[A Time Apart] (Current IC) What once was

"The fact is that our very minds and souls are infected. An infection mind you, that'll only get worse as we gain more power, making any good we do hollow and self-defeating. So if you really want to stick it to the Yozis, what better way then to make their last attempt at taking us with them and rendering it moot? Besides, we're Solars, reality bends to our whim. I think it's highly probable that while we're looking for a cure we'll also find out how to seal the gate off to hell for good. The two magics aren't mutually exclusive. I wouldn't be surprised if they were one and the same."
 
“Look, there’s a Charm that reveals whether an Exalt is under unnatural mental influence -- including the Great Curse. We can learn it. But what’s the point of learning it, or curing the Great Curse, if we don’t use our powers for something more than self-protection?” Grant demands. “You’ve read the books. No matter how pretty the art is, this world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, filled with tyrants and slavery and inhuman monsters that eat souls. The people who live here deserve better.”
 
"Doctors go to medical school to help themselves learn to help others, the money is just a side benefit that they happen to enjoy. It's the same here. We fix our only flaw, our one weakness, then make the world back in to a utopia the way it used to be. Otherwise we run the risk of our paradise rotting to the core all over again, just like the first age."
 
“Look, I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep our eyes open for possible cures -- including strong-arming the Neverborn into doing it themselves. But our main priority has to be other people, not ourselves,” insists Grant. “Otherwise, this power won’t make us corrupt -- we’ll be corrupt from the beginning.”
 
"False dichotomy, helping ourselves does not automatically make us corrupt. It gives us a strong foundation which will make it much much easier to help everyone else."
 
"Jake, dude." Dylan says. "The Great Curse sucks, and needs to be fixed. No one here is disagreeing with you. But we're essentially superheroes. We can't just go on a path of enlightenment and ignore everything around us. That would be a fucking crime! But..." He takes a moment to settle himself. "Maybe we're thinking too far ahead. I think we all can agree that our first priority is getting our wise and knowledgeable Nocturnal up on her feet. With any luck, she'll have a few ideas on what would be easier to accomplish. But to do that, we'll need time, lodgings, and money. I say we take out some bandits."
 
"Our maximum theoretical lifespan is in the lower end of four digits. There's no such thing as 'thinking too far ahead'. You keep comparing us to superheroes, but remember all those alternate story lines where the Justice League went mad it power and put the world under Martial Law? That sounds like Grate Curse materiel to me. Unless you can provide a good reason why we shouldn't have a strong foundation from which to better serve the world, logic dictates we go after the great curse." He stand up, and stretches slightly. Seems like even in this world he gets stiff fast. "I'll let you distract us from the debate for now, but we should come back to it soon."
 
"When we've got a bit more information, and when we're not all on edge from just becoming Exalted." Dylan grins. "You guys should go and get some more info about the bandits and the city. I'll stay with Barbara. I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving her alone."
 
"Will do, take care of her." With that, Jake left, moving out in to the streets to find the local guardsmen, he got the mans attention with a tap on the shoulder before speaking. "Excuse me sir, I understand you've been having trouble with bandits as of late. I have some training in counter-insurancy and I was wondering how I might lend my assistance."
 
Grant watches Jake rush out, eager to put his new Abilities into practice. “I suppose I’d better go after him and make sure he doesn’t get us all arrested or something…” she says, shouldering the shield and following.
 
"Be careful, alright?" Dylan shouts after Grant.


He then spends all the time he can get going through Rose's cabinets, gathering a better assortment of materials for his next attack on the poisons. Even some fine-rated tools would make it a little easier then last time.
 
Bria:


With just as much aplomb and finesse as Rose herself, you scamper up the tree, pulling yourself from trunk to limb to stick to stand. Very quickly, you find yourself eighty feet in the air, balanced on a limb no more than four inches wide, Rose sitting with her back against the trunk and her feet dangling, smiling at you. "Hey, you are pretty good." She grins and hops to her feet, the swaying branches not bothering her. "Now, we're looking for any fungus, herbs, or small mushrooms that are growing in the limbs around here. The quiet ones are always hidden in the dark, and if you whisper at them, you get no sound back. If you yell though, they'll break up and vanish on us, so try not to do that, k?"


Jake/Grant:


Grant is able to catch up to Jake just as he's questioning one of the guards, who is giving him an odd look now. "Counter-insurgency? What the hell does that mean? You mean you looking to help take a few of them out when they raid next?"


Dylan and the rest of you:


The search of Rose's infirmary returns any number of well kept tools, but nothing that is immediately eye catching, that speaks of tools that will improve his already impressive medical ability.
 
He smiled at the guard, giving him his most cheerful attitude. "It simply means that I know how to deal with people like bandits and other stray criminals who like to hide and ambush passers by. I'm against such practices and I felt I should render my assistance as a concerned citizen. Plus any bounties you might happen to have would be a nice perk. Weapons don't repair themselves you know."
 
