Shorlixa/WPSessionEighteen
And here be Session Eighteen for this crew of pirates.
Session Eighteen
We return to the Solars on their rescue mission. The four Solars within the Tempest are already sailing closer to where the flames burn dimly, confident that there is where Tzihetla must be. On the ocean floor, Syn is following the trail herself and appears as a bright mark on the map of their surroundings. The map fizzles and crackles as the Tempest sails closer to where the flames are flickering, the terrain ahead of them blurring slightly. That in itself is ominous.
You paged (Lady Syn, Orillian) with 'And Syn can see the borders of a shadowland just ahead of her while the Tempest is sailing in. Orillian gets to see it too in a distant sort of way.'
Ryoujal keeps an eye out for his dragon lord, as well as anything hostile coming in their direction.
Orillian raises an eyebrow. "Underwater shadowland."
Megumi watches the displays closely, hands gripping her bow tightly. "We're close, then."
From afar, to (Shorlixa, Orillian): Lady Syn thinks 'Ok. This is weirdness. Some sorta change in the area. Yeah. That. Plan?'
Big Red stands ready at the weapons systems make sure everything is in working order
Ryoujal says, "How is that possible?"
Orillian shrugs. "Death magic, some sort of ancient disaster... but the dead be stronger here than in the world proper. Syn, perhaps it be best if ye come back aside the ship now."
Megumi nods. "I recall some legends about underwater manses and communities, in the First Age..just stories, though. I have no idea how much truth there is in it.."
From afar, to (Shorlixa, Orillian): Lady Syn sighs. 'You're no fun.'
Orillian rolls his eyes. "Well, if ye be losin' yer head out there, I can't bother ye in it no more, aye?"
Lady Syn returns to the ship.
Ryoujal lets Syn in.
Lady Syn says, "You've a lot of fixing to do still Ori."
Megumi says, "The shields would be a nice start.."
Ryoujal says, "How's the waters out there Syn?"
Lady Syn says, "You can feel the dead in the water. I still need to get my item fixed since it might be useful in this fight."
Ryoujal says, "You and I both, but thankfully it still allows me to breathe underwater with the rest of you."
Orillian rolls his eyes. "Well, maybe if ye be gettin' me an extra three or four pairs of hands, I could be getting to it faster..."
Lady Syn says, "So where do I find some good forgers to kidnap?"
Ryoujal says, "Can we worry about fixing things later and about saving the patron spirit of the islands so that those same lands don't get subsumed into the Wyld?"
Lady Syn says, "Yes. Yes. I meant after this little mess."
Orillian looks thoughtful. "Right. And then I can forge in his fires, surrounded by beautiful island women... So! Let's be killin some dead folk!"
Megumi faceplants.
Big Red shakes his head
Lady Syn twitches. "Your thoughts betray you."
Megumi ignores further interference of the "beautiful beach babes" variety and clears her throat. "Right. What's it look like out there, Syn?"
Lady Syn says, "Ugly, numerous and quite entertaining."
Ryoujal continues checking for his patron.
Megumi says, "Any signs of the dragon?"
Lady Syn says, "I'd presume he's where there is fire."
Megumi nods. "Then let's strike where the fire's hottest."
Lady Syn says, "Do we have a plan?"
Ryoujal says, "Kill everything that isn't living."
Megumi says, "Again."
Orillian shakes his head now. "We not be in possession of enough information to plan _with_, really. All we know is the enemy be dead without admitting it, the big flaming guy needs rescued, and whatever we're going to face beat him up and dragged him off."
Megumi says, "And trying to acquire that information covertly may be more dangerous to us than going in swinging."
Big Red says, "Orillian has a point. We don't know if its some big tuff guy or just shear numbers that we are facing."
Megumi looks around the chamber at the other Exalts. "Does anyone here have meaningful - that is, magical - ability to avoid notice?"
Lady Syn says, "Fine. Then I say fire a few barrages at them and tell them to surrender. They'll either get pissed and charge us en mass. Hopefully outside of their shadowland. Or they'll send their big gun."
"Or they could just surrender," Meg replies facetiously.
Ryoujal says, "I'm not exactly built for stealth."
Big Red gives a little laugh. "I don't do sneaky"
Megumi nods. "Then stealth is out. Let's shoot the place up."
Lady Syn says, "I do but its more fun to just hit them hard."
Orillian snickers. "Aye."
Megumi says, "Dark down there. Let's shed some light on the situation."
