22 Descending Air, 768

If there was one thing to be said it was that Fulgar's house was warm and restful. The morning sun beams through the narrow windows lined with glass, a rare commodity among the barbarians. Its rays creep across the Lunar's sleeping faces and urges them to awaken. Already the scent of cooking and clatter of pots can be heard in the next chamber. Breakfast would be served soon.

As Willow and Seeks rouse themselves the serving woman enters with platters heaping with pork, eggs, and bread. Honey, thick and golden, slathers the bread. She bows and presents it to Fulgar's guests.

"My apologies but my master was called away in the night. I was instructed to make you comfortable and fed for your journey."

Seeks What Is Forgotten had slept like a cat, curled up within the nest he had made of his cowl along the wall of the dwelling.  His rush sleeping mat had been unrolled beneath him, and as he snapped awake he sat up upon it, metal charms and bone trinkets cascading in a soft waterfall of tinkling notes.  It was hard to see where the man truly was, beneath the heavy cloak, and he hunched low as he gathered up his meager belongings and began dutifully wrapping them up in the mat.  Slender Willow Swaying knew what he truly had hid beneath his cloak, and it had nothing to do with wanting to spare the mortals the sight of his withered flesh.  Even if he hid it beneath his cape, she knew that he would be bundling the Green Jade Daiklave known through the ages as Spring Razor up within the mat.  Always careful of his secrets, he was sure to never let eyes fall upon it.

"Oh?"

He rasped inquiringly.

"A strange thing, to be called away in the night.  Was he called by Gods or mortals, I wonder?"

Binding the sleeping mat to his back, he hobbled over towards the tray, rubbing his dry hands together as he surveyed its contents.  He crouched down beside it, running a single narrow finger over each of the proffered items.  He dipped it in the honey, bringing it to his lips and letting out a little wheeze of satisfaction, before setting about preparing himself a formal breakfast.

"Don't answer that, I have a better question I'd want to use on you.  Does this village have any stories of cities in the clouds?  A strange question, true.  But if my arrow of inquiry has struck true I'd hear the tale off you."

He did not let her gaze upon his face, cowled in shadow as it was, but he watched her as she answered.

Slender Willow Swaying slept... but in the fashion of beasts. A time of stillness, followed by moments of wakefulness and wariness before falling into sleep once more. Her unconscious form curling ever so slowly in upon itself and the blankets as to resemble, disconcertingly, the flickering and darting nature of her shadow that the particularly keen of eye might catch. The skittering of a thousand legs almost palpable even though one might rightly expect the harsh click of obsidian hoof. It was the intrusion of the servant in the early hours of the morning to begin preparing breakfast and excuse the absence of the Shaman that interrupted the cycle, her presence met with a cold glance of one blue eye before the mind flooded fully into wakefulness.

The rasping voice of Seeks earning a cautious glance as he spun his question, her silence cautious and wary for an instant as she relaxed into the routines of the morning and accepted the offered bread from the woman. Her mind torn between the vindictive desire to maintain the contact a moment too long and simply to keep it as brief as possible. Ultimately, the kinder aspects of her personality won as she offered polite and soft thanks and her hand did not touch the other woman's at all. Old wounds that were not drawn up from the deep wells of memory still pulsed as she recalled the warding gestures... and the monstrous desire within to do harm in kind lingering in the muddle of thoughts and recollections of her own and lives not quite her own. She'd pay a passing visit to her blood kin before they left... If only to remind the monster they cast out still drew breath and knew from whence it came.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:07, Thu 03 June 2021.

The servant considers the questions as she busies herself with serving breakfast. Bangles in her dark hair clack as she finally shakes her head.

"I've heard my master say that the gods live in a grand city beyond the sky. I...don't really understand what that means -- how can something exist beyond the sky we see? I'm just a simple servant."

She frowns as a thought occurs to her. "They say the hero Ocina of the Half Foot once dealt with people from the clouds. That he went away with one of their maidens long ago. But I don't know if that means they are gods or men or something else."

She shrugs helplessly, unable to offer more. Perhaps the libraries of Azrego can offer more information?

"Ha."

Seeks coughed in response, resuming the task of preparing breakfast.  When he had assembled a small mountain of food, he started devouring it with gusto.

"The time of legends is upon you once again then, it seems.  Look to the skies, or don't."

He mumbled around a mouthful of food.

"Some stories don't like to be told."

He turned towards Slender Willow Swaying, still hunched and crouched over his meal.

"Did you wish to take a direct path, like how we got here, or did you have something more meandering in mind?"

He was likely anxious to get going, despite his indulgence in the food.  The sooner they were away from the village and aloft upon the air, likely the happier he would be.  He got like that, when there was a secret to explore, doubly so when some relic or another was involved.

Slender Willow Swaying was not so voracious as her companion but she was perhaps as thorough when it came to the matter of breakfast. Anything and everything that could be consumed and processed was with a certain care as she listened to the tale that was spun with precious little knowledge of the order of things. Glimpses of old memory twisting and bubbling to the surface of times before she was she. Her soul well traveled and burdened by it's myriad identities for it along side the burning rage that fueled the essential spark of her own divinity.

"The sky is but one more barrier to Heaven. Once brave men and women could reach it and look upon the faces of their gods... but that was an old age and we've fallen rather short of the mark, haven't we?" Willow offered with both amusement and a hint of bitter recollection as she glanced towards Seeks as his question found breath and flight. Her mind turning the option this way and that as she cleaned her fingers with the bread served along side their breakfast.

"I've a single visit I'd like to pay but either way, we'll take wing out of sight of the village." the handsome woman offered finally with both an impression of finality in her assessment and the cut short lilt of a question as if seeking the other's opinion on the matter. She had her suspicions that her companion would have preferred the direct route... A bird in the hand, after all... but then there was a romance to the winding path that spoke to something in one of the three parts of her soul.

With little desire to wait upon the responses of her companion, Slender Willow Swaying made her way out into the crisp morning air once more. The rolling, graceful stride shifting once more to that print destroying shuffle that hid the truth of her wicked hooves. There was still an alluring grace in even that as her skirts swayed with each motion and further destroyed the evidence of her passing. Her companion knew well enough though that there was a lethal and angry thing lurking beneath that facade of near heavenly perfection. A fact that showed as she let her thoughts drift into memories not quite her own and ruminated on the past that seemed so much greater, so much brighter than the present... and that she hoped she might forge a fragment off in the future. The remembered pain of it's fall turning her thoughts to the path she walked and the careful directions that her true parent had whispered to her.

She led the way flawlessly, ignoring what glances she gathered as she approached the hut that  served as home and hovel to those who had given birth to her. She had made certain they knew her and recognized her in her past visits and, in truth, needed to do little to inflict the pain of memory upon them. Merely a gift here, a wicked smiled there. She looked to the ground for an instant then before drawing out a small pouch of coins. The material worn and stained but clearly the pelt of something that made a home in the swamp... and part of the blanket they had cast her into the waters with. They knew it well enough for what it was. She didn't much care what they did with the coin as she knew what they thought of her but that she had made something of herself and stood to make something even greater upon that foundation is what made the gesture so pleasing to her vindictive mind. It wasn't bloody or visceral... Merely blunt and quiet in equal measure. Something personal and grounding.

With a quick and deft flick of the wrist she pitched it at the door of the hut. The thud unmistakable and impossible to ignore. She wanted to laugh and it bubbled in her throat like a knife but she held it in as she cast a wicked grin towards her companion.

"Secrets await."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:14, Thu 03 June 2021.

Taking their few things and exiting the shaman's home, the Lunars find a few Blue Limbs up in the early morning hours as they pursue the daily work. They draw a few curious stares but the barbarians merely nodded, hands making a sign of polite greeting to Fulgar's guests. A child feeding a passel of clucking hens watches wide-eyed as the strangers pass.

Willow breaks off from Seeks to stand in front of one of the rude homes. She examines something in her hand before tossing it to land with a metallic thunk at the door, a grin upon her face.

A moment later the 'door', fashioned of oiled hide upon a round wooden frame, opens and a child peers out. It spies the bag and bends down to pick it up between chubby fingers. The door opens wider as the child's grandmother, Willow's mother investigates. She smiles at her grandchild before deftly plucking it out of his hands and peers inside. Her eyes widen as she shakes the bag, its contents giving a healthy clink. A frown sparks upon her face as she examines the hide of the bag more carefully, a gasp resounds as she drops it too the frozen mud. She looks out and spies the two Lunars, Willow's toothy grin evident. Paling she draws her grandchild protectively behind her. Uncertainty and old guilt in equal measures cross the old woman's lined face as she carefully lays the bag upon the ground. She withdraws into the hut, closing the hide door. The little bag lies there in the frozen mud like a promise.

[Where too now?]

Wrapped up in his cowl, bangles and charms clanking with every lumbering step he took, Seeks What Is Forgotten watched the exchange with fierce interest.  If she had wished to keep it from him, it would have been simple enough to send him away.  Yet she had chosen to let him witness whatever it was that he had just seen.  Who was the message for, he wondered.  For him?  It did not seem likely.  For the grandmother then, as the child had not seen the contents of the bag.  He was aware that his companion had somewhat of a temper, for all of Luna's children were cursed with such, but he was beginning to suspect that the barbed words she so often employed were not just a front or a tool.  No, perhaps they struck at something deeper, something more ingrained within her psyche.  He didn't yet possess true insight into it, or her for that matter, but the exchange he had witnessed certainly shed some light into the darkness.

Slender Willow Swaying was the only other Luna he had ever encountered, despite his long years of travel.  He had met Dragon-Blooded, and even a Sidreal, though the latter had gone poorly.  So poorly, in fact, that he had been forced to roam the jungles and forests of the East for close to two decades to avoid Outstanding Contribution to the Historical Process' retribution.  It was only meeting another of his kind that had encouraged him to cease his hiding, and he was unsure of her in many ways.  For one, she only seemed to have been embraced by Luna, Mara's gifts had not touched her.  He didn't know if that said more about her, or about him, but he suspected his own past was the reason for his demonic influence.  Had he not sought Mara out, after all?  He was careful to not rouse her wrath, even if he still did not yet know what might trigger it in full.  Instead, he strove to make himself useful to her, so that she might have more cause to keep him around.

"Aye, aye they always do."

He said in response, ducking his head low in an almost servile gesture as he shuffled away.  He always moved thus, not revealing the full extent of his capabilities.  In truth his step was smoother even then his companion's grace.  Yet such was one of the many things he kept hidden, preferring instead to reveal his capabilities only when strictly necessary.

"The sooner we take wing, the better.  I notice your friend the shaman didn't specify which mountain range we are to search.  Let us hope our prize is somewhere in the Creeper Peaks, and not farther afield, or we could be at this for a great while."

"The Gods give precious little to their mortal servants. The system's imperfect and no longer like it ought to be." Slender Willow Swaying offered in response, that smile like a razor still lingering on her lips as her head turned towards the rough direction of the Creeper Peaks. There was an ugliness now in that near perfection of physical grace, the evidence of that tearing laughter that roiled within her even as she considered the finer points of their shared quest. Motion followed not long after as she began to make for one of the gates of the settlement, a pale hand beckoning her fellow lunar after her as if inspiration had struck upon her in the instant... though one could barely call the flickers of recognition of long past lessons inspiration in truth. She merely knew a place or two where answers might be happened upon with the slow encroaching of civilization... but what knowledge was held there might never truly be accessible to her.

Men of civilization were enamored of letters and language upon a page... She had never won such knowledge for herself but it would happen with time... with peace, perhaps.

"We can take wing a few hours from the village in a clearing. It's comfortable and familiar enough. From there we can steer our way towards Azergo. Maybe tease some wisdom out of the Twilighters or see if the Guild may have a map-maker at hand or just somewhere to study the region. Men like to rove far and throw their weight around so... I've little doubt there isn't something to learn in a city of them. Plus a chance to needle at the dynasts is rarely something I'll pass up." Slender added with an almost gleeful hate in her voice at the mention of the Dragon Blooded. Her voice little more than a teasing whisper at the ear, so lovely, yet so strangely afflicted by such powerful convictions. It seemed as if she might be many women in a single body. Some calm but hurt, others bitter and angry, yet more enraged and incensed by their ordeals and sufferings past. For now, though, it seemed that so much of this was her and not these strange memories that welled up from the depth of her well traveled soul.

"All else fails... I've an idea or two more that we can lean upon but they take a bit more time." she concluded with a pause in her graceful yet shuffling step to turn back towards Seeks What is Forgotten with a smile less wicked and perhaps more thrilled for the notion of adventure... or perhaps merely that so much of what was described there spoke to those old memories and selves... and that there might be a thread that could be pulled at to guide her in turn to something far more personal.

Seeks What is Forgotten was already moving as his companion turned to him, but he stumbled a little when she mentioned Azergo.  He stopped just long enough to cast her a backwards glance, but he kept his gaze hidden under his cowl.

"Azergo, eh?"

He said, and let out a little chuff of a breath.

"Who huh... who holds Azergo these days?  I haven't even been to much more than a village this far West in longer than I care to count."

He spoke little enough of his past, but what he had shared had led Slender Willow Swaying to believe he had spent a considerable time deep in the woods and the jungle of the East.  For him to refer to their current location as "far West," certainly lent credence to that guess.

"Wouldn't you rather just, oh I don't know, spend a few years mapping out each and every peak of the Creepers?  I devoured the Heart's Blood of a Harpy Eagle two decades ago, I bet we could accurately map the whole range in less than two!"

He did not say why he was so hesitant to visit the township, he certainly had not possessed any such reservations around coming here.  Still, despite his protestations to the contrary, he had turned his matching shuffle step in the direction she had indicated.

"We've certainly got the time!"

He whined, though it seemed he intended to heed her words as he led the way in the direction she had indicated, out of the village and into the forest.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:17, Thu 17 Sept 2020.

An Azrego Primer, or Common Knowledge:

Nearly 17 years ago a coalition of five Guild merchant princes decided to break new ground by establishing a trade route up the usually unnavigable Meander River. The Five, despite many costly failures, managed to do so after two years. On the banks of the Greyscale River they built a trading post that grew into the Azrego of today. A thriving city-state and hub of trade. While still rough and ready by the standards of the River Province it has come a long way with a population in the tens of thousands, with more settlers and fortune-seekers pouring in from the west.

Physically the town stretches from the lake shores and down a gradual cliffside decline (Azrego's famous Falls) and out onto the river plain. The steep Falls is handled with a variety of elevators and switchback roads.

Its composed of three neighborhoods:

Lake-Town is right on the lake shore and center of lake trade, fishing, and slaver raids. House Stormbreak, once a junior of the Five, has risen to prominence through its domination of lake trade and fishing fleets.

Up-Falls is the center of government and the neighborhoods of the wealthy. It drapes up and down the Falls in spectacular fashion. House Startreader maintains a small school of magic here. House Rivenstone handles much of the bureuacracy of the city.

And finally there is River-Town where the most recent immigrants arrive and river trade is handled. Its a polyglot of tenttowns, log cabins, and field stone houses. The alliance of Houses Quagmire and Cliffside has built up a string of plantations out into the River Plains.

NOTE: Azrego is a Guild project. While Dynasts from the Realm do come through occasionally the Five Merchant Houses frown on them attempting to build power bases in the city.

Religion: The Immaculate Faith and the Hundred Gods Heresy are popular in the city. The Five Houses will step hard on any religious feuding or power plays.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:32, Fri 09 Oct 2020.

The tribesmen make way for the strangers, knowing better then to upset the shaman Fulgar's guests. The Blue Limb warriors waste no time opening the village gate for the Lunars. Seeks and Willow can feel their eyes boring into their backs as they enter the wooded swamps. Cold puffs of air pull at hair and clothing as the two Lunars crunch along the snow covered game paths.

Eventually they come to a clearing upon dry bank rising a few feet above the waters. A large tree had fallen into the surrounding waters and its gnarled exposed roots clawed at the open sky. There were signs of an old fire ring in the lee of the tree roots from Willow's earlier visits.

There was little discussion as the two Lunars reshape themselves in an instant. Wings spread wide and beat once, twice, and then they are airborne. Clearing the trees reveals the silver band of the North Meander below and the Creeper Peaks rising ominously to the North West. Turning East they wing toward the distant band of silver on the horizon where Azrego lies.

The hours pass as the Sun rises higher, warming the chill winter day. It was almost pleasant, daydreaming to while away the time as the Lunars effortlessly cover the many miles to Azrego.

The gust of cold air and icy wind against the Lunar's faces is a wake-up call as they snap back to the present. Above them glides a massive pterosaur like creature composed of clear ice. Each beat of its wings sends sleet raining against them in gusts of unpredictable wind. Its blazing blue eyes peer at the two birds below inquisitively.

"I sense power, little birds. Little lying birds!" It crows in mockery as it flies above the Lunars, in Old Realm.

[You are flying several hundred yards above a forested region with the Meander River below. The thing above you is large, a wingspand of 10 yards or more, and flying at Short Range above you.]

Well now, that was less than ideal.

Seeks What Is Forgotten had never considered himself much of a fighter, both before and after his ascension.  Oh, Luna had granted him plenty of tricks, but such things generally required even the smallest shadow for him to step into.  Hundreds of meters above a lake, in broad daylight?  Well, his nature would always be to remain hidden in plain sight.  To not appear to be a threat, to not appear to be wrapped in either Luna or Mara's power.  It should have worked, wrapped in woven Harpy Eagle flesh as he was. Yet suddenly this foe was upon them, piercing through his deception as easily as if it had not existed.

Frustrating, that.

He couldn't even respond, for the vocal cords within his throat would no answer to any instructions he gave them but a screech.  He was possessed of forms that could fight, but none that could fight and fly at the same time.  He silently chastised himself for not summoning and binding one of the Agatae to him to free up his hands.  Yet if he had, what would he have called to him to defend himself?  He would have relied on Slender Willow Swaying, hoping she had a battleform that also had wings, and he would have called Mara's power to himself.  Did he need his hands and his raspy throat to do such a thing?  He had never tried, not in all his centuries.  Could he?  Or would it falter and resist his call?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:02, Mon 19 Oct 2020.

Slender Willow Swaying was a creature in contrast to many things and seemed to exist in a mocking clash with many more things besides. A thing torn between a dozen worlds and lives yet grounded in the misery of a fallen age with wicked smile and cruelly mocking laugh. To be mocked in kind by a spirit of that same world, no doubt swollen on ill-gotten gain and riches that should never have belonged to it seemed to only stir that dangerous fire that Seeks What is Forgotten knew burned in her breast. That fire only seeming amplified as the light of the Sun caught in the bright plumage of the form she had borrowed; that of a rainbow hawk. It was a creature no less beautiful than the human form she wore yet markedly predatory in the line of it's beak and the fierce yellow of it's long sighted eyes... It was that visage that twisted up to regard the spirit above them with a piercing stare.

There were no words as, of course, the throat of a raptor could give rise to no such thing but the mockery in kind was clear as she cut to the heart of the matter.

And what lie do you live, little bird?

It was with that same, mad grace that seemed to suffuse almost everything that she did that she rode the twisting winds and pounding sleet before stretching her wings to their fullest. Her ascent wound tight like the spring of some arcane machine as it launched her upwards and above the spirit that seemed so intent to taste their blood. Her piercing shriek almost like laughter as she felt the sun upon her again and memories of happier lives, of greater times, stirred at the edges of her mind even as her predatory heart focused in on what mattered most in the moment; the kill. Blood thundered through her then as she waited for just the moment she needed, knowing that her sudden ascent would have the spirit on it's guard and it's attentions split between her companion and she.


8 motes from personal towards excellencies + stunt ceiling:

11:37, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 7 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Wits Excellency + Dex Stunting to Join Battle.

11:22, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 3 successes using 7d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Wits + Awareness (Join Battle).

Join battle final value: 13

3 Motes from Peripheral for Glance Oratory Technique

Getting altitude on it in preparation for what comes next.

This message was last edited by the player at 15:05, Sat 17 Oct 2020.

Join Battle
Willow 13
Seeks 9
Sleet 7

The monster, or more likely a air spirit of some kind, hisses laughter like a blizzard wind. Its translucent wings begin to sprout a jagged edge of ice on the leading edge as the joy of a fight overtakes it.

"There is no lie in the ice that will coat your wing feathers and sends you crashing to the earth below! I am what you see! I am Sleet!", it roars proudly to Willow's taunt.

It slaps its wings together with a 'thoom' as it springs with unexpected agility toward the 'birds'.

Willow can act first.
Seeks first action is Shape Sorcery.
Sleet goes last.

The piercing cry of a hawk was all the sound that Slender Willow Swaying made as she spread her own wings wide and soared upwards as Sleet rushed towards them. Each motion suffused with a grace no mundane bird might hope to make as she tucked her wings in at the apex of her assent and quickly twisted her small frame around. Essence burned and churned within her as the near perfection of the woman exploded from the form of the rainbow hawk, her body no longer buoyed upon kaleidoscopic pinions, she fell with the howling wind snapping at her clothes and the flow of her dark hair writhing like a hateful miasma about her head as she splayed seemingly delicate limbs to slow and control her descent. Those mad eyes narrowed with a wicked glee and determination as she took in the full glory of what she now sought to destroy in form and ego both.

