Exalted: Threefold Symmetry (IC)

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine
It's a dark night: even Luna has hidden herself, though the Maidens burn just bright enough to be seen through the thick clouds and the endless leaves of the Eastern sky. You can see the minute imprints of doe tracks as they veer off deeper into the woods, but your game tonight is something larger, stranger: it's been calling to you, louder even than Darling. A voice like a woman's--no, like every woman's, and every man's, and every thing's. Every voice screams out, peeling across your dreams with all the subtlety of Malfeas himself. For their part, the Althing seemed curiously indifferent, but happy enough to send you on what they no doubt consider a wild Metody chase.

The world smells like loam fresh from the rain, and you can scent a distant discharge of ozone--lightning is coming, a storm in the East. A light swells on the horizon, and you run, weaving through and around trees to find a great circle of stones that hold a portal, like water, at their center. It's bright green, almost violently bright. It quivers at the touch.

Tiger Blossom and Glass Firefly
What strange bedfellows: the secret Solar and her supposed Terrestrial companion, an Outcaste running off into the woods to answer the call of the Wyld. The pair met on the outskirts of Matashi, the nearest village to the Bordermarches. Firefly had been spurred on by visions of a gate in the East and a general sense that she should be there: whatever spurred Tiger Blossom on, she didn't choose to share.

It's midday when the pair of you first notice the distant blaring of sickly green light. You rush forward to the circle of stones, open-mouthed at the sight of something curiously similar to the Calibration Gate, at least in the appearance of it's event horizon. A shape burbles up from the depths, emerging like a bright green shadow before falling back into the liquid depths of the portal.

Shadowed Greenery
Shadowed Greenery sits on a gnarled throne at the heart of his marsh-like demense, a general sense of ennui prevailing from the lack of tasks at hand. A figure approaches in the distance--a great shambling mass of muck and vines that the Abyssal recognizes at once as the smartest of his animations to date--admittedly, still not quite "smart" by most definitions of the word. Nonetheless, the thing makes a vague attempt at an amorphous curtsey before speaking:

"The stones you told me to watch are glowing green, master," it begins, voice slow as thickening mud, "and they look like they have water in them."

[Lochar]

Shadowed Greenery is a fairly young man, but does not look too much better than his creations. Body scarred from a horrible fire, and vines winding in and out of skin that is crisped, one could wonder if he isn't an undead animation as well. But his chest rises and falls with breath, and there is an odd intelligence in his eyes that aren't present in any undead, even the smartest ones.

Standing, skin ripples and peels a bit before resealing once more. "Good, good, good. Good." Looking to his left, Shadowed Greenery addresses the air next to him. "How long as it been, hmm? Years, I think. I think years, yes."

Pausing for a moment, head tilted as if listening, Shadowed turns back to his creation. "Good, good. Now my little one, if you would be so kind as to go back with me. We'll see what we'll see, yes?"

Standing from the tree growth throne, Shadowed picks up a heavy gnarled staff, and leans heavily against it. "Come come come now, my child, the three of us should hurry."

[Tengu_temp]

Glass Firefly stands still, her dress, scarf and long, white ponytail flowing slightly at the mild wind as she looks up in order to see the wholeness of the portal in front of her. Opening her mouth wide, she lets out an expression of absolute amazement.
"Woooh."
It looked and sounded closer to a bored yawn, actually. The girl wastes no time and starts the first from many experiments she plans to perform in order to determine the nature of the portal - she walks up to it and, without changing her expression of lazy disinterest, carefully touches the green surface with the tip of her long walking stick.

[Yuki Akuma]

The apparent Wood-aspect stares at the portal before her, head tilting slowly to one side. "...I was expecting it to be smaller, somehow..." Other than that, she doesn't move to do anything - she just watches as her Solar companion goes to poke the portal with a stick.

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

The stick passes through the portal, which proves to be no more unyielding than normal water. Even still, the end of the submerged stick doesn't appear to be there anymore--through the translucent watery green membrane, both of you can clearly see that the stick just seems to end. If withdrawn, it comes out seemingly unscathed. If plunged in further, even more seems to disappear before returning when pulled out.

Shadowed Greenery

As you hobble along the path that leads to the outer rim of the great marsh you inhabit, you pass a few ramshackle shanties. Mortals peek out through the windows: children and old crones, mostly. Even before your arrival, the marsh has proven a haven for those alone and abandoned. They're not subjects, technically, and most are happy as clams to leave you alone in return for reciprocating the favor.

Most, not all.

A boy no taller than a shrub rushes after you, eyes narrowed into an angry glare.

"It's your fault," he says, kicking at your shin. "It's all your fault!" A horrified crone clasps her hand over her gaping mouth, rushing up to take the boy.

[Lochar]

Shadowed Greenery looks at the boy oddly, tilting his head. Looking to the left, he speaks. Do I know what he's talking about?"

Pausing for a moment, and then looking at the boy, Greenery smiles, the burned and growing skin on his face crinkling as he looks closely at the boy. "It probably is. But then again, most likely not. You know, we're not quite certain what your talking about."

Bringing his staff forward, Greenery pokes the child with it, pulling the crone's hand from his mouth. "Did the woman steal your voice? Speak."

[Tengu_temp]

"I see." Glass retrieves her stick and analyzes its end as if she was reading an interesting, but difficult scroll. Making a miniscule, almost impossible to notice nod, she steps up closer to the portal and puts her left hand in - if she feels that it's surrounded by air and not, for example, burning acid, and nothing grabs or attacks it, she pulls it out and enters the portal, face first.

[GryffonDurime]

Glass Firefly
Glass' hand enters the portal and fiends it yielding, cool, and pleasant as freshwater. As she enters--and presumably as Tiger later follows--she feels a
sudden, drastic change in Essence. It's like walking from a cold room into a warm one...or, rather, walking from a warm room into a sweltering one, because the Essence is so abundant, so plentiful, so powerful that it almost swims into sight here. She steps out of a replica of the stone circle: inside, it's all trees and canopies as far as the eye can see. Light comes from below: moss and fungus gather at the roots of the great trees, exhaling light and soft, dusty spores. There are neither roads or nor paths--if there is civilization in this strange new world, it is likely not near here.


To find your way around, I'd like Perception + Survival. If you can stunt a different skill to get the effect, I'm all for that too :smallbiggrin:

Shadowed Greenery
The woman claps the child, setting her hands around his shoulders strongly, maternally--but with a forced sort of motion. This isn't her child. At least, not by blood.

"Excuse him, he doesn't know what he's saying," the crone offer placatingly, sending the child into the house. "His father died in the most recent expansion of the Wastes. Not a bright man, and I wouldn't put it past him to accuse you...given...your condition. And now I'm stuck with him. Great nephew, and all. He's young. He'll learn," she says, then turns away, tarrying for a moment as if she wants to say more.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger watches as the Twilight simply steps into the portal, and looks down, giving a slight sigh. "...Twilights." She then follows, of course - no good just standing around here all day.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass looks around at her new surroundings, and then over her shoulder at her companion - she's glad that the dragonblooded girl followed and she won't have to go back for her, not that her expression shows that.
"An interesting place. Your aspect is Wood - can you find your way in a forest?"

[Yuki Akuma]

"I might be able to do that had my father not focused my training entirely on martial arts," the girl says, with a sigh. This is actually more-or-less true - her Wood aspect father did neglect to actually teach her any survival skills. "Hm. Hang on a moment, I'll see if I can see anything." Before the Twilight can interject, the apparent Wood-aspect leaps at a tree and begins to scale it quite effortlessly! She leaps up onto a high branch, and then promptly jumps up into its highest boughs, looking around herself. "This place feels all wrong," she says, more to herself than Glass Butterfly.

Um... do I need to roll Athletics to climb the tree? Anyway, Perception+Awareness (?) to look around for stuff:

Edit: In retrospect I should have rolled them separately.

[Yuki Akuma]

Real rolls! [roll0] [roll1] [roll2] [roll3] [roll4] There has to be a better way of doing this...

Edit: ... Tiger has apparently gone blind.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass looks up, observing quietly as the other girl disappears between the branches. After several seconds she starts to take action herself - first, she analyzes the tree trunks carefully, looking for any clues on directions (maybe the moss grows only on the northern side?). Afterwards, she kneels down, picks up a bunch of the glowing moss, closes her eyes and smells it - maybe some creatures passed through and the moss caught hints of their fragnance? No matter the results, the smell helps her focus - she opens her eyes and starts to look around for footprints - someone had to go through this portal before them.


Perception + Survival: [roll0]

Not a single success? C'mon...

[Lochar]

Shadowed Greenery sighs and looks to his left again, tilting his head and listening to something only he can hear. Shaking his head, he cracks himself once with the staff. "We were going to see other things, remember? Stones? And it hurts." A pause. "Compromise then?"

Turning back to the woman, who by now has started walking after her momentary tarry, Greenery shakes his head. Vines writhing in his skin tighten for a moment as muscles bunch and Shadowed Greenery is airborn, moving over the head of the crone and landing in front of her, staff balanced in his hand, before he quickly puts it back out, balancing on it once more, his body obviously over-exerted.

"Where did the Wastes expand? I have other business, but I can at least go look at it, if it's at least partially on the way."

Behind the crone, Greenery's bogman is looking at the point where his master jumped, still looking around trying to find where he landed. Seeing him, the creature seems to move with glee as it moves to catch up with it's creator.

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

Tiger Blossom ascends one of the nearest trees with an Exalted grace, emerging from the canopy to look out over...endless forest, with yet another canopy above. The branches and boughs of the first support the latticework roots of the second. Tiger does manage to catch sight of what may...maybe...be a small patch in the tree cover about a mile and a half to the northeast. Whatever that means.

Glass Firefly, on the other hand, scents a strange, heady perfume as she examines the moss. It's rich and sharp, curiously spicey-smelling. As she sets her handful down, she begins to notice patterns in the undulating light of the moss--a pathway leading towards the west. It fades from vision abruptly. Will she dare to chase it?

Shadowed Greenery

"It expanded into the edges of the firewell southwest of here," the crone admits before sweeping her children back into her home.

In his head, a little voice croons out in a soft voice:

That's the other way, then. You can go see your stones first if you wish, it concludes at last after a moment's pause. It's bartering. Or maybe it just wants you to be able to focus on the problem.

[Lochar]

Greenery pauses. Maybe new artifacts for creation though. He seems almost giddy. "Dead things and live things, all tangled up as one."

Grinning to himself, Shadowed Greenery absentmindedly forgets to stoop as he begins walking to the southwest, to the firewell.

"Stones, master?" The bogman tries to remind it's errant master.

"Yes, yes. Go play with your stones." Greenery's already put them out of his mind, already onto the next thing.

The bogman's great, stitched together shoulders shrug, and it turns and trundles off to the stone portal.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass Firefly looks up at the canopy, approximately where her companion should be. "Do you see anything? The lights are forming a path to the west, but it's quickly disappearing. I am going to follow it." She does not waste time, and already starts walking west while saying this and waiting for a response.

[Yuki Akuma]

The 'Wood-aspect' leaps down from the branches, landing gracefully like only the Exalted can. "...There are trees growing from the canopy. It's really weird. It's almost like we're suddenly at the Elemental Pole of Wood, except... well, there's a floor." She looks down at her feet, and then begins to follow Glass Butterfly as she begins to follow the trail.

[Tengu_temp]

"My current assumption is that we either are close to the Elemental Pole of Wood, or in a completely different land away from Creation. The latter is more probable." Glass puts the oatch of moss into her bag, for later. She continues following the path, but tries to remember the position of the portal in case she'll need to return to it.

[The_Snark]

Leneine's step quickens as the green light seeps through the trees, and before she knows it she is running, darting around trees and ducking under branches and refusing to slow for either. Maybe she's more glad to be out of Malfeas than she realized before now. The Demon City was beautiful (and still just a little strange), but she hadn't felt comfortable running down its streets, and she's used to exerting herself a little more than she'd done there. Or maybe this was seeping through from Darling; a luminata probably would enjoy this.

She reaches her destination all too soon, slows, and stops, reluctantly putting away those feelings for another time. She has a job to do, and she can't let herself get carried away. The portal puts her of a pool of vitriol; although she knows it isn't, the thought reminds her to be careful. She's going to go through the thing if at all possible... but she doesn't know if it is possible yet. Maybe there was a reason she hadn't been able to find any mention of what lay within.

Leneine aligns her thoughts in the proper manner, and channels power through the framework created. She examines the portal with Yozi eyes, ignoring its physical appearance and concentrating on the Essence flows that doubtless lie under it.

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine

Your Yozi eyes disect the portal's Essence with surprising alacrity and suddenly the patterns strike a chord of familiarity with you. You know what this is--at least, in part.

Glass and Tiger

The path slopes downward now, and then rises up into an almost vertical hillside. Glass Firefly catches glimpses of the flow of light through the moss several more times. As the pair of you crest the hill you find yourselves overlooking something huge. Something impossible. At first glimpse, it's not dissimilar to many of the insects of Creation, except in scale. It's the size of a small island, with two great round globes covered in eyes. It's head is unmistakably akin to a dragonfly's...but it's body? That is long, serpentine. And floating. Right there, in midair, just floating. Countless tiny legs--many quite pointy--dot it's body.

And about two hundred yards away, you can see two people. Or at least people-shaped outlines. Whatever the darkness may do to obscure the sight of them, it does nothing to hide the sound: they're loud, shouting, angry. Probably fighting.

Shadowed Greenery

The firewell is a distance from the village: a deep stone indent where Essence pools into liquid fire. As you round the crest that overlooks the well, you suddenly understand what the crone meant with a twinge of disappointment: just beyond the firewell, you can see the border of this newest Waste ebbing and flowing like the tide. On the other side of that vague border, color darkens and drains from the world. The Wastes are a crumbling place: bare trees and stark homes crumble slowly and nothing moves. Even still, with each ebb the Waste surges, inching closer to the firewell. If you wait a moment, it finally surges close enough to spill in: a particle of that shadow-place tips over the rocky lip and explodes in a gout of fire.

