It’s time for more Children of the Dragon, by which I mean more exalts who are not at all dragonblooded.

Chejop Kejak! He’s whining that good help is everywhere, assuming you didn’t ask too much of it but the problem was that smart help was difficult to find which sounds really profound for that split second before you remember that “good help” always means competent help. Every time someone laments the lack of good help they mean that they have help but it’s too dumb to be useful.

He explains that there’s all sorts of important, difficult tasks that require being super-discrete about it. And it’s not like he’s the leader of an entire exalt type that specializes in exactly that and have access to the only real fast-travel in the game or anything! And also oversees another less specialized but far more numerous exalt type! CLEARLY, one mortal was indefuckingspensible.

He’d tried to find Wren, of course, numerous times. Messages had gone out to his agents across the Threshold and beyond: “report in if you see Eliezer Wren.” A dozen false alarms were reported, checked out, and dismissed and their authors suitably chastised.

“What the fuck?” asked another passing sidereal.

“OMG u don understaaaaaaaaaaand!” Ketchup Carjack replied. “Creation was large, after all.”

“The Loom covers the whole of Creation! Just ask a pattern spider about Wren’s thread. This is our fucking specialty! There are cheat codes embedded in reality itself for this!”

“and Wren was just one man with a knack for concealing himself!” Carjack wept.

“We spent fifteen hundred years tracking celestial exalts on this thing. 99% of which were fucking LUNARS. Remember lunars? They’re the ones that are just a pile of disguise charms with super strength that Luna insisted ‘totally counted’ as a single concept. You spearheaded our extermination campaign against them, the one that was so successful they were driven out of Creation into the Wyld itself.”

Carjack sobbed more deeply. Wren was privy to enough of Kejak’s secrets to make him a valuable prize

The sidereal’s eye began to twitch. “When would you even tell him anything important? HE’S JUST A MORTAL.”

“Look ok I may have spent my acquaintance points unwisely but in my defense something came up this one time and I may have panicked and thought I’d need to mindrape someone into a lobotomized dragon for a fast trip but then it turned out to be a false alarm but I’d already run the initial charms to make us buddies and it turns out it’s really convenient to get to vent to the same person you’re using to fix a problem ok,” said Carjack, then returned to sobbing about how if Wren was legit dead it would be barely acceptable but oh my god what if he was still alive even as a mortal Wren is just so important and knows so much important shit and it is the most important thing in all Creation that they find him and bring him back.

“I’m backstabbing your incompetent ass and taking over the Bronze,” said Chejop Kejak. “Also, I’m then going to convince the pattern spiders to retcon everything to say that actually I was in charge this whole time in an attempt to erase this embarrassment from reality itself.”

Carjack ignored this and sulked off to a plain monk cell to cry more because remember how last book, he had his ceiling done up as stars but the plaster was mysteriously cracking?

There was now a brace of monks in the chamber around the clock, constantly shoring up moldering bits of the ceiling or replacing celestial spheres that had fallen.

Another option, I suppose, is that Carjack is in fact a mortal himself, who’s been fucked with enough to think he is and perhaps even count partly as Kejak. So he thinks this is how divination works and goes on about how the flaws are wrecking his predictions and meanwhile actually it’s that his sidereal handlers who are getting messed up by all the new thread-snapping exalted assholes running around and so the predictions they’re feeding him are screwing up. The ceiling is supposed to be an interface and it’s crumbling because it’s suffering similar damage as the Loom itself but doesn’t have a million pattern spiders running all over fixing it up.

Supporting this option, he goes on to say, He’d tried to substitute other resources, but time and again, he’d failed. because all his “divination” techniques are just nonsense he was fed so he’d think he was the real sidereal.

Anyway, he decides it’s time to pull out the big guns:

Have the Chamber of the Unbroken Circle cleansed and purified. I’ll need seventeen braziers in there, all bronze, and herbs for meditation. Also, bring me salt and a leather thong knotted around nine stones.”

It’s summoning time!

There’s your standard fires burning fragrant herbs and chanting. He goes on to explain that despite the fact this room was just referred to as the one with an unbroken circle, There was no protective circle on the floor because the thing he’s summoning is such a huge deal it won’t be held by one. He goes on to explain most of the ritual itself is probably bullshit but he’s going along with it because it makes the deity he’s summoning less annoyed with the whole summoning thing, and Carjack, if it doesn’t like being summoned maybe next time you head home for the night you could just walk one block over and knock on its door? Or invite it to a party/get an invite to a party it’s attending? You have other options. Again, kind of the point of your exalt type.

