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I probably would take the Green Sun deal, but:
Getting home might be a little harder than that.
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Slinking Down The River's Scales - Working Title, Exalted Mortal SI
- Thread starter Shane_357
- Start date
I'm not sure what thar last quote was to tell me.I probably would take the Green Sun deal, but:
Getting home might be a little harder than that.
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That an Incarnae visiting a world completely unused to her and things like her can be detrimental to say the least.
Greater thunder
<Verified Lurker>
- Location
- Flamedragon Realmverse
This is the opinion of a guy knowing nothing about all this. It started well with his trek through the wilderness. The mask happening was shit. Meeting the frog was cool as well as panic being well executed. Shame he got slave soldiered but expected as well as nicely done. Got me hating the Dragonborn rulers as well as that Immaculate stuff along with the insert.
Killing his way into a better position was justified,necessary and filled me with glee( because there was no 100 chapters of him whining about it he just did it) when it happened. Meeting with the gods and preparing like this is A grade stuff because there really is no way for him to know details of some hovel in a world he considered fictional.
Finally, I can't wait how he will claw his way towards survival and power because it seems this is a martial setting ( feels like a blend of various Chinese and tribal beliefs being mixed heavily into the world's ongoing political and military struggles).
Now for the (heaviest?) critique I have. I don't know if it is just my ignorance of the setting or some indication of a mind whammy on the protagonist but aside from the encounter with the mud fish all other battle descriptions were tedious,overblown, purple prose, too flowery take your pick. The moment Dragon guys were done with I cheered because thank you God it was done.
Edit: To clarify the confusing mess above. Beginning was good,not the parts with the mask, necessary info dumps with frog and pig gods were actually a pleasant surprise after that, training was good, the battle against tribal guys and just all scenes where dragon guys appeared were mind crushing and then you continued with awesome stuff.
All in all I love it,please continue, and be a little gentler with the insert yeah he deserves some nice stuff and powers ( read a bit about exalted seems there are means to put some oomph even into mortals) before you thrust him into further shenanigans with the arrogant powers that be.
Killing his way into a better position was justified,necessary and filled me with glee( because there was no 100 chapters of him whining about it he just did it) when it happened. Meeting with the gods and preparing like this is A grade stuff because there really is no way for him to know details of some hovel in a world he considered fictional.
Finally, I can't wait how he will claw his way towards survival and power because it seems this is a martial setting ( feels like a blend of various Chinese and tribal beliefs being mixed heavily into the world's ongoing political and military struggles).
Now for the (heaviest?) critique I have. I don't know if it is just my ignorance of the setting or some indication of a mind whammy on the protagonist but aside from the encounter with the mud fish all other battle descriptions were tedious,overblown, purple prose, too flowery take your pick. The moment Dragon guys were done with I cheered because thank you God it was done.
Edit: To clarify the confusing mess above. Beginning was good,not the parts with the mask, necessary info dumps with frog and pig gods were actually a pleasant surprise after that, training was good, the battle against tribal guys and just all scenes where dragon guys appeared were mind crushing and then you continued with awesome stuff.
All in all I love it,please continue, and be a little gentler with the insert yeah he deserves some nice stuff and powers ( read a bit about exalted seems there are means to put some oomph even into mortals) before you thrust him into further shenanigans with the arrogant powers that be.
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Thank you a ton! I too find my recent combat chapters tedious and overblown, and I'm trying to figure out how I can do it better.
Greater thunder
<Verified Lurker>
- Location
- Flamedragon Realmverse
There is a lot of descriptions, and anima, mote flaring. I figure in battle rare few keep their wits about them enough to spot every detail like that and I don't believe cannon fodder ( current insert level) will be like that. In his first skirmish with the mud fish you wrote it well,also when he intervened between two hotheads. So small fights are okay like that written out cleanly and quickly.
For massive engagements, those are grand, try choosing between omniscient narrator for those or insert's faulty perception(he can at least for now only really focus on his part of the battlefield and maybe spot some great happening like mountain calf arrival and fire guy's death.) Perhaps a chapter of all seeing narrator followed by the insert's account.I am not a writer myself so best advice I can give you is check out how writers you admire handle such scenes.
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I am trying to get back to the mud-fish fight style and the coming chapters should feature several small fights/confrontations like that so hopefully they'll come out well!
Interlude 2
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Silk rasped across bare skin as the triumphant son of the Moon's Stone Pond roused himself from slumber. Cool stone chilled his feet as he left behind the sleeping concubines and dressed in trousers of fine linen, taking a tartan cloak from a waiting slave and wrapping it around his shoulders. Bracers of bright bronze covered his forearms and a torc of green jade shielded the vulnerability of his throat, matching the jade stud he bore upon his ear. Thus outfitted in regal fashion Chiho-Chao set out to deal with his current headache.
Below the monolithic palace of Vermoot, buried deep within a labyrinth of twisting passages, stockrooms and barracks, a group of slaves toiled at the mechanisms of an ancient vault door, overseen by scholars and elders, the educated elite of Vermoot working to crack it's most secure chamber. Across the jadesteel portal the eternal symbol of the Terrestrial Exalted stretched, five dragons of the appropriate flavours of jade. Filigree outlined the scales, moonsilver strands spiraling inwards to an empty eyesocket on each. The open hearthstone sockets taunted Chiho as he approached the work crews, their efforts to open the vault without expending resources that Strangling Vines had already stolen futile. Clansmen standing guard greeted him as he passed, though he paid little mind. Chiho even ignored the inkstained scholars, brushing by the elders and approaching the door directly. It was there Maitsu found him, standing a silent vigil as the slaves hauled away their tools.
The warlord's first and chief concubine did not follow him from his bedchamber, but rather from whatever set of rooms she had selected for her own small household, the single concession that the withered hag that called itself her grandmother had deigned to extract from her son-in-law. Though he was a man of Chao fully grown, a killer five dozen times over, Chiho still shuddered to remember that wretched thing's cold eyes, darker than tar and emptier than the skies of Calibration. He gave no protest when the foreign woman brought two entire wagons of baggage, suffered the jeers of his brothers when he let her sit at his war council and whisper dishonourable plots into his ear and he sent no guard when she slipped into the flood of refugees ahead of his army. However, while the threats of the grandmother certainly gave him pause, the promises of the mother gave him ideas. He saw the leather bound codices and macabre apothecaries that sat side by side with instruments of music and silk robes. He allowed her schemes and the surviving patriarchs of the clans fell in line within days. And he listened to her counsel; waited for the assigned day, place and moment and two Princes Of The Earth lay dead before his feet. Although she was an unconventional bride by the standards of the Pond, Chiho understood that the conventional approach would have seen him slain and his people subjugated by the Scarlet, so now that he ruled he let the witch have her comforts, whether that was freedom from his bed or the wherewithal to pursue her own little projects. She was beautiful, but so were many of the women of Vermoot. Either way, Chiho did not go wanting.
Through some natural process of accretion, the two were soon joined by the other worthies of Vermoot. Jugs Hisao, elder of Clan Hisao and veteran of a hundred feuds, a hundred lovers, a hundred shield-brothers. Ringing Nacre Bell, foremost practitioner of the arcane thaumaturgical procedures that governed the Shogunate refineries dotting Vermoot, returned from overseeing the wholesale alchemical annihilation of Strangling Vines' rosequeen apiaries, forever itching at the jaundiced skin hidden by his glistening black body suit. Brash and bold came Fiann Kurribhn, foster brother of Chiho and one of the finest young swordsmen among the clans, clapping a hand onto his friend's shoulder with a laugh. Trailing behind with a radiant blush crept Driven Willow Brush, a girl nearly grown, timid as a mouse and slender as the brushes that were her trade, the ostentatiousness of her long embroidered robe and coat contrasted by the heavy iron collar choking her neck. Finally, Broma Cleft-Hoof carried the marks of her lineage with pride, her squashed hog's nose and unsightly bristles competing for attention with a filth spattered smock, a thick braided whip at her belt and a triple chin dangling from her jaw. Together these people made up the closest thing Vermoot had to a ruling council, although in practice each served as proxies for external interests; Broma served the will of her grandfather Crumbling Dikes and through him the wishes of the trinity of frog, boar and vulture. Fiann and Jugs represented two different factions among the clans, Willow Brush had nominal control of the surviving scribes and coincounters, and Nacre Bell was the most senior member of the guilds of alchemy, divination, cartography and assorted thaumaturgy. Before, they were marginalised by the Dragonbloods, each either held at arm's length from power or driven face-first into the mud by a jadesteel boot. Now, they worked to ensure the surviving Terrestrials never ruled again.
Chiho's shoulder visibly shuddered with the force of Fiann's blow, though it elicited naught but a raised brow from his face. His jovial assailant waited a moment for the rest to move forward, beckoning them with his free hand, his posture utterly at ease.
"You need to stop obsessing Chiho, the people love you! They don't care if you have the fecking Concordance--"
"I may not need the glaive, but we sure as hell need the silver."
That left Fiann with nothing to say, his mouth working impotently. With naught coming from him Chiho moved on, turning to the ruined visage of Ringing Nacre Bell. Eyes misted by decades of drugs and lethal poisons sharpened, if only for a moment.
"We burnt Koonan's roses young lord, we set each and every one ablaze." Phlegm choked his laugh in it's cradle, leaving him hacking and prompting a slap across the shoulders from Fiann. "Th-thank yeh lad, thank yeh." He straightened up, at least as much as a hunched old man can , "Five kilos of firedust and forty barrels of good tar it took; almost everything the refineries made in the last year! I, I need to get my barrel-men out into the Pond, I, I need the charts done, but they're working too slow--"
"Don't worry Belly!" The Cleft-Hoof stood at seven feet tall, a good two and a half above the wizened thaumaturgist and weighed maybe two hundred kilograms heavier, leaving the two of them standing together a comical sight. "Lallee-Swoops-Toward-Still-Waters found a nice bubbling sinkhole full of your favourite goop on her last flight and the twinkle-eyed lady made sure to mark her way back - your boys'll be out there tomorrow if I have to drag them out of their beds myself!"
Ignoring Nacre's spluttered thanks, Broma slipped past him, positioning her massive bulk to address Chiho.
"The holdings of the triad-temple are assured and the last of 'Gala's' little projects have been ruined; the goods and coin taken, the patrons castigated for their faithlessness. We checked for bolt-holes, searched basements and ripped up the floorboards - they ain't hiding there, that's for sure."
Speculative murmurs spilled forth until the formerly silent concubine spoke, voice kept level and eyes held to the ground.
"Harmonious Gala has not been seen since the day of the battle; while Koonan and Vanities were seen leaving the palace the last place she was seen was upon the whirlwind of petals. None will speak to her whereabouts; the domovoi say she has not entered any home they govern, no daughter of Honnoke has seen her beneath their wings. I have looked high and low; three times I spoke with the dusty corpse the Aidgihn keep in their tenement block, twice I visited the clever Sister Salaam and made small talk over her embroidery, I even paid an urchin to venture into the sewers to find the Ratcatcher and bring him to me. Every approach has failed; the daughter of Mela has vanished without trace."
Jugs and Fiann shifted uncomfortably to hear talk of such eccentrics, matters that were best left to priests, rather than meddled in by women, while Broma bent a suspicious ear to the news of a hated foe. Chiho however did not rise from his megrim, merely turning to the young accountant-slave clutching reports coded in interval-dot shorthand to her chest.
"Silver, jade and grain girl, what of it?"
Shuffling through her burden, Driven Willow Brush drew herself upright, visibly struggling with the heavy iron choker that had been a persistent companion for over a decade.
"With the silver confiscated from the traitor clans, the immediate Haltan repayments have been made - returning the bunraku maintenance supplies unused helped the expenses greatly. The assayers say the Tiangou lumber and the more exotic Linowan reagents may need to be resold, but we can recoup perhaps forty-five percent of the cost." Ignoring the blank looks on her audience's faces, Willow Brush pressed on. "With the sinking of the extant jade deposits an examination will need to wait for a full survey, but food stockpiles can be considered now. Root vegetables have obviously been impacted by the exodus from the boglands, but animal products and the remaining Realm rice imports are making up the shortfall. For all the tributes and tariffs the Linowans impose on Pretannic trade, their hunger for the product of our forges is too great for them to truly cripple the caravans, which means we still have their grain. However, the only other source of rice is the Scavenger Lands, and without more silver we can't afford to haul it upriver."
