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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7557593" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 212, Part Three - The Abattoir</strong></p><p></p><p>Those freed by Brakken immediately became aware of the freezing mould, and leapt aside. Leon teleported completely out of harm’s way, the better to review the situation. Glaucia summoned a pillar of radiance that the remaining bears would have to pass through. Some braved it, others squeezed into an even more narrow gap and got into the room another way.</p><p></p><p>The dire bears attacked ferociously, lashing out with teeth, claws, tentacles, hooks and pseudopods. Feroz cried out in pain, and Brakken staggered back under their onslaught. Korrigan snapped Salome and Hildegaard out of the false memory affect, and together this new unit tried its best to fight off the fleshwarped dire bears, all the while staying clear of the freezing brown mould. But the bear’s collective onslaught was too much. Each creature alone was a frenzied ball of teeth and claws, but when one bear fell, its mass was absorbed by another, which attacked with renewed ferocity and new claws and teeth! Many of them were soon badly wounded, and Brakken cried out for them to flee this place, fearing that he and Feroz could not last long.</p><p></p><p>Such a course of action might have been prudent, but for one thing: hanging closest to the throbbing vesicle was a form Korrigan now recognised. Stripped of armour, including mask, mechanical legs and forearms, the figure’s exposed flesh was blackened and gnarled like prehistoric body exhumed from a peat bog. All except the face, which had once been a fleshless rictus but had recently (and unbeknownst to anyone else) been restored to youthful beauty. It was Quratulain! Korrigan’s defender longsword confirmed that she was alive, but unconscious.</p><p></p><p>And so they could not flee, not without Quratulain. So Korrigan gave a great rallying cry, bolstering all of his allies, and they stood firm, and focused on dishing out more pain than they took. Salome proved her worth with powerful, well-placed blows from her staff; Agent Doran threw magical knives that riveted the bears in place and prevented them from melding; Brakken was able to bring the conjoined bears to heal and prevent them from attacking. With supporting fire from Glaucia and Leon, they wore the fleshwarped creatures down until at last they lay still. No one had fallen after all.</p><p></p><p>Hildegaard set about burning the bear’s twisted remains, while the others inspected their surroundings: the vesicle, the cells, Quratulain. (Meanwhile, Leon and Doran headed back north to see if they could find out who or what had released the bears.)</p><p></p><p>A pile in one of the cages contained the personal belongings of dozens of people, including many of the colourful costumes worn by bards at the Triunfo Vida. Brakken feared that his cousin might very well be among the dead here. In this same pile, they found the armour, mask and coat belonging to Quratulain. They gathered them up.</p><p></p><p>Before getting her down from where she was suspended, Korrigan noticed two things: burn marks – scored lines caused by lashing arcs of power, as opposed to a raw explosion – could be seen on the floor, walls, ceilings, and other corpses hanging around her. A small, cutting tool was on the floor immediately beneath where she hung; Korrigan picked it up. It was metallic but glossy and green.</p><p></p><p>With Brakken’s help, Korrigan took her down, and Brakken wrapped her body in cloth and carried her. Without her armour she was small and incredibly light and he could hold her in the crook of one massive arm.</p><p></p><p>Korrigan approached the thrumming vesicle. As he got closer his mind began to ache.</p><p></p><p>Shouts of alarm interrupted him:</p><p></p><p>Leon and Doran discovered that, though the bears had been released all at once, there was no mechanism for so doing. Each cell was locked and each lock was controlled individually. “There’s only one person I know who could do something like that,” Leon thought aloud.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly he was struck by an agonising shot from the shadows. He cried out in pain, almost collapsed – saved only by his silksteel mantle – and teleported as far as he could away from danger. Agent Doran caught sight of Uru in the doorway, just before the deep faen vanished again. He too withdrew, but kept himself in between where Uru might be and the badly wounded Leon.</p><p></p><p>In response to their warning cries, Glaucia raised a defiant shield and gathered her allies about her. Korrigan tried to reach out to Uru with his mind, or otherwise sense his presence, but he could not. Brakken tried too, to no avail. Fearful of renewed attack, they held their closed formation for a long time.