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Dynasty of Dovak	By : JohnDoe Category: +A through F > Exalted RPG Views: 4983 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: White Wolf, Exalted and Exalted 3rd Edition are all trademarks of White Wolf Publishing AB, and official characters, names, places and text are copyrighted by White Wolf. I do not own Exalted and I'm not making money from this fiction.

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Session 48 – Ganan (120XP 96DX, 115XP/95DX spent; 2WhP 13GP 12SP), Melody (120XP 96DX, 115/92 spent), and Jinabar (120XP 96DX, 75/60 Spent) – Passing Through Doorways

Harmonious Jade races to the dock, with the Dynasts following close behind her. As she comes to the water’s edge she pauses, “What was that about ‘A Lover Clad in Blue’?”

Melody is breathing hard.

“We only ran like, three hundred yards. You are really out of shape.” Ganan teases.

“Fuck. You.” Melody says between breaths.

Cynis Jinabar watches the exchange as she discretely catches her own breath before answering, “I beg your pardon?”

“I was chasing down a lead, it led me to Murat. She had a bandage around her hand and more security than usual. Something about ‘A Lover Clad in Blue’. What do you know about that?” Harmonious Jade has her bow in hand, it’s resting by her side, but she seems tense like she’s about to fire.

“You first. We told you what we know about bliss. If you’ve spoken to Murat about us, I want to hear what you know about it.” Cynis Jinabar, extends her wrackstaff to full length.

Mnemon Melody doesn’t notch an arrow but otherwise makes ready.

The tension hangs in the air for a moment.

“The Salmalin make copies, sends them all over the south.” Jade answers finally. “I don’t know why, that was never my… area of expertise. But in every copy, the important thing is the drawings – they are meticulous making sure the drawings are copied without any deviation.”

“Gan?” Cynis Jinabar nods at her brother for confirmation.

“That scans.” Ganan confirms, “The secret to summoning Sondok was hidden in a drawing. Also explains why Haseti was so insistent on getting that particular copy – meticulously copied by the Sondok’s Salmalin worshipers.”

“Wait,” Harmonious Jade says, “‘A Lover Clad in Blue’ can unleash Sondok on the world?”

“If my suspicions are correct, it contains the secrets to unleashing many demons.” Ganan stares levelly at Harmonious Jade.

Harmonious Jade kicks open a grate at her feet, “Through here. Go straight, don’t turn right or left. Once you reach the dead-end, check the left-hand wall – there’s a hidden lever.”

“And you will…?” Melody asks.

“You’re the Dynasts. Frontal assault. I work from the shadows. I’ll take the back entrance over there." Harmonious Jade points, the Dynasts look and see nothing but empty water, when they turn their heads back Jade is gone.

“Dragon’s damn it!” Cynis Jinabar says, looking around but seeing no trace of the woman.

Cynis Ganan lowers himself into the grate.

“Idiot, where do you think you’re going?” Jinabar scolds.

“Straight until the dead-end, then left.” Ganan looks up at her, “What?”

Melody shakes her head, “You know this is an obvious trap right? Jade probably works for the Salmalin.”

Ganan shrugs, “So? Got any better leads?”

“I… do you want to take this Jin?” Melody says flabbergasted.

“Gan, we’re not going to walk head first into a trap.” Jinabar says firmly.

Ganan sighs, “The strongest fighter they have, is Sondok. We’re here to kill Sondok. Which means either Sondok is going to attack us at the end of this trap, which works for me, or they’re going to ambush us with someone weaker than Sondok. Which, also, works for me.” He drops all the way into the sewer and starts casting Invulnerable Skin of Bronze whilst he waits for the others to join him.

“… Have I taken too many blows to the head or does that kinda… make sense?” Melody asks Jinabar.

Jinabar pinches the bridge of her nose, “It doesn’t make sense, but if we don’t go with him then he’ll get himself killed. And I don’t like our chances of taking down Sondok with just the two of us.” She jumps down into the sewer after Ganan.

