They too are dead-not-dead. Fetich souls being killed repeatedly is one of the ways to create a Neverborn.
Yawning Abyss, Soaring Shrike [Exalted]
- Thread starter VagueZ
- Start date
A Lunar proposition
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] "In."
"In," you say, suppressing your concern. The feel of the room changes almost instantly around you. The others, even Ari, had been unsure. Until just now, you were an uncertainty, a cipher, too valuable not to risk, but still a risk. Now, you're a co-conspirator.
Nine Leagues Strides laughs and throws the stripped-bare bone at Ari, who plucks it cleanly from the air and sets it daintily with his. "This one's much better than that time you dragged home that Earth Aspect thief."
Ari groans at the reminder. "Are you ever going to let me live her down?"
"Not until you replace my cargo preservation spindle." You're left to wonder afresh at the Lunars you've met. When you were offered your Exaltation, it was at the behest and through the machinations of a Deathlord. You'd long since established that Lunars weren't the same faction of Anathema, but you can't discern any particular patron guiding them as a whole. If anything, they seem to act as individuals, stand-alone princes, sometimes even with subordinate Dragon-Bloods that they treat as individuals: allies or enemies or something more complex. It's... strange. You still can't yet square things up. It's like you're missing a vital clue to understanding them.
Nonetheless, you buckle down and get to work. Together, you and Nine Leagues Strides sketch out the Despot's complex, meshing together what you saw as a worker and she saw as a guest, transforming it into a floorplan to operate on, with relevant details and steps of the plan to go through. It's not always easy; the vault you hadn't really paid much attention to, but you review your memory for details until you hit the point where you just genuinely aren't sure.
At that point, Ari steps up. "I can help you recall," he says.
"How?" you ask, looking up fro the papers to him.
"Look into my eyes." You do. They're... entrancing. Huge and clear and strong and... You almost instinctively throw off the influence they're casting on you. "Don't be afraid," he murmurs. "It's only to enhance your memory." This time, as your gaze finds his, you force yourself to relax more than you normally ever would, letting him weave a net of words and hypnotic looks. As you stare deep into his eyes, you see reflected the events of the previous night. "After the guests left the room, you were with the yasal crystal. You are there. Tell us who was with you when it was time to move it." You do, watching as you go. with Ari's help, you step back through the walk to the vault, and recall as you looked over its worked-in wards and the details of its locks. You are vaguely aware of Nine Leagues Strides transferring everything you say and mime to paper.
Some completely indeterminate time later, Ari blinks, and you collapse backwards, feeling like you just woke from a restful sleep. You shake your head to clear it, and glance around. Nine Leagues Strides has familiar-looking arcane symbols scrawled on paper in front of her, and looks satisfied. "It's a quantity over quality set-up," she says. "To be expected of someone who isn't a sorcerer himself. It looks imposing, but it's nothing I can't bypass, 'specially with a leg up like this. You're a handy man, Reddy. Now the remaining question is how we carry the crystal itself out."
You frown. "Can you just put it Elsewhere?" She has the ability to pull things from that non-place, like when she manifested celebratory alcohol to drink in the desert. Logically, she has to have some ability to put things there to being with.
She pauses, and gives you an exasperated look. "Reddy, do you know what happens when you put a yasal crystal containing a powerful dematerialized demon into Elsewhere?"
Your frown deepens. "No?"
"Neither do I. We're not doing that."
"It's not the worst burden," Soot Column Ascending adds, in his first addition for a while. "I estimate its weight at between two hundred and two-twenty pounds. If we can get it to the street without pursuit, it could be lashed to a camel, but could still have to outrun or otherwise deal with any quick reaction that is keener than we want them to be."
"Right. Camel I can supply, of course." Nine Leagues Strides seems relatively content with being demoted to beast of burden at the apex of the plan. "I'll run off with it, and then you, Reddy, can come find us when you've got the rest of your trap in order."
You all review it one more time. Just before midnight, three of the four of you will slip in while Soot Column creates a distraction. You'll make your way deep into the vault building, overpower the guards without killing them, breach the sorcerous wards and pull out the crystal, then carry it outside, where there will be room for Nine Leagues Strides to take her spirit shape. The Lunar faction can vanish into the desert and you, unrecognized, can keep things spinning here until you can finish the rest of the preparations you need.
It has a lot of uncertainties, but hopefully the Despot is good to his word and this will work like you all want. You're at least relatively comfortable trusting Nine Leagues Strides to stick to her word, even once she has the crystal in safety. It is simply, flatly, not her style to betray faith like that. Besides, she already knows you are willing to make an enemy of a Deathlord and plan to take the fight to her. It'd be borrowing trouble to double-cross anyone who reacts like that.
