Exalted: Dead Waters

[Krylo]

And so our story draws to an end. The Empress has been saved, the Mask of Winters has been struck low, the West has been won, and Luthe is safe.

Now great heroes may retire, even as more threats loom at the edges of creation, threats for heroes both new and old. However, that is not a tale for today, if it is to be told at all. For today. . . today we rest.

Today Creation is safe.

When the sun first dawned on Creation, the rays cast by the sun’s
light created the very first jeweled brilliance by reflecting off the waves
of the Great Western Ocean. The ancient yozi, fetish souls of the
primordials, and the only beings who truly remember it, sometimes refer
to this event as the, "Incidental Invention of Beauty."

And the west did not stop at being the inventor of beauty. Coral grows
in elegant spires through the clear waters as seaweed dances in the
current and fish shimmer with rainbow light just beneath the sea's surface.
Even the islands themselves serve as accents to the shimmering
sapphire of the sea at dawn.

It is such that even the most stodgy of of divine historians and theorists
on the beginnings of creation must, grudgingly, agree that the West
seems to have a propensity toward beauty.

But even this most beautiful jewel does not remain untouched by the
ugliness of man, the corruption of the Deathlords, or the taint of
Malfeas. . .


***

That's right. The Tomb of the Five Corners test run went well enough that I'm going to be starting up a new campaign. This will be taking place in the same world as the Five Corners play through, some unspecified number of months after the events that took place there, and this time we'll be visiting the Great Western Ocean of Creation (http://www.theverse.net/CreationMap.jpg).

Pirates and sea monsters and who knows what else!

There will be some slight differences compared to the Tomb. The most important of which is going to be the Errata. (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/84593/Scroll-of-Errata) Which is to say we'll be using it. That there's a link that lets you download it for free.

You'll also be using characters you create for yourselves! Which means you might want to try getting ahold of the Core Rules as well, in some way.

I'll also be available to help you with character creation questions, and I'm sure if we get Arhra in here again he can can assist with making sure sheets are correct.

The character creation is probably going to be the hardest part, I won't lie! But once it's over. . . well, even Drac managed to play a pre-made character relatively well. If he can do it, I'm sure any of you can!


Linguistics: Linguistics still = languages, OR you can buy them as specialties.

Craft: Each craft type shall be bought as a specialty, with no more craft types than dots in craft. Again you can refund points if you want (I.E. Kai going down to craft 4 and picking up two craft types with the BP she used for craft 5), or purchase the specialties. If for some reason this doesn't work for you contact me and we'll figure something out. Also, almost forgot to mention, when you buy your first point of craft, pick a craft. You get that specialty for free.

Mass Combat: Fighting alone! Count as solo unit with 0 magnitude for init, but as mag = what your health levels would give you for everything else. Also have access to full might score for your character. DV Refreshing Charms subtract (war) extra sux granted against you by magnitude differences when defending. Smallish AoEs (peony blossom, etc) Add 2 post soak damage dice. 1 against skirmish formation, 3 against close. Larger AoEs (grass cutting, etc.) Add 4 post soak, 2 against skirmish formation, 6 against close. This doesn't work against other solo units, and these dice do not count as dice added by charms. Post battle, solo units will divide any damage they've taken by their magnitude, and round up. This is how much damage they've actually taken as characters.

Charms:

ULTIMATE [Ability] EXPRESSION OF MOTION AND STILLNESS
Cost: -; Mins: Dodge 5, Essence 4
Keywords: Permanent, Mirror (Malice in Thought and Deed),
Prerequisite Charms: Infinite [Dodge] Mastery, Infinite [Ability] Mastery
When choosing this charm, pick either Infinite [Martial Arts] [Thrown] or [Archery] mastery. The lawgiver's mastery of his combat form flows into his footwork, allowing
him to be agile in all things. Half of the discount afforded from the chosen ability applies to dodge excellencies as if committed from Infinate Dodge Mastery.


At essence 5 this affords the full discount.


This discount does NOT stack with Infinate Dodge Mastery if activated seperately.

-

MEASURE THE WORLD'S PULSE v2!
Cost: 5m; Mins: Occult 4, Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: Spirit-Detecting Glance
The Solar opens herself to the essence flows of the world, reading the motions and intentions of those around her before they even act.


While this charm is in effect, all dice from Aim and Study actions are converted into automatic successes. Each time your DV refreshes, pick an opponent. You gain one bonus success on attacks against them, as if you'd spent 1 tick aiming. This counts as dice added by an Aim or Study action.


The DV penalty from actions taken against the Aim target is reduced by 1 and the Solar ignores onslaught penalties to her DV from target of Aim action.

-

VARIEGATED MIRACLE PANOPLY
Cost: -; Mins: Occult 4, Essence 3; Type: Permanent
Keywords: -
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Solar Exalted bedeck themselves in wonders. When attuning multiple artifacts, the attunement cost of each artifact is reduced by two motes. This cannot lower the attunement cost below one mote and each artifact benefiting from the discount must serve a distinctly different purpose from each other artifact benefiting from this charm. As a rule of thumb, artifacts relevant to different Abilities are sufficiently different except for niche cases such as weapons. For example, a sword and a suit of armour is appropriate, but a sword and a khatar are not. This cannot reduce the total combined attunement cost below the highest attunement cost of the affected artifacts plus one mote for each additional artifact.


-



Harmonious Dragon Stance
Cost: 1m; Mins: Melee 3, Essence 2; Type: Reflexive (Step 2)
Keywords: Combo-OK, Cooperative, Leader, Merged, Stackable
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Dragon-Blooded learn to empower their most basic abilities beyond that of mortal stock. Elemental energy buoys his body with grace and strength. When defending against an attack, the Exalt may spend one mote to ignore two points of penalty that applies to his PDV. When another Dragon-Blooded who possesses this charm is within (Essence x 20) yards, he ignores an additional point. At Essence 3, this latter effect is enhanced, increasing it's benefit to two additional points if three total Dragon-Blooded are in range.


Merged: Dodge

-

Enraging the Bull (aka: Nyah nyah nyah, phbbbbbt)

Type: Dodge
Cost: 3m
Type: Reflexive
Mins: Dodge 5, Essence 3
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: 1 tick
Prerequisite Charms: Seven Shadow Evasion, Reflex Sidestep Technique

To their enemies, a Solar's perfection is infuriating, humiliating, and frustrating. Faced with their inability to lay so much as a finger on the Solar, many opponents become so enraged and desperate just to prove they are not helpless that their continued attempts become progressively sloppier.

On any tick in which the Solar applies her dodge DV to an attack successfully, she may activate this charm to give her opponent a -1 internal penalty until the end of the next tick on which they act. Additionally, any further attacks made by the targetted opponent which the solar applies her dodge DV to successfully on the same tick she activated this charm inflict an additional -1 internal penalty for the same duration. While under these penalties, those affected treat “not targeting the Solar” as violating their Valor. They may pay one Willpower to remove this unnatural mental influence. However, if the opponent manages to hit the Solar, all penalties inflicted by this charm immediately vanish.


-

Matroyska Marking Method
Cost: -(1+ m, 1 wp); Min: Linguistics 1, Essence 1; Type: Permanent
Keywords: Illusion
Duration: Permanent
Prerequisite Charms: None
Commonly referred to as "Glorious Chicken-Scratch Prana" by their Dragonblooded lieutenants, this charm was first developed when the initial generation of farmers and toilers turned Exalts realized that being gifted with untold cosmic power didn't necessarily bequeath improved penmanship. Any writing of the Exalt is perfectly legible, no matter how hurried or dirtied. Additionally, the message can be made readable in any other language she has seen, even if she is not fluent, by spending 1 mote per additional language, her imitation markings appearing legitimate.


At Linguistics 3+, Essence 3+ this Charm automatically upgrades. The Exalt is now able to make readers see what they want to see, turning potentially any marked up slip of parchment into valid papers. By committing 5 motes and 1 willpower to a single piece of paper, any who view the paper with an MDV lower than the Exalt's (Charisma or Manipulation + Linguistics sux) fall under an illusion to believe it to be a credible example of the document the Exalt wishes to convey. Readers may gain a +1-3 MDV bonus depending on their familiarity with the perceived document.


At Linguistics 5+, Essence 5+, this Charm automatically upgrades again, allowing any action by the Exalt to be a potential message. By reflexively spending 10 motes and one willpower she may imbue any action that leaves a mark with the capability to express a message. Later onlookers who view the mark immediately experience an Illusion that lets them know the message the Exalt wished to convey, although this message does not count as a social attack and cannot impose mental influence. Lasciviously Lilted Lilac was fond of leaving lipstick kisses on the pillows of her lovers that contained romantic poems about the last night's activities, while the scars borne by the defeated opponents of Blaze in Arms detail exactly the events leading to the fight and how soundly she defeated them.

-



Invincible Ego Shield now only factors half your WP (round down) for determining Dodge DV.


WARSTRIDER HOUSE RULES (Tentative--Comment on them as you please)
Halve mobility penalties for all striders except scout. Scout no longer has mobility penalties.
No Warstriders have fatigue penalties (reasons will follow later), however resting/sleeping within a warstrider is impossible.
All warstriders have hardness equal to 2/3rds of their soak, round up, except Scout which continues to have half soak in hardness.
Warstriders have their own health tracks.
--Scouts have 7 HL (1 -0, 2 -1, 2 - 2, 1 -4, 1 inop)
--Common and Noble have 10HL (4 -0, 2 -1, 2 -2, 1 -4, 1 inop)
--Royal have 12 HL (4 -0, 4 -1, 2 -2, 1 -4, 1 inop)
--Collosus have 15 HL (6 -0, 5 -1, 2 -2, 1 -4, 1 inop)
Scout increases Dodge DV by 1 for its pilots.
External penalty to attacking smaller things is removed


Cockpits, instead of working as described, now use elsewhere folding techniques to have a larger interior than exterior that gives 8 feet of clearance in all directions within the cockpit. A pilot has to wear a skintight suit with nothing over it, however, that transfers essence from pilot to strider. In this way the strider perfectly mimics the movements of the pilot, and the pilot receives force feedback. This skintight suit offers the pilot no protection, thus necessitating a pilot having 0 armor soak if their warstrider is destroyed.


Colossus Warstriders are 40 feet tall, making them twice as tall and twice as wide as nobles.


Force Feedback: A pilot feels any damage on their warstrider as if happening to them. When a warstrider is reduced to inoperable levels or destroyed the link is cut and all pain fades almost immediately. This is also what keeps a pilot from moving faster than the strider is capable of (I.E. the mobility penalty).


A warstrider reduced to inoperable level simply ceases to move. Any further damage, however, causes the warstrider's essence engines and other delicate systems to rupture creating an explosion of 20B trauma 2 vs the pilot. The cockpit is well shielded, and therefore the explosions are very rarely fatal, and often don't harm the pilot at all.


Trauma damage: Warstriders are well sealed against environmental damages, and therefore get their own stamina + resistance rating, equal to the warstrider's strength to resist environmental damage. Against most environmental damage the pilot themselves are completely protected so long as the warstrider is not destroyed. However, certain types (such as electrical damage) may still affect the pilot, though at one level of severity less than the warstrider (I.E. Warstrider is hit by lightning for lethal, pilot rolls their own trauma, but against bashing, or warstrider is hit by lightning for lethal, but makes trauma and thus takes bashing, pilot takes no damage).


Warstrider weapons with overpowering 8 down to overpowering 6, and all other warstrider artifact weapons have Overpowering 4.


Warstrider soaks are all buffed by 4.


To get Warstrider Weapon Stats, take normal weapon damage, double BEFORE MM bonus, apply MM bonus. All other stats remain the same.




I'm looking for a full solar circle, preferably. That's five players, one dawn, one zenith, one twilight, one night, and one eclipse caste. I may also accept an abyssal, but said abyssal will still have to fill one of the solar circle spots (I.E. if we have a midnight abyssal, no zenith solar, etc.) and can not be a death knight of The Silver Prince or Mask of Winters. Further, as this is going to be a heroic game, such a death knight should either be seeking redemption or be built in a way that being convinced to do such isn't unlikely. Potentially/preferably a renegade.

Really, though, I'd mostly prefer all solars. If we get a full circle and still have more people who want to play who can make it for games, I may allow Lunars or Dragonbloods as well, but probably only one. And I'd prefer to avoid Sidereals altogether.

So to summarize all that: Solars = Yes, Abyssals = Maybe, Lunars/Dragonbloods = Only if I end up taking an extra person, Siddies = No

As for character creation itself, I'll be dropping some helpful cheat sheets with calculations, where to find certain rules that I always forget/some basics of the system for you guys, and the actual character sheets I want you to use.

Just check them attached files.

And lastly, we'll be doing this by first having people post available times, as they did last time I did one of these. I'd suggest not going into character creation until we get a time hammered out and you know you can make it. Just because you might end up wasting time.

That said, if you're new to the system, go ahead and make one ahead of time if you're okay with the possibility that it won't be good for anything but practice!

[Girasol of Chaos]

I am interested in trying to make a twilight caste!

My available times are approx. all days about 8pm Pacific Standard Time to 2am. Specific days may vary to include more hours.

[Steel Shadow]

I'm in. My times remain the same ever: Anytime!

Considering ideas! Night Caste's takin' my fancy this time...

[Overcast]

Going to rehammer and manipulate my old Eclipse character again, and I have a resource that may prove useful to everyone. Anathema (http://anathema.github.com/) a very in depth Exalted character creator, I started buzzing around it since Japan said he was planning a new Exalted RP, and it is very good.

Times are the same as before.

[Dracorion]

I'm in too, and my times remain the same.

Thinking I'll go with either Dawn or Night this time. But I should probably take a good look at the rules first.

[Aldurin]

I'm game for it, times vary but most consistently I'm available around midnight PST (preferably Fridays and Sundays). I can start as early as 11 pm some nights but that's when my latest shifts end so it won't always be the case.

EDIT: Probably won't since I don't want to invest in the required exalted materials at this time.

[Wizardcat]

Tentative interest, pretty flexible on time.

[Overcast]

Even if I had all the stats from my old character this is feeling unfeasibly fast. Anyway I'm starting to feel a tinge of specialty loss here. I have the resources and the followers to have a mobile bureaucratic force whenever I need one, but I'm unsure if there will be commerce enough for that to matter.

[Arhra]

I have interest!

Vague Zenithy and Lunary thoughts are filtering into my brain slowly, but I can't say I have any solid concepts yet.

Times are the same as before!

[Krylo]

Okay I'm looking at this again, and I can't figure out why we were doing it not like 2-3 hours earlier?

It looks like everyone is open for that time?

God I hate time zones.

Edit: Wait I think I picked that time so Mauve could watch if she wanted?

So yeah I think we're good to start at 3am GMT, Sunday.

Any objections?

[Overcast]

Good for me.

[Dracorion]

So early... It's so beautiful, I think I'm going to cry.

But yeah, it's good for me.

EDIT: Also, pretty sure I'm going to go with shapeshifting-centric Lunar.

[Arhra]

Work for me too.

[Girasol of Chaos]

Works for me!

[Dracorion]

Oh yeah, I forgot I wanted to respond to this:

Even if I had all the stats from my old character this is feeling unfeasibly fast.

Wizardcat's here. You have all the time in the world to put your character together because you could laze about it for months on end and you'd still end up posting a completed character sheet before Wizzie.

[Wizardcat]

Time works for me. Working on a Dawn.

[Overcast]

And First draft is a go.

[Dracorion]

So's mine.

[Krylo]

You two are mostly okay. Which is to say the numbers all look fine.

Few things I'd like to mention/know, though.

OC:
1) Does Syren have anyone particularly important to him? Family, friends? Where are they now?
2) Who is his administrative assistant(s), and where is/are they?
3) Where did he get his dire chain?
4) How did he exalt?

Drac:
1) Again, does Lyna have anyone she particularly cares for (other than the Solar Mate she may have never even met yet)? Where/who are they.
2) How and where did Lyna exalt? How did the Lunars find her?
3) Where/how did she get her powerbow?
4) Who are the pirates she knows (Coral/Wavecrest/Lintha/Some unaffiliated lunar pirates/something else?) and how did she get those contacts?
5) How did she fall in with the Sword of Luna?


This is going to go for any other sign ups as well. Explain your various backgrounds (except Drac's heart's blood 'cause I don't care how he ate a snake heart one day or whatever) and let me know of any important people or places in your character's past and how their exaltation went.

[Steel Shadow]

Alright, got a draft for you.

As for Background, this guy's a raised on the streets type, left there after his parent's deaths. He did his bit of dodging the law, eking out a living however he could, stealing when he couldn't, which was often. Eventually he fell in with someone a little more professional, an expert thief who appreciated his skills, and taught him to develop them further - His mentor.

After a few years she moved on, and he went to work for himself. Never forgetting his early years, his targets were the rich and corrupt, and his gains more often than not ended up in a more unfortunate soul's hands. He gained something of a reputation, a minor urban legend, and he capped it off by stealing a local minor lord's most valuable artefact in a daring and breath catching heist, which went a little off kilter when he Exalted in the middle of everything...

[Girasol of Chaos]

Eh, summary here to make things easier:

Exalted in her hometown, an epiphany while working on a statue. The result was a terrifying masterpiece and she was forced to flee her homeland.

Her mentor Akua is on the other side of Abalone in a currently undisclosed location and housed Kaimi for the duration of her training.

Kaimi's sacrifices are her love for her hometown (she now loathes it), and she now has permanent wanderlust. Staying too long in one town/city will drive her mad, it's not easy after a month, it's not recommended after 3 months, it's impossible after 6.

Many of her dodging abilities and her throwing technique were taught to her by her older brother, whom she hasn't seen in years.

Her minor connections are individuals she has altered with imbue amalgam, and there are a small handful. If she hasn't required anything of them immediately their payment is to assist her when she calls for it.

Reason for motivation: The Immaculate Order has been disturbing the inhabitants of Gateway for longer than Kaimi has been around. Ever since the Scarlet Empress disappeared, her orders for them to cease their pressure have no bite, and the Immaculate Order has been bothering locals and insulting the volcano gods. This, in turn, makes the worshiped volcano gods angry and things have just been going downhill from there for all of the locals. Kaimi exalted in the middle of her home studio in a town full of Immaculate Order monks and was driven out, and has both cultural and personal reason to hate them and to drive them out of the west, and possibly from existance.

[Krylo]

Get to those in a second, but first one more thing I forgot to mention Drac, but with your tell being your eyes this all: This does not mean that Tells are easy to detect. The
Lunar Exalted could not wear others’ skin with impunity
if they were always recognizable by a specifi c tuft of fur or
a wolf’s fangs. Most of the time, the Tell goes unnoticed.
The Lunar radiates a powerful and unnoticeable mental
infl uence on people who perceive the Lunar in any form,
commanding them to ignore the Tell. This counts as natural
mental infl uence, despite its obviously magical nature. The
Tell acts as an attack with 12 successes on the roll, automatically
slipping into the blind spot (or the equivalent for
other senses) of any target with a Dodge Mental Defense
Value of 11 or less. The Tell is most important in false human
and animal forms—in any true form, the Lunar is not
concealing his identity.

Means people are going to glaze over your character's eyes and not really pay them any particular attention (unless they have over 12 mdv, which yeaaaaaah), which isn't really an issue, but something to keep in mind when RPing. Namely that you should avoid eye based things like staring into someone's eyes, glaring, that kind of thing. In the former the NPC will almost always avert their eyes, and in the latter they probably won't notice. 'Cause if they did they'd notice your freaky bird eyes.

Edit: And why does she want to kill the deathlords?

[Overcast]

Syren is from the an outlying city near An-Teng his parents groomed him from youth to be an offering to a higher born Realm family via marriage. So they had him educated, made him good with money, primped him up a lot so that any highborn woman would want a piece. they simultaneously crushed his dreams of eventually being a part of the Immaculate Order or any other kind of martial hero in favor of this life.

This is pretty normal for the An-Teng are where the family is put above individuals.

As such while he wasn't enthused he followed his family wishes and became the prettiest administrator, but would often practice martial form off in the wilds with his dog Maduri. A goal constantly spurred by his family's prized artifact, a fighting chain far too heavy for any normal man to wield. Still dreaming that one day someone might notice him and take him away.

At some point dissent began to rise in the region, not entirely unusual as An-Teng splits its loyalties to the Realm proper as long as it is profitable, but in this case it was a bit more blunt and obvious. This gained the attention of the Realm who began to send emissaries to the city in the hopes that presence would instigate order. The families there, used to their personal comforts and the lack of intrusion on their affairs grew more irritable. Syren noted that a lot of what was happening seemed to be plotting through his own branch of the Realm Bureaucracy.

He knew that this could only end in disaster, for while most agree that An-Teng could survive on its own, it could not survive a proper war with the Realm. He began to act as a fork in the wheels of the dissent, keeping letters of assistance to the Realm, falsifying letters to the local power players, spreading small rumors of the Anathema being the true source of dissent. In the end he was able to begin reducing the animosity but in its wake someone was able to trace the paperwork back to him.

In the night a group approached him, all wrapped in dark clothes with evil intentions, led by a charismatic man who could not help a dramatic speech before he acted. As it turned out a Yozi cult had been creeping in the dark of his city, attempting to disrupt the power structure through deception so they may make it a foothold for their master's whims. For a moment he thought he would fight, but he knew there were too many. For a moment he was sure his death was at hand, but somewhere in him his confidence began to flow forth, and he could not help but speak.

He interrupted the speech of the cult leader with a witty quip that shook through the group. In a moment he could swear that he could sense the reasons they were all there, and he stepped forward and entered debate. Through force of personality, well spun lore, and a few well placed lies the cult began to dwindle and separate. All off to contemplate what they had done with their lives. Until eventually all the was left was the cult leader himself.

Enraged the man attempted to run Syren through for his no good busybodiness But with quick reflexes he dodged and smashed his fist against the man's face.

And he did it a few more times for good measure.

He finally returned home and removed his turban, and shining beneath was his caste mark. Shining with the power of the Unconquered Sun. Needless to say he was a bit freaked out, and was lost to what could be happening. The mixed feelings, the idea of being Anathema, the possibility of being lied to most of his life.

But most of all this feeling of independence. A will to power.

The day after his parents had found a fine woman for him to marry. A horror of a woman who would be sure to skyrocket his family quite a ways at the cost of his happiness, but they wouldn't find him. The artifact the family treasured was missing, a great deal of their resources had been legally transferred out of their account to an unknown source, and a collection of other bureaucrats who had been involved personally with his campaign to stabilize the city were missing, and his little dog too.

Which is to say they were all with him, travelling away from the city toward Sol knows where, but following his heart for the first time in his life.

tl;dr

Former member of the Realm Bureaucracy, and forced socialite.
Hates his family and doesn't have real friends as a side effect of his life.
Dire chain was a family heirloom, he stole it.
Administrative assistants are former members of the Realm Bureaucracy who followed him on his departure. They tend to stay close to him, and some of his resources are tied to their transportation and lodging.
Exalted when he talked apart a Yozi cult.
Martial and dodging skill gained by frequent personal practice in brawling, but has never had formal training and so knows no real forms.

[Krylo]

And I forgot to ask, but can probably guess... but why does Syren want to unify creation?

[Overcast]

I keep writing too many words. The world is stronger when it stands together, the world feels like it is on the edge of revolution with the Scarlet Empress gone, what better time to plot unification?

[Krylo]

Went over some things with Steel, slight changes to his sheet (resources instead of artifact, now has the right version of larceny excellency, blah de blah).

Reuploading new version for him.

TO GIRA

[Krylo]

Made a couple of edits for Gira.

Updated sheet here.

That leaves everyone approved except for Arhra and everyone's favorite magical cat. Once Drac answers his questions, and Steel gets his specialties in.

Man, I need to get to work on statting your antagonists.

Edit: Noticed immediately after she went to bed that Gira had the pre-errata version of seven shadow. Gira: if I forget to mention it more personally, the perfect dodge is 8 motes instead of 3 in errata.

Updated sheet to reflect change.

[Steel Shadow]

Welp, here we go!

[Overcast]

I'm realizing we have a shit ton of conviction around the group. We are The Greater Good.

[Wizardcat]

Rough draft, mostly complete, I think. Gonna be busy with GW2 this weekend, so just throwing it up and will address issues afterward. Feel free to offer advice, suggestions, et cetera.

[Dracorion]

Backstory time!

Lyna was born in the Skullstone Archipelago, on the island of Greyshores. Her family lived miserably under the rule of the Silver Prince, and when she was a child, they decided to take their chances on a rickety boat at sea rather than join the undead. They ended up making it to Azure, where they lived for a few years, until Lyna became a teenager and her parents sold her to a crew of lonely Coral pirates to pay the bills.

Abused and without purpose, Lyna still refused to give up, deciding she'd prove her worth to the pirates and the family that betrayed her by making the best of the crappy hand she was dealt. Aside from her usual duties, she started working on the ship like any other part of the crew would, became proficient with bows, and became enamored with the sea. She never formally joined the pirate crew, but Lyna was very much a full-fledged pirate and scallywag after some time.

When their ship came under attack by the Imperial Navy and things looked bleak, Lyna kept firing even as her crewmates tried to escape or surrender, refusing to be subjugated again, or worse.

As she did, her Exaltation happened, and the realization hit Lyna that her situation just got much worse. Thanks to her new spirit shape, she was able to escape from the navy ships and her former crewmates who thought to hand over the new Anathema to the Realm in exchange for freedom.

A few days later, when she'd managed to put some distance between herself and the Realm ships, Lyna was picked up by a pack of Lunar who'd been alerted to her Exaltation. She was brought to their Elder, a member of the Swords of Luna, tattoed, and placed as the charge of Crane who Stalks the Skies. The two quickly grew close, Lyna being quite taken with the first person to tell her her actions carried great weight and she mattered to Creation. He inducted her into the Swords, and the two became more than master and apprentice, joining together as lovers.

Once Lyna's fostering was completely, she continued to assist Crane in his endeavors for the Swords of Luna, searching the West for the location of Realm Defense Grid stations.

One day, Crane announced to her that he was going on his own personal quest: to find his Solar Mate. He didn't explain to her why he'd made the decision, and, because you don't ask your girlfriend to come with you on your quest to find your soul mate, he simply left her his moonsilver bow and an apology as parting gifts.

Shaken, Lyna continued their work seeking out stations, checking in with the Swords every now and then for news of Crane. The last news anyone heard was he'd gone to the Skullstone Archipelago for clues of his mate, and had disappear since. After a year of not hearing anything else, the Swords presumed him dead and Lyna swore revenge against the Silver Prince.

Notes:

Her only "friend" is an elderly pirate who left their pirate crew shortly before the Realm attacked, and can be be found in the taverns of Azure or Mantaville these days.
Changed her motivation from "Kill all Deathlords" to just "Kill the Silver Prince". One step at a time, you know?
Similarly, changed the Deathlord intimacy to just the Silver Prince, and added Crane who Stalks the Skies an an intimacy.
Moved some points around, basically Presence is now 1, Survival is now 5, Socialize is 0 and she now has one dot of Reputation background.
Changed the Tell. She now has black feathers poking out of her hair.

[Krylo]

WizardCat: That actually looks good. I have no suggestions nor qualms with it. You've said it's a draft, though, so I'll leave questions for when you're sure that it's what you want.

Already talked with Drac in the pad and he's working on some alterations to the backstory. In case those backstory alterations come with more dots being moved around, I'm going to hold on checking the sheet again until that time.

Arhra: Damn you slow.

[Arhra]

Wheee, just the skeleton to check the maths all works out.

[Dracorion]

So yeah, new backstory because the sea is sexist.

Lyna was born in the Skullstone Archipelago, on the island of Greyshores. Her family lived miserably under the rule of the Silver Prince, her mother dying and becoming an undead slave when she was a child. Her father decided he and Lyna should take their chances on a rickety boat at sea rather than join the undead. They ended up making it to Azure, where they lived for a few years, her father forcing his daughter to "work" at a pirate tavern to pay the bills.

Eventually Lyna got sick of it and ran off to Azure's Tya guildhouse. She ended up joining a Tya ship as a sailor, becoming enamored with the sea and proficient with the bow. Years later, Lyna's ship came under attack by Skullstone raiders who intended to use the bodies of everyone on the ship for slave labor. She fought with all her might until cannon fire launched her off the ship, and managed to escape only by not being spotted among the wreckage, even as the other Tya, both alive and dead, were hauled onto the Skullstone ship.

