Adamant Sunrise
2012-07-08, 04:19 PM
To His Holy Eminence, the Revered Anibo Funashia,
My lord,
The glaring contempt and total neglect of the Immaculate Faith among the higher ranks of the people has, for some time, given me the depest concern; most especially among those of my own flock, whose conduct in this particular will most assuredly one day lead to their condemnation or mine, to whose care their souls have been committed. Knowing, therefore, and deeply apprehending the ruin that awaits us, I have used my utmost (but, alas! unavailing) endeavours to persuade them to attend their religious obligations; but, my lord, it is not the power of the mortal clergy, no, although they could speak with the tongues of the Dragons, to stem the torrent of blasphemy which is daily spreading through this metropolis.
The awful season of Calibration is now approaching, and I have directed a series of discourses for some weeks past to a contemplation of it; yet probably, when that day arrives, after listening to sincere and affectionate, though humble, exhortations to reflect upon it in the manner enjoined by the Authors of our religion, I shall see the greater part of my congregation turning their backs upon the sacred texts, and, with an indifference totally unaccountable, crowding out of the temple to engage in dark acts that I must now, with shame, transcribe.
To a serious mind, these practices must be most alarming. You will say, there are penal laws against such offenses; but who, my lord, shall dare to enforce them? And what purpose would it answer? Should a humble priest exercise his right of presenting them, would not ruin be the consequence to himself, from the power and resentment of their adversaries?
My lord, I must now confide in you a matter of the most serious moment. Treat it, I enjoin you, with credulity and faithfulness, for I have seen with my own eyes the events transcribed...
I
TETHYS IS A busy metropolis, a bustling hub of industry in the North, where people from dozens of cultures jockey for position with gods and monsters alike. It is, perhaps, to be expected that for every great chemist or machinist, there is a pickpocket or thug; for every scavenger lord braving forgotten ruins to bring back ancient artifice, there is a quick-witted thief and a fence willing to ignore an object’s origin when they stand to make a bit of jade. Crime goes hand-in-hand with commerce--while the Order of St. Lasarus does what they can, they have only limited resources. Often, smaller crimes, crimes without violence or those that do not touch the most privileged of the city, go unsolved, and any victim of such a crime may find the indifference of the authorities to be somewhat galling.
Xaye has, lately, found herself in that unwelcome position. She had heard the complaints of some peers and suppliers in recent weeks, telling of their stores and workshops broken into, notes and equipment scattered--in most cases with nothing at all stolen. Such trouble is easy to dismiss as being the work of jealous rivals seeking an upper-hand or to preempt someone’s success with their own, and unfortunately not something the Lasarines found of any interest. No-one hurt, no money stolen, nothing to connect the crimes--just day-to-day consequences of living in a city devoted to progress. Now, however, it's struck closer to home.
Xaye had recently managed to acquire a rare and powerful red jade accumulator from contacts in sister guilds in the Far South, obtained specially for use as a source of power in some recent experimental devices. While the jade and other components are rare and the workmanship quite delicate and precise, it is not something that most people would find easy to fence--there are not quite that many artificers who could use devices of such complexity and focused nature. It has, unfortunately, been stolen, and stolen from a laboratory shared by several guild artificers containing a number of much more easily fenced and prosaically valuable items: small ingots and slips of magical materials, relatively generic artifact ingredients, and so on.
The Lasarines, when told of the theft, offered sympathy but little else--they don’t have the manpower needed (or indeed the interest) in devoting much effort to tracking down such a theft. Her own Guild superiors were more interested and sympathetic, having some knowledge of what could be done with such a device were it to fall into the hands of a skilled and unscrupulous machinist, but they also have few resources to devote to such an investigation and lack the skills required to track down any leads or follow the trails. They have, however, been able to offer one resource: a single, small mouse beastman, a scribe and savant of languages at Archelaus Irenaeus University who has shown a knack for assisting in such endeavours. He is said to be God-Blooded and, according to the provost she dealt with, has learned a few tricks and could be useful, should things become difficult. Thus Xaye now finds herself stepping down from the streetcar and gazing up at the immense marble facade of the Scriptorium through the red haze of smog which fills these subterranean streets.
