Difference between revisions of "Edge-Of-The-Eye"

Latest revision as of 01:15, 6 April 2010

The Isle of Peddlers, Edge-of-the-Eye

Under the eye of the two very different but allied spirit rulers of Edge-of-the-Eye, the Peddlers of the West come to do their business. Not a natural island, Edge-of-the-Eye is instead the top of an enormous First Age tower, now mostly sunk into the ocean. Once, it was built on a vast island covered with a growing city; now the city sits far below, and the bones of it's inhabitants are long gone, their indestructible homes covered in coral. The location of Edge-of-the-Eye is a day's voyage from the islands of The Neck, heading West.

The tower, known as the Rasping Gate of Waves in various texts, was the powerful Manse of a powerful and mighty Anathema, but little else is known. Few relics can be salvaged from it, due to much of the tower being filled with sea water, and even those who are not troubled by a bit of water (such as Water Aspects, or the nearby pelagathropes) find potent sorceries and Manse-powered defenses to stop them from reaching the inner chambers.

Once the city father of the Shining Reef, the city that now lays beneath the waves, the Gull of August Commerce and Watchful Protection, now only known as the Gull, has created a new domain for himself. Here on the last remains of his city, he has protected a thriving new settlement on the four-mile wide top of the Rasping Gate. His ally in this is the Treader on Water, a strange and powerful spirit-monster who speaks nothing but gibbered Old Realm, and whose great claws and teeth are rightly feared by all but Celestial Exalted. Murderers and thieves, any who endanger the well-being of Edge-of-the-Eye, know that when sunset comes, he will be out there, smelling them out and coming to take them away to his lair, where their skulls will become a pearl for his collection. He is a giant, shambling thing, whose feet prance on the surface of the waves. The Treader is said to have somewhat whimisical tastes; they say that if he has begun to hunt you, a quiet melody or an object made of bright colors may take his attention of you. Those who break the laws of Edge-of-the-Eye are sure to carry around objects or flutes, although few inhabitants can actually say they know directly of an incident where a man was spared the Treader on Water's wraith. There is some question of what the hulking spirit-beast truly is... while he has shown the ability to fade into the ocean mist and appear where ever he likes, like a spirit dematerializing, those who know the flows of Essence and can identify charms and combos will become very confused: the Treader uses essence that shines with the silver power of the moon and draws his power from charms like those of a Lunar Exalted, centered around savagry and survival. Is the Treader a Lunar Exalted, hiding his anima and caste mark? Or is he something else? Those Exalted or thaumaturges who have pondered this have recieved no answer; both spirits are silent on this question.

This outwardly peaceful setting has attracted merchants and pirates from around the West to trade at Edge-of-the-Eye, where no taxes are collected but the token donations at the shrines of the Gull and the Treader, where no bureaucratic agent is concerned with smuggling or criminal goods. The two gods do not produce any paperwork at all, however, meaning that a cargo ship will have no reciepts or papers to show legitimate ownership of the goods in the hold if they are stopped by the Imperial Navy or any other patroling fleet. A small collective of forgerers have bonded together, and they are truly what keeps Edge-of-the-Eye a viable trading place: they offer well-priced paperwork and licenses from any number of harbors or registars, which lets trade at the Edge-of-the-Eye be as "legitimate" as any other place. The Gull recognizes this, and has always kept the forgerer's needs and wants in mind. The August Union of Facsimilies and Unauthorized Copies is one of the most notable groups of forgery experts in Creation, and have had centuries to perfect their craft. Today, they can even forge the most complex of Realm paperwork, allowing them to create a seamless paperwork trail that will make the cargo appear to come from anywhere. The Admiral of the Imperial Merchant Fleet, frustrated with smugglers using expertly forged documents to operate within the Realm's waters, has asked several of his cousins in the V'neef House (and his own formerly patrician line, now a minor line of House V'neef) to find a way to disassemble the August Union.

