Trial By Fire - Exalted 2e IC Thread

[Psychie]

Darian gives her husband a reassuring touch on his cheek. "Don't worry about me, dearest. I shall come through this just fine. When I awake, my body will once more be whole and unharmed." She leans back into the capsule and closes her eyes, waiting for the intense throbbing pain to stop.

 

[MasterDAF]

Viktor nodded in response to Relza's request, looking around the open-air landing platform amazed at the other airships scattered upon it. "Certainly." He turned his attention to the vehicle in question and marveled at the large rounded-pentagonal ship. The landing struts beneath it looked like they had buckled years earlier, causing the entire structure to put extra pressure against the 'bottom-faces' of the tapered hull as it rested on its side in an improper manner. The crafter walked around its exterior, looking it over and trying to decide where to begin. He deposited his assortment of components in a neat pile, then began examining the hull of the platform.


[Viktor will start diagnosing the issues that will have to be fixed in order to get the Indomitable Conquest Platform back into working order.]

[Airship Examination Roll: 5 Intelligence + 4 Lore = 4 Successes]

 

[jaydude]

Annika sighed at the lack of response to her question, but after noticing that the other woman was waking up, she decided to give her a few seconds to regain consciousness. She chose not to remove the manacles, not wanting to make things easier for her captive. As for the arrows, right now they were plugging the wounds, and she'd most likely do more damage if she tried to remove them. So she left them as they were.

"Can you hear me now?" Annika asked once she was certain that the woman was conscious, before following up with her next two questions. "Who are you, and why did you try to attack us?"

 

[Sherwood]

Darian lays down in the capsule and the lid closes down over her, and right away, there is a blissful release from pain as she is placed in temporary stasis for the healing chamber to do its work. Leeayta starts the diagnostic check and steps back as a golden light can be seen working its way across her. As it does so, a three dimensional image of her body can be seen with a set of red lights indicating problems. The first is the arrow stuck in her chest, and the second set is her eyes. Not a big surprise to those that knew that Darian is blind, but Leeayta seems somewhat surprised. She says, "The arrow will be removed first, since it is a life threatening injury, but the diagnostics indicate trouble with her eyes, and it wants to replace them with implants. Very odd."


Up at the top of the Flying Tower, Viktor is hard at work on the airship. You are able to determine that the ship is not in bad shape, but it does have several critical components missing. Components that you just happen to have on your person that was taken from the Fae in the lower levels. You are certain that you can get the ship flying once more, but it will take you several long hours of fine work to get the missing parts put back in and to give the ship a quick tune-up. Needless to say, Relza is quite pleased with the news, and is willing to roll up her sleeves and get to work helping you.


Deep inside the Tower, Annika is starting to get a response from the wounded archer. She coughs up some blood, then finally says, "I am The Voice That Whispers From the Heart of Darkness, and my Master directed me to try and kill the priestess. I do not know why; he never gave me a reason. I am just His lackey." The Gemstone of Surface Thoughts echo's the words of the woman, showing that she truly does not know why the order was given, but Darian was the intended target.

 

[Rykon]

"Replace them? Implants?" Aredin was more studious than most but the poor son of a fisherman was out of his depth when it came to medicine. "Would she be rid of her blindness? Would her eyes be normal?"

 

[jaydude]

Annika let out a derisive snort at the woman said who she was. "Is that what you call yourself? Yeah, when you have that many words in a title, it just becomes pretentious and stupid." She said with a grin, before narrowing her eyes. "In any event, just who is your master, and how did they know we were here?"

While asking that question, she would again use her Gemstone of Surface Thoughts.

 

[Sherwood]

Leeayta taps her claws on the screen, seeking some answers. "Mmmm. I was not aware that she was blind. Probably due to her other gifts of her enhanced hearing. It would seem that there is no current supply of organic replacement parts that have not gone bad over time, so any replacement parts will have to be synthetic. Considering that we are talking about First Age technology, it will undoubtedly work well after all this time, and yes, it should restore her eyesight. It may take her some time to acclimate to having the implants; but once her neural synapses have been realigned to accept the input from organs that don't work, she should see just fine." She turns to look at Aredin, and asks, "Do you know when she lost the ability of sight? Was it something she was born with, or did the blindness set in at a later time? Finally, shall I have the capsule perform the implant procedure for her?"


