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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7526841" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 205, Part Two - Inside the Mindscape</strong></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQHAhD3FYdA" target="_blank">[REFLIST][/REFLIST]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQHAhD3FYdA</a></p><p></p><p>As they drew closer, the urge to join the hivemind grew stronger. The unit was confident its members could resist, but feared for the minds of the crew. They could not get close enough to bring the brand to bear. Uru suggested using the dragon-fliers, but they were too vulnerable and could easily be lost permanently if they were forced to land. Uriel pointed out that he Quratulain, Rumdoom and Uru would all be able to reach the Godmind under their own steam. Once there, they could see if they could find a way to crack its outer shell and get inside.</p><p></p><p>Leon reappeared on deck as the coastal artillery began to fire. (Its shells were sufficient to distract the creature, but not create a hole in its translucent hide.) Leon opened up a mid-air wormhole to help Uriel’s aerial assault team to get as close as possible, then he entered gestalt with Korrigan. Entering the mindscape was now much easier, as the distracted Godmind no longer sought to expel them.</p><p></p><p>The fliers were immediately subjected to stronger and stronger coercion, urging them to join the Godmind and ‘contribute’. They were able to shrug it off and, when their resistance was obvious, were subjected to attacks from the black blooms. Uriel barely managed to dodge aside and called on Uru to deal with the blooms while the others landed on the surface of the Godmind. Uru winked out of sight and readied a careful shot. Rumdoom, Uriel and Quratulain landed. Blue and white pulses, wave-like striations on the skin of the creature, sought to repel them – to teleport them away. They stood firm, but realised they could not resist this indefinitely. Uriel saw that the skin was incredibly thick. It would take a massive blast to get through in one go!</p><p></p><p>Inside, Gupta looked for targets and saw that three of the attendees in particular – Chancellor Takhenova, Cardinal Banderesso, and War Minister Duffet – had enough sway over the gestalt that they had manifested ectoplasmic bodies; huge slime-green semblances of themselves, floating over the nest of tendrils like barrage balloons. Korrigan tried to use the sort of mental attacks they had developed against regular hiveminds, but to no avail.</p><p></p><p>On the outside, Quratulain drew the ridiculous Nok Gun out of her magical cloak. She had never used it in combat before because it was wildly inaccurate, but against such an enormous target she hoped to bring every barrel to bare and make hole before they were shunted away. She pressed it up against the Godmind and pulled the trigger. The pressure of the shot forced the gun up and away at the last minute, and would have dealt nothing but a glancing blow, but Rumdoom declared a fiat and the massive gun blew a hole in the Godmind that immediately began to stitch itself together. Uriel turned into a budgie and flew inside. Rumdoom and Quratulain jumped through. Uru severed the black blossom before it could open fire again and then steered Little Jack expertly through the rapidly closing gap.</p><p></p><p>Immediately, the ectoplasmid entities (the Cardinal, Chancellor Takhenova and Eloise Duffet) responded to this physical intrusion, bombarding them with mental attacks and attempts to dominate them. Two more black blossoms unfurled from the ceiling. Uru buzzed in and sought to draw their attention – focusing his thoughts on the Nettles, and the negative perceptions of its inhabitants: feckless, shirking, unwashed, idle, immoral, poor and thieving. The blossoms turned on him, and he was easily able to dodge their beams.</p><p></p><p>While the physical intruders dealt with the defenders, Leon focused on trying to persuade Eloise Duffet, as Brakken had suggested. This did not work – she was too staunch and inflexible in her views. So he changed tactics, and focused on her followers, persuading them that Duffet had succumbed to an outside threat, and as such was not worthy of their support as war minister. Convinced, they ejected her, the tendrils withered and she fell to the floor crying in horror at her sudden isolation. The black blossoms might have turned on her had Uru and Quratulain not already pruned them. Her ectoplasmic manifestation popped and vanished. Quratulain injured one of the remaining two, as did Uriel.</p><p></p><p>Gupta used her bone-pointing curse on the Cardinal – not his bloated effigy but the actual Cardinal himself. This swingeing spell caused the victim to suffer mental self-deprecation, to the point of madness – even death – unless they turned away from whatever they were doing and worked to shrug off the malaise. But, dominated as he was by the hivemind, the Cardinal could not fight against the spell. Instead, it began to slowly bite into his psyche as his ectoplasmic self attacked the intruders.