A bittersweet smile graced Chiho's face, the usually jovial young man grim at the thought of famine in the suffocating press of Vermoot's tenements.
"That is why we need to crack the vault Fiann. Until the clans scatter across the surface of the Pond again we need to feed all of them, no matter the cost."
While his younger counterpart shrank beneath his friend's rebuke, Jugs picked at an errant bit of facial hair.
"What about ol' pestle-leg? If Koonan locked the door up wouldn't he be the best one to pry it open again?"
This piece of crude wisdom almost seemed to spark a light in Chiho's eyes. He began to pace back and forth, scratching at his head and shooting glances at his amber tattooes. His council watched in silence for a full minute before their leader spoke again.
"Accountant, Nacre? Search the vaults and stockrooms; find me something valuable. Venom or sap, fine alembics, anything. Three-Pound Pestle does nothing for free, even for friends. Broma, speak with Lallee, I need her to head out and leave markers along the safe routes to his grove - I'll pay whatever she wishes, but I leave in the morning. Jugs, you have control until I'm back. Keep the clans from murdering each other, keep the pressure up on Koonan's loyalists and make sure the guard-mouse doesn't execute anyone important. Maitsu, Fiann, walk with me.
The gathering splintered instantly, everyone on their own little missions while the swordsman and concubine scurried after their lord.
"So we're headed off again brother? Out into the uncharted Pond-"
"No. I'm doing this alone Fiann; Three-Pound has to see me as a king now, not an adventurer. There's not enough time to bring a full court to impress him, so I need to go as a lone equal. Lallee will take care of the path, I just have to walk it."
"Alone?! Damn sap-tits, you got balls! What in the hells will I be doing then?"
"Supporting Maitsu." A wicked grin split Fiann's face but before he could voice whatever filthy thought had germinated Chiho beat him to the punch. "Not like that you cockwit! Fuck, aren't all the 'maidens' you have trailing after you enough?!"
A laugh.
"Never enough old friend, not while I've got the looks and the strength to indulge! So if I'm not entertaining this beauty in her 'quarters', what ARE we doing?"
"Maitsu has informed me of several furious clansmen who feel let down by our revolt. While that's not a problem on it's own, they've decided that a different king might favour them. You're going to slaughter the traitors."
"Interesting, do continue..."
"Leave their women - mothers, wives, sisters or daughters - without virtue or dignity and make sure they know who's to blame. The moment they lose their temper, cut them down in the streets."
"HAH! Oh you know me too well old friend, to give me a task so suited to my skills! Go on, get out of here you dastardly bastard! Now, Madame Maitsu, how about you and I discuss the range of 'ladies' you have for me to sample?"
That night on an alley running the length of the Komtao slaughterhouses a score of men and women in leather coats clutched their spears tight and passed around a jug of bitter liquor. They waited silently for their leader's word as she peered around the corner of the alley. Every few moments they visibly shivered, shuddering as the awful strains reached their ears. Maroon Sails considered her course as she waited for something, something that she could use as a pretext to end this damnable din. Out in the stockyard, empty of beast and handler alike, a spindly man played. Clutched in spidery fingers a bundle of pipes shone white beneath the moon and through it he loosed a song sickening in it's asymmetry.
Maroon's gaze slid off the queer player at times, passing over stalls filled with mud and hay. Within goats and pigs trembled, their eyes strained toward the performer and mouths flecked with foam, while a stableboy twisted and groaned in his sleep. Over them all flowed the twisting music, the shrill strains almost a physical presence at times, rising and falling in volume. As the bizarre scene continued gaps became apparent in the tune, cessations of sounds that ached for a nonexistent instrument to fill the void with a proper harmony. Something in Maroon itched beneath the waves of melody, a piece of her buried deep beneath meat and gristle that shifted and slithered like a coiling rope of twitching hair. Behind her the mob of unruly jackasses she kept in line mostly by force of personality remained uncharacteristically quiet and docile, subdued by the weight of the music. The itch grew to a burning need to move, to act, to dance- Maroon convulsed for a moment, the music abruptly gone when she came back to her senses. Alarmed, she rounded the corner to see the yard empty and a shadow flickering around the far corner, nothing but a glimpse at the edge of vision. With a shout she called her men and gave chase, bounding with great strides over the twisted limbs of newly sprouted gorse. No one remained to watch the bravest of the goats rise from the petrified stupor of it's fellows and begin to gnaw on the foliage.
Setting out from the palace as the sun reached the midpoint between dawn and noon, the ruler of Vermoot found his subjects hurriedly going about their business; a sort of frantic intention filled the air, people moving between their tasks as quickly as possible. The great road leading to the northern edge of the city bustled with activity and Chiho, unnoticed due to the preoccupation of those around him, was forced to duck around the shifting masses of people and ubiquitous stalls selling street-food. At corners foul piles of garbage housed vermin and waited for slaves to drag them off to feed the pigs and goats and between the rooftops and windows hung ivory racks filled with incense, the sweet scent masking the stench of humanity.
Here and there along his path he found patches of quiet order, where walking in a straight line was possible; an alleyway where spectators watched in awe as two monks devoted to different aspects of the triad-temples exchanged blows and proverbs, a stand of trees and grass where a score of children seated around a tutor passing out origami inked with poems and memnomics, a scattering of wicker chairs where a gaggle of grandmothers held court, bickering goodnaturedly and pinching the bottoms of passing men. Among others, Chiho passed browbeaten slaves, frantic mothers and posturing thugs on his path out of Vermoot. The one thing he did not encounter however, was someone who recognised him. With head bowed low and cloak drawn across his distinctive brands the amber king appeared nothing more than a young clansman dragging himself home from a night of drinking, a common enough sight since the reclamation of the Pond.
Ruins of wood and brick still littered the outskirts of the city, even after many long days of work. It was atop a flattened shack that Chiho found Lallee-Swoops-Toward-Still-Waters, a great shimmering vulture bedecked in silver feathers sheathed in ivory plates. This was of course an unusual event, even for a king; gods - even ones as young as Lallee - rarely lowered themselves to interact with the likes of men, choosing instead to govern the happenings of the world and pursue whatever interests caught their attention. As he drew closer, Chiho tripped over a raiton scurrying across the ground, the albino scavenger but one of many crowding around the goddess. This nearby misfortune drew Lallee's focus from some point near the far horizon, expressed in a calm deliberate tilt of the head. The swarming flock of raitons ceased their activities also, drawing away from the ruins to cluster around the claws of the vulture, casting devoted looks up to their mistress and grooming what feathers they could reach with their toothed saurian snouts. The ground they left revealed itself to be littered with the spiny bones of freshwater carp, some still glistening with flesh.
Righting himself, Chiho took to one knee and pulled out of his pack the product of a night spent frantically negotiating with the priests of Honnoke Splitwing's temple. Cut from vellum and bound with a cord of woven copper, the elegantly illustrated parchment represented a permanent addition to the titles accorded to Lallee in the annual festivals. While such a thing only had legitimacy in the bounds of the Moon's Stone Pond and it's clans, Lallee had more than a fair measure of her mother's vanity. 'Ivory Pilot Princess' might not mean anything in the courts of Yu-Shan, but the prospect of new poems and songs sung by mortal men could still entrance a divine heart.
Appraising her reward with a critical eye, Lallee plucked it from Chiho's outstretched hands, a beak sharp enough to shear through metal moving so gently as to barely crease the parchment. Loosing a piercing cry she took to the wing, and her raitons took flight with her. For a moment the great column of white spanned the space between earth and sky before Lallee pitched forwards and spread her wings, soaring across the blue skies. At the edge of Chiho's sight he glimpsed the raitons dropping feathers in their mistresses' wake, the bright tokens marking the path he would need to take. Letting go of the tension in his body, the king of Vermoot sighed and set out on his journey.
Six Sacred Songs studiously did not look at any of his pupils during the morning lesson. Their crude movements and aberrant instincts produced enough of a cacophony for him to hear just how badly they were doing, he did not need to look upon such a ghastly display of incompetence; for one as versed as he in the slow, careful movements and explosive power that characterised the Sibilant Croak style the foreign rabbles' attempts to copy him was nothing less than an insult to the path he had committed his entire life to!
Hop, turn and uppercut. If it were entirely the choice of Six Sacred he would have slaughtered each and every one of those who dared not only to steal the martial arts of the triad-temples, but also to usurp their sacred duty of protecting the peace of Vermoot! For centuries since the Great Contagion the monks of the triad-temples had ensured that Vermoot had remained a safe place for the clans to return to. Beyond kings, beyond blood, beyond glory, the monastic warriors who served the Divine Triad served the people and the gods!
Dash, hammer-blow, spin and backfist. And there was the rub of it; the Toad-Who-Strikes-Like-Hammers bent the knee to Roh-Pogny, both his eldest child and his loyal knight. Thus his students served the great frog also and it was the direct command - and was not such a thing both blessing and curse - of the Four-Seasons-Amphibian that set him to teach. Another twist of the foot and the upwards feint became a savage blow to the thorax. Inside Six Sacred cringed to hear most of the conscripts-turned-guardsmen topple trying to recreate his move.
It took Chiho Chao two hours to reach the first feather. Almost translucent, the albino feather balanced precariously upon the tips of the rushes and under Chiho's cautious finger it span three revolutions, the quill coming to a rest pointing towards the northwest, onto the hermitage of Three-Pound Pestle. Onwards Chiho marched, the grass and mud mulching beneath his feet as the sun overhead turned his skin bright red. Rice cakes and ale to fill his belly, before he continued again. More feathers found their way into his hands and belt, plucked from high and low. Each quill indicated another difficulty, another obstacle for Chiho to overcome. Treacherous pools of mud, long coiling roots that grasped at the ankles and water flowing beneath the matted grass. Again and again he backtracked, following twisting paths through the bogs that at times defied reason; thrice Chiho crossed the same toadstool spiral, leaving a prayer strip each time and picking up the same feather from it's resting place.
Three steps past the boundary of the spiral on the third pass Chiho flung himself backward, obeying some subconscious instinct. Not a moment too soon; a pair of foam-flecked jaws snapped shut mere inches from his nose, coming together with a ferocious crunch. Sheer momentum carried the hound another few metres, turning what would have been a neck snapping tackle into an ungainly stumble. Behind Chiho's assailant came another three dogs, the fiery rage that possessed them being the only point of commonality that tied them together. The heavily built Threshold war dog picked itself off the ground quickly, circling around the edge of the toadstools while the others - two lean pointers and a lap dog - blocked off any chance of escape.
The lapdog's leap found Chiho prepared, catching the point of his bright bronze shortsword across it's ribs with a yelp and a sickening crack. Instantly the pointers darted in behind him, nipping at his heels and forcing Chiho back a step. Loosing a furious downward strike Chiho drove his sword through the ribs and spine of the larger pointer, wedging the blade into the meat and gristle. Not missing a beat Chiho released his grip on his immobile sword and spun on one foot, burying the other in the gut of the smaller pointer. The rabid hound skidded across the dirt for but a moment, crashing through the rows of cyan blue fungi, coming to a stop half submerged in a pool of mud, slowly sinking deeper.
Chiho did not have time to watch however, pitched forwards by a pair of heavy paws upon his back. Pinned to the ground by the war dog, the king of Vermoot thrashed for a few seconds, eventually slinging the hound beneath him and wrapping his amber-branded thews about it's throat. A single squeeze and a crack signaled the end of the battle; a glance upwards caught the gaze of the lapdog, a pair of golden eyes flecked with crimson meeting grey. Then the dog - no bigger than a pup - turned tail and ran, leaving it's compatriots to die. Retrieving his blade from the pointer slowly writhing it's way into death, Chiho made a sign of warding - three fingers raised and the fourth bent - to ward off Furrow-Filler's rage and fled, leaving behind three corpses inside a circle of toadstools slowly turning purple.
A smile was never far from Caleb's face these days. Since the reclamation of Vermoot from the debauched eggsuckers and the reunion of Chiho Chao's warriors with their families nothing had been able to dim the light of the sun, not the tedium of his father's politicking and certainly not the whining of his harridan of a wife! These days Caleb had a secret weapon to combat the forces of despair and melancholy, a secret weapon that never failed to banish sadness and set him to dancing for joy. It was not the flashing of blades or shedding of blood, nor a deluge of liquor or the smoke of the poppy. Nay, Caleb's secret weapon was the wonderful bundle of happiness and song that skipped along the road in front of him. With hair like solid sunshine and a heart that knew nothing but love, Caleb's daughter Esme was the sole source of his smile, the one thing that made his life worth living. So long as Esme lived in the Pond Caleb would lay down his life, sword and honour in it's defense.
