Session 21: The Battle of Ocho-Rin Hill, part 2

Throughout the night, the circle kept watch for signs of Guild treachery. After the painful lesson taught to them by Snapdragon and the near-miss by Gideon, the Guild seemed content to let it come to open warfare. After all, the Anathema couldn’t be everywhere during a battle—numbers would win the day. For their part, the circle prepared throughout the night. Venomous Spur prepared defenses while Red Lion trained the freedmen in shifts. Prism and Gideon quietly departed the manse and communed with the local spirit courts for emergency aid. Snapdragon laid traps up the sides of Ocho-Rin Hill and Blazer fine-tuned the manse’s weapon systems, improving their range and power.

As the morning came, the children and teens of Ochorin came to Red Lion, begging for the chance to fight alongside their parents and guardians. He refused gently, despite their insistence that the Guild’s swords would kill them just as surely as they would an adult. Ven came to them and offered them another option: the manse would need people to stay behind and do important tasks like putting out fires, caring for the wounded, and other critical things. They asked her where she would be—and Ven paused. She had intended to go into battle alongside her mate, but how could she justify what she had just told these mortals if she were hypocritical enough to abandon them. She looked at them and declared that she would stay behind with them and lead the defense of the homestead. Buoyed by her example, the freedmen’s morale improved yet further.

Rolling Ocho was missing, despite his oath to come to the defense of the freedmen; either he had betrayed them again and placed himself beyond hearing their prayers, or he was being restrained by the Guild. Gideon assumed it was the former, and the others couldn’t think of any reason why he would be wrong. They decided that he would receive his due reckoning after the battle. Finally, Red Lion finished the freedmen’s training—a decade of battle experience crammed into a few mere hours. He was tired and sore, more than he could remember since his Exaltation, but there was no time to rest. Sunset was coming, and with it… war.

The western sky turned bloody as the sun touched it. A mighty cry went up from Ochorin: “For Red Lion! For the Unconquered Sun! For freedom!” The gates of the manse swung wide, and the Lion’s Roar drove down the hillside, tons of crashing orichalcum tearing into the heart of the Night Talon ranks. The freedmen followed close behind, their war cries unsettling even the hardened mercenaries. As the Lion’s Roar took position at the heart of the battle, Red Lion flared his anima banner brighter than he had ever done before, casting the glow of the dawn sun across the arrayed forces. Terror filled the hearts of his enemies, while the men fighting for him were filled with fearless bravery.

Gideon took to the skies, raining down hell on the Iron Brotherhood. Prism stood on the walls of Ochorin, his mighty voice projected across the battlefield by the power of Blazer’s devices so that all could hear his prayers to Sol Invictus. The spirits heard him too, and the mercenaries found themselves beset not just by mortal soldiers but by bad luck, the land shifting under their feet, and the elements themselves turning against them. Blazer stayed on the walls with Gideon, partly to maintain the machinery of Ochorin’s defense, and partly to grapple with his own conscience. Ven led the volunteer brigade in fighting fires, detaching the grappling hooks of the few mercenaries able to get close enough to the hill to use them, and keeping the essence cannons working in top order.

Snapdragon launched herself into the ranks of the Iron Brotherhood as well, coming face to face with their commander, the Earth Aspect called Master Fedekiro. He wielded a huge white jade goremaul and his skin was like rock. Snapdragon couldn’t seem to get purchase against his stony hide, while his blows devastated the area around her even when he missed. He shattered the stony terrain into shards of razor rock, flowed mud into quicksand, and made the terrain nearly impossible, save for Snapdragon’s nimble acrobatics. Prism saw her plight and descended from the hilltop to help her in the battle. The two of them fought a deadly battle against the lone Dragon-Blood, finally pooling their might into a single lethal X-strike across his broad chest. Fedekiro died hard, and with him, the morale of the Iron Brotherhood.

Red Lion and the freedmen swept through the Night Talons like a mighty wind, shattering siege engines and knocking foes into limp, broken-limed heaps—but without inflicting a single death. Dageru Yohotima, the heroic mortal commander of the brigade, took a position on a rocky outcropping, directing his troops with the iron fans of a Shogunate-trained military leader. As the battle began to turn, he exhorted his men to bravery, even taking up arms himself and putting a powerbow-driven bolt through the eyeplate of the Lion’s Roar. Gideon respected such bravery but couldn’t permit it to remain on their enemies’ side. Still, he found himself moved by Red Lion’s heroic pacifism and merely removed him from the battlefield with the aid of his Twin Dragon’s rocket shot; if he was lucky, he would land unharmed, many miles away.

Up at the manse, everything seemed to be going well—until one of the volunteer brigade children came rolling through the doors, unconscious and bruised. Ven looked to the doors to see none other than the Sidereal they knew as Ochre Blossom come walking in. He seemed surprised that any of the circle were still in the manse and introduced himself at last as Oberen, Chosen of Endings. Ven refused to banter with him; she leapt at him, changing to her deadly beastman shape as she moved.

Blazer felt the rush of mortal combat through his brothers’ bond. He might not be able to reconcile his logic with his heart about this war, but he could still help his friends! In a bolt of blue, he rushed across the hilltop to the manse, only to find Ven battling the violet-glowing man who had nearly killed him in their first encounter. Oberen taunted Blazer, who pulled forth his Swooping Shrike and took aim—only to find the bolt diverted by a quick tap on his arm by the Sidereal martial artist! Oberen had used the same trick in their first encounter, and Blazer had been too furious to avoid falling for it again. This time, the burning bolt took Ven in the chest and sent her tumbling. He could tell that she was alive, but only barely. And without a strong melee combatant to back him up, Blazer knew he couldn’t last long.

Down below, the battle was turning in favor of the freedmen—when suddenly, Red Lion felt a cold terror grip his heart. Ven needed him! He looked down at the men who needed him too… and let his heart choose for him. He abandoned the battle, leaving the mortals to win the day on their own, to go save his Lunar mate. As the Lion’s Roar crashed through the gates of the Ochorin manse, Red Lion flung himself from the cockpit at high speed, knocking Oberen back from the now-bloody Blazer. He looked at Ven’s still body, at the limp body of the wounded child—and something inside him snapped.

Awash with the fires of the sun, his eyes molten pools and his anima in full iconic blaze, Red Lion rushed Oberen without a single show of style or technique in his blows—only raw and unyielding power. Oberen was a talented martial artist, and he taunted Red Lion for his lack of training—right up to the moment the first blow broke through his defense and shattered half of his ribs. The next minutes were the most painful of Oberen’s life, as Red Lion beat him senseless, grappled him, and crushed his starmetal hand in one mighty fist.

Finally, the Sidereal collapsed unconscious from the viciousness of the attack, but Red Lion decided that he hadn’t suffered enough. Ending this man’s life would be a mercy, not a punishment. The Solar loaded himself back into the Lion’s Roar, used its armaments to burn Oberen’s clothing away, and then loaded him into the main cannon as a projectile. A brief bit of fiddling with the controls changed the output from raw energy to kinetic force, and then Red Lion launched the naked Sidereal back to Heaven by shooting him straight up into the Dome of the Sky.

As Red Lion cradled Ven in his arms and Blazer tended to her wounds, they could hear a great shout come up from outside. The battle was over! Though things had been touch-and-go for a while without Red Lion’s presence, the freedmen had managed to pull out a victory anyway over the battered enemy forces. Not a single enemy soldier had been killed by a freedman, though the same couldn’t be said in reverse; the people of Ochorin mourned their dead, and though they craved blood vengeance, they remembered that many of them had once been mercenaries too, before being shown a better way.

Gideon, Prism and Snapdragon noticed that certain members of the Guild were attempting an escape now that the battle had been routed. Though the Guild would kill them if they ever caught up, apparently Mistress Shun and Commander Tranh had decided that running for it was the only path left open to them. Even so, they couldn’t run fast enough to escape the Solar Exalted. Though Gideon craved their deaths, the three of them offered the Guildsmen a choice: surrender and aid the freemen, forswearing the Guild, or meet their end here and now. Mistress Shun challenged him; hadn’t Red Lion sworn their lives would be spared? The Solars pointed out that Red Lion wasn’t here—and that was the end of that. Mistress Shun and Commander Tranh knelt down and swore their lives to the cause of Ochorin, bound by the power of the Eclipse Caste. The circle managed to hunt down Rolling Ocho, discovering his treachery knew no bounds or decency, and Ven threatened him with the wrath of Heaven itself should he even consider stepping out of line again.

Red Lion mourned for all of the death and loss, and he wondered if his powers could be turned to creation as well. Focusing his mind as intensely as he could and hardening his body with essence, he began to shatter the stony cliffs around the Ocho-Rin Basin, knocking stones across miles of terrain to fit them in place. The ground ruptured at his blows, forming foundations for buildings as he worked himself beyond the point of exhaustion. By the time Red Lion collapsed that night, he had torn a city fit for thousands from the soil and stone of the land. He would sleep for days as the other worked to build a working government, arrange for food through the coming winter months, and deal with the prisoners. It was a just sleep. Ochorin was free—no longer a ragged town of survivors, but a new nation of free men!

There would be more trouble later, of course, but for now all was well in Creation.

It had been…well, Blazer didn’t really know how long it had been. All he knew was that at some point he had gone dry of tears, and it was probably still the same day. Probably. He caught his reflection in a mirror nearby, and had to stare at it for a long moment. His eyes were red, his sleeves soaked, and he sat amidst the shattered remains of more than a few experiments. Despite the fact that he had been fully aware of himself at the time, he was still a bit floored by the way he had lost it. He had always prided himself on staying cool and collected under pressure. But ever since Exalting, he was a ball of emotions that could hardly decide how it felt half the time.

