A Tangled Web We Weave (IC)

[Maugan Ra]

Lotus straightens up, aware of the likely significance of this and determined to give the old ghost the proper respect.

"Of course." He says solemnly. "Speak."

[Ifni]

Ogami reaches up to his face, and removes the veil that hangs there. Beneath it, the skin is splotched with small burn scars, as if a wind of embers had blown into his face.

He strips off his leather gauntlets, slowly, and hooks them on his belt. They change as he removes them, becoming smooth black leather, worked with patterns of flame in brilliant reds and yellows. His hands are burned as well.

"This is the truth," he says quietly, "and my confession, on behalf of the garrison at Natha. They have passed on, my brothers and sisters, through terror and fire and plague, into new lives. But the shadows of what was done remain on this land, and someone must remember. I will be gone soon, and you will be the only one - you and the shades of the victims."

"The plague slew Natha, destroyed the prosperous border-town that once stood here, where I met my wife, where my son was born. But the plague did not make the shadowland. We did that."

The ghost closes his eyes, but keeps speaking, precise and formal, as if making a military report to a superior.

"When the sick refugees arrived we drove them back with arrows and fire. But we knew some of them wouldn't move on, especially those who had kin or friends inside the city. The commander proclaimed the death penalty for any who went out to give aid to the sick, but we knew it was only a matter of time before someone slipped through the cordon."

"When the first word came of plague in the city our commander had already decided what had to be done. I do not know if he made that decision himself, or if those were his orders. We marched down into the town and cordoned off the neighborhood from whence the rumors came."

"We had long pikes, to keep those inside within - they tried to get out, of course. Many of them died there, rushing us... others begged for mercy, begged us to make an exception, for them or at least for their children. We held the line. For everyone else in the city, for our own families, we believed it had to be done."

"While we held them back, others piled up dry brush and kindling wood. It had been a dry spring. Our commander burned firebreaks himself, walking the boundaries of the quarantine; he was Chosen of Hesiesh."

Ogami does not need to breathe, has not needed to breathe for a hundred years, but he takes a breath now. As if what he has to say is too horrible to launch straight into it, without a pause.

"Then we lit the brush-piles, and our commander flung fire from his hands onto the roofs of the houses. And we watched, with our pikes and our bucket-lines to stop the fire from spreading, while they burned."

He opens his eyes, and meets Lotus' gaze, unflinching. "The sun went dark that day. It has not shone on Natha since. Their bones still lie in the streets, unburied; their hungry ghosts still haunt the night."

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Going to pause there and let Lotus react, although Ogami does have more to say.

[Maugan Ra]

Lotus listens silently, his scarlet eyes hard and his gaze unflinching. His immediate reaction is to excuse or mitigate the deed, to tell Ogami that it had to be done, that horrific deeds are sometimes required in order to protect the world... but that is not what the ghost is seeking. Every possible justification he could offer the old soldier has likely considered and then rejected already, for it has been a hundred years and he still stands watch over the corpse of his hometown.

Could I have done it? Could I have made that choice, believing in the necessity yet still appreciating the scale of the atrocity it represented? Could I live with myself afterwards?

Was it necessary? Or was it simply an atrocity committed without justification, driven by fear?

He truly does not know. So he swallows his worthless platitudes, carves the words into his memory, and listens in silence.

[Ifni]

When Lotus does not speak, Ogami continues, "By the time the next cases were reported in the town there was sickness in the garrison as well, and there were no more hands to build firebreaks and light torches. In the end - all we did, the sacrifice of all those people, it was not enough to save the city."

He glances up at the watchtower. "I am not asking for expiation, lord. My commander and my brethren went on to the river long ago, and I will soon join them. The cycle of reincarnation will judge us. I am asking you to remember the truth. And if you can, to seek to lay them to rest - those who died in fire - and to lift the shadow of their deaths from the land. Maybe it will help, if they know their murderers are all dead and gone now. Maybe you can do what I never could, now that you know the real story."

[Maugan Ra]

For a long moment, Lotus is silent. He turns and stares out over the ruins of Natha, seeing it with fresh eyes.

"In the Crimson Panoply, there is a hall of records unlike any other." He says eventually. "Most of the archives in Yu-Shan are given over to tales of glorious victory, or act as repositories of lore regarding battles judged singularly important from a tactical or historical perspective. But this one is different, for it is dedicated to recording the many and varied counts of what men might call atrocities committed in times of war, or by those whose profession falls under our jurisdiction."

He thinks of the ghosts in the town below, the near-mindless collections of ash and bone that sought to devour him when first he passed this way. "There have been many who question the need for recording such things, and who have pushed to have the files removed and the space given to other uses. Every time such a proposal has been officially made, Mars issues a veto, and the archive remains untouched."

His expression set and grim, Lotus turns back to look at Ogami. "I will make a record of your story, and place it there, so that even should I fall in the line of duty, the truth will endure. So that once the dead are laid to rest and the shadows banished from the world, for so long as the stars hang in the sky what happened at Natha will be remembered. That much I promise you."

[Ifni]

Ogami nods once, solemnly.

"I buried our commander in the yard near the shrine," he says quietly, "and his jade armor with him. But his weapons -" He takes the gloves hanging at his belt, and holds them out to Lotus. "He used these to cast fire against our own people, and in the days of his dying, when the plague tormented him, he flung them away from him, crying out to the dead to forgive him."

"Take them. They have power. Use that power better than we did."

"Anything else within the tower... it is yours if you so choose. I would not wish the haunted history of this place on my heirs."

