Formerly a Dynast of the Realm, you are now an Abyssal turning against your Deathlord.
Yawning Abyss, Soaring Shrike [Exalted]
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The road to Gem
- Pronouns
- They/Them
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...
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...
Meeting with Oni
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] You will be one of those water-summoning sorcerers the Despot hires.
The wagon lurches to a stop. You look up. You'd been dozing lightly in the back, along with half a dozen other people. Although this winter day is not as hot as it gets during the summer months of Fire, it's still traditional in much of the South to rest during the hottest parts of the day, save for those people who have a job that just can't let sit like that.
You pick yourself up from your spot against the back wall, ensure your small pack of essentials is undisturbed and the magical boomerang Blizzard's Scourge is still at hand, and make your way forward, stepping over the bodies of those still sleeping or at least preferring to stay lying down.
You exit through the main door, stepping directly away from the wagon. It's part of a caravan, of course, with several similar-looking vehicles with wide, studded wheels to grip on sandy surfaces more easily and pulled by teams of oxen. This can still turn out a surprising amount of speed, especially when combined with a road whose patron god is propitiated to keep things running smoothly.
Right now, there's some raised voices and general posturing happening at the front of the whole affair. You make your way over. It's the sort of shouting that people do in order to look tough and avoid having to be tough. The caravan and its guards are on one side, trying to look rough and ready, while the other group is a motley mix of desert barbarians, nomads who are riding a mixture of claw striders and horses. They keep mobile, except for the spokeswoman.
The spokespeople for both groups are doing the shouting and gesticulating. It's the sort of 'raid' that's most likely to end with the nomads being given a token tribute and everyone going on their way, but there's always the chance that it will escalate if one side feels the other is too much weaker or being too greedy. The caravan master slows his energy as he recognizes you, but the nomad doesn't until you touch your mind to the hearthstone at your neck, summoning a sudden swirl of cold wind that can't be mistaken for something mundane.
The still-mounted riders perk up a bit, spears and bows and slings at the ready, but no one is dumb enough to be the first to overtly draw. That gives a low survivability rate against unknown, supernatural threats. "And you are...?" The nomad spokeswoman side-eyes you. She's a solid, middle-aged woman with the scars of someone who's no stranger to fighting.
You look her over, finding the symbol and colors Ari told you to expect. "I'm a friend of Ari's," you say, once you've confirmed to yourself that she's with the ones you're looking for. "He said to look for you, that you would be able to take me to Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending."
"Really? A friend of Teach's?" Teach? This is a nickname for the Lunar that you haven't heard before... but, of course, you don't actually even know all that much about Ari's life outside of his efforts at the Lap. Where, among other things, he managed to inflict a fatal wound on you, but you've tried to move past that. She challenges you with a couple of completely meaningless code phrases, which you respond to appropriately.
That sort of thing isn't completely secure, since it's still something that mortals like this woman have to know.
You'd run into Ari one last time as you were leaving the Lap. You explained to him your intent to fit into Gem as a sorcerer, including the fact that you haven't had a sorcerous initiation. After all, one of the things the Realm knows about Anathema is their use of blasphemous, forbidden sorcerous techniques; it seems a waste for you not to learn any. You can hardly be any more damned than you already are.
Ari didn't have the proper things with him to perform the initiation, hence why you ended up directed here.
"Well," she finally allows, "Whether you're telling the truth or not, you're probably more interesting than shaking down this sorry lot. Toll's waived today, boys." She makes a dismissive and probably rude gesture towards the caravan leader and turns away.
"So," she asks you as you adopt the high-stepping gait that's easiest for walking across deep sand drifts, "can you ride a claw strider, or would you prefer a horse?"
You consider the two-legged murder beast from closer than you would like. It seems like it's constructed entirely from sharp points. "I'm more familiar with horses."
Your response is not nearly funny enough for how long she laughs at it.
The band rides off. The rest of the day is spent riding. You're still headed in mostly the right direction, so you don't mind it too much. The leader is the only one who speaks to you. It turns out her name is Elma. The party stops in the early evening at a little damp spot in the desert. It's not much of an oasis; it's a natural water catchment that's out of direct sunlight and some scraggly grass around it. The horses are let graze, while meatier fare is provided to the claw striders.
You find a quiet spot out of the way and wait. You don't know much about caring for animals.
As evening falls and the sky gets dark, at Elma's direction, one of the others sets off a rocket, and a yellow firework spirals into the air before bursting. A signal like that could be seen for many miles. You give Elma a questioning look. "Signal for the big guys," she explains. "Means 'presence requested, non-emergency'. Shouldn't take long; I expect they're relatively close, from what everyone's said lately." You let it be at that, but it's still a surprise. It indicates that the nomads out here are a lot more sophisticated and connected than the Realm ever realized.
Sure enough, a little more than two hours later, as the dozen or so members of this band and you are polishing off a meal of heavily-spiced dried vegetables, the answer comes.
A camel comes running out of the desert, all ungainly awkwardness and strange gait, as a camel usually is. On the camel's back, nestled between its two humps but without the benefit of any type of saddle, is a svelte male figure, almost but not quite human, and with a literally fiery aura to him. It reminds you of Solace's hair, a bit.
The burning man disentangles himself from the camel. This is always a bit of a process; camels are gangling creatures, with knees where it seems like they shouldn't be.
He gives the camel a swat along one of its humps once he's on the ground. "You shouldn't always be in such an all-fired hurry, Nine. I keep telling you."
The camel snorts in a very human-like fashion. "Just because you're older than the mountains shouldn't mean you can't appreciate a good run, old man," it says in a woman's voice, before its shape twists and distorts. It's not quite as smooth a process as Ari's, but it's clearly the same type of thing.
Firelight casts the camel-figure's shadow starkly on a dune behind it. You note that the shadow doesn't change, even as the camel gives way to that of a warrior woman close to six and a half feet tall. She just still casts a camel's shadow.
Numbers flick through your head. That had been a good pace for a camel, and to run flat-out since she had seen the signal, it might reasonably have been anywhere from thirty to fifty miles away, depending on exactly how hard they ran and how quickly they got started. That's 'relatively close'?
Nine Leagues Strides, as she pretty much has to be, strides up to Elma with the distance-devouring steps of someone who learned to walk quickly before she grew tall. "Elma. Got something interesting? Let me guess: caravan had something worthwhile?" Nine is dressed simply and practically, in plain and brief clothes that allow the wearer to breathe in desert heat and leaves her midriff with its well-defined abdominal muscles exposed. Beyond Lunar tattoos that accentuate her appearance, the only decoration she has is a silvery ornament that loops around her upper left arm several times. It has a stylized, sharp-looking snake head on one end. The whole thing looks like moonsilver.
Elma shakes her head, keeping her gaze respectfully low. "No, Nine Leagues Strides. It was a rather poor caravan, but there was a passenger who said he knew Ari." You hear the catch in her voice as she almost says 'Teach' again. She turns to look at you. "Said Ari sent him to you two."
You stand. You don't get to come any closer, though, before Nine Leagues Strides is already on top of you. "What are you?" She asks, before adding, "Never mind. I don't care much. Why did Teach send you our way?" She's inspecting you from rather close. You wonder if that's standard issue for Lunars, or just these two.
"I'm looking to learn sorcery, and Ari--" You cut yourself off. It's not like Ari, but she's still distracting to be this close to, especially as she's the rare woman who's actually taller than you are. "Do you have to stand so close?"
She raises an eyebrow, then gives out a guffaw. "Oh, look, everyone. We got us a Realm brat!" She takes two dramatic steps backwards, more than is really necessary, as some of the nomads give her polite laughter. "Better, Reddy?" It takes you a moment to process that: Scarlet Empire equals red equals you named 'Reddy'.
"Thank you. Ari suggested you and Soot Column Ascending would be able to give me a sorcerous initiation. I was looking to learn some water-conjuring spell before I went to Gem." You share that, knowing that there was no way you weren't going to have to share the goal at some point, so it's better to just say it and look open than force them to pull it out of you.
"Huh." She scratches her chin. "We probably could, if Soot--Soot!" She raises her voice to catch his attention. "Stop macking on Elma and get your butt over here!" He does so, but by the small smile that lingers on Elma's face she hadn't been upset with whatever he was saying. "Soot would be the one who could give you the fastest actual initiation. Comes with being an ifrit lord. You want to conjure water, though, you need me to show you that spell. So you're gonna need to convince the two of us. What do you think, Soot?"
The ifrit strokes own chin as he looks at you, rubbing the flame-like goatee he has cultivated. Or perhaps it's actual fire, tamed to look like a beard. "Don't like the feel of this one's Essence," he says, "But I don't see a problem to my pattern, and he seems capable enough. So for the right price, I can bless him."
Nine nods, and looks back to you. "We were actually on our way to Gem for business of our own, too. But there's the deal. Soot and I? We're partners. Ari's a friend, but he isn't us. The nomad tribes around here are my people. Soot's with us because we help maintain the geomancy he and the other ifrits and the rest of the Court of Orderly Flame like. You want sorcery, you give us both a good reason to help you."
You're taken aback. "As simple as that? You don't even know me." The Heptagram back home on the Blessed Isle is far more choosy. To study there is to be one of the Realm's elite and use geomancy, deep study of sorcerous texts, or arcane formulae and mudras to induct the trainee into the mysteries of sorcery. It also usually establishes a lot more theoretical basis before they start actually using sorcery, months of it.
"I know enough." Nine gives you a smile. "Accent, clothing, cheekbones, how you hold yourself: you're from the Blessed Isle. Just looking at you sitting here I can see you don't know the desert, you don't know anything beyond your cities, you look uncomfortable at moonsilver tattoos: you're Immaculate-raised. You have a magical weapon you're clearly in tune with, so you have some power of your own, but you restrained yourself from trying to learn and help the gang here: you're still resisting your nature as more than human, so it's new, not something you were born with. Immaculate propaganda might make you think you're 'Anathema', which could contribute to that." She considers you. "Dunno what power offhand. You one of those freaks out of Sijan? Some weird artifact zap you special powers? You ain't Chosen by Luna, at least, that's for sure. I don't really care what else it was."
You almost shudder at her offhanded litany of reading you. There can be no real doubt in your mind at that: Nine must be one of the Oni, those keenly perceptive shape-shifting magic-wielding Anathema that call themselves "No Moons". You're suddenly aware afresh that you're in deep enemy territory: Lunars like this have harried the Realm since the Empress's ascension, even winning some striking victories and almost assassinating her. They're the monsters in the darkness for the righteous Dragon-Bloods, and here you are, dead at the claws of one of them and seeking knowledge from another.
The dark power you wield and the Whispers in your mind say you can stand your ground here, but it's still enough to put an extra chill in your blood. With every step, you're putting yourself further from the Immaculate path, justifying it to yourself and saying it can be worth it in the end if you destroy the right targets. Maybe it will be. "You're pretty close with all that," you allow, keeping your face as blank as you can. "I go by Vessel, these days."
"I'm sure you do, Reddy." She approaches again, just close enough to pat your head condescendingly. "I'm sure you do." She sobers up before you can open your mouth. "Precondition, though. You'd have to be really special to be the worst boy or girl Ari dragged home, but serious talk: we talk sorcery, you don't hurt me and my people, got it?"
She gestures off into the desert, and strides off. You follow her, with Soot at one shoulder. "I swear I have neither intent or desire to hurt you or yours."
Nine blows a raspberry. "I don't like weasel words, but I know 'em. If you're gonna make any sort of 'technically, I never lied' claim, I'll stuff your intestines into your ears."
Soot stage-whispers to you, "She's very specific with her threats, but she does remember them, and I've seen her go through with it. There was this Fair Folk cataphract about ten years ago, where she promised that all his fingers--"
"Shut it, you're harshing my flow, old man." Finding an apparently appropriate flat spot in the sand, Nine starts dragging her foot along, etching a large circle. It's a perfect circle, however: neither rough nor somewhat oval. "Sorcery. There's a lot of little details, and lots of ways to do it. Here's an important one that's pretty constant, however: some numbers have power. Three, seven, twelve..." Here, she looks at Soot Column Ascending. "Three?"
He nods. "Three. We don't need more for this."
Nine Leagues Strides nods in agreement and goes around the circle a second time, marking three smaller circles that just touch the outside of the large circle, providing just enough space to comfortably put both feet inside. "Okay, Reddy. Three it is. We offer you three prices, and you pick one. You pay it, we help you learn sorcery. You refuse all three, deal's off and out you go."
"Can I suggest one?" You ask.
"Nope, not really appropriate." She looks at Soot for confirmation. "Pacharenai?" He nods. "Option one, there's been reports of a band of raksha affiliated with the Pacharenai around. They haven't bothered my people yet, but if I have a third warrior we won't wait, we'll just go attack them together. It'd be a couple of days each out there and back, depending a bit on how hard it is to run them down. I hope you're confident in your weapon and skill. That's the physical option." That would delay your arrival in Gem by at least four days, maybe up to a week. You'd be running late, and any trail you might find would be colder.
The Oni makes a little mark next to one circle, indicating which one it is before she again moves on to the second small circle to make a different mark. "Option two, I know you're a Realm brat. You give me what strategic information you can on Realm dispositions. Don't hold things back. If you have something worth it, that counts. I have something concrete to work from and Soot gets his payment in the form of my people doing better and supporting the Court of Orderly Flame's geomancy. That's your social option, based on who you know." You wince internally, even though neither of them are looking at you at the moment to notice an actual expression. You certainly could give them information, even if it might be growing out of date with the Realm's civil war going hot. What you couldn't do, if you did agree to that trade and actually offer it, is hide who you are. Nine Leagues Strides might say she doesn't care, but it wouldn't take many clues for her to put things together and identify you specifically as Triumvir Peleps.
"Last one: something mental. Hm. How about this: put your mind to work. Last option is that both Soot Column Ascending and I each get a favor from you, to be called in later. You have to be smart enough to know if that's worth more than picking one of the other two right now." The upsides and downsides of that one seem to be just as clear as she's laying them out, even after you think about them. The Lunar finishes making her 'mental' mark. "Pick, then."
She and Soot start circulating slowly. You see your place and follow along with their pacing. You have to pick one, stepping into the appropriate small circle, and they will step into the other two.
[] Join them on a Fair Folk raid, which delays your arrival in Gem.
[] Give them strategic Realm information about the Lap, revealing who you were.
[] Owe them a favor each.
The wagon lurches to a stop. You look up. You'd been dozing lightly in the back, along with half a dozen other people. Although this winter day is not as hot as it gets during the summer months of Fire, it's still traditional in much of the South to rest during the hottest parts of the day, save for those people who have a job that just can't let sit like that.
You pick yourself up from your spot against the back wall, ensure your small pack of essentials is undisturbed and the magical boomerang Blizzard's Scourge is still at hand, and make your way forward, stepping over the bodies of those still sleeping or at least preferring to stay lying down.
You exit through the main door, stepping directly away from the wagon. It's part of a caravan, of course, with several similar-looking vehicles with wide, studded wheels to grip on sandy surfaces more easily and pulled by teams of oxen. This can still turn out a surprising amount of speed, especially when combined with a road whose patron god is propitiated to keep things running smoothly.
Right now, there's some raised voices and general posturing happening at the front of the whole affair. You make your way over. It's the sort of shouting that people do in order to look tough and avoid having to be tough. The caravan and its guards are on one side, trying to look rough and ready, while the other group is a motley mix of desert barbarians, nomads who are riding a mixture of claw striders and horses. They keep mobile, except for the spokeswoman.
The spokespeople for both groups are doing the shouting and gesticulating. It's the sort of 'raid' that's most likely to end with the nomads being given a token tribute and everyone going on their way, but there's always the chance that it will escalate if one side feels the other is too much weaker or being too greedy. The caravan master slows his energy as he recognizes you, but the nomad doesn't until you touch your mind to the hearthstone at your neck, summoning a sudden swirl of cold wind that can't be mistaken for something mundane.
The still-mounted riders perk up a bit, spears and bows and slings at the ready, but no one is dumb enough to be the first to overtly draw. That gives a low survivability rate against unknown, supernatural threats. "And you are...?" The nomad spokeswoman side-eyes you. She's a solid, middle-aged woman with the scars of someone who's no stranger to fighting.
You look her over, finding the symbol and colors Ari told you to expect. "I'm a friend of Ari's," you say, once you've confirmed to yourself that she's with the ones you're looking for. "He said to look for you, that you would be able to take me to Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending."
"Really? A friend of Teach's?" Teach? This is a nickname for the Lunar that you haven't heard before... but, of course, you don't actually even know all that much about Ari's life outside of his efforts at the Lap. Where, among other things, he managed to inflict a fatal wound on you, but you've tried to move past that. She challenges you with a couple of completely meaningless code phrases, which you respond to appropriately.
That sort of thing isn't completely secure, since it's still something that mortals like this woman have to know.
You'd run into Ari one last time as you were leaving the Lap. You explained to him your intent to fit into Gem as a sorcerer, including the fact that you haven't had a sorcerous initiation. After all, one of the things the Realm knows about Anathema is their use of blasphemous, forbidden sorcerous techniques; it seems a waste for you not to learn any. You can hardly be any more damned than you already are.
Ari didn't have the proper things with him to perform the initiation, hence why you ended up directed here.
"Well," she finally allows, "Whether you're telling the truth or not, you're probably more interesting than shaking down this sorry lot. Toll's waived today, boys." She makes a dismissive and probably rude gesture towards the caravan leader and turns away.
"So," she asks you as you adopt the high-stepping gait that's easiest for walking across deep sand drifts, "can you ride a claw strider, or would you prefer a horse?"
You consider the two-legged murder beast from closer than you would like. It seems like it's constructed entirely from sharp points. "I'm more familiar with horses."
Your response is not nearly funny enough for how long she laughs at it.
The band rides off. The rest of the day is spent riding. You're still headed in mostly the right direction, so you don't mind it too much. The leader is the only one who speaks to you. It turns out her name is Elma. The party stops in the early evening at a little damp spot in the desert. It's not much of an oasis; it's a natural water catchment that's out of direct sunlight and some scraggly grass around it. The horses are let graze, while meatier fare is provided to the claw striders.
You find a quiet spot out of the way and wait. You don't know much about caring for animals.
As evening falls and the sky gets dark, at Elma's direction, one of the others sets off a rocket, and a yellow firework spirals into the air before bursting. A signal like that could be seen for many miles. You give Elma a questioning look. "Signal for the big guys," she explains. "Means 'presence requested, non-emergency'. Shouldn't take long; I expect they're relatively close, from what everyone's said lately." You let it be at that, but it's still a surprise. It indicates that the nomads out here are a lot more sophisticated and connected than the Realm ever realized.
Sure enough, a little more than two hours later, as the dozen or so members of this band and you are polishing off a meal of heavily-spiced dried vegetables, the answer comes.
A camel comes running out of the desert, all ungainly awkwardness and strange gait, as a camel usually is. On the camel's back, nestled between its two humps but without the benefit of any type of saddle, is a svelte male figure, almost but not quite human, and with a literally fiery aura to him. It reminds you of Solace's hair, a bit.
The burning man disentangles himself from the camel. This is always a bit of a process; camels are gangling creatures, with knees where it seems like they shouldn't be.
He gives the camel a swat along one of its humps once he's on the ground. "You shouldn't always be in such an all-fired hurry, Nine. I keep telling you."
The camel snorts in a very human-like fashion. "Just because you're older than the mountains shouldn't mean you can't appreciate a good run, old man," it says in a woman's voice, before its shape twists and distorts. It's not quite as smooth a process as Ari's, but it's clearly the same type of thing.
Firelight casts the camel-figure's shadow starkly on a dune behind it. You note that the shadow doesn't change, even as the camel gives way to that of a warrior woman close to six and a half feet tall. She just still casts a camel's shadow.
Numbers flick through your head. That had been a good pace for a camel, and to run flat-out since she had seen the signal, it might reasonably have been anywhere from thirty to fifty miles away, depending on exactly how hard they ran and how quickly they got started. That's 'relatively close'?
Nine Leagues Strides, as she pretty much has to be, strides up to Elma with the distance-devouring steps of someone who learned to walk quickly before she grew tall. "Elma. Got something interesting? Let me guess: caravan had something worthwhile?" Nine is dressed simply and practically, in plain and brief clothes that allow the wearer to breathe in desert heat and leaves her midriff with its well-defined abdominal muscles exposed. Beyond Lunar tattoos that accentuate her appearance, the only decoration she has is a silvery ornament that loops around her upper left arm several times. It has a stylized, sharp-looking snake head on one end. The whole thing looks like moonsilver.
Elma shakes her head, keeping her gaze respectfully low. "No, Nine Leagues Strides. It was a rather poor caravan, but there was a passenger who said he knew Ari." You hear the catch in her voice as she almost says 'Teach' again. She turns to look at you. "Said Ari sent him to you two."
You stand. You don't get to come any closer, though, before Nine Leagues Strides is already on top of you. "What are you?" She asks, before adding, "Never mind. I don't care much. Why did Teach send you our way?" She's inspecting you from rather close. You wonder if that's standard issue for Lunars, or just these two.
"I'm looking to learn sorcery, and Ari--" You cut yourself off. It's not like Ari, but she's still distracting to be this close to, especially as she's the rare woman who's actually taller than you are. "Do you have to stand so close?"
She raises an eyebrow, then gives out a guffaw. "Oh, look, everyone. We got us a Realm brat!" She takes two dramatic steps backwards, more than is really necessary, as some of the nomads give her polite laughter. "Better, Reddy?" It takes you a moment to process that: Scarlet Empire equals red equals you named 'Reddy'.
"Thank you. Ari suggested you and Soot Column Ascending would be able to give me a sorcerous initiation. I was looking to learn some water-conjuring spell before I went to Gem." You share that, knowing that there was no way you weren't going to have to share the goal at some point, so it's better to just say it and look open than force them to pull it out of you.
"Huh." She scratches her chin. "We probably could, if Soot--Soot!" She raises her voice to catch his attention. "Stop macking on Elma and get your butt over here!" He does so, but by the small smile that lingers on Elma's face she hadn't been upset with whatever he was saying. "Soot would be the one who could give you the fastest actual initiation. Comes with being an ifrit lord. You want to conjure water, though, you need me to show you that spell. So you're gonna need to convince the two of us. What do you think, Soot?"
The ifrit strokes own chin as he looks at you, rubbing the flame-like goatee he has cultivated. Or perhaps it's actual fire, tamed to look like a beard. "Don't like the feel of this one's Essence," he says, "But I don't see a problem to my pattern, and he seems capable enough. So for the right price, I can bless him."
Nine nods, and looks back to you. "We were actually on our way to Gem for business of our own, too. But there's the deal. Soot and I? We're partners. Ari's a friend, but he isn't us. The nomad tribes around here are my people. Soot's with us because we help maintain the geomancy he and the other ifrits and the rest of the Court of Orderly Flame like. You want sorcery, you give us both a good reason to help you."
You're taken aback. "As simple as that? You don't even know me." The Heptagram back home on the Blessed Isle is far more choosy. To study there is to be one of the Realm's elite and use geomancy, deep study of sorcerous texts, or arcane formulae and mudras to induct the trainee into the mysteries of sorcery. It also usually establishes a lot more theoretical basis before they start actually using sorcery, months of it.
"I know enough." Nine gives you a smile. "Accent, clothing, cheekbones, how you hold yourself: you're from the Blessed Isle. Just looking at you sitting here I can see you don't know the desert, you don't know anything beyond your cities, you look uncomfortable at moonsilver tattoos: you're Immaculate-raised. You have a magical weapon you're clearly in tune with, so you have some power of your own, but you restrained yourself from trying to learn and help the gang here: you're still resisting your nature as more than human, so it's new, not something you were born with. Immaculate propaganda might make you think you're 'Anathema', which could contribute to that." She considers you. "Dunno what power offhand. You one of those freaks out of Sijan? Some weird artifact zap you special powers? You ain't Chosen by Luna, at least, that's for sure. I don't really care what else it was."
You almost shudder at her offhanded litany of reading you. There can be no real doubt in your mind at that: Nine must be one of the Oni, those keenly perceptive shape-shifting magic-wielding Anathema that call themselves "No Moons". You're suddenly aware afresh that you're in deep enemy territory: Lunars like this have harried the Realm since the Empress's ascension, even winning some striking victories and almost assassinating her. They're the monsters in the darkness for the righteous Dragon-Bloods, and here you are, dead at the claws of one of them and seeking knowledge from another.
The dark power you wield and the Whispers in your mind say you can stand your ground here, but it's still enough to put an extra chill in your blood. With every step, you're putting yourself further from the Immaculate path, justifying it to yourself and saying it can be worth it in the end if you destroy the right targets. Maybe it will be. "You're pretty close with all that," you allow, keeping your face as blank as you can. "I go by Vessel, these days."
"I'm sure you do, Reddy." She approaches again, just close enough to pat your head condescendingly. "I'm sure you do." She sobers up before you can open your mouth. "Precondition, though. You'd have to be really special to be the worst boy or girl Ari dragged home, but serious talk: we talk sorcery, you don't hurt me and my people, got it?"
She gestures off into the desert, and strides off. You follow her, with Soot at one shoulder. "I swear I have neither intent or desire to hurt you or yours."
Nine blows a raspberry. "I don't like weasel words, but I know 'em. If you're gonna make any sort of 'technically, I never lied' claim, I'll stuff your intestines into your ears."
Soot stage-whispers to you, "She's very specific with her threats, but she does remember them, and I've seen her go through with it. There was this Fair Folk cataphract about ten years ago, where she promised that all his fingers--"
"Shut it, you're harshing my flow, old man." Finding an apparently appropriate flat spot in the sand, Nine starts dragging her foot along, etching a large circle. It's a perfect circle, however: neither rough nor somewhat oval. "Sorcery. There's a lot of little details, and lots of ways to do it. Here's an important one that's pretty constant, however: some numbers have power. Three, seven, twelve..." Here, she looks at Soot Column Ascending. "Three?"
He nods. "Three. We don't need more for this."
Nine Leagues Strides nods in agreement and goes around the circle a second time, marking three smaller circles that just touch the outside of the large circle, providing just enough space to comfortably put both feet inside. "Okay, Reddy. Three it is. We offer you three prices, and you pick one. You pay it, we help you learn sorcery. You refuse all three, deal's off and out you go."
"Can I suggest one?" You ask.
"Nope, not really appropriate." She looks at Soot for confirmation. "Pacharenai?" He nods. "Option one, there's been reports of a band of raksha affiliated with the Pacharenai around. They haven't bothered my people yet, but if I have a third warrior we won't wait, we'll just go attack them together. It'd be a couple of days each out there and back, depending a bit on how hard it is to run them down. I hope you're confident in your weapon and skill. That's the physical option." That would delay your arrival in Gem by at least four days, maybe up to a week. You'd be running late, and any trail you might find would be colder.
The Oni makes a little mark next to one circle, indicating which one it is before she again moves on to the second small circle to make a different mark. "Option two, I know you're a Realm brat. You give me what strategic information you can on Realm dispositions. Don't hold things back. If you have something worth it, that counts. I have something concrete to work from and Soot gets his payment in the form of my people doing better and supporting the Court of Orderly Flame's geomancy. That's your social option, based on who you know." You wince internally, even though neither of them are looking at you at the moment to notice an actual expression. You certainly could give them information, even if it might be growing out of date with the Realm's civil war going hot. What you couldn't do, if you did agree to that trade and actually offer it, is hide who you are. Nine Leagues Strides might say she doesn't care, but it wouldn't take many clues for her to put things together and identify you specifically as Triumvir Peleps.
"Last one: something mental. Hm. How about this: put your mind to work. Last option is that both Soot Column Ascending and I each get a favor from you, to be called in later. You have to be smart enough to know if that's worth more than picking one of the other two right now." The upsides and downsides of that one seem to be just as clear as she's laying them out, even after you think about them. The Lunar finishes making her 'mental' mark. "Pick, then."
She and Soot start circulating slowly. You see your place and follow along with their pacing. You have to pick one, stepping into the appropriate small circle, and they will step into the other two.
[] Join them on a Fair Folk raid, which delays your arrival in Gem.
[] Give them strategic Realm information about the Lap, revealing who you were.
[] Owe them a favor each.
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Eve of sorcery
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Join them on a Fair Folk raid, which delays your arrival in Gem.
You had been wrong, before. You had thought there was no further damnation left to one of the Anathema. However, this one is still a bridge too far for you. The Realm is Creation's fixed axle, upon which civilization turns. Even when you are pushed from your place in the Realm, even when the Empress is missing and the worst is feared, even when the Great Houses are fighting each other, you can't betray the Realm or the people you like in it, such as... Talon-Captain Vancer?
There's fewer uncomplicated entirely-positive ties you have to the Realm than you care to think about.
Regardless, giving Nine the information she asked for is a line you just can't bring yourself to cross right now, and you barely even consider giving an Oni an open-ended 'favor' request. That's just a way to get yourself in more trouble.
The time it takes will be a concern, but it's one you just have to endure. You step into the circle indicating accepting the fight against the Pacharenai.
"Huh," Nine Leagues Strides says as she and the ifrit lord take the other two circles. "Not what I expected. So be it. We'll set off that direction tomorrow. C'mon back to the camp with us, Reddy. I haven't had dinner yet, and I bet Elma set aside something for me."
"She might have something special for me, too," Soot Column Ascending adds, in a faux-thoughtful tone. The ifrit casually ducks the stone Nine throws at him in response.
The evening and morning pass quickly. Nine gives you some basic guidance on sorcery, building on what you learned as a young Dynast of the Realm. Some of it is just talking about Essence in straightforward ways, that mean more now that you can wield Essence. Sorcery is fundamentally different than the powers of the Chosen in a simple way: sorcery pulls and shapes latent Essence in the world around the sorcerer, where the inherent powers of an Exalt (or their learned supernatural martial arts) draw on the internal stored power of the user. At first glance, this seems like a trivial solution to let you side-step the problem you've had in keeping your own stores up, but sadly it doesn't work like that. Sorcery is much more structured, the power it gathers can only be shaped along specific, learned lines, and it's not nearly as quick. Too, even though it may not use the same wellspring of power, it's exhausting to cast spells one after another. Eventually, even the mightiest find themselves drained and unable to continue without rest.
The other thing Nine gives you is a series of koans, telling you that mulling over them should help. You're not so sure that that should be necessary, since the actual awakening is supposed to be a blessing from the ifrit lord, but it seems foolish to ask for guidance and then completely disregard it, so you spend a little time trying to make sense of inherently silly-sounding lines.
For the first part of the morning, Elma's group travels with you, but the three of you split off as they join up with a larger nomad group, one of some forty or so people of all ages. Clearly there's ways that these people pass news, plan, and arrange their nomadic lifestyle, but you don't have time to parse the details.
You are loaned a pair of horses, to allow you to swap mounts as they tire and thus travel faster. Nine Leagues Strides simply travels as a camel, with Soot Column Ascending riding on her back. The Lunar is not as easily tired as a normal creature, so this allows the three of you to devour the miles.
The South is more varied and beautiful than you'd ever really realized. While the endless, featureless seas of dust and sand do abound, there's both life and natural beauty out there, too, with everything from lizards to goats to be found living among hard-bit greenery that clings wherever it can. Striated bands of minerals in a startling variety of colors stand out on rock formations, which combine with thin clouds in the vast skies above to make for landscapes any Dynast would love to be able to see from a vacation home patio. For you, it's all around you.
It's late on the second day of travel before your group begins to find any trace of the Pacharenai. Nine has given you the rundown on them: they're a fairly powerful group of raksha nobles, but their usual haunts are further south even than this, out in the Bordermarches proper, where the fixed nature of Creation begins to mix with the unreality of the Wyld beyond.
This is either a scouting force or an affiliate, not the twenty or so powerful nobles that make up the core of the group. Even these outriders favor the shape of powerful hunting lions, which is the Pacharenai's most famous trait.
Nine follows the tracks they leave, in relatively mundane fashion. If they have bodies, they have to deal with such base matters. Soot Column Ascending can sense their disturbance in the geomantic balance of the world. You, it turns out, can also follow them a bit, with the enthusiastic aid of the Whispers in your head. As you had discovered before at the Lap, the Whispers hate the creatures of the Wyld at least as much as they do any of the normal living creatures of Creation. You end up with a mixture of the mundane and supernatural spoors, supporting both of the others.
Between the three of you, you pin down your quarry to a relatively small area of the desert as night falls. Come the morning, the fight will be on.
It is here, finally, where Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending set up to perform your actual initiation to sorcery. As evening gives way to full night, the three of you gather dried-up dead plant matter and pile it up, both in a little campfire and a larger construction. After a little bit, though, Soot shoos the two of you off. This isn't a trivial investment for him, either, and he chooses to push you and Nine away to take his time piling his pyre-to-be in exactly the fashion he wants.
"Aren't you worried about the Fair Folk attacking during the night, or while we're doing this?" you ask the Lunar.
