Welcome again to another installment of Tales of the Moonlight Maiden! Circumstances almost thwarted another session, but we managed to schedule one for today outside of our usual arrangement. But this session wraps up the first story of the series (the first episode of the season, as it were)! Huzzah!
So where we left off, our Circle had just taken out the pirates guarding the fishing village of Breach. There were a dozen in all, some of whom went down fighting and some of whom were subdued or surrendered.[0] (those who went down fighting have been quietly stashed so the village can burn their bodies later, when they don't have to worry about suspicious smoke tipping off the returning pirates) So as a result there are half a dozen pirates locked up in the village's longhouse (which they use as an ersatz jail cell when they have to), and a couple of hours until the Grim Vortex returns with the villagers who've been press-ganged into helping excavate the shipwreck of the Danaa'd's Wake. Shango sets up in the lighthouse to keep watch, while Xương and Hǎifēng spend the intervening time in the tavern.
Shango, up in the lighthouse, has a pretty good view of the distance -- Creation, unlike our world, is flat. So there's no curve of the Earth interfering with the horizon. It's actually kind of a weird sensation if you think about it. But as a result, a little after sunset, Shango sees the ships coming with a couple of hours' warning. He informs the others, and Xương orders one last round. Shango gets back into the lighthouse and watches a couple of fishing boats -- the village's repurposed vessels -- and a dour-looking gray ship with a skeleton for the figurehead.
As the ships approach, Xương takes on his hybrid form (a monstrous, humanoid goblin shark) as 'The Bonetaker,' and takes to the seas. Figuring that the Grim Vortex is going to have to stop outside of the docks and send in crew via rowboats, likely leaving their captain on the ship itself, the Bonetaker's plan is to try and sink their ship (with the captain on it if possible) using his immense strength. Once he's in position, Shango takes to the skies for one last recon and spots the villagers on the fishing boats, surrounded by pirates -- including one woman with a large sword[1] wearing an approximation of a naval officer's uniform. Like, it's not a serious effort, but it's a pretty solid attempt at the aesthetic.
And on the Grim Vortex itself is a middle-aged man with an eyepatch, presumably the captain whose name is either Seize the Beyond or Sees the Beyond, nobody knows which. Underneath the eyepatch, his face was stained -- like a port wine stain birthmark but corpselike and gray instead of red or pink. It looked like something unnatural had run out of his eye and down his cheek, tainting it. Surrounding him, the ship is crewed by zombies and skeletons, as his usual crew is busy elsewhere. Shango informs Hǎifēng, but it's too late to let the Bonetaker know. So the pair head down to the shore.
The fishing boats disembark with pirates leading the hostage villagers back to the shore, and a couple of them are hauling a waterlogged chest between them for examination on stable ground. The captain leaves the main vessel in a rowboat being rowed by a pair of zombies. The Bonetaker, beneath the Grim Vortex, only sees the one boat leave but doesn't realize the captain's on it. He waits a minute or two to see if any others are taking off, and upon realizing probably not (not that he knows about the zombies), he makes his move.
He circles around to the bottom of the ocean to start there, zooming upwards towards the hull of the ship, building up momentum. He enhances himself with his Charms, enhancing his speed and strength and causing his anima banner to flare up with the bright circle of a Full Moon on his forehead. From the shore, people see a blue glow approaching the surface of the water like a missile until it hits the side of the boat, punching a massive hole in the hull.[2] Everyone stops and looks at the ship, dumbfounded, and then Captain Seize/Sees The Beyond turns around spots Hǎifēng and Shango, and realizes that they aren't a couple of the pirate guards he left behind. He demands, in classic villain fashion, that his flunkies "Seize them!"
And now the fight begins.
The swarm of pirates charge Hǎifēng and Shango, led by the lieutenant with the big sword (Tuyền, by the way), as the villagers flee to safety to watch from around corners and through windows. Hǎifēng takes the low road, ducking under and spinning around their strikes as if they're dancing. Shango, instead, vaults over the pirates, using his agility to move past them, by flipping and kicking off of their shoulders. He pushes off of the last one and flies at Tuyền, boot-first. She brings her sword up at him but he manages to stop the blade with his iron boots, driving them back against her and knocking her off-balance (and into Initiative Crash).
