TenThousandBrokenDreams/Session03

Once again, the brothers endured their chores, thinking only of the night and the stories to come. A local peddler came to town that day, and his daughter slept in the loft with the brothers; so when one brother woke to glimpse Mother Cypress in the swamps, he woke her along with his brothers, and they all went to the water’s edge to hear the next part of the tale.

Mother Cypress speaks:

"Welcome, children. Will it be another night of tales, my dears? Yes? Well then, of what would you hear? Would you hear the tale of Faran Ut-Holor, daimyo of Atarani in the eastern lands; of how he butchered his family and his entire household over a single slight to his honor; of how their shades cried out for justice, and the manner of their revenge? Or would you prefer to hear the tale of the Tiger Warrior Resplendent Steel, the finest mortal swordsman in a thousand years; of how, upon his deathbed, he cursed the gods for denying him their gifts, and of what dread power hearkened to his call? Or perhaps the tale of Prince Mahasamatman of Velen, who knew only luxury until his thirty-third year, when the Contagion came; of how he alone of his people survived the plague, and how death and pestilence taught him the ways of enlightenment?

"No? Would you hear more, then, of last night’s tale, the tale of the heroes of the Sun? I see… Gather round then, my children, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you more of the tale of the Sun’s bright children, of the fall of empires and the dawn of the new age."

His belly torn open by the ghost’s black claws, Zera Thisse lay in the dust. Tepet Aekino backed away from the terrible spectre, which followed him in its endless hunger for living blood. Thinking quickly, he devised a plan. He moved before a tree half-shattered by his storm of black glass, and when the ghost struck, the sorcerer evaded the blow so that it fell instead upon the tree trunk; and as the trunk cracked and swayed, he pushed with all his strength so that it toppled upon the hungry ghost. As the ghost struggled to rise, Aekino heard hoofbeats; as the ghost pushed the trunk aside, Cathak Nerin rode into the clearing and struck it down with his blazing red jade daiklave.

As Zera moaned in his pool of blood, Aekino begged Nerin to help him save the young archer’s life. Nerin, seeing little value in aiding a dying Anathema, refused to offer any aid without recompense. In fact, said the Fire aspect, it would be best to let Zera die, so that he would not weigh them down in their travels. The stubborn Dynasts locked horns on the issue, each refusing to budge, until finally Aekino broke down and offered to give Nerin anything he asked in exchange for assistance. Accepting the debt, Nerin helped bind the archer’s wounds and brought him into the tomb. Then Nerin brought forth the withered remains from the tomb’s sarcophagus and, calling upon the breath of the Fire Dragon, set flames upon them until naught remained but ashes.

They remained there for several days as Zera recovered. By the time he was fit to travel, he had found a ring of black jade caught between the stones of the tomb, a relic of the Terrestrial that had been interred there; and the tensions between Nerin and Aekino had slackened somewhat. As they traveled northward, their mood mellowed further, though their animosity never entirely faded. They pressed on to the Yanaze, raitons shadowing their progress, and eventually the Dragon-Blood and the Anathema parted ways, Nerin seeking a way back to the Blessed Isle as Zera and Aekino bypassed Lookshy and rode east toward Nexus.

Mother Cypress speaks:

"They gazed from afar upon the iron heights of Lookshy: its stark gray walls and towers capped with mighty engines of war, its streets resounding with the tramp, tramp, tramp of booted feet as ten thousand soldiers made their rounds; and if we were to peer into the depths of that stronghold, the Lookshy Manse, were we to descend through floors and cellars to view the uttermost vaults of the city, we would witness the preparation of their most ancient powers, shining weapons of the First Age, being brought forth once more after hundreds of years of cobwebs and shadows."

Having found another boat to carry them east along the Yanaze, Li and Thorwald caught their first glimpse of Nexus, its soaring towers silhouetted against the morning sun. The city’s beauty and magnificence awed them... until the rising sun revealed the city’s flaws, its soot-stains and shacks and thick yellow fog, and the changing wind brought the mixed stenches of refineries and tanneries and human waste that poured out from the city like a wave of concentrated nausea. Having spent several minutes praising the city, Thorwald reversed himself and cursed the place all the way to the docks.