Stranded at sea and with her closest option for land being Skullstone, Lyna decided to swim in the other direction, refusing to give up and die, she kept going until, just as her strength was about to give out, Exaltation hit her. Lyna found she could turn into a falcon, and flew to safety. Once she'd arrived on land, Lyna was picked up by a pack of Lunar who'd been alerted to her Exaltation. She was brought to their Elder, a member of the Swords of Luna, tattoed, and placed as the charge of Crane who Stalks the Skies. The two quickly grew close, Lyna being quite taken with the first person to tell her her actions carried great weight and she mattered to Creation. He inducted her into the Swords, and the two became more than master and apprentice, joining together as lovers.

Once Lyna's fostering was completely, she continued to assist Crane in his endeavors for the Swords of Luna, searching the West for the location of Realm Defense Grid stations.

One day, Crane announced to her that he was going on his own personal quest: to find his Solar Mate. He didn't explain to her why he'd made the decision, and, because you don't ask your girlfriend to come with you on your quest to find your soul mate, he simply left her his moonsilver bow and an apology as parting gifts.

Shaken, Lyna continued their work seeking out stations, checking in with the Swords every now and then for news of Crane. The last news anyone heard was he'd gone to the Skullstone Archipelago for clues of his mate, and had disappeared since. After a year of not hearing anything else, the Swords presumed him dead and Lyna swore revenge against the Silver Prince.

Note: Instead of pirate contacts she now had a dot of Swords of Luna contacts. And that's about it. Her mayor contact is Four Nights Devouring, a Changing Moon member of the Swords who can be found mingling among the people of Solid Shell, his moonsilver tattoos hidden by a charm.

[Girasol of Chaos]

Hey guys!

Hate to be a dick, but I may not be able to make it next week if we don't do this early enough. Is there any chance people can get on an hour or two (three?) early? I feel stupid for not seeing this conflict earlier, and this should be the only time it happens.

If not, I'll figure something out, but it'd be greatly appreciated.

I only ask because most of everyone seemed on/active early tonight, and it seems like a possibility.

Edit: Drac's gonna try for 2 hours, Steel is cool with that. How about the rest of you?

[Overcast]

I can make it.

[Arhra]

I can do it!

[Girasol of Chaos]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the time bump this weekend.

Wizzy was kind enough to point out a couple of errors on my sheet, so here's the updated version.

Edit: there was another error! I'm just full of those today. Fixed!

[Wizardcat]

Time bump is fine. Updated sheet, minor changes. Can probably treat it as final.

[Arhra]

Still needs a lot of the fluff filled in but it's mathstacular and I'm too sleepy to write well.

Basically Semara is from a small patrician offshoot of House Tepet. Family's failed to have any Dragonblooded pop up for a few generations so they're pretty low on the noble ladder.

She was kidnapped as a ploy to remove her from the line of succession. Her father's ill and she has an overly ambitious younger sibling looking to take over. She's currently unaware of the specifics of the matter, but she does know she wasn't kidnapped for ransom and that her older brother is in danger.

She exalted because she endured, pushing away at escape until something gave in.

Slightly after this, she was helped by a god of the Western Ocean (I'll need to speak to Krylo to work this out), who is the one who gave her the Heaven Thunder Leaves.

Still working out the manse, and how it fits in. Motive is to head home and sort out this crap.

[Dracorion]

So, yeah, based on comments of other people on the pad, apparently we can come up with our own charms and knacks and stuff. So, here's a whole tree of Lunar Knacks.

FORM ACQUISITION KNACKS:
MISCELLANEOUS

Dense Body Method
Cost: 6m
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Prerequisites: Stamina 3, Essence 3
Spending five ticks in contact with a solid, inorganic, mundane material allows the Lunar to transform their body to the same material, and returning their body to flesh can be done as a reflexive action. The character's armor, even Artifact armor, is transported into Elsewhere while the Lunar is transformed, as armor is not compatible with this Knack. The character's Soak and Hardness ratings become the same values as those of a human-sized statue of the material he's shifting into. The character suffers no mobility penalty from transforming into any material while on land, but caution is advised when transforming into heavy materials and entering bodies of water.
This transformation is incompatible with spirit shapes, War Form, animals in the Lunar's Heart's Blood library or any other shapeshifting Knacks, it must be done when the Lunar is in their true human form and they cannot shapeshift into another form.
The Lunar cannot use this Knack to turn to bronze by coming into contact with another character under the effect of Invulnerable Skin of Bronze. They must touch actual bronze of non-magical origin in order to transform their body to bronze.

Solid Form Adaptability
Duration: Permanent
Type: Permanent
Prerequisites: Dense Body Method
Enhances Dense Body Method, Exotic Shape Affinity and Artifact Body Transformation so they can be used in any shape the Lunar holds, be it their true human form, spirit shape, War Form, a creature from the Lunar's Heart's Blood library, and other shapeshifting Knacks.

Exotic Shape Affinity
Cost: 9m
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Prerequisites: Dense Body Method, Stamina 4, Essence 4
Works like Dense Body Method, allowing the Lunar to transform their body into exotic materials, as well as Bronze from an individual under the effect of Invulnerable Skin of Bronze, and the rust-streaked black iron of Incomparable Body Arsenal. In the case of Incomparable Body Arsenal, the Lunar does NOT gain access to the spell's ability to extend weapons from their metallic form, nor is there any attribute increase.

Artifact Body Transformation
Cost: 12m
Duration: Instant
Type: Reflexive
Prerequisites: Exotic Shape Affinity, Stamina 5, Essence 5
Works like Dense Body Method and Exotic Shape Affinity, allowing the Lunar to transform their body into magical materials (Orichalcum, Moonsilver, Starmetal, Soulsteel, Jade, Adamant). The Lunar cannot, however, attune to themself, so their body becomes as heavy as these materials would weigh when unattuned. In this case, the Lunar suffers from a mobility penalty of -5, and a fatigue value of 5 as well.

Artifact Body Attunement
Duration: Permanent
Type: Permanent
Prerequisites: Artifact Body Transformation, Stamina 6, Essence 6
Enhances Artifact Body Attunement, allowing the Lunar to commit 3 motes to attune with themselves, if they're transforming their body to moonsilver, or 6 motes for any other magical material, removing the mobility penalty and fatigue value of the transformation.




So yeah, there it is.

Prerequisite Essence and attribute costs might need to be increased by one, and/or mote costs could be increased as well.

[Krylo]

@Wiz/Arhra, thank you for taking my harassment yesterday in good spirits and giving me your sheets.

@Drac, probably not going to be okaying that on the basis of theme. Lunars shapeshift into other living beings, not nonliving things. I can't really find any precedent for shifting into nonliving things. That's the sole purview of sorcery. You can take a knack that lets you sacred hunt elementals and gain their forms if you want to be made out of rocks or whatever.

Also, might be an idea to ask me if I'll allow the basic idea before writing up a whole tree.

@Everyone: If Drac can't make it we'll still be doing something for the first few hours. Maybe some backgroundy stuff or some such for each person, but we aren't gonna waste a week just 'cause the lunar can't make it. That kinda stuff is, obviously, going to have to be a bit player driven, though.

Either way, once Drac gets on we can start with the RP proper.

So, you all have about eighteen and a half hours, if my math is right.

Be Prepared. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVp01pdI81I#t=1m55s)

[Dracorion]

Actually, pretty much my whole basis for the idea was Lunars having a Knack from Glories: Luna that lets them meld into scenery, and another in the Errata that lets them become geography. And, to a lesser extent, the one that lets them turn into plants.

But, I don't wanna push too hard on this. I always have terrible ideas I think are cool, and we're close to game day anyway.

[Dracorion]

Double posting because it looks like I'll be able to make it to the early session after all, though I may be on my phone for the first couple of hours.

A resounding "NYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" to Krylo for being a racist jerk to Lunars.

[Overcast]

It is just a lot of that sounds mad alchemical.

[Dracorion]

No, no, it's got nothing to do with the Knacks. It's because Krylo's always all "Solars rule, everyone else DROOLS" and now he's like "Pfft, we're not going to put things off another week for a Lunar. For a Solar, sure, but not a Lunar."

'Cause he's a jerk.

[Overcast]

Suffer not the alien, the mutant, the heretic.

[Krylo]

Into the chat you lot.

[Arhra]

Today we discovered:

1) We have been hired by an idiot.

2) He is made out of money.

3) We lack sympathy for slavers.

4) Distance is a thing.

5) Random guardsmen will believe our lies.

6) It's a traaaaaap!

7) We can just not go with the suspiciously cheap boat fare.

AMAZING.

[Steel Shadow]

Other things we learned:

Money is the best power.

Little kids had better run, 'cus Syren is going to sell them into slavery.

Shapeshifting is an anytime power, and yet Lyra still wants to hide the fact she's a Lunar.

Kaimi likes books.

We're either being employed by a masterful actor, or a complete idiot. Then again, quite possibly it's both.

Garret likes stealing.

But we didn't learn a thing about Cyl!

... This whole thing is gunna end in so much blood.

[Dracorion]

By the way, I found this thing. (http://jyenicolson.net/exalted/)

It's a tutorial on Exalted someone made. Even though we've already had our first session, it could be useful for those of you who still aren't sure about the finer details. It also includes social combat, which we haven't had any of.

I thought it was good enough at introducing you to the system. Anyway, try it out if you kids feel like it.

[Krylo]

By the way, I found this thing. (http://jyenicolson.net/exalted/)

It's a tutorial on Exalted someone made. Even though we've already had our first session, it could be useful for those of you who still aren't sure about the finer details. It also includes social combat, which we haven't had any of.

I thought it was good enough at introducing you to the system. Anyway, try it out if you kids feel like it.

Went through this, and it's pretty much excellent.

I strongly suggest everyone do so.

[Krylo]

Especially the combat parts.

[Overcast]

Especially the exalted combat part. Opened my eyes a bit how possibly fucked I am.

[Dracorion]

You're welcome.

[Arhra]

Lyna is dead.

She's gone!

But she's right there on our backs, and here in our hearts! She lives on as a part of us! If you're gonna sail, sail to the heavens. No matter what's in our way, we won't stop! Once we've sailed past - it means that we've won!

Just who the hell do you think we are?!

[Krylo]

Firstly, I didn't expect anyone to die that time, but Drac/Lyna basically did everything they could do wrong as far as exalted combat goes. From burning ALL the motes on their opening attack, to painting a giant target on themselves by flying in ahead of everyone.

It's like Meiling told you about Crimson Rain during that tutorial Drac found (if you won the first social combat attack): "He spends his essence heedlessly, always gambling on his first strike and leaving nothing for contingency. The first clever opponent he meets will drain him dry and cut him to pieces."

I mention this as a method of pointing out what to do and what not to do to other new players.

By contrast note that the Abyssal himself conserved his motes as much as possible until Lyna was obviously incapable of sufficiently defending herself and then lashed out--hard. Even then he was taking a pretty big risk, and was doing so out of arrogance that he wouldn't need to use essence to avoid anything but your most powerful essence fueled strikes.

In other words, even doing that when up against multiple opponents was a mismanagement of essence.

In Exalted defense trumps offense, which means you can't hurt an enemy who still has essence left, and an enemy without essence can't hurt you (most of the time), and so your goal, in any confrontation, is to force your opponent(s) to use their essence while conserving your own.

Whether that means goading them into using extremely expensive attacks and then perfecting them, or flurrying and coordinating attacks at them is dependent on the enemy and your own personal style.

That said: I'm actually surprised Lyna ended up dead. I had expected that attack to do some serious damage to her, and leave her with some wound penalties and burning for extra damage for a bit until someone could put it out, but alive.

But our Abyssal got some really good rolls there. Luck of the draw, I guess.

However! Lyna's Death is someone else's gain.

I've been pondering how to deal with a PC death and I've come up with this, seeming as there are more people who still wanted to play but didn't get to sign up in time:

You know how when we were kids we'd sit around playing video games with a group larger than who could actually play at any given time? Or at least my friends did, and we came up with the solution that whenever someone dies they hand their controller off to the next person.

So that's what we're going to do here.

Anyone who wants to play and can make the current time post in this thread and prepare to make a character. As people die we'll cycle through whomever has posted here (and put any later comers at the end of the list). Currently Drac is gonna be at the end of this list.

Lunar, Abyssal, or Renegade DB would be best/easiest to work in. If you go with the last option talk to me and we can hammer out how to make you not useless in a group of solars (I.E. how many extra BP to give you, and how 'experienced' your character is before joining to justify it). Edit: Preferably not another Lunar right NOW just because it'd feel less contrived to work in a different exalt type.

[Teal Mage]

Alright, interested and can make the time.

Not sure if you need me to say this in thread yet, but of the options listed, I'd lean toward a Renegade DB most. Probably Water Aspect, given the area. I'm reasonably flexible here though - willing to try an Abyssal if that's easier for the DM to bring up to speed.

Edit: Reading up on my options in the two books, don't take my preference statement above too seriously.

[Dracorion]

Mm, yeah, basically Lyna's problem was taking the Abyssal head on, and then thinking she could burn through his Essence by herself.

And no, the irony of me doing what the tutorial tells you not to do when I'm the one who first found it is not lost on me. In my defense, when it got to social combat I used wp once and then got bored from lots of boxes saying "yeah, Meiling can't do anything to you, wait for your turn!", reloaded and gave in, so I never saw Meiling's comments about the Crimson Idiot.

Feel free to call Lyna the Silver Idiot, by the way.

And yeah, Admiral Assface basically had all the best rolls except when it came to shooting down the mast.

[Lumenskir]

Hmm, well as 'luck' would have it I spent about a week working out an Abyssal character sheet for another venue as my first foray into Exalted and then the ST and half the Circle decided to just quit/try something else. So I guess I'll put my quarter on the machine to see if it'll get some use at some point.

Character sheet for Calm Of A World Drowned In Its Own Blood, Abyssal Dusk Caste, attached.

(Note, since it'd get tedious/space consuming to type out "Calm Of A World Drowned In Its Own Blood" over and over, I'll just use 'Calm' as shorthand)

In his mortal life, the man who would become Calm was a consumate military man, enlisting at a young age for the opportunity to see the world and beginning a steady rise through the ranks, eventually becoming the leader of a patrolling scale in the North. Because of the vast amount of land they had to cover, and the tumult back in the Realm, he and his men were generally left to their own devices (a polite way of saying, mostly forgotten about), which meant they were free to patrol and provide security from bandits, icewalkers, and assorted other baddies without having to worry about bureaucracy and the like. The locals who were on their 'route' came to respect the scale, and the men came to regard Calm as a father-figure/mentor.

One day, the scale saw that one of their normal stops was under attack and was blazing. Fearing a bandit strike, they rushed to the town only to find something worse: A Bored Dragon-Blood. Calm and his scale arrived just in time to see the youthful Exalted cut off the leg of a young boy, laughing as the life bled out of the debilitated child.

Calm stormed up the Dragon Blood and demanded to know what was going on. The Exalted said something about how he was passing through, and wanted to show these mongrels what proper respect looked like, and how his family was important, but Calm didn't catch most of it because he drew his sword and rushed in to attack.

The Dragon Blooded warrior wasted no time in quickly skewering Calm on his daiklave, shoving the blade through Calm's chest until he could whisper directly into his ear about how he would now kill both the village and the scale for Calm's insolence.

As Calm's final breaths sputtered out of him, the world began to darken around the edges, until the only thing he could see was his killer's sneering face, and then...

And then all at once, everything went completely black, until the darkness took form and he was kneeling prostrate before the most gorgeous woman he had not only ever seen, but even imagined.

"Tsk, tsk," She, who Calm would come to know was formally called The Lover Clad In The Raiment of Tears (but which he could only call She Who Must Be Obeyed), said, "You were such a great warrior, and yet because he won a genetic lottery he will win and live on. Doesn't that seem unfair?"

In the darkness, Calm nodded.

"And yet, if you can believe it, he is actually the least worst. The Elemental Dragons breed him, and innumerable like him, for sport, as if it was admirable. They've dotted all of Creation with them, like so much venereal disease. I think they should be done with, every last one of them, killed and skewered on their own hubris and blasted into nothingness. Do you agree?"

At that moment, Calm could think of nothing that he had ever believed more.

"And if I could show you how to do it. If I could give you the greatest weapons, Charms beyond Terrestrial imagining, and the immortality with which to do it? And all I would ask is for you to listen to me, to heed my advice for how best to do it, and for simple loyalty? Would you accept?"

Yes

"Then rise, my Exalted, and come to your Lover."

And with that the darkness receded, and Calm was staring at the Dragon Blooded boy again. Only now the face he saw was full of fear, and in the widening pupils of the Exalted's eyes Calm almost swore he could see himself rise up, pull the daiklave out of his own chest and toss it away like scrap. As the Dragon Blooded and his soldiers scrambled to deal with this new and terrifying information, the bodies of the villagers lying around them began to thrash violently, spraying blood from their wounds and orifices. Wherever a drop landed it began to burn like acid, eating through flesh and melting armor onto bodies, until none were left standing except for Calm...and a warrior clad in pure soulsteel, who strode up behind him, and with a pat on the back welcomed him to his new unlife.

From there Calm was taken to the Lover's Fortress of Crimson Ice, he stared into the Void and gave up his name to his Neverborn master, and began his training.

Soon though he began to realize that his bargain was not one of mutual agreement, as the information inequality was enormous. He soon realized that while the Dynast and spoiled Dragon Blooded were not pure, the destruction of all Terrestrial Exalted, and the devestation such a loss would cause, was more than he could have imagined at his time of weakness. And his 'Lover' was much more demanding than she had originally let on. And that it was too convenient that one of her lieutenants had been waiting in place on the day of a such a horrible 'coincidence'. When he heard rumors that other deathknights had been not only chosen, but "groomed" to accept, he finally could take no more. He gathered the equipment given to him and what riches he could and fled his duty.

Since then he has been trying to put as much distance between him and his Deathlord as possible, and the far West should hopefully do the trick. To abate the Neverborn's fury he has not forsaken killing or feeding on living flesh, but only does it to the unjust and willingly abhorrent. He wishes now that he could have that one day back, just one chance to say no. Even as he craves his own death now, he knows his Exaltation would be given to a new, probably manipulated, soul, one who might not have his qualms. And so he runs, hoping he'll find somewhere with solace or an answer.

As to the mechanics, I ran the sheet I was using through that Anathema creator that was linked to and it came out just right, but I'm not completely sure it's perfect or acceptable for this setting. We were mostly using the Corebook and the Abyssal stuff, and I think all of my Charms are mirrors except for Screaming in Silence (which is a telepathic ability).

I will now wait my turn on the list.

[Girasol of Chaos]

Someone seriously needs to post the log from last night. That was amazing.

Go Team Awful =D

[Krylo]

Lumen: Your guy looks fine. Teal asked first, though, and he's got some time yet to finish up with his sheets.

You'll be in dock for the next death.

The only issue I have is that the 'murder all DBs' thing might not mesh well with Semera, and doesn't seem to actually be his motivation now that he's seeking redemption (the killing all the dragonblood would do more harm than good realization).

Everyone else: I'm pondering making a pad for this. We would still be using the chat for the actual game, and there wouldn't be much canon stuff put up there, but it'd be a place we could talk about the game without filling the Landry pad with it, and could basically act as a 'landryfun' pad except for our exalted game, without mussing up the thread (which I'd like to save for logs and srsbzns stuff so it's easier to navigate).

I'm mostly asking if there's interest in this before I do so.

[Overcast]

Not in particular from my end, but if it is clogging the Landrypad I'm sure you'll have to.

[Arhra]

Hey remember when we realised that solving all our problems by riding a magical hurricane to wherever we want was totally a thing we could do?

BECAUSE IT WAS TOTALLY A THING WE COULD DO!!!

[Steel Shadow]

It was a thing we could do and it totally threw Krylo's notes out the window! Kaimi should be proud!

Things I have learned this session:

1. Gary is not such a bad chap. Sure, he may screw us over from time to time, but the man has such a magnificent sense of timing.

2. I may be useless for the rest of the campaign, but being cripplingly overspecialised for this one single evening was 100% worth it.

3. Disposing of a doomsday device is harder than it looks. I have a new level of sympathy for Batman.

4. Attuning non-Solar artefacts is a bitch.

And a pad sounds pretty useful. We do clutter the Landry one up a ton, plus it gives us a place to plan!

[Girasol of Chaos]

What did I learn?

1. Currents is a pretty cool guy and totally didn't see this coming.

2. We got to play dress up. We are good at dress-up.

3. Walking dinner is awesome.

4. Garret was ready for this. Holy crap, that was a solo mission.

5. I am now playing Crazy Taxi with Exalts.

I wouldn't mind having a pad so we don't clutter the Landry pad

[Krylo]

We have a pad. Fill it with silliness at your leisure. (http://edupad.ch/DeadExalt)

[Lumenskir]

Ok, wasn't entirely happy with just porting over a character without regard for the actual circumstances, and I saw this cool thing (http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Ink_Monkeys,_vol._31:_Chapter_Seve n_-_Abyssals) and got a go ahead from krylo, so here's Calm II.

Little is known about Calm's life before taking her Second Breath because she hasn't made a point of talking about it to anyone, even those now close to her. Personally, she finds herself caring less and less about what happened before her death. On a long enough timeline death becomes a certainty, and whatever comes before becomes irrelevant.

Post-Exaltation, after Calm accepted enormous power but without a guide to show her some way to channel it, she sublimated her rage at her situation into killing, usually for a price as her newly specialized skills made her quite in demand. But soon she found that killing the filth of Creation was too draining and found her way to the Underworld. Here she found herself at ease at last, at home and accepted by the ghosts populating the shadowlands and mirror world. She soon put herself to work, not for money but for purpose: killing would be war lords seeking new territory, grave desecrators, any who would prey on the deceased.

Eventually she came to the attention of a Deathlord, a being she could barely conceive of even in the realm they claimed to rule. A nephwrack and hekantohire came to the mini-necropoli she had settled in, bringing her a gift of soulsteel and the promise of dominion over the dead, if only she would accept a yoke. She used the scythe to chop off the nephwrack's head and sent the hekantohire back to its master with her simple message: Death is inevitable, while suffering is avoidable, and she would enforce the former on any who seek to ensure the latter.

Since then the Deathlords have either lost interest or are planning their revenge, while assorted ghosts now seek out her and her small holdout against oppression. She has taken the time to work out what she wants to do: Free her fellow Exalted of the Deathlord's Monstrance grip, including erasing any mention of the Abyssal name as it ties them to the nihilism of the Void, and establish a Penumbral banner to recognize their Solar heritage while fully honoring the duty they possess to the dead. She has recently heard about a rumor of someone in [Wherever the campaign is when she starts] who might know how to destroy the Monstrances, and she's decided to become proactive.

[PhoenixFlame]

I suppose it behooves me to express interest in the fact that Krylo expressed interest in my expression of interest in wanting to join this game.

In that vein, I'm considering a dispossessed Icewalker trained by a realm sword school who exalted in one of the northwestern coasts of the inner sea. Of my most famous invincible sword princess archetype. Further background when it becomes necessary/there's an opening.

[Arhra]

Last week we got cut a litle short due to the forums crashing.

We learned:

1) We must take the Ring to Mordor.

2) The Ring is zombie plague.

3) Mordor is the Mouth of Oblivion.

4) We must take Kaimi's family to An-Teng.

5) Because Abyssals might murder them otherwise.

6) Syren is not a team player due to his hatred of An-Teng.

7) The team loves the brainwashing.

[Overcast]

Hey he doesn't hate An-Teng, he loves his homeland. But he isn't ready to go back yet.

[Arhra]

Hey he doesn't hate An-Teng, he loves his homeland. But he isn't ready to go back yet.

OK, OK, he hates his family and his beautiful troll-bride.

[Overcast]

That is more to the point. Parents more than troll bride, because she is honestly just a rich girl caught in the middle of the bad child rearing practices of his parents. Which are considered a bit harsh even by other Tengenese families.

[Teal Mage]

Alright, uh. Character posting time. Originally was gonna go Assassiny Abyssal, but looking at the people on-deck for joining the Circle when someone else dies, I decided to do a Lunar with a bit more of a social twist instead (while retaining some Combat ability, of course). I'll probably be aiming at building his Social stats and charms from now on, but he's a bit jack-of-all-trades right now. Hopefully, he won't die immediately.

By the standards of many Exalted, Kahaku of the White Tides’ life pre-Exaltation was surprisingly mundane – if not entirely pleasant. His father was a Wavecrest Sailor who died in a Lintha Pirate raid, three months before he was born. His mother, a woman from the Neck’s Cyanine tribe, was taken in by his great-uncle in-law, a retired merchant-captain of some note, and given work as a servant in his mansion on Halcyone Island. Though undeniably an act of charity, his Uncle (and the whole household) was a devout follower of the Immaculate Order – and well aware that the Cyanine tribe boasted an unusually high number of God-Bloods. Therefore, while still part of the family, his mother never managed to escape the suspicion of being not-quite-human.

It was here that Kahaku was born and raised – not quite as a servant, but not quite a member of the family either. He was educated, sufficient to assist in the merchanting business at least, and apprenticed at as young an age as was possible – to the male part of Wavecrest’s bureaucracy. The decision was primarily motivated by pragmatism on his Uncle’s part – the family lacked connections to the bureaucracy and Kahaku had proven to be quick minded enough to do well there. Whether Kahaku’s questionable parentage played into this decision as well is a matter of speculation.

Such thoughts aside, Kahaku proved to be capable in this path of life. By the time he was an adult, he was already a full-fledged Cargo Inspector in the port of Crescent – and also an informant within Wavecrest’s Obsidian Blade spy network. As far as he’s aware, the majority of his contributions to the network have been minor. Still, he managed to build a solid reputation as an honest inspector – after all, being anything but in Wavecrest was extremely hazardous to your health. Aside from the general stigma that any man in Wavecrest faced for not being a sailor of some kind, Kahaku’s life was pretty good by many standards.

Then, one night, he was mauled by a Wyld twisted creature. He was visiting his uncle’s estate at the time. While he was unconscious, the creature had gotten into the mansion and started killing people. By a twist of fate, he’d woken again – and, after struggling to get back up (he had to save his mother), Exalted. He’d turned into a wolf and chased the creature down – it had a mutation which was dangerous for mortals, harmless to the Exalted – and dispatched it relatively easily. He’d found his mother a few moments later. She was fine.

…and that’s when someone shouted, “Anathema!”

It was bad luck that his Uncle’s estate had bordered a Dynast’s vacation home. It was worse luck that there had been a small cadre of Dragonblood there at the time. That they’d reacted fast enough to send someone to investigate the commotion – with extraordinarily bad timing – was the worst luck of all. The Wyld Creature, unfortunately, had turned to dust a few moments before.

His mother told him to run. There’d been little time to discuss it and she promised nothing would happen to her. It was him they’d want – he was the one glowing like a Christmas tree, after all. She would delay them if she could. So, he’d left. Within a few hours, he’d been found by a pair of Lunars who’d been sent to collect him – and they spirited him away to Abalone island, and the Lunar Elder there.

It wasn’t until later, that he learned the official story behind what had happened that night. Yumi Akouta, a God-Blood Sorceress from the Neck, had allowed her son to be possessed, and ultimately devoured, by a demon to kill most of the Immaculate Believers within the mansion. When it had completed its task, she’d banished it – before the Hunt that eventually came to investigate the Anathema sighting could arrive. Apparently, she’d attacked them with her magic – and they had slain her in combat.

…over the course of the next month, the Elder tattooed and tested him. Eventually, after vision-questing within the Wyld – standard practice for her when determining a new Lunar’s Caste, apparently – a she fixed him to the Changing Moon Caste. Most of his training from that point on was handed off to one of the Lunars who had saved him the first night – a Full Moon. The Elder was apparently an individual of unusual renown within the Silver Pact, and was a member – with varying degrees of influence – within all its factions, save the Seneschals of the Sun Kings. Much of her time was devoted to her Thousand Stream River project, centered around the native tribes of Wavecrest. As a result, she had little time or inclination, to train young Lunars.

He’d spent roughly a little less than a year under his Full Moon mentor – training that was unusually martial for a Changing Moon, but valuable nevertheless. He’d learned a lot during that period – mostly fighting, but also the bare essentials of the Silver Pact’s history, factions and goals. His mentor, it seemed, cared little for such details and even less for politics – a quirk that Kahaku seems to have emulated. Beyond technical membership in the Swords of Luna faction, he’s had little to no contact with Lunars and their society.

