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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 4783701" data-attributes="member: 5203">Many hours of the night had passed before Ayama permitted herself to return to her tent for some rest.  She had given directions to the herbalists and hedge witches in town, getting them to prepare reagents and gather materials, and had overseen the final examinations and quarantines.  She had also personally overseen the burning of over fifty bodies.  She had wanted to do more, but she felt drained, and she knew well that exhaustion could lead to errors in procedure or judgment.    She slept deeply, without dreams, which was something of a relief to her.  Dealing with the plague in Chrysanthemum had brought back too many memories for her, memories of the plague in Petgrana that had claimed so many of her friends, including her husband, her daughter, and her mentor, and had nearly killed her as well.  But Ayama had been saved by a miracle, by a blessing from the Unconquered Sun.  This time, she feared there would be no such miracle forthcoming.    At some point, she became aware of a presence in her tent, a strong musk smell permeating the air.  Opening her eyes, she came face to face with an enormous badger, the size of a pony, sitting next to her.    Slowly, Ayama sat up.  The badger snuffled at her.    She drew on her reserves of Essence to give herself the power to communicate with beasts.  “Greetings,” she chattered at it.    “That is not necessary,” the badger replied in the Old Tongue.    “I see.  Greetings, then, badger.  What may I do for you?”    “I am your guide.  Blizzard That Topples the Oak sent me here.”    Ayama puzzled at this for a moment.  She was not aware what need she had for a guide.    “I will wait here while you get the others,” the badger said.  “Obviously, it would not do for me to walk around this camp if plain view.  I do not relish the idea of being speared.”    “Of course.  I will return shortly.”  She rose, and exited the tent, making her way to the large command tent where Kaliel was staying.  On her way there, she noted that a large black cloud seemed to have descended upon the nearby city.  Looking closer, she saw that it was a great flock of raitons, hovering over Chrysanthemum .When she arrived, the guards let her in right away to wait in the tent’s central chamber, and soon Kaliel emerged.    “Kaliel, there is a very large badger in my tent.  It spoke to me, and said it had been sent by Blizzard That Topples the Oak…”    “Ah, yes, the guide.”    “You knew of this?”    “I did not have the opportunity to inform you,” Kaliel admitted.  “There was too much to do, and we were both busy.  But the guide has been sent to help us locate  a cache from the First Age that is nearby.”    Ayama frowned.  “I hardly think that this is the time to pursue such things.”    “Blizzard believes that it is possible there could be medicinal knowledge stored there,” Kaliel said.  “I felt it was worth checking the possibility.”    “Very well,” Ayama said, “there is little I will be able to do today in any case.  Have you informed Ghost and Zanka?”    “Not yet.  Zanka is likely still in her tent, and Ghost…” Kaliel frowned.    It was some time before all four of them had gathered in Ayama’s tent.  A rider had to be sent to collect Ghost, who had left with the scouts early that morning.  While waiting, Ayama had gone out into the forest and killed a squirrel, bringing it back to offer their guide.  When she returned, she found that the badger had dug out her tea set, and was delicately holding a cup with his long, sharp claws.  He still graciously accepted Ayama’s offering.    Soon they were all crowded into the tent with the enormous badger, with Zanka pointedly trying not to look at the blood and tufts of squirrel fur on his claws.    “I am Blem Lï Lo,” the badger said.  “I have been instructed by Blizzard That Topples the Oak to take you to where the cache may be.”    “May be?” Kaliel asked.    “Blizzard cannot pinpoint exactly where it is.  No doubt the cache is protected by sorcery that prevents this.  But I am certain it can be found quickly once we are there.  I will meet you one of your miles north of the city in an hour.”  With that, Blem Lï Lo burrowed into the earth and vanished into a tunnel.    The four Solars rendezvoused with their guide at the appointed time and place.  They were led further north, generally following the river, and journeyed for half a day before Blem Lï Lo stopped.  The trees had thinned here, replaced by rolling hills.  The badger pointed out four slightly larger hills.    “The cache is located beneath one of these four mounds,” he said.  “But I have no way of knowing which one is the right one, nor do I know where the entrance would be found.”     “Based on what little I understand of geomancy,” Ayama said, “if the mound to the east is the cache, the entry should face the nearby river, and be placed about halfway up the slope.  The western mound would face southeast, and be close to the bottom.”    “I think I understand,” Kaliel said.  “Somehow, it makes sense.  The northern mound’s entry would be near the top, correct?  And the southern mound’s door would face north.”    “That is correct,” Ayama nodded.  “You have good instincts for these matters.”    “I assume that none of us brought shovels?” Ghost asked.    “We can fashion tools from the trees and stones,” Ayama said.  “I suggest we each take a hill and begin digging.  