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Session 14
The Final Countdown
After the party sans Richard gets back to the manse, Cell takes the cart to Lookshy to drop off the Green Lady pearl. Jimothy starts a summoning-fest with Narula as bodyguard. Richard sinks a ton of boats at a harbor outside a town in Chaya, then heads back.
Jimothy decides to summon Second-circle demons. He manages to get Florivet under his control, then gets ambitious and goes for Octavian. His first attempt fails, but on his second try (the last night before Calibration), he succeeds and binds him. Suddenly his brute squad of 15 Fire elementals becomes less intimidating by comparison.
The first night of Calibration, a vast army is detected. It turns out to be composed mostly of an undead army of various sizes, led by the Mistress Robed in Midnight (now with a crazy black evil prosthetic where her hand used to be) and a cranky British-kinda guy with some facial scars leading a troop of mercenaries.
(While the party never bothers to figure out why there's suddenly an undead army, the truth is that the mercenaries, shipped downriver to Chaya and wearing gas masks to protect them from the fire flowers, slaughtered entire towns of helpless drugged villagers to create shadowlands for the undead army to enter)
This is further complicated when hidden tunnels into the manse are discovered. The party uses various techniques to search out the entrances, but one seems especially magical, on the inside of the shaft which used to be the bottomless pit. It seems the ways in are now under control.
The party lies in wait, then burninates the army and sends Octavian in to destroy it. The Mistress Robed in Midnight fights him, but Narula interferes and kills her, while Cell steals the crown off the Scars guy, and Richard hits him. He seems an awful lot of a pansy, which leads Jimothy to suspect he's a decoy. When he loses contact with his troops inside the Manse, he leaves to investigate.
Cell, Narula, and Richard, as well as Octavian, have dealt with the army, and as Jimothy is ambushed by a certain someone (the REAL Scars) they head back, since they overhear some of the conversation on his mirror before it cuts out. The party assaults Scars, but she has crazy counterattack and attack-reflecting charms as well as total control over her initiative, and a pair of firelaunchers, which make her hard to kill.
She has, however, used most of her shields to disrupt the demons and rewire the manse, and uses her last one at one point to take control of Octavian when he rushes back in. Cell manages to take Octavian out, while Narula and Richard finish off Scars, but she had used the Hopping Puppeteers to rebuild the Manse back into a demon-summoning portal, which at the stroke of midnight, lets through some weird blast of power that escapes into the night. Since Scars had killed Walter, they are unable to get the manse fixed until too late.
But whatever it is escapes instead of attacking, and the Mistress Robed in Midnight's pool of blood is relocated while it continues to boil, and it eventually goes out (since Scars is dead it can no longer be used to summon the Mask of Winters.... party dodges ANOTHER bullet without knowing it)
The party then walks off into the sunset. The Yozi invasion has been disrupted, if not prevented, and if their story is continued, it will be through the eyes of others.
Session #13
Weeee are the Champions
Cell is out of commission for the session, since he needs further regeneration from his aggravated damage (also because Tim is out for the session). The rest of the party considers its next options. Richard gets a letter form the Bull telling him that Song and Dance escaped from his forces and are looking for the remaining Infernals. After managing to consult with the Green Lady, the party decides that going after Coat would be most efficient, since they know where s/he is.
En route, the party (starting with Rambo) notices there are more boats going upriver than downriver. Like a lot more. The party plans their demise but continues to Great Forks. There, they ask the Green Lady how to proceed and she advises them to make themselves seen. Narula tries the Cult of the Illuminated, but no luck. The party then goes to see the Gods of Great Forks, who remember Narula and let them in. None of their advisors are wearing green crowns, and after sharing info, the party is directed to the Special Investigator of Great Forks, who is in charge of monitoring dangerous cultists.
The "Special Investigator" turns out to be Screwyouup. What the crap. He claims to have escaped and is very trustworthy, and wants the party as backup when he meets a contact in two hours. Narula lets slip how much killing they're doing, which Screwyouup seems very interested in. Richard resolves not to trust this guy, though Jimothy and Narula have worked with him before.
Richard cases the place early, finding it dark and empty. He waits in the rafters. Narula traces Screwyouup, watches him send a bunch of messenger butterflies and sees him meet with someone before going to the warehouse. Screwyouup and Jimothy meet outside the warehouse with Narula tracking him, and the two go in with Hazel and Narula sneaking behind. Richard sees a number of baddies dressed in black and carrying weapons sneak into the warehouse.
As Jimothy and Screwyouup go in, Jimothy hits a tripwire and a number of flares flash on the ground around him. Screwyouup immediately goes invisible as Narula pushes her way in, and Jimothy gets hit with an arrow for pain. Narula detects Screwyouup being invisible since she's been using Stalking Cat Meditation, and hits him brutally hard, forcing him to use a Demon Shield. You ARE Evil! Good thing I did so much damage!
Jimothy gets out of the way while Narula singlehandedly trashes Coat and Richard massacres the assassins (three with one shot!). The warehouse is burning down so the party loots and leaves. They stop by Coat's office to ransack, then catch a ride down the river. They buy a half-dozen kegs of oil and use some to sink troop ships, while Jimothy also sinks a number using Burning Raptors.
The next morning, as the party approaches home base they see a fleet of a dozen ships including one particularly large one. Asfter an intricate flaming and crossbowing and shredding set, the fleet is in ruins, but Song and Dance turn out to be on the big ship and Song nixes a Burning Raptor. She immediately draws party aggro, and when the ship falls apart, Song and Dance (who can't appear to swim too well) are on some floating wreckage, drawing more party ire.
