NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7289477" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 33, Part OneMany SendingsLeon spent the early morning in Ushanti in conversation and then in training with Kasvarina, who had agreed to try to verse him in the art of Elfaivaran warcasting.  Their initial discussion focused on the morality of the situation that had arisen in Sentosa – Gupta’s murder of the ananta paudha, and the unit’s subsequent flight.  Kasvarina still hoped she had picked the ‘right side’, particularly as Asrabey had vouched for the unit’s rectitude. But Helandra’s death had cast things in a very different light.  Leon was at pains to stress Gupta’s intention to redeem herself and linked that to Kasvarina’s own.  She was satisfied in particular that neither Leon nor any other member of the unit was sanguine about the event and hoped that the priests of Sarasvati would be able to help.  She and Leon then engaged in a strenuous bout of training and Leon felt sure that a ‘moment’ had passed between them.  Or was it just his imagination?It turned out that Ushanti had access to a linked portal with the pocket plane from which Vekeshi Mystics launched their guerrilla attacks in the Crucible, close to Vendricce.  Gupta, Kasvarina and Uriel were keen to explore that option.  But there was also the matter of travelling to Macdam to see if Benedict Pemberton would rendezvous with them as Leon had suggested.  Korrigan decided that he, Leon and Uru would go to Macdam, while the rest of the group travelled to the Crucible, but he gave the others orders not to leave the pocket plane until he returned.Before they set off, they fired off some sendings: First to Ken Don, who owed them a lifetime of favours for preventing his summary execution at the hands of Vitus Sigismund.  They asked Don to find out if there were any clergy records of deva having been ‘rescued’ from the eladrin in 240 AOV (the date Talmai the Heirophant died).  Korrigan also asked Don if he could establish more about William Miller’s early life and background. They also sent to Captain Smith aboard the Impossible (now docked in Seobriga) and requested that he return their paired sending stone, so that Leon could use follow the voice to rejoin the others more easily. (They made a mental note to return for the Sunfish which they had sunk at the mouth of the Tapi River close to Port Perrault, but right now they did not have time.)They sent an update to Delft, emphasising their effortless escape from Nicodemus’ trap.  Delft ‘congratulated’ them drily and said he also had news but wanted to speak to them directly if possible, should their travels bring them to Flint.Gupta sent a message to Melissa Amerie.  She said they might be visiting soon, and asked if Melissa could find out more about deva in Ber.  The half-orc journalist said that she was no historian, but was keen to know more about their impending visit: the monthly Panoply journal in which she published her serialised accounts of the unit’s adventures in Ber were selling like hotcakes – even shipping additional copies to Risur and elsewhere.  She hoped to organise a welcome party for the local heroes whose role in saving Ber from a dragon tyrant was now well known.Gupta was feeling a lot better today.  The others had provided her tiger form with a live goat during her transformation and consuming it had spared her the gnawing hunger of yesterday. While she had been unable to retain control of herself while transformed, she had been able to switch back out of tiger form through force of will and successfully made a deliberate transformation too.  Uriel kept her safely trapped in a warding circle throughout (and confirmed she had no control of her tiger form by deftly, and somewhat recklessly, stepping in and out of the circle when the tiger went for him).But Gupta still felt terrible about Helandra and later, when they went their separate ways, Gupta took Helandra’s body from the absurdist web, bound her respectfully, and bore her through the linked portal herself.  She cut a strange sight on arrival.Seaside RendezvousDespite the mysterious fluctuations that now affected all long-range teleports, Leon was able to bring himself, Korrigan and Uru to within a few feet of his intended destination – just on the outskirts of Macdam.  From there, they sent Uru into the town to scout out their rendezvous point: the One-Eyed Rat, a sizable dockside inn that was a good deal more salubrious than its name suggested.  It was bustling at lunchtime but Uru was able to sneak into the smoke and shadows of the ceiling and pick his way from beam to beam before sending out Winkin, Blinkin & Nod to hunt for duplicants.  They found one – a lonely hooded figure, with an unlit pipe in its mouth and an untouched drink on the table in front of it.  It didn’t look like Pemberton.  