Exalted: The Bronze Tide Part 1 - United We Stand

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Click here for Part 2 and Part 3 of this arc.
== Prologue ==
After a couple of days to rest and recuperate after the events they had just witnessed, the Solar Circle decided to return to Marrull Vaar. During their travels, Reeds found himself experiencing some new, numinous awareness of the swamps around him, and on the edges of his perception began seeing a swamp that was older, deeper and more ominous than it had been before. When he came back from one of his excursions Hephestia noticed that he was disturbed and tried to reassure him, relating the time when Ninegala inducted her in to sorcery and showed her the secrets of transforming base metals in to icons of craftsmanship.
Having returned to Marrull Vaar, the circle took some time to see to their own affairs. Daxi took the crew of his new ship, the Eye of the Panda, for a shakedown cruise to the shipyards of Heciana, hoping to find out more about the situation in the Cinder Isles. The shipyards were nearly deserted, most ships having fled with as many people on board as possible. Those people that remained seemed determined to wait and see if the Bronze Tide turned their attention southward, and told Daxi that the stretch of ocean between Baruntulga and Iliona was now effectively cut off by the Bronze Tide, coming around the North of Iliona to attack Chimuul from the coast, meaning that any remaining refugees had no avenue of escape from the Cinder Isles. This Southern wing of the Bronze Tide had spread down from the Grey Eye Peninsula to the Little Peninsula and were using this as a staging point for their fleet - around 40 ships holding up to 200 fighters apiece - to attack Iliona. Meanwhile the Northern wing of the Tide were rumored to have taken over Kanilah, but were now being attacked by the oncoming Wyld as they prepared to move on to Baruntulga.
Meanwhile in Marrull Vaar, Reeds came to Tokumei and said that he needed to recoup the considerable amount of money he had spent on the irrigation network and the dam. So the circle attended a soiree attended by the council that evening to solicit further funding of Marrull Vaar's infrastructure. At the party the Solars finally got to know some of the wealthy and influential clans and their leaders who now helped steer the functions and development of the now-unified city. This however meant that, with no formal taxation system, matters such as the recent cholera outbreak were dealt with on an ad-hoc basis which meant that the city's infrastructure remained underdeveloped.
Reeds took the time to catch up with people he knew such as Stone Wolf Zhang, and Hephastia spoke to Hong Li and he reassured her that other crafters were coming around to her, given her work on the Aqueducts and the dam. Tokumei, however, found herself attempting to convince her sole appointee to the city council, Rustling Cricket, who agreed that a system of taxation would be beneficial to Marrull Vaar... even if, were he ever to have more than 10 coins to his name at any one time would struggle to count them. It was then that Mohan Rao, the local representative of the Guild, introduced himself and concurred with Tokumei that the city's infrastructure was in dire need of a proper taxation system to fund it. Tokumei, managing to keep her revulsion for what the guild had done to her to herself, pressed him on who to speak to about enacting this, and he advised that in the short term, the merchant Golden Finger Hotei was the person to speak to.
Rather than doing so herself, she advised Reeds to seek him out and use his willingness to finance projects that he could use the bolster his public image, while she continued to discuss the idea of a taxation system based upon district and relative wealth with the other councillors, who seemed broadly receptive. Reeds gave a rousing speech about how people who financed projects such as the aqueduct in the first age were remembered even to this day and Golden Finger and other merchants gladly chipped in to fund what will go on to be named the Golden Finger Hotei Aqueduct. With the Dam having been completed the previous week, the final rush of finance and resources helped complete the aqueduct, a wonder that will go on to be the envy of the surrounding area.
== Getting to Know the Neighbours ==
After he returned to Marrull Vaar from Heciana, Daxi went to visit the Dragonblood compound, where he was greeted at the door by Chi-Chi the mortal servant of the house. He was invited through to the garden where Spear of Star Metal, Oakheart and Granite Phoenix were practicing. Speaking with them he arranged a sparring match with Granite Phoenix. In a bout of three rounds, they were quite evenly matched, and Granite Phoenix and Daxi parted on good terms.
