Greetings, my... okay, I don't wanna say 'peeps,' that sounds stupid.
...
Yeah, nothing's coming to me. Anyhow. Hey, folks. Sorry this is a little late, sleep schedule's been screwed up for reasons best not gotten into here, and while I was able to get this written up in time, I didn't have the time or energy to get it posted before the following session.
So, announcements and updates before I get into it:
This Friday and the next (April 7th and 14th) at 8pm Eastern US time, I'm going to be doing a two-part reading of my story "The Kit Gloves Are Off" from Samhain Secrets: World Premiere. It's going to be over on the Blackwarren Books Discord.
Also, the Trinity Continuum Player's Guide crowdfunding campaign is still going strong. I've already talked about the book elsewhere on the blog, but at this point if you don't know about it you may as well go to the campaign link. You can pledge and get a preview of the 95%-complete manuscript, being released in stages (and no, in case you're wondering, my material hasn't come up yet). As of this posting, the first half has been previewed and the entire manuscript will be available for preview by the time the campaign is over. Also, the Onyx Pathcast has devoted a pair of episodes to the book so far, with the first serving as an overview and the second focusing on creating characters with material in the book.
And now, with that out of the way, let's roll that beautiful bean footage.
It's morning of the third day of Calibration. Nothing's on fire, except for maybe Bageru's brain, because he's hung over. As the group has breakfast, enjoying dishes from every corner of Creation, Hǎifēng keeps trying to feed him grapes to make him uncomfortable because he's adorably grumpy. The little god eats the grapes, but he doesn't pretend to like it.
When he's not being stuffed with grapes, he checks with Shango about what Magos told him, that Shango would like to go to someone who can sell him a weapon. Shango confirms that, and Bageru asks him what he's looking for -- the Lunar's looking for a light sword, something he can wield one-handed, to complement Weirdflame. Naturally, Bageru knows a place and offers to take him after breakfast. Xương offers to give Shango some money, but he declines.
Bageru leads Shango out to a marketplace sort of area in the arena, and he takes him to a tent where the canvas glitters in the light. There's a large construct or statue of some sort, a pot-bellied toad apparently made of gem-studded orichalcum. Bageru knocks on the door of the tent, and despite the fact that it appears to be canvas in every way that matters texturally, it clangs as if he's knocking on metal.
A young dwarf woman with freckled tan skin, short-cut dark hair, and golden eyes answers. I'm not going to do the whole formatting thing since she's not fighting anyone (at least not today), but a little caption appears on the bottom of the 'screen' identifying her as Cuelebre Jin-Hua, Exigent of Ivory Shadow, Eastern God of Secret Arsenals.[0] She asks Bageru what he wants, and he indicates Shango, and they step into her 'office.' There are weapons on racks and tables, some of them haphazard displays, all over the place. Shango explains he's looking for a one-handed sword that might be a good defense implement. She starts pulling stuff out of crates and cases as she asks if he has any preference regarding materials or anything like that. But he admits that this is kind of an "I'll know it when I see it" sword of thing.
He spots an orichalcum cutlass with a weird shine to the blade and immediately reaches for it, and she stops him. He asks if he can look at it, and she hands it to him while moving to a table where one of her own weapons rests, just in case. He picks up the blade and takes a look at it -- while orichalcum is never dull, there is something muted about the blade's shine but it lacks the subtle green patina sometimes seen in the oldest orichalcum artifacts. The hilt is white jade with some sort of subtle carving that gives it a pearlescent sheen in the light.[1]
Shango attunes it to make it light enough to swing around, and takes a few practice swings. His swings are a little sluggish, his form is slightly off, and he says it'd take some practice to get used to it. But with a flourish he hands it back to her and asks her what currency she takes.
She shrugs and is like "What do you have?"
He's already thought of this and pulls out a stack of papers representing various accounts -- bank accounts, merchant accounts, etc. -- and he offers it all to her.[2] That's probably the last thing she's expecting, but she says that if everything there is on the up and up then that'll do the trick. She takes a minute to look it over, pulling Bageru aside to ask if he vouches for Shango, but in the end she accepts it. She's based out the East and Shango's investments are all in the Southwest, but she can make it work. She does subtly menace him on the off-chance that it doesn't pay off. But she gets the sword's scabbard and tells him the weapon's name: Haze-cleaver. She also explains she's pretty sure it's originally from the West or Southwest, but she found it in a river pirate's shipwreck off the coast of Lookshy.
There's a knock at the tent flap. She tells whomever it is to come in, and it's the guy with the Vlad Tepes vibe the group saw fight way back at the beginning of the tournament.
The group doesn't know his name yet, but rather than dance around it, I'll just tell you his first name is Grigore.
Grigore asks, in a thick Northeastern accent, if he's interrupting. Cuelebre says only if he's looking to buy the daiklave that Shango's purchasing. He looks at it and says he's just there to browse. As he does so, he asks Shango if he's thought about what boon he wants. Shango's not sure what he means, but tells him that he dropped out of the tournament. Grigore says that's a shame, but maybe Shango's group will be presented the boon together, or who knows. But it served as a reminder that early on, it was implied that even if the group didn't collectively 'win' the event, they might get some sort of reward from the Organizers. Shango says they hadn't really considered it.
But either way, Cuelebre wraps Haze-cleaver up in a cloth marked with seals indicating that it's safe and all that, and gives it to Shango. He bows to both her and to Grigore and says it was a pleasure meeting them.
