The Hard Part
Suggested Music: Noriyuki Asakura (Kenshin) - Mountain Pass
Ascending Earth 13, Dawn - Just outside the gates of Great Forks.
Arellious let Husk lead the trio of exalts as they departed from Great Forks, after all he created quite the center piece with the seemingly infinite ox-cart being pulled behind him. Sarefine and Arellious walked on either side of the solar exalt, Arellious's simhatta left to roam on its own without going too far. The three had gathered behind Aktuelle's Temple on the previous night to look at the blip on the crystallized map on the chest of the magnificent, though unkempt, warstrider. Arellious had recognized the location right away, to the west and across the wide banks of the Yellow River, near the small town of Melevhil. Though he knew the area well, there was larger reason he thought he knew where this map was leading them, though he had yet to speak up about it to his companions.
They set out at dawn in hopes of making the near shores of the Yellow River by nightfall, they would need to find a ferry that was both willing and capable of carrying them across. Normally a relatively easy task, but with the needed towing of Penance it could take more time and resources to find and secure transport. They could travel along the banks of the river waiting for a ship of adequate size to pass by and attempt to wave it over, the worst case scenario would find them traveling to Zelanor where Arellious could easily find them a way across.
The beginning of the day was spent traveling through the familiar territory west of Great Forks and past the slave run opium fields that surround the area. Conversation remained light and mostly small talk and information passed between three people who did not know one another all that well. From the humble southern background of Husk, to the militaristic Lookshy upbringing of Arellious, to the prestigious nobility of the Realm and Sarefine. They traveled mostly without stopping, not in a rush but anxious to get to their destination. And as afternoon turned to evening, and Arellious considered their progress and if it was best to push on to make the shores of the river tonight, the conversation turned to a matter of higher importance or at least pertinence.
"Tell me Husk, what is it you are trying to accomplish carrying that mighty machine behind you all this way? From what I hear of the artisans of Gem, you would have had better luck getting it repaired there and than here, and certainly better luck here than in the North."
--FyreFly 20:04, 30 April 2009 (EDT)
Husk let slip a grin that could best be described as roguish. He shook the matted locks of crimson from his face and replied to Arellious, hefting the handles of the ox cart and adjusting his grip as he did so.
"I get that one a lot. Thing is, I don't have a choice, really. For whatever reason, this thing picked me. Well, sort of -- "
Husk hesitated momentarily, unused to speaking in exclusively Exalted company. After a brief glance to Sarefine and Arellious, he regained his bearings.
"When I was Chosen, the Unconquered Sun showed me only one thing. He showed me a cave surrounded by twin peaks of sandblasted rock. To make long story short and cut out a lot of the yelling parts, I skipped my wedding to go look for it."
After a sheepish chuckle, he resumed his narration, "Unbelievably, I found the cave, and inside of it, this thing. It seemed pretty dead at the time, and after trying to spring it to life for awhile, without success, I returned home, figuring that if I wasn't going to move it, nobody would. You can imagine how shocked I was to find it missing when I returned the next day with a cart - I was a firedust farmer back in Chiaroscuro, so it was easy enough to snag one - to carry the damn thing. After searching frantically for awhile, and to this day, I don't know it happened, the thing got the jump on me!"
Recounting his bewilderment, he threw one hand up in the air in a gesture of surprise. Quickly re-gripping the ox-cart, he continued.
"So here I am, waist deep in sand, in a pitch black cave, and all of the sudden, a 30-foot war machine is staring me down. Before I even had the chance to conjure up the stream of obscenities that would have accompanied the scare, it spoke to me in a booming, oddly human voice, 'Only we stand between the darkness-', and then, in a spectacular gale of sand and debris, it collapsed to the ground. I've not replicated the effects since.
