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Bloody Revelations     It has been long enough since the 'Whale God' had his soul punched out by Wandering Dog and his submersible city taken over for a fairly thorough accounting of its assets to have been undertaken, yet still not quite long enough since its people (dubiously named) had been put to the sword that all of the carnage is cleared out.

    It makes for an odd contrast. The ubiquitous 'blue iron' infrastructure of the massive, inverse dome floating atop the waves, its upper decks covered in gold and exposed to the elements and its various lower tiers staring out into the blue abyss through a diamond hard and clear exterior, is well-lit and pleasantly heated as always, with its paths walkable, its domiciles and barracks well-furnished, its hydroponic hanging gardens verdant, its interior fishing farming pools crystal clear, more like the interior of a luxurious 'generation ark' than anything, but it is almost completely empty. Bare and silent enough to hear ringing in one's ears, save two things.

    Depending on where one walks, while some areas are simply ghost decks, sparkling neat and thrumming with Essence lighting, others are still tapestries of blood and black liquid splattered up and down the walkways, walls, and doors, and still others further down are charnel houses of corpses belonging to bizarre creatures that are half-man and half-shark or squid, dressed in fine clothes and found with quality possessions better fitting the inhabitants of a palace. Though tens of thousands have disappeared completely, there are still that many corpses in discrete parts around the space-age labyrinth of magical metals and power lines, the iron stench of gore kept in only by the hermetically sealed block doors and diamond windows.

    The other is that the cleanup has been undertaken by an impromptu, temporary replacement population. The chambers of Luthe are not-infrequently filled with swarms of what can only be described as surreal creatures of black bone. Ram-horned skulls the size of a man's torso float through streets and between decks, peering through door glasses, searching through living quarters, and disposing of bodies in frenzies of teeth best not listened to. Bus-length centipedes with sculpted finger joints for legs curl around catwalks and slither into pipes and maintenance hatches to scour for damage and cut and crimp and weld with sharp pincers and pyre flame spit. Stilt-legged, bow-backed beasts carry piles of parts and tools cradled in cargo webs hanging from their ribs, striding over whole blocks with each tremendous step. Upright figures, tall, stooped and slender, stalk the corners, just out of sight, clutching occultic tools meant for any remaining ghosts of the massacre. A massive workforce of bizarre bone-things, scribed in incomprehensible glyphs and icons that glow like fire, inventory the ancient war platform, collect everything of use, scout for survivors, and recycle the mess into more raw materials.

    So, nobody needs help with that. The matter that necessitates an actual gathering is what can be pried from Luthe's gradually less blood-soaked halls. So far, aside from highly functional gardens and fish cultivation for sustenance, a highly intact power grid drawing from a generator that is apparently powered by the ocean currents themselves and from the ley lines the submersible citadel typically follows, batteries now full of reserve power, and the fancy airlocks, atmospheric scrubbers, climate control, and other amenities suited for a space ship, there is an absolute treasure trove of still-functional to badly damaged but salvageable technology utterly squandered by the beastman cult of Leviathan.
Bloody Revelations     Not only is Luthe apparently armed with scores of powerful magical heavy weapons that haven't been maintained in centuries, but there is an enclosed flight deck with a small air fleet of partly wrecked airships and fighter craft, a water craft launch bay full of much more intact aquatic transports and bombers, multiple armouries full of artifacts and magitech, complicated sensor rooms that haven't been touched in ages, and no less than a dozen extremely high-grade Warstriders to be found alongside another two-dozen miscellaneous war craft, in addition to EVA gear fit for a small army. A considerable stockpile of potions, tonics, hearthstones, tactical equipment, and medical supplies has been dug up by now as well.

    There's enough materiel present to practically be the equivalent of an entire nation's fleet, if it were all to be fixed up and to somehow find skilled personnel, though filling it all out would take thousands of people, and not everything can be brought back up to par without a large influx of external magical materials and expertise, so an element of triage is ongoing, with lost causes being cannibalized for parts and life support or civil infrastructure batteries being drained from empty blocks to power up old weapons and craft.

    The command room is at the very center, of course, and had been breached by Bloody Revelations at some point during the purge, with some thorough abuse of the command codes the Flotilla and Staren had retrieved from the ruins of Saigoth to key Wandering Dog into a commanding officer level of privileges, where he can get navigational control and a view of anywhere on Luthe that the comms and surveillance equipment still works.

    Where the frankly slightly satanic servitors came from is a bit of a mystery, since they aren't zombies or skeletons of any kind and weren't made from the dead here, but the Abyssal has been using them to gather everything potentially useful into Luthe's foundries, just large enough to process small batches of magical materials from raw components, and to build a handful of fighter craft or Warstriders, or a single mid-sized transport at a time in drydock, apparently taking an inventory of the equipment and constantly sketching out an ever-evolving set of plans for how to use it in conjunction with the Brass Leviathan, given to sour muttering and cursing whenever something appears to be too damaged to use. She's filled a quarter of a pocket book by now, partially with writing, partially with nonsense designs, partially with bizarrely detailed tech diagrams.

    The familiar sight of the Soulbreaker Orb, partially disassembled, is set up in a complicated series of mechanical arms and suspensions to one side, where floating skulls occasionally place retrieved components into the mix. A select three Warstriders have been brought in as well. Something with far too many legs appears to be screwing with the command console's crystal matrix to link a communications array to the Brass Leviathan for remote command, stationary in the water a quarter mile away, as it won't fit in any of the hangars. The flight deck ceiling is still jammed shut, and largely filled with wreckage that has been intentionally mangled by an Exalted in the past. Most of the guns and propulsion on the bottom of the dome has been crushed from the city's impact with the sea floor ages ago, and swarms skeletal eel-like creatures with heads of clawed fingers fix busy themselves around and inside the damaged structures, oddly adept at the role for what they are.
Azure Armature To a veteran of centuries of life in Creation, like Wandering Dog, Luthe is a treasure trove of wonder, untold wealth, prosperity, and technology that had not been seen since the Usurpation and the Shogunate era.

To Azure Armature, the entire thing can be summed up in a single phrase: "What a mess."

The mystery exalt had been putting her technical skills to the test, unpreturbed by the strange constructs doing strange construct jobs after ascertaining what they were (in the broadest sense) - servitors.

With a few pins of shining magical metals held between her lips as she works with her fingers and a pair of heavy gogles worn more like an eyepatch, with one eye covered and the other open, and switching between them by just opening and closing her eyes independently. "For every working object, another one is beyond repair, and two more - generously - are in dire need of maintenance. Cannibalization is a high sin, but not as much as dereliction."

She lifts one of the pins from her mouth and slides it in, with a thumb, to the piece of filagree and clockwork she was working on. "The Wandering Dog was right. This place should have been purged a century ago. Will you have a war-host fit to arm with all these weapons? If not, some of the fighters and striders could have their armaments removed to service the city's weapon refitting. Overseeing it will be... time-consuming, but potentially valuable."
Starbound Flotilla     The Flotilla have their own contribution to this matter. When it comes to finding crew for a massive vessel, at the very least, the Flotilla is well equipped to provide. The Ego Cult of Pavo are in full attendance, or at least as full as an incredibly loose network of assorted personal self-worship cult cells can be. While Revelations may have a temporary satanforce, they'll be here to supplant it in a way probably less vulnerable to the sun's notebook of things it's racist about and/or got bullied by in middleschool.

