List of Shuro Chi quotes

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Shuro Chi, is an Awoken Techeun who served Queen Mara Sov as her bodyguard. She assisted the Queen several times, prominently in the Battle of Saturn and once to reach out to straying Awoken, Shuro also served as liaison between the Techeuns and the other Awoken, particularly the Queen's Wrath Petra Venj.

Dreaming City quotes

Spine of Keres

Spine of Keres, Ansible Lens

• Awoken communication systems rely upon paracausal realities. We route our communications and transmat networks through other worlds.
• This is an ansible lens. It is capable of relaying and transmitting messages between Awoken cites and ships at faster-than-light speeds.
• We built the Dreaming City with the help of Ahamkara. Their wishes fueled our innovations, but it was our own ingenuity that shaped our evolution as a people. Wishes go only so far with the short-sighted and unimaginative.
• Ansibles like this one are capable of transmitting information into the past. As such, only a queen is permitted to make such broadcasts— and even then, only under grave circumstances.

Spine of Keres, Cave

• I don't know who or what that face depicts. All I know is the Awoken did not carve it. Queen Mara has said it's an ugly thing to carve your own likeness in stone while you still live.
• I can name the heroes depicted in every one of our statues... but this face is a mystery. We did not carve it ourselves. It simply manifested overnight.
• The Dreaming City is so-called because the Awoken drive the fate of the Dreaming, and the Dreaming drive the will of the Awoken. The Dreaming have been known to manifest on occasion - strange faces, peering from rocks...
• There are rumors that the Dreaming City was built upon the foundations of a ruined planet, one we found and towed back from beyond. They say we preserved the old structures and built atop them...

Spine of Keres, Crystal

• This place always reminds me of Illyn and her dusty-old epics… How did it go? Mm, "In anguish, dying, maimed, they keened unheard into the ether's vast and airless reach. A final whisper deep within them stirred and crossed the void. Then voices filled the breach."
• Illyn, the mother of our coven, used to bring us here to remember the old epics. A piece of one used to go, "Speaking us awake – darkness and starlight released our minds and overwhelmed our sight. Their cosmic boon did we at first rejoice, 'til they laid at our feet a fateful choice..."
• Illyn used to gather us here to recite the old epics. She'd say, "I sing of twilight's children, who awoke; when at the edge of darkness, all hope lost, upon the treacherous reef their vessels broke, and untold kin their exodus cost."
• Illyn used to recite poetry here. She'd say, "A rainbow resolute, they soared ahead and backs turned to the sun, sought new stars. But one by one, they flickered — green, black, red — and winked out in the clash of nascent wars."

Spine of Keres, Flowers

• That's pink Asphodelia. Plain, but pretty. We used to grow asphodelia to mark births and deaths. It's taboo to pick the flowers for any other reason.
• Many Reefborn Awoken experience prophetic dreams. They vary, but often feature the same symbols - roiling oceans, or starless skies, or, commonly, flowers...
• Legend has it that these asphodelia were originally cultivated from red flowers in the Black Garden. You can see they've lost their vivid color.
• When I was Taken, my thoughts were not my own. It was as though I had been exiled from my own body. But there were moments of clarity when I could see something, or smell it... like these flowers.

Spine of Keres, Globe

• Dual-ringed planets should be impossible. Two rings, distinct and equal, each in its own self-supported orbit. They are a good metaphor for the Awoken, if you ask me.
• Awoken explorers once ventured far beyond this solar system. They saw many strange things: abandoned worlds orbiting accretion discs; rogue planets lost to the Light; young planets with dual-rings...
• The Awoken were born from the Collapse. We have as many legends about our own genesis as there are statues in this City. One story speaks of a planet with two rings...
• Ordinarily, it is not possible for a planet to have more than a single ring. Gravity and the planet's equator will pull two rings into one. But, where there's a wish, there's a way...

Spine of Keres, Meditation Circle

• When I was learning to be a Techeun, I often meditated here. I'd like to tell you it was a transcendent experience, but… most of the time I was bored to tears. Ha! I was so young!
• Young techeuns in training used to come to this platform to meditate. Now, just three of us remain and we will train no more - by decree of the Queen.
• Generations of techeuns have stood where you stand now, dreaming of a future where they might twin themselves to their own Harbinger.
• This was once a training ground for Techeuns... Hmm, do you know Petra Venj was once meant to join our order? She denied the call. It's just as well, I suppose.