During the series of ranged attacks that follow Song loses her spell, knocking Dance into the water, and Song is then trampled by the low-flying cart. Dance botches a swim roll and starts drowning, making him a perfect target for Richard's debilitating combo, while Narula jumps into the river and physically drowns Song in an extremely brutal fashion. As the two are dying, Wheel shows up in his giant ultra-cool Submarine, driving the party back, but he fails to save his teammates. Richard and Narula jump onto the sub while Jimothy casts more spells, though the cart can't move since it's been harpooned. Wheel defends himself with his sword, but Narula keeps the cockpit open and buys crucial time for Richard to use up his shields, before Jimothy slips a Flying Guillotine in which splatters Wheel all over the cockpit's innards.
What follows next is hilarity, since Wheel had started to submerge the sub. Richard grabs back the dagger and ball of Infernal energy, then somehow manages to get the sub to ascend again. Jimothy asks the Green Lady about the sub, and she reveals the existence of the instructions manual inside the cockpit. Jimothy manages to skim it and instruct Richard in its general principles, then heads back to the Manse to do more preparation. Scars is now the only one left and he's sure to be there at Calibration, ready for a fight.
Session #12
We claim this manse in the name of kicking your ass!
The party heads back to the second manse to rest up and let Cell heal. There, Arqubis is directing the construction, and has a Solar with him who claims to be an emissary from the Bull of the North, who also happens to be a 17-year-old punk assassain with a pair of Orichalcum Boomerangs (Jason's new character). There's some friction between the new guy, Richard, and Cell, then some more between Richard and Narula, but things get smoothed over.
Jimothy summons a pair of Psychic Soakers to communicate between the two manses, and another Hopping Puppeteer in preparation for taking over the manse at location 3. The party flies over and finds a rather large manse in a valley north of a city in the Republic of Chaya. The stealthier half of the party sneak in and find a lot of demons guarding the area. The less stealthy half talks around town and finds that there's virtually nothing known about that forest, since the Green Wheel Shipping Company was logging it (even though the trees don't make good work lumber) and the hunters and trappers had to relocate.
The party also finds out that in midsummer (coming very soon!) the red blossoms on the local trees produce pollen that acts like alcohol in removing all inhibitions, making the place very unstable. The party resolves to act before this kicks in.
A diversion is created where a letter is sent to Light ordering a deployment of demons to a location to the East, and Jimothy summons a Luminita (a Deer that Hunts Man) to provide the diversion. Around dawn Richard reports that a platoon of about twenty demons marches out the door and cruises off towards the distraction. Later in the morning, the party strolls in wearing crowns and taking notes for a "surprise inspection." Light is a woman wearing a crown and carrying a large technological laserthingie, which she uses to place a blue portal on the wall next to her and an orange portal on the ground in front of the party. She then steps through the blue portal, comes out the orange portal, and confronts the party. Richard scoots around while the rest of the party faces her, and once they talk about Tongue recruiting them, Light goes back through the portal to the second story catwalk to get back to work. Narula tries to break the portal gun but fails, and Light immediately starts shooting. One part flamethrower, one part portal gun that she uses to put a portal under Narula, pitching her into the hole on the ceiling.
Jimothy has his Goliath pick him up and hold him in midair so he can cast, while Cell hides, Narula rushes back, and Richard hits Light with an awesome combo only to discover she has Demon Shields up ("Hey you guys never mentioned shields!" "She's got shields!"). Light continues spraying portals around, and finally decides Cell is up to something underneath her. She reaches over to put a portal under Cell, who jumps up to cut the portal gun in half. Both succeed-- the portal gun explodes, pushing Light back against the wall, while Cell falls through the portal and into the bottomless pit in the middle of the manse. Jimothy's Goliath drops him and dives after Cell, while Narula and Richard take the opening and murder Light to death. The demons outside then start fighting each other, which offers Cell an opportunity to go out of essence.
The party plots what to do next, deciding to off Wing. They figure out where Wing is, approaching the center of town to find a tall green-armored redhead arbitrating and being a general nice guy (gal). The party (with Richard on the roof) goes into the warehouse to talk with her and finds a Storm Wing Demon there, apparently her familiar. Whoo Sheet. Presumably it doesn't have anything to do with the big ol' powerbow on her back.
Cell steals her bow with Invisible Magpie's Talon, then the party tries to take them out. Wing avoids painful death, but she has to use a lot of her Demon Shields to protect her mount. She uses her Soul Mastery attack on Cell which nearly kills him, then twists and dodges to try and get away while the Storm Wing Demon grabs Narula and pitches her through the skylight. However, while Wing twists and dodges away, the party manages to bring down her ride. Enraged, Wing shoots off a number of explosive arrows that knock Cell unconscious, before she is finally brought down.
Richard starts patching up Cell with Narula standing watch. While Jimothy is going through Wing's pockets he hears a beeping, and has Mittens drag away the body while yelling "Get down!" The body then explodes, since apparently Wing has a bomb on her person. The party manages to get away, though Cell is badly battered and Mittens is nearly killed. They have to scramble to get away from the "Terrorist attack" and hide in a nearby "lantern store" while sending Luggage out with Cell and Mittens to the cart to pick them up. Rambo comes back with the cart, is accosted by soldiers, gets away to grab the party, and then has to take off in flight because they're surrounded. Whee!
The party stops by the second manse to pick up Walter and a Hopping Puppeteer, then lands at the third manse and Jimothy starts a massive summons/construction project. He picks up a dozen elementals and demons and has them build up defenses around the manse, in preparation for Scars's inevitable arrival. Narula meets up with the martial arts clans and pays a visit to a fellow they had tracked down and imprisoned: Dario, the Burning Man's father, who is apparently an unhinged Yozi servitor who knows a lot more than he's letting on. Narula gets the jibblies and leaves before any crucial information is revealed on either side.
The defenses are completed and Cell is finally over his case of Aggro Damage, and the party reassembles with two weeks to go before Calibration.