During this period, he’d also gained some understanding of the Elder’s project – which is to say, the perpetual state of warfare the tribes of Wavecrest were in was useful to her goals, if not outright desirable. Kahaku had wanted nothing to do with her plans, and had instead informed her that he was going to civilized Wavecrest to further his training and do what he could to shore up its stability. The Elder, with more important things occupying her, had granted him permission to do so. As a stable Wavecrest peripherally benefited her experiment, she’d even given him the location of a minor (and poorly constructed) Manse for his use.

Since then, Kahaku has spent much of his time in Wavecrest monitoring the various factions active in its civilized areas. Eventually, he gambled and made contact with the country’s leader, the current Feathered One, and now maintains a tenuous alliance of convenience with him, under the guise of an Outcaste Dragonblood (of exceptionally poor breeding) known as White Tides, serving him as an independent spy. This alias is also what Kahaku relies on when acting overtly within the country – something he does extremely sparingly.

Lately, his actions have been focused primarily on the Exalted from Skullstone, who serve as the emissaries of the Silver Prince. To say they concern him is an understatement, to say the least.

Next, various pieces of expanded information regarding his Backstory. Read if you're interested - limit break (based on Red Rage of Compassion in the Core)

Limit Break:
Curse of the Vicious Sheppard: Overcome by his protective instincts, Kahaku descends into an animalistic rage and seeks, at all costs, to protect his pack mates. While under the effects of a Break, Kahaku attacks anything and everything (including inanimate objects) that he perceives as attacking one of his positive intimacies, until he perceives it to no longer be a threat (typically, this requires it to be knocked unconscious or destroyed in some manner). If he should become engaged with an opponent in battle, he will focus on this opponent to the exclusion of all else unless another of his intimacies cries out from an injury, or he sees them obviously overmatched by another opponent – in which case, he will move to their aid using the most efficient speed possible. If no intimacies are present when he Breaks, he immediately seeks one out and will attack anything that hinders him. Charms may not be used for in this state, though the character ignores wound penalties taken. Complex mental and social actions are also impossible – he can only communicate through growls.

Partial Control: Kahaku manages to retain some semblance of his mental faculties, and can fight efficiently, rather than wildly. He still seeks to protect his intimacies at all costs, but may apply his charms to this task, does not necessarily need to attack a threat, does not tunnel vision when engaged in battle, and is able to better to judge when something is no longer a threat. Because he capable of evaluating a situation before leaping in to assist his intimacy, it is possible – though extremely difficult – for him to hold himself back from acting entirely, under certain exceptional situations. He will want to assist very badly however, and will likely disregard his better judgment when the intimacy is too obviously threatened to ignore (if they get wounded, for instance, bets are off) – among other extremely situational concerns. Wound penalties act as normal, he can not take social actions.

Duration: One full combat scene (once when all enemies are incapacited) or hours equal to Compassion - unless in an exceptionally dangerous location. In which case, it lasts for roughly a day.

Condition: When one of Kahaku’s positive intimacies takes a non-superfacial lethal wound, or placed in obvious peril when he can not (or should not) assist.

Significant NPCs:
Mother: Full name, Yumi Akouta – a woman from the Neck’s Cyanine tribe. She fell in love with Kahaku’s father when he came to the Neck during a routine trading run, and immigrated to Wavecrest twenty-four years ago. Yumi had trouble acclimatizing to Wavecrest’s cultural traditions – particularly the ones which prevented her from significantly interacting with the sea to provide for her family – but adapted sufficiently to run a small household and make a small amount of money on the side, as a craftswoman. However, once her husband died, this small amount of income wasn’t sufficient – she was saved from poverty by Kahaku’s great-uncle. Whether or not she’s a God-Blood is left intentionally ambiguous – as is what happened in the mansion that night. Personality-wise, she serene, forgave others easily and had little trouble accepting her lot in life, whatever it was. She died some years ago now, so unless some Sorcery held her back, it’s likely she entered Lethe very quickly afterward.

Lunar Elder: A Sorceress of some renown within the Silver Pact, the Elder is a No Moon Caste Exalted, with access to the Terrestrial and Celestial Circle – and possibly their Necromancy equivalents. Though she herself is not a survivor of the First Age, her knowledge of its Lore is impressive – as is her resolve that the Solars can not be permitted to rule without challenge again. The direct goals of her Thousands Stream River experiment are unclear and she has little inclination to discuss them with outsiders. Her relationship with Kahaku is distant and disinterested at best – that his present actions peripherally support her experiment was sufficient justification for her to provide the location of a demanse and the the plans necessary for its conversion to a Manse. Its rather unlikely that she would help him even if he called upon her.

Full Moon: One of the Lunars who rescued Kahaku on the night of his Exaltation. The Elder assigned Kahaku to his tutelage for reasons that are likely arbitrary. An Exalted from one of the tribes involved in the Elder’s Thousand Streams experiment, the Full Moon possesses an unusually high number of mutations from his life as a human for a Lunar. Fortunately, or suspiciously, most are benign or positive. A member of the Swords of Luna, the Full Moon cares very little for politics or indirect action – making him possibly the worst Mentor for a Changing Moon. Still, Kahaku learned most of his martial skills from him, and was regifted his Moonsilver Bracers in recognition for his successful contact with the Feathered One of Wavecrest. Kahaku and him are quite close – though its unlikely that he’ll be much use in populated lands. He stands out in a crowd.

No Moon: The second of Kahaku’s rescuers – an Ex-Priestess of the Volcano gods. Kahaku knows relatively little about her, save that her skill as a Sorceress far outstrips her age (she’s not that much older than him), and that she spends a lot of her time within the Wyld. What she’s looking for – or perhaps training for? – is unclear. She’s a member of the Crossroads Society and the Swords of Luna – though the former obviously takes precedence for her.

Backgrounds/Knacks:
Contacts: Calling the Feathered One of Wavecrest a friend – or even an ally – of Kahaku’s is an exaggeration. However, the pair of them have something of an agreement – Kahaku delivers whatever useful information he finds when out prowling the streets of civilized Wavecrest to the Feathered One, and the Feathered One does not call the guards to kill him. Sometimes, Kahaku even performs more specific tasks for the man. While visiting with the Feathered One, Kahaku makes use of his Changing Plummage Mastery knack to masquerade as an Outcaste Dragonblood known as White Tides – though after close to a year of such visits, he suspects that the Feathered One is aware that he’s not what he says he is. Kahaku is quite aware their relationship is one of convenience.

White Tides: When overt action is necessary, Kahaku uses his Changing Plumage Mastery knack to masquerade as an Outcaste Dragonblood (of extremely poor breeding) named White Tides – something he does extremely sparingly. A causal check into this background reveals – quite blatantly – that no Water Aspect Terrestrials matching his description have Exalted within, or come to, Wavecrest in…well, forever. At least, not legally. Though effectively a paper-thin disguise, thus far, no one has had reason to poke it too hard, yet. Kahaku uses less auspicious aliases when being a Dragonblood would be more trouble than its worth.

Manse: A level 1 manse Wood Manse, located within the deep forests on the Abalone Island. As far as Manses go, this one is very simple - its a tree, with a dug-out hollow beneath it. The tree is actually the only important part of the Manse - but the hollow beneath its there for shelter. It was the last – and only – gift that Kahaku got from the Lunar Elder before they essentially ceased contact, as something like payment for working in a manner that peripherally supports her Thousand-River-Stream experiment. Its entrance is a small gap within the tree's roots - and is consequentially very easy to miss.

Artifact: A pair of Moonsilver Bracers – a hand-me-down gift from his Full Moon Mentor, in recognition for his managing to get in-touch with the Feathered One (and more importantly, be mildly competent). He usually wears them under his clothing (typically on his legs, since shirtlessness is in fashion for men on Wavecrest) and reasonably attached to them.

Spent 14/16 XP boosting Stamina to 2 and buying a Favoured Charm (Hide of the Cunning Hunter). Hopefully I won't regret not taking Outward Forsaking Stance. Not sure if all my math is right on various aspects, but the core Attributes and Abilities are right.

Edit: Updated the text.

[Dracorion]

Blah blah.

[Girasol of Chaos]

I learned today that...

1. Kaimi has *less* of a heart than my flesh-eating oni.
2. We can't kill for shit, even when it can't hurt us.
3. Apparently not many in our group are talkative,
4. Garret loves sneaking onto boats
5. Neeran saved the day.

[Teal Mage]

...that was quite the session.

2. We can't kill for shit, even when it can't hurt us.

I'm kinda happy about that, honestly. Alternative would have been...ugh.

Anyway, updated my sheet with corrections and stuff that reflects tonight's events.

[Krylo]

We also learned that Garret is no longer allowed to leave the party when Neeran isn't there.

[Krylo]

Also, I've talked with OC, we have lost Syren as a party member. He's not dead and his actions will affect the RP but he won't be in the main party for quite some time.

As such, Lumen is in as soon as we can work out a way for him to join.

The Queue is now: PF -> Drac -> OC

[Dracorion]

Someone post the whole log, dammit.

[Lumenskir]

As such, Lumen is in as soon as we can work out a way for him to join.
Wee! I'll actually be moving into a new place next Saturday, so I'll be a little late (no more than 2-3 hours). Based on my observations I guess I'll miss the first few instances of intra-Team Awful social attacks.

Working out a way for me to join should be easy-ish though, Calm'll be in the area looking for intel, stumble on the circle and their latest hijinks, and then become fast friends with them for some reason.
Someone post the whole log, dammit.
Yeah, my computer quit out on me when Garret first got on the boat and I figured I wasn't going to miss much by going to sleep instead. I guess I was wrong.

[PhoenixFlame]

Seeing as I'm next in the queue, I might aswell post my character and backstory here for perusal.

Early Summer Rain hails from Ionia, a small city-state in the northeastern coast of the inner sea, somewhere between Cherak and Lookshy. A small but zealous city, renowned for the quality of its swordsmasters, Ionia has existed since the late first age, where it was the personal social engineering project of Princess Elesis the Invincible, second to Queen Merela herself. Much like the concept of Gunzosha commandos, Ionia cleaved closely to personal excellence and valor, specifically in regards to the blade. Indeed, swordsmanship shaped most facets of Ionian society. "The Blade is for carving one's heart, not for turning agaisnt the masses." Is one of Early Summer Rain's father's favorite lessons. He died when she was young, and was forced to live as a destitute orphan, but the sword inspired her despite her station.

Essentially, Ionia's somewhat inspired on romantic sengoku japan. However, due to the way Exalted as a setting works, and that Exalts are somewhat aware of how their world works, the city was originally designed as a breeding ground for Tiger Warrior prospects, elite bodyguard heroic mortals and dawn castes themselves. As such, the city-state has held a certian reverence for the solar exalted even to this day, albeit obfuscated by myth and word of mouth for centuries. Indeed, modern Ionians may not know that the glorious sword-saints of their history were in fact, the anathema of today.

However, the scholars of the realm knew this secret. Aided by records ancient as they are accurate, the satrap of Ionia had tolerated such idolatry in moderation if only because of the people's great fervor and prowess when converted to the realm's elite infantry. Also, Ionian swords are among the best of their kind, and one of the major tithes of the city.

Early Summer Rain however, was a hero. Heroes do horrible things in the name of being heroic, and when she learned the truth of Princess Elesis and the realm's involvement in their fate shortly after the Bull had destroyed the Tepet Legions, she approached the Satrap, passing through several of the magistracy's own elites like a fish through water with the aid of her sword school's senior class. The objective was simple, the prince of the earth would explain why he, an impostor, presumed to demand from them their fealty.

Summer Rain was, unfortunately, operating under the delusion she could slay a god with a metal stick. Yet, declaring that her mortal grasp exceed grasp, she slew him, at great cost to her fellows and self, stumbling victoriously from the palace, wounded and barely alive, with none of the brothers that had joined her.

She was taken before the council and exiled, to die in the wildnerness of her wounds as penance. She walked for two days in agony, dehydrated and enraged, and collapsed into a hole at the top of a humble earthen mound that had opened as if to swallow her. Bathed in the light of the sun she awoke to the hallucination of the tomb of her idol and great-ancestor, believing herself dead and having appeared at some final judgement.

However she was not dead, merely forged again in the fires of adversity as The Invincible, Princess Elesis' own incarnation, who's name she has taken, blade in hand, to reap the sins of this world.

But before that, she needs experience and to get far away from retribution. A boat will do. A swift one, far west where the realm cannot reach.

[Lumenskir]

Fair warning, internet has been out for a few hours here, no sign of when full functionality will be restored. I think I can access chat from my phone, but it'll be a wonky affair.

[Teal Mage]

Withdrawn.

Looks like you're up Drac.

[Girasol of Chaos]

What I learned:

1. Our plan worked. Again.
2. Carmen Sandiego did all the saving for us
3. We have some very convincing ladies on our team. They also spread the pain.
4. CRAZY TAXI YEAAAH
5. Garret can already steal shit like the Fourth wall and Vanish entirely for a while. Holy crap.

[Steel Shadow]

Things I learned:

1. Giving Sidereals heart attacks is the most fun thing in this game.
2. No matter how good Garret might get, Carmen will always be better.
3. Elesis is indeed the Invincible Sword Princess of Legend.
4. Sometimes everyone can show mercy, even for the most twisted of souls.
5. That's probably going to bite us one day.

Excellent game guys, looking forward to next week!

Best line award for the evening goes to Krylo, for:

...are you singing steel? Don't sing steel

Let's all give him a big hand, folks!

[Dracorion]

Alright, new character. With any luck, this one will manage to survive.

Backstory

NOPE

[Dracorion]

What's that? 2X CHARACTER REACHAROUNDDDDD

Backstory

Jubal was born to disgraced House Tepet, specifically a patrician offshoot of the House. Jubal was the firstborn of his family, though his father managed to sire seven other children before his death at the hands of Fair Folk. Throughout his youth, Jubal took care of his siblings, until he Exalted, his mother presented him with his father's falcon familiar as a gift and he was whisked away for higher learning. He graduated from the House of Bells some years later, and being expected to put himself to use, he joined the Wyld Hunt.

What he saw was other Dragon-blooded ruthlessly striking down men and women, some barely older than his brothers and sisters, for the sake of wiping out Anathema in the East. Jubal had never paid much attention to the Immaculate Doctrine, and though he knew what they were supposed to be, what he heard was people yelling in rage, seemingly justified, that they were being murdered for the crime of enlightenement.

He couldn't handle it, and might've gone mad if it weren't for the companionship of Tomiko, his falcon familiar.

Jubal voicing his reservations was starting to bother his superiors, so after some time of service in the Hunt, they approved his return to the Blessed Isle. He enjoyed returning to his brothers and sisters, even as he secretly wondered if any of them could become Anathema. But no, they were too pure for that.

Still, a young Dragon-blood couldn't be expected to sit around the Isle forever doing nothing, and Jubal didn't want to go back to the Hunt. He managed to acquire a cushy temporary position: the Realm was launching a new ship with an all-new crew on their maiden voyage, along with two Dragon-blooded officers, as a test of everyone's skills. Cynis Layoro, a Wood Aspect who had been placed in charge thanks to her family connections rather than any personal merit, and himself.

Their job was simple: collect tribute from two Realm satrapies in the West, the Neck and Wavecrest. In particular, the satrap of Wavecrest had reported that sailors from a small island in the west of the archipelago called Tofanis had been trading in black jade. A deposit had clearly been found by the islanders and hadn't been reported to the satrap to be factored into the tribute, and they and the crew were to investigate it until they found the deposit and force the islanders to start paying tribute.

The journey was without incident and the ship eventually arrived in Tofanis, after making a stop in Wavecrest. They had been instructed to tell the villagers they were preparing for a Wyld incursion and needed to rest on their island for some time, until they found the jade. During their stay, Layoro was content to laze around and let Jubal deal with ordering the crew around.

It wasn't long after their arrival that Jubal met a pretty mortal girl with long black hair named Mara. She was engaged to another man in the village, and Jubal was too principled to whisk her away, but the two became fast friends. She admitted to him that she only accepted the man's proposal because she lacked other options in life, though she wished to leave her home island.

Then Jubal made a mistake. He publicly asked Mara to join him for a chat one night, and her fiancée misunderstood and confronted him. Jubal told the man, Joren, that he had no ill intentions toward Mara, though Joren wouldn't believe him. Jubal told his men to subdue Joren, and that's when everything went to hell.

Joren turned out to be much more capable than anyone had given him credit and killed a number of Jubal's crew, forcing Jubal to knock him unconscious. Just then, Layoro reported that they had found the jade, and when she saw Joren, she assumed the villagers were committing treason. And as much as he tried to argue, Jubal couldn't convince her otherwise.

Layoro ordered their men to set fire to the village and kill any who tried to stop them, and Jubal simply did his best to stop villagers from throwing their lives away. Still, he felt he had to do something good in all this, and he offered Mara her chance, to come with him as far as the Neck, so she could see the rest of the world like she wanted, and she accepted.

The islanders didn't take to the burning of their village peacefully and fought back, and Layoro decided to cut their losses and retreat with Jubal, Mara, and the surviving crew back to their ship. They sailed away from the island of Tofanis, and Layoro insisted they head for the Neck as scheduled. She had become frustrated with the events at the island and Mara's stay on their ship and grew reckless about their route, with the crew being too inexperience and unwilling to stand up to her to point out the dangers.

On the fifth day after their departure from Tofanis, the ship was suddenly beset by a terrible storm, nearly hurricane-level winds, that threatened to tear it apart. A storm mother was taking her rage out on the ship, and even if anyone realized that there was nothing they could do.

When Jubal woke up, he found himself on a piece of the ship's wreckage, with Tomiko pecking insistently in his ear, having washed up on a deserted shore. No one else was around, and when Jubal put himself together, he found his way to Gullwing and realized he was in Abalone. He stayed in the town for some days, trying to keep his identity hidden as he searched for any survivors. None turned up.

During this time, Jubal's thoughts went back to Anathema. He had barely seen Anathema show a much reckless disregard for life as Layoro, and he wondered again if they were really demons.

After waiting in Gullwing, Jubal made his way to Gateway to see if any of the ship's crew had turned up there, again trying to hide his identity. Somehow, he had been filled with great shame to be a Dragon-blood. If nothing else, he swore never to stand by and let someone commit injustices with such reckless disregard like Layoro had done.

He heard no news in Gateway either, and from what he could find out, no survivors had been found on other islands. Jubal considered going back to the Blessed Isle, but decided against it. To his knowledge none of his siblings had Exalted, and even if they joined the army, they couldn't face as much danger as a Dragon-blood would. With luck, they would be safe, so he could put off a family visit for now. Instead, Jubal decided not to report his survival, and to stay in the West. There were questions about Anathema and Dragon-blooded he wanted answers for, and perhaps he could find them among the many islands of the region, and the mortals, Gods, Godbloods and Dragon-blooded that inhabited them.

[Lumenskir]

Friend came in from out of town, so I'll probably be a little late (no more than 3 hours) and possibly a little tipsy (but still coherent).

[Girasol of Chaos]

What I learned this session:

1. I can throw all of the knives. All of them.

[Dracorion]

What I learned this session:

1. Watching Elesis fight an elder DB is like this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf6QAMFgvhc&t=7m)

[Krylo]

Used Admin Black Magic to get the log.

I'm too lazy to/have no program to make putting in line breaks easier. If someone wants to do that and reupload go for it.

For now it's a big ole mess, tho.

[Girasol of Chaos]

Alright, it's a little messy, but better than before.

[Steel Shadow]

Well, I may as well upload the log for the curious, and the unfortunate! Or I would, but I'm in a hurry and can't compress it.

Lessons learned:

1. None of us knows how to cook, except maybe Kaimi.
2. Neeran is the guy, he'll hook you up!
3. The underwater dance of love is unmistakable.
4. The power of rock is unstoppable. The power of catchy anime jingles should be feared.
5. Jubal can be useful! Unfortunately, NPCs can also be pricks.

[Krylo]

Log from last night in rough format.

[Arhra]

YOU'RE WELCOME.

[Arhra]

Evening everybody!

Here is the log! It should be formatted properly for notepad and, in a fit of Orwellian reality enhancement, I also ran the spellchecker on it.

(None of us can spell when typing fast.)

Today we discovered that battlegrounds are full of phat lewt, that manses are wonderful and that manses are made of explodium.

[Girasol of Chaos]

What I learned last night, as I kept Riin up with my chuckles.

1. DB zombies are like walking treasure chests that you need to hit.
2. First-age Kaimi was a fucking monstrosity, and also amazing. You folks best be careful she doesn't repeat her mistakes.
3. Garret has a secret base now.
4. Elesis doesn't listen to reason. Especially regarding doors or manses.
5. Semara needs a PD, but right now, some medical care.

[Steel Shadow]

Lessons I have learned!:

1. If you're leaving a shadowland, do it in style
2. Turns out we can leave shadowlands and this was always a thing we didn't have to worry about.
3. Being the king of an invisible palace is pretty sweet!
4. 5 dot valour is something of a bitch. 7 points of limit in one go, Elly? Ouch.
5. My compassion is now 6. Oh boy.
6. Elesis will sort out problem doors for us! We just won't be anywhere near grateful enough for it.
7. Semara can tank a nuclear explosion to the face. That does not mean she should.
8. I've been coming here so long I spelt it nuklear and saw nothing wrong with that.
9. All our games should end with us running away from massive explosions.
10. Man, I got some great gear from this game. Why does that make me think Krylo is about to start throwing serious fights at us?

[PhoenixFlame]

Lessons Learned:

1: Hungry ghosts of DBs in articulated artifact plate are no match for a sword.
2: You can gain seven limit from a single virtue roll.
3: Jedi door-opening prana opens doors.
4: It is impolite to continually antagonize the dawn's honor when they're dangerously close to limitbreak.
5: Surfing down the side of an exploding manse is awesome.

[Overcast]

Annnd I am rechecking my itinerary for my international flight back to hell and it is looking like I am not going to make it back in time to actually commit to this weeks session even as a secondary character. At best I will be about four and a half hours late, at worst I won't be there at all.

[Lumenskir]

Going to a football watching party tomorrow night. I should be on time, and at most an hour late, but just in case there are delays in me getting back or whatever I figured it'd be best to put in notice. I'll definitely make it to to session.

[Krylo]

If you don't I'll have to come up with something awesome to do again to make you feel bad.

[Arhra]

So we might have a cult and probably have to learn a foreign language!

Golden Lord is a pretty OK dude, but he didn't help us a huge lot. The Terrible Abyssal Secret is bound to come in handy though.

Hooray!

[Krylo]

So, El and Neeran walk into a trap.

This is what happened. Obviously I need better traps.

Edit: If someone wants to fix the log so it's more readable you have my full endorsement.

[PhoenixFlame]

They did manage to completely tap out the Invincible Sword Princess after a protracted engagement.

I'd say that's pretty impressive.

Shame about getting wiped out to the man, though.

[Arhra]

What's this?! Such formatting!!!

[Steel Shadow]

Lessons Learned:

1. Talkytalkytalkytalkytalk talk talk.
2. Sending the ISP into traps on her lonesome is an effective tactic, but then she hogs all the xp.
3. God so much talking
4. The Lintha were every bit as impressive as we expected
5. Combat was to talking as a fly is to a sun
6. No more taking prisoners
7. If we end up taking more prisoners, decide on if we're killing them or not ahead of time
8. The talking made that game run on for about 10 hours. We got extra 2 xp for this. Conflicted.
9. Gem is a horrible place.
10. We now know all the important high points of the underworld situation. That probably means we have to take care of the underworld situation. Oh boy.

[Arhra]

Today I defused a ticking timebomb.

You're welcome!

Oh and Jubal lost his precious magic rocks and his shadow. At least the shadow will grow back.

Such activities!

[Steel Shadow]

Lessons learned:

1. It is shocking how easy it is to accomplish absolutely nothing.
2. Character development takes ages.
3. Even 6 dice isn't enough to guarantee an impressive limit gain.
4. Jubal's ability to turn pretty much any situation into a disaster should really be factored into all our plans from this point on. Fortunately, the disasters seem to main focus on Jubal's suffering.
5. Jubal's suffering is always entertaining.
6. Even carting about a giant sword covered in the remains of her enemies does not reduce Elly's adorableness. Curse you App 5!
7. Semara is basically the font of wisdom for this team. Go to her if you want advice. She will have a saying. I'm not sure if I'm worried about this or not.
8. Anyone who doesn't show up to the game on time is probably relegated to playing strip poker with Neeran.
9. Garret should always remember to steal something when they visit a place like Gem, or he'll be kicking himself forever.
10. Kai drank how much?!?

[Arhra]

Why is it that we seem to murder almost everyone we meet?

Also, the Deathlords may be in league with forces from beyond the stars.

[Steel Shadow]

That was a pretty fun session! Who knows, the end of our soup quest might actually be approaching now.

Lessons learned:

1. Elly is an adult! (Elly is not an adult.)
2. "We're lost. Where's the bathroom?" Is just as much fun to say as I'd always dreamed.
3. Sooner or later, everyone tries to kill Jubal. Everyone.
4. We should try give for take more often!
5. Underground bases are really UFOs.
6. West needs more love. North will fall short of expectations.
7. Garret doesn't even need to roll for stealth crap now.
8. Kaimi only needs a few rocks and she will out do Mcguyver.
9. Semara, please learn a single target version of that charm...

[Girasol of Chaos]

What I learned:

1. Torture may not always be the answer, but violence is!
2. We need an adult.
3. Ghosts are pretty cool, we should talk to more.
4. Jubal is pretty decent at taking a hit.
5. Even with Temperance 3, topless warrior-ladies are still distracting
6. Garret is super-stealthy, he should take up ventriloquism.
7. Semara is always convincing. Especially when she uses that charm.
8. We may not have to go to Inverse Mount Doom! Still gotta figure out the details of this new plan, though.

[PhoenixFlame]

What I learned:

1.) Being an adult requires more, AND less, than one might realize.
2.) What cannot be solved with swords is solved with punches. Cliff Edge lives on in my fists.
3.) 10 dice for awareness is apparently a whole lot in this circle.
4.) North is the superior direction.
5.) Punching Jubal is immensely cathartic.
6.) Investigative Journalism is still no match for a good punch followed by another good punch.

[Steel Shadow]

What I learned:

1. Heaven sucks.
2. Solars suck.
3. Sociopathic Metal Lions are kinda scary.
4. Elly with a sugar bowl beats a rigours investigation by miles.
5. It must end where it began!

Also, the story of Silent Breath, Exalt of the Glorious First Age!


It would be so easy.

The others were all for it. It wasn't like she didn't know stuff like this happened. A kickback here, a bribe there, that was how the system worked. Her parents had worked hard to get that lesson into her head. And worked harder still to make it stick. They were still worried it hadn't been enough.

She knew that if she moved to defend the shopkeeper from her fellow guards that she would prove those fears well founded.

To save them, to keep their precious daughter safe for them, all she needed to do was nothing.

She'd wanted to protect people all her life. She'd worked hard, trained hard, to become one of her town's defenders, despite the dangers the job carried. At her parent's insistence she'd done her best to stay away from the less noble side of her work. The corruption and exploitation. It had been growing harder to do so day by day, but her love for her mother and father had given her strength to keep trying. Until today, she had not failed.

She could keep doing that, after today. All she had to do was turn away as an old man was beaten, perhaps killed.

It was his own fault, they said. He refused to pay the protection money, they said. Have to set an example, they said.

She couldn't win a fight anyway. There were far too many of them. She could have held them back for a minute, perhaps two, but then she would be dead, or worse. And the old man might not have run far enough by then.

To just accept the way of things, and look away - It would be so easy.

Later that day, after she had sent her former comrades fleeing for their lives, the new Solar Exalt took the name Silent Breath of the Merciful Just, and went to war.

~

"So... That's it?"

"Looks like. Well, for us. You can bet the Eclipses and the Sidies are going to be fussing over the treaties for decades yet." The Dawn shrugged, a grin dancing on his bearded face. "But yeah, we're finished, I think. The big guys are done."

Silent shuffled uncomfortably in her armour. The rest of their circle had drifted indoors to the celebratory feast within, save herself and the Dawn. She didn't know about him, but she just didn't feel like sitting indoors when the sky was so bright. Was that a strange thought for a Night caste? She couldn't decide.

"So..." she broke the quiet again, finally plucking up the courage to voice the concern that had been troubling her all day, "when are they going to take the shards back?"

It hurt to think about. Everything had changed the moment she took her second breath, and the very idea of going back to how she'd been before...

"Eh?" The Dawn finally turned fully to face her, blinking. "Take them back? What are you talking about? Exaltation is for life. Not even the Sun could take it away from us now."

It was her turn to blink. "R-really? But..."

