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

Session 217, Part One

Outside

Doran handed the unconscious Uru over to Ayesha. He advised her to keep Uru inside sack, wrapped with rusty iron chains, inside a locked chest in a very brightly lit room. Instead Ayesha dabbed her thumb in a pot of unguent at her waist, daubed it on Uru’s forehead and said, “This will help him to rest peacefully”. Her disapproval of Doran’s suggestion was evident.

Before he entered the Triunfo, Korrigan had given Admiral Smith the order to bomb the place if they didn’t emerge or make contact within an hour. So it was a good job that Agent Doran and Doctor Von Recklinghausen had been locked out of the leviathan, or Smith said he would have undoubtedly fired on the thing. As it was, he kept a threatening distance from the alien craft, until it began to emit disorienting ululations, causing many of the Coaltongue’s crew to stumble about, vomit or become listless. At the same time, their strange mascot, Sparklehorse, became exceedingly agitated: a maw at the rear of the leviathan had opened, and three huge indistinct shapes emerged. Thoughtforms! They converged upon the Coaltongue. These winged creatures were so mind-numbingly hideous that they caused the ordinary sailors to quail in horror as they drew near. They were also able to generate a sucking wind, lifting the crew into the air, and flinging them away from the ship. (To fall, safely, thanks to the remarkable Arcane Levitationals installed by Pemberton Industries – but nonetheless reducing the ship’s full complement.) In response, Smith released the dragon fliers to draw the horrors away. Doran thought the closest one solid, while the fliers brought their auto-cannon to bear, but they could not hope to harm the thing enough to drive it off.

Admiral Smith ordered everyone belowdecks and battened down the hatches. Then he slowed and banked, to put more distance between the Coaltongue and the leviathan, outrunning the flying horrors, but prepared to re-engage the leviathan in extremis. Now it was more difficult to keep an eye on their foes, and in particular keep watch on the mysterious, angular shape that was floating down from the North.

Inside

As the leviathan swept across the city, its occupants were thrown around the interior, unless they were quick enough to grab a fleshy protuberance of some kind. Gupta, newly freed from domination, took a spectacularly forceful tumble, clipped her head on a solid obstacle and was knocked out cold. Rumdoom and Glaucia slid into the gidim’s mindscape quarters – an area replete with fleshy pods from which several of the infiltrators had emerged. They struggled to get up. Korrigan used his Lightness of Being power and Quratulain engaged her rocket boots. Brakken and Amielle were still held firm by the mindseize power they had succumbed to earlier. Leon, Uriel and Feroz grabbed hold of something close.

Sijhen remained as the sole defender of the ship. It used the ship’s interior defences to fix Uriel in the material plane with a dimensional anchor. Then the creature created a copy of itself, the better to fend off these intruders. Sijhen itself bore down on Amielle, thrusting an incorporeal hand into her cranium; its copy used an extraordinarily powerful form of telekinesis to grab hold of Quratulain and slam her against the ceiling. Korrigan used the Bracers of Liberty Glaucia had gifted him to prevent Amielle from being dominated, punishing himself, Sijhen and, unfortunately Amielle too – for breaking the gidim’s hold on her caused horrible psychic damage. Amielle was by now very weak. If she ‘died’ she would return to the ghost council!

Leon was holding on to the ship with one hand, and the Wayfarer Lantern with the other. He could not do much else that was useful in this position. Uriel lifted the lantern from him with his own form of telekinesis, causing it to hover around his own head. Glaucia brought down a pillar of fire on Sijhen’s copy. The thing didn’t even flinch! Though pinned in place, Quratulain shot at it. It yelped in pain and vanished (from everyone except Leon). Korrigan flew to defend Amielle, granting her a boon from his sword, to help free her from the mindseize, but she was too weak to do so. Feroz sought to clamber towards the gidim to exact his revenge, but he could not do so, as the ship pitched and banked. Rumdoom struggled to his feet.

It had not taken the dwarf long to recover from his apparent defeat by Quratulain. Sadly, he remained subject to gidim domination, and remained in giant form!

This looks exceptionally grim.

RangerWickett said:

This looks exceptionally grim.

Click to expand...

Oh, it gets worse...

Session 217, Part Two


Outside

Panic had been caused throughout the city by the presence of the alien vessel, but at the docks it was particularly virulent. Overcrowded boats heaved under the weight of those who sought to flee. Many fell into the dark water. To protect the citizens of Ursalina, a brave Beran warship cruised out of the military docks to engage the ululating leviathan as it came to hover over the harbour mouth. Their guns were not suited to dealing with air-born foes, and the leviathan fixed her with a terrible form of ship-to ship telekenesis – tearing a hole in her hull, and tipping her towards it like a bath toy, so she took on water and listed very rapidly. In just a few minutes the vessel had sunk, causing others to hold off an attack.