Unfortunately, your part of the job does require you to keep your day job dancing. You have to break out of the early morning circle of schemers to show up and conjure water for the Despot. You're assigned to the same mostly-empty reservoir you saw on your first day on the job. You don't waste much time today, just draining all the sorcerous power you can in a relatively quick series of torrents, the water level of the vast subterranean pool by now starting to show its increase and rising very visibly with the additions of you and other sorcerers.
After work, you pause and consider. You can wrap yourself in an obscuring shroud of anima (it's not something you've done before, but it is something you can instinctively understand), which will hide your appearance, but it can't do much if you show up with a one-of-a-kind magical weapon in hand. That's the sort of thing that even an investigator who doesn't want to bestir herself will find impossible to ignore. You drop by your apartment to leave Blizzard's Scourge behind, in a space where it wouldn't easily be found even if someone did break it, then you sneak out. Now you have neighbors who can attest you went straight home after work, and the most obvious way of identifying you is safely out of sight.
That done, you head back to Nine Leagues Stride's house. This time, it's Ari who answers the door and lets you in. The place is noticeably quieter and more still than it had been. You look around its empty corners. "Where's the others?" you ask him.
"Preparing," Ari tells you. He hops up on the counter that's against one wall, where there's space for drinks and refreshments to be stored. Naturally, he's barefoot and on all fours, using his tail to balance as he leans over everything from an angle it was never really meant to be used. "Can I get you anything to drink? I don't want to get out anything alcoholic, not that she's had a chance to stock up, but we've got some teas or just water."
"I'm okay for now," you decide.
Ari shrugs, turning back to you while still on all fours on the counter. It allows him to look at you from eye level while still being folded up like he likes. "Nine Leagues Strides is seeing to some of her contacts here, to be sure that the Despot does get his under-the-table deal from here. It'll probably take a bit, since obviously she's going to be setting it up to minimize his ability to double-cross us, much as we don't think what's going on. There are still ostensible negotiations going on, to Soot Column Ascending is at that. Believe me, he's got the patience to make that drag out uselessly long." Ari gives you a big grin.
You consider the ifrit's sense of time. "I do believe that," you agree. He could probably drag things out for a month if he could do it for two minutes.
"Does mean that it's just the two of use and we have a little time," Ari adds. "We've done all the planning we can and I don't think I've got any other preparations I can do right now."
You nod. "I'm prepared, too. I did want to be sure that we didn't miss anything, but we all have our own roles. I've done what I can to keep myself safe once we're done."
Ari's long, tufted ears twitch. He pounces off the counter and slinks upright next to you. "Well," he says, his manner changing from businesslike to rather decidedly not in an instant. "If that's the case, do you want me to show you the beds here? They're quite soft. Big enough for two. We do have time, and no one to distract us..." He's purring. He hasn't quite touched you yet, giving you the chance to respond, first.
Oh. This is going to end up awkward, either way. He's not really offering anything more than a tumble right now. It might even be his way of unwinding before doing something risky.
[] Let him show you.
[] Keep some distance.
"In," you say, suppressing your concern. The feel of the room changes almost instantly around you. The others, even Ari, had been unsure. Until just now, you were an uncertainty, a cipher, too valuable not to risk, but still a risk. Now, you're a co-conspirator.
Nine Leagues Strides laughs and throws the stripped-bare bone at Ari, who plucks it cleanly from the air and sets it daintily with his. "This one's much better than that time you dragged home that Earth Aspect thief."
Ari groans at the reminder. "Are you ever going to let me live her down?"
"Not until you replace my cargo preservation spindle." You're left to wonder afresh at the Lunars you've met. When you were offered your Exaltation, it was at the behest and through the machinations of a Deathlord. You'd long since established that Lunars weren't the same faction of Anathema, but you can't discern any particular patron guiding them as a whole. If anything, they seem to act as individuals, stand-alone princes, sometimes even with subordinate Dragon-Bloods that they treat as individuals: allies or enemies or something more complex. It's... strange. You still can't yet square things up. It's like you're missing a vital clue to understanding them.
Nonetheless, you buckle down and get to work. Together, you and Nine Leagues Strides sketch out the Despot's complex, meshing together what you saw as a worker and she saw as a guest, transforming it into a floorplan to operate on, with relevant details and steps of the plan to go through. It's not always easy; the vault you hadn't really paid much attention to, but you review your memory for details until you hit the point where you just genuinely aren't sure.
At that point, Ari steps up. "I can help you recall," he says.
"How?" you ask, looking up fro the papers to him.
