Chronicle of the Scavenger Lands (Exalted 3E) - IC

[jaydude]

At Ryan's camp...
By the time Ryan has returned to his camp and given orders for food to be prepared, his anima has receded from iconic to burning, with the result that some of his men have to avert their eyes when they get close to him.

"Hey there handsome." a voice says from behind Ryan. It's Lyla, squinting her eyes against the glow of power coming from the Dawn Caste's body, with Attimus stood nearby. "Did something happen? I heard the sound of weapons clashing from somewhere outside the camp, and now you seem to be glowing with power and - dare I say - a little warm to the touch."

Elsewhere, Ganzin, his own anima back down to dim by now, steps into Ryan's camp and seeks out Ailera, in the hope of speaking to her.

 

[Sherwood]

Ailera is there, easy enough to find. She looks over at Ganzin and gives him a welcoming nod. "You handled yourself well today. I'm impressed with your level of skill. Shows how you got to be the top of the ladder here in your camp. So, what can I do for you?"

 

[jaydude]

Ganzin grins. "Thanks. Suppose I could have done better, but then again I was facing a Dawn Caste Solar." he says, as he looks up at the setting sun. "So. Looks like we're both committed to this cause of Ryan's, doesn't it?"

 

[Sherwood]

Ailera gives off a laugh. "It could be worse. At least this means we have a good shot at victory, and the rewards that come with it. I could use a place to rest my heels that does not involve me having to look over my shoulder for hunters trying to take my head for the 'good of all Creation'."

 

[jaydude]

"Fair enough." says Ganzin, as the grimace returns to his face, embers threatening to burst into flames at the slightest touch. "As far as I'm concerned, any man or woman who joins a Wyld Hunt can burn in Malfeas for a dozen eternities."

 

[Sherwood]

"Hallelujah. I can fully support that." She pulls out of one of her pockets a pair of flasks and sets one down on the ground in front of Ganzin. "Here. You look like you could use a drink. I know I sure can." She unstops the other flask and takes a deep swig before lowering it and putting the stopper back in place. Ailera then asks, "So, as a Dragon Blood, I would have guessed that life would be a lot easier for you than the average person. What led you to the life of a bandit?"

 

[Rykon]

Ryan smiled gently at Lyla, "Ganzin wanted proof I was a capable warrior. So I gave it to him. I was a bit heavy-handed, but at least he's uninjured and will still be of use in the fights to come. Did I miss anything while we were gone?"

 

[jaydude]

With Ailera...
"Same reason I've come to despise the Wyld Hunt." says Ganzin, taking a long swig from the flask and then putting it down. He takes a breath and looks away, clearly unsure whether or not he should say any more, before he decides to speak.

"I Exalted about two years ago. Before that happened, I lived in a small farming village about a week's travel north of here. It was a place beset by bandits, monsters and corrupt gods, until one day a wandering Solar came by and decided to stay in the village. He was a Dawn Caste like Ryan, though a few years older and without an army of his own. Still, he drove away the bandits, slew the monsters and beat the spirits into not abusing their powers, while also training the villagers and helping them form a militia, to that they could better protect themselves. I was one of the members."

He then sports a fond smile. "My own father had taken ill and died a few years after I was born, so the Solar became like a father of sorts to me, even if we didn't live under the same roof. I won't lie, I really looked up to him when he was around."

After saying that, his mood becomes sour again. "Things were all good, but then the Wyld Hunt came to the village, looking for the Solar. Dragon-bloods from both the Realm and Looksky. The Solar fought well...but he was was overwhelmed and killed. And after that...the Wyld Hunt turned on the village."

"I was knocked out early on in the battle. The Wyld Hunt must have thought I was dead, because I eventually woke up. When I did, I saw that the village had been turned into a scorched ruin, and all its inhabitants had been butchered. My mother, my siblings, my friends...all dead. As you can imagine, I didn't react well to that. The next thing I knew, the ground around me was on fire, and I didn't feel any of it."

He exhales, feeling some catharsis for being able to tell this tale, before continuing. "There was no chance on Creation that I was going to offer my powers to the Realm or Lookshy after what the Wyld Hunt had done. And I was so jaded, angry, bitter, that I ended up drifting away from the abiders and falling into the outlaw crowd. I joined a gang of bandits, became their leader, found this guandao here, and, well, here I am."

With Ryan...
At the mention of the bandit leader, Lyla blinks a couple of times, looking a little surprised. "Did you say Ganzin?" she asks, ignoring Ryan's other question.

