TenThousandBrokenDreams/Session02

Mother Cypress speaks:

"Hello, children. I see you’ve come back for another story. So… what would like to hear tonight? Would you hear the tale of Kuro the Raven and Blessed Wind, who partook of the Sun’s bright power as it slipped from shackles of jade; of their many adventures as they sought each other out across the miles and across the years; of how they found one another, found love, and how that love turned to hate? Or would you hear the tale of Dancing Water, blessed of the Moon; of how he betrayed his sister out of love; of how he waited a thousand years and more for her rebirth; and of how he betrayed her a second time? Or would you hear more of last night’s tale, the story of the fall of the Scarlet Realm and the return of the golden power?

"Then gather round, my children, and spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you more of the tale of the children of the Sun, of their rebirth in the shadow of the Scarlet Realm, and the dawn of the new age."

Thorwald and Li made their way east until the mountains barred their way. They traveled to the volcanic rift where the Firbolg dwell, but found no refuge there. So they moved northward towards Gethemane. As they traveled, their supplies grew low, and they had run out of food when they spotted the snow-covered wreckage of a caravan in the evening light. The frozen and mummified corpses of merchants and yeddim lay strewn upon the ice and snow. Despite their fear of the hungry dead, the travelers took the opportunity to loot the caravan of food and jade. As they collected their spoils, the sun set; and as they argued about the danger, the wispy forms of a dozen hungry ghosts rose from the mouths and wounds of the withered dead. Essence flared around the two Solars as they fought, and Li’s blades blazed with solar fire that lay waste to the spectral host. The dead fell in moments, and the travelers built a pyre of crates to burn their bodies.

Tepet Aekino, Zera Thisse and Cathak Nerin fled the city of Thorns, bearing with them a helpless woman and child whose names they did not bother to learn. Aekino and Nerin bickered constantly in High Realm. After a few days, the flood of refugees dispersed over many routes as they traveled north into the lands of the Marukani. As the group followed a trail through brush and light woods, hoofbeats pursued them. Zera fell behind to lie in wait. Soon, the deathknight Forty-Four Devil Blossoms arrived with an escort of dead soldiers on skeletal steeds. She had little opportunity to speak, however; as she addressed Nerin, Zera stood and launched half a dozen arrows at her back, all of which found their mark. Wounded despite her soulsteel armor, she turned her pale steed toward Thorns and fled, leaving her zombie entourage to be slaughtered by Aekino’s obsidian magic and Nerin’s blazing blade.

After a brief visit to Gethamane, Li and Thorwald took ship to Icehome. Some friction arose between Thorwald and the crew, discouraging the Solars from another voyage by water. So they purchased a pair of horses instead. Riding south along the bank of the River of Tears, they heard the distant call of a horn. An elfin rider soon appeared upon a horned steed. This was Galarach, a mighty warrior of the Sihhë, who fed upon the passions of battle. Saluting the travelers, he informed them that he would challenge them both, as no single opponent were worthy of him; and as their horses had fled, he dismounted to allow for an even contest. Thorwald, for his part, insisted on single combat. Galarach deflected the northman’s blows with contemptuous ease, and did not even blood his blade, instead knocking his opponent off his feet with a kick to the face. Li then drew his shining blades and joined the fight, drawing first blood when one of her lunges rode high off a parry and cut the faerie’s cheek. Galarach replied by striking again, piercing Li’s defenses and cutting deeply into her side. The Solars fought more defensively then, and after a few passes in which none of the combatants landed a blow, the faerie sheathed his blade, vaulted back into the saddle and thanked his foes for the fight. Departing, he acknowledged their skill and expressed his wish never to meet them again.

The refugees of Thorns procured horses as they traveled north through the lands of the Marukani. As they reached the barren territory near Deren’s Ford, they accepted the hospitality of a fearful old peasant couple. The peasants spoke of haunts that walked the night, and the husband spoke privately to Zera of a terrible hungry ghost that had emerged in recent days, the shade of a Dragon-Blood whose body had been left behind after the great battle four years ago and entombed nearby. The tomb had been robbed, and now the ghost could not be appeased. Zera and Aekino determined to travel to the tomb and lay the ghost to rest, leaving Nerin to guard the peasant couple and the mother and child from Thorns.

At the tomb, a ghost rose from bones piled near its entrance, and it fell quickly; but it was merely the shade of a wanderer slain by the ghost that lay within the tomb. As the first ghost turned to dust, the Dragon-Blood's shade emerged and it was no easy prey. Zera struck it with six arrows; it shrugged them off and all but disemboweled the young archer with a single stroke, leaving him to bleed his life out upon the path. Aekino blasted the ghost with a razored stream of black glass, but it brushed the spell aside and kept coming, and the sorcerer only evaded its lethal counterstrike by pouring waves of Essence through his frame. Alone, Aekino devised a plan...

... and at that moment, the sun rose in the east. Mother Cypress bid the children return the following night, then faded into the murky shadows of the swamp, leaving the children to discuss what they had heard.

(Note: all PCs received 10 XP for this session. XP totals to date: Aekino 20, Li 25, Thorwald 20, Zera 20)

Comments

This session served to practice the combat system, and the four fights took up most of the three-hour session. I learned a couple of lessons. First, gloss over the slaughter of mooks as much as possible, by using the rules for extras or else narrating the combat, to keep from bogging down. Second, the hungry ghosts of powerful Exalts are *nasty*. Zera Thisse took something like 11 levels of lethal damage in one blow, surviving only because I fudged the result. If I ever need a really nasty foe to pound on the Circle, I'll pull out the hungry ghost of an elder Solar sorcerer. - Quendalon