I will take the west, Zanka can take the east, Kaliel the north and Ghost the south.”    “I am afraid that I am not much good at physical labor,” Zanka said.    “Blem Lï Lo can dig for you,” Ghost said.  “Wouldn’t want to get dirt under your nails, you know.”    The digging took them long into the day, and progress was slow.  Only the eastern mound was excavated with any speed, with the badger-god’s claws quickly breaking up the hard soil while Zanka sat and told him stories to entertain him.  As sunset neared, Zanka was startled out of the tale she told by the sound of a metallic clang deep inside the hole.    Blem Lï Lo’s snout emerged.  “I think I have found it,” he said.  “Tell the others.”    By the time everyone had arrived, the hole had been dug out and expanded enough to allow everyone to crawl in.  At the end of the tunnel was a large metal door, covered in glyphs and carvings.  Ghost moved forward, igniting his Solar aura to give him enough light to see.    “These carvings look like the Old Tongue,” Ghost said.  “Ayama, can you read it?”    Ayama squeezed past Ghost to examine the door.  The glyphs carved into the surface were Old Realm, but had worn away over the centuries, and some were illegible.  There were also four symbols in the door, one in each corner; a flower, a monkey, a snake, and a tower of light.    “I believe it says, ‘This is … workshop of Kal….  Trespassers will be… subject?  to… per? No, pen… penalties, per the … something that lends in ‘lar’ and then another word… it’s obscured, but the only thing it could be is ‘Deliberative’.”    “…lar Deliberative?” Kaliel asked.  “Could it be ‘Solar Deliberative’?”    “What is that?” Ghost asked.    “I am not certain,” Ayama admitted.  “And not knowing that would make it difficult to know who would be considered a ‘trespasser’.”    “But none of this tells us how to get inside,” Kaliel said.  “But those symbols… is it not odd that they are similar to our own anima totems?  Perhaps this workshop belonged to one of us.”    Kaliel reached forward and touched the engraving of the flower.  It immediately began to glow with a soft, golden light.  The other three joined him, each touching their own totemic symbol; Ghost pressed the monkey, Ayama the snake, and Zanka the pillar of light.  When all four symbols were glowing, a seam suddenly appeared in the center of the door, and it swung inward silently.  The passage beyond revealed stairs going down.    “It seems your theory may be correct,” Ghost said.    They followed the stairs down until they came to another door, though this one was of the more ordinary type which slid aside.  They could hear the river running overhead, though there was no sign that any water had leaked through, even after centuries.  Opening the door, the beheld a huge room, perhaps thirty yards on a side.  The walls were lined with shelves, which held all manner of liquids and reagents.  A few large books could be found here and there.  In the center of the room were several cauldrons, some of which still held large quantities of boiling liquids.  There were many work benches and tables lined with many alchemical items.  A series of chains and pulleys were hung from the ceiling, obviously to help lift the cauldrons or other heavy objects.    On the far side of the room, perched against the wall, was an object that stood nearly twelve feet in height, nearly as tall as the room itself.  The statue appeared to be made of solid copper, and depicted the lower half of a spider married to the upper body and head of a woman.    “Copper Spiders,” Zanka said.  “That is one of the names given to Solars of the Twilight Caste.”    “It makes sense that this person who ran this workshop was a Twilight,” Ayama said.  “They were the practitioners of such arts.  Perhaps this particular Twilight was a part of a Circle with our previous incarnations, and the symbols on the door are there as a way to allow us to enter even if he or she was not present.”    “So, we may once have known this ‘Kal…’ person?” Ghost asked.    At the mention of the name Kal, the eyes on the spider statue opened, revealing a baleful glow.  In a mechanical voice, it spoke.    “Four humanoids.  Identify.”    “Zanka Odokari,” the Eclipse said, looking up in trepidation.    “Resplendent Ghost of Midnight.”    “Ayama.”    “Kaliel, the Auric Lion.”    “Do you have written authorization from Kal Bax?” the automaton intoned.  Zanka recognized the name; among students of the occult, the name of Kal Bax was still held in reverence, even though he was an Anathema – for it was Kal Bax who had first gleaned the secrets of constructing manses.    “He is not around to do so,” Zanka said smoothly.  “But we were able to open the door to this workshop without force or subterfuge, which would suggest that Kal Bax is not opposed to our presence here.”    “You are trespassers.  By order of the Solar Deliberative, you must be executed.”  The spider climbed down off the wall, and advanced upon them.  Its two human limbs flowed like quicksilver and reshaped themselves into long, scything blades.    “This is not the kind of song I had hoped to hear,” Kaliel said, hefting his axe.  Zanka moved back swiftly and took shelter behind a large table.    Ayama ran over to a shelf and grabbed a few vials.  She handed them to Ghost.  “Acid,” she said.      The construct scuttled forward, the copper surface rippling slightly as though it were made of liquid.  It suddenly arced its abdomen over its head, balancing on its blade-arms and forelegs, and sprayed a liquid out of a spinneret in the rear that hardened upon contact with air into a web-like net.  