Anyway, at this point, I was astounded enough that I informed some of the village mystics, and we tried everything. I'll spare you the details, but at one point, I was actually dressed as a Yeddim praying to the sand gods where the thing had fallen, while the local elders danced around me in a circle. I wish I was kidding. But that should give you an idea of just how desperate we got. By that night, everyone else had gone home, and I figured, for the hell of it, I'd give it one last try. To my dismay, I was able to heft the thing, albeit slowly, onto the ox-cart. After wheeling it back to the village, we quickly discovered that I was the only one who could move it. We tried oxen, yeddim, ten men, twenty men, and any number of combinations thereof. Just me - to this day, I can't fully explain the effect, but I assume it's some kind of selective attunement. Why I'm the attunee, I have no idea."
Husk wiped just a bit of sweat from his brow - even for a seasoned desert traveler, a royal warstrider was not light cargo. Nevertheless, he kept up his story.
"After spending some time trying to coax some response out of the machine, I got a blip on one of its readouts, just like the one I showed you, Arellious. Again, in a drastic summation of a much longer tale, I decided I had to go find it. Lo and behold, it was a piece of the machine - It wasn't airship science for me to figure out that this machine had a built in mechanism to locate its own components. The problem is, a few more intermittent blips have led me to suspect these parts are scattered all about Creation. This thing was one of a kind though, even in its time - The greatest artisans engineers in Creation, Gem or elsewhere, would be at a loss to comprehend what would be required to fix it. There's simply no other way to restore the machine - and, I suppose I should hesitate to say machine, as I've since discovered that Penance is, in fact, quite sentient - to its full functionality.
So, why do I do this? Well, at first, it was out of curiosity and a desire to discover more about this machine. It wasn't until my encounter with a powerful demon in the desert that I realized how necessary it might be. I have, even since before my Exaltation, always driven myself to inspire the best in people - I always have, and still do believe that every living soul has in it a capacity to do good. My encounter with the demon, and number of encounters after, up to and including events most recent, have taught me that perhaps the darkness that dwells within man is not man's only threat. In fact, a great darkness lurks at the edges of Creation, threatening at any moment to seep in and consume us all. It was only then that I understood Penance's brief, but poignant prophecy - only we stand between this darkness and Creation. And so it became my path, chosen or not, to travel Creation and restore what may be its best hope at resisting the oncoming storm. Unfortunately, a combination of size and cargo related issues mandates that I do this on foot."
He sighed briefly, giving a playful but dejected shrug.
"Hopefully I can do some good along the way, y'know? Heh, if anybody has any questions, I mighta glossed over some stuff... "
Husk briefly let go of the ox cart with one hand again and scratched the back of his head, a bit shyly, and looked to the Dragon-Bloods with a grin, giving them a chance to respond.
Arellious listened to the story intently, chuckling and nodding in all the right places as the humor of the story almost surprised him. Though the expected elements of tragedy were partially in place, it was not quite the story he expected and so often heard from the chosen of the sun. It seemed fate had a way of driving them out of their normal lives, and when it did not it had the effects on those closest to them. A sobering fact for Arellious.
"You've come a long way, and gone through quite a lot at the behest of a first age machina. That takes an admirable amount of trust and dedication."
He looked up to Husk and the shy look, oddly fitting for the large man, a bit of an amused smirk. A thought seeming to cross his mind in the moment of silence and he looked over to Sarefine, though the first part of the statement did seem more geared towards Husk than her.
"I'm afraid our resident occult expert is oddly missing... where is Aktuelle anyway? I had hoped to talk with him after we returned, but he wasn't at the temple."
Aktuelle, along with his present company, was someone who he wished to talk to but it seemed he never returned from Nexus with the others. They had grown reasonably close and he valued the priest's advice, even if he was a bit of a character at times.
"We better make camp for the night. We'll cross the river in the morning, after that it shouldn't be long. And I think I'm starting to suspect what Penance is leading us to."
As he finished he came to a stop, the running of The Yellow River could now be heard in the distance to the north. It was best to keep a reasonable distance from the river during the night, anything from river dragons to river pirates could cause trouble for unsuspecting travelers. Not that the three exalts likely had much to fear, but best to avoid the confrontation if it is unnecessary.
--FyreFly 22:35, 15 May 2009 (EDT)