Exalted: Hells Embrace Chapter 1
 

Detnahcne was a place venerated through the trees upon which it settled itself. In a wild, beautifully untamable land, it was an oasis from which to observe the shafts of sunlight that would filter down, highlighting the vibrant green of the trees and the warm brown of the bark. Bright flowers, an artist's pallet across the ground and over the trees, tilt their heads up to gaze at the canopy as they wind their way over the trunks and branches and settle comfortably along the walls of the city. Like the most prized specimens of a king's harem, the brightest and most beautiful flowers were very likely the ones that would cost a traveler his or her life. Their sweet fragances drifted around and through the city, a quiet reminder that apperance is a brilliant disguise for danger. The chirping of birds is distant as they wage a constant, polite, war with the monkeys and reptiles of the trees for the plentiful culinary delights the East offers its animal inhabitants. In the early morning, a fine white mist would curl and spiral through the small glades and glide between the trees, inspiring some of the most famous romantic legends and tales of the ages.

And the city stood as sentry and companion. Neither battling against the natural way of the woods, but never becoming part of it. A hive of learning in the Far East, Detnahcne was a golden city that lacked the gold. And entire city devoted to peace and to research, a place that sought not to control, but to understand. Most famous for its crafters and its enormous library that was, to the librarians there, like a temple. So devoted were these librarian-priestesses that they took a vow of celibacy so that they would never be distracted from the pure pursuit of knowledge. Attempts to distract them met with constant failure. Factions did not exist here, they had no place and were not welcome. All ideas had equality, all ideas had merit. No one opinion could hope to triumph over another. No great accomplishment was ever achieved alone, but was always a conglomeration of ideas and sketched thoughts that slowly, through sharing, debate, and discussion would be cultivated into the glorious result. And the result in and of itself always had room for new ideas and new improvements. A mecca for all those who sought peace and knowledge for knowledge's sake, Detnahcne appeared beyond the touch of even the ever hungry Realm.

But just as the flora grew on the rot of the generations before it, feeding off the carcass that had once birthed it, and growing constantly to smother out its weaker plant neighbors, nothing stays beautiful after the first glance. Nothing remains untouched, and the glorious pinnicale of peace, prosperity, and equality, is now only a memory marked on the rings of the trees surrounding it. Where white mist once played and circled, now it is tinged gray at best, and is an inky black at worst. The walls have crumbled, crushing under them the fauna that is too afraid or too weak to grow back. The empty shells of the buildings stand weakly like the remains of the condemed on the hangman's noose. Black smoke still drifts lazily out of the destroyed windows. Blackened chared debry is scattered across the road, in places whole buildings have collapsed in on themselves as if in despair. The smell of the dangerously beautiful wild flowers has been replaced with the acrid scent of gunpowder, and the sickening undertone of charred flesh. Some buildings still hiss their heated warnings as the wind blows over their seared skeletons. The entire forest is in fear. No birds sing, no beasts call, even the wind in the trees above seems to have found it appropriate to be silent.

This is now that city of Detnahcne, and it is on this tattered ruin of assassinated glory that a group of travellers approach: Zane, with the calloused hands of the crafter, seeks the wealth of artifacts said to be in Detnahcne. A Haltean woman named Sheba, eager to understand the how and why of society, will now find her desires more difficult to obtain. An Old Man and his body guard, the former of which now finds that the cryptic message he recieved of finding something interesting is becoming more and more true. An enormous man with a wrapped hammer named Drake will find his hopeful hideaway and sanctuary from the Realms wanted posters singing the leaves with smoke. And a young scholar named Jansen, who now finds his hopes of the library, and the delightful tease of the librarians now gone.

Outside of the trees, they seem to be the only witnesses to the rape of Detnahcne.

This wasn't quite what Zane had been expecting to say the least. After marching for most of the day in his armor it was more than a little disheartening to see the city in ruins. Thinking of the knowledge that had been destroyed and might never be recovered was almost too much for Zane. The deaths of the populace added onto that made this one of the greatest tragedies Zane had ever witnessed. Concentrating for a few seconds Zane's armor shimmered and disappeared to elsewhere his caste mark glittering slightly on his forehead as the last bits of his armor disappeared to Elsewhere.

Zane moved slowly through the ruins towards what he thought must have once been the library. Hopefully there would be something worth salvaging.

The library is merely a husk of its former glory. The charred remains of brick and wood still standing cast shadows on the ground, like a grand decaying corpse of a beast. Skeletons littered the ground, not all of them human. The cadavers with enough flesh on their faces to hold a look had the sense of intense fear forever branded into their features. Each step Zane took on the floors creaked and groaned, threatening to break and send him tumbling into whatever cellar this place might have once had.

The smell of death and the sight of rot makes it hard to search, and from what he could tell the invaders had been quite thorough in their destruction, but the Twilight did manage to find a few items of interest in the rubble.

One was the remains of a book, the title "Living To The Third Age: The Organic Way" labeled in gold on the cover. Unfortunately, the fire damaged the pages beyond comprehension, the only legible pages being the Table of Contents.

The second seemed to be a dirty magazine found under a pile of burned books, protected from the scorching flames by the thick volumes of literature and classic writings. A picture of a cowboy and a red haired Dragonblooded was quite apparent on the cover. Their actions gave flexibility whole new meanings.