Reeds travelled out to the swamp with Snails, travelling to see his parents but taking it at a slow pace, attempting to experience the same hallucinations that he did previously. He found that above the tree tops he felt little effect, but when the trees rose above even Snail's height the phantasmal people in the distance returned. Eventually he tried letting down his guard to see what would happen and he looked up to see a sky full of unfamiliar constellations, with strange flying creatures far above blotting out the stars, and a woodland swamp quite different from the one he was in previously. Worse yet, Snails had disappeared. Looking around in alarm, he tumbled down and awoke from the mysterious forest to find Snails where he had been left. Disconcerted by the experience they pressed on.
Meanwhile, Hephestia spent time with Wong the Potter and Sung the Blacksmith, helping to nurture them as apprentices. Each had almost the exact opposite problem to the other. Wong was creative and innovative, turning out delightfully patterned pottery. However his muse struck him frequently and he would never finish any two plates or bowls in the same way. The market for such eclectic pottery was small and so he had found little success. Meanwhile Sung was precise and detail oriented, but seemed afraid to break from what she knew. She would turn out 50 perfectly serviceable nails or horse shoes, but wouldn't branch out unless given very precise instructions on what she should do. Her work lacked artistic flourish and individuality. Hephestia encouraged them, at first individually and then as a team, to teach each other to overcome the others weaknesses and to help pass on their own strength. The dam was already complete and the Aqueduct would be finished in only a few days so she set about crafting a giant pair of scissors for Golden Finger Hotei to cut the ribbon with.
Tokumei also decided to visit the Dragonbloods, though with more formality than Daxi. Bringing with her appropriate housewarming gifts and foods, she got to know River-Owl's Flute (whom Tokumei bonded with over discussions of the unique flora near the dam) and Steel-like-Silk (who was impressed that the Solars had managed to accomplish quite so much to combat the Cholera epidemic via the Aqueduct). She seemed to make a good impression with them until Last Prince of the Tomb arrived, he took one look at her and seemed immediately upset. She had worn her best clothes, which were of course a Realm style. However Last Prince of the Tomb was born among the Nahar, a people who had lived on the other side of the mountains that separate the South Western wetlands from the Dry deserts of the true South until the Realm wiped them out leaving Prince alone. However she confessed that she had escaped cruelty from the Realm and this seemed to soothe his disposition. They spoke a little more and played a little gateway before retiring with a good impression seemingly having been made.
Reeds eventually escaped the dreaming swamp and pressed on towards the camp of his people. There he met with his Father and regaled him and the rest of the tribe with tales of their adventures so far and consulted with them, comparing notes from all their travels across the coast and from recent history. Using their collective wisdom he was able to identify that Marull Vaar would be safe from attack by land. Across the boot peninsula the river deltas were shallower than normal leaving the place a muddy flat, completely unsuitable for landing operations and any sailors trying to traverse the mud would be at best slowed and at worst, sucked under the treacherous ground. Reeds parted with his father, who declared his intention to lead the Nomads inland, and encouraged him to head to Anaathalay where they would be safe.
== Splitting up ==
Eventually the Solar Circle convened back in the city for the opening of the Aqueduct. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony Sound Foundation congratulated his boss Hephastia on her accomplishment, and she delivered a speech at the ceremony before Golden Finger performed the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Discussing what path to take to combat the tide, the Solars realised there were two key things missing: Allies and intelligence.
Tokumei and Hephastia would stay in the city to rally the Dragonbloods to their cause, whilst Daxi and Reeds would take Snails up the coast to do a brief reconnoitre of the hostile forces and report back. Crystal meanwhile would go to the shipyards of Heciana and try to inspire the local population there.
Daxi and Reeds headed up the coast on Snails, beyond the Boot and the other river deltas and peninsulas. Snails moved quickly on the first day and then took a more cautious approach the second. They saw the island of Iliona, where he saw smoke coming from three settlements on Iliona (Ohemaku, Kietanno and Pharosia) and signs of conflict in Qalana and Chimuul. They saw signs of ships, presumably belonging to the Bronze tide came across from the Little Peninsula to Kietanno and moved inland from that.
