- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Tell them everything. Your Exaltation, the Waif, her orders.
This feels better to me than the other options, in this situation.
This feels better to me than the other options, in this situation.
[Exalted] The Dragon Blood, Never Born
- Thread starter VagueZ
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Tell them everything. Your Exaltation, the Waif, her orders.
A poor decision, all things considered, but we have yet to make a sensible decision in this quest and I don't intend to start now.
A poor decision, all things considered, but we have yet to make a sensible decision in this quest and I don't intend to start now.
- Location
- Bed
[X] Shade the truth to make yourself look good, but generally be open
Why? This may have been an absolute disaster, and we may have only two maybe-allies in this entire world, and we may have killed one of the only people truly close to us, but damned if we won't still be a manipulative coward to the very end!
No, but seriously, telling them everything will just ensure that unless they're absolutely dedicated idiots they'll kill us instantly. Which is the right thing to do.
Why? This may have been an absolute disaster, and we may have only two maybe-allies in this entire world, and we may have killed one of the only people truly close to us, but damned if we won't still be a manipulative coward to the very end!
No, but seriously, telling them everything will just ensure that unless they're absolutely dedicated idiots they'll kill us instantly. Which is the right thing to do.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
I think we were quite ready for it when we refused our orders. The Whispers do not tolerate dissent.
Frankly, I am not sure what we'd expect to do with our unlife anymore. We have already betrayed the Waif. We have cut ties with our family along with Deled's arm; they will not save us. Nor is there anything left there that we'd care for now that Taara is gone.
I mean, I would respect Trumvir if he keeps up his manipulative coward act on principle alone, but otherwise I struggle to find a motive.
At this point the only thing left to him would be the morbid curiousity, what did the Waif do it all for, and what we ended up not-doing. She never really told us anything.
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- Location
- Bed
My main reasoning for this would be plain old habit. He's lived his whole life in the excesses of Terrestrial society - I'd be surprised if he's ever NOT been using the manipulative coward act. That's not something you drop easily, even under stressful situations like this.
Will he eventually get over it? Quite possibly, depending on how we play, what happens, and how many more people die for stupid reasons. But now? When everything's fallen apart and there's almost nobody left he can legitimately say he cares about? He will retreat to where he's relatively the safest. And when you're a Dynast, you're only safe when you're lying.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Fun fact: approximately 98.5% of the time, I make that typo and then have to fix it. Most of the time, it comes before anyone else sees it. Thanks.
Also... hey, we're tied up, 4-4! If anyone else wants to weigh in, now's your chance
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UmbraofChaos
Freedom Lets Go
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Tell them everything. Your Exaltation, the Waif, her orders.
I do love myself an ugly truth, and I didn't pick the most isolating downsides I could think of just to play the half truth game with the ones left behind.
I do love myself an ugly truth, and I didn't pick the most isolating downsides I could think of just to play the half truth game with the ones left behind.
Revelation
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Tell them everything. Your Exaltation, the Waif, her orders.
Your first instinct is to lie, to make yourself look good, and to limit what you're saying to manipulate Ari and Solace by omission. Your second instinct is... that it would just be nice to unburden yourself. To, for once, just say everything without holding back, without framing it within the context of what's good for you, what's good for House Peleps, what's good for the Realm's Dragon-Bloods, and what's good for the Realm, in that order. These two were willing to share, even without knowing each other, on the strength of knowing you and trying to figure things out.
You pull your knees up and wrap your arms around them. "Let me start from the very beginning. I think it'll make more sense to start there. Ari, you know I wasn't an Exalt when we fought, when you threw me from the Arm Forest. As I fell, I didn't just happen to Exalt. I was given a choice. Someone spoke to me." This catches Ari's attention more than Solace. Solace, too, was specifically chosen, after all. "I was told I could refuse and die, or accept becoming a tool of a specific power. Given that choice, I took the only route where I stayed alive. Sort of."
Now your audience is drawn in. You peel back your lips in a smile, showing fangs fit to rip out a throat. "All I had to do was be the Chosen of the Underworld, picked by someone who turned out to be a Deathlord." Ari's eyes go furtively to Solace, then back to you, where she doesn't do much more than thin her lips. "Her name is the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers, and she was my source of information. Is that the Deathlord you fought against, Ari?"
He shakes his head, but to show ignorance, not reject the thought. "We didn't exchange names. I don't know."
"You fought with a Deathlord?" Solace, who probably has only dealt with much more normal types of undead, is shocked even more than she is impressed.
"And some nephwracks and deathknights," Ari says, with an air of affected indifference. "I was there with some... never mind, it's a long story. One of the deathknights gave me this." He points at his injury.
