LOG START
[18:38:03] Master of Games
All Creation, Beneath the Sword
Session 22
Our three heroes of the Sun have decided to spend a night in the inner sanctum of what the fishers on the Maruto know only as the footstep shrine, or the carved block temple. History has forgotten the name of the deity honored here, though the children she is depicted with are apparently Kamo and Moka, tutelary deities of Clan Maon.
You are waiting for… well, you’re not entirely clear on that. You’ve been promised that the Imperial Daiklave will find its way back to you by dawn, that much you remember. You’ve learned of the existence of the so-called Fivescore Fellowship, an enigmatic group of Chosen who serve the mandates of destiny and are forgotten by the world itself. Safe to assume the two are related, but you can’t for the life of you remember exactly how.
Either way, you’re not alone. The footstep shrine has guardians, lion-dogs of living jade named Fu and Fa. After a frankly unideal first impression, they’ve proven quite amiable. Probably they don’t get much company down here. Fu and Fa are assigned here to guard a gate, which appears to be nothing more than a beautiful arc of noble metals set into the bare rock of the back wall but actually leads to Heaven itself, if one knows the key. Maintaining the neglected temple is outside of their mandate, and also outside their specialty, but they’re quite happy with the suggestion that you could help with that.
To pass the time, the guardians have offered to show you around the temple. It’s spacious, for being carved out of the rock itself. There’s a central altar, surrounded by a small moat; a similar moat around the edges of the room; the raised platform on which the gate stands; and two annexes to the side. In the one further back, Fu and Fa say a member of the Datei was once laid to rest, during the war that broke the clan.
[18:51:40] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori heads to the back. Not that he is not interested in the rest of the shrine, but this seems the most important to him.
[18:57:09] Master of Games
This second annex is carved into the stone as an extra room, and seems to River Snake’s eyes to be somewhat newer than the rest of the temple. The other one consists of a set of low walls next to the altar; the lion-dogs say ritual tools and music instruments are stored there. If the temple is as old as you suspect them to be, these would be historical artifacts in their own right.
Two steps lead up into the newer annex from the outer moat. (The round stones in it remind one of those lining the river shore outside; once upon a time this and the one around the altar were meant to be filled with water, but the spring that fed them has dried up.) The inside is austere, decorated with prayer scrolls in an unknown hand—presumably not Fu or Fa’s. In the center, there is an urn, and behind it a stand for displaying armor. The temple is cool and dry, and the armor on display well preserved, but even for that, its breasplate gleams as if new, with a white sheen that suggests the steel has been alloyed. The helmet is missing.
[18:59:41] Master of Games
One detail might catch Kagemori’s eye more than anyone else’s for its incongruity: the prayer scroll offered before the urn, presumably extolling the courage of a dead Datei warrior, is prominently signed by an Iachi.
[18:59:56] River Snake
Snakes walks the ruins with Fu and Fa, mostly looking at everything, placing dates, historical value, monetary value, on most of it…and also looking out for possible magic artifacts. An untouched ancient ruin is always interesting, even if it isnt full of money, though. He’s obviously having a fairly good time, now that he’s off the clock, so to speak
[19:02:13] Raizo
For want of much else to do in the middle of nowhere, Raizo has directed the Band of the Canopy, and joined them, in performing what renovations they can. While they’re all far from architects, every peasant in Vaneha has done enough corvee labor to know how basic structural maintenance without breaking anything further. Plus, not like you need much know-how to pick up stones or whatever and put them somewhere else.
[19:04:27] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori pauses to pray to the ancestor. “You have earned your rest, ancestor.” He then picks up the prayer scroll, very carefully, to read it closely.
[19:06:25] River Snake
Snake is also trying to decipher what all the reliefs say.
[19:15:02] Master of Games
The most valuable thing present is surely the gate. On closer inspection, it is made not from just any noble metals, but from twisting strands of legendary materials—orichalcum and moonsilver wrapped around coils of jade-steel, with filigree of iridescent starmetal. This by itself is of unmeasurable worth, gathering dust in a little shrine just off the river all this time, but anyone who disturbed it might well face the literal wrath of Heaven. The stored ritual objects are ancient but exquisite in their own right, especially the instruments.
