SJE/Session4
Session 4
13th Descending Fire RY 768
Oy vey, such excitement today.
First, 2 new characters join the Watch, Floating Summer Orchid the new Watch Thaumaturge who is re-opening the Forbidden Magics department of the Gem City Watch. However, Forbidden Magics has not had much luck over the years. Watch Astrologers go mad, claiming Gem will be destroyed seven-fold before jumping off high buildings. Demonologists keep vanishing. And the last Exorcist was eaten by a Hungry Ghost 5 years ago. Now at last a new thaumaturge is joining the Watch and re-opening the department and the secrets it has held undisturbed for the last 5 years….
Alana (Cathak) is a mortal patrician of the Dynastic Cathak family. She has disappointed her family by not Exalting and has fled their coastal Satrapy to forge her own destiny. Gem Watch was recruiting and she is good with a blade, surgeons knife and magnifying glass, so she too joined as an anonymous citizen. I’m sure the fireworks might start when she runs into resident Dragonbloods Cathak Anaria and Cathak Aron.
The Captain rounds up Jaq the Lad and introduces Orchid and Alana to the concept of patrolling the mean streets of Gem. They head down to the diaspora of the Hot District and find a Carnivale being erected on the outskirts. But, <gasp> there is a terrible accident and a great cage containing a Lion of golden skin (literally), acidic drool and burning blood bursts out the cage! (Lore experts immediately ID it as a carrion eating Abacasteri, a creature of the Wyld).
Fun and hi-jinks follow. Jaq leaps on it to ride the lions back, the Captain tries to lasso it. Then the Captain, tired of its fearsome roars made a great bellow of his own, temporarily cowing the creature! Alana and Orchid sensibly tried to cut the ropes of the tent it hid in to capture it, but sense and caution have no place in Exalted as the Lion once more leapt for freedom and a mighty melee took place with tent pegs as weapons, falling beams, firewand bursts, hurled amphoras of water as the Abacasteri rent and tore at the desperately dodging Watchmen and women! Jaq even followed the Captains suicidal order to leap upon its back again and strangle it to death with the lasso.
In the meantime, Brand arrived, and both he and Orchid noticed a small band of clowns heading for the city gates as Gems Citizenry kept back a safe distance and placed bets on the eventual victor. And Clowns shouldn’t be in the City as the Despot takes a very dim view of them….
The battle was at last won with the combined martial efforts of Alana, Jaq and the Captain incapacitating the golden beast and returning it to its (suspiciously sabotaged) cage. Brand was desperately wounded as a foot long claw swiped through his buff jacket and fell unconscious.
Their victory won, the Captain extorted a 60 jade piece ‘fine’ from the Ringmaster, the effusive Saladin al’Sunni and tickets to tonights opening show! He then split the bribe with the rest of the Watch and went drinking.
In his unconscious state, Brand recalled the Night Before the Morning After.
He had been in pursuit of the mysterious Golden Dreamstone whose carried dream seemed to carry fiery annihilation for Weyoun the Procurer and Jade Eyes the Courtesan and was complicit in the disappearance of Joaqim the Dreamer and Autumn Breeze. He had tracked it back to a fence who had rented the dream to Lord Trasti. Mother Sahlaks legbreakers had then seized the Dreamstone from Silver coin, minutes before Brands arrival.
So as dusk set on Gem (the night before) he had raced after the two legbreakers, confronting them only yards from the Pavilion of Delights (where Mother Sahlak waited) brutally beating the and stabbing the goons Shaft-style, our hardened ‘tec finally laid hands on the Dreamstone which had caused so much death in the past 3 days. Unusually for a Dreamstone it glowed with a powerful inner golden light.
Desperately racing up the mountain to the Peaks where the Trasti villa lay, the desperate Brand almost threw up a lung or two with the exertion. At last attaining the summit he set to hammering upon the compound gates, waking the slaves and causing a commotion. Seeing the desperate look in his eyes and fearing their gleam and his dire warnings on their masters fate, the slaves took Brand into Lord Trasti’s room where he lay in unwakeable sleep, already dreaming.
Desperate, Brand puts the Dreamstone to Trastis forehead and then brings his own forehead to touch it too! Instantly his perceptions are transported and he stands facing a great white light, filling the horizon. Ahead, a black silhouette of a figure cowers, arms over his eyes. Martialling his bravery, Brand advances to save Lord Trasti from the burning light.
(and I pride myself that I must have got the timbre of my voice right because the whole table seemed to jump when I boomed)
”WHO APPROACHES THE UNCONQUERED SUN!!!”
