Mare Internum: An Exalted Quest
- Thread starter Crumplepunch
- Start date
Intro 9
- Location
- ?
It's just a face. The face of someone else, somewhere else, full of misery and mistakes and a burning need. First came the desire to be better, but little by little that was washed away by the desire to be different. It's the face of someone who has destroyed everything she cared about in her need for change.
You don't know who she is. You badly want to stop looking at her.
INTEGRITY
CHECK FAILURE
You stagger back to shore and fall to your knees. You are breathing fast. What's wrong with you?
SAGACITY
CHECK FAILURE
SAGACITY: Surely some kind of allergic reaction, student. Maybe you were stung by some species of tropical fish in the shallows.
Yes, that must be it. No more examinations for you, there are stinging tropical fish about.
[ ] Search the shore.
[ ] Leave.
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Intro 10
- Location
- ?
Wet grey sand next to wet grey sea under wet grey sky. Your location is secluded by a morose outcropping of charcoal coloured volcanic rock to your left and by a broad expanse of dune ahead and to your right. At least they are sparing you the worst of the wintry winds that are blowing in off the coast. You see scrubby ash-white grass, the only sign of life you can see, dancing on the crest of the dune.
What about the wood? You saw wood. Ah, but the wood is old and dead. Stakes and splinters of it have washed up on shore. You pluck a sample from the sand, a jagged scrap the size of your forearm, and examine it.
CRAFT
CHECK SUCCESS
CRAFT: This shard of wood is a remnant of a destroyed Realm naval galley.
Wow, how can I know that?
CRAFT: The whorls in the smooth side and the springing character of the splintered edge indicate that this is seasoned lowland oak. This type of wood is found on Realm ships generally. The tiny chunk of brass embedded in the top is the remnant of a sheared pin nail, type two, used on naval warships. The hole bored near the bottom has the characteristic beveled edge of a doweling plug, used only to afix shell paneling to the deepwater vessels. Only one class fits all three categories, the deep hull galleys used in Western naval deployments.
No, I mean, how can I know that when I can't remember my name?
CRAFT: Not my department ma'am, I just deal with the stuff.
You've done everything you can here, it's time to leave. If you were shipwrecked, maybe there are other survivors. Or maybe you'd prefer not to meet them.
[ ] Continue up the coast.
[ ] Go inland.
- Location
- NYC
[X] Continue up the coast.
Intro 11
- Location
- ?
You could just lie down on the sand and wait for the tide to come in and take you away, or you could actually try to figure out what is going on. You choose the latter, and with every step you take with your aching joints and seawater-soaked clothes you become more convinced that this was the wrong decision.
You catch a glimpse of the mainland beyond the dunes as you pass on to the next beach. What you see is an expanse of white grass, stretching towards a distant mountain peak. No obvious signs of habitation can be seen.
The next beach is much like the last, though it contains larger pieces of debris, including what you think is a piece of shattered keel, still sheathed in torn copperplate. Did it plow straight into the rocks at full sail, to take such damage?
You pause in your musings. On the wind, above the waves, did you- yes, there it is again. Voices, just over the next dune.
Peeking over the dunes, you see a flash of colour. You duck back down.
CRAFT
CHECK SUCCESS
CRAFT: Winter wool greatcoat, rose madder dye.
What does that mean?
WAR: Legionaries. Enlisted, the officers have scarlet.
Right. What now?
[ ] Approach them.
[ ] Hide and observe.
[ ] Flee.
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[x] Hide and observe.
Intro 12
- Location
- ?
You hunker down behind the dune and observe the legionaries. They are much too busy with their own affairs to be scouring distant dunes for peering faces. Just to be sure you angle yourself behind a scrubby patch of white grass.
You can make out three distinct groups. The legionaries are closest, trying to start a campfire and tending to various wounded on makeshift stretchers, almost forty of them, a quarter of which are wounded. You see the flash of a brighter red scarlet cloak on a small woman with bushy wheat-blonde hair.
Further away you can see a smaller group wearing a different uniform, shorter slate-blue jackets and undyed sennit caps. Navy sailors. Maybe twenty in all. They're picking over salvage and trying to make shelter out of a broken piece of hull.
The third group are harder to identify. There are only half a dozen of them. Their uniforms are a ruffled grey-green under a polished steel breastplate. They are huddled together, taking a meagre meal of dried rations.
NAVIGATE
CHECK SUCCESS
NAVIGATE: Ah, Palean bandieras. Good dining on the Pale, if you can get it. Have you visited?
You don't know, have you?
NAVIGATE: Oh, you simply must. It's quite lovely at this time of year, if you can avoid the bandits.
Where is it?