For whatever reason, the firewell seems resistant to the spread of the Wastes.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass Firefly stares at the huge insect - such a fascinating animal! She has heard of creatures in Creation reaching its size, of course, or even larger, but hearing about one and actually seeing one with your own eyes are completely different matters - and on top of that, if insects in this land can be so colossal, then it's hard to even imagine the size of other creatures! All this amazement takes place completely inside her head, though - on the outside, the only sign of it are the apples of the girl's large eyes widening slightly.
"Ah."
The angry shouting snaps Glass out of it. She starts trotting towards the humanoid figures.

[Lochar]

Greenery tilts his head, walking towards the firewell. "Pure essence, solidified as essential fire? It burns away the Waste, yes? No?"

Moving around the well, Greenery gets probably a little too close, but still has some frame of mind to not actually step into the Waste itself.

Looking around, he espies a long limb, one left behind for gaining flame from the firewell.

"Does it weaken taken from the well, one might wonder? Yes, one would." Picking up the stick, Greenery looks at it. "I wonder..."

Instead, Greenery uses the stick to poke at the forward pushing waste, seeing if he can dig underneath it without losing his stick, trying to dig a bit more of a trail into the firewell.

[GryffonDurime]

Glass Firefly

As Firefly nears, the shouting reaches a sudden, violent crescendo. One of the figures--a petite woman dressed (in the very loose sense that she had cloth covering at least her naughtiest bits) in revolting blue scales--lashed out, plunging his fist into the other figure's spine. The man, a twiggy sort dressed in thick red wool, went limp as she drew out...something. It was as big as a tarantula: a pulsing purple sac that skittered in her hand on spindly tentacles. She set it on her own neck and it hardened, burrowed, nested against her spine. Before it was all in, she turned to face Glass, mellow contempt in her demeanor:

"Can I help you, princess?"

Shadowed Greenery

As the stick digs into the soil that Greenery hopes is beneath the Wastes, it sticks fast--try as he might, he can not withdraw it. It finally gives way with one last tug. The end that had been submerged crumbles into dust and motes as it is withdrawn.

[The_Snark]

Interesting. This is Primordial work, not Incarnae. Autochthon or Gaia, perhaps? Or another? It could predate the Primordial War. The idea of finding something made by one of the Yozis prior to their imprisonment is exciting. Of course, it could just as easily have been made by something that was now a Neverborn. That could still be useful somehow, but she isn't quite sure how. Maybe...

You're not going to find out anything by sitting here and staring at it.

Darling is right, of course. In some ways, it resembles the gateways between Malfeas and Creation; this is obviously not a link to Malfeas, but it seems reasonable to assume that it's similar in function. The easiest way to find out would be to step through.

It was also one of the riskiest ways, since she has little idea what is on the other side. A rock thrown into the center produces no result, other than the disappearance of the rock. Prodding the portal with a stick tells her that it doesn't shred anything that goes through. Nobody emerges from the portal to see where the rock came from, so it probably isn't guarded from the other side.

That's as safe as she can ask, really. Leneine steps into the center of the gate.

[Tengu_temp]

"Yes. Who are you, and this man?" Instead of looking at her interlocutor's face, Glass' eyes focus on the weird sac thing.

Intelligence + Occult, to identify what the hell is that thing: [roll0]

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine

Leneine emerges on the other side of the portal, stepping gingerly from a near-replica of the other standing stones. All around her: life. Lushious, verdant, chromatic life. It's night in this jungle, and yet things only seem to be waking just now. Frog-like things stir on each trunk and great moths the size of eagles descend from the canopies. The moss glows, breathes out luminous motes of dust.

And, to Leneine's right, a great man-shaped creature of bog muck, vine, and stray branches shambles closer. It's voice sounds garbled and impotent:

"You have come through stones?"

Glass Firefly

"Sonnerie, the Curled Bell That Hungers," she says, her demeanor warming just slightly as she wipes her stained hands on the nearest branch. The man in red's blood...if it is blood...pools below her, glistening like a sickly, oil-skinned rainbow. "And I'm afraid this," she says, kicking his body, "is Foolish Lache."

Closer examination of her reveals strange qualities similar to both demon and god: her fingers end in slightly bulbed stubs and her nails are long, thick, deadly as talons. Her skin looks slightly leathery, tougher than mortal. And that thing? Whatever it was--you're still not entirely sure--it seemed to pulse with a rhythm akin to the heartbeat of the Elemental Poles of Creation.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger looks rather shocked as she sees the woman ripping something right out of the man's spine. Ignoring the woman - Glass Butterfly seems to be handling that well enough - she kneels down beside the man to check to see if he's still alive!

He's probably not. But you can always hope.

[The_Snark]

Leneine examines the plant-thing with both mortal and Yozi eyes for a second before answering. "Yes I have." There does not seem to be any point in denying it. Especially since the thing might be able to tell her something about the gateway—clearly, it at least knew what it did. Perhaps it could tell her something of where it had led her.

"What do you know about the stones?"

[Tengu_temp]

"I didn't mean just your names. I am Glass Firefly - you know my name now, but you still don't know anything about me beyond that. Only that I'm a princess." Not a shade of sarcasm in the girl's voice. Or any other emotion, for that matter. "I've heard shouts - why were you fighting?"

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

As Tiger inspects the man, she finds him to be quite, quite dead. Sonnerie rolls her eyes, sets a closed fist on her hip.

"You really don't know what you're dealing with, do you?" she asks, more surprised than annoyed. She shrugs. "I don't have time enough or desire enough to deal with this," she says, turning around and walking away.

Leneine

"Master told me to watch stones," the shambler manages with startling elocution--however slow it may speak seems to be due to consideration and care rather than legitimate stupidity. "Told me to take people who come through the stones. To him."

[The_Snark]

Leneine tilts her head as she weighs the choice she's just been given. Someone who was having the portal watched obviously knew something about it, maybe even everything about it; they would certainly know more about what lay on this side than she does. This is clearly not the Underworld, or Malfeas, and the portal did not seem to be the proper sort to lead to another spot in Creation. That left the Wyld, but if that was the case, it had to be a fairly stable island.

On the other hand, she had no guarantee that the shambler's master would be willing to share any of that with her, or that his intentions were good. A Chosen of the Yozis she might be, but Leneine knows she is still quite young, and facing an unknown person and their servants in their own home is a definite risk.

"Who is your master?" she asks, not making any move to accompany the shambler yet. Its responses—and whether or not it tries to force her to come—might help her decide. The fact that there is only one watcher, and that it approached openly, is a point in the unknown master's favor.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass runs around to the front of the woman and blocks her way, holding her walking stick in front of her - not in a way that'd suggest she's about to attack, though.
"Stop. Why have you killed a man? For this item? If you value your time you should answer - I won't let you go until I hear an explanation."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger just stares at the body for a few moments, before getting up and running to catch up with his killer. "...You really don't know what you're dealing with, do you?!" She sounds upset.

You probably would be too in this situation.

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

Sonnerie's confusion fades back into annoyance at Glass Firefly's persistance and Tiger Blossom's commentary. She snarls for a moment and then lets out a deep, gutteral roar--a roar that sounds as if it should come from something two or three times her size.

"I don't know who you two think you are, but apparently you don't know the score. If I hadn't taken the Token from Lache, he was going to blow up this entire <<cosm>>," she says, a word unfamiliar to any language you've ever spoken. "So, kudos to you two for caring, but Lache isn't worth your compassion. He'll probably just try again anyway."

Leneine

"Master came through the stones. From Creation," the shambler adds, pronouncing Creation's name like some strange bit of exotica.

[Yuki Akuma]

"...How could he try again? He's dead. People don't come back from that sort of thing. It's one of those infallible rules of Creation." Tiger sounds confused, but she glowers at Sonnerie's head. "We don't know what you're talking about. Explaining might be a good idea."

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger Blossom and Glass Firefly

"He's not dead, he's not mortal," Sonnerie says, softening a little. She seems to understand the source of their failed communication now. "He'll be fine in a day or two. He'll wake up back inside Gesetz, a bit cross at me for taking the Token. He hates losing it," she adds, making the whole situation sound not only trivial but commonplace as she begins circling around Tiger Blossom as if to appraise her. She stops, smiles to herself. "The portal's open again, then? I told Lache we couldn't just destroy this <<cosm>>. It's the one thing that can't just be recreated."

[The_Snark]

Interesting. Leneine has a lot of questions for the shambler, but for now she restrains herself to those that will let her know whether or not she should go with it. "Have you ever brought someone who came through the stones to him before?"

[Tengu_temp]

"I see." Glass lowers her staff. "Since you know that we came from beyond the portal, you're probably aware that we know little of this world. What are the abilities this Token possesses, apart from destroying..." A barely noticable pause. "<<cosm>>s?"

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

Sonnerie's brow raises at Glass' inquiries; her curving posture telegraphs an unwillingness to share further. She considers for a moment and then sighs.

"If you're really from...elsewhere," she says, shrugging, "you should probably be taken to Aegis. She's in command. For now, at least," Sonnerie adds, setting her hands behind her head. "I could give you all a lift. Unless you have some other way to get from <<cosm>> to <<cosm>>."

Leneine

"No one has come through the stones since he did," the shambler says, starting to totter off in one direction. He doesn't seem terribly concerned with making you follow, for what it's worth.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass looks over her shoulder at her companion - she says nothing, but her expression, while seemingly not changing from before, now seems to expect something, as if she was asking a voiceless question.

[Yuki Akuma]

"...We don't even know what a <<cosm>> is." She doesn't even pause before pronouncing that rather... odd word. "If we do have ways of moving between them, we don't know that we do."

[Tengu_temp]

The white-haired girl makes a slight nod and looks at Sonnerie again.
"Yes. Bring us to Aegis."

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

Sonnerie nods and motions for the pair to follow, hefting Lache's body over one shoulder with surprising ease. She leads them off the beaten path, over brush and bristle. They cross an ankle-deep brook that brims with glistening life. and finally Sonnerie pulls apart a curtain of branches to reveal a quiet copse. At it's center is a broad, plump thing, a sickening cross between a butterfly and a mule. It lowers it's haunches as Sonnerie approaches and she seats herself atop it first, then helps the others up. Once all are boarded, she digs her feet into it's chitonous side and the great thing lumbers up into the air in a sudden, lurching motion. The flight takes them up through a hole in the tree cover: they break through the third and final canopy, little more than a sparse collection of filigree-thin branches and papery leaves.

The dragon-shaped insect was clearly much larger--and much further in the air--than either suspected. They approach it head on, and the creature opens it's cavernous mouth. Sonnerie gives a whoop as she spurs the beast into the mouth and up past fleshy lumps that you can only hope are tonsils. You hang tightly as the Curved Bell That Hungers pulls the mount into an almost completely vertical assent. When you finally land, you find yourselves unmounting in a room dotted with great, clear indentations that you sudden realize are the hollowed domes you had thought to be the creature's eyes.

From this new vantage point, it suddenly becomes clear what a <<cosm>> is. The forest below you is visibly curved and slowly rotating: a great sphere. And it is not alone: as you look above, below, to all the sides, you see other slowly spinning worlds--places covered in water and others covered in ice. Spheres covered in great, craggy mountains and stranger things still.

"Gesetz?" Sonnerie says. You can see a pulse of light flash through the skin over her spine.

"Yes, Sonnerie?" Gesetz replies from every direction in a voice as dull and flat and stupid as a yeddim.

"Take us to Aegis' cosm," she says. Another pulse across the spine, and the dragon-like creature begins to move, snaking around the rotating spheres.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger is silent as they make their flight. The wide-yawning dragonlike insect-thing doesn't even seem to faze her - after all, their guide seems to know what she's doing, and Tiger Blossom is pretty sure she could escape even if it was a trap of some sort.

As they land inside the creature's head, she gazes out of the eyes at all the floating worlds about them. "...Balls?" She looks quite confused. "Why are they floating? What's keeping them suspended?"

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger Blossom

"Essence," Sonnerie responds with a smile. She seems more comfortable and relaxed now, in her element. "Air essence surrounds each cosm. The essence in motion keeps them aloft. That's why they're rotating."

Sonnerie takes a seat in one of the clear eye-globes, looking down as Gesetz glides over a cosm covered in red foliage. She shakes her head after a moment's distraction and stares up at the two of you.

"You're free to wander about Gesetz if you like. Not much to see, I'll admit," she says, motioning to a catwalk that extends from the back end of the chamber out into...Incarna knows what. "We've got a galley back there, but I don't think you'd like what Gesetz would make you. It's kind of...well, do you have hrothinge where you come from? It's a thick, fungal paste. It's not that, exactly," she says, almost defensively. "Everyone just says that Gesetz's idea of food is really similar to that."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger nods her head slowly. "There's certainly a lot of Essence here. Much more than in Creation, or... anywhere else I've been. It had better be doing something." She hmmms, still looking around. "I thought it was just because there were so many trees, but there's tons of it out here, too..."

She balks somewhat at the idea of 'fungal paste'. "I. Um. N-no, thank you. I don't think I'd enjoy something that's like a fungal paste without actually being one."

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger Blossom

"It's an acquired taste," Sonnerie admits. "I have heard that the Essence is a bit bright for those from...wherever you're all from," she says, her flippant tone making it clear that despite quantifiable evidence standing in front of her that she doesn't really care about Creation or the idea of other worlds. Understandable: there appear to be enough worlds here, certainly. "How'd you know, anyway? About the essence? It's usually just a vague feeling. A greater vividness, I've heard."

[Lochar]

Shadowed Greenery looks at the firewell, then at the remainder of his stick and the Waste. "What makes you resist the Waste, my dear firewell?"

He smiles coyly at it, before frowning. "Now, now. Don't be mean like that and ignore me. You will tell me what you know."

Greenery taps his foot for a moment, watching the firewell, and watching a bit of the Waste fall and burn up once more.

"Could it be, you're pure essence? Beyond given shape and form like my testing stick here? Shall we try something of a more pure essence?"

Grinning, Shadowed Greenery steps near the Waste and flares his anima. A void opens wide around him as the Abyss seems to flare into life and scream about the living, even as tendrils of plant life and far off animal sounds echo from around the edges of the void.


Spending a mote of perpherial essence to burn my anima banner to max level for a moment, testing what happens to the waste.