A gong sounded somewhere in the. distance. It was followed by another, and then a third. The sound of birds exploding into flight filled the chamber

This is not, I believe, at all related to Yuyu’s own patron who’s a bird and marked by the sound of wings. It’s a bit of a rehash, and it’s not even necessary – sure, birds are thought to see a lot because they’re high up and know a lot because they’re talking to each other, but a god of something probably doesn’t need to have the information actually flown to him plus Carjack here is looking for someone hidden, and it’s going to go on to be able to tell him even about underworld events, so a god of rodents would fit far better. But Wren is a bird so Carjack went for the pun over sense.

There’s a bit of cleverness here, though – Carjack has an acolyte here supposedly in charge of keeping the fires topped off with herbs but really here as a human sacrifice but really really she’s a fake sacrifice because he’s pretending he thinks she’s a virgin when she’s not and then when Birdgod’s all “haha ur dumbs” he makes a big deal of how wow, you sure got me Birdgod someone as awesome as you could totally answer a minor question no problem also please don’t think about why I think this is important just think about how much better than me you are…

While normally I would appreciate the fine ethical standard, this is Exalted: The Grimshit and Kejak’s thing in particular is sacrifice for the greater good because sunk cost fallacy. YOU should have the option for cleverness, because the point of Exalted isn’t that there’s only bad options available, it’s just that everyone keeps picking the bad ones because they’re sure things…especially when we’re talking about the one who went with the vision of Bronze and justified this explicitly with the fact that yes, it sucked, but at least it was a sure thing.

Meanwhile, Birdgod tells him Wren is, in fact, dead.

He died in the dungeons of the Prince of Shadows, and thus has passed from your service. My children have few eyes in the Underworld, but they say he has been seen there, traveling with strange and fell companions. Your servant is lost to you.”

And for some reason, Kejak does not immediately freak out at the knowledge that this is the worst of all possible outcomes – his servant is dead AND his spectral brain is getting picked by the enemies of Creation despite that.

Anyway, Birdgod fucks off, Kejak tells the freaked-out acolyte that everyone knows she and her tutor are fucking. Incidentally, they’re gay. The series is getting better at the inclusiveness part of Exalted’s worldbuilding, at least.

Immediately after he adds that she’d better never talk about any of this or he’ll murder her and mutilate the body, she asks who Wren is anyway. Kejak, continuing to not register the reminder that knowledge can totally persist after death, just says he’s some dead guy, because next chapter will be about some other dead guy!

Some other dead guy wakes up to find out he’s got yet another body with perfectly good eyes. He’s super happy about this despite the fact he seemed to be seeing fine without them previously. He then checks out the rest of his naked self with his brand-new eyes to see it’s all flawless.

While this would appear to be the neverborn’s inexplicable favor, even more inexplicably, actually he’s still got to go get judged and it’s wholly possible all the effort that went into somehow giving him yet another body will be wasted.

On the other hand, if you’re going to have contradictory nonsense happening, the neverborn are very much the plot devices to use.

What’s a trifle too inexplicable is The stone beneath him was pleasantly cool, and it was the pleasant sensation of temperature he felt, not pain. For the first time in gods alone knew how long, there was no pain. The neverborn are pain. These are things that are trying to destroy all of existence because the closest thing they can get to imagining “no pain” is the complete oblivion of everything that ever is or was. Their message to the rest of the undead is “jump into the void, you can’t feel pain once there’s no you left to feel it :D” Even if they wanted to motivate Ratcatcher by not hurting him, I don’t think they could.

So there’s someone to laugh at Ratcatcher being omg wtf where am I? we have another familiar face:

One eye socket bulged with squirming maggots, which dripped and wriggled and fell onto the floor. The other eye was perfect and beautiful, bright blue in the gloom. Its chin was sharp, its features elongated. and its hair thin and long.

I refuse to chance my stance regarding Idli and how I’m sure he was acting in good faith originally. That he’s thrown his lot in with the neverborn now is no doubt a consequence of having to switch sides once Wren made it clear how dangerous a monster he was, and indeed, there’s no sign this is still “Idli”. He’s referred to in the narration only as “thing” and “creature”, as if he’s had to sacrifice his very name to the void.

Indeed, “I know better,” he said cautiously, ”than to ask who you are.” is no doubt Ratcatcher recognizing that to say anything that would make Idli acknowledge his former name would just lead to a cranky smackdown by the neverborn.

