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Mare Internum: An Exalted Quest

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The Proud Do Not Endure 22
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    • Parabola said:
    [X] Give me the water.
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    "Water, please."

    FINCHER: "Didn't mean nothing by it, boss. You just look a little shaky, is all."

    Fincher passes you a brass water flask. The water is cold, and you feel the chill all the way down to your stomach. You do not feel refreshed, but almost immediately you feel the raw edge of the headache subsiding.

    You see script scratched into the flask, and brace yourself against the movement of the horse so you can read it.

    FLASK: Blessed water runs in your veins now that you are pure.

    The familiarity of the phrase is haunting, like a half-remembered tune that comes to mind unbidden.

    "Hey Fincher, what does this mean?"

    FINCHER: "What? Oh, that. It's, uh, the water mantra. Immaculate stuff." She seems embarassed.

    FLASK: Ask her why she wrote it on me.

    "Why'd you write it on the flask?"

    FINCHER: "Uh..." she looks away. "I can't remember."

    FLASK: She's lying.

    "The flask says you're lying."

    FINCHER: "What are you on about, boss? Look, give me back the flask."

    She snatches it off you.

    FINCHER: "We can talk about it later, we're almost at the hill."

    The road leads over a ring of grassy hilltops. The sea breeze blows from beyond. You leave the horses and approach the edge on foot, and crawl to the edge to look down into the valley.

    Your first thought of Ashglass is of twin ant hives. The pale gold of sunset lights the city from the west in fire, illuminating the mountainous paired fortresses around which the city grows like mold. Seabirds flock around the megastructures, flies around the carcassses of great beasts, nesting in the arches above hundred-span buttresses sprouting from the rock faces of the cliffs.

    Fincher lets out an impressed whistle.

    Between the fortresses you can see the gleam of blue-dyed sails, warships clustered in the bay. On the near side are the camps. You see instantly that the scout estimates are accurate, or even undervaluing the threat. A riot of many-coloured banners marks tents in the valey bellow. You see musters of horse being led between camps, soldiers flocking around evening meals, workers digging trenches and dragging freshly cut trees from the orchards that speckle the coast.

    AWARENESS: VERY DIFFICULT
    2 6
    CHECK SUCCESS

    AWARENESS: I estimate eleven thousand in total.

    "I make eleven thousand, half under arms."

    FINCHER: "I don't understand it. Reports said twenty thousand total population in the highlands. Even if they somehow got all the fighting folk from Slatewater to work with them, there's no way they should have this many. They just don't have enough people to support an army this big. Did they land mercenaries somehow?"

    AWARENESS: Some of them are moving wrong.

    "Wrong how?"

    FINCHER: "You what?"

    "Not you."

    AWARENESS: The group of infantry at the periphery, up towards the wall. They're just holding formation, standing still. Why? There's no attack.

    "There's something weird going on with that group at the front."

    FINCHER: "There's something weird going on with you."

    "I'm serious, look."

    She stares where you are pointing. She gets out her spyglass and looks closer.

    FINCHER: "Huh."

    "Can I get a shot of that spyglass?"

    She shrugs and hands it to you.

    [ ] Look around the camps.
    [ ] Look at the ships.
    [ ] Look at the walls.
    [ ] Look at the city.
    [ ] Look at Fincher.
    [ ] Look at the sky.

    You started thinking about Unbroken Rushes (12 hours) and The Opening Gate (48 hours).
     
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    • KreenWarrior said:
    Unnaturally still soldiers? Sounds like undead, maybe?
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    Exalted undead tend to move around, and they don't like sunlight much. I'm thinking these are decoys. They don't actually have eleven thousand people here, they're just trying to make it look like they have eleven thousand people. It's an old trick, and a good one. The ancients would set up extra tents and campfires. In modern warfare people use things like inflatable tanks and 'artillery pieces' made of painted wood. You can win without fighting if you make your enemy believe you're too strong to attack.
     
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    The Nobunaga strat. Though I do wonder who they're trying to fool? Surely the people inside Ashglass would have seen through the deception by now.
     
    The Proud Do Not Endure 23
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    • KreenWarrior said:
    [x] Look around the camps.
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    You put the spyglass to your eye and take a detailed look over the camp.

    It will be impossible to tell without hours of careful observation just how many of the people down there are authentically real, properly moving people, but you assess that there are still quite a lot of them.

    There are three large white pavillion tents, spaced throughout the camp. Something's odd about them. They are heavily guarded, but nobody's going in or out. Prisons? Treasuries? Reclusive leaders?

    You freeze as you see several of the same sort of dun-yellow banners that were carried by the cavalry on the beach, with the same five-petal flower pattern you bear on your jacket.

