TenThousandBrokenDreams/Session23

Mother Cypress speaks:

“Welcome, children. So my little flock has flown back to hear one of my stories, eh? And what would you hear of tonight? Would you hear of the Prince of the Star of the Golden Door, and of how he married a mortal against the will of his lord, the Constellation of the Rising Smoke? Would you learn of how his lord barred him from Creation, and of what trials he and his love underwent to reunite? Or would you hear more of the tale of the Sun’s bright children, and of the fall of the Scarlet Realm?

“Then gather round, my children, and spread ears like elephants; that I may tell you more of the tale of the children of the Sun, and of their journey to the shadowland of Kaihan.”

* * * * *

“This cannot be natural.” Zera looked down into the mist-filled valley. Other than the glittering temple roof of bright metal and jade, rising up from the whiteness like a dragon from the deep, all lay concealed beneath the blanket of fog.

“It is lovely,” said Aekino. “I think it may be worth taking time to investigate. After all, the neighbors of Kaihan may know something of what lies within the shadowland.”

“I admit curiosity,” the archer replied. Thorwald nodded, adding, “We should learn if they are friend or foe; it would be best not to leave enemies at our back.” And so they made their way down the ridge, leading their horses across gravel and scree to a faint path amid thistle, bracken and stone.

Our heroes descended into the lake of mist. Everything grew faint and cool and damp. Gusts of whiteness rolled past them. Then they were through, and the trail continued downward beneath a luminous canopy of white, into a green valley of quaint farmhouses encircling the central temple.

Thorwald stopped. Planting his great feet upon the trail, he surveyed the place with a critical sneer. “I like this not.”

“They are shielding this place,” Fetek observed. Aekino agreed, muttering something about the proximity of the shadowlands. But Thorwald shook his head. “I think it is to conceal demons,” the Northman mused.

“If there are demons here,” observed Zera, “they conceal themselves well.” He gestured to the peasant folk bent over in the fields, sowing the earth with winter wheat, and to the handful of ducks and chickens that pecked about in their enclosures. “And if that is the case, it matters little where we go, for we’re bound to bed down with hidden demons and have our throats cut in our sleep.”

“That is characteristically dour,” Aekino complained.

Zera smiled. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint.”

They made their way down among the pale greens and rich browns of the valley. Nearby, a blond young Northman prodded at some stubborn weeds with his hoe. Thorwald approached him: “You there.”

“Oh… hail!” The young man wiped his brow and waved. “Well met, stranger!”

“We are travelers,” Thorwald rumbled, stating the obvious. “We seek hospitality. May we tie our horses here?”

“Sure!” The fellow leaned upon the hoe. “I’d be glad to help. My name’s Olsn.”

“I am Thorwald.” The Zenith hesitated; he regarded his horse, but the beast had little to offer to the conversation. “You realize,” he said to Olsn, “that your entire village is surrounded by mist.”

Olsn laughed. “Of course it is!”

Thorwald blinked, not expecting such casual acceptance. “Have you ever left this valley?” he said at last.

“What a silly question! Of course not.”

The rest of the Circle had approached by this point. Olsn greeted them with equal pleasure, though he seemed a bit surprised and intimidated at seeing so many new faces. Travelers, it seemed, were quite rare in this place. In response to their questions, he acknowledged that he had once lived on a farm near the town of Idris. Some years earlier, as a youth, he had fled to escape bondage to an ill-tempered landowner and the hazards of bandits, slavers, demons and hobgoblins that troubled these lands. Life was pleasant here, he said, in this Valley of Miraculous Mist, and the valley’s god, the Sage of the Lilac Garden, let no evil enter past the bounds of the mist.

Over in the next field, a small, dark fellow, an older Easterner, spotted the gathering. He set aside his sowing to approach. “Visitors,” he said with a frown. “How unfortunate.”

Olsn laughed. “This is my neighbor, Jasreen Cora. Don’t mind him, he’s just a little sour. It’s his way.”

