15[20:09] It's still late when Cynis Dryas and Iselsi Piu get back to the jadeclad. Late enough that the Commodore seems to have retired. 15[20:09] So... what now? [20:10] 14Now we continue to pretend everything is normal. [20:10] 14In Piu's case, that means breaking in the bed in her suite. 15[20:11] Does Dryas also want to defer this until morning? [20:52] 07Dryas will follow Piu's lead, but does let the others know to meet before dawn atop the foremanse. [20:53] 14This gives Piu time to 'talk' with Rinca, talk with Caedus, and most importantly get some rest before the most important meeting of her adult life. [20:55] 14How upset is Caedus? Is he at least willing to give her until after the hearth meeting to explain herself? The topline, in fairness, is mostly "our bullshit doesn't work against magical True-Name amulets." 15[20:56] Have you ever gotten news so bad you are forced to immediately go to sleep? [20:56] 07Dryas gives the Terse and Prolix one instruction before she passes out: [20:57] 07Dryas: "Socially Prolix and Spiritually Terse, please answer me: how many entrances are there to this cabin?" 15[20:59] The daimon's voice filters ethereally through the pipes. "Two." [21:00] 07Dryas: "Can you do me the kindness of alerting me if someone else tries to use one? I do not much wish to be strangled in my bed. While asleep, anyway." 15[21:00] "Thank you for asking, instead of just assuming I would. I appreciate the courtesy. You'll be kept informed." [21:01] 07Dryas: "And can you do me the further kindness of telling me where the second entrance is?" 15[21:01] "Your cot opens up." 15[21:02] The chamber at the top of the forecastle serves as the ship's bridge, from which the commanding officer and her senior staff can control the ship and confer with the daimon most directly. How to Daizo, Dryas, Piu, and Zhangyu turn up? Who wants to tell the Commodore to vacate? 15[21:04] Outside, the sky above Jiewei is still only gray. The camp is still and misty. The seas... are misty. 15[21:04] Probably an hour until true sunrise. [21:04] 14Ah, the working hour. [21:05] 14Piu will show up slightly early with nervous energy. 15[21:06] Then Piu greets Ratel alone: "Piu! What've you got to report?" [21:07] 07Dryas appears in the hatch a moment later. This is the advantage of neutral ground. [21:08] 6Zhangyu's awake early after the warning from last night. He's shortly behind Dryas, trying not to look tense and just looking kind of grumpy instead. [21:08] 14Piu: "I...what?" 14She blinks. "Oh. Right. Idiot One and Idiot Two plan to have us killed while we explore the vaults. Caxi's supposed to attempt to open it and then we'll all be killed. My recommended counter-play is to split Takoye from Suris by demanding he come with us on the expedition, which he desperately wants but which she's countermanded. I think Suris is in service to [21:08] some kind of demon. The kind that makes your head hurt when it speaks." [21:09] 07Dryas: "They are self-interested to the point of predictability. Will make them useful tools in stern hands." [21:09] 14She glances at Dryas. This meeting is for the hearth only. She's not going to do this with people outside the hearth. The hearth are the only ones who are safe. 15[21:10] Ratel: "Did they say how you'd be killed?" [21:11] 14Piu: "They're confident that whatever's in there will do us in. Unclear if it will do so actively and intelligent or if it'll just be like turning on a First Age turbine while standing inside it." [21:11] 10Daizo trails in last—he's been burning the midnight oil devouring whatever expedition notes on the Jiewei dig were available. He shows up just in time to hear about how Suris is some kind of demon thrall. [21:11] "We're taking Takoye because if anyone knows how to open it without that happening, it'll be him acting out of self-interest." 15[21:12] Ratel: "Right. What do you need?" [21:13] 07Dryas: "Commodore, I apologize for the imposition, but as we are not underway, I request your indulgence: my Hearth-mates and I need to have a private discussion here, which I estimate to be the most secure area of the ship. Although if I am mistaken on that count, I welcome the daimon's correction." [21:13] 14Piu: "Outside of ironclad support and possible show of force at the meeting itself -- a 'it turns out your friends are actually my friends' moment would be nice but turning the legion guard is a project that would take too much time -- nothing." [21:13] "...Sadly I have to ask that that support extend to this meeting, too." 15[21:14] The daimon speaks from nowhere: "It's the most secure area you're allowed in." 15[21:14] Ratel looks from one hearthmate to the next. "...alright." [21:15] 10Daizo rubs his temples. This was all rather sudden. Takoye might have been an incompetent, careless boob, but a murderer? Talk about getting people to underestimate you. [21:15] 14Relationships can ruin you, Piu won't say aloud to Daizo for a variety of reasons. 