 

[Rykon]

"Yeah, he's now my subordinate," Ryan said matter of factly. "I'm rather glad he and his clan have decided to join with the Crimson Fangs." Despite Lyla's earlier denial of sabotage, Ryan wasn't so convinced she didn't incentivize the unprofitability of the mine. She had plenty of cause and definitely the drive to do so. "I suppose I should just ask... Was I preying on your assets by recruiting them?"

 

[jaydude]

Lyla gives a little smile while glancing off to the side, having guessed what he's referring to. "Technically yes, but I'm no longer interested in buying the mine, now that I worked out that deal with Feren. So I didn't need Ganzin's assistance anymore."

She looks at Ryan, her smile disappearing as she takes on the expression of one awaiting sentence for a heinous crime. "Did he tell you that I had hired him and his gang to help me acquire the mine? Or did you figure that out yourself?"

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Taking a short breath from the battle, Quill looked around. He was unarmed, after a battle with a statue that had killed several men. He was a decent fighter as a mortal, but it seems that becoming a Solar has lent more prowess to his attacks. And he kinda liked it. it might not be more subtle power of his enhanced knowledge, but it certainly made it easier for him to stand his ground.

His moment of contemplation over, he turned to the doors, and once more pressed the jade plates to get the door to open.

 

[Sherwood]

Ailera looks at Ganzin with sympathy, looking back at how she had thought that her own life was hard. "I guess it is all a matter of perspective. I grew up in Looksky, running on the streets. I never knew my family; my earliest memories were being a part of the gang that I lived with. They took care of me, and taught me my trade of how to steal. I was on my way to becoming one of the best thieves in the city when I was approached by a man offering a outrageous sum of money to steal a jade statue from the home of one of the generals. I took my small band of urchins with me, and things were going well. Too well."

She takes another drink, thinking back to that day. "We set off a trap, some kind of warding that we didn't know about. It activated a clockwork guard that began to hunt us down in the house, one by one. I decided to try and lure it away from the others by taking the statue and leading it away, thinking I could outrun it. I was wrong. As I faced it, expecting to die, I suddenly Exalted. With my sudden new power, I was able to smash the automation and escape the house."

"It turns out that this man that had hired me was an Exalt himself, and had somehow foreseen me getting my own Exaltation that night, but it needed the right spark. He offered to train me in my new powers, saying he was the only one that could keep me safe. I was enraged, and I took that damn statue and threw it on the ground and shattered it, telling him to take his money and his training and shove it up his ass. I left Looksky that day, on the run from the guards that were after me for breaking into the mansion, and I've been on the run ever since."

 

[Rykon]

"With Feren's scathing condemnation and your intense focus, I assumed there was likely some truth to his claim, despite your implied denial. So saying I figured it out is probably giving me too much credit." Ryan raised a hand to her chin and grinned, "Why the solemn look? I've seen the game nobles play before. I may not like it myself, but I can't expect you to see everything my way. It's not like anyone was really hurt since we stepped in and disrupted your carefully laid plans."

Ryan paused, still admiring Lyla's beauty in the light of his own anima, hoping she'd return to a cheerful attitude. He offered his arm to escort her through the camp, "In the future... I hope I prove worthy of your trust. Back to what I asked earlier though, was there anything important that we missed while we were gone?"

 

[jaydude]

With Quill...
Once again, pressing all the buttons on the device does nothing besides cause the trapdoor in the ceiling to open up a second time, though without a murderous bronze statue dropping through it. All the buttons on the device remain pushed in for a few minutes, before they eventually rise up again, ready to be pressed.

As he waits for the buttons to reappear, Quill manages to recognize the device, again from his Shogunate studies. It's a "Keyless Dragon Lock", or Teji Lock, after its Dragon-blooded inventor. As the name might suggest, each lock, rather than having a keyhole that can be picked or unlocked with a forged key, has a button that must be pressed to unlock it; either one of the rubies, or one of the dragon's scales. If the wrong button is pressed, the device will lock up and be temporarily unusable, but it can also be rigged to activate certain mechanisms, such as the trapdoor above.

Still, Teji locks do have one huge flaw. Though there are many different visual designs for them, each design is always unlocked by the same button, making the locks useless against anyone who knows about them and can memorize all the different designs.

Unfortunately for the Wyld Hunt, Quill is a Twilight Caste Solar who knows a lot about the Shogunate.

He is able to recall the correct button for this design - the scale over the dragon's throat - and after pressing it, he hears several small gears turning within the lock, before the bronze doors slowly open of their own accord.

With Ailera...
"You sound like you've had it harder than me." says Ganzin, a touch of sympathy in his voice. "I mean, I was an adult when I lost my village, and I Exalted shortly after that. So my life became hard, but not nearly as much as it could have been. But growing up on the streets without divine powers...that couldn't have been easy."