    Despite the numbers being more flavored by Pavo's style, though, Moonfin is the one who is most at the fore of the Flotilla's efforts.

"What, breathing not enough for you?"
"We've faltered quite enough when confronted with the seafloor, I think."
"Puh. Not like Wandering Dog isss going anywhere."
"We're not always with Wandering Dog."
"Indeed. I am quite used to a higher, Hylotl standard of function."
"Sheepish. It's the least we can do, with so much available."
"I've not got much against it. Let's dig in for it."
"Indeed. Note any water movement and navigation technologies and mechanisms. We need solutions, for our armor, our Starstriders, and our ships."
"Suppose it'll probably help our business with Flint."
"Among other options."
"Bluh. Bluh! Fine!"

    They're interested most in water functionality technologies, but Albert still has that /uncanny/ fascination with the Soulbreaker Orb, Seft has interest in the magical materials available (especially for armor purposes), and Pavo is investigating what all needs manning by her Ego Cult.
Staren     Staren's in his armor even though there's not supposed to be anyone left -- Creation is just too dangerous. "Shouldn't we have someone maintaining these?" He comments upon passing a fish tank, only for a giand demon skull to jumpscare him. He aims and only barely stops himself from firing. "Right." He makes his way to the command center to see what Bloody Revelations is working on and to get an inventory... but when he sees the warstriders she's picked out, he starts looking over them curiously, likewise taking notes although he doesn't have a physical book.

    After a long silence, he tries making conversation: "So... this is quite a haul, huh? Did we manage to find some stuff you actually don't know about? ...Sorry, you probably just want to focus on this. Just uh... We kind of never really get to see you outside of imperiously handing down orders, or slaughtering people. Are you /pleased/ with all this or...?"
Wandering Dog Wandering Dog is proud of himself to an extreme extent. He killed a scumbag Anathema who was enslaving his people, punched his soul out, took his superbase, got made a commanding officer, and all it required was working with possibly one of the worst people in Creation, but they have a mutual goal so it's okay. Dressed in his long-sleeved silk tunic, hardened for combat, Dog has made most of a prowl around the upper decks, though his primary position is in the command deck, at the control room. If the drone isn't using the command chair, Wandering Dog is.

The martial artist hasn't quite made himself at home, but he has been talking to the AI if it's awake and not busy due to the strange creature. Surveying damage can be done by the others, Wandering Dog's concerned about navigation. Where exactly Luthe is, and what sort of movements Leviathan has made with it since it was rediscovered to the world, if any. Additionally, he wants to know the AI's capabilities, for better coordination.

Wandering Dog's also been keeping in touch over radio, so he can communicate with his allies. <"So, we're gonna need magical materials, right? Anywhere we can make a quick raid- no, that'd be too loud. We don't want to play this card until it's time to strike. We draw too much attention on ourselves, we could get the Realm on us before we're ready. So, then, what's our first step?"> That part's probably addressed to Bloody Revelations.

Either way, Wandering Dog ends up pushing into the chair and sighing contently. This is going to be his soon. He'll command Luthe without anyone over him, and be able to unite people under his banner, teach them his philosophy. It'll be beautiful.

But right now, Luthe is a weapon of war. And he can't forget that he has obligations to dangerous people. Ever since he saw what Bloody Revelations did to Bluehaven, Wandering Dog's kept his guard up. He's not going to risk Luthe to her wrath.
Lezard Valeth It's a nice ship. Too bad something happened to it. If the new occupants give Lezard Valeth, the Sorceror of Midgard, pause, he doesn't show it, instead having walked through the halls to the meeting destination without issue.

Lezard arrives at the Command Room, taking the moment to looks over the ongoing work to restore even this place to a level of service fit for those who wish to make /proper/ use of it.

Lezard, of course, has many contributions if one were to ask for them. Already, his own demonic serivitors can assist with cleanup with but a word (and a loud and extended summoning ritual but we can skip that today), and his expertise in artifice and alchemy are capable of working minor unholy miracles given the proper tools and resources.

And motivation.

"Efficient." He comments as he strides in. "This must have been quite the battle to claim. I am sorry I missed it. However, I do believe this is only one step in something greater, is it not? One doesn't claim a ship just to /have/ a ship." He takes a moment to lean against a handy table to provide the proper level of affected nonchalance.
Bloody Revelations     "Unfortunately, no." the Abyssal remarks to Azure Armature, eyes still fixed on the internals of a mangled Warbird being dragged into the hangar by the obsidian thread of a warped bone spider with human jaws. "My Liege wouldn't be so kind as to supply my personal project with any of his personal army, and I don't keep around something so cumbersome. Tactics and soldiers units and formations are so boring, and so much *work* just to keep ready for battle, even when they do nothing but sit around for years at a time. The only time I was ever given command of one was solely to keep me busy and far away from my *real* works. There are all sorts of things that will fight and kill and die should I give the order, but not the kind that train to operate any of these things. That's your problem." she shoots over scribbling in some sequence of Old Realm characters in the corner of a page in strange red calligraphy.

    She doesn't reply to Staren for several seconds, talking entirely to herself in an extremely quiet voice, fiddling with a lock of her hair and staring unfocused into the middle distance, holding one side of a conversation. An awkwardly long time after, she flips her hair back over her shoulder and spins to look down at Staren with an oddly self-satisfied expression, as if she'd just been told something particularly agreeable, the black quill continuing to write in the pocket book even as she chucks it down on a console. "Oh? Is that a problem? You seem to be *very good* at killing things and following orders~ I'd hate to upset your streak with frivolous distractions. Frankly, you're so entertaining to point and release that I worry I might get attached when I walk through the charred corpses after you're done~"

    "But, this amount is . . . acceptable. I've consulted with the ones who know already. This place is worse off than I originally assumed, sabotaged on purpose by the old Solars who once ran it, to keep it out of the usurpers' hands. Pathetic. Pointless too, seeing as they clearly didn't need any of this to slit the gilded idiots' throats in the end. I didn't have an *inventory* coming in here, but it's about what I'd expect." She crosses one arm and leans a cheek into her palm, adopting a faux-disappointed stance.

    "You're underestimating me again. What I know. The infinite insight of the well of Oblivion. Books and manuscripts are watered down surrogates for those with lesser capacity for hearing the truth. Scrounging for blueprints and manuals and 'lost' knowledge is for people who don't listen. *Millions* who knew the secrets of magitech have died and fallen into the Void long, long ago. Everything they ever knew is mine to know again~ What I've read or memorized is irrelevant; the Void knows."
Bloody Revelations     "I could say 'pleased', though. I'd really been looking forward to cutting away the whale degenerate's Lunar Exaltation away, bit by bit by bit, and watching him rot in the prisons he designed here, but the Dog deprived me of that entertainment, so we'll settle with 'satisfied'. It'd take *years* to have this thing fully functional again, but with the accompanying superweapon the other lunatic devised, this is a credible start. More importantly, there are the right tools here to work on a couple of side projects of mine."

    She looks to the side when Lezard enters. Where her eyes go, there is a brief stab of ice cold 'pressure', like some vast quantity of ambient fluid or energy had shifted suddenly his way. After a second of hard scrutiny however, the Abyssal cracks the ghost of a smile. "That aura of yours. I like it. It's different than the others here." She then giggles into the back of her hand. "*Battle*? Hardly! The only thing that was here to put up a fight was one of those beastfu- fornicating barbarians simply old enough to be powerful in his own right. The rest was trivial." That hand is then waved away. "You're right, though. This station is to be used against the Bodhisattva Annointed by Dark Waters and his ridiculous little civics project on the Skullstone Archipelago. Luthe already should disgustingly outmatch his Black Fleet, which is the entire problem."