That she could be heard at all was a miracle in itself and further testament to the madness that roiled within her as memories swirled and danced along side thundering window and adrenaline.

"Sleet? Miserable bastard of Snow and Rain? Bringer of nothing but bitter cold and wretched mud? What use are you to a world like this? Mired and wretched as it is already. Dance with the Children of Silver and see what you hunt, little bird!" She shouted above the roar of the wind as she twisted herself with the speed of a snapping eel with prey in sight. Each motion driven by a raw yet paradoxically refined instinct as she descended towards the Spirit. Essence glimmering all the while in her wake as she drew deeply upon the world around her; the rush of air, the light of the sun upon her, the cold that she felt as she fell towards Sleet with no regard for the safety of her course. Her faith in her survival all but assured by the power she had been given and her knowledge of it.

It was as she drew near that more became apparent to her fellow lunar; a panoply of phantom limbs unfurling as the Changing Moon twisted and turned in her descent. Each hand twisting through a thousand gestures and evocations as she fell ever closer towards the spirit she seemed almost obsessed with offending. All while radiance began to bleed into her lunar markings; the glowing form of an infinite centipede seeming to encircle her as they worked along her form, up her neck, along her cheeks, and over her brow to raise high the ever shifting form of Mother Moon.

Her wicked smile seeming all the brighter as she revealed herself in all her shadowed and ever changing splendor. The airs of madness and many faces seeming to lend an allure and impact to her words and actions that defied what good reason and sound logic would otherwise advise.


INSANITY TIME!

Move action to get above him (Reflexive from prior discussion)
Shapeshifting into human form (Reflexive from prior discussion)
10 Essence from Peripheral to activate Laughing Monster Form. (Simple Action)

16:03, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 8 successes using 11d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Presence 4 + Man 4 + 3 die Stunt.

To infuriate and distract Sleet into focusing on me and getting him into a better position for Seeks.

Pretty sure that Laughing Monster Form won't let me add my occult dice to that influence roll but let me know if it does. :D

Seeks What Is Forgotten had many tricks that he could draw on, and almost none of them worked up here.  Yet he had sought out Slender Willow Swaying's company, and sought to ingratiate himself to her for a reason.  She had made it clear to him that she was a warrior, something he never would have expected of himself, and that was what he needed.  He trusted her now, on her word alone, that she would buy him the time he needed to unleash his power.  What craft of war she might unleash, he could only have guessed.

Yet even with all of Luna's wisdom and Mara's secretes, he never would have dreamed in a thousand years that he would witness the display she put forth. He stared in mind numbing incomprehension as she regained her human form, and plunged herself bodily at the foe. What strange arcanum burst to life about her he could only guess at, but it was terrifying in its eldritch symmetry.  He suppressed a shudder as he watched the utterly inhuman nature of it, still unused to the presence of immortals and still terrified of what it meant.  He had thought he had understood magic, but watching his companion made him realize how little he knew.

He tried what magic he had now, pulling the shadows to him, and felt the rush of relief as the magic obeyed his will.  His shadow was so far below him as to be invisible, and yet as he pulled the power from the raw motes of existence his silhouette seemed to darken and twist beneath him.  A black streak from the tiny form of the Harpy Eagle, a solid line that descended from the heavens to the earth below.  From that darkness?  Power.  The temperature around him dropped, a chill sinking deep into the bones, as the wind began to whip and crack.  The dark purple lines of Mara's power inscribed upon his flesh burst to glowing life, humming a mockery of his still hidden Lunar tattoos. Geometric lines of eldritch energy, surging as he pulled from the shadows below.  Whispers filled the air, the distant echo of ecstatic screams and cruel laughter.

He called, and power came.


Investing 1 WP and casting Death of Obsidean Butterflies, collecting 9 of 15 motes.

15:51, Yesterday: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 7 successes using 9d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Intelligence 5 + Occult 3 (Sorcery).

10:09, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 1 success using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  2 Point Stunt.

Spending 3 Peripheral Motes to use Unwavering Predator’s Eye - P. 238

Join Battle with Perception + Awareness, double 9s.

07:28, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 6 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((4,9,1,9,6,6,6,10)).

Initiative is 9.


This message was last edited by the player at 00:33, Mon 19 Oct 2020.

The monstrous ice spirit turns on ponderous wings of ice toward the falling Willow. For the moment it is distracted from Seek's eagle form surrounded by its phantasms of shadows and purple light, maddened by Willow's taunts. Sleet drives upward, its massive beak of ice filled with jagged icicles reaching out to snap the falling Lunar out of the air. Despite Willow's wild, laughing twisting in the air the monster's flashing ice teeth strike home with a spray of crimson blood and red ice.

[Activating Icy Beak Strike against Willow for a Withering attack. 15m + 3i.
Activating Brawl Excellency for +4 dice. 4m.

Vs. Willow's DV 6 (including applicable Charms, Cost 3m)

09:11, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Sleet, rolled 10 successes using 16d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Beak Attack.

Willow's Soak 5 (with Impenetrable Beast-Armor, 3m.)

09:17, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Sleet, rolled 3 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Withering Damage.

09:20, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Sleet, rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Freezing ice DECISIVE damage.

Willow loses 3 Initiative and takes 1 level of Lethal damage. Spent 7m.
Sleet gains 4 Initiative.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:25, Thu 22 Oct 2020.

Turn 2 Initiative
Sleet 11
Willow 9
Seeks 7


Sleet continues to torment the falling Willow with cruel snips and cuts. A mocking eye watches with delight even as she twists and turns in her fall, narrowly avoiding the thing's icy fangs.

Sleet misses bringing him down to 10 init.

New Turn 2 Initiative.

Willow 10
Sleet 10
Seeks 7

Willow and Seeks can take their Turn 2 actions.

Sleet: DV 6 (spending 4 motes on Excellency for a +2 DV)

This message was last edited by the GM at 15:49, Thu 22 Oct 2020.

Essence burned, churned, twisted and danced around Slender Willow Swaying as she wove and twisted as the relentless wind and the no less relentless Sleet snapped and bit at her. Her skirts, shawls, and hair twisting and dancing as if possessed of a life all their own beyond that of the woman who bore it. Her voice piercing in it's mocking laughter as she felt the pain of the grazing blow draw blood and send it rocketing away upon the breeze, crimson crystals forming. It wasn't a blow given freely though as the force of the blow spun her in the air and one of her many phantom limbs managed to snatch outwards, latching onto one of the spirit's teeth and tearing it free of it's gums. The force and momentum steadying her as she fell and another barb jovially shrieked in the face of the beast as the game continued and memory along side adrenaline surged through soul, body, and mind.

"Such pride for nothing more than a hen peck! Is this the might of Sleet? Little nibbles and numb cuts? What a sad child you are of Rain and Snow! Not even worth the fire I've set around us!"

It was impossible to not see it now as she fell and fought and struggled, existing purely and utterly in the moment with a raw and wicked glee even as life times played out within her mind. Her tattoos twisted and writhed as the held aloft the glowing form of the ever changing moon and all around her the air seemed alive with the silver radiance of Luna herself, reaching into the heavens and far below as it twisted and writhed like a living flame... Twisting, reshaping, reforming into the rearing form of some great and terrible centipede, it's eyes alive with moon silver as it's mandibles the size of elephants dripped twilight flames in anticipation of the feast before it.

It was in that moment, that terrible, hideous moment that she twisted and turned in the air once more. She bided her time in the instant, her heart beating in her ears even as her laughter drowned it out. Her endless arms swaying, dancing and churning around her in an endless sea of madness and infinite mudras as she slowed her descent and waited for the spirit to charge her once. Endless arms and hands seemed to launch outwards then, slapping, elbowing, and spinning her around with such ferocity as to strike once more with a sweeping leg before she fell too far to reach it once more. Her body spinning for an instance as she tucked in her limbs with another taunting trill of laughter before spreading out once more to slow her fall.

She was insane. It could be the only conclusion that one might draw as an observer... and yet she was alive in that moment. All was her oyster and she was the great and terrible trickster of legend, the laughing Demon.


WHAMMY TIME!

As Furiously Stalling Destiny was used to dodge, I gain an automatic success on my first attack. So first order of business, the counter attack I get from Laughing Monster Form. It only deals one dice of damage on the hit because that's all Sleet lost but that's better than nothing.

Activating Deeper Into Trouble Technique for 3 Motes (Periphery).

4 Motes (Personal) for Dexterity Excellency to counterattack roll.

19:30, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 7 successes using 14d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  MA + DEX + OCCULT + 4 Excellency.

19:32, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  1 Initiative Dice + 3 Bonus DMG from DITT.

So that's one lethal straight to the HPs.

Time for more HP!

4 Motes (Periphery) towards Dexterity Excellency.

3 Motes (Periphery Towards Deeper Into Trouble Technique (again) adding +3 damage die and double tens for decisive attacks.

19:51, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 9 successes using 14d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  DEX + MA +  OCC + Excellency (4).

19:55, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 9 successes using 13d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Init + 3 from major negative intimacy.

That resets me to 3 initiative.

This message was last edited by the player at 11:41, Fri 23 Oct 2020.

Seeks What Is Forgotten's eyes went wide as he watched the Changing Moon Caste unleash her assault upon their foe, her form rippling as Luna's fury was set loose upon Creation. He had thought he had known fury when he had realized what Outstanding Contribution to the Historical Process had intended. Yet now he realized his unleashed rage had been but a pebble's shimmering disruption upon the surface of a still pond before the towering cyclone of shadows and chitinous limbs that was Slender Willow Swaying's wrath.

Within him, Mara's whispers filled his mind, congratulating him on finding such an excellent companion. Was she not the brilliant thunderstorm to his cold fury, the beacon of Luna's divinity to create the shadow he needed? He pushed such thoughts aside, suppressing a shudder as he refocused and sought to shape the sorcery he had already partially unleashed within his mind.  The very air about him  dripped with Mara's power as he drew it into himself, his beating wings feeling like they were powering through molasses.  The light was seemingly drained from him, his feathers going black and reflective against the clear sky.  There was a great silence, the pause after a great inhalation of breath, and then the world exploded.

The obsidian that had encased his feathers exploded outwards in muffled howl of magic, a boom almost beneath hearing, and yet still a roar.  Each shard shattered into a thousand more, coalescing into a dense cloud of butterflies each gleaming black as midnight.  With preternatural speed and accuracy, the swarm of deadly obsidian streaked away from him and towards Sleet in a deadly, a thousand brutal cuts in an instant.

Action:  Shape Sorcery

09:57, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 7 successes using 9d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Intelligence 5 + Occult 3 (Sorcery).

10:10, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 10 successes using 11d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Perception 5 + Occult 3 (Sorcery) + 2 Point Stunt.

That's 11 hits with an undodgeable decisive attack.

Not sure what that does to my initiative.

[Seeks, DoOB doesn't reset your initiative so it would carry over into the next round unchanged. A benefit. Also a hit like yours does your Essence of 2 + extra successes damage dice. In this case 8 dice after Sleet's Parry defense is factored in. We can consider it a kill since he was down to his last wound level from Willow's attacks.]

It isn't unusual for spirits of storms to be insufferably arrogant about their power and standing. Today this attitude costs the elemental beast once known as Sleet dearly as his challenge to two Celestial Exalted goes terribly wrong.

Willow's taunting and tricky contortions in the air leave Sleet bleeding reddish ice water from its veins and ice scales cracking from its hide. Sleet's wings beat feebly in anger but its voice cries out in distress as it is engulfed in Seeks cloud of black glass butterflies with razor wings. "Mercy!" is the last word heard in the fluttering mass before only a tumbling morass of broken ice and black glass remains to fall to the earth below.

Willow has time to study the broken ice tooth in her hand as she falls heedlessly toward the river rocks below. Its an interesting thing. It seems to whisper of biting winds and winter cold. Some remnant of the spirit's power inhabits the tooth. Suddenly Willow remembers where she is and a quick transformation into a raiton arrests her fall. She rejoins her companion in the sky.

Slender Willow Swaying let Sleet's cry of mercy die upon the winds that bore it. Her eyes watching the elemental fall away with a strange war of emotions as the fervor of battle and hate abated in the instant. It perhaps had not deserved all that she had done to it but it was a symptom of a diseased age. Just as she was a symptom of a diseased age, burdened with memories of past and better lives that shone like jewels. Her introspection was, by necessity, cut short as she spun and twisted, essence reshaping her into a form once more capable of flight as her wings spread and rocketed her upward upon the relentless wind.

Sleet's fang still clutched in her talon as a macabre trophy of the fury she had unleashed. The echo of power in it's depths a curiosity that she would have to explore when she could find a moment of peace for such thinking.

The Changing Mask let out a piercing cry then as she soared towards Azrego.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:45, Sun 22 Nov 2020.

Seeks What is Forgotten watched Slender Willow Swaying with wariness as she drew near. Not that this sudden display of power had made him afraid of her, in a way he had already been so. It took a certain mindset that, when granted extraordinary power by not one but two patrons, chose to hide rather than to be visible.  It wasn't that he was a coward, he was simply focused inward.  Luna's favor and Mara's promises had been an intensely powerful internal experience for him, two conflicting energies causing him to turn his mind's eye inward.  He burned to understand himself, as well as the divine and infernal within. That sort of mind would of course be drawn to understand Slender Willow Swaying with the same passion that he sought to understand himself.  He had always been afraid of her, and this demonstration of her rage had done nothing to either lessen or dull that fear. It was his nature to seek out that which others desired, and never had he seen her make her desires more clear than in that moment of battle lust. She was more dangerous than anything he had encountered before, and like a moth to flame he could not help but be drawn to her. A burning desire to understand her, to understand what had brought about such fury.  Not for any amorous intent, but merely the sheer exhilarating joy of comprehension.  He would never summon her shadow self, never truly grasp what it was that she was, he'd never dare.

Moments like this then were the closest he would come to true insight.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:58, Sat 21 Nov 2020.

The aerial voyage proves the advantage of wings as Seeks and Willow follow up the Meander River. Two hundred miles pass in the span of a day's flight. The sky is clear if cold under the pale winter sunlight. Below can be seen the occasional flat bottom boats on the river carrying trade to the far distant River Province. To the South lies expanses of broad leafed trees and plantation fields, gleaming white Guild houses presiding over them like lords. To the North the Creeper Peaks rise in daunting slopes to white capped peaks. A bird's eye picks out the occasional upthrust of mysterious ruins on broken slopes.

To the East can be seen the upthrust line of cliffs passing north to south. Beyond is the gleam of the vast Greyscale Lake. As the last miles are eaten away by the Lunar's wings the first signs of Azrego become visible. The shores are strewn with the tents of new arrivals, immigrants and nomads interspersed with sturdier log constructions of long term residents, inns and warehouses. Beyond the city rises crawls up the cliffsides with a great waterfall pouring between its arms from the heights above.

[Some possible destinations:

House Cliffside employs numerous mapmakers. They tend to live and work in Rivertown or Lake-Town.

The Broken Straw Academy in Up-Falls is a small school of sorcery patronized by House Startreader. They are known to be eager for information about the 1st Age ruins located in the region but tend to be mercenary and arrogant.

Of course numerous tribesmen of all sort, guides, and whatnot can be found in Rivertown.]



https://www.deviantart.com/ace...rfall-city-336441011

Slender Willow Swaying turned and spiraled with all the playfulness one might expect of her form as she began her descent. Still, there was something there beneath it that spoke to the wrath and fury that burned within her divinely touched spirit. A grim reminder of the essential and mercurial nature of the being as she played and twisted upon the breezes of her native home, her wings beating mere feet from the ground before wicked claws dug into the soft earth in the shadows and cover offered by the receding forest at the edges of Azrego. The glint of her prize from the vanquished sleet still clutched greedily in one talon.

Essence burned within her once more as she shook, silvery motes of soul stuff falling away as her form twisted, grew, and feathers fell away to reveal first pale flesh followed quickly by the falling curls of her dark hair only to flow into the festive hues of her skirts, shawls, and tunic. She shook for a moment then as her hand tightened about the tooth before placing it in a pouch and letting her mind churn. Old memories of different lives scratching at the corners of her mind and drawing her gaze ever further into contemplation. Eventually, she entwined her hands and gently stretched as she waited for her companion to join her.

She knew of a man or two that might help them in their search. One was a scholar, Stained Fingers, from House Startreader. She knew him well enough and how he could be convinced to help them without the tedium of money and trade... It was only a question of if she had the patience for the scent of ink and vellum... and the feeling that all that was hoarded in their halls was not better served in the hands of the many, given freely and without condition. Her lips pursed into a frown at the thought as flickers of memory burned to the fore... The feeling of quill in hand, of texts laid out before her. The letters meant nothing to her mind, a skill that had long eluded her in her ruminations and passion pursuits.

She shook her head then and considered the other that she might know. If she were in town, they might find better purchase with them. A fellow tribal though not of the same mother or gods. Raven's Eye was an outcast and a strange one but Slender Willow Swaying felt a certain kinship as they both sought something that eluded them in the world. She wished to find her city of pillars and to reclaim some grain of a far greater past... Raven's Eye... sought purpose or so was her impression but what she might find it in was a teasing mystery. Still, there were few more knowledgeable in the strange places and lost secrets that might lie here and there as she had roamed far and wide, only really returning here every cycle or so for supplies.

Lost in her thoughts, the Lunar almost began her trek towards the city proper but stopped and glanced skyward for her companion. She had to wonder what they had thought of her display against the spirit. Few were comfortable around a woman like her, was he afraid now? Or were they still intrigued? Or was it both? She remembered that feeling when Luna had spoken to her... Fear, Intrigue, a desire to survive and grow stronger... to destroy an ugly, twisted shadow of past greatness so something could blossom again. She sighed softly, sadly as she waited for Seeks What is Forgotten to rejoin her so they might plan.

Seeks What Is Forgotten flew in silence behind the one they had chosen to weave their destiny to, pondering the steps that had led them here.  Over and over, the concept of free will entered into their mind.  Did they truly control their own destiny, or had the path always been laid out before them?  They could see the chain of causality, see how each choice had led to the next, and for the life of them they could not discern what they could have done differently.  Oh, they could have been cleverer for sure, more perceptive there, quicker there, but would any of their choices had changed?

They doubted it.

They came down next to Slender Willow Swaying in a shower of brown robes and cracked flesh, looking with iridescently shimmering black eyes at the strangest choice they had made. The Changing Moon Caste was so utterly strange, and yet so much truer to Luna's purpose than they had ever been.  They were a creature of shadows and secrets, torn between two Goddesses.  Or close enough, in Mara's case.  Luna's rage burned within them, but it was a terrifying thing, and the source of much of the current woe within them.  If not for that bane, they would still be a traveler among the cities of the East, lost in tombs and tomes as they searched for a cure for the Contagion which even now devoured them from the inside.  Instead they were here, standing beside this manifestation of the Goddesses fury made flesh. What would happen if that fury was ever directed at him?  It felt like it would achilleate him in an instant, sear him from his bones and render him down to fat and tallow. He didn't even understand what drove her, what caused it.  He needed to. For he knew deeply what guided Outstanding Contribution to the Historical Process, and he knew that he would need Slender Willow Swaying's aid if he was to ever be free of that huntress.

"That was... rather terrifying truth be told."

He said at last, pulling up his hood to hide his alien features.

"Not Sleet, you.  I've never seen any other touched by Luna's gifts before. My spell weaving is a slow thing, not really suited for battle.  I've trained some in arms over the decades, but I'd never considered myself a warrior.  What are the other Lunars like, are they also prone to dive headfirst at the enemy like that? Am I the freak yet again here?  You were..."

He shrugged, not sure what to say.

"... intimidating."

He said at last, shrugging.

"You've seen me Bind Demons to my service before, if we have time to spare I would do so again. I have a binding in mind that will cause us no grief within Azrego.  A subtle thing, a hidden thing, my sort of thing.  Yet something that... well... if another fight such as that occurs..."

He seemed either frightened or embarrassed.

"Well, so I can be a little more like you."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:18, Wed 09 Dec 2020.

Slender Willow Swaying seemed to consider the question for a moment as she turned away from Seeks What Is Forgotten, her form seeming to shake for an instant as a fist balled at her side before relaxing and the laughter becoming audible to the ear. It had such sweet notes but there was an almost mania that lingered beneath it as it stabbed at the ear with some strange hint of melancholia and old wounds that hadn't healed right. A hand brushed gently at one cerulean eye as if banishing tears as she turned back toward her companion who now hid their ravaged features behind the shadows of no more than a hood. That crooked grin crossing her features but never quite banishing the darkness of whatever thoughts or memories lurked within her mind.

"Some, maybe. We wear many faces by our nature. I don't think they see the world like I do... Not any of the younger ones anyway. Old... old memories come and go in my mind. I see things from better times... better places... through the eyes of better people... I like what I see from then than what I see now." the Changing Moon offered with soft rise and fall of her shoulders once more as she curled her arms about herself and turned her eyes towards the city beyond once more. That crooked smile turning into little more than a frown before falling into what could be thought of as little more than melancholic rumination, that air of mania seeming to circle around her like a storm as if it were more than just glimpses of memory but fragments of something other floating to the surface, influencing this young woman's thoughts and actions... and guiding the terrible power at her finger tips. It was insanity if nothing else to a more grounded observer.