"Probably the Waif, though," you say, to get attention back onto you. "She gave me specific directions that as night fell on the first full day of Calibration, I was to enter the Penitent, no matter what else happened to the world at the time. And... that was it. Just enter it. She told me that once I did, I could leave, and that would be everything she would ask of me. The vow she gave me was anything. I could ask her for anything, anything at all that wasn't her own destruction, and she would grant it."
Ari's eyes widen. "Anything? That's a pretty bold promise. What could be... hang on." The Lunar interrupts himself to look down and start scratching some meaningless sorcerous sigils into the floor, as if he were working out a math problem in the dirt.
Solace barely spares that a glance. "And that's why I found you at the peak of the Penitent." Fiery eyes meet yours, but there's no warmth for you in them. "Because you were greedy enough to consider that."
"I don't think that's fair." You meet her look evenly. "I get the impression she was legitimately offering that. This was potentially a way out, for freedom. Maybe even, I don't know, revoking this," you wipe your forehead clean again, "and letting me be a Dragon-Blood. Maybe that's possible."
"Every Exalt is free," Ari interjects, almost absently. "We are ultimately impossible to compel. That's gotta be why the Deathlord didn't give you any time to think or prepare." He's still working on his thought in the dirt.
Solace shrugs with one shoulder. "She probably was telling the truth. Anything I know about Deathlords is deeply second-hand. They don't exactly leave many witnesses to talk about them, but I think they're still ghosts. Just... like to a regular ghost what a Dragon-Blood is to a mortal. Ghosts are creatures of rote, but who break out of that through passion. They need to challenge themselves, and to risk and push. So... it could certainly be that she was going to give you a real open invitation to ask anything of her. That's exactly the sort of kind of risky offer I've seen from some of the ghosts I've tried to lay to rest, though they were always a smaller sort. And they didn't involve messing around with a millennia-old artifact the size of a mountain that is constantly adjusting the geomancy of an entire direction. Who knows what sort of damage that would do? It couldn't have been good."
"Got it." You and Solace both look over at Ari. His symbols have grown surprisingly elaborate in the dirt. He gives you both a sad grin before he continues. "The pieces were all there, and the Essence flows support it. Solace, you said that the Penitent is supposed to link up with 'Lawgivers'. And I'm reacting to the Triumvir here like I would expect to react to a So--to a Lawgiver. If it links up to a 'Lawgiver' that is operating on necrotic Essence and establishes a two-way flow with the Elemental Pole of Fire where that core worms into the heart of it, maybe even magnified like the Penitent is formed like a magnified version of a person..." Here, Ari shakes his head. "It's... unimaginable. But it would be much like poisoning the Elemental Pole itself. I don't think it'd be quick, but it would be nearly impossible to stop.
"You'd kill Fire. Fire itself." Right after saying that, something seems to catch Ari's eye, and he hops to the cave entrance, looking out over the Inland Sea.
Color drains out of Solace's face. She may have gotten more powerful, but the world she's facing is still just as much bigger than her as when she was some halfbreed blown in off the desert winds. Her look goes back to you. "Triumvir. Please believe I don't want to speak out of turn on this... but now more than ever, I'm going to have to really emphasize that I don't want to see you up on the Penitent's head." Solace means that she would have to fight you.
"If I were going to do anything you'd object to, I would have pushed past you last night." You aren't feeling up to putting up with her new possessiveness of this place she barely knows. Solace still doesn't look happy, unsurprisingly. You roll your eyes in the face of her disapproval. "I'm the same person now that I was when we first met, Solace. You weren't too unhappy with me before. Apart from these things that I'm telling you now, the only thing that's really a surprise is that you don't know my name." That breaks the anger Solace is trying to work herself up to, as well as pulls Ari's eye off of the sea. You smile before their quizzical looks, your teeth now a normal-looking thing. "I get this weird, nasty feedback if I try to go by my birth name for anything but hiding myself. The Waif gave me a new name: Vessel of the Mourning's Light Unyielding." You are briefly glad she didn't name you something like 'Gleeful Murderer' or 'Untrustworthy Liar'. You'd probably have lied if she had.
"That's a bit of a mouthful," says Solace Through the Night, whose name isn't really that much shorter. "Can I call you 'Vessel' for short?"
You shrug in acceptance. It's about the obvious name. "If I do go back down to the Lap, please don't call me that there."
"There's a sea battle," Ari interrupts.
"What?" You get up and go over to him, looking over one shoulder. A second later, Solace is peering over his other shoulder. There's some ships on the water, sure, but you can't make out much detail: they are miles distant, and there's a limit to how much detail you can see. There's eight of them, and they are large enough to be warships. You don't see any immediate evidence of a fight, but it could just be that even with only one eye Ari can see better than you can. "There haven't been any pirates in these waters for years. House Peleps has seen to that."