Looking away from the mirror, he let his head fall back down against his knees again. His communicator was flashing, but he still ignored it. How many times had it flashed? The others were clearly trying to reach him, and he knew why. But he also knew that he was no good to anyone at the moment, not so long as that hole in his chest just kept growing and growing. The others could handle it: they would do what they always did, leap headlong into the fray, and they would fix it. Just like Red Lion always advocated.

He shuddered involuntarily. The scene from the manse kept replaying itself over and over again in his mind. He looked up to Red and Ven; they were so much of what he wanted to be. He wanted to be strong and tough, a protector of the weak and downtrodden. He wanted to be wise and clever, able to solve any problem with ingenuity and skill. Since the loss of his home, they had grown to be important anchors in his life.

But they had turned on Sweet Emerald’s circle with alarming willingness. They had gone to dinner fully intending to attack their hosts if they wouldn’t listen, and had actually destroyed the manse. Destroyed it, seemingly without a second thought. It had been just like the destruction of the Librarium – they hadn’t understood their way of life, had shown no intention of understanding, and had just destroyed the whole thing, leaving the people of the city bereft of their protectors, confused, and frightened. The thought of that happening again paralyzed him. How far would it spiral? At what point would they all cross a line they could never return from?

The communicator rang again, and he once again shut it out of his mind. What was he even doing there, anyway? The Loresmiths were problem solvers, tinkerers, and teachers. They were not magistrates, or lawmen, and they certainly weren’t soldiers or warlords. Nothing made sense anymore. He missed those early days, and the belief that his potential was limitless. He missed having the answers, missed having a clue as to where the answers could be found. He missed feeling like he had some pull with the people around him. And he missed Apple, and the fleeting sense of serenity he had felt around her.

“So you’re still here?” came a voice from across the room. At least, it seemed as if it were across the room. A curly-haired girl stepped out of the shadows, and crouched across from him, tilting her head slightly as she looked to him. “Shinn, you really shouldn’t do this to yourself.”

Blazer started to lift his head, but stopped himself short of meeting her eyes, glancing back down to the cool surface of the floor again a moment later. “It doesn’t matter one way or the other, Seil. If I go out there, I won’t be able to control myself.” He knew that arguing with her was pointless, and not just because she wasn’t really there. But that didn’t stop him from trying. “It’s better if I just stay here.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said with a shake of her head that sent her curls flying. “And I don’t think you do, either. The Shinn I know wouldn’t give up the things he was taught so easily.”

“That’s just it, Seil. Shinn’s not here anymore. That was a different life. I’m not the guy you knew. I’m Blazer, now.”

Selah smiled. “You’ll have to change a lot more than your name before I stop recognizing you.”

Bringing his hands up to his head, he rubbed his temples slowly, and sighed once more. “I’m just…I’m just so tired, Seil. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready for any of it. I don’t know what’s going on with this world, and it terrifies me.”

She was quiet in response for a long time, just looking over to him with that gaze that had always seemed so much wiser and so much more patient than her years, ever since they had been children. When she finally spoke, it was in a voice much softer and quieter, though he had no trouble making it out. “’We are always more afraid than we wish we were. And we never feel ready enough for what awaits around the corner. But we go because hesitation leads to stagnation, and stagnation leads to death.’”

“Master Aiken’s words.”

She moved forward, and settled again when she was just a foot or two away. “I don’t have the answers you seek, Shinn. But you have to do something. If you let your fear paralyze you, a lot of people will die. Or are you really okay with leaving it up to the others?” Blazer was quiet for a long moment, and finally she leaned towards him, opening her arms to hug him close. Of course, they settled on thin air instead of touching him, but she seemed unfazed by it as she started to shine, and then vanished.

Blazer, on the other hand, was far from unfazed. Despite knowing full well that that was all in his mind, he had, for just a fraction of a moment, been expecting to feel her warm embrace. When it didn’t come, he felt the hole starting to ache again, and it nearly doubled him over.

But then, a moment later, it stopped. He couldn’t explain what happened, but something replaced that hole in his chest. What had started to become a yawning chasm sealed as surely as if it had been cemented, and the empty feeling was gone. He thought of the burning manse…the burning Librarium…and then the inferno in his memories. Yes, Seil was right. He was frightened of what would happen if he took action, but if he did nothing, then that was even worse. That was the only way to guarantee that nothing would change. And things had to change. They had to change significantly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimmer of gold in the corner, and turned to see another figure standing there. This one was a tall woman, built like a beast of prey but as graceful and enchanting as a sunbeam. Golden hair tumbled in a molten cascade around and far past her shoulders, and for a brief moment, a full moon symbol flickered on her forehead before disappearing. The second his eyes went to her, her features shifted into a wry smirk, and the long, tufted tail behind her gave a pendulous flick. “Thinking of me now, Blazer?” she said playfully as she crossed her arms underneath her breasts.

“For some reason, yes.”

“Even after what we went through? I’m flattered.”

“I’m sure you are.” He started to turn away from her, but he delayed, growing quiet again. “For what it’s worth…and as crazy as it sounds…I’m glad I did. It’s good to see you again, Huntress.”

Giving an entertained laugh, the woman shook a finger at him slowly. “Tsk tsk. ‘Crazy,’ you say? Still haven’t learned, I see. That’s fine. I can wait as long as it takes.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“You can say that as much as you like, but it makes no difference. I believe in you, Blazer, and that’s all that matters.” Blowing him a kiss, the woman’s image dissipated a second later, leaving him alone – physically and mentally – once again.

Blazer looked towards the spot where she had stood for another few seconds, and then turned. There was work to be done.

“Lab,” Blazer called out as he walked through a door into the main chambers of his sanctum. “Resume operations and report.”

There was immediately the quiet hum of power being rerouted, and then lights started blinking on in the room. Status holograms hovered in the air once again, and clockwork automata that had shut down in place resumed their previous activities. A few seconds later, a female voice resounded through the room. “Full functions restored. Welcome, Blazer.”

Continuing on to one of the largest status holograms, Blazer worked for a moment on the floating screen, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to concentrate. “Locate the creature known as the Brass Tyrant, and calculate its ETA in Zarrith based on its observed rate of movement.” Another screen popped up, this one showing icons for Zarrith and the Brass Tyrant, with a yellow line stretching between them. They barely even had a day to work with, from the looks of things; not exactly the most encouraging picture. Really, he wouldn’t have felt comfortable with even three or four days to come up with a plan for defeating something that monstrous, but there would be time to worry about that later.

“Reference both Yukiri’s library and my own for mention of all possible permutations of ‘Brass Tyrant.’ I need attack patterns, weaknesses, favorite foods, anything you can give me.”

Another screen appeared next to him, this one covered with red ’x’es. “No matches located.”

Making a frustrated sound with his teeth, Blazer shook his head. “So we’re flying blind on this one. Great.”

He ran through as many response plans as he could think of. A barrier field to envelop the city would take too long to implement, even if split into multiple pieces, and even then would have only been of questionable effectiveness. Every scenario based on rerouting the Tyrant’s path was a flop, not to mention the fact that it would have simply been dumping the problem in someone else’s backyard. If there had still been more Exalted in the city, he could have at least had something to work with, but Sweet Emerald’s circle was already gone, and the Dragon-Blooded had fled or otherwise departed as well. And the time crunch meant he could ill afford to spend all of his time working up alternate ideas. Which left him with one course of action.

“Lab, retrieve notes from experiment 1547, and remove alpha-level locks. Identification code 06ry329.” Moments after he spoke, his main screen began filling with new images. Several were of a hazy, ephemeral luminescence in varying shades, while the majority featured a solid shaft of metallic blue light from multiple angles. His jaw tightened as he viewed them – he had not planned on returning to this research so soon. But there was serious work to be done. “Calibrate the automata to resonate essence on these frequencies, and prepare the main lab for resumption of the experiment. Oh, and one more thing: rename experiment 1547 to ‘Project Gungnir.’”

“Acknowledged.”

The chamber of the main lab had been thoroughly sealed at Blazer’s command. Here and there in a complex pattern along the floor, walls, and ceiling runes had been inscribed, and over each one sat one of Blazer’s automatons, an ephemeral radiance flowing between them. But they were only the edge of the field; the center of the chamber was filled with that same blue light as in Blazer’s notes, and in the center of that stood Blazer himself. He was stripped bare down to the waist, but his left arm and the entire left side of his body were covered in more runes. The room was so bright that he wouldn’t have been able to see a thing normally; even with the goggles he wore, he could still just barely make out his clockwork assistants.

A few minutes passed, and the light began to fade steadily. It shrank and contracted, until it was little more than a ball of glowing energy twice the size of a man’s head, floating in the center of the chamber, and then seemed to settle once more. Blazer removed his goggles, and let out a breath he felt he had been holding for hours. It was done. “Lab, report.”

“Central chamber seal remains active at 100% efficiency. Essence levels stabilized.”

“Alright, then. Reactivate Soul and Skin modules and prepare them for containment, along with this module, codenamed ‘Slayer.’ In the meantime, run a simulation of the system against the Brass Tyrant.”

“Warning: the use of the Gungnir modules on the Brass Tyrant is not recommended, Blazer.”

“I know.” Blazer recalled the last simulation he had run on the Brass Tyrant. The effects he had witnessed were sobering, indeed. “But the rate of spread is within acceptable limits, and certainly slower than the Tyrant’s own march towards Zarrith. So override the restrictions and prepare the units.” It wasn’t an ideal solution, but he was running out of time. He would burn the Shadowland bridge when he got to it.

“Acknowledged.”

Closing the Library up within its access portal, Blazer closed the Tome of the Great Maker and let the book return to its own hideaway in Elsewhere. He was as ready now as he was going to be; in the meantime, there were still other preparations to make. He had to cap off the manse to make this all work, at the very least. So he reached into his pocket and retrieved his communicator.

