SJE/Session28
Exalted Session 28
At the end of the last session, Alana and Anaria are about to face Octavion. Rav is in the air, intercepting flying Agata-demons. The Captain is making his way to the city walls. A badly burnt Jaq and Brand are in a cart heading for Ssseths Temple and then the Watchtower. Orchid is at the Granite Watchtower holding down the fort.
On the walls of Gem, Alana orders the Firedust Cannons to shoot Octavion. One hits and scorches his thick hide. Anaria puts up Fire Dragon Form. The Captain arrives.
“Huzzah! Time to kick Octavions ass! Last one to attack is a cissy-boy!”
“Captain, your alive?” exclaims Alana
”Never better. So what are we waiting for, lets kill that ugly bee-atch”
”Captain? He massacred you just a few hours ago. This is Octavion we are facing, I think its us that will die” confesses Alana
“Nonsense, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Plus this time, its personal, how can we fail?” boasts a still irrepressible Captain
“Come cousin, where is your Cathak courage” interjects Anaria “No demon of evil can stand before the righteous flame of Hesiah”
“Oh my Gawd” says Alana, staring in growing realisation at the beaming Captain and zealous Anaria “You two really are made for each other”
Octavion arrives and his great Malfean iron staff sweeps through crenellations and troops alike. Anaria dodges with flickering-red speed, Alana uses Seven Shadow Evasion and scurries up the staff and arm to stand on his shoulder and stab the sorcerer on his back. To her dismay she discovers the howdah on Octavions back contains only a straw man- the sorcerer has decamped since they saw him last. The Captain uses Heavenly Guardian Defence to parry and gets his poleaxe bent into a pretzel stick. Undettered, the Captain still races forward,slashing at Octavion- melee ensues and taunting as the Captain tells Octavion that his Primordial smells of elderberries, and Octavion threatens to nail the Captain to two crosses and then squash him between the two!.
Jaq is dropped off to confront Ssseth. Going to the Tower of the Serpent, he makes himself known to Righteous Serpent and is led to the altar of Ssseth. Materialising before him, Ssseth asks if he has stolen the Hecatomb from Ahlat- he has. Has he destroyed the Immaculate Scrolls of the 5 Elemental Dragons? He has. Does he bring the Despots Yasal Crystal Collection? He has.
“Then let my curssse be lifted” hisses Ssseth
“You stupid snake- your shortsighted servant bit the wrong watchman- it is my colleague Rav who was cursed!” says Jaq
“Then I left it from them too” says an unrepentant deity. (Rav feels the pressure lift from his heart even as he battles Agata in the skies above Gem)
“Havent you noticed the demon invasion? All these tasks and trouble, have harmed our defence of the city. Don’t you care? Wont you do something ‘o ‘Mighty Ssseth’? What good are you to your worshippers if you intervene” cries Jaq
“That would be an ecumenical matter” hisses back Ssseth as Jaq leaves in a rage.
Brand arrives at the Watchtower, and chats with the Watchmen who seem a bit down and frightened. Everyone thinks they are going to die and want to be with their families. As they mention that Orchid is back, she makes her entrance down the stairs. Brand is pleased she’s back, though they both agree that she'd "rather not talk about"<i> her escape from hell and quickly change the subject. Brand immediately hands over the keywords for the wards, telling Orchid that he'd got those and some other shiny toys from Auntie.
<i>“I hadn’t realised you had such generous relatives.”
“No, Auntie, from the Palace. Lady Rankar, the Despots Aunt”
”Oh… of course. You get on with her well to receive all these Artifacts?”
“Well she did try to drown me in tea” admits Brand “and she said they were a loan for the duration of the emergency, but I’m sure we can work something out”
“Of course”
Brand wants to take the watchmen with him to shore up the defence at the gates. Orchid suggests instead they be deployed behind the main battle line, for crowd control and to put off deserters from the gates. Brand agrees and gives his pep talk to the assembled Watch, who are less than enthused by his blood and thunder speech until Orchid gave them the alternative of staying with her and helping out with the rituals on the roof. After all, she was sure to need someone to help her fight off any demons who might try to stop her. Suddenly, the watchmen are keen to get out of the door, especially on triple time and danger money...
Brand and Orchid then have a brief chat about Lucita. Both of them are convinced that she could be used in some way against the demons or the sorceror. Brand dismissed Orchid's old idea that we could use her as leverage against her mother, and there was some chat about how Lucita might provide a useful sympathetic magic link against Artom Thule. Orchid assured Brand that she would see what use she could make of the child. Cut to a frightened Lucita who is white lipped and shaking... Brand spots this and gives her a lollipop. The grey-faced little demonblood quickly turns purple in the cheeks as she sucks so hard. “Everything will be fine” he assures the frightened girl
After Brand picks up the Paragonese Potions and leaves, Orchid needs Lucita for a ritual upstairs. The frightened girl is somewhat reluctant and Orchid has to grab her and drag her upstairs.
( “Going to lock her in her room?” comments YerMum OOC “I was thinking something more permanent” replies Capt. Spaulding)
Back at the fight, Rav swoops down towards Octavion. As he swoops, he unleashes his Deadly Beastman Combo. Shifting to war-form him mid-flight, the Giant Eaglehawk becomes an Eagle-warrior hybrid. His Moonsilver direlance flashes out and scores deep into Octavion’s chest, beating his defences, once, twice, thrice. Octavions armour reduces this to ping, but nonetheless, its 9 dice damage. And not a single over 6. Somehow, the Yozis must favour Octavion as the Lunars mighty blows do little more than bounce off a steel hard rib!
Alana is haing a little more luck as she keeps unleashing her Combo of doom. Thorn entwined anima banner cresting around her, she cuts deep into Octavions back, black ichor splashing across her as she does, magically deafening her left ear.
Brand meanwhile decides that he needs to feed the horses pulling his cart the Paragonese combat drugs that speed you up incredibly. It’s the only way to get to the walls in time to affect the fight with Octavion. So he stunts nicking some sacks and oats and laces them with the potion before slipping them over the horses mouths. Within seconds both horses come to an abrupt stop, the cart crashing into them! As they fall the skin is stripped away from them, the flesh shrivels up and drops away until only yellowed skeletons remain. It’s as if they had died and rotted away in the span of seconds.
Brand is a bit puzzled by this reaction. Surely the larger horses would be less affected by the potion? But sniffing the vials, the keen-nosed investigator smells the presence of hemlock, and added within the last 6 hours. The hemlock would cause death and the fate-burning effect of the magical potion would fast forward through the process of dying and decomposing in seconds. Shrugging, Burning Brand moves on. His priority is to deliver the Artifact weapons to the Wall, this mystery will have to wait.
Back on the Wall, an injured Octavion (his Principle of Motion defences overwhelmed by spam attacks) half turns and sprints away from Gem, throwing himself backward over his horde, to crush Alana between him and the ground (which shrieks at his approach). Alana uses Seven Shadow Evasion to scoot from her position on his back to round his front as she and Rav continue cutting into him. Captain and Anaria are too far away to affect the fight now, and looking around, a madcap plan enters the Captains mind.
”Quick Anaria, onto the catapult” he exclaims as he manhandles a full barrel of firedust onto it. Seeing his intent, the zealous (and potentially equally braincell-free) Immaculate jumps on as the Captain sights the warmachine onto Octavions chest. The Captain has a Fire Aspect loaded catapult now and isn’t afraid to use it!
Octavions eyes widen in fear as he spots this. Alana (who was trying to cut out his heart at this point) has her “Captain-sense” danger warning activate. Risking a backwards glance, she sees Anaria and a firedust barrel arcing through the air toward them! She perfect dodges, Octavion rolls, as Anaria uses ‘Breath of the Fire Dragon’ against Octavion, shooting the cone of flame through the firedust just before impact!
“BOOM!” - huge explosion, flinging demons through the air. Octavion dodges the Fire Dragon breath, but the barrel of firedust explosion badly injures him. Alana’s fine, having dodged cousin and fire alike, but is desperately low on Essence. The flying Rav is blasted high into the air by the thermals!
Jaq has been racing down the slope of Gem and at last reaches the Granite Watchtower.
Lucita’s slaughtered body lands before his feet with a wet splash.
Shes had her throat slit and been thrown off the top of the Tower.
Not thinking, Jaq immediately scales the Tower, jumping from perch to perch. Atop the roof he finds Orchid, her hands still bloody from the sacrificed child.
“What are you doing Orchid?” is Jaq’s distraught cry, emotion and horror in his voice.