"Someone's fighting down there," Ari insists. "Five on three." You glance down. His one eye is bulging out, his arteries and veins around the eye pulsing with every heartbeat as he pushes his body to observe more. Not a surprising fashion for a shapeshifter to enhance his senses, you suppose. "I've seen them fire ballistae back and forth, along with some fire weapons. Not sure what those were, exactly."
You frown. "Can you see flags or any other markings?" There's a little back and forth as he does his best to describe the visible mons and stand-out colors and you strive to interpret them. It takes a bit, and the final outcome only raises more questions. "Five Peleps triremes harrying three V'neef triremes?" The other give you a silent look asking for more explanation. Neither one of them is nearly as familiar with the Realm's internal workings. "House Peleps is the premier maritime House of the Realm," you explain. "We've been the masters of the seas for hundreds of years. Most of the Realm's navies are very closely aligned with House Peleps. House V'neef has only been around for a few decades. V'neef herself is less than sixty! But the House pulled together a bunch of Outcastes and patricians that Exalted and--" You cut your explanation short as you realize you're losing your audience. "Well, long story short, V'neef has been trying to cut in on the maritime action in the last few years, but we're still the best. But that out there? That's not an anti-piracy operation." As the discussion has gone on, you and Solace have begun to be able to see things, too. It's not a lot, but one of the V'neef ships is fighting fire, and two different masts have been knocked down.
"Then what is it?" Ari supplies the prompt you were hoping for.
"I think it's civil war."
Unsurprisingly, the Lunar doesn't seem too bothered by that. Anathema and the Realm have been at war since the Empress's ascension. And probably before; you're a little fuzzy on ancient history. Solace, however, looks troubled. "What set this off, then? Is this the work of the Deathlord, too...?"
You shake your head. Solace sounded unsure, and for good reason: that sounds beyond even the reach of a Deathlord. "No. The Empress disappeared in the Calibration between Realm Years 763 and 764. Everyone's been jockeying for position since the Deliberative finally agreed she might be out of the picture. Not just who might ascend, but... what the new Realm would look like. I can't overstate how much the Realm turned on the word of the Empress. No one wants to be the first one to make an aggressive move and lose the moral high ground, but that says that line's been crossed." You gesture out at the ships. The battle continues. You're not sure how long you all watch in silence.
You wrench your gaze away from the battle below to look at Solace. "What news did we have in town? What else do we know about what's been going on?"
She shrugs. "It was a general nervous tizzy, even beyond your own little spectacle. Enough so that I didn't even get many people in authority to comment on my Exaltation. There was a fight out there, near where that blood column came in, but no one afterwards could tell what had happened. Just evidence of a fight, but no one who knew who fought in it." She glances at Ari. "Until now, I suppose. Good to have an ally in fighting the unquiet dead, kitten." She gives him her usual bright smile.
Both of Ari's eyebrows arch. "'Kitten'?" After a moment's pause, he recognizes the same truth kids on the schoolyard figure out every year: ignoring it is the best you can do with some nicknames. "Well, better than 'Anathema' or 'stop and be purified', I suppose. We probably shouldn't tell the Immaculates anything, though."
Sobering up, Solace nods agreement. "Definitely. Too hard to explain how I came up with the information. Apart from that situation, we do need to know what else has been going on. We should go get more info." She looks at you. "Which doesn't include you, right now, not when you're still this unpleasant to be around. Vessel, can I trust that you're not going to do anything untoward if I leave you alone?"
You put on your best expression of exasperation, but don't say anything. This whole 'being the hero Chosen to be Exigent' thing is wearing thin with you. Hopefully, she'll get over it soon.
"Fine." She looks back at Ari. "Rumor is that your kind can take animal shapes. Do you think maybe you can accompany me down and share the news with our friend?" In response, Ari takes hawk shape and perches on one of her shoulders. She mostly manages not to flinch, to her credit.
"I'll keep my distance once we're in town," he squawks. With one last backwards glance at you, Solace leaves. Their voices recede quickly, as they work out more of their details of the excursion.
This leaves you alone, with just the ship battle down below for company. You watch. It's all silent from this distance, of course. As is common for naval battles where no one's relying on First Age technology (weapons or hulls, either will change the battle significantly) or the ship types meant for the endless expanses of the Western Ocean, the main way to fight is for both sides to take shots of opportunity with archers and siege weapons while trying for a chance to ram. A good ramming attack sinks the victim's ship. A slightly less good one tangles the ships up and the crews of both vessels swarm over each other and the winners take whichever ship is less likely to sink when they disentangle.
