NikinkCityOfGoldcampaign/CoG769DesAir

Descending Air, 769

City of Gold

• Week 9 Beginning 1st :: [Leath Notes]

• • Kalara returns to Albin'Shar with instructions to establish herself within the cities' rulership. She takes quarters in the palace and begins working with the diplomatic corps, the secret police and the city guard to monitor the city defences.
  • Banyan notes the Dragon-blooded's presence but decides to continue watching her rather than act.
  • Albin'Shar diplomatic corps consult with Great Forks diplomats (Gentle-Flower) about reinforcing Borovan troops. Albin'shar wishes to help but can not with current troops and without Exalted leaders. They send swift messengers to Nexus, seeking to finance mercenary aid on behalf of Borova.
  • City guard and secret police investigate reported disappearances on Albin'Shar citizens.

• Week 10 Beginning 8th :: [Leath Notes]

• • Banyan grows tired of the mortal investigations into the activities of him and his criminal network. He infiltrates the secret police and learns the organisational structure.
  • Kalara invites a contingent of Stromberg troops into the city to 'show good faith' in negotiations. Troops are secretly Realm elites in Stromberg gear, supported by Immaculate Monks.
  • City guard/police determine that missing citizens are being kidnapped buy the Guild. They investigate Guild camps outside the city but fail to find victims.
  • Banyan is enraged by the slavers. As warning to all that Albin'Shar citizens are off-limits he destroys three major caravans, killing hundreds of people.

• Week 11 Beginning 15th :: [Leath Notes]

• • Banyan settles into role of crimelord and secret police controller. He sends word to his Lunar allies to search for Albin'Shar slaves. Across the Scavenger lands Guild caravans are sacked by barbarian raiders. All kidnapped Albin'Shar citizens are released. The Lunars point them in the right direction and leave them to survive or perish.
  • Nexus mercenaries led by Dawn-Caste Dace enter Albin'shar and talk with Borovan diplomats. They agree to help for a substantial price and depart for Borova.

• Week 12 Beginning 22nd :: [Leath Notes]

• • With Kalara's support, Stromberg troops begin 'peace patrols' of Albin'Shar, taking over the duties of the city guard. Immaculate Monks kidnap Yari's priest and begin studying the Solar manse, hoping to use it. Monks begin preaching the Immaculate philosophy to citizens, using activities of the current Solars to reinforce their arguments.
  • Banyan grows worried about the Monks. He tasks both the secret police and crime syndicate to monitor the monks. He resolves to reduce the Monkly populations if possible.
  • Two monks die from fast-acting poison. Immaculate master Cathak Claren orders monks to employ taste-testers. The poisonings stop.

Rise of Darkness

• 1st - 7th :
  • Silver-Wind and Dervish travel along the road to Paragon.
• 1st :
  • Whispering-Vixen and Tepett-Ka visit Grandmother Bright and relate the completion of the task to gather Wordless' words.
  • Grandmother Bright says ta very much, now you can ask your question.
  • Vixen asks for the whereabouts of Silent-Fangs and the Silver-Tablet, and is somewhat surprised to learn that in order to have this question answered they would need to give to Grandmother Bright "The-Eye-Of-Thule".
  • They have no idea what this is.
  • They go on a pub-crawl.
  • To 'investigate'.
• 8th :
  • They find an abandoned Wagon, and follow the surrounding tracks which seem to have been made by the snakey-hissing-beastmen-things.
  • The tracks soon dissappear even to the powerful perceptions of Dervish.
  • Travelling further along the road a dead horse is discovered, riddled with arrows.
  • Some more searching finds tracks leading to a small valley in the hills to the south of the road, at the gates of which are seen two of the snakey-hissing-beasty-men-things.
  • Silver-Wind descerns that the snakey-men-things call themselves Ss'ess'a'ra.
  • They cunningly kill the two guards. Sending in Dervish the Bearded-Dragon, and while the guards pondered "why the fuck?", Silver-Wind pegg... er... used his bow to shoot them from the ridge... and while they were angry, Dervish smacked 'em good.
  • Together they journeyed into the cave and spotted a gathering of 20 or so Ss'ess'a'ra in a largish cave being led by a mysterious and important looking leader-type in some kind of ritual. Around the walls were a couple of men and a woman, all in very bad condition.
  • Together they missed the sentries along the tunnel wall, and were ambushed.
  • A great swirling melee erupted as Siver-Wind assumed Deadly-Beastman form for the first time and proved a mysterious point to himself...
  • They eventually slaughtered the Ss'ess'a'ra, but the leader apparently got away.
  • The men and woman were rescued.
• 13th :
  • "Shivering Rex" docks in Chiaroscuro
• 14th :
  • Caravan arrival in Chiaroscuro.
  • Beginnings of Investigations
  • Charity to Beggar Hacham
• 15th :
  • First sighting of Mesheshish's Pit-o-Carnage and Wordless.
  • Visit to Grandmother Bright - get the Words of Wordless
  • Visit to Wordless by Whispering-Vixen who gets but a whittled Sculpture.
• 16th :
  • Grandmother Bright isn't impressed
  • Visit to Mesheshish unsuccessful, but interesting
  • Tepett-Ka and Vixen sneak into Mesheshish's mansion and look around.
  • More gore in Pit, Dervish notices tangible Blood-lust
• 17th :
  • Lunars sneak into Mesheshish's mansion, find strange Blood-Bag Men, scuffle, manage to free Kor'Vax, Lord of Carnage from his Millenia old Bindings... oops...
• 27th :
  • Silver-Wind rashly aids a mysterious fleeing person from pursuit of 15 armed Mercenaries, and discovers hints of Female Night Caste First Age Wife(tm). Dervish leaps onto head of one thug, then sees the Full Moon, shrugs and says 'Fuck this shit, I'm going back to bed...' and climbs back to the Balcony.
• 28th :
  • Dervish and Wind begin finding Lissian's family - they head west along the road to Paragon.

Rings of Iron and Glass

• 1st - 28th :

• • [Through the hazy fog of long forgotten memories and impressions upon the fate of Creation, only the following can be seen of this turbulent month... - nik]
  • The events of the previous month were handily blamed upon the hated Anathema. In no small part due to the fearsome spy network of Beggar, Bubbles and the newly arrived priest of darkness, Eviscerator-of-Innocent-Souls-(The-Blood-Stained-Canvas-that-Smothers-the-Light-of-Righteousness) (henceforth dubbed Eviscerator).
  • Beast flies Eviscerator along the border villages of Etheria and Pati, where Eviscerator poses as a familiar and trustworthy holy man and preaches against the evils of the enemy over the border. Soon there is a large popular uprising against 'the enemy kingdom in league with the Anathema out to destroy everything we hold to be good and decent in the world'.
  • The spy networks are used to spread rumours, fearmongering, xenophobia and inflame patriotic fervour within the capitals.
  • Cathak Treval send out troops to restore peace among his villages and villagers, and quell the rising anti-Etherian / pro-war fervour. Beast and Eviscerator follow from village to village, re-inflaming the populace.
  • Prince disappears at some point.
  • So does Beggar.
  • No sign of the Solar is found.
  • Eventually, Etheria begins marching on Pati.
  • Large numbers of Pati-ans seek refuge within the city, which is soon filled beyond capacity.
  • The Abyssals, now reduced to Beast, Bubbles, Totem and Eviscerator, sneak back into Pati and the Safehouse.
  • A plan is formulated to weaken the Pati-ans by poisoning the city wells and granaries with dead bodies and waste matter.
  • A vision from the Malfeans leads to investigation of the Palace and the discovery of an area warded against ghosts.
  • Bubbles manages to sneak in with Eviscerator and Beast [I think - nik] but they can't initially find a way into the warded area, and have to sneak out again.
  • Bubbles goes back and manages to use a knife to eventually create an opening big enough to climb through in a somewhat hidden area. He then goes back to get Beast for some muscle support.
  • Bubbles and Beast manage to shift a heavy stone slab covered in strange unreadable script (damn Old-Realm!) and discover stairs leading down into a tomb.
  • The tomb depicts many scenes from the presumed owner's life, slaying demons, behemoths etc. The sarcophagus is found to have been disturbed, probably recently, and inside is just a pile if ash that looks like someone has rumaged through, presumably to steal items entombed with the body.
  • Beast defiles and desecrates the entire tomb, and then the two of them leave.
  • The city is besieged by the Etherian army, who seem prepared to just wait for starvation to force a surrender, aided by disease as they catapult dead animals into the city.