NAVIGATE: It's a Realm enclave in Calin, one of the few provinces that remained a satrapy after the rest of Calin turned coat for the Scavenger Lands.
WAR: An embattled land, producing tough and resourceful soldiers. Bandieras are fortification specialists. They must be here as auxilliaries.
This is all fascinating but it doesn't help you at the moment.
AWARENESS
CHECK SUCCESS
Laying on the sand, you feel a shift under you, a minute vibration, regular and subtle as the heartbeat of a mouse. You hear a distant clatter of metal on metal on a shift in the wind. Your mind narrows and resolves the possiblities before you even need to tell it to. You know with absolute certainty that almost a hundred armoured cavalry are moments from cresting the opposite hill, two hundred metres from this Realm encampment.
WAR
CHECK SUCCESS
A cavalry force of that size has no reason to gallop towards a friendly camp. If they mean violence, and you believe they do, then the unprepared forces in front of you will be slaughtered before they can even muster a defense. Their survival, if you wish it, relies on your decision.
[ ] Shout a warning.
[ ] Run into the camp and rouse a defense.
[ ] Stay silent and watch.
This is a consequential decision, please vote.
[x] Shout a warning.
So, assuming we're human, we're almost certainly an Exalt. We've got clearly supernatural senses. We might be a Water Aspect Dragon-Blooded - the water was noted to respond to our will (perhaps poetically, perhaps not), and the black eyes might be an elemental marking, since black is associated with water (black jade, anyways). That also fits with thinking about a jade tooth, and our intimate familiarity with Realm military stuff.
That said, Dragon-Blooded doesn't fit with the voices in our head, which for an Exalt might represent past lives, or the references to being shaped into a sword and get vengeance (which would be more of a Solar thing). The reference to changes suggests a Lunar (and the eyes could be a Tell), but that doesn't explain the elemental shenanigans.
So, assuming we're human, we're almost certainly an Exalt. We've got clearly supernatural senses. We might be a Water Aspect Dragon-Blooded - the water was noted to respond to our will (perhaps poetically, perhaps not), and the black eyes might be an elemental marking, since black is associated with water (black jade, anyways). That also fits with thinking about a jade tooth, and our intimate familiarity with Realm military stuff.
That said, Dragon-Blooded doesn't fit with the voices in our head, which for an Exalt might represent past lives, or the references to being shaped into a sword and get vengeance (which would be more of a Solar thing). The reference to changes suggests a Lunar (and the eyes could be a Tell), but that doesn't explain the elemental shenanigans.
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- Location
- The North
The voices are a genre convention (insomuch as 'Disco' is a genre) - I don't think they're part of our powerset at all. Our personality fractured. Water Aspect seems like a pretty good guess. Also 'being shaped into a sword' could represent our upbringing in the Realm, being trained as a soldier of the Dragonblooded Host. Alternatively, if we're a Realm-born Outcaste we might have had an even worse time of it, exposed to a lot more of the brutality of empire.
[x] Shout a warning.
Fair enough, it's just that in Exalted there's quite a few in-world explanations for "having a bunch of voices in your head".
- Location
- The North
You are not wrong in that regard.Fair enough, it's just that in Exalted there's quite a few in-world explanations for "having a bunch of voices in your head".
Intro 13
- Location
- ?
None of them can hear the approach. They'd be doing something if they did. You have to act.
You stagger to your feet and shout out to them.
PRESENCE
CHECK FAILED
At the crucial moment you realize you haven't actually spoken aloud since you woke up. You feel a grinding sensation in your throat and chest, then double up coughing. Iron-grey salt water spills from your lips, scouring your mouth.
PRESENCE: No, this won't do at all! You have to project from the diaphragm! Make yourself bigger, assert dominance!
You are having a stressful time.
You right yourself, drawing another breath. A few of them are looking at you, most are not. What's one more bedraggled shipwreck survivor?
The blonde officer is looking directly at you. Her round face holds an expression of shock that you don't feel is warranted by a coughing fit.
You gesture desperately and mouth words that you can't vocalize. "Attack," you croak. You point to the horizon.
EMBASSY
CHECK SUCCEEDED
She understands enough to look for herself. She turns, hears something. She shouts orders to the assembled group.
The assembled groups are all well-drilled professional fighters, but exhausted and demoralized. They are picking up weapons and making for the dune incline, inland from their makeshift camp.
WAR: It's a sensible strategy, finding high ground to try to neutralize a cavalry charge's advantage, but with these numbers its questionable how much help it will be. The delay has weakened their chance to prepare. And they are leaving the wounded behind.
There's nothing to be done for them. They can't walk, and there is no time to move them to the high ground.
You see a pale yellow banner rising over the dune. The attack will be here in moments.