“Ven, meet me at the ruins of the manse. We don’t have much time.”

Tucking the communicator back into his pocket, he winked out in a flash of light, a few ephemeral motes settling to the floor of his rooms in the Lion’s Roar once he was gone.

Session 20: The Battle of Ocho-Rin Hill, part 1

Rushing back to Delsinar through the use of Ven’s hurry home ritual, the circle found the city-state in a moderate panic. King Voshun had put their small army into a state of readiness and was in close communication with Fiori of Mishaka to coordinate their efforts. A Guild-sponsored mercenary army had passed through the region a few days past, headed for the eastern spur of the Lo Mountains. There was no doubt in Voshun’s mind where they were going: Ochorin.

The circle loaded up into the Lion’s Roar and pushed hard across the rolling hills until coming to the foothills of the Lo Mountains. There, spread before them like a black tide, was a mercenary army thousands strong encamped around the base of rocky Ocho-Rin Hill. The outbuildings and palisade wall of the lower-level Guild base were already gone, smoldering ruins in testament to the power of the Guild’s mercenaries.

Fortunately, Gideon’s empowered eyesight and the sensors on the Lion’s Roar were able to confirm that most of the inhabitants were fortified in the manse at the top of the hill. With the lifts destroyed and light essence cannons keeping the army from simply storming the hillside, the freedmen were holding out—but only barely. A siege would starve them out long before attrition even made the slightest dent in the Guild’s forces. Gideon recognized the banners of the mercenary companies: the Iron Brotherhood, a small but elite fighting force specialized in ruthless exploitation of enemy weakness; and the Night Talon Brigade, a larger force well-supplied with archers and siege weapons.

Red Lion’s heart boiled. Had they set these people free just to see them killed? No! Battle plans were laid, but Red Lion insisted that they first offer the Guild’s forces a chance to surrender. Prism agreed; anything that gave someone a chance to go on living as a servant of the Unconquered Sun was a good thing. Gideon and Snapdragon both thought that Red Lion was giving up a chance at a surprise attack, but they were willing to go along with it. Prism had his mystical bird ally, Essence of Light, magic up a giant illusory messenger’s banner and walked into the midst of their foes.

Though challenged briefly by obviously fearful mercenaries, the right of peaceful meeting for a messenger was honored, and the circle was brought to the main command tent. There, they discovered that their old “friends” Commander Tranh and Mistress Shun were in charge of the army. A brief discussion followed, which revealed that the two had bankrolled the army out of Mistress Shun’s personal funds in order to expunge their failure from the eyes of the Guild. Turning away from this fight wasn’t an option for them; if they failed here, the Guild would have their guts for garters. Red Lion pitied their situation somewhat, though Blazer was less forgiving of people so willing to repeat past mistakes.

As sunset came on, the negotiations began to break down. Finally, Red Lion expounded that if there must be war, it would be war waged by the traditions of honorable combat and the precepts set down in the Ten Thousand Behaviors of the Upright Soldier. No noncombatants would be targeted and no commanders would be assassinated—and in exchange, Red Lion swore that no freedman would take the life of any soldier that abided by such conduct. All surrenders would be accepted, and they would fight without killing. The circle was surprised—this hadn’t been part of their plan—but they didn’t call Red Lion out on it in front of their enemies. As they departed, the circle gave their enemies twenty-five hours to reconsider surrender.

Before leaving the camp, Red Lion turned to the groups of slaves present to do work in the camp. He spoke to them, slaves and soldiers alike, and made the same offer he had made to their masters. Any person who forsook the Guild would be accepted with open arms, and any slave who could endure just one more day would find a new world dawning. His words brought hope to them, and ignited a fire for freedom that many had never known.

As soon as the circle was out of earshot of the camp, however, the recriminations began. How could they fight without killing, Gideon and Snapdragon demanded to know. For once, Blazer was on their side—idealism was all well and good when you had the luxury for it, but war demanded certain sacrifices. Furthermore, he added, nothing in any chivalric code of war he knew of, from any part of history, forbade killing on the battlefield—which meant that even if the Guild’s forces abided by the conventions of war, they could kill the circle’s troops without suffering any loss or consequence themselves. The argument raged for long hours without Red Lion giving any ground until Venomous Spur finally interrupted. This might not be what the others wanted but she and her mate weren’t going to back down from it. The world could use more idealism, she insisted. Anyone who wasn’t okay with Red Lion’s plan could do as they damned well pleased—but they could do it on their own. The freedmen would fight the way their general told them.

As they were walking back, a terrible wind picked up. At first they thought it was merely an unseasonable storm, but then a cyclone dropped out of the clear sky and tore half the circle away into the heavens! Only Blazer and Snapdragon remained, the latter because she had been going unseen as was her usual habit when traveling. In a crack of thunder, the winds’ maker appeared: a beautiful woman in the traveling garb of a Northern warrior-scholar, her brown hair tinged white at the tips and her eyes a shocking lightning-blue. Blazer recognized her instantly as Nagi Mystina, a Dragon-Blooded warrior-sage who had once regarded him as a friend.

She declared that it had been some time, but that she had finally managed to catch up to him. Blazer expressed shock that she could find him at all, and she responded that anyone with his looks left a trail so easy to follow that a blind woman could have done it. A few more bandied words, and she launched herself at him, drawing forth twin blades made of hardened air.

The rest of the circle found themselves thousands of feet in the air, several miles away, and dropping rapidly. Gideon was able to rocket free, while Ven changed into her immense brass tyrant form and popped the eye of the whirlwind. Red Lion grabbed onto Prism and began spinning him around in a countermotion designed to slow their fall; it didn’t work very well, but both of them were tough enough to take the fall with only some bruises. Feeling Blazer’s panic and pain through their sworn brothers’ bond, Red Lion asked Gideon for a quick ride back to the fight. Gideon responded by putting his guns into Red Lion and Prism’s back and pulling the trigger, streaming them back to the battlefield on a jet of molten plasma and depositing them in a fiery but safe comet.

Blazer’s battle was going badly—Nagi was a better melee combatant than himself, and even his Swooping Shrike was only a delaying tactic. She could dodge most of his sorcery and deflect his bow shots, then cut him to pieces at will. Even Snapdragon’s intervention was only delaying the inevitable; when she attacked the Dragon-Blood, a mighty fist of wind knocked her away, putting her too far from Blazer to tactically support him. Just when it looked at its worst, Red Lion and Prism came rocketing in, rearranging the battlefield with their dynamic entry.

Prism set himself on the upstart Dragon-Blood with a fury; his hatred for the Terrestrial Exalted drove him with a passion the others had rarely seen from the stoic Zenith Caste. Now, against four of the Anathema, Nagi was having a far more difficult time. Before she could use her wind powers to send her foes flying again, Red Lion turned the tactic on her, striking her with a mighty kick to the chest that sent her flying toward some nearby mountains. A quick check with Blazer to make sure he would be fine back to the Lion’s Roar was followed by a fast return to the circle’s “mobile home.” Red Lion declared that Blazer had some explaining to do…

The circle packed into the Lion’s Roar and made a bold dash through the enemy forces to ascend Ocho-Rin Hill. What they found there both heartened them and filled them with dread. Most of the freedmen had managed to fall back to the manse for defense, leaving the ground-level buildings to be destroyed. Though they had managed to save their lives, they had failed to bring much food or water. Unless they could achieve a decisive victory, they would starve in days. They had used their emergency call for Blazer days ago, but without a response, they had begun to despair. Their council of elders had even discussed suicide as a way out to preserve themselves from the indignity of death at the hands of the Guild. Seeing the Lion’s Roar dive into their enemies to join them had given them one last surge of hope.

Red Lion outlined his strategy to the freedmen, finding much the same opposition to his merciful streak as from his own companions. Was it really this hard to convince people of a better way? Ven worked to create a defensive strategy while Red Lion trained the fighters to get them into top form. With a Dawn Caste general showing them the way of the warrior, their ability would increase at an exponential rate. By sunset the following day, these harried freedmen and former mercenaries would be a fighting force the likes of which the Second Age had never seen.

Gideon still fumed. All of this could be ended with a well-placed shot from his Twin Dragons without risking lives on a foolhardy plan of battle with untried troops. As the others discussed fortifications and battle plans, he crept from them and shielded himself from sight with the charms he had learned from Snapdragon. Then, using his Thousand-League Sandals to move faster than a mortal could contemplate, he cut past the enemy lines and into the heart of the camp, right into Mistress Shun’s tent. He listened to the woman’s advisors drone on about the uselessness of her actions. Among them was Cho Pang, the Guildsman who had lost so much to fate of recent. In the moment between heartbeats, he put his plasma repeater’s barrel to the back of Mistress Shun’s head. It was the only way.

Before he could pull the trigger, reducing the woman to cinders, he found himself facing not Mistress Shun but instead a yellow-clad figure. Lithe and amber-eyed, with a mask across the lower half of his face and a hood concealing his hair, the mysterious interloper pushed Mistress Shun away from the killing tool and forced Gideon’s hand into the air. The shot burned away the top of the tent, raining cinders down around the two warriors. Gideon’s outline shimmered in the superheated air, and he snarled at the intruder, demanding to know why he had interfered. The stranger introduced himself as Shooting Star, a Chosen of Journeys, and returned that this mortal’s journey had not yet reached its end—and if Gideon wanted to press the matter, he could do so only by passing through the gate of single combat.

With the element of surprise lost and Shun already fleeing to her bodyguards—men Gideon would surely have to kill to get to her now—Gideon conceded the contest, trading brief barbs with “Shooting Star.” He looked over to Cho Pang and warned him to withdraw his support for this pointless war or face something worse than a scare next time. The overweight man quickly acquiesced and fled from the camp, taking his servants with him to observe the conflict from a safe distance. Gideon returned to the circle without a word regarding his absence, only to find another catastrophe in the making.