    "A Deathlord of his calibre shouldn't *have* only a conventional fleet like that. The Archipelago is grossly under-armed and inoffensive. That means he's hiding something, and unlike the Mask of Winters, he's hiding it *well*. His master, the Perfected Principle of Consumption, won't spill to me his secrets either, obnoxiously." she points to Azure. "You, tell him the rest. I'm busy."

    As far as examining the contents dredged up so far, Lezard has a frankly disgusting amount of raw corpse material if he intends to raise undead, as well as having found several artificial loci of magical power spaced in sealed chambers around the middle 'executive decks', as well as a fully stocked alchemical laboratory filled with materials that have only half-expired.

    The Animating Intelligence is automatically cooperative towards Wandering Dog, apparently believing he is some kind of Dragon-Blooded interim officer of the fleet that no longer exists, addressing him with the title of Admiral regardless of what he insists on. The maps it comes equipped with are incredibly out of date, but in a way that doesn't matter; the seas and islands haven't exactly moved (save the disappearance of Saigoth that he already knows about), and all of the noted lanes can simply be ignored. Navigation is trivial, and its underwater Essence sensors are more than capable of spotting ships a mile off. Going through the command logs, he can see that Leviathan had been transmitting ancient self-destruct codes to multiple ships he'd run across recently, all of First Age design, and probably crown jewels to their respective battlegroups. Unfortunately, without the Lunar to interrogate for more, the existing examples aren't useful.
Bloody Revelations     The Ego Cult are welcome hands around the place; partly because they literally have normal hands. They are the kind of thing that the EVA suits of synthetic black leather and enchanted black jade will fit, allowing them movement and breathing for 24 hours underwater with only minor magical commitment, or if they are so capable, instruction in not-insignificant caches of powered armour. Manning the core generator room will take some instruction in how to read the instrumentation, and is moderately complicated, thus it will take more scientifically minded personnel, but simply operating cannons, sensors, mapping stations, etc. isn't too hard. There are five functional underwater transport ships and a dozen functional torpedo fighters that are like open-topped powersleds more than anything, but only one of the airship transports appears possible to fix, and a tiny handful of the aerial fighter craft, appropriately shaped like mechanical birds of glittering aztec-ish gold and gems, are not beyond saving. Farm/manufacturing/stockpile jobs should be easy for them.

    Seft is sort of in luck but sort of not. As far as she can tell, the 'blue iron' that makes up almost the whole city is water in some form of magical stasis, extremely hard and pressure resistant, but neutrally bouyant. The entire city would spring to the surface if the ballasts were emptied from Wandering Dog's chair. There's plentiful examples of Orichalcum, Moonsilver, and all the colours of Jade, owing to its wealthy Deliberative-era ricing up, but no Soulsteel and very little Starmetal (but then nothing ever has a lot of that), and it's largely all plugged into something that is either functional or scrap; there is only a tiny amount of raw material to work with to make actual ingots or sheets of the stuff, and looking at it, one would never intuitively guess how to do so. It looks like nonsense. Vats of prismatic mercury, blocks of mundane meteor iron, and the like.

    The Warstriders Staren pokes at are totally unlike the ones he's seen before. twenty five meters tall, two are made of orichalcum and one of moonsilver, and not only are they almost double the size of the ones he's seen before, they are fantastically ornate and well-crafted. Even their internal cogs, springs, pulleys, and chains, all seem to be immaculately shaved and sculpted pieces of near-indestructible metal, apparently by hand, in a process that must have taken weeks for each for each tiny component. There are millions of intricately chiseled characters and runes on the inside of the plating, charged with high levels of magic, and an internal 'reactor core' of sorts he can read on various instruments, absent in the more mundane Warstriders the Golden Bull had hijacked from the Realm, largely being huge suits of attuned artifact armour.

    These are full-on mecha, with various subsystems that he'd need more expertise to make heads or tails of, and with the cockpits open, what appears to be a holographic interface. They must have been exorbitantly expensive and required thousands of workers taking years of time on them, and only used by two Solars and a Lunar they were commissioned for, like the most disgustingly grandiloquent ornamental samurai armour of the old days of feudal japan, times a million. They even have tremendous, equally ornamented daiklaves and essence cannons, instead of upscaled mundane armaments.
Bloody Revelations     Albert wants to poke at the Soulbreaker. Bloody Revelations humours it to an extent, but keeps a close eye on him. As far as he can tell, it definitely looks burnt out, as all the soulsteel 'circuitry' under the crystal exterior of the sphere has been burned and snapped and broken as if by massive electrical overload. It'd be impossibly delicate work to fuse it back together or replace it, but it looks like some effort has been made to do so. Extremely careful work has been made in cutting the casing away however, and getting into its guts, which oddly don't have any mechanical parts at all, but contain ghastly white shards of some glassy material bounded in whirling patterns of soulsteel and apparently coated in thousands of tiny glyphs drawn in blood, working on occultic principles rather than magitechnological ones.

    The outer orichalcum rings are the only magitech parts, seemingly regulating some kind of essence containment field around the core when activated, and a complicated timer and disarming cipher system. The positions of the rings line up some kind of codes in Old Realm drawn on them. It seems it might be possible to remote activate too. Repairing it fully would be equivalent to building a modern computer motherboard with a microscope and a well-equipped home shop though.
Azure Armature Armature nods slowly. "Then I'll mark all personell gear as secondary. If the Flotilla wants to take the crown jewels for themselves, I can assist with repairs and refits. And Pavo's warriors..." She shrugs. "If you have the power sources, I can probably finish refitting the rest of the upper half of the personal armors for non-essence use in a week or two. It won't be pretty, but I can teach you how to do it if you've got a spare day."

As for Lezard's entrance, Armature moves to an open desk, adjusting a holographic display on her wrist with a few 'button' taps. "Just a moment and I'll begin the briefing, then."
Staren     "Torturing the Lunar wouldn't bring Oblivion closer any faster, would it?" Staren points out. "Maybe the Bodhisattva is keeping one of those soul-destroyer orbs and will set it off on anyone who gets through his fleet. I'm not sure what we can do to prepare against the completely unknown... Just having a lot of tools works at the personal scale, but at army scale?"

    Staren can't decide if these magitech Super Robots are more beautiful or excessive. The amount of work clearly put into them is utterly insane for a weapon of war -- going out in one, if he even could, would be like taking a work of art into battle. Every hit he'd take would annihilate weeks, maybe years of genius artisans' work. And yet he suspects they back this up with actual /power/ -- far beyond what any mass-produced design would bother to contain. They can surely dish out and take damage on a scale that... Well, here's ONE possible countermeasure for whatever the Silver Prince might have.

    He could probably pore over these things for hours, but without being able to understand much of it, perhaps he should do something else first:

    Staren goes to the foundry control console, or whatever they have, and attempts to pull up whatever designs they have for essence storage devices and warstriders. And any manuals or records that might give insight into their operating principles; Clearly there are things here too far up the tech tree for him to grok yet; but maybe he can find knowledge reasonably more advanced than what he learned from Denandsor's library. And then he can find the next rung up the tech ladder, and the next...

