MargardKazuki/SessionTen

Descending Air Winter comes for real this time. It is once again the meeting of the Deliberative. This month's meeting is by-and-large uneventful since there aren't any major issues brought up. What's more important is how Jahanna handles the Lower Deliberative in her first shot as Speaker. There was one particular point of contention -- whether the students should get a day off for a festival at a remote village -- that broke down into a heated argument, and Jahanna decided to embroil the situation by extending the debate. She would back a side if it ever seemed like they were beginning to flag and rekindle the argument. She managed allow the meeting to last the entire weekend, but Mahiro's side eventually wins.

It's early in the month, and a bevy of visitors for Mizugami come and go. Tepet Elena also stops by one day to invite Mizugami and his friends for a dinner engagement. Mizugami invites his classmates, the Usual Suspects (Moro, Reflections, and Soosilus), Easley, Mier, and Elin. Socially, Mizugami defends Jahanna; Cynis Elin defends Judas; and Kazuki, of all people, tries to block for The Usual Suspects. Judas is actually intentionally "keeping up appearances" by acting as a loud and obnoxious drunk. He even tries to hit on Elin. Kira manages to push her agenda for getting more contacts for her quest to fight the Darklords. Ranka stays away from most of the socializing.

During the dinner, Mizugami discovers that there has been a change of leadership that might interest the Tepet -- that there are now new people in charge of the remaining Tepet legion.

Kazuki has his classes with Kasif, where Aoora has joined them. While bright, she is not quite as educated as Kazuki and Reflections. Kasif knows that he will be dedicating more time to educating Aoora, and wants to try to leave Kazuki to do assignments on his own. Kazuki promises to try. He's going to try to work with Reflections to make things more fun.

Cynis Norrin tells Ranka that he is bringing in a Cynis Sorceror to come in to give a lecture on practical spellcasting with Soosilus. He invites Ranka to the lesson as well. She learns that though their bodies will remain in Cherak (under his care, of course), their spirits will be going all over the place, mostly in Yushuan (heaven). In theory, Dragonblooded can't even get to Yushuan normally -- or even abnormally. She goes to speak with Virtuous Cloud to see how this might be accomplished. She comments that it would be a terrible idea, since the celestial lions that guard the area could simply eat them on a whim. Ranka thinks it might be a good idea to go speak to Crow about this as well. Virtuous Cloud admits this wouldn't be the most hazardous thing that Ranka has done, but it certainly won't be a pleasant experience. She believes that the Cynis sorceror may have made some sort of ... arrangement with a god (which is something of a no-no amongst the Immaculate Order). Virtuous Cloud plans on going to strongly discourage the field trip -- and succeeds.

Judas, after a full 6 weeks of training Mier, he notices that she has a problem with learning martial arts, mostly due to bad habits she's learned through her current fighting style. Her pride and lack of patience gets to her head, and she's wondering if it's about time she got to go out and fight against 20 people. Judas takes her to the monastary to teach her a lesson -- and learn it she does.

Crow says to Kira one day after classes that it's time to test her practical skills. Crow wants to show Kira something and takes her to a hallway beneath the administrative building in the undercity that is full of flame-shooting nozzles and spear-trapped ceilings. Kira's task, in the next day, will be to navigate the trap-filled hallway to retrieve a scroll. She has the night to think about how she wants to accomplish this goal. She has some ideas and talks to Mizugami about magically fire-resistant thread during dinner. The class chips in on tactics on how to get through the obstacles. Kira decides to get some fire-resistant clothing instead, while Ranka volunteers to summon a small fire elemental to help create a smoke bridge that she can cross.

Kira brings her classmates with her to her test, and Crow announces that she has passed the first test. Ranka sends out the small fire elemental that she had summoned the night before and Kira uses it to bounce across to the other side, only getting slightly singed by the fire trap. The moment she picks up the scroll, all of the traps trigger and she finds herself trapped on the other side. Because of the wording of Crow's task, Kira asks the others for help. Jahanna discovers that the fire is magical, so fire aspect abilities wouldn't protect them from the flames. Instead, Ranka tasks the fire elemental to leave an opening in the flame wall, which Kazuki flies through. He hacks up the spears and goes to Kira who asks him to bring the scroll back to Crow. Task completed, the traps cease, and Kira passes the test.