The combat plays out with barely-visible, toy-like shapes in the far distance, and with a slowness that belies the lives and efforts at play. It takes a long time for anything to actually conclude, and the fog that keeps coming and going hides things at times. It's just a mild example of Calibration weather: you can have any time of year's weather, randomly, or if very unlucky far worse things. You measure the passing time mostly by the sun's progress, the fact that you're feeling increasingly hungry, and the blood you still have to periodically wipe off your forehead. The last is slowing, and you don't think this blood is exactly your actual blood. You aren't feeling any effects of blood loss, at any rate. By tomorrow morning, you think you'll be about presentable.
Eventually, four of the original eight ships sail away into the late-afternoon fog. Of course they're Peleps ships. You're pleased by the win ratio, there: House Peleps is still the master of the seas.
As the sea clears and you're left alone, you run a probing mental finger into the corners of your mind. Since their 'judgment', your Whispers have been oddly quiet. Maybe 'quiescent' is a better word. You can still sense them. They aren't gone, but they aren't pushing and screaming for you. You don't know if that's because they're satisfied, or because they're tired. Can they get tired? If so, maybe you can wear them out and then do whatever you feel like while they're too exhausted to do anything about it.
That sounds like a long shot.
No. You've spent too long being pushed around, hiding, and unsure of what you're doing. Ari was right before when he said that Exalts are fundamentally impossible to compel. Even the Realm can't: Dragon-Bloods who push too hard against the constraints of society have traditionally been allowed some latitude, at some other cost. You have all the freedom in the world, now. Anathema or not, you're finding you're far less controlled than even the most lenient commentary on the Immaculate Texts had suggested was possible, and it's associated with power. Power to do... well, anything. Almost nothing could stop you if you seriously put your mind to anything, if you approached it well. Exalting is becoming superhuman in a very fundamental and universal fashion.
Eventually, there's a flapping of wings. Ari rejoins you, dropping a torn half-loaf of bread into your lap. He carried it up here in his talons. You pick it up as he takes human form again, considering it. Street food. Not the worst thing you've eaten, but not as good as you'd get if--
--if Taara had made it.
You push that thought out of your head as soon as you have it. "Thanks," you say. "Did you think to bring any oil or cheese with it?"
He eyes you with one eye. You're not sure why. "It was what the vendor had. I can hunt some pigeon or bat if you want some meat to accompany it."
"If it's not too much trouble." You have devoured most of the loaf before he comes back. He found a nice, plump quail, again dragged in by hawk talons. You eat it raw. You're hungry.
Once you're feeling a little more human, and to avoid dwelling on what you're doing for food today, you look up to Ari. "What did you and Solace find out?"
He shrugs. "Most of it didn't mean anything to me." He launches into an extremely brief summary. You have to interrupt with questions and otherwise work to interpret the news. The basic shape eventually becomes clear to you.
A full sworn kinship of magistrates, the wandering Dragon-Bloods serving as keepers of peace and justice, each individually selected by the Empress and loyal to her and the Realm only, took it upon themselves to try to arrest Mnemon. Mnemon herself is the eldest of the Empress's surviving daughters, and has been widely seen as the most obvious heir to the throne. The reason for the attempted arrest was on suspicion of consorting with demons.
This is not to be confused with summoning demons, which is the right of every Dragon-Blooded sorcerer who pays the proper licensing fees and insurance for demon rampages. Instead, the charge is that she has been subordinating herself to them, which is much less acceptable.
Regardless, the magistrates were rebuffed and defeated by a demon Mnemon had summoned: a second-circle demon known as the Keeper of the Forge of Night. The surviving magistrates used this as further evidence of the crime. Mnemon maintained that the whole charge is a farcically ham-handed political move on the part of her enemies to discredit her.
All this took play on the day before Calibration. The story after that is difficult to piece together, because at about this point the heliograph connections off the Blessed Isle were cut. The heliograph system, using bright lights and mirrors and ciphers to pass messages between towers over long distance, is one of the few non-sorcerous ways to pass information swifter than a horse or ship.
It seems likely, however, that the civil war kicked off with that, with groups breaking into pro- or anti- Mnemon factions, almost certainly nearly along House lines, with House matriarchs dictating their family's beliefs on the matter. Who is on which side is something you can only speculate on, although it seems obvious that Peleps and V'neef must be on opposite sides.
Once all that is worked out, Ari cocks his head and considers you afresh. "You've got a different look to you," he comments. "Did you come to some conclusion while I was away?"
You nod. "I did." Perhaps it's a distant dream, but all those things about being able to push the limits of what's possible have stuck with you.