The Dawn laughed. "Ahh, I get it. I should have known!" He strode across the grass to put an oricalcum plated hand on her shoulder, looking her in the eye. "We were chosen to use this power because we were worthy of it, Silent. You, me, every exalt. No one is suddenly going to change their minds on that account. You proved yourself many times in the war, besides. Have some confidence in yourself, kiddo."

She felt her cheeks turn red, and she pulled her hood down further to try to hide them, batting the Dawn's hand away as she did so (which only amused him even more). Valiantly trying to push down her embarrassment, she asked another question. "So... What do we do now then? There are no more Primordials to fight..."

"That," the Dawn began to turn away as he answered, a strange glint in his eye, "is for us to decide. We have all of Creation to rule now. How do you think you could best make it better?"

Silent didn't have an answer for him. Not yet.

~

"Lawgiver, I'm afraid I don't understand why we're doing this."

Silent fought the urge to sigh, instead turning to look at her assistant/student. "Cathek, how many times have I told you to call me Silent? I'm pretty sure I've had to say it at least once a day since we started this trip. I don't want to be called Lord. I don't want to be called Lady. I definitely don't want to be called Lawgiver. It's Si-lent. Say it with me now. Siiiii-lent.

The Dragonblooded looked pained. "Ah, please..."

"Cathek, you and I will be working together for some time. This will be easier on both of us if we're friends, and friends don't call each other by titles. Mine call me Silent. Or Si. Or Sneaky-bitch-who-took-my-hearthstones... Well, only one of mine calls me that, but there was a good reason for it. I don't expect you to follow their example there."

He stared at her.

"... Okay, I kinda drifted off track there. The point is! You will call me Silent. Even if I have to make it an order."

Cathek hesitated, but eventually gave a gloomy nod. "Very well... Silent. If that is what you desire, I shall try."

"Great!" She flashed him a winning smile. "So, what is it you don't understand?"

"Well... Forgive me, La-... Silent," he managed to correct himself before the Solar's glare grew strong enough to do physical damage, "but I don't understand the point to what we're doing. Why are we on this journey? Why are we here, of all places?"

By here, he meant Sayam, a small town on the boarder of west and south. It wasn't a fancy place, nor rich. It was pretty out of the way in general, in fact. It farmed the lands and took advantage of the freshwater rivers, and occasionally gave passing caravans a place to stay and trade wares. It really wasn't anywhere special.

The two of them had been traveling through a great many places like this; each one a semi-brief stopping point on a tour around creation. At times, Cathek doubted his master really had any idea where she was going, though he never voiced the thought. She led on, all the same, explaining nothing all the while. It had taken until now before he had grown frustrated enough to ask. He didn't expect an answer, either. After all, if she hadn't decided to tell him already, why would she change her mind now?

But she hesitated, considering her words carefully before she gave her response. When she did finally speak, there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice... Perhaps he'd been right when he wondered if she knew what she was looking for after all.

"Oh, that. That's kind of hard to explain. It's... training, I guess? Hm, no, that's not quite..." She tapped a finger to her lips, resuming her walk down the street as she thought it over. "I suppose... Ah! There! Perfect example!" She pointed down the road towards a fruit vendor's stall, an eager grin on her face. "Look there, Cathek, and tell me what you see."

Cathek did look. "Fruit." He didn't see much.

She rolled her eyes. "Again. Look closer."

"L-Silent." He barely tripped this time. "If you are hungry, you just have to say so. I can buy some apples."

Silent just folded her arms. "You're going to miss it entirely at this rate."

"Hmm." He looked again, and this time he did see it. "Ah. You're referring to the little thief, are you not?"

A small child was huddling in the stall-keeper's blind spot, occasionally reaching out to swipe some fruit when the merchant's back was turned. It looked half starved - Obviously not well cared for.

"There you go! Well done." And she did seem quite pleased that he'd noticed. "Now! What are we going to do about it?"

"We're going to do something about it?"

"We are."

"Hm." Cathek was stumped. What answer did she want here? "Report him to the local authorities?"

She looked horrified. "Ew, no. Do you have any idea how they'd treat him out here? Look at him. He's just trying to survive." She began to walk again. "No, there's no justice in that. That's something I want to change, actually. But it'll take a while, so in the mean time..."

She caught the child's hand when it reached out for another pear, her speed belying her careful touch. She met hi- her (for the child was a girl, she realised) fearful gaze with a gentle smile, and patted the girl's head comfortingly, before throwing enough jade at the merchant to buy his stall fifty times over.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Kiddo. Come on, let's get you some food. And some clean clothes," she added, nose wrinkling. Heightened senses had their drawbacks sometimes. Scooping up the child, she began to walk again, Cathek following behind her.

"So... We're out here to save orphans?"

"No. We're out here to find what people really need, and how to give it to them. To all of Creation," Silent replied, her attention now divided between talking with her Soldier and bouncing the child in her arms. "I've been trying to work it out for a long time now. It's a Solar's duty to help mankind as best she can, right? I think I've finally found my way."

The Terrestrial blinked. "You have? What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Well... Look, Cathek, it's kind of like this. We Solars are Great and Glorious pillars of Unstoppable Excellence... Or something... But there's only 300 of us. And Creation is huge. Even if every single one of us rules over part of it, a lot of places are going to be left out. We can take on the big things, like Primordials, or Fae invasions, but the really important stuff is tiny. Like this little one here.

"So that's why I came out here. Why we've been walking all over the place for so long. But I think I have my answer now. I should have thought of it sooner." She chuckled, shaking her head. "I used to be a guard, y'know. Before I took my second breath. I know how it is for them. I know how they work. And it's not well. Breaking with that was how I earned my exaltation. And now I'm realising that I should encourage others to follow my example.

"What people need, I'm beginning to realise, is Justice. They need protection, and law, and fairness. That's my calling, I think. That's what I'm going to fix."

"For... All of Creation? By yourself?" Cathek wasn't sure what to make of Silent's decleration. It was a tall order... But then again, she was a Solar.

"Ha, no. Not by myself. Even I have my limits, Cathek." She winked, the child in her arms crunching into her apple happily. Social charms were a useful thing indeed. "There'll be others. Every Terrestrial that's loyal to me... Those numbers are growing by the day. And there's always-"

"Me?" The Dragonblood barely managed to suppress a start as a man landed on the street beside them, the ground cracking under the impact. "Silent, dearest, you were supposed to meet me in Gossamer five days ago. You had me worried!"

"It was Surfs upon Eagles, Cathek realised. The Lunar's appearance was distinctive. then again, most Exalts were. He was a muscular man, with a tall frame to match. He towered over his Solar Mate - not a short woman herself - who was currently giving him an apologetic smile.

"Oh, Surf, I'm sorry. I just got wrapped up in what I was doing. You know how it is..."

The Lunar chuckled. "I have no one to blame but myself. Luna told me it was my job to keep your feet planted on the ground. Of course you'd drift off if I let you out of my sight."

"Surf!" Now Silent was blushing. The child giggled at her, and she let out a 'humph'. "I'm not that bad..."

"Five days. More, if I hadn't come to find you."

"Point. Um... I'll make it up to you?"

"Oh really?" Surf just grinned, enjoying watching Silent squirm a little. It never failed to impress Cathek how the Lunar was able to play his mate like a violin with only a few words. "How are you going to do that?"

"I..." The Solar hesitated again, caught flat footed. "... Uh... Name your price?"

The Lunar leaned over and whispered something into her ear. Immediatly her blush brightened until it was nearly luminescent (not impossible to achieve for a Solar, Cathek knew). "Surf! Not so loud! There's a kid here!"

It was, the Dragonblood decided as Silent's attention was firmly captured by her bond-mate, a bold plan. A nearly impossible undertaking. But who was he to doubt his Master when she put her mind to something?

~

"You're running yourself ragged. Even Solars need a break every now and then."

"I'm fine."

"Silent, you haven't left this office in over two months."

The Night caste blinked, looking up from her desk for a moment, before shrugging and returning her gaze to the papers strewn about before her. Deployment had been a real problem this past year, and she'd just gotten reports of an entire town being burnt to the ground in the north for reasons no one could explain. She needed to figure out who could best respond to the problem, and how many people to send without jepordising the rest of their mission...

"Surfs Upon Eagles has been trying to make an appointment with you for three weeks now."

"Busy," she grunted, flipping over another report. "So much to do. This is a critical time. You know that, Cathek."

"I do, it's true. But it will be done without you for one day. You are not the only person in this office, Silent. Go spend time with your bondmate. You've earned it."

She wanted to argue, to point out that without her work on the project would slow to a crawl. To say that a day without her at work was a day wasted. But she was so tired, and she'd come to rely on Cathek's judgement a great deal over the years.

With a breath, she stepped away from the desk, and left the office.

~

Deliberative meetings were a nuisance that Silent stopped bothering with after a few centuries. What was said could shape the future of Creation in it's entirety, but you'd only get three, maybe four moments like that per meeting. And meetings could last for days. All the rest was waffling and grandstanding. And arguing. Couldn't forget the arguing.

Going in with the right mindset could help. As long as you took nothing seriously it was hilarious! But, ultimately, a waste of time all the same. Silent had long ago fallen back to reading the post-meeting reports when she had a moment of free time - Something increasingly rare these days. Hell, she was lucky if she could visit Meru more than twice a season. Still, she couldn't avoid these things forever. Sometimes she had an agenda of her own to push.

But why, she wondered as she listened to an Eclipse conclude a long and very rambling report on western trade, was she here today? She suppressed a yawn, trying to wake up enough to remember...

"... which brings us to the next subject - The charges against Silent Breath of the Merciful Just..."

Oh, right. That.

She hid her irritation as she took her place, standing before the other attending Celestial Exalts to give her rebuttal to the charges levied against her. Once, she would have been nervous, but it had been many centuries since she had found her stride as a Solar, and frustration at the waste of time was the only strong emotion she felt today.

Reaching the stand, she stopped holding back and let her full presence wash over the room. Several younger exalts, only recent takers of the second breath, fainted dead away. The others, made of sterner stuff, either rolled their eyes or chuckled at their less experienced colleges weakness. Silent coughed to hide her own amusement, before straightening her expression and focusing her eyes on a point three inches to the left and two below the speaker's own. It wouldn't do to appear too disrespectful in these chambers, after all.

The charges were simple. She had fought and crippled a group of Terestrial Exalts, thusly impeding another Solar's projects.

Her defence, while elegant and enthralling, was even simpler: They deserved it.

That got quite a bit of support. Dragonbloods were known for getting too uppity from time to time, after all. But the Solar who commanded them had quite a bit of political clout, and would need at least some reparations before he'd be content to let the matter drop. Silent had been prepared for this.

"A passionate response. Is there anything else you would like to add before we pass judgement?" The Speaker... spoke.

"Yes, actually." She'd been meaning to do this for a while anyway. The suspicious glances her brothers and sisters sent her way whenever she returned to the city had been annoying her for some time.

"I realise that my recent actions have made some among our number uncomfortable." A ridiculous notion, she thought privately. Why would they even consider the idea of her working against them? "That was never my intent. I act only to bring law and justice to the charges under our care, to better creation and its people - As we all do, in our own ways. The chosen of the gods have no need to worry about my intentions towards them. I will state quite clearly now that I have none. So far as I am concerned you are all above suspicion. In the spirit of this, I offer the deliberative my solemn oath, that I shall not directly interfere with the dealings of other exalts, without their explicit permission. You have my word."

"A word is not so powerful as you might imply, Silent Breath." Her head shot round to glare at the source of the interruption. Ah. Of course. Him.

"You doubt my oath? You dare insult my honour?" The rebuke would have stripped the flesh from a mortals bones. The Solar it was directed at just smirked.

"You are hardly a Dawn caste, Silent. Are not Night's known for their skill at deception?" Her glares intensity reached bone-atomising levels, and there were some angry murmers in other areas on the hall as other Night castes took offence at the insult. "Surely you would have no objection to an eclipse sanctifying your oath?"

The utter bastard. She was tempted to refuse his request out of hand, just to spite him, but that would ruin what she was trying to achieve here. He may have been a Solar - and thus above the law - but that didn't mean she had to like him. Nor did it deny her the urge to hurl him from the top of a very high building. Not to kill him, obviously, just to announce her displeasure.

She might do that, actually. Later. Right now, she had to deal with his suggestion. It wasn't a terrible one, honestly. She'd meant her oath. Binding herself so she would be compelled to keep to it... Made her uncomfortable - But she could live with it. And it would help her soothe her relations with other Solars even more...

"Fine," she spat, slamming a hand down on the podium and quieting the whispers around the chamber. "I shall do so."

"Excellent. I'm glad you see reason. Now, as for the wording of the oath itself, I think-"

"Hold your tongue," she snapped. "I've accepted one insult to my integrity from you already today. I will not calmly abide more. I shall decide the terms of my oath, not you."

The man, perhaps realising how far he'd already pushed his luck, wisely backed off.

The session continued.

~

"So... what did you swear, in the end?" Surf asked, his hand around Silent's shoulders. The pair of them had retreated to Silent's holdings in Meru, and currently they were stood on a high up balcony, looking out over the east of creation.

"Nothing big," she sighed, leaning into his side. "I'm not to attack any more exalted. That's pretty much it. There's some exceptions, like if they invite me to attack them, I'm allowed to. Oh, and if they're sworn to me. Y'know, for the legions. Still allowed to boss them around."

"You're ok with that?"

"Yeah. I guess." She closed her eyes as he rubbed her back. "I wasn't planning on attacking any of them anyway. I just... Ugh."

He frowned. "What?"

"It itches," she whined, rubbing at her arms. "Seriously, Surf, you've no idea!"

"Aha.." He chuckled. "You know that's just in your head, right?"

"Doesn't help."

"Oh, well then. Maybe I can distract you some, and make the mean ol' oath leave you alone, huh?" He grinned, slipping a hand down to start freeing the Solar from her clothes.

"Oh! ... Hmmm~" She purred, a silly smile growing across her face. "I'd like that..."

~

When the shopkeeper was distracted, the child's hand struck ouch, quick as a serpent. But this time a grip like iron caught his wrist before his grubby fingers could even touch the apply that had caught his eye. He looked up.

What he saw terrified him, and he fled screaming. The meagre amount of food he'd managed to gather falling to the floor as he ran.

Silent watched him go until he turned the corner, then carefully replaced the items he'd stolen. Aside from the screaming child, the shopkeeper never noticed anything amiss.

~

"I worry about her, you know. It's been a long time since she last smiled in public..." The Old man confided in his grandson one day, as they returned home after tending to affairs at the office.

Bothab gave his honoured elder a confused look. "Who?"

The old man nearly laughed. "Why, Silent, of course. Who else?"

The young Dragonblood rolled his eyes. "You mean the Lawgiver, Grandfather. I wish you'd stop being so disrespectful. As for her smiling... Your stories were always far fetched, Old man. If the Lawgiver ever had a sense of humour, she sacrificed it for the greater good long ago."

Cathek just sighed, and let the matter drop. Sometimes even he doubted the memories of the young girl he had once travelled with...

~

It had been over ten years since Surfs Upon Eagles had last seen his bondmate. So when Silent showed up in his bedroom unannonced, he could be forgiven for being surprised. Especially since he was doing something at the time.

"Surf." Her voice froze everyone in the room instantly. "What are all these people doing in our bed?"

There was a moment of quiet as, collectively, the room's inhabitants weighed their chances of escaping if they started running right now.

"A-Ah. Silent, my love!" Ahh, there was Surf, extracting himself from the pile. "You've returned, after all these-"

"Surf. People. Naked. My bed. Why?" The solar cut off his welcome before he got started.

"Well I wasn't exactly expecting you back tonight..."

"And it's definitely the nicest room in the villa!" added a man who had perhaps had a bit too much wine.

Silent knocked him out with a look, then snorted. "Mortals, Surf? Really?"

"Mortals can be fun," the Lunar defended. "They know a lot of tricks."

Silent just rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I want them gone and clean sheets on that bed within five minutes. We're going to be using it."

The Lunar raised an eyebrow. "Really, Sy? It's been twelve years since I last saw you, and not two minutes into our reunion you're throwing orders around like you own the place?"

"I do own the place," she reminded him.

"Not the point!"

She sighed, and took a step forward, leaning into him. "I'm sorry Surf," she murmured, running a finger over his bare chest. "I've been busy. Every time I thought I'd sorted one problem out, there were five more growing up elsewhere. Even now there's work I need to be doing, but... I just couldn't stay away any longer."

Slowly, the Lunar wrapped his arms around the smaller woman. "Ah, Sy, we really should talk..."

"Oh, have mercy Love?" Her tone was little more than a plea. "Women have needs as well, you know. Besides..." And then it turned seductive. "No mortal tricks could ever compare to what I can do... Remember?"

From the look on his face, Surf could indeed remember. Slowly, he wetted his lips. "Five minutes, you say?"

"Three now," she said, rising up on her toes to kiss him. Hard. By the time they came up for air: "Two and a half."

"I'll get it done in one."

~

It felt like she'd seen every settlement in Creation. Maybe she had. Her work spreading the Silent Law around the world had been extensive. Some places were easy to reach (and it was growing easier every year with the ways other Solars were advancing technology and sorcery) but some...

Some made Silent unsure if she was impressed by Human resilience or frustrated with their stupidity.

Even now, so long after she'd started, she would still occasionally hear of a place she had yet to visit. She'd correct that, of course, and place it under her protection. It was usually a pretty simple process. She'd make her pitch to whoever was in charge (and she'd gotten very good at making that pitch), then she'd assign someone from her organisation to whatever law enforcement or guard regiment they already had - Or, if they had neither, she'd provide an entire unit to do the job. Once they were settled, she'd leave, and later drop by to inspect their progress, or offer personal training. It was just one of the many duties she'd taken upon herself as she roamed creation.

Of course, occasionally she found cities like this. A thieves paradise. No law. No order. No justice. Just everyone, out for themselves, the strong screwing over the weak for whatever advantage they could get. It disgusted her.

Which possibly explained why the next morning found the city leaders nailed to a wall in the middle of the town, bodies arranged to spell a single word.

'LEAVE'.

And why, a few days later, the place burned to the ground.

Sometimes they just weren't worth saving.

~

"You're leaving already?"

Silent froze half way through pulling on one of her boots, and inside her head she cursed up a storm. Next time she'd use her presence concealing charms from the get-go, instead of waiting to get dressed.

"Sy, you've only been back for one night..." It was painful, hearing the hurt in Surf's voice. She'd been hoping to be gone by the time he woke up, specifically to avoid this talk.

"And it was a very fun night," she said nonchalantly, tugging her other boot on. "But now my lord has signalled the start of a new day, and with it my work resumes." Her voice was cold, even to her own ears. But that was how it had to be. She loved Surf, but she knew he'd never understand.

"What, and that's it? Dammit Sy, I haven't seen you in years! We've barely said a word to one another. Haven't you earned some time off? Why can't you stay a while, like you normally do? A few days, a week or two, Creation won't dissolve into the Wyld if you take a break!"

"There is always more to do." With a set of 'click's, she fastened on her hearthstone bracers again, feeling the pleasant rush as her lines to her manses were re-established. "I've put my own selfish needs ahead of my duty too much already. I can no longer be as frivolous as I was in the past. One night is all I can stand. Perhaps, when I have made up for this slip, and can stand to shame myself again-"

"So you're ashamed of me, is that it?" Surf snapped.

Silent's icy exterior shattered in a heartbeat. "Wha- No! No, of course not! I just meant-"

"Save it, Sy." He rolled over in their bed, turning his back to her. "I love you, more than anything, but there's only so much I can take. If you love me even half as much as I love you, you won't leave. Even if it's only for one more day, you won't. but if not..."

He trailed off, unwilling to finish, but the unspoken words hung over them both all the same.

For the longest moment, she couldn't do anything but stare at him. Was he... ending it? Them? "I..." She cleared her throat, her voice coated in ice once again. "I came back for a night. That should mean something."

He didn't react.

She knew he wouldn't understand.

Surf stayed still, laying in bed for three days before he could force himself to look back, and see for certain that Silent was gone.

~

"This part of the swamp, here... Probably where our little bandit infestation is hiding. So if we set light to this dry area over here-"

The moment that Surfs Upon Eagles died, Silent Breath stopped everything.

"Are you sure, Sir? There might be- Huh? Where'd she go?"

And for the first time in a millennia, she abandoned her work.

~

No one really wanted to talk about the battle once it was over. Things had become... Strange, after Surf fell. Their opponents had started dying. Fast. Painfully. And with no apparent cause, save the obvious. After all, when a creature finds itself dangling upside down from the tree-tops, swinging by it's own intestines, it is not long for this world. That wasn't an image that would be leaving anyone's nightmares for a while. And it wasn't even the worst one, by far.

Some of the survivors, later, would think they saw someone, a woman in a black cloak, leaning over Surf's body. But only for a second, and she never said a word.

~

"Are you alright?"

The new Lunar Exalt stopped short and looked up. Across the clearing ahead of her, between the trees, was a woman. The Lunar was absolutely positive she hadn't been there five seconds before. Given the way her night had been going already, that probably meant the woman was here to eat her or something. Well, she'd had quite enough of that, thank you.

"Would you just leave me alone?" she groaned, ignoring the way the other woman flinched. "I've had a really long day. Just let me go home, please?"

"I..." The woman backed off a step. It was strange, the Lunar thought. There was something really familiar about her... Had they met before? Why was her heart beating so fast? "I'm not here to hurt you.."

"Yeah, sure. Forgive me if I don't take your word on that." Sarcasm, the world's greatest form of wit.

"..." Typical. Silent never had a clue how to act when she was trying to bare her heart. It had always been kind of adorable...

Wait, what? Where had that thought come from? Silent? Was that this woman's name?

"Look, at least let me get you to civilisation? I don't know how much you remember... Or... Anything about you, I guess, but... It's not safe out here. Please. I can leave after."

"Fine time for you to start caring about that now." The words snapped out of her mouth like a whip, and Silent (that was her name, she remembered now) reacted appropriately, falling back as if struck.

"I always cared..." The Solar tried weakly, voice shaking. "I... I came to find you as soon as I could. Lytek didn't give me much to go on, but..."

The Lunar (She really needed to get around to picking a name) sighed. How was she supposed to react here? She could feel her past life's frustration with his mate as clearly as if it was her own - Which it was now, really. But she also felt his love for her the same way. In fact, just by meeting Silent, she'd started falling in love all over again... Or was it for the first time? Argh!

Maybe... Maybe they could try again? Maybe this time they could stay together. Maybe this time she wouldn't let her love out of her sight, ever? Silent was offering her an olive branch. It was a chance...

If it failed, if Silent left her again, it would hurt. It would hurt so, so much. Was she willing to risk having her heart ripped out again?

"... You don't have to leave, Sy." The Lunar saw a hopeful look dawn in her bondmate's eyes. "I... don't want you to leave. Can we just... Go home? Together? Please?"

Silent's response was a tight hug and a kiss that sent sparks down the Lunar's nerves.

She took it as a yes.

~

She had work to do. She knew that. She knew she always had work to do. She knew it would never end. It was her duty.

... But she couldn't leave Blossom of Harmony. Never again. In her heart of hearts, she knew it was her leaving that had gotten Surf killed. She couldn't take that chance with Blossom. No, she would stay at her side, she'd protect her forever.

Anything to make her love happy, she would do.

Still, the fact that she was shirking her duty tore at her, and eventually Blossom dragged her to her offices in Meru to see if there was anything light that she could do to make her feel better. What they found there was a surprise.

"Actually, we're doing fine." It was one of Cathek's descendants who met them. Silent was embarrassed to realise she wasn't sure which one, but she knew his position at the head of the Meru office had stayed in the family. "Everything's running smoothly. You can leave it to us, Sir."

"..." After a few moments, the Dragonblood shifted uncomfortably, then leaned over to whisper to Blossom. "Does she always stare like that?"

"She's just thinking." Blossom smiled. "Give her a few minutes. She'll be fine."

It took Silent seven before she shook her head and asked the Dragon to repeat themselves.

"We're really fine. You've done an excellent job setting us up. Every division is well trained and well equipped, we're spread over all of creation, our lines of communication are fully open and tended to at all times... We're good. Really!"

"..."

"Yes, she might need another few minutes. Do you have a book?"

This time when Silent came out of her stupor, she looked confused. "Um, Blossom?"

"Yes, Dear?"

"... What... Do I do, when I'm... Not... Working?" The concept was almost alien to her at this point.

Blossom just smiled again. "Oh, I'm sure we can think of some things."

~

Officially, the Silent Law organisation was still under her command. Occasionally they'd even approach her to lobby things for them in the deliberative. But aside from those rare encounters that she was happy to agree to, Silent only checked in on them once or twice every thirty years or so. For the first time since the end of the war, she felt satisfied. She'd done her part, done it well enough that it didn't need her anymore. Now all she had left to give her attention to was Blossom.

Which isn't to say there were no more adventures. Silent's circle was still active, even if the roster had changed a fair bit over the centuries, and every now and then they'd be called together to accomplish something. And Creation was never boring, really. Together, she and Blossom watched the first age continue to reach ever more glorious heights.

But through it all, they stayed together. And slowly, bit by bit, Silent learned to live again.

It was never going to last.

~

[Steel Shadow]

The adventure continues!



"What are they doing?" She hissed, cowering at the back of the coach, arms wrapped around blossom protectively. That was, admittedly, more for her own peace of mind than for the Lunar's safety. She'd try to protect the woman from a cold breeze if she could.

"I'm... Not sure. I think they're terrestrials, though?" Blossom replied, her eyes locked on to the exchange happening at the front of the bus. The two Exalts had been posing as mortals, travelling through the east on a sight-seeing trip. It had been Blossom's idea - She'd not seen the east since her second breath, and she'd never been a fan of all the pomp and festivity that followed Exalts around on official trips - And of course, Silent was only too happy to comply with whatever she desired. The concept of posing as a mortal had amused her as well, and she went about it in true Night caste style. Aside from a little disguise magic before they left, she hadn't shaped essence in months. It was... pretty relaxing, actually.

Or it had been, until their coach had been stopped on a secluded road in the forest. She'd thought it strange at the time - This area was supposed to be under the protection of the Silent Law, since it wasn't protected by another Solar. Had someone managed to slip through the net, or had they become lax in her absence? She had hoped for the former, right up until the first Dragonblood had stepped aboard and started speaking about some sort of 'protection tax'. then she knew it was worse than either.

"They're Terrestrials alright," Silent all but growled. "They're my Terrestrials. They're not even trying to hide my emblem on their armour." Reluctantly, she released her grip on her love and began to stand. This mortal charade was over. "Hold on, I'm going to-"

But Blossom was on her feet faster, her hand on Silent's shoulder urging her down again. "No, Dear, you stay put. If they recognise you this will be the end of our trip, but they don't know me from Linith. I'll talk to them. I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding." And then she was gone, before Silent could stop her.

The Solar just barely managed to restrain herself. Maybe Blossom was right. Maybe another Solar had instituted a new tax and asked her people to help him enforce it. It would be alright. She just needed to trust Blossom to take care of it.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath...

"Excuse me Sirs, I-"

Her eyes shot open as a Crack ripped through the air. One of the Dragon's had punched Blossom into a wall.

"What the hell are you doing?!?" One of the others yelled at him.

"Shit, she's a Lunar, idiot! Didn't you see the tell? Look, she's still alive, definitely not a mortal."

"You just punched a Lunar!!!"

"Think about it! If she goes back and tells the Solars what we're doing here..."

"I think..." From behind him, the Dragon heard the voice of death herself. "They already know."

And that was when he realised his lungs were filling with blood, stemming from the cut across his jugular on the inside of his throat...

~

The grand doors to the Silent Law's central office in Meru cracked and shattered as Silent approached them, unable to stand against her rage. The Dragonbloods within reached for their weapons, only to freeze in place when they saw who was responsible for the destruction. What had been a busy hive of activity slowed to a halt as the Solar walked across the central floor, towards the central desk. Behind her, she dragged the corpse of one of the Dragon's who had attacked her coach. She slammed it down on the desk, shattering it in two.

The Dragon who had been behind said desk (Another of Cathek's descendants. No name came to mind. Didn't matter.) stared at her in shock. "S-Sir? What is the meaning of this?!?"

"This man was part of a group of Terrestrials that attacked myself and Blossom in the East." Her voice was calm. Impossibly so. "He was the only one who showed any hesitance or regret when they attacked my Love. You may allow his family to bury him properly."

"I... Lawgiver, this is-"

"The rest, of course, will wish for death for some time before it finally claims them. But that is not something you should concern yourself with." In Silent's shadow, Blossom trembled. None of her lives had ever seen the woman so angry...

