ZEITGEIST [ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.

RangerWickett said:

I'm curious about the meta-game reasons for the party split. Did the players do it because they thought it was right, even if it meant some of the PCs wouldn't be in the finale?

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No, nothing like that. Player absence led to Leon and Uru not coming along. Gupta was out the session before and I thought it would be cool to have someone concentrate on running Gale, so I asked that player if he wouldn't mind keeping Gupta off-stage for a session for story reasons (as it made no sense for the Sunfish to catch up with the Coaltongue in time). They'll come on to the island together once the others free Delft.

It was great to have Gale along as part of the group after all this time. As you will see from the final session report, she really helped out (as did Andrei).

RangerWickett said:

I *really* enjoy tricking players.

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Me too. At least, if the trick is a good one not just 'oh, you know the guy who hired you? well, he was lying...' Here it was even better because I set Roland's bluff at level 12 (off the charts in Cypher System) and Korrigan rolled an extraordinary (but still too low) level 11 for insight.

There were a lot of cool rolls over the last few sessions, actually. When Korrigan rolled for 'public speaking' during his Gale-assisted address to Flint he initially rolled a 1 (before paying XP to reroll) - hence the minor 'fumble' left in the story. Uru rolled a 20 (major effect) when attacking the Praepollens with the Coaltongue's cannons; Rumdoom kept rolling 19s (minor effects which really added up). Sometimes mere dice-rolls really lift the story! They made session 59 (capturing the Coaltongue and taking it to the island) seem relatively easy, which really boosted players' confidence. It was nice to see all their plans work really smoothly for once!

Fun fact, apropros of nothing: the last 11 sessions - since early April - have covered about 48 hours in-game time, if that. The players kept refusing to rest!

Session 60, Part Three - Festoon & Mehmood

As they went, the power of Rumdoom’s frost giant plate subsided and he resumed normal size. But even then he was easily powerful enough to crash through the door into the conference room beyond.

Members of the unit had been into this room on several previous occasions. It had always been spacious and splendid, with a large window overlooking the city where Stanfield’s desk used to be. The room had been entirely changed and shifted around to accommodate some sort of ritual: another sorcerer Stanfield busied himself at one of four control panels that converged on a central gurney. There lay Stover Delft, wracked by spasms of pain, a beam of bright energy extending up from him through the ceiling.

They only had a moment to take this in before the sorcerer incarnation barked an order at “Festoon!” and “Mehmood!” From an alcove stepped the man in the stove-pipe hat with his colourful, diminutive accomplice flitting around his head.

These two had been there when Stanfield and Nicodemus abducted Andrei! They were the ones who had kidnapped Isobel! Spurred to anger Andrei sprinted across the chamber and launched himself at the sprite, remembering how dangerous she could be. So athletic was he that covered the distance before her wings could unfurl, and struck her a blow that sent her spinning. But she recovered, righted herself, and spread her wings…

Rumdoom and Andrei were instantly rapt, helpless. Korrigan, however, had seen all this before, and he resisted Festoon’s mesmeric effect with the same grit and determination he had displayed last time. While Andrei was pinned, knowing how dangerous he was, the sorcerer incarnation hurled magical orb at him. It struck home with full force and burned into Andrei’s face. His regeneration ceased to function and his flesh peeled away. “It may interest you to know,” said the incarnation, “that this marvellous ‘Alakhest’ invention of Heward Sechim’s was used to etch the necessary sigils in the otherwise impenetrable skin of the colossus”. This fascinating side-note was wasted on Andrei.

Mehmood drew his pistols and emptied them into Rumdoom, who was badly injured despite his magical armour.

Gale and Quratulain were still outside. Gale also had an axe to grind with these two foes: Isobel had been abducted while in her care. She summoned the fog of the Cloudwood in the central portion of the chamber beyond and completely obscured the sprite. This wasn’t enough to end the hypnosis, but it made resisting it easier.

The swordsmen, who had been poised on either side of the door, sprang out to attack Korrigan. Quratulain killed them both instead.

Korrigan used the power of his crown to help Rumdoom shrug off Festoon’s influence. At once, Rumdoom drew an advanced grenade and, concerned for Delft, gently rolled it like a boule to explode at the edge of Gale’s cloud. Gale summoned a vortex there too. Neither attack produced any noise or an indication that it had hit home. Quratulain also fired uselessly into the cloud where Festoon had been.

Andrei shrugged off Festoon’s magic and stumbled, in agony, back towards the door. Quratulain handed him her dragonbane sword to ease the effects of the alkahest. The terrible stinging stopped, but as he slumped against a wall outside Andrei could see that his flesh had not renewed.