Melody shrugs and follows after. The stench of cow leavings is even stronger here. The sewer is a storm drain wide, and carved from stone: built in the Realm style, and large enough to walk upright through. Melody nervously thumbs her Collar as they wade through the filth, guided by the soft white light of Ganan’s anima. The tunnel branches left and right as it covers the harbor, but they press straight on until they reach the dead-end. Jinabar explores the left wall with her hands, finds the leaver and pulls: a large section of wall comes away and they let themselves through.

A pair of Blood Apes immediately materialize, howling a baying challenge and an alarm.

Ganan reacts with uncanny speed, grabbing the first ape in a grapple and wrestling him away, tearing and wrenching at the demon’s flesh.

Jinabar thrusts her palm forward shouting a mighty kiai! A burst of flame spurts from her hand, engulfing the hapless erymanthus, burning and driving it back.

Melody follows up Jinabar’s attack with a well placed arrow to the beast’s neck. The blood ape topples forward into the muck, dead.

The remaining demon struggles in Ganan’s grasp. Essence surges through the beast as it moves with preternatural speed… but trapped in Ganan’s vice-like grip it doesn’t get far, unable to turn the tables on the Dragon-Blooded.

“Intruders! Blast them!” A gang of half-a-dozen robed Salmalin pour out from the hidden head-quarters and level their Malfean flame weapons at the Dragon-Blooded.

Ganan looks up, throwing the demon between himself and the wall of flame. Jinabar twirls her staff at the speed of secrets, turning the flame aside. Melody cuts through the blast with an arrow. The blood ape roars in pain as its allies scorch it in purple fire. The Salmalin toss their spent weapons aside and draw swords and axes.

Ganan plunges a fist into the stone wall and draws out his tetsubo. He pounces on the demon’s back, bringing the two-handed weapon down in a spine-smashing blow. The blood ape falls to the ground, dead and broken.

The Salmalin give a whooping cry and rush to attack Ganan, but the broad sweep of his tetsubo keeps them at bay.

“Cover me!” Jinabar yells, as she rushes forward. In a blur of motion, Melody looses a flurry of arrows into the melee. In a heart-beat, Jinabar is in the midst of the demon worshipers, cracking skulls left and right with her wrackstaff.

Melody curses her lack of a mount as she draws her bow again, loosing and killing. The Salmalin break and make a run for it back into their base. Ganan whoops and makes to give chase.

“Tarry a little brother.” Jinabar warns, walking forward and disarming a trip-wire trap. She shakes her head incredulously. “Obvious. Trap. Come on, we stay together.”

The Dynasts proceed cautiously down the corridor which opens up into a large cavern lit by open torches. Seated upon a throne before prostrate worshipers, and flanked by neomah sits Sondok, She Who Stands in Doorways. Her demonic dog is curled at her feet.

Sondok rises, and looks across to Mnemon Melody, “Gracious Pealing Melody. I’m surprised to see you this far south. Who are your charming companions?” Sondok’s eyes are full of malice and alien stars. Her black and red clad worshipers draw swords and axes as they form into fighting units. The neomah start forward, placing themselves between Sondok and the heroes.

“Sondok, so good to see you again.” Melody says, her bow arm raised as she takes aim at the demon.

“I don’t suppose you’ve changed sides?” Sondok smiles predatorily, “Understand, I took no pleasure from my play-acting with your Urza Arcus. She bound me to help her fake her own death. You can’t hold that against me: the bindings of sorcery are quite unbreakable.”

“We’d like my grandmother back.” Melody says levelly, trying to convince herself that Sondok is just playing mind-games with her.

Sondok’s mirthless eyes narrow, “I don’t think so… be gone!”

The winds of the demon city itself seem to rise up to push the Dynast’s from the Salmalin hideout. Ganan and Jinabar’s animas flare totemic – a great fiery hound rising up waist high next to the faceless giant of sand. The Dynasts set their will against the power of hell, standing firm until the winds abate.

“Alright, so you have some skill.” Sondok admits begrudgingly, “Kill them!”

Ganan takes aim at the approaching horde of cultists, feeling the power build in his weapon.

Melody looses an arrow at Sondok, who casually knocks it from the sky with her short sword, “tsk”-ing disparagingly.

