Welp, here we are again. And with some good/personal news this week!
Long story short, another book I worked on is out! It's called Realms of Magic and Mystery, and it's a supplement for Scion Second Edition. It's a book about unearthly places and Terra Incognita. It covers places as small as a neighborhood coffee shop that can only be found by people who need to find it, or as big as the Overworlds where the gods dwell and the Underworlds that gather and collect the souls of the dead. I've got a post up that goes into more detail.
And now that we're past the commercial break, let's get on with the show!
(Content warning before we continue: A character vaguely describes a failed suicide attempt.)
The monk in the hornet mask, appropriately-named 'Hornet,' stared down Shango in a teahouse. "When this is over, I'm going to find you, and take you somewhere where you can get help."
We cut to Shango pointing Weirdflame, a gun-shaped weapon with a barrel made of moonsilver shot through with pulsating chaos at the monk. "When this is over, you will be dead."
"Someone's going to have to stop you, one way or another," the monk grimly said.
...
The two of them tangled in a primitive wrestling ring with wooden posts for turnbuckles and what look like cargo ropes for the ropes. Shango grabbed the monk's sleeve and after a brief struggle, started pistol-whipping him with the flame piece. The monk fell to the floor and Shango, his heartbeat pounding, pointed the weapon at his face.
A hundred hands clapped in his face and threw off the possibly-fatal shot.
Then we cut to Shango looking at the weapon for a moment before collapsing.
And now...
We're back in the group's quarters. Bageru is off running an errand as Magos talks to Hǎifēng and Xương.
"You know, we can just leave, he'll never find us," Xương says.
"I don't know where that came from," Hǎifēng sighs. "First he used me to piss his brother off, now he tries to kill him."
Xương hmphs. "My family left me on a deserted island and I don't have anyone I hate that much."
They start to talk about whether this is going to be a problem, as Magos makes it clear that the Organizers aren't happy with what happened. The crowd, by and large, doesn't seem to have fully realized the implications of what almost happened, but enough powerful individuals did that there are concerns. Magos comments that the only reason why Shango's not locked up or on his way back to Creation is because Hǎifēng was quick enough to stop him. Xương comments that you can't fake hate like what he saw in Shango. Hǎifēng says they've been there, but...
At this point, Xương turns to Magos and asks if the Organizers knew who Shango was fighting, and they make it clear that they knew everything, or at least enough. The Organizers, when they pick participants and their plus-one's for the tournament, sometimes make deliberate choices for the sake of drama. Like in the case of Rashmi and his sister. But what happened with Shango and Hornet was unexpected,[0] and may have been fueled by the encounter in the teahouse right before the match. The Magos has people looking into that confrontation and updating them via the magical collar that they're wearing.
Xương suggests that the Organizers shouldn't do anything to Shango, as this is isn't entirely his fault, but that they should send Hornet home for his own safety. The conversation takes a bit of a detour into the subject of whether the Organizers might have somehow set up the two of them bumping into each other and who's responsible for what happened, and Magos is quick to make it clear that the Organizers only pick their guests and set the matches for drama. They know there's a chance that people with personal grudges might run into each other, and that's part of why they have the masks for the plausible deniability. But the Organizers absolutely do not try to rile up the people involved.
Magos also points out that they're just the pretty face speaking for the Organizers, they themselves don't have any influence on the matches aside from offering their opinions on the matches among those in the informal losers' bracket.[1] But they say that they're planning to send Hornet home regardless. They can take care of his injuries, but are probably going to leave him to do some of his recovering at home.
They also say there's some concern over looking like they're playing favorites in a conflict between Celestial and Terrestrial Exalted, as they know how heavily things are slanted in Creation. Hǎifēng remarks on how bad it is, and Magos stresses they they know all too well -- they actually spend most of their time in Creation.
Magos says that even if the Organizers did take Shango out of the tournament, they would probably still let him stay for the rest of the tournament with the rest of his Circle, at least.[2] Hornet, however, doesn't have any such relationships, and someone (I think Xương) voices the thought that Hornet clearly didn't have proper, loving parents, and Magos means it more in the sense that he doesn't have any plus-one's like Xương has with Rashmi. Sure, there are monks from different parts of Creation and they have that in common, but Hornet doesn't have any friends here. Xương talks about how he prefers not to get too attached to anyone, which gets an offended "Hey!" from Hǎifēng and a quick clarification that he and Hǎifēng have a 'working' relationship, and that's different.