[] You are a Dynast of the Realm, Triumvir of the Lap. None may gainsay that.
This is your place. Hold fast. The legions like you, as do enough of the sepoys and common workers. The other Triumvirs need you, even if they don't like you. Boldly return and reclaim your place.
[] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
The Waif is not the most overt of Deathlords, but that doesn't mean she's impossible for you to track down. Leave here, track down her operations, and thwart them.
[] What, in the end, has Creation done for you? Embrace this new life.
It was pure chance Solace was in the way, that and your own weakness meaning you didn't enter the Penitent before. Correct that, now that you do know what you are doing.
[] Write-in
You have some grand motivation outside of this that you seek to pursue. Potentially subject to approval.
Your first instinct is to lie, to make yourself look good, and to limit what you're saying to manipulate Ari and Solace by omission. Your second instinct is... that it would just be nice to unburden yourself. To, for once, just say everything without holding back, without framing it within the context of what's good for you, what's good for House Peleps, what's good for the Realm's Dragon-Bloods, and what's good for the Realm, in that order. These two were willing to share, even without knowing each other, on the strength of knowing you and trying to figure things out.
You pull your knees up and wrap your arms around them. "Let me start from the very beginning. I think it'll make more sense to start there. Ari, you know I wasn't an Exalt when we fought, when you threw me from the Arm Forest. As I fell, I didn't just happen to Exalt. I was given a choice. Someone spoke to me." This catches Ari's attention more than Solace. Solace, too, was specifically chosen, after all. "I was told I could refuse and die, or accept becoming a tool of a specific power. Given that choice, I took the only route where I stayed alive. Sort of."
Now your audience is drawn in. You peel back your lips in a smile, showing fangs fit to rip out a throat. "All I had to do was be the Chosen of the Underworld, picked by someone who turned out to be a Deathlord." Ari's eyes go furtively to Solace, then back to you, where she doesn't do much more than thin her lips. "Her name is the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers, and she was my source of information. Is that the Deathlord you fought against, Ari?"
He shakes his head, but to show ignorance, not reject the thought. "We didn't exchange names. I don't know."
"You fought with a Deathlord?" Solace, who probably has only dealt with much more normal types of undead, is shocked even more than she is impressed.
"And some nephwracks and deathknights," Ari says, with an air of affected indifference. "I was there with some... never mind, it's a long story. One of the deathknights gave me this." He points at his injury.
"Probably the Waif, though," you say, to get attention back onto you. "She gave me specific directions that as night fell on the first full day of Calibration, I was to enter the Penitent, no matter what else happened to the world at the time. And... that was it. Just enter it. She told me that once I did, I could leave, and that would be everything she would ask of me. The vow she gave me was anything. I could ask her for anything, anything at all that wasn't her own destruction, and she would grant it."
Ari's eyes widen. "Anything? That's a pretty bold promise. What could be... hang on." The Lunar interrupts himself to look down and start scratching some meaningless sorcerous sigils into the floor, as if he were working out a math problem in the dirt.
Solace barely spares that a glance. "And that's why I found you at the peak of the Penitent." Fiery eyes meet yours, but there's no warmth for you in them. "Because you were greedy enough to consider that."
"I don't think that's fair." You meet her look evenly. "I get the impression she was legitimately offering that. This was potentially a way out, for freedom. Maybe even, I don't know, revoking this," you wipe your forehead clean again, "and letting me be a Dragon-Blood. Maybe that's possible."
"Every Exalt is free," Ari interjects, almost absently. "We are ultimately impossible to compel. That's gotta be why the Deathlord didn't give you any time to think or prepare." He's still working on his thought in the dirt.
Solace shrugs with one shoulder. "She probably was telling the truth. Anything I know about Deathlords is deeply second-hand. They don't exactly leave many witnesses to talk about them, but I think they're still ghosts. Just... like to a regular ghost what a Dragon-Blood is to a mortal. Ghosts are creatures of rote, but who break out of that through passion. They need to challenge themselves, and to risk and push. So... it could certainly be that she was going to give you a real open invitation to ask anything of her. That's exactly the sort of kind of risky offer I've seen from some of the ghosts I've tried to lay to rest, though they were always a smaller sort. And they didn't involve messing around with a millennia-old artifact the size of a mountain that is constantly adjusting the geomancy of an entire direction. Who knows what sort of damage that would do? It couldn't have been good."