</p><p></p><p>Uru began to sever tendrils. Each one cut saw a symposium attendee fall to the ground, comatose.</p><p></p><p>Korrigan worked to free Lord Kulp. Because Kulp was an unwilling member of the hivemind, this was a matter of reminding him who he was and coaxing him to free himself. When his eyes ceased to glow, he pulled himself free of the tendrils and stood close to Korrigan, wary of being subsumed again. Close to his new ally, the king of Risur was able to lend him some of his own resilience and prevent him from re-joining the hivemind.</p><p></p><p>Rumdoom landed heavy blows against the ectoplasmic Cardinal. Uriel stuck it too and when it tried to attack him back, Gupta’s curse killed the cardinal outright. </p><p></p><p>The bloated ectosplasmic version of Chancellor Takhenova tried to dominate Uru, its attention drawn by his subversive thoughts. It failed to do so. Meanwhile, Leon set about ‘impeaching’ Takhenova too and, when her link with her followers was broken, she was ejected and fell to the ground screaming in horror, just like Eloise Duffet. </p><p></p><p>Korrigan freed both Heid and Kvarti in one go. Gupta freed Sokana Rel, invoking the name of Hewanharimau. With no more foes to fend off, these were just the first of many more to be persuaded, cajoled, or simply hacked free of the Godmind.</p><p></p><p>Once about thirty people were freed, the Godmind’s outer body stopped moving and began to shake in agony. The tendrils’ pulsing turned from blue to red, the Godmind gave out a psychic whimper, and its thought-flesh mass began to dissolve. They didn’t have long before the Congressional Hall crashed to the ground! Uriel began to prepare for the worst, asking Rumdoom and Quratulain to smash a section of the flooring free, in the hopes of keeping it aloft with telekinesis, but such desperate measures were not needed: Leon teleported out with the closest cluster of people and, back on board the Coaltongue, gave Rutger Smith the order to sweep in. Without fear of domination, the vessel drew close enough to fire its brand, at an angle sufficient to create a gap in the side of the structure without harming the occupants. Then Leon opened a wormhole, and everyone was able to stream through, just as the structure crashed onto the government district below.</p><p></p><p>At once, Korrigan used his macrophone, and Uriel a skywriting ritual, to address the whole of Cherage and declare the facts to its populace. “You have been saved by the Risuri RHC, from yet another mistake made by the Obscurati, whose leaders abandoned you in your hour of need. They have destroyed the sun. We will return it. They have lied, and continue to lie. We will tell you the truth. Where was Han Jierre today? Where is his wife? The Jierre family have worked in secret to hand the entire nation of Danor and its resources over to a shadowy organisation and this is the result.”</p><p></p><p>(Unbeknownst to them, everyone who had been drawn into the Godmind – hundreds of people throughout the city – had a shared awareness with those inside the hall. There were huge numbers of eye-witnesses to the bravery of the king and his allies.)</p><p></p><p>They released the majority of the freed attendees soon afterwards, using wormholes rather than risk a landing. They kept Eloise Duffet and Chancellor Takhenova as prisoners of war. They freed Kulp, who thanked them warmly. Vlendham Heid and Kvarti Gorbatiy spoke to Rumdoom before they went. Rumdoom asked about Grandis Komanov. She was said to be calling her followers to her, somewhere in the snowy north. Heid said he would listen out for news when he attended his next conference in Bhad Ryzhadavdut – a gathering of eschatologists who would decide Drakr’s philosophical response to the changes the Ob had wrought. Kvarti said he was glad that Hildegaard was safe, and then the philosopher and his bodyguard departed.</p><p></p><p>Gupta stole a moment with Sokana Rel. Sokana returned her passionate kiss, thanked her for her freedom and wished that she could stay longer. But she and Betronga would travel back to Elfaivar as quickly as possible and report what had happened here. Sokana still felt she could influence Betronga positively and that in the end he would prove to be a capable leader. (Right now, he was slumped against the gunwale, disoriented enough by his ordeal not to notice what was going on around him.) She bid Gupta farewell, then used a teleportation scroll to take them back to the jungle.</p><p></p><p>Brakken was not sure what to do next. Korrigan asked him about a possible alliance with the Bruse. Though Brakken had not been back to Ber since the Great Eclipse, and could not be certain about any of this, he reminded Korrigan that the Bruse was fickle – likely to side with whoever he thought was strongest. While it was true that the new king of Risur had saved his life, so had the Obscurati – and both groups had helped him to suppress Pemberton’s coup. No doubt the Ob would soon bring him word of the dragon’s recent alliance with Risur, and this would help the Bruse to pick sides.</p><p></p><p>Funnily enough, at that very moment, they received a message from Harkover Lee: They were wanted back in Slate at their earliest convenience as a Beran messenger had arrived at court.