The ghost is fading faster now, his voice soft and whispering, barely louder than the breeze.

[Maugan Ra]

Nodding, Lotus takes the gloves and places them in one of the pouches on his belt. Then he straightens and places one fist over his heart, an old-fashioned salute.

"Find peace in the embrace of Lethe, Kasuko Ogami." He says quietly, watching the ghost fade away before his eyes.

[Ifni]

Ogami smiles, and takes the letter from his jacket, lovingly unfolding it and smoothing out the crinkled bark. He returns the salute with one hand, holding it as he fades into nothingness, his gaze warm with memory and fixed on Amari's words.

His last words linger on the air, the barest whisper - "Thank you."

Lotus stands alone beneath the tower of Natha.

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As a note, I think Mischief is waiting outside the shadowland, unless you disagree. She wouldn't really want to go inside.

[Maugan Ra]

As the ghost fades away, Lotus closes his eyes and listens to the silence.

"I keep my promises." He says, to himself and the world as a whole.

Then, curious despite himself, he moves to investigate the tower. The gloves are an interesting inheritance, one which might well be of great use depending on exactly how they function, but Ogami also spoke of leaving the contents of the tower to him if he should wish it. Time to find out what precisely that means.

[Ifni]

The tower is largely bare; Ogami seems to have cleaned up the obvious ravages of the plague, and buried his companions, but has made no attempt to make the tower more home-like. The barracks where Lotus and his companions slept was comfortable enough in the Underworld, but in Creation the bed-frames are half-rotted and the bedclothes gone to dust. There are chests at the foots of the bunks, and not all of them are empty - they hold diaries, letters, personal weapons and armor, the occasional piece of jewelry, and so on.

Lotus finds an armory, where weapons of all kinds still hang, in varying degrees of preservation. The stables hold harness, but the leather is largely rotted by now. He finds what must have been the commander's office, no longer locked; the shelves on the walls are neatly stacked with ledgers and maps. There is a heavy lockbox there as well, tucked under what's left of a desk. He finds an infirmary, although there are only empty medicine-bottles left there now; that room has an uneasy feel to it, as if the echoes of plague and agony still linger.

Outside there is a yard for drill - the drill dummies are still there - and what was probably once a herb-garden, now dead. A small shrine holds statues that probably represent former gods of the region. There is a small graveyard, with a few old tombstones, and so many roughly carved name-markers that they crowd against each other. One of the markers is larger than the others, and incised with a flame; the letters marking it as the resting place of Ranati Kaeda have been rubbed with soot to make them stand out.

To Lotus' expert eye, it is likely the tower's strategic position guarding the road through the pass that made it valuable; it was clearly constructed for military utility rather than beauty or comfort. But he could hold off a significant force while heavily outnumbered, within this fortress, given water - and yes, there is a deep well in the yard - and sufficient provisions. Checking, the basements of the tower hold barrels of preserved food, and enough spare weapons, armor and ammunition to outfit a small army, as well as barrels of salt and carefully stored alchemical supplies.

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Short version, it's not a manse, but there's easily Resources 4-5 worth of property sitting around here. Not much in the way of artifacts or other small but very-high-value goods, though - they got sent to northern Arjuf with those wealthy/important enough to merit evacuation, when it became clear the plague was raging through Juche and was coming to Natha next.

[Maugan Ra]

Standing in the courtyard, Lotus casts his eyes over the tower, his expression thoughtful. There is a great quantity of resources to be found here, and a solid defensive position that could be made into a serious obstacle for any hostile force... but none of that really matters to him.

He smiles faintly, amused at the irony of the situation. To an aspiring bandit or even an enterprising merchant, this place could represent a serious windfall, but he has no real use for it. What is there here that he could not acquire in greater quality in Yu-Shan, or which might secure him monetary gains above that represented by his salary? He cannot take it with him, and he has no particular use for a fortress in the mountains of the Blessed Isle, especially one shrouded in a Shadowland.

Besides, it would feel like tomb-robbing, to loot this place for his own gain, and that is an action he would rather avoid.

Still, he makes a mental note to discuss the matter with some of his fellow Shieldbearers. There are any number of uses that a fully stocked fortress could be put to, and quite a few local powers that would benefit greatly from a chance to claim the supplies kept here. It might even make a decent safe house for the Bureau and its operatives working in the region, once the Shadowland was dealt with. A matter worth considering... but right now, he is tired and his mission here is complete. It is time to go home.

With a small smile on his face, Lotus turns and makes his way back to where he left Mischief.

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So yeah, as interesting as the place is... Lotus doesn't really have a lot of use for a fortress? Unless I'm missing something, even making several trips and selling everything he can get his hands on doesn't provide greater resources than his Salary (which gives Resources 4 in Creation). Might as well tell the Realm about it, if only so they can grab the goodies before some bandit group sets up here and becomes impossible to remove, but that's about it.

I am interested in those gloves, though. Some sort of fire-based ability, it sounds like?

[Ifni]

Lotus passes back through the charred land at the heart of Natha, seeing it in the light of his new knowledge. The gloves feel faintly warm as he walks the burned streets. Perhaps he will return here one day and see the shadowland cleansed, and the shades of the dead laid to rest. But for today, it is enough that Kasuko Ogami is finally at peace, and Icefall returned to its proper place in the Loom.

~
End of Codicil: Promises Kept

Afterward, Part I:

The gloves fit onto Lotus' hands as if they were made for him. When he listens to the music of their Essence, he hears the crackle of flames, and inspection reveals that the flames woven into their fabric are in fact picked out in minute beads of red and white jade. The back of the left glove holds a swirling design which proves to be a hearthstone socket.

