They certainly are! By and large, I've very much come over on most of the changes and expansions that the current edition has put out. It's preference, of course, but it just feels more like a world I can have adventures in, regardless of what sort of Exalt or what genre of game we're talking about now.
Jochim is, technically, the second canon character I've had onscreen here. Unlike Thay, he gets a little bit more written about him across the different editions, but he's noteworthy primarily as like... a historical event. "Every once in a while, a Solar Warlord gets powerful enough to actually cause some damage". He's also important to Tepet Arada's backstory, in that Arada killing him is where his reputation as a badass Anathema slayer originally came from. So what I had to work with was literally his killer talking incidentally about him in two different editions.
Article:
There was a big campaign a few years later, the one against Jochim the Anathema, nasty fighting and costly to boot. Jochim was no slouch, and he could train men up in a matter of weeks and make them damn fierce. They were fearless and had something unnatural in their eyes, something crazy. We battled him back again and again, though, taking back all the land and towns that he had risen up and seized until he holed himself up in an old fort in the hills. It was a crazy stunt, but I took a small force of my best men and crept into that place and razed it to the ground. They named me the Wind Dancer for that, and it set the tone for the way I liked to get things done for the rest of my career.
I came back to my uncle a general, and I dropped Jochim's damn devil head on his desk and asked him if that was distinguished enough for him.
Article:
I fought Anathema. I've killed Anathema. Hell, I've had words with a few — I speak a lot of languages. Even the Bull of the North blinked when I addressed him in his own language. (It's one of my rules for war. I wrote it into every officer's copy of The Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier: Never plan strategy against an opponent if you don't speak his language.)
I can tell you that some of them are just as scared of themselves as we are of them. I've seen it in their eyes. I don't think that anyone asks to be an Anathema, and I don't think some of them like it — some, not all. Monsters such as Jochim and the Bull don't mind a bit, and those are the ones that are the real threat to the Realm way of life. They have agendas, and they have the power to pursue those agendas. Worse, they have a fire in their belly that pushes them and pushes them and makes them crazy with zeal. Stopping something like that is no easy task, I can tell you. If there are more than a few Bulls of the North around, the world as we know it is over for sure.
Article:
I saw Fear-Eater, eclipse-mark flaring on his brow and body lit by a corona, fetishes orbiting him in a whirl, throwing his facial scar-tattoos into sharp relief. He relied on sheer power to fight, but he'd never faced the hurricane before. He saw me, ducked past the fire-wreathed blade of my Hearthmate, and smiled that sly purple smile of his. "Doesn't matter what happens now," he said. "Yurgen will snap your soldiers like dead branches." He pinned Tepet Nezurin with subtle magics, punched through jade armor like water and consumed her heart with a fiery mandala of sunlight. "Maybe," I answered through the sorrow of losing a Hearthmate, "Jochim said that before I took his head, and he was twice the fucking soldier you are. How will you fare?"
My other Hearthmate was on the scene then, whispering Essence and giving me back the strength of the Dragons I'd lost twisting Fear-Eater's words to his army. He tried to catch the blade, but Jochim tried the same trick once, and it didn't work then either — they both had spent too much killing my Hearthmates, and I made them pay for it. Air finds a gap, and my grandfather's daiklave found the one between tendon and bone. I buried the blade in his clavicle, wrenched it free easy as a summer's breeze, then ruined the lovely view of his surprised face with my fist. Then I took his head, stopped to savor the look of fear in his eyes after his flaring anima guttered and winked out in death.
Arada is pretty consistently great.
Basically what you've got about him as a dude is "Solar warlord", "ruthlessly razed cities that opposed him" (it's mentioned in some location writeups), and "suicidal over-confidence when he was faced with a full Hearth of Dragon-Blooded". This fortunately worked pretty well with how I wanted Jasmine's history with various incarnations of her Solar Mate to be, and just the name in relation to herself freaks Aster out so that's a bonus.
Jochim is, technically, the second canon character I've had onscreen here. Unlike Thay, he gets a little bit more written about him across the different editions, but he's noteworthy primarily as like... a historical event. "Every once in a while, a Solar Warlord gets powerful enough to actually cause some damage". He's also important to Tepet Arada's backstory, in that Arada killing him is where his reputation as a badass Anathema slayer originally came from. So what I had to work with was literally his killer talking incidentally about him in two different editions.