"We're not in a hurry so long as Fulgar and the Gods can remain patient so... Summon your demon but I don't think you'd like to be a little more like me. You've pain enough on your own with what's eating you away from within." Slender Willow Swaying offered with a glance back towards Seeks What Is Forgotten with a wicked but warm smile now brightening her features which only really served to inspire a gut deep suspicion that there was far more trouble to be had in the company of a seeming lunatic. "Once your done, I know a few people who might be able to point us in something like the right direction though they'll naturally want something in exchange. They always do."

Seeks What Is Forgotten ducked his head down low at his companion's comment, though deep within his shadowed hood he bore a smile.

"I brought this upon myself."

He extended his hands from his robes, the skin withered and dry.

"And in truth?  If I were given the chance to do it all over again, I don't know if I would choose to do much different. Perhaps I would, and there were certainly points where it was hell on earth.  Yet the whole picture?  The places I've been, the things I've seen? The indulgences I've taken?"

He shrugged, withdrawing back into his cowl.

"I can't even say.  I just don't really understand what I am.  I'm not just Luna's, Mara has her hooks in me almost as deep. Am I even truly a Lunar?  Did you ever hear in all your travels of another like me, or meet one?  I don't even truly understand myself.  The moment I try and give myself to one, the other sweeps in to steal me away.  I can't... lose myself like that, like you did with Sleet. Or at least, every time I've tried it's gone spectacularly wrong."

He chuckled, beginning to head towards the town.

"I will need to wait until sundown to begin anyways.  So let us start with your people, and then we can switch to mine."

Slender Willow Swaying offered a softer smile as Seeks What Is Forgotten spoke, there was a wickedness that lingered in the eaves but there was no hint of it's bite... No sign of that laughing demon who slew the will as readily as the body with poisoned word and terrible blows. She seemed to fuss with words that danced at the tip of her tongue for a moment before offering what thoughts she might have in the moment. The gesture as near perfect and graceful as ever when combined with the nature of her aesthetic. Beautiful and terrible as always with hints of wickedness and melancholy lingering in those blue eyes.

"I'd think Mara would have more to fear of Luna than the opposite but she's not a jealous goddess unless it plays to the face she's wearing. Survive and live, do so without regret... That's always the lesson I've taken away." the Changing Moon offered before glancing back to the city and turning her mind to the matter at hand. Memories roiled and churned beneath the surface, relics of bygone loves and eras... That sense of bitterness, disappointment, rising like unwanted bile for a moment before she drew a breath and placed both hands at her hips as her gaze drifted downward to the earth at her feet.

"Two names, two people. There's Stained Fingers. He's a scholar that's pledged himself to House Startreader... So for a price we can use him to get to the knowledge they've hoarded and kept from all. Which might give something up of what we seek; reports... locations... Something. He'll ask questions though to satisfy his own curiosity."

There was something in her tone that implied such stores of knowledge might be inaccessible in another way to her and that... It annoyed her in some fashion to acknowledge it but she gave away no more than that as she moved to the next person she might know to lead them on the right path.

"The other is Raven's Eye. Another tribal. I like her better. She wanders and seeks purpose in the act. The problem with that is she is rarely still for more than a few days. I know a few of her favorite places and people though. If she's in town, I'm certain we can cross paths quickly and she might have a tale or legend to share that can guide us just as well; old knowledge from one tribe or another." the Laughing Demon offered with a grin that spoke of nostalgia and fondness to match her words as she turned and glanced back towards Seeks What Is Forgotten. The unspoken question of which path they preferred implied with just a little arch of brow and twist of the ever present smile.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:42, Tue 22 Dec 2020.

The stink of thousands of people packed together drift sporadically on a playful breeze as the two Lunars approach the city on foot. The muddy road following along the north bank of the Meander fills with morning traffic: wagons of goods bound for the city, farmers looking to trade, local trappers hauling their furs, and the braying of donkey teams used to pull river barges toward the city docks. Tents in many styles, from local barbaric and practical hide tents to rough canvas tarps heaved up by immigrants unable to afford housing, range around the feet of log buildings and warehouses. The cold of the western swamps is replaced by a modestly warm climate moderated by the vast lake to the East.

The people are a colorful collection of the exotic pushing and shoving through the growing crowds as the morning sun rides higher in the sky. Makeshift and spontaneous markets form along the road as sellers call out to passer-by to sample their wares. Children cut through the distracted crowd with playful yells, mothers calling them back to order. Here and there beggars call out for alms and a procession of monks sing and clash cymbals while dancing in their bright yellow robes.

The two Lunars draw little notice at first until the crowd notice Seeks What Is Forgotten and draw away, afraid of disease or curses. A bubble forms around them and stall-keepers warn burnt Seeks away so as not to frighten their custom. Not that the two Lunars pay the minor disturbance much heed as used to it as they are, deep in their conversation.

Up ahead lies the old fortress, known as the Block, that dominates River-Town. Crude logs and earth embankments have long since been re-purposed into offices for the various companies that operate out of the rough and tumble neighborhood. Those seeking work, like laborers and guides, cluster here. A good place to find Raven's Eye.

The eye draws up to the vast falls that bisect the city and feed the Meander River. The cliffs, known as Up-Falls, are dotted the fine mansions of the merchant-houses and others who made good in the chaotic capitalistic free-for-all of Azrego. Elevators of lumber groan under the big loads of goods and produce being shifted up to or down from Lake-Town. The falls themselves tumble and spray out gorgeous crests of water and rainbows. Even from here Seeks and Willow can feel the untamed flows of Water Essence that marks a demense (a place of untapped magical power) amidst the falls. A beautifully fluted tower rises between split water falls, the Tower of the Eight Directions, and the site of the minor sorcerous school that operates in Azrego. Stained Fingers works here as a scribe and tutor.

What do you do?

Seeks What Is Forgotten was moving faster than he had in decades.

He was typically a slow and methodical soul, sometimes observing a settlement for weeks (and even months) before he showed so much as his hooded cowl to the occupants.  If he bothered to show himself at all, for the gifts of Luna meant he could walk the streets cloaked in the form of whatever lesser animal he wished. It was not that he disliked people, quite the opposite in fact. He found them endlessly fascinating, with all their little quarrels and dramas. He liked to know everything about them before they even knew he existed, and his twinned patrons meant he had endless means at his disposal to do so. Be it teasing their deepest secrets from stolen shadows, sending bound demons to sip though their dreams, or just crawling through their baseboards as a rat to eavesdrop on their arguments and conversations. He delighted in learning all that he could, from the most petty disputes to the deepest conspiracies.

This though? Just walking through the streets as easy as you please?

It was madness, another ridiculous lunacy for him to endure, one of the countless he had encountered  since deciding to align his fate to that of Slender Willow Swaying. Not that he begrudged her the act, it was exciting to have such a simple thing be so exhilarating. He had never passed through this place, as far as he could recall.  He would certainly have remembered the Tower of the Eight Directions. It was possible that Mara had gotten... indulgent... with his memories, but he doubted that Luna would have allowed such indiscretions.

"I mean, from the name alone I'm liking Stained Fingers."

He chuckled, ignoring the heated stares from those about him. He didn't like having such an impact, but found some mild amusement in the fact that he was the one drawing such a strong reaction, and not the partly mad avatar of destruction he found himself traveling with.

Slender Willow Swaying merely bent and swayed with the flow of all she did, that same almost perfect grace pushed into every motion and step she took as the crowds noticed and parted around them in revulsion. It had a familiar sting that etched at her soul like a thorn and brought out the cruelty that lingered in the shadows of that lovely eternal smile, cerulean eyes watching each of them with the wariness of a beast long wounded and poorly healed even as one hand danced and fluttered with the animated glee of conversation.

Her every step taken with preternatural care as to hide the distinctive imprints of her cloven feet and impressing, despite all evidence to the contrary, of serenely floating upon anyone that paid her particular mind... Each contradiction seeming to build upon each other and reinforcing the memory of everything she had done to Sleet with such terrible glee. Those hints of melancholy and wicked humor present in the echoes of each word and glance as civilization swallowed them into it's embrace once more. Old memories from before the spark of divinity that now rested upon her soul swirling in the muddied waters of lives present and past as she considered her companion's upon with but a moment's hesitation.

She did not care for the learned men of the Tower as they lorded wisdom over others who might bear greater minds than them. One more symptom of a fetid age that, upon recognition, gently stirred the ever trouble waters of her mind and brought that same distant melancholy to her eyes in those moments where the fire of her spirit was not roused and unleashed with wicked barb and fist upon the world. She offered that same softer smile to Seeks What is Forgotten as one she regarded as friend and agreed with a certain measure of that same wickedness in tone and ever present smile. The thought of a sheathed knife leaping all to readily to the quicker of minds.

"Then we'll pay Stained Fingers a visit, maybe over tea? He does so love tea, jasmine particularly, from when we last met and talked." the Changing Moon offered with a wistful note of recollection that seemed to invite the impression of some joke lost upon a sounder mind.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:30, Fri 10 Dec 2021.

It had taken Seeks What is Forgotten more time than he was comfortable admitting to realize that Slender Willow Swaying considered him a friend.

He was, above all, perceptive of his surroundings. It was the defining trait that had kept him alive as long as he had survived. He did not consider himself a great fighter, no hero of ancient yore. When he had found others touched by the powers of the universe, he had always watched them from afar, or fled entirely. She was the first he had dared approach directly, and was wild enough that he was never quite sure what to make of her. It had meant a startling lack of introspection and insight for him, something he chided himself on regularily now that he realized it was true. He simply hadn't thought of himself as someone who was allowed friends. He'd accepted his fate as a conquest for Mara, and was trying to figure out what it meant to be a lost soul for Luna. Demons were easy, bound centuries ago to his will. They had no deepest mysteries to him.  A friend to another though, particularly another Lunar? It had taken him a while to see what was right in front of him, let alone come to terms with it.

He smiled beneath his cowl, and followed in hew wake.

"Jasmine it is then."

He croaked, not bothering to hide his amusement in this newest predicament he found himself in.

"I know just the place along the way. The tea is always the hard part, water and fire barely ever when it comes to the Scholars of the Straw." the Changing Moon offered with a cheerful note and a hint of a barb in voice and smile as she continued on with that near perfect grace. Thoughts and memories far more recent in their origin churning within her mind as the crowd continued to part around them before she paused in that near floating stride to glance back towards her companion with a conspiratorial grin.

"Oh, don't call them the Scholars of the Straw... They really do hate that. Unless you want to get a rise out of them... which can be fun too from time to time." Slender Willow Swaying added with a laugh that seemed at odds with itself in it's tone and notes. As if both good natured and cruel in it's demeanor and intent yet lovely all the same. With no more a thought to the matter, she took up her skirts and set the riot of reds, blues, greens, browns, and golds to dancing with each step yet somehow never breaking the illusion of that near ethereal grace and never revealing what lurked beneath.

The flow and play of each color almost demanding the attention of those around her as the crowds parted and watched. There was a method to the act though if one paid specific mind... As if daring someone to recall her, to remember her, and to find some wound or thorn still set in the flesh of memory and not yet mended right. She knew well, after all, that there were still dragons making their roost here and other things beside... but she knew well enough that there was a specific task at hand and so did no more than this passive taunt at those faces that loomed up from more recent and vivid memory of the girl that she was rather than those that she had been. The fog of many lives and many memories parting for just an instant to allow that clarity and brighten and twist that ever present smile just a fraction more.

Pushing further into the older sprawl of River-Town clustered around the base of the Falls sees a change in the buildings - logs and tents are replaced with planed planks and rough red brick. Geomentrical facades add a touch of elegance among the more affluent buildings. Overhead spray and mists form arcing rainbows as the morning sun climbs higher and the shadow cast by the bluffs recedes. The people likewise see a rise in prosperity and order compared to the chaotic outer camps.

Here can be found the Block - place for official business of the lower city, the Fastness - a charity for the mad and forgotten, Samguin Shrine - almost a temple to the Immaculate faith, a temple row to the city god Eorla, and the family compounds flying the symbols of both House Quagmire and Cliffside. But its a little shop tucked away along the side of a square that draws Willow's attention. It lacks the geomentric facade of its neighbors. Instead the brick wall is painted in bright colors of workers in a tea field with a bright cheerful sky overhead.

As you draw near the open door you hear the voice of Old Fenshin, owner of the shop. It sounds strained and placating, "Of course. I understand. Please send my regards to Master Ten Wheat Sheaves and this packet of our finest teas as a gift."

A steely, bored voice responds,"Then we are done, shopkeep. May the gods favor you."

A string of three men exit the shop, burly sorts that might work as laborers except the tattoos and easy arrogance of their stride say otherwise. In the middle is a man in better clothing with herons marking the sleeves. He thumbs a package in his hands absently. They pay no attention to the crowd scattering before them as the walk the opposite way.

As he had on so many occasions, Seeks What Is Forgotten found himself flowing along in Slender Willow Swaying's wake. It was a place that he had grown comfortable in, shadowing her both figuratively and literally as she moved the world about her. He preferred it when the people's eyes were on her, and not him, and she was so good at occupying center stage. For who would look upon him when she was in the same space? There was so much to notice if anyone had, secrets to be pried from every moment. Perhaps it was the ways in which his shuffling limp somehow still managed to flow almost like water, eating the earth beneath his feet despite the ungainliness of it all. It was a study in contradictions, the appearance of gracelessness a ripple upon the otherwise still pond of the truth.

She was speaking, giving him secrets and weapons should he wish to employ them against Stained Fingers, and he was devouring the words. He wondered what the scholar's shadow tasted like, and if Slender Willow Swaying would took offense if he tasted it. He wouldn't harm him, there was no need to do such a thing. Just a lock of hair, taken when none were watching, or perhaps a ring or trinket he was attached to. Then Seeks What Is Forgotten and the shadow of Stained Fingers could have a long conversation, and much could be learned.

He was getting ahead of himself, too eager to taste secrets buried and forgotten. It was his nature, it was his name, he could not be faulted for those things that Luna herself had chosen to seer into him, could he? It was a question he had asked himself many times over the last three decades, and yet still not one he had an answer to. He had been this way before he had drawn Luna's gaze, before he had drawn Mara's even. This was just what he was, he had always been this, an unbroken chain passing back through each of his past lives.

Thus it was that the steely voice drew a turn of his cowled head, his gaze stripping through the man's soul to reveal the secrets held within.

Profile Character on the man with the herons

17:49, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 7 successes using 7d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((10,10,10,8,1,2,3)).

[I'll give Seeks a 1 dot stunt. A Profile Character action takes about 5 minutes of interaction or observation! Because Heron Sleeves and his men are unaware of being observed their Guile is penalized two points.]

A questioning look crosses Willow's face as Seeks suddenly diverts from their destination to follow the group of men without a word. Heron Sleeves shakes his introspection and briskly continues his rounds. He stops frequently at shops and market stalls around the perimeter of the square before turning down a busy side street. Two city watchmen nod to Heron Sleeves and turn away as he passes.

Seeks shadows them through the busy streets as they put together the pieces. It becomes apparent the group are enforcers for the local crime cartel. A quick question to Willow would identify them as the Blue Gong Society from their tattoos. Heron Sleeves himself is the senior enforcer of this particular band of collectors working for the Blue Gong bosses. He is intent on efficiently collecting tribute from the shops in the square. His manner and accent suggest he was once one of them and is polite if stern, keeping his men in line. The shopkeepers are sensibly polite in return, not overly threatened as long as they cooperate.

All in all they seem a perfectly mundane facet of city life in the Second Age.

[Feel free to roll Stealth + Manipulation (Diff. 3) to shadow them without notice.] 

One moment, Seeks What Is Forgotten was trailing in Slender Willow Swaying's shadow. The next, he was a shadow himself, ethereal and ephemeral as he slipped away in pursuit of his new prey. His mind opened up to the infinite as he walked, calling upon contracts and bargains sealed lifetimes ago. It was a simple matter, really. The language had all been codified in bindings arcane and divine, all he had to do was apply it. Manipulate a clause here to pull just a bit more shade down from nearby wall, twist the interpretation of a paragraph there to make his prey blink just a fraction of a second long enough for him to slip from view. Bending and manipulating the laws of the universe with his power as he needed. He was a ghost, an invisible shade.  He might as well have not existed.

Had he just thought of Heron Sleeves as prey? He supposed he had. Funny that. He wondered if that had come from Luna, Mara, or himself.

All he needed now was to slip in, knife out, and pluck a single hair from the man's head without him or any of his companions noticing, and then he would be away.


OOC: Spending 4 motes from my Peripheral to use

Midnight Phantom Movement - P. 192
Cost: 4m; Mins: Dexterity 3, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute, Protean
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Instinct-Driven Beast
Movement, Skulking Rat Spirit
The Lunar slips unnoticed across the battlefield, weaving out of sightlines and into blind spots. She adds (higher of Essence or 3) dice on a Stealth roll to maintain concealment while moving, and ignores the increased penalty for crossing wide-open terrain (Exalted, pp. 203-204).
Protean: In animal shapes with Ambush Hunter, the Lunar can use this Charm to rush from concealment. She adds its bonus on both the rush and her Stealth roll

09:51, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 5 successes using 10d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((3,9,5,10,3,9,3,2,9,5)).
This message was last edited by the player at 18:19, Tue 21 Dec 2021.

The game of cat and mouse is exhilarating. The Blue Gong men are alert but prove no match for Seeks' Essence fueled prowling. A pause for the right moment, blending with a knot of passing people, a flash of the knife, and Heron Sleeve's black locks fall unnoticed into Seek's palm. Seeks disappears into the crowded street with his prize.

Slender Willow Swaying saw no wonder or value in the thugs of the Blue Gong yet it seemed her opinion wasn't shared as she watched, for but an instant, as Seeks What is Forgotten took a far more pointed interest in them. As if they were a shark that had scented blood in the water. That ever present, ever wicked smile softening at the edges with a hint of bemusement and the light of amusement dancing in those cerulean eyes for the moment it took for her friend to vanish into the shadows. She couldn't help but laugh in the moment as memories churned and roiled within her three tiered soul, bringing with them hazy recollections of once companions and greater lives long past and distant. That feeling of melancholy stealing slowly upon her as she tugged at the gossamer threads of those memories and was reminded all the more deeply of the diseased age in which she now lived...

She was not so easily swept away though in the moment as she rooted herself in that wretched present and reminded herself of the task she was committed to. That smile once more etching across her near perfect features as she practically floated into the tea shop, her eyes tracing the walls with all the attentiveness of the comfortable predator before settling on the so recently beleaguered merchant with a warmer, less wicked but no less enduring smile to suit the moment.

"I hope it isn't a bad time, you look a little pale." Slender Willow Swaying asked politely with a note of care in her voice as her steps carried her a little closer so that she might not have to raise her voice unduly. The click of her obsidian hooves upon the floor of his shop only barely audible among the riotous clamour of the markets beyond and so only seeming like a finely appointed sandal to the ears of the inattentive.

The interior of the shop is plain and practical compared to the bright cheery scene of tea farmers on the exterior brickwork. A few tables line the walls of the narrow shop with customers sipping from porcelain cups. Two old men share a hookah pipe in a corner. White smoke wreathes their heads as they chat. At the far end is the middle-aged proprietor with his back to the door. He stirs a pot absentmindedly until the click-click-click of Willow's hooves on the wooden floor boards draws his eyes. Skinny with folds of loose skin hang from Old Fenshin's aged face as a look of recognition lights his rheumy eyes. His face is professional and blank as he nods to Slender Willow Swaying.

"No. Just business. Welcome to my tea shop. Its been a while." 

Seeks What Is Forgotten let his fingertips trace along the brickwork as he returned to the tea shop, humming a tuneless song whose words had been lost lifetimes ago. He wound the black locks between the fingers of his other hand,  and wondered what Heron Sleeves would think when he noticed it missing. He had barely noticed when his own had fallen out, though in his own defense, he had been desperately fighting with a deathcurse at the time. He had been far more concerned with desperately mixing together unguents and potions to stave off the burning corruption devouring him from within than he had at his outward appearance. He certainly didn't care now, else he would have taken some form years ago. Except, was that technically the case? He realized with some surprise that found within himself a strong desire to take Heron Sleeve's face now. He wasn't quite sure where that desire came from, and as he walked he checked within himself to ensure that it wasn't Mara's influence. Her's was a subtle will, and she was so good at slipping through the cracks of his defenses. What a strange patronage, and yet it was one they had both come to some strange mutual understanding over. Predatory, yes, but an understanding nevertheless. He wondered how similar it was to the understanding he'd soon have with Heron Sleeve's shadow.

He'd learn the man's true name soon enough, once he had a moment of reprieve.

He slipped through the door of the shop, making sure to make enough noise that Slender Willow Swaying would have no choice but to hear the shuffling of his feet, before slipping back into her shadow.

"Apologies. I found a bauble that caught my eye."

He croaked, the sound barely a whisper, slipping the strand of hair into a pocket within his sleeve.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:56, Fri 24 Dec 2021.