It is swift enough to harmonize his Essence with the gloves - at least in part. It is, of course, both dangerous and draining to force full attunement with an artifact of the wrong magical material - but starmetal adaptors are one of the most common requisitions by Bureau operatives, and obtaining one should not be difficult. (This is actually something of a talking point among gods hostile to the Bureau.)

Even with partial attunement, the effects are striking; when donned, the gloves surround his hands with a shimmering heat-haze, and when he punches at the air, the blow crackles with fire and lands with unexpected force. It takes only a moment of concentration to quell the heat-haze when unwanted, and another moment to change the gloves' appearance - to the leather gauntlets Ogami was wearing, to elegant evening gloves, or essentially any other form of hand covering Lotus can imagine. (Although avoiding the kitten mittens would probably be a good idea for his professional reputation.)

Further analysis with Essence-sensing Charms, and practice in the dojo, reveal that the gloves also allow him to hurl orbs of fire in the course of a strike, channeling his own Essence through the gloves. The magical fire is at least as good at igniting dry objects as regular fire; the staff at the Violet Bier are fairly blase about this, but do grumble a little about not being warned in advance to bring out the durable sparring dummies.

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Yes, the gloves are the shiny reward here (And there's artifact jade armor in the grave, if you did want to go tomb-robbing and wanted jade armor.) But if you want mundane exceptional gear of any kind, feel free to pick it up - oh, or talismans, alchemical potions, etc, there are probably a bunch of those around as well. The fortress itself is more "Lotus gets more brownie points with the Central Convention".

How exactly does Lotus want to pitch his report to the Central Convention committee, and what courses of action (if any) does he wish to argue for?

[Maugan Ra]

Pleased enough with his acquisition (and unwilling to dig up a grave to potentially secure the Jade armour worn by the Dragon-Blooded commander of Natha), Lotus turns his attention towards formulating his report to the Central Convention.

For the most part, it remains a relatively straightforwards business - his decision to bring Sparrow along for geomantic expertise was vindicated by the damage sustained to the manse, and past that the bulk of the actual mission was relatively straightforwards. They survived the defenses, entered the valley, located the descendants and reconnected Icefall to the Loom of Fate, thereby succeeding in his assignment. It is, as always, the secondary issues that provide the most difficulty.

On the issue of the half-castes and their extended families, Lotus remains relatively neutral in his report. He provides a full list of the children and their Sidereal parents, as obtained from speaking to them, but makes no real comment on what should be done in relation to them. He knows that this will likely draw the attention of numerous Sidereals (both reincarnations and old comrades of the original parents) and their colleagues, but there is no real chance or reason to keep them secret.

On the topic of the manse, he can be somewhat more proactive, providing copies of his assessment (translated back into Old Realm before being provided to the Convention) of the design and the damage sustained. His official recommendation on the record is to use this information and the aid of the locals to stabilize the manse at the very least - half-controlled eruptions of essence help no-one, and there is a notable population being affected by it.

The fact that the manse is located in a well hidden and self-sustained area with a surrounding population well used to the existence of Sidereals is likewise remarked upon, but he makes no true recommendation for ownership beyond a note that it would make an excellent base for Central Convention operations in the region.

Of the conflict between the Keepers and the Changed he says little, beyond noting that they exist as two separate groups that have their differences but are not violently opposed to one another.

On the truth of Natha his report is precise and unembellished. He notes his intention to record the story in the archives of the Crimson Panoply, and makes a recommendation for someone to lay claim to the area before too long. If nothing else, sending a troop of soldiers from the Realm to claim the supplies before they fall into the hands of a bandit group seems sensible, and if a means to cleanse the Shadowland can be found then occupying the fortress and reopening the road will help provide a fast and secure trade route across the mountains, something which can only help the local provinces.

Past that, there seems little else to say, though of course he stands ready to answer any questions his superiors may have.

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Of course, talismans and alchemy, I forgot. I'll have a look at those and let you know what Lotus takes from the place, but otherwise I think that covers everything?

[Ifni]

Lotus never had the chance to speak with White Ox, Kang and Laurel were dead, and he knows who Egret and Echo's parents were - but that leaves three names given to him by the half-castes, three names likely associated with documented Resplendencies. Two Falcons, Kahal, and Unheralded Lark...

When he speaks the first two names, members of the committee speak up to identify the bearers. The first was Astil, a fairly young Chosen of Serenity who died in the Crusade; her Exaltation now belongs to... Starlight Melody, who sits on the Central Convention and looks rather taken aback to learn that her predecessor left two sons behind. Still, she volunteers to join any working group associated with the fate of Icefall.

Kahal was older, but died in the Crusade just the same; his Exaltation passed to a Chosen of Journeys named Sula. He was part of the Bronze, but Nazri is his mentor, and it's not clear exactly where his sympathies lie aside from that. The general consensus seems to be that he doesn't need to be told the details just yet, although Nazri can be quietly informed; he was close to Kahal.

And the third...

At the name 'Unheralded Lark', there is a silence. One of the more junior members of the committee begins, "Wasn't that -" before being cut off by the chair with "I think we should move on to the next topic at this point".

They do not return to the topic that meeting, and at subsequent meetings, Lotus notices that Ceonnis-Ba is not present.

