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[Exalted] The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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Vote closed, Year 2 05 2/2
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    • Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Sep 26, 2022 at 12:47 AM, finished with 31 posts and 29 votes.
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    Interlude 2: Smoke and Ember 01
  • Threadmarks
    • A memorial service: 16

    A shopping trip: 8

    A festival: 7

    —

    Spell selection:

    Breath of Wretched Stone: 17

    Silent Words of Dreams and Nightmares: 14

    Sculpted Seafoam Eidolon: 3

    Port of Chanos
    Descending Wood, Realm Year 760

    Three years, seven months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.

    You stand with your arms outstretched, allowing Demure Peony to finish doing up the ties of the final layer of the dress.

    "Black really is your colour, my lady," she says, her voice quiet. You stand in your dressing room in front of a mirror, another servant behind you putting the finishing touches on your braid, Verdigris curled up on a nearby stool.

    "We've known that since I was thirteen," you say, voice a little dry. You look at yourself in the mirror, seventeen now, growing more and more into your mother's height and something akin to her sense of presence. The blacks in the dress match your hair and the darkest chips of quartz set into your skin, while the purple embroidery hints at mourning, without you having to appear garbed in funerary white — it would have been a little much, at a memorial service. Encouraged by Peony's very slight smile, you continue: "I think you noticed before I did, though."

    "I was brushing your hair, my lady," Peony says. "It was hard to miss it turning from red to black. And I'd been told to retreat to a safe distance when it happened."

    "You dove over a table you'd just set my breakfast on," you remind her.

    "As you say, my lady," Peony says. Not pointing out that you'd reduced the entire table to splinters moments later, along with ruining most everything in the room — no one had been angry at the loss, obviously. Dynastic society is well accustomed to the destruction that new Dragon-Blooded wreak in their moment of Exaltation, and your mother could scarcely have been dissatisfied.

    She'd told you that you'd done well, in person.

    "If it pleases you, my lady, holding still would make this easier," the servant doing your hair says, voice distinctly nervous. You're still having that effect on a lot of the servants from the Imperial residence in Chanos, who have after all been tending an empty house up until your arrival. It's not something you enjoy, but it makes you appreciate Peony's calm formality — she's getting used to you again, you hope.

    The other servant slips an ornament into place at the base of your braid. Reflected in the second mirror behind her, you can tell it's the white-jade-lacquered piece your father gave you for your birthday. Easily the most valuable piece of jewelry you own, fashioned to suggest the shape of a dragon.

    Well pleased by your appearance, you extend a hand to Verdigris, allowing the snake to slither up your arm, disappearing into one of your wide-mouthed sleeves. The servant girl behind you stifles a shriek and leaps backward. To your great satisfaction, Peony stiffens slightly, but seems to have become more inurred to Verdigris's constant presence, at least. "Thank you for your work. You're dismissed," you tell the other servant girl.

    "Yes, my lady!" she says, trying to keep her voice level. She gives you a deep bow, then flees out the door behind you.

    "I'm not actually trying to be frightening," you say.

    "It would be alarming to see you trying," Peony agrees. Her own dress is in grey, curly blue hair teased up into a fashionable style, no obvious jewelry or cosmetics. Perfectly riding the line between being presentable as a fine lady's servant and still blending into the background. She's always been good at that.

    You grimace slightly. There are of course good reasons for why you take Verdigris with you eveywhere, or the other strange habits and preoccupations you've picked up after two years at the Heptagram. Still, it's not hard to see why sorcerers get the reputation they have. "At least Amiti will be there," you say. Maybe it's a little unkind, but you can't help but think that you seem considerably more normal when you're standing next to her. Especially after this year.

    Peony's expression goes very briefly stricken. "As you say, my lady."

    "She's perfectly nice," you say, feeling the need to come to your friend's defence. "Just very... herself."

    Peony nods, not contradicting you. Peony had taken it upon herself to entertain your guest the first time Amiti had chosen to call on you, while you'd been indisposed. You're not exactly sure what Amiti told her, but when you'd come into the room, you had distinctly caught Amiti's ghoulishly cheerful voice explaining "Oh yes, dreadfully! The worst pain of my life! But a little pain is only to be expected when one is learning to pierce the veil between life and death, don't you think?"

