SJE/Session55
SESSION 55 - MUGS (WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS HER NAME)
25 Ascending Air
Our heroes pack for their road trip, each taking only the bare essentials. For Shizu and Ravitsu, this is little more than their clothes and weapons. The rest of the circle, though have different definitions of 'essential'. Brand cannot bear to travel with a box of the Gem City Watch's favourite tea - 'Palace of Gem Tips' - and a bottle of Ahlat's special 'Hecatomb Pickle' Sauce, for a taste of home. Alana brings 25 fanatical tiger warriors with her. The Captain takes beer, his weapons and armour, some spare beer, his favourite hipflask, an emergency hipflask and some extra beer. Orchid takes most of her household staff, beginning with a small boy with a large fan and ending with Hans the masseur and her sedan chair bearers. To the few she leaves behind, she gives strict instructions that, no matter what happens, the bricked-up doorway beneath the stairs is not to be opened. Not even if it seems like a very, very good idea at the time...
After a brief trip by whirlwind, during which Brand insists on stopping at a local Ahlat's House of Ribs franchise, the circle reaches Solaria. As Alana found on her first trip there, it is a dusty fly-speck of a country, dominated by the competing mud-brick and glass-making industries. Every town features at least one church to the Unconquered Sun, which is usually either being torn down by the Imperial garrison, about to be torn down by the Imperial garrison or being rebuilt. These are profitable times for Solaria's builders and glaziers...
Alighting from their storm wind near Solaria Minor - Solaria's second city, where they hope to establish a power base before moving on to confront the Princess Magnificent in the capital, Solaria Magna - the circle poses as Lady Orchid, representative of a Gem merchant looking to trade in Solaria's famous stained glass, and her retinue. The customs checks are cursory - "Are you now, or have you ever been an Anathema? Do you have in your possession any First Age Weapons of Mass Destruction?" - and, having been warned that mice are a protected species in Solaria, our heroes proceed to check in at the Glass House, the city's most comfortable, yet disturbingly see-through, inn.
In the streets, the bells call the faithful to church - the only non-attendees are the soldiers of the local Imperial garrison, who exchange good-natured insults and the occasional thrown rock with the faithful.
At the Glass House, a brief council of war decides that the first priority is to gather information and allies before any open conflict. Orchid thinks it's a shame that the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile is not here, as she so obviously despises the Princess. To her surprise, and his own, Ravitsu agrees: "Yeah, we should have invited her. I can't believe I just said that..."
Alana, her identity concealed by her desert robes, heads off to make contact with the underground and see what progress they have made in her absence (Alana's player wasn't able to be at this session of play, so this is how we got her 'off-camera').
Ravitsu, pausing to consume a mouse and take its form, sneaks into the church. He finds that, with the service coming to an end, many of the worshippers are breaking up into smaller groups to hold meetings in the church's function rooms. Checking the booking forms, he notes a plethora of secret societies, all holding meetings her at the church (well, except for the Popular Front of Solaria, whose meetings keep being cancelled for lack of interest). Eavesdropping, it appears that the only person that all of these societies seem to respect is the local pastor. Switching back into human form, Ravitsu finds him in his vestry, beneath a stained glass window bearing a dubious likeness of Saint... Alana? "Erm," he asks. "Tell me about Saint Alana."
The pastor is happy to oblige. "She is one of the Unconquered Sun's angels, sent to lead us out of the darkness that has come to Solaria Magna."
"Okay..." Ravitsu is a little fazed. "Is she here, then?"
"No, my son, they say she is in the mountains, gathering a force of angels to cast out the darkness."
Ravitsu allows his caste mark to show. "We came as soon as we could," he smiles.
The pastor prostrates himself in thanks before Ravitsu. "Bless you, my son, our deliverance is at hand. You must take this." With shaking hands, the pastor opens a box and brings out a golden pendant in the shape of a sunburst. "Will you address the faithful? the priest asks. Ravitsu agrees to speak at the Twilight Service.