Aekino greeted the Easterner politely. “I hope we aren’t inconveniencing you in some way,” he said. “We are just passing through.”

Cora shook his head. “Not anymore. You can’t leave… and don’t think I’m stopping you either.

“I knew I smelled witchcraft,” Fetek muttered.

“It’s true,” admitted Olsn. “No one leaves the Valley of Miraculous Mist. But believe me, it’s not a curse, it’s a blessing. We have everything here that we could possibly need.”

“Such a wonderful golden prison,” said Cora bitterly.

“It’s not a prison, Cora!”

“Stop squabbling, you two,” snapped Thorwald. “Where do we find this Sage of the Lilac Garden?”

“There in the Palace of Seven Golden Clouds,” the younger Northman said. “Why?”

“We are going to have a talk with your god.” Thorwald’s eyes blazed. “He cannot keep us prisoner here.”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it. But really, the Valley is a wonderful place. You will learn to enjoy it here.”

“We have obligations,” said Li of Orchid.

Thorwald grimaced. Gold fire flashed from his eyes; the farmers stepped back from his righteous rage. “We are going to leave,” he said. “And if your god stands in our way, he will regret it. I will tear down his palace around his ears!”

The farmers stepped back. They did not know what they faced, but they felt the Zenith’s power in their bones. Pale beneath his freckles, Olsn protested weakly. “Please… our lives are good here. Don’t destroy our way of life.”

“We have no intention of breaking your mist,” sneered Fetek.

The farmer turned again to Thorwald, who snarled, “What is the matter with you? You call yourself a Northman? What is so scary out there, that you would cower here?”

“Um… the walking dead, hungry ghosts, bandits, monsters, and the Fair Folk.”

Zera folded his arms across his chest. “Look. All things being equal, we don’t want to take your paradise away. We just want to leave and go about our business.”

So they left the farmers behind and approached the mighty palace-temple that sprawled across the center of the valley, its low and sinuous wings surrounding a massive hall whose ascending walls vanished into the mist above. Hedges and flowering trees wound around its intricately carved and ornamented walls.

“My friends,” asked Li of her fellows, “what shall we say to this Sage?”

Fetek smiled coldly. “We’ll say, ‘Let us out or you will regret it.’”

“And if he says no?”

“Then he will regret it.”

They crossed a green sward flanked by roses and honeysuckle, then followed a crushed gravel path of pale gray and green to a broad, shaded portico. Golden dragons curled around the silver half-moon gates. The gates swung open to reveal a small, furred shape robed in pale green and lavender, bearing a massive tome in its arms. This was Wei Ming, an old chipmunk-spirit, and majordomo to the Sage of the Lilac Garden. “Greetings,” it chattered. “Welcome to the Palace of Seven Golden Clouds.”

Aekino bowed, hands clasped respectfully before him. “Greetings, noble spirit. We have come to speak to the Sage.”

The godling twitched. “You must first pay his price,” it said. “You must sign away a secret.”

“I am not familiar with that custom.”

“It is very simple.” Wei Ming proferred the tome. “Here, in the register, you must write down a secret. Any secret, great or small. Then you may never speak of it; it remains secret, for you have given it to the Sage. Then you may enter, enjoy his hospitality. That is our way.”

Thorwald grumbled about the necessity of such a thing, but the Circle quickly consented to write a few little secrets into the god’s register, hoping that a god of secrets would surely know such things as would make an audience with him worth their while. Each wrote in turn into the book, except for Thorwald; he did not yet know how to read or write, and so he muttered his secret into Wei Ming’s ear, that the spirit might write in his stead.