15[21:15] Ratel takes a second to work out how to dismiss herself from her own bridge. "Zhangyu, you have the bridge." 15[21:15] Then she leaves him to it. [21:16] 6Zhangyu: "Commodore." [21:16] 14When she's gone, to Dryas: "We had to do this on the bridge, and humiliate her?" [21:18] 07Dryas: "A momentary encroachment. Her ego can withstand it." [21:18] 14Piu scowls but doesn't press the point further. [21:18] 14She begins pacing. Piu never paces. [21:19] 10Daizo: "Also, we just had it proven that this secure area is only as secure as our host permits it to be. Ship, can you disable your ability to hear us for a short while?" [21:20] 07Dryas glances at the command throne, but does not sit in it. [21:20] 14Piu: "He is by definition not leaving the ship, and I'd rather he'd find what's coming amusing enough to help us out in it rather than seethingly resentful, as I would be in his position hearing that request." [21:21] 6Zhangyu: "That's fair." [21:22] 10Daizo: "…You have a point." 15[21:22] Daimon: "How would you know I had, anyway?" [21:23] "Quite." [21:24] 14Piu sighs. "Alright, let's do this. Who wants to start?" 14That's to Dryas. "I feel like letting me summarize it lets me off the hook, but then...you don't really know anything, yet." [21:24] 07Dryas unfastens her seal-skin overcloak, revealing the orichalcum Nine Muses Audient. 15[21:26] Once everyone's attention is on the medallion, it seems to sparkle, as if someone had shined a spotlight on it. [21:26] 07Dryas: "We can begin by saying that, Piu, you retain my loyalty and sisterly devotion. Whether you are V'Neef or..." 07she pauses. "No, you do it." [21:29] 10Daizo: "I don't know what the hell's going on here, but I stand by my oaths as well." [21:29] 14Piu sighs. "Who has heard of the Ninth House? House Iselsi, the House of Traitors, so on and so forth?" [21:33] 6Zhangyu: "Didn't they sink into the sea or something? Live down there, attack ships..." 6He looks at the rest of the Hearth. "...no?" [21:34] 14Piu stares at him and then giggles, then laughs, then guffaws. Not for long, but enough that when she stops, she's more relaxed. "Brother...thank you. But no. No naval forces from beneath the waves to call on." [21:34] "Would be helpful, though." [21:37] 10Daizo: "Wouldn't it just? No, Iselsi was once a normal House like any of the others—like Ragara crossed with a bit of Sesus. A century or so ago, that all changed." [21:38] "They tried to attack Her Majesty, and over the course of the next eighty years or so, they were ground into dust." [21:40] "But ther's always been rumors—that they weren't actually ruined, that it was all a sham…" [21:42] 14Piu: "Oh, they were ruined alright. We were ruined. But we got better, but getting worse." [21:42] *by [21:43] 14Piu: "I didn't lie when I said I was a member of House V'neef. I am a member in good standing, and I love V'neef more than I love my own mother." [21:44] "But the thing is...House V'neef has semi-recently been subject to a semi-hostile takeover. You'll note that it's the only House worth a shit admitted after Iselsi's fall." [21:45] "So it was the only candidate, really. I'm V'neef Piu. But I am also, more importantly, Iselsi Piu." [21:45] 14More importantly to this meeting, anyway. [21:46] 10Daizo: "All right. So what does that mean to us, here and now? Have you received orders that we need to know about?" [21:46] "I've killed who I've killed on explicit orders from House Iselsi, excepting Cynis Lena, who I killed on implicit orders, as well as to improve Dryas's position regionally in the near term and frankly because she pissed me off." [21:47] 6Honestly, fair. [21:47] "The next name on that list is Cathak Budokan." [21:49] 07Dryas: "Is there a rhyme or reason to it?" [21:52] 14Piu: "Mnemon Dusk was scum of Creation, a nun using her orphanage as a slaver. Mnemon Hedrin was an active intelligence asset of House Iselsi's most hated rival -- we actually hate House Mnemon and her matriarch much more than the Empress herself, as you might have divined from the fact Garnet's jar hasn't suspiciously shattered. I would place similar amounts of faith in Budokan [21:52] being some flavor of shithead as well." [21:57] 10Daizo: "But obviously it's not as if they're ordering these kills for purely altruistic purposes. The fact that they're shitheads is either a side benefit, or something that they assign to you while some people with a real case of psychology take out the nice targets." [21:57] 14She pauses. "Well, I'd be cheating. Cathak Budokan oversaw the summary execution of -- he claims -- 500 Iselsi dynasts, ranging from just-exalted daughters to the elderly. The real number is something more like 350 -- of the 500 marked for death, some