thelordofmango
may be stupid
- Location
- under a rock
maybe the real profit was the friends we made along the way.
Mare Internum: An Exalted Quest
- Thread starter Crumplepunch
- Start date
Vocalist
Verdant Maiden in Violet
- Location
- By a Cedar Tree
I have to admit, this got me for a second. I was trying to think, 'Oh man, what did we do to piss off Fincher this time," before I read the next line.
- Location
- ?
Voting for the best quest 2022 has closed, MI recieved 18.3% of the vote and came fourth place.
This is an improvement over last year (when MI was only a few weeks old), but I am especially encouraged by the enthusiasm of my audience. Given that MI has by far the smallest fanbase of five nominees (it has under a 6% share of the combined watchers of the five quests in the running), this means that far more of my readers voted relative to the readership of the other quests, for which I thank you all very warmly.
The Bane of Kadj has indicated some prior knowledge about us and he seems to be a generally mysterious person with a lot of questions for us to resolve, but the only plot-important detail at the moment is that Logris suggested we try to get demon-silk from him to fulfil the requirements for the Palean arbalests for a sidequest, and also he asked us to visit when convenient.
That was intentional, given the number of uncertainties floating around about our interactions with her. Glad this line got at least one person.
This is an improvement over last year (when MI was only a few weeks old), but I am especially encouraged by the enthusiasm of my audience. Given that MI has by far the smallest fanbase of five nominees (it has under a 6% share of the combined watchers of the five quests in the running), this means that far more of my readers voted relative to the readership of the other quests, for which I thank you all very warmly.
The Bane of Kadj has indicated some prior knowledge about us and he seems to be a generally mysterious person with a lot of questions for us to resolve, but the only plot-important detail at the moment is that Logris suggested we try to get demon-silk from him to fulfil the requirements for the Palean arbalests for a sidequest, and also he asked us to visit when convenient.
That was intentional, given the number of uncertainties floating around about our interactions with her. Glad this line got at least one person.
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- Location
- ?
I don't know if you're picking up on this but Fincher doesn't make especially good decisions either.
- Location
- some computer lab
Just binged this quest. I find it hilarious that our Dragonblooded protag has been hallucinating talking to items when the new sidereal charmset has a charm that explicitly lets you talk to items to solve mysteries.
- Location
- ?
I am keeping track of the new Charms I am writing for Vesper as she uses them. This one is called Shore Remembers Tide.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Will you eventually be able to share them?
- Location
- ?
I have a long term project of writing a full DB expansion Charm set for Storyteller's Vault, it's on hold at the moment while I work on official Exalted stuff, but they'll all be in there. I'll repost the relevant stuff here when it's appropriate.
- Location
- some computer lab
I wonder what combat ability Brindle specializes in,.mostly because all the Sidereal combat abilities are rad as hell now. For those unfamiliar with Exalted who want to speculate alongside me, the themes of the various sidereal combat abilities are as follows:
Thrown weapons: pushing and pulling those you hit, and hurting those near you with shadows.
Unarmed combat: become the trolley in the trolley problem
Melee weapons: demonstrate that your kung-fu is stronger by beating the shit out of the people you are training, shonen style.
Ranged weapons: fire anything, starting with anything roughly hand sized and ending with concepts like life or fire.
It is also possible that she just practices some kind of martial arts, but she is only 17 so she might not have had time for formal training that that would usually imply.
I know we aren't actually using combat abilities in this quest, but the Sidereals have exceptionally wierd charms in their's so it's fun to speculate
Thrown weapons: pushing and pulling those you hit, and hurting those near you with shadows.
Unarmed combat: become the trolley in the trolley problem
Melee weapons: demonstrate that your kung-fu is stronger by beating the shit out of the people you are training, shonen style.
Ranged weapons: fire anything, starting with anything roughly hand sized and ending with concepts like life or fire.
It is also possible that she just practices some kind of martial arts, but she is only 17 so she might not have had time for formal training that that would usually imply.
I know we aren't actually using combat abilities in this quest, but the Sidereals have exceptionally wierd charms in their's so it's fun to speculate
- Location
- East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Also worth noting that another charm in Sidereal Investigation lets you dream about bits of your personality giving you advice to solve a case, and whichever idea you run with will benefit you somehow even if it's obviously terrible. Sidereal detectives can be very disco, and that's without accounting for the companion including martial arts for getting drunk or high while you fight.
With the twenty-five-part division of capability being a diagetic thing for Sidereals specifically, regardless of the mechanics it's meaningful whether Brindle (who incidentally is a fella, not a dame) is doing shit under the auspices of the Spear, the constellation governing hitting people with melee weapons and battles won through skill, versus the Gauntlet, governing punching people and battles won through ruthlessness, or the Quiver, governing hitting people with ranged weapons and battles won through cleverness. Brindle's soldier disguise gestures at the Spear, but if he's gonna be relying on Tenebrous Silken Vesper he'll need to embrace the Quiver ethos of "Survival is flexibility."
