Exalted 3E Solars of the Sky - IC

[Midboss]

He quickly got the implied meaning although he heavily disaproved:
"There is a special place in Malfeas for people who make terrible puns."

 

[Rykon]

Everyone is currently settled into the ship. If you chose to depart now, what is your current heading Sherwood ?

For the crew, what activities currently occupy those on duty (Players included)?

 

[Greenstalker]

Tiger climbed one of the watchposts and decided to keep an eye out for things that might decide to intervene. He keeps watch for about two hours or until he is called whichever happens first. He than tries to get some rest until sleeping dawn awakes.

 

[Esbilon]

Once she is as clean as she is likely to become without access to an actual bath, a stream, or any other body of water, Lioness returns to Xilanada's side and places a hand on the Twilight's shoulder as they both regard the sleeping man. For now, at least, her place is here. And if fighting should break up on the deck, she'll hear the noise and come running swiftly enough.

"You should get some sleep too," she offers softly, "Charles and I can keep watch well enough." She does not expect the sorceress to follow her suggestion, but gives it none the less.

 

[Epiphany]

With Astian settled into sleep in her bed, Xilanada gives a weary sigh and nods slowly at Lioness' suggestion. In some ways, she's disappointed her lover's finished bathing and dressing but in other ways she's relieved. Nothing is every simple between them anymore. They'd both changed so much this year. Conflict had become elemental to Lana's nature, it seems, for even now there's a part of her that thinks this change is good, that they're more of who they really are than they've been. For that matter, perhaps the Zenith will tire of her and leave and perhaps that has its advantages, for without the distraction of the other woman, Xilanada could be free to finally focus entirely on mastering the Sorceries she'd already come to understand.

Then came Lioness' gently meant suggestion and the Twilight Caste bows her head in acknowledgement, and to partially hide her expression, knowing how easily the Zenith saw through her pretense. Lioness' care and concern is truly felt, at least as far as Xilanada can tell.

"Come wake me later," she says, instead of other things she wants to say but can't. "You need rest as well, especially after all that. I think I'll be here for when..." the Sorcereress glances about, confirms they're otherwise alone, and admits, "for when Tepet Kian's cousin wakes up."

With everything that she can explain explained, Xilanada curls up on a bed and rests. If not for sleep, for silence and the space needed to sort through her feelings on a piece of her past intruding in her new life so soon after she'd gained it.

 

[Esbilon]

For a short time after Xilanada has curled up to rest, Lioness stands still, regarding the still forms of the two former scions of House Tepet. The familial similarity between Astian and Kian is clear now that it has been pointed out and she has time to regard the newcomer at her leisure. It changes little, though. For now, he is a man out of his element in her care, and she intends to supply that. She glances at the chair for a moment, but quickly rejects it. Having to keep watch is no reason to keep idle.

The Shifting Cloth takes the shape of simple, clean training clothes, and Lioness begins moving slowly through practice katas that are second nature to her by now. Her body may not need them anymore, but they calm her mind and keep her alert in times such as this.

 

[Sherwood]

With everyone onboard and the memories of the undead monster still fresh in her mind, Axtis gives the order to take off. "For now, let's head north and put some miles between us and whatever evil still lurks for us here. Once our guest wakes, we can get his story and see what we will do after that."

With the decision made and the order given, she watches as the crew moves in practiced ease to get the ship into the air. Once they are clear and underway, Axtis leaves the helm to her pilot. "I'm going to my cabin to clean up. I can still smell those zombies on my clothes. Keep a close watch on Sleeping Beauty. We don't need to have him go crazy as he wakes in an unfamiliar place."

 

[Psychie]

Griffon gives Axtis a playful salute. "Go get cleaned up and leave the ship to us. We'll take good care of the Indignation, and we'll let you know when our new friend wakes up." Once the other woman leaves, Griffon takes to her favorite spot in the ship: right up front at the bow. She leans against the rail and watches the ground go by as they fly.

 

[Rykon]

The ship lurches out of port as the mountainside glamours concealing the manse dissipate in the wake of the drifting vessel. Labored breathing echoes through the caverns as a squad's worth of grumpy drunks pounds their feet angrily on the pedals and whirl the propellers to life. The Righteous Indignation glides into open sky, the side sails unfurl and the winds carry you northward over open seas in a blanket of nighted mists.

In a few hours, the cool cover of night recedes when the dawn peaks over the jagged eastern silhouette. Now is when Astian stirs, waking from a long overdue collapse, he rises. His hand goes to his head as the pains set in across his somewhat emaciated physique. He looks toward Lioness, to Xilanada, and then to the burlap shorts he was barely allowed during incarceration. "Wow, this... looks like quite a scene... What happened?" He finally asked, face somewhat flushed from the improper circumstances that greeted this day.