percentage of them escaped through various means. Both sources agree they prioritized the just-exalted daughters. The children are [21:57] our future, after all." 14Some bitter mocking in her voice there, which up until has not been something that's come out of Piu's mouth around them. "Now in his senility he runs a mine and fucks his slave-girls." [21:58] 14Piu, to Daizo: "I'd be interested to meet all these nice people sitting in powerful positions in the Realm. I'm constantly told they exist." [21:59] 6Zhangyu: "Sounds like the sort of guy who ends with a slit throat sooner or later." [22:02] 10Daizo: "…they can't all be slave-girl kickers. We can't have built an entire society on kicking slave girls for this long and had it hold together." 10Even as it leaves his mouth he realizes just how damn weak it sounds.  [22:02] 14Piu: "How long has it actually lasted, without one woman with the fist of Heaven to enforce its law?" [22:03] "…about five years." 10There might've been a time when he could have extemporized a fiery response to that. An argument crashing down with the weight of a hundred tons. [22:04] "Anyway I think my conduct regarding Garnet speaks for itself as to whether I'm a violent, irrational hater of Her Imperial Majesty who will have a complete psychotic break upon seeing her face." [22:04] "If Mnemon were here, possibly a different story." [22:05] 14She shrugs. "But probably not. Different people are different people." [22:06] 10Daizo lowers himself into one of the bridge seats. "Well. I had already made my peace with the Piu who killed people now and then to get V'neef an edge. This is far less of a jump than that." [22:09] 07Dryas: "You indicated we might be in danger by learning this secret." [22:10] 14Piu: "At this point you might want to explain how that happened, in case the boys know another use for such magic." [22:14] 10Daizo: "You were making a big deal of showing off that pendant; is that what it does? Provides you with a person's true name?" [22:14] 07Dryas: "The Nine Muses Audient, this amulet, was a parting gift from Cynis Cerise. I've been learning its power, and yes, it told me the true name of V'Neef To - Iselsi To, the Maudlin Tutor. But I did not need the amulet to see the way that Piu looked at her." [22:17] 14Somewhat irritably: "She's second or third in command of the House's daughters, of course V'neef Piu was going to jump at the excuse to report in. I still can't believe she loves that fucking name so much it pops up on a query like that." [22:19] "Anyway, in the short term this revelation is just that I'm going to be ending Cathak Budokan's life with the professionalism I've shown in every non-Lena target profile since we've met. Though I will say as a pure piece of work, the Lena job was an excellent display of improvisation under pressure and time management." [22:19] 10Daizo nods. "Makes sense. Well, there's a use for any magic that can reveal names—" [22:19] "The long term issue is that To has ordered me to report Dryas to my local superior. You might be able to guess who that is. And then, some arbitrary amount of time later, the clown brigade shows up." [22:20] 6Zhangyu: "It did work out fairly well, in the end." 6No judgements here. "And yes, being able to see the true names of people as well as any titles they claim is... hm." [22:20] "That's what To wants to happen, anyway." [22:20] "But I also intend of informing him of the contents of my vision from the witch." [22:21] "Which I'm also going to tell you of, now." [22:21] *on [22:21] 07Dryas steeples her fingers. [22:22] 14Piu: "The question I actually asked the witch: Who betrayed House Iselsi?" [22:24] "A very concrete question. But it sounds as though you got a satisfactory answer for yourself?" [22:26] 07Dryas chuckles. [22:27] 10Daizo ponders the Divinations chapter of the Emerald Fundamentals textbook Caxi passed on to him. Said chapter consists of the single sentence "Questions are a burden for others; answers a prison for oneself." 10Some Heptagram scholar thought that had to be pretty clever. [22:28] "In response I was shown a vision of a quiet meeting some time at night, between four people. One is an unassuming old man who was shown deference, and whom I have no knowledge of. The others were the eyes I saw this scene through, the patriarch of House Iselsi, Iselsi Ras; the man who continues to hold the highest Imperial standing of a public member of the House, Iselsi Shenesh; and [22:28] the Scarlet Empress. The setting was surreal: a garden and sky that went on in the same patterns forever, in all directions." [22:29] 14Piu: "Simply put, the vision says the disgrace of House Iselsi was an intentional inside job." [22:30] "In service of some 'better future.'" [22:31] "A future contingent on a tired old man nobody knows, whose face I can barely