-------------

Lotus' recommendations with regard to the manse are accepted, and a task force is set up to determine the prospects of restoring the manse to full functionality as a secure base-of-operations for the Convention. As well as the obvious advantages, there seems to be a certain sense of obligation toward the half-castes and their families, especially among Starlight Melody and her friends. The committee seems more ambivalent about the Icefall villagers, who have no apparent reason to keep the Bureau's secrets; the possibility of relocating them is discussed, but rejected on the basis that they would very likely spread stories of a lost valley in the mountains, and interfering with their memories to the point of making them forget Icefall altogether would likely be incapacitating. The isolation of the manse is marked as a point against it, and the difficulty of entering and leaving cuts both ways - "Why not just go back to the Eighth Gate, if you're already in those mountains?" is asked more than once - but on the other hand, several committee members are very interested to hear of an Essence spider colony not under the control of the Convention of Wood.

At the end of the meeting a working group is set up, to be chaired by a senior Chosen of Secrets named Abramchaia, with Lotus and Starlight Melody as the junior members.

-------------

The story of Natha is received with grim faces. Talk of another working group to discuss the reclamation of the shadowland is interrupted when Sadness in the Blade, seated so quietly in the corner of the conference room that one almost forgets she is present, rises to her feet and announces that she will lay the hungry ghosts to rest. The reclamation of the shadowland will take longer; the Elder notes that the Convention on Deathlords should be notified as well, given their research into shadowlands. Lotus finds himself on yet another working group, this one joint with the Convention on Deathlords; he is also asked for his opinion on Dragon-Bloods or spirits who might be in a good position to push forward the reclamation effort on the ground.

[Maugan Ra]

Lotus accepts his new assignments with a nod. When asked for his opinion on Dragon-Blooded or spirits that might be able to help the reclamation project, he hesitates before admitting his inability to give a solid recommendation - his exposure to the local courts and provinces has been fairly limited thus far.

After a moment's thought, he does suggest checking if Ranati Kaeda had any descendents or family that are still in the general area. He was buried with his artifacts, in any case, which might well form a decent motivation for them to seek him out. Otherwise, Sunrise Gap is the closest major settlement and Leranis Feiyan has demonstrated a proven ability to rejuvenate and rebuild broken settlements, while her daughter has an extensive interest in essence studies. One could certainly make a worse choice.

[Ifni]

Ranati Safia, it turns out, is Ranati Kaeda's great-niece; the surviving branch of the family mostly lives in a quarrying town along the Caracal to the south. Lotus' report on the young Fire Aspect's desire for adventure and glory is noted, as are her existing links to Sunrise Gap through friendships with the Lihen and Kathim families, and to Rawar of Arjuf due to her role in helping him drive away an Anathema from Sunrise Gap.

Over the next few years Lotus makes many more visits to that part of Creation, around the Juche/Arjuf border, in various guises. He is the tutor whose dismissive comments pique Safia's interest in her ancestors lost during the Contagion, and the one who slips a forged letter from Ranati Kaeda into the family records. He is the mysterious cloaked stranger in the tavern who tells the young adventurer with Wildfire on her hip about the haunted city of Natha (and sees her brow furrow as she tries to recall a similar story, heard years before). He is a peasant in the fields who watches idly, leaning on his hoe, when she rides down from the mountain with a sack holding the bones of the dead, clad in gleaming red jade armor.

When Sadness in the Blade goes to cleanse the restless dead, the Elder invites Lotus - and only Lotus - to attend and witness.

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Natha is dark, beneath the Underworld's strange stars. The moon is new. The Elder walks in silence, her demeanor refusing conversation. She is short and slender and her back is very straight, and a thousand years ago she fought at the Last Calibration Feast and her blade was the ending of an age. But now her blade is sheathed, her hands empty as she walks toward the blackened and charred ground of Natha's horror.

She speaks softly, as she walks, chanting the funeral rites the dead here never received; chanting the names of the murdered, drawn from the cut-short strands of the Loom; chanting the Scripture of the Maiden and the Road.

They rise, as they rose once before, bones and ash caught in a net of fury. They leap for her, and for Lotus, thirsting to inflict the pain that tore them from life.

Violet radiance flashes outward from the Reckoner's hands and eyes, and the bones clatter to the blackened earth, their fury and grief at last stilled beneath Saturn's gentle hand. In the wake there is calm, and silence like that after a storm, save for the sound of her quiet voice reciting the scriptures.

She walks on, working the Charm again and again, circling the blackened ground as once men and women with torches circled it, criss-crossing it until all is silence, and the sense of hatred and foreboding is gone, and only old bones remain to mark what happened here.

Then she speaks to Lotus, and asks that he help her with the burials.

When he next visits the Violet Bier, Anys Syn is there waiting for him; while her initial words are not entirely promising ("I hear you had some trouble with one of my Water Dragon adepts"), she makes it clear that she has heard of his work for the Central Convention and been impressed. Since his previous teacher in the Immaculate Styles has been sent out on an extended field mission, she proposes to take over his training.

(After some digging, he finds out what happened with Ceonnis-Ba; she had been involved in the original plan to seal Icefall from the Loom, but after the Contagion passed and all her confederates were dead, she had removed the records of her own involvement and taken no action to restore the valley to its place within Fate. Nobody knows the full reason, but the (quiet) gossip is that she had never cared very much for her half-caste daughter, and had sent her to Icefall only to fulfill her father's last request; reopening the valley while her daughter still lived would have meant dealing with that grief again. The dereliction of duty is not especially serious, given that she didn't try to sabotage Lotus' mission, but could be used as a cudgel against the Bronze by Ayesha and her cohorts; accordingly, Ceonnis-Ba will likely be doing missions in Creation for the next century or so, to get her out of sight.)