Uru sent a messenger wind to Korrigan and Leon, who now teleported to the upstairs landing, and entered the saloon from up there.At once, the tubby landlord spotted them and directed them to the stranger who had given their names when he entered that morning. “He hasn’t drunk much,” the landlord complained. He asked if the pair would be staying long and wished they had given him notice of their arrival, but they brushed him off politely and approached the duplicant.  It looked up, gave a sigh of relief and double-checked their names.  Then it said, “Hold on a moment.”  They held their breath and listened for tell-tale sounds of ticking, but instead of exploding the duplicant merely juddered a bit before its facial features moulded themselves to those of the industrialist Benedict Pemberton.  He moved awkwardly in the duplicant (one arm was barely functional) and complained that it was a mothballed prototype.“Well now,” he said, “why don’t you gentlemen tell me why you dragged me all the way here?”When they sat down, Korrigan first sought to establish how sore Pemberton was about his defeat in Ber.  Pemberton held up a hand, took out a pen-knife, opened it, handed it to Leon and asked him to hold it a moment.  Then he searched his pockets and took out a case of fine cigars, apologised that there was ‘only one’, retrieved the knife from Leon, snipped the end of the cigar and lit it from a candle on the table.  Then he stowed the knife, sat back in a cloud of cigar smoke, and reminded Korrigan that they had thwarted him not once, but twice: Three years ago Korrigan had turned political Risur, and popular opinion, against the joint enterprise of Pemberton Industries and Black Star Mining.  This had led to a falling out with Aodhan and Pemberton’s eventual withdrawal from Risur.They briefly bandied words about the nature of his oath to the kings of Risur.  (“A vow I was forced to make on pain of death, and which I long since regret. I’m sure you know how that feels,” he said, looking directly at Leon.)  Pemberton maintained that he had adhered to the letter, if not the spirit, of the oath and could not understand why Risur thought it necessary to thwart him. “Twice!”Korrigan gave a smile and said, “I make no apologies for either occasion, but I am sorry about what happened to your daughter.” Pemberton accepted this at face value and shared something of the depth of that loss: Teraklir had been an unexpected surprise, albeit a flawed one – hatched from a clutch of eggs he had found in his old lair, laid by his mate before she was slain.  He was grateful to the unit for avenging her death.Needless to say, the Ob had indeed drawn his attention.  “Having looked into the matter, I have decided that they are not an organisation with whom I am prepared to share the world.”Leon again reiterated their request to share information.  Pemberton shook his head.  “Son, I know how to walk and whistle at the same time. I don’t need to share information with you. All I asked was that you tell me what you’re up to so I can see if I can help.”  He wasn’t about to tell them his plans, for obvious reasons.  Leon then proposed that they fill him in on what they had learned on Mutravir.Pemberton shrugged. “I learned everything I need to know from a mutual friend. Reed Macbannin.  I guess he was using me as a fail-safe in case he couldn’t get you off the island. He had the presence of mind to reactivate the head of the duplicant I sent along as a welcome present, after it was blown clean off.”  To their surprise, Macbannin had already told Pemberton about the Grand Design.  Korrigan asked Pemberton what he knew about Nicodemus.  “Not much, except that he’s one hubristic son-of-a-bitch,” said Pemberton.  Coming from a dragon tyrant that was saying something.They discussed Borne.  Here, Pemberton could not help but express admiration for their creation which was beyond the wildest fever-dreams of contemporary technologists.  But now that Tinker was dead, Pemberton could offer no insights into how to control it.  “That colossus is the reason these people need to be stopped: because they’re capable. Capable of doing what they are trying to do, but not necessarily capable of controlling it.”Leon focused Pemberton’s attention on Axis Island.  Pemberton nodded with interest when the importance of the island was emphasised (here, it seemed, was at least something he had not derived from Macbannin’s hasty info-dump).  The island was in Danoran hands and no doubt well defended, but couldn’t Pemberton try to infiltrate in a civilian capacity – as a technological expert?Pemberton was about to respond to this suggestion when both outside doors were simultaneously kicked in and filled with carbine-wielding porteurs de mort, who loudly demanded their surrender.</blockquote>

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