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7526841, member: 79141"] [b]Session 205, Part Two - Inside the Mindscape[/b] [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQHAhD3FYdA"][REFLIST][/REFLIST]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQHAhD3FYdA[/URL] As they drew closer, the urge to join the hivemind grew stronger. The unit was confident its members could resist, but feared for the minds of the crew. They could not get close enough to bring the brand to bear. Uru suggested using the dragon-fliers, but they were too vulnerable and could easily be lost permanently if they were forced to land. Uriel pointed out that he Quratulain, Rumdoom and Uru would all be able to reach the Godmind under their own steam. Once there, they could see if they could find a way to crack its outer shell and get inside. Leon reappeared on deck as the coastal artillery began to fire. (Its shells were sufficient to distract the creature, but not create a hole in its translucent hide.) Leon opened up a mid-air wormhole to help Uriel’s aerial assault team to get as close as possible, then he entered gestalt with Korrigan. Entering the mindscape was now much easier, as the distracted Godmind no longer sought to expel them. The fliers were immediately subjected to stronger and stronger coercion, urging them to join the Godmind and ‘contribute’. They were able to shrug it off and, when their resistance was obvious, were subjected to attacks from the black blooms. Uriel barely managed to dodge aside and called on Uru to deal with the blooms while the others landed on the surface of the Godmind. Uru winked out of sight and readied a careful shot. Rumdoom, Uriel and Quratulain landed. Blue and white pulses, wave-like striations on the skin of the creature, sought to repel them – to teleport them away. They stood firm, but realised they could not resist this indefinitely. Uriel saw that the skin was incredibly thick. It would take a massive blast to get through in one go! Inside, Gupta looked for targets and saw that three of the attendees in particular – Chancellor Takhenova, Cardinal Banderesso, and War Minister Duffet – had enough sway over the gestalt that they had manifested ectoplasmic bodies; huge slime-green semblances of themselves, floating over the nest of tendrils like barrage balloons. Korrigan tried to use the sort of mental attacks they had developed against regular hiveminds, but to no avail. On the outside, Quratulain drew the ridiculous Nok Gun out of her magical cloak. She had never used it in combat before because it was wildly inaccurate, but against such an enormous target she hoped to bring every barrel to bare and make hole before they were shunted away. She pressed it up against the Godmind and pulled the trigger. The pressure of the shot forced the gun up and away at the last minute, and would have dealt nothing but a glancing blow, but Rumdoom declared a fiat and the massive gun blew a hole in the Godmind that immediately began to stitch itself together. Uriel turned into a budgie and flew inside. Rumdoom and Quratulain jumped through. Uru severed the black blossom before it could open fire again and then steered Little Jack expertly through the rapidly closing gap. Immediately, the ectoplasmid entities (the Cardinal, Chancellor Takhenova and Eloise Duffet) responded to this physical intrusion, bombarding them with mental attacks and attempts to dominate them. Two more black blossoms unfurled from the ceiling. Uru buzzed in and sought to draw their attention – focusing his thoughts on the Nettles, and the negative perceptions of its inhabitants: feckless, shirking, unwashed, idle, immoral, poor and thieving. The blossoms turned on him, and he was easily able to dodge their beams. While the physical intruders dealt with the defenders, Leon focused on trying to persuade Eloise Duffet, as Brakken had suggested. This did not work – she was too staunch and inflexible in her views. So he changed tactics, and focused on her followers, persuading them that Duffet had succumbed to an outside threat, and as such was not worthy of their support as war minister. Convinced, they ejected her, the tendrils withered and she fell to the floor crying in horror at her sudden isolation. The black blossoms might have turned on her had Uru and Quratulain not already pruned them. Her ectoplasmic manifestation popped and vanished. Quratulain injured one of the remaining two, as did Uriel. Gupta used her bone-pointing curse on the Cardinal – not his bloated effigy but the actual Cardinal himself. This swingeing spell caused the victim to suffer mental self-deprecation, to the point of madness – even death – unless they turned away from whatever they were doing and worked to shrug off the malaise. But, dominated as he was by the hivemind, the Cardinal could not fight against the spell. Instead, it began to slowly bite into his psyche as his ectoplasmic self attacked the intruders. Uru began to sever tendrils. Each one cut saw a symposium attendee fall to the ground, comatose. Korrigan worked to free