He is there at the summer festival the year that Leranis Feiyan first moves it to the mountains around Natha; he stands in the crowd as the Wood Aspect and Verdant Arrow, coaxed away from his forest near Sunrise Gap, join hands and channel Essence into the blighted land. With the baleful influence of the hungry ghosts gone, the empty shadowland is shrinking more quickly now, under the influence of the Pole of Earth. Anjari watches from the crowd, scribbling notes, and beside her stand Safia - and a uniformed Fire Aspect who turns out to be Safia's brother.

(Lotus overhears a casual comment from Leranis Feiyan to Safia to the effect that it's a pity the marriage alliance between her and Madrian didn't work out, but Anjari and Darevan seem to be getting along quite well.

Regarding Verdant Arrow and Leranis Feiyan's apparent congeniality, Aumin makes a rather dry comment to the effect that he wouldn't generally recommend outing oneself in order to foster relationships built on mutual distrust of the Anathema, but it seems to have worked out in this case.)

After the wedding, the Leranis and Ranati constitute one of the more powerful economic alliances in Arjuf, with the Ranati using the thriving Leranis-sponsored river trade to move the stone from their quarries down to Port Arjuf. Verdant Arrow's agreement to work on reclamation of the mountain forests overlapping the shadowland of Natha has opened more land for logging and settlement above Sunrise Gap, and the town is growing into a thriving small city.

General Rawar comes to visit Sunrise Gap every spring, for the races - and after a few years, he usually brings with him a young officer in his elite cavalry, named Falling Light.

When the shadowland has shrunk enough, it is Ranati Darevan who is assigned to the restored watchtower of Natha, along with his engineer wife and a corps of Arjuf troops. It is Ranati stonemasons who help rebuild the town and make repairs to the fort, directed by Leranis Anjari. If the lord of Juche objects to Arjuf control over the border-post, it is not evident; Taras Chamin seems to have his own preoccupations.

The repair of the manse at Icefall goes slowly; the Keepers are told they must move out of the manse during the reconstruction, at Abramchaia's insistence, which causes a considerable degree of complaining. It does help integrate them with the village, at least. Since workers are needed for the rebuilding, the libraries are relocated to a new building in Icefall itself, and Amari manages to persuade the Keepers to help train the village youngsters in the necessary skills. ("The more trained workers we have, the quicker you'll be able to move back into the manse.") Lotus' visits to his family are pleasant, and the younger ones in particular quickly accept him as "Uncle Lotus", although some of his older kin seem to find it difficult to see him as family rather than as the Exalt who disrupted their lives. (And some see him as family and also responsible for disrupting their lives, and berate him about it.) Echo grows noticeably more frail as the years pass, and her sight deteriorates, but her mind remains clear and she is always glad to see Lotus and talk with him.

Sapphire Sparrow makes overtures of friendship; she often invites Lotus to visit her and Egret, or to come along when she takes the old man to see a new part of Yu-Shan. While she does not travel to Icefall herself, now that the valley is most definitely Bronze business, she has several times asked Lotus to arrange visits for Egret.

There are other missions as well, of course. Most of Lotus' duties take him to the Blessed Isle, but there are occasional visits to the Empress' growing holdings in the Threshold, especially where the Immaculate Order needs a little extra support to get established. He learns how to pass as a monk, and encounters Madrian twice, in his travels - once as a rather sulky young aspirant, the second time some years later, as a more thoughtful but still somewhat hot-headed monk seeking assignment to the Wyld Hunt. He hears stories of Ascending Waterfall, but she is spending most of her time in the Threshold these days, leading Wyld Hunts against Lunars and similar threats.

He is in the Threshold when the Wind Flutes are taken over by the Immaculate Order. It is not violent, and the Dragon-Blooded monks who arrive from Juche are accompanied by several members of the Central Convention to make certain of that point. But next time he passes through the Eighth Gate, things have changed; there are no children there anymore, and the mortal monks do not speak to him. The training sessions in the morning are in techniques of Five Dragon Style, not the paths of stone and sky.

The old Abbot is dead, Lotus is told; he was permitted to remain as a scribe and advisor to the new Dragon-Blooded leader of the monastery, and treated with honor, but he went into a steep decline after the takeover. Branch is present, as a fully-trained Immaculate and the monastery's chief surgeon and healer; he is reluctant to speak to Lotus at all.

Spoiler: If Lotus speaks to Branch

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However, if pressed, he will tersely indicate that he's doing his best to protect the Wind Flutes and the people of the surrounding region, but that plenty of his colleagues regard him as a traitor and the reason for the takeover. When the Immaculates came they gave anyone who was unenlightened the option to leave or stay for training and induction into the Order, but for the already-initiated monks the choice was "stay and join the Order" or "be prosecuted under the laws against illegal Essence use". Staying now means taking a vow of silence, for mortals. Children under the age of twelve were fostered out to families in the neighboring villages, as it's hard to accommodate youngsters within the discipline of an Immaculate monastery - this was especially rough on initiated parents with young kids, although some of those children may join the monastery when they're old enough.

And the years pass...

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We now have a 15-year timeskip. If you would like to run small vignettes (learning sorcery?) in this timeskip before we move on to the next episode, let me know.

