Episode 2: The Chaos-Warriors

Previously on Exalted: the Egg of Rodan:

The Circle has been gathered by Iaro, a Gold-Faction Sidereal, to retrieve the stolen Egg of Rodan and return it to its nest before it returns to find it missing and destroys half of Creation. On the first day of their travel, they were beset by Moleruses.

And now:

The Circle is crossing the arctic waste on the first leg of their long journey to Nexus. Their first destination is Norhud, a coastal village. It is the month of Ascending Fire and the days this far north are 20 hours long. The short night was ablaze as Wyld energy scintilated and coruscated across the sky in sheets of pink and gold energy, sometimes crackling into soundless arcs of pink electricity towards the horizon. At dawn on the second day of their journey, they spy smoke rising on the horizon. The terrain here was a featureless icy plain in all directions, broken only by small rises here and there, with only inches of snow, so travel was made relatively easy. On the next dawn, they spy smoke again. Gleaming Warrior decides to run ahead of the group and arrive early.

The Nomad Camp

Gleaming Warrior finds a tribal nomad camp in disarray, the victim of repeated attacks. The few survivors had built a makeshift circular wall around the camp out of snow and antlers. However the antlers had been breached in several places and many yurts had been burned. The survivors were burning the bodies of the dead while the children were retrieving wandering domesticated elk and yeddim that had escaped from their pens.

Gleaming Warrior approached in friendship and was met by the tribe's aged leader, Gotha. Gotha introduced his tribe, of which only 10 men, 50 women, and 20 children survive. Gleaming Warrior meets several women: Melkor, the hostile one; Nilton, the careful one, Dasha, desperate for help and willing to do anything to survive; Klintasa, whose spirit has broken; and Ginta, hopeful for salvation.

The White Witch

Gotha explains that once his tribe numbered nearly 400 men and women. The tribe normally follows the Mammoth across the tundra, moving the camp about 10 miles every week. This summer, the Mammoth took a different course, as if attracted to this Wyld place. Then, several nights ago, the tribe welcomed a stranger into their camp, a beautiful woman with long white hair. The woman claimed to have been separated from her tribe and needed help. She was a comely woman and the men of the tribe were only too eager to allow her succor. That night, however, one of village men became infatuated with the new woman and killed his own wife. The two were banished from the tribe.

The next night, 40 men became infatuated with the banished woman and left the tribe and their wives to be with her. On the next night after that, 40 more men left, seriously draining the tribe. On the third night, the banished men returned, only changed. Their features had become twisted, their manner like an animal. They came for the women. The remaining men and women of the tribe defended themselves, but were unprepared. The outcasts attacked and carried away almost twenty women and children. The next day, the tribe followed the tracks of the outcasts to a mound capped with a crown of crystals, only 10 miles north of the encampment. The mound had no entrance and footprints disappeared in the snow mysteriously. The mound marked a boundary of the Wyld, beyond lay the twisted unnatural shapes of Chaos. To their horror, there they found wild Omen Dogs feasting on the bodies of the kidnapped women, their abdomens cleanly cut open and their wombs removed.

The tribe returned and fortified their encampment as best they could, and some survivors tried to flee, but the corrupted beasts that were once their kin returned two nights later, even more twisted and inhuman than before, and carried off more women and children, and even managed to chase down and capture the ones that fled. That was last night. Gotha feared that unless the attacks could be stopped, his tribe would disappear. He considered flight, like the others, but their fate proved that tactic was useless. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. And worse, the children of the village had been captured alive by woman they now call the White Witch and are even now held captive in her lair. He fears for their fate.

Gleaming Warrior stayed with the village that night and helped them rebuild. Like previous attacks, they were spared that night, but they expected another attack the on the following eve.

The next afternoon, the rest of the Circle arrived at the village. Gleaming Warrior and Gotha described the situation. The Circle decided to provide their assistance and defend the village and rescue the children. That night, they took position on the makeship ice burm. Dontesse leapt to the top of Gotha's Yurt, the largest and tallest yurt in the camp. Gleaming Warrior stood fast outside the burm on the north side of the camp. Jade flew above. Netiso prowled the area northeast of the camp. Broken Mountain Forge stood atop the southwest burm. Headless stood with the Gotha and the rest of the survivors, guarding the children in the main yurt.

Attack of the Chaos-Warriors

As the Unconquered Sun slowly slid below the horizon in the Northwest, turning the sky purple-red, dancing arcs of pink Wyld energy seemed to attact towards a point in the north like a lightning rod. The attack was heralded by drums and the baying of Omen dogs. 40 Wyld Chaos-Warriors and 5 Omen Dogs marched from the north. The Chaos-Warriors split and encircled the encampment, maintaining a distance of almost a mile. The movements were orchestrated by the baying of the Omen Dogs. Once the Chaos-Warriors were in position, the baying stopped, leaving an eerie silence.

The Chaos-Warriors charged. Once in range, Dontesse called upon the Fiery Arrow Storm and unleashed a pinwheel of fiery arrows in a counter-clockwise circle. Within seconds, he managed to dispatch nearly 30 of the Chaos Warriors. The rest engaged the remaining Chaos-Warriors and Omen Dogs in close-combat.

Dontesse continued to pick off the survivors of his assault. Netiso dispatched three of the warriors using some acrobatic moves and his Living Glaive. Gleaming Warrior diced several enemies with deadly efficiency. Jade swooped down upon her foes like an avenging condor with her hook swords acting as talons.

Broken Mountain Forge was battling an Omen Dog outside the burm, was caught by surprise when an arrow burst from the burm in an explosion of ice, striking the beast dead. Dontesse had fired the killing blow through the very burm itself!

Headless tackled the few that managed to get past Broken Mountain Forge and breach the burm's defenses.

In less than a minute, all 40 attackers and 10 Omen Dogs lay dead or dying. One tried to run, but Jade flew after him, grabbing him in her hook swords and carrying him away to the lair of the White Witch, where she dropped him from a great height, dashing him against the crystal spires below.

The circle regrouped and decided to set off for the Lair of the White Witch.

To be continued...

Storyteller's Notes

Next week, they take on the Fey Noble, the White Witch, in her lair.