"Look into my eyes." You do. They're... entrancing. Huge and clear and strong and... You almost instinctively throw off the influence they're casting on you. "Don't be afraid," he murmurs. "It's only to enhance your memory." This time, as your gaze finds his, you force yourself to relax more than you normally ever would, letting him weave a net of words and hypnotic looks. As you stare deep into his eyes, you see reflected the events of the previous night. "After the guests left the room, you were with the yasal crystal. You are there. Tell us who was with you when it was time to move it." You do, watching as you go. with Ari's help, you step back through the walk to the vault, and recall as you looked over its worked-in wards and the details of its locks. You are vaguely aware of Nine Leagues Strides transferring everything you say and mime to paper.
Some completely indeterminate time later, Ari blinks, and you collapse backwards, feeling like you just woke from a restful sleep. You shake your head to clear it, and glance around. Nine Leagues Strides has familiar-looking arcane symbols scrawled on paper in front of her, and looks satisfied. "It's a quantity over quality set-up," she says. "To be expected of someone who isn't a sorcerer himself. It looks imposing, but it's nothing I can't bypass, 'specially with a leg up like this. You're a handy man, Reddy. Now the remaining question is how we carry the crystal itself out."
You frown. "Can you just put it Elsewhere?" She has the ability to pull things from that non-place, like when she manifested celebratory alcohol to drink in the desert. Logically, she has to have some ability to put things there to being with.
She pauses, and gives you an exasperated look. "Reddy, do you know what happens when you put a yasal crystal containing a powerful dematerialized demon into Elsewhere?"
Your frown deepens. "No?"
"Neither do I. We're not doing that."
"It's not the worst burden," Soot Column Ascending adds, in his first addition for a while. "I estimate its weight at between two hundred and two-twenty pounds. If we can get it to the street without pursuit, it could be lashed to a camel, but could still have to outrun or otherwise deal with any quick reaction that is keener than we want them to be."
"Right. Camel I can supply, of course." Nine Leagues Strides seems relatively content with being demoted to beast of burden at the apex of the plan. "I'll run off with it, and then you, Reddy, can come find us when you've got the rest of your trap in order."
You all review it one more time. Just before midnight, three of the four of you will slip in while Soot Column creates a distraction. You'll make your way deep into the vault building, overpower the guards without killing them, breach the sorcerous wards and pull out the crystal, then carry it outside, where there will be room for Nine Leagues Strides to take her spirit shape. The Lunar faction can vanish into the desert and you, unrecognized, can keep things spinning here until you can finish the rest of the preparations you need.
It has a lot of uncertainties, but hopefully the Despot is good to his word and this will work like you all want. You're at least relatively comfortable trusting Nine Leagues Strides to stick to her word, even once she has the crystal in safety. It is simply, flatly, not her style to betray faith like that. Besides, she already knows you are willing to make an enemy of a Deathlord and plan to take the fight to her. It'd be borrowing trouble to double-cross anyone who reacts like that.
Unfortunately, your part of the job does require you to keep your day job dancing. You have to break out of the early morning circle of schemers to show up and conjure water for the Despot. You're assigned to the same mostly-empty reservoir you saw on your first day on the job. You don't waste much time today, just draining all the sorcerous power you can in a relatively quick series of torrents, the water level of the vast subterranean pool by now starting to show its increase and rising very visibly with the additions of you and other sorcerers.
After work, you pause and consider. You can wrap yourself in an obscuring shroud of anima (it's not something you've done before, but it is something you can instinctively understand), which will hide your appearance, but it can't do much if you show up with a one-of-a-kind magical weapon in hand. That's the sort of thing that even an investigator who doesn't want to bestir herself will find impossible to ignore. You drop by your apartment to leave Blizzard's Scourge behind, in a space where it wouldn't easily be found even if someone did break it, then you sneak out. Now you have neighbors who can attest you went straight home after work, and the most obvious way of identifying you is safely out of sight.
That done, you head back to Nine Leagues Stride's house. This time, it's Ari who answers the door and lets you in. The place is noticeably quieter and more still than it had been. You look around its empty corners. "Where's the others?" you ask him.
"Preparing," Ari tells you. He hops up on the counter that's against one wall, where there's space for drinks and refreshments to be stored. Naturally, he's barefoot and on all fours, using his tail to balance as he leans over everything from an angle it was never really meant to be used. "Can I get you anything to drink? I don't want to get out anything alcoholic, not that she's had a chance to stock up, but we've got some teas or just water."
"I'm okay for now," you decide.
Ari shrugs, turning back to you while still on all fours on the counter. It allows him to look at you from eye level while still being folded up like he likes. "Nine Leagues Strides is seeing to some of her contacts here, to be sure that the Despot does get his under-the-table deal from here. It'll probably take a bit, since obviously she's going to be setting it up to minimize his ability to double-cross us, much as we don't think what's going on. There are still ostensible negotiations going on, to Soot Column Ascending is at that. Believe me, he's got the patience to make that drag out uselessly long." Ari gives you a big grin.
