Aian

Aian, The Deep Palace

High up in the mountains of the Southwest, there lies a city under a large lake with placid, mirror-like waters. The lake has a small surface, but it's depths reach to the roots of the mountains around it. In it's blue-green forests of algae, in the ruins where Solars once walked, creatures live. Their entire ecology is based around the potent desmesne at the heart of the ruins, the remains of a shattered Manse.

In the blackest deep of the lake, sits Aian, the Deep Palace. It dwells there.

Within the depths of the lake, live creatures strange and unique. Strangely, entire new species have developed, from jellyfish-like Olus, or the strange giant crustacean Kiceran. There are few fish in the lake, except for the whale-like Ibdog who feast on the algae forests. The strangest are the amphibious Goss-people, a tribe of two hundred or so fish-like humans. Larger than men, but unable to breath air or leave the essence flows of the Demesne, they live as hunters, sleeping in the dark lake depths and hunting the Ibdog, and using the giant Kiceran as steeds.

In the depths of Aian, the Deep Palace, it watches and smiles.

Savants and sages are mystified by this. Yet, mortals and creatures introduced into the lake mutate within hours, faster than any known Demesne, and stop gaining new mutations within weeks (Exalted are unaffected). Their traits never result in them becoming infertile (indeed, many suddenly become capable of asexual reproduction!), and they never upset the delicate ecology of the lake (unlike Wyld mutations). If the lake was better known or more accessible, perhaps more would be known, but as of current date, it is but a footnote in some texts.

It knows the mysteries of the lake, for it is the answer and the question.

Forty years ago, Ravenous Marsh, a traveller and sometimes-mercenary, found the lake, and went to swim in the clear waters of the shallower portions. As he swam, his form changed and rippled, and his first brood of children were born from their eggs within two days. The Goss are his great-great-great-great-grandchildren. He is now but a distant memory of a great progenitor, for he is now dead. The Goss people are not long lived.

Because it wanted them that way. Long-lived servants are a weakness.

The Realm has discovered the lake, and Water-Aspect Ledaal Jiruv has seen the First Age ruins below while on a cautionary exploration. The strange and monstrous inhabitants and creatures of the lake pose a problem in getting to the Demesne, but if the lake could be drained, and the ruins excavated (not to mention perhaps rebuilding the powerful Manse which lays in ruins). Jiruv was close to attaining Treasury loans for draining and excavating the lake when the Empress disappeared, but the paperwork has been put on hold due to bureaucratic delays. He has become obsessed with his memories of the strange, quiet lake in the mountains, and has started to recruit adventurous Water Aspects in a deep-water exploration of the lake bottom.

And it wants them to come, so that they might find their way to it and let it change their shape and become it's servants.

The Manse was not destroyed completely. It still channels some essence into the factory-cathedral at the bottom of the lake, a First Age facility meant to create and alter life itself. Made by an alliance of Solar, Lunar and Dragon-King sorcerors before the Usurpation, the factory-cathedral can create or modify living organisms any way that it wishes. Befittingly, the manufactory itself is alive; the spawn of behomeths, engineered to channel the energy of the Manse. It was built below ground, below Aian, the Deep Palace.

And it thinks, and it believes it is master.

The Manse was damaged during Usurpation, putting the living factory-cathedral in stasis. When the valley was flooded due to a nearby Wyld Storm during the Fair Folk invasion, the factory-cathedral woke up, and adapted so that it could absorb enough ambient essence from the Manse's essence leak in order to remain operational. Without an Exalt to direct it, the factory-cathedral began to focus on increasing it's mental functions, and examining it's inherent knowledge. Damage from the Usurpation caused it to have to piece together what the First Age was like. In the end, it concluded it had been the master, and the Solars are it's treasonous servants who abandoned it and let it's Manse be damaged.

It will have to depend on other servants.

Creatures who had been inhabiting the lake were experimented with, played with. An ecological system was developed, where nutrient-rich sediments would fall to the bottom of the lake, to keep factory-cathedral well fed. Local spirits and elementals have at times tried to wrest the factory-control for power, which has caused the factory-cathedral to be fearful of When Ravenous Marsh found the lake and was changed, it was to create servants who would protect the lake from Exalts and spirits who dare challenged it. In this, it has succeeded. The Goss people are strong and mighty warriors in the lake waters, and if the lake was invaded, two hundred Goss would be troublesome even for Celestial Exalts.

And the factory-cathedral laughs to itself.

The Sidereals have forgotten it and the Deathlords do not know of it. The Silver Pact has seen it, and a few elders distantly remember Aian, and the wondrous living manufactory below the ruins. A young pack might be sent to explore it and reclaim it for the Pact. Meanwhile, Jiruv sits in his House's Manse, and remembers the algae forests, and giant fish and the water-breathing people of the mirror-surface lake.

--KingLeon