Porcelain Child/SessionFourteen

The valley…
<onine> Leaving the horror of the village behind you, you all trek west into the valley. The land is mostly rolling grassy hills with small forests here and there to break up the landscape as you head down from the highlands of the mountains. Small bluffs and rocky outcroppings grow less common as you travel into the night.
<onine> You travel for some time into the night, putting distance between yourselves and the chaos you have just stepped from. The Magistrate leads, with Anona and Epheri quickly in tow, talking some complicated spell nonsense. Well, Anona is lecturing, while Epheri tries to wrap her mind around it.
<onine> Magpie is drifting from front to back, generally bugging who she can, and crow too joins in the random harassment. Vana, Yengo and Ujiro have caught the rearguard, though to guard from what is a subject that really is in the air.
<onine> Ujiro is grumbling near Yengo. "Always the same, hmm? Farmers die, the dynasty grows fat on their tireless work." he spits, annoyed. "Immaculate philosophy, ptah!"
* Yengo sighs. "It does seem that way, doesn't it? But maybe this one's not the Dynasty's fault. The Immaculate there died too..." Just where HAD the body gone, though?
<onine> "Hmm. If Ujiro knows the premise, the exalted protect mortals." He grins. "That's us."
<Yengo> "Too busy fighting with each other at the moment, I guess. At least one of them tried... assuming he was an Exalted." These days, that was a rarity, which is what made Diamandus such an exception.
<onine> "Ha! This is true! Noble warriors do still exist, but mortals must protect themselves now hmm?" He rests the large curved sword over his shoulders.
<Yengo> "As best we can."
* Vana remains silent throughout this discussion, lost in thought as she often is.
<onine> He whacks his breastplate with his fist and leans over looking at you closely. "Farmer?"
<Yengo> "Huh? Me?"
<onine> "Mm!"
<Yengo> "No... grew up in the Imperial city, then I was..." He decides not to mention his desertion from the Tepet Legions - Epheri or Anona might overhear, and who knows how they'd react. "I was a surgeon, a doctor, in the Threshold."
<onine> "You look like a farmer..."
<Yengo> "Er... well... thanks..."
<Magpie> "I think he's insulting you," says city-bred Magpie, peering down from the tree from which she had been plotting an ambush.
* Yengo looks up at her. "Well, there's worse things to be." He shrugs.
<onine> "Being a farmer is not insulting!"
<Magpie> "Are you sure?" Magpie looks doubtfully at him.
<onine> "All the same! If it weren't for farmers none of you would eat." he stomps his foot, childishly annoyed
* Yengo pats his stomach; true enough. "Are you sure YOU'RE not a farmer, Ujiro?"
<onine> "Ujiro is a warrior! A protector of the weak! Mighty is he!"
<onine> Ujiro squats and holds the sword above his head to illustrate the point.
<Magpie> "So farmers aren't mighty, is what you're saying?"
<onine> "Urr... farmers are mighty in a way - but not like Ujiro of course! Hah-hah! hah.. hehe.."
* Yengo shrugs, by now used to Ujiro's strange outbursts. "I wonder how much further it is to Tuchara... I guess it doesn't matter, as long as we don't find anything else like... like THAT."
<onine> Ujiro scratches his head and looks at the night sky, chewing on his lip in thought - as in thought as Ujiro can be. The Magistrate calls from the front as you reach a small ridge that the group will set up camp for the night.
<Magpie> "There are a LOT of plagued villages," Magpie agrees, nodding her head so vigorously she falls out of her tree. Crow laughs. She runs up ahead to explore her new environs.
<onine> (There is a tree for Magpie to muck about in, there are rocks to sit on, and a ridge with a view of the valley and the sky for anyone that wishes to brood.)

The camp…
<onine> The area is a small outcropping nestled in some trees. It is a good place to camp, there is an impressive view of the valley cloaked in night-time mist. The fire is set in a lower area making the group hard to spot by any malevolent parties in the region. The Magistrate drags in a few fallen logs and arranges them as Anona sets about creating a fire with unnatural delight.
