SJE/Session56
SESSION 56 - ENEMY AT THE PUB
25 Ascending Air
Brand, Captain Ibrahim, Orchid and Ravitsu assemble at Mugs to plan their next move. The pub is, by now, thronged with about 40 of Orchid's fanatical followers, who have donned white shirts to mark their allegiance. Shizu's arrival, bearing a warning that Sesus Nalwah intends to mount an all-out attack with his entire garrison - a full Talon of Imperial legionnaires - on Mugs at midnight, causes some consternation. Orchid is confident: "Luckily, we have the Captain to lead us in glorious battle." She falters a little, though, when she notices that the Captain is fast asleep in a sticky pool of spilled beer, deep in a dreamy and boozy communion with his dear wife. (Captain Ibrahim's player wasn't able to be at this session of play, so this is how we got him 'off-camera'). "Ah!"
At this point, Alana - still disguised in her all-enveloping desert garb - arrives to rejoin her comrades. She looks suspiciously at the large number of people dressed in white shirts, listens to the crowd's 'Alana Song' and eyes the statue of herself with growing mortification and embarrassment. "Orchid," she demands. "What have you been doing?"
Orchid is serene. "We're having a revolution, dear, and everyone's invited. Such keen boys and girls!" She sighs.
There is a desperate need for a plan of attack in the face of the Imperial troops. Shizu wonders if a show of force might scare them off without a fight. Ravitsu isn't so sure that this can be done: "The problem is, if we reveal we're Exalted, we'll have to move on Solaria Magna now. But if we hide our nature, we're not likely to scare them off without a fight. Maybe we could take out the Dragon-Blooded commander?"
Shizu is always keen for some ninja work: "I could sneak into his HQ and -"
Brand interrupts: "Do we have the time to settle this without a fight? They'll be here in less than an hour. I don't think we've got the luxury of hiding."
Orchid, still limit breaking, has a... drastic... solution to the problem: "What if we just kill everybody."
Alana and Ravitsu both stare sternly at her until she wavers: "I do mean 'everybody who's not on our side'. Obviously..."
"If it's going to be a fight," Brand wonders. "Who do we have that can lead warriors?" All eyes turn to Alana.
Alana sighs. "These people," she indicates Orchid's Whiteshirts who are, while enthusiastic, little more than a mob armed with knives, clubs and household implements. "Aren't soldiers. My tiger warriors can face the legionnaires in battle, but these Whiteshirts will be slaughtered."
"When I was at House Sahlak," Orchid reminisces. "We had a lovely girl - plump, but still quite pretty - who was simply too ticklish to work 'hands-on' with the customers. In the end, we let her serve the drinks and hand out prophylactics. Perhaps we could find some similar role in the battle for the Whiteshirts."
As Orchid speaks, her Whiteshirts crowd around, offering to die carrying her into battle on a palanquin.
"Thank you for that... educational insight, Orchid." Alana manages. "But you can see that they're too enthusiastic to keep out of the fight."
"We could promise to let them kill the prisoners afterwards if they behave."
Alana gives Orchid that stern look again: "No, Orchid."
Orchid beseeches Alana with puppy-dog eyes, but she is unmoved: "NO."
"Not even the ones we really don't like?"
"NO!!!"
With the possible massacre of prisoners ruled out, the circle settles down to fine-tune their plan of battle. Alana will lead her tiger warriors to face the legionnaires, supported by Ravitsu and Shizu. They will take the brunt of the Imperial attack, while Orchid's Whiteshirts lurk in the alleyways around Mugs to attack the legionnaires from behind once they are locked in combat with the tiger warriors.
26 Ascending Air
As the church bells toll midnight, Alana's two dozen tiger warriors line up in the street outside Mugs. Facing them from the other end of the street is a full Talon - 125 men - of Imperial troops. With precise drill and formation, the legionnaires march to within shouting distance.
Meanwhile, despite Brand's attempts to shush her - this is supposed to be an ambush, after all - Orchid has been discovering her inner barbarian. Past life memories of mammoth riders charging majestically across the tundra to death or glory fuel her imagination as she harangues her followers from her palanquin.
Sesus Nalwah halts his troops before the tiger warriors. "Who goes there! Friend or foe?" Alana's only answer is to cast aside her burnoose and flare her caste mark, revealing her true identity to the people of Solaria for the first time. A ripple of exclamations carries the news - "Saint Alana has returned!" - through the streets of Solaria Minor.
With a snarled "Wash away these insurgents!" Sesus Nalwah orders his men to close ranks and charge the fanatical, but heavily out-numbered, tiger warriors. As the two forces close, Ravitsu promises Alana: "If you die, I can take command."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence!" Alana remarks, then the press of battle makes further banter difficult. Alana lets her warriors fall back before the charge, attempting to evade its initial fury rather than face it head on, before leading them in a counter attack. Her lightly-equipped troops make little impact on the legionnaires' shield wall, but, as the fighting ebbs and flows, Alana herself cuts an opening in the line through which she leads her warriors. Ravitsu, at her shoulder, transforms into his hawkman shape and bellows a furious warcry with his Lion Roar Method. Taken aback, the Imperial troops fall back a few paces, their resolve flagging.