Edge-of-the-Eye, whether one sails to it on the fast pirate ships or the slow Guild cargo ships, appears as a shiny blue-gray spar on the horizon, and quickly becomes a giant platform, a hundred feet or so into the air, with a slightly tipped surface (the platform is dipping five degrees to the North, which is a fairly noticable slant from far away). The docks are floating wood constructions, making it hard for crew to disembark when the weather makes the sea choppy. On the top of the Rasping Gate, rather tall buildings have been made from old ships and bits of giant shells (as if from gigantic snails) that wash up around the tower occassionally. They do not survive the weather well, for the most part, and occasionally a rather rickety-designed building, due to the inability to make a foundation, will tip over in the wind and into the ocean below. It is for this reason that the Gull is so adamant to maintain relations with the local court of weather spirits. This means that storms have become rare, although more than a few of the citizens have had to put up with particularly harsh or ill-mannered weather spirits.

The surface of the Rasping Gate is made of a blue-green material, with a metallic sheen to it. No known tool can scratch it's perfectly polished surface, and any dirt or stain that accumulates on it will disappear, making the entire tower look clean and new. A faint, silvery fish scale pattern inside the towers surface can be seen in several areas, normally close to the five exits that lead down into the lower levels. These exits lead into several dark staircases and rooms, their furnishings long stolen, until one encounters the flooded levels, which is estimated to take up almost the entire Manse. Water Aspects and other various waterbreathers have appeared at times, only to disappear below the surface of the dark waters, though a few sometimes return with some vaguely minor trinket or wonder. Pelagathropes, who discovered many underwater side entrances, have had similar experiences: they have lost dozens who were destroyed by the potent defenses within the tower, or who lost limbs or eyesight. They treat the place as cursed, and until several years ago, avoided the tower like the plague. Those who live in Edge-of-the-Eye treat the five exits as taboo to discuss or go into, although it is a common challenge among children to see who can dive into the dark waters of the Rasping Gates lower levels and hold their breath the longest.

Al Aharan, isle of desire and fantasy, is the reflection of Edge-of-the-Eye, a place where the raksha buy and sell anything. The name is in Old Realm: it literally means Eye-on-Edge. Dreams are the common currency here, and everything else is for the buying. The ruler of Al Aharan is Militant Flags Marching In the Night, a powerful and regal noble among the raksha, but foremost a craftsmen. He alone in the West remembers ancient rites and powers that can be used to create Sanctum-like realms, small worlds made to suit ones personality perfectly, and to bind them to your soul, so that you may enter them at a moment's pause. They work only in areas near the Wyld and the price is far too astronomical for their overall use, but the Crafter of Domains does a steady trade among those Fair Folk and Exalted who wish such a thing. Recently, First Age wares have appeared throughout Al Aharan, and the nature of these Orichalcum and Moonsilver enhanced items cause much astir among outsider mortals who deal there. The Guild, who uses the carefully cultured dreams of slaves as payment (they induce especially horrific memories of especially twisted rapes and tragedies in the slaves, priming them for the Fair Folk meals), has begun to buy up minor items, selling them to Realm Dynasts and powerful Thresholders. Some of these artifacts have even appeared as wares for sale at Edge-of-the-Eye, although normally priced incorrectly. Where are these relics coming from? The Tower is supposedly still secure and the city below is long ransacked by the pelegathropes. Has some new vault been opened up in the Wyld, or has some spirit been destroyed, and his belongings left to the tides?