While Gideon had been gone, the circle had done a tour of the manse and hilltop fortifications. Blazer was tending to the wounded—and there were wounded aplenty. Snapdragon’s skull was splitting with the imprecations of her Dark Passenger. So many hurt, so many dead, all for the pride and wealth of a few. Her heart beat in a staccato time.

And she began to laugh.

The others were suddenly terrified. They had never heard Snapdragon’s laugh before. It was a maniacal, cackling thing, with no mirth or joy in it. It was a laugh that celebrated the death of hope. Red Lion tried to ask her what was wrong. She responded that these people had been abused long enough—but the very fact of their abuse showed what the world was really like. It was a place of monsters—monsters like her. Every person had a monster in them, you see. Hers had woken up a year ago and never gone back to sleep. She normally kept it in check, but the taunts of the Invincible Sword Princess haunted her even now, chiding her for being an abomination. She wept and laughed together. All it took was one bad day to turn her in to what she was. All it took for anyone was

ONE

BAD

DAY.

And blurring into concealment, she leapt from the walls of Ocho-Rin manse. Red Lion ran to look for her, but saw only the bloody impact as she landed among the Iron Brotherhood’s camp and men began to die in messy, horrible ways. Blazer watched, torn. On the one hand, he disapproved. On the other, they would probably be killing these people tomorrow anyway. A cold, detached part of him hoped that she killed them all. Red Lion’s voice brought him back to himself—they had to stop her!

Blazer streaked down the mountainside, and Red Lion loaded into the Lion’s Roar. For the next several minutes, the three Solars played cat-and-mouse among the encamped army, with Snapdragon appearing in bloody sprays as the others tried to catch up to her. Finally, they managed to pin her down, with Blazer using sorcery to bind her down, and Red Lion using the grappling attachment on the Lion’s Roar to seize her in place. They dragged her from the battlefield kicking and screaming, the shattered remains of dozens of mortal soldiers testament to the power of the Anathema.

By the time they got back to the summit, Snapdragon had gone into a fugue. Red Lion tried to talk to her, but she was having none of it. He finally got her to talk when the two of them were alone, and afterwards they seemed closer—but she wouldn’t promise to not kill anyone.

As the sun rose in the East, a new day was dawning for Creation. Would its end see the birth of a new hope for freedom? Or the death of all the circle held dear?

On a wagon bound for market
There’s a calf with a mournful eye.
High above him there’s a swallow
Winging swiftly through the sky.

Since I saw Dahlia, I can’t stop thinking about that song. I’d stopped thinking of it a long time ago, when I stopped being Hyacinth. I used to sing it all the time back in White Stones; I heard it first there, it was popular at the time, women singing as they went about their business. A sad song, but I loved it.

How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer’s night.

Even in Nexus, it was my favorite song. Few had heard it, since it came from so far north. Skytongue sounded exotic, so I was often asked to sing it when I performed. It was my favorite, so I never minded.

Dona, dona, dona, dona,
Dona, dona, dona, do,
Dona, dona, dona, dona,
Dona, dona, dona, do.

Dahlia would always tease me. She always asked when I was going to get tired of that song. She didn’t really mean it. She enjoyed hearing me sing, I think. While we were doing chores in the house, or out in her gardens, I’d find myself at least humming.

“Stop complaining,” said the farmer,
“Who told you a calf to be?
Why don’t you have wings to fly with
Like the swallow so proud and free?”

I never thought much about the words, then. The song’s beauty overshadowed whatever other tone the song had. I hadn’t heard it, hadn’t thought of it, until I saw Dahlia again.

How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer’s night.

Part of me wants to hear it again. Something familiar, something that reminds me of home and happier times. I cannot sing anymore, not since I died. My voice was ruined, like everything else. They didn’t even leave me that, though perhaps it’s a mercy, I can’t even pretend to be Hyacinth anymore.

Calves are easily bound and slaughtered
Never knowing the reason why.
But whoever treasures freedom,
Like the swallow has learned to fly.

Still, part of me wishes I could hear that song again. Irrationally, foolishly. I’m not even certain what I think I would gain from it. A bit of useless nostalgia, a memory, a distraction. Even so, I cannot seem to dismiss it, I find myself thinking of it of late, even as things spin out of control. Something better left to the past. Still, I find myself humming…

How the winds are laughing
They laugh with all their might
Laugh and laugh the whole day through
And half the summer’s night.

Stepping into the Library, Blazer did not follow his usual route. He did not pause on the grounds to spend a few moments in quiet meditation, did not check on any of the Radiolari soil samples he had obtained from Chaya, nor any of the burgeoning gardens he had raised from seeds brought from the original Librarium. He did not stop to practice on the archery range. He did not look over any of the books that were being transcribed by his clockwork elementals. And he did not even glance at the tapestry, only partially restored, that he had brought from his rooms in the burning Librarium, the one that had always given him the answers he had needed whenever he had taken a while to reflect on its teachings.

Ever since he had inherited the design specs for his sanctum from the Solar he knew only as Yukiri Tavon, he had not hesitated to experiment and explore its capabilities. At first, being able to call up status, reports, and diagnostics at simply a word had thrown him for a loop, but it had not taken long before every return to his Library was becoming a flurry of pop-up screens, vocal status updates, and progress reports on his laboratories. But this time, the Library stayed quiet, as Blazer himself uttered not a single word.

When he entered one of the rooms of his laboratories, the door sliding shut behind him, that all changed. He passed a small experiment he had had going for about a week now; sitting up on a shelf at shoulder height, it was a water filtration technique that would, upon completion, produce safe, cool drinking water at a rate six times faster than anything even the Librarium had had access to. It would save lives, and give people who had never known such the sort of basic start they needed to pull themselves out of squalor and down the road towards self-sufficiency. He had been intending to ask Harbinger’s advice on ways to improve its design – he had no idea if she was interested in the same things, but as the first Twilight he had encountered, it seemed only natural to put their heads together. That was the way of it, wasn’t it? That was what he had always learned at the Librarium, that working together….

Putting his hand on the globular beaker that served as the central unit of the experiment, he cupped it in his palm, and then flung it across the room. It hit the opposite wall and shattered into a million sparkling shards of glass. What need was there for subtlety and quiet, peaceful methods? They were no longer humans: they were Solars now. The remaining pieces of the experiment followed suit shortly after, sailing off of the shelf one by one as his hand grabbed at whatever was nearby. What need was there for cooperation, for mutual understanding? Solars did not bargain, did not compromise with each other: they decreed, they issued orders.

Another experiment, this one on food preservation, fell in the way of his arm, and met the same end as the other, as did everything on its shelf. The other circle had been mistaken in a few ways, but overall their aims were noble. No civilization that Blazer had ever studied had changed from warlike and infighting to peaceful and prosperous overnight, and never without some sort of painful, deliberate, gradual transition. They could have taught that circle to be better, could have learned much from them in return. All that was required for people to become more than themselves was for someone to teach them. But that didn’t matter. A lifetime devoted to research was wrong in its conclusions. A gigantic repository of knowledge dating back thousands of years was wrong in the lessons it taught. Solars did not teach, and certainly did not learn: they ruled.

At least three more experiments ran afoul of his wrath, but he hardly noticed, and wasn’t even able to tell which ones they were. If people could not live next to those they disagreed with without fighting them, then how were Solars supposed to? Had he been wrong all along? Every time his circle had encountered someone who did not share their point of view, it was time to be suspicious, time to be convinced that this new group was up to something sinister, and, if the situation was even or his circle held the advantage, time to fight. The Guild branded as unequivocally evil and in need of erasing, even when it was doing business with Tambreet and making it prosperous instead of overrunning it. The Solar circle in Zarrith ousted, and a Solar manse destroyed, because they were doing things “wrong.” And there was little doubt in Blazer’s mind that if the Walker in Darkness had seemed even a hair less competent and prepared, that the circle would have found an excuse to attack him, as well. They were already convinced that the Green Lady was up to no good purely for being a Sidereal, even beyond the bounds of healthy skepticism.

That memory of the Lion’s Roar wreathed in flame flashed in his mind again, and he gripped his head, staring down at the floor. How much of that was actually his memory? How much of it had his mind already superimposed over the scene at the manse? Did it really matter, either way? “We are glorious shining god-kings,” he found himself muttering before he even realized he was speaking. “And we will tear apart Creation with our own hands if it will not bow to our desires.” For all of the talk about noble motivations going around on both sides, Venomous Spur and Red Lion had started that fight out of self-righteousness and personal slight. And Invincible Sword Princess, Obsidian Hawk, and Adamant Prayer had answered their aggression with more aggression. Why could none of them see that there was no sense in fighting each other? Gideon, Snapdragon, Sweet Emerald, and Harbinger had tried to stay out of it as long as possible. Was he seeing things? Was he missing something that he should have caught? Or had Prism of Truth mentally checked out for the same reasons why Blazer himself was so angry that he could barely even think straight? He didn’t want to fight them. He had been forced to destroy so many lives when the Librarium burned, and that was the devastation of a single Solar. If Solars fought other Solars, what would happen to the people caught in the crossfire? What would happen to Creation? A Solar manse, an incredible specimen from the First Age, had been destroyed because of hotheadness. What more would be lost?

The image of the man he had come to recognize as himself from millenia before, silhouetted against a towering inferno, returned to his memory. It hit him so hard that it literally knocked him to his knees, and he clutched his head again, shaking it from side to side and digging his fingers into his scalp. Why was that one memory so strong? Was it trying to warn him? There were too many signs, too many hints. A storm was building, and everything in him was screaming that the Solars had to stick together, had to learn how to work with each other, or the entire world would be that inferno. And they had just added a flame of their own.

“Why? Why won’t they listen to me?”