[GryffonDurime]

Shadowed Greenery

Your anima flares against the border of the Wastes and slides into the gray, static zone. It holds there, laping against it, at least for a moment: after a minute's rest that edge of anima in the Wastes stops moving. As you move away, that sliver of anima stays and begins to slowly crumble.

[The_Snark]

After a moment's pause, Leneine decides to follow, measuring her strides to keep pace with the shambler.

Along the way, she continues to ply it with questions, trying to learn as much as possible from it—its master might not be quite as willing to share. It isn't as if she'll lose anything if the creature doesn't know the answers. "How long ago was that? Who is your master?"

And, "Why did he stay on this side of the stones?"

And, "Why does he want to talk with anyone who comes through the gateway?"

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine

"My master came from where you came from, years ago during the fall of a place called Thorns," the shambler says as he totters over a particularly high log that's fallen over the path. "He has not gone back because the stones have not worked for a long time. That is why he will want to see you," he says, pressing forward through denser groundcover. A red light hums softly in the distance and a shadowy figure is silhouetted between the pool of Fire essence and the border of a strange phenomenon--the world beyond that border is gray, empty, and still.

"That is my master," the shambler says, raising one muck-covered arm to point at the figure.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass does not participate in the conversation - the moment the weird mount lands she runs up to one of the domes in the wall, puts her hands against it and starts observing all the fascinating, round worlds - despite her bored expression pulling her attention from them is impossible, she could be as well glued to the globe. Once she manages to take a good luck at all of them, or they become too monotone, she starts to explore the inside of Gesetz, analyzing and poking at anything unusual.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom tilts her head to one side at the question. "Well. When you have a shard of divinity shoved into your soul by fate, you sort of develop a sense for these things." It's hard to tell whether she's completely serious or joking.

She watches Glass Butterfly, trying not to laugh. "...You'll have to excuse her. She's a Twilight."

[Lochar]

Greenery sighs, looking around him for a moment, addressing the air. "Now, if I were me and you were you, what would you do?"

Wincing slightly, Greenery nods. "I know, I know. I told you though, it hurts."

Turning back to the Wastes once more, Greenery's aura of the void flares high, brushing up against the gray land. The void seems to open wide, trying to eat the Wastes as Greenery watches it closely as it crashes against it. "Great Lady, what am I seeing?" Shadowed Greenery asks outloud, head tilted as he listens to the howling of his aura and the silence in the trees.

Even as he seems to hear a reply in the silence, the howling of the void tears into his soul, twisting and burning as he stoically takes the pain, payment for his invoking of another master.


Spending 10 motes Peripheral essence on First Excellency.

Int+Occult: [roll0]

Resonance: [roll1]

Resonance: 3/10

Personal: 20/20
Peripheral: 21/45

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger and Glass

"Shard? What kind of shard?" Sonnerie asks, casually disinterested. Below, Gesetz snakes about a lumpy, lopsided and sandy world girded by a thin river.

Shadowed Greenery

Your insight into the world by virtue of your status as Akuma proves invaluable as you notice the way in which Essence interacts with the Wastes--these places touched by the Wastes are not ill. At least, not in the sense of being an external sickness: they are a feature. Essence and matter, once placed into the Wastes, are drawn inward to the center, broken down to their component motes. The border is itself a membrane that prevents the Wastes from travelling too far outward. The ordered nature of the system lets you know that this is intentional--perhaps not on this growing level, but still. Where the Essence goes once drawn into the center of a Waste is still up for contention, but you're certain that the Waste's avoidance of the firewell is a product of the very nature of the Wastes rather than some protective capacity of the well itself.

[The_Snark]

"I see." Leneine halts for a moment, contemplating the shape of the shambler's master, and the peculiar grey land beyond. It's almost like the opposite of what she would have found at the edge of a stable area in the Wyld: rather than giving way to chaos and impossibility, the landscape faded into grey nothingness. She wonders, for a moment, if they are not somehow in the Underworld; by all accounts she has read, Oblivion and the Wyld are as close to opposite as two things can be. Of course, nothing else she has seen resembles the Underworld: no ghosts, and the Essence seems perfectly hospitable. Still, if it were an island of living Essence in the Underworld—rather like a shadowland in reverse...

A snicker of laughter from Darling brings her back to the matter at hand—that is, the master. From the two things she knows about him—that he is from Creation, and that he commands a strange bog-creature—she has concluded he is most likely a sorcerer. Or else this thing was akin to one of Creation's gods, and he was clever enough to win it over to him through bargaining or force. Either way, someone she ought to be careful of.

She is about to go to meet him when one more question occurs to her. Such a simple question, too, and in a less strange setting it would probably have come to her before any other question. "What are you?" she asks the shambler. "Why," she adds as an afterthought, "is he your master?"

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine

"He is my master," the shambler says, "because he made me."

[The_Snark]

Straightforward enough. Almost certainly a sorcerer of some kind... or something else she hasn't thought of.

As Darling keeps reminding her, and as she's just concluded yet again, she isn't going to find out anything by sitting still and thinking about it. Leneine resumes her approach, once again matching her pace to the shambler's.

[Lochar]

Greenery frowns at the Wastes, either not noticing, or not caring to notice, the shambler and the other walking up behind him.

"Yes, yes. They were right." Greenery mumbles to himself. "Now, the question is, what is causing the growth? Something is making it bigger, I don't think the Lady cares to encompass a <<cosm>> with this. Most assuredly not a whole one, at least."

[GryffonDurime]

Firefly and Tiger

The rest of the flight passes in uncomfortable silence until one particularly interesting cosm fills the center of Gesetz' view. It's a silvered world, sandy and undulating and yet covered almost equally in water: endless, violet water. The whole place is dimmed, and night-time darkness seems to coat the surface like a fine mist. Even still, there's a glow about this world. It seems to be in constant flux, a struggle between the light and the darkness.

"Welcome to Cava," Sonnerie says as she makes for the beast of burden again. "Home of Aegis of the Silvered Whorl, first and foremost of the Beloved." He tone on that last title, the Beloved, is practically swimming in sarcasm. Clearly, she doesn't care for these people and the poison reserved for Aegis' name makes it clear that she hates that one most of all.

Leneine and Shadowed Greenery

As Leneine follows the shambling creature, they approach the deeply focused figure, skirting about the rim of the firewell. It radiates a soft, orange mist of motes--foreign to both, and yet not unwelcoming to either.

"Master. She came from the stones," the shambler says.

[Tengu_temp]

The silence does not bother Glass Firefly, not that anyone is surprised by that at this point. She stops exploring Gesetz (just as Sonnerie said, it's not very curious - the round worlds are much more interesting to observe) roughly when they get close to Cava.
"You don't like Aegis of the Silvered Whorl. Why is that?", she asks, heading for the weird flying creature as well.

[Lochar]

Greenery starts, turning to look at his creation and the newcomer. As he turns, there is a large amount of caked blood on his forehead, and a dead aura still flickers about him, trying to yawn wide again to engulf anything nearby.

"From the portal? Truly? Welcome, welcome. I would greet you, but I know not who you are. Who are you?" The man's skin is crackled and burned, and there is plant growth coming from his body. It's almost worth wondering if this man is actually alive, but he does breathe.

[The_Snark]

The young woman stares curiously at him for a few moments. There are stranger things in Malfeas, but the fusion between the human and the bizarre lends the shambler's master a particular fascination. It reminds her of many of her fellows among the Chosen of the Yozis, in fact. This man wasn't one of them, or else she would have known, but maybe he had been touched by something similar—a Primordial, or...

"Sorry," she says, remembering herself. "I'm Leneine." She extends a hand, tentatively at first and then more firmly. Presumably, if shaking hands would harm her, he won't do it.

[Yuki Akuma]

The floating worlds in the void are somewhat hypnotic, so Tiger Blossom doesn't actually answer Sonnerie's question... She's only brought out of her reverie at the announcement, which makes her frown a little bit. "The beloved?"

[Lochar]

Greenery looks at the hand for a moment, before shaking his head and smiling, grasping it and shaking.

There is a hidden strength in his hands, one you wouldn't expect. And although even the skin of his hands is burnt crisply, the burns still somehow seem to work like regular skin.

"Shadowed Greenery. We have been here so long, that I had forgotten what real people do. The wretches here are afraid of us, so I just took over them in this <<cosm>>. They don't make very good components for our work though. The local fauna does. Do you think that my tinkering with life is a good thing, or should we stop?"

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger and Glass

Sonnerie speaks plainly as she helps the two of you up: "I do not care for Aegis, no. She is a raucous cow of a woman. If you thought I was callous and overbearing, then you've some small measure of my feeling about her."

And you take off. Another great, sickening lurch and the creature falls back down the great vertical shaft you recognize as Gesetz' throat. You emerge, pulling up into a horizontal swift over the creature's tongue. At the far side, there's a man in black. Sonnerie goes pale, pulls the creatures neck upright to set it hovering near the pallete of the mouth.

"What do you want, Mykete?" she asks.

"Justice," he replies in an even monotone. He raises his palm and a slit opens on it--then there's a whistling sound. A needle, thin and sharp and glistening on an almost imperceptible thread, rushes out and finds it's way into the creature's neck. It screams, and the man in black--Mykete--pulls at it like an angler.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass mounts the flying creature, accepting the explanation in silence. And then suddenly this stranger attacks them! She reaches for the needle, carefully checking is it possible to pull it out quickly without causing severe injuries to the creature. If that's possible, she does so.
"What happened between you two?", she asks nobody in particular. Her voice is only slightly more emotional than Mykete's.


Medicine+Intelligence/Perception roll, if needed: [roll0]

[GryffonDurime]

Glass Firefly and Tiger Blossom

The needle should be safe enough to pull out as of your inspection--but as you reach down to try, you find it mythically stubborn. Both the needle and it's thread appear to be extremely strong: clearly artifacts in nature.

In fact, Tiger Blossom recognizes it's material construction immediately. No mistaking it--the light glints off it for just a second, and there's no hiding the fact of iron that glints with the colors of a subtle rainbow.

"He's probably upset over Lache. He gets like this," Sonnerie says, managing to marry casualness and abject fear in her tone. "Go," she says as she manages to get the beast low enough to the tongue for her--and you, should you choose--to tumble safely. She outstretches her palm to the far end of the mouth and the Token pulses again across her spine as Gesetz opens his mouth. You're about ten yards over the nearest silvery sand dune, and as Mykete emotionlessly draws the needle back into his hand--leaving a curiously large wound in the creature's sternum as he does so--it seems that will be as low as you will get.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom climbs up onto the creature as they get ready to go, sitting comfortably and just waiting for them to arrive. However, as they're assaulted by the stranger, she frowns deeply.

She hops off the creature's back, landing quite easily as she regards the stranger, head tilted to one side. "Starmetal. Where'd you get that?" She then shakes her head. "Doesn't matter. I don't know who you are, and I don't really care either... but I'm only going to give you this one warning. Leave, now, or I'll break you in half." It doesn't sound much like a threat - and, granted, she doesn't look particularly strong.

But those are starmetal baneclaws in her sash.

[GryffonDurime]

In Gesetz' Mouth

"At the moment, this is a matter between Sonnerie and myself. You may leave if you wish. I do not want to kill you, but I do not not want to kill you. I do not want anything. Except Justice," he says, clarifying.

There are paintings in some worlds and places where the artist captures everything save the intended: a work which implied something in that very same target's absence. If Mykete's voice were such a work, it would imply compassion through it's flat and dispassionate tone. He may not feel a drive to virtue, but it is clear that he wishes he could. He and Sonnerie circle each other. She growls. He raises his palm to her, threateningly.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger sighs, shifting into an easy back-stance. "You don't turn down an offer to retreat from one of the Exalted, idiot."

Join battle:
[roll0]

[Yuki Akuma]

...

Goddamnit GiantITP, why are you different to Myth-Weavers.

[roll0]

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger exhales, centering herself as she arranges her Essence just so... Her body settles into its lazily back-stance for a moment, before she charges at the stranger with something approaching an amused grin. "Let's see what you've got, then!"

As she reaches Mykete, she ducks down slightly while twisting her body, turning her forward momentum into a spin. Her legs suddenly snaps up in a spinning axe kick that comes out far faster than a kick like that really should.

Kick! [roll0], 7B raw damage.

Activating Joy in Adversity Stance for 6 motes, from my Personal pool.


Personal Essence: 8/14
Peripheral Essence: 31/39
Commited - Starmetal Hearthstone Bracers - 4
(Windhands Gemstone)
- Starmetal Baneclaw - 2
- Starmetal Baneclaw - 2


HEALTH
-0 [ ]
-1 [ ]
-2 [ ] [ ]
-4 [ ] [ ]
Incapacitated [ ]

Soak: 2B/1L/0A
Dodge DV: 7

Punch Speed 5 | 12 accuracy | 4B | Parry 6 | Rate 3
Kick Speed 5 | 11 accuracy | 7B | Parry 4 | Rate 2
Cinch Speed 5 | 11 accuracy | 4B | Parry - | Rate 1
Baneclaw Speed 4 | 13 accuracy | 10L | Parry 7 | Rate 3

[GryffonDurime]

The Fight in the Bug-Dragon

Mykete's palm-weapon whistles through the air as Tiger makes her first move, aimed not for the Exalt but for Sonnerie. It finds it's wait into her chest, wheedling deeper and deeper in for the brief moment she allows herself for pain--but already, she's on the move, rushing forward. She tucks into a tight roll as she approaches and roundhouse kicks Mykete's feet in concert with Tiger's own blow. Tiger's initial axe-kick, while powerful, might not have found it's mark otherwise. In tandem, however, it cleaves dangerously through Mykete's flesh, finding it strangely spongy. She can almost watch her foot leave an indent in it as she finishes. Sonnerie, on the other hand, appears to have almost taken off his foot.

Admittedly, not the hardest seeming task given his flesh's strange consistency.


1 Die stunt for Tiger, so enjoy your two motes. You've both hurt him.

Tick 2: Glass
Tick 3:
Tick 4:
Tick 5: Tiger Blossom, Sonnerie
Tick 6: Mykete

[Tengu_temp]

"Is it really justice you seek? It sounds closer to revenge to me."
Glass reaches to the egg-like gem on her neck and taps it with her index finger - a part of its shell collapses, and she puts the tips of her fingers inside, pulling out something that really should not fit inside - a huge Orichalcum maul, with a massive, rectangular head carved in thick, silvery runes, the total length of the weapon almost reaching its user's height. Holding the hammer at her side and with spread arms she dashes into Mykete's direction, the charge ending with a leap right next to the cloaked man and a powerful, double-handed maul slam from below - after that, while she's still in the air, Glass follows with another blow, this time from above.