"It's... Not?" The Dragon could barely think herself, standing in the full gaze of Silent's presence. All she could do was follow where the Solar guided her.

"No. Your concern is recalling every unit and agent we have out in creation, and dismissing them. Once you have done that, you will dismiss yourself, and leave Meru forever. I will be lenient, and give you one full day to accomplish this."

"Wha-"

"At the end of said day, I will kill any Terrestrial still wearing my emblem or claiming to be a member of the Silent Law. I am ending that organisation, effective immediately. Am I understood?" Her words echoed through the chamber, not another sound to be heard.

"I-... But-"

Cruch

No one saw Silent move, but she must have, becuase suddenly she had the Dragon she'd been speaking to by the throat, and was slamming her into a wall.

"Am I understood?"

"I... Don't..."

Crack

The wall began to crumble. Silent found another one.

"Perhaps I am not being clear. Today, I learned that, despite everything I had been told, the organisation I had founded was as corrupt as the one I wished to replace. Today, I learned that trusting others to do your work for you is a mistake. Today, I learned-"

At this point one of the Dragon's who had been shocked into silence found his nerve. He charged in, desperate to save his superior from the mad Solar who had attacked her.

Silent ran him through with her free hand, then tossed him aside through the hole in the wall. He did not get back up.

"Today I learned that the only person I can trust is myself. So. There will be no Silent Law, aside from myself, from this day forward. Recall your agents, and dismiss them. Or I will kill them all. Am I understood?"

Blood dripped from the side of the Dragon's mouth as she stared after the man who'd tried to save her in shock. "Lawgiver... Please..."

"Am. I. Understood."

The Dragon crumbled before her eyes. "... Yes... " She coughed, her head bowing in submission. Silent let her drop to the floor.

"Good. Get to work, then."

And with that, she walked out again, a horrified Blossom chasing after her.

~

The Lunar reached the house some time after Silent did. Try as she might, she just couldn't keep up with the woman while she was like this. Desperately, she hoped that she wouldn't be too late, that she'd be able to talk her Lover out of this rage she'd worked herself into.

But when she finally caught up, she knew there was nothing she could do.

Silent was wearing her armour. All of it. Oricalcum pieces she'd not worn since the war. She'd even retrieved her blades from storage, and it was clear she was only still here to finish attunement faster. The Solar was seated on the stairs, across from the front door, when Blossom entered. Her eyes were closed, as if she was trying to plan out how she'd do an entire organisation's work on her own.

"Silent..." Blossom's voice echoed around the house. It already sounded so empty...

The Solar's eyes opened, and they shone with sadness. "I'm sorry, my love."

"You're... Leaving me again."

"..." Silent nodded her head slowly. There was nothing to say.

"I... I knew you would. Some day. I just... I hoped..." Tears began to stream down the Lunar's face. She couldn't hold them back.

"I hoped as well. But I was a fool. I'm sorry, Blossom. I've hurt you again. And I'm probably going to keep on doing so." Blossom bit her lip. Silent was in full Solar mode now. There really was nothing she could do.

"Will... Will I ever see you again?"

"..." Saying nothing, Silent stood, and Blossom realised she was finished with the attunement. The Solar walked over to her and wrapped her arms around her one last time. "I... Will try. I love you, Blossom, and I will try to be with you whenever I can be. But I do not know when that will be, and it will never last for long."

"I don't care. Just as long as you come back to me." The smaller woman began to sob into her bondmate's chest.

"Just wait for me here in Meru, so that I will know where to find you, and I shall."

"I'll... I'll wait for you. I... Never. Never with anyone else. I'll wait for you." She was babbling now, but it didn't matter.

"You don't need to do that," Silent said, stroking the woman's hair. "I'll understand." She bent down, and kissed her Love on the brow. And when the kiss ended, she was gone.

Blossom dropped to her knees, and her sobs echoed through the house well into the night.

~

It was all a blur. She moved from one side of Creation to the other between blinks. She stepped between towns and settlements, and knew everything she needed to in a heartbeat.

Why had she ever tried to get help? She could do this job all by herself.

In a small village, she caught a small child trying to steal an apple. She rammed it down his throat and watched him choke, before flipping the shocked merchant a coin to pay for the fruit.

In a city (independent), she stopped a group of guards from extorting an old man. She skewered them and pinned them to the wall with the old man's walking stick. The one guard who'd turned on her fellows, who'd tried to defend the man, she beheaded. A quick death - She'd still been guilty of standing with the others.

In a town, two merchant's ran their stalls into one another. While they argued with one another, Silent ran them down.

Sometimes she didn't kill them. She only took limbs. A hand, a leg... It made it easy to tell who was a repeat offender.

Sometimes she saw too much, and judged everyone a sinner. When that happened, she left Shadowlands in her wake.

Soon, the legend began to spread of the Silent Death.

She couldn't have that.

~

It had been... Blossom didn't know how long it had been since she had holed herself up in the house. She didn't know why she had, either. Only that it was important. Only that she'd never leave, if she could help it.

It was lonely. Sometime neighbours stopped by to talk, but they were brief visits in a long eternity of just... Waiting. Waiting for something she didn't understand.

One day, she woke to find a woman standing at the foot of her bed. "Wha- Who are you?" She asked in a sleepy confusion.

The woman frowned for a moment, and then her eyes widened. There was a sudden rush in Blossom's head, and then-

"Silent!" She threw herself at her bond-mate, kissing her eagerly. "Oh, Silent, I missed you! I missed you so much... I didn't know why, but I missed you... Wait.. .Why didn't I know?"

"Sorry. That was a charm of mine." The Solar was almost sheepish about it. But not quite. Blossom wasn't sure her Lover was human enough to really be sheepish about anything anymore.

"Charm? Silent, what did you do?"

"Well..." Silent shrugged as she began reliving Blossom of her nightwear. "I got started right, but then people started to fear /me/, not the law. It's not right if they're just doing the right thing because they fear me. This way, they don't remember me - No one does - So they fear the law, just as they should."

Blossom's breath hitched as she remembered the 'Silent Death'. "Silent, are you sure-"

"Shhh." Silent put a finger to the Lunar's lips, giving her a sad smile. "I don't know how long I have. Let's make the most of it."

And then the Solar proceeded to banish all thoughts of protest from her Lover's brain.

In the morning, Blossom awoke, and wondered who had left the flowers by her bedside. The feeling that she was forgetting something important bothered her until dinner that evening. By the next day, she had forgotten even that.

~

It was a boring Calibration feast, just like all the others, until everyone started killing one another. But that was Exalt business, so it was nothing that concerned her. The fighting was fierce, out-doing even the bloodiest battle with the primordials, but Silent felt no need to get involved.

That changed when the fight began to spread out into the streets of Meru. Then she remembered Blossom. Then, the small part of her heart that was still human began to worry. She walked through the burning streets, occasionally moving slightly to dodge stray shots. None of the fighters saw her. None of them remembered her.

When she got to her home, she found the gates swinging on their hinges, and the house empty. Of Blossom, there was no sign - But as a Solar, Silent didn't need any. One look, and she knew what had happened. The fighting had scared the Lunar, and she had fled with the others. She would not return.

Silent could follow her trail, but it wouldn't be long before it ran cold... And she'd have to spare the time from her work, which she could already feel calling to her.

She'd never see Blossom again, she realised.

She bowed her head, and said her goodbyes. And inside her, the small part of her heart that was still human shrivelled and died.

~

In the end, it was luck that killed Silent Breath. The Sidereals worked hard to determine a pattern or a way to predict where she would show up, but nothing worked. In frustrated desperation, they tried dangling bait out and seeing if she bit. To their incredible surprise, she did.

She stepped into the city, and immediately she knew a man was about to commit a murder. She beat him to the punch, ramming a blade through his stomach and up into his heart, killing him instantly. It was only then that she recognised him.

The man was almost the spitting image of Cathek.

It couldn't be him, she knew that. He had died long ago. But it could be that... Yes, this was one of his descendants. And his descendants, she realised, were Terrestrial Exalts. She was confused, how had she not noticed this man was an Exalt before? It was very obvious to her now. She could feel it in his blood.

It didn't matter. She'd broken her oath. There was only one way she knew how to deal with that.

In that instant, the air was filled with knives, arrows, fists, and weaponry of all kinda, all aimed at Silent's back. She didn't even try to dodge them, and the weapons pierced her flesh without a problem.

It was only later, after they were absolutely sure she was dead, that they examined her still standing corpse, and realised the blade that had dealt the killing blow was her own.

It was a long time before people stopped praying to the Silent Death to spare them.

[Steel Shadow]

Lessons learned:

1. Lytek is cool! But should not be left in the same room as Calm for longer than-... Ever.
2. Storms was pretty cool, for a Lion. Shame he never wants to see us again.
3. Sidereals have no concept of privacy.
4. Syren is such a stalker.
5. Deathlord based memories in our heads? Where do we sign up?!
6. The Perfect of Paragon is a dick, but his city is probably one of the 'nicest' in Creation. Moral dilemma!
7. Elly solves moral dilemmas with a sword.
8. Look out world, Neeran is lookin' for love!
9. Look out Neeran, the women in our party are terrifying! And also oblivious.
10. Garret, Elly, and Jubal were left to their own devices in Yu Shan, and there was no disaster. All three would like medals.

And, for you lazy people who didn't show up for half the game, I shall try to attach the (not quite complete) log!

[Dracorion]

Posting Jubal's up-to-date sheet for whatever Wizzie's doing.

[Lumenskir]

I don't think the sheet is as pretty, but at least it exists!?

[Steel Shadow]

Well that was actually a pretty interesting fight! When the armies began advancing and the field started becoming a flaming wasteland, things did start to feel pretty epic!

Lessons learned:

1. Ok, next time an evil Abyssal shows up carrying a big sack and with a very obvious scheme afoot, I will steal said bag before he gets started.
2. Neeran can totally just walk up to a place and get people to tie themselves up. This is both useful, and slightly terrifying.
3. Once the fight begins, Elly has no mercy. None.
4. Spell-casting in combat is almost always a bad idea. Meanwhile, even if everyone has sneak attack detectors, stealth is amazing. I don't think that Abyssal saw it coming. Well, that was the point, really.
5. Jubal and Kaimi working together to set up a field of traps? Awesome results.
6. We really need to get proper access to Solar level spells at some point. They're amazing.
7. Semara's destiny approaches. She will hit a big thing with a super big thing soon enough! Until then, she can hurt things that even give Elly trouble!
8. Calm is a little too eager to smash Solar Manses.
9. Behemoths are big. I want one.
10. Masky probably still thinks he can take us. I would very much like to dissuade him of this foolish notion.

Game Log:

[Dracorion]

10. We just decimated his army. 9/10ths of it. The remaining 1/10th is running away from him. If he still thinks he can take us, that's fine by me. We've been wanting to tear him a new one for a while.

[Girasol of Chaos]

What I learned:

1. Boom <3

[PhoenixFlame]

What can't be killed can still be scarred permanently.

I wonder how long it'll take for him to rebuild an army of that size, and find eight new abyssals.

Know that if we discorporate him, we must follow up and steal all his monstrances from Thorns, seeing as we destroyed his army, his servants, and he'll be out of it for a bit.

[Arhra]

What's this?! An updated character sheet?!

As the prophecy foretold!

[Steel Shadow]

Lessons:

1. Archery was the correct choice.
2. Moving City's have access hatches! No one locks them.
3. We finally met unsympathetic enemies! We killed them!
4. We also killed the ones begging for mercy though. I'm assured this was the right thing to do.
5. If Elly says she's going to use her ultimate technique, and you can perfect for 1 mote? You really should.

And so...

Tonight! The Ultimate showdown! Weeks of effort, toil and strife have all lead up to this, the final conclusion!

Can the Solars Win?
Will Elly prove herself worthy of her Exaltation?
Will Jubal survive the fight?
Will Semara ever get to concert again?
Will Calm get to blow up the manse?
Will Garret steal something impossible to steal?
Will Kai ever finish her damn spell?

Find out tonight, in the Exalted: Dead Waters Season finale!

[Dracorion]

Posting so Steel has no excuse not to post the log.

[Dracorion]

Re-posting because Steel is a lazy bum and Kry is an asshole.

[Arhra]

Ultimate showdown checklist!

Can the Solars Win?
Hell yes.

Will Elly prove herself worthy of her Exaltation?
Stabs shown: all of them.

Will Jubal survive the fight?
Did anyone doubt that Jubal, HERO OF THE REALM, would emerge from the final battle glorious and triumphant?

Will Semara ever get to concert again?
Every time I stop, and stumble and doubt in darkness, I close my eyes and think back to you. We made a vow, a promise, to carry onwards - I'll see it through!

Will Calm get to blow up the manse?
Alas, no.

Will Garret steal something impossible to steal?
It still eludes his grasp. Stealing the Mask of Winter's mask comes pretty close though.

Will Kai ever finish her damn spell?
In time-skips, all things are possible!

[Krylo]

Cleaning the pad some, things I felt deserved saving but didn't need to be there:


The Long Life of Vendigroth Bekeret, The Manifold Facets of Governance
Pre-history
Vendigroth was born a short time before the first age, son of slaves, and born for one purpose: to serve his master, the Raptok Zzethar. His career was to be the scribe of this beast, to record his dictations, his actions, his debates, and even whatever odd conversation he may be having at the time. As record-keeper he was also forcibly brought along on all of Zzethar's activities, whether they be pleasant debate over wine, or terrifying war actions in the forests outside Rathess. His life was expected to be short but useful.


But somehow he persevered.


Whether it was small discussions that turned to combat, great combat that turned to debate, or being used as bait as his master snuck behind the unwary prey as they figured they had won a small snack, Vendigroth was able to carve out his own measure of usefulness to his master. Zzethar even stopped calling him just 'Slave' and began calling him 'Scribe' and promising if he ever got too old to be useful he wouldn't die on the battlefield or be eaten but sacrificed with honors to the Unconquered Sun. Despite the connotations that was quite a compliment to give a human slave.


As it was though he never did get his heart torn out of his chest, instead his perseverance and skill in dealing with the affairs of his master caught the eye of a small shard of power. He glowed with light and used the culture of the Dragon Kings to his advantage, claiming himself olchilike’ or Chosen of the Unconquered Sun himself, and was partly responsible (Along with slightly more violent means such as Queen Merela's) with the ease by which the Dragon King accepted the burgeoning exaltations that picked the most capable slaves of Rathess to fight in the coming war.


During the war he was renowned for his cavalry arts, his almost precognitive ability at logistics, and his ability to chat amongst the armies, scattering ill talk and inciting opinion that victory was just another fight away. The arrival of his horse Babieca became a beacon of hope, for they knew that not far behind was another army, another cartel of supplies, and the hope to fight to the next day.


After the war, while the others worked on sealing away those Primordials who swore the oaths Vendigroth turned his eyes outward toward what was left of Creation after the horror of the war. He spent a long time just writing down the names of those that fell. Flickering Starfall, Darik, Marae. It was his great task to try to find the names of them all, to raise up a great monument in their honor at the highest point in Creation, to march his horse to every small household that had lost someone and offer them what he could, and it ended in Rathess, where he climbed the Pyramid of the Sun and sat in mourning to all the Dragon Kings that fell. For he knew not one had ever known the pain of permenant loss before. His vigil seemed as if it might last forever until the day his former master Zzethar marched to the top of the pyramid and finally placed his claw on Vendigroth's shoulder, and told him that Creation needed him more than they did, and officially set him free.


The Eclipse felt his eyes tear and nodded, walking down the steps of the pyramid and leaving Rathess behind. But a piece of it would remain forever in his heart.


The Deliberative
By the time he returned to regular society he was met with no small strife in the new capital of Creation, as the crowned Queen Merela began to bicker with those who felt that all Solars had fought in the Primordial War, and they all demanded an equal voice in the new government. She rejected them outright claiming that she was given this authority by will of Ignis Divine, and that she would not be gainsaid by any living being.


It didn't take his understanding of society to know war would break out shortly after. In the midst of the Meru war he gathered around him his Eclipse brothers and they discussed how they could possibly end this foolish action. There were greater worries to think of, such as rogue Primordials they had yet to take account of, and the Wyld. Soon they began to whisper in every possible ear they could find, he himself taking a stance at the Queen, former slaves of Rathess as they were. Compromise was reached, and the Solar Deliberative was established, with the Queen at its head. He felt satisfaction in the peace and order, but little did he know the first thing that the Solars would do once they finally all had a voice was spit in the face of the Great Creator.


The choice to put the Great Geas on the Jadeborn when they had never once harmed or attempted to harm the Solar Exalted was an itch on his mind, it was unjust, unfair but he was outvoted when the Deliberative came to term. When Autochthon disappeared behind the Seal of Eight Divinities it struck him in his soul, and for the first time he truly regretted an action, regretted helping his brothers. Regretted giving them the choice.


Time
As time went on he had more than his fair share of achievements, he found his aid in the Oaths of the Shinma amidst the Aftershock War, the development of the Directional Languages, calming the Deliberative when the first Solar died of old age. He rode from place to place on his familiar, Babieca, his influence ensuring that life was well for all members of the Realm empire. Yet still he was plagued with worries, attacks between Solars began to arise, one Solar Circle murdering another in Meru itself severely affecting the attendance of Deliberative meetings, he was noticing something wrong in his brothers and sisters, something sinister. And he wasn't the only one. He always assumed that the Time of Cascading years had been a creation of a worried Twilight, and for a time it calmed everyone. The Deliberative began to meet once more. Conflicts were absent.


This would not last forever.


Inevitably he would note the actions of his fellow Solars growing more severe. Twilight experiments presented at the Deliberative grew more and more dangerous, yet still they seemed to pass. Dawns would make strange requests and secret dealings on new and more powerful weapons. People were disappearing from the cities he governed in a way that stunk of Stealth charms. The Priests grew more indignant of slights against the Sun, searching for heresy anywhere. Even the Eclipse caste was growing more distant, greed, law, obedience, they were using their power to guarantee their ends. Obsessions were frequent, and yet he did not see it for what it was. He thought it was hubris. When Operation Wyldhand passed the Deliberative it was what broke him. After the operation ended he marched to the center of the house and flared with all the integrity charms he could muster to be sure no one could attempt to manipulate his thoughts in his speech. In that last day he berated each and every last one, judging them for their actions against the Greater Good, of Order and Justice. With cited documentation, and screeching opinion he shamed them all and then pushed his way out the door. He would not be seen again in regular society.


But he was not done yet.


The Task
Messengers would begin to appear a year after, humans who all bore the mark of his essence and his blessing. They arrived to deliver requests to craftsmen for a variety of artifacts, to transport the resources to build them, to gather Vendigroth's personal effects and sell them to any willing buyers who would give a fair price, and to acquire land. The amount of resources exchanged in this took many years to complete, and when all the documents are gathered together they made and broke a thousand economies before they finished, but by the end the tally of shipped devices would have raised an eyebrow, a mass plethora of largest capacity cache eggs, a myriad of essence batteries, two reality engines, a large cache of land nearby the Seal of Eight Divinites, and more but he spread the spending so far apart that few could see past the labyrinthine maneuvers. Finally they began to erase the records of his presence, documents with his name, of his deeds. All things were edited or changed to one of his peers. He was quite set on being forgotten.


All his purchases gathered on that plot of land, and any being who dared step near would be approached by one of his disciples and soon enough they would forget why they came and return home. This went on for nearly 165 years, his attempts at being forgotten had gone quite well, for almost no one noticed his absence at the Calibration Feast.


But the Chosen of Fate rarely forget.


The first legion of Dragon Blooded were unprepared for the Disciples. The Second were unprepared for Facets. The third included a host of Sidereal, and as they walked into the very center of the land they saw his final operation in all its splendor. A reality engine tore away at existence as a blank eyed Solar sat nearby, his form a puppet for a greater will. The mindless Twilight formed the growing wylds into people and resources, who shortly moved toward a great building that surrounded the Seal, on the other side Enlightened Disciples channeled their essence into the batteries, and many Cache eggs were being sent into the elsewhere while others were being filled with the batteries as they charged. They immediately slew the wyld shaped and Solar slave and flew to invade the building. Room by room newly shaped were taught the many lessons of trade, discussion, enlightenment. They were all slain as well. In the central dias stood Facets himself, smiling at a circle of Lunar Exalted, who stared blankly into the distance, minds long since broken, “Let us try again.” He turned his reality engine on the seal as the Lunar tried what charms they had to forcibly open the ward into that particular plane of the Elsewhere, but to no avail. He turned and saw his assailants, and smiled about to speak before they unleashed all they had at him, the Lunars stood and took the blows and those that survived rushed at the enemy with reckless abandon moaning, “Must protect master...” As the warriors struggled against the beasts and the Sidereal began to show themselves Facets himself started to understand just how severe of an attack this was, he tore a new hole in the fabric of creation and leapt through, his mount arriving to carry him through the wylds.


They immediately gave chase.


The Last Hour
In the madness of the wylds few beings could match Facets, he had spent too long negotiating with the Raksha and the Shinma for any being in this world to be more prepared. Yet still they took chase. They chased what they thought was his image on the horizon only to strike a Raksha who laughed at their misfortune. They found themselves pulled into grand stories, where they fought armies of Raksha host while a great king aboard his noble steed attempted to rout them, they were assaulted by chesspieces, forced to fight some great beast with an Eclipse mark on its forehead, the captain of Legion was forced into a deadly debate where all the words and strength of argument became fatal weapons, and all the while those who did not have the defense of charms were being mutated and driven mad. Before long all that was left was the Sidereal, whom hounded Facets with all they had.


He knew them as the leaders of this witch hunt, so for the first time he stopped and spoke with them, he asked them why they risked so much for this. What could possibly be so important that he had to die? They would bark that he'd never understand, that he was mad. He would disagree fervently and ask they turn back, his task needed to be completed and thanks to them he had been setback far too much. They ignored him. He warned them one more time, and said that if they did not listen he would be forced to show them true horror. They removed his ability to cast charms, and closed in on what they thought was the kill. He backed away slowly, smiling. The sky began to crack.


The shard found its way into the Jade prison.




Facets wandered out of the Wyld, and began to ship more essence batteries into the cache eggs. Gathered what Disciples were not present, and started again. When they began to see the Disciples popping up again they sent more, this time they were sure they killed him. And then he came back again. They shook in horror at the possibility some Solar had gained immortality and was somehow channeling Solar power without his shard. They sent more and burned everything to the ground. But still! Until finally someone was able to notice that it wasn't Facets at all, but his spirit bound by powerful charms to continue the task. Even after they finally put him down for good there are Sidereal who twitch at the very mention of the Manifold Facets of Governance.


The War as Follows with The Manifold Facets of Governence
Am I Truly Mardukth?
"What is in a name?" Vendigroth Bekeret was kneeled down in the dirst staring at the blank sands a moment, his body as always clothed in the rough but efficent robes he wore in slavery, that seemed to denote a somewhat diminished royalty from his position. An older looking gentleman, with a very long luxurious beard he had braided into his long white hair spoke first, "Power. A name is a representation of form, a comprehension of concept, to name is to attempt to define, and in definition it creates a self." He was smart, and often spoke of the nature of things. A younger man who cradled a spear behind his head shrugged, "Name ain't worth much to the simple. Best it can be hoped for is a vessle to hold ya achievements, even ifn't ya ain't got one, folks get a habit'a givin one to ya." Not very smart, but insightful. Unlike the old man he was much more down to earth, typically able to see what was right in front of him when the old man was trying to break it into its smallest components. The two were prone to fights, but before they could start Vendigroth raised his fist,


"You both are right."


He began to sketch a large mountain in the dirt, details slowly coming into form, "The Primordial Mardukth is the Mountain," From the very top of the mountain great horns began to climb up to a makshift sky, and he assentuated it by forcing them to tear right through said sky to beyond, "And the Beast upon it. If I were to sum him up to a word I'd say Overwhelming. His every part physically is impossibly large, his every aspect physically is impossibly great, his every action reputationally is impossibly fantastic. He is power, and that power is so totally unbelievable that in his vanity he is prone to ask others to remind him that something can be so perfect." The words were spelled out over the whole picture in deeply complicated caligraphy, "AM I TRULY MARDUKTH?" He smiled, "He demands to be affirmed, and through affirmation he becomes more fantastic. His strength alone is unreasonable, but he is enhanced by his own legend. Most of all by his name."






Life as Usual for The Manifold Facets of Governance
Talk amongst friends.
The claw of the Raptok slashed at his throat with killing intent, the sharp manipulator of the Dragon King nearly releasing the last breath of the Solar through the wrong hole. Yet he was quick, and stepped back with measured perfection dodging the claw with relative ease before taunting him in again. The Dragon leapt with power at the Solar, dextrous claws of his feet striking downward. The solar reached out like the waiting mantis and caught what would be deadly sharpness into his strangely resistant arm and then grabbed one of the Raptok's legs dragging him to the ground before mounting the beast and tying his body up closely and chuckled whispering, “You're getting rusty old man.”


The Raptok growled in his throat as he struggled fruitlessly. It was to no avail, they both knew this. The grip of Vendigroth was legendary, once you were in he either squeeze your life away or sent you barreling into the horizon. Struggle was pointless,


“No you just keep getting better.” The Dragon King muttered as he tapped his claw against the surface of the pyramid. They both took the time to stand up slowly, they bowed faintly, neither taking their eye off the other lest they unleash a punitive strike for such foolishness. The sky above was still dark, but in the radiance of the Solar essence that ever lit the Pyramids of the Sun they were not lacking in light.


“Again then?”


He took the mantis stance carefully, hands slightly bent in preparation,


“Of course, Calibration isn't nearly over, and the Sun will be disappointed if I don't have your heart by the time he returns.”


They both smiled and the fight began again. Due to his nature Facets was never fond of great feasts and their debauchery, so every year at Calibration when all others were celebrating he found his way back to Rathess where he would spend his time with Zzethar. It was in the nature of the Dragon King to always remember their primitive side, it allowed them insight to the self and how far they had come in their own enlightenment, and thus was Facets given the lesson every time he returned to the festive streets of Rathess and found his master waiting at the pyramid where the Solar had sat mourning so long ago. There they would fight, until the five days of darkness met their end. The Solar to maintain that his people deserved this world, and the former master to show that Facets had finally turned too old for his position and would have his heart given to the Unconquered Sun, Solar ban on human sacrifice be damned!


As the years passed by it would become an anchor for the Eclipse to lay his soul, to overcome the many stressors and worries that built up from the foolishness of his fellow Solars. To hear the wisdom of lifetimes that lasted to the first days of Creation and onward.


But then he stopped coming. Yet year after year Zzethar came to the top of the Pyramid, lying in wait for the Solar who he called his slave, his peer, his friend. The closest friend he had.


By the time Calibration came this time the so called 'curse of the exiled name' began to branch across creation, tales of Disciples being sent forth when it was written, when it was spoken, and that those who saw the Disciples would be shortly silenced forever.


The Raptok sat on the Pyramid of the Sun again, light snacks dotting around him, as well as many long scrolls filled with endless repetition,


“Zzethar, are you alright, you have been sitting there since Calibration...”


He stared out into the horizon ignoring the younger Dragon King as he picked up the scroll and continued to write, he awaited the coming of this so called curse undaunted, the scrolls filled with the name, he muttered out what was only scarcely understandable by the Dragonling, “I know you can hear me...”


“Well of course I can-”


“NOT YOU.” His eyes burned a hole through the youngling who retreated quickly, his tail between his legs. His eyes returned to the horizon looking for the Disciple that was supposed to bring his doom, “You coward, willing to destroy a thousand minds and scraps of paper and yet you balk at something so weak as me? Facets! Vendigroth! Bekeret! Is that loud enough for you? You coward?!” He threw the scrolls to the ground, “Damn you! DAMN YOU!” He fell to his knees claw clutching at the scrolls, tears falling gently across the name. Thirty Dragon King lifetimes. More than 3000 years of friendship. He could not force himself to believe that he had become another fallen Solar, "Damn you..." He stared at the altar still red with the blood of the last sacrifice, blood of his brothers hoping for some wisdom from the Sun for what they could do about the horrors their greatest allies enacted. That the Sun's chosen enacted. He stared up to the burning zenith and reached into his chest and offered his heart up, burning in golden light, one last prayer on his lips,


“Please. Help him.”


But no one was there.

