All You Need is Punch
15th of Ascending Fire, 321.4993
The Blood-Ape Sorcerer's hall is as grand as its master. Its floor is mirror-like iskarite imported all the way from Meridian, its walls are low-relief carvings depicting their masters exploits on a hundred battlefields, and its columns are intertwined lions of adamant-backed marble crafted from the labor of a dozen artisans in the Scarlet Empire itself. The altar is carven elinvar from the fell groves of Maravat, and it bears a mighty tumbagan statue straight from the factory-manses of Za-Vant; an imitation of Ligier with offerings scattered around it. All in all, it is a beautiful hall, well worth admiring.
Though it would perhaps be more-so if its owner wasn't currently doing his damnedest to smash it to pieces.
In fairness, the blood-ape isn't consciously trying to wreck his own hall, he hasn't suddenly decided that marble was too mainstream and gone apeshit on it in a fit of rampant hipster-ism. Excuse the pun. It's simply collateral damage in his (not particularly) noble quest to slaughter the Garuda Unit Commando who has been
stubbornly not dying for nearly five minutes now.
Obsidian butterflies are embedded in the floors and columns and walls, the collateral of a spell that failed to accomplish much of note. Great gouges have been rent in the floors where sword-swings and brutal stomps have failed to do more damage than ruining the Commando's power armor and giving him a few nasty bruises.
The Ape advances, forcing the commando back with measured slices, and the commando dances away from each blow almost cockily, gladly giving up ground as he buys time. The dance continues a few more seconds and then, rather suddenly, the commando finds that he's in a corner, fresh out of room to dodge. He swears silently, and the Blood-Ape grins and swings his blade in a great kill-stroke.
Only to find it stopped, a mere foot from its victims neck, by a slender scimitar of tumbaga. It's held in one hand by a massive suit of red power armor, casually towering over both combatants. The armor flexes, almost casually, forcing the blood-ape away from his victim.
"So," says Varahi Chola as her visor retracts, "Heard I was missing a party. Hope I'm not
too late. The doormen weren't exactly keen on letting me and Vikram in."
The Blood-Ape looks Varahi over, then sits back and rests on his haunches. "Dare I ask what happened to the doormen?" He says, "It'll be a bit of a pain replacing them."
Varahi opens her mouth to say something, but is interrupted by a massive mechanical fist bursting through a wall, a leonid teodzija firmly in its grip. The lion-demon roars once before the machine crushes it and drops its corpse onto the hall floor.
"...Well, I suppose that's going to be what I'm doing for the next few weeks," says the Ape, "Pity."
"Oh, don't worry, it's not the worst we did on the way in. You've got plenty for distractions," says Varahi. She turns towards the commando, pointing him towards the nearest door, "Three-Eight, the rest of your squad is waiting for you at Rendesvouz Alif. Go get medical attention. I'll deal with this." The commando nods and retreats through the door, leaving Varahi and the Blood-Ape alone.
There's a pause as they both visibly relax, allowing their guards to drop. "Took you long enough to get here," says the Blood-Ape, finally, "You're going to have to kill that commando, he saw me cast."
Varahi rests the tip of her blade against the ground and leans on it. "And whose fault's that, Hidimba?" she says, "Why did you go for sorcery against a
mortal of all things? You know what it would take to clean up your mess this time?"
"Not more than I can pay," says Hidimba, "We do the normal deal, I'll add something for you on top of it. What would you like, hmm? A blade like mine? I've the Yellow Jade for it, would be
quite the prize. You can tell everyone you took it from the corpse of the Dread Sorcerer, Hidimba, hmm? Or a new one of those titan-walkers you Pilots are so fond of, a matched set for you and your brother?" The Ape paces, circling Varahi as he cites prizes, "I've a stock of Orichalcum and electrum from Sol-Alduina, that would be quite the prize, would it not?"
"Not interested," says Varahi. She doesn't bother to turn and track him
"Oh? Those prizes don't satisfy you?" asks Hidimba, an eyebrow cocked in the smarmiest position he could manage, "Well, I
do have one last thing, that might catch your interest. It comes with power unrivalled since the days of Ashoka. The power to fight even the lord Rama on an equal footing, and immortality besides."
Varahi rolls her eyes and fixes Hidimba with a rather unamused glare. "If you've got something great stop hyping it up and tell me what it is," she says.