Flurry - I'm spending 1 mote to open the Cache Egg and draw Sun's Battering Ram from it and making two attacks. Rolls in the next post.

[Tengu_temp]

Attack roll 1: [roll0]
Attack roll 2: [roll1]

[The_Snark]

"I don't know," Leneine answers, staring at the hands for a moment. She had linked the burn marks to the pool of pure Fire only a little ways away, but he didn't seem to be pained by the marks at all. And they looked... older, what with the plants growing through them. Maybe he'd mended himself, in much the same way that he'd made the shambler. "I'd need to know more about what you're doing before I decided anything like that."

"I hope you don't mind answering questions too much? I've only just arrived here, and you've been here for... well, that's another thing I don't know. How long have you been here? How do you measure time here, for that matter?"

[GryffonDurime]

The Fight in Gesetz

Glass Firefly's blows strike true and batter Mykete's strange and pliant flesh into sickening distortions of shape. Mykete reels for a moment before falling backward, eyes still very much open and face still very much painted with an emotionless expression. His needle, however, remains in Sonnerie's chest and she herself remains seemingly alarmed.

"He's not dead. None of us can really die--him least of all," Sonnerie says, almost in tears as she reaches for the needle, unable to draw it out. "Go," she says at last. "This isn't your problem."


Both of Glass' attacks hit. She managed to inflict a rather amazing 13 B damage to Mykete. That's a 1-die stunt, too, so take 2 motes.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass lands, looking down at the collapsed heap she turned Mykete into - it's true, he cannot die, but didn't she overdo it regardless? Then she turns around and notices Sonnerie's expression. The Twilight girl walks up to her and, without any warning, plants her hand on her chest, not seeming to realize how inappropriate such an act might look like. Her palm glows with warm golden light for a brief second as she channels Essence to ease Sonnerie's pain.
"What are you saying? You can't walk around with a needle sticking out of your chest." She pushes her maul back into the crack in the jewel, and pulls out something else instead - a serrated knife, too thin to be used in combat but very sharp-looking. "Let me pull it out. This shouldn't hurt."

Woo, talk about good luck. Spending 5 motes to use Touch of Blissful Release on Sonnerie.

[GryffonDurime]

To Glass

Sonnerie's expression relaxes a bit. She breathes in, slow and rhythmic as Glass sets her sights on the needle.

"It's part of his panoply," she explains. "Tiny little thing, but it pulls more when you withdraw it. Or at least, it does when Mykete withdraws it. I don't know if it's part of the artifact's construction or just part of how Mykete uses it," she says. The spongy floor of the tongue bumps a little and sand pours in.

"Thank you, Gesetz," Sonnerie manages to say in exasperation. "But please don't go down any further."

[Tengu_temp]

"You don't need to worry. I treated worse. Sit down and relax."
Glass pulls out more medical instruments - many of them rather unpleasant-looking, ranging from small hooks to a bonesaw - and sets them on a plain, clean cloth, with the small, jade case of Wound Mending Needles taking the central place. If Sonnerie raises no objections, she gets to work - first, she puts the Needles in a pain-negating acupunctural pattern, further reinforcing the relaxing effect of the charm. Then she takes the knife she pulled out first, and using it and several other implements she starts to cut out the needle from Sonnerie's body, trying to be as precise and remove as little flesh as possible, without even getting near to any vital organs. Finally, when that is done, Glass changes the pattern of the needles, putting them in a wound-healing configuration - if she did a good job, it should only take several minutes until they close the wound.

Medicine roll: [roll0]

[Lochar]

Greenery motions to the bogman. "It is born in death, and dies in life. We collected the bodies of the fauna, and stiched them together. I asked the Great Lady for magic, and she infuses our creation with the breath of life."

Greenery looks confused for a moment, looking to his left and nodding at the air. "Oh yes. You wanted to know how long I have been here? We do not keep track of time well, as I cannot think through it. You would know better than we. When my first master took Thorns, we entered the portal then. Days ago, maybe?"

[The_Snark]

"No," Leneine says, taken aback. Between Greenery's rambling manner of speech and Darling's amusement, dimly felt in the back of her mind, she's starting to realize it's going to be rather hard to learn everything she wants to know from him. "Well, yes it was days ago, but quite a lot of days, unless I'm mistaken." Her eyes flick to the dead aura and the blood on his forehead; she'd taken the one to be part of the grey land immediately behind him and the other to be part of his injuries, but perhaps not.

"Just to be sure: your first master was the Mask of Winters, yes?"

[Lochar]

Greenery's eyes clear for a moment as he thinks. "Yes, Mask of Winters is my first master, along with our Master in the great Underworld. I designed the engines of the dead that helped him move forward."

And then Greenery shakes his head, tilting it to the side. "Then the stones activated, and we chased the wretches through. I thought to conquer the land for our master, but I was stopped by the Great Lady. She gave me purpose here, since we could not leave."

[The_Snark]

Leneine nods, deciding as she listens that she's going to have to limit herself to one topic of inquiry at a time. Every other sentence of Greenery's begs a question, but if she asks all of them as she thinks of them she'll never get anywhere. "I see. That was around five years ago. You should try to keep track of time—it matters, even if we might wish otherwise."

She pauses, mentally weighing two rather different questions. "You say Mask of Winters is your first master. Is the Great Lady your second? Who is she?"

[Lochar]

Greenery nods, turning to the firewell. "I assumed that you were a Beloved. We were wrong, and it won't be the last time I am."

Sweeping a hand to the firewell, and then back to the grey Wastes, Shadowed Greenery speaks. "She is the Great Lady. Our <<cosm>>, Aegis', and the others that are not under any's control. The stones brought you to the Great Lady."

[The_Snark]

Pause. Leneine shakes her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't understand a lot of that. You have to remember I just got here. All I know about this place is what I've seen on the way to you from the stones, and what you've told me. I don't know where this place is, or what it is, or who lives here."

"Let's start with the beginning of what you said. What do you mean by one of the Beloved?"

[Lochar]

"The Beloved are those who are the promised of the Great Lady's love. I had thought one had died, and you were chosen in their place. We had assumed it, until you knew nothing of this place." Greenery looks Leneine over. "Can you make an Essence aura as well? I still am testing the Wastes, and we would like to see what might happen with one not of death gets near it. Don't go in it, however, or you will be broken down into motes and fed to it."

Greenery beams at the woman, like he is proud of the grey matter for it's ability to do so.

[The_Snark]

"I can." Normally, she would be hesitant to display her aura so openly, but one of their... cousins, for lack of a better word... would be less likely to react badly. "I would prefer not to do so without putting the Essence to use, however."

"Which brings me to another question: does this place have nights and days?"

[Lochar]

Greenery nods, but is visibly disappointed that Leneine won't activate her banner. "Days, nights, morning, twilight, noon and midnight."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom stands with her head tilted to one side, regarding the medical proceedings. "Don't worry. You're in good hands. I think one of her past lives was a First Age doctor."

[GryffonDurime]

Sonnerie

The needle slides from Sonnerie's skin under Glass' tender ministrations, and the strange woman sighs a heavy, relieved sigh as it does. A moment later, though, and her worry returns:

"You really need to go. Aegis' demense is just over those dunes," she says, pointing through Gesetz' widening maw. Outside, it's dark. Silvered sand glints madly in the atmosphere, a pale immitation of stars and starlight. You can see hints of a structure just beyond the nearest rise. "Mykete will regenerate soon. This is just the way it is. But thanks to you, I have a good chance of winning. This time," she says with a wink.

[The_Snark]

"Mmm." She could test it... but it was maybe better to ask first. "I am going to attempt to summon a demon. Do you know if this realm permits this to happen? Will the Great Lady, or any other, object?"

[Tengu_temp]

"I am not done yet. You can go - I will catch up to you." The latter parts is directed towards Tiger Blossom, obviously. After getting done with Sonnerie, Glass starts checking the flying mount's wound as well - her treatment is less thorough here, she just makes sure the wound is not life-threatening and will heal nicely over time, using the needles if necessary. She also takes the opportunity to check is there anything unusual with the creature's anatomy - and when she's done, she gathers all her stuff and runs towards the structure until she catches up to Tiger (assuming the other girl left before).

Another medicine roll: [roll0]

[Lochar]

"The Great Lady forbids it of us, but those not taught by her may summon freely. I only step around her restriction through the darker arts."

[The_Snark]

Leneine frowns. "I am not sure I understand. She will not be offended if I perform a summoning, but she forbids it to her students? Would she then refuse to speak with me or teach me, if I summoned something now?"

[Lochar]

"You all must not do is use her methods when working magics, and we can cast as I choose. It is her teachings that deny summons, but not your choice."

[The_Snark]

Leneine's face lights up as understanding dawns. "Oh! I see now." And she does. There are some things which are simply not in a Yozi's nature; those things are difficult or impossible for that Yozi's power to accomplish, and they cannot grant such power or teach it. If this Great Lady was a Primordial, as she suspects, it made sense that it would be so for her as well. And if the Great Lady was this place's creator, and her weakness lay in contacting other worlds, it would explain why this place remained unknown to the sages of Malfeas.

"I will begin now." She turns so that her right side faces the waste, so that she can observe her anima's contact with the waste without dropping the summoned demon into it, adopts the proper stance, and channels Essence through her anima.

A mark like a third eye opens on her forehead, and green-tinted fire spills forth from it, swirling around her faster and faster as it accumulates. The eerie radiance throws long shadows across the ground, painting the soil and even the firewell a sickly green shade. As the Essence-fire continues to pour forth, it becomes unruly, as though something is preventing it from being a properly uniform aura around her. Tendrils of it lick outward, scorching odd little patterns in the ground beneath her, threatening to enfold both Shadowed Greenery and his servant, and touching upon the featureless waste... and then the green fire is abruptly drawn back towards Leneine. Translucent spheres a half-foot in diameter form all about her, enclosing the fire within, and begin to spin about her: some stately and slow, others quick and irregular in their orbits, and still more slowing and speeding up without warning. None collide with one another, though, and there is a vague sense that if one watched them long enough, one could predict where each one would go and how fast, and even sketch the pattern out.

But the display, despite its complexity, is a mere side effect. The real work is within Leneine's mind. Her consciousness widens, dropping away from Shadowed Greenery, the wasteland, and the entire new world within the space of an instant. The next second seems to last forever within Leneine's mind, as she expands through blackness... and then her consciousness emerges from an irregular crystal of silver. The crystal shrinks, becomes a grain of sand, in a sea of identical grains. Above, the night sky is blank but for two stars, both so faint that they vanish when looked at directly. The silvery sand stretches as far as any eye could ever see, in every direction.

What was a gulf between worlds, compared to the infinite reaches of the Endless Desert? Nothing.

(The following is contingent upon the spell working. Leneine is hoping that Slave-Spawn Summons will function in this realm regardless of whether it's sunset or not. Unlike Demon of the First Circle, Slave-Spawn Summons takes the same amount of time that a normal Terrestrial spell would, and in theory could be used at any time. In practice, the Loom of Fate prevents the spell from succeeding at all wherever it has sway, except at a single moment each day during sunset. The spell doesn't work at all in the Underworld, but in other places outside fate, like Malfeas and the Wyld, it seems like it ought to be usable at any time (although it's not needed as much in Malfeas).

Obviously, Creation's Loom of Fate doesn't govern this place, but there may be something similar, or another reason that would prevent the summoning. If so, the following does not happen, and there may be side effects for casting the spell improperly. If not, Leneine will summon an agata. In either case, she is spending 20 motes of peripheral Essence (reducing the demon's roll to contest the binding by 2) and 1 Willpower.
Leneine feels the distance bridged, and speaks. The words are in the Malfean dialect of Old Realm, but of course that isn't any different from before. "Child-of-Florivet-of-Orabilis-of-Cecelyne, hear these words. I am Leneine, Chosen of the Yozis. By the rights granted to me and by the laws of Cecelyne, I call upon you and charge you to attend me. I have opened the way: obey and step forth."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom nods her head slowly, and hops down out of the creature's mouth to the sand dunes below. It's not long until she's joined by her companion, however!

"So. Where to, then?"

[Tengu_temp]

Glass points towards the barely visible building between the dunes.
"There."
And she continues to walk towards it, at a slower pace this time.

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine

The hum of wings over sand--a growing buzz--a noise like lightning rushing through crystal. The maddening sounds fill the air as Leneine's spell reaches it's zenith. The Agata enters the world through a space no larger than a grain of sand, for every servant of the Yozi carries particles of the Endless Desert in their bearing if not on their person. It's eyes widen in recognition and fear as it's gaze comes to fall on Leneine.

What remains of where Leneine's display crossed into the Wastes has preserved itself quite well: edges of Anima and Essence worked into the careful patterns of Yozi sorcery crackle slowly beyond the border, defying the static nature of that world. Even still, there is attrition: as you all watch, the Wastes slowly devour the Sorcerous overflow.

Glass and Tiger

As you cross the dunes, you come to see the fullness of Aegis' encampment: a sprawling complex of raised pavilions and silken tents in bright, festive colors: purples, reds, blues, oranges. No one looks at you twice as you approach--and there are plenty of people who could have looked at you. All of them are dressed lightly, though close inspection reveals significant facts.

Fact one, a great many of these people don't appear quite mortal. Oh, certainly, the majority may be mundane enough, but an unsettling number of them have deep blue skin and whiskers like a koi's. Others have pale, frosted skin that seems nearly translucent and long, thick hair that moves about seemingly of it's own volition.

Fact two, everyone seems to be in a terrible rush. Oh sure, you're strange enough by comparison to them and you did just emerge from the distant maw of an insectile dragon, but no one seems to be capable of paying you more than a passing tilt of the head.

[Lochar]

"Interesting, very interesting. Do you mind if we use it for an experiment with the Wastes?" Greenery looks at the demon curiously, his eyes tracing it's body before looking out at the Wastes.