You consider the ifrit's sense of time. "I do believe that," you agree. He could probably drag things out for a month if he could do it for two minutes.
"Does mean that it's just the two of use and we have a little time," Ari adds. "We've done all the planning we can and I don't think I've got any other preparations I can do right now."
You nod. "I'm prepared, too. I did want to be sure that we didn't miss anything, but we all have our own roles. I've done what I can to keep myself safe once we're done."
Ari's long, tufted ears twitch. He pounces off the counter and slinks upright next to you. "Well," he says, his manner changing from businesslike to rather decidedly not in an instant. "If that's the case, do you want me to show you the beds here? They're quite soft. Big enough for two. We do have time, and no one to distract us..." He's purring. He hasn't quite touched you yet, giving you the chance to respond, first.
Oh. This is going to end up awkward, either way. He's not really offering anything more than a tumble right now. It might even be his way of unwinding before doing something risky.
[] Let him show you.
[] Keep some distance.
Last edited:
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Let him show you.
Sleep with the catboy, you cowards
Sleep with the catboy, you cowards
- Location
- St. Petersburg
I don't even know what that was supposed to mean.
[x] Keep some distance.
No thanks. We don't even know you that well, and what we do know does not lend itself to romance.
Last edited:
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Let him show you.
The more complicated the relationship, the better.
The more complicated the relationship, the better.
UmbraofChaos
Freedom Lets Go
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Let him show you.
Rude Awakening
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[] Let him show you.
"Well," you say, gravely, trying to look like you're weighing a serious concern, "I suppose it depends on--"
Your body language betrays you. Before you can finish the teasing thought, you feel Ari's warm touch as his hands slip behind your head, and he interrupts you with a fierce kiss.
You return it, wrapping your own arms around him. You're not about to let him take the lead.
It takes a while for you to get to the bed, in the end. Ari is far more human than not, where it counts. It's been entirely too long since you were able to forget about your problems, enjoy a moment with someone who genuinely likes you--Dragons only know why--and just be able to unwind.
Once you're both pleasantly worn out, the two of you doze lightly together, you enjoying the feeling of gentle warmth as he nestles up against you, while he seems to find even the unnatural chill that pervades you to be a welcome respite from the endless heat of Gem.
You find yourself roused first, mind alert again even as Ari continues to snore gently in the crook of your arm. You contemplate the ceiling for a while. You actually do feel better, now. You're on the way to putting together something that's... good. You might be Anathema and consorting with other Anathema, but you're using that to turn something that could have been directed against the Realm into something that will instead be used to strike down an enemy of all Creation. Even your Whispers haven't actively been a problem for a little bit: they're not driven by any active, intelligent force, or at least you don't think they are, which means that being focused on destroying something is working to keep them quiescent for the moment. They barely seem to know or mind if it's a Deathlord or the Empress's throne that you want undone. Perhaps you can find some peace and some good way to be if this can be kept up.
It's a good dream.
From the main room, on the other side of the closed bedroom door, you hear the front door open and Nine Leagues Stride's purposeful, long gait. "Well," you mumble. "I suppose we should get dressed and--" You glance down.
You look into your own face, sleeping peacefully and with tufted caracal ears.
"GAH!" It's an instant, automatic reaction. You shove the unexpected doppelganger away from you as hard as you can, scrambling away. The Lunar wakes, falling out of bed one way, squawking with surprise, and you tumble out the other side, coming up with a defensive pose as you do. 'You' stand up on the other side of the bed, looking startled, blanket clutched all the way up to the neck for modesty. "You damn Face Stealer!" you shout at it.
Your features melt into Ari's more delicate ones as he cringes back. "I wasn't... going to do anything with it," he tries. You scoop your shoe off the floor and hurl it at his head as hard as you can, which is pretty hard given your throwing arm. He ducks it. It puts a small hole in the wall. He tosses it back to you more gently. "And I didn't steal it. You still have it."
It's an effort of will for you not to throw it at him a second time. "That's not the point!" More than two decades of Immaculate upbringing bubble up. There's a thousand things to say, and you only have one mouth to say them. "You didn't even ask," is the first one to make it out.
The bedroom door bursts open, revealing Nine Leagues Strides with her moonsilver longfang in hand, ready to fight whatever foe her fellow Lunar is facing. There's a moment of three-way pausing as you and Ari adjust to her presence, and she figures out what must have happened for you two to be in dishabille and shouting at each other. "Kiddo, out," she orders with thumb hooked over her shoulder. 'Kiddo' seems to be Ari, so he obediently grabs his clothing and sheepishly leaves. Nine Leagues Strides turns to you, having the decency to look you square in the eyes instead of lower. "We'll talk again when you're back together, too, Reddy."