Jahanna is approached by Tevenad one evening after classes to talk to her about her role as the leader of the class for the upcoming tournament, thinking that she has a pretty good grasp of the her classmates' thoughts. He comes right out and says it -- he is wondering whether Judas is actually out to kill him. He is talking to Jahanna for reasons of practicality, since no one else would be a reasonable choice. Tevenad doesn't have anything against Judas, so he's really concerned for his well-being. Jahanna cuts a deal with him -- she does him the favor of finding out, and he'll owe a similar favor at a later time. She talks to Judas about a hypothetical situation of a kind of favor he might want out of Tevanad. Judas' advice is not to get involved at all, but Jahanna presents another hypothetical situation: say he already owes a favor.

Late in the month, Ferem Easley comes to Mizugami and asks if he has plans for the festival. He invites the class to come out to the ranch that his family owns in the region.

Judas talks to Lucrecia and she has a vision that there's going to be an avalanche at the festival next week. He asks a few questions and discovers the night of the disaster is going to take place Saturday night. It happens that Easley's ranch is on the mountainside overlooking the festival grounds, so Judas accepts his invitation.

Before leaving for the trip, Mizugami spends a little time talking to Tepet Elena to talk about the current state of their family and their Legion. Judas tries to find out more about the future events that he was told about. He talks to Ranka and Virtuous Cloud to learn more about how the future works, and whether fate can ever be changed. He is assured that Dragonblooded are capable of affecting the future, and even some mortals can, and if Lucrecia envisioned that Judas was key in stopping the avalanche, then Fate would work towards seeing the future come true.

Ranka continues her lesson with Virtuous Cloud to learn more about Celestials and their roles and abilities.

That Thursday, after classes, a huge caravan (courtesy of Danic) heads out. Easley's ranch is actually quite a large estate, smaller only agaisnt the Palace of Len Occam to the students from the North. A few of the students, including Kira and Kazuki, are a little toasty thanks to the complimentary drinks that were in the carriages. Moro, Reflections, Kazuki and the Idiots, and Kira having a snowball fight, and Soosilus talking to the snowflakes as they flutter to earth. Mizugami is looking for a cute girl. Ranka thinks about hiding indoors at first since it is cold and snowing outside, but she decides to look around to see if she can find the potential cause of the avalanche. Ranka talks with Soosilus and asks her to talk with some of the Earth spirits.

Soosilus finds it strange when the first rock she speaks with is worried about turning into something that's not a rock. Apparently, something is causing them to change into something... with legs... lots of legs. Ranka goes looking for a larger rock to talk to. They find out more information about the walking rocks and learn that there's an invasion from "another" spirit realm (there should only be one) hiding out in a mine and transforming the rocks to do their bidding.

Ranka catches Mizugami and Judas up with what's going on. They plan on investigating in the morning, since it was late and some of the students were just a little drunk. Okay, a lot drunk.

Ranka talks to Easley and discovers that there was no mine that he knew of on his property. Ranka does discover, from a map on Easley's desk, that there is a Babylon Project research center on the summit of the mountain. Mizugami tells Danic about what's going on, and she's agreed to craft an excuse for the group to be gone in the morning, and she will rally the troops if the avalanche occurs while the group is gone.

Some of the students have vivid dreams that night of the mountain opening its eyes and mouth as if awakening.

As the students set out in the morning, they find Haining looking out over the village. He says he can feel the mountain coming alive and believes that something incredible is about to happen. He also makes mention of learning from some of the servants that kids have been being kidnapped from the village lately.

The group comes across a strange circle on the side of the mountain; when Ranka throws a pebble in it, the rock splashes and ripples like water. Judas volunteers to dive in. He tries with a 100' length of rope and finds it is not long enough for him to reach bottom. He resurfaces and warns the group to come after him if he doesn't return in a half-hour, then dives in towards the bottom. Mizugami tries to use his Aspect to watch him descend, and discovers he can't quite breath in this water-like environment. Water that he draws out immediately changes back into gravel.

