Stop right there, interlopers!
Don't worry, it'll make sense shortly.
We weren't able to play Exalted last week due to scheduling difficulties, hence no post, but we were able to play this week! So I've got another adventure here with the crew of the Moonlight Maiden!
But first, a bit of personal news. A Trinity Continuum: Æon book I worked on came out this week! It's called Prometheus Unbound, it's a guide to the Psi Orders, and I'm really proud of the work I've done on it. It's currently available as an Advance PDF, which means there's still going to be one more errata and proofreading pass before they prepare the PoD. I go into more detail on it here, and as always you can find the list of my other work here. (And as a reminder, if you follow one of the DriveThruRPG Affiliate links on the blog and then buy stuff there, I get some store credit even if what you buy isn't the thing I linked to.)
But now we jump from the sci-fi setting of TC: Æon and back to the epic fantasy of Exalted for the conclusion to "Buried Past".
Where we left off, the trio of Lunars stands before an open doorway into what's almost certainly a manse. The frame of the door is laced with moonsilver among other metals and has some First Age pictograms on it. In front of them is some sort of blocky automaton that appears to have actually been the door and folded into the robot shape, with a knife (one of those cheap knives they've been finding all over the place) jammed into its eye.
They go inside into a large, dark chamber that faintly resembles the inside of a garage with pipes and things in the walls. From the shadows up ahead they hear a laughing, and someone calls out "Stop right there, interlopers. Identify yourselves, for you face Rashmi the Dancing Blade!" as a trio of knives fly out of the darkness at them. The knives hit the ground at their feet, the tips lodging perfectly into cracks already present in the floor.
There's a brief moment of 'is he serious?' silence before Xương laughs and says this is officially the longest anyone has ever lived after throwing a knife at him. There's another beat of silence, and Rashmi remarks that as he's introduced themselves, and now they're just being rude.
Hǎifēng introduces themself, and Rashmi remarks that he only got one threat out of his intro, he can work with this. Hǎifēng then comments that they'll snap Rashmi's neck if he does that again, and Shango picks up one of the knives and snaps it as a show of strength, and remarks on the quality of the material. Rashmi just comments that he has budget issues, as happens when one has to go through a lot of knives. Then he finds the switch and turns on the light in the room,[0] and they get a good look at him.
He's definitely not local, if his features are any indication. He tall and 'turn sideways and vanish' skinny, with terra-cotta-colored skin and short black hair. (In my head, I imagine him looking like actor Sacha Dhawan.) They chat a little bit (one of those conversations where I didn't write down every little bit, so I'm sure I mangled a detail here and there) and he's friendly enough, even if a little more open than he needs to be about being a mercenary. He says that he's here with some sort of expedition, and assumed at first that the characters were rivals, or perhaps a Wyld Hunt, until he got a good look at their fish-man (Xương).[1]
They talk a bit, during which he explains that he's from Champoor in the Southeast, and that he comes from circus folk (which is a shock to absolutely nobody). And at one point, out of the blue, he asks if they're all Lunars, and Shango and Hǎifēng have kind of a "how did you know?" reaction, which gets a groan out of Xương. He confides in them that he's Exalted, though he's still getting kind of a handle on exactly what he is. They ask him if the ret of his group are Exalted as well, and he's quick to point out that they're human and as far as they know Rashmi is human as well. He spends a mote of Essence to flash his caste mark at the trio...
...which they don't strictly recognize but note the similarity to a Night Caste Solar. He remarks that while he's still not sure about what all of it means, he's a Nadir Caste. They ask about just where his power comes from (in the same since that the Solars' power comes from the Unconquered Sun and theirs comes from Luna), and he glances off to the side and steps outside with them to cut down on the odds of the rest of his group overhearing them.
He explains that as far as he knows, he's an Infernal Exalt, and that his power comes from Hell (or, more accurately, the demon city of Malfeas). He's quick to add that that wasn't his idea, but the group is capable of handling that -- after all, as Xương points out, judging people based solely on their Exaltation is one of the signature traits of their enemies. The group asks if there's anything specific he's meant to do, and he admits he's not sure there (and Hǎifēng remarks that Luna's not always clear with them, either). He explains, though, that he's naturally kind of an anarchist as near as he can tell the forces the Exalted him basically just want him to keep doing that and be very good at it.
And as with the first appearance of Admiral Danai, here's Chris interjecting with something of a sidebar that's too long/important for a footnote.