Here are the secrets they wrote:

“I am jealous of my elder brother’s closeness to my eldest child, Daran.” – Tepet Aekino

“In the tomb of Blessed Wind and Kuro the Raven, I succumbed to my fear.” – Thorwald

“I sold three days of dreams to the demon Makarios for an item to help me gain revenge.” – Zera Thisse

“On the beach of black sand, I wanted to accept the spirit’s offer. Only fear stopped me.” – Li of Orchid

“I am afraid of the Earth Aspect that killed my family. Very afraid.” – Fetek Breath-of-Midnight

The spirit closed the book and, making small noises, led the Circle to a sumptuous parlor where they could wait to see the Sage. They puttered around for a few moments, discussing the strangeness of the place and the prospect of stealing a few valuable knick-knacks from the shelves to fill their nigh-empty purses. Then Wei Ming returned. He led them down a long, twisting hall, past doors and corridors, to a mazy courtyard filled with the swirl and scent of lilac blossoms.

There, among lattices drooping heavily with lilacs, there stood a tall man in fluttering robes of lilac marked with yellow and gold. His inhumanly long fingers plucked and pruned the flowering bushes; his eyes glittered with indeterminate color. This was the Sage of the Lilac Garden, and he greeted our heroes most cordially. “Welcome, oh you children of the Sun, to this, my home.”

“Greetings, oh Sage,” the Dynast replied in the Old Tongue. “We come to you in supplication, for we seek knowledge.”

“You are the children of the Sun,” said the god, “and you are always welcome in my temple. You may stay as long as you wish, and avail yourselves of my hospitality. But if you seek knowledge from me, you must understand that I cannot surrender my secrets lightly. Should you desire common knowledge, that I shall provide at no cost; but should you desire secrets, you must surrender secrets of your own to me, that I may maintain the balance.”

“And what sort of secrets do you require, oh Sage?”

“Any secret will do; but the greater the secret, and the fewer who know it, the more do I treasure it. You have each already signed away a secret in my register. To learn of my secrets, you must sign more of your secrets away to me, each according to their value, under the eye of Heaven.”

Aekino eyed his fellows, some of who shifted uneasily as they listened to the words of the Sage. “I fear that we had not entirely expected this, oh Sage. Would it be improper for us to take some time to consider your offer?”

“Not at all. Please, allow Wei Ming to lead you to your suites. As I have said, you are always welcome beneath my roof.”

Our heroes retired to the suites allotted to them, to refresh themselves and to speak of the offer before them. “This exchange of secrets… it’s really quite interesting,” said Aekino. “It’s a gift, in its way. It makes one look into one’s secret heart.”

Fetek shook his head. “That is not why he does it. He belongs to the Court of Secrets.”

“His reasons are unimportant.”

“No. He gets power from them.”

“At least,” interjected Thorwald, “he didn’t ask for gold. Of that, we have very little.”

They discussed what they might ask the Sage. By what means might the lords of the dead be slain? Was Forty-Four Devil Blossoms aligned with the Prince Resplendent, or was there politics even among the dead? (“In death there is power,” observed Fetek, “and where there is power, there is politics.”) Did our heroes even intend on pursuing the venture to Kaihan, or would they go back to Tul Tuin, and so would it be better to inquire about demons or the walking dead?

Later, after their debate had ground to a halt, our heroes attended the Sage in one of the palace’s many rooms. There is little we can say of what transpired in their discourse; this should come as no surprise, for the Sage ranked highly among the gods of secrets, and the Court of Secrets holds its treasures tightly. I can say that the Solars offered up four more of their secrets, writing them into the Sage’s register. This is what they wrote:

“When I was a child, I accidentally set my uncle’s barn on fire. And I never told him, because I did not want to get beaten. He never did find out who did it.” – Thorwald

“I had hoped that the demon was really taking my mother.” – Tepet Aekino

“I was happy to kill Urei.” – Li of Orchid

“I accidentally allowed a child to die, because I let emotion get in the way of my duty.” – Zera Thisse

As to the sum of their questions and the purpose behind them… Thorwald asked no questions, signing away a secret only to demonstrate that he had no fear of doing so. Li inquired as to the disposition of her parents, learning only that her mother was a princess in the East, and her father a being outside of Fate, where both know dwelt. Aekino and Zera, for their part, argued and bickered over their own questions. They sought knowledge of Kaihan and its lords, but the Sage proved to know little of the greater secrets they desired, for the lords of the dead dwelt beyond the borders of Creation and outside the knowledge of the Sage. And Zera, well, he wanted to know by what means a dweller in the Valley of Mysterious Mists might be set free.