In reply to Seeks What Is Forgotten (msg # 43):

The Changing Moon half turned to regard Seeks What is Forgotten with an amused snort, the sound almost delicate if only by the biases one might ascribe to her mortal aesthetic without knowing what burned like a furnace beneath. Seeks the What Is Forgotten had only a taste of what was beneath but he could see the flicker of that wicked, maddened nature in every glance towards those eyes yet there seemed so few embers here to enflame that temper and that desire to purge and destroy that she had so gleefully thrown herself into... It could only be wondered at just what might light that fuse here. For her own part, Slender Willow swaying had to wonder after just what nature of bauble had sent her friend so quickly on his way... and the mystery tantalized at a feline curiosity somewhere in the depths of her mind and three tiered soul.

"Oh, so that's what had you so spirited?" She offered with a teasing note to her voice. The barbs that seemed to linger in every word and action retracted if only, seemingly, to ease her passing and allow for a glimpse of life undisrupted by recollections of better times and better selves. She turned her attention back towards Old Fenshin with a shallow but sincere bow from the waist at any impropriety she might have engaged in with the acknowledging of Seeks' return. That light of recognition in his old eyes noted with a hint of her true smile in all it's wicked fanged glory for but a flash of an instant before the mask of civility and propriety settled once more into place.

"Ah, Matters of coin are always so serious but it certainly has been a time." Slender Willow Swaying replied with a note of respectful gravitas lined just so with a silvered edge of darker humour in tone that flowed upon the tide of words as she agreed it had been some time since last walked the markets and streets. "But has it been so long that you no longer carry the Snapping Petal Dragon blend? Old roots bring me back and I don't like to arrive on the door step empty handed."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:26, Fri 24 Dec 2021.

"Heh..."

Seeks What Is Forgotten let out a nervous cough, doing his best to keep Slender Willow Swaying between himself and the master of the tea shop. He was quite good at not drawing attention to himself from mortal eyes, had needed to be considering his appearance, and he strove to put those skills to good use now. Not hiding, not clinging to shadow like some little elemental of shadow. Just staying out of the way, unobtrusive and quiet.

"Funny you should use that word, spirited."

He whispered to her back, his creaking voice just barely loud enough to enter into her perceptions.

"As something's noticed me, and I haven't noticed it back."

Which was the only explanation, of course.

For all his time spent binding Demons in contracts and pledges, he'd never developed the knack for opening his third eye and perceiving that which exists between planes of consciousness and unconsciousness. He hadn't needed to, having never drawn their attention or ire, but in retrospect it was a foolish vulnerability to have left open. For now he appeared to have risen to the attention of a Spirit, and he had no ability to discern it. Dangerous, to play the games he had played and to be so blind. He saw that now, but wisdom for the future was only helpful if one survived the present.

Perhaps the terrifying battle mistress whose shadow he followed would prove as adept at dispatching the threat in the hidden world as she had of threats in the material one.

The old proprietor finally cracks a smile as the tension from his earlier encounter with the Blue Gongs fades. "We do indeed carry the Snapping Petal Dragon blend."

Old Fenshin digs through packets upon his shelves before turning with a satisfied nod to set it upon the counter. He names a price high enough to raise the hair on a man's neck. "Unfortunately Twilighter bandits and grippli raiders on the Quagmire plantations have made importation difficult. Prices are high everywhere."

The Changing Moon only offered a smile at her companions response. An aspect of the fiercer self evident in the edge it held before that expression morphed to better suit the coming conversation. A spirit pursuer was nothing more than nuisance so long as it's bonds could not be traced to far more problematic beings in the city.

"There's certainly a kinship there." Slender Willow Swaying retorted with a demon's smile and a playful flight in her eyes as she leaned lightly onto the counter at the invitation to haggle. It was almost that same mad energy as had so thoroughly infused her in the battle against Sleet yet the barbs lacked that wicked intent, merely prodding and poking at someone that it now became apparent she had some measure of familiarity with and wished no true harm to.

"The last whispers I heard on the road was they had assigned half a legion at the Guild's request to keep such things running smoothly? Now that has to bear the weight of a pretty coin but it's not your hand it's lifting from isn't it?" the Changing Moon added with a sweet lilt to her voice that seemed all too like the scent of some poisoned flower that promised a blissful death yet she persisted with all the spirit of a dog offered up a bone as she took to the chase of the haggle to settle the deal towards a happy medium. Her words twisting and turning the point with a natural grace that spoke to tribal roots and experience rather than the fancy ways of some courtier's school. Her hands always find way to dance and underline the point when not grasping at her shawls and skirts to draw the eye and distract with an artful touch as she leaned on her charms and gift with such things to sell the point.


Not the best roll but don't have a lot to work with beyond stunting/excellencies.

19:14, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 3 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Charisma + Presence.

This message was last edited by the player at 17:24, Tue 28 Dec 2021.

[Old Fenshin invoked his Major Principle "Profit is its own reward" vs Willow's social interaction for a +3 Resolve bonus.]

The old merchant rolls his eyes,"Calling those mercenaries and ex-bandits the Guild hires to guard the Meander route or the outland plantations a 'legion' is doing them too much honor. Not that the Guild wants a Realm legion or a 7th Legion field force anywhere near the free city of Azrego."

He shrugs, "These aren't normal times, miss. You're an outland guide...you know how dangerous it is. But I suppose it isn't your fault. Tell you what..."

Fenshin dickers spiritedly with Slender Willow Swaying before reluctantly agreeing to a new price. He packs the tea carefully and presents it to the two Lunars in exchange for Willow's coin. Bargaining done he nods cheerfully to the Lunars before turning to a new customer.

[We can move on to the academy now if you wish.]

Seeks What Is Forgotten watched the exchange in apparent abject fascination, though it was an odd subject for such engagement given its mundanity. He remained as always withing Slender Willow Sway's periphery, out of sight of others as much as could be managed while always just at the edge of her piercing gaze. He did not doubt she could skewer him, if she wished, and that if he evaded her gaze it was because she allowed him to do so. Yet it was where he felt most comfortable, out of the limelight, letting her lead. If she were done here, he would let her lead the way. He had his own schemes, but there would be time enough for them when these two meetings were done.

"I have plans for the Heron's face..."

He whispered to both members of his two soul audience, one ephemeral and one standing before him, though he started to wonder if he erred in telling his companion about the voice. Not that it was a secret he wished to keep from her, but he would feel foolish if it had been from one of the voices he always carried with him.

"… are you offering to aid me in the hunt?"

That directed purely to the voice, though he made sure to say it loudly enough that Slender Willow Swaying could hear.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:40, Sat 01 Jan 2022.

Slender Willow Swaying accepted the wrapped parcel with a happy note to voice and that ever present, ever evocative smile as she gently tucked it away amongst her shawls and skirts. The presence of pockets hidden among the fabric seeming the least strange thing about the tribal woman. With no more to the matter at hand, she bid Old Fenshin the blessings of the gods of her people and those blessings upon his family and turned with that same near perfect grace. The soft clatter of her obsidian hooves upon the floor suggesting a certain reinvigoration of the spirit from so mundane an interaction as she passed out into the streets once more.

A pale hand rising to lightly brush at errant strands of dark hair as she paused at the threshold to take in her surroundings with a careful eye. The essence burning through her chakras to peel back the veils of reality and broaden the boundaries of perception to encompass the worlds and ways of gods and spirits. The only hint of anything at all happening was the momentary deepening of the cerulean hue of her eyes and the agitated twitching and darting of her shadow in those moments where it thought one might not be looking.

With no more a thought to it she departed into the crowds of the market. Hazy memories of different and past lives circling at the edges of her conscious mind and bringing with it a strange cocktail of bitterness and elation for things that continued and things that were no more. As they walked, the spoken question of Seeks What is Forgotten earned a giggle from the  lunar who at some pointe had turned and was now walking backwards through the crowd without a care to the calamity such might seemingly invite. That near perfect grace seeming to guide her every step without hint of error and leaving precious little evidence to the unnatural configurations of her legs in the loud trails of her skirts. It was almost like witnessing a dance in way though the melody and purpose to it was certainly lost in the swirl of madness and emotion that seemed to always circle the Changing Moon.

"Forming a pack, are we?" she teased with a glance from one shoulder to the other and then the crowd beyond in search of this unseen, third, or was it fifth, companion in their quest to find what gods had whispered of to the Shaman Fulgar. The shimmer of the hearth stone set in her breast glinting through the fabrics of her shawl and shirt as if in mirror of the glee that settled in that conspiratorial smile she now wore.

OOC: 4 motes from personal essence pool to activate Perceiving the Hidden World. Spending another 3 from peripheral to enhance a perception/awareness check via excellency.

Don't figure walking backwards through a crowded market and having a conversation counts as stunting but if it does, would love to add my dex lol.


12:49, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 6 successes using 9d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Awareness + Perception + Excellency (3).


This message was last edited by the player at 18:00, Fri 31 Dec 2021.

The effort is minimal, almost unconscious. Like squinting at too small print or cupping an ear to hear a whispered conversation. The world seems to pop with color and life to Slender Willow Swaying's enhanced senses. The breeze is ripe with more...scents of the once inconceivable or subtle plays of unnameable colors skirling in its wake. The street, already busy with mortal endeavors, sees lithe forms drifting through the crowds stopping here and there, scrolls in hand. They frown at nothing before making a notation upon their scroll. Of what they are accounting for is uncertain though the spirits are known to be in service to the city god Eorla. There a little girl towed by her mother clutches a doll. Its eyes seem to meet the Lunars gaze before becoming blank little buttons. The least gods of inanimate objects are shy but you could catch glimpses of them from time to time.

But around Seeks What is Forgotten there is no being of spirit, no god, no demon. Its like he is talking to empty air. Perhaps this shouldn't be a surprise. Gods and demons have tricks of their own to talk or sense over distances, and this Mara is reputed to be a sorceress of incredible power on top of it. Spells or spirit tricks, who can say?

"Ahhh...."

Seeks What Is Forgotten let out a rasping noise more akin to a wheeze than a sigh. His robes rustled, and looking down she would likely have noticed that his skeletal hands had emerged from their normal hiding space within the depths of his robes. He held something, working and weaving it around his fingers, and close inspection would have revealed a dark knot of human hair. No, not a knot, for even know he worked and wove it into a surprisingly thin braid. This his boney fingers were weaving into a cat's cradle of ever increasing sophistication and complexity.

"My apologies, Slender Willow Swaying. It's been a bit since I've been around so much... humanity."

He looked about himself from within his cowled hood as he said the word, making no attempt to hide any of the complicated emotions it brought forward for him.

"Guess the old instincts took over, and she always slips in when that happens."

At the word "instincts," he held up the cat's cradle of human hair, as if that explained anything. He didn't have to say who "she" was, he'd made no secret of his divided loyalties early on in their travels, the moment he'd suspected that the other Lunar would react with no fear at the revelation. If he'd come to understand anything at all about his companion in their travels together, it was that fear was not among her list of character flaws. She threw herself at the world as if she intended to shatter it to pieces through sheer bloody determination, and as far as he knew, she did.

Mara he should have expected, and he chided himself that he hadn't realized. He was an oddity among his kind, despite his limited experience with other Celestials he knew that. She was taunting him for it, and frankly, he deserved her mockery. She knew as well as he did that she'd already taught him all that he needed to hunt. With the hair within his fingers even now he could call on the sorcery she had taught him, engaging in a hunt quite unlike any that his fellow Lunars might follow. He hungered for it even now, that blending of Luna's gifts and Mara's teachings.

"The sooner I have some space to weave my shadows, I'll get my head clear."

He said at last, pulling himself from his reverie.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:04, Sun 02 Jan 2022.

There was a softer, almost melancholic note to the smile now as the Changing Moon continued to stroll backwards through the market without a thought towards the crowds that parted around them. Old, hazy memories floating to the surface from the depths of a well worn soul at such discomfort around so much humanity. Her eyes flickering for a moment to the dark knot of hair and the growing weave of it's pattern.

"It's strange to think there used to be more. A lot more." she offered in something like a shared commiseration though the strange note to her voice made one wonder if it was truly the young Lunar or some fragment of a distant self even as that smile persisted and her head tilted for a moment at the elaboration. She turned for only a moment then to slip past someone far less attentive than herself with that near perfect grace of some savage instinct before returning her attention to Seeks What is Forgotten with that same soft smile.

"Instincts are there for a reason. Sometimes, most times, people ignore them without ever thinking why they're there. They are tied to the soul though... so makes sense that a whisper here and there might sneak in when you're doing what feels... natural." Slender Willow Swaying mused as she slowed her backward pace and allowed Seeks to draw just a few steps closer. A gentle skip and she turned with face forward once more, hands falling to keep her skirts from rising too high to give away the curses of her own heritage.

"The Straw isn't too far. You'll have a little more breathing room there. Me though? I... like knowledge but all if it locked up in a place like that feels... contrary to the point?" the Changing Moon offered with a conspiratorial lowering of voice that still teased at the ear with a demon's glee and wit despite the gentler notes of sympathy and understanding that lurked somewhere in the mire of meaning that could be drawn from every little word and gesture of hers... and just beneath that... the ever present melancholy and anger with each hazy memory of distance and better selves that floated here and there between each thought of her present self.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Sat 08 Jan 2022.

He pulled at his collar, though the action did little to loosen the three straps.

"Enough room to weave Contracts and Bargains?"

Which wasn't actually a question of room, and more one of privacy. Seeks What Is Forgotten needed little enough of the former to work his Sorcery, and was adept and finding the later. He felt uncomfortable pestering her like this, and had caught even himself off guard in the act, but with Mara whispering in his ears he knew he needed to find an outlet for the sensations building up within him, or else she would find a way. It had been a release to snatch the lock of hair from Heron Sleeves, it would be so much more to wrap himself in motes of shadow and magic. Being within this place, he began to realize just how much of a creature of instinct he had become. It had been such a subtle thing, Luna's touch twisting his mind even more gently than Mara's had. That was saying something. Yet now he found himself itching to escape the light, itching to return to the dark and the secrets he could pull from it.

He felt naked and exposed, and he knew just what would fix the sensation.

The Changing Moon clasped hands behind her back as her eyes rose to the vault of Heaven above them in consideration of that point. A wicked light stealing into that perpetual smile as her attention returned to earthly concerns that surrounded them as she let her lead tilt to the side and spared Seeks What is Forgotten a glance out of the corner of one cerulean blue eye. Her dark hair shifting and dancing with the motions of breeze and woman.

"It depends on what kind but I wouldn't think the walls don't have eyes or ears... or teeth."

The words themselves weren't unkind but there was a gentle barb in the way Slender Willow Swaying managed those same words. A reminder and warning both that they walked into a den of sorcerers and learned minds that might be wiser to the ways of world and nature than they might wish them to be. Still, her smile turned warm as the Sun above in an instant as she continued onward with all the grace of a dancer. The academy's towering presence growing all the more prominent as they wound their way towards it's foundations.

"Of course, that isn't to say you... couldn't ask to use one chamber or another but that might be showing more of yourself than you're ready to give." she added with gentle notes of understanding that spoke to the young woman, after a fashion, behind the postures of fearlessness and almost deranged determination to shatter and break the forms of the world that had grown sick and wretched around her. The silence that followed seeming a considered one regardless of if there was purpose behind it or not as she seemed to favour one person or another among the passing crowds with a smile or little gesture of greeting.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:10, Sun 09 Jan 2022.

At last the duo approaches the base of the huge bluffs dividing the city of Azrego. Great waterfalls tumble down its face to the large stone basins below which then feed into the Meander River. The bluffs themselves are arranged in layered shelves where the homes and estates of the city's wealthiest gather, the Falls or Up-Falls. Midway up the bluff is the spired home of Azrego's sorcerers.

Here at the base can be found the sturdy wooden scaffolding of platforms. Iron chains wind through the intricate woodwork and lead to great turnstyles where teams of donkeys circle slowly. With a lurch the platforms rise and descend carrying passengers and cargos to the upper city. Only a wooden railing guards the contents from a fall. Lines of common people, merchants, and travelers wait their turn to use the elevators. City watchmen take tabs of people coming and going.

Not far away is a finer construct of silvery metal, built within in the last few years. The platforms are constructed more like beautiful birdcages and instead of chains the platforms are driven by huge screws. Each turning of the screws raises the platforms smoothly to its destination among the wealthier districts. No obvious motive force like teams of donkeys propels the platforms. It is the result of the Broken-Straws finest efforts at sorcerous workings. The Blue Hat mercenaries, armed with shields and spears, keep things orderly and the gorgeous elevator clear of the riff raff.

Seeks What Is Forgotten beheld the wonder that was the raising platform, and shook his head beneath his cowled robe. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly between his teeth within the depths of his parched mouth.

"Is this how they flaunt their wealth these days, preening little things?"

Although it felt like a lifetime ago, and in truth it was at least one, he still remembered well what it had meant to be the son of poor farmers at the outskirts of Sijan. The way he saw it, at least the eternal of that place had the sensibility to lock their great wealth up within tombs and burial mounds, rather than flaunting it gaudily before the common citizenry. He had not coveted their riches for himself, nor his family, for within the crypts they lay in waiting for any brave enough to face the traps, curses, and riddles laid down by those ancient builders. Decades later, he still struggled to articulate what it was about that which appealed to him so, particularly when compared to the platforms he saw now before him.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:35, Mon 17 Jan 2022.

The Changing Moon wore a wicked grin as she caught that little click of tongue and the venom that found root in word as Seeks What is Forgotten set eyes on the raising platforms that were so proudly displayed by their principle architects. She had seen them a dozen times before now and still... they seemed such a pale shadow as hazy memories of times long lost and lives far different churned within her three tiered soul.

It was a scathing laugh that escaped her as she drew just a little closer to her fellow lunar. The sound like knives and claws against the slate despite the beauty and youth of the voice that gave it life.

"How else are they going to impress the dead in the shadows of legend?" Slender Willow Swaying offered with grim humour as she broke away with a light skip and steadying hands upon the flowing, riot of colours that were her skirts to keep the hallmarks of her breath secret from all but the canniest eyes. Her shadow darting and twitching in the light as it seemed to pursue other shadows with all that wretched, halting insectoid speed that was so at odds with the near perfection of grace and balance the Changing Moon possessed.

Her light and quick steps only slowed as she turned more to once more regard her companion with a smile that promised something though whether it was danger or delight was the real mystery in the instant... Yet it was wicked and sharp all the same.

"Best not to keep my friend waiting though this bottleneck'll slow us down anyway." the Lunar lamented with a teasing note as she glanced back towards the various raising platforms. She had not spent so much time here as to make the kinds of inroads she might have liked. She had a little pull but it was all at the periphery of things rather than upon the heart strings. She knew there were easier ways about it but to take wing in the heart of the City was a bold move that she did not quite feel inclined to just yet though most would merely dismiss it as the work of sorcery or some other esoteric art.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:56, Fri 14 Jan 2022.

The appearance of a barbarian woman and her cadaverous companion hidden deep in his hood and bent under the weight of a wrapped object on his back takes the guards aback. The Lunars are not the usual passengers on their lavish birdcage lifts. Upon learning the Lunars have dealings at the Tower of the Eight Directions is enough for them. With warnings to behave themselves from the guards they wave them to one of the screw driven lifts toward the end, a plain affair where servants in fine and colorful uniforms or rougher delivery men from the lower city await their turns. The servants turn their noses up at the 'intruders', involved in their own games of status and importance as they are.

Soon enough the Lunars find themselves on one of the lifts, intrigued by the fine inlays even on this 'plain' birdcage. Fanciful beasts and birds decorate the floor. With barely a hitch it rises smoothly to the designated level far above. Outside the lift cage the falling water roars and shows a fine display of natural beauty. The air turns cooler and the city spreads out below, like toys from a toddler's block set.

A slight clunk and the doors swing open. The liftman, in his own fine uniform glances at the barbarians. "Out with you now. Others are waiting."

Before you is the rocky shelf that the Tower of Eight Directions, or more derisively the Broken-Straw Academy, sits. A single street of middle class houses line a beautifully decorated street, the cobble stones glittering as if they were mixed with colored glass. At its end is the spire of the academy itself rising some dozen stories into the air. It seems to have grown out of the native stone. Artful streaks of stone of different textures and colors give the Tower a fanciful look like out of a fairy tale.

The tower grounds are surrounded by a wrought iron fence with a magnificent set of gates. Beyond can be seen colorfully robed figures going about their business. No one seems to attend the gate but upon approach a voice speaks out of the air, "Welcome to the Tower of the Eight Directions. What is your name and business?"

Beautiful or not, Slender Willow Swaying would always be nothing more than a barbarian in the eyes of 'civilized' men. That did little but to stoke the fires that burned within her as agitated memories of the chase that led her to Mother Luna and memories beyond the life she now led and into the lives of past and better times. It all culminated in sweet tones and a smile so sharp in it's nature that it was a wonder the man might not have felt the line it could have carved in his soul from the perspective of Seeks What is Forgotten... Especially when he knew some measure of what the mind behind that smile was capable of in cutting word and worse with the flat of her hand. Still she complied as there were far greater goals to be achieved than to disrupt the quiet bureaucracy of Academics and Sorcerers.

Each step and gesture now was taken with a measure of that near perfect grace, her mind seemingly preoccupied now with the task ahead and the act of hiding all about her that was different. The assumptions of learned minds were the most dangerous when it came to what she now was and while she might relish the chance to make problems to those precious terrestrial few that could be found here... It was not something she wished to endanger the value of her word upon. Not yet anyway. This sick age was something that must burn, must be cured, must be changed... somehow... but she had a luxury so few had; time.