After a day of wandering the city and a night in a small flophouse, the two travelers found the Little Market and began purchasing goods for their travels. Soon they found themselves in a part of the market where the disciples of various gods and spirits stood upon piled crates to preach to the crowd. One, a disciple in an orange robe, preached a doctrine that Li recognized – that of the Eight-Fold Path, as first propounded by the Enlightened One, Mahasamatman, who claimed that all life was suffering, that the Dragon-Blooded were no more enlightened than mortal man, and that one could free oneself forever from the changeless Wheel of reincarnation and rejoin the Essence of Creation through austerity and meditation. However, as this doctrine had been proscribed by an edict of the Council of Entities, passersby refused to listen to the disciple, and many threw stones and vegetables at him. Even worse, a passing Immaculate harangued the disciple, and would have struck him had Li not intervened. Li attempted to calm the Immaculate, but was thrown into a merchant’s cart full of caged ducks for his pains. Thorwald, spotting the movements of troops coming their way through the crowd, alerted Li, and the two of them grabbed the disciple and hustled him out of the market, the Immaculate monk on their heels.

The three soon lost the monk in the maze of streets. The disciple departed after a brief conversation; a moment later, the Immaculate returned, escorted by a handful of other Dragon-Bloods who were eager to make an example of a follower of the Eight-Fold Path. Thorwald, understanding the Immaculate only by dint of the monk’s language magic, helpfully pointed out the direction the direction the disciple had taken - lying sat poorly with him. As the Dragon-Bloods ran off in pursuit of their prey, soldiers followed them.

The captain of these mercenary guards addressed Li and Thorwald with a demand to see their permits. What permits? Their permits to intervene in a religious dispute... mandated, of course, by another edict from the Council of Entities. Lacking permits, the guards demanded that the Solars accompany them to their jail. Unwilling to fight so many in the midst of the city, and more hopeful of proper justice than any native of Nexus might fathom, they acquiesced to this demand. However, upon seeing the blocky prison with its barred windows and many guards, the pair reconsidered. Breaking from the guards, they ran up onto the rooftops and fled, only descending to ground level when Thorwald fell through a weak roof into the middle of a family meal.

The pair avoided another group of guards with the aid of a cloaked woman in an alleyway, who drew them into concealment at an opportune moment. She directed them to the docks, and after thanking her, they ran for their lives, bursting through crowds and dodging carts until they reached the river. Seeing a lone barge drawing away from the dock, they sprinted to the water’s edge and leaped.

Earlier, Aekino and Zera arrived in Nexus themselves. Having little direction, they milled about the city after selling their horses, and sought about for supplies that they might need for an eastward journey. But Zera quickly saw a familiar face: Mara, the lover he’d last seen in the sack of Thorns. He’d given her money and asked her to meet him in Nexus, but had had no intention of meeting her; he had wanted to break up with her in any case, and he never expected to come this way. But here she was, penniless and eager to rejoin her old paramour.

Zera tried to turn Mara away, but she would not be dissuaded; moreover, not only did Aekino encourage him to take up with her again, but the merchant at whose stall they were shopping stuck his oar in, offering Zera unsolicited relationship advice and recommending his cousin’s bath-house for a night of frolicking. Somehow Zera found himself there with Mara and a bottle of wine, while Aekino found himself a few youths to entertain him for the night.

The next day, after a pleasant romp with which to break the celibacy of his travels, Zera finally diverted Mara with a tale of how his friend had committed a crime against the Realm; of how he, Zera, had to aid his friend in escaping the Realm’s justice; and of how Mara would only be endangered, but that he would be back once his mission was done, and would she accept this bag of jade to tide her over for a while? Mara acquiesced, asking only that Zera come back to her, and let him depart with Aekino in tow.

The pair found their way down to the docks, where Zera found another familiar face: the river captain Saradene Marac, whom Zera had met some years before when he had tracked a bounty to Nexus. The old riverman invited the pair on board, introduced them to his wife Deedee, and offered them wine and food. After some conversation, they concluded that a river journey to the East might not be out of the question. Jade changed hands, and the Solars made their way down to the main cabin, where they encountered some of their fellow passengers: a crotchety old scholar from Lookshy named Shalàn Firamari, and the veiled Sijanese funerist Yumi of Wintergate and her apprentice. Tiring of the company, they returned to the deck as Deedee sang the wind spirits into the sail and the barge set loose from the dock, in time to see an odd pair of barbarians make a stupendous leap from the wharf onto the barge!