* Yengo sets about unpacking his things near the fire, sorting through his equipment absently. He gets the feeling that SOMETHING is missing, but he just can't remember what it might be. Nothing too important, anyway...
<onine> Epheri and Anona then set about looking onto a small collection of compact books and whatnot, and are lost to the outside world. Tara works on beginning*some* form of dinner.
* Vana wanders up to the ridge to take first watch, scoring a legendary success on her Brooding roll and putting Yengo to shame.
<onine> Vana is so successful, that creation itself becomes a tiny bit darker.
* Magpie climbs her tree, yawns massively, and begins to drift off...it had been a rough day.
<onine> You look out on the valley, it reminds you a little of the view from the Lookshy Manse, towering over the city and the rest of the scavenger lands. On a very good night you could occasionally see the lights of Nexus and at the time, Thorns as well.
* Yengo leans back against the tree, pulling out his sword, running a stone along its edge to sharpen it. It's gotten more use in the last week than in the last few years, and it's starting to show.
* Vana is reminded of the view from her Manse as well, and the mist that would sometimes hang about the forest.
<onine> Times like these, times after struggle and hardship, when you look out across the land, memories return. Thinking of your manse, you remember the first day you spent there, of the one that gifted it to you. Strangely you remember her final words as she walked into the woods...
<onine> Hassahn stood in the glade, looking up at the sky, the crest of feathers blowing gently in the breeze. "This manse was shaped to gift a being of tremendous power an immeasurably long time ago. The honored one is long gone and may never return, but the winds are changing, do you feel it too?"
<onine> "You will find each battle is simply a struggle for survival. There is no honor or glory to be won in it. There is only the hollow victory of choosing who shall live and who shall die THIS time. Fortune favors the merciful, dragon child."
* Vana frowns to herself as she sits atop the ridge, pondering deep and meaningful things.
<onine> East. You can feel it, you dont know why, perhaps it is the bond you shared. But*they* are coming, and are very close now. The three will catch you, and under orders, they will return you to Lookshy to face the perverse justice your father has engineered.
* Yengo finishes sharpening his sword, puts it carefully - and closely- aside. "Hey, ki- Magpie, you still awake?"
<Magpie> "Mmm?" Just barely, apparently.
<Yengo> "I just wanted to say... you've done a good job. You're braver than I was at your age. I just wish... we didn't keep getting you into this stuff."
* Magpie opens eyes her eyes, and shakes the sleep from her head. "Oh, I get into -lots- of trouble on my own," she reassures him.
<onine> Ujiro mumbles from his stool. "Great men are made by hardships. Perhaps tiny Magpie will be shaped into the greatest ever known?"
<Magpie> Ujiro is hit with a pinecone. Magpie wakes up fast. "I am not tiny! I am -very big -for my age."
<onine> "Oh! Forgiveness please!" Ujiro mock-grovels on the ground laughing. "You are enormous! Gargantuan even! Not small in any way!"
<Magpie> "Exactly," Magpie agrees, settling back into her tree. She is unruffled by his mockery. The important thing is he admitted his error.
<Yengo> "Plenty of great men die during hardships, too." He sighs. "It won't always be like this for you. We'll take you back to the City eventually..." He ignores most of Ujiro's groveling, though it does spark a grin.
<Magpie> A blank look comes over Magpie's face. To be alone again...but it vanishes, as she remembers Vana's promise. She smiles, leans back....and starts. She wondered how Yengo carried his scalpels so serenely. They kept poking her.
<onine> Ujiro laughs some more and takes a swig of sake from a small jug, and offers some to Yengo.
* Yengo takes the jug and upends it, taking a healthy swallow before returning it.
<onine> He's magic.
<Yengo> (or, y'know. Pouches.)
<Magpie> Only explanation.
<Magpie> (magic)

A ridge overlooking the valley…
<onine> Meanwhile, over on Brood Ridge... A sound of padding footsteps are heard behind you Vana
* Vana looks over her shoulder at the interloper. How dare they interrupt her brooding!
