Exalted 3rd: To Wound the Autumnal City

Samesh:


Outwardly smiling with the satisfaction of someone who just scored a sweet deal, Samesh took care to note what Cordwainer let slip, policeman's mind racing even as his body exuded the air of a blade for hire.


Cooper? Another name for the list. And... Mating with the plague monsters? Who in their right mind would try that? Is there another faction involved? Worth investigating. He called them prizes. Hunting to capture, then, instead of kill? Capture for whom? The Martyrs must be investigated further.


"I, uh, can't imagine that ended well for anyone, from the little I know of those... prizes."


He glanced briefly at Whisper and shrugged noncommittally, in a makes-no-damn-difference-to-me sort of way.
 
Whisper


"Perhaps I am. And now you wish to abscond with him to the marshes? Maybe I feel slightly hurt." Whisper finally downs a decent amount of her wine. This promises to be a worthy storm...
 
@Skrakes


"Nah, nah, I ain't leavin' yet, love. Got more business to attend before I get back to the slog. Most of my boys are sunk to the bottom of some bog somewhere. Men who'd stare down a damn ox-dragon or pack of claw striders. Shit that's stalking around out there? It'll bleed anyone dry, then eat their hearts." The mercenary takes a long pull from his pipe, then empties it with a slap to his palm. Embers flicker into the rain and die. 


@Sarky


"I won't lie to you." He coughs, tapping out the last ashes. "No matter what shit you seen or say you seen... These things are the real deal. Out there in the dark, downwind, think you're fine inside the blind, then you see the first pair light up a few yards away. Two rubies hanging there in the dark, then the first baying, and all the others come alive..." He chuckles. "Then you hoof it back to the ambush, hoping you're faster than those long-limbed freaks." 
 
@Grey @JayTee @Vanman


The bartender yawns, revealing a mouth full of perfectly formed wooden teeth. "What brings you lads this way? I may be in the middle of the city, but I don't get many groups of folk comin' in." 
 
Echo's Lament


"What brings any wanderer to the fair city of Antoo, my friend? This is the city of answers, yes? There is the Library, there are the debates, there are the learned scholars. If you have a question and need an answer, this is the place to come. As it is with them, so it is with us." Echo's Lament takes a sip from his drink and lets the silence lengthen JUST a bit. Then. "We found our answers." Another drink. "In case you were wondering."


The minstrel smiles widely and winks at the barkeep, to take any sting out of the words. "We do seem to find ourselves with time on our hands. Can you perhaps suggest a part of the city most travelers do not frequent, but you find most would marvel, were they to peruse the wonder? I am also curious - do you cater mostly to single travelers, here in the middle of the city? Or do most groups stay elsewhere?"
 
Yugo


Yugo sat down at the bar and placed an order for a tall, strong drink before answering the question. "Looking for information on the plague." He said, trying to enjoy himself while he could. "Just spent hours in the Library going over old documents, and in many ways we have more questions than answers."
 
@Skrakes


"That is the two talent question, isn't it?" He shrugs. "Ours is not to reason why. The beasts gotta die." 


@Vanman


"Most groups stick to the cheaper tenements or the finer boarding houses in Chippa." The elemental yawns, looking bored. "People who come here are meant to come here, if I recall the saying of one old sage some decades ago. Causality has a playground here." He puts away some more of the glasses. "If you're looking for a place most tourists don't play with, go to the Enclave. It's where those tower-worshipers keep their sullen little home." 
 
Samesh:


An amused grunt as Samesh, much like Cordwainer, finished off his pipe and cleaned it.


"Anyone who can afford to pay a man enough to face those beasts without asking questions, that's someone I think I wanna talk to. Or at least not make an enemy of."
 
Echo's Lament


"Ahh," says Echo's Lament, his lips pursing in distaste. "Causality. Fate. I don't much like the idea of Fate. I make my own path in the world, and neither gods nor spirits nor some great big...I don't know, spider web determines that path. I make my own path." The bard shrugs. "This Enclave, on the other hand. That sound interesting. You'll have to forgive my ignorance, though. Tower-worshipers? Are they from the Metropolis I've heard so much about? Or are they some other faction? Oh. I'll have another glass of rice wine, if you'd be so kind, good sir."
 
@JayTee


"The plague? Sordid business, that. I hear it's having a bit of a revival tour along the old riverways." The man-creature shakes his head with a tinkling of bells. "I was around this place only when they'd finished cleaning it up last time." 

@Vanman


"Foundationalists, if we're being technical. Metropolitan is the common parlance. They're...they're one of the more interesting religions I've run into in the East. And I've walked with death cultists." He pours a glass of room-temp sake, sets it before you. "You ever see that creepy ruin they worship?" 

@Sarky


"Yeah." He eyes you and Whisper for a time. Soaked as he is, rivulets pouring from his chin, he doesn't seem too worried for the rain. "I gotta leave town by dawn, but...you two and that sword ever wanna swing with us..." He digs around in his coat and hands you, of all things, a business card like they use in Nexus. Sturdy, black as jet. It's even got a watermark. But no legible writing to be seen. "Hold that up come the next full moon. It'll point you to us, if you're still interested." 
 
Samesh:


"Fancy."


Samesh took a brief scan of the card before pocketing it. And now I don't even have to hunt you down, thought that core of himself hidden under the criminal facade.


"Reckon I just might, the price you're offering. Well then. Nice chatting with you, friend. Might well see you again down the line. Right now though I gotta date with a bottle of brandy. Leave you to it."


He stepped in under shelter again, shook the rain from himself, and sidled back in to the warmth of the inn to finish his drink in thoughtful silence.

Still keeping up the criminal aspect until Samesh is sure Cordwainer is gone.
 
