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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7889451" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 251, Part Three</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Alais Primos</strong></p><p></p><p>Quratulain found herself lying beneath a sheet. She stayed still for a moment, to absorb Korrigan’s response to her question: “Don’t punish people for the faith that came to them with mother’s milk.” Quratulain let her hand stray to her belly. She was not alone after all. Would she be able to nurse her baby, she wondered? Would that be with milk or with machine oil?</p><p></p><p>When she threw off the sheet, she saw that she was in the top floor of a tower, where a cracked skylight had let in rain, causing the whole of the building’s wooden frame to rot. The floorboards creaked alarmingly as she stood. Glass double doors opened out onto an ornate marble balcony that gave her a majestic view of the city, and the magnificent Grand Librarium, nearby. As everywhere else, snow had fallen and the air was below freezing. Alais Primos did not have the ubiquitous gaslight lamps of Flint, but it did have four lantern towers dispersed around the valley, glowing a docile brown. Another, reddish glow emanated from the caldera of Enzyo Mons, throwing the great cathedral into silhouette. Quratulain noticed that the building looked different – its towers appeared to have fallen.</p><p></p><p>Before she could ponder this matter, she registered sobs that had been a distant background noise since her arrival on the balcony. They came from the square down below, where a huddle of defiant worshippers knelt and prayed together. No doubt this was in defiance of the Ob - at this very moment city guardsmen approached the crowd from two directions.</p><p></p><p>Quratulain jumped off the balcony and used her jet boots to slow her descent. On the way down she noticed one of the praying figures was very different from the others: a gigantic man in golden armour, around whom the others seemed to be clustered as if for his protection. He was a clergy godhand and now Quratulain recognised him as Aulus Atticus, whom the unit had left in charge of Alais Primos, after the wresting control from Vitus Sigismund. She remembered that he had been an especial friend and ally of the king, who had made a great impression on him some time before she was rescued from the Vault of Heresies. He stood protectively over his followers as she descended; his piercing blue eyes bespoke great concern for them.</p><p></p><p>Quratulain spoke loudly to rally the prayerful and warn the approaching soldiers: “The king of Risur has returned and this world will be restored.” Though her words staved off more sobbing, she knew the soldiers wouldn’t listen, but she felt she ought to at least read them their rights before disposing of them. “I have to K before I am Q” she thought to herself. Then she opened fire.</p><p></p><p>Aulus Atticus joined her, felling the soldiers with radiant fists. When they were done, he said, “I know you. You are the Mechanical Devil of Kurat-Ul-Ain, murderer of hierarchs. But I also know you as a friend and ally of King Baldrey of Risur. Are you here alone?”</p><p></p><p>Quratulain confirmed that she was, that she and her allies were stretched thinly trying to save the whole world at once.</p><p></p><p>Atticus told her that Alais Primos was now under the sway of Arch Secula Natalia Degaspare, the venal Ob officer and sole remaining hierarch, whom they had found skulking in the Grand Librarium, back when they came to get the Axis Seal Ritual. Now she presided over the methodical deconstruction of the Cathedral of Triegenes. Hundreds of dominated people clung to scaffolding around the building, chipping free bricks one at a time, then carrying them down so Natalia could disenchant them. She was heavily guarded.</p><p></p><p>Quratulain decided to head for the cathedral first. Atticus went with her. When they were only halfway up the mount, she stopped to look over the city again and saw where the lantern towers were positioned. The Ob had simply repurposed the old bell towers that had once guarded against the fey, ringing with golden Urim energy to prevent teleportation. Quratulain worried that if they challenged Degaspare, the lanterns would be lit, and there would be no time for them to reach them all. So she changed her mind and decided to start with the towers.