remember." [22:34] 10Daizo: "Difficult to imagine who Her Majesty would have shown deference to, but I think we might be able to make an educated guess—likely one of Heaven's Chosen, sticking their fingers in another pie." [22:34] "What do you think?" [22:34] 07Dryas nods. “Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. Betraying Iselsi created a cadre whose loyalty was beyond question - if, perhaps, misguided." [22:35] 14Simply: "I think if I meet Iselsi Shenesh I will kill him." [22:36] "Ras has long since disappeared from history, public and private. Wouldn't be shocked if he's still lurking. He came back from the dead once. That was the introduction to this little meeting -- Ras had just been raised from the dead, somehow, but the concern was he'd come back wrong. In this vision he'd come back as Iselsi Piu, so, fair play." [22:37] "I agree that a servant of Heaven makes the most sense. For the Empress to defer to him, though...upper management." [22:38] 14She could clarify that Ras is technically still the head of Household under the guise of The Immortal, the secretive always-watching boogeyman of every Iselsi youth aged 8-15, but why bother complicating things. [22:39] 07Dryas: "And how many of the rest, present at that ancient meeting, might not survive a meeting with you, today?" [22:40] 14Piu: "Oh, just Shenesh. If the old man is Heaven, he's extremely powerful, and I'm unsure I can take the patriarch of the House in a fight yet. But then he's just been getting older." [22:41] "Er, everyone but Shenesh." [22:46] 10Daizo: "Mhm. Well, let's hope it doesn't come to an all-out bare-knuckle brawl to decide the future of the Realm." [22:46] "Although it'd be satisfying." [22:47] 14Piu: "That's probably already begun, and will have nothing to do with House Iselsi's internal drama." [22:48] 6Zhangyu: "It's more of a constant state of things, from what I can tell. Not that I've got much of a head for politics." [22:48] 07Dryas is satisfied with this answer, for now. "We will bring peace." [22:48] "We were apparently cultivated as a disvowed cadre of disposable auxiliaries to be used as...what? The Empress or Heaven's secret knife against her enemies? And then she just left." [22:50] 07Dryas: "Perhaps it has all given way to you, and us. But you refused to kill Ratel, did you not? Were those V'neef's orders or Iselsi's?" [22:51] 14Piu, uncomfortable for the first time in this conversation: "Iselsi's. That was the first time I said no to To." [22:51] "She made it clear she would not brook a second." [22:52] 14Looking away: "I've become less concerned about that. But not too much less concerned." [22:53] 6Zhangyu: "Would she have a reason to want to get rid of you? Demanding you report Dryas is..." [22:55] 10Daizo: "You'd be reporting to who, Samperson? He's your partner or your handler or whatever it's called?" [22:57] 14Piu: "Yes to both. I would be reporting to Samperson -- his name is his to reveal if he chooses, or I suppose if you zap him with the name beam -- for a third party kill team to take her out. I've been exploiting a loophold in the whole system to quite an efficient advantage, which is that you all, of course, could sense if I turned against you: therefore I can't be the assassin [22:57] they send for you, and any assassin they send for you will have to also deal with me." [22:57] "That is not true of anyone outside this room." [22:58] 14She glances up. "They won't send me after you, daimon; their schemes of conquest would get too bright-eyed at a ship with your killer instinct. Plus I think they'd realize it's just stupid." [22:59] 10Daizo: "So it's come to that… one assumes that killing this other assassin will also result in your failing the loyalty test?" 15[23:00] "I would [4hate] to be stolen from my rightful commander and bent to unclear, but horribly destructive purpose." [23:00] 14Piu laughs. "Assassin singular, he says." [23:00] "You're precious, brother." [23:01] "That's right, you did say kill team, after all." [23:02] 07Dryas: "We can't reach another arrangement, like that other Iselsi lad we met?" [23:02] "This is one of those fronts where I get to persevere on bare legalism and, hopefully, clear soft power. The branch of the House that runs things out here is not a branch that Iselsi To directly controls. I wouldn't say the local leader is a rival, but...that's mainly because I do want to keep some secrets." [23:02] 14To Dryas: "Samperson and I immediately visited Shen personally to inform him of the other arrangement." [23:03] "Unsurprisingly it's kind of the same as this one: keep your head down and hope the local guy has more pull than the people back at headquarters." [23:09] 07Dryas: "So, we just have to wait for them to strike us? And hope they strike us, and not our families, or anyone we care about back in the world?" [23:11] 