His head pounding, his laboratory floor scattered with the remnants of so much work, his chest on fire with the anger of so much potential lost and the fear of so much more devastation in the future, Blazer dropped back against the wall, and slid down onto his bottom, letting his head droop between his knees. When he had Exalted, he was supposed to have increased a thousandfold in what he could accomplish. With the other Solars, he was supposed to have been capable of righting the world. But every step since his home had burned to the ground had told him that the world did not work like the Librarium had. Even among those who were tasked with making it better. He was so sad that every part of him inside ached. He was so angry he could have bitten steel in half. And he was so disappointed that he had not a clue how to fix any of it. It was several minutes before he even realized the tears had come. And the worst part was that he could not figure out how to make them stop.

“…Blazer? Blazer, are you there?”

His communicator blinked on a table across the room, and there was the voice of someone in his circle coming out of it, but he could not tell who, and at the moment, he could not force himself to care one way or the other.

“Blazer, we’ve got a problem…there’s a giant beast heading for Zarrith….”

Pulling his arms around his knees, Blazer shook his head, and refused to look up. There was nothing he could do. Not a thing.

Session 19: The Fire That Comes After

The circle was scrambling. The Brass Tyrant was coming to Zarrith, and Red Lion wasn’t sure that firing Dawn’s First Light again so soon would be safe for either the Lion’s Roar or for the city’s geomantic well-being. Blazer had mentioned that repeated firing of such an essence-draining weapon could permanently damage the “dragon lines,” whatever those were, and even the animating intelligence was insisting that the weapon was too dangerous to discharge again. Venomous Spur was both excited and terrified at the possibility of fighting a behemoth, so she chose to go out and distract it, maybe slow it down or even divert it from its current course.

Prism, Gideon, and Snapdragon busied themselves with rebuilding the ruins of the manse into a solid, defensive structure and preparing the populace for a possible evacuation. They spoke at length with the city father, a leopard-god called Itzcalimon who had been neglected by the previous Solar occupants, and garnered his aid in keeping the populace both calm and organized. Blazer had retreated to his private sanctum and wouldn’t come out. He strongly disapproved of the way that things had gone with the other Solars, and he didn’t want anything to do with his companions right now.

Ven’s battle with the Brass Tyrant was a disaster. The creature was a quarter-mile long, made of brass, and shaped like a living nightmare. It belched green hellfire as it moved, leaving a swath of ash and debris behind its immense and terrible form. Something like a blunt-nosed alligator and something like a great brass slug, the creature was clearly the creation of the ancient Primordials. Even in kaiju form, Ven was unable to breach its impervious defenses, and the raw heat and power boiling off it was almost too much to bear. A single blast from its mighty furnace-mouth left her reeling and barely-conscious. Instinctively, she shifted back to a normal platypus before being knocked into a nearby river. Interestingly, the Tyrant didn’t pursue her, though it had seemed quite content to fight her before. Ven’s mind raced and found the answer: the creature ignored things that were too small for it to see clearly. That could be useful later…

A day and a night passed, with Ven working to restore the area’s geomancy as fast as she could, Red Lion rebuilding the physical structure of the palace, and Snapdragon keeping the people calm in her own terrifying way. Prism and Gideon made speeches and prepared emergency stations. Many tactics for fighting or diverting the Tyrant were discussed, and all of them rejected for impracticality or danger to the civilians. Still, Blazer did not emerge. Finally, a few hours before the Tyrant arrived, Red Lion went to his friend and pled for him to join them. They would be stronger together, and they needed Blazer’s cunning and know-how if they were going to save innocent lives.

Blazer was ready to join them. His face was grimmer and more determined than Red Lion had ever seen. He was like an entirely different person. As he stormed from his sanctum, he brought with his the components of a weapon system that he had idly been considering for some time. He had never thought it would need to be built. Now, his ideals in tatters and his mind full of bloody thoughts, he had finished it. It was called Gungnir, and it would be the spear of the gods.

Blazer gave a piece of the device to Snapdragon and to Gideon, and instructed them to take a position about a mile from the creature and wait for his signal to discharge. They would catch the Tyrant in a triangular fire pattern while the Lion’s Roar and kaiju-Ven slowed it down. Ven had already devised a new charm to make her morphic body immune to the green fires of Hell, so she was more than ready for round two. Prism would use his powers of inspiration to guide the circle from within the Lion’s Roar.

Near sunset, the circle went out to meet the Tyrant in a low-lying valley beneath some rocky hills. The Lion’s Roar skidded down to grapple with the creature, while Ven popped out and slashed at it with her lethal spurs. After the first blow, Red Lion paused; he could judge a man’s character by trading blows with him, and the creature before him was no simple beast—it was a philosopher, a poet, a gardener. The land it burned away with its powers would grow back more vibrant than before. It wasn’t a killer, at least not intentionally. He asked Prism to try communicating with it, but the Tyrant either could not or would not respond.

From his vantage point, Blazer had calculated the proper angles of fire. The time had come. Red Lion grappled with both a monster and his own conscience. Blazer’s forehead burned with the unmistakable outline of a third eye, and he felt essence flood through him. The Gungnir system was fully charged for its single strike. Gideon fired, raking the Tyrant’s body with white and blue light, freezing and shattering its brass scaled. Snapdragon fired next, her beam dimming the green fire within the creature. Blazer’s strike was last, his device calling a furious aurora from the darkening sky to rain down rainbow-colored destruction onto their foe.

The Brass Tyrant screamed in pain as it died, confused and not understanding why or how these creatures had destroyed it. Red Lion comforted himself as best he could with the knowledge that their actions had saved thousands of mortal lives. As the creature died, it seemed like the land would darken and fall toward the Underworld, but the Gungnir system purged the necrotic essence from the land with a scouring fire. Blazer’s third eye closed with a snap, and he fell to the ground unconscious. Whatever he had just done, it seemed to have drained him badly.

Ven had her eyes on the real prize now. Dropping back to beastman form, she darted to the location of the Tyrant’s death, finding mostly only scraps of brass and flecks of greenish-black blood. Finally, at the center of the devastation, she found a floating ball of green fire, slowly pulsing as it died out. She had found the Tyrant’s heart. Grasping it with both hands, she dedicated the Tyrant’s death to Luna and devoured the burning heart in a single gulp. She felt her body twist and boil in its efforts to overcome the demonic forces within the organ. Finally, it was done; she had ingested the heart of a behemoth.

Later, in the Lion’s Roar, Red Lion sat vigil over his unconscious friend. Blazer had saved them, though Red Lion feared for the streak of ruthlessness that had suddenly come over his usually idealistic circle-mate. Suddenly, the interior lights dimmed, replaced with a green glow, and the air became thick with the smell of burning metal. From a nearby doorway strode a handsome youth wearing only wrappings around his loins and upper legs. His skin was bronzed and his eyes a deep, dark green. Red Lion recognized him immediately from his discussions with his scholarly friends: Ligier, the Green Sun, one of the souls of Malfeas, the ruler of Hell.

He and the demon prince spoke politely for a time. Finally, Ligier revealed that he had come to give a gift to Red Lion, in honor of his circle’s defeat of one of Malfeas’ most prized creations. Red Lion wondered aloud why one of Malfeas’ souls would give him a gift for destroying one of Malfeas’ creatures. Ligier responded that he always gave gifts to people who spited Malfeas badly enough. From one of the Tyrant’s remaining scaled and a few drops of his own blood, Ligier hammered out a musical instrument made of brass and green crystal. He called the guitar Impossible Emerald Brilliance, and suggested that Red Lion learn to play it before he visited the Demon City. With that, the Prince of the Yozis vanished back to his hellish realm.

Blazer remained unconscious for three days and three nights, filled with terrible nightmares about lives long gone and things his past selves had done. When he finally awoke, he felt weak and still tired. But there was no good news waiting for him. As he came to consciousness, a tiny magical messenger appeared before him. It relayed dangerous and frightening tidings: the Guild had returned to Ochorin Hill, and the freemen were vastly outnumbered. It looked like the circle was going back to save people they had already freed.

Boom, baby.

Session 18: Agreeing to Disagree

From almost the very beginning, the dinner was going poorly. Red Lion’s insistence on bringing Venomous Spur’s chair to the table as an equal made Invincible Sword Princess’ nose turn up. Blazer and Prism pushed for greater communication, as did Harbinger and Adamant Prayer, while Obsidian Hawk and Snapdragon each sized up the opposing circle for any sign of treachery. Sweet Emerald spoke honeyed words about working together and joining forces for the betterment of Creation, but Gideon sensed in her a spirit that sought only power for its own sake.

The discussion went back and forth for long hours, Ven’s temper growing ever shorter with each new insult from the Sword Princess. Distantly, she could hear Sweet Emerald talking about plans for dividing up the East and mutual non-aggression, but inside she was beginning to seethe. It felt like basking in the light of the full moon, like the moments leading up to her first blind rage that ended the lives of a dozen bandits—and possibly her own husband. It was building, moment by moment, and nothing could stop it.

Finally, the moment came. Red Lion said something pointed about people starving while their rulers led lives of ease and comfort, and Sweet Emerald responded that progress took time. Ven said that abstracts would never be worth human lives. Invincible Sword Princess told Red Lion to “keep his dog silent.”

Ven leapt across the table for the Princess, claws out and teeth bared. And that was that.

The battle was joined, Solar against Solar. Invincible Sword Princess brought her full power to bear against Ven, wounding her badly. Red Lion jumped to defend his mate, and Gideon turned the full force of his Twin Dragons on the swordswoman, hitting her so hard that she punched a hole through the wall of the manse and disappeared into the distance. Sweet Emerald turned the full power of her mystical voice against the attackers, and Gideon swept in to put her off-balance. When one of the Dragon-Blooded intervened, his plasma repeaters put her down, though not apparently fatally. Still, it was enough to send the otherwise chill Adamant Prayer into a seething rage.