[The_Snark]

Leneine ignores Greenery for the moment; though the spell is technically complete, she hasn't yet bound the demon. Even if it is mostly a formality—the agatea were never an aggressive breed, and this one looks as though it will offer no resistance—it's important to perform the ritual properly.

"I am in need of an assistant. You can help as necessary, and convey me should I need to travel." Her voice is not the stern, imperious tone she used before; it is conversational, almost friendly. It is as if she cannot even conceive of the possibility that the agata might balk or refuse—and her assumption is compelling. So much easier not to challenge it, to simply accept submission as a fact and move onwards...

Leneine's Essence+Willpower: [roll0] Spending 1 Willpower to buy an automatic success.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass decides to gather information with the whole subtlety needed in this situation - which means none. She walks up to the closest person who's moving at a pace slower than a full sprint and stands in his/her way.
"Hello. Do you know where Aegis is? And why is everyone in such hurry?"

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger is being her usual quiet, inquisitive self, just looking around and taking everything in. She watches Glass Butterfly go off to question someone, but she just keeps on exploring, doing her best to not get run over by someone in a hurry.

"Hm. God-bloods?"

[GryffonDurime]

Leneine

Is it any wonder the agata bows it's head and accepts it's lot in the order of things and places? The kind and conversational tone of his new mistress seems to weigh him down, leaden with the compliment of soft words and kind intentions. The binding was over almost before it began.

Glass and Tiger

Glass Firefly finds herself standing before a veiled boy--one of the translucent sort. He has pale, violet skin and his hair...

Not hair. No, on closer inspection what appeared to be thick hair moving about of it's own accord is something closer to a collection of tentacles. His are short and pulled back by a thick band of silver, but the ends still motion as if in water.

His eyes dart from side to side as you address him, and he answers in a deathly soft voice usually reserved for the crypt or the library:

"Mother is in the central pavilion. But she will not see visitors. Not until the morning."

[The_Snark]

Only then does Leneine turn back to Shadowed Greenery. "That depends on what sort of experiment you mean. Is it likely to survive?" She has the feeling she can guess what he'd like to try, and she doesn't like the idea.

[Lochar]

"We're not certain. The Wastes here are expanding, and although they are a natural feature of the <<cosm>>, they should not be growing like this. I was hoping you could resummon your friend there, after we throw him into the Wastes. It decomposes things to their essential motes. I am not familiar with demonology as much as we would care to be. Would that destroy it, or send it back where you summoned it from?"

[The_Snark]

"He would be destroyed. Any summoned demon can die; the higher circles, those that are part of another being's soul, will eventually be remade or recreated, but this one would be gone." Leneine rests a hand on the wasp's flank protectively.

"Besides, I don't see what we would learn from that. You already know what the waste does. What are you trying to find out?"

[Tengu_temp]

"I see." Glass leaves the strange boy to his own business and goes off to find her companion.
"My current assumption is that all those people were created by Aegis - I would not be surprised if other Beloved possess similar powers over their own cosms, as well. She will talk with us in the morning - let's find a place to spend the night."

[Lochar]

"We know that the Wastes turn anything into it's component motes. What I do not know, and what we are trying to figure out, is where those motes are being drawn off to. Mayhaps I can find something bigger to throw in there, and we can follow it's trail on your flier? Will it hold two's weight?"

[The_Snark]

"Yes, I think so. It's safe to fly above the waste, then?" Leneine looks about, wondering what they could give to the waste. The spinning green fire around her illuminates the ground around them clearly, throwing even tiny objects into sharp relief as their shadows form dark blots in the green, but aside from the shambler (who was a valued servant) there's not much. The forest lay only a little ways away, though. They could take something from that easily enough...

[Lochar]

"So long as nothing touches it, right?" Greenery looks to the side again, once more consulting something next to him. He nods after a moment. "We're in agreement. Keep a dozen feet above the Wastes."

Picking up his walking staff, Greenery heads back to the forest's edge for a moment, where trees tower into sky. Looking at one for a moment, Greenery rears back with the staff, and slams forward.

A powerful shudder passes through the tree. Greenery looks up at it and scowls. Another heavy blow, and the base of the tree shatters this time, a long groaning sound as the tree falls. Greenery steps to one side as the hundred year old tree falls ponderous towards the Wastes.

Looking back, Greenery motions. "Come, our child. I cannot move the tree alone, though we felled it."

[GryffonDurime]

Glass Firefly and Tiger Blossom

The boy nods at your approval and leads the pair of you to a small tent where servants arrive to lay out two humble cots. As the night falls proper, a deeper darkness envelops the cosm and lights spring forth from every tent and pavillion: glistening stones and tiny candles that shed sparks of every color.

And a moon rears it's head. Above, through the diaphonous gauze of your makeshift chambers, a full disk of pale gray light rises over the silver sands. Tiny polyps dance across the winds under the moonlight: each a glowing thing no greater than a lily blossom and just as pale, just as delicate. They swarm about the moonlight and produce a sound like a tiny choir of bells.

And morning comes. You know it to be morning because the cosm brightens, slightly, the moon slides from sight, and the candles all go out. The boy returns, bowing before you, and leads you through the growing bustle to the central pavilion, a brilliant latticework of ivory and glass.

And, seated upon a mountain of cushions at the heart of the pavillion is a woman you assume to be Aegis. She's got a cruel smile and the same translucent skin as the boy who leads you, the same writhing tentacles for hair, though hers are free of rings or plaits. They jostle about, framing her haughty visage. She tilts her head in consideration as you approach, placing a half-eaten...thing...upon a silver tray offered to her by a servant. Whatever the thing was, it's blood is still on her lips and there's still a bit of fight in it's half-corpse.

"Oh ho! What have we here? No, wait, let me guess," she says in a voice accustomed to audacity. "A pair of tribal princesses come to try and pay the dowry of one of my beloved sons?" she asks, gesturing towards the collection of strapping young men who stand at her left. The boy who led you hear quietly moves to rejoin their ranks.

[The_Snark]

"Twice that, for safety's sake," Leneine murmurs to the wasp. She watches as Shadowed Greenery fells a tree with a blunt staff a hundred times smaller than it ought to be. Physically, at least; in the underlying reality of Essence, it (or he) is clearly far larger. Essence always took precedence over the physical.

She isn't sure whether he is beckoning her, or his bog-man servant—of course! If it's a necromantic creation, that explains why it's made from decomposing matter—but it can't hurt if they come. Not that she knows of any way she can shift something that large, not in one piece.

"You keep saying we," she notes, finally realizing something that's been bothering about Greenery's speech patterns, "when you ought to be saying I. Alternating between the two in even proportions, unless I'm mistaken. Who else are you speaking for?"

[Tengu_temp]

Glass takes her time before going to sleep - she wanders around the encampment, observing its inhabitants and noticing any curious customs or differences between how they and the people of Creation lead their everyday lives - she also pays more attention to checking what kind of food do they eat, where do they get it from (do they have crops or herd animals?), and do they have any weapons. Inhabitants does not mean only the people - using her charms she looks around for spirits and other dematerialized creatures, as well. When the Twilight gets bored or tired, she returns to her tent, removes her sandals and goes to sleep fully clothed - possessing an artifact of Dawn's Cleansing Light makes one lazy when it comes to that sort of thing.

In the morning, Glass lets the boy lead her to Aegis - the woman's first impression on her is far from positive, but nothing in her expression nor voice shows it - she's as calm and seemingly emotionless as usual.
"No, I am a traveling healer, not a princess, but you are not the first one to mistake me for one. We have come here from another world, and we were told that we should speak with you."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom, on her part, goes to bed quite quickly - she seems to have been awake for a long time, and is glad for the rest. As morning comes, she still looks rather tired - and her hair! Mars damnit her hair never stays down after she's just woken up.

She attempts to get her hair under control as she follows the boy to Aegis' pavillion. As she looks to the... 'woman', she gasps in frustration. There's a subtle change in the stance of her body, as the strands of Fate melt away from her. Suddenly, Tiger Blossom, Wood Aspect, isn't there anymore... but someone is standing there, and that someone glares up at Aegis, before, suddenly, her Anima flares a deep crimson, the edge licking against Glass Butterfly.

"We're people who are getting really annoyed at being treated as lessers."

Shucking that Resplendent Destiny, and... spending however many motes I need to spend to unleash my anima banner.

Edit: So I've decided that's the Lesser Sign of Mars, there - 10 motes, and all allies within 40 yards get to reduce all damage taken by 1.

[GryffonDurime]

"You're from Creation, then?" Aegis asks in soft response to Glass. She seems uninterested...at least, until Tiger Blossom reveals the glory of her anima banner. Aegis springs to her feet and strips off her regal cloak to reveal a tightly muscled body clad in purple silk. Her hair extends madly: her skull blooms outward like a jellyfish's bell and her fingers curve into dangerously thin digits. On her brow, a disk of unbroken silver appears--a castemark!--and argent light clings tightly to her form before bursting into iconic glory as a mass of tentacles of light.

An anima. An anima, and a castemark. There can be no mistaking Luna's blessing.

"Finally! Someone comes through the stones who can give me a decent challenge!" she proclaims, rushing forward not on her feet but balancing on her very tendrils.

At her side, the boys moves aside, a humiliated and practiced exasperation in their collective sighs.

"Come on, I'll even let you have the first shot," she says.


Battle Joined!

...I assume you'd all roll to join. If I have assumed wrongly, please let me know.

Tick 0: Glass Firefly
Tick 1: Tiger Blossom
Tick 2: Aegis

[Tengu_temp]

As surprising the revelation of both Aegis and Tiger is (Glass suspected that there's more to her companion than meets the eye, but still...), there is no time to be amazed.
"Why is everyone so quick to fight here?", she asks, sounding a bit more tired than normal, as she once again pulls the orichalcum Goremaul out of the cache egg. And then she rushes forward - as she passes one of the pillows on the way she kicks it into Aegis' face, and takes advantage of this distraction to land a powerful, sweeping blow.
Flurry - open the egg and draw the goremaul (1 mote spent), attack, prepare a parry.
Attack roll: [roll0]

[Yuki Akuma]

"Oh, Mars..." Tiger Blossom can't help but stare at Aegis. "Jellyfish totem? What was Luna thinking?" This doesn't prevent her from shifting her stance slightly, into an almost easy, detatched stance... before rushing at Aegis!

She leaps up into the air, just as Glass Firefly strikes. That cushion to the face receives a foot to the... padding, as Tiger Blossom stands right on Aegis for a split second... before bringing her other heel down hard onto the back of her head and leaping away, behind her.

Activatin' Joy in Adversity Stance (again) for 5 peripheral motes - no point trying to be discrete now! And also an attack:

Kick! [roll0] 7B raw damage.


Personal Essence: 8/14
Peripheral Essence: 16/39
Commited - Starmetal Hearthstone Bracers - 4
(Windhands Gemstone)
- Starmetal Baneclaw - 2
- Starmetal Baneclaw - 2


HEALTH
-0 [ ]
-1 [ ]
-2 [ ] [ ]
-4 [ ] [ ]
Incapacitated [ ]

Soak: 2B/1L/0A
Dodge DV: 7

Punch Speed 5 | 12 accuracy | 4B | Parry 6 | Rate 3
Kick Speed 5 | 11 accuracy | 7B | Parry 4 | Rate 2
Cinch Speed 5 | 11 accuracy | 4B | Parry - | Rate 1
Baneclaw Speed 4 | 13 accuracy | 10L | Parry 7 | Rate 3

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis dodges, vaulting from side to side. Her tendrils touch the ground only lightly, and she shifts her weight effortlessly from one to another to dodge both the golden maul and the kick.

"Good! You're both quite good at this," she says, gleefully. Her boys look on with terror plastered on their faces as their mother descends to walk on her own two feet for the first time in quite a while. She raises her hands into a practiced predator's kata and...

Silver. Flashing silver. It doesn't appear as if she's moved at all--no one can move that fast--and yet the force of it strikes Tiger Blossom. And for her part, Aegis looks replendently joyous, almost intoxicated with happiness.


It was a Perfect Attack. Poor Tiger never really had a chance.

After the Sign of Mars, Tiger takes 3B damage.

Tick 5: Glass Firefly
Tick 6: Tiger Blossom
Tick 7: Aegis


Glass Firefly

2 Dice for your stunt; 4m or 1w.

Tiger Blossom

1 Die stunt; 2m

[Lochar]

"I speak for us." Greenery waves a hand to his left. "Will we continue moving this and follow, or no? You are the one with the ability of flight."

[Tengu_temp]

(I'm at max willpower, so I'll take the motes.)

"I haven't gone all-out yet. I will now."
Glass raises her left hand in front of her chest, similarily to a monk's praying gesture. Something changes slightly in her expression - it's still the same disattached boredom as before, but now it seems to be... focused disattached boredom? Suddenly, a symbol on her forehead appears - the unmistakable mark of the Twilight caste, glowing in bright red and gold light - and the Essence output is enough to create a strong gust of wind and crack the floor around her feet! The light intensifies, engulfing her whole body, and suddenly forms a much larger image around the short girl - a majestic, robed figure, the inside of its hood and sleeves glowing. With its arms spread in a messianic pose, the figure flies up - it disappears before hitting the ceiling, but nevertheless some invisible form smashes through it, leaving a hole - small shards of glass fall around the Twilight, but before they can hit the ground she is already dashing towards her opponent, the head of her maul engulfed in dancing flames of golden and red Essence. The charge ends with a leap, and an aerial, overhead blow - if the attack connects, the flames burst in a loud, blinding explosion, another gust of Essence sending all the lighter objects around flying! Glass lands on her feet behind Aegis' back, and the mark on her forehead disappears.

Using Flame From Within, spending 2 willpower and 12 motes: 1 on Spirit-Cutting Attack, 7 on First Melee Excellency, 1 on Hungry Tiger Technique, 1 on Fire and Stones Strike, 3 on Thunderbolt Attack Prana.

Attack roll: [roll0]

[The_Snark]

The vague answer is frustrating. She has to remind herself of the rule she'd set down for speaking with Shadowed Greenery: one line of inquiry at a time. Right now, they were dealing with the waste and what happened to the motes it took. She can ask about his unseen companion later.

