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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ao the Overkitty" data-source="post: 4700637" data-attributes="member: 9758">Session 59 - Tying Up Loosely Knitted EndsSession 59Synopsis of 11/19/07Tying Up Loosely Knitted EndsSubtitle: A-dom’s Gift to Atlantis. -By Ao the OverkittyWith the destruction of the Cynis Manse sometime back, there had come to be a large population of ghosts within the dwindling city of Atlantis.  Jade’s Luck and A-dom decided they needed to do something about the ghosts.  The best thing they could think of was to do an occult ritual to send all of the ghosts to the Underworld permanently so that the ghosts wouldn’t be wandering about Creation scaring people.  They spent a few days acquiring supplies needed for the ritual.  Once this was completed, Tiger and Jade’s Luck helped A-dom perform the ritual.  Unfortunately, A-dom double-botched.Ryan: Bound to happen.After they finished the ritual, they all thought things went swimmingly.  A-dom figured that, since they did so well fixing the problem in the remains of the Cynis Compound, they’d toddle off to the Sessus compound to fix that one as well.  As they walked along at night, Tiger noticed that buildings looked a little different.  Parts of town they knew blew up were now there.  Things were a lot darker than normal.  Plus, the purple sun was a big clue they were now in the Underworld.Jade’s Luck: I thought you needed a Shadowland to wander into the Underworld.Tiger: Yeah, apparently… not.A-dom: Yeah… you know that ritual?  It may have gone awry.  Whose got something shiny?Tiger suggested they just wander back into the Shadowland and wait for day.  While waiting there, they looked at the Cynis Manse from a short distance.  It looked kind of cubist.When day came, they wandered back out but found they were still in the Underworld.A-dom: Okay, Plan B.  Whose got something shiny?A-dom began casting his travel between Creation and the Underworld spell.  He found the necromantic energy around him felt much stronger than usual.  When he finished the spell, he found they were still in the Underworld.  A-dom surmised that, when he cast the ritual, he aligned themselves with Underworld energies.  He figured they needed to wait until the ritual wore off.  Thankfully, they are Solars, so that should only take them a week or two.Meanwhile, Gareth had noticed that the others hadn’t returned from dealing with the ghosts.  He breathed a sigh of relief and welcomed his little vacation.  He put his alone time to good use and trained in charms to make people respect his authority.The Underworld trio discussed what they should do for a week.  A-dom suggested they could try and find Jahar’s Mother.  Or maybe Jade’s Luck’s mother.  The tea house was populated by a lot of people who died there, but her mother wasn’t there.  She was told that her mother had been there for a few days, but had moved on.Tiger: Time for you to!Tiger killed a random drunken ghost.Jade’s Luck asked them why they weren’t moving on as well.  A-dom asked them what they had left to do.  When one of the ghosts said he wanted to win the annual fishing contest, Jade’s Luck suggested he go fishing in the Undead Sea.  She was met by looks of shock and horror from all around.A-dom: Water BAAAAAD here.  It’s all black and scary looking.  And there is stuff in it.  BAAAAD stuff.  Plus ghosts can’t pass rings of salt and, depending upon the salt concentration, they need a well sealed boat.We’re going to skip over the long discussion about Tiger draining the blood of babies and leaving a trail of deflated baby corpses in his wake.Eventually they asked around for Jahar’s Mother, but no one had seen her.  Then A-dom got the idea to visit the Great Library, since it wouldn’t be a crater in the Underworld.They found the door to the large building consisted of two gargoyles, whom A-dom greeted.  The gargoyles told them they were not allowed in, since they were not on the list.Gargoyle: No, I can’t show you the list.  You always ask that.  A-dom: How do you know who I am?  I was Markus the Mad!Gargoyle: Your island is over there! *points*A-dom ooo’d.Jade’s Luck then asked if all of them weren’t on the list.Gargoyle: Oh.  You’re here.The gargoyles then turned around and went into the wall.  They could hear stone slabs moving on the other side of the door.Jade’s Luck: I didn’t tell them who I was!Alex: They recognized… Yew.Jade’s Luck continued the building.  The Great Library started sinking into the ground to get away from her.With the Great Library a bust, they travelled to the City of Yew to visit their library.  They found a barren plateau instead of a city there.Jade’s Luck lamented about how annoyed she was about being held responsible for things she couldn’t remember and wasn’t even allowed to remember.A-dom: Oh, incidentally, before I thought I was going to die… the last time.  I apparently had killed one of Gareth’s past lives and started the war with Yew.  