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Mare Internum: An Exalted Quest

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tbh if we're stuck dealing with a Sidereal I think we should just let it play out? It genuinely doesn't seem worthwhile to pursue it at present.
 
What's the worst that they could do, betray the position of our army to the Solar that is obviously leading the enemy forces?

I am sure it will be fine.
 
"Didn't expect you to remember me." Didn't expect to be remembered, indeed! The arrogant knave, he's practically throwing it in our face!

Sagacity, tell her to find a way to humble this guy! He needs to get out of our business, pronto!
 
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Now That You Are Pure 58
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    • GAWR said:
    [X] Look for the workshop.
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    From here the workshop is easy to find. You can hear the overlapping cacophony of hammer-beats on metal and see the rising plume of fine white charcoal smoke that marks the presence of a smithy. The noise grows louder as you get closer. The file-goblin returns in short order, pounding away at your skull with wild glee.

    The workshop is the only solid building in the camp, unless you count the brick ovens. It seems to have been constructed from neatly shaped rocky outcropping, built up with brick and covered with a planed wax-thatch roof.

    CRAFT: Impressive that they could have made something like this in so short a time. I wonder what they are making inside?

    WAR: With so much hammering? Probably repairing armour.

    NAVIGATE: These rock formations are too regular to be natural.

    SAGACITY: I conclude that it is likely an earth aspect was responsible for this construction.

    Well, let's meet them.

    The door to the workshop is huge, much larger than seems necessary. It takes up almost the whole facing of the structure, like a barn door. Knocking will do no good over the racket, so you just take hold of the handholds in the door and pull at it.

    PHYSIQUE: NORMAL
    4 4
    CHECK PASSED

    You strain with your whole body to move the huge door. It swings open slowly on oiled hinges, englufing you in a wave of heat and oily smoke. In the dim gleam of forgelight you can see half a dozen eyes turn to look at you.

    ???: "Hey hey, what are you doing? We need to keep the temperature steady in here!"

    "Oh, oops."

    ???: "Carry on, you've all got this, I'll talk to her. Back soon."

    You hear the sounds of movement from within. Out of the smoke looms a massive figure. You instinctively take a step back from the physical presence of it.

    The man is huge, not as Orison or Rochar are huge, but as beasts of war are huge. The top of your head barely reaches the bottom of his ribs. He has the heavy, sloping muscles of a physical labourer, scaled up to giant proportions. Each of his bare arms probably outweighs your entire body. His skin and curly hair are an identical shade of deep charcoal grey, and his eyes glint violet like polished amethyst.

    He swings the door to the workshop shut with one hand.

    CRAFT: Oh, that's why the door is so big.

    ???: "Hi! What can I help you with?"

    "Well, I, uh..."

    PHYSIQUE: ASK HIM HOW TO BE BIG. ASK HIM HIS SECRETS.

    ???: "Wait, I don't recognize you." a frown slowly overtakes his sunny expression.

    You notice that he is wearing a grey braided sash over his leather apron.

    WAR: That means he's an officer and an engineer. You're still wearing the engineer cloak.

    "Oh, this, this was a spare. I'm not actually-"

    ???: "Oh, it's you! You kicked me in the face once! It was amazing!"

    The smile returns in force.

    "I did? It was?"

    ???: "Fincher told me all about you. It's Tenebrous Silken Vesper, right?"

    "Yeah, that's me."

    ???: "I like your name."

    "Thanks, yours is good too."

    ROOSTER: "Thanks! Oh, I'm Rooster, by the way. So, what can I help you with? Any friend of Fincher is a friend of mine."

    [ ] When did I kick you in the face?
    [ ] The Paleans need more arbalests.
    [ ] You're a smith? Can you make something cool for me?
    [ ] How did you get so big?
    [ ] Do you have any embarassing stories about Fincher?
    [ ] I need to get Dragonlord Mei to like me.
     
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    • Now That You Are Pure 59
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    • Gargulec said:
    [x] Do you have any embarassing stories about Fincher?
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    "Do you have any embarassing stories about Fincher?"