He could just be a madman, you know. Madmen sometimes hear voices. Leneine ignores the demon's whisper; she's pretty sure Darling wouldn't have bothered to speak up if it hadn't spotted the chance to imply the same of Leneine.

"Yes, continue," she says, beckoning the agata to her and climbing atop it. "I hope you aren't including me in that last we. I can't move something that heavy."

[Lochar]

"We understand."

Greenery nods, before the bogman stands before the giant tree trunk. The bogman nods. "Pick it up, master?"

Nodding once more, Greenery leans down. "We'll all have to pick up as one, two, three."

In saying three, both Greenery and bogman strain, and popping can be heard as branches snap and crumple. Amazingly, the tree's trunk lifts between the two, although the strain can be seen, mostly from Greenery. Still though, he grumbles. "Next time, I make you stronger."

Smiling in the sheer abuse of body, the two beings heave the thing between them, getting the tip of it a few dozen inches at a time, before the edge of the top of the tree is only a foot or so away from the Wastes.

"Are we ready?" Greenery asks of both Leneine and no one at the same time.

[The_Snark]

Fortunately for Leneine, the agata is smart enough to follow Greenery without her urging; all she really has to do is hold on. She's actually fairly familiar with horses and a few other riding animals—but she usually hadn't been the one doing the riding. Being comfortable around animals is not the same thing as being comfortable atop them.

"Almost. Tell him what to follow—he can fly much faster if he doesn't have to wait for one of us to direct him. Or are the motes not visible to normal sight?"

[Lochar]

Greenery shakes his head. "They don't stay visible to our normal eyes for long at all. Seconds."

Greenery looks out over the Wastes for a moment, breathing in and out before dead essence flows through him and into his eyes. Life peels away, leaving only the flow of it's Essence underneath visible to Greenery's eyes.

Grabbing the tree once more with the bogman, Shadowed Greenery hefts it into the Wastes, allowing the gray matter to begin absorbing the tree as he clambers onto the agata. "If you cannot see Essence to direct this, I shall."

[The_Snark]

"I can see it," she replies, watching the tree dissolve into Essence, "but he can't." Leneine nudges the agata forward, hoping she can control it precisely enough that they won't lose sight of the streaming motes.

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger Blossom

Tiger Blossom lunges forward, her feet barely falling before lifting up again.

"You can hit!" she exclaims as her anima flares brighter still, a crimson halo framing her face. She leans into her attack, punching with an outstretched palm. At the same time, golden Essence plays across her skin, glittering in the candlelight.

"Let's see if you can hit this," she says with a smile at the attack's zentih.


Activating Orichalcum Sheathing Stance and making a punch attack.

Punch! [roll0] (That includes a -2 Wound Penalty and a +1 Die stunt. :smallwink:)

Personal Essence: 8/14
Peripheral Essence: 15/39
Willpower: 5/6

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis of the Silvered Whorl

Aegis smiles as she shifts her weight back, spine arching to strange angles to evade Tiger's palm. Her hair-like tendrils extend downward and she ambulates backwards, landing with a thud on her silken throne. She's clapping and smiling and perhaps even laughing a little.

"Excellent. Excellent. The Sun's Chosen are everything I've heard of," she says, setting her hands in her lap. "What can I help you with?"


You're still in Combat Time, if you like. Should you choose to, Glass would attack next on Tick 10, Tiger on 11. Much like in the Hidden Temple, the choices are yours and yours alone.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass lowers her hammer, but she is still cautious - this woman might decide to attack again, and she doesn't want to be taken off-guard if that happens.
"Start by explaining who the Beloved are."

For my stunt I'll take willpower.

[GryffonDurime]

The Much Belated Duo in the Swamp

As the agata takes off and the tree slides into the Wastes, it slows. The border of the Wastes undulates around it as the material inches it's way further and further in, degrading at an ever-increasing rate. The mote fly fast--but so does the agata. You climb higher and higher into the canopy to get a better view, suddenly realizing as more and more of the Wastes come into view that it inhabits an almost perfectly circular perimeter. The motes are drawn to the epicenter: from there? They just seem to disappear. Shadowed Greenery would, perhaps, find the process not dissimilar to throwing something into the Mouth of Oblivion. It simply stops existing by all means of discernment.

Aegis of the Silvered Whorl

"My colleagues and I are the Beloved, the successors of those few Lunars who fled here at the fall of the Solar regime. I am the eldest of the three of us, but even I am just a reincarnation. But...that's what you are, right? The Solars? The ones we were...suffice to say, we thrive in the strangest grounds. The Lunar brood have strong roots," she says, addressing Glass exclusively.

[Lochar]

Shadowed Greenery looks at the center oddly. This is the first time that he's been able to see the center of the Wastes, and he watches calmly as they mimic Oblivion. "Is the Great Lady dying? Does she see what the other Masters see?"

Greenery sounds concerned, more so than he had been previously. Looking at Leneine, he motions to the Abyss like center. "Closer, perhaps? To see more of what we see?"

[The_Snark]

"Closer. Only a little closer," Leneine cautions the agata, letting it gently edge downwards a few feet. Her first thought is that the motes are simply being drawn downward and out of sight, but that did not necessarily solve the problem. If whatever was drawing in Essence had buried itself underneath reality-consuming waste, that could be just as dangerous as motes vanishing into who-knew-what.

"You said before that the waste is a natural part of the landscape, yes? Why? Do you know what made it?"

[Lochar]

Greenery pulls on the agata just slightly. "Unless you want to become part of it, no further."

Tilting his head towards the Wastes, Greenery ponders on the question. "The Great Lady made it. We assumed it was a threat to the cosm, so I have to see if it is correctable. We cannot see what has changed in it's purpose. I only need to know what causes it to expand, and if that can be stopped."

[Tengu_temp]

"Who are the other two? What do you know about Lache, Sonnerie and Mykete?" The Twilight is more interested in asking questions than answering Aegis' rhetorical ones.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom stands on three limbs - her legs and her left hand - after recovering from her earlier attack. She's panting, just slightly - she used a lot of Essence just now!

She frowns, standing up straight. "Chosen of...? Uh. Okay, if you're sure..." Her Caste Mark - which is obviously the symbol of Mars - is still glowing.

[GryffonDurime]

Tiger Blossom and Glass Firefly

"Not you," Aegis says, turning to Tiger Blossom with a look of disgust. Not personal disgust, mind you: the sort of disgust reserved for people you've only learned to hate from secondhand gossip. "I know what you are."

And then her expression goes blank, her eyes glaze over briefly. She shakes herself free of it.

"I do. I think," she says, less certain now. "Sparrow?" she asks. One of her sons steps forward, a tightly-rolled bolt of silk in his hand. He bows low as he hands it to her. She unravels it slowly, holding it lengthwise like a soft scroll.

"Chosen of Mars. One who led the slaughter of the Solar Host. Sidereal," she says, looking up at Tiger Blossom as if her suspicions needed confirming. By all appearances, Aegis is a creature of singular focus.

Upon the Agata

By Leneine's calculations, morning is just breaking over Creation and here, in this world, the opposite is true: unlit as it is by any sort of sun, the only hint that night is upon the pair of you is the dimming of the forest's ambiance: the luminous moss dulls to a pale blue color, and beneath you the Wastes begin to contract--not terribly, not severely, but consistently. A few feet are reclaimed, barren soil but not infertile.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom rubs the back of her head. "Uh... huh. A Lunar who knows what I am. That's novel." She tilts her head to one side. "...For what it's worth, I was... probably a member of the Gold Faction back then. The ones who supported the Solar Host."

She frowns. "I think. I don't remember much from my first life. I am a member of the Gold Faction now at any rate..."

[Tengu_temp]

Glass stares at her companion for a while - not an extremely long one, but long enough to become uncomfortable. What thoughts might gather behind those calm, dark eyes? She probably is wondering is Tiger worthy of her trust - won't she betray her, or perhaps manipulate her...
"I see.", Glass says, her voice completely indifferent. Then she turns to Aegis again. "Could you answer my questions?"

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis

"Yes. I can," Aegis replies, handing the bolt back to Sparrow. She sits there, blank-faced, as if waiting for something.

"Oh!" she says, suddenly realizing. "You wanted me to answer them. You really should learn to be more direct. I thought that was how Solars worked," she said at last, her tone clear that that really wasn't how she thought Solars worked at all.

"Those three...they're...oh gods, what would you call them? They're souls. Second Circle Souls. <<Ra'thi,>>" she adds. The word itself is dangerously close to the Old Realm word for demon. All things considered, it most likely refers to the component soul of a true Primordial.

[The_Snark]

"It's receding?" Leneine asks rhetorically, leaning forward slightly to get a better look. The agata is drifting upwards slightly, thanks to Greenery's warning, but she's not unhappy with that. Hovering close above something that could unmake her is... unnerving. "Yes it is. Strange. Was its expansion a one-time event, or does it go in cycles?"

She glances backwards, taking in the drop in light. The part of her that is attempting to keep track of what time she thinks it is back in Creation (as anyone familiar with the connections between Malfeas and Creation knows, time does not always run the same in different worlds) notes that it is around dawn. "Very strange. It's as if both the living and unliving parts of this place are becoming quiescent. Does the forest normally dim like that?"

[Tengu_temp]

Glass does not seem fazed by Aegis and her annoying demeanor.
"Alright. I have seen one of them use a weird artifact, called a Token - what are the abilities of those items, and how do they relate to cosms? They seem important."

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis

"You've got the wrong idea," Aegis begins, standing from her throne to approach Glass, hands tucked neatly behind her back in a thoughtful posture. "The Token is not a type of thing, it is the thing itself. Singular. As I understand it, the Token used to be part of Gesetz, their 3rd Circle Soul. No idea what happened, just that all seven of them keep fighting over it. It's better than letting Gesetz make his own decisions again, from what I hear," she says, turning away to inspect a growing sandstorm on the horizon.

"Crane, go fetch me one of our windborn. I don't like the look of this weather."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom is just fading into the background, listening intently and not really doing much in particular. She doesn't have anything to say, really!

[Tengu_temp]

An almost invisible nod.
"I see. What can you tell me about the nature of the cosms? Are any people living on them native to them, or have they all arrived here from beyond the portal years ago? What are the ways of traveling between various cosms?"
Glass has most of the full picture already in her head - or so she thinks - but as long as there's an opportunity to ask more questions, she'll keep doing that until she's satisfied.

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis

Aegis doesn't turn as Crane moves to fetch a windborn--whatever that is. The sandstorm on the horizon is approaching, crossing a sandbar purple like a wound. The storm gathers a fine mist as it does so.

"I can count the number of creatures not native to the cosms on one hand," she says, unfurling a clenched fist to reveal five fingers: "The pair of you, Shadowed Greenery, and the Yellow Empress," she counts down, leaving only a thumb. She swivels to face them at last.

"The Portal hasn't opened in years, and before that? Not since the overthrow of the Solars," she says.

[Yuki Akuma]

"That doesn't mean the creatures of the cosms are natives. It could simply mean their ancestors came here before the Usurpation."

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis shrugs.

"A fair enough assumption. I only claim them to be native because the cosms, so far as I can tell, change you." Crane returns as Aegis finishes, bringing one of the blue-skinned women with him. He blushes and presents her to his mother. Aegis opens her mouth as if to speak but the windborn's eyes are already on the horizon.

"It's too strong," she says, calmly. "We'll have to wait it out."

Aegis furrows her brow and heaves a heavy sigh, motioning. Her sons rush about, and all at once a layer of thin gossamer falls over each pavillion and tent, tinting the world a soft white. Her sons return with a small group of servants and a collection of boxes and platters.

"My apologies, ladies," Aegis says, motioning to the pillows her sons are setting out on the floor. "The sandstorms of the cosm are dangerous, even for an Exalt. It would be best if you stayed here for the duration."

She shifts about on her tendrils, finally seating herself before transforming back into her human shape.

"The best way to travel the cosms is on the back of any aerial steed, or in any airship. Or even by wing, if either of you can manage that," she says with a wink. "Once the storm is passed, I shall see what I can do to provide you with what transportation we can spare to spirit you back to the Portal."

[Tengu_temp]

"What could you tell me about Shadowed Greenery and Yellow Empress? Maybe we should meet them.", asks Glass. She doesn't feel like returning to the portal yet - there is such a variety of different worlds out here that at least one of them must hold the secrets to powerful medicine unknown in Creation.

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis' brow raises a bit, a look of concern washing over her. Even still, she attends to the questions first:

"Shadowed...well, he's...I have no idea. Calls himself an Abyssal, whatever that is. He's mad. Sticks to his own cosm. You just came from there. The Yellow Empress...she's one of those things we're supposed to hate. Sparrow? What are they? Rargna?"

"Raksha," Sparrow says timidly.

"Raksha," Aegis says. "She keeps to herself, too. Usually. But you really must return to your world. The portal...it's unpredictable. If it's not closed now, it will be soon. Luna only knows if it'll be closed for a day or for a thousand years."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom seems to be almost surprised at the word 'Abyssal'. "...Abyssal Exalted. The Chosen of the Neverborn. They're... corrupted Solar Exaltations. They're sometimes called Death Knights, and you can probably guess at what they do from that name."

[Tengu_temp]

"That'd be the reasonable course of action." If one listens really carefully, they could hear the hints of disappointment in the Twilight's voice. She already plans to research the portal more thoroughly from the other side, hoping to find out what causes it to open and close and establish a more stable passage.

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis of the Silvered Whorl removes the cover from a platter to reveal an array of fruits: some small, some large, some golden and others the colors of wine. She offered the platter, taking a small silvered berry for herself.

"I do not mean to question or discern what is best for the pair of you. But from all I know--legends and histories--your Creation needs you. That three Lunar Exaltations have remained here is a sign of the Lady's favor. But the Lady is not Creation, and she does not need the succor of Exalts," Aegis says. At first, it had seemed as if Luna was the lady in reference but that is...less certain. The sandstorm has arrived, striking fiercly against the gossamer veil only to be rebuffed.

"Gaia opened herself to you for a reason. It's not my place to question, as I said. I can only suggest that Creation needs you more than she does."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom pauses for a moment. "So this Lady of yours is a Primordial? We're inside a Primordial's world-body..." She tilts her head to one side. "In retrospect this explains why there's even a reality here. Although I suppose it could have been some sort of artifact..." She hmms. "...I wonder what the elemental poles are here?"