Story rewards:
Backing (Central Convention) rises to 3.
Backing (Bronze Faction) rises to 3.
Gain Backing (Convention on Deathlords) at a rating of 1.
Salary rises to 3.
Gain Sifu 4 (Anys Syn).
Gain Artifact 3 (The Doom of Natha).
Gain Connections 2 (The Immaculate Order - Blessed Isle).
Gain Connections 2 (Dragon-Blooded Houses of Arjuf).
Gain Acquaintances 3.
Gain a total of two dots in any Serenity colleges of your choice.
Gain a total of two dots in any Endings colleges of your choice.
Gain one dot in any Journeys college of your choice.
Gain a dot of one Social Attribute, your choice.
Gain one social Charm, your choice, for your work reconciling the two groups in Icefall.
Gain a dot in Savant, and one Charm inspired by your studies of a malfunctioning manse.
Gain one dot in Medicine and the Charm Peaceable Conclusion, from your work in Natha.
You may if you wish take Sapphire Sparrow as a 2-dot Ally.

For this timeskip, you gain Essence 4, and an additional 15 BP to assign however you wish. Sidereal Martial Arts costs are the same as ordinary Charms.

[Maugan Ra]

The Ordeal of Enlightenment

It is quiet in the small chamber, for the custodians will permit nothing else. Peace and quiet can be a rare commodity in Yu-Shan, where wonders lie around every corner and millions of gods throng the streets in marvelous variety, but as with all things an exception can be found if you have the money and connections to acquire it. As a senior agent of the Bureau of Destiny, Lotus has those connections almost by default, a foundation that he has worked to expand over the years with charisma and bureaucratic wrangling. And if there is one place that peace can be virtually guaranteed, it is within the halls of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy.

Most who come here for training in the sorcerous arts would opt for the full course offered by Department 137, but from everything that Lotus has heard of them and their methods he highly doubts such a path would work for him. They emphasize the school of thought championed by Theano, and while Lotus finds the calculations and equations that dominate that philosophy appealing, the direction they take it in is simply too... mystical for his tastes. He has seen some of the other students here, lost in abstract contemplation and attempting to reach enlightenment through adherence to strange habits rooted in philosophical points, and found such sights to be off-putting more than intriguing. No, he is more Devonian in mindset, though it amuses him to find such an archaic methodology more understandable than the more recent revisions.

Still, he has enough influence at his command to requisition a side chamber in the Department for his own personal study, and his preferred school of thought is at least similar enough to the one taught in the official curriculum that he needs not fear too much in the way of academic scorn. The atmosphere here is well known to be conducive to the personal study of more arcane topics, and being able to scribe his thoughts and inferences directly onto the walls with but a touch certainly helps in focusing the mind. When combined with the pair of valuable tomes he purchased from a specialist purveyor of such goods earlier in the year, it has allowed him to make great strides in his progress towards full Sorcerous initiation. He might not know who wrote the White and Black Treatises (the identity of the First Sorcerer being a favourite topic of debate among certain circles), but they are an excellent guide to follow and have a truly unique gift for rendering the most obscure points of occult lore into a readily understandable format.

He knows the theory, has mastered the mental exercises and meditative rituals required to condition both body and mind to the burden they will soon bear. He is seated cross-legged on the floor of the chamber, the walls around him covered in arcane symbols and the legendary tomes laid out in front of him, a setup that is not strictly required but none the less feels right in a way that he cannot quite explain. All that remains now are the Ordeals.

The First Ordeal is the Initiation of Serenity

Closing his eyes, Lotus focuses on his memories, remembering the faces and names of those who have instructed him in some way over the years, the many ways in which their wisdom and experience proved superior to his own. Some are obvious; Aumin and Anys Syn have both been his Sifu at times, and both possess such spiritual and martial strength so as to appear almost unreal, while it is no difficulty at all to acknowledge that Chejop Kejak commands knowledge and insight far beyond his own. Others, however, are less conventional.

He remembers Singing Lark, the young aspirant of the Immaculate Order than he encountered while posing as a monk on a mission over a year ago. She was little more than a peasant girl of twenty winters, but when he engaged her in philosophical discussion to pass the time, she displayed a wisdom and compassion for all of life he had scarcely believed possible. It was all too obvious to believe that his exalted station and secret knowledge left him with nothing to learn from those around him, but she had proven him wrong of that day, and the chances were others would do likewise in the weeks and years to come. If he is to truly walk the path of the Sorcerer, then he must be willing to accept those surprised with all the serenity of the Maiden in Azure.

The Second Ordeal is the Initiation of Secrets

In many ways it would be easy to draw from similar sources for this Ordeal, to think of all that he has learned from his teachers and the experiences of his life, but he is not here to walk the easy road. He is here to learn the secrets of the universe, to see Creation through fresh eyes and understand the underlying mechanisms that hold it all together, and that requires instruction of a different sort.

He still remembers the knife-wound of pain and loss suffered by his predecessor, the agony of sacrifice that marked her soul so deeply that it persisted even past her death. Even recalling the faded echo of that original sensation threatens to disrupt his concentration and ruin his attempt, but he cannot shy away from it. It is a rare teacher that can make a student truly understand something, but there is no denying that the woman who called herself Fire Peony understood what Sacrifice meant, and through her memories Lotus understands it as well.

The Third Ordeal is the Initiation of Journeys

Of all of the five ordeals, this is perhaps the one that Lotus has the least difficulty with, a notable irony given his caste. The simple fact is that even those Sidereals who do not serve the Maiden in Yellow inevitably acquire a strong understanding of her domain simply by performing their duties. Lotus has served as a member of the Five-Score Fellowship for close on fifteen years now, and in that time he has seen the world through so many different eyes he almost cannot remember them all.