Lord Kulp. Because Kulp was an unwilling member of the hivemind, this was a matter of reminding him who he was and coaxing him to free himself. When his eyes ceased to glow, he pulled himself free of the tendrils and stood close to Korrigan, wary of being subsumed again. Close to his new ally, the king of Risur was able to lend him some of his own resilience and prevent him from re-joining the hivemind. Rumdoom landed heavy blows against the ectoplasmic Cardinal. Uriel stuck it too and when it tried to attack him back, Gupta’s curse killed the cardinal outright. The bloated ectosplasmic version of Chancellor Takhenova tried to dominate Uru, its attention drawn by his subversive thoughts. It failed to do so. Meanwhile, Leon set about ‘impeaching’ Takhenova too and, when her link with her followers was broken, she was ejected and fell to the ground screaming in horror, just like Eloise Duffet. Korrigan freed both Heid and Kvarti in one go. Gupta freed Sokana Rel, invoking the name of Hewanharimau. With no more foes to fend off, these were just the first of many more to be persuaded, cajoled, or simply hacked free of the Godmind. Once about thirty people were freed, the Godmind’s outer body stopped moving and began to shake in agony. The tendrils’ pulsing turned from blue to red, the Godmind gave out a psychic whimper, and its thought-flesh mass began to dissolve. They didn’t have long before the Congressional Hall crashed to the ground! Uriel began to prepare for the worst, asking Rumdoom and Quratulain to smash a section of the flooring free, in the hopes of keeping it aloft with telekinesis, but such desperate measures were not needed: Leon teleported out with the closest cluster of people and, back on board the Coaltongue, gave Rutger Smith the order to sweep in. Without fear of domination, the vessel drew close enough to fire its brand, at an angle sufficient to create a gap in the side of the structure without harming the occupants. Then Leon opened a wormhole, and everyone was able to stream through, just as the structure crashed onto the government district below. At once, Korrigan used his macrophone, and Uriel a skywriting ritual, to address the whole of Cherage and declare the facts to its populace. “You have been saved by the Risuri RHC, from yet another mistake made by the Obscurati, whose leaders abandoned you in your hour of need. They have destroyed the sun. We will return it. They have lied, and continue to lie. We will tell you the truth. Where was Han Jierre today? Where is his wife? The Jierre family have worked in secret to hand the entire nation of Danor and its resources over to a shadowy organisation and this is the result.” (Unbeknownst to them, everyone who had been drawn into the Godmind – hundreds of people throughout the city – had a shared awareness with those inside the hall. There were huge numbers of eye-witnesses to the bravery of the king and his allies.) They released the majority of the freed attendees soon afterwards, using wormholes rather than risk a landing. They kept Eloise Duffet and Chancellor Takhenova as prisoners of war. They freed Kulp, who thanked them warmly. Vlendham Heid and Kvarti Gorbatiy spoke to Rumdoom before they went. Rumdoom asked about Grandis Komanov. She was said to be calling her followers to her, somewhere in the snowy north. Heid said he would listen out for news when he attended his next conference in Bhad Ryzhadavdut – a gathering of eschatologists who would decide Drakr’s philosophical response to the changes the Ob had wrought. Kvarti said he was glad that Hildegaard was safe, and then the philosopher and his bodyguard departed. Gupta stole a moment with Sokana Rel. Sokana returned her passionate kiss, thanked her for her freedom and wished that she could stay longer. But she and Betronga would travel back to Elfaivar as quickly as possible and report what had happened here. Sokana still felt she could influence Betronga positively and that in the end he would prove to be a capable leader. (Right now, he was slumped against the gunwale, disoriented enough by his ordeal not to notice what was going on around him.) She bid Gupta farewell, then used a teleportation scroll to take them back to the jungle. Brakken was not sure what to do next. Korrigan asked him about a possible alliance with the Bruse. Though Brakken had not been back to Ber since the Great Eclipse, and could not be certain about any of this, he reminded Korrigan that the Bruse was fickle – likely to side with whoever he thought was strongest. While it was true that the new king of Risur had saved his life, so had the Obscurati – and both groups had helped him to suppress Pemberton’s coup. No doubt the Ob would soon bring him word of the dragon’s recent alliance with Risur, and this would help the Bruse to pick sides. Funnily enough, at that very moment, they received a message from Harkover Lee: They were wanted back in Slate at their earliest convenience as a Beran messenger had arrived at court. [/QUOTE]
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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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