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?