JustAddWater/Session10Sum
Tea And Strumpets,
Or: The Great Curse In Action. Release the Kukla Or Not?
Session 10 opens with Jiang by a creek in Creation, wearing a straw hat pulled down over his eyes, and for all appearances a simple country fisherman, down to the length of straw sticking out of his mouth, the Chosen of Secrets waits for a contact to arrive. At length, she finally does, obviously Displeased to see him.
Evidently, he knows her from somewhere, as her appearance has changed, and he speaks to her with familiarity (though, again, she isn't happy to see him. At all. Nor his rhetorical questions) After a bit of chit-chat, in which he asks her questions like how is she enjoying her training, how is she doing in it, and what does she call herself these days (Empty Vessel, which apparently suits), and a bit of comparison of Vessel to Jiang's dead ex-wife (and unspoken commentary on how he was apparently married to a harridan), they get down to business.
His contact provides him knowledge on the last known whearabouts of the traitor, Red Stone Rising, and the remains of the now-deceased former Directional Convention of Water, as well as the passcodes for the Monstrances in which the shards are being kept while they are being experimented on, and information on the defenses of the Silver Prince's citadel. While her knowledge is not current, what she *does* know makes it clear that to get the shards back, there is risk involved that any sane person would not attempt, or, given a lack of sanity, a totally Insane Plan is needed: however, obviously, Our Heroes are not sane, being Exalted, as well as Dysfunctional Fate Ninjas, and thus an Insane Plan is likely forthcoming in the future.
Once he has his information, the meeting concludes: Jiang returns to Heaven, and Empty Vessel to the training camp. After arranging for some Not Dangerous books to be sent to her, he then gathers his resources and invites his Circle to his place for tea, crumpets, and Insane Plotting.
In the meantime, Moment is reading a romance novel and having her feet massaged, taking a break from work, and Silent is at the Loom of Fate, attempting to track Moray Darktide: he still holds out hopes to squish the prince's fleet, just to even the score a little. Unfortunately, he cannot make sense of the infinite information contained within the Loom's threads! By the strength of his will, he succeeds in retaining his sanity-unfortunately, while he is still recovering, a very unwelcome voice reaches his ears!
His rival, one Notable Iron Blossom of the Crimson Panoply of Victory, has come to the Loom on an errand of his own. After some rather catty sniping back and forth, particularly as rumors that Coral nearly sunk into the ocean have been going around, Silent departs, with one final catty remark tossed Iron's way. Who says that men can't catfight as well as women?
The Circle gathers at Jiang's heavenly residence, in his dining room, which is rather barren, except that there are diagrams on the walls of the essence flows of creation. Taking up a large stick, Jiang orders his Circlemates to sit, drink their tea, for he is about to tell them What Needs To Be Done. According to the diagrams, the End of Creation is imminent-and my, where does this sound familiar from? Hasn't the Circle heard something like this before? Oh, yes, from Weeping Glass, the now-vivisected Abyssal sorceress.
In a decade or less, at the current rate, the West, where the Tapestry is fragile, will cease to exist, taking the rest of Creation with it. After some semantic debate between Silent and Jiang about the nature of Endings, and a complaint by Moment that this is over her head and would someone please just point her at something and say "it's eating the loom, kill it!", Jiang gets back to the topic: namely, WHY Creation is in such a mess. In the meantime, the normally sweet-tempered Hidden Crystal is quietly annoyed with the off-topic interruptions, and contemplates stabbing the next person who interrupts with his butterfly hairpin...really, a stiletto dagger, but who's counting.
The roots of the current problem occured back at the end of the First Age, after the Usurpation, when the Sidereals performed the astrology that broke the Mask and gave rise to the Arcane Fate in attempting to hide their existence from the world, and in doing so, messed up the Five-Fold Symmetry of Creation. Jiang has a (rather bad) drawing of Red Stone Rising, the former leader of the Directional Convention of Water, tucked up on the wall: apparently, according to Jiang's informant, the Chosen of Secrets was aware of the dissolution to come years before, and instead of doing something about it, instead joined with the Deathlords...and took his entire Circle with him, with the exception of the murdered Sorrowful North. The information given by Weeping Glass, the Abyssal sorceress, has been confirmed.
The Chosen of Secrets informs his comrades that their predecessors, with the exception of Red, are dead, and that the Silver Prince is attempting to twist them in the same manner that the Solar Shards were twisted to create the Abyssals. Red Stone Rising was given an Underworld Manse in the Underworld of Abalone, in partial payment for his treachery.
And, right on cue, Jiang unfolds the Insane Plan. Their goals are as follows: kidnap Red Stone Rising, torture him for information, and then to death, before infiltrating the Deathlord's citadel, steal back the shards, steal any Abyssal shards or Monstrances, take the Prince's notes, before blowing up Skullstone and the citadel with a First Age Weapon of Mass Destruction. Needless to say, the response is enthusiastic: Moment and Silent inquire about whether they have such a Weapon of Mass Destruction yet (no, they have to, ahem, permanently borrow one without permission, and such will be somewhat complicated), and the rest of the necessary components unfold. Needless to say, all facts about this being an Insane Plan aside, if all this acquiring of things will not take a year-and a year is time they cannot spare-they have to work very, very hard.
Fashionably late and fashionably attired and lovely as ever, Platinum arrives! After some discussion, in which she is asked if she knows any Solar capable of casting Celestial Circle sorcery-Glorious Sunrise, the lady met at the tomb-the Circle gets down to some serious planning, Moment taking notes on the many things that need to be done. Which includes horribly lying to Chejop Kejack (who is backing them on this, well partly anyway) to get sorcery texts out of his library to instruct Glorious Sunrise with.
Next, Red Stone Rising, the former head of the Directional Convention of the West. They know where his manse is, and Jiang suggests that he do some recon in order to figure out where the hell he actually is, and the defenses of his manse, so that they may Deal With Him in a Suitable Fashion. After a look through the Chosen of Secrets' file (as he was a directional head, he was likely to have skill in Sidereal Martial Arts, , which they first received some time ago, the Circle discovers that he is skilled in the Prismatic Arrangement of Creation style, which like all Sidereal Martial Arts have nasty, nasty effects on those it is used on, as well as considerable skill in Stealth charms.
After MORE discussion of why Creation is screwed over, while Moment takes copious notes as to everything they need to do in order to make this Insane Plan Work, they have final discussion about what they're each doing in the meantime, including Platinum deciding that she will try to sway Yolan to their side, in addition to negotiating with Glorious Sunrise. However, she makes the mistake of referring to Glorious Sunrise and Yolan as pets, and Crystal gets into a glaring match with her over it.
Silent's own secret is also blown by Jiang, who managed to find out about the presence of Dilari in his manse. Platinum isn't happy with this at all, but Jiang, after making Sunset sweat a bit, turns the discussion to a possible "field trip" to Nexus...one, of course, with a plot behind it.