Session 11
Operation Evisceration of Operation
Session 11 Gallery (Coming soon)
Note: Arqubis has become an NPC and spends his time getting drunk and performing strange necromantic experiments
Narula, Jimothy, and Cell examine the various documents and the map, and conclude that the place that requires the most immediate intervention is the camp where Narula was trained. After some discussion, Cell goes in posing as a newly exalted Solar and learns the ropes. He finds that everyone is a servant or a Solar in training except "Miss Delia," Lupo's secretary, and some other Sidereal. Lupo is apparently locked away being busy.
Cell climbs the ranks quickly after winning a sparring tournament, and is invited to meet Delia in the secret basement that night. Narula and Jimothy sneak in while he heads down to find Lupo, and find him dead, strangled by the ropes, banners, and ribbons that now adorn every hallway and room. Lupo's been dead for a while, as it seems.
Narula bursts through the door to the basement (led there by Hazel) and immediately starts owning Delia's face. Cell was being pinned down and a ritual being performed on him, but it's interrupted, so he jumps into the fight, as well as Jimothy. Despite the fact that Delia activates all the ropes in the room to try and strangle people, she is quickly cut down since her crown is rapidly depleted of defense charges and then Cell stabs her. Tongue down.
The party alerts the local Solars to this treachery, and they find that Zigzag (the other Sidereal) has fled. Jimothy's Goliath demon is immune to fate manipulation, however, and tracks him down. The Solars bring him back for questioning. He seems entirely obsessed with Delia and how she was the only thing in his life, but after Jimothy casts a counterspell (breaking the Kiss of Enslavement) he becomes his former self, vaguely remembering how he had been a slave to Delia all this time, and had been concealed by the Green Lady and in the employ of the Burning Man (all dead).
The party now finds that the Burning Man kept in touch with all his operatives by means of messengers who would trade messages every two weeks. The party resolves to misdirect the operatives and pick them off one by one. The first order is to keep Coat, Wing, Light, and Crown pacified while they eliminate the incompetent Fist. They head up to Greyfalls, poke around, ask a few questions, and realize Fist is an advisor to the Wyld Hunt in Greyfalls. Cell pulls three fake crowns for the party, but botches his willpower and gets a slight hankering for the Wyld energy (Jimothy cuts him off). They lure Fist outside of town with a message, chat him up, then Cell magically steals his crown and Jimothy uses his amazing new burnination wand to set Fist on fire. The rest of the party beats him up a bit and then Jimothy roasts him the rest of the way. Fist down.
The party heads back and sets an ambush point for Crown. While en route, Jimothy attempts to make propaganda delineating Cell's ranch as the best horse breeding ranch anywhere, and TRIPLE BOTCHES ON TEN DICE. He has apparently done a great job advertising Cell's ranch as a location for horse pornography, including an image of a giant horse penis. Facepalms ensue.
The party lies in wait for Crown, who, as it turns out, has travelled with escorts. The party can't seem to talk him out of anything in particular, though they do convince him they have been assigned by Tongue, so they follow along to Jugo to get horses while Crown plays diplomat with King Mal.
Narula happens to notice a green messenger butterfly leaving Mal's castle headed straight for the camp with Tongue supposedly still there. The timetable has been altered to include NOW as the killing time. The party sneaks up on him and attacks, only to find he has 16 lethal soak and isn't going anywhere fast. He quickly uses up both demon shields and is slowly dragged down while his guards brawl with Captain Valan and his troops, as well as some members of the Wolf clan. Cell takes and dishes a lot of damage while Narula delivers many scratches, and Jimothy's burnination wand finally brings Crown down.
Jimothy checks on how his Goliath is doing and finds it's not going well. The party goes outside and offs the other Goliaths, then they head back to the cart and fly over to catch the fleeing demon guards. They had a bunch of money and some information on mercenary companies and trade routes, presumably things Crown was using to his advantage.
Session 10
Bad days for everyone!
The party reencounters Blue and sets out to ensnare the Green Lady, with the Mistress Robed in Midnight in tow. Green Jade Eyes has given each of them a small silver disc he uses to target his summon. The party is dropped off in the shadowlands and wanders around for a bit. They encounter the ruins of a castle, and Blue's scouting reveals there's a lot of commotion. The party is quickly surrounded and the Green Lady appears for some final gloating. The party stalls and then jumps into Arqubis's Labyrinth portal. The Green Lady follows them through, only growing suspicious once she realizes that Arqubis intentionally left it open. But by then it's too late.
The Mask of Winters shows up, saves the party, and starts having an epic showdown with the Green Lady. The MRM steals Jimothy's summon disc but Narula notices and attacks, then Cell steals it back and returns it to Jimothy. GJE summons Jimothy, then Arqubis. MRM steals Narula's disc but Cell cuts her hand off in punishment while Blue gets summoned.
The Mask of Winters has finally caught the Green Lady and has soulforged her into a perfect soulsteel/starmetal pearl which he can use to predict fate. He begins gloating about how its power will grant him victory, etc etc. So Cell, who has sneaked up on him, steals it and sprints for his life, naturally. Narula tries to interfere but is summoned, and she informs GJE that Cell is about to die hardcore.
Cell sprints for his life some more, evades several attempts on his life, and is summoned, still holding the Green Lady pearl. Holy crap man. GJE claims this is awesome but no one is allowed near him with it, probably for fear of the Mask of Winters's insane retribution.
The party heads back to the second manse, where the various God and Sidereal sponsors are training the child the party Exalted. The party receives toys to complete the final part of their mission, which is to kill the Burning Man. Cell gets an awesome shapeshifting upgrade to his sword, Arqubis gets the ability to make clones of himself, and Jimothy gets a cool conjuration toy and his awesome robes stitched together.
Narula, meanwhile, takes a side trip to a training camp in the middle of the jungle, where she is insta-trained by a Sidereal in the ways of uber Sidereal Martial Arts. She is also chatted up a bit by a woman there wearing an intricate green crown. I'm sure it's nothing.
The party spends a lot of time strategizing, gains a lot of intel, then sets out to challenge the Burning Man. The Sidereals have arranged for a distraction, so the party surprise-attacks the door guards, break in, and skip straight to the third floor.