[19:21:16] Master of Games
The prayers offered to the dead warrior recount a story from the point of view of the one who killed him. Finding the fled Datei hiding out at this temple by coincidence, the Iachi warrior overpowered his wounded and exhausted foe, but the youth’s beautiful countenance stayed their hand—briefly, until other Iachi forces approached and duty forced them to take their foe’s head anyway. Upon exploring the forgotten temple, the killer found that the hauntingly beautiful melody that had led them here in the first place had been the very youth they’d killed, playing on the ritual instruments, and were overcome with passion and grief, inspired to build this shrine to them with the guardians’ permission.
[19:29:27] Master of Games
The Band of the Canopy puts in good work. The greater cracks will require specialists to fix, but they’ve plenty enough experience to move rocks and reinforce structures. Over the course of the night, the temple’s appearance goes from “decayed beneath the march of centuries” to “in need of repair but servicable”. The relief-blocks outside, where this is possible, are put back in their place, and this by itself lends the outer footstep shrine a more dignified air.
[19:32:34] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori places the prayer scroll back. “If only they had seen that beauty before the swords were drawn. Perhaps if things had been different, you could have been celebrated across the empire, Sakamori.”
[19:34:20] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori thinks about the names involved. Was Sakamori a great name of the time, or a talent forgotten even to the family histories? And Ozane, how many more did he cut down in his brief life?
[19:42:46] Master of Games
Ozane is a well-known name, an accomplished field commander for the Iachi who retired immediately after the final Datei defeat and is said to have become an eccentric hermit and contemplative. Sakamori was better known yet, though especially within the Clan, for his beauty, wisdom, and artistic accomplishment. A man born into the wrong era for his talents, and lost in battle at a young age. Though it’s uncommon in Vaneha for deities to have children with humans, he was thought to carry the sagacity of air in his blood.
[19:48:38] Master of Games
The reliefs in the temple tell River Snake of much older times than this. He’s confident now that worship at this site began before the height of the fabled First Age, but interestingly, the children may be a newer addition. Though age makes it hard to tell any difference in wear between inscriptions, those depictions of the unnamed mother together with Kamo and Moka have been carved with different tools, better ones enabling more intricate and deeper lines cut into the stone. Curiously, there’s no hint as to the mother’s name still. The places where he’d expect such information to be have suffered the tooth of time and worn away to illegibility. Fu and Fa suspect that if she was lost in the catastrophic invasion of the Fair Folk that immediately preceded the Great Contagion, her very name may have been lost from this world.
[19:49:14] Datei ma Kagemori
”Could this be why Ozane retired after the war? Or perhaps just one episode of many that together had had him flee into the mountains.” Kagemori speaks aloud, contemplative and speaking to no one in particular. “Did you speak to Datei ma Sakamori much, guardians?” He turns to the great stone lions.
[19:50:27] River Snake
Snake whistles as he looks over the reliefs. “Some of this dates back to the first age. Impressive…Though with a gate to uh Heaven? here I guess that shouldnt be too surprising
[19:57:34] Master of Games
Fu visibly tries to recall at Kagemori’s question. “Briefly. I remember him being courteous despite his wounds, and apologizing for getting blood on the floor when it was hardly his fault. When he saw the ritual instruments, he asked if he could play the flute, and the song he played was truly beautiful.”
Fa nods gravely to Snake. “I understand it was among the first gates established, once the great gods had won Heaven. The deity enshrined here must have once been an important god of the waters, to have it built in her temple.”
[19:58:43] River Snake
”A shame her name seems to have vanished from every inscription I can find, then. Though perhaps the twins know it, if the theory about them being her children is accurate”
[20:04:36] River Snake
”I wonder how old this makes the twins.” Snake compares the age of the engravings again, trying remember if he ever learned when the carving techniques changed. Old explorers loved sharing trivia like that, it may have come up.
[20:07:40] Datei ma Kagemori
”I will ensure that Sakamori’s last moments are reflected in the family annals.”
[20:08:07] Raizo
”Possible her memory was condemned on purpose,” Raizo says, dusting himself off during a break in the impromptu clean up. “Wouldn’t be the first time anyone was disgraced with obliteration of their name from records.”
[20:09:58] Master of Games
Fu and Fa hmm. “I don’t remember being briefed on anything like that about this place’s history, but the Bureau’s recordkeeping isn’t what it used to be.” “I suppose it wouldn’t have been relevant knowledge to our duties.”
[20:16:32] Raizo
”If those other Exalted can change our memories, what’s to say yours couldn’t be, too? Maybe someone wanted her forgotten. Or maybe not. What the hell do I know, I’m just talking.”