    On the last night of Calibration this year, Amiti had been nowhere to be found, and had simply never returned to her dormitory. She turned up the following morning, curled up and sound asleep on a bench in one of the forge workshops, which had clearly been the site of a particularly profane and unwholesome sort of initiation ritual. One that she had been all too pleased to explain to anyone who asked, in technical detail that was both horrifying and mercifully opaque to anyone who hadn't made a study of Amiti's particular arcane field of expertise.

    She also kept saying that she'd been instructed in the ritual by a guest instructor who no one else seemed to recall in the slightest. Which could probably be attributed to a side effect of the initiation in question — say what one would of your pact with Diamond-Cut Perfection, you hadn't become a sorcerer by defiling your own soul. At least Amiti is no longer at risk of failing out of the Heptagram due to lack of sorcerous talent. Even if a sorcerer isn't quite what she's made herself into.

    "Well, at any rate, we should be going," you say.

    Peony only looks relieved at the change of subject.


    Interlude 02: Smoke and Ember

    The weather is appropriate for the occasion you're all gathered for — not cold, but overcast. The sky itself wears a somber coat of grey.

    Over two hundred years before, Sesus, your half-sister, great general and house founder, had fallen in battle in a war of conquest in the Threshold. Her body had been carried back to the Blessed Isle, and borne through the streets of Chanos upon the shields of her most loyal troops to be publicly burned with all revenant ceremony, her hands folded around the hilt of a ceremonial daiklave.

    Sesus might be gone, but the sword is not. Each year on the anniversary of that day, the daiklave repeats its solemn procession through streets lined with Chanos's citizenry, going from the waterfront of the port to the very heart of Emberhearth, to the elaborate monument where it is said her ashes are still entombed.

    The day is a general holiday within the Prefecture, and many of the peasantry feast and drink to her name, taking in in performances dramatically reenacting scenes from Sesus's life and death. What wasn't there to celebrate about a day off from working, after all?

    You're not planning on spending your day on anything so entertaining as a play, however. Your carriage takes you to the plaza where the monument is erected, a massive brazier of dark stone and red jade bearing the single feather mon of House Sesus, inscribed with imagery of flames and dragons and lines taken from the Immaculate Texts. It's large enough to roast a hellboar in, and ornately wrought to look like flames and smoke forged into solidity. Behind it looms the outer walls of the Palace of Burning Wind, the great fortress manse that is the ancestral stronghold of House Sesus.

    Here, a crowd of the city's upper class are assembled to either side, waiting for the daiklave to finish its long journey. The front ranks are Dynasts, Dragon-Blooded given pride of place near the monument itself. Behind them, those of the patriciate with enough influence to be allowed to attend. As soon as you're both out of the carriage, Peony quietly slips off to join the distant, out of the way line of servants quietly talking amongst themselves. You similarly go to take your place, aware of curious eyes following your progress.

    Sesus Amiti isn't too difficult to spot in the crowd. Part of this is simply her particularly striking Aspect markings -- if anything, her skin has grown even more pale since her strange initiation, taking on the icy white hue of a killing frost, almost exactly the same shade as her hair. But part of it is also that her nearest neighbours give her a noticeable berth. This makes it easy enough to slide in next to her.

    "Ogh, Ambraa!" Amiti garbles your name slightly, trying to speak around a mouthful of jewelry. She spits the pendant out, the piece of black, teardrop-shaped metal seeming to shift hideously under your brief scrutiny as it falls back to hanging around her neck. "Oh, Ambraea!" she says, more clearly.

    "Hello, Amiti," you say. "That really is an appalling habit, you know."

    Amiti actually rolls her eyes. "It's my soul that went into it in the first place -- it's fine. And it tastes like copper."

    You stare for a long second, trying not to look too closely at the unnerving soulsteel pendant. "You mean, like blood?"

    Amiti blinks, dangling the pendant up by its chain to examine it, as if for the first time. "Oh. I suppose? It only really bleeds sometimes, when I'm doing too much casting all at once. Usually it just makes a lot of noise."

    From the looks you're getting from those nearest to you, you decide not to continue on this subject, even with the procession still far enough away that speaking isn't strictly unacceptable. "It's a very beautiful monument," you say, truthfully.

    Amiti glances over at the structure, as if she hadn't fully noticed it before. "Well, yes, I suppose it is! Her ashes aren't really there, of course." She pauses -- when she goes on again, her voice is lowered to a hasty whisper: "I think I wasn't supposed to tell you that! But, it can't be that much of a family secret if someone told me, so, it's probably fine."