Infernal Exalted are something that have existed in some form for a while, out of character. Originally, they're just Exalts who have sold their souls to the Yozis for power, known as akuma, and those still exist. Second Edition also introduced the Green Sun Princes, Solar Exaltations that have been corrupted and repurposed by the Yozis. Their splatbook from 2nd Edition is infamously fucked up in a number of unpleasant ways for reasons I'm not getting into here, but it basically painted them as either playable mustache-twirling villains or anti-heroes who were such extreme edgelords that mustache-twirling villains might be an improvement. In that edition, their purpose was the Reclamation, a plan to let the Yozis escape Malfeas by basically making Creation so much like Hell that the Yozis could claim they're not technically leaving but instead claiming territory they've already annexed.
Anyhow, one of the changes that 3rd Edition made -- and this is largely why I'm typing all this up, to clarify it -- is to throw out the vast majority of that, particularly the edgy stuff. We don't know the full details of their new lore, like with Getimians most of what we know comes from developer comments and the preview of the Exalted Essence text, with probably some more coming in Crucible of Legends. In this edition, the Green Sun Princes are the Yozis' revenge on Creation by taking a bunch of the Solar Exalted who defeated them so long ago, corrupting their power, and turning them loose with the urge to wreck up the power structures of the mighty (hoping the Infernals miss the Yozis' own mighty power structures). At least one of the developers has compared them to shaking up a soda can and throwing it into a room and hoping it doesn't spin around and spray you as well when it bursts.
And with that really long aside out of the way, let's get back to it.
So the group is here to do something about the leak (as well as make sure the people exploring this place don't take anything), and Rashmi assures them that the eggheads in the other room are working on it. Rashmi leads them through a hallway into a chamber with tanks and tables covered in beakers and other equipment, with pipes and tubes lining the walls. The group talks about the leaking chemicals and the subject of the lizard monsters comes up, and Rashmi asks "You mean these lizard monsters?" and gestures to a series of bubbling tanks with more of the big lizard-monsters in them. (Including a couple of broken and empty tanks.) The stream of the weird chemical seems to be coming from the machinery.
(Imagine that the camera has been ignoring this chunk of the room and suddenly swivels around to reveal the tanks.)
This also brings the group's attention to a handful of people going over the equipment (and vice-versa).
"Who the hell are they?" asks a dark-skinned woman with dreads, a firewand[2] strapped to her back, and what is best described as kind of a 'Dora Milaje' vibe.
"It's okay, I know their names," Rashmi says with a smug grin.
"Then what are their names?" asks a pale man with silver hair and glasses (which has those little extra lenses that can fold down over one eye, you know the sort), whom I may have somewhat subconsciously visually based off of younger Robbie from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.
The first woman snorts and comments. "He doesn't know our names."
Rashmi asides to the Lunars, "She's right, I never bothered to learn their names."
(Someone, I can't remember who, remarks that they could all die and there'd be no point.)
But this leads into a string of introductions. In no particular order:
- Ade, the aforementioned dark-skinned woman with the firewand, from Kirighast (also in the Southeast, though a different area than Rashmi's from)
- Amilar Ashen Oak, the pale guy with silver hair from Lookshy in the Scavenger Lands
- Luật, a Tengese woman with a pack of alchemy gear, and a belt with beakers and assorted equipment
- Sandpiper, a Tengese woman with engineering gear, a blacksmith's build, and a large cudgel hanging off of her belt
- Kabede, a woman with walnut-colored skin, who's got books and scrolls and notes, from Chiaroscuro in the 'near' South
They explain that they were hired by a mysterious individual (whom Rashmi has theories about) to explore and find the place. There's another member of their team who's not there, a man name Sunti. While they were looking over the equipment, trying to get a better look that caused the leak that started after they arrived, Sunti accidentally screwed something up and released a couple of the monsters. The monsters wrecked up their equipment and ruined their supplies, and after Rashmi and Ade dealt with the monsters, they sent Sunti back to civilization for more supplies. The Lunars say that Sunti sent them to help, but didn't say anything about any supplies.[3]
At this point we're getting into one of those conversations that went fast enough I wasn't able to constantly stop and write things down, but I'll do my best to hit the high points and try to keep events mostly in the correct order.
As near as Kabede, a scholar and historian, can tell, they're in an old Lunar-held manse that dates back to either the First Age or maybe the early Shogunate period, but it was definitely abandoned probably around the time of the Great Contagion or the Fair Folk Invasion. Apparently this corner of Creation is thick with Lunar-held territories from that period. It's called either Wantari's Crucible or Wantari's Cauldron, but the pictographs are unclear. Xương is like "Wait, you can read this nonsense?" and the answer is apparently 'yes.' She and Oak are both proficient in Old Realm.