The party jumps the Burning Man, who can apparently Flow like Blood and also has a shiny green crown with burning crystals that get used up to protect him from a bad hit and regen approximately once a round. Arqubis's skeletons make a glorious mess of things (some get their arms blown off when trying to open his treasure chests) while Jimothy guillotines him then uses his essence-sucking wand, while Cell goes completely dry of essence defending and Narula gets whittled away despite her 29 lethal soak (!!!).
The Burning Man is eventually brought down by Cell's swordy strikes, Narula's insane tiger strikes, and Jimothy's wand, along with plenty of crossfire from the archers. The kid then shows up and finishes the job, becoming the new master of the Heaven's Blade clan. Cell uses the Solar-cleansing dagger on the Burning Man, and it turns out he was not a deathknight, but some other kind of solar, because the dagger works, and produces a bowling ball of horrible green energy.
The party roots through his chests of stuff - a chest full of money and a chest full of communiques and notes. Compiling the notes reveals a lot of stuff, mostly that the Burning Man was in charge of an entire network of operatives, and they're probably working for the Yozis.
Session 9
The Problem(s) is/are in Focus
The party sits for a bit in a huddle considering what their ultimate goal is. The only one that seems to be acceptable to the wildly disparate personalities is reclaiming shadowlands territory from death and then running an empire out of it. They also find that Sedanya left the lantern with them.
The party drops by Jugo, where Narula has her dojo built and the local shadowlands are located. A trip back is uneventful, and the party reaches the second manse with no problems. Once there, however, they find that the team has been set upon recently by sword-wielding barbarians. They set out in pursuit, run them down, and wipe them out, but also interrogate the one Narula yoinked. They were working for the Burning Man and they are working out of a base to the northeast. Hoo boy. Narula invites them over for an ass-kicking party.
The party heads back to the primary manse. Jimothy binds two Storm Wing Demons into the carriage while Cell buys out a horse breeding program and operates his horse empire out of it. Arqubis continues his various researches. They get a letter back from the martial artists saying they'll be back at the village on the 25th. Jimothy finally fails a demon summoning when he gets 1 success on 12 dice when the demon gets 4 successes on 5 dice, but he manages to get rid of it.
The carriage, now flight-capable, takes the party quickly to the village, where the party is informed that there are visitors for them to the east of the village. The party heads out and meets three rather strange individuals who claim to be the martial artists from the Heaven's Blade clan. They lead the party to their base farther east, though Arqubis follows on flying carriage and Cell is reluctant to enter the little fort.
The head dude turns out to be a Green Dragon and a Celestial Censor who tries to arrest and execute the party with his godly thugs to help. Narula evades instant impalement and powers up while Jimothy preps his spell and Arqubis takes out the guys on the cannons. Cell goes straight for the dragon and manages to take out an eye while Narula jumps on its back and latches on. The dragon flails about and Cell manages to put out the other eye as it gets guillotined and it makes a break for the forest. Once there it starts regenerating from the plants, so Narula exlaims "the plants!" and Cell yells "burn!" and Jimothy obliges and BURNS the dragon. Now on fire, it finally manages to shed the party and flee into the deep forest, from whence it soon returns powered up.
That's when Howling Stripes arrives and takes him on single-handedly.
Howling Stripes was guided, along with the martial artists, by the Mistress Robed in Midnight, who now directs the party to use the Spirit Binding Chain on the dragon while he fights Howling Stripes. Cell graps a rope hanging from Arqubis's carriage and uses it to heave into the dragon, snapping him with the chain and forcing him back into his humanoid form.
The Mistress Robed in Midnight asks that someone head back to the village to pick up the Sidereals, who have arrived in cognito. Arqubis takes the carriage back and picks up not only the Sidereals (including Sedanya) but also Green Jade Eyes and his buddy the Water God.
The Good Guys(tm) have a meeting. The problem is twofold: The Green Lady and the Burning Man. The Heaven's Blade chapter leader has a proposed solution for the latter: they've found a 12-year-old kid who was trained for a day by the Burning Man, making him technically his student (before most of the group was massacred, and the kid escaped). Arqubis has an awesome idea: the Lantern! The party draws straws and Jimothy wins (loses?) and applies the lantern to the kid ("What's in there?" "Your destiny, bitch!". He immediately exalts into a Dawn Caste solar and is now feeling way too big for his britches. He will be trained at the second manse by his master in red and by the party as they can (including having his sword amp'd-up by Arqubis's Necromancy).
As for the Green Lady, the Council of Good Guys can't do too much until they dispose of her, but the Mistress Robed in Midnight has a plan which she tells the party (minus Cell who is now trying to negotiate for stuff). The MRM, who is apparently a Deathknight, offers that the party lure the Green Lady into the Labyrinth, where her boss will take her out. The hitch is that they'll have to trust the Mask of Winters to just let them go, which the party is exceedingly uncomfortable with. Green Jade Eyes can sense the discord and shows up, proposing that he summon them out of the Labyrinth with his insane quintessence cash. As a demonstration, he summons Cell over for a good laugh, then when Cell gets pissy and stomps off he summons him again. At that point Cell snaps the chain onto him long enough to express his ire and provoke some cussing before going back for more negotiations (pointless since the rewards come after the Green Lady has been neutralized).
The Deathknight lady is extremely not pleased with the meddler but sees no alternative. She then magically presents herself as a conduit for the Mask of Winters, who is now communicating directly with the party. He seals the deal and burns knowledge of Opening the Dark Portal into Arqubis's brain.
The party is now prepped and ready to take down the Green Lady. Wheeooo!
Session 8
Out of our way!