Militant Flags, in recent years, has gained a lover and trustful compatriot, in the form of Bronze Traveler Under Maddened Stars, an elder Sidereal whose mind has been twisted and corrupted beyond saving. Once, he was a Chosen of Mercury, but was flung into Malfeas during the fight with the powerful Solar who ruled at the Rasping Gate. There, he was corrupted and tortured until his mind broke and he gave into the Yozi, remade into an Akuma for their purposes. He is a powerful elder Sidereal, especially with the benefit of being an Akuma, and a danger to even other elder Exalts. The raksha have harbored him for the past two years as part of a diplomatic treaty forged in the Sea of Mind, and he has risen to be a staunch ally of Militant Flags. The Bronze Traveler is, in person, a rather friendly and personable young man with extremely long white hair that trails behind him. His insanity and the control of his Yozi master is not instantly recognizable, unless he loses his composure. Like Militant Flags, the Bronze Traveler is a merchant and a craftsman: the Crafter of Stars. Using his millenia old knowledge of astrology, the Crafter of Stars forces the skies to accept new stars, new fates. His work is almost corrosive, destroying and annulling much of the work of the Convention of the West, using a Malfean Bronze loom called the Weaver of Lies to affect the Tapestry and force the pattern spiders to obey his iron will. Even now, Chejop Kejack and the Heavenly Bureaucracy makes plans on how to destroy the Bronze Traveler Under Maddened Stars, without causing him to bring his master, She Who Lives In Her Name, to Creation, or causing Militant Flags to start a major invasion of Western Fair Folk.

Siren of the Angelic Scream, an Abyssal from Onyx, was sent a month ago to make Edge-of-the-Eye a possession of the Bodhivissatva. The Moonshadow failed in getting onto the island however without the spirit lords noticing him, and was nearly torn apart by the Treader on Water, who believed him to be some sort of powerful Nemissary (the ensuing battle left both of them nearly dead, with the Treader probably having the upper edge due to a Lunar-esque spirit regeneration charm). The Gull vaguely recognized the caste mark of an Eclipse on him, and kept the Treader from destroying the Moonshadow by forcing the Siren to make a deal with him, a blood-splattered pact bound by the power of the dark Neverborn. This oath was to never, in no circumstance, act against neither the Treader or the Gull, and to act in their service for tenfold years. Needless to say, the Siren has attracted extreme Resonance for his failure, and his sovereign's displease at having to share his servant is made known. The Gull, seeing the great chaos that was being caused by his new servant, sent him from Edge-of-the-Eye, to trouble the fae merchants of Al Ahran. Meanwhile, the Siren of the Angelic Scream plots against his new masters, analyzing their oral agreement for loopholes. He enjoys destroying the fae, however, and the devastation he has wrecked there seems to have slowed the flow of Resonance from the Silver Prince. The Crafters of Domains and Stars can only nod sadly as the perfect chaos of their dream market is entropied and decayed by the Abyssal Exalted, due to a long standing bargain not to bring harm to emissaries from Edge-of-the-Eye, no matter what ill they bring. And so, the Prince in his luxurious apartments causes raksha merchants to turn on one another and war in the streets of Al Aharan.

The Immaculate Mother of Indominatible Watery Desires, a goddess of lust and aquatic demise, lady of drowning and the love for the ocean. She can make any man or woman jump ship to dance with her and struggle for a kiss, before their lungs fill with water and they drown, feeling indescribable pleasure. Then she snatches their souls before they fly away and uses the drowned mortal to forge another gem-like eye for Nahtal, her beastial lover, a monstrous behometh; prototype for octopi, squid and ammonites. In these tumultuous times, his entire body is covered with glittering eyes, each a different color. The Mother has her children of course; those god-blooded born to a proud tribe of pelegathropes who worship her as their mistress and archon. Becoming bored and displeased with her lot as a mere small god who frightens sailors, the Mother has ordered her worshippers to open the Manse of the Rasping Gate to her, so that she may have the treasures and Hearthstone inside. The pelegathropes are fearful to break their long-standing taboo, but do as she asks never the less. None of the Mother's children have figured out a way to do this yet, but several of the Mother's more powerful god-blooded children have considered going topside, and forcing the Gull to answer their questions. Another child, the Quick Fin, has been contacted by the Siren of the Angelic Choir, and been given a cache of First Age explosives, so that he might destroy the base of the tower, tipping Edge-of-the-Eye into the sea and cracking open the vaulted insides.

--KingLeon