Character Epigraphs/Quotes

Calm
"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows." - Plato
Calm's feelings on dying words: http://i.imgur.com/QoVLv.gif

Elesis
“Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.” -Miyamoto Musashi

Syren
To overcome the intelligent by folly is contrary to the natural order of things; to overcome the foolish by intelligence is in accord with the natural order. To overcome the intelligent by intelligence, however, is a matter of opportunity.
-Zhuge Liang

Kaimi
All the world will be your enemy... And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you.
- Frith

Jubal
Shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of 80 dollars.
or
"But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them.
But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams
than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for." -Coehlo

Lyna's death quote
"You can't fire me! I won't let you! I'll quit first, just wa-"
"There's no way he can kill us from all the way over-"
"Don't worry guys, I've got thi-"

Garret
"I've seen knights in armor panic at the first hint of battle. And I've seen the lowliest, unarmed squire pull a spear from his own body, to defend a dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright. It's defined by one's actions."

Neeran
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

[PhoenixFlame]

Anyway, here's White Hawk for Lumen's session.

[Arhra]

Hey look, it's Seeker of a Distant Day, for Lumen's session!

[Lumenskir]

Might be a little late to the session tonight, no more than an hour and a half. Apologies.

[PhoenixFlame]

Last session's lessons:

1.) Silver Prince tries to teach us how to be friends
2.) We fail horribly.
3.) Do not taunt solar exalt
4.) We're not good with manses. "Emergency; all personell must evacuate immediately. You now have four minutes to reach minimum safe distance."

[Steel Shadow]

Last time, on Dead Waters:

1: The team comes together to combat the greatest threat creation has ever faced!
2: That threat is also on the team. And is usually the problem solver.
3: Through sheer pluck and ridiculousness, the team manages to save the land, and it's ruler!
4: The land is filled with evil and jerks, and the ruler is Evil Jesus.
5: But hey, we got everything we wanted, and all it cost us was emptying one limit bar!
6: We got what we wanted by being worse than Evil Jesus.

Truly, today was a victory for the Solars.

[Krylo]

Did some pad cleaning,


"Elly, it's not that we want you to be just a sword to cut down our enemies, it's that when you open your mouth and say something, anything, it's always terrible." "What *I* say is terrible?" *Suddenly cracks a hysteric, long laugh* You actually managed to drive her *more insane*, Jubal. It's supposed to be impossible to go past 10 limit, but you somehow managed. You just... have a gift. It's good he wasn't there. I might've picked him up and thrown him agaisnt a wall and said he should show more respect. He probably woulda gotten himself killed, yes. And then we'd have to be sad about it or something. "Semara, are you carrying a self-help book inside your sleeves or something? Because for the love of Hesiesh every time you say one of your tired old lines I feel like I'm in therapy and want to kill myself. Kaimi, well, I don't even know where to start with you. I could mention the horrible possibilities of your genetic experiments, since it seems horrible is likely where you'll end up, or your complete and utter lack of empathy and open-mindedness regarding other people. I mean, fuck, if you could look up from your books of extremely destructive Sorcery and how to splice a simhata and a river dragon together trying to make a supernatural sea mount but actually making a creature that can't walk on land and drowns in the ocean, maybe you could learn how to acknowledge other people's problems and be a real person. Honestly I don't even know why I love you. Garret, man the fuck up you coward, aren't you a Solar? And I want my five obols back. Yeah, I know it was you. Calm, I want to support your plan to make Abyssals into their own deal separate from Deathlords and Oblivion and Solars, I do, but sometimes you seem to be just as bad if not worse than the rest."


"Oh, and Syren. Just... fuck you and your little dog too." - Jubal, in an alternate universe where he was present during the Silver Prince meeting.


"Jubal, you've shown me that my original goals of slaughtering Dragon-blooded en masse and forcefully purging the Imacculate Order entirely was....wrong, in so many ways. I still have a deep-seated hatred, but if there are more like you among those ranks, it would be a terrible waste of life to simply off every one of them. I don't know what to do because of it, but all I know is that if I can fall in love with someone that I would have been convinced a year ago deserved to die, then others should have a chance as well."


" Syren, you are everything wrong in the world, condensed into a tiny little egotistical man that I just want to knife in the face over and over again. I would never otherwise admit it, but part of this reason is because I see so much of my hatred reflected in your actions, and you aren't ashamed in the least. I haven't known you long but you are manipulative, wreched, cruel, and yet too intelligent to simply toss aside and ignore. I cannot tell if it is pure hatred for your actions, jealousy or a mix of both that drives me to want to replace every atom in your lungs with knives, so instead I wish for you to be out of my sight. Forever. Give me a reason and I will kill you, just so I can lay that part of me to rest."


~Alternate universe Kai, had they been present


"It is sometimes difficult to deal with all of you, and it isn't that you aren't capable of great good, but you are all flawed and it seems like you have no interest in becoming any better as people. Elesis you are the pinnacle of warrior as I see it, your dedication to the art of war and killing is paramount and there will be much need for your skills in the times to come. But you are also willfully ignorant, you have no tact worth speaking of, and despite your hope one day of leading your contry of Ionia you have no capacity to lead anything but soldiers. In time if you are good enough we will outlive the need for war, and it is harmful for you to think otherwise, if you never find the time to be something more than a killer then that is all you will ever be. And that is harmful to everyone. Jubal you have taken a capable risk in coming with this group, you have looked in the face of the ignorance and prejudice your culture has cultivated and spat in it as is your nature. This is admirable. And yet you are still plagued with the nature of your people, you are a rude, haughty, tactless pile of waste with no manners and no self control. Perhaps if you learned how to speak a few words without sounding like a 12 year old people wouldn't want to kill you so badly. Garret you are the greatest thief I have ever heard of, not even met, I mean even blown up fictional accounts of great thieves you occaisonally buy for a jade script are worthless by comparison to your abilities. Actually I am having trouble thinking of what I dislike about you. I guess it might be that sometimes you still come across as a small time pickpocket from Coral, but that fits you and after writing a few ficitional accounts of your abilities I have to say it is pretty charming. But I won't lie that your attitude in the wrong place can be quite jarring, and even harmful if the situation is right. Might be worthwhile to become a bit more conventionally charming."


Syren takes a drink of water, as speaking so much is harmful to the throat at times.


"Semara you are one of the most unusual characters I have ever met. You are a picture of what I would call a Priest of Sol, but in this same category sometimes the esoteric penny wisdoms your drop and the enigmatic way you react to things seems very...odd. Makes you very difficult to read, and sometimes somewhat unpleasant to converse with. You are painfully intense and always seem to be somewhere in Yu Shan mentally. Which isn't to say you don't have presence and don't occaisonally spout something that even makes me blush with shame, but it might be better if you could come down to Creation every once in a while. Kaimi you hate me. I can understand disliking me, but you legitimately hate me. I for the life of me cannot understand why, but I wish it weren't true. You are a brilliant mind, a creative mind, you have the potential to change the world and when the future comes you will be a genuine aspect of why we call it the future. But ask anyone and they will tell you that you are a thick skulled, stubborn bitch of a woman who while capable of creative new ideas are still incapable of being flexible in your opinions."


He stares at Calm for a very long time as Elly begins to fight the Prince,


"Prepare for a sad future, for the road to get all the dreams you desire is going to be hard fought and is far more likely to end up negative unless you can find some very powerful friends who can help you change the very fabric of your being, which is ultimately a darkened, shadowy abomination tied to the destruction of everything that is. But if there is anyone who has the will to do so I imagine it is you."


-Syren, had he been about.


"So, I'm willfully ignorant, am I? Understanding your limitations is one thing, I suppose. I for one, do not purport to have all the answers, nor a plan that will survive any and all eventualities like you might. Which is the real question, isn't it? Were you half the man you claim to be, Kaimi and Garret, and the rest of them wouldn't have clashed with you in the first place, no? You had the answers, right? If there's one thing I can't stand it's a man who thinks he's smarter than he is. You're not bad, no. I even like you, but you're as arrogant as I am yet refuse to admit it." -How Elesis'd have probably replied.

Glorious Roar of Vivacity – Solar host of Calm’s shard
There were no temples built in honor of Glorious Roar of Vivacity, and no records exist that speak of his accomplishments. His legacy can only be found in the Underworld, and even then only if you can discern between the inherent madness of ghosts and the madness born of fear.


A veteran of the Primordial War, the mortal who would Exalt into the Zenith Caste was originally part of the breeding pool of potential Dragon Blooded. During training, but before Exaltations began in earnest, he fell in love with a fellow soldier. When she Exalted before him and he felt inferior she consoled him and loved him back. When the devas found their barracks and overwhelmed them she protected him while he rallied their fellows to not lose faith, and after he Exalted as a messenger of Sol he made sure that she was always by his side.


After the War many wondered why the Unconquered Sun saw it necessary to mark the newly created inhabitants of the Underworld as Creatures of Darkness, especially when the far more dangerous denizens of the Wyld were left off his list. Roar did not wonder, for Sol was unquestionable and he was in love and Creation was too wonderful to think on such things. And so he was content for centuries until his beloved grew old and eventually died in his arms, wiping away one last tear from his face as she promised with her last breath to love him forever. He buried her, and spent every Calibration for a decade standing vigil over her grave.


On the eleventh Calibration the solemn silence was broken by her voice, and when he looked up he saw her as he always remembered, and as he stared agape at her she explained how her love had kept her soul from entering Lethe and how she would keep to her promise, and she opened her arms to embrace him once more.


Then Glorious Roar of Vivacity hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her.


He understood in a moment the reasoning of Sol, for to be a ghost was to commit the greatest sin: ingratitude. The War that they had both fought in, the glorious High Age they were all building, to be a ghost was to look at it all and spit in the face of Creation, turning away from reincarnation and playing in shadows of memories. And in the next moment he knew what Sol needed of him: to become a holy terror to all who committed that great sin. For, by Roar’s own Exalted reasoning, if there were those that could look at the immense glory of Sol and desire anything but reincarnation for eternity then bettering Creation was meaningless, but making the prospect of ghostliness as unappealing as possible would surely wipe away any inclination to remain in the Underworld.


Of course, while his reasoning was perfectly sound to him he found that his peers were not willing to make that leap with him, and even those who had recently cracked the Onyx Circle were hesitant to assist someone who seemed so frothingly driven to such a task. If it wasn’t for his Lunar mate pointing him to the Underworld location of the lone surviving Lunar member of the Black Nadir Concordant he might have resigned himself to mere unending frustration, or at least utilized less monstrous tactics. As Fate would have it, this information enabled him to find Alabaster-and-Myrrh in her Underworld den of ash and pyreflame, and thus the overall pain of both the Underworld and Creation was to increase.


Alabaster-and-Myrrh explained that unlike the Solar members of the Neverborn divers, the two Lunars who awakened the dead Primordials had become enriched by the Void, in effect become living nephwracks. While their brethren in Creation were stymied by the Labyrinth Circle of Necromancy, the ways of Onyx had come easily to the Lunars almost immediately, beating out the Solar ‘discovery’ by a decade…at the cost of making them functional outcasts in the realm above. Shunned by the Silver Pact and their bonded mates, they only had each other and the Underworld, and it had become so much for the other Lunar that he threw himself into the abyss, taking away even the memory of his name. Alabaster-and-Myrrh could only remember him at all in the Underworld, and she was so lonely. Roar took her hand in his, and from that moment on they were inseparable.


The Lunar attempted to teach him all she knew of Necromancy, but for whatever reason he could not advance past the Iron Circle. Instead of prompting jealousy or rage, this development only served to deepen their connection, as his boundless ideas became the bedrock of her magical experimentation. When his Circle mates and friends spoke of him they would snidely blame her for bringing him down to her level, and when her former pack discussed her they concluded that the inevitable Solar madness had claimed another victim; both groups were equally right and wrong*. Apart or with any other they would have surely hit their limit sooner, but together their unique depressions became the horrid feedback loop that kept them going: his anger spurred on her ingenuity which triggered his depravity which spiked her creativity, on and on for millennia under the blank sky.


*If any ever spoke of their love, they would have been completely in the wrong. Although never verbalized as such, the Celestials saw their arrangement as more of a joint venture than a relationship, or even a partnership. Every moment they spent together was always in furtherance of a goal, and even when they slept together it was always in service of another primary motive that happened to require the act (for instance, when they mocked a bed made of still-sentient souls by drowning out the pained moans of the ghosts with their own moans of pleasure, or when they donned the skins of souls molded into the shapes of each other’s lost love and tore into one other with sorrow and lust).


At first, the spells to permanently maim and destroy ghosts was enough, but it soon became lacking, especially for Roar who could already burn away their souls and was searching for a deeper deterrent. They pushed each other to delve deep into the depths of necrotic Essence, and when their limit on power was reached they began their experiments in form. Attempts to broaden the art quickly devolved into attempts to amuse the other: He would switch the faces of two ghostly lovers and make them embrace; she would dip a ghost into the Labyrinth and only remove its insanity to let it see the aftermath of a rampage; he would remove a ghost’s arms and use them to slowly break down the rest of its body into soulsteel. When the first nascent ancestor cults began to emerge they abducted the ghosts receiving prayer, flooded their corpus with the Void, and forced them to lie with their descendants; later, while the ghost was bound and forced to watch a generation of plasmic horror-foetuses terrorize its former home and family, the Celestials sat back and cackled. The actions of the Exalted above supplied them with a steady stream of subjects, and incoming ghosts were quickly informed by their new peers of the best ways to avoid the terrors that followed silver and gold lights on the horizon. On and on for millennia.


Roar only made a concerted effort to return to Creation once a year, during Calibration. In the early years he made the effort to keep in touch with his old friends, but soon found it too tiring. They could boast about their ‘accomplishments’ in honoring the Sun seemingly forever, while he was secure in his knowledge that his path was completely according to Sol’s wishes. Forays into the Wyld and Malfeas bored him to tears. Where were the threats, what enemies that truly mattered? The raksha had escaped Sol’s unquestionable sneer and the Yozis were secure in their prison. It was the Underworld that was the true threat, ghosts who were the insidious menace, and as far as he could see Roar was the only Solar preaching the message to the Unconquered Sun’s enemies!


So it was that after a century he began to return to Creation only to visit the grave of his long dead love. Alabaster-and-Myrrh’s teachings included the methods of binding and moliating ghosts in the first lesson, and Roar had practiced on the first ghost he had ever seen. When he could do no more he sought his Lunar companion’s help in altering the ghost’s Fetters as well. The one time Alabaster-and-Myrrh became curious about his annual trip she followed him as a fly, and watched for a day as he stood at the foot of his love’s grave, staring at the ghost bound to the site. Sometimes he cried and sobbed. Sometimes her eyes would go wide as if she had something to say, but her mouth had been smoothed away by his hand long ago. Alabaster-and-Myrrh left sated, never wondering again.


Glorious Roar of Vivacity attended the Calibration Feast mostly out of surprise at the invitation, seeing as he hadn’t talked to another Exalted in Creation in centuries. When the Usurpers attacked he put up no resistance, staring off serenely while his brethren revolted. He had no reason to fight back and no fear of death. In fact, just the week before Alabaster-and-Myrrh had suggested that they tattoo into each other the magic that would ensure their souls behaved according to their intents. She would sleep while he cast the spell to ensure she rose as a spectre, and he in turn would go under while she made sure he would pass on to Lethe. (If Roar had any concerns about why she insisted they perform the spells while the other was unconscious he didn’t entertain them for long. At this point in their arrangement they tended not to question each other; doing so meant questioning the things they’d already done, and there were too many skulls accumulated to begin that now. Easier to assume good intentions.) Roar felt momentarily guilty for how, against her wishes, he had cast the spell that would lead to the Lunar passing directly to Lethe, but he consoled himself that he knew what was better for her. As the Dragon Blooded spears fell upon him he spent his last breath sighing at the recognition that he would never see her again.



Short stories of Jubal's past lives
Regret


His arms hung limply at his side, like useless lumps of Orichalcum. Weak, ragged breaths tore their way through his slightly parted lips. He could hear unintelligible sounds from somewhere nearby. Loud roars, strangled screams and metallic clangs from no source he could identify. From the corners of his eyes he could see blurred shapes and bright flashes. A contant trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, onto the jagged, bony tusk.


Flickering Starfall was, less than half a decade ago, a mere farmer plowing his family's land. He grew various vegetables and tended to cattle and if you'd asked him then what he would be doing with his life, he would never have imagined fighting in a rebellion to overthrow the Creators of Creation.


When the time of his rebirth came, it was sudden realization. One second he drew a normal breath, and the next breath was full of power, vigor and purpose. He was something else, something new. A fire burned within him that he had never felt before, filling him with energy and determination. They called it the Blessing of the Emerald Mother.


If he had known then what it would come to, he might call it a curse.


The tusk of the grotesque creature, a Behemoth they called it, had torn a hole through his crimson armor and now, technically, comprised most of Starfall's torso. His Jade Daiklave was still lodged in the creature's thick hide where he had left it. He gave it his best hit and the thing didn't even feel it. He tried to raise his arms to grab the blade, but they were too heavy and his vision was growing dark anyway. His breathing slowed as the world slowly faded into night, the darkness broken only once by a bright golden flash of something like flame, that left his vision as quickly as it had appeared.


As Flickering Starfall drew his last breath, all he could think of was that he hadn't gotten to do anything important yet.


------------------------------------------------------


Ignorance


Sitting in the sand, idly humming a calming tune, the amber-skinned young girl slowly knitted a garment with the needles in her hands, her pale blue hair flowing like waves down her face and past her waist. She deftly laced the thread together, making a vest for her one of her younger brothers with a small smile on her face, only half paying attention to the task. She had done it before enough times that she could knit in her sleep.


Tourmaline Horizon led a fairly idyllic life, gathering fruits and vegetables, tending to the house, babysitting her younger siblings and generally taking care of household matters. She had no qualms about her life, finding the peace to be relaxing and safe.


And when she needed excitement, she could just pay attention to whatever trouble her younger brothers got themselves into today.


At the moment, they were busy playing at the beach, after being warned that they shouldn't go too far or pick on their little sister that was playing with them, she had split her attention between the tune she was humming, the vest she was knitting and the eye she kept on her brothers and sister.


She was a little sad that her life would be changing soon, after her marriage to Willow. Though, earlier today he had assured her he still wanted to be involved with her family, after they stepped out of the shed. She had kissed him goodbye and straightened out her hair and skirt, so when she returned home and her mother set her to babysit her siblings, she was none the wiser.


Tourmaline Horizon never had time to realize, to stop smiling or humming, when the blast wave unleashed at the behest of a Solar Dawn burned away her body through the bone, until only ashes remained of her and her village, that were soon carried away by the uncaring breeze.


Though the collateral damage was later acknowledged by the distant and mighty Solar Deliberative, no one remembered the fair Tourmaline Horizon, or her husband-to-be Graceful Willow, or her rowdy younger brother Copper Blossom.


------------------------------------------------------


Freedom


The bronze-skinned man smirked as he felt the jaw breaking under his knuckles. He'd never liked Crow anyway, the bastard was a suck-up and a coward. Punching him out with a cestus-wielding fist was possibly the most relieving thing he'd done today.


Tsunami Wolf rose fully, looking over the battlefield to assess the situation, his sweat-matted bare chest heaving from today's exertion. Fire and explosions blazed around him as men cleaved willing slaves, brother fought brother and mobs clashed with lizards.


Hair billowing in the breeze, Wolf turned to his companions, the group of rebel slaves he trusted the most, his close friends and his lover, Granite Lightning. He gave the other man a reassuring smile as he started into his bright viridian eyes, promising with the look that tonight they would celebrate together until they couldn't stand. It was time to finish this.


The group climbed to the top of the pyramid, brimming with determination at finish this and earning their freedom. It was already happening around the world. The Chosen of the Sun, Moon and Stars had risen to overthrow the creators, and inspired the lesser men to follow their example.


At the top, Tsunami Wolf and their entourage saw the hulking, red-hued scaly mass of Dragon King Thrrorr, sneering at them with his mighty warclub slung over his shoulder.


The fight didn't last long, if it could even be called that.


Wolf's left arm was shattered, mere pieces of his cestus clinging where most of it had been destroyed. He knelt before the lizard, clutching his wounded appendage, growling up at the tyrant. Lightning's body lay beside him, the face unrecognizable as his skull had been caved in, and half of Wolf's body was now covered in his blood. "You'd best hope we don't meet in the next life, monster."


The barbaric lizard laughed; a low, grumbling growl that made the bones of lesser men shiver. "Not likely, worm. After this rebellion has been put down, the Primordials will wipe your worthless species from all existence. None will even remember your race of bottom-feeders ever blighted this land!" The dragon roared indignantly, his spit covering Wolf's bloodied face.


"Then." The rebel slave smirked back. "I'd best leave something for you to remember me by!"


People would remember. They remembered the scar left on Thrrorr's face by Tsunami Wolf, and even after his name was forgotten, they'd know a mortal was the one that wounded the tyrant. Even when Thrrorr was felled, people remembered that a mortal had once scarred a Dragon King.


Tsunami Wolf was worthy of being Chosen by the Sun on that day, at that moment. But he wasn't the only one, and there were only so many Solar Exaltations to go around. Wolf joined the ranks of those who had fallen without attaining their heroic destiny. But, in his next life, he reunited with Granite Lightning, and had another chance at a shining fate.

[Krylo]

More pad cleaning,




STUFF FOUND ON LUTHE WISHLIST IF YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN STUFF YET:
(First a few things I'm gonna dictate)
Scrolls detailing the first age charms to allow dragons to learn celestial MA
Scrolls, partially destroyed, detailing the celestial dragon styles, only a few charms available from each style
---Learning from scrolls uses untrained times, but allows you to learn without a teacher.
Two Fiery Solar Cannons (I think I'll take the other as an excuse to learn archery and do Rose Red stunts after I get DKS)
Number of Warstriders
---Two Royal (I think I said none before, changed my mind), both Orichalum. One working, one non-working but not badly damaged. Working one belonged to Amyana, broken one belonged to Akardi.
---5 Orichalum Nobles working, 1 Moonsilver. A number non-working but not badly damaged of each material. (Wonder if Joren wants a giant mecha.)
---1 Orichalum Colossus (I'm imagining it's got a skull-shaped cockpit like an Atlas.)
---10 Orichalum Scout, 5 Moonsilver, and 3 working Jade with over 20 Jade versions destroyed
---Various numbers of Common in various composition, many jade ones that are destroyed, a few working (~10), a few not badly damaged but not working.
Bunch of Vehicles
---2 Orichalum Windblade Transports, and three Moonsilver in working condition
---A number of sky chariots in various states of disrepair
---Dozens of Dolphin Class Transports in working condition
---10 Swift Midday Brilliance Class-Light in working condition, dozens in various states of disrepair, many of these still sailable though with non-functioning weapon systems and/or reduced speed and manueverability.
---70 working Whirligig Transports, no weapons systems.
---1 Working Warbird, numerous in various states of disrepair.
---2 Working Glorious Dragonfly Class, 3 Damaged and inoperable.
---3 Manta Class Transports in inoperable condition
---1 Working Dawning Sun, 10 in various states of disrepair. (We have our own Iowa-class battleship? That's badass. I think you have one of the strongest navies in the world now, just because of this)
ALL VEHICLES ARE FIRST AGE AND THUS DO NOT REQUIRE MAINTENANCE (except where specific exclusions are made for certain vehicles).

[Krylo]

EXP sheet as of 03/02

Ignore the Repair Time thing, I forgot to update that and then you time skipped, anyway, and I'm too lazy to delete it from the bottom and resave.

[Krylo]

------
NEERAN, IANNA, AND ALL PEOPLE WHO CURRENTLY HAVE A POSITION (and maybe Garret), THE EX-COUNCILLOR'S ROOM
------


Neeran requested a meeting with all of you nearly immediately upon your return from the Penitent. As you file into the room, you see him standing in front of the holoprojector on the circular, raised platform the councilors had used before, next to a preternaturally beautiful woman whose red hair seems to evoke flames. A number of infographics are being displayed from the projector, with both Neeran and the woman looking over them.


"Yes, oh, thank you Azure, these should work wonderfully. . ." he mutters before noticing your arrival.


"Oh! You're here!" He says turning with a smile and clapping his hands in front of himself, while the woman takes a short bow and then walks around beind the large semicircular podium to sit down. She's dressed crisply in a vest and trousers, and looks quite professional as she sits next to the holoprojector.


"I believe I have some plans on how to go about opening Luthe to trade with the other Western nations, if you'll all just find someplace comfortable. . ." Neeran continues.


Terrista sits down and props her feet up, ready to fall asleep at the first sign of extensive trade lecturing. "Who's your pretty friend?"


Syren on the other hand say quaintly at the table, but was quite interested to delve into what mad scheme Neeran might have to open up proper trade. Terrista interrupted his train of thought with her question, giving her the eye of intrigue.


Crashing this exclusive meeting, Jubal leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting for Neeran to explain his ideas. He only looked over the Eclipse's girlfriend once since entering; that's all he needed.


"Supreme Commander is on deck!" Sione announced as he walked in past Jubal. Really gotta get a handler for that guy...


"Oh hello firelady," says waving to the strange haired fae woman. "Don't remember you being on board. Introductions can be done later though!" He proceeded to take a andom spot in the room, waiting for Neeran's announcement.


Elesis clicked and blew her magitech bosun's whistle as Sione announced himself, in an almost comically mocking fashion, and then went back to reclining in a bored manner in the chair she'd been sitting in. She wasn't even really sure why Neeran wanted her here.


"Oh this is Ianna," Neeran said gesturing back. "Say, hello, Ianna."


Fluttering her eyelids Ianna looks over the assembled group, and then slowly lifts an arm giving a half hearted wave, before looking down at her papers.


"Um right, anyway, it seems everyone important is here. . ." Neeran centers himself in the room and clears his throat, while Ianna taps a paper, causing the holo projection to increase in size showing readouts of population and hydroponic food growth.


"Now then, I spent yesterday collecting information on what we have in surplus to begin trading, and I've found we have exactly two things: Artifacts, which, well, I don't think we should be selling, say, tactical explosives. . ." The screen behind him changes to an animation of a pair of children throwing a Sun's Fist Chakram between each other, and then blowing up quite messily. "So that leaves us with food: Currently we have a population of just over 12,000, but Luthe can house millions and feed at least a few hundred thousand, according to Azure. We should be able to grow massive food surpluses on our hydroponic farms, with enough time and labor. . ."


The screen behind him switches to showing a few charts of population, food production, current food production, etc. "Now this isn't perfect, however, it would put us in direct competition with Wavecrest, and we are no where near equipped to do so with our current abilities. However! There is one thing we have that no one else does. . ."


The screen switches one more time to a projection of a Whirligig Transport. "These will allow us to transport goods much faster than any other merchant force, allowing us to work as a 'delivery service'. This isn't going to be enough for the long term, but it IS why I called you all here."


The animation changes to a whirligig spinning around on the surface with Luthe below it. A little question mark appears above the whirligig. "We'll need a few things to do this--the first is that we'll need times when we're not submerged that are known by our trade crews so they can return for repairs, and to offload whatever money and goods we acquire. I suggest we select a day every week, perhaps one that moves by some mathematical calculation from week to week, during which we stay above water at least twelve hours and in a predetermined meeting place."


He then stops for a moment to see if anyone has any suggestions, questons, or issues.


"I'll confess that busniess and law aren't my strong suits in any particular way. It sounds like a decent way to atleast get on our feet and make a presence though. How many people do we have who can give piloting the whirligigs and other transports a shot?" Sione aksed.


"Right now?" Neeran responds to Sione, "You, and whatever dragons and exalts know how to sail. To get this off the ground we're going to need to awaken the essence of more members of the population. . . I was going to talk to Syren about that later."


Suddenly more interested when talk turns to HER fleet, Terrista decides to put her two cents in. "The whirlgigs'll be faster than anything else on the water, but we still gotta be protectin our own shippin routes. 'Specially once Peleps gets around to noticin anathema settin up doin trade in funny boats. We gotta commit a bit more'n just the whirlgigs to it is all. 'Course... hey Azure; can you keep in touch with all of'em at once if they're far off?"


Azure's voice comes from the holoprojector. "Most first age ships, including those within Luthe, are capable of two way communication, Admiral!"


"Thanks, Azure. Well, Vermillion gets around a hundred miles an hour, and if me an' her an' maybe El show up every so often, the pirates'll leave us alone at least. Not too sure about the navy, but as long as Vermillion's around, we can get anywhere pretty quick."