Your heart beats faster in anticipation of violence. Despite your ravaged body you feel invigorated, exultant. Your body remembers what your mind cannot.
They made us a sword.
[ ] Charge into the valley and defend the wounded.
[ ] Take up position in the formation.
[ ] Stay where you are and watch.
[ ] It is too much. Flee.
Intro 14
- Location
- ?
Before you know what you are doing, you are dashing down the incline. You can't really feel your legs moving under you, only the vague sensation of impacts shaking your joints. At the same time the attackers crest the opposite dune.
How splendid they are in their raiments and harnesses! How fearsome are their longspears and axes, glinting with copper leaf in the winter sun! They are one score, now two, and more, a wave of magnificent violence, snarling faces and gleaming armour, sharp edges and trampling hooves.
You are comical before this, a tiny, bedraggled thing. Any observer can see that their merest effort will cast you down like the sands that scatter beneath them.
But you are already before them, already in front of the wounded. You pause to catch your breath, doubling up, holding up your hand as though to ask for respite. They almost pause from the absurdity of it. The outriders at the flanks pull away to a canter, unsure whether their leaders want to entertain this attempt at negotiating a surrender.
The leader doesn't slow. You focus on him, his armour is embossed with copper and gold, his helm bears a crown of stylized brass flame. His eyes are narrowed with hatred behind his visor. Your world does not slow, it is nothing so simple as that. Vision is about more than what the eye sees. Light that enters the eye forms only a fraction of the image that fills the mind. Much of it is a kind of focused imagination. You simply imagine more. The sky darkens, sound dims. You feel a closeness of pressure across your skin, in your inner ear. You see the hiss of Essence on his breath, like bubbles in deep water.
You notice, dreamily, that your adversary has thrown a weapon at you in his approach. It's a hatchet, with a fine edge of glittering steel and flattened striking face on the obverse. The haft is dappled ivory, like walrus tusk, skilfully carved into flowing, wave-like patterns. Under your fingers the tactile surface brings hazy memories of opium pipes and slow, melting days. You realize you are holding the hatchet in your hand.
The warleader's tasseled spear drifts past your head. You admire the ferocious vigor of his steed, a bay of fifteen hands. Its braided mane rings with tiny bells, like a distant temple calling prayers. You reach out to brush your fingertips against it. You remember summer.
With a flick of your arm, your stolen hatchet slices through the leather cinches affixing the saddle in place on the right side. By the time he has ridden past you, the leader is already sliding off the left side of his saddle as he tries to bring his horse around. By the time he is trampled under the hooves of his beautiful steed, you have killed three others and are midair leaping from one saddle to another.
They are scattering, panicked, unprepared for this kind of resistance. You break a neck. A lance has pierced your shoulder. You swing laterally, underhand, pulverizing a sternum and sending waves of shock through your arm, ignored. You duck under the hooves of a galloping horse and hurl a broken spearhead through a man's throat.
All this feels like it is happening to someone else. You look to the sky, and it is as though the eyes that they remind you of are looking down on you in judgement.
You are kneeling in the bloody ground, your legs unresponsive. Your surviving enemies have fled. You hear yourself breathing, a rusty, hollow sound.
The blonde woman is approaching, her expression unreadable.
You are so very tired.
[ ] Try to stand.
[ ] Try to speak.
[ ] Try to sleep.
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- Location
- NYC
[X] Try to sleep.
Intro 15
- Location
- ?
It is the easiest thing, under the circumstances. You don't even need to move your legs to tip forward. Your numb muscles relax by degrees, allowing you to fall to your side in the wet sand. You hear voices, but you can't hear what they say. That world is too far away now.
The non-voices, however, are back.
(VIII) THE WOLF: A valiant attempt, but another failure.
Who are you, again?
The creature does not answer. Maybe it doesn't know. True silence follows, for a time.
Are you dying? You're wounded. You killed people. You try to wrap your head around it.
(XVI) THE PRISONER: This is the way of the world. The proud do not endure.
Alright, who are you?
(XVI) THE PRISONER: Anger. Righteous rage! All that was denied you, I will place in your grasp, if only you would take it.
(XII) THE ANTITHESES: It's true, you should do sin. It's cool.
Oh for fuck's sake, how many of these assholes are there?
(II) THE SORCERER: I know it's confusing, but we're here to help. Most of us, anyway. We're here to help you make sense of things.
It mostly seems like you're just making things make less sense.
(III) THE SEA CAPTAIN: We're here on your journey, wherever you go.
(XXIV) THE STARS: Wherever you're headed.
(XXV) THE MOON: Whatever it does to you.
(XXVI) THE SUN: Whatever it costs.