There are three tea saucers on the low table. Only Nine Leagues Strides has touched hers. Ari's not even looking at you, but that's okay, because you're not looking at him, either. You sit on opposite sides of the table, with Nine Leagues Strides taking one of the spots to the side: your left, Ari's right.
It's been a quiet few minutes.
Eventually, Nine Leagues Strides finishes savoring her tea. It wasn't a quick process. She would take a small sip, wait for a few seconds, then take another. It wasn't a consistent process. Sometimes the sips would come faster or slower. When the tea is gone, she speaks. "I'm not happy," she says.
Ari speaks up first. "I'm sorry," he begins. "I was just--"
"I don't care." The No Moon cuts him off. "Ari, you know better than to make a mess of things just because of your hormones and impulses. Do the job first, and then have your fun." Her attention turns to you. "And you, Vessel." It's the first time she's used your name, or title, or whatever it counts as. "I don't know your full deal. That's between you and Ari. I don't care. But you're not in the Realm any longer. Stop trying to act like you're in the Imperial City. I know what you've been told, but we aren't mindless monsters. We are the Chosen of the Changing Lady, champions who answer to no one but our own better natures."
She sets down the cup on the saucer, equidistant between the two untouched drinks. "Now, this is the only question I do care about right now. Are you still good to go tonight?" She looks at you.
You look back with Dynastic imperturbability, honed by generations of Peleps matriarchs. "I already said that I was a part of this."
She nods. "Kiddo?"
Ari nods, too, a little unhappily, you see from the corner of your eye. "I really am sorry. I just didn't think--"
Nine Leagues Strides claps once, a ringing noise that cuts him off. "No. Tonight, we are professionals. You two can have your drama meltdown, or make-up sex or whatever you want, once I'm out of here and with the yasal crystal secured. Not before!"
He subsides into quiet. You reach for your tea, keeping your features schooled into calm. It's quiet again.
It's a long, quiet time before Soot Column Ascending returns, and longer still before night falls.
Eventually, it's time to hit the field. Everyone has their own task, and their own way to go about it. You burn Essence into your anima, enhancing your stealth and letting it bleed into your anima. You check a mirror to confirm that you're disguised, finding your face and body obscured by shadows that make your features impossible to discern. You're surrounded by spectral images of grasping, clutching skeletons: your anima imagery, it seems. You haven't seen it before, and can't normally. It's not something you get to see, as it's emanating from you and anyway it would be a distraction.
Both the Lunars shapeshift into different people. Ari looks incredibly generic, now: he's a plain-looking, older man of about fifty, weathered by sun and labor. You could see passing him in a vineyard or coming out of a mine and not thinking twice about it. Well, you still see his cat ears and tail, but those are magically hard for most people to see. Nine Leagues Strides takes the shape of a short, young woman, with just enough ice in her coloration and appearance that you imagine she took this shape from a Dragon-Blood. You study her new cheekbones, chin, and nose as you check the mirror for your own appearance. They... might actually have come from someone from House Peleps, some distant but traceable relative of yours.
You're not calmed by this thought. Most Lunars, at least according to what you've been taught, take faces by killing the owner, not seduction like with Ari.
Soot Column Ascending is the first to leave, of course. His part here is the simplest, after a fashion. He found a textile warehouse, and he's going to set fire to it. A fire in a very flammable building full of expensive materials is exactly the sort of thing that would get Gem's fire-fighters out in full force, trying to smother the blaze with sand so they don't have to waste precious water. It's primarily a distraction, and if you're lucky it can even hurt people's night vision: they stare at the fire, losing their adaptation to the dark, but it won't cast enough light for them to see an older man, a young woman, and a shadow wreathed in skeletons in the dark corners of the place.
The first part of the plan goes off smoothly. You three slide into a quiet balcony to lurk on until the ifrit's distraction goes off. A night guard at whoever's mansion it is almost come up on you, but Nine Leagues Strides hears him come and gestures for Ari to take care of it. Ari slips into the guard's route and then returns to you two. "He's sleeping it off," he says, quietly. "He'll wake in the morning, and I left evidence of a devious Anathema having ambushed him, so his employers will know he wasn't just sleeping on the job." That's a very weird amount of care to give someone who's an inconvenience to you, but you suppose it doesn't hurt to do so.
As you expect it to, the fire goes up a little before midnight, the fire elemental uniquely suited to setting a blaze that will behave as you all need it to. Shouts and bells of alarm and the scurry of activity begin before you can even see the first orange glow. Fire is a threat to everyone; even in exceedingly mercenary Gem, people will band together to fight a fire, since if they don't, there's every possibility that it will spread to their own property.