14Piu: "The problem is you, specifically, knowing the true nature of House Iselsi. That doesn't get solved by killing some Cynis students at school. We don't kill for the terror that wanton cruelty engenders and generally we don't kill to 'send a message.' Budokan might be an exception, given he's a butcher and a braggart." [23:12] "And maybe I can screen out that problem anyway." [23:12] "You will recall the speech you gave in the Saucer's dining hall." [23:12] 07Dryas nods. [23:12] "This is, frankly, an anti-Realm hearth in most significant ways." [23:13] "To may be too hidebound to recognize that...but she's not in operational command out here." [23:17] 07Dryas recoils as if struck. "Anti-Realm?! Absolutely not." [23:19] 10Daizo: "It really kind of is." [23:19] 6Zhangyu: "I've got to agree with my cousin." [23:20] "Frankly, in Her Majesty's heyday we'd all have been beheaded for pulling off that stuff we did at Mionzi alone." [23:20] 14Piu: "You declared civil war and then took a side against the powers squatting on the 'Blessed' Isle. Obviously I approve." [23:22] 14Piu: "We don't demand true believers, anyway. We certainly don't demand you like us. We just need you to be instrumentally useful. And you already have been, with -- to be honest -- an exceedingly limited amount of intentional misleading on my part." [23:22] "More the most part it's all been a lot of not-technically-lying and replacing the word 'Iselsi' with 'V'neef.'" [23:22] *For [23:23] 07Dryas, protesting: "But ours is the true faith, we honor not just the house that Xia Lan built, not just her intentions, but her very person!" 15[23:24] What a dumb name. [23:26] 14Piu: "Well then there's some very complicated thinking to be done about how much things factually changed when the Empress absconded, how they changed as such to ally you with us, and how the Empress apparently was grooming us as her secret kill team anyway." [23:26] "For instance: with the Empress in command, was order in the Realm actually greatly enforced by House Iselsi running about killing who they were told to kill in the name of dethroning her?" [23:28] 07Dryas: "We need to be able to articulate a more independent political vision, for ourselves, even if it's only to be able to explain what the hell we were thinking if we really rescue the real Empress." 07To say nothing of the other many myriad possibilities if that is not exactly how the coming events unfold. [23:29] 07Dryas: "Without selling ourselves out to Skullstone, or the other Anathema, or Heaven. Shit." [23:30] "I agree wholeheartedly. Four kills: Mnemon Dusk. Mnemon Hedrin. Cathak Budokan. Cynis Lena. Which one of these kills actually and drastically enabled in consequence major political seachanges out here?" [23:32] "That's the real horror of the witch's vision to someone who is twenty-eight years old and has spent twenty of them in a fevered indoctrination. They sat there and devised a negotiated slaughter with the Empress!" [23:32] "And she was the fucking reasonable one!" [23:36] 10Daizo: "One death is a tragedy, but ten thousand are a statistic. Maybe that's the kind of perspective you have to have when you're playing the game at that level… it almost makes you wonder if the grubby petty-kings in the Hundred Kingdoms are the ones getting it right, and we±the Realm, I mean—are getting it wrong." [23:38] 14Piu, hesitantly: "...Well, that is our endgame here, right." [23:38] "Grubby petty-kings out in the far reaches." [23:38] "I'm not unsatisfied with that." [23:39] 10Daizo: "It beats the Nail. Maybe." [23:41] 07Dryas: "We could let the Realm slide into anarchy and war, perhaps a second Shogunate, perhaps a new time of horrors will arise. But I think we have a higher responsibility. And the means to act on it." 07she looks around the jade-clad meaningfully. [23:42] 07Dryas: "Xia Lan, who listened to the Earth, had a dream that was the Realm."07 she stabs a finger at the map, then sweeps her hand out from Skullstone to Bittern. "This is not it. This is not it!" [23:43] 14Piu is perfectly willing to work with 'the Realm has never actually existed in practice.' [23:45] 10Daizo: "The aggravating, intensely aggravating, part about all this is that maybe if we had the Garnet of five years later, freshly come to her power and not yet bowed by it, we'd be able to figure out where it all went wrong." [23:45] 14Piu: "Maybe her taking power is where it all went wrong." [23:46] 14She shrugs. "I can voice stuff like that now that you know my deal. Probably the most annoying part about this for you all now, after the assassins." [23:46] 10Daizo: "I don't think power corrupts instantly." [23:47] 14Piu: "I don't think bargaining with the Sun over the length of a day is a serious answer to this question." [23:48] "If agents of Heaven sat in on the meeting where she sentenced