Rumdoom invoked his eschatological fervour to tell the story of their defeat of these enemies, and make it so. They would not fall victim to Festoon’s glamour again!

Korrigan channelled the positive energy to heal all those around him, and not a moment too soon: Mehmood took a step out of the cloud. He was holding just one pistol, and a pocket watch in the other hand. He clicked it and time stopped for everyone but him. Then he fired two shots at everyone he could see. His bullets struck home when time resumed, wearing down their defences.

Sensing they were on the ropes, the injured Festoon flew forward to finish them off. Confident he had this without her help, Mehmood cried, “Festoon, no! Stay back!” But it was too late. She unfurled her wings once again but, bolstered by Rumdoom’s pronouncement, none of her foes fell victim. Gale then summoned another vortex right next to her, and hurled her against wall. She struck it with full force and then fell to the ground, inert. Distraught, heedless of his own safety, Mehmood crouched beside her and confirmed that she was very much dead.

“I’m going to wear her as a pendant,” said Quratulain. Enraged, Mehmood stood up, both pistols in his hands. Korrigan ordered Quratulain to ‘finish him’ and she did so before he could fire.

Gale dismissed her fog cloud to reveal the desperate sorcerer. This was her final act before she succumbed to sudden, inexplicable vertigo and struggled to remain on her feet.

The sorcerer had a hand poised over Delft’s head. He warned them not to come any closer. Rumdoom called his bluff and tried to use the Icon of Avilona to spring over the ritual contraptions and take the sorcerer out, but he could not. Instead, he crashed into the first table and caused Delft to cry out in agony.

The sorcerer turned. “Very well,” he said, “since you cannot be otherwise persuaded…” and he began to gather mysterious, arcane energies about him. Not wanting to wait and find out what would happen if she left him to his own devices, Quratulain killed her sixth incarnation with a rifle shot to the head.

Only then did Gale realise that it might have been a good idea to leave someone alive if they wanted to find out what had happened to Isobel. …

End of Session

Session 61, Part One - Three Free

While the others rushed forward to help Delft, Quratulain made sure to pick up Mehmood’s pistols. They didn’t appear to be revolvers, so how was he able to shoot so rapidly? The answer was magic ammunition! The pistols created their own, and there was no need to reload them. Quratulain took both. Sadly, her own bullets had shattered and destroyed Mehmood’s time-stop-watch. To lighten the mood, she joked with Andrei, who was still curled around the dragonbane sword, half-melted by alkahest: “Hey, why the long face?” It wasn’t clear if Andrei was laughing or crying.

A quick examination of the ritual device that surrounded Delft – laid out on four huge tables – confirmed what they had feared: that its complexity was beyond them. Leon might have had a chance to figure it out, but he was outside the force-field.

Realising they were there, and who they were, the agonised RHC Chief hissed through gritted teeth, “The back room!” Following his urgent advice, they checked it out and found a quiet study, dominated by three huge paintings that were quite out of place here. At once, they recognised them as portal planes, such as they had seen on Mutravir Island.

The first was empty (its previous occupant now lay on the central ritual table). The second contained Isobel Travers. The third? Uriel! “I suppose we’d better let him out,” said Korrigan, with slight reluctance.

Though she still felt very weak, Gale was able to help them sabotage the frame on Isobel’s prison and release her. She embraced Isobel warmly, and said sorry for not being there when Stanfield’s cronies came to take her. (She had been dominated by Ekossigan at the time.) Gale could not help shedding a few tears now her four-year search to find Isobel was finally at and end. “Someone else has been trying to find you too,” said Gale and together they went to find Andrei, who still sat clutching the dragonbane sword, one-armed, badly burned and shivering. “Poor Andrei!” cried Isobel, kneeling down beside him. “What have they done to you?” Andrei was not concerned for himself, and he too apologised for allowing Stanfield’s henchmen to take her, before asking her if she had been treated well. “Too well,” said Isobel with a shiver. “Governor Stanfield has been very much the gentleman. He said there would be time for us to get to know each other better when all of this was over, but I didn’t relish the prospect.”

Meanwhile, Quratulain had smashed the third and final portal frame and out stepped Uriel. He was no longer dressed in the robes of the Congregation, and his vacant stare was gone. Instead, he greeted them with a warm smile. “Many thanks, my friends,” he said. “You are right on time, as usual. Excuse me for a moment – the first thing we need to do is help Stover.” Kai wouldn’t be put off, though, and he greeted Uriel with a big hug. “I’m very proud of how much you are helping your dad,” said Uriel. This new Uriel was much more like Malthusius, much to everyone’s relief!