Brand walks the streets, getting a feel for the layout of the city and the local secret societies. He notes a great variety of slogans, scurrilous cartoons and other graffiti, some deriding the Imperial occupation, but most demonstrating the extent of the in-fighting amongst Solaria's dazzling variety of secret societies. Licking his pencil, he takes out his notebook and attempts to catalogue these societies and understand their alliances and feuds.
Captain Ibrahim relies on tried and tested methods: he looks for a pub. Entering Mugs, a seedy mud-brick dive, he is astonished to find a crude clay statue of Alana in the basement bar. In need of a drink to steady his nerves, he orders a beer in his best 'talking-to-foreigners' - that is, very loud - voice, and engages the barman in conversation.
"So," he nods towards the statue. "Who's the bint?"
"'Bint!' That's Saint Alana!"
"What's she the saint of then?"
"Er... Heroism? She's our saviour!"
"Who from?"
"From everything! The Realm, the darkness..." The barman leans in a little closer and lowers his voice. "Some advice, friend: don't call Saint Alana a 'bint' around here. You ought to show her some respect."
Captain Ibrahim leers at the statue. "Phwoar! I'll respect anyone with a pair like that..."
Sadly, the Captain is still talking in his 'outdoors' voice, so he is treated to an entertaining interlude as pretty much everyone in the bar takes exception to his remarks. After one patron tries to glass him, and several more team up to throw him out of the door, Captain Ibrahim picks himself up and hurls himself back into the fray with a joyful roar. This is his kind of investigating!
Shizu, moved by some intuitive feeling that the Captain is going to attract trouble, has shadowed him to the pub and is lurking inconspicuously in the background. Sighing, she draws further back into a dark corner and eyes the crowd, looking out for spies or informers.
After some time of tramping the streets and taking details of slogans, the names of organisations (e.g., The Popular Front of Solaria, Democratic Front for Solaria, The Solarian People's Front, The Solarian Acolytes of Saint Alana - "Eh?" Brand wonders - and about 3 dozen more) Brand has a splitting headache, a complex diagram of overlapping secret societies that puts the Captain's map of the Great Mime Conspiracy to shame and no more room in his notebook. He decides that he needs a break.
At Mugs, the bar-room brawl has begun to wind down. As Captain Ibrahim and the last standing combatants drag themselves towards each other one last time, the Captain raises a weary hand. "Truly, my friends," he props himself up against the bar. "You are worthy devotees of Saint Alana. I have come from Gem to test you. Your vigour does her great honour." The crowd looks surly until the Captain proclaims "Drinks are on me!" Convinced of his sincerity by his winning smile and his generosity, they're soon listening to the Captain's ripping yarns of his adventures with Saint Alana. Not much later, they're even teaching him the 'Alana Song'.
Shizu, watching from the shadows, notices a shifty figure slipping out of the bar. She stalks him to the local Realm garrison and, using her Solar magic, slips in unnoticed as this informer is taken to see the local commander, Sesus Nalwah. Nalwah is a twitchy, rather febrile Dragon-Blooded with blue hair, his face running with moisture as he struggles to cope with the dry heat of Solaria. He listens to his informer's report, then orders him to check for recent arrivals with the customs officers and bring them in for questioning. He then calls for Sergeant Vandriss to send a patrol down to Mugs to see what's going on there.
Shizu zips away across the rooftops to the customs post, and ninjas her way inside. There, she cunningly alters the daily log, replacing the descriptions of 'Lady Orchid and retinue' with those of Master Tanaka and Kronan the Barbarian.
Meanwhile, Orchid has, after some time of lazing around at the inn and generally not doing much at all, decided that she ought to keep an eye on what the Captain is up to. Guessing correctly that he will be at the pub, she heads for Mugs, where she finds him loudly belting out the chorus of the 'Alana Song'. She draws him to one side. "Captain," she inquires evenly as she limit breaks in the face of his intemperance. "Does the word 'discretion' mean anything to you?"
