You are Exalted!

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.

Arc 1: Exaltation.

Chapter 1.2: I don't think we're in Kansas, Toto.

I panicked...

Show me anyone who swear that he could remain calm when finding himself suddenly underwater and I will show you a liar.

It was only the light of the sun that I could clearly perceived despite its dimness that prevented my drowning. I reached the surface and coughed up half my lungs. Ha, sweet air.

I floated on my back and looked up the sky and the glorious corona of the crowned sun. So magnificent... I remembered the only total solar eclipse that I saw in France but there was something...

And I remembered.

I remembered the offer, the gift of power and the price to pay. I remembered my precedent life in another part of the Multiverse. I remembered most of what I knew about Earth Bet in the form of memories and emotions. I remembered Creation behind the senses of all the hosts of my Exaltation...

My Exaltation... I lifted my arm and saw a lithe limb glowing with a gentle golden shine. I sensed my Caste mark blazing with glorious hope on my forehead. I felt power like I had never known course through my body. I felt my heart beating with the searing heat of the sun. I felt each of my breaths bringing a mote of Essence.

I. Was. Exalted! I was a Crowned Sun, a Harmonious Voice, a Solar Wind, a Quicksilver Falcon, a Quill of Heaven… The ultimate Jack-of-all-Trades of the Solar Exalts: The Eclipse caste.

"Oh shit!" And I was somewhere in the Worm setting..!

Stop! Stop... Yes, I was in danger. Yes I was in a grim and dark universe, but...

I already won... I ALREADY WON! No matter what would happened in the future, my Exaltation was in this universe. If I died, the divine part of my soul will go to another host and grant him not only my powers but also my memories and my experiences... It was just a question of time and I could ensure to have plenty of time with just a few well-placed words and appropriate actions. And speaking of actions...

I first took a look on myself... Oh dear... I was nude... But not naked: I didn't want to parade without clothes, but the standard social taboo about nudity was... different. Probably because of the too numerous memories in my head... Something to organize later.

I was young, probably nine or ten years old and a girl... A girl..? Once again I felt somewhat indifferent to my gender... Perhaps because Exaltation did not care for the flesh, only for what was inside. My past lives as an Exalt ran the whole gamut of the many mortal races of Creation... And the two sexes of course.

I was fairly sure that my skin was Caucasian despite the glow of my Exaltation. I had very long straight hair of a glorious golden colour. My body was lithe with a firm muscle tone. I couldn't determine my eyes colour yet and my name was...

"Luminous Amber?" I blinked. A rather... Peculiar? Auspicious? Weird name? I blinked again as my memories showed that almost all my precedent names had the same theme about either a Light or Fire aspect mixed with a bird species or a mineral. Even my name when I was a mortal on my Earth meant "Bright Raven". Nevertheless I found curious to have a Creation-based name for my new life.

Oh well, time to see where I was... Wow... Lucky. I could see the coast of the land nearby, perhaps a few hundred meters at worst.

And now for another test. I smiled as I focused on my blazing inner core while thinking what time it was. "12:05 AM local, July 22, 2009..?" I frowned. I knew that every Solar could know the precise hour just by having an intuitive idea of the localisation of the sun in the sky...

Of course! In Creation, seasons and thus the calendar were decided by the various courts of Gods. Here, the seasons depended only and entirely on the exact position between Earth and the Sun. Hey, a little travelling around the world and I would be able to guess where I was since the inclination of the sun rays changed with the geography and the local time.

The light intensity changed and I smiled as the sun ended his date with the moon. Six minutes and thirty seconds: A long time for an eclipse. The rays shone through a big aperture in the clouds and seemed to bless me with their radiance. A particularly bright reflection shone beneath me and I plunged my head underwater to see what it was.

For the second time, I was awed by what I saw in the clear water: A submarine monument made of one big rectangular stone and sculpted on its surface in crude geometric forms. It was vaguely familiar, both in terms of something I saw in my Earth past and something that nagged at my past exaltations. Could this be the remnants of a Manse? There was some correlation between the disposition of the monument's features and Geomancy, the art of manipulating the flows of Essence of the Dragon lines to produce magical effects and/or serve as energy sources. I also perceived the light of the sun reflecting off a very small object on a star-shaped platform.

I felt good... No I was feeling GREAT. I swam down, smiling as I felt my superb body working perfectly and reached the top of the monument very easily: It was only five meters. I reached and took a thumbnail-sized amulet shaped like my caste mark...

Magical materials..! My vision could see the characteristic brilliance of Magical Materials. I was holding a disk of Adamant with interlocked lattices of Orichalcum, Moonsilver, Starmetal and the five varieties of Jade... An Infinite Resplendence Amulet... An artefact of the First Age of Creation, capable to generate any form of outfit that I could imagine. More importantly, it was a composite design incorporating four of the five main Magical Materials which gave it an unparalleled versatility.

At the base, it could serve as an armoured cloth with an environmental filter. Orichalcum gave it the ability to generate weaves of solidified light with an astounding palette of colours and textures worthy of a Solar's glory. Moonsilver could provide superior protection and camouflage on demand while extruding outfits as a diaphanous second skin grown from liquid metal tendrils. Starmetal would use my own fate to weave garments with numerous concealed pockets folded in Elsewhere: My very own Hammerspace. Finally Jade was able to unfold from micro-articulated scales to form appropriate and FUNCTIONAL glossy military uniforms for the elite of elite...

Hum... Well, it would have to wait. The process of attuning an artefact required twenty minutes of handling and practising with the item. Not something to do when you are in the sea and nearby land. Time to meet the locals... and NOT thinking about the "JAWS" theme...

12345678987654321

Notes: Not too bad, I think I'm going to write in this vignette format until I have regained my marks.

So, yes, Luminous Amber as a name. Yes, she's a girl. Yes, she's ten years old physically and thousands of years mentally due to the merits "Past Lives" and "Eidetic Memory".

She has ONE artefact, rated at level 5 I grant you. No Heartstones because there are no functional Manses. Dragon lines and Desmenes yes, but no occult harnessing of geomantic energy.

You can also consider what the advantages "Charles Atlas Superpowers" and "Comic Book Pretty" from the Worm CYOA ver3 or the perks "Invictus", "First Impressions" and "Inspiration" from the Worm CYOA ver1 mean to any RPG character.

I choose the Eclipse caste because it's my favourite and I love to play Jack-of-all-trades.

I am also reminded of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in regard to the migration of the Exaltations. A nice parallel between the Slayer spirit and the Exalt spark.

And before you ask, yes her past Exaltations lived in all the periods of Creation and potentially, she had access to all the Exalts classes that existed (Abyssal, Infernal, Dragon-Blooded, Alchemical, Sidereal and Lunar).