“I’m doing what is necessary to fix the wards Jaq. Her sacrifice is for the greater good.” - Above the stern faced Orchid, high in the sky, orange rimmed holes flare into existence and begin to grow.
“The greater good? She was a 10 year old child! We were looking after her!”
“She was a demon-child. And if you haven’t noticed, demons are invading. She would have perished soon. But this way, we can use her Essence to save the city. Or I could if you would stop interfering in my Great Work”
“Orchid, what you are doing is wrong” protests Jaq.
“No, I’m only doing what is necessary.” Says a cold-voiced Orchid Above the holes in the aerial wards have grown ever larger. With an audible pop the warding breaks down finally.
“Now look what you have done!” accuses Orchid
“WHAT!? This isn’t my fault” cries Jaq
“Oh no, its never ‘your fault’, is it Jaq? No, its always someone else, always an excuse…”
“But… but…” burbles Jaq
“Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, it is your fault? That you are a failure? That everything you do fails? That’s why you cant even find your own brother! That’s why you cant manage anything unless I help you do it” continues Orchid, remorselessly.
(Jaq rolls some Limit Break, luckily, no successes)
“Now I’ll have to go inform Mother Sahlak about how you were responsible for breaking the warding over the city. Oh dear, oh dear….” Finishes Orchid who summons a white-faced maid to take a note to House Sahlak. A cowed Jaq follows her, helplessly.
(Cut to reaction shot of the players to Capt. Spaulding declaring he was sacrificing Lucita to power his ward magic. Utter shock, a “WTF!?” moment One player mouths “Akuma” and points. “I don’t think it was Orchid who came back from Hell” says Rav’s player. Is this a Limit break gone bad, or is it just typical Solar behaviour? Perhaps Solars baby-eating demon reputation is justified?)
Back at the Wall, Brand finally arrives and throws the Captain his sack o’ artefacts before helping lay into the tide of Blood Apes are overwhelming the wall, Grand Daiklaive glittering.
Alana, jumps on top of the prone form of Octavion (into his -4 HL’s) and prepares to finish him off. That’s when he disappears with a ‘Pop’. He’s dematerialised. Anaria could still fry him, but she’s picking herself up from the catapult fling.
”Come back you big ‘yeller coward” screams Brand from the wall. However, Octavion, expert tactician that he is, has made a tactical movement in order to rest, recover, consolidate his forces and then attack in a co-ordinated and final manner
As the demon army close in once more (they’d parted for Octavion throwing himself backward and then the firedust explosion), Alana races back. Her Tiger Warriors spot this and two throw themselves off the wall into the teeth of the demon attack (in order to buy her time) as the remainder form a human ladder to allow her to scrabble up them to safety. Yes, normal people would just throw a rope, but these are Cultists- dogma over brains!
Rav meanwhile is using his eagle eyed vision to spot the Sorceror Artom Thule. He finds him at last in the centre of the demon army, a stony faced, unhealthy looking man armed with a black jade Powerbow. An emerald green thurible or censor at his belt has greenish smoke wafting from it- the same hideous shade as Rav saw in the portal from Malfeas. Unfortunately his position is heavily defended by Tomescu and Ravs flyover comes under intense anti-aircraft fire from their bows, injuring the Lunar somewhat.
Rav and Alana return to the top of the City Wall to join the Captain and Brand to grab the artefacts that Brand has brought. Ironically both Solar and Lunar might not have enough free Essence left to attune to their armours and bracers! They spot that Anaria is still fighting on the plain below- her anima burning so fiercely now that many demons are bursting into flames as they approach within 10 feet, totally immolated if they get within 3 feet. Still, despite her unbeatable grace in dodging missiles and blows, its only a matter of time before she is overwhelmed. (You can wind up Anaria, and set her killing demons easily but getting her to stop is a real problem.) So, the Captain, Alana, Rav and Brand plan to sally forth and rescue the Immaculate from herself. Again.
Behind them, a horse bearing Orchid and a cowed Jaq rendevous with the other Exalts, just as they spot Stanewald on her unholy mount Wulgreth cresting the far desert dunes and re-joining the demon army. Hundreds of flying Agata will be descending on Gem shortly, the aerial wards gone, though the clouds above roil and move strangely.
They’ve won a skirmish, but the battle is far from over and the war never-ending…
So ends Session 28.
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