 

[Esbilon]

There are only so many times one can move through the same katas without going mad, and though Lioness's endurance for such things are greater than those of most people, she is quite thoroughly done before Astian returns from the grips of exhausted sleep. Instead, she is sitting in the lotus position on the floor before the cabin's lone bed. When the man starts groaning, she opens her eyes, putting an end to her meditations and rises. Her first action upon realizing that their guest is no longer quite so far gone as he was previously is lightly touch Xilanada's foot to wake her gently from her own rest.

When Astian wakes enough to take in his surroundings, she is standing at the foot of the bed, looking calmly down at its two occupants and apparently dressed in the same bright orange dress she wore for the battle the night before. "You passed out after we defeated a necromantic abomination," she answers him, "currently you are aboard the airship Righteous Indignation and among friends. My name is Lioness."

 

[Epiphany]

Woke by the Zenith's familiar touch, Xilanada smiles sleepily at the other woman before realizing her circumstances, and her bed, are more crowded than before. Even as the man wakes, the blonde woman rolls from the bedding and brushes out her robes, though in her case she'd opted to switch for a slightly lighter set of tan. Blue eyes peer curiously at the man in the burlap shorts before offering him a friendly smile.

Well, friendly for her anyway.

"And I am Xilanada. We saw your fight, though not the circumstances that led you there. We also don't seem to know as much about who we fought with as you do. I expect the Captain will want to talk with you. I'll take you to her, though...hmmm. I don't know if either of us have anything that would fit you. Perhaps one of our male Circlemates could accommodate you with something else; you're not going to want to be wearing those if you go above decks, not this far North."

As if to reassure him, the Caste Mark of a Twilight briefly gleams across her forehead as her smile brightens. "One thing you can depend on, though, is Lioness' word; you are indeed among friends here. Shall we go see the Captain?"

 

[Greenstalker]

Tiger kept lookout for an hour than sided down and head to his own cabin for a short rest. His cabin was next to Xilanada and Lioness' though and he had a good hearing among other things. Before long he realized there were talking happening at the otherside of the wall and he woke up than skim through his spare clothes and found closest one that might fit to Astian leaving an injured person alone with two beatuies is one thing leaving that man almost buttnaked after waking up another.

Tiger knocks the door of women. "It is Tiger I brought some spare clothes for ouer guest"

 

[Rykon]

Astian stands, muscles in his calves seemed clench viciously as he winced from various cramps. "Ah, I uh... Thanks stranger..." He replied as he stepped carefully toward the door, trying not to lose his balance in the wake of the punishing recovery period. Despite the initial shocks to his system, he seemed to relax within a few moments, able to get dressed without too much issue. "I guess I may as well go see her now. I don't know why you all were there, but I reckon you don't know much of what's been going on the past few seasons."

 

[Esbilon]

"It's this way," Lioness says once Astian is dressed in Tiger's clothes, and leads the man from the cabin towards the captain's. Despite herself, she can't help feeling slightly discomforted by Tiger's uncalled for appearance. Having lived on a ship for large portions of her life, she is no stranger to the lack of privacy in such close quarters, but letting others have the illusion of it is something she at least used to consider common courtesy.

It is no great journey to Axtis's quaters, and in a short while, Lioness knocks on the other woman's door. "Captain, our guest is awake," she calls out.

 

[Sherwood]

By this time, Axtis has been able to change her clothes and clean herself up so she doesn't stink like the walking dead. When the knock on her door comes, she is looking over maps, trying to decide on the best course to take from here. She rises and opens up the door. "Excellent. Lets bring this Astain to the common room so that everyone can hear his story."

 

[Esbilon]

"As you say, captain," Lioness responds and leads the way to the common room. Along the way, she grabs hold of a crew member and asks them to fetch Griffon and Varrick so that the Circle may be gathered in full.

OOC: I assume Xilanada and Tiger have been following since we left the other cabin.

 

[Greenstalker]

Tiger was following them silently. Too silently even for the man called Stalking Tiger. There seems to be something in his mind but whatever it is buried deep in his mind and without even realizing Tiger himself was following both ladies and Astian with utmost silence as if he was their shadow.

 

[Psychie]

Griffon will make her way to the meeting room with interest. Time to hear a story. I wonder what it will lead to?