Inside

Sijhen grabbed Korrigan telekinetically and slammed him against the bulkhead. Its copy had stolen round to perform a pincer movement, and together it and Sijhen converged on his consciousness and began to tear at its very fabric. Korrigan frowned and fended them off. “We will never submit!” he said. “This world is not yours!”

Sijhen then picked up Rumdoom like a great chess piece and planted him down to threaten the king. Uriel moved, both bringing the lantern towards poor Amielle, and using a powerful spell to weave the future fate of Rumdoom (but this was not to pay off just yet). Quratulain fought free of the telekinesis gripping her, and propelled herself towards the dwarf. “Come and get some, fat ass!” she cried, opening fire on him.

Now that Uriel had brought the Wayfarer Lantern near enough, Korrigan was able to teleport out of the psychic grasp that pinned him to the bulkhead; Amielle, too, was finally able to escape and hopefully survive without being returned to Nicodemus.

A mouth opened close to Uriel and an inner roar tried to dislodge him. He clung on. Korrigan was also caught in the blast, but rode the shockwave masterfully. Still, he was close to exhaustion. Uriel reached out a hand and, channelling the power of his saintly incarnation Tadeas, restored the king to full health.

Leon cursed Rumdoom, knocking his bowler hat off. Brakken enabled Feroz to teleport and attack Rumdoom. Rumdoom shrugged the bear off, and targeted Quratulain. “I am not your wife,” she chided. “You will not beat me so easily.” Then she unleashed another barrage of bullets at Rumdoom and both copies of Sijhen. The ancient Gidim wayfarer staggered, but then its body surged with energy, and its foes felt themselves in the presence of an entire world, watching this battle, granting Sijhen renewed power.

Brakken was still held in place by the internal defences of the leviathan. He had already made contact with the thing, and by extension with the mind of Sijhen, and now understood that it was calling out – that the ululations were more than just a defence, but a siren-call too.

Filled with renewed energy, Sijhen split again, creating more copies of itself – altogether there were now four. They targeted Quratulain, tearing her ego apart like dogs pulling at a carcass. Quratulain could no longer fend them off, and found herself struggling to resist catatonia. Then Sijhen had Rumdoom attack Feroz; the bear gripped the dwarf's hammer in its tentacles and the two were locked in a mighty struggle, tumbling across the chamber as the vessel lurched again, causing both Korrigan and Uriel to duck aside. (Fortunately, Uriel’s healing spell was complete.) Glaucia and Quratulain slid across the chamber too, Glaucia cursing and spitting as she went.

Seeing the threat his healing magic posed, Sijhen focused its wrath on Uriel: it flayed his ego, mercilessly; it gripped him telekinetically and threw him against the floor and ceiling; it reached into his mind and sought to dominate him. Though the latter attempt failed, the attempt to resist was exhausting, and Uriel was mentally and physically battered – in the worst shape he’d been in since the near-death experiences of his many incarnations. Only this time, there would be no coming back!

From a distant, safer vantage, Amielle shot at Rumdoom. Her attack caused the dwarf to unleash the Icy End of the World. All those around him were subject to a terrible frost.

Brakken then announced that something dreadful was approaching outside: even through the walls of the leviathan, he could sense it. A sickening source of fear even more potent than the Godmind they had witnessed in Cherage. It came in answer to the leviathan's call.

“I am not your wife,” she chided. “You will not beat me so easily.”

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Daaaaamn.

RangerWickett said:

Daaaaamn.

Click to expand...

She’s got a wicked tongue, that Quratulain. Gives her guns and her swords a run for their money.

Session 217, Part Three

Outside

A vast, amorphous mass rose up from the water of the harbour, summoned by the ululations of the leviathan, which this mass entirely dwarfed. It looked like murky frogspawn, but magnified to a bewildering size. Within each cell hung a tadpole-like shape: an aboleth. Each of the deep ones had succumbed to the hivemind they now formed, an enormous store of rich psychic energy that opened to envelop the leviathan.

Admiral Smith did not like the look of that! Despite all the risks, he flew the Coaltongue down to engage the hivemind.

A lookout gave a shout: the angular shape from the North had picked up speed and was rapidly growing in size as it neared.

Inside

Amazingly, Quratulain managed to fight through the mental fog Sijhen had inflicted upon her, and again she opened fire on all four of its copies. This caused the gidim to split yet again, and as each new copy peeled away from its progenitor, a synaesthetic whirlwind of blinding light and psychic screams surrounded it – eroding the very essence of his foes, and attacking every aspect of their being. Uriel was almost killed, and was kept alive only by the Blood of Ostea. Feroz too. Leon and Quratulain were blinded and deafened. Leon teleported away from immediate danger, using the power of the wayfarer lantern. Sijhen then took the precaution of plucking the Wayfarer Lantern away from Uriel and smashing it. Its regenerative light no longer bathed them.

Unseen by Sijhen, a psychic form peeled itself away from Uriel and slipped towards the navigation chamber.

Now that it had Uriel at its mercy, Sijhen offered a parley: “We will not slay your friends if you withdraw from this ship,” it began. They all hesitated, ready. Brakken sensed its fear and shared as much with Korrigan. “Yes, we fear,” Sijhen responded. “Like any soldier, we fear failure. Our strength is matched. Both sides may die. But we have now entered a Godmind that dwarfs the power of that you encountered in Cherage, and even if we die, it will likely consume you. Instead, consider our offer:

“In the navigation chamber, you’ll find a vortex array. If your mission is anything like we suspect, it will prove of great use to you. Consider a trade. We give you the array. In exchange, you leave this ship and leave me to feed on the psychic energies of this city. A truce, for now. We will invade and occupy only a part of this world, and will resume our wider conflict later. But the will of the Gidim is unified, and we shall not flee. So fight on at your peril.”

Brakken glowered at this notion. Glaucia was already raising her staff to strike at a gidim when Korrigan answered on all their behalves, firmly declining Sijhen’s proposal. “We fight for our whole world, not just bits of it,” he said.

The fight resumed!

In the navigation chamber, Xambria could now see the glittering vortex array Sijhen had mentioned. She found that she knew how it worked – to taste, at a great distance, the ‘flavour’ of worlds the gidim might consume. All around were screens showing different parts of the ship, and what was happening outside the ship, too…

Session 217, Part Four

Outside

The frogspawn mass had fully enclosed the leviathan, which was already absorbing the psychic energies it required. Up close, it could be seen that the aboleth were all dead, having decayed within their cells. Their bodies were not required, only their immensely powerful minds.

The leviathan’s sensors were clearly not physical, for many screens showed things it could not ‘see’, things that were happening outside the deep one hivemind:

On one screen, the Coaltongue was making its move, drawing close enough to fire on the hivemind with its high-explosive rockets and the Tyrant’s Eye.

Another sensor fixed on the ‘triangle’ from the north, which could now be seen as a diamond or inverted kite, formed from stone, and rich in detail. As it drew closer to hover over the hivemind, Xambria peered more closely, thinking she might recognise it from somewhere…

Muffled explosions: the Coaltongue’s broadside. The hole it blew became a fringed maw, reaching out with immense, slow pseudopods to engulf the ship. The Coaltongue tried to veer away but the pull of the maw was inescapable.

Inside

Korrigan was the first to act when the ceasefire ended: he yanked Uriel back to his feet and returned the favour, healing his old friend of the worst of his wounds – though not to the same extent - he was no Talmai; Uriel remained in grave danger but at least he was no longer incapable.

Leon used a rarified dreamthief spell to steal knowledge from the leviathan itself. He learned that Sijhen was enacting a desperate plan to absorb enough energy to grow the psychic tendril that rose up from the front of the leviathan. This vessel was like an egg in which this tendril gestated, or a seed from which it sprouted; when it was grown, it would make contact with the gidim homeworld, and the gidim would be ready to invade.

Amielle shot at Rumdoom, but her ghost bullet pinged off his magical armour. The Icy End of the World still raged. Rumdoom might have succumbed to it himself, but he refused to fall.

Brakken steeled himself and focused his mental energies. Ever since he was young, he had been able to curb the violent tendencies of those around him, but never had he tried to pacify a mind so powerful. With great effort of will, he brought Sijhen to heel. To his surprise - and Sijhen’s - none of its copies could now take violent actions, unless they too were attacked.

Once again, the fighting ceased.

Uriel had already woven the fate of Rumdoom. Now he used this power to control his friend, superseding the gidim’s domination. He sent Rumdoom forward to attack the ship and its controls!

Thwarted, Sijhen fell back on its most desperate tactic: pure spite. It teleported ahead of Rumdoom into the navigation chamber, where it triggered a self-destruct sequence. The living creature around them shuddered, and its veins turned dark and turgid.

Xambria turned it off.

Sijhen turned it on.

Xambria turned it off…

This was ridiculous. A stalemate.

Quratulain paused for thought, absorbed all the available information and allowed her mind to calculate the answer to a simple question: How do we get out of this one? The answer: Wait.

Outside

By now the Coaltongue had also been absorbed by the hivemind. All on board were rendered helpless by its horrifying keen, but not before Admiral Smith gave orders to fire the brand. The great arcane cannon carved through the mass of the hivemind as the ship pitched within it. Another beam struck the fearful blob from above – a concentration of mental energy, focused by the angular stone structure that now floated over the hivemind like a predator, in sharp, orderly defiance of its organic chaos. Dozens of small discs emerged from this structure, arcing downwards with precision and symmetry. Each bore a slender humanoid figure, sitting or standing with great poise.

The discs plunged into the hivemind at vital spots, weakening its fabric even more. With its core drilled into by the psychic beam from the citadel, and the randomised catastrophe of the Coaltongue’s brand, these incisions were enough to cause its integrity to fail, with each huge cell slowly peeling away and falling with reluctant inevitability to splash in the sea below.

Inside

Sijhen gave a mental cry and sought to escape; Xambria, in full control of the ship, prevented it from doing so. Then the piercing keen of the dying hivemind penetrated even the hull of the leviathan, and rendered all of the occupants helpless with agony.

The keening stopped as suddenly as it began

Moments later, the living metal sphincter over the flesh fens was pried open. Matunaaga dropped lightly down from above, to stand poised and ready. He was followed almost at once by his phalanx. They had dispensed with firearms, having mastered the Palimpsest in its entirety, instead subjecting Sijhen and its copies to psychic bolts which destroyed them utterly. Then the maustin caji gave a low bow to the King of Risur and his bedraggled retinue.

"My King," said Matunaaga. "I'm here to kill your monster."

https://youtu.be/1_pZ9lJ8dFk

End of Session

Session 218, Part One

Immediate Aftermath

The maustin caji!

“Your timing has never been more perfect, my friend,” King Baldrey responded.

There was no time for a longer exchange. They helped all of their teammates to their feet, and organised an evacuation to the Coaltongue.

Rumdoom shook off the effects of long-term domination pretty quickly. He was sorry that he had tried to kill his friends, but knew they could handle it. He was more concerned to note that they had not been able to kill him!

Uriel recalled Xambria. She had saved him. She had saved them all, but her actions had yet to be weighed in balance. Uriel thanked her privately, and wondered when would be the best moment to broach her rehabilitation. Looking at Gupta, he did not think the moment was now: The Childe of Hewanharimau was groggy as they helped her from the leviathan, but Uriel could tell she was in no mood to be forgiving.

Several of the shock troopers had survived, thanks to the Blood of Ostea, but they were in a sorry mental state, now that they could see what they had become. Sobbing, moaning or sedated (by Brakken, in the case of those that were fully freaking out) they were helped off the gidim vessel.

Only Uriel and Leon remained on the leviathan. With Xambria’s help, they flew the gidim ship out to sea, restarted the self-destruct protocol, and then teleported off the ship to join their own.

First, of course, they salvaged the vortex array and brought it back to the Coaltongue.

Intermediate Aftermath

The Coaltongue was in a bad way, and in need of substantial repairs. Worse, many of her crew were either dead or comatose. Others would have to be tracked down in Ursalina, having been flung off the ship.

Help would have to be found for the shock troopers. Brakken wondered aloud if they could be ‘cured’, and if so, could the same be done for poor Feroz? Xambria said that the energy necessary had derived from the leviathan, so a full reversal using the same methods was unlikely. Perhaps divine magic could be used?

Matunaaga was mobbed by his children, then called for discipline, and embraced his wife. They exchanged a few quiet words. Kai said hello and asked how they had survived the earthquake in the Hidden Valley.

It turned out that the citadel they now occupied was formed from component parts that once littered the Hidden Valley, as dwellings, temples and meeting places. Once the power of flight was restored to Lanjyr, the gith had reformed their ancient vessel, and prepared to repel gidim invasion. The buildings in the valley had not crumbled, but risen up! That had caused the ‘quake’ Uru had registered.

(Where was Uru? Nobody had seen him.)

Matunaaga told King Baldrey that if it were up to him, the caji would fight for the Risuri monarch as they had in the old days, but as it was they needed to remain independent and alert – for the gidim threat was not over, and would not be until the Ob’s mistakes were fixed. “They could strike anywhere in Lanjyr. We will keep watch. You, I assume, will deal with the Ob.”

Korrigan responded by saying that he was glad to find Matunaaga in good health and to see that he had settled on his true purpose; he no longer seemed haunted by rival loyalties.

The gith elders were keen to leave, he said. It was time to go. Ayesha would remain on the Coaltongue with her children. They would reunite only when the world was put back together. They had grown accustomed to partings and loss, and bore it with stoicism.

