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Amethyst Five Banners hang from the walls in front of the Monastery. Each dedicated to an Immaculate Dragon: Danaa'd, Hesiesh, Mela, Sextes Jylis, annd Pasiap. The doors are open in this iconically Lookshyian structure. But there is a contrast, this is clearly not built with the same wealth that one would see in the Immaculate Order. This is a different beast. No jade, no gold, not even silver, no valuable metals, not even marble for the stones, and those banners are not made to the same standards that you would see with the Immaculate Order. But it is still clearly dedicated to the Immaculate Faith.
Bright Journey It has begun, as they say. This is a first for Bright Journey, someone who's very used to speaking from the heart and convincing people of things she believes wholeheartedly in herself. She's not quite as adept at this sort of thing, dissembling in the face of an actual foe--someone who would try to harm her if they knew the truth. But let's face it: Silk's disguise for her is nothing short of masterful. The leathers carefully worn and patched in one place, the minimal heart armor perfectly situated--not easy with someone as, er, well-padded as she!--and the unstrung bow over her back a perfect complement. Bright knows she can fake being a hunter--she IS a hunter--but the trick will be choosing her questions carefully to fully engage the monks as much as possible. She knows their weakness will be their eagerness for converts--the way of most priests--and if she can seem interested without seeming to know too much or too little, she should be able to engage them effectively.
Spring Wind Spring has come to the, "Party" for her particular specialty: Theft. Of course it's not a literal party, but she's going to have some fun anyway. The main point of infiltration is to be Amethyst's bag or similar contianer, not as glamorous or clever as a side window or hidden tunnel but it's certainly effective. She's riding along, reclining in the pocket and occasionally stablizing some other small items to prevent any sort of colliding noises... And of course, prevent being battered herself.
Hoarfrost Hoarfrost sits in the forest, her element, not too far off from the temple. She is in her unicorn form. Perfect for getting the attention of the monks if there is a need for a distraction. Trying her best to keep Bright in sight as best she can through the thick of the trees.

Her own plan for this part of the heist is a bit nebulous. 'Fix it if is goes wrong' covers an impressively large number of possible actions. Hopefully she wont have to help the group at all.

Amethyst The young dragon almost looks normal. Again thanks to the Lunars, Amethyst doesn't even have fins, only her signature ears. And she's dressed in something more formal than usual to fit the occasion of actually visiting a place dedicated to the Immaculate Faith. She still has a belt underneath her cloak that has her alchemy stuff on it, and in one of the pockets is a little mouse, but for now that stuff is well hidden. She just keeps her head down and sticks with Silk. And no one inside questions them. A Dragon and her mentor in the monastery is a pretty typical sight, even if this particular one happens to have large pointy ears.
Silk Moon Lotus @emit Silk has transformed herself into someone else. An older woman dressed in the robes of the order. She has no hair and a tired but friendly face thanks to Rishi's abilities. She wears a worn but sturdy backpack and walks with a use worn staff.
The woman walks up to the guards and smiles warmly "I will have been expecting me, yes?" she slowly reachs into her bag and produces a letter. The document is a forgery but only the best trained investigator would be able to spot it. "I've come to help the young dragon with Old Realm. The young one with me is a new dragon and wishes to understand her place in the philosophy. I told her she could come with me to study a bit." 
The guards glance at her papers and hand them back. "Of course, welcome." Their gaze almost sliding off of the older woman and her young companion.
Silk Moon Lotus Thanks to the lunars scouting mission, Silk leads the way through the complex as though she has been there many times throughout the years. She guides the young dragon as they make their way to the library and their goal. The monks they pass glance at them for a moment then move return to whatever task they were working on as though they were anyone else passing through the temple. Silk stops in front of a pair of massive wooden doors carved with a scene from the immaculate texts depicting the right of the dragons to lead. "I believe we have arrived."
Bright Journey It's important to time the entrance right, and Bright can't have known ahead of time exactly when to show up before seeing how alert, and how numerous, the monks here are. Too soon and she might raise suspicion, too late and she might not distract enough of the monks to give the infiltration team a fighting chance. Fortunately, Silk and Amethyst can sit down and start to read their books before anything interesting happens, so as to separate them from Bright Journey in the monks' minds.