Magos interrupts them to just make it clear that for the moment, Shango's being released into their care, because he has things to do and doesn't necessarily want to stick around waiting for Shango to wake up.
Naturally, at that point, Shango wakes up and comes out into the common area. Hǎifēng comes at him with a shoe, and there's the expected bickering, and Magos tries to interrupt the group (leading to a brief annoyed aside because they refer to everyone as 'guys,' when they meant it in a gender-neutral sense) to ask Shango how much he remembers. Shango says that he was fighting his brother, and saw red, and things get a little blurry. Magos says that they know they Lunars sometimes have a bit of a temper, which gets an offended "What is that supposed to mean"-sort of comment from Xương, and Magos has to stop and clarify that different Exalts are affected by Essence in different ways, and Lunars have a rage that the Essence tends to feed. But their point is that they know Lunars have a bit of a temper, but what they saw from Shango seems different from that.
Xương opines that it's the flame piece that's responsible, and Magos concedes that it's a very potent artifact and they could have someone take a look at it. At the mention of having someone look at Weirdflame, Shango reflexively reaches for it, enough to get Hǎifēng to jump back and make Shango realize what he's doing, and he admits that he's concerned about someone taking it. Xương asks who said anything about taking it, and Magos clarifies that they don't want to take the flame piece, but they've got someone in attendance uniquely suited to assess the weapon and determine if it's a problem.
Shango insists that the problem lies with him, not Weirdflame. That he might have done something like that regardless. Xương points out that he hated his family, but if it wasn't for what they put him through then he'd have never been in a position to meet Luna. Shango thinks a moment before deciding to get into his backstory...
When Shango was younger, his brother Exalted as a Dragon-Blood. His family had had some influence, but the fame of having an Exalted son boosted their business and led to expanding their connections and their influence grew. Shango's father, while an amazing businessman, is very superstitious and wondered if it would be possible to have both of his sons Exalt. He sought aid from charlatans who insisted they knew ways to train and prepare his younger son to gain the favor of the Elemental Dragons and ensure his other son would be Chosen as well. Most of these methods were physically painful and traumatic, and that combined with the mental strain of his constant studies, well...
Shango doesn't bore the group with the details, but after sharing a few choice words with his father, and with his father's blood on his hands, he ran. He ran to the tallest cliff he could find and jumped--
At this point Xương stops him to clarify the whole 'father's blood on his hands' thing. Shango explains that during the argument, he stabbed his father in the arm with a letter opener, and that was the last straw. He didn't kill his father, but decided to take his own life instead. As he fell from the cliff, Luna graced him with a pair of wings and a sense of purpose... and at this point, having been pretty stone-faced up until this point, Shango starts to break down and cry.
He then says that while it's true that what his family put him through led him to receive Luna's blessing, he still can't forgive them for the choices they made.
Xương says that all that makes sense. Because, he points out, if Shango kills his brother, he retroactively becomes a happy person, right? That's how it works?
Shango knows it's not going to make things better. He'd never planned to kill him, it certainly wasn't his intent, but the longer he was in his presence... he just became hysterical. But he hasn't seen any of his family since that day. And despite how long it's been, those memories are still fresh.
"You know what the consequences would be if you killed him, right?" Xương asks.
"Yes," Shango says with some shame.
"And that the actual benefit to you for having done it would be low."
"We've killed many people," Shango points out.
"Not the same thing," Xương remarks.
"What do you think would happen if you'd killed Hornet?" Hǎifēng asks.
"Probably would have me kicked out of Heaven."
"It's worse than that. His other buddies, the monks, know who you are. They could go back and tell the others, and then you're going to be Hunted. Actively."
The unspoken implication that by 'you,' Hǎifēng meant 'we' hangs heavy in the air.
Shango gets wide-eyed. "I'm... I'm sorry."