Uriel knew what to do with the ritual device, but it wouldn’t be easy, requiring four people to work on it simultaneously, mastering a whole range of disciplines. Even as his eschatological powers waned, much as Gale’s storm powers had, Rumdoom gave one final pronouncement, declaring that they would free Delft safely from his torment. After a few minutes of intense concentration, this came to pass. The ritual was halted and the beam of light vanished. A quick glance outside confirmed that the force-field was gone too. Korrigan sent a message to Leon warning him to be careful as there were several squads of soldiers defending the island against Danorans. Leon replied that he would pass by the defenders invisibly.

Delft struggled up. He looked at Korrigan, amazed, his eyes fixed on the Crown of Risur. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to call you.” He winced. “Your majesty, I don’t want to be left behind. Please heal me up and let me contribute.” They knew they didn’t have much time, but they agreed to Delft’s request. When he was back on his feet, he hobbled to the portal plane that had been his prison for a few days and retrieved his cane. “Now I’m ready to go on,” he said.

So were they. Leon, Uru and Gupta had rejoined them, along with Asrabey Varal and Lauren Cyneburg. Uriel greeted his old friends warmly. Uru said, “I’m a lot smarter than when you last saw me!” (Uru was proud of all the mental powers he had developed recently.) Uriel smiled. “We’ll look into your condition together when this is all over. The choice you made under the ocean was a bad one.” (Uru threw what was left of his ‘humanity’ into the Stone of Not!) Then Uriel handed his bracers of mental might to Leon, saying that, unlike Malthusius, he had no need of them. Then he took a moment to do something quite surprising:

Having been divested of his most dangerous magical items before he was imprisoned, he now summoned two of them to him: the Arsenal of Dhebisu, which appeared in its natural form, as a smooth, silvery orb; and the Staff of the Hierophant, which appeared in his hand fully formed and faintly glowing – summoned not from wherever it now lay broken, in the present, but from the past when the hierophant Talmai first wielded it. Talmai had once faced a pit fiend and almost defeated it, and with that in mind, Uriel now channelled that incarnation, adopting his druidic suite of powers.

Before they went on, Korrigan repeated to Lauren Cyneburg the instructions he had previously given to Harkover and sent her back to Flint. When he began to list his political affiliates, Lauren gestured to indicate he need go no further. “We know who they are, your majesty,” she said, and then she departed. She took Gale, Andrei and Isobel Travers with her. The two ealdrin women were helping Andrei to walk. Quratulain said to him, “I like you, but I want my sword back.” Andrei returned it with a wince.

Then Korrigan asked Roland what they could expect up ahead. Roland told them that Stanfield would be very strong since they had ignored his advice to dispatch his incarnations in order. Both Gupta and Uriel performed magical tricks on Roland to see if they could gain insights about how to deal with Stanfield from him. It worked, and they shared their knowledge with the others. In particular, Gupta learned about an old back injury which plagued all of the later incarnations. Uriel used his skyseer powers to weave the fate of the Stanfields, predicting how and when they would make mistakes, and how best to exploit them.

At the foot of the grand staircase, Uriel struck the tip of his staff on the very bottom step and invoked a blessing on all his allies. But that small strike had an unexpected effect: a kind of shudder, or ripple in the very stonework of the staircase itself. At once, Delft barked a warning, and, holding everyone back with his cane, spat a gob of chewing tobacco onto the stairs. An almighty upheaval ensued, as the entire structure detached itself from its moorings and twisted into the form of a gargantuan ooze: a mimic! But the largest mimic anyone had ever seen. Delft’s knees almost gave way in abject terror. The mimic lashed out at Uriel with a pseudopod, grabbed him and then tried to close its enormous maw over him and Uru (who had been scouting ahead and was well over halfway up the stairs). Uru moved quickly to leap out of harm’s way; Uriel stopped it from dragging him in by wedging his staff in the toothy opening. Then he channelled Jannick, the clergy monster slayer, and struck it with a blow from the arsenal, formed into a huge broadsword. The mimic roared in agony.

Gupta whispered into Rumdoom’s ear, “It’s still a staircase.”

“We’ll just have to deal with it one step at a time,” said Korrigan.

Rumdoom knew how to deal with inanimate objects, even ones that were alive and moving. He stepped up and struck the thing an almighty blow with his hammer.

Just then, a buzzing noise began above them and grew sharper and more insistent as its source streaked down from the opening to the roof: a pixie, with a noisy prototype motor strapped to its back to replace its missing wings – wings that had been cut off by Lorcan Kell; a pixie in barbed silver-blue armour, wielding a two-handed pick; a pixie that now hollered abuse and challenged them to single combat: “One at a time, or all together! I’ll take you all on, you lumpen upstarts!” This was Azure Lord Blackthorn, who had once been an ally of the unit, and had been a guest of Roland Stanfield for some time.