The last book Zane found was held tightly in the grip of a burned corpse, the dead man/woman shielding the book from destruction. "The Underworld: A Study On The Land Of The Dead And Those That Live There" was etched into the leather binding with deep cuts. It didn't seem to be a published book, but more a stack of pages sewn together with nylon threads. The teeth marks on the spine of the body resembled that of a dog's. A mutated dog with teeth as long as your forearm, but a dog nonetheless.

(Sith, after rolling a Perception and Awareness roll and getting 3, found three books. Only one of any real use. Anyone to get higher than 3 will find other things, but he has found anything of use short of an Exceptional Success.)

"...Crap" Drake stated to himself, surveying the scene. He had hoped that this town would be a good place to hide in. He had tried to find a spot that he could relax, at least for a little while. Instead what does he find? The town that he might have found comfort in burned to the bloody ground. Oh boy what fun was that. He sighed, for it has been a long time since Drake managed to find a comfortable spot to sleep, one where he didn't have to worry about waking up with a knife at his throat. It looked like he would have to wait a bit longer before such a time came.

He laid a hand upon the hammer that nested on his back. The cloth it was wrapped in was still tight. And it was holding out very well. Its surprising just how durable cheap cloth can sometimes be. Even if it doesn't look pretty. His simple clothes he carried upon his shoulders was of the same material, so his very decency depended upon such cloth. Still though, he wondered if anyone thought it weird he wore a weapon but no armor. The headband upon his forehead itched, and Drake was careful to scratch the itch without really moving the headband around.

With a sigh, he started to wander the town, in search of anyone, or anything, that may have survived this. It looked like it may be a while, but then again there really wasn't much else to do for this town.

As Drake surveyed the destroyed town, he could find plenty of bodies. Many, MANY bodies. None of them alive, however. There are some ruined dog and cat corpses laying about, all with the same wounds as their deceased masters. Every fifty feet or so are small pillars of dead bodies piled up on top of each other, tread marks in the soft earth of the roads squishing any bodyparts accidentally left on the road.

Near the middle of the ghost town is a tall post of some dark metal, with horrific faces imprinted on the cold steel. A man's skull rested on top of the post, the skull stripped clean of skin and muscle. Its jawbone hung down in an open mouth as it stared lifelessly at you.

Drake does see some movement in what used to be a library. A strange man looking through the piles, picking up books that hadn't been completely destroyed.

Surveying the destroyed city, Jansen froze.

The stench of death.

The sight of charred corpses.

The crushing reality of a destroyed city.

It was too much, and all he could do was fall backwards into a sitting position, staring out over the blackened remains of the once great city for several minutes before being able to pull himself from his silent reverie.

Slowly he pulled himself to his feet and moved into the destroyed city, looking for any signs of what could have caused this and why.

What Janus saw was a familiar scene. Not something he had seen too often in real life, just mostly from pictures in the books he had read. The illustrations of war and massacres. Utter slaughter. The people in this town weren't just killed. They were obliterated. Bodies were torn apart and stabbed repeatedly, many wounds made post-mortem, just to ensure that they were dead.

Judging by the size of the town and the scale of the destruction, this wasn't some simple village raid by barbarians. There were war machines involved. Cannons, tanks, infantry. Technology not often seen this far in the East, and especially not with this sense of...taint to it.

As far as he can recollect, there were no obvious enemies to Detnahcne. They did step on some toes with their strong stance against factions of any kind, and years refusing to join the Realm or even allow something as simple as a mercenary guild to be placed in their territory. And from the looks of it all, there were only scant places that hints could hide. The library held much knowledge, though it'd be hard to find anything remaining in that cold fireplace. And there was a strange skull resting on top of what you know to be Soulsteel.

The small collection of books Zane and acquired didn't hold much promise as of yet. He discarded the book about living to the third age the table of contents being essentially useless without the book that it went to. He packed the other two away after all they were knowledge after a fashion. One never knew when some small trivial bit from an obscure book might come in handy. Plus those pictures were just damn intriguing.

A quick glance outside the perimeter of the library revealed what appeared to be motion. Though it could have just been a shadow. Zane cautiously moved out into the city proper and spotted two other men picking through the rubble. What really caught his eye was a strange pillar with what appeared to be a skull on top. He really couldn't be sure until he got closer. So he did, walking up to the strange construction intending to scrutinize the thing top to bottom and see if he couldn't tell what it was made of and what its function might be.

The young exalt felt ill--not from any physical disease, but from horror, disgust, and empathy, all balling up in his stomach and twisting about his insides in the most uncomfortable manner. There was nothing he could do for these people now... and he doubted there was much he could have done for them had he been here--this was no normal attack. The soul-steel, the strange skull, the... taint... it all screamed of something dark and supernatural. Something that could have slain even an exalt like himself.

But, knowing it was supernatural, he knew that there was more to be seen than what could be seen. Concentrating on the flows of essence through his body, Jansen opened his senses to that which could not be seen, (activating all-encompassing sorceror's sight) before moving toward the soul steel obelisk, to discern what he could of its origins, as well as keeping his eyes open for any other mysteries his new senses may unlock.

One by one, the men moved toward the skull on the soulsteel pike. To the naked eye, it would seem like nothing more than a warning of death to those that drew near. Like a taunt from an unseen enemy to give them your worst; they've already done theirs.

But to Jansen, whose eyes had opened themselves to the subtle flows of Essence in the world, this was far more than just an arbitrary action. The skull hadn't simply been thrust upon the soulsteel staff. It had been bonded to each other, the soulsteel melding into the fractures of the inside of the skull. Some strange conglomeration of spirit essence pushed against the frame of the skull, attempting in some form or another to get out.