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Session Two

Descending Earth 14-15, 768

The Circle of Solar heroes chooses not to proceed north at once. Grace, remembering last night's full moon and anticipating another tonight, puts forth an alternative: she can use her sorcery to summon the Spy Who Walks In Darkness once sunset comes, which will allow them to scout ahead far faster than any of them could otherwise achieve. This strikes the rest as a sound idea, and they decide to use the remaining daylight to assist and calm the villagers. Lumo and Anaba take the lead in making friends; through most of the day, they talk quietly with families trying to adapt to the loss of their homes or a loved one, offer advice and counsel to the village leaders, attempt to reassure those they encounter that tales of Solar infernalism are distortions and exaggerations and that the village has nothing to fear now. These attempts are not completely successful, but eyes that had stared in stark terror before merely watch warily now, and some few offer words of thanks or gifts of food and drink. If the offers are made from fear rather than gratitude, they are still freely put forth, and the Solars show proper thanks.

Grace prepares herself for the night's ritual, acquiring the right herbs and unguents needed for the summoning. Sanura stays apart mostly, lost in unpleasant thoughts. Lapis, as always the perfect guest, nevertheless watches his hosts as warily as they do him, an ill consideration coloring his eyes.

That night, Anaba agrees to assist Grace in the casting of the ritual, and Sanura chooses to look on as they proceed. As the women leave, Lapis draws Lumo aside to speak of his misgivings. "There is danger in allowing these people to go on as they have been," Lapis says quietly. "The Legion will not take it well if we leave behind tales of Anathema when we depart, tales that can spread."

Lumo looks around, a solemn expression marking his face as well. "You may be right. They have agreed to keep our silence, but how can we trust that?"

After a moment's thought, Lapis replies, "There might be a way." With that, he moves off into the village, speaking quietly to men and women as he passes them, apparently doing as he and the others had done that morning. Now, however, Essence rides behind his eyes, and the souls of those to whom he speaks are open to him. He sees wariness, fear, sorrow - but also gratitude, cautious acceptance, hesitant welcome. Nowhere does he find betrayal writ across the passions of the village, and with that, he is content. "They will not betray us as long as we do not harm them," he tells Lumo, and the weight of his Caste hangs over the statement. Lumo is satisfied.

Elsewhere, as the moon rises in the east, chasing down the sun in the west, Grace turns to face Luna's full gaze and begins to chant softly in the Old Tongue, ancient cadences flowing smoothly in a rhythm of power. Behind her, Anaba anoints Grace's shadow, outlining, then covering the dark shape with a peculiar pitch mixed with unusual herbs. As the moon rises, Anaba sees with mild shock that Grace's shadow does not move with it, trapped beneath the pitch as an insect in amber. On and on Grace chants, her voice never faltering, as Anaba carefully smears the pitch to cover every trace of the frozen shadow. At last, four hours later, the chanting ends and Grace turns to face her shadow, which still does not move. Taking a burning twig from Anaba, she hurls it onto the pitch with a final triumphant cry, leaping back as the flames burst into existence around her and gold-white Essence sears the night sky.

Her shadow rises and bows slowly.

Though weary from the casting, Grace does not hesitate. Lowering herself to the ground, she pours her will into the Spy, riding on a wave of Essence. After a moment, they merge. She blinks with the eyes of the shadow, smiles with its mouth. Then she/it turns to the darkness, steps into it, and is gone.

The Spy emerges from the shadow of a small tree some five miles north. Low rolling hills meet its/her gaze, but nothing more. The Spy's vision pierces the night's gloom as though it were midday. With no more than a casual glance, she/it steps back into the tree's shadow and disappears again, stepping out once more into the darkness behind a boulder, another five miles north. No more than 50 yards away a deep gorge, twenty paces wide and at least three times that deep, carves its way through the rolling grasslands. A rough rope and plank bridge crossed the gorge once - possibly until quite recently. Now, however, it dangles uselessly, cut loose on the far side. A quick scan of the area reveals no other hints or clues, but the bridge is clue enough. A third time she steps into the shadows and is gone.

Now she appears amongst some low scrub on the increasingly hilly plain, long low ridges crossing the land to the north and south. In the distance to the north, the ridges rise into foothills, and then to low mountains. The mountains are between six and eight miles away, Grace estimates, studying them to the Spy's eyes. Though she still finds no sign of anyone who might have come this way, the mountains stand as a barrier to further northern travel. Though repeated shadow-travel has weakened the Spy considerably, she decides to risk one more transit toward the mountains. From there, if need be, the Spy can proceed on foot. She directs the Spy back into the bushes, and she/it steps out on the edge of a forest, a wide expanse of slow-moving river dividing her from the base of the mountains. On the side of the nearest peak, just a few hundred feet up from the river's far bank, the flicker of a campfire draws the Spy's eyes. "At last," Grace thinks. "I have found them."

She can see three human figures around the campfire, and a large darkness in the shadow of the hill indicates more - possibly many more - packed tightly together in the night. Though she cannot determine what is happening precisely, she feels she has seen enough to verify that these are the Circle's prey. With a rush of Essence, her awareness returns to her body and she opens her eyes to see the anxiously waiting forms of her Circlemates. Swiftly, she reports what she saw. "I think we should leave first thing in the morning," she says, and all agree unhesitatingly.

The following morning, hard travel is the order of the day. The Circle pushes on relentlessly, covering five miles before the sun is more than its own width above the horizon. Just before noon, they encounter their first obstacle - the gorge, cut rope still dangling where Grace saw it the night before. "I think I might be able to jump it," says Lumo, but Anaba shakes her head.