After giving them 10 to 15 minutes to get situated, Bright Journey walks up the road, a little nervous, a little excited. Worn leather pack over one shoulder, the unstrung bow and a quiver over the other. That quiver might be one of the few parts of her disguise Bright actually owns, but it doesn't matter. The disguise is absurdly good, and as it happens, Bright's dissembling matches it.

She walks down the road, looking here and there, admiring a particularly beautiful tree as she rounds the bend. Still, she looks just slightly intimidated as she finally comes within sight of the monastery. It may not be inlaid with jade, but it's still Authority to a simple, rural hunter girl like herself. No one special, a dozen like her in every village she's ever been to and a thousand more beside. Except this one got up enough gumption to ask the pertinent questions, not just wonder in silence for the rest of her meager life.

As she gets closer, she sees a few monks doing rather typical yardwork outside the monastery gate. She flips her boring medium brown hair to one side, blows her bangs out of her eyes, hoists her pack up on her shoulders a bit, and approaches the nearest monk.

"Pardon me, sir...um, honored master...er..." She sighs and starts again, in a rush to get her words out without tying her tongue too much. "I'm sorry for buggin' ya, but, well, I was hoping to ask you a couple things..."

Amethyst The monk nearest Bright looks to her and nods a little. He invites her inside. "Certainly. What sort of questions did you have?" And Bright definitely causes some more attention. 'Who is this village girl and why are they in this monastery?' is a fairly common look. Others go about their business, but she's already gathering a few of them.

For Silk's part, no one pays her any sort of mind. She's just another monk with a young Dragon, there isn't any shame in this or anything notable. And that door, just beyond it is the library. There's various monks, a few dragons, and at least one that's as young as Amethyst herself. And again, no one finds your presence particularly notable.

Amethyst looks up to Silk as she opens the door. "Where we do we start?" It would be weird if they just stood there, after all. And Ammie is not very experienced with doing heists, so she waits to follow Silk's lead.

Silk Moon Lotus "Now remember dear, the first couple of stacks have the journals of past monks of the order speaking on what your role is according to the philosophy. You could get started there. If you feel that isn't answering your questions fast enough, you could ask one of librarians for something older, perhaps one of the manuscripts? I need to go find the young master in need of a couple of lessons." She winks at Ames and walks deeper into the library asking for directions to the young dragon blooded.
Silk stops several times along the way to the young dragon to quickly swap out some of the scrolls she glances at and decides they have what she is looking for. The hours that Silk put into making the fake replacements will ensure that no one will think twice about them unless they spend the time to actually read them completely. Even then, they may mistake them for poor copies of the originals. Silk's hands move with a speed that none could notice her taking anything as the item is clearly still in it's space. After walking for a few minutes, she spots the young dragon stilling at a table with quills, inks, and papers scattered on the table.
Spring Wind The phrase, "Where do we start?" draws Spring's attention as a tiny rat nose pokes out of Amethyst's belt. Glance. Glance. Twitch. Seeing the library, Spring leaps out and changes back having hit the floor. No sense in landing as a human, too much noise. "I'll sweep for any unusual mechanisms. Depending on what sort of information we're after, they might have hidden it. Also I'm curious besides." Spring notes, "You never know what goodies they might have... Within reason, this isn't a Realm operation. Bad, but not... Y'know. Horrible."
Amethyst Amethyst goes to the shelf and starts looking through the scrolls herself. Of course, she's looking for one very specific scroll, the questions that have been plaguing her mind for quite some time. The word 'Anathema' and what it /really/ means, and what these monks truly believe in. What defines them. And a question that she doesn't want to ask herself yet one she looks for anyway, 'What would make me Anathema?' There's also the whole thing about the fate of the five immaculate Dragons, what became of them. Those are the two things that have caused such holes to form in her own beliefs, and those are where she is beginning.
Bright Journey The unnamed hunter girl looks pensive for a moment, and just a bit awed, as she follows the monk inside. She bites her lip as he asks his obvious question, thinking for a moment about how to respond, even as she takes a few minutes looking at the inside on the monastery with intense curiosity and, as before, just a bit of awe and intimidation. She spares more of a look at the room itself than she does the other monks, careful to not single anyone at all out for extra attention.

