AlecAustin/SessionTwo
Session 2: The Deeds of the Beast-Gods
Being a record of the Lunar game being run by Hplovescats.
By AlecAustin
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We pick up our tale with our bold heroes tromping across the Majestic Emerald Basin, heading towards the source of the smoke. As the group proceeds onward, they encounter a trio of moss-covered, gorilla-like Wyld mutants, one of whom holds an unconscious youth in his hands.
August, who leapt into the trees at the first sounds of their approach, attempts to close the distance between the two groups, but he is detected and the mutants continue moving away. Seeta, who shifted into a fox, runs to outflank the mutants, and shifts into Beastman form behind the mutant holding the captive, tearing off his leg with one blow. Chaos ensues, and Ruin cuts down another of the mutants before the legless mutant and his single remaining comrade seek to flee, but August hunts them down as a snow leopard and kills them both.
While August is away, a group of tribesmen dressed in the same manner as the youth arrive on the scene, and seeing the moonsilver tattoos of our heroes, proclaim all of them (save Ruin, who has Hide of the Cunning Hunter) to be great and heroic Beast-Gods who have saved their kinsman. Sadly, only Ruin can speak the language of the tribesmen, and so he passes himself off as a servant of the Beast-Gods while the others are forced to rely on him as an interpreter. The tribesmen, who are known as the Dara-Ko, lead our heroes to their village, where a great feast is prepared in their honor. Of all the Dara-ko, only their Shaman, Han, seems to realize that Ruin is not what he claims to be.
Much feasting and revelry ensues, with Ruin bedding one of the chief's daughters and August getting piss-drunk on the tribe's mead. As August stumbles to the chief's tent, however, he hears an enchanting voice, and after sobering up and activating Pulse of the Invisible, he goes to investigate the Shaman's home, where he sees a spirit of breathtaking beauty in the form of a mortal woman. She wears a ring of orichalcum around her finger, and as August assesses the situation, she presses him to remove it from her, even as she grudgingly caresses the head of her child. August, who is slow but prudent, declines, much to the spirit's frustration.
Amala is bathing herself, so when August emerges from the Shaman's hut, he hunts down Seeta, who goes with him to question Han as to why a spirit is his wife. After observing Han parleying with a wind spirit, hey learn that Han tricked the spirit now known as 'Jericha' into swearing an oath by which she is now bound, making her his wife and placing her powers at his disposal until he dies or she bears her second child. She is also prevented from bringing harm to the Dara-ko after she is freed, so long as the exact terms of the oath are not abrogated.
Han is a clever shaman, and it seems that his plan will ensure the safety of his village. However, when August goes to sleep, Seeta takes it upon herself to spy on the shaman's wife as a fox, and finds herself enchanted by the spirit's charms. Changing herself into a man, Seeta sleeps with 'Jericha', and the spirit uses magic to ensure that she becomes pregnant. Due to a loophole in her oath, if her second child is not Han's, she will be free of her marriage, and the Dara-ko vilage will burn.
The next morning, our heroes set out for Smoketooth Cave, which the Dara-ko claim is cursed. Upon entering the cave, they find that its fumes are being created by Heavy-Foot, 'Jericha' or, more properly, Wind Blossom's brother deity, who wants nothing so much as the return of his sister. Seeta surprises her companions with the news that Wind Blossom is pregnant, and after some consultation (to which the distraught Heavy-Foot is oblivious) August and Seeta negotiate a pact with Heavy Foot: In exchange for a reward and his oath not to harm the Dara-ko, they will return his sister to him. Heavy Foot agrees, and the heroes return to the village, where they confront Han, and Seeta informs him of his wife's pregnancy. Han is hurt and grieved, but he accepts that the Beast-Gods cannot be kept from doing as they please, and frees his wife after binding her with more assurances of safety for his tribe. Wind Blossom is elated by her freedom, but in a fit of spite, takes Han's son with her as well when she leaves.
The tribe, which knows nothing of these machinations, prepare another feast for the Beast-Gods, and the feast is in full swing when the Zahn-Ka (as the Dara-Ko know the moss-men) attack. Dozens of Tribesmen are wounded or killed in the attack, and though Ruin slays one of the Zahn-Ka champions in one blow, he is knocked unconscious by four blows from their chieftan. As Seeta and Amala fight off the remaining Zahn-Ka, August leaps into the fray and slays the chieftan and several of his followers, expending so much Essence that the image of a snow leopard burns around him. The tribe hails the Beast-Gods as mighty heroes, and August sees Heavy Foot in the woods from which the Zahn-Ka came, and knows that if the god had not sworn the oath which he demanded, Heavy Foot would have set himself against the Dara-ko as well.
The next day, the Lunars set out to claim their reward from Heavy Foot, and are sent to Wind Blossom's pools, where they dive after a glimmer of moonsilver in the depths of the deepest pond. Seeta dives and returns with no memory of what she had been looking for, but August, who kept the orichalcum wedding ring after Han discarded, dives as well, and discovers a moonsilver sphere set into the bottom of the pool. Tearing it out of the pool's side in Beastman form, he returns to the surface only to see the carapace dissolve in the air, revealing a mighty but unconscious man of great age, clad in clothes of an unfamiliar cut. With their 'reward' in hand, the Lunars set out for the Tlak, hoping that their deeds will earn them approval in the eyes of others...
Comments
[End of the first story. 4 xp plus 2 "totem xp" for all, plus 5 story xp. 6 extra xp and 3 totem xp were awarded to all players for assisting hplovescats with a major project for school.]