"Got it." You and Solace both look over at Ari. His symbols have grown surprisingly elaborate in the dirt. He gives you both a sad grin before he continues. "The pieces were all there, and the Essence flows support it. Solace, you said that the Penitent is supposed to link up with 'Lawgivers'. And I'm reacting to the Triumvir here like I would expect to react to a So--to a Lawgiver. If it links up to a 'Lawgiver' that is operating on necrotic Essence and establishes a two-way flow with the Elemental Pole of Fire where that core worms into the heart of it, maybe even magnified like the Penitent is formed like a magnified version of a person..." Here, Ari shakes his head. "It's... unimaginable. But it would be much like poisoning the Elemental Pole itself. I don't think it'd be quick, but it would be nearly impossible to stop.
"You'd kill Fire. Fire itself." Right after saying that, something seems to catch Ari's eye, and he hops to the cave entrance, looking out over the Inland Sea.
Color drains out of Solace's face. She may have gotten more powerful, but the world she's facing is still just as much bigger than her as when she was some halfbreed blown in off the desert winds. Her look goes back to you. "Triumvir. Please believe I don't want to speak out of turn on this... but now more than ever, I'm going to have to really emphasize that I don't want to see you up on the Penitent's head." Solace means that she would have to fight you.
"If I were going to do anything you'd object to, I would have pushed past you last night." You aren't feeling up to putting up with her new possessiveness of this place she barely knows. Solace still doesn't look happy, unsurprisingly. You roll your eyes in the face of her disapproval. "I'm the same person now that I was when we first met, Solace. You weren't too unhappy with me before. Apart from these things that I'm telling you now, the only thing that's really a surprise is that you don't know my name." That breaks the anger Solace is trying to work herself up to, as well as pulls Ari's eye off of the sea. You smile before their quizzical looks, your teeth now a normal-looking thing. "I get this weird, nasty feedback if I try to go by my birth name for anything but hiding myself. The Waif gave me a new name: Vessel of the Mourning's Light Unyielding." You are briefly glad she didn't name you something like 'Gleeful Murderer' or 'Untrustworthy Liar'. You'd probably have lied if she had.
"That's a bit of a mouthful," says Solace Through the Night, whose name isn't really that much shorter. "Can I call you 'Vessel' for short?"
You shrug in acceptance. It's about the obvious name. "If I do go back down to the Lap, please don't call me that there."
"There's a sea battle," Ari interrupts.
"What?" You get up and go over to him, looking over one shoulder. A second later, Solace is peering over his other shoulder. There's some ships on the water, sure, but you can't make out much detail: they are miles distant, and there's a limit to how much detail you can see. There's eight of them, and they are large enough to be warships. You don't see any immediate evidence of a fight, but it could just be that even with only one eye Ari can see better than you can. "There haven't been any pirates in these waters for years. House Peleps has seen to that."
"Someone's fighting down there," Ari insists. "Five on three." You glance down. His one eye is bulging out, his arteries and veins around the eye pulsing with every heartbeat as he pushes his body to observe more. Not a surprising fashion for a shapeshifter to enhance his senses, you suppose. "I've seen them fire ballistae back and forth, along with some fire weapons. Not sure what those were, exactly."
You frown. "Can you see flags or any other markings?" There's a little back and forth as he does his best to describe the visible mons and stand-out colors and you strive to interpret them. It takes a bit, and the final outcome only raises more questions. "Five Peleps triremes harrying three V'neef triremes?" The other give you a silent look asking for more explanation. Neither one of them is nearly as familiar with the Realm's internal workings. "House Peleps is the premier maritime House of the Realm," you explain. "We've been the masters of the seas for hundreds of years. Most of the Realm's navies are very closely aligned with House Peleps. House V'neef has only been around for a few decades. V'neef herself is less than sixty! But the House pulled together a bunch of Outcastes and patricians that Exalted and--" You cut your explanation short as you realize you're losing your audience. "Well, long story short, V'neef has been trying to cut in on the maritime action in the last few years, but we're still the best. But that out there? That's not an anti-piracy operation." As the discussion has gone on, you and Solace have begun to be able to see things, too. It's not a lot, but one of the V'neef ships is fighting fire, and two different masts have been knocked down.
"Then what is it?" Ari supplies the prompt you were hoping for.
"I think it's civil war."
Unsurprisingly, the Lunar doesn't seem too bothered by that. Anathema and the Realm have been at war since the Empress's ascension. And probably before; you're a little fuzzy on ancient history. Solace, however, looks troubled. "What set this off, then? Is this the work of the Deathlord, too...?"
You shake your head. Solace sounded unsure, and for good reason: that sounds beyond even the reach of a Deathlord. "No. The Empress disappeared in the Calibration between Realm Years 763 and 764. Everyone's been jockeying for position since the Deliberative finally agreed she might be out of the picture. Not just who might ascend, but... what the new Realm would look like. I can't overstate how much the Realm turned on the word of the Empress. No one wants to be the first one to make an aggressive move and lose the moral high ground, but that says that line's been crossed." You gesture out at the ships. The battle continues. You're not sure how long you all watch in silence.
