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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7908527" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 256, Part One</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>The Rough Beast</strong></p><p></p><p>Sabotage!</p><p></p><p>Gupta tried to calm the crew, but their morale had only been bolstered by the thought that they might help to defeat the serpent. Now as the ship began to list, their suppressed fear was given full vent.</p><p></p><p>From the engine room, Uru announced that the damage was catastrophic – it would take hours to fix. Quratulain looked over the side and saw more gremlins scampering round the arcane levitationals. She began to pick them off, one by one, for all the good it would do.</p><p></p><p>Rumdoom was so keen to engage the titan he kept his feet planted firmly at the prow and didn’t budge even as the deck tilted beneath him.</p><p></p><p>Leon looked to Korrigan. “Evacuate?” he asked.</p><p></p><p>Korrigan gave a single arcane command, activating the fey portal pad.</p><p></p><p>A moment later, instead of falling towards the Gyre, the ship was falling through the shattered glass debris of Av. It would do so for another minute or so, before it was drawn back to Reida. The king had bought them time to consider their options.</p><p></p><p>Calm was restored, but urgency was maintained. They divided the crew into those who had been on the <em>Coaltongue</em> when she was reflected, and those who had joined since and would die if they fell into the Gyre. The latter group was evacuated by Leon to Dunkelweiss, whence they could either wend their way, or remain until Dunkelweiss was joined to Lanjyr – then Leon would come to fetch them.</p><p></p><p>This done, the unit – and only the unit – gathered round Leon. No one else would be powerful enough to harm the titan. (Not even Amielle, who was loath to remain behind.) Uriel blessed them all with the Staff of the Hierophant; Leon bathed those who would benefit in the invigorating light of the lantern; Rumdoom grew to giant size; Gupta focused on enacting Vekeshi revenge.</p><p></p><p>Then Leon took them back to Reida.</p><p></p><p>They reappeared on the plane’s glassy surface. Beneath their feet, images of the centuries between the clergy’s two victories played out; not far off, beyond the the vision of the fall, they saw the rise of Danor and Risur and the smog of industrialisation; further still, a huge gap, where the plane had been shattered.</p><p></p><p>“Good of you to return,” said an unmistakable voice, a simultaneous growl and hiss, audible over the howling storm. They saw now that the titan had moved from there it had been before they vanished, and now slithered on the far side of the plane, heading towards them at speed. “Five ages have I glimpsed, my honoured foes. Lo from the Golden Dawn, to First Crown, from the High Demonocracy, through the Malicious Victory, and now to the Obscuring Steam. Long did I await the end of this, a beautiful and dying world. I ask that you challenge me, that I may smother the last high hope. If it be yours, then I will kill and you shall rot. If it be mine, you will return home and I shall despair. Either way, I shall be appeased.”</p><p></p><p>With that, he issued forth an almost subsonic growl and a piercing hiss, and the whole ring of Reida shuddered. Cracks appeared across the surface of plane beneath his head. Another flick of his forked tongue, and comets began to fall from the sky; he tried to direct one towards Leon, but the Book of Kelland protected him. Leon was also protected from the rotting arms that writhed up from the plane beneath their feet – centuries of the dead awakened by their master’s call. Rumdoom and Korrigan were grabbed.</p><p></p><p>Gupta shifted into hybrid form and leapt away from the grasping limbs, then she studied the serpent closely, searching for weaknesses, as it slithered inevitably towards them. </p><p></p><p>Uru shadow-stepped upwards, took flight on Little Jack and licked the Sword of the Black Needles threateningly. He had long harboured the ambition (once a mere pipe-dream, now an imminent possibility) that he would one day slay the Voice of Rot and bring its tyranny over the dead to an end. He could never have imagined that he would do so as a titan himself, now possessed of the power to command spirits – a power lost by the Voice of Rot. Uru could hear the spirits of the centuries clamouring to come to his aid. </p><p></p><p>“I will form a cadre of spirits to rival the ghost council,” Uru had said, not long ago. That effort would start here.</p><p></p><p>The serpent hurled a comet at him; it missed.</p><p></p><p>Uriel levitated into the air and weaved the titan’s fate, enabling him to predict its movements and its attack.</p><p></p><p>Quratulain shot at the head; a sizable hole appeared in its left cheek – first blood (if there had been any blood inside the desiccated titan).</p><p></p><p>Ignoring the grasping arms, Rumdoom decided that it would be a good idea to help the Voice of Rot destroy the plane beneath them: When it came apart, they would rejoin their other selves; the Voice of Rot would perish. Without sharing this idea with anyone, he brought the Stone of Not down hard on the surface of Reida, cracking this section too. At once Uriel cried out in alarm, and implored him not to do so again. “If Reida is destroyed, our world will cease to exist!” said the deva.