    ROOSTER: "Oh, wow, yeah. Do you really want to hear that stuff?"

    "I really want to hear that stuff, I really do."

    ROOSTER: "Well, okay then! Let's see. When we were, uh, fifteen, sixteen? She tried to escape the Stair by climbing down the storm overflow drain, which leads straight to a wetland at the foot of the mountain. She made a big thing about it, planned everything out, wrote out maps, got supplies ready for going cross country at night, managed to get some scrip together to bribe a captain her dad used to know in Riven Quay. She was really going to try to go the whole six hundred miles on foot over the mountains and escape overseas."

    "She got picked up on the road, right?"

    ROOSTER: "Nah, that wouldn't be a very embarassing story, that happens to lots of us. What happened was, she said her goodbyes, and I thought I might have seen the last of her. Then late at night I heard a banging on the pipes."

    "From her climbing down the drain?"

    ROOSTER: "Well, if the plan had gone well, she should have been already on the road, and the banging was a secret sequence we kept to ourselves for danger. I got up to check it out. Luckily there wasn't anyone around. I'm not very stealthy."

    STEALTH: I can confirm that Rooster is not very stealthy.

    ROOSTER: "Anyway, it took me a while to figure out that the banging wasn't actually coming from the drain. See, it was dark when she set out, and a lot of the pipe entry panels are in the same maintenance room.

    "So where was she?"

    ROOSTER: "Sewage pipe."

    "Oh, ew."

    ROOSTER: "Yeah, well, the sewage pipe was actually a lot narrower than the storm overflow, but she still managed to get almost halfway down before getting herself properly stuck. If the pipes hadn't connected to the one that goes under our dorm, I might have never heard her banging at it."

    "So how did she get out?"

    ROOSTER: "Well, there was no way to pull her back up, and no way to get her further down, so in the end I just removed the entire section of pipe and took it out to the yard. Managed to split it in half with a pickaxe without hurting her. She was not happy. Like... imagine the most offended wet cat you ever seen, and it's also poisonous."

    "Wait, you did all that without getting caught?"

    ROOSTER: "Yeah, that's the worst thing. They don't really guard the Stair very well. Most of the security against escapees comes from having retired legion veterans running the farm villas in the valleys for hundreds of miles around."

    A vision of a burning valley in the darkness flashes in your minds eye, and is gone.

    ROOSTER: "So yeah, Fincher could probably just have used the actual stairs."

    "What happened after that?"

    ROOSTER: "Well, there was, you know, a lot of mess, as you can imagine. The busted pipe was still leaking and flooding the area. We managed to get cleaned up and back to our bunks before morning, but they still figured out it was us. Our fang spent the next month cleaning up the mess on punishment duty."

    "Well, thanks, that definitely qualifies as an embarassing story."

    ROOSTER: "No problem! Oh!" he suddenly looks horrified. "I shouldn't have told you any of that! She told me not to tell anyone."

    "Don't worry about it, Rooster, I'll keep it to myself."

    ROOSTER: "Oh, thanks! Anyway, did you need anything else?"

    [ ] Why did you want to escape from the Stair? Isn't it a school?
    [ ] When did I kick you in the face?
    [ ] The Paleans need more arbalests.
    [ ] You're a smith? Can you make something cool for me?
    [ ] How did you get so big?
    [ ] I need to get Dragonlord Mei to like me.
     
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    • Now That You Are Pure 60
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    • GAWR said:
    [X] How did you get so big?
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    "How did you get so big?"

    PHYSIQUE: Yes, listen well, this is the secret we have been waiting for!

    ROOSTER: "I dunno."

    PHYSIQUE: CURSES.

    ROOSTER: "I mean, someone told me that there are people on the Cinder Isles that are big like me, but I've never met any. My parents might have been slaves from there. I grew up in Chanos, anyway. Adopted. Worked in a bakery. Pretty nice life, honestly, I can't complain."

