Summary:The Solars announce their captive to the Deliberative, but an undead attack cuts the meeting short.
XP:C4, I4, L4, S4, V4, Z4
Tags:< Knock the Whole Universe Out | Sol Invictus Logs | Tough Job, I Guess >
Imrama The air is thick with anticipation in the chamber of the Deliberative. The members, assembled for an emergency session, have come to the floating fortress at great haste. Here and there, it is clear that several of them were asleep when the call came, and one or two may have managed to arrive on time without actually waking up.
Imrama Eyes are rubbed, and rolled, coats and sashes are misadjusted and only half buttoned. For perhaps the first time, the membership of the Deliberative seems to be united in a single, simple sentiment: this had better be good.
Akuna Ravdash seems to set the tone for the room as he lazily twirls a polished silver swizzle in an early-morning glass of (what one hopes is) beet juice, his face marked by a wry and dismissive grin and his pajamas, woven of drawn silver fibers and dyed with liquified gemstones whose essences glitter in the light, more elegant than most nation's finest suits.
Spring "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." Long-Awaited Spring, resplendent in golden hakama and thin, sunset-hued dhoti, bursts through the Solar door, holding it politely for the remainder of the circle, before walking quickly to his seat, grabbing Akuna's glass of...whatever and polishing it off in one gulp as he does so.
Cerin ::I feel perhaps I should have pointed out before you did that, Spring, that that was not beet juice.::
Spring thinks back to his catalog of flavors: the contents of the glass are an aged blend, 60% gazelle to equal parts each rhinoceros and yeddim.
Spring *angavastram, not dhoti
Spring ::I suspected. Thank you anyway.::
Imrama enters the hall at a smooth, careful gate. He nods to several of his fellow Deliberators on his way to taking his seat.
zahara enters, wearing a simple gown of ash-grey, her hair bound back into a long blue tail. (remember the blue hair folks?) A golden circlet adorns her brow and the everpresent artifacts remain about her person.
Cerin walks in on Zahara's arm, wearing his usual black armour, the silken ribbons flowing about as they will.
Winter Leaf, one eye shut and his usually impeccable look currently disheveled and haggard, looks out on the group skeptically. "Why, exactly.... did you drag us all out here?"
zahara waves and a cadre of servants comes out with steaming teapots. "Why for tea of course." Her gaze strays over to Akuna for a moment then she smiles.
Akuna flashes his canines in response.
Imrama takes his seat at the great table of the South, next to Kivir. "Its very good tea." He remarks to the Chiaroscuran.
Kivir nods. "It is!"
Imrama adjusts the hang of his leopard-print sash of woven orichalcum and soulsteel, and clears his throat. "There is also an...anouncement to be made."
Cerin sips his tea.
zahara takes a sip of her tea before continuing. "Thank you all for joining us on such short notice. Recently, a grave matter has come to my attention. We have discovered that the Mask of Winters has broken a treaty with the Sunlands, to the direct detriment of one of our Circle."
Japhir blinks at the Solars. "...what?"
Imrama "Naturally we confronted him about this, in a spirit of congeneal diplomacy. We discovered that he not only broke our previous nonaggression pact, but sought to subvert it while leaving us bound still by some sorcerous method. So we broke the spell, arrested, subdoed and imprisoned him." Imrama explains, helpfully.
Varanim is nowhere in evidence, except for the crow that unobtrusively followed the other Solars in and took up a perch on Varanim's usual chair by the wall.
Spring "Do you have any pastries?" Spring asks the servants as they serve tea.
In response to Imrama's statement, the room bursts into an instant uproar. The Deliberators leap to their feet and their voices form a thick cacophony in the cavernous room. Of the whole chamber, only Akuna remains seated, his demeanor unchanged from a moment ago.
zahara nods in agreement with Imrama, sipping her tea.
The shouting and loud-talking continues unabated.
Spring sighs. "Birds always had pastries."
Lucent steps up, his voice booming about the room! "Order, please! Decorum in this Holy Chamber! We are Exalted, we must ACT LIKE IT!"
Lucent ::See, Imrama? No Charms!::
The sound quiets itself.
Imrama ::Very nicely done, my friend.::
After a moment, someone finally gets it together to speak as the voice of the crowd. "How... could you have done that?" Elena finally says, to murmured assent from the crowd.
zahara "Teamwork and the application of Sorcery. It was rather simple, really."
Spring "There were also some tactics involved."
Lucent "I hit him, too. Right in the grin." Lucent seems quite proud.
Lucent "Oh. And Imrama spit on him."
Lucent nods
Imrama "That I did!" Imrama seems quite proud.
Cerin "And I stole all his souls," Cerin points out his own small contribution.
zahara "And Necromancy," she adds helpfully for the crow.
Imrama nods and salutes the Wolf.
"And so," Akuna says, drawing out his words, "what... are you going to do with him?"
Spring "He is a war criminal."
zahara "I believe the plan is a fair trial."
Lucent "Put him on trial for numerous offenses against Heaven, Nature, and members of this very deliberative."
Lucent "If we are to stablish order, we must stablish law. Much as he believes otherwise, Larquen Quen is one of our peers."
Imrama "A fair trial followed by a speedy execution is, after all, the fait due to all war criminals. Wouldn't you argree, Akuna?" Imrama raises his eyebrow and gives Akuna a look which is quizzical and only slightly threatening.
zahara "Though with the nature of some beings, eternal imprisonment may have to serve."
Akuna grins back at Imrama and slowly licks "beet juice" off of his canines.
Imrama turns up his nose and breaks his stare with Akuna. "Of course, The Mask of Winters is more than a war criminal, he is a dedicated enemy of Creation. We have agreed, as a body, to stand against the demons, the undead and the creatures of darkness. We are the Deliberative.