Article:
There was a big campaign a few years later, the one against Jochim the Anathema, nasty fighting and costly to boot. Jochim was no slouch, and he could train men up in a matter of weeks and make them damn fierce. They were fearless and had something unnatural in their eyes, something crazy. We battled him back again and again, though, taking back all the land and towns that he had risen up and seized until he holed himself up in an old fort in the hills. It was a crazy stunt, but I took a small force of my best men and crept into that place and razed it to the ground. They named me the Wind Dancer for that, and it set the tone for the way I liked to get things done for the rest of my career.
I came back to my uncle a general, and I dropped Jochim's damn devil head on his desk and asked him if that was distinguished enough for him.
Article:
I fought Anathema. I've killed Anathema. Hell, I've had words with a few — I speak a lot of languages. Even the Bull of the North blinked when I addressed him in his own language. (It's one of my rules for war. I wrote it into every officer's copy of The Thousand Correct Actions of the Upright Soldier: Never plan strategy against an opponent if you don't speak his language.)
I can tell you that some of them are just as scared of themselves as we are of them. I've seen it in their eyes. I don't think that anyone asks to be an Anathema, and I don't think some of them like it — some, not all. Monsters such as Jochim and the Bull don't mind a bit, and those are the ones that are the real threat to the Realm way of life. They have agendas, and they have the power to pursue those agendas. Worse, they have a fire in their belly that pushes them and pushes them and makes them crazy with zeal. Stopping something like that is no easy task, I can tell you. If there are more than a few Bulls of the North around, the world as we know it is over for sure.
Article:
I saw Fear-Eater, eclipse-mark flaring on his brow and body lit by a corona, fetishes orbiting him in a whirl, throwing his facial scar-tattoos into sharp relief. He relied on sheer power to fight, but he'd never faced the hurricane before. He saw me, ducked past the fire-wreathed blade of my Hearthmate, and smiled that sly purple smile of his. "Doesn't matter what happens now," he said. "Yurgen will snap your soldiers like dead branches." He pinned Tepet Nezurin with subtle magics, punched through jade armor like water and consumed her heart with a fiery mandala of sunlight. "Maybe," I answered through the sorrow of losing a Hearthmate, "Jochim said that before I took his head, and he was twice the fucking soldier you are. How will you fare?"
My other Hearthmate was on the scene then, whispering Essence and giving me back the strength of the Dragons I'd lost twisting Fear-Eater's words to his army. He tried to catch the blade, but Jochim tried the same trick once, and it didn't work then either — they both had spent too much killing my Hearthmates, and I made them pay for it. Air finds a gap, and my grandfather's daiklave found the one between tendon and bone. I buried the blade in his clavicle, wrenched it free easy as a summer's breeze, then ruined the lovely view of his surprised face with my fist. Then I took his head, stopped to savor the look of fear in his eyes after his flaring anima guttered and winked out in death.
Arada is pretty consistently great.
Basically what you've got about him as a dude is "Solar warlord", "ruthlessly razed cities that opposed him" (it's mentioned in some location writeups), and "suicidal over-confidence when he was faced with a full Hearth of Dragon-Blooded". This fortunately worked pretty well with how I wanted Jasmine's history with various incarnations of her Solar Mate to be, and just the name in relation to herself freaks Aster out so that's a bonus.
It's nighttime and you're huddled alone in a little hollow between two trees, a ways up from the Pebble's banks, too paranoid either to start a fire or to go to sleep. You've put as much distance between you and the shadowland as possible, but you can't rule out the possibility of being assailed by ghosts still, hence your bleary-eyed vigil. The lack of a fire is to avoid detection from more human foes. Relatively speaking. You've made an enemy of nearly everyone now, after all.
My heart is breaking for Aster. Like, the girl really needs something as simple as a safe place to sleep, or someone who can protect her for a few hours.
[X] Get the drop on the watcher
[X] Confront the watcher
For all we know the watcher is the captain's discreet backup. If we shoot first and ask questions later, we might be starting a fight with an ally.
[X] Confront the watcher
This is mostly me being cautious, likely overly so. Once we go in for the meeting, it reveals a willingness to talk and a connection to us, which is otherwise highly suspected, probably enough by their standards, bot not actually confirmed. If we jump them, then we are stuck with the fallout of accosting a potential ally. If we just turn up, curious at the random lurking weirdo, then that us potentially just revelling in feline curiosity.
