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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7462863" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 61, Part Two - Stanfields’ Stand</strong></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>“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.</p><p></p><p>At once, Uru shot at the closest incarnation – the politician. He almost killed him outright. The loremaster caused him to disappear with a spell.</p><p></p><p>From his platform, Stanfield hurled an <em>obscurati charm</em> at Korrigan, but it failed to land. Then Stanfield muttered a sinister command word:</p><p></p><p>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 <em>cloak of shadows </em>which now flapped over his face and wrapped itself around him tightly. Rumdoom’s gift was a pair of <em>gloves of lasting frost </em>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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!”</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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 <em>genius loci </em>to aid him. The city itself rose up to defend him, and the first thing it did was kill the politician.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>Leon tried and failed to dispel the magic of Uru's <em>cloak of shadows</em>. 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.</p><p></p><p>While Quratulain dispatched the loremaster and the holy warrior, Gupta <em>stood in wonder</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.)</p><p></p><p>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 <em>righteous might </em>upon himself. Gupta asked Stanfield another perplexing question, and then Leon teleported everyone next to Stanfield.</p><p></p><p>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.”</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>“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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>“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 <em>baddy</em>!”</p><p></p><p><strong>End of Session</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7462863, member: 79141"] [b]Session 61, Part Two - Stanfields’ Stand[/b] 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 [I]obscurati charm[/I] 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 [I]cloak of shadows [/I]which now flapped over his face and wrapped itself around him tightly. Rumdoom’s gift was a pair of [I]gloves of lasting frost [/I]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 [I]genius loci [/I]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 [I]cloak of shadows[/I]. 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 [I]stood in wonder[/I] 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 [I]righteous might [/I]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 [I]baddy[/I]!” [B]End of Session[/B] [/QUOTE]
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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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