</p><p></p><p>When nothing else happened, they cautiously prepared to leave. Korrigan healed Leon, so he was strong enough to spirit them away from this place. (Even if there was anything else worth finding here, they were in no fit state to go on.) Just in case, they quickly checked the sewer and immediate surroundings for signs of the other unit members’ presence, but they found nothing to indicate the others had been here.</p><p></p><p>Just before they went, with no time for a more subtle approach, Korrigan stepped up to the vesicle and stabbed it, right in the middle. The thrumming ceased, and a torrent of appalling images flooded his mind. In an instant he saw everything that had happened in the presence of the vesicle: the agony, the flaying, the hacking and the breaking. It was too much to take in, but he was sure that more ‘things’ had been created in this foul laboratory, not just the bears.</p><p></p><p>The most recent occurrence struck him with more force, and imparted more of its significance. Three slender, angular, alien forms gathered around Quratulain, focusing all their attention on her abdomen, in a curious, hungry way. One of them raised the cutting device Korrigan had found and prepared to make an incision. In an instant, arcs of lighting tore through the chamber, obliterating the three forms and even causing Korrigan to flinch. </p><p></p><p>The visions ended. He was lucky to have kept his mind, they were so sudden and so disturbing.</p><p></p><p>His sword blow had dislodged an object from the middle of the vesicle: an organic prism the size of a walnut, with a wizened rat-like tail. He handed this to Leon for examination, along with the green metal cutting tool. Then they left. Not for Flida’s Finest this time – after the fight with the bears, they might not survive her ire. (And even Flida, who was made of tough stuff, might lose it at the sight of a bear with an octopus for a head.) They arrived in the junkyard where they first met Salome Nieves.</p><p></p><p>Here they waited and rested while Korrigan performed a remove affliction ritual on Quratulain. When she awoke, the first thing she demanded was her mask, then her arms and armour. When her forearms were attached to her stumps, they worked straight away, and she was able to quickly reattach everything else herself. She checked her arm-blades, donned her coat of the genteel butcher (making sure the rest of her armoury was still in there), then turned to Korrigan and said:</p><p></p><p>“Gidim.”</p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThSF2bEhhf4" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThSF2bEhhf4</a></p><p></p><p><strong>End of Session</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7557593, member: 79141"] [b]Session 212, Part Three - The Abattoir[/b] Those freed by Brakken immediately became aware of the freezing mould, and leapt aside. Leon teleported completely out of harm’s way, the better to review the situation. Glaucia summoned a pillar of radiance that the remaining bears would have to pass through. Some braved it, others squeezed into an even more narrow gap and got into the room another way. The dire bears attacked ferociously, lashing out with teeth, claws, tentacles, hooks and pseudopods. Feroz cried out in pain, and Brakken staggered back under their onslaught. Korrigan snapped Salome and Hildegaard out of the false memory affect, and together this new unit tried its best to fight off the fleshwarped dire bears, all the while staying clear of the freezing brown mould. But the bear’s collective onslaught was too much. Each creature alone was a frenzied ball of teeth and claws, but when one bear fell, its mass was absorbed by another, which attacked with renewed ferocity and new claws and teeth! Many of them were soon badly wounded, and Brakken cried out for them to flee this place, fearing that he and Feroz could not last long. Such a course of action might have been prudent, but for one thing: hanging closest to the throbbing vesicle was a form Korrigan now recognised. Stripped of armour, including mask, mechanical legs and forearms, the figure’s exposed flesh was blackened and gnarled like prehistoric body exhumed from a peat bog. All except the face, which had once been a fleshless rictus but had recently (and unbeknownst to anyone else) been restored to youthful beauty. It was Quratulain! Korrigan’s defender longsword confirmed that she was alive, but unconscious. And so they could not flee, not without Quratulain. So Korrigan gave a great rallying cry, bolstering all of his allies, and they stood firm, and focused on dishing out more pain than they took. Salome proved her worth with powerful, well-placed blows from her staff; Agent Doran threw magical knives that riveted the bears in place and prevented them from melding; Brakken was able to bring the conjoined bears to heal and prevent them from attacking. With supporting fire from Glaucia and Leon, they wore the fleshwarped creatures