Tiger Blossom pauses for another moment.

"Wait wait... Gaia? So... but isn't she in Yu-Shan? This... okay, this is making my head hurt..."

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis blinks.

"You...you did not know? That is where you are," she said, arms raised upward, motioning to encompass everything. "You are in Gaia. This place...it is her. Mykete, Lache, Sonnerie, Gesetz--they are her souls. Not all of them, mind, but a handful. That is the Primordial nature: to be both place and personae, to be legion."

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom gives Aegis a Look. It's a very good Look. "Yes thank you I know that. But not all places are primordials. This could have been a very well-made artifact born from some primordial's boredom..."

Oh, and by the way, Tiger Blossom just had an epiphany, and her Lore increased to 5. Go go Sidereal education!

[Tengu_temp]

While Glass listens intently, she cannot participate in the conversation, for a different matter occupies her at the moment - sitting down by the platter, she starts to devour the fruits, making sure to taste every single possible kind. She does not eat voraciously like an animal, her pace is ordinary and completely acceptable - she just doesn't stop, the moment she finishes one fruit she immediately reaches for another, without any breaks. And her expression doesn't change at all, as if she was doing something completely mundane.

[Lochar]

"We have seen it in cycles as it goes. But I have never seen it's cycle of growth so large. It would take a very, very long cycle of recediation for it to return to it's natural size."

[The_Snark]

"I see. Something has thrown the cycle off, then. Do you know of anything that could have done that? Some sort of unusual event that happened recently?" As the agata carries them back towards the edge of the wasteland, a thought occurs to her. "Such as the portal opening?"

[Tengu_temp]

Without any indication as to why, Glass stops eating, gets up and approaches Aegis again. She might have simply been satiated now, but at least a change of pace would indicate that.
"Your son brought you a scroll - do you have a library here? Can I take a look at it?"

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis shrugs yet again.

"I suppose you could call it a library. It's rather sparse. The lion's share of our lore is passed down through Charms. Only those things which can not be trusted to our Charms are written down...and those facts of our world which must be accessible to mortals. Either way, I wouldn't advise leaving during the storm, and once it's over it would be best if you started back for the portal," Aegis concludes, folding her arms.

"I mean, if you were looking for a library, this isn't the right cosm and I'm not the right Lunar," she adds, letting herself enjoy a soft titer. It comes out violent and hungry, like the laughter of sharks.

[Tengu_temp]

"Who are the other two Lunars and what cosms do they inhabit?" Glass seems to ignore her host's predatory laugh.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom frowns and crosses her arms. "I am on a mission from Heaven. I, at least, will not be going back to the Portal any time soon, so you can stop trying to convince us of that."

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis folds her arms together and her tendrils of hair follow suit, tightening into a taut plait.

"Heaven had no authority here," she proclaims, "and if you stay here, you may never be able to return from whence you came. That is the danger you're facing: isolation, exile. Decide carefully before you go about, waving the name of Heaven here."

A change comes over Aegis: a silvered wisp of light flares and spreads over her form, revealing a spectral body. It's a man, tall and strong bodied. Wings like a bat's sprout from his back and wrap around his torso like a cloak. When Aegis speaks, his lips move as well, and his voice fills her voice. "Where was Yu-Shan when the Solar Host was slaughtered? Where is Yu-Shan today, when Gaia suffers? That name buys you nothing here, spider-chaser."

The ghostly form fades and Aegis looks about, clearly startled. All around her, the storm is fading. She nods to her sons and they begin the process of removing the gossamer veils and the same happens across the tent city. Crane--or perhaps Sparrow, they look so much alike--rushes out and returns with two large insectile creatures the size of horses. One is bronze-shelled and crowned with tufts of bright green hair, and the other is slimmer and silver, with wings like thin sheets of lapis lazulli.

"The other Lunars...Humble Jian and Gilt-River Nettle. Jian...Jian's probably on the Abiding Lily Symphonium and...oh, yes, you won't know how to navigate the cosms..." she says, still shaking a bit. Sparrow offers her a small silver disc. She offers it gingerly, tapping a finger to the center. An image of countless spheres flares into life over the disc.

"We are here," she says, touching the ghostly image of a sphere towards the northern cluster. It lights under her touch and Old Realm glyphs flare gently: Wandering Moonlit Coast. "Humble Jian is here," she says, lighting the sphere at the center of the image. "Nettle is here," she adds, touching one of the worlds in the bottom-most cluster: according to the glyphs, Crimson Borderlands Forest. Finally, she points out the world you entered on, home to the Portal: Ancient Slumbering Marsh.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tiger Blossom's head tilts slowly to one side. "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn about what you think of Heaven. I'm still on a mission to protect Creation and I'm not going to stop until the mission is fulfilled. Understood?"

[GryffonDurime]

Aegis doesn't flinch under the weight of Tiger Blossom's admonitions. Her gaze is fixed on her upturned palm. She clenches and unclenches her fingers slowly, mechanically.

"If you intend to stay, you'll learn. Gaia is not Creation, though they are entwined. In ways you can't even imagine. There is no Gaia-Ruling Mandate. What authority I have was given to me by her personally. In the end, though, what you do now is your own choice. I wash my hands of the pair of you," Aegis says. The words seem to disturb her as she speaks them, echoes of that ghostly man's voice still playing in her tone. She hands the silvered disc over, the map of Gaia.

[Tengu_temp]

"We will do what we'll consider the best course of action. Thank you for your help.", says Glass, taking the disk from Aegis and putting it into her bag. She doesn't seem to care about the argument that just took place, or about the spectral man, at all. The Twilight mounts the second of the insects and lifts off - she doesn't have any specific destination in mind, though, at least for now, and waits for Tiger to join her.
"We should find someone with more scholarly interests. They might know more about the portal.", she says, once they're both out of Aegis' hearing distance (assuming the Sidereal really joins her, of course).

[Lochar]

Greenery sighs. "It goes in cycles, yes, yes. But the growth cycle has been larger than the reduction cycle, yes. Hmm..."

Greenery counts quietly to himself, actually ticking off on his fingers for a moment. "We recall the wretches saying it had been before my arrival. We do not have enough information here, although we have collected quite a bit, you and us."

Nodding to himself, he continues. "Jian might have more information, or at least know where to go. We met him a while back." Greenery grins, remembering asking the Beloved if he could use parts of him for his works. The man had laughed and said no. "He is a scholar of sorts. More than the wretches at least."

Poking the agata below, he questions Leinene. "To the Abiding Lily Symphony? Straight up away from our <<cosm>>, to that one."

[Yuki Akuma]

The Sidereal does, in fact, join Glass Firefly, holding her hands behind her head as she walks along. "...I honestly have no idea where we should go. I don't tend to get very... robust instructions. I'll just keep following you, Solars have a way of attracting Fate..."

[GryffonDurime]

The Sun and the Star

The mounts take off, their wings working at impossible speeds. The strange creatures produce a sound nothing like a normal insectile buzz--it's softer, more like a hum. Glass takes the silvered disc from her pocket and taps it's center: the map blares back into existence. The pair follow it with only the minorest confusion: it is, admittedly, disorienting to try and follow a guide in three dimensions. The mounts dive low, thin legs brushing the smokey cloudcover over a dark and fiery cosm below. Just beyond, a sphere of perfect green crests from behind it: the Abiding Lily Symphonium.

And landing presents it's own troubles. As they near it, it becomes clear that the green covering the cosm is not just plant life--the water itself is green and calm. Great vines climb out of it's surface and twine themselves into latticework towers, a wonder of Gaian architecture. They find a clearing: a small isle of plant matter on the surface of the water. As the mounts descend to it, it quivers only lightly under the weight. Whatever time has passed is beginning to take it's toll on the pair: darkness falls over the cosm, and they realize how truly tired they've become.

Princes of Stranger Suns

The agata settles fitfully upon the surface of the Abiding Lily Symphonium. All around, it's storming: rain tumbles from the curved silver clouds overhead and fire refracts in the churning green water. You've landed on a large, fleshy petal the size of most sandbars. About a mile before you is a visible structure: Greenery's familiarity with the tales of this cosm have guided him here, to the Palace. It's a round building, impressively tall and topped with many onion-shaped turrets. A soft sound of distant music suffuses the air, drums beating in time with the raindrops and brass that struck in time with lightning.


Flight was a good six hours for Glass and Tiger, more like ten for Leneine and Greenery. The cosms all appear to have different time cycles, if that helps.

[The_Snark]

Although she still has a number of questions to ask, Leneine finds it rather difficult to talk while on an ascending agata; she manages only a few shouted questions concerning the nature of a <<cosm>> before falling silent for most of the trip, contemplating and trying to decide what to do.

This was no irrelevant curiosity, whatever the Althing had thought about her desires. If nothing else, it was a place where Fate's laws did not prevent the Yozi's children from entering; it could be used as a gate into Creation, if the portal could be made to stay open (or, better still, to open and close upon command). That alone would be useful. And if her suspicions were correct, and the Great Lady was a Primordial...

It would either be one she'd never heard of (could new Primordials arise from the Wyld? They had originated there, so presumably yes), or Gaia; Autochthon was ruled out by gender. She had very little idea what the Yozis would wish regarding a new or forgotten sister. Assist them in breaking free? For that matter, what would the unknown Primordial think of the Yozis?

If it were Gaia... that was simpler in some ways, but more complex in others. She knew what Malfeas would wish for the traitor Primordial: kill her fetich, maim her body, break or even destroy her. The possibility that it would create a new Neverborn might temper even his rage, but perhaps not; and if he ordered it, She Who Lives In Her Name would support him. He was king; that was proper, if unwise. Cecelyne... she had little idea what Cecelyne would order. More, she wasn't sure whether she ought to listen. A whole, free Primordial: was that not good for Creation? A hint of what Leneine was working towards? Admittedly, that Primordial was flawed, but still... She had no idea what had prompted Gaia's betrayal, but perhaps that part of her could be... excised. It could be done, using the same process she was formulating to reforge the Yozis.

Of course, she wasn't nearly ready for that; killing a demon of the Third Circle (or whatever equivalent soul Gaia might possess) was far beyond her, and she still needed to find a way to control the replacement soul's formation. But the Exalted of the First Age had done it once, when breaking and chaining the Yozis; she knew it could be done. Kill one of a Yozi's component souls, and the Yozi would change; change the Yozi enough, and in the proper ways, and the prison constructed for them would no longer hold. She just had to figure out how to be sure they would change in the right ways.

The storming rain brings her out of her thoughts, which by now have turned to the effects that past soul-deaths had had upon the Yozis, a mental categorization of current Third Circle souls, and what effects their deaths might have. "This is the Abiding Lily Symphonium? Jian's home?" she asks, just to be certain. "And he is... a student of this place? A native, or an immigrant like us?"

[Tengu_temp]

With but a slight not in response to her companion's words, Glass Firefly is quiet for the whole, long journey. Once they finally arrive at their destination and land on the island, she leaps off the mount and stretches, letting out a long, if quiet yawn. Then she turns to Tiger.
"Humble Jian should be nearby. Let's find that Lunar."

[Lochar]

Greenery shrugs. "Jian is a Beloved, born of the wretched. He comes here, though he should not. The Great Lady ordained that none would live here, yet none argue with our presence."

[The_Snark]

"I... see." So the Great Lady was not especially strict in enforcing her orders, and her followers were lax about obeying. That was odd, but good to know. "Well, shall we see if we can find him?"

She starts walking toward the palace-like building before them, though she lets Shadowed Greenery take the lead if he shows any sign of wanting to do so. He has a better idea of who they're looking for, after all.

[Lochar]

"We have met Jian before, but this is the alpha for my meeting him here. Yes."

Greenery walks next to Leneine, into the palace ahead. After a moment, he speaks. "The Great Lady is fickle, in that she takes after her paramour. But do not get us wrong, when she chooses she is most stringent."

[The_Snark]

Leneine nods. "I see. Such as when choosing her Beloved?"

After a second of deliberation, she adds another question. She suspects she knows the answer, but it's always best to be sure. "And the Lady's paramour is?"

[GryffonDurime]

Black and Green Suns

As the pair of you approach the white palace, the music grows in intensity, volume, tempo, and variety: it's not just one song, but more than a hundred different songs somehow finding a harmony. Each hits at the right moment, trading power and dominance in something that sounds like...like a dance.

The palace itself is colder on the inside than even the chill of the rainy marsh: icicles cling to ivory banisters and flowers the size of human heads carpet the ground. Outcroppings of stone are alight with a kind of cracked heat--they look like cooling magma that just can't ever get cold enough.

Making your way to the central chamber--it seems the most likely place to start--proves easy enough: you can glimpse a great spring and the music swells, making your bones vibrate like plucked strings.

"What do you think you're doing here, Shadowed?" a voice calls from behind you. A small frog, blue and speckled, drops from a balcony in a great leap before standing, not a frog but a man, still speckled with azure. His tone is more inquisitive than adversarial, though his word choice belies poor graces.

Sun and Star

Glass Firefly and Tiger Blossom wander their surroundings as best they can, but find neither building nor soul. Aegis, witch that she is, was kind enough to tell you the cosm but not the relative location of Jian. It's a big world, afterall.

You climb aboard your mounts again and scour the cosm from horizon to horizon, finally landing when in sight of a great white palace covered in onion-shaped turrets. As you approach, a great bee-like thing the size of a tiger and twinged by crystal rears up at you, angrily.

[Lochar]

Greenery had apparently not heard Leneine's question, regardless of the number of times she might have repeated it.


Once inside the palace, Greenery turned at the voice. "We are here for much of the same reasons you are, Beloved. My cosm has an issue, yes." He pauses. "A riddle. What acts as the Void, but lives in the Great Lady? The Wastes eat our cosm alive as it does not reduce as it may grow."

[Tengu_temp]

"I am pretty sure we will find Humble Jian in this majestic building.", says Glass, without as much as a hint of sarcasm or irony in her voice. And then the giant insect approaches, causing her to stop her mount and reach into her Cache Egg for Sun's Battering Ram again.
"Are you sentient?", she asks in Old Realm. It probably isn't, but who knows for certain?

