trowizilla
Senior Member
The Wyld Hunt scours the land, summoned in their hundreds by the Mask of Winter's latest incursion deep into the River Province. For some, the Hunt is a blessed savior, bringing with it relief from the swarms of hungry ghosts and worse that follow in the Behemoth's wake like pirahnas trailing a river dragon at hunt. For many, the Hunt means opportunity and profit, as so many Dragonbloods must eat and drink, and a comely son or daughter might even catch the wandering eye of a great Dynast. For a few, it means a reunion with old comrades and the welcome (or resented) guiding hand of the Scarlet Empire, raucous feasting and genteel amusements in between the hunt for the last of the cursed Deathlord's pet anathema.
For a handful of Exalts, it is that most frustrating of experiences: inactivity. By a trick of luck or fate, they have gathered in a ruined fortress hidden in the walls of the Yellow River Canyon. Some came to rest and heal after near-deadly encounters with the dark knights of the Underworld, the Abyssals. A few came to observe and to plan, using the vast caves beneath the fortress to quarter their followers. Some are here for the company, such as it is: connections can be more valuable than all the jade under the Imperial Palace. One or two might just not have anywhere better to be.
None of them have the slightest idea that this is the beginning of their story, or what will happen before The End...
For a handful of Exalts, it is that most frustrating of experiences: inactivity. By a trick of luck or fate, they have gathered in a ruined fortress hidden in the walls of the Yellow River Canyon. Some came to rest and heal after near-deadly encounters with the dark knights of the Underworld, the Abyssals. A few came to observe and to plan, using the vast caves beneath the fortress to quarter their followers. Some are here for the company, such as it is: connections can be more valuable than all the jade under the Imperial Palace. One or two might just not have anywhere better to be.
None of them have the slightest idea that this is the beginning of their story, or what will happen before The End...
Code:
Fort Weyland is old - older than anyone knew. Lookshy had used it as a resupply base for its river forces, until the Realm stopped making major pushes into the Scavenger Lands. Before that it had served as a minor outpost for a Shogunate daimyo, handed back and forth between local warring factions. During the Usurpation it had witnessed the fall of a trio of young Lunars - newly Exalted in the fighting, in fact - at the hands of one old and very powerful Sidereal.
But Fort Weyland dates back farther than had been imagined. Inside the warren-like rooms and corridors of the base, underneath the Immaculate frescoes and mosaics, there are images of golden warriors and silver beast-men at their sides, and star-crowned figures with signs of knowledge in their hands.
It is a deceptively large fortress. It is built into the walls of a canyon, along the Yellow River. Carved out from beneath the rocky overhang, it can only be approached from the west, where a winding stone path was carved out centuries ago. Said path leads, eventually, to tall walls and a gate, both carved from the same stone - oddly looking as though it was all carved from one piece, rather than being assembled on site.
Behind the walls are a few rough-hewn buildings, clearly made later in the fortress's lifetime and crumbling with age, and a small spring with enough water to keep perhaps ten men refreshed. Within the smallest of the buildings, however, was a wide stairway descending perhaps a dozen yards, and opening out into a natural cave, with half
a dozen oddly-shaped tunnels branching off. Four of the six tunnels are sealed still, with ancient fading wards from the Shogunate still faintly glowing in the darkness, but two are open, leading into a surprisingly large complex of storerooms, cells, large empty spaces
and the like to house a small city. The rooms are all decorated, with bas-reliefs of gods and demons, or the Dragons fighting the Anathema, or in one small room in the most distant parts of the complex a still-wet fresco of ten thousand shining orbs above a kneeling four-armed man in gold.
The farther into the open caves one travels, however, the weirder things become. In some corridors, the shadows move in the absence not only of motion but of light, and echoes are muffled, delayed, and do not always repeat what was said. One room was still furnished, a bedroom for someone, and the bedding is always rumpled and warm in a room where all the other fabrics had rotted away, as if someone just left it, and down one hallway the rocks make a chiming noise when touched.