Jinabar collapses her anima into a mantel of swirling balls of fire, which orbit her in broad circles.

Biryu the demon hound bounds forward, it’s jaws slathering. It leaps for Ganan, and mid-leap is struck by a burning golden arrow. The hell hound is knocked from the air and pinned to the ground. Sondok looks up, her face contorted into a mask of incomprehensible rage, “Harmonious Jade!” She bellows, tearing into the shadows after an unseen figure.

The cultists smash into the Dynasts. Melody ducks and twists, her own anima flaring totemic for a moment before collapsing into a howling mass of elemental power. Cynis Jinabar deflects axe and sword with cunningly placed gouts of fire. Cynis Ganan stands in the open as axe and sword beat harmlessly against his Invulnerable Skin, shifting him into Earth Dragon Form with the rhythmic beating.

Melody continues to duck and twist, finding the gaps between blows to move through the cultists, and out from behind them, ready to chase after Sondok.

Jinabar flicks out Calumny, striking right and left, trying to force an opening.

Ganan smiles and brings his tetsubo straight down into the ground. A massive shock-wave blasts the cultists off their feet. Cynis Jinabar, rocks back, taken off-guard by the blast – she channels her will through her anima, and her fiery dog totem seems to catch her and push her back onto her feet as the shock-wave sends her reeling but still upright. Ganan sprints through the downed cultists in the direction that Sondok ran off in.

Biryu struggles against the impossible force of the arrow pinning him to the ground.

The downed cultists try to rise from the ground as they claw at Cynis Jinabar, the reach of her wrackstaff batters down the cultists as they try to stand, and deflects their pitiable attacks.

One of the neomah spits fire at Ganan, who deflects the blow with his tetsubo. The other closes in on Ganan and lashes out with a poisoned hairpin, but Ganan sidesteps and uses the superior reach of his weapon to keep them at bay.

Sondok disappears from sight as she chases after Harmonious Jade.

Jinabar picks her way through the downed cultists, interposing herself between them and Melody and cracking skulls as she goes.

Melody looses on the far neomah, her arrow striking the creature off-balance as it grazes the Maker of Flesh across the cheek, drawing demonic blood.

Ganan swings his tetsubo into the neomah attacking him, smashing it back to land by its partner. Ganan then sprints the remaining distance, closing the distance to engage the both of them.

The downed cultists, forsake attacking Jinabar, focusing on rising off the ground. They form up, blocking off the entrance the Dynast’s used to enter the chamber.

The smashed neomah darts in again, but can’t find an opening in Ganan’s defenses. The grazed neomah draws its own hairpin and rushes in. Ganan seizes her by the wrist and turns the blow aside.

As Ganan grips the neomah’s wrist, Melody looses an arrow that strikes the demon in the back of the head, burying the shaft deep within the neomah’s brain. It hangs, almost comically for a moment, before crumpling like a rag-doll.

Jinabar turns her back on the cultists and aims her palm at the remaining neomah, “I kill with my heart!” She hisses quietly, and a gout of flame envelops the creature, badly burning it. The neomah lets out a shriek of hatred and pain.

Ganan resumes his two-handed grip on his weapon and barrels the weapon up in an upper-cut style swing, smashing the neomah under the jaw. The blow lifts the demon off the ground, jerking its head back with a sickening sound as the neomah’s neck breaks. The demon lands bodily on the ground next to it’s fallen sibling.

The cultists barrel into Jinabar who holds them off with fire and staff even as they threaten to overwhelm her. They surge past the lone Dynast, trying to reach Melody and Ganan but falling short. “Go!” Jinabar shouts, “I can handle them!”

The cultists continue to surge forward and swipe at the Dynasts. Jinabar’s movement’s start to slow as the cultists press her. She deflects their lethal blows but is battered and knocked. Melody twists out from under the mass of demon worshipers, dancing gracefully through the melee. Once more blows rain down on Ganan to no effect.

“Get Sondok! Help Jade!” Ganan calls to Melody.

Melody grits her teeth and runs clear of the cultists and starts to pelt down the corridor after Sondok.

Ganan smashes at the nearest cultists, driving them back as he fights his way through to his sister’s side.