Well, sir...I know I must sound stupid right now, and I'm sorry for bugging you in the middle of chores. I....well, I guess I came because I had to know about you." She sighs nervously. "Not you personally, I mean...all this. The Immaculate Monks." Anyone listening can hear the capital letters in her voice. "Over in Rorikstead, where I live, they tell all kinds of stories about you, and the people you help, and the evil Anathema and all that stuff." She sighs for a moment, pausing to look at a tapestry of Danaa'd while she thinks. "But, like, everyone's stories are different. Sometimes I hear stuff different from the same person. So...I sort of got it in my head to actually -find out- instead of just...just..." She shrugs helplessly. "Just -guessing-. I know, you must think I'm a silly child."

Hoarfrost For some reason Hoarfrost expected Bright to draw the monks out of the monastery not get herself invited inside. Loosing sight of her she frets for a moment. Not sure she could even tell if something went wrong from where she is anymore. With a deep sigh she shifts her shape into a small albino mouse. Moving carefully through the underbrush hoping to get into a better position to keep an eye on things.
Amethyst As for the young the dragon that Silk is looking for, the air aspect is by himself staring at a piece of text. It's clearly some sort of old passage on the nature of essence, written in the most sophisticated of the Old Realm's writing systems. He is waiting there, scrunching his eyebrows as he tries to decipher it.

And as for the growing crowd in the foyer of the monastery, one particular monk takes point. "Well, it is custom to help those along who wish to know more about our faith." He sits down and gestures for her to take a seat as well.

"It all began with the demons who once ruled this world. It was a world of monsters, where they enslaved all for their gross debuachery. But then one day, the dragons rose against them. It was a trying fight, but we cast them down. Mela, Immaculate Dragon of Air, was the very architect of the techniques and powers that we used to cast down the dragons. Danaa'd, Immaculate Dragon of the Water, swam all the way to the bottom of the ocean with their essence, and sealed them deep beneath the sea where they would never see the light of day again. Hesiesh, Immaculate Dragon of Fire, used his power only once, a vast flame swept across the land, burning only those corpses of the fallen so their ghosts would rest. Then Sextes Jylis, Immaculate Dragon of Wood, brought life back to the world burnt by the flames of war. And Pasiap, Immaculate Dragon of Earth, set down the foundation for our geomancy and the vast technologies that were laid down in the ages past. Together, they brought a dying world back into the light, and established a Shogunate that spanned all of creation."

More monks have gathered as this one went into story time. There must be a considerable number of them watching now. He is gentle and smooth with each of his words, the air-aspect almost dancing as he goes through the motions of telling his story.

Bright Journey As the monk's impassioned words seem to fill the room with the weight and authority of the Dragons themselves, the hunter girl starts to rock back on her heels, staring rapt at the monk's retelling of one of the most basic, repeated Immaculate stories. His words are powerful and focused enough to quite possibly attract the attention of quite a few people there! Despite listening with that same intense attentiveness, she starts to tremble a bit at the monk as the winds start to swirl around him, growing stronger and stronger as he gets deeply into his storytelling. This is not just what he believes, it's what he -lives for-, and it shows.

His anima whirls, intensifying rapidly as loose papers start to blow over the room. The girl bites her lip, almost frozen in place, but still has the presence of mind to duck as an ink bottle comes whizzing past her head. Her hair is blowing all over her face, but she sucks in a deep breath as she leans forward, focused on the monk. "But...what happened with the Shogunate? I think...that isn't the Realm, is it?"

Silk Moon Lotus Silk walks over to the table with the youth at it and sets down a basic scroll with simpler words written in Old Realm. "Perhaps you should start with something a little less complicated that a scroll written by a master of Old Realm at the height of the Shogunate?" She sits down next to him. "I'm Joylee, it is a pleasure to meet you young master. Would you allow me to help you with the Old Realm for a bit?"
Amethyst "The Shogunate." The man gives a pleasant smile to her. "The Shogunate once spanned all of creation, it is true. But they lost their way. They turned against one another. And then a horrible catastrophe struck all of Creation. It was only through our Conviction, Honor, and Prowess that we held strong to this city." And then the man turns away. "The Realm as the world knows it now tho, is not the Shogunate. It was founded by one lady who built an empire around herself. And then, she vanished, leaving her empire at the edge of civil war. And I so do fear what will come next." And he turns back to the lady. "This is why we prepare. And why we must do what we can so that we may endure whatever comes next. And to do so, it starts with the foundation of our faith."