"Nah," she says as she performs the necessary care for the horses you've been riding. It's sort of mindless work, so she does it without needing to think. "That's not how they are. They're creatures of tales and stories. They might try to fit a new role in the story, but not to break the complete structure. This lot would rather slit their own throats rather than interrupt a momentous evening that could be a turning point in a young man's life. We're fine."
Nine goes to sit lotus on the rocky ground, and gestures for you to do the same, with you two facing each other. She looks at you in silence for a moment, then gives you the last guidance she has. "Barring some unusual effort, the first spell you learn will always be what is sometimes called a 'control spell'. A control spell is one a sorcerer understands on a deeper and more intuitive level than others, and can typically pull a little more use out of it. It also tends to leak into the world in various ways." She smiles at you, sharing a cosmic joke. "You know those stories about sorcerers who leak brimstone or find themselves haunted by objects in the room levitating uncontrollably? Control spells."
She holds out one hand, pointing it into the darkness around you. "Now, you're not one of the foolish ones who's going to end up with a socially debilitating suite of effects. Truth be told, I only know one sorcery that ends with creating water, and it's not one of my control spells, but the way these initiations work is a bit arcane. You'll definitely learn a spell on an intuitive level, and we can force it to be related to water, but I can't be totally sure that you'll get the same spell if you don't want it. You might get the same spell, some other spell, or even one that's otherwise wholly unknown to Creation. Oh, and it's never going to be this easy again. Want to learn other spells? Go study them."
You nod as you absorb all this. Once Nine Leagues Strides seems satisfied that you have, she stands and begins pulling on the world with her mind. The little campfire you have gutters and nearly goes out as she pulls from it. After a moment of work, she shouts, some word you don't know but which lets her birth a river. The hand she's held out is slammed heel-first to the ground, and a torrent gushes forth from nothingness. The stream flows powerfully, a stream of clear, fresh water beginning to trail off into the desert. She stands up after that and goes to get the waterskins. "That's Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths," she tells you as she goes. There's so much water there that it'll be trivial to let the horses drink their fill, drink yourself, bathe if you desire, fill every drinking container you have, and still not use a tithe of it.
As you are trying to fix what she did in your mind, you hear a commanding clearing of the throat, and a sudden light blazes behind you. You rise and turn to face Soot Column Ascending. The ifrit stands in front of the large fire he has constructed. He holds out a hand for you. "Come," he says, in a much deeper voice than normal for him. "On the eve of this righteous battle, come and receive my blessing that you may be better prepared to fight the foes of order."
You step forward and face the blaze.
Choose your control spell, sorcerer.
[] Impervious Sphere of Water
Water streams from your palms, coiling up into a dome that encompasses you and any allies close. Those within it can breathe the water like air, and attacking into or out of the dome is almost impossible. Moving in or out, save at your will, is slow and ponderous, when possible at all. When you release the spell, the water falls to the ground and behaves as normal water. As your control spell, you can walk around with this spell up, with it moving with you.
[] Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths
You conjure a powerful, wide jet of water, which knocks down all but the most sure-footed who set foot in its waters, sweeping away people, animals, and things caught in its flow. The torrent continues for ten minutes before trickling off. As your control spell, Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths means that any body of liquid larger than about ten gallons that you touch is whipped as if by a storm. This can be suppressed by an effort of will, and extends several dozen yards in very large bodies such as major rivers and seas.
[] Ladder of Fog
You form a semi-solid mist that fills the area, clinging to every solid surface. The sorcerer and anyone whose name he speaks to allow it can use this clinging fog as hand- and foot-holds, allowing sure footing on ice, the ability to climb sheer walls, or brachiate along a ceiling. After an hour or so, the mist condenses, drenching the area. As your control spell, you seem to be shrouding in a thin but obscuring mist when viewed from a far enough distance.
In the battle tomorrow, there is one specific thing that will go well for you. What is it?
[] You end the battle with your stores of Essence brimming full, while keeping yourself completely hale.
[] Your skill impresses Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending, who will remember it positively.
[] The hunt goes swiftly; you reach Gem early enough to avoid missing any important developments by this diversion.
(votes will be considered separately)
You had been wrong, before. You had thought there was no further damnation left to one of the Anathema. However, this one is still a bridge too far for you. The Realm is Creation's fixed axle, upon which civilization turns. Even when you are pushed from your place in the Realm, even when the Empress is missing and the worst is feared, even when the Great Houses are fighting each other, you can't betray the Realm or the people you like in it, such as... Talon-Captain Vancer?
There's fewer uncomplicated entirely-positive ties you have to the Realm than you care to think about.
Regardless, giving Nine the information she asked for is a line you just can't bring yourself to cross right now, and you barely even consider giving an Oni an open-ended 'favor' request. That's just a way to get yourself in more trouble.
The time it takes will be a concern, but it's one you just have to endure. You step into the circle indicating accepting the fight against the Pacharenai.
"Huh," Nine Leagues Strides says as she and the ifrit lord take the other two circles. "Not what I expected. So be it. We'll set off that direction tomorrow. C'mon back to the camp with us, Reddy. I haven't had dinner yet, and I bet Elma set aside something for me."
"She might have something special for me, too," Soot Column Ascending adds, in a faux-thoughtful tone. The ifrit casually ducks the stone Nine throws at him in response.
* * *
The evening and morning pass quickly. Nine gives you some basic guidance on sorcery, building on what you learned as a young Dynast of the Realm. Some of it is just talking about Essence in straightforward ways, that mean more now that you can wield Essence. Sorcery is fundamentally different than the powers of the Chosen in a simple way: sorcery pulls and shapes latent Essence in the world around the sorcerer, where the inherent powers of an Exalt (or their learned supernatural martial arts) draw on the internal stored power of the user. At first glance, this seems like a trivial solution to let you side-step the problem you've had in keeping your own stores up, but sadly it doesn't work like that. Sorcery is much more structured, the power it gathers can only be shaped along specific, learned lines, and it's not nearly as quick. Too, even though it may not use the same wellspring of power, it's exhausting to cast spells one after another. Eventually, even the mightiest find themselves drained and unable to continue without rest.
The other thing Nine gives you is a series of koans, telling you that mulling over them should help. You're not so sure that that should be necessary, since the actual awakening is supposed to be a blessing from the ifrit lord, but it seems foolish to ask for guidance and then completely disregard it, so you spend a little time trying to make sense of inherently silly-sounding lines.
For the first part of the morning, Elma's group travels with you, but the three of you split off as they join up with a larger nomad group, one of some forty or so people of all ages. Clearly there's ways that these people pass news, plan, and arrange their nomadic lifestyle, but you don't have time to parse the details.
You are loaned a pair of horses, to allow you to swap mounts as they tire and thus travel faster. Nine Leagues Strides simply travels as a camel, with Soot Column Ascending riding on her back. The Lunar is not as easily tired as a normal creature, so this allows the three of you to devour the miles.
The South is more varied and beautiful than you'd ever really realized. While the endless, featureless seas of dust and sand do abound, there's both life and natural beauty out there, too, with everything from lizards to goats to be found living among hard-bit greenery that clings wherever it can. Striated bands of minerals in a startling variety of colors stand out on rock formations, which combine with thin clouds in the vast skies above to make for landscapes any Dynast would love to be able to see from a vacation home patio. For you, it's all around you.
It's late on the second day of travel before your group begins to find any trace of the Pacharenai. Nine has given you the rundown on them: they're a fairly powerful group of raksha nobles, but their usual haunts are further south even than this, out in the Bordermarches proper, where the fixed nature of Creation begins to mix with the unreality of the Wyld beyond.
This is either a scouting force or an affiliate, not the twenty or so powerful nobles that make up the core of the group. Even these outriders favor the shape of powerful hunting lions, which is the Pacharenai's most famous trait.
Nine follows the tracks they leave, in relatively mundane fashion. If they have bodies, they have to deal with such base matters. Soot Column Ascending can sense their disturbance in the geomantic balance of the world. You, it turns out, can also follow them a bit, with the enthusiastic aid of the Whispers in your head. As you had discovered before at the Lap, the Whispers hate the creatures of the Wyld at least as much as they do any of the normal living creatures of Creation. You end up with a mixture of the mundane and supernatural spoors, supporting both of the others.
Between the three of you, you pin down your quarry to a relatively small area of the desert as night falls. Come the morning, the fight will be on.
It is here, finally, where Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending set up to perform your actual initiation to sorcery. As evening gives way to full night, the three of you gather dried-up dead plant matter and pile it up, both in a little campfire and a larger construction. After a little bit, though, Soot shoos the two of you off. This isn't a trivial investment for him, either, and he chooses to push you and Nine away to take his time piling his pyre-to-be in exactly the fashion he wants.
"Aren't you worried about the Fair Folk attacking during the night, or while we're doing this?" you ask the Lunar.
"Nah," she says as she performs the necessary care for the horses you've been riding. It's sort of mindless work, so she does it without needing to think. "That's not how they are. They're creatures of tales and stories. They might try to fit a new role in the story, but not to break the complete structure. This lot would rather slit their own throats rather than interrupt a momentous evening that could be a turning point in a young man's life. We're fine."
Nine goes to sit lotus on the rocky ground, and gestures for you to do the same, with you two facing each other. She looks at you in silence for a moment, then gives you the last guidance she has. "Barring some unusual effort, the first spell you learn will always be what is sometimes called a 'control spell'. A control spell is one a sorcerer understands on a deeper and more intuitive level than others, and can typically pull a little more use out of it. It also tends to leak into the world in various ways." She smiles at you, sharing a cosmic joke. "You know those stories about sorcerers who leak brimstone or find themselves haunted by objects in the room levitating uncontrollably? Control spells."
She holds out one hand, pointing it into the darkness around you. "Now, you're not one of the foolish ones who's going to end up with a socially debilitating suite of effects. Truth be told, I only know one sorcery that ends with creating water, and it's not one of my control spells, but the way these initiations work is a bit arcane. You'll definitely learn a spell on an intuitive level, and we can force it to be related to water, but I can't be totally sure that you'll get the same spell if you don't want it. You might get the same spell, some other spell, or even one that's otherwise wholly unknown to Creation. Oh, and it's never going to be this easy again. Want to learn other spells? Go study them."
You nod as you absorb all this. Once Nine Leagues Strides seems satisfied that you have, she stands and begins pulling on the world with her mind. The little campfire you have gutters and nearly goes out as she pulls from it. After a moment of work, she shouts, some word you don't know but which lets her birth a river. The hand she's held out is slammed heel-first to the ground, and a torrent gushes forth from nothingness. The stream flows powerfully, a stream of clear, fresh water beginning to trail off into the desert. She stands up after that and goes to get the waterskins. "That's Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths," she tells you as she goes. There's so much water there that it'll be trivial to let the horses drink their fill, drink yourself, bathe if you desire, fill every drinking container you have, and still not use a tithe of it.
As you are trying to fix what she did in your mind, you hear a commanding clearing of the throat, and a sudden light blazes behind you. You rise and turn to face Soot Column Ascending. The ifrit stands in front of the large fire he has constructed. He holds out a hand for you. "Come," he says, in a much deeper voice than normal for him. "On the eve of this righteous battle, come and receive my blessing that you may be better prepared to fight the foes of order."
You step forward and face the blaze.
Choose your control spell, sorcerer.
[] Impervious Sphere of Water
Water streams from your palms, coiling up into a dome that encompasses you and any allies close. Those within it can breathe the water like air, and attacking into or out of the dome is almost impossible. Moving in or out, save at your will, is slow and ponderous, when possible at all. When you release the spell, the water falls to the ground and behaves as normal water. As your control spell, you can walk around with this spell up, with it moving with you.
[] Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths
You conjure a powerful, wide jet of water, which knocks down all but the most sure-footed who set foot in its waters, sweeping away people, animals, and things caught in its flow. The torrent continues for ten minutes before trickling off. As your control spell, Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths means that any body of liquid larger than about ten gallons that you touch is whipped as if by a storm. This can be suppressed by an effort of will, and extends several dozen yards in very large bodies such as major rivers and seas.
[] Ladder of Fog
You form a semi-solid mist that fills the area, clinging to every solid surface. The sorcerer and anyone whose name he speaks to allow it can use this clinging fog as hand- and foot-holds, allowing sure footing on ice, the ability to climb sheer walls, or brachiate along a ceiling. After an hour or so, the mist condenses, drenching the area. As your control spell, you seem to be shrouding in a thin but obscuring mist when viewed from a far enough distance.
In the battle tomorrow, there is one specific thing that will go well for you. What is it?
[] You end the battle with your stores of Essence brimming full, while keeping yourself completely hale.
[] Your skill impresses Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending, who will remember it positively.
[] The hunt goes swiftly; you reach Gem early enough to avoid missing any important developments by this diversion.
(votes will be considered separately)
The pride of lions
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths
[] Your skill impresses Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending, who will remember it.
You step into the fire. "Open your eyes. Observe. See." The ifrit lord's voice comes from all around. It's as if the crackle of the fire itself is speaking.
The flames twine around you, burning something without actually consuming your flesh. You try to keep your eyes open, as instructed.
"That's not it." Soot Column Ascending's voice seems strangely disappointed in you. "Why does not every Exalt learn sorcery? Why not every enlightened mortal, every demon, god, or powerful spirit? It isn't as simple as a new tool. It's a fundamental change, a way of looking at the world in a new fashion, to become something different than you were before."
An ifrit is born from the world, and comes into being fully adult and a mighty being of elemental flame, aware of and connected to the geomancy underlying the whole South. Even for someone like that, learning sorcery is a change to how they interact with the world.
You have had one fundamental change to how you view the world already, when the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers fused to your soul the black Exaltation she had in her possession. It was an immediate and radical change. You could feel Essence as it pulsed through your veins, your thoughts sizzled swifter and more clearly in your mind, and your body was newly quick, strong, and resilient.
This is the same: you are no longer to be bound as you were. Instead of shedding mortal frailties, however, you are to open to the world and connect it directly to your mind, so the one can affect the other... both directions. You'll be able to draw power from the world to shape spells, but equally the world will encroach on your self in a way it hasn't before, at least not outside of painful meditative sessions or those brief days of Calibration when the changing air of the world was close enough to the Essence of death for you to respire it.
Subliminally, the burning fire begins to take on a flow you can perceive. It's not quite vision, but it's the closest of the mundane senses. The bonfire Soot Column Ascending built is a locus of power, drawing from the countless subtle dragon lines of force that radiate from the Elemental Pole to cover Creation, making this part of the world inherently More. More heat, more light, more power. It is shaped again by the will of the ifrit.
And it can be shaped again by you. As a dam in the river shapes its course, your Essence can shape the Essence of the world.
"Good. Draw it forth." The elemental being can feel the change as you begin to pull and manipulate Essence externally from yourself for the first time. "Fire is easy. Fire is change itself, so it responds easily to shaping. Pull power from the flames, and bend it as you will. You already know the shape of the spell you want."
You do pull. You draw forth every mote of power, and the bonfire you were standing in is suddenly, instantly, snuffled out. You stand in the darkness under the night sky, with the smaller campfire the only non-celestial light. You suddenly realize why they were separate.
So that was shaping sorcery. But the spell...
The roaring noise you hadn't taken full notice of before fills your awareness. You look down. There's a jet of water bursting forth from just in front of your feet, creating a second stream to carve its own little bed in the desert.
It is a mighty flow, one fully as powerful as Nine Leagues Stride's demonstration spell.
The ifrit's body burns to life again, providing another nearby illumination source for you, including reflecting off the torrent of water flowing away from you. "Well done," he says.
You can still feel the flames licking at you, even now that they're completely snuffed. No wonder the Realm prefers to create sorcerers through more restrained and predictable (and less dangerous) methods like studying texts that awaken the mind.
The No Moon Lunar grins as you and the ifrit return to her campfire, her camel-shadow still standing out on the rocky ground behind her. "Not bad, Reddy, even if you did have someone else do all the work. Now, rest. Come the dawn, you'll pay us back for that."
The sun rises, but all three of your party are already awake. No one is going to sleep in on this day. Nine Leagues Strides seems to think that these Pacharenai are not unreasonably dangerous, but any fight is a serious one. Even a mortal can land a heavy blow if given a chance, and a hobgoblin, panjadrum, or silverwright is more than mortal to begin with.
You have a little jerky, some sweet dried fruit, and water to prepare for the fight, but go lightly on all of it.
Breakfast over, you roll out your shoulders, shake life into your arms and legs, and draw Blizzard's Scourge. Despite its size, bulk, and shape, the jade skycutter is light as a feather in your hands, because you've attuned to it.
Soot Column Ascending, the ifrit, rather unsurprisingly steps into the night's campfire and breathes deeply. A being of smokeless fire, whose body is spiritual and not base matter, needs little more than the flame.
Nine Leagues Strides uses a warm-up routine similar to yours, if one a little more grandiose in its motions. That accomplished, she touches the moonsilver snake decoration that's been wound around her upper right arm, lifting the snake's tail. It comes away at her touch, the winding coils loosening and then straightening. In a moment, it becomes clear that what had looked much like a piece of jewelry is, in fact, a moonsilver longfang, a javelin-like weapon. The snake's head is the weapon's point, and in this shape you rather suspect that the snake's venom is real. It certainly looks as if it's pooling for it to inject on a hit, at least.
"C'mon, then. The fae won't wait much more than this." Nine hops up on a rock to see better, then leads the way out.
The terrain in this area is mostly rock, formed from dense-packed sediment. Some sightlines extend unbroken for many miles, but there's chasms dug into the ground where it's cracked open after endless baking sunlight. Most of these look to be dozens of yards long, but narrow enough to be easily leaped over, and few are deep enough that you wouldn't be able to see out if you stood at the bottom. There's also scattered larger rocks and light, clumped vegetation.
Several miles away, there's a little wagon moving along. It's sized about right for two families traveling together. A mile to a mile and a half away from you, forming a narrow-based triangle with the wagon, a pride of lions stalks the wastes.
Even at this distance, there is no doubt that these are not ordinary lions. The mundane sort seek only to find enough meat to fill their bellies, and they don't seek to challenge prey dangerous enough to hunt them back, in turn. These are a foot larger at the shoulder, mass at least two hundred pounds heavier, and have their eyes fixed on the wagon to the exclusion of possible closer prey. So far, the wagon seems unaware of the danger.
"Not my people, not out here, but I don't mind showing the Fair Folk who's boss of the deep desert," Nine says, seemingly as much to herself as to you. She glances at you and Soot then, and continues in a more commanding tone. "I'll shoot as soon as we have them in range. They'll either split up or try to bring us to bay, depending on how they read the fight going. If they scatter, we split up and hunt down as many as we can. If they come to us, Reddy, you engage as soon as they're in your range. Soot, you're close-in fighting."
Then there's nothing but the chase. The lions and you draw closer, as your trio cuts the chord to intercept them. They seem to take a good while to notice you, and longer still to react.
Once you are close enough, Nine Leagues Strides begins collecting sorcerous power in her free hand, which glows with heat from the first moment. Once she has enough, she points towards the pride. "Flight of the Brilliant Raptor!"
Briefly, a conjured firebird adorned with diamond and ruby exists, streaking away at incredible speed and landing amidst the lions, exploding in flame. Lions are hurled around, broken, and those far enough to escape immediate obliteration are seeming stunned by the sudden bonfire.
"Huh, only hobs?" Nine comments idly as she begins readying a second strike. "Gotta be. Anything tougher wouldn't go down that easy. So that's not the real leaders, so then they're somewhere else, planning a counter-ambush..."
Other lions and leonine-aspected men appear as Nine makes her deduction. The closest are still nearly a full arrow's flight away. Some leap forth from the chasms, where they must have hid themselves during the night. Others simply stand up from where they had been laying very flat and covered in dirt. Your rough count puts it at forty or so effective combatants, spread out in a broad arc in front of you, though they're not perfectly distributed. They weren't that good at reading Nine Leagues Strides.
"More of them than I had expected," Soot Column Ascending says in the maddening calm of a spirit. "They were traveling lightly, to not upset my pattern. There are some mighty ones."
"Get your fiery butt going and stomp on them, then! Sorry, Reddy, I hope you were right to think you're a hotshot in a fight."
The three of you instinctively fall into a semi-circle of your own, as you moderate your breathing to emulate the power of the Immaculate Dragon of Air. The attackers close, and a second sorcerous bird takes down three of them that were foolish enough to clump too closely. You hold your breath for a long moment, looking for your opening as they come within range of your boomerang. You find it. With a powerful explosion of air, Blizzard's Scourge scythes through the air at a range greater than anyone else expected, neatly bisecting one of the weaker ones and gouging a second from behind on its arc back to you.
Two more throws, then the Fair Folk's swift charge brings the fastest of them to you. Soot Column Ascending steps forward, grabbing them and clamping on hard. There's no need for much skill for him: his touch burns.
Nine Leagues Strides shifts from sorcery to her snake-spear, wielding it with her left hand and using it to aggressively skewer targets.
The problem is that there are many of them, and the remaining ones have a higher proportion of those that aren't so frail as to go down to a single blow.
For a little bit, you do well to keep clear and use your skycutter to clear the area around you, as its attacks are not something the fae can easily ignore. Between the three of you, a dozen more of them fall in short order.
Things get more complicated. To avoid a lion's sweeping paw, you end up stepping into the only available space and find that now there are fae between you and the others. There's not an easy way to rejoin.
Three steps more and one more throw of Blizzard's Scourge later, and you're suddenly almost alone.
One of the more man-like of the Fair Folk faces you now. His eyes blaze with fire, but not real fire. It doesn't quite cast convincing shadows, nor does it flicker right. He wears armor of gossamer, and holds both a shield and mace of the same material. All of it, even the mace, has lion fur growing out of it. The mace's head is wrong, too, as its impacting flanges are replaced by lion fangs. He bows to you in a parody of honor. "I am the cataphract Thominas. I shall defeat you in single combat for the glory of, and to catch the eye of, our great Queen Elegance."
He doesn't give you a chance to introduce yourself in turn, as he immediately charges in. You catch the mace on the flat of Blizzard's Scourge, stepping in to stomp your heel onto his toes. He cries out at the impact, but swings his shield-arm in a haymaker, trying to bash you with the shield. You flare the Stone of Chilled Breath at your neck, and a pulse of cold air softens the force of the impact even as it throws you further back.
You hurl Blizzard's Scourge forward even as your heels dig in to give you traction. Thominas tries to block it, but fails to completely halt its momentum. It slashes across his left shoulder as it goes past. "Foolish of you to choose a weapon you lose when you use it," he tells you.
Cataphracts are the elite of Fair Folk warriors. They are effective and deadly in combat, but they are also fundamentally unreal in the same way as any of their kind, meaning that while they may possess supernal skill, they also lack understanding of certain things.
You demonstrate one of them as you step forward as quickly as a sharp breath, slipping your knuckles past his guard and burying your fist deep in his gut. He makes no noise at this impact, and the scrape of his dream-woven mail is painful on your hand, but he does double over somewhat. He tries to bring the toothed mace down at your neck, but your other hand grabs at his wrist, immobilizing it while still high. Just because your hands are empty doesn't mean you're helpless.
Especially not while your weapon is still in the air, behind him, and trying to return to you.
He realizes the danger, and twists to put his shield in the way. This time, Blizzard's Scourge bounces off cleanly, but it took his attention and his arm away from you. The same hand you'd used for a gut punch comes up, and the heel of your hand slams his jaw in an uppercut that rattles his head and probably knocks out some of his fake imitation of teeth.
He twists further in a blur of speed and power. He lets go of the mace, lets go of the shield, then his shield hand grabs the mace as it falls, and he swings it into your ribcage, tearing at your flesh despite its corpse-hardy strength. He has to stoop low, but his now-free mace hand catches the shield before it even hits the ground. He stands up straight as you stumble back, shield and mace having swapped hands.
You hold up your hand. Blizzard's Scourge alights in it. Thominas glares at you, considering. "You are mightier than I gave you credit for, human. But you are out of tricks, now."
One finger comes up in admonishment. "I didn't say I was out of tricks." You have no idea what you say after that. You simply let the Whispers speak, using your voice to utter a mindless glossolalia that tears at the ears and minds of whatever you are speaking to.
Thominas' eyes widen at the first few syllables, and then he's overcome. It's a more dramatic effect than you had with Strength of Many. The cataphract whimpers for a moment, clutching at his ears. "No... no, you're dead. You're dead." He scratches at his own ears with fingers that are suddenly claws, scoring his head deeply. He straightens up afterwards. You know perfectly well that he's not completely shutting out the Whispers. They don't need ears to make themselves heard. Still, he can function again.
Thominas paces forward, mace and shield at the ready. You give ground, circling closer to a stand of grasses, too thin and reedy to give any cover. You're a little hurt, but he has definitely taken the worse of it. "I'll shut that mouth of yours for good, spawn of the great enemy."
He charges. You throw Blizzard's Scourge behind your back, away from him. His mace swings. You leap, and with the Cloud-Treading Method you alight on a single blade of grass, which bends only half an inch under your weight before you bounce off. His toothed weapon abruptly shifts and swings through where you would have been should you have landed normally. You're behind him as you land. His attention goes two ways, both towards your skycutter and your body, with him between the two.
Your hands snake around his body in that moment of split attention, clamping down hard and nearly immobilizing him. Desperately, he parries the returning skycutter with his mace, trying to simultaneously silence your Whispering mouth with his own head, by simply obstructing it.
A foolish and final mistake, as he does not notice your canines extending and sharpening. You cease jabbering, but only to bite deep into his neck and drain his life.
It is delicious, the best meal you've ever tasted, a riotous explosion of vibrant flavors of infinite complexity and depth. There's precious little left, sadly, not enough to restore all of what you used in fighting him, but you suck him dry eagerly. You're so lost in the flavor you barely notice when you catch Blizzard's Scourge.
As the cataphract's body falls and begins to unravel into nothingness, you look for the other two. The fight's all but finished on their end, too. Even as you take stock, the ifrit's blazing hands force the last effective combatant into the Lunar's reach, and her snake-spear goes cleanly in through the back of its neck. The swiftest and most cowardly of the fae look like they have escaped, but the majority of them are wiped out.
Soot Column Ascending and Nine Leagues Strides are in about the same shape as you are: tired and a little hurt, but not seriously impaired. Fires burn merrily around them. It's not too surprising, of course. The sorceress is operating on the same ritual that the ifrit lord opened for you. She sets her enemies ablaze, then draws sorcerous power from that very same fire to conjure further fiery spells: it's an effective feedback loop that makes her potentially more deadly the more a fight drags on. You commit that strategy to memory, so you won't ever be caught off guard by it.
"Not bad, Reddy." Nine Leagues Strides says, joining you in just a few large steps. She holds up her fist to you. You're still primed for a fight; it takes you half a second to realize she wants a fist-bump, instead of her about to punch you. You comply. "That guy was the leader of this bunch, and you took him down yourself. I guess some of you people can still fight without your Empress." You're in a little too much pain to feel like you want to snark back.
You look over at the wagon, making every effort to disappear into the distance. They've clearly realized the danger now, but didn't follow the rest of the fight. They're hurrying on their way, and you can see people with bows in their hands atop it. Probably best to let them go.
Soot Column Ascending looks over the battlefield as you do that, stroking his fiery beard. "This was a more organized attempt to lure in large prey than I had anticipated. Spread rumors of their presence, but understate their strength. I do not think it was targeted at you and I in particular, Nine Leagues Strides. Concur?"
"Yeah, but you don't have to be so stupidly formal about it, flame-brain." The Oni turns and walks away, stretching her arms over her head and arching her back as she does. "They were looking to draw in some local heroes and winnow 'em out, and they weren't expecting us. Glad we came; I don't mind fae if they behave themselves, but the Pacharenai never do." She turns back to you. The penetrating look is back on her face. She doesn't say anything about it, but you can tell she's re-evaluating exactly what you are. Maybe she didn't care when she thought you were just some moderately powerful warrior who had left the Realm behind, but it's clearly not just the skycutter that lets you fight. She might even recognize Air Dragon Style, which doubtless would confuse the issue further. Then, she just grins. "You, though. Long as you deal straight with us, I ain't gonna be upset if you hang around my people. Handy to have competent people around."
Soot nods his agreement. "You have a quite orderly approach. It is good for my pattern. As long as you do not disrupt the efforts of the Court of Orderly Flame, you are welcome to my hospitality and that of my children." Children? Ifrits, as a type of elemental, are created by the world, not a species that breeds true. Well, he does seem to like human women, but this is the first you've heard of him actually having kids.
"Now, c'mon, let's get going again." Nine Leagues Strides slaps the moonsilver longfang to her arm, and it again coils up and looks like an innocent decoration. She transforms into a camel without actually stopping speaking as she goes. "There's nothing more to do here and we all want to head to Gem, apparently. Let's go. We'll break out the good booze this evening!"
The 'good booze' manifests in Nine's hands when she's ready for it. Apparently, she was storing it Elsewhere, instead of in any sort of mundane sack or other container. It's highly alcoholic, but smells more mellow than a lot of barbarian efforts that are simply a vehicle to getting drunk efficiently. She pours a little bowl for each of you three, then downs her own in one gulp before pouring a second to actually sip like it deserves.
You start with sipping, just to be safe, enjoying the flavor of honey in the drink, but you can't really relax. You keep your eyes on your companions even now. All these Lunars and untamed spirits is not good for your nerves, never mind your spiritual health. You don't really think you could unwind enough to really get too tipsy.
Soot Column Ascending takes his last. Rather than drink it, he simply touches it and sets the alcohol ablaze to enjoy the smoke. While startling, it makes some sense, so you let him enjoy it in his own way. Still, though, you have a question now. "You said you have children?" It's both curiosity and a genuine attempt at small talk.
"Yes." The ifrit lord takes a deep breath of his lit booze. "About eight right now."
"'About'?" You raise an eyebrow.
He shrugs. "Ages are difficult. Maybe some of them have died of old age and I haven't noticed yet. I am also not fully involved in all of their lives. I travel a great deal."
And this is a big part of why the Immaculate Order doesn't let gods and elementals do whatever they want. It makes things harder for everyone, and means that there can be powerful children out there who lack a family or matriarch to keep them stable. Even beyond any spiritual concern about future reincarnations, it is much better to keep things organized and let Dragon-Bloods do what they are supposed to do in terms of serving as an interface between humans and spirits.
"So, how is it I'm welcome to their hospitality if they barely know you?"
"Kinda rude, Reddy," interjects Nine, swirling her bowl and staring into it.
"It is alright. He deserves an honest answer for a legitimate question. My children know that, should they incur an expense in my service, I will repay them as needed, as soon as they inform me."
You don't know how anyone can handle this nomadic life, never mind how well-suited they all seem to it. A good, honest city with a functioning bureaucracy just seems inherently superior. Better to have a ledger than to have a complex web of favors owed and the vagaries of obligation complicated by everyone being on the move. It's just a mess. Even without all the Lunars.
The Anathema.
You approach Gem on foot and alone. It's not the ideal, but it's all you have. The evening before you got to Gem, there was a white flare that went up on the horizon. It was the same "presence requested, non-urgent" as when you first met Nine League Strides and Soot Column Ascending.
They left you behind for that, rather naturally. You don't know what their business is in Gem, but they don't feel the same urgency that you do. You're already feeling antsy that it's taken you so long to get here. Everyone, even the Whispers in your head, agree that fewer Fair Folk in Creation is a good thing, but hunting them down still means you're rather late to the party, all things considered. Starting from the same place in the Lap as you, someone who rushed could have been here five or six days before you, or even faster yet if they possessed some sorcery to hurry along. However, you still feel it was a reasonable course: a sorcerer is going to have more freedom, fewer obligations, and be more socially acceptable than a simple mercenary or hired tinker.
You're on foot this afternoon because when the Lunar and ifrit lord went after the flare, Nine asked if she could take the horses you had been loaned. It wasn't actually a question.
Now, though, you're at Gem. Gem is an old city, a dense city, and a place of commerce and heavy industry. In comparison to the elegant and geomantic cities and farms of the Blessed Isle, or the verdant fields and vineyards with wide streets that make up the Lap, it's hardly a welcoming place. Houses and places of business, maybe of them shoddy or run-down, jumble up against each other and crowd around any place that the surrounding peaks may offer some shade to. It stinks, even from out here: the stink of a city lived-in for hundreds of years, with hundreds of thousands of people crammed in too tightly into too tightly-packed a place, with too much heat and too little water for bathing. No amount of perfume can cover up the smell of sweat. It is pervasive and as permanent as the very bedrock, now.
It matches you. You don't cut a particularly heroic figure right now. You may be tall, know how to carry yourself, and have a jade skycutter at your waist, all of which is to your credit, but you're also still feeling the cataphract's blows a bit and your clothes are notably the worse for wear. To top it off, you're on foot and hardly look wealthy or well-off.