As the voice greeted them then, she looked up and favored it with the sweet smile one might give to a child.

"Slender Willow Swaying seeks tea and an audience with Stained Fingers."

There was something in her voice that made it seem absurd, a mockery of etiquette, yet by the same token sincere and serious. There was a game here but the nature of it remained the real quest as she stood with hands buried among the flow of festive shawls and skirts with a patience that seemed both alien yet familiar to the Changing Moon. She might possess the will and stubbornness to tear down all before her but she seemed to know, too, when to strike.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:49, Mon 17 Jan 2022.

All along the ride in the lifts, Seeks What Is Forgotten had kept his head down and his flesh hidden beneath his robes. He had contented himself looking out and enjoying the view, humming tunelessly beneath his breath. He had played endlessly with the thread of hair wrapped within his slender fingers, delighting in the thought of what mysteries he would pull from such a thing. He wove it through complex patterns, threads twining over and around each other in a repetitive cycle that never needed to end. It had been so long since he had hunted, but as he stood there he realized that he had given in fully to his old instincts, he would need to be careful with that. Had it been indulgence in instinct that had caused him to snatch his prize from Heron Sleeves? He could not say, and while that didn't make him uncomfortable, neither was it a comforting thought.

He understood well that he was a creature of instinct, but knowing that did not mean he had any more control of it than if he had remained blissfuly unaware.

As they approached the gate, he would have much preferred to remain silent, but he found himself wondering if such a thing would be allowed. Were they talking to a mortal guardian speaking to them through Sorcery, or perhaps it was some sort of sentient enchantment. He wasn't sure which was more interesting, but with both he worried that he would be expected to contribute.

"Seeks What Is Forgotten aims to stay out of the way while she does, and perhaps enjoy a little tea."

He added, and while it wasn't quite what one might consider impertinent rudeness, it certainly wasn't the height of etiquette either.

There is a wait at the gates before they swing open revealing a woman. Unlike many inhabitants of the city with ruddy skin and green hair her face is a dark green and her long red hair blows like flames in the breeze. She wears knee length white robe bordered on its edges with alternating bands of blue and gray. Loose dark pants are tucked into black boots laced up the sides. A kukri rides on her hip.

"Welcome to the Tower of Eight Directions. My name is Liana. I ask that you keep weapons and any magics in check. The tower can be dangerous. I'll take you to Master Stained Fingers in the Hall of Scribes."

Liana is cheerful, keeping up a stream of small talk and seeming to know something of Willow's profession. She asks innocuous questions and readily supplies equally innocuous answers to their guests. The walk takes them past a outdoor class where a half dozen students perform occultic mudras. Sparks of motic energy flare in response under the watchful eye of a elderly tutor. They all wear clothing similar to their guide though the color bordering them changes. The students have a plain black band at the hems of their robes. The tower itself looms overhead, its crown surrounded by rainbows cast by the waterfall's spray. The double doors are open to reveal the Hall of Scribes. It turns out to be a rather unspectacular series of rooms lined with tables, stools, the smell of ink, and chalk boards. Some of the rooms contain a few students.

Finally they come to a more ornate door. Liana opens it to reveal a dark heavy desk in its center surrounded by walls lined with bookshelves and a few assorted relics hanging from the walls. Willow recognizes a few of local tribal make. Behind the desk sits a harried-looking man with thick white hair and rhuemy eyes. He glances up with a huff. "Sit, sit, Both of you. I have a few minutes to spare, Slender Willow Swaying. I'm curious what a professional guide wants of me."

Slender Willow Swaying indulged, if one were to ascribe a word to it, with Liana as they walked. The innocent questions met with more in kind and slowly turning the perfunctory conversation into a subtle duel of pleasantries to see what might be rung free of the other woman for no other reason than purest amusement. It was only in brief lulls of conversation that her attention seemed to drift at all to their surroundings with the keen eye of the predator that lingered beneath. Her shadow, all the while, dancing and twitching as it chased after their guide's own when the light twisted to allow them to touch for even a moment. Those darting, twitching motions so subtle and sudden as to make one question what they may have witnessed.

There was something to congregation of students, professors, and the lecture halls beside that scratched at the edges of the mind and dragged forward hazy memories from the depths. It was enough to cause the Changing Moon to slow just for a moment as she watched the mudras with an almost nostalgic smile dulling the edge of her usually wicked grins before the young woman was dragged to the present once more. Her very step taken with nearly perfect grace and balance... and each nearly silent save for that same tell tale click that implied more a finely wrought shoe or sandal than the hooves that actually dwelt beneath the hem of her festive skirts.

The journey through the hall of Scribes brought with it a moment of quiet consideration even as the Changing Moon continued to walk. This place of hoarded knowledge, locked into forms that could not freely flow, knew more than she might ever and yet... It was all so very useless to her. The secrets of letter and word had never been something that there had been a chance to learn despite those memories that churned within her well travelled soul. Each speaking to years of time spent in places like this and yet nothing of how to draw meaning from the printed word... Yet still, the glimpse of tribal relics upon Stained Finger's overflowing shelves brought a warm edge to her smile as their meanings and nature were easy to comprehend from the painted figures and forms upon them.

At his bidding, she settled herself in one of the offered chairs with the motions of legs clearly crossing beneath the flow of her skirts. Only an instant followed as she fussed with the straightening of shirt and shawls even though any perceived disarray did precious little to detract from the handsome nature of her aspect and the dangerous magnetism behind it. The acknowledgement of her talents earning a youthful brightening of her smile that did little to imply a loss of faculty in how that light reached those cerulean eyes.

"There aren't many with a better grasp of what is and isn't in the little treasure trove of knowledge the Academy calls it's own. Or better preference in tea." she offered in kind as she produced the small bag of jasmine tea with a cheeky grin before continuing. "I've taken in more than a few stories of my people and the other tribes but I've been asked to... satisfy a curiosity and find something with only visions, not much more than star dust, as my guide." the Lunar continued as she let her gaze settle back on Stained Fingers. Her mind carefully balancing the extent of which to share. "I'd hoped you might know something of a great mount that may was carved by ancients to look like a great serpentine monster... The Gods and Spirits of Rain and Wind are unkind to these kinds of work... So I have to hope it's memory has found it's way to parchment since I don't know of any songs of such things." Slender Willow Swaying offered with what might have been dubbed an amused note to the admission of her failing of expertise. The truth was it ground against her pride but only reinforced what she might already know of herself.

Seeks What Is Forgotten was entranced.

He'd always enjoyed being a student at the feet of Slender Willow Swaying in this regard, observing the ways in which she viscously maneuvered through the ebb and flow of social interaction. While the skills he had cultivated would have given him an impressive baseline from which to foray into the unending intimacies of such, it was simply not a skillset to which he had devoted any time and attention. It was a world he was simply blind to, though utterly fascinating to observe.

At least, most of the time.

Today though? Today he was utterly captivated by the esteemed halls of learning though which they now passed. He had been denied such, in his youth, a combination of poor blood and even poorer finances. He would have excelled in a place like this, had he been permitted to attend. He might still excel here, though perhaps not in the pursuits the wise masters of the halls might approve of. Their charges? Well they might enjoy a bit of mischief. Still, he kept his swift fingers to himself for now. While he on several occasions thought to chance a quick cut from the hair or robes of a passing Master, he already had more than enough of a prize to keep his baser instincts content. He would not risk such a thing now, when they were a guest of the evidently esteemed Master Stained Fingers.

What he would do instead would be to remain silent and still, carefully watching and observing every little detail of this place. Every door, every window, every nook and cranny through which he might creep. These halls of learning were an oyster to him, and he fully intended to return someday and drink deep.

Master Stained Fingers glows with pleasure as the paper package of tea is revealed. "Excellent choice! Liana, would you please prepare us four cups?"

Liana nods affably and takes the package. She turns to the table along one wall bearing a fine old tetsubin, a cast iron tea pot. With a skilled hand she prepares the tea. For heating the water she passes a hand under the tesubin and steam starts to rise from the spout. Stained Fingers turns back to his guests, seemingly blase to his assistant's magics.

"A serpentine monster?", Stained Fingers ponders the request for a moment. "Statues of snakes are not that uncommon here in the East, downright mundane in the beastman empire of Ixcoatli far to the East of Azrego."

He nods finally, "While I wouldn't exactly call it 'serpentine' there is statue said to be carved out of a mountain in the Creeper Peaks." Stained Fingers turns his chair to run a finger along the scroll shelf behind him, finally drawing one of them out. He unrolls it dramatically across his desk revealing a map of the Eastern Frontier. He plants a finger in the southern Creeper Peaks. "There was Sage Bright's expedition of some twenty years ago that discovered it here. A mountain carved in the likeness of a centipede thing curving in a serpentine pattern miles long. The head had been smashed by some titanic force."

He points to a drawing in the margin. A mountain carved into a segmented body in an S-curve but lacking the many limbs of a true centipede. Instead it had eight or twelve, the exact number hard to determine from the drawing, and some of them seemed to have hands? The head is indeed nothing but a crater, all but one vertical pupiled eye smashed away. It was generous to call it a centipede or a serpent, instead seeming like some thing between. The curves and angles are subtly unsettling, inhuman, in their craft.

At this point Liana presents a tray of hot tea, lemon, and a cup of sugar. Soon Stained finger, Liana, and their guests are enjoying a very flavorful tea. Stained Fingers continues to speak.

"An interesting tale goes along with it. Its said during the Divine Rebellion these peaks were inhabited by an alien empire that was devoted to the Enemies of the Gods. They supposedly carved this mountain, enchanted it so it could walk and fight. The things called upon their creation to fight the gods' armies and it became an unstoppable terror. That is until the hero Brilliant Sapphire Mantis took the shape of an immense beast and wrestled it to a standstill. While he pinned it his wife the Ten Thousandth Warrior leaped miles into the air and brought down her massive hammer on its head killing it. With the animated mountain's fall the thing's creators fled in disarray or were destroyed."

Stained Finger notably makes no reference to what exactly the heroes of the tale were though the Lunars with their Exalted memories can make some inferences.

"Anyway the mountains later became the preserve of Anathema. Their estates were built over the ruins of the enemy race's cities in the First Age. Of course the Usurpation and the Dragon-Blooded put an end to their evil ways."


Also interesting is the lack of a price for this sudden spurt of information from Stained Fingers.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:21, Sat 22 Jan 2022.

It was almost a knowing smile at Stained Finger's delight with the tea but it was also one of genuine delight as he was quick to capitalize on the moment.

"I'm glad to know I've still got something of a nose for such things." she offered with a pleasant delight that masked any hint of wickedness that so usually infected her tone. Small pleasures were something she rarely found fault with in a world she so detested.

There was a specific grace and awareness of etiquette that seemed to flow through Slender Willow Swaying as she carefully arranged the tea with sugar and gentle twists of lemon as it was placed between them. The work done with all due decorum, she rested gently back into her seat as Stained Fingers began to speak of the Mountain they sought. She had taken care to omit anything of their purpose but to have that singular landmark pinned down was more than enough to allow them then to search the mountain ranges surrounding as Seeks What is Forgotten wished to do. Of course, they still needed to delivery within the lifetime of the august Shaman.

Old memories churned beneath the surface, filling in the subtle details of nuance that may have been lost to the ages and fragilities of paper and the disaster of conflict. That wicked smile shone with a curious light as she was tugged between past and present but no so much so that she did not pick up on the fascinating fact that no price had been demanded for such a price. It was only fair but she suspected if she asked to see maps of the Creeper Peaks, there would be no small fee and there was something else that burned at the back of her mind as she felt the cold fang of Sleet pressed continually resting against her side.

"I have to wonder what I might need to do to have a further look at his notes of the peak and the surrounding area? Or, for that matter, some of the fine craftsmen here regarding a curious little fang I happened along." the Changing Moon asked with a thoughtful note as she delicately balanced the tea cup and produce Sleet's fang from one of the hidden pockets of her festive shawls and skirts to rest in her lap. Gentle wisps of condensation rising from it attesting to the wrathful cold that suffused the terrible incisor.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:52, Mon 24 Jan 2022.

Seeks What Is Forgotten's thoughts played over the Master's words like flickering shadows, devouring concepts and themes with an almost feverish intensity. The tale was largely immaterial, despite its vibrancy, but the maps and the knowledge behind them was of profound importance. Here was the lead they sought, and no reason that he could see for any deception. It was what they had been looking for, down to the picture scrawled into the margins. Yet many questions were left unanswered, and as he sat in Slender Willow Swaying's discordant and ever flickering shadow, he contemplated their significance.

The tea made such silent moments all the better.

He took a sip, making only the barest of slurping noises as he did so. A tiny little whisper that could just barely be discerned. He appreciated that, despite the appearance the Cursework had wrought upon his body, despite all of Luna's fire and the endless allure of Mara's shadow, he still had the ability to appreciate a descent cup of tea. He wouldn't have been sure that immortality would have been worth it, otherwise.

"Makes you wonder what Sage Bright was hoping to find, and if they found it, doesn't it?"

He could do little to keep the eagerness out of his voice, leaning forward over the map as his dull grey eyes scanned the map. The smell of burst flesh accompanied him as he did so, and while he hoped the lemon he'd spritzed into the air would cover it, he knew deep down it wouldn't. If the smell was one of Luna's jokes, or just the side effects of the plague ravaging his body, he doubted he'd ever know.

Stained Fingers taps his cup with fingers speaking of the truth of his name. A somber frown crosses his face as he studies his guests. His initial enthusiasm giving way to a more calculating glance.

[19:57, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Stained Fingers, rolled 5 successes using 5d10 [read intentions] with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((10,7,6,8,7)).]

His sharp eyes stare for a long moment before he nods, seemingly satisfied at whatever he was looking for. "You are right that there would usually be a price for the use of our archives. Bright Sage is one of our more honored academics whose expeditions are still used as an example of doing things right. At least until his disappearance almost a year after this particular trek. Its a dangerous business sticking your nose into First Age ruins."

At Seeks What is Forgotten's words he tilts his head, surprise evident. "Yes it does make one wonder. Master Bright Sage was a secretive man."

"It is impolite of me not even to ask your name. Do I detect a hint of Sijanese accent in your words?" , Stained Fingers asks Seeks.

Seeks What Is Forgotten made a horrible rasping noise, that eventually resolved itself into a self effacing chuckle.

"You are well learned to detect it, as it's been more than a few seasons since I was home. I am Seeks What Is Forgotten. In my younger days, my responsibilities within the Mortician's Order ensured that I have exactly the background that Slender Willow Swaying will require in order to treat the subject of our venture with the delicacy and respect it deserves."

The cowl he wore was certainly appropriate to one of that esteemed Order, though ratty enough that the owner had clearly fallen up hard times. He had not let any trace of his wrists show as he had sipped the tea, but Stained Fingers would likely suspect that they were not bound with heavy silver bracers. He had never spent a day within the ranks of the masters of funeral rights within Sijan, but he had spent his youth shadowing and copying them in every way he could.

"Sadly, my duty has carried me far away, and I have lost much of who and what I once was. It brings me some joy that you recognized that little part of myself."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:57, Fri 28 Jan 2022.

Stained Fingers chuckles, "It takes no great feat of learning on my part. Every year there is always some aristocrat or rich merchant who wishes to be interred in the storied tombs of Sijan. Though uncommmon the Morticians cause a stir when their funeral barges are sighted upon the river. There is no other sight quite like it. My family has paid for their services for my grandfather as a matter of fact."

If Stained Fingers considers Seeks as a failed Mortician, disgraced or exiled, or simply an imposter he gives no sign. He continues on with a heavy sigh. "I think this may be a sign from the Maiden of Endings since your expertise pertains to our problem."

It was an interesting turn to find herself as something other than the focal point of the conversation or altercation. It was even more so that her shadow had been coaxed so thoroughly out of lurking in her wake to engage directly with Stained Fingers in the instant. All because of one astute observation born from a place of knowledge and experience. Slender Willow Swaying, as a result, allowed herself to fall into silence and sly attentiveness as her mind and intuition hooked all too readily upon that final turn of phrase.

'Our problem.'

It was something so delightfully loaded with potential as she lifted the tea once more to her lips and took a delicate sip with all the fine manners of a woman of far different birth and inclination than what she was and appeared to be in that moment. She was anathema, demon, face stealer and far worse things besides yet her soul was a well traveled one and it had been many things beyond what she was now in this decrepit age. The lunar let the tea cup hang there, obscuring her expression, as she asked a simple a pointed question. There were times for finesse and times for cutting to the heart of the matter and it seemed all too apparent that candor was the best path forward in that instant... Or so those hazy memories and half remembered instincts of skilled courtiers and politicians that she had once been might have thought.

"Our problem?" Slender Willow Swaying asked with a hint of that gleeful wickedness in her tone that never seemed to truly leave the handsome aesthetic of her features or the cast of her expression even when she strove to behave by the measures of men. There was something in her tone that cut to the bone with the invitation presented by that question and was, perhaps, a reminder that she might be more than merely a wilderness guide. After all, the fang in her lap gave rise to some excellent questions if one might be brave enough to ask.

All the while her shadow continued as it always did... Stalking, darting, and twitching with insectoid grace and ferocity.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:35, Sun 30 Jan 2022.

Despite Willow's flickering shadow the Master of Scribes seemingly fails to notice it. Meanwhile Liana reaches for the icy fang with a polite look of inquiry. Given permission she takes the translucent fang and raises it to the light. She studies it from one angle and another.

At Willow's prompting Stained Fingers nods unhappily. "You are not the first to inquire after Sage Bright's papers. He spent some months studying that colossal statue, sending home his conclusions in a series of papers and maps, with more details then is in this scroll."

"A man and a woman visited here and came to me. They introduced themselves as Iron Soul and Ivory Blossom. They paid well. The woman however was demanding and her companion felt off...there were signs of spirit possession, the scent of decay under perfume. I found myself distrusting their intent. They wanted Bright Sage's papers but I felt we could not risk them with these two. I refused and sent them on their way."

A momentary flash of anger crosses his face, "That should be the end of it. But we experienced a break-in that night. Bright Sage's work was stolen."

"I'm willing to help you in exchange for recovery of Bright Sage's papers. Keep them safe and you can even use them in your explorations, though in that case I want first crack at any valuable finds, relics, artifacts, or interesting gew-gaws you may find."

[Seeks What Is Forgotten may activate Secret Sense Intuition vs Difficulty 4]

Seeks What Is Forgotten had been so distracted by Slender Willow Sway's unfounded glee that he had hardly noticed when the Master of Scribes had resumed speaking. Of course, for one as generally perceptive as he, "hardly noticed" was a complex tangle of truths and half truths that needed to be unraveled. He'd heard the man, and even absorbed the meaning behind the words, but his mind was spinning around a dozen thoughts. Even more troublesome, he had never been particularly good at detecting the finer nuances of the human soul, and his long decades of isolation had only worsened the problem. He was, if he was being frank with himself, somewhat socially inept. Oh, he could spin webs of deception decently enough, but that was built on a foundation of natural acumen rather than refined talent. He'd become overly reliant on Mara, and on the secrets she could grant him. Why bother to learn what a tremor of the lip while detailing a relationship with a former bondsman suggests, when he could just interrogate their shadow afterwards and ask it directly? It meant he'd sharpened his perceptions to a razor keen edge, but had allowed the blade of empathy to grow dull. Adding to that, the trouble with being keyed into every flickering shadow was that the world was just so full of them, and it was so easy to be distracted by the irrelevant while the vital was just under one's nose.

So it was that he sat in silence, his senses fully extended, yet so fully primed to miss what was right in front of him.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:49, Tue 01 Feb 2022.

The Changing Moon was by no means reluctant to allow another to inspect her prize and offered it up with a delicate hand a flair. It was a keen eye that might deduce the means by which she came into possession of such an item if only for the rigid cracks and imprint of a hand that seemed rather like in dimension to the pair she possessed. The hint of coy pride in her smile never admitting to a more forceful happenstance of acquisition nor merely luck of finding it upon one journey or another. A learned enough eye could deduce it's providence and origin in either case as to the unlucky creature that might have once possessed so fearsome an incisor. As Stained Fingers spoke, however, he demanded the whole of the Lunar's attention.

Slender Willow Swaying leaned gently back into her chair, the tea cup resting once more on it's saucer, as she considered both the deal proposed and the nature of these other seekers. The spirit ridden and the freshly and unquietly dead stood foremost in her mind and the hazy churning of ancient memory. That wicked smile dimmed to little more than a frown but there was a thoughtfulness and a redirection of what malicious intent was forming in the depths of her mind. There were many spirits that could ride the body of a mortal or possess the dead. Some greater, some lesser... but she needed more than what was given. Aggressive could apply to anything from the greatest of Incarnae to the lowliest of hound, smelling of decay beneath perfume was peculiar but did not speak to the character of whatever they might be. That frown only deepened that much further before twisting into a cautious, clever smile as she spared a glance towards Seeks What is Forgotten and giving word to thought.

Those blue eyes alive with that violent energy and will to shape and break the world.