You wrench your gaze away from the battle below to look at Solace. "What news did we have in town? What else do we know about what's been going on?"
She shrugs. "It was a general nervous tizzy, even beyond your own little spectacle. Enough so that I didn't even get many people in authority to comment on my Exaltation. There was a fight out there, near where that blood column came in, but no one afterwards could tell what had happened. Just evidence of a fight, but no one who knew who fought in it." She glances at Ari. "Until now, I suppose. Good to have an ally in fighting the unquiet dead, kitten." She gives him her usual bright smile.
Both of Ari's eyebrows arch. "'Kitten'?" After a moment's pause, he recognizes the same truth kids on the schoolyard figure out every year: ignoring it is the best you can do with some nicknames. "Well, better than 'Anathema' or 'stop and be purified', I suppose. We probably shouldn't tell the Immaculates anything, though."
Sobering up, Solace nods agreement. "Definitely. Too hard to explain how I came up with the information. Apart from that situation, we do need to know what else has been going on. We should go get more info." She looks at you. "Which doesn't include you, right now, not when you're still this unpleasant to be around. Vessel, can I trust that you're not going to do anything untoward if I leave you alone?"
You put on your best expression of exasperation, but don't say anything. This whole 'being the hero Chosen to be Exigent' thing is wearing thin with you. Hopefully, she'll get over it soon.
"Fine." She looks back at Ari. "Rumor is that your kind can take animal shapes. Do you think maybe you can accompany me down and share the news with our friend?" In response, Ari takes hawk shape and perches on one of her shoulders. She mostly manages not to flinch, to her credit.
"I'll keep my distance once we're in town," he squawks. With one last backwards glance at you, Solace leaves. Their voices recede quickly, as they work out more of their details of the excursion.
This leaves you alone, with just the ship battle down below for company. You watch. It's all silent from this distance, of course. As is common for naval battles where no one's relying on First Age technology (weapons or hulls, either will change the battle significantly) or the ship types meant for the endless expanses of the Western Ocean, the main way to fight is for both sides to take shots of opportunity with archers and siege weapons while trying for a chance to ram. A good ramming attack sinks the victim's ship. A slightly less good one tangles the ships up and the crews of both vessels swarm over each other and the winners take whichever ship is less likely to sink when they disentangle.
The combat plays out with barely-visible, toy-like shapes in the far distance, and with a slowness that belies the lives and efforts at play. It takes a long time for anything to actually conclude, and the fog that keeps coming and going hides things at times. It's just a mild example of Calibration weather: you can have any time of year's weather, randomly, or if very unlucky far worse things. You measure the passing time mostly by the sun's progress, the fact that you're feeling increasingly hungry, and the blood you still have to periodically wipe off your forehead. The last is slowing, and you don't think this blood is exactly your actual blood. You aren't feeling any effects of blood loss, at any rate. By tomorrow morning, you think you'll be about presentable.
Eventually, four of the original eight ships sail away into the late-afternoon fog. Of course they're Peleps ships. You're pleased by the win ratio, there: House Peleps is still the master of the seas.
As the sea clears and you're left alone, you run a probing mental finger into the corners of your mind. Since their 'judgment', your Whispers have been oddly quiet. Maybe 'quiescent' is a better word. You can still sense them. They aren't gone, but they aren't pushing and screaming for you. You don't know if that's because they're satisfied, or because they're tired. Can they get tired? If so, maybe you can wear them out and then do whatever you feel like while they're too exhausted to do anything about it.
That sounds like a long shot.
No. You've spent too long being pushed around, hiding, and unsure of what you're doing. Ari was right before when he said that Exalts are fundamentally impossible to compel. Even the Realm can't: Dragon-Bloods who push too hard against the constraints of society have traditionally been allowed some latitude, at some other cost. You have all the freedom in the world, now. Anathema or not, you're finding you're far less controlled than even the most lenient commentary on the Immaculate Texts had suggested was possible, and it's associated with power. Power to do... well, anything. Almost nothing could stop you if you seriously put your mind to anything, if you approached it well. Exalting is becoming superhuman in a very fundamental and universal fashion.
Eventually, there's a flapping of wings. Ari rejoins you, dropping a torn half-loaf of bread into your lap. He carried it up here in his talons. You pick it up as he takes human form again, considering it. Street food. Not the worst thing you've eaten, but not as good as you'd get if--
--if Taara had made it.
You push that thought out of your head as soon as you have it. "Thanks," you say. "Did you think to bring any oil or cheese with it?"