"Crazy desert hermit" might be within your reach, but that's not an aesthetic you want to embrace.
A group of armed guards in the Despot's livery lounge around, watching the comings and goings of people on the road. Like any large metropolis, there's satellite locations nearby. There's always people on the roads linking Gem to nearby mines, manors, and the rest, and gradually fewer people going further away, until you reach the long-distance travelers who go in organized, well-armed caravans with large numbers. Gem isn't Nexus with its "anything goes" attitude: when something does get to Gem, the Despot wants to be sure that he has at least some idea if it is major weapons shipments, undeclared gems, or any other sort of concerning or potentially destabilizing goods.
You earn a few judgmental looks, but no more than any other unfamiliar more-than-mortal warrior would earn, and there's certainly no shortage of beastmen, godbloods, enlightened martial artists, and countless similar types. They're hardly common, but there's a few. As you make your way in and through the city, you see a hawkman and a ratwoman, along with someone who's trying to look as if he is a user of Golden Janissary Style, although you can't exactly confirm at a glance.
You stop in at an establishment that offers some amenities for travelers, so for a few coins you can clean up, make your hair look presentable, and consider their stock of available clothing (it's in reasonable condition, lightly used if at all, and any actual bloodstains are discreet enough to be ignored).
[] (optional) Fashion write-in. Do you find some new type of look? Remember that Abyssals only feel comfortable in something that evokes funerals or the grave in some fashion.
Then, it's off to find the Despot's public desk. He has to have some public-facing office, just as a practical matter. It's in one of the market streets, a few levels below the Despot's palace, in a nook off the primary walking and wagon paths. By the fact that when you locate it the desk is staffed by a single woman writing something to herself, four armed guards looking bored, and no line whatsoever, you suspect that the Despot has taught people well that bothering him with inconsequential things (that is to say, things that don't bring him more power, money, or stability) doesn't end well.
As you approach, the woman suddenly shoves the paper she was writing on underneath a larger pile, but not before you can read a few words, upside-down. It seems to be the tale of two men who are currently in the throes of passion. She pushes her thin-rimmed glasses further up her nose and considers you. "You are?"
"A sorcerer. I can conjure water, and heard that the Despot is hiring."
"Mm..." With the frustration of someone who has to do her job when she didn't think she could have to today, the woman opens a drawer and pulls out a few shetts of mildly yellow paper, which she hands to you. "You did hear correctly. Here's the standard contract. If it suits, I can get someone to relieve me and we can go to the audition cistern to see how you do."
You scan the contract. It's not the worst you've seen: it specifies that the sorcerer will be paid per cast, and that the Despot has first claim on any such spells. If the Despot were to choose not to buy all the water-conjurings you are capable of in a day, you have the right to negotiate your own additional sales to any parties of good standing in Gem. There's plenty of clauses regarding conduct, arbitration, and the sundry details required.
You bring out a few of your more pointed and difficult questions, just to make the point that you know what you're doing. It doesn't take long for the front desk paper-pusher to get in over her head. You allow her to push off signing for after the audition, as long as you're paid standard rate for it, on the understanding that someone with more standing can negotiate if you show good results.
That will do for now. She summons her relief with the pull of a string that rings some distant bell, and soon you, her, and two of the guards are off to show what you can do.
"I'm Tehli, by the way," she says as she leads the way. "What's your name?"
Your mind goes briefly blank and you say the first thing that comes into your head.
[] "Vessel."
[] "Reddy."
[] Write-in.
This took a little longer than normal. It's also a little long. I'm sure those aren't related.
[] Your skill impresses Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending, who will remember it.
You step into the fire. "Open your eyes. Observe. See." The ifrit lord's voice comes from all around. It's as if the crackle of the fire itself is speaking.
The flames twine around you, burning something without actually consuming your flesh. You try to keep your eyes open, as instructed.
"That's not it." Soot Column Ascending's voice seems strangely disappointed in you. "Why does not every Exalt learn sorcery? Why not every enlightened mortal, every demon, god, or powerful spirit? It isn't as simple as a new tool. It's a fundamental change, a way of looking at the world in a new fashion, to become something different than you were before."
An ifrit is born from the world, and comes into being fully adult and a mighty being of elemental flame, aware of and connected to the geomancy underlying the whole South. Even for someone like that, learning sorcery is a change to how they interact with the world.
You have had one fundamental change to how you view the world already, when the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers fused to your soul the black Exaltation she had in her possession. It was an immediate and radical change. You could feel Essence as it pulsed through your veins, your thoughts sizzled swifter and more clearly in your mind, and your body was newly quick, strong, and resilient.
This is the same: you are no longer to be bound as you were. Instead of shedding mortal frailties, however, you are to open to the world and connect it directly to your mind, so the one can affect the other... both directions. You'll be able to draw power from the world to shape spells, but equally the world will encroach on your self in a way it hasn't before, at least not outside of painful meditative sessions or those brief days of Calibration when the changing air of the world was close enough to the Essence of death for you to respire it.
Subliminally, the burning fire begins to take on a flow you can perceive. It's not quite vision, but it's the closest of the mundane senses. The bonfire Soot Column Ascending built is a locus of power, drawing from the countless subtle dragon lines of force that radiate from the Elemental Pole to cover Creation, making this part of the world inherently More. More heat, more light, more power. It is shaped again by the will of the ifrit.
And it can be shaped again by you. As a dam in the river shapes its course, your Essence can shape the Essence of the world.
"Good. Draw it forth." The elemental being can feel the change as you begin to pull and manipulate Essence externally from yourself for the first time. "Fire is easy. Fire is change itself, so it responds easily to shaping. Pull power from the flames, and bend it as you will. You already know the shape of the spell you want."
You do pull. You draw forth every mote of power, and the bonfire you were standing in is suddenly, instantly, snuffled out. You stand in the darkness under the night sky, with the smaller campfire the only non-celestial light. You suddenly realize why they were separate.
So that was shaping sorcery. But the spell...
The roaring noise you hadn't taken full notice of before fills your awareness. You look down. There's a jet of water bursting forth from just in front of your feet, creating a second stream to carve its own little bed in the desert.
It is a mighty flow, one fully as powerful as Nine Leagues Stride's demonstration spell.
The ifrit's body burns to life again, providing another nearby illumination source for you, including reflecting off the torrent of water flowing away from you. "Well done," he says.
You can still feel the flames licking at you, even now that they're completely snuffed. No wonder the Realm prefers to create sorcerers through more restrained and predictable (and less dangerous) methods like studying texts that awaken the mind.
The No Moon Lunar grins as you and the ifrit return to her campfire, her camel-shadow still standing out on the rocky ground behind her. "Not bad, Reddy, even if you did have someone else do all the work. Now, rest. Come the dawn, you'll pay us back for that."
* * *
The sun rises, but all three of your party are already awake. No one is going to sleep in on this day. Nine Leagues Strides seems to think that these Pacharenai are not unreasonably dangerous, but any fight is a serious one. Even a mortal can land a heavy blow if given a chance, and a hobgoblin, panjadrum, or silverwright is more than mortal to begin with.
You have a little jerky, some sweet dried fruit, and water to prepare for the fight, but go lightly on all of it.
Breakfast over, you roll out your shoulders, shake life into your arms and legs, and draw Blizzard's Scourge. Despite its size, bulk, and shape, the jade skycutter is light as a feather in your hands, because you've attuned to it.
Soot Column Ascending, the ifrit, rather unsurprisingly steps into the night's campfire and breathes deeply. A being of smokeless fire, whose body is spiritual and not base matter, needs little more than the flame.
Nine Leagues Strides uses a warm-up routine similar to yours, if one a little more grandiose in its motions. That accomplished, she touches the moonsilver snake decoration that's been wound around her upper right arm, lifting the snake's tail. It comes away at her touch, the winding coils loosening and then straightening. In a moment, it becomes clear that what had looked much like a piece of jewelry is, in fact, a moonsilver longfang, a javelin-like weapon. The snake's head is the weapon's point, and in this shape you rather suspect that the snake's venom is real. It certainly looks as if it's pooling for it to inject on a hit, at least.
"C'mon, then. The fae won't wait much more than this." Nine hops up on a rock to see better, then leads the way out.
The terrain in this area is mostly rock, formed from dense-packed sediment. Some sightlines extend unbroken for many miles, but there's chasms dug into the ground where it's cracked open after endless baking sunlight. Most of these look to be dozens of yards long, but narrow enough to be easily leaped over, and few are deep enough that you wouldn't be able to see out if you stood at the bottom. There's also scattered larger rocks and light, clumped vegetation.
Several miles away, there's a little wagon moving along. It's sized about right for two families traveling together. A mile to a mile and a half away from you, forming a narrow-based triangle with the wagon, a pride of lions stalks the wastes.
Even at this distance, there is no doubt that these are not ordinary lions. The mundane sort seek only to find enough meat to fill their bellies, and they don't seek to challenge prey dangerous enough to hunt them back, in turn. These are a foot larger at the shoulder, mass at least two hundred pounds heavier, and have their eyes fixed on the wagon to the exclusion of possible closer prey. So far, the wagon seems unaware of the danger.
"Not my people, not out here, but I don't mind showing the Fair Folk who's boss of the deep desert," Nine says, seemingly as much to herself as to you. She glances at you and Soot then, and continues in a more commanding tone. "I'll shoot as soon as we have them in range. They'll either split up or try to bring us to bay, depending on how they read the fight going. If they scatter, we split up and hunt down as many as we can. If they come to us, Reddy, you engage as soon as they're in your range. Soot, you're close-in fighting."
Then there's nothing but the chase. The lions and you draw closer, as your trio cuts the chord to intercept them. They seem to take a good while to notice you, and longer still to react.
Once you are close enough, Nine Leagues Strides begins collecting sorcerous power in her free hand, which glows with heat from the first moment. Once she has enough, she points towards the pride. "Flight of the Brilliant Raptor!"
Briefly, a conjured firebird adorned with diamond and ruby exists, streaking away at incredible speed and landing amidst the lions, exploding in flame. Lions are hurled around, broken, and those far enough to escape immediate obliteration are seeming stunned by the sudden bonfire.
"Huh, only hobs?" Nine comments idly as she begins readying a second strike. "Gotta be. Anything tougher wouldn't go down that easy. So that's not the real leaders, so then they're somewhere else, planning a counter-ambush..."
Other lions and leonine-aspected men appear as Nine makes her deduction. The closest are still nearly a full arrow's flight away. Some leap forth from the chasms, where they must have hid themselves during the night. Others simply stand up from where they had been laying very flat and covered in dirt. Your rough count puts it at forty or so effective combatants, spread out in a broad arc in front of you, though they're not perfectly distributed. They weren't that good at reading Nine Leagues Strides.
"More of them than I had expected," Soot Column Ascending says in the maddening calm of a spirit. "They were traveling lightly, to not upset my pattern. There are some mighty ones."
"Get your fiery butt going and stomp on them, then! Sorry, Reddy, I hope you were right to think you're a hotshot in a fight."
The three of you instinctively fall into a semi-circle of your own, as you moderate your breathing to emulate the power of the Immaculate Dragon of Air. The attackers close, and a second sorcerous bird takes down three of them that were foolish enough to clump too closely. You hold your breath for a long moment, looking for your opening as they come within range of your boomerang. You find it. With a powerful explosion of air, Blizzard's Scourge scythes through the air at a range greater than anyone else expected, neatly bisecting one of the weaker ones and gouging a second from behind on its arc back to you.
Two more throws, then the Fair Folk's swift charge brings the fastest of them to you. Soot Column Ascending steps forward, grabbing them and clamping on hard. There's no need for much skill for him: his touch burns.
Nine Leagues Strides shifts from sorcery to her snake-spear, wielding it with her left hand and using it to aggressively skewer targets.
The problem is that there are many of them, and the remaining ones have a higher proportion of those that aren't so frail as to go down to a single blow.
For a little bit, you do well to keep clear and use your skycutter to clear the area around you, as its attacks are not something the fae can easily ignore. Between the three of you, a dozen more of them fall in short order.
Things get more complicated. To avoid a lion's sweeping paw, you end up stepping into the only available space and find that now there are fae between you and the others. There's not an easy way to rejoin.
Three steps more and one more throw of Blizzard's Scourge later, and you're suddenly almost alone.
One of the more man-like of the Fair Folk faces you now. His eyes blaze with fire, but not real fire. It doesn't quite cast convincing shadows, nor does it flicker right. He wears armor of gossamer, and holds both a shield and mace of the same material. All of it, even the mace, has lion fur growing out of it. The mace's head is wrong, too, as its impacting flanges are replaced by lion fangs. He bows to you in a parody of honor. "I am the cataphract Thominas. I shall defeat you in single combat for the glory of, and to catch the eye of, our great Queen Elegance."
He doesn't give you a chance to introduce yourself in turn, as he immediately charges in. You catch the mace on the flat of Blizzard's Scourge, stepping in to stomp your heel onto his toes. He cries out at the impact, but swings his shield-arm in a haymaker, trying to bash you with the shield. You flare the Stone of Chilled Breath at your neck, and a pulse of cold air softens the force of the impact even as it throws you further back.
You hurl Blizzard's Scourge forward even as your heels dig in to give you traction. Thominas tries to block it, but fails to completely halt its momentum. It slashes across his left shoulder as it goes past. "Foolish of you to choose a weapon you lose when you use it," he tells you.
Cataphracts are the elite of Fair Folk warriors. They are effective and deadly in combat, but they are also fundamentally unreal in the same way as any of their kind, meaning that while they may possess supernal skill, they also lack understanding of certain things.
You demonstrate one of them as you step forward as quickly as a sharp breath, slipping your knuckles past his guard and burying your fist deep in his gut. He makes no noise at this impact, and the scrape of his dream-woven mail is painful on your hand, but he does double over somewhat. He tries to bring the toothed mace down at your neck, but your other hand grabs at his wrist, immobilizing it while still high. Just because your hands are empty doesn't mean you're helpless.
Especially not while your weapon is still in the air, behind him, and trying to return to you.
He realizes the danger, and twists to put his shield in the way. This time, Blizzard's Scourge bounces off cleanly, but it took his attention and his arm away from you. The same hand you'd used for a gut punch comes up, and the heel of your hand slams his jaw in an uppercut that rattles his head and probably knocks out some of his fake imitation of teeth.
He twists further in a blur of speed and power. He lets go of the mace, lets go of the shield, then his shield hand grabs the mace as it falls, and he swings it into your ribcage, tearing at your flesh despite its corpse-hardy strength. He has to stoop low, but his now-free mace hand catches the shield before it even hits the ground. He stands up straight as you stumble back, shield and mace having swapped hands.
You hold up your hand. Blizzard's Scourge alights in it. Thominas glares at you, considering. "You are mightier than I gave you credit for, human. But you are out of tricks, now."
One finger comes up in admonishment. "I didn't say I was out of tricks." You have no idea what you say after that. You simply let the Whispers speak, using your voice to utter a mindless glossolalia that tears at the ears and minds of whatever you are speaking to.
Thominas' eyes widen at the first few syllables, and then he's overcome. It's a more dramatic effect than you had with Strength of Many. The cataphract whimpers for a moment, clutching at his ears. "No... no, you're dead. You're dead." He scratches at his own ears with fingers that are suddenly claws, scoring his head deeply. He straightens up afterwards. You know perfectly well that he's not completely shutting out the Whispers. They don't need ears to make themselves heard. Still, he can function again.
Thominas paces forward, mace and shield at the ready. You give ground, circling closer to a stand of grasses, too thin and reedy to give any cover. You're a little hurt, but he has definitely taken the worse of it. "I'll shut that mouth of yours for good, spawn of the great enemy."
He charges. You throw Blizzard's Scourge behind your back, away from him. His mace swings. You leap, and with the Cloud-Treading Method you alight on a single blade of grass, which bends only half an inch under your weight before you bounce off. His toothed weapon abruptly shifts and swings through where you would have been should you have landed normally. You're behind him as you land. His attention goes two ways, both towards your skycutter and your body, with him between the two.
Your hands snake around his body in that moment of split attention, clamping down hard and nearly immobilizing him. Desperately, he parries the returning skycutter with his mace, trying to simultaneously silence your Whispering mouth with his own head, by simply obstructing it.
A foolish and final mistake, as he does not notice your canines extending and sharpening. You cease jabbering, but only to bite deep into his neck and drain his life.
It is delicious, the best meal you've ever tasted, a riotous explosion of vibrant flavors of infinite complexity and depth. There's precious little left, sadly, not enough to restore all of what you used in fighting him, but you suck him dry eagerly. You're so lost in the flavor you barely notice when you catch Blizzard's Scourge.
As the cataphract's body falls and begins to unravel into nothingness, you look for the other two. The fight's all but finished on their end, too. Even as you take stock, the ifrit's blazing hands force the last effective combatant into the Lunar's reach, and her snake-spear goes cleanly in through the back of its neck. The swiftest and most cowardly of the fae look like they have escaped, but the majority of them are wiped out.
Soot Column Ascending and Nine Leagues Strides are in about the same shape as you are: tired and a little hurt, but not seriously impaired. Fires burn merrily around them. It's not too surprising, of course. The sorceress is operating on the same ritual that the ifrit lord opened for you. She sets her enemies ablaze, then draws sorcerous power from that very same fire to conjure further fiery spells: it's an effective feedback loop that makes her potentially more deadly the more a fight drags on. You commit that strategy to memory, so you won't ever be caught off guard by it.
"Not bad, Reddy." Nine Leagues Strides says, joining you in just a few large steps. She holds up her fist to you. You're still primed for a fight; it takes you half a second to realize she wants a fist-bump, instead of her about to punch you. You comply. "That guy was the leader of this bunch, and you took him down yourself. I guess some of you people can still fight without your Empress." You're in a little too much pain to feel like you want to snark back.
You look over at the wagon, making every effort to disappear into the distance. They've clearly realized the danger now, but didn't follow the rest of the fight. They're hurrying on their way, and you can see people with bows in their hands atop it. Probably best to let them go.
Soot Column Ascending looks over the battlefield as you do that, stroking his fiery beard. "This was a more organized attempt to lure in large prey than I had anticipated. Spread rumors of their presence, but understate their strength. I do not think it was targeted at you and I in particular, Nine Leagues Strides. Concur?"
"Yeah, but you don't have to be so stupidly formal about it, flame-brain." The Oni turns and walks away, stretching her arms over her head and arching her back as she does. "They were looking to draw in some local heroes and winnow 'em out, and they weren't expecting us. Glad we came; I don't mind fae if they behave themselves, but the Pacharenai never do." She turns back to you. The penetrating look is back on her face. She doesn't say anything about it, but you can tell she's re-evaluating exactly what you are. Maybe she didn't care when she thought you were just some moderately powerful warrior who had left the Realm behind, but it's clearly not just the skycutter that lets you fight. She might even recognize Air Dragon Style, which doubtless would confuse the issue further. Then, she just grins. "You, though. Long as you deal straight with us, I ain't gonna be upset if you hang around my people. Handy to have competent people around."
Soot nods his agreement. "You have a quite orderly approach. It is good for my pattern. As long as you do not disrupt the efforts of the Court of Orderly Flame, you are welcome to my hospitality and that of my children." Children? Ifrits, as a type of elemental, are created by the world, not a species that breeds true. Well, he does seem to like human women, but this is the first you've heard of him actually having kids.
"Now, c'mon, let's get going again." Nine Leagues Strides slaps the moonsilver longfang to her arm, and it again coils up and looks like an innocent decoration. She transforms into a camel without actually stopping speaking as she goes. "There's nothing more to do here and we all want to head to Gem, apparently. Let's go. We'll break out the good booze this evening!"
* * *
The 'good booze' manifests in Nine's hands when she's ready for it. Apparently, she was storing it Elsewhere, instead of in any sort of mundane sack or other container. It's highly alcoholic, but smells more mellow than a lot of barbarian efforts that are simply a vehicle to getting drunk efficiently. She pours a little bowl for each of you three, then downs her own in one gulp before pouring a second to actually sip like it deserves.
You start with sipping, just to be safe, enjoying the flavor of honey in the drink, but you can't really relax. You keep your eyes on your companions even now. All these Lunars and untamed spirits is not good for your nerves, never mind your spiritual health. You don't really think you could unwind enough to really get too tipsy.
Soot Column Ascending takes his last. Rather than drink it, he simply touches it and sets the alcohol ablaze to enjoy the smoke. While startling, it makes some sense, so you let him enjoy it in his own way. Still, though, you have a question now. "You said you have children?" It's both curiosity and a genuine attempt at small talk.
"Yes." The ifrit lord takes a deep breath of his lit booze. "About eight right now."
"'About'?" You raise an eyebrow.
He shrugs. "Ages are difficult. Maybe some of them have died of old age and I haven't noticed yet. I am also not fully involved in all of their lives. I travel a great deal."
And this is a big part of why the Immaculate Order doesn't let gods and elementals do whatever they want. It makes things harder for everyone, and means that there can be powerful children out there who lack a family or matriarch to keep them stable. Even beyond any spiritual concern about future reincarnations, it is much better to keep things organized and let Dragon-Bloods do what they are supposed to do in terms of serving as an interface between humans and spirits.
"So, how is it I'm welcome to their hospitality if they barely know you?"
"Kinda rude, Reddy," interjects Nine, swirling her bowl and staring into it.
"It is alright. He deserves an honest answer for a legitimate question. My children know that, should they incur an expense in my service, I will repay them as needed, as soon as they inform me."
You don't know how anyone can handle this nomadic life, never mind how well-suited they all seem to it. A good, honest city with a functioning bureaucracy just seems inherently superior. Better to have a ledger than to have a complex web of favors owed and the vagaries of obligation complicated by everyone being on the move. It's just a mess. Even without all the Lunars.
The Anathema.
* * *
You approach Gem on foot and alone. It's not the ideal, but it's all you have. The evening before you got to Gem, there was a white flare that went up on the horizon. It was the same "presence requested, non-urgent" as when you first met Nine League Strides and Soot Column Ascending.
They left you behind for that, rather naturally. You don't know what their business is in Gem, but they don't feel the same urgency that you do. You're already feeling antsy that it's taken you so long to get here. Everyone, even the Whispers in your head, agree that fewer Fair Folk in Creation is a good thing, but hunting them down still means you're rather late to the party, all things considered. Starting from the same place in the Lap as you, someone who rushed could have been here five or six days before you, or even faster yet if they possessed some sorcery to hurry along. However, you still feel it was a reasonable course: a sorcerer is going to have more freedom, fewer obligations, and be more socially acceptable than a simple mercenary or hired tinker.
You're on foot this afternoon because when the Lunar and ifrit lord went after the flare, Nine asked if she could take the horses you had been loaned. It wasn't actually a question.
Now, though, you're at Gem. Gem is an old city, a dense city, and a place of commerce and heavy industry. In comparison to the elegant and geomantic cities and farms of the Blessed Isle, or the verdant fields and vineyards with wide streets that make up the Lap, it's hardly a welcoming place. Houses and places of business, maybe of them shoddy or run-down, jumble up against each other and crowd around any place that the surrounding peaks may offer some shade to. It stinks, even from out here: the stink of a city lived-in for hundreds of years, with hundreds of thousands of people crammed in too tightly into too tightly-packed a place, with too much heat and too little water for bathing. No amount of perfume can cover up the smell of sweat. It is pervasive and as permanent as the very bedrock, now.
It matches you. You don't cut a particularly heroic figure right now. You may be tall, know how to carry yourself, and have a jade skycutter at your waist, all of which is to your credit, but you're also still feeling the cataphract's blows a bit and your clothes are notably the worse for wear. To top it off, you're on foot and hardly look wealthy or well-off.
"Crazy desert hermit" might be within your reach, but that's not an aesthetic you want to embrace.
A group of armed guards in the Despot's livery lounge around, watching the comings and goings of people on the road. Like any large metropolis, there's satellite locations nearby. There's always people on the roads linking Gem to nearby mines, manors, and the rest, and gradually fewer people going further away, until you reach the long-distance travelers who go in organized, well-armed caravans with large numbers. Gem isn't Nexus with its "anything goes" attitude: when something does get to Gem, the Despot wants to be sure that he has at least some idea if it is major weapons shipments, undeclared gems, or any other sort of concerning or potentially destabilizing goods.
You earn a few judgmental looks, but no more than any other unfamiliar more-than-mortal warrior would earn, and there's certainly no shortage of beastmen, godbloods, enlightened martial artists, and countless similar types. They're hardly common, but there's a few. As you make your way in and through the city, you see a hawkman and a ratwoman, along with someone who's trying to look as if he is a user of Golden Janissary Style, although you can't exactly confirm at a glance.
You stop in at an establishment that offers some amenities for travelers, so for a few coins you can clean up, make your hair look presentable, and consider their stock of available clothing (it's in reasonable condition, lightly used if at all, and any actual bloodstains are discreet enough to be ignored).
[] (optional) Fashion write-in. Do you find some new type of look? Remember that Abyssals only feel comfortable in something that evokes funerals or the grave in some fashion.
Then, it's off to find the Despot's public desk. He has to have some public-facing office, just as a practical matter. It's in one of the market streets, a few levels below the Despot's palace, in a nook off the primary walking and wagon paths. By the fact that when you locate it the desk is staffed by a single woman writing something to herself, four armed guards looking bored, and no line whatsoever, you suspect that the Despot has taught people well that bothering him with inconsequential things (that is to say, things that don't bring him more power, money, or stability) doesn't end well.
As you approach, the woman suddenly shoves the paper she was writing on underneath a larger pile, but not before you can read a few words, upside-down. It seems to be the tale of two men who are currently in the throes of passion. She pushes her thin-rimmed glasses further up her nose and considers you. "You are?"
"A sorcerer. I can conjure water, and heard that the Despot is hiring."
"Mm..." With the frustration of someone who has to do her job when she didn't think she could have to today, the woman opens a drawer and pulls out a few shetts of mildly yellow paper, which she hands to you. "You did hear correctly. Here's the standard contract. If it suits, I can get someone to relieve me and we can go to the audition cistern to see how you do."
You scan the contract. It's not the worst you've seen: it specifies that the sorcerer will be paid per cast, and that the Despot has first claim on any such spells. If the Despot were to choose not to buy all the water-conjurings you are capable of in a day, you have the right to negotiate your own additional sales to any parties of good standing in Gem. There's plenty of clauses regarding conduct, arbitration, and the sundry details required.
You bring out a few of your more pointed and difficult questions, just to make the point that you know what you're doing. It doesn't take long for the front desk paper-pusher to get in over her head. You allow her to push off signing for after the audition, as long as you're paid standard rate for it, on the understanding that someone with more standing can negotiate if you show good results.
That will do for now. She summons her relief with the pull of a string that rings some distant bell, and soon you, her, and two of the guards are off to show what you can do.
"I'm Tehli, by the way," she says as she leads the way. "What's your name?"
Your mind goes briefly blank and you say the first thing that comes into your head.
[] "Vessel."
[] "Reddy."
[] Write-in.
* * *
This took a little longer than normal. It's also a little long. I'm sure those aren't related.
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Interlude: Events at the Lap
- Pronouns
- They/Them
"I've never not been king before. It's... relaxing." The old man seems to be telling the truth, as far as Solace can tell. He's wearing a mish-mash of fine clothing, but rumpled and in mis-matched colors, and looks around his little house in something like wonder, at its bare walls and plain fixtures, with little to occupy someone save a stack of half a dozen or so books. "No Triumvirs telling me what to do, no pointless ceremonies where I have to show dignity... nothing."
Solace Through the Night shrugs and grins at him. "I guess it's all about finding the right place for us. Me, I'm happy to go out and find new things to do."
The former king spreads his hands, taking in the world around him. "I lived my life under the fear that when my Exalted overlords found me less than useful, I'd be killed, and maybe my heirs, too. A retirement where my grandsons are still around? It's more than I could have hoped for, and I owe you for that." He heaves himself out of his chair and toddles over to Solace, clasping one of her marble-like hands in his old, withered ones. "I know I can't offer you anything you don't already have, but you have my gratitude. Thank you."
Solace's smile turns a little sheepish. "It wasn't much. Just a quick request to the Queen. I didn't exactly have to do anything." The Lap has changed dramatically in the last month. Cut off from the Realm as the Realm's civil war on the Blessed Isle went hot, with one of its three co-equal Triumvirs declared Anathema and then him disappearing, the Lap is suddenly changing after centuries of near-stasis.
The simple fact is that with the Inland Sea cut off by privateers and corsairs, there's only overland routes and the South's own resources to feed the whole direction. Paragon to the east is barely able to feed itself, and further east is just an incredibly long journey. To the west, rich lands on the shores of the Great Western Ocean such as An-Teng may have a surplus to sell, but only after wending through some of Creation's most inhospitable mountain terrain. However, there are many other places in the South, both cities and nomads, which don't make quite enough to feed themselves. It's the Lap or nothing, as far as food goes. They will buy it, if for no other reason than that the Lap is almost impossible to conquer by any conventional force: five vertical miles of stone statue is a difficult wall to overcome.
Cathak Anira has declared herself queen and begun shifting the Lap's focus. With its wealth not going to the Blessed Isle and its food sales going to the Lap itself instead of serving as a tool of Immaculate outreach and Realm foreign policy, the Lap is suddenly a regional power growing to be more of one, especially since food and silver allow them to attract and hire both conventional mercenary forces and the occasional great champion, even including a few Dragon-Bloods who swear that they are not deserters from House armies.
Solace is nebulously Lap leadership herself, now. The political climate is shifting under the Queen's directions and her minister of war is pulling together an actual army which could be unleashed on any nearby target needed. Solace, Immaculate-approved Exigent and heir to the Lap's reasonably popular local god, suddenly finds herself with sway and duties she can't shirk. The old former king has never been quite so clear and straightforward with his praise for Solace, but spending time with the old former king has been one of her release valves as she gradually learns not to tear her perpetually-flaming hair out when dealing with the paperwork and administrative headaches that turn out to be an order of magnitude greater than what she had to deal with as a mercenary commander. Triumvir Peleps always made it look so effortless, somehow.
"I should probably get back to work, though," she tells the old man, giving him a small smile. "Danaro and some of the bolder sepoys will yell at me if I don't take care of things."
"Of course." The king makes his way back to his simple chair. "I'll... just read." There's wonder in his voice. He can decide to do that, and it's fine.
There's construction and bustle in much of the Lap that hadn't been there before. As Solace returns to her office, she is greeted by and waved to by any number of workers, military trainees, and more, and as much as possible she greets them back. She doesn't know everyone's name, of course. There's too many thousands coming in for that, even for an Exalt. But she does make the effort, and there are dozens she does know. This, as much as the downtime with the old king, rejuvenates her. She's ready to face the administrative tasks again.
As soon as she closes the door to her office, cutting off any chance for anyone else to see, a gun barrel appears out of a dark corner of the room.
Solace reacts instantly, ducking to break its line of sight to her and rushing in close to deny them the chance to aim at her again. Her own flame piece comes out of its holster. She doesn't know the why, but she does know how to fight and can shift gears to it instantly.
The attacker is fast, as fast as Solace herself. The other steps forward and grabs at Solace's wrist to immobilize her weapon hand. Solace lets her, focusing on controlling the other's pistol first, driving two stiffened fingers into her wrist. The gun falls--it's an amazing work of art, an ornate flame piece that looks to be made of white jade.
As it falls, Solace shifts her hand to grab it, but even as her fingers touch it, the attacker's wrist twists to wrest Solace's own flame piece away. The white jade gun's barrel falls into her fingers, and she swings it like a hammer, aiming to clobber the other's temple with its butt.
Her attack is almost casually brushed aside by the other's hands... and, finally, Solace has a moment to take stock of the other's features. "Sifu!" For a moment, they stand there, each holding the other's weapon and not quite able to take advantage of it.
The attacker grins. "You've improved, Solace." The fight over, she hands Solace back her weapon, and a somewhat stunned Solace returns the beautiful white jade piece. "Not just your Exaltation--and congratulations on that--but your skill. You are vastly better than you were when I left you last." Both of them put their weapons away as they speak.
"Still not enough to beat you, sifu." Sifu is the usual expression of respect for one's martial arts master... and just now, Solace somehow can't recall her name. It will come to her shortly, she's sure. "But thank you. Can I offer you some refreshment?"
Solace gestures at a little tray she's been given. It's more focused on giving Solace her own lunch than entertaining, but it's not like she can't ask for something more if she's hungry later.
"If you've got some fruit juice to spare, I wouldn't mind that. Otherwise, water is fine." Solace provides her sifu with a cup of water, as the drink on her tray is a black coffee instead of something sweet.
"I didn't think I'd see you again," Solace says, re-heating her coffee through the simple expedient of holding it to her forehead and thinking of her flames. "When you said you had to go, it sounded like that was going to be our last meeting."
"I expected it to be the last, too. I have duties I have to attend to, and much as I enjoyed teaching you and expected you to do something with your life, that was... still a vacation for me. I didn't keep tabs on you until I happened to find out you were here."