"And then that guy came along and tried to barge into your life. Sounds like he just wanted to use you and your Exaltation for his own ends." he then says with a bitter chuckle. "I don't blame you for telling him where to stick it, especially if he was willing to risk getting your comrades killed. There's so many people who forget that Exalts were once mortals themselves, and in the case of the newly awakened ones, not so long ago."

With Ryan...
Lyla appears pleasantly surprised at Ryan's reaction, and takes his arm as the two of them head back to camp, grinning as she feels the warmth emanating from him.

"No, nothing's happened since we resolved the matter with Feren." she replies.

"I won't lie; I wasn't sure if you'd want to stay with me if you knew about my more unsavoury business dealings. There are many who despise the Guild for its controversial practices - its participation in the slave trade, its economic stranglehold on much of Creation, and it being willing to do anything for the sake of profit, no matter how dark. And while many of those same people would grudgingly work with the Guild if it was for the best, or they had no other option, you're a Solar. With enough time and effort, you could almost certainly raise an army and liberate your homeland on your own, without needing the help of the Guild. You wouldn't need to work with us, if you found us repulsive."

 

[Rykon]

Ryan came to a stop and turned to face Lyla with an encouraging smile. "Perhaps I could do all of that eventually on my own. The only real problem with that is that you aren't in that picture." He wrapped both arms around her waist and leaned in to steal a kiss. If she didn't push away, Ryan would savor the short moment before eventually adding. "I would rather keep you as mine and make the effort to figure things out together. That is to say, would you be opposed to trying a formal courtship?"

 

[jaydude]

Lyla returns the kiss, and wraps her arms around Ryan's neck as she does so, not caring for anyone who might be watching them. When the two of them pull apart, she smiles back at him. "If you're truly willing to stick with me in spite of what I am, I suppose it would only be fair for me to accomodate you." she says, before her voice takes on a hint of excitement, an adventurer about to set off into the unknown. "So be it. Let's see how things go between the two of us."

Then she leans close and whispers into his ear. "If I'm being honest, I'm really looking forward to having you in my bed again."

 

[Sherwood]

Ailera gives Ganzin a slight smile. "Looks like we have a bit in common after all. Good to know that we can count on each other, to watch one another's back."

 

[jaydude]

"Heh. You got it." replies Ganzin, returning her smile. "Well, it's been nice talking to you, but I should probably go and look for Ryan now. He wanted to talk with me about integrating my bandits into his forces. Thanks for the drink."

Unless Ailera has anything else to say to him, Ganzin will turn around and walk away.

 

[Rykon]

Ryan chuckles, obviously excited about her decision, though her whispered words drew a slight flush to his face. "I've been rather eager as well. I certainly wouldn't want to disrupt our entanglements anytime soon."

After another moment in a close embrace, Ryan took Lyla's arm again. "Let's settle business quickly then and we can spend the rest of the day as you wish, my lady." With that, he would try and bring the Exalts in camp back together to settle details for future plans while Quill strived to finish his quest.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Surrounded by his anima, Quill looks forward with excitement to see what's behind the door. And the moment it opens, he steps inside, and looks around.

 

[jaydude]

Quill finds himself inside a small, rectangular room. Various grave goods line the walls of the room, but its most noteworthy feature by far is the stone sarcophagus in the center. The lid bears a stone effigy of a male warrior clad in plate armor and holding a stone daiklave, lying down as if he were a dead body lying in state.

On a small stone table in front of the sarcophagus are a collection of broken pieces of orichalcum, which Quill soon identifies as the remains of the bracelet he's been looking for.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

His golden anima lighting his way, and playing off the Orichalcum pieces, Quill approaches the sarcophagus, and begins reciting a prayer to appease the soul of the dead "Departed Solar, whose name was stricken from the records, I, Quill, am a fellow Solar, and in need of these broken pieces of Orichalcum. I vow to you to use them for the betterment of Creation, and to bring you peace. Also, i solemnly vow to keep this location hidden, for the time being, and return here to show you what i have wrought with these pieces, so you can rest even more in peace."

 

[jaydude]

As Quill offers up his prayer, he gets the impression that someone - perhaps the spirit of the deceased Solar - is listening to him, or perhaps even watching him. Whoever it is, they express no signs of disapproval towards Quill's plan...assuming they're even there.

 

[Red Shadow Claws]

Reverently, Quill will examine the pieces, and put them, slowly, into his bag, and with a final bow, will once more lock the door to the tomb

 

[jaydude]

After locking the door, what does Quill wish to do now?