Captain Ibrahim is all breezy assurances. "Bah, these are trustworthy lads, they'll not say a word."
Orchid eyes the statue of Alana. "I'm not so sure about their ability to keep a secret... Hmm. Do keep an eye out, Ibrahim, I'm going to do something to sort these people out..."
Orchid, not thinking of the lives that could be lost, but of her cause, climbs onto the base of Saint Alana's statue and lets her caste mark's glow illuminate the room. As the crowd falls silent, she begins to speak, softly at first, but growing in volume and conviction as she draws the full attention of the crowd. "My name is Orchid, and I am a friend of Alana. I have come to tell you that the time has come to join together to cast out the Imperial foe and the darkness that has come to Solaria..."
Just after Orchid begins her oration, Brand and Ravitsu enter the pub and exchange notes with the Captain. The rest of the patrons listen, spell-bound, to Orchid, who is by now beginning to rant somewhat - "It's a very difficult job and the only way to get through it is we all work together as a team. And that means you do everything I say!". Shortly afterwards, Shizu rushes in to tell them that soldiers are on their way. A hasty plan is hatched - Ravitsu uses Shaping The Ideal Form to make himself look like Kronan, and lets himself be spotted by the Imperial patrol. He leads them on a lengthy chase through the streets of Solaria Minor, shouting taunts and slogans all the while: "Take my sword if you can. Down vith der Realm!", "Der Imperial Governator is a girly-man!", "For der Bull Of Der North!" As the chase continues, Captain Ibrahim and Brand stalk the patrol from behind, taking them out one by one. Inspired by Rav's example, they yell their own contradictory war cries: "For the Perfect!"
Shizu stays at the pub, concealed on the rooftop, in case another patrol comes along. Once the guards are dealt with, everyone returns to Mugs to catch the end of Orchid's speech. By now, she is ablaze with golden light as she reaches the high point of her new 'The Triumph Of The Will' combo. Practically frothing at the mouth, she has the crowd eating out of her hand as she reaches an arm-waving crescendo: "The in-fighting must stop! Go back to your secret societies and show them the light! ONE SOLARIA! ONE PEOPLE! ONE SUN!"
The crowd goes wild and it is only with some difficulty that Orchid can persuade them to disperse to spread the word. When they have gone, Orchid stumbles, drained, from her perch. Rav helps her to a seat and, after a short rest, takes her to the Twilight Service at the Church. Rav is in fine form as he addresses the congregation, his story-telling is almost hypnotic, though rather less shouty than Orchid's messianic ranting. As his caste mark and tattoos glow silver, he tells the tale of the demon army that besieged Gem and preaches a moral: "The Unconquered Sun wants the Champions of the Sun AND THE MOON. He wants you. He wants all of us. He wants us to work together! That's how we beat the darkness in Gem and that's how we'll beat it in Solaria!" The congregation is utterly won over by his captivating tale. The gospel of teamwork is spreading fast through Solaria Minor...
After the sermon, Ravitsu takes Orchid to see the pastor. He is overjoyed to see yet another of Alana's "angels" and eagerly accepts her offer to speak at the Dawn Service.
Meanwhile, Shizu slips away to once more infiltrate Sesus Nalwah's headquarters. Hiding behind a conveniently-placed couch, she eavesdrops as he learns of the ignominious fate of his patrol and gives out new orders for an all-out attack at midnight to his second-in-command, Lieutenant Maldoon.
"Maldoon, bring me everyone."
"What do you mean, 'everyone'?"
"EVERYONE!" Sesus Nalwah's face runs with water and trembles with terrible rage as he screams at his lieutenant.
Shizu slips away to warn her comrades, pausing only to leave behind an ominous graffito on Nalwah's office wall: "The Unconquered Sun is watching you. Your sins will be revealed."
Return to SJE