Of course, while I can make that make sense there’s only so much I can do. Ratcatcher continues to gush about his new body, claiming there was no pain, only strength and power that he’d been missing since a long-ago night in the rain when he’d first incurred his master’s displeasure. which implies that somehow he got nerfed by the Prince of Shadows right then? Ratcatcher, power in Exalted is very much a no-backsies sort of thing. If power could be yoinked back out, none of the setting could exist. The fuckups that followed are all on you. WHY MUST YOU DO THIS WHEN YOU COULD’VE JUST REFERRED TO THE FIRST BODY SWAP? It’s like you’re trying to annoy me!

He then tries out a bunch of sword moves.

“Yes!” he exulted, and moved with more confidence. The guide watched him, bemused, and even applauded politely after one particularly convoluted mock passage.
Embarrassed, Ratcatcher stopped, turning his head and bringing his hands to his sides. “I apologize,” he said. “You said we should be leaving.. .”
The creature nodded. “And so we should. But there was time for this, I think. It will help you choose, later.”

Seriously though, I love thing-that-used-to-be-named-Idli. He’s pretty nice. Ratcatcher is also weirdly nice often enough I’m inclined to take it as an underlying personality trait that he’s trying to shake himself of.

But now they head off

he reveled in the sensation of each footfall on stone, or on soft earth, or on rusty and heated metal. They passed through corridors that had been built by industrious hands, and those that looked as if grubs had gnawed them out of the earth. Each was lit to a pleasant dimness, and each led gently but inevitably downwards.

Place is a more pleasant than I’d make it but still, pretty good.

Eventually, they came to a spit of weathered, gray stone that projected out over a vast, unlit abyss. Barely the width of a man, it arched impossibly over the blackness, and winds from the depths howled up and over it.

It’s time to say hi to the void!

Ratcatcher now feels cold.

It’s them you feel. If it were merely cold, you’d feel nothing. Not in this place, with you as you are.

What Ratcatcher “is” is unclear, although the book does give enough information that we get a good idea of how it functions and, in another game where vast forces hold powers you’ll never directly touch, not actually explaining what the neverborn are doing here wouldn’t be a problem. Basically, he’s invulnerable until he actually leaves the underworld, either because all the underworld is controlled by the neverborn OR because he’s just illusory and they only make his body real in the final moment when he leaves OR some other reason I’m not thinking of.

The problem is none of these really make much sense with how much control the neverborn actually have over the underworld, but then, it’s also canon that it’s completely impossible to bring anyone back to life ever and Ratcatcher really should’ve just rolled up a new character by now.

But right now, what matters is Ratcatcher is a complete fucking idiot.

Ratcatcher found himself unable to look away from the pit. Was there light in the depths? Faintly, he thought he saw something glow, a faint white light like a band of stars cutting across the night sky. Fascinated, he looked on. The light had a shape, he was sure, one that he could almost discern. Just another moment, and he’d be able to see…
With a cry, he threw himself back from the precipice

He’s freaked out because looking down toward the neverborn and the void, he saw the neverborn hovering above the void. Admittedly, about what you’d expect from him.

“Oh, you’re a blessed one, Ratcatcher. You saw them, didn’t you? That’s not a boon they give to all their little ones.” The thing’s chuckles subsided into a rough cough, but amusement still glinted in its one good eye.”‘And you took it so well. They chose well with you.”

Sarcasm? Who the fuck knows. This is a world where the neverborn are just dead humanoid gods and Ratcatcher apparently never went down to the edge of the void before despite being an abyssal who tossed his name into this very pit already.

Ratcatcher apparently comes to the same conclusion about nothing making sense and wants to know if he can chat with Unnamed Undead Friend about what’s going on. There also seem to be weird social effects thrown around or else Ratcatcher is actually pretty subservient and obedient by nature and just tetchy because the Prince of Shadows is an asshole to his subordinates.

Ratcatcher bit his lip. “I should not be here. I should be…” He trailed off in a moment of wonder and pain.
“Dead? Yes. Well, you are dead.” The creature’s laugh was a dry wheeze. “But this is the wrong kind of death for you, is it not? That is what puzzles you.”
“Yes,” he said again. Gingerly, Ratcatcher knelt. He did not know why he did so, It simply seemed appropriate, and it gratified him out of all proportion to see the being opposite him smile benignly at the sight. “I should be elsewhere. I’ve failed. Failed many times. I don’t deserve-” he held up his hands and gazed at them “-this.”

Unnamed Undead Friend asks if he’s expecting horrible punishments for screwing up and calls him a poor fool for thinking it.

Ratcatcher lifted his head, uncomprehending. “I don’t understand,” he said. “When I failed the Prince of Shadows, I was punished. Surely I’ve failed those who dwell in darkness as well, and thus I shall be punished by them?”
Unexpectedly, Ratcatcher’s guide grimaced. “Is that all you’ve learned? No wonder you’re a poor tool,” it said, and spat maggots onto the floor.