The party heads down the river to save Ziriath. Screwyouup has been put in a snow globe as a time out, and Arqubis drank something that makes him sparkle in sunlight, so he hides in his carriage, but off they go anyways. They make their way past a roadblock of local soldiers who warn that the dam is damaged. Once arriving, the party finds the Wyld Hunt making a similar search at the dam, and plans an ambush. Narula ends up felling the ground-based Dragon-blooded while Jimothy blows up everything with spells. They then locate and extract Ziriath, who manages to advise them not to take the direct route home. The party cuts through the Hundred Kingdoms to get home.
At Rana they notice that the Sheriff is missing! Hoo boy. They also find Sedanya's signature on the message board, so Arqubis sends a butterfly to her. It heads stright for their manse, so they rush on. They catch Sedanya on the road home, she is unconscious in the saddle of a magical horse.
Sedanya manages to explain that the Green Lady's servants are on their way, that they are four martial artists, and they want the Lantern she's got in her bag. Great.
Arqubis's skeletons tip him off to the approach of the deathknights, so the skeletons hassle them while the party preps. They arrive and are butterfly'd, wounding all four of them plus the necromancer's bodyguards.
That's when the necromancer finishes her spell, which involves great horrible black-obsidian trees sprouting from the ground and attacking everyone. Arqubis takes the cart to get around while Narula jumps through the trees to engage the melee component. Cell and the Fire Dragon Martial Artist have a ridiculous blade-trading duel which Cell eventually wins. Jimothy beheads the necromancer, leaving Arqubis to deal with her skeletal horse war machines. Jimothy is then wounded and flees while Cell and Narula mop up the last two dudes.
The party obtains lootz, notably sets of silken armor and an awesome sorcerous staff of win. When the party goes back, they find that Wyatt Waynewood was accosted by the martial artists, but he was helped out by his buddy Blue (Tyler playing another character). Blue joins the party.
Sedanya and Ziriath concoct a plan to lure the Green Lady out, where she will be seen by the Sidereal elders. The party takes some downtime first, notably Cell and Jimothy go out to recoup some money spent on horses with petty theft. Arqubis has summoned the ghost of a member of a legendary horse-breeding tribe to help Cell's horse-breeding plan along.
The party finally sets out to catch the Green Lady. She appears at the appropriate time and tries to kill Narula disguised as Sedanya, only to find that Narula is way harder to kill than Sedanya, and also glows a lot more golden. The party then opens massive fire on The Green Lady, who takes damage (quite a bit!) and tries to flee, but trips over Narula and Cell. She has to invoke her H4X to avoid being beheaded by Jimothy, and that's about when the Sidereals show up, recognize her, and take Sedanya back into the family.
Session 7
Status: Epicness on an upward crawl
As the party is collecting their reward moneys, they are alerted to a "prison riot" which is actually the mercenaries trying to wipe out the villagers. Narula is hit with an aggro-napalm trap while saving people, removing her from play for a while.
Jimothy, Arqubis, and Cell investigate the well-being of the Prince, find him safe, but his son playing with a magical living monkey-doll with a dreamstone in its forehead. That night the party steals the monkey and tampers with the stone. It conjures for a swordy-stabby nightmare they have to take down. Arqubis takes the time to rewire the monkey back to its original settings, then they give it back, confident it will no longer consitute a horrible breach of security for Prince Mal and his family.
The party buys stuff (second cart, fine breed horses, and a concubine named Candy) and is then sent on assignment to Gallin to take a large loan of the new currency for the local authorities. They are accompanied by a scoundrel-for-hire named "Screwyouup". The trip is entirely bandit-free, oddly enough, and once it reaches Gallin the reason is clear: Gallin is now run by Realm troops.
The party shows up at the main castle of Gallin with "laundry" which is definitely not huge stacks of money (see they claimed a dragon burned down their laundromat.... or at least Tyler did). The King has four "advisers" with him, who are Dragon-Blooded from the Realm who take an immediate and serious dislike to the Jugo reps. Despite the best efforts of the party to resolve the situation diplomatically, the advisers quickly call in reinforcements and attempt to take down the party.
The fight is long (five rounds!) and involves the sorceress getting butterfly'd, the officer getting beat down by Screw, Cell spending 54 essence and 5 willpower, a posse of soldiers versus a posse of zombies, and two Exalted and heavily armored officers of the Realm finally drop after being pummeled endlessly.
The King awards the party some of the spoils of the battle, including some bracers that both Jimothy and Arqubis botch on assessing. The DM also relents and adds some Batarangs to the collection. The party heads back, having normalized relations between Gallin and Jugo.
En route back they happen to notice they're being followed. Cell hides and waits until Arqubis nails the tresspasser with his crossbow cannon, then Cell holds for questioning. Narula wakes up at about this point, rather disoriented, and the party briefly interviews this guy, who turns out to be the monk that Hazel witnessed earlier, who is trying to make an offer from the Burning Man, namely for lots of money in exchange for a mission to mess up the Prince's son's "Chilikin", or monkey toy. The party turns it down, and removes his head to prevent further offers.
The party now finally returns, and is advised that Captain Valan wants to speak with them. They arrive back at the cart to find him waiting with several guards, and something is very wrong. They enter the cart, and the entire party's alarm bells immediately go off because Candy and Arqubis's skeletons are not inside, and Capt. Valan's eyes are glowing red. After they manage to take Valan down they discover he was being possessed by the Lord of Lies, who in his manifested form can only speak in lies (which causes some confusion for a bit).
The Lord of Lies is after Green Jade Eyes and the party seems screwed until Green Jade Eyes shows up, secretly instructing the party to attack all at once, making him forceable into his own body to be chained. The party all attacks at once, accruing 42 successes between them on the combined hit, to which the Lord of Lies chuckles.... before being sucked into Valan's body! A chain snap, a Willpower force to speak the truth, a viciously one-sided oath, and a banishment later, Green Jade Eyes throws a party for the party. They all head back to his sanctum for some awesome booze.