At this point Xương ducks out to 'do a thing' while Magos explains to Shango that his brother's being sent home. And if Shango had shot him, he'd have been removed from the tournament but allowed to remain with the others for the rest of the event rather than send him back alone. But nothing's going to happen to him just yet. Shango says that's not going to be an issue -- he's resigning from the tournament, as he doesn't think he's the appropriate representative for their group at this point. He thinks it should be Hǎifēng instead.
Magos frowns and understands, but they say they're going to give Shango some time to change his mind if he so wishes. Hǎifēng puts their shoe back on, having still been holding it from where they were hitting Shango with it, and excuses themself back to their room.
Magos says they're going to stick around until Bageru gets back, not wanting to leave Shango alone. They pour themselves and Shango some coffee and again offer to have someone look at Weirdflame. They insist, with a knowing, wry grin, that they have one of the finest experts on this sort of thing in attendance and she can take a few minutes out of her day. Shango agrees to take them up on the offer and then just kind of stares off into space, lost in unspoken concerns about a Wyld Hunt coming down on all of them because of what he did.
We now cut to Xương, in the middle of an information gathering montage of menace and intimidation. He's looking for Hornet, first looking for an infirmary just to find out that the competitors are treated in their rooms. So then he asks around about where the monks are being housed in the arena, and he slowly zeroes in on it. As he goes, and his frustration builds, he's subtly growing larger a little bit at a time, the Essence within him wanting to burst forth and shrug off the shackles of his human form.
He reaches the hallway where Hornet's quarters are located, though anyone who'd be out and about quickly clears out at the sight of him, reading in his face and posture that this is trouble they want none of. And this would be a problem for him and his desire to find out where Hornet is, except for a woman in a deep green cloak leaning against the wall, with a long hood that mostly obscures her face. When Xương approaches, she points at a door across the way, and he can't clearly see her face but he's pretty sure she's the one who says "If you're looking for him, he's in there." So he nods his thanks and goes in.
The door opens as he approaches and he reaches out to grab the doorframe, one hand on each side, pulling his slightly-swollen form in.
Hornet is laid out on a bed, possibly-unconscious and in bad shape. An older woman dressed like arena staff with light brown, bark-like skin and faintly green stubble on her shaved head stands next to the bed, obviously Hornet's personal assistant. A pair of people Xương can recognize as healers stand on the other side, attending to him. Nearby, the woman dressed as the Empress stands with her own personal assistant. He reads the room and determines that the older woman -- maybe a God-blood, maybe a Wood Aspect Dragon-Blood, tough to say -- is in charge, though the person in the room he should really be worried about is the faux Empress.
"In twenty seconds, I'm going to snap five peoples' necks, and then in two minutes, I'll be gone after saying my piece," Xương says, an unconventional but unequivocal request for some privacy.
The old woman asks if Hornet needs to be fully awake for this, as she's not sure just how conscious he is, and Xương considers that and says he's fine with just hoping he hears him. She stands there, stoic as an old oak, but he can see genuine concern in her eyes. But she waves for the healers to join her outside and give them a moment, suspecting that he's not likely to do anything too severe.
The 'Empress' and her flunky have already quietly slipped out.
Xương moves to the bed and sits Hornet up, giving him a once-over and determining that he's awake and probably conscious enough to hear him. He leans in, showing Hornet all of his teeth, and says that he will cripple him and eat him if he sees him outside again... and the monkey can only stop one person from killing him at a time. He assures him that his Order's training would never be enough to survive an encounter with him. He puts the weight of Essence behind this (via some intimidation-boosting Charms), making his anima banner glow for dramatic effect. He's pretty sure Hornet's awake enough to have understood him, so he lays him back down and leaves.
As Xương leaves, Hornet's assistant is smoothing things over with a Celestial Lion who's followed Xương's trail of menace to the room. Xương informs her that he's still alive, and she nods as if to say 'I know,' and he leaves to return to the room. There's a moment where the Lion looks like they're about to say something, but the assistant backs them down with a wave.
Back at the room, Magos is pouring coffee for themself and Shango when there's a knock at the door. "Finally," they mutter, getting up to let Bageru back in from his errand. They open the door and someone punches them in the face. They stagger back into the room while a group of monks with featureless porcelain masks rush into the room. There are clearly more out in the hall.