“You want to free Cora?” hissed Aekino. “He’s just a farmer. There are many others who need help. Why fixate on this one?”

Zera glared. “Where you see a farmer, Aekino, I see a person. I will not ignore his needs just because there are others who may also need my help.”

“Show some decorum, Children of the Sun,” snapped Fetek.

They learned the price by which one who dwells in the Valley might be set free, and a few other things beside. When they were done, Aekino politely thanked the Sage in the Old Tongue, after which the Circle left his presence and departed from the temple.

“I am disappointed in you, Descending Sun,” Fetek said to Aekino, as they walked out into the evening glow of the mist. The Dynast merely raised an eyebrow, so Fetek continued: “I say this to you because you should know better. Would you squabble in front of the Empress? In front of a king? This is a god.”

“You are right,” said the Twilight. He hung his head in shame.

They visited the farmer Olsn to collect their horses. Then they stopped by his neighbor Cora’s house. Cora poked his head out nervously. “Yes?”

Zera stepped forward. “I have spoken with the Sage on your behalf.”

Cora looked slightly ill. “Who are you people, anyway?”

“That’s not important. We have learned that you can leave the valley. But to do so, you must go to the temple and allow the Sage to take your voice.”

“My voice?” The fellow put his hand to his throat.

Zera nodded. “You don’t have to do it. But if you do, then you can leave.”

“I… I need to speak to my wife about this. But thank you.” Cora stepped back inside, closed the oaken door. Faintly, the Circle could hear the sounds of argument from within. “Do you want to stay here forever?” Cora shouted. Shrilly, his wife replied, “Don’t you think it will be hard enough outside without a voice?”

They led their horses off. “I bet you they do not leave,” said Thorwald to his brother Zera.

“They have a choice now.”

“Do you hear that woman’s voice?” laughed Thorwald. “I would leave in a heartbeat.”

* * * * *

After leaving the Valley of Mysterious Mists behind them, our heroes crested the last of the hills, to see the slope stretch out before them into a twilit plain. Faint sparkles of village and town glinted in the gathering dark. “We should make camp,” said Thorwald, “and continue on tomorrow.” And so it was; they slept for a night, then made their way onward in the morning, Their route took them toward a village that lay at the edge of the shadowland, a mere day’s journey away. Kaihan lay as a dark blot upon the landscape beyond.

“What sort of people,” asked Li as they rode, “would dwell at the edge of the lands of the dead?”

Thorwald shrugged. It was warm for autumn; dust caked itself upon his skin. “They are either traitors or slaves. Either way, we cannot trust them.”

“It is not a matter of trust,” replied Zera Thisse. “It is a matter of how much subterfuge we need.”

Our heroes talked as they traveled. I will not go deeply into their arguments, their outbursts, at this time. Suffice it to say that there were harsh words exchanged, at least in the matter of the ongoing animosity that ever bubbled up between the patrician Tepet Aekino and the earthier Zera Thisse. Thorwald’s gift of precious orichalcum to their host Stone Rain did not go unmentioned, either, though it was always hard to hold a grudge against the Northman; after all, had he known that he was giving away wealth equaling the worth of a small kingdom, well, surely he would have done otherwise, eh?

It was late in the day when they reached the small village at the edge of the shadowland. A few houses and barns lay scattered among fields newly sown with winter wheat; a pair of oxcarts stood empty at the verge of a road that led west toward another town in the distance.