</p><p></p><p>She and Atticus now set off at a run. Both of them were very fast, he despite his golden plate. The first bell tower was surrounded by soldiers. They ran through them as they opened fire, bullets ricocheting off them. Atticus smashed through the locked door, while Quratulain stood behind him deflecting more bullets. Inside was a construct squad. Quratulain drew her pistols and blasted a path through them towards the stairs, which they instantly took. The constructs waved their grindsaw arms and gave pursuit, along with a press of soldiers.</p><p></p><p>On the narrow bottle-neck of the stairs, Atticus held them. Each of his blows summoned an angel, until there were three blocking the way. Then he joined Quratulain up top just after she blasted the lantern apart. From there, they each used Fourmyle Jaunt to travel to a separate tower. They took those out too, noting that there was no explosion from the first one as there had been in Flint, perhaps because the towers had not turned red yet? Maybe it would happen once they did?</p><p></p><p>But their actions had been noticed, and warning bells began to peal across the city, filling the air with futile, golden radiance. Through this noise they ran, separately, converging on the final lamp. Before they could get there, it turned purple.</p><p></p><p>This wasn’t the light of Jiese, but of Av, now the plane of death. At once, Quratulain felt something plucking, tugging at her very essence. She resisted at first, but in the end both she and Atticus succumbed, as did everyone else around them – everyone in the light of this final lantern was drawn out of their own bodies, to float above the streets in spirit form. Quratulain looked down and saw her baby curled up inside her. She was not surprised or perturbed to see its little bovine head.</p><p></p><p>The common-folk were wailing, freed from the hivemind, but terrified. Quratulain and Atticus stayed focused and flew towards the tower, where – even as they did so – the purple light began to dim as everything real receded.</p><p></p><p>In this form, they had no way of affecting the lantern. Atticus thought perhaps to summon an angel, but he had summoned all he could this day. Quratulain wondered if she could somehow reverse the power of her icon of Nem, and render herself tangible? But, no.</p><p></p><p>So she used her power to calculate an answer from all of the available data and deduced that the only way to solve this situation was to inscribe another spell on the golden bell, something that, when it rang, would shatter the lantern.</p><p></p><p>Easier said than done. She had no spells; only guns.</p><p></p><p>It did not take a predictive equation to realise that she needed to get someone else involved…</p><p></p><p><strong> End of Session</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7889451, member: 79141"] [B]Session 251, Part Three Alais Primos[/B] Quratulain found herself lying beneath a sheet. She stayed still for a moment, to absorb Korrigan’s response to her question: “Don’t punish people for the faith that came to them with mother’s milk.” Quratulain let her hand stray to her belly. She was not alone after all. Would she be able to nurse her baby, she wondered? Would that be with milk or with machine oil? When she threw off the sheet, she saw that she was in the top floor of a tower, where a cracked skylight had let in rain, causing the whole of the building’s wooden frame to rot. The floorboards creaked alarmingly as she stood. Glass double doors opened out onto an ornate marble balcony that gave her a majestic view of the city, and the magnificent Grand Librarium, nearby. As everywhere else, snow had fallen and the air was below freezing. Alais Primos did not have the ubiquitous gaslight lamps of Flint, but it did have four lantern towers dispersed around the valley, glowing a docile brown. Another, reddish glow emanated from the caldera of Enzyo Mons, throwing the great cathedral into silhouette. Quratulain noticed that the building looked different – its towers appeared to have fallen. Before she could ponder this matter, she registered sobs that had been a distant background noise since her arrival on the balcony. They came from the square down below, where a huddle of defiant worshippers knelt and prayed together. No doubt this was in defiance of the Ob - at this very moment city guardsmen approached the crowd from two directions. Quratulain jumped off the balcony and used her jet boots to slow her descent. On the way down she noticed one of the praying figures was very different from the others: a gigantic man in golden armour, around whom the others seemed to be clustered as if for his protection. He was a clergy godhand and now Quratulain recognised him as Aulus Atticus, whom the unit had left in charge of Alais Primos, after the wresting control from Vitus Sigismund. She remembered that he had been an especial friend and ally of the king, who had made a great impression on him