    While he searches the computer, he thinks of another topic of conversation for Bloody Revelations: "So... I know you've indicated it's too dangerous for me to learn to /cast/, but is there anything you /can/ tell me about Necromancy and its operating principles? If we're going to be going after every other Deathlord, one after the other, we're going to be dealing with it sooner or later, so..."
Starbound Flotilla     "To gain power simply through age," Moonfin says, quirking one of his three eyebrows up. "Is to inherit rather than earn in all but certain ways. I am glad to have a friend who could put him out of our misery, however little I may appreciate the act of death itself." He makes use of the controls himself in deft, contemptuous swishy webbed-fingered motions to examine what they have to work with. "We have the manpower to ensure this facility is put to its best use, and more importantly, connections with those so inclined to ensure your success."

    "For the right price. And for the first time I'm not talking cash, Bleeder." Pavo pipes up. "They'll work for jade fine enough now, but these are the Church of Ego, they're hungry for something more. Staren's right, it's dangerous for someone who's already got something to lose, but a lot of them don't. They're after what you've got on the menu, and they want it baaaaad, Rev. I've got a chapelful of worshippers looking to put worship to work in the world, and I know the ghosts you hang around with are interested in that sort of thing." She moves in, and probably is one of the very first people who ever /willingly/ closed to not quite socially acceptable distance from Bloody Revelations. "What can we do to make this math balance a few equations and even a few odds now that we've got some really good reason for them to be here?" Yeah, Pavo did in fact manage to get a lot of cultists here /specifically/ because they want to dive headfirst into local Bad Mojo, however such a thing can be done through Revelations' expertise and their tremendous amounts of devout belief.

    "Whether or not such an arrangement can be found," Moonfin says. "We'll be making use of the aircraft, seacraft, and armor as seed capital, so to speak; if this can allow us to breach key markets and break key monopolies it will be enough to grant us the ability to operate at sea. And if Skullstone has a hidden weapon to give it naval superiority, I would rather not risk our latest acquisition without founding our own seaworthy martial capacities further beyond its convenience. What do you believe may be our best focus, to craft such contingencies and assistance?"
Lezard Valeth Lezard feels that pressure flow over and around him, taking his measure.

The Sorceror looks right back, staring at (if not into) the Abyssal with dark, knowing eyes. He's opened the gates of Niflheim, bears the marks of one anathema to his gods, if not perhaps THESE gods. But his works will be the same.

Oh yes, his works will be the same.

"I am pleased I meet with your approval." Lezard replies, pleasantly. "I would hate to get off to an unpleasant start so soon after arriving." He smiles to Bloody Revelations, the smile of a shark who recognizes a fellow shark. "Then less battle than slaughter. Still, never let a good slaughter go to waste, hmm?"

The mention of the Bodhisattva, however, brings an anticipatory smile to his face. "Oh /really/? Are we seeking to overthrow him, then? Perhaps crack his bones and suck on the marrow on our way to more interesting things? There are so many... /things/ in Creation, after all."

Meanwhile, his own minions are moving amongst said slaughtered, aseembling the more intact corposes for use as animation fodder later. Like he said, never waste a good slaughter. Even though the corposes are mostly worthless, quantity can have a quality of its own when properly deployed.

He'll get to the /rest/ later. He can certainly set up shop and hammer some things out, perhaps even some on the more... exotic specifications that the residents might have.

Material collection is on them, however, in the classic and time-honored tradition of fetch questing.

Even a glance in the direction of the Soulbreaker Orb will tell Lezard that his skills will in fact be needed. Excellent.

Staren makes his point, Lezard gestures back. "Once you break his Fleet, all you have to do is begin applying pressure that he has to take seriously without committing our real forces. The Heroic types will jump to have a chance at killing a Deathlord and banishing that influence from the Archipelago, let them bleed and suffer for it. The important thing is going to be finding out what the best position will be to take advantage of the fallout."

Lezard then folds his hands in anticipation of a discussion of one of his favorite subjects, the local realm of the dead and its power.
Wandering Dog Admiral. Wandering Dog can get used to that, even if he doesn't like that it's associated with a Deliberative fleet. As he sits in the chair, tapping along the armrests, he makes a mental note to bring in new maps for the Animating Intelligence. Otherwise, he turns on comms, speaking over them.

"I don't know who you are...but if /she's/ alright with you, then I'm not going to complain. Name's Wandering Dog, 'Admiral' of Luthe. Blue's got a good way of getting information across, so you listen to her good." Wandering Dog is probably addressing Lezard over the comms, watching everyone over the feed. He changes to talk to the Flotilla, next. "After we finish with the Prince, Flotilla, I'll probably want your aid repairing this place and setting it up to be habitable. Skullstone's gonna need somewhere to put survivors, after all. Get the humans out of there after it's a husk."
Bloody Revelations     "Oh please. You must learn how to mix business with pleasure." Bloody Revelations says to Staren, leaning back and rolling her eyes with the effort of turning to engage with that line of conversation. "What's the point of having power if you can't enjoy it from time to time? I wanted to see the demented, self-righteous pig thrash and wail as all his centuries of carefully cultivated power are peeled away and he is left a filthy, starving, powerless mortal, shackled in a cell until he rots away, more worthless and pitiful than the peons he tortured for his own pleasure. Besides, you never know when insight might strike. The slow collapse of that much power and arrogance into bleak resignation to a wasting death could be the just the inspiration needed for new dark writ."

    The consoles are, of course, cracked open for everyone's use, and anything private or secured, Wandering Dog has the authority to open up anyways. The information Staren can find is vast, dense, and obnoxiously flowery, almost encrypted for its level of poetic insistence and near-religious terminology. Utilitarian and practical terms are few and far between, scattered amongst half-paragraphs of adjectives, titles, and culturally contextual blessings and supplications. The info here wasn't meant for Terrestrial consumption, for for the incredibly old Solar savants over-educated in the high culture of the Old Realm and on a first name basis with the gods of Yu-Shan. It's an absolute nightmare to scroll through, and even if he has the gear to translate Old Realm, there are so many contextual idioms that it's like reading machine translated Chinese.

    As far as he can tell, the tech around here uses what he can simply refer to as Essence Batteries, because that's basically what they are, even if they go by 'adamant loci of of worthy powers in vigilant waiting' or 'most esteemed vessels to receive the animating light of Sol Invictus' most of the time. They aren't tremendously different from some of the examples he'd recovered from Denandsor, because they originate from not too long before that time period. With some diagrams, he can poke about some objects to find military-grade versions of the same elaborately cut crystals, enmeshed in fine threads of magical materials that serve as power channels, like the lines on a circuit board, to the main capacitor. The crystals themselves aren't anything tremendously special, in that their sole purpose is to hold Essence and discharge it at a set rate when stimulated in a frequence custom-tailored to the machine. The Warstriders, however, have none. Their weapons do, yet there seems to be no capacitors or batteries to move the things, despite what appears to be some kind of power core.

    "Don't fiddle with those." Bloody Revelations suddenly shoots over her shoulder without looking, intuiting more than watching Staren poke about. "These are all designed to be recharged by touch. Once the Essence is charged into the crystal, it can't be extracted again, or used for anything but operating the machine. The format is converted entirely, at a loss ratio. I don't expect your pool of available power is tremendously high."
Staren     "Fair enough." Staren replies to BR explaining that torture doesn't need a reason beyond being fun; he's not going to moralize to her, at least not about this.