[20:17:19] Datei ma Kagemori
”It seems like Kamo and Moka are the only who know. Or we search for the answer in Heaven.”
[20:18:39] Master of Games
”I suppose it’s not impossible,” Fa says with the shrug of someone who isn’t particularly convinced one way or another.
The precision and regularity of the cuts suggest that the reliefs featuring the twins were still carved in the latter First Age, before whatever war precipitated the formation of a Dragon-Blooded shogunate, after which the quality and complexity of engravings on record drops dramatically (before increasing again as the chaos of the period stabilized for a time). Kamo and Moka must have had a truly gilded childhood.
[20:20:47] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori examines the armor. Considering the lack of careful maintenance, it is still beautiful.
[20:31:07] River Snake
”Whenever it was…late First age, probably…still longer than anyone can probably remember.”
[20:32:01] River Snake
”Dunno, Maybe Fu and Fa have grandparents that remember it?”
[20:33:29] Master of Games
The helmet isn’t present—perhaps Ozane took it along with Sakamori’s head. The arm and leg guards, greaves and gauntlets are less pristine than the breastplate, though still well preserved. The breastplate, though, is spotless, if dusty. There’s a white sheen to it that River Snake recognizes after some inspection as an alloy of white jade and steel, padded with leather from a beast none of you recognize, though hardly any ordinary cow.
”Oh, I remember what I was doing when I heard the news.” “I was on leave, myself.”
[20:37:00] River Snake
”You guys live that long? Well…I guess your are magic creature…why not?” Snake is simultaneously surprised and not surprised. “I don’t suppose you remember enough to give us a brief history lesson while we’re here”
[20:37:56] Datei ma Kagemori
”Hmm. I wonder how many of the Stars are that old. Most gods don’t advertise their age in my experience. I am not sure I know of any others who had active shrines in the area before the Contagion. Perhaps they jumped ship in the new administration.”
[20:38:06] River Snake
”and that armor is…at least partially White Jade. So probably something nice.” He comments as he moves to inspect it more closely, wondering if it has any other interesting properties.
[20:40:07] Raizo
”Fancy armor. Any idea who left it here?”
[20:41:20] Datei ma Kagemori
”I believe it to belong to a distant relative of mine, Datei ma Sakamori. A poet born in an age of war. This shrine was made by his killers, after they saw his ghost playing the instruments over there. Or so the scroll claims, in any case.”
[20:42:31] Datei ma Kagemori
”I had heard he was considered to have a touch of divinity in his music, but I never put much faith in it until this. But if he had armor like this, perhaps he really was born of the elementals or touched by the dragon’s blood. Or maybe he was like us.”
[20:43:09] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori gestures to the prayer scroll if the other Solars wish to read it.
[20:46:47] Master of Games
”Oh, it’s been a long time since I was a wee cub.” “Neither of us was a wee cub. We were carved from jade, remember?”
The breastplate has a contemplative air about it, one of calm sadness and measured defiance. It’s beautiful, but not ostentatious, made for a wise leader. It must have weighed heavy on the body of a young man, perhaps chosen to wear it for being one of few or even the only one capable of doing so. The tint of it reminds one of the color of the mask Kagemori received from the Anori.
[20:48:53] Datei ma Kagemori
”I…wonder if the mask I was given goes with this.” Kagemori retrieves a mask from within his robes and sets it on the armor rack.
[20:52:13] River Snake
”Out of curiousity, how does your kind come to be? Are you statues that magically come to life or something else?”
[20:55:28] Master of Games
The mask is meant to be attached to a helmet, but it fits. Borrowing a helmet from one of the Band to improvise and setting it on top, you’re left looking at the image of a defiant warrior staring death in the eye. Its more yellowish tint, like aged ivory, complements the starker white of the armor like silver and gold.
”We’re carved in pairs out of a great block of living jade by the Father of Lions.” “The exact process is classified.”
[20:56:26] Datei ma Kagemori
”Missing a component still, but we’re at most of a suite of armor.”
[20:57:47] Raizo
”Maybe we should see if Iachi has the helmet anywhere.”
[20:58:07] Datei ma Kagemori
”Yes. Also, I should ask clan Anori how they came upon this mask.”