It's your opening. This one of the Despot's vault-buildings is protected only by mortal guards on the outside. As soon as the maximum confusion and distraction is provided, pulling some of the people and all of the attention away, you strike. Here, it does make sense not to kill anyone, as the Despot would be upset that Nine Leagues Strides was hurting people in his direct employ, and she seemingly hasn't paid for it. True loyalty costs a pretty coin, indeed, after all.
The mortal guards that you ambush, two of them, don't even have a chance to notice anything is amiss. They're too busy craning their necks to goggle at the fire a couple streets away. They are violently subdued in an instant. Ari slips the keys off of them that will get you inside the building: they have to have that to check in and out, as well as to relieve themselves, but their keys won't get you all the way into the vault, which will be protected by something more potent than a couple of fighting men with swords.
It's sort of disconcerting, watching Ari operate like this. You've seen him move like his current looks suggest, sort of creaky and weathered, but he can also move with his usual deftness and grace, as he's doing now. It's at odds with his looks, and it sort of bothers you, watching him operating smoothly while looking like he's beaten down by decades of rough toil. You shake your head to clear it. The door pops open, and all three of you slide in.
What complicates your plan from here? Choose one.
[] The interior guards are more potent than expected.
[] There's a familiar face you have to bowl over.
[] The wards take longer to break than you allowed for.
[] A third party shows their face and has to be addressed.
[] It's not as easy to get clear as you had hoped.
But there's two things that are going to complicate things, and the other is going to be a surprise. Which one definitely doesn't happen?
[] The interior guards are no match for you.
[] No one familiar is there.
[] The wards are as simple as Nine Leagues Strides expected.
[] No third parties stumble in.
[] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
Pick one that does happen, and one that doesn't. I will pick a complement for it from the other three.
"Well," you say, gravely, trying to look like you're weighing a serious concern, "I suppose it depends on--"
Your body language betrays you. Before you can finish the teasing thought, you feel Ari's warm touch as his hands slip behind your head, and he interrupts you with a fierce kiss.
You return it, wrapping your own arms around him. You're not about to let him take the lead.
It takes a while for you to get to the bed, in the end. Ari is far more human than not, where it counts. It's been entirely too long since you were able to forget about your problems, enjoy a moment with someone who genuinely likes you--Dragons only know why--and just be able to unwind.
Once you're both pleasantly worn out, the two of you doze lightly together, you enjoying the feeling of gentle warmth as he nestles up against you, while he seems to find even the unnatural chill that pervades you to be a welcome respite from the endless heat of Gem.
You find yourself roused first, mind alert again even as Ari continues to snore gently in the crook of your arm. You contemplate the ceiling for a while. You actually do feel better, now. You're on the way to putting together something that's... good. You might be Anathema and consorting with other Anathema, but you're using that to turn something that could have been directed against the Realm into something that will instead be used to strike down an enemy of all Creation. Even your Whispers haven't actively been a problem for a little bit: they're not driven by any active, intelligent force, or at least you don't think they are, which means that being focused on destroying something is working to keep them quiescent for the moment. They barely seem to know or mind if it's a Deathlord or the Empress's throne that you want undone. Perhaps you can find some peace and some good way to be if this can be kept up.
It's a good dream.
From the main room, on the other side of the closed bedroom door, you hear the front door open and Nine Leagues Stride's purposeful, long gait. "Well," you mumble. "I suppose we should get dressed and--" You glance down.
You look into your own face, sleeping peacefully and with tufted caracal ears.
"GAH!" It's an instant, automatic reaction. You shove the unexpected doppelganger away from you as hard as you can, scrambling away. The Lunar wakes, falling out of bed one way, squawking with surprise, and you tumble out the other side, coming up with a defensive pose as you do. 'You' stand up on the other side of the bed, looking startled, blanket clutched all the way up to the neck for modesty. "You damn Face Stealer!" you shout at it.
Your features melt into Ari's more delicate ones as he cringes back. "I wasn't... going to do anything with it," he tries. You scoop your shoe off the floor and hurl it at his head as hard as you can, which is pretty hard given your throwing arm. He ducks it. It puts a small hole in the wall. He tosses it back to you more gently. "And I didn't steal it. You still have it."
It's an effort of will for you not to throw it at him a second time. "That's not the point!" More than two decades of Immaculate upbringing bubble up. There's a thousand things to say, and you only have one mouth to say them. "You didn't even ask," is the first one to make it out.