That night at the party, GJE is drunk and passing around a wicked sweet dreamstone he got from a buddy who is the god of a river. The dreamstone shows an epic fight between Ziriath and some Dragon-blooded lady he (barely) kills. The party then discovers Ziriath is alive but is trapped and will probably die within a week. Once he finds out they know him, GJE shrugs and insists they never had that conversation, then leaves them to do their thing. DUN DUN DUUUUN!
Session 6
Sword Master? I hardly know her!
The party heads back to their newly acquired manse south of the village still sporting a scorched crater ("Don't push me or I'll save the town a few more times!"). Arqubis raises a skeleton workforce to work alongside the Hopping Pupeteers for Walter and his manse-building team. Afterwards the party heads north towards the Hundred Kingdoms for some heroing.
The bridge across the river is inhabited by toll guards for Tenin. The party pays the toll after a bit, but at the next toll for Douvat the party starts screwing with the tollkeepers just for grins, resulting in a number of shenanigans. While in the market at Douvat, Cell starts practicing his newfound ability to steal things, but gets cocky and triple-botches an attempt to put a rich purse into the pocket of a poor man, resulting in an exceedingly awkward situation with the local guards. Somehow the party manages to escape without engaging in combat.
Party passes through Watton without incident, arrives in Jugo to find a tense standoff between two martial arts clans with the local troops watching. The two martial arts schools (both using sword-only styles) seem about ready to go after each other, so the party scares them off with a firebird and martial arts skillz. They interview with Prince Mal (Malchezzar...) and secure a meet with the King and his adviser, Captain Moneybags. CM is a douche and flippantly hires the party to find out which of the rival dojos is raiding the villages to the east.
Investigation reveals that each school blames the other, that CM is in league with a monk from the Realm who wants to move the Wyld Hunt in, and that the villagers who survived attacks are being held for continual interrogation. Cell whiles away the time by spectacularly demonstrating that man cannot throw with Dex alone. If only he weren't invincible in battle....
What to do? Why, give Captain Douche the opening he thinks he needs!
The party reports that one of the dojos will be in the region of one of the towns in two days and if there is an attack then that dojo will be to blame. The party preps an ambush and completely wipes out the Lunar who tried to lead a barbarian troop armed with swords to victory. It quickly comes out that the Lunar learned the Heaven's Blade Style Martial Art from the Burning Man, who the Heaven's Blade master quickly surmises to be Tario, his rejected student. He runs off to execute his former pupil while the party returns.
The party manages to get the Spirit Binding Chain around Captain Moneybags's neck and find that the Burning Man is basically behind everything. While they get the local currency changed and execute him, Narula meets the remaining Heaven's Blade masters, who inform her that the only one who can defeat the Grand Master of the Heaven's Blade is his student who ascents to new grand mastery. Since the Burning Man just killed Azuro, that means he is the new Grand Master and can only be killed by another Heaven's Blade martial artist. Yikes!
Session 5
Building an empire, one manse eviction at a time
The party settles on an agreement with Green Jade Eyes. All interactions must be fair trades, he must give them info on the manses and solars in the area and the party will clear a manse out for him. He agrees and it is done.
Narula, Cell and Jimothy head out to the nearby manse to clear it. Green Jade Eyes pops one of his eyes out to make a green eyeball he can see through for them to carry. He advises them that they can challenge the current occupant to single combats for the manse, so they do. Cell beats up a strange Jade-plated man, Narula owns six Kri-clones, and Jimothy beats a Dragon-blooded sorcerer to the sorcerous punch (and Mittens pwns the demonic guard). Looting the manse reveals crossbows, a demon cage, and enough gems everywhere for Resources ****. Whee!
Arqubis sets Walter up with an entire engineering team so he can spend more time architecting, then goes back to his studies, while the rest of the party sets out to the third major local manse. They eventually find a village in the wilderness, which reacts suspiciously because other villages have gone missing. After the party helps save the village from one of their own who has been infected and is about to infect everyone else, they earn enough trust to leave their cart in the town and take two warriors with them while they set forth to victory.
They encounter a number of strange people about a day's journey into the rainforest, strange people with blue (worker), red (soldier), and silver (one-shotted) flowers on their necks. Jimothy uses Obsidian Butterflies to obliterate the horde of extras, Cell does a woodchipper number on the remaining, and Narula saves him from being strangled and recommends tearing up and burning the root system. The manse is now open for development.
The party has their two tagalongs describe the epicness for them while they conference-call the Arqubis-impersonating DM and recommend having Walter bring a work team out. The party heads back for a bit of downtime. Jimothy summons two Hopping Pupeteers (building demons) and the party sans Arqubis also banters a bit with Wyatt Waynewood, who is a Zenith Solar, and learn that a province in the Hundred Kingdoms to the North is in serious trouble
Session 4 Part 2
You seem trustworthy. Would you like to join us in owning this dude?
Jimothy and Cell encounter the manse, with strange guards patrolling it. Cell moves up to meet them, which brings the party's attention. Jimothy watches unnoticed until Hazel decides to go play with his tiger, Mittens. He eventually moves up to the manse as well. A somewhat tense standoff ensues, ending only when Arqubis and Narula notice Jimothy's cast mark on his forehead. The parties immediately close ranks, skeletons notwithstanding.
The party returns to Rana, sells one of Arqubis's skeletons as a "necromancer" who was defeated. Arqubis researches the architects who built the local buildings and manses. The party also finds a posting for a recently escaped criminal, but the note seems to be written in High Realm. After a bit of snooping they find it's actually written in Old Realm, but it's referring to Green Jade Eyes as the criminal.
The party returns to the manse, and Arqubis summons the ghost of Walter the Manse Architect, who begins managing the skeletons for secret lair construction. The next morning, a skeleton reports that there is an invisible presence outside. Arqubis reacts immediately to mobilize, and the rest of the party follows suit. The interloper is revealed to be a spirit of some kind with a great Wood Elemental on a leash. When Arqubis calls them out, they materialize, and the guy holding the leash (who is quickly shown to be Green Jade Eyes) laughs off the noise and serves an eviction notice. The party responds with Flow Like Blood, Tiger Form, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, Summon the Loyal Steel, and an arrow to the face.