down until at last they lay still. No one had fallen after all. Hildegaard set about burning the bear’s twisted remains, while the others inspected their surroundings: the vesicle, the cells, Quratulain. (Meanwhile, Leon and Doran headed back north to see if they could find out who or what had released the bears.) A pile in one of the cages contained the personal belongings of dozens of people, including many of the colourful costumes worn by bards at the Triunfo Vida. Brakken feared that his cousin might very well be among the dead here. In this same pile, they found the armour, mask and coat belonging to Quratulain. They gathered them up. Before getting her down from where she was suspended, Korrigan noticed two things: burn marks – scored lines caused by lashing arcs of power, as opposed to a raw explosion – could be seen on the floor, walls, ceilings, and other corpses hanging around her. A small, cutting tool was on the floor immediately beneath where she hung; Korrigan picked it up. It was metallic but glossy and green. With Brakken’s help, Korrigan took her down, and Brakken wrapped her body in cloth and carried her. Without her armour she was small and incredibly light and he could hold her in the crook of one massive arm. Korrigan approached the thrumming vesicle. As he got closer his mind began to ache. Shouts of alarm interrupted him: Leon and Doran discovered that, though the bears had been released all at once, there was no mechanism for so doing. Each cell was locked and each lock was controlled individually. “There’s only one person I know who could do something like that,” Leon thought aloud. Suddenly he was struck by an agonising shot from the shadows. He cried out in pain, almost collapsed – saved only by his silksteel mantle – and teleported as far as he could away from danger. Agent Doran caught sight of Uru in the doorway, just before the deep faen vanished again. He too withdrew, but kept himself in between where Uru might be and the badly wounded Leon. In response to their warning cries, Glaucia raised a defiant shield and gathered her allies about her. Korrigan tried to reach out to Uru with his mind, or otherwise sense his presence, but he could not. Brakken tried too, to no avail. Fearful of renewed attack, they held their closed formation for a long time. When nothing else happened, they cautiously prepared to leave. Korrigan healed Leon, so he was strong enough to spirit them away from this place. (Even if there was anything else worth finding here, they were in no fit state to go on.) Just in case, they quickly checked the sewer and immediate surroundings for signs of the other unit members’ presence, but they found nothing to indicate the others had been here. Just before they went, with no time for a more subtle approach, Korrigan stepped up to the vesicle and stabbed it, right in the middle. The thrumming ceased, and a torrent of appalling images flooded his mind. In an instant he saw everything that had happened in the presence of the vesicle: the agony, the flaying, the hacking and the breaking. It was too much to take in, but he was sure that more ‘things’ had been created in this foul laboratory, not just the bears. The most recent occurrence struck him with more force, and imparted more of its significance. Three slender, angular, alien forms gathered around Quratulain, focusing all their attention on her abdomen, in a curious, hungry way. One of them raised the cutting device Korrigan had found and prepared to make an incision. In an instant, arcs of lighting tore through the chamber, obliterating the three forms and even causing Korrigan to flinch. The visions ended. He was lucky to have kept his mind, they were so sudden and so disturbing. His sword blow had dislodged an object from the middle of the vesicle: an organic prism the size of a walnut, with a wizened rat-like tail. He handed this to Leon for examination, along with the green metal cutting tool. Then they left. Not for Flida’s Finest this time – after the fight with the bears, they might not survive her ire. (And even Flida, who was made of tough stuff, might lose it at the sight of a bear with an octopus for a head.) They arrived in the junkyard where they first met Salome Nieves. Here they waited and rested while Korrigan performed a remove affliction ritual on Quratulain. When she awoke, the first thing she demanded was her mask, then her arms and armour. When her forearms were attached to her stumps, they worked straight away, and she was able to quickly reattach everything else herself. She checked her arm-blades, donned her coat of the genteel butcher (making sure the rest of her armoury was still in there), then turned to Korrigan and said: “Gidim.” [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThSF2bEhhf4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThSF2bEhhf4[/URL] [B]End of Session[/B] [/QUOTE]
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