half a House to death, which other decisions were they showrunning?" [23:48] "I'll tell you the scary answer: it's all of them. Up to and including the founding of the Realm itself." [23:49] 07Dryas: "I would, given the choice, rather serve Heaven than Hell." [23:49] 14Piu: "Thankfully, serving Hell is an actual profession with clearly delineated standards, qualifications, and entry requirements, so we don't have to be unclear on that sort of thing." [23:50] 10Daizo: "And also, quite a lot of Hell is in fact bound to serve us." [23:51] 6Zhangyu: "Meanwhile, Heaven doesn't particularly care whether you know you're serving it or not, you probably are." [23:53] 14Piu: "Also we were just given a ship of the line-grade vessel by Sidereals clearly looking to offload it onto us while making it seems like we overcame great odds to get it, so. Perhaps we already do." [23:54] 10Daizo: "That sure isn't nectar flowing through those conduits, though. Hah." [23:55] "Well. Heaven, Hell, us in between, that fatuous jerk Takoye on one side and a pack of assassins in the other…" [23:56] "We'll get through it." [23:56] 14Piu: "I might be able to deal with the question of assassins. Or at least delay them. I mean non-euphemistically. Obviously we can just kill them." [23:56] "But I'd prefer they not even be sent." [23:56] 07Dryas: "The conduits... Takoye. We need him alive, his obnoxious girlfriend, too. But like I said, they seem just smart enough to serve." [23:57] 14Piu: "Then we make them serve us. And if Suris is too stupid or compromised to do so, well." [23:57] "I hear people die out here all the time." [23:58] "Practically the first thing they told us when we got off the ship." [00:00] 07Dryas: "We should also meet with Sho. He seems an honest one. Or a canny one. And the legionaries here are your kin, Ejava's lads. The red piss crew." [00:02] 14And who doesn't love pissing red? [00:02] 10Daizo: "Oh, the Roseblack's men are posted out here? Now that's very interesting." [00:02] 14Piu: "Sounds like excellent muscle-flexing for after we bully-slash-tempt Takoye into joining our expedition into the ruins." [00:03] "Oh in all the excitement about my true identity I don't think we mentioned that Takoye and Suris are planning to kill us by sending us in with an expendable guide, hoping we open the vault and are consumed by its contents." [00:03] "So instead we'll bring Takoye." [00:05] 10Daizo: "I figured we'd be robbing the vaults here blind in any event. Getting to see the smirk permanently removed from Takoye's face would just be the cherry on top." [00:06] 14Piu: "I don't know about permanently. We're not miracle workers." [00:06] 14Piu: "If whatever's in there is a power source or a great weapon, it should be bent to serve us at Old Mionzi." [00:06] 10Daizo: "Would you settle for having his face removed?" [00:06] "If it's not, well, the scrolls always love interesting side stories." [00:08] 14She grins at the face removal comment...but honestly that idiot is enough of a subject matter expert to be worth co-opting. Not so for Nellens Suris. 15[00:10] Suris might be... but you have ruthless demonologist at home. 15[00:13] From there, the meeting is done. As the hearth descends from the bridge, the sound of sailors and so forth coming to attention rattles up the stairwell; people were clearly waiting to get in, albeit at a respectful distance. Samperson seems to be keeping them in line. [00:14] 14Piu gives Caedus their recognized sign for her being clear. Christ, she can hit him with the music ray from here, can't she? 15[00:20] Whether or not she does, Caedus breaks away with Piu once she's broken away from her kinship. They have Piu's cabin to themselves; Rinca is remarkably good at making himself scarce. 15[00:21] "Meeting go okay?" [00:22] 14Piu looks at him incredulously. "As well as can be expected?" [00:22] 14He remembers the purpose of the meeting, right? She told him the purpose of the meeting. [00:23] 14She expected shouting. She doesn't really know why, but this would be a lot easier with shouting. 15[00:23] Caedus: "Okay." 15[00:23] "Now what?" 15[00:24] Piu's not sure she's ever heard Caedus raise his voice. Though if he was ever gonna, this would be the time, right? [00:24] 14Piu: "Now I tell you that To told me to tell you 'Tell Caedus,' and then I spend as long as it takes arguing how that's a shitty solution to a problem that doesn't exist from someone who isn't out here and doesn't know the situation, because she wouldn't let me tell her the situation." 15[00:25] Caedus: "Who got burnt." [00:25] 14Piu: "To, me, and you. In that order." 15[00:26] Caedus: "Right. That's on me. What I meant to ask is, who did To want me to deal with?" [00:27] 14Piu: "To told me to tell you about Dryas specifically." 