"Was anything left of the scene? Or has it already been picked over by students and greater minds? Can you tell me more of this man and woman? A drawing of their face? Any mannerisms beyond odd smells and the specific signs of possession? Anything and everything beyond the form of men have so many tells that without knowing just a little more... Though obviously if they felt they could not take what they wanted by force and had to break in, well, it wasn't anything too fearsome. Or so pride would tell me." the Laughing Demon offered with a laugh that did not convey humor but deadly commitment to the questions laid out even as she continued to comport herself with the airs of one so very unlike her tribal origins in the little quirks of body language that spoke to refinement and knowledge of etiquette.

"Regardless, if it's one more step on the journey ahead... We can find what was lost but every good hound needs a scent." Slender Willow Swaying concluded pointedly, a small gesture of the hand making the negotiation of what was and wasn't due about the use of the map a discussion for later when they returned with the Sage's materials. She had to wonder just what else these beings might have done to secure the lead or simply were content to wrest what they needed in dead of night. That there was apparently physical evidence at all was all to intriguing an element in it's own right but felt both red herring and vital clue.


19:05, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 1 success using 5d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Occult 2 + Intelligence 3.

19:18, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 1 success using 1d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Spirits specialty .

Two successes, hopefully some stunt die are in the pipe but I doubt it lol.

[Seeks What Is Forgotten's Charm fails to detect anything.

Slender Willow Swaying knows that spirit possession can be nearly undetectable or give identifiable signs depending on the nature of the spirit and its cunning. A scent of decay could indicate possession by little gods of decay or illness, of that the person is dead his body animated by ghosts of the dead, or things from deeper in the Underworld. Perfume could indicate an attempt to hide the stench. It's known that the inhabitants of the Twilight Bogs both worship their ancestors and occasionally make use of ghosts and ghostly powers. ]

Stained Fingers is pleased by the intense interest of his guests and supplies some answers.

"The woman, Ivory Blossom, was a barbarian. One of the Twilighters. Pretty enough but pale, slender, black hair streaked with grey, trouble breathing. Like somebody suffering the effects of a longterm ailment. You see that with idiots...um...I mean people who live near Shadowlands" , Stained Fingers shrugs apologetically to his Sijanese guest. "Had Twilighter clan markings. Four vertical bars on her chin. She was in charge. Did most of the talking. "

"The other, Iron Soul, was the stinker. Looked like a local, ruddy skin and green hair, but his features kind of sagged. One eye was white and staring. Barely blinked. He didn't do much talking but looked around. What he did say had a mushy sound like a Twilighter accent though. He felt off...his breathing was slow and steady until it seemed like he forgot to breath at all. Barely twitched a muscle. Like a corpse. It just had the feeling of being spirit-ridden."

He leans back in his chair setting the tea cup down with a CHING!, "The break-in itself went undetected. Bright Sage's journals were in the secured archive but its not particularly hard to break into. But it has...did have a demon guardian that would deter thieves. It was simply gone when the archivist arrived in the morning. Whoever stole the journals had the skill to enter quietly and destroy or banish a guardian demon without alerting anyone."

Suddenly Stained Fingers eyes bug out as he stares at something past the Lunars. Turning they see bloody words scrawled across the wall with bloody letters. Drops of blood dripped down the wall and onto the floor.

"You were warned to stay quiet, old man. Time to die."

A stink, like the rot of a forest floor, envelops the room. A lone, black fly as big as a man's thumb flys overhead with a horrible buzzing. Fear grips the heart as swarms of the big black flies start to pour from between books upon the shelves, crawl out of the tea pot, erupt from sleeves and pockets in an endless stream.

[You can both roll Join Battle (Wits + Awareness). Your initiative equals the successes rolled +3. Don't forget you can use Excellencies to add dice and/or Stunt for more dice.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:29, Tue 08 Feb 2022.

Seeks What Is Forgotten had not risen to the bait of the insult. Given how long it had been since he'd had a good bath, he wasn't exactly in a position to say anything on the nature of Twilighters and their aromatic auras. He had quirked an eyebrow at the mention of the guardian demon, but as his face was obscured by his cowled hood the gesture wasn't really for anyone but himself. He had questions he wanted answers to, like who had bound the demon, and if anyone had attempted to bind it again it after the theft. The thing would likely have valuable information if it had been banished, and learning that it had been destroyed wou...

Where there had been a teacup, Flying Silver Dream was in his hand.

The temporal mechanics of it being there were convoluted, the math more complicated than calculating the velocity of the air that both had and had not been displaced by the Daiklaive's sudden appearance. In one reality, he had not even thought to have reached for the bundle he bore on his back, the teacup still clutched in his hand. In another, the sleeping matt was only now beginning to realize that the blade it had been tightly wrapped around had cut itself free, gravity beginning to assert itself upon the now slashed chords and the falling cup. In a third he had called it to his hand a full minute before, preparing himself for the conflict he now faced. In a forth he'd been carrying the naked blade of the legendary artifact since they had arrived in town, drawing stares and hushed whispers from all who saw its gleaming edge. None of it was true, but none of it was false either. Reality condensed on a single point of agreement, that the Daiklaive was in his hand. The two moved in perfect concert with one another, neither impairing or interfering with the other's motions despite the fact that they occupied the same space. He was not sitting with a  cup of tea in his hand, his back turned to the threat. He was on his feet, he was moving, he was turning with serpentine swiftness to face this new threat and cut it down. His feet danced upon the floor as he entered the battle stance, prepared for all of Hell's Demons to come battering at the door. Ready to fight every single man, woman, and child within the village should they all be possessed by spirits seeking his blood, laughing with madness as he cut them all down.

Seeks What Is Forgotten did not think of himself as a legendary warrior of myth.

In that, as in so many things, he was wrong.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:27, Tue 08 Feb 2022.

There was almost a hint of disappointment in the rich blue eyes of Slender Willow Swaying as the insult slipped free of Stained Finger's mind and past his lips. Still, that wicked smile endured and seemed to even broaden as the Laughing Demon came to the fore for just an instant as mental scales shifted and recalibrated. So many were a product of this wretched, fallen age but to see a mind so steeped in what knowledge could be claimed only reinforced that. If it had but been an enemy to receive that barb she might have laughed and goaded and taunted until the cracks became too glaring to ignore but that was not the case. So with restraint one might have found impressive given her exploits and manic nature... she merely let it lie and continued to listen. The delicate china coming to rest now at the edge of the scholar's desk with the last of the tea drained.

Barbed words danced on the tip of her tongue but they died silent as she saw Stained Finger's eyes bulge and the colour drain from his face. With the speed and distressing flexibility of the centipede, she twisted rapidly in her seat to follow the lines of his eyes. She couldn't help herself in the instant then but to laugh at the irony of it. Letters written in blood. She knew that they were letters but for all the speed and sharpness of her mind and tongue... The message was only clear by the context of it's presentation. The scent of rot hammered swiftly after into her nose as she noticed the first of the flies. Instinct carried her from there as she twisted once more in the seat, legs coming in and down to launch the chair away and launch herself up and back with all the grace and dexterity that she might claim as her own. It was near perfection to witness as her skirts and shawls writhed around her in the instant as she righted her course and landed abreast Stained Fingers with the harsh click of those deadly hooves upon the hard wood of his office floors. The subtle splintering as they bit in lost in the drone of the flies that swarmed into the chamber.

The growing drone of the buzzing and the sickly sweet stench upon the air only deepening that maddened grin that now etched across her features and the light they brought to her eyes. It would not cure the disease that plagued this age but it would excise one more tumor from it's tormented hide. Such agitation only stirred yet more memories from the depth of her three tiered soul and with them a deepening of that hate coupling with the indignation of one having dared to meddle so in her affairs and misadventures.

Her stance swayed and shifted then as muscle memory as much as refined fighting instinct took over and declared, without care for her audience, how dangerous she might truly be if one only recognized the opening forms of the Laughing Monster's style. For Seeks What Is Forgotten, it was only a reminder that he traveled in the company of a dangerous predator shaped as much by madness as deliberate will and drive to survive. The underlying eagerness only promising a deadly ferocity as she took in the situation and wondered how she could turn each of these beasts upon each other with cruel word and wicked barb.

"The rots settled deep into the foundations of this place." she quipped with only a sidelong glance to Stained Fingers and his assistant who still held Sleet's fang.



As it's officially time to go loud:
Stunting on Join Battle to be able to add my 4 dots of dexterity, between this and my 4 in wits I'm using 8 essence to add 8 die to my Join Battle Roll (Base 7). Essence'll come from personal for the time being the Join Battle boost.

23:04, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 10 successes using 15d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Join Battle (Wits + Awareness + Excellency/stunt).


23:14, Today: Slender Willow Swaying failed (no successes) using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stunt dice (+2).

And +1 success.

Total 11 successes, +3 for total of 14 initiative.

Essence ticker:
Personal 9/17
Peripheral 42/42

This message was last edited by the player at 04:15, Wed 09 Feb 2022.

20:59, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Mystery Assailant, rolled 9 successes using 10d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Six Plague Summons roll.

21:01, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Mystery Assailant, rolled 3 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Initiative.

Mystery Assailant rolled 9 successes for his Six Plague Summons Charm to bring forth the swarm of carnivorous flies. [Size - 5, Drill - Poor, Might - 0]

1st round initiative order:
Slender Willow Swaying - 14
Seeks What Is Forgotten - 10
Mystery Assailant - 6

Willow is first!

Swarm
Bite - 12 dice, 8L damage
Stinger - 17 dice, 6L damage + possible poison
Soak - 6
DV - 6 Evasion
Magnitude - 8



This message was last edited by the GM at 03:15, Thu 10 Feb 2022.

The laughter was, perhaps, the only warning of what was to come next and Seeks What Is Forgotten only understood it for what it was because they had seen it before. It was all a grand and wretched joke to Slender Willow Swaying as all that was deemed great and good struck as pale shadow and imitation to the memories that churned and twisted from lives better and past within her. Still, there was something all too amusing that they were now accosted by the scent of rot, disease, and the ceaseless buzz of flies drawn to carrion in the making.

"The great defenders of your secrets? The executors of your wrath? Flies? All this says to me is the maggots have been left a little too long in the wound!" she jeered as she moved forward with gleeful abandon. The essence burned through her as she set into motion a plan that was only really dimly understood by the highest seats of her mind. These were beasts, after all, mindless and driven by instinct and why should she be anything but in her efforts to combat them? They understood only them and not them and those stingers would find purchase for that fact... Less she might convince them that there were no friends among their ranks and that was a task she was all too suited to.

It was frankly madness to an outside observer as she darted forward with the erratic and rapid movements of the centipede to clear the desk once more and dive into the center of the coalescing swarm. It laughed in the face of reason, conventional strategy and tactics yet she needed them to be near her... To surround her so that she could guide them and show them that everything they knew was a farce, a lie, and that they were not a swarm but a thousand sad and lonely individuals with no queen and no cohesion. Summoned solely to die to things greater than themselves and be nothing more than shattered husks upon whether by her hand or their stingers.

What came next was a blur of motion as silvery fire raced across pale skin and formed into the wretched form of the centipede holding aloft an ever changing moon before subsuming into an aura of purest silver, the scent of damp evening air mingling unhappily with the pervasive sweetness of rotted flesh. An endless variety of arms seemed to curl away from her slender form, each hand forming part of an endlessly evolving mudra that seemed to be the lost intonations of some great evocation that only spoke of wicked glee and utter derision for the foe that the unveiled lunar now faced. The dim notion of the risk she took churning somewhere in the depths of her soul and accompanied by memories of alarm, fear, and anxiety but each was washed away in the glory of the instant as her now endless hands and her own two legs and feet lashed out to strike at those insects she might reach, taunting, battering, pushing, and shoving so that they might collide and interfere with each other so that far baser instinct than the instinctive drive towards the cooperation of the swarm might override what passed for reason in such a wretched creature. The purity of her argent aura streak with the hateful red of fire as the hearthstone burned with essence and leant it's wrathful energies to each of those strikes. The air filling as readily with the wet slap of splintering exoskeleton and pulping flesh as the hissing pop of insects given over to the flame.

Each step, each strike, each action taken with that relentless grace of the predator that lingered behind the ever grinning, ever laughing face. The motions as unsettling as they were beautiful in their utter ferocity and seemingly limitless variety as if it was part of some twisted dance that was never meant for the human form but for something... more segmented and many limbed. All the while her shawls and skirts whirled in a riot of endless colour that blurred as she seemed to move faster and faster in her violent dance amongst the swarm.


OOC:
ESSENCE TIME!

Activating Burning Coal Fist (Exalted PG 607), 3 motes from personal.

Activating Laughing Monster Form (Lunars: Fangs at the Gate PG 303), 10 motes from peripheral.

Finally, using Thieves Fall Out to attack the swarm (Lunars: Fangs at the Gate PG 304). 6 motes pulled from personal, 2 initiative.

4 motes for excellencies (Dex) for Decisive Attack, committing all 13 remaining init

16:35, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 8 successes using 12d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((7,8,10,7,5,7,4,5,9,6,8,6)).

16:35, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 8 successes using 12d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Dex 4 + Martial arts 4 + Excellency (4).

16:36, Today: Slender Willow Swaying failed (no successes) using 1d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Rerolled 10 (Burning Coal Fist).

16:50, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 6 successes using 12d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Decisive Initiative Roll.

Should total out to 12 total levels of damage with Thieves Falling Out.

Per DM: 2nd level stunt; +2 Dice and +1 success on attack roll
16:59, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 1 success using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stunt Dice.

Total of +2 successes to attack.

Essence ticker:
Personal 0/17
Peripheral 28/42

This message was last edited by the player at 22:00, Fri 11 Feb 2022.

If it was possible for a mindless swarm to become confused the blazing silver firestorm in the center of the room raining down blows like a thousand armed goddess of legend seems to have made it so. The coalescing arms of the swarm seeking to engulf the room's inhabitants break and writhe in mindless directions.

Meanwhile the eyes of Stained Finger and his assistant grow wide at the sudden displays of supernatural power. The raging silver light leaves paints stark shadows behind them both as they cringe, raising their arms against the endless biting flies with white skulls emblazoned upon their backs.

Out in the surrounding halls can be heard agonized and fearful cries as the true size of the swarm becomes apparent.

[The Swarm takes 12 levels of damage, reducing it from a Size 5 unit to a size 4 unit.

Swarm
Bite - 12 dice, 8L damage
Stinger - 17 dice, 6L damage + possible poison
Soak - 6
DV - 6 Evasion
Magnitude - Size 5 - 0
............Now Size 4 with 4 Magnitude left.

Willow's Initiative re-sets to 3 for next turn.

Seeks turn! ]

Seeks What Is Forgotten was swift as silver lightning, his muscles and instincts heightened by lifetimes of training barely forgotten, and a living sword born of myth and story whose extrasensory perception had mingled and blended with his own soul. Yet even he had barely risen before Slender Willow Swaying had hurled herself into the swarm. Even bolstered by magic and essence, he could only just keep up with the the deadly dance that she unleashed. She was something else altogether, a searing column of flame upon which ever eye there would focus.

Silver fire, she had ignited her anima banner as she had drawn upon the reserves of her soul!

Luna's argent light pierced the room, dancing a mad dance with the million shadows the swarm threw out as it encircled her. Time slowed for him as he watched the interplay of light and dark, his own body beginning to move in concert to the flickering waves. She danced, and he danced with her. No, not with her, with the shadows cast by the swarm as it encircled her burning anima banner. He was of the shadows, and the songs they sung called to him, pulled him, shaped him, guided him. He did not even need to think to lose himself in it. It was such a simple thing to call up his own power, not to join her in the chaos of battle, but to slip from sight as he ducked and wove and twisted his way through the ever shifting shadows. It was not the division and splitting of fate as he had done when he had summoned Flying Silver Dream to his hand, this was something else. The blending of Mara and Luna's power, Mara's instincts enhanced by Luna's gifts. Simply one moment he was there, and the next a wave of shadow washed over him, and as it skittered and cascaded about him he was a part of it. A thousand eyes on him, a million, it did not matter. Perhaps the swarm was possessed of a linked intelligence, each set of segmented eyes and each set of skittering nerves linked to the larger consciousness, and all it would take was one to see him for the rest to know. He did not care, even if that were the case, he laughed in the face of the odds. What was this swarm of insignificant insects to challenge him? If the hand that had summoned this swarm thought it could blot out Luna's light, he would let them, and from the shadows make them pay for their hubris. The Shadows twirled, and he spun with them.

With little more than a flicker of will, he was gone.

4 motes from Peripheral and 2 Willpower to use

4) Noonday Shadow Tread - P. 191
Cost: 4m (+1wp); Mins: Dexterity 3, Essence 1
Type: Supplemental
Keywords:Mute, Totemic (Perception)
Duration:Instant
Prerequisite Charms:Skulking Rat Spirit
The Lunar weaves between beams of light, hiding
in the thinnest shadows. She ignores penalties on a
Stealth roll from any source of illumination other than
her anima banner. This may render it possible to attempt concealment in locations that would otherwise
be inadequate hiding spots.
This Charm costs an additional Willpower if the Lunar
is currently visible to any enemies. For an instant, she
flickers and blurs, receding into the shadows.
Totemic: A Lunar whose spirit shape has the Night
Vision Merit may learn this as a Perception Charm, with
Sense-Sharpening Change (p. XX) as its prerequisite.

20:45, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 7 successes using 11d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Dex 5 + Stealth 3 + Specialty 1 + Stunt 2

8 Successes on Stealth
This message was last edited by the player at 04:45, Sat 12 Feb 2022.

Evading the ten thousand eyes of the hungry insect swarm proves no match for a power forged in ancient times to fight the creators of the world. With deft steps and timing Seeks steps from twisting shadow to twisting shadow, unseen and unheard.

22:53, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 3 successes using 6d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Sense Roll.

Suddenly Stained Fingers regains enough composure to raise his eyes, fingers twisting in arcane mudras, voice strained by nearly unpronounceable syllables. The world seems to shiver as sorcerous energies take hold and Stained Fingers shatters in a white light. A moment later a flock of birds circle rapidly to the high open window and escape the murderous swarm to the outside. His assistant is not so lucky as she crouches against a bookcase, frantically swatting at herself as the huge flies cover her. Red begins to drip down upon the floor as she cries out in pain.

Slender Willow Swaying is not spared the swarms attention as they recover from her disorienting attack. The frantic buzzing of a feeding frenzy begins as they dive in, biting and stinging. Under clothes, in hair, flying into eyes and open mouth, the flies prove a deadly menace to the Lunar.



[Swarm
Bite - 11 dice, 7L damage
Stinger - 16 dice, 5L damage + possible poison
Soak - 5
DV - 5 Evasion
Magnitude - Now Size 4 with 3 Magnitude left out of 7.

23:26, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 6 successes using 16d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stinger Withering Attack.

23:36, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  stinger damage withering.

I assumed that Willow activated her Impenetrable Beast-Armor Charm. She takes a point of Withering damage so loses 1 point of initiative.

Seeks is hidden from the Swarm so no attack on him.

2nd round initiative order:
Seeks What Is Forgotten - 10
Mystery Assailant/Swarm - 6
Slender Willow Swaying - 2

Reminder: recover 5 motes of Essence starting with Peripheral.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:11, Sun 13 Feb 2022.

Seeks What Is Forgotten was a whisper, a wraith, a flickering breath of wind upon the back of the neck of the unwary.

He stalked through the shadows cast by the swarm, heading in the direction from which the foe came with Flying Silver Dream in hand. It mattered not at all that there was no place to hide, no cover from which he could slip. The cascade of Slender Willow Swaying's burning Anima banner against her flickering assailants was all that he needed. He cast a glance at his companion as she fought, and did not pity her the experience. He was all to familiar with the experience of a pestilence ravaging his body, and did not wish to participate in recreating the experience here.

No, better instead to stalk out in the direction from which the foe had emerged, and find the source of it. Slender Willow Swaying was the warrior, he was the hunter, he would hunt the summoner and put an end to their sorcery. They would be distracted with their working, and even if they were not they would not see him coming until his blade had pierced their throat. It didn't matter if it was open ground, or if they were hidden. They would not escape his searching eyes, his thirsting blade.

They thought themselves the hunter here, he would show them that they were merely prey.

Recover 5 motes, use 4 from the Periphery to use

6) Midnight Phantom Movement - P. 192
Cost: 4m; Mins: Dexterity 3, Essence 2
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Mute, Protean
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Instinct-Driven Beast
Movement, Skulking Rat Spirit
The Lunar slips unnoticed across the battlefield,
weaving out of sightlines and into blind spots. She
adds (higher of Essence or 3) dice on a Stealth roll
to maintain concealment while moving, and ignores
the increased penalty for crossing wide-open terrain
(Exalted, pp. 203-204).
Protean: In animal shapes with Ambush Hunter, the
Lunar can use this Charm to rush from concealment.
She adds its bonus on both the rush and her Stealth roll

21:52, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 4 successes using 5d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Perception 5 + Awareness 3 - Flurry 3.

21:50, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 4 successes using 11d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Dex 5 + Stealth 3 + Specialty 1 + Charm  3 - Flurry 1
This message was last edited by the player at 05:52, Sun 13 Feb 2022.