    Staren groans at the... ridiculously flowery language. He's well-read, in American at least, and can appreciate clever use of language, but this is a couple orders of magnitude of needless obfuscation beyond 'clever'. He may need Moonfin to help translate.

    Staren yanks his hand away from one of the capacitors as BR warns him. "But... did he /personally/ charge up this whole damn fortress?? It's operating fine /now/, we're not only running on stored power are we?"
Azure Armature Armature brings up a bluelight field over the table, the terrain of Skullstone bring brought into digital relief. "This is our target, Skullstone, a coastal isle. Within it, is the Silver Prince." A red dot appears in the highest citadel. "We have no intelligence about his location or true force strength. However, as a 'Deathlord', and in charge of a model city even under the watchful eye of the Realm, we can only presume he has broad social and political prowess--" Armature clearly means 'magic mind control powers' but they're synonomus in Creation. "-- in addition to hidden force strength fit enough to conquer the entire West. If he's here, and in the open, he has at least enough to deflect a directional fleet."

A picture of David Bowie in the Goblin King role appears?--wait, no, his face is a bit more angled and his eyes have a slight cant to them, his hair long and straight rather than frizzed. "This is the Silver Prince. As a deathlord he is empowered by a considerable amount of Death Essence and weilding various necromantic and potentially necrotechnological means of attack, defense, and civics."

"A number of elites, including multiple Chosen have recently destroyed the Lintha fleets in the area, depriving us of a key naval asset, but our capture of Luthe and the Brass Leviathan give us a useful naval sieging power enough for an attack or extended engagement. However, we currently lack any major forces of skilled manpower to use with our captured armory, and getting to the Silver Prince will not be as simple as teleporting into a warbeast with a strike-team."

Armature 'zooms out' the map to a broader one of creation. Most of it is fuzzy and uncertain, but she's got major geography correct. "Major retaliation may come from the east, on the Blessed Isle, and there are a number of caches of further artifacts I have gained the details on we can use, but we are critically short on useful manpower, and Luthe is in need of skilled repair and a few technical components that cannot be reproduced in these conditions to resume functioning at top capacity."

Armature's display winks out, and she moves like a military presenter to stand at attention, both hands moving to clasp behind her back. "As for the state of creation: The Deathlords are broadly out of line and weak, so seizing their assets is a critical component in, frankly, getting things done. Beyond that, the Imperial Manse in the Blessed Isle, the greatest superweapon in Creation, and Yu-Shan, the corrupt hole of depravity and inaction that should be wiped off the face of the higher planes and replaced with..." Her lips curl. "...Superior civics."

Her expression calms to a machine flatness again. "Beyond that, I believe the Flotilla is our best option to address Luthe power concerns, but conversion and repairs will not be able to be done in secret for long, so time is of the essence to acquire or replace the armaments."

Her arms drop, before bringing back up under her poncho'ed chest. "Lezard Valeth, have you been brought up to speed?"
Bloody Revelations     Then she actually glances towards him. "No, most of this is still the original power supply from before the Shogunate. These crystals are of high enough quality that their power won't leak. Leviathan wouldn't have wasted his time when he could have been mating with the sea life." the Abyssal says with some disgust. "Your current level of enlightenment is why I wouldn't expect you'd gain much from learning. Necromancy isn't any more dangerous than Sorcery to use, but it requires an entirely different mindset. Different initiations. Different costs. That, and it requires blood, which you appear to lack much of the time." she scoffs. "Few people have the potential to use it, and fewer still are actually *willing* to do so, for to even begin, one has to open themselves to unpleasant truths and possibilities, and to know --to really grasp and internalize-- the impermanence of all things. Human beings usually get by day to day on their way to the cradle to the grave by thinking about it as little as possible and crossing their fingers and something better awaits them when they die. Too much education breaks weak minds that cling to shallow and comforting faiths."

    She raises an eyebrow at Pavo, tapping her cheek with a finger. "*Really* now? Wherever did you dredge up such thirsty souls? The road to apotheosis is jealously guarded by those who've already achieved it, but the dead honour it better~ Prayer and sacrifice is the currency and lifeblood of the Underworld, where all who are liberated from their flesh can finally perceive it for what it is. There are rites. Sacrifices. Sutras. Rituals. Belief is a powerful thing, but it becomes Essence only when properly focused. The most powerful source of it is when something is offered up and destroyed for the sole purpose of exultation. The Ancestor cults encourage it for a reason. The living burn offerings to empower the dead, and the dead reciprocate by using their power to watch over the living. Stygia brokers and barters in faith, and the Monarchy insures an economy of prayers. Will the . . . academic material, suffice?"

    She shrugs abruptly at Lezard, carelessly brushing back her hair again. "Use it as you like. I find the magic to turn corpses lying down into corpses that walk around and bite things a little lacklustre and a little gauche. The purest expressions of Necromancy don't come from fiddling around with dead flesh. Corpses are simply the beginner's window into the secrets of death; a familiar shape we are born able to recognize, and contextualize death's lesser secrets on the forms we are familiar with. Decay and reanimation of a cadaver is easier to conceptualize for a layman than the decay and reanimation of the fundamental integrity of the world itself. A pity so many never move past that fixation on *zombies* of all things." She pronounces the word with some distaste.

    "You could call Sorcery a power imitated from the Primordials. The art and science of channelling the Essence of Creation to bend and invent new laws of reality, and warping the weave to do whatever absurdity you fancy. It's a system of copying what the ancient Primordials did by *existing*, overwriting one set of rules with another. You could then call Necromancy its inverse mirror. An art that calls upon and channels the Essence of the Underworld --the new powers and new rules that were brought into the existence when the first short-sighted fool thought he could kill a Primordial, and broke everything forever. The Underworld is Creation's ghost, already a foot in the grave, and the truths of that place can be superimposed over Creation just as easily."
Bloody Revelations     "Necromancy normally can't ever be learned by the dead, except by the Neverborn's pleasure. It requires five initiating rites to be able to perform the . . ." she trails off, making hand gestures for several seconds at a loss for accurate words ". . . deductions in one's head at all. Only Death Essence is used in Necromancy, not living Essence, and so Sorcery and its associated counters and strictures have no power over it, and vice-versa. A Necromancer has absolute, unquestionable power over the dead, but a contest between Necromancers is often decided by the gap in power. There are extremely few Necromancers in existence, however, and less than a dozen, counting myself, initiated into the highest circle. That means I am likely the only person in existence with the correct countermagics to protect you from a Deathlord's highest Necromancies whatsoever, and you would do well to remember that."

    "Necromancy requires an expenditure of Essence, much like Sorcery, but within a Shadowland, the Underworld, or dare I say the Labyrinth, that Essence can be freely found in the environment and shaped without personal drain, putting a skilled Necromancer who is able to avoid burning away their will at a tremendous advantage. Necromancy never, ever, ever creates, mends, or preserves things of the living world. It fundamentally draws its power from the inescapable, irrefutable fact, that entropy is omnipresent, and cannot be defeated; only struggled against."