</p><p></p><p>Leon sought to give Rumdoom something better to do and teleported him into the path of the titan. He whisked Korrigan out of the grasping arms as well. Korrigan then flew into the air and issued orders to support his team. Now he could see that the section of the plane the Voice was on was the thousand-year era of the Demonocracy.</p><p></p><p>The Voice of Rot caught sight of the king and thanked him for bringing his son. “I knew that if you thought I wanted him, you would bring him to me.” This made no sense, thought Korrigan, but then, here he was, with Kai strapped to his back. Fey logic was infectious, it seemed. </p><p></p><p>The titan chuckled with amusement, and the gaping wound Quratulain had made closed up, to their horror. Then the Voice susurrated again and the era of the Demonocracy began to shear apart.</p><p></p><p>Ever forwards the serpent surged, knocking Leon aside. When it came close enough, the stench from its rotting head was so powerful it nauseated even Rumdoom. Then it clamped its jaws down on the dwarf and sought to affect him with the same soul rot poison that had killed Kasvarina; Rumdoom was made of tougher stuff and struck the rough beast on the snout with his hammer. The blow was enfeebled by the titan’s stench, so he kicked off the Icy End of the World, to encourage it to let go. </p><p></p><p>Seeking answers to the serpent’s regeneration, Gupta Stood in Wonder. She realised that he had bonded to the plane to such an extent that his mere presence carried the weight of eternity. This fey titan had survived millennia. They could only harm him if they struck him in two eras of time at once. So she used her icon of Apet to teleport to the far side of the plane, and found that to be the period of humanity’s rise and the decline of the Ancient Orcs.</p><p></p><p>“I’ll take his ass; you take the head,” said Uru, speeding along on Little Jack to get into position, hiding in his own portable cloud of shadow. While he lined up his shot, he heard Amielle’s echoing cry, “Me first! Me first! Pick me!” He did so, and they both opened fire on the titan.</p><p></p><p>Leon whisked Rumdoom out of the titan’s jaws, then created a pair of linked portals to ease movement across the plane.</p><p></p><p>The Voice cracked another era with his decaying susurrus – the period of clergy ascendancy between the two victories; it hurled another comet at Uriel and raised more grasping arms to stop the unit moving away from him. Uriel dodged the comet and studied the susurrus. “We need to defend the plane with our own vigour!” he announced. “Someone must be standing on the section of the plane he’s trying to destroy!”</p><p></p><p>Quratulain had previously jetted over the huge, jagged gash onto the Ancient Orcish side. Now she jumped back again, before taking a shot at the serpent’s body. The hide was thick, but she managed to punch through. She invoked her icon of Nem and stood firm, hoping to thwart the titan if it tried to crack the modern era.</p><p></p><p>Rumdoom used his<em> tyrant’s teeth necklace</em> to bite down on its flank, tearing out a sizable chunk, before he was pushed aside and fell close to the edge of the plane. The serpent fired a comet at him, and chipped off the edge where he had been lying; he barely clung on.</p><p></p><p>Leon teleported right up to the face of the serpent, stabbed at it with his Dreaming Blade, then teleported away again. Now the Book of Kelland would not prevent the titan from attacking him!</p><p></p><p>The titan tried its susurrus again, but now it had no effect on Reida itself, though it harmed those who stood firm with necrotic rot. The Voice summoned more grasping arms around Gupta, who was still on the far side of the plane; then it crawled off the jagged edge where the ‘modern era’ ended and began to loop back under itself.</p><p></p><p>Gupta took on tiger form and tore free of the rotting limbs, then caught up with the serpent in a few bounds and mauled its tail. The arms caught her again, and dragged her down, clawing at her.</p><p></p><p>Now in the era of the Ancient Orcs, Uru was inspired to summon Toteth Topec to their aid. Toteth shrugged and said “I’m not much of a fighter” but both he and Amielle found themselves empowered by Uru’s dominion over the spirits. They and their new master attacked the titan to great effect.</p><p></p><p>Doing his best not to succumb to the whirling winds of the Gyre, Uriel flew over the edge of the plane and fired a lance of radiance at the titan’s head. The titan cried out in pain and pleasure. “This battle fulfills me,” it rumbled. “Let us reminisce upon battles past.” The surface of the arc of Reida shuddered, and soldiers from across time clawed their ways out of ancient graves. Modern Danoran battalions, their uniforms and faces decayed, hefted rifles and fired wildly, while a few hundred feet away, eladrin and Clergy crossed swords and spears, and beyond them orcish skeletons swiped stone clubs at stampedes of zombified beasts. Every open space on this plane was consumed with war.</p><p></p><p>Time itself seemed to speed up for the titan and it looped back under the plane at double speed and now rose up on the other side, to descend upon Quratulain, who had previously been behind him. She leapt out of harm’s way, fired back into his open mouth and then used her jet boots to get completely clear.