<onine> "I'm sorry Miss Vana.." Tara says. "For, you know, sneaking up on you, but you didn't have anything to eat with everyone else. I thought you may like some stew." She is carrying a pair of steaming bowls.
<Vana> "Oh. Thank you." She accepts one and eats an occasional spoonful, mostly gazing out over the valley.
<onine> Tara sits down next to Vana and quietly mirrors her tentative pokes at the stew.
<onine> "Are you alright Miss Vana?"
<Vana> "Hm? Oh, I'm fine." She sounds a little distant, and perhaps somewhat sad.
<onine> "You don't really want to talk about it do you."
<Vana> "Not really." She offers a small smile.
<onine> "I understand." She smiles weakly and pats Vana's hand.
* Vana enjoys the silence for a while, but eventually speaks up again. "What about you? Are you okay?"
<onine> Tara looks over to where Yengo, Magpie and Ujiro chatter contently. "I'll survive. I always do."
<Vana> "You sure?" She looks a little worried.
<onine> She gives you an obviously fake smile. "Of course."
<Vana> "If you ever need to talk, I'm here, you know."
<onine> "I know..." she says. There is little sound between you other than the tinking and scraping noises of spoon-on-bowl, even those are quiet and guarded so as not to break the sanctity of the peace.
* Vana eventually finishes, and passes the bowl back. "Thank you... that was delicious."
<onine> "You're welcome." She says quietly, and returns to the camp to clean up the cooking utensils. Gradually, all fall to sleep, barring Vana.

The next day at camp...
<onine> The morning air is cool and moist, you can't see more than a mile for the morning fog that is blanketing this section of the isle. Only the Magistrate is awake, carefully writing upon a long - extremely long - parchment with a brush and ink.
* Yengo rouses himself from sleep with difficulty, stretching as he rolls out of his bedroll.
* Vana wakes with not much effort, unsurprisingly. Sleeping as lightly as possible seems to be the best way to halt the nightmares.
* Yengo wanders over to the Magistrate, stifling a yawn. "How much longer do you think it will take us to reach Tuchara?"
<onine> "Oh... it's hard to say." He says, adding a date. The parchment seems to be a list of dates and events that have happened on those days. A Magistrates records.
<Yengo> "Keeping track of what we're doing?" He points at the parchment.
<onine> "That's correct. Everything I do. Everything my archons do, is kept on this record, so that I may present it to the Magistracy and the Empress herself every five years." He holds it up. "The five years are nearly up, and yet there is no Empress to report to. A predicament.
<Yengo> "Sounds like it. I bet some of the other Magistrates are facing the same problem." Not that he'd seen another Magistrate yet, or even heard of one. Just how many were still doing their jobs, anyway?
<onine> "Mmm.." He hums. "We are about miles from Tuchara at the moment. The trip should take around weeks on foot. But we will get passage at one of the coastal towns - after we have sorted this crisis of course."
<Yengo> "Of course. I hope there's not much more to sort, though." The village had gone easier than he could have hoped, but next time...
<onine> "I'm concerned Yengo. Very concerned. One of my... talents, I can look at the evidence and get a... a feeling I suppose, a hunch. Sometimes it is more than a hunch, sometimes I know instantly who did it." He says. "I don't know if my senses are completely upside down on this one..."
<Yengo> "What's your hunch?"
<onine> "The order." He admits. "It seems almost insane. But the hunch is the order is behind it." He grumbles and rubs his moustache with a gloved hand.
<onine> It doesn't take rocket science to guess*which* order.
<Yengo> "The Order? But sir... why... how? They're the last thing I would suspect..."
<onine> "Now you understand why I am so confused. Half the evidence is to the contrary, the signs of battle, the salt in immaculate marked sacks and barrels. And these creatures seemed to be completely immune to the barrier that should halt them. Although I don't think that animated dead are confined by such things."
<onine> "That sort of knowledge we will have to get from our two sorceresses." He looks over at the two lazy mounds of Anona and Epheri.
