First Contact

When her week is up, Khutulun approaches Vale again and speaks as plainly as any First Age Solar is likely to, "so," she begins abruptly when the Terrestrial comes into her sight, "don't you think it'd be wise if we stopped wasting each other's time? I've trained your handful and they're better than they were before, but there's no reason to be so limited. Let me train more than just a handful, and you'll really see something."
 
You find Vale sitting with one of the other Exalts of the Slope, going over some papers. She gives the other Exalt a nod, indicating that he is to leave the two of you alone. She leans back in her seat and looks over at Khutulun with a guarded expression. "Since you wish to stop wasting time, at what point were you going to tell us that you are a Solar Exalt? I have spent time watching you as you work with the riders we sent to you, and the only way you could have gotten them as much progress as you have is if you were an Exalt. Do not worry; your secret is safe here. You don't see me running out of the room screaming 'Anathama', do you? Are all four of you Exalts, or just you? Now that we have that out in the open, what is your real reason for being here? Planning on building your own little empire here on the Slope?"
 
"I show up at your door clad in Orichalcum from head to toe and talking of greatness. I figured you'd either know what that meant or have no idea what a Solar was," she answers with a shrug, unconcerned by the other's insinuations of duplicity. "The Exalted are catalysts of change, we were created as such and whatever we may wish, we will remain such. The Creation you have known, the mountain you have know and these slopes you have known belong to yesteryear. If you wish to live on these slopes as your ancestors did and for things to remain the same as they have always been, you are a fool, and I do not think you are."

She smiles and continues, "though to answer your question: No, I do not plan on building anything small or confining it to these slopes. Creation's very foundations have been shaken in the past few years, and such foundations do not shake by themselves. Change is coming such as Creation has not seen in millennia, and if I were you, I'd find out what manner of change I wanted to see in it sooner rather than later."
 
Nodding in understanding, Vale leans forward. "You are here to bring change. What exactly do you propose? What is it that you want from us?" From the way she is talking, the idea of being a part of something larger than the slope of this mountain is one that is very intriguing to her. You have the feeling that you are over half way there to having her open cooperation with your plans.
 
"I am here, change will follow," Khuthulun corrects, "it matters not if it is my purpose. What I need now is competent people I can trust. With that and some tricks we have up our sleeves and can only really share with people we can trust, we'll be able to give Creation's foundations another good shake."
 
"What makes you think you can trust us? Just because we haven't run to the Wyld Hunt to turn you in, that shouldn't mean you can automatically trust us. As of now, though, we have no reason to turn on you. You are willing to teach our fighting men and women how to be more effective, and you are asking little in return." Vale leans back in her seat as she speaks. "I think I speak for all of us on the mountain that we would like to play a larger role in the affairs of Creation, but at the moment, I don't know what kind of role that would be. I will not sit idly by and let my people get used as cannon fodder for some wild dreams of conquest."
 
Weiss spends some of her time looking for her Solar companion, and finally, gets word that she is in a meeting with Vale. She listens in enough to know what is going on before entering. "Lady Vale, if we had nefarious plans for you, would we really be spending so much time teaching your people to better themselves? We can offer you a front row seat to the work of making Creation a better place, to bring it out of this Dark Age that it is in. All we ask of you is that you give us a chance to show what we can do." She holds out her hand towards the seated Dragon Blood. "Can we count on you?"
 
Vale looks at the two of you with visible interest. "Does that mean you are a Solar, too? What kind of things are you planning for the people of the Slope?" She seem excited, almost ready to jump onboard for any plans you have.
 
Weiss shakes her head. "No, I am no Solar. I am one of the Chosen of Luna, bound to serve Khutulun. We can offer you much, if you choose to follow us. A great destiny unlike any you have in store right now. I ask you again, can we count on you?"
 
"Serve might be stressing the nature of the relationship," Khutulun says with a goodnatured smirk in Weiss's direction. "As for trusting you, what makes you think we do? We haven't told you the aforementioned secrets, and I'm sure you suspected there were some so even by revealing their existence, I haven't shown you any particular amount of trust. Gaining that trust will take more than your word, but it's a good start."
 
