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: 7873599" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 249 Part OneOperation EttinWondermaker knew about the Ob’s ‘scorched earth’ threat, and had a means to counter it: a two-headed plan he called ‘Operation Ettin’.  The first half was not all his doing: since King Baldrey had asked him to create duplicants similar to those used by Pemberton, he had worked steadily to reverse engineer the examples they had captured.  Though his version was not exactly the same as Pemberton’s, it worked on the same principle.“For many months, I have worked to plant a number of these duplicants across Lanjyr, in all of the major conurbations, which are now under threat: Slate, Ber, Cherage, Trekhom, Alais Primos.  You would have to split up and work alone, or in pairs, but I’m thinking that you’re powerful enough to do that.“But your foremost concern will no doubt be Flint.  With Harkover in charge, there is no chance you can reclaim it without working together.  So we need to stop Harkover from warning the Ob before we move on the other cities.  That’s where the second head of Operation Ettin plan comes in:  I’m not the only one to escape the hivemind.  The Mayor of the Nettles did too.  Isaac says he can use Cauldron Hill as a focus for a ritual that will block sendings throughout Flint.”The little Tinker Oddcog model gave a nod and a salute to Uru.   “You’re right, I am clever!  Clever enough not to hang my brain in a jar around the neck of a retarded formorian!”That got a laugh and a nod of approval. “I wonder if we’ve ever even seen his real form,” said Xambria (speaking telepathically).“Will the Ob bother with Slate?” asked Korrigan.  “I’ve heard it’s not much use to them.”“If you plan to use the sacrament of apotheosis, you need to free as many minds as possible,” said Cyneburg.  “Your closest connections are with Flint, but Slate is your capital, no matter what the Ob says.”  They nodded in agreement, and Cyneburg then asked, “What about Pemberton?  Shouldn’t we make an effort to rescue him, if possible?   He’s enormously powerful, and must have been up to something while you were away.”“And if we don’t help him, the Ob may have two dragon tyrants on their side,” said Xambria.“I don’t have a duplicant in his lair,” said Wondermaker. “It’s too well hidden in the Archipelago.”“We’ve never seen it,” said Leon.  “I can’t get us there.”Uru floated some ideas for communicating with Pemberton technologically, but the others said it was almost certain he would not be free to receive or respond, and there was a risk that he might be dominated.  This was the problem with trying to contact any of their allies.Then someone suggested that they try to use Pemberton’s own duplicant – the one he had sent to the Gyre with them and abandoned on the battlefield near the ziggurat of Av – to try to make contact.  Could that be done?“There might be some traceable, residual energy,” said Wondermaker. “If you get the duplicant I can certainly try.”Without further ado, Uru and Leon bampfed off to do so. Gupta then asked Xambria if she could recognise from a distance whether a person was part of a hivemind or not.  “Absolutely,” Xambria replied. “As could anyone capable of sensing psychic energies.”Assuming they were now working together again, Wondermaker tentatively asked if the unit would like a new bespoke golem for Xambria to occupy. “I always kept a spare,” he said.  “In case yours was lost; before you…”  No one needed him to say, ‘betrayed us’. Everyone looked at Korrigan.“Why not?” he asked, without pause.  No one needed him to say, ‘Everyone deserves a second chance’Leon and Uru returned with Pemberton’s duplicant.  Ob operatives had already shown up on the battlefield: Soldiers on skis, with rifles over their backs.  They were looking for clues.  Leon and Uru had snatched the duplicant and left without being noticed.  It was now suggested that they ought to go back and get Pardo’s too, just in case, so off they went.The conversation then turned to how they could contact Isaac.   Isaac was hidden somewhere in the Nettles.  That was convenient; Uru still had a teleportation circle there.  But Wondermaker couldn’t tell them exactly where he was. Having established that one another was free from the hivemind, they had kept a discreet distance lest the other became compromised.  “In the event of your return, I am to point you in the direction of a safe house, five miles to the south of Flint, in a village along on the rail-line from Bole. A disused barn with a painted red roof.”When he came back with Pardo’s badly damaged duplicant, Leon confirmed that knew the village.  There was a train station there.  As it was outside Flint, and they weren’t teleporting from outside Risur, they should be able to get there without alerting the Ob.A sudden, piercing shriek echoed throughout the cavern and everyone jumped.  It was Tokoloshe, ejected through a fine spray of holy water, like a cuckoo.  “Can’t you turn that naughty word clock off?” Cyneburg demanded.  Uru explained that it only chimed on certain days in the clergy calendar, and would not go off again while they were here.Returning to the matter in hand, Wondermaker said that Thames Grimsley and some of the dockers were also free, but he had not maintained regular contact with them, or made any contingency plans such as the one he had made with Isaac.  “I think they’re hiding somewhere in Pine Island.”Leon had a Dreaming Palace exit in the bayou to the west – in the cave where the Thinker had dwelled.  They could get the others to the safe house, then go and look for Thames, using phantom steeds to traverse the bayou at speed.  For now, though, they would all travel together.Conquo would have to go in the absurdist web.  A ten-foot-tall golem couldn’t sneak through a farming village.  Conquo shrugged and acquiesced. They decided against communicating with the Coaltongue from a distance, and elected to go there instead, to share developments, and give Admiral Smith clear orders.Uru asked for a moment before doing so. He had felt a sense of growing power and strength since coming to the mountains – a sign of his burgeoning titanhood.  He also felt an affinity with, even a power over, the spirits that dwelled here, both those that had come at his invitation and those that had haunted the caverns beneath the Anthras since time immemorial.  Where did this stem from?  (And had he not experienced a similar surge of power over the spirit world, when they had sought to free Cyneburg from the ghost council?)  Instinctively, he felt the vulnerability of a rival titan – that his possession of the Lost Eye of the Voice of Rot provided the opportunity for him to lay claim to that aspect of the serpent’s portfolio: dominion over ethereal undead.He had kept the Cyclopean Revelation in the Dream Palace and asked Leon to retrieve it, but when they tried to do so, they discovered that it was gone.  His other self must have been using it in the Gyre!   Knowledge of this reinforced his conviction; the spirit world would be his to command.  He was ready to go.</blockquote>

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