    "The lowest circle of Necromancy, the Circle of Iron, or Shadowlands Circle, is what some more avant gard 'heroes' consider morally defensible, using the power inherent in death to work with corpses, ghosts, and the veil between worlds, to ends that suit the user. The Circle of Onyx, or Labyrinth Circle, draws on the deeper truths of the Underworld and the nature of life after death to alter the laws that govern life and death, contact greater powers, summon and create, and to work with souls. The Circle of Obsidian, or Void Circle, is impossible to attain outside of special circumstances, and draws on the ultimate truths of Oblivion itself, and as far as I'm concerned, its possible dominion is nearly unlimited. The power to blend worlds, to shape dreams and nightmares into reality, to warp space and time, to slaughter armies, to beat the living world into submission and assert one's own rules over it, to tear open ways to secret places that cannot be reached, to deny death, resurrect the fallen, and even enter the Mouth of the Void itself and come back out after ceasing to exist."

    "Fortunately, the Mask of Winters was an uncreative Necromancer only focused on military and ego applications, and the 'Silver Prince' is a mediocre Void Circle user at best. All he cares for are manipulating and controlling his petty nation of ghosts and recycling the dead into his silly little sham of a 'utopia'. He won't resort to it as a primary tool. He is a strategist, a politician, and a duelist. My advantages over him, in both enlightenment, and my trump cards, are too vast for you to concern yourselves with his unremarkable powers."

    "Though . . . I'm sure he has *some* interesting research. Deathlords *always* know a few spells or rituals or procedures that they created themselves to get a leg up on their rivals, known to only them. If you still can't stop asking questions after I'm done with him, I'll take the time to tell you, no, show you, everything there is to know about what it means to die and to be a ghost."
Staren     Look up /generators/ instead of /batteries/. Noted.

    Staren listens to Revelations's discussion of necromancy. He frowns slightly at the observation that it requires difficult truths; but then, so does science. Noone can conquer death by refusing to admit it exists in the first place, after all.

    He nods, looking appropriately awed, as she points out that she's the only one that can protect them from Void Circle spells. And then listens raptly as she exposits on the subject.

    The way she puts it -- 'I'll show you everything there is to know about what it means to die and to be a ghost.' is slightly concerning, but... isn't it knowledge he needs in order to /really/ know if she's on the up-and-up? Speaking of which... "I notice you said the key is to accept that entropy is irrefutable -- not death, I mean, true death, oblivion of being. /That/ would conflict with everything we're working for, after all... So, with that in mind, it doesn't sound so..." he waves a hand as he looks for the right word, "anathemaic to me after all." Beat. "Thank you, for telling us all this."
Bloody Revelations     After that, she largely sits through Azure Armature's briefing, drumming her fingers on her upper arm, with both of them crossed. With suddenly heightened agitation, she adds "The Silver Prince is the ridiculous name he wears as the prophecied messiah and god-figure of Skullstone to lead the people into the 'new age'. A prophecy he wrote himself hundreds of years ago, when he first 'disappeared' and faded into legend. He loves his utterly absurd social engineering. His preposterous idea to see the diseased wreck that is Creation's slowly rotting body finally plunged into the cleansing cold of Oblivion is to teach the living to treat death as a *lifestyle*; to put death in vogue and bring up mortals to revere and rush towards it with open arms. He plans to take hundreds of years if necessary, predicting his rivals will be more overt and more pressing targets."

    "Of course, he *would* be right. With such a limp-dicked plan, he'd be the last of anyone's priorities, and the slimy, effete little liar has already convinced some weak-willed idiot 'heroes' to join his side because-" she actually makes hand-yapping motions "-he is the lesser of two evils, something something. He knows *exactly* how to play to mortal hearts and minds, and have people gladly die for him, instead of putting on an equally comical show of a tyrannical boot heel like the last. If he hadn't decided to strike for me first, I might have left him until last too~ The poor fool. He's a heretical failure just like the others. A waste of the Neverborn's love. Undeserving of their trust. I'll see him burn the same as the others. I'm not quite so stupid as to believe he doesn't have *some* kind of trump card up his sleeve however. A ghost that old and paranoid wouldn't gamble everything on hoping to appear innocent and unworthy of bothering. The Realm treats him with wary distance for now, but not forever."

    When the Lintha are brought up though, Bloody Revelations turns and swings her fist into a wall console made of enchanted diamond and steel-hardened water, smashing through it like a plastic monitor and punching a hole through the backside of the fortified wall with a deafening crash and spray of scorching Essence lightning, all the way up to her gloved elbow. Taking a deep breath, she slowly pulls her arm back out, and daintily shakes the crystal shards off her fingers, her voice taking on a tense, too-sweet kind of forced self-control. "Indeed, he is currently wielding those witless fools in a crusade against 'Creation's enemies' in the name of 'the safety of the people of Skullstone, who *just so happen* to the factions we could normally call upon to help destroy him and his absurd little god-complex police state. How *fortuitous* for him that his pack of brainless thugs is so eager to jump at whatever he describes as 'for the greater good', hmm?"

    "Please do kill any of them that fail to see reason and come back to my gentle instructions. Those who repent and swear to serve me obediently, I'll punish only lightly~ Luthe's critical manpower issues aside, and our use of that ridiculous giant battleship automaton outside, and with the Lintha *unfortunately* written off, there are two more potential opportunities to gather forces that I can immediately think of. Three, if our shortage becomes so severe that 'appropriating' raw materials, personnel, and personnel who are in of themselves materials, becomes appropriate. Dear sweet Nilih will help as much as she can, but unfortunately, I cannot commit her against the Bodhisattva himself."
Bloody Revelations     "Unfortunately, Skullstone itself is practically worthless. All of my plans entail destroying its navy all but entirely, and my Liege doesn't command one, and so it is strategically useless, hard to get to, and without its favourable trade relations in necrotechnology and Shadowlands exotics with neighbouring islands, it has no income and no industry. My Liege has no use for a collection of indolent theatres and bordellos, nor a people who can't perform hard labour."

    "Oh, and if he *did* somehow get his hands on a Soulbreaker of his own, which I doubt, or somehow made one himself, which he isn't smart enough to, don't worry about it~ I've had plenty of time alone with that brilliant little piece of madness, and have made some innovations of my own~" A pitch black 'dead pixel' in reality appears in her hand, and from the impenetrable black static, the bizarre trinkets she had used to shield the Elites from her own deployment of the Soulbreaker before fall into her fingers, as well as, hopefully in full view of Staren and Albert, a softball-sized replica of the device, using fewer rings and some sort of black crystal instead of separated soulsteel and quartz layers, but unmistakably a miniature Soulbreaker.

    "After my primary passions, weapons are a worthy pursuit I occasionally find some entertainment in. As much as I admire the utter madness of the inventor of that thing, whatever a Solar builds, I can build better and deadlier~"

    For the first time in this entire meeting, perhaps the entirety of interacting with him even, there are a handful of magic words that Staren says that make Bloody Revelations look to him with interest, rather than distant amusement or extreme impatience. "Mmm, that topic is a little more complicated. More nuanced. More avante gard than even the Deathlords care to closely examine. The teachings of Oblivion --the schools of Necromancy --the catechisms of the Deathlords-- aren't as accurate or profound as they would like you to believe. The death of living flesh is simple. The death of the self is a more advanced topic. When someone is no longer them. When a soul ceases to exist, or whether a person *can* truly cease to exist. What Oblivion truly is, and how it is qualitatively different from reincarnation or sublimation into the Deep Chaos. The astrological proof that Creation cannot be saved, cannot be protected, cannot triumph over Oblivion. High level stuff~ Profound thinkers only. I wrote a thesis on it. You could find a copy of it from the right buyer in Stygia. Writing is boring, so I didn't pen many of them."
Azure Armature Armature shrugs at the Lintha's reaction. She's seen it before. Revelations isn't aiming her displeasure at anyone in the room, and there are times to call for decorum.

