LOG START
[18:50:37] Master of Games
All Creation, Beneath the Sword
Session 23
The mysterious Chosen of Secret leaves, and takes with them your memories like a receding tide fleeing the land. Three heroes of the sun had tracked an elusive thought-thief to a shrine in honor of a forgotten deity, where, you presume, the culprit intended to flee via a sealed gateway to Heaven itself. Their bounty: the Imperial Daiklave, the very Sword that makes the Sword Princes of Vaneha so. The details elude you now, for such is the thief’s nature, but you managed to corner them, and learned much about the Daiklave, as well as forces interested in it, in the Sword Princes, and in you.
The sun has now left behind the horizon, and you stand on the outside platform of the footstep shrine, reconvening with Raizo’s men. The Daiklave is won back now, and you know that it is what gives force to Gensuji’s ambition, and in turn it will refuse to lend its full power to anyone with lesser dreams.
Now the question presents itself: will you indeed give it back? And, how much will you tell the Prince?
And, for another wrinkle: While your erstwhile quarry’s memory is gone from Raizo’s and Kagemori’s memories like so much water between their fingers, River Snake finds he still remembers Marea, Chosen of Secrets, on a fact-finding mission from an unnamed power in Heaven, who has always wanted to be order the usual at her favorite noodle stall. The memory feels vague and fleeting, like the events of a dream while still waking up, but it’s there.
[18:56:14] Datei ma Kagemori
”The moment of truth is at hand. We should get this back to its current holder, I think, to keep our promises. But should we enlighten him as to what we know? To be honest with him could lead to us revealing our hand, that we can be allies and peers, but not really vassals. Or should we allow that fiction to continue on?”
[19:00:29] River Snake
”It may be easier to avoid suspiscion if he thinks we’re still his loyal pawns”
[19:04:32] Raizo
Raizo takes a deep breath and rests his hands on his hips, a sign of deep thought anyone whose paid much mind to him is probably quite familiar with. “I think building a coalition is stronger for us. Replacing the prince without the people and the nobles to back us invites extra mayhem, and if we inflict that on the people, I don’t think we can say we’re acting in their interests anymore. Which means we should probably return the sword to him rather than keep it or try to overthrow him.”
[19:06:20] Raizo
”But if we just return it, what was really the point of coming all the way out here? I feel like that’s leaving a huge opportunity on the table we should exploit.”
[19:07:06] Datei ma Kagemori
”What do you propose?”
[19:10:15] Raizo
”I think I want to know what the Prince’s next plan is, and for us to be in charge of it. Something big and public to indebt him to us in front of the country.”
[19:11:50] Raizo
”We can make sure it’s done right, or wrong if it’s another fool crusade like attacking… I don’t know, Nexus, or some insanity. And we can take advantage of the outcome. I don’t think the Prince is fit to rule, but I also don’t know how to replace him yet that doesn’t just make a civil war I’d rather not fight.”
[19:13:39] Raizo
”So I’m thinking, the more he owes us, the more leverage we have to make him a figurehead. Maybe some kind of living god whose will we act in the name of or something.”
[19:15:04] Datei ma Kagemori
”If our goals suitably align, he may even be fine with that. Very well. I shall try to ensure I am kept as close counsel, that we might know the next plan.”
[19:15:58] Raizo
”Maybe you’ll be his left hand and I’ll be his right. And Snake will be the… under… hand? People don’t have three hands, normally; the comparison sort of falls apart.”
[19:18:02] Datei ma Kagemori
A decision reached, Kagemori moves to return the sword and detail its finding. He will not reveal his Chosen status at this moment, but he will reveal that the sword’s thief had some talent over minds and memories, and that Kagemori has resolved to find some method to strengthen his mind, so that this does not work again.
[19:33:00] Master of Games
Gensuji is generous with praise for the speedy and discreet resolution of the incident and makes it clear to any and all who know that it is to have never happened. The Datei may expect a gift from the Sword for their unconventional yet timely and invaluable assistance in the Nathir campaign.
As to the Sword Prince’s immediate next goals, these are easily enough learned: he will decamp back to Nathir, leaving clan forces, in particular the Maon, to rebuild and take control. No new campaigns until next summer; winter will be for planning and spring for preparing. The next target (as well as whether a new campaign next year is even feasible) will also be determined over the winter. A few candidates have been bandied about in the halls of power since well before Nathir’s fall. Most of these are petty states of the Hundred Kingdoms across the Yellow River not far up- or downriver from Nathir. Establishing ports on both shores of the Yellow, the logic goes, would grant Nathir great leverage over the river trade, and a tool to economically pressure harder targets.