Shizu, working from a rooftop vantage point, joins the fray. She loads a handful of stained glass shards into her sling and, crying "You will no longer drown us beneath the Realm's tyranny!" hurls them in a Cascade of Cutting Terror directly at Sesus Nalwah. A word of command from him, though, sees the troops in his rear ranks hurl their javelins in unison to strike down the incoming storm of glass. The troops in the middle ranks lock their shields together over their heads in a 'tortoise' formation to protect themselves from any further missiles.
Sesus Nalwah's right-hand men, Lieutenant Maldoon and the wily veteran Sergeant Vandriss, move freely through the battle, seeking out targets. Maldoon hurls a pair of javelins at Ravitsu, hoping to slow his charge, but Ravitsu is far too agile, easily sweeping them aside with his wings. Vandriss charges into the Tiger Warriors, but Alana is there to meet him, turning his furious rush aside before he can lay his sword upon them.
In the alleyway, Orchid's motivational rant: "Castrate the heathens! Decorate your gates with their-" is interrupted by Rav's warcry. This is her signal to attack. "Forward!" she cries to her palanquin bearers. Brand, trotting alongside her mutters, "You do realise how daft you look on that thing, don't you?" As they emerge into the main street, it becomes obvious that Orchid's ranting has, as Brand feared, given the ambush away. Sesus Nalwah has left a rearguard facing Orchid's line of attack. She is not bothered. "Follow me, or I die alone!" She hurls herself from her palanquin, charging forward into the shield wall. Her Whiteshirts follow her - "For the shining one!" - though they make little impact against these professional soldiers. "You only have one life to lose, so you might as well die on their swords now as later!" Orchid yells, encouraging them on to one more lunatic effort.
Brand tuts and hefts his daiklave. "Come on, guys, this is how you do it!" He strides forward, not even bothering to break into a run, and smashes aside the first few soldiers who dare to face him, carving a path into the heart of the Imperial formation. His trail is marked by severed limbs, smashed shields, broken weapons and shattered armour.
Simultaneously, Alana presses her assault at the other end of the street. There is little room in the close-quarters melee for her first blows to have their full impact, but some brutal chopping and hacking buys her some room for a few proper swings of her daiklave as she cuts her way through towards Sesus Nalwah. Now that the shield wall has been disrupted, Alana's fast-moving tiger warriors are taking a bloody toll upon the heavily-armoured but slow Imperial troops.
Shizu leaps down to run along the very top of the Imperial "tortoise", nimbly skipping across the polished surfaces of the shields to hurl slingstones at almost point-blank range at Sesus Nalwah. The Dragon-Blooded officer's shield arm is left hanging uselessly as the deadly missiles smash into his shoulder.
Sesus Nalwah looks around frantically at the ruin that is fast overtaking his beleaguered command. "Fall back to the garrison!" he orders, leading what remains of his Talon in a desperate attempt to break out through Orchid's Whiteshirts. Orchid, though, has other ideas and, evading his rush, tangles his arms and legs in the twining embrace of her sashes, pinning him close to her. Sergeant Vandriss follows his Captain into the melee, grabbing Orchid and trying to pry her away from him by sheer brute force.
With their commander leading them nowhere fast, the Imperial legionnaires mill around helplessly. Ravitsu takes full advantage of their confusion. With a beat of his mighty wings, he leaps high above them, his shining moonsilver direlance sweeping down half a dozen times before he lands, taking a life each time. Striking out from the centre of the crowd of soldiers he whirls, roaring, striking again and again with his lance, until he stands on a carpet of dead and dying soldiers, screaming his battle fury to the moon: "RAV SMASH PUNY SOLDIERS!"
There is a horrible moment of calm as the last soldier falls, though any silence is shattered by the screams of the dead and dying. Orchid raises an eyebrow at Sesus Nalwah and Sergeant Muldoon, who are so closely entangled with her. "Well, this is cosy," she archly observes. "But perhaps we could go somewhere more comfortable to discuss your unconditional surrender."
Ravitsu recovers his composure, regaining human shape. "How about taking them to the garrison?"
"They've got," Shizu points out. "Comfy chairs, there."
"Time for tea and medals, then?" Brand smirks, sheathing his daiklave as he swaggers up.
As the sun rises, a sunburst-decorated battle standard, sewn by Alana's tiger warriors (who are surprisingly handy with an embroidery kit), flies over the Imperial garrison. Alongside it is the plain white banner of Orchid's Whiteshirts which, she can't help thinking, is going to cause some terrible confusion on the battlefield if she can't get them to change it...
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