Ayama and Ghost leapt out of the way, while Kaliel began swinging his axe around in a dazzling display, spinning it in the air and cutting through the strands before they could settle on him.     Ghost ran and leapt high into the air, landing on the construct’s back and running along its abdomen, which felt almost like running across a vast mound of thick pudding.  He hurled the vial of acid at the spinnerets, but the sturdy glass did not shatter against the slightly pliable surface, and dropped to the ground, unbroken.  Kaliel ran up and slashed at the spidery legs, hoping to topple it, but the construct pulled its limbs back to avoid his swings, and those that did land seemed barely able to penetrate the metallic surface.  The construct slashed at Kaliel with an arm-blade, impacting against his heavy armor and leaving a red gash across his shoulder where the blade anaged to slip between two plates.  It then lashed out with both arms at one, aiming for both Kaliel and Ghost.  Ghost dropped down into the splits and arched backward until his head touched the floor; the blade scythed across his chest, shredding his shirt but skittering off the starmetal armor he wore underneath.  Kaliel, conversely, simply stood his ground, and brought his axe up at an angle and deflected the arm down to the floor, bringing the point down into the vial of acid that Ghost had thrown.  The vial shattered, and the bladed arm instantly dissolved away.  The construct reared back as it pulled the stump back, leaving a sizzling hole in the stone floor.    Ayama had moved off to the side of the chamber, looking for the controls to the hoisting mechanisms she could see mounted in the ceiling.  She passed by a bubbling cauldron and saw that it was filled with a molten metal of some kind.  “Bring it this way!” she shouted, even as she looked for the lever to release the lock on the cauldron’s cradle.    Ghost had jumped up again and was now swinging from one of the chains mounted to the ceiling.  He swung around a grabbed a vial similar to the one he’d thrown before.  He attempted to swing up to the ceiling to hide within one of the many dark corners there, but the chain was not as long as he had thought, leaving him short of his target and exposed.  Fortunately, the spider-construct’s attention was diverted by Zanka, who had emerged from her hiding place and picked up another vial of the acid.  She hurled it at the construct, and this time the vial shattered, spraying acid all over the construct’s back.  Gaping holes appeared in the liquid copper armor, revealing some of the inner workings of the beast.  Kaliel tried to take advantage, swinging from a chain and dropping down on the construct’s back, but a lightning-fast swipe of its remaining forelimb batted him aside.  The construct advanced on Kaliel, its bladed arm flasing back and forth as the Dawn  moved his weapon back and forth to deflect every swing.    A boiling, hissing noise filled the room as a pool of hot metal spread over one side of the room.  Ayama stood next to the cauldron, muscles straining as she grasped the handle and pulled it over.  Her anima blazed as she poured essence into her body, protecting herself from the intense heat of the cauldron’s handle and the pool of metal at her feet.  The metal flowed out onto the floor in front of the construct, putting a barrier in between it and Zanka.    Another vial of acid sailed over the lake of hot metal and shattered against the construct, dissolving the majority of its metal skin and exposing most of the inner workings.  An amber boomerang slammed into the construct’s abdomen, sailing through one of the holes in its armor and emerging on the other side, trailing bits of broken machinery and fluids.  The huge spider staggered and lost some control of the legs on one side.    Kaliel shouted to get Ayama’s attention.  “Be ready!” he called out, as he grapsed a large hook on a chain suspended from the ceiling.  Nodding, Ayama ran over to the geared wheels that controlled the hoists.  Kaliel ran underneath the construct and hooked the chain into the framework in the  abdomen, and Ayama grasped the lever and pulled as hard as she could.  The construct was pulled up off its legs and swung forward into the pool of hot metal.  The legs began to melt away as soon as it dropped, and it skittered and flailed about to escape, but it was still being suspended by the chain and could not gain traction.  Its blade-arm swung overhead and sliced through the chain holding it, dropping it into the metal pool but giving it the chance to scramble out, though it had lost several feet of length on each leg.    Ghost, seeing the effectiveness of Kaliel and Ayama’s combined attack, motioned for Zanka to throw the next vial of acid high.  Though puzzled, she complied, arcing the vial high over the construct’s body.  Ghost pulled out another boomerang, though not one of his glass weapons, and hurled in at the vial, striking it in midair and causing the acid to spray over the entire construct.  Strange fluids began to leak from its body, and acrid smoke arose as the acid began to eat through structural elements of the guardian’s frame.  It staggered, and then slumped to one side, spasming as cables began to fray and joints sheared off.  Kaliel stepped forward, axe raised.    “Kal Bax is gone,” he said, looking into the expressionless face, now scarred with acid.  “As we once were.”  He brought the axe down.    