The bedroom door bursts open, revealing Nine Leagues Strides with her moonsilver longfang in hand, ready to fight whatever foe her fellow Lunar is facing. There's a moment of three-way pausing as you and Ari adjust to her presence, and she figures out what must have happened for you two to be in dishabille and shouting at each other. "Kiddo, out," she orders with thumb hooked over her shoulder. 'Kiddo' seems to be Ari, so he obediently grabs his clothing and sheepishly leaves. Nine Leagues Strides turns to you, having the decency to look you square in the eyes instead of lower. "We'll talk again when you're back together, too, Reddy."
* * *
There are three tea saucers on the low table. Only Nine Leagues Strides has touched hers. Ari's not even looking at you, but that's okay, because you're not looking at him, either. You sit on opposite sides of the table, with Nine Leagues Strides taking one of the spots to the side: your left, Ari's right.
It's been a quiet few minutes.
Eventually, Nine Leagues Strides finishes savoring her tea. It wasn't a quick process. She would take a small sip, wait for a few seconds, then take another. It wasn't a consistent process. Sometimes the sips would come faster or slower. When the tea is gone, she speaks. "I'm not happy," she says.
Ari speaks up first. "I'm sorry," he begins. "I was just--"
"I don't care." The No Moon cuts him off. "Ari, you know better than to make a mess of things just because of your hormones and impulses. Do the job first, and then have your fun." Her attention turns to you. "And you, Vessel." It's the first time she's used your name, or title, or whatever it counts as. "I don't know your full deal. That's between you and Ari. I don't care. But you're not in the Realm any longer. Stop trying to act like you're in the Imperial City. I know what you've been told, but we aren't mindless monsters. We are the Chosen of the Changing Lady, champions who answer to no one but our own better natures."
She sets down the cup on the saucer, equidistant between the two untouched drinks. "Now, this is the only question I do care about right now. Are you still good to go tonight?" She looks at you.
You look back with Dynastic imperturbability, honed by generations of Peleps matriarchs. "I already said that I was a part of this."
She nods. "Kiddo?"
Ari nods, too, a little unhappily, you see from the corner of your eye. "I really am sorry. I just didn't think--"
Nine Leagues Strides claps once, a ringing noise that cuts him off. "No. Tonight, we are professionals. You two can have your drama meltdown, or make-up sex or whatever you want, once I'm out of here and with the yasal crystal secured. Not before!"
He subsides into quiet. You reach for your tea, keeping your features schooled into calm. It's quiet again.
It's a long, quiet time before Soot Column Ascending returns, and longer still before night falls.
* * *
Eventually, it's time to hit the field. Everyone has their own task, and their own way to go about it. You burn Essence into your anima, enhancing your stealth and letting it bleed into your anima. You check a mirror to confirm that you're disguised, finding your face and body obscured by shadows that make your features impossible to discern. You're surrounded by spectral images of grasping, clutching skeletons: your anima imagery, it seems. You haven't seen it before, and can't normally. It's not something you get to see, as it's emanating from you and anyway it would be a distraction.
Both the Lunars shapeshift into different people. Ari looks incredibly generic, now: he's a plain-looking, older man of about fifty, weathered by sun and labor. You could see passing him in a vineyard or coming out of a mine and not thinking twice about it. Well, you still see his cat ears and tail, but those are magically hard for most people to see. Nine Leagues Strides takes the shape of a short, young woman, with just enough ice in her coloration and appearance that you imagine she took this shape from a Dragon-Blood. You study her new cheekbones, chin, and nose as you check the mirror for your own appearance. They... might actually have come from someone from House Peleps, some distant but traceable relative of yours.
You're not calmed by this thought. Most Lunars, at least according to what you've been taught, take faces by killing the owner, not seduction like with Ari.
Soot Column Ascending is the first to leave, of course. His part here is the simplest, after a fashion. He found a textile warehouse, and he's going to set fire to it. A fire in a very flammable building full of expensive materials is exactly the sort of thing that would get Gem's fire-fighters out in full force, trying to smother the blaze with sand so they don't have to waste precious water. It's primarily a distraction, and if you're lucky it can even hurt people's night vision: they stare at the fire, losing their adaptation to the dark, but it won't cast enough light for them to see an older man, a young woman, and a shadow wreathed in skeletons in the dark corners of the place.
The first part of the plan goes off smoothly. You three slide into a quiet balcony to lurk on until the ifrit's distraction goes off. A night guard at whoever's mansion it is almost come up on you, but Nine Leagues Strides hears him come and gestures for Ari to take care of it. Ari slips into the guard's route and then returns to you two. "He's sleeping it off," he says, quietly. "He'll wake in the morning, and I left evidence of a devious Anathema having ambushed him, so his employers will know he wasn't just sleeping on the job." That's a very weird amount of care to give someone who's an inconvenience to you, but you suppose it doesn't hurt to do so.
