[ww80105] Manual of Exalted Power - Infernals.pdf - Vakermit.com

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What they did was reach out to the souls of their slain
foes who either plunged into the Underworld or hovered
around an odd jade construction sunk into the bottom of the
Inland Sea. Similar to the way the Yozis turned mortals and
the Exalted into akuma, the Neverborn rebuilt the ghosts of
the slain Solars into more powerful versions of themselves, yet
ones still beholden to their Neverborn masters. This turn of
events intrigued the Ebon Dragon, but less so than the jade
object on the sea floor. With careful, roundabout inquiries,
he managed to discover that it was a prison containing the
essential cores that had given the Solar Exalted their power.
These Essences, these Exaltations, were masterworks of motic
filtration, amplification and conversion, designed by the Primordial
deserter Autochthon. They were effectively eternal
and indestructible, losing no function between successive
iterations of bonding with and empowering mortal souls.
The Ebon Dragon had studied Solar Exaltations before,
as had many of his fellow Yozis, in their various experiments
with Solar akuma. Yet, those Exaltations had always been
affixed to mortal souls, and there was only so much they
could tamper with them without cutting them loose of their
moorings—whereupon the Exaltations invariably got away.
Here, however, was this Jade Prison that somehow contained
the Exaltations despite their natural propensity to seek out
new souls to empower. Seeing this ingenious construction,
the Ebon Dragon slowly formulated a plan.
THE CONSPIRACY
Although doing so defied his jealous ambition, the
Ebon Dragon took his plan to his fellow Yozis. If it worked,
he promised, their time in prison would soon be over. By
his design, Creation could be made into a new Hell, which
they could inhabit and shape any way they pleased. Once
more would they be creators and masters as they had been
before the war. It would not be easy, but they could do it if
they worked together.
The Yozis were not impressed. For too long, they had
been beaten down and enslaved. For some, it was simply not
in their nature to hope for victory. Others were jealous of
how little the Ebon Dragon had been forced to change, and
they refused any overture he made out of spite. Although
many failed him, five recognized his wisdom. The first was
mad, spiteful Malfeas. He hated Creation and those who
had stolen it, and the Ebon Dragon’s promises whetted his
appetite for revenge. He leapt at the chance to turn Creation
into Hell. Adorjan, the Silent Wind, likewise relished the
idea of scouring and suffocating that which had once been
hers. What Malfeas chose to involve himself in, so too did
his sister Cecelyne, granting the Ebon Dragon’s proposed
scheme the backing of law. A slavish devotion to proper
hierarchy compelled She Who Lives in Her Name to agree
to any plan that her former king and current lawspeaker
supported. Finally, the Yozi known as Kimbery, the Sea
that Marched Against the Flame, proffered somewhat more
modest support. She did not believe that the Ebon Dragon’s
plan would succeed in the long run, but she promised to help
where she could and not stand in the way.
Working together with his four allies and one supporter,
the Ebon Dragon studied and eventually unraveled the secrets
of the Jade Prison’s construction. They worked out how similar
apparatuses could be constructed to hold individual Exaltations.
From a purely theoretical standpoint, they reverse engineered
the deserter Autochthon’s design specifications and created
a model for how a raw Exaltation could be redesigned to suit
their needs. They could not test their theories, but such was
the Ebon Dragon’s confidence in his co-conspirators’ intelligence
that he decided to proceed regardless.
ACCOMPLICES
For all the cleverness the Yozi allies demonstrated in
working out how to taint and redesign Solar Exaltations,
they still didn’t have any on which to prove their theories.
Worse, it was not in their power to collect any. Even those
rare few demons who were loose in Creation at any given
time had nowhere near enough raw power to break open
the Jade Prison and get the Exaltations out. Fortunately,
the Ebon Dragon had deliberated on this obstacle and knew
exactly how to clear it. Or, rather, he knew exactly who
could clear it for him.
Once more, he reached out to the Neverborn and let
them in on certain aspects of his plan. The Exaltations of
the Lawgivers could be held captive, he told them, and
significantly redesigned. With the right alterations and
properly designed equipment, those Exaltations could be
used to empower new heroes to wield against the rulers of
Creation. Intrigued, the Neverborn entertained the Ebon
Dragon’s tantalizing notions. After much back and forth and
more than a year of hard negotiating, a bargain was finally
struck. The Neverborn would have their tainted, rebuilt
Deathlord minions break open the Jade Prison and—using
devices built from the Yozis’ specifications—capture the
fleeing Solar Exaltations. The Neverborn would tithe a mere
50 of the captured Exaltations to the Yozis, and the Yozis
would, in return, reveal specifications for devices that would
contain and twist those remaining Exaltations in any way
the Neverborn desired. The low number of the tithe was a
deliberate gamble on the Ebon Dragon’s part, meant to both
entice the Neverborn and to hedge against their Deathlords’
potential failure of execution.
As it turned out, the Ebon Dragon could have set his
risk threshold higher. The Deathlords managed to snag half
of the Solar Exaltations when they broke the Jade Prison,
meaning the Neverborn had to give up only a third of their
prize. The Deathlords wrapped up the 50 Exaltations they
had promised in containers of Yozi design and transferred
them to a highly valued akuma belonging to Kimbery. That
akuma brought the Exaltations to Hell, and the five conspiring
Yozis divided them up evenly. Malfeas snatched up the
Dawn Caste Exaltations, and to his sister went the Zenith
Castes. She Who Lives in Her Name claimed the Exalta-
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