The puppet show that night had run late, the dramatic reenactment of Guanting Lin's defeat roused the audience to a frenzy, loudly demanding an encore performance of the rise of the Mountain Calf. Afterwards, they had visited Esme's favourite teashop, a regular destination for father-daughter excursions. By this point the proprietor knew them by name and let Esme pour the tea with childish caution. Now the two of them were headed home, sharing a bag of honey buns along the way. The night sky shone with the light of Luna and in the tenements below candles blazed from a hundred windows. The streets were empty, those few who wandered at this time of night choosing to follow the alleys and hug the edges of buildings, not daring to step out into the moonlight. With a protective hand Caleb drew Esme closer, holding her against him as he followed a hint of movement from an alley. A pair of bright green eyes shone in the darkness, brighter than any mortal man's. Releasing Esme Caleb drew his belt knife, moving in front of his daughter, slowly edging towards the eyes, trying to get a better look- "DADDY!"
The ceithern whirled in place to find Esme gone, snatched away by a dark figure sprinting down the street. Caleb pursued, running with all the speed he could muster. The chase turned into an alley, both parties dodging around and leaping over piles of refuse and vagrants. As they left the alley, Caleb ducked down, scooping up a chunk of masonry. With a spin he let loose and the hurled projectile slammed into the back of the kidnapper's knee with a crunch. Esme - still crying and calling throughout - slipped from it's grasp, hitting the street with a thud. The figure ignored her, picking itself up and continuing on. Wrapping his arms around his little girl, Caleb looked up just in time for the attacker to cross a pool of light cast by a lantern string. Beneath a massive pale canine skull a coat of coarse hair rippled with aberrant life. The 'coat' hid the figure's legs, leaving it's undulating, shambling motion to suggest a lack of traditional locomotion. Frozen in shock, Caleb remained motionless until Esme tugged on his cloak. "Daddy, it's okay, look!" With sweaty, puppy-fat hands, she triumphantly held up a greasy package. "I stopped the monster daddy, he didn't get our bun-buns!"
Holding his daughter close beneath the light of Luna, Caleb could do nothing but laugh his relief to the sky.
Chiho awoke from his sleep cold, with something slimy pressed close over his eyes. The veteran adventurer kept still, holding his breath steady and clamping down on the beating of his heart; the boundaries of his camp had been marked with silver runestakes and the perimeter warded in blessed salt bought from Sijan. Though chilled he could feel the morning sun's touch upon his skin and thus he knew that whatever had him in it's grasp was not one of the dead crawled up from it's resting place. At the edge of hearing a soft croon rose, deep and rhythmic; a wordless tune that came heavy, sounding almost like dripping water. The slimy hand upon his face moved, caressing Chiho's brow and brushing his hair away from his face.
"Rise, rise, burble and flow, run with me over the paddies unsown. Rise, rise, gurgle and flood, wash away homes and leave naught but red mud. Together we fly and rest in the clouds, tomorrow we'll plummet back to the ground."
Opened eyes found a face of cerulean blue, deep black-within-black eyes framed by delicate features and rows of triangular scales. Wide feathers sprouted in place of hair, covering subcutaneous ears in turquoise keratin. The childish rhyme cut out as the singer noticed Chiho's awakening, a wide smile splitting pale lips to display thin needle-like teeth and a long purple tongue. The pond nymph wore nothing, though this revealed nothing; the elemental lacked breasts or pectorals, instead possessing a flat featureless expanse of skin that descended across the torso before disappearing into the cleft between it's legs. Webbed fingers dripped with slime and pond scum, soft digits without nails tracing across Chiho's face. The man relaxed under it's touch, realising that he was not in immediate danger. He knew this; his own grandfather had told him tales of pond nymphs, stories with implications that went over the head of a child as young as he had been then. Every clan had stories of those who fell for beauties that emerged from the bogs, enough that they were a known factor for those that listened to the poets. So long as he stayed out of it's pool, made no promises and accepted no hospitality he would come to no harm.
For a moment the two rested, man and androgyne basking alike in the rising sun. Water lapped gently about the nymph's thighs and the faint breeze carried the scent of wildflowers across the bog.
"We could stay here, you and I. Making love beneath the light of the moon and knowing nothing but joy... Why don't you set aside your burdens and join me?"
Chiho hoisted himself onto his elbows, turning back to face the elemental and readying his best courtesies.
"Forgive me child of fen and swamp, there is no one else to take up my duties, none who can shoulder my tasks. By deed and circumstance I must lead."
Surging forward to press flush against his back the nymph reached down, running it's hands across his amber brands.
"We know of you, son of Chao, king of the Moon's Stone Pond and bearer of the alchemist's gift; the blood of the oaks. A king needs an heir... Our child would be mighty, and beautiful too. Mortals would clamour to swear their allegiance to such a prince... You need only to embrace me."
Slowly, carefully, Chiho slipped from it's grasp and as he did the elemental's visage changed, from seductive to furious, and it's hands clutched tight. Flexing his branded arms, Chiho threw himself free, further than a body's length from the water's edge. Ignoring the jilted suitor's shrieks he uprooted the silver stakes from the marshy earth, bundling up his things and taking flight in the direction marked by the feather he had camped beside.
I started keeping notes by the third day, once the clashes and disruptions grew too much for me to remember. My guards had thrown themselves into the work, happy to earn wages of silver to then blow on the drugs and whores of Roh-Pogny's temple. Quickly they ran into opposition. Vagrants displaced from the ruined outskirts had buried themselves deep in the darker corners of Vermoot, congregating in remote alleys and sometimes even seizing owned-but-empty tenements. The clans refused to risk their own fighters to deal with gutter-trash and came to us, forcing me and my men to search building after building, sometimes capturing, often killing homeless refugees with nowhere to go. Those who surrendered to our mercy were turned over to the bailiffs, a group of experienced fighters and administrators drawn from the clans and temples, who promised that justice would be done. I gathered that it was no coincidence that I saw some of these men and women in the collars and brands of slaves after the fact.
My mornings were spent under the tutelage of Six Sacred Songs, having the fundamentals of the style taught by the disciples of the Toad-Who-Strikes-Like-Hammers pummeled into me by our bitter sifu. I had come to a better understanding of the specifics of local religion; the triad-temples were the dominion of Roh-Pogny, Crumbling Dikes and Honnoke Splitwing, but the three had many lesser gods who served their will. Roh-Pogny lead a brood of amphibians, some dedicated to specific vices, others to medicine or combat. Dikes commanded the local animal gods, those that overlooked butchery, farming, mining, mortuary practices and slavery. Honnoke patronised the arts, whether they be of the hammer and forge or pen and scroll. From smiths to carpenters, poets to swordsmen, huntsmen to musicians, all those who desired beauty and grace turned to her and her children. Furthermore, a fourth pillar of the faith revealed itself to me after interrogating native prisoners; Furrow-Filler. Fulfilling the position of 'antagonist' in the pantheon, the Wild Hound counted amongst his portfolio sabotage, murder and wanton destruction. Berserk mystics and sadistic witches flocked to his banner in droves according folklore and every day he battled against the holy triad. Or so the tales went. From a more pessimistic viewpoint on the outside, the situation stank more of a set up, a con the gods were playing.
After training I lead my personal squadron on a route through the wealthiest districts, presenting a friendly, helpful face to the elders of the clans. Every now and then they would give me a job to do, sometimes demeaning, sometimes dangerous. We searched for lost persons, helped with heavy loads, anything to ensure good relations with the upper crust. By dusk we were always exhausted, and to the bars we headed. We would drink and laugh, grope at whores and eventually drag ourselves back to the tenement. I would hear the reports of my lieutenants and make scrupulous records of every offense against my own standards we had committed that day. Then the night patrol would go out and I would fall back into uneasy sleep, awaiting the next day.
Trees wound together overhead, branches tieing themselves into knots as they grew. Three-Pound Pestle's home rested in a open glade, three wooden buildings topped with expensive slate shingles, paid for by a rich merchant. A hundred metres from the houses stood a stall full of goats for milk and meat, where three vacant-eyed men worked to clear out manure. On the porch sat Pestle's apprentices, a pair of distasteful men who came to their teacher for wealth rather than the knowledge that drove Three-Pound. Chiho didn't spare them a glance, watching instead for the snakes that roamed the outskirts, small and full of venom. The reptiles were drawn by some scent Three-Pound had cooked up and offered their venom readily, rendered docile by his concoctions. Herb gardens sat beside vegetables and mushrooms, every conventional resource the alchemist needed close by.
The old man came out to meet Chiho, limping along with his club foot, moving with startling alacrity for a man of his age and impediments. The tonics must be working well today Chiho mused. The men embraced at the threshold, Three-Pound immediately moving to examine his handiwork, tracing the outlines of the brands and using a small spyglass to examine the colour. Nodding to himself he headed back inside, beckoning Chiho as he did.
"What brings the king of Vermoot to an old alchemist, hm? What is it that you want?"
"I wouldn't be so crass sifu, can't we have any civilities?"
"Hmph! Royalty has been unkind to you; when you were young you never minced words like the elders. Well, if you want civilities let's be civil! What gift have you brought for your old master?"
Chuckling, Chiho pulled out the offering his servants had prepared. Whale oil shipped from the White Sea, bottled in fine glass, along with a block of coral - a curiosity brought to Vermoot by a Nexan merchant. Snatching the gifts away Three-Pound examined them under his spyglass, weighing and recording his results.
"Sifu, I come because I need your help. Before we drove them out the Dynasts locked the Flashing Triplicate Concordance in the most secure vault of the palace. The one behind the hearthstone lock. We don't have the resources and none of the sages or scholars can crack it. Can we count on you Three-Pound?"
A.N.: Well here it is, after a ton of work it's done.
Below the monolithic palace of Vermoot, buried deep within a labyrinth of twisting passages, stockrooms and barracks, a group of slaves toiled at the mechanisms of an ancient vault door, overseen by scholars and elders, the educated elite of Vermoot working to crack it's most secure chamber. Across the jadesteel portal the eternal symbol of the Terrestrial Exalted stretched, five dragons of the appropriate flavours of jade. Filigree outlined the scales, moonsilver strands spiraling inwards to an empty eyesocket on each. The open hearthstone sockets taunted Chiho as he approached the work crews, their efforts to open the vault without expending resources that Strangling Vines had already stolen futile. Clansmen standing guard greeted him as he passed, though he paid little mind. Chiho even ignored the inkstained scholars, brushing by the elders and approaching the door directly. It was there Maitsu found him, standing a silent vigil as the slaves hauled away their tools.
The warlord's first and chief concubine did not follow him from his bedchamber, but rather from whatever set of rooms she had selected for her own small household, the single concession that the withered hag that called itself her grandmother had deigned to extract from her son-in-law. Though he was a man of Chao fully grown, a killer five dozen times over, Chiho still shuddered to remember that wretched thing's cold eyes, darker than tar and emptier than the skies of Calibration. He gave no protest when the foreign woman brought two entire wagons of baggage, suffered the jeers of his brothers when he let her sit at his war council and whisper dishonourable plots into his ear and he sent no guard when she slipped into the flood of refugees ahead of his army. However, while the threats of the grandmother certainly gave him pause, the promises of the mother gave him ideas. He saw the leather bound codices and macabre apothecaries that sat side by side with instruments of music and silk robes. He allowed her schemes and the surviving patriarchs of the clans fell in line within days. And he listened to her counsel; waited for the assigned day, place and moment and two Princes Of The Earth lay dead before his feet. Although she was an unconventional bride by the standards of the Pond, Chiho understood that the conventional approach would have seen him slain and his people subjugated by the Scarlet, so now that he ruled he let the witch have her comforts, whether that was freedom from his bed or the wherewithal to pursue her own little projects. She was beautiful, but so were many of the women of Vermoot. Either way, Chiho did not go wanting.