"Akuma-hood," says Hidimba, leaning in close "I've a coterie of sorcerers, a connection in Nyou who knows the spells. We can perform the summoning this very calibration, you've more than earned it with all that you've done for me and mine, and the Yozi are sure to welcome the advances of one such as yourself. One simple contract, Varahi, and the powers of the Yozi themselves, martial prowess that you never dreamed of, will be yours to command. Yours. For the low, low price of a mortal's silence."
"Nah," says Varahi.
Hidimba blinks. "... pardon?" he says, plainly dumbfounded.
"Not interested," says Varahi, idly spinning a ring on the tip of one of her gauntleted fingers, "No deal."
Hidimba tilts his head, staring at Varahi. "You've done
many stupid things in your life, Varahi," he says, slowly, "But this, this tops them all. I taught you Even Blade, girl, you really think that
you can take
me in a sword fight?"
"No," admits Varahi with a shrug, "But, well-" She throws the ring and her blade into the air, and her power armor unfolds around her as she steps out of it. She's not wearing armor underneath, but a plain, blue shalwar-kameez. Her arms are covered in spiked gauntlets, the frame of an exo-skeleton protruding from them and forming a loose cage around her upper-torso. She extends one hand as she steps from her armor, catching her ring about her right ring finger. "-I'm not planning on a sword fight." The ring spins into place, drips vitriol, and flashes emerald-green as she settles into a boxing stance. Her blade embeds tip-first into the floor, abandoned.
"... Surpanakha gave that to you," says Hidimba, flatly. Varahi smirks at the ape's expression. Shock and confusion war on his face, and for the first time in the entire confrontation, he seems off balance. "That. That bitch. That lying, back-stabbing, foul-fanged she-bitch. And you.
Learned. From her." It's not a question. Rather, it's a statement, made in hollow, deadpan tones. As if expecting the universe to rebel against the very notion as soon as it is vocalised.
No such denial occurs.
And Hidimba's shock and blank expression fall away, to reveal the emotion bubbling beneath them; now risen to a boil.
Raw, overwhelming fury.
Hidimba raises his blade, bellows, and crosses the floor towards Varahi in an earth-shaking charge. Varahi simply closes her eyes, draws her arms up in a long practiced kata, and lets essence flow through her, scorching the air. Fate itself strains as Varahi metaphysically shifts, burning free of its confines. It writhes and recoils from the new monster, its delicate web and intricate mandala shifting around the
thing that has just ripped a jagged hole through it. Across the demon's base dozens of predictive calculations, attempting to predict and mitigate the ongoing assault, fail suddenly and without warning. Computer screen and spilled entrails and astrologer-beasts all go impossibly blank for the briefest of moments before simultaneously returning the same, horrifying result.
"The monster is here."
As Hidimba closes, brings his blade down in a massive two-handed swing, Varahi opens her eyes and swells impossibly. She fills out her loose clothing, the exoskeleton frame that once easily encaged her becomes flush with her skin as she grows to nearly ten feet high, and her eyes burn a brilliant, scorching emerald. One hand darts up, swift as lightning, and simply catches Hidimba's blow.
Hidimba visibly strains, pushes the blade down. Varahi's smirk simply widens. She balls her free fist, deals him a vicious blow to the gut in a whirl of firey essence, and sends the Blood-Ape flying up, away, and into the roof of his grand hall. He falls messily in a cloud of debris.
Varahi struts towards his fallen form, savors the moment as Hidimba grabs his blade and pull himself up. She allows him to stand, waits for him to ready himself before kicking off the ground, moving so fast the eye simply can't keep up with her. Hidimba searches for her a moment, then Varahi slows back into the visible range directly in front of him. She brings both hands down in a massive hammer blow, smashing Hidimba through the floor, through the wiring and piping between it and the room below it, and through the ceiling of the level below.
Varahi hops after her prey, landing in the midst of a hangar, crowded with unlaunched fighters, under-construction frigates, and unloaded ammunition. Hidimba is nowhere to be seen, hidden by the crowded fighter-craft and weapon racks.
"Hiding, Hidimba?" says Varahi, "Scared?" There's no answer, and Varahi casually rips her way through a grounded Ghain as she tracks the Blood-Ape.
There's a hum and behind Varahi a wave of essence rips through a rack of plasma cells, straight at her back. Her anima flares outwards again, detonating a rack of micro-missiles near her. She twists, blocking the wave with a forearm, but it slices through her exoskeleton, rendering it useless around the hand.