Seeks What is Forgotten slips through the room's door into the hallway beyond. The scene here is no less grim then in Stained Finger's office. Buzzing swarms flex and split, stinging clouds engulfing screaming students and staff. A man runs screaming by, his face purpling from their venom. A bloody heap sprawls against one wall so covered in biting flies its identity is impossible to make out. Cries of horror and pain can be heard in other rooms. A flash of fire to the left shows some are resisting.

15:56, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Mystery Assailant, rolled 4 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Perception roll vs Seeks.

Success on it's opposed perception roll.

Seeks quickly spies the perpetrator of this horror. A...bird perches upon one of the chains supporting the glow stone holders dangling from the ceiling. The soft white light paints reveals it as a rotted raiton, feathers broken and missing, one eye hanging from its head. The other is a milky white yet seems to see all too well. It caws seem almost joyous as it takes in the carnage beneath it. Yet for all the decay of its body its head twitches and the pale eye fixes upon Seeks What Is Forgotten, piercing a stealthy prowess that walked through a wall of insects unseen. With a braying, contemptuous call it takes to flight. In a matter of moments it will reach the double doors, now open, and flee into the outdoors.

[The Mystery Assailant is taking a Disengage action (Exalted page 198). If it succeeds it breaks to Short Range with its movement. Otherwise you stay within Close Range of it. Seeks can make a Dex + Athletics roll vs the Mystery Assailant's roll.

16:12, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Mystery Assailant, rolled 6 successes using 9d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  disengage Combat Movement roll.

Six Successes! ]

The swarm muddles and spins madly as it seeks to feed upon the nimbly moving Willow. Despite their stinging fury no significant damage is done to Willow as she laughs and dances madly among them.

16:16, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 9 successes using 16d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stinger Withering Attack.

This message was last edited by the GM at 22:20, Mon 14 Feb 2022.

That aura of silver flame continued to burn in the wake of every motion of arm and leg, the endless mudras of her unleashed essence striking and pushing against the swarm that threatened to engulf her. Yet in the midst of this she felt precious little of fear or dismay. There was regret that she might not do more for the souls condemned to death by the malice of an unseen hand and such only fed into the anger that burned within her at so wretched an age as her well travelled soul found itself in. That anger burning through her in the laughter that rang out above the relentless drone of wicked wings a plenty and carrying into the haul behind. It was a sound of animated madness more than true mirth as memories lurched and twisted in the depths of her mind as brutal instinct carried her from instant to instant.

She knew, after all, that so beleaguered and out numbered... Her fury would only hold them at bay for so long. That she balanced upon a razor's edge with but a single misstep setting that same edge to biting deeply into her flesh and casting her into a downward spiral that could not be allowed. So she did only what came naturally in the moment and so many like it... She lashed out. Hands, phantom and otherwise, struck out in every direction as she spun with the grace of a seasoned dancer whilst pivoting quickly upon one leg, bending ever so gently at the knee to bring herself lower to the ground as her other leg swept widely outwards.

Against something that did not fly, it might have claimed such a being's footing but that wasn't the purpose of her strike. No, it was to generate as broad a surface that she might buffet and confound as many of the nuisances that surrounded her as she may. Her attention darting only briefly to the attendant as she considered what might be done for her and find that, for once, she was without an answer to that in all her mean spirited contemplations and so could only redouble her efforts and hope that the woman was forged of stern enough substance to do as Luna demanded of all who bore her spark; survive.



Launching a withering attack against the swarm:

20:48, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 5 successes using 12d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Withering Attack (MA 4 + Dex 4 + Acc 4).


08:04, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 3 successes using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stunt die (Withering attack).

+1 Success

If a hit:
Strength  + 7 (Unarmed attacks count as light weapons) + 4 threshold - 5 = 8 total damage dice

20:55, Today: Slender Willow Swaying botched using 4d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Damage if hit.

08:05, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 1 success using 4d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Additional damage dice (Threshold).

Essence ticker:
Personal 0/17
Peripheral 30/42

This message was last edited by the player at 13:05, Thu 17 Feb 2022.

Seeks What Is Forgotten fashioned himself a careful plotter, never taking action without analyzing a dozen means of escape, a dozen approaches to take. He thought himself patient, thought himself clever, and thought himself wise. A patient spider, he would sit, and wait, and watch, and learn. These were the parts of himself that he knew, the parts that he understood. Yet traveling with Slender Willow Swaying, he had found himself exposed to new ways of thinking, both of the world, and of himself. He was not attuned to the impulsive side of his nature, barely aware of the instincts that drove him. In truth, he likely thought himself above such base desires. Yet as sure as the length of braided hair which rested now about his wrist, he was at his core a creature of instinct. He was blind to that side of himself, and it was all the more powerful for his blindness.

He surrendered to that instinct now, his iridescent black eyes locked with the possessed Raiton's milky glare. First a single pair, then two, then four matching sets. A flicker of the true Spirit Shape beneath. Caught in his stalking approach, he froze, utterly motionless except for the flow of his dividing eyes. Then the prey was moving, and he was lost, instincts many lifetimes older than he taking control. In a supernatural explosion of speed, his spindly legs hurled him over the ground as he surrendered to those parts of himself that he only barely acknowledged, and could not truly hope to understand. The shadows which he had cloaked about himself fell away, too slow to follow him as he burst into light and life and violence. All that existed behind him, the swarm, Slender Willow Swaying's mad battle dance, Stained Finger's hapless assistant being devoured. All of that melted away as he became what he truly was, what he had so frequently denied himself. That fundamental truth of the core of his being.

The Prey ran before him, and with Flying Silver Dream held high, the Hunter chased.

7) Instinct Driven Beast - P. 189
Cost: 2m; Mins: Dexterity 2, Essence 1 Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Protean
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Lunar moves in a blur of superhuman speed. She adds a success to a movement action or an interval of a speed-based extended action. Succeeding on an op- posed roll in combat grants one Initiative.
Protean: In animal shapes with Speed Bonuses, the Initiative awarded to the Lunar for a successful opposed roll is stripped from one of the characters opposing her (her choice).

Rolled 5, + 1 for stunt and 1 for Charms

08:22, Today: Seeks What Is Forgotten rolled 5 successes using 12d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((5,10,4,8,1,8,2,9,3,6, 1,6)).

Total of +7

This message was last edited by the player at 16:23, Thu 17 Feb 2022.

Seeks What Is Forgotten draws upon his inhuman speed and dashes forward. The undead fowl squawks angrily and circles above as Seeks blocks the exit, Flying Silver Dream gleaming with menace. An angry buzz rises as the swarm begins to gather about Seeks.

Meanwhile the swirling swarms continue it's futile assault on Slender Willow Swaying as she slashes back in a hope to disrupt them.


3rd round initiative order:
Seeks What Is Forgotten - 11
Mystery Assailant/Swarm - 6
Slender Willow Swaying - 4

5 mote regen reminder!


Swarm
Bite - 11 dice, 7L damage
Stinger - 16 dice, 5L damage + possible poison
Soak - 5
DV - 5 Evasion
Magnitude - Now Size 4 with 2 Magnitude left out of 7.

This message was last edited by the GM at 04:28, Fri 18 Feb 2022.

The world slowed to a crawl.

Seeks What Is Forgotten had been shocked by the speed with which Slender Willow Swaying had hurled herself into the fray, awed both by her ferocity and her agility as she danced among the swarm. Yet his instincts had been triggered by the fleeing spirit that wore the discarded flesh of a Raiton like a suit. He did not know it, did not understand it as it happened, and yet Luna's predatory hunger infused him. He was the Spider, pursuing the tiniest flicker of vibration.  He was the wind, and as his prey sought to escape reality flickered as he stepped in front of it.

So slow, how could anything truly hope to escape him?

In his withered hands, Flying Silver Dream was already dancing its own deadly dance. He watched it, transfixed by the blade as it cut upward, his black eyes iridescently gleaming as they caught the light reflected on the blade.  He moved in the space between heartbeats, struck in the moment of a blink, when all the world was darkness, so fast that the mind didn't even have time to register the motion. Flying Silver Dream was nothing more than an extension of his consciousness, and where he willed it, violence happened.

The massive silver sword slashed upwards with terrifying speed, infused with Seeks What Is Forgotten's Essence and raw predatory instinct. What was this little sniveling thing to him, reborn in Luna's divinity and sharpened by Mara's will? He was the Hunter, he was the flashing silver spider, he was the weaver of shadows and the binder of Demons. What was this arrogant little spirit to him but prey? He struck, and he cut it down, sending it scattering before him.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:32, Fri 25 Feb 2022.

3rd round initiative order:
Seeks What Is Forgotten - 23
Swarm - 6
Slender Willow Swaying - 4
Mysterious Assailant - -1 (initiative crash)


The rotted raiton squawks and gurgles as every exit is blocked by a silver blade. Every move putting it in a worse position. A close call leaves rotted grey feathers drifting like wet leaves to the ground and its wings work furiously to put distance between itself and Seeks What Is Forgotten, futile as it seems.

The Mysterious Assailant has been pushed down the turn order to last in the round.

The buzzing swarm answers its master's cries and columns of biting flies redouble around the two Lunars. They seek eyes ears and mouths to crawl into, to nest and feast. This time they find success as the Lunars nearly disappear under the clouds of insects. Blood flows from the numerous swelling bites.

Swarm
Bite - 11 dice, 7L damage
Stinger - 16 dice, 5L damage + possible poison
Soak - 5
DV - 5 Evasion
Magnitude - Now Size 4 with 2 Magnitude left out of 7.

21:57, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 11 successes using 16d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7 ((7,7,7,7,10,7,4,9,10,1,5,4,4,2,3,7)).

22:03, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 6 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Withering damage vs Seeks.

22:05, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 5 successes using 7d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  withering attack damage vs Willow.

NOTE: I added 3 to Willow's Soak for Beast Armor. 3 motes.

Seeks loses 6 points of initiative for a final tally of 17.

Willow loses 5 points of initiative for a final tally of -1. She suffers initiative crash.

Current Initiative for Round 3 is:
Seeks - 17
Insect Swarm - 6
Willow - -1 (Initiative Crash)
Mysterious Assailant - -1 (Initiative Crash)

Willow can go next!

"Ah it seems my friend has done something to upset you! Certainly a change!" Slender Willow Swaying taunted with a manic note to her voice as pain and venom stole through her yet did nothing to slow the sweeping, twirling strikes as the Changing Moon lashed out against all that caused her such misery with nothing but chilling, pained laughter and yet more barbed taunts. It was but a single woman against a mindless tide of carrion eaters yet somehow she continued to weather the storm, if only just. Her endless variety of arms and the endless occult gestures each made continued to weave around her, slapping, pushing, and taunting yet more in an endless cyclone of blue-silver flame, each almost vanishing into the endless dance of light and shadow that was her anima banner.

The endless dance only continued with sharp strikes of elbow and palm from her more natural appendages whilst turning within the chaotic swirl of the thickening swarm to strike with broad sweeps of hooved legs. A riot of colour following in the wake of each strike as skits and shawls fluttered in the winds left by the rapid strikes. Old memories, all the while, churned in the depths of her three tiered soul as the woman that was in the present drew ragged breaths between laughter and taunts that danced from language to language with a disturbing fluency.

For all her bravado, however, Slender Willow Swaying knew that she could only last so long as simply prey to the swarm that encircled her... She needed to force an opportunity but for now all she could do was keep herself above the proverbial water and do as the Goddess willed; survive.



Withering attack on the swarm:

14:28, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 9 successes using 14d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  MA 4 + Dex 4 + Acc 4 + 2 Excellency (Withering).

15:06, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 2 successes using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stunt dice.

15:06, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 1 success using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Str 2 + DMG 7 + 4 successes - 5 SOAK.

15:07, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 3 successes using 2d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Two extra damage die.

4 Damage (Withering)

Essence ticker:
Personal 0/17
Peripheral 30/42

This message was last edited by the player at 20:08, Fri 25 Feb 2022.

Swarm
Bite - 10 dice, 6L damage
Stinger - 15 dice, 4L damage + possible poison
Soak - 4
DV - 4 Evasion
Magnitude - Now Size 3 with 4 Magnitude left out of 6.

The monstrous swarm becomes as disoriented in its own way as human foes to the skilled maneuverings of the Laughing Monster stylist. Its thick columns of insects disperse and mill nearly randomly for the moment.

Current Initiative for Round 3 is:
Seeks - 17
Insect Swarm - 6
Willow - 0 (Initiative Crash)
Mysterious Assailant - -1 (Initiative Crash)

The wildly dodging raiton stops and hovers in mid-air. The flies clear away from it as a black mist surrounds it. With a sickening pop the cadaver expands and pops. Viscera splatters everywhere. In its place stands the thing that had been puppeteering the raiton.

Before Seeks What is Forgotten is the embodied ghost but just any ghost. It stands seven feet in height, its limbs elongated and knobby. Fishbelly pale scabby skin covers it. Leaking boils and rotted holes cover its body where the old white burial shroud falls away. It grins with its gaping and pointed teeth as it brings one arm up to point its weapon at Seeks. The weapon itself appears to be a crudely hammered daiklaive. Its leading curved edge is savagely serrated. The blade itself is black and ghostly faces seem to press against its surface, clawing to be let out of its unholy material. The air around the blade sparks and booms as it is annihilated by mere contact with the daiklaive. It feels raw, untested, newly forged but is eager to match its edge against the ancient moonsilver of Flying Silver Dream. Dream itself is poised and ready.

The ghost gargles out, "You should have let me go. But now I'll kill you instead." 

With skill born of centuries the thing moves forward, its blade stabbing and cutting. The nameless daiklaive moans it delight as it crosses steel with the ancient sword in Seek's hand.

Somewhere, someone was laughing.

The sound was sickly and ill, a horribly grating, hacking, cough of a laugh. Yet Seeks What Is Forgotten had become completely subsumed by his hunter's instincts, possessed completely by his essential nature, and he could not help but pursue it. He needed to know from whence it came, needed to understand why it was there. The sound filled the air, surely it owner must be close? His iridescent black eyes scanned the destroyed room, searching for the source of it. The thing before him was immaterial. Already it had tried to flee, but it had been too slow for him. He had caught it with a single leap, this dance it danced now was merely a formality. The hunter and the prey carrying out their dutiful roles, the outcome already decided. So fixated he was on the sound that he hardly noticed the foe before him, eyes elsewhere as he parried the first stroke. Flying Silver Dream sang in his hands as the massive blade flowed like water, clashing with titanic force against the newly forged weapon. His essence poured into it, infusing it with burning moonfire to cast aside the enemy's blade.

It took him another three parried strokes before he realized that the source of the cackling laughter was himself.

This was the fundamental truth that he had kept from himself, that he had always hidden from. He had watched Slender Willow Swaying sing the song of battle as she had torn Sleet to pieces, and he had thought her so alien to himself. She was a warrior of myth and legend, a mad spinning dervish in service to a mad Goddess, the sensation of too many limbs and too many eyes. Not so himself, he had thought. He was a creature of careful planning, of retreat and and withdrawal, of shadows and secrets. He did not face the foe head on, did he? He bound lesser things to his will and sent them forth to do his dirty work for him.  Yet as the forth blow was knocked aside, shadow and moonfire exploding outwards. He began to accept the truth. His instincts were more than he understood, more than he could comprehend. He was vast, he was manyfold, he was more than he had ever imagined. He was the Hunter, and before him danced the Prey.

He laughed, and sang, and danced the battlesong.

He was the whirlwind, and he would have what was his.

Parry is normally 4.

Spending another 5 Essence from my personal pool to raise it to 6, plus any Stunt bonus

The nameless black blade shrieks in pained fury with each parried slash. Silver Flying Dream's moon glow scars its metal and resists its annihilating touch. Alone the blade is overmatched against the battle wisdom of its foe's daiklaive.

But it's wielder is no green recruit picking up his first weapon. The Nephwrack accepts each thwarted attack as part of the dance. Each collision of essence fueled weapons fed into his next attack. Like the inevitability of death that the Nephwrack represented his attacks pecked and scratched Seeks defenses. It's eyes blaze with a triumphant black light of the oblivion at the heart of the Underworld as at last it finds a weakness. It's blade strikes leaving Seeks What Is Forgotten reeling.

In its gargling voice the ghost taunts, "Know that your killer's name is Iron Soul."

19:18, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Iron Soul, rolled 10 successes using 19d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  the Nephwrack's withering attack.

 19:33, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Iron Soul, rolled 5 successes using 15d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Iron Soul's withering damage vs Seeks.

Seeks takes 5 points of withering damage to his initiative.

Current Initiative for Round 4 is:
Seeks - 12
Insect Swarm - 6
Iron Soul - 5
Willow - 0 (Initiative Crash)

Regenerate 5 motes.

Iron Soul
Daiklaive - 13, damage 17L
Soak - 5
DV - Parry 6

Swarm
Bite - 10 dice, 6L damage
Stinger - 15 dice, 4L damage + possible poison
Soak - 4
DV - 4 Evasion
Magnitude - Now Size 3 with 4 Magnitude left out of 6.

This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 01:40, Mon 28 Feb 2022.

Seeks What Is Forgotten was being pressured, driven backward by the foe he had sought to corner. Iron Soul towered over him, long limbs adding far too many feet of reach as compliment to its primal ferocity. By comparison, the shadow touched Lunar was a tiny thing, limbs frails and spindly as he spun and whirled his blade through a series of defensive techniques whose origins hailed from ancient warriors whose names had been forgotten centuries ago. The artifact flowed like lighting to parry each blow, but the force behind them was monumental, an unstoppable tidal wave of raw savagery that he bent and strained to deflect. Each strike drove him further back, forcing him to retreat ground rather than meet the attack head on. At last he was pushed back into the wall, slamming into it as he desperately tried to stay out of the way of the massive black blade.

Yet for all that he was pressured, he did not stop laughing.

Silver fire erupted along his spindly body,  flames lacing the traceries of his glyph work tattoos. His own shadow went wild, cut to ribbons by the light that encircled him. It eddied and whirled about him, skittering patterns revealing the shape beneath. Not the shadow of this spindly man with a sword almost as large as he was, but something massive and lurking. Eight legs skittering in eager anticipation as his prey was drawn further and further into the burrow.

With a searing scream of displaced air, his Anima Banner ignited, the crest of his sigil bursting into flame at his forehead before being consumed.  One moment he was frantically parrying, his back up against the wall, the next he was simply not there.  His feet had pushed off the wall, carrying him with inhumanly fast muscles into a graceful twisting corkscrew that  pushed both he and Flying Silver Dream over and past Iron Soul's massive swing. His flesh melted and roiled as he landed in a roll, the motion contorting his body to lend strength and stability to his counterattack. He strained, hurling as much force into the upswing as he could possibly manage, Essence surging to lend strength and uncanny speed as he struck at Iron Soul's back.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:39, Mon 28 Feb 2022.

Iron Soul stares at the daiklaive point protruding from his breast. For a moment the black glow of oblivion in his eyes fades, leaving watery blue eyes wide in stunned surprise. The ghostly flesh around the wound weeps dark motes. With a savage snarl Iron Soul wrenches himself off of Seeks What is Forgotten's weapon and turns, his steps staggered and uneven. He raises the lowly moaning black sword to meet Seeks next attack but gasps as the leaking wound gushes ectoplasm. Iron Soul glares at Seeks vengefully before the ghost fades back into incorporeality and escape.

Uncaring of the life & death struggles around it the swarm continues its voracious feeding. But even as Iron Soul flees the swarm begins to lose animation, flies dropping with loud plops onto the tiled floors. The moans of the wounded and dying can be heard through the academy's halls.

In one corner of Stained Fingers office his assistant huddles in a corner with arms wrapped around her knees, a nimbus of fire surrounding her bleeding form indicating how she survived.

10:50, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 6 successes using 15d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Stinger Withering Attack.

10:52, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 4 successes using 8d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Withering damage vs Seeks.

10:55, Today: Silver Bhoddisatva, for the NPC Insect Swarm, rolled 1 success using 1d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  withering damage vs Willow.

Current Initiative for Round 4 is:
Insect Swarm - 6 (one last attack)
Iron Soul - 5
Seeks - -1 (reset after his Decisive attack this turn then Initiative Crashed by swarm)
Willow - -1 (Initiative Crash)

Iron Soul
Fled.
Daiklaive - 13, damage 17L
Soak - 5
DV - Parry 6
Health Levels: 2 left.

Swarm
Dispersed.

Iron Soul has dematerialized and fled through the walls to escape Seeks. The swarm begins to disperse shortly after.

There had been more than one battle playing out within the Academy, and one by one they claimed their victors and losers. The first conflict to reach its terminus was between Seeks What Is Forgotten and Iron Soul, and had ended with the Lunar's ancient artifact cutting the Ghost nearly in half. The second to end was the battle between Slender Willow Swaying and the swarm, the maddening sight of it enough to induce lunacy and dispair in even the stoutest of hearts and most ordered of minds.

The final fight was between Seeks What Is Forgotten's laugh, and Seeks What Is Forgotten's hacking cough.

The cough won, or rather, his lungs lost, and the shriveled shade of a man was reduced to a wheezing mess. He dropped to one knee, holding the massive bulk of Flying Silver Dream casually over one shoulder as he made horrible noises into the folds of his robe. It took ages, and the others would have long since recovered before he got his breathing anything near under control.