Solace accepts that easily enough. She didn't know and still doesn't know too much about her teacher, but the woman does seem to have a certain love for the world and is something more than human, even if Solace has no idea if she's a wandering goddess, some weird Exalt, or something stranger yet. "It was a turning point for me, though. What brings you to my office today, then? Another vacation?"
"Business, sad to say. Did you hear about what happened here in the Lap at Calibration?"
"I was here for it, although I missed the weird fight out in the fields."
Her sifu nods, sipping water. "That's understandable. Where were you?"
Of course Solace trusts her sifu enough to answer that. This is the woman who found a lost little elemental-blood out in the desert, trained her to make use of her heritage, and gave Solace her first pair of flame pieces. With all of that, she had the foundation to let her carve out her successes against the restless dead and establish a reputation. "I had just been Exalted by the god of the Lap. I was at the top of the Penitent, with Triumvir Peleps. He had been driven up there by a Deathlord."
"A Deathlord? You're sure?" The martial arts teacher frowns at her cup, like she's trying to complete a puzzle and some stubborn piece just isn't fitting in like it should.
Solace shrugs, a little diffidently. "He was sure, at least. Sifu... he was Chosen by the Deathlord. He couldn't take it. He fled the Lap, seeking to take his own vengeance on her."
"Really?" Her sifu considers this, her elegant features still betraying surprise with a slight, instant widening of her eyes. Oddly, though, to Solace's judgment, her sifu seems not at all surprised that he had been claimed by a Deathlord, but rather that he had turned on her. "Do you know where he went for that?"
A mental light goes on in Solace's head. Right, that's her sifu's name: Ephrei.
Solace Through the Night shrugs and grins at him. "I guess it's all about finding the right place for us. Me, I'm happy to go out and find new things to do."
The former king spreads his hands, taking in the world around him. "I lived my life under the fear that when my Exalted overlords found me less than useful, I'd be killed, and maybe my heirs, too. A retirement where my grandsons are still around? It's more than I could have hoped for, and I owe you for that." He heaves himself out of his chair and toddles over to Solace, clasping one of her marble-like hands in his old, withered ones. "I know I can't offer you anything you don't already have, but you have my gratitude. Thank you."
Solace's smile turns a little sheepish. "It wasn't much. Just a quick request to the Queen. I didn't exactly have to do anything." The Lap has changed dramatically in the last month. Cut off from the Realm as the Realm's civil war on the Blessed Isle went hot, with one of its three co-equal Triumvirs declared Anathema and then him disappearing, the Lap is suddenly changing after centuries of near-stasis.
The simple fact is that with the Inland Sea cut off by privateers and corsairs, there's only overland routes and the South's own resources to feed the whole direction. Paragon to the east is barely able to feed itself, and further east is just an incredibly long journey. To the west, rich lands on the shores of the Great Western Ocean such as An-Teng may have a surplus to sell, but only after wending through some of Creation's most inhospitable mountain terrain. However, there are many other places in the South, both cities and nomads, which don't make quite enough to feed themselves. It's the Lap or nothing, as far as food goes. They will buy it, if for no other reason than that the Lap is almost impossible to conquer by any conventional force: five vertical miles of stone statue is a difficult wall to overcome.
Cathak Anira has declared herself queen and begun shifting the Lap's focus. With its wealth not going to the Blessed Isle and its food sales going to the Lap itself instead of serving as a tool of Immaculate outreach and Realm foreign policy, the Lap is suddenly a regional power growing to be more of one, especially since food and silver allow them to attract and hire both conventional mercenary forces and the occasional great champion, even including a few Dragon-Bloods who swear that they are not deserters from House armies.
Solace is nebulously Lap leadership herself, now. The political climate is shifting under the Queen's directions and her minister of war is pulling together an actual army which could be unleashed on any nearby target needed. Solace, Immaculate-approved Exigent and heir to the Lap's reasonably popular local god, suddenly finds herself with sway and duties she can't shirk. The old former king has never been quite so clear and straightforward with his praise for Solace, but spending time with the old former king has been one of her release valves as she gradually learns not to tear her perpetually-flaming hair out when dealing with the paperwork and administrative headaches that turn out to be an order of magnitude greater than what she had to deal with as a mercenary commander. Triumvir Peleps always made it look so effortless, somehow.
"I should probably get back to work, though," she tells the old man, giving him a small smile. "Danaro and some of the bolder sepoys will yell at me if I don't take care of things."
"Of course." The king makes his way back to his simple chair. "I'll... just read." There's wonder in his voice. He can decide to do that, and it's fine.
There's construction and bustle in much of the Lap that hadn't been there before. As Solace returns to her office, she is greeted by and waved to by any number of workers, military trainees, and more, and as much as possible she greets them back. She doesn't know everyone's name, of course. There's too many thousands coming in for that, even for an Exalt. But she does make the effort, and there are dozens she does know. This, as much as the downtime with the old king, rejuvenates her. She's ready to face the administrative tasks again.
As soon as she closes the door to her office, cutting off any chance for anyone else to see, a gun barrel appears out of a dark corner of the room.
Solace reacts instantly, ducking to break its line of sight to her and rushing in close to deny them the chance to aim at her again. Her own flame piece comes out of its holster. She doesn't know the why, but she does know how to fight and can shift gears to it instantly.
The attacker is fast, as fast as Solace herself. The other steps forward and grabs at Solace's wrist to immobilize her weapon hand. Solace lets her, focusing on controlling the other's pistol first, driving two stiffened fingers into her wrist. The gun falls--it's an amazing work of art, an ornate flame piece that looks to be made of white jade.
As it falls, Solace shifts her hand to grab it, but even as her fingers touch it, the attacker's wrist twists to wrest Solace's own flame piece away. The white jade gun's barrel falls into her fingers, and she swings it like a hammer, aiming to clobber the other's temple with its butt.
Her attack is almost casually brushed aside by the other's hands... and, finally, Solace has a moment to take stock of the other's features. "Sifu!" For a moment, they stand there, each holding the other's weapon and not quite able to take advantage of it.
The attacker grins. "You've improved, Solace." The fight over, she hands Solace back her weapon, and a somewhat stunned Solace returns the beautiful white jade piece. "Not just your Exaltation--and congratulations on that--but your skill. You are vastly better than you were when I left you last." Both of them put their weapons away as they speak.
"Still not enough to beat you, sifu." Sifu is the usual expression of respect for one's martial arts master... and just now, Solace somehow can't recall her name. It will come to her shortly, she's sure. "But thank you. Can I offer you some refreshment?"
Solace gestures at a little tray she's been given. It's more focused on giving Solace her own lunch than entertaining, but it's not like she can't ask for something more if she's hungry later.
"If you've got some fruit juice to spare, I wouldn't mind that. Otherwise, water is fine." Solace provides her sifu with a cup of water, as the drink on her tray is a black coffee instead of something sweet.
"I didn't think I'd see you again," Solace says, re-heating her coffee through the simple expedient of holding it to her forehead and thinking of her flames. "When you said you had to go, it sounded like that was going to be our last meeting."
"I expected it to be the last, too. I have duties I have to attend to, and much as I enjoyed teaching you and expected you to do something with your life, that was... still a vacation for me. I didn't keep tabs on you until I happened to find out you were here."
Solace accepts that easily enough. She didn't know and still doesn't know too much about her teacher, but the woman does seem to have a certain love for the world and is something more than human, even if Solace has no idea if she's a wandering goddess, some weird Exalt, or something stranger yet. "It was a turning point for me, though. What brings you to my office today, then? Another vacation?"
"Business, sad to say. Did you hear about what happened here in the Lap at Calibration?"
"I was here for it, although I missed the weird fight out in the fields."
Her sifu nods, sipping water. "That's understandable. Where were you?"
Of course Solace trusts her sifu enough to answer that. This is the woman who found a lost little elemental-blood out in the desert, trained her to make use of her heritage, and gave Solace her first pair of flame pieces. With all of that, she had the foundation to let her carve out her successes against the restless dead and establish a reputation. "I had just been Exalted by the god of the Lap. I was at the top of the Penitent, with Triumvir Peleps. He had been driven up there by a Deathlord."
"A Deathlord? You're sure?" The martial arts teacher frowns at her cup, like she's trying to complete a puzzle and some stubborn piece just isn't fitting in like it should.
Solace shrugs, a little diffidently. "He was sure, at least. Sifu... he was Chosen by the Deathlord. He couldn't take it. He fled the Lap, seeking to take his own vengeance on her."
"Really?" Her sifu considers this, her elegant features still betraying surprise with a slight, instant widening of her eyes. Oddly, though, to Solace's judgment, her sifu seems not at all surprised that he had been claimed by a Deathlord, but rather that he had turned on her. "Do you know where he went for that?"
A mental light goes on in Solace's head. Right, that's her sifu's name: Ephrei.
In the Despot's service
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] "Amphora."
"You can call me Amphora," you say to Tehli. She marks it down on her sheet. She doesn't care much if it's a fake name, and neither is anyone else likely to make much of a fuss. As long as your business doesn't harm Gem, you can call yourself the Kukla and aren't likely to get much worse than snickers. You might be an exception, but generally Gem doesn't care.
The audition cistern is a large depression in the ground in reasonably armored building. Tehli warns you about the hole as the two of you go in, giving you a moment to pause in the dark as she lights a series of large candles with bronze reflectors to let you both see. As the lights come up, you look around, and see a complicated vent in the ceiling to let the minimal smoke not build up, but not expose the water inside to thieves.
The cistern itself is just a hole in the rock with the sides marked to let a viewer measure the quantity at a glance. It's drained dry right now. "In your own time, Amphora."
A little theatre wouldn't go amiss. You start your weaving of Essence as you come to the edge of the cistern. Here, you do little more than gesture, pulling energy from the lit candle flames to help. For this specific spell, you aren't even consuming the fire, though you suspect you'd have to snuff the flames if you were powering any other spells.
From your feet, a torrent springs to life, a flow that could sweep aside a squad of horses. Here, it simply fills. Tehli can't completely stop her eyebrow from creeping up to match the rising water level. It's a surprise, no doubt. Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths generates a lot of water compared to a more classic spell like Water From Stone.
After ten minutes, the flow slows to a mere trickle. "Well," Tehli says, "As we discussed, I'm going to get a senior representative to deal with your specific case and questions, but... I hope it's not getting ahead of myself to welcome you to the Despot's service, Mister Amphora."
It's hardly going to be a black mark for her to bring in a useful new sorcerer, even if you're a little bit of a pain to negotiate with and are dressed in somewhat odd loose white clothes that could be fit for the deceased at a funeral.
The next couple hours are a bit of a mess, as you lounge here at the cistern and a couple different levels of functionaries come to see you, refreshments are sent for, terms are argued, and you eventually sign a slightly better contract than the standard one.
The real reason you made a minor pain of yourself isn't just that you deserve a better contract than some mortal who's learned a spell or two. It's a way to meet with various people and sound out what's common knowledge to the bureaucracy here. That, in turn, you can use to discover what's really going on here. Some things you confirm are just about as expected, such as relations with the Lap, already a little on edge since the loss of a slave caravan last year and the mutual finger-pointing that came after (none of which was your fault), taking on a new edge with the shake-up in the Lap's internal governance and the new ambitions that it seems to be flirting with. However, there's more afoot, it seems.
The results of your probe are somewhat disturbing. It's not just that the Shrike showed up. Other unusual things have happened, too. There's been an uptick in reports from the mines, complaining of eyes in the darkness and things lurking around corners to stalk the miners. It seems unlikely to be made up. In response to the complaints, soldiers were dispatched, and they, too, reported the same sense of being watched and observed by something unseen. There still hasn't been any credible eyewitness accounts of what's causing this feeling. It simply is that many people agree that there's something watching them.
The Shrike is rarely far these days, it seems. People keep reporting it flying past, criss-crossing the air above Gem. Its search may or may not be exactly centered on Gem, and it hasn't attacked anything since its first strike... but it's still around. You personally haven't seen it yet, but now that you've heard this you'll keep your eye out more.
The Despot hired some mysterious woman with an Easterner look to her to help deal with the Shrike situation. Apparently, she really wowed him with her command of First Age lore, as she has been given a rather wide remit to command resources if need be to contain the Shrike. She hasn't yet made much of it. Word is that she always wears a band that covers her forehead, for some reason. For the moment, no one you speak to seems anxious to rumor-monger about what that's covering.
A couple weeks before the haunting or whatever it is in Gem's mines began, the Despot's most elite excavation team also dug out something notable from an exploratory shaft under a mostly-extinct volcano. It takes a little effort for you to pick up what that is, because while it's not fully a secret, it is the sort of thing that only gets passed along to those who should be in the know already.
They found a yasal crystal of surpassing size and perfection. Yasal crystals are a strange sort of gem: they can contain and restrain dematerialized spirits. In theory, this is only supposed to be the weaker sort of spirit, ghost, or common demon, but no one has ever seen a crystal like this before. Apparently, there's a certain shadow auction going on for the Despot to make a profit off this, but he's not too eager to sell quickly: for a prize like this, he'd rather make the most of it than accept the first offer received, as well as perhaps also negotiate some valuable considerations beyond the mere exchange of money, so a number of parties are being discreetly contacted. To make the prize even more enticing, the yasal crystal may currently hold some being.
You feel the Whispers stirring in your mind as you put together the Shrike, the presence in the mines, and the yasal crystal. Of course _____ would attract/cause/instigate _____. The voices subside a bit after presenting that singularly unhelpful thought. You're coming to realize that while you're interpreting the Whispers as sentences and almost conversations, they really aren't that. They're instant flashes of thought, but of an order that's such that you can't decode it without putting it to words for your own use, which happens on a rather subconscious level most of the time. That, in turn, leads to some puzzling pieces as you lack the vocabulary to interpret their more esoteric terms. You try mentally holding up the threee thoughts to the strange holes in the Whispers, but none of the six possible combinations are more clearly right than the others, and the Whispers do not wake again to give clarity. Still, it does suggest that there's two related things, one coincidence.
It's a lot of things to grasp a hold of at once, but that's something you can deal with. At a basic level, things are going on here to attract the Waif, who certainly has put whatever agents she can into play here. She can hardly have done otherwise. That means you have the initiative. The Waif hasn't contacted you since Calibration, and you don't think even her necromantic communication to you reveals your location, so you know she's here, and she can't be equally sure where you are or what you're doing.
You'll take the chances you can, nip at her heels, ruin her plans, and seize the moment where you will be able to make her regret stealing your birthright as a Dragon-Blood.
Eventually, the paperwork is done and you've done all the grilling you think you can get out of the functionaries, at least without going past the level of reasonably annoying and getting into the point where people are actually going to be frustrated to deal with you. The latter is counterproductive. Part of how you know you got it reasonably close to right is that Tehli offered to meet with you socially outside work, with what was quite clearly a flirtatious overtone, the way she blushed a bit while offering and couldn't look directly at you. She had to go back to work just then, though.
With all that handled, you have the rest of the day to yourself and some coinage in your pocket from conjuring water for the Despot. You take a little time to pace the streets of Gem, including finding that its subterranean streets are at least as busy as the above-ground ones, just lined with glowstones and mirrors to keep the now-useless-for-mining emptied-out tunnels lit for everyone to operate there. The omnipresent sweat smell is even more focused there, as it isn't even open to the air, but it's also cooler. Many buildings open on both the street and a tunnel, with stairways and ramps and the odd ladder allowing one to go from one to the other. You take a little time to pace the streets of Gem, both levels, getting a feel for the place. It's the same way you adapted to the Lap when you were first stationed there, part of how House Peleps teaches its scions to get situated in a new location.
From street level and within its boundaries like this, Gem is best thought of as a series of little forts, it seems. The rich and powerful live behind thick walls and post armed guards. You happen to be going past one of those houses right as they're inflicting a punishment. Despite it happening on the surface street, a crowd gathers to watch the entertainment as two armed guards drag up a bedraggled-looking man in a slave collar. "This slave," a richly-dressed woman announces to the assembled people, "is guilty of seeking to sell House Arbani secrets, and will be executed by public strangulation." One last of the House workers, this one a slightly supernaturally muscular woman, comes up to perform the deed. You don't feel any particular need to watch the details, so you give up your place in the crowd, which is more than happy to let you past and get closer to the action.
House Arbani you know. There's a saying sometimes spread in the South (although smart people try not to say it in front of the Dragon-Blooded): "The gods made men different; Arbani made them equal." They made the best flame pieces in the South, which means they make the best flame pieces in Creation. There's not that many who can even begin to rival them, which explains why their secrets are worth so much.
Away from the ultra-rich, neighborhoods huddle together, in some cases all the houses in an area opening only on a shared courtyard with a single path to the street. There's poor and homeless people in the forgotten corners on a scale you would never have tolerated in the Lap (besides, anyone there who worked as an indentured servant until age 43 had put in their time and the Lap would be sure they at least had a livable retirement), along with any level of wannabe toughs, actual criminals, and endless street vendors and places of business, offering anything from questionable food to war horses, deliverable immediately. There's miles, actual literal miles, of places of business.
The most surprising and most home-like things you find are actually on opposite ends of the same underground tunnel-street. At one end, a raksha noble, resplendent in glamour, attended to by hobgoblins, operates what seems to be a legitimate business, where she devours a little bit of someone's soul and in exchange provides dreams and wonders of the Wyld. A sign at the window, not particularly discreet, states "Your slave's soul is NOT yours and is not eligible to pay for your sale.". Gem is a weird city. At the other end of the street, however, is a familiar-looking if comparatively shoddy Immaculate Temple, complete with decorations meant to evoke the five dragons without being an actual piece of iconography. They're simple efforts, done with care but without a lot of artistic skill. The Temple could certainly fit a few hundred people at a time, but that's still hardly a large amount of Gem's population.
As you had planned, you're going to have time to pursue your own projects outside of your duties. It's just going to be a question of what you need to prioritize, either because you think it's going to lead to the Waif, it might lead you to to allies or powers you can use, because it has some other value... or, quite simply because it seems relaxing and you can't be at full capacity at all times without blowing off at least a little steam.
[] Investigate the mines and quietly find out what you can about the haunting presence.
[] Run into this mysterious Easterner whom the Despot hired, see what is up with her.
[] Try to to gain access to the yasal crystal. You won't be allowed to touch it, but a sorcerer should be able to look.
[] Meet with your fellow sorcerers. Learn about the local supernatural scene in a relatively controlled way.
[] Search for undead, shadowlands, and necromancers. There's secrets to be uncovered, for sure.
[] Make some time to go to the Immaculate Temple. Surely that will help you.
[] ...Go out for a nice dinner with Tehli?
Vote for as many as you like. Top three will be chosen.
The other thing you're doing as you look around the city is to figure out where you're going to live while you're here. There's a variety of options that you could take, of course, but in the end there's basically a question of what you think is going to be the best type of lodging for you, based on the image you're trying to project, and then finding the best example of that.
[] Find a cheap and ascetic-looking place. Seek no luxury, simply find some minimal place where you can rest your head as need be.
[] Find moderate housing, amongst the higher-ranked sort of craftsmen, appropriate to how Gem views sorcerers.
[] You can just afford that gaudy place on top of a hill. No one else really wants it because it's in sunlight, but your Stone of Chilled Breath will keep things cool.
Votes will be considered separately.
"You can call me Amphora," you say to Tehli. She marks it down on her sheet. She doesn't care much if it's a fake name, and neither is anyone else likely to make much of a fuss. As long as your business doesn't harm Gem, you can call yourself the Kukla and aren't likely to get much worse than snickers. You might be an exception, but generally Gem doesn't care.
The audition cistern is a large depression in the ground in reasonably armored building. Tehli warns you about the hole as the two of you go in, giving you a moment to pause in the dark as she lights a series of large candles with bronze reflectors to let you both see. As the lights come up, you look around, and see a complicated vent in the ceiling to let the minimal smoke not build up, but not expose the water inside to thieves.
The cistern itself is just a hole in the rock with the sides marked to let a viewer measure the quantity at a glance. It's drained dry right now. "In your own time, Amphora."
A little theatre wouldn't go amiss. You start your weaving of Essence as you come to the edge of the cistern. Here, you do little more than gesture, pulling energy from the lit candle flames to help. For this specific spell, you aren't even consuming the fire, though you suspect you'd have to snuff the flames if you were powering any other spells.
From your feet, a torrent springs to life, a flow that could sweep aside a squad of horses. Here, it simply fills. Tehli can't completely stop her eyebrow from creeping up to match the rising water level. It's a surprise, no doubt. Unstoppable Fountain of the Depths generates a lot of water compared to a more classic spell like Water From Stone.
After ten minutes, the flow slows to a mere trickle. "Well," Tehli says, "As we discussed, I'm going to get a senior representative to deal with your specific case and questions, but... I hope it's not getting ahead of myself to welcome you to the Despot's service, Mister Amphora."
It's hardly going to be a black mark for her to bring in a useful new sorcerer, even if you're a little bit of a pain to negotiate with and are dressed in somewhat odd loose white clothes that could be fit for the deceased at a funeral.
The next couple hours are a bit of a mess, as you lounge here at the cistern and a couple different levels of functionaries come to see you, refreshments are sent for, terms are argued, and you eventually sign a slightly better contract than the standard one.
The real reason you made a minor pain of yourself isn't just that you deserve a better contract than some mortal who's learned a spell or two. It's a way to meet with various people and sound out what's common knowledge to the bureaucracy here. That, in turn, you can use to discover what's really going on here. Some things you confirm are just about as expected, such as relations with the Lap, already a little on edge since the loss of a slave caravan last year and the mutual finger-pointing that came after (none of which was your fault), taking on a new edge with the shake-up in the Lap's internal governance and the new ambitions that it seems to be flirting with. However, there's more afoot, it seems.
The results of your probe are somewhat disturbing. It's not just that the Shrike showed up. Other unusual things have happened, too. There's been an uptick in reports from the mines, complaining of eyes in the darkness and things lurking around corners to stalk the miners. It seems unlikely to be made up. In response to the complaints, soldiers were dispatched, and they, too, reported the same sense of being watched and observed by something unseen. There still hasn't been any credible eyewitness accounts of what's causing this feeling. It simply is that many people agree that there's something watching them.
The Shrike is rarely far these days, it seems. People keep reporting it flying past, criss-crossing the air above Gem. Its search may or may not be exactly centered on Gem, and it hasn't attacked anything since its first strike... but it's still around. You personally haven't seen it yet, but now that you've heard this you'll keep your eye out more.
The Despot hired some mysterious woman with an Easterner look to her to help deal with the Shrike situation. Apparently, she really wowed him with her command of First Age lore, as she has been given a rather wide remit to command resources if need be to contain the Shrike. She hasn't yet made much of it. Word is that she always wears a band that covers her forehead, for some reason. For the moment, no one you speak to seems anxious to rumor-monger about what that's covering.
A couple weeks before the haunting or whatever it is in Gem's mines began, the Despot's most elite excavation team also dug out something notable from an exploratory shaft under a mostly-extinct volcano. It takes a little effort for you to pick up what that is, because while it's not fully a secret, it is the sort of thing that only gets passed along to those who should be in the know already.
They found a yasal crystal of surpassing size and perfection. Yasal crystals are a strange sort of gem: they can contain and restrain dematerialized spirits. In theory, this is only supposed to be the weaker sort of spirit, ghost, or common demon, but no one has ever seen a crystal like this before. Apparently, there's a certain shadow auction going on for the Despot to make a profit off this, but he's not too eager to sell quickly: for a prize like this, he'd rather make the most of it than accept the first offer received, as well as perhaps also negotiate some valuable considerations beyond the mere exchange of money, so a number of parties are being discreetly contacted. To make the prize even more enticing, the yasal crystal may currently hold some being.
You feel the Whispers stirring in your mind as you put together the Shrike, the presence in the mines, and the yasal crystal. Of course _____ would attract/cause/instigate _____. The voices subside a bit after presenting that singularly unhelpful thought. You're coming to realize that while you're interpreting the Whispers as sentences and almost conversations, they really aren't that. They're instant flashes of thought, but of an order that's such that you can't decode it without putting it to words for your own use, which happens on a rather subconscious level most of the time. That, in turn, leads to some puzzling pieces as you lack the vocabulary to interpret their more esoteric terms. You try mentally holding up the threee thoughts to the strange holes in the Whispers, but none of the six possible combinations are more clearly right than the others, and the Whispers do not wake again to give clarity. Still, it does suggest that there's two related things, one coincidence.
It's a lot of things to grasp a hold of at once, but that's something you can deal with. At a basic level, things are going on here to attract the Waif, who certainly has put whatever agents she can into play here. She can hardly have done otherwise. That means you have the initiative. The Waif hasn't contacted you since Calibration, and you don't think even her necromantic communication to you reveals your location, so you know she's here, and she can't be equally sure where you are or what you're doing.
You'll take the chances you can, nip at her heels, ruin her plans, and seize the moment where you will be able to make her regret stealing your birthright as a Dragon-Blood.
Eventually, the paperwork is done and you've done all the grilling you think you can get out of the functionaries, at least without going past the level of reasonably annoying and getting into the point where people are actually going to be frustrated to deal with you. The latter is counterproductive. Part of how you know you got it reasonably close to right is that Tehli offered to meet with you socially outside work, with what was quite clearly a flirtatious overtone, the way she blushed a bit while offering and couldn't look directly at you. She had to go back to work just then, though.
With all that handled, you have the rest of the day to yourself and some coinage in your pocket from conjuring water for the Despot. You take a little time to pace the streets of Gem, including finding that its subterranean streets are at least as busy as the above-ground ones, just lined with glowstones and mirrors to keep the now-useless-for-mining emptied-out tunnels lit for everyone to operate there. The omnipresent sweat smell is even more focused there, as it isn't even open to the air, but it's also cooler. Many buildings open on both the street and a tunnel, with stairways and ramps and the odd ladder allowing one to go from one to the other. You take a little time to pace the streets of Gem, both levels, getting a feel for the place. It's the same way you adapted to the Lap when you were first stationed there, part of how House Peleps teaches its scions to get situated in a new location.
From street level and within its boundaries like this, Gem is best thought of as a series of little forts, it seems. The rich and powerful live behind thick walls and post armed guards. You happen to be going past one of those houses right as they're inflicting a punishment. Despite it happening on the surface street, a crowd gathers to watch the entertainment as two armed guards drag up a bedraggled-looking man in a slave collar. "This slave," a richly-dressed woman announces to the assembled people, "is guilty of seeking to sell House Arbani secrets, and will be executed by public strangulation." One last of the House workers, this one a slightly supernaturally muscular woman, comes up to perform the deed. You don't feel any particular need to watch the details, so you give up your place in the crowd, which is more than happy to let you past and get closer to the action.
House Arbani you know. There's a saying sometimes spread in the South (although smart people try not to say it in front of the Dragon-Blooded): "The gods made men different; Arbani made them equal." They made the best flame pieces in the South, which means they make the best flame pieces in Creation. There's not that many who can even begin to rival them, which explains why their secrets are worth so much.
Away from the ultra-rich, neighborhoods huddle together, in some cases all the houses in an area opening only on a shared courtyard with a single path to the street. There's poor and homeless people in the forgotten corners on a scale you would never have tolerated in the Lap (besides, anyone there who worked as an indentured servant until age 43 had put in their time and the Lap would be sure they at least had a livable retirement), along with any level of wannabe toughs, actual criminals, and endless street vendors and places of business, offering anything from questionable food to war horses, deliverable immediately. There's miles, actual literal miles, of places of business.
The most surprising and most home-like things you find are actually on opposite ends of the same underground tunnel-street. At one end, a raksha noble, resplendent in glamour, attended to by hobgoblins, operates what seems to be a legitimate business, where she devours a little bit of someone's soul and in exchange provides dreams and wonders of the Wyld. A sign at the window, not particularly discreet, states "Your slave's soul is NOT yours and is not eligible to pay for your sale.". Gem is a weird city. At the other end of the street, however, is a familiar-looking if comparatively shoddy Immaculate Temple, complete with decorations meant to evoke the five dragons without being an actual piece of iconography. They're simple efforts, done with care but without a lot of artistic skill. The Temple could certainly fit a few hundred people at a time, but that's still hardly a large amount of Gem's population.
As you had planned, you're going to have time to pursue your own projects outside of your duties. It's just going to be a question of what you need to prioritize, either because you think it's going to lead to the Waif, it might lead you to to allies or powers you can use, because it has some other value... or, quite simply because it seems relaxing and you can't be at full capacity at all times without blowing off at least a little steam.
[] Investigate the mines and quietly find out what you can about the haunting presence.
[] Run into this mysterious Easterner whom the Despot hired, see what is up with her.
[] Try to to gain access to the yasal crystal. You won't be allowed to touch it, but a sorcerer should be able to look.
[] Meet with your fellow sorcerers. Learn about the local supernatural scene in a relatively controlled way.
[] Search for undead, shadowlands, and necromancers. There's secrets to be uncovered, for sure.
[] Make some time to go to the Immaculate Temple. Surely that will help you.
[] ...Go out for a nice dinner with Tehli?
Vote for as many as you like. Top three will be chosen.
The other thing you're doing as you look around the city is to figure out where you're going to live while you're here. There's a variety of options that you could take, of course, but in the end there's basically a question of what you think is going to be the best type of lodging for you, based on the image you're trying to project, and then finding the best example of that.
[] Find a cheap and ascetic-looking place. Seek no luxury, simply find some minimal place where you can rest your head as need be.
[] Find moderate housing, amongst the higher-ranked sort of craftsmen, appropriate to how Gem views sorcerers.
[] You can just afford that gaudy place on top of a hill. No one else really wants it because it's in sunlight, but your Stone of Chilled Breath will keep things cool.
Votes will be considered separately.
Opportunity knocks
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Run into this mysterious Easterner whom the Despot hired, see what is up with her.
[] Meet with your fellow sorcerers. Learn about the local supernatural scene in a relatively controlled way.
[] Make some time to go to the Immaculate Temple. Surely that will help you.
[] Find moderate housing, amongst the higher-ranked sort of craftsmen, appropriate to how Gem views sorcerers.
In the end, you decide not to be too showy with your abode in either direction. You find a semi-sunken apartment to let, something of reasonable size and cleanliness by Gem's standards. This complex has four stories, two above ground, one below ground, plus yours that's mostly sunken into the ground, but the only door out opens to stairs leading up to the street. The partially-sunken-into-mines thing makes getting around a curious pain at times.
This neighborhood is one where you attract a little attention, but not an abnormal amount, which is part of why you chose it. Any supernatural-touched human with a jade weapon is going to attract attention anywhere in the world outside of maybe the Realm's Imperial City or Nexus, but here the level is normal curiosity about a novel new neighbor, not suspicion.
It's still a notable step down for you in the world, really. Instead of having a manor with servants and guards, you have a couple of rooms, an upstairs neighbor who by the sound of things practices his belly-flops at random eight hours of the day, and you have to handle things like making food and keeping the place tidy all by yourself, or else hire someone to do that. It's not worse than what you were trained to endure for field deployments or similar military matters, but those had a purpose in not dragging unnecessary luxuries along for the field. This? This is supposed to be civilized.
You don't like roughing it.
Your first full day in the Despot's service starts relatively smoothly. You show up where you're expected to, and a functionary takes you to the cistern that needs filling today. The route is entirely sub-surface, through rock tunnels studded with glowstones, so you can't see the Shrike even if it's around. Through luck of the draw, it isn't Tehli that's leading, so that conversation with her doesn't go anywhere.
You aren't alone, either. Today's bureaucrat has not only the usual 'two armed guards' along with him, but another person. This one has blue hair, blue eyes, an androgynous look to both face and clothing, and dark cast under their eyes. They give you a sleepy smile as you all walk together. "Hey. I'm Welcome Wellspring, Water Aspect. Dub-dubs for short. Don't recognize you."
"Amphora. I just got into town yesterday."
"Well, nice to meet you. Air Aspect, right? You have a bit of an icy look to you." You make a non-committal gesture that Dub-dubs apparently accepts as confirmation. "Good choice to join up. It's an easy gig. Best rates for sorcery for more than a hundred miles, and the Despot doesn't want to let us get poached or hurt."
"Been working here long, then?"
"Forty years, give or take." Like most Exalts, Dub-dubs could be twenty or ninety without you seeing much sign of aging. The Dragons' blessing is typically good at keeping its Chosen in their prime.
"Must be a good career then. I haven't even been a sorcerer that long." You don't feel any need to tell them, or anyone else, that you've been a sorcerer for less than a week, and still haven't experimented with much of anything beyond your control spell. Or that you're only in your mid-twenties to begin with.
Dub-dubs continues the conversation as you go, providing you a distraction as you slowly climb through the tunnels, which rise at a gentle slope without coming to the surface ever. It's mainly a slow chatter about a lot of the local supernatural gossip. This was something you would have been looking for if it hadn't dropped into your lap, so you let them. It's focused more on gossip than you care about, since the fact that Jyovira, local god of struggle and bloodshed, is sleeping with a specific gladiator is more detail than you need, but it still helps.