    "Say Fincher, how many of those riders got away after I blacked out?"

    FINCHER: "Oh, most of them. I'd say a good hundred fifty. No way we could outpace them on foot. We lost some loose horses, too."

    "So they'll probably have returned to their camp by now."

    FINCHER: "Uh... yeah. Shit."

    WAR: AVERAGE
    6 2
    CHECK: PASSED

    WAR: Depending on how organized they were, they might have been there for up an hour already. They'll have reported what happened at the beach, which will probably mean they are getting ready to dispatch a larger force. Probably in this direction. We should make a withdrawal. Sound stategy.

    AWARENESS: But there's more to see here. We just need a little longer.

    [ ] We should head back immediately.
    [ ] We need to look at some more things here. Stay with me for a bit.
    [ ] I need to look at some more things here. You should get back to the talon.
     
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    • [X] I need to look at some more things here. You should get back to the Talon.

    She should go back and organize a withdrawal. We'll catch up when we've figured out what in Malfeas is going on here.
     
    [X] I need to look at some more things here. You should get back to the Talon.
    - [X] I'm not gonna pull any heroic stunts like sacrificing myself to buy you time, I just think I'm missing something here.
     
    have we checked our INVENTORY at all?

    Maybe we have something in our pockets we didn't know about
     
    Jack vile Ripper said:
    We don't even know what our previous name was and we're currently talking with the chatty personifications of our abilities, whatever shivs we have under our jacket is the least of our worries methinks.
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    Funny story, I once ran an Exalted game for a group of players new to Exalted by giving the whole circle amnesia. (They'd had an unfortunate run in with the owner of the Forgotten Blade before killing him. It was a good way to introduce new players to the setting slowly in play.) Each of them had to piece together who they were by what they were carrying, at first.

    One of them was a thrown weapons-focused Night caste with so, so many knives. The player did an admirable job of running with that one, it was entertaining. They started naming them.
     
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    TaliesinSkye said:
    Funny story, I once ran an Exalted game for a group of players new to Exalted by giving the whole circle amnesia. (They'd had an unfortunate run in with the owner of the Forgotten Blade before killing him. It was a good way to introduce new players to the setting slowly in play.) Each of them had to piece together who they were by what they were carrying, at first.
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    ...I think I may steal this idea for a future Fic or Quest. As a very good way to introduce 2e/2.5 Exalted for newcomers without bombarding them with informations (that is 10 years old by this point, wow).

    TaliesinSkye said:
    One of them was a thrown weapons-focused Night caste with so, so many knives.
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    Ahhh, Cascade of Cutting Terror~. I get what you mean, I really do. Such a fun Charm that was. Add that with a Stealth Charm to instantly re-establish Surprise and you'll be cutting through an Ishvara in no time.

    TaliesinSkye said:
    The player did an admirable job of running with that one, it was entertaining. They started naming them.
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    Night Caste: "This one is called Luminous Remembrance, this one is Harp-on-the-Heart, this one is Loquacious Tenebrae that is made by someone called Ligier. And there is this one I called Gilded Nail but I left it back home..."
    Twilight Caste: "Lemme guess, it's named that way because it's a particularly shiny, golden coloured nail?"
    Night Caste: "What? No, my Deathlord self named it that apparently."
     
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    Jack vile Ripper said:
    ...I think I may steal this idea for a future Fic or Quest. As a very good way to introduce 2e/2.5 Exalted for newcomers without bombarding them with informations (that is 10 years old by this point, wow).
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    Sure. If you'd like, I still have the character backgrounds (when they retrieved their memories thanks to some Sidereal help) and character sheets. The backgrounds in particular were pretty good work, if I say so myself. Hit me up in PMs if you're interested.
     
    I'm going to veto looking through the inventory and objectives for now because it would be a fairly involved process possibly including some conversations with inanimate obects and/or body parts and the MC is currently in a hurry. We'll do it if it gets the first vote and otherwise leave it until we have some free time.

    Apologies for the sharp drop in posting speed, I am currently working through an illness. Not particularly threatening (not covid) but exhausting.
     
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    The Proud Do Not Endure 24
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    • TaliesinSkye said:
    [X] I need to look at some more things here. You should get back to the talon.
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    "We should split up. I check out what's going on here before dark, you need to get back to your talon."

    Fincher looks at you dubiously.

    FINCHER: "So long as you don't do anything mad like charging into the camp on your own, alright? Got enough trouble. Remember I'm supposed to be escorting you."

    "I remember."

    FINCHER: "I'm taking your horse back with me. They'll spot him on the road, you're better off going across the fields on foot in the dark. Camp'll be a half mile coastward from where we departed the talon. We'll move off at dawn, whether you're back or not. Keep the spyglass."