Ryoujal hits the spotlights.
Orillian suggests, "The ship is probably sturdier than most of the peaks out there, at leaast when reinforced and configured for ramming... The rockslide might deal nicely with a mass of lesser undead? If they've got a Behemoth though we're probably better off just ramming _it_..." Orillian sure does love ramming into things.
Megumi eyes Orillian. "We just fixed the paint job!"
Ryoujal commands what external lights the ship has to turn on. And the essence lights on the head of the ship shines brightly on the route ahead of them. Creatures that they aren't sure are fish dart away from the light and they get to see some very rocky terrain ahead of them.
Big Red says, "We don't have to ram the walls. We have enough fire power to bring montains down on them."
Orillian shrugs at Red. "Well, both at once couldn't hurt, aye?"
Megumi nods. "Shooting would be preferable, I think."
Megumi rubs her temple. "Ok. Let's see what an essence cannon does to that cliffside." Megumi points at one of the larger canyons. Or mountains. Just something big.
Ryoujal says, "Shouldn't we save the essence for the fight?"
You paged Ryoujal with 'As he looks at the map, he suddenly notices a dimly flaring bright grain moving in from where the terrain is flickering. Something big and powerful is moving in.'
Most of the Solars just spot some bright dot on the map before a loud boom rocks the ocean around them. Syn just has the presence of mind to move the ship somewhere else while the others grab on to something. Except for Megumi of course.
Lady Syn says, "Can we start shooting at the assholes now?"
Ryoujal says, "I think that would be a good idea."
Something smashes into the ship setting off all sorts of alarms. Orillian is getting big alarms from his part of the system.
While the Solars decide what to do, the ship is forcibly dragged into the shadowlands.
Big Red brings the Large Essence Cannons 1 and 2 on line and the Heavy Implosion bow on line and fires all three at the incoming blip
Orillian channels his Essence into the ship's hull, reinforcing it against whatever the hell just attacked.
As soon as the ship is dragged into the shadowlands, there’s a severe drag to its movement. Whatever hit the Tempest is hanging on, but it feels a lot tougher to move the ship as well.
Lady Syn says, "Status report?"
Holding on to the Tempest, from the map, they see one grain that's very very bright, indicating some sort of magical artifact at least. Readouts are dimmed and confused from the shadowland though.
Megumi rocks back and forth across the deck. "Maybe I should get out and start shooting."
Orillian is now surrounded by a healthy, sunny glow. "Hull now reinforced, and please tell me we actually _what_ be exploding against us, Mr. Ryoujal?"
Ryoujal says, "I wouldn't say exploding, but dragging...."
Ryoujal goes to look out the window at what hit them.
Red fires off the weapons but whatever is holding on seems to have managed to avoid clinging to where the weapons are firing. Or redirecting the shot somehow.
Orillian nods. "Aye, that probably be the only thing to do, captain."
Lady Syn says, "A whole mess of sensors and he goes to the window."
Megumi slips her helmet on and seals it quickly before running for the nearest hatch.
Lady Syn flips past Meg as she draws her blade looking to deal with whatever hit the ship. The first undead thing she sees near her will be promptly diced.
As Syn leaps out into the dark waters, there's a deathly chill surrounding her. The waters of a shadowland feels very different from the ocean. And she also sees something that the sensors neglected to mention. The waters are filled with undead. The drag on the ship is due to massive numbers of zombies attempting to latch on to the ship, though the slippery hull is making things difficult, they make up for it by trying continuously and with huge numbers. Oh, and there's this huge thing made of bone and soulsteel attached to the ship.
Lady Syn smiles at the large target of bone and soulsteel then brings her blade low to slice through it with a flourish.
Orillian sees what Syn sees. "Well. Bugger."
Orillian shakes his head. "The sea be choked with undead, and there be a great behemoth of bone and foul steel out there. In pleasant news, at least it seems we be getting pulled into the shadowland and not kept out..."
You paged Lady Syn with 'She's sure it's some sort of artifact. A huge artifact.'
You paged Orillian with 'One word. Warstrider.'
Orillian shakes his head. "No, not behemoth. Warstrider. There be a pilot in there. Well, I best go give it an engineer's touch..."
Syn's word strikes the unmoving creature, who doesn't even find the attack worthy to dodge. And the sword rings against soulsteel without making a scratch.