Judas reaches the bottom after about 300 ft., and finds a muddy "bottom". He is able to push his fist through the muck up to his shoulder but finds nothing else. The entire length is little more than a smooth, cylindrical hole. He scoops up a sample of mud and brings it back with him to the surface.

As he comes up out of the water and notices that his bag is flopping around as if he had a fish in it. He reveals he's brought up mud from the bottom, which looks like muck from a swamp; Moro cannot see anything spiritual about it, and Soosilus cannot talk to it, but she discovers that the bag is beginning to transform. As Judas dumps the mud onto the ground, rather than coming out as an amorphous blob, it comes out as a gelatinous cylinder. It flops around a bit, falls to its side and rolls over a bit before it finally sprouts warstrider-like legs. The group watches uncomfortably as it scurries back towards the circle and returns to the water-like depths.

Judas also discovers that water that he scoops up retains its water-like consistency for a longer time. It gradually transforms into mud, then forms a mud-loaf, which eventually sprouts legs. Judas tosses the thing aside and it climbs back into the "water." The group decides to go pay the research station a visit, since all they were doing was playing with mud here.

They approach the Research station 17, which is built with First Age magi-technology. As they knock on the door, and old woman named Aetna opens the door. After Mizugami introduces the group, she suggests talking to Doctor Waller. The group is introduced to two researchers, one of whom is attached to a machine of some sort. Mizugami states that the group is there for a field trip and the doctor calls for an end to the research to talk to the kids.

Kira learns that the place is a first-age divination device. Judas realizes it is powerful enough to rewrite fate.

The researchers explain that the research is there to learn when the Bull of the North is returning. They are learning that things are happening that are happening that may make it such that the Bull never invades Cherak.

All except Kira and Kazuki go with doctor where they learn more about the experiment, that the doctor is trying to open a pocket in another dimension. He demonstrates the creation of rock burrowers who are leading the way into this next dimension, and they are none other than the little mud spider-like critters.

Lance, his assistant, tells Kira and Kazuki more about the equipment. About how he can see all of the possible futures. And he is able to manipulate fate.

Judas leaves the group and finds the missing children. He does a quick test and determines that the kids may be dreameaten, or something similar. He returns to the group and gets Mizugami's attention. They discuss the situation and agree that they need to do something about the situation immediately. They decide to knock out the doctor to try to convince him to stop his experiments, but through a twist of fate, Judas slips and his smashfist turns the doctor into paste.

In the other room, Lance is talking about the "Perfect Clock" and as he is describing its workings he says it allows him to confirm when events occur -- such as he knows that the group has already killed the doctor.

In a rush of events, the group tries to figure out what to do to prevent the place from slipping into nothingness. He says that the slide can affect lands from Cherak to as far as Gethamane. They decide to have Judas use the machine while Kira will be on hand to disengage the machine afterwards.

Kazuki, Ranka, and Moro go back towards the hole to see what happens while Judas is hooked up to the machine.

Judas hooks up and finds himself next to a disembodied Lance. The length of time he had been in the machine had separated his spirit from his body and he was trapped. Judas learns that things had not been this way until Aetna had appeared and that she was the one who installed new machine parts and influenced the doctor to become overly obsessed with his research.

Judas passes a message back to Lucrecia, and through Virtuous Cloud is able to pass a warning to Mizugami warning him about Aetna. Mizugami confronts her and she escapes after saying "Silver Fist taught me to go home."

Back in the other world, Judas follows Aetna back to where she disappeared to. He discovers a hideout with women warriors training, a silver Laputian robot that seems to be capable of communication, and several familiar faces, including Tanika and a girl that Judas has kissed in the past -- Glory.

Afterwards, he goes about undoing the pieces of Creation that has been hooked up to the machine, and removes the Thaumaturgic influences from the children. After he finishes, he separates from the machine and hooks Lance up to the machine so that he can go back in time to remove the influence of the manse. With the power to the observatory gone, things begin to shut down. Kira successfully manages to recombine Lance's Essence with his body.

After some discussion they decide to destroy the facility. After a sustained blast of Ranka's flame, the place burns down.

Back at the Colleges, Mizugami and Judas work to have Lance brought into the faculty to be the artificing instructor, as his career is otherwise destroyed.