Jinabar strikes out again, the bonfire of her soul burning through her wrackstaff as she cripples and K.O.s cultists left and right. The cultists recede like the tide before her burning fire. “I said I can handle this!” She cries out to her brother as the cultists hem them in on all sides. She throws herself back the way Ganan just came, her anima burning away the chaff and her staff striking out again and again.

With a roar, Ganan’s anima flares totemic again – the sand giant linking hands to mimic Ganan’s smashing blows. Ganan drives the last off the cultists off – they run back for the sewer tunnels, weapons discarded.

Biryu the demon dog finally pulls his way free from Harmonious Jade’s arrow and rounds on the Dynasts. “Go help Melody and Jade.” Ganan shouts, “I’m right behind you.” Biryu closes on Ganan with the malice of hell and pounces once more. The impact is like being hit by a charging horse, but Ganan keeps his footing using the secrets of Earth Dragon Style. Biryu savages the Dynast’s leg, drawing blood despite his Invulnerable Skin, and eliciting a cry of surprise and pain.

Melody hammers after Sondok. This is no sewer tunnel, but a natural cavern, hidden under the city. It opens into a brilliant pit of shining crystal. Her orichalcum bow seems to be reflected in every facet. Ahead of her she hears the sounds of Jade and Sondok fighting.

Jinabar speeds after Melody, entering the crystal cavern just as Melody reaches the far side, seeing her golden bow seeming to out-shine even her blazing anima.

Ganan banishes his tetsubo into his anima, and wraps his bronze hands around the devil dog’s neck, squeezing even as Biryu buries his teeth into Ganan’s leg.

In the reflective facets of the crystals, Sondok seems to be fighting a shadow. A glimpse of gold, an arrow, a near miss, a sword lashes out into the darkness. A thin trail of blood.

Melody sights Sondok, taking careful aim.

Jinabar catches up with Melody and sprints past her, trying to close with She Who Stands In Doorways.

Ganan and Biryu remain locked in their brutal grapple. With one hand round the demon’s neck, Ganan starts to punch the devil dog in the head with his other hand, trying to free his trapped leg.

Sondok catches sight of Melody and throws her axe. Melody’s reactions are a fraction slower than Sondok’s, but her decision is split second. She doesn’t aim for the axe, knowing the blow will strike her, but instead looses her carefully aimed arrow. Sondok’s axe buries into Melody’s shoulder, and were it not for her enchanted armor, would surely have severed her arm. As it is, the blade buries deep, and Melody falls to her knees in pain.

Melody’s arrow flies true, and catches Sondok in the hip, bursting into thorns which rip and tear at the demon’s flesh.

Jinabar closes further and sends a burst of flame shooting at Sondok. The demon dodges to the side, but only barely.

Harmonious Jade fires another blazing arrow. Sondok rips it from the air with her (now free) axe hand, but it seems to burn her even as she deflects it.

With Harmonious Jade’s position revealed at last, Sondok sweeps her hand magnificently through the air and the crystal around Jade closes in on her, trapping her in a prison of rock.

Kicking and screaming, Ganan wrenches his leg free of Biryu. Using the hand of the demon’s throat, he lifts the impossibly heavy beast into the air, then into a body lock. Then he suplexes the beast, throwing him bodily off and away, smashing him into Sondok’s throne. There’s another gut-wrenching crunch of a spine breaking, and the demon dog falls lifeless to the ground. Ganan starts to hobble after the others.

Jinabar reaches Sondok, extending her wrackstaff at the last minute to lash out at the demon, spinning Sondok’s secrets into a sticky web that binds her and slows her down.

Numb with pain, Melody brings her bow to bear. Sondok’s axe still protrudes awkwardly from her shoulder, but she dares not pull the blade free until she can tourniquet the wound. Blinking away the pain, she focus’s on Sondok, drawing careful aim once more.

Sondok moves with impossible speed, even with her secrets weighing her down. Jinabar intercepts the first flurry of blows, but Sondok is relentless and manages to push her back.

Jade struggles against her prison of earth, unable to do anything but watch.

Ganan hobbles down the corridor, leg wound slowing him significantly.

Melody shoots at Sondok, but her aim is wide.

Sondok presses her advantage, her sword a blur as it comes down again and again, striking and Cynis Jinabar. The Malfean blade wrong foots her, and slashes at her flesh. The wounds aren’t serious, but cause her to stumble, unable to keep up with the dervish.

Ganan drags himself into the crystal cavern. He sees the blazing anima of his sister and sister in law ahead of him. He plunges his fist into the shimmering rock-face and pulls his tetsubo free once more. “Yibambe!” He cries at the top of his lungs.

Cynis Jinabar stops trying to attack Sondok, putting all her efforts into defense. She inhales the essence of Creation, and exhales a feeling of inner peace. “If this is to be my death, then it will be a glorious death.” She thinks to herself.

Sondok hammers Jinabar once more, but this time the magistrate is ready for her. Anima blazing, the Fire Aspect deflects the first blow, and the next, Sondok is unable to find purchase for her attacks. Calm and ready, Jinabar focuses her will on one thing alone – staying alive until her allies can reach her.

Melody once more takes careful aim at the demon.

Fighting through the pain, Ganan closes the distance to Melody, only a short distance from Sondok and Jinabar.

Unobserved, Harmonious Jade slips free of her rocky prison.

Jinabar keeps her mind empty. Her body reacts to nothing but the future position of Sondok’s blade.

Sondok continues to drive Jinabar back toward Melody and Ganan. Her demonic speed seems to falter and slow, even as she rains blows down on Jinabar, who deflects them, sweat pouring from the Fire Aspect’s brow.

Melody fires on Sondok again, her thorny arrow grazing her mark’s shoulder. Sondok doesn’t even look up.

Ganan charges Sondok, “Get the hell away from my sister!” He bellows, smashing his tetsubo down into the greater demon. Sondok looks up from her assault on Cynis Jinabar with astonishment as she’s driven to the ground by the overhead smash.

Harmonious Jade fires a golden arrow of light into the demon, tearing a massive wound in the Sondok’s exposed flank.

Jinabar hammers her wrackstaff into the wound caused by Harmonious Jade’s arrow. Secrets once more envelop the demon, binding her in a web of her own deceit.

Ganan smashes Sondok sideways, into the wall of the cavern, and closes in to keep the pressure up.

Melody fires at Sondok’s exposed leg, driving an arrow into the demon’s knee.

Jinabar presses the advantage, wailing on the demon before she can rise.

Jade takes careful aim.

Sondok grimaces and starts to dematerialize. “No!” Harmonious Jade screams out in rage and despair, recognizing that the demon is making her escape.

“Not that easy, bitch!” Ganan spits, smashing his tetsubo into the downed demon once more, this time with a Ghost-Grounding Blow. Immediately Sondok resumes solid form, bound by Ganan’s Immaculate Essence to the material plane of Creation.

Jinabar strikes at Sondok again, the webbing around her getting thicker still and binding the demon to the spot – unable to rise from the ground.

Harmonious Jade looses another arrow, striking Sondok in the chest, and drawing forth a thin trickle of demonic blood. The blood oozes over her tattooed left breast, and looks quite vile.

Melody smacks another arrow into the demon. It doesn’t seem to do much damage, but adds to the mounting pressure on Sondok.

Sondok fights through the webbing, lashing out at Ganan and Jinabar with her blade. Jinabar deflects the blows, but Ganan’s Essence is spent from grounding the demon. Sondok’s blade finds the wound caused by Biryu, and staggers Ganan.

“Just die you fucking cunt!” Jinabar screams as she beats on the downed form before her, her wrackstaff breaking the demon’s ribs as she brings it down again and again.

Ganan grits his teeth and smashes his tetsubo down on the demon’s head. A human skull would have fractured like an egg, but all Ganan’s blow does is break her nose and shatter a few teeth. Sondok spits blood and rages with the fury of a being older than the universe.

Harmonious Jade draws her bow and focuses. Only Mnemon Melody notices the empty golden circle appear on her brow – the mark of the Wretched.