Breath came in ragged gasps as shoulders slumped and slender limbs shook with the exhaustion of a fading battle haze. The wet thump of the foul rain of the swarming falling to the earth around her churning the stomach in that emptiness that always followed. The sound of ragged laughter and hacking coughs on the distance contrasted against the groans of wounded and dying and Slender Willow Swaying could only wonder as to the price of knowledge and the race they now found themselves in. The smile that wormed it's way across her tired features was a wretched and twisted one as she closed her eyes for a moment and focused on the pain and hurt that came from her own myriad bites and the venom that burned through her even now...

A reminder of how far things had fallen from the fragmented memories of yesteryear and the highest glories that had once been. The woman of the present asserted herself once more as hazy memory churned and fell away into the depths of her three part soul and her eyes turned then towards Liana. A shadow of unexpected and sympathetic fear twisting behind the light of those almost too blue eyes all whilst the endless panoply of phantom limbs folded gently into the roaring aura of moonfire that surrounded her now.

"I'd... hoped I might be able to gather them to me but... the swarm seems to have had a mind behind it but are you, well, alright?" she offered in a soft tone, not approaching too closely for the aura of flame that surrounded the other woman now. For someone other than a hapless bystander she might have had barbs layered within every word and inflection but... for now... She was tired and the Laughing Demon was, perhaps, aware of the cost of such rot as had set into the bones of the world.

Her shadow, all the while, twitched and darted in agitation. It's every motion suggesting it had no greater desire than to feast upon the carrion that surrounded it as phantom pincers snapped and tore at the shadows of each felled insect.

Liana wipes a bloody hand across one eye wiping away any tears. Her hair writhes in fiery animation with her burning aura but soon hangs limply as the aura fades away in guttering sparks. She squints against Willow's silver glare as she looks up uncertainly at the Lunar.

"I...ahh...thank you. I think whatever you did did help", her voice rasps. As a member of the staff of a prestigious sorcerous academy she has seen her share of supernaturals though its one thing when they play pretend mortal and another when standing in front of you in all their supernatural glory. She is visibly pulling herself together as she looks at herself. "I'm a mess." She wrinkles her nose at the disintegrating morass of once flies around her.

In reply to Seeks What Is Forgotten (msg # 98):

Out of doors Seeks can hear survivors calling out to each other. At least one voice belongs to Stained Fingers as he organizes the academy's medical staff to go in search of the injured.

An outside voice cries out in alarm at the silver glow emanating from the open double doors. Probably meaning Seeks...

Seeks What Is Forgotten eventually regained enough of his composure to hobble over to the fallen sleeping mat, the motion of his steps an unnatural scuttle. The motion was unnerving for purely mortal eyes, particularly now that Liana had witnessed just how fast he could move. His gait might be awkward seeming, but that was only because there was something inhuman about it, as there had been to the lunging steps he had taken. The truth of his Spirit Shape revealed itself in such moments, the sudden explosion of almost mechanical motion that was the hallmark of the Hunting Spider. The disquiet was made all the more so by the silver fire which flickered up and down his spindly limbs. The glyphwork carved into his flesh by Luna's grace was an intricate and complicated thing, flickering after images that wedged themselves in the mind long after eyes were closed. He knelt, and with thin fingers began unbinding the chords which loosely held it. With the same deftness that he had woven the cat's cradle, he separated the complicated knots, rewrapping the massive blade and restoring it to its former place of honor at his back.

Honor being a subjective word, as "trussed up like a corpse in a carpet" would have been just as applicable.

"We appear to have made a bit of a scene, and are about to make a bit more."

He chuckled, his black faceted eyes scanning the ground for any trace of blood spilled by Liana that might not be protected by her own warding flame.

"Unless you have something else you wish to do here?"

He rasped at Slender Willow Swaying, largely ignoring the witness to their heritage crouching at their feet.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:14, Sun 06 Mar 2022.

There was a moment's hesitation that showed somewhere in the mess of signals and information that was Slender Willow Swaying's body language and expressions. She wished to help, to do something for the woman but the circumstances wrought of her own exuberance did not allow for it. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she looked to her companion and fellow lunar in the moment and offered a weathered sigh that seemed older than the woman who had issued it. Her attention turned back to Liana with a tilted half of a smile at her comments.

"You may be a mess but sometimes that's the price of survival. May I have that fang back? I'd rather not be here when all rush in. The world is... adverse still to the teachings of the Mother." the Changing Moon offered with a gentle note as her attention drifted back towards the door and Seeks What Is Forgotten who moved like the spider that bore the shape of their soul. Her own motions remained that perfected grace in every little detail but the rapid dance of her shadow to prey upon the shadows of the fallen flies told a story all it's own. All while old memories churned and burned within her mind.

Seeks What Is Forgotten sees Liana pull herself upright hissing at the numerous little bloody bites upon her face, neck, and arms. She pulls out a handkerchief to wipe her face clean before giving it up as a lost cause and tossing the cloth onto the desk.

"I suppose I'll report to whoever is leading the clean-up efforts. They will need help.", Liana mutters to herself before turning to Willow. She offers the icy fang, still steaming from the woman's fiery aura. "I should lead you to the gates. I don't think we will be conducting anymore business today..."

She eyes the glowing Lunars, perhaps wondering what they will do next. She is still unsteady on her feet but remarkably composed for all that's happened.

The predatory instinct stirred within Seeks What Is Forgotten's divine blood, the howling of Luna's will making itself manifest in his thoughts. He looked to the bloodied cloth, and Mara whispered at him to claim it. With such a sympathetic tie, it would be so simple to summon the woman's shadow to him, to learn her deepest secrets and claim her Heart's Blood. His fingers twitched, muscles instinctively grasping. It would be so simple, so easy, and then it would be his. He grimaced beneath his cowled hood, striving to resist the temptation, and he felt his control slipping.

At his side, his fingers slipped into the sleeve of his robes and found the spider's web of Heron Sleeve's hair he had made, winding their way through the cat's cradle and once again beginning to weave and reweave it.

His twitching stilled, content to pursue what prey he had already already chosen for his Hunt.

"It would seem Master Stained Fingers as been conducting very dangerous business indeed."

He said, either ignoring social niceties or else utterly unaware of them.

"That sort of work, draws out all sorts of monsters from the shadows."

He let out another hacking laugh, the light of his anima banner sending flickering afterimages of far too many legs skittering out about him. A monster of myth and legend brought to life.

"A good thing we were here, eh?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:11, Fri 25 Mar 2022.

Liana smiles wanly as she hands over the icy tooth to Willow. "Yes, it was fortunate. Please follow me. I'll take you to the gate. We need to clear out of the halls for the healers and investigators to do their jobs."

She steps out and leads the Lunars down a sidehall, empty of any sign of the recent disturbance or the moans of the wounded. It appears to be a service corridor for the academy's occult libraries as the glimpses of book shelves indicate. Behind can be heard the first responders dealing with the crisis.

"I was hoping for tea and secrets in all honesty. Thank you." the Changing Moon offered with a twisting lilt of grim humour to her tone as such was exactly what she received though at the cost of blood and suffering of so many. It was a strange thought to contrast against her certain of the wretchedness of this age and all the wounds and burdens it had inflicted upon her. It was an interesting madness all it's own to want after nothing more than talk and warm tea but she couldn't deny that in her wicked glee she seemed to have done precious little to help any of those as afflicted without realizing it. She wondered how many more symptoms of this diseased and shattered age she might address before she could come to the root and cure? Or maybe that hateful laughter was only leading her further afield... It was a curious thought as she looked to the fang now returned to her hand and remembered the plea of mercy Sleet had made before the final blow was struck. There wasn't remorse but there was an uncomfortable contemplation for an instant as she glanced back up to Liana.

"Crimson moss. Mix with some clean water and apply as a poultice. It should help with the cuts and draw out anything nasty left behind." Slender Willow Swaying offered with flickers of old memories from some distant apothecary, the light bright but not overly so and drowned in the comfort of familiarity as she followed with light and quick steps. The silvery hue of moonlight following in her wake as the essence continued to twist and churn in the wake of her aura and divinity. Yet more memories of lives far different and better from where the woman in the now stood continued to rise as they passed between the shelves of hoarded knowledge towards their escape.

"Considering the scene we just made, and our current condition..."

He trailed off, marveling for a moment at the silver traceries of moon fire playing up and down his fingers. In truth, he'd rarely had need to light the anima bonfire within him, and the situation was still novel for him. Memories tickled at his mind, but he could not grasp them, could not recall more than the sensation of it. It was thrilling, in its own way, the warring of his own nature. His eyes caught the strand of human hair that he had revealed from within the long sleeves of his robes, and he snapped his extended hand back into the sheltering folds of the cloth.

"... perhaps it would be best if we simply took wing?"

They could take shelter within the woods, and wait for the sun to set. It would not be as comfortable as the tea houses and libraries had been, but so too was there significantly less chance of an angry mob of scholar monks forming and trying to burn them from existence with fire and sorcery. His nature was to hide and to flee without being seen, but they were somewhat past that point. The shadows themselves would not hold him, at least not without calling on more of Luna's grace. He would have to get Mara to teach him the secret of glamour, he thought, for just such occasions.

As they stepped outside, he threw caution to the wind. With a ripple of shimmering skin and lunar magic, he stepped out of the form of Seeks What is Forgotten and into the flesh of a Harpy Eagle. With a scream of defiance, he took to the air, leaving the remarkably calm Liana the Scribe in his fake.

It was almost a dismissive gesture with a hint of that all too worrying and crooked smile that snuck across the handsome lunar's features in response to Seeks What Is Forgotten's appeals to caution. It was almost enough to inspire that stone in the pit of the stomach that Slender Willow Swaying had something all too different in mind for what came next but she only laughed in the instant that followed as she rolled back her shoulders with that almost perfected grace that so constantly suffused every motion. The hues of silver moon fire that still enshrouded her mingling with the blood from the thousand tiny wounds she had suffered blending to seeming twist and corrupt the light as she glanced once more to their mortal company.

"We'll be back when things have quieted a little and have had a chance to hunt. I don't care to leave something like what's happened today unanswered. Either way, to a less exciting next meeting." the Changing Moon offered as she pulled essence inward now to twist bone and flesh to a form more suited to the task ahead. Radiant plumage burst into being as the guise of the Rainbow hawk was pulled back upon her. The ever twitching and darting shadow that was the expression of her true self curling and twisting to anchor itself to the avian form she now wore. That same moonfire catching and glinting like purest silver upon each feather as Slender Willow Swaying took wing in pursuit of her companion.

The piercing sound of her cry following in Seeks defiant shriek like taunting laughter. If he thought at all that she would be put off weathering somewhere other than in the comforts of civilization, he was sorely mistake. The wilds had been home to her in a way few could fathom and she had no fear of returning to them as the need and whim took.

The city passes swiftly below as the Lunars leave the tragedy behind them. Wheeling birds disguise the more purposeful course of the shapeshifters as they finally pass over the river into the lands beyond. Semi-civilized with scattered outposts and plantations intermixed with thick grasslands and woods, the great swamps bordering the lands to the north. Herds of three-horned saurian herbivores graze upon the low plants and long necked grazers clip the high trees. Among them can be seen the sleek forms of bipedal carnivores sleeping in the early afternoon sun. Plenty of space for the pair looking for a chance to recuperate and plan.

Seeks What Is Forgotten thought himself a creature of intellect, of logic and careful planning.

He was patient, that was true at least. Yet the more time he spent with Slender Willow Swaying, the more he began to doubt his own rationality. She was an entity of pure madness, in some ways, something impulsive and wild and bold. He would never have thought himself like her in these ways, yet the more time he spent with her the more similarities he saw between them. Had it not been madness to strike out at the corpulent dead thing, to ignite the flames of Luna's banner and draw a blade of myth and legend to do battle? To reveal himself and his nature to watching eyes? Yet that was exactly what he had done, responding to instincts he hadn't even realized he'd possessed to cut the thing to howling pieces.

At least the instincts he followed now were familiar, old friends. He had struck, like the hunting spider that even now sought to crawl its way to the surface of his skin. Now it was time to scuttle back into the shadows, and find for himself what he had captured.

He landed in a shadowed glade surrounded by thick shrubs and trees, fleshing and form shifting and warping until feathers were cloak and withered skin once more.

"That was madness, what we did."

He croaked, looking to his companion and then to the flowing lines of burning silver tracery along his shriveled hand.

"But I can't say it wasn't fun. Your scholar has kept interesting company, it seems."

As he spoke, he began tracing runes into the soft loam beneath their feet, clearing away rocks and pulling plants up by their roots to create the space he needed. He looked up at the sun, now low in the horizon, squinting a little beneath his hood.

"My blood is up, I'm going to call a Hunt to cool it. Means I'll be busy till just shy of midnight. What do you want to do while I'm hunting?"

All about him, the shadows began to condense and thicken, Mara's secrets contesting Luna's light. His hands had found the cat's cradle made of Heron Sleeve's hair, and as he continued his work he began peeling off strands of it to weave into the calligraphy he was scribing in the dirt. More and more, the flowing shapes began to take form, forming a web of magic. Tendrils of blackness began to weave about, first upon the ground, but as he worked shooting up to strike nearby tree branches. So thin as to be almost unnoticeable, the gossamer strands of shadow began to form a beautiful geometry. All it took was a turn of the head, a shift of perspective, and it was lost.

Yet there was order there, intention. This was no idle spinning, no nervous twitch of his hands. This was sorcery, secrets whispered by Mara herself into his ears in the dead of night. His soul was attuned to this web, and it was everything. It was the hunt, it was the very core of his being. A sacred eight sided weaving that was both seal and beacon. It was a beckoning, a summoning, the bait of a trap. Yet is was not mortal of flesh and blood that he sought to lure into his web, but ethereal shadow.

For shadows were his prey, and he their Hunter.

The soul was a complicated thing, but the sorcery he worked now was a delicate tool. Through the sympathetic link of Heron Sleeve's stolen hair, he already had the binding ties he needed. He drew on his power, extending it into the threads as they were drawn tight. They would be consumed by the working, of course, but he only truly needed the shade once. Attuned to his fundamental nature as this magic was, he would draw forth what secrets he desired. It was, as in so many things Seeks What Is Forgotten did, a curious blending of Luna and Mara's gifts. Twisted Sorceries whispered to him in Dreams by the Demon Queen, and the stirring of his celestial blood in the thrill of a hunt.  It was in this moment when he felt most himself, most alive, despite the burning plaguecraft that even now threatened to devour him from the inside out. This is what it meant to be a Hunter, and he exhilirated in it.



OOC: Casting Shadow Dirge, which is my Control Spell. Using it meet the trigger condition for Whispering Heart Revelation – p. 235.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:13, Fri 15 Apr 2022.

[You need to make an Occult + Intelligence roll in a sorcerous action normally to actualize the spell but we can just give it to you for this first time. :)]

Seeks What is Forgotten marches one last time around the symbolic offering surrounded by arcane glyphs, the last dirge rolling off his tongue. Before the last syllable rolls off his tongue the central circle fills with inky blackness, twisting and turning in a effort to escape its unnatural imprisonment.

Heron Sleeve's shadow is Seeks prisoner and now awaits his wishes in the last hours before dawn breaks.

The radiant form of the Rainbow Hawk that Slender Willow Swaying had assumed circled and banked with impeccable grace to land among the lower branches of a tree at the edge of the glade. Chosen, it seemed, specifically for the fact it could bear the weight of both bird and woman without a fuss as flesh and feather twisted and churned from brilliant plumage to no less riotous hues of her festive skirts and shawls. That dangerous grin danced across pale and handsome features as what light there was seemed to catch and pool in the brilliant blue of her eyes. Her dark hair blending into the shadows and seeming to stretch on forever as her moon pale flesh contrasted the darkness and foliage that surrounded her.

It was a sight that might have been alarming for some but was strangely disarmed as she gently kicked her legs in the cool air that stretched beneath her. The leaves and branch swaying gently in mimicry of the motion as her skirts kicked and danced in twisting waves of colour.

"Thing's got a little more spirited than I thought they would. What was that scribbling on the door? It stank of fetid blood which sent enough of a message on it's own but, well, any specific meaning got lost in the moment didn't it?" the Changing Moon teased back with an easy air as she seemed to gently poke and prod at the many small blemishes left by the bites of the insect swarms she had danced among. There was a curiously deliberate air to it that suggested, after a fashion, knowledge of the healer's arts. Her smile seemed only to brighten an instant later as she found nothing amiss. The wounds healing with that unnatural alacrity of the exalted and seeming to bear no linger malignance that might pose any more a problem than the usual bites of such nuisance creatures.

"That he does though I think he's probably not too happy with that fact any more. The dangers of a learned mind in a blind and rotted age, I suppose." the Changing Moon concluded as she glanced back up to the small glimpse of the vault of heaven above through the break in the canopy of leaves. The silence broken with the growl of a stomach and a tittering laugh from the addled woman who had inherited, perhaps, far too much power for her own good.

"A more mundane hunt, I think. Berries, some small game, and a sip of cold water sounds lovely doesn't it?" Slender Willow Swaying concluded as her essence boiled to within her three tiered soul and flesh twisted into the sleek form of a wild cat now resting with curiously bright eyes of blue before rising from it's recline to dart from branch to branch into the darkness of the surrounding forest.

Seeks What Is Forgotten could be certain she wouldn't roam far, her regard for her friends and those she thought to protect wouldn't let her. There was also the subtle suspicion that it was a courtesy in some way. To leave his arcane secrets unwitnessed by another until just such a time as she was more properly invited. Where she might have gotten such a notion was a mystery all it's own. A sliver of etiquette from a past life of jealously guarded knowledge? Or merely a bit of trust in the midst of her madness of whim and impulse.

It was not her preferred form, if she was to be honest, for stalking through the darkness between trees but it was one of many that she had taken for herself that was suited to the task. Her nose seemed to catch every scent and trail whilst little escaped the sharpened vision that came as one of many gifts given onto the whole of feline kind... This was to say nothing of her hearing as her ears twitched this way and that as she leapt from branch to branch before finally descending to the forest floor proper to seek out something that might suit her palate and whatever might remain of her fellow lunar's. Time would tell what she might catch with tooth and claw or merely her true hands but it felt right and natural as she moved with light and careful steps before happening upon the trail of rabbit. The scent was fresh but faded just enough to say there was some distance yet before she might happen upon prey and burrow but it was strong enough to tug at borrowed instinct and distant memory.


Assuming Wits + Survival for hunting which going to use my excellency as I have 2 charms under the Wits run with 5 motes provided from my personal pool.


13:17, Today: Slender Willow Swaying rolled 11 successes using 11d10 with the White Wolf Exalted system with a target of 7.  Survival + Wits + 5 motes (Excellency).

Dangerous, she was always so dangerous.

Seeks What Is Forgotten was not so lost in his shadow weaving as to not notice her, not notice the way the world itself seemed to breathe about her as she moved. Thus far, madness had only unleashed itself upon their foes, he reminded itself. Yet such thoughts were little comfort given the sheer scale of it all. A maelstrom whose coat tails he could only just cling to.

"It called itself Iron Soul, just before I cut it to ribbons."

He rasped plainly, his fingers flexing in shadowed memory of Heron Sleeve's stolen hair.

"If Iron Soul was the puppet master, or just another puppet, I don't yet know."

He shrugged, pulling the last tendrils of his web tight.

"Ahhhhhhhh...."

He sighed, as at last the man's shadow fell for beckoning he had woven for it. It was a barely visible thing, caught and struggling in bindings of glyph and sorcery that it could not possibly hope to escape, even if it had the will to do so. It didn't, but that did not stop it from reeling away from him in ethereal terror even as he drew himself close.

"There you are...."

He positively crooned, and behind him his voice echoed and burbled. For Mara had taught him the secret language of shadows, and while Heron Sleeve's shade feared him for the power he wielded over it, it would obey. With a flicker of his power, he could tear it to shreds, sending it screaming back to the man who had cast it. Yet that was not the purpose that he had brought it to him that night. No, tonight his blood burned, the fire of Luna's will running through him.

Tonight was for the Hunt, and the Heart's Blood.


Using:  Shadow Dirge

A sorcerer who knows Dirge of Shadows as her control spell can speak the secret language of shadows, asking them questions which they must answer truthfully.The sorcerer may interrogate the shadow about the activities of its host over the last lunar month. It knows what a shadow knows, by the shape it takes and what light casts it. The shadow may describe its host wielding a sword near a bonfire a week ago, or how it coiled in the embrace of another last night, between two golden lanterns. The shadow may answer a number of questions equal to (sorcerer’s Essence). If the sorcerer makes use of this function, she may still send the shadow back to the victim with a message at the end of her interrogation. Shadows flee from the sorcerer’s presence and lean away from her regardless of where the light which casts them originates.

And Whispering Heart Revelation

She performs a sacred hunt to take a human’s shape by seeking out a secret of great importance to him — one that persuading him to reveal would count as a serious or life-defining task (Exalted, p. 210). Once the Lunar uncovers this se- cret, she may conclude the hunt, taking her target’s form. However, if she’s mistaken as to the secret’s significance or truth, the hunt fails, and she can’t take her target’s shape through this Charm again this story. She may still attempt sacred hunts against him by other means.

What do I roll next?