Yawning Abyss, Soaring Shrike [Exalted]

VagueZ · 2020-01-12T22:34:53+00:00

Swifter than an arrow in flight, higher than the birds, it soars through the sunny Southern sky. The animating intelligence that drives it neither knows nor cares that it has been named the Five-Metal Shrike. It is a simple creation, able to follow its directives but not to intuit or think outside them. Hierarchies of commands sizzle through its artificial mind. Much of the world below it has grown increasingly outside recognized parameters. It is entirely unequipped to know that this is because it had been fashioned at the height of First Age power, and its internal maps have not been updated since. Most of the time, the Shrike lays at a hidden cradle, protected by a defensive manse created to hide and service it. Much of the rest of the time, it scours the skies, seeking things that meet the necessary criteria to deploy its Godspear. It is only rarely that it finds something appropriate. The least common thing in its experience, had it the self-reflection to recognize this fact, is the possibility that someone will seek to challenge it, either to gain access to its interior or to blot it from the sky. Without appropriate and authorized access codes born by an Exalt, access is actively and violently rejected. So far, no artifice nor scheme deployed in the attempt has proved adequate to access, harm, or restrain the Shrike throughout the entire Second Age, so all-encompassing is its might. Thus, it is something to be endured. It is rare indeed that someone would happen to be looking up at exactly the right time to see its gleaming carapace slide across the sky, and rarer yet that it would affect anyone's life. There are always crops to be planted, animals to herd, water to chase, and work to be done. The world mostly ignores the Shrike, save to share rumors and fanciful tales of its existence, and perhaps to be delighted to hear of it striking down some force of raksha or demons. For more than million Gemfolk and even more people in the lands beyond, this attitude is about to change. Today, the arcane and complex heuristics in the animating intelligence find a target. Something needs to be struck. The Shrike's forward flight ceases. Artificial wings reshape themselves as intricate starmetal flaps, slats, and lattices flex and lock into a hovering stance. The Shrike's 'beak' opens, revealing a ball of Essence there which starts as a rival to the noonday sun and grows from there, swiftly turning unendurable. The unstoppable lance of the Shrike's primary weapon suddenly lets loose, the brilliance streaking away in a beam that momentarily connects sky to ground with a bridge of coherent light. This weapon has obliterated mighty demons and uncountable armies of Fair Folk. Against a mere mountain, the devastation is unimaginable. Huge chunks of rock cease to be, and other rock around the impact point melts like a candle in a furnace. The higher reaches of the mountain shift, and earthquakes and rockfalls echo for miles around, roaring with unleashed fury. A reservoir, thousands of gallons of fresh water penned in by a well-maintained cavern in the mountain, is suddenly let loose, splashing free and pouring down in a temporary waterfall. Some of it evaporates as it comes close to superheated rock, flashing to clouds of steam, but the majority of it is lost to the deep South's infinitely arid sands, thirstily swallowed up by the ground. The Shrike's sensors consider the aftermath. The target area now has less than a 0.004% correlation with any known threat to the Solar Deliberative, the animating intelligence calculates with mild artificial satisfaction. * * * Soanso leaves her living family behind as she heads back to her shadowland access back to the Underworld. She's satisfied by the time she's spent with her living descendants. Their grave goods and worship is appreciated, of course, but she's been happy to keep in connection with her great-grandkids and further, even beyond that. Family is still family, even for someone who has spent the last decades as a ghost. She smiles as she remembers: this last evening, one of the young, promising hunters managed to show enough skill with the javelin that, after discussion with the current living matriarch, Soanso gave a powerful Blessing to him, which had been the highlight of the time for all concerned. It's a lucky thing that Soanso happens to have access to a shadowland close enough to stay with her family at one point during their nomadic circuit, one that's close enough to a water source for her to reach them, and which is unknown to the Deathlords or other untouchable powers. She only knows about it because it was generated while she was alive, in fact. When she had been among the living nomads, a large raiding force of Dune People had attacked the caravan, and they'd nearly wiped out the Dune People through use of a massive cache of firedust that they'd lured the Dune People over. It had set back their trading schedule by years, and the deaths had formed a shadowland, but it had been worth it, even then. She pauses as she comes around a patch of scraggly brown bushes that are just barely holding on, as far as they are from the rocky water cistern. The shadowland is almost precisely as she had left it. It's