    You might have responded to that, but by now you can see the procession coming up the hill. At its head walks a single monk, sheltering a lit candle from the harsh Chanos wind. Behind her walks a second, speaking in a clear, carrying voice, quoting the Immaculate Texts from memory, passages to represent the virtues of the long dead founder and the trials she'd faced in her life.

    Behind them come a scale of Sesus house legionnaires, armour shining, uniforms spotless, each holding their shield above their head. Atop the shields rides an ornate litter, empty save for the ceremonial daiklave standing in for the body of Sesus.

    You all watch as the entire litter is reverently laid down inside the brazier. The monk with the candle uses the tiny flame to light the monument, and it roars into life, a column of fire and smoke twisting up into the sky, consuming the litter utterly. As you look on, some magic in the brazier's design seems to form the flames into the shape of a woman armed and armoured, standing eternally vigilant.

    It's all quite impressive — you can only hope to achieve enough in your own lifetime to hold this much influence after your death.

    Over an hour later, with the ceremony over, the daiklave left glowing white hot in the otherwise extinguished brazier, Amiti lets out an explosive sigh, evidently not enjoying having had to stand poised and silent and still for so long. The crowd has begun to give off a general buzz of conversation, so she turns and says, "My mother is here — I suppose it would be polite to introduce you."

    "You don't sound terribly enthusiastic," you notice.

    Amiti sighs. "She's embarrassed of me in public, generally. Which hurts, obviously, but I can't exactly do anything about it, so I just pretend to be oblivious to it all. And it's not like she has my sister on-hand to show off as the socially-acceptable daughter."

    "Which sister is that?" You ask.

    Amiti looks briefly taken aback by this, even as she angles her way through the crowd, heading closer to the monument. "Sesus Kasi. She's staying with our elder brother in Scarlet Prefecture, at the moment — she's studying at the Spiral Academy."

    Which would imply an unusually close age to Amiti, given that she's apparently attending another elite secondary school attended almost entirely by Dragon-Blooded. "And you both Exalted?"

    Amiti laughs. "Kasi did when we were ten. So, I was the leftover child for years until I Exalted anyway. That was a nice surprise for everyone." Twins then — both twins in a set being Chosen by the Dragons is quite rare. When one Exalts, it is generally assumed the other won't. "I miss her, honestly. I think she'd like you! You're both— Oh, here's Mother."

    Amiti's mother is recognisable when she's pointed out, speaking quietly with a slender red-haired man. There's a resemblance there — Sesus Cerec is short, with similar wide-eyed features to Amiti. She's old enough to have reached middle-age, however, her parade armour failing to hide a physique that has been allowed to go slightly to seed. The very picture of an aging senior officer. But her grey hair billows diaphanously at the tips, seeming to curl away like smoke without ever actually disappearing, and there's an ineffable sense of heat as her gaze flicks over to Amiti and you.

    Her conversation partner notices the shift in her attention, and turns to look at her, sending a slightly startled jolt through you. Him, you recognise immediately.

    "Uncle, I'm sure you remember my daughter, Sesus Amiti," Cerec says, immediately accepting that she cannot simply wait until her current conversation ends.

    Amiti gives an appropriately differential nod. "Hello, Great Uncle," she says.

    The man smiles. He's another Fire Aspect, clinging to a youthful appearance despite his many decades of life. He's pale and delicately-featured, with hair and eyes of a striking, true scarlet. "I do. Dragonlord, have you met my half-sister, Ambraea?" Beside you, Amiti seems to be very faintly pleased not to have to handle introductions herself.

    "I haven't," Cerec says.

    "That's what I thought! Ambraea, this is Dragonlord Sesus Cerec."

    "I am pleased to finally meet you, Lady Ambraea. Amiti has spoken of you," Amiti's mother says. To her credit, she doesn't look too off put when Verdigris's head slips out from the outer layers of your dress, regarding her.

    "The pleasure is mine," you say. Your nod has slightly less deference than Amiti's had, but it's still respectful of two older and more established Dragoon-Blooded Dynasts. "It is good to see you again, elder brother," you tell the man.