[21:00:51] River Snake
”I wasnt expecting you to tell me the process, I was just curious if there were jade gaurdian cubs out their somewhere”
[21:02:55] Master of Games
”In general, we’re about the same size, but I met a pair once who were sized for a very small space. But they wouldn’t grow with time, or anything.”
[21:04:28] Datei ma Kagemori
”Ancestor, I hope you do not consider it a slight if I reclaim your equipment to serve our clan again. I will ensure this shrine is maintained and glorified, in compensation.”
[21:08:06] River Snake
”Well, it would be inconvenient to be too big to move in the room you need to guard. Are you guys always guardians, or do you sometimes do other jobs? Or like, change locations you’re assigned to?”
[21:12:15] Master of Games
”Certainly. We were stationed in Yu-Shan before being reassigned here. And if you’re reassigned to a completely different sort of duty, you might even change altogether.” “But usually, we’re guardians. Play to your strengths, and all.” “Hao and Hua were promoted to gods of several prides of lions some time back. Wonder who they sucked up to to get that.”
[21:16:06] Raizo
”I guess I just never expected Heaven to work so much like, well, how we do things here on earth.”
[21:16:29] River Snake
”It does sound vaugely like the office work for my company sometimes”
[21:19:09] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori will return to reclaim the armor in a bit. He intends to meditate in any case, so taking that time to attune to the armor makes sense. For now, he goes to inspect the musical instruments.
[21:20:40] Raizo
”I used to be part of the civil bureaucracy in Vaneha, and yeah, reassignments and promotions and office politics all sounds pretty familiar.”
[21:22:11] Raizo
”Not that I was very important in it. Village magistrate, not something sexy like a court censor or something.”
[21:24:25] Master of Games
”Well, someone has to mind the village. And someone has to mind the rivers that runs through it, no?”
[21:25:28] Raizo
”Hey, I liked the job plenty. I’d probably go back if I could.”
[21:25:49] Datei ma Kagemori
”The heavens have more in mind for you now, my friend.”
[21:26:31] Raizo
”For better or worse. Maybe if I ever retire.”
[21:35:12] Master of Games
The ritual implements stored in the other annex are of obscure use. Some are intuitive enough: fittingly for a shrine to a god of water, cups and bowls are in abundance, though nobody remembers the rituals they were used in. Others are shaped with more mysterious utility. Among them, the instruments are clearly masterworks. One need not be a musician to see this. Most of them are carved with their maker’s names, though those people are now lost to time. There’s the flute Sakamori must have played, here a koto. Their forms differ slightly from how they would be built in modern times, but a skilled player would figure them out quickly enough.
[21:43:02] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori picks up the flute. “Sorry, divine twins, but this flute is now a family relic.”
[21:43:16] Datei ma Kagemori
”I’ll see that a new flute is added to this collection.”
[21:45:41] Master of Games
”Hmm.” Fu and Fa think. “Well, I suppose that’s not a problem, especially if you’ll replace it. You’ve helped clean up the place a lot, after all.” “Hardly worth reporting on.”
[21:53:57] Datei ma Kagemori
”This might be a holy site for Kamo and Moka of the Stony Banks, but this is also a site of reverence for clan Datei now.”
[21:55:54] Raizo
”What about the armor?”
[21:57:53] Datei ma Kagemori
”It will be reclaimed for family service. If it is made of Jade, it might have abilities beyond being simply a barrier to harm. It might suit you more than I, Dawn. We can try attuning it and seeing who resonates with it best. …If you die, it goes back to the family though.”
[21:59:44] Raizo
”If I die, you can have anything you want off my body.”
[21:59:54] Datei ma Kagemori
”Very fair.”
[22:00:08] Raizo
”Can’t bring it with me after all. What do I care. I’m dead.”
[22:01:16] Datei ma Kagemori
”We are sworn brothers. I think it is fair we share artifacts.”
[22:04:13] Raizo
”Then on my honor, I shall not stain your ancestors’.”
[22:06:07] Raizo
”…Probably sounds better from someone who isn’t a bandit, but.” He doesn’t finish the sentence, lacking anything pithy or witty to add.
[22:07:55] Datei ma Kagemori
”I see only a warrior of the sun.”
[22:15:40] Master of Games
Time advances as you inspect, meditate, and chat with the guardians. The sun starts rising, and just before it finally leaves behind the horizon, you hear a voice from the entrance to the temple—not the gate to Heaven. “Here I figured you might have gone back to the city. Good thing I checked first, or I’d have been late.”