Jadetech Black Jade

black jade

Jacob Possin

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black jade  Written by  Written by  Jacob Possin Possin Fictio Fict ion n by Benjamin Feehan Published by Ryan M. Danks Editing Allison Howar Howard d Layout, Cover Design  Jesse Ferguson Ferguson Cover Art Nicole Cardi, Conrad Javier Interior Art Kurt Komoda, Nicole Cardi  A Reroll Productions Publication  www.RerollProductions.com  www.RerollPr oductions.com • www.Jadepunk.com @RerollRPG on Twitter facebook.com/RerollProductions  Jadetech: Black Black Jade  Copyright © 2015 Reroll Productions, All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by Reroll Productions. 6885 W. Lone Mountain Rd. #161, Las Vegas, NV 89108 Reroll Productions and the RP, RP, Jadepunk, and Jadetech logos are trademarks owned by Reroll Productions. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form

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Nowhere and Everywhere

The moment Shen reached the vault he knew this was a bad idea. Row upon row,, shelf after shelf, as jagged ore and dust, in cubes and impure veins, in small glass row boxes, black jade, and he could could feel it. The very air felt oily and thick against against his skin. skin. For once he was glad Alistair and the sailor were not with him. For all that they had been through together, together, the perils of the wilderness wildernes s and Kausao’s back alleys, held not a candle to the terror of black jade. Shen slid down an aisle, forcing forcing one foot in front of the other other.. The monks in the monastery near his village often spoke of serenity s erenity,, of the pursuit of a peaceful soul, of the perspective these thin things gs required. They wrote poetry about it and drew in the the sand and shaved their heads heads and wore simple robes. Be where you are, are, they would say. It was was an easy thing to grasp in the placid repetition repetit ion of the rice patty. The fall of petals in spring, spring, the early dawn of summer summer,, the richness of autumn and echoing silence silen ce of winter, winter, to be among these was not dicult. dicult . To be here, where bleeding n ngers brushed with a feather’ feather’ss touch and urgent whispers ickered just beyond hearing,  was something something else entirely. entirely. Shen started to hum, low in in his throat. It was a song song about the moon, how the moon was a woman woman and the moon loved the sun. He focused on the words, words, on the longingg of the moon, the separation of night and day. Light and dark, motion and longin stillness, one foot in front of the other. other. There was a sensation like like breaking breaking the surface in in a thick and murky pool. Shen took a few more steps and turned. The long rows of raw jade stood silent and inert behind him. He shook himself. himself. He would have have to cross it to get back, but that was the future. Right now, now, he was in here. A few feet away, neatly labeled in a square cubby among a hundred others, lay the cause of his arrest and deportation to that hellish prison in the Tuyan uyangan gan mountains. An age ago, Shen was simply the smartest, most mos t innovative Jade technician the Four  Wind’  Wi nd’ss Tradin Tradingg Company had ever seen. Somehow the skinny skinny Tuyan Tuyangi gi farm kid got  jade down in his gut. Where others others studied and tinkered tinkered for decades to grasp a single single aspect of a single single type, Shen simply knew how it worked. worked. The alloys and renements renements he proposed had the potential to propel the Great Nations to unshakable and unend ingg technological, military in military,, and economic dominance. And then he tried to leave. leave. Worse, he tried to take his papers and ideas with with him.  Why? It was was not the cutthroat corporate corporate politics or bureaucratic backstabbi backstabbing ng that bothered Shen. No, it was the black black jade. Blue jade was the sea and sky. sky. Green was the earth and that which grew. grew. White was the wind and the morning light. Red was was re and the rumble of waking waking mountains. mountains. Black jade, he told them, was was living living death and Shen wanted nothing to do with it. But you couldn’t simply leave Four Winds. Not when you were as smart as Shen. Not with everything he had seen. You couldn’t kill him either. Someo Someone ne like Shen came along once in a hundred hundred years. You had to break break him and bind bind him and bend him to your will. A corporation was a machine machine and every part no matter how how important must do it’ it’ss part.  Which was was why Shen had returned returned here, to this vault. vault. The weeks of preparation preparation

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Shen smiled as he pulled scrolls o their little alcoves and started piling piling them in the open space on the stone oor. oor. Some of these were very clever. clever. He had even designed a little automaton in the shape of a dog in his early time with Four Winds. Winds. There it was next to the triple tr iple concussive red jade shells the Aerish were using on the Ahlmac somewhere across the world and the long range airship engine they used to get there. There was the waterless waterless steam machines rich ladies used to soothe their achingg feet, right next to his report on the interaction of black jade and the human achin consciousness. Shen had broken all the the rules back then, and now he was was going going to break some more.  With a ick, ick, his red jade igniter sent a tiny tiny jet of ame into the tinder tinder dry rice paper sheets. There was was a crackle, crackle, and then the re breathed breathed deep. Shen swallowed swallowed hard, his chest chest tight. Years of his life were were burning burning on the oor in front of him. He crouched down. He was here. A rie cracked overhead. overhead. The guards guards were late. He had slipped through through between shifts, but he knew they would nd him. You could not just start res in people’s people’s highest security vaults vaults without someone noticing. noticing. Shen smiled and produced a small tin of leather oil from his pocket. pocket. On hands and knees he scuttled scuttled across to the the shelves, allowing allowing the creeping creeping darkness to wash over his sense. Just because he did not like black jade did not mean it did not have it’s it’s uses. Seizing a small glass cube of the black powder, powder, he poured it into the tin and mixed it into the leather oil with a nger. nger. Taking his inky black nger nger,, he dabbed both  wrists, a location on his right ankle, the left of his neck, and then drew a long long line down the middle of his face. Taking his opposite nger, he spread the black jade oil under each eye, eye, across his jaw until it met his ears. A peaceful soul was was not the only thing the monks taught. Suddenly,, Shen Suddenly Shen was was nowhere and everywhere. Time stopped. He stood. Behind him his notes hung in frozen ame. A red jade bullet hung in the air next to his head. He icked it and it spiraled away to his right. Now he was striding through the rows of black jade. In the corners corners of his vision, black hands reached reached for him and he could make out anguished anguished voices. voices. He marched marched on. At the the end of the vault, vault, at the top top of three low low steps, a trio of soldiers stood seemin seemingly gly frozen in the the act of ight. Shen cut between them and down the hallway. Around the corner, a dozen guards were rushing forward blades in hand, eyes in tent, unblinkin unblinking. g. Shen hugged the the wall wall and moved moved on. Ahead of him him the doors hung open, mid swing as a dark haired woman in blue pushed through. He brushed past. He found himself in an alley. alley. Alistair was tossing tossing a knife. The sailor was smoking smoking and staring into the street. Shen wiped the oil o his face and his his friends blinked. The sailor swore. “Where did you come from?” The Tuyangi farmboy smiled. “Here.”

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Welcome to the Jadetech Series  Jadetech denes denes the world of Jadepunk . It shapes everyday life and allows for a level of technology and understandin understandingg far beyond what would otherwise be possible. At its core, jade dees the laws that are considered the normal laws of nature. Any attempt to codify these exceptions to the natural order in any but the loosest of ways has failed. Many philosophers hold that jade—and by extension, Jadetech—is proof that the universe is unknowable in any way beyond the supercial. Others maintain the hope that some underlying underlying principle or series of principles will emerge and explain the jade phenomena with some sort of grand, unied law.    

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