The Scriptorium is an old building, and like many old buildings in Tethys is sunk into the industrial zone known as the Pit, the lower inhabited tiers of the city's many-leveled streets. The rest of the storied University moved to higher tiers centuries ago, as Tethys's industrial sector, previously confined to the true subterranean labyrinths beneath the city, grew to envelope the streets closest to ground level. Here, the snow and ice of Ascending Air are kept at bay by the perpetual muggy heat welling up from the factory-pits below. Even the passing of day and night is indiscernible, for no light filters in from above. The streets are lit only by the topaz glare of the gas lights, or the increasingly common sodium arc-lamps that line the narrow corridors. Overhead, a twisted jungle of iron and steel between the crumbling, acid-eaten edifices blots out the sky. Far above, the immense snow-covered domes and spires of the city proper, invisible from this depth, seem almost a distant memory.
The streetcar chugs and rattles away, and the stale air is disturbed briefly by the rumbling of a train shooting along rails far overhead, casting odd shadows against the steps of the Scriptorium, where newspapers and scraps of paper accumulate. The entrance of the domed edifice is a trio of large wooden double-doors, illuminated by burning sodium lamps on either side. A clockwork servitor attending the lobby waits to direct Xaye into the depths of the ancient structure, where she may find her beastman.
Meanwhile, Aurean has been tracking the cultist who slaughtered so many of the citizens of his home and then slipped away, constructing a web of deceit that implicated the investigator himself and cast doubt on all that he had done. The trail led across the frozen steppes, through mean little villages and over busy trade-routes--and now, finally, to the raucous, smoking gem of the North, Tethys. Here, the trail vanished among the lean and sharp-eyed residents of the undercity, among career criminals and operatives skilled enough to evade all the blades of the Lasarines. However, his quarry will soon discover that there is no darkness that the Daggers of Heaven cannot pierce, no web of misdirection and obfuscation that an investigation of a Chosen of the Sun cannot untangle. He has heard whispers in the darkness, of thefts of certain objects, of some sort of plan coming together--and just recently, of an arcane device stolen from a promising young savant named Arsano Xaye.
My lord,
The glaring contempt and total neglect of the Immaculate Faith among the higher ranks of the people has, for some time, given me the depest concern; most especially among those of my own flock, whose conduct in this particular will most assuredly one day lead to their condemnation or mine, to whose care their souls have been committed. Knowing, therefore, and deeply apprehending the ruin that awaits us, I have used my utmost (but, alas! unavailing) endeavours to persuade them to attend their religious obligations; but, my lord, it is not the power of the mortal clergy, no, although they could speak with the tongues of the Dragons, to stem the torrent of blasphemy which is daily spreading through this metropolis.
The awful season of Calibration is now approaching, and I have directed a series of discourses for some weeks past to a contemplation of it; yet probably, when that day arrives, after listening to sincere and affectionate, though humble, exhortations to reflect upon it in the manner enjoined by the Authors of our religion, I shall see the greater part of my congregation turning their backs upon the sacred texts, and, with an indifference totally unaccountable, crowding out of the temple to engage in dark acts that I must now, with shame, transcribe.
To a serious mind, these practices must be most alarming. You will say, there are penal laws against such offenses; but who, my lord, shall dare to enforce them? And what purpose would it answer? Should a humble priest exercise his right of presenting them, would not ruin be the consequence to himself, from the power and resentment of their adversaries?
My lord, I must now confide in you a matter of the most serious moment. Treat it, I enjoin you, with credulity and faithfulness, for I have seen with my own eyes the events transcribed...
I
TETHYS IS A busy metropolis, a bustling hub of industry in the North, where people from dozens of cultures jockey for position with gods and monsters alike. It is, perhaps, to be expected that for every great chemist or machinist, there is a pickpocket or thug; for every scavenger lord braving forgotten ruins to bring back ancient artifice, there is a quick-witted thief and a fence willing to ignore an object’s origin when they stand to make a bit of jade. Crime goes hand-in-hand with commerce--while the Order of St. Lasarus does what they can, they have only limited resources. Often, smaller crimes, crimes without violence or those that do not touch the most privileged of the city, go unsolved, and any victim of such a crime may find the indifference of the authorities to be somewhat galling.