As for the machine, they're not sure what initially caused the leak, but they think there's a part that needs replaced, and they've been trying to find a way to pull that off without accidentally awakening and releasing the rest of the monsters. A big part of the problem is that with Sunti gone, they don't have anyone that can fit back there.
At about this point, Ashen Oak looks at the characters and asks them to describe Sunti. And they just can't keep up the charade at this point, they don't know him. Sunti is one of the Djala, a tribe of people known for black and white skin with distinctive markings who also tend to be much smaller than the average human.[4]
Rashmi asks the characters if they saw any dead Djala on their way to the manse, which they didn't (and in the jungle, you'd definitely notice someone like that), and he turns to the rest of his group and says this is further proof of what he's been saying, that Sunti fucked off and left them there. Regardless, without Sunti, they don't have anyone who can actually get into the equipment and replace the part. Xương and Shango both give Hǎifēng a knowing glance.
Xương takes a closer look at the equipment to see if his knowledge of chemistry and alchemy helps him, and something shakes loose -- he's been here before. Obviously it's been centuries, but in a past life he worked with this equipment for a while, and he remarks on this aloud.
Everyone stops and looks at him. He shrugs and admits that he's Exalted. The explorers stop and look at each other and more or less take it in stride, though Ade obviously watches him a little more closely now. But he goes on to explain that he has some memories and understanding of the equipment containing these monsters. He also clarifies things for Kabede -- the Manse is Wantari's Crucible, the volcano is Wantari's Cauldron. She immediately starts taking notes and going back over her prior translations with this knew information.
There's a brief discussion of the Old Realm language (the details of which I seem to have forgotten to write down) and I think at one point Ashen Oak talks about how he can read Old Realm because back in Lookshy his job was maintaining old First Age equipment, and the explorers make a comment about how they're not Exalted themselves. Xương is quick to interject that none of them are Exalted yet, and Ashen Oak bitterly comments it's probably too late for him.[5]
And I can't remember exactly when this comes up in the conversation, so I'll just inject it here. At some point the conversation turns to the lizard creatures and what they're for, and given the properties of their blood it's possible the lizard-things were manufactured for a specific purpose, perhaps being 'farmed' for a chemical in their blood or otherwise produced in their bodies, as this was something that was occasionally done back in the First Age.[6]
At this point they get more into what needs to be done. The equipment in the manse is all in this elaborate self-sustaining loop. The liquid coming out of the machine is some sort fuel that's a waste product coming from a smelting device that in turn runs off something else... as long as heat is being pumped into the system, it's all in a delicate balance. And as this manse was built into the side of a dormant-ish volcano, heat isn't a problem.
It's the balance that's the problem. They have to replace part of a pipe (fortunately, this was a well-stocked facility so there are parts for this), but there are two problems. First, they have to carefully manage the systems so they can replace the part without having to worry about the system exploding crud all over the place, and they're lacking in pairs of hands knowledgeable/precise enough to help with the equipment they have available. (Or at least they were lacking in such things, until a handful of people who can spend Essence to boost their dice pools showed up) Second, they have to be able to get someone back there without causing so much damage as to preemptively undo what they're trying to do. And at this point Xương declares "But we have monkey" (yes, worded like that, I think it's a reference), and Hǎifēng demonstrates their ability to shapeshift.
So we set it up. Shango helps manage the pressure of one of the systems while Xương reroutes others, identifying problem areas -- giving some of the percussive maintenance in the process, remembering that in the past his role in managing this equipment may have been to use his strength to wrestle the pipes into submission.[7]
Hǎifēng, in monkey form, nimbly weaves through the pipes while dragging the replacement part, avoiding the hot ones, and they get to the unit. They manage to swap the part out, and then they notice signs of tampering -- the leak was caused by deliberate damage, not any sort of stress cracks or anything like that. They clamber out, sweaty and miserable, now a little grease monkey, and shift back to human.
So the crisis is averted -- the leak is stopped (and unless anything else happens, the environment and people should recover before too long), and they managed to keep the monsters from awakening.[8]
Then Hǎifēng shares his findings, and the group comes to the conclusion that Sunti set this up. That he arranged it all, including the accident that wrecked up their supplies, even being kind of incompetent and frustrating so they'd send him away. Rashmi suspects that Sunti was working directly for their secret employer this whole time -- officially, the expedition was just to explore and catalogue and report back to better inform future trips. But Sunti may have been sent to acquire something and manufacture a reason to leave. Rashmi also shares his suspicion that the whole thing was put together by Silent Smile, the head of the merchant families of An-Teng, crime boss, and the power behind the throne of the Shore Lands.