Keen-eyed as always, Zera noted some oddities about the place. The farmers working in the fields wore long coats of a mottled green-brown color. Scarecrows of the same green-brown coloring hung in rows before each farmhouse. As they rode past one of the fields, Thorwald split off from the others, trotting his horse over to a farmer who fought a particularly tenacious weed with his hoe. “You there,” said Thorwald.

The farmer looked up. She brushed away a stray lock of hair, but continued with her hoeing. Her jacket, Thorwald observed, was of leather, but living ivy grew from pockets at hem and cuffs, winding their way up around sleeve and torso to the neck.

“What’s that?” Thorwald asked.

The woman shrugged. “A hoe,” she observed laconically.

“No, not that.”

“Oh… Greenline ivy.” Seeing that she’d get no peace until she answered in full, she gave her hoeing a rest. “It keeps the ghosts away.”

“Does it really keep the ghosts away?”

“Yes.”

“And where do you get it?”

She pointed along the road to the west. “In Greenline. The Matrons make it, in the temple.”

“Thank you.” Thorwald left her to rejoin his fellows, to whom he related the conversation. They marveled at the notion. “Farmers are perhaps the most superstitious people in creation,” Zera observed.

“Yes,” replied Thorwald, “but they’re not always wrong.”

Fetek stopped by one of the farmhouses. The ‘scarecrows’ proved to be more of the ivy-covered coats, hung out on wooden frames to catch the sun and the rain. Using certain magics at his command, the Lunar communed with the living plants. “That ivy does, in fact, keep the ghosts away.”

Thorwald grunted. “Then we should get some.”

So they followed the dirt road to the west. They reached the small town of Greenline by sundown. A two-storied wooden temple dominated the handful of houses and shops that comprised the place. Rutted tracks showed that the town did regular commerce with the shadowland, a thing also evidenced by a certain level of wealth unusual in a small border town such as this.

Aekino went to the temple with his brothers. There, he wielded the Tepet family name like a weapon, commanding the white-robed Matrons to yield five of the ivy-wrapped buff jackets for a mere pittance. As it happens, all that remained to our heroes was a pittance, and so they came away with only enough money for a night’s stay at the town’s inn, with rough peasant stew and turnip beer. Zera made an awful face at the taste of the stuff.

“To think!” said Thorwald, clapping his brother on the shoulder. “This may be the last thing you drink.”

Zera winced. “To think.”

They woke up early the next morning. Ere the sun had risen, they had settled accounts with the innkeeper, who agreed to hold and keep their horses for a few days at least. They set off at dawn, into the shadowland. The air hung heavy and gray upon them, beneath a leaden sky. The road grew broader, clearer, as they traveled. They met no other travelers, though others watched them from a distance: ghost farmers, toiling in their sterile fields, raising ghost wheat and phantom rice.

As the sun crossed the sky, the distant city of Kaihan loomed larger and larger. It hulked and glittered like some loathsome insect. Soon twilight loomed, casting the city’s shadows across the colorless shadowland. They could see the city’s stone walls and towers, patched in many places and in others, crumbling. Before them, great gates opened wide to disgorge a troop of ghost riders on skeletal horses.

“Who goes there?” shouted the leader, clad in armor of black steel and bone.

“We have come to see your master,” Aekino called back. He wrapped a cologne-drenched scarf across his nose and mouth. “Let us pass, if you please.”

They bandied words back and forth for a moment longer. Soon thereafter, Autumn’s Breath, captain of the dead troop, escorted the Circle into the city of Kaihan.

Our heroes marveled at the city of the dead. What did they expect to see? Aisles of moldering bones? Legions of zombies frothing to taste living flesh? Silence and stillness? What they saw differed from all of their expectations. The ghosts of the dead walked and spoke like the living, and they aped the works of the living with consummate perfection. Dead citizens haggled with dead merchants over goods that the dead should not need; dead artisans worked cloth and metal and wood; dead patrons ate ghost food and quaffed ghost ale at taverns and market stalls. Dead children laughed and played games in the street, the marks of their deaths clear upon them.