As he streaked towards Rumdoom, Uru waved a hand and used granny’s boon to destroy Blackthorn’s motorised backpack. With a curse, Azure Lord Blackthorn spiralled out of control, struck a pillar and fell onto his back, where he wriggled like an upturned beetle, filling the air with fey execrations.

Leon hit the mimic with a curse of mouthless muttering – an extremely effective choice under the circumstances. Then Quratulain finished what Uriel and Rumdoom had started and slew the beast.

Delft was shaken by this brush with his phobia-writ-large. Korrigan had been searching for an excuse to side-line Delft without insulting him, for he was still in a bad way despite his bravado. Now Korrigan ordered Delft to arrest Azure Lord Blackthorn and make sure he caused no further trouble. Delft nodded and did as he was told.

The problem of the missing stairs was quickly solved. Uriel waved a hand, and shaped matter to produce a new staircase, and with that they advanced to meet Governor Stanfield.

“Remember,” said Korrigan. “Try not to kill him.”

“I’m afraid that we may have to,” said Uriel.

Session 61, Part Two - Stanfields’ Stand

Uru stole ahead, and positioned himself close to a humming capacitor. There were several powerful incarnations up here – a holy warrior, a politician, a technologist and a loremaster. They worked to focus eight beams of light from eight wayfarer lamps onto a towering lighthouse. Governor Roland Stanfield stood atop a platform, orchestrating the ritual. He looked panicked and uncertain. Uru knew better than to try to assassinate him; it couldn’t be that easy. Instead he waited for the moment to strike at one of his minions.

Korrigan was the first to step out onto the rooftop in plain view. At once he declared, “Roland Stanfield, you are officially removed from office!” Surprisingly, Stanfield said nothing, but simply redoubled his focus on completing the ritual. Korrigan experienced a surge of power, and realised that the rites of rulership had bolstered him to help him defeat Stanfield in a struggle for control of Risur.

The original Roland was close behind Korrigan, and tapped him on the shoulder to impart some urgent advice: “One thing I never do, which you might learn from, my friend,” he said, “I absolutely never second-guess myself.” And with that he plunged a treacherous dagger into Korrigan’s ribs. The blade was poisoned, but Korrigan absorbed the mundane damage.

“I believe in giving everyone a chance,” Korrigan said. “You’ve squandered yours. There are no second chances.” With that, he fired a beam of energy formed from the blow he just absorbed, but the canny Roland ducked out of its way.

At once, Uru shot at the closest incarnation – the politician. He almost killed him outright. The loremaster caused him to disappear with a spell.

From his platform, Stanfield hurled an obscurati charm at Korrigan, but it failed to land. Then Stanfield muttered a sinister command word:

Many years ago Governor Stanfield had presented the unit with gifts, magical items, in thanks for saving Flint from the colossus. At that time, Korrigan had stepped down from public service, Leon was a wanted war criminal, and Malthusius was dead, so only Rumdoom, Uru and Matunaaga had been present at the ceremony. Matunaaga was given a brace of magical pistols. Thank goodness he wasn’t here – who knows what Stanfield’s command word would have wrought with those! Uru’s gift was a cloak of shadows which now flapped over his face and wrapped itself around him tightly. Rumdoom’s gift was a pair of gloves of lasting frost that now created a rapid explosion of ice, forming a huge block around Rumdoom, crushing him and blocking the path for everyone behind him on the stairs.

Uriel created intense magical fire to weaken and melt it; Quratulain struck it as hard as she could. The main block around Rumdoom remained intact, but a sizable chunk fell off – just enough for someone to squeeze past. Gupta ducked through and when she emerged onto the roof, she Asked the Question: “Can’t you see that your hubris has caused your own doom?” Despite himself, Stanfield struggled with this philosophical challenge and took his mind of the fray.

This may have given Stanfield pause. Not so his incarnations. Each one of them focused a different beam of light from a lantern. Two such beams were crossed over Korrigan and Gupta. They were immobilized and set on fire. Kai said excitedly about one of the beams, “Look, daddy! A new plane!”

A holy warrior incarnation hurled a javelin at Korrigan. When it failed to strike, he ran to attack him in melee, whirling a spiked censer around his head.

Leon teleported to the rooftop and hovered in the air above the battlefield. Then he teleported Gupta and Korrigan out of the crossed beams. At once, Roland (the original Stanfield) pursued Korrigan across the battlefield, keen to cut down the new king.