The conversation, with your prompting to keep it rolling, continues on through the actual work part of the day, with a little pause here and there for actually casting sorcery.
The cistern you're filling must be the one that the Shrike attack drained. It's a vast pool, so large that it's hard to see the far side in the minimal lighting. It's low on water at the moment, though, and the edges of the pool have a bit of detritus like you'd expect to see at a construction site. It's understandable: even if a good chunk of the mountain came down, the water storage and transport (not to mention the necessary effort to protect that water) is probably easier to patch and keep using than to wholesale replace.
You call forth several torrents, where Dub-dubs calls forth a larger number of more sedate flows, in both cases leading to water flowing down to join the rebuilding reservoir. It doesn't raise the level appreciably to your eyes.
Dub-dubs' casting seems significantly less pleasant to use than yours. You just let the underlying flames of the world open a path for water. It's a straightforward and intuitive effort of will, almost as easy now as walking on your hands or moving quietly on drumsand. Dub-dubs, on the other hand, ends up clutching their head and muttering something that sounds rather like a whimpering cry. They recover after they do, and no one else seems to react as if this is odd, so it's probably normal for them.
There's a bit of a cadence to the work. You don't have to rush: a day's sorcery for straightforward spells like this is only an hour or so of work, and can be less if you hurry. It's easier and more comfortable to alternate chatting and sorcery.
Dub-dubs' stories, with your gentle prompting, gradually let you piece together the feel of things. You already had an understanding of Gem's political landscape. It's basically a syndicate like the most organized criminal enterprises elsewhere in the world, just openly. The Despot and Gem's other noble houses all conspire to get all the money they can, and everyone else works to grab onto all the money they can without that 'house edge', and everyone from the street beggar to the Despot has to look over their shoulders a lot because profit is more important than civic safety.
This lets you layer more nuance on top of that, to understand how the supernatural functions here. Worship of Anathema, demons, or deathlords are all forbidden. Very little else is banned, but there's a lot of self-selection that keep it from being a total free-for-all. The most obvious Essence-users are the mercenaries. Even a handful of Dragon-Blooded sell their services here, as well as the full assortment of other types. Anathema like Lunars are the only exception, which is simply because Gem needs the Lap's food surplus to exist, and the Realm won't sell to people who openly deal with Lunars. Technically, nearly every security and enforcement force in Gem is from these mercenary companies.
Related to the mercenaries, as people often dabble in both to advertise their prowess, are the gladiatorial games. Gem has five increasingly elite circuits for gladiators, culminating in the Volcano Circuit that no unenlightened mortal can meaningfully compete in, regardless of skill. All the productions are run by a single noble house, Circla, which has a monopoly on it.
There's also those like Dub-dubs here: workers of one sort or another. Dub-dubs mentions offhandedly that beyond their water sorcery, they do a certain reasonable business working various defensive sorceries to keep people's vaults safe. You also get a few other names and descriptions of your new peers, so that when you run into any of them like you did with Dub-dubs, you can show a certain friendly awareness of who they are.
The last group are the gods and their cults. Shrines to gods like Plentimon and Jyovira, local spirits, and other important figures, whether through the spirit directly or priests, are a source of blessings and sundry effects. These local deities have never been tamed by Immaculate monks, but somehow the locals have still struck a balance with them, keeping them as hopeful figures, yet not letting them take over and oppress people.
You can pretty much ignore the last group, it seems like. Spirits like that live too long to act abruptly, so there are unlikely to be any connections to the Waif and her people unless something specific changes. That's not impossible, but it is unlikely to be the first sign of their actions.
The last notable discovery of the working day comes when Dub-dubs asks where you're staying, and they break into a grin as you tell them. "Oh, we're practically neighbors! I'm two tunnels east of you. It's a pretty good neighborhood. The apartment owners employ people to shoo the transients out."
You express appropriate surprise back, and somehow this all turns into Dub-dubs taking you out to a Volcano circuit match. They insist, given your clear interest in gladiators, and you don't actually argue against it too much, so once you've cast all your day's sorcery, that's where you head next.
The match is held in an indoors arena. You and Dub-dubs end up further back, which isn't surprising due to coming at the last minute. People who wanted good seats either paid more, came earlier, or both. Most of the few hundred seats crammed into the building are taken, and as you're coming to realize is ever-present in Gem there's vendors selling concessions or trinkets that circle through the seats. Dub-dubs continues the friendly chatter with you as you wait for the match. Apparently, they don't normally come to these sorts of matches, except for special occasions. They don't explicitly frame it this way, but it seems that meeting you must qualify.
"Never been interested in competing, then?" You ask at one point in the talk, mostly a friendly joke that still is a probing question, too. After all, Dub-dubs is a Dragon-Blood. All Dragon-Bloods are called by the Dragons to be the heroes Creation needs.
"Nah. Even outside the deathmatches that's usually limited to slave gladiators, it's too easy to get yourself seriously hurt in these things. I'm more a lover than a fighter, sort of person. And I've had enough excitement in my life already." You can't help but notice a subtle shifting of Dub-dubs' hands, which now clutch a little woven charm meant to help catch bad dreams.
There's no more chance to chat after that, as an announcer with a powerful bellow to her voice stands in the center of the arena and begins hyping the match up, introducing the fighters and giving them each a chance to show off some of their tricks for the audience. It's an understandable way to lengthen the show and give people a chance to try to weigh each of the fighters, allowing last-minute bets to be placed.
It seems both of these fighters are relatively new to Gem's fighting circuit, but it's not hard to see why they were put into Volcano immediately. The first one introduced, Syzygy, works for House Arbani and boasts one of their firewands, a flame-discharge weapon with significant barrel length. He shows off his skills with a display of precision target shooting, incinerating a series of targets while performing acrobatics in a butler outfit modified just enough to allow him to move unimpeded. It's a pretty good show, you have to admit.
The second one introduced is Crowson. You don't see where he comes from; the crowd is in the way, and you only see once he's in the central field. He is a tall man with a handsome cast to his face that is somehow completely ruined the moment he smiles. He is introduced as a ghostblood, but the moment he throws off the shapeless cloak he's shrouded with, you instantly straighten up in your seat. Dub-dubs looks over at you, quizzically, but you smile and force yourself to sit more calmly. Deathknight is foremost in your mind, something you are somehow instantly assured of, even though you've never met one that isn't you. His presence is far more potent than any mere child of a ghost, and from his shoulderblades extend four tentacles, dark red in color, the tips of each wrapped around the handle of a different beat-up old meat cleaver. They mostly hang to the ground, making a scraping noise as he walks around, but at his silent command they jerk to life, and he savages a trio of target dummies with a wild flurry of hacking even though he still has his arms crossed.
The introduction and last bets are concluded, and the fight starts. It's an odd match, to your eyes. Both of the fighters aren't fully trying to win as much as they're trying to win while playing to the crowd. Syzygy proves adept at fighting with his flame wand as a whole weapon, parrying with the barrel and hammering with the stock as well as filling the air with fire, its heat so intense that the front rows pull back, exclaiming excitedly, whenever he sets it off in their direction.
Crowson, on the other hand, fights exactly as you'd expect, stalking lightly around, still without uncrossing his arms, and his cleaver-tentacles jerk to life for slashes whenever the chance arises, leading to a chase as Crowson gradually reveals just how far his weapons can reach, which is significantly further than you would have expected. He's adept at moving quickly without looking like he's hurrying.
For a few minutes, the fight goes on like this, both of them searching for an opening and neither quite committing too hard. Eventually, though, Crowson maneuvers Syzygy into one of the corners, and Syzygy has to contend with having no room to dodge or back up, with two cleavers coming from each side at the same time.
There's a sudden roar of approval from the crowd as the cleavers just about hit... and Syzygy disappears entirely, instantly reappearing on one knee in a perfect firing pose partway across the arena. The largest flameblast yet roars forth, but Crowson shows a new trick, levering himself off the ground entirely, his blood-red tentacles seemingly immune to the searing heat.
Suspended in the air on his back, Crowson rolls over, two of his tentacles shifting from lifting him to swinging in a huge arc. Syzygy is thrown back as the two impact him, throwing him back even more than they chop. He's out of the ring, disqualified. The crowd goes even more nuts.
Crowson doesn't hang around. As quickly as he appeared, he's gone, not staying around to interact with fans, and coincidentally putting him beyond your reach again. Dub-dubs also doesn't stick around; citing needing to go check up on some workings for their other job, but it's a friendly leave-taking. You listen to the crowd around you as the arena empties out. From how people are discussing it, these two were definitely two of the circuit's rising stars and best fighters.
That turned out to be a surprisingly profitable outing. Through Dub-dubs, you've managed to get a feel for the local water-conjurers, even if you haven't met them all yet, and if Dub-dubs accepts you, likely the others will, too. You're already 'one of the gang'. You've got a feel for how personal might is seen and distributed in Gem, and you've seen two powerful gladiators, including finding your first deathknight in the city. While both of them were a little strange, only Crowson was a deathknight, and he's a public enough figure for you to start to track him without needing to do any hasty, thoughtless moves to confront him.
You're still thinking about that when you find yourself in front of the Immaculate Temple again. Your idle steps brought you here on automatic as you thought. Impulsively, you go in. It's almost instinct. The First Diligent Practice rings in your mind as you do. "Hear a recital of an Immaculate Text at least once a month, in the company of at least 17 other followers of the Philosophy." Maybe you were never the most devout, but it was still something that always was a background part of your life, regardless, and... it has been a while since you've been to a Temple, by now.
Inside, there's only one person, in a monk's outfit and with a monk's shaved-bald head. She is cleaning as you enter, but she sets the broom aside to give you a bow in greeting. You return the gesture. "Welcome, my child," she says. "What brings you in?"
You're not totally sure how to answer that. It just sort of happened. But you know how to act in a Temple after so many years of going there from childhood on. "Seeking the Dragons' blessing and guidance," you say.
"Of course." The monk gestures to a pew, which you sit in. She crouches on the one ahead of it, facing backwards over its back. "Are you with the Immaculate Philosophy, Immaculate Religion, or Pure Way?"
That one does floor you. You don't have a ready answer. It takes several seconds of mental flailing for you to come up with an answer to something that you interpret as "are you with the Realm's truth, Lookshy's odd heresies, or Prasad's absurdities?" She waits patiently for you. You think you mostly keep the thoughts off your face, but the pause alone is enough that she basically has to be aware of what your thought process is. "Immaculate Philosophy," you tell her. "Are all three really practiced in the same place here?"
She gives you a smile. "In a land where most of the people still subscribe to the Hundred Gods Heresy or various ancestor cults? Of course we do. What unites us is more than what separates us. But I do conduct separate services. I'm Understanding Auris, and this is my temple." You introduce yourself in turn, then, to your surprise, she stands and gestures for you to follow. "You, my friend, need something. That's why you came here today."
"I do?" You obediently trail along, bemused as much as anything.
"You need clarity. And there's no better way to achieve clarity than a spar." In front of the pews is an open space, suitable for a little light bout. "We are Immaculates. We respect the martial arts."
You line up at one of the demarcated starting points and Auris moves to the other. "Unless I miss my guess, you're not blessed by the Dragons," you point out. It's certainly not impossible for a Dragon-Blood to look merely human, but it's rare for there to be no signs.
"You are correct," Understanding Auris agrees, echoing your starting bow and moving smoothly into a defensive stance from there, one you don't recognize. "But I am a god's child. It's what pushed me to the faith." You may not know the details there, but that tells you a lot. Some god wasn't a good parent, showing why it is important to follow the Immaculate separation of mortal and divine, with Dragon-Bloods bridging the gap. "I may not be the greatest warrior, but don't count me lightly."
Auris gestures for you to come at her. You do, a standard series of exchanges that produce no telling result, but let you each take the measure of each other. She's letting you dictate the pace, and her defensive style is sort of strange, accepting blows into her cupped palm and her absorbing most, but not all, of your punches' power. It even extends to kicks: she blocks your kicks with her shin, and absorbs the force by that leg being thrown back, shifting her overall balance without hurting her.
This is just a friendly spar, so you don't draw Blizzard's Scourge, unleash Air Dragon Style to its full extent, or otherwise try to overwhelm her.
"What brings you to Gem?" Understanding Auris asks, as she catches one of your punches. The last word comes out in a sharp exhalation, as your not-quite-stopped punch pushes her own hand against her belly.
"I was looking for work."
"That's not it." For the first time, the monk takes an offensive move, trying to catch your right arm in the crook of her elbow. "I can tell already. You're too driven just to be here for coin."
"You're right." You rip your hand free with simple, raw strength, unbalancing both of you about as much, so neither gains an advantage. You push her back with a series of low kicks, and she circles around as she gives ground, to avoid being pinned against a wall. "I'm also chasing someone."
"Why?" She shifts her approach suddenly, ducking past you under your reach.
"Because I have been wronged." You can't completely resist a sliver of annoyance at her repeated badgering. You turn that into a more forceful attack, aiming at her eye.
She has to catch your fist with both hands and still rocks back under the impact. "And?" She throws your hand to one side and launches her own attack, an open-palm thrust at your heart. "We have all been dealt a rough hand at some point."
You deflect it with your other forearm and spin, a swift motion fed by the force you're redirecting, fingers stiffening like a spearpoint to hit her in the shoulder, digging into nerve clusters. "This is different." The strength you put into that hit puts the lie to that.
Yet, somehow, the blow strikes her before it builds up all the force it should, as Understanding Auris steps into the blow, accepting it. "Are you really chasing someone, or just trying to run?"
"What?"
"You have come a long way, traveler, but you're still bound to your roots." It's true: you left the Realm, left House Peleps, left the satrapy system... and went straight back to the Immaculate Temple. Which puts you in front of an Immaculate monk as she lays a gentle fist to your arm, somehow causing a stinging stunning in what shouldn't have been a serious hit to begin with. "What can't you outrun?"
Your hands blur faster as the very wind speeds your blows. "I don't want to break something--to break someone--I care about again!"
"So?"
"So instead I'll break someone who deserves it!" A third and a fourth and a fifth strike come out of your unfolding combination. One of them slips through her guard completely, hitting her in the mouth and knocking her down.
Suddenly, you stop.
Understanding Auris wipes away blood from a split lip and stands back up. She bows to you. You echo it. "What happened there?" you ask, a little uncertain. You hadn't meant to say anything in particular, and certainly not as much as you did. Her strange style, its absorbent defense that practically begs you to pour out your thoughts as you try to overcome it... you've never quite seen the like before.
"That is the Art of Victorious Concession, a martial art of compassion. Naturally, it lets you draw out things you need to share." The lip is already looking better. Her divine blood clearly includes impressive healing. "The Five Glorious Dragon Styles are not the only strength of Immaculates." She searches your eyes. "Did you find what you needed to, my son?"
You consider, bringing your breathing down to its normal level. "I... did." The truth of the matter is that Understanding Auris is right: you are bound to who you are, and to who you were. You may not have been pious enough to immediately turn yourself over to the Immaculate Order to be purified as Anathema, but you're not going to risk destroying the good Immaculates leave behind, either.
She nods. "Then I am glad to be of service. May the Dragons guide you back soon." The godblood hides her hands in her voluminous sleeves. "Immaculate Order messages are every Venusday, starting an hour before sunset."
You nod back. "I'll see when I can make it." You drop a high-denomination coin in the box for giving as you leave. Immaculate Temples, even outside Realm territory, teach children for free. Reading, writing, math, history, good moral lessons, physical education, and self-defense. That's worth something.
Thoughts keep percolating through your head as you go out into the sunken tunnel-street, past the raksha noble's parlor. She might not sleep; you can't know.
Perhaps... perhaps you should look up more Pure Way doctrine. It's said that the Prasadi sometimes live alongside Anathema like you. Perhaps there's something there you could take some solace in, some way to reconcile your current nature and something at least like your upbringing.
On the other hand, you've never actually been that dedicated to religion, and you are busy.
You top off your Essence on your way back to your apartment. You hide Blizzard's Scourge through the simple expedient of tucking it under your tunic. It's more than a little awkward to hide two feet of curved, bladed jade, but flaunting it makes it less likely that you'll be accosted. Smart people know what it means to have an attuned magical weapon.
This pays off. A gang of three try to stab you in a dim side tunnel using rusty knives, which might also be poisoned. You don't check. Their corpses you leave behind. This is Gem; someone will find the bodies and try to turn a profit off it somehow.
The next day starts much the same. Meet a functionary for the Despot, go and cast your sorcery. This one isn't as long a walk: it's actually in the city and at a much smaller pool, besides. Likely this is somewhere that is more typically filled and emptied on a regular basis. You were the only sorcerer needed to take it from empty to brimming. As you leave, there's a line already forming of both the well-to-do and slaves of the even better off, queueing to purchase fresh, cool water.
And this is the wet and cold season for Gem, technically. You can't imagine what the summer months are like.
The day's work done, you move on to your own projects. It doesn't take much but a little listening and light chatting with bored people to learn a bit about the Easterner's movements, the one who's handling the Shrike situation. She has several places she moves between, the better to observe it in flight. You pick one based on it being the closest of any of them, and do a little light casing of the joint. It's a narrow tower, probably once part of a city wall, many years ago, before the city swallowed it completely on both sides. It's got a high vantage point, with no nearby towers of higher height, and... not much else. It looks slightly abandoned.
No one seems to be home, so you leave it for now. There's more investigation to be done.
A murmur arises from the street around you. You glance around. People are looking up. You do the same.
There's a tiny shining point in the sky. It looks much like a star, save it's visible in the daylight, and it's hurtling across the sky swifter than any true celestial body actually can.
It's the Five-Metal Shrike. One of the most powerful, untamed mysteries of the ancient world is soaring above you. No matter how much you try to focus on it, you can resolve next to no details about it from this distance. The Shrike is close, so close, and still utterly untouchable.
Before you tear your attention away, someone barrels into you, basically bouncing off you as something goes all over the ground. "Oh, damn," a distracted voice says. "Where did you come from? I thought I was sensing all the living here."
The speaker is a woman in a garment of many pockets. Her hair is twisted at points into something that looks like a shrub's thorns, and there's a faint green tint to her skin. She's on her knees, gathering up what she dropped.
You bend down to assist her. What she has is a collection of optical equipment, lenses and tubes and mirrors, thought thankfully it all looks rather hard-wearing, so there's no shattered crystals. You try to hand her a piece or two. "There's no time! Can you carry that for me?" She tosses her hair back as she straightens up. She has a cloth band tied around her forehead, hiding where an Anathema's caste mark might appear. Thoughts click into place behind your eyes, ones you don't let touch your face, just in case, no matter how casually she's treating you.
The Dragons are smiling on you today, it seems. This just about has to be the Despot's Shrike expert, and you are just about as sure that she must be from the Waif. It explains perfectly how she could know a great deal of First Age lore, how she has an interest in the Shrike.. and why she would hide her forehead, where a betraying caste mark could appear.
She rushes off, and you trail behind, a handful of strange devices in your arms. You were seeking an opening for a later action, but unlike before in the arena, this time you do have a fleeting chance and you simply have to seize it while it exists.
The reason you're so amenable to this is because of where she's leading you: to the tower you were looking at before, the abandoned and lonely place she uses for some of her observations. You shut the heavy door behind the two of you, cutting off the noise from the street. Stairs wind upward into a single room that has balconies open to the air, allowing heat in but also giving a view of the sky. The woman sets down the things she scooped up on a table, then gestures impatiently for you to set the rest there. As you do, she immediately begins assembling things to help her get a better reading on the Shrike's course.
You have an opportunity.
[] Attack her. You may never get a better opportunity.
[] Talk first.
- [] Introduce yourself as a sorcerer, interested in the Shrike.
- [] Bring up the Deathlord's name. See how she reacts.
Top line will be considered first, so it's attack vs talk, and if talk wins, then the sub-vote determines which path from there.
One of these scenes gave me a tremendous amount of trouble and I probably went through a dozen complete or partial drafts. I hope you can't tell which one.
[] Meet with your fellow sorcerers. Learn about the local supernatural scene in a relatively controlled way.
[] Make some time to go to the Immaculate Temple. Surely that will help you.
[] Find moderate housing, amongst the higher-ranked sort of craftsmen, appropriate to how Gem views sorcerers.
In the end, you decide not to be too showy with your abode in either direction. You find a semi-sunken apartment to let, something of reasonable size and cleanliness by Gem's standards. This complex has four stories, two above ground, one below ground, plus yours that's mostly sunken into the ground, but the only door out opens to stairs leading up to the street. The partially-sunken-into-mines thing makes getting around a curious pain at times.
This neighborhood is one where you attract a little attention, but not an abnormal amount, which is part of why you chose it. Any supernatural-touched human with a jade weapon is going to attract attention anywhere in the world outside of maybe the Realm's Imperial City or Nexus, but here the level is normal curiosity about a novel new neighbor, not suspicion.
It's still a notable step down for you in the world, really. Instead of having a manor with servants and guards, you have a couple of rooms, an upstairs neighbor who by the sound of things practices his belly-flops at random eight hours of the day, and you have to handle things like making food and keeping the place tidy all by yourself, or else hire someone to do that. It's not worse than what you were trained to endure for field deployments or similar military matters, but those had a purpose in not dragging unnecessary luxuries along for the field. This? This is supposed to be civilized.
You don't like roughing it.
Your first full day in the Despot's service starts relatively smoothly. You show up where you're expected to, and a functionary takes you to the cistern that needs filling today. The route is entirely sub-surface, through rock tunnels studded with glowstones, so you can't see the Shrike even if it's around. Through luck of the draw, it isn't Tehli that's leading, so that conversation with her doesn't go anywhere.
You aren't alone, either. Today's bureaucrat has not only the usual 'two armed guards' along with him, but another person. This one has blue hair, blue eyes, an androgynous look to both face and clothing, and dark cast under their eyes. They give you a sleepy smile as you all walk together. "Hey. I'm Welcome Wellspring, Water Aspect. Dub-dubs for short. Don't recognize you."
"Amphora. I just got into town yesterday."
"Well, nice to meet you. Air Aspect, right? You have a bit of an icy look to you." You make a non-committal gesture that Dub-dubs apparently accepts as confirmation. "Good choice to join up. It's an easy gig. Best rates for sorcery for more than a hundred miles, and the Despot doesn't want to let us get poached or hurt."
"Been working here long, then?"
"Forty years, give or take." Like most Exalts, Dub-dubs could be twenty or ninety without you seeing much sign of aging. The Dragons' blessing is typically good at keeping its Chosen in their prime.
"Must be a good career then. I haven't even been a sorcerer that long." You don't feel any need to tell them, or anyone else, that you've been a sorcerer for less than a week, and still haven't experimented with much of anything beyond your control spell. Or that you're only in your mid-twenties to begin with.
Dub-dubs continues the conversation as you go, providing you a distraction as you slowly climb through the tunnels, which rise at a gentle slope without coming to the surface ever. It's mainly a slow chatter about a lot of the local supernatural gossip. This was something you would have been looking for if it hadn't dropped into your lap, so you let them. It's focused more on gossip than you care about, since the fact that Jyovira, local god of struggle and bloodshed, is sleeping with a specific gladiator is more detail than you need, but it still helps.
The conversation, with your prompting to keep it rolling, continues on through the actual work part of the day, with a little pause here and there for actually casting sorcery.
The cistern you're filling must be the one that the Shrike attack drained. It's a vast pool, so large that it's hard to see the far side in the minimal lighting. It's low on water at the moment, though, and the edges of the pool have a bit of detritus like you'd expect to see at a construction site. It's understandable: even if a good chunk of the mountain came down, the water storage and transport (not to mention the necessary effort to protect that water) is probably easier to patch and keep using than to wholesale replace.
You call forth several torrents, where Dub-dubs calls forth a larger number of more sedate flows, in both cases leading to water flowing down to join the rebuilding reservoir. It doesn't raise the level appreciably to your eyes.
Dub-dubs' casting seems significantly less pleasant to use than yours. You just let the underlying flames of the world open a path for water. It's a straightforward and intuitive effort of will, almost as easy now as walking on your hands or moving quietly on drumsand. Dub-dubs, on the other hand, ends up clutching their head and muttering something that sounds rather like a whimpering cry. They recover after they do, and no one else seems to react as if this is odd, so it's probably normal for them.
There's a bit of a cadence to the work. You don't have to rush: a day's sorcery for straightforward spells like this is only an hour or so of work, and can be less if you hurry. It's easier and more comfortable to alternate chatting and sorcery.
Dub-dubs' stories, with your gentle prompting, gradually let you piece together the feel of things. You already had an understanding of Gem's political landscape. It's basically a syndicate like the most organized criminal enterprises elsewhere in the world, just openly. The Despot and Gem's other noble houses all conspire to get all the money they can, and everyone else works to grab onto all the money they can without that 'house edge', and everyone from the street beggar to the Despot has to look over their shoulders a lot because profit is more important than civic safety.
This lets you layer more nuance on top of that, to understand how the supernatural functions here. Worship of Anathema, demons, or deathlords are all forbidden. Very little else is banned, but there's a lot of self-selection that keep it from being a total free-for-all. The most obvious Essence-users are the mercenaries. Even a handful of Dragon-Blooded sell their services here, as well as the full assortment of other types. Anathema like Lunars are the only exception, which is simply because Gem needs the Lap's food surplus to exist, and the Realm won't sell to people who openly deal with Lunars. Technically, nearly every security and enforcement force in Gem is from these mercenary companies.
Related to the mercenaries, as people often dabble in both to advertise their prowess, are the gladiatorial games. Gem has five increasingly elite circuits for gladiators, culminating in the Volcano Circuit that no unenlightened mortal can meaningfully compete in, regardless of skill. All the productions are run by a single noble house, Circla, which has a monopoly on it.
There's also those like Dub-dubs here: workers of one sort or another. Dub-dubs mentions offhandedly that beyond their water sorcery, they do a certain reasonable business working various defensive sorceries to keep people's vaults safe. You also get a few other names and descriptions of your new peers, so that when you run into any of them like you did with Dub-dubs, you can show a certain friendly awareness of who they are.
The last group are the gods and their cults. Shrines to gods like Plentimon and Jyovira, local spirits, and other important figures, whether through the spirit directly or priests, are a source of blessings and sundry effects. These local deities have never been tamed by Immaculate monks, but somehow the locals have still struck a balance with them, keeping them as hopeful figures, yet not letting them take over and oppress people.
You can pretty much ignore the last group, it seems like. Spirits like that live too long to act abruptly, so there are unlikely to be any connections to the Waif and her people unless something specific changes. That's not impossible, but it is unlikely to be the first sign of their actions.
The last notable discovery of the working day comes when Dub-dubs asks where you're staying, and they break into a grin as you tell them. "Oh, we're practically neighbors! I'm two tunnels east of you. It's a pretty good neighborhood. The apartment owners employ people to shoo the transients out."
You express appropriate surprise back, and somehow this all turns into Dub-dubs taking you out to a Volcano circuit match. They insist, given your clear interest in gladiators, and you don't actually argue against it too much, so once you've cast all your day's sorcery, that's where you head next.
The match is held in an indoors arena. You and Dub-dubs end up further back, which isn't surprising due to coming at the last minute. People who wanted good seats either paid more, came earlier, or both. Most of the few hundred seats crammed into the building are taken, and as you're coming to realize is ever-present in Gem there's vendors selling concessions or trinkets that circle through the seats. Dub-dubs continues the friendly chatter with you as you wait for the match. Apparently, they don't normally come to these sorts of matches, except for special occasions. They don't explicitly frame it this way, but it seems that meeting you must qualify.
"Never been interested in competing, then?" You ask at one point in the talk, mostly a friendly joke that still is a probing question, too. After all, Dub-dubs is a Dragon-Blood. All Dragon-Bloods are called by the Dragons to be the heroes Creation needs.
"Nah. Even outside the deathmatches that's usually limited to slave gladiators, it's too easy to get yourself seriously hurt in these things. I'm more a lover than a fighter, sort of person. And I've had enough excitement in my life already." You can't help but notice a subtle shifting of Dub-dubs' hands, which now clutch a little woven charm meant to help catch bad dreams.
There's no more chance to chat after that, as an announcer with a powerful bellow to her voice stands in the center of the arena and begins hyping the match up, introducing the fighters and giving them each a chance to show off some of their tricks for the audience. It's an understandable way to lengthen the show and give people a chance to try to weigh each of the fighters, allowing last-minute bets to be placed.
It seems both of these fighters are relatively new to Gem's fighting circuit, but it's not hard to see why they were put into Volcano immediately. The first one introduced, Syzygy, works for House Arbani and boasts one of their firewands, a flame-discharge weapon with significant barrel length. He shows off his skills with a display of precision target shooting, incinerating a series of targets while performing acrobatics in a butler outfit modified just enough to allow him to move unimpeded. It's a pretty good show, you have to admit.
The second one introduced is Crowson. You don't see where he comes from; the crowd is in the way, and you only see once he's in the central field. He is a tall man with a handsome cast to his face that is somehow completely ruined the moment he smiles. He is introduced as a ghostblood, but the moment he throws off the shapeless cloak he's shrouded with, you instantly straighten up in your seat. Dub-dubs looks over at you, quizzically, but you smile and force yourself to sit more calmly. Deathknight is foremost in your mind, something you are somehow instantly assured of, even though you've never met one that isn't you. His presence is far more potent than any mere child of a ghost, and from his shoulderblades extend four tentacles, dark red in color, the tips of each wrapped around the handle of a different beat-up old meat cleaver. They mostly hang to the ground, making a scraping noise as he walks around, but at his silent command they jerk to life, and he savages a trio of target dummies with a wild flurry of hacking even though he still has his arms crossed.
The introduction and last bets are concluded, and the fight starts. It's an odd match, to your eyes. Both of the fighters aren't fully trying to win as much as they're trying to win while playing to the crowd. Syzygy proves adept at fighting with his flame wand as a whole weapon, parrying with the barrel and hammering with the stock as well as filling the air with fire, its heat so intense that the front rows pull back, exclaiming excitedly, whenever he sets it off in their direction.
Crowson, on the other hand, fights exactly as you'd expect, stalking lightly around, still without uncrossing his arms, and his cleaver-tentacles jerk to life for slashes whenever the chance arises, leading to a chase as Crowson gradually reveals just how far his weapons can reach, which is significantly further than you would have expected. He's adept at moving quickly without looking like he's hurrying.
For a few minutes, the fight goes on like this, both of them searching for an opening and neither quite committing too hard. Eventually, though, Crowson maneuvers Syzygy into one of the corners, and Syzygy has to contend with having no room to dodge or back up, with two cleavers coming from each side at the same time.
There's a sudden roar of approval from the crowd as the cleavers just about hit... and Syzygy disappears entirely, instantly reappearing on one knee in a perfect firing pose partway across the arena. The largest flameblast yet roars forth, but Crowson shows a new trick, levering himself off the ground entirely, his blood-red tentacles seemingly immune to the searing heat.
Suspended in the air on his back, Crowson rolls over, two of his tentacles shifting from lifting him to swinging in a huge arc. Syzygy is thrown back as the two impact him, throwing him back even more than they chop. He's out of the ring, disqualified. The crowd goes even more nuts.
Crowson doesn't hang around. As quickly as he appeared, he's gone, not staying around to interact with fans, and coincidentally putting him beyond your reach again. Dub-dubs also doesn't stick around; citing needing to go check up on some workings for their other job, but it's a friendly leave-taking. You listen to the crowd around you as the arena empties out. From how people are discussing it, these two were definitely two of the circuit's rising stars and best fighters.
That turned out to be a surprisingly profitable outing. Through Dub-dubs, you've managed to get a feel for the local water-conjurers, even if you haven't met them all yet, and if Dub-dubs accepts you, likely the others will, too. You're already 'one of the gang'. You've got a feel for how personal might is seen and distributed in Gem, and you've seen two powerful gladiators, including finding your first deathknight in the city. While both of them were a little strange, only Crowson was a deathknight, and he's a public enough figure for you to start to track him without needing to do any hasty, thoughtless moves to confront him.
You're still thinking about that when you find yourself in front of the Immaculate Temple again. Your idle steps brought you here on automatic as you thought. Impulsively, you go in. It's almost instinct. The First Diligent Practice rings in your mind as you do. "Hear a recital of an Immaculate Text at least once a month, in the company of at least 17 other followers of the Philosophy." Maybe you were never the most devout, but it was still something that always was a background part of your life, regardless, and... it has been a while since you've been to a Temple, by now.
Inside, there's only one person, in a monk's outfit and with a monk's shaved-bald head. She is cleaning as you enter, but she sets the broom aside to give you a bow in greeting. You return the gesture. "Welcome, my child," she says. "What brings you in?"
