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Exalted (2.5) Lunar game - Dreams and Memories

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Red Shadow Claws

Six Thousand Club
Memories, like dreams, are part of what defines us, and what drives us forward, and what causes us to react the way we do. For mortals in Creation, their dreams and memories can be altered by spirits, some creatures, the fae, and the exalted. Either to galvanize them, drain them away, crush them, or just plain alter them.

But the Lunar exalted are no mortals, and their moonsilver tattooes mean that outside forces cannot change them. But what happens when three of them wake up one day in the middle of a desert, somewhere in the south-south-east of Creation, with barely a memory of who they are, how they got there, and with persistent dreams that seem to call them east-east-north, to the Dreaming Sea? And what will they discover once they get there?

Arynne Arynne
Esbilon Esbilon
Random Word Random Word
 
It has been a few days since the Lunars have woken up. And in those days, the memory, or dream, that tugs at them has grown stronger. But now, they woke up in a startle, in the midlle of the night. Each has dreamt of a strand of silver wound around a pillar down beneath the waves. and the strand was attached on the other side to each of them. Five pillars are at the bottom of the ocean, each shinning with an inner light, and each is made out of Orichalcum. And all five pillars support a Jade roof, adorned with Starmetal filigree. A temple of sorts.
 
Maus rises suddenly, his senses reaching out in the dark to try and figure out just what has awoken him, with one hand rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Then there was that dream again. He's had some vivid dreams in the past, but they were nothing like this. There had to be more to it than just idle imagination of the sleeping mind.

He silently rises up to a crouch, one hand on the ground, looking about.
 
Quill’s eyes shot open and, though the images of her dream quickly disappeared, sprang upright as if to escape something from her subconscious reaching out to grab her. She was on her feet for only a second before her knees buckled and her legs surrendered her to gravity. She landed with a thump, still dazed and confused, struggling to keep her heart from bursting out of her chest.
 
Waking up with a start is not a good habit to get into in the wild places of the world. Many animals that are completely safe when treated carefully and calmly will strike at sudden changes they perceive as threatening, and so despite the unease caused by the dream that wakes her, Kamara stirs from her slumber slowly and deliberately. Her eyes open, her hand grips the Daiklave beneath the bundle of cloth she's used as a pillow, and one by one she takes in her fellow lunars and see that they too have awoken.

"Did you dream as well?" She asks, breaking the quiet of the night.
 
"I did." Quill considers getting up, thinks better of it, and rearranges her legs in a more comfortable position instead. "And it was another of those perfect, decorative dreams that feel as out of place in my head as..." she gropes for some image, wondering why she can recall things once seen but not the context, "...as an Imperial tea service sitting in the middle of a barnyard. It was so real as to be quite impossible."
 
Maus chuckles. "Usually, when I have dreams about Imperial tea service, I'm sitting in my underclothes and everyone around me is fully dressed and laughing at me. This time, it was one of some place, like a temple, but hidden underwater. I feel . . . connected to it, somehow. I am sure that there is something important to us about this dream, pulling at us to bring us to this hidden location." He continues to look around, trying to see if there was something that would explain why he woke up so suddenly.
 
Quill snorts at Maus' anecdote. "Dreams do have a kind of hellish ingenuity and energy in the pursuit of the inappropriate; the most omniscient and cunning artist never took so much trouble or achieved such success in finding exactly the word that was right or exactly the action that was significant, as a dream can do in finding exactly the word that is wrong and exactly the action that is nonsensical." She pauses. "Which is precisely why these dreams disturb me so much. They don't feel like dreams at all."
 
Sabah sits with one arm wrapped around her knees, the other outstetched, elbow resting on her knee, palm upright. The light of a small conjured flame dances in her palm, its reflected light in her azure eyes almost all that's visible of her face between the voluminous hood of her loose white robes and the mask that keeps out the sand. The light doesn't banish the darkness in the shallow cave in which they've sought shelter from the winds, but it does force it to retreat to prowl around the edges of her vision and lick its wounds, and more importantly it makes the ruby set in the silver worked into her wrists shine beautifully. She's clearly rich - if only she could remember where all her money was.

The woman with the sword and the man with the staff share that mesmerizing, almost terrifying grace, and continue to share something else: neither has killed her in her sleep, nor seems inclined to do so, which is more than can be said for most strangers encountered in the desert (How do I know that?). If it happens, at least her death will be beautiful.