Rumdoom struggled, and failed to break out of the ice. Asrabey fought his way through the gap and attacked the holy warrior, who fended him off.

Trapped in his own cloak, unable to finish off the politician directly, Uru ceased struggling – knowing he wasn’t strong enough to fight his way out – and called upon the genius loci to aid him. The city itself rose up to defend him, and the first thing it did was kill the politician.

Uriel summoned swarms of tropical insects to assail his foes, distracting them with stings and bites. Quratulain attacked all of the remaining incarnations with her rifle, but missed Stanfield.

Seeing that the badly wounded technologist was about to cast a spell of some sort, Gupta dashed forward and with a flick of Lya’s rapier, cut his throat before he could finish.

Stanfield and his cronies moved the beams again, pacifying their foes and trapping them in necrotic energy. The holy warrior attacked Asrabey. He parried, then made a dash for the stairs to go for Stanfield. As he went, he threw his lion shield at Roland, to stop him from attacking the king, who was trapped in the necrotic energy of some new plane.

Leon tried and failed to dispel the magic of Uru's cloak of shadows. Rumdoom smashed out of the block of ice. Asrabey reached the top of the platform, only for Stanfield to invoke all the power and dark majesty he could muster, hurling the eladrin dreadnought back off the platform, where he struggled to get to his feet, exhausted having taken on two whole frigates, a titan and a mechanical dragon.

While Quratulain dispatched the loremaster and the holy warrior, Gupta stood in wonder and learned all she could about the ritual Stanfield was performing. It could be stopped by destroying the tower, but the tower could not be destroyed unless the beams were focused elsewhere. Was there time to destroy the lighthouse before the ritual was complete? She had her doubts, especially since Rumdoom’s eschatological powers had faltered. (She also received a strange premonition about something falling from the sky.) Uriel used telekinesis to free Uru from the cloak, which in turn freed Leon to study the ritual too. He realised it could also be stopped by killing Stanfield, who was protected from harm while his incarnations were still alive.

Leon shared this information just as Rumdoom reached the top of the stairs. Rumdoom called for his shotgun. Thurgid threw it to him, and he fired at Roland as he ran, killing Stanfield’s first (and last) incarnation.

Uru used his ghostly helpers to shift the planar beams from Korrigan. Rumdoom ran up on to the wooden platform, and Stanfield performed the same dark rite he used to propel Asrabey away from him. It didn’t work on Rumdoom. (Beneath the platform, an exhausted Asrabey gave a quiet curse at seeing himself bested in this way, especially by Rumdoom who had felled him during their very first encounter many years ago.)

Quratulain leapt on to the platform and attacked Stanfield too. “There’s already one king here in Risur,” she said. Uriel drew closer too and used the power of his staff to bestow righteous might upon himself. Gupta asked Stanfield another perplexing question, and then Leon teleported everyone next to Stanfield.

Korrigan led the attack, crying, “We can’t risk it. Let’s finish this.” The rest of the unit struck Stanfield one after the other, hoping to cut him down before the ritual completed. When Uriel joined in, Stanfield sneered, “We should have dealt with you a long time ago. I don’t know what we were thinking.”

Gupta struck the final blow. When she did so, she had another premonition and could not help but look behind her and upwards. There was a burning, bright light in the sky, growing closer by the second. Stanfield coughed and clutched his back as he collapsed. Blood pooled around him, and his skin drained of color, but he looked skyward too as his eyes darkened with the onset of death. “You might have saved Risur,” he said, “but Nicodemus will complete the ritual on Axis Island. It was a grand folly. Not my folly, though. Yours. Death has not stopped me before, and I swear even if the whole nation resists, it will not stop me now.” He smiled and released a dying breath. Everything grew steadily brighter, lit from above by the falling star.

“Mishados,” Uriel murmured softy. Named after an incarnation of Srasama, said to be a healer. Korrigan was not so sanguine – he ordered everyone off the roof. They ran for the staircase as fast as they could. Uru got there first and when everyone joined him, he had Little Jack throw up a protective bubble of force. When Leon arrived he desperately tried to teleport everyone off the Governor’s Island, but the spell fizzled out.

Then Mishados struck the fortress and took out the lanterns, the lighthouse, the roof, the staircase, everything. Uru’s force bubble was blown away like so much chaff and everyone fell in a roar of light and heat and rubble, crashing on to the floor below, where they were buried in debris.

But they were still alive! Mishados had blessed them even as it fell. Injuries that might otherwise have proved fatal had been survived and one by one they clambered to their feet, and began helping each other out from under heavy chunks of lumber and masonry.