Xaye has, lately, found herself in that unwelcome position. She had heard the complaints of some peers and suppliers in recent weeks, telling of their stores and workshops broken into, notes and equipment scattered--in most cases with nothing at all stolen. Such trouble is easy to dismiss as being the work of jealous rivals seeking an upper-hand or to preempt someone’s success with their own, and unfortunately not something the Lasarines found of any interest. No-one hurt, no money stolen, nothing to connect the crimes--just day-to-day consequences of living in a city devoted to progress. Now, however, it's struck closer to home.
Xaye had recently managed to acquire a rare and powerful red jade accumulator from contacts in sister guilds in the Far South, obtained specially for use as a source of power in some recent experimental devices. While the jade and other components are rare and the workmanship quite delicate and precise, it is not something that most people would find easy to fence--there are not quite that many artificers who could use devices of such complexity and focused nature. It has, unfortunately, been stolen, and stolen from a laboratory shared by several guild artificers containing a number of much more easily fenced and prosaically valuable items: small ingots and slips of magical materials, relatively generic artifact ingredients, and so on.
The Lasarines, when told of the theft, offered sympathy but little else--they don’t have the manpower needed (or indeed the interest) in devoting much effort to tracking down such a theft. Her own Guild superiors were more interested and sympathetic, having some knowledge of what could be done with such a device were it to fall into the hands of a skilled and unscrupulous machinist, but they also have few resources to devote to such an investigation and lack the skills required to track down any leads or follow the trails. They have, however, been able to offer one resource: a single, small mouse beastman, a scribe and savant of languages at Archelaus Irenaeus University who has shown a knack for assisting in such endeavours. He is said to be God-Blooded and, according to the provost she dealt with, has learned a few tricks and could be useful, should things become difficult. Thus Xaye now finds herself stepping down from the streetcar and gazing up at the immense marble facade of the Scriptorium through the red haze of smog which fills these subterranean streets.
The Scriptorium is an old building, and like many old buildings in Tethys is sunk into the industrial zone known as the Pit, the lower inhabited tiers of the city's many-leveled streets. The rest of the storied University moved to higher tiers centuries ago, as Tethys's industrial sector, previously confined to the true subterranean labyrinths beneath the city, grew to envelope the streets closest to ground level. Here, the snow and ice of Ascending Air are kept at bay by the perpetual muggy heat welling up from the factory-pits below. Even the passing of day and night is indiscernible, for no light filters in from above. The streets are lit only by the topaz glare of the gas lights, or the increasingly common sodium arc-lamps that line the narrow corridors. Overhead, a twisted jungle of iron and steel between the crumbling, acid-eaten edifices blots out the sky. Far above, the immense snow-covered domes and spires of the city proper, invisible from this depth, seem almost a distant memory.
The streetcar chugs and rattles away, and the stale air is disturbed briefly by the rumbling of a train shooting along rails far overhead, casting odd shadows against the steps of the Scriptorium, where newspapers and scraps of paper accumulate. The entrance of the domed edifice is a trio of large wooden double-doors, illuminated by burning sodium lamps on either side. A clockwork servitor attending the lobby waits to direct Xaye into the depths of the ancient structure, where she may find her beastman.
Meanwhile, Aurean has been tracking the cultist who slaughtered so many of the citizens of his home and then slipped away, constructing a web of deceit that implicated the investigator himself and cast doubt on all that he had done. The trail led across the frozen steppes, through mean little villages and over busy trade-routes--and now, finally, to the raucous, smoking gem of the North, Tethys. Here, the trail vanished among the lean and sharp-eyed residents of the undercity, among career criminals and operatives skilled enough to evade all the blades of the Lasarines. However, his quarry will soon discover that there is no darkness that the Daggers of Heaven cannot pierce, no web of misdirection and obfuscation that an investigation of a Chosen of the Sun cannot untangle. He has heard whispers in the darkness, of thefts of certain objects, of some sort of plan coming together--and just recently, of an arcane device stolen from a promising young savant named Arsano Xaye.