He eyes you with one eye. You're not sure why. "It was what the vendor had. I can hunt some pigeon or bat if you want some meat to accompany it."
"If it's not too much trouble." You have devoured most of the loaf before he comes back. He found a nice, plump quail, again dragged in by hawk talons. You eat it raw. You're hungry.
Once you're feeling a little more human, and to avoid dwelling on what you're doing for food today, you look up to Ari. "What did you and Solace find out?"
He shrugs. "Most of it didn't mean anything to me." He launches into an extremely brief summary. You have to interrupt with questions and otherwise work to interpret the news. The basic shape eventually becomes clear to you.
A full sworn kinship of magistrates, the wandering Dragon-Bloods serving as keepers of peace and justice, each individually selected by the Empress and loyal to her and the Realm only, took it upon themselves to try to arrest Mnemon. Mnemon herself is the eldest of the Empress's surviving daughters, and has been widely seen as the most obvious heir to the throne. The reason for the attempted arrest was on suspicion of consorting with demons.
This is not to be confused with summoning demons, which is the right of every Dragon-Blooded sorcerer who pays the proper licensing fees and insurance for demon rampages. Instead, the charge is that she has been subordinating herself to them, which is much less acceptable.
Regardless, the magistrates were rebuffed and defeated by a demon Mnemon had summoned: a second-circle demon known as the Keeper of the Forge of Night. The surviving magistrates used this as further evidence of the crime. Mnemon maintained that the whole charge is a farcically ham-handed political move on the part of her enemies to discredit her.
All this took play on the day before Calibration. The story after that is difficult to piece together, because at about this point the heliograph connections off the Blessed Isle were cut. The heliograph system, using bright lights and mirrors and ciphers to pass messages between towers over long distance, is one of the few non-sorcerous ways to pass information swifter than a horse or ship.
It seems likely, however, that the civil war kicked off with that, with groups breaking into pro- or anti- Mnemon factions, almost certainly nearly along House lines, with House matriarchs dictating their family's beliefs on the matter. Who is on which side is something you can only speculate on, although it seems obvious that Peleps and V'neef must be on opposite sides.
Once all that is worked out, Ari cocks his head and considers you afresh. "You've got a different look to you," he comments. "Did you come to some conclusion while I was away?"
You nod. "I did." Perhaps it's a distant dream, but all those things about being able to push the limits of what's possible have stuck with you.
[] You are a Dynast of the Realm, Triumvir of the Lap. None may gainsay that.
This is your place. Hold fast. The legions like you, as do enough of the sepoys and common workers. The other Triumvirs need you, even if they don't like you. Boldly return and reclaim your place.
[] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
The Waif is not the most overt of Deathlords, but that doesn't mean she's impossible for you to track down. Leave here, track down her operations, and thwart them.
[] What, in the end, has Creation done for you? Embrace this new life.
It was pure chance Solace was in the way, that and your own weakness meaning you didn't enter the Penitent before. Correct that, now that you do know what you are doing.
[] Write-in
You have some grand motivation outside of this that you seek to pursue. Potentially subject to approval.
- Location
- Philippines
[X] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
- Location
- Bed
[X] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
The Waif is not the most overt of Deathlords, but that doesn't mean she's impossible for you to track down. Leave here, track down her operations, and thwart them.
Why? Because sure, the Lap may be our home, but you saw that list of priorities: our personal goals and vendettas have always come before the safety and support of the Realm. Plus, this way we can character develop Vessel away from simply being another asshole Terrestrial politician - potentially towards being a better person, but let's be real, we'll just be making him worse and worse. And can we really resist a temptation like that? Should we? I say we do it.
The Waif is not the most overt of Deathlords, but that doesn't mean she's impossible for you to track down. Leave here, track down her operations, and thwart them.
Why? Because sure, the Lap may be our home, but you saw that list of priorities: our personal goals and vendettas have always come before the safety and support of the Realm. Plus, this way we can character develop Vessel away from simply being another asshole Terrestrial politician - potentially towards being a better person, but let's be real, we'll just be making him worse and worse. And can we really resist a temptation like that? Should we? I say we do it.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Much as I would find it funny to return as if nothing happened after all but being declared Anathema, the Lap has got a bit too stale for my liking. We didn't lose our standing as the people's hero and the only woman we cared about in the entire city to just go back to the same old plays between the three Triumvirs, especially with our family relationships strained and the two of them much more likely to conspire against us.
In lieu of a better "wander off into the sunset" option, I'll vote...
[x] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
In lieu of a better "wander off into the sunset" option, I'll vote...
[x] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
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ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] You do not appreciate being treated as a tool. The Waif must pay.
Time for ESCALATION!
Time for ESCALATION!