When everyone was accounted for, they heard more movement a short distance away. Something stirred beneath the rubble, then a burst of energy cleared a space sufficient for this other survivor to slowly stand: a faintly glowing humanoid form, something like a twisted tiger, standing over seven feet tall, red eyes ablaze. They knew this to be Stanfield, transformed – by hubris? – into a rakshasa.

“I told you death would not stop me,” he crowed, in a voice like gravel and glue. “Once again, I rise to ensure… Wait…” he stopped, having caught sight of his own, twisted hands – flipped over, with the thumbs on the wrong side; and his arms, striped, furred and bestial. “What’s this? No! This cannot be! Nonono! What is wrong with this crazy universe?” he cried in anguish. “I’m not a baddy!”

End of Session

*quickly goes to check if I wrote that last line*

RangerWickett said:

*quickly goes to check if I wrote that last line*

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No, but in fairness, neither did I.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

Session 61, Epilogue - What Happened to Uriel

When Adriel jumped through the portal to Alais Primos atop the Lance of Triegenes, he was not subject to attack at the other end, as he had been five-hundred years ago. He did not find himself in the midst of an eladrin army, enraged by the death of their goddess, and every woman they ever knew. He was not torn limb from limb as he was back then – a fate which Uriel only narrowly avoided during the memory event he and Kasvarina shared, taking them back to that moment in the Siege when the Avatar of Srasma – Kasvarina’s own daughter – succumbed to her wounds.

But he thought that was going to happen, and curled up in a foetal ball, until he gradually realised that he was alone in a farmer’s field. It was the fell of dark, not day, when he unfurled himself. He stood and looked around pointlessly. There was no light at all; no moon. A small movement in the hedgerow behind him suggested that he was not alone after all.

“A little light, Festoon, if you please,” said a familiar voice. The pixie obliged, shedding magical radiance all about her, allowing the man in the stove pipe hat to consult his pocket watch. He stood up from the tree stump he had been sat on. “Extraordinary! You arrived precisely when they said you would! Be a good fellow and put these on.” He threw a pair of mage cuffs at Uriel’s feet. “Don’t make us kill you again. They’ve decided it’s not necessary now. You’re to come with us.”

Uriel saw no reason to resist. In the first of many such timely premonitions, he felt sure that surrendering was the right thing to do, and would take him where he needed to be.

To Governor Stanfield’s island to be precise, where he was stripped of his magical items and placed in an anti-magic demi-plane, in a row of other such ‘portraits’ that the Governor kept in his private study. One of them, he later learned, during conversations with his erstwhile friend, also contained Isobel Travers. Stanfield loudly wondered what would be best to do with her now that Nicodemus had no more use for her boyfriend. He confessed that, although he had never had time for romantic pursuits before, Isobel was fragrant and fetching in the extreme. It occurred to Governor Stanfield that there might be time for such frivolity ‘in the new age to come’, with the added benefit that people would find themselves ‘more open to persuasion’…

Stanfield came and talked with him frequently. On one occasion, he told Uriel that Nicodemus had a sentimental attachment to him (as did he). Like Jierre, Adriel helped Nicodemus in his original incarnation, saving him atop the Lance of Triegenes. However, unlike Jierre, his subsequent incarnations had shown inconstant support for the conspiracy, only ever fully supporting it when its true purpose was occluded. “I think Nicodemus regards you as a kind of 'moral barometer',” Stanfield told him. “For some strange reason he urgently hopes to persuade you back to his way of thinking. I too wish that you weren't so hopelessly moralistic and that your current incarnation might be prescient enough to put aside sentimentality and support the Grand Design.”

However, Stanfield was not stupid enough to take Uriel’s word for it (even if he had tried to lie, which he was not inclined to do) and had determined that he would remain in the demiplane until after the Axis Seal Ritual was complete. Stanfield then went on to provide a villainous monologue detailing his part in ensuring Risur would fall in line with the Ob's new world. King Aodhan would be removed, of course, and his replacement would be an Ob sympathiser. “Catherine Romana. Perhaps you know her? She niftily side-stepped Nicodemus’ purge and was able to present him with a plan cunning enough to regain his favour. How’s that for a survival instinct? I myself will then perform a ritual here in Flint to impose the conditions of the new world order on a potentially reluctant population. But they’ll soon fall in line; as will you. Then we can be friends again, just like in the old days. Please don’t try to escape. The consequences would be unpleasant and undignified.”

Uriel was only too happy to remain in situ. The isolation afforded him the time to meditate and clear his mind now that he was himself again. And in a few weeks’ time his friends would come to let him out.

For the first time in years, he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Session 62, Part One

This Stanfield Goes Up to 11

Uru’s dome had protected them to some degree, but they were in no fit state to engage in a fight with a foe as powerful as this one. Korrigan and Quratulain were struggling to get out of the rubble. Korrigan was able to free himself, but Quratulain remained trapped. Her mask had been cracked too, and had fallen from her face, revealing the mummified, toothy rictus beneath. Alarmingly, the only part of her face that looked ‘alive’ were the lidless blue eyes.

More alarming still, Uriel had arisen from the rubble completely naked. The robes he was wearing had been formed through his magical ability to shape matter to his will and when he lost concentration during the explosion, they dissipated. This was of no concern to him now, though. He still had the Staff of the Hierophant and the Arsenal of Dhebisu. At once, he stepped up to guard the others and, placing a hand on his own chest, channelled the healing knowledge of his third incarnation Tadeas, and restored himself to full health.

Despite his own reservations, Leon thought he would at least attempt to talk to Stanfield. He said, “Can’t you see that you’ve taken the wrong path? Perhaps you should consider…” He didn’t get any further. The rakshasa’s eyes flashed in pure fury and it leapt at Leon, slashing at him with razor sharp claws. Leon cried out in pain, teleported away and his tiefling curse blazed around Stanfield to no effect.

Uru tried to call upon the ghosts of the city to trap him in the rubble again, but he was too fast and sprang clear. Rumdoom leapt at him and missed too. Gupta transformed into a weretiger and prepared herself for attack. Then Leon put all his focus into a terrible curse that caused the rakshasa to pause in its assault, to slough off the burrowing worms that emerged from its flesh.

While it was so distracted, Uriel stepped up, transformed the Arsenal of Dhebisu into a rapier and jabbed at Stanfield. The point caught him and penetrated and this single tiny wound destroyed him utterly, in a flash of light, leaving a smoking crater and a clattering, bleached skeleton.

Uriel then created some more clothes for himself, and asked for someone to give him back his shoes.

Brave New World

When the dust clears, the sky overhead is no longer dotted with a field of stars, but instead glows with the uneven haze of a charcoal nebula. A mere handful of stars wander the night. “Matching the lanterns,” says Kai. “The ones they had on the roof.”

Magic above the most minor cantrips and orisons doesn’t work, thought the mana is still there. Leon senses it, as do Uriel and Gupta to a lesser extent, but it is not moving as it once did.

Already you can feel something nudging you to behave differently, but all of you have strong enough willpower to shake it off. Others will not be so adept. The impuse to trust strangers and to listen to ‘reason’ is strong.

As you move out of the fortress and down towards the water, a bright golden glow rises in the air on the western horizon, then fades a few minutes later. It isn’t until more than an hour passes that the entire world rumbles with a deafening sound like an explosion, sweeping in the same direction. Quratulain makes a quick calculation of the speed of sound that supports your guess that the origin was Axis Island.

Any surviving Danoran ships have fled, although many were pulled into the depths by She Who Writhes, before the kraken withdrew into the wider sea. Atop Cauldron Hill storm clouds gather, but instead of falling rain, the mountain itself starts to erode and float upward, mote by mote.

Flint holds its breath, wondering what the new day will bring. But hours pass, and when the sun should rise, instead the world is greeted only by a patch of the cloudy sky that is somewhat less dark. The haze there seems to churn ever so slowly like two gears – immeasurably titanic to be visible at this cosmic distance – grinding between their teeth the heavens themselves.

A new age has dawned.

End of Volume II.

(But not the end of the session...)

This session got off to an unusual start. Following the rapid, almost comically swift dispatch of 'Rakshasa Stanfield', the players were surprised to discover that that was it - they had finished adventure 9. The timing was perfect - the fact that we simply could not fit the 'final twist' in the end of session 61 worked to make it seem like it must be the true finale. The 'Brave New World' readaloud text clarified that for them, then I let them take a look at the printed volumes for each tier - the two they have finished, and the one that remains. They'd never seen them before, so that was a cool moment.

Some adventures only work with a little break between them. There is a shift in tone that needs a gap of some sort. I think #8 & #9 are a case in point. To plunge straight into the madness of the Dreaming following the knife-edge stuggle with Nicodemus and Borne could only seem like an anti-climax.

But the tone of anti-climax achieved by running straight on from #9 into #10 really works. All of a sudden, the PCs have to get their heads around losing half their powers and their items, governing a nation, and assessing the full extent of the damage the Ob have done - all hot on the heals of the busiest 48 hours of their lives.

We handled some of that during the rest of session 62, with more to follow next week. So depending on how fast things move, the players will at the very least leave for their summer break knowing that the gidim have invaded and the fey titans are loose. Talk about a cliffhanger!

Session 62, Part Two

Aftermath

• Magic was severely affected by the changes to the night sky. It was risky to experiment. One of the Risuri soldiers tried to give a healing potion to an injured comrade. The man swallowed, coughed and writhed, then suffocated and died. His throat had sealed shut with new flesh, blocking his windpipe.
• The loss of magic was a major concern and absorbed the initial focus of the unit, even as Korrigan tried to focus at least some of his attention on bringing some order to the city. Lauren Cyneburg reported that his political associates had been gathered at his request.
• More news arrived from Cauldron Hill. Dame Jillian, Amielle and Captain Dale arrived to report in person, as sendings would not work, even though they were relatively simple to perform. Sadly, Quratulain’s premonition had come to pass, and Dame Jillian found herself bereft of powers. Quratulain stepped closer to the King and remained glued to his side as unofficial bodyguard (until such times as the post was formalised…) They told Korrigan that the distress flares from the Mayor’s mansion had been a trick played by evil spirits that had swarmed through the complex the day before, driving its defenders into the underground bunker, from whence they had been rescued.
• Gupta was relieved to discover that she was still able to transform into a weretiger. If anything, her tiger form was even stronger now, and the transformation much easier!
• Leon was concerned by the lack of connection with the Dreaming. He retained the benefits of his membership of the Unseen Court, which were inherent to him, but the illusions and charms he had developed as an unseen warlock would prove even more difficult to master over the coming weeks.
• Uriel was shaken by the loss of his connection to the powers and abilities of his previous incarnations. His renewed confidence had been underpinned by his astonished roster of capabilities. He sought to reconnect with them in earnest, and with his most powerful magical items. Distracting him from ploughing all his efforts into this was curiosity about the new night sky.

“What have they done?!?”

• The night sky was black, or rather closer to slate gray. Close observation revealed a darker disk of pitch black where the moon used to be, and only four stars were visible. Skyseers immediately sensed that this wasn’t the same moon, and recognized that three stars were in the location previously held by the planet Apet (and its ring Reida), while the other was where Mavisha used to be. But they weren’t the same. Nor did this array appear to match any of the proposals the Ob considered on Mutravir.
• Uriel check recognized that the energy of the moon matched an obscure star known as Mojang. Furthermore, this was actually the same purple star that the Danoran telescope was pointed at on Axis Island five years ago! Back then, the star was only ever a dot, not the size of the moon’s disk.
• After a few hours, when the sun should have risen, instead the Gyre ascended into view. The churning Gyre provided as much illumination as a full moon used to, so the new ‘day’ is bright enough for people to see dimly. Without Vona, light magic and radiant energy were severely limited.
• Throughout the rest of the day another three planets wheeled across the sky in the positions normally held by Jiese, Avilona, and Urim. Jiese was still the same, and most spellcasters found that fire spells worked normally – as did technology powered by firegems. Research would need to be conducted into the rest of the planes.
• Gale and Asrabey found the unit. They had brought with them a local medium named Swami Melanchol who was known for his ability to contact departed spirits. Gale paid Melanchol a few coins and asked him to summon the spirit of a soldier who had died in the conflict. Using a mirror, Gale showed them that the spirit was reflected in the glass, and that both she and Asrbey could interact with – push, pull, nudge – the poor confused spirit by passing their hands through where he was standing. Neither of them, however, could fey step.
• Gale offered to help the city in any way she could. Asrabey stalked off, saying that he was a warrior, only of use in battle and would return when he was needed. Swami Melcanchol tried to follow him, but Asrabey scowled and Melanchol fell away. Leon took the opportunity to ask Asrabey a favour, but before he could even name it, Asrabey snarled, “You bedded my wife, and then led me through the bedchamber the two of you shared. Your status alone stays my hand, but do not push me.” Then he left.
• Gupta asked Swami Melcanchol if the spirits in witchoil could be contacted, or better yet rescued. Melanchol did not know, but agreed to try to find out. They later discovered that the poor, trapped souls were deaf to all entreaty, but might respond if the medium knew their name. (Needless to say, they did not know the names of any of the spirits trapped in the charged witchoil they siphoned from the mechanical dragon.) Uriel said that when he was once again able to channel Malthus’ full suite, he would be able to help now they knew it could be done. (Gupta was of course thinking of her family who she had learned were trapped in the golem. If it wasn’t already too late to save them.)
• Further investigation in teleportation and sending magic revealed that even if the caster could affect such a ritual or spell, it was no longer possible to contact anyone – or jump to anywhere – you hadn’t seen in person since the Grand Design took effect.