<Yengo> "The only times I've heard of the dead moving like this, it happened in the Threshold. After Thorns fell, the news was everywhere... but could the things that did that be working on the Isle? With the Order? It just doesn't make sense..." He doesn't contradict the Magistrate, though. His guess is still better than Yengo's.
<onine> He looks off mysteriously and murmurs, "There are creatures whose words are said to drive men insane, to make pacts that would go against everything they would believe in..." He scratches his chin and unravels a detailed map of the isle. "Perhaps not with, but as? But we don't really know enough to guess thus far... hmmm."
<onine> He puts the map between you and focuses on it with a small magnifier. To the north in the mountainous areas is marked an Immaculate Order Monastary. "There." He taps it with his finger and hands Yengo the magnifier.
* Yengo leans over the map to take a look through the magnifier. "Yes... looks straightforward enough to me..."
<onine> The writing names it as a monastery of Hesiesh, the Elemental Dragon of Fire.
<onine> "That river is between us and the monastery, and there is only one bridge this far north, here... We'll need to cross there, or go well out of our way southwards."
<Yengo> "If the Order might have something to do with this... is going to them the wisest choice?"
<onine> "Point." He says. "Investigating the order is difficult at best. The different aspects of the Imperial Bureaucracy do not tend to get along well at the best of times."
<Yengo> "Still if you think it's necessary." He shrugs, as if to say "You're the Magistrate, after all."
<onine> "Don't make the mistake to think me infallible." He points to the scar over his missing eye. "Your mind is likely just as sharp as my own. On that note, best wake the others then I think."
* Yengo looks back over the rest of the group, having already heard Vana awake.
* Vana is just gazing up at the sky, not really listening.

Magpie dreams…
<onine> You are laying in bed. It's late. You guess at least. You've been playing on one of the few days that Gran has allowed you out of the shop. She's been considerably less grumpy with you as of late - and more grumpy with your mother. Which really just suits you fine.
<onine> It's cold this time of year, so you hug the covers around you.
<onine> A draught. The window is closed. Someone must have opened the door. Get up and close it, walk across the cold wood floor? Or stay in the warm covers.
<onine> The battle is quickly won by team Stay In Bed.
<onine> You're not quite awake anyhow, you are still locked in that hazy territory where you are not really awake and not really asleep. You're conscious of where you are, of sensations, but you are still dozing. You feel the middle of the bed sink as someone sits down next to you on the straw mattress. Warm fingers stroke your cheek.
<onine> "You've gotten so tall Magpie." It's your mother's voice. Could be real, could be a dream.
<onine> "I never took care of you the way I should have, but you're growing up so big and strong without me. I'm so... so happy and yet so sad at the same time." Her voice is different to the way it usually is. She's... all there, and her words even in your sleepy ears are clear and not slurred.
<Magpie> "Mother?" Magpie asks drowsily. She yawns, but stays snuggled in her covers. "Is there something..."
<onine> "It's okay my child. Things are going to be alright." She says. Her voice seems a little choked. Like someone biting back tears.
<onine> She sings softly one of the beautiful songs she occasionally used to sing to you years ago. It is a strange song, in some language you've never heard, but it is beautiful. A sad farewell and a joyous greeting at the same time - or so she told you once. It was an ancient and special song once, but is now long forgotten.
<onine> She finishes her song and trails off, almost crying. "You are a very special little girl Magpie. I know you're going to be okay." She pauses.
<onine> "Your mother has to go away for a while, away to help a... friend. I'm scared. But I don’t want you to be. Just remember that you're my little girl, and I will always love you."
<onine> You become aware of another shadowed presence in the room. Dancing Swallow turns to him as he whispers something you cannot hear.
<onine> Your mother leans down and kisses you on the cheek, and you feel a few warms splashes as tears fall onto your cheek.
<onine> "Goodbye. Magpie."
<onine> You finally manage to get some control over your body and roll over - nearly falling out of the tree.
* Magpie turns over in her sleep, where she is nestled in her branches, and nearly falls. She wakes groggily, and slides down with a thump.