</p><p></p><p>Frustrated, the Voice of Rot said, “A little help from my friends, perhaps? Jenny, you promised me a battle.”</p><p></p><p>At that, in the centre of the ring of Reida, an undead whale appeared. Upon its back stood Jenny Greenteeth and her foul cabal, all of whom should have been dead.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7908527, member: 79141"] [B]Session 256, Part One The Rough Beast[/B] Sabotage! Gupta tried to calm the crew, but their morale had only been bolstered by the thought that they might help to defeat the serpent. Now as the ship began to list, their suppressed fear was given full vent. From the engine room, Uru announced that the damage was catastrophic – it would take hours to fix. Quratulain looked over the side and saw more gremlins scampering round the arcane levitationals. She began to pick them off, one by one, for all the good it would do. Rumdoom was so keen to engage the titan he kept his feet planted firmly at the prow and didn’t budge even as the deck tilted beneath him. Leon looked to Korrigan. “Evacuate?” he asked. Korrigan gave a single arcane command, activating the fey portal pad. A moment later, instead of falling towards the Gyre, the ship was falling through the shattered glass debris of Av. It would do so for another minute or so, before it was drawn back to Reida. The king had bought them time to consider their options. Calm was restored, but urgency was maintained. They divided the crew into those who had been on the [I]Coaltongue[/I] when she was reflected, and those who had joined since and would die if they fell into the Gyre. The latter group was evacuated by Leon to Dunkelweiss, whence they could either wend their way, or remain until Dunkelweiss was joined to Lanjyr – then Leon would come to fetch them. This done, the unit – and only the unit – gathered round Leon. No one else would be powerful enough to harm the titan. (Not even Amielle, who was loath to remain behind.) Uriel blessed them all with the Staff of the Hierophant; Leon bathed those who would benefit in the invigorating light of the lantern; Rumdoom grew to giant size; Gupta focused on enacting Vekeshi revenge. Then Leon took them back to Reida. They reappeared on the plane’s glassy surface. Beneath their feet, images of the centuries between the clergy’s two victories played out; not far off, beyond the the vision of the fall, they saw the rise of Danor and Risur and the smog of industrialisation; further still, a huge gap, where the plane had been shattered. “Good of you to return,” said an unmistakable voice, a simultaneous growl and hiss, audible over the howling storm. They saw now that the titan had moved from there it had been before they vanished, and now slithered on the far side of the plane, heading towards them at speed. “Five ages have I glimpsed, my honoured foes. Lo from the Golden Dawn, to First Crown, from the High Demonocracy, through the Malicious Victory, and now to the Obscuring Steam. Long did I await the end of this, a beautiful and dying world. I ask that you challenge me, that I may smother the last high hope. If it be yours, then I will kill and you shall rot. If it be mine, you will return home and I shall despair. Either way, I shall be appeased.” With that, he issued forth an almost subsonic growl and a piercing hiss, and the whole ring of Reida shuddered. Cracks appeared across the surface of plane beneath his head. Another flick of his forked tongue, and comets began to fall from the sky; he tried to direct one towards Leon, but the Book of Kelland protected him. Leon was also protected from the rotting arms that writhed up from the plane beneath their feet – centuries of the dead awakened by their master’s call. Rumdoom and Korrigan were grabbed. Gupta shifted into hybrid form and leapt away from the grasping limbs, then she studied the serpent closely, searching for weaknesses, as it slithered inevitably towards them. Uru shadow-stepped upwards, took flight on Little Jack and licked the Sword of the Black Needles threateningly. He had long harboured the ambition (once a mere pipe-dream, now an imminent possibility) that he would one day slay the Voice of Rot and bring its tyranny over the dead to an end. He could never have imagined that he would do so as a titan himself, now possessed of the power to command spirits – a power lost by the Voice of Rot. Uru could hear the spirits of the centuries clamouring to come to his aid. “I will form a cadre of spirits to rival the ghost council,” Uru had said, not long ago. That effort would start here. The serpent hurled a comet at him; it missed. Uriel levitated into the air and weaved the titan’s fate, enabling him to predict its movements and its attack. Quratulain shot at the head; a sizable hole appeared in its left cheek – first blood (if there had been any blood inside the desiccated titan). Ignoring the grasping arms, Rumdoom decided that it would be a good idea to help the Voice of Rot destroy the plane beneath them: When it came apart, they would rejoin their other selves; the Voice of Rot would perish. Without sharing this idea with anyone, he brought the Stone of Not down hard on the surface of Reida, cracking this section too. At once Uriel cried out in alarm, and implored him not to do so again. “If Reida is destroyed, our world will cease to exist!” said the deva. Leon sought to give Rumdoom something better to do and teleported him into