[19:39:13] Master of Games
Not long after the armistice is reached, Zao Sweet and Bright and their Clan Otaya can already be seen speaking with representatives of Nathir’s mercantiles who’d been under siege in the port district, working Zao’s Guild connections while Maon vessels land. The demon-blooded boy Kimo is no longer with Zao, it seems he’s been reunited with his father at what’s left of the House of Thirty Seals.
[19:41:52] Master of Games
If one cared to investigate the Daiklave’s history, perhaps the demonologists’ library might have insight into esoteric materials that Marea didn’t see fit to share with you. If you plan to lay claim to the footstep shrine, working this out with Maon’s twin gods might be in order—or you could simply do what you want and ask them what they plan to do about it.
[19:47:33] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori is glad that the reunion went fine. He requests a prompt evaluation of the House of Thirty Seals’s resources and what it will need to get back onto its feet. While a fair patron, he will not be an absent one. Kagemori does end up requesting a meeting with the Maon gods. He intends to assert that the temple is now a place of ancestral reverence for his house and he intends to treat it as such.
[20:04:14] Master of Games
Kamo and Moka, you’re told, are currently personally engaged in diplomacy with the water-spirits of the river confluence, who are said to be old friends of the twins. If a meeting with the mortal head of the clan won’t do in the moment, Kagemori is assured an audience with the twin gods after the situation has stabilized, out here or back in the capital as convenience dictates.
The sorcerers’ dwelling will likely be easier to tear down and rebuild from scratch than repair it. Their library, on the other hand, seems to have survived the witches’ war relatively intact, setting aside the spiderwebs wrapping the building. The surviving sorcerers readily supply a list of what will be needed to replace their summoning circles and arcane resources with only two of them, one of who is now an eyeball. It’s hard for the layman to judge how much of this list is “need” and how much is “want”. Kimo, by the way, seems to have taken his father’s new appearance in stride. Old Garnet doesn’t seem to need to eat anymore, which is just as well as he no longer has a mouth. He takes his tea by soaking in a cup, to keep his eyeball-head and nerve-limbs moist.
[20:08:13] Datei ma Kagemori
Kagemori files away the need to discuss the matter with Kamo and Moka, but takes their busy schedule as a sign that for now, at least, the temple is his to deal with as he pleases. Which for the moment is not a lot. The place is to be cleaned and observed but Kagemori assumes this gate of heaven does not see a lot of use, if for no other reason than its state of disrepair. As for the sorcerers, figuring out where the needs end and the wants begin is a long term problem. Better for now to simply indulge their wants and use it as a chance to keep a close eye on them.
[20:37:13] Master of Games
Finding workers willing to go near the sorcerers’ campus could be an adventure in itself, after what their falling-out did to the area, but Nathir’s streets are now also full of those in need of coin and unable to be picky about their employment. The work will have to start with cleaning up the razor-sharp obsidian littered across the nearby area.
The disruption also represents an opportunity for River Snake’s network. Coin for information is an attractive deal for the newly indigent, and many are willing to take what semi-legitimate employment they can get. Legitimacy doesn’t put food on the table, after all.
[20:45:11] Datei ma Kagemori
The clearing of the obsidian will be time consuming, but at least it makes for a valuable material in and of itself. Matters in Nathir are not exactly settled, but ultimately an issue of time and resources rather than tough decisions. It allows for Kagemori to turn some of his attention to writing a flurry of memorandums to be sent to family leaders throughout the empire. Each dealing with proper procedure in minor but important ways. On the recruitment of interesting talents, which encourages family representatives to seek out strange, powerful individuals. On proper pay rates, which deals with ensuring each rung of the ladder gets enough profit without screwing over the rung above or below. Collectively, they will be seen as meddling, but they collectively provide a vision for the family that can easily grow and expand, without sacrificing sustainable markets. If Clan Datei is to be the most powerful house, that must begin at home.
[20:59:14] Raizo
Raizo, meanwhile, takes time where he can to see to better organizing and training the Band of the Canopy into better soldiers. There’s the matter of massaging the new recruits from the Bluelegs and refugees from Nathir into soldiers, and all of them into better soldiers. Training with swords long and short, crossbows and selfbows, spears and polearms, maces and axes, with and without shield, and fitness. A lot of fitness training. Maybe too much fitness training. A lot of sweat shed drilling means less blood shed on the battlefield, and every man should have two men beside him ready to carry him should he fall.