You're not totally sure how to answer that. It just sort of happened. But you know how to act in a Temple after so many years of going there from childhood on. "Seeking the Dragons' blessing and guidance," you say.
"Of course." The monk gestures to a pew, which you sit in. She crouches on the one ahead of it, facing backwards over its back. "Are you with the Immaculate Philosophy, Immaculate Religion, or Pure Way?"
That one does floor you. You don't have a ready answer. It takes several seconds of mental flailing for you to come up with an answer to something that you interpret as "are you with the Realm's truth, Lookshy's odd heresies, or Prasad's absurdities?" She waits patiently for you. You think you mostly keep the thoughts off your face, but the pause alone is enough that she basically has to be aware of what your thought process is. "Immaculate Philosophy," you tell her. "Are all three really practiced in the same place here?"
She gives you a smile. "In a land where most of the people still subscribe to the Hundred Gods Heresy or various ancestor cults? Of course we do. What unites us is more than what separates us. But I do conduct separate services. I'm Understanding Auris, and this is my temple." You introduce yourself in turn, then, to your surprise, she stands and gestures for you to follow. "You, my friend, need something. That's why you came here today."
"I do?" You obediently trail along, bemused as much as anything.
"You need clarity. And there's no better way to achieve clarity than a spar." In front of the pews is an open space, suitable for a little light bout. "We are Immaculates. We respect the martial arts."
You line up at one of the demarcated starting points and Auris moves to the other. "Unless I miss my guess, you're not blessed by the Dragons," you point out. It's certainly not impossible for a Dragon-Blood to look merely human, but it's rare for there to be no signs.
"You are correct," Understanding Auris agrees, echoing your starting bow and moving smoothly into a defensive stance from there, one you don't recognize. "But I am a god's child. It's what pushed me to the faith." You may not know the details there, but that tells you a lot. Some god wasn't a good parent, showing why it is important to follow the Immaculate separation of mortal and divine, with Dragon-Bloods bridging the gap. "I may not be the greatest warrior, but don't count me lightly."
Auris gestures for you to come at her. You do, a standard series of exchanges that produce no telling result, but let you each take the measure of each other. She's letting you dictate the pace, and her defensive style is sort of strange, accepting blows into her cupped palm and her absorbing most, but not all, of your punches' power. It even extends to kicks: she blocks your kicks with her shin, and absorbs the force by that leg being thrown back, shifting her overall balance without hurting her.
This is just a friendly spar, so you don't draw Blizzard's Scourge, unleash Air Dragon Style to its full extent, or otherwise try to overwhelm her.
"What brings you to Gem?" Understanding Auris asks, as she catches one of your punches. The last word comes out in a sharp exhalation, as your not-quite-stopped punch pushes her own hand against her belly.
"I was looking for work."
"That's not it." For the first time, the monk takes an offensive move, trying to catch your right arm in the crook of her elbow. "I can tell already. You're too driven just to be here for coin."
"You're right." You rip your hand free with simple, raw strength, unbalancing both of you about as much, so neither gains an advantage. You push her back with a series of low kicks, and she circles around as she gives ground, to avoid being pinned against a wall. "I'm also chasing someone."
"Why?" She shifts her approach suddenly, ducking past you under your reach.
"Because I have been wronged." You can't completely resist a sliver of annoyance at her repeated badgering. You turn that into a more forceful attack, aiming at her eye.
She has to catch your fist with both hands and still rocks back under the impact. "And?" She throws your hand to one side and launches her own attack, an open-palm thrust at your heart. "We have all been dealt a rough hand at some point."
You deflect it with your other forearm and spin, a swift motion fed by the force you're redirecting, fingers stiffening like a spearpoint to hit her in the shoulder, digging into nerve clusters. "This is different." The strength you put into that hit puts the lie to that.
Yet, somehow, the blow strikes her before it builds up all the force it should, as Understanding Auris steps into the blow, accepting it. "Are you really chasing someone, or just trying to run?"
"What?"
"You have come a long way, traveler, but you're still bound to your roots." It's true: you left the Realm, left House Peleps, left the satrapy system... and went straight back to the Immaculate Temple. Which puts you in front of an Immaculate monk as she lays a gentle fist to your arm, somehow causing a stinging stunning in what shouldn't have been a serious hit to begin with. "What can't you outrun?"
Your hands blur faster as the very wind speeds your blows. "I don't want to break something--to break someone--I care about again!"
"So?"
"So instead I'll break someone who deserves it!" A third and a fourth and a fifth strike come out of your unfolding combination. One of them slips through her guard completely, hitting her in the mouth and knocking her down.
Suddenly, you stop.
Understanding Auris wipes away blood from a split lip and stands back up. She bows to you. You echo it. "What happened there?" you ask, a little uncertain. You hadn't meant to say anything in particular, and certainly not as much as you did. Her strange style, its absorbent defense that practically begs you to pour out your thoughts as you try to overcome it... you've never quite seen the like before.
"That is the Art of Victorious Concession, a martial art of compassion. Naturally, it lets you draw out things you need to share." The lip is already looking better. Her divine blood clearly includes impressive healing. "The Five Glorious Dragon Styles are not the only strength of Immaculates." She searches your eyes. "Did you find what you needed to, my son?"
You consider, bringing your breathing down to its normal level. "I... did." The truth of the matter is that Understanding Auris is right: you are bound to who you are, and to who you were. You may not have been pious enough to immediately turn yourself over to the Immaculate Order to be purified as Anathema, but you're not going to risk destroying the good Immaculates leave behind, either.
She nods. "Then I am glad to be of service. May the Dragons guide you back soon." The godblood hides her hands in her voluminous sleeves. "Immaculate Order messages are every Venusday, starting an hour before sunset."
You nod back. "I'll see when I can make it." You drop a high-denomination coin in the box for giving as you leave. Immaculate Temples, even outside Realm territory, teach children for free. Reading, writing, math, history, good moral lessons, physical education, and self-defense. That's worth something.
Thoughts keep percolating through your head as you go out into the sunken tunnel-street, past the raksha noble's parlor. She might not sleep; you can't know.
Perhaps... perhaps you should look up more Pure Way doctrine. It's said that the Prasadi sometimes live alongside Anathema like you. Perhaps there's something there you could take some solace in, some way to reconcile your current nature and something at least like your upbringing.
On the other hand, you've never actually been that dedicated to religion, and you are busy.
* * *
You top off your Essence on your way back to your apartment. You hide Blizzard's Scourge through the simple expedient of tucking it under your tunic. It's more than a little awkward to hide two feet of curved, bladed jade, but flaunting it makes it less likely that you'll be accosted. Smart people know what it means to have an attuned magical weapon.
This pays off. A gang of three try to stab you in a dim side tunnel using rusty knives, which might also be poisoned. You don't check. Their corpses you leave behind. This is Gem; someone will find the bodies and try to turn a profit off it somehow.
* * *
The next day starts much the same. Meet a functionary for the Despot, go and cast your sorcery. This one isn't as long a walk: it's actually in the city and at a much smaller pool, besides. Likely this is somewhere that is more typically filled and emptied on a regular basis. You were the only sorcerer needed to take it from empty to brimming. As you leave, there's a line already forming of both the well-to-do and slaves of the even better off, queueing to purchase fresh, cool water.
And this is the wet and cold season for Gem, technically. You can't imagine what the summer months are like.
The day's work done, you move on to your own projects. It doesn't take much but a little listening and light chatting with bored people to learn a bit about the Easterner's movements, the one who's handling the Shrike situation. She has several places she moves between, the better to observe it in flight. You pick one based on it being the closest of any of them, and do a little light casing of the joint. It's a narrow tower, probably once part of a city wall, many years ago, before the city swallowed it completely on both sides. It's got a high vantage point, with no nearby towers of higher height, and... not much else. It looks slightly abandoned.
No one seems to be home, so you leave it for now. There's more investigation to be done.
A murmur arises from the street around you. You glance around. People are looking up. You do the same.
There's a tiny shining point in the sky. It looks much like a star, save it's visible in the daylight, and it's hurtling across the sky swifter than any true celestial body actually can.
It's the Five-Metal Shrike. One of the most powerful, untamed mysteries of the ancient world is soaring above you. No matter how much you try to focus on it, you can resolve next to no details about it from this distance. The Shrike is close, so close, and still utterly untouchable.
Before you tear your attention away, someone barrels into you, basically bouncing off you as something goes all over the ground. "Oh, damn," a distracted voice says. "Where did you come from? I thought I was sensing all the living here."
The speaker is a woman in a garment of many pockets. Her hair is twisted at points into something that looks like a shrub's thorns, and there's a faint green tint to her skin. She's on her knees, gathering up what she dropped.
You bend down to assist her. What she has is a collection of optical equipment, lenses and tubes and mirrors, thought thankfully it all looks rather hard-wearing, so there's no shattered crystals. You try to hand her a piece or two. "There's no time! Can you carry that for me?" She tosses her hair back as she straightens up. She has a cloth band tied around her forehead, hiding where an Anathema's caste mark might appear. Thoughts click into place behind your eyes, ones you don't let touch your face, just in case, no matter how casually she's treating you.
The Dragons are smiling on you today, it seems. This just about has to be the Despot's Shrike expert, and you are just about as sure that she must be from the Waif. It explains perfectly how she could know a great deal of First Age lore, how she has an interest in the Shrike.. and why she would hide her forehead, where a betraying caste mark could appear.
She rushes off, and you trail behind, a handful of strange devices in your arms. You were seeking an opening for a later action, but unlike before in the arena, this time you do have a fleeting chance and you simply have to seize it while it exists.
The reason you're so amenable to this is because of where she's leading you: to the tower you were looking at before, the abandoned and lonely place she uses for some of her observations. You shut the heavy door behind the two of you, cutting off the noise from the street. Stairs wind upward into a single room that has balconies open to the air, allowing heat in but also giving a view of the sky. The woman sets down the things she scooped up on a table, then gestures impatiently for you to set the rest there. As you do, she immediately begins assembling things to help her get a better reading on the Shrike's course.
You have an opportunity.
[] Attack her. You may never get a better opportunity.
[] Talk first.
- [] Introduce yourself as a sorcerer, interested in the Shrike.
- [] Bring up the Deathlord's name. See how she reacts.
Top line will be considered first, so it's attack vs talk, and if talk wins, then the sub-vote determines which path from there.
One of these scenes gave me a tremendous amount of trouble and I probably went through a dozen complete or partial drafts. I hope you can't tell which one.
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Unexpected Meetings
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Talk first.
- [] Introduce yourself as a sorcerer, interested in the Shrike.
"You're the one the Despot has following the Shrike," you say, as if in sudden recognition.
She glances at you incuriously as her hands continue their sure work. "Obviously." From there, she moves to the balcony to set up the arrangement. Several lenses twist on their own in the almost wire-frame contraption, lining themselves up and seeking the Shrike in the sky. A tube slips into the light path, and a plain sheet of parchment unrolls.
The end result of all this is that a live image of the Shrike, magnified and sharpened, is projected onto the parchment.
For a moment, the sight of it nearly strikes you dumb. Despite its clearly artifical nature and bulk, the Shrike moves like a living thing. Wings of starmetal stretch and twist with every flap, propelling a body wrought from enough jade to destabilize the Realm's whole economy. The impossible beauty of orichalcum devil-gold shines at its questing beak. Fluid protean moonsilver flows down its flanks, mixing in complex whorls with the cursed soulsteel at its stern.
Seemingly inured to the sight, the woman taps the nail of her middle finger against another lens, which slips into place with a decisive click. The image is suddenly muted, this apparently serving as a filter of some kind. Now, the Shrike is visibly surrounded by a delicate tracery of shifting lines, finer than strands of hair.
The Whispers breathe in the back of your mind, respositories of ages-old knowledge stirring in surprise as they behold something that they haven't for countless centuries. You listen, dipping into this near-wordless understanding, the flash impressions that they give you of this lining up somewhat with your new insights into sorcery. What you can, you absorb. "Essence flows, for guidance?" you ask.
The woman jerks for a moment, as if she had forgotten you were present to begin with. "Obviously," she says again, in a slightly more annoyed tone this time. She doesn't take her eyes off the instrument, thought she consults a compass and a series of other, more arcane tools as she works.
"They're not pointing just at the elemental poles or even local dragon lines, though. It's also pointing at its base, isn't it?" That one's a little bit of a stab in the dark.
"Does it look like it's pointing in only one direction?" It doesn't look like much of anything, if you have to be honest. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Amphora. I'm a sorcerer here. I'm interested in the Shrike."
She scoffs. "You and every two-bit wise woman between here and Chiaroscuro, who think that sometimes reading an astrological chart right makes you insightful." The filter-lens is removed, and a new one is snapped into place, casting the projected image in an orange light. "If you don't know what a variable-frequency broad-spectrum mote transmitter-receiver is, you're not even a dilettante, you're just fantasizing."
"It's a First Age tool meant to allow secure Essence transfer and communication between a static manse and a distant tool, a refinement of the connection linked hearthstones have." As you finish echoing the Whisper's answer to you, the Shrike pulls its wings in closer and its speed increases threefold, zipping behind a distant mountain in an instant.
Only now does she look away from her tools, seeming to consider this motion to be the end of her observations for the moment. "How the hell do you know what?"
You arch an eyebrow at her, silently reminding her that you gave her explanation for yourself already.
"Huh. Well, you're less useless than the rest of the rabble if you know that much. Call me Twine." She begins methodically breaking down her observation tools again. You move as if to help her, and she swats at your hand. Hard, not just a warning swat. You let her do it herself. "Yeah, the Shrike has those. Not just one, either, but several. I've been trying to track its Essence flows, since even that isn't completely impossible to break through, but it shifts. I've established that it has at least four different bases it can cycle between, but I haven't yet located even one of them. Getting closer."
You nod. "The part I'm not sure on is why it keeps coming back here in the first place. You wouldn't have a chance to take anything like enough readings if it just did what it normally did and left."
"That is the fifty-talent question, isn't it? If you're so clever, maybe you have a hint to that up your pale sleeves, too?"
"Sadly, no." You spread your hands in a gesture of helplessness. "But is there a reason you haven't been trying to figure that part out?"
"If the Shrike thinks there's something here, and it can't find it, and I don't even know what it's looking for, how am I supposed to find it?" Twine suddenly grins. "But that's the stupid prize, anyway. Who cares what it's looking for? If I can find a majority of the control manses..."
"...You'd control the Shrike?"
"Exactly." Twine's observation device is folded up much more elegantly now than it was after she ran into you in the street. She even has some lenses over her eyes, equally complex and mechanical. You wonder distantly if she's somehow nearsighted. She isn't giving you the clear signal you had from Crowson that this is a deathknight, but you suspect she is. And... generally, Exalting, even as Anathema, is supposed to patch the infirmities of the body and mind. Mnemon, most famously, went from a meek and willowy girl to a driven and powerful woman almost overnight when she Exalted.
"You know," Twine adds, in a thoughtful tone, "I am curious about the Shrike's goal, even if I can't put my time to finding it. If you do come up with anything, let me know. Come to my estate with any news. Amphora, right? I'll let my servants know to let you in, and I will make it worth your while."
You let her take her leave after that. You secured a worthwhile advantage there, an opening you can make use of at your leisure. You'd rather learn what you can and weave a plan than take any precipitous actions.
It rains the next day. The clouds are high, and the rain is an annoying drizzle that's too heavy to ignore but too light to be a relief as far as actually sweeping away Gem's smells. At the least, the clouds don't burn off in the sun, so the rain continues. When you check in with the Despot's bureaucracy, it's Tehli again behind the desk. It seems like the rain is only making her job more annoying, by how she's looking harassed and slightly damp at the desk today. And not able to write. It's an outdoors desk, the same one you first approached, so not only is it too wet for fun-writing, it's also too busy to take the time for that. You aren't the only one to come to the desk, meaning that this time, surprisingly, you have to wait in line for a couple minutes of a meeting with mortal workers before you get to her. "Two days off," is the summary she gives you. For today and tomorrow, the Despot is requisitioning zero water spells from you, giving you some time off.
"Although," Tehli says as you process this, "There is one thing we're looking for sorcerers for. Security during a meeting tomorrow. Stand by and make sure that no one's casting any unauthorized sorceries during the party. You don't get to talk to the guests, but it's not a bad way to get your face out there if you're hoping to eventually make yourself known to the Despot and nobility."
You don't shrug, although the temptation is there. That's not exactly a draw when you're engaged in other things, but it does fit with your cover. "Tell me about this."
The bureaucrat beams, and launches into description. It seems that the meeting is several of the people who have been interested in this yasal crystal you'd heard about. Everyone who bit on the Despot's offer will be there, and they'll have a very nice meal and entertainment, and almost coincidentally, the Despot will end up rather richer after somewhere between a day and a week of discussions, and whoever wanted it most will have a new yasal crystal. "Normally," Tehli tells you in a conspiratorial whisper, "We'd offer this to the most senior sorcerers, but I figure we can squeeze you in." She gives you a smile and a wink.
You return the smile, as you start to realize that this might actually be useful, depending on exactly who is interested in this. "Thanks for thinking of me." You don't know if it's just that she's trying to flirt or if she's hoping to hook her star to one that has the potential to ascend, but either way it is something you appreciate. The complex parts of that can be figured our later.
"Sadly, a day like this means more work for me," she tells you, slightly opening a water-proof pouch to check some of the documents inside without getting them wet. "We have to check up on how the catchments are functioning, be sure that the water is pure before it's routed to any partially-filled reservoirs, ensure drainage throughout the city... I'll have to catch you later." She shrugs, removes her glasses to wipe off a couple water spots, and puts them back on.
You make appropriate closings and step away. It seems like only the water-clutching Despot and his direct workers are engaged today. For everyone else, one of Gem's few rainy days is an excuse for a holiday. Some of the market stalls are closed, and others are having a 'rain sale'. Far fewer people than usual are rushing around looking like they're in a hurry.
You see a subtle waved hand raised for your attention. From the far side of the wet street, you see Dub-dubs is leaning against the counter of a stall that sells coffee.
Dueling squads of kids block the way as you try to pass over that way. They're having a mock war in the street, rods and various debris standing in for daiklaves, thunderbolt shields, and other mighty artifacts of legend as they fight for the honor of the Shogun and they shout various elaborations of the myth as they go, laughing as they one-up each other.
Briefly, you hesitate, then set your foot into a large puddle with a small grin of your own. The water surges and roils around you, your control spell's side-effects spilling into the standing water. It builds into a small wave and crashes down on the children in your path, prompting sudden sputtering and shrieks of surprise. They were already wet; you didn't make it any worse. "Beware fighting in the shadow of the sorcerer's tower," you tell them with mock solemnity as they regard you with mild awe. "You never know when he will rouse."
They work this into their ongoing story easily and immediately, while also clearing the way so you can reach Dub-dubs. As you approach the coffee stand, the seller gives you a meaningful look. You exchange a coin for a cup of her bitter black coffee before you talk to Dub-dubs, just so you have authorization to speak to them.
"So," the Water Aspect begins once you get through the greetings and a moment together to reflect on the kids playing, "Day off, huh? I hadn't heard we were going to have rain, but you take what you can get." Their smile isn't any less sleepy than the last time you met.
You nod. "Still, I hope it doesn't rain too long. I don't have a second job yet."
"Nah, I'll be surprised if it lasts all the way to evening. It usually doesn't. And unless you came in with a lot of debts or are living awful lavish, I shouldn't think you're hurting for money." Dub-dubs raises an eyebrow at you, questioning.
"No, just planning ahead. I wanted to be sure it wasn't going to be one of those places where it rains for two weeks if it ever starts."
"Can safely say it isn't that." Dub-dubs takes another swallow of coffee with every sign of enjoyment, which you find rather dubious, since to your taste it seems a little burnt. "Usually only rains a dozen or so days a year, all within a month or two after Calibration, which gives us our time to ourselves. Some of us take the time to work on our own projects, but I've never really done much research or workings for myself. Actually, I was going to get together with a couple of the other water-workers and just drink a bit this afternoon. Wanna come?"
Somehow, you end up over at Dub-dubs' place, with a handful of snacks and a bottle of date-wine. Their apartment is about the same size as yours, but with the walls and floor covered in various dream-catching charms, like you saw in their hands at the gladiatorial fight. You're the last one to show up, but it looks like the others haven't been here long. As Dub-dubs had said, they had invited 'a couple' of people. You recognize them from the Water Aspect's description: Flawed Topaz the fae-blood and Shetuk, an older mortal sorcerer.
Shetuk is saying something to Topaz as you enter, which you don't catch most of due to Shetuk speaking in at least three different languages over just a couple of sentences, but it makes Topaz snort-laugh, which makes the older man grin in turn.
Introductions don't take long, and you take a seat with them, too, lotus-style on the floor atop a rug of woven dreamcatchers. Shetuk rests on his knees, his back straight, his braided white beard coming down to his navel. He doesn't have the advantages that the rest of you do, so he has to be careful to take care of himself.
Topaz, on the other hand, is basically upside-down, her back on the floor and her legs stretching up the wall. You watch her as she takes a drink with the back of her head pressed to the floor, curious to see if she's going to spill on herself. She doesn't, but she does catch your eye and gives you an impish grin. "So you're the newbie, huh?" It's an interesting effect, that upside-down grin on a sharp, fae face with pointed ears. She looks incredibly harmless, which is definitely at odds with your experience with fae before. You have to remind yourself that the sins of her mother or father aren't hers.
"Just came into town this week," you answer her question with a nod.
"Neat. I know that the Despot has been pulling his hair out over concern, but a new sorcerer should help."
"Is it really that small a pool?"
"Yeah. There's, what, twelve, thirteen of us?" She looks at Shetuk, who wobbles his hand. "Maybe fifteen," she corrects. "Either way, if the Shrike decided to level this apartment building right now, Gem would have a very thirsty year."
"And so there's just a little cabal of us, who make the city function, just creating water at the Despot's command." You understand why the Despot does it the way he does, as it allows close control, but it just seems like such a fragile system.
"Sure. And why not? We've got it made." Topaz twists her way in a more normal seated posture to drink more easily. A cycle of alcohol makes its way into everyone's cups again. "Easy work, good money, guaranteed job." She glances at Blizzard's Scourge at your waist. "Can I see your thing there?"
You hand it to her to examine. It's light and easy for you, but enormously awkward for her, and even more difficult for Shetuk when she passes it to him to look at. "Impressive piece," she tells you. "I don't recognize it. Did you scavenge it yourself or what?"
Of course she wouldn't recognize it. That was part of why you were so willing to hand it off, that and how hard it is to steal a magical boomerang that wants to come back to you. It was used in the north, and hasn't left House Peleps for hundreds of years. Of course someone in Gem wouldn't recognize it. You don't say it like that, though. Instead, you just stick to, "It came from my parents."
"What sort of evocations have you got out of it?" It's not surprising that she's curious. Even among the Realm, not every Exalt gets such a fine weapon. Out here in the far Threshold, it's rarer still.
Unfortunately, you have to shake your head. "None that I've managed to awaken yet."
"Oh. Huh, why not?"
"I'll get there soon," you say, to deflect that line of inquiry. You think you do know, and it won't get any better. It's a Peleps weapon. You aren't that any longer, are you? It's no wonder it barely allows access to its basic capabilities and nothing further.
Shetuk points to something with the handle and makes an aside joke to Dub-dubs, who laughs at it. Again, it's something multi-lingual. That has to be the worst way to do wordplay that you've ever heard of.
Flawed Topaz flows a little closer to you while those two are talking, to whisper in your ear: "Hey, just so you know, Dub-dubs does like to be pinned down by tall men who take charge. Just in case you were considering that." She's trying to get a rise out of you, popping out with that from nowhere. You don't give her the satisfaction of a startled reaction. Instead, you arch an imperious, Dynastic eyebrow at her. It doesn't work here, where people don't respect Dynasts. She just grins more evilly. "What? Hey, does it show that my dad's a lorelei?"
You sigh, but Shetuk and Dub-dubs finish up what they were talking about and hand back your skycutter, cutting off that line of conversation. Another round of drinking and local gossip goes around.
Unexpectedly, a few minutes later, a weird little chubby spirit with six wings creeps in under the lip of the door and flies in front of you. You draw back in surprise, which prompts everyone else to look at you. They can't see it. "Hold on," you say. "I think I'm... getting a message?"
The Infallible Messenger, for that is what it is, opens its mouth. Nine Leagues Stride's voice comes out of it. "Hey, Reddy. How are things there? Actually, don't tell me. I can't hear you back and this is pre-recorded for you. I'm going to be in Gem tomorrow. I have a proposition you probably want to hear, because there's something big going down and you don't want to miss out. What? Shut up, flame-butt, I didn't forget. And you accuse me of being impatient. Ari was here, Reddy. Says he's going to be there in a couple more days, too. Anyway, if you wanna talk shop, there's a place I stay at when I'm in Gem." The Messenger gives you the name and directions to the hostel she will be staying at, then vanishes.
You shake your head and look over the room, to find a trio of curious looks back at you. The Infallible Messenger can't be seen nor heard save by its target, and none of these three can contest that, though just how curious they are ranges from Topaz's naked interest to Shetuk's eyebrow that gives you a chance to share if you want to. "It was nothing," you say. "A... business partner, I suppose, who just wanted to get in touch."
"Ooh," Topaz says, her grin no less gleeful than before. "Let me guess: old flame?"
"I can definitely say it isn't that." By the look on her face, she isn't completely willing to give up on that angle.
The conversation picks back up and forgets about your message soon enough. This is a weird way to socialize, to you. Dragon-Bloods in the Realm almost never have this sort of small, casual get-together. There always has to be some level of ostentatious display, and usually some back-stabbing or deals to be hashed out.
This is, instead, relaxing. It's nice.
The yasal crystal is, indeed, impressive. It is a thousand-faceted yellow gem that looks like a master gemcutter has already given it their life's effort, instead of coming straight out of the ground like this. It is so big that, were you allowed to touch it, you'd have to strain to enclose it in your arms. The brilliant white glowstones embedded in the corners of the ceiling bathe it in an eye-catching warm light, which seems to stir with the shifting of some dark shape inside it, something that you can't make out or even see when you look directly at it.
Most yasal crystals are more the size of your thumb, or maybe your fist, and able to restrain most ghosts, demons of the first circle, and your average road-god. The largest you've ever heard of are still less than half this size in any dimension, and are usually a secret weapon of Immaculate monks, to give them a final tool to handle the mightiest beasts that boil up from the Underworld, the odd second-circle demon that ends up set on the Realm by horrific No Moon sorcerers, and puissant gods and spirits that even an Immaculate master can't be sure of defeating.
This one, you can't even imagine what it could be used for.
You don't really have to, though, since it's clear you won't be allowed to touch it. Two violent-looking Dragon-Bloods in the Despot's employ provide close protection, lounging near its cart with jade panoplies about their persons. The next level of protection is you: the sorcerers that are here to make certain that the Despot's guests don't do anything untoward before one of them purchases it. That's you, Dub-dubs, and a god-blooded sorcerer named Expanding Thews. All you really know of him is Dub-dubs' description as "sort of a jerk" and the way he stands there glowering at nothing means you don't feel moved to try to talk.
On the other side of the room, the one you aren't allowed in, the Despot's servants have laid out a lavish spread: fruits, sweets, little delicacies of rare meat and spices artfully arranged, and several types of alcohol. Thick carpets, the sort you could sink ankle-deep into, cover the guest side of the room and contrast with the bare side that you and the other workers have been instructed to stick to.
The Despot is the first one to come in on the guest side. He's a thin man, with a small, pointed beard. His eyes sweep over each of you on your side, the yasal crystal, and the buffet, and you can almost see the tally sheet in his head calculating costs for each.
In an interesting bit of choreography, five doors open at once, and all of the Despot's guests enter at once, each led by a different slave of the Despot. Your eyes go to several of them. One door disgorges Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending, but you had expected that. The unexpected one is the door that lets in a familiar sallow-faced sorcerer and a grinning, flame-haired woman. Solace Through the Night recognizes you almost at the same moment you do her, and there's a mutual awkward moment. She touches her forehead, where the brim of her hat would be if she were wearing one, a quick and deniable moment of recognition... and one that doesn't seem too mad at you.
There's no chance for you to follow up, not here. The Despot puts his back to you, spreading his arms wide. "Welcome!" His voice carries well, melodic and practiced. "Honored guests, it is my pleasure to welcome you to my humble city. I hope my meager hospitality is sufficient not to offend." He bows his head, as if this is a genuine concern, before raising it again to sweep his eyes over them all. "Ah, but before we look at the evening's star attraction and enjoy a repast, I should introduce everyone, as I doubt you all know each other."
He extends a gracious hand towards a woman with pale, freckled skin. "The Perfect of Paragon has sent Scarlet Whisper here to act as his voice in our talks." She gives him a small, self-assured smile.
The Despot turns to his left-most guest. "Representing... certain western interests, San Tel." The obvious Lintha peels his lips back in what could charitably be called a smile. There's a demonic cast to his features and a green tint to his skin; he's not hiding what he is here.
"Here is one of Gem's own residents in life, now sadly deceased, Nicklaus of Gem. He has come to me with a token showing that he will be standing in for... a certain group that could not otherwise make it today." Nicklaus, a dark-haired ghost dressed in black, is clearly a ghost. He is slightly transparent and is floating a discreet inch or so above the ground, but he bows to the others.
Nicklaus is clearly here for a Deathlord, by that barely-deniable introduction. You study him, but he's not so indiscreet as to be openly wearing a mons symbolizing the Waif or the Lion, by far the two most likely Deathlords.
"From the Queendom of the Lap, standing in for the Scarlet Empress in these troubled times, we have--"
"Solace!" The Despot's litany is interrupted by a roaring laugh from Soot Column Ascending.
Before anyone else can react, the ifrit leaps from his place at his Lunar companion's side to land next to the surprised young woman. "My little girl! How much you've grown!" He beams. "I barely recognized your Essence!"
Now that it's been pointed out, a certain family resemblance can be seen between them, even beyond the fiery hair. In contrast to the ifrit's pleasure, everyone else has to take a moment to pull themselves back together. It's Solace who speaks first, in a tone of stunned surprise. "Dad?"
"Look at you!" He claps her on the shoulders, holding her still at arm's length. "What's it been, two years since I saw you and your mother?"
She brushes his hands off. "Dad, it's been eighteen years. I was four when I saw you last."
"Oh, has it really been that long?" Solace's disgusted tone doesn't even register with the ifrit. "How time flies!"
It takes a few minutes more for the Despot to restore things to where he wanted them, complete his introductions, let all the guests admire the yasal crystal from a safe distance, and raid the buffet before they leave. None of it catches your attention too much, so you let it slide past you.
Once the guests leave, but before the yasal crystal is put back into an armored and warded vault so it doesn't require five guards on it, Dub-dubs elbows you slightly, to catch your attention for a whisper. "I think I saw you jump when everyone came in. Friends of yours in that bunch?"
You shrug, diffidently. "Something like that."
Soon, you're going to be off the day's job. You can't very well just ignore all this.
What's the first priority here?
[] Meet up with Solace, see how she and the Lap and Realm are doing.
[] Meet up with the Lunar, who has something she wants to talk about.
[] Hunt down Nicklaus. No mere ghost can resist you; you will get information.
- [] Introduce yourself as a sorcerer, interested in the Shrike.
"You're the one the Despot has following the Shrike," you say, as if in sudden recognition.
She glances at you incuriously as her hands continue their sure work. "Obviously." From there, she moves to the balcony to set up the arrangement. Several lenses twist on their own in the almost wire-frame contraption, lining themselves up and seeking the Shrike in the sky. A tube slips into the light path, and a plain sheet of parchment unrolls.
The end result of all this is that a live image of the Shrike, magnified and sharpened, is projected onto the parchment.
For a moment, the sight of it nearly strikes you dumb. Despite its clearly artifical nature and bulk, the Shrike moves like a living thing. Wings of starmetal stretch and twist with every flap, propelling a body wrought from enough jade to destabilize the Realm's whole economy. The impossible beauty of orichalcum devil-gold shines at its questing beak. Fluid protean moonsilver flows down its flanks, mixing in complex whorls with the cursed soulsteel at its stern.
Seemingly inured to the sight, the woman taps the nail of her middle finger against another lens, which slips into place with a decisive click. The image is suddenly muted, this apparently serving as a filter of some kind. Now, the Shrike is visibly surrounded by a delicate tracery of shifting lines, finer than strands of hair.
The Whispers breathe in the back of your mind, respositories of ages-old knowledge stirring in surprise as they behold something that they haven't for countless centuries. You listen, dipping into this near-wordless understanding, the flash impressions that they give you of this lining up somewhat with your new insights into sorcery. What you can, you absorb. "Essence flows, for guidance?" you ask.
The woman jerks for a moment, as if she had forgotten you were present to begin with. "Obviously," she says again, in a slightly more annoyed tone this time. She doesn't take her eyes off the instrument, thought she consults a compass and a series of other, more arcane tools as she works.