It took some time to go through the contents of the workshop, though it was sped up when Ayama came upon a manifest.  Several of the vials were found to contain medicinal unguents and potions, and some working notes were discovered which gave them directions for brewing a potion which Ayama felt would be able to counteract the magical plague in Chrysanthemum.  Zanka found records that confirmed her suspicions – the workshop itself had indeed been a manse at one time, aspected to water, though the geomantic architecture had degraded over the centuries to the point that it no longer focused the essence as it once had.  Still, it was now clear why Kal Bax had chosen this place to conduct experiments relating to all manner of liquids – including the liquid metal in which he had encased his guardian.    It was Ghost who found an ancient, leather-bound tome hidden in a secret cache.  He handed it to Ayama, as it was written in the Old Tongue; upon perusal, she declared it to be a basic treatise on Celestial sorcery, detailed enough that one could learn the rudiments of the craft.  This tome was carefully packed away along with many vials of medicine.    “Is everyone all right?” called a voice from outside.  Blem Lï Lo’s snout poked around the corner of the door at the top of the stairs.  They could see that the badger-god was straining against some unseen barrier at the entrance to the workshop.    “We are well,” Ayama called out.  “We will be out soon.  I apologize for not keeping you informed of what was happening.”    “From what I could hear, you were preoccupied.”    Ayama turned to the others.  “We should get these medicines to the city as soon as possible.”    Ghost frowned.  “We may need to wait for a while.”  He pointed at the intense, bright animas surrounding both himself and Kaliel; Ghost’s had manifested with the image of a cavorting spider monkey, while Kaliel’s had flared out into brilliant, fiery wings from which a rain of golden chrysanthemums fell.  “Though your people know of our true nature, Kaliel, if we emerge from this chamber our auras will be visible for leagues away.  We don’t know who else might be in the area.”    “If you wish to return quickly,” Blem Lï Lo offered, “I can take you now, and your companions can return when they are able.”    “Thank you,” Ayama said.  She emerged from the earthen mound, laden with books, scrolls, and vials.    “Climb upon my back, as you would a horse, but keep your head down near my shoulders.  And then hold your breath for as long as you are able.” As soon as Ayama had done this, the giant badger began digging.  Within moments, they were both rocketing through the soil, travelling much faster than any horse could gallop.  After a few minutes, Blem Lï Lo broke through the earth, allowing Ayama to take another breath before burrowing down again.  They arrived just outside the walls of the city just as the moon was rising; barely half of an hour had passed.    Ayama turned and bowed.  “I thank you.  Not only have you sped my return, but you have given me a most remarkable experience.”    “This is what it is to be a remarkable person,” Blem Lï Lo answered.۞    Weeks passed.  A few dozen more people in the city died, but the cure was distributed quickly, and soon all trace of the illness had vanished.  The raitons circling the city vanished, having gorged themselves on rats, and soon Kaliel was able to lead his people back into his city.    Ghost rode out with the scouts again, and it was two weeks before they returned.  He told his companions of coming to a small shadowland, in the middle of nowhere, the apparent origin of the horde of dead that had attacked the city.  Ghost could find no cause or reason for why this shadowland had come into being.    “There does not appear to be anything in the area which indicates any more threats will be emerging from there,” Ghost said.  “Still, it may be worth investigating why this shadowland has suddenly appeared there.”    “That may have to wait,” said Kaliel.    “Why?  What has happened?”    It was Zanka who answered.  “While you were gone, we received an emissary… from Halta.” *---------------------------------* For those unfamiliar with the setting, Halta is a rather large nation in the same general region as Kaliel's city.  This visit is important for two reasons; Halta has been engaged in an extended war with the Linowan Nation, which is another regional power which lies even closer to Chrysanthemum than Halta (and is also quite close to our new allies in Lagan) and more notably, Halta has recently allied itself with the forces of a known Solar general - Yurgen Kaneko, the Bull of the North.I find myself unsure of exactly how much I should be explaining the various elements of the campaign setting.  Since ENWorld is primarily a D&D-oriented site, I realized that the average reader will be less familiar with Exalted material than if I were posting this on a White Wolf forum.  At the same time, I don't want to have my footnotes be as long as the story posts themselves (especially since I tend toward long story posts!).I suppose that if any readers have questions about the setting or whatnot, they can ask and I'll answer - and I'll keep my footnotes to either explaining particularly quirky in-game events (such as Kaliel's uncanny ability to botch INT checks), or to explaining campaign elements that are critical to understanding what is going on (like knowing why Halta coming to visit is important).</blockquote>

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