the path of the titan. He whisked Korrigan out of the grasping arms as well. Korrigan then flew into the air and issued orders to support his team. Now he could see that the section of the plane the Voice was on was the thousand-year era of the Demonocracy. The Voice of Rot caught sight of the king and thanked him for bringing his son. “I knew that if you thought I wanted him, you would bring him to me.” This made no sense, thought Korrigan, but then, here he was, with Kai strapped to his back. Fey logic was infectious, it seemed. The titan chuckled with amusement, and the gaping wound Quratulain had made closed up, to their horror. Then the Voice susurrated again and the era of the Demonocracy began to shear apart. Ever forwards the serpent surged, knocking Leon aside. When it came close enough, the stench from its rotting head was so powerful it nauseated even Rumdoom. Then it clamped its jaws down on the dwarf and sought to affect him with the same soul rot poison that had killed Kasvarina; Rumdoom was made of tougher stuff and struck the rough beast on the snout with his hammer. The blow was enfeebled by the titan’s stench, so he kicked off the Icy End of the World, to encourage it to let go. Seeking answers to the serpent’s regeneration, Gupta Stood in Wonder. She realised that he had bonded to the plane to such an extent that his mere presence carried the weight of eternity. This fey titan had survived millennia. They could only harm him if they struck him in two eras of time at once. So she used her icon of Apet to teleport to the far side of the plane, and found that to be the period of humanity’s rise and the decline of the Ancient Orcs. “I’ll take his ass; you take the head,” said Uru, speeding along on Little Jack to get into position, hiding in his own portable cloud of shadow. While he lined up his shot, he heard Amielle’s echoing cry, “Me first! Me first! Pick me!” He did so, and they both opened fire on the titan. Leon whisked Rumdoom out of the titan’s jaws, then created a pair of linked portals to ease movement across the plane. The Voice cracked another era with his decaying susurrus – the period of clergy ascendancy between the two victories; it hurled another comet at Uriel and raised more grasping arms to stop the unit moving away from him. Uriel dodged the comet and studied the susurrus. “We need to defend the plane with our own vigour!” he announced. “Someone must be standing on the section of the plane he’s trying to destroy!” Quratulain had previously jetted over the huge, jagged gash onto the Ancient Orcish side. Now she jumped back again, before taking a shot at the serpent’s body. The hide was thick, but she managed to punch through. She invoked her icon of Nem and stood firm, hoping to thwart the titan if it tried to crack the modern era. Rumdoom used his[I] tyrant’s teeth necklace[/I] to bite down on its flank, tearing out a sizable chunk, before he was pushed aside and fell close to the edge of the plane. The serpent fired a comet at him, and chipped off the edge where he had been lying; he barely clung on. Leon teleported right up to the face of the serpent, stabbed at it with his Dreaming Blade, then teleported away again. Now the Book of Kelland would not prevent the titan from attacking him! The titan tried its susurrus again, but now it had no effect on Reida itself, though it harmed those who stood firm with necrotic rot. The Voice summoned more grasping arms around Gupta, who was still on the far side of the plane; then it crawled off the jagged edge where the ‘modern era’ ended and began to loop back under itself. Gupta took on tiger form and tore free of the rotting limbs, then caught up with the serpent in a few bounds and mauled its tail. The arms caught her again, and dragged her down, clawing at her. Now in the era of the Ancient Orcs, Uru was inspired to summon Toteth Topec to their aid. Toteth shrugged and said “I’m not much of a fighter” but both he and Amielle found themselves empowered by Uru’s dominion over the spirits. They and their new master attacked the titan to great effect. Doing his best not to succumb to the whirling winds of the Gyre, Uriel flew over the edge of the plane and fired a lance of radiance at the titan’s head. The titan cried out in pain and pleasure. “This battle fulfills me,” it rumbled. “Let us reminisce upon battles past.” The surface of the arc of Reida shuddered, and soldiers from across time clawed their ways out of ancient graves. Modern Danoran battalions, their uniforms and faces decayed, hefted rifles and fired wildly, while a few hundred feet away, eladrin and Clergy crossed swords and spears, and beyond them orcish skeletons swiped stone clubs at stampedes of zombified beasts. Every open space on this plane was consumed with war. Time itself seemed to speed up for the titan and it looped back under the plane at double speed and now rose up on the other side, to descend upon Quratulain, who had previously been behind him. She leapt out of harm’s way, fired back into his open mouth and then used her jet boots to get completely clear. Frustrated, the Voice of Rot said, “A little help from my friends, perhaps? Jenny, you promised me a battle.” At that, in the centre of the ring of Reida, an undead whale appeared. Upon its back stood Jenny Greenteeth and her foul cabal, all of whom should have been dead. [/QUOTE]
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