Prism of Truth could take no more. His mind, confronted with the awful evidence of imperfection in the Solar condition, just shut down. He spent most of the battle in a fugue state, before being knocked out of a hole in the wall by a sneering Adamant Prayer. The fall knocked him out, leaving him to be guarded over by his personal spirit animal, a tropical bird he had picked up only a few days before.

The Dragon-Bloods thought to aid their masters in battle, but Red Lion summoning the Lion’s Roar into the heart of the manse made them think better of it. The appearance of the warstrider wrecked the room, tearing pieces of the ziggurat free as load-bearing structures were wrecked. Harbinger brought the full powers of sorcery to bear against the war machine, while Blazer strategically used his Swooping Shrike to fend off attackers. Obsidian Hawk launched himself at Snapdragon with glee, while she was somewhat less pleased about grappling with her abhorrent admirer. Their wrestling was far more suggestive than she would have liked, and she did her level best to avoid contemplating murder.

Sweet Emerald implored Invincible Sword Princess for aid, saying that the time had come to unleash her full power. As she streaked back toward the battle, the Princess’ anima banner swelled and grew, finally turning into an enormous warstrider made of solid golden energy. The Lion’s Roar grappled with the anima construct for a few moments as Red Lion desperately struggled to get the primary weapons systems of his warstrider working. He knew that they were functional again after Ven’s repairs, but the actual workings of them were more complicated than he thought possible. Alarms kept going off and the animating intelligence kept warning him about safety issues when discharging an ultra-heavy essence cannon inside a structure.

A thought had come to Red Lion. He knew that the others sometimes thought him slow or simple—and he knew that he was a simple man, in truth. He might be a Solar Exalted now, but he was still human at his heart, still a man. He realized that for people who cared about nothing more than power, removing that power was far worse than killing them, and far more damaging. As the battle raged around him, he charged the super-weapon on his deadly First Age war machine, thinking to end it all in one swift blow to the place that would hurt most: their pride.

Blazer realized that Prism had taken a bad fall and streaked outside to make sure he was still alive. He picked up the limp body of his friend—the first Solar he had met after his own Exaltation—and made the choice to save his life rather than aid in a fight he disapproved of. The others could take care of themselves; from a nearby hilltop, he watched the damage to the manse grow by leaps and bounds. A pain rushed through his head, and for a moment he was standing on another hilltop, watching a battle fought in the long-lost past. He was himself but not himself, standing back to back with a woman. The two of them burned through demonic hordes while Blazer—no, Orpheus—watched the Lion’s Roar standing amidst the ruins of a burning city, the light shining from it causing its foes to ignite when it fell upon them.

There was only one way this could end, he realized: in fire. And he despaired.

Inside the manse, Red Lion gave the opposing circle one last chance to end the violence before something irrevocable occurred, but Invincible Sword Princess simply sneered and called him a weakling. With that, Red Lion unveiled the greatest warstrider-mounted weapon of the First Age—Dawn’s First Light, a super-heavy essence cannon—and fired it directly into the heart of the manse, straight up. The intense precision of the weapon allowed him to cut the bonds of the man chained to the top of the manse, even as it burned through the hearthstone chamber below him. The beam stretched into the sky like a glowing finger pointing accusations at the gods themselves. The beam cut through the stone and gold and orichalcum like butter, terminating only when it burned a black line across the Dome of the Sky. Everyone paused. The beam had literally scorched the blue sky black in a short line visible from the ground.

Meanwhile, in Heaven, alarms were sounding. Gods rushed to and fro through the streets, wondering what was happening. Reports were formed and theories abounded. The Loom of Fate was consulted, predictions made and abandoned, and the Maidens’ Chosen scrambled to find an appropriate response. In the office of the most powerful man in Yu-Shan, Sidereals gathered to hear their leader’s words and obey his commands. Before he could begin to present a course of action, the doors to the office flew open and a tall, wild-haired god strode boldly in.

“Greetings, Chejop Kejak,” said Lytek, the god of Exaltation. He tossed a folder full of papers and reports onto the elderly Sidereal’s desk. Lytek’s face quirked up in a smile and his voice raised, high enough to be heard throughout the immense office and into the chambers beyond. “It seems the Solars have returned. I would have brought all of this to you sooner, but you seemed to have everything well in hand. Have a nice day.” Chejop Kejak’s face was furious and red as the god blithely walked from the office. His response to this Solar action would be have to be swift and lethal if he was going to stay on top of things…

Back on the ground, the battle was wrapping up. With the manse destroyed and a year of work in flames, Sweet Emerald called for an end to the fighting. They could always relocate and rebuild; fighting now was pointless that what they wanted was ruined. Red Lion was saddened that she was ultimately the sort of person who cared nothing for people, only for power. He had wanted to believe better of other people that had been chosen by the Exaltation. Prism came out of his fugue, wondering why he was so far from the manse, and why Blazer was crying. As the opposing circle sulked their way out of Zarrith, none of those present thought this would be the last time the two groups clashed. Still, neither side had the heart to see this battle through to its pointless, futile end currently. Perhaps the next time…

The circle realized they had an obligation now, to protect the people of Zarrith and to educate them in self-rule. The dedication of her Solar companions to mortals ruling themselves moved Ven’s heart. It was like the project her people had been working on for so long. Maybe the time had come to tell them about the Thousand Streams River. Before she could do so, however, Fenrir reappeared with a revelation for the circle. With his Solar mate departing, he had decided that the time had come to leave as well. Sadly, he had already angered the Brass Tyrant—and it was coming toward Zarrith. The behemoth would arrive in two days, and it would level Zarrith to the ground. They were welcome.

As Fenrir departed, the circle’s black mood turned even blacker. A behemoth was on the way, and two days was nowhere near enough time to evacuate a city of thousands. They would have to fight it.

Session 17: Glorious Golden God-Kings

The circle left Tambreet after the minor revolution they had started, but they took a few days for themselves before continuing across the river to Zarrith. During that time, Blazer and Ven worked around the clock on repairs for the Lion’s Roar. Ven only took breaks to work on laying in orichalcum tattoos for Snapdragon, who had volunteered to be her next test subject. Snapdragon revealed more of her painful past to Red Lion and Ven during this period, including the circumstances of her sister’s “death” and her own scarring—the reason she wore a leather gorget all the time.

Once the tattoos were drawn, Ven realized that they had not taken the same pattern as Red Lion’s tattoos. That made sense—each Lunar’s tattoos were unique, after all. Still, each new tattoo pattern gave her more insight into the way orichalcum tattoos worked as compared to moonsilver tattoos. While Red Lion’s made him immune to the powers of darkness in the same way Ven’s tattoos made her immune to the forces of the Wyld, she could only guess what Snapdragon’s tattoos would do. Given the repairs of the Lion’s Roar and the circle’s imminent possible meeting with other Solars, they didn’t really have time to figure it out. It would have to be something they discovered in due time.

Once some basic scouting was done, the Lion’s Roar was parked and the circle decided to approach the city-state of Zarrith on foot from a couple of miles out to show their peaceful intentions. No sooner had they come within sight of the city’s stone walls than a bright ray of light shot out from a watchtower at the center of the city, catching them as in a spotlight. From a ziggurat below the watchtower flew out a burning spark, resolving itself as it approached them into a beautiful woman surrounded by a golden anima banner, wearing orichalcum plate armor, and flying on wings made of orichalcum blades. As she landed, she demanded to know who these “intruders” were, offering up her own name as Invincible Sword Princess.

Red Lion stepped up to introduce the group, including his own proper title: “the Undefeated of the East.” Hearing another warrior call himself “undefeated” piqued Princess’ curiosity, and she demanded an immediate demonstration of his martial skills. The two of them leapt into battle, Red Lion holding his own with his powerful but clumsy style against the more graceful and technical attacks of Princess. Just as it looked like the fight might turn serious, a feminine voice from nearby called a halt to it and Princess immediately stood down.

The circle examined the newcomer: a beautiful woman wearing a long jacket; she had long, raven-black hair and the greenest eyes any of them had ever seen. She introduced herself as Sweet Emerald, a fellow Solar, and decried the senseless violence of her circle-mate. Princess seemed genuinely abashed and offered a grudging apology for her martial eagerness. She departed back to Zarrith to make way for their guests while Sweet Emerald led them to her conveyance, a First Age motorized wagon, and had her driver take them into Zarrith by the scenic route. The circle suspected that Emerald’s kindness masked the set-up for an ambush, but none of them could penetrate her mask-like mien.

As they traveled, Emerald explained that Zarrith had been in the grip of a terrible, generations-long civil war between three competing clans when her circle had arrived in the city a year ago. They brought peace to the factions, united the kingdom under their rule, and rebuilt the manse at the heart of the city. Most of Zarrith was recently rebuilt, it seemed; the buildings weren’t especially advanced, but they had an air of newness about them. Emerald explained that much of the city was in ruins after decades of fighting, and one of their first civil works projects had been to rebuild the city as it had been before the war. The reconstruction had taken longer than they wanted, but they had been dedicated to using mortal labor for the effort. Seeing the other circle’s confused looks, she explained that giving mortals important tasks in the rebuilding efforts served a double purpose: it made them feel invested in their own nation’s future, and it stimulated the economy. Blazer thought that it made sense, and Prism approved of anything that caused mortals to labor for the glory of the Unconquered Sun, but Red Lion thought that it would be better to provide standard of living before worrying about abstracts like the economy.

