#horizon forbidden west matching icons

[justs4ying]

horizon forbidden west aloy and beta matching icons!

you don’t have to give credits if you use them <3

[day0fnight]

horizon forbidden west | burning shores ~ aloy and seyka (matching icons)

developer: guerrilla games

[keptin-indy]

Exalted: Saigoth Gates 20

In which the party meets the fabulous bastard demon’s dad, who is much less fabulous, and the shit hits the fan totally independent of demon-summoning.

As the only combination of “good at talking” and “genuinely a sorcerer”, West was once again designated circle spokesman and tried to refine exactly what it was the party wanted him to say, overly cautious since the debacle in Champoor.  He requested an audience with White Wind, but the sorcerer-lord wasn’t seeing anyone and no one Naran could bribe could follow through on their promises.  Naran looked for an alternative and found the second highest-ranking sorcerer from Ysyr, Veiled Ashes, who seemed to be a bureaucrat of middling ambition and loyalty, not willing to commit to a coup but not likely to say no to sudden opportunities for more power.  West asked for an audience with him and was given an appointment for the next day.  That night while the circle slept, all of them were alarmed to find that their dreams suddenly froze in place and they were aware of doorways out into a central chamber through which they could all see each other and their respective dreamscapes.  The Twilights made sure it wasn’t one of their faults and West tried addressing the room in general and was rewarded with a voice coming from everywhere and nowhere that identified itself as the End of All Wisdom.  When questioned about the current situation, he said that closing and locking the Gates was beyond their ability and they would need the help of someone who was there the first time in order to accomplish it.  Someone like Cecelyne, free and unbound.  West asked if there were other, more available Primordials and Orabilis responded that Authochthon was missing and Gaia was probably no longer a discrete entity.  There were other Primordials who had never been imprisoned in Malfeas, but they were unlikely to help.  In fact, West had encountered their handiwork at his Second Breath.  The circle questioned West about this, but he insisted that no good could ever come of that and to leave it alone.  Since they couldn’t lock the doors themselves, Krait asked the Orabilis how to defeat whatever came out of them, but the demon said they weren’t strong enough for that, either, and that the state of the world and/or Solars had declined since the days of the Primordial War.  Krait unwisely sounded the waters of what would be involved in order to free Cecelyne and Orabilis “generously” implanted the entire circle with knowledge of a blasphemous ritual they could perform to permanently unbind a Yozi.  Ardor spoke up for the first time at this, since she didn’t speak Old Realm and couldn’t follow the conversation, but suddenly knew things she never wanted to know and had no idea why.  Shashaka asked what the Never Was were like and Orabilis obliquely explained that they had created the very potential for Creation or anything else to be formed out of the Wyld and that the Primordials had coveted this power and overthrew them to get it, just as their own servants later did to them.  West asked how they could contact Orabilis should they wish to come to an agreement (unlikely) or ask more questions, and the demon once again granted them all knowledge of a less horrible but still blasphemous prayer and released them back into their now-fitful dreams.  Krait spent the rest of the night planning out a working that would prevent knowledge of the ritual from ever being taught to anyone else.  In the morning, West offered to magically remove the memories of the ritual from anyone who wanted it gone, but no one immediately took him up on the offer.

After that uncomfortable breakfast, the circle met with Veiled Ashes at his palace, staffed ostentatiously with demon and elemental servants.  West introduced himself as Interpreter of Nine Dialects, a sorcerous researcher, and explained that his studies had led him to believe that the mysterious doorway White Wind had been using as a power source was disrupting the geomancy of the entire South.  He was surprised to find that Veiled Ashes was quite reasonable about the situation, discussing the recent magical disruptions in the Lap and promising to ask his lord on their behalf for an audience after West offered to draw him a self-updating map of the dragonlines.  He even offered to let them stay in his palace and consult his library, an offer that was eagerly accepted by the Twilights and resignedly accepted by the rest of the circle.  Krait began to copy out every book in the library with superhuman speed and set his naneke to consuming the copies and absorbing their knowledge while West crafted his promised map and the rest of the circle explored the varied and strange guest room-biomes.  

Late that night, the group was awoken by a city-wide tremor and an enormous column of white light exploding upward from the central temple-palace.  Krait, the only one still awake, directed his naneke to devour Veiled Ashe’s entire library in case the city didn’t survive.  The rest of the circle rushed out through the city as it slowly tilted and descended, the enormous statue pallbearers lowering it toward the sea, crushing everyone living on their rocky bodies and threatening the large port directly beneath the plate.  West directed Krait’s agata to fly down to Tenepeshu’s Vengeance and order them to make sail with all haste if they hadn’t already.  Once arrived at the central palace, the circle found themselves locked out by mighty doors and little time to waste in battering them down.  West sought out the architecture's weak points and directed Mazatl and Krait’s agata to exploit them, which unintentionally destroyed the entire facade of the palace, revealing White Wind hovering serenely in the middle of the light before the open Saigoth Gates, obviously mad and exulting in the dim shapes that could be seen moving about on the other side.  The distracted mortal sorcerer was no match for six panicked Solars, and his death at least arrested the statues a mere 40 feet above the docks, but the Gates remained open.  Shashaka closed the physical doors, but with no way to lock or seal them, they rattled threateningly under her hands.  The Twilights tried to reconstruct the wards, but had no time for the required sorcerous working.  Naran suggested using the Eye to attempt to close it, and seeing little choice, Krait volunteered to try.  The huge effort of directing the Eye began to take its toll and West, then the rest of the circle, all placed their hands on the orb and joined their wills to Krait’s and Naran’s until finally the Gates stilled and the light faded, leaving only the Eye glowing with power and two iconic animas.  Veiled Ashes cautiously made his way to the center of the destruction, incredulously asking if that was the fabled Eye of Autohcthon, but didn’t press the point when the obvious Solars unconvincingly denied it and told him he was in charge of the city because they had regrettably had to kill his superior.  Veiled Ashes, Naran, and the Twilights organized the re-warding of the Gates and shadowland prevention magics, but it was already too late, as more than half of the settlements on the pallbearers had died in the cataclysm.  With the column of light gone, the circle suddenly realized that they could see stars again, but they weren’t the ones that had originally gone missing weeks before.  Gathering on the horizon, were tattered sails and rotting hulls, crewed by prowling shades seeking fresh prey through the new shadowland.  Disturbing, half-heard whispers flitted in and out of hearing, never quite intelligible, but surely promising forbidden rewards for those who would heed them.  Palanquin had descended into the Underworld.