"They're not pointing just at the elemental poles or even local dragon lines, though. It's also pointing at its base, isn't it?" That one's a little bit of a stab in the dark.
"Does it look like it's pointing in only one direction?" It doesn't look like much of anything, if you have to be honest. "Who are you, anyway?"
"Amphora. I'm a sorcerer here. I'm interested in the Shrike."
She scoffs. "You and every two-bit wise woman between here and Chiaroscuro, who think that sometimes reading an astrological chart right makes you insightful." The filter-lens is removed, and a new one is snapped into place, casting the projected image in an orange light. "If you don't know what a variable-frequency broad-spectrum mote transmitter-receiver is, you're not even a dilettante, you're just fantasizing."
"It's a First Age tool meant to allow secure Essence transfer and communication between a static manse and a distant tool, a refinement of the connection linked hearthstones have." As you finish echoing the Whisper's answer to you, the Shrike pulls its wings in closer and its speed increases threefold, zipping behind a distant mountain in an instant.
Only now does she look away from her tools, seeming to consider this motion to be the end of her observations for the moment. "How the hell do you know what?"
You arch an eyebrow at her, silently reminding her that you gave her explanation for yourself already.
"Huh. Well, you're less useless than the rest of the rabble if you know that much. Call me Twine." She begins methodically breaking down her observation tools again. You move as if to help her, and she swats at your hand. Hard, not just a warning swat. You let her do it herself. "Yeah, the Shrike has those. Not just one, either, but several. I've been trying to track its Essence flows, since even that isn't completely impossible to break through, but it shifts. I've established that it has at least four different bases it can cycle between, but I haven't yet located even one of them. Getting closer."
You nod. "The part I'm not sure on is why it keeps coming back here in the first place. You wouldn't have a chance to take anything like enough readings if it just did what it normally did and left."
"That is the fifty-talent question, isn't it? If you're so clever, maybe you have a hint to that up your pale sleeves, too?"
"Sadly, no." You spread your hands in a gesture of helplessness. "But is there a reason you haven't been trying to figure that part out?"
"If the Shrike thinks there's something here, and it can't find it, and I don't even know what it's looking for, how am I supposed to find it?" Twine suddenly grins. "But that's the stupid prize, anyway. Who cares what it's looking for? If I can find a majority of the control manses..."
"...You'd control the Shrike?"
"Exactly." Twine's observation device is folded up much more elegantly now than it was after she ran into you in the street. She even has some lenses over her eyes, equally complex and mechanical. You wonder distantly if she's somehow nearsighted. She isn't giving you the clear signal you had from Crowson that this is a deathknight, but you suspect she is. And... generally, Exalting, even as Anathema, is supposed to patch the infirmities of the body and mind. Mnemon, most famously, went from a meek and willowy girl to a driven and powerful woman almost overnight when she Exalted.
"You know," Twine adds, in a thoughtful tone, "I am curious about the Shrike's goal, even if I can't put my time to finding it. If you do come up with anything, let me know. Come to my estate with any news. Amphora, right? I'll let my servants know to let you in, and I will make it worth your while."
You let her take her leave after that. You secured a worthwhile advantage there, an opening you can make use of at your leisure. You'd rather learn what you can and weave a plan than take any precipitous actions.
* * *
It rains the next day. The clouds are high, and the rain is an annoying drizzle that's too heavy to ignore but too light to be a relief as far as actually sweeping away Gem's smells. At the least, the clouds don't burn off in the sun, so the rain continues. When you check in with the Despot's bureaucracy, it's Tehli again behind the desk. It seems like the rain is only making her job more annoying, by how she's looking harassed and slightly damp at the desk today. And not able to write. It's an outdoors desk, the same one you first approached, so not only is it too wet for fun-writing, it's also too busy to take the time for that. You aren't the only one to come to the desk, meaning that this time, surprisingly, you have to wait in line for a couple minutes of a meeting with mortal workers before you get to her. "Two days off," is the summary she gives you. For today and tomorrow, the Despot is requisitioning zero water spells from you, giving you some time off.
"Although," Tehli says as you process this, "There is one thing we're looking for sorcerers for. Security during a meeting tomorrow. Stand by and make sure that no one's casting any unauthorized sorceries during the party. You don't get to talk to the guests, but it's not a bad way to get your face out there if you're hoping to eventually make yourself known to the Despot and nobility."
You don't shrug, although the temptation is there. That's not exactly a draw when you're engaged in other things, but it does fit with your cover. "Tell me about this."
The bureaucrat beams, and launches into description. It seems that the meeting is several of the people who have been interested in this yasal crystal you'd heard about. Everyone who bit on the Despot's offer will be there, and they'll have a very nice meal and entertainment, and almost coincidentally, the Despot will end up rather richer after somewhere between a day and a week of discussions, and whoever wanted it most will have a new yasal crystal. "Normally," Tehli tells you in a conspiratorial whisper, "We'd offer this to the most senior sorcerers, but I figure we can squeeze you in." She gives you a smile and a wink.
You return the smile, as you start to realize that this might actually be useful, depending on exactly who is interested in this. "Thanks for thinking of me." You don't know if it's just that she's trying to flirt or if she's hoping to hook her star to one that has the potential to ascend, but either way it is something you appreciate. The complex parts of that can be figured our later.
"Sadly, a day like this means more work for me," she tells you, slightly opening a water-proof pouch to check some of the documents inside without getting them wet. "We have to check up on how the catchments are functioning, be sure that the water is pure before it's routed to any partially-filled reservoirs, ensure drainage throughout the city... I'll have to catch you later." She shrugs, removes her glasses to wipe off a couple water spots, and puts them back on.
You make appropriate closings and step away. It seems like only the water-clutching Despot and his direct workers are engaged today. For everyone else, one of Gem's few rainy days is an excuse for a holiday. Some of the market stalls are closed, and others are having a 'rain sale'. Far fewer people than usual are rushing around looking like they're in a hurry.
You see a subtle waved hand raised for your attention. From the far side of the wet street, you see Dub-dubs is leaning against the counter of a stall that sells coffee.
Dueling squads of kids block the way as you try to pass over that way. They're having a mock war in the street, rods and various debris standing in for daiklaves, thunderbolt shields, and other mighty artifacts of legend as they fight for the honor of the Shogun and they shout various elaborations of the myth as they go, laughing as they one-up each other.
Briefly, you hesitate, then set your foot into a large puddle with a small grin of your own. The water surges and roils around you, your control spell's side-effects spilling into the standing water. It builds into a small wave and crashes down on the children in your path, prompting sudden sputtering and shrieks of surprise. They were already wet; you didn't make it any worse. "Beware fighting in the shadow of the sorcerer's tower," you tell them with mock solemnity as they regard you with mild awe. "You never know when he will rouse."
They work this into their ongoing story easily and immediately, while also clearing the way so you can reach Dub-dubs. As you approach the coffee stand, the seller gives you a meaningful look. You exchange a coin for a cup of her bitter black coffee before you talk to Dub-dubs, just so you have authorization to speak to them.
"So," the Water Aspect begins once you get through the greetings and a moment together to reflect on the kids playing, "Day off, huh? I hadn't heard we were going to have rain, but you take what you can get." Their smile isn't any less sleepy than the last time you met.
You nod. "Still, I hope it doesn't rain too long. I don't have a second job yet."
"Nah, I'll be surprised if it lasts all the way to evening. It usually doesn't. And unless you came in with a lot of debts or are living awful lavish, I shouldn't think you're hurting for money." Dub-dubs raises an eyebrow at you, questioning.
"No, just planning ahead. I wanted to be sure it wasn't going to be one of those places where it rains for two weeks if it ever starts."
"Can safely say it isn't that." Dub-dubs takes another swallow of coffee with every sign of enjoyment, which you find rather dubious, since to your taste it seems a little burnt. "Usually only rains a dozen or so days a year, all within a month or two after Calibration, which gives us our time to ourselves. Some of us take the time to work on our own projects, but I've never really done much research or workings for myself. Actually, I was going to get together with a couple of the other water-workers and just drink a bit this afternoon. Wanna come?"
* * *
Somehow, you end up over at Dub-dubs' place, with a handful of snacks and a bottle of date-wine. Their apartment is about the same size as yours, but with the walls and floor covered in various dream-catching charms, like you saw in their hands at the gladiatorial fight. You're the last one to show up, but it looks like the others haven't been here long. As Dub-dubs had said, they had invited 'a couple' of people. You recognize them from the Water Aspect's description: Flawed Topaz the fae-blood and Shetuk, an older mortal sorcerer.
Shetuk is saying something to Topaz as you enter, which you don't catch most of due to Shetuk speaking in at least three different languages over just a couple of sentences, but it makes Topaz snort-laugh, which makes the older man grin in turn.
Introductions don't take long, and you take a seat with them, too, lotus-style on the floor atop a rug of woven dreamcatchers. Shetuk rests on his knees, his back straight, his braided white beard coming down to his navel. He doesn't have the advantages that the rest of you do, so he has to be careful to take care of himself.
Topaz, on the other hand, is basically upside-down, her back on the floor and her legs stretching up the wall. You watch her as she takes a drink with the back of her head pressed to the floor, curious to see if she's going to spill on herself. She doesn't, but she does catch your eye and gives you an impish grin. "So you're the newbie, huh?" It's an interesting effect, that upside-down grin on a sharp, fae face with pointed ears. She looks incredibly harmless, which is definitely at odds with your experience with fae before. You have to remind yourself that the sins of her mother or father aren't hers.
"Just came into town this week," you answer her question with a nod.
"Neat. I know that the Despot has been pulling his hair out over concern, but a new sorcerer should help."
"Is it really that small a pool?"
"Yeah. There's, what, twelve, thirteen of us?" She looks at Shetuk, who wobbles his hand. "Maybe fifteen," she corrects. "Either way, if the Shrike decided to level this apartment building right now, Gem would have a very thirsty year."
"And so there's just a little cabal of us, who make the city function, just creating water at the Despot's command." You understand why the Despot does it the way he does, as it allows close control, but it just seems like such a fragile system.
"Sure. And why not? We've got it made." Topaz twists her way in a more normal seated posture to drink more easily. A cycle of alcohol makes its way into everyone's cups again. "Easy work, good money, guaranteed job." She glances at Blizzard's Scourge at your waist. "Can I see your thing there?"
You hand it to her to examine. It's light and easy for you, but enormously awkward for her, and even more difficult for Shetuk when she passes it to him to look at. "Impressive piece," she tells you. "I don't recognize it. Did you scavenge it yourself or what?"
Of course she wouldn't recognize it. That was part of why you were so willing to hand it off, that and how hard it is to steal a magical boomerang that wants to come back to you. It was used in the north, and hasn't left House Peleps for hundreds of years. Of course someone in Gem wouldn't recognize it. You don't say it like that, though. Instead, you just stick to, "It came from my parents."
"What sort of evocations have you got out of it?" It's not surprising that she's curious. Even among the Realm, not every Exalt gets such a fine weapon. Out here in the far Threshold, it's rarer still.
Unfortunately, you have to shake your head. "None that I've managed to awaken yet."
"Oh. Huh, why not?"
"I'll get there soon," you say, to deflect that line of inquiry. You think you do know, and it won't get any better. It's a Peleps weapon. You aren't that any longer, are you? It's no wonder it barely allows access to its basic capabilities and nothing further.
Shetuk points to something with the handle and makes an aside joke to Dub-dubs, who laughs at it. Again, it's something multi-lingual. That has to be the worst way to do wordplay that you've ever heard of.
Flawed Topaz flows a little closer to you while those two are talking, to whisper in your ear: "Hey, just so you know, Dub-dubs does like to be pinned down by tall men who take charge. Just in case you were considering that." She's trying to get a rise out of you, popping out with that from nowhere. You don't give her the satisfaction of a startled reaction. Instead, you arch an imperious, Dynastic eyebrow at her. It doesn't work here, where people don't respect Dynasts. She just grins more evilly. "What? Hey, does it show that my dad's a lorelei?"
You sigh, but Shetuk and Dub-dubs finish up what they were talking about and hand back your skycutter, cutting off that line of conversation. Another round of drinking and local gossip goes around.
Unexpectedly, a few minutes later, a weird little chubby spirit with six wings creeps in under the lip of the door and flies in front of you. You draw back in surprise, which prompts everyone else to look at you. They can't see it. "Hold on," you say. "I think I'm... getting a message?"
The Infallible Messenger, for that is what it is, opens its mouth. Nine Leagues Stride's voice comes out of it. "Hey, Reddy. How are things there? Actually, don't tell me. I can't hear you back and this is pre-recorded for you. I'm going to be in Gem tomorrow. I have a proposition you probably want to hear, because there's something big going down and you don't want to miss out. What? Shut up, flame-butt, I didn't forget. And you accuse me of being impatient. Ari was here, Reddy. Says he's going to be there in a couple more days, too. Anyway, if you wanna talk shop, there's a place I stay at when I'm in Gem." The Messenger gives you the name and directions to the hostel she will be staying at, then vanishes.
You shake your head and look over the room, to find a trio of curious looks back at you. The Infallible Messenger can't be seen nor heard save by its target, and none of these three can contest that, though just how curious they are ranges from Topaz's naked interest to Shetuk's eyebrow that gives you a chance to share if you want to. "It was nothing," you say. "A... business partner, I suppose, who just wanted to get in touch."
"Ooh," Topaz says, her grin no less gleeful than before. "Let me guess: old flame?"
"I can definitely say it isn't that." By the look on her face, she isn't completely willing to give up on that angle.
The conversation picks back up and forgets about your message soon enough. This is a weird way to socialize, to you. Dragon-Bloods in the Realm almost never have this sort of small, casual get-together. There always has to be some level of ostentatious display, and usually some back-stabbing or deals to be hashed out.
This is, instead, relaxing. It's nice.
* * *
The yasal crystal is, indeed, impressive. It is a thousand-faceted yellow gem that looks like a master gemcutter has already given it their life's effort, instead of coming straight out of the ground like this. It is so big that, were you allowed to touch it, you'd have to strain to enclose it in your arms. The brilliant white glowstones embedded in the corners of the ceiling bathe it in an eye-catching warm light, which seems to stir with the shifting of some dark shape inside it, something that you can't make out or even see when you look directly at it.
Most yasal crystals are more the size of your thumb, or maybe your fist, and able to restrain most ghosts, demons of the first circle, and your average road-god. The largest you've ever heard of are still less than half this size in any dimension, and are usually a secret weapon of Immaculate monks, to give them a final tool to handle the mightiest beasts that boil up from the Underworld, the odd second-circle demon that ends up set on the Realm by horrific No Moon sorcerers, and puissant gods and spirits that even an Immaculate master can't be sure of defeating.
This one, you can't even imagine what it could be used for.
You don't really have to, though, since it's clear you won't be allowed to touch it. Two violent-looking Dragon-Bloods in the Despot's employ provide close protection, lounging near its cart with jade panoplies about their persons. The next level of protection is you: the sorcerers that are here to make certain that the Despot's guests don't do anything untoward before one of them purchases it. That's you, Dub-dubs, and a god-blooded sorcerer named Expanding Thews. All you really know of him is Dub-dubs' description as "sort of a jerk" and the way he stands there glowering at nothing means you don't feel moved to try to talk.
On the other side of the room, the one you aren't allowed in, the Despot's servants have laid out a lavish spread: fruits, sweets, little delicacies of rare meat and spices artfully arranged, and several types of alcohol. Thick carpets, the sort you could sink ankle-deep into, cover the guest side of the room and contrast with the bare side that you and the other workers have been instructed to stick to.
The Despot is the first one to come in on the guest side. He's a thin man, with a small, pointed beard. His eyes sweep over each of you on your side, the yasal crystal, and the buffet, and you can almost see the tally sheet in his head calculating costs for each.
In an interesting bit of choreography, five doors open at once, and all of the Despot's guests enter at once, each led by a different slave of the Despot. Your eyes go to several of them. One door disgorges Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending, but you had expected that. The unexpected one is the door that lets in a familiar sallow-faced sorcerer and a grinning, flame-haired woman. Solace Through the Night recognizes you almost at the same moment you do her, and there's a mutual awkward moment. She touches her forehead, where the brim of her hat would be if she were wearing one, a quick and deniable moment of recognition... and one that doesn't seem too mad at you.
There's no chance for you to follow up, not here. The Despot puts his back to you, spreading his arms wide. "Welcome!" His voice carries well, melodic and practiced. "Honored guests, it is my pleasure to welcome you to my humble city. I hope my meager hospitality is sufficient not to offend." He bows his head, as if this is a genuine concern, before raising it again to sweep his eyes over them all. "Ah, but before we look at the evening's star attraction and enjoy a repast, I should introduce everyone, as I doubt you all know each other."
He extends a gracious hand towards a woman with pale, freckled skin. "The Perfect of Paragon has sent Scarlet Whisper here to act as his voice in our talks." She gives him a small, self-assured smile.
The Despot turns to his left-most guest. "Representing... certain western interests, San Tel." The obvious Lintha peels his lips back in what could charitably be called a smile. There's a demonic cast to his features and a green tint to his skin; he's not hiding what he is here.
"Here is one of Gem's own residents in life, now sadly deceased, Nicklaus of Gem. He has come to me with a token showing that he will be standing in for... a certain group that could not otherwise make it today." Nicklaus, a dark-haired ghost dressed in black, is clearly a ghost. He is slightly transparent and is floating a discreet inch or so above the ground, but he bows to the others.
Nicklaus is clearly here for a Deathlord, by that barely-deniable introduction. You study him, but he's not so indiscreet as to be openly wearing a mons symbolizing the Waif or the Lion, by far the two most likely Deathlords.
"From the Queendom of the Lap, standing in for the Scarlet Empress in these troubled times, we have--"
"Solace!" The Despot's litany is interrupted by a roaring laugh from Soot Column Ascending.
Before anyone else can react, the ifrit leaps from his place at his Lunar companion's side to land next to the surprised young woman. "My little girl! How much you've grown!" He beams. "I barely recognized your Essence!"
Now that it's been pointed out, a certain family resemblance can be seen between them, even beyond the fiery hair. In contrast to the ifrit's pleasure, everyone else has to take a moment to pull themselves back together. It's Solace who speaks first, in a tone of stunned surprise. "Dad?"
"Look at you!" He claps her on the shoulders, holding her still at arm's length. "What's it been, two years since I saw you and your mother?"
She brushes his hands off. "Dad, it's been eighteen years. I was four when I saw you last."
"Oh, has it really been that long?" Solace's disgusted tone doesn't even register with the ifrit. "How time flies!"
It takes a few minutes more for the Despot to restore things to where he wanted them, complete his introductions, let all the guests admire the yasal crystal from a safe distance, and raid the buffet before they leave. None of it catches your attention too much, so you let it slide past you.
Once the guests leave, but before the yasal crystal is put back into an armored and warded vault so it doesn't require five guards on it, Dub-dubs elbows you slightly, to catch your attention for a whisper. "I think I saw you jump when everyone came in. Friends of yours in that bunch?"
You shrug, diffidently. "Something like that."
Soon, you're going to be off the day's job. You can't very well just ignore all this.
What's the first priority here?
[] Meet up with Solace, see how she and the Lap and Realm are doing.
[] Meet up with the Lunar, who has something she wants to talk about.
[] Hunt down Nicklaus. No mere ghost can resist you; you will get information.
Rekindling acquaintance
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Meet up with Solace, see how she and the Lap and Realm are doing.
Once the situation has calmed down and the guests are taken to another room for the main food and discussion, it's time to put up the yasal crystal. The vault is, of course, in this same building: carting it around would be an unacceptable security risk. The guards, as well as you sorcerers, follow a couple of porters who take it down the hall and into a sturdy vault. You don't have a great chance to catch all of the security details. Once the thick door is sealed and the sorcerous wards put back into place over it, it's time to go.
You're allowed to raid the leftovers of the finger-food buffet before you go. It's unsurprisingly tasty stuff, so you take as much as you can without provoking annoyed looks from anyone else who's going to be raiding it.
On your way out, as the Despot's guest wing opens onto Gem's surface-level street (though on a discreet side entrance for servants, of course) Dub-dubs gives you a curious look, the Water Aspect chewing on some little sausage for a moment before they can clear their mouth and speak to you. "I imagine that you're going to try to catch up with your friends there?"
You shrug. "I think so."
They nod. "Sleep is good, though. Be careful you're not out too late." It's the tone of a friend looking after a friend's health.
You give them a small smile. "Believe me, I've learned exactly how much sleep I need since I Exalted."
"I imagine you would, yeah. We all have that impulse to just... get up and do things, don't we?" That is a little at odds with how Dub-dubs has described their long, comfortable life here in Gem, but you suppose that it can mean different things to different people. You say your good nights.
You let yourself vanish as you leave. You never make a noise while walking unless you intentionally choose to, and people look for familiar shapes to recognize things. If you make the effort, you don't look like much of anything.
It may be an unnecessary step, but you decide to be careful. A new sorcerer found conspiring with definitely-outside groups is not going to be good for you, though Dub-dubs as an individual seems okay with it.
The night is relatively quiet. Gem always has someone up and about, just in case someone decides at midnight that she really wants to purchase a brace of racing camels before dawn, never mind the traditional after-dark affairs of criminal activity, drinking, negotiable affection, and all the associated socializing. That's off in the distance, though, where the marketplaces are. Here, among those upscale residences able to abut the Despot's palace, things are more restrained. Anyway, no one would dare host a party on a night where the Despot also was, so the only people nearby are night guards making their familiar, boring circuits. Hardly anyone who would see an Exalt putting his mind to disappearing.
It's a long wait, but eventually the Despot's guests start leaving. You don't see Scarlet Whisper. The Lintha barely glances around. He's a little unsteady in the way of someone who has had too much to drink, and radiates smug satisfaction. Nicklaus' look is inscrutable at this distance, and the ghost heads for one of the main marketplaces, where you assume there must be a closet shadowland or some similar location. Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending pause at the gate, scanning the area, but you're already standing still and reasonably far distant. They go on their way, and you don't think you were seen. Solace and Danaro do something similar, but those two you follow, slipping from shadow to shadow. They make their way to a little hostel close by the Arbani estate you'd noticed before, splitting up to go to separate rooms.
You're almost sure you gave no betraying sign at all, but nonetheless as you pad along the glowstone-lit hallway, Solace suddenly whirls, her hand dropping to her thigh holster as she ducks, ready to fight. You hold up empty hands and let her recognize you. She sighs, glancing down to make sure there's no one else watching, then opens the door to her room and waves for you to come in with her. You follow. It's much like a lot of upscale lodging places Creation over: a small, relatively clean room with a small bed, a little floor space to put your things, and typically not too much else save whatever the local elements require.
In this case, the added amenity is a single chair with a back that can be pushed up to a 'desk' at the window consisting of a single smoothed plank of wood attached to the wall. Given the local premium on wood, that's actually probably somewhat ritzy, all things considered.
Solace takes the chair, straddling it with her arms folded over the back. You consider the optics of sitting on the bed or floor, and quickly decide to lean against the wall, instead. She speaks first. "It's good to see you," she opens with.
You relax internally. So she doesn't still think you're a monster tempted to wickedness, or is at least provisionally willing to consider that. "You, too," you respond, with a small smile.
All of a sudden, her face lights up, covered with a big grin again. It's a familiar look: the cocky elemental-blooded hotshot sure she can face anything. "You wouldn't believe how much I've come to miss you. How did you always handle all the administrative stuff so easily?"
"I was literally raised to do it. How are things back in the Lap?"
"Moving fast, but pretty well. Anira declared herself Queen. Did you hear that?" She waits for you to give a vague gesture to indicate you'd heard but without details. "Well, she did. Things move so fast with Exalts around! With a little deft maneuvering, she's pulled together a lot of the lesser coastal satrapies and various small communities in the area and some distance eastward for 'the duration of the emergency'. The Lap itself is worth a lot, so things are working okay. There's still the understanding that we'll all go back to being Realm citizens if the civil war resolves itself."
"I haven't heard much about the war," you admit. "This far south, it's mostly Lunar or independent dominions, so internal Realm news doesn't carry."
Solace's smile briefly disappears. "That part, not so good. Sorry, but it seems that Peleps is on the opposite side from Ragara and Cathak, so leaving was probably for the best. You and the other Triumvirs would have ended up butting heads or killing each other. We still don't know the details of how the war's going. Both the pro-Mnemon and anti-Mnemon factions take every chance they can to broadcast their unbroken string of victories through the heliograph, so the truth is hard to know." You nod, grimly. That's not too unexpected. For the Dynasts of the Realm, loyalty is typically to the person of the Empress first, then your House, and only then to various lesser ideals. Without the Empress, Houses align along whatever suits your matriarchs. "The Lap is operating well, though," Solace adds, to get back on track. "Avalanche has traveled over the new territory, and is generally well-regarded by the people around him, so your Immaculate Philosophy's still pretty strong and it's keeping popular sentiment up. Ptheno's acting as Minister of War, and Avalanche is trying to help him learn Fire Dragon Style. He seems pretty driven about it, now that there's more Dragon-Bloods in the new queendom. Can't fall behind, you know." You smile. That does sound like Ptheno. He's much more tolerable when he's hundreds of miles away.
"Thank you," you say. "That's all good to hear. Can I ask why you're out here? Or is that a state secret now?"
She grins at your light tone. "Nothing too secret. Gem's still valuable, and Anira would like to tie it to us more closely. I had Danaro ferry me out here specifically because of the Arbanis, though. I wanted to get a brace of Arbani flame pieces. Got a meeting with them tomorrow. Oh, and there's that yasal crystal." The Exigent shrugs. "You'd have known more about it if you were still at the Lap, I guess. Never dug up anything like it before, apparently. Everyone was sort of feeling out what it was worth to everyone else at the shindig tonight. The Lintha didn't seem to be interested after he had a chance to look at it, and barely made an offer. The Paragonese woman was the next one priced out: she just seemed to have a smaller budget. The other three of us are still in, but if Nicklaus keeps offering more the way he has been, I'll be the next out. Anira's directions were just to make sure it didn't fall into Lunar hands, and I assume my dad and his companion are connected to the Lunars." Solace gives you a questioning look. You nod, but don't add anything else. Confirming any further doesn't help much of anything for you right now. "Still, it's weird to not just shoot ghosts that are bothersome. Anyway, enough about me and the Lap. I'm glad to see you landed on your feet, already serving the Despot. I... may have been harsh when we last parted." That's more apology than you had really been expecting. "How's your little revenge coming?"
"Still building things up," you confess. "Even discounting Nicklaus, I've identified one or two other leads, and I'm only going to strike when I'm read. The Waif is definitely active here, and I think she's going for the Shrike over anything else... but she might be trying for smaller prizes, too. Right now, my best asset is being unknown, so I'm working on keeping my cover as strong as I can, by virtue of being just another working face in the crowd."
Solace cracks her neck with the sound of marble sliding over marble. "If I'm in the area, hit me up. I have other duties now, but I won't miss a chance to fight the undead if I can."
"I appreciate that. I may very well have reason to call on you."
There's a pause in the conversation. Solace raises an eyebrow at you. "Go ahead and ask."
Your curiosity was bursting out to the point she could see it. "Soot Column Ascending is your father?"
She sighs and rocks back in the chair. "Yes. I never knew him all that well. He's my dad more in fact than in actually raising me. I always knew we were outside his usual domain, but he and my mother apparently hit it off, and he came by now and then while I was very young."
"He told me I was always welcome to your hospitality and that his kids all knew that they could get him to repay them if they needed."
That earns you a roll of her eyes. "Technically true from what I know of him, but I'm not sure I'd trust him to get it back to me in the same decade I told him. He's not ever in a hurry."
"I suppose that explains why you came north to the settlements there instead of further south to try to meet back up with him."
"It rather neatly does, doesn't it?" Solace suddenly sites up more straight in her seat, a surprised look on her face. "Oh! Right. I keep forgetting. One other thing. My sifu was looking for you. Ephrei's her name, and she's probably going to come out here, she said."
It's not a name you've heard before. You frown. Possibilities course through your mind as you consider. "Can you describe her?"
"Well, she fights with twin flame pieces, same as me. She's a good sort. No friend of the undead. She's... hm." Solace frowns. "She's sort of hard to describe beyond that?"
"That's okay. I think I get the picture." You stroke your chin as you consider this. That almost has to be a Sidereal. The same faction that both the Waif and Ari warned you would want you dead. That's going to be a problem, you're relatively sure.
It's hard to slip things past an Exalt, however. "You almost sound as if you were expecting this," Solace says.
You try to wave it off. "Not the specifics. I don't know anything more about her than you've told me."
Solace gives you a lopsided grin. "Fine. Tell me when you feel comfortable telling me." There's some trust returning there, just from her seeing that you have come out here and are following through on your hunt. "Now, much as I hate kicking men out of my room, it's late and I do have an early morning."
You nod, and head for the door. You pause before you open it. "How do you sleep with your hair constantly on fire? Isn't it distracting?"
Solace doesn't say anything. She just fishes around in her bag and pulls out a thick, black mask to cover her eyes. Well, that explains that.
No one sees you as you leave. You are one shadow among many, and it's trivial to avoid the small pools of light in Gem's night. You're not hiding for any particular purpose, now. This is just general principles of not giving away anything you don't need to.
It's time to take another step forward, you've decided. You can skulk around forever, but opportunities will slip through your fingers if you let them sit. You've done well so far, catching several things without letting anything slip that you're aware of, but you can't control everything. You can't control Solace or others saying what they know about you, and you can't control the timing of certain things, like Twine tracking down the Shrike's control bases.
What are you going to do tomorrow to seize the moment? Pick one.
[] Meet up with Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending.
Whatever important thing they had, better late than never. The Lunar is keenly insightful when she tries, and you know she's here for the Despot's yasal crystal.
[] You've had a sudden insight on Twine's question.
It's a leap of logic, but you think you've put it together right. It will take a little investigation in the mines, but you know what the Shrike is hunting, and how to find it.
[] It's time to track down Crowson, the deathknight.
The gladiator is barely trying to hide his nature. You recognized him on sight. You're going to find him and get some answers, but it turns out you are surprised, too.
[] Nicklaus, the ghost, is easy to follow.
He's almost flaunting the connection and wealth his Deathlord master allows him, confident that the Underworld is a fortress absolute. It is less an impediment to you.
...Who blunders in and complicates your plan?
[] Solace Through the Night
Solace is a simple and direct woman, not given to subtlety, and who has her own priorities now.
[] Ari
Your Lunar mate has returned. The Changing Moon isn't trying to be difficult, but...
[] Dub-dubs
The Water Aspect doesn't know anything is amiss at first. They were just curious and unlucky.
[] Tehli
This is definitely no place for a mortal.
Votes will be counted as a set for these; voting for just one option isn't valid.
Once the situation has calmed down and the guests are taken to another room for the main food and discussion, it's time to put up the yasal crystal. The vault is, of course, in this same building: carting it around would be an unacceptable security risk. The guards, as well as you sorcerers, follow a couple of porters who take it down the hall and into a sturdy vault. You don't have a great chance to catch all of the security details. Once the thick door is sealed and the sorcerous wards put back into place over it, it's time to go.
You're allowed to raid the leftovers of the finger-food buffet before you go. It's unsurprisingly tasty stuff, so you take as much as you can without provoking annoyed looks from anyone else who's going to be raiding it.
On your way out, as the Despot's guest wing opens onto Gem's surface-level street (though on a discreet side entrance for servants, of course) Dub-dubs gives you a curious look, the Water Aspect chewing on some little sausage for a moment before they can clear their mouth and speak to you. "I imagine that you're going to try to catch up with your friends there?"
You shrug. "I think so."
They nod. "Sleep is good, though. Be careful you're not out too late." It's the tone of a friend looking after a friend's health.
You give them a small smile. "Believe me, I've learned exactly how much sleep I need since I Exalted."
"I imagine you would, yeah. We all have that impulse to just... get up and do things, don't we?" That is a little at odds with how Dub-dubs has described their long, comfortable life here in Gem, but you suppose that it can mean different things to different people. You say your good nights.
* * *
You let yourself vanish as you leave. You never make a noise while walking unless you intentionally choose to, and people look for familiar shapes to recognize things. If you make the effort, you don't look like much of anything.
It may be an unnecessary step, but you decide to be careful. A new sorcerer found conspiring with definitely-outside groups is not going to be good for you, though Dub-dubs as an individual seems okay with it.
The night is relatively quiet. Gem always has someone up and about, just in case someone decides at midnight that she really wants to purchase a brace of racing camels before dawn, never mind the traditional after-dark affairs of criminal activity, drinking, negotiable affection, and all the associated socializing. That's off in the distance, though, where the marketplaces are. Here, among those upscale residences able to abut the Despot's palace, things are more restrained. Anyway, no one would dare host a party on a night where the Despot also was, so the only people nearby are night guards making their familiar, boring circuits. Hardly anyone who would see an Exalt putting his mind to disappearing.