Once arriving at the Temple of the Noonday Sun, the manse-palace claimed by the Zarrith circle, they were astounded by the sheer opulence in which their opposite numbers lived. The manse was a vast complex of luxurious rooms filled with servants dressed in sheer silks. Everywhere were the signs of wealth and power. While a number of soldiers were posted in key places, they seemed more like an honor guard than actual protection. Prism’s eyes focused as he got close to one of them; he was certain that the guards were Dragon-Blooded. At least they were in their proper role for a change—as servants to the Solars. He was beginning to like these other Solars.

Sweet Emerald showed the circle around, introducing them to her own circle-mates. She herself was an Eclipse Caste, and the leader of her circle. When the other Solars claimed to not have a leader, she seemed amused; one of them was surely in charge, even if he or she was too modest to admit it. Clearly, Invincible Sword Princess was their Dawn Caste, and they were briefly reintroduced to her while she was in the outer reaches of the manse, caring for her spirit-companion, a kirin called Serene Dancer.

Next came their meeting with the circle’s Night Caste, a cocky pretty-boy gunslinger called Obsidian Hawk. He was target shooting in a completely dark room, and when Snapdragon got in his way, he was able to arc a bullet in mid-flight away from her. Unlike Gideon’s plasma tongue repeaters, Hawk’s primary weapon was an immense hand cannon called Temple of the First Principle of Motion, a prayer-piece that flung tiny pieces of metal at incredible velocities. Gideon thought the whole thing was a little ridiculous; flinging metal was never going to be as impressive or useful as streaming fire at things. Hawk seemed enamored of Snapdragon, probably because of her recalcitrant demeanor and his own contrariness.

Out on a patio overlooking the city, they found the fourth member of the Zarrith circle, a darkly tanned and red-haired Twilight Caste woman called Harbinger. She sat in midair above a mystic circle, limned in light and flame. She stepped clear of the meditation area as the guests walked into view and started babbling at them at high speed and low volume. Harbinger seemed pleasant enough if somewhat bubble-headed—until she revealed that she knew Celestial Circle Sorcery, which changed their view of her somewhat. Blazer seethed with private envy; this Southerner had mastered the second tier of true magic while he himself knew only a single, first tier spell. He calmed himself and looked at it as an opportunity to study with a superior sorcerer; why had he suddenly felt so angry about it? It totally wasn’t like him at all…

Emerald showed some reluctance to introduce the visitors to the final member of the circle. When they reached his area of the palace, they found it a shrine to self-indulgence. The air was full of a smoky haze, and half-naked beautiful men and women lounged everywhere on silk and overstuffed pillows. At the heart of it all, puffing on an enormous hookah, sat the Zarrith circle’s Zenith Caste, a tanned and muscular man called Adamant Prayer. He spoke to the circle at length about the mind-expanding properties of certain hallucinogens and the importance of tantric meditation in communing with the Unconquered Sun. Prism of Truth was horrified—how could a holy man, a priest of the Unconquered Sun, live in such decadence?

At the peak of the ziggurat was an altar, upon which was chained a man. The circle was horrified, but Emerald explained that he was a convicted murderer who was to be publicly executed. Adamant Prayer had suggested the manner, as both a means of public display and a way to send the criminal’s soul straight on to reincarnation cleanly. When asked about it, he claimed to have had visions of people worshipping the Unconquered Sun with human sacrifice during the First Age—and clearly, if the Sun didn’t want this kind of sacrifice, he would let his Chosen know about it.

Emerald concluded the tour at a set of guest rooms and asked the circle’s presence at a special dinner that night in their honor. As she did so, a shape unfolded from the shadows—a shape that Venomous Spur knew only too well. Dressed in furs and bearing a curved moonsilver sword, the warrior looked like he would be more at home in the frozen North than in the balmy East. Ven introduced her fellow Lunar to the circle: Fenrir Vanagandr, a former member of a Lunar pack with another old friend of the circle, Vesper. Snapdragon perked up at the mention of her Lunar, but a few words from Fenrir convinced her that the wolfish swordsman was nothing like her gentle, foolish Vesper. He bandied words with the circle for a bit, laying vague threats against them if they should interfere with his current hunt. Sweet Emerald seemed terrified of the Lunar, her first genuine emotion since the circle had met her; once Fenrir departed, she was able to explain that he was here because of his Solar mate—Invincible Sword Princess. The two of them couldn’t stand one another, but they also couldn’t stop being near one another.

Once both Emerald and Fenrir had left, Ven explained to the others that Fenrir had a reputation in Lunar circles as being a skilled hunter. He had once brought down a behemoth single-handedly, and now he was apparently in Zarrith to hunt another one—a creature called the Tyrant of Brass and Fire. Snapdragon wondered how Vesper could have ever been in a pack with a creature like Fenrir, and Ven mentioned that Vesper had quite a bad reputation once himself. Snapdragon didn’t believe it for a second; Vesper was the light to her darkness, and he could never have been truly bad.

While they waited for dinner, Red Lion and Ven chose to go into Zarrith and talk to the citizens. What they found there disturbed them. Though Sweet Emerald’s circle had freed all the slaves and banned slavery, they hadn’t made any special provisions for the freed slaves to reenter free life. Because of this, there were a great many homeless people in Zarrith, and people who worked as little better than slaves for want of better paying employment. A djala named Rulon became their guide to the city; he walked with a limp, and explained that he had been hobbled many years ago by his owner. When Red Lion asked if the man had been punished after freeing his slaves, Rulon said that a general pardon had been issued for any crimes committed before the arrival of their god-kings. They wanted a fresh start, they had said. Most of the citizens seemed incredibly devoted to Sweet Emerald personally, and Ven suspected mind control.

Snapdragon had already come to the conclusion that the locals were being mind-controlled, and had the worse suspicion that the “admitted murderer” had plead guilty only to please Sweet Emerald. She snuck back to the rooftop altar and questioned the man. He wept that he had gotten drunk and killed a man in an argument, and that he only wanted to be cleansed of his sins so that he could enter the next life in peace. Obsidian Hawk strode out of the shadows, admitting that he had suspected one of the other Solars would come back here but not that it would be Snapdragon. They bantered for a bit, with Hawk finally warning her about the consequences of judging others: you wind up getting judged yourself.

Red Lion and Ven finally returned to the manse, and the circle shared the information they had gathered. Blazer recommended patience and calm; these were the first other Solars they had met in their travels, and they were clearly more powerful, if less unified. When the impending execution of a prisoner was brought up, Blazer asked if they were upset at the fact he was going to be executed, or the way they were going to do it—because if it was the latter, then they were just being semantically picky. Dead is dead. Prism was quick to defend the necessity of the homeless population; if they just gave wealth away for free, then no one would want to work and it would cause problems. It took time to build an infrastructure that would support people.

Red Lion wasn’t buying it, though. These Solars had been in Zarrith for a year now, and they were living in luxury while people were starving in the streets. Ven pointed out that “starving” was an exaggeration, but not by much. There was a wide gap between the rich and the poor in Zarrith, and the Solars who ruled here had much to answer for. Blazer privately despaired; he couldn’t see any way to avoid violence with the kind of attitude that some of his circle-mates were developing.

Still, dinner came on soon enough. The circle was provided with lovely clothes and escorted to a magnificent dining chamber. Essence lights filled the room with illumination, and a great ring-shaped table dominated the room, bisected midway to allow servants to walk freely between the two halves. Dozens of servants attended them—and Prism privately suspected that they might all be Dragon-Blooded. Gilt thrones awaited them, with a silvered throne slightly behind and to the left of Red Lion’s seat. Frowning, Red Lion wrenched it from the floor and dragged it to be even with his seat; no one was going to suggest that Ven was somehow less than him.

Despite the minor faux pas, Sweet Emerald greeted everyone courteously. Everyone sat down to start what would undoubtedly be the most interesting dinner of their lives…

Session 16: Rain’s Village

Once upon a time, there was a tiny village named Tambreet. Many, many moons ago, a young girl was born to the headwoman of the village. Though her mother loved her very much, she feared for her too. On the day of the girl’s birth, a seer had foretold that the girl would know much sorrow—as much sorrow as five generations of her people. Because of this prophecy, the girl was named Tears Falling Like Raindrops. She lived a long, happy life and seemed like she would avoid the pain foretold by the prophet.

Sadly, when she was a grown woman with two children of her own, the prophecy came true. The woman lost her husband and son, and her daughter was maimed. The woman was tested and tried—and in the end, she was embraced by Luna. She would live a very long time, possibly forever, and she would remember that sorrow just as long. She ran from her home and she swore to herself that she would never come back. Like so many other promises, that would be one the woman could not keep…

After leaving Chaya, it took the circle most of the next two weeks to travel north and cross the edge of Arczeckhi territory. Though they didn’t fear the barbarians, the whole point of the trip was to avoid putting the Lion’s Roar through any more stress and a war with the notoriously vicious and fearless Arczeckhi would be the very definition of “stress.” As they traveled closer to Tambreet, Ven finally began to open up a little bit about her past, mentioning that she had lived there as a mortal. From time to time, after she had Exalted, she would stop back in to drop off pieces of old technology or magic she found in the wilderness, things to make their lives a little easier, but she hadn’t been back in some time. When they asked her how long “some time” was, she was more than a little vague.

As they approached Tambreet, Ven waxed nostalgic about the small town she had grown up in, though her voice held a note of bitterness. The Lion’s Roar slogged through the mucky lowlands around the Maruto River, passing the occasional small fishing village before finally coming in sight of a much larger city. Ven was confused; Tambreet was a small town, no more than fifty people, but they were looking at a city-state of several thousand. Her hurt expression told them everything they needed to know. It hadn’t been “a couple of years” since she had been here—it had been at least a handful of decades.