They moved toward the center of the city, among well-maintained buildings of granite and marble. They passed a great building of glass, long and flat as a door resting upon its edge, its upper stories still glinting with the last rays of the sun. They passed through the outer gates of the Manse of Kaihan, entering a vast courtyard where scales of ghost soldiers drilled with the bow and with the spear. And through the inner gates they went, down halls and corridors, to the great hall where, once, the outcaste Ral Therin had sat a throne and ruled a mighty kingdom.

None could see the face of he who now sat upon the throne, for he wore weighty armor of orichalcum, of the sort favored in the First Age. Its feathered engravings seemed strangely dulled, as if even the Sun’s sacred metal were not proof against the corrosive darkness of the dead lands. Visions flitted through Tepet Aekino’s brain, visions in which he forged a masterwork of sorcerous mail, the Invincible Armor of the Resplendent Golden Phoenix; and he gnashed his teeth to see it worn by one of the lords of the dead.

Aekino strode forward across the floor of that great chamber, where an imperial guard of ghost archers and halberdiers watched him through dead eyes. The ivy upon his enchanted coat wilted as he approached the throne. “Greetings,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “I presume I address the Prince Resplendent?”

“Of course.” The voice of the prince was that of a tradesman, coarse and somewhat nasal, filled with self-assurance and amusement. “I am the Prince Resplendent in the Ruin of Ages. Who are you, and what brings you to my hall?”

“We are those whose possessions you have taken.” Aekino glared, the pretense of diplomacy all but abandoned. “We want them back.”

“Do you now?” The Prince stretched; he hooked one leg over the arm of the throne with a metallic clunk. “What makes you think I have whatever baubles you may have lost?”

“You left a note, now didn’t you? We read your little riddle. We came for our grave goods. And we want them back. Now.”

“Well now, that’s not for me to say, is it? If you want your little trinkets, you’ll have to go to the Wisdom.”

“Who is the Wisdom?”

“Why, he rules the Library. You’re lucky he’s in town right now. You want to see him? Autumn’s Breath will take you to him. After that, well, after that you’re on your own.” The Prince gestured nonchalantly, dismissing the Circle.

His face taut, Aekino stomped back to rejoin the others, and they all followed the dead captain out of the palace. Autumn’s Breath and her contingent led the Circle among the stony buildings of the dead city, to the edge of the great glass slab that now towered above them, its pebbled surface shimmering in patches with red and gold light. There they waited for our heroes to enter the Library.

As they passed the gates of the Library, Aekino recalled a thing from an ancient grimoire that he once had read. He met Fetek’s eyes, and that worthy one nodded, for he too recalled the writings of the ancient ones who had trucked with demons. “Orabilis,” the Twilight whispered. “The End of All Wisdom.”

Thorwald cast a puzzled gaze upon the shelves and lecterns, the racks of scrolls, the hooded shapes that moved here and there through the stacks. “Who is this Orabilis?”

“Later.” Aekino shuddered. “Later.”

They addressed one of the cloaked librarians, seeking directions to the place of the Wisdom. The librarian took up a lamp and led them up stairs and ramps, past room after room filled with texts, to a single door, to which it pointed. Our heroes knocked upon the door. Hearing no response, they looked at one another; then they entered.

A small, slight figure, cloaked in gray, sat behind a massive desk of black wood and tarnished silver. It cast back its hood, revealing a gaunt shape of a man, disfigured by the slick scars of countless burns all over its scalp and face. It looked upon Tepet Aekino. With some difficulty, as if it attempted a thing not done for centuries, it smiled. It spoke.

“Sister.”

(This write-up is still in progress.)

(Note: all PCs received 3 XP for this session. XP totals to date: Aekino 107, Fetek 92, Li 106, Thorwald 108, Zera 115.)