After some alarums and excursions, the four Solars came together to speak; first below decks, then above after Zera realized that the old woman was feigning sleep to listen to their conversation. Thorwald could not understand the language spoken by Zera and Aekino - knowing only Skytongue and a recently acquired smattering of Seatongue, he relied on Li to translate everything for him - but he shared a far more intimate communication with Zera as the two reeled under a quicksilver barrage of visions when they first met one another’s gaze. Though Thorwald rejected the notion, the others soon acknowledged that they were all of them chosen by the Sun. That understood, they had to deal with an encounter with another of the barge’s many passengers. The unExalted Dynast Ledaal Amaya came to greet Aekino, along with her bodyguard, the unExalted Immaculate Joyous Songbird, for captain Marac had told them that Aekino was a fellow citizen of the Realm.

Realizing that he had met Amaya once before, at a party, Aekino feigned sickness and leaned constantly over the rail to hide his face, and assumed the name "Azure Tempest" to conceal his identity. Zera, for his part, assumed the name "Corrin Dan," though he had less cause for anonymity. In any case, they shrugged off the unwanted contact, and made plans to avoid the Dynast in the future.

Over the next few days, they met the other passengers: the merchant prince Darien Tal; his bodyguard, the swordswoman Rei of Nechara; and a pair of wealthy citizens from Great Forks, whose names do not enter into this tale. They found moments in which to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest, avoiding the sailors, rowers and fellow passengers at every turn. And then, of a morning, captain Marac woke them and the off-shift crew to inform them that Deedee had determined that river pirates would attack that day, and that they would be required to come on deck and defend the ship.

Hours passed; the constant rain finally let up; and at last, a pair of bandit-laden rafts appeared from behind a rock outcropping, sweeping out over the water to thump into the side of the barge. As the pirates spilled onto the barge, Li and Thorwald leaped onto one of the rafts and lay into those around them, spilling pirate guts and sending many into the swirling waters. Aekino fared worse, as a pirate seized his staff and pulled, sending the sorcerer tumbling into the river. And as Zera fired arrows into the thick of the melee, an arrow struck him from afar, launched by the deathknight Forty-Four Devil Blossoms from that rock outcropping, where she sat astride her white steed, a black bow in her hand.

Seeing the deathknight, Li started to pole the raft toward the riverbank, until she looked back and saw the chaos on board the barge, where the pirates were hewing down the oarsmen. Then she shucked her buff jacket and dived into the water, swimming back to the barge. Thorwald plucked the sodden sorcerer out of the river, dropped him on the raft along with the buff jacket, and leapt into the water himself, swimming to the shore to fight the deathknight. And then Zera let himself hang from the rigging, pulled the arrow from his thigh, and severed a key rope with a single shot, allowing the boom to swing freely and sweep the deck clean. The sailors swam back to the barge; the pirates, by and large, sank in their armor. Zera and Li picked off the remaining pirates without difficulty. And as the barge began to pick up the swimmers, Thorwald reached the outcropping only to find that the deathknight had gone, departing without trace.

The heroes received the thanks and praise of Marac and the crew, and enjoyed the ship’s fullest hospitality. Crates were arrayed to form crude tables and benches as a feast was laid out that night upon the deck. They partied into the night, and continued to enjoy the crew’s good graces even afterward, over the next several days, as they conversed with one another, taught Thorwald the fundamentals of Riverspeak, and evaded the attentions of the Dynast and the Immaculate. At last, they saw the city of Great Forks rise to the east, the city of gods and spirits, the next stop on their journey to the Hundred Kingdoms and onward to whatever destiny awaited them...

... and as the sun rose, Mother Cypress ended her tale-telling and melted into the swamp, leaving the rest of the tale for future nights, and future tellings.

(Note: all PCs received 3 XP for this session. Li and Aekino each received an additional 2 XP for contributions. XP totals to date: Aekino 25, Li 30, Thorwald 23, Zera 23)