Conveniently, this reason to leave also stood a decent chance of getting everyone killed. If Rashmi hadn't been Exalted -- he stops and tells the rest of his group that he's Exalted, to their frustrated groans -- the couple of monsters that got loose would have absolutely ended them. Sunti couldn't have known that.
But the explorers have spent their time compiling a detailed inventory of everything that's there, and so they go back over it to see if anything's missing. The Lunars, given the run of the place since arguably it's theirs, explore and in one room they find what looks like a flower made of moonsilver. The blossom opens, revealing a hearthstone, a Gemstone of Shattering Force, which Shango and Hǎifēng insist that Xương take (mostly because its effects are just more appropriate to him than either of them).
The explorers finish their review of the inventory and Sunti took something. They're not entirely sure what, as they weren't able to really analyze anything, but they know it was something toxic and potentially dangerous. (A plot point for another day)
It's late enough at this point that everyone stays overnight and will begin the hike back to Hisir the next day. Rashmi hunts them up some food -- the explorers have been getting by on what's left of the yak that hauled their gear up and got killed by one of the lizard monsters, and it's not keeping great.
Everyone heads back to Hisir, and at some point there's some speculation about whether the manse's owner is still alive -- not impossible, given Lunar lifespans. But that segues into Hǎifēng commenting that they know someone they should talk to about this who happens to live in the area (relatively).
They all get back to Hisir and part ways as friends. Rashmi and the rest of the archaeologists are going to go back to An-Teng to get paid and maybe get some answers while the Lunars continue on with their adventures. After stopping to make it clear that he's actually gone to the trouble of learning the Lunars' names, Rashmi and Xương have an awkward moment and Rashmi says he'll probably be in An-Teng for the indeterminate future and the group should look him up when they get back up that way.
And we pretty much left off there.
And now, my usual parade of ridiculous footnotes.
(Speaking of which: Are these useful? Entertaining? Neither? Both? Please let me know, because even I'm finding them a little excessive.)
[0]-- I didn't think to elaborate on it at the time, but the lighting in the structure is something sort of like those Victorian in-home gas lights.
[1]-- Incidentally, he'd have referred to Xương as the "obvious Lintha" rather than "fish-man" but he had trouble imagining someone not being offended when called such.
[2]-- A firewand is a type of ranged weapon that fires a burst of flame, like a Dragonsbreath round. It looks like an old-timey flintlock rifle.
[3]-- I probably should have made a roll for the explorers to detect the obvious lie, but I was having enough trouble keeping up with the notes, let alone potentially stopping the fun train for a die roll.
[4]-- Almost nobody knows this in the Age of Sorrows, and it might not even be canon in this edition, but the Djala are an ethnic group whose development was partially-engineered by the Solar Exalted to be a caste of engineers -- among other traits, their size and natural flexibility makes them ideal for climbing into machinery to repair it from within.
[5]-- For those of you who don't know, Lookshy has one of the few major concentrations of Dragon-Blooded outside the Scarlet Dynasty. Ashen Oak is descended from a Dragon-Blooded lineage but nobody's ever received Terrestrial Exaltation past the age of 20 and he's definitely older than that now. At this point, if he's going to Exalt it's going to be as a Celestial and his odds of that aren't great.
[6]-- The most famous examples of this technology are the Beasts of Resplendent Liquid. They're dinosaurs that can consume certain plants and their digestive processes refine them into medicines that are then expelled. There were once many different varieties of the beasts, but the only canonical survivors are colloquially known among Exalted fans as 'the dinosaurs that eat poppies and piss heroin,' and are in the hands of the Guild.
[7]-- In other words, this is how Sean used a stunt to add Xương's Strength to the dice bonus cap.
[8]-- In terms of game mechanics, if anyone's wondering, I came up with a list of things that the group could do to try and repair the equipment. Each character picked a system (with the mortals handling the rest) and had to make a pair of rolls (sometimes the same, sometimes different). I'd keep track of how many successes they got over the base difficulty, and if those successes met a certain threshold they'd fix the machine without further complications. If they succeeded at all of the rolls but fell short of the required successes (which was actually kind of a close call), they'd have to fight one of the lizard monsters. If they failed (which was unlikely, as they had a couple of rerolls), they'd have to fight two monsters.
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