Syren taps the table nodding faintly, "In all honesty even our seaborne craft will be hard pressed to be stopped by anything other than the Peleps military. Their mounted weapons, even flametongues, are hardly threatening to our metal craft. And while dragonblooded can likely win out in boarding actions, almost all of our crewmen are beastmen with the ability to breathe underwater and have been trained by Elly to kill." He finished stating what he figured was the obvious and steeples up his fingers, "Azure send out a message to expand Luthan Academy's Enlightenment 101 class as mandatory to all sailing personnel. I'll step up current bureaucratic measures in our agricultural department. If you haven't already that is."


(altitude... aren't whirlgigs boats? My bad if they aren't No you're right, I got confused by the slangish term for helicopter.)


"Lintha've got a few whirlgigs out there too. Ain't as many, but they're around. We don't need wind, but we still wanna follow shipping lanes on account o'heelin...." seeing only a couple of the assembled individuals nod in recognition, Terrista gives a short explanation of how the wind works (wind makes waves, waves move boat). "We're a bit freer, but it still ain't gonna be too tough to predict where our ships'll be."


"Even unescorted, Whirligigs have ramjet drives that exceed the realm navy's most agile vessels for speed, particularly into the wind, and in exceptionally shallow conditions. Given that, and how well our crews are trained, they would be quite difficult to capture or destroy. Still, the dragonblooded might have charms to get around that somehow, but it would require equal parts luck and skill on their end." Elesis points out, "Hilariously, I think a skilled captain could circle a military trireme at fifty yards, using the haze field to protect the crew from arrows while they engaged with shock pikes, failing that they could simply intentionally collide with the pursuing vessel. Convoy tactics could be employed to group ships in fleets of 3, with one of them converted to a Q-ship with cargo space given over to carrying marines for counter-boarding operations. ... And you know, kids can't use those chakrams. They require essence to arm."


"Are you saying it's okay if we sell them, then?" Neeran asked Elesis with a smirk, knowing full well the answer would be no. Clearing his throat, he continued, "Regardless, I called you all here mostly to get permission to keep Luthe capable of receiving incoming ships, and to use the navy's whirligigs in trade. . . Syren and I, of course, have more to discuss but, I don't need the military and security here for that."


"Anything that'll piss off Peleps and take silver away from the guild is good by me"


"Of course not. But yeah, I guess we can use our ships to do ship-things."

------
ELLY AND NARISA (perhaps guest starring others! It's a public place!), TRAINING GROUNDS
------


The soldiers train, moving through their Katas. Kalim is among them, and Sakuya is standing near, ensuring they do not slack on their movements. Elesis leads the class, but for the moment they require no direction. Indeed, they've become a fine fighting force, and would likely be capable of following their training regimine without any order from her.


Narisa sits by the wall, she switches between reading, and, when she doesn't think it's entirely obvious, watching Kalim sweat.


Seeing it unlikely that she would be ambushed upon her own battlestation in the company of her own, self-trained class of elite soldiers, Elesis wears a more casual outfit, a black yukata and accompanying hakama, enjoying the momentary freedom of not wearing heavy orichalcum armor. Still, she looks as vigilant as ever. Taking a moment aside from her instruction while the class performs a kata for the third time, she approaches Narisa and stands at her side casually, finding a time to engage in idle conversation.


"Keeping well, Narisa? Seeing you more and more down here recently.'


Narisa looks up with a bit of a start as Elesis stands over her. "Uh, oh n-I mean y-yes. I'm doing fine. I just. . . like to watch every once in a while." A slight warmth flows to her cheeks, and Elesis detects just a slight reddening.


"You don't need to be embarrassed. I've noticed you and Kalim are fairly close." Elesis chuckles, "I've got a good eye for this sort of thing, you know. Which brings me to what I wanted to ask you. Sakuya and I both believe he's ready for the job of ground forces command, and more than a match for anything our enemy might deploy in kind, but I'm still worried about him. I imagine you are too, which is why I'd like you to consider offering to be his formation's sorceress. Realm combat tactics mandate legions should be accompanied by a sorcerer and I wouldn't want to see us outdone on that angle. Still, I won't ask you to do anything you don't want to, but consider it, alright?"


"Oh Kalim and I are j--" Narisa starts over Elly's chuckle, blushing deeper, but she silences herself as Elesis continues talking about Kalim's new job and requesting her to be his sorceress. "Um. . . o-okay. I, guess, I mean. . . If it's okay with Kalim, I-I could maybe do that. . ." she responds after a moment, stumbling over her words.


"Oh, I haven't asked him yet. I think you should be the one to do that, actually." Elesis continued, smiling wryly at Narisa's obvious embarrassment, sliding down to sit next to her, she puts a hand on her shoulder, "Chin up, Narisa. He's a good man, and you could learn a lot from him. Don't let that opportunity go to waste."


"D-do you think he could really use me? I'm not very good. . ." She trails off as she looks down at her book, "I don't know if I could keep up. . ."


"Well, Kalim isn't a sorcerer, and he has a lot on his shoulders herding around several hundred mortals, I doubt you could possibly make anything worse." Elesis laughed conversationally, "But seriously, if nothing else it gives you both another way to contact us in the event something happens. That, and I think you should get out more."


"W-well, okay, if. . . if you think so. . . I'll, um, I'll ask him when he's done training today. . ." the girl was bright red about the cheeks. Hopefully she'd have the courage to actually ask.

------
TERRISTA AND ELLY
------


After a particularly intense workout/probable-assassination-attempt with Jinira, Terrista catches up with Elesis outside one of Luthe's training rooms. "Hey El," she calls out, "got time for a walk?"


"Sure, what's up, Terrista?" Elly asks, having just finished her conversation with Narisa.


"Found a deck that don't get too much use up here," Terrista says, leading Elly down the cooridors, and making a bit of small talk about old fights along the way. "... I was about your age then, long time before me second breath, so I got me knees down on the little hornswaggler's arms, and I was ready to beat his face in when he starts whimperin! So what could I do? I let him up, got me silver back, and he even bought me a drink. Well, a couple rounds of arrack later and he was startin to look pretty good. Little while later, I had a baby girl on me hands! It's a good thing his family was pretty well off; can't exactly take a baby on account." They reach a doorway that opens to a small outside deck overlooking the sea. Terrista leans out over the rail and watches the waves.


"I ain't been here long, but I been watchin, an' I see when they get talkin about the big plans, lotta times they start talkin like you're outta the room. They don't mean no harm by it, they just think they got a broader view. Truth is, they got just as many blind spots; they'll never see when our way's better 'til they've cocked it up everywhere else, and that's why we gotta step up too, so I wanna know what you're thinkin about all these plans?"


Elesis glances over the railing and watches too, less talkative than Terrista out of a bit of awkwardness with the line of her conversation, but when she asks this question, her friendly demeanor turns to a thousand yard stare.


"Well, this is an uncomfortable topic." Elesis starts, then sighs, "You're right, I suppose. I'm not really from the same background as the others, I guess. I know what I want, how to get it, and very little qualms on the go-between. It's how a soldier thinks, or rather not, how a hero thinks, when he or she is not being the golden champion everyone fawns over." Looking over to Terrista with a wry smile, she says, "You know when we first met, I learned some abyssals had captured a child and a mortal among their families, and my plan was a straightforward and effective one. Find them, kill them, get the hostages back, and not a soul had an objection with the results." She looks back out over the sea, grimly, and pauses for a moment.


"This is how things go. You can be idealist if you wish, but any country or organization or terrorist group who lacks the military power for such direct action will, ultimately, be subject to the demands of other, more powerful groups. It's easy to condone against undead, but my penchant for bringing ultimatums into diplomacy does not sit well with the others, effective though they may be. I know how to get what I want, though. My homeland was under the heel of House Tepet and, as their scion, I wished to free them. Semara, the others, wouldn't have it on the grounds that they'd lose the income from the satrapy. So I, well... So I told her that if she didn't do something, I'd wipe out the remains of their house."


She pauses for a few seconds again. "A few days later everything was back the way it should've been. I suppose I should be proud of that, but I can't be. Something about this has rubbed off on me to the point where I am very weary and loathe to make such decisions for fear of the consequences. I wait for things to break down and then salvage them, and I suppose I do get the benefit of saying that I told them so."


Terrista listens to the explanation intently, nodding here and again. She actually seems to slow down and consider what's been said for once before responding in oddly articulate fashion, "so, what troubles you more; who you almost killed, or that you got your way?" The sobriety passes, and her characteristic roughness kicks back in; "coin and talk, they'll kill just as sure as blades, but the ones usin'em don't always gotta look right at the blood, so it's easier for'em to think their way's cleaner... legitimate. Sounds like we both know that ain't true. Change don't happen without death'n loss, so what matters is sufferin. I guess the slow way is probably right sometimes, but then sometimes it just means more gotta suffer while everyone pretends it's all workin out. You don't gotta use threats all the time, but you don't gotta let'em put you at the kid's table either, and sometimes y'just gotta go do what you know is right."


"It's kinda like... you know how when you cut somethin just right, it barely moves an inch? It's the same with these plans and big problems, but if you keep thinkin about what might happen, it's the same as overthinkin your fightin. Idle thoughts just get the better o'ya."


"I lost my mother and father to politics, and beyond that, we lost our family's honor. I suppose you're right, but it still bothers me." Elesis shrugs, "Sometimes I can get carried away in battle, and then lose my train of thought when snapped back to thinking too much. You know we never actually killed anyone at Silver Prince's manse. I had that crazy archer at my mercy but Sem stopped me. Not really sure why. I've no love for abyssals and neither does she." Elesis makes a long 'hrm' as she thinks on Terrista's earlier question, "Here and now? Personally, I don't think the dragonblooded can do it, or should do it. The best and most straightforward plan is to roll into the Imperial City, take the defense grid and declare the return of the solar deliberative. We don't want to, nor need to use that weapon, but regardless there will be significant bloodshed. I'm content to let them try something else to wash my hands of that. Immaculate doctrine is too widespread and deeply rooted to remove easily and there will be problems no matter what method we use."


"Hah! Aye, I'd just as soon break down the the door to the manse meself. Or scrap the whole thing, get the Lap workin and take over the south along with the sea. Don't know that I'd much care for another solar deliberative though. Got a feelin we'll end up cuttin more'n a couple solars down in all this" She pauses, considering her next words, and with a long sigh, continues, "I don't mind usin the draggies so much if it'll make changin the immaculates easier; say what you want, but they're good at trackin, and they're ready to find exalts. Tepet though... I don't think that Roseblack's got it in her to hold the Realm together through what we wanna do. If we're gonna prop them up, we might as well just go take over by force."


"Sorry 'bout your mom and dad; didn't know about that. Can't imagine why everyone else'd stop you from killin the prince. Deathlords... ech, I don't really know the nature of'em too well, bein honest. Death shouldn't be like that, just hangin about forever, stuck and stagnatin."


"Well, we can't really tear it down, it sits on the biggest demense in creation, and the effects of altering the geomancy of the Imperial Manse would, well, I don't know much about geomancy, but it's pretty much the textbook definition of doomsday scenario in the 'how can manses be dangerous' area. But you're right, we're most certainly going to kill other solars too, and lunars, and dragonblooded, and probably sidereals, and I'm okay with that. Frankly, I don't very much give a damn about exalted in general, so much as I do keeping my people from harm. Or at least, well, mostly that."


"Ionia, right? Fair enough, though if things go south with Tepet, I'd be worried about it gettin back to their satrapies." There's another long silence, and then "well you're alright. I ain't got nothin else to say if you don't. Long as you're not just lettin'em tell you what to do. You gotta cross the Rubicon sooner or later though."


"No, I think I'm done." Elly shrugs, "It'll come up when it does."

[Krylo]

------
TERRISTA AND NALERA (And anyone else who wants to come with if Bit's okay with it/Terrista would have brought you), THE SUNKEN MANSE
------


Terrista arrives at the manse on the scheduled day, and immediately as she gets a few halls away from her dolphin, the entire structure begins to quake!


"Whoa there!" Terrista looks around the room to make sure it isn't about to collapse inward on her.


The manse continues quaking, but everything seems stable. However the sound of rushing water reaches Terrista's ears, and soon the water is draining out of the hall she stands in. Soon everything is damp, but above water.


Terrista shakes the water out of her hair, leaving everything around her a bit more damp. "Fancy manse. Wish I'd found it first."


A moment passes in silence and then Terrista feels a breath on the nape of her neck. "Boo." (Nalera's voice in narration: "and that was the first time I died.")


A shock runs through Terrista's body as she forcibly ratchets her surprise-reflex down from blow-up-the-manse-PD-resume-combat-on-equal-footing, clear through, roll-forward-and-drive-heel-into-attacker's-groin, and all the way down to spin-around-and-exclaim "SHIVER ME- Sol damn- son of a BITCH, girl! You near made me blow the manse!... Not too friggin bad!" She laughs and looks over her non-assailant.


Nalera lets out a laugh as she steps back from Terrista, giving each other a clear view for the first time in years.


The pirate girl is still a bit short, and pretty. And dry. In fact, she hasn't really changed at all since the last Terrista had seen her, other than the orichalum wave cleaver at her side, and the knives and flame pieces that lined the inside of her justacorp. She gave the older pirate a toothy grin.


"Haven't seen you since Azure. . . what was it? 2-3 years ago? I was just a kid back then. What brings you to my humble abode?"


She then glances about the hall, still wet from its recent submersion, "And how in the world did you find it?"


Syren's cloak whirls into thin air as he apperates beside the pair, "Knowledge is a powerful thing. But you seem to be aware of that. With the right map, you can find anything."


At that point Jubal appeared in the hall, having separated from Terrista on arriving and being drawn by the voices. "Oh hey. Nalera, is it? I'm Jubal, and that's Syren." He introduced himself, eyeing the knives and flamepieces on the pirate's waist. "I hope you're not thinking of doing the Dawn thing. We didn't really come here to rough you up."


"C'mere, you," she gives the girl an uncomfortably tight hug. "Aye, it's been awhile. But you look good for it, kid! Looks like you come a long way from stowin away on boats. You'll like how I found ya; you ever heard o'the sunken city?"


Nalera snickers at Jubal. "Dawn-thing? Don't worry, if I meant to rough you up, you'd have never seen me," she said swith a cocky grin right before Terrista grabbed her.


"Ugh! Leggo," she mutters as she squirms out of the hug. "Your grip's tighter than ever," the pirate girl mutters as she straightens out her coat and adjusts her hat. "Which sunken city? There's like, I dunno, more of 'em than I can count."


Jubal cocked an eyebrow. "Good to know." Then, he responded to her question about the sunken city. "She means Luthe. You know, old First Age joint. Used to be run by Leviathan. As for how we found your manse, we have a map of the dragon lines in Creation."


Terrista laughs and claps the smaller girl on the back. "Big first age one that ain't sunk anymore. Lots'a fancy boats. What're you sailin these days anyway?"


"Me?" Nalera asks, "Just a little sail dinghy I had custom made. Something I could operate alone. . . crew just slows me down, yanno?" She then glances back toward the entrance, "What's this I hear about lotsa fancy boats back at your place, though?"


"Oh, quite a few; magic ones too. I'll take you back and you can see'em yourself, but you gotta show me yours first." She looks around suddenly, only just now appearing to notice the other two. "Oh, and these be me mates; Syren and Jubal. Solar and a draggy. Thinkin about it, I guess I didn't ask what you're doin with a manse anyhow; you exalt or what?"


"Exalt? Me?" Nalera asks as she strides past toward the entrance to the manse, waving a hand to follow. "Now whatever would give you that idea?" As she finishes this sentence she turns back, a hollow golden ring glowing brightly on her forehead.


Syren whispers into Terrista's ear, "That's a pound of silver, she was too sneaky not to be a Night."


Reaching the entry dock, the water level is quite low, and some stairs lead down the 'dock' to allow easy access to the submarines, but also to a door leading outside. She exits and reveals a small ship, a dinghy really, with a mast and single sail. As far as size--and probably ability--it's not that impressive, but the figurehead on the prow is an incredibly lifelike, if slightly idealized, carving of Nalera herself. Her arms reach back across the front of the ship to the deck's railings, which are each coming from a flame piece in each of the figurehead's hands, and are stylized as columbs of flame.


"Ain't much, but she's mine."


Syren stares at the figurehead, examining it closely slowly spreading smirk coming across his face, "Ignoring our artifacts I cannot imagine a better craft for a Night caste sea ambusher. Small, barely notable, speedy and ready to carry a payload full of fire, death, and fear."


"Yes, very humble." Jubal chuckled. "Sorry about before, I saw how armed you are and made an assumption. I'm a Wood Aspect, in case you didn't notice."


Terrista walks around the boat, looking it over. "You got pretty good if you can handle'er this far out in the ocean..." She gives a sharp laugh as she reaches the figurehead. "If they ain't gonna see you in a fight, at least they see you somewhere."


"I'll bet you are," Nalera responded to Jubal with a wink, before turning back to her ship, with a chuckle. "Yeah, I think I may have scared the shipwright a bit. Free of charge, don't usually take her out too far, though. I can swim faster than any boat can sail, jus' didn't wanna be all wet for my guests."


"Hah!" Terrista laughs, "she's got you pegged, Jubal. Well, we got a ship back at the entrance to take us back to me own vessel. Gonna come along?"


"Can't turn down a chance to see these fancy ships of yours, I guess," Nalera said with a grin. "I'll have to take the lady, though," She continues, thrusting a thumb at her own boat. "She's not sturdy enough to sit in the middle of the ocean alone, and I don't wanna leave the manse visible while we're away."


"Hmm..." Terrista looks the boat over again, holding her hands apart as if trying to do some spacial calculations. "Miiiight fit inside Vermillion..." (Vermillion's cargo bay can fit a couple warstriders, so if it's just like, personal sailboat size, we can probably stick it in with the dolphin).


"Well, if you got a way, I've got a will," Nalera replies. "Let's get goin'."




-------
SIONE AND NARISA, NARISA'S ROOM
-------
Narisa's door looms coldly infront of the Supreme Commander of Luthe. Has he the nerve to face the enigmatic dragonblooded sorceress, or has he come this far only to turn back now?


"Meow!"


"Chance hush! I'm just... thinking of what I'm going to say... is all." Sione was hesitant to admit that, while he was basically comfortable around the Solars (and Jubal) by this point, he was less certain around these new Terrestials. The bald girl looked like she was going to punch when he spoke out! What if the sorcerer was also crazy like her?


Swallowing his concern, he took a broad step forward, and knocked on the door.


'Just remember Sione, you're the commander of this boat. No fist can shake your supremity!'


After a moment the door slides to the side with the mechanical swish Sione has, probably, gotten used to hearing, and Narisa's room is revealed.


It. . . it's a mess. A glorious, glorious mess.


Maps of essence lines are pasted up on the wall, along with diagrams depicting sorcerous rituals and mechanical intricacies, most half finished. Sione can understand the latter, some things for essence focusing, schematics from Luthe, a few diagrams depicting the interiors of warstriders and first age engines. A bed to the side is likewise covered in parchments and books. . .


Across the room from him, Narisa is closing up a couple of books. "Oh um. . . excuse the mess, Supreme Commander? Did--did you need something from me?"


'Oh no! She's nervous, assure her you're friendly!'


"IT IS OKAY YOU MAY CALL ME SIONE!" He shouted.


Chance swatted his leg.


"Uh. Uh. Uh. I mean... you can just call me Sione... yeah."


"Sorry for yelling."


"Yeah."


"Uh, I wanted to ask you about sorcery. You, seem to know a lot about it," he motioned towards the rituals and stuff. "Could you, teach me some sorcery? Like, how to do it?"


Narisa blinked rapidly and cowered back in her chair at the shouting, and strainge. . . mannerisms of their Supreme Commander. Was this really the person they put in charge?


Regardless, she let out a slow calming breath as Sione apologized, however, her eyes went wide at his question. "M-me? Are. . . are you sure you want to learn from me?"


Sione's eyes once again scan over the sorcerous diagrams on the walls, as well as the Essence Maps and the mechanical designs. After giving them a good look he returns his eyes to Narisa.


"Uh, yeah, you seem qualified. So long as you're willing to that is. I can understand if you're maybe busy."


She looks over the diagrams. Could he read those? God they were so embarassing. Half-finished designs, and possible repair notes, all scribbled together haphazardly. She then glances back at him and shakes her head with a slight blush. "Um n-no, it's fine! I, um, I can probably make some time, though Kalim and I are supposed to set out soon, and um. . . maybe we could work on figuring out your trials and you can do those while I'm gone?" she offers.


"Oh yes! Any help you could offer is great. Just, some help in getting started is good, once I feel I got a handle on it I can take a swing on my own I think. I'd really be greatfule for any sort of assistance."




Narisa tapped a finger over her lips and took a moment to think as Sione agreed. Tutelage was taken care of, probably. Maybe. Well if she didn't count maybe she could find him someone else. Regardless that left four other trials.


Humility--he would need to be humiliated and humbled, Journey--he would need to go and see someplace very different than wavecrest or Luthe, Fear--he needs to face his fear, and Sacrifice--he would need to sacrifice something important.


But what was important to him, and what did he fear? Narisa didn't know, but, she decided, that could come later. For now, Humility and Journey.


"Okay, while I'm gone, Sione, I want you to do two things for me--the first is to travel to the isle with the rest of the officers, and the second. . . first I need to ask what you take pride in."


"What I take pride in?..." Sione pauses a moment, his eyes turning to the ceiling. "Uh, well, I guess what I value most is just knowing a lot of things! Scholarly stuff is what I'm best at, and I just take pride in having knowledge."


"Hmm," The dragonblood sorceress replies, tapping a finger over her lips a few more times before responding. "I believe I have an idea, but it will take some time--so it will have to wait until after the isle as well! Just make sure you see as much as possible, okay? The journey is important."


--------
TERRISTA AND WHOEVER ELSE WANTS: READING RAINBOW 2: ENTER THE FIST
--------


Some time in a not-too-distant possible future, Terrista, inimitable scarlet fist, would-be fist queen of the Realm, dawn caste of the solar exalted sits at a table in one of Luthe's communal dining areas surrounded by books in various states of disrepair; titles range from "Das Gossamer," to "Managing the Modern RPC," to "Wyldship Troopers in the 41st Deliberative Millenium," (the cover of which depicts a number of large men in terrestrial battle armour fighting an insectile behemoth with chainsaw daiklaves), with a much smaller book titled "The Little Red Empress" embedded three inches into a nearby wall. Currently she is channeling the entirety of her valour to turn just one more page of "Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour." Everyone seems to be giving her a very wide berth; in one corner, an octopus man is consoling a shark man who exhibits signs of post traumatic stress disorder.


"Azure... you still there? Okay...why don't the prisoners try to escape?"


*fwish*


Sione's footsteps tap on into the room as the startrek doors part for him. He pauses momentarily as he sees the odd state of the room, with the traumatized beatman in the corner and a book sticking out from the wall. His eyes widen slightly and an eyebrow is raised.


"Uh, hey Terrista," he says cautiously. "What's the problem... do you... not know how to read?"


Passing by Terrista's table with a food-laden tray, Jubal overheard her question for Azure, raising an eyebrow. "The Prisoner's Dilemma, huh?" He said curiously, turning to the pirate. "Yeah, I hated that part."


Terrista looks up at Sione very slowly, the force of her anima creating a visible depression in the floor. "You think I just walked onto Vermillion and punched controls until she started up!?"


Vermillion's voice blips over the comm, "that's not actually very far-"


"SHUT UP!"


She notices Jubal and, dangerously irritated, responds "It's stupid! Even if one's a coward, the other one's mates'll hang'im up by his toes!"


"Maybe a little?" He responded meekly as he took a few small steps backwards.


Jubal chuckled. "Yes it is. Anyway, they're not in an actual prison, you know. I mean, they could be, but not necessarily. The dilemma is more metaphorical than that. Also, if escape is an option then obviously they should take it, but then it's not really a Prisoner's Dilemma."


"Can I ask why the sudden interest in economics?"


Terrista's body engages its natural response to gibberish, and it is only with great effort that she unclenches her fist. Sione would be vaporized in the shockwave, she tells herself. "If it ain't a real prison, then who. Are. The prisoners? How does anyone learn anything from all this shit? Flyin manuals're easy; just tell you exactly what's what. Ain't no 'combat suite dilemma.'"


"The prisoners are metaphorical, too." Jubal replied, grinning. "And yeah, economics are crazy. I dunno if I can come up with an example..." He said, looking thoughtful.


"Actually," Azure pipes in, cheerily, and then Sione begins to speak.


Sione flinches a bit, but lets out a sigh of relief when he realizes he didn't die. "...Maybe I can help?"


He walks up a bit closer to the two. "Lets, say, hypothetically, we both have guns-" he pauses and reaches into his coat - "actually I do have a gun." He pulls out his plasma tongue repeater. "But lets say, hypothetically, you also had a gun. And that if I shot you, you'd be hurt just as much as I would. So, we're both shouting, 'put the gun down', but neither of us are going to, because we don't want the other to have an advantage. So, even though the smart thing to do would be to put the guns away and talk shit out, neither of us will because we don't trust a stranger to not screw us over should we offer a potential advantage. ...does that help?"


"Master Sione, has spelled out the combat suite dilemma! If you both put the guns down, neither gets hurt, and it is the best outcome! But it is dangerous to trust the other to disarm as well!"


"And no, you can't dodge or block the shot, or knock the gun out of the other guy's hand before he shoots you." Jubal interjected deadpanly.


"Okay, see now that makes sense, but what's it gotta do with money?"


"I dunno," the alchemist shrugs his arms, gun still in hand. "Maybe there's, like, a big sack of money between the two?" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0BrdMi-oyc )


Syren kicks down the door to Rock You Like a Hurricane, looking somewhat indignant about the trio and their discussion, "You are all terrible." He lifted his hand, "Azure load Game Theory lecture notes." A collection of graphs appear behind Syren animated by the AI, dominated by 5 distinct bullet points, at the time empty and he coughs faintly, "Game Theory is not solely about economics. It is about decision making, and strategy. It is the use of logical models in order to understand what course of action you should make, reducing the world down to basic games. It can be used in psychology, sociology, war, economics, politics and even science; and to know just one game, like the one that Sione gave(the Game of Chicken as it was named) is not enough. There are multiple models and games that can be learned and by knowing them and studying the mindsets of other players you can inevitably lead yourself to an informed decision."


A model of the Prisoner's Dilemma appears behind him, "The Prisoner's Dilemma, as you saw it is in fact just as flawed when taken on its own..." He stops suddenly, "I am starting to go out of control. Further lessons on GAMES and WINNING will be done in the ampitheatre at 1300!" He stood for a moment, "Unless you would like to run a Q&A..."


"Aaaaaand I'm out of here." Jubal mumbled, exiting stage left.


"Yeah I'm lost too, I'm going to go shoot things. C'ya," Sione said in response to the political mumbo-jumbo as he left the room.


"By the way Sione... you should really stop carrying that gun around. You're going to shoot yourself in the foot." Jubal said to the mortal as they left together.


"I gotta learn more than one o'these things?" Terrista says with an exasperated sigh, and considers just beating her head against the wall for awhile, but reasons that the wall would break before it had any noticeable effect. ". . . .fine. 1300 hours, but so help me if this shit doesn't make sense when we're done..."


Syren crosses his arms grinning, "If nothing else I am a gifted teacher." He nodded his head before pulling his cloak up, teleporting from the room.

--------

[Krylo]

------
GARRET AND TERRISTA, VERMILLION HAMMER
------


A shadow sweeps across the deck of Luthe, passing silently and unnoticed by any as it approaches the Vermillion Hammer. Within, Terrista rests, unsuspecting.


BUT EVER READY TO ACT! DEEP IN A MEDITATIVE TRANCE, TERRISTA IS AWARE OF HER SURROUNDINGS FOR MILES. NOT A SINGLE MOTE OF DUST ESCAPES HER NOTICE! NOTHING-


"Snore"


*Foom* A loud shockwave washes over the deck as a spout of water erupts out in the ocean, the result of a supersonic force smashing into the waves. Embarrassed, Garret returned Redemption to it's spot on his back and rubed the back of his neck. "Ok, put to much into that. Really have to remember to hold back for... mortal stuff."


Without a job, the Solar thief had found himself turning to hobbies to occupy his time. The latest was fishing.


Turned out you could catch a lot of fish with a Soulsteel bow.


Well, he decided as he returned to his course towards Vermillion, he'd go collect later. He'd had a few questions to ask Terrista for a while, so since he was in the area...


He hopped up onto the ships deck. "Hey, anyone up around here?"


A terrible rumbling emanates from deep within Vermillion. "Good morning, Garret," Vermillion's disembodied voice says. "Terrista will be up in just a moment." This is followed by a loud crash and some distant sounds of shouting, and then silence. A few minutes later, Terrista emerges from below decks, blinking spots from her eyes.


