[] 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.