Spine of Keres, Oracle Engine

• The Oracle Engine is a bridge - and I mean that in two ways. Like the bridge of a ship, its powers can be used the whole of the Dreaming City… and like a bridge across a chasm, it links worlds together.
• We created the Oracle in communion with the Ancients. It was our invention, and ours alone. The Ahamkara had nothing to do with it.
• I'm told that before the Collapse, humans invented mechanical models of this solar system. This is no model. Models are static. They do nothing but mimic an idea. This Oracle - it creates ideas.

Spine of Keres, Star Map

• That map is not just decoration. It is a kind of prediction. The Awoken will meet their final fate somewhere in those stars and planets, wherever they may be.
• Before the Queen left, she conjured the map you see there. I do not know what it represents or where it is - but I trust it is important to our future as a people.
• When you know your future, you must make yourself ready to meet it. This map is not so much a signpost as it is a promise.
• The Awoken were wayfarers. We walked between worlds; we charted the stars. It's for this reason I know Queen Mara respected Oryx. He was a beast - but a navigator, too.

Spine of Keres, Summoning Pillar

• This was a summoning ground, once. We called the Harbingers here to speak to them, to persuade them, to listen to their whispering - strange songs in languages we all felt we should know.
• We used to use that spire to summon the Harbingers. They're all dead now - all but one, and only Queen Mara knows where it is. A good thing, too, considering that me and my sisters were Taken.
• I called my first Harbinger standing where you stand now. It was mine, and mine alone, and I sent it to its death when we attacked the Dreadnaught. A being of immeasurable age and power... destroyed in an instant by that beast.
• This was once a place to call the Harbingers. It is a pity that you cannot see them as they were - ageless, unfettered minds, twining through the mist like ribbons on the wind. They were beautiful.

Spine of Keres, Wall

• We Techeuns wear gems to augment our innate powers. The variety of mineral varies by personal preference and by task. Amethyst, in particular, is good for communing with the Ancients.
• We used to give carved amethyst as political gifts to the Eliksni - back in the old days, before the Wolves rose up. The Archons, especially, prized our amethyst for its beauty.
• The Awoken once had a space station we called Amethyst in honor of the gems we use to channel our magic. The station fell at the start of the Reef Wars. Petra still mourns those we lost.
• Amethyst is a symbol of royalty and power among the Awoken. As a mineral, it is nothing more than simple quartz, but it has been irrevocably transformed - much like us.

Harbinger's Seclude

Harbinger's Seclude, Alis Li

• That is a statue of Alis Li, the great bargainer. They say she turned the Green into the storm. They say she cast out the lightning sails to attract both the Light and the Dark. But those are not my stories to tell. Not really...
• Alis Li, the very first of our queens. She was given a precious opportunity to build a society in the way she thought best. She chose equality, exploration, engineering, peace… and her wisdom led us to paradise.
• Alis Li. I did not know her; I was not born in the Distributary - but Mara knew her. Illyn knew her. Uldren, too. They all spoke highly of Alis. She was an excellent starship pilot and a levelheaded ruler. A good queen.
• This is Alis Li. She woke before the rest of us; she spoke to the Sky and the Deep and heard their confusion when they found us caught between their fists, and she agreed to their terms. She founded the Distributary.

Harbinger's Seclude, Cliffs

• The Dreaming City is built upon a disc that contains a silver sea. The water is real, but the horizon is an illusion if you're accustomed to spherical worlds. If you went far enough, you'd fall off the edge of the disc.
• When we helped Queen Mara build this place, she felt it was essential to incorporate water into the landscape - to honor our old home in the Distributary, to make everything here feel more... real.
• This waterfall is not fed by a river. Instead, its water comes from hydrocapture systems buried deep in the bedrock. We recycle all of our water - the whole place runs on a closed ecosystem.
• There is a stabilization ring beyond the horizon that holds the City in alignment. When water goes spilling off the horizon, it is captured and fed back into the atmosphere before it dissipates into space.