As you expect it to, the fire goes up a little before midnight, the fire elemental uniquely suited to setting a blaze that will behave as you all need it to. Shouts and bells of alarm and the scurry of activity begin before you can even see the first orange glow. Fire is a threat to everyone; even in exceedingly mercenary Gem, people will band together to fight a fire, since if they don't, there's every possibility that it will spread to their own property.
It's your opening. This one of the Despot's vault-buildings is protected only by mortal guards on the outside. As soon as the maximum confusion and distraction is provided, pulling some of the people and all of the attention away, you strike. Here, it does make sense not to kill anyone, as the Despot would be upset that Nine Leagues Strides was hurting people in his direct employ, and she seemingly hasn't paid for it. True loyalty costs a pretty coin, indeed, after all.
The mortal guards that you ambush, two of them, don't even have a chance to notice anything is amiss. They're too busy craning their necks to goggle at the fire a couple streets away. They are violently subdued in an instant. Ari slips the keys off of them that will get you inside the building: they have to have that to check in and out, as well as to relieve themselves, but their keys won't get you all the way into the vault, which will be protected by something more potent than a couple of fighting men with swords.
It's sort of disconcerting, watching Ari operate like this. You've seen him move like his current looks suggest, sort of creaky and weathered, but he can also move with his usual deftness and grace, as he's doing now. It's at odds with his looks, and it sort of bothers you, watching him operating smoothly while looking like he's beaten down by decades of rough toil. You shake your head to clear it. The door pops open, and all three of you slide in.
What complicates your plan from here? Choose one.
[] The interior guards are more potent than expected.
[] There's a familiar face you have to bowl over.
[] The wards take longer to break than you allowed for.
[] A third party shows their face and has to be addressed.
[] It's not as easy to get clear as you had hoped.
But there's two things that are going to complicate things, and the other is going to be a surprise. Which one definitely doesn't happen?
[] The interior guards are no match for you.
[] No one familiar is there.
[] The wards are as simple as Nine Leagues Strides expected.
[] No third parties stumble in.
[] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
Pick one that does happen, and one that doesn't. I will pick a complement for it from the other three.
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
"I am going to win this kiss!"
Kind of gives me a sad pang for him to go from a moment of genuine contentment and companionship to calling Ari "it".
Ari probably should have asked, but what makes it a little more : ( is that that charm, Heart-Drinking Allure, only lets you take someone's face from an intimate encounter if they're actually really into you -- doesn't have to be true love or anything, but a strong positive feeling has to be there.
How much of a self-centered jerk Vessel is has really grown on me.
[X] The interior guards are more potent than expected.
[X] The wards are as simple as Nine Leagues Strides expected.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] A third party shows their face and has to be addressed.
[X] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
More mess = more fun
[X] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
More mess = more fun
- Location
- Bed
[X] A third party shows their face and has to be addressed.
[X] The wards are as simple as Nine Leagues Strides expected.
So, technically speaking, this means Ari has our heart's blood now, right? That's definitely gonna be a problem. Though, I gotta say, I do approve of this use use of one of Exalted's more iffy charms in a way that isn't incredibly creepy.
...Now let's not talk about the ones we can get to mess with him.
[X] The wards are as simple as Nine Leagues Strides expected.
So, technically speaking, this means Ari has our heart's blood now, right? That's definitely gonna be a problem. Though, I gotta say, I do approve of this use use of one of Exalted's more iffy charms in a way that isn't incredibly creepy.
...Now let's not talk about the ones we can get to mess with him.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Heart-Drinking Allure is... really not that iffy, as far as seduction-related charms in Exalted go. It explicitly doesn't even have to be sex -- it's just physical intimacy at the end of the "hunt".
There's the joke I've seen a few times, about how technically you could use it to gain someone's heart's blood by turning into a cat and letting someone pet you after they get attached.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The Shrike is a First Age weapon. Technically, it's from the era of the Solar Deliberatives, so it's after the Divine Revolution, with the Yozis ensconced in Malfeas when it was constructed.
As far as the odds of this crystal being the Shrike's goal...
The Shrike's either connected to the presence in the mines, or to the yasal crystal, or the presence and crystal are connected in some way. Technically, that makes it one out of three!
I do have a specific, singular answer that I figured out when setting up the situation, but right now there's not enough shared in the story for you to narrow it down yet. I will be willing to spoil that the story isn't going to be "you didn't read my mind, the Shrike shoots Nine Leagues Strides as she leaves Gem, you lose and go back to square one". The story isn't set and there's no one, single endgame that we're definitely going to see, but I'm intending to keep developments narratively satisfying.
[X] A third party shows their face and has to be addressed.
[X] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
[X] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
- Location
- France
[X] A third party shows their face and has to be addressed.
[X] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.
[X] It's just as easy to get clear as you'd hoped.