Last time on basically Earth, the rotation of the planets means yet another person finds out the same damn thing.
Chapter Eight introduces Yushuv, yet another viewpoint character! Actually, he’s an important one, in theory. I’m not sure why, but I’m not sure the author knows either.
There’s skeletons everywhere. This is apparently an ossuary, but it’s disorganized and overstuffed. (It’s not actually one except in the sense both involve large numbers of corpses underground. It’s never explained how all these corpses were neatly defleshed and such.) Ossuaries are cool, though. They’re one of reality’s wonderful gifts and should be used every time you have an excuse.
He pelted down the narrow corridor that he’d long ago named “Bonebreak Lane,”
One of the things that’s impressive in its way is the sheer amount of babble this book has. This place is a huge labyrinth of corridors. Why would he name this particular one? Well, because one day he’d be running down it fast and need to worry about tripping over a bone and breaking something.
Luckily, according to established RPG tradition, there’s luminous fungi everywhere to light his way. Two species even, red and green. They have the makings of a traffic system all ready.
Yushuv is fleeing someone dark and terrifying while underground in some tunnels. So three guesses who that is.
Interestingly, Yushuv has no idea who it is, though he thinks it may be a ghost or demon. “Anathema” doesn’t come up in his options, despite that being the best guess for something that looks exactly like a person, has a physical body, but is displaying demonic or otherwise terrifying traits. The official standpoint on anathema is that they’re demon-possessed people! This shouldn’t be hard.
But Yushuv was sure that if he could just get out of the corridors, up the stairs and into the sunlight, he might get away.
For similar reasons, it’d hard to guess why he thinks this. Ghosts have issues materializing in daylight. Demons and men aren’t so limited, and neither are the brain-eating chaos fairies, Wyld-mutated monsters, or various malicious gods. The number of things that can murder you horribly in Exalted is quite high, and most of them do it in broad daylight.
What’s bizarre here is there’s a perfectly good reason to think that he’ll be safe if he can just get up the stairs, namely that the stairs lead into the temple and in the temple are Immaculate monks and Immaculate monks include people who can do crazy shit with martial arts. If Yushuv had made the most likely inference, that he’s being chased by an anathema, the most likely solution should be to flee to the people in charge of fighting off anathema.
But instead, Yushuv just uses this to establish how his priorities have changed.
Yushuv no longer even cared if the priests who tended this place caught him, though an hour ago he would have feared nothing else so much in this world.
He then considers the faint possibility they might slow the thing down, but he doesn’t think it’s likely. What’s odd is that there’s no real reason for the author to write it like this, since Ratcatcher is supposed to be pretty badass of a fighter, and isn’t that better conveyed by talking up his opponents?
So great was his haste that he nearly missed the turn to the right. Sliding on the smooth stone, he reached out to grab the edge of the arch and instead found himself clutching at a precariously balanced pile of partially disassembled skeletons. The tower hung in the air for an impossibly long moment, then collapsed into the center of the archway.
Yushuv, depending on your viewpoint, has incredibly bad luck or is rather incompetent, since he supposedly knows this area well and you’d think the fact you can’t touch the walls without risking the collapse of the unstable bone towers someone’s constructed would be included in that knowledge.
Somehow, in what I think violates spacial rules, bones stacked on the side of the tunnel’s wall falling completely blocks the tunnel, and every time he tries to shove any aside more fall down from somewhere, and somehow this leads to him being buried in them. You’d think the story would just say the bones fell on him when they collapsed the first time, but this book likes to do things its own way.
So he’s got to just sit and wait while Ratcatcher slowly catches up with him. I’m not sure to class the panic as another idiot ball or not – see, he was running and Ratcatcher wasn’t, so he had a huge lead and would have been fine if he hadn’t been rushing. But he’s scared, and when you’re scared it makes sense you want to get away as fast as possible.
In fact, Ratcatcher’s so slow we have time for a flashback. Yushuv explains he, like all the village kids, comes down here to steal things off the corpses.
Rumor had it that the Immaculates were supposed to confiscate all of that before laying the bones to rest, but that they’d gotten lazy over the years and stopped bothering.
Not actually the obvious plot hole it looks like! The corpses were not laid to rest by the Immaculates.
…there is, however, a secondary plot hole in that the crazy valuable stuff the kid’s finding should make him and anyone else quite wealthy. Even a backwater with price setting can only do so much.
Yuyu says that in fact, he’s always been fearless in the tunnels.
Today was different, however. He’d gone searching to the east in hopes of picking up another dagger to sell like the one he’d found a few weeks back. It had been made of something that looked like gold but which felt lighter, and Malaky the Guild factor had given him a good price for it.
Stuff that looks like gold but lighter is the Solar’s magic gold, or orichalcum. It is crazy expensive. (And this dagger is, naturally, related to the +1 sword.) The Guild is pretty awful, but even assuming they’re paying pennies on the dollar for this (copper on the silver?) he should be one wealthy kid by now.
So he finds Ratcatcher interrogating skull after skull for info. Another point for Ratcatcher being an Abyssal, mortals can’t yank ghosts around with necromancy like this.
He knew that he should flee, and that if the man saw him there he’d be broken and left here for another ossuary rat to find. But something about what he saw held him fast, and he found himself unwilling to go. He told himself that it was safer to stand where he was and stay quiet, and to let the stranger leave first
Or, it’s happening because the author wants him to. Oddly, this isn’t so he can witness anything further, because the next paragraph says that eventually Ratcatcher looks toward him and speaks. Yuyu, not having much survival skill, continues to try the mighty stand still defense until the guy actually reached over his back and drew the asp-bladed sword that hung there, and Yushuv could swear he heard it moan.