Matunaaga risked the disapproval of the elders by offering the unit some of the stone discs they had seen the caji ride into battle: one for each of the unit. It would take practice to master these craft, but it would be easier for those with psionic capability.

There was another touching reunion when Rumdoom and Hildegaard butted foreheads in a show of fierce dwarven affection. Would they ever survive an adventure together without one of them being abducted?!? They disappeared off to their berth together and stayed in there for several hours. There was a lot of thumping. One of the sailors complained that it sounded like they had a herd of pigs in there.

Session 218, Part Two

The Next 24 Hours

Fireworks were going off throughout the city. There were celebrations in the streets below, as all at once the citizens of Ursalina found themselves free from the yoke of alien oppression. The Coaltongue descended to the harbour. Admiral Smith sent out fliers to track down his missing crewmen (some of whom returned to the vessel drunk). Leon went to retrieve Flida, Lord Cadagyr and Dieter, but they had already left the warehouse.

Out of sight, Gupta and shared a moment with Wolfgang. Their reunion was not as touching as the others. Although Wolfgang had stayed only to help rescue Gupta, she realised at once that he was with the Ob now. He shrugged. “The world isn’t safe,” he said. “Not for the likes of me. They offered me protection when I needed it most. I’m not like you. Long-term danger is something I try to avoid. My duties are mostly research-based. This mission got a bit out of hand, but I didn’t know that when I accepted it!” Gupta asked him what he would do now. “I will bring everything I have learned to Nicodemus. He wants to fight these invaders too.” Gupta decided to let him go. It was better that all factions knew how to beat the gidim, despite their internecine conflicts. Before he slipped away, curiosity compelled her to ask what legend he had on his Ob ring. “One Bride Gone,” he said, with a bleak smile. As a spiteful afterthought, she wiped the memory of their conversation from his mind as he slipped over board.

Uru slowly reappeared over the next day or so. Fleeting appearances became lengthier, until he was once again ‘around’, but he kept himself to himself much more than usual. He had been upset by his domination, especially since his own connection to the spirits of Ursalina had been subverted and used against him. Up close, one might experience the sudden sensation that something was crawling over or under his skin, only for it to pass. Many new spirits, frightened by the alien invasion of their city, had chosen to leave with Uru and his ghostly friends. Uriel was not the only unit member to be ‘inhabited’. Thanks to his new friends, Uru said he was now “smarter and even harder to see” (both of which were true). Uru eventually got around to apologising to King Baldrey for his failure. The king would hear nothing of it. They had all learned a lot these last few days:

Korrigan spoke with Amielle. They agreed that she should not leave the Coaltongue in future, under any circumstances. “That was too much excitement, even for me,” she said. But should it come down to it, Korrigan asked Amielle if she would rather risk returning to the ghost council, or accept a somewhat final alternative. Since his connection to the planes had been completed by Kai, Korrigan had developed a power he called ‘The Mirrored Aspects of Av’. This power could be life-giving (so no use to Amielle); but it could also be used to slay, and in doing so completely obliterate a creature, soul and all. Korrigan had always refused to use it on principal, but was offering to use it on Amielle in the event that nothing else could help. Amielle accepted the offer. It was a relief to know that the fate she most feared could be avoided.

When Rumdoom finally emerged from his cabin he demanded to know when they would be leaving for Drakr: Hildegaard had told him about Vlendham Heid’s message in a box. Here was the opportunity to confront Grandis Komanov and reclaim the Kum-Ruk Nazar! It was confirmed that they would depart as soon as they were able.

Meanwhile, Glaucia, Korrigan and Brakken went to visit the Commodore. They told her everything that had happened. She was not keen to attack Risur under the circumstances (under any circumstances, in fact – but orders were orders) and agreed to travel with Seobriga in their company to speak with the Bruse. Korrigan delegated these negotiations to Leon. He would first take the unit to Drakr, then return to Ursalina and bring the Berans to their ruler, where they would jointly petition him to defy the Ob. In the meantime, Glaucia would organise a civic ritual in memory of Salome Nieves and the other executores who had died. She would liaise with Lord Cadagyr too, assuming she could find him. She also promised to track down and repatriate any crew members they hadn’t yet found. Although he did not want to interfere in the affairs of another state, King Baldrey suggested some sort of official recognition for Flida, and possibly Dieter Cadagyr too.

The Coaltongue departed for Risur. Just before she went, Uru shared with several street urchins a little ditty he had composed in honour of ‘the true hero of the liberation of Ursalina’ (as he saw it). It was called the Ballad of a Pickle-man.