some time before she was rescued from the Vault of Heresies. He stood protectively over his followers as she descended; his piercing blue eyes bespoke great concern for them. Quratulain spoke loudly to rally the prayerful and warn the approaching soldiers: “The king of Risur has returned and this world will be restored.” Though her words staved off more sobbing, she knew the soldiers wouldn’t listen, but she felt she ought to at least read them their rights before disposing of them. “I have to K before I am Q” she thought to herself. Then she opened fire. Aulus Atticus joined her, felling the soldiers with radiant fists. When they were done, he said, “I know you. You are the Mechanical Devil of Kurat-Ul-Ain, murderer of hierarchs. But I also know you as a friend and ally of King Baldrey of Risur. Are you here alone?” Quratulain confirmed that she was, that she and her allies were stretched thinly trying to save the whole world at once. Atticus told her that Alais Primos was now under the sway of Arch Secula Natalia Degaspare, the venal Ob officer and sole remaining hierarch, whom they had found skulking in the Grand Librarium, back when they came to get the Axis Seal Ritual. Now she presided over the methodical deconstruction of the Cathedral of Triegenes. Hundreds of dominated people clung to scaffolding around the building, chipping free bricks one at a time, then carrying them down so Natalia could disenchant them. She was heavily guarded. Quratulain decided to head for the cathedral first. Atticus went with her. When they were only halfway up the mount, she stopped to look over the city again and saw where the lantern towers were positioned. The Ob had simply repurposed the old bell towers that had once guarded against the fey, ringing with golden Urim energy to prevent teleportation. Quratulain worried that if they challenged Degaspare, the lanterns would be lit, and there would be no time for them to reach them all. So she changed her mind and decided to start with the towers. She and Atticus now set off at a run. Both of them were very fast, he despite his golden plate. The first bell tower was surrounded by soldiers. They ran through them as they opened fire, bullets ricocheting off them. Atticus smashed through the locked door, while Quratulain stood behind him deflecting more bullets. Inside was a construct squad. Quratulain drew her pistols and blasted a path through them towards the stairs, which they instantly took. The constructs waved their grindsaw arms and gave pursuit, along with a press of soldiers. On the narrow bottle-neck of the stairs, Atticus held them. Each of his blows summoned an angel, until there were three blocking the way. Then he joined Quratulain up top just after she blasted the lantern apart. From there, they each used Fourmyle Jaunt to travel to a separate tower. They took those out too, noting that there was no explosion from the first one as there had been in Flint, perhaps because the towers had not turned red yet? Maybe it would happen once they did? But their actions had been noticed, and warning bells began to peal across the city, filling the air with futile, golden radiance. Through this noise they ran, separately, converging on the final lamp. Before they could get there, it turned purple. This wasn’t the light of Jiese, but of Av, now the plane of death. At once, Quratulain felt something plucking, tugging at her very essence. She resisted at first, but in the end both she and Atticus succumbed, as did everyone else around them – everyone in the light of this final lantern was drawn out of their own bodies, to float above the streets in spirit form. Quratulain looked down and saw her baby curled up inside her. She was not surprised or perturbed to see its little bovine head. The common-folk were wailing, freed from the hivemind, but terrified. Quratulain and Atticus stayed focused and flew towards the tower, where – even as they did so – the purple light began to dim as everything real receded. In this form, they had no way of affecting the lantern. Atticus thought perhaps to summon an angel, but he had summoned all he could this day. Quratulain wondered if she could somehow reverse the power of her icon of Nem, and render herself tangible? But, no. So she used her power to calculate an answer from all of the available data and deduced that the only way to solve this situation was to inscribe another spell on the golden bell, something that, when it rang, would shatter the lantern. Easier said than done. She had no spells; only guns. It did not take a predictive equation to realise that she needed to get someone else involved… [B] End of Session[/B] [/QUOTE]
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