Hearing the commotion, Hǎifēng rushes out and reminds them they're not supposed to fight outside the ring, using their Charms to help convince the monks they should back off. The monks hesitate, and flicker. For a moment, they glitch out and look like the mutant demon solder-things from the previous day, and then they look like monks again.
"Guess not," they mutter as they duck behind the couch as the monks advance on them. Shango lets one of them get close enough to almost grab him before he does a backroll over the back of his chair, pulling Weirdflame and coming up with it ready.
Hǎifēng springs out from behind the couch, tumbling over the top of the group and into the middle of them, trying to playfully jab them with their fans and draw out the threads of Essence to entangle them, but whatever these things are they move like monks who've lived and trained together for decades. They're ridiculously coordinated, and are able to cover for each other enough to fend off Hǎifēng's attack.
Shango, still pretty worn out after his recent match, twirls Weirdflame on his finger, moving it from one hand to the other and back in a flurry of motion that ends with it aimed at one monk's face as he takes his Righteous Devil Form stance, trying to impress a sense of shame upon them (or whatever's controlling them). And then he finds himself on the receiving end of an attack as they rush the three of them. Shango uses the butt and barrel of his devil caster to block and parry their strikes, but the sheer number of their attacks means he catches a couple of fists and elbows. Hǎifēng moves quickly enough to keep ahead of them, while Magos snaps something in Old Realm that the masks don't translate but their tone clearly conveys as something akin to "For fuck's sake" as they grab a towel to try and fend off the monks with what I described at the time as Jackie Chan-esque shenanigans (which Hǎifēng recognizes as Dreaming Pearl Courtesan techniques).
Hǎifēng then gets serious, coming at the monks with swift, calculated blows, not wasting any effort to be flashy, and they manage to drop the ones in the room. But there's still more outside...
Nearby, Xương's almost back to the room, calmer now, when he realizes there's less corridor-traffic than there should be. Then he spots the gang of monks, this group wielding hand-axes[3] as they menace and attack people out in the hall. He can see where violence has spilled over into their room.
"You know, I was just about to say..." he begins as he rushes into the fray, grabbing one monk and bouncing him off another one. "...this place is a lot like a circus..." He lifts a third off the ground as he pushes a fourth away. "...but I hadn't seen any fucking clowns!" he shouts as he flings the man he's holding into the other and properly lays into the battle group. He's not holding back as much as Hǎifēng, going for killing strikes between physical blows and bites, and the ones he kills burst into dust like the mutant demon soldier-things did yesterday.[4]
"Lions busy in the third ring while I'm dealing with the clowns," he mutters.
At this point Shango bursts out into the corridor, Weirdflame-first, and begins blasting. Hǎifēng, back in the room, looks at all of the guys scattered around. They step over them to storm out into the hall, looking like a pissed-off Ayeka form Tenchi Muyo, once-again wielding a shoe in one hand. They body-tackle one of the monks and start beating them in the face while screaming "I was trying to relax!" They then deliver a mighty blow to one, hard enough to knock them into the next and then into the next, and so forth. It becomes something between a domino collapse and billiard balls smacking into each other as the chain reaction sends the rest to the ground.
And we leave off on the monks, beaten and unmoving, starting to dissolve into dust and smoke.
[0]-- I can't remember exactly where this comes up in the conversation, so I'm making it a footnote, that Magos points out that incidents like that do occasionally happen -- not often, but enough that they know how to handle it.
[1]-- Not that the tournament has 'brackets' in the formal sense. But the people who win do tend to keep fighting more people who win, and those who lose tend to fight those who've been losing.
[2]-- I'm actually not a hundred percent sure this is where that fact comes up in the conversation, but given the flow of the rest of it I'm making an executive decision that this is probably where it came up.
[3]-- That's right. Axes. A gang of guys with axes. Some sort of... ax gang. (Seriously, though, I'm loathe to tell someone they're doing it wrong, but if you're an Exalted fan and you haven't seen Kung Fu Hustle without a good excuse, you're doing it wrong.)
[4]-- No, he didn't know they'd do that, in-character.
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