Harbinger's Seclude, Devna Tel

• Queen Devna Tel and her loyal Techeuns. Devna's rule predates the arrival of the Awoken in the Reef, as did all that came before Queen Mara. We built these statues in their memory.
• These statues depict Queen Devna Tel and her Techeuns, Yara and Imar. Imar is himself noteworthy, as he was a man. There are no prohibitions against men becoming Techeuns - nor against men ruling. It's simply rare.
• This is a statue of Queen Devna Tel, ruler of the Distributary, last of her name. She held the throne when the Sky and the Deep came to the Awoken to collect their terms. She chose to stay, and Mara chose to go.
• This is an altar to Queen Devna Tel. To be honest, I’ve never understood why we chose to honour her. She was selfish and cowardly; she chose to luxuriate in paradise when she knew she could have stood to change fate.

Harbinger's Seclude, Eao's Nest

• This bowl was once a nest for Eao - he was a sly little Ahamkara, always laughing, always twining around your legs, whispering lies, saying, "I have seen your eyes, o witch-mage mine." We never expected him to go bad.
• This was once a resting place for an Ahamkara who loved stories. He would recite all of our myths, name all our heroes... And that's where we went wrong. We should have never trusted him to keep our secrets.
• This little chamber was once a home for an Ahamkara who betrayed the Awoken. He crept out of the Dreaming City and went to whisper in the ears of Warlocks who wondered who we were - and so we had to kill him. The Warlocks, too.
• Ah... This is where Eao liked to rest, before Sjur hunted him down and skewered him for his deceit. One of your Warlocks bartered for his corpse and traded away his bones. Another mistake. You must never scatter the bones.

Harbinger's Seclude, Elevator

• Turn. Look down. You stand above the entrance to the Hall of Names. Techeuns and Paladins alike used to receive their titles in that Hall, witnessed by the living and the lost alike.
• Turn and look behind you. Do you see the two statues? The left hand is for creation. The right is for destruction. Illyn used to say that we can hold fate in just one hand at a time.
• Illyn used to ask us riddles when we were training. She would ask, "Can there simply be light if there is no source?" And if we replied "No, that is not possible," she would say, "think again."
• A single light burning in the dark is a potent but uninspiring symbol. It's far better the rally around the more complicated ideas. Sometimes, embracing the dark is the only way to find light.

Harbinger's Seclude, Flowers

• Asphodelia… The flowers are a symbol of the fragility of life, and they were originally planted from clippings gathered in a place of enduring death.
• Asphodelia flowers are taboo to pick except under special circumstances. Getting a thorn lodged in your skin causes paranoia, madness, violence… but the petals themselves, steeped in tea, bring peace and enlightenment.
• Pink asphodelia is grown only in the Dreaming City, and we do not pick the flowers except to celebrate a birth or mourn a death. They have a unique power over the Awoken soul.
• Pink asphodelia. It's a cultivated strain said to descend from the flowers in Black Garden. Among our people, Prince Uldren was the first to walk the Garden, and the first to bring these back.

Harbinger's Seclude, Kelda Wadj

• When a Techeun takes her title, she must swear a sacred oath to cover her eyes for the remainder of her life, showing them to no one - not even those closest to her. They can only be uncovered again when she has died.
• That statue depicts Kelda Wadj. She was Illyn's mentor in the Distributary. For all her wisdom, I'm told she was one of the loudest voices to speak out against Queen Mara's decision to leave.
• The Awoken believe that it is natural to gravitate toward two different paths. The first path is the path of war— for Corsairs and Paladins. The second is the path of the mind— for engineers and Techeuns.
• This is a statue of Kelda Wadj, teacher of teachers. She trained Illyn, the mother of our coven, and Illyn, in return, trained every Techeun to ever walk the Dreaming City.

Harbinger's Seclude, Meeting Pillar

• The Awoken knew the Ahamkara long before the Guardians ever noticed them. We made our alliances and cut our deals at this pillar - and for the most part, we lived alongside each other.
• Dozens of Ahamkara have crawled or flown or slithered across this platform since it was built. They had the power to change their shape, to reform themselves to match the expectation of their beholders. We expected nothing of them, and so they came as they were.
• It was here that we first struck an agreement with the Ahamkara and here that we met the very last of them. Those creatures have keen memories, and they love patterns and ceremony. When you start a tradition with them, they follow it through.
• I remember the day that the last Ahamkara arrived in the Dreaming City. Queen Mara was standing beside this pillar. She turned toward the horizon and saw the refugees fleeing extinction, and she felt...pity, I think. Perhaps empathy.