Through some natural process of accretion, the two were soon joined by the other worthies of Vermoot. Jugs Hisao, elder of Clan Hisao and veteran of a hundred feuds, a hundred lovers, a hundred shield-brothers. Ringing Nacre Bell, foremost practitioner of the arcane thaumaturgical procedures that governed the Shogunate refineries dotting Vermoot, returned from overseeing the wholesale alchemical annihilation of Strangling Vines' rosequeen apiaries, forever itching at the jaundiced skin hidden by his glistening black body suit. Brash and bold came Fiann Kurribhn, foster brother of Chiho and one of the finest young swordsmen among the clans, clapping a hand onto his friend's shoulder with a laugh. Trailing behind with a radiant blush crept Driven Willow Brush, a girl nearly grown, timid as a mouse and slender as the brushes that were her trade, the ostentatiousness of her long embroidered robe and coat contrasted by the heavy iron collar choking her neck. Finally, Broma Cleft-Hoof carried the marks of her lineage with pride, her squashed hog's nose and unsightly bristles competing for attention with a filth spattered smock, a thick braided whip at her belt and a triple chin dangling from her jaw. Together these people made up the closest thing Vermoot had to a ruling council, although in practice each served as proxies for external interests; Broma served the will of her grandfather Crumbling Dikes and through him the wishes of the trinity of frog, boar and vulture. Fiann and Jugs represented two different factions among the clans, Willow Brush had nominal control of the surviving scribes and coincounters, and Nacre Bell was the most senior member of the guilds of alchemy, divination, cartography and assorted thaumaturgy. Before, they were marginalised by the Dragonbloods, each either held at arm's length from power or driven face-first into the mud by a jadesteel boot. Now, they worked to ensure the surviving Terrestrials never ruled again.
Chiho's shoulder visibly shuddered with the force of Fiann's blow, though it elicited naught but a raised brow from his face. His jovial assailant waited a moment for the rest to move forward, beckoning them with his free hand, his posture utterly at ease.
"You need to stop obsessing Chiho, the people love you! They don't care if you have the fecking Concordance--"
"I may not need the glaive, but we sure as hell need the silver."
That left Fiann with nothing to say, his mouth working impotently. With naught coming from him Chiho moved on, turning to the ruined visage of Ringing Nacre Bell. Eyes misted by decades of drugs and lethal poisons sharpened, if only for a moment.
"We burnt Koonan's roses young lord, we set each and every one ablaze." Phlegm choked his laugh in it's cradle, leaving him hacking and prompting a slap across the shoulders from Fiann. "Th-thank yeh lad, thank yeh." He straightened up, at least as much as a hunched old man can , "Five kilos of firedust and forty barrels of good tar it took; almost everything the refineries made in the last year! I, I need to get my barrel-men out into the Pond, I, I need the charts done, but they're working too slow--"
"Don't worry Belly!" The Cleft-Hoof stood at seven feet tall, a good two and a half above the wizened thaumaturgist and weighed maybe two hundred kilograms heavier, leaving the two of them standing together a comical sight. "Lallee-Swoops-Toward-Still-Waters found a nice bubbling sinkhole full of your favourite goop on her last flight and the twinkle-eyed lady made sure to mark her way back - your boys'll be out there tomorrow if I have to drag them out of their beds myself!"
Ignoring Nacre's spluttered thanks, Broma slipped past him, positioning her massive bulk to address Chiho.
"The holdings of the triad-temple are assured and the last of 'Gala's' little projects have been ruined; the goods and coin taken, the patrons castigated for their faithlessness. We checked for bolt-holes, searched basements and ripped up the floorboards - they ain't hiding there, that's for sure."
Speculative murmurs spilled forth until the formerly silent concubine spoke, voice kept level and eyes held to the ground.
"Harmonious Gala has not been seen since the day of the battle; while Koonan and Vanities were seen leaving the palace the last place she was seen was upon the whirlwind of petals. None will speak to her whereabouts; the domovoi say she has not entered any home they govern, no daughter of Honnoke has seen her beneath their wings. I have looked high and low; three times I spoke with the dusty corpse the Aidgihn keep in their tenement block, twice I visited the clever Sister Salaam and made small talk over her embroidery, I even paid an urchin to venture into the sewers to find the Ratcatcher and bring him to me. Every approach has failed; the daughter of Mela has vanished without trace."
Jugs and Fiann shifted uncomfortably to hear talk of such eccentrics, matters that were best left to priests, rather than meddled in by women, while Broma bent a suspicious ear to the news of a hated foe. Chiho however did not rise from his megrim, merely turning to the young accountant-slave clutching reports coded in interval-dot shorthand to her chest.
"Silver, jade and grain girl, what of it?"
Shuffling through her burden, Driven Willow Brush drew herself upright, visibly struggling with the heavy iron choker that had been a persistent companion for over a decade.
"With the silver confiscated from the traitor clans, the immediate Haltan repayments have been made - returning the bunraku maintenance supplies unused helped the expenses greatly. The assayers say the Tiangou lumber and the more exotic Linowan reagents may need to be resold, but we can recoup perhaps forty-five percent of the cost." Ignoring the blank looks on her audience's faces, Willow Brush pressed on. "With the sinking of the extant jade deposits an examination will need to wait for a full survey, but food stockpiles can be considered now. Root vegetables have obviously been impacted by the exodus from the boglands, but animal products and the remaining Realm rice imports are making up the shortfall. For all the tributes and tariffs the Linowans impose on Pretannic trade, their hunger for the product of our forges is too great for them to truly cripple the caravans, which means we still have their grain. However, the only other source of rice is the Scavenger Lands, and without more silver we can't afford to haul it upriver."
A bittersweet smile graced Chiho's face, the usually jovial young man grim at the thought of famine in the suffocating press of Vermoot's tenements.
"That is why we need to crack the vault Fiann. Until the clans scatter across the surface of the Pond again we need to feed all of them, no matter the cost."
While his younger counterpart shrank beneath his friend's rebuke, Jugs picked at an errant bit of facial hair.
"What about ol' pestle-leg? If Koonan locked the door up wouldn't he be the best one to pry it open again?"
This piece of crude wisdom almost seemed to spark a light in Chiho's eyes. He began to pace back and forth, scratching at his head and shooting glances at his amber tattooes. His council watched in silence for a full minute before their leader spoke again.
"Accountant, Nacre? Search the vaults and stockrooms; find me something valuable. Venom or sap, fine alembics, anything. Three-Pound Pestle does nothing for free, even for friends. Broma, speak with Lallee, I need her to head out and leave markers along the safe routes to his grove - I'll pay whatever she wishes, but I leave in the morning. Jugs, you have control until I'm back. Keep the clans from murdering each other, keep the pressure up on Koonan's loyalists and make sure the guard-mouse doesn't execute anyone important. Maitsu, Fiann, walk with me.
The gathering splintered instantly, everyone on their own little missions while the swordsman and concubine scurried after their lord.
"So we're headed off again brother? Out into the uncharted Pond-"
"No. I'm doing this alone Fiann; Three-Pound has to see me as a king now, not an adventurer. There's not enough time to bring a full court to impress him, so I need to go as a lone equal. Lallee will take care of the path, I just have to walk it."
"Alone?! Damn sap-tits, you got balls! What in the hells will I be doing then?"
"Supporting Maitsu." A wicked grin split Fiann's face but before he could voice whatever filthy thought had germinated Chiho beat him to the punch. "Not like that you cockwit! Fuck, aren't all the 'maidens' you have trailing after you enough?!"
A laugh.
"Never enough old friend, not while I've got the looks and the strength to indulge! So if I'm not entertaining this beauty in her 'quarters', what ARE we doing?"
"Maitsu has informed me of several furious clansmen who feel let down by our revolt. While that's not a problem on it's own, they've decided that a different king might favour them. You're going to slaughter the traitors."
"Interesting, do continue..."
"Leave their women - mothers, wives, sisters or daughters - without virtue or dignity and make sure they know who's to blame. The moment they lose their temper, cut them down in the streets."
"HAH! Oh you know me too well old friend, to give me a task so suited to my skills! Go on, get out of here you dastardly bastard! Now, Madame Maitsu, how about you and I discuss the range of 'ladies' you have for me to sample?"
--- --- --- --- ---
That night on an alley running the length of the Komtao slaughterhouses a score of men and women in leather coats clutched their spears tight and passed around a jug of bitter liquor. They waited silently for their leader's word as she peered around the corner of the alley. Every few moments they visibly shivered, shuddering as the awful strains reached their ears. Maroon Sails considered her course as she waited for something, something that she could use as a pretext to end this damnable din. Out in the stockyard, empty of beast and handler alike, a spindly man played. Clutched in spidery fingers a bundle of pipes shone white beneath the moon and through it he loosed a song sickening in it's asymmetry.
Maroon's gaze slid off the queer player at times, passing over stalls filled with mud and hay. Within goats and pigs trembled, their eyes strained toward the performer and mouths flecked with foam, while a stableboy twisted and groaned in his sleep. Over them all flowed the twisting music, the shrill strains almost a physical presence at times, rising and falling in volume. As the bizarre scene continued gaps became apparent in the tune, cessations of sounds that ached for a nonexistent instrument to fill the void with a proper harmony. Something in Maroon itched beneath the waves of melody, a piece of her buried deep beneath meat and gristle that shifted and slithered like a coiling rope of twitching hair. Behind her the mob of unruly jackasses she kept in line mostly by force of personality remained uncharacteristically quiet and docile, subdued by the weight of the music. The itch grew to a burning need to move, to act, to dance- Maroon convulsed for a moment, the music abruptly gone when she came back to her senses. Alarmed, she rounded the corner to see the yard empty and a shadow flickering around the far corner, nothing but a glimpse at the edge of vision. With a shout she called her men and gave chase, bounding with great strides over the twisted limbs of newly sprouted gorse. No one remained to watch the bravest of the goats rise from the petrified stupor of it's fellows and begin to gnaw on the foliage.
--- --- --- --- ---
Setting out from the palace as the sun reached the midpoint between dawn and noon, the ruler of Vermoot found his subjects hurriedly going about their business; a sort of frantic intention filled the air, people moving between their tasks as quickly as possible. The great road leading to the northern edge of the city bustled with activity and Chiho, unnoticed due to the preoccupation of those around him, was forced to duck around the shifting masses of people and ubiquitous stalls selling street-food. At corners foul piles of garbage housed vermin and waited for slaves to drag them off to feed the pigs and goats and between the rooftops and windows hung ivory racks filled with incense, the sweet scent masking the stench of humanity.
Here and there along his path he found patches of quiet order, where walking in a straight line was possible; an alleyway where spectators watched in awe as two monks devoted to different aspects of the triad-temples exchanged blows and proverbs, a stand of trees and grass where a score of children seated around a tutor passing out origami inked with poems and memnomics, a scattering of wicker chairs where a gaggle of grandmothers held court, bickering goodnaturedly and pinching the bottoms of passing men. Among others, Chiho passed browbeaten slaves, frantic mothers and posturing thugs on his path out of Vermoot. The one thing he did not encounter however, was someone who recognised him. With head bowed low and cloak drawn across his distinctive brands the amber king appeared nothing more than a young clansman dragging himself home from a night of drinking, a common enough sight since the reclamation of the Pond.
Ruins of wood and brick still littered the outskirts of the city, even after many long days of work. It was atop a flattened shack that Chiho found Lallee-Swoops-Toward-Still-Waters, a great shimmering vulture bedecked in silver feathers sheathed in ivory plates. This was of course an unusual event, even for a king; gods - even ones as young as Lallee - rarely lowered themselves to interact with the likes of men, choosing instead to govern the happenings of the world and pursue whatever interests caught their attention. As he drew closer, Chiho tripped over a raiton scurrying across the ground, the albino scavenger but one of many crowding around the goddess. This nearby misfortune drew Lallee's focus from some point near the far horizon, expressed in a calm deliberate tilt of the head. The swarming flock of raitons ceased their activities also, drawing away from the ruins to cluster around the claws of the vulture, casting devoted looks up to their mistress and grooming what feathers they could reach with their toothed saurian snouts. The ground they left revealed itself to be littered with the spiny bones of freshwater carp, some still glistening with flesh.
Righting himself, Chiho took to one knee and pulled out of his pack the product of a night spent frantically negotiating with the priests of Honnoke Splitwing's temple. Cut from vellum and bound with a cord of woven copper, the elegantly illustrated parchment represented a permanent addition to the titles accorded to Lallee in the annual festivals. While such a thing only had legitimacy in the bounds of the Moon's Stone Pond and it's clans, Lallee had more than a fair measure of her mother's vanity. 'Ivory Pilot Princess' might not mean anything in the courts of Yu-Shan, but the prospect of new poems and songs sung by mortal men could still entrance a divine heart.