"Mornin. What's goin on?"


"Yo," Garret greeted her with a lazy salute, having taken a perch on the side of the ship, dangling his legs over the edge. "Nothing much. Was in the area, was bored. Figured I'd say hi. Wanna talk?"


She shrugs and walks over to sit next to him. "Sure. 'Bout what?"


"Eh, we just haven't had much of a chance to get to know one another yet. I've been traveling with the others for years, so I know them pretty well, but you.. You're new, so I figured I should get to know you properly, y'know?" He shrugged, "Or something. So, call me curious. When'd you Exalt? That's usually an interesting story."


"Oh, that's more a story o'political coincidence. See, Peleps takes Guild bribes, but that don't mean everyone in Peleps is friends with the guild. I'd got meself pretty well known for hittin their ships, and I scored some fancy note off Peleps that said I was above the law at sea. Well, turns out dependin on how much money they get paid, they don't always honour those. So a few bribes later, and I found meself facin down a couple'a draggies on navy ships. They cornered us, boarded, and killed most o'me crew, and they were comin over to pick me up so they could gimme the hemp later." She makes a motion behind her head like someone pulling on a noose. "Whole thing just pissed me off; me crew was dead, Peleps were cowards, and the Guild was gettin whatever they wanted for a bit o'coin, and I couldn't do nothin about it. Everyone else always says the sun talked to'em, or they remembered somethin, but I didn't get none o'that. I was gonna fight to the end; kept movin, didn't stop throwin punches. I'd been there before, but not against draggies. I don't know exactly when the I took the breath, but it was somewhere in all that. Didn't notice 'til there was no one left to hit."


"Impressive. Yeah, I can see that." Garret glanced over to her. "Y'know, the only Solar I've met who's really mentioned what the Sun said to them was Semara... And reall,y 'Endure' is a pretty debatable message to get. Not sure how I'd take that one. But, I didn't get anything from him either, just a bright circle glowing on my forehead. Just as I was making my perfect get away, too, all kinds of awkward. So I guess we have that in common. Did you get much of your last life? Adjusting to Silent's memories was... weird."


His gaze drew distant for a moment, before he shook his head and grinned. "Eh, not important, really. So what'd you decide to do with your Exaltation? Still after the guild?"


"Never got any memories. For all I know, I don't got a 'last life.'" She looks over at the night caste. "Do with it? I didn't get me spirit from exaltin; me own plans ain't changed much. Travelin around, I seen Immaculates tellin people they can't do anything, nobles hoardin coin so no one else gets it, military keepin people from so much as holdin steel in their own defense; they use fear and power to keep everyone else down, all outta fear of lettin anyone else have just the tiniest bit o'power to challenge them. If someone's gonna cut down their enemies, I ain't real bothered, but holdin down the whole world just so you don't gotta face anyone? That's cowards, and I'll bring them down meself." She holds a rather intense stare for a moment before relaxing. "How 'bout you? What's Garret's dream?"


"So yeah, same as ever then? Hm, interesting." He tilted his head back for a moment before considering her question. "My dream?" He shrugs a little. "I want to fix the world up so it's not a hell hole to live in. Maybe not make a new first age, that... That didn't go so well, but something better for the people, definitely. Used to be I just wanted to be the best thief in Coral - Then the world, until I landed up with the others dealing with the deathlord's plague. Turns out traveling the world and seeing how close to disaster it is can change your perspective a little. Who'da thought it?" He chuckled a little, shaking his head. "Yeah, I just want to set the world up so it works, and then I can fuck off and do my own thing. I don't have any interest in being a god king or whatever. Talk to Elly about that stuff."


"So where'd you find Vermillion, anyway?" he asked, switching the subject.


She raises an eyebrow at the night. "All this talkin's got me parched; you bring something to drink?"


"'Fraid not. Doesn't vemillion keep a stocked cabinet? Surely that's the pirate way?"


"You want me stories and you didn't even bring a drink?" She asks, with (mostly) mock offense. "We're gonna have to learn you some manners. There's a code, you know."


A sharkman arrives carrying a bottle of dark rum on a silver platter, with a few limes, sugar cubes, nutmeg and glasses, "From Lord Huang, on the order of 'any time the Admiral desires a drink.'"


"Now there's a man who knows how to treat his friends." She grabs the bottle and takes a swig before passing it to Garret. Exhaling sharply, she slaps the shark man on his shoulder; "thanks, matey. Alright, well... hey, Vermillion, you here?"


"I'm always here, Captain. You know this."


"Yeah yeah, ya bloody skyboat. You know the first part better'n I do, so you tell it," she says, seemingly unaware that Vermillion still calls her captain. She takes one of the lime slices and hands it to a large, colourful parrot that had emerged from below decks when the drink arrived, and promptly settled in on her shoulder.


"Aye, Captain. In Deliberative year 3706, this vessel's previous captain, Red Comet, sojourned into the wyld. One week after departure, his crew unexpectedly staged a coordinated mutiny..." Vermillion trails off, her voice losing none of its composure; she simply pauses a moment. "...Red Comet successfully slew the mutineers; all of his terrestrial retainers as well as my-the crew. However, a sidereal assassin had hidden himself aboard the vessel and surprised the captain when his essence had been depleted... My captain died, and the assassin left me bereft in the wyld. I am not capable of navigating wyld waypoints without a navigator, so there I remained. Some time later, the hearthstone which powered me shattered, and I shut down. I awo- this vessel was discovered by the Abyssal known as Dancer in the Mad Forest in Realm year 764."


"Damn, Vermillion, just tell the story like you mean it!"


"Noted. That... thing fed me with a death aspected hearthstone." Her tone grows venomous. "It was disgusting, sickness. I didn't know what it was or what he was, but he was attuned, and his caste mark registered as solar, so there was nothing I could do about his insanity."


"Aye, but you were smart about it. Vermillion tricked the little rat," Terrista adds.


"If he knew I was here, Dancer would have found some way to twist and bind me. I... hid, and waited, and let him deface my hull with skins and bones from the people he used me to massacre."


"You might still be with him if you hadn't. It were the right thing to do, Vermillion." By now the parrot has finished making a mess of its lime and is busily wiping its beak on Terrista's sleeve. "Damn it bird! I'll keelhaul ye!" She shakes her shoulder, and it flies off to perch on a nearby rail and continue observing the conversation. Terrista grabs the rum back from Garret and quafs some more. "Alright so, round'about then, I'd been up in Dragon's Jaw roundin up a new boat'n crew, and I guess that fucker decided he was gonna take the port or blow it up or something; I never asked. Bastard's half wyld-crazed as it is. Anyway, he shows up there on Vermillion shootin this way an' that, so I gets meself all shiny to fight back, and soon as me caste mark's showin, the whole thing just stops dead." She chuckles a bit, laughing as she continues the story, "well ol' Dancer comes out on the deck an' he's just'a screamin. Shoulda seen the look on his face after he kicked one o'the essence cannons, an' Vermillion flipped herself on and told him... heh, what was it?"


"Core essence type not recognized. Potential hazard. Shutting down as per safety protocol 1154."


"HAH! Yeah that was it. So Dancer's just runnin this way and that and yellin, and he doesn't know what's what. Vermillion locks the door on him and just says 'I can't do that, Dancer' when he yells at her, and then she shuts up. Well that's about when I got up there and told him to get his arse off me ship. I did it with less words and more punchin though. About then everyone on the dock were cryin 'anathema' so he hightailed it outta there. Vermillion told me how to start her up, so I got below deck, stuck me own hearthstone in, and took off. And that was that. We been sailin the skies oh, five or six years now."

[Girasol of Chaos]

It's not ghost Nappa.

EDIT: MY MAC HATES ME Here's the file

[Krylo]

LUTHAN LIFE:


You guys haven't touched this in weeks. That makes me sad =[ We went to hell! The past few weeks have been like, one looooong day, maybe three, for our characters! Do you want us to explore the cartoon exploits of our familiars? I have the best familiars. Sadly they are not in Exalted. Hell omakes where we help Ligier get a date with Erembour? Well, Ligier COULD use a girlfriend, but no--you've just got a few unfinished ones down there, and this was meant to be stuff happening in Luthe during timeskips and stuff. I cannot hope to finish without an Elly, and the Elly herself has a somewhat not reliable connection. Sorry, I just kinda got all apathetic towards doing omakes.


If you would like to have any scenes with any NPCs, request, and or set them, and we can run out some scenes in the pad in character. You can also have them with each other, of course.


Syren wants to teach Elly to read(OldRealm) I'd like to learn to read~ (Syren started it on line 198 67 96, kinda hard to find if you don't know it's there Ah, okay)


Also Sione wants Elly to show him how to aim a gun on Line 172 Right.




Sione and Chance


“Meow.”

“Yeah I missed you too cat,” Sione responded happily as he glided into his alchemy lab. He immediately moved forth, scooped Chance into his arms, and went with him to the hangar.

“Meow?”

“You know, I had a lot of time to think in hell, maybe I was just being silly hating boats.” He said as he untied a rather mundane skiff from the bay. “Still not fond of dad of course, but maybe I was too harsh on sailing this whole time.”

The small boat collided with the vast ocean waters and began to drift out. It was a surprisingly relaxed and pleasant day. The sky was blue, the wind was soft. There were no wyld terrors or heaven storm in sight. Just him, his cat, and the wind.

Sione laid on his back, staring at the clear clouds above him, letting in a calm that that he never thought he’d have again after all that Hell. Chance padded over and laid down next to him.

“Meow.”

“Oh shut up you.”


------


Syren and Elly
------


Syren stood in front of a digitized screen being manifested by Azure, as of now it was blank, and he stood in the middle of an empty ampitheatre that he ha taken up for the sake of educating the people of Luthe. Today he had cancelled his class for the sake of educating just one person. He tapped his foot as he waited for that one student to arrive.


A few moments past schedule, Elesis, who had at the time not remembered that Syren had even scheduled this until a moment after it was supposed to start, rushes into the room, checking her personal timepiece and frowning. "That's like, only two minutes late. Totally not my fault." (make her stand in the hall holding buckets of water)


Syren does not respond, he merely stares at her as she slowly takes her place in the classroom, wherever that may be. His stare follows her slowly, and regardless of what fanfare she makes on the way there his face does not change in its seriousness. When she is seated he begins,


"War."


A massive symbol appears behind him, a symbol in old realm with all its intricacies and details, "Soldier." Another replaces the first, "Killer. Fighter. Thug." They appeared one after the other before a smile came across his face, "Hero." One last symbol stood over his head, "What do these words mean to you Elesis?"


But it didn't really matter what she said as long as she said something. The imortant part was that these words had meanings, close in comparison, but distinctly different, "This is language, the use of meanings in order to describe concepts or things to others. Its unity is the most basic backbone in great societies, and the Primordial host was no different." His body was surrounded with a myriad of strange approximations that may have been the Primordials themselves, or at least an artistic deptiction that Azure apperated, "The language they created was one fitting to their mindset, one that is consistently fluid, expansive, creative. A language made for those who had no known limitations, and consistently would introduce novel ideas some that even broke old ideas asunder. A language that could explain these strange things with absolute detail and destinction that to this day can still not be matched by anything introdced since. It has had many names, but in the modern day there is one. Old Realm."
---------
Semara, Sione and Narisa iiiin: WE DIG GIANT ROBOTS
--------
All about Semara asking Sione and Narisa to fix up the royal warstrider so she can awaken it's least god.


"Good afternoon, I'm glad you came." Semara says, rising to her feet as the alchemist and the sorceress entered her apartments. As Luthe had been fixed, the Circle had slowly migrated inward to the rooms originally designed for Luthe's exalted residents, although the ones intended for the Dragonblooded had been in a terrible shambles. Semara had been sitting in the lounge room, dressed casually in a light robe.


"Please take a seat." the Zenith says. "Would you like anything to eat?" she asks as she kneels in front of the low table, pouring tea for each of them. "I'm sure you're curious why I asked you here under such secrecy."


"Oh... this was supposed to be a secret?" Sione asked as he took a seat. 'Well, I guess its not like Chance CAN tell anyone so it shouldn't be a big deal."


"Uh, well, I guess I'm curious yeah, not so much hungry."
("Meow." Syren stares at the cat, "A secret meeting? Good, keep your eye on Sione, and be sure he never sees us speak.")
Narisa takes a seat next to Sione and sips a bit of tea silently, waiting for Semara to explain on her own time.


Semara blushes a little. "Not so much secret, I suppose, as it is I'm embarrased it's selfish." she explains, turning her own tea-cup in her hands. "You know how I rode in the royal warstrider when we fought the wyld behemoth?" she asks, pausing for a sign of acknowledgement. "I felt the divine soul in the warstrider then. It's... sleeping." Her eyes go a little distant as she thinks back. "Or maybe it was never properly born?" she adds, questioning her recollection.


She looks seriously at Sione and Narisa, green eyes intent. "I would like to awaken it." she says.


Burrowing one hand in her thick blonde hair, she smiles ruefully as she pulls her fingers through it and then traces the the line of her chin. "I've asked Twilight Azure about it, and he said it's possible, but the prayer has to be made on the first dawn of the new year, and the warstrider has to be prepared for it. I fear the technical details of it turn my head."


"I'd hoped to ask if you could help me, but it feels like such a selfish request. It might take up as much as a month of your time, and I know you're both very busy attending to Luthe and with your own work." She sighs. "It just seems such a shame to use Caladeus in its sleepwalking state."


"Well, I don't think I've repaired much to that scale yet. Could make for an interesting test of my abilities. It would be likely be quite an undertaking though... Narisa what do you think?"


Narisa blinks. Semara wants her to work on a royal warstrider? Her mouth moves soundlessly a few times, and then she catches herself and shouts out a quick, "Yes!" After a second she pulls back, "Um. . . Um. . . I mean, I'd be delighted to help with it, if um, you think I'm capable."


Sione's eyes shift towards the ceiling for a second, and then they flick back to Semara. "Alright then, I'll take a crack at it then. I've been more than a bit curious about these things since my brief stint with MEGAS. When do you want us to start?"


"How about [ONE MONTH BEFORE HELL], if you think you can finish it by then?" Semara asks.


Semara claps her hands together. "Really, you'll do it?" she asks, eyes sparkling. "I have the utmost confidence in your abilities." she tells Narisa firmly. "Please, when you can find a moment we can take a look and get your own estimate of how involved it'll be."




-----
Elesis and Sione Escape from Guantanamo Bay
-----


It was mid-day in Luthe by this point, but that didn't matter as Sione was seeking a Dawn. He stumbled through the endless corridors on his search for Elesis until he found himself in the training area, where Elesis was running drills with the soldiers of Luthe now under her command since the city's conquest.


Not wanting to interrupt, atleast not yet, he waited off to the side of the area until she had a free moment for him to ask her a question.


Elesis catches Sione's arrival out of the corner of her eye, and after reaching a suitable stopping point, walks over to the supreme commander, draws her electronic bosun's whistle, and blows it, with a proper "Captain on deck!" declaration afterwards. Clearing her throat, she lowers her voice, "So uh, Sione. What brings you here?"


"Thanks for the introduction," he says a bit dully in response to the whistle before moving on to his question. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt anything important. I just wanted to ask something."


He fishes around his jacket for a second before drawing the fire weapon he had scavenged from the interior of Luthe, It was in surprisingly good shape, possibly having been fixed an cleaned recently by Sione himself.


"I'm not exactly much good in any sort of fight unless I'm capable of throwing something at my enemies," he explains. "I'd like to be able to have a more reliable means of defending myself on the off-chance one of you guys can't help me out. Do you think you could perhaps give me a bit of a hand in figuring out how this thing works?"


"Something like this." Elesis punches Sione gently in the forehead, having forseen his desire to learn archery weeks ago, and activating Tiger Warrior Training Technique in advance, emulating, casually and calmly, drawing and firing katas, geometric stances, and the simplistic way a gunslinger should hold and carry themselves to be ready for combat. All at once, like a mental block shattering in his brain, Sione understands this subliminal training.


He simply knows archery. "You know? Now go practice it."


-----



WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR OFF TIME:


Terrista
- Flying off occasionally to keep pressure on Guild shipping lanes
- Trying to convince Jinira to spar more and at the same time teach her better punching
- Probably giving people rides on occasion
- Getting accustomed to the boats in Luthe's navy
- Teaching Sakuya Solar Hero
- Grudgingly learning one dot of bureaucracy
Syren's Five Basic Game Theory Lessons


Never play a strictly dominated strategy.




Rational choice can lead to outcomes that are inefficient.




You can't get what you want if you don't know what you want.




Put yourself in other's shoes, know what they want to get what you want.




Anyone educated in Game Theory is Evil.


-Dying


Semara
- Meditation
- Prayer
- Kung fu (Kung Fu is pedestrian street brawling invented by peasants. You know Solar Hero Style)
- Song and dance
- Matchmaking
- 'Exploring' Luthe
- Chatting with everyone (and I do mean everyone)
- She's probably finished the Big Book of Tepet by now.


Sione
-Study older alchemy/thaumaturgy books.
-Work on fixing broken artifacts he comes across (like the folding servant robot).
-Learn a dot of archery for the plasma tongue repeater?
-Learn Sorcery?




Syren
"And to think, all that time they were just holding me back."
-Joining the Guild, taking control.
-Planting the seeds of dissension around the economic landscape of Creation.
-Establishing an extensive spy network of enlightened humans with sorcery.
-Getting a hold of someone to help him on an expedition to Rathess.
-Taking that same group down south into the Imperial Mountain.
-Taking that same group to start working with other Solar groups he is aware of in the world.
-Preparing for operation: Phoenix Ash
-Preparing for operation: Games of Divinity
-Preparing for operation: Deadlands
-Preparing for operation: Human Instrumentality
-Preparing for operation: Shining Answer
-Preparing a place for everything.
-Putting everything in its place.- Worshipping SWLiHN.


Elesis
- Assisting Terrista with piracy, not because she needs it but because it's enjoyable. Yo ho yo ho, a pirate's life for me
- Practicing weapon-switching and intricate, impractical combinations on holo-targets after-hours in the training room, trying to achieve the concept of 'maximum stylish'.
- Taking Sione to the shooting range.
- Reading books (Poorly), and learning old realm, probably from Sione.
- Cartography of the seafloor by watching her Atlas and scribbling down terrain features, simply to pass the time.


Garret
- Being bored
- Finding hobbies
- Being asked to stop with his new hobbies
- Being bored again
- Also training!
-Being a better thief than Carmen (Stolen from Carmen's list)


Tedow
-Napping
-Eating Ice Cream
-Drinking Tea
-Inventing New Ice Cream/Tea Flavors
-More Napping
-Hiding from Jinira
-Hiding from anyone who wants him to do actual work


Sakuya
-Drinking
-Training
-Smacking Kalim around (Training!)
-Napping
-Elesis
-Perving on young female trainees (Sakuya you're like 100 years old stop being such a cougar)


Carmen


-Not being noticed
-Not Exalting only because the Shards can't find her.


Current
-Practicing gunmanship with only one hand
-Trying not to murder everyone around him with resonance
-Adjusting to freedom
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCSdLtNZbaA


Neeran
-Getting high
-Throwing impromptu parties
-Getting high at impromptu parties
-Trying to convince Syren to work a lot of forgiveness and hippy shit into the law


Jinira
-Hiding from Terrista You know, Jinny, I could teach you some of the tricks Semara's trying to learn, and you could... help her
-Hounding Tedow for philosophical answers regarding the anathema question
-Drawing pictures of herself and Semara in hearts
-Reading and trying to discover the truth about the order


Kalim
-Awkwardly dating Narisa
-Training to be the very best, like no one ever was.
-Being INTENSE
-Trying to not be so INTENSE
-Looking for a master for the last few charms of Even Blade that Sakuya won't teach him.


Narisa
-Even more awkwardly dating Kalim
-Studying
-Avoiding social interaction when at all possible
-Poking at various pieces of magitech and fixing what she can


Ianna
-Challenging the entire dojo of mortals to a grand melee
-Writing sobriquets about the grand melees
-Nagging Neeran to come with her on adventures
-Leaving on her own to go on adventures (if they're wyld adventures, I'm going with her)(they are, she mostly hunts other Raksha) (Duchy of Mirrors or just for fun Or both?) (Mostly fun. Her motivation is to make Raksha stop hollowing mortals as mortals are too much fun to ruin like that--also because fighting other Raksha makes for better stories.(perfect. I want graces)


Gavrane
-Adjusting to freedom
-Helping his people adjust
-Training his dragon given powers
-Helping instill loyalty to the solars in the population

PC's Fun Corner:
Put whatever silly things you want down in here.


Sione's to-do list (in descending order of priority)
1. Teach Azure what love is. I don't suggest gettin in Vermillion's way - Sione and Azure are bros now this is basically accomplished
2. Organize cat army
3. Ride a giant crystal-wasp
4. Ride a giant robot - I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be number 3 but he did it anyways so its unimportant. I suppose it can be replaced with riding a NEW giant robot. This time in the shape of Big-O.
5. Get An Alchemy lab - basically has one on Luthe that he sleeps in. Also has the outsourcing cauldron which he wants no on to see.
Become a god?
Establish Thaumaturgy/Sorcery School with himself as Supreme Headmaster?
Break the world with Alchemy (SINGULARITYYYYYY)
Find a Giant Robot for Chance too


Jubal's to-do list:
1. Decide that Anathema are actually nice guys. Huge dicks: You'll be meeting Syren. "And you picked up a pet Dragon Blooded? FANtastic." "He doesn't like it when we call him that, for some reason." "They have this sort of unfounded sense of self importance." "I know, right? He got mad when I told him to carry the luggage, too..." And everyone Solar laughs.
2. Dodge charms.
2.5. Dodge specialties.
3. Dodge Specialty Focus.
4. Presence charms.
5. Essence 4.
6. Surging Martial Arts Mastery.
7. Master Five-Dragon Style.
8. Learn Fire Dragon Style.
8.5. Pick up some Jade Shortklaives.
?. Pick up Dragon-Graced Weapon, Fire and Air and Water.
?. Challenge Sakuya to a match.(She'll be dead by then you know.)
?. JUSTICE
A hero doesn't need charms or special weapons! One who thinks 'Oh, if only I had Fire Dragon Style!' can never reach the top. True heroism lies in believing in your own strength until the very end. For surely, a true hero has a dragon in their heart!Trogdor?


Semara's to-do list:
1: remember to sort that child of siakal business
2: vengeance spirits no longer needed
3: Hijack Hang Ten
?: save brother from conspiracy/succession hijinks/politics
?: master kung-fu
?: how do I politics?
?: soak charms
?: become more manipulative.
?: remain oblivious
?: ???
?: GOD-EMPRESS OF THE REALMCREATION


Garret's To Do List (In no particular order):
Steal things!
Archery 5
Dodge 5
Awareness 5 (God damnit Carmen) (GOD DAMNIT NOT!CARMEN)
Charms!
Grandmaster Garret representative for an organization that doesn't really exist. But if it did would totally not be a national spy organization.


Elesis' To-do list:
1: Figure out how to incorporate archery into my style. Finally did this for realsies.
2: Master the rest of Princess Invincible's personal melee secret artes. Use them to kill three abyssals at the same time, alone.
3: Learn war. More war than I know already, anyway. Find out what war is good for. Absolutely nothing. Kaimi killed the first army we fought.
3.5: Reinvent war to be useful Krylo did this.
4: Soup?! Deal with that. Sounds important. Maybe earlier in this list. Oh, and a hearthstone. I need one of those. One that doesn't ruin my valor score.
5: Steal Luthe. Punch out Leviathan. (Close enough)
6: Become a Tactical Genius(TM). Learn to infiltrate first age warmachines behind trees. We have the warmachines now, so I need to do this.
7: Rebuild Ionia On hold.
8: Block an earthquake or similar force of nature using Guarding Star Tactics. (Learn that first.) Declare that my allies may as well be invincible too.Did that, didn't need GST anyway.
9: Fulfill my promise to Abyssal!Kade and kill Mask of Winters. Get Calm to help, because she hates him too.
10: Systematically kill all major threats to creation. Now serving #5
"Arhra: I cannot name a specific example for Elesis because she is intense all the time" (A quote worth saving, in my opinion.)
?. Lord Commander Militant Elesis high command of the Celestial Armed Forces
Parry the ground? Parry the MOON. I will settle for parrying a nuclear explosion.


Things Syren would like to do while he is in An-Teng:
Explore the City of Dead Flowers
Talk with the Golden Lord
Avoid the Pale Mistress
Stare into the wings of a Bangi Fly
Plant a seed of doubt in the Seven-Stranded Vine
Exorcise his grandmother
Buy an Elephant
Spend an Evening in the Dwelling of the Serpents who Walk like Men
Pick up a Spread the Water Knife


Things Syren is saving for later:
Retaking the City of Dead Flowers
Finding the original royal bloodline of the three princes and the High Queen.
Finding the royal rainment of the High Queen
Beginning his own social movement in an attempt to return An Teng to pre-Shogunate era greatness.
Picking up a Title based on his deeds.
Taking back the royal artifacts and superimposing his image on the Ancestral Sash
Completely destroying the Domain of the Silver Crowned
Attempting to convert the youngest and newest generation of Lintha that it is best to cut their losses, forget the old ways and join him in glory.
Begin the revolution.


Syren's To Do List:
1. Take care of the canister problem.
2. Drop by Rathess, see if your past life's Best Friend Forever is still there.
- After the sad truth, Dragon-Soul Enlightening Method
?. Learn public speaking.
? Master investigatory techniques.
? Social attributes update
? Mental attributes updates
?. Master martial arts.
?. Infinite everything mastery.
?. Bureaucracy Charms.
?. Turboelephant
?. Corner the Jade market.
?. Subvert the Silver market
?. Re-establish the Solar Deliberative
?. The Human Essence Project
?. Stay a jerk.
?. Grand Vizer Syren, head of the Celestial Administrative Order and personal Envoy of the Empress.
DIEDeath solves nothing. The Balance must be preserved.It solves the problem of Syren Saturn would like a word with you.






Minor things Syren is working on while you people do things:
1. New Lintha: The Lintha are in their twilight days but still a force to be reckoned with when you are not a Solar. Syren feels that in these moments of desperation they could do better, and with the help of Current's wife he hopes to begin friendly relations and possibly socialize them into the subversive idea of a new hope for their people under a new plan led by Syren.
2. Twisting the Vine: The Seven-Stranded Vine, Syren will learn, is where the original royal bloodline has retreated in their desperation for one day returning An-Teng to the old guard. Most if not all the bloodline is infected by a soul of Swillin with both power but servitude, and he has to find a way to get three and a new queen together that won't be destroyed for disobeying the whispering flame and take the subversive organization and use it to his purposes.
3. Memories of Rathess: Shady memories of the Dragon Kings itch in Syren's mind Facets had an almost suspicious dedication to the race and Syren would like to someday go to Rathess, because the stories he is hearing are not making him happy.
4. Guildborne: Syren's long term plan includes trying to collapse the Realm's economy, but before he can do that he needs to establish a replacement for everyone to turn to immediately after he crashes it so that there is a sudden shift in power to who rules Barter Town. But rather than spending years trying to establish a secret organization that will do this he notes the Guild already has taken this position and they aren't even Solars. He figures he wouldn't mind taking that.
5. Religious Concerns: The Immaculate Order is relatively unsuccessful in An-Teng, but their taint has caused the creation of things like the Domain of the Silver Crowned and paints him in a very unkind light. He would like to spread this ineffectualness outward by starting a small series of satire books under a pen name and hopefully making them popular around the Realm.

Terrista's longterm goals
1. Obliterate the Guild
2. Obliterate whoever is running the Slave Coast
2. Perfect Scarlet Fist fun fact: Terrista was never taught how to count
2. Become KENOH! Ride a sweet horse.
3. Get drunk
4. Bar fight the WORLD is Terrista's barfight


The Tale of Silent Breath of the Merciful Just:
http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1215907&postcount=115
http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1215908&postcount=116



Munificent Arting Practice
Hello everybody!


I have all this saved so I thought I might as well put it away for the moment.


Jubal, you still haven't said what you look like!


Terrista in progress for the sake of showing off art(not my art. I can't draw): http://i.imgur.com/O3XJOCz.png
Also relevant: http://i.imgur.com/QbTOvtL.png


Sione crowned Supreme: http://filesmelt.com/dl/supreme_commander_Sione.png
Also this other, less supreme, doodle I scratched out a while back http://meta.filesmelt.com/downloader.php?file=Siones_delivery_service_wip.pn g