    CHECK SUCCESS

    So you don't.

    CIARA: "In that moment, I thought either of those alternatives preferable to having to deal with you and your-"

    THE LOVERS: This is gonna be good.

    CIARA: "Your-"

    She hesitates. Her shoulders pull together as she struggles for words. You are reminded of watching a mountain slope, and observing the first marks of an avalanche to slide down into the valley, the first, deceptively slow movements of snow. And you know - though you can't tell where you picked this memory up - that those signs were the decrees of fate. Those who saw them could no longer run: only prey they would not be caught in the coming white roar.

    CIARA: "Your-"

    THE GAUNTLET: Stick fingers into your ears. Run outside. Now.

    [ ] Stick your fingers into your ears and run outside. Now.
    [ ] Try to hear Ciara out.
     
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    • I wonder if she noticed our lust/love, and that's what she was going to mention.
     
    EVIDENCE OF HER PASSAGE 38
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    • Broken25 said:
    [X] Stick your fingers into your ears and run outside. Now.
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    The following sequence of events unfolds not so much on the level of conscious decisions and exertions of will. It is, instead, a matter of pure, reflexive reaction. Ciara's tirade builds up to a breaking point, but before the dam can burst, you slam your feeble hands to the sides of your skull, and with the reverb muffling the noise of the Lunar's voice, you dash outside as if your live depended on it. With your shoulder, you open the door and let the cold air welcome you again, because even freezing to death would be preferable than...

    Than...

    You have no idea what it is that you're so afraid of. Insults? You could use being insulted right now. You think you-

    THE CROW: Let me help you.

    You brace for the blow.

    THE CROW: The thing you're so afraid of, my fellow bird, is the truth.

    Ah. Yeah. The truth. That would make sense.

    Gravel and ice crunch under your feet. Ciara closes the door behind you, to keep the heat inside. You find yourself alone again, the terrible sense of shame over your latest display of yourself burning with its usual low-flame intensity. This is your life now. Lost. Nowhere to go. Wallowing in self pity. Hoping that the Lunar will rush out after you and-

    THE CAPTAIN: Ma'am.

    Your thoughts arrest; there is a pinching sensation.

    THE CAPTAIN: Look up.

    Ah. Yes. The one thing you've been forgetting. The stars.

    Above you, the navy-blue sky is dotted with silver. You watch the distant gleam of the turning of the Loom, rendered on the great stage of the firmament, and however briefly, forget the moment. Forget the crippling sense of weakness, or solitude. For a moment, you remember something else.

    Or maybe "remember" is not the best word - you have lost your memories not to a simple act of forgetting, but rather, and you are sure of that, to a deliberate action, the one that offers little hope for the return of images, sounds, and names. But the body keeps the score, and you had a life impressed into your flesh and your bone, written in your blood and signed with your tears. Not all of them were shed in sadness. The stars shine ever so gently, ever so far away.

    And you had watched them once, from somewhere else, and someone joined you, and asked you what do you love about them, and you said that it is because of their indifference. So they asked: and what if they could match the love you have for them? And you shrugged and said: better than the more loving one be me.

    Whatever the meaning was of those words, of that moment in time, it's lost to you. But it carries still a measure of comfort, a measure of your lost self that can't ever fully go away. The stars, the stars - they promise you damnation, but they are your guiding lights. You trace a many-colored trail among them, from the Captain's wheel to the Lover's hand, from the hand to the Gauntlet, and it's grasp to the Sorcerer's wand. And the last star, that you pointedly ignore.

    Some in the Bureau of Destiny read fate as if it was a book. A series of phrases inscribed in blue and silver, that one can assemble into sentences and read for the truth of them. But you could never master that trick, and besides, it felt impersonal, even wrong, to treat the work of the Loom that way. No, you have trawled the sky and seen its other side; how could you pretend it is just a script? Fate is a conversation.

    "Help me," you implore your stars. "Tell me where to go."

    THE CAPTAIN: You are ship-wrecked, ma'am. You've lost...

    THE LOVERS: Pretty much everything you cared for.

    THE CAPTAIN: Yourself, mostly. You dredged up what floatsam you could get, but there is not that much to go with.

    THE SORCERER: But you are not powerless. You are not past your peak.

    THE GAUNTLET: And the Work awaits.

    You nod to them. But can they tell you something you don't know? You need help. You need directions.

    THE LOVERS: But you know what to do next already. The same thing you always do.

    THE SORCERER: Reach for power.

    THE GAUNTLET: Grit your teeth.

    THE LOVERS: And chase after the woman who tried to kill you.

    Your colleague. The one who stole the Work's keystone from you. You need to find her. You ned to recover what was stolen.

    THE LOVERS: That's not the only thing you need from her, but the only one you can realistically hope to get.

    Right. Right. But how do you find her? She's long gone. And-

    THE SORCERER: And are you foolish enough to believe that there is not a spell right at your finger-tips which would reveal the secret path to you? That that there are no spirits you can call upon to hunt her down like the thieving, traitorous vermin she is? Your birthright is infinite, cosmic power: use it!

    That makes sense.

    THE LOVERS: Or you could just ask your moon-touched companion to track her down herself. Surely, she is a good hunting wolf. Maybe you could make making her feel useful a kind of an apology?

    That also makes sense.

    THE CROW: Both of those choices are traps.

    Oh. Are there any that are not?

    THE CROW: No. You are about a year past that point.

    So no matter what you choose, it's going to go badly for you?

    THE CROW: Yes.

    You choose.

    [ ] Use sorcery to track down your errant colleague.
    [ ] Convince Ciara to track down your errant colleague.

    This is an impactful vote.
     
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    • I forgot to edit this into the post at first, but this is an impactful vote. I will hold it open for at least several hours.
     
    [X] Use sorcery to track down your errant colleague.

    Why use a mutt's dirty nose when we have infinite power.
     
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