a fairly small shadowland, perhaps a couple dozen yards across. The only things that grow within it are stark bone-white hands and skeletal arms, both of which are covered in cactus spines and behave much like actual cacti save for the fact that their interior holds no water, just slow-flowing blood that nourishes nothing, and their occasional tendency to latch onto the ankles of any humans or animals they can reach. However, right now, all the bone cacti are leaning as far away as they can from a singular human figure, who is in the center of the shadowland, seemingly meditating. He is a tall man, pale, and dressed in the drab grey that serves as mourning clothes for many cultures. The most notable item he carries is a jagged green blade, some two feet in length, that rests at his hip. It looks more like a throwing weapon than a hand weapon. His eye cracks open and finds Soanso. There's a weight in the wind, now. Soanso recognizes a vastly superior creature of death. "Please," she says. "I only want to help my family. I didn't do anything wrong!" The man holds up a hand. "Never mind that. I am here for information, only." "Are you... with the First and Forsaken Lion?" It's a reasonable guess: much of the South is under the sway of that infamous Deathlord. Any overly powerful creature of the Underworld in these lands almost certainly has something to do with him in one fashion or another. This man, though, shakes his head. "No. I don't care about the Lion. Do you know anything about the Lonely Waif's recent activities?" Soanso frowns at this unexpected conversational jag. "I don't think so..." Desperately, she rakes through her memory, in hopes of coming up with something. Some of the mighty are not kind to those who disappoint them, even if they had no control over why they proved disappointing. "Ah! Wait, maybe?" She quickly lays out what she has heard through the ghostly rumor mill: there had been a confrontation, agents of the Lion clashing with some deathknights from another lord further south-west of here. The rumor mill hadn't given the other Deathlord's name, which Soanso takes pains to stress. She doesn't want to earn this one's ire. He listens, quietly, until Soanso is done. Then, he nods, and steps out of the shadowland, arm cacti still straining to steer clear of him, creating a moving circle of arms that point directly away from him. He gestures back at the shadowland: an invitation for Soanso to make use of it now. She retreats to it, gratefully. She'll still be here for her great-grandkids, at least one more circuit. * * * You are called Vessel of the Mourning's Light Unyielding. You were, until recently, a Dynast of the Scarlet Empire, a part of House Peleps, and one of the three Triumvirs who ruled the Lap, which is a satrapy of the Scarlet Empire that is used as a linchpin of its control of of Creation's South. However, where you once had been expected to be granted the strength of a Dragon-Blooded Exalt, your heritage by birth, you were instead given a fatal wound while facing an Anathema sorcerer, and granted a reprieve only if you would swear yourself to the service of the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers, a Deathlord. Unable to hide your nature as a Chosen of the Underworld and keep your position once outed as Anathema yourself, you left. More than anyone else, you see your fall from grace (and its accompanying wealth and power) as the result of the Waif's actions, and have resolved to take vengeance on her. Unfortunately, it's far easier for her to find you than for you to find her. You've hunted down ghosts and shadowlands for the last month, slowly gathering information to suggest what the Waif is up to. Your clarifying moment came with the news from Gem: the Five-Metal Shrike, had, out of the blue, shown up and annihilated one of Gem's main water reservoirs. Knowing that the Waif has an abiding interest in mighty First Age artifacts, that then became your destination. The most recent news you've been able to gather suggests that this was a smart move. The matching section of the Underworld is under the sway of the First and Forsaken Lion, but apparently other forces are present in his territory. It's almost certainly more agents of the Waif. You're on the right track. You've made your way gradually to the south-west, following merchant caravans and nomads. Gem is a place you don't know, personally. This is the first time you've ever been this far south. That said, everyone knows it by reputation. Gem is rich. The richest place in Creation, possibly, with rivers of money changing hands every day. All one needs to make their fortune in Gem is a single lucky break. That's enough to elevate a slave to nobility overnight, sometimes. Gem is overseen by a Despot, whose agents are the only ones allowed to buy or sell jewels: if two people wanted to exchange a ruby or yasal crystal, it would have to be sold to the Despot and then bought from the Despot, giving him his cut. The Despot also maintains the city's water supplies. This is no mean feat this far south; he hires sorcerers to cast water-conjuring spells, has mountains around Gem proper carved to catch the infrequent rainfall and capture it in secure basins, and cuts deals with nomadic tribes to encourage them to work within his