Appraising her reward with a critical eye, Lallee plucked it from Chiho's outstretched hands, a beak sharp enough to shear through metal moving so gently as to barely crease the parchment. Loosing a piercing cry she took to the wing, and her raitons took flight with her. For a moment the great column of white spanned the space between earth and sky before Lallee pitched forwards and spread her wings, soaring across the blue skies. At the edge of Chiho's sight he glimpsed the raitons dropping feathers in their mistresses' wake, the bright tokens marking the path he would need to take. Letting go of the tension in his body, the king of Vermoot sighed and set out on his journey.
--- --- --- --- ---
Six Sacred Songs studiously did not look at any of his pupils during the morning lesson. Their crude movements and aberrant instincts produced enough of a cacophony for him to hear just how badly they were doing, he did not need to look upon such a ghastly display of incompetence; for one as versed as he in the slow, careful movements and explosive power that characterised the Sibilant Croak style the foreign rabbles' attempts to copy him was nothing less than an insult to the path he had committed his entire life to!
Hop, turn and uppercut. If it were entirely the choice of Six Sacred he would have slaughtered each and every one of those who dared not only to steal the martial arts of the triad-temples, but also to usurp their sacred duty of protecting the peace of Vermoot! For centuries since the Great Contagion the monks of the triad-temples had ensured that Vermoot had remained a safe place for the clans to return to. Beyond kings, beyond blood, beyond glory, the monastic warriors who served the Divine Triad served the people and the gods!
Dash, hammer-blow, spin and backfist. And there was the rub of it; the Toad-Who-Strikes-Like-Hammers bent the knee to Roh-Pogny, both his eldest child and his loyal knight. Thus his students served the great frog also and it was the direct command - and was not such a thing both blessing and curse - of the Four-Seasons-Amphibian that set him to teach. Another twist of the foot and the upwards feint became a savage blow to the thorax. Inside Six Sacred cringed to hear most of the conscripts-turned-guardsmen topple trying to recreate his move.
--- --- --- --- ---
It took Chiho Chao two hours to reach the first feather. Almost translucent, the albino feather balanced precariously upon the tips of the rushes and under Chiho's cautious finger it span three revolutions, the quill coming to a rest pointing towards the northwest, onto the hermitage of Three-Pound Pestle. Onwards Chiho marched, the grass and mud mulching beneath his feet as the sun overhead turned his skin bright red. Rice cakes and ale to fill his belly, before he continued again. More feathers found their way into his hands and belt, plucked from high and low. Each quill indicated another difficulty, another obstacle for Chiho to overcome. Treacherous pools of mud, long coiling roots that grasped at the ankles and water flowing beneath the matted grass. Again and again he backtracked, following twisting paths through the bogs that at times defied reason; thrice Chiho crossed the same toadstool spiral, leaving a prayer strip each time and picking up the same feather from it's resting place.
Three steps past the boundary of the spiral on the third pass Chiho flung himself backward, obeying some subconscious instinct. Not a moment too soon; a pair of foam-flecked jaws snapped shut mere inches from his nose, coming together with a ferocious crunch. Sheer momentum carried the hound another few metres, turning what would have been a neck snapping tackle into an ungainly stumble. Behind Chiho's assailant came another three dogs, the fiery rage that possessed them being the only point of commonality that tied them together. The heavily built Threshold war dog picked itself off the ground quickly, circling around the edge of the toadstools while the others - two lean pointers and a lap dog - blocked off any chance of escape.
The lapdog's leap found Chiho prepared, catching the point of his bright bronze shortsword across it's ribs with a yelp and a sickening crack. Instantly the pointers darted in behind him, nipping at his heels and forcing Chiho back a step. Loosing a furious downward strike Chiho drove his sword through the ribs and spine of the larger pointer, wedging the blade into the meat and gristle. Not missing a beat Chiho released his grip on his immobile sword and spun on one foot, burying the other in the gut of the smaller pointer. The rabid hound skidded across the dirt for but a moment, crashing through the rows of cyan blue fungi, coming to a stop half submerged in a pool of mud, slowly sinking deeper.
Chiho did not have time to watch however, pitched forwards by a pair of heavy paws upon his back. Pinned to the ground by the war dog, the king of Vermoot thrashed for a few seconds, eventually slinging the hound beneath him and wrapping his amber-branded thews about it's throat. A single squeeze and a crack signaled the end of the battle; a glance upwards caught the gaze of the lapdog, a pair of golden eyes flecked with crimson meeting grey. Then the dog - no bigger than a pup - turned tail and ran, leaving it's compatriots to die. Retrieving his blade from the pointer slowly writhing it's way into death, Chiho made a sign of warding - three fingers raised and the fourth bent - to ward off Furrow-Filler's rage and fled, leaving behind three corpses inside a circle of toadstools slowly turning purple.
--- --- --- --- ---
A smile was never far from Caleb's face these days. Since the reclamation of Vermoot from the debauched eggsuckers and the reunion of Chiho Chao's warriors with their families nothing had been able to dim the light of the sun, not the tedium of his father's politicking and certainly not the whining of his harridan of a wife! These days Caleb had a secret weapon to combat the forces of despair and melancholy, a secret weapon that never failed to banish sadness and set him to dancing for joy. It was not the flashing of blades or shedding of blood, nor a deluge of liquor or the smoke of the poppy. Nay, Caleb's secret weapon was the wonderful bundle of happiness and song that skipped along the road in front of him. With hair like solid sunshine and a heart that knew nothing but love, Caleb's daughter Esme was the sole source of his smile, the one thing that made his life worth living. So long as Esme lived in the Pond Caleb would lay down his life, sword and honour in it's defense.
The puppet show that night had run late, the dramatic reenactment of Guanting Lin's defeat roused the audience to a frenzy, loudly demanding an encore performance of the rise of the Mountain Calf. Afterwards, they had visited Esme's favourite teashop, a regular destination for father-daughter excursions. By this point the proprietor knew them by name and let Esme pour the tea with childish caution. Now the two of them were headed home, sharing a bag of honey buns along the way. The night sky shone with the light of Luna and in the tenements below candles blazed from a hundred windows. The streets were empty, those few who wandered at this time of night choosing to follow the alleys and hug the edges of buildings, not daring to step out into the moonlight. With a protective hand Caleb drew Esme closer, holding her against him as he followed a hint of movement from an alley. A pair of bright green eyes shone in the darkness, brighter than any mortal man's. Releasing Esme Caleb drew his belt knife, moving in front of his daughter, slowly edging towards the eyes, trying to get a better look- "DADDY!"
The ceithern whirled in place to find Esme gone, snatched away by a dark figure sprinting down the street. Caleb pursued, running with all the speed he could muster. The chase turned into an alley, both parties dodging around and leaping over piles of refuse and vagrants. As they left the alley, Caleb ducked down, scooping up a chunk of masonry. With a spin he let loose and the hurled projectile slammed into the back of the kidnapper's knee with a crunch. Esme - still crying and calling throughout - slipped from it's grasp, hitting the street with a thud. The figure ignored her, picking itself up and continuing on. Wrapping his arms around his little girl, Caleb looked up just in time for the attacker to cross a pool of light cast by a lantern string. Beneath a massive pale canine skull a coat of coarse hair rippled with aberrant life. The 'coat' hid the figure's legs, leaving it's undulating, shambling motion to suggest a lack of traditional locomotion. Frozen in shock, Caleb remained motionless until Esme tugged on his cloak. "Daddy, it's okay, look!" With sweaty, puppy-fat hands, she triumphantly held up a greasy package. "I stopped the monster daddy, he didn't get our bun-buns!"
Holding his daughter close beneath the light of Luna, Caleb could do nothing but laugh his relief to the sky.
--- --- --- --- ---
Chiho awoke from his sleep cold, with something slimy pressed close over his eyes. The veteran adventurer kept still, holding his breath steady and clamping down on the beating of his heart; the boundaries of his camp had been marked with silver runestakes and the perimeter warded in blessed salt bought from Sijan. Though chilled he could feel the morning sun's touch upon his skin and thus he knew that whatever had him in it's grasp was not one of the dead crawled up from it's resting place. At the edge of hearing a soft croon rose, deep and rhythmic; a wordless tune that came heavy, sounding almost like dripping water. The slimy hand upon his face moved, caressing Chiho's brow and brushing his hair away from his face.
"Rise, rise, burble and flow, run with me over the paddies unsown. Rise, rise, gurgle and flood, wash away homes and leave naught but red mud. Together we fly and rest in the clouds, tomorrow we'll plummet back to the ground."
Opened eyes found a face of cerulean blue, deep black-within-black eyes framed by delicate features and rows of triangular scales. Wide feathers sprouted in place of hair, covering subcutaneous ears in turquoise keratin. The childish rhyme cut out as the singer noticed Chiho's awakening, a wide smile splitting pale lips to display thin needle-like teeth and a long purple tongue. The pond nymph wore nothing, though this revealed nothing; the elemental lacked breasts or pectorals, instead possessing a flat featureless expanse of skin that descended across the torso before disappearing into the cleft between it's legs. Webbed fingers dripped with slime and pond scum, soft digits without nails tracing across Chiho's face. The man relaxed under it's touch, realising that he was not in immediate danger. He knew this; his own grandfather had told him tales of pond nymphs, stories with implications that went over the head of a child as young as he had been then. Every clan had stories of those who fell for beauties that emerged from the bogs, enough that they were a known factor for those that listened to the poets. So long as he stayed out of it's pool, made no promises and accepted no hospitality he would come to no harm.
For a moment the two rested, man and androgyne basking alike in the rising sun. Water lapped gently about the nymph's thighs and the faint breeze carried the scent of wildflowers across the bog.
"We could stay here, you and I. Making love beneath the light of the moon and knowing nothing but joy... Why don't you set aside your burdens and join me?"
Chiho hoisted himself onto his elbows, turning back to face the elemental and readying his best courtesies.
"Forgive me child of fen and swamp, there is no one else to take up my duties, none who can shoulder my tasks. By deed and circumstance I must lead."
Surging forward to press flush against his back the nymph reached down, running it's hands across his amber brands.
"We know of you, son of Chao, king of the Moon's Stone Pond and bearer of the alchemist's gift; the blood of the oaks. A king needs an heir... Our child would be mighty, and beautiful too. Mortals would clamour to swear their allegiance to such a prince... You need only to embrace me."
Slowly, carefully, Chiho slipped from it's grasp and as he did the elemental's visage changed, from seductive to furious, and it's hands clutched tight. Flexing his branded arms, Chiho threw himself free, further than a body's length from the water's edge. Ignoring the jilted suitor's shrieks he uprooted the silver stakes from the marshy earth, bundling up his things and taking flight in the direction marked by the feather he had camped beside.
--- --- --- --- ---
I started keeping notes by the third day, once the clashes and disruptions grew too much for me to remember. My guards had thrown themselves into the work, happy to earn wages of silver to then blow on the drugs and whores of Roh-Pogny's temple. Quickly they ran into opposition. Vagrants displaced from the ruined outskirts had buried themselves deep in the darker corners of Vermoot, congregating in remote alleys and sometimes even seizing owned-but-empty tenements. The clans refused to risk their own fighters to deal with gutter-trash and came to us, forcing me and my men to search building after building, sometimes capturing, often killing homeless refugees with nowhere to go. Those who surrendered to our mercy were turned over to the bailiffs, a group of experienced fighters and administrators drawn from the clans and temples, who promised that justice would be done. I gathered that it was no coincidence that I saw some of these men and women in the collars and brands of slaves after the fact.
My mornings were spent under the tutelage of Six Sacred Songs, having the fundamentals of the style taught by the disciples of the Toad-Who-Strikes-Like-Hammers pummeled into me by our bitter sifu. I had come to a better understanding of the specifics of local religion; the triad-temples were the dominion of Roh-Pogny, Crumbling Dikes and Honnoke Splitwing, but the three had many lesser gods who served their will. Roh-Pogny lead a brood of amphibians, some dedicated to specific vices, others to medicine or combat. Dikes commanded the local animal gods, those that overlooked butchery, farming, mining, mortuary practices and slavery. Honnoke patronised the arts, whether they be of the hammer and forge or pen and scroll. From smiths to carpenters, poets to swordsmen, huntsmen to musicians, all those who desired beauty and grace turned to her and her children. Furthermore, a fourth pillar of the faith revealed itself to me after interrogating native prisoners; Furrow-Filler. Fulfilling the position of 'antagonist' in the pantheon, the Wild Hound counted amongst his portfolio sabotage, murder and wanton destruction. Berserk mystics and sadistic witches flocked to his banner in droves according folklore and every day he battled against the holy triad. Or so the tales went. From a more pessimistic viewpoint on the outside, the situation stank more of a set up, a con the gods were playing.