"Give me the rope," says the Dawn, and as soon as it is in her hand she ties a knot around the shaft of her mighty orichalcum flamespear. Taking just a single step, she hurls the weapon, the strength of the Unconquered Sun within her. The spear buries itself into the rock on the far side almost half its 12 foot length. A quick tug to make sure the knot would hold, and Anaba is already swinging across. One by one, the others follow, until Anaba is prying the weapon free of the rock on the other side, untying the rope and returning it to Lumo's pack. "Let's get moving," she says, and they set off once more.

The hard pace is difficult for Grace, but through sheer force of will she perserveres at the same fast stride the others maintain. At last the group arrives at the same spot where the Spy had stood the night before, staring across the river toward the hillside. Now, however, a scene of nightmare has replaced the quiet camp of the night before.

At the base of the hill stands a massive bone structure, a cage of sorts, with literally hundreds of people milling within it. As the Solars step from the trees, a massive flare of black and bone-white Essence blots out the sunset-shaded hill, drawing back to reveal a monstrous engine, black smoke puffing into the sky just as it had in Lapis' dream. With a slow, steady shuffle, the crowd in the bone cage begins to move toward the machine, and the smoke plumes rise into the air with greater and greater fury. At the same time, the sky begins to dim and the machine takes on a translucent appearance, slowly fading from material form.

"I'll cover you," Lumo says without hesitation, his powerbow at the ready. "They're almost within range. Get down there." Eyeing the long stretch of open riverbank, plus the wide river itself, Grace decides that a traditional approach would take too long and leave them too exposed. Words in the tongue of the Old Realm flow from her mouth, and abruptly a rushing surge of golden Essence announces the appearance of the Stormwind Rider. Dimly, over the roar of the winds, the Solars can hear shouts from the far bank, and sudden bursts of black and bruise-purple Essence reveal preparations from the opposition. As the spell is completed, Lumo runs down the slope a few dozen yards, finding cover just within the range of his bow. The Stormwind rushes past him, headed directly for the cage and machine. Once it is gone, he draws upon his Essence to fire a perfect shot at the burst of Essence - clearly some sort of sorcery - being shaped on the hillside. "Whatever that is," he thinks, "I don't want him to finish it." Even at the distant range, he can see the sparkling shaft meet its target, and the death-Essence explodes outward in all directions.

Grace steers her Stormwind across the river, aiming it directly at the machine. Once there, the Solars can see two pale figures apparently protecting the machine - a heavyset man with a waxen moustache wearing a thick leather apron and peculiar scaled guantlets, and a taller, athletic man with short spiky hair and a soulsteel powerbow. She aims the Stormwind at them, but they dive clear as the winds evaporate. Lance and shield at hand, Anaba is the first to leap out, but none of her companions are slow to follow. From up the hill, two more opponents come running, both women. These are a warrior in heavy soulsteel armor, massive Grand Daiklave in her hand, and a priestess of some type, in ornate black robes and a complicated headdress, soulsteel razor claws carved to resemble spiders wrapped around each wrist. The hem of the priestess' robe drips blood as she runs, already in the stance of the Hungry Ghost Style.

Anaba's first blow, aimed at the Day Caste archer, holds all the power of her Wise Weapon Spirit technique, but the forbidden wisdom the Abyssal follows guides him away in a blur of shadows and death. Lapis' blow staggers the Midnight Caste in her bloodstained robes. Sanura races forward to force aside one of the mortals hurling herself into the maw of the terrible machine, but the Daybreak Caste "physician" of black death slams one of his gauntlets into her back, screaming, "You must not be allowed to interfere!" The chill of the Void floods through the wound and Sanura staggers.

Anaba and the Dusk Caste, whose wide smile holds no mirth, turn to face each other, Essence driving vicious blows and just as viciously turning them aside. The Day archer fires at Lumo, and his strike is painfully true. Lapis' takes vengeance on the Daybreak for the assualt on Sanura, sinking his short daiklave deep into the Abyssal's back. From the cave above, a squad of demons in the shape of jade lions appears, along with a group of zombies. Sanura's anima flares and pulses in involuntary response to the demons' presence, and they are seared by the holiness of her Essence. Grace manages to strike the priestess, driving her to the ground. The Daybreak gasps on dies on the end of Lapis' daiklave, but almost at the same time, the mirthless Dusk manages to strike through Anaba's defense, the great daiklave slipping past her guard and severing the Dawn's left arm at the shoulder.

Behind all of this, the stream of mortals has continued to flood the machine, and only moments after Anaba feels her arm drop from her shoulder with a cold agony, the last soul is drawn into the engine's terrible maw. The machine disappears entirely and the sky sudden darkens to almost night befor slowly lightening again. A cold wind picks up, and the vegetation all around seems to wither. The smells of death are everywhere. Somehow, impossibly, the land has become a shadowland.

Before the Solars can react to this astonishing turn of events, the Abyssal sorcerer up the hill, in a voice like falling tears, cries out weakly, "Stormwind Rider!" A rush of air sweeps down the hillside, drawing archer, warrior and priestess with it and carrying them away. The body of the Daybreak remains there, alongside the cage of bone and the collapsed mortal survivor, until Sanura summons her anima and sends the body's soul on its way to reincarnation. The demons and zombies, deprived of their masters, scatter away, taking advantage of their freedom in their own ways. The five Solars look at each other, badly wounded and helpless in the face of the new shadowland, and cannot help wondering what the future holds. Into the sudden silence, in the same unearthly voice as he had before, Lapis finds himself intoning, "The forsaken city of fallen kings now holds our only salvation." All the others stare at him, then at each other once more. Then, as one, they look south again, toward Lookshy... and home.

(15 xp)

Hapushet/FallingShadowsSessionTwo/FallingShadowsSessionThree