After that, we jump ahead a bit, to when the matches are going to restart -- beginning with another exhibition match with Xương. As the ring is reconfiguring itself into a 'stage,' like it has been doing lately, Xương leaps out of the group's viewing box and swells to his full size as he lands in what appears to be the wreckage of a Southwestern Bar. And I'm not saying that to jokingly imply he'd just destroyed it -- they designed the wreckage as if the building had been destroyed from the inside by, say, someone turning into a giant humanoid sea monster.
But the dust settles, revealing a figure in the doorway -- it's Shichirou the Digger again, this time without his monk's spade. He cracks his neck and his knuckles as Xương pounds the ground and lets out a wet, warbling roar. Hǎifēng puts down a wager that Xương will win in the first round (or at least interpreted as such in-character, since the characters don't mark combat rounds).
As the dust from Xương's ground-pounding settles, Shichirou has taken on... it's hard to articulate. It's not a traditioanal martial arts form that Xương or the others can recognize, but it's definitely some sort of stance, and Shichirou's got what can only be described as a thousand-yard stare he didn't have before.
Xương runs at him, jaws open wide enough that teeth are all he sees, and he tries to chomp down on Shichirou and he pushes himself off-balance trying to dodge -- though not as much as it seems at first, as if Xương's subconsciously holding back. Surely out of respect for the fellow pirate. Surely.[3] But Shichirou steadies himself and takes a swing at Xương, just what looks like a typical brawling punch -- but his form is perfect, the fist glowing as it's wreathed in a mirror of Xương's hostility, and he actually socks him one.
Xương reels, jaws hanging off the front of his hideous head in that way that goblin shark jaws do. And he gets a look on his face as if to say "Okay, we're doing this." He raises one webbed hand and brings it down on Shichirou like a roof coming down on him, trying to flatten him before he can hit him again. Shichirou braces himself, holding back Xương's hand, and is pushed back along the floor, digging furrows in it with his feet as he braces himself. He pushes Xương's arms off of him and dives in with a pretty solid sock to the gut.
Xương then raises his fists over his head to bring them down to pound the ground with what we've come to call the 'Kirk fist,' trying to destroy enough of the terrain to entomb Schr. But Schr's still standing there -- beaten and worn down, but standing -- as everything settles.
"Not bad, Digger," Xương says. "Figured you for a dirt-blood."
Shichirou just gives him an 'if only you knew' smile in response. He runs at Xương, and reaches down like he's going to grab something -- but in fact, he jams his hand into a mug, using it like a smashfist. He hits Xương's jaw with that oddly-perfect form, but he's lacking in strength. Xương's getting tired of this, and lunges at Shichirou, moving with the grace he would normally have underwater, jaws looming down upon him to eclipse the light. They pin him down, and he tries to bite down on him, but the pirate wriggles free and takes a swing with that mug-covered hand, though the mug is starting to crack up around his hand.
But they're both worn down at this point, just trading blows, both too stubborn to give up. Xương's tired, cranky, needs a corn hog and a nap. His fury is flagging, which threatens to weaken his Charms[4], but his weight remains the same. So he shoves Shichirou to the ground and flop onto him elbow-first. Then he goes to his tried and true tactic -- he grabs Shichirou in his jaws and shakes him like a ragdoll, teeth sawing back and forth, and Shichirou waves his arm to indicate he's done just as the judges are calling it.
Xương drops him, then realizes that Shichirou's muttering something that he can't quite hear over the cheering crowd. He leans down but only catches the last couple lines of what sounds like some sort of poem: "Each time she gasped and found no breath, a human child died, and thus, she lived. 'Survival is acceptance,' she said."[5]
The camera is zoomed in on Shichirou's face as he says that with a weary, somewhat-bloody smile, and there's a subtle caption (which, I remind you, the characters aren't aware of even if the OOC audience is) underneath that shimmers into view and then vanishes a moment later:
Chosen of Journeys
Pirate, former dirt farmer
Second-in-command of the Mistbreaking Princess
Agent for the Bureau of Destiny
And we leave off there.
[0]-- I considered creating someone original, but saw an opportunity to drop in a character from Adversaries of the Righteous for the heck of it.
[1]-- While the overall effect is more subdued, the first comparison that comes to mind as to what it looks like is iridescent chocolate.
[2]-- This isn't everything he has, but it's all the stuff he specifically got from his family. He's holding onto the accounts he earned and acquired himself. In terms of game mechanics, he's giving up a Resources dot to justify this as part of his larger character arc.
[3]-- Actually, it's a defensive Brawl Charm. Which, technically, does induce a feeling in the attacker to make them hold back, whether they like it or not.
[4]-- It doesn't, I'm just being flowery.
[5]-- Okay, context for those of you who don't follow Exalted: Sidereal Exalted Charms are tied to, and somewhat modeled after, sutras known as the 'Scripture of the Whatever Maiden,' where the Whatever is some mythical figure tied to the Ability in question. And the most potent Charm in the Ability actually incorporates a special prayer strip that has this sutra on it. For example, Resistance Charms have the 'Scripture of the Eternal Maiden,' Sail Charms have the 'Scripture of the Maiden at Sea,' and Brawl Charms have...
Scripture of the Drowning MaidenOnce, there was a maiden......falling forever in the water. She reached for purchase, but found nothing; her arms swung through the sea.The water did not slow her, nor the chill, but she could not breathe.Each time she gasped and found no breath, a human child died, and thus, she lived."Survival is acceptance," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment