Hey, sorry there wasn't a session write-up for last week. But as I previously mentioned, last week's session left off in the middle of a battle and for reasons that may seem obvious I decided to hold off.
That said, in case you missed it, I posted a little mini-fic to the blog. It's just a little glimpse into the First Age lives of a couple of the characters from the game. I hope it's obvious as to who everyone's supposed to be, I go pretty light on certain details, largely because I don't want to take too many liberties with my players' characters' earlier incarnations. But if people liked that, I might do more in the future as they come to me. Some may provide context or foreshadowing, they may focus on the PCs or NPCs or whatever. I don't have any hard plans for that beyond making sure the game isn't entirely about me writing First Age fanfic.
Nope, all about Second Age fanfic, here. Speaking of which, a quick aside before we get into it. There's a huge battle across the two sessions recounted here. Every now and again I cut away for a little interlude, and I share those here (though I may or may not have tweaked a detail between describing the scene at the table and writing it down).
There was another I initially planned to share, but I cut it for time and replaced it with another sequence. And now I can't find a good place to insert it, because I think even one more paragraph of cutscenes are going to completely crowd out the stuff the player characters are actually doing. So I've posted it as its own little 'bonus content' mini-fic you can read later at your leisure. Just feel free to mentally insert it anywhere within the battle timing-wise, the exact spot isn't important.
And that out of the way, here we go!
So where we left off, the crew of the Moonlight Maiden had just thoroughly wrecked up the estate of V'neef Gamon. They spend some time digging through the rubble and checking out her collection of artifacts, with the help of notes conveniently left behind by either a careless caretaker or a unlikely ally. It's a selection of weapons, armor, and gadgetry I'm not going to get into detail here, largely because I described them in the prior post. I will point out that upon closer inspection, the 'suits of armor' with the halberds are inactive but intact Brass Legionnaires, First Age automata. Tucked into a joint on one of the mechanical beings is a note that reads "Just leave these behind, they're far too much hassle" with a drawing of an owl, all in green ink. A minute later, the note dissolves into dust.
Once some time has passed, as Xương is wandering around the palace looking for something interesting to do while the others poke around inside the estate some more, he runs into Captain Coral out front. She calmly but with some confusion explains that she was dealing with Gamon and saw something happening and came running. Hǎifēng immediately brings the Epitaph of Sunset over, dragging it just to annoy her and digging a furrow in the ground in the process. There's an awkward moment where she starts to suggest a way they could carry it, but just trails off after a couple of words.
Unaware that they already know this, she explains that the sword is hers from a former life. Xương says she can have it as long as she leaves the island as soon as possible and doesn't come back, and if she feels the need to test it on her way to the docks, then so be it. She says that it might not be entirely up to her whether she's in a position to do that, because the Peleps troops are officially getting antsy. She grips the sword and flashes of black and midnight blue swirl up around her as a black circle like a brand appears on her forehead, weeping blood -- the Mark of a Midnight Caste Abyssal. She takes the sword and tucks it under the red jade prayer beads she's got wrapped around her like a bandolier, using it to hold the blade against her back, and thanks them.
She then points out that the commodore's forces are starting to secure the town for now, but eventually the Exalts will have to deal with them. Xương says that he's confident the Peleps forces cannot contain them, and she says he's probably right. She wishes them luck with an unsettling grin before she turns to go.
From where the trio is at, as the estate is on a bit of hill, they can't muster a guess as to how long they've got before the soldiers are going to come to them. They debate about whether they've got time to sit back and regain some spent Essence and force the Peleps troops to come to them and fight on their terms, or if they should rush them in the city and strike while they can and they're tied up. Hǎifēng suggests that as Xương has done all of the heavy lifting, what with spending a metric ton of Essence to become a metric ton, that it should be his call.
The group realizes that they can hear the faint sounds of battle echoing out of the city, and they acknowledge that they should move while there are locals still fighting, if for no other reason than to make sure as few innocents get hurt as possible while also making sure the Peleps marines are tied up. Shango's already in his winged hybrid form but Xương and Hǎifēng take on their respective travel forms (horse and bird, respectively) and they head to the town.
Those with the birds-eye view can see the troops moving into the town, locking things down and fighting the local pirates to seize control. The Peleps forces are surging out of their own docked ships to lock down the docks, making sure nobody can get to their boats and leave, while the ones simply out in the water are disgorging troops via smaller boats and the like. They can also see the monk, Silver Lining, out in front of his dojo having a bit of a standoff with some troops, and they wonder how he's going to react when the Lunars show up.
Xương charges into the city towards the square by the beach and the docks where much of the fighting is happening. He picks some unlucky bastard at random and charges at him in horse form, building up to his top speed. He leaps into the air and activates Deadly Beastman Transformation, coming down on the man in his war-form and dramatically smashing him into the ground hard enough to leave a crater. Hǎifēng shifts back to their hybrid form, dropping out of the sky to dramatically land in the street. On the nearby beach, the three Dragon-Bloods with the squadron arrive, riding a literal wave that carries them down to the sand. In the middle is Commodore Peleps Oneef, decked out in black jade armor and a matching helmet with her reaper daiklaive. On her right is a dark-skinned Easterner named Peleps Norid, who carries something like a wooden jo staff. On her left and slightly behind them is Peleps Tytalis, wearing a flame-patterned robe over a red jade chain shirt, carrying no obvious weapons and hovering just above the ground.
Commodore Peleps Oneef steps forward, her weapon still sheathed, and she introduces herself. She announces, in the sort of booming voice clearly used to address ship crews, that she's offering the 'Lunar Anathema' one chance to surrender themselves to her custody. She assures them she will transport them to the Blessed Isle with a minimum of harm and indignity while where they sort out what to do about them. She also says she doesn't expect them to accept her offer, and admits she kind of hopes they don't -- giving them a slight grin as she says that, and nudging the tsuba of her reaper daiklaive with her thumb to loosen it from the sheath in the process -- but decorum demands she makes the offer.
Shango responds on the group's behalf, diving at and bringing his bow to bear. Hǎifēng then assumes Laughing Monster Form, the movements of their shifting stance obscured by a dozen illusory arms, and Xương grows to his full size as his anima banner rises up and for a moment makes it appear as if he's accompanied by other terrors of the deep.[0] He bellows dramatically that everyone is very lucky that they won't live long enough to have nightmares about this. Shango gets into range to pelt Oneef with arrows as she assumes her own stance... Shining Point Into the Void Form. Essence surges around her as she grips her scabbard with her left hand while the other rests on the hilt of the blade, her palm up as if offering a gift.[1] She then draws her daiklaive and, striking so fast that it's easier to track the blade by the Essence sparking off of it and the way it displaces the air, deflects all of the arrows but one that gets through before resheathing her blade with a flash as if channeling the spare Essence into the scabbard to contain it.
The marines accompanying the Terrestrials rush Hǎifēng and Xương. Hǎifēng cuts the troops' swords with their fans as they nimbly dodge out of the way, while Xương takes a hit that he barely notices as it doesn't even properly break the skin. Meanwhile, a few steps back from the center of the action, Tytalis begins casting a spell while Norid pulls the jo staff apart to reveal it's a pair of green jade blades that sheath into each others' wooden handles, and with a dramatic flourish takes on Steel Devil Form.
Shango continues to circle above Oneef, taunting her and firing arrow after arrow at her, but she's just too damn fast and cuts every one of them down. Hǎifēng charges at Norid with a slide under the blades and comes up with an uppercut with their fans, and Norid tries to block but the angle and the speed of the strike are just too much for him. Meanwhile, just behind them, Oneef begins to blur as she puts her speed into her movement with a strike that would carry her into the air to hit Shango... if Hǎifēng didn't blur right into her path. They manage to stop her from leaving the ground, but the blade is already leaving its sheath and a moment later a spray of Hǎifēng's blood leaves a coppery scent in the air.
Nearby, as Xương is surrounded by a few dozen nameless goons, he rages and starts tearing up the ground, swinging wildly and just doing as much damage as he can, sending earth and cobblestones flying. Many of them are sent flying and scattered to the winds, enough to break the morale of the rest and send them running. As Tytalis keeps drawing in motes of Essence for her spell, Oneef recognizes Xương as the literally-bigger threat and goes in to take a shot at him, but barely draws his attention. Meanwhile, Norid tries bringing his blade down on Hǎifēng, and they backflip out of the way.
Elsewhere...
A figure in black ray leather lined with soulsteel chainmail approaches the dock, a massive blade strapped to her back via a set of red jade prayer beads. A boat sits ahead of her, with Peleps troops trying to keep her crew contained. One rushes to stop her, and she simply says that it's her boat. He tells her she's not going anywhere. She just looks at him. "That's my boat," she says, and walks past him. He reaches out to try and grab her shoulder and stop her.
A moment later, his hand and most of his head hit the dock with a thud.
There's a moment of silence and, perhaps suddenly so confused what just happened they forgot they wanted to live, the rest of the marines guarding the boat rush her. Never mind not breaking a sweat, she doesn't even spend a mote of Essence as she casually whirls around a blade that probably weighs as much as she does. Mayhem flows as she wields the bulky, awkward-looking hunk of magical metal with the ease of a toothpick, striking them each down. The Epitaph of Sunset draws the blood into the markings and names etched into the surface of the soulsteel blade as she slides it back under the prayer beads, not caring in the slightest that she's getting blood all over her leather coat.
She casually returns to her ship and prepares to cast off.
Back to the action...
Hǎifēng's flips land them next to Tytalis, and they lash out at her with a flurry of attacks from the help of Octopus-and-Spider Barrage to strike with fans, feet, and also their tail. Their anima banner hits full iconic, making their strikes seem like a choreographed dance, colors swirling to match their movements as they put everything into quickly ending the sorcerer with a series of crimson arcs spraying into the air. The sight of one of the Dragon-Bloods going down like this raises enough of a stir on the Peleps ships that the characters can actually hear it on the beach.
Nearby, Shango comes down on Peleps Oneef with a spin-kick, and she channels as much of her power she can into deflecting it, but it's just not enough underneath the pressure of the osprey-Lunar's strike. Her stance and balance falters, and Shango spins around to deliver a second kick, and with the last of her speed she barely manages to deflect that one. Xương, looming over her and unoccupied, brings his fists together and crashes them down onto the commodore and there's a crunch of bone and possibly armor... but then the camera angle changes to reveal that she's still standing in a small crater, withstanding the blow. She shoves his fists off of her and her black jade daiklaive swipes at him, not doing any real damage but getting her some momentum back. In the same motion she continues around to try and hit Shango. He reflexively pulls his wings in front of him like a shield and channels his Essence to shift the feathers into something more like dinosaur hide to withstand the strike.
Meanwhile, where the Peleps sorcerer bleeds out into the dirt, the sandy earth beneath her glowing red with the discharge of the fiery Essence she'd been gathering, Peleps Norid lunges at them to strike from behind Hǎifēng drops prone and propels themselves backwards between his legs, but the green jade blades still manage to catch them in shallow cuts as he turns to follow the movement. He then realizes he's close enough to take a shot at Shango and support the commodore. Shango whips around with a flourish, his wing almost becoming a cloak of hide as it hardens to deflect the blades, but he's put off-balance in the process.
Elsewhere...
Silver Lining stands before the Calm Seas Guardian Dojo. In the courtyard behind him and the building behind that, people huddle in refuge from the chaos outside. Most of them are locals and merchants, perhaps a few individuals of questionable character among them. The monk doesn't care. As far as he's concerned, these are his people.
In a semi-circle around him, a talon of Peleps marines stare him down, weapons drawn. Their commander takes a step forward.
"Brother Monk," he begins. "We don't want to have to hurt anyone. But you're harboring pirates in there, and we cannot allow that."
"The people of this town are under my protection," the young monk says with a strength greater than his years would suggest. "This is not a Realm satrapy. House Peleps has no authority here."
"Are you ready to raise your hands in violence against Dynastic forces, your own people?" The man takes another step forward. "There are a couple of ways this can go. You stand down, come into our custody, and we interrogate these people to find the pirates among them. Or we force you to kill us all to defend them."
"Maybe there's another option," another voice says.
Captain Tarok, wearing their classic-style pirate coat and hat, steps in from the side. They take their hat off and toss it to the ground in front of them, practically at the feet of the commanding officer.
"That hat is the line. Feel free to cross it, if you're tired of breathing."
A moment of silence settles over them, breaths subconsciously held.
The officer draws a blade and rushes Tarok with a series of well-trained, perfectly-executed strikes, suitable for taking apart even a skilled mortal.
Tarok, scion of the Ragara family, trained by the Immaculate Order, graced by the Elemental Dragon of Air, weaves around the blade like seaweed caught in a strong current. Then they lean in and deliver a series of bare-handed blows to the officer's armored chest and shove him back against his fellows. He opens his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by choking and hacking before he falls over, coughing up his life's blood onto the cobblestone street.
The soldiers look from their commanding officer gasping out his last as he drowns in his own blood back up to the pirate captain. The contrast between them and Silver Lining stands out -- both are Immaculately-trained and graced by Mela, and while Tarok still has the gifts of physical youth that come with Terrestrial Exaltation, their years wandering Creation have given them a harsher cast.
"Go inside and take care of your people, Brother. I'll kill anyone who attacks this dojo," Tarok says without looking away from the soldiers, an unspoken 'so you don't have to' on the breeze. Silver Lining looks for a moment like he's going to argue with them, but decides against it and retreats.
"If you're ready to die," Tarok says to the troops as she assumes Water Dragon form. "...then come at me with everything you've got!"
Back at the beach...
Shango shoves Peleps Norid back with a sweep of his wing and turns to Oneef to duck beneath one of her strikes. He springs up foot-first with a kick that breaks her jaw and sends her crashed unconscious onto the beach. Norid then rushes Shango with both blades, only to face the hide-winged block again, though the strikes manage to push Shango slightly off-balance but not much.
Xương lunges in and plants his claws in the dirt to either side of Norid and bellows loud enough to loosen the earth beneath him and tries to seize him with his jaws. As the man struggles, Shango delivers a series of strikes to his lower body to loosen him up and line him up for Hǎifēng. The monkey-Lunar sees an opportunity to charge in and go for Norid's throat with their fans, and while they do manage to take a chunk out of him it's not quite enough to bring him down.
With a loud thunk, a ballista bolt pierces the ground near Hǎifēng.
A short distance away...
"Load another one!" shouted Cyan Tempest, captain of the Storm Dancer, snarled at the crew. "Pin that Anathema to the godsdamned shore!"
"Captain, please, I know... I know Lady Tytalis w--is your wife, but we have orders not to--"
"Finish that sentence, and you are the next bolt fired from that thing," she said as she pointed at the ballista, such rage in her eyes that for a moment the crew feared her more than the fury of a Dragon-Blood.
A dark shape to the side blocked out the stars, and everyone looked up to see one of the pirate vessels escaping the island and coming alongside. From the flags and markings, the captain recognized it immediately, the Heaven's Apathy Shrouds Us All, a floating blasphemy commanded by a suspected deathknight by the name of Grasping Fingers of Bone-White Coral. For a brief moment, she locked eyes with the ivory-pale pirate in her black leather coat.
Then the screams began, as skeletons climbed up the sides of the ship to swarm over the crew.
Back on the shore...
As Peleps Norid, now finding himself clearly outclassed, prepares for a final stand, a series of new noises begin to drown out the battle. Marching, clacking, splashing... and a conch shell blasting out a signaling call.
A small army emerges from the shore, wearing what at first appears to be strange-looking armor but upon further inspection is revealed to be crab-people wearing light armor over their own natural shell-plating. They carry polearms, mostly mancatchers forged in the style of crab claws, as they move onto the shore and begin sweeping up the last of the Dynastic troops still fighting.