Smashing irrelevant objects is the purpose of having replacement parts. Sometimes, there is a greater good in destructive catharsis. And, honestly, there was enough adamant around that they were swimming in it.

"The Silver Prince is a more dangerous tumor, an apostate more threatening than average. He masquerades as a benign sickness, but unlike a rash or a wound, a tumor will fester, and spread its filth throughout the systems it inhabits. The only proper course of action is a proactive purge. Armies can be redirected. Processes can be foiled. Great works can be sapped and undermined. But a tumor must be carved out and the affected area sterilized lest it continue to corrupt until it kills the host."

Almost parenthetically, as she releases the tension in her gloved hands from the crushing tightness that had been attained during her passionate speech about APOSTACY, Armature adds. "The body, in this case, being 'All of Creation, Living and Dead'."
Starbound Flotilla     "Pretty sure you'll find they eat up the academic material." Pavo says, adjusting her robes with a quick flick of one feathered hand. "I dredge them up where anyone finds strong people at rock bottom. Political prisons. War camps. Witch burnings. Exile. Anywhere that gods-given authority is used to throw the strong down until they don't have anywhere to go but up." She grins widely. "We're all the sort of people -- the whole of us, even the Flotilla Core Fleet -- who all know what it means to sacrifice something for power. If you can get them legitimate deals with ghosts that'll trade right, you'll not run out of sacrifices."

    Pavo, of course, won't be sacrificing much. She intends to be the one on the top of that little pyramid scheme of worship. Moonfin steps up to speak next. "So our goal is to seek out the next options for manpower. We have weapons in plenty, with few hands to wield them. We need to find those forces and factions to back. What dredges of a cult Pavo can call upon may be enough to keep Luthe functioning to our needs, but to wield true martial power, we need those with little inclination to oppose your cause and great inclination towards violence." He puts a webbed hand to his chin. "And with the political complexities of local Deathlords and your own abilities and leadership habits limiting potential here, perhaps..."

    He looks up, as if towards the surface and through Luthe itself. "Would you be quite opposed if, in our expeditions, we sought out spectral influences throughout the multiverse? Those that might be inclined towards this effort, and who might add manpower. Perhaps there are options further afield, ones that may be beneficial to our efforts and unexpected to our foes." There's a very long pause. "We've heard a few odd rumors of a place where strange spectres might be found, ones willing to seek power such as this. We've had little reason to visit such a place, but perhaps we might soon, if you would have no opposition to such foreign aid."
Azure Armature Azure armature nods at Pavo's words, a little smile tugging at her normally expressionless deadpan. "I thought of a few ways to fill the bodies we need, and something as mundane as wiping out an enemy faction would be within their purview, especially with their normal business. But... Securing them will take capital I don't have."

A helpless, sweeping shrug. "And we may be bad for their business reputation. Or good. I have no head for it - materialistic accumulation isn't something I've had the ''luxury'' of doing."
Lezard Valeth "Lezard Valeth, Sorceror of Midgard. Greetings and Salutations, Admiral. I've been made aware of the opportunites of the situation and have offered my services, such as they are." He says the latter in a dry deadpan. "I trust you will find them accomodating to your goals, with attendant payment in kind of course. I doubt it will interfere with your own desires." For once, Lezard seems to be completely open about his situation: He helps you, you (eventually) provide him with what he wants. Probably the expressions of naked greed and self-interest make him comfortable in showing that he isn't above being mercenary.

It gets the job done, right?

Bloody Revelations outlines her plan for what she had in mind for the Exalt, and Lezard affects a shocked expression. "You had a Lunar Exalt under your thumb and couldn't get the chance to do some research? Terrible! What a waste of an opportunity." He sighs. "I had been hoping for something similar for /years/, but many Exalted seem more interested in embracing death than staying a while in my care. Odd, really."

Bloody gives her assessment of basic level corpse manipulations, and Lezard shrugs. "I work with what I have. Just because I work with dead flesh does not mean I am incapable of making use of finer materials. Everything has its place." Whether Lezard is wasting his time continuing to do this or not is up to the observer.

He doesn't seem to have much to sayu about Rvelations' speech on Necromancy. Certainly in the land of Creation the nature of it is a little different than where Lezard comes from, but how much is it, really?

Azure, meanwhile, provides Lezard with an efficient top-down view of the situation. He looks over to the tactical grid and watches intently as Azure goes over the situation in broad strokes. "Enough to deflect a directional fleet from the Realm, perhaps, but access to the Multiverse complicates matters. Yet it's too late, he cannot withdraw, he has to manage the situation."

He nods at the mention of the destruction of the Lintha. "We seem to have acquired what is useful in the matter regardless. Ships can be rebuilt. Men can be found. But you are correct, we don't have skilled manpower... But perhaps we can acquire some."

"I can provide assistance in manufacturing the components if you do not have a better source. I would need to research and investigate matters. Even if this site is not adequeate, we can acquire or locate ones that are." He chuckles. "My my, we have quite the 'to do' list, do we not?"

He looks over tothe mention of the Blessed Isle. "The Realm will probably move in order to secure the Archipelago with a little encouragement if it shows a moment of weakness. Maybe we can use them in order to force the exposure of the secret defenses?"

He looks back up to Azure. He simply shrugs at the mention of wiping out Yu-Shan. "I don't think anyone will miss it." He says callously regarding the extermination of Creation's heaven.

He nods to Azure. "That should do splendidly. I think we have much to do, then, don't we?"
Staren     Staren can't help but wince as Bloody Revelations smashes a possibly-irreplaceable first-age console. But, that's part of dealing with someone like this...

    He is slightly shocked at her change in manner when he insinuates about the interaction between Necromancy and the Grand Plan. He looks interested, but remembers an issue. He raises a hand, with one finger up. "Where would you reccomend I learn about basic safety for visits to Stygia? I've heard a lot of things but I'm not sure what's true. Also, anything non-obvious they value there I should keep in mind to trade for the books?"
Wandering Dog Wandering Dog moves to reply to Flotilla and Azure Armature, still over the comms. It's great to have quality technology. "What's this place with 'spectres', Moonfin, and why should we consider it?" He doesn't seem too fond of it, but it's probably because of his ghost racism.

Also, a reply to Lezard. "Leviathan was too much of a scum for me to even consider letting him have a chance of reincarnation. Maybe it would have been better to torture him, but now we can guarantee he'll never menace us again." Wandering Dog wanted to get his point across on that...

And otherwise lapses into silence. He's musing plans. He's not usually much of a planner, but he's an 'admiral' now, isn't he?
Bloody Revelations     "Are all of you people so passionate about cancers and tumours?" Bloody Revelations asks Azure Armature, a little incredulously, but at least somewhat generously. "It seems some of you are better at distinguishing the cancer from the blade and flame, but it always seems to be at the forefront of your people's minds."

    To Pavo. "Interesting~ Very well, though. My Liege doesn't particularly like it when his Knights try to groom cults of their own, but there are many in Stygia, and many in the Labyrinth, who independently appreciate my works~ It wouldn't be difficult for me to put you in contact with them, and I'm sure they'd be glad to teach you the correct ways to burn offerings and convert veneration into power. Yu-Shan is built to turn those things into anything and everything, but anyone can gain powers beyond their ordinary means if enough people hold them as more important than the distant gods. Sacrifice is what ties the worlds of the living and the dead together. It is one of the Five Understandings." She pronounces those two words with audible capital letters.