Side note, I disagree that he wouldn't have time to start learning a martial art, considering that he's far enough along to be getting training in the field.
Hey Corpusvoyeur, is private messaging even a thing on this site? I'm asking you because you saw my comment for asking about the TtS Discord. Also, if you have/find that invite can you send it to me? (I can do the same to you you if I figure out how to find it)
(Sorry if my actions are improper for this site; I haven't been here for very long and I'm very confused. My only experience for message-board sites is Reddit and I stopped using that a while ago)
(Sorry if my actions are improper for this site; I haven't been here for very long and I'm very confused. My only experience for message-board sites is Reddit and I stopped using that a while ago)
Vocalist
Verdant Maiden in Violet
- Location
- By a Cedar Tree
Welcome!
There are private messages here; just click on someone's username and, on the menu that pops up, click 'start conversation'.
It's worth your while to read through the forum rules. You can find a link to them on the menu bar at the top of the page. You'll see that we're quite accepting of anyone who tries to participate in good faith.
Thanks for the advice! For some reason that button isn't there, I guess I'll post random stuff until it unlocks for me
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That does sound appropriate for a Sidereal.
Thought: Mysterious Stranger
- Location
- ?
The candles burn low in the temple of the water dragon Daana'd, and the sound of chimes echoes from the vaulted stone dome high above. There are one hundred and twenty-five chimes, each differing slightly in size and tone. They float on a circular meditation pool at the centre of the vault, dancing a slow, chaotic dance, ringing as they collide.
You try to focus on the sound once more. You have notated each pitch in your mind with a number. The numbers flow before your eyes with the arrhythmic ringing. After many hours of trying, you can record the sequence for minutes at a time, before intrusive thoughts interrupt you.
You try very hard to think about the chimes and about nothing else.
This time, you are interrupted by footsteps. Soft, light. The intruder means to be quiet, but you are too focused on listening to miss them. You turn, frowning.
It's a monk. Why wouldn't it be? The monks are meant to be here, and you are not. The old man approaches, smiling, unconcerned at your irritation.
"Do you find solace in the music, sister?" he asks.
"This is what passes for music here? No wonder you're such a fun lot."
You mean the barb to annoy him, but he laughs softly. "I suppose it is music of a different sort than you are used to. Some music is made to entertain, and that is well and good. This music is meant to teach."
"I don't think I'm going to learn anything from it."
"No? Why do you say so?"
"The sequence is too complicated. I can't memorize it."
"Hmm." he nods. "And why are you looking for a sequence?"
You gesture to the pool. "That's the point of this, isn't it? Listen to the chimes, decode the secret message? Probably something about peace and obedience, knowing this place."
The old man sits down next to you. You hear his old bones creaking over the water chimes. You sit for a few moments together, listening to the music.
"Perhaps the pool does not have a message. Perhaps it has a lesson."
"I don't follow."
"It is just water, you see? A perfectly circular pool, half a span deep. The chimes are simple brass. They move with the motions of the water, as it is gently heated from beneath. This is a simple system, bounded and complete. And yet..."
"And yet... a simple system produces a complicated sequence."
He shakes his head. "It produces no sequence at all. The chimes will continue for as long as you would listen, with no repetition."
"So that's my lesson? Nothing matters? I knew that."
"No. The lesson is that the simplest motion of the simplest thing can give rise to infinite possibility. What more, then, can we expect of the spirit, or the body?"
"Not much more of mine, I think."
He glances down at your wounds.
"Resist the commands of the Anathema to the fullest degree of the abilities of your present incarnation, and do not fall into despair. You have completed the first part very admirably. I hope you will not falter on the second."
Silence, for a while, as the chimes ring. The candles burn lower.
"They're sending me out again, aren't they?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But with Danaa'd's lesson in your heart, I believe you will succeed."
You chuckle humorlessly, staring down at the pool. "Danaa'd is a myth, old man. Haven't you read the histories?"
You expect the old monk to take offense, but he looks contemplative. "All myths are in some sense true. They are things that never were, but are always."
He looks across the pool. Shadows lengthen along his face as the candles begin to gutter low. You are aware for the first time how deep the lines of his face are, how sunken and ancient his eyes.
"If Danaa'd were ever real, if they were based on a real person, then I believe you might have been quite alike."
You aren't sure what to say to that.
"There is an addendum to the lesson." He reaches out and flicks a tiny chime that has floated close. It strikes a larger chime, deflects onto a larger one, then another, and a larger one still. A perfect pentatonic scale rings out in the darkness of the temple vault. "If there is no pattern, then all patterns exist within it. We need only predict the right moment for one to appear by chance."