Lucent "He was also, like me, a member of the former deliberative, in a sense. This will allow us to come clean with the past."
Lucent "And to forge Justice and Punishment, for a new age, for our future."
Spring "Relatively clean."
"How in Creation are you going to put a Deathlord on trial?" Cathak Ekkarim says.
Spring "Fortunately for us, that is a question for the Deliberative as a whole."
Lucent "Indeed. What difficulties do you foresee in this endeavor of ours', Cathak Ekkarim?"
The representative of the Red Kingdom looks over at the Solars. "How are you going to call witnesses? How will you keep the undead from rising and destroying the courthouse?"
zahara "Well, since this is the courthouse, I believe it is reasonably defensible, especially since it will be full of exalts."
Imrama "I am confused, Cathak
Lucent "And seven of us were enough to bring him in. All of us together can hold off thirteen Deathlords, if need be!"
Spring coughs, surprisingly loudly.
Imrama "You are now at the lead of a massive military campaign against one of the thirteen. Have you given no thought to what will be necessary when your forces achieve victory?"
Ekkarim looks Imrama in the eye, his face darkened. "Terrible things," he says, and does not go on.
Imrama "It is an opportunity to send a message to the other many enemies of Creation. But there are also risks, I'll grant. Perhaps we should take counsel from those most effected by the Mask's tyranny: the people of Thorns and Lookshy. I believe we have such a one among us today."
Karal Linwei steps forward from the back of the room. "You do," she says.
zahara "Karal Linwei has the floor."
Karal Linwei steps forward onto the floor, and several seconds before she reaches the point where she's planning to speak, Spring and Cerin realize that something rather more dramatic is about to happen.
Cerin ::Oh dear, I wonder if he is about to try something tiresome?:: He remarks to Spring
Spring ::I can only imagine so. Tackle Zahara?::
Just a moment before Karal Linwei opens her mouth, another figure bursts in through the door on the opposite side of the room: Bertrand, in a clearly agitated state.
zahara "Bertrand? Do you have something to report?"
"I... think you'd better look outside."
zahara rubs her forehead and sighs. Then she gets up and proceeds to the nearest window
Spring ::Let me know what you see. I prefer not to get up.::
Cerin looks through the nearest wall
At the moment, Air Fortress Atzeret, the home of the Deliberative, hovers over the Blessed Isle, the remnants of what was once the Imperial City visible off to the East and the lands of the Free Realm spread out far beneath where the city hovers.
But now, the gently rolling fields of the Blessed Isle's unspoiled eastern half are broken, as jagged ebon cracks split the earth and the skeletal remains of creatures that have not lived on Creation's face since a human being first set foot on this isle claw their way up into the Sun's waning light.
Even as twenty, thirty, a hundred such creatures dig their way out of the earth and howl emptily at the sky above, Bertrand squinches up his face. And a moment later, the messages start to dart their way in: Infallible Messengers destined for Deliberators, animal messengers swinging in from the rafters to bear Lunars the latest news, ring messages shouting over one another to the Solars.
zahara ducks a messenger. "Ah, we have our first protest!"
Spring "Here we go again."
Spring "Did you have a specific terrible thing in mind for this situation, Cathak Ekkarim?"
Doing some quick mental math, Cerin estimates that the skeletons range in size from twenty to about five hundred feet, give or take.
zahara "You know, we are on a flying deathweapon. I'm just saying."
A falcon whispers in Akuna's ear, and for once, there is nearly half a second in which he does not appear entirely composed.
Cerin ::Akuna does not seem entirely enamoured with this development:: Cerin remarks as he matches skeletons to descriptions.
Imrama catches the rare sight, and grins. "My fellow heroes of the earth, to arms! The dead march upon the City of Peace. War is come to our seat of power. Now is the hour when we must stand or fall together!"
zahara heads for the control room of the Air Fortress Aztaret
Spring ::Varanim? Any thoughts?::
Imrama ::The weapons of the Air Fortress not withstanding; at least one of us ought to staff the Dawn Chamber.::
Spring ::I will attempt that.:: Spring begins walking briskly in whatever direction that would require.
The Deliberators spend a few moments in shock, but after a moment, they respond to Imrama's call to action. Flame-of-Glory stands up and raises his daiklave.
Varanim The crow looks impassively out a window for a few moments. Far away, Varanim doesn't lift a finger, but instead pictures two things: the writhing field of bones below, and the Third Unspeakable Triskaidekagram, which symbolically represents all the Deathlords in elegantly concise notation. As she lights her cigar, she ponders the relation between these two things.
Over 3,000 miles away, in a dusty corner of Varanim's room, a golden coin scoots and slides across a board marked with an ancient language long since lost to the speech of the world.
The twelve-yopel coin scoots across the surface, passing by symbols that represent the deathly essences that animate the forces known as the Bodhisattva Anointed by Dark Water and the Walker in Darkness, slipping forward, inexorably, towards the middle of the board, where a vast lion's skull stretches open, a white snake winding through its jaw and eyeholes --
until at the very center of that mouth, it cracks open and bursts into flames.
Varanim ::Two thoughts. First, are there any good party games that aren't also connections to the abyssal Beyond?::
Varanim ::Second, it's the Lion.::
Spring ::I have heard of this game with a pad with colored dots on it, where you have a spinner and...oh, that are NOT? Never mind.::
zahara ::I suppose we should have committted more troops to the fight against the Lion hmm?::
On the ground far below, the skeletons of kilifreghadeleons and ji-beasts tear across the empty plains with abandon, the stench of death following in their wake.
< Knock the Whole Universe Out | Sol Invictus Logs | Tough Job, I Guess >