    "Thanks for your help, Fincher, really."

    She stands and turns to go, then pauses and looks back.

    FINCHER: "Don't listen to any voices you hear, alright? And here, take this, it's yours."

    She tosses you the water flask. It lands beside you, wobbling back and forth with the motion of the remaining water within.

    "I can't take your water flask."

    FINCHER: "It's not mine. Like I said, it's yours. Take care of yourself, boss."

    Before you can ask her for a further explanation she's gone, sprinting down the hill towards the road.

    Something to ponder at later. For now you have to make use of what light remains. The sun is almost down.

    You take up Fincher's spyglass again.

    [ ] Check out the strange-looking group at the front of the camp, towards the walls.
    [ ] Try to figure out what's going on with the big tents that nobody enters.
    [ ] Look for any forces gathering that might be coming this way.
    [ ] Examine the city for ways you might enter.
    [ ] Look over the ships for anything you might make use of.
    [ ] Survey the walls to assess the strength of the defenders.
    [ ] Reconsider and run to catch up with Fincher.
     
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    • [X] Check out the strange-looking group at the front of the camp, towards the walls.
    [X] Try to figure out what's going on with the big tents that nobody enters.

    These are the two I'm most interested in.

    Hope you're starting to feel better, @Crumplepunch. Being sick sucks; I just got over the flu myself, and I'm nursing a cracked rib from coughing too much. This is a unique and entertaining quest so far, I'm glad you're writing it.
     
    [X ] Check out the strange-looking group at the front of the camp, towards the walls.
    [X] Try to figure out what's going on with the big tents that nobody enters.
    [X] Look for any forces gathering that might be coming this way.

    I like these 3 options

    Glad you are feeling better @Crumplepunch
     
    The Proud Do Not Endure 25
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    • TaliesinSkye said:
    [X] Check out the strange-looking group at the front of the camp, towards the walls.
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    You speed-count the formation in tens. Six hundred and twenty. Their armor consists of a heavy laced-plate hauberk over a padded yellow jacket like yours, and a bronzed helm with a white crest.

    CRAFT: AVERAGE
    5 6
    CHECK: SUCCESS

    CRAFT: The equipment is plainly real. Even if those are blunt practice weapons, there is no mistaking genuine steel and bronze.

    And yet they aren't moving. At least you can't catch them moving as you are looking. Why would someone equip dummies with real weapons? Or put them on the front ranks, where the defenders would be able to see through the ruse easily?

    AWARENESS: DIFFICULT
    1 2
    CHECK: FAILED

    You spend a precious couple of minutes looking over the strange unit, but learn nothing further. The sun is dipping over the horizon, painting the camp in deep red. Time to move on.

    [ ] Try to figure out what's going on with the big tents that nobody enters.
    [ ] Look for any forces gathering that might be coming this way.
    [ ] Examine the city for ways you might enter.
    [ ] Look over the ships for anything you might make use of.
    [ ] Survey the walls to assess the strength of the defenders.
    [ ] Head back to Fincher's camp.
     
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    • The Proud Do Not Endure 26
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    • KreenWarrior said:
    [x] Try to figure out what's going on with the big tents that nobody enters.
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    The tents are large, supported by a heavy central stake, big enough to house fifty people or a dozen horses. Guards cluster around the entrances, half a dozen at each. These ones enjoy the normal human range of movement, you note.

    You observe each of the tents carefully in turn, but no new oddities reveal themselves.

    STEALTH: DIFFICULT
    6 3
    CHECK: SUCCESS

    STEALTH: I can see a path down there, boss. There's a string of wagons all abandoned-like around the back of the middle one, if you get down there when the light dies you could cut through the back with nobody the wiser and have a look for yourself.

    Wait, why does your Stealth talk like Fincher?

    INTGRITY: DIFFICULT
    4 1
    CHECK: FAILED

    INTEGRITY: Fincher seems pretty stealthy, it's probably just something you picked up just now.

    The sun has sunk under the horizon now, the formerly grey sky is painted with brilliant violet-indigo hues. Twilight fades by the moment. Consider your next move carefully, this will be your last chance to observe.

    [ ] Look for any forces gathering that might be coming this way.
    [ ] Examine the city for ways you might enter.
    [ ] Look over the ships for anything you might make use of.
    [ ] Survey the walls to assess the strength of the defenders.
    [ ] Head back to Fincher's camp.
     
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    • [X] Look for any forces gathering that might be coming this way.

    Interesting that we could attempt sneaking into the camp. I think that might be worthwhile.
     
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