15[00:28] "How did she break it open?" [00:33] 14Piu: "She has an amulet that reveals your true name, and it apparently worked on To as she was presented in Takoye's Mnemon jar." [00:33] "To underscore things, not only was she 'Iselsi To,' but it included 'the Maudlin Tutor.'" 15[00:34] "What a stupid fucking name." 15[00:34] "I have to say, though... glad it's not one of the Tepets." 15[00:34] "I like the Tepets." 15[00:36] "So your plan is going to be what, here? Get me to kick it upstairs to Lao, beg Lao to spike it into the dirt?" [00:36] 14Piu: "I can do the begging." [00:36] "Otherwise my plan is simply to kill everyone he sends." 15[00:36] Caedus: "We should've been home by now." [00:37] "We're developing an actual, real anti-Realm cadre here and I won't have that endangered by an administrator who won't even listen to the report she's been given." [00:37] 14Piu: "I don't want to go home." [00:37] "In some ways, I am home." 15[00:38] Caedus is silent for a moment. [00:38] "But I certainly have no use to returning to that stupid fucking island." [00:38] *for 15[00:40] He looks away from Piu, staring at a point on the wall behind her and well to her right for what feels like a long time. "Stipulating that I am a loyal scion of my House, and would never dream of questioning a direct order, let alone defying one..." 15[00:41] "We aren't equipped to handle this out here. There's too many Blooded, and they're all too loyal to each other, and the walls have ears." 15[00:42] "So we need to wait. For a more opportune moment. One that blends into our larger objective. Our more important objective." 15[00:42] Caedus: "But these are just delaying tactics. Lao doesn't outrank To. The best case scenario is he dithers long enough that To has to kick it upstairs herself." [00:42] 14Piu's entire body visibly exhales without her actually releasing a breath." [00:42] 14Piu: "About that." [00:42] "I've intentionally kept something from you because frankly, I didn't know what it meant, and the provenance wasn't reliable." [00:42] "But since then, I've come to believe it more." [00:43] "Do you remember the witch?" 15[00:43] "Caxi?" [00:45] 14Piu laughs. "No. When hunting after the Hamoji debacle but before naming ourselves the Four Fangs, we went on a somewhat-wild bandit chase out around the caldera's curve, to an old witch in the foothills with the gift of prophecy and I assume some very intelligent non-aggression pacts with the agents of Heaven." 15[00:45] Caedus: "Right." 15[00:45] "You got a prophecy?" [00:46] "So far the insights the six of us -- the Fangs, Sadako, and Seiri -- have proved prescient enough that Seiri, who got a blank vision, is worried her life is about to end because she asked the witch 'where will I be in three months?'" [00:46] "No." [00:46] "I asked a question looking backwards." [00:46] "I asked, 'Who truly betrayed House Iselsi?'" [00:47] "And I got a meeting in a garden of endless repeating hedgerows and cloud patterns with four members." [00:47] "An old man I cannot and likely will not ever identify." [00:47] "The Scarlet Empress." [00:48] "Iselsi Shenesh." [00:48] "Iselsi Ras, the Immortal." 15[00:48] Caedus inhales. 15[00:50] "What was the substance of the meeting? What's the betrayal?" [00:50] "The vision argues that House Iselsi is a fucking operation. We're a disavowed traitor legion. A convenient knife. A staged hit, except the consequences were real for us." [00:50] "They took us off the books to keep us like hungry dogs, not asking questions, just following orders." 15[00:51] Caedus: "For fucking what? They don't have enough assassins and spies?" [00:51] "Does Heaven ever?" [00:51] "That's all they fucking are!" [00:52] "Maybe they didn't want to commit the resources so they just farmed out the work!" [00:52] "I know why they call him the Immortal now, though. Not because he never dies; instead, they were congratulating him on having just returned from the dead." 15[00:52] "So they're necromancers too?" [00:53] "He was the one who proposed the public executions, the humiliation and the reaving." 15[00:53] "Why?" [00:53] "That's maybe the most galling thing of all: it was the Scarlet Empress who was the most uncomfortable with this plan out of everyone at the table." [00:54] 14Piu: "Well I've never met the man except in hallucinogenic tea flashback, but if I had to guess, he came back wrong." [00:55] "The bit with the Empress being the only person who thought this was wrong was so out-of-bounds I put the entire thing aside for some time. Until we met Garnet." [00:55] "Correctly or not, it became more believable then." [00:56] 14Piu: "Hopefully I'm not endangering you too. Another reason I never shared this with you before now is, well, it's high treason." [00:56] "But I guess I'm already putting myself on the hook for that." [00:58] "Have you ever wondered about the targets we've been given out here? While I'm getting things off my chest." [00:59] "Why the fuck is Cathak Budokan still alive? Why are we killing him in his senility?" [00:59] "Why is taking a local hit from Tephen in Brightwork the most concrete, effective, actual political impact we've made out here?" 15[01:00] Caedus: "Why is Shenesh? Why is the Immortal? Why is the Empress? The heads of houses live centuries longer than the rest of us. Even old Ragara, the Empress's firstborn son, is still alive, stewing in Pneuma. There are ways." 15[01:01] "Look, of course I've wondered. But we don't know anything. The best we can do is tell a story that matches what we wish was true." [01:02] 14Piu: "You're right that we might not know anything. But it's clearly not the best we can do. Because Cynis Lena is dead and her mother is angry enough to rupture House relations about it to kick and scream in tantrum." [01:03] "Why the fuck wasn't she on our actual list?" [01:03] "She was fucking formalizing Realm economic relations with Skullstone!" [01:04] "If she was allowed to proceed unimpeded, the results in this theater would be a fucking catastrophe for our goals!" 15[01:06] Caedus: "Looking ahead to the civil war, maybe Cynis entangled with Skullstone is where we want them. If there even is a 'want'. If there even is a fucking 'we'." 15[01:08] "Heaven sends an assassin to kill one of Heaven's agents. The Realm buries one of its own houses in grave dirt to let it kill from the dark like a hungry ghost." 15[01:09] "Honestly? I don't think there is a plan. I think people are just solving the problem in front of them and hoping the roof doesn't come down in the meantime." 15[01:09] "Sound familiar?" [01:10] 14Piu: "The real kicker is: maybe the Realm is falling apart because the Empress is no longer here to play us properly like a court musician, killing its most salient enemies while deluding ourselves into thinking we're sticking one to her." [01:11] 14Piu: "It does. But I no longer think To gives a shit about solving problems in any sense other than the nakedly 'euphemistic' one." 15[01:11] Caedus: "What's your read on her? What does she care about?" 15[01:11] "Obviously it's not us." [01:12] 14Sadly: "I don't know." [01:12] "It's not me." [01:12] "Well. It is me. But not in any good way." [01:13] "The bards say woodsmen love their axes. But say that to them and they'll look at you like you're crazy." [01:13] "Turns out those assholes were just romanticizing work." 15[01:13] "If my job was 'bard' I would too." [01:14] 14Piu: "Honestly it's offensive. Their whole remit should be 'only good for fucking' but they're almost to a man bad at that too. Village girls need to organize themselves and do better." 15[01:15] Caedus: "Absolutely. They need to organize, and fuck better men two or three at a time." [01:15] "God, men are such sluts. No offense." [01:15] *Dragons 15[01:15] "I don't like doing it, but it works. And actually I do like doing it." [01:16] "Hell, same." 14A needed moment of some levity whatsoever. 15[01:16] Caedus: "So, alright. We don't have to make any decisions right now. So, for the sake of argument, we haven't. We've taken the order on board, and we're scoping out its execution." 15[01:16] "Do they know about me? I mean obviously they know, now, but have you told them?" [01:17] "I've made it clear to the hearth what the consequences will be if they're foolish enough to tell anyone outside those protected by my oath." [01:17] 14Piu: "The only reference I've made to you is that it's obvious who my, ah, handler is. It wasn't by name." 15[01:17] "I'm not worried about them blowing my cover. But I am not looking forward to their shitty little looks and jokes." [01:18] "Oh, the ship knows, of course, but I'd love to see some jumped-up House fuckwit even figure out where to start there." 15[01:18] Caedus: "You're listening right now, aren't you?" 15[01:18] The daimon echoes: "Listening is a strong word. Implies I'm paying attention. It's more like everyone on board is constantly talking right into my ear." [01:19] 14Piu: "My apologies for how loud this conversation is going to get in a few minutes. Hopefully you have a mute." 15[01:20] That prompts Caedus to get closer, and take her face in his hands. "Listen. However this goes, however it ends, I've got your back until it does. That's my mission brief. Those orders require no interpretation." [01:22] 14She smiles. "Thank you. It's reciprocated...regardless of orders, if necessary. I don't have to tell you I mean that. You've read me like a book since the first days." [01:24] 14The smile fades only slightly. "But remember what we're taught." [01:24] "Nothing ever ends." [01:25] 14The ship's daimon will likely feel the same way, 33 minutes from now. 15[01:25] He traces a thumb gently over her lips, whispering "Nothing." before taking her in for that first kiss.