He has been a proud Dynast, a member of the fledgling aristocracy before whom all others bow down and defer. He has been a simple peasant toiling in the field, trading honest labour for the simple pleasure of a hot meal. He has been scout and soldier, scholar and sage, blind man and seer, all of them in different times and different places across multiple directions and indeed multiple worlds. After all of that, how could he not understand the wisdom of this Initiation?

The Fourth Ordeal is the Initiation of Battles

Fear is an ugly thing, one that Lotus generally does his best to avoid or control, but there seems little point in attempting to deny how important it is to the enlightened mind. If he is to be a sorcerer then he will have at his fingertips power unlike any other, the ability to bend the very rules of nature to his will and scar the face of Creation in ways that might never be undone. If he is to have such power then he must also have the wisdom to know when not to use it, and that means he must be able to fear the consequences of his actions.

He remembers the Pit, the hole in the ground where they threw him after his first mission came so dangerously close to failure. He remembers the feeling of a hand around his throat, of the dread and shame that threatened to consume him at the thought of his own mistakes. Yes, he understands fear. Better than he ever wanted to.

The Fifth Ordeal is the Initiation of Endings

Sacrifice. If there is one thing that all the texts and stories agree about, it is the necessity of sacrifice for one who seeks to become a Sorcerer. His predecessor knew the word as the pain of loss, the knowledge that she would never again see her children. Lotus has no children, so for him the sacrifice must be something else, something personal to his own life and his own mind.

Carefully, he draws the knife from its sheathe and holds it up before him, watching how the omnipresent light in the chamber reflects in the gleaming facets of the obsidian blade. It is a fine weapon, one that would command an exceptional price in any market worthy of the name, but he knows all too well that simple material wealth is not a sufficient sacrifice for this final ordeal. He wishes that it were, but he also knows better than to think it might be so, for money does not hold nearly the same value to him as the memories and significance bound up in this deceptively humble looking blade.

It was a gift, bestowed upon him by the Abbott of the Wind Flutes, a legacy from before the day he was born, and he cannot look at it without seeing the old man's kindly smile. It was a reward for excelling in his studies of the Night Breeze, the first supernatural style he ever mastered. It was bestowed upon him by Harp and Branch, each of whom he failed in a different way. He had thought that he was doing them a favour when he convinced the Abbott to send them with him, thought that they could benefit from seeing more of the world outside their monastery walls. Instead he merely brought their doom upon them.

The Wind Flutes is an Immaculate Monastery now. The Abbott is dead, his spirit broken by the cruel realities of the new world. The paths of stone and sky, an unbroken legacy stretching back over a thousand years, are taught no longer and will likely die with their last practitioners. The halls which once rang with the laughter of children now stand silent, the cold mountain air heavy with the weight of broken hearts.

For ten years he has carried this dagger as a reminder of that failure, just as he has carried the weight of memory and regret within his heart. It is a fundamental part of him, one of the foundations upon which the man he is today was built. He does not want to discard it, does not want to go through with what seems like a final betrayal piled atop so many others, but the requirements of the Initiation are clear. A sacrifice that you make with a smile is not worthy of the name, and sorcery can only be wielded by one willing to make a decision of that magnitude. True, he will walk with a lighter step without this burden on his heart, but if that were all that he desired he could have cast it aside long ago. Instead he is here... and he is stalling.

Taking a deep breath, Lotus closes his eyes and takes the dagger in both hands.

He twists his grip, feeling the essence thrum through his muscles as he exerts a force that no mortal man ever could.

He feels the blade break apart into fragments in his hands, hears the sound of shattering glass echo through the silent chamber.

He exhales, opening his hands to let the shattered remains of the weapon fall away, taking with them his worry and regret.

Then he opens his eyes, and sees the world anew.

Spoiler

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So, this is my first Vignette, detailing the final step in Lotus learning sorcery at some point during those fifteen years.

The White and Black Treatises (as detailed in the source book of the same name) are noted as being Artifact 1 each, but also being available for purchase at Resources 3/4 depending on whether one is in the Realm. Since they're such fundamental guides to the study of Sorcery, I figured it was reasonable for Lotus to have bought a copy from someone in Yu-Shan, and using that plus his own experiences to initiate into the Emerald Circle. He's not a Celestial Circle sorcerer yet, though.

I was a little unsure about the sacrifice, since the knife and all of the emotional baggage it carries with it are a pretty big thing for Lotus' character... but then the Sacrifice is meant to be that kind of big and personally important. Bollocks to anyone who thinks they can get it by severing a finger or something...

So now we come to the actual mechanical impact of all of this; namely what spells can Lotus learn. This is another reason that I decided to go at it in this way, because those Tomes have very specific levels of knowledge available.

The White Treatise allows me to learn the Terrestrial Circle Sorcery charm.

The Black Treatise contains the spells Death of Obsidian Butterflies, Demon of the First Circle, Emerald Countermagic, Invulnerable Skin of Bronze and Stormwind Rider.

I think that those foundational spells would do pretty well representing what Lotus could pick up with short bouts of focused study spread out over the fifteen years of the time skip. Naturally if you have other ideas I'd be happy to hear them.

[Maugan Ra]

The Wisdom of Fire

The interior of a god's personal sanctum is beholden only to their will and the potency of their essence, rather than anything as petty as mere physical laws. As a result, they tend to reflect some idealized version of the environment that the spirit in question finds the most comfortable, be that in environmental conditions or their philosophical implications of their decorations. A wise observer can learn Mitch about the essentially character of a God by observing how they choose to shape their sanctum, which in turn leads most gods to deny access to any but their closest and most trusted friends.