It's a long wait, but eventually the Despot's guests start leaving. You don't see Scarlet Whisper. The Lintha barely glances around. He's a little unsteady in the way of someone who has had too much to drink, and radiates smug satisfaction. Nicklaus' look is inscrutable at this distance, and the ghost heads for one of the main marketplaces, where you assume there must be a closet shadowland or some similar location. Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending pause at the gate, scanning the area, but you're already standing still and reasonably far distant. They go on their way, and you don't think you were seen. Solace and Danaro do something similar, but those two you follow, slipping from shadow to shadow. They make their way to a little hostel close by the Arbani estate you'd noticed before, splitting up to go to separate rooms.
You're almost sure you gave no betraying sign at all, but nonetheless as you pad along the glowstone-lit hallway, Solace suddenly whirls, her hand dropping to her thigh holster as she ducks, ready to fight. You hold up empty hands and let her recognize you. She sighs, glancing down to make sure there's no one else watching, then opens the door to her room and waves for you to come in with her. You follow. It's much like a lot of upscale lodging places Creation over: a small, relatively clean room with a small bed, a little floor space to put your things, and typically not too much else save whatever the local elements require.
In this case, the added amenity is a single chair with a back that can be pushed up to a 'desk' at the window consisting of a single smoothed plank of wood attached to the wall. Given the local premium on wood, that's actually probably somewhat ritzy, all things considered.
Solace takes the chair, straddling it with her arms folded over the back. You consider the optics of sitting on the bed or floor, and quickly decide to lean against the wall, instead. She speaks first. "It's good to see you," she opens with.
You relax internally. So she doesn't still think you're a monster tempted to wickedness, or is at least provisionally willing to consider that. "You, too," you respond, with a small smile.
All of a sudden, her face lights up, covered with a big grin again. It's a familiar look: the cocky elemental-blooded hotshot sure she can face anything. "You wouldn't believe how much I've come to miss you. How did you always handle all the administrative stuff so easily?"
"I was literally raised to do it. How are things back in the Lap?"
"Moving fast, but pretty well. Anira declared herself Queen. Did you hear that?" She waits for you to give a vague gesture to indicate you'd heard but without details. "Well, she did. Things move so fast with Exalts around! With a little deft maneuvering, she's pulled together a lot of the lesser coastal satrapies and various small communities in the area and some distance eastward for 'the duration of the emergency'. The Lap itself is worth a lot, so things are working okay. There's still the understanding that we'll all go back to being Realm citizens if the civil war resolves itself."
"I haven't heard much about the war," you admit. "This far south, it's mostly Lunar or independent dominions, so internal Realm news doesn't carry."
Solace's smile briefly disappears. "That part, not so good. Sorry, but it seems that Peleps is on the opposite side from Ragara and Cathak, so leaving was probably for the best. You and the other Triumvirs would have ended up butting heads or killing each other. We still don't know the details of how the war's going. Both the pro-Mnemon and anti-Mnemon factions take every chance they can to broadcast their unbroken string of victories through the heliograph, so the truth is hard to know." You nod, grimly. That's not too unexpected. For the Dynasts of the Realm, loyalty is typically to the person of the Empress first, then your House, and only then to various lesser ideals. Without the Empress, Houses align along whatever suits your matriarchs. "The Lap is operating well, though," Solace adds, to get back on track. "Avalanche has traveled over the new territory, and is generally well-regarded by the people around him, so your Immaculate Philosophy's still pretty strong and it's keeping popular sentiment up. Ptheno's acting as Minister of War, and Avalanche is trying to help him learn Fire Dragon Style. He seems pretty driven about it, now that there's more Dragon-Bloods in the new queendom. Can't fall behind, you know." You smile. That does sound like Ptheno. He's much more tolerable when he's hundreds of miles away.
"Thank you," you say. "That's all good to hear. Can I ask why you're out here? Or is that a state secret now?"
She grins at your light tone. "Nothing too secret. Gem's still valuable, and Anira would like to tie it to us more closely. I had Danaro ferry me out here specifically because of the Arbanis, though. I wanted to get a brace of Arbani flame pieces. Got a meeting with them tomorrow. Oh, and there's that yasal crystal." The Exigent shrugs. "You'd have known more about it if you were still at the Lap, I guess. Never dug up anything like it before, apparently. Everyone was sort of feeling out what it was worth to everyone else at the shindig tonight. The Lintha didn't seem to be interested after he had a chance to look at it, and barely made an offer. The Paragonese woman was the next one priced out: she just seemed to have a smaller budget. The other three of us are still in, but if Nicklaus keeps offering more the way he has been, I'll be the next out. Anira's directions were just to make sure it didn't fall into Lunar hands, and I assume my dad and his companion are connected to the Lunars." Solace gives you a questioning look. You nod, but don't add anything else. Confirming any further doesn't help much of anything for you right now. "Still, it's weird to not just shoot ghosts that are bothersome. Anyway, enough about me and the Lap. I'm glad to see you landed on your feet, already serving the Despot. I... may have been harsh when we last parted." That's more apology than you had really been expecting. "How's your little revenge coming?"
"Still building things up," you confess. "Even discounting Nicklaus, I've identified one or two other leads, and I'm only going to strike when I'm read. The Waif is definitely active here, and I think she's going for the Shrike over anything else... but she might be trying for smaller prizes, too. Right now, my best asset is being unknown, so I'm working on keeping my cover as strong as I can, by virtue of being just another working face in the crowd."
Solace cracks her neck with the sound of marble sliding over marble. "If I'm in the area, hit me up. I have other duties now, but I won't miss a chance to fight the undead if I can."
"I appreciate that. I may very well have reason to call on you."
There's a pause in the conversation. Solace raises an eyebrow at you. "Go ahead and ask."
Your curiosity was bursting out to the point she could see it. "Soot Column Ascending is your father?"
She sighs and rocks back in the chair. "Yes. I never knew him all that well. He's my dad more in fact than in actually raising me. I always knew we were outside his usual domain, but he and my mother apparently hit it off, and he came by now and then while I was very young."
"He told me I was always welcome to your hospitality and that his kids all knew that they could get him to repay them if they needed."
That earns you a roll of her eyes. "Technically true from what I know of him, but I'm not sure I'd trust him to get it back to me in the same decade I told him. He's not ever in a hurry."
"I suppose that explains why you came north to the settlements there instead of further south to try to meet back up with him."
"It rather neatly does, doesn't it?" Solace suddenly sites up more straight in her seat, a surprised look on her face. "Oh! Right. I keep forgetting. One other thing. My sifu was looking for you. Ephrei's her name, and she's probably going to come out here, she said."
It's not a name you've heard before. You frown. Possibilities course through your mind as you consider. "Can you describe her?"
"Well, she fights with twin flame pieces, same as me. She's a good sort. No friend of the undead. She's... hm." Solace frowns. "She's sort of hard to describe beyond that?"
"That's okay. I think I get the picture." You stroke your chin as you consider this. That almost has to be a Sidereal. The same faction that both the Waif and Ari warned you would want you dead. That's going to be a problem, you're relatively sure.
It's hard to slip things past an Exalt, however. "You almost sound as if you were expecting this," Solace says.
You try to wave it off. "Not the specifics. I don't know anything more about her than you've told me."
Solace gives you a lopsided grin. "Fine. Tell me when you feel comfortable telling me." There's some trust returning there, just from her seeing that you have come out here and are following through on your hunt. "Now, much as I hate kicking men out of my room, it's late and I do have an early morning."
You nod, and head for the door. You pause before you open it. "How do you sleep with your hair constantly on fire? Isn't it distracting?"
Solace doesn't say anything. She just fishes around in her bag and pulls out a thick, black mask to cover her eyes. Well, that explains that.
* * *
No one sees you as you leave. You are one shadow among many, and it's trivial to avoid the small pools of light in Gem's night. You're not hiding for any particular purpose, now. This is just general principles of not giving away anything you don't need to.
It's time to take another step forward, you've decided. You can skulk around forever, but opportunities will slip through your fingers if you let them sit. You've done well so far, catching several things without letting anything slip that you're aware of, but you can't control everything. You can't control Solace or others saying what they know about you, and you can't control the timing of certain things, like Twine tracking down the Shrike's control bases.
What are you going to do tomorrow to seize the moment? Pick one.
[] Meet up with Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending.
Whatever important thing they had, better late than never. The Lunar is keenly insightful when she tries, and you know she's here for the Despot's yasal crystal.
[] You've had a sudden insight on Twine's question.
It's a leap of logic, but you think you've put it together right. It will take a little investigation in the mines, but you know what the Shrike is hunting, and how to find it.
[] It's time to track down Crowson, the deathknight.
The gladiator is barely trying to hide his nature. You recognized him on sight. You're going to find him and get some answers, but it turns out you are surprised, too.
[] Nicklaus, the ghost, is easy to follow.
He's almost flaunting the connection and wealth his Deathlord master allows him, confident that the Underworld is a fortress absolute. It is less an impediment to you.
...Who blunders in and complicates your plan?
[] Solace Through the Night
Solace is a simple and direct woman, not given to subtlety, and who has her own priorities now.
[] Ari
Your Lunar mate has returned. The Changing Moon isn't trying to be difficult, but...
[] Dub-dubs
The Water Aspect doesn't know anything is amiss at first. They were just curious and unlucky.
[] Tehli
This is definitely no place for a mortal.
Votes will be counted as a set for these; voting for just one option isn't valid.
Breakfast with Anathema
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Meet up with Nine Leagues Strides and Soot Column Ascending.
Whatever important thing they had, better late than never. The Lunar is keenly insightful when she tries, and you know she's here for the Despot's yasal crystal.
...Who blunders in and complicates your plan?
[] Ari
Your Lunar mate has returned. The Changing Moon isn't trying to be difficult, but...
It's early in the morning when you drop by the address Nine Leagues Strides gave you.
It's the ifrit who opens the door, however. That's smart thinking, you realize. The ifrit is the one most likely to attract attention first, after all, as a powerful spirit being and one who can't easily hide his nature. The Anathema he has as a partner is both somewhat more subtle about what she is and would be a significantly greater problem to be discovered. Even in this dark time, Gem wouldn't dare openly host Anathema, not when Anira's queendom is its breadbasket.
He stands aside and gestures for you to come in. You comply, stepping into a little sitting room with a couple of doors in the back that seem to lead to individual bedrooms. It's not a simple room to let, not even a nice room to let. This is more like the Lunar maintaining a second home here in Gem.
Your background level of concern about Nine Leagues Strides and her sprawling nomadic people kicks up a couple of notches.
Soot Column Ascending raps on the wall with his knuckles. You can hear it echoing into the bedrooms, clearly a communication tool. "Our guest is here," he says in a carrying voice, before dropping to a more conversational level. "I am glad you were able to get here on time with so little warning," he says to you.
"Technically, I'm about eight hours late," you tell him. He looks at you with a sort of puzzlement.
Before you can explain 'on time', one of the bedroom doors opens to disgorge two Lunars. Nine Leagues Strides looks as commanding as always, smoothly in control as soon as she shows up and with her moonsilver spear still coiled around her upper arm in decorative-snake form. Behind her, looking a little beat, is Ari. He gives you a bedraggled grin and you can't quite suppress an urge to smile back.
Nine Leagues Strides heads for the front door with barely a gesture of acknowledgement. "We don't have anything for breakfast, so I'll be back with that in a few. Nice of you to show up eventually, Reddy."
Ari practically collapses into one of the chairs surrounding a low table, and you take another one of them. "You look like you've landed on your feet," he says, considering you and your newly white clothes and their slight funeral feeling. "Nice outfit."
"I rather have," you say, checking it over. "Thanks for the tip on these two." You gesture to Soot Column Ascending, who opened your mind to sorcery. "It's come in handy."
"There's more you'll be able to do once you learn more. Sorcery is a field where even an elder Celestial Exalt isn't going to know everything there is to know. This is just a taste of it. I--" He groans a bit, and leans back, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You look tired," you put in.
"I was flying for most of the night," Ari was almost certainly in his hawk form, unless he has a swifter bird-shape he hasn't shown you. "Only got in a little while ago."
"Any particular reason for the rush?"
Ari grins as he pulls himself together, then sprawls over the chair's armrests, legs hanging off one side and his head lolling almost to the floor on the other. His spine is amazingly flexible. "Same reason you're here. But Nine Leagues Strides said she would bend my middle fingers back until they touched my elbows if I ruined her surprise."
"Ah, well, I'll try to live until she comes back." You pause, then arch an eyebrow at him. "'Teach'?"
Ari turns his head towards you. A silvery crescent moon appears on his forehead briefly. That is the mark of the Tricksters or Face Stealers, the Anathema who call themselves Changing Moon. It's a sub-category of Lunars, the social masters of that group. "Teach," he confirms the nickname. "Among other things, I'm big on education for a lot of our people out here in the desert. From helping would-be thaumaturges meet up so they can teach each other to helping mundane craftsmen work past challenges to just teaching children their basic education, it's a real calling of mine. Somewhere along the way, 'Teach' stuck." His smile is broad and genuine. "I like being a schoolteacher to kids, but it isn't something I can limit myself to."
You nod and ask the obvious follow-up question. "Any children of your own, then?"
He shrugs, and his hands sprawl down to the floor. "Not yet. I'd like them someday."
It's a very strange thing to hear from Anathema. It almost feels like what the Immaculate Order offers to people, these Lunars do, too. You suppose it would have to at least pretend to be, or people wouldn't listen to them. Before you can pursue that thought any further, Nine Leagues Strides comes back with some breaded, fried meat that might be chicken. She practically dumps it over the table and takes a third chair. She and Ari grab for it, and you're not far behind. It might be rat, actually. It's still breakfast. Soot Column Ascending doesn't have any. Ifrits don't quite have a human metabolism.
It's an odd thing, you decide, as the three of you inelegantly eat street vendor food. Three Anathema Exalts and a powerful elemental sitting alone in a quiet house, unknown to almost the entire rest of the city. If you all put your minds to it, you could devastate the city. Fire and flood, supernatural martial arts and artifact weaponry of dreadful power, are under the command of the four of you. Nations have risen and fallen on less might than this group possesses.
As the pace of eating slows, Nine Leagues Strides belches, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and turns her attention to you. "So, Reddy," she says. "You're a little late, but this should work out. Here's the basic deal." Her eyes find yours. "You show discretion, we talk shop. There's something here that I think you'll want a slice of. I tell you what it is, it doesn't go further. What we do with it, that's separate."
After a moment's thought, you nod. Oni like Nine Leagues Strides have ways of enforcing their oaths, but information can't hurt. Probably. She leans back, ripping just a little more meat off a nearly-bare bone. "Unlike our friendly neighborhood Despot, I happen to know what he has in his yasal crystal, courtesy of some information I was able to trade from Raksi and getting a chance for visual confirmation." She pauses, clearly for dramatic effect while you wrestle with the fact that she's on speaking terms with the Queen of Fangs, one of the most infamous of all Anathema, an empress in her own right of a sorcerous dominion in the eastern Threshold. "Have you ever heard of a demon being a fetich soul?"
You frown, regretting your lack of a Heptagram education. You're forced to shake your head. "Is that something like a second-circle demon?" Second circle demons are unique and powerful demons, mighty lords of their realm, and all too often more than a match for individual Dragon-Blooded heroes. In all the Realm, only Mnemon and her mother were able to summon them relatively safely, though the truly mad and various Anathema have been known to find ways to conjure them up, unbound and free to work their demented designs more often than they are properly restrained.
Ari has to cover his mouth to avoid laughing. Nine Leagues Strides doesn't try. Once she's stopped, she explains the joke. "Oh, no, Reddy. It's more than that. There's a third circle of demons." Your blood runs cold, but she's not done. "Chief among them are the fetich souls. In the high First Age, certain fetich souls were summoned, sealed up in special yasal crystals, and hidden away to keep... oh, something even worse from happening." She waves her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Later found to be an unnecessary precaution. Then some idiot Despot dug this treasure up without knowing what he had found or why it was there. With Raksi's help, I was able to identify this crystal as being almost certainly the one containing Mretan, the Sanctity of Mind, fetich soul of the Black Boar That Twists the Heavens."
Most of that means nothing to you, but some things you can certainly grasp. First of all: this is a demonic catastrophe in a can. If this 'Mretan' is only as far beyond a second circle demon as a second circle demon is beyond a first circle, it's not so much an enemy to be confronted as an actively malevolent natural disaster. Nine Leagues Strides seems to think it could be worse. Secondly, it's extremely clear that Nine Leagues Strides isn't planning to just hold onto this. "And what," you say, carefully, "comes after you get it?"
Ari scoots his chair closer to yours, so the two of you are sitting on one side of the table while Nine Leagues Strides sits on the other, Soot Column Ascending standing behind her. It's a nice gesture, to sit on your side. "She was going to use it to attack the Lap. I encouraged her to talk to you, first. Since I know you're somehow still trying to be Immaculate." You try not to show that you're gritting your teeth. There's a frustrating level there, where Ari is talking down to you, without fully realizing he's doing it, treating the Immaculate Philosophy as a childish thing you just haven't quite discarded yet.
"Right," Nine Leagues Strides agrees, fairly casual about the fact that she's proposing the slaughter of people your House entrusted to your care, as well as individuals you worked with and grew alongside for months. "Hence why I thought you'd want to be a part of this, Reddy. The wrinkle is, things have changed. I was going to see if you could help me make decisions on this. I ain't a monster who will leave a trail of bodies if I can make a more precision execution." She shrugs. "Then, last night, I find I'm getting outbid. Nicklaus was offering some rather staggering concessions to the Despot. I think the Lion must know what this actually is, too."
"Nicklaus is working for the First and Forsaken Lion?" You latch onto that.
"Well, yeah. He's the main Deathlord in this section of the Underworld right now, though I've heard unsubstantiated reports of some strife in that area. Why?" For the first time since you've met her, this actually seems to throw Nine Leagues Strides off her game for a moment.
Ari answers for you, grimacing. "It's not the right Deathlord."
"Not the right Deathlord?"
"Vessel is hunting down the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers, with the intent to destroy her."
"Ah." Nine Leagues Strides looks at you with a little more respect on hearing that. "Rough game you're playing there, Reddy. Anyway, the Despot and I reached an agreement because he doesn't want the great powers of the Underworld to come knocking on his door, feeling snubbed, but also doesn't want to hand this over to them and risk them using it to generate a huge shadowland or something. Not knowing the details makes him actually less willing to risk it. The Lion was supposed to send a token representative, not go this hard."
'And what," you ask, knowing you're about to hate the answer, "Does that entail that I can help with?"
The No Moon grins. "Why, among several other things amounting to a rather staggering fortune, it means that I get to wink-wink 'steal' it as long as the Despot has a plausible cover that I defied him and he is upset with me, so the Lion hopefully won't wreak a terrible vengeance on him."
You turn that over in your head. "You're trying to recruit me for a half-officially-approved heist." You fall heavily against the chair back.
"Sure am." She leans forward, counting off items on her fingers. "Here's what I get out of it. There's going to be a guard, of course, since this has to look good, and you're a good hand in a fight. You probably also got to see the sorcerous wards protecting the vault, so you'll be able to help me undo that. You're another pair of hands to carry it out. That's the sort of thing that makes this go smoothly. Here's what you get out of it: you do this, and you get a stake in the claim. We don't pop Mretan out and say 'go kill everything in that direction' unless all of us with a stake agree to it." She stops looking at her fingers to stare hard at you. "I still get to threaten it, and you don't get to tell Anira's people that this is a paper tiger. I want this bad, Reddy. It's the best deal you're going to get today."
"I've been thinking about this," Ari interjects at your side, before you can respond. Both you and Nine Leagues Strides look at him. "There may be a way to get everyone what they want. Nine Leagues Strides, you're looking to cow the Realm with a display of might that shows they can't possibly contend with you, right?" She nods, but wobbles her hands in an 'eh' expression. She'd be just as happy wiping out their representatives. Ari ignores the details to turn his attention to you. "And you, Vessel, are looking for tools to kill the Waif, right?" In a flash, you realize what he's going to suggest, but you also nod to let him have the moment to say it. "Well, all we have to do is steal the yasal crystal, get it to a place where the Laplanders can see it, lure the Waif out, and then set Mretan on her. No matter how it turns out, both purposes should be served. Even a Deathlord won't be able to defeat a demon like this easily."
Nine Leagues Strides shrugs and studies one of her breakfast bones in case there's more meat she's missed. "Not that big a deal to me how we deploy it if it suits my purposes."
You arch an eyebrow at Ari. His idea does make signing on more appealing, but... "How are we supposed to lure the Waif out?"
"I don't know," he replies, bluntly, as he shifts in his seat to pull hands and feet together under him like a crouching cat, rather ruining how the chair was intended to be used. "That would be up to you to figure out. Sorry, but I don't have an answer for that."
"You can figure it out on your own time," Nine Leagues Strides says. "Either way, this goes down tonight. Are you in or out?"
[] "Out.
- [] ...but you are going to stay silent about this; it won't hurt you
- [] ...but you are going to turn this in and stymy this; you can't go against the Realm
[] "In."
Top line goes first, as normal.
Whatever important thing they had, better late than never. The Lunar is keenly insightful when she tries, and you know she's here for the Despot's yasal crystal.
...Who blunders in and complicates your plan?
[] Ari
Your Lunar mate has returned. The Changing Moon isn't trying to be difficult, but...
It's early in the morning when you drop by the address Nine Leagues Strides gave you.
It's the ifrit who opens the door, however. That's smart thinking, you realize. The ifrit is the one most likely to attract attention first, after all, as a powerful spirit being and one who can't easily hide his nature. The Anathema he has as a partner is both somewhat more subtle about what she is and would be a significantly greater problem to be discovered. Even in this dark time, Gem wouldn't dare openly host Anathema, not when Anira's queendom is its breadbasket.
He stands aside and gestures for you to come in. You comply, stepping into a little sitting room with a couple of doors in the back that seem to lead to individual bedrooms. It's not a simple room to let, not even a nice room to let. This is more like the Lunar maintaining a second home here in Gem.
Your background level of concern about Nine Leagues Strides and her sprawling nomadic people kicks up a couple of notches.
Soot Column Ascending raps on the wall with his knuckles. You can hear it echoing into the bedrooms, clearly a communication tool. "Our guest is here," he says in a carrying voice, before dropping to a more conversational level. "I am glad you were able to get here on time with so little warning," he says to you.
"Technically, I'm about eight hours late," you tell him. He looks at you with a sort of puzzlement.
Before you can explain 'on time', one of the bedroom doors opens to disgorge two Lunars. Nine Leagues Strides looks as commanding as always, smoothly in control as soon as she shows up and with her moonsilver spear still coiled around her upper arm in decorative-snake form. Behind her, looking a little beat, is Ari. He gives you a bedraggled grin and you can't quite suppress an urge to smile back.
Nine Leagues Strides heads for the front door with barely a gesture of acknowledgement. "We don't have anything for breakfast, so I'll be back with that in a few. Nice of you to show up eventually, Reddy."
Ari practically collapses into one of the chairs surrounding a low table, and you take another one of them. "You look like you've landed on your feet," he says, considering you and your newly white clothes and their slight funeral feeling. "Nice outfit."
"I rather have," you say, checking it over. "Thanks for the tip on these two." You gesture to Soot Column Ascending, who opened your mind to sorcery. "It's come in handy."
"There's more you'll be able to do once you learn more. Sorcery is a field where even an elder Celestial Exalt isn't going to know everything there is to know. This is just a taste of it. I--" He groans a bit, and leans back, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You look tired," you put in.
"I was flying for most of the night," Ari was almost certainly in his hawk form, unless he has a swifter bird-shape he hasn't shown you. "Only got in a little while ago."
"Any particular reason for the rush?"
Ari grins as he pulls himself together, then sprawls over the chair's armrests, legs hanging off one side and his head lolling almost to the floor on the other. His spine is amazingly flexible. "Same reason you're here. But Nine Leagues Strides said she would bend my middle fingers back until they touched my elbows if I ruined her surprise."
"Ah, well, I'll try to live until she comes back." You pause, then arch an eyebrow at him. "'Teach'?"
Ari turns his head towards you. A silvery crescent moon appears on his forehead briefly. That is the mark of the Tricksters or Face Stealers, the Anathema who call themselves Changing Moon. It's a sub-category of Lunars, the social masters of that group. "Teach," he confirms the nickname. "Among other things, I'm big on education for a lot of our people out here in the desert. From helping would-be thaumaturges meet up so they can teach each other to helping mundane craftsmen work past challenges to just teaching children their basic education, it's a real calling of mine. Somewhere along the way, 'Teach' stuck." His smile is broad and genuine. "I like being a schoolteacher to kids, but it isn't something I can limit myself to."
You nod and ask the obvious follow-up question. "Any children of your own, then?"
He shrugs, and his hands sprawl down to the floor. "Not yet. I'd like them someday."
It's a very strange thing to hear from Anathema. It almost feels like what the Immaculate Order offers to people, these Lunars do, too. You suppose it would have to at least pretend to be, or people wouldn't listen to them. Before you can pursue that thought any further, Nine Leagues Strides comes back with some breaded, fried meat that might be chicken. She practically dumps it over the table and takes a third chair. She and Ari grab for it, and you're not far behind. It might be rat, actually. It's still breakfast. Soot Column Ascending doesn't have any. Ifrits don't quite have a human metabolism.
It's an odd thing, you decide, as the three of you inelegantly eat street vendor food. Three Anathema Exalts and a powerful elemental sitting alone in a quiet house, unknown to almost the entire rest of the city. If you all put your minds to it, you could devastate the city. Fire and flood, supernatural martial arts and artifact weaponry of dreadful power, are under the command of the four of you. Nations have risen and fallen on less might than this group possesses.
As the pace of eating slows, Nine Leagues Strides belches, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and turns her attention to you. "So, Reddy," she says. "You're a little late, but this should work out. Here's the basic deal." Her eyes find yours. "You show discretion, we talk shop. There's something here that I think you'll want a slice of. I tell you what it is, it doesn't go further. What we do with it, that's separate."
After a moment's thought, you nod. Oni like Nine Leagues Strides have ways of enforcing their oaths, but information can't hurt. Probably. She leans back, ripping just a little more meat off a nearly-bare bone. "Unlike our friendly neighborhood Despot, I happen to know what he has in his yasal crystal, courtesy of some information I was able to trade from Raksi and getting a chance for visual confirmation." She pauses, clearly for dramatic effect while you wrestle with the fact that she's on speaking terms with the Queen of Fangs, one of the most infamous of all Anathema, an empress in her own right of a sorcerous dominion in the eastern Threshold. "Have you ever heard of a demon being a fetich soul?"
You frown, regretting your lack of a Heptagram education. You're forced to shake your head. "Is that something like a second-circle demon?" Second circle demons are unique and powerful demons, mighty lords of their realm, and all too often more than a match for individual Dragon-Blooded heroes. In all the Realm, only Mnemon and her mother were able to summon them relatively safely, though the truly mad and various Anathema have been known to find ways to conjure them up, unbound and free to work their demented designs more often than they are properly restrained.
Ari has to cover his mouth to avoid laughing. Nine Leagues Strides doesn't try. Once she's stopped, she explains the joke. "Oh, no, Reddy. It's more than that. There's a third circle of demons." Your blood runs cold, but she's not done. "Chief among them are the fetich souls. In the high First Age, certain fetich souls were summoned, sealed up in special yasal crystals, and hidden away to keep... oh, something even worse from happening." She waves her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Later found to be an unnecessary precaution. Then some idiot Despot dug this treasure up without knowing what he had found or why it was there. With Raksi's help, I was able to identify this crystal as being almost certainly the one containing Mretan, the Sanctity of Mind, fetich soul of the Black Boar That Twists the Heavens."
Most of that means nothing to you, but some things you can certainly grasp. First of all: this is a demonic catastrophe in a can. If this 'Mretan' is only as far beyond a second circle demon as a second circle demon is beyond a first circle, it's not so much an enemy to be confronted as an actively malevolent natural disaster. Nine Leagues Strides seems to think it could be worse. Secondly, it's extremely clear that Nine Leagues Strides isn't planning to just hold onto this. "And what," you say, carefully, "comes after you get it?"
Ari scoots his chair closer to yours, so the two of you are sitting on one side of the table while Nine Leagues Strides sits on the other, Soot Column Ascending standing behind her. It's a nice gesture, to sit on your side. "She was going to use it to attack the Lap. I encouraged her to talk to you, first. Since I know you're somehow still trying to be Immaculate." You try not to show that you're gritting your teeth. There's a frustrating level there, where Ari is talking down to you, without fully realizing he's doing it, treating the Immaculate Philosophy as a childish thing you just haven't quite discarded yet.
"Right," Nine Leagues Strides agrees, fairly casual about the fact that she's proposing the slaughter of people your House entrusted to your care, as well as individuals you worked with and grew alongside for months. "Hence why I thought you'd want to be a part of this, Reddy. The wrinkle is, things have changed. I was going to see if you could help me make decisions on this. I ain't a monster who will leave a trail of bodies if I can make a more precision execution." She shrugs. "Then, last night, I find I'm getting outbid. Nicklaus was offering some rather staggering concessions to the Despot. I think the Lion must know what this actually is, too."
"Nicklaus is working for the First and Forsaken Lion?" You latch onto that.
"Well, yeah. He's the main Deathlord in this section of the Underworld right now, though I've heard unsubstantiated reports of some strife in that area. Why?" For the first time since you've met her, this actually seems to throw Nine Leagues Strides off her game for a moment.
Ari answers for you, grimacing. "It's not the right Deathlord."
"Not the right Deathlord?"
"Vessel is hunting down the Lonely Waif of Cooling Embers, with the intent to destroy her."
"Ah." Nine Leagues Strides looks at you with a little more respect on hearing that. "Rough game you're playing there, Reddy. Anyway, the Despot and I reached an agreement because he doesn't want the great powers of the Underworld to come knocking on his door, feeling snubbed, but also doesn't want to hand this over to them and risk them using it to generate a huge shadowland or something. Not knowing the details makes him actually less willing to risk it. The Lion was supposed to send a token representative, not go this hard."
'And what," you ask, knowing you're about to hate the answer, "Does that entail that I can help with?"
The No Moon grins. "Why, among several other things amounting to a rather staggering fortune, it means that I get to wink-wink 'steal' it as long as the Despot has a plausible cover that I defied him and he is upset with me, so the Lion hopefully won't wreak a terrible vengeance on him."
You turn that over in your head. "You're trying to recruit me for a half-officially-approved heist." You fall heavily against the chair back.
"Sure am." She leans forward, counting off items on her fingers. "Here's what I get out of it. There's going to be a guard, of course, since this has to look good, and you're a good hand in a fight. You probably also got to see the sorcerous wards protecting the vault, so you'll be able to help me undo that. You're another pair of hands to carry it out. That's the sort of thing that makes this go smoothly. Here's what you get out of it: you do this, and you get a stake in the claim. We don't pop Mretan out and say 'go kill everything in that direction' unless all of us with a stake agree to it." She stops looking at her fingers to stare hard at you. "I still get to threaten it, and you don't get to tell Anira's people that this is a paper tiger. I want this bad, Reddy. It's the best deal you're going to get today."
"I've been thinking about this," Ari interjects at your side, before you can respond. Both you and Nine Leagues Strides look at him. "There may be a way to get everyone what they want. Nine Leagues Strides, you're looking to cow the Realm with a display of might that shows they can't possibly contend with you, right?" She nods, but wobbles her hands in an 'eh' expression. She'd be just as happy wiping out their representatives. Ari ignores the details to turn his attention to you. "And you, Vessel, are looking for tools to kill the Waif, right?" In a flash, you realize what he's going to suggest, but you also nod to let him have the moment to say it. "Well, all we have to do is steal the yasal crystal, get it to a place where the Laplanders can see it, lure the Waif out, and then set Mretan on her. No matter how it turns out, both purposes should be served. Even a Deathlord won't be able to defeat a demon like this easily."
Nine Leagues Strides shrugs and studies one of her breakfast bones in case there's more meat she's missed. "Not that big a deal to me how we deploy it if it suits my purposes."
You arch an eyebrow at Ari. His idea does make signing on more appealing, but... "How are we supposed to lure the Waif out?"
"I don't know," he replies, bluntly, as he shifts in his seat to pull hands and feet together under him like a crouching cat, rather ruining how the chair was intended to be used. "That would be up to you to figure out. Sorry, but I don't have an answer for that."
"You can figure it out on your own time," Nine Leagues Strides says. "Either way, this goes down tonight. Are you in or out?"
[] "Out.
- [] ...but you are going to stay silent about this; it won't hurt you
- [] ...but you are going to turn this in and stymy this; you can't go against the Realm
[] "In."
Top line goes first, as normal.
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