Another wave follows, and another, and
another slicing through ships and pillars as they bombard Varahi. Her exoskeleton bends and breaks in a half-dozen places as she deflects wave after wave. "Found you," she says. She grabs a pair of rockets, one in each hand, and as her anima deforms them, starts burning their fuel, she turns and whips them across the hangar.
Twin explosions, followed by more as bits of the hangar catch light and detonate, ring at the impact site. A shape, Hidimba, soars through the air, having leapt clear moments before impact. Varahi grins a feral grin, grabs a CRAVAT with both hands, and flings it into the airborne Hidimba, sending him and the now-ruined CRAVAT tumbling through the air.
Varahi leaps after them, crashing through the wreck to deal Hidimba a vicious knee to the gut. The ape catches the blow, and its follow-up, on the crossguard of his blade. The pair crash through the canopy of a grounded frigate, landing in its bridge in a cloud of rubble and fire.
Hidimba sweeps for Varahi's legs, forcing the massive dragon-blood a step back. He lunges forward, a needle of essence lancing out from the tip of his blade and spearing Varahi in the lower chest. Blood trickles from the wound, combusts in her inferno of an anima, and Hidimba follows up again, again, and again, trying to impale the dragon-blood before she gets close.
There's a short flux of essence and Varahi walks forward. She ignores the second stab, which tears open her belly, backhands the third in a blinding flash of sparks that cause Hidimba to recoil. He tries to ward her off with a stab upwards, aimed at her neck, but Varahi leans out of the way and grabs the the blade with one hand.
Hidimba channels essence through the blade, causing it to superheat and glow an actinic blue. Varahi's hands scorches and burns, but she ignores it, pulls Hidimba towards her. The ape tries to resist, but Varahi is too monstrously, impossibly strong. No matter how he digs himself in, how much essence he channels, he is dragged closer and closer towards his foe.
Finally Hidimba lets go, unwilling to sacrifice his life for his blade. He darts backwards, trying to get away, but Varahi flips the blade over and hurls it like an improvised javelin. It pierces Hidimba's leg and the deck plating beneath it, pinning him to the ground. It only stops him a moment, the time necessary for him to rip it from the ground. But that's all Varahi needs.
She's on him in an instant, her anima burning his fur and armor and flesh, her ring growing a bright viridian. She knees him in the gut before he can defend himself, knocking him into the air, then spins and slams him into the ground with a hammer-fisted blow. The deck plating dents from the force of the blow.
Varahi grabs Hidimba, pulling him off the ground until he is staring her in the face. She grins begins to pummel him. His armor, his hide, his skull, ribs, and neck crack and cave under the barrage of fists and she just keeps going. When she's finally finished the sorcerer is nothing more than a battered corpse with a crossed-sabers brand tattooed, again and again and again, across its broken body.
She keys her comms. "Vikram," she says, "I've slain Hidimba. Tell the others. I'll handle delivering the corpse to Surpanakha myself." There's a pause as he affirms then, almost as an afterthought, she adds, "Oh, and if you could pick up my armor on your way out, that would be great. Kinda had to leave it in the hall." Then she slings Hidimba's corpse over one shoulder, her shiny new sword over the other, and strides off the bridge with her prize.
New Information: Varahi Chola's Known Styles:
Infernal Monster Style: This style is a brutal, vicious thing, made not for self-defense, or dueling, or honorable combat, but gratuitous, gruesome murder. Its crushing blows, mindless rages, and unceasing barrages speak not of some disciplined martial artist or proud champion, but a barely-restrained Monster, one ready and willing to lay waste to all in its path at the slightest provocation. Infernal Monster Style can be used with unarmed blows and improvised weaponry. It cannot be used in conventional armor. As the name hints, this is a valid style through which to learn Infernal Monster Charms and applicable expansions. (Mastered)
Lesser Magical Materials:
Pure magical materials are expensive, hard to create, and not necessary for most purposes. While a Daiklave or Goremaul is merely costly, equipping every dragon-blood in a dynasty with one is prohibitively expensive, and the time necessary to make that much jade absolutely ridiculous. Never-mind the issues inherent with attunement, which means armaments made of true magical materials simply cannot be wielded by mortals. As a result, there is a certain incentive towards using magical material reserves to make exceptional blades usable by mortal and exalt alike, and to save a wonder made purely of magical materials for truly important artifacts.
For example: The Varahi Astra is exceptional for being made of pure Yellow Jade. Most standard artifacts and ultra-high end weaponry (Like a bog-standard Reaper Daiklave, or Devaraja's sword) are made of a lesser magical material, generally an alloy of the material and something rather less expensive.