    Oban smiles again at this. The two of you met in passing years ago — you're almost surprised he recognises you on sight. Unlike your eldest brother, Ragara, the founder of a great house in his own right, Oban has sought out a more conventionally masculine course in life — marriage to a powerful woman. The husband of Matriarch Sesus Raenyah, he is a well known socialite and popular at court. And, you understand in the pit of your stomach, a very dangerous man, in his own way.

    "You know, it's fortunate that I've run into you," Oban says. "Now that we have paid proper respect to our house's revered founder, the Dragonlord and I were intending to attend a small gathering. I would be delighted if you would join us — it would allow us to catch up on the way."

    Cerec seems vaguely surprised, her eyes flicking down to Verdigris. She has the grace not to say anything; sorcerers are not popular at Dynastic social events, to the point that their invitations have a tendency to be sent late, or even to be accidentally misplaced.

    You yourself hadn't been anticipating this. "Thank you for your kind invitation," you say. "Is it far?"

    Oban smiles that captivating smile. Your mother's smile, you realise, with an accompanying twinge of discomfort. "Oh, not at all," he says.


    It is treacherously difficult to say no to this request, backed as it was by that charismatic smile, the sense that your half-brother was so pleased to have run into you. You're not foolish enough not to be wary of such a reaction instilled by an older Exalt, but that does not make you immune to it.

    So you pass a good while speaking to him about your eventful year, your hopes for the future, how one of his children had wanted to attend the Heptagram until his wife had put her foot down about sending the boy to the House of Bells. Entirely innocuous conversation that nonetheless tells a keen listener what you're capable of and who you're in regular contact with. You're certainly aware of the quiet figure of Sesus Cerec trailing alongside you, no doubt listening to every word and filing away any piece of information that might be useful in the future.

    Amiti merely shoots you a sort of helpless look once or twice, and stays purposefully silent. Which is fair enough — this is definitely not her arena.

    The end result, however, is that you find yourself in a grand sitting room within the Palace of Burning Wind itself.

    The outer walls are a concentric series of deceptively ornate structures, shaped out of red marble to resemble dancing flames. Even your novice eye can tell that they're entirely defensible, however, patrolled by an honour guard of Sesus house troops. The doors are hardly barred to the matriarch's own spouse, however. You felt the distinctive tingle of Fire Essence in the air as you crossed onto the grounds, the dark paving stones of the outer courtyard warm underfoot.

    The Palace is said to be a true war manse. Not merely a defensive stronghold, but also able to rain fire and death down from the sky for miles around. Fortunately for the city that's grown up around it, these defences have not needed to be called upon in many centuries.

    You are not having a good time.

    The room you're standing in is long and narrow, the floor covered in ornate carpet, the walls adorned with artwork taken from all corners of Creation. The ceiling is dark stone, glowing points of light like embers drifting across it in a steady stream, illuminating you all.

    It's a room full of Dynasts, all fresh from the ceremony, engaging in what passes for casual mingling in Dynastic social circles. Standing in groups of two or three, talking and laughing and trading veiled barbs, admiring your brother's taste in daringly iconic artwork. The whole time, dark-clad servants slip through the crowd carrying drinks and refreshments, while musicians provide a pleasant backdrop to the conversation.

    It isn't as though people ignore you when you try to talk to them. On the contrary, they are nearly all entirely polite and gracious, as befits a lady of your station. However, as soon as introductions and pleasantries have gone their course, your conversation partner will find a reasonable excuse to slip away. With Oban busy playing host, this mostly leaves you where you started: Standing right next to Amiti.

    "You'd be shocked by how hard it is to get halfway useful research material," she tells you, emphatically.

    "I can imagine," you say.

    "For you in particular, lady Amiti?" Asks the poor, hapless Ragara boy who hasn't found an excuse to escape the conversation yet. He's a mortal, but also the son of the Prefect — these things work out. He's maybe a year out of secondary school himself.

    "Oh, yes!" Amiti says. "I'm sure it's quite a bit easier for conventional sorcerers, but I'm having difficulties even finding a decent bestiary for summoning — ordinary ghosts are all well and good, but they're only so useful, and the monks frown on that sort of thing."

    The boy swallows, his eyes wide, unsure what to say to that. Unfortunately for him, Amiti can go all on her own:

    "I've been trying a bit of correspondence with someone from House Daha-Ai out on the Threshold, but they're being remarkably hard-nosed about any kind of exchange." Amiti sighs. "I suppose I'll think of something."