=== Reeds and Daxi ===
Approaching closer they could see signs of two forces of Raksha. One, a colossal wriggling shape in the distance, had wrought a trail of destruction from the coast between Hontari and Guimen going deeper inland. The other, some large metallic object surrounded by smaller metallic figures, was on the Little Peninsula. They decided that they needed to know more and approached closer. Eventually, they got a good look at the closer of the two armies - a vast construct of spinning blades that looked like a drill balanced on its point. Surrounding it were pylon-like towers on legs, and surrounding these were units of metalic humanoid troops, all moving in a dervish formation centred around the primary construct.
Snails was anxious, but they could also make out human figures fleeing ahead of the chaos, a caravan being escorted by a group of well disciplined and drilled soldiers (There was another group of soldiers but they broke formation and fled). The oxen of one of the wagons had become stuck.
Reeds and Daxi found rope and lowered it down to tow the wagon out of its predicament. The soldiers were initially concerned about Snails, but gladly accepted the help in the face of the Wyld host. Having already discarded all but the essentials, the crew of the wagon, including the Prince - Prasad bin Senona, leader of the Janissaries who was meant to be riding aboard it, tied the ropes to the cart and Snails pulled it clear, allowing it and the last cart behind it to clear the ridge. However Reeds had an idea. Not content to allow the enemy to drive them off, he asked if there was firedust. They had dropped some as unnecessary supplies and Daxi found it by scent. Reeds found the remains of some old rice terraces and reasoned that if he could start an explosion at the top, the ruined terraces would collapse in sequence forming a landslide to strike at the wyld automatons. He lit the fuse and fled before the explosion ripped through the hill.
=== Tokumei and Hephastia ===
Meanwhile back at Marull Vaar things were considerably more celebratory. All of upper class society were celebrating the completion of the aqueduct, but Tokumei arranged a private party where they could seek a private audience with most of the Dragon Bloods, with the exception of Grey Ocean who was out at sea.
They spoke about small socially polite matters for a while before getting on to more serious topics. Broaching the subject of the impending attacks from the Bronze tide with Iron Face and Laughing Blade, they talked about how it would be a poor thing if the city were to come under attack directly given its lack of defences.
Cheunjing. The people you met at the party - Khungwa and Iron Soul Wu
Tokumei proposed that the best approach would be to sally out to prevent the threat from approaching so closely and she made the argument that as Dragonbloods such as themselves were natural leaders, they would be ideally suited to turning to Bronze Tide against the Wyld. If they had a hope of winning then they would no doubt turn and fight. Iron Face observed however that the Tide already appeared to have strong leadership, and Laughing Blade posited that whichever direction the Tide did take, even if they passed Marrull Vaar by the Wyld seemingly chasing them would cut off the mainland from the coast eventually. Discussing the defences, Laughing Blade mentioned that they had been training the city's guards, but that they were no substitute for an actual army, but between the two of them and Hephestia they worked out a rough proposal for shoring up the city's physical defences that they could take to Bellar.
The matter of keeping in communication would prove to be an issue, with the Dragonbloods unsure if their absent colleague Grey Ocean knew the infalliable messenger spell that Tokumei used, advising that they speak to him upon his return. Laughing Blade also suggested that they speak with Spear of Starmetal who was raised by a culture on the Grey Eye Peninsula and Last Prince of the Tomb who had the best business connections and could help with any public works planned.
Tokumei talked to Spear of Starmetal raising the topic of the Bronze tide. They said that the Grey Eye Peninsula was named for a zone of the Wyld of the same name at its centre, an area uninhabited by all but the Issyk tribe. The Issyk, who lived in the centre of the peninsula, wore masks - much like the people of Miraculous Union Village - to prevent the Raksha from "stealing their faces" and remained a dour and suspicious people.