system. Thanks to the enormous wealth of the Despot, he can afford the best and largest mercenary companies around. Gem has little in the way of official military or police, but hired guards abound. Given the avaricious and wealth-focused culture of the place, it is not surprising that murder (at least, of someone unimportant) is treated less harshly than theft. Gemstones, water, and hired swords: these are the Despot's tools of control. Although Gem pays tribute to the Realm, in order to keep the Realm willing to sell it food from the Lap, it is still a barbarian culture, free of the Realm's civilizing influence. Yet Gem is still where you're going, even as the post-Calibration winter spreads its mild chill over the normally unbearably hot Southern deserts. The road to An-Teng is far behind you now (a quiet place, mostly, that is at least somewhat seen to by the Realm), and plenty of other landmarks and major sites and cities are past, most recently including Cahzor (a strange barbarian land with a bad reputation: it has an unpleasant dueling culture and entirely too few Dragon-Bloods for how many other problems it has). Soon, you will get to Gem. No one there should know you as Triumvir Peleps, which is for the best, since you technically owe the Despot a phenomenal amount of money due to an incident which is definitely not your fault. Instead, you'll need a new scheme on how to fit into the place and make your search for the Waif's agents and plans. How have you decided to present yourself in Gem, again? [] You are a mercenary of some skill, looking for employment. - [] You present as an Outcaste Air Aspect. Your disguise as an Air Aspect Dragon-Blood will stand up to most scrutiny, as you have several tools to appear as such. A Dragon-Blood will command more respect and higher fees, but at the cost of more attention, which could be good or bad. - [] You present as a ghost-blood, showing the might of the grave. You are pale and can clearly show a connection to the Underworld. No one would question you being sired by a ghost. You would have fewer opportunities as a theoretically weaker being, but an easier disguise. Those also connected to the Underworld may seek you out, which could be good or bad. [] You will be one of those water-summoning sorcerers the Despot hires. The problem with this plan is that you currently aren't a sorcerer. Before you go to Gem, a friend has given you a place to stop off where you can achieve a sorcerous initiation, though the exact plan makes you nervous. [] You are an expert on First Age lore. You always have terrible Whispers in the back of your mind, murmuring secrets and encouraging you to kill and destroy things. However, they can also be harnessed: you can dip into their wealth of ancient knowledge to learn many hidden things about old artifacts, whether to use or repair them. Few indeed could match that insight. Voting will consider top line first: if 'mercenary' wins more votes then either of the other options, the subvote will determine which exact option is chosen. * * * This will run on an essentially narrative system. What sort of Charms (or dots of attributes and abilities, or sorcery or necromancy, etc) you know will conform reasonably well to an idealized Exalted game that runs like the fluff and fiction/art suggest and takes what I think is the best pieces of all editions. If multiple votes or anything complicated is relevant for how I am counting votes, I'll tell you as much. Otherwise, it's always simple plurality wins. This is a sequel to my last quest, The Dragon Blood, Never Born. Familiarity with that quest will help you to know some of the people and situations a bit, but I will be making an effort to ensure that it's accessible to people who haven't read it. Beyond the information given above, the main important thing you may want to know about the setting is that the Scarlet Empire's civil war over succession has suddenly gone hot within the last month, meaning that the world is starting to shift to accommodate the unexpected opportunities and general power vacuum created by the Blessed Isle exploding into violence, but little news has escaped beyond that and too little time has passed for any dramatic actions to have followed. Yet. For now, Vessel can't focus on that. It's too close to home and too far away from him now, both in nature and physical distance. Instead, he's going to show a Deathlord what a motivated and free Exalt of Solar-level potential can do, when given the chance to seize the initiative. Assuming, of course, that Resonance doesn't ruin everything first...

Thread starter VagueZ
Start date Jan 12, 2020
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exalted (white wolf) fantasy quest

Yawning Abyss, Soaring Shrike

Created: Jan 12, 2020

Status: Ongoing

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Formerly a Dynast of the Realm, you are now an Abyssal turning against your Deathlord.

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Mar 31, 2021

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Mar 31, 2021

#415

Since I've been gone a bit (it's work, my work is still chaotic as all get-out), I wanted to come back with something special. So, courtesy of my friend Indibun (twitter link), have some art of some of our characters!