"Are you sure you are not just here to scold me on how I have been failing?" The Immaculate looks up at this Joylee. He closes his eyes, and breaths for just a moment. It's obvious that he's quite burdened by how he has had such trouble mastering this language. He mutters to himself about how mortals should give him more respect, and then he looks back to her. "So, what do we do different this time?" There's a lot of animosity from this little Dragon.

Silk Moon Lotus "Well my lord, I have brought with me a series of scrolls with increasingly complicated writing for you to study and practice. Each one I expect will take you about a week if the stories I heard about the skill of the exalted to master things more quickly than those without the blood of the dragons. If you were not an exalt, I would expect it to take a month or more of translating and cross referencing." Joylee looks the young dragon in the eyes. "You have a gift from the elemental dragons, you are destined to lead. You must show through your wisdom and gracousness that you are a leader. Do you think when you meet a Lunar or Solar Anathema that they will just allow you to smite them? You must prove that you are worthy."
Amethyst Try as she might, Amethyst is having quite some trouble making heads or tails of the books here. There's a /lot/ of books on a lot of subjects, but her unfamiliarity with the Lookshyian variant of the Immaculate Faith is definitely hindering her. "Pillars of faith?" "The Legend of the Shogunate?" she isn't sure at all which things she would want. Plus, there's a lot of people in this room. Just be natural, Ammie. And maybe breath. She supposes she could start with the very first volume. And it goes all of the way up to... she doens't like how many volumes there are.
Amethyst The Air-aspect's face hardened into a decisive grimace. "Yep. Another tutor that just wants to complain and PISS ME OFF." The Dragon throws the tables. And now he's just yelling. "So /what/ if I have the gift of the dragons? Maybe if they actually had a Dragon teach me instead of sending mortal after mortal after mortal who know /nothing/ of the essence of my kind."

And there's another Dragon there quickly to place a hand on his shoulder. To which he flicks it off and the young dragon's anima roars to life as he actually tries to throw a punch. It's not long after that the air aspect ends up face down on the floor in a joint lock. "Grandmaster Janu is going to be very disappointed in the dishonor you bring him. This will be the fifth tutor you have chased off. Learning how to handle hardship is /vital/."

Amethyst is very quickly snapped from her stupor as the yelling happens. "Oh my." Her hand briefly goes to reach inside of her cloak, but then she doesn't. Amethyst looks over towards Silk like a lost child, and then at the kid who just flipped a table.

Bright Journey It's tough. It really is. This monk is so pleasant, so likable despite his intimidating display still going on, and so damned -reasonable- that Bright...well, she -does- already know that great evil is looming over all of Creation. That is WHY she Exalted, not that the monk knows that!

What he could not know is that she already has a path to saving the world. Every Exalted being that loves Creation is a part of that, including the Dragon Blooded, but the entire concept of Anathema is, well, anathema to Bright's most cherished beliefs, that all the Exalted must stand shoulder to shoulder against the darkness. His speech is impressive, it's true, but it can't shake that fundamental foundation. Even if it could, Bright mentally grits her teeth anyway, doing everything in her power to hold fast, for his words from earlier resonated with her fear of future evil far more than she thought it would. He'd blindsided her, yes, but not quite the way he realized.

"The foundation of our faith," the unnamed hunter girl muses, and the fear from earlier mingles with the very genuine fear of darkness and evil. Before she can comment, though, there's muffled yelling in the other room, followed by furniture crashing and an excessive amount of commotion. Despite it all, the girl simply cannot help but giggle, just a bit, all while looking guilty. She knows how unseemly it is, but between the air anima and the commotion, this cannot be a typical day in a monastery!