Harbinger's Seclude, Osana Sov

• Osana Sov. She does not deserve the respect my lady grants her with that statue. Uldren argued against putting it up; he thought Osana should be forgotten. But Queen Mara chose to remember.
• That statue depicts Osana Sov - mother to Queen Mara and Prince Uldren. Though she is venerated here as a queen, she was not royal herself. The Awoken do not believe in royal lines or inheritance.
• You can tell a statue of a queen from a statue of a Techeun by what they hold in their hands. The queens hold nothing at all. Techeuns hold symbols of life - orbs, lights...
• That is Osana Sov, the Queenmother. She did not follow her children to the Reef. Forgive me, Queen Mara, for saying this, but — I feel she was a coward.

Harbinger's Seclude, Shiny Geode

• I have heard it said that the Awoken brought the Ahamkara into this system – that we found them in the ruins of the planet that we carved into the base of the Dreaming City – but if you ask me, they came from the Nine.
• The Ahamkara always came and went from the Dreaming City by way of this platform, which meant they always passed by these geodes. We used them as protective measures. Shiny surfaces can reveal some of the Ahamkara's secrets – if you know what to look for.
• Know this, Guardian. If an Ahamkara has hidden itself away beyond Jupiter, if the last of them did not die here in the Dreaming City... you can reveal their true intentions with reflective surfaces.
• Reflections are powerful things. They can disarm certain kinds of magic. Wish-magic, in particular, is susceptible – since it is so heavily dependent on expectation and perception...

Harbinger's Seclude, Shrine

• We call this the Hall of Names. It was once a place of ceremony. Young women - and sometimes men - came here to be transformed as a final rite of passage in becoming a Techeun.
• Look at all the statues around you. How many queens? How many Techeuns came before you? The Dreaming City is older than your Tower, your Last City - but the carvings here almost all honor people that never once stepped foot in the Reef.
• The Hall of Names has always attracted great power. Illyn used to say it was the elevator shaft, that its circumference and depth were precisely engineered to create a vortex irresistible to immaterial beings. I think she was having a laugh at my expense.
• The Hall of Names. Solemn as it may be, this was a joyful place— more or less. It did see its share of drama. Tears. Fights. Even the odd betrayal, but Mara and Sjur always put a quick stop to those...

Harbinger's Seclude, Spiral Tree

• This chamber was refashioned in honor of Sjur Eido, the first Queen's Wrath, when she was found dead. She was a fearsome warrior in her own right - the only Awoken to ever survive an Aphelion attack, and a skilled hunter of traitorous Ahamkara.
• This chamber was built for one of our most skilled archers. Her name was Sjur, and she was beloved by all of us— even by the Eliksni. They called her "Siyuriks pak Variisis"— Sjur the Unyielding.
• It's taboo to carve a statue for someone who still lives, and so sometimes, we will plant trees instead. The Queen planted this one herself after one of our best warriors went missing. Would that we were all so lucky.

Gardens of Esila

Gardens of Esila, Bridge

• These gardens were named for Esila, a famed poet and storyteller who chronicled our history and sang our epics. She was one of the first to stand in support of Mara during the Reckoning.
• Do you see the arches before you? We call it a cleft gate. The architecture symbolizes the divide between the past we left behind and the present we live in now. There is no bridge between them because there is no going back.
• Look into the sky. See that portal? It controls access to the Tangled Shore - and crucially, it holds the cloaking technology that we use to disguise and protect the Dreaming City.
• There is a large gazebo just beyond this bridge. It was Queen Mara's favourite place to meditate, to think. When we first realised that Oryx was on his way into our system - that is where we found her when we delivered the news.