After training I lead my personal squadron on a route through the wealthiest districts, presenting a friendly, helpful face to the elders of the clans. Every now and then they would give me a job to do, sometimes demeaning, sometimes dangerous. We searched for lost persons, helped with heavy loads, anything to ensure good relations with the upper crust. By dusk we were always exhausted, and to the bars we headed. We would drink and laugh, grope at whores and eventually drag ourselves back to the tenement. I would hear the reports of my lieutenants and make scrupulous records of every offense against my own standards we had committed that day. Then the night patrol would go out and I would fall back into uneasy sleep, awaiting the next day.
--- --- --- --- ---
Trees wound together overhead, branches tieing themselves into knots as they grew. Three-Pound Pestle's home rested in a open glade, three wooden buildings topped with expensive slate shingles, paid for by a rich merchant. A hundred metres from the houses stood a stall full of goats for milk and meat, where three vacant-eyed men worked to clear out manure. On the porch sat Pestle's apprentices, a pair of distasteful men who came to their teacher for wealth rather than the knowledge that drove Three-Pound. Chiho didn't spare them a glance, watching instead for the snakes that roamed the outskirts, small and full of venom. The reptiles were drawn by some scent Three-Pound had cooked up and offered their venom readily, rendered docile by his concoctions. Herb gardens sat beside vegetables and mushrooms, every conventional resource the alchemist needed close by.
The old man came out to meet Chiho, limping along with his club foot, moving with startling alacrity for a man of his age and impediments. The tonics must be working well today Chiho mused. The men embraced at the threshold, Three-Pound immediately moving to examine his handiwork, tracing the outlines of the brands and using a small spyglass to examine the colour. Nodding to himself he headed back inside, beckoning Chiho as he did.
"What brings the king of Vermoot to an old alchemist, hm? What is it that you want?"
"I wouldn't be so crass sifu, can't we have any civilities?"
"Hmph! Royalty has been unkind to you; when you were young you never minced words like the elders. Well, if you want civilities let's be civil! What gift have you brought for your old master?"
Chuckling, Chiho pulled out the offering his servants had prepared. Whale oil shipped from the White Sea, bottled in fine glass, along with a block of coral - a curiosity brought to Vermoot by a Nexan merchant. Snatching the gifts away Three-Pound examined them under his spyglass, weighing and recording his results.
"Sifu, I come because I need your help. Before we drove them out the Dynasts locked the Flashing Triplicate Concordance in the most secure vault of the palace. The one behind the hearthstone lock. We don't have the resources and none of the sages or scholars can crack it. Can we count on you Three-Pound?"
--- --- --- --- ---
A.N.: Well here it is, after a ton of work it's done.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Good to read this again.
Thanks! I was hoping to get it out before Christmas, but the Chiho sections were giving me hell. Something about his personality still escapes me and as such the quality of those parts is below where I want to get it, but I'm slowly getting there. Characters like Three-Pound, Six Sacred and Caleb are so much easier, being fundamentally simple and driven characters. Chiho is more... complex, which makes him utterly impossible to describe as anything other than the same blob of misshapen actions and thoughts that constitutes the SI.
Chapter 9
- Pronouns
- They/Them
My employer's return was heralded by a flight of raitons, the albino scavengers forming a twisting column of teeth and feathers above the tenement roofs. From my position at street level they seemed to blot out the sky, positioned side by side, their outstretched wings forming an unbroken field of white. Several natives fell to their knees in the street, forming arcane mudras with shaking hands. Others began to sing and dance, spinning about and spreading their hands wide in supplication. After a few moments the stream of raitons thinned and was split down the middle revealing a vast vulture, silver wings spread wide as it soared high above the mortal city of Vermoot.
A wind kicked up, the flapping of wings buffeting my loose garb, adopted in place of wool and leather due to the summer heat. After it passed over us, taking it's flock with it, the people about me ceased their awestruck revelry and began to dash up road, heading towards the northbound road out of Vermoot. I let the movement of the crowd carry me along into the thoroughfare, darting between elders and clansmen, followed by my personal squad of guards. The butt of my spear parted youth and slave alike and soon I pushed my way to the forefront of the crowd. The people lined the road on both sides, the division continuing to extend as more reached the thoroughfare and formed up along it. Down the center trundled a great wagon drawn by a pair of oxen, their muscles formed of woven vines and their skin lush like the flesh of a fruit. Thorn-laden horns arched over eyes of congealed sap while chains of flowers looped around their forms, trailing back to become harnesses tying them to the yoke. The wagon measured almost eight metres long and three wide, it's sideboards reaching up another metre above the bed. Upon the bow sat Chiho and a small lumpish old man gnarled by age and exposure, dressed in a long cotton shift with a leather apron.
Cheering accompanied the great procession, those who were passed by forming up into a large crowd that followed the cart. With a gesture I directed my squad to flank the cart and I jogged my way to Chiho's side.
"Welcome back to Vermoot my lord, you'll find everything is still in order; there were incidents I will need to discuss with you, but that can wait until after the people welcome back their hero."
His eyes crawled their way across the people cheering his name, greedily drinking in the plentiful adoration.
"That would be wise little mouse; let them have their day-"
*THUNK*
A length of dark wood, tipped with iron and fletched with red feathers sprouted from the wagon, shuddering with residual force. It was quickly joined by a second dart, the assailant slashing a path through the tightly packed crowd with his sword. A young ceithern, eyes wild and mouth locked in a howl that had already petered out, leaving a gaping noiseless hole. As the screaming noncombatants fell away from the apparent madman those bystanders who bore weapons came forth, casting aside their other burdens and thrusting themselves in front of their kin, brandishing sword, spear and shield as they did.
"TAKE HIM ALIVE!"
At Chiho's command the clansmen spread out, making darting lunges at the rogue ceithern, forcing him to whirl and spin to face his foes. Carrying a slender crystalline blade and a third red-fletched dart he moved with frantic speed, hacking at foes who stood far away and flinching from half imagined movements. The shifting of the man revealed the flesh under his cloak, a patchwork mess of oozing cuts and flayed skin that wept both blood and pus while muscles and tendons spasmed furiously, lending a manic strength to his swings and an erratic quality to his movements. I joined the steadily shrinking ring of warriors with spear and long knife ready, shifting forward and back as the madman shifted his focus between each of us in turn.
Each time he met a foes eyes the ceithern muttered under his breath, hissing a mixture of dire imprecations, vile insults and pure nonsense. He spoke of joy, of being with a maiden spun from gold and how her love would be assured him, how they would be together forever, if only, if only, if only he killed them, the ones who wanted to stop her, who wanted to cast her out. He would stop the fools, the cowards, the treacherous lovelorn whore-sons who envied his joy. The babbling rose and fell, at times describing brothers born in a fruit running on a lilypond, of an albino princess playing a horn to placate a mob of thieves, of a crippled freak posing riddles to a dancing bear. Between swings of his glass blade he shrieked of the sins of his foes, calling out several of the fighters by name and listing their foulest deeds. To my left a man who tortured his slaves for imagined slights spat and cursed, across the ring a gallowglass who had survived so long by leaving all his brothers to die shrank back before wide eyes, fleeing their horrified surprise and to my right a ceithern who had put a child in his sister's belly flushed red and fought harder, faster, more recklessly.
Taking advantage of my comrade's renewed assault I lunged forward, spear couched in my arm and blade held at guard. With abnormal alacrity our foe hopped in place, catching the speartip with his foot and pinning it to the ground. Prey thus trapped he brought his sword down in an overhand blow, one I barely caught with my long knife - a stroke of luck that barely saved me. The glass cutting edge carved through bog-standard iron like cool butter, leaving me with but a blunt stub of a knife. For a moment I stood still; shocked, flabbergasted even. Then with a heave the ceithern switched legs, releasing my spear and burying a foot in my gut in the same movement. A second later I was on the ground amid the wounded noncombatants. There I fell face to face with a horror; a man, nay no more than a boy, clutched at the ruin of his face, wailing through the bubbling mess that had replaced his mouth, cheeks and brow. The bladestroke that had maimed him had only carved away his nose, but an off-yellow residue congealed and smoked white, making a low hissing noise as it did. A sudden pain in my shoulder pulled my eyes towards the same smoking residue swiftly chewing it's way through my cotton shirt.
Thinking quickly I tore off the garment, casting it onto the street and leaving my chest bare. While the agony upon my shoulder remained it grew no further, merely taking the form of a large patch of burned meat; flesh the colour of pus, veins almost purple in contrast and skin dotted with blisters where the holes in the weave let through the residue. Emergency averted - or at least delayed - I turned back to the fight, raising my voice in warning.
"VITRIOL!"
It was too late to save an elderly gallowglass, the tough old man receiving a feather-light slice across the eyes that lay him low instantly, replacing his determined, grim expression with screeching agony. Quickly the circle thinned, fighters either backing up out of range or fleeing outright, their courage turned aside by the prospect of a truly agonising death, if not crippling at the hands of infernal acid. I got up to launch a second attack on the foe, but when he heard the tap of my spearbutt upon the road he wheeled round with a breast cut, one I barely evaded, losing several hairs off my beard to the crystalline blade. He followed up with the dart in his other hand, using the momentum he had built to hurl it with great force.
*THUD*
The third dart slipped below my ear and struck the closer of the two elementals, driving a wedge in it's shoulder that oozed dark red sap. A wound that would have crippled a mortal bull merely woke the creature from it's docile stupor and in seconds it's bucking and twisting sawed through the flowery harness that bound it to the wagon. Suddenly freed the botanical beast spun about, barely avoiding it's fellow as it did. Soon it found a target for it's anger; red eyes narrowed and a moment later it's body shuddered, exploding into a ferocious charge, head poised to skewer Chiho-Chao who had dismounted from the wagon and was moving to help detain the ceithern.
Not missing a beat the warlord spun in place, bringing his thick cloak across the elemental's head, tangling the horns and blinding the eyes. Enraged further the ox reared onto it's hind legs and bellowed, bringing it's hooves down with a sound like a falling tree. The cobblestones that made up the road split and between them erupted a growth of brambles, stems slick with some botanical extract. The Charm-grown plants surrounded Chiho, encroaching ever further inwards and obscuring the ground with razorsharp thorns. Chiho did not move, keeping his legs still and waiting for the bull to attack. The moment the brambles touched Chiho the bull's head snapped to his position and charged.
Spreading his arms wide he seized the ox the instant before it reached him, twisting his torso and flinging the bull onto the ground. Now Chiho's legs moved, pushing past the thorns without a thought for the blood that they drew and advancing upon his fallen foe. Pulling up it's head by the horns, he cocked back a fist and thrust it underneath the jaw, through the throat and seizing the spine; one good twist and it went limp, the brambles swiftly crumbling to dust. Seeing his gambit fail the maniac roared, cleaving the head off the sister-fucking ceithern with a dismissive swipe. Ignoring the circle of fighters he burst into motion, his long stride quickly shifting into a full sprint that ate up the metres between him and his target - *SQUELCH-CLACK*.
My spear sank deep into his shin, piercing the space between tibia and fibula and then bursting from the flesh to finally be buried between the flagstones. The madman's motion did not halt and a moment later the bone proved weaker than hardwood, shattering with a sickly crunch. His deranged face did not register any of the pain that he must have felt when cracked bone tore through the flesh. Instead his eyes remained on Chiho along with his ire; he dragged himself across the ground screaming of his intent to murder the warlord, to burn the flesh from his bones and desecrate the remains.
There I descended to disarm him of his crystal blade, leaving my spear to impale his leg. When I threw him onto his back he was ready; the blade swung wildly, loosing an arc of deadly vitriol even as I caught him by the wrist. We struggled for a moment, ignoring the light drizzle of acid that burned our skin as we did. Across the back of my head and neck, on the tips of my ears and further down my shoulders the burning spread, lines of white-hot fire outlining muscle and bone.
With a spasm of his clenching muscles, the blade was freed and swung past my head once, twice, three times. Each time the resulting dribble of acid was thinner, slower to fall across us. On the fourth swing I caught the blade again, this time across the ivory vambrace the boar-god had given me. Chittering wildly the crystalline blade shattered, each point of contact with the graven ivory forming an entirely new fracture. For a moment our eyes met and I saw the sheer desperation in his gaze, a wild panic that unseats reason and casts it away.