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Yugo


Yugo's ears perked up at that. A first hand account? Now that was something he hadn't expected. "Really?" He asked, unable to keep his curiosity out of his voice. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to share your own perspective on things?" He asked.
 
@Sarky @Skrakes


The warmth envelopes you and the rain becomes all but a racket on the roof's slate tiles. The rain, like a dream in the morning, fades from your clothing, your skin as you step closer to the bar. Cordwainer does not come back inside. In fact, the Southerners make their excuses and exit into stormy night. 


@JayTee


Thin porcelain lips strain into a narrow line as the godling thinks. "Hellish. Hellish is how this land was. I saw terrible things happen in that time. Suppose that's true of war and plague whether it be among men or spirits, but...it was a rare cruelty. I watched parents toss their babes into towering fires to save them from the disease. You never imagined such things. I recall witnessing some of the Shade Rock coming forth from the willow courts to swallow whole villages and fields under the rocks. To stem the tide of the dead and dying. To kill the changed beasts." 
 
Samesh:


Once he was sure Cordwainer was gone for the night, Samesh snuffed out the mask he had conjured around himself, sighing with relief; acting like a criminal felt rather sordid. He motioned for another drink, and filled in his companions on what he'd learned.


"Well that was... interesting. I just had a chat with a Martyr recruiter, pretended I was a blade for hire. They're out in the marshes all right, trying to kill these plague beasts, and they don't care one jot for any innocents that get caught in the fight. Villages burned to the ground and not a pang of guilt. Sickening man." He took a swig, as if to wash away the bad taste of the conversation he'd had with Cordwainer. "He offered two jade talents there and then, so someone exceedingly wealthy must be pulling the Martyr's strings, can't be too many of them around. There's a commander of sorts, Cooper, who must know more. And..." He flashed the business card "...We can find them during a full moon, wherever they are. I bet we'll run into them again, they are up to their necks in this plague business somehow, and even if they're killing dangerous beasts, my gut tells me they're part of the problem."
 
Echo's Lament


The bard's eyebrows rise with the bartender's comments. "Interesting in what way? I must say, I am most certainly intrigued by these Foundationalists. And I haven't seen the creepy ruin they worship. Do te..." At the sound of the door opening, Echo's Lament turns and sees Samesh enter the room, rain dripping from him. The bard had come to recognize that look in the lawman's eyes, and he knew the man had discovered something.


Turning back to the barkeep, the bard takes a sip from his wine. "You'll have to forgive me, good sir. I do want to hear about both the Foundationalists and the creepy ruin they worship, but prior business demands my attention at this point. I will return when that business is concluded, and we can continue our discussion." Reaching into his pouch, the minstrel pulls out several coins and places them on the bar. "A down payment, as it were. For that conversation." Echo's Lament takes another sip of his wine then leaves the cup - still holding the wine - at his place.


Approaching Samesh, the musician listens as the constable relates his experience with this Cordwainer. When he finishes, Echo's Lament purses his lips. "So do we wait until the full moon, make our presence known at that time? Do we search for the money person pulling the strings? Do we go after this Cooper? Or do we do some combination of all three? I do not know if I can countenance innocents being massacred by this outfit. What say the rest of you?"

OOC


I want to complete my conversation with the bartender once this scene is completed, but my preference is for inter-group RP before playing out a scene with an NPC. So my focus is on interacting with the group.
 
Radiant Shine


Shine sidles up with cup in one hand and moustaches twined around the finger of another.


"I have known, in my time, a magistrate who set her own constables upon the mercenaries she had herself hired to convince the people her leadership was vital to their safety," he says, quietly. "i would think us wise to pull up the root of this evil."
 
@Sarky @Grey @Vanman @Skrakes @JayTee


"Strange thing about martyrs," the bartender chimes in, "is that they really don't like not living up to their name. Despite the freebooter and his wheeling and dealing in my parlor, they don't mess around. Martyrs have been in this area for close on fifty years in one shape or another. A herd that strangely isn't thinned by much." 
 
Yugo


"Investigating the Martyrs seems like our best lead the moment." Yugo said.  "I might be pessimistic, but wouldn't surprise me to learn that whatever backer they have is deliberately playing both sides for some form of profit." He speculated. "Either way, find the Martyrs, find their backer, and we're either closer to our goal or no worse off than where we were."
 

Chapter Three: Full Moon Festival
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Ascending Air, RY 768, Antoo


 @JayTee @Vanman @Grey @Skrakes @Sarky


Days pass. The time to rest, reconnoiter, and regard findings of the Plague. Two leads present themselves to you, seemingly coinciding with the rising of the Full Moon, which is now a mere three days away. Each night it grows ever more pregnant in the sky, the greatest pearl Creation knows. Life carries on in Antoo as it has since the beginning: ever forward. The Martyrs continue their bloody hunt in the marshes and abroad. And the Shade Rock Convention meets soon underneath the gaze of the old moon goddess. 

News has come from other parts of the Old Crown. Despite the horror ravaging the countrysides of the Marshes (and some now say the foothills of the Golgi Mountains), people are preparing for the first of the Autumn harvests and the Full Moon Festival. A ritual of thanksgiving and recreation. The Old Crown, and much of the Hundred Kingdoms, has long celebrated the solstice and first harvests of the ending year. Colorful streamers and lanterns hang in every doorway. Children run around throwing hollow gourds at one another. 

Darker things are whispered, too, in the parlor of the strange inn in which you've dwelt. Local communities talk of ghoulish eyes sitting and watching their homes from nearby ruins and forests; hungry ghosts haunt Maddock Hill; strange fires have been lit in the hills and, with an ear to the right wind, fell singing can be heard. 

"Interesting times," the innkeep says each night. 
 
 
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