Lotus had no idea which deity had agreed to loan out its private property for this particular lesson, but whoever it was apparently had a particular appreciation for searing fire and large quantities of shaped metal. How Anys Syn had persuaded said god to permit their access was likewise something he could only guess at, but that was a concern for the future. Right now he had rather more pressing problems to deal with, chief among them being: how do I avoid being incinerated in the next five seconds?

The statue on his left, carved into the likewise of a rearing dragon with eyes of purest emerald, gave voice to a high pitched hissing noise as the pressurized gas roiling through its innards reached maximum concentration. Growling a curse, Lotus allowed himself to fall backwards, abandoning his perch atop a sturdy metal pole and falling deeper into the seemingly-endless latticework of such items that surrounded him. Barely a heartbeat later the space where he had been standing was consumed in brilliantly coloured flames as the volatile gas was belched out through the statue's snarling maw and ignited on contact with the small candle it held between its front paws.

"What are you doing?" Anys Syn asked, standing atop a small platform at the edge of the chamber, watching his performance through scarlet eyes that held not a drop of mercy or compassion. Then again, maybe he was being uncharitable; it was always possible that he might be less inclined to think highly of someone currently attempting to murder him.

"Staying alive." He ground out in response, reaching out to catch one of the bars as it sailed through his peripheral vision. The impact threatened to wrench his arm from its socket, but he rolled with it and used the borrowed momentum of his fall to pivot around the metal rod and sling himself back up towards a higher vantage point.

"How? By running away?" His Sifu enquired in a conversational tone. He'd been training under the senior Shieldbearer for weeks now, and he had never once heard her put anything as obvious as actual mockery into her tone, but somehow it remained impossible to interpret her intent as anything else.

"That's the plan, yes. I suspect it will be easier to figure out the trick to this if I'm not a charred corpse wrapped around a beam." He replied dryly, finding his feet again with the kind of graceful balance a professional gymnast might well be willing to kill for. In stark contrast to his elder's voice, Lotus' own words were harsh and rasping, squeezed out in the brief pauses between desperate gasps for air. They'd been at this for hours, and the constant belches of flame had made the air in the chamber hot and dry to the point where even his Exalted metabolism was having difficulty in coping. "Assuming that there is a trick, and you've not just thrown me in here for your own sadistic amusement."

That one actually got the faintest hint of a smile, there and gone again so fast he thought he might have imagined it. "Oh? As I recall, you were the one to request my help in refining your grasp of Fire Dragon style. You can hardly afford to complain about my methods, especially when you have already grasped the final of the four foundational techniques."

Scowling, Lotus had to admit that she had a point. He'd barely been in here for an hour before the understanding of the Perfect Blazing Blow had come to him. It was the same lesson that was currently driving him into his desperate series of acrobatic maneuvers; if the fire reaches you, it will consume you. To avoid the fire, be somewhere else. What he couldn't understand was why knowing that didn't seem to help with the next step in the sequence - namely, mastering the actual Form. Logically one would think that the penultimate step would connect to the final understanding in some fashion, but if anything it was beginning to feel as though it was actually pushing him further and further away from it.

"You think of the fire as something to fear." Anys Syn said with deceptive mildness. "You flee before it, do all you can to avoid its touch. How, then, can you expect to master it? One cannot wield a weapon without grasping it by the hilt, and one cannot wield the flame without meeting it head on."

"Well, when you say it like that it sounds simple." Lotus replied cautiously, taking a brief moment to catch his breath while the flames remained quiescent and the metal bars a few steps below skin-scorchingly hot.

"It is. Allow me to demonstrate."

His Sifu slashed her hand through the air, and the whistling of building pressure began again. Not from just one direction, or even two set up to complement each other and produce a vicious crossfire, but from all directions at once. Every statue, every roaring dragon and snarling demon, every last thrice-damned fire breathing piece of architecture, every last one of them was preparing to disgorge their contents.

Lotus had just enough time to panic before they ignited.

There was no time for planning, no time to consider what he was going to do or how, no time to do anything but trust to his basic instincts and act faster than he could even think. Opening his mouth in an inarticulate scream of horror and rage, Lotus reached out his hands towards the onrushing flame... and snatched it out of the air.

"Fire does not answer to careful planning or higher thought." He heard someone say, as though from a great distance, as the waves of fire crashed against his unprotected skin and deflected away again. "It is a primal thing, bent to task by spontaneous desire and the force of will. I can teach you the steps, beat the katas into your head and make you perform them a thousand times, but that is merely fuel upon the pyre. The final spark, that must come from you."

He moved his hand and the fire followed it, long streams of blazing orange light trailing through the air in its wake. His heart was hammering in his chest, and with every pounding beat the flames around him flickered in perfect symphony. Even bent to his will the searing heat of the chamber should have consumed the very air in his lungs and consigned him to a horrible end, but somehow... somehow he breathed freely even now.

"What..." He said slowly, licking his dry lips in a futile attempt to remove the harsh croak from his voice. "What would have happened if I failed?"

A smile was his only answer.

Spoiler

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And here we have vignette number 2, focused around Lotus' studies in Fire Dragon style. Mostly because I want to have at least one celestial form type charm available.

As the text indicates, I'm only really after Perfect Blazing Blow (which is largely redundant with the Fateful Martial Arts excellency) and Fire Dragon Form. More charms in the style would be nice, but I'm not exactly expecting them.