Before they could find themselves too melancholic about the passage of time and the ephemera of mortality, a small patrol mounted on bizarre beasts came streaking from a concealed outpost in the nearby jungle. A dozen riders on hump-backed animals surged forward, wearing boiled leather armor and wielding obsidian-tipped spears. They were admirable armed and armored for a pre-bronze civilization, but the most surprising thing was their artillery support. Behind them came out a swamp-sled drawn by a small team of the beasts—and on the sled was a First Age light essence cannon. Somehow, these swamp-dwellers had gotten their hands on a working—if somewhat jury-rigged—essence cannon and had turned it into a mobile firebase.

The Lion’s Roar animating intelligence informed the circle that the weapon might be a “light” cannon, but it still had the potential to do serious damage to the warstrider from a direct hit. Worse, the swamp reduced the ‘strider’s maneuverability to almost nothing while the cavalry’s swamp-beasts gave them surprisingly good mobility—not that the Lion’s Roar had a working projectile weapon. With nothing to do other than risk exposing themselves and hoping that cooler heads would prevail, Red Lion activated the public address system and called for a parley.

As they exited the warstrider, the scouts were careful to keep a safe distance from the intruders. They had clearly never seen a warstrider before—otherwise, they wouldn’t be so confident that they could hold it off with a dozen camel-mounted soldiers and an essence cannon—but they were otherwise quite competent. The essence cannon stayed at its maximum certain operational distance while the cavalrymen kept a careful perimeter around the strangers. Ven watched the growing frustration between the two sides—especially considering that only she and Prism could speak the tribal patois—so she grew tired of waiting and cut right to the chase. She changed into her kaiju platypus shape, and gronked a mighty gronk at the cavalrymen, who immediately threw themselves from their mounts and prostrated themselves before her.

Ven changed back into human form, confused but happy that her attempt at intimidation had worked so well. As the cavalrymen jabbered, she began to realize that they weren’t just scared—they were begging her divine forgiveness. Apparently, in the time she had departed Tambreet, her people had come to see her as some sort of patron deity. She quickly offered them forgiveness, on the condition that she and her fellow “gods” be escorted to people of importance immediately.

The circle loaded back into the warstrider as the Tambreet cavalry formed themselves into an impromptu honor guard. The procession through the city revealed a thriving metropolis; in the generations since Ven left, the people had used irrigation and architecture to drain the marshland into more easily contained pools and eddies, building up great mounds of earth upon which to build permanent structures. The mounds stood as high as a hundred feet, though it seemed that most people still lived in reed huts on stilts above the pools and marshes. Some of those huts were elaborate constructions, built with scaffolding supports on the mounds to give them greater strength, and with vines and plants growing across the scaffolding like latticework. The city was full of animal life as well, with the people seeming to live in harmony with the wildlife that surrounded them. Perhaps most astonishing were the clear signs of working First Age technology: water purifiers, weather dampers, early warning systems, and other constructs whose workings had been lost to time. Ven recognized them all as things she had scavenged and repaired, then left for the Tambreeti in years past.

The Lion’s Roar was hard-pressed to avoid damaging anything as it gingerly made its procession through the city, but it was able to reach the largest of the mounds without doing any lasting harm. Atop the highest mound of earth, the circle discovered when they disembarked, was a stone temple flanked by statues of platypuses and surrounded by pools filled with living examples of same. The statues guarded over offering bowls overflowing with fruits, carvings, and even a few bits of precious metal or shiny stones. The dragon lines of the area converged at the temple, turning it into a weak but very stable water manse. The high priestess, Amber Sunrise, prostrated herself before Ven and asked what brought the “goddess” among her people after so long without manifestation.

Some subtle conversational probing on both sides revealed that Amber was shocked and almost terrified; the last time Ven had even been sighted by anyone was decades before she was born. No high priestess in memory had received a visitation, and she was scared that the goddess had come to strip her of her title. After all, the great stories—which every priest and priestess were required to memorize—said that the goddess brought her blessings with subtlety and her wrath with openness. Some of the Solars were dubious at these claims; when was Ven ever subtle? Still, the people had been sure they were worshipping properly, since the offerings kept being accepted.

During the conversation, Ven also realized something that had escaped her attention during her time traveling abroad. One of the last times she had been in Tambreet, long ago, she had crafted a small coin purse that magically absorbed the offerings people left for her and converted it into coin. It was something she had read about gods being able to do—transmuting prayer into food—but her limited magic at the time was only able to trade value for value. She had only been able to pull a couple of dinars out of it every month at the time, just enough to cover expenses when she was forced to go among humans, so she had fallen into the habit of not relying on it.

When Amber Sunrise departed to inform the “great families” of Tambreet about the return of the goddess, Ven took a few minutes to look into the purse. The interior now resembled a mighty vault more than a coin purse; the Elsewhere pocket just kept growing with the need to accommodate value, and now it was filled with enough money to support a small kingdom. Looking at Red Lion’s threadbare pants and bare feet, she just closed it back up and returned to the others. There would be time to bring up her newfound wealth later. For now, Red Lion was just so charming in his poverty…

The leader of the cavalrymen who brought the circle into Tambreet, a man called Stone Bat, was assigned as the liaison to the goddess while the circle toured the city. He spoke about the city’s accomplishments and wealth as they traveled, but Ven noticed that those “accomplishments” included a close alliance with an old friend of the circle—the Guild. When she saw the Guild chapterhouse dominating almost an entire mound by itself, she was livid with fury, as was Gideon.

Stone Bat explained that the Guild offered them extremely lucrative contracts; it sold Tambreet luxuries and building materials, and all it wanted in return were plants that were common in the region but hard to find for non-natives. The Guild had also brought out mercenaries in the past to help them with raiders and beastmen. A little questioning allowed the circle to realize the dismal truth: the Guild was buying components for some of its most addictive drugs in Tambreet. There were also significant quantities of components for rare medicines and non-addictive pharmaceuticals, but the sheer naivety of the Tambreeti about the whole thing turned Gideon’s stomach. They thought they were getting a good deal, when any real contact with the outside world not mediated by the Guild would let them know they were being played.

Ven was ready to meet with the leader of Tambreet, the High Headman—her descendant, many generations removed. The headman was a tall, dark-skinned man named Towering Rainbow, dressed all in multicolored feathers and flowers to show his station. Accompanying him were his two eldest children, Copper Hunter and Ashen Coypu. Though all three showed deference to Ven, it was clear to Gideon and Prism that Rainbow was invested more in his political power than his faith and Coypu was looking to tighten Tambreet’s connections to the Guild. When Ven revealed what the Guild was using the plants for, Rainbow laughed. What did it matter to the Tambreeti what happened to the outside world?

With that last insult, Venomous Spur could take no more. She went into a vitriolic condemnation of her descendants. They had squandered her gifts, ignored her lessons, and sold her people’s soul. Rather than reaching out to others and advancing their understanding of the world through her gifts, they had just dug in deeper and used those gifts to shut out the world. Copper Hunter dropped to his knees before her and said that he had always wanted more contact with the world—open trade, less dealing with the Guild, more resources devoted to advancing their infrastructure and building up.

Ven was just sick to death of the whole thing. She changed to deadly beastman form and declared that her people had disappointed her. She stripped Towering Rainbow of his mantle and threw it onto his son; Ashen Coypu’s eyes were jealous, but she said nothing. She declared that Copper Hunter would have his chance to lead his people in a correct direction, more pleasing to her sight. With a zealous fire burning in his eyes, he screamed to the assembled warriors that the time had come to drive the Guild from Tambreet! Copper Hunter and his men took to the streets of Tambreet, and soon enough mobs and riots were forming.

The night that followed was hectic and full of fire and terror. Only the concerted efforts of the circle kept serious harm from being done to the city in the purge of the Guildsmen, and from that purge turning bloody. Snapdragon intervened in an attempted murder, where a group of men had broken into a home and were going to issue “justice” for the inhabitant’s unfortunate past of being a coolie worker for the Guild. She stopped the assault with a few gritted words and a glance that showed them the price of noncompliance. Gideon patrolled the skies and broke up fights, while Blazer tended to injuries. Prism helped organize the Guild’s exodus, a task he took perhaps more relish in than was truly pious, and Ven laid down new commandments for her faith. Red Lion kept the people updated with the public address system on the Lion’s Roar and worked to make sure everyone knew that violence was not the way to do things.

By the next morning things had mostly calmed down, though the ripples would be felt throughout the region for months or years to come. The Guild’s local chapterhouse was in ashes, and its people were traveling on foot for the next nearest stronghold. Ven was exhausted after a night of putting her house in order. As the circle prepared themselves to depart, she sadly admitted something she knew in her heart: she had always hated this place, and the only things that made it bearable—the people she loved—were long since in their graves. Stone Bat was close enough to hear, and he knelt down before her, pledging that he would strive his whole life to make Tambreet a place she could love.

Before leaving, the circle stopped back at the temple to collect the orichalcum shards they had originally come for. Amber Sunrise expressed that this might be the last orichalcum they saw from Tambreet for quite some time. Though they knew where to get much more, digging it up was always problematic—issues of secrecy limited the number of people they could bring on digs, and so on. Now, with the Guild’s protection lifted, they were going to have to work even harder to keep the location of their gold and orichalcum mines a secret, especially considering the raids that had been happening in that area recently.

This piqued the circle’s curiosity. Amber Sunrise was able to explain that Tambreet had long been wary of a kingdom across the river, a place called Zarrith that had spent generations engaged in civil war. About a year ago, a new religious faction had united the city. Ever since, soldiers and scouts from Zarrith had been crossing the river and raiding small villages on the edge of Tambreet land. Some of the local elders were concerned that their incursions weren’t random aggression; they seemed more like a search pattern, looking for the source of Tambreet’s wealth. Most disturbing for the circle was the nature of the new Zarrith faith: they had become sun-worshippers.

The sudden competence and organization, the religious fervor, the quick end of local problems and the beginnings of ambition… It all pointed to one thing: there were other Solars in Zarrith.