Amethyst "Oh my." The earth-aspect that had been talking with the unnamed hunter girl says. He takes a deep breath and looks towards her. "Alas, I must attend to /that/. But I do hope that I have helped bring light to your questions. And I have many stories to tell if you wait /just/ a moment." He looks at her for a moment, and then sighs and starts off towards the disturbance. He mutters something in a very pretty sounding tongue.
Silk Moon Lotus With a look of disappointment on her face Joylee bows respectfully to the monk. "Thank you for your intervention, I fear what would have happened had you not stepped in. May your journey bring you enlightenment and wisdom." She pulls out the set of scrolls she had made to actually teach the boy with and sets them on another table. "Prehaps these will help the young master with his lessons. I fear my presence here will only anger him further and I have a charge of my own to teach." Joylee turns and walks at a measured pace over towards Amethyst.
"Did you find what you were looking for my dear? I fear that I must depart the temple as the young master I was sent to teach does not wish to learn from me. I will head to Lookshy if you wish to continue on this journey with me." She slowly turns towards the doors to leave.
Amethyst "I uh, no I didn't." Amethyst says to Silk. Embarrassed ears go down. But when Silk starts to leave, and just sort of nods. "I'll come with you. Maybe we can find more information there." There's just a little bit of pain in her voice not having obtained what she came here for.
Bright Journey Perhaps it was inevitable with the monk turning to leave, but as he and his powerful anima makes their way to the other room, the spiritual and social pressure on the poor hunter girl eases up a bit. She stands just a little too quickly as he makes his way out of the room, and lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, though perhaps with the wind blowing the way it was, perhaps she should have. She takes one ragged breath and looks at him go for a long moment before looking at one of the other monks who'd stopped (along with virtually everyone else) to listen in.

"Is that...is that -normal-? I don't know what to..." She sighs. "Maybe I should just...think on it."

Amethyst As Silk is heading for the door, this monk who's anima is already flaring, opens it and looks down at the child of mela on the floor. And you see him sigh. "/Again?/" He enters the room and walks over to the boy. "Have you no Conviction? Or Loyalty? Or Honor? Do you not have Compassion for the ones you have chased off thrice over?" The boy almost looks like he's ready to cry now. The man pinches his brow. "I'm going to have to talk to the Grandmaster about this." His anima actually intensifies while he's speaking, and everyone save the one holding the child of Mela has moved away.
Silk Moon Lotus "That happens sometimes. Life does not always provide an easy solution to a question. Many of us ponder the great questions of the world for years. I'm sure Lookshy will have even more options for you to look through and I promise that we will not need to leave so soon after arriving there."
Joylee walks out of the temple and into the fresh air. She smiles to the other monks outside and says with disgust "That boy." She continues to walk towards the gates while shaking her head and muttering under her breath "I will speak to the Grandmaster about that one." Glancing over her shoulder at Amethyst "See that you learn the lesson that boy has not."
Bright Journey ...Yeah. Whoever this monk is--and Bright's eyebrows raise as she has the sudden realization neither of them introduced themselves to each other--he is -quite- powerful and, far more importantly right now, looks just about ready to blow his top, or as close to it as Immaculate Monks can get. With his aura intensifying even more, the look of consternated worry on the young hunter's face is no sham. She looks at the other monk she'd just spoken to, alarm starting to creep over her features, and murmurs, "Er...yes. Maybe I should -really- think on it. Safe in my own bed, hopefully in not too many days. I...should be going."

And with that, she hoists her pack up on her shoulder, nearly knocks over her chair as she makes her way for the door, only a few minutes behind the monk and her apprentice. At speed.

Amethyst Amethyst does not look happy, but she continues walking along with Silk. "I will, don't worry." The whole reason she put this together was so that she could get access to the immaculate manuscripts that could help her understand the holes in her own faith. And yet, as far as she knows, they were just left there back on the rack she was looking through. Maybe Silk replaced them when she wasn't looking. Oh, she sure hopes so. Certainly she didn't notice them being swapped.
Silk Moon Lotus After turning the bend in the road taking them out of sight of the temple Silk stops and takes off the backpack. She reachs inside and pulls out several scrolls. "Are any of these what you were looking for Ames? I just starting grabbing things and replacing them with convincing forgeries. We should probably continue down the road for at least another mile or so just to make sure they don't send anyone looking for us. That monk looked scary." Silk wipes her bald head and thinks I'm glad I don't have to grow it back. Rishi can fix this.
Amethyst Amethyst breaths a sigh of relief when she sees the scrolls she was looking for. She gives Silk a hug. "You had me worried there a second. I didn't even see you swap anything..." Amethyst rubs her eyes and looks at Silk. "Let's just get back to my shop, or maybe your place, and see what all we got." She breaths deeply, soon she will know whatever secrets were kept from the mainline books. If only she could have stayed for a bit longer.