Gardens of Esila, Dead Tree

• You Guardians embrace death. But, it is not final for you, and so it has no weight, no impact. The Awoken believe in its finality. We believe we are charting toward a final future, a final shape. It is our duty to help shape it before we are gone.
• We Awoken have one foot in the Darkness and one in the Light. Your Traveler is a gardener, so we garden, too. But the Darkness demands each thing fit to its final shape - and so we accept when something must die.
• Let this tree serve as a reminder that all things have their end. There is a certain amount of time that every one of us is granted. We must all make the most of it.
• The Hive preach the gospel of the final shape: death. In our way, we believe in its power, too - but the Hive have such limited imagination. They have not heard the song of the Sky. There are more ways to carve and craft than cutting and killing.

Garden of Esila, Garden Bench

• My friends and I used to come here. Now they are dead. Whatever rituals you enjoy, Guardian, whatever little things you hold dear - cling to them while you have them. You don't know when they'll disappear.
• I used to come to this bench and sit with Nascia. She and I entered the coven at the same time. She bonded to her Harbinger before I did - I was so jealous, and I could not say so, because we were taught to feel no jealousy. Not all lessons stick.
• Before the Battle of Saturn, there were seven of us. It is good to be myself again, good to be whole - but I miss the afternoons where my friends and I would come to these benches to talk and enjoy the sun.
• There were more Techeuns once. Wise Illyn. Nervous Portia. Steadfast Lissyl. Fearless Nascia. Now it is just me and Sedia and Kalli. Our coven, our family, is broken. Everything here conjures a memory…

Gardens of Esila, Queensfoil

• Queensfoil. Orin the Lost stole several of these plants before she embarked on her fool's journey into the heliopause. I tried to warn her, but her curiosity was overwhelming. She did not listen to me.
• See that plant? It's queensfoil. The leaves, carefully prepared, can be used to see into other planes, other realms — but the power of the vision can destroy the weak.
• That's queensfoil. It's highly poisonous, but when the leaves are properly dried and crushed, it can be used to induce prophecy. The risks are immeasurable.
• When my friend Nascia was still in training to become a Techeun, she dried her own queensfoil and tried to induce a vision. It nearly killed her. Give that plant a wide berth.

Gardens of Esila, Techeun Statues

• Those statues there... look up at them. Those Techeuns died a vicious irreversible death. They died in trance, each one screaming with the other's voice, each one unable to comprehend the horror of the thing that had killed them.
• The Techeuns you see here died while they were in trance together. Sometimes when you are in communion you cannot see what is coming close, like the Aphelion. Their last words were these "First it shimmered... then it crawled… then it screamed."
• These three Techeuns were victim to the Aphelion. I pray you never see it my friend, because no matter what gods you have killed, you will not survive it.
• We Techeuns are taught absolute obedience to our Queen. We have no desires but what our Queen desires, we have no fears but what our Queen fears. Good traits. But weaknesses against certain enemies. Like the Taken. Like the Aphelion.

Gardens of Esila, Tree

• Dozens of good people died walking over these cliffs. They were lured to their death by an Ahamkara during a celebration of the solstice. Those creatures... They can turn on you in an instant if you aren't wary.
• This was the site of a mass murder. An Ahamkara of immense power tricked dozens of civilians into walking right off the edge of these cliffs. We saved none of them. And to our great shame, the Ahamkara - Azirim, he was called - escaped.
• Step past the tree. Peek down over the ledge. That drop goes on for some time. Now imagine a voice whispering to you, luring you, promising you that your feet will find solid ground where, in truth, there is only air... Ahamkara lies.
• A great tragedy once occurred at these cliffs. It was early in our relationship with the Ahamkara, before we'd learned their tricks, before we'd learned how best to live alongside them without becoming their prey...

Gardens of Esila, View

• When Mara and Illyn began to shape the Dreaming City, this was where they started. They stood on the edge of the world with rough rocks all around, and they saw the potential of what this place could be.
• Turn and look out over the clouds. Breathe in... then out... Now turn. Look at the gardens. Study them. Take them in. Everything you see is the reason we're here, Guardian. If beautiful places like this cannot survive, then why fight at all?
• When the Awoken first arrived in the Reef, Mara was not our Queen. She was simply our leader. We MADE HER our Queen. This is where she was crowned. This is where we knelt and pledged our devotion to her.
• Your Traveler terraformed your planets. But the Awoken terraformed the Dreaming City. It is our creation. It is a reflection of our people - not a false gift from a skittish god.