Green Jade Eyes, as it turns out, can regenerate from any attack (though he typically loses whatever got blown off and it has to grow back), and his buddy on a leash commands a large army of Stick People and Great Tree Warriors. A Spirit Crocodile and a number of Stick People riding Eagles are their backup. Cell charges in before discovering that counterattacking everything doesn't work when the enemy includes huge Tree peoples. Jimothy busts a cap on things with a burning fireball-hawk, Narula stabs things, and Arqubis shoots things. When Green Jade Eyes forces the Forest Lord to call for reinforcements, Jimothy pwns him with another firehawk and Cell recovers the leash. When he tries to put it back on the Forest Lord, he gets shoved thirty feet back into the manse wall. Ouch.
But the Forest Lord is free! He takes his people and leaves, and Narula takes the leash and snaps it over Green Jade Eyes's neck before he can react. He is now Bound. Oh SNAP!
Next ensues some experimenting, when it turns out anyone holding the leash can spend a Willpower to order the leashed one about. Further investigation reveals it can also be used to sanctify freely made oaths, as well as inflict suffering. The session ends with a lively discussion on how to turn this guy and his valuable information to good use without getting owned by a vengeful and long-lived god.
Prologue
New Guys Introduction
Cell is a soldier washout from Lookshy who did not exalt and mostly seems to be looking to win duels. He has wandered off to seek his fortune with the backing of Lookshy, and he exalts when about to lose a duel. (player: Tim)
Jimothy is a scholar from the boonies of the eastern Threshold. He exalts and decides to seek his fortune rather than wait to get janked by the Wyld Hunt. His cast mark is permanently visible on his forehead and he has a giant loyal tiger following him around, so he can't quite hang out doing nothing. (player: Will)
The two are currently travelling buddies, and arrive in a small trading post called Rana. The new Sheriff, Wyatt Waynewood, charges the two to check out the pair of odd adventurers, and also investigate the possibility of a necromancer in the area.
The two ask around for directions to the forest, at which point someone indicates the east road leads to the forest and has a sign by it saying "To the Forest" by it.
Yeah these guys are off to a great start
Session 4 Part 1
Oh NPCs, we hardly knew ye
The party recovers. Sedanya trains with Narula for a bit, but she gets nervous and leaves for Great Forks with instructions to forward things to the Ranshire elder. She's pretty sure the Green Lady killed Winter Lightning and framed her, so she's going to get some backing.
Howling Stripes decides it's time for a tlak, or party time. The Lunar elders meet in a big party to judge Howling Stripes's heroic deeds, and he finally is promoted to Ikth-ya. He is then charged with a mission of cunning, to track a spymaster into the Wyld. Arqubis expresses doubts that Howling Stripes can pull it off, but since he cannot protect himself from the mutations of the Wyld, he has little choice but to wish him well and go back to fiddling with the Ivory Butterfly he's trying to reverse-engineer.
Upon their return, the party hangs out, the skeletons still chopping wood and digging a hole in the manse.
Session 3 Part 2
Heaven is not all it is cracked up to be
Once Sedanya and Howling Stripes have recovered, Sedanya asks for the party's help in going back to Yu-Shan. See, they need to unload the lantern, and also figure out where the security leak is. So Sedanya leads them to a set of ruins not too far from Rana where there is a gate to Yu-Shan.
The party is appropriately wowed by Heaven and all its majestical splendortype. Once they get down to business, Sedanya calls her ally Winter Lightning in, who meets with her and promises to return in two hours.
Not content to sit on her laurels, Sedanya asks for help in getting the lantern to Lytek, God of Exaltation. They head there, where a plan is concocted to move the lantern safely. Arqubis, Howling Stripes and Sedanya create a diversion with a fake lantern and get a corrupted Celestial Lion to deal with, while Narula brings in the real lantern and then beats a hasty retreat.
The party hides out by Sedanya's house, then Winter Lightning and two other Sidereals arrive to take Sedanya into custody. Arqubis exchanges a few unpleasant words with the other Sidereals via his skeletons but they leave without tracking him down. The party then (with the help of Hazel the not-useless cat) follows Sedanya to the office building, manages to climb the walls and sneak inside, and get to Sedanya. She is about to be beset by the "Green Lady" of whom Arqubis had just heard, and she busts out with Psychotic Sidereal Martial Arts, leading rapidly to Party Fleeing in Pants-Wetting Terror Syndrome. Winter Lightning intervenes and has a ridiculous kung-fu fight with the Green Lady while the party makes it out a window, onto the river, and back out into Creation.
After some discussion back at the ranch, it is hypothesized that the Green Lady is penetrating all the Sidereal bureaucracy and knows their secret martial arts because she's a ghost of a Sidereal like the Deathlords are ghosts of Solars. Weeeeell crap.
Session 3 Part 1
Who do we hate less, Evil Bastards or Barbarian Knuckleheads?
The party receives a letter from Ziriath telling them not to show up without an army because Blood and Fang Lord is badass. They work on repairing the manse.
Their work is interrupted by a challenge from a Lunar with a Glory fetish. He handily defeats the party, then goes off on how it was an insufficient challenge to make the next rank of Lunar, Ikth-ya. Narula then talks him into questing against Blood and Fang Lord. Arqubis pushes his buttons for a while then leaves them to go to war while he rebuilds his power and the manse.
The battle is long and vigorous, with Howling Stripes defeating Blood and Fang Lord but receiving necromantic wounds in the process. He passes out, leaving Narula to wrangle the barbarians to wipe out the ghosts guarding the prisoners herself, which she is eventually able to do with the help of her scary Anima banner.
Narula has a conference call with Arqubis later and he convinces her to bring him back to the manse. That night, Ziriath shows up with Sedanya also wounded in a similar fashion, and the two of them have to carry the wounded Lunar and Sidereal back to the manse.