(XXVII) CREATION: To the end of the world.
When will that be?
(VIII) THE WOLF: Whenever you want.
You don't want to think about that. You try to put it out of your mind, but your mind is all there is here. All you can do is tell the truth.
I don't want it to end just yet. I just got here.
(XXVI) THE SUN: Then you will need to do better.
How do I do that?
(XI) EXALTATION: Embrace power.
Up until now skill checks have been passed on a flat difficulty of 7. From now on you may face higher (or lower) difficulties depending on circumstances. Specializing in a skill gives you a +2 to pass checks using it, making it significantly easier.
Choose three abilities to specialize in.
[ ] Awareness - Sensory acuity and information-gathering knowhow. Know more about the world.
[ ] Craft - Knowledge of the material. Know how to make things and know how things are made.
[ ] Embassy - Language, etiquette and the many skills needed for society. Know how to move in high circles.
[ ]Presence - Of body and personality. Know how to make yourself heard and understood.
[ ] Integrity - Will, volition and empathy. Know your feelings and the feelings of others.
[ ] Navigate - The skills for travelling and the knowledge of having traveled. Know your place in the world.
[ ] Sagacity - Knowledge fundamental, academic and esoteric. Know more about more.
[ ] Stealth - Of intentions as well as movements. Know how to be a better criminal.
[ ] War - Strategy, tactics, dog-soldier experience and trivia. Know how to be a better soldier.
Also, choose one of the numbers who have been speaking to you to talk one-on-one next time you sleep.
Please take your time to vote.
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Well, so far, we've got War and Awareness demonstrated. I see no reason not to choose those. Water traditionally specializes in Brawl, Bureacracy, Investigation, Larceny, and Sail. Navigation or Stealth would be an obvious third, but eh, I'm not super invested.
[x] War
[x] Awareness
[x] Presence
[x] Talk to: The Sorcerer
[x] War
[x] Awareness
[x] Presence
[x] Talk to: The Sorcerer
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Clearly, we don't need to worry about investing in combat per se. As such... I'll cast my vote on mostly mental matters.
[X] Awareness
[X] Sagacity
[X] Integrity
[X] Talk To: The Sorcerer
Wolf is clearly a baser impulse of sorts, Prisoner seems kinda obsessed with revenge, Antithesis sounds like aself-destructive impulse completely normal dude we should listen to and try to get his approval... Stars/Moon/Sun/Creation are more about the big picture, maybe? Where you're going, how you're changing, demanding more of yourself, making an emphasis on the wider world (mostly similar to real life Tarot)...
Sea Captain seems prettttty alright. Monk is probably the voice of reason/conscience... and Exaltation probably wants you to find your limits and discover just how much you can do.
But for now, I'd say lets go with Sorcerer, who seems like they're trying to figure things out, even though that's basically all we know about them.
[X] Awareness
[X] Sagacity
[X] Integrity
[X] Talk To: The Sorcerer
Wolf is clearly a baser impulse of sorts, Prisoner seems kinda obsessed with revenge, Antithesis sounds like a
Sea Captain seems prettttty alright. Monk is probably the voice of reason/conscience... and Exaltation probably wants you to find your limits and discover just how much you can do.
But for now, I'd say lets go with Sorcerer, who seems like they're trying to figure things out, even though that's basically all we know about them.
[x] Awareness - Sensory acuity and information-gathering knowhow. Know more about the world.
[x] Sagacity - Knowledge fundamental, academic and esoteric. Know more about more.
[x] Stealth - Of intentions as well as movements. Know how to be a better criminal.
So, I feel like the Sorcerer is still figuring things out, because we're still figuring things out. Talking to them, I think I'd like to put that off, when we both know a bit more, are able to glean a bit more. I'd like to talk to The Stars, Fate, our perceptions of it, what we might know about where we're going, where we've been from. What we think of it all, ect.
[x] Talk to: Exaltation.
EDIT: I got persuaded, changing to Exaltation, on the ground that in Disco Elysium it is entirely possible to go through the game never actually knowing what you look like XD
[x] Sagacity - Knowledge fundamental, academic and esoteric. Know more about more.
[x] Stealth - Of intentions as well as movements. Know how to be a better criminal.
So, I feel like the Sorcerer is still figuring things out, because we're still figuring things out. Talking to them, I think I'd like to put that off, when we both know a bit more, are able to glean a bit more. I'd like to talk to The Stars, Fate, our perceptions of it, what we might know about where we're going, where we've been from. What we think of it all, ect.
[x] Talk to: Exaltation.
EDIT: I got persuaded, changing to Exaltation, on the ground that in Disco Elysium it is entirely possible to go through the game never actually knowing what you look like XD
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