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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 6127146" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 72 - The Lady of the Forked Tongue</strong></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Matunaaga, now conscious, and Ottavia stood at the far end of one of the long, narrow interconnecting corridors and confronted the unit as they returned. They fired warning shots and Ottavia challenged them to prove that they had not been further possessed by the demon at the heart of the vault. (She had used the headband of roaming thoughst to convince Matunaaga to support her.) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Uru told her he had stepped inside an angel, and Malthusius and Korrigan told her the full story. She was taken aback, more affected by what she heard than they expected. Nevertheless, she exacted a promise before agreeing to stand down: that she be allowed to keep her headband on condition that she did not use it against them. (Frankly, if she still wanted to kill them all, now would have been the ideal opportunity to try - with Matunaaga by her side.) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They agreed and she relinquished her hold on Matunaaga. Then she told them she had prayed to the angels for aid, and now wondered if they had answered. She and Malthusius both knew that such beings rarely appeared to mortals. Ottavia said she was glad that Korrigan had relinquished his pact with the demon. On their way back to the warded door, they spoke of the path of Trigenes, and Ottavia told him that to follow it did not require the trappings, ceremonies and ritals of the Church, nor an abandonment of prior faiths; that Trigenes was not a god to be worshipped but a man whose example could be followed and emulated. Korrigan took her words to heart. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Encouraged by Ottavia, the unit shared the nature of their individual temptations: Malthusius had been offered immortality in his current incarnation; Matunaaga the means to attain 'living weaponhood'; Uru had been offered a way to draw the innocent spirits of Cauldron Hill to his garden; Korrigan would not reveal how the demoness had tempted him. </li> </ul><p></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Arriving at the warded door, Malthusius sacrificed life-force to open it and they stepped inside. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beyond lay a great hall, in better condition than the rest of the vault, but still collapsed and waterlogged in large portion. Throughout the room stood golden mirrors (somehow connected to Egal the Shimmering, Malthusius recalled) and empty magic circles. A wizened old man squatted naked on a stone platform. When the party entered he leapt up, moving with great speed and agility and ducked and dodged his way towards them. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">This was Gene, a corrupted clergy Godhand. As he fought he muttered to himself, complaining about his long internment and having no-one to talk to for so long; about how 'tasty' the other occupants of the prison had been; about his cruel mistress who would not grant him the knowledge he sought despite his long servitude. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">His blows flared with lightning and he thrust and threw his foes about the room. Proximity to the mirrors caused golden doppelgangers to emerge and attack, while the warding circles restrained their victims and required great force of will to escape. Leon was knocked unconscious by the crazed godhand and Ottavia stayed with him as the unit pursued the lunatic deeper into the hall. She reported that his jaw appeared to have been broken. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Despite his fearsome agility and strength, Gene was eventually felled. Malthusius treid to converse with his spirit, but it had long ago been sacrificed or consumed. In a pouch around his neck they found an ancient plate made of an unknown metal or stone. The inscriptions were in a language Matunaaga recognised from similar artifacts in his homeland and Xambria was overwhelmed with curiosity. Matunaaga took the plate for study, along with the magical gloves Gene was wearing. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They headed down the steps into the final chamber, with Ottavia offering her support to Leon, whose back injury had been exacerbated by Gene's blow and who winced with every step. They could hear the sound of waves and there was a briny spray in the air. Suspended over a broad pool of seawater by seven enchanted chains was the demon Ashima-Shimtu and she spoke to them in an all-too familiar voice: </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>"When Triegenes, founder of the Clergy, defeated the Demonocracy, most of the fiend rulers were slain. Because their souls could not return to the hellish planes that spawned them, the corruption drained into this world. Ashima-Shim-tu, however, bargained for her life, offering to be a prisoner, and in exchange she would provide guidance on how to find and trap the trace essences of the other high fiends. The Clergy chained her above this well that leads to the sea, and ringed the wall of the pit with blessings. Now she hangs above a massive font of holy water. The vapor forever stings her, and should she ever wriggle free she will fall and be dissolved. She upheld her end of the bargain for centuries, and learned to meditate and ignore her physical existence so she would not go mad from solitude. Eventually the Clergy captured every fiend’s essence it could find, and they locked them into the same vault with Ashima-Shimtu. And so the Lady of the Forked Tongue would have been forgotten, if not for the holy war between the eladrin and the Clergy. Five hundred years ago two people came to the Isle of Odiem and received from Ashima-Shimtu a ritual that could give physical form to a belief. The ritual was used to conjure forth an avatar of the eladrin goddess Srasama, and when she was slain the eladrin race was nearly annihilated. The surviving heads of the Clergy learned that Ashima-Shimtu had been involved, but she refused to give them the secret of the ritual unless they released her. They threatened to kill her, but she knew the temptation to wield such power made her too valuable to kill. And so she remains, the Keeper of the Secret That Must Not Be Lost, waiting for the day the hierarch of the Clergy releases her. Today is not that day. The visitors to her prison could never break her chains. </strong><strong>But she sees value in them.”</strong> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="font-size: 10px">She then addressed each of the adventurers in turn:</span> </li> </ul><p></p><p></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri'"><strong>"A tiefling turncoat hiding from himself. How many heads can one coin have?<br /> <br /> The schism-wrought whose sense of duty leads him to abandon those he loves.<br /> <br /> The foolhardy dwarf who never questions his strange new gifts. But are they truly GIFTS? <br /> <br /> Wise immortal, scared for his own skin; a butterfly so jealous of its chrysalis it never spreads its wings. Within - a cat killed by curiosity.<br /> <br /> Centuries have passed since the queen of lies has seen a gidim-foe. This one masquerades as human and craves the servitude his race was bred for.<br /> <br /> And the deep faen, the fox in the chicken coop, a dangerous pet for humans to keep, whose desire to explore dark places is an obsession that will destroy him...<br /> </strong></span> </li> </ul><p></p><p></p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>"Ashima-Shimtu has meditated, and being the guest of priests this past mil</strong><strong>lennium has given her time to consider matters of morality. She could condemn these intruders to a slow death of starvation, as she has so many times before, but she offers them instead their freedom, since she cannot have such herself. This is no devil’s bargain, nor a gift that must be repaid by force of infernal con</strong><strong>tract. The visitors to her prison desire to leave. They need only step to the lip of this </strong><strong>well, speak the name of where they would travel, and dive in. Ashima-Shimtu will </strong><strong>see them safely there. More, she will conceal them for a time, so that the divinations </strong><strong>of their enemies will think them dead. She thinks this is the least she can do to thank </strong> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>her visitors for removing the unpleasant man who had bothered her."</strong> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Then, eerily, the demoness seemed to smile with amusement for a moment </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">before lowering her head. The chains themselves seemed to relax, and she sighed </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">as the pain subsided. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ottavia registered alarm, but before she could react or object, she found Leon's acidic blade pressed against he ribs. He shrugged apologetically at her shocked expression. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Malthusius sought some way they could free Ottavia at the same time. For her part Ottavia made no attempt to persuade them she would not betray their whereabouts and they they knew her well enough by now to take her devotion to Luc for granted; she had been prepared to give her life for him, after all. But Ottavia had experienced a softening of her attitude towards them, and so neither side had any burning desire to harm the other. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They told Ottavia they had no intention of harming Luc Jierre. That their mission was only to establish who his contacts were. They would take her with them from this place on the condition that she accompany them, verify they meant no direct harm, and allow them to depart Vendricce unmolested having done so. Ottavia agreed, and Malthusius was certain she was telling the truth. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">With that, they spoke the name of Vendricce and dived into the pool of holy seawater. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The tumult and rushing that accompanied their dive did not cease for many minutes. They felt themselves propelled, spiralling through the ocean. Towards the end of their journey they became aware of screaming and sensed the taint of blood in the water. Then suddenly, they surfaced, just offshore near the harbour of Vendricce, shortly before sunrise. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Leon was splashing about and crying, "My face! My face!" It was his blood in the water. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Disconcertingly, Ottavia was nowhere to be found, though Rumdoom swam beneath the surface and searched for her. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Meanwhile, Korrigan and Malthusius peeled Leon's hands away from his face. In five-inch letters, covering his forehead, cheeks and nose, had been crudely carved the word <span style="font-size: 22px"><strong>LIAR</strong>.</span> </li> </ul></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 6127146, member: 79141"] [b]Session 72 - The Lady of the Forked Tongue[/b] [LIST] [*]Matunaaga, now conscious, and Ottavia stood at the far end of one of the long, narrow interconnecting corridors and confronted the unit as they returned. They fired warning shots and Ottavia challenged them to prove that they had not been further possessed by the demon at the heart of the vault. (She had used the headband of roaming thoughst to convince Matunaaga to support her.) [*]Uru told her he had stepped inside an angel, and Malthusius and Korrigan told her the full story. She was taken aback, more affected by what she heard than they expected. Nevertheless, she exacted a promise before agreeing to stand down: that she be allowed to keep her headband on condition that she did not use it against them. (Frankly, if she still wanted to kill them all, now would have been the ideal opportunity to try - with Matunaaga by her side.) [*]They agreed and she relinquished her hold on Matunaaga. Then she told them she had prayed to the angels for aid, and now wondered if they had answered. She and Malthusius both knew that such beings rarely appeared to mortals. Ottavia said she was glad that Korrigan had relinquished his pact with the demon. On their way back to the warded door, they spoke of the path of Trigenes, and Ottavia told him that to follow it did not require the trappings, ceremonies and ritals of the Church, nor an abandonment of prior faiths; that Trigenes was not a god to be worshipped but a man whose example could be followed and emulated. Korrigan took her words to heart. [*]Encouraged by Ottavia, the unit shared the nature of their individual temptations: Malthusius had been offered immortality in his current incarnation; Matunaaga the means to attain 'living weaponhood'; Uru had been offered a way to draw the innocent spirits of Cauldron Hill to his garden; Korrigan would not reveal how the demoness had tempted him. [/LIST] [LIST] [*]Arriving at the warded door, Malthusius sacrificed life-force to open it and they stepped inside. [*]Beyond lay a great hall, in better condition than the rest of the vault, but still collapsed and waterlogged in large portion. Throughout the room stood golden mirrors (somehow connected to Egal the Shimmering, Malthusius recalled) and empty magic circles. A wizened old man squatted naked on a stone platform. When the party entered he leapt up, moving with great speed and agility and ducked and dodged his way towards them. [*]This was Gene, a corrupted clergy Godhand. As he fought he muttered to himself, complaining about his long internment and having no-one to talk to for so long; about how 'tasty' the other occupants of the prison had been; about his cruel mistress who would not grant him the knowledge he sought despite his long servitude. [*]His blows flared with lightning and he thrust and threw his foes about the room. Proximity to the mirrors caused golden doppelgangers to emerge and attack, while the warding circles restrained their victims and required great force of will to escape. Leon was knocked unconscious by the crazed godhand and Ottavia stayed with him as the unit pursued the lunatic deeper into the hall. She reported that his jaw appeared to have been broken. [*]Despite his fearsome agility and strength, Gene was eventually felled. Malthusius treid to converse with his spirit, but it had long ago been sacrificed or consumed. In a pouch around his neck they found an ancient plate made of an unknown metal or stone. The inscriptions were in a language Matunaaga recognised from similar artifacts in his homeland and Xambria was overwhelmed with curiosity. Matunaaga took the plate for study, along with the magical gloves Gene was wearing. [*]They headed down the steps into the final chamber, with Ottavia offering her support to Leon, whose back injury had been exacerbated by Gene's blow and who winced with every step. They could hear the sound of waves and there was a briny spray in the air. Suspended over a broad pool of seawater by seven enchanted chains was the demon Ashima-Shimtu and she spoke to them in an all-too familiar voice: [*][B]"When Triegenes, founder of the Clergy, defeated the Demonocracy, most of the fiend rulers were slain. Because their souls could not return to the hellish planes that spawned them, the corruption drained into this world. Ashima-Shim-tu, however, bargained for her life, offering to be a prisoner, and in exchange she would provide guidance on how to find and trap the trace essences of the other high fiends. The Clergy chained her above this well that leads to the sea, and ringed the wall of the pit with blessings. Now she hangs above a massive font of holy water. The vapor forever stings her, and should she ever wriggle free she will fall and be dissolved. She upheld her end of the bargain for centuries, and learned to meditate and ignore her physical existence so she would not go mad from solitude. Eventually the Clergy captured every fiend’s essence it could find, and they locked them into the same vault with Ashima-Shimtu. And so the Lady of the Forked Tongue would have been forgotten, if not for the holy war between the eladrin and the Clergy. Five hundred years ago two people came to the Isle of Odiem and received from Ashima-Shimtu a ritual that could give physical form to a belief. The ritual was used to conjure forth an avatar of the eladrin goddess Srasama, and when she was slain the eladrin race was nearly annihilated. The surviving heads of the Clergy learned that Ashima-Shimtu had been involved, but she refused to give them the secret of the ritual unless they released her. They threatened to kill her, but she knew the temptation to wield such power made her too valuable to kill. And so she remains, the Keeper of the Secret That Must Not Be Lost, waiting for the day the hierarch of the Clergy releases her. Today is not that day. The visitors to her prison could never break her chains. [/B][B]But she sees value in them.”[/B] [*][SIZE=2]She then addressed each of the adventurers in turn:[/SIZE] [/LIST] [LIST] [*][FONT=Calibri][B]"A tiefling turncoat hiding from himself. How many heads can one coin have? The schism-wrought whose sense of duty leads him to abandon those he loves. The foolhardy dwarf who never questions his strange new gifts. But are they truly GIFTS? Wise immortal, scared for his own skin; a butterfly so jealous of its chrysalis it never spreads its wings. Within - a cat killed by curiosity. Centuries have passed since the queen of lies has seen a gidim-foe. This one masquerades as human and craves the servitude his race was bred for. And the deep faen, the fox in the chicken coop, a dangerous pet for humans to keep, whose desire to explore dark places is an obsession that will destroy him... [/B][/FONT] [/LIST] [LIST] [*][B]"Ashima-Shimtu has meditated, and being the guest of priests this past mil[/B][B]lennium has given her time to consider matters of morality. She could condemn these intruders to a slow death of starvation, as she has so many times before, but she offers them instead their freedom, since she cannot have such herself. This is no devil’s bargain, nor a gift that must be repaid by force of infernal con[/B][B]tract. The visitors to her prison desire to leave. They need only step to the lip of this [/B][B]well, speak the name of where they would travel, and dive in. Ashima-Shimtu will [/B][B]see them safely there. More, she will conceal them for a time, so that the divinations [/B][B]of their enemies will think them dead. She thinks this is the least she can do to thank [/B] [*][B]her visitors for removing the unpleasant man who had bothered her."[/B] [*]Then, eerily, the demoness seemed to smile with amusement for a moment [*]before lowering her head. The chains themselves seemed to relax, and she sighed [*]as the pain subsided. [*]Ottavia registered alarm, but before she could react or object, she found Leon's acidic blade pressed against he ribs. He shrugged apologetically at her shocked expression. [*]Malthusius sought some way they could free Ottavia at the same time. For her part Ottavia made no attempt to persuade them she would not betray their whereabouts and they they knew her well enough by now to take her devotion to Luc for granted; she had been prepared to give her life for him, after all. But Ottavia had experienced a softening of her attitude towards them, and so neither side had any burning desire to harm the other. [*]They told Ottavia they had no intention of harming Luc Jierre. That their mission was only to establish who his contacts were. They would take her with them from this place on the condition that she accompany them, verify they meant no direct harm, and allow them to depart Vendricce unmolested having done so. Ottavia agreed, and Malthusius was certain she was telling the truth. [*]With that, they spoke the name of Vendricce and dived into the pool of holy seawater. [*]The tumult and rushing that accompanied their dive did not cease for many minutes. They felt themselves propelled, spiralling through the ocean. Towards the end of their journey they became aware of screaming and sensed the taint of blood in the water. Then suddenly, they surfaced, just offshore near the harbour of Vendricce, shortly before sunrise. [*]Leon was splashing about and crying, "My face! My face!" It was his blood in the water. [*]Disconcertingly, Ottavia was nowhere to be found, though Rumdoom swam beneath the surface and searched for her. [*]Meanwhile, Korrigan and Malthusius peeled Leon's hands away from his face. In five-inch letters, covering his forehead, cheeks and nose, had been crudely carved the word [SIZE=6][B]LIAR[/B].[/SIZE] [/LIST] [/QUOTE]
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