Annika's prisoner tries to shift about on the floor under the weight of the chains holding her arms and legs, but winces in pain as she does so. Through clenched teeth, she manages to grunt out, "I work at the pleasure of Filial Wisdom, the Goblin King, and the one true ruler of Rathess." What you manage to pick up from the Gemstone is that she has been ordered to take orders from this Goblin King by someone else, but her thoughts steer away from forming any other name.

 

[Rykon]

Aredin hesitated for several moments, almost everything Leeayta said was beyond his understanding, knowing history and business but nothing this advanced. Surely such marvels of the first age would have been common place for Leeayta at some point in her memory, Aredin assumed.

"Well, I'm not sure myself... Given the lack of scars, I assumed it was either at birth or early youth and just never thought much of it. That said, attempting to restore her sight was one of the reasons we decided to come here. If you're confident this machine can do that, then I believe we should give it a try and see if it meets with her approval when she wakes back up."

Sheesh, day one is already turning out to be pretty weird. To think we still have to deal with the Goblin King and his mess.

 

[jaydude]

"And just what was it that made you decide to serve Filial Wisdom?" Annika asked, trying to sound curious, wanting to know more about whoever had ordered her captive to serve the Goblin King. At the same time, she used her Gemstone of Surface Thoughts again.

 

[Sherwood]

Inside the operating room, Leeayta continues to monitor the status of the work being done on Darian, all the while she is being peppered by questions on the machine by Dunbar, as he excitedly takes notes. The entire procedure takes several hours as most of the time the capsule is working on the extremely delicate work of attaching a pair of new eyes in Darian's skull. After what feels like an eternity, several green lights pop on and the lid slides open. Darian is lying there, slowly waking up, seeming to be no worse for having been shot in the chest by a blow that would have killed many Exalts, not to mention having her eyes replaced by some kind of construct.

As awareness returns for the young woman, her eyes flutter open to reveal for the first time a pair of silvery glittering eyes with a golden dot in the very center. For the woman herself, as you do open your eyes, you experience a sensation that you have not had in your entire life and have experienced only in the memories of your past Exaltations: sight.

What do you do now?


Up at the very top of the Tower, Viktor and Relza are busy getting their hands dirty as you work on the innards of the airship. After several hours of very intricate work, Viktor has gotten the ship as fixed up as you can given the supplies you have on hand. You are fairly confident that the ship will fly, but it is still in need of a good tune-up in order for it to be able to operate at normal efficiency. In order to take a test flight, you will also need to plug a level 3 hearthstone or larger in order to help power them.


For Annika, her interrogation is moving along slowly, even with your Gemstone of Surface Thoughts. As you ask about what person, being or reason that she is serving this Filial Wisdom, her jaw literally locks up and she cannot even bring herself to think the name of whatever power has her taking orders from the Goblin King. At one point, she seems to be on the verge of telling you a name when suddenly she lets loose with a torrent of vomit that is composed of large white slugs that writhe and squirm on the floor in a very disgusting display. She is obviously under the effects of some kind of curse or spell in order for such a physical reaction to take place.

 

[Psychie]

Darian can feel herself slowly waking up, relieved that she is no longer in such mind-numbing pain. There is just a strange feeling in her side where the arrow was, but by Malfias, she'd take that any day over the nasty wound that was there before! But, there was something else; a strange feeling in her head, too. Very strange.

But not quite as strange as when her eyes open and a flash of light suddenly comes into her eyes! It takes her several moments to realize that she is actually seeing something on her own, and not remembering what a thing looks like through memories of her previous Exaltation! Her eyes dart about at the anxious faces looking down at her, her mind racing with the possibilities. Finally, words come out. "Oh, my. You are all . . . so very beautiful! What happened?

 

[Rykon]

Aredin woke from an exhausted stupor at the sound of Darian's voice. Seeing, the silvery glint and golden pupils he couldn't help but blink in surprise. "Did it work? Are you ok, can you see alright?" He took two long steps toward her from his stool, excited at the possibility. "How does it feel?"

 

[Psychie]

Darian holds up her hand towards her face as if to touch her eyes, and pauses to look at her hand for the first time. It takes her a moment to stop being entranced by everything around her and respond to her husband. "This . . . is amazing! I had always wondered what it would be like to see, then I gained the gift of my Exalted Shard and with it came some memories of what Creation looked like. But this! It is like comparing a child with a toy drum to a symphony orchestra!" She can feel tears streaming down her face as she looks from person to person. "I could only try to picture all of you in my mind, based on what I could hear. This is so much more than I have ever imagined before."