    "I think your mother may be looking for you," you tell the boy, glancing meaningfully in her direction on the far side of the room. You think nothing of the sort — she's deep in conversation and hasn't so much as glanced up in the past ten minutes.

    "Oh! Then I hope you'll forgive me, my ladies, but I really must attend to that," he says, bowing. He shoots you an unmistakably grateful look, and hurries away.

    "You know, most people don't actually want to talk about sorcery, Amiti. We're not at school," you say, voice low.

    Amiti frowns into the warm teacup she has clasped in her hands. "Technically, we were talking about necromancy. And he asked."

    "Most people don't actually know or care about the distinction. And he asked to be polite, not because he really wanted details," you tell her. You're not even surprised anymore that a Dynast of her age would need this explained — you've known her for too long to be.

    "And how am I supposed to tell the difference?" Amiti asks, not as if she wants an answer — this is hardly a new issue for her either.

    You look out over the room again, trying to catch the eye of the servant offering the exceptionally bracing Chalanese coffee you'd tried when you first arrived. Instead, you lock eyes with a girl you haven't met yet.

    Slender, dark-haired, mortal — a year or two older than you at most. Her clothes have a strikingly martial bent to them, while not outright falsely claiming military rank she doesn't have. Most surprisingly to you, rather than looking away or pretending she hadn't noticed you, she meets your gaze steadily, offering a small, intrigued smile.

    Amiti follows your gaze curiously. "That's Val," she says, helpfully. "I can introduce you, if you like!"

    This proves necessary enough, because the young woman is winding her way across the room toward you. It's not wholly surprising; expecting a pair of Exalts to come to her would have been more than a little presumptuous. She inclines her head to Amiti first, precisely as deferential as she needs to be, and no more. "Hello, cousin," she says. "I see your time at school has agreed with you."

    "Oh, hello, Val," Amiti says. You don't think her cousin appreciates the use of what can only be a childhood nickname, but she swallows it as necessary. "Yes, it's been quite lovely," Amiti says. Which is a little outrageous, all considered. "This is Ambraea, my classmate. Ambraea, this is Sesus Vahelo, my second cousin."

    Vahelo greets you with a bow. "An honour to meet you, my lady." You don't doubt she knows who you are, generally — every Dynast you've met in Chanos has been at least aware of your presence in the city, if nothing else.

    "And you," you say.

    Despite her greeting's formality being without reproach, there's something a little wry about her when she straightens. "It isn't often to find two fully-fledged sorcerers at one of these things," Vahelo says.

    "My esteemed elder brother extended an invitation," you say. "It was rather last minute."

    "I was standing next to her, at the time," Amiti says, as if her presence also requires an explanation. All things considered, it probably does — you don't imagine her mother is exactly pleased to have her unsupervised at too many social events.

    "That would explain it," Vahelo says, a little cryptically. Her eyes fall on your neck, where you can feel Verdigris sliding out from the folds of your clothes again. There's perhaps a healthy amount of wariness there, but interest as well. Interest in the snake, or in following the pattern of quartz set into your skin, you're not sure. "Is that a spirit?" she asks.

    "She's an elemental," you admit, reaching up to let Verdigris wind slowly around your arm. "She doesn't harm people unless they mean me harm," you add, in clear invitation.

    Slowly, Vahelo reached out a tentative hand, letting Verdigris taste her scent on the air, before touching the cool, metallic scales of her head. Verdigris backs you up by not doing anything terribly alarming.

    "Have you finished your schooling?" you ask her, trying to get a general gauge on how old she is.

    "Not yet," she says. "I'm in my fifth year at Halls of Rising Embers." A military secondary school in Chanos Prefecture, primarily known for preparing patricians and mortal Sesus scions for a career as legionary officers, usually feeding directly into the Sesus House Legions. It isn't the most prestigious institution even among those a mortal could normally hope to attend, but it's respectable enough, and speaks of a certain focused trajectory.

    "You want to go into the legions?" you ask.

    This time, her smile shows a little more tooth. "That's been the plan all this time, at least. Nothing half as interesting as what I've heard people saying about you, in here."

    You raise your eyebrows. "And what have they been saying?"

    Vahelo lowers her voice, leaning in a hair. Her voice is amused as she says: "Well, the most memorable story was that you've promised your first born son in marriage to an Earth dragon in exchange for your power."