Big Red charges up Large Essence Cannons 1 and 2 again and the Lightning Ballista and lets them fire at the Bone beast
The cannon booms and the lightning sizzles and Syn gets to see some nice damage done against the warstrider as bone and flesh burn away in the water. But it's certainly not over yet. The warstrider brings back a massive fist and punches the ship with enough force to rock the whole thing.
The zombies continue to swarm and now that Syn has appeared, they move to swarm her instead.
Lady Syn just rolls her eyes at the zombies and swims around the warstrider to limit their angles of attack to make it easier to slice the grasping hands away.
The zombies swarm in and although Syn is skilled, numbers do get lucky and one zombie manages a tasty bite of flesh.
Those inside will soon note that other bright grains are showing up on the external surveillance map. Reinforcements are coming.
Orillian walks calmly to the closest airlock, letting Essence suffuse through his skin as he examines the ship's schematics for any damaged Essence conduits. When he gets to the airlock, he cycles it and steps calmly into the zombie mass, starting to press his way towards the warstrider.
Lady Syn looks at the damage from the blasts then uses a zombie head to spring towards the warstrider as her anima explodes. With the great siaka behind her, Syn dives sword first into the warstrider.
Syn dives towards the warstrider, moving past biting zombies and grasping hands. This time, she scratches the warstrider.
Megumi needs to remember to stand closer to the airlock. She had to get around her fellow officers, and, well, she wound up lagging behind. Cramming into the airlock right behind Orillian, she allows her anima to flare - a giant mass of tentacles and pasta pushing out past her into the mass of undead... - and fires a simple arrow at one of the zombies going after Syn.
Ryoujal runs to the hatch going to aid Syn in her fight against the great beast, taking up an enlightened stance as his forhead starts to glow as he closes the airlock hatch behind himself.
Ryoujal and Megumi both jump out into the ocean that's frothing with undead. Well, that's not quite accurate. There's just a lot. It's likely the zombies were already massed there and attacked because of the intrusion. Megumi fires off an arrow and a zombie falls. But there's plenty more where that came from. The zombies turn and begin to swarm against the new Solars who have arrived. And near Syn, a shadow moves.
Megumi blinks at the mass of undead. "Ah, yes. Crap." She dives to one edge of the airlock door, kicks off it with all her might and bounces past a few zombies, jetting through the water in the opposite direction.
Ryoujal exits the ship and automatically jumps up at the edge of the airlock trying to get clear to the warstrider, to bound off the ship towards the mech.
The zombies continue to swim and gnash but bite down on naught but empty air. But they do serve as a wonderful distraction as Syn fends off some zombies...and is pushed near to a moving shadow. The first thing she feels is something smashing into her back, coming out with a rib and leaving behind broken bones and bleeding flesh. When she turns, she sees her opponent. It's a man, judging from his shape, but he's wearing dark armour with soulsteel gauntlets.
From Red's point of view, a bright grain suddenly popped up on the map. But he's busy trying to pry the warstrider off the ship.
Big Red turns on the big gun and activates the Very Large Essence Cannon. He combines this with Large Cannon 1 and the Lightning Ballista. He turns this battery of weapons on the warstrider and continues to fire.
Red fires his powerful weapons but the warstrider knocks aside each bolt of essence, where it smashes into the rocky terrain of the shadowland, causing vibrations in the water.
The warstrider moves again, dragging the Tempest even lower and closer to the ocean floor as it attempts to crush it between its hands of soulsteel and bone.
Lady Syn looks down at the red water flowing around her. Logically she should run but to hell with that. Syn spins around to catch the bastard who speared her and slam him into the warstrider with as much brutal strength as she can manage.
Orillian winces himself as Syn fights her pain and attacks. At the same time, he rushes the Warstrider, kicking off against zombie bodies and the ship itself, unleashing a massive flare of Essence as his hammer swings.
The man ducks back into the shadowy waters, allowing black essence to surround his hands as he parries the blow.
Syn returns the attack with one of her own so the waters around them is red with the mingling of both their bloods. Orillian smashes his hammer against the warstrider and there's a loud clanging and cracking as several bones break from the strain. Now the warstrider is getting annoyed.
While the Solars continue fighting, several more figures appear, swimming rapidly through the dark waters towards them while the zombies part to allow them access. One is even flaring a terrible anima of a cloak of broken and bleeding bodies. That one has the castemark similar to Orillian's. The other three are much less extravagant in light effects but all sport soulsteel weapons and armour and an unusual mask over their face. The battle is about to get much much uglier.