"She'll be angry with me..."
Then he was gone, buried under the closed circle of warriors and I was left on my knees on the cold stone, spear broken by the struggle and back scarred by the fallout. There Chiho found me, pulling me to my feet and hoisting my arm up to the cheers of resurgent bystanders. I ignored the flaring pain to climb aboard the great wagon with Chiho and the old man, waiting for a number of slaves to clear the fallen elemental from the road and hitch the remainder to the center of the yoke. The crowds slowly faded away as I slumped upon the bow, pain and exhaustion unifying to soften the world around me and lower my eyelids. I remembered nothing else 'til we reached the palace.
Deep within the bowels of the great edifice I found myself cloistered with the adhoc council Chiho had arrayed around himself. Jugs Hisao sat beside Maitsu and a handsome young man polishing a curved blade. Across the room a bizarre decrepit elder in latex brushed shoulders with a massive piggish woman and a waif in an embroidered coat while on the third edge Chiho, the lumpish man - identified as Three-Pound Pestle - and myself slumped across a bench. All of us faced inwards, towards the man who had shattered the uneasy peace of Vermoot.Bound by chains of iron nailed to the walls and floor, one Hannavad Komtao ignored the silk-veiled healers bustling around his tattered flesh, packing wounds with herbs and stitching the meat together with needles and catgut.
Those same brightly coloured needles were pulled from and stabbed into my back, the dull throbbing of the acid burns masking any other sensation. Asako - the same woman who had been the first citizen of Vermoot to ever talk to me back in Roh-Pogny's temple - worked ceaselessly, stabbing and pulling, then placing the needles into a tray visible from the corner of my eye. Each needle was corroded, bright jade twisted and blackened by infernal residue.
"The pain will fade in time, though it may be roused by inauspicious occaisions and the rampant indulgence of vice or blasphemy." Asako clucked over the dish of ruined jade. "You were lucky not to lose the use of your arms and with continued care you may recover a full degree of motion; that is regretfully the extent of our skill. There are ascetics among the triad-temples who could help you, or perhaps the esteemed alchemist Three-Pound" - a snort from the man in question - "may know of a remedy."
I looked to the clearly eavesdropping old man, catching his rheumy eyes. He offered another snort before shifting heavily like a limp bag of rags lifted and then dropped.
"Something like that? It'd take time, time I don't have as well as ingredients I don't have. Well, I have them, I just don't want to waste them! Make it worth my while lad, then we'll talk."
Asako left with a humph, obviously put out by the man's miserly attitude and I offered my thanks. As she did the other healers finished their work upon the captive, quietly gathering their things and filing out after Asako. For a moment we remained still before Jugs and Chiho approached him.
"Your clan fought bravely against the dragonspawn Hannavad, why did you betray them? Why did you betray your oaths?"
A surge of movement and Hannavad was eye to eye with Chiho, straining against his chains and screaming through a foam-flecked mouth.
"IT WAS YOU! YOU BETRAYED HER, NOT ME! I SERVED HER FAIT-"
The back of Jug's hand cut off his rant before it built up steam. Chiho wiped the spit off of his face and walked away, extending an expectant hand to Three-Pound. For a moment the mishapen alchemist looked offended, then relented and placed a tiny clay pot in Chiho's hand.
"One under the tongue and two up the nose."
"My thanks sifu. Guardsman, help Jugs keep him still."
I found myself stuffing strips of leather into Hannavad's mouth, holding his teeth apart so my employer could smear a dark brown paste under his tongue and shove his coated fingers up his nose. The prisoner spluttered and shook, eyes rolling wildly and teeth gnawing at the leather as his body rejected the foreign agent. A minute passed before he was still once again, hanging limp. His eyes had lost their piercing intensity and his face bore a puzzled, murky expression that shifted so slowly that I could almost believe it was completely still.
Chiho backed away from the quiescent figure, allowing Maitsu to approach. The foreign consort drew close to Hannavad, whispering in his ear. From her robe she drew a fan of bamboo, flicking it open to reveal scenes of young girls at play painted upon one side. Deft fingers opened a minuscule pot of blue china, darting inside to retrieve a measure of white powder with which she sketched a curved, lopsided sigil upon both of the fans sides, revealing the same scenes rendered macabre by the decomposition of the subjects. Replacing the pot, Maitsu raised the fan to her face, innocent seeming outward and leaned forward, directly before Hannavad's face.
A moment passed, before her hand rippled, a bizarre motion that reversed the faces of the fan and cast powder into the air. Twice more she fluttered the fan and each time she did the flames in the braziers flickered, casting shards of irregular darkness across the room until the fan was shut once again. Then they came together, forming a figure without depth, without substance. A girl almost grown, blessed with the beauty and poise of nobility and clad in a lace nightgown. The apparition wrapped translucent arms around Hannavad's shoulders, drawing him close and stroking his hair. We all remained still, motionless. In the periphery the swordsman and the woman-pig sat bolt upright, eyes wide in shock. The chained waif shrank back, struggling to conceal herself in her voluminous coat. And all Chiho's face showed was hunger.
Maitsu moved back to Hannavad's ear, whispering quietly. Slowly he began to speak, talking to a woman who was neither Maitsu or the spectre, offering apologies and begging forgiveness. Again and again Maitsu drew him away from his love, asking him what to do, how were they going to fix this but Hannavad was insistent. Descriptions were hazy, a hundred different words for 'blonde' and 'beautiful', mixed with metaphors for Venus and lutes, of the colour blue and dragons. Chiho exchanged a weighted look with Jugs, his eyes posing a certainly rhetorical question; "It was Gala?".
"Oh I dreamed of you my love, how I cannot stop dreaming of you! Take me into your arms, place me in the seat below your throne and set me free, free, free!"
More whispers. Our prisoner snorted and chuckled, limp form ragdolling about.
"Every night you visit me, every night you tell me what must be done! Cast down the dancing beast and set your likeness upon the altars!"
Chiho took his consort by the shoulder, making some unseen gesture before releasing her to continue.
"A breathless vizier to serve a lady of air, I took good care of it my love, excellent care! A demon's weapon to cast out the demon-worshipper!"
Maitsu's last question stopped Hannavad in his speech, his face queerly contorting in several different manners and forcing a bout of hiccups. That grew to retches, before a veridian green fluid spilled from his spasming mouth. A long wriggling worm fell from his lips, hitting the floor with a wet slap. For a second that was all, a green-stained mouth gasping impotently before he spasmed one last time and was still.
Maitsu wasted no time, dispelling her spectre with a swing of her fan and stalking out of the room, ignoring the accusing eyes of the others. Chiho conversed with Jugs and the latex-clad man for a minute before dismissing them also.
"Nacre will provide you with an accounting of the loyal thaumaturges, healers, soothsayers and augurs in and around Vermoot guard-mouse. Keep you eyes open for anyone not on it; I want them removed. If Koonan is truly bending so low as to use Malfean blades... We must neuter his resources. I will have specific foes for you to eliminate in days to come." For a moment he began to walk away, before slapping me on the shoulder. "Your men don't need to know anything about what you saw here. Neither do the triad-temples." Then he was gone.
A wind kicked up, the flapping of wings buffeting my loose garb, adopted in place of wool and leather due to the summer heat. After it passed over us, taking it's flock with it, the people about me ceased their awestruck revelry and began to dash up road, heading towards the northbound road out of Vermoot. I let the movement of the crowd carry me along into the thoroughfare, darting between elders and clansmen, followed by my personal squad of guards. The butt of my spear parted youth and slave alike and soon I pushed my way to the forefront of the crowd. The people lined the road on both sides, the division continuing to extend as more reached the thoroughfare and formed up along it. Down the center trundled a great wagon drawn by a pair of oxen, their muscles formed of woven vines and their skin lush like the flesh of a fruit. Thorn-laden horns arched over eyes of congealed sap while chains of flowers looped around their forms, trailing back to become harnesses tying them to the yoke. The wagon measured almost eight metres long and three wide, it's sideboards reaching up another metre above the bed. Upon the bow sat Chiho and a small lumpish old man gnarled by age and exposure, dressed in a long cotton shift with a leather apron.
Cheering accompanied the great procession, those who were passed by forming up into a large crowd that followed the cart. With a gesture I directed my squad to flank the cart and I jogged my way to Chiho's side.
"Welcome back to Vermoot my lord, you'll find everything is still in order; there were incidents I will need to discuss with you, but that can wait until after the people welcome back their hero."
His eyes crawled their way across the people cheering his name, greedily drinking in the plentiful adoration.
"That would be wise little mouse; let them have their day-"
*THUNK*
A length of dark wood, tipped with iron and fletched with red feathers sprouted from the wagon, shuddering with residual force. It was quickly joined by a second dart, the assailant slashing a path through the tightly packed crowd with his sword. A young ceithern, eyes wild and mouth locked in a howl that had already petered out, leaving a gaping noiseless hole. As the screaming noncombatants fell away from the apparent madman those bystanders who bore weapons came forth, casting aside their other burdens and thrusting themselves in front of their kin, brandishing sword, spear and shield as they did.
"TAKE HIM ALIVE!"
At Chiho's command the clansmen spread out, making darting lunges at the rogue ceithern, forcing him to whirl and spin to face his foes. Carrying a slender crystalline blade and a third red-fletched dart he moved with frantic speed, hacking at foes who stood far away and flinching from half imagined movements. The shifting of the man revealed the flesh under his cloak, a patchwork mess of oozing cuts and flayed skin that wept both blood and pus while muscles and tendons spasmed furiously, lending a manic strength to his swings and an erratic quality to his movements. I joined the steadily shrinking ring of warriors with spear and long knife ready, shifting forward and back as the madman shifted his focus between each of us in turn.
Each time he met a foes eyes the ceithern muttered under his breath, hissing a mixture of dire imprecations, vile insults and pure nonsense. He spoke of joy, of being with a maiden spun from gold and how her love would be assured him, how they would be together forever, if only, if only, if only he killed them, the ones who wanted to stop her, who wanted to cast her out. He would stop the fools, the cowards, the treacherous lovelorn whore-sons who envied his joy. The babbling rose and fell, at times describing brothers born in a fruit running on a lilypond, of an albino princess playing a horn to placate a mob of thieves, of a crippled freak posing riddles to a dancing bear. Between swings of his glass blade he shrieked of the sins of his foes, calling out several of the fighters by name and listing their foulest deeds. To my left a man who tortured his slaves for imagined slights spat and cursed, across the ring a gallowglass who had survived so long by leaving all his brothers to die shrank back before wide eyes, fleeing their horrified surprise and to my right a ceithern who had put a child in his sister's belly flushed red and fought harder, faster, more recklessly.
Taking advantage of my comrade's renewed assault I lunged forward, spear couched in my arm and blade held at guard. With abnormal alacrity our foe hopped in place, catching the speartip with his foot and pinning it to the ground. Prey thus trapped he brought his sword down in an overhand blow, one I barely caught with my long knife - a stroke of luck that barely saved me. The glass cutting edge carved through bog-standard iron like cool butter, leaving me with but a blunt stub of a knife. For a moment I stood still; shocked, flabbergasted even. Then with a heave the ceithern switched legs, releasing my spear and burying a foot in my gut in the same movement. A second later I was on the ground amid the wounded noncombatants. There I fell face to face with a horror; a man, nay no more than a boy, clutched at the ruin of his face, wailing through the bubbling mess that had replaced his mouth, cheeks and brow. The bladestroke that had maimed him had only carved away his nose, but an off-yellow residue congealed and smoked white, making a low hissing noise as it did. A sudden pain in my shoulder pulled my eyes towards the same smoking residue swiftly chewing it's way through my cotton shirt.
Thinking quickly I tore off the garment, casting it onto the street and leaving my chest bare. While the agony upon my shoulder remained it grew no further, merely taking the form of a large patch of burned meat; flesh the colour of pus, veins almost purple in contrast and skin dotted with blisters where the holes in the weave let through the residue. Emergency averted - or at least delayed - I turned back to the fight, raising my voice in warning.
"VITRIOL!"