"The question remains, what do you want from us? I am willing to go far to be a part of something bigger, something to help my people, but I don't want to blindly sign up to a unwinnable cause."
 
"We are Exalted, no wars are unwinnable," Khuthulun says as if stating that the sun rises in the morning or that the sky is blue. "For now, though, what I want from you is that you show me that you are trustworthy. That's a hard thing to do, I know, and something that takes time, but we can't have the foundations of what we aim to build be rotten. So why don't you start by telling me how much of your way of life consists of raiding neighbors who are just sadly unable to defend themselves from hawkriders?"
 
Vale's face colors a bit when Khutulun asks about the raids that the hawkriders do, but she doesn't try and deny them. "You have been shown around our land here, and only a fool would be able to say that we are doing more than just barely scraping along. We can grow enough food to get by in the dry seasons, but there is precious little storage for those years we are faced with a loss of our crops either by blight or by an insect plague. For centuries, we have been trapped on this gods forsaken rock, barely able to etch out a living to keep ourselves from starving to death. Once our efforts to breed and train the giant hawks came to fruition, we were finally in a position to be able to get for ourselves what we had been lacking for generations. We had nothing with which to trade, but we had our strength, and our history of fighting to survive. Yes, we took what we needed from those on the surface. Should I be sorry for that?" Vale pauses to consider her next words. "I suppose I should, but I must weigh the needs of my people. What would you have done in our place? Just roll over and die? No. We fought for what we have, and I cannot let my people, my family down that way. If you can offer us another way and keep us from having to raid the towns around us, I'm all ears." She points a finger at Khutulun, "That would be worth more to us than anything else you could offer."
 
Weiss smiles. "I will not give out our secrets yet, but I will say that we can guarantee that you won't have to live a life on the ragged edge of survival with us. Your people can be the first among many that will be following our banner, and as the first, yours will be a place of favor above the others that come along later. You will no longer go hungry, or have to launch raids out into Creation to find supplies in order to trade for basic needs."
 
"Indeed," Khuthulun says in agreement with her Mate, "if you stick with us, we'll get you off this... rock and into better places. There will be fighting, there's always fighting, but the life awaiting you at the end of it is one far removed from stealing the scraps from other people's tables. You asked me a question, though," she says taking on a more serious mien, "and I don't know that I would have acted very differently. Perhaps chosen my targets more carefully, perhaps taken my people elsewhere, but I do not think you've done particularly ill by your people or by Creation. The time now is for greater things, though, and I hope you will lead your people to those great things."
 
Vale listens to the two of you intently, and she finally nods. "I will speak to the others, but I can say with confidence that we will cooperate with you, and will do what we can to be a part of this future you have envisioned for Creation. How can we start on the path to a better level of trust between us both? What is it that I can do for you?"
 
Weiss gives a wide smile. "Good! I am glad to have you on our side with us. You will not be sorry for your decision. First off, I would say that you should let Khutulun work with more of your people and train them. After a few weeks of this, they will be a true vision of crack troops. Heck, I wouldn't mind having the other Exalts on the Slope join in this exercise. It will benefit all that work with our golden general. Once that is done, I think that we will have less difficulty getting all important parties on this mountain in line and working together."
 
Over the next few days, Vale meets with the other Exalted on the Slope and discusses with them the benefits of working with the Circle of Exalts that have come here. Between her impassioned arguments and Weiss' New Friend Aroma working on them, there is a growing consensus to allow Khutulun to work with more of the people on the Slope and train them using your abilities as a great general and Solar Exalt. How many people can Khutulun work with at one time with her Charms?

Ash finds that there are a number of people that are willing to learn more about the ways of Gods, and the more you talk, the larger your small but growing group of interested devotees becomes.

Nagao has one of the Dragon Blooded approach him, a wiry man named Rykos, asking about learning to use the martial skills to advance his own fighting knowledge.

What does Weiss do during this time?

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Weiss may not have the same skill in Warfare that Khutulun does, but she is a master with the pike, and so she will take a few hand picked soldiers and begin to drill them personally. Any progress with this will take a bit longer than what they will receive from her Solar, but if there are a few that show enough promise, she will be willing to take them under her wing.
 