 

[Rykon]

Astian seemed notably uncomfortable, from ill fit clothes, to the utter alien environment he woke up to. Once the circle was together, however, he let out a slow breath and summoned what martial decorum he still retained and began to speak to the gathering of strangers.

"Well, my story really begins at the Battle of Futile Blood... Arada had signaled the retreat, elementals, demons, greater demons, mammoths, and bloodthirsty ice walkers were striding over our troops like we were freshly laid carpet. My unit covered the retreat of the main house's troops for as long as we could. Though, it seemed our opponent was keen to toy with us by his own nature." Astian paused, trying to mute the screams in his head. "No normal sorceror could have called that Demon... and yet, even in the face of death we managed to rally. We dealt it several telling blows, but it's pain was just a ruse. Defiance rose in our hearts having seen our brethren successfully pass from the battlefield. That's when I drew the second breath. I will never forget how the grit and determination seemed to melt from my comrades faces... Only to be replaced with scorn, horror... betrayal?"

Astian stopped, his fist clenched. "I cut down the demon, then those that once called me friend... All while I heard the mad cackling laughter of the Bull. I guess if I was in his shoes, I'd laugh at the irony too..." Relaxing for a moment, he moved on to more recent events. "It was later in White Wall, I met with a representative of Yu Shan. A human woman from the Bureau of Destiny, if you could believe it. She lead me on to the Trail of the Lover's agents, a Deathlord's agents... I followed them to Lawless. I hunted them for nearly half a season until Noshe's brat decided to pick a fight. Must've fancied the girl in their group from the sound of his bluster. I took no satisfaction in disposing of the poor lad, but he was more trouble alive than dead, despite the mess you all witnessed."

"Either way... I managed to get enough out of the guards and the gloating gaggle of the Deathlord's thugs to know that Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears is just as much, if not more, a threat than Mask of Winters. The lady from Yu Shan gave me little other than the assertion that she created the Great Contagion and was working on releasing a new blight upon this world. I think that's probably what the Haslanti now face, but they are picking the wrong fight. They survive now out of mercy, not might... I... don't know how long they'll last if they can't defend against what comes next..."

 

[Esbilon]

As Tepet Astian speaks, Lioness throws a glance at Xilanda. Partly for direction, and partly just to see how this man's words affect the woman who was once Tepet Kian. Though she knows that he is of her former House and that her family was involved in the Battle of Futile Blood, the details escape her.

She puts her hand on Astian's shoulder and says with a quiet confidence, "I am sorry for your loss, but you are among friends now. Friends who know something of what it means to be thought Anathema by the world at large." She lets her hand fall to her side again as she continues. "Regarding this Lover," noting that the man made it sound like a title rather than a description, "someone who created the Great Contagion does not seem to me like the kind of person whose mercy should be relied upon. The necromancer whose creations we fought, was that the agent you spoke of? And do you know where they might have gone?"

 

[Rykon]

"Ah, right... The death knights... There was the one by Noshe with his Lunar friend, then the necromancer. They probably fled to a manse of theirs to lick their wounds... er... well... others wounds..." He said with a grimace. "There's more than just those three, but I expect we'll be seeing some of them again at least." He paused, then a flash of memory shined in his eyes. "Did they succeed in corrupting the demesne at Lawless?"

 

[Esbilon]

"Do you know where this Manse might be?" Lioness asks, though she watches Astian with a keen eye, careful not to press the recovering man too harshly just yet.

At the mention of corrupting demesnes, though, she looks to Xilanada for an explanation and an answer.

 

[Rykon]

"No. I suspect it's not in creation. Probably in the Underworld somewhere from the constant whining I overheard from them."

 

[Sherwood]

Axtis leans back in her seat and runs a hand through her hair. Damn. A Deathlord? And not just any, but the one that actually created the Great Contagion - a disease so bad that it killed nine out of every ten people. No matter what, we have to keep this from happening again.

"Well, let me say that you are in the presence of friends, and we just happen to be one of the largest groups of Exalted in the area. If there is any chance to keep this disease from being unleashed upon Creation, we will be the ones to find it. What I will need from you is all the information you can share with us about this Lover. Is she an ally of the Bull of the North? How many of these Deathknights are there in her control? Finally, so you know where this Lover is right now? Finding her layer is now a major priority."

 

[Rykon]

"I counted ten death knights, plus some allies here or there, such as the Lunar we fought. As for the location of her home, it's no real secret, but I'd keep this ship far from it. We'd need much more support to directly come against forces the likes a Deathlord can command. Even the Bull would have significant trouble holding against an unending wave of corpses and dark mystics for long." Astian added, shifting his weight to try and relax from his time in Lawless.