He stands, old bones groaning.
"To that end, I give you my prediction. A youth will give you a note bearing a familiar mantra to gain your trust. You will tell them that the spire of Mela in Ashglass holds my instructions."
"Ashglass? I don't know where that is. What does this youth look like?"
"I don't know. They have not yet been born. This meeting will occur in twenty-six years."
He turns to leave. The candles flicker. A hundred questions run through your mind, but you are too overcome with bitter laughter to ask more than one.
"You think..." you laugh through gritted teeth. "...you think I will survive another twenty-six years of this?"
The candles wink out, one by one.
"I have faith."
He leaves you alone in the dark with the ringing chimes.
You try to focus on the sound once more. You have notated each pitch in your mind with a number. The numbers flow before your eyes with the arrhythmic ringing. After many hours of trying, you can record the sequence for minutes at a time, before intrusive thoughts interrupt you.
You try very hard to think about the chimes and about nothing else.
This time, you are interrupted by footsteps. Soft, light. The intruder means to be quiet, but you are too focused on listening to miss them. You turn, frowning.
It's a monk. Why wouldn't it be? The monks are meant to be here, and you are not. The old man approaches, smiling, unconcerned at your irritation.
"Do you find solace in the music, sister?" he asks.
"This is what passes for music here? No wonder you're such a fun lot."
You mean the barb to annoy him, but he laughs softly. "I suppose it is music of a different sort than you are used to. Some music is made to entertain, and that is well and good. This music is meant to teach."
"I don't think I'm going to learn anything from it."
"No? Why do you say so?"
"The sequence is too complicated. I can't memorize it."
"Hmm." he nods. "And why are you looking for a sequence?"
You gesture to the pool. "That's the point of this, isn't it? Listen to the chimes, decode the secret message? Probably something about peace and obedience, knowing this place."
The old man sits down next to you. You hear his old bones creaking over the water chimes. You sit for a few moments together, listening to the music.
"Perhaps the pool does not have a message. Perhaps it has a lesson."
"I don't follow."
"It is just water, you see? A perfectly circular pool, half a span deep. The chimes are simple brass. They move with the motions of the water, as it is gently heated from beneath. This is a simple system, bounded and complete. And yet..."
"And yet... a simple system produces a complicated sequence."
He shakes his head. "It produces no sequence at all. The chimes will continue for as long as you would listen, with no repetition."
"So that's my lesson? Nothing matters? I knew that."
"No. The lesson is that the simplest motion of the simplest thing can give rise to infinite possibility. What more, then, can we expect of the spirit, or the body?"
"Not much more of mine, I think."
He glances down at your wounds.
"Resist the commands of the Anathema to the fullest degree of the abilities of your present incarnation, and do not fall into despair. You have completed the first part very admirably. I hope you will not falter on the second."
Silence, for a while, as the chimes ring. The candles burn lower.
"They're sending me out again, aren't they?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But with Danaa'd's lesson in your heart, I believe you will succeed."
You chuckle humorlessly, staring down at the pool. "Danaa'd is a myth, old man. Haven't you read the histories?"
You expect the old monk to take offense, but he looks contemplative. "All myths are in some sense true. They are things that never were, but are always."
He looks across the pool. Shadows lengthen along his face as the candles begin to gutter low. You are aware for the first time how deep the lines of his face are, how sunken and ancient his eyes.
"If Danaa'd were ever real, if they were based on a real person, then I believe you might have been quite alike."
You aren't sure what to say to that.
"There is an addendum to the lesson." He reaches out and flicks a tiny chime that has floated close. It strikes a larger chime, deflects onto a larger one, then another, and a larger one still. A perfect pentatonic scale rings out in the darkness of the temple vault. "If there is no pattern, then all patterns exist within it. We need only predict the right moment for one to appear by chance."
He stands, old bones groaning.
"To that end, I give you my prediction. A youth will give you a note bearing a familiar mantra to gain your trust. You will tell them that the spire of Mela in Ashglass holds my instructions."
"Ashglass? I don't know where that is. What does this youth look like?"
"I don't know. They have not yet been born. This meeting will occur in twenty-six years."
He turns to leave. The candles flicker. A hundred questions run through your mind, but you are too overcome with bitter laughter to ask more than one.
"You think..." you laugh through gritted teeth. "...you think I will survive another twenty-six years of this?"
The candles wink out, one by one.
"I have faith."
He leaves you alone in the dark with the ringing chimes.
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- Location
- ?
Good to be back. I'll do the mechanics section later, I'll be reworking how the voices work a little, I feel like the previous setup wasn't working out very well. There hasn't been a timeskip during this hiatus like the last one, we'll be picking up where we left off.