Brand- “Eeeeep!”
Brand desperately tries to save Trasti, urging him to return to the Waking World.
“IS HE A RIGHTEOUS MAN” demanded the Unconquered Sun.
“Er…no.” Said Brand of Lord Trasti (the head of the bankers, moneylenders and gambling dens in Gem)
“ARE YOU A RIGHTEOUS MAN?!” demanded the Sun.
“Err…. Er… No. But I don’t want anyone else to die”
“THEN WILL YOU GIVE UP YOUR LIFE TO SAVE HIS?!”
Brand looked at Trasti, against the terrible Solar glare and shouted “Run”, pushing him away from the Sun’s light.
Then a great Solar flare seemed to evelope Burning Brand, racing through his nerves and body, melting his insides, scorching him into utter blackness.
….
,,,,
Breathe. Light. Great light spots across his vision. Brand slowly wakes to a four-post bed, rich tapestries, a gentle breeze and soothing ointment being applied to his brow. As concubines feed him peeled grapes, he wonders if he has died and gone to Paradise?
No, only Lord Trasti’s home. The Golden Dreamstone vanished, the Lord safe and well, and very, very grateful. All is well for Brand, better than its ever been before.
Up until he sees his reflection in the mirror and does a double take when he spots the golden half disk on his forehead before it fades once more!
He’s only been Exalted.
“Arse!”- Brand.
(note- since it’s a mixed group, I’m slowing down the power-up process. Brand gets his shiny new Exalted body, the extra Attribute & Agility points, but remains at Essence 1 and doesn’t get Charms yet. And he’s still to receive the operators manual on his anima….)
Then Brand wakes up from yet more grievous wounds, as the flashback from yesterday ends and he’s back in the Morning After the Night Before, where he had gone down to join the Watch in a daze and almost been cut in two by a Abacasteri’s claw swipe. Alana has been tending to his wounds and begins to suspect (having treated DB’s) that his wound don’t seem to bleeding as much as they should. Then she also finds out that Jak the Lad, might not be such a lad after all…..
Meanwhile, a suspicious Floating Summer Orchid is poking around the Carnivale with Geomancy, finding some strange Essence flows to some of the animal tents and the Ringmasters caravan. But Saladin spots her and invites her into his silken pavilion (strangely larger on the inside than out) with its incredible beauty, incredible wine, delicious perfume and more. Tempted though she is by these unearthly delights, she some how succeed in both her Temperance rolls and Resistance to the Faerie Wine and makes her way out of the tent back into the cold, cruel, dusty, horrible world outside to warn the Watch that the Fae are in town.
Alana meanwhile has been wandering about, getting to know the town. She helps a little girl called Lucita get her rag doll back, but there is something about Lucitas blue-grey skin and her tale of a bad man who sent her away from the Lake in the South that is ringing some bells. If only she could remember it.
She does however, overhear in the circus the whispered order that “the Watchwoman has resisted our charms. She must not warn the others. Tell those in the city….”
Alana races after Orchid (just boarding an expensive slave-carried litter to ascend the mountain) even as Jaq discovers s/he has been cursed and bad luck is his second name. The Captain and Brand meet up, back on their feet after their wounds are partially mended and they head back to the Watch house.
However, as fortune, or misfortune would have it, they instead find themselves lead into a desolate alley, with strange small, misshapen figures with childish giggles peering at them from the shadows, surrounding them. Dressed in wigs and bright red noses against white make-up and smiles that reach their ears, full of sharp teeth and cradling scalpels and sharp, bright chakrams, the Gem City Watch have found the hobgoblin Clowns at last...
We managed a quick round of Clowning about/Hobgoblin death-
Orchid screamed like the girl she technically wasnt and emoted terror to the nth degree- one of the Clowns lunged in, eager to eat up her fear and keep her fearful till it was all out of here. The face full of cold iron filings and banishment he got instead was quite the surprise.
The drunken Captain shouted "Who's laughing now!" as he blew away 3 of the hobgoblins with a blast from his firewand. He'd heard how good the Fae wine was and now had a reason to live through this!
Jaq, Alana and Brand all went melee and desperately stabbed at the clows, hewing limbs and heads, and discovering their short dwarflike bodies had feet the same shape as their ridiculous clown shoes....
But by the end of the round, they were still surrounded, still outnumbered by the grinning, white-faced, red-nosed killers, as the sun set once more on Gem.
Far down the slopes, they can just hear the welcoming music as the poor and curious, destitute and desperate, rich and decadent, all the peoples of Gem stream into the Circus of Unearthly Delight.....
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