    You laugh at that. "I don't think they would know the first thing to do with a husband," you say. Of course, in the process, confirming that there really is a dragon.

    "Well, the first thing isn't so hard to figure out, I'm told," Vahelo says.

    You laugh."I suppose not," you say.

    "Not quite your area of interest?"

    The curious look she sends you is disarmingly direct. Surprisingly, you find that charming, accompanied by that smile. "Not in that direction, no." Husbands seem extremely useful in terms of securing political alliances and helping to produce heirs, which was the important part anyway. Love matches are for the kind of people who moon around reading torrid romances.

    As you and Vahelo safely take over the conversation, you can't help but notice that Amiti has produced a small, cheaply bound novel from somewhere, and has sank into a nearby chair, apparently fully engrossed.

    No offense meant to Amiti.

    "So I take it you haven't made any such scandalous promises to the spirit?" Vahelo asked.

    "No," you say. "They get me to do small favours for them in exchange for their tutoring now and then. They've been entirely forthcoming about wanting to cultivate a connection with a talented young Dynast." You don't feel like it's too much arrogance to describe yourself that way.

    "Well, that's all very disappointingly civilised," she says.

    "I'm not sure that unilaterally promising our Empress's future grandchildren to a spirit would go over well for me," you say.

    That draws another laugh. "No, I suppose not," she says.

    She has a swordswoman's build beneath the finery. And even when she's making a joke, or laughing in that sharp, carefree way, there's a certain keenness to her dark eyes. Like she's taking in more than you mean for her to — you don't exactly mind it in this case, however. Particularly given that she seems to be noticing you at least as much as you are her.

    You talk about school, and the Imperial City, and about Vahelo's hopes for the future. "My mother has made it clear she will only pay for a commission if I can earn it, in her eyes. And I hate to disappoint." She says this with enough confidence that you believe her. The top layers of command are of course dominated by Dragon-Blooded, but mortal officers make up the bulk of any legion's officer corps.

    It's when you've made your way around to talking about the Palace of Burning Wind itself and its value as a war manse in particular, that she makes you an offer. "Obviously, we can't look at anything too important to the place's inner workings," she says — you doubt she'd even have access at all, but you don't rub her nose in it — "But, we do have a mural in one of the rooms, showing a siege from one of the Shogunal Wars."

    "I'm sure that's worth seeing," you say.

    "It is," Vahelo tells you, giving you a smile that makes your heart speed up, just a bit — you could still it with a trickle of Earth Essence, but you don't really want to. "I don't think anyone would mind if we slipped out of the party for me to show you."

    You glance over to Amiti. Despite her distracted appearance, she says, without glancing up from her novel: "I have a book!" Clearly, she won't miss you if you go off with her cousin.

    You're entirely aware that what Vahelo is offering is not simply a look at some centuries' old artwork. And if you go off with her, it will certainly be noticed, even if most of the older Dynasts in the room will studiously pretend not to have been watching you leave. It wouldn't be anything scandalous, however — merely a piece of amusing gossip at best, an interesting data point about your character and your interests at worst. For all the formality of the ceremony before, this is a casual affair, and the two of you are both young and unattached. As long as you're discreet, it's unlikely to cause either of you problems.

    Article:
    This vote represents whether or not Ambraea pursues a casual hookup in the carefree days of her youth. This does not represent a binding romantic choice, nor will it rule out any future romantic choices. It will not be any particular mark against Ambraea within Dynastic society. Is she someone who will take this sort of opportunity when it comes her way?

    What do you do?

    [ ] Go with Vahelo

    [ ] Turn Vahelo down
     
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    • Hmm. Bit of a conundrum for me. I know it's definitely casual for these two, but other parties might not take it so impersonally, and I get the feeling Maia is carrying a torch for Ambraea. Genuinely puzzled here.

    Also I knew that guy was shady as fuck. A temporary instructor with a ritual that conveniently erases all memory of him, with a convenient target for using it. What the hell did he make off with that everyone has also forgotten as part of this ritual.
     
    Randino Treviani said:
    Hmm. Bit of a conundrum for me. I know it's definitely casual for these two, but other parties might not take it so impersonally, and I get the feeling Maia is carrying a torch for Ambraea. Genuinely puzzled here.