"Uh, whisper at them, ok."


Ok, so just don't look down right?... oh right, that's where the things I am looking for are. Come on, you're Chameleon now, high in the trees is like breathing for her... Tentatively Bria looks down beyond the swaying branches her feet are clutching. At first the motion of everything makes it seem like a dream, then she focuses on a root below. Sometimes the expectation of fear is worse than confronting it. Bria finds it isn't so bad up here, oops, well, as long as you don't try sudden movements...


Shifting over a bit she starts scanning the crevasses between branch and tree for fungi.
 
"How are you holding up, Em?" Dylan says as he closes the door to one of many cabinets. He had been awfully quiet this entire time, causing Dylan some concern. "You doing okay over there?"
 
"Yeah, I'm fine." she says, shrugging. "I just...I think you're all nuts for calling this anything other than a wonderful thing. We are EXALTED now. We are basically gods. And not namby pamby dragons either, we're Solars. If we set our minds to it, we can do anything. And if you guys want that thing to be going home or something, that's your lookout, but this is the best thing that's ever happened to me."


She pauses, and winces slightly.


"...sorry, I don't mean to sound so aggressive. It just bugs me that you're all looking at this in such a bad way.


Anyway, I didn't take resources because of the whole favour thing. I'm pretty sure we can earn some resource dots in just a few days or something, if we need them. What we really need to worry about is the sidereals, since they're probably going to be coming after her. In fact, scratch the probably. They WILL be coming after her, they WILL want answers, and they WILL be powerful enough to gank all of us. We can't abandon her, so we need to find someone who can protect her, or hide her at least... maybe Lytek? I don't know why but Lytek always struck me as a pretty hoopy frood. He's also the first person to talk to about the great curse, unless we can get hold of Sol somehow."
 
"Wait, go home?" Dylan stops, as if the idea had never occurred to him. "Never. I can't speak for the others, but I'd rather spend the rest of my life fighting and running from the Sidereals, Immaculates, Deathlords, and whoever else wants a piece of us! Am I going to miss my family? My other friends? Of course, and I wish I had a chance to say goodbye. But we actually have the chance to make a real difference, and I'm not about to throw that away."


He lets himself settle down a bit. Today was the day for speeches, it seems. "I'm not worried, things tend to work themselves out, especially when there's essence involved. I don't think everyone's quite grasped what we can do yet, so until we all get a better feel, I say we should all get comfortable and try not to reveal ourselves."
 
This high up in the trees, the limbs bend and whisper along with her, as Bria finds a few little fungi that might be what Rose is looking for. After a short while, however, Bria hears a scream and looks up. There, about fifty yards away in another tree, Rose is being held up by her shirt by a brown and green skinned man, who holds a very long sword loosely in his other hand. He's saying something, but Bria is too far away to make out what.
 
"Rose!" Leaping through the branches, Bria's protective instinct kicks in as she rushes to save the healer. She wants to reach for the sling, but if she hurts him before Rose is unhanded it could go very badly... If only she could hear what he was saying..
 
"-furthermore, I was there when my master signed that treaty and no where listed was..." Bria hears as she bounds between trees, only to find the man turns as she approaches, dropping Rose.


The woman manages to catch herself, and drops to a much lower branch, looking back up with a hand clutching her breast.


"Oh, hullo. Do you have answers to why the rules have suddenly changed and the ground is now the trees and the trees are the trees and the SKY IS THE TREES AND...there is no ground that belongs to us?" The man, slightly pointed ears twitching, goes from a maddening scream to completely urban in the flick of a switch.
 
Jake and Grant:


"If you want to get paid, join the guard. If you're willing to take on the bandits on your own, you're welcome to whatever's in their pockets. They normally come from the east, and attack in packs. No matter how many we kill, there always seems to be more to fill in their ranks. Never more than we can barely handle though, but it's a costly victory every time."
 
"How many on average would you say there are? How far from here? Are there any characters of note or are they just a bunch of punks who think they can get away with breaking the law?" He winced, catching himself. "Apologies for all the questions, I like to try be thorough when it comes to things like this."
 
The Sentinel, who has been listening quietly, now remarks, “My companion has experience dealing with criminals and renegades. I, however, have experience with soldiering. Am I correct in thinking your guard could use more…men?”
 
"Thirty or forty every time, and they come as if they don't care if they live or die. Once you're into the woods, it's nigh impossible to see where they come from. One of the main reason we have the woods cleared out as far as we do."


At Grant's question, the guard smiles. "We can always use more people. Especially now that the bandits would rather trade their lives for harming us. We're down to half strength at the moment."
 
"Thank you, sir. That's more than helpful. If I manage to track them down I'll be sure to put an arrow in them for you and your men." Giving the guard an informal salute of respect, Jake moved away from the guard to allow Grant to continue his questions undisturbed. "Talk to me when you're finished." Was his passing comment to his fellow 'player'.
 
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