    "And then you Exalted?"

    ROOSTER: "Oh, yeah, that was a surprise. Off to the Mirror I went. That's where I met Fincher. They tell you that you can be a legionary for ten years training and fifty years on campaign, or you can be a monk forever. And monks, they can never have a family or do anything other than being monks. What kind of choice is that?"

    SAGACITY: The Obsidian Mirror is the institute to which young peasant outcastes are taken after they are rounded up. It gives them a year of baseline tutelage and then presents their imperial duty: the choice to join either the legion or the Immaculate Order. Failure to live up to either of these obligations, such as legionaries who desert or monks who become pregnant, is considered treason, and often punishable by death.

    ROOSTER: "Anyway, I was always big, it's not a technique or anything. Well, I guess the muscle is. Just eat lots of rice and work with your hands, it'll do you good."

    [ ] Do you know where Fincher came from?
    [ ] Why did you want to escape from the Stair? Isn't it a school?
    [ ] When did I kick you in the face?
    [ ] The Paleans need more arbalests.
    [ ] You're a smith? Can you make something cool for me?
    [ ] I need to get Dragonlord Mei to like me.
    [ ] I'll let you get back to work.
     
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    • Now That You Are Pure 61
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    • Gazetteer said:
    [X] The Paleans need more arbalests.
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    "The Paleans need more arbalests."

    ROOSTER: "Oh, is that what she was saying?"

    "Who?"

    ROOSTER: "The Palean lady. She kept shaking a big bag of silver at me and saying bal-a-steer-ee at me very slowly as though I knew that that meant."

    "You don't know Riverspeak?"

    ROOSTER: "I know a little, but I've never heard that word. I'm not very good with languages, and this is my first time working with auxilliaries. We're all trying to adjust, you know?"

    "Yeah, I guess so. Rochar says she needs about a dozen to be battle ready."

    ROOSTER: "Ah, a dozen? That's tough."

    "You can't do it?"

    ROOSTER: "I can do it, but the other legion smiths can't. These things are precision instruments, getting the weighting of the limb wrong or calibrating the winch poorly will kill the operator."

    "Yeah, she mentioned something like that."

    ROOSTER: "They need a lot of delicate forged, cast and carved components, I could make a hundred good swords in the time it would take me to make those dozen arbalests. They're effective, but there's a reason the regular legion doesn't use them. I can handle it though, my team have the regular weapons and armour in hand. But..."

    "But?"

    ROOSTER: "I need silk. I haven't seen any silkworm farms on the island, have you?"

    "No."

    NAVIGATE: Actually, come to think of it, we haven't seen any insects at all.

    ROOSTER: "I don't know what to do then. Without good high-quality cord for the drawstring, they're just very expensive clubs."

    "Maybe I can find someone else who can help."

    ROOSTER: "Well, let me know, and I'll start working on them right away."

    [ ] Do you know where Fincher came from?
    [ ] Why did you want to escape from the Stair? Isn't it a school?
    [ ] When did I kick you in the face?
    [ ] You're a smith? Can you make something cool for me?
    [ ] I need to get Dragonlord Mei to like me.
    [ ] I'll let you get back to work.
     
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    • Now That You Are Pure 62
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    • etranger01 said:
    [X] You're a smith? Can you make something cool for me?
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    "You're a smith? Can you make something cool for me?"

    ROOSTER: "Oh, yes! That's perfect, I can pay you back for saving Fincher."

    "I saved Fincher?"

    ROOSTER: "She said you saved everyone by charging in to attack a cavalry column on your own, naked."

    "Well, I wasn't naked, but it's interesting that she thought of me that way."

    ROOSTER: "Well, anyway, I can make something for you, for sure. What do you need?"

    [ ] What about some cool armour?
    [ ] A fine sword would be good.
    [ ] Can you make me a daiklave?
    [ ] Could you make me a prosthetic finger?
     
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    • Rooster is a complete delight, I want to swear a blood bond with him and have each others' backs forever.
     
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