    Also I knew that guy was shady as fuck. A temporary instructor with a ritual that conveniently erases all memory of him, with a convenient target for using it. What the hell did he make off with that everyone has also forgotten as part of this ritual.
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    It just goes to show that you can't trust nameless purple-eyed Dragon-Bloods with inscrutable goals and esoteric knowledge who disappear and reappear without leaving any memory of their existence behind. Those are the worst kind of Dragon-Blood.
     
    Etranger said:
    It just goes to show that you can't trust nameless purple-eyed Dragon-Bloods with inscrutable goals and esoteric knowledge who disappear and reappear without leaving any memory of their existence behind. Those are the worst kind of Dragon-Blood.
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    Are we even sure she was a dragon blood and not something much more horrible just fooling everyone with some corpse shell that the ritual destroyed as part of erasing the memory of her? I can't say no with any real certainty. The only thing I'm sure of is...
    Gazetteer said:
    Scheduled vote count started by Gazetteer on Jun 1, 2022 at 9:27 PM, finished with 32 posts and 24 votes.
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    We very narrowly dodged something thats as bad for an exalted as a bullet would be for a mortal.
     
    Randino Treviani said:
    Are we even sure she was a dragon blood and not something much more horrible just fooling everyone with some corpse shell that the ritual destroyed as part of erasing the memory of her? I can't say no with any real certainty. The only thing I'm sure of is...

    We very narrowly dodged something thats as bad for an exalted as a bullet would be for a mortal.
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    All jokes aside, and with the benefit of out-of-quest knowledge, that instructor was probably a Sidereal Exalted (specifically a Chosen of Endings), not some evil horror from beyond reality. Sidereals will still ruin your life in pursuit of some unknowable motive, of course, but one teaching at the Heptagram is probably just a pro-Realm Bronze Faction Sidereal there to pass on some really unorthodox knowledge to some unwitting Dragon-Blood (like what happened with Amiti learning necromancy), not out to devour souls or whatever.
     
    Randino Treviani said:
    Are we even sure she was a dragon blood and not something much more horrible just fooling everyone with some corpse shell that the ritual destroyed as part of erasing the memory of her? I can't say no with any real certainty. The only thing I'm sure of is...
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    Instructor Sai was deffo a Sidereal Exalted. They... do stuff like this sometimes.

    [X] Go with Vahelo
     
    Etranger said:
    one teaching at the Heptagram is probably just a pro-Realm Bronze Faction Sidereal there to pass on some really unorthodox knowledge to some unwitting Dragon-Blood (like what happened with Amiti learning necromancy), not out to devour souls or whatever.
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    A couple years (or a decade, if you're really burnt out) teaching at a school like the Heptagram is also like, some peoples' idea of a low stress way to unwind and make a few earnest, wide-eyed contacts who will hopefully make something of themselves in the coming century, in between the daily grind of your normal job. Working at the Division of Endings probably gets pretty bleak.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    A couple years (or a decade, if you're really burnt out) teaching at a school like the Heptagram is also like, some peoples' idea of a low stress way to unwind and make a few earnest, wide-eyed contacts who will hopefully make something of themselves in the coming century, in between the daily grind of your normal job. Working at the Division of Endings probably gets pretty bleak.
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    I don't know. A single year feels a little on the short side for that. Feels more like that was a convenient bonus and there is definitely something else that was on her agenda.
     
    Instructor Sai was there for at least two years! She was first mentioned in the first in-depth conversation Ambraea had with Amiti back in year one, where she'd just given everyone a lecture on shadowland formation. You technically don't know if she was there for any years prior to Ambraea starting at the Heptagram.
     
    [X] Go with Vahelo

    Get SOOOOOOOOME

    Vahelo is the breakout character of the update for me, but only thinly behind her is Amiti being adorably freaky and autistic, and how Ambrea and her just understand how that works as part of their dynamic ("I have a book!"). Fantastic update Gaz.
     
    There's a reason people go nuts at Spring Break; school is stressful. And magic school is extra stressful. Hell, Hogwarts had a basilisk wandering around. Considering that Ambrae is the sort to put herself under a lot of pressure anyway? Time to relax.

    [X] Go with Vahelo
     
    Eh. I don't have an opinion strong enough to express it.

    Unrelated to this,
    Amiti feels like exactly the gal who will bathe the realms in the blood of her enemies in a few decades, but right now she is just adorably constipated about her social position. "People? I have to talk to them?! Gross."
     
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