Arqubis is left alone with the two injured Exalts, considers offing the Lunar for being a glorymongering blowhard but instead demonstrates how he bested him with cunning, knocking him down a peg or two. He then sets about learning the necromancy necessary to unmake the Cursed Disease. Ziriath sets out to avoid bringing the All-Seeing Eye (pronounced CIA) down on the party.
Session 2
How many times do we have to escape trouble?
While stopping back at Red Tree, Narula is accosted by Ziriath, resident badass. He arranges a meeting with Arqubis and Narula at the Wyld Hunt safehouse. It turns out the dead are after Arqubis with a vengeance and they conned the Wyld Hunt into doing their dirty work too, which has pissed Ziriath off.
They take down the local spymaster for the dead, then interrogate it. After that, the Wyld Hunt shows up but Ziriath protects the party. They Wyld Hunt locates the carriage and rushes off to break it, so Arqubis and Narula jump out the window onto it and flee, disrupting their pursuit.
A travelling wanderer who is actually a Sidereal joins them on their trip to Great Forks. She answers a lot of questions and yet manages to leave a few unanswered. Once they arrive, she goes off to handle celestial paperwork while the party recuperates under the care of the Cult of the Illuminated, which worships the Illuminated Ones and the day they will bring the Illuminated Kingdom back.
After a tense meeting with the gods of Great Forks, who are very concerned that Walker in Darkness will surround the city and destroy it, the party agrees to help in any way possible and heads back for the time being.
The Cult of the Illuminated is being shut down when they get back by some Monks from the Realm (wtf?). The Solars and Sidereal take down the monks after a long and grueling battle, then hide away for the night before fleeing town in a caravan of carriages.
They head farther east to Rana, which is apparently being plagued by Wyld Barbarians, so they do the only logical thing which is to track down the barbarians, kill their Buck-Ogre and their Wolfman leader, then come back to claim the reward. It also turns out the ruined fort was on top of a large demesne, which the party alone now knows about.
Session 1
In Which People Run Around Seeking Things
Arqubis and Narula own what's-his-face (Night Raven), and since she advises that the town knows it's under attack and he knows he's going to get blamed, they loot, capture, and flee. After riding on the carriage for almost two hours they interrogate (finding little), execute him, and bury the Lantern of Celestial Portion that Night Raven wanted to use on Arqubis.
They reason that the town is about to be under attack so Narula demands their return. They get back to find a large undead army moving on the town. Narula rouses the guard (they're tired from trying to catch Arqubis, whom they blamed). Arqubis botches his perception roll and is now under the impression that an army to end all armies has arrived, so he raises 19 skeletons (burning all his essence and returning to the golden pyre from whence he came), then rides into the town in a panic and orders his skeletons to obey the town elder. They are set up as decoys while the town flees south to Red Tree. Arqubis and Narula flee eastwards instead.
They encounter some drunken and less-than-intelligent bandits and take their stuff (artifacts) and free their prisoner, a woman who had been heading to Ranshire. They take her down to Red Tree, where Narula reencounters her people. She volunteers to scout out their empty town for them. She also buys stuff for Arqubis's disguise for his horses who he has zombified.
While they are waiting for the disguise's hides to cure, they roll Perception+Essence. Arqubis succeeds and identifies the presence of a ghost nearby. Narula botches, has a very unpleasant flashback from the first age, and goes to sleep. Arqubis locates the ghost who was spying on them and recording their location in a book! He shoots it. The next day he similarly shoots another ghost.
Now creeped out, the two decide to head back to the bandits to obtain some bodyguards. They are waylaid by the bandits and manage to kill eight before the others get away. Arqubis raises 8 skeletons and equips them. They head on to the town, which is empty but not destroyed. On their way back they fail a number of perception rolls, until Arqubis hears something under the wheels as he's heading into bed.
The something turns out to be an Abyssal Deathknight who charges in to kill Arqubis. She does not succeed, and burns all her essence in subsequent rounds dodging skeleton attacks and wounding Arqubis rather seriously, until she is dogpiled.
Arqubis and Narula take her stuff (including a tome and a mirror) and try interrogating her. They now know that her boss, Walker in Darkness, and his minions have not yet found the Lantern, which is what they really want. Arqubis nearly succeeds in convincing this one that he was never met by Night Raven, but botches (yet again!) and accidentally claims, "We have no idea who Night Raven is and we don't know what happened to the skeletons who were with him, and.... uh..."
She is promptly executed for knowing too much.
Prologue
Narula introduction
Narula is a town guard put onto the evening watch at the door. They are attacked by skeletons, and Narula Exalts prior to painful death. The skeletons abandon her to try and break down the door, and she's hearing yells of "Anathema!" from behind the wall, so she heads up to the hill where she sees another billowing pyre of golden light. She concludes that this is the "other" Solar that the Unconquered Sun mentioned to her and she's supposed to go help him.
Prologue
Arqubis introduction
Arqubis arrives in town and sets up shop to have some freshly provided zombies do some manual labor for the town of Ranshire. He and his awesome carriage retire for the night at the local graveyard on a hill. A tall dark and dangerous man called Night Raven and his two elite skeletons arrive and offer to make him a powerful necromancer. Arqubis declines on account of this guy being a dick, and is promptly sentenced to death by mangling. That's when he Exalts, and immediately raises some skeletons to fight for him.
Starting Characters (players):
Narula: Solar Dawn Caste, friendly girl with a pair of wolverine-style claws coming out of gauntlets. Tiger style martial arts. Likes long walks on the beach and ass-kicking by candlelight.
Arqubis*: Solar Twilight Caste, local mortal necromancer of decent repute and keen business sense. Has skeletons doing his bidding hasn't made him trip out on power yet, but don't worry, he's got a lot of necromancy still to learn.
* - pronounced AR-kyu-bis
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