General Summary
Pre-session scene setting: the undead city of Dari of the Mists, headquarters of the The timeless order of manacle and coin, looking for Anacreon Thousand Brushstrokes, and get hailed by the Ghosts of the Guards of the Cuff, inquiring as to your business there, perhaps you wish to discuss Financing of a particular project.
There are huge shifting clouds of mist that move around the city. There are odd glowing parts of the mist.
Stelsor sketches a map of the place.
Scene: Initial infiltration
We land the Cloud Skiff on top of the building.
There’s a stairway leading down from the roof.
Going down the stairs there are lots of withered tapestries. Lots of dark purple velvet.
Thundercloud sculpture
Stelsor cases the place to see what might be valuable.
Fortifier’s player asks: How much of this is a palace and how much of this is an office where they work?
It’s kind of both. There are areas for both places.
6 doors from this hexagonal room. Marked with the cardinal directions in Old Realm.
We open door number 5.
Down the corridor about 20 pace are 2 guards speaking in Old Realm.
Stelsor moves up closely to apprehend them for questioning.
They say that Thousand Brushstrokes might be in his observatory
L shaped room with stairs.
We hear 4 ghosts down below.
Stelsor hops down the stairs to them.
Combat
We defeat 3 of the 4 and tell the last one to lead us to Thousand Brushstrokes.
Scene: Room of Tears
All of us but Satrapi enter a room and then the door closes behind us.
We hear the sobs of a woman
We roll Finesse + Sagacity to determine if we recognize the voice
Fortifier and Stelsor recognize Assistant-Factor Nyeah in her abyssal form.
Fortifier examines this with All-Encompassing Sorcery Sight and recognizes that this is her dreaming. Now that she is an Abyssal, she dreams in the Underworld.
In her dream, she cries and Vajambra brings her a glass of water and then begins flirting with her. Then she sinks into the floor.
Satrapi is knocking at the door and Fortifier lets him in.
We explain to Satrapi that we hadn’t meant to separate him from us. We tell him what we saw. Satrapi is unfamiliar with the concept of Abyssals and thus also doesn’t know much about this.
Scene: Laughing Room
Led on by the ghost guard, we enter a room with a cloying sickening scent and a sound of laughter.
Stelsor sees the faces of various women he knows in the clouds. Just their faces, neck to eyes basically. Faint purple tinted. Only Exalted women.
We cover our faces to make it across and the last face we see is Miribadi before we make it to the opposing door.
Stelsor waves to Miribadi Ghostlover and the apparition blows him a kiss.
The ghost guide says that the audience hall for Thousand Brushstrokes ought to be through this last door.
Fortifier asks if the ghost knows of any specific defenses in this area.
We are now on the third basement of the building and the guard hasn’t personally been down this far before.
We begin planning to send an Infallible Messenger to Thousand Brushstrokes.
Stelsor is going to cast it to verify that Thousand Brushstrokes is in the Underworld currently.
Fortifier wants to issue an ultimatum that we want Flora released to us and the Timeless Order of Manacle & Coin to withdraw from Nexus.
After articulating this, we hear loud boisterous laughter coming through the door.
Stelsor plans a “fast ball special”.
Fortifier and the ghost guard open the door.
Stelsor will be thrown by Bears-Fangs.
Scene: Audience Chamber of Anacreon Thousand Brushstrokes
Thousand Brushstrokes offers us Dark Wine, glad we have finally arrived.
Thousand Brushstrokes isn’t making any defensive or offensive gestures at this point so we presumably are entering to speak peacefully with him.
Thousand Brushstrokes says that there was a waiting list of people looking to kidnap Flora.
Thousand Brushstrokes mentions that his superior has suggested he pull back from Nexus until the city is more pliable.
Stelsor wants Thousand Brushstrokes to return Flora to her normal state.
Thousand Brushstrokes asks why we think he can influence Keirin Dawnstrider.
Thousand Brushstroke Negotiation
What can we offer him to show that his surrender is not unconditional.
Stelsor suggests that we could destroy a political opponent of Thousand Brushstrokes.
Thousand Brushstrokes decides against us killing anyone but does want to know more about how we cured Oblivion Spores.
What do we ask of him.
Withdrawal of from Nexus.
Release of Moonlit Fate and by extension of Flora.
5 talents of Soulsteel.
Thousand Brushstrokes was sampling our dreams earlier, when we passed through the pink mists.
Stelsor asks what Thousand Brushstrokes thinks of the Lover (a deathlord).
Thousand Brushstrokes feels the Lover makes a viper seem cuddly. He is surprised we haven’t directed more of our ire toward the Lover since so many of her agents surround us.
What of Liveeasy? Thousand Brushstrokes suspects it may revert back from being a Shadowland in 5 to 10 years.
We work out terms and make plans for at least one summit in the future.