[GryffonDurime]

Glass and Tiger

The creature--a demonic agata--rears back at Glass' inquiry, head raising triumphantly. Yes, it seems quite safe to say it is sentient. At least, enough to understand you. Body language is a powerful thing--it can convey nearly any emotion. And though most languages have never nailed down a single word for the concept, "Get the Hell away from me and my master and this entire tiny planetoid" is most assuredly an emotion, and one that the agata is telegraphic vigorously with much flapping of it's glassy wings and rumbling of it's innards.

Inside the Palace

"Your Wastes are expanding too, then, Shadowed? That's worrisome...Nettle told me hers are a good half-acre larger than they should be. Is it cycling? At all?" Jian asks, removing a pair of spectacles from his vest pocket. He's a tall man, the sort that looks to have been stretched on the rack. He's dressed in taut leather and bright silks all dyed blues of varying shades. His eyes suddenly wander towards Leneine and he smiles--his mouth is impossibly wide, like a toad's mad grin.

"And who is this?"

[Lochar]

"Cycling, a bit, yes. But we think it only cycles down no more than half what cycles up by. Like birthing contractions, the babe only goes one way." Greenery tilts his head again, listening to something. "Since before our arrival it has been happening, but I feel it may be strengthening through the influx of the stone's magics."

[The_Snark]

"Leneine." She extends a hand, studying the man's froglike face with undisguised curiosity. It was not hard at all to remember that he'd been a frog a few moments ago. "I arrived through the gateway not too long ago. And you are Jian, Beloved of the Great Lady?" It is a question, but only for politeness' sake.

[Tengu_temp]

"We haven't come here to fight - we came here to talk with your master, and I am sure he would be interested in talking with us too. We arrived from beyond the gate - if you think this is not enough to spark your master's interest, you can go and ask him."

[GryffonDurime]

From Humble Jian

"She's only a great lady some of the time," Jian replies with his smile widdening to a dangerous grin--should lips stretch that far? Could they break, like rope pulled too taut? You can almost hear the difference in capitalization when he mentions his patron. "I mean, sometime she's great, and sometimes she's a lady, but really they needn't overlap. Humble Jian, No-Moon of the Lunar Host," he says, taking Leneine's hand to give it a politely delicate kiss.

"I doubt it's the portal's doing, Shadowed," Jian says, turning on his heel without missing a beat. He motions for them to follow and leads them down the corridor to the center of the palace, speaking louder and louder to counteract the growing sound of music.

"The Wastes started their growth trend before you came through," he managed over a particularly violent bout of harp-music. "And if it was the portal, there would have been a surge each time it opened. They're close, but the correlation's just not--"

He's still talking, but his voice fades to less than nothing in the face of overwhelming noise. At the end of the corridor is a gossamer curtain, and Jian pulls it aside, motioning for them to follow.

Inside, they find a huge, domed chamber. A great mass of flesh throbs at it's center, a great green organ suspended from the ceiling by delicate adamant tubules. The tubules cover the dome and carpet the chamber, pumping mysterious liquids of radiant color. Tiny insects--mechanical, or at least not natural--skitter about the chamber, tending the tubes. They're fat and pink, like four-legged peaches. As you stop to inspect any given tube, you notice that the motion of the liquid through adamant is the source of the resonant music--different colors and speeds result in different sounds and tones.

Jian looks back at the pair of you and gestures--the words come from his body language alone, supplanted by a flash of silvered essence.

Apologies. It's a bit loud. Overwhelming even, he pantomimes, but as far as I can tell, this-- he points to a particularly thick collection of tubules that join into one before entering the pulsing heart-thing. This is section that describes the wastes. And their song has been growing. Louder. Steadily. There's a flow, but not enough to counteract the growth trend. The portal's line is over there-- he points to another tube that's currently still and empty.

It doesn't play very often.

The Agata

The demonic thing buzzes brightly and then makes a crystalline hiss. It's not going to fight you per se, but it's definately not a fan of your presence. As the pair of you pass it and enter the palace, you findyourselves flanked on all sides by ivory finery draped with traces of the five terrestrial elements--flames dance across the stair rails and ice hangs like crystalline teeth from the maws of archways. Stairs on either side of the entrance hall lead to the second floor, and a hallway before you leads on for as far as you can see into the distance. The sounds of music grow as you approach the center hallway.

[Lochar]

Greenery is understandable awed over the system. Stepping forward after Jian's explanation, he begins his own examination. Looking at the tubes that were for the Wastes, he left his hands on it as he opened his eyes once again to only the Essence that ran through there. He would try to trace back to where the Wastes began their flow here.

[The_Snark]

Leneine motions as if trying to reply in kind, gesturing first to the Symphonium's heart and then away from it, but she quickly realizes her body language lacks Jian's supernal clarity; her question may have a simple yes-or-no answer, but the question itself is not simple. Frustrated, she looks around for something she could write with, but short of killing one of the insects and writing in its blood (or blood surrogate), which would be decidedly wasteful, she can't see anything.

She moves to Jian, standing on tiptoe and tugging at his shoulder so that she can try to shout into his ear. "Does this place mirror the world, or does the world mirror this place?"

[Tengu_temp]

Glass follows the music - what else can she do? Well, apart from staring analysingly at all the wonders in the palace, which she does as well - it seems that Humble Jian possesses enough knowledge not only to summon demons, but also to work in elements with great skill. Good, they're on the right track.

[GryffonDurime]

United

Shadowed looks down on the tubes and finds that Essence sight reveals the same facts as his normal senses--what flows through these tubes is not liquid per se but liquified essence, pure and undilute.

A bit of both, Jian says with a shrug. There's something like this in your world, Creation. They call it--

"The Loom."

How the small voice pierces the awful din neither Jian nor his newfound companions know, but the insect-like things turn and chitter playfully as Tiger Blossom enters the chamber, Glass Firefly behind her.

No, I think they call it the Limbs of Fate. They're trees, you see, Jian replies, smiling beatifically.

[Lochar]

If they'd been trees, they would have chopped them down long ago. Greenery thinks to himself, projecting his disdain as he continues to follow the essence, looking for the beginning of the flow that is the wastes, and looking for what might be causing it's notes to play loudest.

[The_Snark]

Leneine turns in surprise as the newcomer's voice cuts through the room. Does everyone but me have some way of speaking in here? She agrees, though. No matter what Jian says about trees, this matches well with the little she knows of Heaven's Loom of Fate.

Her first thought is to ask how the girl is making herself heard, but she can't through the noise; her second thought is to ask their names, but she can't do that either. Her third is to ask Jian whether he knows them, and she actually could do that if she shouted into his ear again, but at this point she's getting tired of the deafening noise.

"We should go outside," she mouths silently, pointing to her mouth (and the lack of sound coming from it) and then towards the door to make sure her message gets across.

[Tengu_temp]

Glass Firefly looks at the curiosities inside the hall - the fleshy organ, and the insects that tend to it, and the people gathered here. She can make a good guess which one is Humble Jian (he is a man, after all, and probably not the burnt one), but who are the other two? His servants, his guests? Only one way to find out. She has no desire (and probably not even the ability) to shout over the music, so she responds to the woman's suggestion with a nod, and heads towards the door she pointed at.

[GryffonDurime]

Humble Jian rubs his brow and motions for them to leave down the hall. The ears of all assembled ring for quite some time as they walk down the lengthy hallway. Jian rushes ahead and opens a door, shepherding them into an adjoining foyer with merciful insulation that keeps a rather healthy silence in the room despite the way that the music pervades the rest of the palace. Inside, Jian seats himself on one of the room's many strangely-shaped recliners.

"So," he says a bit too loudly, ears still buzzing. "What can I do for you ladies?" he says, turning to Tiger and Glass with that all-too wide smile. He winks at Leneine.

[Tengu_temp]

Unlike their host, Glass does not sit down. His tone and smile don't seem to bring a reaction in her, either - her face remains calm and sleepy, and her voice monotone and with little emotion.
"Are you Humble Jian? My name is Glass Firefly. I have come from beyond the green portal, like my companion, and have questions for you regarding its nature. Do you know how long will it remain open once it activates, and is there a way to make it active?"
As usual, she doesn't beat around the bush.

[GryffonDurime]

"Direct. Forceful. Blunt. Rather like a mace blow, aren't you?" Jian asks of Glass, smiling. Most would wager that you could fit a yeddim in that mouth. "I value that in a Creationborn. Or a Gaiaborn, for that matter," Jian adds. All of a sudden he backflips out of his chair and onto the wall, his skin taking on the slick blue sheen of his Deadly Beastman Transformation.

"If you've come through the portal, I regret to inform you that it is closed. Essence has been diverted away from the maintanence of it's song. You've seen the tube. It's lifeless. Inert. It last opened five years ago. Before that? Centuries. I'd wager the number of times it's been activated could be counted on two hands...even my hands," he says, offering up his transformed hands: four fingers apiece. "So far as I know, nothing short of Gaia herself can open it."

[Tengu_temp]

"I see." Glass does not sound worried, although even if she actually was worried, that'd be hard to tell. She has things to do here that might take quite a bit of time, after all, and when she's done and wants to return to Creation, she would find a way somehow.
"Who created the portal? Was it Gaia herself? Do you know how is it built, how it functions?"

[Lochar]

Greenery looks at Firefly, a questioning look on his own face. "We would know why you ask. You would not normally be allowed even this deep into the center, and I think..." he pauses, tilting his head and listening to the air beside him. "you are not the Great Lady to control her functions."

[Tengu_temp]

"That might be true. It also might turn out that the portal is easy to control, or to copy and recreate. The only way to know is to perform extensive research."
Glass doesn't raise her voice. She never does.

[The_Snark]

Leneine has spent enough time with Shadowed Greenery to know that the man might only confuse matters further by trying to explain. "I think what he meant is, why did you come here in the first place? This place is Gaia's heart, in a way—it isn't something that any outsider is allowed to see, much less experiment on. I gather that even they aren't supposed to be here without a reason. You couldn't have entered the portal with the sole intention of finding a way to get back to the side you started on, could you? What did you want here?"

[Tengu_temp]

"I was curious. I am a travelling healer, this place was as good a destination as any other."
Glass answers this in her usual tone everyone who knows her for more than several minutes gets quickly used to - monotone and seemingly uninterested, as if she just woke up and was forced to talk about a boring family meeting instead of admitting she entered a mysterious portal that could lead anywhere basically for the heck of it.
"I believe this place holds many secrets that will interest me. A lot of plants and animals are different here than in Creation - there is a high probability some of them possess properties useful in treating wounds and illnesses, possibly even those previously thought to be incurable."

[Lochar]

"We think your answer now has little meaning as to your answer before. I would question you again. Why do you wish control over something that does not become you? Restore balance to the Great Lady with your Medicine, and She is likely to grant you your leave from her borders." Greenery looks at Glass, his head cocked almost ninety degrees onto his shoulder, staring at her as if she might become his next experiment, instead of allowing this interloper to intrude upon the Great Lady's innermost sanctum to do things he could not allow to harm.

[Tengu_temp]

"I want to be able to return to Creation when I am done here. Being able to control the portal is a mean to accomplish this goal, not the goal itself."
The short girl endures Greenery's stare with no change to her expression, or her tone - both are as lacking in emotion as ever. Although... When she heard the part about restoring balance, something deep in her eyes have changed. As hard to notice as it is, they've become a bit more... compassionate.
"Tell me more about Gaia's lack of balance."

[GryffonDurime]

"Controlling the portal is not so much the issue. I could tell you how to do it right now. It simply requires Essence," Jian says flatly, seating himself comfortably on the upper shelves of the room. "By my calculations, nearly a thousand motes a second."

[Lochar]

Shadowed looks at Glass, nodding. "We do not create that much Essence, do you? But as to the imbalance, did you think the song of the Great Lady was in harmony? I have only just seen it myself, and yet we sense that the lady is not in control as she would care to be. Something unbalanced her, as such the symphony plays improperly."

[Tengu_temp]

Everything is clear now. Most probably, the sole reason the portal was open was to lure in someone who would be able to help with the imbalance. Maybe even precisely Glass... And even if they wanted to leave when Aegis told them to, the portal would be closed already - Gaia wouldn't let go of someone who's able to help her. But that's fine - Glass, as a healer, has her responsibilities. She gives a barely noticable nod.
"It is my duty to aid the sick and injured. I will help."

[The_Snark]

Leneine studies the dark-skinned girl as if seeing her for the first time. A traveling healer who pledged to help an ailing Primordial, as if it were of no consequence. I can give you something for that cough. I would like eggs for breakfast. I will help restore Gaia's balance. If she could really do it, she would be worth watching. Anyone who could heal a Primordial was worth watching.

That thought hangs in her head, burning as if with Ligier's light, as the full import of it strikes her. They were attempting to restore a Primordial to her true state. It is as if she has just emerged from a darkened building into the harsh-but-brilliant light of the Malfean sun. This is the reason she has come here—not to use the portal as a way to move demons into Creation, or to enact some pointless revenge upon the traitor Primordial, or even to bring her under her sibling's wing once more. No, any of the Infernal Exalted could have done those things, and many could have done so better than she. But the dreams had not called them. They had called Leneine, who harbored dreams of restoring her masters to their proper selves.

She might not know exactly what Gaia's proper self is, but anything she can learn about shaping a Primordial's Essence will be invaluable.

"We first noticed this," she hears herself say, "when we found an essence-consuming wasteland on one of the cosms expanding. It's apparently a natural feature, and it grows and shrinks in cycles, but something threw it off—it's growing more than it's shrinking now. I thought at first that that was the problem, but it sounds as though it might only be a side effect. If there is an imbalance, Gaia may be trying to remedy it herself, drawing Essence away from the cosms to use elsewhere. We might learn something by looking to see where the wasteland's Essence is going."

She pauses, feeling self-conscious now that she's been drawn out of her thoughts and back into the room—that had been a very lecturing tone to take with all of them. "That was how Shadowed Greenery and I noticed this, I should say," she corrects herself. "Jian found out some other way—he may have other ideas as a result. I arrived here very recently, so I'm afraid I don't know very much yet."

She holds out a hand to Glass Firefly. "I'm Leneine."