 

[Rykon]

Aredin would reach up to wipe the tears from Darian's new eyes. "Day one and it's already a hell of a honeymoon huh? Here, I brought this assuming we could find a way to help you see." The young lord reached into a pocket and removed a simple but sturdy hand mirror. "Now you can get a look at yourself, the most beautiful of the group." He said with a wink, then turned to stand beside her to savor the happiness of the moment with his beloved.

 

[jaydude]

While Darian was getting used to the sensation of being able to see for the first time, Annika was rather wishing she didn't have that sense right now, recoiling in disgust as the woman responded to her questions about her liege by vomiting up a load of white slugs. Once the Night caste had gotten over her initial feelings of nausea, she started to think about what could have caused such a reaction. The top theory soon became that the woman had had some kind of charm placed on her, to stop her from giving up any details about her master - the one who had told her to serve Filial Wisdom.

Annika grimaced. If this was indeed the effect of some kind of charm, she had no clue on how to go about breaking it. So for now, she decided to go for some different lines of questioning. She recalled that the woman had been just fine talking about the elder Solar.

"Okay. So that's a no-go. Would you care to tell me a bit more about Filial Wisdom? Such as why he wants to take over Rathess, and what he plans to do afterwards?"

 

[MasterDAF]

Viktor emerged from underneath the airship, his face and arms covered in an assortment of alchemical agents used to free-up movement of the damaged landing struts. Earlier in the process he and Relza gathered an assortment of spare ship pieces and metal rods littered across the nearby landing platform, and formed them into a loose scaffolding that managed to prop the ship upright. These improvised supports allowed the crafter to force the damaged struts to emerge completely from their housing, and repair them so that they could adequately endure the weight of the ship once the braces were removed.

"Relza, this thing is amazing. I've never seen a ship with such durability, even amongst the vehicular arsenals of Lookshy." Most of the hull still remained fitted and whole, if not for a few dings and breaks around the opening irises upon the bottom of the ship. Using his crafting charms, Viktor had been able to form a specialized tool of essence for fitting the outer panels back together. This recreated the seal around the purposive entry portals, and returned them to their original working state.

"Not counting the damage around the doorways, which I think could be expected given the state of disuse and probable abuse under the Fae presence, the only real issues have been with the wiring inside the ship itself and replacing inner bulkheads that have been snapped free and discarded." He smiled. "You want it fixed for your own purposes, and I respect that. But to be honest, I'm just glad I had the opportunity to get aboard it and help. To get to feel the work of First Age crafters beneath my own fingers, and repair that which they never intended to be broken." He nodded. "Truly a treat."

Viktor made his way around the ship, nodding in pleasure as he did a final check of their work repairing the outside. "Judging by the size of the hearthstone socket installed near the pilot seat, I would guess it'll need a comparably powerful hearthstone to get the ship up and running." His armor and panoply sat in a pile nearby, including his Hearthstone Amulet fitted with a Jewel of the Maker. Stepping over and raising the amulet, he retrieved the stone from within and walked back over to Relza's side grinning. "What do you think? It will probably need a final tune up to fit the expectations of its original state of operation. But a short test flight could give us a fair bit of insight into what is fixed and what needs another look."

 

[Sherwood]

As Annika questions her prisoner, the other woman hacks and spits on the ground next to her, trying to get the horrible taste out of her mouth. With a glare, she tries to answer your questions. "Filial Wisdom is a powerful Solar. He controls the bulk of the surface world of the city, and has a growing army of Wyld mutants and other people that live in the surrounding jungle. It was at his order that I was sent to kill the Priestess. I protested that it wouldn't be a mission I would walk away from, but he is mad and refused to listen to me or to . . . Well, he is mad, and there is no reasoning with him." She spits on the floor again, trying to clear her mouth. "Apparently, I was expendable in the greater scheme of things in his twisted mind." It is clear that she does not agree with this assessment.


At the top of the Tower, both Relza and Viktor are looking out from the cockpit of the airship at the open sky in front of you. Relza is clearly excited, but is trying her best to contain herself. "A short flight to confirm the work we have done is in order, I think. We will be high enough to avoid notice for a short circle of the Tower, and with the ship's cloaking device, we should be completely safe. Shall we?" A wide smile fills her face as power once more flows through the systems of the Platform, and the ship begins to rise up for the first time in generations.