It’s soulsteel after all!
So he runs, and we get suitably nightmarish.
But as hard as he’d run, he’d failed. Somehow, the stranger had kept up with him, always on the edge of hearing, and no matter how fast Yushuv had gone he’d been unable to escape.
It’s hampered by the writing style, though. This is a terribly creepy concept, but it’s not being done justice here.
Yuyu ups his rabbit defense by closing his eyes in addition to holding still, and finally Ratcatcher gets there and points out that won’t do him any good. Although actually it probably is the best defense against an Abyssal, they have a bunch of Cthulhu effects and also any sense you shut down is one less they have to work with for social attacks.
Yuyu then explains how he’s not going to beg, because somehow he knows it’s useless. That’s actually a terrible idea, because it really isn’t.
Evil in Exalted may be alien, but it’s never uncaring in the broadest sense. A mortal’s best bet of slowing down a compassionate demon that’s getting too friendly is to quickly and clearly explain that skinning is not an appropriate way to show affection – the demon probably won’t get it, but it’ll hesitate while it tries to understand what you’re saying and you can keep backing away. And it’s outright stated in canon that, for example, an Abyssal who’s decided to kill you for your own good can also be stopped by you explaining that you don’t want to die – they’ll try to argue you down first. With their social charms, they’ll probably win the argument unless you’re a fellow Exalt, but it’d delay them and hey, you might get lucky. Even brain eating chaos fairies can be slowed down with this, if they’re the right type or you’re eloquent. And even those who don’t care can be distracted or sidetracked. Things in Exalted act like people to a degree, if you decide to talk, they’ll talk back. And since everything with a brain has at least a minimal compassion score, a suitably impassioned argument can make them hesitate – your odds of making one that amazing are low if you’re a mortal, but your odds of everything are because life sucks when you’re mortal, so it’s worth a shot. Well, unless you’ve decided Abyssals have a point about the whole nonexistence thing.
Point is, to sit quietly and try to die with dignity is not actually your best bet, because begging for mercy has a small chance of working and a decent chance of at least getting some hesitation you can exploit.
Ratcatcher cares about none of this. He explains that he was just following the kid because he figured the kid knew the way out. Oh, book. You make the same mistake as the Invisible Fortress. Exalts aren’t confined by dungeon crawls because Exalts can make an exit whenever they feel like. But that does explain why he was going so slowly. He then says that if the kid can point him there, the kid gets to live.
Then he shows off his soulsteel snake-shaped sword and the head of it looks like a snake and hisses then licks Yuyu with its terrifying metal tongue, which causes him to bleed.
Ratcatcher says he’s impressed Yuyu’s keeping quiet. But seriously, it’s not doing any good, so tell him the way out. Then, lamentably, instead of using the fact he’s an Abyssal with horrible mindrape charms or just regular torture, he starts going on about rats and how rats will find him and start eating him alive.
Yuyu can already imagine it. He tries bargaining, to let him out before he gives the directions. Ratcatcher is further impressed the kid being willing to try haggling over these things, , and does free him only to grab him before he can make any attempt to leave. So he directs Ratcatcher to the stairs he meant to go up.
Ratcatcher, surprisingly competent for someone who got lost so easily, then asks where those stairs lead.
For half a heartbeat Yushuv considered lying, then thought better of it. Besides, he owed the priests nothing.
So he’s totally sure this thing will kill them, but hey, fuck ’em, he doesn’t own anybody anything.
The book doesn’t seem to realize quite how vile this is. Part of the problem is the author seems to not get that the priests actually serve an important social function. There’s more to them than just oppressing the PCs.
It’s a shame, because assuming that the priests would actually stop Ratcatcher makes so much more sense and it’d be far better to see someone who did believe at least somewhat in the religion.
Ratcatcher says that’s to be expected, because this is a Solar tomb. Of course they’d stick a temple right on top.
“Anathema, boy,” the stranger spat. “You’ve been creeping around in the tomb of what those piss-drinking priests call an Anathema. All this,” he gestured about with his sword, “is his honor guard into hell
As I said. Not actually an ossuary.
Ratcatcher then…drops the kid.
“Here’s a last bit of advice, boy,” Ratcatcher said as he stalked off. “If I were you, I’d stay down here for a little while yet. Just keep moving. It will keep the rats away, at least until they figure out that you’re defenseless.”
The author really doesn’t like rats. Anyway, this is more of Ratcatcher being a weird character. You could explain leaving the kid alive if it’s temporary and just to draw out his suffering, but the most Ratcatcher’s done here is lie a bit about how scary rats are, and also, he must know the kid will just go out by another route. And since Yuyu was apparently trapped for good and not just unable to get loose before Ratcatcher got there, letting him out should really fall under the heading of saving a mortal, which is going to net you resonance.
Anyway, this was one of the best chapters, though that’s damning with faint praise. It’s got a good setting, actual action, and while probably unintended, you can read a lot into the characters. Ratcatcher is again being, in comparison to what you’d expect for someone charged with murdering all of reality, kind of nice. And for his part, Yuyu shows some really dark signs where his first impulse is to just wait to be killed instead of even trying to talk, likely because it’s weakness to him, and does so again when he thinks that he doesn’t owe the priests anything and that makes it okay to send someone to murder them all.
And yet it does all of these things terribly. The cool setting is given lengthy yet somehow flat descriptions and the action does a poor job of building tension or even flowing well – again, bizarre the story didn’t just have the bones drop on him when he first knocked them over. It has the elements but it can’t seem to execute them properly. A great deal of this story makes so much more sense if it’s thought of more like a rough draft to just get the ideas in place, save for the part where it somehow was published in its current form.