Final Terms
- Thousand Brushstrokes removes his coin troops from Nexus, and participates in the peace process
- Free Flora from Possession by Keirin Dawnstrider, by freeing Moonlight Fate
- Thousand Brushstrokes will send his Doctor to study how Philandro was saved, to allow the doctor to discover a protection for Thousand Brushstrokes
- Deal for soulsteel and possibly other materials: 5 Talents of soulsteel.
Fortifier asks if there is a courier or intermediary of his that could be targeted with Infallible Messengers while we are within Creation.
Thousand Brushstrokes says he will leave instructions to an agent we can reach in Creation.
Thousand Brushstrokes had since terminated Shagalauth after Shagalauth informed on him to his superior the Sovereign in Chains.
With our present negotiations satisfied, we fast cut back to Nexus.
Returning to Nexus
We are sent a Moonsilver and Orichalcum urn
The gold one feels heavy and the silver one feels completely weightless.
They are labeled in Old Realm for Moonlighting Fate and Keirin Dawnstrider.
The silver one is light because it is occupied by a ghost (counteracting the weight I suppose). The gold one is presumably prepared for an occupant.
Satrapi was carrying them. He received them from Thousand Brushstrokes.
He is protective of them, particularly the silver one.
There’s a rumor that there is some kind of happening on the river bank.
The location we gave Thousand Brushstrokes as a meeting place.
We can see from the manor that the skyline has changed from that place.
We borrow the Cloud Skiff to observe this. There is a massive pyramid that seems to have appeared outside the city. It has the logo of the Guild all over it.
The Guild may have flattened some of our recently purchased farmland to construct this.
Hundreds of Yeddim were used to pull the pyramid to this location.
Met with Selene.
Planning for the peace summit between the Tang-Zen, Guild and Timeless Order of Manacle & Coin. Hammering out who to invite.
We bring the urns to Flora-Keirin who was sunning herself.
The lid atop the silver urn opens itself and Keirin leaves Flora to embrace her mate.
Satrapi suggests we move the urns to the basement.
Fortifier offers to have the urns interred at a place of their choosing. Such as if they had an estate or location in Sijan that they wanted us to place them, we could likely arrange that.
They admit they are not in any hurry, but Sijan is likely a reasonable place in the fullness of time.
Questions for the ancient Exalted ghosts
They met during the Great Contagion.
“Did you know Ma-Ha-Suchi?”
That youth?
This ghost is a contemporary of Raksi and Ma-Ha-Suchi’s great love affair.
When Bears-Fangs mentions Ma-Ha-Suchi we get into talking about the Lunar.
Bears-Fangs has big disagreements with Ma-Ha-Suchi.
Stelsor and Fortifier explain their relationship with Ma-Ha-Suchi has been rocky but we’ve tried to work something out to open up river trade to The Dreaming Sea.
Speaking with Flora about her experiences.
Sees-your-soul points out that all the people attending the meeting with city leaders to potentially have them purchase printing presses are members of the Autochthon Lives.
Sees-Your-Soul worries about these new converts having ulterior motives or the outward appearance of favoritism toward the cult this might attract.
In particular, he is concerned about 2 members Mercenary Lord Wiseman and Cue.
Fortifier initially finds nothing strange about a military leader being interested in a cult with a clear vision of a highly-structured society. Seems extremely conducive to their interests.
Bears-Fangs suggests this Mercenary leader has joined the cult hoping to learn more about Alchemical Exalted and if they have the ability to manufacture Autocthonian armaments or even soldiers.
Cue, reeks of fish, is only seen when his ship is in the harbor, attends ceremonies of the cult and nothing else.
Stelsor suspects this person might be a replacement for Tide-of-Man-of-Wars.
Fortifier, very naive of sailors and their raucous reputation, doesn’t know why a sailor spending all their shoreleave in a religious service is unusual.
Apparently Cue is in the harbor on Thursdays (service days), which is a surprising
The ship is a caravan vessel, The Lonely Heiress.
We recalled that Nyeah had hired this ship a few times and thus it might actually be Guild-owned.
Scene: Bears-Fangs escorts Flora home.
Flora tries to keep Bears-Fangs talking.
She had been seeking fabric to redecorate her bedchambers.
Bears-Fangs assures her that they can provide her this service.
Scene: Doctor Fingal arrives
Dr. Fingal is the expert sent by Thousand Brushstrokes and has come to find out more about the Oblivion Spores. He is a Mortal human.
We show him the lab where we performed the procedure
Fingal is particularly interested in the way the spores responded to music.
We couldn’t speak much to the music since it was only audible to the undead, Malakai in particular at the time.
Inside the lab, the Peach of Immortality is emitting a lot of Essence.
Normally the Peach should be put away so that it isn’t known that we have a Peach stolen from Yu-Shan.
Fortifier motions toward the Peach so Stelsor can swipe it out of sight before Fingal notices it.
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