In the hospital, Darian is feeling much improved from her earlier status, and as she climbs out of the capsule, she is steady on her feet as she looks around. Dunbar comes up to give the healed Exalt a hug, then turns to look at the others. "We have been in here for a while. I think it would be best to get back to Annika and Viktor, and get back to a position that is more defensible as we ponder our next step."

 

[jaydude]

The woman had been co-operative and forthcoming so far, but Annika wasn't about to blindly trust her, and she certainly wasn't going to be too sympathetic. Part of her shook its head at Filial Wisdom's callousness and stupidity in sending...some kind of Exalt after a full Solar circle, but another part of her wondered if this was all some kind of scheme to try and slip an enemy into the circle's ranks, by convincing them to take this poor, manipulated woman in. And speaking of Exalts...

"And just what kind of Exalt are you? A Solar? A Lunar? A Dragon Blood? Even if Filial Wisdom considers you expendable, no mortal could use weapons or armor made from one of the magical materials. Also, regarding Filial Wisdom, you didn't answer my other question; what is it that he seeks?"

 

[Sherwood]

The woman calling herself Voice looks at Annika. "I am what is known as a Abyssal, the dark mirror to the light of the Solar Exalted. Some call us Deathknights, but the name means little. As for what Filial Wisdom wants? Heh. He doesn't know what he wants from one moment to another. His madness is near total, but something in his twisted mind remembers what it means to be a Exalt and wants to take over all of Creation and spread his death cult far and wide."

 

[Rykon]

Aredin glances at Dunbar to reply, "Well hold on a moment, this is literally the biggest first she could possibly have right now. Let's give Darian a chance to get acclimated before we overwhelm her. If anything was amiss we'd have heard from Relza by now anyway."

Standing beside his wife, Aredin still offers his arm to help as if nothing changed. Only a small part of it was concern over dizziness from sensory overload. Even he'd grown accustomed to the ritual of it all and still enjoyed such a simple gesture that'd become a near compulsive habit. "Just let us know when you are ready, and we can rejoin the others. I can't even imagine how intense this moment probably is for you, so take your time." He adds, unable to stop smiling at the success of her recovery.

 

[jaydude]

Annika raised an eyebrow at the mention of Abyssal Exalts, having never heard about them before. Meanwhile, the Filial Wisdom thing was looking more and more grim; between his contempt for his subordinates and his supposed madness, he didn't sound at all like someone who could work with the circle. She was about to ask what Voice meant by Filial Wisdom's "death cult", but then she stopped as she remembered something the Abyssal had mentioned earlier.

"Earlier, you said the following to me" Annika began, before quoting the Abyssal's words. "I protested that it wouldn't be a mission I would walk away from, but he is mad and refused to listen to me or to . . ." She let the silence hang for several seconds.

"That sounded very much like you were about to mention another person you were working with, who also had their protests ignored by Filial Wisdom. Just who was this person? Your master? An ally of Filial Wisdom's?"

 

[Kalin Scarlet]

"Ahem. If you don't mind, I think I have a way to speed up this process." Heaven peeks his head in from the doorway, and waves at Annika, a hesitant smile on his face as the young solar dips back behind the door.

 

[MasterDAF]

"Yes," Viktor responded as he shared in the smile, "let's."

He placed his hands on the controls of the airship, careful to ease it off of the landing deck and a short distance away from the tower. It felt amazing to have such power coursing beneath his fingers, and he had to remind himself that they were only going for a short test run so that their camouflage could keep them out of view of the ground.

"Just let me know if I'm doing something wrong," the excited crafter requested of the goddess. "I would hate for history books a thousand years from now to teach that my first flight ended in an embarrassing crash."

 

[jaydude]

Annika looked at Heaven with surprise and confusion, having almost forgotten he was there during her questioning of the Voice. Standing up, she walked through the door he had gone through, but didn't leave it, not wanting to let the Abyssal out of her sight after the Mellar fiasco.

"Okay then, what is it you're suggesting?" She asked Heaven, while glancing at the Abyssal.

 

[Kalin Scarlet]

Heaven leaned back out, whispering. "That...reaction she had, I think that was the work of sorcery. A simple one -for me, at least- but highly effective. I could use some sorceries of my own, to work around it. Cancel out the spell affecting her and make her slightly more open to speaking with us. If you're interested, that is." He smiles. "This is your interrogation, boss."