Melody sees the demon Sondok, sword arm spinning, ready to bring Ganan to his knees and take his head. She pictures what would happen next – first Jinabar will fall, then her. Melody sees the Anathema, aiming at their common enemy. What will the Anathema do once Sondok is dead? Turn her arrow on Melody? She has one shot. One chance to end either Sondok or Harmonious Jade. “Dragons forgive me.” Melody mutters. She looses on Sondok. She turns her head, catches eyes with Jade. “Run.” Melody mouths silently. Harmonious Jade nods and disappears into the shadows. Melody’s arrow strikes true: it takes Sondok in the throat, erupting into thorns and drowning the hell-beast in her own blood. Jinabar kicks the corpse a few times for good measure, and the body collapses in on itself, like a hollow shell.

“She’d dead right?” Jinabar asks Ganan.

“For now. Ligier will resurrect her eventually.” Ganan bends down to pluck some brittle bones and demonic ichor from the corpse. He leans on his tetsubo like a crutch and hobbles over to Melody. “I don’t mean to complain, but this wound is terribly painful.” He looks around, suddenly worried, “Where’s Harmonious Jade?”

Jinabar looks around, but can see no sight of her, “She was right… there?”

Melody points to Sondok’s axe still embedded in her arm, “I’m sorry Ganan, are you injured? I didn’t notice! Maybe this giant fucking axe is interfering with my peripheral vision!”

Jinabar’s eyes scan the crystal for any hint of orichalcum, “Seriously, Melody, did you see where Jade went?”

Melody growls, “No, I did not see where she went. Giant. Fucking. Axe. Embedded in my arm. Come and help me with this, before I bleed to death.”

Jinabar sighs, “Don’t be so dramatic. I’ll put pressure on the wound, Gan, you yank the axe out.”

Ganan walks over and puts a hand on the axe, waiting for Jinabar to give the signal to pull, “We should track her down. We don’t know who she was. Or what she was. She could be one of the Anathema.”

“An Anathema. Great. Did you see a caste mark?” Melody asks, before biting down on the hilt of her dagger. She nods for Jinabar to proceed.

Jinabar puts her hand on the chest side of the wound and pushes hard as Melody braces herself against the wall, “No,” Jin says, “I didn’t see a caste mark. Gan?”

“I hardly saw her,” Ganan pulls Sondok’s axe free, “At all.”

Jinabar and Melody clean and bind the wound, then Melody starts work on Ganan’s leg. “Are you okay Cynis Jinabar?”

Jin nods, “A few scrapes, nothing seri-” She trails off and stares into the distance. She pulls a chagrined face.

“What is-” Ganan starts, before looking off in a different direction. ‘Chagrined’ doesn’t begin to describe the look of outrage and… simple rage crossing his face. “How dare she!?” He bellows.

Melody looks right and left for some empty space to stare into and she shrugs. “Share with the rest of the class?”

“Our mother-” Cynis Jinabar begins.

“Who is not a sorcerer.” Ganan interrupts.

“Has sent us each a message-” Jinabar continues.

“Using a sorcerer. When she has repeatedly expressed her discomfort and disgust with sorcery.” Ganan says, absolutely livid.

“Requesting-”

“Demanding! As if we were children!”

“That we return to the family manse in Greyfalls.”

“I’m not going!” Ganan huffs, Melody is surprised he doesn’t stamp his foot.

“Okay...” Melody says slowly, “Well, first we need to pick our way out of this Salmalin hide-out before...”

At the other end of the cavern, the noise of an army of returning cultists raises a clamor.

Jinabar grits her teeth, “Well we’re not getting out the way we came.” She looks around the cave, but the reflective walls of the cave show no obvious egress.

Melody looks for clues and notices a thin stream, “We follow the water.” She says, jabbing a finger at the stream, “Gan, hows the leg.”

Ganan nods, “It will serve. How’s the arm.”

Melody winces, “Don’t need an arm to run like hell.”

“Let’s go!” Jinabar says, pulling Melody to her feet, and the Dynasts make a run for it.

****

Ganan trains Craft: Woodworking 5DX and Craft: Weapons 1DX.
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Dynasty of Dovak