Which suggests that the Prince of Shadows is just shit at managing people, which…does appear to be the case, doesn’t it?

I feel I tend to see subservient evil characters an odd lot. I guess, while ambition = evil is common, good = acting independently. We’re really into characters going rogue and doing what they think they should.

Anyway, Unnamed Undead Friend isn’t saying he won’t be punished. He just has no clue. His job was to escort the guy here and tell him to walk out so he’s standing over the void. The neverborn will then resolve the question of if they plan to punish, reward, or punishreward him by doing so.

“A little further,” his guide called. There was no amusement in its voice anymore. Briefly, Ratcatcher considered the notion that if the guide had meant to do him harm, then surely he would have taken an opportunity before this one to do so. But the memory of games of sadism and pain played at the Prince of Shadows’ knee reasserted themselves, and he found himself very nervous indeed.

And to return for a moment to the issue of semibyssals and deathlords, it does seem like the Prince of Shadows actually is fulfilling a similar role here to the deathlord that’s his canonical patron, of getting people embroiled in stupid shit with some weird justification that no actually you’ll realize it’s all meaningless that only makes sense to them as a millennium-old insane ghost while everyone else takes it at face value.

It’s just it makes more sense with the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears given nonstop undead orgies are more obviously pointless while the Prince of Shadows’ running everything as eternal middle school with actual knives seems like it’d take way longer for anyone to get the “joke” that it’s pointless to strive for anything. Also, she does it without crippling her entire organization in the process.

Anyway, there’s more wind and weird bruised violet light and the neverborn reach up and tear him and the rock loose.

Forgive me, my prince, he found himself thinking

Ratcatcher, he’s just not that into you.

He wakes up again to find himself back. Unnamed Undead Friend says he has no clue how much actual time that took because haha, time, like that’s even a thing, but definitely the neverborn debated it for however long “long” is. Because he’s still not very bright, he asks what the judgement was and Unnamed Undead Friend reiterates yet again that if he was found wanting he wouldn’t still exist to be asking such dumb questions.

Suddenly, Unnamed Undead Friend gets straight-up possessed to say a bizarrely coherent message from the neverborn:

You have served us poorly, and by doing so you have served us well. They go on to list how everything he did served their secret secret master plan which happens to look exactly like a string of random events.

They tell him, therefore, that he’s been given this new body to go murder the fuck out of the world. But they’re so super double pleased with his failure-success that they do have an additional offer for him.

“Or,if you desire it, you may seek oblivion or torment, should either please you. We will grant this unto you, for your failures are our glory.

Which just goes to show how little sense it makes to start off this chapter with Ratcatcher going on about how painless his current existence is, as if that’s even a thing.

Ratcatcher does think oblivion and an end to pain sounds pretty nice, despite already having had an end to pain right now, but he wants to get vengeance first.

“I choose resurrection,” he said, in a voice shot through with excitement. “I choose blood and plunder to your greater glory, and I will make great sacrifices unto you when I am reborn.”

Which all suggests that somehow the him running around now isn’t actually real yet and it won’t be until he climbs out of the underworld, which would make sense in some universes but not this one.

Stairs sprouted from the ground, each hewed from black iron and blacker stone. A cruel, spiked railing grew out of the stairs, and the tines of the spikes were stained with rust.

Continuing to not get how the neverborn are all about pain, the return won’t be painful despite the implicit choice of painless oblivion vs non-oblivion existence because Ratcatcher still has the invulnerability going on and those spikes could be cuddly puppies for all it’d matter.

Take up your former service, for this too is the will of the dead gods, and go to your prince. He is in need of you.’’ Ratcatcher bowed, humbly. ‘‘I will do so, and with joy.”

Also, when saying he’d take the resurrection a few lines back, he went on a bit about how he couldn’t wait to not be under the thumb of a certain asshole who keeps sending him off on dumb errands. I can only assume that the Prince of Shadow’s social charms keep reasserting themselves whenever he’s not explicitly thinking about why he’s mad.

Before he goes, Unnamed Undead Friend pauses to say that by the way, fucking kill that fucker Wren and then, oddly, identifies himself as Idli after going to such lengths not to. I can only assume he’s decided to take the resonance hit because it’s more important that he get Ratcatcher to Give Wren my regards before you kill him than not incur the wrath of the neverborn.

Idli watched him go with mild interest. The judgment had surprised him, as had the revelation of the dead gods’ uses for the man. But now he seemed renewed. Transformed. Possibly even effectual.

And we end on this note of subtle hilarity.