Meanwhile, the Bonetaker comes from underneath to punch another hole in the Grim Vortex, doing enough damage to it that while it's not fully sinking, it's wrecked up enough that it's not going anywhere without some work. And while he's doing that, Hǎifēng weaves through the crowd of pirates, slicing every which direction, and at one point they go into a slide to hit multiple pirates at once.
And off to the side, Seize/Sees the Beyond begins channeling necromantic power. Something like mist begins to coalesce around his hands, ivory-white energies starting to gather into a ball.
Shango, noticing this, vaults off of Tuyền's shoulder to help clear some space and build up some momentum for a flying kick at the necro-captain. He pumps enough Essence into his movements to flare up his anima banner, a shimmering circle appearing on his forehead and moving through the moon phases as he strikes. His boot impacts the necromancer's face with a sickening crunch, and there's a flash of light and a popping noise coming from beneath the eyepatch.
The Bonetaker then bursts dramatically onto the shore, spraying sand and salt and water and earth everywhere. Without hesitation he wades into the fray of pirates, lashing out and tearing through them with his strength and his teeth, and it's enough that the initial survivors of the assault declare "screw this" and either give up, play dead, or run for it.
Hǎifēng goes after Tuyền, who's stumbling towards Shango to try and get a shot at him. They duck in front of her and slash upwards at her face, getting blood in her eyes and sending her staggering back. They then use Deeper-Into-Trouble Technique, one of their martial arts Charms, to enrage her so she turns her full attention to them. Which she does, and they gracefully backflip out of the way and wave a war fan at her in a taunting manner. She lunges at them, swinging, and almost hits the fan which they yank away like a bullfighter's cape. They then knock her off-balance and onto the ground where Shango knocks her unconscious with a boot to the head.
With the battle completed, the Circle takes a moment to catch their breath. A couple of them are still glowing with their caste marks visible, and while they let their anima banners fade the Bonetaker goes and finds the village's lighthouse beacon. He takes it back up to the top of the lighthouse and re-installs it -- fortunately it's easy, as if whomever rigged it up there in the first place knew it was being maintained by random fisherfolk and not engineers. He has trouble turning it on, until he tries clapping and that did it for some reason.[3] While he's out of sight he reverts to his human form and takes a few moments to wash out his mouth to cut down on the odds of accidentally swallowing any human blood or meat.
The trio then regroups, having found the chest. They open it up to find, wrapped in a cloth, to be a beautiful wooden puzzle box that's in remarkably good shape given where it was found. Xương freaks out, thinking that perhaps they should return it to the sea, but Hǎifēng insists on poking at it 'because they're a curious monkey,' in their player's words. They discover quickly that they can only manipulate it after committing a mote of essence to it, like attuning an artifact. They insists on solving it right there, and after a couple of minutes of poking and prodding and tugging bits and pieces of the cube-shaped structure, they pull it open like one of those 'turn a little plastic ball into a circular wireframe' desk toys.
Within is a bright ball of glowing light, which Hǎifēng recognizes as being a pure mix of essence and destiny. They recognize that they shouldn't know what destiny feels like, but on some instinctual level they recognize this is what it is. They try touching it, but it doesn't do anything. Xương pauses from his freaking out when he gets a good look at it, because he's got enough knowledge to recognize what it is: It's an Exigence. One of the most powerful objects to exist, an Exigence is a shard of raw celestial spiritual power that a god can use to turn someone into an Exalt. The act is extremely draining, enough to kill some lesser gods outright (but sometimes, for the greater good, it's worth it). But a god could use the light in the puzzle box to bestow the power of Exaltation upon a mortal -- depending on the god, the new Exalt may even approach the power of the Solars and Lunars.
They talk about how much it's potentially worth and what it could do (if nothing else, its value as a bargaining chip is unimaginable). But they quickly decide that the right thing to do is to at least find out which god it was intended for. So they make plans to burn the pirates' corpses (especially the necromancer), rather than risk any of them returning as undead, and we leave off on them doing that and preparing to interrogate Tuyền to find out more about the puzzle box.
[0]-- This was kind of a montage sequence, if you need the reminder.
[1]-- I should clarify, I mean this is simply a large two-handed sword, not an unrealistically-huge, requires-magic-to-wield sword.
[2]-- Mechanically, if you're curious, I handled this as a feat of strength, and every so many successes was a point of damage dealt to the hull. He got a massive roll so took it most of the way to 'incapacitated' in a single round.
[3]-- Sean did this as a joke, and I declared it canon. Boom, mic drop.
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