It was too late to save an elderly gallowglass, the tough old man receiving a feather-light slice across the eyes that lay him low instantly, replacing his determined, grim expression with screeching agony. Quickly the circle thinned, fighters either backing up out of range or fleeing outright, their courage turned aside by the prospect of a truly agonising death, if not crippling at the hands of infernal acid. I got up to launch a second attack on the foe, but when he heard the tap of my spearbutt upon the road he wheeled round with a breast cut, one I barely evaded, losing several hairs off my beard to the crystalline blade. He followed up with the dart in his other hand, using the momentum he had built to hurl it with great force.
*THUD*
The third dart slipped below my ear and struck the closer of the two elementals, driving a wedge in it's shoulder that oozed dark red sap. A wound that would have crippled a mortal bull merely woke the creature from it's docile stupor and in seconds it's bucking and twisting sawed through the flowery harness that bound it to the wagon. Suddenly freed the botanical beast spun about, barely avoiding it's fellow as it did. Soon it found a target for it's anger; red eyes narrowed and a moment later it's body shuddered, exploding into a ferocious charge, head poised to skewer Chiho-Chao who had dismounted from the wagon and was moving to help detain the ceithern.
Not missing a beat the warlord spun in place, bringing his thick cloak across the elemental's head, tangling the horns and blinding the eyes. Enraged further the ox reared onto it's hind legs and bellowed, bringing it's hooves down with a sound like a falling tree. The cobblestones that made up the road split and between them erupted a growth of brambles, stems slick with some botanical extract. The Charm-grown plants surrounded Chiho, encroaching ever further inwards and obscuring the ground with razorsharp thorns. Chiho did not move, keeping his legs still and waiting for the bull to attack. The moment the brambles touched Chiho the bull's head snapped to his position and charged.
Spreading his arms wide he seized the ox the instant before it reached him, twisting his torso and flinging the bull onto the ground. Now Chiho's legs moved, pushing past the thorns without a thought for the blood that they drew and advancing upon his fallen foe. Pulling up it's head by the horns, he cocked back a fist and thrust it underneath the jaw, through the throat and seizing the spine; one good twist and it went limp, the brambles swiftly crumbling to dust. Seeing his gambit fail the maniac roared, cleaving the head off the sister-fucking ceithern with a dismissive swipe. Ignoring the circle of fighters he burst into motion, his long stride quickly shifting into a full sprint that ate up the metres between him and his target - *SQUELCH-CLACK*.
My spear sank deep into his shin, piercing the space between tibia and fibula and then bursting from the flesh to finally be buried between the flagstones. The madman's motion did not halt and a moment later the bone proved weaker than hardwood, shattering with a sickly crunch. His deranged face did not register any of the pain that he must have felt when cracked bone tore through the flesh. Instead his eyes remained on Chiho along with his ire; he dragged himself across the ground screaming of his intent to murder the warlord, to burn the flesh from his bones and desecrate the remains.
There I descended to disarm him of his crystal blade, leaving my spear to impale his leg. When I threw him onto his back he was ready; the blade swung wildly, loosing an arc of deadly vitriol even as I caught him by the wrist. We struggled for a moment, ignoring the light drizzle of acid that burned our skin as we did. Across the back of my head and neck, on the tips of my ears and further down my shoulders the burning spread, lines of white-hot fire outlining muscle and bone.
With a spasm of his clenching muscles, the blade was freed and swung past my head once, twice, three times. Each time the resulting dribble of acid was thinner, slower to fall across us. On the fourth swing I caught the blade again, this time across the ivory vambrace the boar-god had given me. Chittering wildly the crystalline blade shattered, each point of contact with the graven ivory forming an entirely new fracture. For a moment our eyes met and I saw the sheer desperation in his gaze, a wild panic that unseats reason and casts it away.
"She'll be angry with me..."
Then he was gone, buried under the closed circle of warriors and I was left on my knees on the cold stone, spear broken by the struggle and back scarred by the fallout. There Chiho found me, pulling me to my feet and hoisting my arm up to the cheers of resurgent bystanders. I ignored the flaring pain to climb aboard the great wagon with Chiho and the old man, waiting for a number of slaves to clear the fallen elemental from the road and hitch the remainder to the center of the yoke. The crowds slowly faded away as I slumped upon the bow, pain and exhaustion unifying to soften the world around me and lower my eyelids. I remembered nothing else 'til we reached the palace.
--- --- --- --- ---
Deep within the bowels of the great edifice I found myself cloistered with the adhoc council Chiho had arrayed around himself. Jugs Hisao sat beside Maitsu and a handsome young man polishing a curved blade. Across the room a bizarre decrepit elder in latex brushed shoulders with a massive piggish woman and a waif in an embroidered coat while on the third edge Chiho, the lumpish man - identified as Three-Pound Pestle - and myself slumped across a bench. All of us faced inwards, towards the man who had shattered the uneasy peace of Vermoot.Bound by chains of iron nailed to the walls and floor, one Hannavad Komtao ignored the silk-veiled healers bustling around his tattered flesh, packing wounds with herbs and stitching the meat together with needles and catgut.
Those same brightly coloured needles were pulled from and stabbed into my back, the dull throbbing of the acid burns masking any other sensation. Asako - the same woman who had been the first citizen of Vermoot to ever talk to me back in Roh-Pogny's temple - worked ceaselessly, stabbing and pulling, then placing the needles into a tray visible from the corner of my eye. Each needle was corroded, bright jade twisted and blackened by infernal residue.
"The pain will fade in time, though it may be roused by inauspicious occaisions and the rampant indulgence of vice or blasphemy." Asako clucked over the dish of ruined jade. "You were lucky not to lose the use of your arms and with continued care you may recover a full degree of motion; that is regretfully the extent of our skill. There are ascetics among the triad-temples who could help you, or perhaps the esteemed alchemist Three-Pound" - a snort from the man in question - "may know of a remedy."
I looked to the clearly eavesdropping old man, catching his rheumy eyes. He offered another snort before shifting heavily like a limp bag of rags lifted and then dropped.
"Something like that? It'd take time, time I don't have as well as ingredients I don't have. Well, I have them, I just don't want to waste them! Make it worth my while lad, then we'll talk."
Asako left with a humph, obviously put out by the man's miserly attitude and I offered my thanks. As she did the other healers finished their work upon the captive, quietly gathering their things and filing out after Asako. For a moment we remained still before Jugs and Chiho approached him.
"Your clan fought bravely against the dragonspawn Hannavad, why did you betray them? Why did you betray your oaths?"
A surge of movement and Hannavad was eye to eye with Chiho, straining against his chains and screaming through a foam-flecked mouth.
"IT WAS YOU! YOU BETRAYED HER, NOT ME! I SERVED HER FAIT-"
The back of Jug's hand cut off his rant before it built up steam. Chiho wiped the spit off of his face and walked away, extending an expectant hand to Three-Pound. For a moment the mishapen alchemist looked offended, then relented and placed a tiny clay pot in Chiho's hand.
"One under the tongue and two up the nose."
"My thanks sifu. Guardsman, help Jugs keep him still."
I found myself stuffing strips of leather into Hannavad's mouth, holding his teeth apart so my employer could smear a dark brown paste under his tongue and shove his coated fingers up his nose. The prisoner spluttered and shook, eyes rolling wildly and teeth gnawing at the leather as his body rejected the foreign agent. A minute passed before he was still once again, hanging limp. His eyes had lost their piercing intensity and his face bore a puzzled, murky expression that shifted so slowly that I could almost believe it was completely still.
Chiho backed away from the quiescent figure, allowing Maitsu to approach. The foreign consort drew close to Hannavad, whispering in his ear. From her robe she drew a fan of bamboo, flicking it open to reveal scenes of young girls at play painted upon one side. Deft fingers opened a minuscule pot of blue china, darting inside to retrieve a measure of white powder with which she sketched a curved, lopsided sigil upon both of the fans sides, revealing the same scenes rendered macabre by the decomposition of the subjects. Replacing the pot, Maitsu raised the fan to her face, innocent seeming outward and leaned forward, directly before Hannavad's face.
A moment passed, before her hand rippled, a bizarre motion that reversed the faces of the fan and cast powder into the air. Twice more she fluttered the fan and each time she did the flames in the braziers flickered, casting shards of irregular darkness across the room until the fan was shut once again. Then they came together, forming a figure without depth, without substance. A girl almost grown, blessed with the beauty and poise of nobility and clad in a lace nightgown. The apparition wrapped translucent arms around Hannavad's shoulders, drawing him close and stroking his hair. We all remained still, motionless. In the periphery the swordsman and the woman-pig sat bolt upright, eyes wide in shock. The chained waif shrank back, struggling to conceal herself in her voluminous coat. And all Chiho's face showed was hunger.
Maitsu moved back to Hannavad's ear, whispering quietly. Slowly he began to speak, talking to a woman who was neither Maitsu or the spectre, offering apologies and begging forgiveness. Again and again Maitsu drew him away from his love, asking him what to do, how were they going to fix this but Hannavad was insistent. Descriptions were hazy, a hundred different words for 'blonde' and 'beautiful', mixed with metaphors for Venus and lutes, of the colour blue and dragons. Chiho exchanged a weighted look with Jugs, his eyes posing a certainly rhetorical question; "It was Gala?".
"Oh I dreamed of you my love, how I cannot stop dreaming of you! Take me into your arms, place me in the seat below your throne and set me free, free, free!"
More whispers. Our prisoner snorted and chuckled, limp form ragdolling about.
"Every night you visit me, every night you tell me what must be done! Cast down the dancing beast and set your likeness upon the altars!"
Chiho took his consort by the shoulder, making some unseen gesture before releasing her to continue.
"A breathless vizier to serve a lady of air, I took good care of it my love, excellent care! A demon's weapon to cast out the demon-worshipper!"
Maitsu's last question stopped Hannavad in his speech, his face queerly contorting in several different manners and forcing a bout of hiccups. That grew to retches, before a veridian green fluid spilled from his spasming mouth. A long wriggling worm fell from his lips, hitting the floor with a wet slap. For a second that was all, a green-stained mouth gasping impotently before he spasmed one last time and was still.
Maitsu wasted no time, dispelling her spectre with a swing of her fan and stalking out of the room, ignoring the accusing eyes of the others. Chiho conversed with Jugs and the latex-clad man for a minute before dismissing them also.
"Nacre will provide you with an accounting of the loyal thaumaturges, healers, soothsayers and augurs in and around Vermoot guard-mouse. Keep you eyes open for anyone not on it; I want them removed. If Koonan is truly bending so low as to use Malfean blades... We must neuter his resources. I will have specific foes for you to eliminate in days to come." For a moment he began to walk away, before slapping me on the shoulder. "Your men don't need to know anything about what you saw here. Neither do the triad-temples." Then he was gone.
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How so?
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...I really need more information if I'm to explain anything.
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Dude, I need you to actually tell me what you are talking about. Please, use whole sentences, I cannot comprehend or answer you like this!
Lealope
Not yet invincible
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There was an assassination attempt on Chiho by a brainwashed thrall wielding a blade of vitriol coated crystal, presumably instigated by Koonan, a rival leader to Chiho within the tribe. I think if you reread the update with this in mind, it'll make sense to you.
That said, I can see where your confusion came from. Koonan hasn't been mentioned all that often. It might be intentional to reflect Shane(?)'s confusion and unfamiliarity with the politics of the tribe.
@Gamerlord, would you like me to write up some feedback? If so, which areas do you want me to focus on? And in what style i.e. Wise Reading or an amateur analysis and suggestions?
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I would love feedback of any kind, on any place. I consistently doubt my technical skills and would greatly appreciate any advice on how to improve.
Also, it's 'Koonan Of The Strangling Vines' the dragonblooded sorcerer/token native among Guanting Lin's brotherhood. Koonan is his name and Strangling Vines is his title due to his control spell.
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Lealope
Not yet invincible
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First, I'd tidy the formatting a bit. It's more appealing to a reader and easier to read.
Second, I'd strongly suggest breaking up the paragraphs. Currently it's difficult to read the blocks of text and difficult to follow the progress of the prose.
Those are the two bits of low hanging fruit that I think would give the best return on effort invested. If you give me an idea of what kind of feedback you're looking for, I'd be able to give a more focused answer.
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Thanks, my main concern is the pacing of action-dialogue-description, which is probably the one thing that chews up the most time when I'm writing. I doubleguess and rewrite sections, hem and haw over minor details that don't really matter and when I can't get it to work I throw up my hands and give up for a week or two.
Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
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Now that hurts my feelings.
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To be fair, it is sometimes hard to find stuff on QQ and people on SV don't always have dual (or tri- for SB) membership.