I don’t remember all of the details, but there was the killing of the Gareth and a war was starting.  Don’t remember who was the bad side.Jade’s Luck wondered that, if she stayed away, the Library might let Tiger and A-dom talk to it.  Seeing the Library still hadn’t come back up, A-dom said they didn’t need to worry about that this trip.  Jade’s Luck suggested that she could wander down into the tunnels and scare it back up.A-dom looked over at Markus’ Gift from afar.  He saw the island was much bigger and it had a bog, fancy building in the center of it, which would be in the ocean in Creation.  Weijin Island looked just like it did in Creation.  They got into a discussion on plans to do something with that island to make it more interesting.They spent the rest of the week training.  Afterwards, they ventured back into the Cynis Compound and left during the day to find themselves back in Creation.  The bad news was there was now a Shadowland in Atlantis city.  The good news was the number of buildings in the city had just gone up.A-dom: I don’t know how to fix a Shadowland yet, but I’m sure I will.Jade’s Luck decided she needed to learn high level sorcery to fix the Shadowland.While they were gone, Gareth tried to find the other dragon-blood wives they needed to kill.  He did an impressive bit of investigation to find out that the dead wife was in fact dead and the other wives had mysteriously disappeared and/or fled.  They didn’t leave by ship and there wasn’t any pomp and circumstance.  Most of them left within three days of Jahar’s mother’s death.  At least one person who worked at one of the houses described a short-tall guy who came right in before the mistress left.Jade’s Luck suggested Tiger’s mentor would be a great guy to set up the rebellion.  Tiger thought that they would be great at setting up the rebellion.The group got around to letting Gareth know there was now a Shadowland in the city and Jade’s Luck asked if he could build a wall around it.  He devised a plan to use Obsidian butterflies and salt to make the wall.  He built A-dom a cart that could withstand moving at seventy miles an hour and be filled with sharp obsidian.  Jade’s Luck expressed a desire to island hop and make a quick trip to Heaven.  Gareth expressed concern for her safety wandering around Heaven alone.  He felt she’d be fine on any of the islands, but he was unsure about not going in numbers to Heaven and asked her to wait on that particular trip.Tiger wandered off without telling anyone and started planning and forming the resistance to their occupation of the island.  He did a very good job of making them very secretive, evil cult and focused on things other than actual opposition to the group. (He got a twenty six on his extended roll plan for the resistance and a ten on talking people into it).  They had all sorts of false goals to chase, but they were very defensive and successful in that, so the Circle never heard of them.On his first trip to Flatfields for obsidian, A-dom dropped Jade’s Luck off at the City of Yew so she could go island hopping.Gareth realized that he wouldn’t have enough butterflies to finish the wall, so he would have to wait for more butterflies or finish it with another type of stone.  He opted to have a mosaic section of the wall, so it would look different for a reason.One day, while working on the Gatehouse, Gareth saw someone waving at him with big, colorful mittens.Dreary greeted Gareth and inquired about the wall.  Dreary said they had heard the group had gotten a Shadowland and had to come see.  Gareth said it was A-dom’s fault.  Dreary asked if they had any plans for it.  Gareth said A-dom had plans for it.  Dreary asked him to send A-dom by sometime and that he’d be staying at ‘that large, strange looking building over there’ (the Cynis Manse).Eventually, A-dom wandered by to talk to Dreary.  Dreary complimented A-dom on his Shadowland and asked how he did it.  A-dom explained it kind of happened as a mistake.A-dom: But you, know, its one of those things where the Unconquered Sun closes a door, but opens a window.Dreary wrote that down. A-dom explained their plans were to first make the mortals more comfortable with it, hence the wall. Then they were going to see what they could do with the Manse and other things.Dreary offered to get someone to come and run the Shadowland for them.  Someone comfortable with it and could deal with the day to day trials for the group.  A-dom begrudgingly said he should send someone and he would interview them and see if he liked them.  He wanted to retain the ability to reject someone.  Dreary okayed his staying there until they found someone, to make sure the ghosts were kept in order.A-dom asked Dreary about his mittens.  Dreary explained that this little old lady exalted and liked to knit, so she knit artifacts.  He further explained that others didn’t want to use the artifacts, because they were knit. He didn’t understand why, since they were very comfy and kept you warm.  Plus, they could make perfect snowballs appear out of thin air.A-dom thought that was the best thing ever.  A-dom took the snowball and chucked it at Gareth’s head.  After wiping the snow off his head, neck and shoulders, Gareth ordered A-dom to come have a chat.A-dom: Good news!Gareth: You found snow.A-dom explained that he got some information on the mittens, but also that Dreary had offered to stabilize things in the Shadowland for the group.  He explained that the bad/crazy people would still be bad/crazy dead people and try to coax mortals over to their deaths.Jade’s Luck dropped in on the Elemental Manse and the monkeys said everything was fine.  They gave her a slice of lemon meringue pie before she popped over to Markus’ Gift to encourage planting and harvesting.  She went through the portal at a time when no one was swimming.  She had previously written a note to Wintersun asking if they could meet instead of just passing notes.  This time, she found a note that she should light a torch on the tallest building in town and then wait on the southern most building in town.She did that and, after waiting an hour, a bird flew over and turned into a person.  She introduced herself and explained about the portal being in a bad spot and possibly moving the bathhouse.  This conversation led to letting him know just what happened to Frank, the leader of the rebellion.  She mentioned the Shadowland in passing, like it was normal conversation.  She explained the lack of harvests on Atlantis and the massive depopulation that went on.  He said they were working the fields again, but wouldn’t have much of a surplus.  He said they’d have some to trade for other stuff they needed, but not much.She mentioned the Manse that was liked to Jahar’s mother’s death and he said that could explain what happened on Markus’ Gift.  Since the island used to be larger and have a Manse, if it was linked to the death of someone, that would explain where the Manse went.She went on to explain about the note Jahar’s mother left and said they weren’t expecting dragon-blood reinforcements anytime soon.  He said the hurricane probably helped with that too, but they would like to be able to go out fishing sometime.  That would help with any famine problems.  She said she’d have a talk with the guy who controlled it once she got back to Yew.She asked him if he knew any really old Lunars, because she had some questions about stuff that happened before she was alive.  Stuff like what happened to the Solars and the like.When she mentioned that she used to be Yew, he shuffled away from her a bit.  Jade’s Luck: But I don’t remember any of that! A building ran away from me and I don’t understand and I WANT to understand!Wintersun didn’t think it was his place to explain things like that.  She said she just wanted someone old and wise and to ask them questions.  He said he’d never had problems like that.Wintersun said everything was good there and he’d ponder how to make the portal ‘safe.’Finally it dawned on Jade’s Luck that they were in control of Atlantis now.Wintersun asked what the group was planning on doing with the slaves on Atlantis, hinting they should free them.  Jade’s Luck said she had never been in favor of slavery.Wintersun: Excellent.  Free the slaves now, save yourself from a revolt later.She stated that she had some errands to run first.  He said that she didn’t need to do it today and that it would take him at least a month to get a revolt going.She showed him the portal, but he couldn’t see it.  Ideas for what to put there after they move the pool were:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A Janitor’s Closet</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A Bathroom with an out of order sign and a foul stench</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An Archway</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A Shrine</li> </ul>He said they’d work something out.Jade’s Luck then popped over to Jahar’s island.  He wasn’t around.She popped over to A-dom’s island.  Things were normal on the island, but there were lots of brown children, shark-eyed children, children with tusks and fangs.  She made a list of their names.  A lot of A-yuk, A-chuck, Uk-doms.  She made sketches of each one.Ryan: Ugly, ugly, ugly, keeper, ugly, ugly…They said they’d have some food to trade.Things on Spider Island were pretty much status quo.She popped in on Hoen-ba.  They were worried about the hurricane off the coast of Atlantis.  She said she was going to make it go away in a week or so.  They said they’d stop making sacrifices to the evil hurricane spirit then.  They wouldn’t have extra food.  They could give a bag of coconuts and that was about it.She popped over to talk to Opec and ask him about spells to get rid of Shadowlands.  She heard him clearly when he said he knew all of them that had been created before people stopped visiting him.  She asked him why everyone was so scared of Yew.  He explained that she popularized necromancy, took over Atlantis with it, and killed off her own Circle. Or, at least, tried to do the last one.  He explained that he didn’t know any counters for necromancy.Opec: Let me try to explain… No, I can’t.  Necromancy is completely different for Sorcery, despite it being almost exactly the same.Jade’s Luck: Wow.  Is that why Jahar always sounds the way he does?Opec: No.  I think that’s genetic.She told him she had some rocks in her pocket from Jahar.  He told her to leave them around him.  He said he’d think of something for her to bring him later in exchange for teaching her Sorcery later.The skeleton waved at her.  The skeleton gave her a description of the people that came by.  It sounded like Jahar several times with different clothing.Jade’s Luck then popped over to Abalone and made an appointment with the Lunar’s secretary.  She didn’t really believe Gareth’s worries about going to Heaven alone.  She waited six hours to meet him.  She had to explain that she wanted to go to Heaven to find out about reincarnation and how to persuade ghosts to move on.  She was asked to sign a contract to the effect that she was not trying to start necromancy.  She agreed and he said the contract would be drawn up.The contract:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She was not going to Heaven to learn necromancy</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">She was not in the employ of a Deathlord</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Several other things that were entirely true about Jade’s Luck</li> </ul>She felt a sparkle after she signed it.  She was then allowed to visit Heaven.  She talked to the Lions.  They decided she was there on business.  They said she’d have to wait for a guide.  While she waited, she asked if she was safe wandering around Heaven alone.  When she was asked if she knew the laws, she said no, beyond being polite to people.  The Lion then kind of explained the laws of heaven to her.Rough explanation of the Laws of Heaven: Crime is determined by Essence.  People with higher Essence are more important and therefore can do things to people with lower Essence.  People with Essence less than three don’t count.  They aren’t supernatural enough for Heaven to care.  As someone with Essence four, Jade’s Luck counted as a person, though a very low ranking peon type person.  So, if someone murders her on the street, it depends upon who kills her.  However, she is a peon of a high essence god, so someone will have to send an apology note.  And possibly owe a favor or a debt.The Lions felt the likelihood of her getting murdered was fairly low if she was polite and stayed away from the god of Instant Death.She asked about Mother<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ers and said they seemed out to get her in Creation.  She was told it wasn’t there job in Heaven.  The Lion didn’t know what their job in Creation was, so he wasn’t concerned with it.  When asked if it wasn’t anybody’s job in Heaven to murderize her (aka Solars) she was told no.  The other Lion said it was their job, if she committed a crime.  She asked for a list of crimes.  She was handed a list.  Number one on the list was No Stealing the Peaches of Immortality.  It was a long list of fairly avoidable rules.  She decided not to let A-dom know about the existence of the Peaches of Immortality.Eventually the god of Stubbed Toes showed up to guide her.  The god had eight legs.  He said she wanted to talk to the Bureaucracy of Humanity.  He said it was going to be a long walk and stubbed his toes often.  She found out he was the god of people who were thankful for stubbing their toes.GoST: There was this guy who stubbed his toe and didn’t show up for work.  Then half the city blew up.  I got money for that!Talking to him, she found this as going to be a very long walk and involve a lot of paperwork (a weeks worth of walking each way).  GoST mentioned the Well of Souls, which he said was a very, very long walk.  He pointed out the bit of gold at the top of the Celestial mountain.  He explained that it held all of the Souls.  He didn’t know if it held all of the souls ever or what.  She also found out that twenty two people were stubbing their toes at that instant, but none were thankful.  He easily convinced her that a four to five hour walk to talk to the Unconquered Sun would be quicker.The Unconquered Sun tried to summarize how reincarnation worked.US: If the soul goes into Lethe, then they go into the Well of Souls and will be reborn.  Then, when somebody is born, the soul goes out of the Well of Souls and into the person.Jade’s Luck asked about the bad way to move on.US: Someone theorized that there is something under the Underworld that sucks things in.  And they would just go away there.She asked if it was like when Tiger kills ghosts dead.  The US said yes.  When asked if that was a bad charm for him to use, US said it depended upon how it was used.She then asked about when she got really, really mad.  She explained the situation and mentioned the guy with the blue face.  He didn’t really know anything about her getting mad, but said the guy with the blue face was a nice guy.  He also said some people just needed to be killed.  He emphasized bringing people to Yew to pray to him.Jade’s Luck wandered back and thanked everyone that was helpful to her.  She stepped back into Creation and realized the piece of paper with the laws on it was gone.  She tried jotting down as many as she could remember.  She got a lot of the important ones, <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don’t steal the Peaches of Immortality</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don’t insult higher essence beings</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don’t get in the way of a messenger of Heaven</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don’t impede an investigation by the Golden Lions</li> </ul>She was pretty sure she was mangling the ones she thought were less important.She then went back to Elemental Island and went to check on the families.  They were harvesting from the forest and the roofs didn’t leak.  And the weird rain cloud came by once a day.  They were freaked out by the plates of muffins that mysteriously appeared.  They never got raw food; always cooked or prepared in some way.  They found it very weird.The tribal village was doing fine and had fish to trade.Jade’s Luck went back to Yew and looked around for a running A-dom. During her time gone, A-dom received a thank you note from the Bodhisattva.  Not seeing one, she stood on a tall building in Yew and flared her anima to get their attention.A-dom (to Tiger): You want to, or should I?Tiger shrugged.A-dom ran off to collect Jade’s Luck.  He didn’t bother stopping as her grabbed her.  He made a wide turn and started heading back to Atlantis.Jade’s Luck: So, we need to abolish slavery.A-dom: Everywhere?Jade’s Luck explained about Wintersun and taking down the hurricane.  A-dom made another wide turn and headed to the Lake Manse.  A-dom made a screeching noise and splashed the water a little.Jade’s Luck talked to the dragon-blood.   She told him he could go back to harassing pirates.  It rained very briefly over Atlantis as the hurricane shot off.A-dom: Those are going to be some very sad, confused pirates.She asked about the children and he said they were being taken care of and were fine.  She thanked him and then headed back to Atlantis.At this point, Paul asked the group what else they wanted to do for the night and walked out of the room.  When he got back, he asked for their answer.  Ryan told him nothing.  Paul was happy. Then Liz started roleplaying again.  Paul was sad.Paul (to Ryan): Liar.Once back in Atlantis and together, Jade’s Luck handed A-dom the sketches of his children.A-dom: Wow, those are ugly.She relayed the information from her travels.  She gave A-dom a very truncated list of rules in Heaven and mentioned the Well of Souls to him.  She hasn’t learned.She told Tiger and Gareth a longer list of the rules.  She only told Gareth about the Peaches of Immortality.When told about the abolition of slavery, Gareth got to work on it right then.  He created a ‘New Deal’ to make sure the process would be as smooth as possible and not let people starve or go without jobs.  He bureaucratized the <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> out of it.Alex: I’m one charm and a specialty away from being able to convert people.Liz: What are we converting them to?Alex: The religion of the Unconquered Sun.Liz: Which is?Alex: Fuzzy.Jade’s Luck told A-dom that Opec told her he could teach her to get rid of the Shadowland.  A-dom told her that Dreary was there and showed her the thank you note.A-dom: Dreary is keeping the crazies in.  There was no handshake. There was no woogie-woogie.  There was no magical thing.  I didn’t touch Dreary.  All I did was accept a snowball from him.  That may have screwed me over, for all I know.They finally got around to telling Gareth about the incident at the Library.  Gareth laughed for a good minute.Jade’s Luck: Oh, yeah, even though I wasn’t me at the time, I want to say I’m sorry for trying to kill the Circle.Gareth (gesturing towards A-dom): He’s Mii.Tiger: He really doesn’t exist.Gareth: We don’t know is Hee exists or not.  We just know Mii doesn’t.Paul: We need to find someone new to run a game for us.  We won’t tell him this, but we’ll show up.  One character will be named Yew.  One will be named Mii.  One named Eye.  One named Hymn.  One will be named Herr.Liz: and we’ll make that person cry in the first five minutes of running the game.Alex: No, because the person we’ll get to run it is Gabe.  Why is the bad guy.Paul: Who, What, When, Where, Why, He, She are the bad guys.Ryan: That’s a great idea for a oneshot.Tiger eventually explained that he created the Resistance.End of First Story</blockquote>

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