    The idea of going off into the Multiverse to scout for things of use clearly strikes her with some scepticism. There is that intrinsic hubris in play, doubting the worthiness of such a mixed bag of bizarre worlds to act in service to the Neverborn, or to be a viable substitute for the secrets she knows of and things she wishes to get her hands on. It isn't, however, quite Solar-grade hubris, dismissing the idea of anything from outside of Creation being worth one's time to contemplate putting up against matters for Exalted, and so some visibly long deliberation arrives at an ambivalent hand gesture, falling back on her surreal sword in a neutral pose. "I believe you have sufficiently acceptable taste to distinguish whether something is worth my time. It's not as if it has to pass the approval of . . ."

    She just trails off. "There will be more where Leviathan came from." she says to Lezard. "I've been anticipating it for a while. So much that I've dug up the knowledge of how to imprison an Exalted of any degree of power, and I've been *itching* to use it on one of Heaven's golden boys. I won't *dismiss* the use of obedient corpses, especially with so few hands at the ready. Dead bodies are easy to find in this age where lives are cheap and carelessly spent. Do considered elevating your horizons, though~ If you have the talent for it, Necromancy is worth more than merely dabbling. The limited and destructive nature of it is only due to the fact that the few pioneers of the art have been, for centuries, mad warlords bent only on conquest. Very few realize that the arts have barely been explored at all, never mind reached a matured state."

    She looks a little bit sceptical when he says he'll help with the foundry, but seems to conclude that it isn't rocket science, and she has some idea the guy is an extremely powerful 'Essence wielder'. "Fine, fine. If you can stomach the intolerable swill encoded in these databanks, I'll leave some instructions. You'll find I don't carry around Soulsteel, if that's what you're hoping for. You'll have to make do. If you *desperately* need help with repairing or replicating anything here, I'll see if I can't spare a minute or two."

    To Staren "Wear something identifying you as in the company of a Deathlord while on the street, don't take out a loan, don't cross the boundary stones into Little Shoe and definitely not into the District of Whispering Streets, or Where Shadows Walk, don't talk to a Nephwrack, don't go down any blind alleys or the underground tunnels, and watch your pockets. Do it in one of your dead shells, too, or else the smell of your living blood will draw attention. Otherwise, Stygia keeps to itself. You don't have Grave Goods and you don't have an account, so you'd need the minted coinage of the Dual Monarchy to buy anything, unless you want to take the risk of dealing in fresh blood or talismans and charms."
Bloody Revelations     "Regardless of your own plans, I intend to send you to two places, both in the Underworld, and I expect you to go. The two most readily accessible targets of massive strategic value we can make use of now are the Hekatonkhire called Orcinus Rex, Father of Whales, and the outpost of Haggard's Keep."

    "The former is the ghost of a cetacean behemoth slain in the war against the Primordials, who rules the Ocean of Endless Night in the Labyrinth, and who contains the most vicious independent fleet in the Underworld within his belly; a small legion of spectres currently loyal to the Bodhisattva, but I can change that very quickly~ No doubt he'd deploy Orcinus Rex himself were we to attack by night or travel through the Sea of Shadows to reach Skullstone, where the Hekatonkhire would be a strong match for the Brass Leviathan, and Luthe would be made to fight the entire spectral fleet, unacceptably depleting our resources. Since I have . . . a way, with creatures similar to his kind, though, stealing Orcinus Rex and the allegiance of the spectres lead by his handler and liason to the Bodhisattva, the Nephwrack Never Ending Silence, from right out of his hands would be a tremendous loss for him, and a tremendous gain for I."

    "The latter is something one could describe as a lighthouse; the only lighthouse in the entire Sea of Shadows. Haggard's Keep predates the Deathlords by centuries. Its founders built it with the use of a giant, disembodied eye of uncertain origins, using its power to see anywhere on the Sea of Shadows, and its unique Hearthstone, to guide ships across those hostile, pitch dark, life-sucking waters you've already experienced. The outpost is nominally owned by the Dual Monarchy of Stygia, but I assure you that the Bodhisattva already has sleeper agents within its crew. I am certain he knows of Haggard's Eye's secret secondary function as a a super-long-ranged anti-naval weapon, and will intend to use it. What I'm equally certain he *doesn't* know, is who that eye belongs to . . ."

    "Because I know the Labyrinth better than anyone alive or dead, I will bring you to these places. You will sway the allegiance of Never Ending Silence and his crew, or failing that, beat them into submission and I will break their minds. You will dispose of the entirety of the crew of Haggard's Keep, and retrieve it's Hearthstone, and I will use it to call upon the eye's original owner, from far beyond the boundaries of the Underworld. With these two objectives in hand, our power at sea should exponentially exceed whatever his trump card could possibly be, we will have robbed him of two of his most major investments, and I will have the absolute strategic advantage to surveill and strike him anywhere in the Archipelago."

    "I will have you obliterate the Black Fleet and make Landfall on the island of Cormorant. There you will do as you see fit to torch anything of value to him and appropriate anything of value to me. You will continue from island to island, uncontested at sea, until he sends his Deathknights, whom you will likewise destroy, or else force to surrender and swear alllegiance instead to Sixteenth Night's Silence. We will save an assault on Onyx and the capital until last. I agree that baiting out his trump card will be necessary. If possible, capture any Judges or Priests of his 'New Order' and bring them to me. Dear sweet darling Nilih will have her way with them, and they'll tell us everything they know~"

    "Do I make myself clear? Once the Bodhisattva has been sent to the pit, the remaining spoils are yours to do with as you see fit, and I will share with you the truth of ghostly existence."
Staren     When Lezard brings up manufacturing, Staren remembers to have the console show him what it can about generators; although he won't really pay attention to it 'till he's done talking to Revelations. Staren mentally flags all of her instructions as important, nodding. Hopefully he can quickly find out what all those capitalized words mean without bothering her too much more. The comment about blood makes him tilt his head to the side. "Really? Blood's easy to get. I have like a dozen extra bodies in storage, I could get fresh blood from them if it'd help... what's the risk, though?"

    He listens raptly, ears turned forward to face her, as she describes their upcoming tasks, nodding along when she describes the landfall and the rest of it.
Lezard Valeth "Double the pity, then. I could have ensured that for you, Admiral." Lezard replies.

When Staren asks about the dangers of fresh blood, however, the Sorceror emits a low, amused giggle. "Do you not even known the most basic rules of magic? The Law of Contagion is practically universal, let alone the rather interesting things those of this world can do with it."
Staren     Staren ohs as Lezard brings up the Law of Contagion. "Right, that. Hmm... Probably still some way I can game it, with a little prep work. Blood from a clone of randomized DNA, not mine, or from animals or something, I dunno."
Bloody Revelations     "The blood of the living is the most potent source of Essence there is for the dead, and only the dead. All Necromancy requires the shedding of blood as a catalyst to call upon such powers, and since the dead don't have blood, they normally can't use it at all. Without need of food or drink or furnishings, the dead trade in Essence itself, as any given ghost gains the capacity to sense and use it, once they shed their flawed and oppressive mortal coil. I heard it can be addictive too." Bloody Revelations says.