Starmetal also revealed, somewhat more somberly, that they were from the Pelith horse-lord tribes in the North of the Peninsula, but an accident during their test of adulthood left them stranded far to the south, where they were captured and enslaved by the Yensei, who intended to train them to become a Janissary warrior-slave. Spear escaped enslavement when they exalted, but they never completed their test of adulthood and are still considered a child despite being over 100 years old. The story bought Spear to tears and Tokumei lent her a hankie and her sympathy when she mentioned her own upbringing was very similar. Spear cheered up and tried to distract themselves with dance, a wild frantic dance, which Tokumei surprisingly was able to keep up with and they drank wine together in to the night before retiring together.
Hephestia meanwhile followed up on speaking to the Last Prince. He was deep in conversation with Khungwa, head of the Longshoremans guild, and Iron-Soul Wu of the ironmongers. They seemed generally supportive of her numerous construction ideas. She raised the topic of the logistics with them and Last Prince suggested that Two-Berth Zhang head of Rickshaw drivers would also be good to consult about moving goods. With each of them ready to pool their resources and contacts, the four of them raised a toast to their future plans.
== New Friends ==
=== Reeds and Daxi ===
As the dust settled from the landslide, Reeds and Daxi looked down at the wreckage. Already the clockwork soldiers were trying to dig themselves out of the rubble, and the spinning machine behind them whirred angrily.
Returning to the caravan, the two Solars passed a wagon containing a large statue of the Yensei goddess Sheba, her high priestess Devita, and some refugees to another containing supplies from which chanting could be heard. Inside were Devita's assistant Rosina and Epule Mwabe, an Issyk medicine man. Both were nursing the catatonic body of Epule's older brother Luko'o. Recognizing Luko'o from having encountered him years ago while the medicine man was on a quest outside his native lands, Reeds inquired as to what was wrong with him. Fearful at first, Epule revealed that they and the other medicine men of the Issyk were putting their remote telepathic and scrying sorceries to use in the Bronze Tide to carry messages, but while the brothers were scrying on the armies of the Raksha - of whom Epule obliquely mentioned "the insects", "the plants" and "the flesh" alongside the clockwork army they had just faced - Luko'o had gazed upon their leader, the Spear-Empress Bhadri, and was struck senseless with terror. Desperate to help, Reeds convinced Daxi to let him use his powers to guide Luko'o's mind out of its fugue.
As Daxi stepped aside, he felt an infallible messenger arriving to him from Tokumei: "Message needs to be short. Aqueduct is up and running. Dam is stable. Dragonbloods are provisionally onboard with helping. Some are training the city guard and looking at getting resources to help fight the Tide when it arrives, but we need information. See if you can find any of the Issyk tribe. They were guardians of a Wyld area called the Grey Eye for which the Peninsula was named. They wear masks much like the people of the Miraculous Union. We need to know what caused the wyld area to explode outwards so that we can counter it. If not then find out the nature of the Rakshasha."
Meanwhile Reeds, flaring into full Anima to the terror of Rosina, Epule & Prasad (the latter almost drawing his sword before Daxi stopped him) journeyed into Luko'o's mind, and in doing so beheld what the medicine man had seen:
To the North at Kanilah he saw an army of creatures under a cloud of flying creatures. To the South, heading inland, he saw the colossal flesh-worm pushing its way inland, led by some walking contraption not fully of flesh OR metal, shaped like a furnace. Then he saw Bhadri, the Huntress. Blacker than any natural darkness, wearing naught but a belt of human pelts and a necklace of skulls, the Spear Empress took the form of a towering, rail-thin woman standing amidst trees that barely came to her waist, her only features being baleful white teeth and a single burning eye. An eye that, right as Reeds was severing the link and withdrawing, stared directly at him, seemingly aware of his presence.
Back at the caravan, Reeds & Luko'o regained consciousness, and the grateful Issyk men told the Solars what little they knew of the start of the crisis; of how Bhadri had forced her way through the Grey Eye, the cursed anomaly at the centre of the Issyk lands in the heart of the peninsula, with the other armies at her tail; and of how they had driven all resistance before them.