Once Ash has built up enough trust, she seeks out those who know about Metagalapa's stores of fragile, precious First Age artifacts and offers to teach how to operate and maintain them. She also offers lessons in Alchemy, an Art she had become interested in a few years before she entered cold sleep. The more she teaches, the more she finds herself able to teach, as her own abilities grow along with theirs.

In the evenings, she continues to share stories and songs with local makers. Her tales paint a very different portrait of the Unconquered Sun than most people in Creation have of their gods: rather than a functionary who one bribes to secure material gains, the Sun is the ideal to which all ensouled beings can aspire, perfect in love, determination, self-control, and courage. Human beings may give gifts to Him out of love, and he accepts them gladly (here she relates the story of how when all humankind gave gifts to the King of Heaven, he proclaimed himself blessed beyond all measure and returned the gifts, and the blessing, keeping only the simplest -- a spear, round shield, horn, and branch of mountain laurel -- as his emblems), but the truest worship of Sol Invictus is righteous living. When we treat our neighbors and even our enemies with compassion, when we stand up for what we believe in, each act becomes a prayer. The highest expression of devotion is self-sacrifice, when we give up a part of what is ours, or even our whole selves, to help others and make the world a better place.

And this sacrifice is rewarded, far beyond the minor benefits an offering of a few scrawny goats could garner. Brigid gave up her neurotic, co-dependent ways and became the First Sorcerer. The Sun Himself surrendered to the Primordials' torture to save a single life and won the war. A thousand devoted souls offered their hearts and won a place in the heart of the Daystar. With care, Ash plants the idea that the people of Metagalapa may soon be called to make a great sacrifice, and in return gain blessings beyond their wildest dreams.
 
Over the course of the next two weeks, training is proceeding along nicely, with the people of the mountain learning how to be a more cohesive fighting force, and are slowly being converted to the worship of the Unconquered Sun.

It happens that it is late afternoon when the Circle's Echo Jewels light up with a message from TARU. "Noble Exalts! I have news for you. My long range sensors have detected a Essence powered airship approaching from the southwest at a speed of 20 miles an hour, at a distance of one hundred miles. There are no cities on the path that they are taking, so I have to believe that the Titan is its destination."
 
Ash is carefully mending a child's doll when she gets the message. She quickly screws the head back on, returns it to its relieved owner, and slips away.

"TARU, can you tell what kind of airship it is? Does it conform to any known designs?"
 
TARU quickly replies, "From its size, speed and configuration, there is a 78% match to a Large Transport Excellent Air Boat. If so, this vessel has a crew of six and can carry up to seventy passengers and ten tons of cargo."
 
Some of Ash's alarm abates when she hears the description. The Most Excellent Air Boats of Varilistu were a common sight in the North and the Northeast, ferrying cargo between the flying city-state of Tzatli and the rest of Creation, or bringing contract laborers for the mines of Diamond Hills. It was unusual to see them so far south, but perhaps the cataclysms that had overtaken Creation had forced those principalities -- or whatever nations had taken their place -- to search further abroad for trading partners. She hurries over to the workshop of Clay Owl, a potter she has come to know well.

Clay Owl is a good-natured man, a widower with three children who always seem to be dirty or muddy -- he calls his children "the little pots". Other than his children, he thinks of little besides clay, and shaping, and glazing, and firing. Despite the simple, utilitarian design of most of his work, Ash recognized him for a true maker as soon as she met him.

Like many artists, Clay Owl has little interest in politics or the economy as such, but he is keen to see the tools and art of other cultures, and he regularly comes to meet new trading ships, wiping his clay-streaked hands on his smock before he eagerly inspects their wares. If he lived in a big city, Ash thinks, he'd be a celebrated figure, constantly innovating new colors and shapes, and the rich and powerful would display his work in their homes behind glass. Instead, he makes cooking pots and storage urns that people actually use. And he's no worse for that.

"Clay," Ash says, "are you expecting any new airships from the North anytime soon? I'd like to talk to them about importing some minerals."
 
Weiss goes to track down the Solars. "Guys, I think we need to get some eyes on this approaching airship. With as slow as it is going, I can fly out to it and examine it to see what we are getting ready to deal with. I can be there and back with enough time to let everyone know what we have coming up."
 
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