The conch shell blowing comes from the roof of one of the buildings where Bokano Spite-shell now stands and announces that Talipan Island and the city of Smolder is now part of her dominion, and the Realm is no longer welcome. She gestures to the harbor and massive tentacles of lava burst forth, the hissing of steam almost unbearably loud as they begin to tear apart the Peleps ships. Bokano announces she will leave them one ship to take back any remaining soldiers, wounded, and dead.
Peleps Norid surrenders on the spot, and Bokano lets the characters decide what to do with Commodore Oneef. She still lives, and they can decide to finish her, or to send her home with Norid to suffer the consequences of her failure. They decide to let her subordinate take her back with him. Bokano makes it clear that the Dynasty is no longer welcome on the island, but she also specifically allows Silver Lining to remain, because she knows he values this community and may serve as something of an ambassador for his people. He accepts that with a nod, because what else can he do?
And at this point we get into a montage of soldiers being escorted onto the remaining Peleps ship, where they have a very uncomfortable ride ahead of them back to most likely Zhaojūn to regroup. There's also people gathering up bodies to perform the proper rituals, and the Peleps troops get something akin to what we in the real world know as a Viking funeral -- loaded up on abandoned and damaged boats to be floated out into the harbor and set aflame. As the characters are loading the last of the bodies onto one of the craft, someone steps up to toss some empty Peleps armor onto the pile.
I wish I'd remembered to write down exactly what she said to sort of announce her arrival, but the person tossing the armor onto the pile makes a comment and they recognize the voice... it's the necromancer's second-in-command from way back in the first story. She formally introduces herself as Tuyen, explains that after her arrest she was offered the chance to work for the Peleps navy rather than be executed for piracy, and she took it. And now she's defecting. They have kind of a friendly chat about all that, and she says she saw the others in town earlier, when Hǎifēng stepped in to save Shichirou from the soldiers. She was considering reaching out to them earlier but everything got nuts before she got a chance. She's also quick to point out that whatever she does, which will probably involving joining up with another crew at some point, she's got no plans to have anything further to do with necromancy. If I recall correctly, one of the group remarks that she may have missed that particular boat anyways, gesturing in the direction of the departing Heaven's Apathy Shrouds Us All, and she's all like "Oh no. No, no. Mortal necromancers are one thing, but certainly not going with that." (But I'm probably mangling that bit of the conversation, we were running low on time and trying to get through a lot before the session wrapped up.)
At some point Bokano comes over to check up on the trio, making sure they're okay. She also feels the need to preemptively answer an unspoken question and says that she doesn't think it'll belong before some Realm sailors flying independent merchant or pirate flags will show up and start sniffing around, but she's willing to let them think they're getting away with it as long as they don't start shit. While they talk she tells the group that she knows she's signing up for something big by doing this, but Creation's at a pivot point and now's the time to step up. She feels like if she'd acted sooner, the Realm would be strong enough to arrange a counterattack, whereas any later would give the growing chaos too much momentum for her to make a difference.
She suggests that the mortals on the island will probably see the proper turning of an Age within their lifetime, and that lends a little bit of weight to the situation. Not in an ominous or solemn way, but there is kind of a moment where everyone stops and recognizes what she's saying. She then changes to a lighter subject by asking the group where they're headed next. Xương says they're planning on continuing on to Lathe unless they get stopped along the way. Hǎifēng asks what could possibly keep them from Lathe at this point.
Somewhere, on another plane of existence, the Storyteller smiles.
And then we leave off there, with Bokano dragging Xương off to celebrate their victory with a vigorous fading to black.
And just as a reminder, while including it would have borked the pacing of the write-up, I've still got that 'deleted scene' in a separate post.
See you folks soon!
[0]-- Incidentally, in between the two 'halves' of this, the season 1 finale of the Book of Boba Fett actually gave us a pretty solid vision of what it looks like when Xương blows his Charms to hit Legendary Size. Not just in terms of how big he gets, but also the proportions of his monstrous form and how he moves when he's that big. It's pretty close. (Spoiler warning, obviously.)
[1]-- That's right, I did sneak an L5R reference into the session.
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