Though he was eternally grateful to the Solars for their help, Prasad declined Reeds' pleas to take their caravan to Marrull Vaar instead of rejoining the Tide, insisting that he and the refugees needed to remain with their people come what may. Reeds, though saddened, saw the wisdom in this, "since, after all, keeping the ones closest to you safe is the most important thing". Catching sight of a small child peering in through the wagon entrance at them, Prasad smiled and agreed.
=== Tokumei and Hephastia ===
Back at Marrull Vaar, Tokumei and Hephastia met with Khungwa and Iron-Soul Wu, shortly joined by Bhailu De and Last Prince of the Tomb being ferried by the towering yet soft-spoken Two-Berth Zhang. Between them, they formulated a plan to erect a series of watchtowers along the Foot and Salt-Farmer's Point that, with the aid of a series of mirrors Hephastia would build for them, be able to signal to the city in the event of attack.
Meanwhile, having committed her Elementals to the task of clearing a road for the supplies to be sent to the towers, Tokumei sought out the recently returned Grey Ocean, who was drinking with his crew at the same bar she and her Circlemates had stopped at on their first arrival in Marrull Vaar. A distant, sad-seeming man aged prematurely by life at sea, Grey Ocean seemed amenable to the idea of learning Infallible Messenger from Tokumei and agreed to come to the Solar's mansion the next day. When asked about where he had learned his own sorceries from, however, Grey Ocean remained tight-lipped, saying only that "I've a few tricks up my sleeve, put it that way."
While running messengers back and forth during the excavation of the road by the Elementals, one runner claimed he saw a man in the jungle interior watching them, but Iron-Face dismissed it as superstition: "He was jumping at shadows... thought he saw Bal Shao of all things."
== Reuniting before departing ==
The next day Reeds and Daxi returned to the Mansion. Though no poor student, having arrived early and sat outside the mansion before his lesson, Grey Ocean struggled with the ritual, and leaving him to study her notes Tokumei and the others compared what they had learned. Although Tokumei was surprisingly emboldened by the Circle's recent exploits in the Mirrored Hall and called upon her Circle to venture straight to the centre of the Wyld, the others were loathe to ride straight into the maw of the enemy. The Circle and Grey Ocean met up with Iron Face and some of the other Dragonbloods, with Iron Face concerned that Grey Ocean had not come home that night despite being away for many days. At talk of the Spear-Empress Oakheart spoke up. As he informed the others, folk stories of the Peninsula made mention of a fearsome huntress that stalked her prey in the nighttime forests of the Peninsula - Spear-Empress Bhadri. It was said that, once she selected a quarry nothing could prevent her from claiming her quarry. Those in the party with knowledge of the Fair Folk knew that Raksha would cloak themselves in the stories and legends of the people they hunted as prey, but a Raksha able to assume a form as powerful as this one would be fearsome beyond anything they had faced so far. Though the question remained open... if the Spear-Empress did indeed follow the structure of the stories, was her prey one creature or many?
With this in mind, the behaviour of the Wyld made perhaps more sense, as perhaps it was chasing the Bronze Tide itself across the Cinder Isles. And, if it was indeed being pursued, the Tide's pattern also made sense - in sweeping across the Cinder Isles, sacking and burning as it went, perhaps their goal was to cross the ocean to The Caul, where the armies of the Realm might avail them. Realising this boded ill for the people of Baruntulga in particular (and, if their rich resources were plundered and their lands devoured by the Wyld, the surrounding area too) the Circle resolved to combine their prior plans. The following morning, they would set out to defeat the Clockwork army, and by doing so prove to the Tide that the Wyld could be stopped. They would then head to the war-torn island of Iliona, and from there seek to stop or at least confront the Bronze Tide, and even if they could not stop the Spear-Empress' forces, force them to lure the Wyld out to sea and away from Marrull Vaar.
Continued in The Bronze Tide Part 2: Divided They Fall