There's no point in wasting precious jade or orichalcum on a +2 Sword of Cutting, after all. Better to use that on weapons that can project 10 meter long essence blades which can cut vehicles to ribbons on the cheap (Like the Astra), or deploy essence bolts capable of threatening even vehicles (Like Abhas' Voss).
Some examples are:
Elinvar:
When a meteorite crashes down from the heavens, the event is cataclysmic. The impact can deafen at a distance of miles, or reduce a forest of redwoods to a field of broken timber. But it also can also have a more subtle effect: to enrich the ground of the impact site with starmetal powder. Fate often behaves oddly in such areas, flowing more smoothly than normal or snagging unpredictably on the Loom. In these sites are forest-factories created; hundreds of acres of trees planted in the saturated soil and encouraged to grow for the harvest.
Such is elinvar. Various different types of wood can be used, from ash to mahogany to yew. Whatever the raw wood, the end result is darker and more lustrous than natural wood of that type, with pale streaks running through the wood and a natural finish that seems to ripple in the light. Elinvar trees grow with perfect symmetry, and their elegant beauty makes them a joy to look upon. The wood itself is incredibly hard, and jade- or adamant-tipped tools are generally required to work it. A light and sturdy material with a pleasing coolness to the touch, it has a particular presence in staffs and spears of Sidereals and their associates.
Diamond:The so-called "king of gems" can be made from any other, though the process is long and arduous. The raw gemstone must be crushed to a fine powder, and then treated with caustic acid, enormous pressure and intense heat and cold to purge it of its elemental nature. Even with high-quality starting materials, the process can take up to a month to complete this brutal purification. By the end, however, the stress of the escaping elemental Essence has condensed the crushed gemstone-dust into a lightweight, clear material with little elemental nature and astonishing hardness. The colouration of the new-forged diamond is dictated by the leftover traces of elemental nature that remain - the purer the diamond, the clearer and harder it is.
Celestrium :Called "jade-steel" by most, this unnaturally strong material is formed by alloying iron with jade dust in a manner akin to the forging of steel. Highly favoured amongst the Dragonblooded, celestrium saw heavy use in the great works of the late Central Empire. Vast space-stations and titanic warships, as well as lesser devices and the mass-produced weapons of the armies, are made from the material. Salvaged jade-steel can be melted down and reforged - many is the sword or gun that began life as a Central Empire combine harvester or railing.
Tumbaga: Alas! The shining orichalcum beloved of the Solar Exalted is rare beyond belief. Forged of chaos distilled down to order, the passage of millennia has slice by slice removed this wondrous gold from existence. In this fallen age, even the lettered call 'orichalcum' the alloy of gold and copper once known as tumbaga. Tumbaga lacks the mirror-brightness or supernal hardness of its more noble cousin; it is uneven in colour, and slightly ruddy - and often pitted to the touch. It will gain a patina if it is not cared for and used, though sunlight causes the tarnish to flake off.
This is not to belittle tumbaga, for it takes dreadful skill for a mortal man to make it. Pure gold and raw copper must be melted together, hammered, beaten, forged, and then immersed in strong acid and the acid boiled away by the heat of the summer sun or in a magma forge, accompanied by the proper rituals. This reduces the volume of the material by a tenth, and this process must be repeated nine more times until the acid and the heat have washed away the impurity of mortal matter. It takes nearly three pounds of raw materials to make one of tumbaga, and an error in a single step can ruin the entire forging, leaving it good only for jewelry.
While the return of the Solar Exalted has resulted in a slow resurgence of Orichalcum, especially in regions ruled by them, such as Za-Vant or Sol-Alduina, it is still horribly rare. Tumbaga is by far more common, and highly valued in the noble circles of Vant for its resemblance to hallowed Orichalcum.
Electrum: Electrum is a lesser cousin of both orichalcum and moonsilver. It is often found in the ruins of manses, where essence discharges from ruined geomancy have fused gold and silver together into something which is neither. A few factories exist, where gold and silver are purposefully poured into the raging flux of distorted geomancy. The practice is banned in Vant, as it requires damaged Geomancy that the Monitors are not willing to allow to remain unfixed.
Iskarite: Iskarite is an impure alloy of moonsilver formed from a mixture of lead, silver and mercury, it is largely mirror-like, the reflective surface broken up by matte grey patches beneath the surface.
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