"A poet, then, ere we sprung fully formed from barren sands?" She speculates playfully, looking at Quill out of the corner of her eye. "And a successful one at that, if you took your tea with empresses."

"Well, if 'tis no dream then surely the gods test our virtue, or perhaps we are accursed by fate. I think I should prefer the curse, myself, for in a test of virtue at least one of us must fail so as to establish stakes, and I find myself unseemly fixed on the precise volume of jade in those depths."
 
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"We don't know if gods, fates, men, or worse things brought us here," Kamara says and rises gracefully from where she rested. She keeps the silver Daiklave in hand, but holds it behind her back where it does less to disturb the ongoing conversation. "And sitting in this cave thinking about it does not seems likely to bring us closer to an answer to that or any other question. I don't know you, but until you give me reason to do otherwise, I will trust you. I say we stick together and go where these dreams tell us to go. It's probably a trap, but it's one I don't see a way of going around."
 
"And if it is a trap," Quill observes, "I have a feeling, just a feeling, mind you, that we will not be easy prey." She glances at the long spear propped against the cave wall.

It had been something of a shock to realize that she recognized it, that she knew there was a little owl worked into the metal near the tip even before the blade caught the light. Nothing in her temperament suggested an affinity for combat - but she knew, somehow, that the spear had been made for her.
 
As you sit and talk, you can hear a screech from outside the cave.

(You may make a Wits + Survival check to try and recall what kind of creature it might be)
 
Maus goes silent, trying to listen and identify what it might be making that noise.

4 successes
 
As the bestial screech interrupts the Exalts' conversation, it is as if Kamara started moving even before the sound made its way into the cave. With a graceful economy of motion, she orients herself towards the sound and with ears open and eyes peeled focus in on its source.

OOC: 6 successes.
 
Maus and Kamara recognize this screech as belonging to the rarely seen golden sands lizard, in appearance they are a slicker golden-sandy color version of the river dragons, but their screech is eerie, and tends to cause it's prey to flee, while it's ability to sense vibrations makes it able to pick it's prey at night, and their speed allows them to over it.

But, they are not known to hunt this region of the desert, and are usually confined to the desert beyond the mountains to the west.
 
"A golden sands lizard," Kamara answers, her body still and her blade still at the ready, "a dangerous predator, but not, I believe, a threat to us."
 
At that moment, the screech is heard again, and it is repeated 5 times. The Golden Sands Lizards are no know to hunt in packs. At least when it comes to prey up to horse sized. But 6 of them? that might be a big prey...
 
Quill glances around. "Should one of us perhaps do a spot of reconnaissance? I don't believe the desert lizards are fliers..."
 
Maus slowly stands, then holds out his hand to summon his Wrackstaff from Elsewhere. "If these predators are so close to us, it may be that they have our scent, and will be stalking us. We have two real options; stand and face them, or flee into the night in some alternate forms that these hunting Sand Lizards cannot follow us in."
 
"Better to find out first what the situation is." With the faintest shiver of silver light, Quill shrinks down into her totem form. From the mouth of the shallow cave they are using as a shelter, she takes wing into the night air.
 
Sabah arches an eyebrow at Quill's departure, weaving the flame between her fingers. "I defer to the woman with the sword on the subject of death and the dealing thereof. If they are no threat, let me know when it's my watch. I seem to have a far greater talent for reconnaissance in my dreams than awake." She lays down on the hard rock, bunching her travelling cloak under her for what meagre comfort it can offer, and snuffs out the light.
 
At first Quill sees little, but her body quickly adapts, and she can see one of the golden sands lizards not far from the cave entrance, but it's facing away from the cave. Another, lower screech is heard, and the lizard below you sprints, faster than your owl form can fly, but it matters little, since you have it's general direction, and because in the distance, you can spot a fiery anima manifesting, and can hear the unmistakable sounds of a simhata, as rider and mount are engulfed in the anima.
 
Quill circles briefly, to fix the direction in her mind, before returning to the cave and resuming her human form.

"We are not their prey," she reports, her voice still slightly hoarse and with a trace of an owl's hoot to it. "They hunt another Exalt, not far from here."
 

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