Short update today, but there will be something else coming within a day or to compensate for that.
Confront the watcher: 13
Get the drop on the watcher: 9
Greet Wandering Heart, and try to warn him discreetly: 1
You take a final running jump, landing on the same darkened rooftop as the mysterious watcher. They jerk around at your arrival.
"This is a private meeting," you say. "Can I help you?"
"You!" says the watcher, voice accusatory.
"Me?" You're taken aback by the anger in her smouldering eyes. "I— You!" Abruptly, despite her dark hood and the mask covering the lower portion of her face, you realise who this is. "How did you get out?"
Parting Sigh scoffs. "They opened the door, and out I walked." She's gotten over her shock enough to adopt a smug posture, arms crossed over her chest. There's a readiness in that slender frame, a nervousness she's doing her best to mask. She knows she can't take you, one-on-one, and she's ready to bolt if worst comes to worst. But for some reason, she seems confident enough to just stand here and try to get under your skin.
"Why would they do that?" Your disbelief is clear in your voice. Alright, she's succeeding in getting under your skin. "You're a murderer!"
She actually laughs in your face, stifling it almost demurely with a hand in front of her covered mouth. "No, I'm an assassin. And, Nuri, you're a literal Anathema. You're not exactly in a position to be looking down on my vocation."
"Aster, stand down!" hisses Captain Wandering Heart. His gaze pierces the darkness to the pair of you. "Sigh, stop antagonising her. Do you want to bring attention down on us all?"
"Sir—"
Wandering Heart cuts off your protest ruthlessly. "Enough. Get down here."
You cast a frustrated look at Parting Sigh, who shrugs, insufferably pleased with herself. Then you leap down to meet the man you came here to see. "Why is she here?" you demand in a whisper.
The look he gives you makes you squirm in place. When he speaks, there is no trace of warmth in his voice. "Why are you here, Aster?"
You wince involuntarily. "I'm here to help."
His stony expression doesn't loosen up a bit. "To help."
"I... I..." you falter, swallow. "I swore an oath!"
"I think we made the circumstances of our arrangement extremely clear," he says. "You can't be here."
You take a step closer to him. "I know it's a mess, and I can't be connected back to you or to the— to her. But I can't just do nothing!"
He sighs, frustration piercing his emotionless stare. "You could be on your way to anywhere else by now. That mercenary woman told everyone what you are. They will kill you. And, frankly, us, if we're caught together. The Guard is already going to get enough scrutiny from this without the hint that we knew and kept it a secret!"
"I'm not just going to run away while a... a second circle necromancer is threatening my home!"
That gets his attention. "... the Lunar is a necromancer of the second circle?" he asks. "You're absolutely sure?"
Honestly, you have no idea what it even means, other than it presumably being worse than the first circle you assume exists. Your main point of concern is just that there's an Anathema witch threatening the valley at all. "That's what she said. And Pause didn't argue with her, so it's probably true. Uh... Pause is— he's a friend, never mind."
Wandering Heart gives you another searching look, like he would like to ask you a lot of things at once. "There are three circles of necromancer. Most only ever achieve the first circle, the Circle of Ivory. This is an impressive enough feat, and is troublesome enough in its own right — among the living, I've only ever heard of Lunars managing to achieve more, and then only the most powerful and dedicated. The Circle of Shadow can rend open shadowlands, call forth armies, give her access to terrible, dark rituals. What you are telling me is that one of the greatest necromancers alive has been discovered near this city, and she wishes us ill. This is worse than I'd credited."
Your stomach sinks a little more, even as you get your hopes up a little that maybe he's not going to order you to leave after all. Eventually, he says: "Parting Sigh?"
The Grass Spider is off the roof, by his side in an instant, her stealth almost as uncanny as Whisper's. "Yeah?" she asks, lazily.
"You have a safehouse in this city," he says. It's not a question. "She's already seen you, so there's no hiding your presence. Take Aster back to it."
This makes her bristle. "You want me to shelter an Anathema?" she hisses.
Wandering Heart gives her a flat look. "Yes."
"You're not paying enough for this," Sigh warns him.
"You're paying her?" you ask, horrified.
Wandering Heart ignores you. "You'll be paid," he tells Sigh.
"We'd better be." Sigh's voice is briefly dangerous. "A deal's a deal, but we're not going to be taken advantage of."
"What deal?" you demand.
"You'll be paid," he says again. Finally, he looks back to you. "A deal has been cut with her... organisation."
"You... what?" You don't understand, at first. What deal could possibly be cut with someone who killed a man in the middle of this very market, let alone the ones who sent her to do it?
"Simple enough," Sigh says. "I got let out of that cell, and got to finish my contract off, and for that consideration, my bosses loaned me out at a discount. A steep one."
You round on Wandering Heart. "You let her just kill more people?"
He is unmoved. "The targets were Guild officials. Vultures eying up a plum carcass in case the Cynis leave room for them to move in. We won't mourn them."
"But..." you try to make your objections properly known, but you don't even know where to begin.
"Crying over a few rich slavers?" Sigh asks. You can't see her smile through the mask, but it's there in her eyes.
You glare at her, but fall silent. You don't know what to do with this.
"I asked you not to antagonise her," Wandering Heart says to the assassin.
Sigh scoffs at that, but doesn't actually argue, or continue. "Fine. I'll take her."
"Go with her, Aster," Heart tells you. "You want to be useful? This is how you start."
You grit your teeth at that. "Yes, sir," you say, reluctantly. You do want to be useful. You want to keep the valley safe. You came here because working together with the captain and your prince could help that.
He looks at you, suddenly a little sad. "I wanted things to be different than this."
That much, despite everything, you appreciate. "I did too, sir."
As you leave, you see him trudge resolutely back into the boisterous crowd, a grim and lonely figure.
"Grala's spear, you're loud!" hisses Sigh as you follow her along the rooftops.
You decide not to argue. Next to her, you are, and you'll be in serious trouble if they start posting sentries up this high. You barely caught sight of her the first time you encountered Parting Sigh, after she'd assassinated her first target, and tonight her footsteps on the roof tiles fall as lightly as a cat's.
You're not looking forward to rooming with her, not least because of how hard she was trying to kill you before. "How far is it to this place?" you ask instead.
"Just shut up and follow my lead," she says. In the end, you do.
==========
You have tentatively reestablished contact with Wandering Heart, who is accepting your aid in light of the dire threat he believes Jasmines poses, despite some severe misgivings. Your position with Prince Thay is tenuous. The satrapial authorities are actively hunting for you. Your family will soon be told you're a monster, and will likely disown you. You have made an enemy of your Lunar mate, a powerful necromancer older than the Scarlet Dynasty. Fateful Jewel has promised to treat you as an enemy if you ever meet again.
On the other hand, you have a place to stay, even if you and your roommate don't get along, and you think Pause still seems to like you. Nowhere to go from here but up!
In the meantime, you still have a brief window of time to collect yourself, and try to come to an understanding with the woman you previously put in jail. Even if she is an utterly shameless killer.
Article:
Pick two topics from the following list to come up in your conversation with Parting Sigh. This is not a plan vote.
[ ] Accidentally unload about your romantic woes
[ ] Have an awkward talk about religion and Anathema
[ ] Coax her into talking a little about the Grass Spiders and her life
[ ] Gossip about Wandering Heart
[ ] Talk about her earlier targets, and how she's very sure they had it coming
You have tentatively reestablished contact with Wandering Heart, who is accepting your aid in light of the dire threat he believes Jasmines poses, despite some severe misgivings. Your position with Prince Thay is tenuous. The satrapial authorities are actively hunting for you. Your family will soon be told you're a monster, and will likely disown you. You have made an enemy of your Lunar mate, a powerful necromancer older than the Scarlet Dynasty. Fateful Jewel has promised to treat you as an enemy if you ever meet again.
On the other hand, you have a place to stay, even if you and your roommate don't get along, and you think Pause still seems to like you. Nowhere to go from here but up!
[X] Accidentally unload about your romantic woes
[X] Talk about her earlier targets, and how she's very sure they had it coming
Hey, Parting Sigh! The anti-christ is a young woman with romantic issues and a vague understanding of why she's Infinitely Evil! This is your problem because she's your dorm mate, have fun lady who's ostensibly a centennial.
[X] Accidentally unload about your romantic woes
[X] Have an awkward talk about religion and Anathema
We should at least apologize to our mate for hitting her in our past life. Like we still think she needs to be stopped and all, but being abusive was wrong of us.
